Raven Varona2017 became the year when a number of rising stars, like SZA and Khalid, made a noticeable splash in music with buzzy late-night TV appearances and hit singles.

But only one artist, Cardi B, appeared to take the world by storm with one of the most epic rises to fame the industry has witnessed in recent years.

Cardi went from being known as an exotic dancer-turned-Love & Hip Hop: New York star to bona fide rapper with her breakout single, "Bodak Yellow," in June.

Even with the rapid success of her song, she came up empty handed that same month at the BET Awards, losing to Chance the Rapper and Beyonce, respectively, in the categories of Best New Artist and Best Female Hip-Hop Artist.

In August, "Bodak Yellow" rose from number eight to number three on the Billboard Hot 100. Cardi performed the song during the MTV Video Music Awards pre-show.

Drake also brought Cardi onstage at his eighth annual OVOFest in Toronto to perform "Bodak Yellow."

Cardi fever continued in September, with "Bodak Yellow" rising to number three on the Billboard Hot 100.

She made an appearance at JAY-Z's Made in America festival in Philadelphia and met Jay's wife, Beyonce, and Bey's mom, Tina Knowles-Lawson, at the live event.

"Bodak Yellow" was also announced as one of YouTube's Top 25 Songs of the Summer, at number ten, and soon rose from number three to number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

September continued to be a successful month for Cardi: she earned nine BET Hip Hop Awards nominations, including Best Hip-Hop Video, MVP of the Year, Single of the Year, and Hustler of the Year.

She also attended Rihanna's annual Diamond Ball and was saluted by Janet Jackson, who danced along to "Bodak Yellow" during a performance on her State of the World tour.

Of course, September ended with "Bodak Yellow" becoming the number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making Cardi the first solo female rapper -- "solo" meaning "unaccompanied by any other artists" -- to top the Hot 100 chart in 19 years.

In October, Cardi remained number one on Billboard's Hot 100 for a second week in a row.

Later in the month, she won three BET Hip Hop Awards trophies for Single of the Year, Hustler of the Year and Best New Hip Hop Artist.

She also set another chart record as the solo female rapper with the longest-running Hot 100 number-one, and scored a major music publishing deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Cardi was awarded the Rhythm & Bars Award at the Soul Train Awards.

Also in October came a wedding proposal from then-boyfriend Offset of the hip-hop trio Migos, and an appearance at JAY-Z's all star Tidal X: Brooklyn charity concert.

Cardi B also landed on the November cover of Rolling Stone magazine and was featured as a guest vocalist, along with Nicki Minaj, on Migos' track, "Motorsport."

In November, Cardi made more "money moves": she made it onto Forbes' 30 under 30 list in the music category and became the first female artist to have her first three entries on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart appear in the top 10 simultaneously.

She also became New York Magazine's The Cut cover girl and gained two Grammy nominations: one for Best Rap Song and another for Best Rap Performance.

Cardi B was showered with even more accolades in December.

She made Billboard Hot 100 history once again, thanks to "Bodak Yellow" and her feature on G-Eazy's "No Limit."

With both tracks at number seven and number eight on the chart, respectively, Cardi scored her second consecutive top 10 on the chart, while her first two Hot 100 entries both reached the top 10.

She became the fourth female rapper to do so.

People magazine also named Cardi B as one of their "25 Most Intriguing People of 2017" in December.

She also appeared in the music video for "Motorsport."

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
By Azernews





By Aygul Salmanova

There are few days left until the start of the New Year. Santa Claus is already packing presents and equipping his sleigh!

As in most parts of the world, New Year is a long-awaited holiday in Azerbaijan. For Azerbaijanis it always comes with the fresh beginning from where you can forget about the past bad memories and just can go with the good memories. Right from the beginning of December everyone slips into holiday mode, and it becomes the top priority on everyone's list.

People make wishes, believe in miracles and wait for a new and happy period in their lives on this night. Preparation for the New Year begins a month before the celebration: the streets are decorated with colorful lights, fairy-tale figures and green spruce trees.

Another characteristic tradition of Azerbaijanis on the eve of the holiday is to buy presents for their relatives and friends. It is not a secret that buying New Year gifts is a colorable but at the same time troublesome, expensive business.

The difficult economic situation in Azerbaijan has made adjustments to the pre-Christmas shopping of its citizens: great part of the population is ready to spend less money compared to previous years. The Chairman of the Center for Sustainable Development Studies Nariman Agayev told local media that this is due to low incomes of citizens and higher prices in shops and trade outlets of the country.

Despite the desire to save money, however, Azerbaijanis like to give a lot of gifts. Expert noted that this year Azerbaijani citizens will spend 100 ($58) to 3,000 ($1,765) manats for gifts. Therefore, on average, the population will spend about 1 billion manats ($588,419,791) for the purchase of presents.

Classic New Year gifts of Azerbaijanis are technology and electronics. This trend has not changed this year as well.

Monitoring in the country's outlets has shown that the population is already engaged in the selection of gifts for the New Year. Family people, in general, prefer to give something for the house, in particular, household equipment. Quite often these are vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, irons, Agayev notes.

Commenting on what kind of New Year gifts Azerbaijanis usually buy, the expert noted that it depends on the category of citizens divided on their income level.

Much depends on the income of the population. There is a category of citizens who are willing to spend enough to buy gifts. I know one man who is preparing a gift for his family - a trip to France. It cost him very cheap. However, there is a category of men who buy diamonds as a gift," he added.

On the eve of the New Year, the retail outlets are overcrowded mostly with women who prefer to buy cosmetics, jewelry, various certificates and coupons in beauty salons as New Year gifts. The number of men compared to women is considerably low, the expert said.

Of note, in January-October of the year 2017, prices for goods and services in Azerbaijan grew by 13.7 percent: prices for food products increased by 17.6 percent, non-food products - by 12.4 percent, for paid services - by 9.6 percent.

How Azerbaijanis celebrate New Year

Celebrating the New Year for each person is of special value. Many people associate this event with the crunch of snow underfoot, the smell of tangerines and spruce, a warm home atmosphere. Children's laughter, chimes, fireworks and a richly decorated table are the main attributes of the holiday. Being a very hospitable people, as well as great masters in cooking, Azerbaijanis usually meet this holiday at home, in the circle of their family and close people, for whom they prepare various delicacies.

It is customary in Azerbaijan to celebrate the New Year with family or friends. Close people gather together on the evening of December 31st to meet the New Year. They usually remember what happened in the outgoing year - good or, conversely, bad. People talk about what important happened in their life throughout the year and wish each other happiness.

Traditional for the Azerbaijani New Year table dishes are the salad Capital and Azerbaijani plov, lyvangi (from fish or chicken), Azerbaijani pilaf and dolma.

Also, among the dishes of the Azerbaijani national cuisine on the festive tables you can see lyulya-kebab (this dish is fried on a spit on an open fire), kutab (a thin dough with stuffing inside - from meat, cheese, spicy greens, pumpkin, etc.) as well as tick kebab (shish kebab from pieces of lamb meat marinated in a mixture of onion, vinegar and pomegranate juice).

In addition, on New Year's Eve baliq (pieces of sturgeon or other fish, roasted on coals, like a shish kebab). Usually people prepare many more intricate time-consuming dishes, some of which can be tried no more than once a year.

There are a considerable number of citizens, however, who prefer to celebrate New Year holidays in other regions of Azerbaijan while the number of those leaving the country decreases. Last year about 180,000 Azerbaijani citizens went abroad for the New Year, which compared to the previous years was quite a low indicator, said economist Natig Jafarli.

In previous years about two or even three times more citizens left the country for New Year holidays. For example, before the devaluation in December, 350,000-400,000 citizens spent holidays abroad. For this year, I think, the number of those who leave will hardly exceed 150,000 persons he said.

Azerbaijan, with its unique culture and history, is the best choice for those who want to spend unforgettable New Year holidays. The country is among the favorite destinations for a large number of tourists as well.
Iran's leading car manufacturer Iran Khodro Company will provide Peugeot with the parts it needs in its proposed Algeria plant, according to a senior company official.



The company can also invest in Algeria to produce and sell its products to Peugeot, Hashemi Yekke Zare, CEO of Iran Khodro, was quoted as saying in an Iran Daily News report, citing Trend News Agency.



Peugeot maker PSA Group in November signed a joint venture agreement with three Algerian partners to build cars in the North African country.



The French carmaker said it would invest around 100 million ($117.95 million), equalling 49 per cent of the joint ventures capital.



Referring to the auto industry as one of the most lucrative industries in Iran, the Iran Khodro chief noted that car makers have saved Iran as much as $15 billion in one year by eliminating the need for imports.
Australians are ready to develop cooperation in mineral field with Iran, the director general of Mines and Metals Development Investment Company (MMDIC) was quoted as saying in a media report.



In addition to taking advantage of potentials and domestic resources, the general policies of the resistance economy refer to improving labour forces, promoting competitiveness of the economy, encouraging foreign investment, Azizollah Asari was quoted by Irna.



A high-profile Australian delegation will have a trip to Iran within a month, he said in a meeting with Austrian envoy to Iran Ian Biggs.



Asari went on to say that joint investment, exchanging experts to promote technical and experiment capacities, participating in research and development sector, maintaining cooperation in producing and financing advanced machineries in mine and steel industry field and also taking advantage of technical and scientific achievements of Australia are MMDICs priorities.
Implementing sustainable and responsible business practices not only builds a better world, but also contributes to long term profitable business models, Grundfos CEO has said.



In a keynote speech at the District Energy Systems for a Sustainable and Energy Efficient Future Conference 2017, Mads Nipper, chief executive officer and group president of Grundfos Holding, focused on sustainability and business responsibility.



In his speech on the New Role of Business in Society, he said: In the long run, sustainable business models will be successful and create business opportunities in the local communities they operate in.



Denmark-based Grundfos, a leading pump manufacturer globally, has supported the conference, held at the Swissotel the Bosphorus, Istanbul, Turkey. The event was co-organised by the Danish Board of District Heating and the Trade Council of Denmarkin Turkey.



The event had B2B meetings and roundtables which explored market opportunities within the district energy sector in Turkey and best practice cases from Denmark, for a sustainable and energy efficient future and city transformation, said a statement.



The conference gathered top-level executives of world renowned companies and key private and public stakeholders and decision-makers in the energy efficiency market, to discuss energy efficiency and sustainability, it said.



It also highlighted the recent developments in the Turkish district energy market including finance opportunities and upcoming projects, it added.



Our aim is to think ahead and innovate for the greater good of our planet and our society, while going the extra mile to help local communities and municipalities build and regulate their own sustainable business models, without any support, added Nipper.



Nipper has been an ambassador of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ever since they were formulated and implemented over two years ago; and Grundfos has since integrated the SDGs into the core of its business goals.



He continued: Sustainability is part of Grundfos DNA. We push the boundaries of possibility in energy efficiency and water conservation. Every day, we bring our expertise to improve peoples lives, through innovative solutions that break with conventional thinking to help local communities, governments and municipalities achieve not only an environmentally but economically sustainable future.



Our Water ATM project, for example, aims to support sustainable water management. Charging water even for a small amount of money is designed to ensure that water is used wisely. We dont want to supply water for free because when it is free, consumers tend to waste more, Nipper concluded.  TradeArabia News Service
At least 14 people died and 19 were injured when a major fire broke out in a building in India's commerical capital Mumbai in the early hours of Friday.

It took fire tenders three hours to control the fire which started in a restaurant on the top floor of a building inside the Kamala Mill compound in Lower Parel, said an Indian Express report. The fire later engulfed neighbouring establishments.

Majority of those killed are women, according to civic authorities. The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained.

Those injured have been rushed to King Edward Memorial Hospital and Scion Hospital.

The building houses several commercial establishments including news channels, which have had to stop broadcasting.

After preliminary investigations into the cause of the fire, the Mumbai police have registered a case of culpable homicide against the owner of an establishment named One Above.
Qatar Fuel (Woqod) has allocated QR816 million ($224 million) for spending in 2018 on new development activities including the setting up of new petrol stations and projects aimed at boosting the non-oil sector.



Woqod's capital expenditure budget was unveiled by CEO Saad Rashid Al Muhannadi at the Wodoq board of directors meeting held to day in Doha under the chairmanship of Ahmad Saif Al Sulaiti.



The budget included the anticipated key performance indicators for Wodoq Group in relation to the distribution and marketing of petroleum products and gas, as well as other activities of Wodoq and subsidiary companies during 2018, along with the pertinent operational costs and expenses.



Al Muhannadi said the company had an ambitious plan to increase its share in the market for distribution and transportation of petroleum products, gas, bitumen, bunker fuel, oils and lubricants through the construction and operation of the various projects required for these activities, together with the supporting quality management systems, state-of-the-art IT systems and the highest health and safety standards, and environmental preservation measures.



Woqod will start floating tenders for construction of another 18 petrol stations in the first quarter of 2018,. The plan is to increase the number of fuel stations to 122 in the next five years.



Al Muhannadi said the budget proposal included the purchase of two new ships in support of the operation of its subsidiary Woqod Marine Services.



Moreover, the company is determined to effectively participate in petroleum products distribution, storage and marketing infrastructure projects in collaboration with the concerned parties. The budget also includes expenditure items for maintenance, asset integrity, health, safety and environment, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
UAE nationals can now enter Chile visa-free, said a report citing an announcement made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

The development comes in pursuance of the MoU signed by the UAE and the Republic of Chile on November 12 to exempt Emirati and Chilean nationals carrying ordinary passports from obtaining pre-entry visas while travelling to both countries, said a report in WAM.



Ahmed Saeed Ilham Al Dhaheri, assistant under-secretary for Consular Affairs at the Ministry, said holders of ordinary UAE passports can now enter Chile without pre-entry visa and stay up to 90 days.



"Introducing such distinguished consular services is among the strategic objectives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in line with the directives of the country's wise leadership to ensure welfare and happiness for Emirati citizens around the world," he said.



He added that the signing of the MoU would further strengthen cooperation between the UAE and Chile in areas of tourism, trade and investment, the report said.
Wyoming stood to lose more than most states when President Donald Trump proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities in his March budget.

Congress has the ultimate say on the nations budget, though, and so far has approved maintaining the two federal agencies.

State arts organization leaders and advocates have said Trumps proposed cuts would impact the economy, education and well-being of communities in Wyoming.

New York can make up its funding through donors, but Wyoming and the other small states, we just dont have the population to replace that kind of funding, Wyoming Humanities Council Executive Director Shannon Smith told the Star-Tribune in March.

The arts and humanities endowments each receive about $150 million annually, about 40 percent of which goes to states arts and humanities organizations to disperse into communities.

Advocates including the Wyoming Arts Alliance communicated with Wyomings congressional delegation about the impacts of Trumps budget proposal.

Places where the states arts agencies are very important, such as Wyoming, where we have grants out in every single county, will notice and notice right away, longtime arts advocate, researcher and Wyoming Arts Alliance board member Bruce Richardson said at the time.

Eliminating the NEH would shutter the Wyoming Humanities Council, which supports cultural organizations and provides programs to help Wyoming explore historical and cultural issues through mediums such as library reading programs, museum lectures, documentaries and podcasts with cultural leaders.

Closing the NEA would significantly impact the Wyoming Arts Councils work, which includes funding and supporting arts nonprofits, symphonies, museums and various programs through the state. Wyoming also would lose direct grants and other services.

The proposed federal cuts would undermine Wyomings tourism industry, jobs and already-struggling economy, several arts and culture supporters said.

Were a huge part of economic tourism, cultural heritage tourism, Smith said. We put events and exhibits on in towns like Torrington and Kemmerer and bring people to those towns.

Smith has heard from people around the state whove contacted Wyomings congressional delegation, which also has shown understanding for what the two state councils bring to the Wyoming, she said this month.

It highlighted the support that we have and how much were valued in the communities, Smith said.
Over the past year, the Casper Police Department has undergone a number of changes, including the dismissal of its chief and the hiring of a new leader.

On March 4, the Star-Tribune received a copy of the Casper Fraternal Order of Polices survey of the majority of Casper police and civilian staff. In that survey, more than 20 officers  about a fifth of the total number of sworn personnel  said they were actively seeking work outside of the department.

Much of the criticism was leveled at the departments leadership and what was perceived as unrealistic performance expectations.

At their meeting that evening, some City Council members called for an investigation into the department.

Former city manager John Patterson appointed Jim Wetzel chief in February 2014. Wetzel joined the department in 1999.

A week later, Wetzel told reporters that he was working to fix communication gaps and make himself more available to his employees. He said he planned to meet with patrol teams and with officers individually to hear their concerns.

Despite those efforts, two-thirds of Casper police voted against Wetzel in a no confidence vote held by the Casper Fraternal Order of Police that same week. Sixty officers said they had no confidence in his leadership, three voted that they did have confidence and 10 officers abstained. In a letter attached to the survey results, the orders leaders requested that Wetzel resign. The letter then listed three areas of concern: the chiefs hiring practices, his ethical leadership and practices and his failure to establish direction and vision of the department.

The situation escalated further when City Councilman and former police chief Chris Walsh wrote a letter to the citys top administrator at the time requesting a criminal investigation into some of the allegations against the chief. The letter was leaked to the Star-Tribune on April 22.

Interim City Manager Liz Becher, who took over the position after former city manager V.H. McDonald unexpectedly retired, said she could not act on the recommendation of a single councilmember. The city did conduct an investigation into personnel issues at the department through local attorney Judith Studer.

Despite the turmoil, Wetzel told the Star-Tribune on April 25 that he had not considered resigning.

The next week, however, city leadership announced that it terminated Wetzels contract, immediately ending his term as police chief on May 5. At a City Council meeting the following week, many of the council members backed Interim City Manager Liz Bechers decision to dismiss the chief.

In a later interview with the Star-Tribune, Becher declined to explain what exactly caused her to terminate Wetzels contract. Wetzel was an at-will employee and he was dismissed without cause.

The decision came a few days after Studers investigation was expected to be completed. It is unclear exactly what the investigation found as city officials have repeatedly declined to release the report or discuss in detail what the report contained. Becher said that elements of the investigation factored into her decision.

Two weeks after his dismissal, Wetzel attended a city council meeting and publicly criticized city leadership for more than 15 minutes. It was the first and last time he spoke publicly since his dismissal.

Becher appointed Steve Schulz, a captain at the department, as interim chief while a permanent replacement was sought. City Manager Carter Napier announced the hiring of a new chief on Dec. 1. Keith McPheeters, former deputy police chief of Farmington, New Mexico, was sworn in on Dec. 11.
A man was killed in a single-vehicle crash near Kelly Walsh High School on Thursday morning.

The victim of the crash, whom police declined to identify but described as a 33-year-old white man, was the only occupant in the vehicle.

He was driving at a high rate of speed eastbound on 12th Street at around 8:45 a.m., when he slid off the road and hit a wall in front of the high school, said Casper police officer Darren Douglas.

The man was transported to the Wyoming Medical Center shortly after the crash. He was pronounced dead by 9:15 a.m.

Police said they did not believe the man had any affiliation with the high school. His family has been notified of his death.

Speed and road conditions were two causal factors in the crash, police said. The investigation, which temporarily closed East 12th Street between Kingsbury Drive And Trojan Drive, is ongoing.
A bill being considered by Wyoming lawmakers would reduce the cost of speeding.

House Bill 12, which passed by a unanimous vote in the Joint Judiciary Committee in November, aims to rewrite Wyomings uniform bond schedule to simplify how tickets are written and lower their amounts. A court-authorized bond is issued to correspond to a speeding ticket. A driver can go to court to contest the citation or choose to pay the bond and waive his or her court appearance.

The current bond schedule consists of nine different speeding categories, depending on where the driver is clocked. Those categories range from unpaved roadways to urban districts to school zones and a single category can consist of up to 40 different bond amounts.

Its confusing for the patrol. Its confusing for the court. Its confusing for the public, said Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs.

The proposed legislation would tear up the current bond schedule, keeping in place special bond amounts for school and construction zones. The new bond schedule would consist of three different subcategories  general, school and construction  with bond amounts increasing in a relatively linear fashion dependent on speed.

Those amounts would generally decrease compared to the current bond schedule.

Under the current system, a driver speeding by 5 mph in a city can pay $80, on an unpaved road pays $40, and on a highway pays $25.

The proposed schedule would eliminate that discrepancy, and set all fines of speeding by 5 mph at $20. Court costs and fees would not apply for charges of speeding by 5 mph or less.

The legislation would also cap fines upon conviction at $800, down $200 from the current max, which can be imposed on someone who is caught speeding in a school zone multiple times in one year.

The legislation was born of a Wyoming Highway Patrol request for simplified bond schedules, Baggs said. After the legislation came before the committee, three amendments were floated and two passed to reduce the bond amounts across the board.

Hicks said the legislation would still provide a reasonable deterrent to speeding while not being exorbitant.

After simplifying the bond schedules, the committee went on to amend the legislation to reduce fine amounts.

Committee Chair, Sen. Leland Christensen, R-Alta, said the reduction in fine amounts could in part be attributed to legislators awareness of Wyomings slow economy.

Lower fine amounts come with a cost, however. The Legislative Services Office estimates that the bill would cost the state about $750,000 per year. Because the money from speeding tickets typically goes to county schools, the bill would cut about $1.5 million over two years from an already beleaguered school funding system.

Speaking generally about the cost of the bill, Christensen said the legislation did not cut the cost of speeding as much as some might estimate because court costs will still be imposed for most speeding tickets.

The bill has been sponsored by a committee, but still needs to be approved by two-thirds of the Legislature to be considered because 2018 is a budget session. If passed, it would become law in July.
JERUSALEM  Israels parliament has passed legislation curbing a police practice of recommending indictments in high-profile cases before charges are pressed.

The bill was pushed by Benjamin Netanyahus party as he faces corruption allegations, and critics said it was designed to shield the long-ruling prime minister.

The so-called recommendations bill passed early Thursday after days of filibustering. It stops police from recommending to prosecutors whether to indict suspects upon completing their investigations. It also aims to stop leaks to the media from the investigations themselves. Much of the details of police investigations of Netanyahu that have been published stem from such leaks.

Critics say the law muzzles police and other institutions. Some opponents, including an opposition party and an activist group, said they plan to challenge the law in court. An initial version was watered down after an uproar and the law as passed does not apply to current investigations, including those concerning Netanyahu.

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog called it an immediate and explicit threat to law enforcement. He said it marks the battle between the countrys spirit of democracy and a spirit of corruption.

Supporters of the bill say its needed to protect citizens who are investigated but never charged and have their reputations tarnished when recommendations are made public.

Netanyahu has been questioned in two cases and police say they suspect him of being involved in bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

One investigation involving Netanyahu, dubbed by police File 1000, reportedly concerns claims he improperly accepted lavish gifts from supporters, including Australian billionaire James Packer and Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan.

The second investigation, File 2000, reportedly concerns Netanyahus 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.
Many people will be ringing in 2018 with a glass of champagne, but how do you go about choosing the best bottle?

Using data from Vivinos millions of community members, the wine website has recommended some great Champagnes to toast the new year.

Here's a look at the 10 top-rated Champagnes of 2017.

Considering the cheapest bottle is well over $100 (and goes up to about $630), we've also included the rankings for the five most popular  and much more affordable  Prosecco wines of the year.

1. Salon- S, Le Mesnil, 1996

Vivino description: Founded in 1921 by Eugene Aime Salon, Champagne Salon is a small and reputable house on the Cote des Blancs. The wine is made from 100 percent Chardonnay from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, which is widely considered the greatest Cru in the Cote des Blancs (making it a hot ticket item). To take things a little further, they only harvest grapes from 40-year-old vines that are planted mid-slope. Grapes centered on the slopes in vineyards are typically considered the best. Without going into too much detail, this basically means the fruit will be the most expressive or intense.

Average Rating: 4.7

Average Price: $499

2. Moet & Chandon - Dom Perignon, Brut, 1982

Vivino description: Dom Perignon is one of the most recognized Champagne brands of all time. Produced by Moet & Chandon and part of the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy empire, the company made the decision to launch an ultra-premium cuvee in 1936 to honor the Benedictine monk, Dom Perignon. Interestingly, Perignon has been erroneously credited as the first person to put the bubbles in Champagne. Though many of the myths about him arent entirely true, he did work tirelessly to improve the quality of Champagne in the late 1600s and remains one of the primary influencers that made Champagne what it is today. This 1982 vintage has shown a remarkable ability to age gracefully. When these wines are first released, they tend to have a fruity, creamy smoothness that evolves to a toasted almond and slight marzipan with perfumed lemon; all of which give it a rich and succulent mouthfeel.

Average Rating: 4.7

Average Price: $629.96

3. Louis Roederer- Cristal, Rose, 2006

Vivino description: The complicated origins of this world-famous Champagne house stretch all the way back to the 1760s. What was then an extremely sweet wine, Cristal was created at the request of Tsar Alexander II, then emperor of Russia. Sadly, neither Tsar Alexander II nor Louis Roederer were able to enjoy the wine for long, as the wine was created in 1876 and both men died shortly after in 1880 and 1881, consecutively. While this wine became first commercially available in 1945, it remains to this day highly sought after by the rich and famous. You may wonder if the wine is worth the price, but we can tell you: It is truly one of the most exceptional Champagnes being made. How exceptional? Well, originally it was served in crystal bottles. However, that decadence only lasted a few years, and unfortunately no bottles remain today. Not even photos exist, and this was 60 years after the camera was invented. The rose version is made from 70 percent Pinot Noir and 30 percent Chardonnay. The 2006 vintage is a bit young now, but these wines are notorious for their fragility while aging. If you don't have perfect cellar conditions, you may as well drink up.

Average Rating: 4.6

Average Price: $199.95

4. Krug- Grande Cuvee, 163rd Edition, NV

Vivino description: The 163rd iteration of Krug Grande Cuvee is already regarded as one of the greatest releases of their most important lines of wine. The wine is made up of 48 percent Pinot Noir, 35 percent Chardonnay and 17 percent Pinot Meunier. These wines are called cuvee because they are a blend of several different vintages. A special release, the 2008 vintage takes up the lions share of the blend, which is regarded as one of the most outstanding vintages of our time. You can rest assured this wine will go down as one of the best blends this house may ever release.

Average Rating: 4.6

Average Price: $144.95

5. Jacques Selosse- Ambonnay Le Bout du Clos, NV

Vivino description: Regarded as a living legend, Anselme Selosse has changed the course of Champagne indefinitely with his natural approach to growing grapes and making wine. He has effectively marketed his approach as a terroir-ist, which is essentially someone who works directly with the land to determine how the wine will turn out. He has also taken the term grower Champagne to a level of cultish sex appeal that is now highly sought after. Love them or hate them, his wines are one of the most distinct in that he employs a level of oak and oxidation that can feel a little excessive to the more sensitive palates. Made from 100 percent Pinot Noir.

Average Rating: 4.6

Average Price: $360

6. Jacques Selosse- Substance, NV

Vivino description: With this Champagne, the legendary winemaker employs what is referred to as a solera system. This means the wine is stored in reserve every year and is then blended into succeeding vintages to create a more balanced and consistent final product. The system, borrowed from Spain, is used here in the production of his blends. His wines go back to 1986 and are made from 100 percent Chardonnay.

Average Rating: 4.7

Average Price: $350

7. Jacques Selosse- Les Carelles, NV

Vivino description: This wine also incorporates the use of the solera system, where older reserved wine is transferred into new wine for consistency and complexity. It is made of 100 percent Chardonnay from the village of Le Mesnil, a village that supplies fruits to the most prestigious Champagne houses. This wine shows a distinct smokiness rounded out with the spice of oak and the citrus of the Chardonnay, leaning toward cooked lemon.

Average Rating: 4.6

Average Price: $400

8. Krug - Brut, 2000

Vivino description: While still considered aging at 17 years, this vintage was such a standout that it can be consumed now or optimistically saved for how wonderfully it will drink in another 17 years. It may be a little tense now, but it is marvelous nonetheless, and it's only getting better. Made from 42 percent Pinot Noir, 43 percent Chardonnay and 15 percent Pinot Meunier.

Average Rating: 4.6

Average Price: $265

9. Bollinger- R.D. 1999

Vivino description: The Bollinger House was founded in 1829 by a German named of Jacques Bollinger, along with Paul-Joseph Renaudin and a landowner named Admiral Villermont. The House is famous for its decision to stick to oak aging in the 1960s. As many Champagne houses of the time were switching aging methods away from oak, then head of the House, Lily Bollinger, widow of Jacques Bollingers great grandson of the same name, made the decision to go against the grain and stick with oak aging. Bollinger employs the use of barrels up to 110 years old, which is precisely where Bollinger gets its signature taste and feel. They are famous for a bruised, spiced apple and almond nose that comes from the amount of air coming into contact with the aging wine within the barrel. Its a process referred to as oxidation, which can be a bit intense for some people and has a distinct sherry quality. Granted a Royal Warrant 1884 by Queen Victoria, the house is also famous on a pop culture level, as the primary Champagne is in a handful of James Bond films and books. This wine is a slight variation of another wine made at Bollinger called La Grande Annee. The difference between the two is that this wine is aged for a longer period in contact with the dead yeast cells or lees in the bottle. When the lees are removed, this process is called disgorgement. R.D. stands for recemment degorge or recent disgorgement, meaning the wine can be consumed young and will still exhibit a deeper, creamier texture as well as the fruity flavor profile one would expect from a style meant for drinking at any time.

Average Rating: 4.7

Average Price: $335

10. Charles Heidsieck- Blanc des Millenaires, 1995

Vivino description: The Heidsieck name is one many people are familiar with. Be it the complex and sought after wines under the Charles Heidsieck label or the more approachable and vastly improved upon Piper-Heidsieck, C. Heidsieck has seen a tremendous turnaround in complexity since the 1980s and early 90s. Celebrated blender and winemaker Daniel Thibault started taking a different approach to blending than the house had previously employed, quickly earning the adoration of his peers. He began storing and incorporating older vintages into his blends, uniquely adding up to 40 percent reserve wines to the final blend. This ended up cutting production and sales for the sake of higher quality wines and greater prestige. 1995 is the fourth release of this wine and its lauded for a succulent texture and resilient freshness. Another hallmark of these wines is the ever-present vanilla quality, which surprises some when they learn the wine sees no time in oak, usually giving it a very similar effect.

Average Rating: 4.6

Average Price: $199.95

5 most popular Prosecco wines of 2017

1. La Marca Prosecco

Average Rating: 3.8

3.8 Average Price: $10.99

2. Casa Vinicola Zonin Prosecco

Average Rating: 3.5

3.5 Average Price: $9.95

3. Valdo Prosecco Valdobbiadene Superiore Marca Oro

Average Rating: 3.6

3.6 Average Price: $16.99

4. Carpene Malvolti Prosecco Superiore Conegliano Valdobbiadene Extra Dry

Average Rating: 3.7

3.7 Average Price: $13.94

Average Rating: 3.6

3.6 Average Price: $12.47
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some Dec. 29 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.
A man has been arrested after he kidnapped a woman at gunpoint and fled from officers on Thursday afternoon, according to Sierra Vista police.

Quatavius Crudup,24, took the woman hostage after firing his weapon multiple times during a confrontation with her in the north parking lot of Canyon Vista Medical Center on 5700 East Highway 90.

Police officers responded to calls about gunshots heard in the area at about 12:40 p.m., a department press release said.

Before the officers arrived, a nearby male bystander pulled out his handgun and pointed it at Crudup commanding him to release the woman.

Crudup briefly pointed the weapon at the bystander before forcing the woman at gunpoint to a nearby car, the release said.

As officers arrived, Crudup drove the car eastbound on Highway 90, where he was pursued until he pulled over and was taken into custody.

The area near Highway 90 and South Misty May Road was shut down for about 30 minutes, authorities said. The woman was not injured during the confrontation with Crudup.
The answer to Mik Jordahl's column is that he is engaging in age old anti-Semitism. He singles out Israel for human rights abuses while not boycotting countries that do far worse then Israel, such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Syria, and the Palestinian Territories. He has a free speech right to do what he wants, but that does not mean the state has to condone this. Many are not fans of Israel's current government (or ours for that matter) but that does not mean that they don't support their right to exist. But at least it does seem from his column that some of Mr. Jordahl's best friends are Jewish.
As a former public school teacher and administrator, I was interested in reading the article in the Star regarding the school voucher system in Arizona and Sen. Steve Yarbrough's willingness to place caps on tax credits.

How long will it take Arizona's residents to recognize they are using taxpayers' dollars to suppress public education for the purpose of expanding "for profit "minded charter, private, and parochial schools? Many of the these so-called private schools flourish under false pretenses because the have no accountability. Yarbrough and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos should examine their conscience and recognize their ideology is nothing more than another version of school segregation with a profit motive.
Help India!

By Abhay Kumar for TwoCircles.net

The JNU administration has recently issued a circular, imposing compulsory attendance on all regular registered students from the winter semester. Not to talk of graduate and post-graduate students, even the research scholars have not been spared. If the research scholars are forced to mark their attendance every day, when will they do fieldwork? Or when will they visit archives and libraries outside? Talks are also rife that a proper biometric time and attendance system is to be put in place for teachers as well. The draconian measures do not spare anyone.

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JNU students rightly fear the plan, if implemented, will further destroy JNUs character as a critical space and create inconveniences. Who would deny that critical thinking does not take place under the shadow of surveillance and censorship?

Ever since the Hindutva forces came to power in 2014, they have carried out their agenda to destroy JNU. They hate JNU because it provides spaces for critical thinking. Their opposition has to do with JNUs secular and progressive character.

The dictatorial policies and anti-student measuresbeing taken by the JNU Vice Chancellor Jagadeesh Kumarshould be seen in this context. In the past, he invited the police to arrest his own student leader, cut scholarships and drastically reduced the intake of seats for research courses, appealed to the government to install war-tank to instill a feeling of nationalism among students and now he has issued the circular.

These all draconian measures are being justified in the name of nationalizing JNU. The so-called nationalist Vice-Chancellor often forget what our national poet Tagore has dreamed of a free-India: where the mind is without fear and knowledge is free. But the reign of Vice-Chancellor has so far promoted the feelings of fear and state of unfreedom. He is working in the direction of destroying JNUs critical space and its inclusive and diverse composition.

For many, JNUs beauty lies in its imposing red buildings and the sprawling green campus that sits on the Aravalli hill. But for me, the real beauty lies in its culture of debate and discussion. The real learning often takes place outside classrooms. The space outside classrooms such as dhabas, canteens, protest sites as well as hostels is the real place of learning. It has to do with the structure of power and hierarchy present in the classroom. The spaces outside classroom are relatively free and more conducive for ideas to be exchanged. These examples are given to argue that the measures of control (compulsory attendance) do not promote critical thinking and dialogue.

Though the Vice-Chancellor has a science background but he does not seem to apply it before introducing any measure. If he thinks attendance would facilitate better research, I invite him to come out with facts. Can he show any scientific study to prove that the introduction of compulsory attendance has improved the quality of research anywhere in the world? Does attendance in the classrooms contribute in any significant way to making students more interested in subject? When the world is talking about open-learning and free access to knowledge, our Vice-Chancellor is running in opposite direction.

The Vice-Chancellor should know that JNU professors like Neeladri Bhattacharya, Avijit Pathak, Utsa Patnaik, Prabhat Patnaik, Gopal Guru, Nivedita Menon and others were so popular among students that their classes were always packed. Even before I made it to JNU, I had heard about them. My seniors at Jamia Millia Islamia used to attend their lectures. We have always seen our teachers, entering the classroom with notes and books in their hands but the JNU Vice-Chancellor is ready to snatch them. The books are being replaced with the attendance-sheet! This move is so unpopular among students that even the ABVP, the RSS student-wing, have brought a pamphlet to condemn it.

The students at JNU have always been encouraged to take course from different schools and centres. On several occasions, they end up attending more courses than required numbers. They know that one discipline is incomplete without the other. Teachers, on their parts, keep their classes open for all and take extra classes to complete the courses. They all work because they value the importance of knowledge and research. They have been doing all these in absence of compulsory attendance.

The increasing role of administration in the functioning of a university is also a matter of concern. Educationists are of the opinion that the administrations role should be minimal inside the university. But ever since the Vice-Chancellor has come to JNU, its role has been maximized beyond all limits. These measures may please his political masters and fetch him some personal rewards but in long run, the institution would become ruined.

At the end, let me reiterate that that the real agenda behind these measures has nothing to do with improving research and better work. They are designed to put a check on political activity and to keep swords hanging over students heads, particulary activists, all the time. Compulsory attendance strikes a fatal blow to JNU and the idea of university. Shouldnt we forge a much larger solidarity to oppose it now?

(The author is pursuing PhD at Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)
Help India!

By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net

Ghaziabad: Every day at 8 in the morning, sanitary workers of the Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam gather at a tea point in Sector 10 after cleaning the clogged sewers and drains. The sanitary workers get up at 4 am and reach different locations across the city by 5 am to clean the sewers and drains manually. As the workers converse, Dr Ramesh C Agarwal, a man in his early 70s, emerges out of an adjacent street riding an old motorbike and carrying a sling bag on his right shoulder.

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All the workers get off their seats and proceed towards Dr Agarwal and help him in parking his bike. They surround him and start explaining their health complications.

I have an itch all over my body since last few months and it is getting worse by the day, Titu, 26, a sewer worker tells Dr Agarwal.

As soon as he briefs him about his skin problem, Dr Agarwal puts his hands inside his sling bag and pulls out a small plastic bottle containing a white power and asks him to sprinkle it across his body after taking a bath. He also gives him some pills stuffed in a small plastic bag which he has to take twice a day.

Another sewer worker Dheeraj Kumar, 25 complains of a cough. During nights, it becomes bad, he complains as Dr Agarwal listens carefully to the health issues of every worker. He is also given pills, which he has to take for seven days and asked to meet at the same place and same time after a week.

Dr Agarwal was born in 1947 and after completing his school education and during his bachelors, he found out that he was more interested in studying physics. He enrolled in M.Sc. Physics at I.I.T. Delhi and later did his Ph .D in solar energy from I. I.T. Delhi in 1981.

He joined as Convener, Research Degree Committee of Physics at Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut and in 2011 retired as Head of Department of Physics from Multanimal Modi College, Ghaziabad, UP.

Despite being an academician, he was always interested in studying medicine. In 1992, when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, he started looking for alternate methods and medicines other than chemo and radiation therapy to get rid of the disease.

I spent months and read many books on naturopathy, ayurvedic medicines, and homoeopathic medicines, and found that one has to increase ones immunity power to get rid of the toxins accumulated in the body and to fight the disease-causing bacteria/viruses etc, he said.

After treating my wife with such medicines, I found out that they are effective and she is doing absolutely fine now.

It was in 2016 when Dr Agarwal saw a sanitary worker getting down in sewer main hole full of human excreta and toxic waste to clear the clogged line.

My head hung in shame and I could not sleep for a couple of days. After that I decided to do something for workers who go down in sewer lines to clean clogged sewers, he recalls.

Inside the sewers, workers are continually exposed to gases like hydrogen disulfide, methane, ammonia, and carbon monoxide. Studies have linked exposure to these gases lead to cardiovascular degeneration; musculoskeletal disorders like osteoarthritis changes and intervertebral disc herniation; infections like hepatitis, leptospirosis, and Helicobacter; skin problems; respiratory system issues; and altered pulmonary function parameters.

The manual scavengers who get down in clogged sewer lines are exposed to dangerous harmful toxic waste. Their skin and genital parts such as anus, penis etc. are exposed to dangerous toxic waste. As a result, they often catch diseases at a very early age besides they often suffer from skin and respiratory problems and in course of time their kidneys, lungs, heart liver etc. are damaged and as a result, they die at a very early age, he observes.

For skin diseases and cough, Dr Agarwal provides homoeopathic medicines while for respiratory tract problems he provides ayurvedic medicines. Ones suffering from serious ailments are referred to government hospitals.

According to Ratendra Singh, 40, the supervisor of sewage workers, All workers get a modest salary of Rs 7,500 per month despite doing the most filthy job in the civilized world. As they cant afford treatment at private hospitals and cannot afford to wait at the government hospitals, the free treatment offered by Dr Agarwal is like a blessing for them.

If any of our sewer workers have a health issue, they call him and he treats them with homoeopathic and ayurvedic medicines. Hundreds of sewage workers across consult him for their health issues, he further said.

Brijesh Kumar, 30 a sewage worker had a persistent cough since last two months, as he couldnt afford to take leave off his work and afford the cost of medicines. He consulted Dr Agarwal who provided him free medicines. Both private and public hospitals are out of bounds for us. In private hospitals, the cost is the factor while at govt. hospitals time is the factor.

For Dr Agarwal, the battle is not limited to providing treatment to the sewage workers but he is also trying hard to put an end to the practice of manual scavenging in Ghaziabad city.

Earlier this year, he took the matter with the sanitary supervisor of the area and the Executive Officer of Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam and apprised them how manually cleaning the sewers is dangerous to the life and health of the worker and asked them to work on an alternative.

They told me that they do not have an adequate number of supper suckers for mechanical cleaning of clogged sewer-lines. They also pointed out that there is some technical problem in cleaning clogged sewer-lines with mechanical suckers and pumps. This problem can only be done manually, he told TwoCircles.net.

He wrote a letter to the local officials and even sent the copies of the letter about the conditions of manual sewage workers to PM Modi, the union health minister, J Parkash Nadda, and Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, but he hasnt heard back from any of their offices.

Dr Agarwal feels that people should stand with the sewage workers and pressure government to switch over to mechanical cleaning of the sewers and drains.

Manual scavengers are like me or like every one of us. Why should they do such a dirty work where they have to expose their life to such health hazards? he asks. Meanwhile, his mission to treat the sewage workers with alternate medicines continues.
Help India!

By Professor Mohammad Sajjad for TwoCircles.net

The conviction of Lalu Prasad Yadav by the CBI court in some of many cases of the fodder scam, is hardly a news, given the fact that in such cases he has earlier been convicted, has been incarcerated many times, and has also been debarred from contesting elections.

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Secondly, when the CBI is investigating and its own court has to deliver a verdict, then it should always be less likely that its verdict will embarrass its own investigation, notwithstanding the theoretical separation of powers.

What is notably newsworthy is the fact that a Brahman predecessor of Lalu, Jagannath Mishra, during whose tenure, the fodder scam actually started, has been acquitted in the same case. The political fallout of this caste-based variation of the verdict is, therefore, more significant than the merit of the case and the verdict. Precisely along these lines, Lalus tweets have come out; and this is how other office-bearers of his outfit, RJD, have reacted on social sites.

An irony is worth noting here. Unlike Mishra, Lalu was the one during whose tenure investigation began in Singhbhum (now in Jharkhand) in January 1996, and it went without let or hindrance; the Block Development Officers extended all cooperation, rather than trying to hush these up. This is amply testified by one of the whistle-blower bureaucrats, Amit Khare, in his blog (written retrospectively on 23 December 2017, print.in).

Is Lalu, a disproportionately maligned man?

Just turn the pages of news stories and columns when Mishra was the Bihar chief minister, one will come across a fact that among the masses, he symbolised corruption. Moreover, in post- liberalization era, for the urban middle classes, no issue has been more important than fighting corruption in the government offices. This is also the period (since the 1990s) when the backward castes have risen to power. There was considerably less noise about corruption when a majority of the politicians and bureaucrats who benefited, were from the upper caste, landed families and from the predominantly upper caste, urban middle class.

It is not merely a coincidence that the word, scam, appears for the first time in an English dictionary, only in 1992, which is an American slang, meaning a trick or swindle; a story or rumour. Thus, till it was an upper-caste monopoly, the word meant only a playful trick. The moment this percolated down to subordinated groups, it acquired the meaning of a massive criminality. Because of this lexical/semantic power-play, the moral outrage varies from class to class, or more aptly to say, in the Indian context, from caste to caste. Why? Because, the historically disadvantaged castes, in their neighbourhoods, have seen how lower officials in various public offices, had generated illicit income, without ever being caught, so long as the offices were outnumbered by upper castes. Nailing the corrupt could become a reality only after the caste-identity of the accused began to change.

Shekhar Guptas column (Indian Express, December 24, 2011) demonstrated that there is a preponderance of the underclass among those charged with corruption, or even targeted in media sting operations.

Thus, an average upper caste Hindu in India would like to preferably remember Lalu for his corruption, whereas, the underclass will prefer to remember him as a messiah, a protector, and as somebody who helped/enabled them to rise the ladder of power, who changed the social compositions of the structures and processes of power irreversibly. Though, both types of attributes of Lalu are equally true, undeniably. This is certainly not to deny the fact that the Rabri regime did suffer from massive lawlessness, and also, assured with Muslim support (M-Y constitute around 30% of votes in Bihar), Lalu-Rabri era established Yadav hegemony, alienating most other disadvantaged castes. This is how he did away with his electoral invincibility. Otherwise, he may have gone into the annals of history, in much better words.

Karpuri Thakur (1924-88), a Socialist, and coming from less numerous backward caste of barber (naai), was absolutely upright chief minister (1977-79), yet there were disdainful remarks against him by the upper castes in Bihar in the 1970s: Hey Karpuri, kar puri, nahin to dhar chhurhi (Hey Karpuri, fulfil our demands, else, go back to your traditional occupation of holding the barbers razors). This was the palpable casteist slogan, massively popularised, then.

These are possibly ironical coincidences that, the most upright chief ministers of Bihar were: Abdul Ghafoor (1918-2004), a Muslim, and Karpuri Thakur, a lower OBC (Ati Pichhrha). There were movements and slogans against both. Gai hamari mata hai, Ghafoor us ko khata hai. Yet other upright chief ministers (though with brief stints) of Bihar were: Bhola Paswan Shastri and Ram Sundar Das. Both were Dalits. Unlike Ram Vilas Paswan, arguably the tallest Dalit leader from Bihar in recent times, who, in public perception, is not supposed to be an upright politician. Yet, BJP takes him as its ally quite frequently.

True, such thing cannot be said about Lalu. He and his family did make huge wealth during the period of their stay in power. But that is a reality about many others, who have not been chased and nailed in the manner Lalu has been.

Yet, the justice today has been played up as scales which are skewed in favour of the upper caste. A plethora of cases has been foisted upon Lalu and his family. He will play a victim card to the hilt. His caste vote (around 12% in Bihar) will solidify, and so would other OBCs and deprived folks. The current regime has already thrown instances of institutional subversions, more particularly in desperate bids to win Gujarat Assembly elections. Hence, CBI, judiciary (where caste quota is yet to be implemented), etc., are seen by the vulnerable sections, with a lot of renewed suspicions.

The BJP government of Madhya Pradesh under Shivraj Singh Chauhan is not being asked to quit the office despite massive merit scam, Vyapam, in which too many witnesses have died mysteriously. Despite the PDS scam of Chattisgarh of Rs 36,000 crore, the chief minister Raman Singh has not stepped down from the office. Amit Shahs son, Jay Shahs hopping profits within an incredibly short time of BJP coming to power in New Delhi, is not seen as dubious by the votaries of Hindutva. Despite the Srijan Scam (Rs 880 crores), Nitish is not being hounded the way Lalu was hounded.

Nitish will, therefore, appear perfidious, as he took Lalus support in 2015, and then ditched him in 2017, which has dented his moral capital. Lalu was in the vanguard of oppositional unity to be built up for the 2019 general elections.

Nailing of Lalu may ring an alarm bell for Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav that the saffron regime will stop at nothing to finish them unless they joined forces. So, Lalus incarceration may impart unity-moves to a degree of desperation. It could be an advantage to both the Congress and the RJD. On the national political sphere, Rahuls challenger, Nitish, has already gone out to the BJPa good riddance for him; and on the provincial level in Bihar, Tejaswi, is the lone centre of power to contest BJP. One may not rule out, yet again re-union of Kurmi-Yadav alliance in Bihar, as it happened in Gujarat where dominant rival OBCs came together against BJP. It is to be seen: if Tejaswi will rope in leaders from various sub-castes of lower OBCs and Dalits; and upon this will depend his political future in Bihar.

Though, to offset it, the Modi regime too, is contemplating to stitch together a non-Yadav OBC coalition by splitting the OBC quota of 27% into 9% each for three segregated quotas within the OBC. This is a model which the Karpuri government had implemented in Bihar in 1978, by splitting the OBC quota into two layers.

To sum up, notwithstanding the merit of the judgement against Lalu, it is the caste equation (social engineering) which will be played out politically in the elections to come, as much as it has been in past, or even with much greater virulence. This is why the danger of saffron forces playing out communal polarizations, to obfuscate the caste divides and thereby retaining power, will lurk even more from now. That is the biggest worry.

The author is with the Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University. He has published two books: Muslim Politics in Bihar: Changing Contours (Routledge, 2014) & Contesting Colonialism & Separatism: Muslims of Muzaffarpur since 1857 (Primus, 2014)
Help India!

Shillong, (IANS): In a setback to the Congress in Meghalaya ahead of assembly elections, eight MLAs including five from Congress, on Friday resigned from the assembly to contest the polls on the ticket of National Peoples Party (NPP), which is part of NDA.

The Congress legislators, who include former Deputy Chief Minister Rowell Lyngdoh, former cabinet ministers Prestone Tynsong, Coming One Ymbon, Sniawbhalang Dhar and Ngaitlang Dhar submitted their resignation letters to Assembly Commissioner and Secretary, Andrew Simon.

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Apart from the five Congress legislators, the other three are United Democratic Party legislator Remington Pyngrope, and Independents, Hopeful Bamon and Stephanson Mukhim.

The resignations come after Congress legislator P.N. Syiem, who is also the Chief Executive Member of Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council, resigned as member of the assembly and joined the newly-floated Peoples Democratic Front.

Moreover, veteran Congress legislators  state Congress president and four-times Chief Minister D.D. Lapang, incumbent Deputy Chief Prof. Roytre Christopher Laloo, besides Health and Family Welfare Minister Roshan Warjri  have been declared retired from electoral politics.

We (Congress legislators) have put in our papers since the leadership (Chief Minister Mukul Sangma) in the state has failed to meet the aspirations of the people, besides the style of functioning of the Chief Minister, Tynsong said.

Accusing Chief Minister Sangma of practising one-upmanship, Tynsong however said, despite his negativity, there is also a positive side too. Mukul (Sangma) is a good leader. He is courageous, whatever he says we had to do it.

NPP national President Conrad K. Sangma said all the eight legislators would formally join the NPP on January 4 at a public rally in Polo grounds here.

Their decision to join NPP is a shot in the arm for us. It is also an indication that people of the state want a new party to lead the state, Sangma, who is also the lone Lok Sabha member from the state, told IANS.

The (National Peoples Party) NPP, an ally of the BJP-led NDA central government, has two members in the Meghalaya assembly. It was founded by former Lok Sabha Speaker (late) Purno Agitok Sangma.

Veteran Congress leader and Chief Minister Mukul Sangma had earlier said that in constituencies represented by rebel Congress MLAs, there is tremendous pressure to put up candidates.

The good thing is that we are getting promising leaders who are showing keen interest to join the Congress and offer themselves for the people as potential candidates. This is setting a new benchmark, the Chief Minister added.

The Congress has been reduced to 24 from 30 members in the truncated 51-member assembly following the resignations.

However, Mukul Sangma is expected to complete his five-year term as Chief Minister with the support of two Nationalist Congress Party legislators, one member from the North-East Democratic Socialist Party and seven independent legislators supporting the Congress-led government.

The opposition Meghalaya Peoples Front is made up of seven United Democratic Party legislators, two from the National Peoples Party. The Hill State Peoples Democratic Party, which has four members and four independents, is not part of the opposition grouping.

The ninth Meghalaya assembly, comprising 60 members, was constituted on March 1, 2013, and its term expires on March 6 next year.
Three months after Hurricane Maria swept across Puerto Rico, killing over 1000 people and leaving much more injured, many Puerto Ricans celebrated Christmas day in the dark due to the lack of electrical power across the island.

As a result, food is unable to be stored in refrigerators, there are no running water and traffic lights not working throughout the country amongst numerous other issues.

How many people are there without power?

While it is impossible to know exactly how many people celebrated on the 25th without power because the government's monitoring tools aren't providing reliable readings, their estimates suggest that the electrical grid is operating just over 65% of its capacity while an independent study conducted by local engineers in early December estimated roughly 50% of the islands 3.3 million people remained without power.

Priority was given to hospitals, water treatment plants and other public necessities, and all though most of the country is thought to regain power by the end of February next year, some areas with a rough combined population total of 80,000 households, mostly in the central towns of Lares, Utuado and Adjuntas, might have to wait until May according to the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

How is Christmas being celebrated this year?

Christmas specialities like roast pork are only available at premium prices and traditionally festive town and city squares are withholding Christmas decorations while darkness has also inspired debates about decorating with Christmas lights in homes.

Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (Prepa)'s Director of Occupational Safety and Health, Shehaly Rosado Flores, said power consumption generated by Christmas decor doesn't actually affect their efforts to restore the country's power.

What damage has there been?

There has been considerable damage caused to the already outdated and poorly maintained electrical grid along with the lines which collapsed, the poles which snapped, the towers that fell and the substations that flooded.

Almost 50,000 power poles need to be repaired or replaced along with 500 towers.

Why is reparation taking so long?

The towers are so heavy that even helicopters cannot carry them alone so they have to be installed in stages, a single one of which can ultimately take 10 days to complete.

Additionally, some supplies such as the 30,000 power poles that were ordered two weeks after the hurricane are only beginning to arrive now while some 400 miles of cable are only expected to arrive in Puerto Rico in two weeks time.

What else is being done?

Some 3,500 people  from Prepa, the Army Corps and private contractors - are working on restoration and roughly 1,000 more are expected to arrive from other countries in mid-January after signing aid agreements with Puerto Rico.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has allocated $1.8 billion to the Army Corps while Prepa has spent $75 million thus far; $40 million was spent on Cobra, a company hired to do repair work and over $35 million went to Whitefish Energy Holdings, who was hired as part of a controversial $300 million contract.

While FEMA has said it would not be reimbursing Puerto Rico for this particular contract, there are hopes that they will reconsider.

The Unidos Disaster Relief and Recovery Program for Puerto Rico have also provided water filtration systems, medical support, meals, solar lamps, mosquito nets and other supplies to over 500,000 Puerto Ricans along with 3.4m lbs of food and water.

"There is not enough you can say about the need for electricity. You can't operate society without it," Jose Calderon, President of the Hispanic Federation told The Guardian newspaper.

What other services have been disrupted?

Electricity is not the only public service which has been disrupted, though it has been the slowest to recover from the damage. 12% of petrol stations, 11% of banks and 8% of supermarkets remain closed according to government estimates while Puerto Rico's telecommunications service and the Aqueducts and Sewers Authority are operating at 93% and 94% of their capacity respectively.

How many people are fleeing Puerto Rico?

As a result of the hurricane, some 296,000 people have fled to Florida since October, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management and it is also estimated that as much as 14% of the population may leave Puerto Rico by 2019, according to The Centre of Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College.
A Russian man jailed in the Kremlin says he has proof he was ordered to hack the Democratic National Convention to interfere with the US elections. Donald Trump said he believes Vladimir Putin when he says the Kremlin did not interfere in the US election and has consistently denied any collusion with Russian interference. This latest acknowledgement, however, by a Russian citizen who said he was directed to hack the DNC is raising more questions about Russian interference.

An admission of complicity

Konstantin Kozlovsky, gave an interview to the RAIN television channel in which he provided details of an alleged hacking exercise directed by FSB - the Russian Intelligence Agency.

According to Kozlovsky he developed computer viruses that were tested initially on Russian companies and then on multinational operations. In August, the self-declared 'hacker' testified in a Russian courtroom to hacking the DNC computers at the direction of the Russian Intelligence Agency. He also claimed that for seven years he followed the direction of Gen. Dmitry Dokuchayev to access the DNC servers in a effort to interfere with the US elections. There is a warrant issued by a US federal court for the arrest of Dokuchayey for his part in the alleged security breach. He is also on the FBI's wanted list for his role in directing hackers.

Proof of hacking activities

Kozlovsky was sentenced in Russia to prison for his alleged part in a hacking group accused of a $50 million dollar bank scam.

Gen Dokuchayev was arrested in Russia on treason charges in late 2016. While both alleged hackers of the DNC were arrested in Russia under charges not related to the Democratic National Convention incident, Kozlovysky has not been shy in declaring his role in interfering in the US elections. He says he has proof of his hacking activities and all anyone has to do is follow the digital signatures.

He said he planted a poison pill during his infiltration of the DNC by posting his Russian passport number and visa number in a hidden data file because he feared the ones he took his orders from could turn on him.

Russia sanctioned for hacking

Following an investigation by the FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security on Russian hacking of the Democratic National Convention during the 2016 Elections, Barack Obama introduced sanctions against Russia.

The report found that Russian Intelligence Agency was involved in an ongoing cyber campaign targeting the US government and its people. Technical indicators related to the hacking operations and recommendations to halt and prevent the breach were documented in the report.
Russia wants to lead a revolution in space travel, and its space agency Roscosmos is formulating plans to become a pioneer in the space hotel business. Its plan is to set up a luxury hotel in the international space station to accommodate Space Tourists.

Newsweek reports that according to tentative plans, the tourists can stay in the hotel for up to one month at a time and can also go for spacewalks.

Until now, the domain of Space was under the control of scientists who laid emphasis on research. Their focus was to generate data on how to survive in a totally alien environment.

However, mans interest in space has gradually created a platform for others to exploit the potentials of undertaking activities in space that will have little or no connection to research.

The offers are attractive

The journey to this exotic location would appeal to those who can afford to shell out approximately $40 to $60 million per trip and, Roscosmos believes that there will be no dearth of such people. The space tourists would be able to enjoy the stay in comfort and those who have dreamt up this adventure have assured that the tourists can go for the spacewalks along with the astronauts of the International Space Station.

Incidentally, the funding of this luxury hotel would be done through private and state investments.

The tourists would be required to pay in installments.

Others in the fray

Apart from Roscosmos, there are other players in the field. Prominent among them are Sir Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic, Jeff Bezoss Blue Origin, and Russian firm KosmoKurs. Their concepts are different and are not linked to the International Space Station.

Virgin Galactic has already made considerable progress in space tourism. They have not yet set any time schedule for its operations but has received payments from would be tourists that include many celebrities.

According to Agent4stars, Virgin Galactic has sold a total of more than 650 tickets and the website has declared 86 names.

The list includes the likes of Angelina Jolie (1st flight), Brad Pitt (2nd flight), Paris Hilton, Princess Beatrice, Sam Branson, Sir Richard Branson, Stephen Hawking, Tom Hanks etcetera.

Blue Origin feels it can begin operation in another two years. It promises to offer a window seat to each space tourist in its capsule. KosmoKurs has not elaborated on its line of action but expects to receive its first passengers in 2020.

Agencies like NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, and others have been doing the groundwork for decades to learn the intricacies of space travel. They have set the platform for space tourism so that others can travel into space and, who knows, meet aliens in UFOs.
Oregon police were called to a suspected trespasser at the Astoria riverfront on Wednesday night (Dec. 27). While police attempted to arrest the suspect, he sped off in his vehicle and ended up driving off a pier into the chilly waters of the Columbia River. The suspect is now safely in custody, but his Ford pickup truck is still at the bottom of the river, at least for now. A report by The Oregonian relayed many of the details used in this article.

Police chase after suspected trespasser

The Astoria Police Department told the story of 27-year-old Timothy Erofeeff of Scotts Mill, Oregon, and described the suspects flight from the Astoria riverfront, when he drove off the North Tongue Point Pier into the icy cold Columbia River.

He was treated at a local hospital for hypothermia before being taken into custody on suspected criminal trespass, as well as violating parole. Erofeeff also had further charges added, including reckless driving, attempting to elude the police, and escape.

High-speed chase ends with icy dunking

Erofeeff became a suspect after reports were received by the Astoria Police Department of someone trespassing on boats at the riverfront. They found him in his vehicle at 10 AM on Wednesday, according to police. It was at that time officers contacted the suspects parole officer, who immediately told them he had violated parole and that they should arrest him. However, as the officers approached Erofeeff, he sped off.

A bystander caught the Oregon man's attempted escape on videohttps://t.co/IQSQKStpYE  Idaho Statesman (@IdahoStatesman) December 28, 2017

A high-speed chase then ensued between police and Erofeeff, which ended as the suspect drove onto the pier, a short distance from the scene. While the officers stopped their vehicle, the suspect just kept on going, speeding off the end of the pier into the river.

Erofeeff then got out of his vehicle and started swimming away, but eventually returned to the pier. The officers couldnt initially reach him, as the pier was too high above the water.

According to a witness, 50-year-old J.D. Moreland, the officers spoke to Erofeeff, telling him not to panic and managed to call him back in.

Moreland captured all the excitement of the chase on video, which he posted to Twitter. Moreland told The Oregonian that Erofeeff started driving onto the pier as fast as possible, leading to him driving off, crashing straight into the water.

Astoria Police say a Scotts Mills man was arrested after driving his pickup off the North Tongue Point Pier in Astoria this AM. John David Moreland sent us this wild video of it happening. pic.twitter.com/L9Ih4G5eVJ  John Hendricks (@JohnKPTV) December 28, 2017

The officers then threw Erofeeff a life vest and floatation disk to keep him afloat until employees of a nearby shipyard went out in a skiff to rescue him. A fishing boat also aided in pulling the suspect out of the water, as can be seen in a video included below.

Nearby boaters sent us this video as they helped Erofeeff back to shore where police and an ambulance were waiting. He was treated for hypothermia and booked into jail. pic.twitter.com/Nd3QEkzCLj  John Hendricks (@JohnKPTV) December 28, 2017

While Erofeeff is now safely in custody, his Ford F-150 is still at the bottom of the river. Police are coordinating with the Coast Guard to remove the vehicle.
Rachael Ray, the celebrity chef, and talk show host would seem to be the last person to get embroiled in Middle East politics. However, a tweet she made announcing Holiday Feast Highlights - Israeli nite has caused fury among Arab and Palestinian activists.

Holiday Feast Highlights - Israeli nite, meze stuffed grape leaves, hummus, beet dip, eggplant and sun dried tomato dip, walnut and red pepper dip, and tabouli pic.twitter.com/pflF9Iv4DG  rachael ray (@rachaelray) December 21, 2017

A site called the Electronic Intifada claimed that all of the Israeli dishes were stolen from the Palestinians.

James Zogby, the co-founder of the American Arab Institute and brother of the pollster John Zogby, went even further.

The truth about Israeli cuisine and its origins are a little more complicated than Zogby, and anti-Israeli activists imagine.

What is Israeli cuisine?

According to a piece in My Jewish Learning, Israeli cuisine, which has started to become popular worldwide, is derived from a variety of influences, some of them going back to biblical times, long before the modern states of Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, or the rise of Palestinian nationalism.

Hummus, for instance, is mentioned in the Old Testament as something that Boaz offered Ruth when they met in Bethlehem. A lot of Israeli cooking is inspired by traditional dishes from the Levant, but also has influences from Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean (Greece, Italy, and so on) and other regions of the world. Israel is a multicultural society that has borrowed foods from around the world and has created something unique.

What is Zogby complaining about?

Zogby, and at Christmas, not only used a curse word but also the heated word genocide to refer to another countrys cuisine. He is the son of a Lebanese immigrant, a Roman Catholic, and an American citizen. Why he should concern himself about how another country prepares its dinner would seem odd if one did not know the language of social justice warriors and anti-Israel activists.

Cultural appropriation is the newest made up sin from the left that describes the adoption of some aspects from one ethnic culture by someone belonging to another. Food, in particular, has become a political battleground, as two ladies from Portland, Oregon found out when they dared to make tortillas while Caucasian.

Zogby, in his zeal to attack Israel, with which he seems to have some kind of animas, and an inoffensive celebrity chef, was incorrect about the origins of Israeli cuisine. The Israelis no more stole their cooking traditions from their Arab neighbors than people from Texas stole barbecue from people in the Carolinas. Culture is not something that is owned or appropriated. Culture, especially food, is something that is shared, morphs, and evolves as creative people makes variations. Both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs can enjoy similar types of food and, if only people like Zogby can allow it, rejoice in a shared tradition that should unite and not divide.
Just a day after North Korea reported that they now have missiles that can reach the United States mainland, Donald Trump decided to continue his war of words with the leader of the country. During a speech on taxes, the president took a shot at Kim Jong-un.

Trump on Kim

It started earlier this year after North Korea launched several missiles in their region, furthering the global tension between the United Nations and the rival nation. In response, Donald Trump responded by lashing out on social media, giving Kim Jong-un the nickname of "Rocket Man." Just weeks later during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump repeated the use of the nickname which continued the reckless behavior on the part of the former host of "The Apprentice." Responding to those insults, Kim hit back by saying Trump was "mentally deranged," while warning him not to test North Korea.

The feud has only escalated since that time and is showing no signs of slowing down. Early Wednesday morning, Kim ordered the launch of the Hwasong-15 missile, which reportedly reached the highest altitude of any missile launched by North Korea in its history. Fast forward to just hours later in Missouri and Trump couldn't help but get his shot in, as reported by CBS News on November 29.

During speech on GOP tax plan, Pres. Trump refers to North Korea leader Kim Jong Un as "little rocket man" before calling him "a sick puppy." https://t.co/ozf1KZ7jLu pic.twitter.com/p4Eb7dc0hh  CBS News (@CBSNews) November 29, 2017

On Wednesday afternoon, Donald Trump made his way to St. Charles, Missouri to talk about his tax reform plan that is currently sitting in congress.

"Support this plan, we have tremendous support for this plan," Trump said.

"These massive tax cuts will be rocket fuel!" Donald Trump said, putting emphasis on the word "rocket." "Little Rocket Man," he said, "rocket fuel for the economy." Not stopping there, Trump went on to refer to Kim Jong-un as a "sick puppy."

Lot of people say, Now that he's elected, is he going to build the wall? Absolutely It's not easy dealing with the Democrats. They want to have people pour into the country. Illegals. They don't care where the hell they come from, @POTUS says during tax reform speech pic.twitter.com/kwvj14FaTM  CBS News (@CBSNews) November 29, 2017

Trump's other shots

In addition to his remarks about Kim Jong-un, Donald Trump spoke about the need for welfare reform.

"I know people who work three jobs and they live next to somebody who doesn't work at all," he said. "The person who is not working at all and has no intention of working at all, is making more money and doing better than the person who is working his and her a** off," Trump noted, before vowing, "It's not gonna happen."

As soon as we get the taxes [done], we work on the health care. We thought we had the votes [to pass health care legislation], and then something happened that was strange. Thats okay, @POTUS says https://t.co/lSzLdWjU7L pic.twitter.com/5cL7EtntW2  CBS News (@CBSNews) November 29, 2017

The president continued on with his speech, blasting Democrats for obstructing his plans, while accusing them of wanting to import as many illegal immigrants into the country as possible. "They want to have people pour into the country. Illegals," Trump added, before claiming, "They don't care where the hell they come from."
An elderly couple is facing charges this week after they were caught smuggling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Marijuana across the country. Patrick Jiron, 83, and his wife, Barbara, 70, of Clearlake Oaks, Calif. were arrested when they were pulled over on the highway for a routine traffic stop in Nebraska.

From there, the officer noticed a strong odor of marijuana and asked to search the vehicle. Upon finding the contraband, packaged by strand in various plastic bags and even a cheese puffs container, the officer placed both the husband and wife under arrest.

The couple claim that the marijuana was a gift for various family members. Despite the claim, the couple remain charged as if they were any other drug runners.

Who is their son?

An extra wrinkle to this story comes from their lineage. The son of Patrick and Barbara happens to be Justin Jiron. Justin is the county prosecutor in Chittenden County and certainly not someone who you would picture having involvement in something like this. Justin has proclaimed his ignorance and innocence, saying he had absolutely no knowledge of his parents' activities. If the couple really were bringing the marijuana to the east coast as gifts, he may be telling the truth. Regardless, it is a bad look for a city official to have ties like this.

It makes just as much sense that he would try to distance himself as much as possible, whether he really knew or not.

Isn't marijuana legal in Vermont?

While marijuana is legal in certain states to varying degrees, what the Jiron's were doing is indeed illegal. Driving across the country requires crossing through many different states, each with their own laws.

In the midwest, marijuana still remains highly illegal, so being caught with any amount would be subject to arrest.

This is where the burgeoning marijuana industry lives, in the gray area. What is legal in one state may not be in another. Adding to the confusion, what also may be legal in a given state may be illegal in the same state via federal laws.

This contradiction has led to many raids and arrests of people who assumed that they were operating within the law.

There seems to be more to this story than has been initially revealed. If these packages were meant as gifts, could they have gone about transporting them in a legal manner? If the elderly couple were actually pot dealers, why would they so casually store the marijuana for a cross country trip and then willingly allow an officer to search and find it?

There are more questions than answers at this point. That is unless their story is true and they are just the most generous elderly couple in the world.
Las Vegas is a renowned destination to bring in the New Year, but following the deadly October 1 shooting massacre  which saw 58 people dead and more than 500 injured  authorities are taking additional measures to ensure the safety of revelers, wishing to party on New Years Eve.

As per the Department of Homeland Security, this year the New Years Eve celebration has received the designation SEAR 1, which means it is a Special Event Assessment Rating 1. This type of designation is normally reserved for the largest events in the U.S., including the Super Bowl.

Last year, prior to the deadly shooting, the New Year celebration was designated SEAR 2.

Vegas will never be safer than this New Years Eve

The Las Vegas Review-Journal quotes Steve Sisolak, the chairman of the Clark County Commission, as acknowledging the fact people could be anxious about heading to Las Vegas after the shooting massacre. Sisolak went on to say that no city does a New Years Eve show like Vegas and that it will never be safer than it will be this year.

Safety and security in Las Vegas for New Years Eve

Additional federal funding has been allocated to protect revelers in Las Vegas, and additional intelligence personnel is to be provided by the federal government to keep people safe.

It was announced last week by the FBI that it is bringing around 100 people into the Las Vegas area from outside, working in specialty positions. The citys existing helicopter units will be enhanced by federal air units, in order to provide surveillance over the celebrations. There will also be additional medical personnel and supplies available throughout the various New Years Eve events.

Las Vegas is adding snipers and extra security for New Year's Eve https://t.co/DN0xpMKDVk pic.twitter.com/Rfm8h87HNx  CNN (@CNN) December 28, 2017

Among the protective measures being taken for the events, there will be 1,500 police officers working over the period, with more than 300 Nevada National Guard troops deployed for the New Years Eve celebration.

The Metropolitan Police Department will be deploying armed snipers in overhead positions over the Strip and downtown for the event. The Strip will also see some 4,200 metal barricades set up to protect revelers and large vehicles will be used to block vehicle access from around 6:15 p.m. on Sunday.

Recommendations for revelers on New Years Eve

The Las Vegas Sun has published a list of recommendations for the evenings celebrations. They recommend that revelers do not bring children to the event, as while the celebrations are already often unsavory for children, it could also be unsafe for them. There will also be a restriction on minors under the age of 18, with a curfew of 9 p.m. if they are not accompanied by adults.

People are also not allowed to bring any glass bottles or items in the area. They will only be allowed to carry the plastic bottles and containers sold by local vendors. Metro Police have also placed restrictions on the size of bags carried by visitors to the city and officers will be monitoring any oversized bags carried in the area which may potentially pose a safety threat.

On New Year's Eve, Las Vegas will see an unprecedented number of police officers and National Guard members on duty as crowds gather to ring in 2018 https://t.co/hRmPbyf4bM pic.twitter.com/qdj1WubYrY  CBS News (@CBSNews) December 28, 2017

Revelers must be aware of security measures

Those people partying in Las Vegas should be aware of the increased security, including the snipers and additional helicopters.

People must behave responsibly during the celebrations, as officers will be looking for anyone whose actions might threaten the safety and security of others. Police also recommend people stay together with their groups, as, due to the overwhelming demand for cell usage, keeping in touch with friends could become difficult.

After all the gunshots that rang out at the October shooting massacre, people should be aware of the fireworks that will happen at midnight. It is estimated that around 150 fireworks will explode over the Strip each second to bring in the New Year.

Las Vegas hotel rooms for New Year's for less than $200 a night are still available https://t.co/uL8isYV0c7 pic.twitter.com/92wehfyIid  Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 29, 2017

Police also recommend that revelers should not drive on their own, but should rather take advantage of ride-sharing services, public transportation, and taxis.

This is due to a number of road closures that will be enforced during the various events. There will also be free rides available via the Regional Transportation Commission from 6 p.m. on Sunday night to 9 a.m. on New Year's Day.

In closure, all those considering Las Vegas for their New Years Eve celebrations must enjoy themselves but ensure they follow all the procedures being put in place for their own safety and security during the events.
Donald Trump has been active on social media in recent days, and decided to focus on international and domestic issues to kick off his morning. From his private resort in south Florida, the president lashed out at china, while taking credit for the improved economy.

Trump on China

According to multiple reports, United States spy satellites allegedly captured photos of China illegally selling oil to North Korea, doing so as many as 30 times over the last three months. China denies the allegations, and claims no violations of any U.N. sanctions took place.

Despite China's denial, Donald Trump turned his attention to the news and was quick to lash out during a tweet on December 28.

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

In a tweet on Thursday morning, Donald Trump made it clear that he wasn't happy about the news of China selling oil to North Korea. "Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea," Trump wrote, before warning that there will not be a positive solution to the international issue dealing with North Korea if China is violating sanctions.

"There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!" he added.

China says no sanction-breaking oil sales to North Korea https://t.co/izs5dijr6y pic.twitter.com/kq93huEudF  Reuters Top News (@Reuters) December 28, 2017

Trump on economy

In the last 11 months, the economy has watched unemployment drop and the stock market reach record highs.

This trajectory has been a continuation of what took place during the presidency of Barack Obama. After the Great Recession of 2008, Obama was elected in 2009 and was forced to clean up the financial mess left by the previous administration. Despite constant push back from Republicans in Congress, Obama was able to sign enough legislation that when he left the White House earlier this year, the stock market had double and unemployment had been cut in half from reaching a high of over 10 percent in October 2009.

While most economists view the current economy has a continuation of the last administration, Donald Trump and his team, with help from the right-wing media, have decided to put the praise at the doorstep of the president. In his most recent tweet on the issue, Trump doubled down.

Retail sales are at record numbers. Weve got the economy going better than anyone ever dreamt - and you havent seen anything yet!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2017

"Retail sales are at record numbers. Weve got the economy going better than anyone ever dreamt," Trump tweeted out. "You havent seen anything yet!" he added. Trump's tweet is in line with what is often reported on conservative-leaning networks like Fox News, and what gets promoted by the likes of White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Presidential Counsel Kellyanne Conway.
As the North East faces snow storms and freezing temperatures, Donald Trump decided to poke fun at Global warming and climate change, while showing apparent ignorance on the issue. In response, the president's critics wasted no time giving Trump a reality check.

Trump on global warming

It's no secret that the majority of the Republican Party are not supporters of the consensus coming out of the scientific community when it comes to many high-profiled issues. On the topic of global warming, Republicans have made it clear that they have no interest in investing time to prevent the increase in climate change, with many even denying that humans have a major impact on its acceleration.

For Donald Trump, the president has gone on the record in the past to claim, without evidence, that global warming is just a "hoax" created by China. Fast forward to present day and public funds have been slashed for the science community, including massive cuts to the EPA. With the North East facing a cold front as the year comes to a close, Trump took to Twitter on December 28 to mock those who push the science of climate change.

In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Years Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

In a tweet sent out on Thursday night, Donald Trump exposed his own lack of knowledge when it comes to science in regards to climate-related issues.

"In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Years Eve on record," Trump tweeted out.

"Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against," Donald Trump posted, before adding, "Bundle up!" Within seconds, those who oppose the president made sure to hit back.

Science reaction

In response to Donald Trump's tweet in mockery of global warming, the opposition was on fire. "Groan - you really understand climate change, don't you...?" one Twitter user wondered.

You see Donald, Global warming causes EXTREME WEATHER. Record Cold weather is EXEME. Therefore it is possible, if not likely that this weeks record cold is related to Global Warming.  Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) December 29, 2017

Groan - you really understand limate change, don't you...?  Hans-Henrik T Ohlsen (@htohlsen) December 29, 2017

But back to your point. So what? What's the worst that could happen trying provide clean air and a healthier environment?  Fuck Trump. (@DirtyOld_Case) December 29, 2017

"THAT'S NOT WHAT THAT MEANS!!!" another tweet read.

"You see Donald, GW causes EXTREME WEATHER. Record Cold weather is EXTREME. Therefore it is possible, if not likely that this weeks record cold is related to Global Warming," a follow-up tweet noted.

I care about the futures of my children and grandchildren. I care if they live on a planet that is healthy. You only care about yourself.  Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) December 29, 2017

So you think that climat change isnt real because its COLD outside? Do you even know what climate is?!  Luca Bacilieri (@luca_b_99) December 29, 2017

This post illustrates exactly how much you don't understand what global warming is and its effects. #DotardTrump #ImpeachTrump  Craig Brockman (@csbrockman) December 29, 2017

"So you think that climate change isn't real because its COLD outside?

Do you even know what climate is?!" an additional tweet stated. "Are you really this ignorant that you think that since we have a cold winter it means that global warming is bogus?" another social media user wrote. The negative reaction continued as Donald Trump's attempt at trolling appeared to backfire.
stassi schroeder recently got the support of her former boyfriend, Patrick Meagher, who spoke out on behalf of her character after she was slammed for allegedly claiming that many of the women speaking out as part of the #MeToo campaign are only out for attention. However, the "Vanderpump Rules" star hasn't gotten much support from her friends and Bravo co-stars, including Lala Kent, who recently spoke out against her on Twitter.

"As a woman who is extremely passionate and vocal about women, their rights, and their voice, how in the world do you expect me to have someones back, after what was said?" Lala Kent wrote in a tweet to her fans and followers earlier this week.

After Stassi Schroeder shared a statement of apology for her podcast comments, many of her fans and followers called for her co-stars to speak out and support her. In response, Kent said she would not be doing any such thing but said she could forgive Schroeder for what was said.

"I for damn sure will not have your back," Lala Kent added. Fans also called for comments from Brittany Cartwright, who has grown close to Schroeder in recent months, but she has refused to say a thing.

Stassi Schroeder and Lala Kent formed a friendship during 'Vanderpump Rules' season six

While the two women haven't been close for the past two seasons of "Vanderpump Rules," they formed a friendship with one another during production on the new season and during a trip to Mexico with their co-stars, they posed for a number of Instagram photos.

Also during the trip, Kent made amends with Schroeder's longtime friend Katie Maloney, As fans of the show will recall, the two women previously bickered over Kent's comments about hooking up with Maloney's now-husband and Maloney's comments about Kent allegedly dating a married man.

Stassi Schroeder hasn't addressed Lala Kent's comments

Following Lala Kent's Twitter post, Stassi Schroeder has remained silent about her "Vanderpump Rules" co-star as she continues to re-tweet messages from fans who feel that the scandal against her has been blown out of proportion. Schroeder has also issued a number of additional apologies for any miscommunication.

To see more of Lala Kent and her co-stars, including Lisa Vanderpump, Jax Taylor, Stassi Schroeder, Scheana Marie, James Kennedy, Katie Maloney, and Tom Sandoval, tune in to the "Vanderpump Rules" season six premiere on December 4th at 9 p.m. on Bravo TV.
After the blockbuster holiday season, January generally proves to be a letdown for film lovers. In 2018, that will likely be the case once again. Some of the biggest stars in the industry will take to the screen in largely unheralded Movies. That doesn't mean the month will be a total dud. Viewers will just have to work a little bit harder to appreciate the projects being made for audiences nationwide. Here are the four movies to keep an eye on next month.

4. 'Paddington 2' [January 12]

Yes, it's that kind of month - deal with it. At least British children are going to have a good time at the movies (Note: The film was actually released in the United Kingdom in November).

The 2014 film was critically acclaimed, while the 2017 sequel sees Paddington trying to catch a thief. Ben Whishaw is again voicing the titular bear. There aren't many other children's movies coming out during the month, so this may be the lone family trip to the theater.

3. 'The Commuter' [January 12]

Liam Neeson on a moving transportation vehicle - sound familiar? This time, he trades in his plane for a commuter train. Other than that, the plot and trailer read almost exactly like "Non-Stop." He's just an insurance salesman who doesn't want a lot of people to die on their morning commute, let the man read his newspaper! It's been three years since there was a "Taken" film, so it feels like a good time for the classic Neeson movies to return.

2. 'Maze Runner: The Death Cure' [January 26]

First off, are the "Maze Runner" movies beginning to seem like "Prison Break" seasons? In this installment, the crew has to break into a labyrinth to get the long-awaited answers the entire franchise has promised. Star Dylan O'Brien suffered serious injuries during filming, causing a year-long postponement of the film's release date.

While O'Brien's health comes first and foremost, film lovers will be left wondering if the wait was worth it.

1. 'Proud Mary' [January 12]

What CAN'T Taraji P. Henson do these days? This time around, she's trying her hand at an action-thriller, more "Empire" than "Hidden Figures." None of the other main cast members (other than Danny Glover) ring a bell, so this is going to be a true star moment for Henson.

She actually wasn't in any movies in 2017, so film fans may have temporarily forgotten her face. It shouldn't take very long to jog some of those memories, dating all the way back to "Hustle and Flow."
On Thursday night, Donald Trump came under fire after mocking Global warming in a late-night tweet. As expected, backlash quickly followed, including from a cast member of the hit MTV show "Jersey Shore."

Vinny on Trump

Back in 2009, reality TV was all the rage. Whether it was on broadcast television or on cable, Americans were watching reality shows in record numbers. On NBC, the top rated program was "The Apprentice" hosted by current President Donald Trump. It was due to "The Apprentice" that Trump was able to stay relevant and in the headlines which helped him ride his popularity to a presidential campaign.

Over on MTV, the show "Jersey Shore" was the hottest program among millennials, as they watched a cast of early 20-somethings engage in drinking, dancing, and party on the shore in New Jersey. Along with Mike "The Situation," "J-Wow," "Snooki," "Pauli-D," Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, and Sammie "Sweetheart," the show also included Vinny Guadagnino, the youngest of the crew. While the show was stereotyped for its loud personalities, Guadagnino graduated from SUNY New Paltz with a 3.9 GPA and worked as a political aide for a New York State Assemblyman. Due to this, it shouldn't have come as a big surprise when Guadagnino decided to educate Trump on his recent remarks on global warming during a December 29 tweet.

I think climate change is more complex than global warming will make it hotter. It has to do with disruptions of atmospheric conditions,ocean patterns, jet streams and shit like that  Vinny Guadagnino (@VINNYGUADAGNINO) December 29, 2017

On Thursday night, Donald Trump took to Twitter to poke fun at climate change, tweeting that the North East "could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country" due to the cold front that had moved in.

In response, Vinny from the "Jersey Shore" hit back.

Per my last tweet about global warming and ppl saying its bad when someone from jersey shore educates the president etc.I get the joke but why does having a summer shore house automatically make u stupid?No smart ppl ever partied with friends on weekends?  Vinny Guadagnino (@VINNYGUADAGNINO) December 29, 2017

"I think climate change is more complex than global warming will make it hotter," Vinny Guadagnino tweeted back.

"It has to do with disruptions of atmospheric conditions, ocean patterns, jet streams and sh*t like that," he added.

Double down

After sending out his tweet, Vinny Guadagnino addressed those who mocked his apparent knowledge on the subject simply because he was on a reality show. "Per my last tweet about global warming and ppl saying its bad when someone from 'Jersey shore' educates the president etc," he asked. "I get the joke but why does having a summer shore house automatically make u stupid?" Guadagnino asked, while wondering, "No smart ppl ever partied with friends on weekends?" The "Jersey Shore" ended its run in 2012, but will return in the form of "Jersey Shore: Family Reunion" in 2018 with nearly all of the original cast returning.
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HA NOI  FPT Corporation yesterday held a groundbreaking ceremony for FPT Tower in Cau Giay District, Ha Noi. It will be the latest to its chain of 16 office towers throughout the country.

The construction covers an area of 100,000 square metres and will eventually provide working space for 9,000 people.

"FPTs staff has grown nearly 16 per cent a year in the last 10 years. The growth rate is expected to be 18 per cent in the 2018  2020 period, and reach a scale of more than 50,000 by 2020, said Bui Quang Ngoc, FPTs general director.

He said FPT had pioneered construction of university and software-park complexes in Viet Nam. We expect FPT Tower will contribute to the development of Viet Nams technology ecosystem, especially in the time of the fourth industrial revolution".

FPT has nearly 32,000 employees working in 21 countries, a year-on-year rise of 13 per cent. This accounts for 10 per cent of the total work force of the countrys IT sector.

FPT now owns 16 offices throughout the country. Of these, 11 are already in use, three are under construction and three projects are about to be started.

FPT achieved VN39.32 trillion (US$1.7 billion) in revenue in the first 11 months of this year, up 10 per cent over the same period last year.

Profit before tax reached VN2.99 trillion, up 14 per cent over the same period last year.

Profits from foreign markets accounted for one third of the groups profits, up 20 per cent year-on-year.  VNS
HCM CITY  Viejet is giving away two million super promo tickets priced from only zero ong from now to February 28, 2018, during the airlines golden hours the airline announced on Thursday.

As per the airlines large-scale promotion for the forthcoming Lunar New Year holiday, it is also offering passengers chances to participate in lucky draws every day and win domestic return tickets, lucky money prizes up to VN10 million (US$440) as well as a special cash prize worth VN100 million ($4,400).

Passengers can also experience the online game Vietjet Sky Fun to win more gifts including a pair of domestic or international return tickets, the airline said.

The promotional tickets, which are available during the golden hour from noon to 2pm, at www.vietjetair.com, will be applicable for all domestic and international routes from Viet Nam to Seoul, Busan (South Korea), and Hong Kong, in addition to Kaoshiung, Taipei, Taichung, and Tainan (Taiwan). They are also applicable for Singapore, Bangkok, Phuket, and Chiang Mai (Thailand) besides Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Yangon (Myanmar) and Phnom Penh (Cambodia).

The flight period for the promotion is from January 3, 2018, to May 31, 2018.

With an aim to become a Consumer Airline, Vietjet is continually opening new routes, adding more aircraft, investing in modern technology and offering more add-on products and services to serve all demands of international and domestic travellers.  VNS
HCM CITY  Emirates has announced its promotional ticket programme, Where Next in 2018, with a wide range of special offers to destinations across its global network.

With Economy Class fares starting from VN12,380,000 (US$550) and Business Class fares starting from VN43,930,000 ($1,952), the airline offers passengers exciting and affordable options to explore a world that is beyond imagination. All fares are for round-trip tickets, inclusive of tax and fuel surcharges.

Emirates special fares are valid from December 29, 2017, to January 23, 2018, for travel until November 30, 2018.

From Viet Nam, Emirates serves daily direct passenger flights, which are operated with two-class Boeing 777-300ER aircraft from both Ha Noi and HCM City to Dubai and onwards to over 150 destinations in Europe, America, Middle East and Africa.  VNS
HA NOI  Vietnamese firms were urged to increase their focus on intangible assets to strengthen brand value at a conference jointly held by Brand Finance and its local representative Mibrand Vietnam in Ha Noi yesterday.

Brand Finance, the worlds leading independent brand valuation and business strategy consultancy, found that intangible assets played a significant role in enterprise value generation, pointing out that currently 52 per cent of global market value is vested in intangible assets.

The fact that most of the intangible value was not disclosed on company balance sheets further shows that investors still poorly understood the importance of intangible assets. Such ignorance leads to systematic mis-pricing of stock by investors, the company said.

Samir Dixit, managing director of Brand Finance Asia Pacific, said at the conference that Vietnamese companies always focused on promoting sales through marketing activities with little or no focus on branding.

The brand is a key business asset and the only appreciating asset that a company owns, yet it is the least invested into. The value of the brand as an intangible asset therefore must be managed, he said.

Lai Tien Manh, director of Mibrand Vietnam, said that Vietnamese firms were now paying more attention to increasing revenues, market shares or profits rather than branding. Strengthening brand values is the way towards sustainable development and will provide opportunities to expand a firms international reach, Manh said.

Manh added that Brand Finance and Mibrand were developing a long-term programme aiming to effectively improve brand value for corporations in Viet Nam. The programme starts with awareness on the importance of intangible assets, measurement capabilities according to international standards, strategic communications planning for effective positioning, increasing competitiveness and incorporating the brand value on the balance sheet, he said.

At the conference, Brand Finance handed certificates for the top value brands for domestic enterprises in 2017. This was the only rating that had a brand valuation approach that met the requirements of ISO 10668 on valuation standards and of international value.

There were many big brands appearing in the Brand Finance Top 50 Vietnamese Brands 2017, which showed that Vietnamese enterprises were gradually catching up with the global trend of investing in intangible value in enterprises.

According to Brand Finance, the total value of Top 50 brand names in Viet Nam was recorded at US$11.279 billion, 68 per cent of which was made up by the Top 10.

Topping the list was Viettel with a brand value of nearly US$2.6 billion, followed by Vinamilk with a value of $1.36 billion, VNPT with $726 million, Vinhomes with $604 million and Sabeco with $598 million.

The brand value of the telecom industry accounted for 35 per cent of the total value of the top 50 brands, followed by the food industry (15 per cent) and the banking sector (11 per cent).

Huynh Van Tan from Phu Nhuan Jewelry Joint Stock Company, which ranked 23 in the list, said that customers should be the centre of any enterprises branding.

Brand Finance has been valuating more than 70,000 brands annually all over the world. This is the second year Viet Nam has been evaluated by Brand Finance.  VNS
HCM CITY  Creating efficient supply chains for safe farm produce is essential to guarantee sales as well as ensure quantity and quality, delegates told a seminar in HCM City yesterday.

There have been many programmes to connect agricultural co-operatives and businesses, with encouraging results, but there are hurdles to developing linkages between them, they said.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Thanh Nam said the biggest obstacle is the surge in supply during the harvest season and businesses inability to consume large quantities.

That is a common problem everywhere in the country, he said.

He called on co-operatives and farmers to tweak their cultivation to ensure steady supply for the whole year.

According to Pham Trung Kien, deputy general director of Saigon Co.op, to ensure quality and adequate supply of farm produce at its outlets and reduce intermediaries, Saigon Co.op has linked up with more than 20 co-operatives for around 16,000 tonnes of safe farm produce (mainly fruits and vegetables) a year.

It has also tied up with Tan Tien Co-operative in Vinh Long Province to procure 130 tonnes of safe rice since September last year.

But Saigon Co.op has faced problems because farmers sometimes did not strictly comply with its requirements.

In Vinh Long, the scale of the project has not been consistent and has fluctuated between 45ha and 75ha due to the failure by co-operative members to participate consistently, he said.

He said co-operatives should develop long-term production plans, produce based on market demand, and apply advanced technologies in their production process.

inh Thi Phuong Khanh, deputy director of the Long An Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the province has over 11,500ha growing safe vegetables, producing over 186,000 tonnes a year.

It has 21 co-operatives and enterprises growing VietGap-certified vegetables on a total of 90ha, she said.

To be able to join retailers supply chains, farmers and agricultural co-operatives must obtain at least VietGap certification, but the cost of getting and renewing the certificate is very high, causing difficulties for the former.

The Government should consider subsidising farmers, she said.

She also said the Government should enhance inspection and supervision of the farming process and make zoning plans for safe farm produce so that it can solicit investors.

Nguyen Anh Dung, head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Developments Agency for Agro-product Processing and Market Development, Region 1, said there are 700 supply chains for safe farm produce in 50 provinces and cities mainly for vegetables, fruits, tea, pork, egg, rice, and seafood.

However, demand for safe farm produce was much higher, he said.

The supply of safe farm produce was not diverse enough and there were not enough retail outlets, he said.

Tran Minh Hai of the College of Management for Agriculture and Rural Development II said developing linkages between producers (farmers and co-operatives) and businesses would be a win-win act.

Farmers/co-operative members would get market information and inputs, be taught farming techniques and helped with building brands and selling their products at reasonable prices, he said.

Businesses would have a steady supply with consistent quality, he said.

According to the Agency of Cooperatives and Rural Development, at the end of 2016 there had been 10,756 agricultural co-operatives in the country.  VNS
HA NOI  The Power Generation Corporation 3 (Genco 3) will put more than 267 million shares, accounting for 12.8 per cent of its charter capital, up for sale in its initial public offering (IPO) in February 2018.

The shares will be listed on the HCM Stock Exchange (HOSE) with the initial auction price of VN24,600 (US$1.08) per share. Genco 3, which is fully owned by Electricity of Viet Nam (EVN), expects to receive VN6.6 trillion ($290.7 million) from the IPO.

EVN yesterday said Deputy Prime Minister Vuong inh Hue signed Decision 2100/Q-TTg approving the privatisation plan of Genco 3 one day ealier.

The approved privatisation plan is to maintain its current State-owned capital and issue shares to increase its chartered capital.

Genco 3s charter capital is VN20.8 trillion, 51 per cent of which will be owned by EVN. The corporation has a value of around VN52 trillion ($2.3 billion).

According to the plan, 36 per cent of GENCO 3s charter capital or 749.1 million shares would be sold to strategic investors. In addition to financial capacity, the strategic investors are required to have ability of management and power plant operation or being a joint venture with another investor whose have the above skills, EVN said.

The investors need to have commitment in writing for long-term co-operation and support to Genco 3 after its privatisation in improving management and financial capacity as well as transferring new technologies, human resource training and fuel supply.

Some 0.16 per cent of its shares would be sold to labourers.

EVN would divest its capital at Genco 3 to less than controlling level after 2019 if EVN and the corporation were successful in restructuring its debts and negotiating with lenders.

Genco 3 is one of the three power generation corporations under EVNs management. It has capacity of 6,304 MW, accounting for 16 per cent of the countrys total electricity system.

By the end of 2015, Genco 3s total revenue was VN28.5 trillion and profit was VN246 billion.

It has been operating Phu My 1, Phu My 2.1 and 2.1MR, Phu My 4 power plants; Vinh Tan 2 and Mong Duong 1 thermo-power plants; Tua Srah, Kuop, Srepok 3 hydro-power plants.

It also holds shares at Ba Ria, Ninh Binh, Thu uc, Thac Ba and Vinh Son Song Hinh power plants.

Genco 3 has been the strongest unit in EVNs power generation corporations.

inh Quang Tri, EVNs deputy general director said many potential investors from Japan, South Korea, the Middle East and Thailand were meeting with the group.

Genco 3s privatisation together with Binh Son Refinery, PV Oil and PV Power would provide a big supply in the auctions of State-owned firms in the coming months.  VNS
HA NOI  The Viet Nam Private Sector Forum (VPSF) will try to create a space for businesses to voice out their proposals.

"Our purpose is to support the development of the private sector," said Tran Anh Vuong, vice chairman of the Young Entrepreneurs Association (VEA).

The association and the Mekong Business Initiative held a press conference in Ha Noi on Thursday to announce the outcomes of VPSF 2017 and launch the White Book.

Speaking at the event, Vuong said the government had adopted measures and achieved successes in the privatisation of State-owned enterprises as proposed by the VPSF.

Following the forum, the Ministry of Planning and Investment issued a new decree in replacement of Decree 210/2013/N-CP on encouraging investment in agriculture and rural development in a more convenient way.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development established a specialised trade promotion agency while the National Assembly amended the Law on Overseas Representative Missions.

In tourism, the Ministry of Public Security extended e-visa to 46 countries and territories, instead of the earlier 40. Positive results were also seen in online tax collection, e-payment, e-customs and digitalisation in governance and training.

The forum also offered solutions to logistics, human resources training, clean energy, trade facilitation and globalisation.

Each year, VPSF has a new topic. VEA is also considering the organisation of a mid-term forum from next year, he added.

Nguyen Phi Long, chairman of the Viet Nam Youth Federation, hailed VPSFs contributions, considering it an effective dialogue mechanism between private companies and the government.

The private sector contributes some 39 per cent to the countrys GDP. However, the government expects its contribution to be higher, Long said.

He added that VPSF had important proposals to remove barriers in business, facilitating firms in accessing the market.

VPSFs General Secretary ao Huy Giam, said the White Book was the official document of the VPSF that would convey messages to the Vietnamese businesses, government agencies and international partners, which are interested in the development of the Vietnamese firms.  VNS
by Tran Trong Kien

In a a Nang plot that has thickened steadily over the last several years, police are seeking a 42-year-old real estate tycoon, Phan Van Anh Vu, for criminal charges of revealing State secrets.

For the moment, we are not privy to what the nature of the State secrets was, but how did a private sector businessperson happen to access them in the first place?

Then, that the tycoon, who made a name for himself with possession of several former State-owned lands in desirable locations scattered across the third largest city in Viet Nam, gets an inside tip to flee the clutches of the law screams his guilt, and raises troubling questions with some obvious, even more troubling answers.

This man, who has since been referred to as a a Nang mafia by the public and sections of the media, was not just a formidable figure in the real estate market, but also someone who was alleged to be able to wield certain influence on the decision-making of the citys top authorities.

The gifts, like the luxury car and houses that his companys given to a Nangs former disgraced Party Secretary Nguyen Xuan Anh, are never really free.

The nexus between politicians and businesspeople is one that has not received due attention, with the anti-corruption focus mainly trained on public sectors officials.

Vus case, a tear in the veil that allows a glimpse into the ugly underbelly of the rapidly developing economy, is a high-profile wake-up call to a problem in the country that has never been identified and named for that it is: crony capitalism.

This begs more questions: how many Vus lurk in the system, and how will they and conniving officials be brought to justice?

To think that this Socialist republic, established by dint of the sacrifice of rivers of blood and mountains of bones, can fall victim to an ugly mutation of its capitalist antithesis, which has also been called crapitalism, is not just sad, it is deeply worrying. It would be no exaggeration to say that the nations success depends on its ability to deal effectively with this problem.

Crapitalisms advent

Crapitalism is not a new phenomenon, in Viet Nam or elsewhere; and in certain cases, it has been institutionalised: K-Street and the revolving door between politicians and plum corporate placements come to mind immediately.

While it is natural for businesses and government to form relationships and hold dialogues with each other, understand each others legitimate needs and demands, and so on, we cannot accept that crapitalism is a natural extension of this process.

In Viet Nams case, it was in the twilight of the nations shift to a market-oriented economy that this corruption took root and fester.

The way the spoils of this immoral enterprise are shared is a clue to how the system is corrupted. Businesses get huge profits through under-the-table deals with or favouritism from the government, officials involved get pecuniary and other benefits, such as securing managerial positions in a business.

Then, when the businesses grow to become important players in the local economy, they want to go to extreme lengths to intervene in certain State management affairs, as the new Party Secretary of a Nang, Truong Quang Nghia, who replaced the ousted Xuan Anh, put it.

This reminds me of the too big to fail corporations that caused the crippling 2007-2008 global financial crisis. That they were bailed out and rewarded, with US taxpayers money, instead of being punished for their reckless ventures, only shows how entrenched crapitalism is.

Its counter-productive to think that these types of alliance only happens with evil big corps. No, its the phenomenon that can be seen almost everywhere on a daily basis.

In Viet Nam, we have actually been seeing the insidious impacts of crapitalism for some time: projects that blatantly lacked required criteria like proper environment impact assessments and adequate financial strength have been running despite ongoing violations like wrongful use of land. How could this have happened so regularly, so blatantly, if certain authorities had not been bought?

The recent controversies regarding Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) traffic projects have to do with a stark lack of transparency. With a cash-strapped State budget and the need for infrastructure development, its understandable that the private sector is brought in under concessions agreements.

However, the deliberate lack of public information and transparency in the bidding process used to select the most suitable and capable project investors has made this practice a hotbed of corruption.

Government inspectors and auditors have found that in many cases, incapable investors  in terms of both finance and technological qualifications, still won the bids.

Its obvious that there are powers that backed these [investors] up, said Hoang Ngoc Giao, Director of the Institute for Policy Studies, Law and Development. Former deputy head of the National Assembly Office, Nguyen Sy Dung, has called some BOT projects, a product of illicit power and money trade, muggers whove preyed on the public.

Then theres the ongoing equitisation process  divesting State capital and privatising State-owned enterprises (SOEs). We should pay heed to the experience of the former Soviet Union, when many SOEs and their assets were pocketed for scrap value by overnight magnates with close ties to compromised high-ranking officials.

Twenty years into the equitisation process, it was only this year that the Government decided to make public the list of SOEs to be divested from and the equitisation ratio for each year. The change is welcome, but wasnt it the obvious thing to do a long time ago? The intentional withholding of information regarding the real value of the SOEs  especially land areas under their management  would allow shady investors to buy them at low prices.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has several times warned of the need for careful valuation to avoid losses of State assets.

Crony capitalism destroys a healthy business environment -- it perpetuates the practice of bribes and grafts, forces honest businesses to choose between going bankrupt or going with the (low) flow. It is the most unfair form of competition, and most importantly, it distorts policies and the rule of law while lining the pockets of certain groups of people at the expense of national interests.

When a miniscule percentage of the position gets filthy rich, we can safely assume the rest have to pay the price, or at the very least, not get whats due.

The bright side

Spearheading a vigorous anti-corruption campaign, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has on multiple occasions warned that corruption seriously threatens the very legitimacy and even the existence of the Party and the State.

Vested interests groups, as he called them, typically have goals that are inimical to public interest.

Rather belatedly, the nations governing apparatus has officially recognised that anti-corruption campaign should also extend to the private sector, which, since the opening up of the economy, has been treated as a holy cow for the most part. A draft law with a two-pronged approach that deals with corruption in both private and public sector is being completed.

Its surely a laudable efforts, we cannot be blind to the difficulties and complications that this recognition entails.

For instance, how can the government strike a balance between its promises to cut red tape and foster a better, more transparent business environment, without causing a lot of hassles for businesses?

The solutions to thwart crony capitalism and corruption are out there in the open  greater accountability and transparency, more qualified, independent watchdogs that are part of checks and balances needed in a system, robust rule-of-law, and unrelenting, decisive punishment. But tying all this into a powerful anti-corruption weapon would require a strong and unwavering political will.  VNS
HCM CITY  The Viet Nam  China Friendship Association in HCM City yesterday reviewed its achievements over the last five years and made plans to hold more cultural exchange events, seek more financial resources, and explore more business opportunities between local firms and Chinese partners.

As a means of cultural exchange, both countries have held regular meetings over the years to celebrate each countrys national holidays as well as musical performances, association members said at a meeting held in HCM City.

The association has also taken part in completing a book and a documentary depicting co-operation between Viet Nam and China. In addition, it has sent donations and held charity events for residents in China who are poor or have suffered from the effects of natural disasters.

However, the association representatives noted that some members had not contributed as frequently as others due to their personal schedules.

The group said that it also needed to attract more youth who study Chinese at university or study abroad in China and to find more financial sources to organise bigger events.

Over the next five-year period, it will also encourage more young people to take part in its cultural events and will seek more financial sources to improve its activities and raise more awareness of Viet Nam- China relations.

We will focus on exploring more business opportunities between HCM City firms and Chinese partners, said Tran Khang Chien, the deputy chairman.

At its meeting, the association voted for its members of its committee board. While most of its members, including chairman Duong Quan Ha, have retained their positions from the previous period, seven new members were welcomed.  VNS
HA TINH  A forest of trees covering several hundred hectares at the foot of Hoanh Son mountain in central Ha Tinh Province has come back to life, thanks to the efforts of one man.

The man, Nguyen Tien Vit, has survived threats from illegal loggers many times. His wife and children advised him to return to his normal life, but he refuses to give up. He even patrols tens of kilometres across the forest each day to make sure it is protected.

The locals, of course, call the newly treed area Vit Forest. Vit, 67, has spent nearly 30 years planting and protecting trees in the forest, which was seriously damaged by illegal logging from the 1990s.

The green area in Ky Thuong Commune in Ky Anh District had almost became a bare hill before Vit intervened. The destruction was mostly caused by local people cutting down trees to build houses or to take land for short-term industrial plants.

But Vit realised that if the trees kept falling, the forest would disappear - and that natural disasters, like flood and drought, could become worse.

So he decided to save the forest. He asked local authorities to hand it over to him for protection. Many local citizens called him crazy because they thought it was a hopeless task. But Vit did not care. He was determined to revive the green lung of the province.

"I spent my childhood with the forest. It was so sad to see trees being destroyed. I just want to protect and expand the forest, he told Vnexpress online newspaper.

He started his plan by patiently keeping and taking care of each stump left by loggers to help them grow again. He also turned unused land around the forest into orchards full of oranges, mandarins and grapefruit, which has brought him an annual income of tens of millions of ong.

Vit spends this money buying seeds and seedlings of trees such as acacia, eucalyptus and cajeput.

His work is carefully planned. He plants trees in different layers so that high trees create shade for fruit trees.

Vit even went and lived in the forest to have more time to protect it. He had no electricity, water or household equipment. He even had to face threats from illegal loggers.

After 27 years, the forest has now mostly recovered. There are trees up to 30-40m with diametres of between 30-50cm. He also turned empty land around the forest into the land of hundreds of fruits trees, which has brought him an annual income of tens of millions of ong.

Vit has co-ordinated with local authorities to consult and advise local citizens not to cut down trees.

What makes local people admire Vit is that he never cuts down any trees for personal use.

Ky Thuong Commune has the hottest climate in Ha Tinh Province and is often stricken by natural disasters. The forest serves as an air conditioner for local people in summer and as a shield to protect them from floods and storms, he told Thanh nien (Young People) newspaper.

Vit said he was threatened by illegal loggers many times. His wife and children even advised him to stop and came back to the normal life for his safety but he never gave up.

Nguyen Tien Hiep, head of Ky Hop forest management station, said the forest had survived and thrived thanks to Vit, who has hopes of one day turning the area into an ecological tourism site.  VNS
HA NOI  Minister of Education Phung Xuan Nha, said that it was high time pedagogy schools stop the oversupplying of teachers in many provinces and cities.

The teacher-training plans must focus on quality and be based on the demand for teachers, he said.

He made the statement at the conference held Wednesday on measures to reform the pedagogy sector in the next year with representatives from 30 universities and colleges.

Nha said that it was necessary to review the needs of teachers in each locality to provide accurate figures of teachers and commit to using them after training.

From 2018, the ministry would allocate quotas to schools based on the demand of the localities, he said, adding that pedagogical students must be among the best ones with top university entrance scores.

Nha said measures should be taken step-by-step to solve the problem of excess teachers in previous years.

He asked pedagogy schools to rapidly develop a portfolio of core teachers of all subjects. This team needs to actively contribute ideas to the courses that are closer to the current practice.

In terms of implementation of teachers training, Nha requested the units under the ministry to quickly complete the promulgation of standards of teachers, principals and managerial staff. Based on the new standards, the schools would consider measures on improving the quality of teachers.

Regarding the restructuring of pedagogy schools, he affirmed that this was an indispensable trend, but added that a roadmap was needed to find shortcomings considering the reality of pedagogy schools.

This also requires the experience of foreign countries, he added.

At the conference, representatives of pedagogy schools raised their voices over the policy for pedagogical graduates, which remains unfavourable. Thus, many fail to get enough students enrolled students, leading to a restriction in training quality.

Nha said that the solution for the year 2018 was that pedagogical training must be associated with demand for use.

He asked the Peoples Committees of provinces and cities to determine the demand for pedagogical human resources in the medium and in the long term and develop a plan for ordering, recruiting and assigning jobs after training.

The ministry would assign pedagogic training norms based on the orders from localities and the capacities of training institutes.  VNS
PHU YEN  Heavy rains coinciding with the sowing season in the central province of Phu Yen caused the submerging of hectares of winter-spring rice over the past few days.

Facing a situation of unusual heavy rains, on Thursday afternoon, Phu Yen Provinces Department of Agriculture and Rural Development directed local authorities to stop the sowing of winter-spring rice until the end of Friday in order to avoid damage.

The local authorities have recommended that these areas should be resown.

Farmer Nguyen Tuan of Hoa Tan ong Commune, ong Hoa District, said, "My familys rice field has been sown for five days and the rice leaves are growing. But the surrounding fields were just sown for one or two days, and following heavy rain the next day, due to the soaked water, the germ was damaged. So it must be sown again.

According to Tuan and many other farmers, every year at the end of the Lunar October, there is no rain or wind in the region, so farmers are assured of sowing seeds. This year the floods are unusual, Tuan said.

o Kim ong, head of the agriculture and rural development office of ong Hoa District, said that over 800ha of rice was newly-sown in the district. The unusual heavy rains flooded the entire area.

The office is assessing the damage, he said.

In the fields in Tay Hoa District, newly-sown rice fields were flooded, and local farmers said if the rain continued, the area would be damaged and would need to be resown.

Farmer Nguyen Thi Chin of Hoa ong Commune said the area had mostly low-lying rice fields; so it gets flooded immediately following heavy rains.  VNS
NEW DELHI  A fire tore through a multi-storey building in Indias financial capital Mumbai Friday, killing at least 15 people and leaving many injured, a senior police officer said.

"So far the death of 15 people has been declared," S. Jaykumar, a Mumbai police commissioner, told reporters.

He said the cause of the fire was under investigation.

The blaze broke out at a commercial building in the Kamala Mills compound in central Mumbai around 12:30 am (1900 GMT), police said.

Kamala Mills is an industrial compound that houses top restaurants and other commercial establishments including hotels.

Several media organisations also used the building and at least three national news channels were affected by the fire, including Times networks Times Now, Mirror Now and ET Now.

According to local media, the fire started on the top floor of the building and engulfed it entirely within half an hour.

Television footage overnight showed fire engines and emergency teams rushing to the scene where the building was being consumed by orange flames and issuing dark plumes of smoke.  AFP
by Richard Mallory Allnutt

The sole surviving Boulton Paul Defiant, RAF serial N1671, is now fully re-assembled and on display at RAF Museum Cosford in Shropshire, UK. The aircraft arrived from RAF Museum Hendon in London late last year in a disassembled state. Barring a recent four-year stint for conservation/restoration at the Medway Aircraft Preservation Society near Chatham, Kent, the Defiant had been at Hendon continuously since that facilitys opening in 1972.

The British pioneered the concept of power-operated gun turrets in bomber aircraft, and adapted the concept to fighter aircraft during the 1930s. The Boulton Paul Defiant was one of a handful of turret fighter designs to make it off the drawing board, and other than the Fleet Air Arms Blackburn Roc, an adaptation of the Skua dive bomber, the only type to make it into front line use. The Defiants role, as originally envisioned, was to take on unescorted enemy bombers, with the turret making it easy to focus fire on the enemy aircraft as the fighter flew through enemy formations. However, the type had significant shortcomings when facing conventionally-armed enemy fighters. Firstly, they were underpowered, much heavier, and less maneaverable, but perhaps more crucially, the pilot lacked his own forward-firing machine guns. That being said, Defiants enjoyed some initial success during the evacuation of Dunkirk in May, 1940, with unsuspecting German fighter pilots thinking they were attacking a Hawker Hurricane from behind, only to face a wall of lead from the rearwards-facing machine guns. However, the turret fighters were usually easy prey once that ruse was rumbled. Even under the best of circumstances, it was an awkward ballet between the pilot, positioning the aircraft, and the gunner, aiming the turret, for a Defiants crew to achieve much success in the air, but a handful of crews did become aces.

Defiant squadrons were virtually annihilated during the Battle of Britain, and the type was withdrawn from daytime use before the end of August, 1940. The Defiant then moved into the night fighter role, for which it proved slightly better suited, however, the type did not serve in any combat role beyond 1942. A number of examples did received conversion into primitive electronic countermeasures aircraft to fool German radar and target tugs for aerial gunnery training and other ancillary roles, but the type was effectively withdrawn from use before the end of WWII.

The Royal Air Force Museums Boulton Paul Defiant Mk.I N1671 has an interesting history. She rolled of Boulton Pauls production line at Pendeford, Wolverhampton during the Battle of Britain, officially joining the RAF on August 7th, 1940 with No.6 Maintenance Unit at RAF Brize Norton. The RAF assigned her to 307 Lwowski (Polish) Squadron at RAF Kirton-in-Lindsey in Lincolnshire, on September 17th, 1940. She received the squadron codes EW-D with `A Flight. 307 Squadron itself was a brand new unit, having officially formed just two weeks prior to N1671s arrival. They were the first Polish night fighter squadron, although their aircraft still wore their original temperate land camouflage paint schemes. While the squadron worked up to operational status, they also performed shipping protection patrols. N1671 flew its first operational patrol on December 12th, without incident. On January 14th, 1941, the Defiant returned to No.6 MU at Brize Norton, alongside three other 307 Squadron aircraft, for the addition of IFF and VHF radio equipment as well as for a repaint into an all-black, night fighter scheme. She returned to squadron service in mid-March, and flew her first operational night patrol on April 8th, 1941.

On April 15th, 1941, Sgt.Wisthal flew N1671 on a night patrol and sighted an enemy aircraft. The other plane opened fire on the Defiant, but before Wisthals gunner could return the compliment, search lights from below enveloped the fighter, at which point they lost contact. During the recent restoration effort at MAPS between 2009 and 2012, they discovered a few bullet holes in the fuselage behind and below the cockpit which most likely came from the aforementioned incident.

N1671 continued to fly night ops until a ground loop incident took her out of action for several months of repairs on June 9th, 1941. However, she did not return to 307 Squadron once airworthy again that October, as the unit had upgraded to the far superior Bristol Beaufighter in August. Instead, N1671 moved to No.46 MU at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland for a couple of weeks before her final operational posting, 153 Squadron in Ballyhalbert, Northern Ireland; a second line unit protecting Belfast, and the last Defiant squadron to form. The Defiant flew just one operational sortie with 153 Squadron, an hour and ten minute long flight on new years eve, 1941. This was to be her final of fifteen total combat flights in N1671s career. 153 Squadron replaced their Defiants with Beaufighters in January, 1942.

That June, N1671 transferred to 285 Squadron, in Wrexham, Wales. The unit specialized in helping to train British Army anti-aircraft gun crews to effectively target and destroy attacking enemy aircraft. She flew with 285 Squadron until late February, 1943, after which the Defiant returned to her manufacturers for a major inspection. By May, 1943, N1671s war was effectively over, and she moved to No.10 MU at Hullavington for storage. By a stroke of luck in September, 1944, someone at the British Air Ministry was far-sighted enough to order the preservation of a few key airframes involved in the Battle of Britain for eventual museum display. This included three Spitfire Mk.Is, a brace of Hurricane Mk.Is, a Bf 109E, and even a Fiat CR.42. And so all of the aircraft were dutifully disassembled and packed into storage crates. Defiant N1671 remained in her packing crate for the next two decades, the RAF moving her from one storage site to another around the UK. She finally emerged for public display in 1960 at RAF St.Athan, near Cardiff, Wales, although oddly painted in a day fighter scheme, and mis-identified as N1617. Regardless, this Defiant had beaten all the odds against her survival, and was the last complete survivor of her breed. For an in depth history of the airframe, please click HERE to see the official RAF file on N1671.

Other than the mostly shredded remains from a couple of wartime crashes, the only other credible representation of the Defiant is a full-scale replica which the Boulton Paul Association built from scratch in the 1990s and early 2000s for the now sadly disbanded Boulton Paul Heritage Museum on site at the original Boulton Paul factory in Wolverhampton. The replica is now on display at the Kent Battle of Britain Museum in Hawkinge, Kent. For further details on this replica, there is a marvelous article HERE about the former Boulton Paul employee, Jack Holmes, who was the driving force behind its creation.
If you are reviewing the laundry list of possible New Years resolutions, the Volunteer Center of Cedar Valley has the 2018 resolution for you! It has significant benefits and wont cost you any money. This year, resolve to volunteer at least 50 hours to strengthen our Cedar Valley community.

The Cedar Valley area is known for its giving spirit, which is why finding a place to volunteer in the New Year is not an overwhelming task. Local groups, organizations, nonprofits and service clubs can use your skills and resources.

The Volunteer Center of Cedar Valley represents 160 nonprofit agencies which not only welcome volunteers but need them to fulfill their missions and budgets. The 2017 national value of one volunteer hour is $24.14 based on the 2016 analysis done by the Independent Sector. In Iowa, the average is $22.95.

Your resolution not only benefits the agency or nonprofit  it benefits you!

Here are a few benefits:

Learn or develop a new skill  Volunteering is the perfect vehicle to discover something you are really good at and develop a new skill.

Be part of your community  What better way is there to connect with your community and give back? As a volunteer, you certainly return to society some of the benefits that society gives you.

Motivation and sense of achievement  Volunteering is about giving your time, energy and skills freely.

Boost your career options  If you are thinking of a career change then volunteering is a perfect way to explore new fields.

New interests and hobbies  Finding new interests and hobbies through volunteering can be fun, relaxing and energizing.

New experiences  Volunteering is a wonderful way to get life experience.

Meeting a diverse range of people  Volunteering brings together a diverse range of people from all backgrounds and walks of life. Volunteering also offers an incredible networking opportunity.

Send a signal to your employer, teachers, friends and family Volunteering reflects and supports a complete picture of you, and gives real examples of your commitment, dedication and interests. Show people what you are passionate about and maybe you will inspire them too!

Health benefits  Studies have established a strong relationship between volunteering and health: Those who volunteer have lower mortality rates, greater functional ability and lower rates of depression later in life than those who do not volunteer.
CEDAR FALLS  Discover Discuss Diversity will meet from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Jan. 8 at the Cedar Falls Public Library Librarys large meeting room.

This months discussion will be on Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, by J. D. Vance.

This memoir offers an individual record of a culture of redneck hillbillies, and his eventual time in college and law school.

CV3D welcomes all Cedar Valley residents to join the discussion or listen, even if they have not read the book. This diversity discussion group is sponsored by the Cedar Falls Womans Club.

For more information, email judy.beckman@cfu.net or call 939-4073.

Mad Scientist

Tea Party slated

WATERLOO  The Grout Museum Districts Snowden House, 306 Washington St., will host A Mad Scientist Tea Party from 10 a.m. to noon on Jan. 13.

Kids can enjoy bubbling experiments and hair-raising finger foods.

Cost is $8 for members, and $10 for non-members. To register, go to www.groutmuseumdistrict.org/calendar.

For more information call 234-6357 or check www.gmdistrict.org.
WATERLOO  The American Cancer Society is again hosting Daffodil Days.

Black Hawk County residents have until Feb. 20 to place orders for daffodils.

Ordering daffodils for friends, customers and employees can brighten their days, desks or dinner tables.

Proceeds help the ACS to offer free programs and services and invest in research.

Make a minimum $10 donation to the American Cancer Society to receive a bunch of approximately 10 daffodils. For a $25 donation to the Gift of Hope program, a bouquet will be delivered anonymously to an area cancer patient.

Contact Tammy Schoonover at (815) 590-2961 or tammy.schoonover@cancer.org. Daffodils arrive March 20.
DENVER  It was a chilly morning inside hundreds of homes in and around one Northeast Iowa city Tuesday morning.

Rural and city residents of Denver woke up to their homes cooling off after power went out to 670 MidAmerican Energy customers at 6:13 a.m. Tuesday. Customers of Denvers municipal utility were also affected.

The cause of the outage was a downed primary line between two substations, said Adam Jacobi, a public relations representative with MidAmerican.

He said the company was still investigating why the line went down, but no pole replacement was required.

Around 248 customers were back online an hour later, with another 167 getting power restored by 7:38 a.m., Jacobi said.

But 255 others had to wait until the line was manually repaired, which didnt happen until 11:21 a.m.

Something like that, where we have to complete repairs to bring people back on, it does take a little bit of time, he said.

Thats a dangerous situation in extremely cold weather. Temperatures were below zero in Denver at that time.

It was 15 below on my truck thermometer, said Kip Ladage, the Bremer County emergency management coordinator. In those temperatures, he said, it doesnt take long for houses to cool off.

Ladage and Bremer County officials went out to the nursing home and checked on homes where they knew people were oxygen-dependent or had other health risks to make sure residents were OK.

Ladage also opened the Denver Fire Station as a warming shelter.

We had a few people stop by, and we had some people donate oranges and Christmas goodies, he said.

No injuries, burst pipes or other damage was reported during the five-hour outage, Ladage said.

It worked as expected  we make the phone calls, get the warming shelter going, put the coffee on, meet with people and be patient, he said. I think it was just an unfortunate situation that this coldest temperature of the year is probably at fault.

Jacobi said power outage preparation tips can be found here: https://www.midamericanenergy.com/outages-storms.aspx?aid=3
After a whirlwind two years with nearly two dozen presidential hopefuls traipsing through the state, 2017 proved Iowa politics are intriguing even when the caucuses are not front and center.

The previous years momentous elections brought sweeping change to the political landscape in 2017, both in Iowa and nationally.

That led to a year of significant political interest and consequence.

As is the easy way out  I mean, tradition  at this time of year, lets take a look back at the biggest stories in Iowa politics in 2017, and a look ahead to what may come in the next year.

Republican dominance

For the first time in three decades, Iowa Republicans had complete lawmaking control at the state Capitol.

They did not squander the opportunity.

With majorities in the Iowa House and Senate and a Republican in the governors office, the GOP enacted several pieces of conservative reforms. Republicans overhauled the states collective bargaining system for public employees, dramatically reducing the benefits for which public worker unions can negotiate. They restricted abortion access by making them illegal after 20 weeks and halting state family planning funding to providers that perform abortions. They loosened gun regulations by, among other provisions, creating a stand your ground law, allowing children to use guns when observed by a parent, and strengthening the state law that allows guns in public buildings, such as courthouses.

The one big-ticket item remaining on statehouse Republicans legislative to-do list is tax reform. Now that the federal GOP has passed its package of tax cuts, expect Iowa Republicans to do the same during the upcoming legislative session.

The Resistance

Naturally, not everyone was thrilled with the new political power structure in Congress or at the Iowa Capitol. Many made sure their displeasure was known.

More than 20,000 people marched on the state Capitol in March as part of a nationwide series of events called the Womens March, which were organized to protest myriad policies under consideration by Republican federal and state lawmakers. Thousands more flooded the Statehouse during the legislative session to protest many of the aforementioned proposals. And residents flooded forums that featured state and federal elected government officials.

The events showed that people were not only upset by the various new policies being proposed and implemented, they were willing to mobilize. Thats what excites Democrats, whose goal is to harness that passion for the 2018 elections.

Transition of power

For all the significant implications of the 2016 elections, perhaps most significant in Iowa was that the election of Republican President Donald Trump led to the appointment of Terry Branstad as U.S. ambassador to China. That move did what no Democrat could in six elections: move Branstad out of Terrace Hill.

Branstad left office as the longest-serving governor in the nations history, totaling more than 22 years over two tenures.

Kim Reynolds, who had served as Branstads lieutenant since his return to the governors office in 2011, became governor and will be on the ballot in 2018, assuming she survives a primary challenge. Reynolds is popular among the Republican base, but is a somewhat unknown quantity among the larger electorate. That, along with the previously mentioned reaction to some of the new GOP policies, has emboldened Democrats in their hopes of retaking the governors mansion in the 2018 election.

Power grab

And there has been no shortage of candidates seeking to lead Democrats to that gubernatorial prize; a vast field of seven candidates emerged to seek the Democratic nomination for governor.

Most who follow Iowa politics closely agree the early stages of the race have developed a pair of front-runners: businessman Fred Hubbell and state Sen. Nate Boulton, both from Des Moines.

Former state party Chairwoman and retired physician Andy McGuire, nurse and union leader Cathy Glasson, and former Tom Vilsack and Barack Obama aide John Norris are in the next tier, still with a chance to challenge for the nomination.

Former Iowa City mayor Ross Wilburn and party activist Jon Neiderbach round out the field.

The gubernatorial election presents Iowa Democrats with their best opportunity to retain one of the three legs of power at the Capitol. If they are to defeat Reynolds, assuming she survives her primary, they will require the right candidate from this field.

Happy New Year

The legislative session starts Jan. 8.

The primary elections are in June.

The general election is in November.

Happy New Year, readers. Here we go again.
WATERLOO  The Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors narrowly agreed to hold a public hearing on plans to close a dirt road.

Board members voted 3-2 Wednesday to set a hearing for 9 a.m. Jan. 9 on the potential vacation of Weiden Road between Rottinghaus Road and the airport entrance near Washburn Road.

County Engineer Cathy Nicholas and several property owners in the area have proposed closing the road and returning it to the adjacent property owners for farming.

Supervisors hear support for closing dirt road WATERLOO  Black Hawk County Engineer Cathy Nicholas has picked up support for her request t

The road was downgraded in 2010 to a B service level road, meaning it generally gets one motor grader run a year but little else in the way of maintenance.

Meanwhile, Nicholas, Sheriff Tony Thompson and owners of the adjacent Flyers Airfield said mudders  owners of off-road vehicles who seek out muddy tracts  have caused problems on Weiden Road and to surrounding property.

By setting a hearing date, Nicholas is now authorized to send out certified letters to adjacent property owners and start the legal process to vacate the road, should the supervisors approve after the hearing.

But board members Craig White and Tom Little, who have sided with residents opposed to closing the road, voted against setting the hearing.

Plan to close dirt road draws objections WATERLOO  Black Hawk County is talking once again about permanently closing a dirt road sou

Weve already had this come before us two times, White said. This is ridiculous that its even back on the agenda.

Its not costing the county that much money to leave that road open, said White, who called the certified letters to adjacent landowners a waste of tax dollars.
WATERLOO  As temperatures nosedive, the Waterloo Water Works is encouraging people to take precautions to avoid frozen water pipes to their homes.

Residents can hold a common outdoor thermometer under a running cold water faucet. If the water temperature registers below 40 degrees, it is suggested a small stream of cold water be kept running inside the home at all times.

Inside water pipes located adjacent to the outside walls also should be protected to prevent freezing.
Q: The duchess of Windsor  what was her name? Did they live in the Waldorf Astoria in New York after he abdicated?

A: Her name was Wallis Simpson. She and the Duke of Windsor in later years divided their time between Europe and the United States and often did stay at the Waldorf when they were in New York.

Q: What came first  wine or beer? We have a bet riding on this.

A: Were afraid no one knows for sure. The history of both goes back many thousands of years. A recent book, Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages, by archaeo-chemist Patrick McGovern, said the earliest chemical evidence for an alcoholic beverage dates back 9,000 years to Chinas Henan province. Researchers analyzed residues extracted from pottery fragments and concluded the people were drinking a mixed wine-and-beer-like beverage made with grapes, hawthorn fruit, rice and honey.

Q: Whats the difference between a piano and a harpsichord?

A: The instruments look similar. But pianos make sound by striking strings with hammers and vibrating them. A harpsichord makes sounds by plucking strings and vibrating them.

Q: How many city council meetings have Tom Powers and Tom Lind missed since the election?

A: There were six Waterloo City Council meetings between the Nov. 7 municipal election and the end of their terms. Powers attended all six meetings, participating once via telephone. Lind only attended two of the meetings.

Q: How many employees are there in the Waterloo Street Department?

A: There are 37 employees, including clerical staff, in the street department.

Q: Who do we call to have a home checked where children live?

A: We will assume the caller is asking about the lead paint remediation grant the city of Waterloo is getting from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Contact the Waterloo Community Development Office, 291-4429, to get on a list for inspections. If youre asking about some other kind of program you will need to ask a more specific question.

Q: Who can we contact about the city of Waterloos phone system? Its impossible to speak directly to a person.

A: Maybe you called on a day when City Hall was closed for the holidays. We call the city of Waterloo and its various offices frequently and the phone is almost always answered by a person during working hours. If you want to raise an issue about any city service you can always contact the mayor or your city council representatives.

Q: When will there be public information meetings about changing Ridgeway from four to three lanes?

A: The Waterloo City Council must first decide whether it will accept the grant from the Iowa Department of Transportation to make the safety improvements. Any scheduling of public informational meetings would be made after such a decision is made.
City of Paducah gets update how $6.5 million ARPA funds will be spent
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Dec. 28, 2017 | CARLISLE COUNTY, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 28, 2017 | 11:55 AM | CARLISLE COUNTY, KY

A Kentucky State Police trooper was arrested Wednesday night on DUI charges in Carlisle County.



According to a citation filed in Carlisle County Circuit Court on Thursday, Trooper Paul Hale made a call shortly before 9:30 p.m. Wednesday to another KSP trooper, saying he was driving to someone's house to confront them about threats of violence being made against his wife. The arresting trooper said in the report that Hale admitted to drinking alcohol, and had slurred speech. The trooper said he told Hale, who was off-duty at the time, to stop driving and wait for officers to arrive.



Troopers arrived at Hale's home about half an hour later and administered a sobriety test, which Hale failed. Hale reportedly told them he had only driven down to the end of the road that runs in front of his house before returning home.



Hale was arrested and charged with DUI.
Even if your business is not in the tech industry, you must be on top of technology trends for small businesses. You can use 
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Twenty-seventeen was an amazing year for me in terms of seeing birds. Ill do a full rundown of the year at some point in January but in the meantime I thought I would see if I could come up with a list of my ten best species for the year that is about to finish up. Visiting Puerto Rico, Austria, Lichtenstein, Switzerland, the Bahamas, Belize, and Guatemala, to say nothing of Maine, California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and my local birding in New York State, made this an extremely difficult years birding to whittle down to ten birds. Nonetheless, Ill try.

Honorable Mentions

Atlantic Puffin, Maine: Hammonds Flycatcher, New York: Yellow-shouldered Blackbird, Puerto Rico: Swainsons Warbler, New York: Puerto Rican Tody, Puerto Rico: Henslows Sparrow, New York: Painted Bunting, Bahamas: Smew, Austria: White-tailed Tropicbird, Puerto Rico: White-throated Dipper, Austria: Least Bittern, California: Ruby-throated Hummingbird, New York (pictured above).

Number 10 (Tie)

Sooty Shearwater (not pictured) and Western Tanager (pictured)

Adding two new birds to my Queens list this year was one less than I had hoped for but one better than I did in 2016. And both were birds that I have long been anticipating adding to the list. That the Western Tanager (or a second one) stuck around through the Christmas Bird Count was icing on a particularly satisfying bird-cake. Or something.

Number 9

Hooded Warbler

I love doing the Christmas Bird Count and I love birding Queens. That I am the compiler of the Queens County Christmas Bird Count is like awesomeness piled on top of good times. And few things are as fun as finding a really good bird for a Christmas Bird Count. So this Hooded Warbler, which was a first for the Queens count, was an extra-special bird to find and brag about. Wastewater treatment plants are always worth birding!

Number 8

Great Gray Owl

Taking the family on an hours-long odyssey to the Adirondacks to see a life owl is not something I was expecting to do this March but, somehow, it happened. Great Gray Owls are amazing birds and getting Desi and Daisy on the bird was the best way to see my first one even if Desi was more interested in pelting me with snowballs than in looking at the owl. Heres hoping a Boreal Owl shows up this winter that we can go looking for!

Number 7

Least Grebe

Somehow, inexplicably, despite multiple visits to the Neotropics, I had never seen a Least Grebe before this February in the Bahamas. The Lakeview Drive Ponds on Paradise Island were a wonderful escape from the craziness of a resort-style vacation and Least Grebe was easily my favorite of the birds that I saw there. There were several, they could be cooperative, and I had never seen one before. And whats not to like about the smallest grebe in the world?

Number 6

Ocellated Turkey

Visiting Tikal in Guatemala on a day trip from our family vacation in Belize was an experience none of us will soon forget. The rainforest, the temples, the monkeys, the birds! We would love to get back to Guatemala someday for more than a day but the day that we had was pretty exciting. And seeing the technicolor turkey of Guatemala wandering the ruins was a cherry on top of the Tikal sundae. Wild Turkeys are pretty cool but they pale in comparison to the Ocellated Turkey.

Number 5

Alpine Accentor

A van-load of birders in Austria with some time to kill? Why not take an afternoons drive to Lichtenstein, drive up to a ski resort where everyone else is dressed in fluorescent snow gear, and wander around like ragamuffins while looking for birds? In one of the weirdest birding outings Ive had the good fortune of participating in we explored the high elevations of Lichtenstein and found several life birds including this particularly pleasing Alpine Accentor, a bird I highly recommend checking out yourself someday.

Number 4

Jabiru

This massive stork was my most anticipated sighting on our family trip to Belize. That we almost missed it made it even better once we saw it, and that Daisy is the one who actually spotted means I will never be allowed to forget the sighting. Seeing it alongside Roseate Spoonbills, usually the marquee bird to look at when they are present, made it abundantly clear just how cool a bird a Jabiru is.

Number 3

Puerto Rican Parrot

Mike and I had an amazing trip to Puerto Rico during which we swept the endemics in only four days! Considering the devastation that hurricanes wrought in Puerto Rico later in the year it is a good thing we went when we did and both of us are hoping that both the people and the birds of the island recover. But seeing a Puerto Rican Parrot, a species that nearly went extinct and is still just hanging on, was the highlight of a trip full of highlights. Heres hoping that this charismatic bird lasts for a long time to come!

Number 2

Wallcreeper

This floaty, pink-winged, astounding bird was a lifer and I saw it on a castle in Austria. Its astonishing that such a creature exists, much less that I got to see it. What more needs to be said? Nothing, thats what. Most years Wallcreeper would easily be my top bird for the year.

Number 1

Corn Crake

When this bird was first reported on the south shore of Long Island I was working and then doing turnout for election day. It was one of those days that I just could not bag off and go on a twitch. Fortunately for me, the bird stuck until the next morning when Zach and I refound it before the sun came up. We enjoyed our views but the circus that the sighting became drove both of us away (and in search of other birds) before the light got strong enough for me to get good digiscoped images. Still though, I enjoyed Crakey a great deal and was bummed out when I learned that it was found dead the next morning, the victim of a car. Corn Crake is one of those birds that you read about in the North American context in historical ornithology texts, never expecting one to show up in a spot where you can twitch it, mostly because a chaseable Corn Crake had never occurred in North America before. A once-in-a-lifetime bird deserves the top spot and Crakey takes the cake.

What were your best birds of 2017? Let me know in the comments. And heres hoping 2018 is as good as 2017!


ODESSA, FL, December 29, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Ultimate 3D Printing Store, the leading expert in 3D printing technology and additive manufacturing, is proud to announce that it is now an authorized reseller for Ultimaker, a high-end 3D printer manufacturer based in The Netherlands.



Ultimaker targeted Ultimate 3D Printing Store to fill a void in the company's reseller ranks in the southeastern United States, specifically Florida, said Kirk Matsuo, Channel Sales Director.



In its new capacity, Odessa-based Ultimate 3D Printing Store is focusing primarily on developing new clients in education, enterprise, manufacturing and engineering/architecture. U3DPS also is providing support to new and existing clients across the Southeast.



"Ultimaker is basically the No. 1 FDM printer manufacturer in the world," said Roy Kirchner, Founder and President of Ultimate 3D Printing Store. "They are the Rolls Royce of FDM 3D printing," Matsuo said the company became aware of Kirchner and Ultimate 3D Printing Store at a RAPID + TCT 3D printing and additive manufacturing trade show in Pittsburgh, PA after another reseller referred them as a possible candidate. Matsuo said company officials met with Kirchner and his team, and were impressed.



"We felt confident they would be an asset for us in our reseller channel," Matsuo said.



Ultimaker has about 35 resellers across the U.S. Ultimate 3D Printing Store is its third authorized reseller in Florida with the others based in Tampa and Ocala, respectively.



In addition to 3D printers, Ultimaker also makes its own line of 3D printing software and printing materials. The company is best known for its latest 3D printer, the Ultimaker 3, which features dual extrusion that allows users to mix printed and support materials together and then separate the printed material easily without a special solvent. The Ultimaker 3 retails for $3,495 with a second machine, the Ultimaker 3 Extended, which prints up to 12 inches in 'Z' height, retailing at $4,295.



Parallel to Ultimaker 3 series, the award winning Ultimaker 2 is a popular 3D printer already known as a fast, accurate, and multifunctional printer series featuring a heated build platform and able to print both ABS and PLA, at a resolution of up to 20 microns, and a speed of up to 300 mm/s.



The target market for these high-end machines ranges from "anyone who is doing prototyping or design modeling" to educational institutions, including K-12 schools, colleges and trade schools, Matsuo said.



Ultimaker, which has offices in Massachusetts and New York, does not directly sell its products. It relies on resellers to locate new customers.



"We want our resellers to go out in our local markets and either have the opportunities or find those opportunities," Matsuo said. "Ultimate 3D Printing Store, they're going to have relationships with schools in that area, so that would be important for us."



For more information about Ultimaker and its available products, please visit Ultimate 3D Printing Store online.



Ultimate 3D Printing Store (www.u3dps.com) is a Florida boutique specializing in 3D design and on-demand printing services while offering one of the largest selection (100+) among the best 3D printer brands and 3D parts to buy from: Wanhao, Ultimaker, Zortrax, Type A Machines, Bluecast.



# # #
Dec 29, 2017 | By David

Weve reported before on the unique 3D printing work carried out by Chinas Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (GAFA), when they teamed up with a Shanghai design studio to create a range of 3D printed furniture. The Academy recently completed another impressive project, this time one that combines cutting-edge 3D printing technology with classical aesthetics, in a tribute to ancient Chinese culture. Its a 3D printed recreation of a historical scene, representing the event of Tso Tsung-Tsangs appointment as the principal of Luijang Academy.

Tso Tsung-Tsang, a civilian not to be confused with General Tso of tasty chicken fame, was one of the four prominent ministers in the late Qing Dynasty back in ancient Chinese times. He was chosen for the position of the principal of Luijang Academy and was honoured with a special ceremony. These ceremonies are typical of the traditional Chinese culture, which respects elders and particularly places a lot of importance on the role of a teacher. Giving a new generation the knowledge and skills that they will need to be successful and prosperous is a noble and valuable task, and the team at GAFA wanted to recognize this. Their project could be seen in itself an example of this fine educational tradition, showing a new generation of artists and 3D printing enthusiasts whats possible when this exciting new technology is applied in the right way.

The team was led by Professor Nan Yu, a sculptor. He carried out research of ancient records to get an idea of how these ceremonies were organized, and used his findings to draft rough sketches of a scenario, which broke the traditional appointment process it up into five distinct parts.

Firstly, to prepare the appointment ceremony, the chief of the academy would ask the magistrate to issue the letter of appointment. The Principal then arrived at the academy next spring, and joined a banquet with the magistrate, instructor, disciplinarian and the chief. The Chief of the academy would then lead students to salute the principal along with the Chinese philosophy OG, Confucius. After school started, the chief of academy would then invite the principal, magistrate and the two instructors for a drink. Finally, after a few days the principal was invited to the Xingxian Hall for a banquet, in a highly respectful manner.

These five parts were then used as prompts for a full real-life static re-enactment of the appointment process. Members of Nan Yus team dressed up in traditional costumes and posed as the attendees would have done thousands of years ago. The team then used 3D scanning technology to capture detailed virtual images of these recreated scenes. The Ein-Scan Pro 3D, a 3D scanner made by Shining 3D, was used for this purpose. Shining 3D is one of Chinas leading 3D technology providers, and GAFA has made use of its systems in the past for its other notable 3D work.

Once the digital models were created, they could be sent to a 3D printer for fabrication. An advanced Shining 3D SLA machine was used, ensuring that everything would be recreated to a very high level of accuracy. Post-processing techniques were then applied to add final colors to the models, and they were assembled in place to make the final scene.

According to Nan Yu, The combination of art and 3D technology can make abstract history representational, allowing more public to relive history, experience the traditional virtual of respecting teachers, and memorizing the historical people and events.

Check out the final results below.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Charles Trueheart at The American Scholar:

A half century on, the Vietnam reckoning continues. The recent Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary and a yearly tide of books challenge us to think about Americas fateful descent into a war it had every reason to know was a bad idea. And the choices political leaders madeor had forced upon them, by their lightselicit from historians a fascination with might-have-beens, prophets without honor, roads not taken.

Max Boots Cassandra was Edward Geary Lansdale. A California advertising man, he was recruited into the OSS during World War II and served in the CIA, under military cover, through its early Cold War glory days. Boot calls his subject a covert warrior, except that covert no more describes Lansdales style than collegial or consensual. Only his paymaster remained a secret.

Trim and mustached, artless and idealistic, Lansdale beguiled a generation of politicians, Asian and American, with his plainspoken nostrums for meeting unconventional threats posed by communist insurgencies. He was a patron saint of the hearts-and-minds school of warfare.

more here.
Get in some R&R at these warming pools that are as beautiful as they are soothing.

You've made the drive, packed the towels, and deliberated on the suit. As you pad up to your soaking destination, eagerly anticipating a luxurious few hours to yourself loitering in one of nature's finest hot pools, your eyes take in the poached forms of several like-minded individuals who motivated a little earlier than you did. Great minds thinking alike? Maybe so, and maybe you'll meet some wonderful people. Still, the hot spring posse wasn't quite what you had in mind.

Soaking in relative peace and isolation can be a tall order when you're in a state with 39 million people; on the other hand, California is also one of the nation's largest and most geographically diverse states. This means that finding your pool is often just a matter of getting a little farther away, out where the views are expansive and the access is remote.

Even then, you'll want to make sure you arrive early or on weekdays to keep the crowds low. Eastern California hosts quite a few of these incredible hot spots, from the Sierra to the Mojave and Death Valley. And while the drive times may preclude a single destination visit, these special pools are essential add-ons to trip itineraries in this majestic portion of the state.

We've assembled a list of some of our favorite spots, including a few options for those who prefer a more developed facility. Have a look at the individual adventures for more information regarding access, infrastructure, fees and local etiquette.







Leave No Trace

The Forest Service and other local management agencies are considering closing access to many of these sensitive locations due to excessive trampling of plants, large amounts of garbage, cans and glass bottles, human waste, and toilet paper left behind. They simply do not have the staff or the funding to attend to these issues. If you want to continue enjoying these areas, pack out all garbage and toilet paper and dispose of it properly, use vault toilets and other restroom facilities when provided, and stay on established paths. Using these areas responsibly will increase the chance that people can continue to enjoy them.
The Kamala Mills Compound fire tragedy incident which claimed lives of 14 people, raises question about the violation of fire safety norms by 1 Above Pub. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) too had failed to halt the illegal construction activities happening at Kamala Mills premises, thereby resulting in to occurrence of the mishap. There is a possibility that victims were unable to escape after fire erupted at the building. Manager and other staff of the pub escaped from the spot without helping victims injured in the blaze. Mumbai Congress Chief Sanjay Nirupam asked how the civic body granted permission to 96 restaurants in the small area. He alleged that several lives were lost due to the lackadaisical attitude of the restaurant owner.

Few days back, 12 labourers were charred to death after fire had erupted at snack shop in Saki Naka but BMC has failed to learn any lesson from the incident. Massive corruption is prevailing in the civic body as officials failed to check whether restaurants are following fire safety guidelines. Five BMC officials have been suspended and an assistant commissioner has been transferred. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has ordered a probe into this incident. On the other hand, Shiv Sena and BJP blamed each other for the fire tragedy incident.

Arvind Sawant, Shiv Sena MP said, The pub owner had flouted fire safety norms and had not installed adequate fire extinguishers. A probe must be ordered into this incident. Action must be taken against the official who had granted licence to the restaurant without inspecting whether they are adhering to fire safety norms. If BJP is blaming Sena then they should also be held accountable for rising farmer suicides and Elphinstone foot overbridge collapse incident.

Bhai Jagtap, Congress MLA said, Several restaurants and hookah parlours are operating in Kamala Mills Compound. The BMC Commissioner and Shiv Sena should be made accountable for this incident. A judicial probe must be ordered against the commissioner. The civic body must conduct fire audit of establishments. Sena is having an alliance with BJP but makes allegations against it which is unjustified. Victims must be offered compensation.

Kiran Pawaskar, NCP MLA said, I had raised the Saki Naka fire incident in the Nagpur Assembly. After seven students had lost their lives in the Sagar restaurant fire mishap, the BMC only carried out fire audit of hotels. When a person applies for licence for opening restaurant, he has to seek various types of permission from the BMC. When the civic body collects taxes from citizens, why they have failed to provide amenities to them? Often restaurant owners bribe police officials for running their business.

Manisha Choudhari, BJP MLA said, Hookah parlours should be banned. The area where the mishap occurred, even hookah parlours were functioning.
Note: Thank you to Dr. Puliyel for sharing this editorial he wrote in the Tribune India. At the end of his editorial posted here is an article that also ran on 12/25 in the Tribune India titled Prevention is Better Than Cure that extols the use of HPV vaccines and claims ZERO adverse effects. ZERO. You are able to comment on both articles at their links. ZERO adverse effects. I noted that Dr. Puliyel's article has ten times the social media shares as the second article. Interesting.



By Jacob Puliyel



The writer, a doctor, is the Head of Pediatrics, St Stephen's Hospital, Delhi, and a member of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation. The views expressed are personal.



Dubious Vaccine for Cervical Cancer



Before a new vaccine is introduced it is first studied in a randomised controlled trial where some are given the drug and others are given an inert substance to check the effects and adverse effects among those given the new drug. Last week, Slate published a cover story on the investigation of the randomised trials of human papillomavirus (HPV ) vaccines before approval. The science editor conducted an eight-month long investigation, interviewed study participants and studied 2,300 pages of documents obtained through freedom-of-information requests from hospitals and health authorities.

Flawed Trial

Slate found that during the year-long study data on potential side effects were collected for only two weeks. The rest of the time individual trial investigators used their personal judgment to decide whether or not to report medical problems as adverse events. An oxymoronic instruction to investigators was to list new problems as new medical history. There is no evidence the confidential study protocol was submitted to regulators for approval. The worksheet investigators used allotted just one line per entry for new medical history, with no measurement of symptom severity, duration, outcome, or overall seriousness. Trial participants complained to Slate that repeated complaints of debilitating symptoms were not even registered in the study as potential side effects. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is the regulator in Europe. In an internal 2014 EMA report about Gardasil 9  a leading HPV vaccination - obtained through a freedom-of-information request, senior experts called the companys approach unconventional and suboptimal and said it left some uncertainty about the safety results. In the EMAs public assessment Gardasil 9, all mention of the safety concerns had been scrubbed.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Not all recipients of the vaccine developed serious adverse effects. But there are numerous reports of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS ) otherwise known as myalgic encephalomyelitis which is characterized by long-term fatigue that limits a persons ability to carry out ordinary daily activities. Dr Jose Montoya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University explains that the condition usually starts with an insult to the immune systema severe infection, a car crash, a pregnancy. The first symptoms are flu-like, but months go by and the patient realizes she isnt getting better. In a few genetically predisposed individuals, Montoya told the Slate editor, it is biologically plausible that the vaccine, which mimics a natural infection, could also trigger an immune response powerful enough to lead to CFS. To find out if that is the case, trial investigators would need to carefully track participants symptoms for at least one year. CFS is not the only serious adverse effect reported. The American College of Pediatrics has suggested one of the HPV vaccines could possibly be associated with the very rare but serious condition of premature ovarian failure (POF), also known as premature menopause. In Japan, use of the vaccine in adolescents has been associated with such serious adverse events that it has been withdrawn from the immunisation programme.

Usefulness of Vaccine

HPV spreads only through sexual contact and therefore is not communicable in a casual manner. There are about 100 strains of HPV, and the vaccine only protects against 2, 4, or 9 of them, depending on the brand and 95% of HPV infections heal by themselves  potentially granting the individual lifetime immunity against the particular strain. Perhaps to improve uptake of the vaccine the manufacturers promote it as an anticancer vaccine rather than a vaccine against sexually transmitted disease. But while there is evidence that the vaccine reduces infection with the vaccine strains of the virus, non-vaccine strains have been known to replace the vaccine strain and these could produce cancer. There is currently no scientific study that shows the vaccine reduces cervical cancer in the women who are vaccinated. The efficacy of the vaccine against cancer is unknown

Cost-effectiveness READ MORE HERE.



Also published, 12/25 in the Tribune India was the following:



Prevention is Better Than Cure.



CN Purandare, Alka Kriplani & Neerja Bhatla IN India, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the global burden of cervical cancer, with an estimated 122,800 new cases and 67,500 deaths annually, which is more than the number of deaths due to maternal mortality. Since these women are usually in their 40s and 50s, it is estimated that the years of life lost are greater in cervical cancer. Globally, cervical cancer accounts for 528,000 cases including 445,000 cases in low and middle income countries (LMICs).

Epidemiology

The age-standardised incidence rate of cervical cancer varies between 5.6 and 24.3 per 100,000 women in different regions of India. Although a gradually declining trend in the cervical cancer incidence has been observed in different regions of India over the last two decades, the rates still remain significantly higher than in other Asian countries. In fact, the absolute numbers of both cervical cancer cases and deaths are on the increase due to population growth. In the West, repeated testing by Pap smear and consequent treatment of precancerous lesions led to a substantial decline in the numbers of cervical cancer cases. In India, with very limited resources to introduce and sustain effective population-based cervical cancer screening programs, there was not much progress in preventing this very preventable cancer. The discovery by Nobel laureate Harald zur Hausen that persistent infection with one of the oncogenic, high-risk types of human papillomaviruses (HPV) is the 'necessary' cause of cervical cancer; enabled the development of primary prevention using HPV vaccination. Presently available vaccines target the two types that are responsible for 70 per cent of cervical cancers worldwide. HPV 16 and HPV 18 and can prevent over 90 per cent of high-grade precancerous lesions caused by these types. In India, there is a greater proportion of these types, making it likely that the impact of vaccination will be better than has been observed already in research studies and in countries that have implemented the vaccine program.

Efficacy of doses

Fewer than three doses of HPV vaccine would substantially reduce costs, improve compliance, ease logistics and facilitate scale up in national immunization programs. Data to support this has emerged from trials. WHO, after reviewing the available evidence on less than 3-doses, has recommended a two-dose schedule for girls (at an interval of 6 months, which may be extended to 12 months to facilitate vaccination) if vaccination is initiated prior to 15 years of age and a three-dose schedule (at 0, 1-2, and 6 months) if vaccination is initiated after the 15th birthday and for immunocompromised individuals, including those infected with HIV.

Countries implementing Immunisation

More than 80 countries have introduced HPV vaccine in the national immunisation programs (NIPs), of which 33 are LMICs; in addition, 25 LMICs have introduced HPV vaccination in pilot demonstration programs as a prelude to national scaling up in NIPs. In most programs a school-based approach is predominantly used to deliver the vaccine to the targeted adolescents with additional efforts using field clinics, and primary health centres to cover girls who missed vaccination and do not attend schools. Gavi The Vaccine Alliance has been able to markedly reduce the procurement price of both vaccines to Rs $5. While Australia, Denmark, USA and Canada were the first high-income countries to introduce HPV vaccination in NIPs in 2007, Panama (2008) in Latin America, Bhutan (2009) in Asia and Rwanda (2010) in Africa were the first LMICs that introduced HPV vaccination. Early reports of protection offered by the vaccine at the population level against vaccine targeted HPV infections, genital warts and cervical premalignant lesions have already started coming from countries that introduced the vaccine between 2007 and 2010.

HPV vaccine safety

Extensive data on the safety of HPV vaccines are now available from clinical trials and the population programs. Globally more than 270 million doses have been administered with no serious adverse events linked to the HPV vaccine and with an excellent safety profile. A meta-analysis of vaccine trials concluded that the frequency of serious adverse events (OR 0.99; 95%CI 0.87-1.14) and death (OR 0.91, 95%CI 0.39-2.14) were similar in the vaccinated and control groups. The majority of deaths reported were accidental in nature, and none was attributable to the vaccines. Various rare syndromes have also been studied and none found to be related to the vaccine. A recently published study from India reported no serious adverse event attributable to the vaccine after administering 34,856 doses of the quadrivalent vaccine to 10-18 year old girls and following them over four years. Read more and comment here.
Iran Rejects American Bill on Minority Rights

The Assyrian Universal Alliance has denounced a recent US Senate bill accusing the Islamic Republic of violating the rights of its minority communities. "Iranian Christians do not need the sympathy of those who falsely claim to be supporters of human rights," Yonathan Betkolia, the secretary-general of the alliance, was also quoted as saying by IRNA on Monday. The measure, which passed the senate on Thursday, calls on the US administration to condemn Iran for allegedly persecuting religious minorities and continuing the violation of their rights. Under the Islamic Republic's Constitution, Assyrians are recognized as a religious and ethnic minority, and hold one seat in the parliament. As of 2004, the seat has been occupied by Betkolia.
With both arms strapped to a gurney convicted cop-killer Torrey McNabb raised both middle fingers and told the state of Alabama "I hate you mother****ers" just before he was shot up with a lethal combination of drugs on Oct. 19.

Whether it was from the execution chamber at Hollman Correctional facility in Atmore, or inside the state legislature, the death penalty continued to make news across Alabama in 2017.

Alabama also continued to be an outlier from the national downward trend of states executing inmates, according to one national report.

Of the nation's 23 executions this year, 75 percent took place in four southern states: Texas, Arkansas, Florida, and Alabama.

Texas had seven executions, Arkansas four, and Florida tied Alabama each had three executions - McNabb, Tommy Arthur, and Robert Melson.

McNabb was convicted of the 1997 murder of Montgomery police officer Anderson Gordon. Arthur, known as the "Houdini of Death Row" for avoiding seven previous executions through legal maneuvers for his conviction in a 1982 murder-for-hire, was executed May 25. Melson, who was convicted in the 1994 triple slaying at a Gadsden fast-food restaurant, was executed June 8.

L to R McNabb, Arthur, Melson

And Alabama is set to execute two more in early 2018.

According to report from the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that researches the death penalty and provides public information on the issues surrounding executions, 81 executions were scheduled in 2017 across the nation, but 58 were never carried out.

"Across the political spectrum, more people are coming to the view that there are better ways to keep us safe than executing a handful of offenders selected from a random death-penalty lottery," said Robert Dunham, the group's executive director. "There will be times when numbers fluctuate - particularly following historic highs or lows - but the steady long-term decline in the death penalty since the 1990s suggests that in most of the country, the death penalty is becoming obsolete."

The report also notes a Gallup Poll from October that shows 55 percent support for capital punishment across the nation, the lowest since March 1972.

DPIC says it does not take a position for or against capital punishment.

Legislation

Alabama did change the way it handled death penalty cases in 2017 - viewed as good or bad depending on where you stand on capital punishment.

Earlier this year, Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law a bill that said juries, not judges, have the final say on whether to impose the death penalty in capital murder cases--a policy every state but Alabama had already done away with. Because of that law, judges can no longer override a jury's recommendation, whether the jury recommends life in prison or the death penalty. The law does not apply retroactively to prisoners already awaiting execution. The center stated in its report that an estimated 20 percent of all Alabama death sentences had been the product of judicial overrides.

Alabama is still the only state to allow a non-unanimous jury to impose the death penalty-- under state law, a jury can send an inmate to death row on a vote of 10-2, which the DPIC refers to as an "outlier practice."

Shortly after the judicial override bill was passed, the legislature enacted the "Fair Justice Act" to expedite executions by reducing inmates' access to appellate courts. The act shortens time allowed for death-penalty appeals and has gained criticism from death row exonerees, like Anthony Ray Hinton, and defense attorneys across the state.

Hinton said he believes if the Fair Justice Act had been enacted years ago he would have been executed before he was released in 2015 after new tests on the murder weapon in his case could not connect him to the slayings of two fast-food managers in the 1980s.

Information from the DPIC says eight states carried out 23 executions during 2017, which is half the number of seven years ago and the second lowest total execution number since 1991. The federal government and 14 states sought to impose 39 new death sentences this year: The second lowest annual total since 1972. This year was also the seventh concurrent year fewer than 100 death sentences were ordered across the county.

According to information listed on the Alabama Department of Corrections website, there have been 26 inmates put to death in the state in the past decade. In 2016, there were two after a more than two-year hiatus due to legal wrangling and attempts to get a new source of execution drugs.

And Alabama has scheduled executions for two inmates in 2018: Vernon Madison on Jan. 25, and Doyle Lee Hamm on Feb. 22.

In November, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Madison-- who claimed to be mentally incompetent and was granted a stay of execution in 2016-- can be executed.

Madison, 66, is one of the state's longest-serving death row inmates. He was convicted in the April 1985 slaying of Mobile police officer Cpl. Julius Schulte.

In May 2016, Madison was set to die by lethal injection, but hours after the scheduled execution the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling upholding a lower court's stay.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed that decision, meaning Madison is competent and can be executed.

Hamm, 60, has been in prison since December 1987. He was convicted in the murder of Patrick Cunningham, an employee of Anderson's Motel in Cullman who was killed during a robbery.

Attorney Bernard E. Harcourt, Hamm's lawyer and a professor of law and political science at Columbia, said earlier this month when the execution date was announced that Hamm is terminally ill and that execution would constitute "cruel and unusual punishment." Hamm has been battling cranial and lymphatic cancer for over three years, his attorney said. According to documents filed by Harcourt, treatment for the illness has compromised Hamm's veins, and lethal injection would likely cause "cruel and needless pain."

"What we're litigating right now is the specific venous protocol for lethal injection as applied to Doyle's situation, given his lymphatic cancer, rather than the general cruelty of the drug cocktail in Alabama," Harcourt wrote. "Overall, I have to say, it's inhumane to execute somebody who's at the end of his life suffering and battling with cancer."

The DPIC report also noted the Alabama case of death row inmate James McWilliams, McWilliams v. Dunn, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that its case precedent gave an indigent defendant the right to an independent mental-health expert to assist in evaluating, preparing, and presenting his defense. The Court held that Alabama had violated McWilliams's right to due process when the trial court denied his lawyer's request to consult with an expert to review mental-health records about his client that had been produced on the eve of the penalty-phase hearing, according to the report.
A Birmingham police officer was taken to UAB Hospital late Thursday night after he was shot in the arm, authorities confirm. The injury is not life-threatening, police say.

Birmingham police Sgt. Bryan Shelton said the officer is doing fine. He left the hospital about an hour ago.

Officer is doing well and walked out of the hospital about an hour or so ago. Our mayor @WoodfinForBham and @ChiefACRoper both spoke with him at the hospital. Thank you for your support bham!  Birmingham Police (@BhamPolice) December 29, 2017

However, police are still searching for the person responsible. He said officers have two persons of interest detained, but no one has been charged.

Police had cordoned off an area generally in the Third Avenue West and Third Street West and Lomb Avenue and Tuscaloosa Avenue vicinity searching for a suspect. Police brought in tracking dogs for the search.

Shelton said the cordoned perimeter has been pulled, explaining the perimeter was created so the dogs could work.

The shooting happened at 408 Princeton Ave. about 11:30 p.m. Thursday, according to police. A number of police had focused on an area near Cotton Ave S.W. and 6th St S.W.

Shelton said police found a car believed to be involved in the shooting, but the suspect was no longer in the car.

The injured officer was a part of a follow-up investigation into a drug house complaint, Shelton said. While working that complaint unknown individual or individuals walked up and shot into his car, he said.

At this time it is unknown how close the suspects got to the car or how many shots were fired into the car.

"Fortunately, our officer is well. He is doing fine. This just goes to show you the danger that our job entails when you're responding to complaints from the citizens about things that are going on in their neighborhood," Shelton said. "We will still keep him in our prayers.

Residents in the area should stay in their homes and report anything suspicious they notice outside their homes, he said.

This story will be updated.

Al.com reporter Carol Robinson contributed to this story
An investigation is underway after a man was shot Thursday afternoon at a western Birmingham gas station.

The shooting happened before 2 p.m. at Exxon at 734 Graymont Avenue West, the scene of a deadly shooting just months ago.

Birmingham police spokesman Sgt. Bryan Shelton said the victim, a male, had already left the scene by the time officers arrived. He was taken to UAB Hospital, but his injuries aren't believed to be life-threatening.

Shelton said a gas pump also caught fire, but the cause of that blaze wasn't immediately clear. The scene was quickly cleared.

In October, someone fired more than 40 bullets fired in the store parking lot. Antione Collier, 29, died in that shooting. A 68-year-old woman who police said was an innocent bystander also was injured while she was picking up lunch.

That shooting also happened in broad daylight.
A reward of thousands is now being offered for information leading to the bodies of a Blount County couple missing for nearly two weeks and believed dead.

Ricardo Santiago Gonzalez and Adalberta Chavez were discovered missing on Saturday, Dec. 16, by family members who were concerned about their welfare. They went to the couple's home in Cleveland and found blood inside the trailer, authorities. That's when lawmen were notified, and the family began a search of their own that has spanned weeks and countless hours.

Blount County officials charged the couple's 17-year-old son, Leo Chavez, with three counts of capital murder on Dec. 19. Two of the charges are for the deaths of his parents during a robbery and the third capital charges is for the murder of two or more people at one time.

Leo Chavez

He remains held in the Blount County Jail without bond. Last week, Blount County District Attorney Pamela Casey issued a lookout bulletin a truck believed to be connected to the crime. She described the vehicle as a 2001 white Chevrolet S-10 extended cab pickup truck, and said it was registered to Gonzalez.

That truck has since been recovered in Chattanooga. Casey said Friday, "Due to our investigation, we have every reason to believe the bodies are here in Blount County."

The family is offering a $4,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the bodies. Authorities are seeking additional reward money, and said more arrests could follow.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Blount County Sheriff's Office.
A 7-year Birmingham police veteran assigned to a special investigative unit was recovering Friday after someone unleashed a hail of bullets into his unmarked car while he was doing surveillance on a violent crime suspect.

The officer, whose name is not being released, is part of the department's Neighborhood Enforcement Team (N.E.T.), a task force implemented four years ago to help control crime in the city's neighborhoods. He took a bullet to the arm Thursday night on West End's Princeton Avenue, and then got on the police radio to call for help, saying "I've been hit."

On Friday, police said they were holding two men in their early 20s pending formal charges. They are in the Birmingham City Jail on a 48-hour extension, which means they must be released after being locked up for two days if warrants against them aren't obtained. Their names also have not been released.

More details emerged Friday as the probe continued. Authorities said the N.E.T. officer was on Princeton Avenue about 11:30 p.m. as part of an investigation into a person or people who are believed to be involved in violent crimes in the city. Initially police said the officer was a part of a follow-up investigation into a drug house complaint, but said as the investigation progressed, they learned that wasn't necessarily the case.

The officer was wearing the N.E.T. uniform which is an army-green t-shirt and matching pants, or camouflage pants. He was in an unmarked vehicle when he saw the men approach his vehicle. Authorities said he saw what was happening, and began to drive off. That's when shots peppered his vehicle.

"It's unknown how many individuals were shooting or how many times they shot,'' said Sgt. Bryan Shelton.

The officer got on his radio and called for help. Other N.E.T. team members were in the area, as well as patrol officers, and they flocked to the scene. Authorities said the assailants jumped into a white SUV and fled, but because so many officers were in the area, they were able to get in behind the fleeing suspects.

After a brief chase, an undisclosed number of suspects bailed from the SUV and took off on foot. Birmingham police called in all five of its K-9 tracking teams to hunt for the suspects. Several high-capacity weapons were recovered.

Police cordoned off a large area in the West End neighborhoods, which drew complaints from some residents who couldn't get into their homes or leave their homes. Shelton said it was necessary because of the way the tracking dogs work. "And we're thank for our K-9 units for responding,'' he said.

Two "persons of interest" were taken into custody with one hour of the shooting. The tracking dogs found one of them hiding under a vehicle in the driveway of a home a couple of blocks away.

Shelton said because of the nature of the investigation, which is fluid, additional details on the potential suspects aren't being released. "I wish we could give you more, but at this time we cannot for the sake of the investigation,'' he said. There are potentially other suspects who could be sought, he said.

The wounded officer, Shelton said, is doing well. "He actually was able to walk out of the hospital on his own strength and his own accord and we're very thankful for that,'' he said. "It could have been much worse. Thankfully he is alive, he is well, he is in good spirits."

"I've known him personally and he works hard for us. He cares, and when you find an officer or public servant who cares about people, about what they go through, it's a real gem,'' Shelton said. "We are highly fortunate that it did not turn out worse than what it was."

Shelton said they don't yet know whether the shooter or shooters knew they were firing on an officer, but said that should have been identifiable by his clothing. Either way, he said, the shooters were in the wrong. "The individuals opened fire on a vehicle that was occupied and that in itself is reckless and it's dangerous regardless of who the occupant is or was,'' he said. "That's behavior that cannot be tolerated in our city."

Just hours before the officer was shot, and on the other side of town, another Birmingham police officer was involved with a shooting and that incident ended with the gun-wielding suspect dead.

The shooting happened about 6:30 p.m. at the Days Inn on U.S. 280. South Precinct officers were dispatched to the motel after several people reported seeing a suspicious man with a gun who had knocked on several doors.

When officers arrived, they ordered the suspect - now identified as 37-year-old Christopher Baird - to drop his weapon. He lowered it, but then raised it again and that's when officer fired on him. Baird, of Vestavia Hills, was pronounced dead on the scene. The State Bureau of Investigation has taken over the probe, which is standard operating procedure in police-involved shootings.

Authorities are still trying to determine what led to Baird's behavior. He had one prior felony conviction - in 2010 - but was known to lawmen in several area cities.

Shelton on Friday said both incidents illustrate the danger police officers face every day on the streets. He said Birmingham police alone respond to 14,000 to 15,000 calls a month and no call should ever be considered routine. "We don't know what's on the other side of that 911 call,'' he said. "We've had officers respond to a call that seems to be a low-level, low-priority call, and all of the sudden, things go bad."

"Unfortunately, that's the nature of our work, the nature of what we deal with,'' he said. "But our officers understand that. They accepted the call, the responsibility of knowing you don't know what's on the other side of the wall, who is on the other side of the door."

He said no officer ever wants to hear that a fellow officer has been wounded, or worse. "We're like family. For us, it's like receiving a call that your loved one or your family member has been injured,'' he said. "The worst goes through your mind. It really delves into the risks the officers take. But they chose to answer the call of service. That's the difference."
A west Alabama woman was found slain when police arrived at her home to serve papers and her young son told them someone had killed his mother.

Demopolis Police Chief Tommie Reese identified the victim as 29-year-old Shannon Sharell Steele. He said a police officer went to Steele's Demopolis home on Queensbury Lane about 3:10 p.m. Thursday to trying to serve papers on someone there.

When the officer arrived, a 4-year-old boy said that someone killed his mother. The officer went into the home and found Steele dead in a back bedroom. She had been shot.

Steele's 4-month old daughter was also in the bedroom with her. Two other daughters apparently weren't home at the time.

"It's very sad,'' Reese said.

The chief said Demopolis Fire and Rescue and AmStar EMS were called to the scene, but the victim had already died. Detectives and crime scene investigators spent several hours at the scene talking to neighbors and collecting evidence.

Steele's body was to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for autopsy.

Reese on Friday said they don't yet know when Steele was killed and said there are no suspects in custody. The children are in the care of their grandmother.

Police, he said, are "asking the community to keep the family in their thoughts and prayers, especially after we have just celebrated Christmas Holidays and now getting ready to start a New Year."

Anyone with information is asked to call the Demopolis Police Department or TIP LINE at 334-289-3073 or 334-289-1475.
Chased for exorbitant court fees with little chance of justice, victims of rape and torture struggle to survive.

Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina  Two decades have passed since the war ended in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but Selma  not her real name  still lives in fear.

She is a survivor of rape and a former prisoner of the 1992-95 Bosnian war, in which an estimated 100,000 people were killed. Some estimates put the number of women raped during the conflict at up to 50,000.

A team of lawyers contacted Selma and other victims of torture 10 years ago to sue Bosnias Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity for damages.

She paid the requested amount of 25 euros, but didnt expect much from the case.

{articleGUID}

But six years later, she was shocked to learn that she owes 2,500 euros for court fees since the claim for damages was rejected due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

Courts in Republika Srpska had declared that legal cases against the entity had to be filed by 2001.

Torture victims face court fees of up to 5,000 euros due to lost civil proceedings, an exorbitant amount for those who are already struggling to make ends meet.

Over the past few months, she has been getting more notices regarding her debt.

I'd rather be killed than give my money to Dodik. When they pay me for my destroyed life, then I'll pay the fees without another word. by Selma, survivor of rape and former prisoner of war

Selmas monthly salary is a mere 250 euros and she worries this will likely be partly deducted to settle the fees. Authorities visited her home last month and wrote up a list of all of her items to be confiscated.

Id rather be killed than give my money to [President of Republika Srpska] Milorad Dodik. When they pay me for my destroyed life, then Ill pay the [court] fees without another word, Selma told Al Jazeera.

They destroyed me [during the war] and they continue to destroy me today.

Selma was held captive as a prisoner three times during the war.

She spent time in a concentration camp and the third time that she was held, soldiers from the Republika Srpska army raped her, leaving her pregnant.

Over the course of six months, she made 17 attempts to escape to liberated territory held by Bosnian government forces (ARBIH).

It wasnt until ARBIH freed the prisoners from the concentration camp run by the Republika Srpska army that she managed to make the two-day trek through forests, mountains and hills to reach free territory in February 1993.

Seventeen others who were travelling with her didnt survive; they died overnight due to the freezing cold.

To try and recover, Selma spent two months at the psychiatry ward and for six years has been regularly consuming antidepressants.

But now, having received the latest court order urging her to pay the fees, she relives her trauma everyday.

I really dont know how Ill survive this

Another survivor of rape who participated in the civil proceeding is already having her pension deducted, Selma explained.

A third woman, she said, had all her assets confiscated, including the plastic chairs on her front porch after authorities broke into her home and raided the house at 3am.

I already survived this experience in 1992. And now again, even after 25 years, there's still no end to it. After 25 years, I still haven't freed myself from Serbian Chetniks. by Selma, survivor of rape and former prisoner of war

Selma waits in anxiety each night, expecting her turn at any moment.

Thats how [Bosnian Serb forces] arrived in 1992. If itll be like that again, then I really dont know how Ill survive this, Selma said.

Whenever a car stops by my house, I think Its them. I already survived this experience in 1992. And now again, even after 25 years, theres still no end to it. After 25 years, I still havent freed myself from [Serbian] Chetniks.

For a while I was thinking of filling up bottles with gasoline and to welcome [the authorities] this way because I have nothing to lose anymore; Ive already lost everything. But then I thought about how my son needs me and I changed my mind.

With no legal mechanism in place that would cover victims court fees, torture victims have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, seeking their rights.

No rights for victims of torture

A state-level law on the rights of victims of torture was first introduced in parliament in 2014, but it wasnt adopted due to a lack of support from Republika Srpska representatives, who claimed that it would discriminate against Serbs.

The initiative to implement a law started in 2004 and since then has been drafted at least eight times.

If its adopted, it would regulate compensation for torture victims according to the states economic ability, as well as provide free healthcare and psychological aid.

We believe that it is morally unacceptable, after dismissing their claims, to further demand the victims be the ones to pay the enormous amounts to the entities and the state they sued, who are responsible for the great suffering and damage caused to the victims during the war, said Adisa Fisic Barukcija, spokesperson for TRIAL International, an NGO that fights for international crimes and supports victims in their quest for justice.

There is no justification for this, especially considering the fact that the incurred costs of the entities Attorneys Offices are reimbursed through special budgets, regardless of any additional charge.

At least 30,000 applications for compensation have been filed; among which 90 percent of them to courts in Republika Srpska.

In January 2017, regarding the case of Cindric and Beslic (victims of war crimes) v. Croatia at the European Court of Human Rights, judges ruled that after their compensation claim is dismissed, victims arent obligated to pay court fees to the state.

Unfortunately, there are few examples in Bosnia and Herzegovina of cases where the judgment Cindric and Beslic is applied, which is why the victims who have started civil proceedings are living with a constant fear of the results of the proceedings and the consequences they might have on them and their families, Fisic Barukcija said.

So far 10 victims of sexual abuse during wartime Bosnia have been awarded compensation for damages, according to statistics by TRIAL.

However even when the civil proceeding is successful and the perpetrator is found guilty, hes often financially unable to pay for damages.

In one case a member of the Republika Srpska army was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison along with paying 15,000 euros in damages to his victim that he raped.

Since the convict didnt have the money, Bosnia and Herzegovina as a signatory of the UN convention against torture is required to pay compensation for the victim from state funds.

The rape survivor could have used the much needed money to help recover as she suffers from schizophrenia and severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

I'm just worried that their arrival will make a mess in my life and for my son. He still doesn't know that he was born out of rape. by Selma, survivor of rape and former prisoner of war

However, since Bosnia still does not have a state mechanism in place to do so, TRIAL decided last month to appeal to the UN Committee against Torture for the first time, taking the case to an international level.

Selma however lost all hope in the justice system long ago.

Her concern is that authorities will make a scene in the neighbourhood when they come to confiscate her items and that she will have to explain her story to the neighbours and to her son.

The authorities can take whatever they want. Im just worried that [their arrival] will make a mess in my life and for my son. He still doesnt know [that he was born out of rape]. Ive been waiting for him to mature a bit more to explain some things to him. Im scared for him, Selma said.

Ive already been through it all; Im already numb. If you could cut me up right now, I dont think any blood would flow. Im worried for my son.

I just want this whole ordeal to be done with so I can finally breathe.

Follow Mersiha Gadzo on Twitter: @MersihaGadzo
GCC countries have spent billions of dollars on US arms. Will that guarantee their security?

For the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, 2017 is ending with much insecurity and uncertainty. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran continue to mount as does friction between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey.

Yemens humanitarian disaster is getting worse, as Houthi fighters continue to fire missiles into Saudi Arabia and Riyadh responds with heavy bombardment of Sanaa and other areas. Sporadic attacks in Bahrain continue targeting the kingdoms security forces and infrastructure. Qatari-Turkish military cooperation is deepening as more Turkish troops arrive in Doha.



Amid the GCC states sense of vulnerability to regional chaos, an arms race is under way in the Gulf. On December 18, during its independence day military parade, Qatar showcased its Chinese-made ballistic missiles. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia announced its budget for 2018, which will set aside $56bn for defence spending with expenditures on education no longer surpassing the military budget. In May, US President Donald Trump announced the signing of arms deals worth $110bn in Riyadh.

Since Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt severed diplomatic and economic ties with Doha on June 5, Qatar has spent tens of billions of dollars on US, British, and French fighter jets, German tanks, Italian warships, Chinese ballistic missiles, and Turkish military gear.

In September, the United States approved a $3.8bn arms package to Bahrain, and that same month President Donald Trump announced that a $5bn fighter jet sale to Kuwait had received the State Departments green light.

Seeking favour with Washington

Whereas decades ago Washingtons relations with Gulf states were largely driven by Cold War geopolitics and high US demand for foreign oil, todays circumstances are different and defence deals, rather than energy, play dominant roles in the US-GCC relations.

For the US, lucrative arms sales to GCC states factor into Trumps America First agenda and boost his standing with his supporters at home. For the GCC countries on both sides of the ongoing crisis, these deals are a way to win Washingtons favour.

Arms purchases worth billions of dollars will not solve the domestic problems of Arab countries. by

Trumps support is a decisive factor in the crisis, as both Qatar and the Saudi/UAE-led bloc continue to wage a soft war against each other via media outlets, think tanks, and public relations firms.

But, it appears that arms deals with GCC countries have their own economic rationale that operates autonomously from political considerations. For example, Trump shook the hand of Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, at the Riyadh Summit in May 2017 and said that he and the Qatari monarch would discuss Washington selling beautiful military equipment to Doha.

The following month, in the immediate aftermath of the GCC disputes outbreak, Trump accused Qatar of sponsoring terrorism in a tweet. A week later his administration authorised over $12bn of US weapons.

Last month at the Dubai International Airshow 2017, Turkeys state-owned Mikina ve Kimya Endustrisi signed a $20m munition deal with the UAE despite recent harsh rhetorical exchanges between officials in Abu Dhabi and Ankara. For all of Russia and Saudi Arabias differences over Syria and Iran, their negotiations of a sale of S-400 defence system are intriguing.

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Although the GCC states sources of weapons are diversifying, the United States remains the Gulf states top arms dealer. Yet, in Washington, there is growing concern about US arms sales to GCC members. There have been suggestions that the Trump administration block arms sales to the region until the GCC crisis is resolved. Another concern is the deadly military campaign in Yemen led by Saudi Arabia, which is armed with US weapons.

Similarly, in the United Kingdom, politicians and activists have called on the UK government to stop selling arms to Riyadh which could be used in the Yemeni war, where air raids by the Saudi-led coalition have killed thousands.

A faulty anti-Iran strategy

Despite the controversy that surrounds Washingtons arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other GCC members, it is likely that such transactions will continue. The Trump administrations plan to remove restrictions on arms sales that the Obama administration linked to human rights issues is one indication of that.

In the Gulf, there will be a continuous demand for such arms deals driven by perceptions of a growing Iranian threat; this sits well with anti-Iran hawks in Washington.

Iran has exploited much of the chaos in post-2003 Iraq, the Syrian civil war, sectarian unrest in Bahrain, the Yemeni Arab Spring of 2011 and the collapse of the government in Sanaa in 2014. Arab governments and societies that fail to effectively deal with issues of poverty, youth unemployment, ethnic and sectarian marginalisation, human rights abuses, and high levels of social inequality will remain vulnerable to Irans efforts to capitalise on Arab states internal weaknesses.

Put simply, to push back against Iranian influence, Arab governments must improve their standing with certain segments of their societies that see no sound alternative but to look to foreign powers such as Iran for support. Arms purchases worth billions of dollars will not solve the domestic problems of Arab countries.

Ultimately, arms sales serve a political purpose at a time of increasingly confrontational rhetoric between the US, GCC states, and Iran. Officials in Tehran, however, see through the arms charade and are aware of the show Trump is putting up for his domestic audience.

So Gulf states will need a much more comprehensive approach towards Iran than spending billions on US arms to curb its growing influence and shield themselves from regional instability and violent extremists.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Somehow, some way, we have made it to the end of 2017.

And what a long year its been.

Looking back, it is almost unbelievable how much damage the Trump administration has done since the inauguration. From straining international relations to enriching corporations at the expense of poor Americans, the policies the president has championed have impacted every aspect of society.

The scientific community is no exception, as scientists have felt the repercussions of foreign, fiscal, and other policies in their work and lives.

For starters, health and science departments and programmes took a significant financial hit, notably through steep budget cuts like the $12.6bn cut to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a 16.2 percent decrease from 2017. The impact on healthcare services could be tragic, as HHS is tasked with administering Medicare, Medicaid, and enforcing the provisions under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Some $5.8bn of the HHS budget cut is taken from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funds vital biomedical research at universities and medical facilities across the US, as well as at foreign research institutions. This will hamper scientists ability to continue research, much of which is necessary for protecting human health.

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At a time when antibiotic resistance is increasing, and climate change is expanding areas of the globe where tropical diseases are endemic, decreasing federal funding for scientific research will only make us more vulnerable to diseases that we cannot treat.

Medical researchers and healthcare professionals were not the only ones to see budget cuts; environmental and climate scientists are arguably faring far worse.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, faced a proposed $2.5bn cut (31 percent of its budget). Instead, Congress voted for a decrease $528m. Though this cut is less severe, important programmes for conducting toxicity research and setting water and air pollution standards will be eliminated, and the EPAs ability to enforce environmental standards will be constrained. All of this is a recipe for a public health disaster.

Elsewhere, initiatives such as the Water and Wastewater loan and the grant programme of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) as well as climate change and clean energy-related programmes have completely lost funding.

These budget cuts are but the tip of the (melting) iceberg. Federal programmes and agencies tasked with protecting the environment and natural resources have been targeted since the beginning of Trumps presidency, starting with an order to the EPA to remove its climate change page.

In January, employees at the EPA and USDA were reportedly banned from providing the public updates via press releases or social media without prior screening and approval. More recently, staff at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention were advised against using seven words, such as transgender and science-based. Reports are unclear whether this was an outright ban or merely a suggestion for avoiding overtly political language, but concerns about censorship have arisen anew.

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Scientists have swiftly responded to these gag orders and censorship attempts by creating alt Twitter accounts for various agencies, writing an open letter to the president on climate change, and organising the March for Science. And when the threat of climate change data being scrubbed from government websites loomed, scientists rallied to preserve this critical information, which is now found at Data Refuge.

Any national and international efforts to safeguard natural resources and curb climate change have been thwarted by this administration. In the past year, Trump has reversed former President Barack Obamas decision to halt construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, planned to scrap a ban on uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, decreased the size of national parks, and withdrew from the Paris Agreement.

The consequences of these policies are not trivial, as we saw in November when the Keystone pipeline leaked 795,000 litres of oil in South Dakota.

Importantly, we are seeing the effects of climate change today, most notably in the increased frequency and severity of hurricanes this year alone. Hurricane Harvey resulted in an estimated $198bn in property damage, with thousands of Houston residents still displaced months later.

The extensive devastation left in Hurricane Marias wake has included an increasing death toll in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, as the islands remain without electricity and suffer limited access to needed medical supplies.

Scientists were also inevitably affected by Trumps harmful social policies. In the past year, we saw how the infamous Muslim ban blocked scientists from entering the country and undoubtedly discouraged many more from considering educational and career opportunities such as medical residency in the US.

A Congress plan to tax graduate students tuition waivers would have effectively forced poor and underrepresented minorities out of school, many of whom are currently in STEM fields. The financial repercussions of the new tax law and this administrations persistent attempts to repeal the ACA will take a toll on academics struggling with educational debt, on researchers with disabilities or chronic illnesses, and on families who depend on graduate school stipends or grant funding.

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For many, 2017 was a year of disbelief  disbelief in how a country that has produced many scientific breakthroughs and new technologies is now clamping down on science, scientists and their ability to promote human wellbeing.

But for those of us who were keenly aware of the threat that a Trump presidency would pose to our day-to-day lives, the devastation of this year was unsurprising. We knew that Trump made promises to the Republican Party base that threatened our health and safety.

For researchers whose race, religion, or disability was mocked by Trump during his candidacy, the threat of losing funding for research that protects human life was hardly shocking. We saw how little he valued our lives on the campaign trail.

And for scientists who come from marginalised communities and live in neighbourhoods that have been destroyed by policies favouring the rich, the removal of environmental protections was not unexpected. We saw how business and profit drive Trump and the Republican Party, even at the expense of the planet that sustains us.

The evidence for the horrors of this administration has always been there; perhaps the scientific community ignored the data of the 2016 election to reassure ourselves that 2017 might not be so terrible.

We can no longer do this in 2018. As we enter the new year, let us resolve to fight, not simply against whatever threats Trump and the Republican Party may pose, but also for a clean earth and a safe and health society.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Church and shop in Helwan, near Cairo, struck in the latest attack to target countrys Coptic Christian minority.

Nine people have been killed after an armed man opened fire on a Coptic Christian church and a nearby shop near the nations capital, Cairo, according to Egypts health ministry.

The man tried to enter Mar Mina Church in Helwan district, south of Cairo, on Friday after attacking the Coptic shop, where he killed two people.

Khaled Megahed, a health ministry spokesperson, told state television that the assailant was killed, but the interior ministry later said he had been arrested.

Local reports said that a policeman was wounded along with other victims, a majority of which were Coptic Christian.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for the attack via an Amaq propaganda outlet statement without providing evidence, wire services said.

Omar Ashour, a visiting professor of security studies at the Doha Institute, told Al Jazeera the attack was part of an ongoing crisis in Egypt.

Its more continuity than change, we still need more details to come up, but so far Egypt has witnessed over 2,000 attacks in the last three years, he said.

Targets of choice

Coptic Christians are one of four groups that are consistently targeted, Ashour said.

Sufi Muslims are a more recent group, and to a certain degree the targeting of Egyptian military and police officers.

News media personnel were another target.

But there is no counterextremism strategy to battle these groups, Ashour said.

There are two issues one is the political crisis in Egypt which unfolded after 2013. That has not been resolved, and its creating more and more recruitment and radicalisation to armed groups of various forms, he said.

There is also basically a series of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism blunders which the Egyptian forces have been committing, and that is adding more and more oil to the fire.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

ISIL has frequently targeted Egyptian Coptic Christians this year.

Egypts Christian minority makes up about 10 percent of the countrys population.
Aid workers hope dire situation improving with removal of first group of severely ill people from besieged Eastern Ghouta.

Aid agencies have evacuated another 29 critically ill people and their families from Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Syrias capital Damascus that has been under government siege.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Syrian Arab Red Crescent collaborated in the evacuation of 85 civilians in total, according to a press release by Syrian Arab Red Crescent released on Friday.

The patients included 17 children, six women and six men, Syrian Arab Red Crescent said, adding that all of them were suffering from life threatening conditions that require advanced hospital care and treatment.

The evacuation also included transfer of their families which included 17 children, 31 women and eight men, it added.

Eastern Ghouta is home to about 400,000 people that has been under a government-imposed siege since 2013.

Evacuation deal

The evacuation took place under a deal that was been reached between aid agencies and the Syrian government.

Children comprise about half of the population in Eastern Ghouta, which is one of the last Syrian rebel strongholds.

Medical supplies and food have been in short supply in the area.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the Syrian armys advance against rebels in the northwest involved bitter fighting and intense air strikes by Russian warplanes on Thursday and Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.

Fighting killed dozens on Friday and is concentrated in the village of Abu Dali in southern Idlib, after weeks of incremental government gains in adjacent areas of Hama province, SOHR said.
US president says there were no ties between his campaign and Moscow, despite charges against several of his aides.

US President Donald Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign for the 2016 US presidential election and Russia, amid an ongoing federal investigation into alleged links between the two.

Speaking to the New York Times in an interview published late on Thursday, Trump instead alleged it was the opposition Democrats who had colluded with Moscow, without presenting any evidence to back up his accusation.

There was tremendous collusion on behalf of the Russians and the Democrats, Trump said when asked about the ongoing investigation led by former FBI director Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the election.





There was no collusion with respect to my campaign, Trump added.

The investigation has so far charged several senior former Trump aides with offences that include conspiracy against the United States and making false statements.

In October, Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign manager, and his associate Rick Gates were arrested and charged on 12 counts, none directly related to the 2016 campaign.

US media attention on Manafort has focused on a meeting he had with Trumps eldest son, Donald Trump Jr; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and a Russian government lawyer who claimed to have incriminating information on 2016 Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.

This month, Trumps former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to making false statements with regards to a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the US before Trump took office in January.

In July 2016, Trump publicly asked Moscow for help in finding emails belonging to Clinton during her time as US secretary of state.

China and immigration

The New York Times published an incomplete transcript of the interview, in which Trump also addressed alleged Chinese help for North Korea and his plans to cut immigration.

On China and North Korea, Trump doubled down on a tweet he posted on Thursday, accusing China of sending oil to Pyongyang.

I hate to say, it was reported this morning, and it was reported on Fox. Oil is going into North Korea. That wasnt my deal! Trump said, adding that he wanted China to toughen its stance on the nuclear-armed state.

Trump was similarly bullish on immigration, citing a recent attack inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in New York to justify stricter measures on who the US allows into the country.

They take the worst people in the country, they put em into the lottery, then they have a handful of bad, worse ones, and they put them out.





Those comments came shortly after another New York Times report, citing anonymous White House officials, in which Trump allegedly blamed US immigration policy for allowing in too many Haitians who all have AIDS and Nigerians who would never go back to their huts.

The White House has denied that Trump made the outrageous remarks.

Trump was elected on a hard-right populist platform, including pledges to build a wall on the US-Mexican border to prevent immigration and to ban Muslims from entering the US.
Six missiles reportedly fired at two Hamas positions after interception of rockets by Israels missile defence system.

The Israeli military has attacked two Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip with tank shelling and air strikes after rockets launched from Gaza struck Israel, according to Israeli news media.

Israels Iron Dome missile defence system intercepted two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army said on Twitter on Friday.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported quoting sources in Gaza that six Israeli missiles were fired.

It said plumes of smoke were visible from one of the targeted areas east of the Gaza City neighbourhood of al-Tuffah.

A third landed in an Israeli community in the Shaar Hanegev region, near the border with Gaza, according to the Israeli news website Ynet.

Although Israel said it attacked Hamas posts, the source of the rockets remains unknown.

Rocket-warning sirens began shortly after midday in the Shaar Hanegev and Sdot Negev regions, alerting residents to take shelter, the Israeli army said on Twitter.

No casualties were reported from either attack, according to the Times of Israel. However, a building in Shaar Hanegev sustained some damage when a third rocket landed nearby.

The Times of Israel website speculated that it was designed to coincide with a ceremony marking the 24th birthday of an Israeli army soldier, Oron Shaul, who was killed in 2014 and whose remains are reportedly being held by Hamas.

The Israeli army said it is currently investigating the incident.

Day of Rage

Palestinian factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad had declared Friday as another day of rage following the controversial decision by US President Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The rockets from Gaza were the first since December 18 and mark the most sustained fire from the Gaza Strip since the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza.

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Tensions have been high in the region since the US decision on Jerusalem was announced on December 6.

The status of the city is one of the most sensitive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The move drew global condemnation and prompted a series of protests in Gaza and elsewhere.

The Israeli military used tear gas and gunfire to break up protests on Friday.

At least 10 Palestinians were injured in the clashes.

Fifteen people have died, and at least 2,900 others have been injured since Trumps announcement was made, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

At least 500 people have been arrested, including Fatah leaders in Jerusalem.
In response to US criticism, Pakistani military maintains it has done enough to combat armed groups.

Islamabad, Pakistan  Pakistans military has warned the United States against the possibility of taking unilateral action against armed groups on its soil, in its strongest response yet to tensions between the two allies.

Speaking to journalists in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, Pakistan military spokesman Major-General Asif Ghafoor rejected the notion that Pakistan is not doing enough to fight armed groups.

We have sacrificed a lot. We have paid a huge price both in blood and treasure, Ghafoor said. We have done enough and we cannot do any more for anyone.

He said Pakistan would continue to fight armed groups in the region in Pakistans self-interest, rather than at the behest of other countries.

Had we not supported [the US], al-Qaeda would not have been defeated, he said.

Since 2007, Pakistan has been battling armed groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), al-Qaeda and their allies, who have been seeking to impose a strict version of Islam on the country. The military has launched multiple military operations to regain territory where the groups fighters once held sway.

Violence has dropped since the launch of the latest operation in 2014, but sporadic, high-casualty attacks continue to occur. Earlier this month, at least nine people were killed in a suicide bombing on a church in the southwestern city of Quetta.

The US has often called on Pakistan to do more in its fight against armed groups, accusing it of selectively targeting armed groups and not taking action against the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network, both of whom target US and Afghan forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

US criticism

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson repeated the call for Pakistan to take on groups allegedly offered safe haven on its soil.

We are prepared to partner with Pakistan to defeat terrorist organisations seeking safe havens, but Pakistan must demonstrate its desire to partner with us, he wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times.

Tillersons message echoed US President Donald Trumps words when he announced a new South Asia strategy in August, singling out Pakistan for criticism. Since then, a series of high-level contacts between the two governments have taken place, although no breakthrough achievements have been announced.

During his press conference on Thursday, Ghafoor linked the difficulty of acting against armed groups such as the Haqqani Network to the number of Afghan refugees resident in Pakistan.

The country is home to more than 2.7 million Afghan refugees, by the militarys figures, many of whom have lived in Pakistan for more than three decades.

Follow Asad Hashim on Twitter: @AsadHashim
Two sons of late King Abdullah join princes freed from detention in Ritz-Carlton hotel after agreeing terms of release.

Saudi Arabias attorney general has freed two sons of the late King Abdullah from their detention as part of the kingdoms anti-corruption crackdown, according to Reuters.

Prince Meshaal bin Abdullah and Prince Faisal bin Abdullah are among some 200 other royal family members, government ministers and businessmen who have been detained since the government began an anti-corruption purge, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in November.

The pair were released from Riyadhs Ritz-Carlton hotel after they agreed financial settlements with the government, a senior Saudi official told Reuters.

A decision on whether to release a third brother, Prince Turki bin Abdullah, has not yet been reached, the source said.

Nearly two dozen other individuals were released earlier this week, as reported by Saudi newspaper Okaz on December 26.

Detainees who have not reached agreements with the government are set to face trial, the report said.

The kingdom is preparing to channel billions of dollars of seized funds from the anti-graft campaign into economic development projects, a Saudi minister said on December 4.

A special Ministry of Finance account has been opened to receive such funds, which the public prosecutors office has estimated should eventually total between $50bn and $100bn, Minister of Commerce and Investment Majid bin Abdullah al-Qasabi said.

Last month, senior Saudi prince and former head of the National Guard, Miteb bin Abdullah, was released after reportedly agreeing a $1bn settlement with the government.

Miteb is another son of the late King Abdullah, and the cousin of Crown Prince Salman.

The shake-up of the Saudi government came just months after King Salman replaced his nephew Mohammed bin Nayef with his son Mohammed bin Salman as the kingdoms heir to the throne.

The dramatic anti-corruption purge is the latest in a series of measures by the crown prince viewed as a move to assert power over the country and its previous leaders.
South Korean authorities have seized and inspected a Hong Kong-flagged vessel after it secretly transferred petroleum to a North Korean vessel in international waters, according to reports.

UN member countries are banned from making ship-to-ship transfers of prohibited goods for North Korea, according to the UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2375 adopted in September.

Resolution 2397, adopted on December 22, allows a country to seize, inspect and impound any vessel within its territorial waters that is suspected of engaging in prohibited activities with North Korea.

South Korean officials told Yonhap news agency that customs authorities took and searched Lighthouse Winmore when it entered the countrys Yeosu port on November 24 after transferring 600 tonnes of refined petroleum to a North Korean vessel on October 19.

The Lighthouse Winmore was chartered by Taiwanese company Billions Bunker Group and previously visited Yeosu port on October 11 to load up on Japanese refined petroleum and head to its claimed destination in Taiwan four days later, the authorities reportedly said.

Instead of going to Taiwan, however, the vessel transferred the petroleum to a North Korean ship, the Sam Jong 2, and three other non-North Korean vessels in international waters in the East China Sea, they said.

The actions taken will be reported to the UNSC sanctions committee on North Korea in the future, the officials were quoted by Yonhap as saying.

This marks a typical case of North Korea shrewdly circumventing UNSC sanctions by using its illegal networks.

US shared intelligence

The officials said South Korea had shared intelligence with the US for the detection of the illegal transaction.

South Korea will be keeping the Lighthouse Winmore for about six months, during which time Hong Kong is expected to file a request for the ships release with the Security Councils sanctions committee on North Korea, Yonhap said.

US President Donald Trump had said on Twitter on Thursday that China had been caught RED HANDED allowing petroleum into North Korea and that would prevent a friendly solution to the crisis over North Koreas development of nuclear-tipped missiles

China on Friday denied Trumps claims.

China has always implemented UN Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfils its international obligations. We never allow Chinese companies and citizens to violate the resolutions, Hua Chunying, Chinas foreign ministry spokesperson, said.








Artists, politicians and groups send messages of hope to anti-police brutality campaigner and daughter of Eric Garner.

Rights groups, artists and politicians have rallied around Erica Garner, an activist and writer whose fathers death at the hands of police ignited huge protests, as she fights for her life in hospital.

The 27-year-old daughter of Eric Garner, the New Yorker victim of a police chokehold in July 2014, was hospitalised on December 24 after suffering a major heart attack.

She went into a coma and on December 27; a member of her team said that she had suffered major brain damage from a lack of oxygen while in cardiac arrest.

Sending messages from Ericas Twitter account, the team member asked her 38,000 followers to pray for her health.

Thousands of people have sent in their well wishes, including Democratic politician Bernie Sanders, rapper Common, actress Rosario Dawson, anti-racism activists DeRay Mckesson and Shaun King, NGOs the American Civil Liberties Union and Color of Change, and civil rights advocate Al Sharpton.

The hashtag #EricaGarner has trended worldwide on Twitter, with more than 50,000 people writing messages about her online.

Erica appeared in a video for Sanders campaign to lead the party in the 2016 US presidential race.

My thoughts are with Erica Garner, her family and friends in hoping that she has a full recovery and rejoins the struggle for justice as soon as possible, Sanders tweeted. I have had the privilege of joining with her at a number of events and was deeply impressed with her courage and insights.





Since her fathers death, Erica has become a prominent and outspoken activist campaigning against police brutality.

Four months ago, she suffered a smaller heart attack after giving birth to a son.

Erica Garner suffered from two heart attacks post pregnancy. This is about a healthcare system that completely neglects pregnant Black people, said Patrisse Cullors, an artist and activist, writing on Twitter.

Jasminne Mendez, a poet and activist, tweeted: Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women of colour. Heart disease often goes unnoticed and undiagnosed until it is too late. Yes, I believe you can die of a broken heart. I too, at 27 almost lost my life to heart disease. Like #EricaGarner I had a broken heart.

Many shared their anecdotes of Ericas tireless campaigning efforts.

I worked w/ @es_snipes briefly at an event a few years ago. It had to be timed precisely because she was speaking at SEVEN events that night. Impressive, graceful, angry, and present, tweeted Zina Rose.

Eric Garners death

Viewed millions of times, a clip of Eric Garners death shows Daniel Pantaleo, a white officer, gripping his arms around the 43-year-olds neck in a chokehold.

Garner, a black American, also lived with asthma.

I cant breathe. I cant breathe. I cant breathe. I cant breathe. I cant breathe. I cant breathe. I cant breathe. I cant breathe, Garner said, as he was being pinned to the ground and asphyxiated.

They were his last words.

Garner, a father of six, was selling loose cigarettes in Staten Island, New York, when officers tackled him. His death was ruled a homicide, but Pantaleo was not indicted.

Tens of thousands of people have rallied against police brutality after his death, often wearing T-shirts or holding banners that read: I cant breathe.

According to Mapping Violence, US police have killed at least 1,129 people so far this year.

Black people, the database said, comprise 25 percent of those killed despite being only 13 percent of the population.

Coronary heart failure is one of the leading causes of death in the US & a category Black people lead. Also, theres an entire conversation to be had about the impact of state violence & stress on the health & wellbeing of Erica Garner. https://t.co/ATsFY5r9gN  Shay-Akil McLean, BA, MA, PhD (@Hood_Biologist) December 28, 2017

What cuts me so deep about Erica Garner's health situation is that she spent her priceless last bit of time fighting this system. At 27, she should've been able to enjoy youth, backpack across the globe like white folks do in their 20s, laugh more than she had to fight America.  Dana White (@ItsDanaWhite) December 28, 2017

Erica Garner's life matters because she's a human being. Her value isn't in what she's done for any movement.  Charlene #Defund2AbolishPolice Carruthers (@CharleneCac) December 28, 2017

Continuing to pray for Erica Garner, thinking of the families of police brutality victims & the stress they carry in advocating justice for their relatives & for all of us.   Bree Newsome Bass (@BreeNewsome) December 28, 2017

The NYPD murdered Erica Garner's father, #EricGarner, then held rallies where they publicly mocked his dying words "I can't breathe" all the while stalking & harassing his family, supporters & activists. The terrorist killer cop, Daniel Pantaleo is still employed. pic.twitter.com/g0DQon9LLu  #RIPBassemMasri  (@Delo_Taylor) December 28, 2017

https://twitter.com/fivefifths/status/946597942881906689?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

My thoughts are with Erica Garner, her family and friends in hoping that she has a full recovery and rejoins the struggle for justice as soon as possible. I have had the privilege of joining with her at a number of events and was deeply impressed with her courage and insights.  Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 26, 2017

My thoughts are with Erica Garner, her family and friends in hoping that she has a full recovery and rejoins the struggle for justice as soon as possible. I have had the privilege of joining with her at a number of events and was deeply impressed with her courage and insights.  Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 26, 2017
Foreign nationals among at least 75 people detained for suspected ISIL links in raids conducted in Ankara and Istanbul.

Turkish police have arrested at least 75 people for suspected links to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in the capital Ankara and Istanbul, according to state media.

Police conducted a series raids across Ankara early on Friday morning, detaining 29 people, a police source told the states Anadolu Agency.

Materials seized in the raids indicated some of the suspects had made preparations for an attack during the New Years celebrations, the source said, adding that the majority of the suspects were foreign nationals.

Separately, 46 suspects, 43 of them foreign nationals, were detained in Istanbul, Anadolu said, quoting sources.

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The suspects held in Istanbul were also allegedly plotting an attack during the New Years Day celebrations.

A large number of organisational documents and digital tools were seized during the operations in both cities, Anadolu said.

Istanbul police arrested a total of 714 ISIL suspects during counterterrorism operations from September 1 to December 26, according to Turkish security officials.

Among the suspects were 670 foreign nationals.

On last New Years Eve, 39 people were killed and scores of others were wounded, including Turkish and foreign nationals, in an attack in a nightclub in Istanbul.

Hundreds of people have lost their lives in attacks claimed by or blamed on ISIL in Turkey in 2015 and 2016 that targeted civilians and security forces. The groups activity in Turkey decreased in 2017.

Turkish authorities are set to step up the security across the country, particularly Istanbul, on New Years Eve with an increased number of police officers on duty and bans on public celebrations at key locations.
With the help of a federal grant, researchers from around the country are updating an online tool for algebra students that will launch in Alachua County in January.

On Jan. 16, about 20 Alachua County Public School teachers will receive an updated version of Algebra Nation, an online program that helps students grasp Algebra 1, Geometry and Algebra 2 concepts, said Philip Poekert, project director of the Virtual Learning Lab. The Virtual Learning Lab, which is compiled of researchers from UFs College of Education, the University of Colorado and Study Edge, are personalizing the Algebra Nation program with an $8.9 million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Educations Institute of Education Sciences.

With the new development, students will be given suggested actions based on their activity and data collected from past users to help improve their math performance, Poekert said.

Were just trying to take something thats good and make it better, he said.

Algebra Nation initially launched in January 2013 as a free online program tailored specifically to Algebra 1 students in Florida, aiming to improve end-of-course exam scores. Since then, it has grown to include Algebra 2 and Geometry courses and has expanded into South Carolina, Michigan, New York, Alabama and Mississippi, Poekert said.

Follow-up research found that students who consistently used the program performed better on their end-of-course exams, said Carole Beal, a UF education professor and principal investigator for the Virtual Learning Lab. She believes these results can be improved even further by making the experience more personalized.

There are a lot of resources available but the student chooses what to do, and sometimes students dont always do the most effective thing, Beal said.

Based on the videos students watch, practice problems they complete and other activity, the program will identify what course of action would be the most beneficial to that student, she said.

Sometimes students dont balance watching videos and solving problems very well, Beal said.

Katelyn Snell, a 7th grader at DeLand Middle School in DeLand, Florida, said her Algebra 1 teacher frequently uses Algebra Nation in the classroom. While the 12-year-old said she doesnt use the website much outside of school, the new personalization aspect may prompt her to log in more often.

If Im struggling with something and tutoring isnt that day, then I can do that instead, she said.

Justin Lessem, a UF accounting senior, helps moderate discussions on Algebra Nation. The 21-year-old answers questions posted to the website by guiding students through problems and explaining concepts, he said.

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Lessem said he is looking forward to the personalization because he believes the suggestions will help to identify students strengths and weaknesses. Lessem said once students have identified areas of weakness, they can work more effectively.

Throughout the year you see the same students on there and then after a couple months theyre the ones helping other students, so its really great to watch them grow, he said.

Contact Jessica Giles at jgiles@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @jessica_giles_.
In the 1960s and '70s, under cover of peace and love propaganda, the radical left "marched through the institutions" (their slogan), especially American universities. Beginning in the '60s and '70s, indoctrinated students radicalized American culture into the ancient hatreds of Marxism in the next half-century: class hatred,PEOgender hatred, hatred of serious religion, and of course race hatred. Today, white heterosexual males are the scapegoats on campus.

Race hatred and murder are the original mega-crime against humanity. Here is a choice example.

Two Hispanic "professors" at San Diego State University, Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J Bosco , paid by California taxpayers, have a new book from Routledge. In it they write that "farmers' markets in urban areas are weed-like 'white spaces' responsible for oppression"  because, they claim, "there is a correlation between the 'whiteness of farmers' markets'" and gentrification. "Farmers' markets are often white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized," the SDSU professors write, according to the education watchdog Campus Reform.

So what do you do with "a weed like the white race"? You wipe it out, of course. This racist ideology finds a cousin in a Nazi-era movement in Mexico started by one Jose Vasconcelas called "The Cosmic Race," published in the critical year of 1925, when race-hating was rising all over the world. Japan was destroying Chinese people in Nanking for their race; the Germans were destroying the Jews and then the other "inferior" races, including the Russians; and in the U.S., to our shame, the KKK was still hating on blacks.

Here is a sample of what our ignorant and indoctrinated college students are subjected to today. The ideology these crooks follow is called the La Raza movement, an actual Hitlerite hate-whitey movement supported by the radical left, identical in its motivation to neo-Nazis.

The left is the most reactionary political force on Earth, as leftists would understand if they ever read their own history. Hitler combined Marxist class hatred with race hatred and a willingness to kill completely innocent children, women, and defenseless men in massive crimes against humanity. When Hitler was brought down, the Nuremberg Trials punished only a tiny fraction of the murderers, but it was widely greeted as a never again declaration by decent people.

The Allies who beat the Axis Powers constructed a world of tolerance and peace, with the exception of Soviet-Chinese imperialism, which fell apart 25 years ago. But to its credit, the Soviet Union was also anti-racist, like the democratic Allies. Hitler and Imperial Japan represented the most wicked, merciless, and demonic themes in human history. With the rise of Dr. Martin Luther King in the U.S., anti-racism became a part of ordinary decent human values.

That was the case until today, with the campus left having rediscovered race hatred, especially against whites. But in the last five centuries, it was whites who developed all the humane benefits of science and technology  not because they were smarter than Asians, for example, but because the Mandarin class in countries like China were afraid that new inventions would undermine their power. In fact, Chinese history is rife with advanced technologies, from gunpowder to an extraordinary range of arts, including a distinctive, beautiful aesthetic.

So, in a kind of circular devolution, where the left looks for more and more scapegoats to keep its idiot legions hating somebody, the radical left has come back to the most ancient hatred, mixed with stupidity and ignorance, to keep the running mob going. You could see it start to happen with the highly staged "Antifa" demonstrations recently; with the murder in effigy of a Donald Trump mask-wearing actor playing Julius Caesar in New York's Shakespeare in the Park performance, sponsored, of course, by the New York Times; and with "comedian" Kathy Griffin's career suicide by displaying an ISIS-type severed head of the president of the United States.

This is all well known in psychiatry. It's called mob pathology. It's absolutely routine and constantly replayed throughout history in malignant cults that live by hate. The left has just traced a complete circle back to Marx in 1848, which was identical to the French mass killers of the "Revolution" and onward to Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. The psychology and pathology of these cults are always the same.

Because mobs always need a scapegoat, and because mobs are fickle, they always end up with race hatred or gender hatred. White males are the current hate objects of the cult of the left.

Words are important in the propaganda war against moral primitivism, so "left Nazi" might be one useful word. Hitler famously said you couldn't recruit social democrats to become true Nazi-killers, but Communists made excellent cannon fodder because the basic psychology is the same.

This story has no ending, because civilization must be defended and protected in every generation. But it must have a new chapter. In the 1960s, the FBI essentially destroyed the KKK by infiltration. Since the FBI has apparently lost its way, maybe here is a new law enforcement target that would actually serve American democracy. Maybe we should start by enforcing free and untrammeled speech on the campuses, as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and now lost on every campus in the land.
Anybody who was reading newspapers in the 1980s might remember the dire predictions of those times that Japan's economy would continue to grow faster than the United States' and overtake it in the very near future, now past. The superior Japanese growth rate was ascribed to a superior way of doing business and the guidance of the Japanese Ministry of Finance in picking winners.

Then the Japanese real estate bubble burst in 1990, and Japan has had a few lost decades since. The government tried everything to reignite growth, but all that happened was that government debt ran up. Japan's GDP growth has averaged less than one percent per annum since 1993.

(Japan is a force for good in the world, and we are happy for and with the Japanese, because they are a culture that respects private property.)

Thirty years on from those predictions about Japan, it is now China that is supposed to overtake the United States economically in 2032. Previous forecasts of when that might happen include 2014, 2016, 2018, 2024, and 2030. China's economy will stall out before that can happen and for much the same reasons why Japan's economy stalled in 1990.

This graph shows GDP for the United States, China, and Japan from 1980 up to 2017, with a projection to 2030:

Note the stupendous divergence between the United States and Japan over the last three decades. The U.S. economy is now almost three times larger than Japan's. It doesn't matter that nobody predicted that that would happen. China has come from a very low base due to the Mao years. China's growth is slowing down, as the world is now saturated with the stuff that China makes. China's share of world merchandise trade has been sitting at 12 percent for the last five years. Just as that tailwind is dying, the Chinese are facing more headwinds from here.

Chinese coal production of four billion tons per annum has the energy content of 50 million barrels of oil per day. One of the reasons why Chinese goods are so cheap is that Chinese energy is cheap. Chinese academics have predicted that China's coal production will enter decline from 2020. To stop their economy shrinking, the Chinese will be importing coal from then, possibly as much as 400 million tons per annum by 2030. This equates to about a third of current world coal trade. Chinese oil production started its decline in 2014. By comparison, the United States is likely to have continuing growth in oil production thanks to the Permian Basin.

China has many other problems. Grain and soybean imports are 15 percent of Chinese consumption. If that stopped, due to a blockade, say, then China would have to turn vegetarian overnight. The China we are competing with is three hundred million moderately well off in the coastal provinces and another billion quite poor peasants further inland. The one billion are more of a drag on the Chinese economy than a help. A lot of that four billion tons of coal per annum has to go to keeping them fed and clothed and warm.

China is also making life more difficult for foreign companies with operations there. The assembly type of operations that China specializes in might move elsewhere. There is a lot of latent potential for that sort of work in Vietnam and the Philippines.

David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare.
In this week's imaginary career advice column, one reader writes:

Dear Ed,

I'm a high school dropout and have no marketable skills, but I feel entitled to earn $400 an hour. What kind of career path could you recommend?

Sincerely,

Unworthy but Entitled

Well, Unworthy, I'm glad you asked that. It turns out I have just the job for you: performing largely unskilled labor building subway tunnels in New York City!

An accountant discovered the discrepancy while reviewing the budget for new train platforms under Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as part of a 3.5-mile tunnel connecting the historic station to the Long Island Rail Road. But the accountant could ... identify [only] about 700 jobs that needed to be done, according to three project supervisors. Officials could not find any reason for the other 200 people to be there. "Nobody knew what those people were doing, if they were doing anything," said Michael Horodniceanu, who was then the head of construction[.] ... "All we knew is they were each being paid about $1,000 every day." The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project, known as "East Side Access," has ballooned to $12 billion, or nearly $3.5 billion for each new mile of track  seven times the average elsewhere in the world. Along with interviews with contractors, the documents reveal a dizzying maze of jobs, many of which do not exist on projects elsewhere. There are "nippers" to watch material being moved around and "hog house tenders" to supervise the break room. Each crane must have an "oiler," a relic of a time when they needed frequent lubrication. Generators and elevators must have their own operators, even though they are automatic. The agreement for Local 147, the union for the famed "sandhogs" who dig the tunnels, includes a pay rate for most members of $111 per hour in salary and benefits. Weekend overtime pays quadruple  more than $400 per hour.

Some of these laborers (those who operate the drills) require some skills, but many others, like the elevator button-pushers, are purely unskilled laborers who don't even need a high school diploma.

One part of Local 147's deal entitles the union to $450,000 for each tunnel-boring machine used. That is to make up for job losses from "technological advancement," even though equipment has been standard for decades.

But maybe the idea of working on subway tunnels, even at $400 an hour, doesn't appeal to you. If you're willing to consider a small pay cut, consider working for the New York transit authority, where the average compensation is $140,000 a year.

New York City Transit paid $6.2 billion in wages and benefits for the 44,256 workers and bosses who operate the subways and buses. That works out to average compensation of $140,000, essentially the same as workers in city agencies, according to Jamison Dague, the director of infrastructure studies at the Citizens Budget Commission.

You could even work in a ticket booth for about $112,000 a year, even though 83% of all subway fares are sold by machines and workers in ticket booths have nothing to do most of the time and are prevented, by union rules, from helping out in any other part of the station.

This is all made possible by the cozy relationship between unions and Democratic politicians.

Several contractors said the unions are able to maintain the deals because everybody knows they are politically powerful. The unions working on [MTA] projects have donated more than $1 million combined to [Governor Andrew] Cuomo during his administration, records show. The vendors that worked on the East Side Access, Second Avenue subway[,] and No. 7 line projects have given a combined $5 million to New York politicians since the projects began in 2000, a Times analysis found. A Times analysis of the 25 [MTA] agency presidents who have left over the past two decades found that at least 18 of them became consultants or went to work for authority contractors, including many who have worked on expansion projects.

You may ask, why do liberals tolerate this? Why do they keep voting Democrat? Are they unaware of what's going on?

Of course not.

Every few years, when articles like this are written, people express outrage for a few minutes, and then they continue voting lockstep Democrat at the next election. Most liberals think this kind of massive corruption is the unavoidable cost of running government, and since Democrats are so virtuous on issues of race, class, and sex, any excesses are to be excused. The corruption of the Cuomo administration is excused in the same way as Bill Clinton dropping his pants in the Oval Office: not ideal, but look at all that money he's giving to people on welfare and Planned Parenthood!

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.
Blaming death threats instead of his own tweets, a rabidly left-wing professor famous for declaring that all he wanted for Christmas was "white genocide" has resigned his position at Drexel University. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, George Ciccariello-Maher said:

This is not a decision I take lightly; however, after nearly a year of harassment by right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and internet mobs, after death threats and threats of violence directed against me and my family, my situation has become unsustainable[.] ... Staying at Drexel in the eye of this storm has become detrimental to my own writing, speaking, and organizing.

Let's parse that statement for a moment: staying a crazy professor at Drexel and disgracing the university's academic reputation is "detrimental" to his own organizing? Speaking? Writing?

Notice that teaching is not in that equation.

The statement itself suggests that this idiot considers tweeting his primary activity, not teaching. And nothing gets between him and his tweeting  certainly not an actual job. Tweeting idiocies such as blaming the Las Vegas massacre on President Trump, stating that giving up one's seat for a serviceman on an airplane makes him "vomit and yell" (not a pretty picture), and declaring that all he wanted for Christmas was "white genocide"  things that get him lots of attention, however negative  are what this fool lives by. The tweets can be viewed here. Aside from that, he also has a gamy history as a propaganda apologist for Venezuela's nightmare socialist dictator, Hugo Chavez, and calls himself an "actual communist."

It's also illogical stuff, given that leaving a university post over supposed death threats (he has yet to produce any evidence of them) isn't going to solve his problem. A gander at his Twitter thread sanctimoniously announcing his resignation is filled with droll mockery from the public, calling him "some Bolshevik" and advising him to apply to a Venezuelan Chavista university. That is more what he seems to draw from the public, at least now. Get a load of his Twitter page just for the vainglorious black and white front-page images: one of what look like FARC guerrillas from the '60s across the upper banner and then his profile picture, in the same silvery black and white finish, of him in a guerrilla shirt sitting in front of a cup of Starbucks, trying to look like Trotsky.

The question raised by his exit is whether he was actually shown the door. It's not known if his illiberal bias drove students or donors away at Drexel. Drexel itself says its enrollment is projected to be up and its fundraising is also up, although the data from the latter dates to 2016. But it is known that schools that harbor raving lunatics in their professoriate have seen declining enrollment and endowments, as the University of Missouri example shows. The university itself issued a gooey statement thanking this clown for his scholarly contributions, which sounds like overkill and raises eyebrows since nobody sane could praise this guy's work.

The clown just couldn't stop tweeting his lunacy and bringing discredit onto the university.
Every year, the "gubment" cajoles us to get our flu shots. It's our civic duty!

The only problem is that studies have shown that the flu shot is either worthless or almost worthless.

On average, past flu vaccines have been about 42 percent effective, though that number can range anywhere from 10 to 60 percent in a given year[.] ... [T]his year's flu shot may not be up to the task. It is the same formulation that was used during Australia's most recent flu season  which typically sets a pattern for what the U.S. will face  and it was only 10 percent effective there.

Ten percent!

Dr. Pardis Sabeti, a Harvard professor and infectious disease expert[, says,] "Even 10 percent effective is better than nothing."

Wow, a Harvard professor says even ten percent is better than nothing! Far be it from me to challenge a Harvard professor (something I used to do quite frequently), but where does this ten percent figure come from?

Take a study that claimed 67% effectiveness for the flu shot. One group of 5,103 people got the flu shot, and 49 of those caught the flu (almost 1%). A control group of 2,549 people took a placebo, and 74 people got the flu (3%).

Based on a statistical analysis of the 1% who caught the flu who were vaccinated and the 3% who caught it when unvaccinated, statisticians concluded by analysis (you can read it here) that the flu shot has "effectiveness" of 67%.

However, most laymen would conclude that most people, whether vaccinated or not, did not catch the flu and that the difference between those vaccinated and those unvaccinated was only 2%. In fact, due to standard deviations, it is possible that the gap between the vaccinated and unvaccinated is even smaller.

The bottom line is that even if the flu vaccine is effective, it helps a very small number of people. That still might make it worthwhile to inoculate people if it were 100% safe. Unfortunately, that's not entirely clear, according to a scientist at Johns Hopkins:

Although the CDC implies that flu vaccines are safe ... an Australian study ... found [that] one in every 110 children under the age of five had convulsions following vaccinations in 2009 for H1N1 influenza. Additional investigations found that the H1N1 vaccine was also associated with a spike in cases of narcolepsy among adolescents.

Another doctor points out:

The mercury contained in vaccines is such a strong immune depressant that a flu shot suppresses immunity for several weeks. "This makes people highly susceptible to catching the flu," he says. "They may even think the vaccine gave them the flu, but that's not true  it depressed their immune system and then they caught the flu." Mercury overstimulates the brain for several years, says Dr. Blaylock, and that activation is the cause of Alzheimer's and other degenerative diseases. One study found that those who get the flu vaccine for three to five years increase their risk of Alzheimer's disease 10-fold.

Those who defend the flu shot point out that when the flu vaccine is made, it's based on a variation of last year's flu and that the flu virus mutates, so they will never get a 100% match for next year's flu. But from the looks of these statistics, they aren't coming anywhere close to 100%. They also claim that even if you do catch the flu, you will catch a less severe version of it if you have a flu shot. To that I offer a pill that, if taken, will cure most common colds within 1-2 weeks.

Most people get the flu shot and don't get the flu and then falsely conflate correlation with causation, and then they keep getting the flu shot without questioning the efficacy of it. Given the marginal, at best, benefit of the flu shot and the possible risk, an inoculation program aimed at everyone, without regard to risk versus benefit, makes no sense.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.
I have concluded that the only thing conservative about British prime minister Theresa May is her hemlines. Her position on Muslim immigration and her capitulationist position on Brexit have given me doubt. The last straw was her position on a female James Bond.

May, reacting to the news that Doctor Who has now essentially become "Nurse Who," thought it was great and added:

Speaking on a flight to Cyprus last week, where she gave a Christmas address to troops at RAF Akrotiri, the prime minister revealed she was a fan of the BBC science fiction show Doctor Who, and lauded the public broadcaster's decision to cast Jodie Whittaker in the iconic time [traveler]'s role. "I think it's a great move forward for girl power that there is going to be a female Doctor Who. And one day there should be a female James Bond," she told reporters.

Being male is the basic attribute of James Bond, even more basic than being a spy. May is supporting the cultural appropriation of perhaps the leading male character in British cinematic history and perverting it, all in the name of misguided feminism. And this from the head of Britain's conservative party. If the conservatives won't speak up for traditional culture, you know that Britain is doomed.

This is not May's first wobbly moment. It's been well known that she is reluctant to comply with voters' demand that she disengage from the E.U. May has agreed to pay an outrageous ransom of nearly 40 billion pounds to part from that organization. Why is Britain paying anything at all?

Evidently, the E.U. undertakes long-term projects, and its members committed to funding projects as far out as 2030. Therefore, even if Britain is not an E.U. member after 2019, it feels compelled to pay for E.U. capital projects as far out as eleven years after that. How crazy is that?

Furthermore, Britain has 150 billion euros in E.U. assets it has to be compensated for. So again, why is it paying the E.U. anything? It shows weak leadership on the part of May.

And finally, when President Trump criticized Muslim immigration into Great Britain, May defended it.

President Trump reacted to British [p]rime [m]inister Theresa May's criticism of his retweets depicting alleged physical attacks carried out by Muslims, telling the British leader on Twitter late Wednesday to "focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom." May's office criticized Trump for re-tweeting videos from Britain First, an organization it said seeks to "divided communities" through "hateful narratives" and lies.

More from NBC News:

The first video Trump shared claimed to show a Muslim migrant beating up a Dutch boy on crutches. The second was captioned "Muslim destroys a statute of Virgin Mary," and the third read[,] "Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!" "It is wrong for the president to have done this," Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement.

What is wrong is for Theresa May not to address the burning problem in Great Britain with Muslim immigration: the terrorism, the crime, the larger and larger no-go zones in places like Manchester and even some suburbs of London. Instead, she criticizes Trump.

If I were a sexist like May, I might say that perhaps the prime minister of Great Britain should be a man. But I know there are women out there capable of doing the job  just not this woman. Maybe what Britain needs is someone more resolute, something like a 1960s version of Diana Rigg.

Questions for discussion:

1) If James Bond were played by a woman, do you think she would still use the name James Bond, or would she use something more appropriate like "Alyssa Bond" or "Britney Bond"?

2) Would a female James Bond be a playgirl, seducing men, or would she pursue exactly the same demographic as James Bond did?

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.
Bumped 12 30 17; originally published 12 29 17

Something profound is happening throughout Iran, and the Western mass media are just not reporting it.

For some time now, protests by ordinary Iranians have become a daily routine. These protesters include workers who have not been paid wages or have become redundant; savers who have lost their savings in Iran's many quasi-banks, which are infested with corruption and embezzlement; people concerned about the environmental disaster Iran is fast becoming; people protesting rising prices; retired pensioners whose retirement funds have been plundered by successive administrations; and low-income people who can no longer make ends meet.

These protesters are across the spectrum of Iranian society. The protests are getting larger, and their chants are becoming more radical.

In the early days of the 1979 revolution, which swept the mullahs to power in Iran, the protests were far less frequent, with far fewer protesters in isolated religious cities, ignored by the mainstream population of Iran. Yet the Western mass media never missed an opportunity to report on the smallest and the most insignificant of those early protests, creating a hype that eventually gained momentum.

Thankfully, today, we do not have to rely on the politically biased Western correspondents based in Iran, who seem too scared to upset the Islamic Republic authorities and report on anything other than the good cop, bad cop scenarios of "moderates" against "hardliners." Today, we have social media. Every citizen is a potential reporter with a camera, and news travels faster than the foreign correspondents and "echo chambers" can say "moderates in Iran."

In recent weeks, the protesters have been chanting more radical slogans: "Death to Rouhani," "Down with dictatorship," and chants that express their yearning for the happier days before the 1979 revolution.

Iranian pensioners, who were protesting against their dwindling pensions, chanted in Isfahan, "What a mistake we made by taking part in the revolution." On Thursday, protesters in the holy city of Mashad chanted, "Reza Shah, bless your soul," referring to the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, Reza Shah the Great, the modernizer of Iran and the nemesis of the Shia clerics in Iran.

  

  

What a mistake we made by taking part in the revolution#Isfahan yesterday pic.twitter.com/Vyx7DikU3O  Potkin Azarmehr (@potkazar) December 19, 2017

Protesters in Iran chant "Reza Shah, Bless Your Soul" - referring to Reza Shah the Great, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, the nemesis of the clerics, the moderniser of #Iran pic.twitter.com/WgEiCiNjvW  Potkin Azarmehr (@potkazar) December 28, 2017

The protesters are also chanting against the judiciary, whose corruption and abuse of power have made it the most unpopular institution in the Islamic Republic  and that takes some doing.

Videos on social media clearly show that society is vehemently tense. The population is angry and has had enough. Most important of all, the people are not scared anymore. They openly mock the security forces, and they are finding strength in their numbers.

On top of these protests, there is the new phenomenon of Restart, begun by a former popular game show host on Iranian State TV, Seyed Mohamad Hosseini, now in exile in America. The former host called for everything that represents the regime to be attacked, be it a mosque, a Baseej base, or a police station, and that protesters use anything they can get hold of  a sledgehammer, an ax, a Molotov cocktail  to restart the country Iran was before it became an Islamic republic.

Followers of Hosseini film themselves carrying out the attacks and finish by saying, "Long live Restart, and long live Hosseini." The first such video was an attack on a mosque during the holy month of Moharram, an unthinkable act in Iran before Ayatollah Khomeini took over. Yet such is the hatred the clerics have created among Iran's youth toward Islam that even a mosque in a holy month is not safe from being set on fire. Restart videos posted on the social media are no longer isolated attacks; they are happening more and more throughout Iran.

It is not the first time the nascent days of a revolution pass by unnoticed by the "experts," think-tanks, diplomats, reporters, and the rest. Almost every revolution takes these people by surprise. One of my favorite such cases is the example of the U.S. embassy in Budapest, who cabled one month before the 1956 Hungarian uprising, "There is no chance of an uprising here."

Whether the current dissatisfaction by the Iranian population will snowball to a full-blown revolution and whether the regime still has the stamina and the capability to crack down on protesters remain to be seen, but the increasing frequency of protests and the growing radicalization therein certainly deserve more coverage in the media  at least as much as those early isolated small protests that led to the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.
Anyone who listened to shortwave radio or was a ham radio operator from the mid 1970s to the late 1980s will be familiar with a sharp, repetitive rat tat tat tat noise that permeated the airwaves disrupting communications and television signals the world over. Nicknamed the Woodpecker, the signal came from a massive array of antennas hidden deep in the woodstwo located near Chernobyl in Ukraine, and a third one on the Russian Pacific coast, near the island of Sakhalnsk. These antennas formed part of an early warning radar system called Duga, that the Soviets developed to detect incoming ballistic missiles from America.

Photo credit: Bert Kaufmann/Flickr

The transmitting antennas used by Duga were massive. The one near Chernobyl was 210 meters wide and 85 meters tall and was made of more than three hundred individual transmitting elements. They operated at extremely high power levels, as high as 10 million watts, that completely drowned any legitimate transmissions taking place at that frequency. Apart from disrupting shortwave amateur radio and broadcasting, including Moscows own radio stations, the repetitive tapping noise could sometimes be heard over telephone circuits as well due to the strength of the signals.

The Soviets used whatever frequency was suitable at that particular time, operating often in the 3 MHz to 30 MHz range, without any regard for frequency allocation and planning. The signal became such a nuisance that some receivers such as amateur radios and televisions actually began including 'Woodpecker Blankers' in their circuit designs in an effort to filter out the interference.

Although the Soviets never acknowledged the Woodpecker, it became apparent where the signals were coming from and that there were more than one source. NATO was confident that it was an over-the-horizon radar, but they were not sure what the radar was used to scan for. Others thought its purpose was to jam western broadcasts or disrupt submarine communications. The secrecy led some to believe that it was a system for weather control or even an attempt at mind control.

Photo credit: Matt White/Flickr

As more information about the signal became available, its purpose as a radar signal became increasingly obvious. Analysis of the signal revealed that it contained a sequence of pulses identified to be a 31-bit pseudo-random binary sequence thats usable on a chirped pulse amplification system, giving the radar a resolution of not a very precise 15 km. When a second Woodpecker appeared, this one located in eastern Russia but also pointed toward the US and covering blank spots in the first system's pattern, the radars real purpose became as clear as day.

In Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, published in 2001, author Bukharin disclosed that the first experimental system, built outside Mykolaiv in Ukraine, successfully detected rocket launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome located 2,500 kilometers away. A second prototype, built on the same site, was able to track launches from the far east and submarines in the Pacific Ocean as the missiles flew towards Novaya Zemlya despite it being fairly low power. Only when the concept was proven, work began on the ultra-high powered operational system.

The Woodpecker eventually fell silent in 1989 as the Cold War came to an end and the Soviet Union broke apart. In any case, the system had become technologically obsolete having been replaced by satellite based early-warning systems that were more accurate, more secure and less prone to atmospheric interferences.

The Ukrainian government now allow tourists to visit the still standing antennas of Duga. Because it is located within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zonea 30-km exclusion zone created around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disasterpermits must be obtained in advance.

Related: The Secret World of Number Stations

Photo credit: Ernestas Narmontas/Flickr

Photo credit: Daniel Weber/Flickr

Photo credit: Kevin Dooley/Flickr

Photo credit: Jorge Franganillo/Flickr

Photo credit: Matt White/Flickr

Photo credit: Bert Kaufmann/Flickr

Inside the Duga training center. Photo credit: thepurpleblob/Flickr

The Duga control center. Photo credit: Paul Duncan/Flickr
(ANSA) - Rome, December 29 - Italy is heading for a March 4 general election after President Sergio Mattarella dissolved parliament Thursday night.

The new parliament will meet on March 23.

Premier Paolo Gentiloni, who is staying on in a caretaker capacity, said "the government is not letting up and Italy is not pushing the pause button".

Meanwhile the first salvos in the election campaign were fired.

Ex-premier and centre-right Forza Italia (FI) leader Silvio Berlusconi slammed the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) as too inexperienced to govern while Democratic Party (PD) leader Matteo Renzi blasted the electoral promises of FI and the M5S to bring in a basic income for all Italians.

The Financial Times said the Italian vote would be a "new challenge" for Europe's economic recovery.

In an interview with Corriere della Sera Friday, three-time former premier and media magnate Berlusconi said the centre left had "failed" and the contest was between "us and the M5S). He said FI's proposal for a flat tax would "help middle-class Italian families".

Berlusconi is set to lead a centre-right coalition consisting of FI, the anti-immigrant, anti-euro League (L) and the small rightwing nationalist Brothers of Italy (FdI) party - though L leader Matteo Salvini says he and Berlusconi have agreed the leader will be the one who gets the most votes.

Berlusconi cannot stand for the premiership because of his ejection from the Senate on a tax-dodge conviction.

He is hoping the European Court of Human Rights will overturn that ban before the election, although that appears unlikely.

The centre-right is polling top among the coalitions on about 33%, ahead of a PD-led alliance on about 26-27%.

The PD, after a split by leftwingers, has dropped in the polls to around 23-24%, dipping below the M5S as Italy's biggest party.

The M5S, which does not join other parties, is polling at around 27-28% on its own.

Many observers expect a grand coalition government to be tried after the election, especially as the new Rosatellum electoral law is not expected to produce a clear winner after the vote.

The Rosatellum, called after PD Lower House Whip Ettore Rosato, is two-thirds proportional representation and one-third first-past-the-post.

Five years ago in March 2013 a PD-led coalition shaded the election from a Berlusconi-led one and went on to form a left-right coalition government under former minister Enrico Letta.

He was replaced by Renzi in a party coup in 2014, while Renzi stepped down in favour of Gentiloni, his then foreign minister, after staking his future on a Constitutional reform referendum he lost in December 2016. On Friday Salvini, the League chief, said Donald Trump was an example for his party, which has dropped the 'Northern' part of its name as it bids to appeal to voters in Italy's south.

"Everyone is against us but the people are with us," Salvini said.

M5S leader Luigi Di Maio meanwhile accused Berlusconi of "copying" the M5S's idea of a basic income with the ex-premier's proposal for a "dignity wage" based on an idea from late Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman.


(ANSA) - Rome, December 29 - A Bangladshi-born woman who shaved her daughter's head because she refused to wear the Muslim veil got eight months in jail, a suspended sentence, in Bologna on Thursday.

The woman and her husband were acquitted of mistreating the girl because of a lack of evidence.

The girl has been taken to a shelter for children after investigations showed the family's hostility.

The girl, 14, was taken away from her parents in Bologna at the end of March.

The girl, who was born in Bangladesh but has been in Italy for years and is studying at a middle school in the Emilian capital, has been put into the care of the local social services along with her sisters.

The girl's teachers reported what happened to the Carabinieri police.

The girl reportedly said she was irked by the veil which she habitually wore at home but was starting to take off outside.

Her mother got wind of this and reportedly decided to punish her by shaving her head.


(By Monica Nardone)

ROME - Italian researchers have helped show that robots can develop basic human emotions such as fear and use them to respond more efficiently under stress.



The results of the research project, conducted in co-partnership between Britain and Italy, have been published in the magazine Plos One. The scientists studied the evolutionary emergence of affective behaviours directly from the specific adaptive problems posed by the ancestral environment in order to develop a model of the evolution of affective behaviours using simulated artificial agents equipped with neural networks. In this way they were able to observe how robots learn to cope with potentially dangerous situations by choosing to avoid the risk.



"It is a primordial behaviour associated with fear that appears automatically in both animals and humans," Orazio Miglino, director of the Natural and Artificial Cognition (NAC) laboratory at Federico II University in Naples, told ANSA. However, "in humans there is also a second phase of processing to understand what happened. Let's say that our robots stop at the initial response." The experiment is one of the first to investigate the emergence and evolution of emotions in robots and how this can "effect their performance", Miglino said. The outcome could help to develop more intelligent robots because "the emotions are strongly linked to memory, decisions, motivation and survival", said Daniela Pacella of the NAC and Plymouth University. The results have implications for humans as well, since an artificial neural network that is able to isolate the emotional circuits from the other cognitive functions can help identify the areas of the brain implicated in the development of fear.


Evacuation of ill complete in Syria's eastern Ghouta By Red Cross and Red Crescent. Rocca hopes for other operations

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, DECEMBER 29 - Personnel from the Syrian Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) concluded on Friday the evacuation of 29 seriously ill civilians and their families in the area from the eastern Ghouta to the gates of Damascus, controlled by rebel forces and under siege by the government army.



The three-day operation was made possible by an agreement reached between the government and Syrian opposition groups, mediated by the Syrian Red Crescent.



In addition to the 29 people who were evacuated, the agreement also provides for the freeing of 29 people being held prisoner by anti-government militants in the Ghouta. The evacuation took place following the recent mission to Damascus by the president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Francesco Rocca.



Rocca met with, among others, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and asked for unlimited access to populations in areas under siege.



"I hope this evacuation will be followed by many other deliveries of basic necessities and medical assistance to the people who need it," Rocca said.



The 29 civilians who were evacuated included 17 children, six women and six men, IFRC said. (ANSAmed).




'Friday of wrath' in Palestinian Territories, dozens injured At Gaza border, at least 24 wounded, 35 in West Bank

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, DECEMBER 29 - Dozens of people were injured in new demonstrations of "wrath" on Friday in the Palestinian territories in protest against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jersusalem as the capital of Israel.



During the protests at the demarcation line in the Gaza Strip, 24 Palestinian protesters were injured by Israeli Army fire and one is in serious condition, according to the Gaza Strip Health Ministry.



An additional 42 people were intoxicated by tear gas, bringing the total injured in the Gaza Strip to 66.



The Palestinian Red Crescent said 35 people were injured in clashes with Israeli Army troops in various locations throughout the West Bank, including the refugee camp of el-Arub (Hebron), the village of Tequa (Bethlehem), and the town of el-Bireh (Ramallah).



In addition, 20 protesters were intoxicated by tear gas, 11 had contusions from rubber bullets, and one was wounded in a fall. (ANSAmed).




Israel responds with raids to Gaza rockets Iron Dome intercepts two. Attacks against center of Strip

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, DECEMBER 29 - Three rockets were launched from Gaza towards Negev villages in southern Israel and two were intercepted by anti-missile defense system Iron Dome, the Israeli army said on Friday. Air raid sirens repeatedly rang and local media said one of the rockets struck a populated area although no victims have been reported.



Israel responded by striking two Palestinian "terrorist targets" in the Gaza Strip with tanks and jets, a military spokesman said.



Meanwhile sources in Gaza said that explosions were heard in the central area of the Strip, not far from the refugee camp of Nusseirat. No victims were reported. (ANSAmed).




Turkey: 29 arrested for 'planning New Year's Eve attack' Police operation in Ankara against suspected ISIS affiliates

(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, DECEMBER 29 - Turkish police arrested 29 suspected ISIS militants, including many foreign nationals, in simultaneous operations in Ankara, State-run news agency Anadolu reported on Friday. Many of the suspects were allegedly planning attacks on New Year's Eve, according to the news outlet.



The material seized during the operations reportedly showed that some of them had selected targets and prepared for attacks during New Year's Eve.



Last year, a gunman killed 39 people in an attack on a nightclub in Istanbul in the night between December 31 and January 1. (ANSAmed)
Algeria recognizes Berber New Year, creates language academy 'Measure boosts national, Islamic, Arab, Berber identity'

(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, DECEMBER 29 - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika gave a speech ahead of the New Year in which he announced his decision to recognize as an Algerian holiday January 12, the day in which the Berber New Year (Yennayer) is celebrated, the council of ministers said Friday. The move signaled great progress for the Berber minority, which also obtained the creation of an Algerian academy for the Berber language.



Bouteflika also asked not to discourage Berber language classes in Algerian schools, as provided for by the Algerian Constitution.



''This decision, as those already adopted to the advantage of our national identity in its triple component - Islamic, Arab and Berber - strengthens national unity and stability at a time in which we are confronted with multiple domestic and regional challenges'', stressed Bouteflika.



Algerian Berbers live in the mountainous Kabylie region and have long fought, in particular since the 1980 students' uprising, for the recognition of their language and cultural identity. (ANSAmed).




CAIRO - The solution to the Libyan crisis relies on the possibility that Libyans have in ''choosing a president and their lawmakers through transparent elections'', General Khalifa Haftar, the eastern armed forces commander and strongman of Cyrenaica, in the East, was quoted as saying by website Al Wasat.



In an interview to local television Libya Al Hadath last night, Hafter said that ''the protection and defense of the democratic process are the most important duties of the national army'' that he leads, urging Libyans to sign up to vote.



His spokesman Ahmed Al Mosmari the day before yesterday urged parliament in Tobruk, in eastern Libya, to approve an electoral law. The Tripoli-based government recognized by the United Nations intends to hold elections by 2018.
The 'Qarib Qarib Singlle' actress had recently called the dialogues in Mammootty starrer 'Kasaba', misogynist.

Mumbai: Malayalam superstar Mammootty has finally broken the silence about the online harassment Paravathy has been facing for the past few days.

Award-winning actress Parvathy, who was trolled on social media for commenting against some dialogues in top actor Mammootty's film, lodged a police complaint. The 'Qarib Qarib Singlle' actress had recently called the dialogues in Mammootty starrer 'Kasaba', misogynist.

In an exclusive interview to a leading news portal, Mammootty said, "I don't go after controversies. What we need are meaningful debates. We all abide by freedom of speech and right to opinion. I have not assigned anyone to respond on my behalf or defend me."

A man was today arrested following a police complaint by award-winning actress Parvathy.

23-year-old Printo, hailing from Wadakkancherry in Thrissur was arrested by the police on Thursday following a complaint filed by the actress. He was arrested under Sections 507 and 509 of IPC and Section 67 and 67 (A) of the IT Act.

At an open forum organised on the sidelines of the International Film Festival of Kerala recently, she voiced her opinion against glorifying misogyny on screen and expressed concern about the absence of women's perspective in cinema.

To prove her point, Parvathy said she had recently watched 'Kasaba'.

Though she did not mention the actor's name, she said the film had disappointed her as it featured a great actor mouthing "misogynistic dialogues."

She had also said such kind of dialogues from a superstar would give a wrong impression to people.
Twinkle Khanna is on the break celebrating her 43rd birthday with family in Cape Town.

The happy couple, Twinkle and Akshay, enjoying their holiday in Cape Town.

Mumbai: Twinkle Khanna is celebrating her 43rd birthday with family in Cape Town today. On Twinkle's special day, her actor husband Akshay Kumar posted a lovely picture of the duo, along with a sweet message. This picture taken during their ongoing holiday.

"Forever making every ride full of adventure and amusement, my favourite companion...for life! Happy birthday, Tina," the Khiladi star captioned the post.

Forever making every ride full of adventure and amusement, my favourite companion...for life! Happy birthday, Tina  pic.twitter.com/RJyJKNZvXs  Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) December 29, 2017

Seems like both Twinkle and Akshay have been adding beautiful memories to their Cape Town 2017 diaries.

Twinkle shares her birthday with her superstar father Rajesh Khanna, who died in 2012. The actress shared a heartfelt post on Twitter today to wish her late father.

Akshay will resume promoting his next film 'PadMan' after he returns from Cape Town. Directed by R. Balki, the movie also stars Radhika Apte and Sonam Kapoor in important roles. It is slated to hit screens on Republic Day.
After the meeting, the MPs were asked to take part in an exercise to understand various features of the app.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with BJP president Amit Shah (right) and home minister Rajnath Singh during the BJP parliamentary party meeting, during the on-going Winter Session of Parliament, in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday told BJP MPs that he regularly wishes them through the mobile app named after him but it seems you are very busy (not to respond), as he reminded them to download the mobile application.

The Narendra Modi app, launched in 2015, gives updates about governments various initiatives, news about various government programmes and one can also interact with the PM through it.

Addressing BJP parliamentary party meeting, Mr Modi said, Main roz subah aap logon ko yaad karta hoon... par lagta hai aap log zyada vyast rahte hain..aap log bhi kabhi kabhi mujhe yaad kar liya kijiye (I wish you every morning but it seems you guys are very busy. Try to remember me sometime. He aslo reminded them to download the app which has been upgraded.

He also said that on Thursday morning, he had sent namaste through the app but hardly five to six MPs replied back. The app can also be used to listen to Mr Modis show Mann ki Baat. Users can give their suggestions and views on a host of issues on through it. Union minister Jitendra Singh later explained to the MPs about a new feature in the app which allows users to have a direct interface with the PM.



After the meeting, the MPs were asked to take part in an exercise to understand various features of the app.

Mr Modi also greeted finance minister Arun Jaitley on his birthday by garlanding him, offering him sweets and gifting a shawl at the meeting. Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad briefed BJP members on different aspects and provisions of the bill against triple talaq, which was passed by the Lok Sabha later. After the meeting, Parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar said that the Prime Minister called for passage of the bill by consensus.
Congress MLA Asha Kumari had an altercation with a woman constable over entry to the venue and all of a sudden she slapped the constable.

In a spontaneous reaction, the constable too slapped back Asha. The constable's response left the MLA shocked. (photo: ANI)

Shimla: Sapping a woman constable proved costly to a Congress MLA as the constable slapped her back.

The incident happened on Friday outside the venue of review meeting being conducted by Congress President Rahul Gandhi.

#WATCH Shimla: Congress MLA Asha Kumari assaults woman constable, gets slapped back. She was being allegedly denied entry by Police in Rahul Gandhi's review meeting (amateur video) pic.twitter.com/puvMRnHKss  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

Congress MLA Asha Kumari had an altercation with a woman constable over entry to the venue. All of a sudden, the MLA lost her cool and slapped the constable. In a spontaneous reaction, the constable too slapped back Asha. The constable's response left the MLA shocked.
'If Jadhavs condition is such, in what state would have other Pak prisoners survived for so long' asked Vinod Sonkar.

These 578 prisoners are not even any detectives, they are fishermen who had lost their ways, says Lok Sabha member Vinod Kumar Sonkar. (Photo: AFP | Representational)

New Delhi: A Lok Sabha member on Friday made a plea to the Centre to make arrangements for 578 Indian prisoners languishing in Pakistani jails to meet their family members.

Speaking during the Zero hour in the Lower House, BJP leader Vinod Kumar Sonkar congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj for the meeting between Kulbhushan Jadhav and his family after 22 months.

The LS member said as per a report, 578 Indian prisoners were languishing in various jails of Pakistan.

Referring to Jadhav's case, Sonkar said, "When in such a prominent case, such an inhuman treatment is met to the prisoner, what would be the condition of those 578 prisoners?"

"So I would request the Prime Minister and Sushma Swaraj to make adequate arrangements so that the 578 prisoners are allowed to meet their family members, as they are not detectives but fishermen who lost their ways," he said.

47-year-old Jadhav has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court, but the execution has been stayed by the International Court of Justice following India's efforts.

Pakistan says Jadhav, an ex-Indian Navy officer, was arrested in Balochistan in March with a fake passport, a charge denied by India, which says he was kidnapped from Iran where he has legitimate business.

Jadhav's mother and wife met him on Monday inside the Pakistan Foreign Office building in Islamabad under unusual circumstances, he was separated from the two women by a glass screen, and they conversed through an intercom in English and Hindi.
'In the year 1991, God had shown me Solomon's Temple in my dreams,' says Lb Sailo, founder, Kohhran Thianghlim Church.

Solomon's Temple has 12 doors and it opens everyday from 9:30 am and closes at 4:30 pm.(Photo: ANI)

Chawlhmun/Aizwal: Tucked away in the lap of nature surrounded by lush green landscape, the Solomon's Temple , the biggest Church in Mizoram, is now open for public.

After 20 years of construction, the church was recently inaugurated in the state and saw large number of people from across the globe attend the Church and be a part of the auspicious ceremony.

Solomon's Temple , at Kidron Valley , Chawlhmun, on the western outskirts of Aizawl was built by a religious group called Kohhran Thianghlim ( Holy Church ) and is run by the members of the religious group.

"In the year 1991, God had shown me Solomon's Temple in my dreams. I never thought of Solomon's temple ever before, nor had any dream of constructing it, but when I was clearly shown in 1991, as soon as I wake up, I wrote down the temple as I saw in my dream", Lb Sailo, founder, Kohhran Thianghlim Church.

Even before the completion of the Church, the architecturally rich Church attracted visitors from around the world due to its immense significance.

Inaugurated on a very special day, Christmas, the holy Church was visited by a horde of people, attending mass prayers and seeking blessings from Christ.

Surrounded by deep forestry, the place has already become a kind of paradise for people.

"I am absolutely delighted to be at Solomon's temple, there are so many people gathered here with gaiety and fervour. It is absolutely mesmerizing. The architecturally rich and poignant Church has been made using imported white marble to make the temple the first and only temple in Mizoram with a marble structure," said a visitor.

It is worth mentioning that the foundation stone of this historic monumental multi-storied temple was laid in 1996, and soon after that the construction work began in 1997, paving a way to a successor to the original Solomon's Temple of Jerusalem mentioned in the Old Testament.

"It's my first time in Mizoram. I am here to study journalism. Yesterday we went around the city; it was a bit dull because it wasn't so decorated. But today it felt very good and festive spirit. It is very beautifully decorated and every little thing has been paid attention. We are having very good time here," said another visitor.

The church has a seating capacity of 3,000 people within the main hall and 10,000 people within its courtyard called, 'The porch of Solomon's Temple '.

To make it convenient for visitors, 12 main doors have been constructed. The Church opens everyday from 9:30 in the morning and closes at 4:30 in the evening.

Moreover, the inauguration of the Church is set to increase the tourist inflow and place Mizoram as one of the hotspot tourist destination in the country.
According to sources, others who were injured in the incident were rushed to the King Edward Memorial Hospital and the Sion Hospital.

The fire broke out shortly after midnight on the third floor of the four-storeyed building on Senapati Bapat Marg, a commercial hub of the city, a civic official told PTI. (Photo: AP)

Mumbai: At least 14 people were killed after a massive fire broke out at a building in Kamala Mills Compound in the Lower Parel area of Mumbai.

Majority of those killed are women, according to civic authorities.

According to reports, a 28-year-old woman celebrating her birthday was among those who died.

Several others were injured in the incident and were rushed to the King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital and the Sion Hospital.

The doctor who performed the postmortems said that all the 14 deaths were due to suffocation.

'Postmortem reveals that all the 14 deaths were due to to suffocation,' Dr Rajesh Dere said.

#WATCH: Last night visuals of fire at #KamalaMills compound in #Mumbai's Lower Parel, the incident has claimed 14 lives. pic.twitter.com/Ud2s6QXTFF  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

The fire broke out shortly after midnight on the third floor of the four-storeyed building on Senapati Bapat Marg, a commercial hub of the city, a civic official told PTI.

The building, in Central Mumbai, houses some commercial establishments including hotels.

Read: Fadnavis expresses grief over Kamala Mills fire, orders action against erring officials

According to the official, the cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained.

Several fire tenders, water tankers, emergency ambulances and police personnel rushed to the spot for the rescue operation.

#SpotVisuals from Mumbai: Police & fire officials at #KamalaMills compound in Lower Parel, where fire broke out last night & claimed 14 lives. pic.twitter.com/cOsIUJbhVG  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

An FIR has been registered against the restaurant '1 Above' where the fire initiated in Mumbai's Lower Parel locality.

The case has been filed under setion 304 (charges of culpable homicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Transmission of the television channels ET Now, Mirror Now, Zoom and TV9 Marathi were affected due to the fire.

President Ram Nath Kovind expressed his condolences to the bereaved families. The President also commend the valiant efforts of fire-fighters and those in rescue operations.

Disturbing news about the fire in Mumbai. Condolences to the bereaved families and wishing the injured an early recovery. Commend the valiant efforts of fire-fighters and those in rescue ops #PresidentKovind  President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) December 29, 2017

Soon after the incident President of Yuva Sena Aaditya Thackeray took to Twitter and called the incident "unfortunate".

Aaditya also said that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will come down hard on the violations of fire saftey norms.

I spoke to Honble Municipal Commissioner Mehta sir, MLA Sunil Shinde ji and Leader of the House Yashwant Jadhav ji, who were at the place assisting relief ops. Implementing fire audits of such places are a must, and action will be taken if violations are found.  Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) December 28, 2017

(With inputs from agencies)
Party to chalk out reasons for dismal performance.

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi will be visiting Shimla on Friday to assess the election results. After the dismal performance of the party in the state, the party unit of Himachal Pradesh is meeting to chalk out the reasons of its performance. After meeting party functionaries and newly elected MLAs, Mr Gandhi will be addressing a workers meeting in which he will be outlining his vision for the party. This will be the first visit of Mr Gandhi to the state after taking over as president of the party.

Interestingly, Mr Gandhi has already visited Gujarat, where elections were simultaneously held with Himachal Pradesh. In Gujarat also, he had interacted with the newly-elected party MLAs and office bearers of the state unit. The Congress, in its internal assessment, found that the party had not done well in the urban areas.

While in Himachal Pradesh, factionalism is being blamed as the major reason of defeat for the Congress. The former chief minister, Virbhadra Singh, and the state unit chief, Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, were at loggerheads. So much so that Virbhadra Singh, before the elections, had threatened not to contest elections or campaign for the party.

The Congress high command, after several rounds of meetings, had given a free hand to Mr Singh. Mr Gandhi, while addressing a rally in Himachal Pradesh, had backed Mr Virbhadra Singh. Now, in the internal assessment meeting, reasons will be probed for the dismal performance. Mr Virbhadra Singh, along with other senior leaders of the party, will be present. General secretary incharge of the Congress, Sushil Kumar Shinde, will also be present.

Interestingly there were sharp exchanges between Mr Shinde and Mr. Virbhadra Singh during the election campaign in the state.
Currently both the states share the Andhra Pradesh high court which is situated in Hyderabad.

New Delhi: Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday urged legislators from both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to show mutual love and respect till the time Andhra Pradesh completes the process of finalising the location and infrastructure for its own high court.

He made these observations in Lok Sabha in response to a demand by Telangana MPs for a separate high court.

Currently both the states share the Andhra Pradesh high court which is situated in Hyderabad. According to the provisions of AP Reorganisation Act 2014, the existing high court will go to Telangana, while Andhra Pradesh will have to set up its own high court after 2024.

On Wednesday Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) MPs had disrupted proceedings of Lok Sabha, seeking a separate high court for their state. Mr Prasad had assured them that he would be making a statement on the matter on Thursday.

In his statement on Thursday, Mr Prasad said that Andhra Pradesh government is in the process of selecting the building for setting up its own high court for which the Centre is also giving it requisite funds.

Once this is done, then the (Andhra Pradesh) High Court can be shifted to the new building.... that will take some time. Here the whole position stands. I can only tell my colleagues from Telangana and also from Andhra Pradesh that they need to live with mutual love and respect. The Government of India will always have their interest in mind, said Mr Prasad.

The MPs from both the states appreciated the ministers views and later Home minister Rajnath Singh also urged chief ministers from both the states to resolve the issues related to bifurcation (other than high court), mutually. He promised that the Centre too will try and expedite the resolution of all pending issues related to bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
Naidu on the opening day of the winter session advised the ministers and members to not use 'I beg to lay' the papers in the House.

New Delhi: No begging please! This was Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidus directive to ministers on Friday, asking them not to use the term beg while tabling the listed official papers in the House. Normally, the ministers say I beg to lay the papers  listed against my name in todays order paper.

Naidu had on the opening day of the winter session advised the ministers and members to shed the imperial mindset of using I beg to lay the papers in the House. He had said that instead, they should say I rise to present the papers listed against my name However, on Friday, when Minister of State for Law and Justice P P Chaudhary used the term beg while laying papers, Naidu reminded him of the advise.

No begging please, Naidu told Chaudhary. He said probably Chaudhary was not present when he had made the suggestion earlier and advised him to avoid using the word I beg while laying the papers. Just rise to say you are laying papers, he told him and added, it would be good if begging word is avoided. No minister or member has used the word since Naidus advise on December 15.

Chaudhary took the cue and did not use the word when he was called to lay a different set of papers shortly later. During the paper tabling process, Naidu also chided members for speaking while seated. He then went about conducting the Zero Hour as a strict headmaster reminding members not to deviate from their topics.

Mentioning an incident during Question Hour on Thursday when B K Hariprasad of Congress used certain phrases, Naidu said he has decided to close the matter after the member met him this morning and said his remarks were made on the spur of the moment and he held the Chair in high esteem. Incidentally, Hariprasads remarks find no mention in the official record of the proceedings of Thursday.
The bill makes instant triple talaq illegal and void and has a provision for awarding a jail term of up to three years to the husband.

New Delhi: The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill or the triple talaq bill, which was passed by Lok Sabha on Thursday, faced stiff opposition from legislators from across several parties like AIMIM, RJD, BJD, and AIADMK, when law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad introduced it earlier in the day.

The bill makes instant triple talaq illegal and void and has a provision for awarding a jail term of up to three years to the husband. Introducing the bill, Mr Prasad said it was a historic day.

But before he introduced the legislation, several opposition parties opposed its introduction saying it was arbitrary in nature and a faulty proposal.

Members from RJD, AIMIM, BJD, Indian Union Muslim League and AIADMK, who had given the notice to opposing its introduction spoke against the measure.

But members of the Congress and the Left, who were also opposing it from their benches, were not allowed to speak as they had not given notice. The TMC, which had opposed the draft bill earlier, was silent.

AIMIMs Asaduddin Owaisi said Parliament lacks the legislative competence to pass the law as it violated fundamental rights. Mr Owaisi said while the bill talks only about Muslim women being abandoned, the government should also worry about nearly 20 lakh women of various religions who are abandoned by their husbands, including our bhabhi from Gujarat.

Muslim Leagues E.T. Mohammed Bashir said the proposed law was violative of personal laws and was a politically motivated move.Bhartruhari Mahtab of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) said while he would not talk about the merits of the bill, its framing was faulty and flawed. He said if the proposed law makes the practice of instant triple talaq illegal and void, how can a person be jailed for pronouncing talaq-e-biddat.

A. Anwar Raja of the AIADMK opposed the bill. Soon after the introduction of the bill was approved, Mr Prasad wondered whether Parliament can remain silent if the fundamental rights of women were being trampled upon. He said the legislation was not aimed against any religion but was framed to provide a sense of justice.
Cries of shame! shame! could be heard from treasury benches even as Swaraj made her statement in Lok Sabha.

New Delhi: The government on Thursday blasted Pakistan for making absurd charges of a chip, camera or a recorder being installed in the footwear of the wife of Indian death row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav, and added that Islamabad has frittered away an opportunity to take bilateral ties forward by turning the meeting into propaganda tool.

Making identical statements in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said India conveyed its objections to Pakistan in a note verbale on Wednesday over the way it had conducted the meeting. Mr Jadhavs wife and mother were presented as widows before him on December 25 in Islamabad, she said.

This meeting could have been a step towards moving forward. But it is a matter of great disappointment that the meeting took place flouting all the understandings both countries had agreed to, Ms Swaraj said.

Cries of shame! shame! could be heard from treasury benches even as Ms Swaraj made her statement in Lok Sabha.

After the meeting, the Pakistani authorities also did not return the shoes of Mr Jadhavs wife Chetankul despite repeated requests, the minister said, and added that not returning the shoes gave rise to suspicion that Pakistan was up to some mischief.

The Pakistan authorities have been cautioned against any mischievous intent in this regard through a note verbale on Wednesday, she said.

Slamming Pakistani authorities for talking of chip, camera or a recorder being installed in the shoes, she said. The charge is absurdity beyond measure, she said and added that adding that the two women had cleared security at airports in Delhi and Dubai and in Pakistan where no such device was detected.

In a stinging attack on Pakistan, she said an emotional meeting of a mother with his son and a wife with her husband after 22 months has been used by Pakistan as a tool of propaganda.

Following the statement, members of all parties in Lok Sabha as well as Rajya Sabha supported the government on the issue.

Ms Swaraj said that Mr Jadhavs mother and wife were taken for the meeting through a separate door without informing the accompanying deputy high commissioner of India, stripped of their mangalsutra, bindi and bangles, made to change clothes and shoes.

If he had seen them (without mangalsutra, bindi and bangles), he would have protested and would never have allowed them to go to the meeting that way. In his absence, the meeting was started, Ms Swaraj said.

Due to the absence of his mothers mangalsutra, Mr Jadhav asked her about the well being of his father as soon as they sat down for the meeting. Ms Swaraj said, The meeting of Kulbhushan Jadhav with his mother and wife was portrayed by Pakistan as a humanitarian gesture. However, the truth is that both humanity and compassion were missing during the meeting..

Pakistan says Mr Jadhav, an ex-Indian Navy officer, was arrested in Balochistan in March last year with a fake passport, a charge denied by India, which says he was kidnapped from Iran where he has legitimate business.

The 47-year-old has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court, but the execution has been stayed by the International Court of Justice following Indias efforts.

Serious and gross violation of human rights of the family members of Mr Jadhav and an intimidating atmosphere was created for them during this meeting, she added.

I am fully confident that this entire House and through the House, the people of India, strongly condemn, in one voice, the obnoxious behaviour of Pakistan and affirm their solidarity with the Jadhav family, she said.

She said the mother and wife, on their return from Islamaad, had conveyed to her that Mr hav appeared under considerable stress and was speaking in an atmosphere of coercion.

As the meeting progressed, it was clear to them that his (Jadhavs) remarks were tutored by his captors and designed to perpetuate the false narrative of his alleged activities. His appearance also raised questions of his health and well- being, he said.

Before the statement, Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu said that the matter was sensitive and was before the International Court of Justice and urged the MPs to exercise restraint in making statements keeping the welfare of Mr Jadhav in mind.

In Rajya Sabha, members cutting across party lines supported the government on the issue with Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad saying that the misbehaviour with Mr Jadhavs wife and mother was misbehaviour with wives and mothers of 130 crore Indians.

We will not tolerate insults to the wives and mothers and to the countrys dignity, Mr Azad said, adding that the government should ensure that Pakistan ensures Mr Jadhavs saftey in custody.

In Lok Sabha, some Congress and Left MPs sought clarifications from Ms Swaraj but Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said that questions cant be raised on statements.
UP Shia Waqf Board chairman lashed out at AIMPLB for opposing the bill and said that it is trying to make India, Afghanistan.

Wasim Rizvi welcomed the triple talaq bill that was passed in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. (Photo: ANI)

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board chairman Wasim Rizvi, while welcoming the triple talaq bill, on Friday called for 10 years punishment for the offender.

Rizvi said, "This is a welcoming move but it lacks one thing. The punishment should be increased from three years to 10 years. This is a question of women's right. There should be at least 10 years of punishment for those who give instant triple talaq."

He further lashed out at the Muslim Personal Law Board for opposing the bill and said that it is trying to make India, Afghanistan.

The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriages) Bill 2017 making instant triple talaq illegal with up to three years in jail for the husband.

Earlier, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) asked the Central Government to withdraw and withhold the bill claiming that it was against women and children, and if implemented, it would destroy many families.

The bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha, was passed after the House rejected a series of amendments moved by various opposition members.

The bill seeks to make instant triple talaq in any form spoken, in writing or by electronic means such as email, SMS and WhatsApp as bad or illegal and void.

According to the proposed law, giving instant talaq would attract the jail term of three years and a fine. It would be a non-bailable offence.

The bill will now be sent to the Rajya Sabha for passage before it is forwarded to the President for signing it into law.
'When I met Sarabjit, he cried a lot, asking me to help prove his innocence,' Dalbir Kaur recalled.

Dalbir Kaur said that Sarabjit Singh's family had gone to meet him in a Lahore jail in 2008. (Photo: AFP)

Chandigarh: The family members of Sarabjit Singh were humiliated when they went to meet him with Pakistani authorities even wiping off the 'sindoor' from his wife's forehead, his sister Dalbir Kaur said on Thursday amid outrage over the treatment meted out to Kulbhushan Jadhav's mother and wife.

Dalbir Kaur said that Singh's family had gone to meet him in a Lahore jail in 2008.

"We had no clue of the shocking things that were to unfold before our meeting with Sarabjit," Dalbir Kaur, who hails from Amritsar district, told PTI over the phone.

Singh's wife Sukhpreet Kaur, his teenaged daughters Swapandeep and Poonam, besides Dalbir Kaur went to Lahore to meet the Indian national for the first time in 18 years.

The ordeal was similar to what Jadhav's family endured in Islamabad recently, according to Dalbir Kaur.

Jadhav's mother and wife were stripped of their bindis, bangles and 'mangalsutra', made to change into different clothes and wear slippers by discarding their shoes.

"Even before the meeting was to take place, the behaviour of Pakistani authorities was bad. A female cop took out a handkerchief and wiped out the 'sindoor' from Sukhpreet's forehead. Both Sukhpreet and I were asked to take out hair pins as well. Sarabjit's teenaged daughters were also mistreated, and authorities were rude even after I raised objections. We were even asked to take out our 'kadas' (bracelets)," Dalbir Kaur said.

She recalled that as Singh loved "bharwan karela", a bitter gourd dish, the family cooked it at their home in Amritsar and brought it for him.

"However, again the Pak authorities were rude. They opened the container and forcibly stuffed it into our mouths asking us to taste it first," she said.

That was not the end of the ordeal, she said.

"Before proceeding to meet Sarabjit in jail, a manager at a Lahore Gurudwara asked us to keep our passports there. When we were to leave after the meeting, we were told to show our passports. When reminded that we had been asked to deposit these at the Gurudwara, the Pak authorities delayed our departure telling us that the documents were not traceable," she said.

Dalbir Kaur said that in 2011 too she met Singh in jail.

"I was the only one to be granted a visa. But this time too their treatment was no different. They took my 'kirpan' forcibly and when I asked them to at least keep it safely, they flung it in some corner showing disrespect which deeply hurt my religious sentiments," she said.

"When I met Sarabjit, he cried a lot, asking me to help prove his innocence," she recalled.

In 2013, Sarabjit's sister, wife and two daughters had again travelled to Lahore, but this time the distraught family were allowed just a glimpse from a distance of a comatose Singh who had been admitted to a hospital after a brutal assault in a Pakistani jail.

He passed away barely a few days later.

On the treatment meted out to the family of Jadhav, who is in custody in Pakistan for alleged spying, Dalbir Kaur said after playing a cruel joke by not allowing the family to meet the Indian national freely, Pakistan was now making baseless charges of a chip, camera or a recorder in the footwear of his wife.

"First Pakistan portrayed the meeting of Jadhav's family as a humanitarian gesture, they then humiliated the family by asking them to remove bindis, mangalsutras etc and separated the family from him by putting up a glass screen. Now, they have come up with this baseless charge of chip, camera etc. I think India has responded as strongly and appropriately as it should in such circumstances. From now on, we should be even more firm towards Pakistan because they deserve such treatment and can only understand tough language," she said.

Dalbir Kaur's brother Singh had died following an assault by the inmates at a Lahore prison in April 2013. He was convicted of terrorism and spying by a Pakistani court and sentenced to death in 1991.

However, the Pakistani government had stayed his execution for an indefinite period in 2008.
Some tweeted, some fought movements, but none shied away from expressing opinions, even ones that opposed their party statements.

Mumbai: 2017 has been a year for quite a few ups and downs in the political horizon of India. While big states like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat went to polls, people of Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh also voted for a new government in the state. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept six of seven states where polling was held this year.

Some popular leaders, however, publicly displayed dissatisfaction against their party decisions.

Here is a list of top political leaders who did not shy away from dissent.

Shatrughan Sinha

(Photo: AP)

The in-house rebel of the BJP has been embarrassing the party all through the year.

In April, he took to the microblogging site Twitter to attack Union Minister Maneka Gandhi, who held Bollywood trends responsible for rising incidents of sexual harassment.

'Charming' the female protagonist, in Gandhi's books, amounted to nothing but sexual harassment. Sinha gave her a piece of his mind, tweeting, "Humble suggestion to Smt. Maneka Gandhi. Please choose right subject at right time and after consulting right people. There are other ways of staying in the news or coming to the limelight than holding movies responsible for crimes."

Humble suggestion to Smt. Maneka Gandhi. Please choose right subject at right time and after consulting right people. There are other...1>2  Shatrughan Sinha (@ShatruganSinha) April 9, 2017

Later in May, BJP MP Sinha got into a Twitter-scuffle with BJP-leader and deputy chief minister of Bihar Sushil Modi over bad-mouthing opponent party leaders - Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Enough of negative politics & mudslinging by opponents on our political leaders, be it Kejriwal, Laloo Yadav or Sushil Modi, Sinha tweeted.

Enough of negative politics & mudslinging by opponents on our political leaders, be it Kejriwal, Laloo Yadav or Sushil Modi..High time..1>2  Shatrughan Sinha (@ShatruganSinha) May 22, 2017

High time to substantiate your claim...or pack up. Cant just keep feeding media with one night stories & sensationalising. Enough is enough, he said.

In December this year, during the Gujarat Assembly elections campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi remarked that the Congress was colluding with Pakistan to win votes in Gujarat.

The allegations drew outrage from a lot of quarters and Shatrughan Sinha was not to be left behind.

Sinha lashed out at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for accusing the Congress of colluding with Pakistan to defeat the BJP in Gujarat.

"Hon'ble Sir! Just to win elections anyhow, and that too at the fag end of the process, is it a must to come up with & endorse new, unsubstantiated & unbelievable stories everyday against political opponents? Now linking them to Pak High Commissioner & Generals?! Incredible!," he had tweeted, 'Sir' a clear reference to Modi, though he did not name anyone.

Hon'ble Sir!

Just to win elections anyhow, and that too at the fag end of the process, is it a must to come up with & endorse new, unsubstantiated & unbelievable stories everyday against political opponents? Now linking them to Pak High Commissioner & Generals?! Incredible!.1>2  Shatrughan Sinha (@ShatruganSinha) December 11, 2017

Sinha also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah for sidelining veterans like LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Yashwant Sinha.

In the latest incident, the actor extended his solidarity to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief and former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, despite RJD and BJP being political rivals.

Sinha in a tweet expressed hope that the "hero of the masses" Lalu Prasad Yadav would get the "most desired and deserving justice" in fodder scam case.

"Hope wish & pray that the friend of the nation, hero of masses & favorite of downtrodden, one & only one Lalu Yadav gets the most desired & deserving justice. Satyamev Jayate??!!. God Bless!," the veteran actor tweeted.

Hope wish & pray that the friend of the nation, hero of masses & favorite of downtrodden, one & only one Lalu Yadav gets the most desired & deserving justice. Satyamev Jayate??!!. God Bless!  Shatrughan Sinha (@ShatruganSinha) December 23, 2017

After the Gujarat Assembly election results came out, Shatrughan Sinha again took to twitter to congratulate not only the BJP, but also the Congress and its allies, like Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakore.

He also went a notch further, to point out that the fall in winning margins in the states elections, probably should be a wake-up call for BJP.

'Our party came through by the skin of its teeth... Better booth & other management was probably the key... A true wake up call...and time for us to realise that there is no substitute to real & genuine development of one and all... Long live BJP,' Sinha said in a tweet.

Yashwant Sinha

(Photo: PTI)

Yashwant Sinha, the finance minister of the former Vajpayee government, has been largely sidelined since the BJP came back to power in 2014.

He has been critical about Modis policies ever since, but the biggest lash came in an article he wrote against the current finance minister Arun Jaitley in India Today earlier this year, titled, I need to speak up now.

In the article, he noted what he calls "the mess the Finance Minister (Arun Jaitley) has made" of the economy and remarks that many may share his views but are silent out of "fear".

Congress, naturally, welcomed the article. Veteran Congress leader P Chidambaram quoted from the article and tweeted: "Yashwant Sinha speaks Truth to Power. Will Power now admit the Truth that economy is sinking?" and "... ETERNAL TRUTH: No matter what Power does, ultimately Truth will prevail."

Yashwant Sinha speaks Truth to Power. Will Power now admit the Truth that economy is sinking?  P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) September 27, 2017

Later in December, Sinha was detained by the police in Maharashtras Akola, where he was protesting against the governments apathy towards cotton and soybean cultivators.

"Before coming to power, the BJP had promised to give 50 per cent over and above the minimum support price (MSP). But after coming to power, the party forgot the promise. Just as Indian soldiers carried out surgical strikes across border, the farmers will also carry out a surgical strike against the government till justice has been done," Sinha said from the scene of protest.

He not only addressed the farmers, but also refused to leave even if the police allowed him to do so.

Subramanian Swamy

In a conversation with Huffpost India in April this year, Subhramanian Swamy, veteran BJP leader and economist, said that political correctness is dead, and Hindutva is the only thing that guides BJP as of now.

The leader, who has a huge fan-following on Twitter and claims to be second most popular after Modi, also said in the same interview that he planned to challenge the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the courts.

The above are just small examples of Swamy standing up to the partys leadership and decorum.

Swamy has also perpetually targeted the BJPs current Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and not only for his policies. He took to Twitter to slam him on the way he dressed during a tour in China.

"BJP should direct our ministers to wear traditional and modernised Indian clothes while abroad. In coat and tie, they look like waiters", Swamy tweeted.

BJP should direct our Ministers to wear traditional and modernised Indian clothes while abroad. In coat and tie they look like waiters  Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 24, 2016

Even though he did not name anyone, Jaitley was the only one touring abroad at that time, and he had been seen wearing a coat and tie.

Mukul Roy

Former Rajya Sabha MP and Trinamool Congress (TMC) General Secretary Mukul Roy was one of closest aides of party supreme Mamata Banerjee. In fact, when Banerjee was elected as the chief minister of West Bengal and vacated office as Railways Minister of the UPA government, she personally recommended him to the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh as her successor.

Roy and Mamatas bond, however, became strained ever since his name came up in the Sarada chit fund scam and the Narada sting operation that followed.

Roy was suspended from his position as TMCs general secretary.

Roy and Mamatas ties however, seems to have remained strained as earlier this year, he was suspended from the party for six years as he met senior BJP leaders like Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and BJP General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya.

Mukul Roy officially quit TMC and joined the BJP in September this year. In an interview with popular Bengali news channel ABP Ananda, Mukul said, This (Trinamool) is a one-man party. None of the party ministers or MLAs can say with hands on their heart that they are free to convey their opinions. I am against one-man parties anywhere in India. Be it Congress, Mayawati's party or AIADMK. I felt suffocated within the party (Trinamool).

The senior leader went to the extent of washing the dirty linen of his former party in public. "During the Left Front rule (in the state from 1977 to 2011), they did not conduct a free and fair election process but at least they allowed the opposition to do politics. But under this government, the opposition parties are not permitted to even hold rallies or meetings. Be it the Left, Congress or BJP - no one is given permission for holding political events. That is how much the political space has shrunk under this government," alleged Roy.

Mukuls resignation was a blow to Mamata and her party, though she publicly remained quite unperturbed about it.

Ritabrata Banerjee

Former Rajya Sabha MP and All-India General secretary of Students Federation of India, Ritabrata Banerjee was expelled from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) earlier this year, for anti-party activities.

Banerjee was expelled under section 19 (13) of the party Constitution. Section 19 deals with party discipline and clause 13 is invoked against those who break the party line.

In exceptional circumstances Party Committees in their discretion may resort to summary procedure in expelling members for grave anti-party activities, the clause read.

He was removed from the state committee following a report of a disciplinary commission headed by Mohammed Salim that found him guilty of leaking information to the media and enemy camp as well as for a having a lavish lifestyle beyond his means. His Mont Blanc pen and an Apple smart watch raised many questions.

Following the expulsion, Banerjee did an hour-long interview with ABP Ananda, where he literally stripped the entire CPI (M) politburo clean in public view.

From saying that the party harboured anti-Bengali sentiments, to alleging that Sitaram Yechury is a minority General secretary, a puppet in the hands of Prakash Karat and Brinda Karat, the real show-runners, he tried to expose them all.

The young orator also alleged that Sitaram Yechurys entry into the Rajya Sabha was prevented by the Karats because of petty jealousy, and the committee that investigated the charges against him was a kangaroo committee.

If all the controversies were not enough, 2017 also saw a leaked video of Ritabrata Banerjee that was telecasted on television, which explicitly showed him indulging in sexual activities.

While the party did not mention this, or the allegations of sexual harassment against him brought forward by several other women in their official statement for disciplinary action against him, it drew flak from a range of other quarters.
The bill might run into trouble in the House of Elders where the Congress and the BJP stare eyeball to eyeball with 57 members each.

New Delhi: The triple talaq bill which saw a relatively smooth passage in the Lok Sabha will face the Rajya Sabha hurdle on January 2 when Parliament reconvenes after the long New Year weekend. The bill might run into trouble in the House of Elders where the Congress and the BJP stare eyeball to eyeball with 57 members each. Many other parties like the AIADMK, Biju Janata Dal and SP, which had opposed the bill largely over the criminalisation clause, also have substantial strengths with 13, 18 and 8 members each.

Sources told this newspaper that the Congress, which is the chief Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, is likely to make a token demand for sending the bill to a select committee. It might be recalled that the party has already supported the bill, but had raised certain issues during the debate in the Lok Sabha. It had also asked that the bill be sent to a parliamentary standing committee.

When contacted, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said, We have already made our stand clear in the matter. On demands for sending it to a Rajya Sabha select committee, a decision is yet to be taken as it is a parliamentary strategy.

Sources, however, said that it was most likely the bill is sent to a select committee. However, a section of leaders feel that even if the party demands for it to be sent to the select committee, it might be just for posturing as the leaders who are collecting signatures for the same, including MP Husain Dalwai, include no big names like the Leader of the Opposition as of now.

Chief of Mahila Congress or the partys womens wing Sushmita Deb, who put up a spirited argument in the Lok Sabha on the legal loopholes in the bill, said that by not sending the bill to a standing committee in the Lok Sabha, the government lost a huge opportunity to remedy the lacunae in the proposed legislation.
According to police, the accused lured the girls, aged 5 and 9, into his house on pretext of giving sweets and sexually assaulted them.

The girl informed her mother that she was inappropriately touched by accused. The woman found injury marks on childs private parts. Subsequently, police were informed and the accused arrested. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: A 60-year-old man was arrested for allegedly raping two minor girls and giving them Rs 5 each to not tell their parents about the incident in south west Delhi's Palam area, police said on Thursday.

The incident occurred on Sunday. The accused, who is a neighbour of the girls, was arrested after they narrated their ordeal to their parents, Deputy Commissioner of Police (south west) Milind Mahadeo Dumbere said.

The accused allegedly lured the girls, aged five and nine, into his house on the pretext of giving them sweets while they were playing outside and sexually assaulted them, he said.

When they started crying, he gave them Rs 5 each and asked them to not reveal the incident to anyone. Later, the younger girl started crying because she experienced pain in her private parts, DCP Dumbere said.

The girl told her mother that she was "inappropriately touched" by the accused. The woman then found injury marks on the child's private parts and informed the family of the other girl about the sexual assault, he added.

Subsequently, the police were informed, the accused arrested and a case registered, the DCP said, adding that the minors were being counseled.
The woman reported the incident to the Neb Sarai police station despite being threatened of dire consequences by the accused.

The boy's family tried to shift the blame to someone else, but the accused himself admitted his crime, according to police sources. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: In a shocking incident, a 15-year-old boy has been arrested on Friday for allegedly raping a 65-year-old woman near Sainik Farms in South Delhi.

The teenager was presented before the juvenile justice board and was sent for counselling at a juvenile welfare centre.

The woman is originally from Chandigarh and works as a household help in Delhi.

She informed the police that the accused lives at a nearby plot and his father is a caretaker.

The boy forced himself upon her when she was taking a bath after returning from work on Monday evening and dragged her to a shack where he gagged and raped her, even as she kept calling for help.

After the incident, the accused also threatened the victim of more harm if she reported the incident to anybody.

The woman, however, registered a complaint at the Neb Sarai police station.

The police formed a team to trace the accused.

The boy's family tried to shift the blame to someone else, but the accused himself admitted his crime, according to police sources.

The victim's statement was recorded before the magistrate and she is being counselled by a NGO, the police said.
One individual a minute is admitted to hospital due to smoking.

Experts reveal just how damaging the effects of smoking on our health.

One individual a minute is admitted to hospital due to smoking, The Sun reported.

It is one of the biggest causes of preventable illness, Public Health England (PHE) has stated. With it reportedly killing close to 80,000 people in England annually, PHE has launched a campaign to urge smokers to quit.

More than 4,000 chemicals are released in the body from each cigarette. This also includes 70 cancer-causing compounds.

The risk for developing kidney cancer is particularly high for those who smoke 20 cigarettes a day. "Smoking kills tens of thousands of people every year and a long term smoker loses an average of 10 years of their life," UK health minister Steve Brine told The Sun.

A recent study also found that smoking can cause early death in patients with head and neck cancers. Despite the alarming facts, many find it hard to give it up. Researchers at the University of Michigan attempted to investigate why that is and may have discovered the reason.
The mother says that she knew that the baby was alive when they arrived as she had an echo test.

The job of doctors comes with a lot of important responsibilities be it saving lives of people, carrying out difficult procedures or ensuring effective treatment. But medical negligence often leads to horrifying consequences, and in case of childbirth the cases can be heartbreaking.

In a shocking case from Argentina, doctors accidentally tore off an infants head during a delivery. The incident occurred as they were trying to deliver a premature baby when the child got stuck inside.

The head of the child remained inside the mother and was later delivered naturally as the father was shocked to find doctors holding the childs headless body. The heartbroken parents have filed a case of gross negligence against the hospital.

The mother says that she knew that the baby was alive when they arrived as she had an echo test and her husband heard the babys heart beating. They said that they arent sure if it was a midwife or a doctor who pulled the baby out causing its head to separate from the body.

The woman said that the doctor was stretching and turning the baby which was painful, but paid no heed when she complained. She also added that no one explained what had happened and just told her that the babys head was still inside her.

Meanwhile the hospitals director said that while they will cooperate with investigations, medics wont be suspended until negligence is proven.
The party has been facing internal discord in finalising the names of three candidates for Rajya Sabha.

New Delhi: Supporters of Aam Aadmi Party leader Kumar Vishwas created a ruckus outside the party headquarters in the city on Thursday demanding that he be given a Rajya Sabha ticket. The situation escalated to a level that the party leaders had to call the police to disperse the nuisance makers. Reportedly, Mr Vishwas supporters have arrived from different cities in buses and trains and have sat on a protest outside the AAP office.

Mr Vishwas, however, requested his followers on Twitter to demand for internal transparency, swaraj, and other founding issues within the party rather than batting for an individual.

The party has been facing internal discord in finalising the names of three candidates for Rajya Sabha. The deadline to announce the names of the candidates expires on January 5. However, the party continues to face internal discord on the issue.

Mr Vishwas had expected to be the frontrunner in the race for the Rajya Sabha candidature, but the party has not given him any assurance. There has been an ongoing tiff between AAP supreme Arvind Kejriwal and Mr Vishwas, owing to which the latter fears that he might lose this opportunity.

He has openly expressed his willingness for a candidature in Rajya Sabha. The names of other leaders, such as Ashutosh and Sanjay Singh, have also been considered.

Some of Mr Vishwas supporters have also been demanding that he be made a candidate for the bypoll in Ajmer. However, he has not given any response on this.

The party had earlier considered nominating experts, such as former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, for the Rajya Sabha but he had rejected AAPs proposal.
Trinamul strongman of Bhangar Arabul Islam denied the allegation on the ruling party.

Kolkata: Violence returned to Bhangar in South 24 Parganas on Thursday nearly a year after the fierce agitation by the villagers over land acquisition for a power sub station which was initially abandoned by the Mamata Banerjee government under pressure. Bombs and bullets flew freely while several vehicles were vandalised and torched. Three villagers were injured.

In the morning, a forum of villagers  Jomi-Jibika-Porisbeh O Bastutantra Raksha Committee (Committee for Protection of Land, Livelihood, Environment and Ecosystem)  which has been fighting the land acquisition, took out a bike-rally at Anantapur. The forums joint secretary Mirza Hasan said, The rally was taken out to urge the villagers to attend our meeting on January 4 in Kolkata on our movement.

He alleged, To foil our attempt and the proposed rally a gang of armed miscreants, backed by the Trinamul Congress, attacked our rally by opening fire and hurling bombs. The accused also torched two motorcycles and a jeep. One among the rallyists suffered bullet injuries while two others sustained splinter wounds from bombs. The attack took place in presence of police. Many roads were blocked with wood logs. The injured were rushed to R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital. The situation came under control after a strong contingent of police, including Rapid Action Force was deployed. Trinamul minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah claimed, Arms and bombs were being carried in the rally without any permission from the police. Two workers of our party were injured in their attack. Then our workers chased them.

Trinamul strongman of Bhangar Arabul Islam denied the allegation on the ruling party. Trinamul is no way involved in the incident. People of Bhangar resisted the rally with arms. The Congress, CPI(M) and the Maoists were involved in it, he alleged. Condemning the attack CPI(M) MLA Sujan Chakraborty said, Who gave the Trinamul the right to attack a peaceful rally? The ruling party is taking the shaping of a fascist force.
The Goregaon police has arrested the accused on murder charges and a court remanded him to police custody till December 30.

Mumbai: A 27-year-old man allegedly killed his 40-year-old physically-challenged brother, Suneel Kotele, on Wednesday afternoon by setting him ablaze after throwing kerosene on him with the intent to take over the deceased's property.

The Goregaon police has arrested the accused on murder charges and a court remanded him to police custody till December 30. The police is examining the deceaseds neighbours claim that the accused had been pressurising the victim to handover his properties, a flat and a chawl-room in Goregaon, to him as he was physically-challenged.

According to the police sources, the incident took place on Wednesday afternoon at 11.45 am, when the accused, identified as Raju Kotele (27) came at Suneels residence in Goregaons Motilal Nagar no 2, and had a fight with him over a Goregaon-based flat and chawl. The latter then in a fit of rage poured kerosene over Suneels body and set him ablaze with a lighter from his pocket. After setting fire to Suneels body, Raju fled from the spot. The incident came to light when the neighbours noticed hot flames and smoke emanating from Koteles ground floor residence. The neighbours immediately ran to his rescue and tried to extinguish the fire, but by the time the fire was put out, Suneel was charred to death. The neighbours then alerted the Goregaon police, who upon reaching the spot enquired with the local residents, who said that there were family feuds between Suneel and his cousin Raju since a long time, and he was the last person to leave the residence. Acting on the information provided by the residents, the Goregaon police picked up Raju from his residence and arrested him on charges of murdering Suneel. Upon further investigation, the Raju confirmed the rift between the two over property matter, and confessed of killing him over that.

Dhanaji Nalawade, senior police inspector of Goregaon police station confirmed the incident and said, The accused has been arrested for murdering his brother by setting him on fire. The accused has been booked under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code that pertains to murder. The accused, Raju (27) was produced in court on Thursday and has been remanded to police custody till December 30.
Anchor-cum-compere Tiwari was found dead in the second floor duct of the 18-storey high-rise in Malvani Monday morning

Mumbai: Pankaj Jadhav (30), the prime suspect in the murder of girlfriend-anchor Arpita Tiwari, has revealed during police interrogation that the couple had a fight, hours before Tiwaris death. Jadhav also said that they were on the verge of a break-up but he held on to the relationship. The Malvani police is now putting together missing pieces in the case, where Tiwari was mysteriously found dead in the second floor duct of a Malvani high-rise on December 11.

Police sources said that Jadhav and his friend Amit Kumar were detained on the day Tiwaris body was discovered in the second floor duct of Malvanis Manavsthal building. During initial questioning, the police recorded Kumars statement where he said that hours before Tiwaris body was found, he saw Jadhav and Tiwari caught up in a fight. However, Jadhav rubbished Kumars claims. Two weeks later though, during another round of questioning, Jadhav admitted to having a fight with Tiwari, the reason for which he said was that he wanted to hold on to the relationship which Tiwari wanted to end.

An officer told this newspaper on condition of anonymity that the new statement recorded by Jadhav sheds new light on the case, which also gives him a motive to kill Tiwari.

Deepak Phatangare, senior police inspector, Malvani police station, said, We are still investigating the case, and the culprit is yet to be arrested.

Anchor-cum-compere Tiwari was found dead in the second floor duct of the 18-storey high-rise in Malvani Monday morning. No suicide note was recovered from the spot. The police has detained two men, including Tiwaris boyfriend, on grounds that when questioned earlier, the duos statements had discrepancies which made the police suspicious enough to detain them.
Not just civil activists, but opposition parties too have raised questions over the clean chit.

Mumbai: Members of Sajag Nagrik Manch (SNM), a Pune-based society, wrote to the CM demanding that the investigation report on Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) MD, Radhe-shyam Mopalwar, be made available to the public.

Vivek Velankar and Vishwas Sahasrabuddhe of SNM wrote, The Johny Joseph committee has given a clean chit to Mr Mopalwar. We read it in the news. But please put up this report on the government website. People should know what kind of investigation took place.

Meanwhile, opposition parties have called the investigation report a farce. Opposition leader Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil said, There was no free and fair investigation into the matter. Mr Mopalwar is a favorite officer of this government. It was expected to happen.

In the letter to the CM, the SNM members wrote, There is a clause 4 under sub-clause C in the Right to Information Act, where an inquiry into such a case would be made public.

When asked about the letter, Mr Velankar said, Actually, the investigation should have been conducted by a retired magistrate. Bureaucrats cannot carry out a free and fair investigation.

Mr Velankar also questioned the reinstatement of Mr Mopalwar to the post. Isnt there any other capable officer with the state? he asked.

Not just civil activists, but opposition parties too have raised questions over the clean chit. This has exposed the CMs will to fight corruption. Now people are realising that the state is with corrupt officers, said Mr Vikhe-Patil.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said, enemies of Afghanistan will not succeed in their attempts to destroy the country.

The US strongly condemns today's barbaric attack at a cultural and social centre in Kabul, Afghanistan, and offers its deepest condolences to the victims and their families, said Sarah Sanders. (Photo: AFP)

Washington: The US on Friday condemned a "barbaric" attack on a Shiite cultural centre in Afghanistan that killed 41 people and vowed to "work closely" with the Afghan government to hunt down the terrorists.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that the "enemies" of Afghanistan will not succeed in their attempts to destroy the country and divide the Afghan people, who are resilient and committed to establishing peace and stability.

"The US strongly condemns today's barbaric attack at a cultural and social centre in Kabul, Afghanistan, and offers its deepest condolences to the victims and their families," she said.

She said, "The US stands firmly with the government and people of Afghanistan and will work closely with the National Unity Government to bring the perpetrators of this heinous attack to justice.

The UN Security Council also condemned "the heinous and cowardly" terrorist attack and underlined the need to bring "perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice."

The United Nations Security Council urged all states to cooperate actively with the Afghanistan government and all other relevant authorities in this regard.

Expressing solidarity with the people and the government of Afghanistan, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world body firmly believes that a peace process is the only path to ensure Afghanistan's stability.

An Islamic State suicide bomber struck a Shiite cultural centre in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 41 people and underscoring the extremist group's growing reach in Afghanistan.
The standoff ended on August 28 following a mutual agreement under which China stopped the construction of the road and India withdrew its troops.

The 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control between India and China covers from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh. (Photo: PTI/File)

Beijing: Highlighting the Doklam standoff as its major achievement of international cooperation this year, the Chinese military on Thursday said India should strictly control its troops and implement border agreements to maintain peace and stability along the border.

Chinese defence spokesman Col Ren Guoqiang said the highlights of his countrys international military cooperation in 2017 included handling hotspot issues like Doklam.

This year, under the unified deployment, the military has resolutely safeguarded Chinas sovereignty and security interests, Col Ren told media here.

The Chinese military has played its due role in the handling of the hotspot issues such as the Sino-Indian confrontation in the Donglang (Doklam) area and safeguarded the Chinas rights and interests in the South China Sea, he said in response to a question.

The Doklam standoff began on June 16 after the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) began building a road in area claimed by Bhutan. The Indian troops intervened to stop the road as it posed a security risk to Chicken Neck, the narrow corridor connecting India with its north-eastern states.

The standoff ended on August 28 following a mutual agreement under which China stopped the construction of the road and India withdrew its troops.

The 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control between India and China covers from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh.

When asked how Chinese military view its relations with its Indian counterpart in 2018 in the backdrop of the Doklam standoff, Col Ren said India should implement the border agreements and control its troops.

We hope the Indian side can earnestly implement the relevant agreements reached between the two sides on the border issue and strictly control its border defence troops and do more for the positive development of China-India military-to-military relationship, he said.

During the border talks, the first since the 73-day-long military standoff in Doklam, on December 22 between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese state councillor Yang Jiechi, both sides stressed the importance of maintaining peace, Ren said.

As far as we know both sides it is important to maintain peace along India-China border and create conditions for further development of bilateral relationship, he said.
Chetankul, Jadhavs wife, and Avanti, his mother, met him in the foreign office in Islamabad on December 25.

Islamabad: Pakistan foreign minister Khawaja Mohammed Asif on Thursday rejected Indias allegation of harassing the wife and mother of Kulbhushan Jadhav and said that investigators had found a metal chip in the shoes worn by Chetankul Yadav and were analysing it.

A metal chip has been found in one of the shoes, which is being analysed, Mr Asif said.

Chetankul, Mr Jadhavs wife, and Avanti, his mother, met him in the foreign office in Islamabad on December 25. Chetankul was asked to remove her shoes and use another pair for the meeting after a metal object was found in it. Officials suspected that it could be a recording device. Mr Jadhav, who has been convicted of terrorism and espionage by a Pakistani Army court, faces the death sentence.



Referring to the intense hue and cry in India about the change of clothes of the visitors, the retention of the shoe of the wife and the language in which the meeting was conducted, the foreign minister underscored that Pakistans humanitarian gesture did not negate the fact that this was not an ordinary meeting between a mother and wife with their son and husband.



The reality, he said, remains that Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav is a serving Indian Naval Officer and a convicted Indian terrorist and spy responsible for multiple deaths and destruction in Pakistan.



Categorically rejecting Indias allegations, Mr Asif said the meeting was permitted on humanitarian grounds, in line with Islamic teachings and traditions of compassion and grace. Trying to distort an agreed security check and attempting to portray it as a deliberate religious/cultural disrespect denotes bad faith and is regrettable. It is unfortunate that the frenzied Indian media is driving Indian politics, Mr Asif said, and added that routine airport security checks often entail removal of Christian crosses and Muslim veils.



Stressing that Pakistan had been open and transparent throughout the meeting, offered in good faith, he said, We do not wish to indulge in fallacious accusations and blame game and should focus on the bigger positive outcome that the meeting happened, despite immense challenges and impediments, instead of distortion of facts and baseless propaganda, which vitiates the atmosphere and is counter-productive.

Mr Asif said a comprehensive security check was essential before Jadhavs meeting with his wife and mother. This was agreed between both countries, in advance, through diplomatic channels. The visitors were treated with respect and dignity. The change of clothes and removal of jewelry or ornaments etc. was purely for security reasons. The visitors changed into their own clothes after the meeting The wifes shoes were retained as they did not clear the security check, the foreign minister said in his statement.

The minister said the meeting  initially scheduled for 30 minutes  was extended to 40 minutes on their request. The success of the meeting was evident by the fact that the mother thanked Pakistan after the visit, he remarked.



Mr Jadhav was sentenced to death by a military court on April 10, 2017, for allegedly carrying out espionage and sabotage activities in Balochistan and Karachi. India approached the International Court of Justice against the death sentence which stayed the execution until a verdict in the case.



Separately on Thursday, foreign office spokesperson Mohammed Faisal said Pakistan will continue the positive gestures irrespective of the response from India. We will continue the goodwill gestures. Propaganda will not stop us, he said at his weekly media briefing.

Commander Jadhav is a spy and a terrorist. The meeting was not allowed to be conducted in Marathi due to security reasons. There is nothing sinister in that. They spoke comfortably in English for about 40 minutes which is duly recorded  again, India was pre-informed that the meeting would be recorded, the spokesperson elaborated. The mother, he said, was allowed to say a short prayer in Hindi or Marathi.

He said Pakistan had formally proposed a detailed media interaction of the visitors, including with Indian media, in the foreign office. However, this proposal was turned down by India in writing and the Indian request was accepted. However, media has every right to ask questions from a safe distance in line with international norms Unlike India, media in Pakistan is not under any restrictions or gag orders, he contended.
The ISIS has claimed responsibility for the gruesome assault.

Kabul: Islamic State (ISIS) killed at least 41 people and injured more than 80 others in an attack on a Shia cultural centre and news agency that share a building in Kabul.

Deputy interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said the attack  the deadliest since a Shiite mosque bombing in October that killed more than 50 worshippers  was aimed at the Tabayan cultural centre.

The suicide attacker detonated himself during a gathering at Tabayan cultural centre causing a lot of casualties, Mr Rahimi said.

The main explosion was followed by two smaller bomb blasts as victims and survivors were leaving the scene. Mr Rahimi said the gathering was organised to mark the 38th anniversary of Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. An Afghan Voice Agency journalist said that more than 100 people were at the event in the buildings basement.

The ISIS has claimed responsibility for the gruesome assault. There were chaotic scenes at the Istiqlal hospital where ambulances and police pickups brought victims, including women and children. Many of them had suffered severe burns to their faces and bodies, as well as shrapnel wounds.
The treatment to Jadhav's kin 'in the name of security procedures', should open India and the rest of the world's eye about Pakistan.

Baloch leader Hyrbyair Marri said, 'The Indian citizen Jadhav was never arrested from Balochistan. He was, in fact, abducted from Iran by Pakistani state-sponsored religious proxies and handed over to Pakistani forces.' (Photo: Videograb)

Quetta: Baloch leader Hyrbyair Marri has stated that Kulbhushan Jadhav was "never arrested from Balochistan", in fact he was, "abducted from Iran by Pakistani state-sponsored religious proxies and handed over to Pakistani forces."

"The Indian citizen Jadhav was never arrested from Balochistan. He was, in fact, abducted from Iran by Pakistani state-sponsored religious proxies and handed over to Pakistani forces. There have been numerous such incidents in the past where religious extremists abducted Baloch refugees in Afghanistan or on their way to Afghanistan and sold them to ISI and army," said Marri.

"In the late 70s and the 80s element of Pakistan-backed Taliban killed innocent Marri Baloch refugees, severed their heads from the body and took pictures to get head money from ISI and the Pakistani army," he added.

Responding to the treatment meted out to the mother and the wife of Jadhav, "in the name of security procedures," during the meeting on December 25, the Baloch leader stated that, it " should open India and the rest of the world's eye about Pakistani state's inhuman treatment and humiliation of Baloch women."

"If Pakistan can disrespect an elderly woman who travelled from India to visit her son then it should not need rocket science to imagine what the Baloch prisoners, including women and children, go through at Pakistan army's secret and illegal detention centres," Marri said.

Underscoring the existence of the secret torture cells in Pakistan, Marri said, "Even a Pakistani Senator Farhatullah Babar recently said that "there were secret torture cells operating throughout the country [Pakistan]."

The Pakistani media quoted him as saying, "no one, including the parliament and Supreme Court, knows about how many such torture cells are present, the number of people that are present there and the number of people that have died during interrogation. He further said that no one knew what happened to the people who died."

Warning against Pakistan's deception, the Baloch leader added that Pakistan is not a country to be trusted because "we Baloch have experienced and learnt that Pakistan is the poisonous snake that bites the very hand which feeds it."
The Iraqi authorities have extended the ban until February 28th. Only internal connections still active. Central authorities want to keep pressure on the regional leadership. Kurdish Premier: "Collective punishment" imposed by Baghdad.

Erbil (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Iraqi authorities have extended the ban on international flights to the autonomous region of Kurdistan until February. The provision is part of the punitive measures - including the delay in payments for Public Administration employees - decided by Baghdad in response to Septembers controversial independence vote, promoted and supported by leaders in Erbil.

For months the central authorities have cut off air connections between Kurdistan and the outside world.

The ban was imposed following the independence referendum in the Northern Autonomous Region, which was held on 25 September and ended with an overwhelming victory (over 90%) for the yes vote. The vote triggered heavy clashes between Iraqi army and Kurdish militia (Peshmerga) broke out in the context of a rapid advanceof governmental militaries in territories - including Kirkuk  long controlled by the Kurds.

The vote was also held in the controversial territory of Kirkuk. Baghdad said the referendum - which faced international opposition, except for Israel - was illegal. The Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako intervened in a letter renewed the call for dialogue between the parties against the danger of "new conflicts.

The blockade of international flights is just one of the punitive measures adopted by Baghdad against Erbil, in an attempt to frustrate the outcome of the vote. The federal forces have also seized numerous oil wells, which represented a fundamental resource for the coffers of the autonomous region.

Talar Faiq Saleh, director of Erbil International Airport, reports that the Baghdad Ministry of Transport has sent an official communication stating that "international flights are banned until 28 February". "Only internal domestic flights are authorized".

The two months extension underpins the Iraqi government's aim to keep up the pressure on Kurdistan and strengthen the grip on the economy of the region, already tried by months of difficulty. The crisis situation has triggered a series of street protests in the main Kurdistan localities and, in particular, in the Sulaymaniyya governorate. The demonstrators stormed and set fire to several party sites.

The Kurdish premier Nechirvan Barzani yesterday spoke out against what he called a "collective punishment imposed by the central government on all the people of Kurdistan". He criticised the central authorities in Baghdad for using the air blockade to exert "pressure" on the northern region in view of the negotiations between the two sides.
Police in the capital announce educational courses instead of prison. The rigid dress code in force since Revolution, and remains valid outside the capital.

Teheran (AsiaNews / Agencies) - No more prison for those who violate the Islamic dress code in the capital. Two days ago the general police brigadier of the capital, Hossein Raimi, announced that in place of prison, people discovered wearing inappropriate" clothing will be encouraged to attend educational courses.

" According to a decision of the commander of the police force, those who do not properly observe the Islamic dress code will no longer be taken to detention centers," Rahimi said, adding that more 7,900 people took part in the courses offered in 100 consulting centers in the province of Tehran.

However, the restrictive rules remain in place outside the capital, and according to the semi-official Iranian agency Tasmin, repeat offenders could still face legal consequences.

The regulation has been in force in the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. It dictates that women must cover their hair and wear loose and long dresses. A diktat that many young Iranian women challenge by wearing veils that partially leave their heads uncovered, especially in the capital. In the past, many men have been stopped for exposing a naked torso or wearing shorts.

Under the presidency of the moderate Hassan Rouhani, gradually Iran is liberalizing its customs despite the dominance of the advocates of the hardest and most conservative line among the security forces and the country's judicial system.
Built by the French in 1917, the church had been abandoned for decades. The intervention of the Ministry of the Environment was decisive. The Catholic Church is now tasked with restoring the place of worship. After that, the building might serve as a shrine.

Kampot (AsiaNews)  Cambodias Environment Ministry has decided to return to the Catholic community the cathedral built by the French during colonial times on top of Mount Bokor, in the southern province of Kampot.

The building, abandoned during the countrys civil war and structurally unsound, was handed over in a ceremony held last Sunday in the presence of Environment Minister Say Samal, Mgr Olivier Michel Marie Schmitthaeusler, apostolic vicar in Phnom Penh, Chea Sam Ang, director of the General Department for nature conservation and protection, and Ly Sovanna, executive director for the Catholic National Office for Social Communication.

Environment Minister Samal said that the government decided to hand over the church to the community in order to have it maintained, repaired, and preserved for religious practices.

It means that the government recognises all religions and the peoples right to practice their faith, he said.

Local Catholics have expressed satisfaction with the decision, said Fr Gianluca Tavola, superior delegate of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) in Cambodia, who spoke to AsiaNews.

"Although the church was built in the colonial era, for the faith of our people this place of worship bears witness to the centuries-old presence of the Catholic Church in the country, he said.

"The Christian community in Kampot has come to the faith recently, at most 20-22 years ago, he added. However, The return of the building puts an end to a process that lasted years, during which we made several requests to get it back.

"We had turned to the Province, to the company that rented the mountain from the government, before being re-directed to the Ministry of the Environment, which made the return possible."

"News of the authorities decision came only ten days ago, Fr Tavola said. It all happened very quickly.

At present, We think more about setting up a shrine rather than a parish. On the mountain, in fact, there is no Christian community.

"Given the beauty of the place, this will be a reference point for pilgrimages and spiritual retreats for the Catholics of Kampot and all of Cambodia, if we can build the necessary structures that is.

"The building is completely empty inside. The Church will pay for the renovations, even though the minister said that his department can help us, more than anything in terms of red tape."
Two of the victims are said to be police officers. A gunman with explosive belt was also shot dead. The target was the Mar Mina church in Helwan, south of Cairo. Fearing attacks, the authorities have been on a high state of alert for days.

Cario (AsiaNews)  At least ten people have been killed and twenty wounded in an attack on a Coptic Orthodox church this morning in Helwan, an area south of Cairo.

Two of the victims were said to be be police officers. One gunman was shot dead by security forces (pictured). Although information remains uncertain, a second gunman appears to have escaped and is still at large.

The target of the attack was the Mar Mina Coptic Church, which was preparing to celebrate Orthodox Christmas on 7 January.

The authorities have been on a high state of alert for days in fear of possible attacks, with rapid reaction forces deployed.

Eyewitnesses said that security forces defused an explosive belt that was fasten around the dead gunman. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

A group of Catholics was visiting the neighbourhood for the traditional exchange of good wishes with local Christian families.

Sources told AsiaNews that police sealed the area, blocking access. Visitors already there were asked to leave the area "immediately".

In a nation of almost 95 million people with a large Muslim majority, Coptic Christians are a substantial minority of around 10 per cent of the population.

Last year the country aw a series of bloody attacks, some involving Christians. The escalation of violence almost led to the cancellation of Pope Franciss apostolic journey to Egypt last April.

However, the pontiff was able to visit the country where he met with its president and the great imam of al-Azhar and celebrated Mass before tens of thousands of people.

Meanwhile, Catholic Christmas took place amid tight security measures, but no incidents were reported as crowds filled the churches.

Now the celebrations of the Coptic Orthodox Church can be held, Fr Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Egyptian Catholic Church, told AsiaNews. The alarm levels are high, an attempt at attack can never be ruled out, which is what happened today. (DS)
At least 20 soldiers belonging to the 57th battalion stationed in Makilala reportedly planned the killing. Fausto was disliked by the army, businessmen and local politicians for his activity in favor of the tribals against the exploitation of the mines.

Manila (AsiaNews)  There has been a breakthrough in the investigation of the murder of the PIME missionary Fr. Fausto Tentorio, which occurred six years ago on the island of Mindanao. The Department of Justice (Doj) has filed a new complaint for murder against two army officers and many others, including two members of the Manobo tribe identified by parliamentarian Nancy Catamco, district representative of the North Cotabato.

Fausto Tentorio (photo), a 59-year-old priest for over 32 years in the Philippines, was killed on the morning of 17 October 2011, as he was preparing to leave the parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Arakan, North Cotabato, for a meeting of the diocesan clergy at Kidapawan.

Because of his activity in favor of the Manobo tribals threatened by the exploitation of the mines, Fr. Tentorio was held in suspicion by the army. According to the military, he had ties with the Maoist rebels of the New People's Army (NPA), who more than once had praised his work. In 2003, members of the armed forces attempted to kill him while on one of his visits to the tribes of the Iraqan Valley, in Kitaotao. On that occasion, the tribals made him a human shield, saving his life.

Describing it as "pure and simple homicide", last December 27, deputy prosecutor Peter Ong said that the alleged affiliation of Tentorio with the leftist groups "is not relevant" in the new investigation conducted on the killing of the priest. Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II had previously ordered the NGO to re-examine the case, as the indictment of several people implicated in the murder was stalled. "We hope to have somehow given justice to Father Tentorio," Ong told journalists.

The deputy prosecutor reports that at least 20 soldiers belonging to the 57th army battalion stationed in the city of Makilala, in the province of North Cotabato, took part in the planning of the killing of Fr. Tentorio. He was then killed by a single murderer inside the parish complex that escaped with an accomplice aboard a motorcycle. The NPA and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) had previously supported accusations by local residents that businessmen and military had orchestrated the murder of Fr. Tentorio. The suspects also fell on a politician and the local police chief. "You have no reason to kill a person who is not a fighter. It is a simple homicide ", emphasized Ong. "It has nothing to do with politics. His murder has nothing to do with the NPA. It's a simple homicide ".

The people reported by the Justice Department are: Army Colonel Joven Gonzales; Major Mark Espiritu; Jimmy Ato, material executor of the murder, and his brother Robert Ato; Jan Corbala; Nene Durado; Kaing Labi; Joseph Basol; Edgar Enoc; Romulo Tapgos ,; William Buenaflor and a certain alias Katong. It is suspected that the Ato brothers were members of a paramilitary group called "Bagani", used by government troops to fight the Maoists. Ong clarifies, however, that the allegations must be verified through a regular preliminary investigation.
Sr Roberta Pignone heads Damien Hospital, a facility dedicated to leprosy and TB patients. Staff and patients took part in Christmas celebrations. Some Muslims and Hindus took part in presenting Gospel stories. The Christian staff took part in a moment of reconciliation. I felt even more like a mother responsible for their lives, the sister said.

Khulna (AsiaNews)  The Damien Hospital in Khulna, southern Bangladesh, joyfully celebrated Christmas on 22 December. Organised by the medical staff, Christian and Muslim, celebrations were held on the facilitys terrace with the participation of patients affected by leprosy and tuberculosis.

"The staff organised the event for a specific reason: to reiterate that we missionaries are not here by choice but because Jesus has sent us, said Sister Roberta Pignone, a missionary with the Immaculate Conception* and a medical doctor who heads the facility.

Through them we wanted to keep in mind why we are here and explain the meaning of Christmas, she told AsiaNews.

"We do not proclaim the Gospel directly, but we preach it through our lives. It is nice that our collaborators can bring the message of Jesus to others as they see him in what we do."

The PIME nuns set up the hospital in 1986 to treat leprosy patients and prevent its spread. Since 2001, the facility has also admitted patients with tuberculosis. Their goal is to create a local network to identify more effectively new infections and reduce the impact of both diseases.

In 2017 alone, "we identified 35 new cases of leprosy and treated 400 TB patients," Sister Roberta said.

Speaking about the Christmas celebration, she explained that Some 60 people attended the party, staff and patients included. We sisters were mere spectators of activities prepared by the staff."

A staff member, a Muslim, explained who Jesus was, the nun noted. He said that he (Jesus) was the one the Father sent to earth to bring peace and teach love."

The celebrations included "Sketches and typical Bengali Christmas carols. One of the things that stood out was the presentation of the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, waiting for their bridegroom.

The young women who put on the show also interpreted pain and tiredness, when Jesus comes to heal people, bringing peace and serenity." This is what happens in the hospital, with the nuns loving care.

One interesting thing in the event was "the participation of two young women, one Muslim and one Hindu, in the presentation of the Gospel story. It was good to see people of different religions come together to present the teachings of the Gospel."

For Sister Roberta, it was important that "the patients stayed until the end of the show; no one forced them. They could have retired to their rooms. Instead they accepted the message that we wanted to give them: about who Jesus is, what he did, why he came to earth and above all the reason for our presence as missionaries."

"One moment that touched me a lot occurred the day before the party, when the Christian staff met for a moment of reconciliation. I organise confessions in our chapel, a time for community penitential celebration.

"At such time, I dont feel that I am only the head of the facility, the chief doctor who rules the hospital, she said. I am also a nun who takes care of patients spiritual journey and souls.

I feel even more like a mother responsible for their lives when I hear, in a simple language, Thank sister for having organised all this for us."

* Female congregation associated with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME)
The vessel appears to have circumvented UN sanctions against North Korea. South Korea and the United States have complained to the UN that ten ships, including some from China, traded with North Korea. Beijing has denied the claim.

Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies)  South Korean authorities have seized and inspected a Hong Kong-flagged ship in international waters that transferred oil to a North Korean ship in contravention of the UN-imposed embargo.

According to the authorities, the vessel, the Lighthouse Winmore, transferred 600 tonnes of refined oil to a North Korean ship on 19 October. It was seized by the investigators on 24 November when it entered Yeosu port.

Last September, the UN Security Council increased sanctions against Pyongyang, cutting oil exports and banning ship-to-ship transfers.

The Hong Kong-flagged ship was chartered by Taiwanese company Billions Bunker Group and had previously visited South Korea's Yeosu Port to load up on Japanese refined oil and headed to its claimed destination in Taiwan four days later.

However, instead of going to Taiwan, the vessel transferred the oil to a North Korean ship, the Sam Jong 2, and three other non-North Korean vessels in international waters.

"This marks a typical case of North Korea shrewdly circumventing UNSC sanctions by using its illegal networks," South Korean authorities said. China is said to belong to such "networks".

Seoul and Washington, which are sharing satellite information, have filed a complaint with the United Nations that at least ten ships, including some linked to China, had contravened international sanctions.

The US Treasury Department released some images showing Chinese ships transferring petroleum to North Korean ships in the East China Sea (pictured).

Yesterday, Chinas Defense Ministry denied that Beijing is involved in violating UN sanctions against North Korea.
by Shan Ren Shen Fu ()

The sacred building was destroyed because "illegal", but in reality it had all the building permits for 20 years. Its destruction, perhaps for economic reasons, is "illegal": the land where the church was located is now worth a lot, thanks to the development that took place in the area.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - "In the name of development" "many bad things" are carried out in China, including the destruction of the church in the village of Zhifang (Shaanxi). Although it was built 20 years ago with all the permits issued by the authorities, it was demolished in a very short time because it was "illegal". The destruction  which instead really is illegal - of the sacred building continues to provoke discussions on social media in China. In his reflection that we publish below, the priest-blogger Shanren ventures the hypothesis that the church was destroyed to take possession of its land, the value of which has jumped due to the 'development' of the nearby highway, violating not only Chinese law, but "that of heaven".

Yesterday, December 28, Feast of the Holy Innocents, I learned the shocking news that the Catholic church in the village of Zhifang, in Laoyu, Hu County, Shaanxi Province, had been forcibly demolished. The surprising reason given by the authorities was that the church illegally occupied the ground in the scenic area of Zhifang.

I remember that, when the church was built in Zhifang, the so-called panoramic area didnt exist, nor did the Xian-Hanzhong highway which was built many years later.

When Fr. Zhang Sanqi was the parish priest of our village, the Laoyu valley was under the pastoral leadership of Fr. Zhang. At that time there were already three churches built respectively in Duijiaocha, Yinjiapo and Zoulupo. I visited two of these three places. The village of Zhifang is at the foot of the mountain, and there was no church then.

At that time, many faithful had already moved from the mountains to the plain along the river. Later, when Fr. Ma Gongle became a parish priest, after several consultations and following the approval of the village committee, the faithful of Zhifang built a Catholic church in their village, adequately resolving the needs of the local faithful to profess their religion.

Judging from the documents disseminated by the diocese regarding the approval for the church, the construction of the church in Zhifang was formally approved and legally certified by the authorities. Therefore, the construction of the church is not illegal, rather the forced demolition of the same is illegal!

The local Catholics have spontaneously organized protests before the Huyi District Party Committee to demand an explanation! Why this situation today? I think all this is linked to the continuous appreciation of the real estate upon which the church was built.

When the Zhifang church was built, the Xian-Hanzhong highway still did not exist. But now they are building an exit of the Xian-Hanzhong highway right alongside the village of Zhifang. Planning provides for the village to become a scenic area. This has led to a drastic appreciation in economic terms of the church grounds. It is most lucrative to take that land with the excuse that the construction is illegal, demolishing the church quickly and thus saving costs considerably. Moreover, the local faithful are not numerous, and the authorities have imposed administrative orders to intimidate them, to hinder them, to disturb them. In that way, the demolition was carried out quickly, without encountering problems.

I do not want to go too far into what is illegal, or about who acts in violation of the law, because it is obviously ridiculous to tear down a church, with the excuse that it was built illegally, 20 years after it was built! If there were no highway, if it were not for development, who would care whether there is a Catholic church there? But since there is now the highway, and there is also the church, then you have to demolish it with the excuse that it is an illegal construction, with no respect for the fact that at the time the church was built with all the necessary permits and approvals in accordance with the law. It's really an aberrant episode in violation of the law!

In the name of development, a large area of cultivated countryside has been reduced to a desert, but nobody has taken an interest in this. Instead, in the name of the development of the scenic area, this church, which dates back almost two decades ago, has been destroyed and demolished. In the name of development and under the catalyst of an inflated economy, how many evil things have been done, violating not only the earthly law but that of heaven!

I sincerely hope that there is a fairly reasonable answer for the illegal demolition of the church in Zhifang! We cannot only blame the temporary workers who drove the bulldozers!
Photo courtesy of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.

Commercial vehicle registration in the European Union showed a 3.9% improvement year-to-date in November 2017 compared to what was reported last year, and was bolstered by light commercial vehicle and the heavy truck segments, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) said.

Spain, France, and Germany remained the markets with the highest recorded commercial vehicle registration gains in the EU, according to the ACEA. Spain grew by 15.1%, France gained 7.8% growth so far this year, and Germany grew by 3.6%. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom showed a 4.6% decrease, versus a 3.9% drop last month, compared to last year. Meanwhile, comparing November 2017 data to the same time last year showed an overall 2.5% growth in the segment compared to last year.

More than 2.2. million new commercial vehicles were registered in the EU from the start of the year up to November 2017, according to the ACEA

More than 1.8 million new vans were registered in the EU, up 4.6% compared to last year. Spain, Germany, and France continued to lead the way by gains in 18.4%, 8.5%, and 6.2%, respectively. The United Kingdom showed declines of 4.1% in this segment. When looking at November alone, the segment showed a 3.3% increase compared to 2016 data.

In the new registration for the medium- to heavy-duty commercial vehicle segment, registration for the year remained stable when compared to last year. Countries in the EU that showed significant commercial vehicle registration growth were Italy (7.5%) and France (6.5%).However, vehicle registration for this segment in November 2017 alone, declined 14% in the United Kingdom and 13.5% in Italy, but increased 6.3% in Germany.

Finally, registration for heavy commercial vehicles was also stable for the year, growing 1.1%. This was bolstered by Italy (11.4%) and France (6.8%). For the segment, November 2017 alone data showed a 2.2% improvement over registrations during the same time last year
Spencer

Gene Spencer was promoted to fleet manager for Weatherford International in Houston, Texas, in June. Earlier, Spencer was a fleet analyst for Weatherford, which he joined in 2016.

Prior to joining Weatherford, Spencer was division fleet manager for Republic Services, also in Houston.

At Republic Services, Spencer was responsible for total fleet lifecycle and the compliance of DOT and safety regulations, internal policies and procedures related to fleet administration including, annual budget and procurement of new vehicles, fleet maintenance, registrations and transfers and end-of-life resale of vehicles.
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A former Hernando County Sheriff's Office lieutenant and his son are facing charges after officials say they attacked a man following a road rage incident.

Names initially withheld on arrest reports

Victim says men claimed he was trying to kill family member

Both men facing battery, false imprisonment charges

The victim in the case does not want to be identified. He said he's afraid of retaliation.



He told the Pasco County Sheriff's Office that a woman cut him off when he was turning on U.S. 19 on Wednesday afternoon.



He admits that he honked at the woman and made an obscene gesture at her. He said he kept driving and thought that was the end of it.



"I thought pretty much that she was going her way and I was going my way and that was probably the end of it," he said.



When he pulled over at a gas station at a nearby intersection, he said a man and his son, later identified by the Pasco County Sheriff's office as former Hernando Sheriff's Lieutenant Peter Ciucci and Nicholas Tisevich-Ciucci, blocked him in and confronted him. He claims they accused him of trying to kill their family member.



"I denied that," the victim explained. "I felt boxed in my car and I said to them, 'Either you guys are going to leave or I'm going to call the cops.'"



When one of the men noticed him attempting to call 911, he allegedly reached in his car and pushed the phone out of his hand.



The victim said he got out to try to go inside the store for help. He said that's when the men started punching him and pushed him to the ground.



According to an arrest report, things turned even more violent.



"There was choking, strangling, the son held the victim down while the father continued to beat him," said Amy Marinec with the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.

"There's about seven minutes of a physical confrontation," said Pasco Sheriff's Office Captain James Steffens. "He lost the fight. This fight was over pretty much from the beginning and he was down on the ground in a chokehold and he wasn't moving."



The victim has cuts and bruises, and said he's sore from the altercation.



"This was just two men who showed up and jumped me, to be honest with you. It wasn't a fair fight, not at all," he said.



Ciucci is charged with burglary battery, tampering with a witness and false imprisonment.



Tisevich-Ciucci, meanwhile, is charged with vehicle burglary, simple battery and false imprisonment. Both men's names were initially withheld from arrest reports.



"You're not above the law," said the alleged victim, sending a message to the men he claims assaulted him. "You're not above the law, even though you're retired law enforcement, you're not above the law."


A fisherman in Crystal River made quite the catch this week. Turns out one of his blue crabs had traveled to our area all the way from Maryland! Experts say that's very unusual.

Crab had been tagged by scientists

Crab traveled from Chesapeake Bay to gulf over several years

Fisherman working with scientists to return crab

Its certainly not something Thomas Cochran with TJE Seafood expected to find while taking in his normal harvest from King's Bay.

"I was looking around like, is this a joke or is this something that's all over or is this one of a kind? he explained.

He noticed the pink tag on the crab and called the number listed. Turns out the crab had been tagged by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in the Chesapeake Bay, and over the course of several years made his way into the gulf and then into King's Bay.

A scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center told us this is the furthest a blue crab has traveled since they started tagging them.

"We've tagged a number of crabs in the Chesapeake Bay. Some of them get captured as far south as North Carolina," Robert Aguilar, a biologist at the center, said.

Agular said it was also an unusual catch because it was a male crab.

"Unlike the females, they don't have a directed migration, and also males in theory should continue to molt, to continue to grow, so when they molt they shed their exoskeleton and in theory they will then shed any tag that is attached to the carapace."

Now the center is working with Cochran to get the crab sent back to them so they can do some tests to see why he traveled as far as his did.

It's something Cochran said has been a once in a lifetime experience.

"I talked to some colleagues in Crystal River yesterday evening showed them the crab and they were just as speechless as I was. They're long time crabbers too," Cochran explained.

Aguilar said they've tagged about 50,000 crabs over the last 15 years.
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Sometimes, it pays to drink midweek.

If you need a pick me up to get through Thursdays and Fridays, Madison's has you covered with its new Wednesday special.

The Beaumont restaurant will be selling $1 margaritas every Wednesday starting this week. $10 Hubcap Nachos will also be available.

The deal is available from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. every Wednesday.
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Three days after Christmas, a Beaumont mother is making plans to bury her son who was fatally shot at a car wash.

Anthony Green, 20, was killed on Thursday after being gunned down at J & J Car Wash on Washington Boulevard shortly before 1 p.m.

On Friday, his mother and sister discussed Anthony at the Beaumont Police Department.

"My son was murdered yesterday," Tracie Blackshire, his mother, said.

Several people were at the car wash, across the street at a strip mall or driving down the busy street the middle of the afternoon, Blackshire said. Friends and family are asking anyone with information to come forward.

"Please come and talk to the detectives and officers and let them know," Blackshire said. "I heard there was several people around who know or seen what happened ... or had known what was going to happen."

READ MORE: Man killed at Beaumont car wash

Blackshire said her son may have been killed because of his romantic involvement with a woman.

"We are confident that we will find the people that are responsible for this and bring justice to this family and to Anthony," Officer Haley Morrow with the Beaumont Police Department said. "We always want to encourage anyone who has any information to call 409-832-1234."

Several people at the scene were questioned at the police department following the incident on Thursday and detectives are following several leads, Morrow said.

Blackshire learned her son had been shot after a friend came to her house with the news.

"I know he's OK. He's giving me that feeling that he's OK. He's gone and he's OK, " Blackshire said. "But I just want justice for my child."

His sister, Keandra Green, said that while he had no children of his own, Anthony had six siblings and lots of nieces and nephews that looked up to him.

"We just want justice," Keandra Green said. "No mother deserves to bury her child."

Anthony is described as a "good kid," who was smart and loved to make people laugh.

"Funniest person I ever met in my life," Keandra Green said.

The family was together on Christmas Day. Blackshire said the last time she saw her son, he was trying to find a pair of shoes she had wanted but were sold out.

"He was going to go to Houston to find them for me," Blackshire said.

MGstalter@BeaumontEnteprise.com

Twitter.com/morgGstalt
A relative of slain Kashmiri rebel Abid Ahmed wails over his body, as women and other mourners look on during his funeral procession in the village of Hajinar in Bandipora district, north of Srinagar, Aug. 5, 2017.

Counter-insurgency operations in 2017 killed more than 340 people in Indian Kashmir, including suspected militants, security personnel and civilians, making it the bloodiest year in nearly a decade for the disputed Himalayan territory, a top security official said.

Indian security forces claimed to have gunned down more than 210 militants, and 54 civilians and 78 security personnel also lost their lives during anti-militant operations. This years death toll was the highest since 2010, when more than 380 people, including about 110 civilians and 270 suspected militants, were killed in such operations, police said.

[The year] 2017 was a mix of challenges and successes. We were able to eliminate some top militants of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), but in the process lost a large number of civilian and non-civilian lives, Ravideep Sahi, the inspector general of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Indian Kashmir, told BenarNews.

The new year will prove to be another challenge for Indian forces as some 275 militants, including at least 150 LeT and JeM cadres, are still active in the territory, Sahi said.

Kashmir, home to a separatist insurgency for decades, is claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, but each country controls only part of it. More than 70,000 people have died in flare-ups of insurgency-related violence since the late 1980s, officials said.

Despite repeated warnings and appeals to stay away from areas where firing is going on, civilians continue to congregate and protest at encounter sites, eventually getting killed in cross-fire, Sahi said.

In 2016, about 325 people, including protesters and suspected insurgents, died in months of unrest, officials said.

Shot point-blank

Locals alleged that a large number of civilian deaths this year resulted from cold-blooded killings at the hands of Indian security forces, who are routinely accused of committing rights abuses in the Muslim-majority region.

There was an exchange of fire going on between Indian forces and militants. My wife was passing by the site when one soldier shot her in the head from point-blank range. Our 7-month-old child is now left without a mother, Ishfaq Ahmad, 22, told BenarNews.

Ahmads wife, Maysara Akther, 20, was one of two civilian women killed during a counter-insurgency operation in north Kashmirs Kupwara district earlier this month.

On Monday, Indian forces gunned down Noor Mohammad Tantray, a top JeM cadre, in an encounter in Srinagar.

His killing is a major success for us, as he was involved in major anti-India operations in Kashmir over the past 10 years, Sahi said, referring to Tantray.

The good part of the year gone by, Sahi said, was that there was a drastic decline in incidents of stone-throwing by Kashmiri protesters during anti-India rallies.

Also, a large number of Kashmiri youths, who had been pulled into militancy, gave up their firearms and surrendered to start a fresh life, he said.

Line of Control

Two of three full-blown wars fought by Pakistan and India  in 1947 and 1965  have been over Kashmir, which is divided between the two sides by a de facto border called the Line of Control (LoC). The two nuclear-armed rivals routinely accuse each other of ceasefire violations and harboring terrorism.

On Monday, the Indian Army claimed to have crossed the LoC and killed three Pakistani soldiers to retaliate against a cross-border attack by the Pakistan Army that killed four Indian soldiers on Saturday.

There were more than 300 infiltration attempts by Pakistan-sponsored militants to cross the LoC into Indian Kashmir, the highest in four years, Indias Ministry of Home Affairs said, adding that 2017 also witnessed a major spike in ceasefire violations by the neighboring country.

[Until] Dec. 15, there were 820 ceasefire violations along the LoC in comparison to 228 such violations in 2016 and 153 in 2013. There were more than 310 infiltration attempts by Pakistani militants [in 2017], Kiren Rijiju, Indias Deputy Minister for Home Affairs, said according to The Hindu newspaper.

The considerable increase in ceasefire violations and infiltration attempts indicates Pakistan is desperate to push militants into Indian territory, Rijiju said.

But the Pakistani foreign ministry said Indian security forces fired their guns across the LoC to provide cover for unidentified non-state actors  or armed fighters who are not Indian soldiers  who placed improvised bombs that killed the three Pakistani soldiers on Monday.

The false claims by India about the alleged cross LoC adventures are a figment of their imagination and counter-productive for peace and tranquility on the LoC, the ministry said in a statement.
Updated at 9:50 p.m. ET on 2017-12-29

Indonesia is doubling the size of its counterterrorism force ahead of major international events taking place in the country in 2018, National Police Chief Tito Karnavian said Friday.

The force will be headed by a two-star police general instead of one-star general, as well, Tito said in a yearender news conference in Jakarta.

I have also asked for the force numbers to be doubled. Were adding about 600 personnel, so that the total will become 1,300, he said.

The former head of the elite police unit said the change was due to an assessment of the threat level next year when Indonesia hosts two major international events.

The two events are the Asian Games, which will take place in Jakarta, the Sumatran city of Palembang and various parts of West Java, with 1,500 people from 45 nations participating; and annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Bali, with 189 nations taking part.

The participation of North Korea and Myanmar in the Asian games in August and September, and of Israel and the United States in the IMF and WB meetings in October, make both of the events potential targets for radical groups and terrorists, Tito said.

Police casualties increase

Densus 88 is part of Indonesias police force, which in 2017 apprehended 172 suspected terrorists, of whom 16 were shot dead during arrest attempts, officials said.

The number of suspects apprehended had increased from 163 in 2016 and 73 in 2015.

Of the suspects arrested in 2017, 76 are now on trial and 10 have been convicted.

The number of arrests is more due to the proactive steps undertaken by the police, more specifically Densus 88, who are working harder to detect, monitor and take action against terror networks, Tito said.

He said the number of police killed in terror acts had increased during the last three years.

Four police were killed and 14 wounded on the job in 2017, Tito said. The previous year, the elite force suffered only one fatality, but 11 were wounded. One officer was killed and two injured in 2015.

I have instructed that there be more undercover work, early prevention and action before incidents occur. For this we need stronger detection capacity, he said.

Race to train

The higher rank of the Densus 88 commander suggests an expansion of tasks and a larger budget for the force, according to counterterrorism expert Rakyan Adibrata.

But keep in mind, training a 100-percent professional and prepared counter-terrorism officer is very time-consuming, whereas training a terrorist is much faster, he told BenarNews. Densus will be racing against time.

From the point of view of resources, ISIS is not like Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which aimed for a lot of casualties, Rakyan said, using another acronym for the so-called Islamic State group (IS), and comparing it with the al-Qaeda affiliate that killed 202 people in the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali.

For them its enough to mount attacks with a simple kitchen knife, he said of IS.

Rakyan agreed with the police chiefs analysis that the international events in Indonesia in 2018 could be targetted by terrorists.

There are high expectations from perpetrators who want to use terrorism as a tool to convey political messages, he said.

According to statistics from Indonesias foreign ministry, 227 Indonesians were arrested abroad in 2017, including in Turkey, Malaysia, Syria and South Korea.

The highest number of arrests took place in Turkey with 195 people, followed by Syria with 28.

The ministry added that 213 Indonesians, including 79 women and 78 children, were deported from Turkey between Jan. 1 and Oct. 20 this year. That number was three times greater than the 60 deportees from Turkey in 2016.

Foreign Ministry official Lalu Muhammad Iqbal said that most of the Indonesians were deported due to immigration violations, such as using an incorrect visa, overstaying a visa or being unable to produce a passport.

Nevertheless, Turkish authorities indicated their suspicion that these individuals were in Turkey in order to cross into Syria and join ISIS, or other groups of that nature, such as Jabhat An-Nusra, in Syria, he said.

An earlier version of this story gave incorrect figures for the number of police killed and wounded in 2017.
Protesters call for the ouster of then-Jakarta Gov. Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama outside the House of Representative in Jakarta, Feb. 21, 2017.

Conservative Islam emerged as a potent player in Indonesian politics in 2017, and could endure through presidential elections in 2019 in the worlds largest Muslim-majority nation, analysts say.

Hardline groups, such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), chalked up a huge win when their demonstrations against Jakartas then-governor resulted in his arrest, trial and conviction for blasphemy against Islam. Along the way, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) lost his re-election bid.

Ahok was the highest-ranking public servant from the tiny ethnic-Chinese minority in Indonesian history, and a key ally of President Joko Widodo, who faces a re-election test in 2019 and won the presidency while serving as Jakartas governor.

There are groups that work with the radical community to overthrow President Joko Widodo, Boni Hargens, director of the Indonesian Electoral Institute, told a seminar in Jakarta earlier this month on the role of hardline groups in politics.

These groups use tribal, religious, and race-based issues in politics. If this continues, its guaranteed the 2019 election will be far from civilized, he said.

Identity politics is being used to advance political agendas, said Christine Susanna Tjhin, a researcher on pluralism and the politics of ethnic Chinese Indonesians at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta.

Whether to gather support or to topple opponents, in general, identity politics became more visible this year, she told BenarNews.

Sharia Republic

Ahoks blasphemy conviction came just weeks after he lost the gubernatorial election in a runoff vote to Anies Baswedan, a U.S.-educated academic and former minister of education who shocked some Jakartans by meeting with leaders of hardline groups during the electoral campaign.

On Dec. 2, the new governor spoke at a reunion commemorating one of the mass demonstrations against Ahok a year earlier. Anies praised the peaceful nature of the protest that day and asked the crowds to support his work as governor.

The rally then heard a recording of FPI leader Rizieq Shihab, who has reportedly been in Saudi Arabia since May, when he was named a suspect under Indonesias anti-pornography law in a case of alleged sexting.

Finally, thanks to God, the blasphemer stepped down and slid down. Stepped down from his post and slid into jail, Rizieq said, according to a BBC Indonesia report.

He added that indigenous people would be masters in their own country in a Sharia Republic of Indonesia.

Such a country would eschew the usury economy, corruption, gambling, drugs, pornography, prostitution, LGBT people, and false accusations, he said.

Two-year sentence

As Jokowis running mate, Ahok was elected deputy governor of Jakarta in October 2012, but ascended to the top spot when his boss became president two years later.

While many viewed him as tough on corruption and a driver of badly needed infrastructure improvements, he was deeply unpopular among riverbank dwellers displaced by anti-flooding programs  and among hardline Muslim groups.

Calls erupted for him to be arrested for blasphemy after he referred in public comments to a verse in the Quran that bars Muslims from having non-Muslim leaders, according to some interpretations.

Ahok, a Christian raised by an adoptive Muslim family, later apologized for the remark.

His two-year sentence was handed down after the lead prosecutor dropped the blasphemy charge during closing arguments, saying he could not prove that Ahok had intentionally insulted Islam.

In November, the man who uploaded an edited clip of Ahoks remarks was sentenced to 18 months in prison for violating a section of the countrys cyber law in connection with the infamous Ahok video.

Nevertheless, the videographer, Buni Yani, appeared onstage at the Dec. 2 reunion.

Bellwether provinces

The concept of a Sharia Republic concerns Bona Sigalingging, spokesman for GKI Yasmin, a Christian congregation that has been unable to worship in its West Java community due to opposition from Muslim neighbors.

We are certainly worried about the jargon Unitary Republic of Indonesia with Sharia because thats very different from the ideology of the Republic of Indonesia, he said, referring to Pancasila, which emphasizes unity and pluralism.

Indonesias population is spread across more than 17,000 islands and includes more than 700 languages. The state officially recognizes six religions with Islam dominating as the faith of more than 87 percent of 260 million people.

Indonesias founders decided to create a republic and not a country based on religion; everyone should respect that. There shouldnt be someone who goes off by themselves to campaign for something outside of that, Bona said in a recent interview with BenarNews.

Jakarta became a laboratory for the practice of the politics of hate in 2017, according to Arif Susanto, an analyst at Exposit Strategic, a political and economic research firm.

He called 2017 the Year of Hate Politics and said Indonesia was entering a crucial moment in its political evolution.

Not only because regional elections in 2018 are a warm-up for general elections in 2019, but also because the Reform Era that is now two decades old has not yet resulted in democratic consolidation, he said, referring to the period following the fall of dictator Suharto in 1998.

With society gripped by sectarian tensions, Radical religious groups and political demagogues can fish in the turbulent water, he warned.

Nasir Djamil, a lawmaker from the Prosperous Justice Party, one of a handful of Islam-based parties in Indonesia, played down such concerns.

Most Indonesian Muslims are pragmatic, and embrace a form of Islam steeped in Javanese tradition, he said.

Indonesian Muslims are not ideological people  and they tend to be secular in their political choices, " he told BenarNews.

He said provincial elections in 2018 in densely populated West Java, Central Java and East Java provinces would serve as a bellwether for 2019 presidential and legislative elections. More than half of Indonesias population lives on Java.

If in these three places, the candidates with the Islamic political parties win, that will be a very strong signal for legislative and the 2019 presidential elections, that the Islam-based political parties will get significant votes and win, Nasir said.
Members of Malaysias Special Task Force On Organized Crime provide security at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 in Sepang district, Selangor, Oct. 24, 2017

Malaysia arrested slightly fewer terrorism suspects in 2017 compared with 2016, in the first year-on-year decline since 2013, according to statistics provided by counter-terror officials.

But authorities have stepped up their surveillance of suspected militants and expanded intelligence gathering to foil attacks in the Muslim-majority nation, officials said Thursday.

Police arrested 105 suspected militants this year, compared with 119 the previous year. Statistics also reflected lower numbers in charges filed: 41 this year compared with 70 in 2016.

The decline in charges does not mean that the remaining [suspects] are freed, Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, chief of the national polices counter-terrorist special branch, told BenarNews.

Ayob said some of the suspects had been detained on charges of violating the nations Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which allows police to restrict the movements of suspects by using electronic monitoring devices.

We have increased our surveillance and intelligence sources, Ayob said. We are not saying we are smarter, but we are keeping up with the upcoming threats.

In 2013, officials charged three of four terrorism suspects who were arrested during the entire year, according to government figures reviewed by BenarNews. The following year, authorities arrested 59 and filed charges against 21.

The upward trend in the number of arrests and charges continued in 2015, when 82 suspects were arrested and 30 were taken to court. The numbers peaked last year.

Authorities attributed the sharp decline in court cases against terror suspects this year to insufficient evidence and the deportation of foreign militants.

That does not mean the counter-terrorism team is less productive, Ayob said.

In October this year, Malaysian police released a list of 45 foreigners arrested since January for suspected links to terror groups, including the so-called Islamic State (IS).

Among the suspects were nationals from as far away as Iraq, Turkey, Albania, Yemen, the Maldives and China, as well as from nearby Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines, Police Inspector-General Mohamad Fuzi Harun said then in a statement.

Those 45 suspects arrested through Oct. 6 included nine members of the Philippine-based Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), three from Turkeys Fetullah, one from an Albanian terror cell linked with IS, and another from Bangladeshs Jamaatul Mujahideen, Fuzi said.

During the past four years, Malaysian authorities have arrested 369 people for their suspected links to terror groups, according to government statistics compiled by BenarNews. Among those arrested this year was a 26-year-old female college student who was arrested at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on April 4 after being deported by Turkish authorities.

In October, Ayob told reporters that 70 foreign fighters had been detained by Malaysian officials since 2013. Nine of those men were suspected ASG members thought to have been in contact with Mahmud Ahmad, a Malaysian militant considered the IS recruiter in Southeast Asia.

That same month, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced that Mahmud was among militants who were killed in Marawi. The five-month battle in the southern Philippine city left more than 1,100 people dead, including more than 900 militants, officials said.

Malaysia, home to about 32 million people, including 19.5 million Muslims, has foiled at least nine IS-related bomb plots since 2013. Those plots included one that targeted the Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur in August, but that was thwarted, according to police.

Last year, however, an IS-linked grenade attack at a nightclub in Puchong, near Kuala Lumpur, injured eight people.

Officials said at least three planned attacks had been foiled this year.

The Borneo connection

Terrorism spotlighted the Borneo state of Sabah this year with numerous suspected militants, especially those with ASG links, being arrested in the coastal town of Sandakan town, which has ferry services to the southern Philippines.

The Malaysian Eastern Sabah Security Commands (Esscom) attributed the arrests to tip-offs from members of the local community.

Early this month, authorities said that security forces had killed Abu Paliyak in waters off the east coast of Sabah. Paliyak allegedly belonged to an ASG faction responsible for kidnappings and robberies.

Two weeks after Paliyaks killing, authorities said that a cousin of Isnilon Hapilon, the late emir of Islamic States Southeast Asian branch, and a leader of Indonesian terror group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) were among 20 suspected militants arrested in raids across Malaysia in December.

JAD carried out the terrorist attack in central Jakarta in January 2016, in which eight people, including four perpetrators, were killed, Indonesian police said. The attack was the first successful one claimed in Southeast Asia by IS.

Esscom commander Hazani Ghazali credited the police involvement in community activities for the closer bond that led to the arrests of suspects in Sabah.

Through these operations, we get closer and forge a relationship with the local community and this is where we build their trust and confidence in us, Hazani said during a Malaysian TV interview Wednesday.

Kamal Affandi Hashim, a Malaysian crime analyst, praised the Malaysian police for what he called an excellent job this year in curtailing terror attacks, but said authorities need to improve their public-relations efforts.

I have faith that effort had been taken by the police to ensure public safety in the background all along, he told BenarNews. But for 2018, I hope it will be much more visible so that there will be more trust in them.

Hareez Lee in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.
Two locals look on as soldiers inspect a motorbike stopped at a checkpoint near Yala, in Thailands Deep South, April 13, 2007.

Fifteen men with alleged links to insurgents in the Thai Deep South were arrested Thursday, including two suspected of plotting attacks targeting New Years festivities in Phang-Nga province, a southern tourist hotspot located well outside the troubled region, police said.

The two suspects who were picked up in Phang-Nga were from Raman, a district in Yala, one of the provinces in the Deep South, and bomb-making material was found at their home, authorities said. The arrests of the 15 suspects came after Thailands army chief ordered a crackdown on suspected militants to safeguard year-end celebrations.

We suspect they have links to Deep South insurgents who came here to do attacks during New Year, police Lt. Col. Weerasak Srithong told BenarNews. They initially denied the allegation but officials dont trust them either.

In Krabi, a province near Phang-Nga, the provincial police chief said his department had received intelligence that Deep South insurgents were preparing to attack tourist sites during the New Year.

I ordered my policemen to search for suspicious men from Deep South and do surveillance on tourist sites, crowded areas and government establishment after I received reports that insurgents planned attacks on Dec. 31 evening, Maj. Gen. Boontawee Toraksa told BenarNews.

Phang-Nga and neighboring Phuket island are among popular touristic sites in Thailands upper southern region that were targeted in coordinated bombings, which killed four people and injured more than 30 others in August 2016.

Soon after those attacks, a leader of a combat unit with Barisan Revolusi Nasional, the largest and most powerful of insurgent groups in the Deep South, told BenarNews that BRN operatives had carried out those bombings farther north. Officials privately agreed that Deep South rebels were responsible.

According to Weerasak, the two men suspects were detained at a checkpoint in Phang-Nga. When police later searched their residence, they found material that could be used to build homemade bombs, including a gas tank, nails and miscellaneous items. He said the two were not charged but transferred to a military facility in Pattani, a province in the Deep South.

On Thursday, in Yala and neighboring Narathiwat province, police also arrested 12 men on suspicion of being involved in recent militant attacks in Narathiwat. The suspects have not been charged but were being interrogated, officials said.

A day earlier, Gen. Chalermchai Sithisart, the army commander-in-chief, ordered a crackdown against militants following a series of recent attacks in the Deep South, including an incident on Dec. 17 when insurgents hijacked a double-decker bus and set it on fire after allowing its passengers to disembark.

I ordered the commander of the 4th Army Region, Lt. Gen. Piyawat Nakwanich, to keep the peace and protect both Buddhist and Muslim Thais, during the New Year festivities, Chalermchai, the army chief, told reporters, referring to the region including the Deep South.

We focus on limiting insurgents movement and firearms, he said.

A 34-year-old man has been arrested and charged over the bus attack in Yala, police said Thursday. Three other suspects remain at large, officials said.



Earlier this week, suspected insurgents opened fire at an army truck, killing one soldier and injuring three other soldiers and a civilian in Narathiwats Srisakhon district, police said. Two other soldiers were injured when their truck hit a roadside bomb as they rushed to secure the area on Tuesday.



In Yala province, a senior police officer told BenarNews that authorities were bracing for attacks from young members of insurgent groups.

As far as I see it, the perpetrators planned coordinated attacks, police Col. Chamroen Suwnachatree, director of the Ayer Weng police station in Yala, said Thursday.

They practice doing violence before carrying out bigger violence. They also intimidate villagers and show off their capability that they can do anything at will.

Since 2004, almost 7,000 people have been killed in violence associated with the insurgency in Thailands predominantly Muslim southern border region.

This week, Deep South Watch, a local think-tank reported that, in 2017, the number of insurgent-related attacks in the region had fallen to a 14-year low.

Malay-speaking insurgents in the Deep South are fighting for secession. Until the region was annexed in 1909, Buddhist-majority Thailands three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat were part of an independent Malay Muslim sultanate.
New York, USA - Somaliland authorities should immediately release Ahmed Sa'ed and Abdirahman Mohamed Ege, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

Image credit: scanrail via 123RF.com

Police on 18 December arrested the Somali journalists on allegations of publishing false news about the mayor of Berbera, a port city in the semi-autonomous region of Somaliland, according to Guleid Ahmed Jama, chairperson of the advocacy group Human Rights Center, and Yahye Mohamed, the Somaliland Journalists Association executive director.

Their arrests came after Abdirahman and Ahmed ran separate television stories both alleging the mayor, Abdishakur Mahmoud Hassan, misused public property, according to Yahye and Guleid.

"Somaliland authorities must immediately release Ahmed Sa'ed and Abdirahman Mohamed, and permit reporters to operate without fear of arrest," Angela Quintal, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Africa program coordinator, said from Durban, South Africa. "Somaliland's new president, Muse Bihi Abdi, should seize the opportunity to end such blatant attempts to intimidate journalists and make press freedom a priority for his administration."

No response

Berbera Mayor Abdishakur Mahmoud Hassan did not answer a call and text message from CPJ.

Following the journalists' arrest, Berbera authorities brought Ahmed, who works for the privately owned Saab TV, and Abdirahman, who works for the privately owned Eryal TV, to a local court, which remanded them for seven days pending further investigation, Guleid told CPJ.

The detentions of Abdirahman and Ahmed follow the arrest on 5 December ofAbdirisak Dayib Alil. His arrest came after CPJ conducted its most recent prison census, which indicated that on December 1 Somalia was jailing one journalist, Mohamed Adan Dirir.

Somaliland's police commissioner, Abdullahi Fadal Iman, did not respond to phone calls and text messages for comment from CPJ.

Reached yesterday, the recently appointed information minister Abdurrahman Abdullahi Farah asked CPJ to contact him today. CPJ was unable to reach the minister today: the phone connection was poor and the spokesperson did not immediately return a text message seeking comment.

Source: Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) via All Africa.
The shops in Mali are full of imported goods from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. This, Mali's captains of industry maintain, is not necessary. Mali can produce a lot of what it consumes at home. But for that to happen, there needs to be a wholesale revival of its industrial sector. Can it be done?

Natanael Alfredo Nemanita Ginting via 123RF

This used to be a very familiar sound throughout most of Malis territory. From Gao to Sikasso, factories produced a wide range of consumer goods. But a lot of that is gone.

We are, said industry representative Cyril Achcar, now essentially a nation of traders. There used to be industry, mostly run by the state. Eighty per cent of that has disappeared between 1970 and 1995.

Achcar comes from a family that began developing industry in the late 1950s. He is not only one of Malis few remaining manufacturers  he also lobbies relentlessly for its interests.

Not all is gone. Some factories still work in and around the capital, Bamako, and in urban centers like Kayes, Sikasso and Koulikoro; but, the list of products is short: dairy, some meat products, dried herbs and spices, one textile company, a packaging firm, the inevitable cement factory and some hardware.

No longer under the protective umbrella of the state, there is little Malis manufacturers can do against mass-produced goods, mainly from Asia. The picture is repeated across the African continent.

Can Malian factories, the engines of an emerging economy, be brought back to life?

Any decent industrial policy will have to tackle a long list of problems. They include: expensive electricity. Poor infrastructure. A tax regime that discourages investment, and, competition from mass producers like China and neighboring countries like Senegal that can produce goods more cheaply.

Where to begin? The answer: on the land.

Fatoumata Haidara Bah leads a government agency that helps Malis agro-industry to become more competitive. Her agency concentrates on mangos and maize. The mangos are for export and the maize produces high-quality feed for cattle and poultry.

The real goal is to produce more jobs for Malians, especially the young.

Cyril Achcar thinks it can be done but says its a long road back to Malis industrial recovery.

It may help to join forces with Burkina Faso and Niger, landlocked like Mali and in similar circumstances. The markets are there, the ideas and plans are there; whats needed now is more government action to ensure that investments come in, budding industries are protected and unfair competition is eliminated.

Made in Mali? As far as the countrys industry leaders are concerned, all one has to do is believe in it.
Carrol Boyes Wines has released a South African-branded, limited-edition Champagne label approved by the committee of Champagne.

The new addition to the Carrol Boyes Limited Edition range is made in France in partnership with Charbaut, a three-generations-old French family vineyard, which was established in 1936 on the hillsides of Champagne country. The Carrol Boyes Iconic Champagne label was officially approved for release by the Committee of Champagne. Described as delicately balanced and patiently matured, this Limited Edition comprises only 1,000 bottles.

The company describes the Iconic Champagne as an extension of the Carrol Boyes homeware brand. "The wines embody the Carrol Boyes lifestyle and are created jointly by renowned designer, Carrol Boyes, and her brother, John Boyes, together with his business partner, Neels Barnardt, both of Barnardt Boyes. In the same way as Carrol designs and manufactures distinctive functional art pieces for the home, so Barnardt Boyes turns ancient soils and fair climates into sumptuous wines with rich sensory appeal."

Carrol Boyes Wines resident wine-maker, Hendrik Snyman, won the Michelangelo International Wine & Spirits Awards MCC Trophy in 2015, but after already having produced a highly successful MCC, Snyman turned his sights to Champagne. His pre-existing relationship with the Charbaut family created the opportunity to release authentic Champagne that would "amplify the Carrol Boyes reputation for superb gifting and high-quality craftsmanship". The resulting Carrol Boyes Iconic Champagne is, according to the Charbaut family, the culmination of a decade of friendship.

"The limited-edition vintage is a celebration of matured chardonnay grown in the prestigious Grand and Premier Cru vineyards of Champagne, consisting of 100% Chardonnay. The grapes are carefully selected and picked when perfectly ripe, then immediately pressed and left for 11 years on the lees, to ensure excellent balance between grape character and aging, endowing this Champagne with a fine and delicate effervescence that pleases and excites the palate."

This limited edition is available online and at the Carrol Boyes flagship store in Somerset West, Cape Town.
Credit ratings agency Moody's downgraded debt held by embattled South Africa-based home retail giant Steinhoff on Thursday and warned of further downgrades amid "increasing pressure" on the company's cashflow.

Moody's said in a statement it was cutting Steinhoff's credit rating from "B1", or speculative with a high credit risk, to "Caa1", or poor quality and a very high risk.

Earlier this month, Steinhoff revealed it was under criminal and tax investigations over suspicions of accounting irregularities, with a reported 6 billion ($7 billion) hole in its accounts.

German investigators have been conducting an inquiry into possible "falsification of a balance sheet" since the European summer, according to media there. That news sent the stocks of the Frankfurt-listed firm tumbling more than 80%, with South African authorities, where the company has a secondary listing, calling for action against the company.

Moody's had already cut Steinhoff's credit rating by four notches to "B1" after the scandal was revealed. Moody's said that the decision to further cut Steinhoff's credit worthiness to "Caa1" was intended to "reflect the increasing pressure on the company's liquidity profile".

"The situation has been compounded by its operating companies placing an additional liquidity burden on Steinhoff's centralised treasury," the statement said. "Moody's notes that the operating companies have experienced a reduction or cancellation of credit insurance lines in recent weeks, with credit facilities increasingly being suspended or withdrawn."

Steinhoff had been a darling of fund managers with its eclectic, sprawling, consumer-focused empire with outposts in 30 countries. Its businesses include British high street discounter Poundland, France's Ligue 1 sponsor Conforama and Pep Africa, which runs the continent's largest clothing factory.

Chief executive Markus Jooste and chairman Christo Wiese both resigned in the wake of the scandal.

David Shapiro, the deputy chairman of the Sasfin Securities brokerage, told the eNCA broadcaster that Steinhoff remains mired in uncertainty following the downgrade.

"This is big. We've had other (corporate scandals) but this is big... They're not quite sure the magnitude of these irregularities," he said. "So you sit back and say 'hold on a second, what happened around those board tables?'."

On Tuesday, 5 December, Steinhoff shares were changing hands for three euros a piece in Frankfurt, but by the market open on Thursday they were selling for just 30 cents.

Source: AFP
As part of a work experience programme, a total of 400 students from the Henley Business School UK MBA programme have donated around 80 hours of their time (32,000 man hours) to close on 70 Cape-based NGOs over the past decade. The project has provided insights to NGOs on how to improve their work delivery and stakeholder engagement and fundamentally altered the mindset of the business students on the programme.

L-R: Dr Helen Stride, Noxolo Hlongwane and Professor Kevin Money

"One of the biggest benefits is what happens to the MBA students themselves," says Professor Kevin Money. "They are taken out of their comfort zone, to a new country to meet and work alongside different people who are dealing with real issues. This allows them to learn, grow and develop as better business leaders."

It began in 2007, with 14 students and two projects: NICRO and TSiBA Education. Since then, 69 NGOs and NPOs have benefitted. Developed by Professor Money and Jon Foster Pedley  now the dean and director of Henley Business School Africa, the programme is based on a module which looks at Reputation and Responsibility. During the project, the business executive students use an academic model which takes a closer look at the consequences of behaviour in order to understand cause and reputation. Reputation and relationships are important in any strategy for sustainability, whether a JSE listed business or an NGO and this model has been used by numerous companies, governments and charities globally to build trust in stakeholder relationships.

Last month, a total of 24 executive MBA students from Henley visited Cape Town to work alongside four NGOs for a week, culminating in presentations together with recommendations to Breadline Africa, Inclusive Education, The Trauma Centre and Usiko Stellenbosch. Ahead of the field trip, students spend around six weeks preparing for the project.

Projects co-created with NGOs

Although the marked and moderated assignment is framed within the Reputation and Responsibility module, the specific projects are co-created with the NGOs who decide on which stakeholder group they want to focus on. "Students work in diverse fields back home, from telecoms through to healthcare and finance, so are able to bring a different business perspective. Using evidence based research, they help NGOs identify the challenges they face around stakeholders  whether staff, donors or beneficiaries  reflect on what is working and where improvements can be made," explains Money.

The programme also helps benchmark the local NGOs work with international organisations so that partnership potential is audited. The biggest challenge for NGOs is funding and sustainability but, according the students, the resilience, resourcefulness and creativity is incredible.

Past student Noxolo Hlongwane, who did her MBA at Henley UK and travelled back home for the project, says it made her a better leader, manager and strategist. Now head of philanthropy at Nedbank Private Wealth, she says, "During the project we were able to fuse our different learnings and were given an opportunity to apply our skills and positively contribute to the NGOs. This hands-on experience was invaluable and it made me more sensitive to the people aspect of business."

This is backed up by comments from past and current students who are unanimous about how the programme re-evaluated their thinking and changed them. All agreed it was a humbling, yet inspiring, experience.

According to Nuraan Osman, director of Ihata Shelter, "Being able to engage with students who know so much about business but who seek to help rather than judge, was not only enlightening but also super empowering." Nikki Munro of the Pinotage Youth Development Academy agrees, "Every conversation with the students and Henley was a learning one and we continue to feel the benefits of their interaction."

NGOs provide a moral compass

It may be down to business to develop sustainable CSI projects and work towards creating a better life for everyone but as Dr Helen Stride, MBA subject leader says, "In our materialistic world, the NGOs give our life meaning and provide a moral compass. We dont believe we can really teach leaders to be more responsible. However, by allowing them to immerse themselves in organisations that are underpinned by a very different set of values, the process is life-changing. Working alongside NGOs whose primary focus is on service to others and not profit, who are working with some of the biggest social challenges facing South Africa, allows the students to get in touch with their latent idealism and become better business men and women as a result."

At a recent 10-year celebration event of the Henley programme in South Africa, Money thanked the participating NGOs for their cooperation, for opening up, having their organisations scrutinised and for sharing their stories. "The project is fairly invasive and we do interview and interrogate. Its very hands on and is not simply about applying the theory, we get involved and it touches our lives. It takes courage to be vulnerable and open up for both the NGOs and the students and we look forward to the future where through our collaboration we can learn more from the NGO sector in South Africa."
90% of a sample of over 6,000 South Africans who volunteered through forgood.co.za view their time and skills as the ultimate social investment.

Forgood is a digital platform that connects people to reputable causes where they can donate goods, volunteer or offer their skilled services. The platform has facilitated more than 12,000 social impact connections to date.

Andy Hadfield, CEO of forgood.co.za, is not surprised by the results, Every day, South Africans hand over money and goods to people in need. When they want to make a more meaningful social investment, they volunteer their time in a way that resonates with them. Thats why they come to a platform like forgood, to ensure that their time is invested, not wasted.

Invaluable feedback

Forgoods data not only reaffirms the need for volunteering programmes in both the public space and inside local businesses, it also provides invaluable feedback as to where and how volunteers like to invest their time - education (24%), community development (19%), women, children and youth (18%) came out tops in terms of interest areas. Gauteng is home to 48% of causes listed on the platform, followed by 26% based in the Western Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal comes in third at 10%. One in four of the actions on the site are tech-related  a sign that technology is disrupting the non-profit sector.

Digging deeper into social behaviour data helps Hadfield and his team to create more focused and personalised experiences for volunteers and corporates alike. We dont do one-size-fits-all. Forgoods platform has more than 1,400 different opportunities and 500 social causes for people to choose from.

Forgood for Business

While forgood.co.za has become the go-to site for ordinary South Africans looking to connect with reputable causes, forgood for Business is the specialist in managing employee volunteering programmes in a way that matches corporate strategy with social impact. A significant portion of those 12,000 connections are coming from corporate volunteer programmes. Forgood also manages and tracks activities in a way that can be measured and reported back to key stakeholders.

Our data shows that South Africans, and millennials in particular, are eager to get involved in social projects, but they want a more personalised experience. Our volunteer programmes offer this in a way that improves collaboration, innovation and soft skill development, says Hadfield.

Sustainable volunteering leads to more activated CSI, which in turn leads to more sustainable support for the communities our causes are involved with.
Here are several news highlights from the livestock industry in 2017.

 12019 via pixabay

Vulpro leads vulture conservation

Local wildlife conservationist, Kerri Wolter, founder and chief executive of the Vulture Conservation Programme of South Africa (VulPro), has been nominated for the 2018 Indianapolis conservation award. The Indianapolis conservation award is regarded as the worlds leading award for animal conservation.

Throughout the year, Stockfarm has covered some of the rehabilitation projects VulPro tackled this year. In May 2017, Marike Brits saw a vulture undergoing surgery to repair a broken wing.

VulPro rehabilitates injured vultures and releases them back into the wild when they have healed, or use them as captive breeding pairs. Stockfarm was once again fortunate to witness a groundbreaking release in November 2017, when 35 vultures were released into the wild in the Nooitgedacht Nature Reserve in the Magaliesburg area.

What makes this release so significant, says Kerri Wolter, is that it is the biggest release yet, not only in South Africa, but globally.  Ursula Human, Stockfarm

Red meat in the spotlight

On 16 March 2017, the first Red Meat Industry (RMI) workshop was held at the Agricultural Research Council in Hatfield. The purpose of the event was for industry role-players to discuss how the local industry can increase its competitiveness globally. Role-players included livestock farmers, stud breeders, members of government, organised agriculture and researchers.

Discussions were centred around the need for regulatory guidance that will allow the country to improve traceability of red meat, a requirement of many export countries. Alongside this, animal health in the country needs to be improved. A national livestock traceability system was suggested as a solution. Government showed support to the industry in this regard.

In August 2017, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) published a draft document on the registration, approval, traceability and movement recording of animals in South Africa for purposes of disease control. In November 2017, DAFF published a draft document on a livestock identification and traceability system (LITS) in South Africa. Pilot LITS-projects will take place to establish a system that is on par with international standards.  Ursula Human, Stockfarm

FMD outbreak in Southern Africa

In July 2017, Namibia reported outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in the Zambezi region at Musele Island in the Kabbe South constituency. The ministrys chief veterinary officer, Milton Maseke, said the disease could affect approximately 1 000 cattle in the area and surrounds.

FMD was also reported in South Africa in August 2017 in the Giyani Local Municipality in Limpopo, which forms part of the countrys protection zone. Three cattle from one owner were immediately isolated. The results identified the outbreak as a SAT 1 strain of FMD.  Ursula Human, Stockfarm

New AHS test to boost SA horse exports

In June 2017, the World Organisation for Animal Health approved a South African developed diagnostic test for African horse sickness (AHS). Previously, results took a minimum of two weeks. The test was developed by Prof Alan Guthrie and colleagues at the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences Equine Research Centre (ERC) of the University of Pretoria.

This test will boost the local horse export industry as AHS has affected South African horse exports since the 1960s. This is an immense achievement from a local research facility with minimal financial support. Prof Guthrie explains: Diagnostic testing for animal diseases is one of the cornerstones of international trade. Because we can now determine the AHS status of a horse within hours, it can reduce the time our horses spend in pre-export quarantine.  Press release

Livestock auction performance in 2017

According to leading auction houses, 2017 saw good quality livestock being sold at great prices. Livestock prices increased drastically since December 2016 with partial recovery from drought and despite overall economic pressure. This is especially true for stud animals, but commercial livestock also achieved good prices.

An overall increase of 30% was seen in prices for rams and bulls on auctions. Stud breeders are looking for animals with top genetics and are willing to pay for them. The positive increases in the wool price throughout the year also contributed to the increase in the price of Merino rams at auctions. If normal rainfall is received in summer rainfall areas, 2018 could see more good prices for livestock.  Marike Brits, Veeplaas

Africa: First embryo transplant in pigs

On 20 May 2017, the first piglets that were conceived through embryo flushing in Africa, were born. This was the first successful transplant in Africa and nine healthy piglets were born. The embryo flush and transplant were performed by Dr Morne de la Rey, veterinarian and managing director of Embryo Plus, who was also responsible for the first transplant in buffalo. The Pig Improvement Company (PIC) of Southern Africa launched the project in conjunction with Embryo Plus.  AgriOrbit

Farms test positive for brucellosis

In March 2017, it was reported that ten farms across Nelson Mandela Bay and the Sarah Baartman district municipality tested positive for brucellosis. According to the National Animal Health Forum (NAHF), the disease probably originated from recently acquired animals from another province. These were isolated incidents and not an outbreak.

Two farms in the Chris Hani district and one in the Amathole district also tested positive for the disease, but was contained. There were no concerns over a full-scale outbreak or any danger to human health at that stage.  AgriOrbit

More measures for Namibian livestock exports

Additional regulatory measures were added to the conditions for Meat Board Permit to Export Livestock from Namibia to South African in May of 2017. All Namibian livestock exported to South Africa may only be transported to the physical destination indicated on this permit and for the purposes stated on the permit.

Any contravention of this condition will result in the automatic suspension of this permit and the suspension of the destination from receiving any further livestock exported from Namibia, and the appropriate action taken against the exporter, transporter and importer.  RPO newsletter

Local meat research makes waves

In 2017, several international and local research projects in the meat industry made waves. Locally, two PhD students took South African meat products to the next level with one of a kind research. Maxine Jones completed her doctorate in food science at the Stellenbosch University (SU), focusing exclusively on how to make consistently good-quality biltong.

Sara Erasmus, who completed her doctorate in food science at SU, provided a scientific basis for widely-held claims that there is something unique about Karoo lamb. Her findings helped to ensure that Karoo lamb received exclusive geographic naming rights in terms of European Union marketing legislation.  Farmlink

Firearm licence renewal goes to court

Since April 2017, the application brought by the SA Hunters and Game Conservation Association (SA Hunters) against the minister of police regarding the renewal of firearm licences remained in the news.

This case was concluded. On 4 July, the Gauteng High Court declared two sections (Section 24 and Section 28) of the Firearms Control Act, 2000 (Act 60 of 2000) unconstitutional and ruled that all firearm licences that expired or were due to expire would be deemed valid until the Constitutional Court has reviewed the constitutionality of Sections 24 and 28.

Parliament was given 18 months to amend the Act to meet the constitutional imperatives. A cost order has also been granted in favour of SA Hunters. The SAPS appealed the ruling. The Gauteng North High Courts decision on SA Hunters application to declare two sections of the Firearms Control Act unconstitutional will be heard in the Constitutional Court on 8 February 2018.  AgriOrbit
RABAT, Morocco: Morocco's Royal Air Maroc has ordered four 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft from US aviation giant Boeing for delivery at the end of next year, the two companies said.

Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. Photo: Boeing

The new aircraft, worth $1.1bn at list price, would allow the flagship carrier "to expand its services, especially internationally", a Boeing statement said.

The delivery "at the end of 2018" would bring to 60 the number of planes in the airline's fleet, an official at the Moroccan flagship carrier told AFP.

"RAM has five Dreamliner 787-8s, but these new aircraft are more efficient and have greater autonomy," the official added.

Royal Air Maroc currently has around 3,220 employees, and serves a total of 80 destinations.

"Our ambition is to become the leading airline in Africa," said Abdelhamid Addou, head of the Moroccan airline.

Morocco signed an agreement with Boeing in September 2016 to build a new hub for the US aerospace giant.

They agreed to create an industrial zone in the northern region of Tangier where suppliers and sub-contractors could operate.
1. Speed: 46,029 drivers fined;

2. Driving without licenses: 15,538 drivers fined;

3. Unlicensed vehicles: 14,174 drivers fined;

4. Driving without fastening seatbelts: 13,554 drivers fined; and

5. Overloading: 5,388 drivers fined.

In addition, three taxi drivers were arrested for attempting to bribe traffic officers. Two of the arrests took place in Limpopo and one was in the Eastern Cape.

More than 924,000 vehicles have been stopped and checked at various roadblocks since the start of festive season law enforcement operations throughout the country.

"Most of the vehicles were stopped in Limpopo, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the Western Cape. More than 105,000 drivers were tested for alcohol and 247 drivers were arrested for having alcohol blood content above the legal limit," the RTMC said.

"The highest number of arrested drunk drivers were in Gauteng, followed by Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the Western Cape," the RTMC said.

It added that law enforcement officers will remain in place around the clock this weekend. Their presence will remain high until schools re-open.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden: China's Geely, which already owns the Swedish car brand Volvo, has now become the biggest shareholder in AB Volvo, the world's second-largest truck manufacturer in a transaction worth around 2.7 billion euros ($3.2 billion), it announced on Wednesday, 27 December 2017.

Geely said in a statement it had "reached agreement with Cevian Capital, Europe's largest activist fund manager, to acquire its entire 8.2% share capital holding and 15.6% voting rights in AB Volvo."

Financial details were not disclosed, but based on the current price of AB Volvo shares, the transaction is worth around 27 billion Swedish kronor.

"Geely Holding has committed to acquire Cevian's 88.47 million A-shares and 78.77 million B-shares in AB Volvo," the statement said.

"On completion and following necessary regulatory approvals, Geely Holding will become the largest holder of AB Volvo's share capital."

The biggest stakeholder in terms of voting rights is still the Swedish investment fund Industrivarden, which holds a voting stake of 21.8%. It also holds a capital stake of 6.7%.

Geely Holding chairman Li Shufu said the Chinese automotive group was "delighted" to become "the largest holder of share capital in a company that leads the world in many aspects of commercial vehicle development, manufacturing and sales."

Volvo, founded in 1927, sold off its cars business to US auto giant Ford in 1999, to concentrate on the commercial vehicles business.

Just after 1100 GMT, AB Volvo shares were showing a loss of 2.3% on the Stockholm stock exchange at 157.20 kronor.

Source: AFP
WASHINGTON, US: A 1939 luxury Mercedes limousine used to carry Adolf Hitler around Germany will be auctioned in the US state of Arizona next month - one of only four such models ever built.

Powered by a 7.7-liter supercharged engine capable of exceeding 160km/h, the Mercedes-Benz 770K Grosser - known to the world as the "Super Mercedes" - was a potent propaganda symbol of the Third Reich which the Fuhrer rode standing in the front seat.

Billed as "the most historically significant automobile ever offered for public sale," the imposing four-door convertible will be offered to bidders at the Worldwide Auctioneers event in Scottsdale on January 17 at the city's annual classic car event.

The car - which carried the number plate 1A 148461 - was used to ferry Hitler on his victory parade through Berlin following the stunning defeat of France, and for a state visit by Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

As the conflict turned in the Allies' favour, it fell into disuse in France and was captured after the war by US forces who, apparently unaware of its provenance, put it into a military police motor pool.

After the war it went briefly to a private owner in Belgium before being sent to the US where it made its way to the Greenville, North Carolina Bureau of Veterans of Foreign Wars, which used the car for parades, carrying dignitaries and Gold Star Mothers.

It then changed hands several more times within the US before being sold to a European collector in 2002, then to a Russian billionaire in 2009.

US media reports say it could sell for millions of dollars.

Worldwide Auctioneers did not reveal the current owner's identity but it is not thought to have been sold since that time.

"The purpose of this display is absolutely not to glorify Hitler and his destructive policies," the auction house wrote in a post on its website last week.

"It is to show you one of the outstanding cars of the century, built by gifted people, and representing the highest in craftsmanship.

"But it is also as a memorial to the fighting prowess of American soldiers that we take pride in displaying this showpiece of a fallen dictator. And above all, as a reminder that the evil which this car symbolizes, must never again be allowed to happen."

It added that 10% of the sale price "will be donated and used to educate how and why the Holocaust happened and how to effectively prevent such atrocities in the future."

Source: AFP
The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) successfully initiated a test case Thursday to directly pay about 100 social grant beneficiaries using commercial bank accounts of their choice as part of the January 2018 payment cycle.

Photo: East Coast Radio

This initiative is part of a long-term plan to remove the payment of social grants from Net1 subsidiary Cash Paymaster Services and for Sassa to take over this function in house.

It will be implemented in an incremental and phased manner until Sassa is in a position to own, operate and deliver a one-stop grant administration and payment service.

The agency will be working with the South African Post Office in the implementation of this long-term plan.

"With effect from 01 February 2018, Sassa will continue to make direct deposits into all beneficiary commercial bank accounts.

"Sassa has received and confirmed details of the commercial bank accounts of about 2,001,233 beneficiaries, who are receiving their social grants through banks", said Sassa CEO Pearl Bengu.

She emphasised that the agency would continue to pay all beneficiaries who receive their grants at cash paypoints or who use various merchants throughout the country.

The Sassa Payment Card use has been extended until 31 December 2018 and will be used to access social grants.
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Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman inspecting the Naval Guard of Honour on her visit to the Karwar Naval Base, Karnataka on December 28, 2017. A PIB photo

NEW DELHI (PTI): Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday visited the newly-developed Karwar naval base near Karnataka, and issued instructions to expedite its ongoing infrastructure development.



Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba accompanied Sitharaman during the visit.



"The Defence Minister was apprised of the existing facilities developed under Phase I. She also reviewed the status of ongoing/planned works under Phase 2A," the defence ministry said in a statement here.



It said Sitharaman directed the Navy for early augmentation of the base.



Once the base is fully developed, it will be one of the largest naval bases in Asia.



A meeting was also held to assess the status of release of payment of land compensation to land owners, the ministry said, adding Sitharaman directed that the pending cases relating to land acquisition be processed on fast-track basis.



Sitharaman also visited the proposed site for the Indian Coast Guard Training Centre at Baikampady in Mangalore.



The government had cleared setting up of the training institute earlier this month.



Sitharaman also reviewed the rescue operations conducted by the Coast Guard, Karnataka during Cyclone Ockhi.




A file photo.

BENGALURU (PTI): The two-week long eighth edition of the Indo-Maldives joint military exercise, 'Ekuverin', came to an end at Belagavi, about 505 km from Bengaluru, on Thursday.



The bilateral annual exercise was a 14-day joint military training between the Indian Army and the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF), held alternatively in India and Maldives since 2009.



'Ekuverin' means 'friends' in the Maldivian language.



The seventh edition of the exercise was held at Kadhdhoo, Lammu Atoll, Maldives in December, 2016.



The closing ceremony to mark the culmination of joint training held at Maratha Light Infantry Regimental Centre at Belagavi, saw participation from marching contingents of both the countries, an official release said.



It said flypast by the Army Aviation team carrying flags of both the countries was the highlight of the closing ceremony, in addition to the formal march past, cultural programmes, and pipe and drum band night display by Sirmoor Rifles.



The exercise has honed individual and collective professional skills of participants by imbibing best practices of both the Armies. It has served to reinforce the close ties of friendship between the two countries, said the senior most military observer of the Indian Army, Brigadier Alok Khurana.



MNDF was represented by a team comprising two officers and 43 other ranks and the Indian Army by three officers, an equal number of junior commissioned officers and 39 other ranks belonging to a Gorkha Rifles Battalion (Sirmoor Rifles).



Brigadier General Ali Zuhair, senior observer of the MNDF, praised them for the high standards of professionalism displayed during the exercise and thanked the Indian Army in organising the training in a "highly professional manner."



The exercise has further enhanced the military relations and cooperation between the two forces, the release said.


Client confidentiality was most definitely in safe keeping at a Co Limerick legal practice as burglars wasted an entire night in the run-up to Christmas trying to crack a 56-year-old safe, writes David Raleigh

In a case supporting the nostalgic notion that they dont make them like they used to, an old Chubb safe, purchased by Jim Dennison Snr all the way back in 1961, proved too much for todays criminals.

In a scene almost straight from the Worlds Dumbest Criminals series, the burglars spent all of six hours battering away with kango hammers, nail bars and lump hammers, it has emerged, but to no avail.

The old safe located on the Main Street, Abbeyfeale practice of Dennison Solicitors, stood strong during the all-night onslaught before the robbers finally gave up and fled the premises empty-handed before dawn.

They went straight for the safe. Im not sure what they would have thought would be in it as we dont keep cash on the premises. But it was a complete waste of time, said James Dennison, who today runs the practice founded by his father.

They got nothing. They stayed hammering away for around six hours, we estimate.

My father was old-school and held that an essential part of any legal firm is a safe to hold wills and title deeds.

He went all out when he bought this one. He went to London in 1961 to deal directly with Chubb, the makers of the best safes in the world. He specified a safe to bankers standard.

My fathers uncle, the Late Jack Healy from Brosnan, installed the safe to the strict specifications set out by Chubb, which included building a concrete and steel reinforced room around the safe.

The safe door dominates the reception in the legal firm, and it has held several thousands of client files over the years. The burglars must have expected a safe like that has to hold cash.

It doesnt but even if it did, it seems to have stood the test of time.

It was an awful lot of effort to go away empty-handed.
The Guildford Four's Gerry Conlon felt such despair after 12 years in prison that he was on the verge of suicide, private letters to the Government have revealed.

While languishing in Long Lartin prison in England in 1987, seven years after his father Giuseppe died in jail, Mr Conlon wrote how he could not face another 18 years of "living hell".

Conlon died in 2014 aged 60, three weeks after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

The letter, dated May 10 1987 and released by the Department of Foreign Affairs under the 30-year rule, was sent to then Tanaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Lenihan.

The west Belfast man reflected on the 30-year sentence handed down to him.

"That means if nothing is done to help us I must face another 18 years of a 'living hell'," he wrote. "I can assure you that I do not intend to serve it, I would much rather join my dear father.

"I can see that if my plight is not resolved in the near future that I will have to decide which form of protest I must take.

"This is not something I want to do but you can only suffer so much and to suffer it for something you didn't do makes the suffering intolerable."

Mr Conlon and the rest of the Guildford Four - Paul Hill, Carole Richardson and Paddy Armstrong - were sentenced to life sentences for the attacks in Guildford, Surrey which killed five people and injured 65.

Their convictions were overturned in 1989.

At the time of their sentencing, the trial judge Mr Justice Donaldson told them: "If hanging were still an option, you would have been executed."

Mr Conlon pleaded with the Tanaiste: "I hope the Irish Government will be able to do something to help us before another innocent person, like my father, dies from that terrible disease known as British justice."

The handwriting on the pale blue notepad was impeccable and belied the deep trauma Mr Conlon was suffering and the conditions of life in a maximum security prison.

He told Mr Lenihan he was grateful for the Irish Government's efforts to get justice.

"I can think of nothing worse than putting an innocent person in prison. It has got to be the ultimate 'living hell'," he wrote.

"Moreso, when you know the courts and judiciary know your innocence as well but refuse to admit it because of political decisions and the reputations of those who made their names while framing us."

Mr Conlon contrasted his plight with the approach that would have been taken had an innocent British citizen been jailed in Ireland.

"If our situation was reversed and British people had been framed and railroaded to massive sentences of imprisonment by an Irish court, then I'm sure the British government would have made representations at government level. Indeed, they would have made a diplomatic incident of it," he wrote.

A month later Mr Lenihan replied.

He tried to assure him of his personal support and assistance of the Irish Government but he did not refer directly to Mr Conlon's deep personal despair.

The Tanaiste said: "I understand the frustration which you now feel after 12 years of imprisonment. The widespread public sympathy for your predicament and support for your case, however, (may/can/should) be a source of encouragement for you."

- PA
Theirs is a high-profile marriage for obvious reasons but Jerry Buttimer and Conchobar O Laoghaires wedding in Cork today is primarily a celebration of their love for each other, writes Grainne McGuinness

It will be a celebration of a relationship based on love and respect and it will be a celebration for our family and our friends, Mr Buttimer told the Evening Echo.

And you know what, it will be a bit of a hooley too!

Thats Some rain and storm outside Child of Prague , there is still time  #weather #weddingday pic.twitter.com/5drWMUzZrI  Senator Jerry Buttimer (@jerrybuttimer) December 29, 2017

Mr Buttimer is a long-standing Cork politician and current leader of the Seanad. He came out publicly in 2012 and the couple announced their engagement in July this year.

He said he and Mr O Laoghaire are very aware of previous couples who would not have had the option available to them.

It is a day that many people in the community could never have previously and it is a day that we can now have. I am conscious that there were so many people who werent able to get married who have left us.

Mr Buttimer was a high-profile campaigner during the same sex marriage referendum in 2015 and said their day would also be a celebration of the work of his fellow activists.

Today will be a day of celebration of everyone who has fought for marriage equality. As a politician I have been fortunate to be able to play a part in that fight. A number of fellow politicians are expected to join the couples friends and families for the wedding.

But despite the presence of photographers and high-profile politicians, Jerry said the focus will be on their personal relationship: For me it is a day of celebrating the love that I have for my partner and he for me. It is a great day, a day of joy.

The couple, who have been together for a decade, get married in the Triskel Christchurch this afternoon. After a celebration with family and friends, they fly to Paris for a short honeymoon.

This story first appeared in the Evening Echo
Martin McGuinness personally set up the rendezvous which led to the brutal murder of a suspected IRA informer, the Government was told in 1987.

Previously secret files in the Department of Foreign Affairs reveal the then Bishop of Derry Edward Daly made the damning claim seven months after the killing of Frank Hegarty.

Bishop Daly said Mr McGuinness normally did not get his "hands dirty" but had run out of henchmen in the city.

Mr Hegarty, a Provo quartermaster in Derry, was abducted from Buncrana, Co Donegal, and shot in the head in May 1986 after he had been lured home with claims he would be safe.

His body was dumped on the side of a border road with his eyes taped.

A typed letter, marked secret, was filed to the Department of Foreign Affairs by an official who had met Bishop Eddie Daly and talked about the execution.

Released under the 30 year rule, it said: "The Bishop understands that, far from using a henchman (as he would ordinarily do), McGuinness personally arranged the rendez-vous with Hegarty from which the latter did not return."

Bishop Daly said the former IRA commander turned peacemaker had been doing "reckless things" at the time.

He said these actions would make Mr McGuinness "vulnerable if he were to come under media scrutiny".

Over the years Mr McGuinness, who died last March, faced repeated questions over the Hegarty murder but always insisted he had "no role whatsoever".

The dead man's family have said the former Deputy First Minister persuaded Mr Hegarty to come home. And Bishop Daly believed them.

It is understood Mr Hegarty fled to England, protected by British intelligence, and is reported to have given information on a dump of IRA arms smuggled from Libya before being lured home.

Bishop Daly said Mr McGuinness assured relatives on a number of occasions that Mr Hegarty would not be harmed.

The Bishop was reported to have said: "McGuinness would usually try to 'keep his own hands clean' in an affairs of this sort but, with the number of Provo volunteers in Derry reduced... by rumours that Hegarty had 'squealed', McGuinness was left in a position for several months last year in which he had to do much of 'the dirty work' on his own."

Bishop Daly said he was certain Mr McGuinness was a Provisional IRA Chief of Staff "at least for the North-West if not for the entire North".

The letter was dated January 22 1987, about seven months after the murder.

It was sent to Dublin and copied to the Tanaiste and the Ambassador in London, as well as the secretary of the Irish Government's Anglo-Irish Secretariat.

It has been reported Mr McGuinness met Mr Hegarty's mother Rose on numerous occasions as he tried to coerce him to return home, including a claim he went down on bended knee.

A sister of Mr Hegarty is also said to have unwittingly driven him to the rendez-vous in Buncrana.

The documents can be read in the 2017/20/17 file from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Martin McGuinness also threatened to hold a dead IRA man's body for a week amid tensions over paramilitary shows of strength at funerals, the state papers have revealed.

He personally delivered the chilling message to Bishop Cahal Daly's secretary as a stand-off ensued over the burial of Larry Marley in Belfast in April 1987.

Marley, the mastermind of the 1983 Maze escape, was shot dead by the UVF in front of his wife and newborn son at their home in Ardoyne.

Amid a huge security operation, his funeral was delayed for three days and there were two failed attempts to bury him as a heavily armed police cordon stepped in each time to stop shots being fired.

At one point during the stand-off Marley's body had to be embalmed for second time while in the family home and the RUC threatened to seize the remains under public health laws.

Documents released from the Department of Foreign Affairs reveal Mr McGuinness issued the warning to the bishop's emissary Fr Hugh Starkey as he mediated between the Marley family and the RUC.

He said McGuinness told Cahal Daly's secretary: "We have the body and will keep it for a week, if necessary, until the Bishop speaks."

The papers claimed Mr McGuinness was smarting over comments made by Bishop of Derry Edward Daly about restricting IRA funerals amid paramilitary shows of strength.

Bishop Edward Daly had raised concerns that he had to say "enough is enough" and feared that if he did not take "strong and dramatic" action that some Provos might be emboldened enough to fire shots inside a church rather than outside.

A Foreign Affairs official said Mr McGuinness wanted to force Bishop Cahal Daly to make a public statement, "preferably a rebuke to the police and sympathy with the predicament of the family".

He noted that the Bishop "wisely refused to be drawn into this trap".

"Bishop Daly's refusal to act according to Sinn Fein's bidding has created a resentment towards the Church in that section of the nationalist community which Fr Starkey hopes will only be temporary," the file said.

Marley's funeral and burial lasted seven hours. A Foreign Affairs official watching the events said it was the "biggest propaganda coup since the 1981 hunger strike".

In the days after the funeral, Cahal Daly, then Bishop of Down and Connor, called on the RUC to rethink its approach to dealing with paramilitary funerals.

The documents also state that Fr Starkey reported suspicions that Marley had been "set up by his own people" as part of an internal Provo feud.

The priest recalled one visit to the Marley home during the stand-off as "unsettling and macabre".

With the coffin in the house, Fr Starkey said prayers while an IRA guard of honour stood by.

The funeral eventually took place with the RUC keeping three feet from the mourners who flanked the coffin.

Fr Starkey told Foreign Affairs he felt he pulled a "master stroke" just before the coffin was taken from the house when he told everyone in the house to get on their knees and recite the rosary.

He said it reminded them it was a religious ceremony not a political event.

- PA
The funeral mass of a man killed in Louisburgh, Co Mayo on Christmas Day has taken place.

Declan Davitt died along with his friend Martin Needham when the SUV they were travelling in was swept down the Carrowniskey River.

It has been described as a "long, dark day" for the community.

The life of Declan Davitt was ended far too soon by a "cruel, random, mischance".

The words of Father Mattie Long, who was paying tribute to the 26-year-old at the Church of the Holy Family.

The funeral of Mr Davitt today follows that of his lifelong friend, 27-year-old Martin Needham.

The pair died when their jeep was swept downstream after entering the Carrowniskey River in the early hours of Christmas morning.

Father Long told mourners how Mr Davitt worked in agriculture in New Zealand for four years, and many of his friends had made the trip to Louisburgh for the funeral.

A large number of people who came to pay their respects was such that the mass was relayed in the nearby community centre for those who couldnt get into the church.

Father Long paid tribute to Gardai, rescue services and locals for the way they responded to the emergency - on what he called a "long, dark, day" for the community.
The deadliest residential fire to hit New York City in at least 25 years has killed 12 people and left four more fighting for their lives, officials said.

The blaze swept through a Bronx apartment building on Thursday evening, leaving a child around one year old among the dead, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

"We may lose others as well," he added during a briefing outside the building.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro called the fire, "historic in its magnitude," because of the number of lives lost.

Excluding the September 11 attacks, it was the worst fire in the city since 87 people were killed at a social club fire in the Bronx in 1990.

"Our hearts go out to every person who lost a loved one here and everyone who is fighting for their lives," Mr Nigro said.

The blaze broke out on the first floor of a five-story building just before 7pm and quickly ripped through the roughly century-old structure, which stands in a row of similar apartment buildings a block from the grounds of the Bronx Zoo.

Tenants of the building, a mix of native New Yorkers and Latino and African immigrants, scrambled down fire escapes.

But the flames moved so fast, spreading through every floor of the building within minutes, that many never made it out of their apartments.

The cause remained under investigation.

Around 170 firefighters worked in bone-chilling -9C (15F) cold to rescue about a dozen people from the building. Water sprayed from hoses froze on the street.

Thierno Diallo, 59, a security guard originally from Conakry, Guinea, who lives in a ground floor apartment said he was asleep when he heard banging on the door. It took him a moment to realize what was happening.

"Only when I heard people screaming, 'There's a fire in the building!'" he said. "I heard somebody, 'Oh! Fire! Fire! Fire!'"

He ran out in his bathrobe, jacket and sandals.

Kenneth Kodua, 37, said he left his apartment to get food, leaving his roommate behind, and came back to find people fleeing in a panic.

Hours later, he was still trying to find out whether his roommate escaped.

"I tried calling her. I tried calling. No answer," he said, still clutching his bag of uneaten food. His phone was dead.

Mayor Bill de Blasio described it as an "unspeakable tragedy".

He said: "Here in the Bronx there are families that have been torn apart. This is the worst fire tragedy we have seen in this city in at least a quarter of a century."

Many questions remained in the immediate aftermath of the blaze, including how the fire spread so quickly in a brick building built after catastrophic fires at the turn of the 20th century ushered in an era of tougher enforcement of fire codes.

The building had more than 20 units. It was not new enough that it was required to have modern-day fireproofing, like sprinkler systems and interior steel construction.

Neighbourhood resident Robert Gonzalez said a friend who lives in the building was able to get out via the fire escape as another resident fled with five children.

"When I got here, she was crying," Gonzalez said.

Other witnesses described seeing burned bodies being carried away on stretchers and young girls who had escaped the building standing barefoot outside with no coats.

Windows on some upper floors were smashed and blackened. Displaced residents wrapped in Red Cross blankets were staying warm on city buses, brought in to provide heat.

The death toll surpassed the 10 who died, including nine children, in a four-story home in another part of the Bronx in 2007. That blaze had been sparked by a space heater.

AP
Heavy snow, rain, thunderstorms and wind have caused disruption across much of Britain as a band of "severe" weather rolled across the UK.

Glasgow Airport said the snow had caused operations to be "temporarily suspended".

It added: "Our winter operations teams are working to reopen as soon as possible. We advise passengers to check with their airline for updates and apologise for any disruption."

Up to 5cm of snow fell overnight causing Glasgow Airport to temporarily ground flights.

Forecasters predict those conditions will head eastwards before turning into sleet and rain.

Among the flights cancelled was a Flybe service to Belfast City at 9am this morning.

INFO | We regret that operations are temporarily suspended at the airport. Our winter operations teams are working to reopen as soon as possible. We advise passengers to check with their airline for updates and apologise for any disruption.  Glasgow Airport  (@GLA_Airport) December 29, 2017

The airport has since reopened and staff remain on standby to monitor the situation.

UPDATE | The airport is now open and operational again. Our winter operations team will remain on standby throughout the day to monitor weather conditions (FR)  Glasgow Airport  (@GLA_Airport) December 29, 2017

Parts of northern England and Scotland discovered thick blankets of snow on Friday morning, with the south coast lashed by torrential downpours, lightning and strong winds.

Forecasters warned of disruption to travel and potential power outages throughout Friday as the band of "severe" weather moves in from the east.

An amber warning of snow in West Yorkshire, the South Pennines and places such as Rochdale and Burnley is in place until 11am and a wider yellow warning for snow has been issued for southern and eastern Scotland, northern England and the Midlands until 3pm.

The heaviest snowfall of 5cm-10cm is expected in parts of northern England and up to 15cm over higher ground.

Across the south-west coast meteorologist Emma Sharples said a "squally feature" moving eastwards was "quite active and giving some high rain rates", with thunder and lightning and gusts of up to 50 mph recorded.

A yellow warning has been issued by the Met Office for strong winds expected over parts of south-west England and southern Wales across to Greater London, bringing "potent, heavy showers with a chance of hail and thunder" as the system moves eastwards.

Devon and Cornwall Police said the A39 near Bideford in Devon was partially blocked due to a fallen tree and there was flooding on the A3075 near Newquay in Cornwall.

Elsewhere snow caused disruption across many roads, with Cumbria Police warning on Twitter that all routes in the south of the county were affected, as well as the M6.

A camel stands in the snow on a farm near Richmond, North Yorkshire, today. Pic: PA

Highways England has issued a severe weather warning and urged people to plan their journeys, monitor weather reports and pack a snow kit of blankets, food, water and a shovel if they really need to travel.

The RAC said it expected to attend "in the region of one breakdown every 10 seconds through the course of Friday".
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...
If it was not for visual fatigue, one could spend literally from one day to the next over a stretched art calendar that offers fresh enticements around the world. Its now easier than ever to view the masters of the world of art juxtaposed alongside their contemporary peers in ways one could hardly have imagined. The plethora of art fairs and the increasing number of important exhibitions continues to rise, so there is the continuous fear of missing out. This laundry list of major art events and exhibitions is just a tiny vignette of whats on offer for the art-lover in 2018.
Jayesh Desai, a former consultant who spent a large number of years with EY, was a nominee director on the board of Uninor during 2010-11, when he worked with Unitech Infrastructure. He spoke to Anjuli Bhargava on the unexpected 2G judgment, the telecom industry as it is today and the unintended consequences of the 2012 Supreme Court judgment on the allocation of spectrum. Edited excerpts:



Did the recent 2G judgment come as a complete shock to you?



Way back in 2011, when the charge sheet was filed, I didnt think the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had enough to prove criminality  so no, it did not come as a shock. They didnt manage to put together the evidence needed to prove criminality on the part of those accused.
Banks on Friday sent all from the Reserve Bank of Indias second list of defaulters on large-size corporate loans to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for insolvency resolution.
China Development Bank, a creditor of Reliance Communications Ltd, said it is in talks with the Indian wireless carrier, following a plan by the Anil Ambani-backed firm to reduce its debts.

Any progress will be disclosed in the near future, the Chinese bank told Reuters late Thursday in response to a request for comment on the Indian carrier's debt-reduction plan.

RCom, as the Indian carrier is known, announced on Tuesday a plan to slash its debt by 390 billion rupees ($6.1 billion) underpinned by the sale of some of its spectrum, tower, fibre and real estate assets for which the company said it has already received some non-binding offers.

It was not immediately clear if all key creditors were on board.

Last month, China Development Bank initiated insolvency proceedings at India's National Company Law Tribunal, adding that a large amount of principal and interest from RCom was overdue.

RCom had a net debt of Rs 450 billion at the end of October, putting it among India's most indebted .
In its bid to revive a stalled project, the Maharashtra government-owned on Friday cleared the industrial city project in Navi Mumbai to be jointly developed by Mukesh Ambanis personal entities, Jai Corp, and SKIL Infrastructure. The 5,300-acre project was earlier earmarked for a Special Economic Zone but failed to start due to a policy flip flop.
The astronomical three-digit profits that private hospitals are said to be extracting from patients on items like syringes and other consumables fail to show up in the single-digit profit margins earned by the top health care chains.
China's Technologies Co Ltd expects 2017 revenue to rise 15 percent to 600 billion yuan ($92.08 billion), its rotating chief executive, Ken Hu, said in a New Year's message to staff posted on its official WeChat account on Friday.

That would make it the slowest revenue growth in four years for Huawei, the world's third-largest smartphone maker after Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc.

Hu also said Huawei's smartphone shipments in 2017 totalled 153 million units and its global market share surpassed 10 percent.

vowed to focus on profit after posting near-flat annual profit growth in March, weighed down by its fast-growing but thin-margin smartphone business and heavy marketing spending.

Its leading position in the world's biggest smartphone market came under threat from local rivals over the past year and a half.

Huawei's China market share was 22.3 percent in the third quarter, followed by OPPO at 21.6 percent, showed latest data from IDC. The industry tracker forecasts China's total smartphone shipments in 2017 to shrink slightly compared with a year earlier.

In his message, Hu said Huawei's enterprise business needs to "maintain mid-to-high growth speed and become a pillar business for the company in five years".

He also asked for its consumer business to continue to improve profitability, its new public cloud business to increase in scale, and its core carrier business to beat the industry.
Country's second largest software services firm on Friday said it will divest its entire investment in ANSR Consulting Holdings, Inc, for a total amount of $1 million.

"The company has, on December 28, 2017, signed an agreement for divestment of its entire investment in ANSR Consulting Holdings, Inc, for a total consideration of $1,000,000," said in a BSE filing.

In July 2015, had announced acquisition of a minority stake in ANSR Consulting from its $500 million Innovation Fund.

ANSR Consulting is a leading Global In-house Centre (GIC) strategy consulting and implementation firm, which helps global enterprises establish strategic service delivery and innovation capabilities.

ANSR Consulting, which has helped establish several GICs within India, creates joint ventures with such as those in the Fortune 500.
Up ahead is a veritable blockbuster glut. But that isnt good news. Inherent in such overkill is the risk of a blowout. Hollywood and Bollywood have both lined up a flurry of top-heavy releases for 2018.
The practice of Triple Talaq is on the way to becoming punishable under the law as The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed a Bill that criminalises instant divorce with three years of imprisonment for Muslim husbands after the government rejected the Opposition's demand to refer the legislation to a parliamentary standing committee for detailed consideration.
It appears that some of us still can't handle, or perhaps understand, satire. A popular Facebook page that parodies Right-wing fundamentalism and its adherents reportedly shut down after certain people, apparently unamused by the page's brand of humour, allegedly threatened its creator.



Humans of Hindutva, a Facebook page that lampoons right-wing fundamentalism, was taken down on Thursday evening. The creator of the Facebook page on Thursday claimed that he had deleted the page because he had received death threats. "I have no desire to end up like Gauri Lankesh or Afrazul Khan," the anonymous creator wrote in a farewell note.
Pakistan on Thursday said it has been "open and transparent" throughout the meeting between alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav and his wife and mother, and added that it was not an ordinary meeting as Jadhav is "a convicted Indian terrorist and spy" and, therefore, it necessitated a "comprehensive security check" of the visiting kin.

Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, in a reply after Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj slammed Pakistan over "serious and gross violation of human rights" in the treatment of Jadhav's mother and wife, rejected the Indian allegations.

He said that "Pakistan has been open and transparent throughout the meeting, offered in good faith. We do not wish to indulge in fallacious accusations and blame game and should focus on the bigger positive outcome that the meeting happened, despite immense challenges and impediments, instead of distortion of facts and baseless propaganda, which vitiates the atmosphere and is counter-productive."

Referring to the "intense hue and cry in the Indian media questioning the modalities of the visit, and advancing farfetched conspiracy theories about the change of clothes of the visitors, the retention of the shoe of the wife and the language in which the meeting was conducted", the Minister said that "Pakistan's humanitarian gesture did not obviate the fact that this was not an ordinary meeting between a mother and wife with their son and husband".

"A comprehensive security check was, therefore, essential. This was agreed between both countries, in advance, through diplomatic channels. The visitors were treated with respect and dignity. The change of clothes and removal of jewellery/ornaments etc was purely for security reasons. The visitors changed into their own clothes after the meeting. All their belongings were returned to them before they left. The wife's shoes were retained as they did not clear the security check. A metal chip has been found in one of the shoes, which is being analysed," the Foreign Office statement said.

Asif elaborated that "many routine airport security checks for ordinary people entail removal of crosses and veils. Trying to distort an agreed security check and attempting to portray it as a deliberate religious/cultural disrespect denotes bad faith and is regrettable. It is unfortunate that the frenzied Indian media is driving Indian politics."

He said that "Pakistan has been open and transparent throughout the meeting, offered in good faith".

He said the purpose of the visit was to have a meeting between Jadhav and his wife and mother, "which was successfully achieved despite all impediments. This needs to be acknowledged".

The meeting initially was scheduled for 30 minutes but was extended to 40 minutes on their request. "The success of the meeting was evident by the fact that the mother thanked Pakistan after the visit," he added.

The Foreign Office spokesperson, during the briefing, said the meeting "was not allowed to be conducted in Marathi due to security reasons. There is nothing sinister in that. They spoke comfortably in English for about 40 minutes which is duly recorded (again India was pre-informed that the meeting would be recorded)".

"The mother was allowed to say a short prayer in Hindi/Marathi."

On the media presence outside the building, he said "Pakistan had formally proposed a detailed media interaction of the visitors, including with Indian media to be held in the Foreign Office. This was even shared with the Pakistani media, well beforehand. However, this proposal was turned down by India in writing. This was respected and the Indian request was accepted.

"However, media has every right to ask questions from a safe distance (in line with international norms). No specific distance was agreed to, as reported in certain sections of the media. However, the situation on ground in MoFA was shown to the officers of Indian High Commission in the evening of December 24 and they consented to it. Indian media is driving its policy. Unlike India, media in Pakistan is not under any restrictions or gag orders."
Terming the passage of the in the Lok Sabha as 'historic', Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah on Thursday said it was a step towards ensuring the dignity of Muslim women in the country.

The BJP chief even expressed gratitude to all the parliamentarian for supporting the Bill, which would bring a new era of hope and respect in the lives of Muslim women of the country.



Earlier in the day, the Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha, while all the amendments moved by the Opposition were negated.

The passed Bill will now be introduced in the Rajya Sabha for passage before it is forwarded to the President for signing it into a law.



ALSO READ: Full text of the triple talaq bill

The Bill, if implemented into a law, will make Triple Talaq a criminal offence. It proposes a three-year jail term for a Muslim man who divorces his wife in any form of spoken, written or by electronic means such as email, SMS, and WhatsApp.
The last aircraft roared over Hasimara Air Force base in Bengal on Thursday for the last time as the IAF bade farewell to this legacy fleet in a function, a Defence spokesperson said today.

The MiG-27 ML, codenamed 'Bahadur' in India, has had an impeccable track record in its more than three decades of glorious service to the nation, the spokesperson said in a statement.

The formidable strike aircraft of Russian origin has the single most powerful engine in the world and variable geometry wing which allows the pilot to change the wing sweep angle while flying as per the mission requirements to achieve optimum flying characteristics, it said.

This swing wing fighter bomber was inducted into the IAF fleet in the late 1980s. Being a dedicated ground attack aircraft, it was one of the main strike aircraft of the IAF.

With its sophisticated avionics and weapon computers, it is capable of delivering a variety of loads in different modes of attack with immense precision, the statement said.

Being a very stable weapon platform with good forward visibility and all around view, it can drop bombs, rockets, precision munitions guided by TV/laser and also fire air-to-air missiles for self defence thus making it a lethal and a potent weapon platform.

had proved its worth in various operations, including in Kargil and earned rich accolades in numerous international exercises held in India.

The pilots proudly call themselves 'Swing Wingers' and have always vouched the aircrafts precise weapon delivery and rapid acceleration, the statement said.

Though the last MLs retire, they are not the last swing wing aircraft in service as few of them got a midlife avionics upgrade and continue to serve the nation. They are called MiG-27 UPG and are presently based in Jodhpur.

The 22 Squadron, known as 'Swifts' was the last squadron of the IAF flying the MiG-27 MLs. The squadron has a rich history and is known for undertaking the famous 'Boyra Day Operations' in Gnat aircraft, marking the beginning of 1971 War.

One of the youngest fighter squadrons, it converted to the MLs in February 1990. The lethal MiG-27 aircraft, with its range, speed and ferocity in attack has always been in perfect harmony with the Swift, who bade it farewell with full military honours.

Squadron head Group Captain S L Mahajan, who after a stint in Sukhoi-30 MKI, proudly led the last ML.

The 'Swift' pilots are slated to move to other squadrons/appointments and the squadron would be number plated for new induction.
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Over 30,00O police personnel will be on roads across the megalopolis to ensure safety and security of New Year revellers, a senior official said today.

"Over 30,000 policemen will be on the bandobast duty during the New Year celebrations to provide safety and security to citizens to avoid any untoward incidents," Mumbai Police spokesperson and DCP Deepak Deoraj told reporters here.

The City Police will be assisted by the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF), Home Guards, and other law enforcement agencies.

He said special teams have been formed to ensure safety and security of women and children participating in the celebrations to welcome New Year.

To ensure incident-free revelry, the police have already launched combing operations in various parts of the city and have detained anti-social elements as well as "history-sheeters".

Security checks are also being put in place at important spots in the city.

"We are appealing to citizens to remain alert and report to police if they notice any suspicious movement," Deoraj said.

He said DCPs will be present at locations like Gateway of India, Marine Lines, Juhu Chowpaty, Madh Island etc. which are preferred by people to celebrate the December 31 night.

"There is no specific intelligence input, but the Mumbai Police always remain alert to avoid any untoward incident," Deoraj added.
The Pakistan Army today rejected claims that the Indian commandos selectively targeted a post across the Line of Control killing three Pakistani soldiers in a tit-for-tat action.

Army spokesman Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor also said the armed forces are fully prepared to meet any eventuality.

"India recently claimed that 10 of their soldiers came in Pakistan's territory and killed Pakistani soldiers," he said, adding this is all "false propaganda" for their domestic audience to take the focus off Kashmir.

Addressing the media in Rawalpindi, Maj Gen Ghafoor also termed last year's "surgical strike" by India across LoC as "false propaganda". "You cannot lure us into such unprofessional undertakings."



The Indian Army sources in New Delhi earlier this week said a "small group" of 'Ghatak' commandos carried out a tactical level selective targeting of the Pakistani post around 200-300 metres across the LoC in which three Pakistani soldiers were killed and one was injured.

The operation is seen as avenging the killing of four Indian Army personnel by a Border Action Team of the Pakistan Army in Keri sector Rajouri district last week.

Maj Gen Ghafoor also rejected Indian concerns over treatment of Kulbushan Jadhav's family and said the Foreign Office had already given a detailed response to it.

"India always looks to reduce the relevance of any gestures that Pakistan makes. However, every effort that anti-Pakistan elements make, we will counter," he said.

"Even if we do something as a good gesture, the Indian media will colour it in a negative light. We allowed Jadhav to meet his family as a responsible state," he added.

He also accused India of a record number of ceasefire violation in 2017, which he claimed was being done to divert attention of Pakistan from fighting terrorism on its western border.

The spokesman also reiterated Pakistan's "moral, political, and diplomatic support" to Kashmiris.

He rejected the US demand to do more and Washington's allegations about the presence of "safe havens" of terrorists.

Ghafoor said Pakistan had fought against militants without any discrimination and destroyed their infrastructure.

"No organised infrastructure of any banned organisation is present in Pakistan. There are no facilitators [of terrorist groups] in Pakistan and we have gone a long way towards supporting peace in the region," he said.

The spokesman also rejected US Vice President Mike Pence's remarks in Afghanistan wherein he had said that US had put Pakistan on notice. "What kind of friends are we that we are being given notices," Ghafoor said.

When asked about former military ruler Pervez Musharraf's recent statements regarding "rogue elements" being responsible for Benazir Bhutto's death, he said: "I am the spokesperson for the sitting army chief and the media should ask Musharraf to defend his own statements. As of now, I can say that there are no rogue elements within the Pakistan Army."



He also responded to a question that Maryam Nawaz and Nawaz Sharif were allegedly targeting armed forces.

"We will maintain our silence on the matter as Pakistan's armed forces are well aware of the threats and challenges we are facing and our achievements against them; thus we will not be distracted," he said.

He said it was for the people to decide if there was a conspiracy against someone.
One hundred and forty-five Indian fishermen on Friday crossed the Wagah border into India after Pakistani authorities released them from jail.

The Indian fishermen were brought here on a train from Karachi this morning.

The Edhi Foundation provided them with cloths and Rs 5,000 each.

"We also served them lunch before they crossed the Wagah border into their homeland," Edhi Lahore spokesman Muhammad Younas told PTI.

He said it took a little long as the fishermen were handed over to the Indian authorities by the Rangers after going through their papers.

"Some 11 months ago my boat's engine stopped and I was arrested (by Pakistan's Maritime Security Agency). I am happy to go back home," a fisherman who was sitting in a queue at Wagah border, said.

All 145 Indian fishermen were languishing in Malir jail in Sindh province of .

Indian fishermen are usually arrested by the PMSA which is responsible for guarding and protecting Pakistan's territorial waters.

Both India and routinely arrest each other's fishermen who cross over the unclear and disputed water border of Sir Creek which opens up in the Arabian Sea and divides the Pakistani province of Sindh from the state of Gujarat.

Once arrested, fishermen from India are first brought to the Docks police station and from there they are sent to the Malir jail.

Owing to lengthy and slow bureaucratic and legal procedures, the fishermen usually remain in jail for several months.

A number of non-governmental organisations in both India and Pakistan have raised the issue, pressing their governments to release arrested fishermen without much delay.
The Pakistani Army is committed to provide security to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the military has taken special measures in this regard, a senior Army officer said Thursday.

Addressing a press briefing, Asif Ghafoor, Director General of Pakistani Army's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations, said the Army has raised a whole division which is deployed on the security of CPEC, Xinhua reported.

Ghafoor also rejected the US allegations of Pakistan having safe havens of terrorists on its soil, saying there is neither any organised infrastructure nor any facilitator of militants in Pakistan and the country has made many sacrifices to support peace in the region.

Commenting on US demand from Pakistan to take action against terrorist elements in the territorial boundaries of the country, Ghafoor said that Pakistan has fought an imposed and imported war twice and now it cannot do any more for anyone.

He added that the aid, which the US provided to Pakistan, was used to fulfill US mission of fighting Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The officer said that Pakistan has controlled terrorism to a great extent in the country in 2017, and is contributing in a big way to assist peace in Afghanistan.

"No other country than Pakistan is interested in peace in Afghanistan because we understand that peace in Afghanistan is essential for peace in Pakistan as well," he said.
on Friday slammed Emirates for unprofessional conduct after his wife and kids were stopped at Dubai airport from boarding a connecting flight to Cape Town, a claim denied by the airline.

Dhawan vented his ire on social media after reaching South Africa without his family. His wife and son were stopped at Dubai airport, from where the Indian team took the connecting flight to Cape Town, where the first Test will be played from January 5.

Dhawan said that his family was asked to show birth certificates and some other documents as identification proofs, which they weren't carrying.

"Absolutely unprofessional from Emirates. I was on my way 2 SA with my family & was told that my wife and kids can't board the flight from Dubai to SA. I was asked to produce birth certificates & other documents for my kids at the airport which we obviously didn't have at that moment," Dhawan wrote on his Twitter handle.

1/2.Absolutely unprofessional from @emirates. Was on my way 2 SA with my fam & was told tht my wife and kids can't board the flight from Dubai to SA. Was asked to produce birth certificates & other documents fr my kids at the airport which we obviously didn't have at that moment.  (@SDhawan25) December 29, 2017

"They are now at Dubai airport waiting for the documents to arrive. Why didn't @emirates notify about such a situation when we were boarding the plane from Mumbai? One of the emirates' employee was being rude for no reason at all," the Indian opener said in another tweet.

2/2.They are now at Dubai airport waiting for the documents to arrive. Why didn't @emirates notify about such a situation when we were boarding the plane from Mumbai? One of the emirates' employee was being rude for no reason at all.  (@SDhawan25) December 29, 2017

However, a spokesperson from the airline said they were just following the rules.

"We note that the family was not able to continue their journey together as planned. We regret any inconvenience caused," the spokersperson said in a statement.

"However, since 1 June 2015, according to South African regulations, anyone travelling to the country with a minor under 18 needs to prove parenthood or guardianship while adults travelling alone with their children need to show that they have the consent of their non-travelling partner.

"Like all airlines, we must comply with the laws of every country in which we operate and this is a shared responsibility with passengers, who are required to hold valid travel documents for all countries on their itinerary," the spokesperson added.

India, including newly-married skipper Virat Kohli, checked into their hotel in Cape Town last night.

India will play three Tests, six one-dayers and three T20Is during the 56-day-long tour.
It would be easy to end 2017 with the impression that, whatever its afflictions, it was at least a game-changing year for feminism.
No matter how you choose to remember the year 2017, its been a banner 12-month run for drinking connoisseurs. Here, weve collected a sampling of liquors that came into the world this year  spirits that are either delightfully delicious, distractingly daring, or both.
Like most things technological, AI is a double-edged sword. Jeeves is what we really want, but we are never too far from Aladdin's Genie.



God created artificial intelligence (AI) because not all of us can afford to employ a Jeeves  the legendary fictional butler created by P G Wodehouse to help his British master, Bertram Wooster.

Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal. They do not reflect the view/s of Business Standard.
Government think-tank is slowest among 52 central ministries and departments, when it comes to addressing public grievances, reveals a government report.

According to the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System report, disposed of only 54 per cent of total 5,883 grievances received since the date of its formation January 1, 2015 till December 28, 2017. Of the total 2,677 pending grievances, 774 are pending since over a year, the report shows.

The report takes into account the total pending and disposed public grievances of 52 central ministries since January 1, 2014. It does not however specify if inherited some of those grievances from its predecessor 'Planning Commission of India'.

Following NITI Aayog, the other sloths are the Coal Ministry with 84 per cent rate of disposal, Department of Space and Ministry of Tribal Affairs with 88 per cent rate of disposal each and the Department of Atomic Energy with 93 per cent disposal rate.

The overall disposal rate of all 52 Central Government Ministries and Departments is 97 per cent. The government has received 23,87,513 grievances since January 2014, of which 23,22,751 were addressed, while 4,111 are pending since over a year.

With 99 per cent grievances addressed, the External Affairs Ministry turns out to be the swiftest, as out of total 49,558 grievances only one is pending since more than a year while other 174 are pending since less than two months.

The Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry also addressed 99 per cent of grievances, with just 113 of total 13,590 cases unresolved and none pending since over a year. The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry also resolved 99 per cent of grievances.

Among others, the Finance Ministry received highest number of grievances -- total 5,42,370, of which 97 per cent had been addressed.

Meanwhile, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region saw least number of grievances -- total 989, of which 965 (97 percent) had been disposed with none pending since over a year.

The Human Resource Development Ministry addressed 98 per cent of total 1,50,399 grievances; Railways addressed 96 per cent of total 1,81,415 grievances; Home Affairs disposed of 95 per cent of 95,882 grievances; Health and Family Welfare had a disposal rate of 97 per cent of total 82,224 cases; Environment Ministry addressed 98 per cent of total 24,996 cases and Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry addressed 97 per cent of 25,418 cases.
Even as the Supreme Court is hearing petitions on Aadhaar, the privacy debate has now started playing out with the as well.
State-owned on Friday said it has raised Rs 500 crore to comply with the global banking standards under Basel III.

The bank had earlier in May informed about getting board approval to raise additional tier I capital worth Rs 2,000 crore through a private placement in one or more tranches within this financial year.

"The bank has to date successfully raised additional tier I capital of bank through a private placement of AT 1 perpetual bonds aggregating to Rs 500 crore," said in a regulatory filing.

The bonds carry a coupon rate of 10 per cent per annum.

To comply with Basel-III Capital Regulations, need to improve and strengthen their capital planning processes.

These norms are being implemented to mitigate concerns on potential stresses on asset quality and consequential impact on performance and profitability of .

Indian banking system has been implementing Basel III standards in phases since April 1, 2013. The are expected to fully implement these norms by March 2019.

This will align full implementation of Basel III in India closer to the internationally agreed date of January 1, 2019.

Stock of the bank closed 1.01 per cent down at Rs 73.40 apiece on BSE today.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday refused to accept bids for Rs 11,000 crore worth of bonds in the final auction of this calendar year.
Gadkari says No More Shrinkage of Majuli Island Union Water Resources Minister lays Foundation Stone for Protection Work of Majuli Island from Flood and Erosion in Assam

Union Minister of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Shri Nitin Gadkari has expressed the hope that on successful implementation of various scheme under protection of majuli island from flood and erosion there will be no more shrinkage of Majuli island and rather, it will be possible to reclaim the lost land which can be added to the main land area of Majuli with proper land management system. Laying the foundation stone of protection work of Majuli island from flood and erosion at Majuli in Assam today the Union Minister expressed the hope that the work would take off as planed and completed in two working seasons.

He said Brahmaputra Board started the work to protect the island from flood and erosion in January, 2004 in various phases as per the recommendations of the Standing Committee of Experts constituted by Union Water Resources Ministry. These works involved construction and strengthening of embankments, laying of RCC porcupine screens, construction of spurs and dampeners in various locations to train the river away from the bank and also as pro-siltation measure.

He said due to unprecedented floods which occurred during the monsoon in 2007, massive land erosion took place in lower Majuli. On the recommendations of the Standing Committee of Experts, Brahmaputra Board constructed and laid RCC porcupine screens and dampeners. The outcome of the works till 2007 were satisfactory and erosion could be contained in the most vulnerable reaches.

The Minister informed that from 2014 onwards, Brahmaputra Board undertook several works. Construction of four boulder spurs has been completed. Construction of the Spur No. 2 at Salmara is also nearing completion. The bank revetment have been completed. Both the tie-bunds were also completed. Construction and laying of RCC porcupine works are also mostly completed. All the five raised platforms have been handed over to the District Administration after completion.

An amount of Rs. 189.07 crore has been incurred till November, 2017 on these projects.

Shri Gadkari said the works implemented by Brahmaputra Board has reversed the trend from erosion to siltation. The area of land mass of Majuli Island, which was 502.21 sq km in 2004 stood at 524.29 sq km as in November, 2016 as per satellite imagery. He said under the present Scheme Brahmaputra Board executes the scheme as recommended by a team of Experts called the Technical Advisory Committee of Brahmaputra Board constituted by Union Water Resources Ministry. The Committee extensively toured the island in March, 2017 and suggested measures for further implementation. Based on these suggestions, Brahmaputra Board prepared a DPR for an amount of Rs.233.54 crore. Shri Gadkari said My Ministry cleared the project and it is my pleasure to mention here that the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MoDONER) has agreed to allocate an amount of Rs.207 crore and the balance amount is to be funded by Brahmaputra Board".

The Minister informed that the scheme envisages four components, construction of geo-bag bank revetment works for a total length of 27 km. in the vulnerable reaches of Majuli, construction of RCC porcupine screens at 41 locations from, construction of a Pilot Channel and construction of a sluice at Birinabari.

Shri Nitin Gadkari also laid the foundation stone of the Brahmaputra Board office complex at Majuli to be constructed at an estimated cost of 40 crore. The Minister thanked the Chief Minister of Assam Shri Sarbananda Sonowal who was also present on the occasion for all out cooperation and assistance received from Govt. of Assam.

Majuli Island is surrounded by the mighty Brahmaputra River on the south, Kherkatia Suti, Luit Suti and Subansiri Rivers on the North and is susceptible to both floods and erosion almost every year. The geographical area of Majuli Island was 733.79 sq. km. in the year 1914 as per the Survey of India Map. The twin problems of flood and erosion reduced the geographical area to 502.21 sq km in 2004. In the sixties, Government of Assam constructed embankment to protect the island from floods, however, these embankments could offer marginal protection from flood as breaches occurred in many places. Erosion continued every year eating away precious land mass and shrinking the area of the island. On the request of Government of Assam, Union Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Ministry entrusted the Brahmaputra Board the task of Protection of Majuli Island from Flood and Erosion in 2003.

Samir/jk
A group of 24 students from Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh attending the National Integration Tour, organised by the Indian Armys 19th Mountain Division of Jammu & Kashmir Rifles, called on the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Kiren Rijiju here today. The tour is being organized from December 24, 2017 to January 06, 2018 to the National Capital and Agra and Lucknow. .

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Speaking on the occasion, Shri Rijiju complimented the J & K Rifles for organizing the National Integration Tour for giving children from the remote region an opportunity to visit the national capital and other historic cities to discover the grandeur of India. .

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While interacting with the students, Shri Rijiju said that the National Integration Tour is a good initiative taken by the Army since this is the first visit outside the state for a majority of these students. He called upon the children to share their experiences with family and friends back home. He also advised them to do hard work in pursuing their studies and professional carriers. .

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The aim of the National Integration Tour is to promote harmony and awareness. The tour is aimed at integrating the students with the nation and promoting concept of unity in diversity. The students are visiting landmarks like the Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri, Agra Fort, Imam Bara in Lucknow and Rajghat, India Gate, National Museum, Pragati Maidan and Delhi Metro in Delhi. .

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Russia has reiterated its wish to reach an agreement with the US on non-interference in each other's internal affairs, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman has said.

Maria Zakharova on Thursday said the ministry handed US ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman a memorandum with such a proposal last Thursday amid "long-standing and systematic aspirations of Washington to influence the developments in Russia in its own interests", Xinhua reported.

"It reaffirmed the willingness to exchange letters or other forms of guarantees of mutual non-interference in electoral and other internal political processes," Zakharova said.

"It's up to the American side to respond," she added.

Zakharova recalled that Russia had been proposing since the 1990s to reach an official agreement with the United States to guarantee non-interference in each other's affairs. Washington has consistently rejected this.

The US has been accusing Russia of interference in the US presidential elections in 2016, which has been denied by Russia.
Venezuela's cryptocurrency will launch within days and be backed by 5.3 billion barrels of oil worth $267 billion, in a bid to offset a deep financial crisis, the socialist government said on Thursday.
The S&P BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 have delivered 27.9 per cent and 28.6 per cent returns, respectively, in 2017, making it the best year for equities since 2014.
Shares of Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Communications (RCom) zoomed 35% to Rs 41.77, also its 52-week high on the BSE in early morning trade after Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio said it will acquire RCom's mobile business assets including spectrum, mobile towers and optical fibre network of the company. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the stock rallied 30% to Rs 40.15 in intra-day trade.
Taking cognisance of the recent rising popularity of investing in virtual currencies (VCs) like Bitcoins, the Ministry of Finance issued a statement on Friday, cautioning investors regarding risks of dealing with cryptocurrencies.

Linking them to 'ponzi schemes', the ministry argued that unlike others, virtual currencies have no intrinsic value and are not backed by any kind of assets. The price of Bitcoin and other VCs, therefore, is entirely based on speculation, which results in spurt and volatility in their prices.

In terms of storage, the statement noted that since they are in the digital/electronic format, they tend to be more vulnerable to hacking, loss of password, malware attack, and so on, which may result in permanent loss of money. As transactions of VCs are encrypted, they are also likely being used to carry out illegal/subversive activities, such as terror-funding, smuggling, drug trafficking and other money-laundering acts, the Ministry claimed.

While VCs have no official backing by any Government fiat, they are also not legal tender, and hence cannot be categorised as currencies. The ministry noted that while these are being described as 'coins', there is no physical attribute to these coins. Therefore, VCs are neither currencies nor coins.

Further, the ministry clarified that the Government or Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has not authorised any VCs as a medium of exchange. Also, no regulator has given license to any agency for working as an exchange or any other kind of intermediary for any VC. Persons dealing in them must consider these facts and beware of the risks involved in dealing in VCs, the Ministry warned.

This is the not the first warning of its kind that has been issued. The users, holders, and traders of VCs have already been cautioned three times, in December 2013, February 2017 and December, 2017, by the RBI about potential financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security related risks that they are exposing themselves to by investing in Bitcoin and/ or other VCs.

The central bank had also clarified that it has not given any license or authorisation to any entity/company to operate such schemes or deal with Bitcoin or any virtual currency.

"The Government also makes it clear that VCs are not legal tender and such VCs do not have any regulatory permission or protection in India. The investors and other participants, therefore, deal with these VCs entirely at their risk and should best avoid participating therein," the statement read.

For the unversed, Bitcoins are a part of a rising new genre of digital payments called 'cryptocurrencies' that work on blockchain technology with no centralised administrator.

This virtual currency emerged in the aftermath of the financial crisis and allows people to bypass banks and traditional payment processes to pay for goods and services.

Bitcoin was created in 2009 by a person using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. The acquiring of bitcoins is hassle-free as several marketplaces called "bitcoin exchanges" allow people to buy or sell it using different currencies.

Mt. Gox is the largest bitcoin exchange.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Beware! A study has recently warned that women, with a common form of hair loss, are at increased risk of developing non-cancerous tumours that grow along or within the walls of the uterus.

According to researchers, the medical records gathered on hundreds of thousands of African-American women suggested that women with a common form of hair loss have an increased chance of developing uterine leiomyomas, or fibroids.

The results suggested a five-fold increased risk of uterine fibroids in women with CCCA, compared to age, sex and race matched controls.

CCCA predominantly affects black women and is the most common form of permanent alopecia - baldness - in this population.

Author Crystal Aguh from the Johns Hopkins University's school of medicine, said that the scarring associated with CCCA is similar to the scarring associated with excess fibrous tissue elsewhere in the body, a situation that may explain why women with this type of hair loss are at a higher risk for fibroids.

The team analysed patient data from from 2013-2017 of 487,104 black women ages 18 and over.

The prevalence of those with fibroids was compared in patients with and without CCCA.

The findings indicated that 13.9 percent of women with CCCA also had a history of uterine fibroids compared to only 3.3 percent of black women without the condition.

In absolute numbers, out of the 486,000 women who were reviewed, 16,212 had fibroids.

However, the association was strong enough, she adds, to recommend that physicians and patients be made aware of it.

The researchers call on physicians who treat women with Central Centrifugal Cicatricial Alopecia (CCCA) to make patients aware that they may be at increased risk for fibroids and should be screened for the condition, particularly if they have symptoms such as heavy bleeding and pain.

Women with this type of scarring alopecia should be screened not only for fibroids, but also for other disorders associated with excess fibrous tissue, Aguh noted.

The research is published in the JAMA Dermatology journal.

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India on Friday strongly condemned Thursday's "cowardly suicide terror attack" at the media news agency and the cultural centre in Kabul which claimed more than 40 innocent lives and left many more injured.

"Our heartfelt condolences are with the families of the victims of this dastardly attack and we wish early recovery to the injured," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said, in a statement.

India expressed solidarity with Afghanistan "at this difficult time" and added that it is "committed to extend all possible support in their fight against the menace of terrorism and efforts to bring peace, stability and security in the country," the statement read.

On Thursday, the suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the gate of the Tebyan center in the PD6 area of Kabul.

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani has ordered authorities to investigate the serial blasts.

The Afghan Presidential Palace in a statement on Twitter said, "Terrorist groups and their backers must know that the Afghan people are united and stand firm to any plot carried out by their enemies; these heinous attacks will not break the resolve of the Afghan people."

In addition to this, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has condemned the attack.

"UNAMA condemns today's attack on civilians in #Kabul. Preliminary reports indicate high civilian casualty numbers. The Mission's human rights workers on ground establishing facts," the UNAMA tweeted.

Women, children and journalists were among the dead.

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Pakistan's military has warned the United States against taking any 'unilateral action' against it, adding that the country's respect and sovereignty comes first.

"The armed forces are working with friends and want to continue doing so, but there can be no compromise on our national honour. We do not want a conflict with our friends, but will ensure the security of Pakistan," The Dawn quoted the Pakistan military spokesperson Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor as saying in a media briefing.

On December 4, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Mike Pompeo issued a stern warning to Pakistan that if it did not act against the alleged terrorist safe havens inside the country, then the United States would be forced to destroy them on its own.

The CIA director gave this warning at the Reagan National Defence Forum in California on Saturday, when he was queried about what Trump administration was doing to make Pakistan participate in its new Afghan strategy.

Pakistan has consistently denied claims of Afghanistan and United States with respect to the presence of the terror havens on its soil.

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif claimed that the majority of the attacks carried out in his country were coordinated from Afghanistan.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis has urged Pakistan to double its efforts to confront terrorists operating within the country.

He emphasised the vital role that Pakistan could play in working with the United States and others to facilitate a peace process in Afghanistan and bring back stability and security to the region, during his maiden visit to Pakistan since taking charge of the Pentagon.

Pakistan and Afghanistan share the strained bilateral relationship. Both Kabul and Islamabad steadily purport that the attacks in the two countries were being plotted and carried out by the safe havens located in the two countries.

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Pakistan's National Security Advisor retired Lieutenant General Nasser Khan Janjua has called on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The meeting, which lasted for five hours, was held at Sharif's Jati Umra residence in Raiwind.

The two leaders discussed matters pertaining to national security, relations with neighbouring countries and terrorism, reported the Dawn.

"There is a dire need to improve ties with the neighbouring countries. Peace is inevitable in Afghanistan for peace in the region," a PML-N leader quoted Mr Sharif as saying during the meeting.

Underscoring that, "War is no solution to any problem," Sharif also stated that he always talked about friendly relations with Pakistan's neighbours because without them problems which are being faced by the region's people could not be solved.

The meet between NSA Janjua and former premier is the first after the latter's disqualification in the Panama Papers case in July.

In response to a question about Sharif's 'strained' relations with the military establishment, Climate Change Minister and PML-N information secretary Mushahidullah Khan told Dawn, "The security adviser does not need anybody's permission to brief the PML-N chief on security issues as he is a civilian member of the cabinet."

Meanwhile, the chief minister of Pakistan's Punjab province, Shahbaz Sharif, has left for Saudi Arabia to hold 'important' meetings in the kingdom.

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Pakistan will on Friday afternoon release 147 Indian fishermen via Attari border in Punjab's Amritsar.

The fishermen, who were arrested for allegedly fishing in country's territorial waters, were freed from a Karach jail on Thursday

As per the reports, the fishermen will be handed over to Indian officials at Wagah border crossing.

The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) had earlier this week arrested 28 Indian fishermen for allegedly fishing illegally in the country's territorial waters in the Arabian Sea.

Around 168 Indian fishermen have been held by the Pakistan Maritime Security personnel since the last five weeks.
Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant raised the Kamala Mills Fire incident in Lok Sabha and demanded a judicial inquiry into it that claimed 14 lives on Friday.

"I want that investigation should be initiated as soon as possible. I want and demand judicial probe into this incident. Because, if administration will probe this incident then they will try to safeguard each other in one way or the other way," he told ANI in the Parliament complex.

Earlier in the day, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Commissioner to conduct an inquiry into the tragedy that took place in Mumbai's Lower Parel area.

At least 14 people were killed, many others were injured after a fire broke out in a rooftop restaurant in the Kamala Mills Compound early on Friday.

According to reports, the blaze was reported at about 12.30 am from the Mojo's Bistro restaurant and it quickly spread to neighbouring restaurant.

Over 12 fire tenders were rushed to douse the fire, which was brought under control at about 6.30 am.

The injured have been admitted to the KEM Hospital and other hospitals for treatment.

Mumbai Police have booked the owner of the pub for negligence and other charges for the fire, suspected to be triggered by an electrical short-circuit.

Earlier in the day, President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi also expressed condolences to the families of the deceased.

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Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Friday described the massive fire at the Kamala Mills in Mumbai that claimed fourteen lives as an 'unfortunate incident'.

Raut told ANI, "The entire mishap is unfortunate which cannot be described with words. We can only express our sympathies with the victims and their families."

He further confirmed that an investigation will definitely take place.

"An investigation will surely take place on the incident and the reason behind, it will be found. Our whole team, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Shiv Sena and the police are present at the site and helping the victims," said Raut.

Raut also paid his condolences to the families of people affected by the fire on behalf of his party.

"The most important thing is to be with families of those who have lost their lives and provide immediate medical attention to the injured. I, on the behalf of my party, extend my sympathies to the victims and their families," added Raut.

In the wee hours of Friday, a massive fire engulfed Mumbai's Kamala Mills Compound in the Lower Parel area, claiming 14 lives.

Confirming the number of dead and injured, the BMC also informed that among the injured, two are critical.

Postmortems reveal that all deaths were due to suffocation, confirmed Doctor Rajesh Dere of the King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital.

Meanwhile, transmission of the TV channels ET Now, Mirror Now, Zoom and TV9 Marathi has been affected due to the incident.

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South Africa's top court will rule in Friday on a bid to compel the country's parliament to launch impeachment proceedings against South African President Jacob Zuma over a scandal related to state-funded upgrades to his private home.

The Constitutional Court application seeks to compel the Speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete, to convene a Committee of Parliament or other independent bodies to investigate President Zuma's conduct and determine whether he is guilty of breaching his oath of office, local media reported.

Zuma has faced widespread public demands to step down as president of Africa's most industrialised economy before a general election in 2019 and the such proceedings could increase pressure on him to quit.

The 75-year-old is in a weakened position after Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa beat his prefered candidate to become African National Congress (ANC) president last week, although Zuma's faction still retains key positions in the party and he has already survived no-confidence votes.

The Constitutional Court had reserved judgment on any impeachment in September after opposition parties submitted an application in the wake of a ruling that Zuma failed to uphold the constitution by not abiding by a watchdog's finding that he repay some of the public money spent on his sprawling rural home.

An official at the court, who was not authorised to speak to the media, said the court was expected to make a ruling at 8 am local time on Friday. The opposition politicians who brought the application to court welcomed the news of the expected ruling.

United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa says the party is looking forward to a favourable judgment when the Constitutional Court hands down its ruling on whether to impeach President Zuma or not.

Holomisa said that while he remains hopeful for a favourable judgment, he does not believe the African National Congress (ANC) Members of Parliament (MPs) will impeach Zuma.

In March 2016, the court ruled that Zuma pay back some of the roughly 15 million dollars in state money spent on upgrading his private home.

The unanimous ruling by the 11-judge Constitutional Court, a central pillar of the democracy established the fact that Zuma had failed to "uphold, defend and respect" the Constitution by ignoring the findings of the watchdog led by former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela.

Zuma has denied wrongdoing over many of the corruption allegations that have swirled around his presidency. Last week Zuma sought leave to appeal a court ruling ordering him to set up a judicial inquiry into influence-peddling in his government.

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South Korea has seized a Hong Kong-flagged oil tanker returning after allegedly transferring oil to North Korea.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted the officials as saying on Friday that the authorities took and searched the vessel, Lighthouse Winmore, when it entered the country's Yeosu Port on November 24 after transferring 600 tons of refined petroleum to a North Korean vessel on October 19.

A ship-to-ship transfer of any goods to North Korea has been prohibited by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as per the Resolution 2375, adopted in September.

The ship, loaded with the Japanese refined petroleum, was claimed to be heading to Taiwan.

However, the vessel not going to its claimed destination transferred the oil to North Korean vessels in international waters in the East China Sea.

"The actions taken will be reported to the UNSC sanctions committee on North Korea in the future," according to the authorities. "This marks a typical case of North Korea shrewdly circumventing UNSC sanctions by using its illegal networks."

South Korea gas shared the details with the United States for further investigation.

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US President Donald Trump has praised the recent Rasmussen Reports' Poll that has given him moderately high approval ratings, during his first year at office.

In an Instagram post, Trump wrote: "Together, we are MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! #USA"

On that note, the slogan - "Make America, Great Again", was used by Trump during the election campaign in 2016.

Trump got an approval rating of 46 percent, as compared to a disapproval rating of 53 percent, as he completed his first year of presidency in November this year.

Trump's predecessor Barack Obama also had similar figures, during his first year of presidency in 2009. Obama got an approval rating of 46 percent, whereas the disapproval rating was 54 percent.

In terms of work done by the Trump government, the poll showed an approval rating of just 29 percent and a disapproval rating of 44 percent. In the case of Obama, it was a bit lower- 24 percent approval and 42 percent approval, during his first year in office.

The US President has routinely rallied and protested against his low approval numbers and high disapproval numbers put out by mainstream media outlets.

This comes after he had a controversial first year at the office, which also saw the ban of citizens from seven Muslim majority countries to the US, repeated jibes at North Korea over their nuclear tests and more recently, his decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

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The United States (US) and Israel have reached a cooperation agreement on dealing with Iran.

The agreement, which was reportedly signed on December 12 at the White House, aims to counter Iran's missile and nuclear programs. US National Security Adviser H.R McMaster and his Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat signed the agreement, local media reported.

The two countries have reportedly decided to set up joint teams to combat Iran in the region. One joint team would grapple with Iran's ties to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, as well as Iranian activities in Syria. The second and third teams would aim to deal with Iran's nuclear goals and the country's missile system.

Lastly, the fourth team would be designed to control preparations for any escalation from Hezbollah or Iran.

Trump announced in October that he would decertify the Iranian nuclear deal, which was reached during the Obama administration. This comes as US-Iranian relations have declined in recent months.

The US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Nikki Haley said that there was "undeniable" evidence that Iran was supplying weapons to Yemeni rebels, in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.

The cooperation between two countries comes at a time, when the US, on December 6, announced that Jerusalem would be the capital of Israel.

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Lupin announced that it received final approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) to market a generic version of Dovonex Scalp Solution, 0.005% of Leo Pharmaceutical Products. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 28 December 2017.

Lupin's Calcipotriene Topical Solution, 0.005% (scalp solution) is the AT rated generic equivalent of Leo Pharmaceutical Products' Dovonex Scalp Solution, 0.005%. It is indicated for the topical treatment of chronic, moderately severe psoriasis of the scalp. Calcipotriene Topical Solution, 0.005% (scalp solution) had annual sales of approximately $5.9 million in the US as per IMS MAT October 2017.

Astron Paper & Board Mill debuts on the secondary equity market today, 29 December 2017. The company had priced the initial public offer (IPO) at the top end of the Rs 45 to Rs 50 price band. The IPO received bids for 340.60 crore shares. The IPO was subscribed 243.29 times. The issue opened on 15 December 2017 and closed on 20 December 2017.

Reliance Communications (RCom) announced it has signed definitive binding agreements with Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIO) for sale of wireless spectrum, tower, fiber and media convergence node (MCN) assets. RCom expects the transactions to close in a phased manner between January and March 2018, subject to lenders' and other applicable approvals. The RJIO deal consideration comprises primarily of cash payment and includes transfer of deferred spectrum instalments payable to the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). RCom will utilise the proceeds of the monetisation of this cash deal solely for pre-payment of debt to its lenders. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 28 December 2017.

Bank of Baroda said it entered into an agreement with UniCredit S.p.A. to acquire their 51% stake in Baroda Pioneer Asset Management Company, thus increasing its shareholding to 100%. Its foreign partner Pioneer Investments will exit the venture. The agreement is subject to approval from regulatory authorities. The move comes on the back of the acquisition of Pioneer Investments by Amundi earlier this year. Amundi already has a presence in an Indian AMC. As on November 2017, the fund's average assets under management (AUM) stood at about Rs. 11000 crore. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 28 December 2017.

Jindal Worldwide said that its board considered the disposal of entire investment of the company held in its associate company, Jindal Synthetics, by way of sale of its equity shares. Consequently, Jindal Synthetics is no longer an associate company of Jindal Worldwide with effect from 23 December 2017. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 28 December 2017.

GTPL Hathway said that its board approved acquisition of remaining 49% stake in GTPL Surat Telelink, making it a wholly owned subsidiary of the company. The board also approved acquisition of further 23.50% stake in GTPL Ahmedabad Cable Network, a subsidiary of the company in which the company presently holds 51% equity shares. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 28 December 2017.

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A man and a woman suspected of planning attacks in France have been arrested by France's internal intelligence agency DGSI, the media reported.

The two persons had no apparent link between them, Xinhua reported on Tursday citing BFMTV. The suspects were a 21-year-old man detained in Lyon and a 19-year-old woman arrested in Paris.

In the past several years, France has become a major target of terrorist attacks.

On November 13, 2015, about seven simultaneous shootings and fresh explosions rocked central Paris during the evening. One of the shootings resulted in a hostage taking crisis at the Bataclan theater and concert hall, killing at least 140 people and wounding many.

Following the attacks, France had imposed emergency security rules, since which, the country has been overwhelmed again by another wave of attacks, with the bloodiest at Riviera city of Nice where a man drove his truck into a crowd on Bastille Day in 2016, killing 86 people.

In October of 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron signed the anti-terrorism law which he said was necessary to ramp up security at home to combat high terrorism menace.

The bill enshrines emergency security rules into ordinary law which empowers the police to search or arrest criminals without prior judicial approval and restrict people's movements or gatherings.

--IANS

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Embark this week on a philosophical and romantic journey. From being a carefree child to a person who preferred medidation and company of saints, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has a fascinating tale to share and this time his sister brings us those up close and personal stories. Then a book which gives a peek into the essence of Hinduism in a language that can be understood by all. After this is a love story of two people who are poles apart yet fall for each other. And finally, a tale of two opposites who have different opinions about love but destiny brings them together. So, here's an assorted fare that the IANS bookshelf has to offer this week. Read on!

1) Book: Gurudev on the Plateau of the Peak; Author: Bhanumathi Narasimhan; Publisher: Westland; Pages: 199; Price: Rs 599

It was an era when the wisdom of yoga had been buried under years of ritual practices, when religion outweighed human values, when games were becoming wars and wars were being played like games. It was such a time that, in a quaint village in south India, a small child was found in deep medidation.

From an unassuming boy to a teenager in the company of saints, from a young meditation teacher to a revered soul, this book is a peek into the life of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Over the years, his pragmatic teachings would make the ethereal tangible; he would teach the values of joy, peace and love towards people and the world.

2) Book: Living Hinduism, Scriptures Philosophy Practices; Author: Samarpan; Publisher: Niyogi Books; Pages: 240; Price: Rs 395

Hinduism is neither an organised religion nor a proselytising one. It is often described as a way of life, which gently nudges its followers -- through its scriptures, mythologies, rituals and practices -- to question deeply, live fully, and grow wholesomely in compassion and universal acceptance. Hinduism believes whatever inspires one to stay truly unselfish, be it a vocation, an ideology or a faith, can lead one towards greater self-realisation and ultimate freedom.

"Living Hinduism" by Samarpan encapsulates this essence of Hinduism in a language that can be understood and appreciated by all, especially the younger generation, who need to know and understand what it means to be a Hindu, in an age of strident opinions and changing values.

3) Book: You Are the Best Friend; Author: Ajay K. Pandey; Publisher: Westland; Pages: 221; Price: Rs 175

Protagonist Ajay lost his wife and suffers from deep depression. No amount of medication or therapy seems to help him as he struggles with his grief. He has only one wish -- he wants to immortalise his wife. Then, he meets Anisha, who is shocked at Ajay's hatred towards God. How can a person hate God? Where does such hatred lead him?

Anisha is ready to judge Ajay harshly, when a simple caring and guileless gesture changes her perception of him. So, begins the journey of two people who are poles apart, a journey which will change their outlook towards life. A bittersweet tale, told simply, by a man who lost everything, except his ability to find humour in the world. This is the story of Ajay, who finds a second lease of life. What helps him? A friend? Or the love he finds again?

4) Book: For the Sake of Love; Author: Anamika Mishra; Publisher: Westland; Pages: 171; Price: Rs 199

Young, pretty and successful, Twisha Khanna has it all. She works hard and has no time for frivolities like love. After all, being the creative head of a happening travel magazine is no joke. So when she travels to Shimla on an assignment, the last thing on Twisha's mind is love. But then, life has other plans.

On finding a stack of old love letters that speak of an unrequired romance, Twisha is convinced that she must find the man who wrote these letters and help him. Along the way, she meets spoilt rich boy Alex, who is everything she would not want in a man. As the two try to reunite the old lovers mentioned in the letters, they are hardly aware that how they feel about love and life is going to change forever.

--IANS

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Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir on Friday said those responsible for the fire in a rooftop restaurant in Mumbai's Kamala Mills complex -- in which 14 persons were killed and at least 55 others injured -- will have to face action.

"The Kamala Mills fire is a very unfortunate incident. The state government and BMC (BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation) will surely inquire into the incident and strict action will be taken against the guilty," Ahir said.

The Minister said he talked to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to take stock of the situation. "Spoke with CM Maharashtra Fadnavisji... Gave an assurance for all possible help from central government," Ahir tweeted.

Fourteen persons, including a young woman celebrating her birthday, were asphyxiated, and at least 55 others injured in the deadly blaze that broke out in the Kamala Mills compound, in Mumbai's Lower Parel area, early on Friday. It quickly spread to another pub and a restaurant in the vicinity virtually trapping over 200 people on the premises.

More than 12 fire tenders were rushed to fight the blaze which was brought under control around 6.30 a.m. Most of the deaths were due to asphyxiation.

--IANS

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Thousands of elderly persons whose biometrics do not match their records anymore are facing trouble in getting their pension as well as getting any other Aadhaar-linked work done, a BJP member of the Lok Sabha said on Friday.

Bihar MP from Aurangabad Sushil Kumar Singh also mentioned the fraud where LPG subsidy belonging to different people worth Rs 190 crore was transferred in the account of telecom company Airtel, and demanded criminal action against the culprits.

"Old people are unable to get pensions since last one year as their thumb prints and retina scan do not match," Singh said.

He also said that his mother could not get a sim card in her own name due to problem in matching of fingerprints.

Mentioning the Airtel incident, he said: "It is a criminal act that someone's money is being transferred to other accounts without permission. Though the Petroleum Ministry has taken action, but there should be criminal proceedings against the culprits."

The MP urged the Centre to find a solution to the problem. "The government should seriously think about resolving this issue," he said.

A large number of LPG consumers had complained about non-credit of the LPG subsidy amounts into their earlier bank accounts, and on verification, it was found that these complaints pertained to those consumers who were Airtel customers and have opened account in Airtel Payments Bank.

As per reports, Airtel has written to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) promising to return Rs 190 crore, along with interest, to the consumers' original bank accounts that were linked to the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

--IANS

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Miffed at being given "light-weight" portfolios, Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel was on Friday conspicuous by his absence in his office even as all the newly-anointed Cabinet colleagues took charge of their respective ministries allotted to them by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani in the new BJP government in Gujarat.

Patel was holding the hefty departments of Finance, Petrochemicals, Urban Development and Urban Housing, Roads and Buildings, Capital Project, Narmada, and Kalpasar, in the previous regime. Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who took more than 48 hours to decide on his new team, snatched Finance, Petrochemicals and Urban Development and Housing from Nitin Patel this time.

The crucial portfolios of Finance and Petrochemicals have been given to Saurabh Patel, who was curiously dropped when Rupani took over the reins the first time in August 2016, while the Chief Minister has himself retained the Urban Development and Housing beat.

Saurabh Patel, the son-of-law of industry doyen Dhirubhai Ambani's elder brother Ramnik Ambani, won the Botad seat by a narrow margin of 900 votes. He was earlier an MLA from Akota constituency in Vadodara city.

Sources claimed that Rupani took a long time to decide his team because Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah were reportedly busy in finalising the name of the new Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister and he would not take a unilateral decision.

While the new 20-member two-tier Rupani Cabinet was sworn in on December 26 in the presence of a huge gathering, attended among others by Prime Minister Modi, Shah and chief ministers of all 18 BJP-ruled states as well as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, it took late Thursday night for the portfolios to be finalised and distributed.

Not only did Nitin Patel keep away from office most of Friday, Secretariat reports claimed that the veteran politician used his personal four-wheeler instead of the government vehicle and official escort.

The Deputy Chief Minister looked glum and lost even during the first joint press conference of the new Cabinet late on Thursday night and maintained an uncanny silence.

The meeting had itself started after a delay at 9 p.m. in the wake of arguments over portfolio distribution. Besides Nitin Patel, former senior cabinet Minister Babubhai Bokhiria from Porbander and former Minister of state from Vadodara Rajendra Trivedi expressed their anger at being dropped.

Meanwhile, it was difficult to reach Nitin Patel on Friday and he did not return the calls made to him for his version of the story.

--IANS

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After a significant year for publishing in India, the upcoming month of January in 2018 will set the literary mood for a new beginning. The Jaipur Literature Festival will see the release of several significant books, apart from hosting over 200 sessions that will witness participation from writers and thinkers from across the world. With a lot taking place simultaneously and options as diverse as ever, bookworms have quite a choice to make.

The IANS recommendations for January pares a long list to present the five most promising titles that bookworms must take note of.

Here are the five books that we cannot wait to read this January:

1. "Why I Am A Hindu", by Shashi Tharoor (Aleph)

In "Why I Am a Hindu", Tharoor gives us a profound book about one of the world's oldest and greatest religions. Starting with a close examination of his own belief in Hinduism, he ranges far and wide in his study of the faith. He looks at the myriad manifestations of political Hinduism in the modern era, including violence committed in the name of the faith by right-wing organisations and their adherents. He is unsparing in his criticism of extremist "bhakts", and unequivocal in his belief that everything that makes India a great and distinctive culture and country will be imperiled if religious fundamentalists are allowed to take the upper hand.

2. "Pakistan's Nuclear Bomb", by Hassan Abbas (Penguin)

In "Pakistan's Nuclear Bomb", Abbas profiles the politicians and scientists involved in the development of the country's atomic bomb and the role of China and Saudi Arabia in supporting its nuclear infrastructure. Drawing on extensive interviews, the book also unravels the motivation behind the Pakistani nuclear physicist Dr A.Q. Khan's involvement in nuclear proliferation in Iran, Libya and North Korea, and argues that the origins and evolution of the Khan network were tied to the domestic and international political motivations underlying Pakistan's nuclear weapons project and its organisation, oversight and management.

3. "Small Acts of Freedom", by Gurmehar Kaur (Penguin)

In February 2017, Gurmehar Kaur, a 19-year-old student, joined a peaceful campaign after violent clashes at a Delhi University college. As part of the campaign, Kaur's post made her the target of an onslaught of social media vitriol. Kaur, the daughter of a Kargil war martyr, suddenly became the focal point of a nationalism debate. Facing a trial by social media, Kaur almost retreated into herself. But she was never brought up to be silenced. "Real bullets killed my father. Your hate bullets are deepening my resolve," she wrote at the time. Today, Kaur is doubly determined not to be silent. "Small Acts of Freedom" is her story.

4. "Keepers of the Kalachakra", by Ashwin Sanghi (Westland)

A seemingly random selection of heads of state is struck down like flies by unnamed killers who work with the clinical efficiency of butchers. Except that they leave no trace of their methods. Sanghi returns with another quietly fearsome tale -- this time of men who guard the "Kalachakra" -- The Wheel of Time. Sanghi describes a world of people at war with one another -- a boomeranging conflict of faiths that results in acts of such slow and planned human cruelty that they defy imagination. Zigzagging from Rama's crossing to Lanka to the birth of Buddhism; from the charnel-grounds of naked tantric practitioners to the bespoke suits of the Oval Office; and from the rites of Minerva, shrouded in frankincense, to the smoke-darkened ruins of Nalanda, the mystery novel is a journey that will have you gasping for breath.

5. "Diwali in Muzaffarnagar", by Tanuj Solanki (HarperCollins)

Friendship between two teenage boys dissolves in the aftermath of an act of violence typical of the place they live in -- the north Indian town of Muzaffarnagar. A young man comes to the same town to celebrate Diwali with his family and learns that, given his roots, his cosmopolitanism might not be an option any more. A young woman, hitherto unburdened by family duties, grapples with the absence of grief upon her father's death. Elsewhere, a recently married couple is pulled apart by a crisis rooted in the woman's traumatic childhood. In Solanki's book of short stories, young men and women travel between the past and the present, the metropolis and the small town, and the always-at-odds needs of life: Solitude and family.

(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in <mailto:saket.s@ians.in>)

--IANS

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Search engine Google on Friday honoured eminent Kannada poet and Jnanpith awardee Kuvempu with a doodle on his 113rd birthday.

"It's a great day for Kannadigas and Karnataka, as Google joined us in celebrating 'Rashtra kavi' (national poet) Kuvempu's birthday with a sketch on him in a locale that reminds us of his scenic native place Kuppali (in Shivamogga district," an official told IANS here.

Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, who wrote as Kuvempu, was the first Kannada writer to win the prestigious Jnanpith award for his epic poem "Sri Ramayana Dashanam" in verse form five decades ago.

The occasion also coincided with the golden jubilee of Kuvempu's famous novel "Malegalalli Madumaglu" released 50 years ago on his birthday in 1967.

"Day-long celebrations, including reading of Kuvemu's select poems and writings in the lawns of his ancestral house 'Kavi Mane' at Kuppali in the presence of about 1,000 people from the region," said the official of the state Kannada and Culture Department.

Located in the heart of the picturesque Malnad area near Thirthahalli in central Karnataka, Kuppali is a cultural centre and a popular tourist spot.

Born on December 29, 1904, Kuvempu spent his childhood at Kuppali and moved to Mysuru in his teenage years to study. He graduated in Kannada and English literature from the Maharaja College at Mysuru.

"Though education and teaching profession forced Kuvempu to live at Mysuru, Bengaluru and other cities in the state, he visited Kuppali every year and spent a few weeks to relive his childhood, as he was so captivated by the Sahyadri mountains around and the breathtaking view of the Malnad region," said the official.

Kuvempu taught Kannada literature in Maharaja College and National College in Bengaluru in the 1930s-40s before he became Vice-Chancellor of Mysore University in 1956.

"Besides poetry, Kuvempu penned short stories, plays, novels and articles in Kannada and English. His beautiful poem 'Jaya Bharata Jananiya Tanujate' is sung as the state anthem," added the official.

Awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1988, he passed away at the age of 90 on November 11, 1994.

--IANS

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The BJP has decided to field Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri as its candidate in a Rajya Sabha bypoll in Uttar Pradesh, a party release said.

Puri, a former Indian Foreign Service Officer, was inducted as a minister in the Narendra Modi government in September.

The seat fell vacant following the resignation from the cabinet and Parliament of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, who returned to Goa to take over as Chief Minister.

The last date of nominations for the Rajya Sabha bypoll is January 5.

--IANS

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Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Friday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi here.

This was Thakur's first meeting with the Prime Minister after taking over as Chief Minister on December 27, an official statement said, terming it a courtesy call.

Modi was in Shimla along with his cabinet colleagues and Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah to attend the oath-taking ceremony of Thakur and his cabinet.

--IANS

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Indian Air Force chief B.S. Dhanoa on Friday flew the last sortie of the 'Hawkeyes' squadron's Mig-21, bringing a glorious end to the reign of the Type 96 variant of the fighter aircraft, a defence statement said.

Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa, who is on a three day visit to Air Force Station Nal December 28-30, one of the premier air bases operating the MiG-21 aircraft, where 108 Squadron or the 'Hawkeyes' is being "number plated".

"Chief of the Air Staff, callsign 'Air Force One', flew the last sortie of the 'Hawkeyes' thus bringing a glorious end to the reign of the T-96 aircraft, with the squadron," the statement said.

During the course of his visit, the Air Force Chief addressed and interacted with personnel of the station, emphasizing the importance of aerospace safety, its various aspects and stressed on the physical security of the base. He congratulated and conveyed his best wishes to all personnel and their families for the New Year.

--IANS

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An Indian-origin student was shot dead during a robbery attempt at a gas station in the US, a media report said.

Nineteen-year-old Arshad Vahora was an employee at the gas station in south suburban Dolton in Illinois. He was pronounced dead at the scene on Thursday, Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Another employee, a 55-year-old man, was also shot and taken to a medical centre in critical condition, said Dolton Police chief Robert M. Collins Jr, adding the business is family-owned and operated and the victims were related, though it was not immediately clear how.

The attempted robbery took place about 11 a.m. and no one was in custody as of Thursday afternoon, Collins said. Investigators are checking for video footage of the shooting.

--IANS

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IT major Infosys on Friday said that it has signed an agreement to divest its entire investment in ANSR Consulting Holdings.

According to a BSE filing, Infosys had a minority investment in ANSR Consulting Holdings, Inc., a Delaware corporation.

"... The company announces that it has on December 28, 2017 signed an agreement for divestment of its entire investment in ANSR Consulting Holdings, Inc., for a total consideration of USD 1,000,000," the filing said.

--IANS

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After nearly five years, two persons have won the final legal battle against Apple, earning the right to call their clothing company "Steve Jobs" -- Apple's late iconic founder.

According to la Repubblica Napoli, brothers Vincenzo and Giacomo Barbato were fighting with Apple over the use of Jobs' name since 2012.

The two brothers, who were already in the process of starting their own clothing and accessory company, noticed that Apple had never trademarked Jobs' name. Apple sued the brothers over the trademark.

La Repubblica Napoli said the tech giant might have lost in court by attacking the brothers specifically over their Steve Jobs logo which is a stylised letter "J" with a bite taken out of the side and topped with a very Apple-esque leaf.

"The court ruled that the letter 'J' isn't edible and therefore the bite could not be ripping off Apple's own iconic logo, and upheld the trademark," the news portal said.

The pair will sell bags, T-shirts, jeans and other fashion accessories under the "Steve Jobs" brand.

In an interview with Business Insider Italia, the brothers said that the goal of the "Steve Jobs" brand is to eventually sell electronics.

--IANS

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Over $1 million in jewellery has been stolen from actress Kyle Richards and her husband Mauricio Umanskys house in Encino, California.

The burglary took place on Wednesday while the couple and their children vacationed in Aspen, Colorado, reports people.com.

Over $1 million dollars in jewellery, including $150,000 worth of watches owned by Umansky, was stolen from the property, according to TMZ.

The break-in was discovered by a housekeeper. The property was reportedly broken into via a window, and the home security system was not armed, though a closet sensor triggered by the burglars clocked the incident around 1.15 a.m.

Surveillance camera footage is being investigated to help nab culprits.

The Los Angeles Police Department told people.com they have no information at this time.

Richards and Umansky bought the property in October for $8.2 million.

--IANS

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South Korean tech major LG Electronics has announced that it is adding a new smart speaker named "ThinQ" to its 2018 line-up, which will be powered by Google Assistant.

Amazon and Apple also have voice-controlled devices that have become popular of late.

"The LG 'ThinQ' looks to be a more high-end competitor to something like Google's 'Home Max'," Tech Crunch reported late on Thursday.

"LG's new speaker is promising a 'premium' audio experience thanks to 'Meridian Audio' technology and support for lossless high resolution audio," the report added.

The South Korean company has not disclosed much details about the upcoming device.

The smart speaker will be unveiled at The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018.

LG "ThinQ" can reportedly control smart home devices via Google Assistant and a voice app from the company that also controls other smart home appliances in the "ThinQ" line-up.

The device will compete with smart speakers such as Amazon's "Echo" line-up, Google Home and Apple's soon-to-launch "HomePod".

--IANS

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Hours before 2017 fades into history, it leaves behind a trail of deaths, destruction and disasters that cropped up in Mumbai at regular intervals making the city hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

December 29: 14 persons killed and 55 injured in a major blaze in a rooftop pub that engulfed the Kamala Mills Compound in Lower Parel.

December 18: 12 labourers killed and 10 hurt when a fire broke out in a dry snacks and 'farsan' wholesale shop in Sakinaka, Andheri east.

October 6: A major blaze erupted in a BPCL diesel tank following a lightning strike as the city and surroundings were lashed by torrential rain and thunderstorm. Though there were no human casualties, an undisclosed quantity of diesel worth crores of rupees burnt out for nearly three days before the fire was extinguished.

September 29: 23 commuters killed and 39 hurt in a stampede on a narrow, congested foot overbridge on Elphinstone Road of Western Railway connecting with Parel of Central Railway, allegedly due to heavy rains and rumours.

August 31: 33 residents were killed and another 17 hurt when a century-old dilapidated building collapsed off Pakmodia Street in the densely-populated Bhendi Bazaar area of south Mumbai. The building was due for redevelopment undertaken by a private NGO in the vicinity.

August 29: 12 persons, including wellknown doctor Deepak Amarapurkar, killed in various rain-related incidents as Mumbai received the second-highest rainfall in a single day after the great floods of July 26, 2005.

August 5: Three students of the Unal Mill High School, Mahim, washed away into the Arabian Sea as huge tidal waves lashed the city's shoreline at the Dadar Chowpatty.

July 25: 17 persons were killed and 11 others injured when a four-storied building Sai Darshan suddenly collapsed in Ghatkopar.

January 23: Six minor children, aged between six and 13, sustained burns in a fire that broke out in a slum pocket in the LCC Compound, adjacent to the Masjid Bunder station. Though all the children later survived despite their burns, the Central Railway was compelled to halt all operations for nearly an hour as power supply was switched off to prevent spread of the blaze or damage to railway assets.

--IANS

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Two foreign journalists, an interpreter and a driver jailed for flying a drone near Myanmar's parliament have been released, the authorities said on Friday.

Cameraman Lau Hon Meng from Singapore and Malaysian reporter Mok Choy Lin were detained while shooting a documentary in October. Their driver Hla Tin and their interpreter, journalist Aung Naing Soe, are both from Myanmar, reports the BBC.

All four detainees, who work for Turkish broadcaster TRT, have served a two-month sentence for breaching anti-aircraft laws.

Further charges, which could have led to years in jail, have been dropped.

TRT has always insisted the authorities had been informed about the planned filming activities.

The four were being further investigated for breaching rules on importing the drone without a licence, an offence which could have resulted in a three-year jail term. The two foreign journalists were also accused of immigration offences.

But the police dropped the additional charges, saying the men had not endangered national security, the BBC reported.

Earlier this month, two local Reuters journalists covering the Rohingya crisis in Rakhine state were arrested.

The two are facing up to 14 years in prison and met their families on Wednesday for the first time since they were held.

--IANS

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The Pakistan Army has warned the US against "unilateral action", saying that despite its desire for cooperation on Afghanistan, there could be no compromise on national respect and sovereignty, the media reported on Friday.

"The armed forces are working with friends and want to continue doing so, but there can be no compromise on our national honour. We do not want a conflict with our friends, but will ensure the security of Pakistan," military spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said on Thursday, recalling that Islamabad was being threatened with "unilateral action" by Washington.

This is perhaps the strongest-ever reaction from Islamabad since US functionaries and statements recently began alluding to the possibility of unilateral action, amidst an ongoing row over alleged terrorist sanctuaries, reports Dawn news.

Earlier this month, CIA Director Mike Pompeo warned the US would do everything it could to ensure the elimination of "terrorist safe havens" in Pakistan.

The spokesman maintained that Pakistan would have to stand united in the face of possible unilateral action, saying such challenges could only be tackled through unity.

"Let it be known to all misadventure seekers and probably naive thinkers that notwithstanding any temporary domestic differences, when it comes to security of our beloved Pakistan, we are all one," he added.

Ghafoor said the "unfounded" US and Afghan narrative had lately acquired a "threatening" tone.

He also listed Pakistan's expectations from the US: ending coercion, engagement based on trust and cooperation, repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan, checking the Indian role in Afghanistan, and getting New Delhi to stop ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC).

--IANS

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Filmmaker Ridley Scott says he wasn't "particularly interested" in helming "All The Money In The World", which revolves around oil tycoon J. Paul Getty.

"The word Getty conjured up a specific memory for me, I of course knew who he was and was familiar with the incident and I wasn't particularly interested. But within a few lines and after meeting with Dan (Friedkin) and Bradley (Thomas), I knew I was in good hands," Scott said in a statement.

"All The Money In The World" follows Getty's grandson John Paul Getty III, who was kidnapped by an organised crime regime, and his mother Gail's (Michelle Williams) attempts to convince his wealthy grandfather to pay the ransom. The film, brought to India by PVR Pictures, will release in the country on January 5.

"A great script like this is the jewel in the crown and it's the hardest part. When I read it, I thought 'wow'. The material and the script were great and I absolutely wanted to make this movie," Scott added.

Talking about J. Paul Getty, Scott said: "He was a brilliant man, but all that fell away when he was asked how much he would pay for his grandson and he said 'Nothing'. Everyone was shocked to the core."

The film is also in the news for a last minute replacement and re-shoot. Actor Christopher Plummer replaced actor Kevin Spacey at the eleventh hour, following sexual harassment accusations against Spacey.

It was announced in November that 58-year-old Spacey would be cut out of Scott's biopic, which would have seen him take on the role of the oil tycoon. The decision was made after the actor faced a slew of sexual assault allegations. Plummer re-shot all the scenes already filmed by Spacey.

--IANS

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A Russian hacker, who earlier claimed he hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) networks on the orders of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), says he can prove he was behind the breach.

Konstantin Kozlovsky, who was jailed on cyber fraud charges in Russia, in an interview said that he left a file on the DNC network containing markers to prove he had been there, Russian network TV Rain reported.

"Specifically, Kozlovsky said he left a '.dat' file with his passport number and the number of his visa to Caribbean island St. Martin on the DNC's internal server," said the interview.

Kozlovsky is one of the hackers whom Russian authorities arrested last year for using malware to steal more than $25 million from Russian banks. He was jailed also on the charges of compromising DNC networks during US presidential elections in 2016.

Earlier this year, Kozlovsky, in a testimony on Facebook, said he was ordered by the FSB to hack the DNC.

These claims could puncture Russian President Vladimir Putin's repeated rebuttals on Kremlin's involvement in the presidential hacking campaign.

Kozlovsky also claimed that he wrote malware for the FSB for several years, including the code used in the "WannaCry" ransomware attacks for which the US government has publicly blamed North Korea.

Kozlovsky asserted that FSB agent Major General Dmitry Dokuchayev gave him orders to breach the DNC.

Dokuchayev and three others were arrested on charges of treason in Moscow in late 2016. Dokuchayev is also among several FSB officers wanted by the Justice Department in connection with the 2014 Yahoo breach, the report added.

Surprisingly, the unclassified assessment released by the US intelligence community in January did not specifically mention any role by the FSB.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has said that he believes Robert Mueller, the special counsel in the Russia investigation, will treat him fairly and insisted there has been "no collusion" discovered by the inquiry, a media report said.

In an interview to The New York Times on Thursday, Trump said of the investigation: "It makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position. So the sooner it's worked out, the better it is for the country."

Asked whether he would order the Justice Department to reopen the investigation into his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton's emails, Trump appeared to remain focused on the Russia investigation.

On Monday, Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow reasserted in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the parts of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe involving Trump would end soon, though he did not mention specific dates, The Hill magazine reported.

--IANS

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South Korea has seized a Hong Kong-registered ship that allegedly transferred oil to a North Korean vessel in violation of UN sanctions, the Foreign Ministry announced here on Friday.

A ministry official told CNN that the Lighthouse Winmore deported from the port of Yeosu in South Korea carrying refined oil which was then transferred to a North Korean ship in international waters.

"UN Security Council sanctions prohibit the transfer of anything to a North Korean ship," the official said, adding the Lighthouse Winmore was seized when it re-entered Yeosu on November 24.

He did not say when the transfer occurred, CNN reported.

"This is one of the main ways in which North Korea uses an illegal network to circumvent UN Security Council sanctions," the official said.

According to Hong Kong media, the Lighthouse Winmore was one of the 10 ships the US asked the UN to ban from international ports this month over its alleged dealings with North Korea.

The seizure comes after US President Donald Trump tweeted on Thursday he was "very disappointed" in China for allegedly selling oil to North Korea, saying Beijing had been "caught red handed" after news reports accused Chinese ships of performing ship-to-ship transfers of oil and coal on the high seas.

China has denied its vessels have traded with North Korean ships, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying saying this week Beijing has been "comprehensively, accurately, faithfully and strictly implementing" UN resolutions on North Korea.

--IANS

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At least six people were killed on Friday in a shootout outside a church here, according to Egyptian authorities.

"The security forces thwarted an attack near the Mar Mina Church in Helwan district," the Interior Ministry said.

One attacker was killed and another escaped the scene on a motorbike, Xinhua news agency reported.

The victims included two policemen, the ministry said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

The attack comes ahead of New Year celebrations and the Coptic Christmas on January 7.

Egypt is a Muslim-majority country and its Christian minority makes up around 10 per cent of the population.

Most of them belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church.

In April, 45 people were killed in twin suicide bombings that took place at the St. George's Church in Tanta and the Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Alexandria.

The attack was claimed by the Islamic State terror group.

--IANS

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Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Friday drew a positive picture of 2017 in his last official appearance of the year.

Speaking after the last meeting of his cabinet before the New Year, Rajoy highlighted that unemployment has fallen below four million for the first time since the start of the economic crisis and said that 20 million Spaniards could be working by 2018, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Investment, consumption, exports and construction are allowing us to grow sufficiently," said Rajoy in a speech, which above all focused on the crisis in the region of Catalonia.

The issue of Catalan independence has dominated the Spanish political scene in the second half of the year and after the Catalan unilateral declaration of independence on October 27, the Central government in Madrid temporarily suspended the region's autonomy.

Just eight days ago, the December 21 elections in Catalonia again gave pro-independence parties the majority of seats in the Catalan regional Assembly.

Rajoy said the attempts to declare independence in the region was "the greatest attack on our (Spanish) Constitution", adding that whoever formed the new Catalan regional they will have to "signal their political priorities within the law".

Rajoy also announced that he had called a constituent session for the regional Parliament of Catalonia on January 17, 2018, in which a new government will probably be formed.

He also stressed the risk that continued uncertainty over Catalonia could cause to the Spanish and Catalan economies in 2018, saying that uncertainty was the "only shadow generating instability for our economy".

--IANS

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Three persons were killed in the early hours of Friday when a speeding car rammed into a truck from the rear on the Lucknow-Delhi highway in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly, police said.

The victims were from Gopalganj, Bihar and were headed to New Delhi, a police officer said.

He said the truck (UP 21 N 9856), which was carrying buffaloes, suddenly applied brakes near a roadside eatery. The driver in the car (DL 9C 5280) coming from behind could not apply the brakes on time and smashed into the truck. The truck driver fled.

The deceased have been identified as Dilip Singh (48), his wife Vidya Devi (45) and his mother Munni Devi (65). The bodies have been sent for post-mortem, the officer said.

--IANS

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US President Donald Trump has mocked the Vanity Fair magazine for apologising to Hillary Clinton over a video that poked fun at the former Secretary of State, the reported.

"Vanity Fair, which looks like it is on its last legs, is bending over backwards in apologising for the minor hit they took at Crooked H (Hillary Clinton)," Trump tweeted on Thursday.

The video featuring Vanity Fair staffers offering cheeky New Year's resolutions for Clinton was first published on December 23, reports CNN.

"Take up a new hobby in the new year," technology writer Maya Kosoff said in the video.

"Volunteer work, knitting, improv comedy -- literally anything that will keep you from running again."

However, three days later one line in the video became the focus of intense criticism leading to widespread outrage among Clinton supporters who decried the reference to "knitting" as sexist.

A hashtag, #CancelVanityFair, spread on Twitter.

Adam Parkhomenko, a former Clinton adviser, tweeted a photo of the magazine engulfed in flames.

Hollywood actress Patricia Arquette reacted with similar anger, CNN reported.

"Hey stop telling women what the f**k they should do or can do," Arquette tweeted. "Get over your mommy issues."

On Wednesday night, a Vanity Fair spokesperson had put out a statement saying the video was "an attempt at humour and we regret that it missed the mark".

--IANS

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Grammy Award-winning Indian percussionist T. H. Vinayakram set the Bengal Classical Music Festival on fire with his virtuoso performance on Day 3 of the event at the Abahani grounds in Dhanmondi on Thursday.

Playing the Ghatam (an earthen pot), the 75-year old who won the Grammy Award in 1991, jammed alongwith his son V Selvaganesh and grandson S. Swaminathan in a unique case of three generations performing together.

Selvaganesh accompanied him with Kanjeera and percussion, besides Swaminathan on the Kanjeera and Konnakol and Ganesan on the Morsing.

They bedazzled the near-packed crowd with Shiv Tandav, a seven-and-a-half beat Composition; Guru Bandana and Ganapathi Thalam to later engage with them in a rhythymic clap-session following the beats.

Towards the end of their hour-long treat of a show, the trio, who like calling themselves 3G alongwith Ganesan who is not part of the family but a dear friend, mimed myriad sounds of a moving train in different situations and also how it varied from air-conditioned and non-air conditioned compartments.

Such was their craft and connect with the audience, each and everyone gave them a standing reception at the end with shouts of "once more" reverberating in the background, giving it a feel of a rock concert.

"We always like to engage with the audience as the instruments we play keep them moving in their seats and tapping their feat. So the moment we allow them to be a part of what we are doing, they feel happiest," Selvaganesh told IANS later.

"We have toured across the globe but the audience here is amazing. They are knowlegeable and encouraging," he added.

Organised by the Bengal Foundation, the third evening started with a sitar rendition by the students of Bengal Parampara Sangeetalay.

Proshanjit Mondol, T.M. Selim Reza, Ringko Chondra Das, Mehreen Alam, Jyoti Banerjee, Mohamad Kausar and Jahangir Alam Shraban performed a composition of Raga Kirwani by Pandit Kushal Kumar Das, a noted sitarist from India.

Then came Vinayakram and co. to take the audience to another level. Khayal by Government Music College students followed next. They performed Raga Malkauns.

Abir Hossain then performed Raga Abhogi on the Sarod. Pandit Yogesh Samsi accompanied him on the Tabla.

The next item was a flute rendition by Gazi Abdul Hakim. He performed Raga Desh, Pilu Thumri and a few other dhuns.

Late into the night, Pandit Uday Bhawalkar's Dhrupad kept the crowd going while Vidushi Kala Ramnath's violin tickled the romantic senses of the younger crop who were enjoying good food and beverages alongwith the music.

The night came to an end with Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty who performed Khayal in Raga Gunkali. Ll

(Debayan Mukherjee's visit to Dhaka is at the invitation of the Bengal Classical Music Festival's organisers. He can be contacted at debayan.m@ians.in)

--IANS

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The times may be bad, but can years, by themselves, be bad too? If so, then my own annus horribilis is thankfully nearing an end. Rarely have I rejoiced in the passing of a year as much as I have 2017, one of the most personally ruinous to have stamped its presence. Next year will be fine, says my mother, who is a great believer in almanacs and astrological charts, just let this one pass. But for someone of adamantly agnostic beliefs, there is little relief to be gained from this mumbo-jumbo, though one can only hope that a new year brings some cheer. For what will change with the passing off one calendar year to the next? Will ones spell of luck magically alter?
Every few months, it seems, a senseless terrorist attack in the UK or France hits the front pages. The headlines are followed by attempts to understand how the perpetrators, often young Muslim men, become radicalised in the West. Islam is often indicted as the culprit, but the absence of a similar frequency of terrorist incidents in countries such as India or Indonesia with much larger Muslim populations makes such theorising seem superficial.
One moment loud carols in Bengali seemed to echo up and down Kolkatas Park Street, the next minute the familiar silhouette of a small woman in a white and blue saree striding purposefully onstage appeared on the big screen at the open-air celebration that would go on for a couple of days. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees appearance at Allen Park seemed that evening part of a docudrama of Kolkatas secularism. Against the backdrop of Madhya Pradesh where carol-singing clergy were detained by the police on suspicion of forced conversions and in Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh) where schools were warned by Hindu fundamentalists not to commemorate before the state government intervened to assure the safety of such celebrations, Ms Banerjees flag march for religious tolerance resonated loud and clear.
The tale of the Brothers Ambani has just had another twist. Reliance Communications, the company that younger brother Anil wrested from older sibling Mukesh during an acrimonious parting of ways in 2005-06, has just sold most of its assets to Mukeshs Reliance Industries for Rs 240 billion (Rs 24,000 crore). In a way, this marks apogee and perigee for the two careers. Mukesh, 60, can look back on a year during which he has shaken up the telecom industry with the launch of his Jio service, whereas Anil (two years younger) has been selling one business after another to raise cash. Before RComs assets, it was the Mumbai electricity distribution business to Adani for Rs 190 billion (Rs19,000 crore). Smaller sales earlier had been of the direct-to-home (DTH) business, the radio and TV businesses, and Big Cinemas. And still there is big debt left to be paid off, so the next sale could be of RComs real estate assets.
in general, and bitcoin in particular, have captured the imagination of an increasingly curious global population, especially over the last year or so. But more importantly, the reason why bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been giving economists, users and policymakers sleepless nights is the difficulty it poses in classifying and characterising it. And to understand why it is so, one needs to step back and take a look at what we consider as the defining characteristics of a currency in the modern world.
Baloch leader Hyrbyair Marri has stated that was "never arrested from Balochistan", in fact, he was, "abducted from Iran by Pakistani state-sponsored religious proxies and handed over to Pakistani forces."

"The Indian citizen Jadhav was never arrested from Balochistan. He was, in fact, abducted from Iran by Pakistani state-sponsored religious proxies and handed over to Pakistani forces. There have been numerous such incidents in the past where religious extremists abducted Baloch refugees in Afghanistan or on their way to Afghanistan and sold them to ISI and army," said Marri.

"In the late 70s and the 80s element of Pakistan-backed Taliban killed innocent Marri Baloch refugees, severed their heads from the body and took pictures to get head money from ISI and the Pakistani army," he added.

Responding to the treatment meted out to the mother and the wife of Jadhav, "in the name of security procedures," during the meeting on December 25, the Baloch leader stated that, it " should open India and the rest of the world's eye about Pakistani state's inhuman treatment and humiliation of Baloch women."

"If Pakistan can disrespect an elderly woman who travelled from India to visit her son then it should not need rocket science to imagine what the Baloch prisoners, including women and children, go through at Pakistan army's secret and illegal detention centres," Marri said.

Underscoring the existence of the secret torture cells in Pakistan, Marri said, "Even a Pakistani Senator Farhatullah Babar recently said that "there were secret torture cells operating throughout the country [Pakistan]." The Pakistani media quoted him as saying, "no one, including the parliament and Supreme Court, knows about how many such torture cells are present, the number of people that are present there and the number of people that have died during interrogation. He further said that no one knew what happened to the people who died."

Warning against Pakistan's deception, the Baloch leader added that Pakistan is not a country to be trusted because "we Baloch have experienced and learned that Pakistan is the poisonous snake that bites the very hand which feeds it.
Ten people were killed and eight others injured in a terrorist attack on a church in Egypt's capital today, the government said.

A health ministry spokesman said the attack took place when gunmen on a motorbike opened fire outside Mar Mina church in Helwan area.

At least 10 people, including eight Coptic Christians, were killed in the shootout outside the south Cairo church, he said, adding, one gunman was shot dead as was a security officer.

State-run MENA agency reported that the other gunman fled the scene.

The ministry said two of the injured are women, adding it employed 10 ambulances to transfer the injured to hospitals.

The attack comes days before the Coptic celebration of the new year and orthodox Christmas Day on January 7.

Egypt's Coptic Christian minority has been targeted by Islamic terrorists in several attacks since last year that have killed over 100 people and wounded many others.

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After a tumultuous 2016, Kashmir witnessed a relatively calm year but there were many issues, including the legal challenge in the Supreme Court to Article 35-A of the Constitution pertaining to special residency laws of Jammu and Kashmir, that hogged national headlines.

However, one of the biggest stories emanating from Kashmir in 2017 was the cancellation of by-poll to the Anantnag Lok Sabha seat -- vacated by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti in April last year -- in view of widespread violence during polling for Srinagar Lok Sabha seat by-election which left nine persons dead and scores others injured.

As the street protests of 2016 had not fully died down even in the spring of 2017, the PDP-BJP coalition government was not keen on holding the by-elections so soon. However, Election Commission went ahead with the process of polls.

The results were disastrous on almost all fronts.

Such were the apprehensions of trouble around elections that authorities snapped Internet facilities a day before the polling on 9 April for the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat.

By the time polling ended, eight persons were dead -- with another succumbing few days later. Only seven per cent voters turned up to exercise their franchise.

National Conference patriarch Farooq Abdullah, who lost in 2014,



made a comeback to the Lok Sabha, defeating PDP candidate Nazir Ahmad Khan by over 10,000 votes -- a huge margin considering that only 88,951 votes were cast.

A day after the polling for Srinagar, Tassaduq Hussain Mufti, brother of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, asked the Election Commission to postpone the elections for Anantnag Lok Sabha seat till the situation in the valley improved.

Initially, the Election Commission pushed back the date for polling by a month but later cancelled the election altogether.

It was for the first time since 1991 that an election could not be conducted in Kashmir due to violence and apprehension of it spreading to entire valley.

While the 1991 Lok Sabha polls were not held in entire Jammu and Kashmir due to eruption of militancy, the Anantnag bypoll had to be cancelled due to threat to law and order by stone-pelting people.

The National Investigating Agency (NIA) stepped in to investigate the phenomenon of stone-pelting, especially as the youth were hampering the anti-militancy operations, after senior separatist leader Nayeem Khan admitted on camera that they were receiving funds to keep the Kashmir pot boiling.

Khan, several other separatist leaders and few businessmen were arrested by the NIA which found them allegedly involved in hawala trade, the proceeds of which were used for funding stone-pelting.

Several businessmen, especially those involved in cross-Line of Control trade between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir were investigated by the NIA.

It was an aborted political take off for Tassaduq, the cinematographer turned politician, who was fielded by the PDP from the Anantnag seat. However, his involvement with government and continued as in May he was appointed the coordinator in the Chief Minister's Grievance Cell, a post he gave up in early December.

Tassaduq was nominated as an MLC by his party, which was approved by the state Governor. Yesterday, he was inducted into the Mehbooba cabinet.

With the election dust settling down, few videos emerged on social networking sites depicting the security forces in poor light, which led to intense debate at national level on the tactics used by law enforcing agencies to deal with street protestors in Kashmir.

One of the videos showed a youth -- who was going for a condolence gathering after casting his vote on 9 April -- tied to the bonnet of a jeep by an army officer and paraded through over 20 villages as a human shield.

The incident prompted a former army general to say "Image of a 'stone pelter' tied in front of a jeep as a 'human shield', will for ever haunt the Indian Army & the nation!".

The other major issue that remained in the limelight was the legal challenge to Article 35-A of the Constitution, which allows Jammu and Kashmir to retain a 1920s law passed by the then Maharaja of the state.

The residency law bars people from outside Jammu and Kashmir acquiring any immovable property in the state.

As the Supreme Court is set to deliver a verdict on the validity of the law, the separatists threatened to launch a mass agitation in case the act was struck down by the apex court.

The separatists allege that repealing the law would lead to the Centre changing the demography of the Muslim-majority state by creating settlements on the pattern done by Israel in Palestine.

One of the biggest moves by the Centre with regard to Jammu and Kashmir was appointment of former IB chief Dineshwar Sharma in October as its special representative for initiating a sustained dialogue with all stakeholders in the state.

While Sharma visited the state twice since his appointment, he has not been able to make any headway as far as bringing the separatists to the dialogue table is concerned.

On the social crime front, incidents of braid chopping created a fear psychosis in the valley as dozens of cases were reported from across the length and breadth of Kashmir.

Although similar incidents were reported from elsewhere in the country as early as first week of August, the first such incident was reported in Kashmir towards later September.

While police could not nab anyone involved in braid chopping incidents, it arrested several youth on the charges of inciting mobs on the pretext of protests against braid chopping.

However, these incidents came to an abrupt halt towards the end of October and seems to have quickly disappeared from public memory.

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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today said that four Indians, who were in the custody of Nigerian authorities, have been released following the intervention of the Indian high commissioner there.

Two of the four Indians had earlier taken to Twitter seeking Swaraj's intervention for their release. One of them, Viyas Yadav, had said that they were caught by the Nigerian authorities and were kept in Lagos for the past three months.

"I am happy to inform that we have secured the return of Capt Atul Sharma, Sudhir Kumar, Balvinder Singh and Viyas Yadav to India. I appreciate the efforts of B N Reddy, Indian High Commissioner in Nigeria. We thank Nigerian authorities for their help," Swaraj tweeted.

According to reports, the four Indians were on board a merchant vessel and were caught by the authorities there as they were looking for the ship for an earlier crime.

Sharma and Kumar are from Himachal Pradesh.

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A terrorist attack targeted a church in Egypt today killing six people and injuring eight others, the government said.

Some local media outlets reported that a group of terrorists opened fire on the church in Helwan killing at least nine people and injuring five others.

However, the ministry of health said six people were killed and eight others were injured in the attack.

According to the ministry, two of the injured are women.

The ministry that it employed 10 ambulances to transfer the injured to hospitals.

The attack comes days before the Coptic celebration of the new year and orthodox Christmas Day on January 7.

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A six-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a neighbour in Jarcha village here, police said today.

Police received a call last night that the six-year-old girl was missing, said SHO Shailendra Pratap Singh.

During search it was found that some villagers had seen a man, her neighbour, taking the minor to his house.

The accused was caught by the villagers sexually assaulting the girl after they heard her cries, police said.

He was handed over to the police, they said.

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Relieved after claiming his first rapid world title since 2003, Indian chess ace Viswanathan Anand said he entered the tournament in a "pessimistic" frame of mind but managed to surprise himself and the world with an unbeaten campaign.

The 48-year-old, who had been drawing flak from critics for a string of sub-par performances in the recent past, hit back in style, by winning the World Rapid title in Riyadh yesterday.

"The last two rapid events were nothing short of disastrous. I came here in a pessimistic frame of mind. But it has just been the most wonderful surprise. But I played well," Anand told PTI after his triumph.

The former world champion remained unbeaten through the tournament and came back strongly to bag the top position on a tie-break after a three-way tie with Russians Vladimir Fedoseev and Ian Nepomniachtchi at 10.5 points from a possible 15.

The Chennai ace then defeated Fedoseev 2-0 in a two-game tie-break to win the trophy.

Anand said he had had a particularly tough year coming into the event in Riyadh.

"...especially the London (Chess Classic) tournament was a big disappointment. It is not that I had high expectations of London, but still I expected to do well. But to finish in last place was a heavy blow.

Anand said he felt good on the first day of the tournament as he played well and it reminded him of his glory days.

"It was on the first day I felt I was playing well. It was as if time had stood still. I was back in time a few years when I was dominating rapid chess tournaments. That gave me a lot of confidence. On top of that, I beat Peter Leko in a very nice game. I was in a good frame of mind," he added.

He described the win against Norway's world champion Magnus Carlsen as the crucial moment in the tournament.

"The crucial moment was the win against Magnus Carlsen. Because he had come back after a defeat against Bu Xiangzhi. He seemed to be in great form, as always.

"He has this amazing ability to win games on demand where he is just able to pull together these long streak (of wins). So at that moment I must admit I felt he was favourite for the final few rounds," Anand said.

"But, we had a very intense game, an intense Nimzo Indian. It is nice beating a player, who is so dominant in the blitz and rapid rating lists. To beat him was a real accomplishment. Of course, given our history, given the intense matches, there was that extra bit of feeling," the Indian Grand Master added.

Anand also said that towards the end he got worried that he might not even secure a podium finish but a series of unexpected twists and turns on the final day helped him land the top prize.

"...the first three rounds ended in draws. I felt that I had lost the plot a little bit and in fact I was worried that I might not even be on the podium anymore.

"I mean there were so many unexpected twists and turns. Magnus lost. Nepo (Ian Nepomniachtchi) had won his. A lot happened. But once the tie-break started and I got a big advantage in the tie-break game then I started to feel the wind was behind me," he said.

"It is so unexpected because I wasn't even planning to come to this tournament, which was announced late. The most amazing feeling of all is to have the title of world champion again. I am so happy that I can't describe it in words," he added.

His wife Aruna was delighted after the victory and said, "I was just very happy... almost wanted to be there when he did the fist pump."



Meanwhile, his erstwhile rival, Russian great Garry Kasparov, hailed his triumph on Twitter.

"Congratulations to the man from the sixties, @vishy64theking, on his World Rapid title! I hope you dedicated this latest victory to everyone who has asked you when you were going to retire," he tweeted.

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Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa today flew the last sortie of the 'Hawkeyes', bringing a glorious end to the reign of the T-96 aircraft, according to an official statement.

He is on a three-day visit to Air Force Station Nal in Rajasthan, one of the premier air bases operating the MiG-21 aircraft, from December 28.

"Chief of the Air Staff...flew the last sortie of the 'Hawkeyes' thus bringing a glorious end to the reign of the T-96 aircraft, with the Squadron," the Defence Ministry said in a statement.

During the course of his visit, he addressed and interacted with the personnel of the station.

"During his address he emphasised on the importance of aerospace safety, its various aspects and stressed on the physical security of the base. The Chief congratulated and conveyed his best wishes to all personnel and their families for the New Year," it said.

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Taking anti-epileptic drug in early pregnancy may increase the risk of oral clefts in babies, a US study warns.

The research, published in the journal Neurology, leverages nationwide Medicaid data in the US on more than one million live births between 2000 and 2010.

The team from Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health in the US examined the risk of oral clefts - including cleft palate or cleft lip - among three groups.

The first group included infants born to women who had taken topiramate in their first trimester and the second group included infants born to women who had taken the drug lamotrigine (an unrelated drug used to treat bipolar disorder and epilepsy).

The third group included infants who had not been exposed to anti-epileptic medications in utero.

The researchers found that the risk of oral clefts was approximately three times higher for the topiramate group than for either the lamotrigine or the unexposed group.

About one out of every 1,000 infants are born with an oral cleft, but among infants exposed to low doses of topiramate (median 100-milligrammes daily dose) in the first trimester, that risk was 2.1 out of every 1,000 live births.

Among women taking higher dose topiramate (median 200- milligrammes daily dose), the risk was much higher - 12.3 for every 1,000 live births.

"Our results suggest that women with epilepsy on topiramate have the highest relative risk of giving birth to a baby with cleft lip or cleft palate, likely due to the higher doses of topiramate when used for controlling seizures," said Sonia Hernandez-Diaz, from the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health.

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The Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, the apex body of Hindu sadhus, today released a second list of "fake babas".

The list consists of three names- Virendra Dixit Kalnemi (Delhi), Sachidanand Saraswati (Basti, UP) and Trikal Bhawant (Allahabad).

Releasing the list, the parishad's president Swami Narendra Giri said, "We appeal to even the common people to beware of such charlatans who belong to no tradition and by their questionable acts, bring disrepute to sadhus and sanyasis."



The parishad is a council of akharas, which are monastic orders drawing their spiritual lineage from 8th-century seer Adi Shankara, who is said to have established orders of martial monks with the aim of defending the Hindu Dharma.

On September 10, it released the first list of 14 such self-styled godmen which included names such as Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, Radhey Ma, Nirmal Baba, Rampal, Asaram Bapu and his son Narayan Sai.

The parishad took the move in the wake of controversies surrounding self-styled godmen.

"We have passed a resolution that the Uttar Pradesh government should set up a monitoring committee which would keep a close eye on the work being done for Kumbh Mela, 2019 and this committee should consist of a member from each akharas," Giri said.

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Arcadia Shares & Stock Brokers today settled with Sebi a case related to alleged violation of stock broking norms by paying Rs 5.65 lakh.

Sebi initiated adjudication proceedings against Arcadia Shares for violating norms for stock brokers and sub-brokers by failing to exercise due skill, care and diligence in its broking business in execution of self-trades by its client in scrip of Kwality from December 10, 2009 to January 8, 2010.

While the adjudication proceedings were in progress, the stock broker had submitted an application proposing to settle the same, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in an order.

The settlement terms as proposed by Arcadia Shares were placed before Sebi's High Powered Advisory Committee (HPAC) for recommendations.

The recommendations of HPAC were also approved by a panel of the whole time members of Sebi.

The regulator noted that since there was a delay in filing of the settlement application, the amount payable by Arcadia Shares was increased by a levy of the simple interest at 6 per cent per annum till the date of filing of application.

Earlier this month, the stock broker paid the settlement charge amounting to Rs 5.65 lakh following which Sebi settled the proceedings.

However, as per the regulator if any representation made by Arcadia Shares in the settlement proceedings is subsequently found to be untrue, enforcement actions can be initiated against the stock broker.

In a separate order, Nature Hue Chem settled with Sebi a case related to alleged disclosure lapses after paying Rs 2.25 lakh towards settlement.

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An assistant sub-inspector working with the Delhi Police has been arrested for allegedly raping a married woman when she had approached him to solve a marital dispute.

ASI Dileep Singh (50), who was on the run, was arrested yesterday, police said.

According to the 30-year-old victim, she had visited Mianwali Nagar police station for seeking help to solve a matrimonial dispute.

She met Singh, who demanded sexual favours for helping her out, police said.

Singh called her to a flat on Tuesday on the pretext of solving her issue where he raped her, they added.

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Quota agitation leader Hardik Patel's estranged aide Dinesh Bambhania today alleged that the Patidar leader had demanded tickets from the Congress ahead of the Assembly elections in Gujarat, keeping fellow agitators in the dark.

The strife within the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) which led the Patel quota agitation has intensified after the Gujarat elections.

Bambhania also questioned Hardik's "lavish lifestyle" and alleged that some leaders associated with the PAAS had purchased properties in several cities.

Speaking at a press conference here, Bambhania, one of the core committee members of the PAAS, said Hardik should come clean on these issues during tomorrow's meeting of the organisation in Botad.

"Ahead of the election, Congress leaders told us that Hardik has sought 30 tickets from the party. Congress leaders even showed us a list of 30 candidates Hardik wanted to field. Hardik should explain why the PAAS's core committee was kept in the dark about these secret dealings," he said.

"Though we confronted Hardik about this then, he didn't give any answer," he said.

"During the brain-storming session tomorrow, Hardik should inform people who is bearing the cost of his lavish lifestyle while families of youths who died during the quota agitation are yet to receive the funds collected by the PAAS. Many agitators bought properties in Ahmedabad, Surat and Viramgam. How did they do it?" asked Bambhania.

Hardik Patel hails from Viramgam town.

The dissident PAAS leader reiterated that he was not going to join the ruling BJP.

In his apparent response to Bambhania ahead of tomorrow's 'Chintan Shibir', Hardik Patel said in a statement that allegations of misuse of funds were baseless.

"Earlier too some people tried to tarnish my image by alleging that I had purchased land and other properties worth Rs 85 crore. Today, similar allegations have been levelled. But I will not give up, because such allegations are false," he said in the statement.

"You have to kill me if you want to silence me," the PAAS leader said.

Before the Assembly elections, Bambhania had alleged that Hardik Patel held secret meetings with Congress president Rahul Gandhi, and extended support to the party due to some "fixing" even when the Congress didn't make its stand on the demand of OBC quota for Patels clear.

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The government must take steps on a "war footing" to improve air quality in Delhi and all unscientific development projects and construction works should be stopped immediately as part of initial measures, a Congress MP said today.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha, Mullappally Ramachandran said Delhi has become one of the most polluted cities globally and the Centre must act with a sense of urgency to deal with the problem.

"It is terrifying to see people wearing masks to protect themselves from pollution, closure of all schools... For any nation, health of its citizens must be precious. The government must act on a war-footing to deal with the situation," he said.

The MP from Kerala demanded stopping of "all unscientific development projects and construction works immediately" as part of measures to improve the air quality.

He also said the government should also examine how to deal with stubble burning in neighbouring states which is identified as one of the reasons behind increasing levels of pollution in Delhi.

Last month, the city government had ordered all schools to be closed for four days after the capital was engulfed by a thick cover of smog.

The dangerous level of pollution had triggered massive health concerns following which local authorities had announced a series of short term measures like spraying of water from fire trucks to keep pollutants down.

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Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat was today briefed on the security preparedness in the insurgency-hit Manipur.

The Army chief had arrived in Imphal yesterday in course of his three-day visit to the North-East states - Nagaland, Manipur and Assam.

Top Army officers of 57 Mountain Division and paramilitary force Assam Rifles briefed Rawat about the operational preparedness of the security personnel in the insurgency-hit state and highlighted the efforts of the soldiers for ensuring peace, an Assam Rifles release said.

Gen Rawat, urged the Army officers to continue the good work in a professional manner and in the true spirit of the force, the release said.

Gen Rawat was accompanied by Lt Gen Abhay Krishna, General Officer Commanding-in-chief Eastern Army Command and Lt Gen Anil Chauhan, General Officer Commanding Spears Corps, the release added.

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China today rejected accusations that it had helped Pyongyang skirt sanctions, after US President Donald Trump claimed Beijing had permitted a transfer of oil to a North Korean ship.

Responding to Trump's claim, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said "the recent series of reports on this situation do not conform with the facts", adding that Beijing did not allow its "citizens or companies to engage in any activities that violate" UN resolutions.

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China today said it has sought details from India of a Chinese national reportedly arrested along the Myanmar border in Manipur.

"According to the information we received, the Chinese embassy in India has requested the Indian side to notify the relevant information," the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement to the media here.

"We will continue following the development of the incident closely," the ministry said.

Media reports said a person, identified as Qin Min Xiv Xiang (55), hailing from China's Fuzian province was arrested by the Assam Rifles in Manipur's Tengnoupal district a few days ago. He was in possession of Chinese, Vietnamese and Myanmarese documents besides, foreign currencies, a pen drive and a compass.

Apparently after the incident, the Chinese embassy in New Delhi issued an advisory warning its tourists to abide by local laws, including avoiding straying into restricted areas, adding that illegal behaviour will not be tolerated.

The notice posted on the website of the embassy on Wednesday did not give details of any violations, but warned its citizens to abide by laws covering six areas.

These included not carrying prohibited items such as ivory and rhino horns, not overstaying visas, not working in India illegally and not breaching the law by entering areas barred to foreigners.

"There have been consecutive cases of Chinese citizens being detained, fined or investigated, charged or even sentenced due to alleged law breaking in India," the statement said.

Anyone violating the laws could be fined or jailed, it added.

"The embassy can protect the safety of Chinese citizens and the rightful claims of Chinese enterprises and personnel in India...but (we) cannot tolerate any illegal behaviour," it said.

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Punctuality is very important but the government has taken a conscious decision to prioritise safety over other aspects, Railway minister Piyush Goyal told the Rajya Sabha today.

As some members raised questions about trains getting late, Goyal explained the decision saying lot of the railway infrastructure required upgradation as some of these have over the past several decades outlived their life.

He said the old lines were being refurbished and record track renewal was underway.

"Out of an average, 1678 Mail or Express trains which terminated between August 1 and December 15, on an average, 1,140 trains reached their destination on or before the scheduled time. Out of the remainder, on an average 432 trains were delayed, 51 cancelled and 55 diverted or short terminated," Goyal said in a reply was tabled in the House.

He said some of the routes are saturated like Ghaziabad- Tundla-Allahabad-Varanasi, Ghaziabad-Moradabad-Lucknow- Varanasi and Ghaziabad to Khandwa.

He said the punctuality of most trains connecting Ballia to Delhi and Mumbai was satisfactory during summer in the current year.

The minister said measures like doubling were being undertaken and attempts were being made to decongest routes.

Neeraj Shekhar (SP) had earlier raised questions about train delays and also asked why the bullet train was being run from Ahmedabad to Mumbai and not in other parts.

Goyal also said that in the last three years, the amount spent on infrastructure upgradation in Bihar had nearly doubled to Rs 2,227 crore annually. A massive amount was being invested to upgrade the infrastructure, he added.

To a question about Barwadih (Jharkhand)-Chirimiri (Chhattisgarh) line, he said a joint venture company has been formed and the sanction of the project would be given on the basis of a feasibility study.

Asked if such rail corridors would affect wildlife, Goyal said there were measures like speed reduction and raising of boundary walls.

He, however, said that in Assam, a new situation was being witnessed where elephants were frequenting new routes.

In response to another question, Goyal said the work of Kosi bridge including new line from Nirmali to Sarayagarh and gauge conversion work between Sakri and Nirmali is targeted to be completed during 2018-19.

He said the foundation stone of Kosi bridge was inaugurated by a former prime minister. The minister said there were some fund shortages for the Nirmali-Sarayagarh line but since 2014-15 sufficients funds were being allotted.

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Opposition Congress and Nationalist Congress Party on Friday slammed the Mumbai civic administration and the state government for the that killed 14 people and injured several others.

They demanded a high-level probe into the tragedy and said strict action should be taken against erring officials.

Senior Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the alleged corrupt practices and functioning of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

"The Opposition rejects the government's stand to hold an inquiry into the incident by the BMC commissioner. The BMC is responsible for the fire and it is inappropriate to announce a probe headed by the BMC commissioner," Vikhe Patil said.

He alleged the BJP-led dispensation in the state was ignoring corruption in the Sena-run BMC to ensure stability of the state government. The state is run by a BJP-Sena alliance government.

Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam, demanding a probe, said the fire was a result of "clear violation of fire and safety norms".

"In a small area like the Kamala Mills compound, 96 restaurants have come up with zero fire protection. No fire audits have taken place either," he alleged, holding the BMC, the fire brigade and the Maharashtra government answerable.

"All the BMC officials working in that particular ward have to be suspended because fire norms have been violated and that has caused these deaths," Nirupam said.

Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ashok Chavan said that over the last few days, there have been incidents of fire in different parts of the city and innocent people have lost their lives.

He alleged that the civic administration and the state government were just paying lip services and not taking any tough action to curb these irregularities.

Mumbai NCP president Sachin Ahir said the corrupt functioning of the BMC was responsible for the death of innocent people.

He demanded action against guilty officials and maximum compensation to the kin of those dead and injured.
The Dalai Lama today arrived in Varanasi to participate in the golden jubilee celebration of Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (CIHTS) in Sarnath.

The Tibetan spiritual leader will also address a two-day international conference on 'concept of mind in science and philosophy'.

CIHTS vice chancellor Geshe Ngawang Samten said the Dalai Lama would participate in the two-day conference beginning tomorrow on the campus. Nearly 150 Indian delegates and around 70 foreign delegates will take part the conference.

The vice chancellor said that CIHTS was founded in 1967.

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The Kunduli rape case took a dramatic turn today with the victim alleging that senior police officers, including DGP R P Sharma, tried to influence her to withdraw the case, a charge denied by the top officer.

The 14-year-old girl, during an interaction with local TV reporters, claimed that the DGP had met her last month at the SCB Medical College and Hospital here, and offered her Rs 90,000 to sign a blank paper.

The teenager had last month attempted suicide by consuming nine iron tablets and was admitted to the hospital in a critical condition. She said torture and mental harassment by police officers forced her to take the extreme step.

The DGP, however, denied the allegations levelled against him and said he has never met or interacted with the victim.

The allegations are false, fabricated, malicious and motivated, a statement issued by the DGP's office said here today.

The victim, a Class IX student, was allegedly gang raped by at least four men in combat uniform near Kunduli village in Koraput district on October 10.

A police case been registered in the incident and a Special Investigating Team (SIT) of the state crime branch police is probing the matter. None of the accused have been identified or arrested yet.

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Sidelined AIADMK leader T T V Dhinakaran was today sworn-in as a member of the Tamil Nadu assembly days after he won the byelection to the RK Nagar constituency represented by late chief minister Jayalalithaa.

The newly elected MLA was sworn-in as a member of the 15th Assembly by Speaker P Dhanapal in his office here after the former arrived there to a rousing reception by his supporters who lined-up all along the route from his residence.

The supporters threw flower petals at the vehicle of Dhinakaran even as they raised slogans hailing "TTV annan" (elder brother) and his recent win.

Some of them also presented him shawls and bouquets as he halted his vehicle at several places along the arterial Kamarajar road off the famous Marina Beach leading to Fort St.George, housing the assembly and the state secretariat.

Standing in the vehicle through the sun-roof for sometime, the newly elected MLA waved to his supporters and also showed the victory sign of thumbs up.

After the swearing-in, Dhanapal shook hands with Dhinakaran, who has been sidelined by the ruling camp of the AIADMK along with his aunt and jailed leader Sasikala.

The sidelined leader later claimed that the Palaniswami government will not last beyond "three to four months".

The ruling camp brushed aside his claim with Deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam saying he can't be replying to "those who are in dreamland."



A battery of Dhinakaran's supporters, including key aides and disqualified MLAs P Vetrivel and Thangatamilselvan, were present at the swearing in.

Aranthangi MLA E A Rathinasabapathy was also present. He had joined the Dhinakaran camp after 18 AIADMK legislators loyal to the sidelined leader were disqualified in September.

Contesting the December 21 bypoll as an independent, Dhinakaran defeated AIADMK's E Madhusudhanan by a thumping margin of 40,707 votes, dealing a blow to the ruling camp headed by Chief Minister K Palaniswami.

The bypoll was held to fill the vacancy caused by death of then sitting member Jayalalithaa on December 5 last year.

The ruling camp has attributed Dhinakaran's victory to a "tacit understanding" between him and principal opposition DMK, whose candidate N Maruthu Ganesh finished a poor third and lost deposit in the bypoll.

Dhinakaran, who has vowed to oust the Palainiswami government for betraying Sasikala, will make his legislature debut next month when the assembly meets on January 8 for its first session of 2018 with the customary Governor's address.

Dhinakaran is a former MP, having represented AIADMK in both houses of Parliament between 1999 and 2010.

He was made party deputy general secretary by Sasikala ahead of going to the Bengaluru prison after the Supreme Court convicted her in a corruption case in February last.

Speaking to reporters after taking oath as MLA, Dhinakaran urged the top "5-6" persons in the ruling camp to "step away as an atonement of your mistakes" and allow continuation of "Amma (Jayalalithaa) rule."



The RK Nagar verdict has shown "we are the true AIADMK, working under the aegis of Chinnamma and in the lines of Amma and Puratchi Thalaivar MGR (party founder, the late MG Ramachandran)," he said.

Sasikala, serving a four year jail term in Bengaluru in the Rs 66.65 crore disproportionate assets case, is addressed as 'Chinnamma' by her supporters.

Dhinakaran has been accusing the rival camp of "betrayal," in an apparent reference to the revolt against Sasikala by Panneerselvam and Palaniswami patching up with him later.

Palaniswami was handpicked by Sasikala to lead the state after she was convicted in the assets case.

"Be it the Chief Minister or Deputy Chief Minister or four others (senior Ministers)---their conscience knows how Chinnamma or TTV had helped them on different occasions. They (rival camp leaders) have come to a dead end. If they don't change they will vanish from politics," he claimed.

Without naming any Minister, he said people would make them change if they did not do so on their own.

He said the ruling dispensation should ponder over the bypoll verdict and a "self-assessment" would reveal "betrayal has been given a reply," by the voters.

He also claimed many on the ruling side "are with us mentally though not physically... Many have started coming towards us."



Expressing hope of a favourable court verdict on the pleas against disqualification of 18 MLAs, he said that in such a scenario the Palaniswami government could face a trust vote. "During voting our sleeper cells will do their job," he said.

He has been claiming his "sleeper cells" were embedded in the ruling camp and would be 'activated' at appropriate time.

Dhinakaran also chided the ruling camp for expelling his supporters in the wake of the RK Nagar bypoll defeat, saying "people are laughing at these expulsions."



Earlier in the day, Panneerselvam and Palaniswami cracked the whip on 132 pro-Dhinakaran functionaries in AIADMK, expelling them from the party for bringing "disrepute" to it.

They had yesterday sacked 44 persons, besides five others on Monday. Key Dhinakaran aides including Vetrivel and Thangatamilselvan had been removed as party district secretaries.

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Delhi University's Dyal Singh Evening College will continue to be known by its original name as the University Grants Commission (UGC) has not received any proposal for its renaming, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said today.

"UGC has not received any proposal from the university to consider its renaming. Hence, the question doesn't arise to rename it. It will continue to be known as Dyal Singh College," Javadekar told reporters.

The minister had earlier this month informed Parliament that the college's plan to rename the college to "Vande Matram Mahavidyalya" was not approved by the government and that the college had been asked to put the decision on hold.

Javadekar had last week met Delhi University vice- chancellor Yogesh Tyagi and the chairman of Dyal Singh College, and advised them to think of a name for the evening college of the institution, which reflects Dyal Singh Majithia's legacy.

The decision to rename was made by the Governing Body of the institution on November 17, to establish a separate identity for the evening college once it is converted into a morning college.

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Reacting to the massive fire at a rooftop pub in Mumbai which claimed 14 lives, BJP MP Hema Malini on Friday said such accidents occur due to high population and suggested that a population limit should be fixed for each city.

The fire, which also injured 21 people, started after 12.30 am in the '1 Above' pub on the terrace, and spread to Mojo pub on the third floor one level below, said an official of the Mumbai civic body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

1 Above and Mojo are located in the Trade House Building in Kamala Mills compound in Lower Parel area, a popular night spot as well as commercial hub housing several offices including television channels.

The actor-turned-politician said the accident took place due to negligence of authorities and wondered how could they ignore safety standards before giving permission to run such pubs.

To a query by a TV channel about frequent accidents in Mumbai, she said, "It is because of too much population in Mumbai city.

"Some restrictions should be imposed on population. First of all, each city should have certain population, certain limit. After that they (people) should not be allowed. Let them go to another city, next city," Malini said.

Minister of State (MoS) for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Babul Supriyo said he has spent "half of his life" in Parel area and recalled that just two days before his daughter had gone to Kamala Mills with her friends.

He said stringent action would be taken against those found guilty in the incident.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya said he had asked Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and BMC commissioner to order a special fire audit of all such pubs and hooka parlours in Mumbai.

"Several such establishments at the mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately. The place where the blaze took place was illegal," he claimed.

Stating that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officials were "responsible for the murder of people" in the Kamala Mill fire, Somaiya pointed out this was second such incident in 15 days.

"When will BMC wake up?", he asked.

On December 18, at least 12 workers were killed and one injured when a massive fire broke out at a snack shop in Sakinaka-Kurla area in Mumbai.

"Kamala mill, Raghuvanshi mill, Maatulyaa mill, Toddi mills, Phoneix mill complexes have such huge illegal structures. I had requested BMC commissioner to order investigation of all these death traps. Nexus of BMC Mafias/Officials/Restaurant Owners," Somaiya hit out in a tweet.
In a bizarre suggestion, BJP MP Hema Malini today said a limit should be fixed on how many people could live in a city to avoid tragedies like the one that struck a Mumbai pub where 14 people were killed in a fire that erupted during a birthday bash.

"It is because of too much population in Mumbai city," the actor-turned-politician told a TV channel outside Parliament House when her reaction was sought about the tragedy.

"Some restrictions should be imposed on population. First of all, each city should have certain population, certain limit. After that they (people) should not be allowed. Let them go to another city, next city," Malini said.

The fire, which also injured 21 people, started after 12.30 am in the '1 Above' pub on the terrace, and spread to Mojo pub on the third floor one level below, said an official of the Mumbai civic body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

1 Above and Mojo are located in the Trade House Building in Kamala Mills compound in Lower Parel area, a popular night spot as well as commercial hub housing several offices including national television channels.

The Mathura MP said the accident took place due to negligence of authorities and wondered how could they ignore safety standards before giving permission to run such pubs.

Minister of State (MoS) for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Babul Supriyo said he has spent "half of his life" in Parel area and recalled that just two days before his daughter had gone to Kamala Mills with her friends.

He said stringent action would be taken against those found guilty in the incident.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya said he had asked Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and BMC commissioner to order a special fire audit of all such pubs and hooka parlours in Mumbai.

"Several such establishments at the mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately. The place where the blaze took place was illegal," he claimed.

Stating that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officials were "responsible for the murder of people" in the Kamala Mill fire, Somaiya pointed out this was second such incident in 15 days.

"When will BMC wake up?", he asked.

On December 18, at least 12 workers were killed and one injured when a massive fire broke out at a snack shop in Sakinaka-Kurla area in Mumbai.

"Kamala mill, Raghuvanshi mill, Maatulyaa mill, Toddi mills, Phoneix mill complexes have such huge illegal structures. I had requested BMC commissioner to order investigation of all these death traps. Nexus of BMC Mafias/Officials/Restaurant Owners," Somaiya hit out in a tweet.

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Police today booked expelled chief of the century old charitable-cum-educational body, Chief Khalsa Dewan, Charanjit Singh Chadha for various charges, including sexual harassment.

The charges were filed a day after he was removed following an objectionable video of him that went viral.

Police said that on the basis of a complaint filed by a woman, Chadha was booked for various charges under the IPC, including sexual harassment, criminal intimidation and act intended to insult the modesty of a woman.

Besides, he was also booked under the provisions of the IT Act, they said.

The crime branch of the police department would investigate the matter on a day-to-day basis and submit their report at the earliest to the commissioner of police.

An FIR has been registered on the basis of the written complaint filed by the victim, police said.

The woman shown in the video had filed a police complaint accusing Chadha of forcing her for the "immoral act" and threatening her that she would be fired if she failed to heed to his advances.

In her complaint, she has asked for police protection, saying that Chadha was an influential person and could use his influence to harm her.

Chadha, however, had described the video as "concocted" with the motive to tarnish his image, saying the clip was "doctored".

The highest temporal seat of the Sikhs -- the Akal Takhat -- has received many complaints demanding to excommunicate Chadha from Sikh fold following the objectionable video.

Jathedar Akal Takhat Gyani Gurbachan Singh today said in the light of the video, Chadha has been summoned to appear before the five Sikh head priests and meanwhile a ban has been imposed on him for taking part in any religious activity, including Chief Khalsa Dewan.

Chief Khalsa Dewan runs nearly 50 schools, two management colleges, a nursing college and a hospital besides setting up a university.

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Gujarat Chief Secretary J N Singh has said that distress among farmers, coupled with unemployment, led to some sections of the society to vote against the ruling BJP in the recent Assembly elections.

Farmers across Gujarat in general, and Saurashtra in particular, "expressed their anger" against the BJP for various reasons such as less-than-expected prices of farm produce, Singh said.

He was speaking at the inauguration of Ahmedabad office of the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) at the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) yesterday.

"Another thing...which has come out during the elections...two factors came out very very strongly. One was farmers' distress. Farmers all throughout Gujarat, particularly in Saurashtra. They have expressed their distress, their anger, by voting against the ruling party," he said.

"Why has it been so? There is some sort of feeling that things are not remunerative, things are not coming out. And second factor is employment...employment among youth ...employment all around," he said.

Singh expressed hope that the AEPC's new office would give a boost to the garment sector and create more jobs.

"We wish that Gujarat becomes a major garment hub... from all over Gujarat, people who are unemployed, I mean the unemployment among the youth should be taken care of," he said.

The new BJP government led by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani was sworn in earlier this week. Though the BJP retained power, its tally came down to 99 from 115 seats in 2012, while the Congress improved its numbers from 61 in 2012 to 77.

Farmers' distress and unemployment were at the centre of Congress president Rahul Gandhi's extensive campaign.

The BJP lost several seats in Saurashtra, the party's bastion for almost two decades.

The Congress won 30 out of 54 Assembly seats across 12 districts of Saurashtra and Kutch, from 16 seats in 2012.

The BJP's tally in the region fell from 35 in 2012 to 23 this time. The party was completely wiped out in Amreli, Gir Somnath and Morbi districts.

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Clashes pitting mainly jihadist and rebel fighters against regime forces backed by Russian warplanes killed at 66 people on the edge of Syria's northwestern Idlib province, a monitor said today.

Among the victims were at least 19 civilians killed by air strikes, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the casualties were over 24 hours of fighting in an area straddling Idlib and Hama provinces.

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Fireworks manufacturers across the country have resolved to request the Tamil Nadu government to implead itself in a petition filed in the Supreme court, seeking a nation-wide ban on crackers.

A resolution to this effect was adopted at a meeting of All India Federation of Fireworks Associations (AIFFA) here, the national fireworks' hub.

Manufacturers from 20 states attended the meeting held last night.

The fireworks manufacturers have launched an indefinite closure of their units since December 26, demanding amendment to the Protection Act to exempt their produce from its ambit.

The meeting also passed another resolution seeking expeditious hearing of the petition seeking a series of steps to curb air pollution, including a ban on sale, possession and bursting of firecrackers across the country.

President of AIFFA, A Asaithambi said there was uncertainty as the case was pending in the apex court.

The manufacturers alleged that there was a "conspiracy to destroy" the Indian tradition and culture under the pretext of protecting the .

The pollution caused in New Delhi was due to vehicles and not fireworks, they claimed.

The apex court had on October 9 said that no firecrackers would be sold in the Delhi-NCR during Diwali this year while banning its sale till November 1.

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A court in Thane has awarded two years of imprisonment to four Bangladeshi women for staying in the country without valid documents.

Thane Ad-hoc district judge and assistant sessions judge R S Patil (Bhosale) awarded the sentence on Tuesday.

The court also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 each on the four women-- Janna Noorislam Shaikh (35), Shuki Harun Mulla (58), Mim alias Seema Samath Matbar (30) and Maina Jumat Gazi (30).

According to the prosecution, the officials of the Anti Human Trafficking Cell of Thane district rural police, led by inspector Sanjay Bhangar, had carried out raids in Kashimira township in the district in January and February this year and held two Bangladeshi women each on both the occasions.

In their submission, prosecutors Vinit Kulkarni, Ujwala Moholkar and Vandana Jadhav told the court that the four women resided in the township and were doing daily wage jobs.

After they were caught, the police asked them to show their valid documents for their stay in the country. However, the women failed do so. Later, the women admitted that they were from Bangladesh.

The police inquiry revealed that the women did not possess a passport, visa or any other valid document to reside in India.

In his order, the judge said the women entered the country due to poverty and unemployment and were into daily wages job. "It is not disputed that the accused are poor and they were not involved in any illegal activities in this country. Hence, leniency is required to be shown while imposing punishment on them," he said.

The prosecutors, however, submitted that the accused had illegally entered the country. "Such type of instances may create a law and order problem. Hence, no leniency should be shown and maximum punishment may kindly be imposed," they said.

The court convicted the women for the offence punishable under section 14 A(b) of the Foreigners Act, 1946.

It also directed the jail officials and the police officer in charge of Nayanagar police station to take steps to deport the accused to their country on the expiry of the period of the sentence, so that they shall not remain within the territory of India.

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Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand groaned under a piercing cold wave with most places recording minimum temperatures below the freezing point today, even as three lives were lost in an accident due to heavy fog in the plains.

Visibility levels dropped on a foggy morning in Haryana, Punjab, UP and New Delhi, though the sun shone bright in the afternoon in the region.

While it was cold in the night and morning in Delhi, the mercury settled at 25.3 degrees Celsius owing to a warm afternoon. The city recorded a minimum of 6.8 degrees Celsius.

Three persons were killed in Uttar Pradesh when their car ploughed into a mini-truck on the Delhi-Lucknow National Highway enveloped by a thick blanket of fog, police said.

In Jammu and Kashmir, Leh was the coldest recorded place at minus 11.4 degrees Celsius. The night temperature at the nearby Kargil town settled at a low of minus 9.2 degrees Celsius.

Srinagar city, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, recorded the minimum temperature of minus 2.8 degrees Celsius.

The mercury at the famous ski-resort of Gulmarg in north Kashmir settled at a low of minus 5.4 degrees Celsius.

Kashmir is currently under the grip of Chillai-Kalan, a 40-day harshest period of winter when the chances of snowfall are most frequent and maximum and the temperature drops considerably. It ends on January 31 next year, but the cold wave continues even after that in the valley.

Life moved at a snail's pace in frigid conditions in higher tribal reaches of Himachal Pradesh where the mercury was recorded 12 to 18 degrees below the freezing point.

All natural sources of water such as lakes, springs, rivulets and tributaries of major snow-fed rivers have frozen. The discharge of water in major rivers has reduced to 20 per cent.

Bathinda was the coldest place in Punjab, recording a minimum of 4 degrees Celsius. Neighbouring Haryana also remained under the grip of intense chill.

Intense cold swept Amritsar, which had a low of 4.8 deg C. Cold conditions also prevailed in Ludhiana, where the minimum temperature settled at 5.8 deg C.

In Haryana, Hisar was the coldest place recording a low of 4.9 deg C. Narnaul, too, experienced a cold night at 5.5 deg C while Karnal recorded a low of 5.6 deg C. Rohtak braved the chill at a low of 6.7 deg C.

The MeT office said fog enveloped many places in Punjab and Haryana including Amritsar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Hisar and Karnal. However, the sky was clear in Chandigarh.

Muzaffarnagar was the coldest in UP with the mercury dipping to 4 deg C, while Kanpur saw temperatures drop to 6.8 deg C.

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General elections being just over one year away notwithstanding, the government is not looking at slowing down on in 2018 and is likely to get at least two codes on wages as well as industrial relations passed by .

The Ministry of Labour and Employment has envisaged to concise over 44 labour laws into four broad codes in wages, industrial relations, social security, and occupational safety, health and working conditions.

Labour Secretary M Sathiyavathy expressed the ministry's intent to push all four codes for passage in next year.

"Government is not going slow on . All four codes would be pushed in 2018," she said.

The codification of the labour laws will remove the multiplicity of definitions and authorities leading to ease of compliance without compromising wage security and social security to workers.

The draft Code on Wages Bill 2017 was introduced in the in August 2017. The bill will be pushed for consideration and passage in the and subsequently in the in 2018.

The Code on Wages rationalises, amalgamates and simplifies the relevant provisions of the four labour laws-- The Minimum Wages Act, 1948; The Payment of Wages Act, 1936; The Payment of Bonus Act, 1965, and The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976.

Similarly, Code on Industrial Relations Bill has been finalised by a group of ministers headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and is likely to be approved soon for putting it before Union Cabinet so that it could be pushed for passage in next year.

The Trade Unions Act, 1926, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, would be combined into the code on industrial relations.

The unions had objected the proposed amendment in the bill to allow units with up to 300 workers to retrench, lay off or close down without the permission of the government.

Presently, all units with up to 100 workers can retrench, lay off or close down without the government's permission. The government is most likely to keep this provision in the new code.

Therefore, the codification of industrial relation laws would not allow businesses to hire and fire abruptly.

Similarly, another proposal to increase severance pay for retrenched workers may not be part of the bill as it would be seen as an anti-industry move.

It was proposed to increase the severance pay to 45 days salary for each completed year of service, from 15 days provided at present.

The drafts of the other two codes, social security, and occupational safety, health and working conditions, would be finalised for Union Cabinet approval after deliberations on it through a tripartite mechanism.

The sources say that the government has tried to allay apprehensions of central trade unions during a discussion on new social security code but workers representatives are opposing it.

The code proposed to merge retirement fund body Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and state health insurer Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC)



"Through our comments in general, we have opposed the proposal of merger of Employees Provident & Miscellaneous Provisions Act and Employees State Insurance Corporation Act as EPF & EPS schemes and ESI scheme functioning under these two Acts have been rendering satisfactory service to their members for the last 60 years, All India Trade Union Congress had said in a letter to the labour secretary.

The union had also opposed the other proposal under the code for coverage of unorganised workers with and without identifiable employer, a separate social security organisation be set up for providing social security to them and a token contribution be charged from them while the major part of the contribution should be made by the government.

Unions were also against the proposal of forming a National Social Security Council with the prime minister as chairman, which shall control and regulate all the social security schemes to be implemented in the country.

The code also propose to hand over operation of social security schemes to state governments.

A source said that the codes on social security and occupational safety, health and working conditions may take a bit longer and may not be able to get Parliament's approval next year.

Besides these codes, a bill to amend Contract Labour Act will also be pushed for passage in Parliament next year. The bill seeks to distinguish between contract labour and work labour.

The contract labour are workers which work for the organisations provided by contractors whereas the work labour work to completion of certain task like one-time repair of factory or office buildings.

Besides, the law would also provide for registration of labour contractors with states as well as central governments. At present, the contractors have to seek permission of centre and states for every contract to provide workers.

This will also help centre and state governments to monitor these contractors and would be able to blacklist defaulters and offenders.

The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2017 is likely to see the light of the day in 2018. It was introduced in the on December 18, 2017.

The bill seeks to enable central government to enhance ceiling of the maximum amount of gratuity payable to an employee. It is Rs 10 lakh. The government has planned to double it. After this amendment, the government would be able to increase the maximum amount of gratuity by an executive order.

Besides, the bill would also enable the central government to enhance paid maternity leave by executive order. At present, it is 12 weeks under the Act. The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 has enhanced the maximum maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks.

Labour Bureau, a wing of the ministry, would also conduct first of its kind survey to gauge employment generation under Mudra scheme of the central government, which is facing charges of job loss after demonetisation last year.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday promised action against errant civic officials and the owners of a pub in central Mumbai where a massive fire claimed 14 lives.

Speaking to reporters after visiting the building in Kamala Mill Compound in Lower Parel where the tragedy took place past midnight, Fadnavis said he had ordered safety audit of all such structures in the city.

Officials have also been directed to demolish illegal structures, he added.

Fadnavis said he has asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner to hold an enquiry and submit a report within 15 days.

"Five (civic) officials have already been suspended and appropriate sections of the Indian Penal Code will be invoked against the owners of the pub, making them responsible for the loss of lives. The guilty won't be spared," Fadnavis said.

Earlier, the chief minister tweeted: "Disturbing to know about the loss of lives in unfortunate incident in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the families who lost their loved ones and prayers for the speedy recovery of the injured. Directed the BMC Commissioner to conduct an in-depth enquiry."



In another tweet, Fadnavis said he has directed BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta to take strong action against erring officials immediately.

5officials have been already suspended but beyond that if they or owners are found responsible for loss of lives,they will be booked under IPC.Guilty wont be spared. Ordered for safety audit of all such structures immediately&demolish illegal ones:CM @Dev_Fadnavis at #KamlaMills pic.twitter.com/T5mG8aK4ZW  CMO Maharashtra (@CMOMaharashtra) December 29, 2017

Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao expressed shock at the loss of innocent lives.

"The incident of blaze was shocking. I convey my heartfelt condolences to the kin of the innocent people who lost their lives in the unfortunate incident. I wish speedy recovery to the injured," the governor said in his message.

The fire, which also left 21 people injured, started after 12.30 am at the '1 Above' pub and quickly spread to 'Mojo Bistro' pub on the third floor, according to civic officials.
The Centre has told states to hire specialist doctors in various fields for rural areas with good pay packets, the salary bills for whom would be footed by it, the Lok Sabha was informed today.

Responding to supplementaries, Health Minister J P Nadda said the states are free to hire experts such as gynaecologists for rural health facilities on a good salary and the Centre will pay it.

Seeking to ensure larger intake of doctors, 5,000 seats have been added in medical colleges, he said.

Reports have it that there was mere 19 per cent availability of specialist doctors in the community health centres (CHCs), especially those in the rural areas, across the country.

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Public sector IDBI Bank has received capital infusion of Rs 2,729 crore from the government.

"Government has on December 29, 2017 infused share application money of Rs 2,729 crore towards preferential issue of equity infusion of IDBI bank during the fiscal year 2017-18 under the plan as government's investment," it said in a regulatory filing.

The bank said its board of directors at the ensuing meeting will consider the proposal for approval of preferential issue of capital to government up to Rs 2,729 crore.

The government on October 24 had unveiled a Rs 2.11 lakh crore two-year road map for strengthening NPA-hit public sector banks, which includes re-capitalisation bonds, budgetary support, and equity dilution.

Stock of bank closed 0.83 per cent down at Rs 59.85 on BSE.

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The Islamic State group claimed responsibility today for the bomb attack days earlier that tore through a Saint Petersburg supermarket and wounded 14 people.

"The attack that targeted a shopping centre in Saint Petersburg the day before yesterday (Wednesday) was carried out by an Islamic State-linked group," IS said in a statement via its propaganda agency Amaq.

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A Honduran judge has suspended five lawmakers accused of diverting public funds, but refused prosecutors' request that they be held pending trial.

All five members of Congress declined to make statements during their initial appearances in court on today.

Honduran prosecutors and the Organisation of American States' anti-corruption mission announced the case against the politicians earlier this month.

According to the investigation, the deputies allegedly requested the funds for a nonprofit organisation, which cut checks to them immediately after receiving the money. The public projects never materialised, but banking records show the lawmakers deposited the checks in personal accounts or cashed them.

The judge barred them from leaving the country or having contact with their congressional colleagues.

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Two brothers with US citizenship and their aunt, who had gone to celebrate the birthday of Khushbu Bansali at the '1 Above' pub, perished in the deadly blaze, which also claimed Khushbu's life.

The deceased Dhairya Lalani (26) and Vishwa Lalani (23) and their aunt Pramila Kenia had gone to the pub last night to celebrate Khushbu's 29th birthday, a close friend of the Lalani family said.

The Lalani brothers resided in suburban Matunga. They were killed in the fire when they went to rescue their aunt, said 70-year-old Vinod Sethia, their family friend.

Dhairya who works in US had come here a week ago, while Vishwa was staying with his parents since a year and managed his father's catering business, he said.

He said Kenia ran towards the washroom to save herself.

"Dhairya and Vishwa both noticed that their aunt did not come out of the pub and one of them again went inside to see her. When the two did not return, the other brother also sneaked inside the pub, but all were killed in the fire," Sethia said.

The last rites of Dhairya and Vishwa were performed at a crematorium in Central Mumbai, he said adding Kenia's funeral will be held tomorrow as her son has left from the US to reach here.

Kenia's daughter and daughter-in-law were in Rajasthan and they are also returning to Mumbai, he added.

The fire that started at a rooftop pub during a party spread rapidly through the building, killing 14 people, including Khushbu and many of her friends, officials said.

The fire, which also injured 21 people, started after 12.30 am in the '1 Above' pub on the terrace, and spread to the Mojo pub on the third floor one level below, said an official of the Mumbai civic body - Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

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The Kamala Mills fire tragedy in Mumbai has intensified the outcry by residents of several posh localities in Bengaluru against mushrooming rooftop pubs and bars in residential areas here.

A fire that started at a rooftop pub during a party last night, spread rapidly through the building in the Kamala Mills compound, killing 14 people including a woman celebrating her 29th birthday and many of her friends.

The outcry against rooftop pubs, eateries, bars, restaurants and commercial buildings in residential and crowded areas in Bengaluru grew louder following the fire incident in Mumbai.

The citizens have been pressing the administration to act against the commercial activities, especially the pubs, bars and restaurants, in residential areas.

With two days left for New Year celebrations, when revelry inthe country's IT capital touches its crescendo, the residents havebeen petitioning the administration to act against illegal pubs, bars and restaurants in residential areas.

This morning, Indira Nagar residents gave a representation to Additional Commissioner of Police (East Bengaluru) Seemanth Kumar Singh seeking direction not to allow any nuisance in residential areas.

They also sought specific directionnot to allow any rooftop bars and loud music on December 31.

Swarna Venkataraman, a resident of Indira Nagar, said, "We have been fighting against the pubs, bars and restaurants for many years. Now the police have asked the revellers to move out of M G Road and Brigade Road and shift to Indira Nagar or Koramangala. This is an appalling statement."



None of the pubs and bars in the vicinity have licence from the fire and safety department, she claimed.

"We already have our Carlton Tower. Why do we want another Kamala Mill to happen in our city?" Venkataraman asked.

Almost eight years ago, fire at Carlton Tower in Bengaluru killed 13 people.

Uday Vijayan, who lost his son Akhil Uday in the Carlton Tower fire incident, tweeted multiple messages about the Kamala Mills tragedy since morning.

Vijayan, who started a campaign called 'Beyond Carlton,' told PTI, "We, as a nation, are living in a death trap. There is non-compliance to guidelines, enforcement is poor, citizens are apathetic and our attention towards fire safety is very poor."



Seeking to allay people's fear, Seemanth Kumar Singh said there is nothing to panic.

"We are going to deploy 15,000 police personnel all over the city on the new year's eve for the security ofcitizens," Singh said.

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The HRD Ministry-appointed panel tasked with drafting a new National Policy will submit its report in March next year, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said here today.

"The committee had sought a three-month extension and we have granted them time till March 31, 2018," Javadekar told reporters.

Headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief K Kasturirangan, the panel was set up by the human resource development (HRD) ministry in June and it was supposed to submit its report this month.

The committee had sought the extension, saying it was still holding consultations with various stakeholders and needed time to prepare the final draft.

The existing National Policy was framed in 1986 and revised in 1992. A new National Policy was part of the manifesto of the BJP, which now governs the country.

Apart from Kasturirangan, the committee has eight members, including mathematician Manjul Bhargava and former IAS officer K J Alphonse.

The panel will also take into account the report of a panel headed by former cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian, formed by the HRD ministry during the tenure of Smriti Irani.

The TSR Subramanian panel submitted its report to the government in May 2016, suggesting measures to strengthen the education sector that caters to over 300 million students.

However, the government decided to have more consultations and use it as an "input" for the future draft and not as a final draft report, and set up the panel headed by Kasturirangan.

Kasturirangan headed ISRO between 1994 and 2003 and was awarded the country's second highest civilian honour -- Padma Vibhushan -- in 2000.

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While their country's leader has encouraged citizens to work harder and dream big, some Chinese millennials are declaring their allegiance to the art of being average.

Nicknamed "Buddhist Youth", these young people have embraced a laissez-faire approach to life which has more to do with being chilled out than reading sutras.

"Life is quite tiring," said 23-year-old Guo Jia, who believes being a Buddhist Youth means "accepting the things you cannot change and going with the flow".

As a viral Chinese social media post outlined this month, behaviours associated with the largely irreligious Buddhist Youth include eating the same food every day, allowing one's romantic partner to make all the decisions and being devoid of strong feelings about virtually everything.

They are the latest in a string of subcultures to achieve online fame in China -- with labels like "greasy uncles", a type of pompous yet slovenly middle-aged man, to "cultured youth", the Chinese equivalent of a hipster.

Some of these labels have been condemned by authorities, but Buddhist Youth have been greeted -- appropriately -- with indifference.

When Guo first arrived in Beijing, everything -- from working at his finance job to riding the subway -- made him anxious. Like many of the nation's young strivers, he came to the capital eager to meet the high expectations he had set for himself.

But more than a year later, he has found peace in letting things be.

"I haven't been able to stop caring about everything," Guo said, "but these days I am generally calm and unperturbed. It is enough to just be content with life."



Such declarations are curious in Xi Jinping's China, where the president has endeavoured to rally young people in particular around the notion of the "Chinese Dream".

"A nation will be prosperous if its young generation is ambitious and reliable," Xi said in 2013.

Chinese millennials' unique take on monkhood grabbed attention online after a popular public account on the WeChat messaging app, called "Ways of the 21st Century", described various types of Buddhist Youths in detail.

A "Buddhist Passenger" is someone who chooses to walk to their DiDi (China's equivalent of Uber) rather than explain their exact location to their driver.

A "Buddhist Online Shopper" is someone who buys the things they like but does not return the things they don't like.

And a "Buddhist Employee" is one who desires nothing more than to "arrive at work peacefully and leave work quietly".

A Buddhist Youth wants nothing because she or he expects nothing -- win or lose, adversity or good fortune, they accept it all.

Lin Kexin, a 20-year-old student in eastern Fujian province, said she began to identify more as a Buddhist Youth after acting too impulsively on a romantic crush.

"That was tiring," she said.

The trend has even caught the attention of the People's Daily, the official paper of the ruling Communist Party, which published two articles on Buddhist Youth last week.

"This may just be a way for young people to explore their position in society," the daily said, acknowledging that the identity was a reaction to "life's quick rhythms".

The assessment is positive compared to the government's reaction to "sang" culture, another Chinese millennial attitude that has cropped up in recent years.

In contrast to Buddhist Youths, who pledge to maintain a neutral outlook, the "sang" lifestyle is characterised by unrelenting, sardonic despondency -- an approach the People's Daily called "pessimistic and hopeless".

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Kerala Health Minister K K Shylaja today rejected the allegation that she had forged documents to claim reimbursement of medical expenses for her husband.

Responding to the allegation of BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan in this regard, the health minister's office said that Shylaja had not done any illegal thing for getting the medical reimbursement. for the treatment of her husband at a private hospital in 2016.

The allegation that she had accepted medical expenses of her husband misusing the position was baseless, her office said in a statement here.

It claimed that the medical reimbursement was done as per the law and rule applicable to ministers.

Ministers can claim the medical reimbursement of family members, it said.

BJP also sought her resignation alleging that she had not only violated the oath of office but also indulged in criminal offence.

Shylaja cannot claim the medical reimbursement as the minister's husband K Bhaskaran is a government pensioner and also the chairman of the Mattannur Municipality.

The minister's office also denied the charge that minister had claimed the food expenses during the treatment period at a private hospital in 2016 along with the medical reimbursement.

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KrazyBee, one of the largest micro-lending platforms in India, focusing on financing students and their education, would expand its business in 11 more cities during this fiscal, a top officials said today.

Presently in Bengaluru, Hyuderabad, Vellore, Pune and Mysuru cities, Krazybee is expanding its business in the city, the company founder and CEO, E Madhusudan told reporters here.

Stating that the company has done a business of Rs



100 crore during this fiscal, he said that it expected the year to end with Rs 150 crore lending.

As far as fund for lending, Madhusudhan said that it has raised eight million USD from Xiomi technologies and Shunwei Capital in October last and so far received 13 million USD since its inception in May last year.

With over four lakh registered borrowers on its platform, KrazyBee currently processes over 3,000 loan applications and disburses around 1,700 of them per day, Madhusudan said.

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Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra today said Constitutional sovereignty is supreme and all must surrender before it.

Stating that the country will plunge into anarchy in absence of Constitutional sovereignty, Justice Misra said it is mandatory for all to abide by the rules of the law.

"We all are under the Constitutional sovereignty and we have to surrender to Constitutional supremacy," Justice Misra said while addressing a function organised by the All Odisha Lawyers Association.

"We have to keep it in mind that all including legislature, executive and judiciary are under Constitutional sovereignty," said the CJI.

He also urged the lawyers to keep up sanctity of the noble profession and serve the people through their works.

In his speech, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said the state government in last four years has set up over 170 courts and 50 more new courts will be established soon.

With the changing economic scenario and globalisation of business, litigations have increased manifold, he said.

Various laws have been enacted, several quasi-judicial fora have been established and various nature of disputes are coming up, the chief minister said.

Patnaik urged lawyers to dedicate all their efforts in serving poor litigants of the state.

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Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena kicked off his campaign for local council elections in February here today, on the back of what he termed his "international victories".

Addressing his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) candidates for polls to all 341 local councils set for February 10, he said he was able to gain international support during his three-year reign as president.

"When Russia banned our exports my personal letter to President Vladimir Putin enabled to get the ban lifted within a few days," Sirisena said.

"When we faced the current fertiliser shortage I called the Pakistan prime minister. Just a few minutes before I came here I received his message agreeing to send 40,000 metric tons.

"When I visited Qatar recently, even before I could get into my return flight an investment delegation had left Qatar for Sri Lanka," Sirisena said.

Sirisena, who was elected president with support from SLFP's old rival United National Party (UNP), has faced criticism from the rival SLFP faction of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Rajapaksa loyalists have posed a serious challenge to Sirisena by forming their own party.

They alleged that Sirisena had postponed the local council elections by nearly three years for fear of seeing the SLFP relegated to third position behind them and the UNP.

His decision to campaign vigorously shows that he is keen to silence his critics who claim that he had betrayed SLFP's interests by forming a government with the UNP.

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Ranjit Dheer, a leading Indian- origin magistrate councillor, has been honoured by Queen Elizabeth II with a prestigious award for his services to the UK government.

Announcing this the official government publication, the London Gazette said Dheer was first elected as a Councillor in Ealing in 1982 and has won eight local government elections in the past 35 years.

Dheer, 75, was named in the New Year Honours list for 2018 for services to local government.

During this long period, he has served the borough as a chair of many committees, school boards and public bodies as well as a deputy mayor and mayor.

He is the longest-serving Deputy Leader of the Council in the UK, having been first elected to this post in 2005.

Currently, he is also Ealing's cabinet portfolio holder for community services and safety.

He has served as a Justice of the Peace (Magistrate) and as a member judge of the Employment Tribunals.

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Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla today said that she is very happy that the 'Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage Bill' bill was passed in the Lok Sabha.

Sufferings of Muslim women across the country will come to an end if the bill becomes an Act, Heptulla said.

She appealed to the members of the Rajya Sabha to pass the bill unanimously as she supports Prime Minister Modi's appeal for a consensus to pass the bill.

"It is a positive stand and triple talaq is a wrong practice and most Muslim countries have discarded it," Heptulla told PTI over phone.

"The prime minister has taken a major historic step and Muslim women will be very happy as it is not about religion but a wrong practice, which is anti-Islamic, and that Islam cannot have discrimination between man and woman." Heptulla said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday had urged for a consensus to pass the 'Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage Bill' to make 'triple talaq' into a punishable offence.

The Supreme Court in August had pronounced a historic judgement and said that 'triple talaq' is unconstitutional and violates fundamental rights of Muslim women.

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Leading maritime unions of the country have opposed the government's move to sell its entire stake holding of 73.47 per cent in Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) through strategic sale with management control.

Mumbai-based maritime unions, National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) and The Maritime Union of India (MUI), have jointly planned to organise a nationwide agitation to oppose the government move.

NUSI general secretary Abdulgani Serang said the DCI, a profit making enterprise, was serving Indian ports at low margins and also executes naval contracts.

Privatisation of the DCI was not in the interest of the nation and the NUSI would launch an agitation if the government went ahead with its move, he said in a statement.

Privatisation of the DCI would be a huge blow to the government exchequer and dredging charges might shoot up once it is privatised, MUI general secretary Amar Singh Thakur said.

Employees of the DCI are staring at the prospects of losing their jobs, he said.

The Vishakapatnam-based DCI, a mini-ratna PSU under the shipping ministry, is engaged in the business of dredging including maintenance dredging and capital dredging at major ports of the country.

DCI CMD Rajesh Tripathi could not be reached for his reaction despite repeated attempts.

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A 28-year old farmer allegedly committed suicide yesterday night at Prithvipur town, about 65 kilometres from here.

Prithvipur Police Station in charge Chandan Singh Parihar said that the farmer identified as Dhaniram Kushwah hung himself from a tree near his home yesterday night.

Parihar said that the exact reason behind his death would be known after a probe.

He added that the deceased's family members have said that the farmer was finding it hard to make ends meet due to his poor financial condition.

The farmer's father, Mitthulal, said that there was no income from the crop since the past two-three years due to a drought-like situation.

He added that Dhaniram was also working as a labourer but that too was not helping him meet expenses.

Mitthulal said these circumstances might have prompted Dhaniram to take this extreme step.

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Nepal President Bidya Bhandari today endorsed a key ordinance relating to the election of Upper House members, that paves the way for formation of a new government after recent provincial and parliamentary polls.

There were disputes among the ruling Nepali Congress party and main opposition CPN-UML as to which voting system to be adopted for the election of the 59 members of Upper House.

Without the formation of the Upper House the formation of the bicameral Parliament could not be completed, which was crucial for convening a full parliamentary session which is essential to form a new government.

The NC has been advocating for single transferable voting system for the Upper House election, while the CPN-UML had been sticking to the majority voting system.

The president had been holding the ordinance for some time due to the dispute between the two major political forces.

Now with the president's endorsement, the ordinance incorporates a mix voting system.

Under this, 42 out of a total of 59 members will be elected under single transferable voting system while 14 will be elected through majority voting system.

The remaining three members are supposed to be appointed by the president.

Under single transferable voting, weightage will be given to the votes casted by the eligible voters to decide the winning candidates.

Meanwhile, senior leader of CPN-UML Lal Babu Pandit has asserted that party chairman and former premier K P Oli is most likely to lead the new government formed under the Left alliance.

The Left alliance won 116 seats out of a total 165 under the first-past-the-post system while the Nepali Congress bagged just 23 seats in the country's recently-concluded historic polls that many hope will bring much-needed political stability to the Himalayan nation.

Former minister Pandit said the two Left alliance parties - CPN-UML and CPN-Maoist Centre - would unite only after the top leaders forge a consensus on division of positions of leaders and cadres.

The Left alliance has a comfortable majority of 174 members which is more than sufficient to form the government.

There are altogether 275 members in the House of Representatives and 138 seats are required to form a majority government.

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A new law on data protection is in the process of being framed, the government today informed the Rajya Sabha.

Asserting that it is alive to the issue of cyber security, Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said there was no proposal to make internet availability a fundamental right, but made it clear that the government is committed to providing easy access of internet to all.

Responding to supplementaries during Question Hour, he said a committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge Justice B N Srikrishna has been set up in this regard. A paper has been circulated and field hearings are going on, before the law is brought.

"India is emerging as a big centre of data analysis. The government has set up a committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Srikrishna.

"We are in the process of framing a data protection law. The paper has been circulated and field hearing is going on and very soon we come up with a data protection law," he said while responding to concerns by a member on data protection.

"We are alive to cyber security and our prime minister has said publicly that cyber war is a bloodless law," he said.

On whether internet availability is being made a fundamental right, the minister said "internet access is not negotiable".

He, however, clarified that there is no proposal to make internet availability a fundamental right but the government is committed to provide internet connectivity to citizens.

"A paper transaction declaring of fundamental right is one thing, while making it available without discrimination is the other," he said.

The minister said the government is working towards 100 per cent internet connectivity and "we are concouraging competition in the sector to ensure better services. ... Our vision of digital India is inclusive digital development".

He said in 2011, there was a plan to connect every village in the country to internet and optical cable fibre laying but it did not move.

"When our government came to power in 2014, only 358 kms of optical cable network was laid, but in 3.5 years a total of 2.53 lakh kms of optical cable fibre has been laid. One lakh gram panchayats have been lit up. Of these, 57,000 have internet facilities.

"BPOs have been set up in 68 per cent of small towns like Muzaffarpur, Bareilly, Kanpur and Imphal," he said.

He said as per a TRAI report of June, India has over 431.21 million internet users and, with several million new internet users joining every month, this has resulted in more Indians going online and using the internet.

He said the Government's 'digital India' programme envisions to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledgeable economy through broadband highways, universal access to mobile connectivity and public internet access programme that will address the issue of internet availability in the country.

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A new wrist-worn gadget may help people with sleep problems by objectively tracking their real-life sleep habits and quality, scientists say.

The gadget, called actimeter, records data on wrist movement from which one can obtain activity patterns for up to three months.

The researchers from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) in Germany used the actimeters to assess rest/activity cycles not just over the course of the waking day, but also during sleep itself.

The findings are the latest in a larger, ongoing human sleep project, designed to learn more about sleep and its essential role in our lives by collecting sleep data on thousands of people in the real world.

"This will help many who have sleep problems and will hopefully increase the appreciation for the importance of sleep for our health and well-being," Till Roenneberg from LMU Munich said.

The team of researchers had been collecting information on sleep duration and quality via questionnaire.

The next step was to find a way to collect objective measurements of sleep characteristics on similarly large numbers of people.

In the new study published in the journal Current Biology, the researchers looked at actimeter data collected over more than 20,000 days from 574 subjects, aged 8 to 92 years.

However, the patterns of activity during sleep collected using the devices appeared rather messy. It was hard to discern the cyclical sleep patterns normally seen with other, more complicated devices in the lab.

By focusing on periods of inactivity during the night, a much clearer cyclical pattern began to emerge.

They used a simple conversion to measure inactivity (as opposed to activity) on a scale of near zero to 100, with 100 representing total inactivity.

"It was flabbergasting how it clarified the structures," Roenneberg said.

The researchers called the new measure "locomotor inactivity during sleep" (LIDS). Those measures showed that movement patterns reflect sleep cycles and replicate the dynamics seen in the lab.

"Many devices have tried to use activity to assess sleep structures, but our method is simple, transparent, and works especially in long-term recordings," Roenneberg said.

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A Vietnamese court has jailed nine people for "attempting to overthrow the state", official media reported today, the latest heavy sentence doled out in a harsh crackdown this year against activists in the one-party state.

Communist Vietnam routinely jails its critics, but 2017 has been particularly grim for dissidents, with at least 15 arrested and several others sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Nine people were convicted yesterday for attempting to overthrow the government and for anti-state propaganda -- a charge rights groups have slammed for being vaguely worded and used to crush dissent -- in central Binh Dinh province.

They were accused of distributing leaflets "defaming leaders and calling for the government to be overthrown", according to an online report Friday from ANTV, the official police television channel, citing the indictment.

Ta Tan Loc, 42, was sentenced to 14 years in prison, while his eight accomplices got between three and 13 years, ANTV reported.

The court accused the group of having links to an overseas "reactionary" group, the channel added, without providing details.

Vietnam's government is accused of scaling up arrests and convictions of critics since a new conservative leadership took control last year.

Some observers have said the US withdrawal earlier this year from the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- a sprawling multinational trade agreement -- also removed incentives for the Vietnamese government to ease up on dissidents.

Amnesty International reports that at least 15 people have been arrested this year, though several other activists have been convicted and jailed, joining scores of activists already in prison.

All independent media is banned in Vietnam, and the government has called for increased internet control as critics have moved onto social media to voice discontent.

A top general said this week that 10,000 cyber-warriors have been deployed to fight "wrongful views" and anti-state propaganda online, a move decried by rights groups.

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The Jammu and Kashmir government today dismissed the charge of discrimination against Jammu and Ladakh regions in the recruitment of teachers in the state.

The opposition Congress and National Panthers Party (NPP) have demanded that the advertisement issued by the Service Selection Board (SSB) for filling 2,154 district cadre posts of teachers be rectified.

"A mere 15 per cent share for Jammu and zero share for Ladakh speak volumes about the discriminatory policy of the state government, which should immediately rectify the notification and ensure due share to all the three regions of the state," a Congress spokesman said.

Rejecting the opposition charge, a government spokesman said, "Teacher's post is a district cadre post and these posts, under direct recruitment quota, are referred to SSB from time-to-time, strictly as per the vacancy position in each district."



"The 2,154 posts of teachers referred to SSB this year is strictly as per the vacancies of teachers that have accrued in each district," the government spokesman said.

In 2013, he said the school department had referred 7,434 posts of teachers to SSB under direct recruitment quota, out of which 4954 posts were from Jammu division alone.

"As many as 2480 posts were referred from Kashmir division based on the district-wise vacancy position, he said.

Clarifying that the department has not created any new post of teacher in recent time, the spokesman said the State Cabinet has already approved up-gradation of 400 government schools in the state from middle to high and high to higher secondary level.

"Once these 400 schools are upgraded as per norms, around 8000 additional posts of teacher and lecturer shall be created which would be distributed amongst all the districts in the state," he added.

While NPP activists led by party chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh staged a protest demonstration on the issue here, Chief spokesperson of JKPCC Ravinder Sharma demanded rectification of the notification and equal share to all the three regions.

SSB yesterday notified 2154 district cadre posts of teacher - 1296 general teacher posts, 644 science and math teacher posts and 214 Urdu teacher posts in the department of school .

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A top Army commander today met Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra here and discussed the situation along the borders with him in the wake of repeated ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops.

Northern Army Commander Lt Gen Devraj Anbu met the governor at Raj Bhavan this evening and they discussed the obtaining situation along the International Border (IB), Line of Control (LoC) and Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the state, an official spokesman said.

The meeting came at a time when tension has risen along the LoC in the twin districts of Rajouri and Poonch following repeated ceasefire violations by Paksitan which left an Army major and three personnel dead and another injured on December 23.

Indian Army also killed three Pakistani troops and injured another in retaliatory action at Rukh Chakri sector in Rawlakot on December 25.

Though the LoC in the twin districts remained peaceful today, intermittent skirmishes between the two armies over the past week have sparked panic among the border residents.

Jammu and Kashmir witnessed a total of 881 ceasefire violations this year, highest in last seven years, along the LoC and the IB, resulting in the death of 34 people.

According to officials, Pakistan has violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir 771 times till December 10, and 110 times along the IB till November-end.

The truce between India and Pakistan along the IB, LOC and the Actual Ground Position Line in Jammu and Kashmir came into force in November 2003.

India shares a 3,323-km-long border with Pakistan of which 221 km of the IB and 740 km of the LoC fall in Jammu and Kashmir.

In 2016, there were 449 incidents of ceasefire violations in which 13 civilians and 13 government forces personnel were killed and 83 civilians and 99 security personnel injured.

In 2014, there were 583 incidents of ceasefire violation in which 14 civilians and three security personnel were killed and 101 civilians and 28 security personnel injured.

In 2015, the number of ceasefire violations was 405, 347 in 2013, 114 in 2012, 62 in 2011 and 70 in 2010.

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Political heat, strained Centre-state relations, farmer suicides and the Mahanadi river water row marked the year 2017 in Odisha.

In February, the ruling BJD emerged victorious in the panchayat elections. But the BJP put up a improved show with nearly a nine-fold jump in its performance compared to the 2012 rural polls, pushing the Congress to third position.

The BJP's performance was equally impressive in zila parishads as it won eight of the 30 district councils. It did not have any zila parishad in its kitty in 2012.

After the rural elections, the state witnessed high- pitched political activities as both the BJD and the BJP geared up amid trading of charges with an eye on the upcoming urban bodies elections due in the new year. The Congress was dogged by disunity and infighting.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, however, was unfazed and said the BJD would review its performance "very seriously" apply suitable correctives both in terms of government and on organisational issues to ensure victory in 2019.

However, BJP leaders like Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the rural poll results amply showed growing support for good governance by the Centre and loss of faith in the BJD due to misrule, corruption and inefficiency.

The year saw an aggressive BJP organising a series of programmes, rallies and meetings across Odisha to bolster its prospects. The BJP also held its national executive meeting in Bhubaneswar in April and the top brass including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah attended the event and give a call to the people to oust BJD from power.

The BJD government lined up a host of programmes in the state with Patnaik laying foundation stones for new projects and inaugurating many, besides launching numerous welfare schemes for various sections.

The year witnessed souring of relations between the Centre and the state as the ruling BJD often hit out at the BJP-led NDA government accusing it of playing a partisan role on many issues including Mahanadi river water dispute and Polavaram project.

The state government charged the Centre with favouring Chhattisgarh on the Mahanadi and Andhra Pradesh on the Polavaram issue.

While the BJD launched an agitation and raised the issues in Parliament, the Odisha assembly unanimously passed a resolution that a House committee with members from all parties will place the demand before the prime minister to constitute a tribunal for resolving Mahanadi river water row.

All through the year, the BJD also attacked the Centre of adopting a step-motherly approach towards the state and slashing funds for many welfare programmes. The charge was refuted by the Centre and BJP leaders who accused the state of failing to utilise central funds.

Suicide by farmers rocked the state during the year as the BJD regime came under attack from opposition BJP and Congress who accused it of failing to mitigate the plight of peasants hit by indebtedness, drought, pest attack and unseasonal rains.

While around 15 farmers committed suicide allegedly due to crop loss caused by pest attack and unseasonal rains during October-November, the state government claimed the peasants ended their lives due to different reasons.

The state government maintained it took steps for disbursement of agriculture input subsidy of Rs 718.5 crore to farmers affected by drought, pest attack and unseasonal rain. As per assessment, about 8.5 lakh hectares of crop area in 29 of the 30 district had been affected by these three disasters which hit the farmers during the current year.

Left-wing extremism continued to pose a serious threat in many parts of the state. At least eight districts continued to remain challenging despite improvement in situation in other parts.

Industrial scenario remained gloomy amid tardy progress despite the state's claim about attracting lakhs of crores of rupees investments as many projects failed to make headway due to problems relating to land acquisition, bureaucratic red tape and environmental clearances.

The state government was hopeful of adding to its kitty with about Rs 20,000 crore penalty collection from mine owners who indulged in illegal mining and violated several laws including environmental clearance, forest clearance, mining rules and consent to operate norms.

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A total of 145 Indian fishermen today crossed the Attari border into the country after Pakistani authorities released them from jail.

All the fishermen crossed over to India this evening through the land transit route of Wagah/Attari border on the basis of 'Emergency Travel Certificate' issued by the Indian High Commission based in Islamabad.

The Indian fishermen were arrested in March this year when their boats strayed into Pakistani waters in the Arabian sea.

Immediately after the repatriation, medical examination of all fishermen was conducted by a team of Indian doctors.

Some of the released fishermen said it was very difficult to identify the territorial boundary during fishing in the Arabian sea.

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It was as usual for Maharashtra's bickering ruling alliance partners BJP and Shiv Sena, as the former sought to pin the blame for the Mumbai fire tragedy on the Sena which controls the city's civic body.

Fourteen people were killed and 21 others injured after a major fire broke out at '1 Above' pub, located on the terrace of a building in Kamala Mills compound on Senapati Bapat Marg in Lower Parel shortly after midnight last night.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya said he had asked Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and the BMC commissioner to order a special fire audit of all such pubs and hookah bars in Mumbai.

"Around a fortnight ago, there was a similar type of fire at a 'farsan' outlet in Sakinaka area in suburban Mumbai, where a dozen people had died," the BJP MP said.

"It is understood that several such establishments at Kamla Mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately, the place where fire took place was illegal," he alleged.

Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray's son and Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray, who visited the site today, said his party, which controls the BMC, will act against those found guilty of irregularities.

"We will act against all those guilty. I had visited this area recently and had expressed my apprehension that a blaze may break out here," he said.

The two parties have been at loggerheads despite being in government in the state and at the Centre.

The year began with a keen tussle between BJP and Shiv Sena for control of the Mumbai civic body in the February election to the 227-member Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the country's richest civic body.

Shiv Sena won 84 seats. BJP was close behind, winning 82, while Congress was a distant third with 31 seats.

The two major parties failed to achieve the majority of 114 seats, which led to a deadlock over election of the Mumbai mayor.

After days of speculation and backdoor negotiations, Fadnavis made a surprise announcement saying the BJP won't field candidates for the post of mayor, deputy mayor or standing chairman in the civic body.

After bypolls later, the BJP now has 83 corporators while the Sena is marginally ahead with 85.

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A priest was allegedly killed by some unidentified persons last night here, police said today.

The deceased has been identified as Mhamad Farook, said Deputy Superintendent of Police Ramash Babu.

Last night, some unidentified persons attack him with sticks and escaped from the spot, the DSP said, adding he died on the spot.

"We have formed special teams to prove the incident," he said.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy Chief Minister (Home) N Chinarajapa spoke to the District Superintendent of Police and directed him to nab the culprits, an official communique said.

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Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri today laid the foundation stone of a flyover-cum-rail overbridge project in Narela here which will ease traffic congestion in the area, an official release said.

The cost of project is estimated at Rs 437.21 crore, which includes Rs 55.59 crore for construction of the rail over bridge (ROB).

Rs 349.77 crore, around 80 per cent of the cost, would be provided from the Urban Development Fund and Rs 87.44 crore will be DDA's contribution.

Puri said the project is for one of the busiest points which see frequent traffic shutdowns due to closing of a level crossing on the busy Delhi-Karnal rail route.

There is also a grain market (Anaj Mandi) in the area, as the FCI godowns are near the railway crossing.

The project is planned for completion by April 2019.

When completed, this will be the widest flyover in Delhi with a width of 51 metre, the release said.

This is one of the five projects approved for funding through the Urban Development Fund by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for combating traffic congestion in Delhi.

Puri asked the Delhi government to expedite the process for implementing the Phase-IV of Delhi Metro, as it was already running behind schedule.

Lt Governor Anil Baijal, Lok Sabha MP Udit Raj and Delhi Development Authority (DDA) vice-chairman Udai Pratap Singh were among those present on the occasion.

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The RSS and its allied bodies gave their feedback and suggestions to further improve the BJP-led government's economic policies to party chief Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, sources said today.

The suggestions were shared during a two-day coordination meeting between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), its allied organisations and the BJP here.

The meeting was attended by Sangh Joint General Secretary Krishna Gopal, leaders of RSS-affiliates the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the Sahakar Bharati, the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat and the Laghu Udyog Bharti, sources said.

While the BJP was represented by Shah, Jaitley and a few other ministers represented the government, they added.

During the meeting, the RSS-affiliated organisations shared their views and gave feedbacks about the Centre's economic policies, sources said.

The Swadeshi Jagran Manch expressed concerns about rising Chinese imports and its harmful effects on indigenous small scale industries, they said, adding that similar sentiments were echoed by the Laghu Udyog Bharti.

The Bhartiya Kisan Sangh raised issues of farmers being forced to sell produce below the support price announced by the Centre, the sources said, adding both Shah and Jaitley gave assurances that the suggestions and concerns would be considered and appropriate action taken.

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The Kremlin views the continued strain on Russia's relations with the United States as a major disappointment of the year, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said today.

Ties between Moscow and Washington sank to a post-Cold War low following Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the allegations of its meddling in the US presidential election last year.

The Kremlin's hopes for warmer dealings under President Donald Trump have withered amid the Congressional and FBI investigations into alleged links between Trump's campaign and Russia.

The two countries introduced tit-for-tat measures to rebuke each other all year, ranging from restrictions on embassy staff to legislation targeting state-owned media.

Asked about the Kremlin's biggest disappointments of 2017, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that worsening relations with the US were "certainly" on the list.

Russia has denied any interference in the US election, and Peskov noted that the Kremlin is watching the ongoing US investigations with "bewilderment."



"It's the US internal business, but it certainly hurts bilateral relations and we regret that," he said.

Peskov reiterated the Kremlin's position that Russia seeks good relations with the US based on "mutual trust and mutual respect," but added that "it takes two to tango."



Russian officials and lawmakers last week expressed dismay with the US decision to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons, including anti-tank missiles, warning the move would only fuel hostilities in eastern Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon Friday, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said the US approach to Ukraine's conflict with Russia-backed separatist rebels wasn't changing despite the decision to supply weapons to Ukraine.

"I don't see an evolving US military role in Ukraine," Mattis said. "Right now, we have some trainers there helping to train their army to NATO standards, and that has a lot to do with making certain it serves the needs of the Ukrainian people, in the way democracies' armies do, so the U.S. military role remains the same.

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The DMK today denounced the Centre over the "haste" shown in getting the 'triple talaq' bill passed in the Lok Sabha and wanted it to be referred to a standing committee.

The Lower House of Parliament yesterday passed the contentious Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill that criminalises instant triple talaq and makes it punishable by up to three years imprisonment for the husband.

In a statement, DMK Working President M K Stalin also objected to the "stringent" three-year jail term for men and wanted to know if the BJP government at the Centre was really concerned about the welfare of Muslim women.

"The three-year jail term is unnecessary," he said.

"The haste shown by the BJP government in moving the bill in the Lok Sabha and passing it with a stringent provision of a jail term of three years... It doesn't look like the Centre is concerned about Muslim women," he said.

Questioning the intent of the government on the triple talaq issue, he said the Supreme court had only said that Parliament can enact a law on the matter and there was no mention of awarding a three-year jail term.

Underlining his party's commitment to women's rights, especially Muslim women, Stalin said "questions arise over the government poking its nose into the Shariat law and religious practices and bringing such a bill with haste".

If the Centre was keen about ensuring rights of Muslim women, it should have held consultations with the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and Muslim groups, he said.

"If the BJP government had no such intentions, it could have sent the bill to a Parliamentary Standing Commitee to elicit views of all party members," he said.

Keeping in mind the country's unity, integrity and the welfare of Muslim women, the government should have sent the bill to a standing committee, he said.

The DMK leader urged the Centre to "at least now refer the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill to a Parliamentary Standing Committee".

While the government hailed the bill as "historic", a section of the Opposition had disapproved of it.

The Lok Sabha passed the bill by voice vote after rejecting a string of amendments moved by opposition members.

The Congress, DMK's ally, had said it supported the bill but wanted it to be scrutinised by a standing committee of Parliament, a demand that was rejected by the Chair.

The RJD and the Samajwadi Party had also backed the demand of referring the bill to a standing committee.

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Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif today called former military dictator Pervez Musharraf a "big coward" and asked the country's judiciary to bring him back from self-exile and make him accountable for his crimes.

Musharraf is facing treason charges in Pakistan for imposing emergency rule in November 2007, arresting judges and limiting their powers. He could face the death penalty, if convicted



Musharraf, 75, who came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has been living in Dubai since last year when he was allowed to leave Pakistan on the pretext of medical treatment.

Sharif, 68, called Musharraf a "big coward" and said he should be brought to justice.

"Musharraf is a big coward who is hiding abroad. If any courage is left in him he should return and face cases against him," Sharif said, adding Musharraf had abrogated the Constitution and he must be punished for that.

"We will soon bring this traitor to justice," Sharif pledged and demanded the judiciary to bring Musharraf back and make him accountable for his sins.

"This coward man is making excuses of his bad health to extend his stay abroad. Time is not far away to bring such traitors to justice," Sharif said.

Musharraf had toppled Sharif's government in 1999. He remained in power till 2008. Sharif who returned to power in 2013 instituted a treason case against Musharraf who left the country in 2016 when the apex court allowed him to travel abroad on medical grounds.

Sharif's comments came a day after Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto accused Musharraf of killing his mother Benazir Bhutto.

Bilawal said his mother paid the price for fighting against the dictatorship and Musharraf got her killed.

"Pervez Musharraf directly threatened my mother that the guarantee of her security upon her return to Pakistan depended on Bhutto's cooperation with the government. I personally hold Pervez Musharraf responsible for the assassination of my mother," he said.

Musharraf, however, dismissed Bilawal's claim, saying some "rouge" elements in the establishment might have been involved in her killing.

Benazir, the Pakistan Peoples Party chief and a two-time prime minister, was killed along with more than 20 people in a gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh during an election campaign rally on December 27, 2007. She was 54.

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The pub was 1 Above, the music was loud and the cake was chocolate. The setting was perfect as Khushbu Bansali rang in her 29th birthday with friends and family in the rooftop restaurant of a posh Mumbai building.

But Khushbu, who turned 29 on the 29th, did not live to see the day.

The merriment soon turned into mayhem as a fire broke out shortly after midnight, reducing the restaurant to a heap of smouldering bamboo and wood.

Fourteen people were killed, 11 of them women, most of them asphyxiating to death, officials said.

Among the dead was the birthday girl who just a short while ago was blowing out candles to the chorus of "Happy Birthday" and wishes for a long life.

As is the wont in these days of social media, her friends took little time in uploading the video of a laughing Khushbu, dressed in a black top, cutting her cake.

The video, inscribed with a caption saying "Happiest birthday Khushi", shows a friend teasing Khushbu, who makes a gesture of denial before proceeding to do the honours.

The happy party quite oblivious to what was in store.

Among the millions of similar 'stories' on social media, the video is now on national media, underscoring the horror that followed just minutes later.

The fire that started from 1 Above soon spread across the four-storeyed building in Kamala Mills compound in Lower Parel area, a popular night spot as well as commercial hub housing several offices including national television channels.

The cheerful music would have been abruptly silenced, the celebrations giving way to panic as the guests ran for cover. Many of them reportedly ended up in restrooms and choked to death.

A distraught Babulal Mehta, Khushbu's grandfather, blamed the "irresponsible" hotel management and the civic authorities.

"The hotel had put up a temporary structure supported by bamboo with the possibility of catching fire. There was no fire extinguishing facility either. It is the responsibility of the police and civic authorities to act against any violations," he told the media.

A popular restaurant listing app now says 1 Above and Mojo's Bristo, where the fire spread to, are "temporarily unavailable" for serving patrons.

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Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today inaugurated a modern incubation centre - the Centre for Entrepreneurship Opportunities and Learning - for budding entrepreneurs at Mallikatte here.

The centre will help promote Startup India initiative in the country.

This is part of the project 'Startup Coast' under which the minister proposed to establish innovation centres, incubation set-up, tinkering labs and co-working space for startups on the west coast in Karnataka.

Using her Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) fund, Sitharaman initiated the project when she was commerce and industry minister.

It would provide a complete ecosystem for startups and would support creation of jobs here.

The centre will be able to host up to 70 entrepreneurs. Already 30 seats have been booked.

Speaking at the inauguration, Sitharaman said India had initiated host of steps to boost start-ups and improve the whole ecosystem.

"Exactly a year back, I started on the path to make this region the Startup Coast and in less than a year we have made some great strides. The centre has launched, schools will get tinkering labs and colleges will get Centres of Excellence," she said.

She expressed hope that in the coming years, this region would see healthy growth of start-ups.

"Mangalore and the Dakshin Kannada region have more than 20 colleges offering engineering, medicine and other fields of study. This a fertile ground for talent and we need to nurture it," she said.

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Japanese conglomerate SoftBank will pick up 15 per cent stake in Uber and pump in USD 1 billion as primary investment in the US-based ride-hailing app in early 2018, according to multiple sources.

The fresh capital infusion comes at a time when the company is looking at moving beyond the controversies it was mired in 2017 and further scaling up operations.

Two people close to the developments said SoftBank Group Capital Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank Group, will hold 15 per cent share in Uber and is expected to also get two seats (out of 17) on Uber's Board.

Also, the companies are now proceeding to close the overall transaction, including a minimum USD 1 billion primary investment in early 2018, they added.

The tender offer will also see the remaining members of the consortium picking up about three per cent stake, another official said. The sources declined to be identified as the deal is private.

Previously, Uber had entered into an agreement with a consortium led by SoftBank and Dragoneer to explore a potential investment.

When contacted, SoftBank declined to comment on the details but said it is "appreciative of the support from Uber's shareholders in the successful tender offer".

"...(We) look forward to closing the overall investment in January. We have tremendous confidence in Uber's leadership and employees..." SoftBank Investment Advisers CEO and Director at SoftBank Group Corp Rajeev Misra said in an emailed statement.

An Uber spokesperson said the transaction is expected to support the company's technology investments, fuel growth, and strengthen corporate governance.

With the deal closing, SoftBank becomes an investor in two of India's largest on-demand cab service -- Uber and Ola.

Ola and Uber are locked in an intense battle for leadership in the Indian market. Both companies have pumped in millions of dollars towards rider discounts and driver incentives.

For Uber, India is one of its largest markets where it has seen strong growth. It saw the number of completed trips on its platform grow to 41.3 million in July this year, from 19.2 million in July 2016, a jump of 115 per cent.

However, the world's most funded startup has also had its share of troubles in the Indian market. The company was temporarily banned in New Delhi after one of the drivers on its platform allegedly raped a woman passenger in 2014.

Globally too, Uber has been surrounded by a slew of controversies, including allegations of widespread mismanagement and harassment at workplace.

In August this year, Uber named Expedia chief Dara Khosrowshahi as its new CEO, handing him the herculean task of repairing Uber's image, boosting employee morale and turning the business profitable.

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Spain's prime minister said today he intends to convene Catalonia's new parliament on Jan 17 and hopes the restive region's next government won't renew the push for independence that fueled a serious political crisis.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy set the date just over a week after a regional parliamentary election resulted in the separatist parties he hoped to keep out of power again winning the most seats and in turn a good chance to lead the next Catalan government.

At the opening session, the parliament typically chooses a house speaker, who then calls on a candidate to try to form a government in the following days.

Rajoy ordered the Dec 21 election under constitutional powers he invoked in October to dissolve the previous parliament after it voted to declare Catalonia an independent republic. He also removed the region's pro-independence president and his Cabinet.

Governing Catalonia will remain in the hands of Spanish authorities until a new president and Cabinet are chosen. Rajoy has not ruled out seizing control of the region again, if necessary.

While the anti-secession Ciutadans (Citizens) collected the most votes of any single party, the prime minister's hope that the separatists would suffer a stinging rebuke at the polls went unfulfilled.

It remains to be seen if the secessionist parties, which won 70 of the regional parliament's 135 seats, will be able to form a government. Eight of their deputies elected last week are either in flight from justice or jailed in Spain while being investigated for alleged rebellion over the independence declaration.

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A post-graduate student was today arrested for posting abusive religious content on social media.

"After receiving a complaint about a Facebook page, we immediately sent a mail to Facebook authorities with a request to share IP details and also to block and delete the page," a Rachakonda police official said.

He added that the arrested person, identified as Vinay Kumar, has been charged under relevant sections of the Information Technology Act as well as the Indian Penal Code.

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The Communist Party of India (CPI) today urged the Centre to take immediate steps to rehabilitate people who have been displaced because of the Polavaram dam.

A delegation of the CPI, led by its Rajya Sabha member D Raja, today met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and submitted a memorandum.

The delegation requested the prime minister's intervention to settle litigations between the Centre and state governments.

"Lakhs of people are being displaced by Polavaram Dam in Andhra Pradesh, which is being built by the Union Ministry of Water Resources. Central laws which should be applied to rehabilitate and provide relief to the displaced and evicted people tribals, farmers, women and Dalits should be implemented forthwith," the memorandum says.

The delegation explained that since the Polavaram Dam project is important for both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, it is extremely necessary to end the stalemate.

The leaders requested the central government to take immediate steps for speedy implementation of the central project, allocate more funds and extend all possible relief to the people who gave up their houses, land and villages for the dam.

The delegation has urged the Centre to take over relief camps and rehabilitation work and also create proper grievance settling machinery for the displaced.

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Three persons were killed when their car rammed into a stationary mini-truck on the Delhi- Lucknow National Highway amid heavy fog, police said.

The accident took place near Zed village last night, killing three persons including two women on the spot, SSP Joginder Kumar said.

Efforts were on to ascertain the identity of the deceased who are all in the age group of 25 to 40 years, the SSP said.

Heavy fog last night had hit visibility and appears to be the cause of accident, police said.

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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami today slammed sidelined AIADMK leader T T V Dhinakaran for his criticism against the ruling camp, saying even a "thousand Dhinakarans" cannot affect the party.

"Nothing can be done to AIADMK even if a thousand Dhinakarans come," said Palaniswami, who was responding to reporters' queries in this regard.

Earlier in the day, Dhinakaran hit out at the Palaniswami-led ruling camp, saying the top "5-6" persons should step aside as an "atonement" for the "mistakes" they had committed.

After being sworn-in as member of the Tamil Nadu Assembly, Dhinakaran lashed out at Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam and claimed that the government would not last beyond "three to four months."



Brushing aside his claims, Panneerselvam said he can't be replying to "those who are in dreamland."



To a question on the possible political entry of 'superstar' Rajinikanth, Palaniswami said anyone in a democracy can join and that it was the decision of the individual concerned.

The actor is slated to make clear his stand on entering on December 31.

To a question on a possible electoral alliance with the BJP, Palaniswami said there were no elections around the corner and wondered how he could answer an "imaginary" question.

Meanwhile, the chief minister met Modakurichi MLA VP Sivasubramani, who is undergoing treatment at a private hospital in this city.

Dhinakaran, who secured an emphatic win in the December 21 R K Nagar bypoll, was sworn-in as a member of the 15th Assembly by Speaker P Dhanapal at his office in Chennai.

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A traffic police personnel was robbed off his service weapon by a group of men while he was returning from duty in southwest Delhi's Uttam Nagar, police said today.

Babulal, an assistant sub-inspector, was going home in Vikas Nagar in his motorcycle yesterday. When he was near a desolate spot near Najafgarh drain, a car stopped in front of him, they said.

A few men alighted from the car, snatched money and valuables from Babulal and also took his pistol, police said, adding that he was in civvies when the incident took place.

In his complaint, he has alleged that two cars were following his motorcycle while he was returning home.

On the basis of the description given by him of the accused, the police are trying to identify them.

Babulal is posted in the Burari traffic circle.

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The central Mumbai area of former mill-lands, where a deadly stampede had occurred in September, today witnessed another tragedy in the last week of 2017 with 14 people dying in a fire at a rooftop pub past midnight.

The victims of the blaze included a woman celebrating her 29th birthday and many of her friends, officials said.

While 54 people were admitted for injuries to various hospitals, by evening 41 have been discharged, while 13 -- eight men and five women -- were undergoing treatment, civic officials said.

The police registered a case of culpable homicide against three people including pub owners, while the civic body suspended five of its officials.

The fire started after 12.30 am at the "1 Above" pub on the terrace of Trade House Building in Kamala Mills compound in Lower Parel, a commercial hub housing several offices including national television channels.

From "1 Above" it spread to Mojo pub on the third floor, one level below, said an official of the Mumbai civic body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

Most victims died of asphyxiation, said Avinash Supe, dean of the KEM Hospital where the victims were brought.

Among the dead was Khushbu Bansali who was celebrating her 29th birthday and 10 other women, according to the official list of victims.

Bansali's grandfather, Babulal Mehta, blamed the "irresponsible" hotel management and the civic authorities.

"The hotel had put up a temporary structure supported by bamboo, with the possibility of catching fire. There was no fire extinguishing facility either. It is the responsibility of the police and civic authorities to act against any violations," he said.

Employees of channels located in the complex had a narrow escape. "I was in the night shift. We heard people screaming at the pub. Initially, we thought it is due to the party which was underway there," said Sanjay Jadhav, a programme producer of a channel.

"When I came out of my office, I saw that a fire has broken out at the roof-top pub. The main entrance of our office was blocked due to the flames," he said.

The massive blaze engulfed the entire building in about 30 minutes and took several hours to be put out. The cause of the fire is not known yet.

Dr Sulbha KG Arora, a Mumbai doctor, told NDTV channel that she was at the 1 Above restaurant. "There was no time for anyone to reach out because the fire spread so rapidly. The staff members of the restaurant were trying to help the customers as much as possible," she said.

"There was a stampede and someone pushed me. People were running over me even as the ceiling above me was collapsing in flames," she said separately in a tweet. "Still don't know how I got out alive."



Teams of fire brigade and police rushed to the spot and initially 35 injured people were pulled out from inside the pub and taken to hospital, a police official said.

Police have booked Hratesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Mankar of C Grade Hospitality which manages the pub, along with others, under various charges including culpable homicide not amounting to murder. DCP Virendra Mishra told PTI that so far nobody has been arrested, and "look-out notice" will be issued for the accused.

They are also charged under IPC sections 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others).

The civic body, on its part, suspended five officials including those attached to the G-South ward for dereliction of duty. There are allegations that civic authorities turned a blind eye to construction irregularities and violation of fire safety norms in the compound.

According to civic officials, the BMC had issued licence for the 1 Above pub in the name of Kripesh Sanghvi and Abhijeet Mankar, while that for Mojo pub was issued in the name of Yug Pathak.

Several media outlets, including TV news channels Times Now, ET Now and TV9 Marathi, have offices in the Kamala Mills compound.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind expressed anguish over the tragedy.

"Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also expressed grief, and said he has directed the BMC commissioner to conduct an inquiry. Action would be taken against errant civic officials as well as owners of the pub, he said, while also ordering safety audit of such structures across the city and demolition of illegal structures.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, tweeting in Marathi, expressed grief and demanded immediate inquiry into the "unfortunate" incident.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya said he had asked Fadnavis and the BMC commissioner to order a special fire audit of all such pubs and 'hooka parlours' in Mumbai.

"Several such establishments at the Mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately. The place where the blaze took place was illegal," he claimed.

The same central Mumbai area -- a former textile mill district now dotted by swanky glass-and-concrete towers -- had witnessed death of over 20 people in a stampede at a railway bridge on September 29 this year.

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Turkey has finalised a deal with Moscow for the purchase of Russia's S-400 anti-missile system, Turkish defense officials announced today, despite concerns voiced by some of the NATO member's allies.

The deal, which would make Turkey the first member of the military alliance to own Russia's most advanced air defense system, comes amid strengthening ties between Turkey and Russia and Ankara's deteriorating relations with the United States and other western countries.

The Turkish Defense Industries Undersecretariat said in a statement Friday that Turkey would buy at least one S-400 surface-to-air missile battery with the option of procuring a second battery.

The delivery of the first battery was scheduled for the first quarter of 2020, the statement said.

The two countries on Friday also finalised a financial agreement for the project, under which part of the cost would be financed through a Russian loan, the Defense Industries body said, without revealing details of the deal.

Turkish media reported today that Turkey would purchase four S-400 units at a cost of USD 2.5 billion.

Sergei Chemezov, head of Russia's state-controlled Rostech corporation, also told the business daily Kommersant in an interview published Wednesday that the contract was worth USD 2.5 billion and that a Russian loan would account for 55 per cent of the sum.

Chemezov said Turkey would buy four batteries and that the first deliveries would start in March 2020, according to Kommersant.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signalled he wants to mend fences with the governments of several European nations he's quarrelled with this year, saying Turkey must "decrease the number of enemies and increase friends."



In comments published yesterday in Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper, Erdogan described the leaders of Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium as "old friends," called recent contacts with them "quite good" and noted that they, like Turkey, oppose a controversial US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

"We have no problems with Germany, or with the Netherlands or Belgium," Erdogan told journalists on his return from a trip to Africa. "On the contrary, those in power there are my old friends. They have wronged me, but that's another matter."



Ties between Ankara and some European nations frayed after authorities in several countries prevented Turkish government ministers from holding political rallies to court expat votes ahead of a referendum in Turkey earlier this year over giving Erdogan expanded powers.

Erdogan aimed a series of insults at his allies accusing European officials of racism, harbouring terrorists and behaving like "Nazis."



European nations also have balked at the deteriorating state of human rights and democratic institutions in Turkey, especially in the wake of last year's failed military coup.

Erdogan's government embarked on an unprecedented crackdown on opponents, arresting around 50,000 people and purging more than 110,000 public sector workers.

A state of emergency declared after the coup attempt allows Erdogan to rule by decree, often bypassing parliament.

Several German or German-Turkish nationals, including a prominent journalist, have been jailed on terror-related charges as part of the crackdown, further damaging ties with Berlin.

Turkey blames the coup attempt on followers of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. The cleric has denied masterminding it.

Erdogan also said he hopes to visit France and the Vatican in the new year.

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An unidentified person has been booked by police for hacking into the Instagram account of a 20-year-old collegian and circulating morphed images of the victim, police said today.

Police said that the collegian has complained that an unknown person had been sending her threatening messages for almost two months now, starting on November 13.

Police said that on November 17, the person sent lewd meassges in the victim's name and later on December 25, he sent her relatives a morphed objectionable picture of the victim.

Officials said that a case had been registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.

Investigations are underway to track down the accused, police added.

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Thousands of devotees today thronged the famous Lord Ranganathaswamy temple in nearby Srirangam on the occasion of Vaikunta Ekadasi festival which was celebrated with religious fervour.

Adorned with glittering pearls and diamonds, the 'utsava' idol of Namperumal was brought out of the 'sanctum sanctorum' and later taken through the Paramapada Vaasal, the celestial gateway to heaven, at around 5 a.m.

Devotees from various parts of the country, including from neighbouring Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, thronged the temple, considered as the foremost among the 108 sacred Vaishnavite shrines on the occasion and offered worship.

About 3,000 police personnel were deployed for security and regulation of traffic in this temple town.

Large number of devotees thronged Sarangapaniswamy temple in Kumbakonam on the occasion.

The Vaikunta Ekadasi festival was conducted in Vaishnavite temples across the state.

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Venezuela's fractured opposition has said it planned to drop competing agendas to unify behind a single candidate in the 2018 presidential elections in which leader Nicolas Maduro is seeking a new mandate.

"We promise to boost our unity... and will proceed with selecting a single candidate," the main grouping, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition, said in a statement yesterday.

The coalition did not specify how it would choose its rival to Maduro. But on December 12, opposition lawmaker Luis Florido suggested consultations between the parties on holding primaries.

The division in the opposition coalition have given Maduro a clear path to holding on to power, despite broad unpopularity and deep societal malaise over scarce food and medicine as the once-rich oil-producing nation teeters on the brink of default.

By sidelining the opposition, Maduro has seen his loyalists win gubernatorial and municipal elections in October and December.

The cracks in the opposition were on display in talks it is holding with Maduro's government in the Dominican Republic aimed and finding some way to mitigate the country's crisis.

Some elements in the opposition view the dialogue to be a "betrayal" given protests demanding the Socialist president step down that took place between April and July, resulting in 125 deaths.

Venezuela's presidential election is scheduled to be held in late 2018, but the opposition and some analysts predict they could be brought forward to early next year.

"Maduro is going to push the strategy of bringing the elections forward as much as possible to avoid a regrouping of the opposition," said one electoral expert, Eugenio Martinez.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BJP MLA Vijender Gupta today demanded that the ongoing sealing drive in the city be halted immediately and met Union Urban Development minister Hardeep Singh Puri over the issue.

The Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly said the meeting with Puri was fruitful and expressed hope that the issue would be resolved.

Municipal corporations in Delhi have undertaken the drive initiated by a Supreme Court-appointed Monitoring Committee. Commercial premises have been sealed for failing to deposit conversion charges, for changing the category of land usage, such as from residential to commercial, according to provisions in the city's Master Plan 2021.

"A lawful and lasting solution must be found to remove the fear of sealing action," Gupta said and demanded that the drive be halted "immediately".

He said according to an August 2008 order sealing should be resorted to only after studying the action taken by the owner or occupier of the building.

There should be a 48-hour notice before the action, Gupta said, adding the idea was to ensure that there is no harassment or injustice.

"But the Monitoring Committee is not following the rule notwithstanding the fact that it was applicable to it also," he alleged.

Meanwhile, the Monitoring Committee has extended the last date for depositing the first instalment of conversion charge to January 15. Earlier, the last date for it was December 31.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Self-styled godman Virendra Dev Dixit, accused of confining women and girls in his ashrams, features in the second list of "fake babas" released by the Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, the apex body of Hindu sadhus, here today.

The list consists of three names- Virendra Dev Dixit Delhi), Sachidanand Saraswati (Basti, UP) and Trikal Bhawant (Allahabad).

Releasing the list, the parishad's president Swami Narendra Giri said, "We appeal to even the common people to beware of such charlatans who belong to no tradition and by their questionable acts, bring disrepute to sadhus and sanyasis."



The parishad is a council of akharas, which are monastic orders drawing their spiritual lineage from 8th-century seer Adi Shankara, who is said to have established orders of martial monks with the aim of defending the Hindu Dharma.

On September 10, it released the first list of 14 such self-styled godmen which included names such as Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, Radhey Ma, Nirmal Baba, Rampal, Asaram Bapu and his son Narayan Sai.

The parishad took the move in the wake of controversies surrounding self-styled godmen.

"We have passed a resolution that the Uttar Pradesh government should set up a monitoring committee which would keep a close eye on the work being done for Kumbh Mela, 2019 and this committee should consist of a member from each akharas," Giri said.

Last week, three centres run by Dixit were raided by the police in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh and 47 women and six minor girls were rescued.

A Delhi Police team went to an ashram in Dwarka in the national capital and rescued five minor girls, who were allegedly kept confined there.

Uttar Pradesh Police also raided two centres run by Dixit at Siktarbad and Kampil respectively and rescued 47 women and a girl.

Delhi Women Commission chief Swati Maliwal had said the Dwarka ashram had "prison-like surroundings" and the inmates there were kept locked.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government today cautioned investors to be wary of virtual currencies like Bitcoin, saying they are like Ponzi schemes with no legal tender and protection.

"There is a real and heightened risk of investment bubble of the type seen in Ponzi schemes which can result in sudden and prolonged crash exposing investors, especially retail consumers losing their hard-earned money. Consumers need to be alert and extremely cautious as to avoid getting trapped in such Ponzi schemes," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

VCs are stored in digital/electronic format, making them vulnerable to hacking, loss of password, malware attack etc. which may also result in permanent loss of money, it said.

Noting that therehas been a phenomenal increase in recent times in the price of virtual currencies (VCs) including Bitcoin, in India and globally, it said, the VCs don't have any intrinsic value and are not backed by any kind of assets.

"The price of Bitcoin and other VCs, therefore, is entirely a matter of mere speculation resulting in spurt and volatility in their prices," it said.

Earlier in the day, Minister of State for Finance Pon Radhakrishanan in the Lok Sabha said the Department of Economic Affairs had constituted an inter-disciplinary committee to examine the existing global regulatory and legal structures governing Bitcoin; suggest the framework for regulation of Bitcoin if among others etc.

The committee has submitted its report which is under consideration of the government, the minister said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

The Finance Ministry statement further said that users, holders and traders of VCs have already been cautioned three times by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) about the potential financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security related risks that they are exposing themselves to by investing in Bitcoin or other such currencies.

The RBI from time to time has also clarified that it has not given any licence or authorisation to any entity to operate such schemes or deal with Bitcoin or any virtual currency, it said.

Besides, it said, the government or RBI has not authorised any VCs as a medium of exchange. Further, the government or any other regulator in India has not given licence to any agency for working as exchange or any other kind of intermediary for any VC, it said.

"The government also makes it clear that VCs are not legal tender and such VCs do not have any regulatory permission or protection in India. The investors and other participants, therefore, deal with these VCs entirely at their risk and should best avoid participating therein," it said.

As transactions of VCs are encrypted they are also likely being used to carry out illegal activities, such as terror- funding, smuggling, drug trafficking and other money- laundering acts, it added.

"VCs are not backed by government fiat. These are also not legal tender. Hence, VCs are not currencies. These are also being described as 'Coins'," it said.

There is, however, no physical attribute to these coins, it said, adding, persons dealing in them must consider these facts and beware of the risks involved in dealing in VCs.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
- Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Friday said the tax legislation will result in a decrease of about $5 billion in its fourth-quarter earnings.

Around two-thirds of the $5 billion decrease in earnings is due to repatriation tax, Goldman said in a statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (http://bit.ly/2C8j4br)

(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
McDonald's India partner Vikram Bakshi on Thursday hit out at the fast food major, saying it follows 'different standards' for India compared to other countries and continuously ignored the food quality concerns raised by him in the past four years. His remarks came hours after McDonald's suggested that CPRL's new logistic vendor may pose risk to McDonald's food quality and safety standards.

Bakshi said: "It appears that McDonald's have global standards for food safety and supplies, and they have a very different set of standards for countries like ours which is a clear double standard."

Fight between McDonald's and its India partner Vikram Bakshi has been going on for a few years. However, the latest round of exchanges started earlier this week after CPRL's logistics partner Radhakrishna Foodland stopped the supply that led to the shutdown of all McDonald's outlets in East India.

Vikram Bakshi blamed McDonald's for the 'abrupt supply disruptions' and partnered with a new logistics vendor ColdEX. Bakshi's move did not go well with McDonald's. The fast food giant alleged it had not approved the new vendor. McDonald's said: "Using unapproved vendors for the supply chain is creating serious compliance risks to McDonalds standards for food quality and safety."

To which Bakshi responded, saying that issues concerning public health have been blatantly ignored by McDonald's with no responses, visits or actions on food safety. "It is indeed ironic that the conscience of McDonald's has suddenly awakened to quality and food safety in India, when for the past four years, CPRL has been bringing to their attention, including their CEO, Steve Easterbrook, issues of the same, without extracting a single response or visit from them," Bakshi said in a statement.

Earlier this week, Radhakrishna Foodland had discontinued its supply services alleging reduction in volume and non-payment of certain dues, among others. Termination of supplies affected about 100 restaurants in East and North India. Bakshi said this was a pre-planned step in collusion with McDonald's and their wholly owned subsidiary in India MIPL. Later, NCLT-appointed CPRL administrator asked Radhakrishna Foodland to resume the supply services as the termination was in contravention of the NCLT judgement that ordered for smooth functioning of the CPRL restaurants without any hindrance.

The fight between McDonald's and Bakshi began in 2013 after fast food giant removed Bakshi as the Managing Director of CPRL. The National Company Law Tribunal later reinstated him and also refrained McDonald's from interfering in the functioning of CPRL besides appointing an administrator to oversee the smooth functioning of CPRL. The battle which gained momentum after Bakhshi's ouster turned ugly when McDonald's India terminated the franchise agreement of 169 outlets this year in August. Both the parties are now fighting out their case in various legal forums including NCLT, NCLAT and Delhi high court. Meanwhile, Bakshi continues to operate the outlets.



(With inputs from PTI)
Weeks after the Reserve Bank of India issued its third warning against the cryptocurrency trading, the Finance Ministry today said that virtual currencies are not legal tender and such currencies have no protection. It said the virtual currencies (VCs) including Bitcoin don't have any intrinsic value and are not backed by any kind of assets. "The price of Bitcoin and other VCs therefore is entirely a matter of mere speculation resulting in spurt and volatility in their prices," the Ministry said in a statement.

The Ministry also said that there was a real and heightened risk of investment bubble of the type seen in ponzi schemes which can result in sudden and prolonged crash exposing investors, especially retail consumers losing their hard-earned money. "Consumers need to be alert and extremely cautious as to avoid getting trapped in such Ponzi schemes," the statement said.

The Ministry also explained the vulnerabilities in investing in digital currencies. It said the virtual currencies are stored in digital/electronic format, making them vulnerable to hacking, loss of password, malware attack which may also result in permanent loss of money. "As transactions of VCs are encrypted they are also likely being used to carry out illegal and subversive activities, such as, terror-funding, smuggling, drug trafficking and other money-laundering Acts," the Ministry said.

The Finance Ministry today reiterated that the government or the RBI has not authorised any Virtual Currencies as a medium of exchange. It also made it clear that the government or any other regulator in India has not given license to any agency for working as exchange. It said: " Virtual currencies are not backed by government fiat. These are also not legal tender. Hence, VCs are not currencies. These are also being described as 'Coins'. There is however no physical attribute to these coins. Therefore, VC are neither currencies nor coins."

This may be the first official warning from the government, the Central Bank on three different occasion cautioned the users, holders and traders about the potential financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security related risks that they were exposing themselves to by investing in Virtual Currency including Bitcoin. Earlier this month, the RBI clarified that it has not given any licence/ authorization to any entity/ company to operate or deal with Bitcoin or any virtual currency.

Today, the government also made it clear that VCs are not legal tender and such VCs do not have any regulatory permission or protection in India. The investors and other participants therefore deal with such currency entirely at their risk.

The Indian government and RBI are not the only ones to caution investors against crypto currency. Leading financial analysts and economist have also raised red flag against it. Business magnet Warren Buffett called it a 'real bubble'. Garrick Hileman, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge's Judge Business School, earlier said: "What's happening right now has nothing to do with Bitcoin's functionality as a currency - this is pure mania that's taken hold."
A massive fire at a pub hosting a birthday party killed 14 people, most of them women, and injured 21 shortly after midnight in a posh Mumbai locality, police said today.

Most of the victims, who included 11 women, died of asphyxiation in the tragedy in Lower Parel area, police said.

Some reports said among those dead is the woman who was celebrating her birthday but this could not be independently confirmed.

The fire broke out after 12.30 am at One Above Pub, located on the third floor of the four-story Trade House Building in Kamala Mills compound on Senapati Bapat Marg, a commercial hub of the city, a police official said.

The massive blaze engulfed the entire building in about 30 minutes and took several hours to be put out. The cause of the fire is not known.

Mumbai's civic body Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation credited the Press Trust of India for alerting authorities about the blaze.

"The disaster management control room was alerted by PTI about the fire," said a report issued by the BMC disaster management cell today.

Senior PTI journalist Dnyanesh Chavan was tipped off about the fire by a source shortly after midnight and contacted the control room to get details, unaware that he was the first bearer of tragic news.

Teams of fire brigade and police rushed to the spot and 35 injured people were pulled out from inside the pub and taken to hospital, the official said.

"During treatment, 14 people, including 11 women, were declared dead. Most of the victims died of suffocation," he said adding that 21 others sustained serious burn injuries.

Police have booked Hratesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Manka of C Grade Hospitality, which manages the pub, along with others, under various charges including cuplable homicide not amounting to murder.

They are also charged IPC sections 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others).

Two of those booked haev been detained.

The Kamala Mills compound in central Mumbai's Lower Parel is a refurbished industrial compound, housing swanky restaurants and other commercial establishments.

Several media outlets, including TV news channels Times Now, ET Now and TV9 Marathi, have offices in the complex.

There have been allegations that civic authorities have turned a blind eye to construction irregularities and violation of fire safety norms in the compound.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed anguish over the tragedy.

"Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.
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Reliance Jio to buy RCom's wireless assets

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm is ready to bail out younger brother Anil Ambani's debt-ridden telecom business by buying the wireless assets of Reliance Communications, having signed an accord that was announced on Dhirubhai Ambani's 85th birth anniversary. Jio signed a definitive agreement to acquire specified assets of RCom and its affiliates in an all-cash deal . The deal is being pegged at about Rs 24,000 crore.

E-commerce industry to grow at 60% in 2018

India's online shopping industry is estimated to grow at 60 per cent to about $28.5 billion in terms of gross merchandise value (GMV) in 2018, according to a report. The e-commerce industry is expected to return to high growth next year as large players such as Amazon, Flipkart and Paytm Mall begin to look beyond the 20 million customers who shop online on a monthly basis. Industry analyst RedSeer Consulting pegs the online shopping industry's growth at 23 per cent to $17.8 billion in 2017.

Gems & jewellery exports up 50%

In a sharp turnaround in global consumer sentiment, gems and jewellery exports from India jumped 56 per cent in November after a sustained decline over the previous months. Gems and jewellery exports from India are down by over 13 per cent, year on year, between April and October 2017. Data compiled by the Gems and Jewellery Exports Promotion Council (GJEPC), show net exports of gems and jewellery shot up to $2.78 billion (Rs 18,002 crore) in November 2017 from $1.77 billion (Rs 12,001 crore) during the same month last year. The sudden spurt in jewellery demand, especially from the US, has brought cheer to Indian exporters.

SEBI relaxes entry norms for foreign portfolio investors

Securities and Exchange Board of India has decided to relax the entry norms for foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) willing to invest in the Indian markets. The SEBI board has decided to ease some rules, including expanding the eligible jurisdictions for registration by including countries with diplomatic tie-ups with India. Besides, the regulator may rationalise "fit and proper" criteria for FPIs as well as simplify the broad-based requirements for such investors. The moves are aimed at easing direct registration for FPIs and avoiding participatory notes



Insolvency Bill in Lok Sabha: Defaulters get a month to clear dues

Defaulting promoters who had already submitted resolution plans for insolvent companies before an ordinance in November made them ineligible to do so without clearing dues first will get up to a month to come clean to be eligible to bid for the stressed firms. A Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday to replace the ordinance on the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016, however, suggests this relaxation will be applicable only to defaulters in those cases where the resolution period has not exceeded the stipulated time frame



India ranked fifth among nations with most NPAs

At 9.9 percent ratio, India has been ranked fifth on the list of countries with highest Non-Performing Assets (NPAs), and is on top spot among the BRICS nations, a recent report by CARE Ratings revealed. The country is reeling under a huge NPA burden of over Rs 7.33 lakh crore as of June 2017. To address the crisis, the government has announced the recapitalisation of these public sector banks by infusing around Rs 2.11 lakh crore, besides pumping in Rs 1.35 lakh crore through recapitalisation bonds.

Whatsapp gets legal notice for middle finger emoji

An emoji has got the mobile messaging app Whatsapp into trouble with the law.Whatsapp received a legal notice from a Delhi-based advocate. The app has been asked to remove the said emoji in less than 15 days or he would file civil or criminal cases against the company if it is not removed. He said the middle finger emoji on WhatsApp is an obscene and lewd gesture, an offence in India. "By offering to use middle finger emoji in your app, you (WhatsApp) are directly abetting the use of offensive, lewd, obscene gesture," the notice said.

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The Reliance Communications (RCom) stock surged in Friday's trade after Reliance Jio announced it would buy wireless infrastructure assets of Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications.

The deal is likely to help the Mukesh Ambani-led Jio intensify its fight with rival Bharti Airtel not only in the mobile telephony business but in the fibre to home space too. Reliance Jio which started its telephony services from September 5, 2016 has become the fourth-largest telco by subscriber base.

The RCom stock rose up to 35% or 41.77 level a day after Reliance Industries announced signing of 'definitive agreement' for the acquisition of specified assets of Reliance Communications and its affiliates.

At 12:05 pm, the stock was trading 16.47% or 5 points higher at 36.06 on the BSE. The Stock closed 17 percent or 5.26 points higher on the BSE. A flow of positive news has sent the stock on a roller coaster ride in the last three trading sessions.

On December 26, Reliance Communications chairman Anil Ambani announced a new asset monetisation plan and its exit from the strategic debt restructuring (SDR) framework.

Anil Ambani-led RCom will reduce debt by about Rs 25,000 crore through the sale of some of its spectrum, tower and real estate assets. Debt resolution involves RCom exiting SDR framework with no conversion of debt into equity and zero write-off by lenders and bond holders, Ambani had said, adding he expects full closure by March 2018.

Under the new debt revival plan, upon completion of all transactions, the balance debt in RCom is expected to be Rs 6,000 crore, a reduction of over 85 per cent of total debt, RCom said in a release.

Reacting to the positive news, the Reliance Communications stock closed 30.78 percent or 5 points higher at 21.33 level on December 26 after Ambani's announcement.

Bouyed by the positive sentiments arising out of the debt cut announcement, the stock closed 34.74% higher on December 27 on the BSE.

Since December 26, the stock has gained 156% on positive news. On an year-to-date basis, the stock is up 6.73% and has gained 8% during the last one year period.

Yesterday, announcement by Reliance Industries that Reliance Jio would buy acquire wireless infrastructure assets of Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications proved to be an icing on the cake for the beaten down stock.

During the last five years, the stock has been down more than 50% on BSE.

According to the deal, Reliance Jio will acquire towers, optic fiber cable network or OFC, 4G Spectrum from RCom. Reliance Jio emerged as the successful bidder in the two-stage bidding process.

The deal is slated to bring relief to RCom which is reeling under debt of around Rs 45,000 crore. Reliance Jio or its nominees will acquire assets under four categories - Towers, Optic Fiber Cable Network ("OFC"), Spectrum and Media Convergence Nodes ("MCN") from RCOM and its affiliates. "These assets are strategic in nature and are expected to contribute significantly to the large scale roll-out of wireless and Fiber-to-Home and Enterprise services by RJIL," the statement said.
"At the end of the day, being a victim of crime will be with you forever. You don't choose to be a victim of crime, but it's going to stay with you. We've got to help people negotiate around that and work out how they can use that to benefit themselves and empower themselves later down the track."
The twilight hire is two-and-a-half hours, which means you have enough time to drop a line to catch dinner and we eventually drop anchor near Big Island, which thankfully unlike the Hawaiian island of the same name has no volcanic flows. The only hazard here is the jellyfish, which are thick in the water, but we aren't here to swim, we are here to barbecue and unfortunately for the Yowie clan, the jewfish I was promised by a local would be lining up to jump on my bait near Chinamans Point went missing, so instead it's a sausage sizzle.
"They need to know what their children are up to - no one wants that surprise at 3 o'clock in the morning of the police ringing to tell them their children are somewhere they didn't know where they were."
"If your home is NBN-ready, and you fail to switch after 18 months, you could have your internet and home phone disconnected, which could be really annoying over the summer holidays," he said.
"ACT Housing did the right thing by decanting the tenants from this building a year ago, in case the classification needs to change. Rather than seeing an article that shows ACT Housing in a negative light for taking this action, I hope that you would argue that they did absolutely the right thing in the interests of their tenants," he said.
The agency was among many trying to grow their ranks of Aboriginal public servants as the government tried to reach 3 per cent Indigenous employment across its departments by 2018. In June, it had reached 3.2 per cent as nearly 5,000 people working in the public service identified themselves as Indigenous.
A decision to set up the corporation in the city, which sits at the heart of the NSW state electorate of Orange, drew fire in May as critics accused Nationals leader and former Agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce of pork barrelling in response to his party's electoral loss there.
Police in Fairfax County, Virginia have arrested a pair of men for stealing an unlocked car from a residents driveway.



While this typically wouldnt be newsworthy, one of the men was wearing a t-shirt that said Trust Me and police say he was anything but trustworthy.

According to the Fairfax County Police Department, a resident started their car at approximately 6:30 am on December 23rd and was letting it warm up in their driveway. When they went to leave, the car was gone.

The resident called police and they eventually spotted the car and conducted a traffic stop. Police arrested 23-year-old Wilmer Lara Garcia and 24-year-old Orlen Nunez who were both from Falls Church. The pair were charged with auto theft but Garcia, who was wearing the Trust Me t-shirt, was also charged with two counts of forgery as he was in procession of altered and forged checks.

The Virginia State Police HEAT task force says thieves steal more than 7,000 vehicles in the state each year and they are valued at more than $55 million annually. Of course, one of the easiest ways to prevent auto theft is using common sense and not leaving your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition.

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China is getting serious about its efforts to reduce pollution as the country will reportedly require automakers stop production of 553 passenger vehicles by January 1st.



Bloomberg reports the production halt will affect models that dont meet the countrys fuel-consumption limits and these reportedly include vehicles from Audi (the FV7145LCDBG sedan), Chevrolet (Shanghai GMs Chevrolet SGM7161DAA2 sedan), and Mercedes-Benz ( Beijing Benzs Benz BJ7302ETAL2 sedan).

While 553 vehicles sounds like a lot, the secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association told the publication its actually a very small percentage of passenger cars that are produced in China.

The list was compiled by the China Vehicle Technology Service Center and an analyst for China Merchants Securities noted it is the first time the country has created an official list of offending vehicles. Wang Liusheng went on to say Such documents will surface frequently in the future and he believes its an essential move to ensure the healthy development of the industry in the long run.

China is one of the largest markets for electric vehicles and the country has been considering banning the sale of vehicles powered by petrol and diesel engines. However, the plan has faced some opposition including from GM CEO Mary Barra who stated Weve encouraged the Chinese government to work with us and work with the industry to make sure were creating the excitement and demand for electric vehicles as opposed to it just being mandated.

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If youre familiar with your British car makers, then youll know that coming across a Bristol Fighter on the used market is a big, if not huge, deal.



Thanks to Bristols infamous secrecy, no one really knows how many Fighters were even built, by hand of course. Some say that Bristol made as many as 14, others talk about 9, with specialists believing the exact number to be 11 cars. No matter what, the Bristol Fighter is a rare object.

This gull-winged GT is powered by the Dodge Vipers 8.0-liter V10 engine, which Bristol has modified to produce around 525hp, allowing the Fighter to travel up to speeds of 210mph and reaching 60mph from a stop in 4 seconds flat.

This 2004 example is believed to be the first customer car Bristol made, which has been used for testing and promotional activities as well. It has covered 17,000 miles since new and has spent most of its lifetime in Netherlands.

This Bristol Fighter is offered by Derek C Mowat in Edinburgh, Scotland, with the price set at 199,950 (around $268k in current exchange rates). If you want one of the most exclusive hand-built British supercars ever made, you cant go wrong with a Bristol Fighter.

H/T To BaT!

PHOTO GALLERY
Small economy cars are almost never described as being fun but the Mitsubishi Mirage is probably one of the few new cars right now that dont even know what fun means.



Theres a general blandness surrounding the small Mitsubishi while the obvious cost-cutting in places is really obvious and never lets you forget that this is one of the cheapest new cars in the market right now.

Of course these cars are used for commutes and nothing much more really and while the Mirage is more than capable of getting you safely to your destination, people who like cars will almost definitely prefer something a bit more interesting for their everyday travels.

Even the three-cylinder engine is laughably small and underpowered -by U.S. standards, mind you- measuring 1.2 liters in capacity and producing 78hp and 74lb-ft of torque. Opt for the CVT automatic transmission and then youll get the perfect car to make your petrolhead friends hate you eternally.

Want to know more about this fascinatingly cheap Mitsubishi? Let Doug DeMuro then give you a tour around the strongest contender for the title of USAs worst new car right now.

VIDEO
Floods, landslides, fire, smoke. There's no doubt Mother Nature hit the Okanagan hard in 2017  but surprisingly, it didn't hit tourism as much as expected, Tourism Kelowna says.

Flooding started in early May and kept boaters to low speeds to prevent shore erosion from their wakes.

Forest fires started soon after, leading to smoke-filled air for what seemed like months on end.

The smoke from wildfires burning throughout the B.C. Interior was strong enough to deter people from enjoying the outdoors  one of the biggest draws for tourists in the Okanagan. According to Tourism Kelowna, the smoke did the biggest damage to tourism numbers in 2017.

"We were learning the flooding wasn't affecting our hotel group as badly as the later smoke from the fires did," said CEO Lisanne Ballantyne.

Bookings weren't being cancelled, but people were staying a shorter time once they got here.

"Our overall hotel occupancy was only down slightly, about 1.4 per cent down from the same period of 2016. We're OK with that  2016 was a strong growth year," Ballantyne said.

"What's interesting, for the month of September, we were at 82.2 per cent occupancy. That's actually ahead of September last year. The hit we took as a tourist industry was related specifically to our key months of July and August. We rebounded quite nicely."

But, tourist-dependent businesses didn't paint quite as rosy a picture. Anecdotal reports were that business was down for many, and Mayor Colin Basran took to YouTube to produce a series of videos proclaiming Kelowna "still open for business" during the high-water and smoke woes.

Tourism Kelowna tracks strictly hotel numbers. Businesses along the waterfront were less enthusiastic.

Castanet visited Megs BBQ Boat Rentals a few times during the tourist season, and owner Meagan Young reported a dip in sales.

"It's still busy, but people have been told by hotels and others the lake is not in operation right now, so with that knowledge, they think they aren't able to get out onto the water or do things close to the water. That is taking away from some of the business in the downtown area, as well as the tourism," she said in May.

But when Young looked back over the year, she was pleasantly surprised.

"Our numbers were up. Obviously, we noticed a decrease in the amount of people coming through, but regardless they were still renting boats and getting on the lake. We are projecting to be a lot busier next year."
Chantelle Deacon

At times this past spring, storms on Okanagan Lake wreaked havoc, with waves bashing into property and sweeping docks away.

But the worst damage was caused as Okanagan and Kalamalka lakes slowly and inexorably rose beyond all expectations, creeping up beaches, seeping into crawl spaces and finally flooding home after home.

One of the worst hit areas in the Valley was at the north end of Okanagan Lake, where about 400 homes, both permanent and seasonal, were damaged at Head of the Lake and the Louis Estates.

Evacuation orders were put in place, leaving people out of their homes for weeks on end. Both neighbourhoods sit on lease land owned by members of the Okanagan Indian Band.

Even now, many residents are still working to fix their property and shore it up against any future aqua invasion.

We're still cleaning. The neighbourhood is cleaning up, said Cindy Brassard, a lakeshore resident at the Louis Estates.

The Brassards were one of the only families who refused to obey an evacuation order. Instead, they stayed put to shore up sandbags on their property with a moat system that more or less worked.

Our crawl space got flooded, our hot tub room got flooded (but) that's minor stuff compared to losing everything in our house, Brassard said.

Many of her neighbours were not so lucky and have been tearing up floors and drywall for months in order to restore their homes.

Brassard said all of the neighbours and the OKIB came together for the initial cleanup of properties.

We got a Bobcat and helped moved debris out of people's yards. The band came and picked it all up.

The clean up job on OKIB land was so massive that by the middle of July, crews had already collected 175 tonnes of wood waste from the north end. As well, 9,000 litres of contaminated water had been collected.

Like many, the Brassards are working to rebuild the lakeside part of their property, which took a serious beating.

We've rebuilt our front water wall with heavier timber and pylons and made it higher. Twenty feet back from that on our property, we've built a cement retaining wall.

When asked if it marred the look of the land, Brassard simply said, I feel safer.

Other areas were also affected.

The City of Vernon and District of Coldstream set up sand and sandbags stations that were constantly replenished.

Many lakefront properties in Okanagan Landing suffered damage.

The District of Coldstream closed boat launches at the north end of Kal Lake and the Rotary Pier was closed due to structural damage.

Brassard said she hopes a similar situation doesn't develop next spring, although she and her husband are perparing for the worst.

An environmental expert was down here and said they were expecting next spring to be the same, she warned.
Photo: Contributed

Sick kids at Kelowna General Hospital got a helping hand this Christmas.

The KGH Foundation received $37,490 from Central Okanagan Shoppers Drug Mart stores' Better Together campaign this fall.

The money will help build a temporary home for new mothers with sick babies that will be called JoeAnnas House.

Lisa Dear of Creston gave birth to her son seven weeks premature at KGH.

When my nurse told me that Zach needed to stay for several weeks in the KGH (neonatal intensive care unit) but that I was being discharged, I was stunned, Dear said. I had no idea where I would go. Having JoeAnnas House would have been so, so helpful.

Social worker Laura White says the new building will significantly reduce the emotional and financial burden on such families.

The $8-million campaign recently also received a $100,000 donation from the Cops for Kids charity.
Photo: Contributed

Canada's largest and longest-running open water swim event, held right here in Kelowna, is celebrating its 70th year this summer.

The Interior Savings Across the Lake Swim began in 1949, with an estimated 20 participants according to Peter Rudd, race director.

On July 14, 2018, 1,500 swimmers are expecting to take to Okanagan Lake on the Westside, finishing the 2.1 kilometre swim in City Park.

The Interior Savings Across the Lake Swim is part of Kelowna history and its a story we want to tell as part of our 70th celebrations in 2018, said Rudd.

As part of the 70th anniversary celebrations, swim organizers are looking historical photos, stories, articles or past awards related to the swim.

We would also love to talk to swimmers, or their family members, who were a part of earlier swims, said Alexis MacMillan, media volunteer for the swim.

Those with historical memorabilia from the race can contact organizers at [email protected]

Registration for the 2018 swim can be completed here.
Photo: Contributed Kira Johnson, left, and Grace Oswald.

Two Okanagan College students will be able to study abroad after receiving thousands of dollars from a scholarship.

Grace Oswald and Kira Johnson were two of 29 British Columbian students who were awarded the Irving K. Barber Premiers International Scholarship, which grants recipients between $6,000 and $10,000.

Oswald is preparing to study at Finland's Jyvaskylan University of Applied Science for six months, beginning in January.

Im supporting myself through school so winning the award was big news, said Oswald, who was awarded $7,500. Its the biggest scholarship Ive ever won and I feel like Ive got financial freedom to take in more of the culture now.

Oswald is enrolled in Okanagan College's Bachelor of Business Administration program in Tourism and Hospitality Management.

I knew this was the right career path for me and I think one of the best ways to truly understand tourism is to become a tourist yourself, which is why I wanted to study abroad so badly, Oswald said.

Johnson is also in Okanagan College's Bachelor of Business Administration program. She was awarded the scholarship's maximum $10,000 and plans to complete her third year of her undergrad in Germany at the Berlin School of Economics and Law.

"Ive been involved with international education since high school, said Johnson. I started working alongside my school district's international co-ordinator and even developed a program called The Peace Program that helps exchange students make friendships with local students and helps Canadian students make international friendships.

Johnson hopes to work as an international co-ordinator for a school district or post-secondary school following graduation.

Im really interested in seeing how Germany encourages their students to study abroad and bring that information back to Canada, she said.
Photo: irish.news.com

In the Industrial age, it was normal to have a jobber running around the world cutting deals with manufacturers on products.

Subsequently, he would move them by the trainload to a wholesaler. That wholesaler would then use regional distribution systems to move the products to a retailer.

All that has largely changed with the advent of the Internet.

Not all industries have adapted to changing demands however.

Having been involved in real estate for approximately 20 years I am more than familiar with the cry of the consumer that realtors gets paid more than their value.

But do they really?

Let me try to explain why your real estate fees are very varied, but also, to some of you, perceived to be high.

Many people may have owned shares in Cendant Corporation, a large organization based in the New York area and owned, among others, by the real estate company known as Coldwell Banker.

Typically, shareholders have a desire for one or perhaps two things:

asset appreciation (shareholder value)

cash flow (dividends).

The AGM is the place where the shareholders can express their opinion and demand better performance.

Cendant split into four organizations (to serve its shareholders better and reduce conflict), several years ago and the resulting real estate focused corporation, Realogy, now owns several real estate companies, including Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and Sothebys.

If we simply look at Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC, it is a parent corporation whose shareholder is Realogy. Of course, that shareholder wants to see a profit, so at the AGM, who is shouting the loudest? Realogy of course. They, rightfully, demand performance in terms of shareholder value.

Coldwell Banker Real Estate hence is required to make a profit and so in Canada, we have Coldwell Banker Canada Operations ULC. It is likely mostly owned by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC and is essentially required to make a profit or improve its shareholder value to its parent, Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC.

Now, we already have three required layers of margin Coldwell Banker in Canada, Coldwell Banker Parent Corporation and Realogy, a public corporation that you may be a shareholder in.

But it does not stop there

You can, if you choose, buy a franchise in Coldwell Banker Canada (or any of the other real estate offices that Realogy owns for that matter) and start to make profit for yourself. Not forgetting that you owe a sizeable portion of that profit to the Canadian HQ of your chosen brand.

OK, We are up to four. Now the devious and greedy realtors gets involved.

If there is any concern that realtors are gouging for their services, it is simply a facet of the way the system is set up. If you dont understand that, read the article again.

If ever you complain about real estate commissions, you had better make sure you dont own stock in any company that has a real estate corporation as one of its assets because you are in fact a perpetrator.

Additionally, while we are on the subject, if you own shares in an oil company, dont ever complain to me about the price of gas at the pumps etc., etc.

I know it is confusing, but give the realtors a break. Probably 70 per cent of their efforts are going to making other shareholders money in this archaic consolidation.

To make matters worse, guess who is on the hook when the shareholders demand that money needs to be saved? The realtors, who will typically get less service for their fees.

Why write about this today?

Because I think the economic target for 2018 is antiquated layered systems of corporate margin that only serve to provide a service that is burdened with top down fees.

In 2018, one of the biggest things I am excited about is blockchain technology. It may be the solution to monopolistic industries that are protectionist of their systems and services.

If you dont know what block chain is, I would encourage you to at least do a Google search and get a basic understanding. It will have some impact on the real estate community, but other industries are a much bigger target for blockchain.

While blockchain may not reinvent real estate services it certainly will impact the way we do business and who no longer will make fees along the way.

Happy New Year.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Photo: Contributed Power is out to 25 homes in the BX area of Vernon.

UPDATED: 6:35 p.m.

Power has been restored to the customers affected in the BX area of Vernon.

ORIGINAL: 4:36 p.m.

What is believed to be a blown transformer has left 25 BC Hydro customers in the dark.

Shortly before 4 p.m., BX/Swan Lake fire crews were called to the Wallace/Falcon Road area for a report of a tree on fire.

Before crews could arrive, the tree stopped burning, but power was cut to several homes in the area.

Crews reported seeing a tree leaning against some wires and a small explosion was heard before the tree went up in flames.

There is no word on when power will be restored, but BC Hydro crews are working on the repairs.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Interior Health has confirmed another case of meningococcal disease  this time in the Thompson-Cariboo region.

While this most recent case is outside of the Okanagan region, Dr. Trevor Corneil, vice president of population health and chief medical health officer, says that the health authority is following up.

"We can confirm that this is the same strain as in the Okanagan, but we are still exploring whether or not there is a connection," Dr. Corneil said.

Whenever we identify a new case, we actively follow up with anyone who has been in close contact with that individual, and we provide them with antibacterial prophylactics if necessary.

In December, IH declared an outbreak of meningococcal disease in the Okanagan due to an increasing number of cases in the region.

"The decision to declare an outbreak is based on similarities like age or geography or time and place," explained Dr. Corneil.

The authority urged anyone aged 15-19-year-olds to get vaccinated. So far, 12,680 individuals in the Okanagan have been immunized, which is 59.7 per cent of the target population.

The individual in the latest case is outside the targeted population.

"Regardless of similarities or connections or not, we are still urging individuals in the targeted group in the Okanagan to get vaccinated," said Dr. Corneil.

"All individuals should continue to practice good personal hygiene by not sharing cigarettes, utensils or water bottles, by coughing into elbows or sleeves, and by frequently washing their hands to help reduce the spread of this disease."

Immunizations have been offered at public health centres and more recently at select Shoppers Drug Mart locations throughout the Okanagan.

Vaccination clinics are still being offered throughout the Okanagan. To see a full list of where to obtain the Meningococcal Quadrivalent vaccine, visit interiorhealth.ca.
Despite the snow and freezing temperatures, well over 100 people joined together in Kelowna's Stuart Park Thursday evening to remember Clara Forman and her two daughters, Karina and Yesenia.

The three were found dead in their Rutland home on the evening of Dec. 19. Jacob Forman, Clara's husband and father to the two young girls, has been charged with three counts of second-degree murder.

Candlelight flickered against the falling snow Thursday night, as friends and coworkers spoke of Clara's giving nature and sense of humour.

The emptiness in our hearts, hopefully over time, will be mended by the memory of Clara and as the vibrant, energetic and giving woman that we knew her to be, said Colleen Wood-Loewen, a coworker of Clara's at GoodLife Fitness.

Clara was loving, caring, patient, kind and funny, with a quirky sense of humour.

Lea Ann Dent took Clara's fitness classes, and described her as a sweet girl.

She made it quite personal, not everybody can remember your name as an instructor, they see all kinds of people, Dent said. Clara was the type who always remembered your name, it was nice.

Clara's young daughters were remembered Thursday as well.

Her little girls, they were just always so beautiful and dressed so nice and they always had bows in their hair and she just always took such good care of them, said another woman from GoodLife Fitness. They always had proper snacks and were always happy.

The vigil was organized by several members of Kelowna's Latin American community. Clara had moved to Kelowna from Mexico several years ago, after meeting her husband.

While Vicky Belteton had never met Clara, she said she is in the same boat as Clara.

We come here for love or for work, and we leave our families, we leave our friends, and she didn't have anyone, Belteton said. We decided to be her family here today.

Earlier Thursday, Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran said he had been shocked and horrified by the deaths.

This should have been a time of great joy and celebration for Clara and her daughters, Basran said in a statement. Instead, family and friends are in mourning after their lives were tragically taken just before Christmas. On behalf of all residents I offer condolences to family, friends and all those who were touched by the kindness of Clara, and her beautiful girls, Yesenia and Karina.
Photo: Contributed

Just when you thought it was safe to head outdoors, Environment Canada has issued another snowfall warning for all of the Okanagan.

A Snowfall warning is now in effect for:

Central Okanagan - including Kelowna

North Okanagan - including Vernon

South Okanagan - including Penticton

Snowfall, with total amounts of 10 to 20 cm is expected.

A Pacific frontal system will cross southern BC today spreading another band of heavy snow through the region. Snow will start this morning, intensify in the afternoon then continue into Saturday morning. Total snow accumulations up to 20 cm can be expected before the snow tapers off early Saturday morning.

The Okanagan has already been hit with one dump of 20 cm's earlier this week, that broke a 90-year-old record. Now you're being advised to adjust your driving because of changing road conditions.

DriveBC has extended its travel advisory for Highway 97C, and the Coquihalla.

Kelowna has also implemented a parking ban on designated snow routes as they try to clear off streets ahead of the next big snowfall.
Photo: Contributed

Karen Lutz is devastated after her beloved lapdog was attacked and killed just before the holidays.

It was a solemn Christmas for the Kelowna resident and her boyfriend, Destry Koenig, without their pet, Buddy.

Koenig was out walking the Havanese-Shih-Tzu cross on Dec. 21, about 8 p.m., at the Burtch Road traffic circle in Kelowna.

She says a big, black and white husky cross "came out of nowhere and brutally attacked our little guy."

Lutz had owned the rescue dog for five years and had to have it put down because of its severe injuries.

"They just jumped out of the van and didn't see the other dog coming.... Before he knew it, the other dog had latched on to Buddy."

Lutz says the larger animal was off-leash and not muzzled. Koenig had to kick and pry the dog to free Buddy.

Lutz says the owner of the other dog, a male in his twenties or thirties, said simply: "I guess you should get him to a vet" and then left.

Koenig took their battered pet to the emergency clinic at Fairfield Animal Hospital, where X-rays showed it had a broken neck.

Lutz is concerned the larger dog may pose a danger to the public. "Next time, it could be another dog, or even a child," she said between sobs.

"My boyfriend cannot get the images out of his head of his faithful companion being destroyed. We are so heartbroken and angry."

To add insult to injury, Lutz was also saddled with a $700 vet bill.

The other dog owner left without exchanging any information, and "it all happened in a blur," she said.
Colombian international Juan Guillermo Cuadrado will be out several days due to issues with his pubis, Juventus manager Massimiliano Allegri announced Friday.

Cuadrado, 29, was not included in the squad to face Verona Saturday in Serie A play, and could possibly miss the Coppa Italia derby clash against Torino next week.

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Juan has swelling in the pubis. We hope he can be available next Wednesday for Coppa Italia, but its very complicated, said Allegri in a press conference at the teams Vinovo headquarters in Turin.

The winger, who starters the clubs last match against Roma, joins a long list of injuries for Juve, among which are Bosnian Miralem Pjanic, Gianluigi Buffon, Mattia De Sciglio, and Benedikt Howedes.

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This season, Cuadrado has appeared in 14 league matches, scoring three times and handing out four assists. He has also played in five of Juves six Champions League games, with one goal and one assist to his name.

Before the upcoming break in Italy, between January 7 and 20, Juventus will face Hellas Verona on the 30th and Cagliari on January 6 in league play, and Torino in Coppa Italia action on January 3.
A view of the exterior of Claire's on North State Street in Chicago. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

Initial tests of cosmetics sold in Claires stores found no traces of asbestos, the Hoffman Estates-based accessories retailer said Friday.

Claires announced Thursday via Twitter that it had hired an independent lab to test the makeup products after concerns from a Rhode Island mother prompted the chain to pull products from store shelves.

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Out of an abundance of caution, additional testing is underway, the company said in its Friday statement.

The retailer said it also confirmed that a talcum ingredient in the products came from a certified asbestos-free European vendor.

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Earlier this month, WJAR, an NBC affiliate in Rhode Island, reported that a woman mailed her 6-year-old daughters makeup and additional Claires products to an independent lab for testing. Results revealed the presence of cancer-causing tremolite asbestos, according to the report. The woman works for a law firm that specializes in asbestos litigation.

Claires pulled products from its shelves and offered refunds to customers who had bought the bedazzled and glittering makeup sets.

The company said Friday that it will continue to honor returns for concerned customers. Claires did not respond to requests for comment on whether the products would be put back on shelves.

The asbestos allegations come as the chain is struggling amid declining mall traffic.

amarotti@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @AllyMarotti
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Vernon Hills High School senior Anmol Parande holds his award for winning the Congressional App Challenge for the 10th Congressional District. (Steve Sadin / Pioneer Press)

A Vernon Hills High School senior worried about climate change hopes his tech skills can have a global impact.

Anmol Parande's GoGreen app, which lets users track their carbon footprints, finished first among all entrants from the 10th Congressional District in the third annual Congressional App Challenge Dec. 20 at the Vernon Area Library in Lincolnshire.

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"Climate change is my passion because it is going to design our future," Parande said. "We have to jump on it now to make an impact. It's happening in front of us. Everyone can make an impact in their daily lives. I want to empower people to make a difference."

Users of GoGreen can enter information about how much energy they are using and from what sources, according to Parande. They can then compare their energy use to others around the country.

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Climate change is not Parande's only passion. He plans to study computer science in college and said he has already been admitted to the University of Illinois and is awaiting word from other schools before making a decision.

Parande said he plans to combine his computer science education with his entrepreneurial spirit to start a business. Whether that enterprise involves climate change or deals with another need, he said he will always be committed to the environment.

Open to all high school students throughout the country, Parande was not the only student honored in the 10th Congressional District. Gaby Ecanow, a Long Grove resident and senior at Rochelle Zell Jewish High School in Deerfield finished second. Third place went to Lake Forest High School seniors William Andersen and Blaise von Ohlen.

"I am so impressed by the work you all did in response to our App Challenge," Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Deerfield) said in a video during the presentation. "I hope this was a fun way to strengthen the science, technology, engineering and math skills that are so important to success in our 21st century economy."

Ecanow, who designed Study Buddy to help connect students with peer tutors, said she first got the idea for her app while participating in a tutoring program through Rochelle Zell with younger students at Bright Star Church in Chicago last year. She wanted to make it easier for students to get help.

Study Buddy allows tutors and pupils to communicate through a secure online chat where no personal information is shared. She said it will be available to download in the next month.

"I really like being able to use logical, math based coding to solve problems because it also has an artistic and creative component," Ecanow said.

Steve Aronson, a Northbrook resident who teaches computer science and math at Lake Forest High School, said there is a lot of hard work that goes into designing an app. There were three projects entered from Lake Forest.

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"What you see on the front end is only a tenth of what goes into it," Aronson said. "The user doesn't see what is working behind the scenes."

Along with the third place finish by Andersen and von Ohlen, Jack Mislinski and James Wagner from Lake Forest also designed and entered apps.

The other participants recognized for their effort were a quartet of Deerfield High School students  Kyla Guru, Ellie Jordan, Lily Browdy and Annika Huprikar  who designed and entered an app.

Pranav Goel of Vernon Hills High School participated as well.

The contest for the 10th District was judged by Robert Sompolski, the dean of mathematics, engineering and computer science at Oakton Community College and Amy Torf, who owns Noggin Builders in Northbrook, according to Schneider's office.

Steve Sadin is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Boebert continues to lead Frisch 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.
Our weekly round up of other news affecting foreign investors throughout Asia:

Thai Labor Contracts: What You Need to Know

While Thailand does not mandate a written agreement between the employer and an employee, it does impose strict labor regulations with regards to working terms and conditions. In practice, therefore, it is advisable for employers to set out written terms and conditions of employment to avoid legal disputes.

Israeli Investment in India

Israeli investments in technology have typically favored Western nations where cultural barriers and price sensitivity play a diminished role. However, Indias burgeoning startup ecosystem and push for innovation is attracting Israeli tech companies who see potential in Indias rapid digitization.

President Putin Calls for 13% Profits Tax on Repatriated Funds to be Scrapped

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for the tax on profits realized overseas then repatriated to Russia to be scrapped. A recent amnesty has been in place, although this expired in mid 2016. Russias tax laws counter that a 13 percent tax is due on profits remitted back to Russia.

Where the Belt & Road Opportunities Are  The Fastest Growing Silk Road Corridors in 2018

2017 has been an interesting year in Asia, with Chinas Belt & Road project really leading the way in influencing governmental policy and a change in thinking across the region.

Vietnam: Reduced Import Tariffs on Automobiles from ASEAN from 2018

From 2018, Vietnams import tariffs on automobiles from ASEAN will be reduced to zero percent, leading to further competition in the country. Read more to know about the import tariffs, the effect on local manufacturers, and the steps government should take to support domestic firms.



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: Arts

Writer Bi Feiyu released his first podcasts on two online platforms in Beijing on Saturday to great anticipation from fans, amid a trend in which more Chinese are paying for online content, including audiobooks.

"Technology has made listening a chic way of learning," Bi says.

"Knowledge is easily accessed via all kinds of devices. I'd say listening is as fundamental as reading and perhaps far more ancient."

Bi believes listening to recorded audio is an extension of old oral traditions.

He points out audio can be consumed amid busy lives during such times as when commuting, exercising and doing choresbasically any time when the eyes are otherwise engaged.

Bi's programs are largely based on his lectures on literary classics at Nanjing University, where he teaches.

He initially posted them as wildly popular blogs. People's Literature Publishing House compiled them into the book Fiction Reading that was released in February.

The podcasts, which are under 20 minutes long, feature Bi lecturing while celebrities and news anchors read passages quoted from classic texts over music.

Ximalaya FM and Qingting FM are releasing one podcast every weekday. The entire package of 75 clips costs about 100 yuan ($15).

Each platform will also offer two podcasts that are not from the book.

"This kind of content is new and rare," says Zhang Yan, aka Shu Shu, CEO of Beijing Yousuozuowei Culture and Tech Ltd, one of the programs' producers and planners.

Zhang says she was deeply moved by the book.

She believes Bi's unique analyses and online feedback has enabled the creation of the "perfect" podcast series.

"It's exactly as if Bi's classes have extended beyond the university," she says.

"It's a relatively new market. But readers are increasingly interested in traditional culture."

About one in five adult Chinese listened to audiobooks in 2016, according to the 14th national reading-habits report released by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication in April.

They spend an average of 6.81 yuan a year on online audio content, the report says.

Among those surveyed, 42.4 percent favor romance stories; 42 percent prefer history, classics and culture; 33.5 percent enjoy literature; and 20.5 percent listen to traditional pingshu (Chinese storytelling shows).

Bi calls himself a "drunkard seeking happiness in reading".

He believes classics are resourceful, interpretable and free.

"They allow readers to freely indulge as much as possible in the happy moments of reading," the writer says.

"No matter how much you already know, every time you read it brings you something new and delightful, whether it's a grasshopper, a rice stalk or a whole harvest. Every reading session is time travel and dialogue."

Bi is known for his ability to uncover truths hidden in the details of texts.

He has won prestigious literary prizes for his novels, novellas and short stories. He's also the 2017 Chevalier of the French Order of Arts and Letters.

He was born in Xinghua, Jiangsu province, and has been living and writing in the provincial capital, Nanjing, for 30 years.

Indeed, the concept of podcasts is new to the author. He only recently began to use a mobile phone.

Ximalaya FM's vice-president Jiang Feng says cultural content, especially those related to Chinese traditions, has been a big seller since the company began to offer paid-for content in June 2016.

The most popular podcasts during the first year were about skill-and-knowledge development, speechmaking and learning English, he said in a speech in June. This year, customers prefer topics related to the humanities, culture and philosophy.

"Future favorites should be about humanity and our future, the meaning of life and the like," Jiang says.

Ximalaya is China's largest online-audio-content platform. It has 450 million users, 5 million hosts and 5,000 programs with paywalls. Users listen for an average of 128 minutes a day, Jiang says.

Such technology as big data and creative-planning systems are enabling audiences to enjoy smarter services.

Zhang, from the culture-and-tech company, plans to produce more programs by writers, especially those by authors who lecture at universities.

The publisher released a set of six new titles following Bi's book, which may offer more content for podcasts.

They include Su Tong's The Backlight of the Soul, poet Wang Jiaxin's The Masters Who Taught My Soul to Sing and Ye Zhaoyan's The Great Authors.

"I hope these will reach Chinese-language teachers in middle schools, who will be more enlightened in their mission to teach budding literature lovers," Bi says.
You are here: Business

China will further cut red tape to create a better business environment for foreign banks, the country's banking regulator said Thursday.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) will revise rules on administrative licensing for foreign banks to minimize the approval items and unify market entry standards for Chinese and foreign banks, the CBRC said in an online statement.

The CBRC will clarify procedures and application materials for foreign and joint venture banks to invest in domestic banking institutions after a notice issued in March approved such behavior.

In the notice, the CBRC also eased license requirements for foreign and joint-venture banks in services including treasury bond underwriting and financial advising.

Foreign banks will only need to report to authorities after they launch certain services, rather than obtaining approval in advance, according to the revised rules.

The public has until January 27 next year to give suggestions on the revised rules, the CBRC said.

China has been gradually opening up its financial sector, with authorities pledging to ease caps on foreign ownership in Chinese banks and financial asset management companies.

The CBRC also said earlier that it would broaden the business scope of foreign banks, including easing restrictions on renminbi retail banking for foreign banks.
About 28 Egyptian marble companies will participate in an international stone fair scheduled to open in China in March 2018, official MENA news agency reported Thursday.



"The Xiamen International Stone Fair is one of the biggest fairs for stones in the world and it displays the latest techniques in this field," MENA quoted Walid Gamal al-Din, chairman of the Export Council for Building Materials, as saying.

Xiamen is a coastal tourist city in south China's Fujian Province.

As the largest trading partner with Egypt, China is also the largest importer of Egypt's marble and granite, followed by Libya and Saudi Arabia.

Egypt's exports of marble and granite hit 2.127 million tons during the past 11 months compared to 1.739 million in the same period last year, Gamal al-Din noted.

Egypt and China enjoy strong bilateral relations which have been elevated to the level of comprehensive strategic partnership.

The trade volume between China and Egypt hit 11 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 and 5.2 billion in the first half of 2017, thus ranking Egypt the third biggest African trading partner with China.
Changsha's GDP is on track to break the 1 trillion yuan (US$153.1 billion) mark for the first time by the end of 2017.

From January to November this year, the added value from industries above the designated scale in Changsha increased by 8.3 percent year-on-year. The growth rates of the electronic information, automobile manufacturing, and rail transportation industries reached 23.1 percent, 26.5 percent and 75.5 percent respectively.

Changsha has started to upgrade its traditional industries and equip them with smart manufacturing capabilities since 2015. [Photo/icswb.com]

Deepening reform stimulates market vitality

The local authorities have simplified the procedure for business licensing. "It used to take five to seven days to get a business license, but now the process is very fast," said Tang Li, an entrepreneur who received his first business license after the procedure was simplified this June.

The local authorities also implemented new policies to revitalize Changsha's industries, attract more talents to the city and encourage scientific innovation. These measures in deepening reform provided the drive for its economic development.

Industrial projects boost development speed

The local government focused on introducing major industrial projects to facilitate the local economy. It has on average introduced a project with the investment amount of 1 billion yuan almost every week.

This year, 55 major projects with an average investment amount of 1 billion yuan and five major projects with an average investment amount of 10 billion yuan landed in Changsha.

These projects are spread across strategically important new industries, including new energy storage materials, genetic projects, driverless automobiles, advanced equipment, and core devices in the information technology sector.

Changsha's GDP reaches new heights

In the first three quarters of 2017, the GDP of Changsha surpassed 747.87 billion yuan, up 8.4 percent year-on-year. Its GDP is on track to break the 1 trillion yuan mark for the first time by the end of 2017.

The booming economy is attributed to local thriving industries, including smart manufacturing, engineering machinery and automobile manufacturing.

Huang Tao, Party secretary of the Changsha Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, said 330 local companies were named pilot enterprises for smart manufacturing in Changsha, among which more than 20 were certified as state-level.

Engineering machinery manufacturer Sany announced, in its third quarterly report released at the end of October, that its operation revenue increased by 70.77 percent year-on-year, while its net profit surged by 932.56 percent year-on-year.

This had translated to a net positive for the entire engineering machinery industry in Changsha, which recorded a growth over the first three quarters.

Besides, the total output value of Changsha's automobile industry surpassed 100 billion yuan. It has become Changsha's seventh industry of this scale, following the new materials, engineering machinery, food, electronic information, tourism and cultural creative industries.

Investment on welfare improves happiness index

Changsha launched an initiative to build a green city last November. In the coming three years, Changsha will build 3,000 kilometers of green roadways and 600 parks. The city aims for the forest coverage rate of Changsha to reach 54.9 percent by 2019.

The Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan Intercity Rail has opened, while many subway lines are under construction.

The expenditure on people's welfare accounted for 77.5 percent of the general public spending from January to September. The increase of the investment on people's welfare has led to the improvement of the city's happiness index.




China on Thursday opened a 1-km section solar expressway for testing.





Solar panels are laid beneath part of a ring road surrounding Jinan, capital city of Shandong Province in east China. The road surface is made of a transparent, weight-bearing material that allows sunlight to penetrate.









The panels, covering 5,875 square meters, can generate 1 million kwh of power in a year, enough to meet the everyday demand of around 800 households, according to Qilu Transportation Development Group, the project developer.

"The project will save the space for building solar farms and shorten the transmission distance," said Xu Chunfu, the group's chairman.

Electricity produced by the test section will be used to power highway lights, signboards, surveillance cameras, tunnel and toll gate facilities. Surplus power will be supplied to the state grid, Xu said.

Future functions to be developed include mobile charging for electric vehicles and providing internet connection.

The road has a designed life of 20 years. It has three layers -- a concrete layer pervious to light on top; thin amorphous silicon panels in the middle; a waterproof insulate protection layer at the bottom.

"The top layer has good flexibility which can both withstand the pressure of large vehicles and protect the fragile amorphous silicon boards underneath," said Zhang Hongchao, chief scientist with Shandong Pavenergy company which was involved in the development of the project.

Xu did not reveal the cost but said it was half of similar projects in foreign countries.

"With the development of solar power in China, the cost can be further reduced," he said.

China leads the world in solar power development. Its annual increase of new installed generation capacity has been the largest in the world since 2013. As of the end of September, China's installed photovoltaic capacity hit 120 gigawatts.




China extended its visa-free period for people transitting through Beijing to 144 hours Thursday, and added neighboring Hebei Province and Tianjin City to the program.







Transit air, train, and ship passengers entering either of the six border ports in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei can stay in the region for six days before heading for another destination, according to Beijing's Port Office. A valid travel document and a connecting ticket are required.





People from the 53 nationalities that previously benefited from Beijing's 72-hour visa-free transit policy are eligible for the new policy.





Beijing offered 72-hour visa-free transit from 2013. In 2016, the border office logged more than 26,000 such visits, up 32 percent from a year earlier.





Beijing Vice Mayor Cheng Hong welcomed the first foreigners exempted from visas at the Beijing Capital International Airport.





Cheng said the visa-free period was extended after about 40 percent of the foreign guests enjoying the previous transit policy said time was too short.





"We open rail and land ports for the first time and allow passengers to visit more places (Tianjian and Hebei)," she said. "The policy is expected to boost Beijing's economic and cultural exchanges with the world and is good to the city's image."





Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei is the second region in China where transit passengers can stay up to six days. In January 2016, Shanghai and neighboring provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu began offering the visa-free service.




You are here: China

China's armed police will continue to safeguard national security and social stability after its command mechanism adjustment, a Ministry of National Defense spokesman said Thursday.





"The core of the adjustment is to strengthen the centralized, unified leadership of Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Central Military Commission (CMC) over the armed police," Ren Guoqiang told a news briefing.





The spokesman said the armed police is not listed under the People's Liberation Army and its fundamental function and nature will not change.





Ren's remarks came one day after a statement by the CPC Central Committee that the armed police will be put under the command of the CPC Central Committee and CMC from Jan. 1, 2018.





The armed police will no longer be listed under the State Council, it said.





The spokesman said China will uphold peace, development and win-win cooperation as always while continuing to pursue a national defense policy that is defensive in nature.




The Chinese mainland resolutely opposes any official contact between the United States and Taiwan, said Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson of the Ministry of National Defense Thursday.

Ren made the remarks in response to an inquiry on a "defense report" released on the island, which talked a lot about military cooperation with the United States.

Taiwan is a part of China so it is not possible for it to have a "defense report", said Ren.

The mainland strives for peaceful reunification with utmost sincerity, but it will defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity unflinchingly, Ren said.

It is pointless to rely on foreign and military forces to assist "Taiwan independence" and only by sticking to the 1992 Consensus, can the two sides ensure peace and stability across the Strait, said Ren.
Poland [File photo]

The European Union started a second front against Poland in the current ongoing battle for the direction of Europe's soul, while Brexit negotiations are going on and Spain faces a secessionist Catalonia.

Poland, which was the first country to have defeated a pro-EU government in 2015, voted in hardline conservatives opposed to mass migration and interference from Brussels. Poland has also been raising questions over what it calls European interference in its sovereignty, especially related to border issues.

The final straw was when Poland started to debate a bill to replace half of its judiciary. The EU said this was, in effect, an interference in the judicial independence of Poland, and put at risk the country's core democratic values.

Poland countered by saying the EU had no right to interfere in Poland's internal affairs and its right to choose its own judiciary. This led Brussels to start the process of Article 7, the nuclear option that strips a member of its voting rights within the bloc.

This, for lack of word is unprecedented. Regardless of what one might think of EU, it is certainly acting imperial. The idea of being able to dictate border policies and demographics and laws by unelected members is essentially imperial in nature.

One can also understand Poland's skepticism, given that Poland was subjugated to foreign nations from 1939 to 1989 (first Germany and then the Soviet Union), and is naturally skeptical of other power centers deciding on Polish laws.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, on a visit to Poland, meanwhile, signed a security deal and stated that the Polish constitution was Polish matter and no one had any right to interfere in Polish internal matters. She also stated that Polish-British relations were an important aspect post-Brexit, and that nine hundred thousand Poles now working in the U.K. are safe and will be able to stay.

Likewise, her Polish counterpart, getting the country's first major power backer in the clash with the EU, stated Poland would be allied with the post-Brexit U.K.

This is a remarkable scenario. It baffles everyone that the EU should take such an unprecedented step. On the one hand, it really didn't have any choice. As I have previously written, sooner or later, the EU had to crush dissent within its ranks.

Greece was small fry. However, with Britain leaving, and Spain facing the secession of its Catalonia region, the EU had to dig in somewhere, or face collapse. Similarly, the key here is to maintain balance, and frankly there was no good option but bullying.

In fact, it will not be able to carry out its threat under Article 7, because there needs to be a unanimous decision and Hungary has already threatened to veto any such move. There is palpable fear and defiance among the eastern members like the Czech Republic and Romania, just as much there is a hardening of resolve among France and Germany, and Poland.

Poland has already passed the judiciary law, a slap in the face for Brussels, and the ruling government is painting EU hostility as a form of revenge against Poland for refusing to take in an allocated quota of migrants. EU officials are also secretly agreeing that this will only play into Polish government's hands. Ultimately, it's a war no one can win.

And that is, in itself, a dilemma. If the European Union is going to survive, it needs to understand that Europe is too diverse to be treated as one bloc. There's a difference between equality and similarity, and while basic ideas on economics could be argued for, the culture of a country shouldn't be touched.

It hampers their sovereignty, and creates backlash. Everything from migration to the judiciary and human rights are now being controlled by the EU, and nothing could be more imperial than forcing a country to open its gates and alter its demographics.

It's inevitable there is, and will be, a backlash, and that will only increase in future. If policy makers are smart, they will get rid of their ideological dogma of forcing Europe to be uniformly homogenous in culture. That way opens the way to doom for the continent.

Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm





Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.




 Flash

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday called on China and Japan to enhance party-to-party exchanges and cooperation.





Xi made the remarks during a meeting in Beijing with a delegation led by Toshihiro Nikai, secretary general of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and Yoshihisa Inoue, secretary general of Komeito, LDP's ruling coalition partner.





Xi spoke highly of the role of China-Japan ruling party exchange mechanism in promoting bilateral relations, and hailed the efforts made by Nikai and Inoue to promote exchanges between the ruling parties of China and Japan, saying they have strengthened bilateral practical cooperation and friendship.





For their part, Nikai and Inoue said Japan's ruling coalition stands ready to enhance communication and exchange with the Communist Party of China (CPC) and make greater contributions to the development of Japan-China relations.





Earlier on Thursday, Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, also met with the Japanese delegation.





Noting that stable China-Japan ties serve the interests of both sides, Yang called on the two countries to increase political mutual trust and deepen mutually-beneficial cooperation for long-term development of bilateral relations.





"Both sides should make the best use of the ruling party exchange mechanism to push forward amelioration of China-Japan ties, and make joint efforts to promote peace and development in the region and the world," Yang said.





Echoing Yang, the Japanese side said the ruling party exchange mechanism has made important contributions to the development of relations between the two countries, and expressed its willingness to further deepen bilateral cooperation in various areas.





Representatives of the CPC and Japan's ruling coalition, formed by the LDP and Komeito, met in east China's Fujian Province from Dec. 25 to 26 to convene the seventh meeting of the China-Japan ruling party exchange mechanism.




 Flash





Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday met with Chinese diplomatic envoys to foreign countries, calling for more efforts to advance the major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.







On behalf of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Xi extended his sincere greetings to the diplomatic envoys for their hard work and lauded the great accomplishments that their diplomatic work has achieved in the past five years.





As socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, Xi urged the diplomats to comprehend the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress and correctly understand the trend of the times and the international situation.





Diplomats should be absolutely loyal to the Party, to the country and to the people, said Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.





Diplomatic envoys should resolutely safeguard national interests and national dignity, make their contributions to the country and serve the people wholeheartedly, he said.





He asked the diplomats to promote the building of a new type of international relations with win-win cooperation at the core, as well as the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.





He called for more efforts in expanding the diplomatic layout, building the global partnership network and advancing the Belt and Road construction.





The president called on the diplomats to actively participate in global governance and multilateral affairs.





He hoped that Chinese diplomatic envoys could continue to boost understanding and friendship between China and foreign countries.





Xi said the diplomatic team should enhance capacity building and acquire the ability to learn more and keep their knowledge up to date.





He also demanded strict compliance with political discipline for diplomats.
You are here: World

 Flash

Italy will hold general elections on March 4, Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni's cabinet said in a statement on Thursday.

The announcement came after Italian President Sergio Mattarella dissolved the parliament earlier in the day, paving the way to the next political campaign.

The president's move put an official end to the five-year legislature that began in March 2013, after Gentiloni had declared the political mandate of his government was fulfilled.

The cabinet also decided to set the date for the first gathering of the next parliament on March 23, according to the statement.
 Flash

Italian President Sergio Mattarella dissolved the parliament on Thursday, clearing the way towards general elections in March 2018.

The end of the legislature was expected, after Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni earlier on Thursday declared fulfillment of his cabinet's political mandate.

The dissolution of the Italian parliament -- whose five-year term begun in March 2013 -- was a due step in order for the government to set the date for new elections.

After the announcement, the outgoing cabinet gathered in late afternoon, and set the election date on March 4, as widely expected.

Holding a traditional end-year press conference in the morning, Gentiloni explained that his cabinet achieved the crucial goal of "bringing the legislature to an orderly end".

The outgoing prime minister also claimed his government -- and the whole legislature, which saw three center-left cabinets coming in succession -- brought about good results.

"Italy has recovered from its worst (economic) crisis since after World War II, also thanks to the efforts of Italian families and businesses," Gentiloni stressed.

"Our growth keeps now a solid pace, the double of what was expected at the beginning of the year."

"The gap between our growth rate and that of the euro-zone has more than halved in these last 5 years (since the beginning of the legislature)," he added.

Gentiloni urged all political forces and the next parliament "to not waste such efforts, nor put the achieved results at risk: the next legislature should not lack ambition, nor (the will of) reforms."

Yet, the country may face a period of political instability. The next vote will be the first test for a new electoral law approved in October, which introduced a hybrid system under which one-third of parliament is elected via first-past-the-post, and two-thirds by proportional representation.

The current political landscape is also fragmented, leading many analysts to expect a hung parliament as the most likely outcome of the elections.

Indeed, an average of opinion polls carried out in mid December showed anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) on the lead with about 27.5 percent, followed by ruling, center-left Democratic Party (PD) at 24.3 percent.

While center-right Forza Italia (FI) party of former premier Silvio Berlusconi would poll third at 16.1 percent, and right-wing, anti-immigration Northern League would gather 13.7 percent.

Considering such projections to be right in next March, none of the major parties were strong enough to govern unilaterally without forming a coalition.

Although on the rise, the populist M5S was seen at a disadvantage for its repeated refusal to forge electoral alliances. Its candidate for prime minister Luigi Di Maio, however, lately suggested such strategy might change, in case of a positive electoral result.

With the center-left political area deeply divided and the PD losing ground in opinion polls, a center-right coalition of Berlusconi's FI, the Northern League and small far-right Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) party might have the best chances to win a majority of seats.

But analysts believe that the future government might not be stable as previous ones with a hung parliament.
In the latest terrorism to strike Egypt, nine people died in Friday morning attacks around St. Mina Church in the southern Cairo suburb of Helwan.

Two Coptic Christians were shot and killed in their nearby storefront. Six others died as they exited morning worship.

The remaining victim was a Muslim police officer guarding the church.

Local reports suggest there were two gunmen. One was apprehended by security forces, foiling his efforts to enter the church. State television showed a second attacker killed, wearing a suicide belt. ISIS claimed responsibility.

The church guard, meanwhile, was hailed as a martyr.

One week earlier, Egypts Minister of Islamic Endowments declared the guarding of churches to be a legitimate and national duty. Those who die defending Christian houses of worship are to be considered martyrs.

In our war against terrorism, said Mokhtar Gomaa, theres no difference between Muslims and Christians. Last month, 300 people were killed in a terrorist attack on a mosque in the Sinai, where Christians have fled violence.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi praised the police effort against the vicious attack, and urged heightened security. Two weeks ago, Egypt assigned more than 230,000 police to guard churches in advance of the Christmas holidays.

Even so, last week hundreds of local villagers ransacked an unlicensed church in Atfih, 60 miles south of Cairo. They were offended at rumors the nondescript building would install a bell.

Meanwhile, the Coptic Orthodox Church will hold its primary Christmas celebration in the largest church in Egypt, on land donated by the state in its still-under-construction new administrative capital city. (Orthodox Christians commemorate Christmas on January 7.)

Muslims should join Christians in solidarity, said Ahmed al-Tayyib, grand imam of al-Azhar, widely considered the preeminent Islamic institution in the Sunni Muslim world.

Only two days prior, he visited Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros in his cathedral, wishing him a merry Christmas.

Terrorists aim to ruin Christian celebrations, said al-Tayyib said after the attack. So they would be most pained if love brings Muslims and Christians together.

Andrea Zaki, president of the Protestant Churches of Egypt, also urged Egyptians to stand together against terrorism. He praised the police for saving many lives.

It is a desperate act to shake the stability of Egypt, violating the humanistic values of all religions, he said.

But it will not stop us from living out the message of Christ, in both our church and our country.

Last May, 29 Copts were killed in a bus attack while traveling to visit a local monastery. In April, 45 were killed in Palm Sunday bombings at churches in the Delta cities of Tanta and Alexandria.

And last year in advance of Christmas, 29 people were killed at a bombing in a church adjacent to the Coptic cathedral in Cairo.

We are starting to expect this, said one woman at an Orthodox church 10 miles north of the attack, as word first spread. She did not wish to be identified.

Yes, her friend replied, but that does not make it any easier to accept.

Musad Sabry, pastor of a Helwan evangelical church near St. Minas, said people are struggling with the question of why?

Two of those killed were relatives of members of his congregation.

I am very sad. These are peaceful people, he said after attending the funeral, with thousands of others. I believe God has his ways to make us a better people. But up until now, we cannot interpret how.

Sabry canceled todays afternoon youth services following the attack. He fears security may cancel upcoming New Years Eve celebrations as a precaution.

I am not afraid of terrorism, but it affects our ministry, he said. At first, people said, We will overcome. But now I worry they will stay home.

Even me. Maybe I will not send my children to church at night. I am a father, too.

Earlier attacks in Tanta and Cairos main cathedral affected Christians, he said. They were sad, and they prayed, but it was always somewhere else and not close to home.

Now the feelings are different. The terrorists are here.
Lawyers suing General Motor over its deadly ignition switch defect may have overplayed their hand as a federal judge in New York threw out two more crucial test cases.

The plaintiffs failed to provide evidence that the specific type of flaw alleged to have occurred in two Texas car wrecks - a double rotation of the ignition switch - was anything more than a "theoretical possibility," U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said in a ruling Thursday.

Bellwether cases

The decision in the so-called bellwether cases is likely to affect other suits making similar claims. Hundreds of cases remain pending over accidents linked to switches that could jostle into the off position - a flaw that GM has admitted to but argues isn't to blame in the remaining suits. GM already paid almost $600 million to an out-of-court victims' compensation fund.

In the suits dismissed Thursday, the plaintiffs - like many others - alleged their ignition switches rotated off while they were driving, cutting power to steering and braking systems at critical moments. But unlike others, these plaintiffs claimed the switches rotated back to the "run" position a few seconds before impact, explaining why airbags were deployed.

The experts' opinions that double rotation could occur, and did occur in each of the cases at issue, relies more on unproven statements and "speculation than it does on actual scientific or technical expertise," Furman said.

GM claimed the crashes occurred for other reasons, including icy roads. One of the victims was 89 and "suffered from benign positional vertigo," according to the ruling. Furman didn't weigh in on the causes of the crashes.

'Tough to prove'

"The ruling today reflects what we have always known about this category of cases: they are damn tough to prove in court," plaintiffs' attorney Bob Hilliard said in an email. "But GM's defect still may very well be the truth of the cause of the accidents."

The two cases were part of a second batch of bellwethers wending their way toward possible jury trials.

The first batch was a mixed bag: four settled on nonpublic terms, while GM won three at trial and gained a pretrial dismissal. A plaintiff dropped another case after being accused of lying.

Furman gave GM and the plaintiffs' lawyers until Jan. 4 to file letters regarding the next steps in the litigation.

At least 124 deaths

General Motors recalled 2.59 million small cars in 2014 over defective ignition switches that have since been linked to at least 124 deaths.

By 2015, General Motors had agreed to pay more than $2 billion to resolve legal claims over the ignition-switch defect, including $900 million to end a criminal probe by the U.S. government and at least $595 million through a victims' compensation fund.

The company since has paid out millions more in settlements with individual plaintiffs and their families over deaths and injuries.
I grew up traveling to Mexico. It was an easy trip into Baja from Ventura County, California, my home. We would camp on desert points and surf for days. I always found the dusty peninsula and the country as a whole surprising, welcoming and exciting. It was not until the series of trips I took there in 2017 with Josh Partlow, our Mexico bureau chief, that I truly felt afraid. Afraid for my safety. Afraid for what Mexico had become.

The assignment started with a text from my editor, Nick Kirkpatrick, asking if I wanted to travel to a "sketchy narco zone," in Guerrero, one of Mexico's most violent states. The stories I had read about Mexican journalists being assassinated throughout the country for covering the violence and cartels were numerous. The country is second only to Syria in the number of journalists being killed on the job. But this is Mexico, a country and people I admire and respect. I knew with proper planning this was a story I wanted to photograph.
A charred body found in the woods earlier this week was identified by police Friday, according to a news release from the Houston Police Department.

The body of Ronald Freeman was found around 7:20 p.m. in the 5700 block of Wenda Street on Wednesday, after firefighters responded to a blaze in the woods.
Three adults escaped a northwest Houston home without injuries before fire destroyed the residence and three cars early Friday, investigators and residents said.

Firefighters responded at about 4 a.m. to the 6700 block of Carver Road, about 2.5 miles west of Interstate 45 and Little York Road.
Dear Abby:

I am president and co-founder of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, one of the leading teaching and research hospitals for wildlife medicine in the world. We have treated more than 70,000 wild patients since our organization was established 35 years ago. Like the reader ("An Apple a Day," Aug. 11) who is under the impression that throwing an apple core out the car window is doing something positive for the Earth, many individuals make "little" decisions without considering the unintended consequences.

The example of the apple core has been at the heart of our education program for more than three decades. Before throwing that apple core out the window believing that some small animal will come finish what's left, people should consider what will happen if the animal coming to eat their scraps happens to be on the other side of the road.

Throwing out that apple core will lure that creature into harm's way. Countless opossums, raccoons, skunks and other small mammals are killed every day because of human food waste on the shoulder of the road. And it doesn't stop there. Predators such as owls also suffer. They hunt along the side of the road, not because they eat apple cores,but because they eat the mice, voles and other small animals who are attracted to feed on that apple core. Then, when the opossum, raccoon or owl is killed by a car, scavengers are attracted to the pavement, where their lives, too, are at risk.

If readers want to help the Earth, they should take their waste home and dispose of it or recycle it properly. The small act of throwing an apple core out of a car window can cost the lives of the very creatures they claim to want to help.

Edward Clark, Waynesboro, Va.

Dear Mr. Clark:

When that letter appeared, I received a flurry of mail about it. Many readers touched on some of the points you have expressed. Thank you for writing so eloquently to educate my readers - and me. Lesson learned.

Dear Abby:

I'm 29, and I'm having trouble holding down a steady job. I am a college graduate, and it's not because I don't like to work. My problem is I have a strong personality, and I tend to butt heads with management. Deep down, I think I'll only be satisfied with a job if I'm the boss or own my own business. Do you have any suggestions about positions for someone who can't handle having a boss?

Miss Independent in the Bronx

Dear Miss Independent:

No. Unless someone has rich parents or a magic lamp, most people have to work for - or with - others until they build enough capital to start a business. Even then, business owners must interact with clients they don't always agree with. Because you tend to butt heads with those in management positions, you would be wise to start working on becoming more patient and less dogmatic. Both qualities will help you in the future if you can develop them.

Dear Readers:

Well, 2017 is at an end. Out with the old year and in with the new one. Please accept my heartfelt good wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2018. And - as I caution you every year - if you are partying tonight, please be safe! Appoint a designated driver and remind that person to drive defensively.

Love, Abby

DearAbby.comDear Abby P.O. Box 69440 Los Angeles, CA 90069 Andrews McMeel Syndication
Citigroup for years gave small investors inaccurate information about whether the bank's research analysts recommended buying or selling certain stocks, a Wall Street regulator said Thursday.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which oversees brokers and money managers, said Citigroup agreed to pay $11.5 million in fines and compensatory damages to resolve claims that it gave mom-and-pop investors wrong or outdated information about its analysts' recommendations, even after some officials in the business were told of the problem.

The industry watchdog said Citigroup misrepresented its analysts' views of more than 1,800 stocks, telling small investors some had "buy" ratings when in fact they were rated "sell," and vice versa. In other cases, individual investors got ratings information for stocks that Citigroup analysts had stopped covering altogether.

The problem, which began in 2011, persisted until the end of 2015, according to the financial authority, when a broker reported being unable to reconcile ratings displayed on a Citigroup portal with those printed in its research reports. Some Citigroup employees knew as early as fall 2011 that customers were receiving incorrect ratings information on activity statements, but they did not understand why, according to the authority.

"We are pleased to have the matter resolved," Citigroup spokeswoman Laura London said.

The problem affected individual investors, but not Citigroup's institutional investors, like pension funds and other big asset managers, which also sometimes rely on the bank's research to devise their investment strategies. As a result, the bank's retail customers appear to have been put at a disadvantage relative to the institutional clients.

"The inaccuracies in the research ratings feed had widespread, adverse consequences," the watchdog said in a statement.

There is no indication Citigroup intended to give its institutional clients an advantage over smaller investors. London and Nancy Condon, a spokesman for the financial watchdog, declined to comment on the issue.
LAS VEGAS - Las Vegas officials are expecting lower-than-normal attendance at the New Year's Eve celebration on the famed Strip, but in light of October's mass shooting, security will be at its highest level in years.

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said this week that the Homeland Security Department had raised the New Year's Eve celebration to the highest security level under its special events protocols - SEAR level 1. In years past, it was level 3.

The change, he said, will bring snipers with spotters, extra air support, more medical equipment and personnel, and mobile command posts staffed by federal authorities. The same security classification and measures are afforded to the Super Bowl and political party conventions for presidential nominations.

Lombardo said there would be more than 1,500 local police officers deployed for a three-day window.

Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak said he understood New Year's Eve revelers might be worried about safety after the Oct. 1 mass shooting, and he sought to assuage those concerns.

"Nobody puts on a New Year's Eve show like Las Vegas, and never will it be as safe as it will be this year," Sisolak said. "The safety measures in place are impressive."

It's been three months since 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire from his 32nd floor hotel room at Mandalay Bay into a crowd of more than 20,000 at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on the Strip. He killed 58 people and wounded hundreds of others.

The FBI has revealed little about Paddock's motives. Special Agent in Charge Aaron Rouse told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the FBI would be issuing a report sometime before the anniversary of the shooting.

Lombardo has said Paddock, a gambler who played a lot of video poker, had sustained losses in recent years and may have been depressed. Paddock killed himself with a gunshot wound to his mouth, the Clark County coroner said last week.

Officials with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said tourism was down 4.2 percent for October and that the decline in attendance was attributable to the shooting.

Officials are prohibiting people walking along the Strip from bringing large bags, strollers, backpacks and coolers during the New Year's Eve celebration.

"I recognize that is an inconvenience, but these restrictions are for everyone's safety," Sisolak said.
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WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court this week ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to revise its nearly 17-year-old standard for dangerous levels of lead in paint and dust within one year, a rare legal move that amounts to a sharp rebuff of President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

The decision Wednesday also called attention to the persistent threat of lead paint to children in millions of U.S. homes, four decades after the federal government banned it from households.

"This is going to protect the brains of thousands of children across the country," said Eve Gartner, a staff attorney for Earthjustice who helped argue the case on behalf of groups pushing for tougher standards.

The 2-to-1 decision, by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, means the EPA must propose a new rule within 90 days, instead of the six years the Trump administration had requested to reconsider what levels of lead exposure are acceptable for children.

That request was on top of a six-year delay under former President Barack Obama, a holdup the court said was unreasonable, particularly in the face of new research on the hazards of lead paint.

A spokesman for the EPA said the agency was reviewing the court's decision and declined to say if the agency planned to appeal.

The EPA set standards in 2001 for lead contamination levels in dust and soil in homes. Environmental and health groups petitioned the agency in 2009 to tighten standards on lead in dust and soil as well as paint to "more adequately protect" children.

The EPA, then under Obama, acknowledged the need for stricter rules in 2011 and agreed to take action, but never did so and set no timelines for developing a new rule.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A judge in Florida is ordering R.J. Reynolds to continue paying the state millions of dollars in tobacco settlement money despite selling off major brands.

Circuit Judge Jeffrey Dana Gillen in Palm Beach County issued his ruling this week, nearly a year after Attorney General Pam Bondi sued the tobacco company and Imperial Tobacco Group.
SandRidge Energy Inc., succumbing to a campaign led by activist investor Carl Icahn, gave up on its proposed purchase of rival oil and natural gas explorer Bonanza Creek Energy Inc.

After consultation with its largest shareholders, the company's board concluded it wouldn't receive approval for the transaction at its planned special meeting, SandRidge said Thursday in a statement. SandRidge will reimburse as much as $3.7 million to Bonanza Creek for transaction-related expenses. The shares gained as much as 1.9 percent in after-hours trading.

"We're obviously pleased with the result but we still have grave concerns about many of the things that the board has permitted to happen at the company," Icahn said in an interview after the announcement.

SandRidge announced the planned acquisition, initially valued at about $750 million, on Nov. 15. A week later, Icahn, who owns a 13.5 percent stake, blasted the deal as overpriced. Fir Tree Partners Inc. said this month it was joining Icahn in opposing the takeover.

"We believe SandRidge would better position itself by returning capital to its shareholders and growing production in a disciplined manner, not through pursuing this reckless transaction," Fir Tree wrote in its letter.

Proxy Fight

Icahn filed a proxy on Dec. 15 calling on stockholders to vote against issuing new shares for the takeover, but hadn't decided whether to pursue board seats at the company. He was particularly annoyed by the company's support for a poison pill that would limit his ability to oppose the takeover, and was happy when SandRidge backed down from the provision in a written agreement that allowed him to discuss his opposition to the deal with other shareholders.

"The strategic direction is now up for debate," Cowen & Co. wrote in a research note on Friday. "The likelihood of capital returns to shareholders has increased."

In terms of future possible deals, Cowen said Midstates Petroleum Co. was a "logical candidate" to eventually merge with SandRidge given both companies have operations in the Mississippian Lime play. A call to Midstates Petroleum wasn't immediately returned.

The Bonanza deal would have netted SandRidge 67,000 acres in the Denver-Julesburg Basin in Colorado. Its bid represented a 17.4 percent premium over Bonanza's closing price the day before the announcement, SandRidge had said.

The deal would have increased company cash flows by 15 percent next year and earnings per barrel of oil by 21 percent, SandRidge had said in a letter obtained by Bloomberg News. The acquisition would have given SandRidge ready-to-drill assets to balance a portfolio that now consists of declining wells or land still in the early phases of development, according to the letter.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook apologized to customers Thursday for not being clear that the company slows down phones with aging batteries.

Cook promised that, in the future, Apple will "give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone's battery" and let people see if their battery's age affects their phone's performance.

Apple is offering a discount on battery replacements to anyone with an iPhone 6 or later, the company said in a statement. A replacement will now cost $29 instead of $79 starting in late January. The cheaper price is more in line with third-party repair shops.

While Cook's message was apologetic, he still rejected allegations that Apple slowed down phones with older batteries as a way to push people into buying new phones.

"First and foremost, we have never - and would never - do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades," he said.

Apple said previously that unless it reduces the performance of its phones, the older batteries run a higher risk of spontaneously shutting down. This explanation makes technical sense, many experts have said.

Apple's disclosure last week that it slows down phones has sparked much criticism and a string of lawsuits. A French consumer rights group filed a suit this week that accuses Apple of degrading its old phones in order to sell new ones. In France, it's illegal to degrade old products to promote the sale of new ones, meaning that the lawsuit filed in France by the group Halte l'Obsolescence Programme is the only lawsuit that carries the possibility of up to two years in prison.

The group, which lays out its case in an online statement, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Apple also faces at least eight lawsuits from iPhone owners in places including California, New York, New Jersey and even Israel that claim Apple owes its customers money for not previously disclosing the slowdowns. The lawsuits ask the company to pay iPhone owners varying amounts. One California suit seeks nearly $1 trillion in damages.

South Korean government telecommunications officials have also said they will look into the reports, according to the Korea Herald.

The argument of the people criticizing Apple largely have rested on two claims: one, that Apple hurt the performance of the phones in secret, and two, that doing so made it more likely that someone would buy a new iPhone rather than fix their old one.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suits or the investigation.
Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were filled with family and friends, as I know mine were.

Here are five things happening around your state this month:

1. Preserving the Alamo

In 2015, the Texas Legislature dedicated $32.5 million, as well as $75 million in 2017 for upgrades and preservation of the Alamo. Earlier this month, the Senate Finance Committee held a meeting to discuss how the General Land Office (GLO) was using this funding. Recently, there has been some concern as to how the money was being spent on the upgrades and preservation. The Committee encouraged the GLO to work toward being more transparent in the preservation efforts, including the work done by the various public-private partnerships which exist to help oversee the work on the Alamo. It is important that the Legislature and Texans know their money is being spent responsibly. As this is one of our state's most prized monuments, we should ensure that its legacy lives on to tell the story of the brave men and women at the Battle of 1836 and its siege.

2. Guns in Churches

During the 85th Legislative Session, a law was passed which allowed churches to have armed volunteer security teams, and exempted them from paying certain state fees to license the volunteers. This was done as many of these churches may be rural, and unable to afford these fees. After the tragic shooting in Sutherland Springs, there was much discussion as to whether guns should/could be allowed in churches, specifically could congregants carry within the church. Because of this Lt. Governor Dan Patrick asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to issue an opinion to help clarify these questions.

Attorney General Paxton's opinion was recently released and states that unless the church has posted signs outside their doors forbidding guns on the premises, the volunteer security teams as well as the churches congregants are allowed to carry on church owned property.

3. Providing a Safe Workplace

In December, the Texas Senate Administration Committee, on which I serve, met to review the Texas Senates current sexual harassment policy and consider new improvements. The Senate has had a policy in its employee handbook since 1995. Some suggestions made were to ensure that the sexual harassment training done in the Senate was taken by every employee, as well as to shore up any holes in the current policy which may exist. It is important that we have a policy that covers not only Senate employees, but also the Senators themselves. I will be working closely with the other committee members, and members of the Legislature to ensure we are providing a safe workplace for all.

4. Honoring a Veteran

Governor Greg Abbott recently awarded the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor posthumously to Master Sgt. Travis Watkins, who enlisted in the Army in 1939. He was awarded the bronze star for his service during World War II, but it was his sacrifices on the battlefield during the Korean conflict that has caused his legacy to live on for several decades.

After 30 men in Master Sgt. Watkins unit were surrounded by enemy fire, he took command of the group and established a perimeter defense. While exposing himself to enemy fire, he moved from foxhole to foxhole encouraging his men while giving them direction. Watkins was later shot by machine gun fire and was paralyzed from the waist down. He later ordered his men to escape, all while refusing evacuation as he knew it would slow down their retreat. Master Sgt. Watkins passed away two days before his 30th birthday and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by President Harry Truman. We are forever grateful for men and women like Watkins who make sacrifices so that we can live free.

5. Resolutions

As I look back on this year and all that was accomplished during the 85th Regular Legislative Session and the Special Session this summer, I am reminded that it could not have been done without you. In the upcoming year, my staff and I will be working towards and getting ready for the next legislative session, as well as serving on the Sunset Commission, with over 30 agencies going under review. It is because of your feedback that I have a better understanding of what is needed for East Texas. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve you in the Texas Senate, and I look forward to this next year and continuing to work to make our state great.
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When nearly four feet of water entered the restaurant Gringo's Mexican Kitchen in late August due to Hurricane Harvey, franchisee Joel Perkins didn't know what to do.

After undergoing remediation and renovations, Gringo's finally reopened on Dec. 12 as the neighboring businesses continue to repair efforts.

"It was complete devastation," Perkins said when he first arrived at Gringo's during the flood. "It was surreal. It was nothing like being in our restaurant. The dirty water, the smell."

When the water lowered enough for him to leave his home in Magnolia, Perkins headed over to the locations in Champions and found Cypresswood Drive completely underwater.

Once he was able to cross the street on a canoe assisted by a jet ski due to the powerful current, he and his son-in-law were unable to enter the restaurant. They could only peek inside through the windows.

"If you can just imagine all of this turned over and everything thrown in different directions. It was awful. It was hard to process," Perkins said.

While he surveyed the damage, Perkins said he wasn't sure about the next step to take. Just five days before Harvey hit, he had opened another Gringo's location in The Woodlands.

Everything from the furniture to the appliances to the plates and cups - all of it would have to be tossed out.

Harvey's rising floodwaters damaged homes, buildings and businesses alike along Cypresswood, forcing people out of their homes and preventing them from working.

Beside Gringo's, the Justice of the Peace Court for Precinct 4, Place 1 also flooded, with three to four feet of water, forcing personnel from the Pct. 4 Constable's Office and the Harris County Sheriff's Office to evacuate the building.

In October, Pct 4. Constable Mark Herman returned to the building in a makeshift office to dispatch deputies.

In the following block east of the courthouse, the Barbara Bush Library and the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Art also closed due to flood damage. All three buildings are currently under repair.

Other natural disasters, such as the Tax Day and Memorial Day floods in previous years had not affected the restaurant, Perkins said.

While a remodeling project had been planned to update the restaurant, the flooding forced him to do it sooner.

While tearing out the damaged drywall, the restaurant also got rid of waterlogged appliances, soaked furniture, plates, cups and silverware to prevent workers and customers from coming in contact with contaminated items.

"There was very little salvageable," Perkins said.

The repairs and renovations wound up costing approximately $1.2 million, he said.

Mostly, he was motivated to reopen so that the staff could return to the restaurant before the end of the year. While it was closed, workers had scattered to work in other franchise locations.

"Champions is home," workers told him.

The restaurant began by only serving dinner and will return to full service hours on Jan. 2.

Across the street from Gringo's, pizzeria Mellow Mushroom announced on Facebook that it would reopen in mid-January, although no specific date has been set.

Perkins said that the Italian restaurant Hasta la Pasta is still undergoing repairs. Attempts to reach the owners of Hasta la Pasta were unsuccessful.
AUSTIN - Two University of Texas faculty members quietly resigned after being informed that they were accused of sexual misconduct.

The Austin American-Statesman reports Thursday that public records show Jay Boisseau, who built UT's supercomputing center into an international powerhouse, and tenured chemistry professor Bradley J. Holliday both stepped down shortly after university officials confronted them with accusations. Boisseau resigned in 2014 and Holliday in 2016.
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American Girl's new doll is out of this world -- or, at least, she wants to be.

Luciana Vega is an 11-year-old aspiring astronaut with dreams of being the first person on Mars. She's the Wisconsin-based doll maker's 2018 Girl of the Year.

Luciana is "a champion of [science, technology, engineering and math] and a natural-born leader who puts her whole heart into making her dreams a reality," said Katy Dickson, president of American Girl, in a news release.

The company worked with NASA and Johnson Space Center to develop Luciana's story, which starts with her winning a scholarship to Space Camp in Alabama. Her story is chronicled in a three-book series also available for purchase.

Luciana -- decked out in a white space suit and helmet -- was unveiled Thursday on "Good Morning America." It is the company's 16th girl of the year and will be available for purchase Jan. 1.

"Luciana is a role model for today's girlsempowering them to defy stereotypes, and embrace risks that will teach them about failure and success as they chart their own course in lifewhatever the goal," Dickson said.

To ensure accuracy, doll creators traveled to Johnson Space Center in Houston to "gain insight into a day in the life of a Space Camp trainee," the company said.

Now Playing: Margo Georgiadis comes to Mattel from Google. Video: Fortune

The creators learned how to eat in space, how to function in microgravity and even put on a space suit, the release adds.

American Girl also worked with a four-member Advisory Board that included Ellen Stofan, former NASA chief scientist; Deborah Barnhart, CEO and executive director of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center; Megan McArthur Behnken, NASA astronaut; and Maureen O'Brien, manager of strategic alliances at NASA.

"American Girl's partnership with NASA was developed through the Space Act Agreement to inform and inspire the wider public (and especially young girls) about the excitement of space and STEM careers," the release added.

Also in partnership with Scholastic, NASA and Space Camp, the company has funded several educational activities to help young students learn about space and STEM fields.

They include:

Blast Off Discovery: a program built for third through fifth graders that includes STEM-based lesson plans and classroom activities. It will be available at www.scholastic.com starting Jan. 31.

Mission to Mars Sweepstakes: Families who participate in weekly missions can win numerous prizes, including a trip to Space Camp.

Space Camp scholarships: American girl is sponsoring 20 such scholarships.

Information about these and other educational opportunities can be found at americangirl.com/meetluciana.

Alex Stuckey covers NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.
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Those new jackets and hoodies you got over the holidays will more than come in handy over the next week.

The Houston-area will welcome in 2018 with a blast of frigid Canadian air starting this weekend..

RELATED: Houston's cold and wet New Year's Eve to come

The cold front will come across the region on Sunday and bring in the coldest air of 2017 on the last day of the year. It's possible the highest temperature the city will see is 51 degrees.

Sunday night there is a chance for freezing drizzle which could make conditions outside less than optimal for New Year's Eve revelry. Expect lows of 27 degrees overnight.

North of I-10 and east of I-45 wind chills could dip below 13 degrees.

Now Playing: A drone operator in Houston took their machines out Friday morning to capture stunning footage of Houston's snowfall. Video: Sam Clayton

The National Weather Service reports that temperatures by late Tuesday and Wednesday morning could fall into the lower '20s. Those temps could cause residual moisture from previous showers could freeze, which could make driving a bit of a challenge.

A warm-up thereafter might not come for at least another week.

RELATED: Keep up with Houston's crazy weather here

"Overnight low temperatures are expected to fall near to or below freezing by Monday morning and fall below freezing each night through Friday morning," according to the NWS.

There is no mention of the s-word (snow). A previous forecast mentioning a 40 percent chance on Tuesday was recently updated to zero percent.

Snow twice in the same month-span in Houston? We'll take it, but its highly doubtful.

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. He's an intolerable native Texan with too much ink in his skin and too much brisket stuck in his teeth.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is endorsing candidates in other races around the nation in hopes of getting them elected to Congress.

Weeks after endorsing Republican Matt Rosendale in a crowded primary for the U.S. Senate in Montana, Cruz on Thursday was endorsing Arizona Republican Steve Montenegro in another crowded field for a seat in the U.S. House.

"Steve Montenegro is a proven leader for the cause of liberty and a tireless advocate for the state of Arizona," Cruz said in a statement posted on his Twitter account.

Montenegro is among what is expected to be more than a dozen Republican candidates trying to replace U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, a Republican who resigned after the House Ethics Committee said it would investigate allegations of sexual harrassment against him.

And earlier this month Cruz endorsed two former staffers in different congressional races in Texas. He's thrown his support behind Jason Wright in the 5th Congressional District outside of Dallas and Chip Roy in a San Antonio based seat. Wright is a former regional director for Cruz, while Roy served as his chief of staff.

Similarly, both races have crowded Republican fields with no incumbent in the race. Besides Wright, seven other Republicans are battling to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling in Congress. Besides Roy, there are 16 other Republicans in the race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith.

Cruz originally endorsed Republican Roy Moore in the special election for the U.S. Senate in Alabama before pulling his endorsement after allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls were leveled against Moore.
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.
A.O. Centrul de Drept al Femeilor anunta concurs pentru selectarea expertilor nationali pentru dezvoltarea conceptului de sprijin psihosocial si a Curriculumului de instruire in acest sens
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Mary Hargrave, 53, started Fred and Daisy's, an exclusive children's clothing boutique in Lakewood, as a way to be creative while utilizing her degree in fashion design. She picks the fabrics, and designs and sews all of the dresses, skirts, boys' shirts, pants and accessories. Everything is made in bright and whimsical fabric printed with snowflakes and butterflies, bears and frogs.

Hargrave learned to sew as a child, and later studied and taught sewing at Virginia Marti College of Art and Design. Hargrave graduated from Virginia Marti with a degree in fashion design in 2010, then started Fred and Daisy's out of her home in 2013. The business moved into various Lakewood storefronts before landing at its current home on Detroit Avenue in 2017.

She's proud of her educational line of clothes embroidered with numbers, letters and shapes, which helps preschoolers and toddlers practice their letters and numbers. "Each piece has an educational element," Hargrave said.

Favorite place to take a visitor: Downtown Cleveland, especially the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

Favorite restaurant: Angelo's Pizza of Lakewood for a pie with pepperoni and banana peppers. "They're awesome. We can't even get in there. We go home and have it delivered," she said.

Favorite all-time creation: The girly ruffles and bow on a sundress called "Summertime Breeze," that Hargrave designed. The dress has a retro '60s vibe with spaghetti straps, and comes with a matching doll's dress.

Best tip for aspiring makers: Make sure your products are high quality, especially if you are charging more than something similar would cost in a store. "A lot of people don't pay attention to workmanship," she said. "You need to back up your price with your quality."
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Ohio Supreme Court will not review a Cleveland appeals court's decision that said a jury should decide whether a former Cleveland police detective was negligent when investigating serial killer Anthony Sowell a year before authorities found the bodies of his victims.

The Dec. 20 decision from the state's high court to not review the case means the families of Sowell's victims, all of whom were strangled, can continue to pursue their lawsuits against retired Cleveland sex crimes detective Georgia Hussein. It leaves in place a decision from the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals from March.

Several family members of the victims filed the lawsuits in 2010 and 2011, after police found the bodies of 11 women at Sowell's home on Imperial Avenue on the city's southeast side.

The lawsuits claim Cleveland police and a city prosecutor were negligent and reckless in investigating and prosecuting Sowell for a December 2008 complaint made by Gladys Wade. Wade said Sowell tried to kidnap, rob and rape her, though Sowell was not charged and investigators released from custody.

The victims' families say a proper investigation and charges would have prevented Sowell from carrying out several of his murders.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Nancy Fuerst dismissed the lawsuits, saying the evidence presented did not prove negligence, recklessness or any of the other claims. A three-judge panel from the 8th District revived a claim against Hussein that said she was reckless, and said the families provided evidence that Hussein did not conduct a thorough investigation of Wade's complaint.

The claims against other police officers and a city prosecutor were dismissed.

Sowell, 58, was sentenced to death in 2011. The U.S. Supreme Court in October declined to hear his case.

He remains on death row in Chillicothe.

If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Friday's crime and courts comments section.
SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio -- About 100 people attended a celebration of the career of retiring Ward 3 Councilman Ed Icove Thursday at the South Euclid Community Center, showing their admiration for the city's all-time longest serving elected official.

Icove did not run for re-election this year, bringing to a close his 28-year council career. In addition, he served six years before joining council as a member of the city's Zoning Board of Appeals.

Council colleagues and residents attended Thursday's event, as did state and county officer holders. One central theme that kept coming up throughout the evening was Icove's desire to help others.

"Ed has been a great councilman, a public servant," said Ward 1 Councilwoman Ruth Gray. "He has all the characteristics we need in a councilman, honesty, compassion. He's fair and inclusive. (He supports) diversity. He is always there to help the least of us."

Gray said that, 12 years ago, when she first ran for council, Icove was there to help and guide her. It was something that each of South Euclid's current councilmen could agree upon as all have received help from the body's senior member.

"Part of our job as councilmen is to get new blood involved," Icove said of his desire to help those seeking to be public servants.

South Euclid Municipal Court Judge Gayle Williams-Byers also stated that Icove was there for her when she first sought to be involved with her city.

"He was one of the first to say he would help and to give him a call, and it wasn't just a hollow offer like you get from some other people," said Williams-Byers, elected to her second six-year term in November. "He meant it.

"Our families spent Christmas Eve together. He's genuinely a friend of mine.

"He's such a wealth of institutional knowledge and he's so willing to help others. We're going to miss him, but we should be thankful that we have him and for what he has given."

At the celebration, Icove accepted proclamations from Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, which Williams-Byers delivered; State Sen. Kenny Yuko, D-25; State Rep. Kent Smith, D-8; and Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, as delivered by County Councilwoman and former South Euclid council member Sunny Simon.

Icove, 66, moved with wife, Mary, to South Euclid in 1982 after having lived in Cincinnati, where he worked as a Legal Aid lawyer. Today, a public interest attorney with the Icove Legal Group, Icove has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.

His cases involve resolving matters of injustice. He said that his desire to help those less fortunate began as a youth in Shaker Heights.

"I grew up in Shaker Heights. I'm a '69 graduate," he said. "I was a protege of (late U.S. Rep.) Lou Stokes. My dad, Mort, was an attorney in the Democratic Party. Through my father, I met Lou Stokes and grew up with his kids."

Icove told a story that took place at the time, 1964, when the United State Civil Rights Act was passed. As a 13-year-old, a situation developed when a black doctor wanted to buy a home in Shaker Heights. The John Birch Society attempted to block the sale, Icove said, but a group led by Stokes and Icove's father purchased the house, and then sold it to the doctor.

Afterward, Icove said the children of those John Birch members harassed him.

"My father told me that that was my first lesson in civil rights," he said.

As a member of South Euclid City Council, Icove had a number of accomplishments. Some of them include initiating legislation to provide for interior inspections of rental homes which, when passed, made South Euclid the second Greater Cleveland city behind Shaker Heights to institute such legislation; authoring the city's fair housing laws; and helping to form the city's Architectural Review Board.

In a speech he gave at the celebration, Icove said he and his wife planned to remain active in social and political issues that are important to South Euclid.

Icove said that, while serving with three mayors, four judges and several council people since first being elected in 1989, two major themes have emerged.

"First, we need to strive for civility," he said. "Constructive disagreement is a part of government and business, and a sign of healthy management.

"Second, we need to embrace diversity in our community. This means that our city needs to hire more people of color and with diverse religious backgrounds. It also means that we need to live by the Golden Rule in interacting with our neighbors."

Carole Cullen and her daughter, Bridget, said that Icove has been a great neighbor.

"In 2008, when I was graduating from college, he was a big help to me. I would ask him and he helped. He's like a big brother to me," said Bridget Cullen.

"His enthusiasm for the city is impressive," added Carole Cullen, a South Euclid resident of 39 years. "He returns calls and listens. He's a super person."

The Cullens said Icove has been known to just drop in just to say hello.

Said Mary Icove of her husband, "After 37 years (of marriage), I can say he is the salt of the earth. He's one of the best people God has made."

Mary Icove said that the couple looks forward to scheduling vacations, as her husband would not miss council meetings. At Wednesday's council meeting, Icove and Councilman at-large Dennis Fiorelli were recognized for not missing a meeting in 2017.

Taking Icove's seat on council will be Sara Continenza, who was elected to office for the first time. Continenza, a resident since 2011, attended the celebration and said of Icove, "Those are going to be big shoes to fill. He's been an impressive public servant. I can learn a lot from him."

Icove told Continenza he would be there for her if she needed any help.

Also present at the event was Ann D'Amico, a Highland Heights Councilwoman and the daughter of former South Euclid mayor, the late Arnold D'Amico, for whom the South Euclid Community Center is named. Arnold D'Amico served as South Euclid mayor from 1972-92.

"My father loved (Icove)," D'Amico said. "We spent a lot of time together back then. He was like a brother."

Icove said he has not ruled out seeking public office in the future, but that if he does run again, it likely won't be at a city level.
MEDINA, Ohio -- The city of Medina has issued a precautionary boil alert following a water main break affecting residents in the northeast and southeast parts of the city.

The residents affected in the northeast are bordered by East Washington Street, North Court Street and Harding Street to the east city limits which includes Burgundy Bay and Retreat Drive, according to a statement released by the city.

Residents affected in the southeast part of the city are bordered by East Washington Street, Wadsworth Road and include South Broadway, Grant Street, South Street and Malloy Court, the release says.

The city hopes to lift the boil alert as soon as test results are given, the release says. The boil alert will remain for at least 18 hours, maybe longer.

Residents are advised to boil tap water for drinking water at a rolling boil for one minute, the release says.

Anyone with questions is asked to call the Medina Water Service Office at 330-722-9081 or 330-722-9026.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Central Ohio won't have any medical marijuana growers when Ohio's program begins, but it could be home to several testing labs.

Three of the nine applicants to test medical marijuana plant material and products listed central Ohio sites on their applications, according to records released Friday by the Ohio Department of Commerce. A fourth listed a Worthington business address. Two companies listed sites in Northeast Ohio (Akron and Streetsboro) and one applied for a site in Toledo.

Central State University in Wilberforce and Hocking Technical College in Nelsonville were the only two public colleges to apply.

Ohio's medical marijuana law requires all marijuana to be tested for quality and potency by an independent lab. Marijuana cultivator, processor and dispensary owners cannot be involved in a testing lab operation.

The law also limited licenses to public colleges and universities for one year. The state's large universities declined to get involved, causing concerns that the program could be delayed past its statutory September 2018 deadline. The commerce department has since interpreted the law to mean one year from when any marijuana business license application is accepted, or June 2018.

There is no limit to the number of testing lab licenses the department can award.

The seven private entities that applied include out-of-state players and Columbus-based Battelle Memorial Institute, which lobbied state regulators to open the door for it and others to test marijuana.

The records released Friday included the proposed testing lab location and primary contact for each but did not include information about others who own or have a stake in the companies.

Here's what we know about the private testing lab applicants.

ACT Laboratories Inc., Toledo: Operates labs in Michigan and Illinois and is one of two labs awarded licenses to test cannabis in Pennsylvania, which is also in the process of setting up its medical marijuana program.

Akrivis Lab LLC, TBD: Kavi Nithyanandam, president and CEO of central Ohio technology consulting company Lantrasoft, is listed as the managing member.

Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus: The research and development nonprofit let its interest in testing marijuana be known earlier this year when it submitted comments on the regulations for testing labs. Battelle plans to study cannabis at its Maryland facility.

CAS Laboratories LLC (trade name Cannabis Analytical Solutions), Columbus: Mark Fashian is listed as the company's CEO. Fashian is the president of Midwest Analytical Solutions, LLC, according to his LinkedIn profile. The company distributes scientific equipment, according to government contract records.

Keystone State Testing of Ohio LLC, Columbus: The company is a subsidiary of the other company licensed to test medical marijuana in Pennsylvania.

North Coast Testing Laboratories LLC, Streetsboro: The site address listed on the application currently houses North Coast Environmental Laboratories LLC, which performs tests for drinking water, industrial waste and other organic compounds.

QualesOH, Akron: The company is affiliated with Quales LLC, which is licensed to test marijuana in Maryland. Manoj Adusumilli is listed as the Ohio owner. Adusumilli is a design and innovations strategist at Med-Strategies, a Virginia health care billing and business services company, according to his LinkedIn profile.
WASHINGTON -- Ohio's most notorious white supremacist, Andrew Anglin, still has a website, the Daily Stormer, although he had to change web hosts after previous companies found his content too offensive. He still rants against "the Jewish problem," blacks, "homos" and others who are neither white nor can muster sympathy for neo-Nazis.

Anglin, who grew up in the Columbus suburb of Worthington, still needs money to operate, though the currency he solicits, like that of other extremist groups, happens to be untraceable Bitcoin. "The Daily Stormer is being sued by Jewish terrorists," Anglin claims on the website. "In order to survive, we need shekels."

Yet Anglin, who became best known after last summer's violent clashes in Charlottesville -- he called a victim, the late Heather Heyer, "a drain on society" -- is something of a phantom these days. Targeted in lawsuits by people who say they were unmercifully taunted and even threatened with death by Anglin's supporters and Internet trolls, Ohio's pale prince of extremism has gone underground.

"Help us find him," exhorted the Huffington Post in a detailed story recently.

Where is the 33-year-old Anglin?

The question has made the rounds as a journalism exercise, with equal touches of mystery and menace. But it's a legal matter too.

Anglin has been sued several times, accused of unleashing hatred and threats of violence among his followers. But he has not personally been served with legal papers.

No one can find him.

If there is no legal proof he has been duly notified and given a chance to respond -- or if a court believes he is no longer a United States resident, a theory his lawyers are trying -- the lawsuits might be dismissed. In a Montana case, attorneys representing a woman suing Anglin said they tried to find him repeatedly, hiring investigators and process servers with a sound record of catching their prey. All were stumped.

Visits to Ohio relatives, friends, known haunts all failed. So the attorneys say they served him another way: They placed legal ads for six consecutive weeks in the Daily Reporter, a Columbus legal and business publication, with notification of the lawsuit.

Whether that will suffice will be up to a judge.

"I don't want to be perceived as being an advocate, but he's going to have to detail what his travels have been, what his changes in location have been, because as you know, ultimately, again, I have an independent obligation to determine whether there's jurisdiction here," federal Magistrate Jeremiah Lynch told attorneys during a Dec. 14 conference, according to the Associated Press. "The ultimate question is his domicile," Lynch said at the Montana meeting.

The rap Anglin faces:

The cases against Anglin resulted from things he wrote and posted on the Daily Stormer, a website whose name comes from the Nazi propaganda tabloid Der Sturmer.

In one case, Anglin is accused of launching a "troll storm" by writing 30 articles lambasting a Whitefish, Montana, woman, Tanya Gersh.

Gersh already knew of a different white nationalist, Richard Spencer, whose mother, Sherry Spencer, happened to also live in Whitefish. Gersh told CNN she talked to Sherry Spencer and asked her to disavow the views of her son. Gersh, a Realtor, also said that she knew protests were going to take place at a rental building that Sherry Spencer owned, and that she advised Sherry Spencer to sell the building as a way to defuse local tensions, suggesting the proceeds be donated to a human rights group.

Sherry Spencer did not take that well, writing in a blog that Gersh was threatening her with protests and attention that could drive down the building's value if she didn't sell, CNN reported. Gersh denies any such pressure and has said she was simply trying to have a mother-to-mother talk.

Then Anglin stepped in with articles in December 2016 and January 2017.

Anglin accused Gersh of running a Jewish extortion and racketeering ring and told his Daily Stormer followers to unleash a vile campaign against her and her family, according to a legal filing in the case.

"Ms. Gersh and her family have received over 700 harassing messages, including death threats, at all times of the day and night with noticeably more messages being received immediately following the publication of each of Mr. Anglin's articles," the court filing says.

Among the messages was, "You will be driven to the brink of suicide. & We will be there to take pleasure in your pain & eventual end." Another email said, "You are a disgusting, vile Jew. You filthy & depraved Jews never learn; it is your peoples' behavior responsible for our resentment of you, which pales in comparison to your hatred for us."

A similar case in Ohio:

Anglin faces a similar lawsuit in Ohio, where a Muslim-American comedian, Dean Obeidallah, wants the extremist to face consequences for writing that Obeidallah was the "mastermind" behind a bombing at an Ariana Grande concert overseas that left 23 people dead and 250 people injured.

Anglin posted a series of pictures of supposed tweets from Obeidallah, who lives in New York and tours widely. In reality, they were fabricated images, and Obeidallah never tweeted anything of the sort, according to the lawsuit in a federal court in Columbus.

The fake article caused readers to take to The Daily Stormer's message board where Obeidallah's life was threatened. One commenter wrote that "look down this barrel and verify if my gun is clean like a good terrorist," the lawsuit says.

But attorneys in that case, too, have had the same problem as those in the Montana case. They can't find Anglin to serve him.

If he can't be found:

One of Anglin's attorneys is Marc Randazza, of Nevada. He says if Anglin were held legally liable for the things his readers said or did, it could chill free speech rights everywhere. It's no different from an anti-fracking activist urging others to write to a drilling company, Randazza said. The original writer shouldn't be blamed legally if someone else strays outside the lines.

"The heart of the matter is this is a First Amendment case," Randazza told cleveland.com. "As go the rights of Mr. Anglin, so go the rights of us all."

Anglin's critics say there's a big difference. Anglin spews hatred, they say, to a receptive audience. And Anglin knows how that audience will react.

"Anglin often refers to himself as a troll on the Internet," says an Anti-Defamation League primer. "In this light, he goads his readers and followers, whom he refers to as the 'Stormer troll army,' to contact perceived enemies (mostly Jews) on Twitter to inundate them with hateful tweets. On his website, Anglin has also posted extensive instructions on how to troll people."

Yet until or unless Anglin is found, the cases against him might center as heavily on procedural questions as on the First Amendment issue. A primary procedural question: Can a case continue if the defendant has not been personally served?

Lawyers for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which works on civil rights protection and litigation, say yes, absolutely. The center is involved as one of Gersh's legal representatives.

Randazza says no. He and other attorneys told the Montana court recently that Anglin resides in neither Ohio nor any other state, and a stateless person cannot be sued in federal court, according to the Huffington Post. The attorneys appeared to suggest, the Huffington Post said, that Anglin lives in Lagos, Nigeria. Anglin has said before that he is in Nigeria, the New York Times reported in August.

The Huffington Post, however, is skeptical of the claim and said Anglin spent 2015 and 2016 in Russia. He cast an absentee ballot in Ohio for the 2016 presidential race, but it was postmarked from Krasnodar in western Russia, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported in August.

A rare Columbus sighting:

Yet a Columbus process server said in a court filing in the Montana case that he is certain he spotted Anglin in a Meijer supermarket in Reynoldsburg, another Columbus suburb, on Dec. 10 this year.

The process server, Jeffrey Cremeans, had seen photos and video of Anglin. But the sighting was happenstance. Cremeans was in the store on a personal errand -- it was a Sunday -- and didn't have the legal papers on him.

Cremeans said in a legal filing he nevertheless asked the man if he was Anglin and was told no, after which the man "quickly fled the store."

So where is Anglin?

"We would love to find that out, too," said Heidi Beirich, an authority on extremism at the Southern Poverty Law Center. "Our lawyers have expended a tremendous amount of time trying to find him."

Randazza, the attorney representing the absent client, says he is deeply skeptical of the recent Columbus sighting.

Asked if he knew where Anglin is, Randazza told cleveland.com, "I can neither confirm nor deny any information about his location."
MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, Ohio -- The lateral transfer hiring process currently being considered for use by the Middleburg Heights Police Department is still "a work in progress," according to Civil Service Commission Chairman Tim Miranda. The policy also is under consideration for the fire department.

He and commission members met Dec. 19 with city officials, as well as police and fire department representatives, to continue discussing a policy by which safety personnel could be hired from outside the city without having to take the Middleburg civil service exam.

Candidates for police officer positions would be required to have been employed as a peace officer within the preceding year (having passed that employer's civil service exam) and complete an employment application. The applicant would also need to submit a resume and current certificate of physical agility, and agree to a background check, polygraph examination, drug screening and in-person interview. The process would apply only to appointments to the rank of police officer.

Dave Dacek, president of Middleburg Heights Firefighters Local 2018, expressed opposition to the proposed policy. In a Dec. 4 letter to Miranda, he indicated the union "finds it foolish and irresponsible to modify the current system."

"We believe a change allowing lateral transfers will taint the hiring process, lower the quality of candidates and have negative ramifications for current members of the safety departments," Dacek wrote.

At the Dec. 19 meeting, Dacek said the union's stance has not changed.

"We just want to go on record that our union from the fire department doesn't like this process," he said. "We don't feel it would be beneficial."

Miranda emphasized no commission decision yet has been reached.

"At this point, I consider this a work in progress," Miranda said.

"This is only for entry level ... and we're only going to do this at the time there are less than 10 remaining names on the (candidate) eligibility list," added commission member Jim Sheppard, stressing the process must be open and fair. "This is not in lieu of the testing and certification of those names."

Separate meetings will be held between fire department officials and city administrators to discuss the policy. Miranda said the commission will meet with the city's safety committee, possibly in January, before voting on a finalized process for the police department.
Matthew Grimes is a Spanish teacher at the Campus International School in Cleveland.

CLEVELAND -- When school started last August, I listened closely as my colleagues shared what they did over summer break. Some talked about family and relaxation, while others discussed home improvements. A few even mentioned picking up a new hobby.

It goes without saying that summer break for teachers can be as precious as winning the lottery or striking gold. The teachers whom I know work so hard throughout the school year that they undoubtedly deserve a bit of rest and relaxation over the summer.

When it came time for me to share, however, people seemed surprised to hear that I decided to spend my summer developing in a way that is a bit unconventional in the education world -- by visiting three different continents in six short weeks.

Constant learning has always driven me. I grew up near the outskirts of Albany, New York, in a high-poverty community. As a child, I was always examining the realities around me while simultaneously looking for a way out. Education was my first outlet, and I quickly realized the importance of doing well in school and the impact academic success could have on the breadth of opportunities in my life and on my community.

It wasn't until college, however, that I found my true escape - travel. I spent two semesters abroad during college - one in Spain and the other in Ecuador, where I started to make the connection between issues in contemporary Latin America and in communities like the one I grew up in. My wanderlust continued throughout college as I spent a summer examining sustainable development in the highlands of Bolivia and a few weeks working with refugee children in the Dominican Republic.

My undergraduate experience culminated in a Fulbright grant to teach and explore transnational migration issues in Argentina after college. All of these experiences were deeply rooted in my desire to analyze social justice issues and convinced me that I wanted to teach and travel as a career to connect my students to meaningful international experiences like the ones I had.

We must seek to understand the reality of what is going on in other parts of the world in order to change it. It is a simple philosophy that has guided my path so far in life: see the world, learn the world, teach the world. This is what brought me to Cleveland in the summer of 2014 as a Teach For America corps member.

In my current role at Campus International School at Cleveland State University, I get to teach the world every day to a group of internationally minded middle school students. Our mission is to help cultivate global citizens who will in turn make the world a better place.

In doing so, I am able to expand my students' understanding of the world by sharing personal stories of my experiences abroad. I try to embed my own experiences into all of my lessons.

This year, I am using my most recent experiences in Cuba, Spain and Argentina to teach about issues such as education, homelessness and hunger.

By bringing Hispanic culture to life in my classroom with anecdotes and artifacts from my travels, my students are able to get a firsthand glimpse into the world of international service learning, and build a deeper understanding and connection to the language.

This spring, I will help lead my students on a trip to the Dominican Republic to explore educational inequities and empower local communities. Having the opportunity to participate in a meaningful international education experience at a young age has the potential to have a profound impact on both local communities and the traveler.

In my case, I'm doing all I can to ensure that the impact of my experiences also reaches my students. I believe that the promotion of peace and justice begins by lending a helping hand and carrying an open heart and that in doing so, my students will one day make the world a better place.

Matthew Grimes, a Greater Cleveland Teach For America alumnus, is a Spanish teacher at the Campus International School in Cleveland.

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State Sen. Sandra Williams of Cleveland

In light of the recent controversy and questions surrounding the medical marijuana cultivator license applications and those awarded, as well as the fairness of the selection process, it is important that the state of Ohio take the time to make sure that the organizations awarded were not given preferential consideration.

Even with Ohio Attorney General Michael DeWine's suggestion for the Ohio Department of Commerce to hire an independent third-party investigator to look into recent allegations, there are still legitimate concerns regarding the impartiality and transparency of these efforts.

Throughout the lengthy and costly application process, the Ohio Department of Commerce barred anyone with a felony drug conviction from applying for a medical marijuana cultivator license, and required background checks of everyone with at least 1 percent interest in a cultivation company.

But questions have been raised about one scorer, the owner and consultant of a cannabis consulting firm, who also, according to court records, pleaded guilty in 2005 to felony charges of possessing or manufacturing marijuana with intent to sell.

State Rep. Janine Boyd of Cleveland Heights

The state of Ohio should hold scorers to the same standard as applicants. If the vetting of the scorers is in question, there is reason to believe that the application selection process was poorly vetted.

The Department of Commerce also needs to explain the selection process for the inclusion of economically disadvantaged groups, as defined by the Ohio Revised Code -- not just by checking a box on an application. ORC Section 3796.09 (C) says that not less than 15 percent of cultivator, processor, and laboratory licenses granted through the Department of Commerce shall go to entities owned and controlled by members of economically disadvantaged groups: blacks or African-Americans; American Indians; Hispanics or Latinos; and Asians.

At this time, it has been stated by the Department of Commerce that only two out of the 12 licenses for Level 1 cultivation and one out of the 12 licenses for Level 2 cultivation are minority-owned.

State Rep. Stephanie Howse of Cleveland

When asked, the Department of Commerce stated that they did not require that any of the approved applicants be Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) certified and they did not verify if any of the Level 2 applicants were actually minority-owned businesses.

The Department of Commerce should make sure that they take appropriate steps to verify that such businesses are actually 51 percent owned by the economically disadvantaged groups.

Furthermore, other reports have unveiled that a consultant hired to score the medical marijuana cultivator applications previously worked for businesses owned by the companies awarded a license. This again raises questions about potential special interests and fairness in the selection process for these highly sought after and limited licenses.

There appears to be a legitimate conflict of interest in the process. This does not seem coincidental, even though applicants and the public were informed by the Department of Commerce that this was a double-blind scoring process. It has been documented in one instance that multiple scorers on the same team have a relationship with at least one of the applicants; it is fair to say that the scorer would be able to easily identify the applicant based on the information provided in the application, especially if multiple scorers on the same team had the same interest to the same business.

According to applicants we spoke with, they submitted multiple applications that differed in order and content to improve their chances of licensure. However, the applications, despite their drastic differences, were given the same exact score. Even Ohio Auditor Dave Yost referred to this process as an "epic failure."

Furthermore, some investigation should be done to determine if any of the awardees have substantial and direct relationships to government officials here in Ohio.

During the legislative progress, many elected officials were adamantly opposed to the passage of House Bill 523, which legalized medical marijuana in Ohio, citing a range of concerns. Now that we all further understand both the economic and health benefits of the new law, there appears to be much more acceptance of this commodity.

Considering this program will already be under strict scrutiny and observation by the federal government, it is imperative that Ohio be transparent and that it does everything it can to ensure applications are scored appropriately and impartially without bias. No licenses should be awarded without a proper investigation.

State Sen. Sandra Williams of Cleveland is a former president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus. State Rep. Janine Boyd of Cleveland Heights currently serves as caucus treasurer and state Rep. Stephanie Howse of Cleveland is president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus. All are Democrats.

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STRONGSVILLE, Ohio - The city plans to repair its landmark clock tower, at the northeast corner of Pearl and Royalton roads, in 2018, said city Service Director Joe Walker and Finance Director Joe Dubovec.

However, repairs have already begun. Volunteers from the Strongsville City Club, which financed construction of the tower in the early 1990's, are performing some of the work. The club's contribution is expected to shave $24,000 off the estimated $124,000 project.

Terry Toth, city club president, said the club is proud of the clock tower and happy to help restore the 25-year-old structure.

"We have a great community with effective leadership, as well as unbelievable support from the many civic groups in town, not just ours," Toth said in an email to cleveland.com. "A relationship of respect and working together for the betterment of our citizens is inspiring."

In a 2016 report, Construction Resources Inc. - a Solon building-exterior consulting firm that examined the clock tower for the city - said the tower was deteriorating, at least partly due to poor workmanship. Water seeping into the clock tower has rusted steel and rotted wood.

Construction Resources estimated that it would cost $84,000 to repair the clock tower, plus another $40,000 to replace all mortar between bricks, for a total of $124,000.

Walker told cleveland.com that he has recommended replacing all the mortar.

"From the ground it doesn't look bad, but if you go up to the top, there is deterioration in the mortar joints," Walker said.

Toth said city club members who are tradespeople replaced missing and/or aging louvers - angled slats that let light into the clock tower - within the last two months. Construction Resources had estimated that portion of the project at $20,000.

"The louvers, when the tower was constructed 25 years ago, were spaced too far apart," Toth said. "When it's windy or rainy, water would enter from the top."

Toth said city club volunteers will also replace a door - which Construction Resources said was rusting and contained a hole - when weather permits. Construction Resources said the door has no weather stripping, threshold or sweep, which is a strip that runs along the bottom of the door to keep out air and water. The door replacement is estimated at $4,000.

Meanwhile, the city - in addition to replacing the mortar - will clean, prime and paint interior steel; replace some interior steel components; remove and replace all sealants; install new sheet-metal water tables, which are architectural projections that deflect water away from the tower's foundation; and install counterflashing, which will help shed water away from the tower, at the top of the lower water table.

Walker said the city will seek bids for the clock tower project in 2018. City inspectors and Construction Resources engineers will make sure the renovation - by both city club volunteers and city-hired contractors - is done correctly.

Walker said he was confident in the city club volunteers.

"They are professional contractors," Walker said. "They are not going to bring in just anybody to do the work."
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Bad news for anyone headed out to celebrate the New Year this weekend in Northeast Ohio: the chilly, snowy pattern is expected to continue.

First, let's talk snow. A lake-effect snow warning is in effect for Lake and lakeshore Ashtabula counties until 4 a.m. Sunday for total snow accumulations of 10 to 14 inches.

A winter storm watch is in effect for inland Ashtabula and Geauga counties through Saturday night. Those counties can expect 8 to 12 inches within that time frame, but they're not the only ones seeing snow.

Through Saturday night, with northwesterly winds making the snow event more widespread, instead of targeted for the east-side lake-effect belt like it would be if the winds were strictly from the west, the snow will hit Cleveland and other areas outside of the belt. Cleveland and Akron could see up to 5 inches from this system.

Total snow through 7 a.m. Sunday. (NWS Cleveland)

Some light snow flurries could linger into Sunday across the region, but it's looking like near nothing should stick. I'll have an update on Sunday's snow chances and accumulations out Friday since snow forecasts are only best two days out. Thankfully, right now the forecast favors snow chances dwindling toward the evening, just in time to head out to celebrate on New Year's Eve.

New Year's Day is looking mostly cloudy, and at most a few flakes could fall from the sky.

But the snow isn't the only story, the jet stream is stuck in its current position which is ushering in arctic air to Northeast Ohio. Highs will range from the 20s to teens. Doesn't sound too bad, but with gusty winds throughout wind chills are much cooler. New Year's Eve and Day, chills will barely hit above zero for the warmest part of the day, hitting the negatives for the most part.

Check out the forecast:

Temperatures

Temperature forecast.

Wind chills

Wind chill forecast.

Precipitation chances

Precipitation forecast.

Winds

Wind speed and direction forecast.

Keep checking cleveland.com/weather for daily weather updates for Northeast Ohio, and don't forget to submit any weather questions you may have!

Kelly Reardon is cleveland.com's meteorologist. Please follow me on Facebook and Twitter @KellyRWeather.
In 1988 Jim Shayman, a thirty-four-year-old assistant professor in the U-M medical school, faced a critical career decision. Recruited to Ann Arbor two years earlier, the kidney specialist and biochemist had decided not to continue in his chosen field of researchnot because it wasnt fruitful, but because it was exploding. As a new investigator with a tiny laboratory, Shayman didnt want to compete with the large labs entering the field.

He was searching for something else to work on the day he boarded a bus headed for a U-M research retreat near Kalamazoo. Shayman found himself sitting beside a bearded, bespectacled man twice his age. I had no idea who he was, recalls Shayman. We just started talking. He did most of the talking.

Shaymans loquacious bus companion was biochemist Norm Radin. Their two-hour conversation on the bus continued through the weekend retreat. By the time Sunday afternoon came around, says Shayman, we had established a collaboration. And Shayman had his new research direction.

The Radin-Shayman partnership would develop an entirely new kind of therapy and prove extremely lucrative for the university. In 2014, a drug conceptualized by Radin and perfected by Shayman was approved for sale by the FDA. Called Cerdelga and brought to market by the biotech company Genzyme, it is now a standard therapy for treating type 1 Gaucher disease, a rare disease where lipids, molecules that dissolve in oil but not in water, jam white blood cells. The swollen cells accumulate in various organs, often leading to disability and death.

That same year the U-M sold 75 percent of its Cerdelga royalty stream to PDL BioPharma for $65.6 million. License revenue from all the U-Ms inventions combined had totaled just $18.5 million the previous year. Cerdelga is the only currently marketed FDA-approved drug discovered at Michigan.

The deal made fiscal 2015 a record year for the university in licensing sales, says U-M tech transfer licensing director Bryce Pilz. A lot of great things have come from the money and will come from it. The U-M also gets ongoing royalties. The tech transfer office didnt respond to a question about the amount, but, based on Cerdelgas reported sales, it should be well over $1 million a yearand growing fast.



That 1988 bus conversation was only one of a series of chance events on Cerdelgas forty-year path from conception to financial windfall. Radin, who died in 2013, came to the U-M in 1960 not to develop a drug but to research the brain. Radins interest in lipids originated at a job with the Association of Soap and Glycerine Producers that helped put him through graduate school in biochemistry at Columbia University. (Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov was a fellow grad student.) Radin focused his academic research on an obscure class of lipids abundant in the brain, and in 1960 he joined the U-Ms Mental Health Research Institute (now the Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience Institute).

He had in mind making the world a better place, and the brain is the place to concentrate [on doing that], is how he felt about it, says Bernie Agranoff, a retired U-M neuroscientist who met Radin in the early 1950s and convinced him to come to Michigan. Radin was looking for a way to make people smarter, says Agranoff. And Id always argue with him [that] there were some pretty smart people in Nazi Germany.

Radin never found a way to make people smarter, but he was a highly productive biochemist. Over the years, he worked out the cellular pathways for the creation and degradation of many important lipids, including some that accumulate abnormally in the brain and in other organs and cause lysosomal storage diseases. In these diseasesTay-Sachs is the best knownenzymes that normally break down waste products are missing or deficient, allowing the wastes to accumulate in various organs, often disastrously. In diseases like Tay-Sachs, these lipids pile up like garbage, explains Agranoff. For researchers seeking treatments, the questions were, How do you prevent it from forming? How do you break it down?

Thanks to Radin and others, we now have some answers. Biochemist Roscoe Brady, at the National Institutes of Health, pioneered the breaking-down approach, known as enzyme replacement therapy. It provides the enzymes needed to dismantle the accumulated wastes, which physicians call substrate. Since 1991, Genzyme has marketed a purified enzyme, now called Cerezyme, to treat Gaucher disease. But twenty years earlier, Radin had proposed a radically different idea: blocking the synthesis of the cellular waste products so they are never created in the first place.

Few thought such substrate reduction therapy would ever work, but Radin pursued it. He soon focused on Gaucher disease.

In Gaucher, an enzyme deficiency causes a lipid substrate to accumulate in white blood cells, leading to symptoms ranging from an enlarged spleen and liver to anemia, bone disease, lung fibrosis, and cancer. Another U-M biochemist, Saul Roseman, working across the street from Radin, discovered the enzyme that generates the substrate, and Radin set about finding a drug to block that enzyme.

He was quite alone. Greg Grabowski, a lysosomal storage disease expert then at Mount Sinai hospital in New York, remembers Radin presenting his substrate reduction concept at a 1982 Gaucher meeting. Nobody paid a whole lot of attention to it, Grabowski says.

Radin had no formal training in medicinal chemistry, but he imagined that a drug that worked against the enzyme could resemble the part of the substrate that the enzyme latches onto, blocking that interaction. Radin searched the Merck Manual, a medical reference, for a chemical structure that might do this. He found the antibiotic chloramphenicol and modified it to create his first effective compound. But while it blocked its enzyme target, it wasnt potent and specific enough to work safely in human patients.



Fortuitously, it was at this point that Radin and Shayman met on the bus to Kalamazoo. Radins expertise in lipid biochemistry meshed well with Shaymans medical experience, which included post-doctoral work in pharmacology. Shayman recalls that he agreed to the partnership because he considered Radins enzyme-blocking compounds useful for laboratory studies into lipid biology, and he was eager to learn from Radins expertise. But from that very first conversation he was skeptical that a drug based on blocking substrate formation could work.

I thought that part was bullshit, Shayman admits. I thought this makes no sense from a medical point of view. A drug that blocked substrate formation in Gaucher, he knew, would prevent the formation of dozens of other lipids and also cause a lipid precursor to accumulate, both effects presumably bad for patients. The result, it seemed, would be a drug too toxic to do any good. It took eight years and countless arguments before Shayman accepted that Radins approach would work safely, because the body easily compensates for both effects.

A large man with wavy gray hair, solid frame glasses, and a slightly rumpled aspect, Shayman grew up outside Chicago. His undergrad degree at Cornell, in philosophy, helped me think about things in a more rigorous fashion, he says. Medical school and residency at Washington University in St. Louis introduced Shayman to dozens of prominent physician-scientistseight different Nobel Prize winners worked or trained in a single lab at Wash Uand Shayman decided to pursue a research career.

When Shayman arrived at Michigan in 1986, the medical school here also had many young stars, including Francis Collins (now director of the National Institutes of Health), Jeff Leiden (head of Vertex Pharmaceuticals), and Gary Nabel, now the chief scientific officer at the French drug company Sanofi (which, coincidentally, acquired Cerdelga after taking over Genzyme in 2011). I was asking myself, what am I doing here? Shayman recalls. I had a lot of questions about whether I could be ultimately successful, but I was also not trying to hit grand slams. Shayman figured that he could always just practice medicine if the research with Radin didnt pan out.

It almost didnt, multiple times. In the mid-1990s Shaymans lab laboriously synthesized and tested chemical variants of Radins compound and found some potent and specific enough to be real drug candidates. The two men filled out standard invention disclosure forms with the U-M tech transfer office, then waited, expecting a patent application to be filed. They didnt get any response for maybe four to six months, Shayman recalls. And then [we] finally pushed back, and they said, No were not interested.'

Luckily for the university, Shayman convinced the chair of internal medicine and his nephrology division chief to each kick in $10,000 to pay the patent fee. It was probably the best investment the department ever made, says Shayman, who occasionally reminds todays tech transfer staff how their predecessors nearly cost the university a golden opportunity. I have nothing but good things to say about the tech transfer office under the current leadership, he adds.

After demonstrating that Cerdelga worked in mice, Shayman contacted several biotech and pharmaceutical companies, including Genzyme, to take Cerdelga into clinical trials for human use. Genzyme didnt respond. Later, through a contact, he got a chance to present his work at the biotech company. After his lecture, Shayman says, Genzymes research head stood up and said, This is our unanimous opinion about your work: We see absolutely no prospect for this effort being successful.

But six months later, the same Genzyme administrator called Shayman at 4 p.m. and offered to fly him to the companys Massachusetts headquarters the next day. Genzymes stock had plunged 30 percent that day following a report that another company was developing a substrate reduction drug for Gaucher disease. That threatened Genzymes enzyme-replacement drug for Gaucher, Cerezyme, which accounted for two-thirds of its revenue. Thats when they became interested, says Shayman.



In 2000, Genzyme licensed the Radin/Shayman patents from the U-M. But the competitive threat from the rival substrate drug turned out to be less serious than it seemed; though it was approved by the FDA, it has severe side effects and so is rarely prescribed.

To Shaymans disappointment, Genzyme took fourteen years to bring Cerdelga to market. He suspects that some company leaders werent fully committed to developing a drug that would compete with Cerezyme. Shayman was also frustrated that Genzyme did not test Cerdelga in another lysosomal storage disease, Fabry disease, despite success in animals. (Genzyme sells an enzyme replacement drug for Fabry disease, too.)

Shaymans other big disappointment is Cerdelgas price. The twice-a-day pill is a chemical and so presumably much cheaper to manufacture than Cerezyme, which is produced by living cells. Shayman expected the cost of treating Gaucher disease would fall by half when Cerdelga hit the market. Instead, Genzyme priced it at $310,000 a yeareven higher than Cerezyme.

Although that meant bigger royalties for the U-M and Shayman himself, he says he was surprised and disappointed at the decisionhe would have much preferred smaller royalties and a more affordable drug. He looks forward to the day, sometime in the next decade, when Cerdelgas patents expire and generic versions can be offered at a fraction of the current price. At that point, he hopes that Cerdelga will also be tested in Fabry diseaseand in other diseases that involve abnormal lipid accumulation in cells, including diabetes, polycystic kidney disease, and even certain cancers.



In the meantime, Shaymans lab is making and testing new variants of Cerdelga capable of penetrating the brain. These could work in several other lysosomal storage diseases, including Tay-Sachs, that involve brain cells. Shayman has grant support from the National Institutes of Health, but even without it the effort should continue, because the Cerdelga royalties provide a $10 million endowment for the lab. This time Shayman may form his own company to take the drugs forward.

The Cerdelga royalties also funded seven endowed professorships at the medical school as well as clinical trial support services there. Tech transfer receives a seven percent share, which has been funding new patent applications, says Pilzan ironic outcome, given the offices initial refusal to file the Radin/Shayman patents. Radin didnt live to see any royaltiesbut Shayman says Radin, before he died, had the satisfaction of knowing that Cerdelga worked. And several companies are now pursuing substrate reduction to treat a variety of diseases. Its a real testament to his scientific insights and genius, says Shayman.

Shayman, now sixty-three, has no plans to retire. Im having too much fun, he says. All along the Cerdelga journey, Shayman considered the knowledge gained worth the trouble, even if the drug never reached market. But it succeeded against all odds, and is now helping more than a thousand Gaucher patients, a number that is steadily growing.

While bettering their lives is gratifying, what has always motivated Shayman is simple wonder at how nature works. Scientists derive satisfaction from making new discoveries, he says. Theres a period of time when you know something that no one else in the world knows.
I don't know how many young women come to this blog or how many are parents of teenage or young adult women, but here are some safety tips from Kelsey's Army:

T

I

P

S

1. Trust your instincts - If something feels wrong then something probably is wrong.2. Know your surroundings - know who and what is around you.3. Always have a plan for where you would go and what you would do if a situation arises.4. Be willing to make a scene in order to be noticed.5. Let someone know where you are going and when you will be back.Remember the acronym TIPS:ake Chargenform others of your whereaboutsrepare for any situationurvival Mentality (role play situations so you will respond should they happen)For more information, go to Kelsey's Army
India-Pakistan Peace Caravan "Aman ke Badhte Qadam"



PRESS CONFERENCE

Tuesday 27th July, - from 4-5pm Marathi Patrakar, CST, Mumbai



5-6 pm. Candle lighting programmme & Peace Oath at Gateway of India. The Peace Caravan will start simultaneously at Mumbai and Karachi and reach Wagah-Atari border on 13th August, 2010 .



Speakers:

Karamat Ali: (Trade Unionist, Executive Director of Pakistan Institute for Labour Education & Research) Mahesh Bhatt: (Film-maker & committed Human Rights activist) Asghar Ali Engineer: (Islamic Scholar & doyen of the Secular Movement) & Sandeep Pandey: (Peace Activist & Magsaysay Award Winner)



Undoubtedly detente between India & Pakistan is the key to sustained peace in the entire region. Yet for more than 6 decades, peace has been an elusive reality. The masses across the divide are the main victims of this discord & thus it is the People of the two countries that will have to urge the governments for a comprehensive & conclusive dialogue. It is in this context that we have organized the peace yatra, that will traverse the length of this country & reach out to the students & masses.



The speakers, who are committed to the cause of peace between India & Pakistan, will also hold forth on the prospects for a meaningful dialogue between the two countries & the path that lies ahead.

The yatra will be flagged off from Mani Bhawan, the abode of Mahatma Gandhi on July 27 at 10a m. The Deputy CM, Shri Chagan Bhujpal, Prof. R. Velukar (VC Mumbai University), Retd Justice Dr. C. S. Dharamadhikari, Shri Tushar Gandhi, Prof. P. Pabrekar (NSS, State Liasion officer) & Prof. M. Nile (Dir. Student Welfare, Mumbai University) will be present. We have also invited the heads of the various religions as well as students, who will gather in large numbers along the entire course of the yatra.

A detailed programme of the yatra in Mumbai has also been provided.

Do kindly assign your reporter & photographer to cover the proceedings.

Thanking You, Yours Truly,

Varsha V V, Feroze Mithiborwala, Kishore Jagtap & Sheikh Muhammad Hussein. (Mumbai Organizing Committee)

India-Pakistan Peace Caravan  Amn ke Badhte Qadam

The Peace Caravan will start simultaneously at Mumbai and Karachi on 28 th July

and reach Wagah-Atari border on 14 th August, 2010

Probably nowhere in the world are people of two countries as emotionally entwined as are the people of India and Pakistan . Political separation and blood-spattered migration of millions has left deep scars on the collective consciousness of the two nations. Post-partition, our tumultuous history has been interspersed with four wars and loss of innumerable innocent lives. Fundamentalist groups ensure that the fires of animosity are kept alive while Kashmir continues to burn, threatening to take the two countries on a course of self-destruction.

And yet even as the heart that might harbour hatred and distrust, upon meeting the other' surges forth to embrace the enemy', to offer and reciprocate warmth and friendship. Common people on both sides want peace and normal relations to be established between the two countries. How do we explain this?

Even though geographical boundaries have been forced upon us by historical circumstances, our common customs and traditions, our language, music, food, our values and way of life  continue to bind us together. Even our problems  of poverty and unemployment, of crisis in governance, in health, in education - are the same. On both sides, our people are pushed to the peripheries of poverty by unjust models of economic development. Can we afford this hostility?

So while the two governments make slow and intermittent steps to establish peace, depending on their current political will and strategic exigencies, we feel that if genuine peace and friendship has to be established between the two countries giving a chance to real progress and development, the initiative will have to be taken by the people themselves - by the poor, the women, the tribals, the working masses, by us - who are made most vulnerable by this continuous atmosphere of antagonism and war.

Various such peoples' initiatives for peace have been witnessed over the last many years, the Indo-Pakistan Delhi to Multan Peace March in 2005 being one of them. In the spirit of sufi saints and poets who spoke of love, Padyatris walked from Delhi to Multan spreading the message of love and brotherhood in the hope that our governments would recognise that the spirit of give and take, of mutual co-operation and friendship will bring progress and development to our subcontinent and to South Asia.

Witnessing the ongoing blow-hot blow-cold attempts of our governments towards the process of dialogue, we are once again emboldened to take up another joint people to people initiative - the Indo-Pakistan Peace Caravan, Amn ke Badhte Qadam. Peace & development are possible only in an environment of trust & goodwill: this, indeed, is the message of this Peace Caravan. The Peace Caravan is travelling through villages, towns, cities  interacting with people from Mumbai to Wagah, from Karachi to Attari  to build an atmosphere of trust & friendship and to gather our collective strength to pressurise our governments to end hostility.

We understand that our objectives cannot be achieved through just this effort. We also believe that this Peace Caravan is just one element in the many initiatives being taken up by the two peoples. Let us, then, join hands for the sustained creation and development of an environment of trust, goodwill and peace between the two countries  indeed, in South Asia as a whole.

We ask you to lend your commitment to bring in peace and ask our governments to adhere to the following objectives:

1. Movement of people across the borders should be made easier . Normalisation of relations can happen only if people are allowed to freely and easily meet and interact with each other. Restrictions on movement across the border should be eased and in fact the visa-passport regime should be removed. Heeding to the wishes and aspirations of the people of both countries, a mutually agreed upon and monitored open border system should prevail (like in the case of India  Nepal )

2. India and Pakistan must resolve issues with a commitment to unconditional friendship. A solution to all contentious issues should be found peacefully through mutual dialogue. These issues include the issue of Jammu and Kashmir (which, in our view, should be resolved by taking into consideration the wishes and aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir ), and the issue of terror-related activities on account of which the people of both countries are suffering. Both countries must end proxy, low intensity wars against each other & restrain their intelligence agencies from fomenting trouble across the border.

3. India and Pakistan should dismantle their atomic-nuclear establishments, destroy landmines and withdraw the army . Real security lies not in the piling of arms and ammunition but in building a relationship based on mutual trust. Besides proving harmful to one's own citizens, underground landmines and nuclear bombs use up precious financial resources that we can ill-afford. Both countries should stop wasting resources in the name of defence, and use them instead for the eradication of poverty.

India-Pakistan Peace Caravan  Amn ke Badhte Qadam

Mumbai to Attari border [28 th July to 14 th August, 2010 ]

SCHEDULE & ROUTE

DATE PLACE CONTACT 27 th July Mumbai, Gateway of India Varsha V.V., 09869289453, Kishore Jagtap, 09324514101 Shaikh Hussain , 9869289448 , Feroze Mithiborwala , 9820897517 28 th July Mumbai, Mani Bhawan Varsha V.V., 09869289453, Kishore Jagtap, 09324514101 Shaikh Hussain , 9869289448 , Feroze Mithiborwala , 9820897517 29 th July Mumbai Varsha V.V., 09869289453, Kishore Jagtap, 09324514101 Shaikh Hussain , 9869289448 , Feroze Mithiborwala , 9820897517 30 th July Vapi Jabir Bhai Bhoga, 09913303623 30 th July Valsad Jabir Bhai Bhoga, 0991330623 31 st July Navsari Mahesh Kothari, 09879583785 31 st July Surat Kishore Desai, 09879124650 1 st August Bharuch Paragji Bapuji, 09426142151 1 st August Vadodara Hansmukh Patel, 09426321832 2 nd August Kheda Syed Aleemuddin, 09879466247 2 nd August Ahmedabad Mahadev Vidrohi, 09428825908, Danish, 09898990409 3 rd August Anand Rohit Prajapati, 0265 2320399 3 rd August Godhra Laxmi, 09979422122, Shafi Umerji, 09998243435 4 th August Dahod Jayanti Bhai, 09426461132 4 th August Ratlam Rajesh Bairagi, 09425202527 5 th August Nagda Rajesh Bairagi, 09425202527 5 th August Kota Gulsher Saheb, 09829146758 6 th August Sawai Madhopur Abdurazzak, 09829805967 6 th August Gangapur City Absar Ahmad, 09413051650 7 th August Bayana Zahid Bhai, 09250148154 7 th August Bharatpur Abduraheem Saheb, 09250148154 8 th - 9 th August Delhi Bipin Rai, 09999464609, Dhananjay Tripathi, 09312691435, Shah Alam, 09873672153 10 th August Sonepat Rammohan Rai, 09354926281 10 th August Panipat Rammohan Rai, 09354926281 11 th August Karnal Ram Singh, 09416657498 11 th August Ludhiana Dr. Arun Mitra, 09417000360 12 th August Jalandhar Ramesh Yadav, 09872318484 12 th -14 th August Amritsar Ramesh Yadav, 09872318484

The karwan will merge with the candle lighting programme at Attari border on the night of 14 th August organized by Sh. Kuldip Nayar. A similar candle lighting event will take place on the Wagah side of border by Pakistani friends.

For information about route ( India ) please contact Faisal Khan, 09313106745, 09968828230, Varsha 09869289453

Financial contributions in India may be sent in the name of PEACE to A-124/6, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi-110016.

For information about Peace Carvan , please subscribe to indopakpeacecaravan @yahoogroups.com

Endorsing organizations (till date): Institute for Peace and Secular Studies, Sangat  A South Asian Feminist Network, South Asia Partnership, PEACE, Labour Party, INSAF, CMKP, Centre for Study of Secularism and Society, Peace Keepers, Asha Parivar, Democratic Commission for Human Development, National Alliance of People's Movements, Punjabi Khoj Ghar, ANHAD, Giyan Foundation, Kriti, Himmat, Seimorgh, Ayodhya ki Awaz, Tehrik-e-Niswan, Swayam, PILER, Phule Ambedkar Vichar Manch, Mass Foundation, Jagori, National Youth Forum, NCDHR, People's Development Foundation, Sadbhav Mission, ASR, NACDOR, IPSS, Disha, NCJP, COVA, Bulleh Shah Foundation, Dosti Trust, IGSSS, Shahri Adhikar Manch, Women Action Forum, Sungi Development Foundation, Global Gandhi Forum, Mumbai Sarvodaya Mandal, Awami Bharat, SUPRO (Bangladesh), Jana Avakasha (Sri Lanka), Help-O (Sri Lanka)








With total student loan debt exceeding $1 trillion, Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to boost protections for New Yorkers who require financial assistance to pay their way through college.

Cuomo released his latest 2018 State of the State proposal Friday aimed at student loan debt. The four-point plan must be reviewed and approved by the state Legislature.

The governor's agenda includes establishing a student loan ombudsman at the state Department of Financial Services who would help address student complaints and provide educational information about loans. For students who have defaulted on loans, the ombudsman would provide free financial assistance.

Cuomo wants to create a state-level ombudsman because of uncertainty with the federal ombudsman program available through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Some Republicans support disbanding the bureau, which was created in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

There is also concern about the direction of the bureau under President Donald Trump. Trump selected his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, to lead the bureau. Mulvaney, who served in Congress before joining the Trump administration, has been a longtime critic of the agency.

Cuomo's State of the State plan would require colleges to give students a detailed summary of their borrowing. This annual breakdown would include the amount of student loans incurred to date, a range of how much it would cost to pay off the loans and the monthly repayment amount for the loans.

The governor's office noted that this proposal would expand on the financial aid award information sheet used to educate students about college costs.

Cuomo also wants to boost consumer protection standards within the student loan industry. His plan includes a ban on upfront fees in New York, requiring "clear and conspicuous" disclosures to borrowers and penalties for lenders that violate state law.

Student loan servicers would be required to obtain a license from the state Department of Financial Services and abide by certain standards, similar to regulations that exist for the mortgage lending industry.

Another protection sought by Cuomo is to ensure individuals with professional licenses aren't impacted by their student loan debt status. The governor's office said there are 19 states that will suspend professional licenses if a borrower is late in making student loan payments or has defaulted on their loans.

Critics note that the practice is punitive because it not only prevents the individuals from providing for their families, it makes it even more difficult for them to pay off their loans.

Cuomo wants to prohibit state agencies from suspending professional licenses of New Yorkers who are behind on student loan payments or have defaulted on their loans.

Student loan debt has been growing in recent years and now totals $1.48 trillion. In New York, the average borrower owes more than $30,000 in student loans.

"Today, a college education is a necessity for a middle class life, yet the crushing weight of student loan debt often keeps New Yorkers from buying homes, cars and ultimately limits their ability to save money and invest in their futures," Cuomo said.

Cuomo has focused on student loan debt in the past. In 2015, he advocated for the launch of a state student loan forgiveness program to benefit those earning up to $50,000 annually.

Last year, one of his top legislative priorities was the creation of the Excelsior Scholarship, which coupled with other federal and state programs would provide free tuition to eligible students at New York's public colleges and universities.

One reason Cuomo supported the tuition-free college benefit is that it would help reduce the student loan debt burden. But his latest plan to address loan debt would go further.

"With this proposal, we build on the success of the Excelsior Scholarship and lay out a concrete road map to alleviate the burden of student debt in New York and equip our students with the protections and the tools they need to succeed," Cuomo said.

The proposal is one of several Cuomo has released ahead of his State of the State address next week. He will outline his legislative agenda Wednesday in Albany.
If Gov. Andrew Cuomo gets his way, New York will become the first state to require public colleges and universities to have on-campus food pantries for students.

The proposal is part of Cuomo's five-point plan to address student hunger. While governor's initiative focuses mainly on young children, the mandate for campuses to have food pantries is included in his 2018 State of the State agenda.

Hunger on Campus, a report released in 2016, found nearly half of college students surveyed lacked access to food during the previous 30-day period. Food security impacted students at community colleges and four-year institutions.

Cuomo aims to address hunger among college students by requiring State University of New York and City University of New York campuses to have physical food pantries or facilitate the delivery of food from an outside food bank.

The state would support the SUNY and CUNY food pantries with a $1 million investment, according to Cuomo's plan released Thursday.

There are already several SUNY institutions that have on-campus food pantries for students. The Bear Necessities Food Pantry on the Binghamton University campus is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday for students with proper identification.

On the university's website, there is an explanation for why the school has a food pantry.

"Many students come to campus with limited resources and little experience managing their needs," the description reads. "Hunger makes it difficult to study, sleep or engage in academics and social activities at the same level as peers. If students' physiological needs aren't being met, it ultimately decreases the chances of meeting their full potential and their overall experience at Binghamton University."

Other SUNY schools have food pantries either on campus or access to offsite locations. University at Albany students are given access to an off-campus food pantry. SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry students may use their IDs to pick up food at the Hendricks Chapel food pantry on the Syracuse University campus.

Stony Brook University, one of the largest state colleges in New York, has a food pantry that is operated by several student organizations. The pantry is a member of the College and University Food Bank Alliance.

Some New York community colleges also have on-campus food pantries. Cayuga Community College announced last fall that a food pantry for students opened at its Auburn campus. A pantry is planned for the college's Fulton campus in Oswego County.

"Any student in need is welcome," said Jeff Rosenthal, CCC's vice president of student affairs.

There is a growing number of SUNY schools with food pantries for students, but not all campuses have one. A review of college websites, news articles and other online resources found that roughly half of SUNY institutions have student food pantries. This includes schools with access to offsite food banks or mobile food banks that visit campuses.

Cuomo's plan would change that by requiring schools to provide access to a food pantry. He hopes the state Legislature will support his proposal and the broader five-point plan to address student hunger in New York.

"This program is essential to the success of future New York leaders and this administration remains committed to removing barriers to healthy food options, while providing a supportive, effective learning environment for students across this great state," he said.

Cuomo will deliver his State of the State address Jan. 3 in Albany.
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Southwestern Connecticut welcomed dozens of new restaurants and breweries in 2017, even as it said goodbye to others.

The craft beer boom took the region by force, with the opening of breweries including Stamford's Lock City Brewing Co., Ridgefield's Nod Hill Brewery, Redding Beer Co. and Bad Sons Beer Co. in Derby, to name a few.

Related: Restaurants, bars that closed in southwestern Connecticut in 2017

The past year saw several popular, nationwide chains make their mark in Connecticut, like the debut of Golden Corral in Milford, the opening of Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen in Norwalk (followed shortly by Chick-fil-A, just down the road), as well as Wahlburgers' entry into the Trumbull mall. Five Guys added its first Litchfield County site in New Milford (and 25th location in Connecticut).

Regional franchises expanded this year. Popular college eatery Wings Over opened a location in Fairfield, and Market Place Hospitality Group opened Market Kitchen & Bar in Newtown (which has sister sites in Danbury, Woodbury and Avon). Gofer Ice Cream opened a fifth location, in Wilton. Shake Shack opened a restaurant in Darien.

The area's new offerings in 2017 were rounded out by small, local restaurants like Crabby Dog Tavern in Stratford, Le Madri in Bethel, Match Burger Lobster in Westport, Lorca in Greenwich and Bar Zepoli in Stamford.

Click through the slideshow above for an overview of the restaurants and breweries that debuted in southwestern Connecticut in 2017.
GREENWICH  When a report by the Washington Post hit the news cycle Dec. 15 alleging censorship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, medical professionals, scientists and advocates  as well as a large faction of the general populace  reacted strongly.

Initial sources said that senior officials in the CDC in charge of the budget, at a Dec. 14 meeting, banned the use of seven designations: science-based, evidence-based, fetus, transgender, vulnerable, entitlement and diversity.

The words circulated widely through social media newsfeeds as people deliberately used the terminologies that the CDC was told to avoid in its 2019 budgetary materials.

All of these words matter. Theres no one word that matters more than another, from our perspective, said Amanda Skinner, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England.

Since the report broke, Matt Lloyd, the Department of Health and Human Servicess principal deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, has denied that there are any banned words at the CDC. Though the initial Post article blamed President Donald Trumps administration for the barred terms, follow-up reports differ on the wheres and whys of the list.

Some media analysts, advised by anonymous sources from HHS, have hypothesized that officials at the CDC incorporated the changes themselves to assuage a more conservative, right-wing Congress that might take issue with the ideas associated with words like fetus and transgender when making funding decisions.

Whether the recommendations originated in the CDC or outside of the agency, there is proof the initial conversation about language did indeed take place.

Now, medical professionals and advocates are speculating whether the word recommendations will bleed into other areas at the CDC.

While the future of the agency and its policies seem uncertain, Fairfield Countys doctors and activists said they are resolute in ensuring that at least locally, science-based treatment is extended to everyone, no matter their identity.

Greenwich Hospital remains committed to providing high-quality, evidence-based medical care. Our mission of healing will not change," said Dr. Spike Lipschutz, Greenwich Hospitals senior vice president of medical services and chief quality officer.

Skinner echoed Lipschutzs statement. At Planned Parenthood, we follow evidence-based, science-based clinical practices, she said.

In the past, Planned Parenthood has often used CDC guidelines. Whether health care providers like the organizations clinics will have to look elsewhere for nonpartisan medical advice in coming years, Skinner would not conjecture.

I dont know what they will be saying in their clinical practices and protocols, she said. Our intent is as it has always been, which is that we will use the best evidence and the best information we have from the health care research community to guide the way that we provide our health care.

Skinner does view the alleged shift in the CDCs language as a change in the focus of the agency.

Its an affront to women, she continued. Its an affront to the transgender community. Its an affront to... people of color  and (an) affront to the people who work at the CDC.

In a Vice article, experts on transgender policy expressed concerns particular to the demographic they represent. The story pointed to the CDCs own research  which indicates that transwomen suffer a high risk of HIV  to emphasize the potentially lethal effects of ignoring the existence of an entire identity.

Locally, members of the LGBTQ+ organization Triangle Community Center in Norwalk were deeply concerned by the Washington Posts report on CDC censorship.

TCC remains steadfast in its mission of serving Fairfield County's transgender community and will continue to work with the State of Connecticut to develop new programs and funding streams to address public health disparities affecting this community, with or without the support of President Trump's administration, a spokesperson wrote to Greenwich Time.

Language changes at the CDC are not 2017s first perceived attack against LGBTQ+ citizens; Trumps ban on transgender military service ranks high in the minds of activists troubled by a new executive branchs outlook on the queer community.

More recently, on Wednesday, the White House let go of all remaining members on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, after a handful of appointees resigned in June because they said they felt Trump did not care about the disease.

Drew Marzullo, Greenwichs first openly gay selectman and a member of the towns diversity advisory committee, wrote to Greenwich Time that the federal government has become extremely hostile to the LBGT community and that the President's budget is generally shaped to reflect his administration's priorities.

He (Trump) picked a rabidly anti-gay running mate, attempted to ban transgender troops from serving, instructed government attorneys to not take action protecting transgender people in the workplace and nominated Neil Gorsuch, Marzullo wrote.

The CDC is working hard on ways to prevent HIV and reduce health disparities among transgender people, he continued. If transgender people who already feel excluded are removed from documents, this could result in dangerously life-threatening consequences to over 1.4 million Americans.

This is not the first initiative under Trumps tenure to combat scientific practice or womens reproductive rights, either.

Early into his stint as commander-in-chief, research on climate change began to disappear from federal websites, including on Environmental Protection Agency pages. Meanwhile, HHS has added explicit political language to its 2018-22 draft plan by indicating that life begins at conception, phraseology that aligns squarely with an anti-abortion agenda.

As the government and its agencies institute policies that target certain demographics and the sciences, Skinner said she has been cheered by the outpouring of support she has noticed around her.

Support for women, she specified. Support for the transgender community. Support for vulnerable populations.

If anything, the new administrations outlook on womens health has brought more Fairfield County residents to her organizations doorstep, statistics show.

Across Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, attendance is on the rise, and last year health center visits at just the Stamford clinic were up by 17 percent.

What we have seen actually happen is a historic grassroots movement spark up across the country, Skinner said. I actually feel hopeful and heartened by the response that were seeing, and I dont feel discouraged.
BRIDGEPORT  Five city residents face charges after a narcotics investigation landed them in cuffs, arrest records show.

On Dec. 5, officers responded to a residence in the 300 block of Noble Avenue after a narcotics violation investigation. Two were arrested and charged.

David Gordon, 58, of Bridgeport, was charged with conspiracy to sell marijuana; illegally manufacture, distributing, selling or dispensing drugs within 1,500 feet of a school; possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell; possession of more than four ounces of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia in a drug factory situation.

Winston Campbell, 51, of Bridgeport, was charged with sale of marijuana, illegally manufacture, distributing, selling or dispensing drugs within 1,500 feet of a school; interfering with an officer; possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell; possession of more than four ounces of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia in a drug factory situation.

On Dec. 20, following the execution of a court-authorized search and seizure warrant under Police Lt. John Cummings direction, others were arrested and some faced additional charges at the same location in the 300 block of Noble Avenue.

Vaughn Richards, 35, of Bridgeport; Orlando Smith, 34, of Bridgeport; Ronald Stewart, 38, of Bridgeport were charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell and possession of marijuana with intent to sell within 1,500 feet of a school.

Police also picked up Gordon again, charging him additionally with possession of marijuana with intent to sell and possession of marijuana with intent to sell within 1,500 feet of a school.

Police said they were within 1,500 feet of the Achievement First Bridgeport Academy, which is situated at 529 Noble Avenue.

Gordons first bond was set at $50,000 and for that arrest he is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 29. When he was arrested a second time, his bond was set at $100,000 and he is scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 12 for the additional charges.

Campbells bond was set at $75,000 and hes scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 18.

Richards, Smith and Stewart all had their bonds set at $50,000. The three are all scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 29.
Ocalan ile alt saat ne konusuldu?
A former Nazi guard is not welcome in New York, and U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is asking Germany to help the United States deport him.

Jakiw Palij, 94, has been living in the United States since 1949. It wasn't until the early 2000s that his past as a Nazi guard during the Holocaust was exposed.

He was stripped of his American citizenship and a deportation order was issued. But his ouster has been delayed because three countries  Germany, Poland and Ukraine  will not accept him.

The Trump administration wants to deport Palij, who lives in Queens. New York's congressional delegation is united in support of Palij's deportation.

Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is hoping Germany will reconsider. She sent a letter to German Ambassador Peter Wittig urging his government to work with U.S. officials to resolve the issue.

"My constituents have made clear that Mr. Palij is not welcome in our state," she wrote. "They agree that he lost his right to remain here when the brutal past he tried so hard to hide was revealed in an American courtroom. They have no doubt that Mr. Palij must be deported immediately."

She added, "Together, the United States and Germany can show the world that Mr. Palij's crimes have not been forgotten."

Yeshiva students held a rally outside Palij's home in November. New York officials have long pressed the federal government to act and remove Palij from the country.

The Department of Justice said in November that it would push for Palij's deportation. But to remove Palij from the country, he needs to be sent elsewhere. That's why Gillibrand is pressing German officials to change their stance.

"I ask that you do everything in your power to urge your government to work with our State Department to resolve this long-standing issue," she wrote to Wittig.
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iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Disturbing photos showing a teen who was allegedly beaten by a police officer in Troy, Alabama, have his family calling for answers.

At a news conference Friday morning, the mother of 17-year-old Ulysses Wilkerson demanded that those responsible be "held accountable" for her son being "handcuffed and beaten to unconsciousness."

"As a mother, I was shocked, horrified and devastated to see my son this way -- a victim of police brutality," Wilkerson's mother, Angela Williams, said.

The Alabama State Bureau of Investigation said it is looking into the incident at the request of City of Troy Police Chief Randall Barr and Troy Mayor Jason Reeves.

"While I am hopeful that the State Bureau of Investigation will uncover the truth, I still call on the community to take a stand against injustices like this. We will not settle until we know the truth behind the brutal beating of my dear son, and until these police officers are held accountable for their crimes," Williams added.

The alleged incident took place on the evening of Saturday, Dec. 23, when Wilkerson was arrested after allegedly fleeing from police, according to a statement from Reeves.

Reeves' statement, which does not directly name Wilkerson, said that the juvenile was charged with obstructing governmental operations and resisting arrest, both of which are misdemeanors. The officer involved in the incident has not been publicly identified, but Reeves said that the officer is on leave pending the state investigation into the incident.

According to local ABC station KTRK-TV, police said the teen resisted arrest and kept reaching for his waistband, which may have caused concern about a possible weapon.

Lt. Heath Carpenter from the criminal investigation division of the Alabama State Bureau of Investigation released a statement on Wednesday, Dec. 27, saying that the juvenile was arrested, though it gave no specific details about the nature of the arrest, and added that "during the arrest, the juvenile was injured."

The statement noted that the teen was transported to a regional medical center and then later transferred to another hospital before being released.

Attorney Benjamin Crump, who is working with the victim's mother and was with her at the news conference Friday morning, said that while the state investigation is ongoing, Troy police "still [owe] the community answers and transparency," according to a statement from his office.

"Where is the dash cam footage? Where is the body camera footage? Ulysses' family and the community deserve answers," Crump said, according to the release.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On December 26, BYD announced that its joint venture (JV) with Qinghai Salt Lake Industry Co.,Ltd. (QingHai Salt Lake) will start the program to produce 30,000 tons of lithium carbonate. Recently, the program has obtained the filing record from Qinghai Economic and Information Commission. The total investment of this program reached RMB 4.85 billion (about 740 million dollars).

Last year, BYD, QingHai Salt Lake and investment firm Shenzhen Zuoyucheng announced to set up a joint venture named Qinghai Salt Lake BYD Resources Development Co. to exploit, produce and sell the salt lake resource products. The registered capital of the JV totaled RMB 500 million, among which BYD has 49 percent stake, Qinghai Salt Lake 49.5 and the rest belongs to the investment firm.

BYD said at that time that the cooperation with the upstream firms of lithium resources will help the company to implement its strategy in new energy industry. The establishment of the joint venture will integrate BYDs advantages in technology, management and sales network, especially in lithium power battery, with the salt lake resources to achieve a win-win cooperation.
And the award for stating the bleedin obvious goes to Public Health England, which today unveils a new TV advert warning that smoking cigarettes gives you cancer.

Well, knock me dahn wiv a fevver, Clever Trevor. Who knew?

The first time I stumbled across Public Health England (PHE) was when they published a fatuous guide called Heatwave 2014.

It advised: As a result of climate change we are increasingly likely to experience summer temperatures that may be harmful to health.

If you have to go out, walk in the shade, apply sunscreen and wear a hat and light scarf.

And the award for stating the bleedin obvious goes to Public Health England, which today unveils a new TV advert warning that smoking cigarettes gives you cancer

Eat cold foods, particularly salads. Take a cool shower, bath or body wash. Sprinkle water over the skin or clothing or keep a damp cloth on the back of your neck.

As if this wasnt sufficiently insulting to our intelligence, PHE also told us: Close curtains that receive morning and afternoon sun. However, care should be taken with metal blinds and dark curtains, as these can absorb heat. Consider replacing or putting reflective material in between them and the window space.

I observed at the time that covering your windows with Bacofoil is the kind of madness we associate with paranoid lunatics convinced that they are being targeted by invisible death rays from alien space ships.

This is all part of PHEs anti-obesity strategy, which includes badgering confectionery companies to cut the size of chocolate bars and urging restaurants and coffee bars to slash portion sizes

Under normal circumstances it would be grounds to get someone sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Now, its official government policy. The guidelines were cut and pasted by local council safeguarding teams and distributed to every home in the land.

Goodness knows how much all this drivel cost. But Public Health England controls a budget of around 3.5 billion, so it wont have come cheap.

For all the constant bleating about austerity and the savage cuts, PHE doesnt seem to be short of a shilling. It employs 5,500 people and they all have to be kept busy somehow.

This week it emerged they now think we should limit our three main meals to just 1,600 calories a day.

If prisoners were restricted to that amount, the usual suspects would be screaming about starvation rations. Its barely enough to feed a budgie, let alone a strapping chap with a healthy appetite.

This is all part of PHEs anti-obesity strategy, which includes badgering confectionery companies to cut the size of chocolate bars and urging restaurants and coffee bars to slash portion sizes.

Minimum prices for alcohol and a sugar tax are also in the pipeline as the Government aims to tackle the explosion in weight-related illnesses. All these measures will have a disproportionate impact on the less well-off and could put some manufacturers out of business.

But rather than target the morbidly obese when they waddle into their doctors surgery, because that would be judgmental, we all have to be subjected to impertinent lectures.

How much porridge we eat for breakfast is none of the Governments business. Nor do we need to be told that we should eat skinless salmon fillets for dinner rather than steak and kidney pud.

Weve got far too many interfering quangos, poking their noses into our lives on the pretext that they are saving us from ourselves. We could cut the deficit at a stroke if all of them were shut down tomorrow. Most of them are worse than useless. In 2015, Public Health England ordered supermarkets to stop selling bunches of daffodils alongside fruit and veg.

This ridiculous edict came about because one family in Bristol, whose first language is not English, became ill after eating daffodils, which they confused for Chinese spring onions.

Oh dear, how sad, never mind. Nothing a bottle of Milk of Magnesia wouldnt sort out.

Anyway, I caught five minutes of MasterChef by mistake the other night and it seems edible flowers are all the rage these days.

So why the hell did PHE think this isolated incident of daffodil-induced diarrhoea gave them the divine right to tell supermarkets how to display their produce? Its not as if theyve got a great track record. A couple of years ago they blew 100 million on a flu vaccine which was only effective in three per cent of cases.

Why do we even need Public Health England and its equivalents in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales? Weve already got the NHS. Why are we spending 3.5 billion employing 5,500 staff to treat us like idiots?

Admittedly, obesity is a problem. But no ones going to take any notice of these so-called healthy eating guidelines, any more than we do of the arbitrary number of alcohol units we are not supposed to exceed. Especially at Christmas, for goodness sake.

Lifes too short to measure out exactly ten almonds or try to guess how many boiled spuds add up to 180g. Have you any idea what 33g of bread looks like? Me neither.

Fat people know they eat too much. They dont need patronising menu plans or free gym memberships on the NHS, which is the latest madcap scheme. They just need the willpower to stop stuffing their faces with junk food.

Surely it would be far more effective to make them pay for their self-inflicted, obesity-related treatments, such as gastric bands and the like.

That might force them to think twice about ordering a second deep-fried pizza, washed down with a gallon of sugary pop. If not, its their funeral.

Let them smoke daffodils.]

Kiss me goodnight Sergeant Major...

The Army is introducing a new gender-free vocabulary designed to be more friendly to women, gays and transsexuals.

Out go mankind, sportsmanship and gentlemans agreement.

The heart sinks. Why would women, gays and trans- sexuals object to any of those expressions?

Whats especially depressing is that the Army brass have gone along meekly with this nonsense. Heaven help us if we ever have to fight another proper war. How long before our soldiers have to march into battle carrying a rainbow flag?

Elsewhere, Network Rail have stopped their maintenance crews calling themselves the Orange Army, after the colour of their hi-viz jackets.

I naturally assumed this was a sop to Sinn Fein. But no, its nothing to do with Northern Ireland. Its because rail chiefs think women will be put off joining anything called an army.

What, you mean like women dont join the Salvation Army? Or the Army, for that matter? Which is where we came in.

Its only a matter of time before the word man is made illegal altogether. Im sitting here coughing my Christmas cold into a box of tissues, labelled Man Size.

My wife bought them to stop me using up all her kitchen roll. Hurry, hurry, while stocks last.

This time next year, anyone asking for Man Size tissues will be arrested for a hate crime.

Detective Superintendent Sean Memory

Heres another one I dont know whether to file under Mind How You Go or You Couldnt Make It Up.

The copper at the centre of the Grocer Heath historic sex crimes fiasco is retiring on a full pension for medical reasons.

Detective Superintendent Sean Memory is the senior officer who was filmed outside Heaths house in Wiltshire appealing for victims of the former Prime Minister to come forward.

The 1.5 million, two-year inquiry was a complete waste of time and money and attracted fierce criticism. Supt Memory was signed off sick last January, suffering from stress.

It has now been revealed that he is retiring before the conclusion of a misconduct investigation into allegations that he had an inappropriate relationship with a woman involved in a separate case.

Is it too much to hope that Wiltshire police will stage a press conference outside Supt Memorys home, appealing for his other victims to come forward?

A Polish sailor and his cat have been rescued off East Africa after claiming to have been adrift at sea for seven months.

Their pea-green boat was found to contain some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a five-pound note. They had been hoping to sail away for a year and a day, but suffered engine failure.

Both man and cat were taken ashore, where they dined on mince and slices of quince.

A third member of the crew, an owl, was still missing last night.

Both man and cat were taken ashore, where they dined on mince and slices of quince. A third member of the crew, an owl, was still missing last night

This is my last column of 2017, so let me thank you for your letters, emails and invaluable contributions, particularly to Mind How You Go, You Couldnt Make It Up and Here We Go Looby Loo.

Ive said it before, but this column really wouldnt be the same without you. Happy New Year.
Griff has lived in his Georgian house with his wife for 18 years and he says the study is his haven as it is a memorial to all of his interests

1 MY MATE MEL

This room in our Georgian house, which my wife Jo and I bought 18 years ago, is my haven  its a memorial to all my interests down the years. Im very fond of this painting of the late Mel Smith  my Alas Smith & Jones partner for 14 years  and me by the artist Gervase Elwes.

Judging by how thin and young I am it must have been done in the 80s  although Mel looks exactly the same as he did throughout his life. Its the only memorial to Mel  who died in 2013 aged just 60  I have in my house, but its so fabulous it does the job.

2 RED RAG!

Griff's award from the Hackney Empire

This red ensign flag reminds me of the time I sailed to St Petersburg with a couple of friends about 15 years ago. It was an unforgettable three-month trip but on making landfall in Finland, a coastguard tried to board our 45ft racing boat because he mistook the red ensign for the Russian flag. Luckily we talked our way out of trouble.

3 LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

I painted this oil of Jo in a field in Sussex soon after we met in the 80s. We met at a friends house in Notting Hill. Shed come from Ruislip and Id come from Epping, at opposite ends of the Central Line  so you could say it was a marriage made by the Underground.

For me it really was love at first sight, and every time I got drunk for the next year I proposed to her. We recently celebrated our 36th anniversary.

4 SOUNDTRACK TO MY TEENS

I picked up these miniature Beatles figures for next to nothing on my travels many years ago. The Beatles had a huge influence on my generation when we were growing up, from buying our first record to having our first kiss.

As a teenager I even used to dream about meeting these four ordinary blokes from Liverpool. Sadly I was a bit too young to see them live, and Ive never met the two surviving Beatles.

5 I'M A MUMMY'S BOY REALLY

I love this old photograph of my mother Gwynneth, who was raised in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales. It was taken in about 1946 when she was working as a nurse at Cardiff Royal Infirmary, where she met my doctor father Elwyn.

I was undoubtedly a mummys boy and probably still am, and I just think Mum looks so pretty in this picture. Indeed, she still looks remarkably beautiful at the age of 93.

6 A REWARDING AWARD

For 20 years I was heavily involved in the campaign to save the Hackney Empire theatre, a Grade II-listed building in Londons East End.

In the 80s the former music hall, where everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Stan Laurel had performed, was threatened with demolition and I helped raise the 25 million needed to restore it.

Ive got an Olivier Award and a BAFTA, but this award from the Hackney Empire  given to me as a thank you  is the one that means the most to me

Griffs one-man show about his travels, Where Was I?, will be on tour from 18 January 2018. For details visit socomedy.co.uk. For Griffs Instagram page see @griffrhysjones.
With summer taking hold in Australia, children with eczema are beginning to battle more breakouts, as the warm weather acts as a trigger.

But by following just a few simple steps, the itchy rash can be easily managed during this challenging period.

Speaking to FEMAIL, pharmacist and entrepreneur Julia Simmonds shared the tips she learned after her son suffered a severe flare-up and was taken to hospital.

Australian pharmacist and entrepreneur Julia Simmonds shared with FEMAIL the eczema management tricks she learned after her son suffered a severe flare-up and was taken to hospital (pictured with her family)

Ms Simmonds (pictured) said her boy's eczema became well-managed within weeks by following a simple, natural skincare routine

'My baby boy was in pain, skin broken and bleeding, unable to sleep, barely able to open his eyes from the inflammation and crying constantly for help,' Ms Simmonds revealed to FEMAIL.

'Lying awake on my hospital pull-out parent chair, I started researching eczema management and which natural ingredients have properties that could help to relieve my boys pain.'

Ms Simmonds said her boy's eczema became well-managed within weeks by following a simple, natural skincare routine, which she shared with FEMAIL.

Ms Simmonds (pictured with her family) shared these tips with FEMAIL - explaining how you too can help to manage your child's eczema

BATHE DAILY IN OATMEAL

Bathing your child daily in a natural bath soak helps moisturise their skin and relieve itchiness and dryness, Ms Simmonds said.

Bath soaks from Itchy Baby Co. - which Ms Simmonds founded - mainly consist of colloidal oatmeal which has been clinically shown to relieve dry skin.

Ms Simmonds added: 'Our bath soaks work by leaving a thin film on the skin, which acts as a barrier to stop moisture loss.

'They also have natural anti-inflammatory and anti-itch properties.'

Bathing your child daily in a natural bath soak helps moisturise their skin and relieve itchiness and dryness, Ms Simmonds said (stock image)

Bath soaks from Itchy Baby Co. - which Ms Simmonds founded - mainly consist of colloidal oatmeal which has been clinically shown to relieve dry skin (pictured)

MOISTURISE SOME MORE STRAIGHT AFTER

Ms Simmonds suggests using a natural moisturiser on your child immediately after bathing and while they are still damp.

'Our moisturiser will melt into the skin and help lock in the goodness from our Itchy Baby Co. bath soak,' she said.

'It will also mix with the skin's barrier to stop water-loss and keep triggers out.'

Ms Simmonds suggests using a natural moisturiser on your child immediately after bathing and while they are still damp (stock image)

DRESS IN LOOSE-FITTING, COTTON CLOTHES

Loose-fitting clothing is least likely to trap in body heat, which will allow your child to stay cool, Ms Simmonds said.

This is essential, as heat is one of the most common eczema triggers due to the dryness and irritation it can cause to skin.

Ms Simmonds added: 'Also, be sure to dress your child in 100 per cent breathable cotton, as it absorbs perspiration and is less irritating to the skin.'

STAY OUT OF THE SUN

'Try to plan your day so you are indoors during the warmest part of the day,' Ms Simmonds said.

'Being inside means you are more able to control the temperature.

'It also makes it easier to use cool compresses to take the heat out of your childs skin if you need to.'

To read more about Ms Simmonds' natural eczema range, Itchy Baby Co., please click here.
It's a particularly fraught time of year to work in retail between the frantic Christmas rush and the January sales.

Now British shop workers employed by stores such as H&M and M&S have lifted the lid on just how tough the job can really be in a series of shocking confessions.

One H&M worker told the Liverpool Echo they find bodily fluids and waste matter in the changing rooms and aisles 'all the time' after customers have left.

'In fact, I'm sure customers just pretend to try on clothes sometimes so they can relieve themselves,' they said.

'The changing rooms [are] definitely the most common place we find urine and sanitary products.'

Meanwhile, one former Superdrug employee used to find people popping into the store to get ready ahead of a night out, using the testers.

British staff from food and clothing chains have revealed customers' most outrageous behaviour (stock image)

They used to constantly catch people doing a full face of make-up or a manicure with the samples that are left out as testers - including one customer who stopped to paint their toenails.

However, even if customers think they have got away with it their behaviour doesn't go unnoticed.

George Allen who used to work at Primark in Derby revealed there was a rogue's gallery of CCTV close-ups of the faces of customers who had behaved badly in the store or stolen something.

He admitted he still saw some of them walking around the city and wondered if they knew.

And he too confirmed that urine and faeces on the shop floor is 'pretty common', recalling coded announcements over the loudspeaker so that cleaning staff would know what to expect when they were confronted with the mess.

One M&S employee spoke of being followed round by bargain hunters as soon as they spotted the yellow discount sticker machine in their hand.

Workers from H&M and Primark have revealed how some customers use the changing rooms as a toilet (stock image)

These same savvy shoppers would even hunt through the store for food that was going out of date and bring it to them to be discounted.

One Christmas Eve 25 people were waiting outside the stock room as they emerged with a trolley full of turkeys that were being reduced.

Legally they had to put them back on the shelf before they could be purchased but the eager customers started grabbing them from her hands, pushing her and pulling at the trolley to grab several turkeys so they could freeze them for next year.
The author Bill Bryson once observed that our homes are not refuges from history but the place where history ends up.

Its a neat concept exploited in A House Through Time, a fascinating new BBC documentary series which tells the story of a single house from the time it was built in 1840 to the present day, tracing the lives of its residents against the canvas of the times in which they lived.

Moving chronologically over four episodes, its a sort of Who Do You Think You Are? for bricks and mortar, sharing the same painstaking detective work and letting the viewer connect both the domestic and the global.

When 62 Falkner Street was built it was the province of the rich: worth 1,000 (about 90,000 today), it was out of reach for 99 per cent of the population

History isnt just about what happens on battlefields and in palaces, says the shows presenter, historian David Olusoga. Its also the stories of millions of ordinary people living in houses like this one.

The house hes referring to is 62 Falkner Street, a handsome four-storey Georgian terraced property a mile from Liverpools centre. Today its a comfortable middle-class home for working mum Gaynor Evans, whos lived there for seven years with children Rosie, 14, and Tom, 11, and family friend Caitlin.

Yet when the home was built it was the province of the rich: worth 1,000 (about 90,000 today), it was out of reach for 99 per cent of the population back then.

At that time Liverpool was home to fewer than 100,000, although its burgeoning success as a port had created a demand for new houses for the growing middle class. As a result, land on the outskirts was bought and turned into residential developments.

Its current owner Gaynor Evans has lived in the home for seven years and appears in a new documentary exploring its history

One of those was Falkner Street, which sprang up piecemeal  something reflected in the numbers on the houses: the one were following was first numbered 58, but changed to 62 as new houses rose alongside it.

So who was its first owner? Step forward 45-year-old Richard Glenton, a bachelor and customs agent who census records reveal shared his home with two lodgers and a servant.

Richard needed the extra income from his tenants as his 50-a-year salary couldnt sustain his expensive tastes. His rooms were furnished with rosewood and mahogany and rich Brussels carpet  details we know about because by 1844 they were listed in a local newspaper for auction.

In 1844 Richards world came crashing down, and the will left by his father Jonas explains why, reveals Olusoga. He left all his money to his daughter Eliza.

With what Olusoga calls the bank of mum and dad no longer at his disposal, Richard had to downsize: four months later he was in a small house in Everton, then a less prestigious area. Back in Falkner Street meanwhile, an ambitious young couple had taken his place.

James Orr was a 33-year-old Scot who moved in with his wife Ann, and their marriage certificate reveals they were both servants. So how on Earth did they become middle-class home owners?

Both their fathers worked as labourers so they had no inherited money  we have to assume it was down to their ingenuity, says Olusoga.

MEET THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED THERE WILFRED STEELE The young broker moved into the house with his mother in the early 1850s, when he was riding high in Liverpools booming cotton trade  he was even immortalised in this 1856 portrait by William Lindsay Windus. But when the bottom fell out of the market in 1857, Wilfreds fortunes took a tumble... WILLIAM SNEWING The prosperous middle-class saddler moved in with his wife, six children and their servant at the end of the 19th century  before motor cars began to threaten his livelihood. THE DUFFYS Sarah-Ann and Robert Duffy both had tragic pasts  but overcame them to forge a happy and successful marriage, which led them to 62 Falkner Street on the eve of the Second World War. Advertisement

In fact, James had been a butler, which would have given him skills in literacy and numeracy and a little social polish. By 1851 James gave his profession on the census as master of newsroom  which meant he was a manager in a gentlemans club, with a 250 annual salary.

And when he died in 1881 he had not only become a respected public figure and philanthropist, but was able to leave Ann 16,000, or around 1.5 million today. His is a journey from the parlour to the boardroom, says Olusoga.

They had earlier moved out of Falkner Street and in the early 1850s it was home to mother and son Eliza and Wilfred Steele. Wilfred was a 25-year-old cotton-broker, part of a lucrative industry that was Liverpools lifeblood, illustrated by the fact that a portrait of Wilfred, produced in 1856, hangs in Liverpools Walker Art Gallery.

Yet just a year later his life was in ruins: in 1857 the cotton price collapsed. By November that year hed gone out of business and was in debtors prison. However within two years, the seemingly irrepressible Wilfred was free, married to a widow and had moved to the up-and-coming town of Widnes.

Back at Falkner Street in 1854, brewery agent John Bowes and his wife Elizabeth moved in  although just months afterwards John died of cholera. Widowed and facing penury, by 1857 Elizabeth had turned her home into a boarding house for young gentleman lodgers.

One was Edward Lublin, a Danish ship broker who married into a prominent local Jewish family. Yet by 1869, newspaper records show Edward was 12,000 in debt and against the backdrop of an economic depression his marriage fell apart. He later returned to his home country.

Life went on in Falkner Street, where more houses were springing up. By 1883, number 58 had become number 62 and was home to watchmaker Alfred Robinson, 37, and his wife Ann, 32. It was a challenging time, with widespread poverty, but Alfred had inherited 6,000  around half a million today  from his father.

Their financial security did not bring them peace, however, with court records showing that in June 1885 Ann petitioned for divorce, citing Alfreds adultery with a widow named Alice Savage.

It was a bold move at a time when fewer than 200 women a year filed for divorce, and it seems Ann had second thoughts: in 1891 the Robinsons were not only still together in Falkner Street, but had two children. Intriguingly, the childrens birth certificates reveal their mother was Alice Savage, whod passed away just after the second baby was born.

I struggle to imagine what took place in that house in those years, says Olusoga. At some point Alfred would have had to walk through that front door with his illegitimate children. What did he say to his wife? Whatever he did say, they all moved next door to number 64 where they stayed until Alfred died in 1896.

By then number 62 once more had new owners, ones who would occupy the house for four decades. William Snewing was a 48-year-old saddler who shared the house with his wife Fanny, their six children and a servant.

So they were not rich but a comfortably well-off middle-class family, says Olusoga. Yet cut-throat competition and the rise of the motor car affected their business  and by 1911 Fanny was on her own following Williams death. She lived in the house until she died in 1935.

Her successors were Robert and Sarah-Ann Duffy, a former tailor and dressmaker who had both transcended tragic pasts. Robert was born in the slums, while Sarah-Ann was raised by a cruel mother who abused her 12-year-old daughter so horribly it made the newspapers.

As well as finding happiness together, the Duffys found success. They had a large property portfolio and lived in Falkner Street for just a year before renting it out. And so, by 1939, number 62 was back to being a lodging house.

Among its inhabitants were John and Florence Greenall, both 31, and their six-year-old son John. As German bombs fell  one just 20 metres from the house  the family lived, slept and ate in the one room. John was a docker, which was dangerous work, all the more so for him as he was concealing a poignant secret: he had epilepsy.

In the 30s and 40s there was a terrible stigma attached to any suggestion of epilepsy, Olusoga explains. If the docks management had known about his condition he would have been refused work. And it was epilepsy that claimed his life in 1950, when he was just 42.

His former home continued to be a house of multiple occupancy, heading into a decline which, by the 1970s, led to it being abandoned and narrowly escaping the wrecking ball.

But another chapter was to unfold: as the 20th century marched towards its close and creative types moved into the area, 62 Falkner Street was taken over by a group of local activists, including a playwright and a restaurateur, who made it their home.

Finally, as a new millennium dawned, the Liverpool Housing Trust bought the building and restored it to its former glory as a single home. Today, 177 years after it was first built, Gaynor Evans admits that learning her homes history has left her with a deep feeling of kinship towards her predecessors. Whatever is found becomes part of your history, she says. Youre living where they lived and walking the floors where they walked.

A House Through Time, Thursday, 9pm, BBC2.
A Pepsi vending machine mysteriously ended up in the middle of a potato field in Canada, and Twitter users went wild with theories as to how it got there.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) sent out a news release this week stating that a Pepsi vending machine was discovered in a potato field in Grand Falls, New Brunswick on September 29. After exhausting their own theories regarding the unusual situation, they turned to the public for help.

Global Halifax reporter Rebecca Lau shared a photo of the abandoned vending machine on Twitter Wednesday, and people were quick respond to the post with insane theories and hilarious comments about the breaking news.

Breaking news: A Pepsi vending machine was discovered in the middle of a potato field in New Brunswick, Canada on September 29

Spreading the word: Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) sent out a news release asking for the public's help this week, prompting Rebecca Lau to tweet a photo of the machine

Invested: The Global Halifax reporter urged people to call the RCMP if they had any information about the abandoned machine

Cold case: Some people asked why the RCMP waited three months to send out the press release regarding the mysterious situation

The tweet brought up plenty of question for people, including Jackie Hong, who asked: 'If it was found all the way back on Sept. 29, why is the press release only coming out now...?'

In the comments section, Lau explained that the RCMP only released the photo because 'attempts to locate who may own the machine have so far been unsuccessful.'

When responding to the news, Jeremy Boucher couldn't resist a little word play, writing: 'This is soda pressing to hear.'

Rob Imossi referenced Kendall Jenner's controversial Pepsi ad from earlier this year while sharing his theory about what happened.

'Two nights before, there was a protest - about how farmers treat potatoes - in the field,' he wrote. 'The police turned up. It got ugly. Potatoes were thrown.

Hilarious: Once the news alert circulated around Twitter, users couldn't stop joking about the bizarre story

Accurate assessment: Steve Patterson called it Canada's version of 'Stonehenge'

True: This woman's question was the same one on everybody's mind

Aliens: Eric Mark Do said it must have been aliens that dropped the machine off in the field

Just a guess: Rob Imossi referenced Kendall Jenner's controversial Pepsi ad from earlier this year while sharing his theory about what happened

'Then a passing haulage driver had an idea - he threw the Pepsi machine intot he filed, & it instantly chilled everyone involved.'

The CBC News Alerts Twitter account also tweeted that the RCMP was 'appealing for public's help,' prompting Steve Patterson to write: 'This is officially the "Stonehenge" of Canada.'

RCMP Const. Daniel Levesque of Saint-Leonard, N.B. shared with The Canadian Press that 'one vending machine was traced to a local Walmart in Grand Falls, but the serial number on the Pepsi machine didn't match reports of any stolen machines.'

Four hours after the initial press release, a representative from Pepsi contacted the RCMP to help them track the vending machine's owner  which the same Walmart in Grand Falls.

Coca Cola: While there were hilarious Pepsi tweets, some of the funniest ones blamed Coca-Cola for the mishap

Jokes: Guy P. Ratchford joked that he was sending this 'thoughts and prayers' to Pepsi

Help: After the RCMP asked the public to help in their searches, one user jokingly asked if the situation was 'some sort of post-modern art commentary'

No judgement: One man joked that he can't judge the Pepsi machine for whatever it did to end up in the field, as he did some pretty messed up stuff himself this holiday season

Caught: Sharing a photo of a polar bear trapped in the back of a police car, one user hilariously joked that he was the perpetrator

As if the initial press release wasn't enough to send people into hysterics, Twitter once again lost it when CBC News Alerts tweeted that the police had discovered where the machine had come from.

'UPDATE: RCMP have located owner of Pepsi vending machine found in potato field,' CBC News Alerts tweeted. 'Machine was stolen from a Grand Falls, N.B., business earlier this year.'

In reply to the news that the owner of the machine was found, one user hilariously shared: 'My eyes have teared up knowing that the RCMP are able to reunite the lonely Pepsi machine with its rightful owner.'

Some of the other wildly funny comments were: 'Oh god...I was up all night worrying about this...now my mind is at ease' and 'Now I'll be able to sleep tonight.'

While another person shared: 'Obviously one of the potatoes was a snitch.'
With the holiday season well and truly in full swing, many of our social calendars are filled to the brim.

But the hectic schedule has some feeling spread too thin, leading to the rise of last-minute bailing on friends.

Speaking to FEMAIL, etiquette expert Anna Musson, from the Sydney-based Good Manners Company, revealed how to tactfully pull the plug on plans when you'd much prefer a night on the couch.

Australian etiquette expert Anna Musson (pictured) revealed how to tactfully pull the plug on plans with friends when you'd much prefer a night on the couch

Ms Musson said to consider the 'two-stage let down' if you have no intention of making a social engagement.

'Start the day by saying "I'm not feeling well today", and follow up a few hours later with "I'm really unwell, I'm not going to be able to make it tonight, I'm so sorry,' she told FEMAIL.

'The sooner you know you wont be able to make it the better, so if you can give them a week's notice, do it.'

When doing so, careful consideration should be given to whether a text or a phone call is more appropriate.

Ms Musson said a text is acceptable when bailing on a casual event with a friend who regularly checks their phone (stock image)

Ms Musson said a text is acceptable when bailing on a casual event with a friend who regularly checks their phone, whereas a call is more suitable for important meetings, or if the person isn't known for keeping up with their messages.

WHEN TO FLAKE Coffee At least one hour After-work drinks One to two hours Dinner Six to eight hours Holiday Several weeks Advertisement

She added: 'Remember, if you havent heard back from the other person, pick up the phone and call to make sure they got your message.'

At least an hour's notice should be given for bailing on coffee dates, one to two hours for after-work drinks, six to eight hours for a dinner party and several weeks for a holiday.

Bailing less than an hour before any commitment - especially if the friend is already on their way to the venue - is the number one thing to be avoided, Ms Musson said.

Bailing less than an hour before any commitment - especially if the friend is already on their way to the venue - is the number one thing to be avoided, Ms Musson said (stock image)

She added that implications on the host, the friendship, and the tone of the evening without your presence should all be considered before flaking.

'Attending an event is often not about you, but about supporting the host,' Ms Musson said.

'Could you take a Panadol and push on to support your friends farewell  even though you don't like her boyfriend?

'Many of us put our own needs and wants first and choose to forget that thinking of others is the greatest sign of manners and courtesy - what a great way to stand out.'
There are few things cuter in this world than babies and puppies.

And now, thanks to one hospital in Thailand, these two precious things have been combined.

Babies born at the Paolo Memorial Hospital in Bangkok were dressed up as puppies on Thursday to celebrate the upcoming Year of the Dog.

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Babies born at the Paolo Memorial Hospital in Bangkok were dressed up as puppies on Thursday to celebrate the upcoming Year of the Dog (pictured)

Nurses carefully put the newborn babies in sweet knitted hats, complete with floppy ears and smiley pup faces

The babies were also given matching bottoms, tails included, in bright blues and soft whites (pictured)

Nurses carefully put the newborn babies in sweet knitted hats, complete with floppy ears and smiley pup faces, and matching bottoms in bright blues and soft whites.

After asking permission from the babies' parents, the nurses had a little photo shoot for the newborns to put in frames that their families could take home.

Nurse Pilaiporn Kondee revealed that some parents had specifically chosen to give birth at the hospital because of its New Year costumes and mementos.

'Last year, babies were dressed in chicken suits,' she told Reuters.

After asking permission from the babies' parents, the nurses had a little photoshoot for the newborns to put in frames for their families to take home

Nurse Pilaiporn Kondee revealed that some parents had specifically chosen to give birth at the hospital because of its New Year costumes and mementos

'This year's Chinese zodiac is [the] year of the dog, so the theme is puppies.'

There are 12 animals that make up the traditional Chinese zodiac, and each year has its own unique characteristics.

Those born in a Year of the Dog are said to be loyal, compatible, determined, and kind, and always ready with useful advice and a shoulder to lean.

The Years of the Dog - which begins in February - include those born in 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, and, now, 2018.

Proud father Nopparat Yodsaksee, 32, excitedly watched as his precious new son's photo was taken.

'This year is the most special year for our family so year,' he said. 'It's something that has a lot of meaning.'

Even when they were in tears, the babies looked adorable in their sweet costumes
Prickly legs sinking into the foam, two antennas about to spill over the rim, and beady eyes staring right at you as you pick up the cup to take a sip.

It's a cockroach in your coffee cup, but this may be the only one in the world you don't need to be afraid of.

That's because he's made out of chocolate and milk foam at the My Cofi cafe in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

This incredibly lifelike cockroach is just one of the incredible creations by barista Chang Keui-fang, who has wowed the world with her 3D latte art.

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This incredibly lifelike cockroach would surely give you a fright - until you realise its made out of milk foam and chocolate and can be found at Taiwanese cafe My Cofi

From jiggling pups to an angry Donald Trump, it seems there is nary a design that 48-year-old Chang cannot master.

Latte art has seen a huge spike in popularity in 2017, with everything from rainbow colours to glittering cups becoming huge hits on social media.

But Chang has given the art literal dimension with both her realistic recreations of portraits and cartoons, as well as frothy creatures you want to reach out and touch.

There are dozens of videos on the My Cofi Facebook page that show Chang and her fellow baristas at work, making their creations look as easy as a few swirls.

This incredibly lifelike cockroach is just one of the incredible creations of barista Chang Keui-fang, who has wowed the world with her 3D latte art

From jiggling pups to an angry Donald Trump, it seems there is nary a design that 48-year-old Chang cannot master

Chang has brought literal dimension to the latte art world, creating both recreations of beloved cartoons and pop art as well as frothy creatures you want to reach out and touch

There are dozens of videos on the My cofi cafe that show Chang and her fellow baristas at work, making their creations look as easy as a few swirls

But it can actually take up to 15 minutes for Chang to create one cup and, depending on how intricate the design is, could cost you anywhere from AUD$8 to $43.

While it may sound like quite the hefty price for a cup of Joe, videos of Chang's creations have only sent more and more fans flocking to My Cofi.

The cafe first became a hit on social media when Chang began to reproduce images of customers' pets into her signature 3D style.

From a variety of cats and dogs - and even a pet fish - Chang has been willing to master just about anything.

But it can actually take up to 15 minutes for Chang to create one cup and, depending on how intricate the design is

Chang is a fan of recreating popular cartoons for her customers, including Snoopy and Mario

It was actually animals that helped Chang master her 3D art foam in the first place.

The barista wanted to practice drawing on milk foam with chocolate and some customers asked her to recreate their pets, she told MailOnline earlier this year.

Never one to say no to a challenge, Chang happily obliged and soon began expanding her repertoire.

To give her cups their now signature 3D effect, Chang has learned that the best way to control milk froth is to stack it up and create layers.

And the barista of 14 years also illustrates with espresso and fruit jam, along with chocolate, to create the works of art atop steamed milk and espresso shots.

It was actually animals that helped Chang master her 3D art foam work in the first place

The barista wanted to practice drawing on milk foam with chocolate and some customers asked her to recreate their pets

Never one to say no to a challenge, Chang happily obliged and soon began expanding her repertoire as she recreated all kinds of cats and dogs

To give her cups their now signature 3D effect, Chang has learned that the best way to control milk froth is to stack it up and create layers

And after her creations are finished, many customers happily take a picture of both Chang's creation and their beloved pet side by side

And Chang is happy to recreate animals of all shapes and sizes, even this adorable little fish

Now there are customers who will spend an hour just snapping photos of their My Cofi creations, caring little that their cup has gone cold.

And while some will call on Chang to help them prank their boss with creepy coffees, others ask her to create something far more special.

Chang once helped a woman who wanted to see her beloved late cat.

'She was looking at me drawing over the counter, and when I presented the work to her, she suddenly cried,' Chang said.

'She was so touched to see the image of her cat.'

Depending on how intricate the design is, a cup at My Cofi could cost you anywhere from AUD$8 to $43
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Recently, sources close to BAIC revealed that Baoneng, the new controlling shareholder of Qoros, conducted due diligence on Changhe Suzuki, a brand under Jiangxi Changhe Automobile. According to the disclosed information, Baoneng plans to acquire the manufacturing license and Jiujiang factory of Changhe Suzuki, which has been reported to the government.

Just several days ago, BAIC, the controlling shareholder of Changhe, made personnel changes in Changhe Auto and merge Weiwang brand into Changhe Auto. Apparently, Changhes transformation has entered into new stage.

Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association, said in an interview that the acquisition is possible. An analyst in auto industry revealed that although Suzuki hasnt withdrawn its capital, the Japanese automaker hasnt introduced new models for many years. Another source said Suzuki may pull out if Baoneng would offer reasonable price.

It is reported that since the other joint venture also has not so good performance, Suzuki may quit China market in the future. The source made it clear that Suzuki wont retreat from China, but that it is currently introspecting its strategies in China.

Currently, Changhe Auto has two brands, Changhe brand and Changhe Suzuki. Its two production bases, in Jingdezhen and Jiujiang, with three vehicle and engine factories have an annual capacity of 320,000 vehicles and 150,000 engines. As the capacity of Jingdezhen base is enough for its sales, it makes sense for Changhe Auto to sell Jiujiang factory to Baoneng.
Bottles of sparkling wines are set to fly off the shelves in the coming days, as people prepare to celebrate the New Year.

And with a range of delicious, yet affordable varieties on sale, savvy buyers won't have to break the bank just to clink a glass of celebratory bubbly.

Revealing the best bargains, for as cheap as $9, is Andrew Caillard and Peter Nixon from the Dan Murphy's wine panel, who gave their tips to FEMAIL ahead of New Year's Eve.

Andrew Caillard (left) and Peter Nixon (right) from the Dan Murphy's wine panel revealed to FEMAIL their best bubbly picks for as cheap as $9 ahead of New Year's celebrations across Australia on Sunday

Bottles of sparkling wines are set to fly off the shelves in the coming days, as people prepare to bring in the New Year (stock image)

LESS THAN $10

MINCHINBURY BLUSH ROSE CUVEE NV - $8.99

Mr Caillard described this bottle of Rose as 'uncomplicated', but also delicious to drink.

He added: 'A classic legacy brand with strong 19th century connections. Lovely fresh red fruits, creamy textures and fine long persistent bubbles.'

JP CHENET FRENCH SPARKLING BLANC DE BLANC NV - $9.99

Mr Caillard lauded this bottle's 'generous style', adding lemon curd aromas and a twist of yeasty complexity to his tasting notes.

'[It is also] creamy and mouth-filling with volume, freshness and persistent bubbles,' he said.

Mr Caillard labelled the Minchinbury blush rose (left) as 'uncomplicated', but also delicious to drink, while the JP Chenet Sparkling (right) also made the list

MASCHIO PROSECCO DOC - $9.99

One of two Proseccos to make it in the list, Mr Caillard said this bottle is full of character and suited for all occasions.

He added: 'Effervescent, bubbly joy in a bottle with lemon curd, grapefruit glace aromas, sweet fruited flavours and superb mouth-filling fresh, smooth, and persistent bubbles.'

One of two Proseccos to make it in the list, Mr Caillard said the Maschio Prosecco is full of character and suited for all occasions

LESS THAN $20

LA PLANCHELIERE SPARKLING ROSE NV - $12.99

Praising this bottle's 'superb' value for money, Mr Nixon said 'La Planch' has become Australia's favourite Rose after only a couple of vintages.

'Pale salmon pink, with a juicy-fruited palate, it just smells like a summer fruit basket,' Mr Nixon said.

He suggested to serve the wine in ice-cold tumblers, alongside spicy fresh salads.

Praising this bottle's 'superb' value for money, Mr Nixon said 'La Planch' has become Australia's favourite Rose after only a couple of vintages

LESS THAN $30

FREIXENET PROSECCO NV - $24.99

Mr Nixon praised Prosecco for its fruity simplicity, as he labelled it as the 'world's most popular' sparkling wine, ahead of Champagne.

And top of his list of Proseccos was this offering from Freixnet, which he suggested accompanying with some tapas or antipasto.

He added: 'A trans-Euro inspired dream that pays-off. Citrussy and fresh all in a designer bottle. The perfect gift.'

Mr Nixon praised Prosecco for its fruity simplicity, as he labelled it as the 'world's most popular' sparkling wine, ahead of Champagne. Pictured: Kendal Jackson Chardonnay (left) and Freixenet Prosecco (right)

KENDAL JACKSON CHARDONNAY - $24.99

'Those looking for a big, rich, creamy style Chardonnay need look no further than this Californian beauty,' Mr Nixon said.

'Despite being a little like a creamy mango kulfi, it has enough limey freshness to keep it right on song.'

Mr Nixon added that the Californian Chardonnay appears to improve with every release.

He suggested accompanying the glass of bubbly with chilled prawns and lime chipotle mayo.
A 'financial dominatrix' whose clients pay her to assume control of their bank accounts claims her work has made her a Bitcoin millionaire.

Based in Paris, and known only as Theodora, she has been working as a dominatrix for eight years, but four years ago made the decision to accept digital currency - or cryptocurrency - such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Monero as payment.

Her clients, all men between the ages of 30 and 50, send online payments ranging from $25 (18) up to $10,000 (7,397) in digital money, in exchange for video clips of Theodora or the opportunity to chat to her over the phone.

She also revealed in an interview with MarketWatch she has a core group of regular clients, who spend as much as $100,000 (73,975) a time on in-person meetings and private domination sessions.

The dominatrix said her wealthy 'geek' clients include CEOs and politicians who seek her out for 'elite financial domination'; meaning submissives' derive sexual pleasure from showering her with cash and gifts including designer clothes and shoes.

The profile described how some relinquish all control of their bank accounts to Theodora - effectively becoming 'human ATMs'.

'Relinquishing control from them [clients] is not just them paying me,' she said. 'It is me holding their credit card, having access to their bank accounts, and determining how much they need to live and how much I can take from them.'

Theodora is a Bitcoin millionaire, she accepts donations in the cryptocurrency in exchange for video clips, phone calls and meetings

She specialises in financial domination, which means her clients will hand over total control of their bank balances

Theodora explains it is common for a sex worker to accept cryptocurrency as payment online, and with Bitcoin's recent surge in value, it has only made her richer.

She told the site in an interview, that her 'geek clients' get a thrill in 'mining money' for her - a process which involves miners using special software to solve math problems and are then issued a certain number of bitcoins in exchange.

WHAT IS BITCOIN? Bitcoin was created in 2008 by a man going by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto - it is a virtual currency and does not exist in the form of physical coins or notes. You are given a credit entry for your Bitcoins in a vast online computer ledger, which has an address that is identified by a string of digits and letters. Bitcoin is created by 'miners' who use their computers to solve fiendishly difficult maths puzzles. Each time their computers come up with a correct answer, the prize is a Bitcoin. A single Bitcoin reached its highest value of almost $20,000 (14,795) earlier this month, but is now valued at $14,000 (10,450). Advertisement

They then spend their currency on Theodora: 'I take a lot of geek clients who like new technology.

'They were really excited when I taught them how to build a mining rig for me so they could mine 24/7 from their home.'

The dominatrix says she accepts other forms of currency, as she's always 'thinking ahead' in case the Bitcoin market crashes.

Theodora specialises in 'femdom hypnosis', which is the practise of dominating men with hypnosis.

Her clients - who she says are high-powered men in CEO positions, or politicians - also let her take total control of their bank accounts where they achieve pleasure through a 'consensual form of release'.

'Its a form of psychological domination where money is the tool for the transfer of power,' Theodora explains.

Theodora also accepts donations from her online wishlists, which often mean she is sent designer shoes, clothes, jewellery and make-up

The dominatrix was sent this $3,000 Balmain python jacket by a loyal and happy customer which she posted on her Instagram page

Theodora makes her money posting clips and videos of her in action for her clients and offers them other services like speaking on the phone, or spending their money for their pleasure

'Relinquishing control from them is not just them paying me  it is me holding their credit card, having access to their bank accounts, and determining how much they need to live and how much I can take from them.

'I need to put them right on the limit. The point of financial domination isnt about taking everything they have and leaving them on the street  the fetish is controlled and consensual.'

According to recent reports Bitcoin is set to create a financial bubble, earlier this month a single Bitcoin was valued at $16,000 (11,836) before dropping back to $14,000 (10,450) where it currently sits.

Theodora estimates that she makes between $7,000 to $10,000 per month in cryptocurrency donations, and collectively so far she has made over one million in the digital trade.
A doting father and dog-sitter has captured the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people on the internet after sending his daughter very detailed updates on her pup while she was away.

Meghan Specksgoor from Midlothian, Virginia was traveling to New York City over the holidays and needed a sitter for her four-year-old dog, Chance, so she asked her father to take him for a few days.

Her dad was clearly thrilled at the opportunity to get a new pet for the weekend, and made sure to keep Meghan in the loop as to what Chance was doing  by sending her repeated text messages from the dog's point of view.

Grandpa: Meghan Specksgoor's father babysat her dog while she was away and sent her text message updates

Gramps: He sent the texts all from the dog's point of view, prompting Meghan to joke, 'Someone please get this man a grandchild'

Meghan knew her dad would be a good sitter, and was happy to leave her dog with him for a few days.

'They usually get along great,' she told BoredPanda. 'Chance is allowed to do whatever he wants with my dad, like an actual grandchild, and is given all sorts of treats the whole time he's with him.'

Yet the texts he sent were something special. Meghan first shared the screengrabs on Twitter on December 24, saying, 'My dad is babysitting Chance this weekend while I'm in NYC, someone please get this man a grandchild.'

She did not anticipate that her dad's messages would turn into an internet sensation, but they have quickly gone viral. Her tweet has over 191,000 likes and counting, and has been retweeted 52,000 times.

First, her dad sent her a selfie he took in the car, showing part of his face and the dog in the back seat.

Cute: The texts from the dad have gone viral with over 191,000 likes on Twitter

Attached: Her dad's texts seem to indicate that he would like to dog-sit again in the future

He managed to get the dog to look into the camera for the shot, making it clear that the accompanying message was straight from Chance's mind.

'Grandpa wants to know what kind of take out I can have? We are starving,' he wrote.

He texted her again later with a photo of the dog sitting on a picnic table in the park, writing, 'Hi mom, it's me again. We had a picnic and are going to the nail salon now. Gramps said if I'm good I can have ice cream when I'm done. What kind do I like again?'

'Hate to keep bothering you mom, but we really need to hang out with gramps more,' he wrote later .

'Hey mom, gramps is going to sleep with me tonight, is there anything we need to tell him? Hope you are having as much fun as I am, see you tomorrow and good night, love you sooo much,' the 'dog' wrote in the final text.

While Chance seemed to have had a good time, it was Meghan's dad who appeared to have gotten the most out of the weekend.

Famous: After the texts went viral, Meghan (pictured) joked that her dad has no idea how famous he got and shared a text from him saying, 'What does viral mean?'

Thousands of Twitter users have found Meghan's dad's updates delightful.

'Grandpa spoiled him rotten. So sweet,' wrote one.

'This made me heart happy. We all need gramps and Chance in our lives,' said another, while a third tweeted 'Your dad is the best dad ever.'

Replying to Meghan's comment about her dad needing grandchildren, one person wrote: 'He will be the best Grandpa ever! A grand-dog is very good practice for grandchildren and he's nailing it.'

Her dad later found out that his messages went viral  which he found quite funny, despite not understanding what that entails.

'Pete just texted me and said we went viral. What does that mean?' he wrote to Meghan with a bunch of crying laughing emojis.

'Lmao Gramps doesn't even know how famous he got in the last few days,' Meghan quipped.
A newly engaged bride-to-be took a tumble in the middle of the grandiose proposal her partner staged for her at the Rockefeller Center ice rink.

Brian Skolar, 24, asked his other half Amanda Szymanski, 26, to marry him earlier this month during a touching moment at the iconic New York City landmark.

Amanda and her beau, who are both from New Jersey, were both wearing skates when he got down on one knee and popped the question.

Popping the question: Brian Skolar, 24, asked his other half Amanda Szymanski, 26, to marry him earlier this month during a touching moment at the Rockefeller Center ice rink

Icy: Amanda and her beau, who are both from New Jersey, were both wearing skates when he got down on one knee and popped the question

Fall: After leaning over to kiss her fiance, Amanda lost her balance and wiped out, landing flat on her backside during the grandiose proposal

A video of the romantic proposal shows Brian and Amanda, amazingly alone at the center of the ice rink, which is usually crowded at this time of the year.

Dozens of onlookers are watching the moment unfold from above, and can be heard cheering when it becomes apparent Brian is proposing.

At first, all seems to be going well, with Amanda even managing to lean in for a kiss, even though she doesn't seem to be extremely at ease on her skates.

The proposal is a success, and Brian successfully slips the ring onto his future wife's finger.

But when Amanda bends to kiss her fiance again, she loses her balance and wipes out, landing flat on her backside.

Luckily, the bride-to-be doesn't look hurt and laughs, along with the crowd who also claps for the couple.

Schedule: Brian had asked Amanda to take Christmas Eve off work and spent the day sightseeing with her before asking her to marry him

Shaking it off: Luckily, the bride-to-be didn't look hurt and laughed after her fall on the ice

Short and sweet: Brian had planned a longer speech than the one he delivered but shortened it when he noticed his partner didn't seem completely in her element on the ice

'I'm not a very graceful skater, as you can all tell,' Amanda later told InsideEdition.com. 'I said yes and went to kiss him. My feet got caught under me and I wiped out, which is not unusual. I've crashed and burned.'

She revealed that Brian had asked her to take Christmas Eve off work and that both of them spent the day sightseeing before he asked her to tie the knot.

Amanda guessed something was up when their fellow skaters got off the rink and they were the only two left.

Brian, meanwhile, had planned a longer speech than the one he delivered but shortened it when he noticed his partner didn't seem completely in her element on the ice.

'There was a lot more I wanted to say but I saw her struggle to stand,' he said. 'She was excited. A lot of emotion getting to her. It was a big fall, don't get me wrong, but she walked it off and she was fine.'

He later posted photos of the day on Facebook, explaining how he and Amanda had dinner at a steak house before the proposal and stayed at the presidential suite of the Michelangelo Hotel in Midtown afterwards.

Brian said he 'couldn't be any happier' and is now looking forward to planning the wedding.
Stress-free: Marissa Heckel, of Columbus Grove, Ohio, gave birth to her son at home without any drugs or professional help

A woman proudly shared a revealing photo of herself right after giving birth to her baby son in her bathroom after a 36-hour drug-free home delivery.

Marissa Heckel, a mother of two from Columbus Grove, Ohio, chose to welcome her second child at home after she experienced a negative hospital birth while delivering her daughter three years ago.

She took to Facebook earlier this month to share her home birth photo, which shows her proudly holding her newborn while standing naked next to her toilet bowl, with her placenta at her feet.

During the birth of her first child, which occurred at a hospital and without drugs, Marissa felt 'bullied' about her birth plan and 'harassed throughout' her labor, as explained in a different Facebook post shared by one of her friends.

Thus, she decided to take matters into her own hands for the birth of her son.

'My husband was very supportive the entire time as he respected my body and my choice to be in a stress-free environment. We opted out of a midwife due to my stubbornness. I simply do not like anyone trying to tell me what is best for me or my baby,' she wrote.

Marissa's labor lasted for 36 hours and she didn't take any medication for pain relief.

Instead, the mother took showers and baths to help manage her pain, but when these offered little relief, she eventually endured the pain by 'standing up against the wall'.

Candid: The mother took to Facebook earlier this month to share this photo of herself right after welcoming her son in her bathroom

'I just kept telling myself "the pain is only temporary",' she said.

Describing the moment her contractions started, Marissa shared that her husband held her hand throughout, describing the experience as 'almost romantic'.

However, after her waters broke in their bed and she felt the urge to push, she moved to the bathroom as the bed seemed 'unnatural' for her.

'I told my husband about my urge to push and asked for assistance to the toilet. I let my body do the pushing. I just sat on the toilet,' she recounted.

Although her husband began to worry after Marissa had been pushing for a prolonged period of time, she assured him that she could feel their son's head descending.

Amazing: Marissa is encouraging other women to give birth at home and says the experience made her feel powerful and accomplished

Still sitting on the toilet at that point, Marissa joked that her husband was worried their son was going to be born there, so she stood up and announced she was going to deliver the shoulders in this position.

'My husband looked at me like I was nuts but helped me anyway,' she added. 'I stood up, held onto the towel rack and let my body do one last push and he was finally out.'

Weighing nine pounds and eight ounces, Marissa's newborn son was also 22 inches in length and his head measured 36 centimeters - making him, as she put it, 'no average-sized baby'.

Marissa urged other mothers-to-be considering a home birth not to fear the process.

'I've never felt so powerful and accomplished in my entire life. Our bodies truly are amazing!' she said.

'So if you're afraid or thinking you can't do it, YOU CAN!!! Do not fear, our bodies were made for this!'
Already mourning the loss of peppermint mochas?

Fear not, because Starbucks has come to the rescue with the release of yet another covetable limited-edition drink collection, which hit stores this week..

The Black and White Mocha Collection features three new things to sip and can be ordered through January 11.

New Year, new menu: Starbucks has unveiled a new limited-edition Black and White Mocha Collection featuring three new drinks

Three is the magic number: Featuring a Mocha, Cocoa, and a Frappuccino, the trio of drinks are currently available in stores in the US and Canada through the first week of January

Fan club: Customers have taken to social media to review the new drinks

Best day ever: People are posting glowing reports of the drinks on Twitter

Generous: One customer even shared how a colleague gifted her with the new drink and it's now her favorite

Featuring a trio of drinks inspired by dark and white chocolate, the menu includes a Black and White Mocha, Black and White Hot Cocoa, and Black and White Mocha Frappuccino.

The three drinks also feature 'chocolate sequins' sprinkled on top.

'The New Year is a time to celebrate,' said Erin Marinan from Starbucks' beverage development team. 'The Black and White Mocha collection is a festive way to ring in 2018, with a stripe of sparkly chocolate sequins to resemble a black tie.'

And the collection is fast becoming a favorite with customers who have taken to social media to share their appreciation for the creation.

On Twitter, @xolaurae wrote: @starbucks the #BlackAndWhiteMocha is making my day!'

And @Kaila_Dias said: 'The new black and white mocha from Starbucks is my new favorite frapp'.

Fan @xoMamaof2xo added: '@Starbucks the Black and White Mocha is amazing. Even my husband agrees and he does not like to try anything from his normal. Do you plan on keeping the drink?'

Thankfully, Starbucks shared this tip with her: 'After the holidays you can order a mocha and swap half the mocha sauce for white chocolate sauce. The chocolate sequins topping is only available during the holidays, while supplies last.'

Sip and sleigh! Starbucks unveiled a Christmas Tree Frappuccino earlier this month

Exclusive: The drink was only available December 7 through December 11 in the US and Canada

Earlier this month, Starbucks unveiled the Christmas Tree Frappuccino.

The peppermint mocha-flavored Frapp was topped with green whipped cream and candy 'ornaments', so it looked just as festive as it tasted.

The drink was only in stores from December 7 through December 11 and proved highly popular with customers, who flooded social media with images and reviews of the limited drink.

Featuring a Peppermint Mocha Creme Frappuccino base, the drink was topped with green matcha whipped cream, which was piled high to look like a tree.

The whipped cream was then drizzled with a caramel 'garland' and sprinkled with candied cranberry 'ornaments'. Finally, on top, they put a strawberry 'tree topper'.

Festive: It's topped with green matcha whipped cream, which is piled high to look like a tree

Cute: There is also a caramel drizzle 'garland' and a tree topper made out of a strawberry

Get it while it's cold! The drink was unveiled this morning and is already very buzzy

Must-have! Social media users expressed excitement about the treat

A little fun: There were plenty of Christmas-loving customers who just wanted it because it was seasonal

'OH MEH GOAD I JUST SAW THE STARBUCKS CHRISTMAS TREE FRAPPUCCINO and the very sight of it gave me a medical event. I want one so badly,' wrote one excited fan.

'I hate Christmas but I NEED a Christmas tree Frappuccino ASAP please and thank you,' wrote another.

While there were a few skeptics who wrote that they didn't understand why anyone would 'need' such a drink, most people who have taken to social media to comment on the drink are excited.

'Verdict: minty and tasty, though not as festive looking as some of the other special frapps like the zombie or unicorn. Still good, though!' wrote one reviewer. Said another: 'We tried the new Christmas Tree Frappuccino at work earlier and it looks atrocious but it doesn't taste half bad.'

'Bought a Christmas Tree Frappuccino from Starbucks because I have no f***ing self control when it comes to Christmas-related things,' another said.
Stormzy heavily references cannabis in 'Shut Up' - which reached number 8 in the charts

Grime music is fueling the use of skunk because artists are referencing the drug in their chart-topping songs, warns a cannabis researcher.

Ian Hamilton, based at York University, warned the popular music genre contains hundreds of lyrics glorifying the use of the class B drug.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, he described songs featuring mentions of weed, including those by Stormzy, Kano and Wiley, as 'essentially product placement'.

Stormzy, a 23-year-old artist who has 1.07 million followers on Twitter, heavily references cannabis in 'Shut Up' - a tune which saw the Mobo-winner reach number eight in the UK Singles Chart.

And Mr Hamilton revealed that such music 'brands itself quite well to promoting a product' - whether that's Nike, Adidas or even weed.

He said: 'Its essentially product placement by some of these artists about cannabis and other drugs, and its not balanced in any way and not countered by evidence.

'What we definitely know about drug use and young people is that their expectations about the drug and who they are with have huge influence on them.

'Lyrics can plant the seed of an idea, and its not an abstract idea, its something they do pretty quickly and at low risk.

'If the association, viewing it as a product placement, is cool and something that may enhance their status as a young person, then that becomes quite attractive.

'They dont have a choice [young people] about the type of cannabis they can get hold of, its high potency or nothing.'

Young people 'don't care about breaking laws'

He added that the fact cannabis is illegal is irrelevant to most young people because 'it's not a concern to them like theft or burglary is'.

However, Stormzy isn't the only grime artist to reference cannabis in his 'bars' - the urban term used to describe lyrics in a grime track, Kano has also

Wiley, considered to be the 'godfather of grime', also mentions cannabis in his songs

CANNABIS ON THE STREETS OF BRITAIN: THE FACTS The latest figures available showed that more than two million people in England and Wales smoked cannabis in 2016. For the previous year, Crime Survey figures showed a million of these were aged between 16 to 24. The substance is currently a Class B drug in the UK, and anyone found in possession can face up to five years in prison. Selling the drug can get someone 14 years in prison and an unlimited fine. The same punishment exists for giving it to friends for free. It is illegal to be under the influence of cannabis while driving, and can result in a prison sentence and disqualification. On the streets, the average price of an ounce of cannabis tends to be in the region of 200. This is often enough for 40 joints, depending on how strongly people roll them. Reports suggest that around 270 tons of cannabis is consumed every year in Britain - which would equate to around 8.6 million at the aforementioned pricing. Some 80 per cent of this is grown here and not imported. But during 2011/2012, in excess of 1.1 million plants were seized by police - with an estimated street value of 207 million. Advertisement

However, Mr Hamilton warned that the health problems of grime music could stretch way beyond just high potency cannabis.

Promoting dangerous tobacco

The lecturer in mental health told MailOnline: 'The problem weve got in the UK is the way that cannabis is used with tobacco.

They dont have a choice [young people] about the type of cannabis they can get hold of, its high potency or nothing Ian Hamilton, a mental health lecturer at York University

'The combination may be an introduction to smoking  if someone listens to a bit of grime music, they may be warmed up to the idea of trying it.

'Chances are they will try a spliff, which contains tobacco, not like an American kid who is more likely to just have cannabis.

'Grime music acts as a gateway to tobacco exposure inadvertently, for many young people it will be an appealing introduction, or a curiosity they may act on.'

Tobacco is linked to 17 types of cancer, including lung, throat and bladder - and is deemed to be the most preventable form of the disease.

Stop rolling joints with tobacco

Mr Hamilton issued a warning earlier this year that teenagers should stop rolling their cannabis joints with tobacco earlier this year if they don't want cancer.

Mr Hamilton warned that the health problems of grime music could stretch way beyond just high potency cannabis

REVEALED: THE TIMES THAT STORMZY HAS MENTIONED WEED Song: Shut Up I take care when I water my plants: Users on RapGenius - a website that allows fans to suggest true meanings behind lyrics - claim this refers to Stormzy watering his marijuana plants Dem man still go halves on a quarter: A quarter is a set amount of cannabis that is sold on the streets, referring to a quarter of an ounce Weed in a cigarette, blue slims: Referring to rolling a spliff Food in the ends like there ain't no drought: Food is another word for weed Song: Big For Your Boots Drug money in my shoe box: A RapGenius user suggests this is in reference to hiding money from the tax man Mad stressed so I'm bound to light my spliffs: Stormzy raps about wanting to smoke cannabis to ease his stress Song: Wicked Skengman Part 4 Wait two secs, let me spark this zoot: A zoot is another word for a spliff Them man there spit ammy and bud: Ammy is short for amnesia - a strain of weed, and bud is considered a weak strain of cannabis Song: Cigarettes And Cush But when I get home, just roll my weed, yeah: This is in reference to Stormzy rolling a spliff Smokin' smoke 'til we're wavy and gone: Wavy can be another term for high But it don't mean I won't treat ya to a blunt full of that reefer: A blunt is a cannabis-filled cigarette and reefer is another word for a spliff Song: Not That Deep Spliff in the club, what d'you mean I can't smoke?: Stormzy's lyric suggests he is angry about not being allowed to smoke weed in a club Then I hit a lick, gave man food on the tick, couple man paid me short: Food is a term for weed and a tick is an agreement to pay later Song: Scary Anywhere I go, got my bro with the smoke: A user on Rap Genius claims this is in reference to having a friend that always has cannabis Song: Standard Cause my jeans weren't baggy enough to hold food: Food is a term for weed Song: Bad Boys Charge three for a Z, that's banter: This is believed to refer to extortionate prices for cannabis as Z is a term used in youth culture to represent an ounce of weed Song: One Take Freestyle Smoke on a medical vibe: Believed to be in reference to the therapeutic benefits of smoking some forms of cannabis Song: First Things First Drugs kill, but my n***** make a killing off a drug: Stormzy bragging about how his friends sell a lot of drugs - despite knowing they can be dangerous Song: Lay Me Bare Just to get away, I take a toke: A toke is a hit of a spliff Advertisement

He suggested youngsters should instead smoke the drug on its own if they want to get high because no such links to cancer exist with cannabis.

Mr Hamilton told MailOnline: 'If someone like Stormzy steps up to the plate to make it clear what the risks are and problems it could help.'

Grime music: The origins

Grime music, which began in London at the turn of the century, has been thrust into the mainstream media in the past year, amid the successful rise of Stormzy.

His debut album, titled 'Gang Signs & Prayers', released in February, reached number one in the UK charts - a feat achieved by no other artist in the scene.

Stormzy's rise to fame, alongside the popularity of Skepta and J Hus, helped sales of grime to rocket by 109 per cent, according to industry figures.

However, Stormzy isn't the only grime artist to reference cannabis in his 'bars' - the urban term used to describe lyrics in a grime track.

The genre is based around some of the realities of urban lifestyle, including gangs, drugs, violence, guns and negative terms for women.

Wiley, considered to be the 'godfather of grime', and other prominent artists such as Kano and Lethal Bizzle have also mentioned cannabis in their songs.

WHEN DOES KANO MENTION WEED? Song: 3 Wheel Ups If you've been shotting in the manor from way back when Shotting = a term for selling drugs Song: Flow Of The Year Used to be the weed guy, now I went beeline Song: Ps & Qs We'll chief your crew, we're so hungry we'll thief your food Food = a term for drugs Song: Drinking In The West End Last night , we got so high Song: Deep Blues Trap, trap, trap, now everybody's trapping Trap = a term for selling drugs Advertisement
Medical jargon is pretty impossible for most patients to follow, but some of the terms you hear your doctor use may just be insulting industry jargon.

Over decades, doctors have ad-libbed a whole vocabulary to encode their frustrations with problem patients, communicate grim status updates, or even gossip about children.

In medicine, this slang is more than harmless insider-jargon: studies have shown that doctors' attitudes and discrimination toward patients can have a real affect on the treatment they receive and how well they recover.

Medical schools have begun to recruit more diverse students in the hopes of changing the field's culture, but several young doctors who wished to remain anonymous told Daily Mail Online that discriminatory terms are still common.

But discrimination is institutionalized and dangerous in medicine, according to Dr Peter Muennig and Dr Alex Green of Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, and it's worth knowing some of these terms that doctors may use to mask the severity of a situation or downright insult you (warning: some of these are offensive).

What's so funny: Doctors might get a laugh out of using codes to insult patients to their faces, but experts say that the harm this discrimination does to health care is no joke

GOMER

This 'classic' term stands for 'get [them] out of my emergency room.' It has been used in hospitals for decades and is familiar to just about every doctor working, Dr Muennig says.

The acronym is a sort of catch-all term for any of the kinds of patients doctors don't want to deal with.

'There's a certain level of discrimination against the chronically ill, and that's where GOMER comes from,' says Dr Muennig.

In a recent interview with Daily Mail Online, he also said that this term is often used particularly to describe people who physicians suspect are hunting for pain medication.

Frequent fliers

Patients may return to the hospital week after week - or even day after day - for a variety of legitimate or illegitimate reasons, earning them the title 'frequent fliers,' but certainly no points from doctors.

Chronically ill patients with conditions like diabetes must make regular appointments for dialysis.

Other patients become common faces in emergency rooms and clinics because of their hypochondriacs tendencies, constantly sure that they are gravely ill.

Still other patients may just be looking for a drug fix, coming in with complaints of chronic pain, or in hopes that the physicians on shift will be more willing to prescribe than yesterday's were.

'It's most often used to talk about people with severe diseases like diabetes, or renal failure and diabetes,' says Dr Muennig.

FLK

Doctors use this cruel acronym for 'funny looking kid' to describe 'those babies who are "syndromic" or [we can tell] something is wrong with them based on how they look,' a Chicago doctor told Daily Mail Online.

Children born with any of the three trisomies - genetic mutations that cause there to be an extra copy or partial copy of a chromosome - often have distinct appearances.

These disorders include Down syndrome, which is typified by a flattened face, smaller head and ears than normal and upward slanting eyes.

Doctors also use the FLK to describe babies that don't have a clear diagnosis, but whose 'abnormal' appearance suggests that there may be something wrong with them.

Crumping

Not to be confused with the dance style, doctors use 'crumping' when they have a patient that is 'crashing, but not aggressively,' the Chicago doctor told Daily Mail Online.

The phrase is synonymous to 'circling the drain.' Rather than their organs suddenly failing - or crashing - these patients are deteriorating quickly, and often don't have much chance for survival.

'I don't think it's necessarily harmful to say "crumping" or "frequent flier,"' a New York-based doctor said, 'but I'm very careful as a physician to not use those words in earshot of a family, that would be strongly unprofessional.'

Total body dolores

Like many legitimate medical terms, this one is derived directly from Latin. 'Dolores' translates to pain so this 'literally means total body pain,' the doctor says.

The phrase is most often used between doctors, to describe a patient, as in, 'I have a total body dolores in room 109.'

He says he's seen this term used commonly to describe Latino patients in particularly. 'These patients can be very nervous,' he says, in part because English is often their second language, making the hospital and medical-speak even more frightening, 'and their anxiety manifests physically.'

Slang is used 'commonly with people of color, people using drugs,' he says. More common phrases like '"crack head" are commonly heard on the ward too.'

Although 'doloroes' means pain in Latin, a rather medical language, it means the same thing in Spanish, as well as being a woman' name. This all adds up to maximize confusion for patients.

Status dramaticus

A patient earns the title 'status dramaticus' when they are a '10/10 [for pain] always, although they look fine,' the Chicago doctor says.

'This is someone that wails shrieks, howls so loudly you can hear them from the hallways. Everything hurts and they make sure you know about it,' he says.

The problem with doctors using terms like status dramaticus, says Dr Alex Green, 'is that they're dealing with people who are sick, physically and sometimes mentally and these [dismissals] can be more directly harmful.'

WWWS

The acronym for 'wealthy white woman syndrom ' is 'actually bad because it's a term that is used when you're frustrated at specific patients and dismissing their symptoms,' says Dr Lisa Wang, a psychiatry resident in New York.

Research has documented that physicians are more likely to take women's pain less seriously than they would a man's. There is a widely held belief - though studies turn up mixed results - that women's bodies are designed for childbirth and their pain thresholds are higher.

A 2008 study from the National Institutes of Health also found that women wait 16 minutes longer to be seen in an emergency room than men do.

'As medical providers, on an unspoken level, I think [using these terms] is a coping mechanism, to make light of really difficult situations,' Dr Wang says.

Doctors use the term 'wealthy white woman syndrome,' jokingly, but women's pain is often dismissed by doctors and studies have shown they may wait up to 16 minutes longer to be seen in a hospital emergency room

HHS and Aye-aye-itis

Discrimination against people of color and those for whom English is a second language is rampant, as evidenced by the terms 'hysterical Hispanic syndrome' and aye-aye-itis.

'I hear "aye-aye-itis" used for a Hispanic patient who has many somatic complaints, none of which are related to their surgery or main problem, usually accompanied by "aye, aye,"' the Chicago doctor says.

'Language barriers are a big discriminatory factor,' says Dr Green.

'There's an attitude of "oh, another patient that doesn't speak English, why don't they learn, it makes our lives so difficult,' says Dr Green, who has worked on initiatives to educate hospitals on language barriers and introduce interpreters.

'I roll my eyes every time I hear that [kind of term]' says a New York doctor. 'I call it out because it gets at the rampant cynicism to the job.'

In one Harvard study, 20 percent of a group of 8,000 Latino people reported experiencing discrimination at a health care facility or clinic.

Slugging

'A slug is someone who is reluctant to get up out of bed after surgery,' says the Chicago doctor.

'They tend to be slow, in pain, and want to stay "one more day longer, please,"' he says.

On one hand, 'poor effort,' as he calls it, can have a negative impact on the quality and timeline for recovery, but there is a darker side to this tendency too.

A hospital bed might be the safest and most certain place some patients can stay, especially for those who are not financially secure or may be struggling with addiction.

'When you have patients showing up drunk every single night, always overdosing, not taking their blood pressure medications and coming in because of it, it becomes easy to blame patients, though I don't think you should,' says one New York doctor.

Dr Green says that 'a lot of it derives from [doctors'] systemic frustrations with the medical system back-firing back onto patients.'
The opioid epidemic claimed the lives of more than 63,000 Americans in 2016.

If we are to call the rampant drug abuse and overdoses an 'epidemic,' then research suggests it may actually be past its peak, and the slowdown that is already occurring will continue, regardless of new federal proclamations.

The epidemic cost may have cost the US $504 billion in lives and lost productivity and more in 2015 and more conservative estimates put its cost around $95 billion.

While President Trump has dedicated $100,000 of his salary, no additional funds were set aside to fight the epidemic when he declared it a public health crisis in October, and there isn't much time before Congress must finalize the federal budget on January 18, 2018.

Many experts, including the director of the CDC, have warned that the situation is set to get worse before it gets better, for some time to come, but others say that we weathered the worst before the Trump administration got involved.

Epidemiologists at Columbia University applied a classic model of epidemics to the opioid crisis. Their model (pictured) predicted that it would peak between 2016 and 2017

Using an old model to understand a new epidemic

In 1840, epidemiologist Dr William Farr introduced a statistical model of the European smallpox epidemic.

According to his analysis, epidemics follow a symmetrical pattern.

More than a century later, researchers applied the model to the AIDS epidemic, and in 2014, epidemiologists at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health tried it on for size on the opioid epidemic.

The Columbia scientists hypothesized that overdoses would only continue to mount until some time between 2016 and 2017 - a precipice we are on the verge of passing.

Epidemics, in the traditional sense, are wide and rapid spreads of contagious diseases like the smallpox virus.

But researchers say that just because you can't literally 'catch' opioid addiction doesn't mean this epidemic won't follow Farr's epidemic model.

The proliferation of addiction through social networks is not such a far cry from the way that disease spreads through person-to-person contact, says Columbia University epidemiologist Dr Guohua Li.

President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency on October 26, but the proclamation does not commit any funding to the fight

Opioids spread through networks like a 'social contagion'

'Opioids are not infectious in terms of [being] an agent,' says Dr Li.

'Opioids, are not a bacteria virus, but the drug, in this case, spreads through social networks...even in some ways a virus, like HIV, is spread to a great degree through social networks,' he says.

HOW AMERICA GOT HOOKED ON OPIOID DRUGS Prescription opioids and illicit drugs have become incredibly pervasive throughout the US, and things are only getting worse. In the early 2000s, the FDA and CDC started to notice a steady increase in cases of opioid addiction and overdose. In 2013, they issued guidelines to curb addiction. However, that same year - now regarded as the year the epidemic took hold - a CDC report revealed an unprecedented surge in rates of opioid addiction. Overdose deaths are now the leading cause of death among young Americans - killing more in a year than were ever killed annually by HIV, gun violence or car crashes. Preliminary CDC data published by the New York Times shows US drug overdose deaths surged 19 percent to at least 59,000 in 2016. That is up from 52,404 in 2015, and double the death rate a decade ago. It means that for the first time drug overdoses are the leading cause of death for Americans under 50 years old. The data lays bare the bleak state of America's opioid addiction crisis fueled by deadly manufactured drugs like fentanyl. Advertisement

Most people's first exposures to opioids come from social contact: A friend whose surgeon sent them home with a few extra OxyContins, or a relative with a prescription for management of their chronic back pain.

Dr Li estimates that this kind of exposure accounts for about 80 percent of the opioids involved in an overdose.

Heroin and fentanyl spread in a similar way through social networks, 'starting with manufacturing, and trafficking, then spreading through the local market,' he says.

Although annual overdose death tolls continue to mount, Dr Li says that the epidemic began to lose steam around 2007: 'We can see the deceleration of the epidemic, so [we] could predict the peak.'

According to prevailing theories, epidemics slow down as societal efforts to intervene build, but that process began before President Trump introduced his opioid commission and plan for combating the epidemic.

Improved drug monitoring and local efforts are turning the epidemic's tide

Dr Li says cites two major 'wins' as the bellwethers of the beginning of the end of the epidemic: Tightened regulations on opioid prescription monitoring and local-level efforts to make drug-assisted rehabilitation and the anti-overdose drug, naloxone, more accessible to vulnerable populations.

President Trump's newly-established opioid commission made an exhaustive list of over 50 recommendations for addressing the public health emergency.

These included more of the same approaches that Dr Li says are already working, but Trump himself has emphasized other elements.

Trump's own Council of Economic Advisers estimated that between the lives and productivity lost and money tax dollars spent on health care and the criminal justice system, the opioid epidemic cost the US $504 billion in 2015.

Turning the crisis around would cost $183 billion over the next decade, according to Harvard heath economics professor Richard Frank's calculations, which he published on The Hill.

That's more than four times the Senate Republicans' recommendation that $45 billion of the federal budget be dedicated to the opioid epidemic for the same time period.

The President has put his weight behind the introduction of drug courts to every jurisdiction, and has committed his $100,000 third-quarter salary to the creation of a large scale media and advertising campaign.

This seems to be Trump's pet project in fighting the epidemic.

Drug addiction needs to be destigmatized, but prevention campaigns like 'DARE' may not help, experts worry

'The public information campaign is necessary, but in itself would not be sufficient' says Dr Li.

Dr Tim Brennan, an addiction psychiatrist at Mt Sinai hospital in New York, echoes Dr Li's skepticism.

While Dr Brennan is in favor of efforts to destigmatize addiction in order to encourage people to seek treatment, he says that campaigns like the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) effort of the 1980s and 1990s are misguided.

'Destigmatization is wonderful, especially because what we see in the opioid crisis has a lot of parallels to the HIV/AIDS crisis,' says Dr Brennan.

'No one wanted to treat people with AIDS...[until] it started affecting different demographics, then attitudes started to change, and the same is true for the opioid crisis.'

He says that fear kept people from getting tested and treated for HIV, but once it was no longer seen as a disease of the marginalized, diagnoses and preventative measures increased and its spread slowed.

High school seniors reported using fewer drugs overall (red) in the immediate aftermath of the DARE program's introduction in 1982, but studies suggest the initiative's effects were overestimated and short-lived

'If we could do that for opioid disorder, that'd be wonderful, because a lot of people are scared to tell their families or anyone else about their addictions,' says Dr Brennan.

'Programming around trying to convince people not to do drugs is different [from destigmatization efforts] and we should be careful before we try to replicate the DARE program,' he says.

In fact, some studies have shown that the DARE program and its 'just say no' messaging had no impact, or even a slightly negative impact, on drug abuse.

'The "Just Say No" campaign was an utter failure,' says Tim Ryan, a former addict who now travels the country advising clinics and addicts on his A&E show 'Dope Man.'

'We need real talk, but we also need real solutions. The younger generation is struggling with pressures of life through social media, telling them "you have to be the best, you can't fail,"' he says.

This leads these young people to 'have anxiety and depression, [and then] have a Xanax for this, smoke weed for that,' says Ryan.

Ryan says that adolescents need to know 'it's okay to be a kid,' and instead of hearing 'just say no,' they should be exposed to real people who are 'proud to be recovering...coming out and talking about it.'

It is unclear what Trump's media campaign will look like other than 'really tough, really big, really great,' as he said when he announced his salary commitment.

His $100,000 partial salary pledge is so far the only quantified allocation of federal resources to fighting the epidemic.

A study on anti-drug programs in schools found that DARE (light gray) had less overall impact on students' drug use (far right) than other types of programming in the long run

Local-level efforts are curbing the opioid crisis

Moreover, Dr Li says he 'wouldn't rely on the federal response alone. The declaration of an epidemic helps, it will organize society at a local and community level to tackle this public health emergency, but, as you know, we haven't seen any real, concrete commitment to allocate adequate financial and other resources to deal with this health problem.'

Instead, he says local communities have really shouldered the burden, and that that's where progress is being made against the epidemic.

City police and fire departments have begun carrying not only naloxone, but drugs like Methadone that can help opioid addicts ween off of prescription or illicit drugs without debilitating withdrawals.

For many addicts, recovery programs are too expensive, and even when they are affordable, there may not be a bed available for some time.

In January, Ocean County in New Jersey implemented treatment programs in five police departments. Drug overdose deaths were about 25 percent lower in 2016 than in 2015, following the introduction of the new, more accessible assistance.

Naloxone, the anti-overdose drug, is now available over the counter in pharmacies throughout New York state as well.

Local police and fire departments have made a dent in the overdose deaths by carrying naloxone, an anti-overdose medication (file image)

The Department of Justice has the resources to fight fentanyl

While naloxone's widened availability provides some relief from overdoses, 'the major driver of the epidemic is fentanyl, the illicit synthetic opioid,' says Dr Li.

The drug's continued spread through distribution networks fits right into his theory of addiction as a social contagion.

This is where the Department of Justice (DOJ) comes in.

While the Department of Health and Human Services may face significant budget cuts next year, the DOJ is 'expecting an increase in their budget, at least that's the plan,' says Dr Li.

The hope is that drug courts may offer treatment options, rather than incarceration, for people charged with mere possession of opioids, while the DOJ actively takes on cartels, importers and distributors of fentanyl.

'I expect enforcement will be stepped up in the coming year, helping to reduce trafficking, especially of fentanyl, which accounts for over 50 percent of overdoses,' says Dr Li.

He says that the most effective efforts would be 'increases of seizures of shipments that come across the border from Mexico, as well as [drugs from] transactions through the internet.'
Britain is becoming hooked on anti-depressants, a global study suggests today.

Prescription rates have nearly trebled in 15 years, putting the UK fourth among 29 Western nations.

Britons take nearly twice as many of the happy pills as counterparts in France, Italy and the Netherlands. Experts last night said patients were demanding a quick fix to avoid feeling down.

Others blamed GPs for fobbing off depressed patients with pills because waiting lists for in-depth treatment were too long.

Prescription rates for anti-depressants have nearly trebled in 15 years, putting the UK fourth among 29 Western nations

The UK rate of consumption for anti-depressants is 94.2 doses a day for every 1,000 inhabitants, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This is up from 37.6 doses in 2000.

The research bodys study said patients were increasingly willing to ask for help, meaning every rich nation had seen a rise in use of drugs such as Prozac.

But it added: There is significant variation in consumption of anti-depressants between countries. Iceland reports the highest level in 2015, twice the OECD average, followed by Australia, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

Carmine Pariante, a professor of biological psychiatry at Kings College London, said society was becoming less tolerant of emotional pain. If you think of the way death or illness is represented in popular culture, we are trying to protect ourselves as much as possible from negative emotion, he added.

Tragedy of mother put on tablets for anxiety A mother who was prescribed anti-depressants accidentally killed herself with a lethal cocktail of pills. Katrina Glynn, 34, swallowed a mix of tablets including paracetamol and temazepam in a game of chemical Russian roulette. The former healthcare worker suffered from insomnia and severe anxiety and was struggling to cope while her boyfriend, an oil rig worker, was away. Katrina Glynn swallowed a mix of tablets including paracetamol and temazepam in a game of chemical Russian roulette An inquest heard she had been looking forward to his return but was found dead on the sofa at her Bolton home by her niece on August 3 this year. Tests showed she had morphine-based painkillers, beta-blockers and anti-depressants in her system. Coroner Tim Brennand ruled out suicide and warned of the dangers of taking too much prescription medication. Recording a conclusion of drug-related death, he said: These were not illicit, or street, drugs, they were prescribed medication. The real danger is in relation to the use of medication that has the potential to kill. Some people may feel they have complete control in understanding their effects but this is a case of someone living in a game of chemical Russian roulette. The Bolton inquest was told Miss Glynn had a personality disorder as well as a history of severe anxiety and post-natal depression, for which she took a number of different prescribed medications. Her mother Janet Glynn, 58, said: She would never do this on purpose, she loved her children so much and she was worried about what would happen to them if she died. Advertisement

People are asking for anti-depressants in situations where perhaps a few years ago they would just wait.

There are people receiving anti-depressants who ten years ago would not have asked for help and these are medications that can turn their lives around, so its good that more of them are being used.

But theres also more people asking for anti-depressants as a quick fix because either theyre not used to feeling sad or less able to tolerate it, or we dont have the resources or social support to get through difficult times.

Perhaps the message should be that these situations happen to everybody. We all have losses and theres an element that brings progress and personal development, but we have to accept that feeling like crying for a few weeks is perfectly normal.

Studies suggest that 10 per cent of adults are on anti-depressants and 8.3 per cent have a diagnosis of depression.

The Mails Good Health section has revealed that more than a million patients are needlessly given anti-depressants or sedatives.

This includes an estimated 800,000 who have been taking anti-depressants for two years, many of whom were wrongly prescribed them.

James Davies, an expert in mental health at the University of Roehampton, claimed patients were given the drugs because waiting lists for therapy were too long.

He dismissed as a smokescreen the argument that pill use was rising because people were more willing to admit to mental health problems.

More people are taking anti-depressants because there is poor provision for alternatives, he said.

Waiting lists are still very long for psychological therapies, so doctors reach for their prescription pads instead. With one in ten people having to wait over a year to access therapy on the NHS  and the rest often waiting for many months  drugs become the only alternative.

Dr Davies believes many are left on the drugs for years because doctors mistake the effects of withdrawal for depression, so patients are put back on them.

He added: Prescribing is also high because we are distributing them on a massive scale to people who, according to NICE guidelines, should not be receiving anti-depressants.

For example, according to the last comprehensive study, between one quarter and one half of people are being prescribed them for minimal depression.

Professor Wendy Burn, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, dismissed this criticism. Anti-depressants are not happy pills, she said. They enable people to cope. They can give people strength to go to work, to see friends, to engage in therapy that will get them better.

Studies show that taking anti-depressants reduces suicidal feelings in the severely depressed.

Rising anti-depressant prescriptions means more people getting the help they need. As a doctor specialising in mental health, I know they are an effective and evidence-based medication for moderate to severe episodes of depression.

Britons take nearly twice as many of the happy pills as counterparts in France, Italy and the Netherlands. Experts last night said patients were demanding a quick fix to avoid feeling down

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, who chairs the Royal College of GPs, said the rise in anti-depressant use could be explained by patients being less inhibited to seek medical help.

But she added: It also shines a light on the lack of alternative treatments in the community, such as talking therapies and CBT that we know can also greatly benefit our patients.

There is growing concern among experts that doctors are over-medicalising patients and prescribing them drugs too easily. NHS figures this month showed that half of adults had taken a prescription drug during the past week.

In 2000, the UK was 7th in the table of anti-depressant use.




Shanghai (Gasgoo)- It is reported that Chen Binbo, the executive vice general-manager of Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co., Ltd (Dongfeng Honda), has already resigned before December 28. Meanwhile, according to insiders from Dongfeng Honda, Zheng Chunkai, the former party chief of Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Company (DFPV), will be the successor as the new executive vice general-manager.



Zheng Chunkai, previously serving as the general-manager of Dongfeng Honda Engine Co., Ltd, is an expert of engine technologies. After becoming vice general-manager of DFPV, he still industriously specialized in the research and development of engine technologies. Since he served as the party chief of DFPV, Zheng Chunkai helped to establish a sound quality management system for Dongfeng Fengshen brand, laying a solid foundation for company to set the strategy goal of quality management within the same year.

Led by Chen Binbo, Dongfeng Honda did an outstanding sales performance in 2017. It has maintained a rapid sales growth in 2017 and raised its annual sales target twice to 700,000 units. From January to November, the delivery sales volume grew 25% year on year, to 650,664 units. The cumulative wholesales volume of the first eleven months reached 647,371 units, up 27.8% from a year earlier. On December 26, Dongfeng Honda accomplished its annual sales target of 700,000 units ahead of schedule. It was also learned that Hongfeng Honda is challenging a new annual sales target of 714,000 units before 2018 comes.
Britain's highest paid GP was paid at least 700,000 in a year, it has emerged.

The family doctor earned more than 505,000 more than the chief executive of NHS England, according to a Freedom of Information request.

The average GP earns an average salary of 90,000, but doctors can earn more by linking up surgeries, making record earnings by managing tens of thousands of patients.

Figures revealed more than 200 'Super GPs' in the NHS earned more than 200,000 a year in 2015/16.

The average GP earns an average salary of 90,000, but doctors can earn more by linking up surgeries, making record earnings by managing tens of thousands of patients (file photo)

Four were on salaries between 400,000 and 450,000 while 11 were paid between 300,000 and 350,000 a year.

Family doctors have to provide details of their salaries to their Primary Care Trust every year so the NHS can calculate how much to pay into their pension pots.

Many GPs earn just 56,000, while partners can earn up to double their basic pay as they are acting as small business owners.

Alex Wild, of the Taxpayer's Alliance, told the Times it was 'clear something is going badly wrong' with GPs salaries.

In 2011 the Mail revealed the top-earning GP in the country receives an annual salary of more than 750,000.

The astonishing pay packet is his or her pre-tax income even after all outgoings  including the salaries of all locums, nurses and receptionists they employ  have been taken into account.

The unidentified GP from Kent is believed to be reaping the benefits of a contract that allows doctors to run several surgeries that rake in NHS cash for providing extra treatment.

Figures revealed more than 200 'Super GPs' in the NHS earned more than 200,000 a year in 2015/16 (file photo)

It enabled doctors to top up their pay by meeting targets for treating a range of conditions as well as allowing them to opt out of working evenings and weekends.

This could include minor surgery to remove cysts or ingrowing toenails, treatment for drug addicts or alcoholics or screening for cervical cancer.

A second doctor in Birmingham has been found to be earning an annual sum of 665,000, while another in Essex was paid 412,400.

Dr Vijayakar Abrol, a GP in Birmingham, said in 2011: 'These Super GPs are more like businessmen. They employ slaves to run their practices  practice nurses and half a dozen locum doctors.

'But if you look at all the indicators, they show that the care they are providing is not better, it is worse.

'The smaller practices are better and patients see a familiar GP, not a locum.'

In the latest pay revelations, Alex Wild, of the Taxpayers Alliance, told the Times: 'Few would begrudge paying doctors well, but it's clear a minority are creating empires and raking in far more than could have been imagined by those who proposed the arrangements.

'The chancellor allocated yet more money to the NHS at the budget last month, but when a GP can earn eight times as much as the average consultant you have to question whether greater emphasis should be placed on making the most of existing resources.'

The British Medical Association told the paper the figures do not represent the majority of GPs who have seen their income fall in recent years.

A spokesman said: 'The tiny number of individuals listed as earning extremely high incomes are likely to be in an extremely small minority. They are likely not to be working on the front line treating patients, but managing large businesses instead.'
The country's top GP says patients should take three basic steps before going to see their family doctor.

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard said too many patients were turning up to surgeries with heartburn and other minor ailments.

Instead they should treat themselves, look up their symptoms online or go to a pharmacist before phoning the GP.

The head of the Royal College of GPs said that even if only one in ten patients avoided going to the surgery, it would free up 100,000 appointments a day.

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard said patients should treat themselves, look up their symptoms online or go to a pharmacist before phoning the GP for an appointment

GP services across England are struggling to cope with the pressures of the rising and aging population on top of a recruitment crisis.

They are particularly busy at this time of year dealing with the flu and winter vomiting bug. In recent weeks NHS officials have been strongly encouraging patients to see their GP rather than going to overstretched A&E units.

But Professor Stokes-Lampard  who practises in Lichfield, Staffordshire  urged patients to follow a 'three before GP' rule of thumb.

'We're just asking people to stop and think, when you reach for the phone to book a GP appointment: "Can I do this myself? Do I need some online help? Could a pharmacists help me?"

'We believe that up to a quarter of appointments could be avoidable or sorted out by another means.

'Of course for many things you'll still be phoning the GP and that's fine  that's what we're here for.

'But if just 10 per cent of people didn't come and see their GP, but did one of those three things, that would make a huge difference.'

Professor Stokes-Lampard added: 'It would give us the capacity to deal with those who really need our help at a difficult time for the whole NHS.

'Today, over a million people will be seeing a GP. If 100,000 of those were seen elsewhere, the difference that would make.

'For example, yesterday in surgery people were coming in with indigestion  this is a classic one at this time of year.

The head of the Royal College of GPs said that even if only one in ten patients avoided going to the surgery, it would free up 100,000 appointments a day (file photo)

'People eat a bit too much, drink a bit too much, gain a bit of weight in the winter and develop indigestion and heartburn  that's the sort of thing where a pharmacists could easily signpost them to a range of medications.'

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrats' former health minister, said: 'Fundamentally, this is sound advice  it is not always appropriate to go to a GP.

IS THIS A U-TURN? In October, the country's leading GP urged doctors to clamp down on an army of cyberchondriac patients who self-diagnose from online searches. Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said many are adamant they have an illness after consulting Google with their symptoms. Experts have previously warned such patients are putting the cash-strapped NHS under increasing strain by overrunning GP surgeries and turning up to A&E. In an interview with Pulse magazine, Professor Stokes-Lampard said: 'Dr Google enters 80 per cent of consultations that I have now. 'I feel we need to raise that particularly with patients... and we have to work with it and we have to be bold and that's a challenge for all of us I think.' Her comments at a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference come after amid warnings the problem of self-diagnosis is becoming 'remarkably common'. Advertisement

'However, the risk is that with general practice under impossible strain, patients who really need to see their doctor do not go.'

Chloe Westley, campaign manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'It's deeply disappointing that the NHS is struggling to provide essential services, while so much money is wasted on non-essential prescriptions and paying for top NHS bureaucrats.

'It's time for the NHS to cut out waste and prioritise providing the essential services that we pay for.'

The Government has promised to hire an extra 5,000 GPs by 2020 but figures last month showed that 1,200 had quit in the previous year.

Many older doctors are retiring early to avoid hefty pension taxes, or moving to Australia and New Zealand for a better life balance.

They are not being replaced by trainee doctors who regard a GP career as second rate compared with becoming a surgeon or cancer specialist.

Professor Stokes-Lampard said: 'There are measures being put in place to train more GPs  and in fairness there are now more doctors training to be GPs than ever before  but that takes time to come through the system.

'But all of this is too little too late for some  we hear of practices closing at an alarming rate.'

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'We recognise that GPs are under a lot of pressure.

'That is why we have committed to an extra 5,000 doctors in general practice by 2020  supported by investment of an extra 2.4 billion a year by 2020 to improve care and deliver better patient access.'
Bacon is currently produced using potentially-harmful nitrites during the curing process, which has been linked to bowel cancer.

But from the New Year onwards the new Naked Bacon will be available to millions in UK supermarkets, thanks to a technological breakthrough.

World Health Organisation officials warned in 2015 that just two rashers of bacon a day or half a burger increases the risk of cancer by a fifth.

Fom the New Year onwards the new Naked Bacon will be available to millions in UK supermarkets, thanks to a technological breakthrough

In a major announcement, the WHO said processed meat had the same cancer-causing threat level as cigarettes, asbestos and the deadly poison arsenic.

It pointed to research showing how eating just 50g of processed meat a day increases the risks of tumours of the bowel by 18 per cent.

This is equivalent to just one sausage, half a burger, two meatballs, or two slices of ham or bacon.

As a result, worried UK shoppers bought 25.4 million fewer packs of bacon the following year.

But from next month Naked Bacon, processed using natural fruit and spice extracts and produced by Northern Ireland food company Finnebrogue, will be sold across British supermarkets.

Scientists and MPs hailed the remarkable technological breakthrough yesterday.

Tory Neil Parish, Chairman of the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee told The Sun: Its a remarkable feat of food technology and a brilliant British success story.

This is further evidence that the British food industry is going from strength to strength.

World Health Organisation officials warned in 2015 that just two rashers of bacon a day or half a burger increases the risk of cancer by a fifth

UK firms like Finnebrogue are producing some of the best food anywhere in the world. Chris Elliott, chief of the Institute for Global Food Security, commented: Nitro containing compounds, used in the manufacture of traditional bacons, are known to cause the formation of chemicals that have negative health impacts.

To have a bacon produced naturally, that doesnt require such chemicals to be added or formed during processing, is a very welcome development. The bacon was tested by blindfolded punters, who were reportedly unable to spot the difference between a rasher cured with nitrite and the new Naked Bacon.

Denis Lynn, chairman of Finnebrogue, said: The problem with bacon is dead simple.

Bacon contains nitrites, nitrites produce nitrosamines in your gut and nitrosamines are carcinogenic.

Our Naked Bacon is not only safer than any other bacon on the market, it also tops the charts in blind taste tests.

This really is the biggest revolution to the British breakfast for a generation. This is the first time bacon free from nitrite will be sold to millions of people in supermarkets, after 13.5 million was spent over ten years developing the much-welcomed product.

In 2018 Finnebrogue will be able to produce 60 million rashers, costing about 3 for a pack of six bacon rashers.

Processed meat describes any red meat that has been cured, smoked or had preservatives added to increase its shelf-life.

Scientists believe that it is these chemicals - including sodium nitrates and nitrites - which trigger tumour growth.

The new bacon product will be available in Waitrose, Morrisons, Sainsburys and also in Booker in Northern Ireland.

Marks & Spencer will work with Finnebrogue to produce its own brand of the nitrite free bacon.
It has long been advertised as the antidote to the anxieties and stresses of modern living.

But mindfulness could be making people more selfish, an expert psychiatrist has claimed.

Dr Alison Gray, of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said meditating makes easier for people to start over-analysing their life, becoming inward-looking and self-centred.

Dr Alison Gray, of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, (not pictured) said meditating makes easier for people to start over-analysing their life, becoming inward-looking and self-centred

The psychiatrist, who chairs the spirituality special interest group at the college, said it was more helpful for people to seek help from a community, such as a religion, in order to battle stress.

In as much as religion is about binding people together, spirituality can become inward looking and selfish, she told the Daily Telegraph.

In no way does that happen to everyone - in many cases increases their passion for the whole world. But theres a potential for it to become inward-looking and basically self-centred.

Dr Gray claims mindfulness could make people more aware of their negative emotions, which has a destabilising effect.

She said: When you look inside yourself what you find can be quite negative and quite destabilising, and so you need a community around you to help process this stuff and keep you healthy.

Mindfulness, described by the NHS as paying more attention to the present moment, has become popular in recent years as more people suffer from stress and anxiety.

The practice, which is recommended by the National Insitute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), involves activities such as meditation and breathing exercises.

Mindfulness, described by the NHS as paying more attention to the present moment, has become popular in recent years as more people suffer from stress and anxiety

It is claimed that those who practice mindfulness are able to spot signs of stress and anxiety and deal with the emotions properly.

The psychiatrists comments come after schoolchildren were taught mindfulness as part of a government-led trial to tackle anxiety.

In May, children as young as eight were taught breathing exercises in school, while exam-age pupils were given hour-long classes on mental health.

In February last year, a study found religious people were more likely to feel happy and fulfilled in their lives.

The data, released by the Office for National Statistics, found those who did not have a religion reported lower levels of happiness and self-worth.

The report also showed middle-aged people were the happiest in the country, as most people are at their least stressed around the age of 45.
A baby boy is celebrating his first birthday today with a smile on his new face after a complex surgery removed a large mass that covered his eyes and nose.

Zakary Riegel was born with a rare condition that caused brain tissue to grow in between his eyes and outside of his face to form a large balloon-like cyst.

After his first four months of life were spent in Cincinnati Children's Hospital, he underwent dangerous life-altering brain surgery to remove the mass that allowed his 46-year-old mother Valeka, a surgical nurse, see her son's face for the first time.

Now the one-year-old is beginning to reach milestones such as crawling and standing, though he is at a greater risk of developmental disorders and seizures.

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One-year-old Zakary Riegel was born with a mass that covered his entire face until undergoing complex surgery at four months old

The boy spent his first four months of life in Cincinnati Children's Hospital until he grew to 15 pounds in order to have the nine-hour surgery which involved facial reconstruction

When Valeka was five months pregnant with her third son Zakary, a fetal MRI and ultrasound revealed that a tube in his brain had not closed which meant he had encephalocele.

Doctors told Valeka her son would most-likely be born with a cyst on his cheek, yet the outcome was far worse.

He was born with a balloon-like pouch made up of tissue and brain matter that covered his face from his eyes to his mouth.

Encephalocele is a rare birth defect that occurs when the neural tube, a channel that forms the brain and spinal cord, does not completely close as it should in the third and fourth weeks of pregnancy.

This results in an opening in the area of the skull between the forehead and nose or the back of skull where parts of the brain grow outward.

It is not known what causes the genetic condition that affects one in 12,000 babies in the US.

WHAT IS ENCEPHALOCELE? Encephalocele is a rare type of neural tube defect (NTD) present at birth that affects the brain. The neural tube is a narrow channel that folds and closes during the third and fouth weeks of pregnancy to form the brain and spinal cord. Encephalocele is described as a sac-like protrusion or projection of the brain and the membranes that cover it through an opening in the skull. Encephalocele happens when the neural tube does not close completely during pregnancy. The result is an opening in the midline of the upper part of the skull, the area between the forehead and nose, or the back of the skull. Usually encephaloceles are found right after birth, but sometimes a small encephalocele in the nose and forehead region can go undetected. How rare is it? Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each year about 340 babies or one in 12,000 in the United States are born with encephalocele. What causes it? There is a genetic component to the condition, meaning it often occurs among families with a history of spina bifida and anencephaly. Some researchers also believe that certain environmental exposures before or during pregnancy might be causes, but more research is needed. Source: Center for Disease Control and Prevention Advertisement

When Zakary was born last December, he and his mother were immediately separated into two different hospitals because of Zakary's condition and Valeka was bleeding excessively from the birth.

Valeka wrote an open-letter to her son where she said: 'I saw you only for a second, because I hemorrhaged and was immediately intubated by the ICU team. They saved my life, while you were down the street fighting for yours.'

The mass restricted Zakary's breathing requiring him to stay in the neonatal intensive care for nearly five months until he was big enough to undergo surgery.

'I could not see your face, only a large protrusion and tiny little lips  no eyes, no nose, no eyelashes. Yet, you were still beautiful to me,' Valeka wrote.

At four and a half months, Zakary weighed the desired 15 pounds to undergo a challenging procedure to remove part of his brain, close the opening in his skull and do so delicately to reduce bleeding and swelling that could cause long-term brain damage.

He underwent a cranitomy, a surgical operation where a bone flap is removed from the skull to access the brain.

During the same surgery doctors removed the mass and sealed the hole in his skull that had caused the sac-like protrusion in the front of his head.

Dr Charles Stevenson, the pediatric neurosurgeon who led Zakary's surgery said: 'There were several steps involved, including exposing the forehead, exposing the defect, amputating all that tissue, and then reconstructing a normal brain, and then reconstructing all of the normal layers or barriers which had formed a the time of development.'

Dr Stevenson said before the surgery he quickly phoned a friend because 'I knew we would need a complex reconstruction of his face and the nasal bridge to make it work.'

Plastic surgeon Brian Pan conducted a facial reconstruction during the nine-hour procedure.

He said: 'The techniques we used were relatively routine but the presentation and the rarity of these conditions made it an interesting patient to work with.'

After nine hours in the operating room, Zakary was in the pediatric intensive care unit on a breathing tube while the swelling in his brain went down.

Valeka wrote: 'For the first time I saw your face! You have two beautiful brown eyes, with long fluffy, eyelashes and eyebrows. You even had a little button nose and perfectly shaped lips. Your scars were minimal but your swelling was quite overwhelming.'

According to his mother, Zakary was pulling out his IVs which was a sign he was ready for his breathing tube to be taken out.

'The first thing he did after extubation was smile, and 23 hours later he was out of the pediatric ICU,' Valeka said.

Zakary now has a higher risk of developmental disorders and seizures due to the invasive surgery on his brain, but Valeka said she is focusing on the present as her son is progressing each day.

Zakary suffers from encephalocele, a rare condition where a tube in the brain does not fully close causing brain tissue to grow outward either in the front or back of the head
The parents of a terminally ill boy, once cradled by Prince Harry during a hospital visit, have released moving footage of his reaction to an Ed Sheeran song.

Ollie Carroll's plight became headline news and touched the nation earlier this year in May when a striking image emerged of the six-year-old being hugged by the Prince.

The pair first met at a prestigious awards ceremony in October 2016, where Ollie scooped the gong for the inspirational child category.

Heartbreaking new footage has now been posted online of the boy shedding a tear as he listened to Sheeran's new tune 'Perfect' which is currently the UK's Christmas number one song.

Ollie, of Poynton, Cheshire, was undergoing a brain infusion at Great Ormond Street Hospital for his rare genetic condition when the touching video was taken.

He and his four-year-old sister Amelia suffer from Battens disease, which has no cure. Their condition means the siblings are unlikely to live past the age of 12.

Ollie, a massive fan of Sheeran, is no longer able to sing along to his favourite songs as the fatal disease has robbed him of his ability to speak.

Heartbreaking new footage has been posted online of Ollie Carroll shedding a tear as he listened to Ed Sheeran's new tune 'Perfect', the UK Christmas Number One

WHAT IS BATTEN DISEASE? Batten disease, also known as Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinoses, is a rare genetically-inherited disease. It is caused by waste buildup in the cells which creates neurodegnerative effects including: Blindness

Seizures

Personality changes

Dementia

Loss of motor skills and the ability to walk, talk and communicate Because it is a rare disease, it is often difficult to diagnosed and untested at birth. There are 14,000 children worldwide that are diagnosed with the disorder. There is currently no known cure or treatment available for Batten disease. Advertisement

He was able to meet the British superstar, who has more than 20 million followers on Twitter, when they cuddled backstage at Sheeran's concert in Manchester in April.

His mother, Lucy, posted the emotional clip on Ollie's Facebook page, called 'Ollie's Army Battling Against Battens', which has 17,000 'likes'.

She told MirrorOnline: 'It was very emotional. Ollie really responds to music. We often play Ed Sheeran songs for him.'

Ollie's aunt, Emily, wrote on Facebook: 'Ollie's mummy sent me this video of Ollie at Great Ormond Street today having his infusion.

'Please watch carefully what Ollie experiences in this video. Music impacts Ollie so much (he especially loves Ed).

'The fact Ollie responds to music lets us know that Ollie is aware of what is going on around him and a part of us believes he can still understand the words in the lyrics.'

She added: 'I hope this video touches your heart. It breaks ours. We are sure Ollie knows he has his Army and that lots of people care about him.

'Ollie's Army helps him experience new things and we know that Ollie responds to these. Please continue to support Ollies Army for this brave little boy & his sister xx.'

Supporters of the cause reacted with emotions. One user wrote: 'Bless him. That little tear broke my heart.'

Another said the 'gorgeous' boy's tear also broke her heart, while a third described the clip as 'touching' and revealed it made her 'tear up'.

Ollie's plight touched the nation in 2016 when a striking image emerged of the six-year-old being hugged by the Prince - dubbed his 'Diana moment'

Ollie, a fan of Sheeran, is no longer able to sing along to his favourite songs as the fatal disease has robbed him of his ability to speak

Prince Harry paid an emotional surprise visit to see Ollie in May after they met at the 2016 WellChild Awards, where he won the inspirational child category

He and his four-year-old sister Amelia (pictured with Prince Harry) suffer from Battens disease, which has no cure. Their condition means the siblings are unlikely to live past the age of 12
A new year is often seen as a prime time for sorting out finances and many households will be going into 2018 with intentions to up their savings, pay off debts or get a better-paid job.

But what if you could boost your coffers just by tracking down some cash you didnt know or forgot you had?

There is currently 400million in unclaimed pension savings in the UK, according to government statistics  and it often takes just a couple of phone calls to track down a pension pot that you are owed.

Buried treasure? Pension pots worth 400million are currently lying unclaimed

Just 47 per cent of savers know who their current pension is with, according to a recent survey by financial services company OneFamily.

This can make it harder for people to keep track of their investments and puts them at greater risk of losing them.

Savers are also unsure about how much they have, with 32 per cent saying they have no idea what they have saved and a further 37 per cent saying they only have a vague idea.

Keeping track of pension pots can be difficult as the average worker now holds 11 jobs on average over their working lives and often build up pots at each of them.

Details of pension pots can easily go astray, especially for those who move homes and do not notify any previous schemes.

It should get easier to keep track of them all from 2019 as a pension dashboard should be made available to all workers, with details of all of their pensions in one place.

It is hoped this will make it easier for workers to plan finances in retirement as it will be possible to see how much you are likely to have to live on in retirement and what it would take to make up any shortfall between that amount and what you would ideally like to have.

Simon Markey, chief executive of OneFamily, said: The start of new year is a great opportunity for savers to get their existing investments in order, plus think about the future and what they might need.

Tracking down and keeping on top of existing savings is the first step, but also thinking about what you might need in your later years, and how you plan to fund them, is equally important.

Seven tips to boost your retirement savings OneFamily shares its tips for boosting your retirement savings:  Contact old employers. If you think you may have had a pension through an old job contact the HR team at the company who should be able to point you in the right direction  Combine your pots. If you find multiple pots too much to manage, sometimes it makes sense to combine them - but check what it would cost you in fees first  Track down lost pots: Get in touch with old providers so you can map out what money you may have sitting with them. The Government provides a handy Pensions Tracing Service to help you find lost pots  Start young: There are lots of options to help top up your retirement savings, such as Lifetime Isas  Check just how much you are saving for retirement: Check you are putting away enough to meet your retirement goals in plenty of time before stopping work.  Talk to a financial adviser. This can help you think about how much you need to save for retirement, or when you are getting close to could help you make the most of your pensions savings  Make the most of what you have once you reach retirement: For those nearing retirement, they might feel their existing savings will not enable them to achieve the level of income they need. However, there are other ways to boost the cash youll need for retirement.

The research comes as a second survey suggests that graduates could face poorer retirements than those in the past due to the level of student debt with which they are burdened.

The cost of paying back debt could reduce graduate pension pots by almost 20 per cent compared with generations with no student debt, according to analysis from mutual insurer Royal London.

Lifetime earnings and pension pots are generally higher for those who attended university. However the gap between graduates and non-graduates is set to reduce as student loan payments leave graduates with less money to save for retirement.

Jamie Clark, business development manager for Royal London Intermediary pension business said: New graduates are already facing a squeeze on their disposable income which is making it harder for them to get a foot on the property ladder.

But this analysis shows that a lack of disposable income is also likely to make it harder for them to save for the long term as well. We estimate that graduates with student debt could easily end up with pension pots one fifth lower than the levels enjoyed by those graduates who enjoyed tuition-fee free education.'
A devastated landlord has been left almost 20,000 out of pocket after her two properties in Scotland were trashed by troublesome tenants.

Vaughn Khelifa, 64, a medical sales executive who now lives in Tunisia, has insisted she is 'never ever going to be a landlord again' after the nightmare experience.

One of the tenants left knives stuck in the walls, excrement smeared over the bathroom and threatening graffiti scrawled inside the property.

Mrs Khelifa claimed there was 'little protection for landlords' after she had to fork out thousands of pounds to refurbish and redecorate her trashed houses.

Vaughn Khelifa, 64, said she never wanted to be a landlord again after a nightmare experience with tenants at two properties - one left knives stuck in the walls (pictured)

The tenant at Mrs Khelifa's house in Clackmannan left knives in the walls and the house in a filthy condition

The tenant also left disturbing messages inked on the walls of Mrs Khelifa's property

The 64-year-old, who is now working as an English language foreign teacher, encountered problems at the homes she owns in both Clackmannan and Glasgow.

Discussing the problems she had at the Clackmannan property she told MailOnline: 'It was a small house and there was a middle aged couple in their 50s who had been living there for 18 months. They were fully vetted and there were no problems for 18 months.

'They paid their rent on time, but then in June they stopped paying their rent. They had signed for a year to be in the property in April.

'I couldn't go and access the houseI had to wait three months until it was deemed an "emergency". The photographs of the house are what the agent found when they went round in the first week of September.

'There was food on the cooker, there were knives stuck in the walls, 90 per cent of the furniture was still there, there was excrement in the bathroom and there was graffiti on the walls. It was disturbing for the agent who went round. She called the police but they said it was vandalism and it was nothing to do with them.

This room in Mrs Khelifa's Clackmannan house was left in a filthy condition by her tenant

Mrs Khelifa complained how there was 'very little protection for good landlords' after her Clackmannan property (kitchen pictured) was left in a disgusting state

Mrs Khelifa said the tenants left when they owed more than 1,000 in rent and she then had to spend another 1,000 to repair the damage to the property

'My beef is there is very little protection for good landlordsyou hear a lot about rogue landlords but there is no one there to protect me.

'You wouldn't go into a Tesco, damage the walls, take money from the store and then walk out...so why can you do it to people's property? I don't know who these people are.'

Mrs Khelifa said the tenants left when they owed more than 1,000 in rent.

She then had to fork out another 1,000 to repair the damage to the house.

This was the interior of Mrs Khelifa's Clackmannan home - threatening messages such as 'f*** off' were written on the walls (picture picture, top left)

Mrs Khelifa said: 'We have been the victims. Far from subsiding our retirement it has cost us dearly' (pictured: inside of the Clackmannan property)

Despite the tenants stopping paying their rent in June this year, Mrs Khelifa couldn't get access to her flat for three months - until it was deemed an 'emergency'. These pictures are what the letting agent found when they went to the property in September

To make matters worse the 64-year-old also had to deal with a nightmare tenant at the home she owned in Glasgow.

She had bought the property four years ago for 62,000 when it was for sale at an auction.

She said: 'It was a horrendous situation. It came with a sitting tenant. She was a single mother-of-four who was living on benefits [she got 2,400 a month] and she had been living there for six years.

'The structural work at the house that needed doing was never finished as the tenant never let people, like electricians or gas people, into the house and in Scotland you can't get access to a property unless it's an "absolute necessity".

Mrs Khelifa was then contacted by the tenant who told her sewage was coming up through the toilet.

'Workers found the blockage had been caused by inappropriate material being put down the toilet, like baby wipes', she said. 'She was culpable for this...it was her responsibility, but she didn't pay for that.'

She added: 'The tenant wouldn't let workers into the house and then she just left...I think she went to stay with her mother. She left everything in the house.

'It took me a year to get the eviction notice through a lawyer. I couldn't get my money back in missing rent and I wasn't allowed to know who the tenant was because of data protection.

'The tenant called Glasgow City Council and as she was on government benefits, she stopped paying rent. The house was in a pretty horrific state.'

Mrs Khelifa (pictured) claimed there was 'little protection for landlords' who have rogue tenants

Mrs Khelifa said she had to spent 17,000 to refurbish the house and has now put it up for sale.

She said all the internal and external doors had been smashed and the bathroom floor had to replaced due to the sewage spill.

She also paid for a new kitchen and refurbished the rest of the bathroom.

'I did have it insured', she said. 'But they said they wouldn't cover it as she was a sitting tenant.'

She also said 'vandalism' was not covered by insurance and police were 'not interested' as it wasn't 'their domain'.

She said: 'We have been the victims. Far from subsiding our retirement it has cost us dearly.

'I worked for more than 40 years and feel so let down by the system of tenants having all the rights.'

Mrs Khelifa is not the first landlord to complain about rogue tenants.

In a separate incident last month Angela Leeming, 62, a grandmother-of-one from Colne, in Lancashire, fought a legal battle to regain possession of her rental property and was left with a 10,000 bill after it was left trashed and covered in animal faeces.

Mrs Leeming, a mother-of-two, found dog and cat faeces on the furniture and mounds of litter piled high in every room.

The tenant, a single mother-of-three in her 30s, also left the house with bottles strewn everywhere, as well as mouldy food and old clothes lying around.

She spent thousands of pounds with her mechanic husband Tom, 63, decorating the three-bed terrace house to a standard she 'would want to live in'.

However the couple were left with a bill for more than 10,000 in court costs, damage repairs and lost rent since the tenant stopped paying rent in March last year.

She was eventually evicted through a court order.

The first-time landlord has called for a change in the law to give landlords more power to recoup losses when a house is damaged and to evict problematic tenants quicker.
Two days of deluges have dumped a month's worth of rain in some parts of the country, causing chaos on the roads and for commuters attempting to get to work this morning. Trains have been delayed this morning after flooding stopped them on the tracks, while some major roads were left shut due to the amount of standing water. The Met Office has warned that some areas could see almost four inches of rain in the coming 24 hours, as the 'atrocious' weather looks set to continue. The service has put in place two warnings for heavy rain which are in force across large part of the midlands and the north, as well as eastern Scotland, while the Environment Agency has issued 25 flood warnings and 99 alerts in England. Photos show cars stuck in deep standing water and lorries partially submerged after misjudging the extent of the flooding in Surrey and West Sussex. The M23 southbound was closed between J10 and J11 as workers tried to remove standing water during Rush Hour this morning, after the road and the nearby A27 was closed overnight due to flooding, with firefighters called in to rescue trapped motorists last night. Emergency services spent the night trying to free those trapped in the horrendous conditions, as well as removing vehicles stuck in the rising water. As of this morning the road's eastbound carriageway remains closed. There was also severe disruption on the trains in and around London this morning, with trains from Essex into the capital delayed after reports a lorry hit a railway crossing barrier, while part of the Piccadilly Line between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge has no service this morning, with Transport for London blaming 'significant leaf fall'
A Chinese man who killed a caged and endangered black bear with a machine gun claimed that he did it out of curiosity during a sightseeing tour in Myanmar.

The man said he shot the bear dead after having gained permission from the government in Myanmar's Wa State, which borders China, according to Beijing News.

The man, whose name has not been revealed, also claimed his weapon had been provided by the local government.

An expert has identified the bear in the video to be an Asiatic black bear, an endangered animal species.

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A Chinese man has been caught on camera shooting a caged black bear dead with a machine gun. The shocking video has been widely shared by Chinese web users and sparked an outcry

The man claimed that he was travelling in Wa State in Myanmar as a tourist at the time. He saw that the local government were about to execute the bear, so he asked them if he could shoot it

The man's shocking behaviour was captured on a video believed to be shot by another tourist in the same group.

The video became widely shared on Chinese social media on December 27 and sparked controversy.

In the video, the man can be heard yelling in a Chinese dialect to the bear, which was kept in a cage: 'I told you not to open your mouth. Do that again and I would make you surrender.'

He then gave the bear one shot with the gun and the bear fell to the ground.

The video also showed several bear paws lying on the ground near the cage. One man could be seen cutting fur off a dead bear later in the video.

It was initially suggested that the incident occurred in Yunnan Province in China.

The forest police of Yunnan investigated the allegations and claimed that the man in the video is Chinese but the video was filmed in Myanmar, according to Beijing News.

Asiatic black bear is an endangered species and is often illegally traded in Asia. Pictured, a rescued black bear is enjoying a bath at the Animals Asia's rescue centre in Chengdu, Sichuan

After the video of him killing the bear (left) became viral, a man from China's Shandong Province claimed responsible for the matter. In a statement (right), he said he was just curious

In an updated report released today by Beijing News, a man from eastern China's Shandong Province claimed responsible for the matter.

ENDANGERED: ASIATIC BLACK BEAR Asiatic black bear is also known as moon bear. The species is listed as Appendix I by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an international agreement between governments aimed to protect endangered animals and plants. Appendix I is the highest category for endangered species, and according to the convention, animals in the category are threatened with extinction. Advertisement

He issued a statement in a video filmed outside a police station. The man claimed that he had just dealt with the matter in the police station.

According to the man, the bear was about to be executed by the local government in Wa State of Myanmar after hurting people.

He said he saw the execution and felt 'curious' as a tourist, so he asked if he could kill the bear. He insisted that he had got permission before shooting the bear dead.

The man also claimed that the criticism on social media had brought trouble to his life, therefore he would like to provide an explanation.

He said: 'Video [of the shooting] was not allowed to be shared. I don't know which tourist sent the video onto the internet in China. I was condemned by the web users. I would like to clarify the matter.'

At the end of his statement, the man called on the public to protect animals. He said: 'Take this as a lesson. Protect animals. Start from ourselves.'

It remains unclear whether or not the Chinese authority would bring charges against the man.

The Chinese tourist said he shot the bear dead after having gained permission from the government in Myanmar's Wa State (above, file photo). The Wa State borders China

Asiatic black bear is also known as moon bear.

The species is listed as Appendix I by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an international agreement between governments aimed to protect endangered animals and plants.

Appendix I is the highest category for endangered species, and according to the convention, animals in the category are threatened with extinction.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On December 28, Jingchi Technology, a start-up of former Baidu autonomous driving chief, signed an agreement with Guangzhou Development District on autonomous driving program. At the same time, the company announced that its global headquarter will be located in the district and the core team will be moved from the Silicon Valley to the new headquarter.

What the start-up made clear is that it aims to be the first company in China to industrialize autonomous vehicles at large scale and to develop global leading autonomous driving technology. It will build the first commercial operation site for autonomous vehicles. From the first quarter of next year, it will build 500 to 1,000 driverless vehicles per year.

In the coming three years, the company plans to attract and nurture 1,000 talents. It is ambitious to build Guangzhou an artificial intelligence (AI) highland. Besides, the company will participate and build global leading AI research institute as well as AI schools.

Whats more, with the purpose to shape the intelligent mobility ecology, Jingchi Technology will join forces with several financing corporations to set up an RMB 10-billion industry fund and develop intelligent driving, intelligent manufacturing and intelligent mobility.

Statistics show that Jingchi Technology was founded in April, 2017 by Wangjing, former leader of Baidu autonomous driving department. On May 12, the company finished its testing on closed roads and obtained the DMV road testing license. A week later, it tested on open roads. In September, it managed to raise 52 million dollars.

But recently, it also got some problems. Baidu, which Wang Jing once worked for, took the founder and the start-up to court, claiming that the founder stole its proprietary autonomous driving technology for the start-up. Wang Jing rebutted the claim, saying it is groundless. He also disclosed that the company will present its technology strength in two weeks.
Two Romanian hackers have been arrested and charged with overtaking two-thirds of Washington's outdoor surveillance cameras just before Trump's inauguration, officials said Thursday.

Mihai Alexandru Isvanca, 25, and Eveline Cismaru, 28 were arrested in Bucharest on December 15 and charged with conspiracy and various forms of computer fraud, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in Washington.

The Justice Department said the pair managed to disable 123 of the Metropolitan Police Department's 187 outdoor surveillance cameras in early January by infecting computer systems with ransomware.

The pair were attempting 'to extort money' in exchange for unlocking the computer, according to an affidavit filed in court.

Mihai Alexandru Isvanca, 25, and Eveline Cismaru, 28 have been arrested and charged with overtaking two-thirds of Washington's outdoor surveillance cameras just before Trump's inauguration (stock image of the outside of the US Capitol Building)

The Justice Department said the pair from Romania managed to disable 123 of the Metropolitan police department's 187 outdoor surveillance cameras in early January by infecting computer systems with ransomware (STOCK IMAGE)

They have been described as being part of a bigger extortionist hacking group, according to the Washington Post.

The case 'was of the highest priority' because it impacted efforts to plan security ahead of the 2017 presidential inauguration, according to officials.

The case 'was of the highest priority' because it impacted efforts to plan security ahead of the 2017 presidential inauguration, according to officials (pictured is a member of the US Capitol police standing guard at the US Capitol in 2016)

The Secret Service and other agencies 'quickly ensured that the surveillance camera system was secure and operational' and the investigation found no security threats as a result of the scheme.

Isvanca remains in custody in Romania and Cismaru is on house arrest there pending further legal proceedings, the Justice Department said.

The pair currently face prosecution in Europe, but prosecutors plan to seek extradition, according to court filings.

If convicted they could each likely see 20 years in prison.

Their infiltration into the Metropolitan Police Department's system was discovered on January 12 when an officer noticed several cameras weren't functioning properly, according to the Post.

Secret Service Agent Brian Kaiser was given access to the computers that operate the cameras and found that non-police users were sending spam messages infected with ransoomware to a long list of email addresses.

The problem was resolved when the department took the devices offline, removed all software and restarted the systems at each site. The process took about two days, according to police.

None of the cameras recorded any video between January 12 and January 15, but ransom was never paid.

The Secret Service tracked down Cismaru and Isvanca by tracking the computer accessing email addresses.
Outgoing Minnesota Senator Al Franken says he may be leaving office, but he's not giving up his voice.

During a leaving speech in Minneapolis on Thursday night, the Democrat promised his supporters that he would keep fighting for his beliefs as a political activist.

Sen. Franken, who announced his resignation after accusations of sexual misconduct, is stepping down officially on Tuesday after eight years in the Senate.

Not giving up: Outgoing U.S. Senator Al Franken speaks about his accomplishments and thanks his team, as his eight years in the Senate are set to come to an end next week

All done: Sen. Franken, pictured with his wife Franni, promised his supporters that he would keep fighting for his beliefs after leaving the Senate

'Here is my promise to you: I may be leaving the Senate, but I am not giving up my voice,' Franken said according to CBS Minnesota.

'We still have a lot of work to do together on issues ranging from net neutrality and climate change ... and we still have to be ready to speak out for economic justice and to defend the truth.'

The former 'Saturday Night Live' comedian said he didn't know what to expect when he first ran for office, 'and of course, neither did Minnesotans.'

Franken thanked his wife, Franni, their family and his staff as well as Minnesota's senior senator, Democrat Amy Klobuchar.

He said he still feels like 'the luckiest kid in the world.'

Sen. Franken hugged Senator Amy Klobuchar at the end of his speech in Minneapolis Thursday

Sen.Franken, right, takes the stage at an event Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in Minneapolis. On the left is his son in law Brody Greenwald, wife Franni, daughter Thomasin and son Joe

Nearly done: Sen. Franken, pictured as he waited to take the stage next to his daughter, Thomasin, left, and son, Joe, will officially step down on Tuesday

Leaving: Franken announced his plans to resign earlier this month amid a string of sexual misconduct allegations

Fans: Supporters, staff and Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, right, applaud as outgoing U.S. Sen. Al Franken spoke of his accomplishments and thanked his team

Franken announced his plans to resign earlier this month amid a string of sexual misconduct allegations.

His successor, current Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith, is set to be sworn in on Wednesday.

During his farewell speech Thursday on Capitol Hill last Friday, Sen. Franken tore into President Trump and his fellow Republicans on a number of issues from treatment of LGBT rights to climate change and the middle class.

'As I leave the Senate, I have to admit that it feels like we're losing the war for truth,' Franken said in his final speech on the Senate floor.

'Maybe it's already lost. If that's what happens, then we have lost the ability to have the kinds of arguments that help build consensus.'

'During his inaugural address, President Trump vowed that 'the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,' Franken said.

'But the Republican tax bill represents a slap in the face to those forgotten men and women. I guess the president forgot about them.'
Margaret Thatcher granted the deathbed request of a spy who masterminded one of the greatest World War II operations.

Ewen Montagu wanted to find out the official verdict on Operation Mincemeat, an audacious plan which helped change the course of the war by fooling the Nazis into diverting their troops to the wrong place.

Newly-declassified National Archives files reveal that Mr Montagu, a judge who volunteered for the Navy during the war, wrote to Mrs Thatcher from his deathbed with his request.

Margaret Thatcher granted the deathbed request of spy Ewen Montagu (left) who masterminded one of the greatest World War II missions, Operation Mincemeat

The files reveal that the then Prime Minister granted his last wish, enabling him to read the official account of his success.

Mr Montagus wartime deception, which was the brainchild of James Bond creator Ian Fleming, remains one of the most stunning feats of espionage.

Agents transported the body of a dead tramp dressed in military uniform with fake invasion papers in his pockets to southern Spain by submarine and released close to the Spanish coast. The body was found by a fisherman who gave it to his government who, in turn, passed it to the Nazis.

The faked documents, the subject of the 1950s film The Man Who Never Was, even made it to the desk of Hitler himself.

By convincing the Nazis that the Allies planned to attack Greece instead of Italy, the plot helped change the course of the war.

The extraordinary tale is the subject of a number of books and films which chart how the hoax fooled the Nazis into diverting troops.

Left, the body of Welsh tramp, Glyndwr Michael, who at the hands of British intelligence became Major William Martin RM, and right, Lt Cmdr Ewen Montagu

Now it can be revealed that one of the central characters was desperate to know how history would judge him.

In a 1984 letter to her Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong, he pleaded for the release of an official book on his exploits.

He had discovered that an official history of the operation  which he described as an account of real triumph  had been banned under secrecy rules.

His plaintive letter revealed he had only months to live and he begged to see a draft of the book to learn the official verdict on the plan.

The Naval veteran also pleaded for its release on the grounds that it would boost public morale at a time of uncertainty.

Robert Flemyng, who played Lt. George Acres, and Clifton Webb, who played Montagu, during a scene from The Man Who Never Was, a 1956 film based on the exploits of Operation Mincemeat

He wrote: I, and some others, devoted more than five years of our lives to attempting to deceive the enemy and, on all the evidence then available, we seemed to have been very successful.

Naturally, as an ex-Judge, I feel intensely keen to know what the official verdict is, based on the totality of evidence.

He said he had been eagerly awaiting the publication of Professor Howards Official History but was told it was officially banned.

Expressing surprise that the account remained secret despite his exploits having taken place 40 years earlier, he said publication was desirable.

We are surrounded by an atmosphere of difficulties, dissension and trouble, yet the public are deprived of (what I believe to be) an account of a real triumph of co-operation and ability, he wrote.

A scene from the 1956 film The Man Who Never Was, showing the body washed up on a Spanish beach

Surely that is worth publishing from every point of view, history, morale etc.

In a handwritten PS, he added: In view of my now limited life-span would it be possible for me to see a draft in confidence.

The letter is marked very urgent advice please. Mrs Thatcher was clearly moved by its emotional tone and said she was content for Mr Montagu to see the typescript.

She allowed it on condition that he reads and returns it and does not show it to anyone else - and stated that it should not be published.

Sir Robert expressed her opinion as being that too much has been said and written about intelligence and that less should be said.

American starlet Gloria Grahame and British actor William Russell during filming for The Man Who Never Was

Mr Montagu was thrilled by her decision, writing to her in January: I cannot thank you enough for enabling me to read Professor Michael Howards book before it is too late for me to do so.

Despite his gratitude, he pressed the subject of publication once more, writing that a failure to publish the book would wickedly distort history.

Even the best historians would get hopelessly wrong about why the Germans did this and how we succeeded in doing that, he added.

And, the longer the delay, the more of such distorted histories get published to the confusion of future generations.

He concluded: It is a history of good and successful work and all to the credit of this country.
The Queen with Margaret Thatcher in Lusaka, Zambia, for the Commonwealth conference in 1979

The Queen was in a rage with Margaret Thatcher over her refusal to back sanctions against South Africa and considered scrapping their weekly audience, newly-declassified files reveal.

Her Majesty is said to have fumed that the then prime minister had damaged her Commonwealth by refusing to support hardline actions against the racist apartheid regime.

Her anger, which apparently erupted after a 1987 Commonwealth heads of government summit, is revealed in official Irish files released under the countrys 30-year rule.

A Buckingham Palace source briefed an Irish diplomat on the situation who in turn reported back to the Irish prime minister.

The Commonwealth summit took place in Vancouver, with tighter sanctions against South Africa among the issues that were discussed.

During the talks 47 other leaders agreed to increase pressure on the country to end its apartheid system in which black people were segregated from whites.

But Mrs Thatcher refused to back the calls to end the discriminatory practice  and Britain was blamed for thwarting the move.

The conference ended in bitterness and recriminations among presidents and prime ministers from the former colonies. Mrs Thatcher was seen as having blundered badly.

An Irish diplomat based in London reported back to Dublin that she well knows but cannot admit her mistake.

Mrs Thatcher holds a copy of 'British Aid To Southern Africa' during the closing news conference of the Commonwealth summit in Vancouver, 1987

After speaking with a source inside Buckingham Palace, Richard Ryan, a former charge daffaires at Irelands embassy in London, sent a memo to his prime ministers office.

There is a wide view too that the Queen is in a rage with Mrs Thatcher over her handling of the sanctions question (not because of the substance of the argument but because of its style: the Queen, it is said, sees the insensitivity as further damaging her Commonwealth at a sensitive time), he wrote.

Such was the Queens anger she considered scrapping her weekly audience with Mrs Thatcher, the Palace source told Mr Ryan. The Queen can use the audience to express her views on government matters.

There is a wide view too that the Queen is in a rage with Mrs Thatcher over her handling of the sanctions question Richard Ryan

The diplomat  referring to the Queen as Brenda, a nickname coined by the satirical magazine Private Eye  reported: A source in the Palace said that Brenda was seriously considering cancelling last nights Tuesday audience with the prime minister.

This audience is a standard matter, as regular as Cabinet meetings, which has existed for more than a century.

Mrs Thatchers moods at the time also caused concerns about their possible impact on Anglo-Irish relations.

She was in very bad form over problems in the financial markets which badly set back her plans to sell off the Governments remaining stake in the once state-owned oil giant BP.

Mr Ryan warned that difficulties in Dublin-London relations could be worsened in the short term at least by Mrs Thatchers present mood.

Ireland's Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald shakes the hand of Margaret Thatcher after signing the Anglo-Irish agreement in November 1985

In a footnote, the diplomat suggested that his information on her frame of mind need not be given too much weight but added: We have, though, in the past seen some examples of how the PMs moods can make life more difficult for those around her and doing business with her.

'They tend to add a measure of harshness to her tone and increase her tendency to fix on and reiterate single and simple points.

The files also reveal that the Queen was very much in favour of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, saying it was a step in the right direction.

The accord, signed by Mrs Thatcher and her Irish counterpart Garret FitzGerald in 1985, aimed to bring an end to the Troubles by giving the Irish government an advisory role in Northern Irelands affairs. It sparked mass protests among Unionists in Northern Ireland.

In 1987 the Queens then press secretary Michael Shea had lunch with an Irish diplomat who reported back to the Irish premiers office.

In his report of the private meeting he said the Monarch was in favour of the accord, and a fan of Mr FitzGerald.

c.ellicott@dailymail.co.uk
A legendary airport robbery recounted in the movie 'Goodfellas' came back to haunt an 82-year-old mobster on Thursday, when a judge cited evidence of his role in it while sentencing him to eight years in prison for an unrelated road rage arson.

Vincent Asaro, balding and bespectacled, reacted to the sentence with disgust.

'I don't care what happens to me at this point,' he grumbled.

A legendary airport robbery recounted in the movie 'Goodfellas' came back to haunt 82-year-old mobster, Vincent Asaro (center), on Thursday, when a judge cited evidence of his role in it while sentencing him to eight years in prison for an unrelated road rage arson

The sentence was double what federal guidelines set out as punishment for the 2012 car torching, which prosecutors said resulted when Asaro (pictured in 2014) directed Bonanno crime family associates to set afire the car of a motorist he believed had cut him off

He looked at US District Judge Allyne R. Ross, saying: 'What you sentenced me to is a death sentence anyway.'

The sentence was more than double what federal guidelines set out as punishment for the 2012 car torching, which prosecutors said resulted when Asaro directed Bonanno crime family associates to track down and set afire the car of a motorist he believed had cut him off.

Asaro, speaking before the announcement of the sentence, said he was 'terribly sorry'.

'I was on my way home,' he said. 'It happened. It just got out of hand.'

The judge said she had 'no illusion' that prison will result in Asaro's rehabilitation or bring an end to his 'lifelong career as a member of the Mafia'.

The prison term resulted from a road rage encounter between Asaro and a motorist who became 'embroiled in a high-speed chase at the hands of an enraged Asaro,' the FBI said

She said she was mindful of Asaro's 2015 acquittal in the infamous 1978 heist at the Lufthansa cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, a robbery retold in the 1990 hit film 'Goodfellas,' starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci.

The prison term resulted from a road rage encounter between Asaro and a motorist who became 'embroiled in a high-speed chase at the hands of an enraged Asaro,' the FBI said.

Asaro contacted an associate with access to a local law enforcement database, identified the license plate information of the car and triggered a plan to burn the car in front of the motorist's home, said the head of New York's FBI office, William F. Sweeney Jr.

'The anger that propelled Asaro to action is reminiscent of so many scripted Hollywood dramas, but unlike the fame and fortune of the big screen, Asaro's story ends on a different note,' Sweeney said in a release.

'Today's sentence proves that living life in the fast lane is sure to be short lived.

Acting US Attorney Bridget M. Rohde said Asaro's sentence was 'for a lifetime of violent criminal activity'.

The judge said she was mindful of Asaro's 2015 acquittal in the infamous 1978 heist at the Lufthansa cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, a robbery retold in the 1990 hit film 'Goodfellas,' starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta (right) and Joe Pesci (left)

Interestingly enough, the mobster-turned-FBI informant portrayed by Liotta in the movie, Henry Hill (seen right in 2018), is said to have told an author that Asaro 'had no involvement' in the Lufthansa heist

Before the announcement of the sentence, defense attorney Elizabeth Macedonio blamed the government for the long prison term, saying prosecutors were 'asking you to sentence him for crimes he was acquitted of that occurred 50 or 60 years ago'.

Assistant US Attorney Nicole Argentieri called Asaro a 'one-man crime wave' and said he was a hero in his Queens neighborhood after he was acquitted at trial.

'It's time to send a message, to break the cycle,' she said.

Interestingly enough, the mobster-turned-FBI informant portrayed by Liotta in the movie, Henry Hill, is said to have told an author that Asaro 'had no involvement' in the Lufthansa heist.

According to the Queens Chronicle, Hill, who died in 2015, told author Daniel Simone that Asaro played no role in the crime.

Simone and Hill co-wrote the book The Lufthansa Heist, which was released in early 2015.

Nonetheless, Asaro remains the only individual connected to the mob who was ever formally charged in connection to the robbery.

This photo shows a stolen black van discovered in Brooklyn that police suspected was the van used by thieves who escaped with more than $6 million in cash and jewels from JFK

The mastermind of the robbery was James 'Jimmy the Gent' Burke (seen left after his arrest in 1979), the Irish mobster with the Bonanno crime organization. He was portrayed in the film by De Niro (right). The federal government says Burke and Asaro were close associates

The judge said she reviewed evidence from the trial she had presided over and cited proof Asaro had participated in a 1969 murder and had admitted his role and obtained jewelry from the armed robbery of more than $6 million in cash and jewelry from the Lufthansa terminal.

In 2015, Asaro's son, Jerome Asaro (above), was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison

'He remains dangerous to the public,' she said.

The 1969 murder which the judge referred to was that of Paul Katz.

According to the New York Post, Katz was an associate of both Asaro and James 'Jimmy the Gent' Burke.

Burke, of course, was the Irish mobster who was portrayed in the Scorsese classic by De Niro.

He was also the mastermind of the Lufthansa heist.

Federal prosecutors have long maintained that Burke and Asaro killed Katz because Burke suspected that he was secretly cooperating with the FBI.

Katz, who was strangled to death with a dog chain, was then buried underneath Burke's home in Ozone Park, Queens.

In the 1980s, Asaro learned that the police were looking into Katz's disappearance, according to the Post.

So he allegedly ordered his son, Jerome Asaro, to dig up Katz's remains and move them elsewhere.

In 2013, authorities managed to get wind of the plot and dug up underneath Burke's home.

Federal prosecutors have long maintained that Burke and Vincent Asaro killed low-level mobster Paul Katz because Burke suspected that he was secretly cooperating with the FBI. Prosecutors say Jerome Asaro was told by his father to remove Katz's remains from underneath Burke's home. In 2013, FBI agents (above) found some of Katz's remains there

There they found some of Katz's remains that Jerome Asaro sloppily failed to remove.

In March 2015, Jerome Asaro was sentenced to 7.5 years in federal prison.

Katz's daughter, Ilsa Katz, brought her father's cremated remains into the Brooklyn courtroom.

She dramatically pleaded for the judge to impose a stiff sentence on Asaro.

'When they killed him they killed a family,' Ilsa Katz told Judge Allyne Ross.

'They killed our future.'

Vincent Asaro was found not guilty of killing Katz.
Family and friends of a grandmother forced out of her home of 57 years by her eldest son have packed up the last of her belongings - including a pet kangaroo.

Beverley Priestley, 78, had to be out of 'Salt Glen' in Carinda, 650 kilometres north-west of Sydney, by Friday night or pay her estranged son Duncan $1,000 for every extra day she was there, a court ruled this month.

Mrs Priestley has been too traumatised to return to the property since the High Court awarded her family's $3million farm to Duncan, 55, after he contested his father's will.

Beverley Priestley, pictured with her eldest son Duncan, who is now 55 and gave his elderly mother until just after Christmas to leave the family property

Chris Priestley (left) removes his mother's kangaroo from her home on Friday, with his sister Claire (right)

Benny the kangaroo had to be moved from Beverley Priestley's property on Friday afternoon

Beverley Priestley with a load of her belongings at her daughter Claire's home at Brewarrina

Duncan's sister Claire and brother Chris, who spent Christmas packing up their mother's belongings, were on Friday rushing to clear the property before the deadline passed.

'Just the last of it really,' Claire said.

Mrs Priestley's pet kangaroo Benny - rescued as a joey from a cattle grid during floods in 2012, was being loaded onto a Toyota LandCruiser to be taken to another farm.

'Today's our last day because it's two weeks since the High Court ruling,' said Claire of the December 29 deadline. 'Nice timing.'

While Claire and Chris worked to pack up as much as they could before nightfall, their older brother had not been seen.

Beverley and Gordon Priestley's wedding photographs packed into the back of a vehicle

Beverley Priestley's children Claire and Chris spent all Friday packing up her belongings

Among the items salvaged was a baby cot and what appears to be a rocking chair (pictured)

Beverley Priestley's daughter Claire feeds Benny the kangaroo before he has to move home

'There's a lot of history here,' Claire said. 'A massive amount of history.

'We will be leaving things. We just can't take everything.'

The Priestley matriarch has been staying at Claire's home in Brewarrina, where Beverley was born, about an hour-and-a-half's drive away.

'Mum hasn't returned,' Claire said. 'She can't face it. I think she's in shock.'

'We just can't believe that Duncan has been given so much.'

On Thursday the Priestley siblings had 10 friends helping them clear the house. On Friday they had two helpers still working in the heat.

'If we hadn't had the community and friends to get in and help we wouldn't have got out of here,' Claire said.

Duncan Priestley won the property after contesting his father's will - claiming he quit his job to work on Salt Glen after he was promised the family farm.

Mrs Priestley was left the Salt Glen property when her ex-husband died, but she has now been left homeless after the property was awarded to her son in an appeal

Tables, chairs and couches were all loaded on to a large truck and moved away from the family property

Ms Preistley's possessions (pictured) will be stored in a friend's shearing shed

Mrs Priestley with her 'pet' kangaroo Benny - she is worried she won't find a home suitable for her beloved pet

Mrs Priestley, who first moved to the farm when she was just 21 to start a family, came up with $52,000 to appeal that decision in the High Court - but lost.

Chris, 53, and Claire, 48, sold what machinery they could to come up with the money for the appeal; Chris even parted with his Toyota LandCruiser.

Claire was with her mother when the appeal was thrown out earlier this month and she was told she had just two weeks to leave the property forever.

'We went outside and just burst into tears,' Claire said.

Mrs Priestley had to be out on December 29 or pay Duncan $1,000 per day she is still there.

The grandmother was so heartbroken by the final decision she decided not to go back to the property where she raised her three children.

'She said "I can't face it",' Claire said.

Mrs Priestley briefly left the home when she divorced her husband in 2004 - moving to a house on the greater family property. She went back to the family home after her ex-husband's death - and their reconciliation.

Duncan, pictured with his daughter Catherine, gave his mother until December 29 to vacate the property - every day after that will cost the elderly pensioner $1,000

Mrs Priestley, pictured outside Salt Glen, 'burst into tears' after the High Court threw out her appeal in favour of the previous decision

Timeline of the Priestley family feud 1908 - Priestley family won Salt Glen in local ballot 1961 - Beverley and Gordon Priestley were married and moved to Salt Glen 1962- Son Duncan was born 1964- Second son Christopher was born 1965 - Daughter Claire was born 1986- Caramba bought for Duncan 1988 - Riverlands bought for Christopher 2004 - Mr and Mrs Priestley divorce and children are split in their support 2004 - Mr Priestley changes his will to leave the property to Duncan 2007 - Mr Priestley reconciles with ex-wife and children, changes will to four equal parts 2012 - Mr Priestley changes will again leaving everything to his ex-wife 2012 - Mr Priestley dies 2017 - Duncan Priestley wins appeal over estate and is awarded the family property Salt Glen by the court Advertisement

'We have been left with the clothes on our back and some furniture,' Claire said at the time of the court ruling.

Mrs Priestley 'can barely walk' because of the shock and continues to cry over the lost farm.

'I just feel so terrible, I am in shock, I can't bear to see the place again there are just too many memories there,' she said.

Mrs Priestley's friends offered to put her possessions in their shearing shed but it was the fate of Benny the kangaroo that most concerned her.

'I just want a place that will have Benny - he won't survive without me and we can't go home,' she said.

'I don't think our family will ever recover from this - I just don't know how I could ever speak to Duncan again.'

Mrs Priestley was just 21 when she married the only man she would ever love and moved to his farm in the tough, drought-prone country of NSW's far north to start a family and build a life.

The Priestley family's tale reads like a Shakespearean tragedy of love lost and regained. Of family loyalties tested and - ultimately - tragedy.

The NSW Court of Appeal on June 27 reached its verdict in the long-running battle over Salt Glen, the 8,500-hectare cattle and crops property that has been in the Priestley family since 1908.

Brothers Chris, left, and Duncan, right, with their father Gordon Priestley, centre, on the family farm Salt Glen in happier times

Mrs Priestley's daughter Claire, pictured here with Gordon Priestley, said she had been left devastated after the court ruled against her father's final will

Duncan, was made the sole owner despite evidence it was against the dying wishes of the family's pastoralist patriarch and her ex-husband, Gordon.

Mrs Priestley is upset the most recent appeal never made it to hearing as a decision was made on the previous hearing's papers - as the judges decided the Court of Appeal's verdict was correct.

Duncan Priestley, who claims he is the only family member to have worked the farm as his father would have wanted, once vowed to kick his mother and siblings off the property because of the acrimonious family quarrel.

Duncan Priestley did not respond to Daily Mail Australia's request to tell his side of the Salt Glen property dispute.

The battle raged for years in the NSW Supreme Court and Family Court of Australia.

Claire believes she and her brothers, Chris pictured, were given a great childhood

The 8,500 hectare property, highlighted on this map with previous family titles, has been Mrs Priestley's home for almost 60 years

The family troubles peaked in 2004 and ended in the couple splitting and the land being split between their children. In 2012 Gordon died and the dispute flared up again.

Duncan Priestley took his mother, as executor of his fathers estate, to court for unpaid costs for years he spent working on Salt Glen, and a share in the property's water licence after the property was left solely to Mrs Priestley.

Duncan claims his father told him in 1986: 'One day all of this will all be yours' - meaning he would pass ownership of the property to him exclusively, according to court documents.

Duncan says he quit his well-paid job as a surveyor and helped his father with jobs on the farm because he believed it would be given to him when his father died, and he would not have to share it with his mother, Chris or Claire.

So when his father Gordon called him to his deathbed in February 2012 and told him the farm was to be shared and he was to 'look after' his family, he was furious.

A photograph of the Priestley sons helping their father in the yard - Claire said the whole family pitched in with farm work - not just her eldest brother

Mr and Mrs Priestley in happier times, pictured with middle child Chris

In an affidavit tendered to court, Duncan Priestley revealed a heated argument he had with his father after finding out the property would be shared.

'We have already paid them out once,' Duncan said to his dying father.

'I've kicked them off (the land) once and I'll kick them off again,' he said.

'No you wouldn't,' Gordon said.

But his son was adamant: 'Bloody oath I will.'

'You look after them,' the dying father said.

'Bulls**t,' Duncan replied, and left.

Gordon and Beverley Priestley divorced in 2004 after the heat of the family feud became too much. Mrs Priestley had sided against her husband and son Duncan and with her two younger children which ultimately ended her marriage.

As part of the settlement, the greater Salt Glen lands were split into three.

Duncan supported his father throughout the proceedings, paying his legal fees and other expenses.

Chris Priestley sold this LandCruiser to help with his mother Beverley's ongoing legal battle

Mrs Priestley doesn't think she will be able to mend her relationship with her eldest son Duncan, pictured

Mrs Priestley was living in the home with Chris and Claire - until July when Claire moved out

Claire, Chris and their mother took on the family irrigation lands (which have since been lost to the bank) while Duncan and his father ran Salt Glen and the adjoining property, Caramba.

Claire told Daily Mail Australia Caramba was bought for Duncan in the early 1980s when he was 18 and May Glen in Gilgandra was bought for him around 2000.

'The farm was divided. Chris and I got the good irrigation country but had to take on the family debt, which was $2.3million, and Duncan and dad ran the rest,' Claire said.

'That's when dad changed his will and told Duncan he would get Salt Glen.'

'He was in dad's ear all the time telling him how we were doing everything wrong,' Claire said.

Gordon went to his lawyer's office to have the irrigation lands signed over to Chris and to give Duncan full control of Caramba, according to court papers.

Claire and her father, pictured here long after the family feud of 2004 was forgotten by most members of the family

Family patriarch Gordon Priestley pictured in the cattle yards before his death

Mr and Mrs Priestley are to be buried together - after reconciling and admitting their love for each other before Gordon's death

Claire Priestley standing in front of the property where she grew up

The lawyer, Roger Butler, phoned Duncan to let him know the changes had been made. That conversation was tendered in an affidavit to the court.

'Duncan, it's Roger Butler here. Your father and I have just settled all the land transactions and transferred the rest of Caramba to you. He has also changed his will so that everything goes to you. Apart from the land swap with Christopher, everything is wrapped up.'

Gordon and Beverly Priestley remained friendly after their divorce, and by 2007 he had reconciled with Claire, Chris and his ex-wife. He then changed his will into four even parts.

But he didn't tell Duncan.

Mrs Priestley said that before her ex-husband died he asked her if she would be buried with him as husband and wife.

'He is the only man I ever loved,' Mrs Priestley said.

Mr Priestley, pictured, wanted to leave a will with four equal shares, but after his youngest two children ran into problems with the bank it was decided it should go to Beverley

The grandmother, pictured here in yellow, had to fly in to her ex-husband's funeral when the lands around Salt Glen flooded in 2012

Beverley Priestley pictured with a family friend next to a helicopter before Gordon's funeral

Gordon Priestley's coffin was placed on the tray of a Toyota LandCruiser because of flooding

'When he asked me if I would be with him I said yes, so they dug his hole deep enough for me to go in there too.

She doesn't think she will ever be able to 'fix things' with her eldest son.

'After all this it is too late to reconcile with Duncan. For years I have tried. I have called him on his birthday and other things but he doesn't pick up the phone.

The ruling that has landed Duncan Priestley with the $3million property came after he appealed an earlier court decision that Beverley should pay him $293,071.98, plus interest, for back pay and a share in the family water licence.

'I just don't understand how one judge can find he is owed $300,000 and then in an appeal he is given the farm which is worth millions,' Claire said.

'Or how the judges can overlook mum who has lived here for most of her life and will have nowhere to go.'

The Priestly family's former irrigation lands in north-western NSW pictured in 2012
Whitehall gave the 'appearance of disarray' after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Margaret Thatcher complained.

She was on an official visit to Japan when radioactive fallout from an explosion at the Soviet nuclear reactor began arriving in the UK as officials were leaving for the May bank holiday weekend.

With the prime minister away there was chaos. Phone lines were overwhelmed, advice to calm the public caused panic and there was no contingency plan.

Whitehall gave the 'appearance of disarray' after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Margaret Thatcher complained

In one moment of pure 'farce', environment minister William Waldegrave mistakenly gave out the telephone number for the Department of the Environment (DoE) drivers' pool instead of Whitehall's technical information centre during a radio interview.

A scathing post-mortem by the No 10 policy unit concluded that it was only after the bank holiday was over that the government finally gained control.

In his report to the prime minister, John Wybrew, of the policy unit, wrote: 'Over the bank holiday weekend, when the fall-out first occurred, you, (foreign secretary) Geoffrey Howe and (No 10 press secretary) Bernard Ingham were away in Tokyo. Whitehall lacked a firm lead.

'Anxious telephone callers inundated Maff (the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries) and seriously hampered communications. Not until after the weekend did DoE and environment ministers firmly take charge of the government's response.

'Before that, the ill-co-ordinated nature of the information and advice aroused rather than calmed public anxiety.'

A sign warns of radiation contamination near former apartment buildings Pripyat, the town closest to the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine

Environment secretary Kenneth Baker sought to assure the public the risks were 'insignificant', only for John Dunster, the head of the National Radiological Protection Board, to say the death toll in the UK would run to 'tens of people'.

'Both conclusions derived from the the same assumption and analysis. Mr Dunster was quantifying what he regarded as an insignificant risk,' Mr Wybrew noted.

'The next day he had to explain that tens of deaths would arise from cancer over the next 30 to 40 years, during which time millions would die from cancer wholly unconnected with the Chernobyl incident.'
Two men have been charged with terror offenses after police raided five properties earlier this month and arrested four on suspicion of plotting a Christmas terror attack.

Farhad Salah, 22, from Sheffield and a 31-year-old man from Chesterfield have been charged with 'Engaging in the preparation of an act of terrorism' and will appear before Westminster Magistrates on Friday.

They were among four men arrested on December 19 in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire as specialist counter terrorism police officers raided five properties following an 'Islamist related' investigation.

A 22-year-old man from Sheffield and a 31-year-old man from Chesterfield have been charged with 'Engaging in the preparation of an act of terrorism'. They were among four men arrested on December 19 in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire as specialist counter terrorism police officers raided five properties (pictured above) following an 'Islamist related' investigation

Anti-terror police working with MI5 arrested the four men on December 19 in raids that forced people to evacuate their homes and placed schools on lockdowns

Terrified residents described hearing explosions during the dramatic early morning raids on homes, offices and a community centre. Pictured above, a police officer investigates during one of the raids

A 36-year-old man from Sheffield remains in custody, while a 41-year-old man, also from Sheffield, was released on Saturday.

Assistant Chief Constable Bill McWilliam said: 'Together with South Yorkshire Police we continue to work closely with partners and communities to reassure local people and protect the public.

'I would like to remind people to remain vigilant, if you see or hear something that could be terrorist related, act on your instincts and call the anti-terrorist hotline on 0800 789 321. In an emergency dial 999.'

Anti-terror police working with MI5 arrested the four men on December 19 in raids that forced people to evacuate their homes and placed schools on lockdowns.

Terrified residents described hearing explosions during the dramatic early morning raids on homes, offices and a community centre.

Two other men were arrested in the December 19 raids (pictured above). A 36-year-old man from Sheffield remains in custody, while a 41-year-old man, also from Sheffield, was released on Saturday

They saw bomb disposal officers removing 'packages' - which come amid chilling warnings from ISIS threatening to attack festive events in the UK.

One of the houses raided was in Shirebrook Road, Sheffield, where locals claim they heard an explosion at around 5.30am.

Five addresses in Sheffield - including one in the Meersbrook area, two in Burngreave and one in the Stocksbridge area - and another in Chesterfield, were being searched by police.

Police also sealed off the Fatima Community Centre in the Burngreave area of Sheffield.

A further raid in Chesterfield at Whittington Moor led to Cavendish Junior School keeping children inside as a precaution.

Five addresses in Sheffield - including one in the Meersbrook area, two in Burngreave and one in the Stocksbridge area - and another in Chesterfield, were being searched by police

Police also sealed off the Fatima Community Centre (pictured above) in the Burngreave area of Sheffield

Following the raid at the Fatima Community Centre, part of a door remained shattered on the ground

A police spokesperson has confirmed that a loud bang heard by residents was not an explosion but a bang created when they were gaining entry.

The arrests were intelligence led and pre-planned as part of an ongoing investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing North East.

The operation was mounted as police and MI5 tackle a terror threat seen as unprecedented.

In addition to five attacks in London and Manchester, Home Secretary Amber Rudd revealed earlier this month that security agencies have foiled nine plots since the Westminster atrocity in March.

Counter-terror teams are running about 500 live investigations involving 3,000 individuals at any one time, while there is also a wider pool of 20,000 subjects of previous probes.
The heartbroken father of two children who went missing three years ago in Maryland has revealed that it's harder without them during the holiday season and wants their mother to face justice after she was charged in their deaths.

In an interview with DailyMail.com, Troy Turner explained that he's still searching for answers in the September 8, 2014 disappearance of his two youngest children - three-year-old Sarah and two-year-old Jacob.

The children's mother, Catherine Hoggle, 31, was the last person to see them alive before she disappeared and was found by police days later walking down a street.

She refused to tell authorities where the children were and despite being long suspected of killing them, she had never been charged with their deaths until earlier this year.

The children's bodies have yet to be found, despite thousands of hours being spent searching for them.

Hoggle, who is currently in a state psychiatric hospital as she has a long history of mental illness, was charged with two counts of murder in September. But she was declared incompetent to stand trial by a judge three weeks ago.

The 45-year-old father passionately told DailyMail.com, 'Catherine Hoggle killed my children.'

Troy Turner (above), the heartbroken father of two children who went missing three years ago in Maryland, has revealed that it's harder without them during the holiday season and wants their mother to face justice after she was charged in their deaths

In an interview with DailyMail.com, Troy Turner explained that he's still searching for answers in the September 8, 2014 disappearance of his two youngest children - three-year-old Sarah (right) and two-year-old Jacob (left)

The children's mother, Catherine Hoggle (above), 31, was the last person to see them alive before she disappeared and was found by police days later. She refused to say where the children were and despite being long suspected of killing them, she had never been charged with their deaths until earlier this year

He said there's information that will eventually come out that shows 'she killed the kids'.

Turner explained that the day the children disappeared, he woke up to find all three of them were not in the apartment they shared.

Hoggle returned in their mini-van and claimed she had taken the two children to a new day care center where she'd left them.

She and Turner then went back out in their car and she asked him to stop at a Chick-fil-A restaurant for her to get a drink.

She went into the fast food restaurant but slipped out a different exit, leaving Turner waiting in the car.

Turner then suspected something was wrong and went to police shortly afterwards to report Hoggle and his two youngest children missing.

After an intense manhunt, four days later Hoggle was found walking down a street in Germantown and she was arrested.

The children's bodies have yet to be found, despite thousands of hours being spent searching for them. Hoggle, who is currently in a state psychiatric hospital, was charged with two counts of murder in September. But she was declared incompetent to stand trial by a judge three weeks ago

At the time, she was questioned but would not say where the children were and was taken to the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup.

Later, she told officials she would take them to the children but a judge refused to allow her out of custody.

Since 2014, she has tried to escape from the facility several times by grabbing guards' security cards and running for the doors.

Staff say she had referred to the children as still being alive and has told them she wants to go to see them. But there is no evidence to support the claim that they are alive, and Turner believes that his children are dead.

He said his oldest son also suspected something was wrong.

'He knew almost right away that his mom took the kids,' Turner said.

'He figured that out on his own. He's wanted to pass out flyers and tell people.

'A while back he looked at me and said, 'I know that Sarah and Jacob could be dead and if they are, they're with God.''

Turner (above inside his daughter's room in 2014) has come to terms with the fact his children are probably dead. The 45-year-old father passionately told DailyMail.com, 'Catherine Hoggle killed my children'

The heartbroken father also said that his oldest son, who he does not want to publicly name, 'prays at night for God to be our GPS and take us to them.'

'I haven't directly said to him that I know that they're gone, but he knows there's a pretty good chance that they're never coming back,' Turner added.

Turner shared that it's been a difficult copping without them everyday. He revealed that during his oldest son's birthday celebration at Chuck E. Cheese, the young boy said 'Sarah and Jacob would love this.'

But the distraught father said missing his children is even more harder during this holiday season.

'Christmas obviously, their stockings are hung up with the rest of the families,' he emotionally said.

'They're still with us one way or the other, they're always going to be with us.

'I'm their father, I'm going to carry them with me every day all the time.'

Turner said that his oldest son 'prays at night for God to be our GPS and take us to them.' He added, 'This isn't something that gets easier with time. It's not an out-of-sight out-of-mind type of thing. It's the longer I don't see them the more it hurts'

He added, 'This isn't something that gets easier with time. It's not an out-of-sight out-of-mind type of thing. It's the longer I don't see them the more it hurts.'

Of Hoggle being found not competent to stand trial, Turner said, 'That's bull*hit... She's manipulating the system'.

When contacted for comment by DailyMail.com, Hoggle's mother, Lindsey Hoggle said she 'does not condone my daughters actions; the case is very complicated' and referred further questions to her attorney.

Turner, who said that he has not spoken with Hoggle's family since shortly after the children disappeared, is hoping she will eventually be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

'I don't want her ever out on the street again. I don't want her ever to harm anyone again,' Turner passionately said.
The schoolteacher and lawyer who lost her first class seat on a United flight to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee countered the Democratic congresswoman's claim that the passenger was upset due to racism.

'That could have been Donald Duck in my seat,' Jean-Marie Simon told Fox News on Thursday. 'I could not see who had boarded the flight. I didn't even know who she was.'

The dust-up occurred when United assigned Jackson Lee seat 1A, which was originally paid for in points by Simon, on a flight between Houston and Washington, D.C., on December 18.

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Jean-Marie Simon, a D.C.-based teacher and lawyer, is pushing back against claims coming from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee that she's a racist, after becoming angered at United for bumping her from her first-class flight and awarding it to the Democratic lawmaker

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee was given another passenger's first class seat on a United flight earlier this month and then suggested the woman complained because of racism

Passenger Jean-Marie Simon snapped a photo of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee sitting in the first-class seat Simon paid for. United contends Simon cancelled this leg of her flight, which resulted in Jackson Lee getting upgraded to Simon's seat

Simon has said repeatedly that she was angered by the airline's actions and not by Jackson Lee, suggesting the carrier decided to curry favor with the congresswoman and throw the teacher aside.

'The only way she is relevant is that she has a documented history of demanding first-class service,' Simon, a fellow Democrat, told Fox today.

She also thought United was ageist when the airline blamed Simon for cancelling her flight on the United app, which led to her seat loss.

'I'm not some AARP grandmother who doesn't know how to use a phone,' said the 63-year-old, who was formerly a war photographer in Guatemala. 'I know how to cancel a flight and I did not cancel this flight.'

Simon first took to Facebook to describe the experience saying as she waited at her gate she saw the woman she now knew to be Jackson Lee being escorted onto the plane before any other passengers including 'uniformed military, toddlers, people with disabilities and Global Services passengers, and even a group of fellow Texas congressmen whom Jackson Lee had been talking to before she was escorted onto the plane.'

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said she believes that Simon was so offended because she is an African American woman, and said that if it's perceived she did anything wrong she wants to apologize in the spirit of the holiday season

REPRESENTATIVE SHEILA JACKSON LEE'S FULL STATEMENT 'I am disappointed in having to respond to this accusation, but I believe transparency is very important. Unfortunately, it looks like Grinch is trying to steal the spirit of the holiday. Last Monday, I arrived at the airport to catch my flight to Washington to continue my fight to get Hurricane Harvey funds back to Texas and other hard hit areas, along with funding of the Childrens Health Insurance Program and of course, trying to stop a tax bill that was going to cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance. After receiving my boarding pass, I boarded the plane in the normal process. I did nothing wrong. I asked for nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary and received nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary. I proceeded to take my seat and work on legislative issues on my way to Washington. Although I was not involved, I observed a disruption by an individual walking back and forth in the cabin. I could overhear her speaking with a flight attendant (an African American woman). I saw the gate agent go to the seat of the individual who was walking back and forth before we took off. I later came to understand that the individual had canceled her own flight. However I had nothing to do with that. I noted that this individual came toward me and took a picture. I heard later that she might have said I know who she is. Since this was not any fault of mine, the way the individual continued to act appeared to be, upon reflection, because I was an African American woman, seemingly an easy target along with the African American flight attendant who was very, very nice. This saddens me, especially at this time of year given all of the things we have to work on to help people. But in the spirit of this season and out of the sincerity of my heart, if it is perceived that I had anything to do with this, I am kind enough to simply say sorry. I understand the airline is working to address the passengers concerns. I am glad of that. But as an African American, I know there are too many examples like this all over the nation. I hope one day, we will accept our collective diversity. Happy Holidays.' Advertisement

Once it was Simon's turn to board, the gate agent informed her that her reservation did not exist, though eventually reseated her in economy plus, adding a $500 voucher.

'I said I wanted my seat, that I had paid a lot of miles for that seat, and that it was Uniteds responsibility to undo the seat assignment and return it to me, the person who had paid for it,' Simon wrote. 'He said no, because I had "unreserved" my seat and it had been given to another passenger, that s/he had been "upgraded."'

Simon said she was the last passenger to board the plane and was seated next to a Texas congressman who explained to her what happened.

'He told me that it was Jackson Lee, a fellow U.S. congresswoman who regularly does this, that this was the third time he personally had watched her bump a passenger,' Simon said. 'Then he asked me if I knew whom Jackson Lee represents in Congress: Bush International Airport in Houston.'

'He apologized, saying, "Jackson Lee gives us all a bad name; it's shameful,'" Simon recalled.

When the flight got further delayed, Simon snapped a photo of Jackson Lee in her first-class seat when she walked up front to discuss alternative flight options.

She later encountered a flight attendant who asked her if she was going to be a problem.

'United lied to me, repeatedly. They put Jackson Lee on the plane and then tried to blame it on a late incoming flight, another airline, my cell phone, united.com, Global Services, and on everybody but the United employee who deliberately erased my seat, my ticket, and my name from the system in order to accommodate a member of Congress who repeatedly bullies his/her way into favored status,' Simon charged.

Upon hearing the story, Jackson Lee reacted by interpreting Simon's actions as an affront against her race.

'Since this was not any fault of mine, the way the individual continued to act appeared to be, upon reflection, because I was an African American woman, seemingly an easy target along with the African American flight attendant who was very, very nice,' Jackson Lee tweeted on Tuesday.

'But in the spirit of this season and out of the sincerity of my heart, if it is perceived that I had anything to do with this, I am kind enough to simply say sorry,' the congresswoman added. 'But as an African American, I know there are too many examples like this all over the nation.'

Simon, described as a human rights activist, quickly pushed back against Jackson Lee's claims.

'I had no idea who was in my seat when I complained at the gate that my seat had been given to someone else,' she said.

'There is no way you can see who is in a seat from inside the terminal,' Simon explained.

On social media, Simon has repeatedly said she's still not received a written apology from United, though the airline did reimburse her with a second $500 voucher on Monday and told the Houston NBC affiliate that her points for the flight had been given back.

An airline representative contacted her last Saturday morning and repeatedly apologized.

Simon has asked for a formal, written apology.

'It's just impossible to suspend disbelief and swallow that story that I cancelled my flight,' she said said.

The lawyer and teacher said she was so distraught by how the airline treated her that after she arrived home she wrote a letter to the CEO, Oscar Munoz, and posted it on social media.

Immediately after the incident the airline denied Simon's claims.

'After thoroughly examining our electronic records, we found that upon receiving a notification that Flight 788 was delayed due to weather, the customer appears to have canceled her flight from Houston to Washington, DC within the United mobile app,' United said in a statement.

'As part of the normal pre-boarding process, gate agents began clearing standby and upgrade customers, including the first customer on the waitlist for an upgrade.'

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE'S HISTORY OF BAD BEHAVIOR ON PLANES ... AND IN AUTOMOBILES Several decades worth of coverage of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee suggests she's behaved badly on planes  and on automobiles  before this week's incident. The latest airplane drama came this week when a United Airlines passenger said she was booted from her first class seat to accommodate the Texas Democrat, who shot back by saying the only reason the woman complained was because Jackson Lee is black. But previous reports show the House member, who was elected in 1994, has had a history of transportation drama, including berating flight attendants on first class flights and making her Congressional staff drive her one block, while waiting on her for hours and disrupting traffic. She's been documented calling her employees 'you stupid motherf***er,' while referring to herself as Congressional royalty. 'You don't understand. I am a queen, and I demand to be treated like a queen,' she was quoted saying in 1998, three years into her nearly 23-year tenure on Capitol Hill. In 2002, the Weekly Standard did a deep dive into her travel demands. The congresswoman, the article noted, lived about '200 paces' from her Cannon Building Capitol Hill office, though still insisted on a ride. On December 6, 2001, a blue Ford Contour with government plates pulled up to her apartment building where it idled for 23 minutes, blocking rush hour traffic in the meantime on one of Capitol Hill's busiest streets, the Weekly Standard said. When the congresswoman appeared an aide opened the car's doors for her and waited while Jackson Lee stood outside the automobile to take a phone call. Then an awkward moment ensued when Jackson Lee stared her staffer down until the congresswoman's jacket and shawl were removed. In a 2011 article in the Daily Caller drivers for the lawmaker said she demanded that they run red lights and on highway shoulders  antics that caused one accident. Jackson Lee was screaming at a staffer to drive faster when the aide turned too sharply and ran the car into a wall, the Daily Caller reported. While her time was precious, staffers' testified theirs was not. 'Whatever time she told me to be there, I would always show up at least 20 minutes later, and expect to wait at least 45 minutes,' one of Jackson Lee's drivers told the Daily Caller. 'She was making me wait in the car, sometimes upwards of five to seven hours per day.' Idling the car so much started to damage its engine. 'My mechanic friend said, "you know, your car looks like you've driven it twice the miles you have,"' the staffer said. Before this week's United debacle, Jackson Lee had a tense relationship with Continental, the Houston-based carrier that merged with United in 2010. Jackson Lee's staff would book seats on multiple flights for her week-end trips back to Houston, allowing the congresswoman to pick the trip that would best fit her schedule. This, however, would leave the airline in a bind, the Weekly Standard noted, as Continental wouldn't be able to sell off the premier seats she didn't use. And while Jackson Lee would book coach tickets, the congresswoman was often bumped to first class. In February 1998, while sitting in first class, Jackson Lee famously berated a flight attendant over her meal choice not being available on the particular plane she chose to fly home on. 'Don't you know who I am?' the congresswoman reportedly said. 'I'm Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Where is my seafood meal? I know it was ordered!' After this incident, the vice president of Continental's government affairs office called Jackson Lee and warned her that her behavior needed to improve or she would not be flying the airline again, sources told the Weekly Standard. A year later, in May 1999, Jackson Lee had boarded a Continental flight out of Washington, D.C.'s Reagan National only to find that she had misplaced her purse. The congresswoman proceeded to get off the flight to look for the bag back in the terminal, meanwhile the plane had left the gate  with the missing purse on board. According to aviation lobbyists that the Weekly Standard talked to, Jackson Lee demanded she be let back on the plane and didn't believe it was against Federal Aviation Administration regulation. 'She accused the gate staff of racism and demanded to see their supervisor, who was a black woman,' the Weekly Standard wrote. 'Her purse, meanwhile, was unceremoniously dropped out of the cockpit window and ferried back to her.' Eighteen years later, many of the themes remain the same as Jackson Lee pointed to racism as the crux of the problem, protesting she did nothing wrong when she was bumped to a white woman's seat on December 18 on a flight from Houston to Washington, D.C. Advertisement

The teacher said she has screenshots of her United app that shows a canceled flight to Houston in August during Hurricane Harvey when she was supposed to visit her daughter, according to the Houston Chronicle.

United says the screenshot wouldn't show the December 18 flight as canceled because Simon did eventually end up taking the flight.

United Airlines has experienced a number of public relations headaches in the past year related to its customer service.

The most notorious case was that of Dr David Dao.

On April 9, just before a United flight was set to take off from Chicago to Louisville, security personnel forcibly dragged Dao off a plane to make room for United crew members.

Dao refused to give up his seat and was left bloodied by the experience, which was filmed on cellphone video and posted to social media.

The viral backlash was a black eye for United, which apologized. The airline and Dao reached a financial settlement for an undisclosed sum of money.
Everyone's invited to the boat dock at Upper Lake Mary for the 2018 Flagstaff Polar Plunge. OK, so this year will be a (No-So-) Polar Plunge. But the annual event is Flagstaff's way of washing away the old year and welcoming the new one.

This year we'll have access to the beach for easier access. No need for volunteers to help chip ice this year. But, as always, be sure to wear something on your feet to protect from stray fish hooks and the like.

The plunge is at high noon on Jan. 1 so even if you stay up for the midnight Great Pinecone Drop you have time for a good sleep before donning your bikini.

As always, each and every plunger will receive an official, frame-worthy and gloat-worthy Certificate of Participation signed by Jack Welch himself. There is no charge to participate (It's true! You don't have to pay to jump into a frozen lake!) but we ask everyone to bring a can or two of food to donate to the food bank. Spectators are welcome. Costumes are encouraged. See you there!

Registration for the annual Eagle Celebration is open

This year's Willow Bend Environmental Education Center's annual Eagle Celebration, held in partnership with Arizona Game and Fish, Liberty Wildlife and Arizona Watchable Wildlife Experience, will be held on Saturday, Jan. 27. Liberty Wildlife will be on hand with live bald and golden eagles and wildlife biologists will be guiding field trips and giving presentations all day. There are four programs to choose from.

This event fills up quickly; to register, visit http://willowbendcenter.org/family-science-registration/ or call 779-1745.

Eagle Celebration Events

8-10 a.m.  Early Birds field trip: Join wildlife biologists for an early morning field trip searching for wild bald eagles and local waterfowl around Lake Mary. Personal transport required (carpooling encouraged). Weather permitting; in case of inclement weather field trip will be canceled. Meeting location sent upon sign-up. If you would also like to attend one of the presentations at Willow Bend you need to sign up separately. Field trip cost $10/participant, $35/family (2 adults and 3 kids) or free for Willow Bend members.

10-11 a.m.  Eaglets family presentation: A family-focused interactive program especially designed for families with young children (ages 4-12 years old). Learn about and view live eagles. Meet at Willow Bend Environmental Education Center, 703 E. Sawmill Road. Cost $10/participant, $35/family (2 adults and 3 kids) or free for Willow Bend members.

11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.  First Flight community presentation 1: Learn about the incredible bald eagle from an Arizona Game and Fish biologist and view live eagles up close and in-person. Presentation is open to all ages. This is the same presentation as the 1 p.m. "Fully Fledged" session. Only sign up for one presentation. Cost $10/participant, $35/family (2 adults and 3 kids) or free for Willow Bend members. .

1-2:pm  Fully Fledged Community Presentation 2: A repeat of the "First Flight" presentation.
Pictured, Margaret Thatcher with former US President Ronald Reagan in July 1988

Maragret Thatcher refused to take a giant panda with her on a Concorde flight to the US, newly-declassified files reveal.

The act of panda diplomacy was suggested to her by experts as a way of improving the special relationship.

Files show the then prime minister read the proposal with amusement but responded: I am not taking a panda with me.

The bizarre case began when a Washington zoo with a fertile female panda requested the loan of London Zoos male panda so they could mate.

Mrs Thatchers Principal Private Secretary, Sir Clive Whitmore, wrote to her saying that it could be a demonstration of the special relationship.

The London Zoo are minded to agree to lend their panda, he wrote to her, suggesting that she bring the panda when she visited US President Ronald Reagan.

Lord Zuckerman [Secretary of London Zoo] sees this as a signal demonstration of the special relationship, and would be very happy to time the announcement of the loan of the delivery of the panda in any way that the Prime Minister thought would be most likely to benefit Anglo-American relations.

He even suggested that the Prime Minister might like to take the panda in the back of her Concorde, when she goes to Washington next month.

Mrs Thatcher refused, adding that pandas and politicians were not happy omens in the note from 1981.

Her Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong replied to Sir Clive diplomatically: The Prime Minister read your minute with some interest and amusement. She has commented that she is not taking a panda with her.

The pandas are not named, but the British panda is believed to be Chia-Chia, who arrived in the UK in 1974, while the US panda is thought to be Ling-Ling.

The pandas are not named, but the British panda is believed to be Chia-Chia (pictured), who arrived in the UK in 1974, while the US panda is thought to be Ling-Ling

Panda Diplomacy was a Chinese practice of presenting giant pandas to other nations to improve relations.

But in the 1970s, by a strange coincidence, any world leader who was given a pair of pandas by China fell from power.

The phenomenon, which was highlighted in a 1976 BBC film Very Important Pandas, revolved around the two aforementioned pandas.

US President Richard Nixon was brought down two years after being gifted Ling-Ling, while British Prime Minister Edward Heath was replaced by Mrs Thatcher after being sent Chia Chia.

A Japanese prime minister also lost power, as did a prince of the Netherlands. Mrs Thatcher was clearly unwilling to take her chances.
Lapo Elkann was spotted living it up in Brazil with his model girlfriend on Thursday.

The controversial Fiat heir, who made headlines in 2016 when he faked his kidnapping during a two-day drug binge with a transgender escort in Manhattan, was seen hanging out with his girlfriend Cristina Saracino in Rio de Janeiro.

Several photos showed the pair hugged up as they visited Selarons Staircase, a colorful tiled stairway created by Chilean artist Jorge Selaron.

The happy couple held hands as they climbed to the top of the massive staircase.

Lapo Elkann was spotted living it up in Brazil with his model girlfriend, Cristina Saracino, on Thursday

The controversial Fiat heir, who made headlines in 2016 when he faked his kidnapping during a two-day drug binge with a transgender escort in Manhattan, was seen hanging out with his girlfriend Saracino in Rio de Janeiro

Elkann and Saracino have been spotted on numerous outings in the past few weeks, including a concert in which they hung out with Italian rapper Fedez and his partner Chiara Ferragni

Saracino donned a pair of black high-waisted jean shorts with a black crop top and a black snapback hat.

Elkann appeared to be wearing a black and white striped jersey with black shorts.

Once the couple made it to the top, they sat on one area of the steps and appeared to bow their heads in prayer.

Elkann and Saracino have been spotted on numerous outings in the past few weeks, including a concert in which they hung out with Italian rapper Fedez and his partner Chiara Ferragni.

Earlier this year the Manhattan district attorney's office declined to prosecute Elkann after an exhaustive review determined that no crime had been committed during his 2016 drug binge that landed him in trouble with police.

Elkann appeared to be wearing a black and white striped jersey with black shorts. The couple were seen climbing to the top of the staircase

Saracino donned a pair of black high-waisted jean shorts with a black crop top and a black snapback hat

Once the couple made it to the top, they sat on one area of the steps and appeared to bow their heads in prayer

At the time, law enforcement officials reported that Elkann, who is worth a reported $800 million, spent the 2016 Thanksgiving holiday in a Manhattan housing project, where he was supplied with a steady stream of cocaine, marijuana and alcohol.

But when it came time for Elkann to settle up for the goods and services he had been provided during his two-day binge, the cash-strapped millionaire attempted to get his hands on $10,000 by allegedly calling up his family rep and claiming he had been kidnapped.

Page Six reported at the time that the family rep immediately called authorities and that Elkann later filed a police report, leading to the arrest of Curtis McKinstry, 30, on a charge of grand larceny by extortion.

Elkann met up with McKinstry on Thanksgiving night after reportedly contacting a number of escort services in the city.

The 40-year-old society fixture, who in 2009 was named to the Best Dressed Hall of Fame by Vanity Fair, headed with McKinstry to her government-subsidized apartment at the Strauss Houses on East 28th Street.

Elkann then proceeded to spend Thursday night, all day Friday and part of Saturday imbibing a mixture of booze, pot and blow according to law enforcement sources.

Earlier this year the Manhattan district attorney's office declined to prosecute Elkann (above in 2016) after an exhaustive review determined that no crime had been committed during his 2016 drug binge that landed him in trouble with police

Then, on Saturday, Elkann allegedly called a representative for his family to inform them that he was being held against his will and needed $10,000 in ransom to be set free by his alleged kidnapper.

That story fell apart less than 24 hours later however according to law enforcement sources, who discovered that Elkann had placed the call to the family rep from his own cell phone.

Police also learned that Elkann had in fact been free to leave the apartment at any time.

Elkann went on a two-day drug binge while holed up at the apartment (above) of a transgender escort

The day before he departed for New York City, Elkann posted a video on his Instagram account discussing the business trip he was about to embark on, saying at one point: 'Ill be seeing many interesting characters in the creative field and in the entrepreneurial field in the next few days.'

After investigating the matter further however police dropped the charges against McKinstry, and instead charged Elkann with a misdemeanor for falsely reporting an incident.

That incident came 11 years after Elkann overdosed on a mixture of heroin and cocaine while in the company of a 53-year-old transsexual prostitute.

Elkann is one of two sons born to writer Alain Elkann and Countess Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen, whose father Gianni Agnelli was the head of Fiat.

Agnelli passed away in 2003 and left behind a fortune reported to be close to $2 billion. In the wake of his death, Elkann's older brother John became chairman of the company.

The Manhattan district attorney's office said in January of this year that it had declined to prosecute Elkann and had no further comment.

His attorney, Randy Zelin, said he presented information to prosecutors, who did an exhaustive review before determining no crime had been committed.

'We are very fortunate the district attorney listened to us, and conducted a thorough investigation,' Zelin said at the time.

Deja vu: The incident came 11 years after Elkann overdosed at the apartment of transsexual Italian prostitute Donato Broco, who was known as Patrizia (above)

Soon after the incident, Elkann made the decision to enter rehab.

'This has been a difficult period for me, but it has also given me time to reflect quietly upon what happened and also about the future,' said Elkann in a statement at the time.

He also said the decision to drop the charges reinforced 'the faith I have always placed in American justice'.

Elkann (with Uma Thurman in May 2016) said in a 2006 interview that: 'I am very pissed off with myself because I made a huge mistake, but nobodys perfect'

Elkann - who was born in New York City, spent his youth and teenage years in London and at the age of 17 moved to Turin - secured a job in the family business back in 2003 when he was named Fiat's Director of Marketing.

He was only in that position for two years however, stepping down after his 2005 overdose in the Turin apartment of transsexual prostitute Donato Broco, who was known as Patrizia in her professional life.

Elkann was just 28 at the time.

He had until that point been the face of Fiat since joining the automobile giant in 2003, and news of his overdose coupled with the company he was keeping at the time made headlines worldwide.

Patrizia was just one of three transsexual escorts that Elkann had been partying with that night before falling into a coma, with two other women named Cinzia and Tani also joining the group.

She would later reveal in an interview with Chi that the night of the overdose was the fifth evening she had spent with Elkann, who paid each of the women 1,000 euros according to one report.

Elkann spent two days in a coma, and checked himself in a rehab facility immediately after his release from the hospital.

He later said of the incident in a interview 2006 with Vanity Fair: 'I am very pissed off with myself because I made a huge mistake, but nobodys perfect.'
Matt Lauer was out in the Hamptons on Thursday, where the disgraced newsman was seen working his new job - family chauffeur.

The former Today anchor was spotted dropping off a guest at the local train station after spending the holiday with his estranged wife Annette and their three children at the family's $36.5 million compound.

Back in the city, Lauer's former employer enjoyed another week on top, as Today was the most watched morning show in both total viewers and the key demo for the fourth straight week.

The show's success since Lauer left has many wondering if NBC will soon name Hoda Kotb as his permanent replacement rather than filling the spot with another male as they have done in the past.

Scroll down for video

Pump it up: Matt Lauer was spotted on Thursday driving a house guest to the train station in the Hamptons

Chill in the air: The disgraced television anchor waited with the mystery woman on the train platform despite the frigid temperatures

Chivalry: Lauer, 59, also carried some of the woman's bags to the train platform for her before heading off to get some gas for the car

Despite the fact that they spent the holiday together, Matt and his wife did little to dispel rumors of a possible divorce on Saturday while spotted at Bright Side Farm, the horse training and riding facility that the two opened back in 2013.

They were there to watch their daughter ride on the unseasonably warm December day, with temperatures reaching 57 degrees at one point.

Annette, who was not wearing her wedding ring, arrived first with Matt seen entering the barn later in the day, hanging his head as he solemnly walked through the misting rain.

He then left ahead of his wife and daughter, and headed back into town.

It was reported last week by Page Six that Annette had been seen entering the law firm Latham & Watkins in Manhattan.

She is reportedly looking to end her marriage with Matt after 20 years in the wake of recent sexual misconduct allegations.

It has now been almost four weeks since those allegations of misconduct cost Lauer his $25 million-a-year job at NBC as host of Today.

In his absence however the show is doing better than it has all year in the ratings, and has begun steadily defeating rival Good Morning America in total viewers.

It sis expected that Annette will be looking to get more money if she files for divorce from Lauer, something she previously did in 2006 before withdrawing her complaint.

'The post-nup will likely specify how much Annette would get if they divorce, but she is expected to challenge it given Matts earnings since 2006, and given how he has humiliated her,' said a source.

'There are also issues over all the property and land they own, both in the Hamptons and abroad.'

Better times: He spent the holiday with his three children and estranged wife Annette

Winning: Today was the top-rated morning show the week of December 18, marking the fourth straight time it best GMA in both total viewers and the key demo

Zinone said that the relationship came to an end at the Democratic National Convention in California that summer, when Lauer told her to meet him a bathroom for one final round of sex.

'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,' she wrote in her essay.

'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 as one of Matt Lauers girls.'

Soon after she left her media job and decided to enlist.

'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,' explained Zinone.

'He made it clear that he wasnt interested in my skills or my talent. It just shattered everything.'

Despite all this Zinone went on to have an impressive career, serving overseas and accepting a position at Access Hollywood.

She said it was the 'power dynamic' between herself and Lauer that ultimately made her feel like a victim.

'He knew that I was leaving, and that there was no better prey than somebody who is going to be gone,' explained Zinone.

'He went after the most vulnerable and the least powerful  and those were the production assistants and the interns.'
A federal Labor MP sent her constituents a Christmas card containing a calendar with a glaring error.

The member for Newcastle Sharon Claydon's Christmas gift leaves out two key dates in December 2018.

On Christmas Day, she published a Facebook post congratulating a local public school student for winning her 2017 Christmas card design competition.

A federal Labor MP sent her constituents a Christmas card containing a calendar with a glaring error

The Christmas card featuring a girl's drawing came with a calendar missing two days in 2018

A nine-year-old girl's drawing, featuring a palm tree and an obelisk with a star on top, has a calendar on the back which could throw out New Year's Eve plans next year.

Ms Claydon, a former political staffer, forgot to include December 30 and 31 in her calendar.

However, the backbencher said the mistake would be unlikely to confuse her constituents in her safe seat, which has voted Labor at every election since 1901.

'I suspect people of Newcastle are very sharp and capable of organising New Year's Eve plans,' she told Daily Mail Australia on Friday. 'They will spot it themselves.

The federal member for Newcastle has sent out a calendar for 2018 missing two keys dates

'I wasn't aware of the calendar missing those dates. Ultimately, I'm always responsible.'

Ms Claydon said a reprint, funded by her electoral allowance, would be unnecessary.

'There wouldn't be a reprinting of any calendar. I'll just have to explain if there are any errors,' she said.

She isn't the only Labor politician to have issued her constituents a dubious calendar, with Queensland state MP Grace Grace mailing to her Brisbane electorate in December 2015 a fridge magnet which left out August 30, 2016.

Grace Grace, 59, who can't spell is in charge of the state's primary and high school students

This was the same month when she had been appointed to cabinet as Queensland's Multicultural Affairs Minister.

A few weeks earlier Ms Grace, who is now the state education minister, had a shocking spelling error in tweet about celebrating National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee Week with a fellow Labor MP.

'With Peter Russo and Aunty Rose from Torris Straight leading song to celebrate CCC Naidoc 2015 morning tea,' she said of the event hosted by the state's Crime and Corruption Commission.

Torres Strait is part of Queensland.
Australians have rallied behind a petition to have a Bunnings Warehouse erected in Melbourne's Federation Square instead of a proposed new Apple Store.

Nearly 1500 believe the hardware store is 'the one and only retailer' suitable for the prestigious spot.

The Victorian state government approved a plan last week to demolish The Yarra building in Federation Square, announcing it would be replaced by a 'global flagship' Apple store.

Nearly 1500 Melbourne residents have signed in favour of a Bunnnings Warehouse being erected in Federation Square instead of the state Governments plan for an Apple store

The Yarra building includes the Koori Heritage Trust, a group that promotes Aboriginal rights and celebrates their culture.

Melbourne resident Nick Price started a Change.org petition, saying an Apple store would be 'a blatant abuse of a precious public space.'

'It rubbed me up the wrong way,' he told 3AW.

'I thought what would be better, what would be more Australian than having Bunnings Warehouse at Fed Square.'

Hundreds have praised Mr Price for his bold move and joined him in his mission to stave off the development of the giant Apple store.

Residents are outraged after the Victorian state government approved a plan to demolish The Yarra building in the city's award-winning Federation Square

'Who needs apples in the city. We want snags in bread,' one supporter wrote.

Several more expressed how much they'd appreciate easy access to a cheap Bunnings sausage sizzle in the heart of the city.

'Bring on the sausage sizzle, great tourist attraction and culture in one place!.'

'I would be down for a snag in fed square.'

'We need a building that is timeless and classy.'

'Bunnings is an important part of Australian culture and should be given the center stage.'

The Federation Square group announced last week a Global Flagship Store for the tech giants would replace the old Koori Heritage Trust hub

'When I'm in the CBD I always need lumber and lawnmowers more than USB cables and iTunes gift cards.'

The Federation Square group was accused of 'selling out' after it unveiled the design of the Flagship Store - a large hut-like building fitted with big glass windows.

'This isn't just any regular Apple shop  as a Global Flagship Store and Apple's most significant store in the Southern Hemisphere, the space will host workshops, classes, and live music events,' it said in a statement.

'The project will create nearly 500 square metres of new public space in Federation Square and connect Federation Square with the Yarra River and Birrarung Marr through the construction of a building which takes up less space than the current Yarra building it will replace.'

The group unveiled the design of the Flagship Store, a large hut-like building fitted with big glass windows

Melbourne locals have been less receptive of the plans, nicknaming the site 'Apple Square' and labeling the move 'disgraceful'.

'Fed square is an escape within the city, don't put big commercial shops in it,' one person said.

'Seriously? You're getting rid of the Koorie Heritage building to replace it with a commercial retail building? That's just disgraceful,' another Twitter user replied.

'Corporate sellout of one of the city's few icons. Looks pretty ugly too if that's the real drawings. Very disappointing,' a person said commenting on the design of the building.
our per cent of Australia's 11,000 beaches have red and yellow patrol flags

An Australian academic specialising in rips has controversially declared the famous red and yellow patrol flags used to designate where on the beach is safe to swim as 'useless'.

Rob Brander, who is known as 'Dr Rip', who has been studying beaches and surf science for more than 30 years, told the Gold Coast Bulletin that the 'swim between the flags' message had 'lost its effectiveness'.

'When people stand up and say swim between the red and yellow flags, it's useless. It's like a useless message - white noise.

Beach expert Rob Brander (pictured) says the patrol flags on Australia's beaches are 'useless'

Dr Brander thinks that the 'swim between the flags' message had 'lost its effectiveness'

'It's a controversial statement but I think it's a discussion we need to have. We know people aren't swimming between them and there are so many beaches that are unpatrolled and they're easy to get to.

'You can't stop people from swimming and people don't read signs, and you've got to have the mindset of beach-goers.

The University of NSW associate professor and coastal geomorphologist told the publication that more people should be made aware of the danger of rips because just 'four per cent of Australia's 11,000 beaches have flags'.

Rips are the biggest killers on Australian beaches, with strong rip currents capable of dragging swimmers from shallow water to hundred meters offshore within minutes.

In Queensland alone, 22 of the 77 drowning deaths in Queensland over the past 10 years have occurred just 200m from a patrolled beach, figures from Surf Life Saving Queensland show.

They have no recorded deaths from drowning between the red and yellow flags.

Patrol flags (pictured) show the supervised area of the beach that life guards are watching

Dr Brander said Queensland wasn't the only state where flags were absent or swimmers were ignoring them.

A recent spate of drownings at NSW beaches, including the death of a man believed to be a tourist, prompted warnings from Surf Life Saving NSW.

A group of eight people, believed to be tourists, got into trouble at Duranbah Beach on Monday afternoon.

He calls for more danger awareness because only '4 per cent' of Australia's beaches have flags

The beach, near Tweed Heads, is patrolled and does have red and yellow flags showing swimmers where is safe to swim.

Life guards rushed to save the group of eight them but a 22-year-old man was unable to be revived after he was hauled from the surf.

His death marks the 17th coastal drowning in the state since July and comes just weeks after a teenager and 11-year-old boy drowned in separate incidents on the NSW mid-north Coast.

Surf Life Saving NSW CEO Steven Pearce said the latest tragedy reinforced the need for water safety warnings to be heard and understood.
An Australian grandmother acquitted of drug trafficking may still face the firing squad as prosecutors appeal her not guilty verdict.

Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto was caught with 1.5 kilograms of meth in her bags at Kuala Lumpur airport in 2014 en route to Melbourne.

The 54-year-old was on Wednesday found not guilty by a Malaysian court after a judge ruled she unknowingly carried the drugs after being scammed.

An Australian grandmother (pictured, centre) found not guilty of drug trafficking

Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto (pictured), 54, was caught at Kuala Lumpur airport on route to Melbourne with 1.5 kilograms of methamphetamine in her bags

But prosecutors say they will appeal the verdict and have two weeks to file documents disputing the judge's decision.

An appeal would keep Ms Exposto in Malaysia for several months and give her the death penalty if it is upheld by a higher court.

Malaysia is amending laws that no longer bind judges to hand down mandatory death sentences for drug mules.

That law has not yet been gazetted, however, and therefore Ms Exposto would have faced a mandatory death sentence if convicted.

Australian Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto leaves following her release at the High Court in Shah Alam

Australian Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto leaves her hearing at the Shah Alam High Court after being found not guilty

Ms Exposto was to be processed by Malaysian immigration authorities for deportation after the three-year ordeal.

Her lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said that immediately after the verdict Ms Exposto 'was relieved and glad that justice found in her favour. She was more thrilled to be able to call her family in Australia.'

Her long-awaited reunion will instead be delayed, perhaps permanently, dampening the excitement of her brother Hugo

'We were just waiting for it. Once the judgment was out, I was very relieved and happy,' he told Nine News after the verdict.

'We're waiting for her. Me and my family have already spoken to her, we're very excited.'

Co-lawyer, Farhan Shafee said expert testimony from Monica Whitty, cyberpsychologist from Warwick University in the UK, was key to the judge's finding (pictured is Ms Exposto arriving at the court)

Pictured are the drugs found in Ms Exposto's luggage at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Ms Exposto's lawyers argued throughout her trial she had fallen for a complex online romance scam that tricked her into believing she was in a two-year-relationship with a US Army officer.

Ms Exposto was told 'Captain Daniel Smith' was leaving the military and needed her to pick up his discharge papers and take them to the U.S embassy in Australia.

She flew to Shanghai and received a bag from his 'friends' she thought contained the papers and clothes, but had the drugs hidden in the lining.

'She was tricked into carrying the bag by the internet scam, what we call the internet romance,' said Ms Exposto's lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah after the ruling.

'Over and above this the judge also said that the circumstances at the airport itself was described by the judge as overwhelmingly in her favour.

'Because the judge described her as 'naive', not merely innocent but naive.'

The sentence comes after Exposto's (pictured) claims she fell victim to a US military romance scam and was tricked into carrying the drugs

Hugo Pinto Exposto (pictured), the son of Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto at the Shah Alam High Court

At her layover in Kuala Lumpur airport, Ms Exposto mistakenly went through immigration despite being a transfer passenger, where the drugs were discovered.

'It was almost as though she asked for trouble as a trafficker,' Mr Shafee said.

'But because she was not a trafficker, because she is an innocent carrier, tricked into carrying a bag, she did all these innocent things.'

Co-lawyer, Farhan Shafee said expert testimony from Monica Whitty, cyberpsychologist from Warwick University in the UK, was key to the judge's finding.

She gave evidence that the four stages of a cyber crime had been committed by scammers preying on Ms Exposto.

The first stage is to find a lonely victim, secondly an ideal person is presented - in this case a US officer.

Tania Scivetti (pictured, centre), one of the lawyers of Australian defendant Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto, is seen outside a courtroom at the high court in Shah Alam, near Kuala Lumpur

The third stage is the grooming, which for Ms Exposto was a two year online relationship.

The final stage is to create a crisis - 'Captain Smith' needing Ms Exposto to deliver his discharge papers so they could get married.

'He [Smith] made me feel loved, he made me feel wanted,' Ms Exposto told the court, adding that the alleged US serviceman would send her photos of himself.

'Smith would sing to me a few times a day and send love poems as well,' she added.

Ms Exposto said Smith had also asked to marry her in September 2013 at a time when her relationship with her husband was getting 'a bit sour'.

Mr Shafee told reporters that Ms Exposto's testimony suggested her close online relationship with Smith.

'There are probably thousands, mostly women, who have been conned into similar situations. Captain Daniel Smith is one of the many scammers,' he said.

Two Australians were hanged in Malaysia in 1986 for heroin trafficking - the first Westerners to be executed in the country.
An Alaska Airlines pilot and his wife spent Christmas reuniting a homeless woman with her family more than 3,700-miles away.

Fred and Mary Ripp read about a woman named Virginia Cook in the Anchorage Daily News, and decided to do what they could to help the 76-year-old in the spirit of the holiday season.

After reaching out to her and her family, the pair were able to help Cook get ready and outfitted for a long flight to Tuscon, Arizona, to reunite with family members she hadn't seen in 10 years.

Fred and Mary Ripp read about a woman named Virginia Cook in the Anchorage Daily News , and decided to do what they could to help the 76-year-old in the spirit of the holiday season

After reaching out to her and her family, the pair were able to help Cook get ready and outfitted for a long flight to Tuscon, Arizona, to reunite with family members she hadn't seen in 10 years. Fred and Mary are pictured watching Cook get onto her flight

Cook was released from Alaksa Psychiatric on the day before Thanksgiving and put into a cab to the Brother Francis Shelter.

She had a state guardian and some money in her bank account, but was left otherwise on the streets and dealing with serious health problems.

Cook told the Daily News she spent each morning having a coffee at Bean's Cafe in Anchorage.

After reading about her, Fred said he realized he'd been focused on the wrong things in life.

'We had been working for the last year remodeling our kitchen,' he said.

'I've been spending time thinking about relative merits of granite and quartz counter tops. Then you read an article about this and realize you've been thinking about the wrong things.'

Cook was released from Alaksa Psychiatric on the day before Thanksgiving and put into a cab to the Brother Francis Shelter. She had a state guardian and some money in her bank account, but was left otherwise on the streets and dealing with serious health problems

After reading about her, Fred said he realized he'd been focused on the wrong things in life, and decided to reach out to see how he could help get her home

So he contacted the Daily News reporter Charles Wohlforth and said that he was a pilot, asking if he could take her anywhere using his travel benefits.

Wohlforth then put the sister in contact with Cook's sister in Tuscon, Darlyne Gallway.

'I believe we are going to have my sister's plane fare covered,' she wrote the couple in an email.

'But she may need help getting to the airport, checking in and boarding her flight. Her guardian in Alaska has not been helpful with this.'

The couple then met with Cook, and they quickly became good friends.

'Time spent with Virginia has pulled me out of my usual winter funk and has brought me great joy,' Frank wrote in an email to Gallway.

'This is shaping up to be a great Christmas!'

On Tuesday, December 19, Fred picked Cook up and they got her ready to head to Arizona.

During the time together Cook told Fred about her past, explaining that she was at Alaska Psychiatric receiving treatment for bipolar disorder, which she said includes episodes of disruptive outbursts.

Fred and Mary also helped Cook pack for her trip because her health condition makes it difficult for her to move or stand for long. Mary then helped Cook get $100 from her state guardian, with which she bought a meal at Kentucky Fried Chicken and then have her hair and nails done. Mary is pictured between two other passengers on her flight out of Alaska

The Ripps drove Cook to the airport and helped her get on the plane. Fred also contacted people he knew on the flight, and they were able to waive her baggage fees

Her sisters decided in 2007 that she'd become too difficult to manage without professional help after she continually resisted her daughter's care and was kicked out of multiple assisted living facilities.

But Fred said that now, Virginia is '100 percent lucid, friendly, witty, interesting.'

'At the end of the day she said, "It's been fun hanging out with you." The feeling was mutual,' Fred wrote in an email to her sisters.

'Virginia was not at all the person I expected. She was delightful. I am happy she is headed to a better life in a warmer climate and closer to people who care about her.'

Fred and Mary also helped Cook pack for her trip because her health condition makes it difficult for her to move or stand for long.

Mary then helped Cook get $100 from her state guardian, with which she bought a meal at Kentucky Fried Chicken and then have her hair and nails done.

On Christmas morning a shelter staffer helped Cook wake up and get ready for her flight to Arizona.

The Ripps and their daughter then drove her to the airport and helped her get to her gate.

Ahead of time Fred had contacted the people he knew working on her flight, and Alaska Airlines waived her baggage fees.
A man drowned and two others had to be winched from rocks after their boat capsized off the coast of Sydney.

The man was plucked unconscious from the waves off Cape Solander on the Kurnell headland, near Cronulla, but could not be revived.

His two shipmates clung to rocks at the bottom of a cliff before a rescue helicopter winched them to safety.

Scroll down for video

A rescue helicopter attempts to winches one man with serious limb injuries to safety

A rescue helicopter retrieves one of three men whose boat capsized capsized off the coast of Sydney

The man was plucked unconscious from the waves on to a police boat off Cape Solander on the Kurnell headland, near Cronulla, but could not be revived

One of the two survivors had his thumb severed in the accident. Both were rushed to hospital in a stable condition.

The boat capsized about 10.30am and the man was missing in the water for more than half an hour before rescuers found him.

Officers from the Marine Investigation Group will speak to the survivors and prepare a report for the coroner.

His two shipmates clung to rocks at the bottom of a cliff after swimming from the wreck
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President Trump has issued a comment on the arctic blast that's bringing negative temperatures to several states across the northern US - saying that maybe those states would actually benefit from global warming.

'In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record,' he tweeted from Mar-a-Lago Thursday night, where it is currently a balmy 78 degrees Fahrenheit.

'Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!'

He was referring to his decision that the United States will pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, making America the only country in the world not to sign it. The Accord was designed to attempt to curb global greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming to within two degrees Celsius. His administration also dropped climate change from the list of national security threats.

It is clear the president is trying to make a joke, by saying that because it is supposed to be so cold this winter global warming couldn't possibly be real.

However, climate scientists agree that extreme weather, such as record low temperatures, are caused by climate change, and that climate change is caused by the gradual warming of global temperatures.

Forecasters this weekend are warning those who want to step outdoors to bundle up in layers to protect against hypothermia and frostbite that could happen as a result of exposure to the bitter arctic. The chill has forced people indoors, stranded motorists with dead car batteries and complicated firefighting duties.

This month's cold wave caps a year that saw ferocious hurricanes, heat waves, floods and wildfires wreak global havoc.

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President Trump has issued a comment on the arctic blast that's bringing negative temperatures to several states across the northern US - saying that maybe those states would actually benefit from global warming. 'In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record,' he Tweeted from Mar-a-Lago Thursday night, where it is currently a balmy 78 degrees Fahrenheit

Forecasters this weekend are warning those who want to step outdoors to bundle up in layers to protect against hypothermia and frostbite that could happen as a result of exposure to the bitter arctic

A young woman bundles up against the brutally cold temperatures as she walks in Times Square, Manhattan on Thursday. Trump wrote on Twitter that the record temperatures are a sign that global warming isn't real, a fact most climate scientists vehemently disagree with

An Ohio road was closed on Wednesday as temperatures dropped into the low single digits, bringing arctic wind chill and light snowfall in many parts of the state

The arctic blast that's bringing negative temperatures to several states across the northern U.S. is causing waterfalls to freeze, windows to crack and people to suffer life-threatening frostbite with just 30 minutes of exposure outside. Above the frozen Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota are pictured on Thursday

The popular attraction has completely frozen over due to the super cold single-digit temperatures that have gripped the state over the past few days

The Minnehaha Creek flows from Lake Minnetonka, which is the biggest lake in the Twin Cities, to the Mississippi River. The falls are just a few miles from where the creek enters the Mississippi River

Bitter cold weather has taken hold of much of the northern United States and is expected to stay put for days to come into the New Year. A far-reaching arctic blast is going to make the temperatures drop even more

The cold weather is going to dominate for days into New Year's Eve as it is predicted to feel like negative 8 degrees in Chicago, negative five degrees in New York and a freezing negative 35 degrees in Bangor, Maine

Trump's tweet was quickly met with a barrage of responses - many with people calling him out on his misunderstanding of climate change and global warming.

'This shows that Trump has a fundamental misunderstanding of Global Warming. Read a book, Jeez!!,' Twitte ruser Brian Krassenstein wrote, before going into a simple explanation of global warming and climate change.

'You see Donald, Global warming causes EXTREME WEATHER. Record cold weather is EXEME (sic). therefore it is possible, if not likely that this week's record cold is related to global warming.

'It's an absolute embarrassment that we have you representing us to the world. They are Laughing. One of the main causes of record weather is GLOBAL WARMING!'

'The worst part is knowing he's insanely proud of this tweet and has probably sent it to multiple people,' Brandy Jensen wrote, commenting on Trump's joking tone.

And Media Matters for America reporter Simon Maloy noted that many scientists agree that global warming had an impact on the severity of Hurricane Irma, which ripped through his Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this year.

'The buoy that commemorates the spot where Mar-a-Lago used to be should be emblazoned with this tweet,' Maloy wrote.

The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang had also tweeted earlier in the evening: 'US to be coldest region in world relative to normal over next week.'

'Please note rest of world will be much warmer than normal lest anyone try to claim pocket of cold in US debunks global warming, which they will invariably and irresponsibly do,' the weather reporters said.

Trump's tweet was quickly met with a barrage of responses - many with people calling him out on his misunderstanding of climate change and global warming

And Media Matters for America reporter Simon Maloy noted that many scientists agree that global warming had an impact on the severity of Hurricane Irma, which ripped through his Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this year

But, as always, there were a handful of Twitter users quick to praise the president's bombastic language and 'America First' policies.

'The Paris Climate Accord was a deal designed for other countries to rip the American tax payer off. Leaving was one of Trumps best decisions,' avid Donald fan account The Trump Train tweeted enthusiastically in response to the president.

'Thank you for standing up against the global hoax that is global warming... FAKE NEWS of the highest order!!,' Joey Mannarino responded, using one of Trump's signature phrases.

'People hang their hat on this fake science. I just got in from the cold and I would love some global warming mysef! Turn the heaters on, Al Gore!!! PLEASE! The science is simply NOT there!!! It's a liberal money making scheme.'

It's not clear what Mannarino means by this, or who is making the money in the alleged 'scheme.'

But, as always, there were a handful of Twitter users quick to praise the president's bombastic language and 'America First' policies

'Thank you for standing up against the global hoax that is global warming... FAKE NEWS of the highest order!!,' Joey Mannarino responded, using one of Trump's signature phrases

The icy cold weather has already turned the Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota into a beautiful frozen wonderland. The popular attraction has completely frozen over due to the super cold single-digit temperatures that have gripped the state over the past few days.

The Minnehaha Creek flows from Lake Minnetonka, which is the biggest lake in the Twin Cities, to the Mississippi River. The falls are just a few miles from where the creek enters the Mississippi River.

The National Weather Service reported International Falls, Minnesota, the self-proclaimed Icebox of the Nation, plunged to 37 degrees below zero, breaking the old record of 32 below set in 1924.

Hibbing, Minnesota, bottomed out at 28 below, breaking the old record of 27 below set in 1964.

'Bitterly cold arctic air will settle in across a large swath of the U.S. as we turn the calendar from 2017 to 2018,' said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski.

With temperatures in the single digits, Ray Levesque, mate of the crab/lobster boat Bradbill, makes his way across the deck covered in ice to tie off, after arriving in New Bedford, Massachusetts harbor on Thursday from a one day fishing voyage

A woman braves temperatures in the teens as she makes her way to the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in DC on Thursday

Karlee Winter, left, 11, and her brother Samuel Espinoza, 8, shovel snow from their neighbor's sidewalk in Dubuque, Iowa, on Thursday

Forecasters predict freezing temperatures for much of the Northeast and Midwest into the New Year

New Year's Eve temperatures are predicted to be to be around 12 degrees in the Big Apple, but it will feel dramatically colder due to the wind chill

The Great Lakes may get 1-3 inches of snow creating slippery travel in the Interstate 70, 80 and 90 corridors of the Plains and Midwest

Meteorologists are also cautioning a possible snow threat for the Northeast region over New Year's weekend

If two storms merge, Philadelphia to New York City to Boston and Portland, Maine will see snow Friday to Saturday

There is an ice threat for coastal cities in Georgia and South Carolina on Thursday to early Friday

It's so cold officials in New Jersey canceled a New Year's Day 'polar bear plunge' in which swimmers dash into the Atlantic Ocean

'People will really need to bundle up if they are heading out Sunday night for New Year's Eve celebrations in places like Chicago, for example, where the high will be 15 F on Sunday, around 15 degrees below normal.'

In addition, the dangerously cold weather has caused windows in Canada to crack. Wind chill advisories or warnings were in effect for much of New England, northern Pennsylvania and New York.

Those places and states in the northern Plains and Great Lakes were projected to see highs in the teens or single digits and lows below zero for the rest of the week and into the new year.

The National Weather Service said wind chills in many areas Thursday could make temperatures feel below zero.

Prolonged, dangerous cold weather this week has sent advocates for the homeless scrambling to get people off the streets and to bring in extra beds for them.

A dog has been found frozen solid on an Ohio home's porch as a bitter cold snap grips much of the United States.

Toledo humane society cruelty investigator Megan Brown tells The Blade newspaper she doesn't know how long the dog was outside Thursday, when Toledo's high temperature was expected to be in the teens

A second dog was recovered shivering inside the home.

The dogs' owner says utilities had been shut off but he had been providing for the dogs while living elsewhere. He says he doesn't know how one dog got outside.

wo women take a selfie photo in front of a frozen fountain in New York City's Bryant Park on Thursday

People bundle up while walking through a frigid and super windy Manhattan on Thursday

A worker spreads de-icing granules on the walkway outside the New England Aquarium on Thursday

People walk past a blue lobster ice sculpture outside the New England Aquarium as the temperature hovers in the low teens on Thursday

The frigid weather isn't stopping the hustle and bustle in New York City. Above crowds walk through Times Square on Thursday

A delivery man in New York City (left) braved the cold temperatures outside by bundling up and covering his hands with bags while riding a bicycle. A woman wore a ski mask while putting on several layers to go outside in the chilly weather in New York City Thursday (right)

Ana Gonzalez of New Haven, Connecticut, right, helps her sister Alejandrina Gonzalez, left, put on another scarf as they brave temperatures in the teens on the National Mall in DC on Thursday

Visitors to the Washington Monument on the National Mall brave temperatures in the teens on Thursday in DC

A woman holds her face while braving the freezing temperatures in DC on Thursday

The jet-stream pattern responsible for the cold outbreak across the Plains, Rockies and Midwest, featuring the 'omega block' is surging northward from the Pacific Ocean into the Arctic Ocean, and the downstream nose-diving jet into the central U.S., according to The Weather Channel

A persistent northward bulge in the jet stream over the Southwest has led to an extended dry period for the region, according to The Weather Channel

New Year's Eve in Times Square, New York will feel like negative five degrees with 10 to 20mph winds on Sunday night

Frozen pipes and dead car batteries added to the misery across the Midwest and Northeast regions.

It's so cold, officials in New Jersey canceled a New Year's Day 'polar bear plunge' in which swimmers dash into the Atlantic Ocean.

People in Erie, Pennsylvania, continued to dig out from a storm that brought 34 inches of snow on Christmas Day, smashing the daily snowfall record for the Great Lakes city of 8 inches, and 26.5 more inches on Tuesday.

More than 65 inches total fell on the city in just a few days.

Strong westerly winds over Lake Erie picked up moisture, developed into snow and converged with opposing winds, dumping snow in a band along the shore from Ohio to New York, said Zach Sefcovic, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Cleveland.

Sabrina Ram drove into Erie on Christmas Eve to visit her parents just as the snow began to fall.

Ram, who lives in suburban Washington, D.C., and her father spent five hours on Christmas and two hours on Tuesday clearing the driveway.

'In D.C., we'd be out of commission for weeks,' Ram said. 'Things here are pretty much back to normal now.'

Matthew England, a climate scientist from the University of New South Wales, said: Climate change is not overturned by a few unusually cold days in the US.

The snow is predicted to spread on Thursday causing slippery travel and possible flight delays in Chicago and Pittsburgh

Disruptive snow is predicted on Friday and into Friday night in the Midwest making travel delays even worse

There is also a hazardous ice threat in place for Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina for Thursday night

There is a snow threat from Friday to Saturday with two storms that could possibly merge

Wind chill advisories or warnings are in effect for much of New England, northern Pennsylvania and New York along with several states in the Midwest

Much of the Northeast and Midwest are experiencing freezing temperatures Thursday morning

There are some rain showers in the Southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama

Meanwhile, much of the Northern part of the country is covered in at least an inch of snow

Several north eastern states are under wind chill advisories or warnings. The hazardous winds will make temperatures feel like negative 10 to negative 40 degrees in some areas

The forecast highs are pictured above for New Year's Weekend across the Northern and Midwest parts of the U.S.

The forecast lows are pictured above for New Year's Weekend across the Northern and Midwest parts of the U.S.

In New York, communities near Lake Ontario's eastern end, including Redfield and Boylston, also saw around 5 feet of snow this week.

Listed above are the coldest New Year's Eve ball drops in New York City from 1917 up until 2008

Officials said the storm's timing was good, since people were off the streets and staying home for Christmas, giving plows more space to clear streets.

By Wednesday, Erie's roads were relatively clear, emergency calls were relatively slow and the big task was digging out, County Executive Kathy Dahlkemper said.

'We're used to a lot of snow here in Erie, but this is unprecedented, the amount we got,' Dahlkemper said.

The Department of Energy has projected energy fuel costs are going to track upward. That falls on the heels of two winters when costs were relatively low.

Elizabeth Parker, 88, of Sanford, Maine, said she lives in fear of running out of fuel and remains vigilant in monitoring the gauge outside her trailer, just in case, especially during cold weather.

She said she is allowed to request a fuel delivery thanks to federal aid - but only when her gauge dips to one-eighth of a tank.

'I couldn't get along without it,' said Parker, who lives with her 93-year-old husband, Robert, along with a cat, dog and four birds.

Mark Wolfe, an official with the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, said the good news is that President Donald Trump has released 90 percent of the energy assistance funding which totals to nearly $3billion. Trump previously tried to eliminate the program altogether.

Forecasters warned of hypothermia and frostbite from arctic air settling in over the central U.S. and spreading east. Above people cross the street in downtown Boston on Thursday morning in freezing single-digit temperatures

The National Weather Service said there's the potential for record-breaking cold this week in New England. Above a man walks in the snow in downtown Boston on Thursday morning

The frigid temperatures in New York City aren't stopping people from going outside and braving the cold snap

New York City Police Officers are patrolling the streets of the city in the freezing temperatures

States in the northern Plains and Great Lakes were projected to see highs in the teens or single digits and lows below zero for the rest of the week and into the new year. Above a man walks along the Chicago River

But projected energy cost increases will effectively reduce the purchasing power by $330 million, making it imperative that the remaining funding be released, said Mark Wolfe, of the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association.

This winter, energy costs were projected to grow by 12 percent for natural gas, 17 percent for home heating oil, 18 percent for propane and 8 percent for electricity, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration.

But energy prices this winter may even be higher than those projections.

According to Wolfe, colder weather could lead to even higher levels of consumption, and resulting prices could push the cost of winter heating up to $1,800 this winter for those using heating oil, 45 percent more than last year's level.

'That's a scary situation for people who're really struggling to heat their homes,' said Barbara Crider, of Maine's York County Community Action Agency.

The cold air is lingering with more arctic air sweeping into the region, reaching as far south as Texas and the Florida Panhandle through the weekend.
Banning specific words in federal budget requests is invariably a bad look. But its especially alarming when a public-health agency, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shies away from using terms as fundamental to its mission as science-based and evidence-based.

CDC officials reportedly were directed to avoid those terms in next years budget materials, along with the words: transgender, fetus, diversity, entitlement and vulnerable. CDC officials have denied the existence of an agencywide word ban, saying the guidance extended solely to budget documents.

The gag order may not have been handed down from on high but appears to have been self-imposed by CDC officials themselves worried that certain words could trigger members of Congress, thereby endangering the agencys funding requests.

Either way, its a problem.

Both scenarios reflect poorly on the state of politics in our country. One version suggests officials in President Donald Trumps administration are indifferent about evidence and scientific data when deciding where to direct public spending  a scary proposition for an informed citizenry.

In an alternative scenario, CDC researchers are responding to members of Congress demonstrated pattern of disdain for quantitative data and science by pre-emptively stripping any mention of such concepts from their budget requests.

Scientists fear of reprisal would not be unfounded. After researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a 2015 paper saying the Earths temperatures have risen steadily over the past 20 years  countering the notion of a global warming hiatus  U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, accused the scientists of fabricating data and subpoenaed their emails.

This year, Scott Pruitt, administrator of Trumps Environmental Protection Agency, unseated scientists receiving EPA grants from some of the agencys science advisory boards, replacing them with industry representatives and others who disdain environmental regulations.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to tweet and repeat proven falsehoods  inflating Republicans winning record in congressional races, exaggerating crowd sizes and wrongly labeling the United States as one of the worlds highest-taxed nations.

It all adds up to a political culture that regards reality as malleable and fluid, where ideological stances rule over facts. In this version of the world, pesky things like evidence or science can only interfere.

Whatever the origin of the CDCs list of words that must not be named, it is a symptom of a much larger problem that must be rectified. Scientific evidence is something our elected officials should search out and value, rather than scorn and fear.

Yes, Virginia, one vote really matters

The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)

One year after a panel of three federal judges upheld Virginias law requiring a photo ID to vote, the balance of power in Virginias legislature rests on a single vote.

In a recount, Democrat challenger Shelly Simonds won House District 94 race by a final count of 11,608 to 11,607, but a three-judge panel refused to certify the vote Wednesday. It said a ballot that election officials found invalid should have been counted for the Republican incumbent, making the race a tie, which under state law will likely be settled by lot, essentially a coin toss.

The result illustrates how much one vote matters. Conversely, it also illustrates how consequential it can be when even a single vote is suppressed by photo ID requirements. A 2014 analysis by the Government Accountability Office of the effect of voter ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee found turnout dropped 1.9 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively, with likely Democratic voters most affected.

The voters who enabled Simonds to tie a Republican incumbent were part of a Democratic wave that elected a Democratic governor and gave Democrats big gains in the House. Opposition to President Trump has energized Democratic voters, but they are also angry about Republican state legislators whove narrowed access to voting and have warped the election results in their favor through gerrymandering.

Those efforts to undermine democracy are being countered by a surge of it, one vote at a time.
Facebook and Twitter could see their businesses destroyed by the public unless they deal with fears about how they operate, a top academic is warning.

Dr Damian Tambini of the London School of Economics says social media giants need to get a grip on issues such as how they help to spread fake news.

The academic, who leads the institutions research on the media, said: It may well be that this is the beginning of the end for these firms.

He said the days of social networks shirking responsibility for the harm done by users of their sites were numbered.

Facebook and Twitter could see their businesses destroyed by the public unless they deal with fears about how they operate, a top academic is warning

Google and YouTube have also been repeatedly criticised for how they have helped terrorists by failing to do enough to take down extremist material, such as bomb-making manuals.

Dr Tambini said the fate of social media firms is in the hands of the public.

He said: For these super-giant companies its got very serious now. They have to face up to the fact theyre coming up against existential problems in liberal democracies.

They should at least clarify the principles behind how their algorithms rank news, because when they tweak it they effectively become something between an editor and a censor, particularly given their monopoly position.

Damian Collins warned social networks they could face sanctions unless they hand over details of Russian misinformation campaigns

They have enjoyed this ability to use our data, our content, our innovation, to create huge businesses and we have given them a shield from a lot of the risks.

So essentially we made them  is this the year that we begin unmaking them?

The social media companies have been criticised recently over their replies to a parliamentary investigation into fake news and allegations of Russian interference in British politics.

Twitters response was called completely inadequate by Damian Collins, chairman of the Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee, while he accused Facebook of doing virtually no work to help the probe.

Last night, Mr Collins warned Twitter and Facebook they could face sanctions unless they hand over details of Russian misinformation campaigns by January 18.

Meanwhile, Professor Charlie Beckett, who leads the LSEs new Truth, Trust and Technology Commission, compared fake news and the proliferation of junk information with air pollution.

He said: You can either ban all cars because that solves the problem, or you try to make the cars cleaner, regulate traffic etc.

Its a gradual process to solve what is now a serious social health issue.

Facebook product manager Tessa Lyons said: False news undermines the unique value that Facebook offers.

Its why were investing in better technology and more people to help prevent the spread of misinformation.

Demoting false news (as identified by fact-checkers) is one of our best weapons because demoted articles typically lose 80 per cent of their traffic. This destroys the economic incentives spammers and troll farms have to generate these articles in the first place.
Brexiteers have demanded a clean break from Brussels after it was revealed every single new EU law opposed by Britain since the referendum has been passed.

Campaigners said the figures showed why the UK needs to break free from EU regulations.

Since the Brexit referendum in June 2016, Britain has taken part in 102 votes of the EUs Council of Ministers.

Brexiteers have demanded a clean break from Brussels after it was revealed every single new EU law opposed by Britain since the referendum has been passed

In 17 of those, the country either abstained or voted against the proposed measures. All were subsequently pushed through, bringing in a raft of rules that disadvantage the UKs interests.

Research by campaign group Change Britain found the new regulations added 473.3million to the EU budget, of which the share paid by British taxpayers works out at 63.6million. Motions the UK refused to endorse  but has nonetheless been forced to accept  include new common rules for ports.

Prior to becoming Brexit Secretary, David Davis warned that this measure will interfere with the commercial freedom of our ports and undermine their ability to attract investment in essential national infrastructure, claiming that up to 400,000 jobs could be affected.

Gisela Stuart, chairman of Change Britain, said: Those who argue we should stay tied to the EUs single market in order to influence policy are deluding themselves.

The fact is that Brussels already ignores our concerns, and this will only continue if we remain answerable to EU law without being a member of the bloc.

This is why we must take back full control of our laws and deliver a clean Brexit.

Boris Johnson last week warned that keeping Britain shackled to EU laws after Brexit would be madness.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the Brussels way of regulation cannot keep pace with the needs of the high-growth industries of the future

The Foreign Secretary said the Brussels way of regulation cannot keep pace with the needs of the high-growth industries of the future.

He said maintaining full alignment with EU rules would make a mockery of Brexit, adding: I think the argument is gaining ground that it really would be madness to leave without taking back control of your regulatory freedoms.

Mr Johnson is leading the charge in the Cabinet for a clean break from the EU.

During talks last week he faced resistance from Chancellor Philip Hammond and Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who fear moving too far from EU regulations could damage existing export markets.

The Foreign Secretary was backed by Michael Gove and Liam Fox, who argue that Brussels red tape helps explain why Europe has failed to produce a technology giant such as Microsoft or Google.

Mrs May reserved her position on the matter, telling ministers there would be further discussions before she reaches a final view. The Cabinet meeting reached a broad agreement that the UK should be free to diverge in some areas after Brexit.
Convicted terrorists will face tougher prison terms after the Government announced a shake-up of sentencing.

Ministers are extending a measure which allows the public to ask the Attorney General to examine soft jail terms.

The Unduly Lenient Sentence (ULS) scheme is reserved for certain types of cases, including murder, rape, robbery and the most serious terror offences.

Justice Minister Dominic Raab said the changes will strengthen the ability to punish and deter those who tip off individuals involved in terrorism

But now nine further terror-related crimes are being added to the scheme, which allows the public to challenge sentences handed out by the courts.

It means that individuals found guilty of crimes such as tipping off terrorists about an investigation, or flouting Terror Prevention and Investigation Measures (T-Pims) or could see their sentences increased if victims think the punishment is too light.

Ministers have acted to ensure sentences reflect the devastating impact terrorism has on victims and communities.

Justice Minister Dominic Raab said: These changes will strengthen our ability to punish and deter those who tip off individuals involved in terrorism, and reinforce the conditions imposed by the authorities on individuals subject to monitoring, supervision or control.

If a member of the public complains about a lenient sentence, Government law officers may ask the Court of Appeal to determines whether it should stay the same or be increased.

In 2016, a record 141 criminals had their sentences increased, helping victims and their families get justice.

In July, 19 terror offences were added to ULS scheme, including encouraging terrorism in speeches or on the internet and sharing terrorist propaganda.

The new crimes, announced today, include where a person learns of terrorist activity through their trade, profession or employment, and fails to report this information to the police - for example, an accountant discovering a client may be funding terror.

There was an outcry when it emerged hate preacher Anjem Choudary could be released after serving less than half of his five-and-a-half-year sentence

It came after the family of off-duty police officer Elaine McIver, 43, who was killed in the Manchester bomb attack in May, called for tougher laws to cover terror suspects.

Attorney General Jeremy Wright said: The Unduly Lenient Sentencing (ULS) scheme added over 400 years of imprisonment to criminal sentences last year.

While in the vast majority of cases sentencing judges get it right, the ULS scheme gives anyone the ability to challenge sentences within the scheme they think are too low and Im pleased that more offences will now be included.

Ministers first announced they would close the legal loophole which allowed terrorists to escape with soft sentences in October last year.

It follows a huge outcry after it emerged that hate preacher Anjem Choudary, 50, who inspired hundreds of young people to join Islamic State, could be released after serving less than half of his five-and-a-half-year sentence.

Concerns surfaced when it was revealed that Choudarys crime of supporting IS, under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000, was not covered by the ULS rules.

Crown Courts hear around 80,000 cases each year. The changes will come into force on January 29.
Huma Abedin's first cousin Omar Amanat, 44, (pictured) was convicted of fraud this week

Huma Abedin's first cousin was convicted of fraud just days before a government watchdog group announced the Friday release of top-secret documents and emails from the political staffer.

Omar Amanat, 44, of New-York based software firm, Kit Digital, was found guilty in Manhattan federal court for the crime that occurred within his company, according to Page Six.

His colleague, Kaleil Tuzman, was also convicted after the pair 'artificially' inflated 'the company's revenue' and obtained millions of dollars from their investors, the newspaper reported.

Amanat described Abedin, 41, to be his 'closest' cousin on his mother's side of the family.

His brother, Irfan Amanat, was also taken into custody in the United Arab Emirates for his reported involvement in the financial scheme.

Acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Joon Kim, revealed that Amanat provided false information in court, which prompted his immediate jail time, the judge said.

Scroll down for video

Amanat's conviction comes just days before a government watchdog group announced the Friday release of top-secret documents and emails from political staffer Abedin (shown at a New York City event in April)

President of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton, said it was 'outrageous' that Clinton (shown at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in England in April) and Abedin 'walked out of the State Department with classified documents and the Obama FBI and DOJ didn't do a thing about it'

'The evidence of their criminal schemes was so overwhelming that Amanat actually tried to fool the jury by introducing fake emails into the record as exculpatory 'evidence' in this trial,' Kim said.

'Unfortunately for Tuzman and Amanat, the jury saw through their tangled web of lies, convicting them on all counts.'

Court documents also said the jury was denied hearing detail from source Abedin, according to Page Six.

Abedin, the estranged wife to former Democratic congressman Anthony Wiener and also Hillary Clinton's former deputy chief of staff, has also been involved in an ongoing investigation.

An acting U.S. attorney said in a statement that Amanat (pictured at a Charity Dreams event in December 2011 in Los Angeles) also fabricated evidence in court

The agency found as many as 2,800 top-secret work documents and emails while searching sex offender Wiener's laptop last year.

After the release of the sexting scandal story first published by DailyMail.com, Wiener was forced to hand over his laptop as part of an investigation that involved an underage girl.

Abedin filed for divorce from Wiener when he pleaded guilty in May. In September, Wiener was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

President of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton, announced on social media Thursday the State Department's plans to release Abedin's emails also found on the computer.

Fitton said Thursday: 'Thanks to @JudicialWatch lawsuits. Will @RealDonaldTrump DOJ finally take action on Clinton/Abedin misdeeds?'

The agency found as many as 2,800 top-secret work documents and emails by Abedin (pictured at a closed door hearing on Capitol Hill October 2015 in Washington, DC) while searching sex offender Wiener's laptop

After the release of the sexting scandal story first published by DailyMail.com, Wiener (shown during his September sentencing in New York) was forced to hand over his laptop as part of investigation

He wrote to Twitter: '@StateDept will publish releasable portions of 2800 government docs that @FBI found on Anthony Weiner laptop tomorrow (Dec. 29th).'

Fitton added: 'Again, thanks to @JudicialWatch lawsuits. Will @RealDonaldTrump DOJ finally take action on Clinton/Abedin misdeeds?'

In a statement to DailyMail.com, Fitton said it was 'outrageous' that Clinton and Abedin 'walked out of the State Department with classified documents and the Obama FBI and DOJ didn't do a thing about it.

'We expect that we will be told that some of these classified materials were on Weiner's laptop, which is highly disturbing,' he said.

'Lets hope it spurs a long needed Clinton special counsel or, at least, a serious criminal investigation.'
A bus lane has raked in more than 4.5 million in fines in just one year.

Almost 70,000 motorists were caught out by the traffic-calming measure designed to stop rat runs and slapped with 65 penalties.

The route, part of TFL's 30 million 'mini Holland' cycle route scheme, put in restrictions allowing only cyclists, buses, taxis and authorised access to homes in a south west London suburb.

But it has now been revealed that Kingston Council has earned millions from the scheme.

It has been revealed that Kingston Council has earned millions in bus lane fines over the past year. Almost 70,000 motorists were caught out and slapped with 65 penalties

Temporary bollards and signs were erected at the site in Surbiton last November and 68,820 notices have since been sent to motorists who contravened the restrictions.

Starting at 65, and rising to 195 if not paid within 28 days, the minimum value of the fines is estimated to be 4,473,300.

Local mum Helen Hinton presented a petition to the council in June asking them to review their decision to make the restrictions permanent.

The mum-of-two was hit with five fines, despite Surbiton High School giving the council her registration number to authorise access.

She said: 'It's an absolutely amazing amount of money. I still feel the same.

'I think that people who signed the petition have been vindicated.

Temporary bollards and signs were erected at the site in Surbiton last November and 68,820 notices have since been sent to motorists who contravened the restrictions

'It's a huge amount of money the council has made for no good reason - you hardly see any cyclists using it.

'In an ideal world, the council should probably look at giving some of the people their money back.

'It's absolutely extraordinary for such a small road.

'I think most residents will look at the amount of money that has been paid and feel they have a lack of confidence in the leadership of the council, in the way they have gone about it.'

The restrictions were put in place as part of Kingston Council's 30 million 'mini-Holland' GoCycle scheme, funded by the Mayor of London.

Surbiton residents have slammed the measures and said 'You need eyes in the back of your head to drive in Kingston because there are so many rules and regulations'

A trial scheme began last September, and fines began being issued in November that year - with more than 500,000 of fines issued in the first week.

The restrictions were made permanent by the council in June this year.

Angry local Richard Grosvenor even proposed a class action lawsuit against the council after he was caught out twice by the road closure last year.

The 68-year-old said: 'To think that 10,000 to 15,000 motorists were caught in the first few weeks of this scheme makes it very clear that whatever publicity was put out wasn't adequate.

'They say this is part of a big scheme to help cyclists.

'Whatever the council say I feel very strongly - It's a cash cow.

Councillor Phil Doyle said the council does not decide the charges because they are set by London Councils to ensure charges are consistent

'You need eyes in the back of your head to drive in Kingston because there are so many rules and regulations.

'It's been done in very bad taste.'

Councillor Phil Doyle, portfolio holder responsible for the Go Cycle programme said: 'When the scheme was first introduced there were high levels of contravention and a large number of PCNs were issued.

'The number of contraventions observed has steadily declined.

'The council does not decide the charges.

'These are set by a London-wide body called London Councils to ensure that charges are consistent throughout London and the money from the PCNs is legally ring-fenced for road improvements.

'The traffic assessment shows that traffic volumes in Surbiton Crescent have reduced by half.

'Most of the displaced traffic has been re-assigned to other roads that continue to operate satisfactorily and traffic speeds have reduced - meaning it is safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

'The more we develop the Go Cycle network, and join up the various routes, the more we expect cyclists to use it.'
Still without a plan for this New Year's Eve and don't want to spend a fortune? Well, Daily Mail Australia has you covered.

These are the best, free spots to watch Sydney's magical fireworks display.

Sydney knows how to kick off New Year's Eve with a bang and this year the display is set to be extra colourful - with rainbow fireworks celebrating the marriage equality vote.

A family-friendly display begins at 9pm, while the official New Year's Eve countdown kicks off just before midnight.

Still looking for a New Year's Eve plan and don't want to spend a fortune? We've got you covered with the best spots in Sydney

But with many traveling from around the world and across Australia just to catch a glimpse of the display, many locations in Sydney are now charging the public to watch the show.

People are paying crazy amounts to catch a glimpse of the display exclusive locations, with some spending up to $2400 to 'glamp' on Cockatoo Island and $1399 for an Opera House viewing package.

With this in mind, we've rounded up some of the best places to catch the colourful extravaganza without selling your soul or re-mortgaging the house.

Mrs Macquaries Point:

This spot boasts a stunning view of the Harbour Bridge and the iconic Sydney Opera House. It's one best spots to get a full view of the show, and offers an incredible atmosphere with thousands of happy Sydney locals choosing to see in the new year here. It's best to get here as early as possible as the popular spot gets full quickly.

Open 10am-12.30am

Food, drinks and accessible toilets available

Mrs Macquaries Point (pictured) boasts a stunning view of the Harbour Bridge and the iconic Sydney Opera House making it one of the best, FREE spots to watch the fireworks from

Pirrama Park, Pyrmont:

This park is one of the less crowded spots by the water this NYE, making it one of our top picks. Catch great views of the display without being trodden on or having to stand cramped. This family-friendly vantage point has stunning views of the western side of the Harbour Bridge. Make ample use of the space by packing a picnic blanket or enjoy some modern Asian food courtesy of Jimmy Likes Catering.

Open 2pm - 1am

Food, beverages and accessible toilets available

Grab your family and get ready for a New Year's view to be remembered at the free spots we've rounded up for you

Bradfield Park, Milsons Point:

This popular spot offers views of the eastern and western sides of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This one is popular for families and is easy to access via public transport. Offering one of the best and closest views of the bridge, this is certainly a top pick for this NYE. Grab your family and get ready for a New Year's view to be remembered.

Open 8:00am till 1:00pm

Food and accessible toilets available

Blues Point Reserve, McMahons Point:

This stunning Sydney location is the perfect place to watch the fireworks if you have children as alcohol is prohibited. Get there early to secure a spot for your picnic blanket and avoid disappointment as it had reached capacity by 6pm last year. There is no alcohol available at this site so if you're in search of a kid-friendly park, look no further. Stunning, front-on views of the western side of the bridge will ensure you the perfect view for the fireworks show that promises to be one-of-the BEST yet.

Open 8:00am till 1:00am

Food available

No accessible toilets or alcohol available

Stunning views of the western side of the bridge will ensure you the perfect spot to catch a glimpse of the fireworks show without paying a fortune

For those that don't feel like traveling to the city on Sydney's biggest night of the year, there are many other free events to see in the New Years.

Northern Beaches and Eastern suburbs:

The Northern Beaches Council are hosting a free-fireworks display at three beautiful spots. At Dee Why Beach and Manly Cove, the displays begin at 9 pm, while Bayview has a display for families at 9pm and a full countdown kicking off just before midnight.

Coogee:

Randwick City Council is hosting Coogee Sparkles fireworks at 9 pm for families and revellers alike to bring in the New Year. Grab a picnic blanket and some friends and head down for a laid-back afternoon by the sea. Entry is free but alcohol is strictly prohibited.
Two waitresses at an Arkansas burger joint are locked in a furious argument after one of the women ran off with a $300,000 lottery ticket intended to be split between the pair.

Leslie Underwood and her Sportsmans Drive-In co-worker, Mandy Vanhouten, were gifted the winning ticket as a Christmas bonus from their boss last Friday at the Stuttgart restaurant.

The manager, who ironically goes by the name Lucky, gifted the girls and other employees the tickets that were shared between duos.

Underwood and Vanhouten happened to be the Fortune instant ticket's holders - before Vanhouten left her high and dry when she disappeared with the prize shortly after.

A distraught Underwood since spoke with local Arkansas Matters about the matter.

Leslie Underwood (left) and her co-worker, Mandy Vanhouten (right) were gifted a winning ticket as a Christmas bonus from their boss last Friday, before Vanhouten ran off with the $300,000 prize

Vanhouten, who signed only her name on the check, is pictured smiling as she claimed the $300,000 prize Wednesday

'It's a little emotional,' Underwood cried as she explained how the incident went down to the newspaper.

The girls had agreed to split the $10 ticket bought by Lucky from G&B Liquor Store in Stuttgart.

'We talked about how life changing it would be and what we were going to do with this money,' Underwood told the newspaper.

'She even talked about giving back since it was such a blessing.'

They arranged to claim the money at the start of the New Year, but it seems Vanhouten had already signed off on the prize mid-week.

'It's a little emotional,' Underwood (right) cried as she explained how the incident went down to local KARK

She was pictured beaming from ear to ear as she held up the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery check Wednesday.

'It was kind of like somebody died for somebody to tell you that they don't think you deserve it and their decision has been made.

'She decided to take it and run,' Underwood said in the interview.

A heartbroken Underwood hasn't seen her longtime friend and fellow waitress since.

She said she felt betrayed after she helped Vanhouten get a job at the 'Best Burger in Town' and 'Best Place To Work' eatery.

'I put in a good word, stuck my neck out for her, let her stay with me so she didn't have to drive back and forth,' Underwood added.

'I think that's what hurt me the most is as much as I've done, she could have done right for once.'

The unlucky Underwood plans to take legal action if Vanhouten fails to follow through with their original plans.
Two men have been charged after a violent and bloody brawl erupted between far-right supporters of Milo Yiannopoulos and protesters outside his Melbourne show.

Police arrived in riot gear after left-wing activists descended into Kensington on December 4 ahead of much-maligned political commentator's speech.

Capsicum spray was deployed and dozens of officers erected a battle line as men were seen brandishing make-shift weapons including wooden clubs and sticks.

Two men have been charged after a violent and bloody brawl erupted between far-right supporters of Milo Yiannopoulos and protesters outside the agitator's Melbourne show

Police arrived in riot gear after left-wing activists descended into Kensington on December 4 ahead of much-maligned political commentator's speech

Yiannopoulos and his promoters were asked to cough up $50,000 to cover the heavy police presence at the show

The men were arrested at their Melbourne homes on Friday morning.

A 33-year-old from Wonthaggi and 28-year-old from Sunbury were arrested at their respective homes on Friday morning.

Both men were charged with riotous behaviour and affray, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

They were each granted bail and will face Melbourne Magistrate's Court in June, 2018.

Some of the men were later seen holding their heads in hands after police used capsicum spray to separate the brawlers

At least 10 men were pictured throwing punches, with several brandishing make-shift weapons including wooden clubs and sticks

The clash earlier this month saw more than 150 people descended on Stubbs Avenue to protest against the UK-born political commentator

The clash earlier this month saw more than 150 people descended on Stubbs Avenue to protest against the UK-born political commentator.

Protesters could be heard chanting 'Milo is a w**ker' before the clash turned physical.

At least 10 men were pictured throwing punches, with several brandishing make-shift weapons including wooden clubs and sticks.

Some of the men were later seen holding their heads in hands after police used capsicum spray to separate the brawlers.

Yiannopoulos and his promoters were asked to cough up $50,000 to cover the heavy police presence at the show.

Police Minister Lisa Neville said the event's organisers would be sent the bill after protesters violently clashed outside the Kensington venue on Monday night.

Yiannopoulos' Australian tour promoter Damien Costas defiantly argued 'his people' had nothing to do with the violence and said he will refuse to cover the cost.

'This is political grandstanding. It's actually absolute nonsense,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday.

'My answer to politicians that like to get political mileage out of something - in this case the Police Minister - my answer to her is quite simple: "Sue me".
A kindhearted couple have blamed political correctness for their decision to stop dressing as Santa and Mrs Claus.

For 14 years, Bill and Barbara Moore have donned the red costumes to entertain children in the Queensland town of Gympie, a three-hour drive north ofBrisbane.

However, this year will be their last.

Barbara and Bill Moore dressed as Mrs Claus and Santa for 14 years but that has now ended

The Moores have had Gympie residents of all ages on their laps as Santa and Mrs Claus

Mr Moore said he was worried about being dragged into a courtroom if either of them disciplined a child for being naughty.

'If I say the wrong thing, or happen to grab your son or daughter in the wrong way and in front of parents, I could wind up in court,' he told the Gympie Times.

'When you do it it is beautiful, but now it's not as enjoyable.'

Mrs Moore said would put away the Santa suits so they could spend more time with their family over the summer.

'It's getting too politically correct,' she said.

Her husband cited a situation where a mother chastised him for telling her son he might be on the naughty list, when joking that he needed to check if he qualified for a gift.

The Moores are pillars of the Gympie community, and are involved with the district historical society and a Men's Shed group.
Recy Taylor, a black Alabama woman whose rape by six white men in 1944 drew national attention, died Thursday. She was 97.

Taylor died in her sleep at a nursing home in Abbeville, her brother Robert Corbitt said.

He said Taylor had been in good spirits the previous day and her death was sudden. She would have been 98 on Sunday.

Taylor was 24 when she was abducted and raped as she walked home from church in Abbeville. Her attackers left her on the side of the road in an isolated area.

Recy Taylor (pictured in 2011), a black Alabama woman whose rape by six white men in 1944 drew national attention, died on Thursday

The NAACP assigned Rosa Parks to investigate the case, and she rallied support for justice for Taylor.

Two all-white, all-male grand juries declined to indict the six white men who admitted to authorities that they assaulted her.

In a 2010 interview, Taylor told The Associated Press that she believes the men who attacked her are dead, but she still would like an apology from officials.

'It would mean a whole lot to me,' Taylor said. 'The people who done this to me, ... they can't do no apologizing. Most of them is gone.'

The Alabama Legislature passed a resolution apologizing to her in 2011.

Taylor (pictured in 1944) was 24 when she was abducted and raped as she walked home from church in Abbeville

Taylor's (pictured with her husband and child) attackers left her on the side of the road in an isolated area

Taylor's story, along with those of other black women attacked by white men during the civil rights era, is told in 'At the Dark End of the Street,' a book by Danielle McGuire released in 2010.

A documentary on her case, 'The Rape of Recy Taylor,' was released this year.

'It is Recy Taylor and rare other black women like her who spoke up first when danger was greatest,' Nancy Buirski, the documentary's director, told NBC News.

'It is these strong women's voices of the 40s and early 50s and their efforts to take back their bodies that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and other movements that followed, notably the one we are witnessing today.'

The NAACP assigned Rosa Parks to investigate the case, and she rallied support for justice for Taylor. Above, civil rights activists who fought for justice for Taylor
Apple has apologised for slowing down ageing iPhones  and says it will slash the price of new batteries for older handsets so they maintain optimal performance.

It follows a backlash against the tech giant from customers who said they were kept in the dark about software that deliberately slows their phones as the battery deteriorates.

The problem came to light when users of the iPhone 6, iPhone 6S and iPhone SE and iPhone 7 reported that handsets seemed more sluggish over time.

A 17-year-old from Tennessee exposed Apple's technique of intentionally slowing down older iPhones to force users to upgrade - something that could end up costing the company billions of dollars in class action lawsuits.

Tyler Barney, a high school student in Mt Juliet, said he made the discovery that decreased performance has to do with phones lithium-ion batteries when his iPhone 6s 'became buggy,'

Tyler Barney, a high school student in Mt Juliet, said he discovered decreased performance has to do with phones lithium-ion batteries when his iPhone 6s 'became buggy,' according to the Tennessean.

'It was a big mess all the time. Even typing was painful. Seconds passed between keystrokes,' he said in a press release sent to outlets Friday.

Barney said that while he waited on the new updated operating system to be released by Apple, he tried his brother's older model iPhone 6.

Barney said that while he waited on the new updated operating system to be released by Apple, he tried his brother's older model iPhone 6

Barney found that Apple was 'throttling' its iPhones to preserve the lithium batteries and stop them shutting down as batteries age and become less effective

Though the phone was an older model, it was about a year younger, and he said it was noticeably faster.

He decided to look into why that might be, and found a suggestion that he replace his battery. When he did, his phone sped up instantly.

Barney then took to the message board website Reddit, where he posts under the username TeckFire, to share his findings that Apple intentionally slows iPhones to extend their lives and stop them from shutting down as batteries age and become less effective.

His post went viral and led to Apple's admission 'throttling' phones to extend their life and stop them shutting down as batteries age and become less effective.

The discovery has triggered class-action lawsuits from angry customers around the world - and will likely cause the company billions of dollars in legal fees.

On Thursday Apple issued an unprecedented apology and published a letter saying 'We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down', and revealed it is slashing the price of a replacement battery, and planning to show users exactly how much their battery has degraded.

The tech giant issued an apology Thursday, saying: 'We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down', and revealed it is slashing the price of a replacement battery, and will show users exactly how much their battery has degraded. This image shows CEO Tim Cook at the launch of the iPhone 6 on September 9, 2015

WHAT APPLE IS DOING Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50  from $79 to $29  for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Early in 2018, it will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhones battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance. Advertisement

'We apologize. Theres been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify and let you know about some changes were making.'

'First and foremost, we have never  and would never  do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades,' Apple said.

'Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that.'

Apple said it is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50  from $79 to $29  for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018.

The firm will also cut prices around the world, but has not yet revealed the pricing outside the US.

In the UK, a replacement battery costs 79.

Early in 2018, it will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhones battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance.

APPLE'S BATTERY LETTER IN FULL 'Weve been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize. Theres been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify and let you know about some changes were making. First and foremost, we have never  and would never  do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that. How batteries age All rechargeable batteries are consumable components that become less effective as they chemically age and their ability to hold a charge diminishes. Time and the number of times a battery has been charged are not the only factors in this chemical aging process. Device use also affects the performance of a battery over its lifespan. For example, leaving or charging a battery in a hot environment can cause a battery to age faster. These are characteristics of battery chemistry, common to lithium-ion batteries across the industry. A chemically aged battery also becomes less capable of delivering peak energy loads, especially in a low state of charge, which may result in a device unexpectedly shutting itself down in some situations. To help customers learn more about iPhones rechargeable battery and the factors affecting its performance, weve posted a new support article, iPhone Battery and Performance. It should go without saying that we think sudden, unexpected shutdowns are unacceptable. We dont want any of our users to lose a call, miss taking a picture or have any other part of their iPhone experience interrupted if we can avoid it. Preventing unexpected shutdowns About a year ago in iOS 10.2.1, we delivered a software update that improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE. With the update, iOS dynamically manages the maximum performance of some system components when needed to prevent a shutdown. While these changes may go unnoticed, in some cases users may experience longer launch times for apps and other reductions in performance. Customer response to iOS 10.2.1 was positive, as it successfully reduced the occurrence of unexpected shutdowns. We recently extended the same support for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in iOS 11.2. Of course, when a chemically aged battery is replaced with a new one, iPhone performance returns to normal when operated in standard conditions. Recent user feedback Over the course of this fall, we began to receive feedback from some users who were seeing slower performance in certain situations. Based on our experience, we initially thought this was due to a combination of two factors: a normal, temporary performance impact when upgrading the operating system as iPhone installs new software and updates apps, and minor bugs in the initial release which have since been fixed. We now believe that another contributor to these user experiences is the continued chemical aging of the batteries in older iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s devices, many of which are still running on their original batteries. Addressing customer concerns Weve always wanted our customers to be able to use their iPhones as long as possible. Were proud that Apple products are known for their durability, and for holding their value longer than our competitors devices. To address our customers concerns, to recognize their loyalty and to regain the trust of anyone who may have doubted Apples intentions, weve decided to take the following steps: Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50  from $79 to $29  for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com.

Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhones battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance.

As always, our team is working on ways to make the user experience even better, including improving how we manage performance and avoid unexpected shutdowns as batteries age. At Apple, our customers trust means everything to us. We will never stop working to earn and maintain it. We are able to do the work we love only because of your faith and support  and we will never forget that or take it for granted. Advertisement

The firm said last week it slows down phones to extend their life and stop them from shutting down as batteries age and become less effective, triggering lawsuits across the world.

In addition a South Korea's Communications Commission has reportedly asked for an explanation of the issue from Apple, while in France a consumer group has filed filed preliminary, legal complaints in court.

'We are hoping to get some answers on whether Apple intentionally restricted the performance of old iPhones and tried to hide this from customers,' the Korean Commission said.

French consumer association called 'HOP', standing for 'Stop Planned Obsolescence', has filed preliminary, legal complaints in court against Apple and Epson.

HOP said it filed its complaint against Apple in Paris on Wednesday.

A prosecutor opened an investigation into Epson last month, a judicial source said on Thursday, following a complaint filed in September by HOP in a court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

Laetitia Vasseur, co-founder of HOP, told Reuters the aim of both complaints was to apply the French consumer law, which was modified in 2015 to include the notion of planned obsolescence.

Geekbench developer John Poole decided to analyse the results of a number of iPhone 6 and 7 models running various versions of iOS. He found an update issued to fix a ' sudden shutdown' issue wit the iPhone 6 was to blame for poor performance

Apple is already facing lawsuits in the United States over accusations of having defrauded iPhone users by slowing down devices without warning to compensate for poor battery performance.

Under French law, companies risk fines of up to 5 percent of their annual sales for deliberately shortening the life of their products to spur demand to replace them.

All the US lawsuits - filed in U.S. District Courts in California, New York and Illinois - seek class-action to represent potentially millions of iPhone owners nationwide.

HOW APPLE'S THROTTLING WORKS Apple says with a low battery state of charge, a higher chemical age, or colder temperatures, users are more likely to experience unexpected shutdowns. To get around this, it introduces software in iOS to manage the issue. 'This power management works by looking at a combination of the device temperature, battery state of charge, and the batterys impedancem' Apple says. 'Only if these variables require it, iOS will dynamically manage the maximum performance of some system components, such as the CPU and GPU in order to prevent unexpected shutdowns. 'As a result, the device workloads will self-balance, allowing a smoother distribution of system tasks, rather than larger, quick spikes of performance all at once. In some cases, a user may not notice any differences in daily device performance. The level of perceived change depends on how much power management is required for a particular device. In cases that require more extreme forms of this power management, Apple says users may notice effects such as: Longer app launch times

Lower frame rates while scrolling

Backlight dimming (which can be overridden in Control Center)

Lower speaker volume by up to -3dB

Gradual frame rate reductions in some apps

During the most extreme cases, the camera flash will be disabled as visible in the camera UI

Apps refreshing in background may require reloading upon launch However, it says the following areas are not affected: Cellular call quality and networking throughput performance

Captured photo and video quality

GPS performance

Location accuracy

Sensors like gyroscope, accelerometer, barometer

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A similar case was lodged in an Israeli court on Monday, the newspaper Haaretz reported.

One of the lawsuits, filed Thursday in San Francisco, said that 'the batteries' inability to handle the demand created by processor speeds' without the software patch was a defect.

'Rather than curing the battery defect by providing a free battery replacement for all affected iPhones, Apple sought to mask the battery defect,' according to the complaint.

The plaintiff in that case is represented by attorney Jeffrey Fazio, who represented plaintiffs in a $53-million settlement with Apple in 2013 over its handling of iPhone warranty claims.

The problem now seen is that users over the last year could have blamed an aging computer processor for app crashes and sluggish performance - and chose to buy a new phone - when the true cause may have been a weak battery that could have been replaced for a fraction of the cost, some of the lawsuits state.

'If it turns out that consumers would have replaced their battery instead of buying new iPhones had they known the true nature of Apple's upgrades, you might start to have a better case for some sort of misrepresentation or fraud,' said Rory Van Loo, a Boston University professor specializing in consumer technology law.

But Chris Hoofnagle, faculty director for the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, said in an email that Apple may not have done wrong.

'We still haven't come to consumer protection norms' around aging products, Hoofnagle said.

Pointing to a device with a security flaw as an example, he said, 'the ethical approach could include degrading or even disabling functionality.'

The lawsuits seek unspecified damages in addition to, in some cases, reimbursement.

A couple of the complaints seek court orders barring Apple from throttling iPhone computer speeds or requiring notification in future instances.

Stefan Bogdanovich and Dakota Speas from Los Angeles have filed a lawsuit with the US District Court for the Central District of California.

They are accusing Apple of interfering with their devices without consent.

The pair are trying to get the case certified to cover all people in the United States who owned an Apple phone older than the iPhone 8.

Their application for the lawsuit states: 'Plaintiffs and Class Members never consented to allow Defendants to slow their iPhones.

'As a result of Defendant's wrongful actions, Plaintiffs and Class Members had their phone slowed down, and thereby it interfered with Plaintiffs' and Class Members' use or possession of their iPhones.'

Apple said it recently extended the feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and said it plans to add support for other products in the future

A second lawsuit, filed by five plaintiffs in the Northern District of the State of Illinois, accuses Apple of deliberately keeping its power management features under wraps to persuade people to upgrade to newer devices.

'Apple's iOS updates purposefully neglected to explain that its purposeful throttling down of older model devices and resulting lost or diminished operating performance could be remedied by replacing the batteries of these devices,' the lawsuit states.

'Instead, Apple's decision to purposefully slowdown or throttle down these devices was undertaken to fraudulently induce consumers to purchase the latest iPhone versions of the iPhone 7, as well as new phones such as the iPhone 8 and iPhone X .'

In a statement sent to MailOnline, a spokesman for Apple said: 'Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices.

'Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.

'Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions.

'We've now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.'

A consumer watchdog that evaluates electronic gadgets' performance sparked the outcry after it found that processing power of older models is limited once battery life begins to suffer.

Apple has come under fire for not being clear with users about the software update, or explaining when throttling happens.

The update reduces this drain on resources, allowing the phones to continue operating.

The drop in performance came to light in benchmark tests, from Toronto-based firm Geekbench.

It found that on certain versions the Apple operating system, phones with older batteries achieved much lower performance scores.

Battery capacity is expected to decrease as they age, but processor performance should stay the same.

However, users with older iPhones with lower-than-expected Geekbench scores have reported that replacing the battery increases their score, as well as the performance of the phone.

Geekbench developer John Poole decided to analyse the results of a number of iPhone 6 and 7 models running various versions of iOS.

He found that an update issued to fix the ' sudden shutdown' issue, when users found their iPhone 6 was turning off when its battery reached half charge, was to blame.

This resulted in the poor performance results observed.

Writing in a blog post, Mr Poole said: 'It appears the problem is widespread, and will only get worse as phones, and their batteries, continue to age.

So it's true Apple intentionally slow down old iPhones. Proof: My iPhone 6 was bought 3years ago and recently got really slow. APP 'CPU DasherX' shows iPhone CPU is under clocked running at 600MHz. After a iPhone battery replacement. CPU speed resumed to factory setting 1400MHz. pic.twitter.com/pML3y0Jkp2  Sam_Si (@sam_siruomu) December 20, 2017

'I believe, as do others, that Apple introduced a change to limit performance when battery condition decreases past a certain point.

'If the performance drop is due to the 'sudden shutdown' fix, users will experience reduced performance without notification.

'Users expect either full performance, or reduced performance with a notification that their phone is in low-power mode.

'This fix creates a third, unexpected state.'

Without this warning Mr Poole believes that the fix will cause users to believe their phone is slow so they should replace it, rather than the battery which is actually at fault.

'This will likely feed into the 'planned obsolescence' narrative,' he added.

Every time Apple launches a new handset people seemingly flock to Google to ask why their current iPhone or iOS is slow.

This trend has been seen every year since Apple released the iPhone 3G in 2008.

Explanations for the slowness range from Apple's iOS causing problems on older devices to the firm deliberately slowing down old phones to make people buy the new handsets.

This latter explanation is known as planned, or built-in, obsolescence.

This is the idea that manufacturer's deliberately make their products in such a way that they become out-of-date sooner.

By doing this, the companies can encourage customers to buy the latest model of a certain product.

This also stimulates demand for products because people return again and again.
We've been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhone devices with older batteries and how we have communicated that process. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologise. There's been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify a few things and let you know about some changes we're making.

First and foremost, we have never  and would never  do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making each iPhone last as long as possible is an important part of that.

All rechargeable batteries are consumable components that become less effective as they chemically age and their ability to hold a charge diminishes. Time and the number of times a battery has been charged are not the only factors in this chemical ageing process.

Device use also affects the performance of a battery over its lifespan. For example, leaving or charging a battery in a hot environment can cause it to age faster. These are characteristics of battery chemistry, common to lithium-ion batteries across the industry.

A chemically aged battery also becomes less capable of delivering peak energy loads, especially in a low state of charge, which may result in a device unexpectedly shutting itself down in some situations.

To help customers learn more about the rechargeable battery in their iPhone and the factors affecting its performance, we've posted a new support article, iPhone Battery and Performance.

It should go without saying that we think sudden, unexpected shutdowns are unacceptable. We don't want any of our users to lose a call, miss taking a picture or have any other part of their iPhone experience interrupted if we can avoid it.

About a year ago in iOS 10.2.1, we delivered a software update that improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone SE. With the update, iOS dynamically manages the maximum performance of some system components when needed to prevent a shutdown. While these changes may go unnoticed, in some cases users may experience longer launch times for apps and other reductions in performance.

Customer response to iOS 10.2.1 was positive, as it successfully reduced the occurrence of unexpected shutdowns. We recently extended the same support to iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in iOS 11.2.

Of course, when a chemically aged battery is replaced with a new one, iPhone performance returns to normal when operated in standard conditions.

Over the course of this spring, we began to receive feedback from some users who were seeing slower performance in certain situations. Based on our experience, we initially thought this was due to a combination of two factors: a normal, temporary performance impact when upgrading the operating system as iPhone installs new software and updates apps; and minor bugs in the initial release, which have since been fixed.

We now believe that another contributor to these user experiences is the continued chemical ageing of the batteries in older iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s devices, many of which are still running on their original batteries.

We've always wanted our customers to be able to use their iPhone for as long as possible. We're proud that Apple products are known for their durability, and for holding their value longer than our competitors' devices.

To address our customers' concerns, to recognise their loyalty and to regain the trust of anyone who may have doubted Apple's intentions, we've decided to take the following steps:

Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by A$80  from A$119 to A$39  for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through to December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com/au.

Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of the battery in their iPhone, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance.

As always, our team is working on ways to make the user experience even better, including improving how we manage performance and avoid unexpected shutdowns as batteries age.

At Apple, our customers' trust means everything to us. We will never stop working to earn and maintain it. We are able to do the work we love only because of your faith and support  and we will never forget that or take it for granted.
Former prime minister Bob Hawke has taken to the stage at Queensland's annual Woodford Folk Festival, wowing crowds in a Hawaiian shirt.

The country's longest-serving Labor PM took centre stage on the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane, with scientist Professor Ian Lowe on Friday.

The 88-year-old, dressed in blue denim jeans, looked trim and tanned and far more colourful than at his appearance during the festival last year.

Former prime minister Bob Hawke (left) and Professor Ian Lowe pictured on the Garland stage at the annual six-day Woodford Folk Festival on the Queensland Sunshine Coast on Friday

Former prime minister Bob Hawke, 88, has become a regular at the Woodford Folk Festival

Labor luminary Bob Hawke spoke about nuclear power at last year's Woodford Folk Festival

On Thursday, Mr Hawke performed a rousing rendition of the nation's unofficial national anthem, Waltzing Matilda, before an adoring crowd.

As he took to the podium he said: 'I'll sing the verses and you mob will sing the chorus.'

At one point the old stager admitted he 'got a bit lost' during a verse.

Mr Hawke, who performed the same song at last years festival, has become a regular at Woodford, which is now in its 32nd year.

He is also making something of habit of belting out Waltzing Matilda, giving the song another go at the Jack Newton Celebrity Classic in the Hunter Valley earlier this month.

Former prime minister Bob Hawke made an appearance at Woodford Folk Festival on Friday

Australia's longest-serving Labor PM looked relaxed and tanned at Woodford Folk Festival

Last year Mr Hawke divided crowds at Woodford after renewing his calls for Australia to become a global nuclear waste dumping ground.

Mr Hawke continued his crusade that nuclear power was the only hope of saving the planet from global warming doom.

The Labor statesman's impassioned comments caused a stir among the 1,000-strong crowd, with numerous spectators voicing their disapproval at the controversial plan.

'We're going to have to be prepared to think about changes that are quite radical,' Mr Hawke said.

'Nuclear power would be a win for the environment and an essential part of the attacking that must be made on this grievous and dangerous global warming. It would be a win for the global environment and a win for Australia.




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Two thresher sharks were found washed up along Massachusetts's Cape Cod Bay after being 'stranded due to cold shock' amid plunging temperatures in the northern United States this week.

A passerby walking along the bay early Wednesday came across a shocking sight and snapped some photos.

James Mullin initially saw one lifeless shark and immediately contacted the Center of Coastal Studies in Provincetown, according to the Cape Cod Times, who spoke with Mullin, who described the finding as 'exciting'.

Officials at the center went to investigate the incident after, when they found another dead shark nearby. Both of them were male.

The conservancy group said on Facebook the sharks were dissected and are now being further examined through organ and tissue samples.

Male thresher sharks were found washed up along Massachusetts's Cape Cod Bay after being 'stranded due to cold shock' amid plunging temperatures in the northern United States this week

The conservancy group said on Facebook the sharks were dissected and will be further examined by organ and tissue samples

Passerby James Mullin initially saw one lifeless shark and immediately contacted the Center of Coastal Studies in Provincetown Wednesday

The arctic blast that's bringing negative temperatures to several other northern states is causing waterfalls to freeze, windows to crack and people to suffer life-threatening frostbite with just 30 minutes of exposure outside.

Forecasters are warning for those who are outside to bundle up with layers to protect against hypothermia and frostbite that could happen with exposure in the bitter arctic.

The icy cold weather has turned the Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota into a beautiful frozen wonderland. The popular attraction has completely frozen over due to the super cold single-digit temperatures that have gripped the state over the past few days.

The Minnehaha Creek flows from Lake Minnetonka, which is the biggest lake in the Twin Cities, to the Mississippi River. The falls are just a few miles from where the creek enters the Mississippi River.

The National Weather Service reported International Falls, Minnesota, the self-proclaimed Icebox of the Nation, plunged to 37 degrees below zero, breaking the old record of 32 below set in 1924.

Hibbing, Minnesota, bottomed out at 28 below, breaking the old record of 27 below set in 1964.

'Bitterly cold arctic air will settle in across a large swath of the U.S. as we turn the calendar from 2017 to 2018,' said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski.

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The arctic blast that's bringing negative temperatures to several states across the northern U.S. is causing waterfalls to freeze, windows to crack and people to suffer life-threatening frostbite with just 30 minutes of exposure outside. Above the frozen Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota are pictured on Thursday

The popular attraction has completely frozen over due to the super cold single-digit temperatures that have gripped the state over the past few days

The Minnehaha Creek flows from Lake Minnetonka, which is the biggest lake in the Twin Cities, to the Mississippi River. The falls are just a few miles from where the creek enters the Mississippi River

With temperatures in the single digits, Ray Levesque, mate of the crab/lobster boat Bradbill, makes his way across the deck covered in ice to tie off, after arriving in New Bedford, Massachusetts harbor on Thursday from a one day fishing voyage

A woman braves temperatures in the teens as she makes her way to the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in DC on Thursday

Bitter cold weather has taken hold of much of the northern United States and is expected to stay put for days to come into the New Year. A far-reaching arctic blast is going to make the temperatures drop even more

The cold weather is going to dominate for days into New Year's Eve as it is predicted to feel like negative 8 degrees in Chicago, negative five degrees in New York and a freezing negative 35 degrees in Bangor, Maine

Forecasters predict freezing temperatures for much of the Northeast and Midwest into the New Year

New Year's Eve temperatures are predicted to be to be around 12 degrees in the Big Apple, but it will feel dramatically colder due to the wind chill

The Great Lakes may get 1-3 inches of snow creating slippery travel in the Interstate 70, 80 and 90 corridors of the Plains and Midwest

Meteorologists are also cautioning a possible snow threat for the Northeast region over New Year's weekend

If two storms merge, Philadelphia to New York City to Boston and Portland, Maine will see snow Friday to Saturday

There is an ice threat for coastal cities in Georgia and South Carolina on Thursday to early Friday

It's so cold officials in New Jersey canceled a New Year's Day 'polar bear plunge' in which swimmers dash into the Atlantic Ocean

'People will really need to bundle up if they are heading out Sunday night for New Year's Eve celebrations in places like Chicago, for example, where the high will be 15 F on Sunday, around 15 degrees below normal.'

In addition, the dangerously cold weather has caused windows in Canada to crack. Wind chill advisories or warnings were in effect for much of New England, northern Pennsylvania and New York.

Those places and states in the northern Plains and Great Lakes were projected to see highs in the teens or single digits and lows below zero for the rest of the week and into the new year.

The National Weather Service said wind chills in many areas Thursday could make temperatures feel below zero.

Prolonged, dangerous cold weather this week has sent advocates for the homeless scrambling to get people off the streets and to bring in extra beds for them.

A dog has been found frozen solid on an Ohio home's porch as a bitter cold snap grips much of the United States.

Toledo humane society cruelty investigator Megan Brown tells The Blade newspaper she doesn't know how long the dog was outside Thursday, when Toledo's high temperature was expected to be in the teens.

A second dog was recovered shivering inside the home.

The dogs' owner says utilities had been shut off but he had been providing for the dogs while living elsewhere. He says he doesn't know how one dog got outside.

Karlee Winter, left, 11, and her brother Samuel Espinoza, 8, shovel snow from their neighbor's sidewalk in Dubuque, Iowa, on Thursday

wo women take a selfie photo in front of a frozen fountain in New York City's Bryant Park on Thursday

People bundle up while walking through a frigid and super windy Manhattan on Thursday

A worker spreads de-icing granules on the walkway outside the New England Aquarium on Thursday

People walk past a blue lobster ice sculpture outside the New England Aquarium as the temperature hovers in the low teens on Thursday

The frigid weather isn't stopping the hustle and bustle in New York City. Above crowds walk through Times Square on Thursday

A delivery man in New York City (left) braved the cold temperatures outside by bundling up and covering his hands with bags while riding a bicycle. A woman wore a ski mask while putting on several layers to go outside in the chilly weather in New York City Thursday (right)

Ana Gonzalez of New Haven, Connecticut, right, helps her sister Alejandrina Gonzalez, left, put on another scarf as they brave temperatures in the teens on the National Mall in DC on Thursday

Visitors to the Washington Monument on the National Mall brave temperatures in the teens on Thursday in DC

A woman holds her face while braving the freezing temperatures in DC on Thursday

The jet-stream pattern responsible for the cold outbreak across the Plains, Rockies and Midwest, featuring the 'omega block' is surging northward from the Pacific Ocean into the Arctic Ocean, and the downstream nose-diving jet into the central U.S., according to The Weather Channel

A persistent northward bulge in the jet stream over the Southwest has led to an extended dry period for the region, according to The Weather Channel

New Year's Eve in Times Square, New York will feel like negative five degrees with 10 to 20mph winds on Sunday night

Frozen pipes and dead car batteries added to the misery across the Midwest and Northeast regions.

It's so cold, officials in New Jersey canceled a New Year's Day 'polar bear plunge' in which swimmers dash into the Atlantic Ocean.

People in Erie, Pennsylvania, continued to dig out from a storm that brought 34 inches of snow on Christmas Day, smashing the daily snowfall record for the Great Lakes city of 8 inches, and 26.5 more inches on Tuesday.

More than 65 inches total fell on the city in just a few days.

Strong westerly winds over Lake Erie picked up moisture, developed into snow and converged with opposing winds, dumping snow in a band along the shore from Ohio to New York, said Zach Sefcovic, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Cleveland.

Sabrina Ram drove into Erie on Christmas Eve to visit her parents just as the snow began to fall.

Ram, who lives in suburban Washington, D.C., and her father spent five hours on Christmas and two hours on Tuesday clearing the driveway.

'In D.C., we'd be out of commission for weeks,' Ram said. 'Things here are pretty much back to normal now.'

The snow is predicted to spread on Thursday causing slippery travel and possible flight delays in Chicago and Pittsburgh

Disruptive snow is predicted on Friday and into Friday night in the Midwest making travel delays even worse

There is also a hazardous ice threat in place for Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina for Thursday night

There is a snow threat from Friday to Saturday with two storms that could possibly merge

Wind chill advisories or warnings are in effect for much of New England, northern Pennsylvania and New York along with several states in the Midwest

Much of the Northeast and Midwest are experiencing freezing temperatures Thursday morning

There are some rain showers in the Southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama

Meanwhile, much of the Northern part of the country is covered in at least an inch of snow

Several north eastern states are under wind chill advisories or warnings. The hazardous winds will make temperatures feel like negative 10 to negative 40 degrees in some areas

The forecast highs are pictured above for New Year's Weekend across the Northern and Midwest parts of the U.S.

The forecast lows are pictured above for New Year's Weekend across the Northern and Midwest parts of the U.S.

In New York, communities near Lake Ontario's eastern end, including Redfield and Boylston, also saw around 5 feet of snow this week.

Listed above are the coldest New Year's Eve ball drops in New York City from 1917 up until 2008

Officials said the storm's timing was good, since people were off the streets and staying home for Christmas, giving plows more space to clear streets.

By Wednesday, Erie's roads were relatively clear, emergency calls were relatively slow and the big task was digging out, County Executive Kathy Dahlkemper said.

'We're used to a lot of snow here in Erie, but this is unprecedented, the amount we got,' Dahlkemper said.

The Department of Energy has projected energy fuel costs are going to track upward. That falls on the heels of two winters when costs were relatively low.

Elizabeth Parker, 88, of Sanford, Maine, said she lives in fear of running out of fuel and remains vigilant in monitoring the gauge outside her trailer, just in case, especially during cold weather.

She said she is allowed to request a fuel delivery thanks to federal aid - but only when her gauge dips to one-eighth of a tank.

'I couldn't get along without it,' said Parker, who lives with her 93-year-old husband, Robert, along with a cat, dog and four birds.

Mark Wolfe, an official with the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, said the good news is that President Donald Trump has released 90 percent of the energy assistance funding which totals to nearly $3billion. Trump previously tried to eliminate the program altogether.

Forecasters warned of hypothermia and frostbite from arctic air settling in over the central U.S. and spreading east. Above people cross the street in downtown Boston on Thursday morning in freezing single-digit temperatures

The National Weather Service said there's the potential for record-breaking cold this week in New England. Above a man walks in the snow in downtown Boston on Thursday morning

The frigid temperatures in New York City aren't stopping people from going outside and braving the cold snap

New York City Police Officers are patrolling the streets of the city in the freezing temperatures

States in the northern Plains and Great Lakes were projected to see highs in the teens or single digits and lows below zero for the rest of the week and into the new year. Above a man walks along the Chicago River

But projected energy cost increases will effectively reduce the purchasing power by $330 million, making it imperative that the remaining funding be released, said Mark Wolfe, of the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association.

This winter, energy costs were projected to grow by 12 percent for natural gas, 17 percent for home heating oil, 18 percent for propane and 8 percent for electricity, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration.

But energy prices this winter may even be higher than those projections.

According to Wolfe, colder weather could lead to even higher levels of consumption, and resulting prices could push the cost of winter heating up to $1,800 this winter for those using heating oil, 45 percent more than last year's level.

'That's a scary situation for people who're really struggling to heat their homes,' said Barbara Crider, of Maine's York County Community Action Agency.

The cold air is lingering with more arctic air sweeping into the region, reaching as far south as Texas and the Florida Panhandle through the weekend.
With the help of the flight crew, Miranda walks up to the front of the plane

Mark Wadson and his girlfriend Miranda Naprelac were on their way to Indonesia

This the heartwarming moment a boyfriend proposed to his girlfriend on a Jetstar flight to Bali.

Mark Wadson and his girlfriend Miranda Naprelac were on their way to the popular Indonesian island to see in the new year.

With the help of the flight crew, Mark got the holiday off to a flying start and popped the question to her in front of the entire plane.

Mark Wadson proposes to his girlfriend Miranda Naprelac (pictured) on a Jetstar flight to Bali

The video begins with a flight attendant asking Miranda to walk to the front of the plane.

The crew member makes an announcement: 'Ladies and gentlemen I want to present to you the birthday girl,' as the team sing 'Happy birthday' over the speaker.

A nervous Miranda waves to the passengers and Mark, who has been hiding inside the toilet, comes out and wishes his girlfriend a happy birthday.

Miranda says 'yes' and hugs her new fiance (pictured) in front of all of the passengers

'Firstly I'd just like to say thank you to everybody for wishing my beautiful partner a happy birthday,' Mark says, before putting the speaker phone back on the wall.

It's at this point he pulls out the ring, in a lilac-coloured box, gets down on one knee and asks her: 'Will you marry me?'.

Passengers clap and Miranda wastes no time in saying 'yes' before cuddling her partner in front of the cockpit.

The crew member says to the couple, who are from Perth: 'Happy birthday and congratulations on your engagement'.

Mark puts the ring on Miranda's finger as passengers give the newly-engaged couple a round of applause.

The video has had more than 700 views on Facebook and was posted by Mark with the caption: 'Its a great morning everybody!!!! My beautiful princess Mirry is going to be a MRS WADSON!!! She said yes at over 20 thousand feet in the sky!!! Im one happy/lucky/excited man!! All on video!!! Enjoy'.
This is the awkward moment a Sky News presenter looks away from the camera as a government backbencher talks non-stop about the Liberal Party.

Jennifer Bechwati politely let Tasmanian senator Eric Abetz continue talking for one minute and 23 seconds.

As the former Abbott government minister talks about the need for the Liberal Party to win over One Nation voters, she looks away from the camera for six seconds.

Sky News presenter Jennifer Bechwati looks away from the camera as Liberal senator Eric Abetz talks about the need to win back One Nation voters

In a segment covering whether Queensland's Liberal National Party needs to demerge to win One Nation voters, as suggested this week by Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, she nods politely but keeps a stony expression.

Queensland LNP senator James McGrath had described talk of demerging his party as 'bats*** crazy' however Senator Abetz stuck to some political platitudes.

'One way we can bring those voters back into the fold is to concentrate on those issues that genuinely matter,' Senator Abetz said.

In another awkward part of the interview, Ms Bechwati let Senator Abetz talk uninterrupted for another whole minute.

As Senator Abetz, a conservative opponent of gay marriage, described the Liberal Party as a 'broad church', the presenter stared at the camera, appearing on the verge of falling asleep.

Sky News host Jennifer Bechwati appears on the verge of falling asleep as Senator Eric Abetz keeps talking

Jennifer Bechwati, who is a respected Sky political reporter, was reluctant to interrupt on TV

'It does need to genuinely incorporate the thought leaders of both sections of the party or all streams of party thinking and I'm not sure that the conservative element has been embraced as it might be and as it should be,' the backbencher said.

Ms Bechwati is a respected Canberra-based political reporter for Sky News.

The Liberal Party politician went on to criticise the Labor Party.

'The alternative is Bill Shorten who would run the country as a trade union leader,' he said.
UN Ambassador Nikki Haley was pranked by a pair of Russian funnymen posing as the Polish Prime Minister.

Vladmir Kyznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov posted a video December 22 in which one of them introduces himself as Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Moraqiecki to a woman who says she is Haley.

'Let me start with very much thanking you for the support we received on your vote today,' Haley told the phony Prime Minister.

'We will never forget it.'

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Vladmir Kyznetsov (left) and Alexei Stolyarov (right) posted a video December 22 in which one of them introduces himself as Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Moraqiecki to a woman who says she is Haley

'Let me start with very much thanking you for the support we received on your vote today. We will never forget it.' Haley told the phony Prime Minister

She was referring to Poland's decision to abstain from voting on a US resolution that condemned Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Poland was one of 35 countries to abstain from the vote, and only nine voted 'no'.

It's not clear how the duo, who are known as Vovan and Lexus, managed to get hold of Haley's phone number, or why Haley thought she was legitimately being contacted by a Polish government official.

Fake Moraqiecki asked Haley about the fictional island of Binomo in the South China Sea, leading her through a series of questions about the made up country.

'You know Binomo?' he asked.

'Yes, Yes,' Haley said.

'They had elections and we suppose Russians had its intervention,' the fake PM said.

'Yes, of course they did, absolutely. We've been watching that very closely,' she responded, likely confused as to what they were talking about.

Fake Moraqiecki asked Haley about the fictional island of Binomo in the South China Sea, leading her through a series of questions about the made up country. It's not clear how the duo, who are known as Vovan and Lexus, managed to get hold of Haley's phone number

It's not immediately clear if it was actually the UN ambassador on the phone, or if the comedians were on the receiving end of a prank as well. Haley's spokesperson would not comment about the matter

'We will continue to watch that as we deal with the issues that keep coming up about the South China Sea.'

He then asked what the US would do about it, to which Haley gave a vague and unconvincing answer.

'Let me find out exactly what our stance is on that, and what if anything the US is doing or things should be done, and I will report back to you on that as well,' she said.

Vovan and Lexus said the whole conversation lasted for about 30 minutes.

It's not immediately clear if it was actually the UN ambassador on the phone, or if the comedians were on the receiving end of a prank as well. Haley's spokesperson would not comment about the matter to the New York Post or the Charleston Post and Courier.
A pregnant woman has claimed she's being served horrendously unappetizing meals in tiny portions in the maternity ward of a New Zealand hospital.

Jamie N'Ngira Craig says she's been dished up a variety of sloppy concoctions since being admitted to Hutt Valley's maternity ward on Wednesday.

Her friend took to Facebook for advice on Friday, sharing a photo of one of the meals and asking if the grimy feed was the type usually served up to expectant mothers.

'Is this normal? This was served for lunch at the Hutt Hospital in the maternity ward,' Maylin Patu wrote.

A photo of vegetable meal and one slice of white bread featured in the post, prompting outrage from social media users. The Hutt Hospital has been contacted for comment.

Jamie N'Ngira Craig says she's been dished a variety of sloppy concoctions since being admitted to Hutt Valley's maternity ward on Wednesday

Many people expressed their disgust at the 'p**s poor outrageous' food, with several comparing it to what would be served in jail.

'You get 1000 better food than that in prison and way more of it,' one social media user wrote.

'Food is better in jail than what they serve in hospitals and retirement homes,' another added.

Her friend took to Facebook for advice on Friday, sharing a photo of one of the meals and asking if the grimy feed was the type usually served up to expectant mothers

Mrs Craig left her meals untouched after her horrendous taste and visual experience

Mrs Craig told Daily Mail Australia she tried to stomach the unpalatable food, but was left 'starving' after being unable to swallow the hard vegetables.

'I tried the veges at lunch and they were still hard. So didn't touch it after that. And I tried the dinner it tasted yum but it was only like 5 mouthfuls let's be real,' she said.

The 24-year-old pointed out her distasteful meal to one of the hospital staff, but 'gave up' complaining when contractions began.

'I just said...'look at my lunch it's disgusting', and she was real nice (didn't look) and said 'yeah nah I like hospital food it tastes good'.'

'I just gave up and had some contractions.'

An equally unappetizing looking dinner was allegedly served to a patient who had been 'waiting all day' at New Zealand's Waikato hospital

A Hutt Valley District Health Board spokeswoman said small meals were often served to expectant mothers.

'Without knowing the full details of this woman's situation - we can say that prior to labour we often serve lighter meals to make labour more comfortable or in case a cesarean is required. This may explain why she's been served small portions.

'We apologise to her if this was not explained properly. We'd be happy to talk this over with her so we can improve.

'We certainly make sure that woman are well-fed after labour and have extra food and meals on hand if needed.'

The post prompted a wave of mothers to share similar experiences of their unsatisfactory hospital feeds.

An equally unappetizing looking dinner was allegedly served to a patient who had been 'waiting all day' at New Zealand's Waikato Hospital.

'That is absolutely disgusting. Doesn't matter whether she is still pregnant or already given birth, a mother needs a substantial meal. I am honestly shocked that they have the nerve to serve that to anyone in a hospital let alone a maternity ward,' someone wrote.

Another new mother claimed she had been at the Hutt Valley hospital just one week prior in the maternity ward and was served a full English breakfast.
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An American bully has been found 'frozen solid' on an Ohio home's porch as a bitter cold snap continues to grip much of the United States.

Toledo humane society cruelty investigator Megan Brown told The Toledo Blade that she doesn't know how long the dog was outside Thursday, when Toledo's temperature was expected to be in the teens.

The female dog had died after curling up on the front porch of a house in the 1000 block of King Street where Victor Vallejo Sr, 40, lives.

A second underweight male American bully was recovered shivering inside the home.

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An American bully has been found 'frozen solid' on an Ohio home's porch as a bitter cold snap continues to grip much of the United States. A second underweight male American bully was recovered shivering inside the home. The three-year-old female was named Nanas (right) and the four-year-old male is named Haze (left)

The female dog had died after curling up on the front porch of a house (left) in the 1000 block of King Street where Victor Vallejo Sr (right), 40, lives. The incident comes as forecasters warn of hypothermia and frostbite from arctic air settling in over the central US and spreading east that has also affected marine life

'He was visibly shivering,' Ms. Brown said, adding that his ribs and spine are prominent and the house was very cold.

Brown said she saw the dog through a window and seized him after obtaining a search warrant.

Vallejo said the dogs are his and he was unaware of any issues.

He told the newspaper that the utilities had been shut off at the home but he had been providing for the dogs while living elsewhere.

The last time Vallejo saw the dogs was about two or three days ago when he left them both inside. He said he doesn't know how one dog got outside.

'I wasn't staying there, but I was going back and forth and feeding them. They had plenty of food and water,' he told the Toledo Blade. 'I've been staying here and there at the moment. I kind of fell on some bad times.'

Vallejo said the three-year-old female was named Nanas and the four-year-old male is named Haze.

Brown said neither dog had any food or water, and Nanas was in the fenced front yard. There were blankets and a pillow on the porch, which had a roof, but no shelter from the bitter temperatures.

She said other than being underweight, Haze appears fine.

'He looks to be pretty good,' Ms. Brown said. 'He's sweet. He was malnourished and dehydrated, but I think he'll be fine.'

She said the humane society is pursuing possible animal cruelty charges in Toledo Municipal Court.

The incident comes as forecasters warn of hypothermia and frostbite from arctic air settling in over the central US and spreading east that has also affected marine life.

Two male thresher sharks were found washed up along Massachusetts's Cape Cod Bay after being 'stranded due to cold shock' amid plunging temperatures in the northern US this week

The Center of Coastal Studies in Provincetown said on Facebook the sharks were dissected and will be further examined by organ and tissue samples

Passerby James Mullin initially saw one lifeless shark and immediately contacted the center

Two thresher sharks were found washed up along Massachusetts's Cape Cod Bay after being 'stranded due to cold shock' on Wednesday.

A passerby walking along the bay came across the shocking sight and snapped some photos.

James Mullin initially saw one lifeless shark and immediately contacted the Center of Coastal Studies in Provincetown, according to the Cape Cod Times. Mullin described the finding as 'exciting'.

When officials at the center went to investigate the incident they found another dead shark nearby. Both of them were male.

The conservancy group said on Facebook that the sharks were dissected and are now being further examined through organ and tissue samples.

The arctic blast that's bringing negative temperatures to several states across the northern US is also causing waterfalls to freeze, windows to crack and people to suffer life-threatening frostbite with just 30 minutes of exposure outside.

Forecasters are warning for those who are outside to bundle up with layers to protect against hypothermia and frostbite.

The icy cold weather has turned the Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota, into a beautiful frozen wonderland. The popular attraction has completely frozen over due to the super cold single-digit temperatures that have gripped the state over the past few days.

The Minnehaha Creek flows from Lake Minnetonka, which is the biggest lake in the Twin Cities, to the Mississippi River. The falls are just a few miles from where the creek enters the Mississippi River.

The National Weather Service reported International Falls, Minnesota, the self-proclaimed Icebox of the Nation, plunged to 37 degrees below zero, breaking the old record of 32 below set in 1924.

Hibbing, Minnesota, bottomed out at 28 below, breaking the old record of 27 below set in 1964.

'Bitterly cold arctic air will settle in across a large swath of the U.S. as we turn the calendar from 2017 to 2018,' said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski.

The arctic blast that's bringing negative temperatures to several states across the northern US is causing waterfalls to freeze, windows to crack and people to suffer life-threatening frostbite with just 30 minutes of exposure outside. Above the frozen Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota are pictured on Thursday

The popular attraction has completely frozen over due to the super cold single-digit temperatures that have gripped the state over the past few days

The Minnehaha Creek flows from Lake Minnetonka, which is the biggest lake in the Twin Cities, to the Mississippi River. The falls are just a few miles from where the creek enters the Mississippi River

With temperatures in the single digits, Ray Levesque, mate of the crab/lobster boat Bradbill, makes his way across the deck covered in ice to tie off, after arriving in New Bedford, Massachusetts harbor on Thursday from a one day fishing voyage

A woman braves temperatures in the teens as she makes her way to the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in DC on Thursday

Bitter cold weather has taken hold of much of the northern US and is expected to stay put for days to come into the New Year. A far-reaching arctic blast is going to make the temperatures drop even more

The cold weather is going to dominate for days into New Year's Eve as it is predicted to feel like negative eight degrees in Chicago, negative five degrees in New York and a freezing negative 35 degrees in Bangor, Maine

Forecasters predict freezing temperatures for much of the Northeast and Midwest into the New Year

New Year's Eve temperatures predicted to be to be around 12 degrees in Big Apple, but it will feel much colder

The Great Lakes may get 1-3 inches of snow creating slippery travel in the Interstate 70, 80 and 90 corridors of the Plains and Midwest

Meteorologists are also cautioning a possible snow threat for the Northeast region over New Year's weekend

If two storms merge, Philadelphia to NYC to Boston and Portland, Maine will see snow Friday to Saturday

There is an ice threat for coastal cities in Georgia and South Carolina on Thursday to early Friday

Officials in NJ canceled a New Year's Day 'polar bear plunge' in which swimmers dash into the Atlantic Ocean

'People will really need to bundle up if they are heading out Sunday night for New Year's Eve celebrations in places like Chicago, for example, where the high will be 15 F on Sunday, around 15 degrees below normal.'

In addition, the dangerously cold weather has caused windows in Canada to crack. Wind chill advisories or warnings were in effect for much of New England, northern Pennsylvania and New York.

Those places and states in the northern Plains and Great Lakes were projected to see highs in the teens or single digits and lows below zero for the rest of the week and into the new year.

The National Weather Service said wind chills in many areas Thursday could make temperatures feel below zero.

Prolonged, dangerous cold weather this week has sent advocates for the homeless scrambling to get people off the streets and to bring in extra beds for them.

A dog has been found frozen solid on an Ohio home's porch as a bitter cold snap grips much of the United States.

Toledo humane society cruelty investigator Megan Brown tells The Blade newspaper she doesn't know how long the dog was outside Thursday, when Toledo's high temperature was expected to be in the teens

A second dog was recovered shivering inside the home.

The dogs' owner says utilities had been shut off but he had been providing for the dogs while living elsewhere. He says he doesn't know how one dog got outside.

Two women take a selfie photo in front of a frozen fountain in New York City's Bryant Park on Thursday

The frigid weather isn't stopping the hustle and bustle in New York City. Above crowds walk through Times Square on Thursday

New Year's Eve in Times Square in New York will feel like negative five degrees with 10 to 20mph winds on Sunday night

Frozen pipes and dead car batteries added to the misery across the Midwest and Northeast regions.

It's so cold, officials in New Jersey canceled a New Year's Day 'polar bear plunge' in which swimmers dash into the Atlantic Ocean.

People in Erie, Pennsylvania, continued to dig out from a storm that brought 34 inches of snow on Christmas Day, smashing the daily snowfall record for the Great Lakes city of 8 inches, and 26.5 more inches on Tuesday.

More than 65 inches total fell on the city in just a few days.

Strong westerly winds over Lake Erie picked up moisture, developed into snow and converged with opposing winds, dumping snow in a band along the shore from Ohio to New York, said Zach Sefcovic, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Cleveland.

Sabrina Ram drove into Erie on Christmas Eve to visit her parents just as the snow began to fall.

Ram, who lives in suburban Washington, DC, and her father spent five hours on Christmas and two hours on Tuesday clearing the driveway.

'In DC, we'd be out of commission for weeks,' Ram said. 'Things here are pretty much back to normal now.'

The snow was predicted to spread on Thursday causing slippery travel and possible flight delays in Chicago and Pittsburgh

Disruptive snow is predicted on Friday and into Friday night in the Midwest making travel delays even worse

There is a snow threat from Friday to Saturday with two storms that could possibly merge

Wind chill advisories or warnings are in effect for much of New England, northern Pennsylvania and New York along with several states in the Midwest

Much of the Northeast and Midwest experienced freezing temperatures Thursday morning

Meanwhile, much of the Northern part of the country is covered in at least an inch of snow

Several north eastern states are under wind chill advisories or warnings. The hazardous winds will make temperatures feel like negative 10 to negative 40 degrees in some areas

The forecast highs are pictured above for New Year's Weekend across the Northern and Midwest parts of the US

The forecast lows are pictured above for New Year's Weekend across the Northern and Midwest parts of the US

In New York, communities near Lake Ontario's eastern end, including Redfield and Boylston, also saw around five feet of snow this week.

Officials said the storm's timing was good, since people were off the streets and staying home for Christmas, giving plows more space to clear streets.

Listed above are the coldest New Year's Eve ball drops in New York City from 1917 up until 2008

By Wednesday, roads in Erie were relatively clear, emergency calls were relatively slow and the big task was digging out, County Executive Kathy Dahlkemper said.

'We're used to a lot of snow here in Erie, but this is unprecedented, the amount we got,' Dahlkemper said.

The Department of Energy has projected energy fuel costs are going to track upward.

That falls on the heels of two winters when costs were relatively low.

Elizabeth Parker, 88, of Sanford, Maine, said she lives in fear of running out of fuel and remains vigilant in monitoring the gauge outside her trailer, just in case, especially during cold weather.

She said she is allowed to request a fuel delivery thanks to federal aid - but only when her gauge dips to one-eighth of a tank.

'I couldn't get along without it,' said Parker, who lives with her 93-year-old husband, Robert, along with a cat, dog and four birds.

Mark Wolfe, an official with the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, said the good news is that President Donald Trump has released 90 per cent of the energy assistance funding which totals to nearly $3 billion.

Trump previously tried to eliminate the program altogether.

States in the northern Plains and Great Lakes were projected to see highs in the teens or single digits and lows below zero for the rest of the week and into the new year. Above a man walks along the Chicago River

But projected energy cost increases will effectively reduce the purchasing power by $330 million, making it imperative that the remaining funding be released, said Mark Wolfe, of the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association.

This winter, energy costs were projected to grow by 12 per cent for natural gas, 17 per cent for home heating oil, 18 per cent for propane and 8 per cent for electricity, according to US Energy Information Administration.

But energy prices this winter may even be higher than those projections.

According to Wolfe, colder weather could lead to even higher levels of consumption, and resulting prices could push the cost of winter heating up to $1,800 this winter for those using heating oil, 45 per cent more than last year's level.

'That's a scary situation for people who're really struggling to heat their homes,' said Barbara Crider, of Maine's York County Community Action Agency.

The cold air is lingering with more arctic air sweeping into the region, reaching as far south as Texas and the Florida Panhandle through the weekend.
The prime minister has been fined $250 for not wearing a lifejacket while in a dinghy outside his waterfront mansion.

Malcolm Turnbull was only moving the inflatable vessel 20 metres from a jetty to a small beach outside his palatial $50million property in Sydney's Point Piper.

New South Wales Roads and Maritime Services confirmed Mr Turnbull has been fined, as lifejacket law requires them to be worn by people boating alone.

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The prime minister (pictured) has been fined $250 for not wearing a lifejacket while in a dinghy outside his waterfront mansion

Malcolm Turnbull was only moving the inflatable vessel 20 metres from a jetty to a small beach outside his lavish $50million Point Piper property (pictured)

The incident took place on Wednesday as the prime minister was enjoying a stay-cation with his wife Lucy, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Sydney paparazzi snapped a collection of photographs showing Mr Turnbull in the boat wearing a red rash shirt but not a lifejacket.

Mr Turnbull then took to Facebook to explain himself, admitting that he had broken the law and saying water safety is highly important.

'Because I was in the dinghy alone, even for that very short distance the NSW regulations required me to wear one,' he wrote.

New South Wales Roads and Maritime Services confirmed Mr Turnbull has been fined, as lifejacket law requires them to be worn by people boating alone

'The rules can often seem very technical, but they are there to keep us safe and we should all comply with them.

'So lesson learned; I will make sure I always wear a life jacket in my dinghy regardless of how close I am to the shore, just as I always do on my kayak.'

The executive director of the maritime division, Angus Mitchell, said Mr Turnbull's fine is a 'timely reminder during the holiday season to always wear a lifejacket'.

'We want to ensure everyone enjoys their break and gets home safely this summer so please, wear a lifejacket and take care on our waterways,' he said.
This shocking footage appears to show bouncers throwing a man to the floor after ejecting him from a nightclub.

The Flourmill bar and nightclub in Blackwood, south Wales, says the security staff involved have been suspended while an investigation into the alleged assault takes place.

But on Facebook outraged customers have accused the security staff of being 'bully boys' and say the alleged victim was an 'innocent homeless man' who does not even drink alcohol.

This shocking footage appears to show bouncers throwing a man to the floor after ejecting him from a nightclub in Blackwood, south Wales - they have since been suspended

Video footage from the incident on December 26 appears to show a member of security staff throwing a white plastic bag belonging to the man onto the street.

A second staff member is seen approaching the man, who is then thrown to the floor.

The Flourmill also posted a statement on its Facebook page from the security company which said the the staff had acted 'correctly' in removing the man from the venue, where they said he had been behaving 'inappropriately'.

But on Facebook customers disagreed with this version of events. One wrote: 'You so called bouncers in the Flourmill should be ashamed of yourself attacking an innocent homeless man... you should be prosecuted.'

The Flourmill bar and nightclub (pictured) in Blackwood, south Wales, says the security staff have been suspended while an investigation into the alleged assault takes place

Another said: 'Absolutely disgusting! The poor elderly man did nothing to provoke an attack and the three supposedly tough guys assaulted a man minding his own business. Its absurd, they should be ashamed of themselves.'

The Flourmill posted a further statement on Facebook. It said: 'We have recently been inundated with reports of an incident involving a male and the external security company we use.

'We thank you for bringing these reports to our attention. We have investigated the incident and reprimanded the security staff over this matter.

'We can confirm that one member of the security team has been removed from his position at The Flourmill.

Gwent Police said they are currently investigating an alleged assault on a 47-year-old man

'Again, we thank you for bringing this matter to our attention and apologise for any distress caused by this incident.'

A further update posted on December 27 said: 'All doormen involved have now been suspended.'

It later posted a statement it said was from its security supplier, saying it was aware of the video but that it 'did not show what had occurred previous to this'.

It added: 'We are aware of an incident that took place at the Flourmill on December 26, and have begun an investigation into the matter.

On Facebook outraged customers have accused the security staff of being 'bully boys' and say the alleged victim was an 'innocent homeless man' who does not even drink alcohol

'We are an ASC accredited company, who vet all their staff.

'We do not condone the use of physical force by any of our doorman. We have suspended the doormen involved and are willing to work with any outside agency necessary to conclude the investigation.

'Our doormen put themselves in dangerous situations on a daily basis to protect the public so they can enjoy a night out and unfortunately sometimes incidents happen.'

The pub have since removed the statements from their Facebook page.

A spokeswoman for Gwent Police said: 'We're appealing for witnesses following an assault on a 47-year-old man on High Street in Blackwood.

'The assault took place on the evening of December 26 2017. Officers are currently investigating.'
Republicans have sparked fury for already vying for Senator John McCain's seat as he battles an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Governor of Arizona Doug Ducey slammed those in his party who are already battling for the seat in a race to replace the 81-year-old, even though he is still in office.

'To the politicians out there that have been openly lobbying for this position, they've basically disqualified themselves by showing their true character,' Ducey told KTAR radio.

McCain had surgery to remove a tumor back in July, but after removing it doctors discovered that it was a form of glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer that is almost always fatal.

Senator John McCain (pictured on December 1), has been in a wheelchair for several months after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer that is almost always fatal

Gov. Doug Ducey (pictured) slammed candidates that are lobbying for McCain's seat and said: 'They've basically disqualified themselves by showing their true character'

In September, McCain revealed on 60 Minutes that his prognosis was 'very poor', and that doctors had told him his chance of survival was between three and 14 per cent.

Nevertheless, candidates quietly battling it out for the seat is seen by Ducey as 'off color', as they should instead be 'praying' and 'rooting' for him.

Ducey is said to be receiving updates on his condition from McCain's wife, Cindy.

The three candidates Ducey's comments are believed to be aimed at are Rep. Paul Gosar, Kelli Ward, who challenged McCain for the senate seat in 2016, and former Rep. Matt Salmon, according to The Hill.

Ward attracted controversy previously by declaring shortly after McCain was diagnosed that he should resign and that she should be the one to replace him.

Former Rep. Matt Salmon (left), Rep. Paul Gosar (center) and Kelli Ward who challenged McCain for the senate seat last year

Gosar's chief of staff is said to have already emailed one of Ducey's staff about replacing McCain, despite saying in a statement to The Hill that 'There will be a time and a place for any political discussion in due course'.

Salmon had lunch with Ducey's chief of staff earlier this month, although it is unclear what they discussed.

All three candidates may also be in the running for Sen. Jeff Flake's seat, who announced he would be resigning in October in a speech criticizing president Donald Trump.

Flake's resignation means that as there is more than six months until the next general election both McCain and Flake's seats may be put to the ballot in November.
A brave Russian woman has been reunited with her two young sons for the first time since her husband axed off her two hands in a fit of jealousy.

Margarita Grachyova, 25, hugged her boys as she was released from hospital two and a half weeks after the vicious assault.

One severed hand has been sewn back on and she hopes to regain its use, but she lost the other one in the cruel attack.

She has told her sons she will have a 'robot' hand on the other wrist - but is not revealing to them the true reason, namely a crazed attack by her violent husband Dmitry Grachyov, 26, who wrongly suspected her of an affair after she demanded a divorce.

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Margarita Grachyova, 25, hugged her boys as she was released from hospital two and a half weeks after the vicious assault

He now faces up to 15 years in jail for the attack.

'I don't want to involve them into all this, leading to some negative feelings about their dad,' Margarita said of her children Dmitry, five, and Danil, three.

'He is still their dad.

'I told them that I got into car accident and on my right arm I will have a hand like a robot.

Margarita said she did not want to involve her children Dmitry, five, and Danil, three, in the horrific attack by telling them the true cause of her injuries

Margarita, pictured in hospital, has already begun to type messages to well-wishers on social media, using her elbow

'They took it normally, they are still little kids, they do not understand yet.'

Despite this, she remains scared of her husband after he drove her to a forest near Moscow and chopped off her hands.

'He told me, 'I'll come back and finish you off', she said.

'So yes of course I am very scared of him.

'He said: "When I'm free, I will kill you."'

But in court, her husband, a trained psychologist, said: 'I feel guilty for what I've done.

Margarita's left hand following surgery, after Dmitry Grachyov, 26 (right), who wrongly suspected Margarita of an affair, drove her to a forest and cut off her hands

'What I did was incredibly stupid, to put it very mildly.'

Margarita is home in time for New Year which by tradition here is when Grandfather Frost - the Russian Santa - delivers presents to children.

Smiling she said: 'I am asking them what they want Grandfather Frost to bring, and orders are big.

'They want excavators and cement-making lorries.'

The extraordinary woman refuses to be defeated by the devastating attack.

She has even started replying to social media messages - using her elbow to type.

'I want to say thank you to everyone who got in touch during these days, and sent words of hope and love,' she said.

Grachyov, a trained psychologist, accused Margarita - who works in marketing - of an affair with a work colleague, which both deny

One hand was sewn on in nine-hour surgery and Margarita can already move one finger only weeks after the attack

'It's not easy to type, but I am determined to answer all messages.

'When I opened my social media, I had more than 3,000 friendship requests and even more messages from people everywhere.'

Margarita attacked the police for failing to take her succession of complaints of domestic violence seriously.

'They told me, "this is love",' she said.

'No-one treats such complaints seriously.'

Surgeon Valery Chichkin, head of microsurgical department of Number 71 hospital in Moscow, said: 'The first stage of Margarita's treatment is over.

Margarita is home in time for New Year which by tradition here is when Grandfather Frost - the Russian Santa - delivers presents to children

A remarkable medical image shows how Margarita's hand has been pieced together after the axe attack

'She is checking out to continue treatment locally at her hospital, and going home to celebrate New Year.

'She will need at least one more surgery to remove the spokes that hold the bones of our patient's hand.

'She will need a very long rehabilitation period under our supervision, to help restore the sensitivity of her hand.'

A remarkable medical image shows how her hand has been pieced together after the axe attack.

But progress is good as she can move her fingers.
A raft of changes will greet Australians in the new year, affecting children, taxpayers, mothers, welfare recipients and even car sellers.

New vaccination programs, increases in government benefits, changes to school funding and scrapped taxes are among the changes kicking in on January 1.

Not even politicians will be exempt, with a new parliamentary expenses regime coming in after accusations of entitlements abuse.

A raft of changes will greet Australians in the new year, affecting children, taxpayers, mothers, welfare recipients and even car sellers (stock image)

The National Immunisation Program will list a new vaccine to cost-effectively combat the virus that causes genital warts, Nine News reported.

In other health changes, Australian Defence Force veterans will benefit from the the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme with greater access to medication.

Communities in the Northern Territory affected by potentially toxic firefighting foams will receive $5.7million from the government.

In good news for students, youth allowance will increase by $4.60 and student payments by $8.30.

New vaccination programs, increases in government benefits, changes to school funding and scrapped taxes are among the changes kicking in on January 1 (stock image)

Disability support will rise by more than $7, and $10million is being set aside to provide services for those affected by drug test trials for job seekers.

Single parent payment beneficiaries will need to verify their relationships to make sure they are entitled to their income support.

An unpopular special duty of $12,000 slapped on imported used cars will be scrapped.

The transition to Gonski 2.0 will begin in 2018, taking six years for under-funded schools and ten years for over-funded ones.

Commonwealth funding for universities will stay at current levels until at least 2019, and there will be new lifetime limits of Commonwealth contributions to tuition fees.

Assistance will be capped at $104,444 for most courses and $150,000 for medicine, dentistry and veterinary science.

Vocational education and training will also be affected, with student payments restricted to certain courses.

Courses must either meet industry needs, address shortages of skills, be aligned with employment outcomes, or be a high national priority.
A veteran police officer is being investigated after he tasered a shocked employee at a pizza restaurant during a seemingly unprovoked attack.

The CCTV footage shows Pittsburgh police officer Ronald Hough, who has been part of the motorcycle unit for 23 years, shoot his Taser at the unsuspecting Dominic Reale, 46, inside a pizza restaurant.

The long-serving cop was a regular customer at Villa Reale Pizzeria and Restaurant before the incident, and often ate with Mr Reale, who happens to be the owner's son.

CCTV footage shows Pittsburgh police officer Ronald Hough, who has been part of the motorcycle unit for 23 years, shoot his Taser at the unsuspecting Dominic Reale, 46, inside a pizza restaurant

The shocking clip shows Mr Reale, wearing a work shirt and apron, standing behind a counter, seemingly talking with Hough, who is in full uniform.

The officer, who is standing beside a female customer, then pulls his electrical weapon and fires it over the woman's shoulder across the counter, hitting the worker in the chest.

As Mr Reale struggles on the ground and tries to pull the probes from his body, Hough casually saunters round and stands over him.

The long-serving cop was a regular customer at Villa Reale Pizzeria and Restaurant before the incident, and regularly ate with Mr Reale, who happens to be the owner's son. Above the pizza restaurant worker drops to the floor after being shot by the Taser

Hough casually walks up to the downed worker and helps him to his feet, dusts his chest down and pulls the probes from his body

Hough then puts the Taser on a table and helps the downed restaurant worker back to his feet before pulling the probes from his chest.

Mr. Reales attorney, Joel Sansone, told the Post Gazette: 'When police officers abuse their power, all of us are in danger.

'And so we must exercise our duty as the owners of this republic to monitor and control the conduct of those to whom we give the right to use deadly force.

The pair can be seen walking together, before Mr Reale was shot by the taser, apparently chatting - although the video has no sound

Mr Reale talks to a female customer while leaning on a counter before the cop pulls the Taser and fires it over the woman's shoulder

'This family is an iconic Pittsburgh small-business family that should not have suffered the abuses that they have suffered at the hands of this misguided public servant.'

Pittsburgh police Chief Scott Schubert said the department will be carrying out a thorough investigation into the incident.

'I take any complaint seriously, we are going to thoroughly investigate and take appropriate action either way with the outcome.'
A surge of populist political parties threatens democracy in Europe, Tony Blair's think tank warns today.

A survey by the Institute for Global Change found the share of the vote taken by populist parties from both right and left has almost trebled since 2000. The surge has seen the parties support rising from 8.5 per cent to 24.1 per cent.

Over the same period, it said the number of European countries with populist parties participating in government has doubled from seven to 14 - creating an unprecedented 'populist belt' from the Baltic to the Aegean.

The report highlighted British allies Poland and Hungary as run by parties that have begun to 'dismantle key democratic institutions'.

Mr Blair set up the think tank this year as he shifted his focus away from private interests and into new policy ideas for centrist politicians and opposing Brexit.

A surge of populist political parties threatens democracy in Europe, a think tank set up by Tony Blair (file image) warns today.

The think tank warned that the trend looked set to continue unless mainstream political parties were able to find a way to counter the populists' appeal.

The report defines as populist those parties and politicians which 'claim to represent the true will of a unified people against domestic elites, foreign migrants, or ethnic, religious or sexual minorities'.

It said they are often characterised by 'inflammatory' attacks on independent institutions such as the media or the judiciary and support for highly restrictive immigration controls and protectionist economic policies.

They are strongest in Eastern Europe and current hold power in seven countries - Bosnia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Serbia and Slovakia.

Populists are the junior coalition partners in two other countries and the main opposition in three more.

The report said: 'Parties like Poland's Law and Justice party and Hungary's Fidesz tend to emphasise a nationalism based on soil, blood or culture; take a hard line against immigration; and have, especially in Poland and Hungary, quickly started to dismantle key democratic institutions like the free media and an independent judiciary.

'Working largely within the letter of the law, and drawing on widespread popular support, they have destroyed many of the institutions that are needed to safeguard democratic institutions over the long-run.'

Theresa May last week held talks with Poland's PM Mateusz Morawiecki (pictured), who is the leader of the Law and Justice Party that is pushing through deeply controversial reforms that could see Poland stripped of voting rights in the EU

The Fidesz party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was also highlighted by the report for dismantling democratic institutions

In contrast to Eastern Europe, where most populist parties are on the right, those in Southern Europe are predominantly on the left, such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain.

However, the report said left-wing parties from other parts of the continent - including Labour in Britain - had embraced elements of populism, underlining the impact populist politics was having on the mainstream.

The report's co-author, Yascha Mounk, said: '2016 was the year that populism went prime time, but as our data makes clear: this rise started well before 2016.

'The huge transformation we are seeing in European politics is long term, driven by issues such as economic insecurity; a rebellion against immigration and the notion of a multi-ethnic society; and the ease with which extreme voices can make themselves heard in an age of social media.

'This populist wave has not crested and unless politicians managed to identify and counteract the structural drivers, populism will keep garnering strength in the years to come.'
China has denied it has been illicitly selling oil to North Korea after U.S. President Donald Trump said they had been 'caught red-handed' violating U.N sanctions.

His comments came after it emerged a Chinese ship suspected of transferred oil to a North Korean vessel in October, in breach of sanctions imposed as a result of its ballistic missile tests, has been intercepted.

South Korean authorities boarded and seized the Hong Kong-flagged ship and are now interrogating the crew of the Lighthouse Winmore vessel about allegedly transferring 600 tons of refined petroleum products in international waters.

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The U.S. is pushing for the Lighthouse Winmore to be blacklisted by the U.N.

The vessel was intercepted after satellite images appeared to show the transfer, prompting President Trump to tweet his accusation at the Chinese aurthorities.

'Caught RED HANDED  very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea,' Mr Trump tweeted.

'There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!'

But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters she had noted recent media reports including suggestions a Chinese vessel was suspected of transporting oil to a North Korean vessel on October 19.

'The Chinese side has conducted immediate investigation. In reality, the ship in question has, since August, not docked at a Chinese port and there is no record of it entering or leaving a Chinese port,' Hua said.

She said she was not aware if the vessel had docked at the port in other countries but the relevant media reports 'did not accord with facts.'

The vesse lis alleged to have been carrying valuable petrol products for North Korean in violation of U.N. sanctions

'China has always implemented U.N. Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfills its international obligations. We never allow Chinese companies and citizens to violate the resolutions,' Hua said.

'If, through investigation, it's confirmed there are violations of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, China will deal with them seriously in accordance with laws and regulations.'

In a New York Times interview, Trump explicitly tied his administration's trade policy with China, North Korea's lone major ally, to its perceived cooperation in resolving the North Korea standoff.

China accounts for the vast majority of North Korea's external trade and oil supplies.

'I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war,' said the President.

'When I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade. They made  last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum. That doesn't include the theft of intellectual property, O.K., which is another $300 billion.

'If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that.'

The Lighthouse Winmore left the South Korean port of Yeosu on 24 November. Its exact location in South Korea and the whereabouts of the crew are unclear.

The U.S. is eager to stop countries from breaching sanctions rules imposed against the pariah state led by Kim Jong-un

US satellites have spotted Chinese tankers transferring oil to North Korean ships 30 times in three months - despite strict UN trade embargoes, it has been claimed. One picture (above), reportedly taken on October 19, shows a ship called Ryesonggang 1 connected to a Chinese vessel in the West Sea off China

Sanctions have been placed on Kim Jong-un's secretive nation after he accelerated his nuclear and missile programmes

South Korea maintains a strong naval presence off its coast

The U.S. is now lobbying for the Lighthouse Winmore to be blacklisted by the U.N. Security Council for circumventing sanctions slapped on North Korea for its nuclear and missile programs, documents obtained by the Reuters news agency show.

The U.S. Treasury Department last month sanctioned six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their vessels, and published photos of what it said was a North Korean vessel on 19 October possibly transferring oil to evade sanctions.

It was not immediately clear whether the Lighthouse Winmore was involved in the transactions shown in the Treasury Department images.

The ship is reported to have been chartered by Taiwan's Billions Bunker Group and stopped at South Korea to load Japanese oil products. It claimed its destination as Taiwan when leaving Yeosu on 11 October, a South Korean foreign office official said.

North Korea came under heavy sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council as it accelerated efforts to expand its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles program.

In recent months it has conducted numerous nuclear tests, flight-testing intercontinental ballistic missiles three times. This in turn has raised concerns that it is closer than ever toward gaining a military arsenal that can viably target the U.S.
A Thai man has astounded his family by arriving home seven months after police declared him dead and cremated.

Sakorn Sacheewa from Thailands Si Ka Ket province was previously thought to have died of a digestive disease at a rented home in Phra Nakhon district on May 18.

The 44-year-old's family was asked to come and collect the body which had already become bloated and hard to identify.

A Thai man has astounded his family by arriving home seven months after police declared him dead and cremated (file picture)

A relative said that the teeth of the dead man they were looking at did not match Sakorn's and told officials.

But despite this, they were told to take the body away and later held a three-day funeral service in their home town.

Meanwhile, however, the real Sakorn Sacheewa was alive and well, and working in another part of the country.

Eventually he quit his job and decided to return home to see his family.

According to local media, they were so shocked when he walked in that they touched him to make sure he was real.

Sakorn, who was officially pronounced dead seven months ago, said a co-worker from Myanmar had stolen his identification card and disappeared.

But the true identity of the dead man is still unclear and police plan to examine remains left from the cremation to solve the mystery.




People really have double standards when it comes to the monarchy.

It seems cheeky Prince Harry can do no wrong - even a left wing newspaper like the Guardian goes a bit weak at the knees when the fifth in line to the British throne (please remember the job is an un-earned privilege determined by bloodline not skill) hosts a radio programme, branding the result a PR success for the young royals, adding that republicans should worry.

This week, Prince Harry was given the right to edit three hours of precious air-time on the BBCs Radio Four flagship current affairs Today programme.

Harry, pictured while guest editing Radio Four's Today, said that he was passionate about issues that need to be discussed - but the big question he never answered was what he intends to do after his honeymoon, says Janet Street-Porter

Was this the BBCs attempt to woo the monarchy after the Queens Christmas Day message had been filmed by arch-rivals, Sky?

Harry used Today to highlight issues he wants us to care about - climate change, charities, the abuse of social media and the need to respect our armed forces.

Sadly, the Prince falls into the same trap as dear old Bono - telling us the blindingly obvious.

Its a bit like the banal call to arms make poverty history.

I have yet to meet a rational, normal person who would say I despise servicemen and women, I want to pollute the planet, sod the poor and I believe charities are a force for evil.

Prince Harry with Meghan Markle at the Invictus Games, Toronto, Canada , in September 2017

Most of us want the world to be a fairer, cleaner, peaceful place.

Prince Harry is a decent bloke who served ten years in the army and now finds himself in the invidious position of not really having a career, as his older brothers fertility (two kids and another on the way) means his chances of becoming King are practically zero.

Hes in the same ghastly situation as Prince Charles has been lumbered with for the last forty years. Harry has said no one really wants to be King, claiming he wants to modernise the monarchy.

Does that mean being more accessible, posing for selfies, popping up on talk shows? A dangerous strategy which could easily backfire.

To survive the Crown must remain mysterious and separate, impervious to the media storm that surrounds celebrities and politicians.

Prince Harry (right) interviewed his father Prince Charles (left) for the show. Harry has said no one really wants to be King, claiming he wants to modernise the monarchy

Harry (naively) believes he can use the media in the name of good causes (and to re-brand his family as being just like the rest of us through common passions) - talking about his mothers death and her legacy, his charities and his campaign to get young people to talk about depression freely.

Hes supposed to be above politics, but if he really wants to make a difference he should be campaigning for government funding to be tripled, because help for mental illness is scandalously difficult to obtain.

In fact, the length of time for an appointment with a counsellor has gone up, not down, since Harry started speaking out.

The UKs Defence funding has been cut, not increased, over the last few years, to the point where we barely have any battleships and a skeleton army.

Again, politicians are to blame.

The publics donations for returning servicemen, via charities like Help for Heroes and Harrys Invictus Games, has been huge, running into millions - and thats money from people living on basic incomes, paying a far larger proportion of their annual wealth in tax than the Princes with their Trust funds, financial advisors and inherited wealth, property portfolios and free accommodation.

As for putting himself as a voice for the young- Harry is 33 years old - young people have plenty of their own heroes, and I doubt how many 15-year-old inner-city kids living in substandard accommodation relate to Royalty rather than Grime stars like Stormzy.

I want Harry to be fulfilled and to have a job where he can use his undoubted people skills - but what?

Getting married will produce a media maelstrom and a short-lived feel-good moment, especially as the costs will be borne by his family, with the tax-payers of the UK only coughing up for the security and clear-up afterwards.

Harry used the Today programme to speak up for the good that young people do (saying its too easy to criticise millennials as superficial, selfish and self-obsessed) - but we know that already.

All the hard-workers at long-running charitable organisations like Comic Relief have been doing that for years - they dont need Harry to blow their trumpet.

Harrys interview with ex-President Obama was an opportunity lost - there was a side-ways swipe at the misuse of social media, but the former President treated the Prince a bit like a star pupil editing the school magazine

Every fund-raising telethon is driven by school children and the young.

As for Harrys interview with ex-President Obama, it was an opportunity lost - there was a side-ways swipe at the misuse of social media, but the former President treated the Prince a bit like a star pupil editing the school magazine.

Filmed at the Invictus games for former servicemen in Toronto last fall, Obama said it was important for him to talk to them - there is a tragedy in a young person being wounded.

Yes, we can all agree on that score.

Harry told Today he was passionate about issues that need to be discussed - but the big question he never answered was what he intends to do after his honeymoon.

How about giving up the security men, living in a normal house, and taking a job where you have to turn up every day (not when the polo season is on recess)?

Harry, we only want you to be happy, stop worrying about the rest of us.
A cuffed woman broke free and hijacked a cop car in Sumter, Florida, causing more than $25,000 worth of damage after crashing two vehicles - including the patrol car into a tree.

Footage shows Mia Thornton, 21, getting arrested for stealing and wrecking a Good Samaritans vehicle on Pinewood Road, Sumter.

She is then seated in the officers car, where the video captures her escaping from her cuffs and proceeding to drive the cop vehicle.

Footage shows Mia Thornton, 21, getting arrested for stealing and wrecking a Good Samaritans vehicle on Pinewood Road, Sumter

Police officers can be heard chasing Thornton - which lasted around 15 minutes report WIS - before she crashed through a fence and into a tree at Sumter Industrial Park.

She was then once again taken into custody on December 27.

Thornton was charged with grand larceny, failure to stop for blue lights, and resisting arrest with a deadly weapon. A judge denied bond for Thornton on Thursday.

Thornton's mother said she has a history of mental illness, but Sheriff Anthony Dennis disagreed with that evaluation.

I do believe her actions were not that of a mental person, Sheriff Dennis said.

A Good Samaritan, Freddie Lang, attempted to help the 21-year-old jump start her boyfriends car which broke down near Eagle Road and Broad Street, according to an incident report.

She is then seated in the officers car, where the video captures her escaping from her cuffs and proceeding to drive the cop vehicle

Police officers can be heard chasing Thornton - which lasted around 15 minutes - before she crashed through a fence and into a tree at Sumter Industrial Park.

Mr Lang offered Thornton a lift to her uncles home. Whilst Lang was driving the car, Thornton grabbed the wheel and steered the vehicle into oncoming traffic.

Luckily, Mr Lang was able to get the car back under control but some damage was made to the side-view mirrors.

Thornton reportedly jumped out of the car at this stage and ran over to another driver.

Mr Lang got out of his vehicle and walked over to the pair. Thornton used this opportunity to steal Mr Langs car and flee the scene.

Thornton then ruined Lang's car on Pinewood Road a short time later and started walking back to town, officers say.

Thornton was charged with grand larceny, failure to stop for blue lights, and resisting arrest with a deadly weapon. A judge denied bond for Thornton on Thursday

Here she was picked up by a tow truck driver who took her back to the wrecked car on Pinewood Road.

This was where authorities arrested Mia Thornton, and was the moment she escaped.

She slipped out of the handcuffs when in custody and fled using the patrol car.

Police say Thornton created more than $10,000 worth of damage to the patrol car and that Sumter Industrial Park needs around $15,000 worth of repairs.
The Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday it was the source of initial sexual abuse reports provided to Inspector General of Child Welfare Julie Rogers, and it responded to all additional requests for information, and actively participated in meetings to provide feedback and interpretation of data and policies for the report, according to HHS spokeswoman Jennifer Brantley.

The department assesses risk of harm each time an intake is received, and has plans to reinforce current protocol, said Matt Wallen, HHS division of children and family services director.

When the child abuse hotline receives a report of abuse and/or neglect, including a report of suspected sexual abuse, a comprehensive review of the allegation is completed using the structured decision-making model created by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Wallen said.

Structured decision making is used to assess risk and safety for children. HHS investigates cases where abuse is related to a caregiver, Wallen said. If abuse or neglect is suspected by someone other than the caregiver, the report is referred to law enforcement.

Child Advocacy Centers across the state, whose staff have training and expertise specific to sexual abuse, receive notice of every sexual abuse report and can contact the hotline or law enforcement to recommend and discuss the cases.

Rogers' report, released Wednesday, said the child welfare workforce could better prevent or respond to sexual abuse. Wallen said all members of the child welfare team have rigorous sexual abuse training. This year's Child and Family Services Review lauded the department's workforce training program, he said.

HHS has been selected one of eight sites to partner with the Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development and is working to strengthen its workforce and support the children and family services team in the field, Wallen said. It works closely with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Center for Children, Families and the Law to provide education to child welfare workers.

"The passion, commitment and dedication of our case management team to protect children and preserve families is one of the best in the nation and does a remarkable job at fulfilling those objectives -- protecting children and preserving families," Wallen said.

The inspector general highlighted that foster homes and residential facilities were not equipped to prevent sexual abuse, and called for improvement of oversight and standards for home placements.

Additional staff training that is planned, and development of policies to address the timeliness of investigations and preparation of final reports, will result in improvement in this area, Wallen said.

The department provides extensive information on sexual abuse and other types of abuse in foster and adoptive parent training, he said, and has met all requirements to inspect, license, and investigate the 29 licensed child caring agencies in Nebraska.

These efforts include the successful implementation of various initiatives specifically designed to better serve the children in DHHS care, and address any concerns regarding workforce turnover, he said.
A lonely plasterer was egged on to hang himself by internet ghouls in a chatroom where members insult each other, users have claimed.

Gregory Tomkins live-streamed his death on Christmas Day using US video chat service Paltalk.

He was found dead after police broke down the door of his flat in Sutton, south London, at 3.36am shortly after chatroom administrators raised the alarm.

But users of the room have told MailOnline in the days leading up to his death, he was taunted by other members.

Described as a man who was 'lovely but had serious problems', the self-employed businessman was a regular to the Apple Inc Insults chatroom where users exchange twisted insults.

Pictured: Gregory Tomkins posed a photo of himself online with the words 'Merry Christmas' shortly before he live-streamed his death on an internet chatroom where users insult one another.

One man, who wished to remain unnamed, said: I started using the chatroom in the early days in the late 1999s.

The law when it comes to online trolls It is up to social media platforms what content is removed or blocked on their sites. The Crown Prosecution Service require a 'high threshold' to intervene when it comes to trolls. They will usually only intervene in cases where specific people are being harassed or threatened. Any threats of violence must be 'credible' for the individual making them to be prosecuted. Advertisement

'It is like a playground really, its somewhere where you can say anything and not worry about the consequences.

But on too many occasions its crossed a line. Someone once said they would rape my children. I would never go that far.

He said many of the people logged into the forum on the morning Gregory took his life witnessed a similar incident a decade earlier.

Simon Whitrick, 42, broadcast his death from his home in Shropshire, Telford, after he was goaded by users in 2007.

Another person who wished to remain unnamed said: I saw it happen and there were one or two people who kept encouraging it.

I know why Gregory did it. He killed himself on camera so people would actually know he died. I dont know what problems he had going on, I can only speculate but he was incredibly lonely and alone at Christmas.

Tragic: Gregory Tomkins (left), 39, from south London, and Kevin Whitrick (right), 42, from Shropshire live-streamed their suicides on a Paltalk chatroom where people insult one another

Pictured: A screebshot of users in the Paltalk chatroom (not relating to either of the above deaths)

Yesterday the chatroom's administrator known as Throat Punch described how he desperately tried to get UK-based members to call 999.

But he said his attempts were 'futile' as cruel-hearted viewers simply watched their internet acquaintance die in front of their eyes.

Throat Punch said: 'As an admin in the room at the time this tragedy took place, the frustration of not being able to contact police because dialling 101 or 999 from a country outside the UK became immediately apparent.

'By the time it took me to get a room member from the UK to contact 999, it was way too late.

'Sitting by watching people ignore requests to call police was truly futile.'

According to users of the forum, there is no clear way of flagging up terrorism or concerning posts to people in power at Paltalk.

'You can't get hold of anyone,' one man said. 'I called my local police station but I'm based 100 miles out of London so they had to hang up the phone to call the Met Police. All this time Gregory was struggling and dying in front of us.'

Unaccountable: The owners of Paltalk and AVM Systems has not responded to MailOnline's request for comment (above, a screenshot shows just some of the 'insults' forums available on the video service

Tragic: Just days before Gregory took his life, he updated his biography on Facebook to read: 'JUST DO IT'

A Met Police spokesman said: 'Police were called at 3.36am on Monday, December 25, to an address in Wallington after concerns were raised for the welfare of an occupant'

MailOnline has made repeated attempts to contact Paltalk, a US tech firm based in New York.

Its parent company AVM Systems has also been unavailable for comment.

The video group chat service came under fire in 2012 for facilitating terrorism groups by allowing the likes of Al Qu'aeda to use the service to recruit new members.

And earlier, in 2007, it was criticised during the inquest of Kevin Whitrick, 42, who killed himself after being egged on by members of the insults chat room.

Controversial chatroom where users 'egged on father to kill himself live on webcam' Paltalk is a New York based video chat service which allows individuals to chat face-to-face either on a desktop computer or their mobile device. The service, owned by A.V.M. Software, also allows subscribers to video chat with up to 10 people for free and hosts thousands of free chat rooms. It was founded in 1998 - long before the likes of Facebook - and is popular with the first generation of internet users. But it has courted controversy with some of its 5,000+ chatrooms dedicated to discussing terrorism. 'PalTalk is routinely used by internationally recognized and designated terrorist groups for communication and recruitment,' said Evan Kohlmann, a consultant for Flashpoint told CNN in 2012. Terrorist group leaders have been known to hold open question and answer sessions on Paltalk which are advertised in advance on Al-Qaida web forums, he said. In 2007, internet safety charities blasted Paltalk after a 42-year-old man from Telford, Shropshire, took his own life after being goaded by chatroom users. An inquest heard how one user telling him to '****ing do it' because they believed he was 'play acting'. He was logged on with around 50 other users to a special 'insult' chatroom where people 'have a go at each other' and initially the members did not believe he would go through with it. One anonymous user said at the time: 'He tied a rope around an uncovered ceiling joist and stood on the chair as he tied the rope around his neck. 'Some of us chatroom users, talking to Kevin over text chat, microphones and video tried to convince him to step down, but others egged him on telling him to get on with it. 'We just couldn't believe he was doing it - it was surreal. Mr Whitrick was divorced and left behind two children. MailOnline has contacted Paltalk for comment. Advertisement

Mr Whitrick was told to '****ing do it' and to 'get on with it' when he logged in. A coroner described him as being 'goaded' into his death.

The software is used by more than 7 million people worldwide has been blasted in the past for helping terrorists to communicate.

Online contacts described Gregory, a regular to the site, as a 'lovely soul', but said the internet chatroom where you got to get insulted was 'not the place for him'.

He is thought to have joined the chatroom in the early hours of Christmas Day but instead of speaking, as he usually did, he was silent.

A person who wished to remain unnamed said Gregory slowly panned away from the camera and within seconds, he had hung himself.

They said: 'He had come into the room on his regular screenname that he uses.

'When he actually comes in the room he is always on the microphone and he talks.

'But this time he didn't talk and he was just sitting there. After he left the room he cammed up, and that was when he did what he did.

'It took him literally 30 seconds to go from sitting down to hanging.'

One person known on the forum as Putin wrote: 'Gregory Tomkins was a funny man, he did a lot of funny stuff in the chat room but he also got upset a lot and would do silly things on his cam as well.

'I just think he was very lonely as he had a difficult past which he spoke about a lot.

'But he always meant well, you just were never sure what mood he was in when he entered the chat room. I do not think an insult chat room like this was the place for him.'

Another chatroom called Alinity wrote: 'Yakka was a funny guy he will be sadly missed.'

MailOnline has contacted Paltalk for comment.

A Met Police said Mr Tomkins death was not be treated as suspicious and his elderly parents have been informed of the incident.

The spokesman said: 'Police were called at 3.36am on Monday, December 25, to an address in Clarendon Road, Wallington, after concerns were raised for the welfare of an occupant.

'Officers attended. A man, believed to be in his 30s, was found unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene.

'Next of kin are aware. The death is not being treated as suspicious.

'A file will be prepared for the coroner.'

Residents in the quiet surburban street in south London said he had had run-ins with the police.

Next-door neighbour Janine Harmer, 38, said she heard banging from Mr Tomkins top-floor flat around 3.30 am on Christmas Day.

Ms. Harmer said: 'There was a lot of banging. I did not know what was going on. It went on for a few minutes.

'The bedroom is at the back.Its really bonkers. I sad to my boyfriend, 'Is somebody building an ark in there?'

'He used to play his music really loud at all hours. Sunday at 8am, late into the night. It was dancey, garage music.

One local who had lived in the street for eight years said Mr Tomkins was 'a bit of a loose canon'.

He said: 'I think he had some dealings with the police. Occasionally they would be here. He would shout out the window at people passing by. He maybe had some mental issues.

'No one knew.much about him. It's really sad.'

On Thursday afternoon, Mr Tomkins white Mercedes work van was still parked outside the three-storey converted house.

Neighbours reported seeing him drive home the vehicle day around 5.45pm.

One resident which lives in the flat below said 'I did not see him very much'.

The neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: 'He lived alone here for a long time. He was a very private person.'
North Korea has released a set of postage stamps which celebrate a nuclear launch earlier this month - even though the missile broke apart.

Officials said the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile would be powerful enough to reach the U.S. mainland.

But the weapon broke up as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, flying 600 miles before splashing down in waters near Japan.

The commemorative stamps show the missile launching into space as well as the country's leader Kim Jong-un inspecting the military hardware.

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Officials said the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile would be powerful enough to reach the U.S. mainland but it broke apart on re-entry

The commemorative stamps show the missile launching into space as well as the country's leader Kim Jong-un inspecting the military hardware

The missile test followed the launch of the Hwasong-14 in July, which travelled 580 miles before crashing into the Sea of Japan.

Officials said that the Hwasong-15 missile was 'significantly more' powerful than its predecessor.

Despite the break, the launch of the ICBM was celebrated with a public rally and fireworks in Pyongyang.

One of the stamps pays tribute to the 'successful test-launch of the New-type ICBM Hwasong-15', adding that the missile blasted off in a suburb of Pyongyang.

A second shows a smiling North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, inspecting a military site, with the caption: 'Accomplishment of the Historic Cause of Perfecting the National Nuclear Forces'.

The weapon broke apart as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, flying 600 miles before splashing down in waters near Japan

One of the stamps pays tribute to the 'successful test-launch of the New-type ICBM Hwasong-15', adding that the missile blasted off in a suburb of Pyongyang

Another stamp, showing a missile launcher pointing towards the sky, gives more technical detail about the nuclear test.

It reads: 'Hwasong-15 achieved the peak height of 4,475km (2,780 miles) and flew 950km (590 miles) for 53 minutes before landing on the targeted waters in the open sea east of Korea.'

A fourth shows the missile launcher when not in use, describing it as a '9-axis self-propelled launcher for Hwasong-15', and including a picture of the missile's blast-off.

The final stamp in the collection, which is mainly in Korean text, shows Kim Jong-un at a desk as it celebrates the launch despite its failure.

One of the stamps in the collection shows Kim Jong-un at a desk as it celebrates the launch despite its failure

The missile test last month (pictured) followed the launch of the Hwasong-14 in July, which travelled 580 miles before crashing into the Sea of Japan
ISIS has claimed responsibility for a gun attack on a Coptic Christian bookshop and church in Cairo that killed nine people.

The fanatic, armed with an assault rifle, 150 rounds of ammunition and a bomb, went on the rampage outside Mar Mina church in the capital before being shot himself as he tried to storm the building.

The terror group claimed responsibility for the atrocity through its Amaq news agency, which has been known to make false statements in the past.

Footage posted on social media appeared to show the bearded man wearing a bulky ammunition vest sprawled on a street, barely conscious, as people restrained his arms and then handcuffed him.

The gunman, already wanted over attacks on police, first targeted a Coptic owned bookshop killing two before moving on to the church and slaughtering seven more.

Dramatic footage captured a gunfight outside the church and shows what is believed to be the jihadist walking around with his assault rifle.

It comes in the wake of a series of massacres at Coptic Christian churches carried out by ISIS in recent years.

A gunman has killed at least nine people after opening fire on a church south of Cairo in the latest apparent jihadist attack on the country's Christian minority. An attacker was later shot and a picture emerged of a bearded man wearing a bulky ammunition vest sprawled on a street

Cellphone footage posted on social media appeared to show a gunman barely conscious on the ground, as people restrained his arms and then handcuffed him

Dramatic footage has emerged online showing a gunfight outside the church (right) and what is believed to be the jihadist walking around with an assault rifle (left)

A pool of blood could be seen on the ground as a security official inspected the damage at Mar Mina church following an attack in the district of Helwan, southeastern Cairo

The attack took place in the Helwan district on the capital's southern outskirts this morning

Pictures show pools of blood on the ground and bullet holes in the walls of the church in the aftermath of the gunfight.

There were conflicting reports from Egyptian officials as to whether the gunman had been killed or wounded. It was also reported that there were two assailants and that one had gone on the run before being captured.

The interior ministry said he killed two people when he opened fire on a store before heading to the church where he shot dead seven people including an officer.

Police later cordoned off the crime scene as onlookers crowded around the church, while a forensics team combed the area.

Friday's attack came ahead of Christmas for the Copts, who celebrate it on January 7.

Five people were wounded in the attack including two women who are in a serious condition in hospital.

There have been numerous attacks on Coptic churches in recent years.

ISIS in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year, and has threatened further attacks against the minority.

Samir Gerges, a witness, said people inside the church closed the gates when the shootout began but bullets from the gunfire still entered the building.

He said he was walking in a nearby street when the shooting happened. He saw people running and some of them went to hide from the gunfire inside a nearby restaurant.

Although the gunfight took place outside, blood stains could be seen on carpets inside the church after the attack

Crime scene: Detectives cordoned off the area as they scoured the area in the wake of the attack

Hundreds descended on the scene after the gun attack. Nine people were killed in the atrocity

Bullet holes could be seen in the walls of the church this morning after a gunmen opened fire

Raouth Atta, 40, was attending prayers inside the church when the shooting took place.

'Once the gunfire was heard, the gates were closed immediately,' she said.

'People were terrified and wanted to check on their families in other buildings of the church. We stayed inside for 30 minutes before we were able to get out.'

Ms Atta said that once she was let outside the building she saw blood scattered everywhere.

Egypt's Coptic Christians make up about 10 per cent of the country's 93 million people, and are the largest religious minority in the region.

ISIS had claimed a suicide bombing of a Cairo church in December 2016 followed by bombings of two churches north of the capital in April.

The Interior Ministry said two policemen had been killed in the attack on the Mar Mina church

ISIS had claimed a suicide bombing of a Cairo church in December 2016 followed by bombings of two churches north of the capital in April. Pictures show the exterior of the church

THE LATEST ATTACK ON EGYPT'S COPTIC CHRISTIAN MINORITY Egypt's Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of its population, have come under attack by Islamist radicals several times over the past years. With a new attack on Friday, when a gunman opened fire on a church south of Cairo and killed nine people, here is a timeline of the major incidents. - 2017 - May 26: Masked gunmen order Christians travelling to a desert monastery to get off their buses and recant their faith. The group - a mix of visitors and workers heading to the Saint Samuel monastery south of Cairo - refuse and are shot one by one. About 30 people are killed. ISIS claims responsibility. - April 9: Two churches are bombed on Palm Sunday, killing 45 people. The attacks are in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria, where Coptic Pope Tawadros II had been leading a service. He is unharmed. ISIS claims responsiblity and says both were suicide attacks. - 2016 - - December 11: A suicide attack during a Sunday service at the Saint Peter and Saint Paul church in central Cairo, adjacent to the headquarters of Pope Tawadros, kills 29. It is claimed by ISIS. - 2013 - - October 20: Four members of the same family, including two youngs girls, are gunned down by attackers on motorbikes as they leave Cairo's Church of the Virgin following a wedding. It is the first attack targeting the capital's Coptic community since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on July 3. This follows attacks on dozens of churches, homes and businesses belonging to Copts after the bloody breaking up of two pro-Morsi gatherings in Cairo in August and with perceptions that Copts had backed his overthrow. - 2011 - - January 1: A blast kills 23 and wounds 79, mostly Christians, as they leave a Coptic church after New Year's mass in Alexandria. Advertisement

A month later, ISIS gunmen shot dead about 30 Christians south of Cairo as they travelled to a monastery.

The jihadists are believed to have also carried out a massacre of Muslim worshippers in Sinai last month, killing more than 300 in an attack on a mosque associated with the mystical Sufi strand of Islam which IS views as heretical.

Egypt imposed a state of emergency following the church attacks and shootings, and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi demanded the army quell the jihadists with 'brutal force' following the mosque massacre.

The group has been waging a deadly insurgency based in the Sinai peninsula bordering Israel and the Gaza Strip that has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers.

Investigation: Egyptian policemen inspect the church attack site in Cairo, Egypt this morning

The two attackers opened fire at the entrance to the church of Mar Mina in Helwan district, which was being guarded by police in the run-up to Orthodox Christmas celebrations next week, security sources said

Islamist militants have claimed several attacks on Egypt's large Christian minority in recent years, including two bomb attacks on Palm Sunday in April and a blast at Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral last December that killed 28 people

They have increasingly targeted civilians as attacks on the security forces have become more difficult.

The army has poured in thousands of troops backed with armour and jets in a bid to crush the Sinai-based jihadists, but attacks have continued.

The attack on the church came a day after six Egyptian soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in the Sinai.

Last week, ISIS claimed responsibility for firing an antitank missile at a helicopter in a North Sinai airport as the defence and interior ministers were visiting.

The attack killed an aide to the defence minister and a helicopter pilot, but both ministers returned to Cairo unscathed.
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Britain tried to secretly control the opium trade in the Far East after its decision to ban it strengthened criminal gangs.

One of the unusual tactics employed by the empire was the flooding of the black market with opium in Hong Kong in an attempt bankrupt the gangsters who peddled it.

Britain, which once made a fortune by supplying the Chinese market with tons of opium from India, ended the practice in 1907.

But that decision unleashed a century of criminality as thugs and opportunists saw a gap in the market and dove in to get a slice of the lucrative drugs trade.

Britain, which once made a fortune by supplying the Chinese market with tons of opium from India, ended the practice in 1907. But that decision unleashed a century of criminality as thugs and opportunists saw a gap in the market and dove in to get a slice of the lucrative drugs trade. Pictured: A Chinese opium addict smoking a pipe in Limehouse, London around 1900 - before the ban on sales to China from India

'Empire of Crime', written by Tim Newark, looks at the 'dark underbelly' of Britain's colonies around the world, focusing on the notorious opium trade. The unusual tactics employed by the British Empire to fight against organised crime in the wake of the decision to ban opium sales to China from India - including the decision to make itself a major drugs dealer - are explored in the book. Pictured: Poppies - from which opium is derived - being grown in British India before the ban in 1907

One of the most extraordinary revelations in the book is that international gangsters went as far as to take the liberty of using the very weapons of imperial power - Her Majesty's Royal Navy - to smuggle drugs from continent to continent. Rare images obtained by Newark also offer a glimpse into the criminal underworld of the empire and those who policed. Included in the book is a picture of a zinc cylinder for storing opium inside a camel's stomach (pictured)

Items seized from Hong Kong Triad gangs, used in their initiation rites, including bowls for sacrificial blood. One of the most extraordinary revelations in the book is that international gangsters went as far as to take the liberty of using the very weapons of imperial power - Her Majesty's Royal Navy - to smuggle drugs from continent to continent. HMS Belfast, which is now an iconic museum ship moored in the River Thames, was once packed with Triad gangsters' narcotics from Hong Kong to be distributed in America

'Principal among these innovative drugs-busting investigators was Russell Pasha (pictured), Commandant of the Cairo Police, and founder of the Central Narcotics Intelligence Bureau,' added Mr Newark

One of the most extraordinary revelations in the book is that international gangsters went as far as to take the liberty of using the very weapons of imperial power - Her Majesty's Royal Navy - to smuggle drugs from continent to continent.

HMS Belfast, which is now an iconic museum ship moored in the River Thames, was once packed with Triad gangsters' narcotics from Hong Kong to be distributed in America.

To defeat the gangs, one maverick governor of the Chinese colony - Sir Cecil Clementi - took the radical decision to flood the black market with drugs to put gangsters out of business.

But when Whitehall found out about his dealings, they put an end to it - though they did not sack him.

Instead, he ended up being promoted to Governor of the Straits Settlements in modern-day Malaysia and Singapore.

'Chinese refugees fleeing civil war in the mainland presented a major problem to Sir Cecil, governor of Hong Kong in the 1920s,' author Tim Newark explained.

'Faced with a shortfall of opium to meet the needs of thousands of new addicts, he knew that something dramatic had to be done.

'Rather than seeing the opium trade fall into the hands of criminal smugglers, Sir Cecil took the unconventional initiative of becoming a major dealer himself.'

In defiance of the British government's own anti-drugs stance, Sir Cecil organised the purchase of large quantities of opium directly from Persia to dump on his home market in a bid to put the smugglers out of business.

HMS Belfast (pictured safely moored in London) was once used by the notorious Triad gangsters of Hong Kong to smuggle drugs across continents. Some of them were caught in 1962

Remarkably, one maverick governor of the Chinese colony - Sir Cecil Clementi (left) - took the radical decision to flood the black market with drugs to put gangsters out of business. In defiance of the British government's own anti-drugs stance, Sir Cecil organised the purchase of large quantities of opium directly from Persia to dump on his home market in a bid to put the smugglers out of business. Right: Packets of cocaine and raw opium seized from Hong Konger smugglers working as crew on HMS Belfast in 1962

While he waited for official approval from London, Sir Cecil even entered into negotiations with other colonies to supply them with much-needed opium as well.

It was an extraordinary experiment and Sir Cecil noted with delight the dramatic fall in opium-related crime in his own colony - but government bureaucrats couldn't put up with this for long and demanded he cease dealing in drugs.

'Empire of Crime', written by Tim Newark, looks at the 'dark underbelly' of Britain's colonies around the world, focusing on the notorious opium trade.

Sir Cecil noted with delight the dramatic fall in opium-related crime in his own colony after his experiment - but Whitehall bureaucrats couldn't put up with this for long. Pictured: A Chinese gangster's dagger hidden inside a bicycle pump, found in 1955

Rare images obtained by Newark also offer a glimpse into the criminal underworld of the empire and those who policed.

Included in the book is a picture of a zinc cylinder for storing opium inside a camel's stomach.

'Empire of Crime is the dark underbelly of our colonial history,' Mr Newark explained, 'and it makes a stark contrast to the story we are familiar with.'

'This book is the first to reveal the full extent and variety of organised crime within the British Empire and how gangsters exploited its global trade routes to establish a new age of criminal networks that spanned the world.'

If Britain had handed a great gift to organised crime, it was also took on the burden of pursuing the purveyors of this new evil.

'Principal among these innovative drugs-busting investigators was Russell Pasha, Commandant of the Cairo Police, and founder of the Central Narcotics Intelligence Bureau,' added Mr Newark.

'Seeing the damage caused by a new wave of opium-derived drugs, especially heroin, on the streets of the Egyptian capital, he set about pulling together evidence of a vast international network linking East with West.

'His agents exposed the opium fields guarded by narcotics warlords and tracked down the corrupt pharmaceutical companies in Western Europe happy to sell thousands of kilos to ruthless master criminals.'
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Walking through a grocery store isn't an experience known for being hilarious - but in these shops the owners have gone the extra mile to brighten their customers' day.

Channeling their inner comedians, these store clerks have decorated their goods with hilarious signs and posters.

Ranging from pop culture references to the Matrix and the Simpsons, these signs spotted across the USA are certainly creative.

One restaurant featured in the photos, El Arroyo in Austin, Texas, is infamous for hilarious signs, with an entire Instagram dedicated to the notices reaching nearly 70,000 followers.

From clearance buckets to signs on the motorway, these shop clerks arguably have the best sense of humor.

This arrow-shaped poster mocks the ability of Nickelback to fill out a gig with a creative drawing of the band above a bunch of fans for sale, saying: 'Look! More fans than a Nickelback concert'

Ol' Gil Gunderson from the Simpsons is back to begging customers for sales with this clearance rack, saying: 'I need this'

This pet store clerk was fed up with people disturbing the animals and decided to reference the popular Matrix meme with a photo of Morpheus and the caption: 'What if I told you that you could still look at the animal without banging on its cage'

El Arroyo, a Tex-Mex restaurant in Austin, Texas, are renowned for their hilarious signs which they change regularly. Their Instagram account dedicated to the signs has nearly 70,000 followers

The store clerk who put up this sign was getting fed up with customers bringing more than 15 items to the express checkout and used stickers of three childish hands to help people count on their fingers

Rooks Traditional Barbershop in Portland, Oregon, have an important message for their potential clients with this impressive portrait of film star Christopher Walken - walk-in haircuts are perfectly welcome here

The frozen section in this grocery store is marked by a picture of the infamous Grumpy Cat with the caption 'Frozen like my heart'

Quick maths! This alarm specialist is educating visitors to his store by telling them three out of four is the same as 75 per cent

That's one way to get sales! Bill has worked out the key to selling more boats - warning customers that in a zombie apocalypse they'll only be safe on one as the undead can't swim

Pinch Penny liquors in Carbondale, Illinois, are appealing to the college crowd by saying they have all the booze you'll need for school - but unfortunately none of the books

Joe Dough Sandwich Shop in New York City's East Village know how to take criticism on board. Here they advertised one Yelp user's comments about 'the worst meatball sandwich' he'd 'ever had in his life'

Woody's pizza featured an outrageous claim on their signboard, saying that the reason dinosaurs went extinct was because they didn't get a chance to try their pizza

Another Grumpy Cat illustration was used here, this time portraying the feline dressed as Ariel, complete with wig and tail

No Man's Sky, an action-adventure video game, is apparently one of the top refunded items in this store, and the store clerks have had so much fun refunding it they would rate it 'ten out of ten'

Jess has no qualms about writing down her true feelings about this movie flop, saying it's slightly better than the not-so critically-acclaimed film Green Lantern

These liquor store is celebrating the death of Fred Phelps, an American Baptist minister infamous for his homophobic views, in true style with 10% off champagne

Lionel Richie's cartoon caricature is helping customers find what they're looking for in this sign above a clearance bucket

Wax on, wax off! Car washers at this shop are letting customers know their skills are up to scratch after being trained by the Karate Kid's trainer Mr Miyagi

This zoo has a unique way of shaming bad behavior from penguins, with a poster detailing their naughty exploits alongside a picture of the fiend to be compared with the good efforts of others

Do you want the good news first, or the bad news? This clearance sign puts a positive spin on the snow apocalypse by noting that customers won't have to pay if the end of the world happens

This gas station is mocking the iconic Fall Starbucks drink pumpkin spiced lattes by offering their customers pumpkin spice oil changes

Auto correct has caused a lot of annoying problems for phone users over the years, but this Domino's pizza place has made light of the issue by writing 'nintendo' instead of 'intend to'

This motel is getting fed up with people stealing the letters and uses a strange combination of numbers and characters to get the message across

The placement of these two DVDs can't be an accident as Ricky Gervais's character David Brent appears to have a rather large sausage

Through this sale sign the owners of this store are being perfectly honest - business sucks, and hopefully a sale will help them

The robot takeover hasn't quite been perfected yet, as this store tells customers their human workers might react 'unpredictably' to abuse

Ooh baby baby! Salt-N-Pepa's classic 80s tune is here to help customers work out which way to open the door - you PUSH IT

This paint store is avoiding family conflict by only letting husbands choose out a color their wives have already approved of

Helpful! This store sign tells customers the store opens whenever the owner wants - whether that's 7am or 1pm, and they might close any time between 4pm and 8pm

This Borders book store, which closed in 2011, is letting disloyal customers know they should try Amazon for a restroom instead

There's no bonus discount for buying ten bags of spinach at $1 each at this store, but it means you can have a spinach party

No tester here! This drugstore tells customers NOT to open condom packets or try them on, but it's unclear why the sign was necessary in the first place...

Protecting the store against robbers would be easy if they obeyed this sign telling them to unload their gun and take off their mask

While this goose looks tame enough, this sign warns customers not to leave the store this way or it will attack them

Tough choice! This liquor store wants customers to choose the 'strength' from drinking beer over the bacteria in water

This store won't be opening for Independence Day and wants patriotic Americans to do the right thing and get drunk, have a BBQ and set off lots of fireworks

Jenkins, the stereotypical nerd from South Park, is placed mockingly in front of these World of Warcraft games in this store
Facebook and Twitter could face 'sanctions' if they fail to properly respond to a Parliamentary inquiry into fake news, a senior MP warned today.

Damian Collins demanded the social networks work harder to satisfy his Culture, Media and Sport Committee investigation.

The Tory MP set the tech giants a deadline of January 18 to respond to his probe about Russian misinformation or face the prospect of a penalty.

Mr Collins' warning is the first time Facebook and Twitter have been threatened with punishment since the inquiry first began last year. Letters from the firms before Christmas were not seen as adequate.

Tory MP Damian Collins (file image) had demanded the social networks work harder to satisfy his Culture, Media and Sport Committee investigation

Mr Collins told the Guardian: 'There has to be a way of scrutinising the procedures that companies like Facebook put in place to help them identify known sources of disinformation, particularly when it's politically motivated and coming from another country.

'They need to be able to tell us what they can do about it.

'And what we need to be able to do is say to the companies: we recognise that you are best placed to monitor what is going on your own site and to get the balance right in taking action against it but also safeguarding the privacy of users.

'But what there has to be then is some mechanism of saying: if you fail to do that, if you ignore requests to act, if you fail to police the site effectively and deal with highly problematic content, then there has to be some sort of sanction against you.'

Mr Collins' committee has asked Facebook and Twitter for a broad swath of information about Russian interference in the EU referendum.

He specifically asked for details of the accounts and pages operated by Russian misinformation actors.

In early December the two companies handed over a carbon copy of the information they had provided the Electoral Commission in response to a much narrower query about advertising spend from Russia during the six weeks leading up to the vote.

Mr Collins branded the response 'extraordinary' and said: 'What I didn't expect was they would essentially completely ignore our request.'

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg is facing demands to hand over more information to the Commons about the extent of Russian interference

An initial response from the firms, including Twitter, was branded 'extraordinary' by Mr Collins as he called for more information

The committee technically has arcane powers to find the companies in contempt of Parliament and potentially even haul an executive to the Commons.

But the rules have not been enforced for decades and in practice political embarrassment is the tool of choice for MPs.

The technique worked during the phone hacking scandal when Rupert and James Murdoch were reluctant to appear in front of MPs without a similar threat.

In 2011, the Murdochs declined a summons to appear from Labour MP Tom Watson - but backed down six hours later after being threatened with a visit from the Commons Serjeant at Arms.

The subsequent hearing was one of the most anticipated Commons committees in decades.

Mr Collins could also recommend legislative changes to tackle the firms' revenue or stricter data protection laws.

He said: 'On the advertising side, what's important is, well, the extent of fake accounts.

'If you're selling advertising against those numbers, that cannot be ethical, and clearly that is something the advertising industry should be interested in.'
Actress Lainie Kazan was caught shoplifting on Christmas Eve because she had allegedly stolen from the same store before.

The My Big Fat Greek Wedding star was arrested for petty theft on the afternoon of December 24 after trying to make off with almost $180 worth of groceries from a Gelson's supermarket in Los Angeles.

The 77-year-old was handcuffed and taken to a police station, where she was cited and released without bail, TMZ reports.

Kazan's attorney Mark Werksman told DailyMail.com that the incident was a 'misunderstanding' and also denied his client had ever shoplifted from Gelson's before.

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Actress Lainie Kazan was caught shoplifting on Christmas Eve because she had allegedly stolen stuff from the same store before

'Lainie is not a shoplifter. Nor has she ever left a Gelson's store without paying for her groceries,' he said.

'This was a misunderstanding by Gelson's employees who did not give her a chance to pay for her groceries before detaining her.'

Werksman added: 'We look forward to resolving these charges in court where we are confident she will be exonerated.'

But employees at the store told TMZ that they had spotted a shoplifting pattern with Kazan.

They said Kazan fills up her basket and pretends to walk to the checkout line, but hastily exits the store while other customers are also leaving.

The My Big Fat Greek Wedding star (right, in the film with Nia Vardalos, left) was arrested for petty theft last week

Employees at the store spotted a shoplifting pattern with Kazan (pictured in March), according to reports. They said Kazan fills up her basket and pretends to walk to the checkout line, but hastily exits the store while other customers are also leaving.

Security footage shows she has done this before, the sources told TMZ.

Therefore, security staff at the supermarket were waiting at the exit for her last week, leading to her arrest.

Shortly after 4pm on Christmas Eve, Kazan reportedly loaded her cart with groceries, including a hot rotisserie chicken, Jell-O and cleaning supplies.

She then put the items into a number of reusable bags and walked to her car.

But store employees had notified loss prevention staff about Kazan when she entered the store, so they were waiting for her at the exit.

Kazan has been acting since the 1960s but is best known for starring as mother Maria in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
A mother has been arrested for allegedly driving while nearly six times over the legal alcohol limit with her young child inside the car while on a late-night pizza run.

The 37-year-old woman was arrested in Toowoomba, Queensland on Thursday night and was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and driving without a licence.

She was also charged for lashing out at the police officers during the arrest.

A mother has been arrested for allegedly driving while nearly six times over the legal alcohol limit with her young child inside the car while on a late-night pizza run

The 37-year-old woman was arrested in Toowoomba, Queensland on Thursday night and was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and driving without a licence

One of her children can be heard asking 'who is going to look after us?'

The woman allegedly recorded a blood alcohol reading of 0.286 per cent after she was stopped from driving her ute outside her home in Newtown just before midnight.

Footage of the arrest was captured on a police officer's body camera, and shows the woman audibly slurring as she speaks.

She struggles to put the car in park and pull up the handbrake, before telling the officers she hasn't had a drink in 12 hours.

Footage of the arrest was captured on a police officer's body camera, and shows the woman audibly slurring as she speaks

She then told police she had driven out to buy a pizza.

The woman can then be seen trying to kick the officers before she is put in the back of a car and taken to a police station.

Her alcohol reading was the highest taken in Queensland on Thursday.
Resigned: George Ciccariello-Maher, 38, has resigned from Drexel University due to harassment and death threats

A Pennsylvania college professor who received death threats after linking the Las Vegas and Texas massacres to 'white supremacist patriarchy' and 'whiteness' has resigned.

Associate professor George Ciccariello-Maher said in a statement that he was leaving Drexel University as his situation had become 'unsustainable' due to harassment and death threats.

Ciccariello-Maher, 38, said the threats had come from 'right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and internet mobs' in the wake of his tweets about the terror attacks.

Writing in a statement on his Facebook, The political science and global studies professor writes: 'This is not a decision I take lightly.

'After nearly a year of harassment by right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and internet mobs, after death threats and threats of violence directed against me and my family, my situation has become unsustainable.

'Staying at Drexel in the eye of this storm has become detrimental to my own writing, speaking, and organizing.'

He also highlights the legitimization of white supremacy in the U.S. during the Trump presidency, saying 'the forces of resurgent white supremacy have tasted blood and are howling for more.

He added: 'In the face of aggression from the racist Right and impending global catastrophe, we must defend our universities, our students, and ourselves by defending the most vulnerable among us and by making our campuses unsafe spaces for white supremacists.'

Controversial: Ciccariello-Maher linked both the Las Vegas and Texas massacres to 'whiteness' and 'white supremacist patriatchy' and has partly blamed it on Trump

Ciccariello-Maher, was put on leave by Drexel in October, after a series of tweets about the Las Vegas massacre, which saw 58 people killed and 546 injured.

He posted a tweet reading, "It's the white supremacist patriarchy, stupid." That tweet was followed by a series of similar statements.

Writing in an op-ed for the Washington Post, he that threats had started coming in after conservative media outlets highlighted his tweets.

A few weeks later, when 26 people were shot and killed at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, he claimed in an interview that 'white' entitlement' was a factor in the killings.

Speaking to Dailymail.com at the time, he further explained: 'Many white males are raised with a double sense of entitlement, since being both white and male are structures of power and dominance over (non-white and female) others.

'When that power is perceived to be threatened, as Donald Trump and other racist misogynists encourage people to believe, the results can be incredibly dangerous,' he added.

The 38-year-old has found himself mired in controversy several times in recent years.

In 2016, he tweeted that all he wanted for Christmas was 'White genocide.'

He was also heavily criticized after posting that he was 'trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul' when he witnessed someone relinquish their first-class seat on an airplane for a soldier earlier this year.

The incident occurred two days after American forces accidentally killed 200 civilians after bombing the Iraqi city.
A man has been charged with the murder of his partner after she was found dying outside a rural property on Thursday.

Alicia Maree Little, 41, died while being treated by paramedics on Thursday in the yard of a Lavenders Lane home near Kyneton, northwest of Melbourne.

Ms Little had injuries consistent with being hit by a car, a court was told on Friday, as 44-year-old Kyneton man Charles McKenzie Ross Evans was charged with murder.

Police raced to the property after receiving a frantic phone call for help following an alleged domestic violence incident, but arrived too late to save Ms Little.

A 4WD ute at the property was cordoned off by police tape and emergency services were filmed examining the vehicle before towing it away for forensic inspection.

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A man has been charged with the murder of his partner after a woman was found dying outside a rural property on Thursday (pictured are Alicia Little and Charles Evans)

Alicia Maree Little (pictured, right, with Charles Evans), 41, died while being treated by paramedics on Thursday in the yard of a Lavenders Lane home near Kyneton, northwest of Melbourne

Emergency services raced to the property after receiving a frantic phone call for help, but arrived too late to save Ms Little (pictured is the scene)

'I've never been in trouble before and don't know what to do,' Evans told a Melbourne magistrate during a brief appearance (pictured is Ms Little)

'I've never been in trouble before and don't know what to do,' Evans told a Melbourne magistrate during a brief appearance.

'I wanted to speak about everything,' he said, but added his lawyer advised him to 'hold off'.

The court was told the case is one of domestic violence.

Ms Little's grieving relatives remembered her with heartfelt posts on social media, writing: 'Please keep the memories coming of our loving Alicia Little'.

'It's been very hard to take in that we have lost our sister, mother, daughter, auntie, cousin, niece and great friend to so many people, our family are heartbroken.'

Close friend Melissa Sell broke down as she recalled speaking to Ms Little on the phone just minutes before her death, Nine News reported.

Close friend Melissa Sell (pictured) broke down as she recalled speaking to Ms Little on the phone just minutes before her death

Detective acting Sergeant Leigh Scott Smyth said Ms Little (pictured) was treated at the scene but was unable to be resuscitated

Ms Little (pictured) had injuries consistent with being hit by a car, a court was told on Friday, as 44-year-old Kyneton man Charles McKenzie Ross Evans was charged with murder

'I can't get my head around it, I just can't believe it's real,' she said.

'I was talking to her and then she was gone.'

'I didn't even think when she was on the phone to me that anything had happened.'

Detective acting Sergeant Leigh Scott Smyth said Ms Little was treated at the scene but was unable to be resuscitated.

The accused was arrested when he returned to the address more than an hour later.

He did not apply for bail and was remanded to appear at Bendigo Magistrates Court on January 2.

A woman died on a rural property (pictured) in Victoria after emergency services responded to reports of an assault on Thursday afternoon
Retired reverend Philip Clements, 79, said he had no idea his 24-year-old spouse already had a new boyfriend

An elderly vicar who was dumped by his toy-boy husband weeks after buying him a flat has been left heartbroken after learning the 24-year-old Romanian model has already found a new boyfriend - called Jesus.

Retired reverend Philip Clements, 79, returned to England virtually penniless after selling his 214,000 Kent home to buy Florin Marin a flat in his native city of Bucharest.

The pair married in April but Mr Marin broke up with him just weeks after the new property was signed over into his name.

Speaking today, the devastated clergyman said he wasn't aware his ex-spouse had a new partner.

He told MailOnline: 'I wasn't aware of it. Unless it's the Spanish man who works with him on TV.

'I will ask Florin if he has gone behind my back.'

The ex-reverend said he felt 'foolish' for marrying Mr Florin and said he bought him a flat as he wanted to ensure the model was set for the future.

'When things were going well between us I assigned the flat to him legally in order to give him security when I die,' he said.

'I'm 79 and can't go on forever and I wanted him to have that security.

'So he has the flat and there is no way I can get it back, even if I wanted it back.'

He added: 'I don't blame Florin for it because I voluntarily gave it to him thinking we would both be living there.'

Mr Clements, 79, married toyboy Florin Marin, 24, after meeting on a dating website.

He sold his home in Sandwich, Kent and purchased a flat in Bucharest which he put in Florin's name.

Pictured: The pair married in April (left) but had split up only five months later with Florin meeting Jesus just weeks later (pictured together, right)

Rev Clements, left, and Mr Marin married at a ceremony in Ramsgate in April this year

After an argument Mr Clements returned to the UK with nothing- and regrets handing over the property.

'It was of course foolish, it was heart over head, it really was a silly thing to do and giving him the property was a silly thing to do in retrospect,' he told MailOnline.

'But it did not seem silly at the time, if it did I wouldn't have done it.'

Rev Clements spent 50 years in the Church of England as a vicar before his retirement

The pensioner said the relationship while in Bucharest was 'good'.

'It was I who suggested we move there because I wanted an adventure at my age- the final adventure.

'I loved Bucharest and I love Romania.

'I met his family and his parents, got on very well with them and I was just beginning to learn Romanian.'

But he admits they argued and Florin had a penchant for staying out late.

'I found that difficult, maybe twice a week he would go out. But I found it a bit difficult, I only knew a few of his friends and they did not speak much English.

'I was a bit isolated but that was my own doing really, I knew he would do that sort of thing.

He added: 'In the end we were having too many rows and it became impossible to stay with him.

'They were often about silly things, I can't really remember.

'I don't want to make it too personal for him but he had a thing about being woken up.

'If I accidentally woke him up he would be very cross with me- probably rightly so because he came in late at night or early in the morning and needed his sleep.'

Pictured today: Mr Clements, 79, married toyboy Florin Marin, 24, after meeting on a dating website

Rev Philip Clements, 79, pictured with his husband Florin Marin, 24, sold his home in Kent, pictured, for 214,750 before moving to Romania and buying a flat in Bucharest

Mr Clements said on his return to the UK he was 'desolate' and on the verge of a 'nervous breakdown' but has the support of people around him.

'My friends were very supportive, I stayed with lots of friends when I came back and now one of them has offered me a place to stay near Sandwich (in Kent).

'It's a granny flat which is beautiful and has been made very comfortable and cosy for me.

'I'm very very lucky, from arriving back in the UK with nothing and now having a very comfortable abode.'

Since leaving Mr Clements has continued to be in touch with Florin, who came to see him two weeks ago.

Mr Clements admits he misses having his own flat and is still hopeful of reuniting with Florin and living with him in the UK

'Florin is talking of coming over again in the Spring and is having two or three days together again.

'Then to look around and see if there are any flats that we can afford in the area.

'It would depend partially on what happens to him, he is very ambitious for a modelling career or a television career.'

Mr Marin, left, now claims to have found love with wealthy Spanish businessman Jeronimo Jesus de Vega, right

Mr Marin, left and Rev Clements, centre split up because the young model like to go partying

Mr Marin told Romanian media earlier this week: 'He wrote me on Facebook after learning that I had separated from Philip and told me he wanted to know me.

'I told him to buy the plane tickets, that I was not just going to get my money. He waited at the airport with white roses, I was pleasantly surprised.

'After that, we went to a gay club in Alicante, drank tonic and went to his home and slept together.'

Mr Marin claims on Facebook that he and Mr de Vega will spend the New Year on a romantic cruise.

Mr Marin met Mr Clements online around 2014. At the time, Mr Marin was earning 6.50-an-hour working as a chef in a bar taking home less than 300 per week.

The pair made a stance against Church of England rules that bar clergymen from same-sex marriage and wed in a low-key ceremony at Ramsgate Register Office in April this year.

Mr Marin appeared on Romanian TV along with his new partner, Mr Jesus de Vega, left

Mr Marin appeared on the show to discuss the need for cosmetic facial treatments

While married life started off well things soon went downhill as the pensioner said became isolated in a country where he had few friends and did not speak the language.

The couple fell out over Mr Marin's late-night partying which he told his husband 'was not for old people'.

Mr Clements said: 'We went off in April and we had a great time. We used to go out to the cinema and shopping. He makes me laugh. We'd laugh a lot.

'I came over to England for some medical appointments for a fortnight in late August. When I returned, we had a disagreement.

'I thought he was unreasonable. I take some responsibility for it too but I decided there wasn't a future.

'I was very lonely, not knowing the language or having any friends.

Mr Marin and Mr Clements, met online three years ago and got married in Kent in April

The couple fell out after moving to Romania as Mr Marin liked to go out 'partying'

Mr Marin has faced a torrent of abuse online since it emerged he dumped his husband

Rev Clements, right, returned to Britain in September following their split

'Florin would spend a lot of time going out. He used to go to bed very late, sometimes 5am in the morning having been out nightclubbing or watching films.

'He said I wasn't allowed to go clubbing. It wasn't for old people. In my heart I didn't accept it but I trusted him.'

To the relief of his friends in Britain who begged Mr Clements to come home, he returned on September 24.

And having signed the flat over to Mr Marin, he found himself homeless, relying on friends to put him up.

He said: 'When things were going well, I wanted him to have security when I die. I'm 80 next year.

'I didn't want there to be any doubt about occupancy when I die. He appreciated me doing it but I didn't know we were going to break up so soon.

'I left very sadly and very unhappy. My friends in England were telling me I should leave him but I left with a very heavy heart.

'He came with me to the airport. I've lost everything really. I've lost my house and was in a poor state.

'I stayed with friends on alternate weeks until I was given a granny flat attached to one of my friend's houses.

'I regret selling my house. I bought the flat.

'It was my suggestion to go to Romania and Florin liked the idea but I think we would have been better off if we'd stayed at my house in Eastry.

'I wouldn't have been so isolated and he would have had things to do.'

The Church of England's rules state that clergy cannot enter same-sex marriages. Civil partnerships are allowed but must remain celibate.

The former parish priest said he had repressed his sexuality throughout his career because of the church's stance on homosexuality but is now able to be his 'true-self'.
Brussels dreams of seeing David Davis 'sidelined' from the Brexit talks so it can secure a better deal, Government officials have claimed.

The claim comes a day after reports the Brexit Secretary was being left out of direct talks between EU negotiator Michel Barnier and civil servant Olly Robbins.

Mr Robbins, who was Mr Davis' senior aide before being moved to a post answering directly to Theresa May, is said to be gaining influence in the negotiations.

David Davis (right) has denied he had been sidelined from his own Brexit negotiations after it emerged his former top aide Olly Robbins (second right) held direct talks with EU negotiator Michel Barnier (second left)

Protocol dictates that direct talks at the senior level should only happen between Mr Davis and Mr Barnier, with aides working below them on the detail

The Brexit department denied claims Mr Davis was being cut out of the talks and today suggested the reports had been sourced in Brussels.

A Whitehall source told The Times: 'The truth is there are a few people in Brussels who fantasise about seeing David Davis being sidelined, but it isn't how the prime minister sees it.

'It isn't where Britain's national interest lies and it isn't happening.'

Since his move in September, Mr Robbins has headed up a Cabinet Office unit that reports directly to Mrs May and not Mr Davis.

A Labour parliamentary question has revealed that Mr Robbins' Cabinet Office unit has 18 staff, rising to 30 over the next few months.

The set up has created widely known tensions with Mr Davis. Another source told the paper: 'Oli reports to the PM and is doing the negotiating with Barnier and others on her behalf.'

Meeting between Mr Robbins and Mr Barnier are a breach of protocol.

When the reports emerged yesterday, the Brexit Department denied Mr Davis was being sidelined but did not deny the meeting between Mr Robbins and Mr Barnier.

Sources in Brussels said that Mr Robbins had become more influential in the talks after his job was moved to No 10, directly advising Theresa May.

They said the 'dynamics changed' after the change, which emerged after reports Mr Davis and Mr Robbins had clashed.

Sources have claimed Mr Robbins influence on the talks grew after he was moved to report directly to Theresa May (pictured on Christmas Eve)

Official records also show Mr Robbins spends much more time in Brussels than the Brexit Secretary - 18 days compared to Mr Davis' four.

Much of Mr Robbins work is with his opposite number, Mr Barnier's aide Sabine Weyand.

But The Times was told: '(Barnier) is just down the corridor, so of course he is involved as well.'

Whitehall sources insisted any direct talks between Mr Robbins and Mr Barnier would have to be cleared in advance by Mr Davis.

A Dexeu spokeswoman said: 'This characterisation of the negotiations is wholly and wilfully inaccurate.

'The Brexit secretary meets with his counterpart, Michel Barnier, at regular intervals to oversee the negotiations.

'In November they agreed their officials would maintain a constant dialogue, so it should be of no surprise that senior British civil servants press the UK's case as set by the prime minister and Brexit secretary.'

Mr Robbins was moved from the Brexit Department to the Cabinet Office - allowing him to report directly to the Prime Minister - in the summer.

At the time, Former head of the civil service Lord Kerslake said he was surprised by the move, which could be down to a 'clash of personalities'.

He told BBC Radio 4's World At One: 'It seems an odd point to make this kind of change.

'I wonder how he can lead a process of negotiation and not also be leading the department responsible for that process.'
Supermarket shelves are being stripped in Greece after an anarchist group claimed to have poisoned supermarket groceries with acid.

Pictures posted on social media appear to show anarchists from Black Green Arsonists injecting hydrochloric acid into food and drink products.

Greek shops have been forced to pull meat, milk and Coca-Cola from their shelves amid fears of contamination, with British tourists among the shoppers on alert.

The anarchist group is reported to have taken the products from supermarkets in the lead-up to Christmas and returned the contaminated goods a few weeks later.

Pictures posted on social media appear to show anarchists from Black Green Arsonists injecting hydrochloric acid into food and drink products

The Greek capital, Athens, as well as the country's second largest city, Thessaloniki, are believed to have been affected,

According to the U.S. Embassy in Greece, Greek food authorities recommended that consumers in Athens and Thessaloniki did not buy 1.5-litre bottles of Coca-Cola or Coca-Cola Light, 350g or 500g packets of Yfantis lunch meat, or one-litre cartons of Delta full fat milk.

The Hellenic Food Authority is testing the products in Athens and Thessaloniki, according to U.S. representatives, working with police to ensure consumers' safety.

Anarchist groups have previously made threats to poison food supplies but this case is made particularly worrying by the pictures posted online.

The group said in a statement, quoted on the website Greek Reporter: 'These days thousands and thousands of Christians leave the couch to make the necessary shopping for the Christmas table to fill their empty lives with consumable rubbish with beautiful and glittering wrappings.

'All this feast has as victims millions of living creatures that are slaughtered to arrive at the tables of the living/dead, or drained to the last drop of blood to satisfy their palates.'

The anarchist group is reported to have taken the products from supermarkets in the lead-up to Christmas and returned the contaminated goods a few weeks later

Delta whole milk is one of the products which is feared to be contaminated after the pictures were posted

The images appear to show bottles of Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Light being contaminated by the Greek anarchist group

Anarchist groups have previously made threats to poison food supplies but this case is made particularly worrying by the pictures posted online

Yfantis meat products also seem to have been affected with Greek supermarkets having to withdraw items from sale
Chaos erupted in court today as a teenager was charged with stabbing his father's girlfriend to death on Christmas Day.

Nathan Ward was shouted at by angry friends and relatives as he stood in the dock at Craigavon Magistrates' Court in Lisburn, Co Antrim, accused of murdering Jayne Toal Reat, 43.

Ward, 19, was also charged with the attempted murder of Ms Reats daughter Charlotte, 21, and his father Joseph Tweedie.

Charlotte had to be restrained in the court this morning as she shouted out: 'It's not fair!' and leapt towards Ward, who was flanked by armed security guards.

As the teenager was led down into the cells, Jayne's ex-husband Simon lunged at him bellowing: 'What the **** did you do, Nathan? What the **** did you do?'

A melee ensued as armed police intervened to stop Mr Reat, a former solider, from getting into the dock.

Pictured: Jayne Toal Reat's 21-year-old wounded daughter Charlotte leaving court today (left) and Nathan Ward (right)

Jayne Toal Reat, pictured, was stabbed to death on the early hours of Christmas morning

From the middle of the courtroom Charlotte Reat  who has suffered stab wounds to her neck, face and back  also lunged forward towards the dock as relatives to restrain her.

With a stitched wound over her right eye, Miss Reat who lost her mother on Monday, wept as she was held back and comforted by friends and relatives, telling her 'it's not worth it'.

Relatives tried to restrain her, telling Charlotte: 'Please, please, Charlotte, he is not worth it. Come on now please. He is not worth it'

An emotional Charlotte was called towards the dock, sobbing as she cried out: 'It's not fair, it's not fair. He's a f**king waste.'

Around eight police officers moved in to try and quell the emotionally charged scenes, District Judge Watters asked the relatives to 'leave my courtroom'.

Ward had to be restrained by uniform police and court security staff.

Both the teenager's arms were in plaster cast, held upright at the elbows towards his face and wrapped in blue puffer material.

Dancer Charlotte Reat, 21, leaving the court today accompanied by father Simon Reat

Nathan's father Joseph Tweedie was in a relationship with Jayne Toal Reat, pictured together above

Pictured: Nathan Ward, detained in a police van, arrives at the courthouse in Co Antrim on Friday

When Ward arrived, he was told to stand by the clerk as he was formally accused of murdering nurse Jayne Toal Reat at the property he shared with Ms Toal Reat and his father Joseph Tweedie, who were in a relationship at the time.

Ward was further charged that on the same date he attempted to murder Ms Toal Reat's daughter Charlotte, who celebrated her 21st birthday earlier this month, and his father Joseph Tweedie.

Forensics seen at the property in Mornington Cresent, Lisburn, where the family lived together

A detective inspector from the PSNI's Major Investigation Team told District Judge Rosemary Watters that she connect Ward to all three charges.

Legal aid was granted to barrister Joel Lindsay who told the court that no application was being made for bail at this stage.

District Judge Watters remanded Ward into custody to appear at Lisburn Magistrates' Court via video link on January 8, 2018.

Following the end of proceedings, Miss Reat walked out of Craigavon Courthouse and tripped on steps leading to the car park.

She had to be carried out by family relatives to a waiting car in the car park.

No details were given in court of the Christmas Day incident but Jayne Toal Reat sustained a number of fatal stab wounds during the attack.

Officers from the PSNI along with paramedics received a 999 call on Christmas morning about the brutal stabbing of the 43-year-old mum and dedicated nurse

During the attack Jayne Toal Reat's daughter Charlotte Reat sustained a number of knife wounds to her head, neck and face.

Ward's father Joseph Tweedie, who was also in the house, at the time received knife wounds. He was not present during today's brief two minute proceedings.

Ward has also been charged with attempting to murder his father Joseph Tweedie and Charlotte Reat

Tragic: Hours before the court hearing, daughter Charlotte shared a picture of her and her mother on her 21st birthday, just weeks before the tragedy

Devastated: Dancer Charlotte Reat, 21, was also allegedly stabbed in the frenzied attack at a house party in Lisburn, Co Antrim

Forensic officers in white overalls and masks spent the Christmas at semi-detached property photographing the scene and swabbing the hallway and living room for blood and DNA samples.

Around 15 hours after the attack, 21-year-old 'dancing queen' Charlotte Reat posted on Facebook and described her mum as her 'hero'.

She penned: 'I just want to thank everyone for all the kind messages and posts. im not in the frame of mind to reply to anyone nor am i fit to be writing this status.

'Today will be a day i will never forget as my mum was murdered infront of my eyes and then later died in my arms. i can still feel her in my arms and hear her screams of pain and see the panic on her face.

'My mum died. I was stabbed twice in the head once in my face and once to the back of my neck.

'I am with family and have to identify my beautiful mothers body tomorrow which is not something i ever expected to be doing.

'Jayne Toal Reat I just wish i could trade places with you.

'You're my hero forever and always and ill never forget you and i promise i will get you justice! that scum wont get away with this if its the last thing i do!

Jayne Toal Reat worked as a nurse at Craigavon Area Hospital where her nursing colleagues are said to have been left stunned by her death, says a trade union official.

John Creaney, Unison trade union representative at the Co Armagh hospital, said Jayne's colleagues were 'in total shock'.

He spoke of the devastating moment news was broken to him about Jayne's tragic but brutal death on Christmas Day.

'I got the phone call at 11.30am on Christmas morning and I couldn't take it in. It felt as if someone had ripped my heart open,' said John.

'To think that other families were sitting together opening presents and this family was having to organise a funeral.'

Describing Jayne as a 'respected nurse and very professional at her job', Mr Creaney said she 'lived life to the full and was full of laughter and fun'.
In most cases, triplets share the same birthday. But in China, a baby girl born on Christmas Day had to wait for two days for her two younger sisters to arrive.

The set of identical triplets, born at just 30 weeks, were delivered 47 hours apart because their mother's contractions suddenly stopped, according to Chinese media.

The three babies are in stable condition, said doctors at a maternity hospital in Chengdu, the provincial capital of south-west China's Sichuan Province.

They weighed 1,450g (51 ounces), 1,300g (46 ounces) and 1,150g (41 ounces) respectively at birth.

The identical triplets from Sichuan, China, have two birthdays. The eldest of the three (far left) was born on December 25 while her sisters (middle and far right) arrived 47 hours later

A nurse is giving an injection to the eldest sister (pictured) at the Maternity and Child Health Hospital of Sichuan. The baby was conceived through IVF, along with her two younger siblings

The second baby (pictured) was born two days after her elder sister. The doctors decided to let her and her younger sister stay in Ms You's womb so they could grow a little bit more

The youngest sister (pictured) is receiving treatment from a nurse. A doctor at the hospital said she had never seen twins or triplets being born during such a long space of time

The triplets were born to a 31-year-old woman, who has been named You Li, according to Chengdu Evening News.

Ms You already has a daughter who is 11 years old, but her mother kept asking for a grandson. Therefore Ms Wang and her husband started planning a second baby.

The couple decided to undergo IVF at the Maternity and Child Health Hospital of Sichuan as Ms You was diagnosed with blocked fallopian tubes.

Ms You was successfully impregnated through IVF. The mother-of-one discovered she was carrying triplets when she was three months pregnant.

Ms You started experiencing contractions on Christmas eve.

The triplets are being looked after in the intensive care unit (pictured) at the Maternity and Child Health Hospital of Sichuan. The three babies and their mother are all in stable condition

The three girls weighed 1,450g (51 ounces), 1,300g (46 ounces) and 1,150g (41 ounces) at birth

The eldest of the three triplets were born at 1:50am on December 25 in a natural delivery, weighing 1,450g.

However Ms You's contractions suddenly stopped.

The doctors decided to let the other two babies stay in Ms You's womb so they could grow a little bit more.

The second and third baby were born through a Caesarean section at 1:16am and 1:18am on December 18. Doctors decided to carry out the operation after noticing one of the babies experienced unstable heart rate.

Both babies were deemed healthy at birth. They weighed 1,300g and 1,150g.

One of the three babies is lying in an incubator. The fluorescent light is used to treat jaundice

The triplets were just 30 weeks when their mother started having contractions on Monday

Medical staff at the Maternity and Child Health Hospital of Sichuan are looking after the babies

Dr Gao Yan from the Maternity and Child Health Hospital of Sichuan explained why the doctors didn't performed surgery right after the first baby was born.

Dr Gao told Chengdu Business Daily: 'The babies were only 30 weeks and premature. As the mother and the babies' condition were stable, the babies should stay inside the womb to grow a little bit more...

'[This] would increase the chances for the babies to survive after being born and help with their neonatal health.'

Dr Gao was amazed by Ms You's labour: 'I've been a doctor for 22 years. I've never seen anything like this before.'

Ms You suffered postpartum hemorrhage after the C-section. Luckily, doctors managed to bring her condition under control through surgery.

The three sisters are being kept in incubators.

The babies and their mother are all in stable condition.
Police are desperately searching for two young siblings who have gone missing in Melbourne.

Kyle Godson, 2, and his baby sister Krystal, 1, were last seen in Northcote, an inner suburb of Melbourne on Thursday.

Police are concerned for the welfare of the young children due to their age.

Kyle Godson, 2, and his baby sister Krystal, 1, have been missing since Thursday

They are believed to be in the company of their mother.

Police believe the children may be in the Werribee area in south Melbourne.

They have released a photo of the siblings in the hope that someone will recognise them and alert police to their location.

Both children have blonde hair and blue eyes.

Anyone with any information on the whereabouts of the children is asked to call Footscray Police Station on 8398 9800.
A senior British businessman is reported to have been sentenced to 37 years in jail in Qatar for issuing cheques that bounced on behalf of the construction company he worked for.

Jonathan Nash, former CEO of Top House in Qatar, says that he is the victim of an internal power struggle at the company and that he has been used as a 'fall-guy' for what he describes as the covert liquidation of its assets.

His supporters say that while he languishes in jail, his former business partner David Bolger 'divied up' his stake in the business.

Mr Nash says that he is the victim of a power struggle at the company he worked for

Mr Bolger has not responded to the allegations. Neither was anyone from Top House available to comment.

Mr Nash is reported to have told supporters that the assets of Top House, including cars and office furniture, are being sold off and that much of the company's funds have disappeared.

Mr Nash's desperate family are now publicising his plight in the hope that 'compassion and sensibility' will overturn his 'cruel and unusual sentence'.

His distraught mother, Jennie Nash, says that she is beside herself with worry for her son who is being held in one of the harshest prisons in the world.

But she says that guards at the prison restrict calls and often do not answer the telephone, so she can go weeks without word from her son.

'This is every mother's worst nightmare, we all think it will never happen to us when it does it is a real shock. Jonathan's detention and heavy prison sentence have left us all reeling, we feel so helpless and we are really concerned for his well-being and safety.'

Mr Nashs ays that the Qatari court system makes it almost impossible for him to get out of one of the harshest prison regimes in the world

The businessman's ex-wife, Bev said life has been very hard for her and their two children.

'It has affected my health with stress and anxiety,' she said. 'Our children have been very brave during this period, especially our daughter. Sadly for both children they have lived several of their young years without the love and support of a father.'

The couple's daughter Katie, 17, said that it was tragic he had missed some of the most important times in her life.

'I haven't hugged my Dad in over three years,' she said, 'I miss him so much.

'My Dad and I were so close, last time I saw him I was 13 years old, I'm now 17 years old. I just want him home as soon as possible.'

As CEO of Top House, Mr Nash said it was normal practice to write cheques in advance as assurance of payment to scores of clients and suppliers.

Mr Nash's distraught family say that it is very difficult to contact him in Qatar, a country they say has some of the harshest prisons in the world

But when the company he worked for blocked payment because of its internal disagreements.

Mr Nash's supporters say he was left personally liable for the payments after 27 years of experience in the electronic security systems industry.

The businessman has argued that the funds were not available because of internal wrangling at Top House and that he is being held personally responsible for corporate shortcomings.

He said that police have refused to listen to his arguments even though he had successfully completed negotiations with Mashreq bank for five million Qatari riyals to be made available to cover any debts after he was initially thrown into jail in March 2015.

He says that the Qatari court system makes it almost impossible for him to get out of one of the harshest prison regimes in the world.

Qatar has been undergoing a construction boom ahead of it staging the World Cup

The pressure group Detained in Dubai - which is s providing legal support to Mr Nash and his family - said in a statement that ';the shock felt by Jonathan and his family at the prospect of him spending 37 years in prison is immense'.

'The practice of using blank cheques as assurance for millions of pounds of business debt immediately puts business people in jeopardy. Holding an individual personally responsible for such large amounts of corporate debt is not a standard the international business community follows, and certainly a 37 year prison sentence in such a case is beyond all norms,' the statement said.

Critics say the cheque system used in the Qatar is antiquated and open to fraud even by those with good business reputations.
The boyfriend of a cheerleader who fell from a high-rise balcony has said he wants 'closure' as detectives reopen the investigation.

Breeana Robinson, 21, died after falling 11 storeys from the balcony of boyfriend Dan Shearin's luxury apartment at Southport, on the Gold Coast, in January 2013.

Shearin, speaking through his defence lawyer Mark Donnelly, said he was looking forward to the matter being resolved, The Courier Mail reported.

'He is co-operating with the inquest and he was aware it was going to be postponed,' said Mr Donnelly, of Mark Donnelly Law Group.

'He would like closure for everybody's sake and so everybody can move on.'

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The boyfriend of a cheerleader who fell from a high-rise balcony has said he wants 'closure' as detectives reopen the investigation (pictured are Breeana Robinson and Dan Shearin)

Ms Robinson (pictured) fell 11 storeys from the balcony of Shearin's luxury apartment on the Gold Coast in January 2013

While no one was ever convicted over Breeana's death, Shearin spent 10 days in prison after pleading guilty using a carriage device to harass and menace her.

The cruise ship entertainer was jailed and was labeled a 'pig' by a judge for bombarding Breeana with 1,439 text messages in the month before she died.

Her death was due to be assessed by the coroner last month, but in a major twist he has now instructed detectives to review evidence that may hold hints about how the former Gold Coast Titans cheerleader died, The Courier Mail reports.

Queensland Police have confirmed they're reviewing elements of the case and could conduct a full investigation, including possibly laying criminal charges.

An inquest by the coroner was set to look at the 'specific circumstances surrounding Breeana's death, particularly how she came to fall to her death and whether any recommendations can be made to prevent deaths from occurring in similar circumstances'.

Relatives of Ms Robinson supported the decision to reopen the investigation, saying they 'were anxiously awaiting the outcome'.

While no one was ever convicted over her death, Shearin (pictured) spent 10 days in prison and was labeled a 'pig' by a judge for bombarding her with 1,439 text messages in the months before she died

Ms Robinson fell from the balcony of the lavish H20 Broadwater complex (pictured) at 10.35pm on January 29, 2013, after returning from cheerleading practice

Ms Robinson, who was legally blind, fell from the balcony of the H20 Broadwater complex at 10.35pm on January 29, 2013, after returning from cheerleading practice.

Just ten minutes earlier she had received her final message from Shearin, who she'd been dating for only 38 days.

Cruise ship entertainer Shearin spent 10 days in jail after pleading guilty to harassing Ms Robinson during their relationship. He was later given a good behaviour bond.

Cruise ship entertainer Shearin (pictured) spent 10 days in jail after pleading guilty to harassing Ms Robinson during their 38-day relationship

Relatives of Ms Robinson supported the decision to reopen the investigation, saying they 'were anxiously awaiting the outcome' (pictured)

The court heard evidence that the text message sent to Ms Robinson before she died read: 'You're more interested in TV, food and everything else but your partner. That's why everything's ruined. Your priorities are f***ed up'.

In another text message sent to Ms Robinson that was heard in court, Shearin said: 'You're a complete f***ing moron. I don't want a stupid, dumb c***'.

Shearin, who describes himself on Google Plus as 'Australia's premiere cruise ship vocalist/author & cruise ship specialist' was Ms Robinson's first boyfriend.

The convicting magistrate called Shearin a 'pig' however another judge released him saying he didn't deserve prison for just having 'a bad personality'.

Soon after getting out, the cruise ship entertainer posted a message to Facebook in which he appeared to call the family of Ms Robinson 'internet trolls'.

'Life moves on and I am strong enough to endure whatever people want to throw at me,' he wrote.

Shearin (pictured right), who described himself on Google Plus as 'Australia's premiere cruise ship vocalist/author & cruise ship specialist' was Ms Robinson's first boyfriend

Soon after getting out, the cruise ship entertainer posted a message to Facebook in which he appeared to call the family of Ms Robinson 'internet trolls' (pictured)

'To any friends commenting on this post, please be aware you may be targeted by the band of online trolls wanting their 15 seconds of fame along with their paid interview with A Current Affair.'

Ms Robinson's mother, Elaine Robinson, and aunt, Janine Mackney, spoke with the Nine Network show following Breeana's death, but say they were paid 'not one cent'.

A former girlfriend of Shearin's, Trish, who came out in support of Breeana's family, said Shearin had been 'Facebook and text message obsessed'.

She even claimed he had stopped to setting up Facebook pages with fake names to make it appear more people were supporting him.

Queensland Police Detective Superintendent Kerry Johnson confirmed they'd been asked by the coroner to again look over the evidence from the case.

'We have submitted a brief for the Coroner, but they have referred it back to us to review some statements and expert material,' he told The Courier Mail.

'At the conclusion of our review we will consult with the Coroner to determine the next course of action.'
A chip shop owner terror suspect and his friend appeared in court today accused of planning to build a remote control car bomb to detonate from a laptop for an alleged Christmas massacre.

Fish and chip shop owner Andy Star, 31, and Farhad Salah, 22, were arrested on December 19 in a series of early morning raids in the Chesterfield and Sheffield areas of South Yorkshire.

Today both appeared in custody at Westminster Magistrates Court via video link from Leeds Magistrates Court.

Both men, of Iraqi origin, spoke only confirm their name, age and address, and are both accused of a single terror count, which they will deny.

Andy Star, 31, and Farhad Salah (pictured in a court sketch), 22, were arrested on December 19 in a series of early morning raids in the Chesterfield and Sheffield areas of South Yorkshire

They allegedly planned to build an IED that would be placed inside a driverless car, with a laptop controlling the vehicle and detonating the device.

Prosecutor Thomas Halpin said: 'Both are jointly charged with a single offence of preparation to commit acts of terrorism.

He added: 'This is a case in which the Crown say both defendants were researching, developing and manufacturing chemicals to make explosive substances so they could be used in an IED with a view to committing acts in the UK.

On December 14, Salah on Facebook messenger, informs a friend that they had made an IED that purportedly could be placed in a driverless car controlled by a laptop.

In another Facebook message, Mr Salah on December 16 informs a friend that he is intending to test the explosive on Tuesday, December 19  the day they were arrested.

Andy Star, 31, (pictured) and Farhad Salah, 22, were arrested on December 19 and are accused of planning to set off a homemade bomb over Christmas

Star was arrested by counter-terrorism police on Tuesday at the flat above his Mermaid Fish Bar in Chesterfield (pictured ten days ago)

Star was arrested by counter-terrorism police on Tuesday at the flat above his Mermaid Fish Bar in Chesterfield.

The two men, both Kurdish Iraqis, were dressed in prison issue tracksuits.

A number of other plastic bags, tubs and copper piping were recovered after raids on the suspects homes in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.

It is not clear how the men were allegedly planning to obtain a driverless car, with the plot described by Mr Halpin as being in its early stages. But Sajad Chaudhury, defending Star, said he was using the nitrocellulose powder, which is commonly known as guncotton, to make fireworks for the New Years Eve celebrations.

The court heard that his co-accused Salah also denies sending those messages, claiming his Facebook account had been hacked.

Mr Chaudhury told the court: The offence is denied and at the first opportunity at the crown court he will indicate a not guilty plea.

He said of Star, who came to the UK in 2008 before being granted leave to remain in 2016 after setting up a fish and chip shop in Chesterfield: With the items found, fuses and explosive items, you would assume this is a terrorist bomb-making factory except for when the police interviewed Andy Star he made it crystal clear, what I have done is essentially prepare fireworks.

He said Star had witnesses and video footage proving he made his own fireworks at the back of his chip shop, adding: He is against (Islamic State), he is against terrorist acts, against any conversation about bombings in the UK.

Both defendants appeared wearing prison-issue tracksuits in custody yesterday via a videolink from Leeds Magistrates Court.

They spoke only to confirm their name, age and address, and Iraqi nationality. Both are charged jointly with a single offence of preparation to commit acts of terrorism under section five of the Terrorism Act.

The court heard that they are accused of possessing 'low explosive black powder'.

The pair were among four men arrested on December 19.

South Yorkshire Police said a 36-year-old man from Burngreave in Sheffield remains in custody, while a 41-year-old from Meersbrook in Sheffield was released on Saturday.

Star, who owns the Mermaid Fish and Chip Bar on Sheffield Road in Chesterfield, and bearded Salah, who lives in Brunswick Road, Sheffield, were remanded in custody by District Judge Tan Ikram ahead of a hearing at the Old Bailey on January 19.

Star's lawyer Sajad Chaudhury told the court: 'The offence is denied and at the first opportunity at the Crown Court he will indicate a not guilty plea.'

Star, 31, came to Britain as an asylum seeker ten years ago, passing his British citizenship just three months ago

An officer is seen searching above the ceiling of the Mermaid Fish Bar in Chesterfield following the raids and arrests

An ex-girlfriend said recently that Star arrived in the UK from his homeland Iraqi Kurdistan, where he still has family, about ten years ago.

He was later granted indefinite leave to stay and passed his citizenship test three months ago.

The couple saw each other 'on and off' until about six months ago, Joanne Mallinson said.

She said: 'He was everyone's friend and was always willing to help people, he was very caring'.

Jordan Batteson, 25, who lives near the Mermaid Fish Bar, said: 'He was a really nice guy, really friendly. I used to go in there to get my chips. He gave the staff copies of the Koran.'

A close friend of Star said: 'I can't believe it ... I don't know what happened, he was a nice guy ... I am sure he is innocent'.
A bakery north of Adelaide has been linked to more than a dozen cases of salmonella, including three people who had to be hospitalised, authorities say.

Chicken sandwiches and wraps from Gawler South Bakery have been linked to 17 confirmed cases of salmonella poisoning in the past fortnight, SA Health says

The bakery has stopped serving chicken sandwiches as inspections continue at the business and issued an apology to its customers.

A bakery north of Adelaide has been linked to more than a dozen cases of salmonella

One mother took to Facebook to slam the store, claiming she and two of her kids spent Christmas in bed suffering from salmonella.

'I couldn't get out of bed to enjoy my kids opening their presents,' she wrote.

Gawler South Bakery apologised for the disaster online.

'It has come to our attention that a number of people have fallen ill with Salmonella poisoning after consuming fresh roast chicken meals from our bakery recently,' they wrote.

'It is with sincere compassion and genuine sorrow that we apologise to all the people and their families affected by this. '

Chicken sandwiches and wraps from Gawler South Bakery have been linked to 17 confirmed cases of salmonella poisoning in the past fortnight

SA Health's public health director Dr Kevin Buckett was concerned by the outbreak given how sick the illness makes people.

'Three patients have been so severely ill they needed to be hospitalised,' he said.

Dr Buckett urged all food handlers and restaurants to be mindful of food safety during this busy and warm time of year.

'Like most food-borne illness, (salmonella) is preventable through good hygiene and food handling practices.'

He advised food handlers to chill food quickly, keep it cool until it's eaten, and separate raw food from cooked and ready-to-eat items.

Salmonella symptoms include fever, vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhoea.
A teenage boy who was killed in a horrific gym accident has saved the lives of seven people - including three kids - through organ donation.

Ben Shaw, 15, was stuck underneath a 98 kilogram barbell for up to 30 minutes before being rushed to a Brisbane hospital with serious injuries.

His family were forced to turn off his life support three days later, but his donated organs have since given three children and four adults a new lease on life.

His mother Dayla Shaw told the Courier Mail how proud she was of her 'amazing, mature and kind' son and how happy he would have been 'knowing that he has saved a couple of other lives'.

The organs of Ben Shaw, 15, have granted three children and four adults a new lease on life

Ben's mother said donating his organs so that others could live is what he would have wanted

Ms Shaw said Ben would not have hesitated to give his body to those who needed it.

In addition to saving seven lives, two adults have had their sight restored and a further three children will be saved when his heart valves are donated.

'It's the most selfless act I think you can give and in the darkest time,' she said, adding that saving lives is undoubtedly what her son would have wanted.

Even though nothing is going to bring back her son, Ms Shaw said that the best possible outcome of his death was bring joy to families and parents of children who now have new hope.

Ben was reportedly stuck for up to 30 minutes beneath the heavy barbell after it fell on his neck at the Pine Rivers PCYC gym in Brisbane, on Wednesday morning.

Left with serious injuries the 15-year-old was rushed to hospital, before his family was forced to make the heartbreaking decision to turn off his life support on Saturday.

Her son's death has prompted Ms Shaw to demand change at the local gym, saying she would be 'heartbroken' if it ever happened to another family.

Hours after switching off his son's life support, Ben's father took to Facebook to post a photo of his son smiling and wearing a Cowboys hat ahead of the NRL grand final match last September

Investigators continue to examine the teenager's death, but Ms Shaw has urged others to consider registering to become organ donors.

'It would've been a no-brainer for him,' she said. 'He would've had such a simplistic outlook on it  'why wouldn't you donate organs?'. Give someone else the opportunity to not have to suffer.'

The organs of one healthy person can save the lives of up to ten other people. Ms Shaw is also calling on all who are able to bring up to the topic of organ donation with their families.

Staff at the Pine Rivers PCYC local gym administered first aid to Ben before he was hospitalised

Tributes have flowed for the young weightlifter, with his junior rugby league club releasing a statement telling how Ben had left a 'legacy' by being able to donate his organs (pictured)

Tributes have flowed for the young weightlifter, with his rugby league club releasing a statement telling how Ben had left a 'legacy' by being able to donate his organs.

'Yesterday afternoon they (the Shaw family) lost their beautiful Ben,' the statement by Pine Central Holy Spirit Hornets read.

'(He) has been able to leave a legacy by donating his tissue and organs to enable recipients have their lives saved and changed forever as a result.

'As a club we will be assisting to see the world through Ben's eyes and ensure his legacy lives on in support of his parent's and family.'

The gym where he suffered the injuries has been closed ever since the incident.

The announcement of his death came ahead of the NRL Grand Final, with Ben a big fan of the North Queensland Cowboys who will take on the Melbourne Storm.

Hours after switching off his son's life support, Ben's father took to Facebook to post a photo of his son smiling and wearing a Cowboys hat.

Friends of Ben said he was a regular at the gym and had been competing in junior weightlifting competitions across the state.

'We are deeply saddened by this incident and are offering support to all PCYC Pine Rivers members and staff,' PCYC Queensland chief Phil Schultz said.

'We will also offer support to family and friends of the young man involved.'

Two staff members at the gym performed first aid on Ben until paramedics could arrive and rush him to hospital.

Worksafe Queensland has launched an investigation and the Pine Rivers PCYC has been closed until further notice.
Darci L. Lake, 23, a teacher at Maysville Local Schools in Zanesville, Ohio has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of sexual battery against two male students

Female teacher at Maysville Local Schools in Zanesville, Ohio has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of sexual battery against two male students.

Darci L. Lake, 23, appeared in court Wednesday in Muskingum County Common Pleas Court for arraignment.

The former full-time substitute teacher, who was 22-years-old when the offenses began, faces a maximum potential of five years in prison for each of the nine counts, reported the Times Recorder.

Both victims were students - one was 16-years-old and turned 17, and the other was 14-years-old and turned 15.

Lake, who is a 2012 graduate of Maysville High School, was arrested on December 21 on allegations of having a sexual relationship with two underage male students.

Seven of the nine counts listed in her indictment occurred between February 1, 2017 and November 1, 2017.

The other two counts occurred between March 1, 2017, and August 31, 2017.

Common Pleas Judge Mark Fleegle continued her bond at $200,000.

Lake is no longer contracted with Maysville after Barrie Howell, president of Renhill Group, wrote in an email that she had been dismissed from the company.
A man has been extradited to Brisbane to face charges of torturing his seven-week-old son, allegedly leaving him with 19 fractures, bruising and a cut under his tongue.

The infant was found injured on July 25, 2013, and his father, now 23, was charged in July 2015, The Brisbane Times reported.

The man developed a transient and homeless lifestyle over the following years, did not own a phone, and was only found on Saturday  in South Australia, police told the court during a bail hearing.

As his charges of torture and assault were read out in the Magistrates Court on Thursday, the man denied the allegations, telling the judge: I did not do that.

A man has been extradited to Brisbane to face charges of torturing his seven-week-old son in 2013

By the time the man faced a judge, he had spent five days in custody, following his arrest on Saturday and extradition on Wednesday.

The court heard the man had struggled with mental health issues, and had used drugs, including heroin at some stage, for four years, but had been clean since December last year.

He pleaded guilty to failing to appear in court earlier this year, but applied for bail on the remaining charges of torture and assault.

The man intended to return to South Australia and continue to live with his girlfriend, but was denied by Magistrate Deborah Vasta, who said: I dont trust a word you say.

The Magistrate noted the man had missed more than one court appearance after being charged with torturing his son.

"It's time for you to face the music and to appear in court about it, she said.

The man will return to court on January 22, and has been remanded in custody.
49-year-old Marcia Eubank accused of fatally shooting her husband and dismembering his body months before their son found the remains has been indicted on charges including aggravated murder

An Ohio woman accused of fatally shooting her husband and dismembering his body months before their son found the remains has been indicted on charges including aggravated murder.

A Summit County grand jury also indicted 49-year-old Marcia Eubank on murder, corpse abuse and evidence-tampering charges in the June 13 killing of her husband, Howard Eubank.

The couple had been married for 25 years.

A message seeking comment was left Friday for her attorney, Brian Pierce. Eubank's arraignment in county court is scheduled for January 5 2018.

Authorities say Eubank told investigators that she shot 54-year-old Howard Eubank in the head and put his remains in several containers around their home in Coventry Township, near Akron after a domestic dispute.

She was arrested after their son inadvertently found the remains in early December.

Summit County Sheriff Steve Barry said 'He [the son] communicated it to his mother who is not at the residence.'

'She communicated back he should probably call the police,' Barry told Fox8.

Pictured here is Marcia and Howard Eubank's home in Coventry Township, located just south of Akron in Ohio

Apparently the son had been locked out of the house so decided to climb in through a window, which is when he immediately smelled the odor and saw the maggots.

In a call to 911 the son described the horrific scene of the deteriorated remains. 'I just found out my mom killed my dad and I found the pieces of his body in the house,' News 5 Cleveland reported.

The father's body had been found in three locked, separate plastic storage containers.

'This was a very gruesome scene. Very disturbing,' Barry said.

Their son had to climb through the window after being locked out, which is when he found his father's remains in containers around the house

After the call police were able to track down Eubank who was in the parking lot of a shopping mall. Despite admitting to shooting her husband twice, Barry said she was not being cooperative with police.

Eubank had her first appearance in court on Monday, where a judge set her bond at $1 million.

Apparently family members and neighbors weren't aware of what was going on as Howard, who drove a truck for a local pipe company, would sometimes be gone for long periods of time for work.
Anna Barmina, 33, was attacked by sex beast Gizar Ziyangareev with a knife and fists before he dragged her into bushes and raped her with a broken tree branch, a court heard

A woman has lost a brave two-year fight for life after never recovering from appalling injuries she received at the hands of an evil mass rapist.

Now her relatives have expressed outrage at a court for reducing Gizar Ziyangareev's record 23 year sentence in a case that has caused shock in Russia.

The beast attacked Anna Barmina, 33, with a knife and his fists before dragging her into bushes and 'raping her with a broken tree branch', a court heard.

Doctors in Ufa said 'all her internal organs' were damaged in the brutal assault, which caused her to have a heart attack and go into a coma.

The Oriflame cosmetics representative took almost a year to regain consciousness in the wake of the attack - and never spoke again after the acute trauma.

She lost around 30 kilograms of weight, and never left her hospital bed following the attack.

Doctors in Ufa said 'all Anna's internal organs' were damaged in the brutal assault, which caused her to have a heart attack and go into a coma

Gizar Ziyangareev raped four women in a week after being released from jail for previous violent sexual attacks on a neighbour and an underage girl

She was one of four women Ziyangareev raped in a week after being released from jail for previous violent sexual attacks on a neighbour and an underage girl.

He stole her laptop and mobile along with around 745 in cash.

Anna's mother Natalia called him an 'inhuman monster' and demanded the death penalty while local police said they had never come across such a brutal and cruel attack.

But astonishingly, the regional supreme court in Russia's Bashkortostan region cut one month off his sentence.

Ziyangareev pleaded that he had three dependent children and an elderly mother who he wanted to support.

'I just cannot understand how the court could give such a lenient term,' Anna's mother said, although it remains the longest sentence for rape ever handed out in Russia.

Anna (right), a cosmetics representative for Oriflame, took almost a year to regain consciousness and never spoke again or left her hospital bed after the acute trauma

'Anna will never get up, she will never speak. And he will get out of jail one day and continue to rape.'

Anna's family said the reduction in his jail term, even by a month, sends out the wrong signal.

Her cousin Adel Galiev said: 'The family is indignant at the arrogance of this person.

'How does he dare, after all that he did, ask for some kind of mitigation of his punishment while covering himself with his children and mother? Especially since he is a repeat rapist.'

The unnamed police investigator who detained Ziyangareev said: 'He told me he does not regret anything he did.'

It would never be possible to 'cure' him, he said.

Anna was buried at a family funeral in Ufa on Thursday.

The victim's mother had called for the death penalty but Ziyangareev had his sentence slightly reduced, saying he had three dependent children and an elderly mother
A family is suing Alaska Airlines and a contractor after a disabled 75-year-old grandmother suffered a fall down a Portland International Airport escalator in June and later died.

Video captured the moment that Bernice Kekona, seat-belted to her power wheelchair, tumbled and crashed down an escalator, landing near the bottom with the heavy chair on top of her.

After her flight from Hawaii landed in Portland in June 2017, the family says they hired a contractor to make sure Kekona arrived safely to her connecting flight. But now they argue the airline and its contractor did not provide the service as promised.

A family is suing Alaska Airlines and a contractor after a disabled 75-year-old grandmother suffered a fall down a Portland International Airport escalator in June and later died

Video captured the moment that Bernice Kekona, seat-belted to her power wheelchair, tumbled and crashed down an escalator, landing near the bottom with the heavy chair on top of her (left and right)

After tumbling nearly 21 steps, the clip shows a man, riding up the opposite side of the pair of escalators, leaping over the sides to try and help Kekona as several other rush over to lift the heavy chair off of her (left and right)

Kekona's family (pictured) say she suffered trauma to her head and chest, a cut to her Achilles tendon and gashes on the side of her face

In airport surveillance video obtained by KXLY, Kekona is shown at the top of an escalator, which she later said she thought was an elevator.

After tumbling nearly 21 steps, the clip shows a man, riding up the opposite side of the pair of escalators, leaping over the sides to try and help Kekona as several other rush over to lift the heavy chair off of her.

Despite eventually being sat upright, Kekona's family says she suffered trauma to her head and chest, a cut to her Achilles tendon and gashes on the side of her face.

The family's lawyer says Kekona suffered constant, serious pain in the months following the incident.

In September, the wound to her tendon became so infected that doctors were forced to amputate her leg below the knee, according to a lawsuit filed by the family. Her blood pressure never recovered following the surgery and Kekona died the next day.

Her family is now suing Alaska Airlines and Huntleigh, USA for failing to provide what they say was agreed upon gate-to-gate transportation.

Despite eventually being sat upright, Kekona's family says she suffered trauma to her head and chest, a cut to her Achilles tendon (right) and gashes on the side of her face (left)

In September, the wound to her tendon became so infected that doctors were forced to amputate her leg (left) below the knee, according to a lawsuit filed by the family. Her blood pressure never recovered following the surgery and Kekona died the next day

Her family is now suing Alaska Airlines and Huntleigh, USA for failing to provide what they say was agreed upon gate-to-gate transportation

The family is seeking reparation for damages, expenses and any 'further relief as the court may deem just and proper' resulting from Kekona's fatal fall, according to court documents.

'Between her injury and her death, Bernice incurred almost $300,000 in medical bills to treat her injuries from the fall,' attorneys Brook Cunningham and Troy Nelson wrote.

According to the lawsuit, Kekona showed her ticket to an Alaska Airlines employee at her arrival gate, who pointed her in the direction she needed to go in.

Minutes later Kekona was seen on video moving through the airport, confused and lost. She stopped at a security checkpoint and an airport store looking for her departure gate, the lawsuit claims.

Huntleigh, USA, who is contracted by Alaska Airlines for disability services through the airport, told KXLY it can't comment yet because it has not seen the lawsuit filed Wednesday in King County Superior Court.

According to the lawsuit, Kekona (pictued with family) showed her ticket to an Alaska Airlines employee at her arrival gate, who pointed her in the direction she needed to go in

Minutes later Kekona (pictured) was seen on video moving through the airport, confused and lost. She stopped at a security checkpoint and an airport store looking for her departure gate, the lawsuit claims

Alaska Airlines said an investigation is continuing, but 'it appears that Ms Kekona declined ongoing assistance in the terminal and decided to proceed on her own to her connecting flight

Alaska Airlines said an investigation is continuing, but 'it appears that Ms Kekona declined ongoing assistance in the terminal and decided to proceed on her own to her connecting flight.'

The airline also noted her reservation did not note any 'cognitive, visual or auditory impairments.'

Alaska Airlines also told ABC News that Kekona had the right to decline wheelchair services.

The company added that it was 'heartbroken by this tragic and disturbing incident'.
A 15-year-old teen who's family was brutally murdered in the gruesome quadruple homicide in Troy, New York fears he'll be the next target for the unidentified killer.

Isaiah Smith, the sole survivor of the family, has revealed he's terrified for his safety and is even 'scared to go to the corner store.'

The teenager's mother Shanta Myers, 36, his brother Jeremiah, 11, and sister, Shanise, five, were found tied up with their throats slashed alongside Shanta's lesbian girlfriend Brandi Mells, 22, inside their apartment on Tuesday.

Shanta Myers, 36, (pictured left) her lesbian girlfriend Brandi Mells, 22, and Shanta's two children Jeremiah, 11, and Shanise, five, (pictured) were found tied up with their throats slashed inside an apartment in Troy, New York on Tuesday

Shanta Myers, 36, (left) and her lesbian girlfriend Brandi Mells, 22 (right) were found murdered in what police have described is an act of blatant 'savagery'

Isaiah Smith, the sole survivor of the family, has revealed he's terrified for his safety and is even 'scared to go to the corner store'

Isaiah, who wasn't at home at the time of the murders as he was away in Massachusetts, is now scared that the suspects are 'coming for me next,'he told the Times Union.

Speaking about the moment he found out about his family he said 'Couldn't believe it. Heartbroken. I fell down to the ground right in the bathroom and cried thinking who would've done this?' reported CBS6.

His aunt Shakera Symes, the sister of 36-year-old victim Shanta, has appealed to the public. 'Give the information to the authorities so that they can help find the person who has destroyed us, emotionally, mentally. It feels like somebody has ripped us to shreds,' she said.

'My sister was supposed to be with me and her children, all three of them for Christmas. And I got robbed of that,' she emotionally told reporters.

11-year-old Jeremiah (pictured left) and his little five-year-old Shanise (right) were also found dead, tied up with their throats slashed

She said her and the rest of the family are completely and utterly heartbroken. 'It feels like somebody ripped us to shreds and we only have each other right now and we are grasping and holding on to each other for dear life.'

Isaiah fondly remembered his younger brother saying he followed him around everywhere. 'It got to the point where I'd be in the bathroom and he'd be on the other side talking to me like "bro what are you about to do after this?" and I'd be like "I don't know!"' he joked.

Apparently Jeremiah dreamed of playing for the Boston Celtics in the NBA one day and had also been a member of the Troy Boys & Girls Club for six years.

Shakera Symes, the sister of 36-year-old victim Shanta said 'My sister was supposed to be with me and her children, all three of them for Christmas. And I got robbed of that,' she emotionally told reporters

Pictured here are the family members including Isaiah (second from left) his Aunt Shakera Symes (second from right) and his Uncle Khalif Coleman (center)

'He was the quintessential "Club Kid" who impacted the lives of so many staff, children and teens, parents and volunteers,' the club said in a statement.

'It will be deeply felt by all his friends at the club and throughout our community.'

His younger sister Shanise had a passion for cooking and apparently was wise beyond her years. 'That girl was like a grown woman in a little body,' her Uncle Khalif Coleman said. 'You aint telling that girl what to do, she will be in your face.'

Her Aunt Symes said she was going to have the youngster cook spaghetti as part of their Christmas meal. She told Symes 'Auntie I know how to make spaghetti.'

The family - identified as two young siblings, their mother and the woman's lesbian partner - were found bound and with their throats slashed inside an apartment in Troy on Tuesday

After sharing memories Symes again pleaded to the pubic. 'If you know something that could help us put the monster away who did this to my sister and her beautiful babies, you've got to say something.'

'The longer you wait, the further away this perpetrator gets and it makes it harder for us to sleep at night,' she said.

The Victory Christian Church of Albany offered a $5,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest.

Law enforcement sources claim the family appear to have been targeted for an unknown reason, while Troy Police Chief James Tedesco told the paper the murders were an abominable act of 'savagery.'

Tedesco noted the slayings were not a random act of violence and characterized the quadruple homicide as the worst he has seen yet. 'After being in this business for almost 42 years, I can't describe the savagery of this. I don't have the word,' he said.

'There are indications at the crime scene that this was not a random act,' Tedesco told reporters at a news conference Wednesday.

They too are pleading with the public. 'We are certainly appealing to people in the community that would have any knowledge as to what may have transpired there to contact us as soon as possible.'

Autopsies completed on Wednesday afternoon are expected to clarify the timeline of attacks and exactly how the victims were killed.

Troy Police Chief James Tedesco told the paper the murders were an act of 'savagery'

Troy Police sources said the family, identified as two young siblings, their mother and the woman's lesbian partner, appear to have been targeted for an unknown reason

Police have said they still don't have a suspect for the murders, and don't want to release a potential motive in the fears of hurting their investigation.

'The emotions of a police officer is something you repress because there is a job to be done,' Tedesco said.

'But no one involved in this case is ever going to forget it. Right now our job is to bring this person to justice.'

Based on evidence uncovered in the course of the investigation, police do not believe there is imminent danger to the community. So far, no arrests have been made.

Troy Police Captain Daniel DeWolf said earlier that the deaths were 'certainly suspicious.'

The unit where the bodies were found is one of five in a home located in a residential neighborhood along the Hudson River's east bank, just north of Albany.
It has been a difficult few weeks for Gayle King in the wake of Charlie Rose's ousting from CBS This Morning, but on Thursday it was time to celebrate.

The popular morning show host left all her troubles behind - 4900 miles behind to be exact - as she enjoyed a birthday bash for the ages in Maui.

This included a massive feast of dover sole meuniere, braised short ribs, cauliflower au gratin, buttered carrots, skillet potatoes and a butter lettuce salad.

And to top it all off was a special cake in her favorite color from her favorite person, with Oprah Winfrey singing 'Happy Birthday' while presenting King with a yellow-frosted confection.

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Birthday girL; Gayle King celebrated her 63rd birthday on Thursday while vacationing in Maui (above) with her children

Favorite thing: The evening capped off with a birthday cake from her best friend Oprah, who hosted King and her family at her Hawaiian compound

Happiness: 'Birthday DAY! B'day menu (i picked) b'day song led by@Oprah & 'modeling' in Maui. 63 ROCKS! Yep this happened yesterday,' wrote King on Instagram

Look what you made me do: King later posted a video of herself with daughter Kirby and son William dancing and singing to Taylor Swift's End Game (King above during video)

King then ended the night by watching the critically acclaimed filed Lady Bird with her daughter Kirby as the two women ate truffle popcorn and wore matching pajamas.

And Oprah not only helped throw the birthday bash, but also hosted the group, who stayed in her palatial Maui compound which is located on approximately 750 acres of pristine coastline.

King posted a gallery of her entire day, which began with a workout on the deck of Oprah's home early in the morning.

She then changed into a stunning yellow dress and gold clogs for her birthday celebration, with Kirby positing a photo of her mother dancing on the edge of the infinity pool at their vacation spot.

After a little bit of family time with her daughter and son William, it was off to celebrate with dinner and friends.

That family time also included a music video shoot, as the three dance and sang to the title track of Taylor Swift's new album, Reputation.

'Birthday DAY! Swipe left how it started-b'day menu (i picked) b'day song led by@Oprah & 'modeling' in Maui. 63 ROCKS! Yep this happened yesterday,' wrote King on Instagram.

Work it out: The CBS This Morning host started off the day by getting in a workout on the treadmill located on the deck of Oprah's palatial home (above)

Best buds: King later posted a photo of herself and Stedman Graham with her birthday cake

Family time: King poses with William and Kirby (above) on Christmas wearing their new socks from Oprah's favorite things

Decadent buffet: Oprah shows off the birthday dinner offerings, which included dover sole meuniere (above)

She was then seen posing with her birthday cake alongside Oprah's longtime partner Stedman Graham, and in the next gallery watching Lady Bird with Kirby.

She posted the third gallery at around 5am Maui time, suggesting that despite the fact that she is on vacation she is still having trouble sleeping in.

'And finally! A BRIEF music video w/fav daughter @kirbybump & fav son ..background @taylorswift LOVE her!' wrote King.

She then suggested that everyone go look at the Instagram account of O Magazine editor Joseph Zambrano, who composed a video of King doing some of her favorite things.

They included: eating with her eyes closed, eating in lavender dresses, white girl dancing with white girls, reminding the youths about American establishments, letting J. Lo know who's the original Coca Cola, watching movies, slaying, reminding me I'm on the clock, producing documentaries (on me), singing off-key with Grammy winners, putting me in my place, following my advice blindly, being all black girl magic and whatnot and tricking people into thinking her name is Beyonce.
CNN Tonight host Don Lemon lost his patience with conservative pundit Ben Ferguson when the latter kept straying from the topic of Donald Trump.

Ferguson was appearing on a panel with fellow political commentators Tara Setmayer and Bakari Sellers to discuss President Trump's recent interview with the New York Times.

However, Lemon interrupted Ferguson and cut to commercial break when he went off on a tangent about the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton's aide Huma Abedin.

Enough is enough: Don Lemon lost his patience with conservative pundit Ben Ferguson, far right, when the went off the topic of Donald Trump and on a tangent about the Obama years

Ferguson claimed that during the Obama years several people received 'special treatment' after making mistakes for which they would have been indicted for had they been Republicans.

He then brought up the Clinton and Abedin email scandal, at which point Lemon interrupted him asking in what way his point was relevant to the Donald Trump interview.

When the show returned after a commercial break, Lemon said he would be happy for Ferguson to make his point on the condition that he did not 'hijack the panel' and would stick to things that are relevant to the topic.

Leading man: Lemon was keen to stick to the right topic during CNN Tonight

'But I don't wanna hear about Benghazi, I don't want to hear about uranium, it has been litigated a million times.'

Ferguson accused him of not wanting to discuss Clinton because it did not fit his narrative, to which Lemon responded that it is irrelevant.

Ferguson then accused Lemon of letting Sellers speak because he agrees with him, to which Lemon fired back: 'No it is not because I agree with it all, it's because he is talking about things that are relevant, things that have to do with now!

'Not some bull from the past that has been litigated over and over and is not relevant anymore!

'Every time, someone goes; "Oh but her emails, oh but uranium!"'

He finished off by urging Ferguson and the other panelists to turn the conversation back to the Trump interview, 'instead of going back in time in a time machine and talking about something and someone who is not president anymore.'
The missive - reportedly written by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) - was addressed to Taoiseach Charles Haughey (pictured) in 1987

A loyalist paramilitary group sent a letter to the Irish prime minister claiming MI5 had asked them to assassinate him, newly released documents claim.

The missive - supposedly written by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) - was addressed to Taoiseach Charles Haughey in 1987.

After listing a series of allegations against the British intelligence services, the note explained: 'In 1985 we were approached by a MI5 officer attached to the NIO [Northern Ireland Office] and based in Lisburn, Alex Jones was his supposed name.

'He asked us to execute you.'

Also contained in the newly available documents is an allegation that Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams set up a notorious IRA gang for ambush.

Eight members of the Provisional's East Tyrone Brigade were shot dead by waiting British troops in May 1987 after they loaded a 200lb bomb on to a stolen digger and smashed through the gates of the RUC barracks in Loughgall, Co Armagh.

The rumour about Mr Adams was passed on to Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs by respected cleric Fr Denis Faul about three months after the Loughgall operation.

'We refused to do it, we were asked would we accept responsibility if you were killed we refused,' the UVF said in the letter. Pictured: UVF graffiti in East Belfast, Northern Ireland

Sinn Fein, however, dismissed the claim as 'utter nonsense'.

The previously secret letter regarding the supposed assassination of Mr Haughey, on UVF headed paper, showed the loyalists told the Irish PM that the MI5 operative gave details of his cars, photographs of his home, his island, Inishvickillane, and his yacht, Celtic Mist.

The paramilitaries also claimed to have been given details of Mr Haughey's trips to Farranfore airport in Kerry and photos of a plane he used.

'We refused to do it, we were asked would we accept responsibility if you were killed we refused,' the UVF said in the letter.

Records from his office while he was taoiseach reveal that the UVF wrote to him to tell him that British intelligence operatives also launched a smear campaign against him.

The loyalists claimed their organisation was used by MI5 and MI6, backed up by British Army special forces, from 1972 to 1978 and again in 1985.

Mr Haughey was on holiday when the letter arrived in August 1987.

He was shown it later and, according to a handwritten note on another document from his office, he asked for the Department of Justice to let him know if they had any information.

The UVF also claimed MI5 planned to supply a spoon of 'Anthras' (sic), 'Foort and Mouth Disease' (sic), 'Fowl Pest, Swine Fever, and Jaagsikpi' to anyone who would release them in Ireland.

Pictured: Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness attend the funeral of IRA commander Patrick Kelly, in East Tyrone, Northern Ireland, during May 1987

Eight members of the Provisional IRA's East Tyrone Brigade were shot dead in May 1987 after they loaded a 200lb bomb on to a stolen digger and smashed through the gates of the RUC barracks in Loughgall, Co Armagh

The eight IRA men killed in the ambush were Patrick McKerney, James Lynagh, Declan Arthurs, Eugene Kelly, Patrick Kelly, Anthony Gormley, Seamus Donnelly and Gerard O'Callaghan

The rumour about Mr Adams was passed on to Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs by respected cleric Fr Denis Faul (top left) about three months after the Loughgall operation

The loyalists said the plot was to destroy the 'Eire economy'.

In the letter, the UVF said it had killed 17 men using information from British intelligence.

Signed in block capitals 'Capt W Johnston', the name used by the UVF in all its formal statements, it closed with the line: 'We have no love for you but we are not going to carry out work for the Dirty Tricks Department of the British.'

Meanwhile Mr Haughey's son, Sean, told Irish media his family was aware of the threat to his life and took it seriously.

The documents can be seen in the National Archives in file 2017/10/34 from the Taoiseach's office.
Plans for a United States of Europe by 2025 suffered a damning blow today after a new poll revealed they have little support across the major nations.

German politician Martin Schulz - the former President of the European Parliament and domestic rival to Angela Merkel - promoted the plan at a party conference.

He called for a rapid development of the EU after Britain leaves, accelerating integration and leaving behind those who do not want it.

But the plan is supported by less than a third of people in seven major nations - and just 10 per cent in Britain, in a vindication of last year's Leave vote.

Plans for a United States of Europe by 2025 have little support across the major nations, a new poll has revealed in a damning blow to the vision

German politician Martin Schulz - the former President of the European Parliament and domestic rival to Angela Merkel - promoted the plan at a party conference

Germans are the most enthusiastic but even there only 30 per cent back the idea. In France supporters number 28 per cent, while several Scandinavian nations barely register support in double figures.

Britons, in a likely reflection of why they voted Leave, oppose the plan 90 per cent to 10 per cent.

The findings were made in a huge YouGov Germany poll which sampled thousands of people across seven nations a week before Christmas.

Mr Schulz announced his plans for a United States of Europe by 2025 at an SPD party convention.

He said that once a constitutional treaty was drafted, it would 'be presented to the member states, and those who are against it will simply leave the EU'.

Other questions in the poll revealed a stark divide in Europe over what Brussels should seek in the Brexit negotiations.

People in Germany - the EU's biggest nation - favour securing Britain's divorce bill most, backed by 41 per cent. Getting a free trade deal is the priority of only 18 per cent in a blow to Brexiteers hopes German industry would drive a good deal.

Support for free trade is much more prominent in Denmark - a key UK ally in the negotiations - with 38 per cent saying it is the top priority.

People in Germany - the EU's biggest nation - favour securing Britain's divorce bill (shown in bright blue) most, backed by 41 per cent. Getting a free trade deal (shown in green) is the priority of only 18 per cent in a blow to Brexiteers hopes

A security partnership between Britain and Europe is a strong priority for all of the nations - Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden and Finland - on the issue.

The poll reveals strong support for securing a Brexit deal before Britain makes its departure across the board.

Some 54 per cent of Britons want a deal before leaving, compared to 30 per cent who want out of the EU immediately.

The figure backing a deal is higher in Germany - at 60 per cent - as well as in Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

Phase two of the negotiations, on a transition period and a future trade deal, is due to begin in January after a draft divorce deal was hammered out at a summit earlier this month.
This is the shocking moment riot police were caught on camera stealing from a mobile phone shop in Mexico.

More than a dozen officers helped themselves to smartphones and other electronic gadgets from the store.

It happened at a property in the Plaze Meave shopping centre during a disturbance in the Mexican capital of Mexico City.

This is the shocking moment (pictured) riot police were caught on camera stealing from a mobile phone shop in Mexico

Ironically, the police riot squad had been called to the shopping centre after a gang of thieves targeted stores there.

During the tapes, one riot officer can be seen smashing open a display case with a riot shield.

More officers are then seen helping themselves to the better products.

An investigation has been launched into the thefts after the police officers were caught on the store's CCTV system.

Footage shows the officers grabbing mobile phones and other goods from display cases and store cupboards before stashing them inside their uniforms.

More than a dozen officers helped themselves to smartphones and other electronic gadgets from the store

The clip appears to show that two officers (pictured) started the looting by helping themselves to the store's valuable stock

The clip appears to show that two officers started the looting by helping themselves to the store's valuable stock.

But their fellow colleagues quickly followed suit and in no time at all it developed into a free for all as terrified shop staff hid behind their counter.

The internal affairs department of Mexico City's public security service has launched an investigation into the incident.

General director Agustin Gonzalez said: 'This investigation is trying to identify all of the officers guilty of wrongdoing, as well as their senior officers who should have avoided the situation.'
Russia sparked fury after Vladimir Putins diplomats boasted they are helping to heat up Britain by sending a shipment of gas as the country suffers from an arctic blast.

Moscows embassy in London tweeted help is on the way as it announced the first ever shipment of liquefied natural gas had docked in the UK amid freezing temperatures.

A row erupted as UK sources said none of the gas would enter the National Grid because Britain had enough and accused the embassy of trolling the Government.

A government source said: This is trolling from the embassy.

Moscows embassy in London tweeted help is on the way as it announced the first ever shipment of liquefied natural gas had docked in the UK (file photo of tanker)

It is nonsense. We are not worried about energy supplies and this is not the Russians riding over the hill to save us from shivering to death.

On Thursday the Russian embassy account tweeted a stock photograph of the Christophe de Margerie tanker  used to transport LNG from a new Russian plant in the Siberian Arctic.

The tweet read: Feeling cold? Help is on the way - first shipment of LNG from Russia arrives in UK today!

Yesterday a National Grid spokesman confirmed the tanker had docked at the London Thamesport on the Isle of Grain in Kent on Thursday evening and offloaded its cargo.

The Russian Embassy's official Twitter account posted a picture of the Christophe de Margerie tanker but failed to mention that the shipment would not be used in the UK

The spokesman confirmed it was the first time a Russian cargo had docked in the UK and the first time an ice breaker ship had docked in the UK.

The shipment, estimated at 170,000 cubic tonnes, was then stored in the UK before being sold elsewhere, rather than being used domestically  as the Russians suggested.

It belongs to Petronas LNG UK, the British arm of Malaysia LNG, and was due to leave the UK last night.

The gas came from a sanctioned 20bn Yamal project on Russia's northern coastline.

It is based in Siberia and majority-owned by Novatek, one of Russias largest independent natural gas producers.

Novatek currently faces sanctions by the United States government over Russias involvement in Ukraine.

Mr Putin has told energy bosses the Yamal LNG is one more confirmation of the status of Russia as one of the worlds leading energy powers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has described Russia as 'one of the world's leading energy powers'

The tanker, seen here north of Siberia, docked at the London Thamesport on the Isle of Grain in Kent on Thursday evening and offloaded its cargo

Shortly after Mr Putin opened the project earlier this month, British wholesale gas prices soared to four-year highs when a crucial North Sea pipeline was put out of action by a crack.

A distribution hub in Austria was also hit by an explosion.

It had been suggested the shipment could be used in the UK following a price spike after the shutdown of the Forties North Sea Pipeline.

But UK energy sources said yesterday there were no energy supply issues in Britain and it was simply not cold enough for the UK to require Russian gas.

One source said: There are no supply issues. We are not dependent on Russia for this gas. It is not required.

The Christophe de Margerie is an icebreaker commissioned specifically to service the Yamal project, which is in north Siberian Arctic.

The UK does not receive any gas from Russia directly, but does receive Russian gas indirectly through European pipelines

It is named after Total's former chief executive, who died in a plane crash in Moscow three years ago.

The UK does not receive any gas from Russia directly, but does receive Russian gas indirectly through European pipelines.

Some 80 per cent of the UKs 25 million homes are powered by gas.

43 per cent of the UK's gas comes from UK production, 44 per cent from European pipelines, and 13 per cent from LNG tankers.

35 per cent of Europe's gas comes from Russia, according to British Gas.

In November, a top security chief revealed Russian hackers had tried to plunge the UK into darkness with a cyber-attack on Britain's national grid.

The power grid hack this summer triggered alarms, and experts from eavesdropping agency GCHQ were called in to flush out sleeper worms.

It is believed the Russian state-sponsored hackers intended to lie dormant inside the energy network after having penetrated it, to then cause significant damage at a later date.
A suburban Northern California family grieving the recent loss of a mother to cancer declined to decorate their home for Christmas  and was criticized for it by someone who mailed her a letter.

Lyndia Ives Zarra, a resident of Vacaville, was shocked to receive an anonymous letter saying it was completely unacceptable to not decorate a house for Christmas if you live on Candy Cane or Lollipop Lane.

The letter called her extremely disrespectful, rude, and selfish for not decorating in a neighborhood that is known for its colorful and ostentatious displays during the holiday season.

The Zarra family was dubbed the scrooges among us by 'the entire city of Vacaville,' a small town located between San Francisco and Sacramento.

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Lyndia Ives Zarra, a resident of Vacaville, was shocked to receive an anonymous letter saying it was completely unacceptable to not decorate a house for Christmas if you live on Candy Cane or Lollipop Lane

The letter called her extremely disrespectful, rude, and selfish for not decorating in a neighborhood that is known for its colorful and ostentatious displays during the holiday season

Lyndia Ives Zarra was outraged by the letter. She took to social media and blasted the anonymous individual for the insulting note.

In a Facebook post, she revealed that she did not decorate her home this year because she had just returned from three months out of state during which she cared for her terminally ill mother in the final stages of her life.

Please Think before you shame someone on Christmas! Zarra wrote.

I live on Lollipop Lane and the photo attached is the letter I received in my mailbox yesterday.

In a Facebook post, Zarra (left) revealed that she did not decorate her home this year because she had just returned from three months out of state during which she cared for her terminally ill mother, Cheri (seen right), in the final stages of her life

My decorations did not go out this year.

The past 4 months have been hard on my family. I was out of the state for 3 months caring for my mother who had stage 4 liver cancer. She died in October. I had to handle everything before I could come home. I came home Dec 1.

My decorations were MADE BY MY MOTHER!

They are all her artwork and I am supposed to put them out for someones enjoyment while they cause me grief?

You have NO IDEA why someone may choose not to decorate.

Zarra's home (above) is seen without any Christmas decorations on Wednesday

The residents of Vacaville, a suburb sandwiched between San Francisco and Sacramento, apparently take pride in ostentatious Christmas displayed and decorations

When you get a letter like that, it's heartbreaking, Zarra told Fox 40 TV . Because it's not like I was trying to make the street ugly or whatever. I just had to deal with my family and I. A decorated home on Lollipop Lane in Vacaville is seen above

You do NOT pay my PG&E bill. (there is no help contrary to rumors)

You do NOT install and maintain my yard (I do it all myself or PAY someone and have to do maintenance everyday including cleaning up your coffee cups and dog poop).

We have CHOSEN to be involved in this tradition for 6 years (how long we have lived here) so far.

It will continue.

To the coward that hides behind anonymity who sent this letter to me: I hope you had a MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Please think before you shame someone on Christmas!

Next year when you come down our street to POLICE our "responsibility"; please dont.

Enjoy those who CHOOSE to decorate for YOUR enjoyment and leave the others in peace.

I hope next time you consider sending a letter; please don't.

Zarra explained in her Facebook post that it was her mother who made the Christmas decorations that she put up every year. Since her mother died weeks ago, it would have been too painful to decorate the home, she said

YOU are the SCROOGE in this story.

The Facebook post ended with a feeling hurt emoji.

Zarras post went viral, generating over 1,000 emotional reactions, nearly 600 comments, and 128 shares as of Friday morning.

She received overwhelming support from Facebook commenters who were aghast at the insensitivity of her neighbors.

This is a disgusting letter!! wrote one Facebook user.

Whatever coward wrote it should step forward to reveal themselves and apologize! Whoever you are, please do not lump the rest of us (The Entire City of Vacaville) with your crappy belief system!!

When you get a letter like that, it's heartbreaking, Zarra told Fox 40 TV.

Because it's not like I was trying to make the street ugly or whatever. I just had to deal with my family and I.
A celebrity TV farmer has shared a shocking image of one his sheep which he claims was savaged by a badger.

Martin Irvine, who appeared on BBC documentary This Farming Life this year, shared the gruesome photo on Facebook on Tuesday.

The heartbreaking image shows a ewe, believed to be pregnant, lying on the grass, with flesh missing from her bloodied rear end.

Martin Irvine posted the shocking photograph of the bloodied ewe on Facebook, sparking a debate

'About time we were allowed to control this destructive vermin': The farmer said the sheep managed to survive the attack

The Scot, who looks after hundreds of breeding sheep on a rented estate in Drummuir, near Keith, Moray, also made fresh calls to be able to 'control' the 'destructive vermin.'

On Tuesday, he wrote: 'Badgers decided to have this ewe for Christmas dinner, she's still alive for now.

'About time we were allowed to control this destructive vermin!'

He added: 'We caught a badger in the act!'

The post has since been shared over one hundred times and attracted a mixed reaction from social media users.

Fellow Farmer, John James wrote: 'There are far more badgers around here than foxes. Protected status should be removed.

'It will improve the health of the badger population and eventually save the tax payer money.

'Protected status should be removed': Fellow farmer John James called for change

'Drastic measures are the only way you can protect your animals': Social media users called for change

Jennifer Milton wrote: 'We had badgers take our lambs a few years ago, must of lost about 20 over about a week. By the end the body was intact, just the head and neck gone.

'Also had similar to yourself, they ate the udder off the ewe and she was still alive when we found her.'

Eleanor Lancaster said: 'We recently had a badger have a ewe lambs back feet off! Caught on CCTV otherwise I wouldn't have believed it!'

Martin's mother, Denise Irvine wrote: 'One loss is bad enough but this ewe would have been in lamb - who needs protecting?'

And Neil Shearer wrote: 'That's shocking! A protected predator, is a f****** joke.'

However some have questioned that the attack was by a badger.

Gareth Rees said: 'It's not the badgers that need controlling it's the numpties who think that they should be protected.

'Pity the cameras weren't at your place now. But it would be edited out because the lovable badger wouldn't do such a dastardly deed.'

Lyle Smith wrote: 'The badger has every right to be on this planet.

'The badger has every right to be on this planet': Some Facebook users disagreed with the idea that the badgers need controlling

Celebrity TV farmer: Martin Irvine appeared on BBC documentary This Farming Life this year

'You choose to farm on the land but this should not be at the expense of what has evolved over millions of years to live here.

'If you choose to farm you need to do it alongside what deserves to be there.'

And Mitch Hunter said: 'Badgers didn't do that you moron.'

Along with his parents Stephen and Denise, Darren and wife Melissa look after 80 breeding Limousins and 280 mule ewes on a 97ha rented estate at Drummuir, near Keith, Moray, Scotland.

Darren and his wife Melissa (pictured) look after 80 breeding Limousins and 280 mule ewes on the estate at Drummuir, near Keith, Moray, Scotland

They also look after 600 ewes for the laird.

Badgers live in large family groups in a burrow system known as a sett.

They are known to feed on earthworms, small mammals, birds eggs, fruit and roots and bulbs.

Their strong front paws are well-suited to digging out burrows and cubs are born around January and February.

They spend their first few months living underground - usually only emerging in the spring.

They are fully protected in the UK by the Protection of Badgers Act, 1992, and the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981.
Meghan Markle's father has been left 'extremely hurt' after Prince Harry claimed the royals are like 'the family she never had', her brother has told DailyMail.com.

Thomas Markle Jr, 51, of Grants Pass, Oregon, said the actress has a family who had 'smothered her with love' and made a point of celebrating every holiday together.

Their father, Thomas, is deeply hurt by the prince's remarks, Markle Jr said. The prince has still to meet his fiancee's father, who lives in Mexico, although he has met her mother, Doria Ragland, who lives in Los Angeles. The couple divorced when Meghan Markle was six.

On Wednesday, Harry, 33, told the BBC that former Suits star Meghan, 36, had enjoyed a 'fantastic' Christmas at Sandringham in Norfolk, England, and said the Royal Family 'loved having her there'.

He added: 'I think we've got one of the biggest families that I know of, and every family is complex as well.

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Her new family: Prince Harry told the BBC that fiancee Meghan, 36, had enjoyed a 'fantastic' Christmas at Sandringham in Norfolk, England (pictured) adding that the Royals enjoyed having her and they are the family 'she's never had'

Meghan's relatives have since slammed Harry's claim, saying Meghan had a 'really good' family 'who were always there with her. 'Childhood photos provided by her half-brother Thomas Jr show 11-year-old Meghan with her father Thomas Sr, her nephews, and sister-in-law

We are family: Thomas Markle Jr said his father will be 'extremely hurt' by Prince Harry's comments. He told DailyMail.com that Meghan Markle had enjoyed spending time at Christmas with her father (left), him (center) and her nephews including Tyler Dooley (right), having become his aunt when she was just 10

Close family: Thomas Markle, Meghan's father (right), made sure Christmases were special and that she spent time with him and her grandmother Doris (left) as a child. Her uncle Fred (left) was also part of her upbringing

'She's done an absolutely amazing job. She's getting in there and it's the family I suppose that she's never had.'

But Thomas Jr, speaking at his home in Oregon, told DailyMail.com that Harry's incendiary charge was far from the truth.

'She's had a really good family,' he said.

'We were as close as we could be, as tight as we could be, that's what we were.

'We'd get together on Christmases, on holidays, on birthdays, on Thanksgivings It was always somewhere, even though we lived in different parts of the city [Los Angeles]  we still all got together.

'Obviously, she had a family. She was very privileged. She got everything she ever wanted. We did the best that we could in terms of getting together for holidays and whatnot.'

Of their father, retired lighting director Thomas Markle Sr, 73, he added: 'My father will be extremely hurt, actually.

'He dedicated the majority of all his time and everything to her. He made sure she had what she needed to be successful and get to where she's at today.'

Thomas Jr's comments echo those made by his estranged sister Samantha Grant, 53, of Ocala, Florida, who said on Wednesday that Meghan has a 'large family who were always there with her'.

Markle's dad, a retired cinematographer who was once married to her mother Doria Ragland, is said to be 'extremely hurt' over Prince Harry's comments

Thomas Markle Sr 'dedicated' the majority of his time to Meghan and made sure she had what she needed to be successful, according to her half-brother

Writing on Twitter, she continued: 'Our household was very normal and when dad and Doria divorced, we all made it so it was like she had two houses.

'No one was estranged, she was just too busy. Meg's family (our family) [sic] is complete with sister, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the glue of our family, our amazing completely self-sacrificing father.

'She always had this family... Marrying merely extends it. She has a large family. She always did. Our dad is amazing and completely self-sacrificing.

'We made it so that she had two houses. How fun it was!'

Meghan, whose engagement to Prince Harry was announced at the end of November, has spent most of the past month in London.

The couple made several public appearances together following the announcement, including a trip to Nottingham and a visit to Buckingham Palace for the Queen's annual pre-Christmas party.

Along with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, guests included Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie and Princess Michael of Kent.

So far, two of Meghan's half-siblings Thomas Markle Jr (left) and Samantha Markle (right) have spoken out against Harry's statement saying the actress had a 'privileged' life. They only 'lost touch' after she moved to Toronto, Canada, to take up a role in Suits

Family drama: Samantha took to Twitter to insist her sister indeed had a large family and to say that their father 'is amazing and completely self-sacrificing'

In a break with tradition, Meghan went on to spend Christmas at Sandringham, the royals' Norfolk home, with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh  a privilege not usually extended to royal fiancees, among them Kate, Camilla, and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, until they are married.

The 36-year-old, who stayed with Harry at William and Kate's Norfolk mansion Anmer Hall, also turned out for church on Christmas morning with the rest of the Royal Family.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Harry said: 'The family loved having her there. There's always that family part of Christmas, [where] there's always that work element there as well, and I think together we had an amazing time.

'We had great fun staying with my brother and sister-in-law and running round with the kids. Christmas was fantastic.'

The royal festivities are a far cry from those Meghan enjoyed growing up in Los Angeles, but Thomas Jr says her divorced parents routinely went to great lengths to make Christmas special.

He told DailyMail.com: 'She always had a Christmas, no matter what. We opened up presents in the morning. What else would we do? Stockings, a tree, even lights on the tree.

Princess-to-be: Meghan curtsied for the Queen on Christmas, alongside Prince Harry and William, and Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge

'My dad really liked Christmas more than anything; that was his favorite holiday. He would put some fake presents under the tree once in a while - just some off the wall gift so you would have no idea why you got it or what it was or what it meant.'

Meghan became an aunt aged five when Samantha became a mother to her niece Ashleigh Hale, now 31, and again aged ten when Thomas Markle Jr had the first of his two children, Tyler, now 26, and Thomas III, now 25, with his now ex-wife Tracey Dooley.

Her nephews became part of her Christmas routine.

Thomas Jr said: 'She [Meghan] had more fun opening presents with my kids than opening up her own presents. She'd probably be the first one under the tree opening up presents.

'My dad was the glue for all that. I would have Christmas at my house with my kids, my dad would have a Christmas at his house, Doria would have a Christmas.

'One way or the other, we all made the rounds and saw each other. When we could, we got together for Christmas dinners. So as far as the family she never had goes, she probably had like four Christmases in one day - it would be a really busy day.'

Thomas Jr, who has not spent the festive season with Meghan for at least 15 years, spent his own Christmas at home in Grants Pass with fiancee Darlene Blount, 37, and her seven-year-old son.

He has not seen or spoken to his 36-year-old half-sister since 2011 but says he and Meghan are not estranged but lost touch after she moved to Toronto, Canada, to take up a role in Suits.

Thomas Markle was seen in exclusive DailyMailTV pictures earlier this month at his home in Rosarito, Mexico just south of the border with the U.S., where he lives in a peaceful retirement

The 73-year-old seems to live a much more relaxed lifestyle compared with his daughter's

He now lives in a little yellow house (far right) perched on a 120-foot bluff which looks over the Pacific Ocean

'She got to the point where she got busier and busier so it was really hard to nail her down,' he explained.

'It's not really that we grew apart, it was she was out there [in Toronto] doing her job  it was the biggest deal she got on TV so she had no time.

'But we spent a lot of weekends together with our grandmother [Doris Markle] before she left.'

He is now hoping that the Markle clan will one day be reunited for Christmas and says that while he doesn't expect an invitation to Meghan and Harry's May wedding, it would mean a lot to get one.

The 51-year-old, who was arrested last January for putting a gun to his fiancee's head but released without charge, added: 'I don't know if she gets to invite who she wants. But she'll reach out if she wants me there - she'll call me. She knows where to find me.

'But that's up to her, there's no pressure. I wouldn't mind seeing my little sister have the biggest wedding in the world  that would be incredible.

'Of course [it would mean a lot]. I didn't go to her last one in Jamaica, I was working or something. But if my dad doesn't walk her down the aisle, then I will.'
Hilburn Jay Brendon Hunkins, 26 (pictured), from Kissimmee, Florida, was arrested on Thursday after he was caught driving a black 2017 Ferrari California with stolen plates on State Road 93

A Florida Uber driver has been charged after police say he stole a $250,000 Ferrari that still had the dealership sticker on the window.

Hilburn Jay Brendon Hunkins, 26, of Kissimmee, was pulled over on Thursday around 8.30am after an officer noticed a black 2017 Ferrari California with stolen plates driving slowly beside a 'high-end' red Corvette on State Road 93, reported Action News Jax.

According to the police report, Hunkins told the officer that the Ferrari belonged to a friend.

However, he was unable to provide the friend's name or phone number. Hunkins then tried to erase information on his phone during the traffic stop.

Police later discovered the luxury car was reported stolen out of Palm Beach County on December 8.

Hunkins was booked into the Alachua County Jail on a charge of grand theft of property valued at $100,000 or more. He was being held without bond.

Police also believe the red Corvette may be a stolen car.

Hunkins, who was born in the US Virgin Islands, told police he is an Uber driver, though he did not have a passenger in the Ferrari at the time of his arrest.

A social media search of Hunkins also revealed that he works out of Kissimmee as a realtor.

According to the police report, Hunkins told the officer that the Ferrari (pictured) belonged to a friend. However, he was unable to provide the friend's name or phone number. Hunkins then tried to erase information on his phone during the traffic stop

Police later discovered the luxury car (pictured) was reported stolen out of Palm Beach County on December 8. It has since been returned to its rightful owner

Hunkins was booked into the Alachua County Jail on a charge of grand theft of property valued at $100,000 or more. As of Monday afternoon, he is currently being held without bond (Pictured, the dealership sticker that was on the window of the car)

The Gainesville Police Department later poked fun at the arrest with a satirical Facebook post offering tips to would-be car thieves (Pictured, the License Plate Reader that determined the car was stolen)

The Gainesville Police Department poked fun at the arrest with a satirical Facebook post offering tips to would-be car thieves. The post began with 'PRO TIP' followed by the following list of advice:

1. Don't steal stuff. It's just not nice.

2. Certainly don't steal a $250,000 2017 Ferrari California. 2a. Especially when the window sticker is still on it.

3. If you ARE going to steal a $250,000 Ferrari...with the window sticker still on it...DON'T drive next to a Gainesville/Alachua County Drug Task Force vehicle with a License Plate Reader.

4. The '18MPG' is incorrect. We were only able to get 10 mpg out of it when we drove it to the station.

5. #4 is a joke. We had it safely towed for the rightful owner.
Ex-Labour minister Andrew Adonis tonight quit as the chairman of the Government's National Infrastructure Commission with an astonishing rant over Brexit.

In a leaked draft of his resignation letter, Lord Adonis complained Brexit was a 'dangerous, populist and nationalist spasm worthy of Donald Trump'.

He told Theresa May that future generations would 'marvel at your wanton destruction' if she continued to push through a Brexit defined by the 'voice of Ukip'.

Lord Adonis, first appointed by George Osborne to the powerful post in 2015, was pushed to resign by Downing Street following a series of incendiary comments about Brexit and threats to undermine flagship laws.

Brexiteers told MailOnline Lord Adonis was 'condescending' and had refused to accept the result of the referendum.

Former Labour Cabinet minister Lord Andrew Adonis has quit as the chairman of the Government's National Infrastructure Commission in protest at Brexit

Theresa May declined to fire Lord Adonis in July when he compared Brexit to Nazi appeasement but the Government has now pushed him to quit

Mrs May - who re-appointed him in April - declined to fire the peer in July when he compared Brexit to Nazi appeasement.

Lord Adonis told the PM: 'Brexit is a dangerous populist and nationalist spasm worthy of Donald Trump.

'After the narrow referendum vote for an undefined proposition to 'leave the EU,' it could have been attempted without rupturing our essential European trade and political relations.

'However, by becoming the voice of UKIP and the extreme nationalist right-wing of your party, you have taken a different course, for which you have no parliamentary or popular mandate.'

The peer - who rejoined the Labour Party in the summer after a spell as an independent - has been a fierce critic of the Leave vote since June 2016 and explicit in his calls for Brexit to be reversed.

A Government source made clear Lord Adonis was going before he was pushed.

They said: 'He's been moving closer towards the exit door with each new onslaught he makes against Brexit.

'He's now walked through the door before he was pushed.'

Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg told MailOnline Lord Adonis' claims about Brexit were a 'condescension to the democratic view of the British people worthy of Tony Blair'.

Senior Conservative Michael Fabricant added: 'Andrew Adonis still refuses to accept the national will of the people as expressed in the referendum. Does he plan to emigrate to Brussels?

'He - and others like him - need to accept that the world has moved on and he needs to stop revelling in the past.'

Lord Adonis had set aside party loyalties to work on long term infrastructure projects, including Crossrail 2. He is pictured at a Crossrail event in 2013 with Boris Johnson while he was London Mayor

As recently as last month, Lord Adonis appeared alongside Environment Secretary and Brexit cheerleader Michael Gove

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: 'Lord Adonis's departure is long overdue. 'These comments come from a man who never got elected  doesn't he think it a touch elitist to have been placed in the House of Lords without ever having fought an election only to pontificate on what he calls populism but most would refer to as democracy?'

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen described the peer's resignation letter as 'propaganda'.

'This is what happens when members of the Labour Party are promoted to Government positions,' he said.

'I am surprised he lasted this long. His remarks for some time about Brexit have been at odds with the Government position and the views of the majority of the British public.'

Earlier this month, Lord Adonis hailed the government's first defeat on the Brexit Bill, gleefully warning of more trouble to come.

'First step towards defeat of Brexit. And this is before the Lords has got going on the National Betrayal Bill,' he wrote on Twitter.

Following the Bill's final day in committee a week later, Lord Adonis threatened the legislation again.

In the leaked letter to Mrs May, the peer branded the draft laws the 'worst legislation of my lifetime' and vowed to 'oppose it relentlessly' from the Labour benches.

He said: 'The European Union Withdrawal Bill is the worst legislation of my lifetime.

'It arrives soon in the House of Lords and I feel duty bound to oppose it relentlessly from the Labour benches.'

Lord Adonis has made repeated attacks against Brexit, claiming the country was having a 'nervous breakdown'

Last month, when the Government's infrastructure strategy was published, the peer said the best way to help business was to 'scrap Brexit'

In another Twitter rant last month the peer declared Brexit an act of 'self mutilation'

Following the Bill's conclusion of committee in the Commons, Lord Adonis vowed to wreck the draft laws.

He said: 'We respect the fact that it passed the Commons, so won't reject the principle of withdrawal.

'Our job is to make withdrawal compatible with the government's own promises which  even with the latest changes  still aren't satisfied in respect of a 'meaningful vote' on the final terms, 'no hard border' in Ireland and the rights of EU citizens in the UK.

'We are facing the biggest conflict in the Lords since Irish Home Rule before the first world war, and the stakes are equally high.'

In July, the former Cabinet minister came under fire for comparing Brexit to Nazi appeasement.

He told The House magazine: 'My language is usually pretty subdued in politics but anyone with a historical sense  and I'm a historian  recognises leaving the economic institutions of the EU, which have guided our destiny as a trading nation for half a century, is a very big step and the importance can't be over-emphasised.

'To my mind, it's as big a step that we're taking as a country as decolonisation in the 1950s and 60s and appeasement in the 1930s.

'We got it right on decolonisation, we got it wrong on appeasement and I think we're in serious danger of getting it wrong in the way that we leave the EU.'

Lord Adonis (right) controversially made a visit to Brussels alongside Remain cheerleaders Ken Clarke and Nick Clegg in October to lobby for cancelling Brexit
A police chase in Oregon ended in a spectacular manner when the suspect drove his truck off a pier trying to avoid arrest.

Timofey Erofeeff, 27, was allegedly trespassing at an Astoria marina when the chase began.

Video shows him driving his red F-150 off the end of a pier into the Columbia River on Wednesday.

A police chase in Oregon ended in a spectacular manner when the suspect drove his truck off a pier trying to avoid arrest

Timofey Erofeeff, 27, was allegedly trespassing at an Astoria marina when the chase began

Erofeeff was driving at about 45mph when he launched himself into the river. He exited the vehicle and swam several hundred feet out in the frigid water, according to the Daily Astorian.

The Coast Guard was preparing a helicopter to rescue him, but he changed his mind and swam back.

The pier was too high up for responders to rescue Erofeeff, so he was fished out of the water by a nearby boat.

He is charged with six counts, including attempt to elude, criminal trespass, escape, interfering with an officer, offensive littering and reckless driving

Astoria police shared a video of a crane removing the truck from the river on Thursday and captioned it: 'Just cleaning up yesterday's mess'

He is charged with six counts, including attempt to elude, criminal trespass, escape, interfering with an officer, offensive littering and reckless driving.

'I'm thankful the men from WCT Marine and fishing vessel (Pacific Wind) were there and willing to help,' said Deputy Astoria Police Chief Eric Halverson. 'Mr. Erofeeff should be thankful too.'

He was taken to a local hospital for treatment for hypothermia before he was booked.

Astoria police shared a video of a crane removing the truck from the river on Thursday and captioned it: 'Just cleaning up yesterday's mess'.
Sonja Farak, a chemist at the Massachusetts State Crime Laboratory in Amherst, was arrested in 2013

Massachusetts authorities will toss out more than 8,000 convictions that are tainted because a chemist at the state lab was high on drugs she was supposed to be testing almost every day she went to work, authorities said on Friday.

The announcements by various district attorneys offices came after the American Civil Liberties Union and Massachusetts public defender agency in September asked the states top court to toss any cases tied to Sonja Farak.

The dismissals came after prosecutors in April agreed to dismiss around 21,000 criminal drug cases because of a scandal involving a different state chemist, Annie Dookhan, who admitted faking tests.

Farak, a chemist at the Massachusetts State Crime Laboratory in Amherst, was arrested in 2013.

She later pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the lab and was sentenced in 2014 to serve 18 months in prison.

Massachusetts authorities will toss out over 8,000 convictions that are tainted because of Farak, who authorities say was high almost every day she went to work

Civil liberties group said most of the convictions being dismissed tied to Farak involve low-level drug cases.

Last month, the Hampden District Attorneys office said it will dismiss around 3,940 cases that involved drug samples linked to Farak - the biggest number of affected cases that were brought.

Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan had the second-largest number of planned dismissals, with 1,497 cases, which he blamed on the egregious misconduct committed by one rogue chemist at the Amherst Lab.

Several other county district attorneys said they would also dismiss what would amount to hundreds of cases.

The dismissals came after prosecutors in April agreed to dismiss around 21,000 criminal drug cases because of a scandal involving a different state chemist, Annie Dookhan (above), who admitted faking tests

Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley in Boston said 134 convictions would be dismissed.

Given the nature and extent of her misconduct, re-testing the substances at issue is unlikely to yield a reliable result, Conley said.

A Hampden County judge this year dismissed several cases tied to Farak after finding two ex-assistant attorneys general tampered with the fair administration of justice by withholding evidence related to the chemist.

The ACLU cited the ruling in arguing to the Massachusetts top court that the level of prosecutorial misconduct is unprecedented and warranted the dismissal of all wrongful convictions tied to Farak.
Richard Clarke, 44, was shocked to receive a letter from his car insurer telling him he had died. Mr Clarke, from County Londonderry, was initially worried the letter was a premonition

A man was stunned to receive a letter from his car insurer just four days before Christmas telling him he had died.

Richard Clarke, 44, was horrified when he opened the letter from Halifax Car Insurance offering their condolences and telling him they would be cancelling his policy.

Clarke, from County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, was initially worried the letter was a 'premonition' - but then set about contacting them to check his Jeep was still insured.

Richard said: 'It certainly was a shock - then I started thinking about whether my car insurance was still valid.

'I opened it and thought it might be some kind of premonition.

'I thought "oh my goodness, it's Christmas. Then I thought, I hope they haven't cancelled my car insurance policy and I'm not driving around without insurance."'

The letter read: 'We are sorry to hear that Mr R Clarke has sadly passed away.

'Please accept our condolences on behalf of Halifax Car Insurance at this difficult time.'

Richard Clarke, from County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, was initially worried the letter was a 'premonition' - but then set about contacting them to check his Jeep was still insured

Father-of-two Richard had gone into his local branch to change bank accounts when the error happened.

He said: 'Halifax have been very good and apologised profusely. They said the instruction came from the bank, not the customer. I did it over the counter, not online. It was human error but it was not a nice thing for me to read.'

A spokesman for Halifax said: 'We are very sorry that Mr Clarke has received this letter in error. It was sent as the result of an instruction received from his bank when transferring payment details between his old and new bank accounts.

'We can confirm that there was no interruption to Mr Clarke's motor insurance cover. We have apologised for the inconvenience caused and will be sending him a goodwill gesture.'
Sir Anthony Seldon called for the 'major' commemoration in 2018, which will mark the end of the four-year war, to be 'properly marked'

The 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War risks being toned down over a 'fear of offending' Remainers or Brexiteers, a Downing Street historian has warned.

Sir Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, called for the 'major' commemoration in 2018, which will mark the end of the four-year war, to be 'properly marked'.

The academic added the importance of the war should be 'etched onto the young' and all generations, most of whom do not have the 'haziest idea about its significance'.

'Major anniversaries on this scale are very rare and need to be properly marked. The bloodiest war in the history of the world till then needs to leave behind a very significant legacy,' he said.

'There is a danger that the fear of offending one side or the other on Brexit will lead to the centenary being muted.'

The university chief urged the Government to keep alive the memory of troops who were killed in the First World War, by fulfilling the wishes of a young officer who wanted a pathway of remembrance to be built along the Western Front.

2nd Lieutenant Alexander Douglas Gillespie wrote from the frontline shortly before he was killed in 1915, asking for a 500-mile pathway to be erected with collaboration between British and French governments.

The academic said the importance of the war should be 'etched onto the young'. Pictured: A Yeoman Warder inspects ceramic poppies outside the Tower of London installed for the anniversary of World War One in 2014

Catherine, The Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry visit The Tower of London's 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' installation

Almost 900,000 British and Commonwealth troops died in the war between 1914 and 1918. Pictured: Armistice commemorations in Colchester, 1930

Sir Anthony, who is an 'historical advisor' to Downing Street, said the monument would remind 'all nationalities' of the 'perils of conflict'.

But the academic warned that failing to create the pathway connecting 'cemeteries and sites of battles' would 'consign these memorials to a long, painful retreat into irrelevance' and said an announcement for the project needed to be made 'before the 100th anniversary of the Armistice'.

Dubbed by Lt Gillespie as 'the most beautiful road in the world', the path would feature commemorative points at which travellers would be reminded of events which took place there.

The officer, from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders line infantry regiment, said it would be 'a fine broad road in the no man's land between the lines from the Vosges to the sea, with paths for pilgrims on foot' and fruit trees.

Almost 900,000 British and Commonwealth troops died in the war between 1914 and 1918.

The Centenary was launched in 2014 with a series of remembrance events, including a display of poppies at the Tower of London and the opening of the First World War Galleries at the Imperial War Museum.

Silence to commemorate the anniversary of the official end of World War One during a service outside the Royal Exchange in London, 1938
A disabled woman who was found murdered in her bungalow died of a head injury and was last seen by her carer three days before Christmas, police have revealed.

Julie Fox, 51, was found dead at home by police and paramedics in Carnforth Drive, Worcester at around 6.50pm on December 27.

A neighbour called them to the house after smelling gas, but when they arrived they found no signs of forced entry. Ms Fox was however known to leave the door unlocked.

Post-mortem results have now shown she died of a head injury, but police are appealing to find out more information.

Her neighbours said she lived alone, was disabled and used a mobility scooter.

Julie Fox, 51, was found murdered at her bungalow in Carnforth Drive (pictured), Worcester on Wednesday

Emergency services were scrambled to her house after a neighbour smelled gas. Officers arrived to find she had been murdered

West Mercia Police's Detective Superintendent Adrian McGee said: 'We are conducting an investigation to establish how Julie died; we are treating it as murder.

'We are trying to build up a more detailed picture of Julie. We know she was a solitary person however she was well known in Worcester.

'She had restricted mobility and would regularly travel around the town in her electric mobility scooter, often with her little dog in the basket on the front.

'She used to go into coffee shops in the town and would often visit the Crowngate Shopping Centre.

'When not in Worcester town centre she would go shopping in supermarkets close to her home.

'If you knew Julie or saw her in the last couple of weeks then we would like to speak to you.

'Any information will help us to get a better picture of her and help to establish how she died.'

A murder probe has been launched and no arrests have yet been made. Officers are pictured outside her home in Worcester on Wednesday

Julie was last seen by her carer between 6pm and 7pm on December 22.

DS McGee added: 'At some point between this time on Friday 22 December and when she was discovered on the evening of Wednesday 27 December, Julie suffered a fatal head injury and died.

'I'm appealing to people in the local area to think back over the last few days.

'Did you see anyone acting suspiciously in the area? Did you hear anything out of the ordinary?

'Did you see anyone going into or coming out of Julie's bungalow?

'Maybe you were visiting family in the area over Christmas and saw something that didn't look right. If so, we're extremely keen to speak to you.'

DS McGee confirmed that the gas rings in the bungalow were on when Julie's body was discovered.

He added: 'The smell of gas is what originally alerted a neighbour to the situation.

'There were no signs of a break-in at the bungalow but we do know that on occasions Julie would leave her front door unlocked.

Police have revealed she was last seen by her carer between 6pm and 7pm on December 22

'We understand how concerning this incident is for the local community and I would like to reassure people that there will be increased patrols in the area while this investigation continues.

'If you have any concerns please don't hesitate to speak to one of these officers.'

Speaking yesterday West Mercia's Chief Superintendent Mark Travis said: 'We are working to establish the circumstances of this death, which is currently being investigated as a murder.

'Police remain at the scene and there will be increased patrols in the area whilst investigations continue.

'We are appealing to anyone in the community who may have witnessed any suspicious activity in the area between 22 December and 27 December to please come forward or speak with a local officer.

'Anyone with any information, no matter how insignificant it may seem, may help with the investigation.

'Our thoughts are with the woman's family and friends and those members of the local community, at this difficult time.'

A cordon was in place at the property on Wednesday, with the road partially closed.

Police forensic teams scoured the scene for evidence yesterday as a murder investigation was launched by detectives

One local resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said: 'Her name was Julie. I didn't know her too well, but if she walked down the street then I would recognise her.

'As far as I know she was disabled, I think she would often use a mobility scooter. I saw her from time to time sat on it.

'I don't know of anyone else living there...I've never seen anyone else coming out of that house before.'

Another resident described Ms Fox as a 'lovely woman.'

She said: 'It's incredibly shocking, especially as I knew her a bit. I'd see her every now and then walking her dog and make small talk with her...mostly about the weather and little things.

'She was quite severely disabled, she'd often be in her electric wheelchair and needed to use that to get onto the bus.

'I never saw anyone else come out of that house, and whenever I saw her she was by herself. She was a lovely lady, very friendly and easy to chat to.'

Another mother-of-one added: 'I've heard it might have been a break-in gone wrong but you just don't know.

'I don't think she had any enemies, who on earth would target a disabled woman anyway. Its absolutely tragic.'

Police officers were seen checking nearby bushes as detectives begin their investigation into how the woman died

A 42-year-old woman, who has lived on the street for seven years, added: 'It's all a bit unexplained, nobody knows what is going on.

'There have been police here all day, and people were going door-to-door this morning asking us about it.

'They asked us whether we'd heard anything suspicious from Christmas Eve, so they are being very thorough.

'The woman is called Julie, I'd see her walking up and down the street sometimes. She tended to be out by herself. I heard that she was disabled.'

One neighbour, who has lived on the street for 15 years, said: 'Julie moved here 14 years ago, shortly after the homes had been built.

'She always used that electric wheelchair, she was disabled.

'The only person who would ever come to see her was her mother.'

Anyone with information is asked to call West Mercia Police on 101 quoting incident number 597s of 27 December 2017 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.
A White House intern pictured making a hand gesture linked to the alt-right in a group photograph with President Donald Trump claimed Friday he was simply making the OK sign in emulation of the president.

DailyMail.com revealed the photo of Jack Breuer, 23, posing with the president and departing White House interns in November, making a sign which far-right groups have used to symbolize 'white power'.

It is the same sign that white nationalist Richard Spencer gave on the steps of the Trump International Hotel on election night and that right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos posed with in front of the White House.

But in a statement made on Friday, Breuer told the Daily Caller that he was 'foolish' for making the gesture, saying that he had Jewish heritage and therefore wouldn't be associated with 'racist white power organizations'.

Breuer - who declined to comment to DailyMail.com before we published the photograph on Thursday - told the Daily Caller: 'In some of our intern pictures, I emulated the OK sign the President sometimes makes. That was foolish. I should have listened more closely to the Commander-in-Chief and given the thumbs up.'

Not OK: Former White House intern Jack Breuer posed with what a fellow intern described as gesture of 'white power' in November. Other interns are using their left hands to give their thumbs-up, with him standing out by using his right hand

Spot the difference: Breuer claimed he was simply emulating the president's OK sign. The 'white power' symbolism is predicated on the three fingers being consciously stretched out to make the 'W' - and Trump usually has his three fingers bent

How WP works: This is how the gesture used by Breuer gets interpreted as showing support for 'white power'

The hand gesture was made by white nationalist Richard Spencer on the steps of the Trump International Hotel on election night last November

Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos also flashed the 'white nationalist' sign when he posed in front of the White House wearing Trump's 'Make America Great Again' hat

The OK hand signal has gained popularity as it mimics one of Trump's favorite signs. The president regularly uses the OK sign when making speeches, however he does not generally stretch his three fingers out to form the 'W.'

Breuer continued: 'I'm proud of my Jewish heritage and strongly reject the hateful views associated with racist white power organizations. I would never make common cause with them.'

Breuer graduated from Emory University in Atlanta this year and attended school at Trinity Lutheran School in Burr Ridge, Illinois. He appears to be an active member of the Lutheran church associated with the school.

The former intern admitted he bucked orders - personally given by the president - to give a thumbs-up in the picture that was taken in the East Room last month.

While the other hundred or so interns smiled and followed Trump's command, Breuer, a dentist's son, held up the OK sign.

The gesture was also seen at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August - the same day an alleged Nazi sympathizer accelerated his car into anti-protesters, killing one and injuring several others.

All those surrounding Breuer on the right side of the picture are using their left hands to give their thumbs-up, with him standing out by using his right hand.

The gesture - which only makes sense if made with the right hand, although there are examples of people making it with their left hand - is said to depict the letter 'W' with the outstretched middle, ring and little fingers, and a 'P' with the circle made by the thumb and forefinger stretching down to the wrist. Together 'WP' stands for White Power.

There is debate over whether it genuinely is a 'white power' symbol or has been used by provocateurs such as Yiannopoulos to mock those on the left.

The Anti Defamation League earlier this year said it was not a symbol for hate.

...a variety of people - mostly from the far right - have used the 'okay' hand gesture to signify their allegiance to right-wing causes or movements while simultaneously trolling people on the left, attempting to elicit a reaction. Mark Pitcavage, Anti Defamation League

But Mark Pitcavage, a senior researcher at the ADL's Center on Extremism told DailyMail.com in a statement Friday that it was intended to provoke those on the left and had been used by white supremacists.

He said: 'Over the past year, following a prank attempt originating on the website 4chan last February, a variety of people - mostly from the far right - have used the 'okay' hand gesture to signify their allegiance to right-wing causes or movements while simultaneously trolling people on the left, attempting to elicit a reaction.

'Some of the people using the gesture in this fashion have been open white supremacists, especially from the alt right segment of the white supremacist movement, but other people using the gesture include adherents of the so-called alt lite.

'Alt lite adherents are an offshoot of the alt right, typically disdaining the explicit white supremacy of the alt right while still embracing its other hateful attitudes towards women, immigrants, LGBTQ people, Muslims, and the left. Some other people on the right, such as Breitbart supporters, might also employ the gesture.

'It is important to acknowledge that the 'okay' hand gesture is one of the most common hand gestures in the United States, that most employment of that gesture is entirely innocuous, and that no racist or extremist implications should be read into its use unless the context of its use provides additional evidence to support such a finding.'

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Breuer's controversial stand was only spotted when other interns were mailed the picture from the White House earlier this month, just in time for Christmas.

'Context is everything,' one fellow intern told DailyMail.com. 'Jack is pictured with President Trump, one of the most controversial leaders we've had.

'It is a distinct symbol known in alt-right circles and what makes it worse is that he is doing it in the East Room just below the portrait of George Washington.'

The intern said Breuer's placement in the picture would not have been Breuer's decision because all the interns were marched in one-by-one and carefully positioned by height to improve the aesthetics of the photograph.

They then waited for nearly 90 minutes before the president arrived.

Breuer (pictured), who is in his early 20s, worked for Stephen Miller, the president's senior advisor for four months starting in September. A fellow intern said: 'Jack's a good kid and is probably doing it as a joke. Some people do consider it a joke because it is the OK sign'

A protester flashes the 'white power sign' - or what he thinks is the white power sign - as he joined hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' in Charlottesville, Virginia, in mid August, before a 'Nazi sympathizer' accelerated his car into anti-protesters and killed one. In theory the sign only works if made with the right hand but some white nationalists appear to use it on either hand

The cartoon character Pepe the Frog (pictured), a meme among the alt-right has also used the signal. The gesture only works if made with the right hand and is said to depict the letter 'W' and a 'P'. Together 'WP' stands for White Power

The fellow intern added: 'When President Trump arrived he spoke for a while about how beautiful we all are  and even mentioned some of the interns being fired.

'He joked for a bit then asked us all to do his signature thumbs up pose then went on his way.'

The president's son, Eric, was also in the room, although he did not pose in the picture.

'Jack's a good kid and is probably doing it as a joke,' added the intern who requested anonymity. 'Some people do consider it a joke because it is the OK sign.'

Breuer worked for Stephen Miller, the president's senior advisor for policy for four months starting in September, according to his LinkedIn page.

Miller himself has been attacked for having allegedly racist views, with Essence Magazine pointing to a letter he wrote to a paper in Santa Monica, California, in which he attacked Spanish speakers, the LGBT community and native Americans, while Mother Jones reported that he had close ties to Richard Spencer.

The sign has gained popularity among the so-called alt-right. Writers Jim Hoft and Lucien Wintrich of the extremist Gateway Pundit posed at the podium of the White House Briefing Room making the sign  although Wintrich used his left hand, destroying its significance.

The cartoon character Pepe the Frog, a meme among the alt-right has also used the signal.

However the Anti Defamation League  which lists Pepe as racist  says the OK sign is a hoax and should not be considered a signal of the white supremacy.

The ADL says the sign started as a hoax on the Internet discussion board 4chan where a user posted a message saying 'we must flood Twitter and other social media websitesclaiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy.'

He then added: 'Leftists have dug so deep down into their lunacy,' wrote the poster, 'We must force [them] to dig more, until the rest of society ain't going anywhere near that s***.'
Carmen Franco,(pictured in 2014) who until the end fiercely defended her father's fascist legacy, has died in Madrid aged 91

The only daughter of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco has died in Madrid aged 91, one of her grandchildren and her biographer said Friday.

Carmen Franco, who until the end fiercely defended her father's fascist legacy, had revealed earlier this year that she suffered from terminal cancer.

'God has taken back Man,' her grandson Luis Alfonso de Borbon wrote beneath a picture of the elegant duchess on his Instagram account, using one of her many nicknames.

Her biographer Nieves Herrero meanwhile confirmed to El Mundo newspaper that 'she died at her residence in Madrid'.

The dark-haired mother of seven had led the National Francisco Franco Foundation, created in 1976, a year after the dictator died.

As recently as last year, when she came out of a memorial for her father, Franco supporters gave fascist salutes on the church square in the middle of Madrid.

Carmen, who until the end fiercely defended her father's(right, in 1951) fascist legacy, had revealed earlier this year that she suffered from terminal cancer

'My father, it's up to history to judge him, not me,' she said this year in the epilogue of a fictionalised biography written by Herrero based on conversations with her.

'When I am told that he was a dictator, I do not deny it but I do not like it because it is often said as an insult, whereas for me it does not seem so bad.'

Carmen Franco, who was given the title of the 'Duchess of Franco' by former king Juan Carlos I, was the mother of seven children and many grandchildren.

The family is regularly criticised in Spain for taking advantage of the dictator's fortune - including a large amount of property - that journalists have calculated runs into the hundreds of millions of euros.

Franco's family is regularly criticised in Spain for taking advantage of the dictator's fortune. The dictator is pictured on the right shaking hands with President Camile Chamoun of Lebanon. Carmen is in the middle
North Korea was able to develop a ballistic missile with advanced technology acquired from Russia, new documents have revealed.

The secretive state announced on November 29 that it had tested an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) capable of reaching all of the mainland of the United States, prompting fresh sanctions against Kim Jong-un's regime.

It has now been claimed that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia sold the technology that it used to develop its own ICBM force to Pyongyang.

North Korea's Hwasong-14 being launched in July this year. It has been alleged the regime has was able to develop its missile programme with Russian help

A submarine-launched ballistic missile on display in Kim Il Sung Square, Pyongyang during a military parade

The Washington Post reported that after the collapse of a joint US-Russian joint venture to launch satellites using Soviet era missiles, the Russia's began looking for new markets for their technology.

More than 60 Russian missile scientists and family members from the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau were arrested at a Moscow airport in late 1992 as they were about to travel to Pyongyang to work as consultants.

Intelligence officials from the US, South Korea and Russia later concluded some of the scientists eventually succeeded in getting to North Korea to offer missile blueprints and technical advice for, the Washington Post reported.

Brochures from the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau, unearthed by the paper, include an array of Soviet missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads to U.S. cities.

Kim Jong-un inspecting a test of the strategic ballistic missile Hwasong-10 last year

North Korea's Hwasong-15 missile was tested last month and is intended to reach the US mainland

Some of the models offered for sale could be launched from a large boat, a submerged barge, or a capsule dropped into the ocean, and were originally designed for the Russian navy.

The Hwasong-10, or Musudan, a missile successfully tested by North Korea in 2016, appears to use the same engine and has many design features of Soviet a submarine-launched ballistic missile designed by Makeyev scientists and advertised in one of the brochures.

David Wright, a missiles expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists told Post: 'The question that has long been raised is: Did North Korea get this technology from a [Russian] fire sale?

'Did they get plans years ago and are just now at the point where they can build these things?

'North Korea was just recently able to acquire machine tools that were state-of-the-art in the 1990s, meaning they are still damn good machine tools.

'Once you have the plans, and are able to get your hands on the materials and the right kinds of tools, you have a real leg up.'
A 65-year-old British national is feared to have fallen into the sea while sailing alone.

The English man has been missing for several days after police found the empty Kleen Breeze boat near Culatra in Faro, Portugal.

They found a robe under the vessel, which according to sailing news site harryproa.com is owned by Robin Warde.

The missing man is thought to have spent long periods aboard the Kleen Breeze alone

Divers are searching for the British 65-year-old after a boat reportedly owned by Robin Warde was discovered with nobody aboard and a robe trapped underneath

Mr Warde spoke to the site in July for an interviews about the ship, where maritime officers found a computer and heating system switched on despite it being empty in Ria Formosa waters.

Olhao port's captain says the wife of the missing man last spoke to her husband via email on Tuesday, according to Noticias ao Minuto.

Rescue workers fear that an English man who has been missing for several days has fallen into the sea after the Kleen Breeze (pictured) was found empty

News site JN said the missing man was known to spend long periods on the boat alone and owned a house in Lagos.

After also finding a mobile phone aboard, authorities issued an alert to the local fishing community.

Searches began today after the man's wife reported his disappearance to police.
Andrew Soloman, 36, was arrested Thursday evening and has been detained on a federal arrest warrant due to an exchange of nude photos with a 16-year-old girl

An Ohio village police chief was arrested Thursday evening and has been detained on a federal arrest warrant due to an exchange of nude photos with a 16-year-old girl.

Federal court records show that 36-year-old Andrew Soloman, of Warren, was arrested Thursday by members of a task force that investigates cybercrimes and child pornography.

Soloman, who is the Craig Beach police chief, was placed on administrative leave in early December after his initial arrest by Mahoning County sheriff's deputies.

The officer, who is married with three children, confessed to meeting the teenager while helping another police department with an emergency call, according to WFMJ.

The affidavit states that the female juvenile admitted to sending Soloman videos of her performing a sexual act on herself and he would respond by sending her several illicit photos of himself.

The teen also revealed to police that he had a 'foot fetish.'

The Ohio Attorney General's Office told 21 News Soloman has been charged with one misdemeanor count of dereliction of duty.

A federal affidavit written by an Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent says the teen told investigators she and Soloman exchanged hundreds of emails over a two-week period in November.

Soloman, who is the Craig Beach police chief, was placed on administrative leave in early December after his initial arrest by Mahoning County sheriff's deputies

Soloman's court-appointed attorney declined to comment Friday. Apparently he is out of jail after posting a $1,000 bond.

It has been reported that this is the second time Soloman has been arrested as a police chief on the job.

The Ohio Attorney General's Office said Soloman has been charged with one misdemeanor count of dereliction of duty

In 2013 when he worked for Brady Lake Police in Ravenna he was arrested for criminal damage or criminal endangering. He plead to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct.

The charge involved Soloman looking for an ex-girlfriend and damaging a fence with his vehicle.

According to the girl's father police officer Soloman was intoxicated at the time, and was upset over the breakup.

In the police report he also allegedly threatened to shoot himself. However, he later told police he was not suicidal.

According to Kathy Davidson from the Craig Beach Village Council she said 'I'm shocked. He's been doing a 100% better job than the last three or four chiefs that we've had. But I need to find out what's behind the charges against him,' WFMJ reported.

The Craig Beach Village Council will meet on Tuesday to discuss the matter and decide how to move forward.

Soloman will be in Austintown Court to answer to the charge before a judge on Monday.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin threatened to spark a diplomatic incident when he attempted to put his arm around the Queen, according to newly released government files.

The monarch skillfully sidestepped his attentions and officials suggested future visitors from the country be advised that people did not 'handle' her.

The papers are among a batch of around 90 files from the 1980s and early 1990s released by the National Archives which were made available too late for inclusion in the annual press preview for journalists.

Boris Yeltsin twice tried to take Queen Elizabeth by the hand and even attempted to encircle her waist

The details emerged in a report of Mr Yeltsin's visit to London in November 1992 by the Foreign Office translator, KA Bishop, in which he noted the leader had been 'very tactile' toward Her Royal Highness.

'He even managed at Greenwich during the goodbyes to get a half hug upon HRH the Duke of York, which could well have been followed by an embrace if evasive action had not been taken,' he wrote.

'Yeltsin also twice took the Queen's arm and once even attempted to encircle her waist, but was thwarted (without offence being given) by the effortless skill of one with years of training!

'Should she ever visit Russia and meet Yeltsin, it may be worth pre-briefing her hosts that apart from handshakes, people do not "handle" the Queen.'

The Queen is pictured visiting the Russian president two years after he threatened to spark a diplomatic incident

The incident recalled the infamous occasion when Australian prime minister Paul Keating put his hand on the Queen's back earning him the nickname 'the lizard of Oz' in the British press.

Mr Bishop also noted that despite his well-known fondness for alcohol, Mr Yelstin was 'pretty gentle' with the wine during the visit, although at one reception when he was offered water he 'waved it aside with a gesture suggesting something stronger would have been most welcome'.
Sue Grafton, author of the best-selling 'alphabet series' of mystery novels, has died in Santa Barbara at the age of 77.

Grafton was surrounded by family, including husband Steven Humphrey, when she died Thursday after a two-year battle with cancer, her daughter, Jamie Clark, posted on the author's website.

'Although we knew this was coming, it was unexpected and fast. She had been fine up until just a few days ago, and then things moved quickly,' the posting said.

Grafton began her 'alphabet series' in 1982 with 'A is for Alibi.' Her most recent book, 'Y is for Yesterday,' was published in August.

Sue Grafton, pictured in 2002, has died of cancer at the age of 77. The best-selling mystery writer was surrounded by family when she died on Thursday

'The alphabet now ends at Y': Grafton's daughter, Jamie Clark, announced her mother's death

'Many of you also know that she was adamant that her books would never be turned into movies or TV shows, and in that same vein, she would never allow a ghost writer to write in her name,' her daughter wrote. 'Because of all of those things, and out of the deep abiding love and respect for our dear sweet Sue, as far as we in the family are concerned, the alphabet now ends at Y.'

Humphrey said Grafton had been struggling to find an idea for 'Z' while undergoing treatment for rare and usually fatal cancer of the appendix, which was discovered in a routine colonoscopy.

'Nothing's been written,' he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. 'There is no Z.'

He added with a laugh, 'Nobody in this family will ever use the letter Z again.'

The fictional heroine of the series, Southern California private detective Kinsey Millhone, was Grafton's alter ego, she told The Seattle Times earlier this year.

'I'm an introvert, so doing half of what Kinsey is beyond my poor capabilities,' Grafton said. 'But it's fun to get to live her life without penalty.'

Her husband agreed that Grafton was Kinsey.

'Yes, as Sue said, "We're one spirit in two bodies, and she got the good one,"' Humphrey said.

Grafton said her alter ego was the fictional heroine of her 'alphabet' series. Southern California private detective Kinsey Millhone. 'Yes, as Sue said, "We're one spirit in two bodies, and she got the good one,"' her husband,Steven Humphrey, said

While Grafton aged, her heroine didn't quite as much.

'So when I started, she was 32, and I was 42. Now, she is 39, and I am 77. So there's a little bit of injustice there, but she is single,' she told NPR in an interview earlier this year. 'She's been married twice. She has no kids, no pets, no house plants.'

She said she was looking forward to reaching the end of the alphabet with 'Z is for Zero'.

Speaking with NPR upon the publication of 'Y is for Yesterday,' she said: 'I've known exactly what I'm doing next. And this is a little moment of freedom  if I can come up with a storyline for 'Z is for Zero', which remains to be seen.'

The first book in her 'alphabet' series, A is for Alibi, was published in 1982 and was the eighth novel overall that she had written. The 25th book in her 'alphabet' series, Y is for Yesterday, was published in August. She had previously said the 26th book, which would complete the alphabet, might be called Z is for Zero

Lisa Scottoline, author of legal thrillers, tweeted that she was sad to hear of Grafton's passing.

'She forged a path for women in crime fiction, and all of us followed and adored her,' she said.

Crime writer Lawrence Block called Grafton a wonderful writer 'graced with vision and integrity and a generous spirit'.

'That never-to-be-written Z book is the least of what we've just lost,' Block tweeted.

Grafton began writing at 18, and completed her first novel at 22. 'A is for Alibi' was the eighth novel she wrote, and the third she had published.

On her blog, she said her ideas come from everywhere.

'I read newspapers, textbooks on crime. I talk to private investigators, police officers, jail administrators, doctors, lawyers, career criminals. Ideas are everywhere,' she said.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Grafton stayed tied to her roots, dividing her time between a home there and in California.

'The world has lost a great talent and prolific author in Sue Grafton  and in Louisville we have lost a citizen, friend, neighbor, a master gardener and hometown hero,' Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer tweeted. 'Her legacy will live on through her words, which will entertain and thrill readers for generations to come.'

In addition to her husband and daughter Jamie Clark, she is survived by another daughter, Leslie Twine, and her son, Jay Schmidt.

Grafton's remains will be cremated and the family will hold a private memorial Sunday. Memorials also will be held in Louisville and New York City.
Huma Abedin was spotted heading into the Hillary Clinton offices in midtown Manhattan on Friday just a few hours before the release of 2,800 of her emails.

The longtime aide to Hillary Clinton was joined by her son Jordan, who she has been raising as a single mother ever since her husband Anthony Wiener entered a correctional facility in Pennsylvania earlier this year.

Abedin submitted her divorce papers on the same day Weiner appeared in court to enter his guilty plea back in May.

Weiner was sentenced to 21 months behind bars and ordered to pay $10,000 after entering a guilty plea to a single charge of transferring obscene material to a minor.

At least five of the emails found on her laptop were deemed to be classified, it was revealed on Friday.

The State Department released hundreds of pages of materials Friday afternoon, including a total of eight pages classified at the 'confidential level,' the third most sensitive level the U.S. government uses.

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Huma Abedin was spotted heading into the Hillary Clinton offices in midtown Manhattan on Friday just a few hours before the release of 2800 of her emails

The longtime aide to Hillary Clinton was joined by her son Jordan, who she has been raising as a single mother ever since her husband Anthony Wiener entered a correctional facility in Pennsylvania earlier this year

The mother and son were wrapped up in hats and warm coats as they braved the cold in New York and headed to Clinton's office

Abedin submitted her divorce papers on the same day Weiner appeared in court to enter his guilty plea back in May

Huma parked her car and then headed with Jordan into the building. Her estranged husband was sentenced to 21 months behind bars and ordered to pay $10,000 after entering a guilty plea to a single charge of transferring obscene material to a minor

The emails date from 2010, 2011 and 2012 and concern discussions with Middle East leaders including some from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

Large portions, including entire pages, were redacted before the documents' release.

The charges against Weiner arose after DailyMail.com revealed in September of last year that he had been sexting a 15-year-old high school student from North Carolina for months.

In the wake of that revelation he had his laptop seized, and emails found on the device led to a second FBI probe into Clinton's email server, which she later claimed cost her the election.

It is those emails that have now been released by the State Department.

The high school student he corresponded with said the online relationship began in January of 2015 while she was a sophomore and lasted for several months.

At one point during a Skype chat Weiner asked her to undress and touch herself according to the girl.

In another message, Weiner told the teen: 'I would bust that tight p***y so hard and so often that you would leak and limp for a week.'

Weiner did not deny exchanging 'flirtatious' messages with the girl.

'I have repeatedly demonstrated terrible judgement about the people I have communicated with online and the things I have sent,' he told the DailyMail.com in a statement.

'I am filled with regret and heartbroken for those I have hurt.

'While I have provided the Daily Mail with information showing that I have likely been the subject of a hoax, I have no one to blame but me for putting myself in this position. I am sorry.'

Huma checked her phone while Jordan buttoned up his coat as they walked along the sidewalk

Abedin, pictured standing beside her car, married Weiner in July 2010 in a ceremony that was officiated by Bill Clinton and covered in the pages of Vogue, getting pregnant with the couple's first child just a few months later

At least five of the emails found on her laptop were deemed to be classified, it was revealed on Friday. Huma is seen with her iPhone and headphones out

Abedin married Weiner in July 2010 in a ceremony that was officiated by Bill Clinton and covered in the pages of Vogue, getting pregnant with the couple's first child just a few months later.

The couple was not even a year into their marriage when news broke that Weiner had been sexting women online after he tweeted out a photo of his erect penis that he had meant to privately send a woman on the social media site.

Weiner resigned from Congress soon after, and in December Huma gave birth to son Jordan.

In 2013, Weiner decided to run for mayor of New York City and also agreed to be filmed for a documentary about his return to politics.

Weiner announced he would run in late May, but just two months later allegations emerged that he had continued to sext in the years after he resigned from Congress, using the name 'Carlos Danger.'

The emails that were released on the same day Huma was spotted date from 2010, 2011 and 2012 and concern discussions with Middle East leaders including some from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority

Huma is seen holding what appears to be her son's lunchbox and a Louis Vuitton bag

Anthony Weiner (right) and Huma Abedin are seen in a New York court in September during their divorce case

Among the women who had been corresponding with the politician was a then-22-year-old Sydney Leathers, who said that she had been sharing messages and explicit photos with Weiner as recently as April of that year.

She gave constant interviews, spoke with the press and even showed up to Weiner's election night party.

This was all captured by the filmmakers, as were the moments early in Weiner's campaign where his wife was the one who had to make calls and solicit donations for her husband while he assured her he was a reformed man.

The two separated for good however in August of last year when news of another sexting scandal broke.

Abedin spent the next few months focusing on Clinton's unsuccessful campaign while Weiner eventually went off to rehab.
At least five emails determined to be classified were found among 2,800 documents stored on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner, whose then-wife Huma Abedin was deputy chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The State Department released hundreds of pages of materials Friday afternoon, including a total of eight pages classified at the 'confidential level,' the third most sensitive level the U.S. government uses.

The confidential classification level is applied to information whose unauthorized disclosure 'reasonably could be expected to cause damage to national security,'

The emails date from 2010, 2011 and 2012 and concern discussions with Middle East leaders including some from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

Large portions, including entire pages, were redacted before the documents' release.

Three of them were sent either to or from an address called 'BBB Backup,' which one email identifies as a backup of a Blackberry Bold 9700, presumably belonging to Abedin.

Court documents in a case between Judicial Watch and the State Department revealed that Huma Abedin (pictured today with son Jordan in New York City) had had 2,800 work-related emails saved on her estranged husband Anthony Weiner's laptop computer, and the documents include some classified emails

The right-leaning watchdog group Judicial Watch continues to push to get Hillary Clinton's (left) emails made public, including those of her former deputy chief of staff Abedin, who had left some on her estranged husband Anthony Weiner's (right) computer

One page of a document released Friday is heavily redacted and marked 'classified'; it mentions 'update on Hamas-PA talks,' referring to the Palestinian Authority

This is page 1 of a four-page classified document found on Weiner's computer; it was a 'call sheet' meant to guide Hillary Clinton through a sensitive phone call with Benjamin Netanyahu

One page of a document released Friday is heavily redacted and marked 'classified'; it mentions 'update on Hamas-PA talks,' referring to the Palestinian Authority.

Another is a four-page 'call sheet' meant to guide Clinton through a sensitive phone call with Benjamin Netanyahu.

A third is a detailed rundown of issues Clinton was expecting to address during a call with Saud bin Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who served as Saudi Arabia's foreign minister until 2015.

Only one small portion of that email was deemed classified by intelligence agencies that reviewed it before releasing it to the public.

The call sheet itself related mostly to the expected publication of a massive trove of U.S. diplomatic cables by the WikiLeaks organization.

'This appears to be the result of an illegal act in which a fully cleared intelligence officer stole information and gave it to a website. The person responsible will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,' the call sheet advised her to say.

The then-secretary of state was warning the Saudis about impending leaks of 'details of private conversations with your government on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.'

The work-related emails and other documents were recovered from Weiner's computer last year by the FBI.

A few of the classified emails appear to have been recovered from a backup of the Blackberry device that Abedin used while she was a senior State Department aide

This classified email discusses a phone call a Clinton deputy had with Abdullah bin Zayed, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates

A small portion of this email was detailed classified and can't be seen by the public; the rest was a crib sheet for Clinton to use when talking to the Saudi foreign minister about the impending WikiLeaks publication of a massive trove of U.S. diplomatic cables

Civilians like Weiner, who was once a congressman but resigned in mid-2011, are prohibited from possessing or reading classified documents without a security clearance.

It's unclear whether Weiner had such a clearance while he was a public official, but he didn't serve on any House committees that would tend to expose him to sensitive foreign policy matters.

Friday's revelation will pose new public-image problems for Clinton, who has long faced tough questions over what the FBI has called her 'careless' handling of classified material.

The five sensitive documents on Weiner's laptop were designated 'classified' as officials pored through the material at the State Department's request.

But intelligence agencies warn that such documents are 'born classified,' meaning that their distribution is restricted whether or not they bear 'classified' stamps or other identifying marks.

Tom Fitton, president of the center-right government transparency group Judicial Watch, said Friday in a statement that he wasn't surprised Weiner's computer contained material he was forbidden to see.

'As we expected, there is classified information on Anthony Weiners laptop  thanks to Hillary Clintons illicit email games,' Fitton said.

'The Justice Department should launch an immediate criminal investigation.'

Fitton had tweeted on Thursday afternoon about whether the DOJ would 'finally take action on Clinton/Abedin misdeeds.'

Weiner handed his computer over to federal investigators as the FBI probed allegations that he had been sexting with an underage girl, a story first broken by DailyMail.com.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton surprised Clinton-watchers on Thursday by tweeting that the State Department would release a cache of materials on Friday related to her classified email scandal

Weiner was sentenced to 21 months in prison in September over the sexting case, and reported to a federal correctional facility early last month to begin service his time.

Judicial Watch has pressed in court for the public release of emails and other materials from Clinton's tenure as secretary of state.

The Freedom Of Information Act lawsuit that resulted in Friday's coming document-dump was filed in May 2015.

Fitton told DailyMail.com on Friday that it's 'outrageous' that Clinton and Abedin 'walked out of the State Department with classified documents and the Obama FBI and DOJ didn't do a thing about it.'

'We expect that we will be told that some of these classified materials were on Weiner's laptop, which is highly disturbing. Lets hope it spurs a long needed Clinton special counsel or, at least, a serious criminal investigation,' he added.

Fitton believes Abedin, Clinton's longtime aide and deputy chief of staff, committed crimes by exchanging classified material in private emails connected to Clinton's now-infamous homebrew server.

'This is a disturbing development,' Fitton said in September after the State Department revealed how many government emails and other documents ended up on Weiner's PC.

'Our experience with Abedin's emails suggest these Weiner laptop documents will include classified and other sensitive materials.'

The FBI investigated Clinton's emails but closed the probe during last year's presidential election season.

In July 2016, then FBI Director James Comey hosted a press conference announcing that the FBI would recommend to the Department of Justice that Democratic nominee Clinton not be charged for mishandling classified information.

While Comey called Clinton 'extremely careless' in her handling of sensitive information he also said that no 'reasonable prosecutor' would bring a criminal case against her.

Then, in October, Comey wrote a letter to lawmakers informing them of new emails found on Weiner's computer  a revelation that threw Clinton's campaign into a tailspin.

Just days after Comey's letter was made public the FBI announced that nothing new had been found and that the case against Clinton had been closed again.

But Judicial Watch sued again, demanding '[a]ll emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non-'state.gov' email address.
A Utah art teacher was fired amid complaints that images of classical paintings containing nudity were passed out in a classroom and seen by sixth-graders, a newspaper reported.

Mateo Rueda said he wasn't aware that a set of educational postcards from the elementary school library contained a few works depicting nudity when he handed them out during a lesson, the Herald Journal newspaper said Thursday.

The two images seen by students were the Impressionist-era portrait Iris Tree by Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani and the Rococo-style partial nude Odalisque by 18th-century artist Francois Boucher, the teacher said.

Mateo Rueda was fired from Lincoln Elementary School in Hyrum after showing two classical paintings containing nudity to his students on December 4

The Rococo-style partial nude Odalisque by 18th-century artist Francois Boucher was one of the paintings

Also included in The Art Box are Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, as well as work from Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Klee, Claude Monet and more.

He removed the cards when they made students uncomfortable, the paper reported.

'This is not material at all that I would use. I had no idea,' Rueda said.

He said he has requested a hearing and plans to appeal his termination to clear his reputation.

The Impressionist-era portrait Iris Tree by Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, was the other

A few days after the December 4 lesson, police went to Lincoln Elementary School in Hyrum, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north of Salt Lake City, to investigate a complaint that Rudea was showing pornography to students.

Cache County deputies found Principal Jeni Buist shredding postcards - at the request of the school district - that contained nudity, said Sheriff Chad Jensen.

'She said she was putting the postcards and paintings in the shredder at the request of the school district so they wouldn't be distributed again,' Sheriff Chad Jensen said.

'We got some of the pictures and showed them to the County Attorney's Office, and they said these wouldn't meet the definition of pornography. They declined to file charges.'

The Cache County School District declined to comment, saying it's a personnel matter.

Parent Venessa Rose Pixton said she's upset because Rueda's handling of the situation belittled students, including her 11-year-old son.

'He said Mr. Mateo even told the class 'There's nothing wrong with female nipples. You guys need to grow up and be mature about this,'' Pixton said.

Rueda denied making that statement.

Cache County deputies found Principal Jeni Buist shredding postcards - at the request of the school district - that contained nudity

'No, that did not happen,' he said to the Herald Journal.

'I did say that when you grow up, you're going to find yourselves going to museums or to places where unavoidably there's going to be nudity.'

Some parents are supporting Rueda.

Kamee Jensen wrote a letter to the Herald Journal defending him and said her daughter wasn't offended by the pictures.

'The school sent out an email to parents asking if children were upset by what happened in class. I asked my daughter if she ever felt uncomfortable, and she said no. She was just very upset that her teacher was in trouble,' Jensen said.

'She was just very upset that her teacher was in trouble,' Jensen said.

Rueda wrote to Jensen that after the December 4 class, Buist emailed him concerned about the parent's anger over the situation and told him that he would be on a one-day administrative absence.

After the police visit on Friday, Rueda was told that he was fired

That Wednesday, the teacher with Buist and the district's human resources director, Kirk McRae, where he was informed he'd be suspended two more days and signing an agreement that he wouldn't let that occur again.

After the police visit on Friday, Rueda was told that he was fired.

'In a Friday meeting, they gave me two choices: to resign, accepting their terms of my alleged wrongdoing (eliminating any possibility to voice my opinion in the future), or to be terminated with a scathing and defamatory letter. Frankly, neither option was agreeable to me,' Rueda added. He plans to appeal the decision.

The Colombia, Utah, native came to the area to pursue a master's degree in fine art at Utah State University. He's established himself in the community for six years, through painting exhibits and established connections.

'I've worked professionally and very well with a lot of people. A lot of people know me and know my character. The terms of termination are belittling of my character, and to that end they are a defamation of character,' he added.

'My intent when it comes to the hearing has noting to do money or anything like that, but it has to do with exercising my right to be heard so that I can have a clean name, a clean reputation.  This could be something that follows me for the rest of my life.'
Theresa May hands gongs to a powerful Parliamentary ally and several pro-Brexit MPs in the New Year honours today.

The chairman of the 1922 committee of backbench Tories, Graham Brady, is awarded a knighthood.

A veteran MP and close ally of the PM, he gave her his staunch support after the Tories lost their majority in June's snap election.

Three other senior backbench Tories  who all backed Leave in the EU referendum  are also honoured.

The awards prompted claims last night that Mrs May was handing out 'political favours'.

The chairman of the 1922 committee of backbench Tories, Graham Brady, has been awarded a knighthood as part of the New Year honours list. He is pictured with Theresa May

But the list was a far cry from previous ones. David Cameron was heavily criticised for rewarding an array of donors, advisers and members of his 'chumocracy'.

By contrast, there are no major Tory donors on today's list, and none of Mrs May's former political advisers and spin doctors who lost their jobs after the election were given gongs. There were also knighthoods for two Labour MPs.

Officials said the list reflected Mrs May's determination to prioritise 'voluntary contribution and public service'.

The most notable political name was Sir Graham's. He is the voice of the Tory backbenches at Westminster.

Vice-chairman of the committee Cheryl Gillan MP (pictured) has been made a Dame

A loyalist, he urged her not to quit after the election and provided critical political support when her enemies were plotting against her this summer.

He has repeatedly backed her to stay on as leader and has said: 'I want Theresa May to carry on leading the Conservative Party. I have no plans to change that position.'

Knighthood for top pollster hailed as a 'beacon of objectivity in a world of fake news' Pictured: Professor John Curtice At a time when pollsters have a knack for getting it wrong, he is the elections expert who has politicians hanging on his every word. Professor John Curtice, who is awarded a knighthood, is a central fixture of polling night broadcasts. It was his exit poll in June that warned Theresa May she would lose her Commons majority. He was also credited with recognising the late surge for Leave in the EU referendum campaign. His expertise has seen former Scottish first minister Henry McLeish hail him as a 'beacon of objectivity in a world of fake news'. The softly-spoken professor of politics at Strathclyde University, who has the look of an eccentric scientist, has been involved in BBC election nights since 1979. Last night the 64-year-old said he was 'surprised and humbled' to be knighted. 'Just six months ago the exit poll I led surprised everyone with a shock prediction that went on to be uncannily accurate,' he said. 'Now it is my turn to be surprised and humbled by the gracious decision to grant me a knighthood. 'It is not something I ever expected to happen. But it appears that my attempts to analyse public opinion... are appreciated.' Advertisement

Last night Sir Graham said: 'I am delighted. It's a huge honour. My family are thrilled.'

Two other members of the 1922 Committee executive are also honoured, with vice-chairman Cheryl Gillan being made a dame while treasurer Geoffrey Clifton-Brown is knighted.

All three are long-standing MPs with decades behind them in the Commons. All backed Leave in the EU referendum, as did a fourth Tory MP to be honoured, veteran ex-minister Christopher Chope, who is knighted.

But the awards for leavers were offset by knighthoods for Nick Clegg and, for Labour, Commons Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, and Preston MP Mark Hendrick.

There is also an OBE for Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson.

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, who missed out on an honour despite calls for him to be knighted for his role in campaigning for Brexit, said the awards were for 'services to the establishment'.

But he also praised the gongs given to prominent Leavers.

He said: 'It's services to the establishment in a sense. I suppose it's a relief to see any Leavers on the list. The reason it's a surprise to see Leavers on the list is previously there haven't been any.

'But I don't think it's a reward for Brexit, but a reward for work to the party. The Government's priority is keeping the party together.'

Asked if he would want to be included in a future honours list, MEP Mr Farage replied: 'It's never been an aspiration for me but an aspiration for many who support me. What will be will be.'

Sir Geoffrey, MP for The Cotswolds, said: 'It's great to be recognised for having worked for a long number of years on behalf of my community.

One doesn't go into becoming a Member of Parliament with the expectation of anything  you are there to do a job, help people, make people's lives a little easier and better.'

He added: 'My daughter is about to have a baby so we've got a double family celebration.'

Treasurer of the 1922 committee Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP (pictured) has been knighted

Sir Geoffrey said he believed it was 'completely coincidental' when asked if Brexit had influenced any of the honours.

In October last year Mrs May took a veiled swipe at her predecessor Mr Cameron's resignation honours list, which was packed with cronies.

She argued the awards should go only to those who are 'really contributing' to society and that the emphasis should be on those who have run charities or put time and effort into their local communities.

Mr Cameron knighted his former spin doctor Craig Oliver, and handed out peerages 13 peerages including to No 10 aides. His wife's stylist received an OBE.

The awards for leavers were offset by knighthoods for former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (pictured) and, for Labour, Commons Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, and Preston MP Mark Hendrick

David Leakey, who finishes a seven-year term as Black Rod in Parliament this weekend, is made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (RVO) by the Queen.

Cabinet Office mandarins are to investigate after several names on this year's list including former Beatle Ringo Starr were leaked to the media ahead of today's official announcement.

Sir Jonathan Stephens, head of the main honours committee, said it was 'disappointing' the names had been made public.

He added: 'We have tightened up procedures but we will look again at the system.'

Award for coalition minister who made her political comeback There is also an OBE for Liberal Democrat East Dunbartonshire MP Jo Swinson (pictured) Liberal Democrat deputy leader Jo Swinson said she was 'delighted' to have been included in the New Year Honours. The award of a CBE comes just six months after the 37-year-old made her political comeback, retaking the East Dunbartonshire constituency she had first won in 2005, and shortly after she announced her second pregnancy. Ms Swinson was just 25 and the baby of the House - the name given to the youngest MP - when she first elected, taking the seat from Labour in a surprise result. After the Liberal Democrats went into coalition with the Conservatives she became part of the government, serving as a both employment relations and consumer affairs minister and equalities minister, using the latter role to bring in shared parental leave. But she lost her seat in the 2015 election, as voters turned against the Liberal Democrats, with Nicola Sturgeon's SNP winning all but three of the Scottish seats at Westminster. When Theresa May called a snap election for June 2017, she saw a chance to return to the House of Commons, and stood again in East Dunbartonshire, winning the seat back for her party. She was seen as a leadership contender when Tim Farron resigned as leader of the Lib Dems, but announced instead that she would put herself forward for the position of deputy leader - a role which she won unopposed. After learning of her CBE, Ms Swinson said: 'I'm delighted that my work has been recognised in this way. It wouldn't be possible without the support of my constituents, whom I'd like to thank for giving me the opportunity to serve as their MP once more. 'It is an honour to be listed among so many remarkable people from all walks of life, making amazing contributions right across our country.' Advertisement
A mother who won her campaign to outlaw so-called legal highs after the death of her daughter has been honoured.

Maryon Stewart fought for a change in legislation after her 21-year-old daughter Hester died when she was given the 'party drug' gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) in 2009.

It had already been banned in countries including the US and Sweden.

Mrs Stewart lobbied successive home secretaries to ban such substances, which were designed to mimic the effects of illegal drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis.

The mother founded a charity, the Angelus Foundation, and assembled an advisory panel of experts.

Maryon Stewart (pictured left) fought for a change in legislation after her 21-year-old daughter Hester (right) died when she was given the 'party drug' gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) in 2009

In 2016 she succeeded in winning a change in the law when the Psychoactive Substances Act came into effect, banning the supply of legal highs in Britain.

Mrs Stewart, 64, said her award of a British Empire Medal was bittersweet because she could not share it with her daughter, who had been studying molecular medicine at Sussex University when she died.

She said: 'This is a very special, yet sad, day for me, as I'd love to share it with my daughter Hester.

Star quality! Chemist who became first Briton in space is given a top award Pictured: Helen Sharman A Chemist who became the first British astronaut has been honoured for her services to science and technology education. Helen Sharman, from Sheffield, was a scientist for confectioners Mars in 1989 when she heard a radio advert inviting people to apply to be an astronaut on a mission to the Russian Mir space station  then the biggest satellite in orbit. Miss Sharman, who was 27 at the time, was selected out of 13,000 people and spent 18 months in intensive flight training. During the mission, which launched on May 18, 1991, she carried out experiments including growing potato roots and exploring the effects of radiation on the outside of the spacecraft. Since then, she has turned her focus to communicating science to the public. In 1997 she published a childrens book, The Space Place, and she has presented radio and TV programmes about chemistry and space flight. Now 54, she works in Imperial College Londons chemistry department. She will become a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. Advertisement

'I am so proud that my efforts to campaign against legal highs not only prompted government change but, through increased awareness, also prevented harm and saved many young lives, leaving other families whole.'

Mrs Stewart met with home secretaries and gave evidence about the dangers of legal highs to the Home Affairs Committee in Parliament.

She warned that the so-called party drugs were often just as dangerous and addictive as illegal drugs, but that their widespread availability online and in shops misled users into believing they were safe.

In the case of GBL, the substance which killed Hester, it was nicknamed 'coma in a bottle' because it was potentially fatal when combined with alcohol.

In 2012, before the ban, almost 100 deaths were linked to use of the new psychoactive substances in 2012, up from 12 in 2009. Use was also linked to psychiatric problems and other health issues.

Since the change in the law, official crime survey figures released in July showed a 55 per cent fall in use by 16 to 24-year-olds.

Public Health England figures revealed that the number of young people reporting health problems linked to use of the substances fell by 45 per cent.

Mrs Stewart, a health writer and broadcaster, said she believed the ban had saved thousands of lives.

She said: 'When my daughter died part of me wanted to curl up and die with her. But I did not want other families to go through the same misery.

'The problem was out of control and other young people were at risk, and I knew something needed to be done.

'I worked with the Daily Mail and the media to make people listen, and I'm just so pleased that it means other young people knew more about the risks, and that other lives were saved.

'It feels as though my daughter's death was not in vain.

'I certainly didn't start this thinking about honours or awards, I did it because it needed to be done, but I'm honoured to be a recipient and to accept it on behalf of the Angelus Foundation team.'
A Centenarian who fought in the Second World War has been awarded an MBE for helping to educate children about war.

Mordaunt Cohen, 101, was a newly qualified solicitor when he saw refugee children being brought to his home city of Sunderland and decided to enlist in 1940, without waiting to be called up.

He served as a gunner in an artillery regiment but was then commissioned as an officer and sent to command troops in Nigeria and later in Burma, where he fought against the Japanese, only returning home in 1946.

Mordaunt Cohen (pictured today aged 101, left, and during the Second World War, right) has been given an MBE for helping educate children about conflict

Mr Cohen was awarded an MBE for his work teaching in schools about the Second World War, and for a series of films recorded to mark VJ Day.

He said: 'I am deeply humbled and honoured to receive this award. When I was commanding troops many miles from here, in very tough conditions, never did I even imagine that aged 101, I would receive such an honour.

'It is my mission to make sure that future generations will understand what our armed forces went through, so that we can all live freely and in peace in this country.

'As a British Jewish veteran, I'm especially proud of the immense contribution made by the 60,000 Jewish soldiers who served our country in World War Two.

'I would like to dedicate this award to the soldiers who didn't come home, and who sadly paid the ultimate sacrifice.'

Mr Cohen is one of two centenarians named in the New Year Honours. Helena Jones, also 101, is to receive a British Empire Medal for her work with young people in Brecon, Powys.
An 83-year-old grandfather has died in hospital after he was fatally struck during the Flinders St rampage.

Melbourne man Anton Crocaris died from injuries following the horror attack on December 21 which allegedly saw Afghan refugee Saeed Noori deliberately mow down 19 pedestrians in the CBD.

Mr Crocaris was rushed to hospital along with 18 others in a critical condition and tragically lost his fight at 11:30pm on Friday.

Melbourne man Anton Crocaris (pictured) died from injuries following the horror attack on December 21 which allegedly saw Afghan refugee Saeed Noori deliberately mow down 20 pedestrians

Saeed Noori (pictured), an Afghan refugee and Australian citizen with a history of drug and mental health problems, appeared in Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Wednesday seated between two prison guards

The devastated family of the cherished grandfather-of-three, from Northcote, northeast Melbourne, described his death as the result of a 'senseless act of violence'.

'Our father Anton had his life cruelly taken away in a senseless act of violence. These circumstances are devastating to our family. Dad is simply irreplaceable and we will never fully recover from this loss,' Mr Crocaris' family said in a statement.

'He was a beloved husband of Elizabeth (dec), adored father of Freda, Tony and Bill, and cherished grandfather of Verity, Lysander and Jackson. Friend to all and proud citizen of Australia.

Our deepest gratitude to the wonderful people of Melbourne and dedicated first responders who rendered him and others every assistance. Special mention to the caring staff of The Alfred Intensive Care Unit. Our Dad, our hero.'

The 32-year-old (pictured) is charged with 18 counts of attempted murder and one of conduct endangering life - however one of those charges is expected to be upgraded to murder

Noori is accused of mowing down pedestrians in Melbourne's CBD only days before Christmas (pictured)

The motorist accused of mowing down the pedestrians was previously charged with 18 counts of attempted murder and one count of recklessly endangering life.

One of those charges is expected to be upgraded to murder, Homicide Squad Detectives said.

Six patients remain in hospital with varying conditions following the brutal alleged attack in Melbourne's CBD.

Noori, an Afghan refugee and Australian citizen with a history of drug and mental health problems, appeared in Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Wednesday seated between two prison guards.

Twenty people were hospitalised, including the alleged driver and the off duty police officer who arrested him, after a white SUV ploughed through pedestrians crossing Flinders Street (pictured)

Prosecutors asked for longer than usual to serve a brief of evidence on the defence, which will include CCTV footage.

Noori's lawyer Tass Antos said his client's mental impairment and fitness to plea will be considered in his case.

Noori was remanded in custody until his committal mention on May 30.

Twenty people were hospitalised, including the alleged driver and the off duty police officer who arrested him, after a white SUV ploughed through pedestrians crossing Flinders Street.

Noori's mother lashed out at reporters last week (pictured)

Magistrate John Hardy noted Noori was withdrawing from drug addiction, that he may have psychiatric and other illnesses and was taking medication for people with mental health issues.

'It's important that you continue to take your medications,' he said.

He ordered Noori be seen by Forensicare as soon as possible.
In 2012, Tyler Haire was arrested by authorities in Mississippi. He was charged with aggravated assault after he allegedly took a 10-inch butcher knife and stabbed his fathers girlfriend

A 16-year-old teen with a history of serious mental health issues was not permitted to see a psychiatrist or mental health specialist for four years while he awaited trial for allegedly stabbing his fathers girlfriend, it was reported on Friday.

In 2012, Tyler Haire was arrested by authorities in Mississippi. He was charged with aggravated assault after he allegedly took a 10-inch butcher knife and stabbed Shelia Hughes, his fathers girlfriend.

The stabbing left Hughes with a colon that was sliced in half, according to a joint BBC-ProPublica report.

I remember calling the cops and standing outside, so I didn't have to look at what I did, Haire said.

The only part I remember is me going to get water after looking for some Kool-Aid that I was left by my mother.

After that, it's blurry.

Haire was placed in solitary confinement at the Calhoun County Jail in Mississippi, though the sheriff said it was for his own protection.

Despite a history of serious mental health issues, he was not permitted to see a psychiatrist or mental health specialist for four years while he awaited trial

He would be charged with aggravated assault as an adult.

The district attorney for the Third Circuit, Ben Creekmore, said Haire was supposed to undergo a mental health evaluation shortly after his arrest.

But it would take almost four years for Haire to be evaluated by a mental health expert.

This despite the fact that Haires mother, Bridget Haire, says her son has been diagnosed with at least 10 different mental illness over the course of his life.

These include generalized anxiety disorder, impulse control disorder, major depression with homicidal ideations, major depressive disorder with psychotic tendencies, and bipolar disorder.

Haire said he would hear voice in his head that would drive him miserable to the brink of suicide.

Haires mother, Bridget Haire (center), says her son has been diagnosed with at least 10 different mental illness over the course of his life

Bridget Haire says her son was first put on medication for mental illness when he was just four years of age.

When Tyler Haire was a young boy, he exhibited behavior that raised red flags.

He had once threatened to bomb his school. He also chased his two siblings around with a knife, threatening to stab them.

His family believed he had strangled a cat to death with his bare hands.

He would eventually be placed in a home for troubled boys. On a number of occasions, he was hospitalized.

Nonetheless, it took 1,266 days in the county jail before he was seen by a psychiatrist. All this time he did not take any of his prescribed medication.

Bridget Haire says her son was first put on medication for mental illness when he was just four years of age

When Tyler Haire was a young boy, he exhibited behavior that raised red flags. He had once threatened to bomb his school. He also chased his two siblings around with a knife, threatening to stab them

While in jail, Tylers father, Walter Haire, had one of his close friends inside the jail administer a beating in order to punish the boy for what he did to his family.

Tyler Haires story illustrates Mississippis dismal record in evaluating mentally ill people who are put through the criminal justice system.

Records obtained by ProPublica show that defendants in Mississippi jails could wait up to four years for a mental health evaluation  even though theyve yet to be convicted of a crime.

Mississippi has slashed its budgets to the point that diagnosing vulnerable defendants is not enough of a priority.

The state is being sued by the Department of Justice for the lengthy time it takes for inmates to receive psychiatric evaluations.

The lack of mental health care was taking a toll on Tyler Haire. In his four years in jail, he would often scream and throw tantrums.

His family believed he had strangled a cat to death with his bare hands

He would also complain that he saw aliens and heard voices that told him to do things, including what shows to watch on television and what time to wake up in the morning.

In August 2016, Tyler Haire was finally evaluated by a psychologist, who would determine that he was competent to stand trial as an adult.

Nonetheless, he said: At the time of the alleged crime, consistent with his history, he probably had a diminished capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law just as he has never had the skills to live adaptively without support.

After 32 days in a psychiatric hospital, Haire was sent back to county jail.

He accepted a plea bargain requiring him to serve seven years in prison. He is due for release next year thanks to credit for time served.
At least 800 bank branches have been shut down this year  at a rate of more than two a day.

The closures, which are devastating for smaller towns and villages, have been led by Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, Santander and Natwest owner RBS.

The loss of 802 branches is thought to be a record for one year  the eight major groups shut down 1,000 between them over 2015 and 2016. They insist the changes are justified by the switch to online banking.

The publicly owned RBS is leading the drive to close branches, shutting 244 of them this year

But campaigners believe the closures are hitting vulnerable customers and damaging small firms in more remote areas.

Worse is to come, with RBS scheduled to slash 259 outlets  a quarter of its network  within six months. Lloyds plans to axe 49.

Wes Streeting, who sits on the Commons Treasury committee, urged the banks to change course. 'Customers in rural and isolated communities will be concerned to hear the clanging chimes of doom ringing over the future of their local bank branches this Christmas,' said the Labour MP.

'It's time for banks to listen to customers who value their local branches and give them the present they're looking for by calling a halt to these closures.'

Campaigners say losing a bank branch can kill off life in a village because neighbouring stores often rely on it to drum up trade.

Customers miss out as well, especially those with poor broadband connections that make online banking difficult.

Many are forced to travel to access counter services.

James Daley, of the consumer group Fairer Finance, said: 'Banks need to remember they have a responsibility to communities as well as their shareholders. We all need to work together to ensure branches are protected.

'In 50 or 100 years, it's hard to believe many  or any  of us will be doing banking in branches, so the savings that banks are keen to capture will come eventually but they mustn't accelerate the process.'

Wes Streeting said banks should listen to their customers in isolated communities and keep branches open

The five biggest banks now have fewer than 6,000 branches, compared with 11,240 two decades ago.

The latest cutbacks have been led by RBS, which was bailed out with 46billion of taxpayers' money in 2008 and is still 71.5 per cent-owned by the public. It has shut 244 branches this year.

The number of Natwest branches has fallen from 1,061 to 856, while those under the Royal Bank of Scotland banner have been cut from 190 to 151.

RBS says the number of customers using branches has dropped 40 per cent since 2014 and transactions using mobiles are up 73 per cent over the same period.

Lloyds, the owner of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, has ditched 195 branches across all its brands  taking its total to 1,843. HSBC has shed 117 branches, Barclays 98, Santander 23, TSB 37 and Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group 78.

Mike Cherry of the Federation of Small Businesses said: 'It's disappointing to hear that such a huge number of bank branches have closed their doors this year, with more to come in 2018.

HSBC has shed 117 branches in the past year. Local branches are an essential part of the community, say campaigners

'Local branches are vital for business communities across the country, particularly in rural areas that are still heavily dependent on cash.

'Small firms value the face-to-face contact, particularly when they are making big financial decisions or completing complicated transactions.'

The closures come on top of a push by the big lenders to slash ATM numbers.

Banks are demanding a cut in the fees they pay to independent operators, which campaigners claim could see as many as 5,000 towns and villages lose their free cash machines.

A spokesman for banking lobby group UK Finance said: 'Decisions to close down branches are only ever taken after all other options, like reducing opening hours and staff numbers, have been exhausted.

'It has become much easier for the vast majority of people to do their day-to-day banking as they take advantage of digital technology. But technology is not for everyone so all the major banks allow you to do basic banking through Post Office branches.'
A Queensland Scouts leader charged with 26 child porn offences was caught disobeying court orders when he returned to camp surrounded by children.

Daniel Leslie Cooper was charged with possessing, distributing and using a carriage service to obtain child pornography.

As a result of the 'extremely serious' allegations, Cooper was stripped the title of Venturer Scout leader at Deception Bay, according to Brisbane Times.

Scouts leader Daniel Leslie Cooper (pictured) was charged with 26 child porn offences and was caught disobeying court orders when he returned to camp surrounded by children

Cooper was caught at a Scout campsite cleanup just over two weeks after his lawyer told court he would not return to Scouts property (stock image)

The 39-year-old's lawyer reportedly told a court Cooper would not return to Scouts, an organisation for children starting at six-years-old.

However, Cooper was caught at a Scout campsite cleanup at Rocky Creek site just over two weeks later.

The campsite, which was badly damaged by storms, had a number of volunteers from the community help clean up the area.

General manager Gavin Kelly told the publication they had a 'zero tolerance policy' and Cooper was asked to leave straight away.

The 39-year-old was banned from unsupervised contact with children and is not allowed to use the internet unless for banking.

Cooper was granted bail however he is yet to enter a plea to the charges.
The mystery of the missing Imperial Faberge eggs has confounded art aficionados for decades.

But thanks to a little googling over a glass of wine, a British mum has come across the biggest ever clue in the hunt for one of the lost 30million treasures.

Until now, there was only a basic description and grainy image of the Necessaire from Imperial Russia. Experts believe it is in Britain but they think the owner is unlikely to realise the fortune they are sitting on  because there has never been a clear picture.

Kellie Bond found and recognised the photo of the 1889 Neccesaire Egg. The Gloucester mum said she felt like Indiana Jones when she came across the photo

Kellie Bonds discovery during a basic internet search has changed all that. Experts hope this photograph will prompt someone who might have the bejewelled masterpiece on their mantelpiece to come forward.

Mrs Bond, 37, said: I felt like a real-life Indiana Jones when I found the photo. How exciting would it be for someone to recognise this egg and realise they have won a multimillion-pound treasure hunt.

Richly set with diamonds, rubies and a sapphire, the Necessaire is one of only two Imperial Faberge eggs known to have survived the Russian Revolution, but whose whereabouts are unknown.

Experts have been on its trail for years. It is one of 50 glittering jewelled Easter eggs painstakingly fashioned by imperial goldsmith Peter Carl Faberge from 1885 to 1917 for Russian Tsar Alexander III  as gifts for his wife, Empress Maria Fedorovna  and his son Tsar Nicholas II.

The Necessaire is one of only two Imperial Faberge eggs known to have survived the Russian Revolution but whose whereabouts are unknown

But they became symbols of the wealth, power, corruption and greed that led to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the assassination of the Romanov royal family a year later.

Today, 43 are held in museums and private collections around the world  the Queen has three of them  but the other seven are still missing, and just two are known to have survived the revolution.

As German forces advanced on St Petersburg in 1917, the Necessaire was among treasures evacuated to Moscow and placed in the Kremlin armoury. It was later sold by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin as part of his treasures into tractors programme.

The Necessaire was acquired by London dealer Wartski of Mayfair. But the firm did not know the egg was an Imperial Faberge. Its staff took a grainy photo of the item and listed it as: A fine gold egg, richly set with diamonds, cabochon rubies, emeralds, a large coloured diamond at top and a cabochon sapphire at point.

The ornament was acquired by London dealer Wartski of Mayfair, whose staff took a grainy photo of the item, but the firm didn't know it was an Imperial Faberge

In 1952, the dealer sold the ornament for 1,250 (the equivalent of 36,000 today) to a man described in the firms sales ledger only as Stranger. It has not been heard of since, and until now there has been no clear photo for anyone to recognise if they had it.

Kieran McCarthy, a Wartski director, said: In 1952, there was no means of knowing it was an Imperial Egg. It was the Cold War and there was no information coming from behind the Iron Curtain. It was not until Glasnost that the Russians started to release information about these treasures. Now we know we had the Necessaire egg  but sold it.

We dont know where it went, and all the people who were here at the time are no longer alive. But in 1952 the vast majority of our customers were British  so it is highly likely the egg is still in a British home.

The photo is believed to have been snapped some time in the 1920s, 1930s or 1940s when the egg was exhibited alongside another magnificent Russian treasure, the Golden Chalice commissioned by Catherine The Great in 1791. Both items are known to have been together at Wartski in London.

In 1952, the dealer sold The Necessaire for 1,250 (the equivalent of 36,000 today) to a man described in the firms sales ledger only as Stranger

Mrs Bond, who lives in Gloucester with husband Neil and their two sons aged eight and ten, said: I have been fascinated with Faberge ever since helping my sister research a presentation on the Romanovs. I am entranced by the craftsmanship of the eggs.

It was a couple of months ago, the kids were asleep and I poured a glass of wine and sat down at my computer. I simply googled Russian Revolution and started scrolling through the images, which I had seen countless times before. Then I saw this one I had never seen before. I was looking at it thinking, the clasp, the gold-work  thats the Necessaire egg!

I was running round the house jumping up and down with excitement. My husband and sons thought I was mad.

The photo was on the picture sharing site Pinterest. The person who put it there had copied it three years earlier from an eBay page  that no longer exists  selling 1920s Russian press clippings. Mrs Bond sent the photo to Mr McCarthy, after reading of his Faberge expertise, having previously discovered a lost Imperial Egg in 2014 in the hands of an American scrap-metal dealer who had been planning to melt it down.

Mr McCarthy said finding the egg now would be a prize akin to discovering an original Leonardo da Vinci painting.
Nick Clegg's gong is in recognition of his time as deputy prime minister in the Coalition Government from 2010 to 2015, the citation said

MPs have raged over the decision to hand Nick Clegg a knighthood for his time in government, as confirmed by the honours list released tonight.

The former Lib Dem leader was recognised for his time as deputy prime minister in the Coalition Government from 2010 to 2015.

But a Labour MP quipped the honour must be for 'services to breaking up communities', while Brexiteers claimed he only received the gong for 'services to the European Union'.

The honour was first reported by the Daily Mail on Tuesday, leading Labour's Anna Turley to comment: 'So.... knighthood for Nick Clegg - for services to driving people out of their family homes and into poverty & breaking up communities.'

Brexiteer Andrew Bridgen complained that Mr Clegg had only received the honour for his pro-EU campaigning.

'The only thing I can think he would get a knighthood for would be for services to the European Union and I would've have thought that should have disqualified him,' he told The Sun.

'Its increasingly hard to justify a lot of political honours, including Mr Clegg's.'

Meanwhile, more than 50,000 people signed a petition to have the honour reversed, branding Mr Clegg a 'failed politician'.

The citation pointed to his advocacy of increases to the personal tax allowance, the pupil premium and help for disadvantaged children.

The citation pointed to his advocacy of increases to the personal tax allowance, the pupil premium and help for disadvantaged children

But the knighthood is controversial given that Mr Clegg is an arch Remainer and that his party has been showered with honours in recent years, with knighthoods for Vince Cable and Ed Davey, who both lost their seats in 2015 after serving in the Cabinet.

Mr Clegg held on but lost the Sheffield Hallam seat he held for 12 years in June. He has called for a second referendum and written a book called How To Stop Brexit.

Another former Lib Dem Cabinet minister, Danny Alexander, was given a knighthood after losing his Scottish seat in 2015, although he has not returned as an MP.

Former pensions minister Steve Webb was knighted a year ago. Mr Clegg, who lost his Sheffield Hallam seat in June, had to wait longer.

In his book on Brexit, Mr Clegg wrote: 'There is nothing remotely inevitable about Brexit  except that it will be deeply damaging if it happens.'

He infuriated Eurosceptics when he travelled to Brussels to meet EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

He and two other Remain supporters, veteran Tory Ken Clarke and Labour peer Lord Adonis, were accused of trying to interfere in Brexit talks.

Mr Clegg has called for Britain to hold a second referendum on the final Brexit deal agreed with Brussels.

In September, he said there should be a second vote because those who had voted Leave were dying off.

He said the 'high point' of support had passed because 'the oldest voters voted for Brexit in the largest numbers'.
A former Nasa researcher says he wants to 'help humans genetically modify themselves' to create a new breed of superhumans.

Dr Josiah Zayner, 36, made headlines last month when he became the first person known to have edited his own DNA.

The biochemist attempted to give himself super strength by removing a protein that inhibits muscle growth in his left arm, via an injection of DIY gene therapy.

In a new interview, Dr Zayner claims we are 'slaves to the genomes we have', and believes humanity will develop into a new breed of super-strong human thanks to widespread DIY genetic engineering.

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A former Nasa researcher has said he wants to 'help humans genetically modify themselves'. Dr Josiah Zayner, 36, (pictured) has said we are 'slaves to the genomes we have', claiming humanity will develop into a new species thanks to widespread genetic engineering

DR JOSIAH ZAYNER Dr Josiah Zayner started his scientific career with a fellowship to work with Nasa's Synthetic Biology program, engineering bacteria to help grow life on Mars. The 36-year-old quit the programme to begin working on human genetic engineering technologies, and has since become a leading figure in the growing 'biohacker' movement. The trend involves groups of scientists, engineers and activists experimenting with biotechnology, including editing human DNA to create 'superhumans'. Despite warnings from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the sale of gene therapy products without regulatory approval is illegal, Dr Zayner sells basic genetic engineering kits online. The California-based biochemist has published a free guide for people who want to take his introductory kits further and experiment on themselves. Advertisement

Speaking the Guardian, Dr Zayner said: 'I imagine people going to some place like a tattoo parlour, and instead of getting a tattoo they pick out some DNA that makes them muscly, or changes the colour of their hair or eyes.

'DNA defines what a species is, and I imagine it wouldnt be too long into the future when the human species almost becomes a new species because of these modifications.'

Despite warnings from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the sale of gene therapy products without regulatory approval is illegal, Dr Zayner sells basic genetic engineering kits online.

He is the founder and CEO of a genetic engineering company called The Odin.

Last year, he sold $200,000 worth of products, including a kit for yeast that can be used to brew glowing bioluminescent beer and a kit to discover antibiotics at home.

The California-based biochemist has published a free guide for people who want to take his introductory kits further and experiment on themselves.

Dr Zayner said: 'We have always been slaves to the genomes we have, and giving people the ability to change that almost changes what it means to be human.

'It seems so sci-fi and made up, but weve been genetically modifying humans with gene therapy since the 1990s  its just been very few people and for medical reasons. I want to help humans genetically modify themselves.'

Dr Zayner started his scientific career with a fellowship to work with Nasa's Synthetic Biology program, engineering bacteria to help grow life on Mars.

The 36-year-old quit the programme to begin working on human genetic engineering technologies, and has since become a leading figure in the growing 'biohacker' movement.

The trend involves groups of scientists, engineers and activists experimenting with biotechnology, including editing human DNA to create 'superhumans'.

Dr Zayner made headlines last month when he became the first person known to have edited their own DNA using Crispr (artist's impression). The biochemist attempted to give himself super strength by removing a protein that inhibits muscle growth in his left arm

HAS DR ZAYNER EDITED HIS OWN DNA? In November, Dr Zayner made headlines when he became the first person known to have edited their own DNA. The biochemist attempted to give himself super strength by removing a protein that inhibits muscle growth in his left arm, via an injection of DIY gene therapy. Dr Zayner said he expects that the DNA in some of his arm's muscle cells will have changed following his experiment, but added he does not have the tests to confirm this. He admitted he is 'sceptical' of the chances the size of his arm muscle will change. Advertisement

Following his November DIY gene editing stunt, which the biochemist livestreamed online, Dr Zayner admitted he had not yet seen the effects of his experiment.

He told the Guardian that similar experiments with animals have only shown results after four to six months of treatment.

The 36-year-old's gene therapy technique involved the use of Crispr-Cas9, a tool for making precise edits in DNA.

The technique involves a DNA cutting enzyme and a small tag which tells the enzyme where to cut.

By editing this tag, scientists can target the enzyme to specific regions of DNA and make precise cuts, which can be used to 'silence' genes by turning them off.

Dr Zayner said he expects that the DNA in some of his arm's muscle cells will have changed following his experiment, but added he does not have the tests to confirm this.

He added he is 'sceptical' of the chances the size of his arm muscle will change.
Google has revealed a new text-to-speech system that could soon allow AI voice assistants to sound far more natural.

The tool, called Tacotron 2, was trained on examples of human dialogue and text transcripts to generate more realistic speech.

A demonstration of the system reveals how it can smoothly read different texts aloud without skipping a beat, including the Peter Piper tongue-twister  but, its still tripped up by difficult words.

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Google has revealed a new text-to-speech system that could soon allow AI voice assistants to sound far more natural. The tool, called Tacotron 2, was trained on examples of human dialogue and text transcripts to generate more realistic speech. Stock image

HOW IT WORKS Tacotron 2 uses whats known as a sequence-to-sequence model, which maps out letters to features that encode the audio. The process incorporates pronunciation, volume, speed, and intonation, the researchers explain. Then, the features are converted to a 24 kHz waveform. The tool was trained on examples of human dialogue and text transcripts to generate more realistic speech. Advertisement

In a new blog post, the Google researchers explain that the latest text-to-speech (TTS) system is able to generate its own speech based on what it learned from its training.

This is opposed to the use of inputs such as complex linguistics and acoustic features seen in other TTS systems.

Tacotron 2 improves upon ideas from previous efforts, including Tacotron and WaveNet.

The team says listeners have rated it comparable to professional recordings.

Tacotron 2 uses whats known as a sequence-to-sequence model, which maps out letters to features that encode the audio.

The process incorporates pronunciation, volume, speed, and intonation, the researchers explain.

Then, the features are converted to a 24 kHz waveform.

Audio samples from the research demonstrate how Tacotron can generate speech to read specific texts.

Its not quite perfect yet, but the team says it scored well in trials with human listeners.

Still, there are a number of issues left to address.

While our samples sound great, there are still some difficult problems to be tackled, the researchers explain in the blog post.

For example, our system has difficulties pronouncing complex words (such as decorum and merlot), and in extreme cases it can even randomly generate strange noises.

Tacotron 2 uses whats known as a sequence-to-sequence model, which maps out letters to features that encode the audio. The process incorporates pronunciation, volume, speed, and intonation, the researchers explain. Then, the features are converted to a 24 kHz waveform

Also, our system cannot yet generate audio in realtime. Furthermore, we cannot yet control the generated speech, such a directing it to sound happy or sad.

Each of these is an interesting research problem on its own.

The project builds on some of the ideas from WaveNet, which was said to be capable of creating natural-sounding synthesized speech by analyzing sound waves from the human voice - rather than focusing on the human language.

Last year, the DeepMind researchers claimed the groundbreaking project had already halved the quality gap between computer systems and human speech.

The latest system aims to take text-to-speech even further, for more natural sounding computer-generated speech.
A new version of Nokia's 50 ($67) retro 3310 phone that connects to 4G networks is set for release.

The 4G 3310 houses a new operating system that can run a number of basic Android apps, according to documents leaked from China.

Previous models have shipped with either 2G or 3G connectivity, but the new phone could use 4G to power stripped down versions of messaging apps like WhatsApp.

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A new version of Nokia's retro 3310 phone that connects to 4G networks (front pictured left, back pictured right) is set for release

THE NOKIA 3310 - Thin, light and durable - Measures 115.6 x 51.0 x 12.8mm - Weighs 79.6 grams (2.8 oz) - 22-hour talk time - One month battery life - 2.4 inch curved colour display - 2 megapixel camera with LED flash - Four colour options: Red, yellow, dark blue and grey - 2G, 3G and soon 4G connectivity - Bluetooth, micro USB, and headphone jack connections - MicroSD card support up to 32GB - Revamped version of Snake comes pre-installed Advertisement

Standard 4G is around five to seven times faster than 3G, offering theoretical speeds of up to 150Mbps.

For instance, you can download a 2GB HD film in 3 minutes 20 seconds on a standard 4G mobile network, while it would take over 25 minutes on a standard 3G network.

The new phone recently passed through the TENAA, the Chinese regulatory body for telecommunication devices, Nokiamob reports.

Documents uncovered by Nokiamob revealed that the dimensions, screen size and battery life of the phone has stayed the same, but it will now ship with the YunOS operating system.

Some have speculated that the operating system will allow the latest Nokia 3310 to run basic versions of messaging apps like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

Previous versions have shipped with Feature OS or s30+, which powered the 2G and 3G versions, and could not run Android apps.

The documents do not give a release date for the new model.

HMD Global, based in Espoo, Finland, officially re-released the Nokkia 3310 in May after months of anticipation.

The retro device features a month-long standby, the much-loved game, Snake, and weighs just 79.6 grams (2.8 oz).

Previous models (pictured) have shipped with either 2G or 3G connectivity, but the new phone could use 4G to power stripped down versions of messaging apps like WhatsApp

Vodafone and Carphone Warehouse currently stock the 2G and 3G versions for 49.99 ($67).

The remake of the Nokia 3310 was announced at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), held in Barcelona in February.

Among the bigger networks, EE and Vodafone are stocking the device, while O2 and Three are not.

The 4G 3310 houses a new operating system that can run a number of basic Android apps, according to documents leaked from China. HMD first released the re-vamped Nokia 3310 (pictured) in May after months of anticipation

The phone shipped in Europe but was not available to US buyers.

A spokesperson for Nokia said: 'Thin, light and incredibly durable, the Nokia 3310 is a head turning modern twist on one of the best-selling feature phones of all time.

'Boasting an incredible 22-hour talk-time and month long stand-by, the Nokia 3310's fresh, colourful, modern design brings it bang up to date.

'Talk all day, text, take pictures, listen to music, and get hooked once more on the original mobile gaming hit Snake, all on a single charge.

The new 3310, which sold 126 million handsets until it was phased out in 2005, features the return of much-loved game, Snake (pictured)

MAILONLINE'S VERDICT Rating: MailOnline was able to get its hands on a Nokia 3310 phone before its official launch in May. The phone is extremely light and thin, and puts a modern twist on the 2000 version, with a bigger screen and smoother finish. In terms of functionality, using the click-buttons takes some readjusting, and the central joystick controller is fairly clunky to navigate  especially with long nails. While the phone does have predictive texting, it didn't seem to recognise several words or names, which we had to manually add to the dictionary. The phone's camera is very low resolution and photos came out grainy. One of the main appeals of the phone is the return of the much-loved game Snake, which comes pre-loaded on the phone. While this is still fun, its more modern graphics slightly detract from the old-school classic. This new version is also available to play on any phone using Facebook Messenger. One of the biggest struggles with the phone came with trying to remove the backing, which took several attempts. This could prove an issue when trying to access the SIM card or battery. Overall, with a price tag of just 49.99, the Nokia 3310 could be a good secondary back-up phone that is perfect for getting you through a festival, but we don't see many people choosing to use it as their primary device. Advertisement

'With its unparalleled month-long standby time, the Nokia 3310 encompasses everything you knew and loved in a sleek modern polycarbonate casing.'

The new Nokia 3310 is available in four colour options - warm red, dark blue, yellow and grey.

The iconic handset was a massive hit with users back in 2000 and the relaunched version includes a month-long battery, 22 hours of talk-time, and even its popular game, Snake.

While the handset looks similar to its predecessor, Nokia has brought its new model up to date and instead of the original display, a monochrome 84 x 84, it has a colour screen.

But it shipped with limited internet capabilities, relying on 2.5G connectivity, with users browsing at speeds slower than if they were using 3G.

It also has a single camera which has just two megapixels.

The phone, which sold 126 million handsets until it was phased out in 2005, saw record numbers of people pre-register for the newer model.

The 3310 attracted ten times more interest than any other flagship phone previously launched at the MWC, according to the Carphone Warehouse.
Notorious computer pioneer, John McAfee, has gone on a Twitter rant to defend his security credentials after his account was allegedly hacked.

McAfee, who made millions creating the popular McAfee anti-virus software, claims his Twitter account was compromised as part of an elaborate scam.

'I am a target for hackers who lost money and blame me,' he tweeted. 'I have haters. I am a target.'

The 72-year-old says cyber criminals used his account to promote lesser-known virtual currencies to his 550,000 followers.

But some have expressed skepticism about the hack, with many noting that he does not have a reputation for being credible.

They also claim the tweets are simply a publicity stunt to promote the 'John McAfee Privacy Phone' - a $1,100 (800) device which he claims will be the world's most hack-proof phone.

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Cyber security tycoon John McAfee gives digital currency investment advice via a 'Coin of the Day' feature on Twitter. On Wednesday, the business mogul claimed hackers gained access to his account, using his status as a trusted crytocurrency adviser to skew online markets

MCAFEE'S EMPIRE He was employed as a programmer at Nasa in the late 1960's. Founded McAfee Associates in 1987 and released his anti-virus software. After resigning from his position in 1994, he sold his remaining stake in the company in 1996. Intel bought McAfee in 2010 and removed the McAfee name from the products. In 2012, he was an international fugitive as he fled from Belize police. Four years later he ran for President of the United States as a representative for the Libertarian party - and achieved their best ever result. At the start of this year he announced plans to release a smartphone that is 'the world's first truly private smartphone'. He operates MGT Capital which works to assess the value of cryptocurrencies. Advertisement

Worth an estimated 3 million ($4 million), McAfee has been a prominent figure in the rise of Bitcoin and other online currencies.

Earlier this month, he began to offer advice via Twitter on which of the more obscure virtual currencies people should invest in via a 'coin of the day' suggestion.

These recommendations often caused a spike in their prices.

Mr McAfee took to the social media site on Wednesday to explain how he believes his phone and account were compromised as hackers attempted to use his platform to skew digital currency markets.

He tweeted: 'Urgent: My account was hacked. Twitter has been notified. The coin of the day tweet was not me. As you all know... I am not doing a coin of the day anymore!!!!'

According to Cryptovest, the hoax tweets caused a surge in popularity of the listed currencies and saw their value soar for a short period of time.

Mr McAfee later tweeted: 'I am a target for hackers who lost money and blame me.'

The tweets from the alleged hackers, which recommended followers invest in several obscure cryptocurrencies, have since been deleted.

During his Twitter rant, Mr McAfee, who earlier this year announced he is developing 'the world's first truly private smartphone', said his compromised mobile device does not reflect his cyber-security credentials.

The tweets (pictured) from the alleged hackers, which recommended followers invest in several obscure cryptocurrencies, have since been deleted. The hackers used the value spikes generated by the posts to sell off stakes of obscure digital currencies at sky-high prices

Cyber-security guru John McAfee (file photo) claims his Twitter account has been hacked to promote 'undervalued cryptocurrencies'. Worth an estimated 3 million ($4 million), Mr McAfee has been a prominent figure in the rise online currencies

He told the BBC: 'I was on a boat at the time and could not go to my carrier (AT&T) to have the issue corrected.

'All that the hacker did was compromise my Twitter account. It could have been worse.'

Twitter does offer two-factor authentication for additional security, which McAfee says he had in place.

Skeptics claim the businessman may be claiming he was hacked as a publicity stunt for his new phone.

In April, McAfee showed reporters a prototype of the 'John McAfee Privacy Phone'.

The 'John McAfee Privacy Phone' will be equipped with switches that enable users to manually disconnect certain components such as the antennas for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and geolocation.

The British-born inventor built his reputation in cyber-security, with his first anti-virus software launched in the 1980s.

The security boffin was quick to point out to his followers that this hack does not reflect negatively on his security background

No stranger to controversy or a colourful exchange, Mr McAfee is often viewed as a unique character who doesn't avoid the issue at hand

After resigning from his position at McAfee Associates in 1994, he sold his remaining stake in the company on 1996.

Intel bought McAfee in 2010 and removed the McAfee name from the products.

The business mogul is no stranger to controversy, becoming an international fugitive in 2012 as he fled from Belize police over the murder of his neighbour.

Four years later he ran for President of the United States as a representative for the Libertarian party - and achieved their best ever result.

He now operates MGT Capital which works to assess the value of cryptocurrencies.
Google has banned Amazon Fire TV devices from accessing YouTube four days earlier than expected as part of an escalating feud that has caught consumers in the crossfire.

The move is retaliation for Amazon's refusal to sell some Google products that compete with the retailer's gadgets.

Fire TV devices now encourage people to access YouTube via one of the gadget's web browsers instead.

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Google has banned Amazon Fire TV devices from accessing YouTube four days earlier than expected as part of an escalating feud. Fire TV devices now encourage people to access YouTube via one of the gadget's web browsers instead (pictured)

THE AMAZON/GOOGLE FEUD Amazon refuses to sell some Google products that compete with the retailer's gadgets. These include Google's Chromecast streaming device, an alternative to Fire TV, and an internet-connected speaker called Home, which is competing with Amazon's market-leading Echo. In response, Google has repeatedly threatened it will block Amazon Fire TV and Echo devices from accessing the YouTube app, setting an initial deadline for January 1. In removing access to the app, Google is hoping to pressure Amazon into selling its products. Today, Google pulled YouTube from Amazon Fire TV without explanation, four days earlier than expected. Advertisement

Amazon said in a statement: 'YouTube and millions of other websites are accessible by using a web browser like Firefox or Silk on Fire TV.'

Google had warned it would pull the YouTube app from Fire TV devices on January 1 if the two firms could not come to an agreement.

Google said it was unhappy its Chromecast streaming device, an alternative to Fire TV, and an internet-connected speaker called Home, which is competing with Amazon's market-leading Echo, were banned from the online retailer's marketplace.

In removing access to its YouTube app, Google is hoping to pressure Amazon into selling its products.

Earlier in December, Google said: 'We've been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other's products and services.

'Amazon doesn't carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn't make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest's latest products.

'Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and Fire TV. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon.'

In response, an Amazon spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Echo Show and Fire TV now display a standard web view of YouTube.com and point customers directly to YouTube's existing website.

'Google is setting a disappointing precedent by selectively blocking customer access to an open website. We hope to resolve this with Google as soon as possible.'

The move is retaliation for Amazon's refusal to sell some Google products that compete with the retailer's gadgets. Pictured is an Amazon Fire TV stick and controller

Google has said it is unhappy its Chromecast streaming device, an alternative to Fire TV (pictured), and an internet-connected speaker called Home, which is competing with Amazon's market-leading Echo, are banned from the online retailer's marketplace

Amazon also has rankled Google by declining to sell an internet-connected thermostat made by Nest, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., like Google.

Amazon has refused to sell Google's Chromecast streaming device (pictured), an alternative to Fire TV

The dispute between Amazon and Google mirrors face-offs between pay-TV providers and TV networks when re-negotiating their deals.

But in this instance, the two tech heavyweights aren't fighting over licensing fees.

Instead, they are jockeying to position their gadgets and, by extension, their digital services into homes.

The battle highlights the power that the world's major technology companies are gaining as they dominate important corners of commerce and communications.

As the world's largest online retailer, Amazon has tremendous sway over what people buy, while the results delivered by Google's ubiquitous search engine often help determine what people do on and off the web.
Russia's space agency has denied an embarrassing error caused the failed launch of a $45 million (33 million) satellite last month.

Russian space agency Roscosmos said on November 28 it had lost contact with the newly-launched weather satellite - the Meteor-M.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, said the launch malfunctioned because programmers put in co-ordinates for the wrong launch site.

In a new statement, the nation's space agency has strenuously denied these claims, contradicting the politician's earlier statement.

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Roscosmos said last month it had lost contact with the newly-launched weather satellite - the Meteor-M - after it blasted off from Russia's new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East. Pictured is the rocket that carried the satellite during launch

WHAT HAPPENED? Russian space agency Roscosmos said last month it had lost contact with the newly-launched weather satellite - the Meteor-M - after it blasted off from Russia's new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the launch malfunctioned because programmers put in co-ordinates for the wrong launch site. Russian space agency Roscosmos has now denied this is the case but has offered no alternative explanation. Advertisement

Roscosmos' original statement is in Russian and was issued to RIA Novosti. A translated version reads: 'The flight task was tested exclusively for the Vostochny Cosmodrome, which was checked by specialists in accordance with existing methods. The reason for the accident is a combination of several factors at the Vostochny Cosmodrome [that are] impossible to detect by any existing mathematical models.;

Eighteen smaller satellites belonging to scientific, research and commercial companies from Russia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Japan, Canada and Germany, were on board the same rocket.

In his November interview, Mr Rogozin said the rocket carrying the satellites had been programmed with the wrong coordinates.

It had been given bearings for take-off from a different cosmodrome - Baikonur - which Moscow leases from Kazakhstan, he claimed.

'The rocket was really programmed as if it was taking off from Baikonur,' said Rogozin.

'They didn't get the coordinates right.'

The Vostochny spaceport, laid out in the thick taiga forest of the Amur Region, is the first civilian rocket launch site in Russia.

The Meteor-M - blasted off from Russia's Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East. However, the rocket had been programmed for take-off from Baikonur - which Moscow leases from Kazakhstan.

In April last year, after delays and massive costs overruns, Russia launched its first rocket from Vostochny, a day after a technical glitch forced an embarrassing postponement of the event in the presence of President Vladimir Putin.

Russian news agencies initially reported the likely cause was the failure of the booster's final stage, the Fregat.

The Roscosmos website earlier said: 'During the first planned communication session an attempt to establish connection failed due to the spacecraft's absence on the target orbit.

'Currently all information is being analysed.'

Russia's space agency has now denied an embarrassing error caused the failed launch of a $45 million (33 million) satellite last month. The claims contradict earlier statements made by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin

The booster also carried 18 micro satellites built in Canada, Germany, Japan, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States.

The unmanned Soyuz-2.1b rocket was sent into space with a Fregat booster but contact was lost with the Meteor-M spacecraft after it reached its intermediate orbit.
Texas has joined the ever growing list of places Apple is facing legal action over its slowdown of older iPhones.

The Class action filed by Mark Miller, Chris Spearman and Craig Stanford accuses Apple of misleading customers.

It comes a day after Apple issued an unprecedented apology over its handling of the admission it slows down older iPhones.

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The iPhone 6 , one of the affected handsets: Today Texas has joined the ever growing list of places Apple is facing legal action over its slowdown of older iPhones.

WHAT APPLE IS DOING Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50  from $79 to $29  for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Early in 2018, it will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone's battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance. Advertisement

'Apple promised that its recent iOS 10 and iOS 11 software updates to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 models would improve those devices' performance and it strongly encouraged its customers to accept those updates,' the Texas suit says.

'But Apple didn't tell its customers that it had intentionally designed those software updates to slow the devices' processing speed to correct a battery defect.

'Apple then happily took its customers' money when the customers, dissatisfied with their now-slower devices, purchased new and more expensive iPhones.'

The firm said last week it 'throttles' phones to extend their life and stop them from shutting down as batteries age and become less effective, triggering lawsuits across the world.

All the US lawsuits - filed in U.S. District Courts in California, New York and Illinois - seek class-action to represent potentially millions of iPhone owners nationwide.

Yesterday Apple published a letter saying 'We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down', and revealed it is slashing the price of a replacement battery, and planning to show users exactly how much their battery has degraded.

'We apologize. There's been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify and let you know about some changes we're making.'

'First and foremost, we have never  and would never  do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades,' Apple said.

'Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that.'

The firm said last week it 'throttles' phones to extend their life and stop them from shutting down as batteries age and become less effective, triggering lawsuits across the world.

Apple said it is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50  from $79 to $29  for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018.

The firm will also cut prices around the world, but has not yet revealed the pricing outside the US.

In the UK, a replacement battery costs 79.

Early in 2018, it will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone's battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance.

APPLE'S BATTERY LETTER IN FULL 'We've been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize. There's been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify and let you know about some changes we're making. First and foremost, we have never  and would never  do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that. How batteries age All rechargeable batteries are consumable components that become less effective as they chemically age and their ability to hold a charge diminishes. Time and the number of times a battery has been charged are not the only factors in this chemical aging process. Device use also affects the performance of a battery over its lifespan. For example, leaving or charging a battery in a hot environment can cause a battery to age faster. These are characteristics of battery chemistry, common to lithium-ion batteries across the industry. A chemically aged battery also becomes less capable of delivering peak energy loads, especially in a low state of charge, which may result in a device unexpectedly shutting itself down in some situations. To help customers learn more about iPhone's rechargeable battery and the factors affecting its performance, we've posted a new support article, iPhone Battery and Performance. It should go without saying that we think sudden, unexpected shutdowns are unacceptable. We don't want any of our users to lose a call, miss taking a picture or have any other part of their iPhone experience interrupted if we can avoid it. Preventing unexpected shutdowns About a year ago in iOS 10.2.1, we delivered a software update that improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE. With the update, iOS dynamically manages the maximum performance of some system components when needed to prevent a shutdown. While these changes may go unnoticed, in some cases users may experience longer launch times for apps and other reductions in performance. Customer response to iOS 10.2.1 was positive, as it successfully reduced the occurrence of unexpected shutdowns. We recently extended the same support for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in iOS 11.2. Of course, when a chemically aged battery is replaced with a new one, iPhone performance returns to normal when operated in standard conditions. Recent user feedback Over the course of this fall, we began to receive feedback from some users who were seeing slower performance in certain situations. Based on our experience, we initially thought this was due to a combination of two factors: a normal, temporary performance impact when upgrading the operating system as iPhone installs new software and updates apps, and minor bugs in the initial release which have since been fixed. We now believe that another contributor to these user experiences is the continued chemical aging of the batteries in older iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s devices, many of which are still running on their original batteries. Addressing customer concerns We've always wanted our customers to be able to use their iPhones as long as possible. We're proud that Apple products are known for their durability, and for holding their value longer than our competitors' devices. To address our customers' concerns, to recognize their loyalty and to regain the trust of anyone who may have doubted Apple's intentions, we've decided to take the following steps: Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50  from $79 to $29  for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com.

Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone's battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance.

As always, our team is working on ways to make the user experience even better, including improving how we manage performance and avoid unexpected shutdowns as batteries age. At Apple, our customers' trust means everything to us. We will never stop working to earn and maintain it. We are able to do the work we love only because of your faith and support  and we will never forget that or take it for granted. Advertisement

The firm said last week it slows down phones to extend their life and stop them from shutting down as batteries age and become less effective, triggering lawsuits across the world.

In addition a South Korea's Communications Commission has reportedly asked for an explanation of the issue from Apple, while in France a consumer group has filed filed preliminary, legal complaints in court.

'We are hoping to get some answers on whether Apple intentionally restricted the performance of old iPhones and tried to hide this from customers,' the Korean Commission said.

The tech giant said 'We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down', and revealed it is slashing the price of a replacement battery, and will show users exactly how much their battery has degraded. This image shows CEO Tim Cook at the launch of the iPhone 6 on September 9, 2015

French consumer association called 'HOP', standing for 'Stop Planned Obsolescence', has filed preliminary, legal complaints in court against Apple and Epson.

HOP said it filed its complaint against Apple in Paris on Wednesday.

A prosecutor opened an investigation into Epson last month, a judicial source said on Thursday, following a complaint filed in September by HOP in a court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

Laetitia Vasseur, co-founder of HOP, told Reuters the aim of both complaints was to apply the French consumer law, which was modified in 2015 to include the notion of planned obsolescence.

Geekbench developer John Poole decided to analyse the results of a number of iPhone 6 and 7 models running various versions of iOS. He found an update issued to fix a ' sudden shutdown' issue wit the iPhone 6 was to blame for poor performance

Apple is already facing lawsuits in the United States over accusations of having defrauded iPhone users by slowing down devices without warning to compensate for poor battery performance.

Under French law, companies risk fines of up to 5 percent of their annual sales for deliberately shortening the life of their products to spur demand to replace them.

All the US lawsuits - filed in U.S. District Courts in California, New York and Illinois - seek class-action to represent potentially millions of iPhone owners nationwide.

HOW APPLE'S THROTTLING WORKS Apple says with a low battery state of charge, a higher chemical age, or colder temperatures, users are more likely to experience unexpected shutdowns. To get around this, it introduces software in iOS to manage the issue. 'This power management works by looking at a combination of the device temperature, battery state of charge, and the battery's impedancem' Apple says. 'Only if these variables require it, iOS will dynamically manage the maximum performance of some system components, such as the CPU and GPU in order to prevent unexpected shutdowns. 'As a result, the device workloads will self-balance, allowing a smoother distribution of system tasks, rather than larger, quick spikes of performance all at once. In some cases, a user may not notice any differences in daily device performance. The level of perceived change depends on how much power management is required for a particular device. In cases that require more extreme forms of this power management, Apple says users may notice effects such as: Longer app launch times

Lower frame rates while scrolling

Backlight dimming (which can be overridden in Control Center)

Lower speaker volume by up to -3dB

Gradual frame rate reductions in some apps

During the most extreme cases, the camera flash will be disabled as visible in the camera UI

Apps refreshing in background may require reloading upon launch However, it says the following areas are not affected: Cellular call quality and networking throughput performance

Captured photo and video quality

GPS performance

Location accuracy

Sensors like gyroscope, accelerometer, barometer

Apple Pay Advertisement

A similar case was lodged in an Israeli court on Monday, the newspaper Haaretz reported.

One of the lawsuits, filed Thursday in San Francisco, said that 'the batteries' inability to handle the demand created by processor speeds' without the software patch was a defect.

'Rather than curing the battery defect by providing a free battery replacement for all affected iPhones, Apple sought to mask the battery defect,' according to the complaint.

The plaintiff in that case is represented by attorney Jeffrey Fazio, who represented plaintiffs in a $53-million settlement with Apple in 2013 over its handling of iPhone warranty claims.

The problem now seen is that users over the last year could have blamed an aging computer processor for app crashes and sluggish performance - and chose to buy a new phone - when the true cause may have been a weak battery that could have been replaced for a fraction of the cost, some of the lawsuits state.

'If it turns out that consumers would have replaced their battery instead of buying new iPhones had they known the true nature of Apple's upgrades, you might start to have a better case for some sort of misrepresentation or fraud,' said Rory Van Loo, a Boston University professor specializing in consumer technology law.

But Chris Hoofnagle, faculty director for the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, said in an email that Apple may not have done wrong.

'We still haven't come to consumer protection norms' around aging products, Hoofnagle said.

Pointing to a device with a security flaw as an example, he said, 'the ethical approach could include degrading or even disabling functionality.'

The lawsuits seek unspecified damages in addition to, in some cases, reimbursement.

A couple of the complaints seek court orders barring Apple from throttling iPhone computer speeds or requiring notification in future instances.

Stefan Bogdanovich and Dakota Speas from Los Angeles have filed a lawsuit with the US District Court for the Central District of California.

They are accusing Apple of interfering with their devices without consent.

The pair are trying to get the case certified to cover all people in the United States who owned an Apple phone older than the iPhone 8.

Their application for the lawsuit states: 'Plaintiffs and Class Members never consented to allow Defendants to slow their iPhones.

'As a result of Defendant's wrongful actions, Plaintiffs and Class Members had their phone slowed down, and thereby it interfered with Plaintiffs' and Class Members' use or possession of their iPhones.'

Apple said it recently extended the feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and said it plans to add support for other products in the future

A second lawsuit, filed by five plaintiffs in the Northern District of the State of Illinois, accuses Apple of deliberately keeping its power management features under wraps to persuade people to upgrade to newer devices.

'Apple's iOS updates purposefully neglected to explain that its purposeful throttling down of older model devices and resulting lost or diminished operating performance could be remedied by replacing the batteries of these devices,' the lawsuit states.

'Instead, Apple's decision to purposefully slowdown or throttle down these devices was undertaken to fraudulently induce consumers to purchase the latest iPhone versions of the iPhone 7, as well as new phones such as the iPhone 8 and iPhone X .'

In a statement sent to MailOnline, a spokesman for Apple said: 'Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices.

'Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.

'Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions.

'We've now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.'

A consumer watchdog that evaluates electronic gadgets' performance sparked the outcry after it found that processing power of older models is limited once battery life begins to suffer.

Apple has come under fire for not being clear with users about the software update, or explaining when throttling happens.

The update reduces this drain on resources, allowing the phones to continue operating.

The drop in performance came to light in benchmark tests, from Toronto-based firm Geekbench.

It found that on certain versions the Apple operating system, phones with older batteries achieved much lower performance scores.

Battery capacity is expected to decrease as they age, but processor performance should stay the same.

However, users with older iPhones with lower-than-expected Geekbench scores have reported that replacing the battery increases their score, as well as the performance of the phone.

Geekbench developer John Poole decided to analyse the results of a number of iPhone 6 and 7 models running various versions of iOS.

He found that an update issued to fix the ' sudden shutdown' issue, when users found their iPhone 6 was turning off when its battery reached half charge, was to blame.

This resulted in the poor performance results observed.

Writing in a blog post, Mr Poole said: 'It appears the problem is widespread, and will only get worse as phones, and their batteries, continue to age.

So it's true Apple intentionally slow down old iPhones. Proof: My iPhone 6 was bought 3years ago and recently got really slow. APP 'CPU DasherX' shows iPhone CPU is under clocked running at 600MHz. After a iPhone battery replacement. CPU speed resumed to factory setting 1400MHz. pic.twitter.com/pML3y0Jkp2  Sam_Si (@sam_siruomu) December 20, 2017

'I believe, as do others, that Apple introduced a change to limit performance when battery condition decreases past a certain point.

'If the performance drop is due to the 'sudden shutdown' fix, users will experience reduced performance without notification.

'Users expect either full performance, or reduced performance with a notification that their phone is in low-power mode.

'This fix creates a third, unexpected state.'

Without this warning Mr Poole believes that the fix will cause users to believe their phone is slow so they should replace it, rather than the battery which is actually at fault.

'This will likely feed into the 'planned obsolescence' narrative,' he added.

Every time Apple launches a new handset people seemingly flock to Google to ask why their current iPhone or iOS is slow.

This trend has been seen every year since Apple released the iPhone 3G in 2008.

Explanations for the slowness range from Apple's iOS causing problems on older devices to the firm deliberately slowing down old phones to make people buy the new handsets.

This latter explanation is known as planned, or built-in, obsolescence.

This is the idea that manufacturer's deliberately make their products in such a way that they become out-of-date sooner.

By doing this, the companies can encourage customers to buy the latest model of a certain product.

This also stimulates demand for products because people return again and again.
She recently spoke out at clothes manufacturers for making allowances for men's genitalia and not women's.'

But it was something much smaller that irritated Caitlin Stasey, 27, on Thursday.

In a short clip shared to Instagram, the once a beloved child star best known for her role in Neighbours, let out a comic shriek at the sight of a huntsman spider.

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'Horrible!' Former child star Caitlin Stasey gets a fright from a MASSIVE creepy crawly while home for the holidays

In a short clip shared to Instagram, the once a beloved child star best known for her role in Neighbours, let out a comic shriek at the sight of a huntsman spider

'Horrible!' she exclaimed as the creature crawled along a chair.

A male voice could be heard in the background commentating on the species of the spider.

'Its either a golden orb or a huntsman that just ate a golden orb,' he said.

'Its either a golden orb or a huntsman that just ate a golden orb' A male voice could be heard in the background of Caitlin's video commentating on the species of the spider

Home for Christmas: From her vantage point deep in the countryside of Greens Bush in Victoria, Australia, Caitlin has shared videos of echidnas and kangaroos

The actress returned to her native state of Victoria for the Christmas holidays and has since shared several videos of wildlife.

From her vantage point deep in the countryside of Greens Bush she has shared videos of echidnas and kangaroos.

Clearly feeling nostalgic, Caitlin has even shared several throwback pictures - two of herself and one of her parents.

Feeling nostalgic? Caitlin has even shared several throwback pictures - two of herself and one of her parents

Caitlin seems to have toned down her usual eyebrow-raising social media content of late.

In recent months, she has consistently surprised fans by flaunting her 'camel toe' in ill-fitting jeans, posing with a rat, and even filming underneath her skirt.

But these latest - arguably quintessentially Australian posts - seem to show a calmer side to the star.
The nation was gripped when her teenage son Tom ran away from home in the explosive second series finale of Doctor Foster.

But Suranne Jones revealed there are 'no plans' for a third series of the hit BBC drama.

Chatting to Graham Norton in scenes set to air on Sunday, the 39-year-old actress said she was simply 'too busy' to sign up for another series as she joined Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron on the sofa.

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Speaking out: Suranne Jones revealed there are 'no plans' for a third series of the hit BBC drama in scenes set to air on Graham Norton's New Year's Eve special

She said: 'There are no plans because everyone is busy and I am working all of next year so I just don't know.

'I've never done a show before where people got so behind it. You couldn't binge watch it so I think it had that 'water cooler' effect and people loved it.'

She added: 'People are quite disappointed that I am quite nice when they meet me and not mad like my character.'

Hectic schedule: The 39-year-old actress said she was simply 'too busy' to sign up for another series as she joined Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron on the sofa

Suranne looked radiant as she showed off her famous figure in a tailored black suit for the chat show appearance.

She teased a glimpse of her lacy vest under her fitted blazer and accentuated her slim legs with a pair of open toe boots.

The BAFTA award-winner oozed glamour as she styled her glossy brunette tresses in loose waves and complemented her youthful complexion with blush-swept cheeks and a slick of pink lipstick.

The English beauty looked in high spirits as she jokingly told Graham about an awkward moment following her steamy sex scene with Simon, played by Bertie Carvel.

She said: 'I was walking in the woods with my two-year-old just after the hate sex scene aired and we are singing and picking up sticks when we passed some people who wanted to stop and chat about the scene. And, I'm like, 'Perhaps not right now.'

Glowing: Suranne looked radiant as she showed off her famous figure in a tailored black suit for the chat show appearance

After much speculation over how the show would end, the Doctor Foster finale saw Gemma (Suranne) setting her cheating ex-husband Simon up to commit suicide, but saving his life with just seconds to spare.

However, she then discovered that her son Tom had run away with his life seemingly in danger, in a shocking twist.

It was revealed ahead of the final episode that a third series is not in the works - but show creator Mike Bartlett later teased there is a 'question mark' over the ending, which leaves the door open for more.

Drama: After much speculation over how the show would end, the Doctor Foster finale saw Gemma (Suranne) setting her cheating ex-husband Simon up to commit suicide, but saving his life with just seconds to spare

Return of Doctor Foster? It was revealed ahead of the final episode that a third series is not in the works - but show creator Mike Bartlett later teased there is a 'question mark' over the ending, which leaves the door open for more

Also joining her on the show was actor Hugh Jackman, who looked dapper in a navy suit and patterned red tie.

The 49-year-old was joined by co-stars Zac Efron and Zendaya as he chatted with Graham about his role as P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman.

He said: 'It was a great fit. I loved it. To be in a movie musical is a dream and it doesn't come along that often. I am a ham from way back and I thought, 'If I'm not good in this part then I will never be good again.'

Hollywood actor: The 49-year-old was joined by co-stars Zac Efron and Zendaya as he chatted with Graham about his role as P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman

Speaking about his battle with basal cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer he added: 'There was a lot riding on the final read through  there were a lot of people there with cheque books  but I'd had a skin cancer removed from my nose the day before and my surgeons said I must not on any account sing because it could rupture the 80 stitches.

'A stand in was going to sing my part, but when it came to the big final number I was so taken up by the moment that I sang my heart out.

'When I finished it was a good show biz moment and everyone was happy but there was blood trickling down my face and I had to be re-stitched. But, it was so worth it.'

The Graham Norton Show airs on BBC One on Sunday 31st December at 10.20pm.

Star-studded line up: The Graham Norton Show New Year's Eve special stars Gary Oldman, Suranne Jones, Hugh Jackman, Zendaya and Zac Efron
She became engaged to her former AFL player beau on Wednesday.

And fashion blogger Elle Ferguson's engagement to Joel Patfull has been made all the more significant thanks to a special family connection.

The 33-year-old's stunning five-carat sparkler was secretly designed by her jeweller sister Lucie Ferguson, and includes a beautiful tribute to their late mother Kim Ferguson.

'I wanted to make sure she was with her on the special day': How Elle Ferguson's incredible 5-carat engagement ring from beau Joel Patfull included a touching tribute to her late mum Kim

Lucie, who designs Babyanything jewellery, created the 5.01 carat brilliant cut oval diamond ring in platinum after Joel approached her for help.

'It was a total secret between Joel and myself. Joel came and asked me for Elle's hand in marriage and after we both stopped crying we started straight on the ring,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'We had to keep a secret from Elle about the ring and the plan for the proposal and she is impossible to keep secrets from, but we pulled it off!'

Stunning: Lucie, who designs Babyanything jewellery, created the 5.01 carat brilliant cut oval diamond ring in platinum after Joel approached her for help

Beautiful: The ring includes diamonds set into the entire band, with a special stone added as tribute to their mother Kim, who died of cancer in 2015

Inspired others: The brave cancer fighter made headlines before her death when she decided to document her daily outfits on Instagram rather than focus on her terminal illness

The ring includes diamonds set into the entire band, with a special stone added as tribute to their mother Kim, who died of cancer in 2015.

The brave cancer fighter made headlines before her death when she decided to document her daily outfits on Instagram rather than focus on her terminal illness.

'I set one Aquamarine stone in the centre at the bottom among the diamonds as that is our mother's birthstone and I wanted to make sure she was with Elle on the special day and throughout her life,' Lucie explained.

'The Aquamarine was the colour of our mum's eyes and also the water at Wategos Beach where Joel proposed, so it all tied in beautifully.'

Sworn to secrecy: Lucie designed the ring with Joel

Happy news: On Thursday, Elle took to Instagram to reveal she had become engaged to Joel after less than two years of dating

'Elle has always mentioned that if she were to get married she wouldnt have a wedding ring': Despite designing the enormous sparkler for Elle, Lucie said wouldn't be creating a wedding band to go with the ring

Despite designing the enormous sparkler for Elle, Lucie said she wouldn't be creating a wedding band to go with the ring.

'Elle has always mentioned that if she were to get married she wouldnt have a wedding ring, she would be happy with a beautiful engagement ring and that would be enough,' she said.

'She actually joked to me once that all Joel would need was a piece of string for her ring and she would be happy, but I know now she is happy for the upgrade!'

On Thursday, Elle took to Instagram to reveal she had become engaged to Joel after less than two years of dating.

Secluded spot: The beauty shared a series of heartfelt snaps on Instagram, revealing Joel had popped the question at Wategos Beach

The beauty shared a series of heartfelt snaps on Instagram, revealing Joel had popped the question at Wategos Beach, in New South Wales' Byron Bay on Wednesday.

In one photo the newly engaged couple could be seen embracing on the beach, while another snap showed them sitting on the sand next to initials of their names.

'When the man of your dreams proposes with the most incredible ring handmade by your beautiful sister,' Elle captioned a black and white shot of their hands.
She kept her eyes firmly on her phone as she left her car with a valet in Beverly Hills on Thursday.

Naya Rivera seemed anxious to keep in contact with someone as she walked across the parking lot holding her cell phone up.

The smiling 30-year-old Glee alum was dressed in black from head to foot.

On the go: Naya Rivera kept her eyes down as she left her car with a valet in Beverly Hills on Thursday after filing for divorce from actor Ryan Dorsey

She donned a baggy black knitted sweater over skin-tight leggings and high-top sneakers with the tongues pulled out.

The beautiful actress even covered up her brunette hair with a jaunty black cap.

It's been a difficult holiday season for Naya who earlier this month cited irreconcilable differences in filing for divorce from husband, actor Ryan Dorsey, 34, in Los Angeles Superior Court, The Blast reported on December 5.

The Santa Clarita, California native, asked the court to split legal custody for their two-year-old son, Josey Hollis Dorsey, according to the website.

Staying with a single color: The 30-year-old Glee alum was dressed in black from head to foot

She also petitioned the court to eliminate spousal support for either herself or Ryan, who's been seen on shows such as Pitch, Ray Donovan and The Vampire Diaries.

In her filing, Naya cited November 24 as their latest separation date - a day before she was arrested in connection with misdemeanor domestic battery following a fight they had while visiting his native West Virginia for Thanksgiving.

Ryan told police that the actress had hit his head and face, and had marks consistent with his claims plus video footage documenting the altercation, authorities with the Kanawha County Sheriffs Office said.

Stepping out: The actress was glued to her cell phone as she walked along

He later took to Twitter to make an appeal for privacy during the difficult time.

'This isn't some reality show, this is our life, and I ask that everyone especially "the media" please respect our privacy and treat us/this situation how you would want a loved one to be treated.'

In October the Devious Maids beauty asked the court to eliminate her initial divorce filing from Dorsey, dated November 15, 2016.

She will next be seen on the big screen opposite Charlie Sheen and her one-time beau David Spade in camping comedy Mad Families, due out January 12.
He is the bookmakers favourite to land the part of the next James Bond.

But James Norton has told punters to keep their money in their pocket, dismissing claims he is set for the coveted role as pure speculation.

The 32-year-old actor, whose latest television drama sees him donning a 007-esque dinner jacket  doing little to dispel rumours he is being lined-up to replace Daniel Craig  insists he has not been approached by producers.

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No move: James Norton, whose latest television drama sees him donning a 007-esque dinner jacket  doing little to dispel rumours he is being lined-up to replace Daniel Craig  insists he has not been approached by producers

Speaking about his tuxedo opening scene in new BBC series, McMafia, he tells the Radio Times: I did say to James Watkins, the director, are you just baiting me and stoking the rumour fire with scenes like that?

When its reported in the press, people assume that Ive co-ordinated the scene, but I promise you I didnt. The truth is that its total speculation.

Its really humbling and flattering, but to have my name [talked up for Bond] next to the likes of Tom Hardy and Michael Fassbender is just mad. If youre thinking of putting a bet on me, keep your money in your pocket.

Opening up: Its really humbling and flattering, but to have my name [talked up for Bond] next to the likes of Tom Hardy and Michael Fassbender is just mad. If youre thinking of putting a bet on me, keep your money in your pocket,' he told the Radio Times

While Craig, 49, will appear in the 2019 film, he has not yet committed to further movies.

Instead stars including Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston, Henry Cavill plus Fassbender, 40, and Hardy, 40, have all been linked to the double agent movies.

Indeed, ahead of the new eight part BBC One series about the Russian mafia, the Bafta-nominated star has overtaken Hardy as bookies favourite to land the lucrative contract - placing him at odds-on with 1-2 to be the next Bond.

Main man: Daniel Craig, who first took over from Pierce Brosnan as the suave British spy in 2005, has starred in four Bond movies to date

Craig, who first took over from Pierce Brosnan as the suave British spy in 2005, has starred in four Bond movies to date.

In landing the part, he became the sixth actor to play Ian Flemings famous spy.

The latest edition of Radio Times is out now.
He's the magician who was left crestfallen after being sent home by Sophie Monk on The Bachelorette.

And having kept a relatively low profile since his reality show dumping, Apollo Jackson re-appeared on Friday, spending some quality time with his mother, Sue.

The 24-year-old went casual for his familial date, wearing a simple white polo shirt and a pair of pastel blue shorts.

Ta-da! Bachelorette magician Apollo Jackson re-appears on a day out with mum Sue after failing to find love with Sophie Monk on the hit reality showty show

He matched his outfit with a pair of white trainers and a pair of green ankle socks.

Sue, meanwhile went for a summery look in a patterned sleeveless frock with a tasseled hem.

In keeping with the summer vibe, she matched this with a pair of thongs and a pair of dark sunglasses.

The pair looked chuffed to be in each other's company and looked to have shared a joke, with both Apollo and Sue visibly chuckling as they strolled.

Hitting back: Having gone back to trying to forge a career in the world of magic since his rejection by Sophie, Apollo was recently forced to hit back at 'trolls' who had criticised his chosen profession

Strong words: 'I have had a few messages, people not happy that I've gone back to entertaining full time, back to charity work and back to working my butt off. I feel it's super lame to do but I just want to leave this here,' he wrote

Having gone back to trying to forge a career in the world of magic since his rejection by Sophie, Apollo was recently forced to hit back at 'trolls' who had criticised his chosen profession.

In a lengthy Instagram post, Apollo claimed that he had been targeted by anonymous keyboard warriors since leaving the Bachelorette mansion.

'I'm an entertainer, that's what I do for work... I do it because I love it, I don't care about the money,' he wrote.

The post continued; 'I have had a few messages, people not happy that I've gone back to entertaining full time, back to charity work and back to working my butt off. I feel it's super lame to do but I just want to leave this here.'

Apollo has been given a second chance at love after it was announced that he will join the cast of the debut Channel Ten series Bachelor In Paradise, expected to air early 2018.
She's the high powered PR boss currently enjoying a well deserved holiday on the Gold Coast.

But despite her restful holiday, Roxy Jacenko needed a caffeine boost on Friday morning.

The 37-year-old put on a leggy display in denim shorts as she grabbed a coffee with husband Oliver Curtis.

But first, coffee: Roxy Jacenko puts on a leggy display in denim shorts as the PR maven gets a morning caffeine hit with husband Oliver Curtis during Gold Coast holiday

Roxy showed off her toned legs in a pair of denim cut offs, pairing them with a white T-shirt from Louis Vuitton and Supreme's sought after capsule collection.

Hiding her eyes behind oversized designer shades, the PR maven accessorised with white sneakers and a red quilted Chanel handbag.

Sporting her signature golden tan, Roxy wore her long blonde locks out in relaxed waves.

Stylish: Hiding her eyes behind oversized designer shades, the PR maven accessorised with white sneakers and a red quilted Chanel handbag

Breakfast date: Roxy could be seen crossing a Gold Coast street before heading to a cafe with husband Oliver, who was casually attired in a button down shirt and shorts

Roxy could be seen crossing a Gold Coast street before heading to a cafe with husband Oliver, who was casually attired in a button down shirt and shorts.

The loved up pair's breakfast date saw them leave behind their two children six-year-old Pixie and three-year-old Hunter, who are also on holidays with them.

The high profile Sydney family are believed to be spending New Year's Eve on the Gold Coast.

Sparked second wedding rumours: On Wednesday, the PR maven shared a photo of her and Oliver meeting with a Rabbi

Got proposed to a second time: Roxy and Oliver reunited in July after a period of estrangement while the former investment banker was serving a 12 month gaol term for insider trading.

Roxy recently sparked rumours she may be having a second wedding to Oliver while on holidays.

On Wednesday, the PR maven shared a photo of her and Oliver meeting with a Rabbi.

Roxy and Oliver reunited in July after a period of estrangement while the former investment banker was serving a 12 month gaol term for insider trading.

Previously tied the knot: Roxy and Oliver first wed in a lavish 2012 ceremony

When will it happen? Roxy has stayed quiet on any details about when and where the couple will remarry, but teased fans with a photo of her in a wedding dress in October. Pictured at their first wedding in 2012

But upon his release in June the couple went on holiday with their kids to Bali, with Oliver proposing again after their return.

So far, Roxy has stayed quiet on any details about when and where the couple will remarry, but teased fans with a photo of her in a wedding dress in October.

'Oli wants to get married again, and I don't,' she told Daily Mail Australia that same month.

'I don't feel like I need the fanfare and I'd rather purchase property.'

'Weddings are expensive and I just think it's a depreciating asset - property is an appreciating asset,' she continued.
Attenborough and The Empire Of The Ants (BBC2)

Rating:

Still Open All Hours (BBC1)

Rating:



Unnerving little blighters, ants . . . marching in columns out of their nests on a spring morning, they look as though they are goose-stepping like Soviet soldiers on parade in Red Square.

If the zoom lenses used to film the documentary Attenborough And The Empire Of The Ants (BBC2) had been fitted with microphones, we might have heard them singing Stalinist anthems in rousing choruses.

Sir David was studying a supercolony of half a billion tiny communists in the Swiss Jura mountains, an ant society that has ditched its old monarchies and embraced international socialism.

Sir David was studying a supercolony of half a billion tiny communists in the Swiss Jura mountains, an ant society that has ditched its old monarchies

Infra-red cameras wriggled into the nests, watching the ants as they hibernated or laboured in the reproduction chambers

Queens no longer rule these anthills: instead, they have become slaves to the workers, who force them to breed in underground egg factories.

All the old boundaries between nests have been swept aside. Like cities linked by a grid of motorways, thousands of anthills are now connected by trails through the spruce forests. The colonies trade in reserves of antiseptic tree resin, which fends off disease.

Sir David hailed all this as a giant leap for insect evolution. Thats the problem with scientists  they are so excited by their discoveries that they cant see the looming disaster. If all the worlds trillions of six-legged socialists join forces, well be facing Antmageddon. Luckily, weve got technology on our side, and this one-off documentary was laden with it.

Infra-red cameras wriggled into the nests, watching the ants as they hibernated or laboured in the reproduction chambers.

In crystalline slow-motion, we saw each hunter ant stretch wide its barbed jaws and hurl itself at the spider like a barbaric weapon

The pictures had a sepia tinge, but their detail was exceptional: eggs resembled clusters of rugby balls, and the beads of honeydew that workers fed by mouth to the queens were glistening mirror balls.

Tiny lenses from mobile phones, arrayed in a Meccano contraption that the film crew nicknamed Frank, panned over the anthills and through the grass to give us an insects eye view.

Extended AD of the night The Secret Life Of 5 Year Olds On Holiday (C4) was essentially one long plug for the sponsor, a travel company whose name flashed up everywhere. That's the best bit of New Year... planning your summer escape. Advertisement

But the most striking moments came during a hunt among wildflowers, when a posse of ants gave chase to a panicking female spider with a bundle of eggs clasped to her abdomen.

In crystalline slow-motion, we saw each hunter ant stretch wide its barbed jaws and hurl itself at the spider like a barbaric weapon. Once one hit home, more piled in, until the spider was torn apart.

Sir David described the kill as resembling a pride of lions taking down a buffalo. But lions sleep after a hunt. The ants just kept killing. They were more like a swarm of medieval robots, on an endless frenzy of destruction. Antmageddon is going to be no fun at all.

When the ants take over, the last place on Earth to hear about it will be the Yorkshire town where Granville (David Jason) runs Arkwrights corner shop in Still Open All Hours (BBC1).

This Christmas special bubble of nostalgia  charmingly outdated even when Ronnie Barker was the stuttering shopkeeper and Granville was a tousled lad in a tank-top  isnt so much a sitcom as half an hour of small talk

This Christmas special bubble of nostalgia  charmingly outdated even when Ronnie Barker was the stuttering shopkeeper and Granville was a tousled lad in a tank-top  isnt so much a sitcom as half an hour of small talk.

The assorted widows and divorcees of the street met, as they always do, around a kitchen table, to exchange gossip about any available middle-aged men.

Granvilles son Leroy (James Baxter) was on the pull as ever, this time chatting up a local vegan lass waving a meat is murder placard outside the shop.

One day itll be Leroy in the brown apron, battling the dyspeptic cash register and diddling customers out of pennies. But in the outside world, the ants will have control.
She had to cancel a girls' trip to New York after losing her passport but then reconciled it by travelling to her hometown of Melbourne to surprise her mum with a Christmas visit.

And it looks as though quality time with family is good for Home And Away star Sam Frost.

The 28-year-old showed off her flawless, glowing complexion in a makeup-free selfie she shared on Friday.

Looking fresh! Sam Frost shows off her radiant complexion as she shares another makeup free picture of herself

In the Instagram picture the blonde star used sunlight to her advantage and its brightness seemingly bleached out any imperfections.

Sam is usually a fan of the minimal make up look and often opts for a nude or pale pink lip and a simple sweep of mascara.

However, the blonde went all-out glamour for a recent night out with friends.

With a fresh spray tan, she showcased her cleavage in a dress with a plunging neckline and wore bright red lipstick.

Styling her locks in loose waves, she opted for large metallic hoop earrings.

Glammed up! Sam is usually a fan of the minimal make up look but she went all-out glamour for a recent night out with friends

Sweet surprise: The 28-year-old travelled from Sydney to Melbourne to surprise her mum, Debbie, for Christmas

Cute: Enjoying the comforts of home life back in Melbourne, she also shared a cute snap of her hand holding a little hand, likely her niece Bridie, both sporting red nails

She also shared a cute snap of her hand holding a little hand, likely her niece Bridie, both sporting with red manicures and the hand-written caption: 'Matching'.

The Bachelorette star's Melbourne jaunt happened after she misplaced her passport, which left her unable to travel with her girlfriends to New York.

She took to Instagram to share her anguish at losing her passport, calling herself the 'world's most useless human'.

But Sam made the most of the situation by driving down to Melbourne to surprise her mother Debbie.

Oh dear! Sam took to Instagram to share her anguish at losing her passport, calling herself the 'world's most useless human'

They could be sisters! Sam also showed off the striking resemblance between herself and her mother, Debbie. In the video Debbie can be seen trying to fish out lollies from a jar using a fork to extract the candy you want to eat

Sam wrote: 'One lost passport. Two week holiday with my girls to New York in the bin Last minute 10 hour roadie Sydney to Melbourne to surprise my mum for Christmas... totally worth it.'

The actress also shared a video of her mother, Debbie, trying to fish lollies out of a jar while ignoring her 'hack'; using a fork to extract the candy you want to eat.

In a video shared to Instagram the former reality star bears a striking resemblance to her mum.

Sporting blonde locks and a similar petite build, both Sam and her mother Debbie look alike.
He recently revealed that he is expecting his first child with girlfriend Jen Harley.

And confirming the news once again via social media, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro debuted his love's blossoming baby bump on Instagram, as he told fans he 'couldn't be more excited' over the prospect of becoming a father.

The Jersey Shore star, 32, was seen kneeling by his girlfriend to cradle her pronounced bump, as they posed together in New York City on Tuesday.

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Proud papa! Reality TV star Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, 32, debuted girlfriend Jen Harley's blossoming baby bump on Instagram, as he told fans he 'couldn't be more excited' over the prospect of becoming a father

The proud daddy-to-be posted a gushing message alongside the sweet photo of the couple where he thanked his followers for their support since revealing his baby joy and joked that having a child is the same as having a puppy.

Ronnie penned: 'Thank you to everyone who has been supportive with advice & encouragement. People keep saying becoming a parent is the part of life. Ive been blessed enough to have SOO MANY best parts of my life #NotSureIfThatMakesSense I couldnt be more excited to be taking this next step in my life!'

He then undoubtedly entertained fans by adding a number of amusing hashtags that read: '#IHearItsLikeHavingAPuppy #ExceptItCries #Talks #EventuallyDrives #EatsEvery2Hours #ShitsEvery23Mins #Naps40TimesADay #Needs4DifferentEducations #GoesToProm #YupICanSeeHowItsLikeHavingAPuppy #MyDogsPromNightWasTheBestDayOfMyLife #ThanksEveryoneWhoHasBeenSupportive #SpecialThanksToMyOtherHalf.'

New addition: The Jersey Shore star and girlfriend Jen (pictured above in September) announced in an interview with Us Weekly that they are expecting their first child, a daughter, together

Smitten: Gushing over his girlfriend, Ronnie had shared a photo of the couple on Instagram on Friday and wrote the caption: 'Things in life never goes as planned or ever happen the way you expect it! #BestFriend #MyLife #LoveHer'

Currently preparing to incorporate daddy duties into his 'Gym, Tan, Laundry' routine he was famed for on MTV show Jersey Shore, Ronnie first announced he and Jen are expecting in an interview with Us Weekly.

The reality star revealed girlfriend Jen is six months pregnant and the couple are set to welcome a girl when she gives birth next year. He joked that 'every guy wants a boy', but claimed he was raised with sisters so is 'used to being around girls'.

While their new arrival will be Ronnie's first child, it will be Jen's second as she is already mum to an 11-year-old son from a previous relationship.

Meanwhile, Ronnie has been leaning on his Jersey Shore co-stars for advice on becoming a father.

Family: While their new arrival will be Ronnie's first child, it will be Jen's second as she is already mum to an 11-year-old son from a previous relationship

He added: 'They all went through different experiences which is great.'

Ronnie is set to make a return to screens when the Jersey Shore cast reunite in 2018 for a 'family vacation' series.

The original series ran on MTV from 2009 to 2012 and fans were left hooked by Ronnie's tumultuous relationship with former castmember Sammi 'Sweetheart' Giancola - who will not be returning for the reunion series.

Speaking of her absence, Ronnie told TooFab: 'It's something she chose to do and it's her choice, so you know, as someone who was around her forever, you gotta respect that.

'We all respect that and we just wish her the best. If she's happy and she's in an amazing place, God bless her, and we all really do just wish her the best and nothing but good things for her.'

Back onscreen: Ronnie is set to make a return to screens when the Jersey Shore cast reunite in 2018 for a 'family vacation' series

'I've gone my own direction and all I can really do is worry about myself and all she can do is worry about herself.'

Meanwhile, Paul 'Pauly D' Delvecchio, Jenni 'JWOWW' Farley, Vinny Guadagnino, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi, and Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino and Deena Nicole Cortese have all been confirmed for the reunion series.

The hit series has since spawned a legion of copycat series, including the UK's long-running show Geordie Shore set in Newcastle and featuring the likes of Gaz Beadle, Charlotte Crosby, Holly Hagan, Chloe Ferry, Marnie Simpson and Aaron Chalmers over the years.

Since starring on Jersey Shore, Ronnie had appeared on reality show Famously Single where he struck up a romance with Khloe Kardashian's BFF Malika Haqq, 34. The duo split in February, earlier this year.

Absent: The original series ran on MTV from 2009 to 2012 and fans were left hooked by Ronnie's tumultuous relationship with former castmember Sammi 'Sweetheart' Giancola - who will not be returning for the reunion series
She gained critical acclaim for her role as Rachel Zane in the US legal drama, Suits.

And Meghan Markle reportedly caught the eye of 007 producers while playing the paralegal last year.

The 36-year-old actress was said to be shortlisted as Daniel Craig's next Bond girl but her blossoming romance with Prince Harry ruled her out of the line-up.

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In demand: Meghan Markle reportedly caught the eye of 007 producers while playing Rachel Zane in US legal drama Suits last year

A film source told The Sun: 'Meghan fits the role of a Bond girl perfectly. She's glamorous and sexy and a good actress.

'The role more recently has gone to actresses deemed to be rising stars, and Meghan certainly was seen as that before her relationship with Harry became public.

'The brief was to find a glamorous rising star, specifically someone American or Canadian.'

The 36-year-old actress was said to be shortlisted as Daniel Craig's next Bond girl but her blossoming romance with Prince Harry ruled her out of the line-up

According to reports, Meghan was one of five actresses narrowed down to play Craig's love interest in Bond 25, with Baywatch star Ilfenesh Hadera, 32 also making the shortlist.

However her emerging relationship with Harry hindered plans, with producers assuming she was out of the running.

The source added the engagement was the 'final blow' as the humanitarian prepared to retire from her acting career to focus on royal duties.

Flirty: According to reports, Meghan was one of five actresses narrowed down to play Craig's love interest in Bond 25, with Baywatch star Ilfenesh Hadera, 32 also making the shortlist

Loved-up: However her emerging relationship with Harry hindered plans, with producers assuming she was out of the running

Harry revealed a year ago he had fallen for the actress after a four to six month secret relationship.

And the 33-year-old declared his love as he popped the question to the American beauty in London last month.

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.

In a statement Her Majesty and Prince Philip said they were 'delighted for the couple and wish them every happiness' following their announcement.

Talented: The American beauty gained critical acclaim for her role as Rachel Zane in the US legal drama, Suits

New ventures: The source added the engagement was the 'final blow' as the humanitarian prepared to retire from her acting career to focus on royal duties

Harry and Megan, 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 Kate.

The happy couple will marry on May 19 at Windsor Castle's famous St George's chapel.

The pair 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.

MailOnline has contacted Kensington Palace for comment.

Sweet: Harry revealed a year ago he had fallen for the actress after a four to six month secret relationship
After flaunting her youthful figure poolside in sunnier locations last week, Pettifleur Berenger has opted for a change in climate.

The Real Housewives Of Melbourne star had made her way to New York City, which in the midst of winter and has seen the mercury drop as low as -7 degrees Celsius.

And in a snap posted to the reality TV star's Instagram on Thursday, the 53-year-old appeared to be struggling to adjust to the chillier weather during the festive season

Feeling the chill? RHOM star Pettifleur Berenger braved sub-zero temperatures in New York for Christmas, and shared the results on her Instagram on Thursday

'My face was getting frozen and I couldnt feel my lips. So this is how I walked around Manhattan,' she wrote on social media.

The accompanying photo showed her rugged up in a grey beanie with a thick black wool scarf obscuring much of her face.

Her followers were quick to weigh in with their thoughts on Pettifleur's struggle in the cold.

'It just stabs you right in the face doesn't it. I had never felt cold like it before. Almost makes Melbourne's winter feel warm lol' one wrote.

Another offered: 'You look gorgeous even with a scarf around you.'

'You look gorgeous even with a scarf around you': The reality TV star's followers were quick to weigh in with their thoughts on Pettifleur's struggle in the cold

However, it appeared the weather didn't deter Pettifleur from checking out the famous sights of the Big Apple.

Posting to her Instagram Story, the Hell's Kitchen Australia participant shared scenic snaps.

One photo, taken on the Empire State Building and featuring her son Nathan was captioned: 'Freedom tower in the background'.

Didn't let the cold stop her! Despite the freezing temperatures, the TV personality made sure to check out New York's most famous sights

'Freedom tower in the background': In one snap Pettifleur cosied up to her son Nathan (left)

The outing was a stark contrast to how Pettifleur celebrated turning 53.

Holidaying in both Florida and Mexico, she showed off her enviable figure in several racy poolside snaps.

Wearing a figure-flaunting white bikini top and patterned briefs, the stunner defied her years in the sultry shots.
History, classics and costume dramas are the mainstay of 2018s TV highlights, as television turns to the past for the greatest stories ever told.

Everywhere you look next year youll see lavish epics and historic headlines brought to life. This is not an accident. Telly execs have taken a look ruthlessly at the most successful shows of the past few years and drawn inspiration, now hoping to create even bigger successes.

We loved the gigantic sweep of War And Peace  so heres another 19th-century mega-novel, Vanity Fair, reimagined in splendid detail. We cant get enough of mythical romance and slaughter in Game Of Thrones  now get ready for the original, a story as old as civilisation based on Homers epic poem The Iliad, as two ancient kingdoms clash in Troy.

The Homeric adventure stars David Threlfall as King Priam and Louis Hunter as his vain, air-headed son Paris, who sparks all-out war by plunging into a passionate love affair with the divinely beautiful Helen (Bella Dayne)

The nation was gripped by Doctor Foster, the psychological drama about a woman capable of anything as she fought for survival  just like Sheridan Smith in Clean Break, in which she stars as a gambling addict willing to commit any crime to hold her life together.

And for audiences hypnotised by the vivid modern history of The Crown, well dive into a murky world of sex and attempted murder, with Hugh Grant as Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe in A Very English Scandal.

Ring out the old, bring in the new  it promises to be better than ever.

THE BIG SHOWS

Troy (BBC1)

Why you must tune in: Its the ultimate swords-and-sandals epic.

WHAT ITS ABOUT: Telling the story of the Trojans, besieged in their doomed city by the Ancient Greeks, this Homeric adventure stars David Threlfall as King Priam and Louis Hunter as his vain, air-headed son Paris, who sparks all-out war by plunging into a passionate love affair with the divinely beautiful Helen (Bella Dayne)  the woman whose face famously launched a thousand ships.

Jonas Armstrong is Menelaos, the jealous Greek king who vows to destroy Troy in revenge, while David Gyasi is Achilles.

The story has been filmed many times before, most recently with Brad Pitt as Achilles and Orlando Bloom as Paris  not to mention The Trojan Horse, a 1961 Italian production billed as a surging spectacle of savagery and sex.

Vanity Fair (ITV)

Why you must tune in: Becky Sharp is the liveliest heroine in all literature.

WHAT ITS ABOUT: For many, its the greatest novel in the English language  more comical than Dickens, more trenchant than Austen. Vanity Fair, like the tale of Troy, has been filmed many times, but each generation finds something newly relevant.

This time, Olivia Cooke is the sly and scheming Becky Sharp. The novel has been adapted by Gwyneth Hughes, who calls it a cavalcade of villainy, crime, merriment, lovemaking, jilting, laughing, cheating, fighting and dancing

This time, Olivia Cooke is the sly and scheming Becky Sharp  a role played previously by Susan Hampshire and Reese Witherspoon. Michael Palin is the author, William Makepeace Thackeray, narrating his own story, while Suranne Jones is the snobbish teacher Miss Pinkerton, Martin Clunes is the pompous, vain Sir Pitt Crawley and Tom Bateman is his son, Captain Rawdon Crawley.

The novel has been adapted by Gwyneth Hughes, who calls it a cavalcade of villainy, crime, merriment, lovemaking, jilting, laughing, cheating, fighting and dancing. And thats only what Becky gets up to . . .

The Woman In White (BBC1)

Why you must tune in: This creepy tale will haunt you.

WHAT ITS ABOUT: From the moment Walter Hartright (Ben Hardy) meets a ghostly woman dressed all in moonlight-white on a misty road, we are trapped in the claustrophobic world of the classic Victorian ghost story.

This one co-stars Jessie Buckley, Charles Dance and Dougray Scott, and leads us to a madhouse. Its based on the 1860 bestseller by Wilkie Collins, widely regarded as one of the first and greatest sensation novels  the birth of the horror genre.

First filmed in 1912, earlier versions have starred icons including silent-screen queen Blanche Sweet and, in the 1997 television version, Tara Fitzgerald.

A Very English Scandal (BBC1)

Why you must tune in: Almost 40 years on, its still shocking.

WHAT ITS ABOUT: In the late Seventies, Britain was gripped by political headlines that seemed too far-fetched to be possible.

The Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, a married man, was accused of hiring a hitman to kill his gay lover, who had been blackmailing him. Despite all his efforts to hush-up the business, Thorpe stood trial.

Hugh Grant stars as Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, a married man who was accused of hiring a hitman to kill his gay lover Norman Scott played by Ben Wishaw

Written by Russell T. Davies, this three-part drama features Hugh Grant in his first TV role for nearly 25 years as Thorpe  the similarity in their faces, heightened by the five-oclock shadow Grant sports, is uncanny.

Ben Whishaw plays his lover, Norman Scott, while other members of the cast include Patricia Hodge, Jason Watkins and Eve Myles.

The Little Drummer Girl (BBC1)

Why you must tune in: Nobody does it better than le Carre.

WHAT ITS ABOUT: John le Carres thriller The Night Manager was one of the Beebs biggest hits in years, so its no surprise execs are eager for more.

This six-part adventure stars Florence Pugh as Charlie, a young actress holidaying on a Greek island in the Seventies, who is befriended by a dashing stranger (Alexander Skarsgard).

His name is Becker, hes an Israeli intelligence officer  and he isnt looking for romance in the sun.

As Charlie is drawn into a complex international plot, she discovers shes acting a role that could cost her her life.

Clean Break (ITV)

Why you must tune in: Its Mrs Mop vs the bankers.

WHAT ITS ABOUT: In the secretive business of high finance, Sheridan Smith is almost invisible  a cleaner called Sam who vacuums the floors of an office block in Londons banking district.

But Sam has a secret of her own: shes addicted to online gambling. When she overhears two businessmen discussing an illegal deal that could net them millions, she starts to plot a way out of debt. Armed with only a copy of Trading For Dummies and a sheaf of stolen information, she takes on the stock market.

In recent years, dramas such as The Moorside and The C Word have consolidated Smiths status, despite a sometimes erratic career, as one of our most exciting actresses.

Save Me (Sky)

Why you must tune in: Its a compelling psychological thriller.

WHAT ITS ABOUT: Suranne Jones is another actress who has forced her way to the forefront of TV drama over the past couple of years.

Here she is again, this time playing Claire, a single mother living on a London estate whose 13-year-old daughter has gone missing. Claire hasnt seen her ex for a decade, but in her desperation to find her child she puts all past bitterness behind her  and discovers that while shes been bringing up their daughter, former boyfriend Nelly (Lennie James) hasnt changed one scrap. Hes still the charming, useless, womanising waster she fell for as a young woman.

Now, for the first time, he has a chance to do something worthwhile  save his daughters life.

Doctor Foster's Suranne Jones plays Claire, a single mother living on a London estate whose 13-year-old daughter has gone missing in Sky's new mini series

Kiss Me First (C4)

Why you must tune in: Youve never seen anything quite like this.

WHAT ITS ABOUT: Despite the global domination of social media and the worldwide threat of the dark web, TV dramas have struggled to reflect our new electronic existence.

This cutting-edge thriller blends live action with computer graphics to tell the story of a shy 19-year-old drawn into a web-based game where her own life is at stake. Tallulah Haddon plays Leila, a lonely game-player befriended online by a party-loving girl called Tess, who invites her to try Red Pill  not a drug, but an addictive game run by a psychopath.

The deeper Leila strays into Red Pill, the more she loses touch with reality.

Collateral (BBC2)

Why you must tune in: The cast alone is unmissable.

WHAT ITS ABOUT: Set over four days, this fast-paced thriller from Sir David Hare traces the chaotic consequences of a murder after a pizza-delivery man is shot.

John Simm, Nicola Walker and Billie Piper all feature  plus Hollywoods Carey Mulligan as a stubborn Detective Inspector determined to find the killer. But to do that she first has to strip bare the personal lives of many people, including a senior politician and a troubled vicar, who would prefer to keep their secrets.

This is Hares first TV drama for three years, and though the Oscar-winning playwright has been writing for the BBC since 1973, this is the first full TV series he has conceived himself.

Animals With Cameras (BBC1)

Why you must tune in: Its an entirely new way to see the animal kingdom.

WHAT ITS ABOUT: Brilliant wildlife film-maker Gordon Buchanan is handing his cameras to the real stars of the show, hanging video lenses around the necks of chimpanzees, seals, bears and even meerkats.

Its a brilliant notion made possible by advances in technology which mean pin-sharp footage can be captured by devices that weigh only a few ounces. The lenses even include thermal cameras for shooting in the pitch-darkness of underground burrows.

Gordons biggest challenge, as this three-part series begins, is getting the cameras on to the wild animals in the first place.

Asking a meerkat to turn cameraman is tricky enough  but how do you strap a collar on a bear?
She's currently in Australia enjoying a well-deserved break with family and friends.

But unfortunately for lingerie model Simone Holtznagel her holiday hasn't just been rest and relaxation.

The 24-year-old Guess girl took to Instagram on Friday to reveal she was getting a blood transfusion after discovering she is 'seriously anemic'.

'When you f**king hate needles': Lingerie model Simone Holtznagel gets a blood transfusion after discovering she is 'seriously anemic'

The blonde beauty shared a photo to social media of her lying on a hospital bed as she got a blood transfusion.

Wearing sunglasses and sporting a serious expression, in the photo's caption Simone revealed the procedure was extra difficult because she was frightened of needles.

'Finding out your seriously anemic when you f**king hate needles.. thats a paddlin,' Simone wrote.

Braving her phobia: The busty model also shared a photo of herself on the hospital bed to Instagram, writing that she was 'blockin out the haters'

The busty model also shared a photo of herself on the hospital bed to Instagram, writing that she was 'blockin out the haters'.

Posting a video as she got the transfusion, Simone can be heard thanking her mum for supporting her through the procedure.

'When you're terrified of needles and you get sent to the baby room,' she captioned the social media clip.

Wollongong-raised Simone rose to fame after coming runner-up on Australia's Next Top Model in 2011.

Reality TV start: Wollongong-raised Simone rose to fame after coming runner-up on Australia's Next Top Model in 2011

Hit the big time: The beauty has since found international success, landing a prestigious gig modelling for denim brand Guess

The beauty has since found international success, landing a prestigious gig modelling for denim brand Guess.

But while she is famous for her curves, Simone told news.com.au in September she wouldn't make it as a Victoria's Secret model.

'I know a couple of girls who have done it and they train like all day everyday and I really like a glass of wine and spaghetti,' she explained.

'I would need to set aside a good five months of my life and lock myself in a gym if thats what I was going to do.'
She's the reality TV star turned Instagram sensation known for her racy social media posts.

And Skye Wheatley's plans for 2018 don't appear to see her diverting from her trend of posting scantily clad photos online, the Big Brother contestant sharing a revealing snap to Instagram while toasting the upcoming new year.

A photo shared on Friday showed the surgically enhanced blonde showcasing her pert derriere in a G-string as she raised a glass of champagne.

Bottoms up! Skye Wheatley toasts a glass of champagne as she shares cheeky new year message while showcasing her pert derriere in a G-string

In the revealing social media post, Skye poses in front of a window overlooking Sydney harbour.

With her back to the camera, the buxom blogger wears a towel around her hair and a cropped tee, showing off her shapely behind in a black G-string.

'Cheers to this year being even better then the last the count down is owwwwnnnnaaahhhhhh,' Skye captioned the photo.

She's not shy! Skye is certainly no stranger to sharing revealing photos on social media

Went under the knife: Rising to fame as a contestant on the last season of Big Brother in 2014, Skye has continued to make headlines thanks to her many surgical enhancements

Rising to fame as a contestant on the last season of Big Brother in 2014, Skye has continued to make headlines thanks to her many surgical enhancements.

The social media fanatic traveled to Bangkok in 2015 for a $3,800 breast augmentation.

However, Skye later claimed the surgery was botched, leaving her with a 'double bubble' in one breast.

Since her boob job Skye has plumped her pout with lip fillers and underwent a nose job late last year.

The social media fanatic traveled to Bangkok in 2015 for a $3,800 breast augmentation

Got rhinoplasty: Since her boob job Skye has plumped her pout with lip fillers and underwent a nose job late last year

The busty blonde told Yahoo Be she had the length of her nose shortened and her nostrils shrunk.

'When I woke up from surgery it was really painful because obviously I had just had my face half ripped up,' Skye recounted.

'The surgeon took most of the cartilage out my tip because it was really long and when you looked down at my face from a particular angle, it looked like a witch's nose.

'My nostrils were flared and I just wanted my them brought in and down.'
Not all media calls are created equal.

Hugh Jackman and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore made the most of their press commitments on Friday, clearly having a blast in each other's company.

The pair shared a laugh at a Glebe Island media event held aboard the barge that will send millions of dollars worth of fireworks hurtling into the sky on New Year's Eve.

Sparks fly! Hugh Jackman and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore made the most of their press commitments on Friday, clearly having a blast at a New Year's Eve media call

Pictured standing amongst boxes-upon-boxes of fireworks of all shapes and sizes, Hugh and Clover were clearly enjoying their long-awaited catch-up.

The Greatest Showman Star was seen grabbing onto the Mayor's arm just to keep his balance as the duo traded uproarious chuckles.

Blessed with some milder Sydney summer weather, Hugh also addressed the media ahead of Sunday's world famous fireworks display over the harbour.

Sporting a crisp blue shirt and tight jeans, the Oscar winner happily posed for photographers throughout the brief press stop.

Having a blast! Pictured standing amongst boxes-upon-boxes of fireworks of all shapes and sizes, Hugh and Clover were clearly enjoying their long-awaited catch-up

On Sunday night, the barge where Hugh stood will be a no-go-zone, tasked with entertaining millions of revellers with a dazzling display of sound and colour.

But for now, it's clearly all fun and games on Glebe Island, as the in-demand actor prepares to celebrate another New Year's Eve in his home town.

He's winding down after what was his most taxing year on record, telling TheFix he was looking forward to a rare 'period of unemployment' to begin 2018.

Nice day for it! Blessed with some milder Sydney summer weather, Hugh also addressed the media ahead of Sunday's world famous fireworks display over the harbour

'I'm really proud of everything I've done,' he told the publication last week, 'But I want to just take a little time to reassess and see where I head from here.'

And Hugh couldn't think of a better place than his hometown of Australia to spend his first days of unemployment, he revealed.

'There's nothing like being at home,' he said, offering his biggest smile in some time.
She's been married to the love of her life for over three years.

And Sofia Vergara celebrated the birthday of her husband Joe Manganiello as she posted a sweet tribute to him on Thursday.

'My bday boy, I luv u soo much!' the Modern Family actress, 45, captioned a cute pic of herself and the 41-year-old heartthrob.

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Tribute: Sofia Vergara celebrated the birthday of her husband Joe Manganiello as she posted a sweet tribute to him on Thursday

Daring to impress, the Colombian born stunner rocked a floral tube top that put her ample assets on full display.

Her toned tummy was front and center as the cropped top stopped jsut above her lithe waist.

Always one to look her best, Sofia kept her trademark brunette tresses long and loose as they cascaded over her petite shoulders.

Joe cut a dapper figure in a simple black button-down oxford and grey slacks as he wrapped his arm around his beautiful wife.

Glamour gal: In one sultry shot, she is leaning over in a pink Adirondack chair by a bevy of palm tress and a sand strewn yard in front of a quaint cottage

Hot wheels: In another photograph, Sofia is riding a three-wheeled white bicycle over sandy street with the caption: 'Back to Casa ChipiChipi.'

Sofia also posted pics in the same outfit of herself in a tropical locale where the couple are celebrating the holidays and aforementioned birthday.

In one sultry shot, she is leaning over in a pink Adirondack chair by a bevy of palm tress and a sand strewn yard in front of a quaint cottage.

In another photograph, Sofia is riding a three-wheeled white bicycle over sandy street with the caption: 'Back to Casa ChipiChipi.'

The happy couple got engaged on Christmas Day 2014 after six months of dating, before tying the knot in a romantic ceremony in Palm Beach, Florida, on November 21, 2015.

Stunner: Sofia wore another floral flowy gown for her bike ride

Sun goddess: The sun made a magnificent entrance on her ride

Just before celebrating her second wedding anniversary, Sofia spoke with Ellen DeGeneres about her hunky husband.

'Im very lucky. I must have done something really right in my life to get that reward. Im good, but hes better than me,' she said.

Joe has been equally gushing about his wife in the past, explaining he know she was 'The One' very early on in their relationship.

Paradise lost: Sofia left no clues where she was vacationing with Joe

Speaking in an interview with HOLA! USA in January, he said: 'We realized very early on that we each had to put the other person's happiness and well-being head of our own.

'Once you realize that kind of trust has manifested, you hang on for dear life. Or in my case, you go and buy a ring.'

Sofia's star power seems to only get brighter as she was recently the named highest-paid television actress for the sixth year in a row with earnings of an incredible $42 million in just 12 months.

The actress was previously married to high school sweetheart Joe Gonzalez from 1991 to 1993, with whom she shares son Manolo, 25.
She is fresh from a romantic getaway where her beau Matt Bellamy proposed.

And Elle Evans certainly showed exactly why the Muse rocker fell for her in the first place as she stripped off for a very racy shoot.

The stunning blonde, 28, barely covered her modesty with her hands as she posed topless for a series of snaps.

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No wonder she is his Muse! Matt Bellamy's fiancee Elle Evans went topless as she barely covered her modesty with her hands in racy shoot shortly after announcing engagement

It is love: The lovebirds (pictured together in France, May 2016) have gone from strength to strength ever since they first started dating in 2015

Famed for her stint in Robin Thicke's 2013 Blurred Lines music video, the Paris born beauty courted attention as she only donned a pair of small pink briefs.

The model put all the drama into her golden locks in voluminous curls and heavy eye make-up but it didn't detract away from her sensational figure.

Golden-haired Elle then paraded her incredible physique in a delicate semi-sheer lace lingerie set in a pale pink shade.

Wow: The model put all the drama into her golden locks in voluminous curls and heavy eye make-up but it didn't detract away from her sensational figure

Sensational: Golden-haired Elle then paraded her incredible physique in a delicate semi-sheer lace lingerie set in a pale pink shade

American model Elle broke the news on Instagram during the couple's sun-soaked holiday in Fiji in recent weeks.

The rocker proposed to the stunning model earlier in December ahead of the festive period, according to TMZ.

In the first of the snaps, Elle and Matt can be seen holding hands while riding on horseback as they enjoyed their romantic getaway.

Happiness: She broke the news on Instagram during the couple's romantic getaway in Fiji as she made the announcement with a series of sun-soaked snaps

The stunning blonde then showed off her huge sparkler with 'Congrats Matt loves Elle' written in the sand in the background in the second photograph.

The third photo featured a surprised looking Elle with her engagement band on her ring finger as she clasped her hands around her face in astonishment.

Elle wrote: 'Was going to surprise everyone on Christmas, but just can't wait any longer... We are so happy to announce to the world that we are engaged!

Going strong: The stunning blonde then showed off her huge sparkler with 'Congrats Matt loves Elle' written in the sand in the background in the second photograph

'Just a few days after my birthday, on the most romantic holiday of our lives, the man of my dreams asked me to marry him...

'After tears of joy, gasps of shock, and a split second of disbelief, of course - I said YES! I can't imagine our lives apart.

'What I can imagine is a bright future full of love & light, family & friends, moments that turn into cherished memories, and a lifetime of pure bliss.' (sic)

Must be love: The famous rocker proposed to the stunning model earlier in December ahead of the festive period

The lovebirds have gone from strength to strength ever since they first started dating in 2015.

Rocker Matt has been engaged three times; he first popped the question to Italian psychologist Gaia Polloni and then later to Kate Hudson.

The hunk and the Something Borrowed star got engaged in April 2011 after a year of dating but the couple called it quits on the engagement in 2014.

Former flames Matt and Kate, who is now dating Danny Fujikawa, raise their son Bingham, aged six, together.
They welcomed their first child together in October.

And Bachelor stars Sam Wood and Snezana Markoski have paraded their bundle of joy around town ever since, including to Sam's Perth gym The Woodshed.

This Friday, the cherubic newborn made her first visit to church, with Sam and Snezana sharing the special moment to Instagram.

Feeling blessed! Snezana Markowski and Sam Wood mark newborn daughter Willow's first visit to church with adorable family photos with Pope Stanko on Friday

Posting from within Perth's Macedonian Orthodox Church Saint Nikola, the new parents doted over the child.

The 37-year-old mother was positively glowing in the numerous uploaded snaps from within the lavish place of worship.

The visit appeared to be specifically for baby willow, with the parents believed to have taken the newborn for a blessing by Pope Stanko.

Proud parents! The 37-year-old mother was positively glowing in the numerous uploaded snaps from within the lavish place of worship

Sneazana captioned her post: 'Little Willows first visit to church for Molitva. Thank you to Pope Stanko.'

She also used the hashtags: '#molitva #church #firstvisit #blessings and #coolestpriest.'

Sam and Snezana were also joined by Snezana's 12-year-old daughter Eve.

Molitva is believed to be the religious blessing of a child, where a priest usually conducts the service on the fortieth day after birth.

'Little Willows first visit to church for Molitva': Sam and Snezana were also joined by Snezana's 12-year-old daughter Eve

Loved up! The engaged pair had originally planned to wed in mid 2017, but claimed they would halt wedding plans in May after announcing their pregnancy

Willow was born well over 40 days ago on October 8, but this may not have been the reason for the joyous family's visit to the church.

Meanwhile, Sam shared a gorgeous family photo of the four 'Woods' members for Christmas, sparking rumours Sam and Snezana may have secretly wed.

'Merry Christmas everyone from the Woods. Thanks for having us,' the hunky personal trainer wrote to his 254k followers.

Sam proposed to Snezana in December 2015, while on holiday in Tasmania.

They had originally planned to wed in mid 2017, but claimed they would halt wedding plans in May after announcing their pregnancy.
She was linked to Brooklyn Beckham over the summer, but the pair broke things off to avoid a long-distance romance.

And Madison Beer proved she had moved on from the short-lived fling as she stepped out with new boyfriend, Zack Bia, for a lunch date in Beverly Hills.

Flashing her abs in a skintight crop top, the 18-year-old songstress looked utterly smitten as she strolled along hand-in-hand with her new partner on Thursday.

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New couple alert! Madison Beer looked smitten as she stepped out with new boyfriend, Zack Bia, for a lunch date in Beverly Hills on Thursday

Sweet: Flashing her abs in a skintight crop top, the 18-year-old songstress looked utterly smitten as she strolled along hand-in-hand with her new partner

The couple have been inseparable since going public with their romance earlier this month, enjoying several dates around West Hollywood.

They were seen packing on the PDA while visiting a tattoo parlour on Santa Monica Boulevard on December 7, and were spotted on a shopping trip a week later.

It's not known how long they've been unofficially dating, but Zack posted a loved-up snap of the pair on his Instagram on November 24.

They looked utterly at ease in each other's company on their latest outing, with Madison - who shot to fame as a musical protege of Justin Bieber in 2012 - keeping it casual in joggers and a leather jacket.

Cute: The couple have been inseparable since going public with their romance earlier this month, enjoying several dates around West Hollywood

Former flames: She was linked to Brooklyn Beckham over the summer, but the pair broke things off to avoid a long-distance romance - pictured in June

Proving they were sartorially in tune with each other, she matched her footwear to Zack's red and white Nike Dunk trainers.

Madison seemed to have moved on from her summer romance with Brooklyn - who were reported to have been seeing each other after they were spotted kissing during a shopping trip to Barney's in Beverly Hills in July.

She then appeared to confirm her relationship with Brooklyn, admitting they 'hang out almost every day'.

The Unbreakable songstress - who is based in Los Angeles - has revealed she couldn't continue their romance after Brooklyn relocated to New York City, where he's studying photography.

Speaking to PEOPLE magazine, Madison confessed: 'I can't do long distance.'

Inseparable: It's not known how long they've been unofficially dating, but Zack posted a loved-up snap of the pair on his Instagram on November 24.

New man: They were seen packing on the PDA while visiting a tattoo parlour on Santa Monica Boulevard on December 7, and were spotted on a shopping trip a week later

But she also conceded that their jam-packed schedules made life difficult for the duo.

Before Brooklyn, she dated musician Jack Gilinksy, but they split amid a leaked audio tape which recorded him repeatedly called her a 'f***ing sl*t'.

In the audio clip, which was obtained and posted online by website Pop Crave in July, Jack, 21, appeared to go on a profanity-laced rant against Madison, who eventually threatens to call the police on him because he is 'annoying' her.

The audio begins with Jack allegedly saying: 'Solely to p*ss you off, solely. I'm not going to touch you, I'm not going to move.

Shocking: Before Brooklyn, she dated former Vine star Jack Gilinksy (pictured in April), but they split amid a leaked audio tape which recorded him repeatedly called her a 'f***ing sl*t'

'Solely to p*ss you off, I'm going to stand right here and talk, and then later I'm going to tell you, because you're a f**king sl*t, you're a f**king sl*t, and I don't give two f**ks either,' he adds.

'You're not my boyfriend anymore, it's fine,' Madison can allegedly be heard saying.

The argument seems to have started because of a comment Madison made about Jack's music.

Jack later explained the clip was from last year, during a time when he was 'in a very dark place' and 'clearly had no control over my emotions'.

After he apologised, Beer issued a statement saying she stuck through the relationship as she was 'blinded by love' with Gilinsky, and trying to fix his flaws.
His father played iconic Lothario James Bond in four of the famous spy movies.

And Pierce Brosnan's son Paris, 16, proved that he's inherited some of his dad's smoldering charisma as he stepped out on Thursday in Malibu to hit the shops.

Paris showcased a lithe frame in a brown suede jacket, a white striped shirt and skinny black jeans as he strolled across the street, nonchalantly.

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He's got the look! Pierce Brosnan's son Paris, 16, shows off his model potential as he enjoys a spot of shopping in Malibu

Proving that Pierce's good genes run in the family, he showcased a fresh complexion and sleek brunette locks.

His brother, Dylan 20, is already a model, and at 6ft 1in has starred in campaigns for the likes of Burberry, and walked in multiple runway shows.

Dylan was joined by his 64-year-old actor father, picking out some new boots from the Saint Laurent boutique in Los Angeles last week.

Heartthrob Pierce clearly passed on his looks and style to his children as Dylan looked dapper in his black and grey checkered shirt.

Good genes: Proving that Pierce's good genes run in the family, he showcased a fresh complexion and sleek brunette locks

Pierce opted for a black jacket and accessorized it with a matching watch.

The father-of-three, who adopted two of his first wife's children, is married to Dylan's mother Keeley Shay Smith who he met in Mexico back in 1994.

The pair went onto tie the knot in a romantic ceremony in Ballintubber Abbey in Ireland in 2001, and went on to welcome sons Dylan, 20, and Paris, sixteen.

Happy couple: The father-of-three, who adopted two of his first wife's children, is married to Dylan's mother Keeley Shay Smith who he met in Mexico back in 1994

Pierce lost his first wife to ovarian cancer, which he sadly also lost his step-daughter Charlotte to.

Dylan made his modelling debut in November 2014 at the Saint Laurent Men's Permanent Collection.

The photogenic model, who is also a musician and studying film in California, was first discovered by Burberry's former creative director Hedi Slimlane on the beach in Malibu.
She's the 18-year-old Australian who appeared as Tabitha Ford in Home and Away.

But Eliza Scanlen has left Summer Bay for the bright lights of Los Angeles, where she has has already received an industry honour.

Last week, the talented teenager was named one of the '10 Rising TV Stars Poised for a Breakout in 2018' by The Hollywood Reporter.

On the rise! Former Home and Away star Eliza Scanlen (left) has been named as one of the '10 Rising TV Stars Poised for a Breakout in 2018' by The Hollywood Reporter

The prestigious publication cooed over Eliza, ahead of her debut on the highly anticipated HBO series Sharp Objects.

The eight-episode series is based on the novel of the same name by Gillian Flynn, best known for her wildly popular book Gone Girl.

Due to hit screens in June, Sharp Objects has already been dubbed the 'next Big Little Lies'- the smash hit HBO series which scooped eight Emmy Awards.

From Summer Bay to Hollywood! Eliza appeared as Tabitha Ford in Home and Away.

Big Little Lies director Jean-Marc Vallee will direct Sharp Objects, which has already gone into production.

No doubt having to play someone far removed from herself, Eliza will play series 'mean girl' Amma.

She'll also have to defy her years, as her character is just thriteen years old.

A-list gal pals! Eliza will share the screen alongside five-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams (centre) and acclaimed co-star Patricia Clarkson (left)

Eliza will share the screen alongside five-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams, who is set to play a newspaper journalist .

And the Australian newcomer and the Hollywood heavyweight are already getting along famously, with Eliza sharing a selfie of the pair together with acclaimed co-star Patricia Clarkson.

'Love these ladies', the starlet wrote beneath a snap of the trio which she shared with her 2700 followers.
She spent Christmas in Key West, Florida with her fiance Hugo Taylor.

But things were really heating up for Millie Mackintosh, when she continued to the Caribbean, giving fans a sizzling glimpse at her holiday at the Galley Bay Resort and Spa on Instagram on Friday.

The bikini-clad former Made In Chelsea star, 28, flaunted her red hot figure as she lounged on a tropical palm tree in Antigua.

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A Quality (Street) figure! Bikini-clad Millie Mackintosh flaunted her fabulous tanned figure as she enjoyed festive break with fiance Hugo Taylor in the Caribbean on Friday

Glamorous Millie best showcased her sculpted figure in the patterned beige two-piece, which was fastened with a flimsy string.

The former reality star stretched out her tremendous legs, which boasted of her sun-kissed tan and glow from her glorious getaway, and buried her feet in the sands.

Tossing her glossy locks off her face, the fashionista made sure she was in the optimum position for the sun while she shielded her eyes with stylish shades.

Festive break: The former Made In Chelsea star spent Christmas in Key West, Florida with her fiance Hugo

The Quality Street heiress spent Christmas day on a booze cruise where she enjoyed sipping wine and dining on cheese with her other half, as well as television presenter Laura Jackson.

Millie showed the couple were closer than ever as she shared a picture of the couple about to share a smooch on the vessel on Xmas day.

The Made In Chelsea star has been sharing a slew of sun-drenched photographs with her 1,300,000 Instagram followers.



The Quality Street heiress spent Christmas day on a booze cruise where she enjoyed sipping wine and dining on cheese with her other half, as well as TV presenter Laura Jackson

Merry kissmas! Millie showed the couple were closer than ever as she shared a picture of the couple about to share a smooch on the vessel on Xmas day

While fans know them as an original golden Made In Chelsea couple, Millie revealed the couple go way back as they have been friends for a 'long time' before the show.

Of their relationship, she explained: 'We've known each other since I was 16. So we've been friends for a long long time.'

Millie and Hugo were therefore firm friends for five years before the heiress made her debut on the new reality series at the tender age of 21.

Must be love: Millie and Hugo were firm friends for five years before the heiress made her debut on the new reality series at the tender age of 21

There were break-ups, make-ups, drinks thrown and feisty jealousy while their passionate six-month love affair played out on the show in 2011.

But their relationship came to a dramatic end when Hugo got together with Millie's best friend Rosie Fortescue while they were still together.

The girls repaired their friendship when Millie left series five of the show and it is believed Rosie will even be a bridesmaid at her wedding.

Millie and Hugo reunited in May 2016, following her divorce from first husband Professor Green.
Catherine Zeta-Jones shared a lovely portrait with her husband Michael Douglas on Friday.

The Oscar-winning actress looked serene in white as she was held by the Hollywood icon in front of the Taj Mahal in India.

The Chicago star captioned the image, which was likely taken last week, 'Sending love.'

Picture of marital bliss: Catherine Zeta-Jones shared a lovely portrait with her husband Michael Douglas on Friday; the image was taken several days ago

On their travels: Last week the beauty shared this photo as she held hands with the Streets Of San Francisco star

With the kids: And she has also shared this family photo with Dylan, 17, and Carys, 14

The Taj Mahal, which means Crown Of The Palace, is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the south bank of the Yamuna river in the Indian city of Agra that was commissioned in 1632.

It holds the tomb of Shah Jahan's wife Mumtaz Mahal.

Zeta-Jones looked youthful in her white lace top as she matched Michael's white shirt.

Beauty: The mother of two also shares a photo of the sunset with the caption, 'Endless sky'

Her little ones: And on Thursday there was a photo of her two children at night with a red tint. They appeared to be in a tomb

The mother of two also shares a photo of the sunset with the caption, 'Endless sky.'

And on Thursday there was a photo of her two children Carys, 14, and Dylan, 17, at night with a red tint. They appeared to be in a tomb.

The Welsh star seems to be having the vacation of a lifetime.

On Monday the 48-year-old beauty shared images from her trip to Cambodia.

The Entrapment star leaned on her 73-year-old husband Douglas as they enjoyed tea and cakes while taking a boat down a river.

Still in love: Zeta-Jones seems to be having the vacation of a lifetime. On Monday the beauty shared images from her trip to Cambodia

She also shared a rare photo of her two as they were standing by a water pump that the family had donated.

The Oscar winner captioned the image: 'The best Christmas gift. Today we went to see the well we donated to some families in Cambodia. Such a joy for us. '

Both children looked happy as they beamed for the cameras.

Her joy: She also shared a rare photo of her two children. They were standing by a water pump that the family had donated

And in another photo the entire family can be seen standing together near a body of water with a palace in the background.

Catherine was dressed perfectly for the jaunt as she had on a hat, scarf, shirt and slacks with a camera around her neck.

Douglas was stylish in a sweater around his neck, a short and khakis.

Family of four: And in another photo the entire family can be seen standing together near a body of water with a palace in the background

This comes after Michael revealed the name of his newborn granddaughter.

The 73-year-old actor became a grandfather for the first time on Monday when his eldest son Cameron - who he shares with ex-wife Diandra - and his partner Viviane Thibes welcomed a daughter into the world - naming her Lua. Michael said: '[We are] all ecstatic about baby Lua.'

Michael revealed he and his significant other will be known as Bubba and Zeze to little Lua.

New grandparents: Douglas reveals his granddaughter's name is Lua and that she'll call him and Zeta-Jones 'Bubba and Zeze'... as the family celebrate with an Indian safari

New addition: Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Cameron Douglas, Michael's son, who has welcomed daughter Lua

He added to PEOPLE magazine: 'Dylan and Carys love being an aunt and uncle and we're so happy to be her Bubba and Zeze.'

The family are currently enjoying a visit to India, which Catherine has been gushing over in recent Instagram snaps.

The family have been to the Taj Mahal and on a tiger safari.

Cameron, the eldest son of the Hollywood actor, announced the arrival of a daughter on Monday night, one year after completing a seven-year prison sentence.

Welcome to the world: Cameron shared a picture of his pregnant girlfriend Viviane Thibes, 40, after witnessing the 'miracle' of childbirth

The 39-year-old praised his 'beautiful Amazon warrior' girlfriend Viviane Thibes, 40, for the miracle in an Instagram post.

He wrote: 'Today my appreciation for Mothers all over the world has reached new heights...

'Today I took part in a miracle as my baby girl was introduced to the world through a beautiful Amazon warrior... Im so proud of you.'

Alongside the sentimental announcement, Cameron shared a picture of the Brazilian yoga-instructor during her pregnancy as she showed off her bare bump in a meditation pose.

News of Cameron's first baby joy broke in August, with a source telling People: 'Everyone is thrilled for him. Michael is looking forward to being a grandfather.'
She is usually seen mingling with the Made In Chelsea stars on the King's Road.

Yet Lottie Moss opted to celebrate the festive season in Miami Beach, Florida on Thursday after she spent Christmas in the sunny paradise away from London.

The younger sister of Kate, 19, went braless to flaunt her impressive cleavage in her tie front crop top which attracted attention with its colourful floral design.

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Moss show off her model figure! Braless Lottie showed off her impressive cleavage in a tie front crop top as she enjoyed a festive break in Miami Beach, Florida on Thursday

Alex Mytton's ex-girlfriend teamed her skimpy garment with a tiny pair of distressed shorts to best showcase her toned tummy.

The model exuded confidence as she placed her hand on her hip to draw attention to her incredibly tiny waist while she posed up a storm for the bathroom selfie taken with her iPhone.

Resting her sunglasses on the end of her nose, the London based beauty framed her youthful face with the golden wisps that fell loose from her ponytail.

Chilling out: Bikini-clad Lottie shared a shot of herself relaxing at Champneys Tring Health Spa in Hertfordshire as she took a break from the hustle and bustle of London

Glamorous Lottie gave her 198,000 Instagram followers a glimpse into how she spent Christmas day with a number of photographs of herself slipped into a flirty spotty number for the occasion.



Ahead of her festive break, Lottie escaped the hustle and bustle of the English capital when she took a trip to Hertfordshire countryside for a visit to the luxurious Champneys Tring Health Spa.

In the midst of soaking up all that the secluded spa had to offer, she took to Instagram to share a shot of herself wearing a black string bikini as she relaxed on a suspended wicker chair.

Festive: Glamorous Lottie gave her 198,000 Instagram followers a glimpse into how she spent Christmas day with a number of photographs of herself slipped into a flirty spotty number

She captioned the image, which garnered more than 5,000 likes in just an hour: 'Just casually sitting on a wicker chair at the spa... Thank you @champneycollege @champneysspas for having us it was glorious.'

With her glossy golden tresses falling beyond her shoulders, she stared into the camera lens while wearing a bold palette of makeup that included bright red lipstick and lashings of mascara and eyeliner.

She also uploaded another shot of herself relaxing outdoors on a chair as she wore a bathrobe while sipping from a mug before a rolling green landscape.

The blonde beauty, who is younger half-sister of Kate Moss, spoke to Vogue about her decision to skip attending university, saying: 'Not going to university was a very big decision for me. And one that I had to consider carefully, and with my parents.

'All my friends pretty much went to university, and this made my decision harder. In the end I had to acknowledge the fact that this wasnt the right thing for me.

'My modelling career was taking off and I wanted to build on that and focus on developing my projects within the fashion industry.'

Lottie is known for previously dating Alex Mytton from the E4 reality series but their on and off nine-month romance came to an end in July earlier this year.

Pooch: The golden-haired beauty melted the hearts of her fans when she uploaded a snap of herself with an adorable pooch

Following their split, the model has since moved on from her heartache as she has been romantically linked to rugby player Elliot Clements.

The striking blonde was scouted for her first modelling agency at the tender age of 13 and first courted the attention of the modelling world when she attended her older half-sister Kate's wedding to her ex-husband Jamie Hince in 2011.

Sussex native Lottie has gone onto land campaigns with Calvin Klein and Bulgari, as well as fronting the cover of Vogue Paris in 2016.
They recently defended their 'odd' romance against critics.

And Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor looked happy and united as they enjoyed a date night to see Sandra Bernhards one woman show, Sandemonium, at Joe's Pub in New York City on Thursday night.

The American Horror Story star, 43, and the actress and playwright, 74 - who have been dating since 2015 - snapped a quick photo with the comedian as they supported her backstage after the show.

Date night: Sarah Paulson, 43, and Holland Taylor, 74, enjoyed a date night to see Sandra Bernhards one woman show, Sandemonium, at Joe's Pub in New York City on Thursday night

The couple were bundled up for their outing in The Big Apple, with both wearing beanies and donned heavy jackets.

In the backstage photo, Sarah held up a Sandemonium t-shirt to commemorate her time at the show.

'If you want to know whats up. This. This is whats up. Get to it if you can,' she captioned a snap on her Instagram page.

Bernhard is best known for her live performances and her Sirius XM radio show Sandyland.

Talented: The American Horror Story star and the actress and playwright snapped a quick photo with the comedian as they supported her backstage after the show

Sarah was enjoying some well-earned down-time ahead of a particularly busy 2018; to date, she has roles in seven upcoming films and fans are counting on her return for season eight of Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story.

Despite her hectic work schedule, the Emmy winner still finds time to have a personal life.

Sarah and Holland have been together for upwards of two years, and she recently defended their 'unconventional' romance in a revealing interview.

'My life choices are unconventional,' Sarah said in an interview with The Edit. 'Im with a much older person and people find that totally fascinating and odd, and, to me, its the least interesting thing about me.

Just a number: Sarah and Holland have been together for upwards of two years, and she recently defended their 'unconventional' romance in a revealing interview (pictured in April)

'But I am a woman of a certain age who chose not to have children, and who has made my career my priority. I am the captain of my own ship, and Ive never looked to anyone else to validate that.'

The actress also revealed many executives warned her against going public with the relationship.

She explained: 'Early on, when people found out I was with Holland, some said "I think you have to be careful, Im afraid its going to affect your career negatively," I was like, what? It never occurred to me at all.'

That doubt crept into her brain just before giving her Emmys acceptance speech in 2016.

She wondered if she should mention Taylor at all but in the end, she decided to openly proclaim, Holland Taylor, I love you.'
Troubled Glee alum Naya Rivera and her estranged husband Ryan Dorsey have reportedly agreed to 'temporarily' share joint legal and physical custody of their two-year-old son Josey Hollis.

The West Virginia-born 34-year-old will consult with the 30-year-old LA native 'on all major decisions related to the child's health, education, and welfare' - according to The Blast.

It was a Christmas miracle for the SAG Award winner, who filed for divorce (for the second time) from the Ray Donovan actor citing 'irreconcilable differences' on December 5 - according to TMZ.

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Troubled Glee alum: Naya Rivera and her estranged husband Ryan Dorsey have reportedly agreed to 'temporarily' share joint legal and physical custody of their two-year-old son Josey

Naya has remained virtually silent on social media since her November 25 arrest for domestic battery against Ryan in West Virginia - according to TMZ.

But Rivera - last seen onscreen in Fred Wolf's July Fourth comedy Mad Families - resurfaced Thursday, wearing somber all-black attire, for an appointment at a Beverly Hills hair salon.

Meanwhile, Dorsey has been sharing sweet Insta-stories of himself celebrating Christmas with their adorable 'elf.'

Pictured Monday: The West Virginia-born 34-year-old (L) will consult with the 30-year-old LA native 'on all major decisions related to the child's health, education, and welfare'

Pictured Thursday: It was a Christmas miracle for the SAG Award winner, who filed for divorce from the Ray Donovan actor citing 'irreconcilable differences' on December 5

Mugshot: Naya has remained virtually silent on social media since her November 25 arrest for domestic battery against Ryan in West Virginia

Pamper session: But Rivera resurfaced Thursday, wearing somber all-black attire, for an appointment at a Beverly Hills hair salon

'Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, & wishing you all a happier & healthier Happy New Year from them Dorsey dudes!' the Khali the Killer star - who boasts 56K followers - captioned his snaps.

'I'm so thankful for this little dude, my main man, the sweetest boy I know.'

The on/off couple famously married in Cabo San Lucas before 12 guests on July 19, 2014 - the same exact day she was scheduled to wed her ex-fiance Big Sean before their split.

'Dorsey Dudes': Meanwhile, Dorsey has been sharing sweet Insta-stories of himself celebrating Christmas with their adorable 'elf' (pictured Sunday)

The Khali the Killer star wrote: 'Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, & wishing you all a happier & healthier Happy New Year from them Dorsey dudes! I'm so thankful for this little dude, my main man, the sweetest boy I know' (pictured Sunday)
They announced their engagement earlier this week after over two years of dating.

And Matt Bellamy and Elle Evans couldn't wipe the smiles off their faces as they stepped out in Aspen, Colorado, on Thursday.

The Muse frontman, 39, and the model, 28, looked happy and relaxed as they strolled through the snowy streets arm-in-arm while enjoying their winter break in the exclusive mountain resort.

No wonder they're smiling: Newly-engaged Matt Bellamy and Elle Evans couldn't wipe the smiles off their faces as they stepped out in Aspen, Colorado, on Thursday

The rocker was all wrapped up in a white ski jacket with a fur-lined hood, which he teamed with black jeans, an oversized, grey sweater, black sneakers and mittens.

Elle ensured she kept cozy for the newly-engaged couple's outing, wearing a white Canada Goose fur-linked parka and matching sand-colored snow boots with a wedge heel.

The model and dancer completed her look with floral patterned skinny jeans and a grey fur-colored knit.

The statuesque beauty wore her blonde locks poker straight and appeared to be make-up free.

Snow bunnies: The Muse frontman, 39, and the model, 28, strolled through the snowy streets arm-in-arm while enjoying their winter break in the exclusive mountain resort

Ski break: Elle ensured she kept cozy for the newly-engaged couple's outing, wearing a white ski suit as the pair hit the slopes

The couple were likely in Aspen to join Matt's former fiancee Kate Hudson, 38, and her Hollywood megastar parentsGoldie Hawn and Kurt Russell on their annual winter vacation.

The rocker shares son Bingham, six, with the actress, who he split from in 2014 after four years together.

Elle announced the couple's engagement on Christmas Eve via her Instagram page, telling her followers she couldn't wait a moment longer to share the happy news.

Romantic Matt popped the question with a beautiful diamond ring during a trip to Fiji earlier in December.

Happy couple: The model and dancer documented the pair's winter break via her Instagram page, sharing a series of idyllic images

Happy holidays indeed: The statuesque beauty wore her blonde locks poker straight and appeared to be make-up free as she got to grips with the local wildlife

Writing alongside a series of snaps of the big moment, Elle gushed: 'Was going to surprise everyone on Christmas, but just cant wait any longer....

'We are so happy to announce to the world that we are engaged! Just a few days after my birthday, on the most romantic holiday of our lives, the man of my dreams asked me to marry him!

'After tears of joy, gasps of shock, and a split second of disbelief, of course- I said YES! I cant imagine our lives apart.

'What I can imagine is a bright future full of love & light, family & friends, moments that turn into cherished memories, and a lifetime of pure bliss.'

She said YES! Elle announced the couple's engagement on Christmas Eve via her Instagram page, telling her followers she couldn't wait a moment longer to share the happy news

What a sparkler! Romantic Matt popped the question with a beautiful diamond ring during a trip to Fiji earlier in December

Elle is best known for appearing alongside Emily Ratajkowski in Robin Thicke's controversial Blurred Lines video in 2013.

Matt has been engaged three times in total; he first popped the question to Italian psychologist Gaia Polloni and then later to long-term love Kate.

The couple welcomed son Bingham Hawn Bellamy on July 9, 2011 and split in late 2014.

Kate and Matt remain close friends and spend lots of quality time together, holidaying on the Greek island of Skiathos this summer and and most recently celebrating Halloween as a group.

The actress has been dating musician Danny Fujikawa since December 2016.
Scott Disick, 34, and his girlfriend Sofia Richie, 19, took off on a luxurious private jet to an unknown destination on Friday.

'Im on a whole new year vibe,' Disick told his 20.1 million Instagram followers on a photo of him and Richie inside the jet.

Both had on heavy coats suggesting they were going to a wintery location. He also said on Snapchat that it was 'ski time.'

Come fly with me: Scott Disick and Sofia Richie head to a snowy destination on a private jet on Friday

Sofia also declared she was ready to welcome 2018 alongside her new beau.

She told her Instagram followers, 'Ready to welcome 2018.'

For the photo, the petite model wore a pair of white, retro sunglasses inspired by Marilyn Monroe.

Her high top boots that will help get her through heavy snow comfortably, can be seen more closely on Scott's Instagram story.

Retro: Richie posed in a pair of Marilyn Monroe-inspired sunglasses in an Instagram Post

Ready for snow: These boots will help the the reality star's girlfriend navigate through heavy snow

Aside from her heavy footwear, the pair were not messing around when it came to packing for the cold.

The father-of-three showed off a pair of Tom Ford coats in black and brown fur with a caption reading, 'Ski time.'

Other items on board their flight include a Louis Vuitton backpack and a JBL portable speaker, so they can jam to the hottest tunes no matter where they go.

Fur a good time: Scott showed off his Tom Ford coats that are traveling with him to an undisclosed location

My gear: Disick is carrying his large Louis Vuitton backpack for his vacation

The newly raven-haired Richie kept a more low-profile on social media and didn't share what luxury goodies she'd be taking on their solo getaway.

Even though the young model wasn't by Disick's side for the Kardashian's Annual Christmas Eve bash, she will be with him when they ring in the new year.

She was recently compared to Scott's ex-girlfriend Kourtney Kardashian who also wears her hair dark and parted down center.

Brunette beauty: Sofia just had her hair colored darker, which brought on comparisons to Scott's ex Kourtney Kardashian
Nick Cassavetes has just lost his first fight in court over his most recent custody dispute with ex Heather Wahlquist.

A judge denied The Notebook director an emergency custody petition that he was seeking so could get his daughter Barbie, 13 - birth name Barbarella - to return to Los Angeles. It is believed she is with her mother in Oklahoma.

It was determined that Cassavetes, the son of director Nick Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands, had 'insufficient evidence to justify Barbie was in danger,' according to a Friday report from TMZ.

No: Nick Cassavetes has just lost his first fight in court over his most recent custody dispute with ex Heather Wahlquist; seen in Instagram

Bad times: A judge denied The Notebook director an emergency custody petition that he was seeking so could get his daughter Barbie, 13 - birth name Barbarella - to return to Los Angeles. It is believed she is with her mother in Oklahoma. Seen in 2006

The Blast, however, had a contradictory report that he was granted the petition.

DailyMail.com has not heard back from reps for Cassavetes.

The legal paperwork was filed on Wednesday asking for $10,000 in penalties with the number increasing each day she doesn't hand Barbie over, according to TMZ.

Nick recently claimed Heather kidnapped their 13-year-old daughter Barbie and took her to Norman, Oklahoma; he asked fans for help locating the child who he said he had not seen for a month.

Heather signed an agreement that she would hand over Barbie on December 18 to Nick in Los Angeles and have custody of her until January 8.

He wants it his way: The legal paperwork was filed on Wednesday asking for $10,000 in penalties with the number increasing each day she doesn't hand Barbie over, according to TMZ. Seen in 2015

Trouble: Nick recently claimed Heather kidnapped their 13-year-old daughter Barbie and took her to Norman, Oklahoma; he asked fans for help locating the child who he said he had not seen for a month; seen in 2012

She didn't turn Barbie over to Nick per the custody agreement and now The Notebook director wants the courts to penalize Heather.

Heather has said the child is better with her and added she 'wants 100% custody' of their daughter until 'Nick can get a grip.'

During her video interview with TMZ, she said: 'This came out of the blue. I think it's because maybe Nick had said something or maybe somebody asked Nick in a drunken night or something "where's Barbie" and "oh she's in Oklahoma" and it turned into I kidnapped her and now he can't go back on it. There's no other explanation.'

His parents: Nick is the son of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands (above in the 1975)

Her side: The website also spoke to Heather, who 'wants 100% custody' of their daughter until 'Nick can get a grip,' she said in another report; seen here in 2009

Heather told the website that at the time of the stipulation: 'Nick had taken my child and he wouldn't let me have her until I signed at.'

She claimed to TMZ in the video: 'He walked out of our mediation in the middle while I went down to feed my car's meter and snuck off and rushed to get my kid and he wouldn't give her back to me until he finished the stipulation, 100% written by him, and made me sign it or I wouldn't get her back.'

While she said her daughter misses her dad and wants them to have a relationship, she thinks he needs to go to an 'adult baby/parenting school.'

She claims that Nick must have done this as 'an attack because he's p****d.'

According to Heather's mother Linda Massad, Nick reportedly 'wants revenge' against estranged wife Heather.

Done: She also told TMZ that she split from Nick five years ago and he is trying to get 'revenge'; seen in 2012

Linda fears for her life and said The Notebook director is 'evil' during a tearful FaceTime interview shared on TMZ Wednesday morning.

During the emotional interview, Linda told the website, 'You don't know what he's done; you have no idea what he's done.'

She then claimed to have witnessed the director beating her daughter, saying, 'My sister saw it too cause she was with me.'

Linda detailed an incident where a stranger was banging on her door at her home in Oklahoma at 11:30 p.m., claiming she's 'afraid he's got some hitman after my kid and me and my sister.'

Massad said that Nick 'wants revenge against my daughter' for leaving him, and reportedly told Heather when she left, 'I will make your life a living hell.'

Cassavetes' filed a crime report on Dec. 25 claiming Heather violated their custody arrangement and stole their daughter, according to TMZ.

Difficult situation: She added that he has been pretty much stalking her and Barbie as he has been waiting outside their apartment

The star has even called in his pal Charlie Sheen for support.

But on Tuesday the actress told TMZ that she has not seen her ex because he's a 'bully' who has done 'shocking' things recently causing her to go 'underground.'

She added that he has been pretty much stalking her and Barbie as he has been waiting outside their apartment.

Odd: She added that Nick 'posted a meme of Kevin Spacey along with several games with the caption, "Who remembers having to blow these as a kid." The words are followed by emojis of women raising their hands.' Here they are seen in 2004

And the site added she was now 'terrified' because he wants 'revenge' against her.

Wahlquist added that he has sent their daughter some alarming messages.

Heather told the site Nick sent a picture to their daughter 'showcasing his exposed a**.'

She added that Nick 'posted a meme of Kevin Spacey along with several games with the caption, "Who remembers having to blow these as a kid." The words are followed by emojis of women raising their hands.'

The two split five years ago and Heather told the site he never really got over it, so now he wants 'revenge.'

When they met: She is seen at the premiere of John Q, where she met Nick

Wahlquist also sent a note to Twitter. When asked a question about how she would describe her 2017, she responded: '#UnlawfullyUnderAttack.'

Nick is the son of director Nick Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands.

He is known for such hit films as The Notebook and The Other Woman.

On Monday he alleged that his daughter - whose birth name is Barbarella - was missing in a post on Instagram over the weekend.

He filed a report with the Los Angeles Police Department accusing his wife Heather Wahlquist of violating their custody agreement by running off with the girl.

'Where is my baby? Why won't her phone turn on? Why has she been stolen from me?' wrote Cassavetes on Friday.

'Is she okay? Does she know I love her, that I miss her everyday? Does she know that I'm coming and will never stop coming?'

He included a photo of himself with Barbie alongside that post.

Cassavetes has been married twice, to Wahlquist and Isabelle Rafalovich before her, with whom he has two daughters - Virginia (31) and Sasha (29).

He met Wahlquist when he directed her in the 2002 film John Q, and the status of the relationship between the two has always been a bit of a mystery.

The two were married though and have since split, with Cassavetes now dating model Christina Virzi.
Mark Wahlberg is one of the most successful actors in Hollywood thanks to his good looks.

And it appears as if one of his offspring has inherited his handsome mug as the power player - worth almost $250m - posed with his youngest son Brendan, aged nine, during a trip to Barbados.

The All The Money In The World actor, 46, was spotted splashing around with the child in the ocean as he modeled pink shark print shorts.

Scroll down for video

A chip of the ole block: Mark Wahlberg posed with his mini me son in Barbados on Friday

Mini me: His son Brendan, aged nine, has inherited his dad's handsome mug

The child looked like a chip off the old block as they have the same facial features and color hair.

The two were swimming for a while hen went up to the lounge chairs.

Mark has three other children: son Michael, aged 11, as well as daughters, Ella Rae, aged 14, and Grace Margaret, aged seven.

So fashionable: Mark wore pink shorts with black and white sharks all over them

He has done well: Brendan is getting a much different upbringing than his dad had. While the boy lives in a mansion in LA and gets to travel the world while meeting stars like Michelle Williams and Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark grew up in relative poverty

Brendan is getting a much different upbringing than his dad had.

While the boy lives in a mansion in LA and gets to travel the world while meeting stars like Michelle Williams and Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark grew up in relative poverty.

He has spoken of his early days in Boston and how he was led down a dark path.

He was in a gang as a teen: He has spoken of his early days in Boston and how he was led down a dark path

Wahlberg was born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest of nine children.

His mother, Alma Elaine was a bank clerk and a nurse's aide, and his father, Donald E. Wahlberg, Sr was a delivery driver.

Wahlberg attended Copley Square High School in Boston. He never graduated.

Some track record: As a teen he was addicted to cocaine and he got into street fights. He was charged with attempted murder after punching a man in the eye

As a teen he was addicted to cocaine and he got into street fights.

He was charged with attempted murder after punching a man in the eye. Mark pleaded guilty to assault, and was sentenced to two years in Suffolk County Deer Island House of Correction. He has a permanent felony record because of it.

He also fractured his neighbor's jaw.

Family time: Mark has three other children: son Michael, aged 11, as well as daughters, Ella Rae, aged 14, and Grace Margaret, aged seven. His wife is Rhea Durham

'I did a lot of things that I regret, and I have certainly paid for my mistakes,' he has sid.

'You have to go and ask for forgiveness and it wasn't until I really started doing good and doing right by other people, as well as myself, that I really started to feel that guilt go away. So I don't have a problem going to sleep at night. I feel good when I wake up in the morning.'

Their Christmas card: The clan seen on what appears to be a private yacht

In 2016, Wahlberg said he'd met the man he punched in the eyes and apologized for his 'horrific acts.'

He turned his life around after being in prison.

'As soon as I began that life of crime, there was always a voice in my head telling me I was going to end up in jail. Three of my brothers had done time. My sister went to prison so many times I lost count. Finally I was there, locked up with the kind of guys I'd always wanted to be like.

'Now I'd earned my stripes and I was just like them, and I realized it wasn't what I wanted at all. I'd ended up in the worst place I could possibly imagine and I never wanted to go back. First of all, I had to learn to stay on the straight and narrow.'

Wahlberg has been in Barbados all week with his family, including his wife Rhea Durham who used to be a model.
Vin Diesel was crowned the top-grossing actor of 2017 by Forbes after his movies amassed an eye-popping, combined $1.6 billion in global ticketing receipts.

The star, 50, appeared in three major blockbusters - The Fate of the Furious ($1.2B), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ($863.7M), and xXx: Return of Xander Cage ($346.1M).

The California-born beefcake beat out his cast mate - and sometime rival - Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, who landed the No. 2 spot with $1.5 billion but still technically earns more than him.

Wealthy: Vin Diesel was crowned the top-grossing actor of 2017 by Forbes after his movies amassed an eye-popping, combined $1.6B in global ticketing receipts (pictured April 8)

Rich: The 50-year-old SAG Award nominee managed to star in three major blockbusters - The Fate of the Furious (pictured), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , and xXx: Return of Xander Cage

Coincidentally, the action hero's last social media post on Christmas Eve to his 317.3M followers had him reflecting on when he 'had nothing.'

'As you know, Christmas is my favorite holiday,' Vin (born Mark Sinclair) said in an Instagram video.

'It's something about the spirit, whether you have money or you don't have money, I mean, I'm often reminded at Christmas of when we had nothing and those were some of the most magical times. 2017 was a magical year.'

Diesel spent the holiday with his three children - daughter Hania, nine; son Vincent, seven; and daughter Pauline, two - with his 34-year-old partner, Paloma Jimenez.

Sometime rivals: The California-born beefcake beat out his castmate Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson (L), who landed the No. 2 spot with $1.5B (pictured in 2011)

Gal Gadot made an impressive $1.4 billion for her record breaking role in Wonder Woman.

Harry Potter star Emma Watson placed fourth with $1.3 billion, while Johnny Depp and Daisy Ridley placed fifth and sixth with $1.1 billion and $1.08 billion respectively.

Spider-Man: Homecoming star Tom Holland secured $888 million whilst Guardians of the Galaxy's Chris Pratt grossed $864 million.

Thor's Chris Hemsworth ($845 million) and Star Wars: The Last Jedi's John Boyega ($815 million) completed the top 10.

Forbes' top grossing actors of 2017 1. Vin Diesel ($1.6 billion) 2. Dwayne Johnson ($1.5 billion) 3. Gal Gadot ($1.4 billion) 4. Emma Watson ($1.3 billion) 5. Johnny Depp ($1.1 billion) 6. Daisy Ridley ($1.08 billion) 7. Tom Holland ($888 million) 8. Chris Pratt ($864 million) 9. Chris Hemsworth ($845 million) 10. John Boyega ($815 million) Advertisement

The figures have been calculated by adding together global ticket sales of major films from January until December 26, 2017.

Fans of Vin's street-racing heist franchise will delight with Fast & Furious LIVE - featuring 11 stunt drivers in 23 arenas - which kicks off January 11 with a preview show at the UK's Liverpool Echo Arena.

Diesel will next reprise his voiceover role as Guardians of the Galaxy's 'flora colossus' Baby Groot from Planet X in Avengers: Infinity War, which hits UK theaters April 27 and US theaters May 4.
LEGISLATIVE CHANGES FOR NSW RESIDENTS IN MID-2018:

* The government can apply to the Supreme Court for an order to detain or supervise high risk sex and violent offenders if they pose an unacceptable risk to the community at the end of their sentences.

* Early guilty pleas will be encouraged to help reduce court backlogs.

* The State Parole Authority will be able to revoke parole is the parolee's conduct raises concerns for community safety even if there is no breach of parole conditions.

* The SPA will have the power to allow candidates a period of supervised reintegration home detention in the last six-months of their non-parole period.

* Registered victims will have the right to make a statement to be considered during the parole decision making process.

* Community Corrections Officers will be able to respond to less serious breaches including by imposing curfews although serious breaches will still be reported to the SPA.

* Suspended sentences will be replaced by home detention orders.

* Intensive correction orders will only be issued if the court is satisfied the community will be safe and will not be available for offenders guilty of murder, manslaughter, sexual assault, any sexual offence against a child, discharge of a firearm, terrorism offences or organised crime.

The reforms will take effect from mid-2018.
It's not possible to use bollards at the major Melbourne intersection where a car recently mowed down pedestrians, authorities say.

As the state government announced the shutdown of several city streets ahead of New Year's Eve festivities, it was confirmed extra concrete bollards are not viable where Flinders and Elizabeth streets meet.

"Because if you did, well it would not be the intersection that we know it to be, the trams could simply not run," Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters on Friday.

Eighteen pedestrians were mowed down when a car swung out from traffic on Flinders Street and drove down a tram way at the Elizabeth Street intersection on December 21.

Saeed Noori, 32, an Afghan refugee and Australian citizen with known mental health and drug problems, has been charged with 18 counts of attempted murder.

On Friday, six people remained in hospital, including two in a critical condition.
Boozing backpackers who trashed Melbourne's St Kilda foreshore at Christmas have prompted the local council to extend an alcohol ban at the beach by more than a month.

About 5000 revellers, many whom the Port Phillip Council say appeared to be visitors and backpackers, dumped 29 tonnes of rubbish and broken glass at South Beach Reserve costing the council $23,000 to clean up, when partying late into Christmas night.

An alcohol ban for St Kilda beaches due to end on January 5 was on Friday extended until February 15, and alcohol will be banned council-wide on Australia Day, January 26.
Motorcyclists in Western Australia are being targeted with new mobile speed cameras that capture high-quality images of both the front and rear of bikes.

Until now, only red light speed cameras at selected intersections and some fixed speed cameras on the freeway have been able to capture the rear registration plates of speeding motorcyclists.

WA Police Minister Michelle Roberts said on Friday that 25 motorcyclists had been killed and 19 seriously injured in crashes this year, with speed a factor in many of the incidents.
Cameron Bancroft's technique is under renewed scrutiny after the emerging opener again fell cheaply in the fourth Ashes Test.

And with an important tour of South Africa around the corner, Usman Khawaja fared even worse on Friday as Australia looked to salvage a draw in the dead-rubber MCG contest.

Bancroft looked in reasonable touch before chopping a Chris Woakes delivery onto his stumps on 27.

The West Australian has scored 179 runs at 29.83 in a solid but not spectacular start to his Test career.

Australia will play four Tests in South Africa beginning in March and the tour squad is expected to be picked before the next Sheffield Shield round starts on February 8.

It is highly unlikely selectors would lose faith in Bancroft, particularly with predecessor Matt Renshaw badly out of form.

But his latest dismissal at the MCG was enough to raise queries about his positioning and technique.

"The problem is that toe coming across and pointing at cover makes it difficult for him to get the bat through where he wants to," former Test opener Michael Slater told the Nine Network.

"He has to play in an awkward way and the bat's path comes down away from the pad, (which) was enough for an inside-edge back onto the stumps.

"He didn't do a lot wrong but I think opposition bowling attacks will target the bat-flow and just how he places that front foot."

Khawaja fell on 11 when Jimmy Anderson came in around the wicket and lured him into an edge.

The left-hander made fifties in Adelaide and Perth but his return for the series of 162 runs at 27 is down on his customary summer output.

"I don't think Khawaja has done much wrong there at all," former captain Michael Clarke said.

"You can say 'oh, it is going to miss the stumps' but because of the angle from around, it forces you into playing.

"Khawaja's scored a lot of runs as well. You hope the selectors keep the faith."
SYDNEY NEW YEAR'S EVE BY THE NUMBERS:

* Eight tonnes of fireworks including 13,000 shells and 30,000 shooting comets will light up Sydney harbour.

* More than 5000 hours go into preparing for the firework displays and it takes 15 months to plan and bring the celebrations to life.

* There will be 28,000 fireworks shot from 175 firing points on Sydney harbour with more than 100,000 individual pyrotechnic effects on the night.

* Several thousand police officers in the sky, on the water and on roads will help keep revellers safe.

* About 50 riot squad officers will be armed with military-style rifles in case they need to launch a tactical armed assault in response to a situation like a vehicle attack or mass stabbing.

* More than 4500 extra public transport services will be running to and from the city.
A man has attempted to abduct an eight-year-old girl from a parked car in the central Queensland town of Emerald.

The man, wearing a broad-brimmed fishing hat, approached the girl on Thursday afternoon as she was sitting in the back seat of the car at the rear of a hotel.

He opened the car's back driver-side door and appeared to grab her but quickly retreated after she screamed and a hotel staffer walked past.

Hotel CCTV footage released by Queensland police on Friday shows the man return to his white Toyota Hilux ute and drove off.

The footage also showed he first appeared to notice the girl sitting unattended in the car after her mother and a sibling left the vehicle to enter the hotel, possibly for a toilet break.

The girl was not physically injured in the incident.

Police are appealing for anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers.
A man has crashed a stolen car into a police van at Melbourne's Crown Casino before driving at an officer and through a closed boom gate, making a successful getaway.

Police spotted the stolen BMW in a car park at the casino shortly after midnight on Friday and tried to speak to the driver but he escaped, and remains on the run.

Co-accused Renee Lester, 40, was arrested after she allegedly jumped out of the car and ran inside the casino and into the men's toilets.

Lester faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday charged with car theft and stating a false name - Sheridan Swift - to police.

She applied for bail, claiming she had lost her purse and the driver offered to help her before police arrived.

"It's just unfortunate I decided to hop in a car with a person who offered to give me a hand," Lester told the magistrate.

"I was in no way wanting to be part of the incident."

Senior Constable Craig Hampshire said police approached the BMW in the car park after realising it was stolen.

He said officers tried to use batons to stop the driver but he revved the engine, took off and hit a police van before crashing through a boom gate.

"An officer had to take evasive action to avoid being struck," Const Hampshire said.

The court was told Lester had recently undertaken drug rehabilitation and a mental health program.

"I really need to see this psychological program through. I have been doing the right thing," she said.

But she was on bail when arrested and the alleged car theft breached her conditions.

She broke down in tears as she was denied bail on Friday, and told to return to court on January 30.
Police are appealing for the public's help to locate a man who attempted to abduct an eight-year-old girl from her family's car in the Queensland town of Emerald.

CCTV footage has captured the man trying to grab the girl from the back seat of the vehicle as it was parked outside a local hotel on Friday morning.

Police say the man quickly retreated to his white Toyota Hilux ute after the girl screamed and a hotel worker walked past.

The girl appeared to be left in the sedan when her mother and a sibling got out to enter the hotel, possibly for a toilet break.
Australian Daria Gavrilova wants to build on this year's breakthrough title triumph by cementing herself as a top-20 player.

Gavrilova won her maiden WTA title in August when she beat Dominika Cibulkova in the Connecticut Open final.

The triumph lifted Gavrilova to 20th in the world rankings.

But by the end of the year, Gavrilova had slipped back to 25th - a disappointment considering she started the year in the same position.

Gavrilova will start her 2018 campaign at Perth's Hopman Cup, and she hopes it will be the springboard to a strong year.

"I did have a great year. Winning my first title was a dream come true. I was very hungry for it," Gavrilova said.

"Hopefully (I can) improve my ranking. Hopefully finish in the top 20 next year."

Gavrilova has reached the fourth round of the Australian Open in each of the past two years.

But she was reluctant to make any bold predictions about what she can achieve at the tournament in January.

"I'll compete hard like I always do, and hopefully make another second week," she said.

Gavrilova will combine with Thanasi Kokkinakis at the Hopman Cup, with the duo to start their campaign against Canada's pairing of Vasek Pospisil and Eugenie Bouchard on Sunday.

Kokkinakis is ranked 209th in the world following two injury-plagued years, and he knows Australia face a tough task to win the Hopman Cup.

Germany's powerful pairing of world No.4 Alexander Zverev and former world No.1 Angelique Kerber are favoured to win Australia's group.

"My ranking is the worst by a long shot. But I'm easy. I know the guys pretty well," Kokkinakis said when asked about the underdog tag.

"I've played against them a little bit, and I feel confident.

"There's four of the top eight men's players here, so that's perfect for me coming in.

"I haven't played a match since the US Open. I just need match practice, so this is perfect."
Injury-plagued former world No.1 Andy Murray will arrive in Brisbane on Saturday to prepare for next week's Brisbane International after losing his comeback match against Roberto Bautista Agut.

Murray, who has not played since Wimbledon due to a hip problem, lost the one-set match to the Spanish world No.20 in an exhibition event in Abu Dhabi.

There has been doubts hanging over his participation in Brisbane and the Australian Open, but the 30-year-old Scot boarded almost immediately after going down 6-2 to Bautista Agut.

Murray has given little away either about the precise nature of his hip injury or his recovery but delayed his departure to Australia, having originally intended to travel before Christmas.

The 30-year-old had intended just to practise with the players competing in the tournament in Abu Dhabi, which is staging the pre-season event, but he answered the organisers' call following Novak Djokovic's late withdrawal due to an elbow injury.

That in itself seemed positive but from the start it was clear Murray was well short of his best.

The limp that was such a talking point at Wimbledon was still very much in evidence and his movement was hampered when dragged out wide on his forehand side.

A helpful net cord allowed Murray to get on the board in the fifth game when he had faced points for 5-0, and he did improve in the latter stages.

The Scot said in an on-court interview broadcast by Eurosport: "I felt better as it went on. I was a little bit slow at the start.

"Roberto is one of the best players in the world and when you haven't competed at this level for a while it takes a long time to get back. I need to keep improving for sure."
Just in case we didn't already know that the small screen is where it's at, 2017 was the year Nicole Kidman became an advocate for TV drama.

The actress starred in and executive-produced the Emmy-Award winning Big Little Lies, the acclaimed TV adaptation of Australian writer Liane Moriarty's book, and won her own Emmy Award for her sensitive portrayal of a woman surviving domestic abuse.

Then she became almost unrecognisable as a grey-haired academic in the second season of Jane Campion's drama Top Of The Lake: China Girl.

There was another Australian lady who shone on TV this year, but her drama was all real.

Sophie Monk became the saviour of Ten's Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise.

After four years on the air, the series was becoming tired and formulaic until self-confessed "bogan" Monk came along.

It was also one of the strongest years yet for original Australian comedy, airing on the ABC.

The Kates progressed from The Katering Show to (very) early morning TV on Get Krack'n.

"This show feels so much bigger and more important, but it felt like it was one of the easiest creative projects we've ever had," Kate McCartney said.

Rosehaven returned for a second season and Luke McGregor and Celia Pacquola continued to create their own twist on small-town life, while trying to find their own place in the quirky spot.

It was also the year actress/writer Alison Bell shone a light on the comedy, and tragedy, of first-time motherhood in The Letdown.

"I don't think anyone can prepare you for motherhood and I certainly went into it with unrealistic expectations and I think many of us do, and I guess that's kind of the story. It's about being realistic," Bell said.

As if to show just how far Aussie comedy can travel, Patrick Brammall and Trent O'Donnell were given the golden ticket by the comedy world's Will Wonka, AKA Will Ferrell.

The Hollywood star produced the American version of the pair's police procedural comedy No Activity.

The weekly series, airing on Stan, now boasts a heap of US stars including Ferrell himself, Bob Odenkirk, J.K. Simmons and Amy Sedaris.

"It's a pretty great cast. We didn't anticipate we'd get such a red-hot cast in terms of profile actors but it's worked out amazingly," Brammall said.

Perth-born Katherine Langford shot to prominence for her leading role in the popular Netflix show 13 Reasons Why.

It was criticised for being graphic but drew in millions of viewers nonetheless, and landed the 21-year-old a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of troubled Hannah Baker.

There will be another season starring the Perth actor as Hollywood continues to dip into the Australian talent-pool.
A family is grieving after a three-year-old boy was struck and killed by a ute being driven by his father in the driveway of their Brisbane home on Friday.

It's believed the boy ran behind the ute, which had a box trailer on the back, when he was hit by the vehicle at about 5.20pm on Friday at the Samford Valley home.

The child was trapped under a rear wheel of the vehicle and died at the scene, despite the efforts of police and paramedics.

Senior Sergeant Darren Madgwick said police the incident appeared to be an accident and police weren't treating the death as suspicious.

"His father was backing out a car that had a trailer attached and for unknown reasons the child has been run over and received fatal injuries," Senior Sergeant Madgwick told reporters.

The family is believed to have only moved into the house in the past two weeks.

A neighbour said she had seen a moving van at the property just last week.

"It was sold about a month ago," the woman told the Courier Mail.

The boy's death is the third driveway-based fatality in the country this month after a two-year-old girl died at Campsie in Sydney's southwest on December 20 and a five-year-old girl was killed on December 1 when a reversing car ran into her at her family home near Geelong.
A UN report categorically held Pervez Musharraf's administration responsible for failing to provide Benazir Bhutto with the necessary security to ward off the attack

Ten years after former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to lead a Muslim nation, was killed in Rawalpindi the unanswered questions about her assassination still fuel conspiracy theories.

Earlier this year two police officers were found guilty of "mishandling the crime scene".

They are the only people ever to be convicted in the December 27, 2007 assassination, the most definitive accounts of which claim an assassin shot Bhutto in the neck and then blew himself up, killing 24 people.

But there is no confirmation of who organised the killing or why. Here are the leading theories about who killed Bhutto:

- The Pakistani state's theory -

Then-president Pervez Musharraf's government blamed the assassination on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who denied any involvement. He was killed in a US drone attack in 2009.

Bhutto had been a fierce opponent of Islamic extremists in the country. She was threatened by Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, local jihadist groups and potentially by elements in the Pakistani establishment.

But investigators largely focused on lower-level operatives, paying little attention to the hierarchy in the planning, financing and execution of the assassination.

Musharraf himself is alleged to have been part of a broad conspiracy to have Bhutto, his political rival, killed before elections.

In 2013 a Pakistani court formally charged him with the killing in an unprecedented move against an ex-army chief.

Musharraf fled Pakistan in 2016 and has remained in self-imposed exile ever since. He was declared a fugitive in the case earlier this year.

- The UN's theory -

At the request of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government that came to power soon after Bhutto's murder, a three-member UN team was dispatched to investigate the killing.

In its 70-page report released in 2010, the UN held Musharraf's administration responsible for failing to provide Bhutto with the necessary security.

"Bhutto's assassination could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken," it said.

The team also cited numerous failures by police to properly investigate the murder and preserve the integrity of the crime scene.

Less than two hours after the attack, senior police officer Khurram Shahzad hosed down the the scene. He was one of the two officers convicted this year.

The second officer, then-Rawalpindi police chief Saud Aziz, also refused multiple times to allow an autopsy of Bhutto's body to go ahead.

Police told the UN commission that they collected just 23 pieces of evidence from the scene, "in a case where one would normally have expected thousands", according to the report.

But the UN team hinted at something beyond police incompetence, saying the official investigation was likely stifled by the security establishment.

However it stopped short of naming suspects in the plot to kill Bhutto, saying that responsibility lay with the Pakistani courts.

- The conspiracy theories -

Following Bhutto's death, the PPP came to power and her widower Asif Ali Zardari was elected president. But he failed to make headway unravelling the mysteries behind the murder, drawing fresh allegations of conspiracy.

Speculation was further fuelled after Zardari's senior aide Bilal Sheikh was killed by a suicide bomber in Karachi in 2013.

Sheikh had been in charge of Bhutto's security when she returned to Karachi from exile in October 2007. Bomb attacks targeted her convoy, killing around 140 people.

However, Chilean diplomat Heraldo Munoz, who led the UN investigation, said it was ridiculous to imagine Bhutto's widower had been involved in her death.

Al-Qaeda wanted her dead, he has argued, while the Pakistani Taliban carried out the attack -- possibly with the support of rogue intelligence agents -- and local police arranged a cover-up which he was convinced "came from higher up".

He has further argued that Bhutto's own security failed her and those who encouraged her to return to Pakistan did not provide her with protection.

Other speculation pointed towards Bhutto's trusted bodyguard Khalid Shahensha, with video clips showing him making strange gestures at the podium from which Bhutto addressed the rally moments before her death.

Months after the assassination, Shahensha was mysteriously gunned down in Karachi.
Two Afghan women weep for their relatives at a hospital following an attack on a Shiite cultural centre in Kabul claimed by the Islamic State group

Around 40 people were killed and dozens more wounded in a suicide blast targeting Shiites in Kabul Thursday in the latest attack claimed by the Islamic State group in the war-torn Afghan capital.

IS, or Daesh as it is locally known, has carried out several spectacular attacks in the east of the country since it was first designated a terrorist group in the region in 2015.

But since 2016 it has also dramatically escalated its attacks in Kabul, adding to the dangers already faced by civilians there, with the UN citing the capital as one of the deadliest places in the country.

Here is a list of major attacks in Kabul claimed by the Middle Eastern jihadist group since its first appearance in the capital in July 2016.

2016

- July 23: Twin explosions rip through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 85 people and wounding more than 400. It is the first attack claimed by IS in the Afghan capital.

- October 12: An attack on a shrine in Kabul kills at least 18 people gathering to mark Ashura, one of the most important Shiite festivals.

- November 21: A massive suicide blast targeting Shiites kills at least 27 people and wounds 64 at a Kabul mosque.

2017

March 8: Gunmen disguised as doctors storm Afghanistan's largest military hospital in a six-hour attack. The official death toll is 50 but security sources and survivors say it exceeded 100.

April 12: Five people are killed when a suicide bomber on foot strikes near the Afghan defence ministry in Kabul.

May 3: A powerful blast targeting a foreign forces' convoy near the US embassy and NATO headquarters kills at least eight people and wounds 28 others during morning rush hour.

June 15: A suicide attack on a crowded Shiite mosque in Kabul kills four people and leaves eight others wounded.

July 31: A series of explosions and the sound of gunfire shake the Afghan capital in an assault on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul that kills two people.

August 25, 2017: A suicide bomb and gun attack on a Shiite mosque in Kabul kills 28 people and wounds scores more.

September 29, 2017: Six people are killed and at least 20 wounded when a suicide bomber posing as a shepherd blows himself up near a Shiite mosque in Kabul as Muslims prepared to mark Ashura.

October 20, 2017: A suicide attack during Friday evening prayers at a Kabul Shiite mosque sees 56 people killed and 55 wounded.

October 31, 2017: A suicide bomber believed to be as young as 12 strikes Kabul's heavily fortified diplomatic quarter, killing at least five people and wounding dozens.

November 7, 2017: Militants attack a Kabul TV station killing at least one person and leaving two dozen wounded. The station, Shamshad TV, defiantly goes back on air moments after the assault ends.

November 16, 2017: A suicide attacker blows himself up outside a political gathering in Kabul killing at least 14 people.

December 18, 2017: Militants storm an intelligence agency training centre in Kabul, triggering an intense gun battle with Afghan police. Two policemen are wounded.

December 25, 2017: A suicide bomber kills six civilians in an attack near an Afghan intelligence agency compound in Kabul.

December 28, 2017: Around 40 people are killed and dozens wounded by a suicide bomber targeting Shiites in the capital.
Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1985, cementing their 'special relationship'

Margaret Thatcher refused a request to fly a panda in the back of her Concorde when she visited Washington for her first summit with Ronald Reagan, according to papers released on Friday.

The then prime minister was drawn into the scheme in January 1981, the same month that Reagan was inaugurated, when the Smithsonian Institution in Washington appealed to London Zoo for the loan of its male panda.

The president of the London Zoological Society, Solly Zuckerman, seized on the opportunity to create a publicity stunt with the help of the prime minister.

"Lord Zuckerman sees this as a signal demonstration of the special relationship and would be very happy to time the announcement of the loan or the delivery of the panda in any way that the prime minister thought would be most likely to benefit Anglo-American relations," cabinet secretary Robert Armstrong wrote.

"He even suggested that the prime minister might like to take the panda in the back of her Concorde, when she goes to Washington next month," he added, according to papers released by the National Archives in Kew, London.

The "Iron Lady" was not convinced, however, that she should be involved in promoting London Zoo's efforts to bring a new mate to a female panda.

"Lord Z knows more about pandas than I do -- I am sure he can arrange these things," she said in a handwritten note.

Her private secretary, Clive Whitmore, replied to Zuckerman: "She has commented that she is not taking a panda with her -- 'Pandas and politicians are not happy omens!'"
Absurdity and exaggeration, key ingredients of political satire, are no longer as effective in the age of Donald Trump and 'fake news' -- something that is forcing comedians and talk show hosts to adapt their craft to get a laugh

Absurdity and exaggeration, the two key ingredients of political satire, are no longer as effective in the age of Donald Trump and 'fake news' -- something that is forcing comedians and talk show hosts to adapt their craft to get a laugh.

News parody outlets such as The Onion, The Flipside, The Borowitz Report and a whole slew of others have all made a name for themselves by twisting the news to give it a humorous edge, openly mocking reality.

The formula worked as a counterpoint to real news, but with the advent of Trump's Twitter account and the explosion of fake news sites, the lines have become blurred.

"The absurdity of our reality has completely outpaced anything the imagination could come up with," said Andy Borowitz, who has been writing The Borowitz Report since 2001.

"So it would be futile for me to outdo the absurdities of our current situation," he added.

"I'm really more or less transcribing what is happening. And perhaps giving a slightly more blunt or unvarnished view," he said.

For all that, the need for people to laugh is even more pronounced than ever because, he said, "the situation we find ourselves in is so dire."

However, he notes that under Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, the work had been more challenging for satirists since "the economy was improving and we had didn't have any scandal at the White House and we had a president who was widely respected around the world, and was improving America's image around the world."

In the age of 'fake news', he makes sure his column -- which now runs on The New Yorker's website -- is clearly labeled as satire and runs in the humor section, lest anyone mistake his jokes for actual reporting.

"It's very clear that we're not trying to fool anybody. We're not trying to commit a hoax," he said.

- 'A kernel of truth' -

That is not the case with Christopher Blair, the mysterious figure behind a series of satirical websites such as The Last Line of Defense (thelastlineofdefense.online), which have attracted a lot of attention over the past year.

He told AFP that his sites were clearly marked as satire, but a number of fact-checking websites have disputed that claim, and some have criticized him for peddling fake news for financial gain.

In March, one of his articles claiming that an arrest warrant had been issued for Obama was picked up by dozens of other sites which presented it as real news.

Blair defends his position, maintaining that it is clear to most people, and that he has been seeking "to target specific topics that we know will draw the worst the right has to offer into the public," so that they "find themselves humiliated in front of their families and friends."

"We've had pages taken down, posts removed, racists banned forever," said Blair, describing his work less as comedy than as "a targeted liberal troll op."

That is a long way from the straight-up political satire of the past, and frankly on the very fringes of parody, even though satirists try to do more than simply raise a laugh.

"At the heart of all of our satire is a kernel of truth," Cole Bolton, then still the editor-in-chief of the Onion, said last May in an interview with the Vermont newspaper Seven Days.

"And we want people to see it; we want it to click for them and [for them to] see there's a clever insight that we're making," said Bolton, who quit his job in September.

"And if we don't do that, we're not being satirists, we're being tricksters," he said.

"So, if people are believing it, then we haven't done our jobs. Or they're just spectacular idiots."
A woman in New York is seen bundled against the cold as a bitter Arctic chill settled across much of the United States and Canada

US President Donald Trump on Thursday made light of climate change science as an Arctic chill settled on much of the central and northeastern United States and Canada, forcing people indoors, stranding motorists with dead car batteries and complicating firefighting duties.

In the United States, the National Weather Service said that "dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills" were pummeling much of the central and eastern part of the country.

"In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record," Trump tweeted from his Mar a Lago resort in Florida, where he is on holiday vacation.

"Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo earlier warned residents to prepare for "dangerously cold weather," with below-normal temperatures expected to be between minus 12.7 C and minus 6.6 C through Saturday.

Trump's missive quickly drew Twitter eye-rolls from many users exasperated that the Republican US president could use cold weather to mock the science behind climate change.

"Weather is not the same as climate," tweeted Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington state. "The president should be able to understand that. It isn't hard."

Jon Foley, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences, wrote: "Believe it or not, global climate change is very real even if it's cold outside Trump Tower right now."

"Just like there is still hunger in the world, even if you just had a Big Mac."

- Elevated health risk -

A jogger runs along Chicago's lakefront despite single-digit temperatures on December 27, 2017

The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang on Wednesday had tweeted: "US to be coldest region in world relative to normal over next week."

"Please note rest of world will be much warmer than normal lest anyone try to claim pocket of cold in US debunks global warming, which they will invariably and irresponsibly do," the weather reporters said.

Trump, 71, has dismissed global warming as a Chinese hoax, vowed to quit the 2015 Paris accord and tapped fossil fuel allies to key environmental posts.

His administration also dropped climate change from the list of national security threats.

In Canada, firefighters saw water at times freeze in their hoses as they battled an overnight blaze south of Montreal, in Quebec province.

Environment Canada increased the number of extreme cold warnings around the country, bulletins issued only when the cold "creates an elevated risk to health such as frost bite and hypothermia."

Thursday morning the thermometer plunged to minus 40 C in Geraldton, in northern Ontario province. "And that's not considering the wind chill factor," said meteorologist Alexandre Parent with Environment Canada.

"We have to go back in 1993 to see this kind of weather in Ontario and Quebec," he said.

Ice crystals fell in the northwestern city of Whitehorse when rain fell amid freezing wind.

The Arctic temperatures are expected to last into early 2018, Environment Canada said.

Health Canada warned that exposed skin could freeze in less than 10 minutes in places where temperatures were approaching minus 35 C.

Canadian homeless shelters struggled to keep up with the demand for services and issued special appeals for donations of warm clothes.

This month's cold wave caps a year that saw ferocious hurricanes, heat waves, floods and wildfires wreak global havoc.
Tourists and locals dance to funk music in Pedra do Sal, located in downtown Rio near the port, where many slaves went soon after arriving on ships from Africa

Hundreds of years after Brazilian slaves first fled to rebel communities called quilombos, remnants of those outposts of freedom live on in the heart of Rio de Janeiro.

Often the quilombos were established in remote places -- better to get away from pursuers.

However, three founded in Rio have survived as living testaments to a tradition at the core of Brazil's complicated racial history.

Of course, Afro-Brazilians do not need to escape slavery anymore, but in a country riven by racial inequality and historic injustices, the quilombos now serve as focal points for resistance of a more contemporary kind.

The Sacopa quilombo is one of the city's best kept secrets, a beautiful area of tropical forest that has ended up being surrounded by the high-rent Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas neighborhood.

Back in the 19th century, long before the fancy apartment buildings sprang up, this was where slaves seeking freedom would gather, starting new lives. The population grew and, around it, so did Rio.

"We're still here because I have been very stubborn. They tried everything to take this land from us but we have the rights," said Luiz Sacopa, 74, who is the eldest living descendant of the original slaves.

He says he has lost count of the attempts by people to oust the quilombo.

One neighbor planted marijuana on the plot to try to incriminate them.

Then, citing noise complaints, the Rio state court stopped the quilombo from hosting cultural events like feijoada feasts and classes in capoeira, a dance-like martial art developed by fugitive slaves.

That was "a very hard blow," Sacopa said.

"We were very respectful, always ending everything by 8:00 or 9:00 pm," said another family member, Jose Claudio Torres Freitas, during an event staged on official Black Consciousness Day.

"This is the only day we're allowed to do anything," he said.

The modern-day quilombos like Sacopa do have some legal protection.

In 2003, then leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed a decree regularizing boundaries and titles for descendants of quilombo slaves, who are collectively known as quilombolas.

However, the bureaucratic procedures are complex and while the three quilombos in Rio de Janeiro have been recognized, they are still waiting for the second stage of the paperwork to be completed.

- Swallowed up -

The Pedra do Sal quilombo, right in the center of Rio near the port, is where many slaves went soon after arriving on ships from Africa.

The site is also rich in cultural significance as a key location in the development of the still thriving Afro-Brazilian religion candomble.

People attend a samba concert in Pedra do Sal -- in the background is graffiti depicting Zumbi Dos Palmares, who became a symbol of the fight against slavery in Brazil

But legal uncertainties mean few of those from the 25 families descending from the original Pedra do Sal community live there anymore.

"The neighborhood wasn't like this back then -- it was very isolated," said Damiao Braga, the quilombola leader.

"But it was gradually invaded and swallowed by the city. There were many disputes, including with the Catholic church."

Even recognition from UNESCO for the nearby Valongo Wharf, where slave ships used to dock, has not helped much.

"We have international support but the disputes remain. Empty buildings have been taken over and once that happens, it's not easy to reverse," Braga said.

- Olympic destruction -

Out in the west of Rio, where most of the Olympic Games took place in 2016, quilombola descendant Adilson Almeida helps oversee yet another of these pockets of history.

His ancestors founded the Camorim quilombo after escaping back in the 16th century. When slavery ended, the family returned and set up a community there.

In this out of the way area, the quilombolas went about their lives until 2014 when the 20 resident families woke up to find construction work starting: the woodland that was historically theirs had been picked as the site of housing for Olympic referees.

The surviving quilombos in Rio, like Pedra do Sal, are living testaments to a tradition at the core of Brazil's complicated racial history

In this case, the quilombo had yet to receive the paperwork from even the first stage of the registration procedures to obtain legal protection, and the land was never returned to the community.

But Almeida still has hopes.

Archeologists found thousands of artifacts from the 16th and 17th centuries during research there last year, and the disputed area has been named an official archeological site by the National Institute for Historic and Artistic Patrimony.

"Now we have a solid legal base and it would be hard for something like the 2014 invasion to happen again," Almeida said.
Almost 21,500 people arrived by sea on Spain's southern shores in 2017, according to the International Organization for Migration

Migrant arrivals by sea to Spain tripled in 2017 on the previous year, fuelled by a surge in the numbers of Algerians and Moroccans, while over 200 died trying to make the crossing.

"At the end of the year, the tally is devastating," the Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR), which defends the right to asylum, said in a statement.

Almost 21,500 people arrived by sea on Spain's southern shores -- popular with northern European tourists -- between January 1 and December 20, up from 6,046 during the same period last year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The number of deaths is also up. So far this year 223 people have died or disappeared while trying to reach Spain by boat, 95 more than in 2016.

Most sea arrivals are reported along the Strait of Gibraltar which is the narrowest passage of the Mediterranean Sea separating Spain from Morocco.

Smugglers transport migrants to Spain on rickety wooden boats, inflatable dinghies, and even jet-skis, charging hundreds of euros for the trip.

In August footage of sub-Saharan African migrants arriving by dinghy on a packed beach in Cadiz in the southern region of Andalusia in August during the peak summer holiday season went viral on social media, drawing attention to the rise in migrant numbers.

"We are suffering migratory pressure in the entire Mediterranean area," Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said Thursday in a radio interview.

- 'Focused on repression' -

While migrant arrivals rose in Spain, they fell in Italy and Greece, the primary entry point for migrants in Europe.

Nearly 119,000 migrants have arrived so far this year in Italy, which has put in place more aggressive measures to stem arrivals on its shores, including sending Italian military ships to assist the Libyan coast guard with patrols and interception.

Roughly 28,000 migrants arrived in Greece, where a 2015 European Union deal with Turkey has helped stem the flow of people making the narrow but precarious sea crossing from Turkish shores to outlying Greek islands.

Both countries each received over 170,000 migrants by sea in 2016.

Migrants deaths in attempted crossings of the Mediterranean are down overall even as they rose in Spain.

So far this year 3,116 migrants have died or disappeared while trying to cross the Mediterranean into Europe, down from 4,967 last year, according to the IOM.

The bulk of the migrants who have arrived in Spain in recent years have been from sub-Saharan Africa but this year has seen a rise from people from Morocco and Algeria, organisations that work with migrants said.

The increase in arrivals from Algeria is due to "the economic situation in the country, which has deteriorated in the last three years" following a drop in the price of oil, a key export, Carlos Arce of the Human Rights Association of Andalusia (APDHA) told AFP.

Social unrest in northern Morocco's Rif region is behind the rise in arrivals from that country, he added.

Moroccan security have been "more focused on repression than in controlling the flow of migrants", Arce said.

- Surfboards and jet-skis -

Migrant arrivals from Morocco to Spain have risen since June, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said in a report last month.

"Moroccans use all sorts of methods to reach Spain such as jet-skis, surfboards, inflatable dinghies and wooden boats which sometimes transport over 60 people," it said.

Spanish authorities have struggled to cope with the surge in migrant arrivals.

The government came under fire from human rights organisations in November after it housed some 500 migrants who arrived in southern Spain, mainly from Algeria, at an unopened prison due to a lack of space at immigration detention centres.

During the last two week "hundreds of people have been sent back to Algeria" from the prison, including several minors, according to the director of migrant rights group Malaga Acoge, Alejandro Cortina.

Rights groups have called for migrants to be allowed to wait for the outcome of their asylum bid under more lax conditions, by reporting regularly to police or a court.

But Zoido has argued that there is a risk that the migrants would disappear, causing a "pull effect" that would lead smugglers to bring more migrants to the country.
Police mistakenly opened fire on the vehicle, killing two people, including an injured woman being taken to hospital

Philippine police have killed two people, including a woman on her way to hospital, after mistaking them for gunmen, authorities said Friday, the latest deaths at the hands of law enforcement under President Rodrigo Duterte.

The incident occurred on Thursday night when police were called to a Manila suburb following an earlier shooting during an argument between residents.

But they mistakenly opened fire on a van that they thought was carrying the shooter but which in fact was taking a woman injured in the incident to hospital, said Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde.

The wounded woman later died and one of her companions in the van was also killed while two others were wounded, he told reporters.

"I find no excuse (for) this unfortunate event that has caused the death of two individuals and the wounding of two others," he said in a statement.

He said village watchmen had been the first to open fire on the van but said police would investigate why they had firearms which are not normally issued to such personnel.

Albayalde said 36 shells from fired rounds had been recovered and that all the guns of the police and watchmen would be checked to see who had fired on the van.

"They said that practically all of them fired their guns. It was only some guys who arrived last who did not fire their guns," Albayalde said, referring to the responding policemen.

Videos of the incident, aired on local television, show policemen with guns drawn, surrounding the van as gunshots ring out.

"We are not hiding anything here. We are not discounting the fact that there is the possibility that there may have been overkill or violation of our POP (police operating procedure)," Albayalde said.

Duterte's spokesman Harry Roque released a statement saying "(the) matter will be investigated fully even if there appears to be excessive force utilised by police authorities".

He also stressed that the policemen involved have been disarmed and their movements restricted while the case is being investigated.

Both the Justice Department and the official Commission on Human Rights said they would investigate the shooting as well.

The deadly shooting comes as Duterte wages a brutal war on drug-related crime, openly urging police to kill suspects and vowing to protect them from legal liability in such incidents.

Government figures show that almost 4,000 "drug personalities" have been killed by government forces as part of Duterte's anti-drug campaign since he took office in mid-2016.

Human rights groups charge that thousands more have been killed by shadowy vigilantes.
Myanmar reporter Aung Naing Soe, who spent his 27th birthday behind bars, says he hopes other detained journalists will be soon released as well

Foreign and local journalists jailed for flying a drone near Myanmar's parliament were released Friday after spending two months in prison, in a case that spiked alarm over an increasingly dangerous climate for reporters in the country.

Lau Hon Meng from Singapore and Mok Choy Lin from Malaysia were on assignment for Turkish state broadcaster TRT when they were detained in late October along with Myanmar journalist Aung Naing Soe and driver Hla Tin.

The crew was shooting a documentary in Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw.

Expecting to receive a fine, they confessed to flying the drone but were instead sentenced to two months in jail under Myanmar's aircraft act.

On Friday morning the group was released from a jail north of the capital after a court dropped additional charges that carried between three and five more years in prison.

"They were all released this morning at 7:00 am from Yamethin prison," lawyer Khin Maung Zaw told AFP.

He added that the two foreign journalists were being taken directly to Yangon international airport for flights out of the country, while the two Myanmar nationals have already been reunited with their families.

Aung Naing Soe, the local reporter who spent his 27th birthday behind bars, said he hoped other detained journalists in Myanmar would soon be released too.

At least 11 reporters have been arrested in the former junta-run country in 2017.

- Press freedom concerns -

Several have been released but two Reuters journalists remain in custody and are facing up to 14 years in prison under the draconian colonial-era Official Secrets Act for allegedly possessing classified documents.

Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27 -- Myanmar nationals who had been reporting for the news agency on a military-led crackdown on Rohingya Muslims -- were arrested a fortnight ago after they were invited to meet police for dinner.

They were remanded in custody for a further two weeks after an emotional reunion with family members at a brief court hearing on Wednesday -- the first time the pair had been allowed access to relatives, colleagues or lawyers.

"I also hope and demand that the other similar cases like us ... will be set free," Aung Naing Soe told AFP, adding that authorities have not returned his crew's phones, computers or drone.

The TRT crew's arrest came with ties more strained than ever between Myanmar and Turkey, whose president has lambasted the mainly Buddhist nation over its persecution of Rohingya Muslims.

The UN has also accused Myanmar's army of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against the minority, some 655,000 of whom have fled an army crackdown for Bangladesh since late August.

In September Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Myanmar was incubating "Buddhist terror" that amounted to genocide.

TRT has not confirmed the subject of the documentary but said the reporters told Myanmar's Ministry of Information about their filming plans in advance.

Their arrests deepened concerns about shrinking press freedoms under civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who came to power in 2016 after decades of outright military rule.
The volcano, which roared back to life in 2010 after four centuries of silence, has been erupting steadily since 2015

Indonesia's Mount Sinabung volcano experienced its biggest eruption of the year this week, spewing clouds of gas and showering ash into the sky, a local official said Friday.

The volcano, which roared back to life in 2010 after four centuries of silence, has been erupting steadily since 2015, displacing more than 3,000 families.

Wednesday's eruption "was the biggest eruption this year, given the reach of the pyroclastic flow and the size of the area covered by the ashes", local disaster agency chief Nata Nail told AFP.

Thousands were affected by the shower of volcanic ashes on the island of Sumatra but no one was severely injured because the dangerous zone was vacated earlier, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency, said.

The eruption sent volanic ash down Sinabung's slopes, destroying crops and causing misery to hundreds of farmers.

In May last year seven people were killed when Sinabung erupted, while a February 2014 eruption left 16 people dead.

Another Indonesian volcano, Mount Agung on the tourist paradise of Bali, has also been rumbling since September, forcing the evacuation of 140,000 people living nearby and prompting the closure of the island's international airport.

Indonesia, the world's most active volcanic region, lies on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent volcanic and seismic activities.
Vietnam's internet is classified as "not free", according to web watchdog Freedom House, which ranks it second only to China in Asia

The deployment of 10,000 cyber warriors to fight online dissent in Vietnam adds a grim "new dimension" to controls on free speech in the Communist country, a rights group has said.

Vietnam routinely jails its critics and closely monitors activists on social media, which is not banned unlike in neighbouring China.

A top Vietnamese general this week said a 10,000-strong brigade dubbed "Force 47" has been tasked with fighting "wrongful views" spreading on the internet, according to state media reports.

It was not immediately clear what Force 47 is responsible for, but observers anticipate the cyber soldiers will escalate smear campaigns against activists online.

Rights groups rounded on the move.

Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said the cyber scouts announcement was a "shocking new dimension to Vietnam's crackdown on dissent".

Others said the tactic is designed to squeeze online critics.

"This is just the latest plank in a campaign to curb internet freedoms at all costs," Shawn Crispin, Committee to Protect Journalists' Southeast Asia representative, told AFP Friday.

"While they can't unplug Facebook, Instagram and the likes outright, they can apply more and more pressure on those platforms and it looks like these cyber troops are their latest attempt to do that."

Vietnam's internet is classified as "not free", according to web watchdog Freedom House, which ranks it second only to China in Asia.

Around half of the country's 93 million people have access to the internet, and the country also ranks among Facebook's top 10 users by numbers.

Vietnamese officials did not respond to a request for comment from AFP.

Earlier this year the government asked Facebook and YouTube to remove "toxic content" from its sites.

In August, the president called for tougher internet controls, saying that groups have used the web to launch campaigns against the government that threaten the "prestige of the party's leaders and the state".

A conservative leadership in power since last year has waged a crackdown on dissidents, with at least 15 arrested this year, according to Amnesty International.

Several other have been handed heavy jail terms, joining scores of activists already behind bars.

Force 47 is likely to include commentators hired to publish pro-government material and counter critics, said Madeline Earp, senior research analyst with Freedom House.

"Vietnam very much follows China's example when suppressing internet freedom, particularly when it comes to blocking websites and arresting dissidents," she told AFP.

For some activists, the cyber troop announcement is no surprise. But activist Nguyen Chi Tuyen said the new force marked an escalation in state tactics of repression.

"The main purpose for Force 47 is to try and control news and public opinion on the internet... they want to protect the party, not protect the country," said Tuyen, more commonly known by his online handle Anh Chi.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to fight corruption but despite years of mass protests it remains endemic

They have fled the country, their pockets full, or been released from prison under amnesties: despite Iraq's "war" on corruption, those guilty of embezzling state funds often evade justice.

Even before he declared victory against the Islamic State group in early December after a three-year battle, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the country's next fight would be against graft, vowing to "surprise the corrupt".

With billions of dollars in state money flowing into phantom projects used as vehicles for embezzlement, Iraq ranked as the 11th most corrupt country in the world in Transparency International's 2016 corruption perception index.

But Abadi's fight against corruption is "still in the realm of theory" at this stage, according to Iraqi analyst Hisham al-Hashemi.

"Nothing will change as long as those who protect corrupt actors in the economy, security and the military are still comfortable," he said.

Member of parliament Majeda al-Tamimi said Iraq's corruption had grown "from the size of an ant to the size of a dinosaur" since the US-led invasion of 2003 toppled longtime dictator Saddam Hussein.

Fighting it would be "difficult, fiercer than the fight against IS", she said.

"There are corrupt people in every party," she added. "The war will be hard and it will need international and domestic support" -- including from political parties which themselves have corrupt members.

Some fear that little can be done to tackle the issue.

Anti-corruption protesters occupy the Iraqi parliament after breaking into Baghdad's fortified Green Zone compound on April 30, 2016 but more than 18 months on campaigners say graft still exists in every party

One politician told journalists that stolen sums of less than $60 million "can be seen as honest; from there upwards we can speak of corruption".

An official told AFP the government has sought help from Western organisations and the United Nations to track down missing funds.

- $228 bn 'up in smoke' -

Rahim al-Darraji, a member of the parliament's transparency commission, said some 6,000 "phantom contracts" had been signed to syphon off public money since 2003.

Through front companies running construction sites and building infrastructure that only existed on paper, some $228 billion had "gone up in smoke", he said.

That is equivalent to three times the annual budget and more than Iraq's GDP.

Analysts say such massive corruption helps explain why Iraq is sorely lacking in infrastructure and industrial or agricultural development.

Iraq, which is oil cartel OPEC's second largest producer, has been reduced to importing electricity and refined petroleum products.

Some projects do reach completion, but bribes form a large part of the price paid by the state.

Darraji said that Abadi's predecessor, Nuri al-Maliki, the defence ministry bought 12 aircraft from a Czech manufacturer for $11 million -- and a further $144 million in bribes.

The Supreme Council of the Judiciary said in a report that "many decisions of the justice department are never implemented".

Years of kickbacks and outright embezzlement have starved Iraq's power and other infrastructure of investment

Iraqi newspapers often report on officials, collectively suspected of embezzling billions of dollars, fleeing the country.

Former Basra governor Majid al-Nasrawi is among the wanted suspects on the run.

A prominent Basra businessman later alleged in a television interview that Nasrawi had taken a 15 cut on every contract -- five percent for his party and 10 percent for himself.

The state's anti-corruption committee, overseen by the prime minister's office, has called for tougher laws. But first and foremost, it calls for an end to amnesties for the corrupt.

Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdel Sattar Bayraqdar slammed a law which provides for the release of corrupt officials if they agree to return the money they embezzled, arguing that profits from stolen funds remain out of the state's reach.

Another judicial official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also criticised the legislation.

"For example, if someone a decade ago stole two billion dinars that have since earned twenty, they can just pay back the two billion and leave prison," the official said.

"It's like a bank loan."
The United Nations and Washington have imposed a series of sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear and missile programme

China on Friday rejected accusations that it has helped Pyongyang skirt sanctions after US President Donald Trump claimed Beijing had permitted a transfer of oil to North Korea.

"Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea," Trump tweeted on Thursday. "There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!"

The US president later told the New York Times that he saw a report on the situation on Fox News that morning.

"The recent series of reports on this situation do not conform with the facts", Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, adding that Beijing did not allow its "citizens or companies to engage in any activities that violate" UN resolutions.

The United Nations and Washington have imposed a series of sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear and missile programme in recent months.

Hua said China had looked into the report of a Chinese ship transferring oil to a North Korean vessel and found it to be inaccurate.

"There is no record of the (Chinese) vessel visiting a Chinese port" since August, Hua said.

"I think making pointless hype through the media is not conducive to enhancing mutual trust and cooperation."
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Clashes pitting mainly jihadist and rebel fighters against regime forces backed by Russian warplanes killed at 66 people on the edge of Syria's northwestern Idlib province, a monitor said Friday.

Among the victims were at least 19 civilians killed by air strikes, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the casualties were over 24 hours of fighting in an area straddling Idlib and Hama provinces.

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, said seven children were among the civilian victims.

He said 27 soldiers and members of allied paramilitary units were killed in the fighting as well as 20 anti-regime combatants, from Islamist rebel groups the former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham.

The fresh violence in the area appeared to signal the initial phase of a major government operation against Idlib, the only province in the country that completely escapes regime control.

An AFP correspondent near the fighting said aerial activity was intense and the entire area rocked by frequent air strikes.

Rebel leaders issued warnings through loudspeakers informing remaining civilians in the area that Friday prayers were cancelled and that all residents should stay home.

Hundreds of civilians fled the scattering of villages in the area, creating queues of cars and pickup trucks heading towards the city of Idlib loaded with bags and furniture.
Volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent load a sick civilian into an ambulance in Douma on the third night of evacuations from the besieged rebel enclave of eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of the capital Damascus late on December 28, 2017

Aid workers completed a series of medical evacuations from a besieged rebel enclave near Damascus Friday as part of a controversial deal that saw patients swapped for hostages and prisoners.

The patients were among a list of cases considered critical who were evacuated since Tuesday night from Eastern Ghouta, an area where the humanitarian crisis has escalated in recent months.

"Thirteen civilians, including six children and four women, were evacuated" during the night of Thursday to Friday, a health official in Eastern Ghouta told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The latest batch of patients the Syrian Red Crescent evacuated brought to 29 the number of civilians who were able to leave the area, which has been virtually cut off from the outside for four years.

The 29, 17 of them children, were deemed the most pressing cases on a list of around 500 people the United Nations said last month could die if they did not receive urgent assistance outside the besieged enclave.

Humanitarian access to the area, which lies just east of the capital Damascus, has been very difficult and only limited convoys of aid have reached it in recent months.

A crowd of residents gathered at night around the ambulances to see their relatives and neighbours one last time.

Red Crescent nurses attended to Marwa, a 26-year-old woman suffering from meningitis who was being stretchered onboard and given respiratory assistance.

Among the patients who made it out were Fahed al-Kurdi, a 30-year-old man with cancer, and Zuheir Ghazzawi, a 10-year-old boy who also has cancer and had a leg amputated.

- 'Without conditions' -

Another 16 patients had been evacuated on Tuesday night and Wednesday night by the Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Syria: Ghouta siege

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the patients were evacuated as part of a deal that saw the rebels who control Eastern Ghouta release hostages and prisoners.

There were also 29 of them, according to the head of the Britain-based Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman.

Among them were some workers who were detained earlier this year as well as pro-government fighters whom rebels from the Jaish al-Islam group captured, in some cases years ago.

The deal raised concern that sick civilians were being used as bargaining chips.

"If they exchange sick children for detainees that means children become bargaining chips in some tug of war," Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council and currently a UN special envoy for humanitarian access in Syria, told the BBC.

The ICRC issued a statement on Friday urging the parties involved to allow for more evacuations and better humanitarian access.

"The evacuation was a positive step to end the immense suffering of some people in Eastern Ghouta, especially children who have limited access to life-saving medical care," ICRC Syria head of delegation Marianne Gasser said.

"But more needs to be done. The needs of civilians should come first, be it in Ghouta or elsewhere in Syria, and access to aid should be allowed on a more regular basis and without conditions," she said.

strs-ram/jmm/mm
The Islamic State group's affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year

A gunman opened fire on a church south of Cairo on Friday and was shot dead by policemen, police officials said.

The gunman wounded five security guards outside the church and then tried to storm the building when police shot him dead, the officials said.

The officials said they were searching for a possible second gunman who may have escaped.

Cellphone footage posted on social media appeared to show the bearded gunman wearing a bulky ammunition vest sprawled on a street, barely conscious, as people restrained his arms and then handcuffed him.

The Islamic State group's affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year, and has threatened further attacks against the minority.

Egypt's Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of the country's 93 million people, and are the largest religious minority in the region.

IS had claimed a suicide bombing of a Cairo church in December 2016 followed by bombings of two churchs north of the capital in April.

A month later, IS gunmen shot dead about 30 Christians south of Cairo as they travelled to a monastery.

The jihadists are believed to have also carried out a massacre of Muslim worshippers in Sinai last month, killing more than 300 in an attack on a mosque associated with the mystical Sufi strand of Islam which IS views as heretical.

Egypt imposed a state of emergency following the church attacks and shootings, and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi demanded the army quell the jihadists with "brutal force" following the mosque massacre.

The group has been waging a deadly insurgency based in the Sinai peninsula bordering Israel and the Gaza Strip that has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers.

They have increasingly targeted civilians as attacks on the security forces have become more difficult.

The army has poured in thousands of troops backed with armour and jets in a bid to crush the Sinai-based jihadists, but attacks have continued.

The attack on the church came a day after six Egyptian soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in the Sinai.

Last week, IS claimed responsibility for firing an antitank missile at a helicopter in a North Sinai airport as the defence and interior ministers were visiting.

The attack killed an aide to the defence minister and a helicopter pilot, but both ministers returned to Cairo unscathed.
More than 655,000 Rohingya from Myanmar's Rakhine state have sought refuge in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in late August

Bangladesh wants to send up to 100,000 Rohingya back to Myanmar in the first batch of repatriations of Muslim refugees who fled ethnic violence this year, officials said Friday.

Senior minister Obaidul Quader said a list of 100,000 names was to be sent to Myanmar authorities on Friday so repatriations could start in late January under an accord between the two governments.

More than 655,000 Rohingya from Myanmar's Rakhine state have sought refuge in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in late August, fleeing what the US and United Nations have described as ethnic cleansing.

That added to more than 300,000 in camps in Bangladesh after fleeing earlier violence in the Buddhist majority state.

The two governments signed an agreement in November allowing for repatriations from January 23. Many aid groups and diplomats doubt that fearful Rohingya will agree to return.

The Rohingya have 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.

Quader said repatriations would start as soon as a working group of officials from the two countries finalise a list of names.

"Based on the decision of the joint working group, a first list of 100,000 Rohingya will be sent to the Myanmar government today for their safe and honourable return," Quader, road transport minister and deputy leader of the ruling Awami League, told reporters during a visit to Cox's Bazar where the refugee camps are.

"The next meeting of the working group, which will be held in Myanmar, will decide how the repatriation process begins," Quader added.

"This list will be finalised as early as possible. The repatriation process will begin after the list is finalised."

Abul Kalam Azad, the government relief commissioner for Rohingya refugees, said a decision was made Thursday by Bangladeshi members of the repatriation working group to send a list of 100,000 refugees to Myanmar.

He told AFP repatriations would begin after Myanmar verifies the list and the authorities in Bangladesh get consent from willing refugees.

Most Rohingya refugees approached by AFP in the camps insist they do not want to return, saying Rakhine is not safe enough. Diplomats have expressed doubt about whether Myanmar will allow substantial numbers to return.

According to Azad, nearly one million Rohingya live in Bangladesh, many of whom have been there for decades. Myanmar has agreed to take back those refugees who arrived since October 2016, believed to number about 700,000.
Egyptian security members and forensic police inspect the site of a shooting outside a church south of the capital Cairo, on December 29, 2017

A gunman opened fire on a church south of Cairo on Friday, killing at least nine people in the latest apparent jihadist attack on Egypt's Christian minority.

The Islamic State group claimed its "soldiers" carried out the attack on the Saint Mina Coptic church in the district of Helwan, just south of Cairo.

Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed told state television that the gunman was shot dead after killing nine people and wounding others, including a police officer.

But the interior ministry said the assailant, a wanted jihadist implicated in attacks on police, had been wounded and arrested.

The man had been armed with an assault rifle, 150 rounds of ammunition and a bomb he intended to set off at the church, the ministry said.

It added that he had killed two people when he opened fire on a store before heading to the church where he shot dead seven people including the officer.

Cellphone footage posted on social media appeared to show the bearded gunman wearing a bulky ammunition vest sprawled on a street, barely conscious, as people restrained his arms and then handcuffed him.

Attack on Egyptian church

Police later cordoned off the crime scene as onlookers crowded around the church, while a team of forensic experts combed the area.

Congealing blood could be seen at a guard post in front of the church.

IS later claimed responsibility.

In a statement released via its propaganda agency Amaq, it said a group of its "soldiers" had carried out the attack, killing 10 "crusaders" and police officers.

It added that one of its fighters had been killed.

An IS affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings during the past year, and has threatened further attacks against the minority.

Friday's attack came ahead of Christmas for the Copts, who celebrate it on January 7.

- Series of attacks on Christians -

Egypt's Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of the country's 93 million people, and are the largest religious minority in the region.

IS claimed a suicide bombing of a Cairo church in December 2016 and bombings of two churches north of the capital in April.

A month later, IS gunmen shot dead about 30 Christians south of Cairo as they travelled to a monastery.

The jihadists are believed to have also carried out a massacre of Muslim worshippers in Sinai last month, killing more than 300 in an attack on a mosque associated with the mystical Sufi strand of Islam which IS views as heretical.

Egypt imposed a state of emergency after the church attacks and shootings, and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi demanded the army confront the jihadists with "brutal force" following the mosque massacre.

The presidency said Friday's church attack would increase the "resolve to continue the path of cleansing the country of terrorism and extremism."

IS has been waging a deadly insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula bordering Israel and the Gaza Strip that has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers.

Egyptian police cordon off an area following a gun attack outside the Mar Mina church south of the capital Cairo, on December 29, 2017

The jihadists have increasingly targeted civilians as attacks on the security forces have become more difficult.

The army has poured in thousands of troops backed with armour and jets in a bid to crush the Sinai-based jihadists, but attacks have continued.

The attack on the church came a day after six Egyptian soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in the Sinai.

Last week, IS claimed responsibility for firing an anti-tank missile at a helicopter in a North Sinai airport as the defence and interior ministers were visiting.

The attack killed an aide to the defence minister and a helicopter pilot, but both ministers returned to Cairo unscathed.

Egypt's Gulf allies sent their condolences over Friday's shooting.

Saudi Arabia said it would "stand with Egypt against sinful terrorist acts", while the United Arab Emirates called the attack a "cowardly".

Qatar, at the centre of a long-running dispute with its Gulf neighbours and Egypt, which accuse it of supporting extremist groups, also sent condolences and emphasised its "firm position in rejecting terrorism".
Palestinian protestors clash with Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank on December 29, 2017, following Washington's controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital

At least 56 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli gunfire in the West Bank and Gaza on Friday as they protested in a fresh "day of rage" over US President Donald Trump's controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Israeli forces also hit the Gaza Strip with tank fire and air strikes after rockets from the Palestinian enclave targeted a southern community, the army and Palestinian sources said.

Israeli troops opened fire during clashes in several parts of the coastal territory, wounding 40 people, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said. Four were in a serious condition.

The Israeli army said 2,000 protestors had thrown stones and Molotov cocktails at soldiers on the Israeli side of a barrier with the Palestinian territory.

In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said at least 16 people were wounded when Israeli troops fired live bullets during demonstrations, while others were hit with rubber-coated rounds.

The Israeli military said about 500 demonstrators had burned tyres and thrown Molotov cocktails and stones at its forces in 30 different parts of the West Bank.

Israel also carried out air strikes on the Gaza Strip after Palestinian militants fired three rockets at southern Israel, two of which were intercepted by the "Iron Dome" aerial defence system, the army said.

Israeli security forces stand guard during clashes with Palestinian demonstrators after Friday prayers in the occupied West Bank on December 29, 2017

Police said the third rocket hit a structure in a community near Gaza, causing damage but no casualties.

"In response to the rockets fired towards Israel, IDF (Israel Defence Forces) tanks and IAF (Israeli Air Force) aircraft targeted two posts belonging to the terrorist organisation Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip," the army said in a statement.

Witnesses said Israeli tanks shelled a position controlled by Gaza's Islamist rulers east of Gaza City.

A spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry said nobody was injured by the Israeli fire.

Both Hamas and fellow militant group Islamic Jihad had labelled Friday a "day of rage", as in previous weeks.

Militants in Gaza have fired more than a dozen rockets or mortar rounds at southern Israel in the latest wave of violence, which erupted after Trump's decision.

Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli forces near a border fence east of Gaza City on December 29, 2017

Before Friday, the last rockets fired from Gaza were on December 18, one of which hit a home in a border town.

Trump's December 6 announcement was followed by protests across the West Bank and on Gaza's border with Israel, with 12 Gazans killed in clashes with Israeli forces on the border or by Israeli strikes following rocket fire.

The rockets are often fired by fringe Islamist groups but Israel holds Hamas responsible for all attacks from the territory.
More than 8,000 civilians were killed or wounded in conflict-related violence in the first nine months of this year, according to data compiled by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan

Mourners on a cold, barren hill outside Kabul wept Friday as they buried loved ones killed in a suicide attack targeting Shiites, the latest victims in one of the bloodiest years in the war-torn country.

At a Shiite cemetery spread over the hills dozens of men wearing heavy coats and blankets laid to rest victims, many of whom suffered severe burns in the explosion which killed more than 40 people in the capital a day earlier.

During one ceremony relatives stood shoulder to shoulder or crouched on the hard ground sobbing as the body of Mohammad Sharif Akhlaqi, a political science graduate, was lowered into a freshly dug grave.

"This is not the first and this won't be the last," a mullah overseeing the burial told the mourners, warning of more attacks against Shiites in Sunni-majority Afghanistan.

"Don't be asleep. Wake up! You should take care of yourselves because the government hasn't helped us," he implored them.

His plea echoed growing anger at the government in the wake of Thursday's bloodshed, in which multiple blasts by the Islamic State group at a pro-Iran Shiite cultural centre in Kabul also left more than 80 wounded.

"We are tired of insecurity in this country," a mourner at another funeral on Friday told Tolo News, giving the government an ultimatum.

"Either protect us or resign."

The frustration and grief comes at the end of a particularly deadly year for ordinary Afghans, with the number of civilian casualties on track to be one of the highest on record since the US invasion in 2001.

Afghan Shiite mourners and relatives attend a burial ceremony for the one of the victims

More than 8,000 civilians were killed or wounded in conflict-related violence in the first nine months of this year, according to data compiled by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

Last year's civilian casualty toll of 11,418 was the highest for a single year since the UN began systematically documenting civilian deaths and injuries in 2009.

Since the withdrawal of foreign combat troops in 2014 Afghan security forces have struggled to beat back the resurgent Taliban, which is still responsible for the majority of the attacks and casualties across the country.

But IS, which was first designated a terrorist group in the region in 2015, is defying a US-led aerial bombing campaign to expand its presence beyond its stronghold in the eastern province of Nangarhar and into other regions.

That includes the capital, where it has claimed 14 attacks this year alone, including three in December, resulting in hundreds of casualties and helping to make the city one of the deadliest places for civilians in the country.

Among the more than 120 victims of Thursday's assault were students and journalists from the Afghan Voice Agency, an anti-IS media outlet located in the same building.

They were marking the 38th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan -- the event ushering the start of nearly four decades of continuous conflict in the country -- when the suicide attacker slipped into the room and blew himself up.
Earlier this year, China sent its only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, through the Taiwan Strait during a drill as a show of strength, but it did not enter Taiwanese waters

Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen warned Friday against what she called China's "military expansion" as it ups drills around the island, but said she did not believe the two rivals would go to war.

Beijing has stepped up pressure on Taiwan and relations have become increasingly frosty since Tsai took office in May last year, as she refuses to acknowledge Taiwan is part of "one China".

China views self-ruling Taiwan as part of its territory, to be reunified at some point.

Tsai warned that China's frequent air and naval drills showed that "its intentions for military expansion in the region are getting more and more obvious".

According to Taiwan's defence ministry, Chinese warplanes conducted 25 drills around Taiwan between August 2016 and mid-December this year.

The latest known drill took place on December 20 when several Chinese planes, including fighters and bombers, passed through the Bashi Channel south of Taiwan to the Pacific and back.

Earlier this year, China sent its only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, through the Taiwan Strait during a drill as a show of strength, but it did not enter Taiwanese waters.

Some military experts have warned the increased drills may suggest China is gearing up to take over Taiwan by force.

But Tsai said she believed Chinese leaders were "rational decision makers".

"I think the option of taking military action against Taiwan is not part of their decision-making thinking at this time," Tsai told an end-of-year press conference.

"Cross-strait issues definitely cannot be resolved by military force. (They) should rely on peaceful means to deal with different opinions and positions," she added.

Chinese jets flew over the Sea of Japan (East Sea) earlier this month, prompting South Korea and Japan to scramble jets.

China's air force said then it was the first time its aircraft had flown through the Tsushima Strait between South Korea and Japan.

There has also been international concern over large-scale land reclamation by China around disputed reefs in the South China Sea.

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 in the area where it has conflicting claims with neighbours.

Tsai pledged Friday to strengthen Taiwan's homegrown defence.

"Taiwan cannot rely on others to defend its sovereignty," she said.

"Taiwan is not big, but our determination to defend our country and home is resolute."

Tsai added Taiwan was still committed to maintaining the "status quo" with China.

Beijing cut off all official communication with her government shortly after she took office.
Jacob Zuma took the reins of the ANC in 2007 in a party putsch against ex-president Thabo Mbeki

The normally calm and often jovial Jacob Zuma is a former herdboy who fought in the anti-apartheid struggle and clung on to the presidency for as long as he could, despite a string of scandals.

Now aged 75, he survived by building a network of loyal African National Congress (ANC) lawmakers and officials, and by trading on the party's legacy as the organisation that ended white-minority rule.

Among the stains on his presidency which ended when he resigned Wednesday was perception that he fostered a culture of government corruption.

He is also accused of having led the country into a quagmire of low growth, huge debt and record unemployment.

He stood down as ANC party chief at a conference in December but refused a party request to stand down as head of state a week-and-a-half ago, prompting his party to recall him.

On Wednesday Zuma bowed to the inevitable and resigned "with immediate effect".

As leader of the late Nelson Mandela's ANC party, which has won every election since South Africa became a democracy in 1994, Zuma easily won a second five-year term in 2014.

The son of a domestic worker, he had "a very strong appeal" to the working class and the poor, said Sdumo Dlamini, head of the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), an ANC ally.

"He is a people's person and he has grown through the ranks of the working class. He knows the suffering of the ordinary folk."

- Grassroots support -

Born on April 12, 1942, in Nkandla, a rural hamlet in KwaZulu-Natal province, Zuma's extraordinary journey inspires his loyal grassroots supporters.

Popularly referred to as "JZ", the uneducated youngster rose through the ranks of the then-banned ANC, serving a 10-year stint as an apartheid-era political prisoner on Robben Island along the way.

After fleeing into exile, he became the party's feared head of intelligence, charged with dealing with traitors and informants.

He invited ridicule and condemnation during his 2006 rape trial when he told the court he had showered after having unprotected sex with his young HIV-positive accuser to avoid contracting the virus

When he took the reins of the ANC in 2007 in a party putsch against ex-president Thabo Mbeki, Zuma inherited a movement riddled with divisions.

Tensions have only deepened as the ANC has been accused of losing its moral compass.

As criticism of his reign mounted, Zuma maintained a cheerful public facade, often chuckling when allegations against him were repeated.

But he was significantly weakened as increasingly senior ANC figures criticised him in public.

He was forced into a humiliating climbdown in 2015 after firing a respected finance minister and appointing a man widely seen as a stooge.

As the national rand currency went into free fall, Zuma bowed to pressure and re-appointed Pravin Gordhan, an admired former finance minister, to the crucial post.

In a tussle that symbolised his tenacious grip over the ANC, Zuma fought on and finally got the finance minister of his choice in March 2017 when Gordhan was ousted in a midnight reshuffle.

In 2016, Zuma agreed to pay back some of the public money spent on his private residence at Nkandla -- backing down in the face of a stinging Constitutional Court rebuke.

He has also been accused of corrupt dealings with the Guptas, a wealthy family of Indian origin, and allegedly granted them influence over his cabinet appointments.

That scandal also reached a climax on Wednesday when elite corruption police arrested several people at the Gupta compound in Johannesburg.

Zuma's tense relationship with his deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa came to a head this month when the movement to recall Zuma from the presidency gained momentum on the week he was due to deliver a key parliamentary speech.

The event was postponed as Zuma and Ramaphosa tried to thrash out a transition deal to ease out the embattled head of state.

- Zulu warrior -

Zuma's private life is as colourful as his political career.

A proud traditionalist, he often swaps tailored suits for full leopard-pelt Zulu warrior gear, engaging in energetic ground-stomping tribal dances during ceremonies in his village.

At ANC rallies, he was often the first to break into tuneful song.

Zuma often regaled crowds by singing the rousing anti-apartheid struggle song "Umshini Wami" (Bring Me My Machine Gun), which became his signature tune

In the past, he relished leading supporters in the rousing anti-apartheid struggle song "Umshini Wami" (Bring Me My Machine Gun), which became his signature tune.

The teetotaller and non-smoker has four wives and at least 20 children.

Before taking office, Zuma dismayed the nation during his 2006 rape trial when he told the court he had showered after having unprotected sex with his young HIV-positive accuser to avoid, he said, contracting the virus.

The claim incensed safe-sex campaigners -- not least because Zuma was head of the country's AIDS council at the time.

Zuma was acquitted of rape but is often mocked in newspaper cartoons and depicted with a shower nozzle sprouting from his bald head.

At Mandela's memorial service in 2013, he was loudly booed by ordinary South Africans in front of world leaders.

During Zuma's time in power, South Africa was rocked by increasing social unrest over the failure to provide housing and basic services to the poorest in society.

Zuma is also still fighting a court order that could reinstate corruption charges against him over 783 alleged payments linked to a multi-billion dollar arms deal in the 1990s.
A budtender assists a customer at the Higher Path medical marijuana dispensary in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, California; the state is set to legalize recreational marijuana from January 1, 2018

At the stroke of midnight on January 1, pot lovers in California may raise a joint, instead of a glass of champagne.

America's wealthiest state is legalizing the growth, sale and consumption of recreational marijuana, opening the door to the world's biggest market.

With authorities looking to cash in via heavy taxes, the stakes are high -- and the Golden State's so-called "green rush" will be watched closely.

Arcview, a firm that studies the global cannabis market, estimates that it will be worth $22.6 billion in 2021, up from $6.7 billion in 2016.

In California alone, the industry will be worth $5.8 billion in 2021, with almost three quarters of that from recreational use.

But 2018's transition will not be automatic -- or simple.

Although eight other states and the capital Washington have already legalized recreational marijuana use, none compare to the sheer size of California.

"The first year, two years are going to be a mess," as cities determine their own regulations and supply and demand is established, predicts Arcview CEO Troy Dayton.

California already pioneered the legalization of medicinal cannabis in 1996 -- but the substance is still considered illegal under federal law, and the Trump administration has been hostile on the issue

California already pioneered the legalization of medicinal cannabis in 1996, and approved the current law in 2016.

But the substance is still considered illegal under federal law, and the administration of President Donald Trump has been hostile on the issue.

- Thriving black market? -

According to the new law in California, anyone older than 21 can get up to 28.5 grams (one ounce) of cannabis without a prescription and grow up to six plants per residence.

It cannot be consumed in public places or while driving -- nor can it be used within 1,000 feet (about 300 meters) of a school or other place for children.

The production, distribution and sale of marijuana also requires municipal and state permits.

A billboard advertising financing opportunities for marijuana growers is seen in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles; in California alone, the industry is expected to be worth $5.8 billion in 2021 as cannabis for recreational use is legalized

Cities such as San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose have wasted no time, already issuing licenses to several dispensaries that can start selling recreational marijuana on Monday.

But in Los Angeles, there is a wait.

Seller Jerred Kiloh, who runs a thriving medical dispensary, will not be able to join the New Year's party as authorities will only begin to accept applications on January 3.

Cat Packer, chief of Los Angeles' cannabis regulation department, said the process "is not going to happen overnight."

On one December afternoon, Kiloh's dispensary is full.

Leaving the shop, a man says "I love your store" -- which has a distinctive smell and products ranging from cannabis flowers to creams, cakes and candies.

Kiloh, who has been in the industry for a decade, says his biggest concern is that while he is closed awaiting a license, hundreds of other shops will be operating without one -- offering attractive prices and drawing customers away.

Dispensaries can be seen on every corner, but it is hard to know which ones are legal.

Kiloh -- who is also an economist and president of plant-based therapeutics corporation United Cannabis -- claims "about 80 percent of the industry that operates in Los Angeles right now operates without a permit and without paying taxes."

He also estimates only 135 shops operate above board.

According to Arcview, the illegal market generated $5.1 billion in 2016.

- 'Crazy fluctuation' -

BaKed Lollipops with 90mg each of THC, the chemical component in cannabis responsible for making users high, are for sale at the Higher Path medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles

Authorities in Los Angeles have said they are working on a plan to combat illicit drug trading.

For example, the police have the power to cut off electricity and water at illegal vendors.

Other more conservative cities will simply prohibit sales.

Meanwhile, some projections estimate that costs could hike up to 70 percent -- due to state tax set at 15 percent, 10 percent sales tax, and municipal taxes of up to 10 percent on top of that -- as well as license requirements and required technology such as trackers for each plant.

"You could see some crazy fluctuation in price over the first year or two," said Dayton.

Marijuana for medical use should become cheaper and available for purchase in more quantities.

Kiloh estimates that to meet current demand, "you'd probably have to have 10,000 licenses available right now" in California.

In neighboring Nevada in July, when recreational marijuana went on sale, emergency measures had to be implemented to allow distributors to meet the astronomical demand.
The April 2010 explosion at BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig caused widespread pollution in the Gulf of Mexico, prompting new regulations on safety equipment to prevent similar blowouts -- rules the Trump administration now wants to roll back

The US government on Friday published proposed new regulations on offshore oil drilling that would reverse safeguards put in place following the Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster in 2010.

The proposed rules ease requirements on safety and pollution prevention equipment for offshore rigs to promote more drilling, according to a statement from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).

"By reducing the regulatory burden on industry, we are encouraging increased domestic oil and gas production while maintaining a high bar for safety and environmental sustainability," said BSEE director Scott Angelle.

"I am confident that this revision of the Production Safety Systems Rule moves us forward toward meeting the administration's goal of achieving energy dominance without sacrificing safety."

The bureau said the changes, published in the Federal Register on Friday, would save the industry at least $228 million over 10 years as it reduces "unnecessary" industry compliance burdens, according to the initial analysis.

The public has 30 days to comment on the rule changes.

In April, the administration of President Donald Trump ordered agencies to review rules that place undue burdens on the oil industry, as part of an overall bid to reduce regulations on business.

The BSEE was created in October 2011 in response to the Deepwater Horizon tragedy in April 2010, which killed 11 people and sent millions of barrels of crude oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. The leak gushed for nearly three months before it was stopped.

But the industry, led by the American Petroleum Institute, has long complained of the "flawed and costly approach" of the new regulations.

The BSEE said one out of every six barrels of oil produced in the United States comes from the outer continental shelf (OCS), for a total of over 550 million barrels of oil and 1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The agency oversees approximately 2,400 production platforms located in the three OCS regions: Arctic, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific.
US President Donald Trump criticized China for failing to cut off Pyongyang's oil supply

Of the four ships blocked from international ports under UN sanctions on North Korea, three are registered in the isolated country and a fourth flies the flag of Palau, according to the final list adopted by the world body.

Diplomats had said on Thursday that all four were North Korean vessels.

Blocking suspected vessels from ports -- except in the case of humanitarian need -- is provided for under UN Security Council sanctions resolutions targeting North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

According to the list seen by AFP, the ships in questions are the Palau-flagged oil tanker Billions 18, and the North Korean vessels Ul Ji Bong 6, Rung Ra 2 and Rye Song Gang 1.

The North Korean oil tanker Sam Jong 2 so far has not been banned from international ports, but it appears on a list of six ships suspected of transporting cargo banned under the international sanctions.

One diplomat said it was still under investigation.

The United States had originally asked for 10 ships to be banned, but China would only agree to four, diplomats said.

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump criticized China for failing to cut off Pyongyang's oil supply.

A State Department official said Washington was aware that "certain vessels have engaged in UN-prohibited activities, including ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum and the transport of coal from North Korea."

China, Pyongyang's main ally, has denied any wrongdoing.

So far, the UN has banned a total of eight ships from international ports.
It would be a "mistake" for Bashar al-Assad to launch an offensive against US-supported Syrian Kurds, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said

US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis on Friday warned President Bashar al-Assad against launching an offensive against US-supported Syrian Kurds, after the Syrian leader recently slammed them as "traitors."

"That would be a mistake," Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon.

Assad and rebel Kurdish forces have recently exchanged angry words, stoking fears that fighting might break out between the two camps.

There is currently a demarcation line between areas controlled by the US-led coalition battling jihadists with the Islamic State group, mainly in eastern Syria, and those controlled by Syria and its Russian allies in western Syria.

"We have said that we would operate on one side and the Russians on the other," Mattis said. "And we are still taking (the IS) down. Nothing has changed."

"It's a mistake" to cross that line, he emphasized.

- Kurds as 'traitors' -

A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) member runs to take cover from sniper shots in the Syrian city of Raqa in October, where Syrian fighters with US military support cleared the last remaining Islamic State group jihadists holed up in their crumbling stronghold

Assad had criticized the semi-autonomous Kurds in the past, but his mid-December comments were harsher than any since the Syrian unrest broke out in 2011.

"When we talk about those referred to as 'the Kurds', they are in fact not just Kurds," Assad said in remarks released by the Syrian presidency.

"All those who work for a foreign country, mainly those under American command... are traitors."

The comments prompted an angry response from the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Force (SDF), which seized swaths of northern and eastern Syria from the IS in a months-long assault backed by US-led coalition air support.

It was Assad's regime "that flung the country's doors wide open to hordes of foreign terrorists from across the world," the SDF said in a statement.

They accused the regime of freeing "terrorists" from its prisons so they could "shed the blood of Syrians of all stripes."

- US diplomats to Syria -

An American with the US-led military coalition in Syria speaks with a Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighter near the Syrian Kurdish town of Derik in April

In early December a Pentagon spokesman said that US forces would remain in Syria "as long as necessary" -- and on Friday Mattis added that US diplomats will soon be on the ground in eastern Syria to organize de-mining and reconstruction projects.

"The military would move our diplomats around, make certain to protect them," Mattis said.

"What we will be doing is shifting from what I would call ... an offensive terrain seizing approach to a stabilizing" operation, he said.

Mattis did not say what legal basis will be used to send in US diplomats to Syria, as the US-led coalition is authorized under Article 51 of the United Nations charter only to battle IS jihadists.

The Assad regime controls about 55 percent of Syria after defeating rebels and jihadists with Russian support. Kurdish forces control 28 percent of the country.

When asked if the ultimate US objective was to partition Syria, Mattis's response was succinct: "No."
Mali's Prime Minister Abdoulaye Idrissa Maiga presented his resignation and that of his government, a wholly unforeseen move seven months before Keita seeks re-election as president

Mali's Prime Minister Abdoulaye Idrissa Maiga and his government resigned on Friday, a surprise move just months ahead of presidential polls.

Authorities gave no reason for Maiga, who had been in his post since April, stepping down seven months before President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita seeks re-election.

Maiga "presented to the president his resignation along with that of the members of his government," the president's office stated, saying Keita had "accepted" his decision to quit.

The statement added a replacement prime minister and government would swiftly be found for Maiga, who had thanked the president for the opportunity to serve his country.

Maiga, a trained engineer who hails from the northern city of Gao, is vice-chairman of the ruling Rally for Mali (RPM), which Keita founded.

He was Keita's campaign director during the latter's successful run for the presidency in 2013.

He resigns with Mali's north still a theatre of unrest almost six years after a French-led military operation chased Islamic extremists linked to Al-Qaeda from a region they had taken control of in early 2012.

Mali's army, French soldiers and a UN mission (MINUSMA) still have little control over large tracts of the country, which regularly come under attack in spite of a peace accord signed with Tuareg leaders in May and June 2015 with the aim of isolating the jihadists.

The past two years have seen jihadist attacks spread to central and southern areas as well as over the border into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

The spread of the unrest this year prompted the G5 regional forum, which also includes Mauritania and Chad, to step up peace efforts with French support.

Maiga was Keita's fourth prime minister after Oumar Tatam Ly (September 2013-March 2014), Moussa Mara (April 2014-January 2015) and Modibo Keita (January 2015-April 2017).
The New York building where 12 people died in a fire was built early in the last century

There are barely any traces of fire on the apartment building's facade, no puddles of water on the ground, and only a handful of onlookers.

The scene of New York's deadliest fire in decades -- 12 are dead -- seems frozen by the frigid temperatures, which dropped to 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 degrees Celsius).

On Friday, only two fire trucks, their lights still flashing, hinted at the drama that had unfolded the evening before in the Bronx.

On the sidewalk, water blasted out by fire hoses encased the branches of a tree in ice -- a reminder of the Christmas decorations adorning 187th Street a few yards (meters) away, which are at odds with the tragic blaze.

In this neighborhood, historically Italian but now multicultural, just a few people came to look at the building, which remains behind yellow security tape whipped by a frigid wind.

Two men come and go from the corner grocery. They are in their 20s, their shoulders covered with a blanket from the Red Cross.

With a faraway look in their eyes, they decline to answer questions from reporters.

Rafik Al-Jabali, 47, a neighbor who operates one of three grocery stores on the nearest corner, saw the tragedy quickly unfold.

"It happened like this," he says, snapping his fingers.

Jabali lives in the building right across the street from the doomed apartment block. He says he was in bed when the fire started.

By the time he got to the window, firefighters had already begun working. Thick, dark smoke poured out of several windows.

Moments later, he saw a woman taken out on a stretcher.

"She was already dead," Jabali said, lowering his eyes.

- Haunted by the images -

The building's facade shows no trace of the deadly blaze, New York's deadliest in decades

Joel Rodriguez, 40, lives on the ground floor of the building and was able to escape rather easily, even though smoke had turned the corridors "pitch black."

He saw several of his neighbors, brought out -- naked or largely exposed, deprived of their dignity -- on stretchers. Some of them were burned.

"It was very tough," Rodriguez says.

"I still have the images in my mind. I can't erase them," he adds, his eyes masked by dark glasses.

The city's fire chief said Friday that a three-year-old boy playing with stove burners apparently accidentally ignited the fire. The victims included three small girls and an unidentified boy.

Rodriguez says the building was home to "happy people" who brought out their barbecues in summer, noting: "Everybody has fun. We all get along. There's no dispute or nothing."

A visibly fatigued Rodriguez says he slept a little in his car, between visits to the hospital where his wife is being treated for smoke inhalation.

He has a hard time seeing himself return to live in the building of light-colored bricks that was built in the early 20th century and which has become a tomb.

"Today, I wouldn't want to come back. It's a memorial site right now," Rodriguez says.

- 'Today, they have nothing' -

Behind him, Kenneth Cruiz arrives with a cart full of clothes that he had saved for victims of this year's hurricanes in Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida, but never had the chance to give away.

"This morning, my wife added three more jackets and I came over," he says, marching towards a school where most of the fire survivors are staying.

A police officer says nobody is there, even if at least seven of his colleagues are stationed in the entrance, and dozens of officials come and go.

He lets Cruiz leave the clothes.

"My good deed," Cruiz says.

"I'm sure a few hours ago, these people had everything, Christmas presents and everything. Today, they have nothing."
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The Latest on developments in Afghanistan (all times local):

3:40 p.m.

Authorities say an attack on a Shiite Muslim cultural center in the Afghan capital Kabul has left at least 41 people dead and 84 wounded.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said an unknown number of suicide attackers set off an explosion outside the center before carrying out an attack inside. They set off explosive devices in the basement of the building where scores of people had gathered to mark the December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union, he said.

Wahid Mujro, spokesman for the public health ministry, says the toll is at 41 killed and 84 wounded.

The Islamic State group affiliate in Afghanistan has claimed responsibility.

The center is located in the Shiite-dominated Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood in the west of the capital.

___

3:20 p.m.

The Islamic State group affiliate in Afghanistan, in a statement on its Aamaq news agency, says it carried out the attack on a Shiite Muslim cultural center that killed at least 35 and wounded another 56.

The IS-linked Aamaq news agency said three bombs were used in the Thursday attack as well as a single suicide bomber who blew himself up inside the center.

The claim reflects witness reports that one bomber sneaked into the center and exploded his device. Other explosions occurred outside the two-story building, which also houses the pro-Iranian Afghan Voice news agency.

Aamaq in its statement also claimed the center was funded by Iran and propagating Shiite beliefs.

___

1:20 p.m.

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has called the attack on a Shiite Muslim cultural center in Kabul a "crime against humanity."

In a statement released by the presidential palace, Ghani says: "The terrorist have killed our people. The terrorists have attacked our mosques, our holy places and now our cultural center."

He called them attacks as against Islam and "all human values."

___

1 p.m.

Authorities say an attack on a Shiite Muslim cultural center in the Afghan capital Kabul has left at least 35 people dead and 20 wounded.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish says an unknown number of suicide attackers set off an explosion outside the center before storming it. They then set off explosive devices in the basement of the building where scores of people had gathered to mark the December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union, he said.

The center is located in the Shiite-dominated Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood in the west of the capital.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but the Islamic State group affiliate in Afghanistan has claimed several brutal attacks on Shiites in recent months in Kabul.

___

9:53 a.m.

An Afghan official says a roadside mine has exploded, killing six children in northern Balkh province.

Dawlat Abad District Gov. Mohammad Karim said Thursday the powerful mine killed six shepherd children Wednesday ages 10, 9 and 8.

No one immediately took responsibility for the attack but Karim blames the Taliban, saying the insurgents planted the mine to target Afghan officials and security forces.

Afghanistan has the highest number of mine victims in the world, which along with other roadside bombs kill or wound an estimated 140 people every month.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - An attorney for victims of clergy sex abuse said Thursday that a judge has ordered all sides back to mediation in the yearslong bankruptcy case of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, but he said the ruling will quicken the process of getting payments to victims.

The judge denied both the archdiocese's reorganization plan and a competing plan submitted by a creditors' committee before ordering all sides back into negotiations, St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson said. The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection in 2015, as it faced an onslaught of new abuse allegations.

Anderson said the judge's decision means "there will be a speedier resolution" than either plan could have offered.

In a statement Thursday, the chair of the archdiocese's reorganization task force, Tom Abood, said the decision "bolsters our resolve to move forward in the bankruptcy process." Abood said the archdiocese looks forward to participating in mediation "to bring a prompt and fair resolution."

The plan from the archdiocese included a fund of more than $155 million for abuse victims who filed claims in bankruptcy court. The bulk of that money comes from insurance payments. A plan by the survivors' committee calls for the archdiocese to increase its contributions to the victims' fund to at least $80 million.

In May, an overwhelming majority of the abuse victims voted in favor of a plan submitted by the creditors' committee.

In his orders denying both plans, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel cited the abuse victims' overwhelming rejection of the archdiocese's plan, and said the creditors' committee plan relies heavily on the success of future litigation to fund the plan and pay some creditors.

Last year, Kressel declined to include parishes and other church properties among assets in the archdiocese's bankruptcy. The committee representing abuse victims wanted to consolidate the assets of various entities in the archdiocese, which would have meant more money to pay victims' claims.
EL PASO, Texas (AP) - In a story Dec. 28 about a Mexican journalist seeking asylum, The Associated Press erroneously reported where journalist Emilio Gutierrez Soto and his teenage son were being held. The two are being held at an immigration detention center in El Paso, Texas, not at a detention center in Sierra Blanca, Texas.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Board to reconsider Mexican journalist's US asylum request

Board to reconsider asylum request of Mexican journalist who believes he will be killed if deported

EL PASO, Texas (AP) - The U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals will reconsider the asylum request of a Mexican journalist who believes he will be killed if deported.

In a statement Thursday, the National Press Club said the board will consider Emilio Gutierrez Soto's request again. Spokespeople for the board could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Press Club and other press freedom advocates have highlighted the case and those of other reporters who claim their lives were in danger.

Gutierrez says he began receiving death threats after writing articles alleging military forces were robbing and extorting local people in Chihuahua, Mexico.

He fled north with his teenage son and entered the U.S. in 2008, seeking asylum.

They have been held in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in El Paso, Texas, since the immigration board halted a deportation order earlier this month.
NEW YORK (AP) - The Latest on deadly Bronx apartment building fire (all times local):

11:15 p.m.

Residents of a Bronx apartment building where a deadly fire broke out are describing a chaotic scene.

Firefighters respond to a building fire Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in the Bronx borough of New York. The Fire Department of New York says a blaze raging in the Bronx apartment building has seriously injured more than a dozen of people. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

The blaze Thursday night left 12 people dead including a child around a year old and four more people fighting for their lives.

Fifty-nine-year-old Thierno Diallo says he was asleep in his ground floor apartment when he heard banging on the door. Diallo says it took him a moment to realize what was happening. He says he heard people screaming, "There's a fire in the building!" He ran out in his bathrobe, jacket and sandals.

Neighborhood resident Robert Gonzalez, who has a friend who lives in the building, says she got out on a fire escape.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro has called the fire, "historic in its magnitude," because of the number of lives lost.

___

10:10 p.m.

New York City's mayor says 12 people have been killed in a Bronx apartment building fire including a child around a year old.

Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio (dih BLAH'-zee-oh) said during a briefing late Thursday that additional residents of the building were fighting for their lives with serious injuries.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro called the fire, "historic in its magnitude," because of the number of lives lost.

The fire was reported just before 7 p.m. at a five-story building a block from the Bronx Zoo.

About 170 firefighters fought the fire and rescued fleeing tenants, working in temperatures in the teens.

___

8:50 p.m.

The New York City mayor's press secretary says at least six people have died in a blaze at a Bronx apartment building on a frigid night, and several more have been injured.

Press Secretary Eric Phillips says the eventual toll is still uncertain. The Fire Department of New York said earlier that 15 people were seriously injured in the fire near the Bronx Zoo Thursday night.

About 170 firefighters are at the five-story, walk-up apartment house. Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio (dih BLAH'-zee-oh) also plans to head there.

Temperatures are in the teens in New York, with winds making it feel like single digits.

One of the deadliest fires in recent memory happened elsewhere in the Bronx in 2007. Nine children and one adult died in a blaze sparked by a space heater.

___

8:10 p.m.

The Fire Department of New York says a blaze raging in a Bronx apartment building has seriously injured 15 people.

The FDNY says in a tweet that's the number of injuries currently reported from the fire near the Bronx Zoo.

FDNY photos show ladders stretched to the roof of the five-story building. Some 170 firefighters are on the scene.

City Department of Buildings records show the building is a walk-up apartment house.

City officials are advising people in the area to close their windows to keep out the smoke.
KAYSERI, Turkey (AP) - Iminjin Qari felt upbeat as he drove to Istanbul's airport with three empty buses and a simple task: pick up about 200 fellow Uighurs who had fled China for asylum in Turkey - and escort them to safety.

Qari, a Uighur emigre and community worker, planned to take the newcomers back to the city of Kayseri, where the Turkish government had set aside empty apartments for their resettlement. As he approached the terminal, his heart sank. About 20 burly Uighurs were already there, greeting the refugees as they trickled out. They were recruiters for Islamic militant groups.

"Just come with us," the men said. "It's all arranged: housing, money, everything."

In this Aug. 7, 2017 photo, a Uighur child immigrant sleeps in a resettlement community in Kayseri in central Turkey. As Uighurs flee a Chinese security crackdown in droves, they often end up caught in a tug-of-war between militant Uighur members of Syria-based Islamic groups and moderate leaders of the Uighur diaspora who plead with them to reject calls of jihad. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

Qari could only watch as the new arrivals - men, women and children - wrangled their possessions into vans and headed toward the paradise they had been promised: Syria.

As Uighurs flee a Chinese security crackdown in droves, they often end up caught in a tug-of-war between militant Uighur members of Syria-based Islamic groups and moderate leaders of the Uighur diaspora who plead with them to reject calls of jihad.

Extensive Associated Press interviews detail the daily battle some Uighur activists are fighting against the radicalization of their people, members of a Muslim ethnic minority who live in China under heavy surveillance and the constant fear of arrest . In Turkey, religious extremism has peeled away young Uighur men and entire families from Istanbul's immigrant neighborhoods, from gritty central Anatolian suburbs - sometimes from right outside the airport.

The war in Syria has thrust an ethnic minority from the far reaches of China into the center of the global jihadi movement. Several thousand Uighur men, women and children are estimated to have crossed the border to join the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), an ethnic Uighur militia allied with al-Qaida on the front lines of the fighting .

"We are losing the deradicalization battle," said Seyit Tumturk, a Uighur activist, said in a recent interview in Kayseri. "Why? Because we cannot convince our people that hope and human rights exists in the world."

Around the time Qari watched the jihadi recruiters whisk Uighurs from the airport in 2015, the TIP announced a string of suicide attacks in Syria. That September, Uighurs bombed a downtown Bangkok shrine filled with tourists. Last year, the head of al-Qaida began denouncing China as "atheist occupiers" and courted Uighur fighters in recruitment videos.

The spread of extremism has alarmed many exiled Uighur leaders, who condemn violence and say it will lead their people's ruin. But they're confronted by a young generation who see no future under one of the world's most powerful authoritarian governments and feel ignored by the rest of the world.

The Uighurs are wrestling over decades-old questions: Do we seek freedom with peace or violence? Is our path forward secular or Islamist?

Who will help us face the might of the People's Republic of China?

___

A GLIMPSE OF FREEDOM

On the outskirts of Kayseri in central Anatolia, the parched, rock-strewn hills resemble the southern swathes of the Uighur homeland in western China, but a fenced compound of five-story concrete towers represents Tumturk's vision of Uighur freedom - and everything China is not.

In a classroom next to a basketball court, young Uighur boys take Quranic lessons that are forbidden for children in China. Girls in a separate building are taught by women wearing conservative niqab face veils banned back home. Uighur, a Turkic language often written in a modified Arabic script, is freely taught here at a time when Chinese schools in Xinjiang are increasingly enforcing Mandarin-only education.

"Here is a place where they can practice their religion, where kids are going to school, where they have a home. This is our triumph," said Tumturk, the son of a Uighur village chief who first led a group of exiles out of China on foot in 1954 and settled in Kayseri. The local government handed him the keys to a deserted apartment compound once occupied by police cadets.

Uighurs have fled China through a perilous underground railroad, crossing several Southeast Asian countries and landing in Turkey in search of basic freedoms like the ones offered by the community in Kayseri for years. Many say Chinese police checkpoints, frequent home raids, secret detentions and curbs on religion have made life increasingly unbearable.

Others say propaganda by overseas militant groups beckoned Uighurs to Syria to train with weapons and liberate the resource-rich expanse the size of Iran that's marked on maps by the Chinese name - Xinjiang - but Uighurs call East Turkistan.

In Turkey, Tumturk works with Qari, a gregarious 35-year-old, who serves as imam, traditional herbal doctor, and building supervisor to the Uighur community that now numbers more than 2,000.

When Qari leads Friday prayers, he throws in cautionary tales about Uighurs who went to Syria but couldn't come back. There was the rich Uighur who couldn't leave the Turkistan Islamic Party until his family handed over his luxury car as ransom. There was a group of 10 Uighurs who tried to quit the Islamic State last year - but were caught fleeing and executed.

The stories, Qari admitted, "don't do enough."

Nearly all the residents AP spoke to know someone who decided to cross the porous border. They spoke on condition of anonymity or gave one name for fear of retribution against their families in China,

Tumturk says keeping people from leaving is an uphill battle. "We promise that you'll have a voice as a Uighur here, that you'll be a free man. But that's not as attractive if they promise you money, a house. They say paradise is right in front of you, in Syria."

___

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

For Uighurs of a certain generation, a disastrous history is replaying before their eyes.

Adil Abdulghupur, a scruffy self-trained poet and religious scholar in Istanbul, saw his Uighur friends, acquaintances and former jail mates cross the Wakhan Corridor into Afghanistan in the '80s hoping to find allies for Xinjiang's liberation. In frequent lectures to younger Uighurs, he recalls how they pledged allegiance to anti-Soviet mujahideen and later the Taliban and al-Qaida but accomplished little except give the Chinese government reason to crack down on Uighurs.

"Because of terror organizations, Afghanistan is destroyed completely," says Adil, a bearded 50-year-old who speaks with the moral authority of a man who spent 14 years in Chinese prison for publishing criticisms of the Communist Party.

Western analysts say it's unclear whether overseas groups provide direct aid or support to Uighur militants inside China. Uighur assailants have in recent years hacked dozens of civilians to death at a busy train station in Kunming, driven a speeding vehicle into Tiananmen Square and set off crude explosives outside government buildings and markets. Chinese authorities have responded with a show of overwhelming force in Xinjiang.

"Do you want our homeland to become a second Afghanistan?" Adil says. "You're being used as pawns and mercenaries to die for someone else."

___

WEDDING CRASHERS

The effort to steer Uighur arrivals away from Syrian militants sometimes calls for creativity. Adil cuts a ubiquitous, shuffling presence in Istanbul along with Sabir Damolla, a straight-talking former importer who runs an afterschool center that doubles as an occasional soup kitchen.

They form a duo of sorts in Sefakoy, a grid of narrow streets next to Istanbul's airport - lecturing at mosques, crashing weddings and funerals to give speeches and appearing on Istiqlal Media, a Uighur-language television station.

Their message is singular: Stay away from Syria.

Whenever Uighur refugee families, often poorly educated or illiterate, arrive in Istanbul, Adil and Damolla sit with them to explain what's happening in Syria. By Damolla's count, they've talked 400 people out of going to Syria and convinced dozens to come back. They personally know at least 30 who died on the battlefield.

Adil and Damolla can spot the Uighur jihadi recruiters swaggering in the streets in camouflage pants and Adidas sneakers, but they know they're also watched.

"It's like a bazaar," Adil says. "We're selling our ideas and they're selling theirs."

Because of his speeches around the neighborhood, Adil has been pushed around by muscle-bound young Islamic militants outside mosques and intimidated. He received a death threat by phone after he ridiculed an influential young Saudi cleric in Syria who has called on Uighurs to join the jihad.

Last year, local Uighurs pooled money together to help Adil rent 18 apartments in Sefakoy for several dozen families who regretted going to Syria and wanted to return.

Trouble soon came knocking. He explained to a group of threatening young Uighurs who showed up that some fighters had wanted to return. He held firm.

"These men in Syria will ruin our image, they'll ruin everything," Adil said. "The Chinese government through their media and diplomats try to show that Uighurs are terrorists, and, in that sense, the Chinese are winning."

___

HOPE AND DESPAIR IN TURKEY

Even in the relative sanctuary of Turkey, Uighurs say they are isolated economically and engulfed by murky political currents.

In recent months, after Turkey reached agreements with China to crack down on militant activity, the jihadi recruiters have faded from view somewhat. Turkey has strengthened security on the border, making it harder to move back and forth, Uighurs say.

While Turkey has welcomed Uighur refugees, the bureaucracy churns against them after they arrive. Uighurs are considered stateless under Turkish law, unlike refugees from Syria or Iraq, and often unable to receive work permits, health insurance, or schooling for their children.

In the Uighur refugee compound in Kayseri, stories of poverty and despair abound. Men work - if they're lucky - in local furniture factories and restaurants for about 1000 to 1,500 Turkish lira a month (roughly $300 to $440), far less than what a Turk would legally make and barely enough to survive. A 53-year-old woman told a reporter she was dying without health care, unable to pay $650 a month to treat her lymph disease.

In the abandoned apartments occupied by Uighurs, where hallway windows were shattered long ago but floors are swept clean, Fatima, 29, raises 3 children on flour, rice and vegetables. They haven't had meat since May, when her husband was taken away by police. She says his arrest had nothing to do with militant groups - but like many cases here, the details are opaque.

In private moments, Fatima has wondered if the journey out of China was worth it. She recently explained to her 11-year-old daughter in seventh grade that because she was not officially a refugee, she didn't receive certificates from school despite outperforming all of her classmates.

When her girl asked why they fled China to still live as second-class citizens in Turkey, she put on a brave face. "Turkey will protect our freedom and our religion," she said. "This life is better."

The day jihadi recruiters whisked away 170 Uighurs arriving from Thailand, the community worker Qari protested to airport police. They shrugged and responded that the Uighurs were free to leave with friends and relatives of their choosing. Qari, after all, had no way to prove that he acted in their best interests.

As he rode back in his near-empty bus, past the dry, rocky hills, he wept.

"We Uighurs are worth nothing to the world," he thought to himself. "In China, we die. In Syria, we still die. We live without a name, and we die without a trace."

___

Follow Gerry Shih at www.twitter.com/@gerryshih

In this Aug. 8, 2017 photo, Uighur women immigrants from China meet at a resettlement community in Kayseri in central Turkey. As Uighurs flee a Chinese security crackdown in droves, they often end up caught in a tug-of-war between militant Uighur members of Syria-based Islamic groups and moderate leaders of the Uighur diaspora who plead with them to reject calls of jihad. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

In this Aug. 8, 2017 photo, Fatima, a Uighur woman immigrant from China reacts during a meeting at a resettlement community in Kayseri in central Turkey. As Uighurs flee a Chinese security crackdown in droves, they often end up caught in a tug-of-war between militant Uighur members of Syria-based Islamic groups and moderate leaders of the Uighur diaspora who plead with them to reject calls of jihad. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

In this Aug. 8, 2017 photo, Uighur women immigrants from China meet at a resettlement community in Kayseri in central Turkey. As Uighurs flee a Chinese security crackdown in droves, they often end up caught in a tug-of-war between militant Uighur members of Syria-based Islamic groups and moderate leaders of the Uighur diaspora who plead with them to reject calls of jihad. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

In this Aug. 7, 2017 photo, Seyit Tumturk, a Uighur activist speaks near in a resettlement community in Kayseri in central Turkey. As Uighurs flee a Chinese security crackdown in droves, they often end up caught in a tug-of-war between militant Uighur members of Syria-based Islamic groups and moderate leaders of the Uighur diaspora who plead with them to reject calls of jihad. Flags on the wall represents Turkey and "East Turkistan," the name Uighurs who oppose Chinese rule call their homeland, a region China refers to as Xinjiang. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

In this Aug. 7, 2017 photo, Seyit Tumturk, a Uighur activist speaks near in a resettlement community in Kayseri in central Turkey. As Uighurs flee a Chinese security crackdown in droves, they often end up caught in a tug-of-war between militant Uighur members of Syria-based Islamic groups and moderate leaders of the Uighur diaspora who plead with them to reject calls of jihad. Flags on the wall represents Turkey and "East Turkistan," the name Uighurs who oppose Chinese rule call their homeland, a region China refers to as Xinjiang. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

In this Aug. 8, 2017 photo, Uighur Muslim men stand in front of map showing the area claimed by Uighur separatists as "East Turkistan" marked in blue at a resettlement community in Kayseri in central Turkey. As Uighurs flee a Chinese security crackdown in droves, they often end up caught in a tug-of-war between militant Uighur members of Syria-based Islamic groups and moderate leaders of the Uighur diaspora who plead with them to reject calls of jihad. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)

In this Aug. 10, 2017 photo, Adil Abdulghupur, a self-trained poet and religious scholar, speaks at a mosque in Istanbul. Adil Abdulghupur, a scruffy self-trained poet and religious scholar in Istanbul, saw his Uighur friends, acquaintances and former jail mates cross the Wakhan Corridor into Afghanistan in the '80s hoping to find allies for Xinjiang's eventual liberation. In frequent lectures to younger Uighurs, he recalls who they pledged allegiance to anti-Soviet mujahideen and later the Taliban and al Qaida but accomplished little except give the Chinese government reason to crack down on Uighurs. (AP Photo/Gerry Shih)

In this Aug. 10, 2017 photo, Sabir Damolla, a straight-talking former importer who runs an afterschool center that doubles as an occasional soup kitchen, looks up during an interview in his office in Istanbul. Because of his speeches around the neighborhood to steer Uighur arrivals from Syrian militants, Adil has been pushed around by muscle-bound young Islamic militants outside mosques and intimidated. He received a death threat by phone after he ridiculed an influential young Saudi cleric in Syria who has called on Uighurs to join the jihad. (AP Photo/Gerry Shih)
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkish police detained 29 suspected Islamic State group militants in the capital, Ankara, on Friday, some of whom allegedly were preparing to carry out attacks during New Year's celebrations, the state-run news agency reported.

Some 500 police officers took part in simultaneous raids to detain the suspects, many of them foreign nationals, Anadolu Agency reported. Police had warrants to detain 17 other suspects.

Materials seized by police during the raids indicated that some of the suspects had staked out locations and made preparations for possible attacks on New Year's Eve, the report said.

There was no immediate information on the foreigners' nationalities.

Turkey has suffered a series of deadly attacks blamed on IS militants, including a New Year's attack at an Istanbul nightclub by a gunman that killed 39 people.

The country is stepping up security measures ahead of this weekend's celebrations, including canceling several large-scale New Year's Eve street parties in Istanbul. Turkey's police chief said 275,000 police officers would be on duty.

On Thursday, police in the northwestern province of Bursa detained 38 IS suspects in similar raids, including several Syrian nationals.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Two Turkish journalists face possible life sentences on charges they sent "subliminal messages" on television encouraging a government coup. In Hungary, oligarchs loyal to the prime minister have gained control of much of the media after the leading independent newspaper was shut down. And in Poland, a reporter is being threatened with a military trial for writing a book critical of the defense minister.

These are trying and dangerous times for the media in countries that until recently had begun embracing democratic norms of free expression. News organizations are under attack in dramatic ways, as elected governments turn public outlets into their mouthpieces and try to silence critical voices.

Michael Abramowitz, president of democracy watchdog Freedom House, said whether governments imprison journalists or flood the public sphere with misinformation, their goal is the same - "to ensure that negative coverage about the regime is marginalized and positive coverage dominates, especially for the plurality of citizens whose support you need to continue to rule."

FILE- In this Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017 file photo, demonstrators hold placards and copies of the Cumhuriyet daily newspaper as they stage a protest outside a court where the trial of about a dozen employees of the newspaper on charges of aiding terror groups, continues in Istanbul. In several countries news organizations are under attack in dramatic ways, as elected governments turn public outlets into their mouthpieces and try to silence critical voices. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

In undermining free expression, some of these governments have portrayed the press not as a pillar of a democratic society but as a threat to it.

It's an issue of growing interest in the U.S., where President Donald Trump condemns unfavorable coverage as "fake news" and brands journalists "enemies of the people."

Lata Nott, executive director of the First Amendment Center at the Newseum Institute in Washington, said the threat in the U.S. is not that First Amendment press protections will be directly overturned, but that the administration's continued attacks could sow so much distrust that attempts to undermine the media will become accepted. She cited Trump's suggestion earlier this year that the government could challenge NBC's broadcast license, after he was angered by a national security story.

"I think some of what Trump says is just bluster," Nott said. "But there are some times where it becomes a tangible threat, and that's what I worry about."

In theory, Turkey, Hungary and Poland also guarantee freedom of speech and of the press. The principles were enshrined in the Polish and Hungarian constitutions following the collapse of communism in 1989, and in Turkey's constitution decades earlier.

Despite those protections, many reporters in Turkey were jailed amid a crackdown following a military coup in 1980. In the 1990s, as Turkish forces clashed with Kurdish fighters, the government barred the media from criticizing its actions or producing stories deemed sympathetic to the Kurds. State security forces also killed several reporters covering the conflict.

Some progress came in the early 2000s when Turkey embraced reforms in the hope of joining the European Union, but matters deteriorated dramatically under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The July 2016 overthrow attempt intensified repression of journalists and was part of a broader purge by Erdogan that has targeted tens of thousands of people. More than 150 media organizations have been closed down.

Erol Onderoglu, a representative of Reporters Without Borders in Turkey, said 122 reporters, writers and other media professionals are behind bars, many held in pretrial detention for more than a year.

"From day one, the government has used the coup attempt to go after its critics, and the spectrum of repression has gone well beyond the real suspects," said Johann Bihr, also with Reporters Without Borders.

Among those imprisoned are journalists Ahmet Altan and his brother Mehmet, also an academic. They face possible life sentences if found guilty of terrorism, attempting to overthrow the government and "giving subliminal messages in favor of a coup on television."

Turkey's government insists none of the journalists are on trial for their work but for aiding terror groups and other crimes.

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been in power since 2010, building what he calls an "illiberal state" modeled on Russia and Turkey. The main independent newspaper, Nepszabadsag, closed last year under political pressure, and most surviving media groups are now controlled by Orban allies.

There are apparent attempts to intimidate reporters working for international outlets who have reported on a state-sponsored campaign against Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist George Soros.

Orban opposes immigration, particularly by Muslims, and claims that Soros wants to flood Europe with migrants. Soros, a Holocaust survivor, has long promoted what he calls an "open society" and supports controlled migration. He funds a university in Budapest and civic organizations, including some seen as critical of Orban.

A pro-government website recently published a list of eight journalists working for the news outlets Politico, Bloomberg and Reuters whom it called "propagandists" for Soros. Orban also asked the country's spy agencies to investigate journalists and others involved in what he calls a "Soros network."

Poland's right-wing populist government, in power for two years, has been repeatedly condemned by the European Union and others for eroding judicial independence. It also has taken firm control of the public media, purging journalists seen as too liberal or as opposing the government.

The public media now operates as a propaganda tool for the ruling right-wing party. The head of state television defends its approach, saying it's just acting as a "counterweight" to the critical coverage of the privately run stations.

The future for Poland's private media companies is unclear, given signs that the ruling party hopes to reduce foreign ownership or weaken independent outlets enough so the government can take control.

A reporter for the country's leading newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, has been threatened with a trial by military court - and up to three years in prison - for writing a book alleging that associates of the defense minister have links to Russian agents and mobsters.

The paper's deputy editor, Piotr Stasinski, said the government's steps are adding to the newspaper's problems as it struggles with declining print sales in the digital age. But he vowed to keep holding authorities to account as long as possible.

"We are going to be very critical of a government that destroys the constitutional system," Stasinski said. "All we can do is speak truth to lies."

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Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary, and Tom Verdin in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.

FILE - In this Monday, July 24, 2017 file photo, activists chant slogans as they march to the court in Istanbul, protesting against the trial of journalists and staff from the Cumhurriyet newspaper, accused of aiding terror organisations. In several countries news organizations are under attack in dramatic ways, as elected governments turn public outlets into their mouthpieces and try to silence critical voices. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2015 file photo, protesters holding placards demonstrate across the street from the headquarters of a media company that owns opposition television stations Bugun TV and Kanal Turk, the Bugun and Millet newspapers and other business interests, after was seized by the government, in Istanbul. In several countries news organizations are under attack in dramatic ways, as elected governments turn public outlets into their mouthpieces and try to silence critical voices. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

In this Dec. 6, 2017 photo a pro-government weekly, Sieci, and an anti-government weekly, Newsweek, are displayed side-by side in Warsaw, Poland. Poland has a vibrant and diverse media scene, but the country is also among a group of young democracies where media freedom is starting to come under pressure as part of broader efforts of a populist government to consolidate its power. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017 file photo, demonstrators hold placards and copies of the Cumhuriyet daily newspaper as they stage a protest outside a court where the trial of about a dozen employees of the newspaper on charges of aiding terror groups, continues in Istanbul. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2016 file picture a man shows the last printed edition of Nepszabadsag during a demonstration organized to express solidarity with Hungarian political daily Nepszabadsag in Budapest, Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government and supportive media leave limited opportunities for opposition parties to get their message out. The main independent newspaper, Nepszabadsag, closed last year under political pressure, and most surviving media groups are now controlled by allies of Orban, who will be seeking a fourth term next year. (Zoltan Balogh/MTI via AP. file )

In this Dec. 6, 2017 photo a woman holds a weekly news magazine as she browses at a newsstand in Warsaw, Poland. Poland has a vibrant and diverse media scene, but the country is also among a group of young democracies where media freedom is starting to come under pressure as part of broader efforts of a populist government to consolidate its power. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
BEIJING (AP) - China on Friday denied violating U.N.-imposed limits on oil supplies to North Korea after U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Beijing for allowing oil to reach the North.

Beijing has "completely and strictly" complied with sanctions meant to discourage leader Kim Jong Un's government from pursuing nuclear and missile technology, said a foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying.

A South Korean newspaper said this week, citing unidentified officials, that ships believed to be Chinese transferred oil to North Korean vessels at sea.

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2017, file photo, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying gestures during a press briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Beijing. China on Friday, Dec. 29, 2017 denied violating U.N.-imposed limits on oil supplies to North Korea after U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Beijing for allowing oil to reach the North. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

Trump said on Twitter he was "very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea."

China is North Korea's main trading partner and energy supplier. The U.N. sanctions allow limited supplies of oil but prohibit transfers of any goods to North Korean vessels at sea.

Beijing, long North Korea's main diplomatic protector, has expressed growing frustration with its nuclear and missile tests. It supported the latest sanctions but argues against any steps that might harm the North's public or destabilize its government.

"China has been completely and strictly implementing Security Council resolutions and fulfilling our international obligations," Hua said at a regular news briefing. "We will never allow Chinese citizens and enterprises to engage in activities that violate Security Council resolutions."

Hua said authorities investigated a report a Chinese ship that she didn't identify transferred oil to a North Korean ship at sea on Oct. 19 and concluded it was false.

The U.S. Treasury Department released satellite photos in November that showed what it said was a North Korean ship receiving oil from an unidentified vessel on Oct. 19.

Those images received wider public attention this week when Chosun Ilbo reprinted them to accompany the report that ships believed to Chinese transferred oil to North Korean vessels some 30 times since October.

On Friday, South Korean authorities said they seized a Hong Kong-flagged vessel suspected of transferring oil to a North Korean vessel at sea on Oct. 19.

The Lighthouse Winmore is believed to have transferred about 600 tons of refined petroleum products to the Sam Jong 2 after leaving the South Korean port of Yeosu, the South Korean government said. The ship was seized when it returned to Yeosu.

Hua, the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said she had no information about the Hong Kong ship.

But in response to a separate question about Trump's Twitter comments, Hua said, "the relevant ship, since August, has never docked at Chinese ports, and there is no record showing it has left or entered Chinese ports. I am not aware of whether the ship has visited other countries' ports. So, the relevant report is not consistent with the fact."

It wasn't immediately clear whether the Lighthouse Winmore was involved in the transactions shown in the Treasury images.

In a commentary published Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Beijing to exert "decisive economic leverage" on Pyongyang.

"China has applied certain import bans and sanctions, but it could and should do more," he wrote in The New York Times.
PARIS (AP) - As French President Emmanuel Macron looks ahead to 2018, he finds himself back up in the polls and poised to face major challenges at home and in Europe.

Macron is wrapping up a remarkable year. In the seven months since he won a long-shot presidential bid, he has emerged as a key world leader at the forefront of the battles against terrorism and climate change.

Now the hard part seems to lie ahead: transforming France, where critics have branded him arrogant and authoritarian, with some saying he evokes a long-lost monarch.

FILE - In this Dec.19, 2017 file photo, French President Emmanuel Macron adjusts his tie at the Elysee Palace, in Paris. As Macron turns 40 Thursday, he's wrapping up a remarkable year. In the seven months since he won a long-shot presidential bid, he has proved to be a key leader in Europe and in the world, at the forefront of the battles against terrorism and climate change and mediating in crises around the Middle East. Now the hard part: transforming France, where critics brand him an arrogant monarch. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)

After a rocky start on the domestic front, things are looking much better for the French president, the country's youngest leader since Napoleon, who turned 40 on Dec. 21.

A string of French polls show a clear surge in popularity in December, after last summer Macron's popularity fell to a near record low for a newly elected president.

Surveys by Ifop, BVA and Odoxa institutes showed a clear jump, with 52 percent of the French saying they are "satisfied" or have a "good opinion," of Macron, up some ten points from November and around 40 in September.

Macron, who himself admits he "came out of nowhere" to win over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, has since been on a parade of trips abroad while welcoming international visitors at home.

From his tense, white-knuckle handshake with President Donald Trump, to a major climate summit in Paris earlier this month, Macron has seized on the U.S. administration's focus on domestic issues to earn a prominent place on the international scene.

After Trump declared he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, Macron launched his "Make the Planet Great Again" initiative and called on U.S. researchers to come to France.

After the Brexit vote, he invited London-based international companies to move to Paris and toured many EU member states to promote his pro-European ideas.

He emerged as the most influential European leader this autumn, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel was bogged down with months with coalition talks following an election.

He maintained France's military involvement in the battle against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria and over 4,000 troops fighting extremism in Africa's Sahel region. More recently, he offered to be a mediator in Lebanon and Gulf crisis.

An in an unprecedented move from a French president, Macron tweets and speaks in English when addressing an international audience.

At home however, criticism is brewing.

During summer, he passed labor measures that have prompted demonstrations because they are perceived by many as weakening France's hard-won worker protection rights, driving his initial sharp drop in popularity.

He also passed a counterterrorism law despite critics who said it infringes on individual freedoms.

Now, Macron faces other challenges.

In Europe, divisions between EU member states and Germany could reduce the scope of reforms he has supported, including proposals on migration.

At home, his labor measures, notably aiming at easing hiring and firing, are expected to start producing effects next year, when he will launch another sensitive reform of unemployment benefits. The unemployment rate remains high in the country, at 9.7 percent.

He will also push for an immigration bill that would allow the government to send more illegal migrants back to their home countries -measures already denounced by human right groups.

Macron's main weakness might lie in his style, perceived by critics as arrogant and tyrannical. Some opposition members have labelled him 'president of the rich'.

A birthday celebration at the spectacular Chateau of Chambord in the Loire valley with his family in December has fuelled countless comments on social media about Macron's taste for royal symbols.

He has repeatedly prompted a public outcry with comments perceived as out of touch with the public. He once suggested employees of a struggling company should look for a job instead of protesting. In a speech to entrepreneurs this summer, he mentioned "people who succeed and people who are nobody."

Macron also carefully controls his communication, keeping as much distance as possible from journalists and only making a few, carefully chosen interviews, choices perceived by some as a lack of transparency. A carefully choreographed interview on state-owned France 2 television prompted some criticism on social media for its deferential tone.

Yet the public mood seems to be improving under Macron's watch. Gael Sliman, president of Odoxa poll institute, sees a direct link between Macron's recent rise in popularity and a stronger confidence of the French in the improvement of the economic situation.

State statistics agency Insee has raised its growth forecast for 2017 to 1.9 percent, the highest level in ten years.

Macron promised to cut taxes paid by businesses and employees by 10 billion euros ($11.9 billion) next year -while at the same time raising taxes on gasoline and cigarettes.

It's still early to judge the impact of Macron's changes - but with four years left as president, much remains to be seen.

FILE - In this Dec.13, 2017 file photo, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, is welcomed by France's President Emmanuel Macron for conference to support the fight against Jihadist in the African Sahel region at the Chateau of the La Celle Saint-Cloud, west of Paris. As Macron turns 40 Thursday, he's wrapping up a remarkable year. In the seven months since he won a long-shot presidential bid, he has proved to be a key leader in Europe and in the world, at the forefront of the battles against terrorism and climate change and mediating in crises around the Middle East. Now the hard part: transforming France, where critics brand him an arrogant monarch. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

FILE - In this Dec.12 2017 file photo, French President Emmanuel Macron is pictured on a screen as he delivers a speech at the One Planet Summit, in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris. As Macron turns 40 Thursday, he's wrapping up a remarkable year. In the seven months since he won a long-shot presidential bid, he has proved to be a key leader in Europe and in the world, at the forefront of the battles against terrorism and climate change and mediating in crises around the Middle East. Now the hard part: transforming France, where critics brand him an arrogant monarch. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
CAIRO (AP) - The Latest on Coptic church attack in Cairo (all times local):

12:10 p.m.

President Donald Trump is condemning an attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt Friday.

Relatives of Coptic Christians grieve as they carry the coffin of Nermin Sadek, one of the victims of the militants attack on Mar Mina church, during their funeral service in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 29, 2017. At least 10 people, including eight Coptic Christians, were killed after unidentified gunmen opened fire outside a church in a south Cairo suburb, Egypt's Health Ministry spokesman said Friday. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

The White House says Trump spoke with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi after the attack by a gunman in Helwan killed at least eight members of Egypt's long-suffering minority community as well as a police officer.

Trump "condemned the attack and reiterated that the United States will continue to stand with Egypt in the face of terrorism," the White House says in a statement. "President Trump emphasized his commitment to strengthening efforts to defeat terrorism and extremism in all their forms."

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Trump has promised to make protecting beleaguered Christian communities overseas a priority for his administration.

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11:20 p.m.

The local affiliate of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for an attack at a Cairo church that left at least nine people dead.

The claim, which was carried by the group's Aamaq news agency, said Friday's attack was carried out by a "security detail" and that one of its men was "martyred" in it.

A gunman on a motorcycle opened fire outside the church and at a nearby store, sparking a shootout that killed at least nine people, including eight Coptic Christians, in the latest attack targeting the country's embattled Christian minority.

The gunman was also killed, along with at least one police officer, officials said.

The attack came amid tightened security around churches and Christian facilities ahead of the Coptic Orthodox Christian celebrations of Christmas on Jan. 7. Police have been stationed outside churches and in nearby streets across Cairo. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has personally chaired meetings with his top security chiefs in recent days to discuss security during New Year's Eve and the Orthodox Christmas.

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1:30

Egypt's Health Ministry spokesman says at least nine people, including eight Coptic Christians, have been killed in a shootout outside a south Cairo church.

Khaled Megahed says Friday's attack took place when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire outside Mar Mina church. One gunman was shot dead as was a security officer, he said.

Egypt's state-run MENA news agency, citing an unnamed Interior Ministry official, said the other assailant fled the scene and was being pursued.

Earlier, security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said two police were killed.

The spokesman for the Coptic Orthodox Church said in a statement that at least six people were killed in the attack including five Copts and a policeman. It also said there was a separate attack on a store in the same neighborhood of Helwan that killed two Copts.

Egypt's Christian minority has been targeted by Islamic militants in a series of attacks since December 2016 that left more than 100 dead and scores wounded

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12:30 p.m.

Egyptian security officials say two policemen have been shot dead in an attack outside a church in a south Cairo suburb.

The officials said a gunman opened fire outside a Coptic church before he was shot dead himself. They say the exchange of fire also injured three other people. The officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

Egypt's state-run MENA news agency, citing an unnamed official at the Interior Ministry, said Friday's attack in the Helwan neighborhood was carried out by two assailants; one of them fled the scene and was being chased down.

A video circulated on social media after the attack apparently shows the dead gunman on the ground. Authorities have closed off the area around the church.

A policeman stands guard in front of Mar Mina church, in Helwan, Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 29, 2017, where several people have been killed in a shootout outside the church. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

A boy watches the site of Mar Mina church, in Helwan, Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 29, 2017, where several people have been killed in a shootout outside the church. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

A relative of a of a Coptic Christian, who was killed during the attack on Mar Mina church, grieves during the funeral service of the victims in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 29, 2017. At least 10 people, including eight Coptic Christians, were killed after unidentified gunmen opened fire outside a church in a south Cairo suburb, Egypt's Health Ministry spokesman said Friday. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
HELSINKI (AP) - For nearly three decades, Finland's YLE radio has broadcast a weekly news program in Latin to a small group of committed listeners around the globe.

With the audience numbering just 10,000 and people increasingly turning to the internet for content, Friday was meant to be the end of the road for "Nuntii Latini," which means "news in Latin." But don't underestimate the passion of Latin aficionados - more than 3,000 of them wrote in from around the globe, some in fluent Latin, encouraging the station to save the program.

YLE leadership listened, agreeing to extend it until at least its 30th anniversary in 2019.

In this photo taken on Dec. 21 2017, announcer Laura Nissinen prepares to read the news in Latin for the Nuntii Latini program at the Radio1 studio of the Finnish national broadcaster YLE in Helsinki, Finland. After 28 years of weekly radio broadcasts, Finnish national broadcaster YLE was set to shut down a Latin news program with a small but passionate following. But after loud protests from listeners in dozens of countries, makers of "Nuntii Latini," which means news in Latin, say a last-minute decision has extended the program until 2019. (AP Photo/Jari Tanner)

"Ne umquam desperaveris," (loosely translated: "never give up,") said co-announcer Reijo Pitkaranta, a docent and lecturer in Latin at the University of Helsinki.

He's one of the original creators of the five-minute program that hit the airwaves in 1989 and has ever since inspired Latin students, academics and language lovers around the globe, from China and Vietnam all the way to Belgium and the United States.

One listener based in Thailand, who signed a letter to the station as CJ Hinke, said he became aware of "Nuntii Latini" through listening a shortwave radio broadcasts while he was living on a remote island off the Pacific coast of Canada.

"I began to teach Latin to our 4- and 6-year old children, and about the world through Latin," he wrote. "'Nuntii Latini' gave my children the lesson of being a world citizen, of caring about our past, where we came from."

Though the program has always been broadcast for small audiences, Lauri Kivinen, director general for YLE, Finland's national radio and television broadcaster, says the station was taken aback by the passionate feedback. YLE also provides news in English, Finnish, Swedish, Russian and the indigenous Sami language spoken in the northern parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia.

"It's not just about the language," Kivinen says, acknowledging the special nature of "Nuntii Latini," which tackles both domestic and international issues. "It is also a question of the perspective that is brought to issues by expressing them in Latin. And it's very much about culture and education."

Latin is generally considered Europe's own mother tongue, as it forms the basis of the Romance languages and has contributed many words to English and German, too. After the Roman Empire collapsed, Latin developed into French, Italian, Spanish and other languages.

There is currently plenty of Latin to be heard on Vatican Radio since any Mass celebrated by Pope Francis will feature at least some prayers if not entire Gospel readings in Latin.

It's the official language of the Vatican, and the Pope recently praised the teaching of Latin to young people, saying it can help them navigate "the path of life." Nevertheless, Latin isn't one of the 39 languages Vatican Radio regularly uses.

Though far from Rome geographically, Finland - a Nordic country of 5.5 million - has wholeheartedly embraced Latin in recent years, with a full-scale opera and Elvis Presley songs being performed in the language.

Local experts believe Finns are attracted to Latin due to its grammar and that it's pronounced much like it is written - a clear similarity to Finnish, a Finno-Ugric language that has no relation to Latin.

By broadcasting radio news in Latin, "Finland has done something that had earlier been experimented only in the Vatican in the 1930s," wrote Latin professors Christian Laes from the University of Antwerp and Dirk Sacre from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium in an op-ed article published recently in Finland's leading daily, Helsingin Sanomat.

" I think it's wonderful if the program inspires someone into getting acquainted with Latin language that is the basis our European culture," YLE's Kivinen said.

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Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this article
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A man arrested in Tennessee in the fatal shootings of his parents and a niece in Omaha has agreed to be returned to Nebraska to face murder charges.

The Omaha World-Herald reports that 46-year-old John Dalton Jr. waived his right to an extradition hearing Thursday in Jackson, Tennessee, where he was captured Wednesday.

Dalton is charged with first-degree murder in the killings of 70-year-old John Dalton Sr. and 65-year-old Jean Dalton on Tuesday. His 18-year-old niece, Leonna Dalton-Phillip, was also killed.

Court records don't list an attorney who can speak on Dalton's behalf.

Records show Dalton pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 1998 shooting of his wife, Shannon Dalton. He went to prison and was paroled in 2010. Authorities say he also fled to Tennessee within days of that shooting.
HOUSTON (AP) - A 45-year-old Houston man is accused of nearly decapitating his girlfriend with a samurai sword.

Police investigating a "cutting in progress" Wednesday evening found 36-year-old Aracely Jernigan dead in the living room of a Houston home.

Court records show Kenneth Wayne Lockings Jr.'s relatives convinced him Thursday to surrender to police. He has been charged with murder and is being held without bond in the Harris County jail.

This undated photo provided by the Houston Police Department shows Kenneth Wayne Lockings Jr. Lockings is accused of nearly decapitating his girlfriend with a samurai sword. Police investigating a "cutting in progress" Wednesday Dec. 27, 2017, found Aracely Jernigan dead in the living room of a Houston home. He's being held without bond in the Harris County jail on the murder charge and a federal parole revocation. (Houston Police Department via AP)

He has a lengthy criminal history including multiple drug arrests and at least one conviction.

Lockings' grandmother, Marie Carrier told The Houston Chronicle that he received the sword as a gift at Thanksgiving.

She says Jernigan had been living in Mexico and only recently returned to Houston.

Court records don't list an attorney for Lockings. He's due in court Wednesday.

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Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com
allegedly rigged the front door of his estranged pregnant wife's home so that she would be electrocuted

Michael Scott Wilson, 32, is charged with attempted aggravated battery on a pregnant woman and grand theft of a firearm

A Florida man is accused of rigging the front door of a home in an attempt to electrocute his estranged pregnant wife.

'This is one of the most bizarre domestic violence cases I have seen in my career,' said Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly.

'Not only did this man plan to electrocute his wife, but he could have injured a deputy or any person attempting to enter this residence. Thankfully this man was found and taken into custody before he could cause the harm he intended.'

Michael Scott Wilson, 32, was arrested Thursday in Knoxville, Tennessee, and charged with attempted aggravated battery on a pregnant woman and grand theft of a firearm.

Police believe that he rigged electrical devices to the top door lock and lower door handle so it would electrocute whoever tried to unlock and open the front door.

The rigging consisted of two chairs, a childs high chair, blue tape, a shower-type rod, electrical cords, wiring and a car battery charger with clamps, according to the Daytona Beach News Journal.

It could have caused serious bodily injury or even death.

Police believe that he rigged electrical devices to the top door lock and lower door handle so it would electrocute whoever tried to unlock and open the front door

He allegedly rigged the front door of his estranged pregnant wife's home so that she would be electrocuted

Courtesy of WJXT

Wilson had also stolen a firearm belonging to his wifes father from the house.

He's being held on a $150,000 bond and will be extradited to Florida. It's unclear if he has an attorney.

The woman's father called deputies after Wilson made suspicious statements about keeping children away from the door.

Deputies found the front door barricaded, with burn marks. When a deputy kicked the door, a large spark was observed.

Wilson had changed his Facebook relationship status to 'widowed'.

Deputies also found pictures of a sonogram on the kitchen table, sticky-note love letters in the bedroom with a photo album showing Wilson and his wife together, and the wifes recently-installed smart cameras dumped in the toilet.

He was involuntarily hospitalized for mental evaluation in late November.
SEATTLE (AP) - A 28-year-old man is in serious condition at a hospital after a shuttle van veered onto a downtown Seattle sidewalk, hit pedestrians and struck a building.

Harborview Medical Center spokeswoman Barbara Clements said Friday morning that the 28-year-old man's condition was upgraded from critical. She says the van driver and two others who were brought to the Seattle hospital Thursday have been released.

Authorities say it appears the driver had a medical emergency and lost control of the vehicle just before noon.

The white passenger van jumped a curb, struck several pedestrians and hit a Gap retail store.

Seattle police were investigating.
BOSTON (AP) - The Latest on a deep freeze across the country. (all times local):

6:30 a.m.

Brutally cold weather has iced plans for scores of events in the Northeast from New Year's Eve through New Year's Day, but the show will go on in New York City, where people will start gathering in Times Square up to nine hours before the famous ball drop.

In this Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017, photo, homeless men Sean Stuart, left, and Segundo Rivera walk on a street after spending the day at St. Francis House in Boston. With temperatures across Massachusetts not expected to rise above freezing for days, politicians and advocates for the homeless are particularly concerned about getting as many people as possible into shelters. Stuart and Rivera told the Boston Herald that they're not comfortable spending the night in a shelter. "We've lived out here so long it's like honestly, this is comfortable for us," Rivera said. (Christopher Evans/The Boston Herald via AP)

Authorities are warning revelers to dress in layers, cover exposed skin, lay off the booze and bring some hand warmers. They say it could be one of the coldest New Year's Eve ball drops on record.

The coldest New Year's Eve in Times Square came in 1917, when it was 1 degree at midnight. This year, the forecast is for 11 degrees with a wind chill around zero, which would tie for second with 1962.

Extra New York Fire Department personnel are going to be on hand to provide medical support.

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3:15 p.m.

The frigid conditions in Boston are taking their toll on the nation's fifth-largest transit system.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has spent heavily to winterize what's known as the "T'' since it was crippled by record-breaking snowfall in 2015.

But the agency reported "severe delays" on one of its lines Friday, citing a broken piece of track and a disabled train among other problems.

Keolis Boston operates the commuter rail system for the MBTA and reported delays on several of its lines.

A company spokesman says crews worked through the night to repair cracked rails and broken switches ahead of the morning commute. But he says it's not always enough to deal with the extreme conditions.

Commuters were advised to dress in layers to stay warm while waiting on platforms.

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2 p.m.

The toll from record-breaking snowfalls and temperatures across the U.S. are starting to pile up.

Bitter temperatures and snow squalls have been blamed for a handful of deaths and are forcing organizers to cancel a long list of New Year's celebrations.

Already winter-weary parts of the nation are dealing with a mounting number of weather-related headaches, from highway pileups to frozen pipes and a rash of car thefts.

Police in the Cincinnati area say a half-dozen cars have been stolen in recent days after being left running unattended by owners trying to warm them up.

Another foot or more snow is on the way in Erie, Pennsylvania, where residents still are trying to dig out from the more than 5 feet of snow that has fallen since Christmas Eve.

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12:30 p.m.

The Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies are bracing for storms that forecasters warn could cause heavy mountain snow and freezing rain.

Heavy snow is expected to fall Friday in the Pacific Northwest, across the Cascade mountains and into the northern Rockies before gradually tapering off Saturday.

As much as 2 to 3 feet of snow is possible in the highest terrain, while coastal regions are expected to see heavy rainfall.

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9:50 a.m.

About 30 crashes have been reported on icy roadways in Genesee County as below-freezing temperatures continue to envelop parts of Michigan.

The Flint Journal reports that the accidents started around 8 a.m. Friday with a number of the crashes on Interstates 75, 475 and 69.

The Ludington News reports about six inches of snow fell on parts of western Michigan overnight. The Mason County sheriff's office says that has left roads snow-covered and slick in spots.

Freezing temperatures and below-zero wind chills have covered much of the northern United States this week. The National Weather Service has issued a severe storm warning and winter weather advisory until noon Friday for much of western Michigan.

Light snow and continued cold are expected this weekend across the central part of the state.

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9:45 a.m.

A woman in a wheelchair who was forced off snowy sidewalks into a busy Omaha thoroughfare eventually received a showy escort: a firetruck.

Firefighters driving back to their station after a call Tuesday night noticed the woman headed down a street as cars zipped past. The crew watched her almost get hit by a truck and try to get back on a sidewalk that was blocked by snow and construction items.

Fire Capt. Mike Henrich told Omaha television station KETV that it was cold out, "but the most important thing is, it was dark." The wind child that night: minus 18 degrees (minus 28 Celsius).

The firefighters soon flipped on their lights and followed the woman until she reached her destination. She gave them a thumbs-up as they departed.

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8:30 a.m.

Police say an 83-year-old woman died from exposure to the cold after crashing her car in eastern South Dakota.

KELO-TV reports that police believe Nina Bradenburg left her car to look for help after crashing on a gravel road near the tiny rural town of Revillo on Saturday. Revillo lies just west of the Minnesota state line and 115 miles (185 kilometers) north of Sioux Falls.

Police officers found the car first but with no driver inside. They found Brandenburg's body in a ditch on Sunday, where she had died of exposure. The National Weather Service says temperatures in the area fell as low as 2 degrees (-17 Celsius) overnight.

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1:30 a.m.

As a deep freeze sets in across half the country, officials are urging people to help those most vulnerable, especially the homeless and the elderly.

Forecasters are warning people to be wary of hypothermia and frostbite from the arctic blast that's gripping a large swath from the Midwest to the Northeast.

The prolonged, dangerous cold weather has sent advocates for the homeless scrambling to get people off the streets and to bring in extra beds for them.

The Ohio Department of Aging says older people are at increased risk from such severe cold, from medication side effects to falling risks. The department is encouraging people to check on family members, friends and neighbors.

Animal advocates are urging people to remember their pets and not to leave them outside.

Joe Scharpf cross country skis on a trail after a fresh snowfall in the south chagrin reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in Moreland Hills, Ohio. Scharpf said he will ski about 6 miles on the trail. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

As the weather turns colder, water along the edge of one of the many creeks in the Pungo section of in Virginia Beach, Va., begins to freeze, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017. Cold temperatures are expected through next week. (L. Todd Spencer/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)

Icicles hang from the fountain at Town Center in Virginia Beach, Va., on Thursday morning Dec. 28, 2017. Cold temperatures are expected through the week. (L. Todd Spencer/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)

A boy has his face bundled against temperatures in the teens on the National Mall, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Alexander Doepper of Hagen, Germany, helps his one year old son Jannis walk near the Washington Monument on the National Mall as they brave temperatures in the teens, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

People walk past a blue lobster ice sculpture outside the New England Aquarium as the temperature hovers in the low teens, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in Boston. The National Weather Service said there's the potential for record-breaking cold this week in New England. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes)

Ana Gonzalez of New Haven, Conn., right, helps her sister Alejandrina Gonzalez, left, put on another scarf as they brave temperatures in the teens on the National Mall, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Visitors to the Washington Monument on the National Mall brave temperatures in the teens, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Ana Gonzalez of New Haven, Conn., right, helps her sister Alejandrina Gonzalez, left, put on another scarf as they brave temperatures in the teens on the National Mall, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

People brave temperatures in the teens as they ride on an open air second level of a tourism bus as it makes its way down the National Mall, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

A family braves temperatures in the teens as they make their way to the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

A woman braves temperatures in the teens as she makes her way to the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

A pedestrian crosses the street as the temperature hovers in the single-digits, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in downtown Boston. The National Weather Service said there's the potential for record-breaking cold this week in New England. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes)

With temperatures in the single digits, Ray Levesque, mate of the crab/lobster boat Bradbill, makes his way across the deck covered in ice to tie off, after arriving in New Bedford, Mass., harbor on Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, from a one day fishing voyage. Temperatures across Massachusetts are not expected to rise above freezing for days. (Peter Pereira/Standard Times via AP)

In this Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017 photo, with temperatures in the low teens, ice begins to make its way across the waters of Lake Shawnee in Topeka, Kan. Freezing temperatures and below-zero wind chills also socked much of the northern United States on Wednesday. (Chris Neal/The Topeka Capital-Journal via AP)

In this Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2017 photo, the surf from Lake Erie pounds the shore in Dunkirk, N.Y., driven by cold winds with lake effect snow. The National Weather Service said that strong westerly winds over Lake Erie picked up moisture, developed into snow and converged with opposing winds, dumping snow in a band along the shore from Ohio to New York. (Damian Sebouhian/The Observer via AP)

In this Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2017 photo, a man uses a snow blower to dig out after heavy snow fell in Dunkirk, N.Y. The National Weather Service said that strong westerly winds over Lake Erie picked up moisture, developed into snow and converged with opposing winds, dumping snow in a band along the shore from Ohio to New York. (Damian Sebouhian /The Observer via AP)

Kelly Richards, left, and Lisa Rippe, jog around Lake Harriet in the sub-zero temps Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017, in Minneapolis. Richards, originally from the Twin Cities but who now lives in Texas and was visiting for the holidays, remarked to nearby walkers that the weather was great. (David Joles/Star Tribune via AP)

Logan Rogers pushes his bike along East Third Street in Erie, Pa., Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017. Freezing temperatures and below-zero wind chills socked much of the northern United States on Wednesday, and the snow-hardened city of Erie, dug out from a record snowfall. (Jack Hanrahan/Erie Times-News via AP)

Chelse Volgyes clears snow from her car in Erie, Pa., Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017. Freezing temperatures and below-zero wind chills socked much of the northern United States on Wednesday, and the snow-hardened city of Erie, dug out from a record snowfall. (Jack Hanrahan/Erie Times-News via AP)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Just three years after Kansas City, Missouri, was being hailed for reducing homicides, the city is seeing a staggering increase in 2017.

The Kansas City Star reports that 149 people have been killed in homicides this year, the highest total since a record 153 in 1993, at the height of killings fueled by crack cocaine and gangs.

The city's efforts to reduce homicides drew national attention in 2014, when just 82 killings occurred. But Kansas City had 111 homicides in 2015, 131 last year, and the trend worsened in 2017.

It's a big problem on both sides of the state. St. Louis this year has topped 200 killings for the first time in more than two decades.

The story is different in many other places. The murder rate in the nation's 30 largest cities is estimated to be down about 5.6 percent from last year, according to a recent analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice.

Chicago's murder rate is down about 12 percent after two years of big increases. Detroit is projected to see a decrease of nearly 10 percent. New York is seeing the lowest homicide total since reliable records have been kept: 286 as of Wednesday.

New York officials credited a police focus on gangs and repeat offenders. But Kansas City's No Violence Alliance takes a similar approach without the same results.

In 2014, Kansas City law enforcement leaders hailed the No Violence Alliance as a catalyst that led to the lower number of killings in nearly five decades. The effort relies on a tactic called "focused deterrence." Members of a criminal network are identified and police tell them their actions can have unintended consequences for others in their cliques. Those who want to pull away from criminal affiliations are offered help through social services.

Nearly half of Kansas City homicides with known motives in 2017 were ignited by arguments, police data show. Two-thirds of the known killers were ages 17 to 34. Nine out of 10 were male. Three-fourths were black. Victims, too, were mostly young black men. The murder weapon was a firearm in about 85 percent of cases.

Nearly half of the city's 2017 homicides remain unsolved.

Experts are perplexed about what is fueling the killings.

"There are not necessarily any noticeable trends," police spokeswoman Capt. Stacey Graves said, "just more homicides."

The Rev. Elder Lawrence Walls spoke at the funeral of a recent homicide victim.

"We're picking up bodies riddled with bullets," Walls said. "And everywhere there is grief."

___

Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com
AKRON, Ohio (AP) - A defense attorney says an Ohio woman accused of fatally shooting her husband in the head and dismembering his body had suffered physical and mental abuse in the relationship.

Authorities say 49-year-old Marcia Eubank told investigators that she shot 54-year-old Howard Eubank and put his remains in several containers around their home near Akron. She was arrested after their son found the remains in early December.

She was indicted on charges including aggravated murder, corpse abuse and evidence-tampering in the death of Howard Eubank.

Defense attorney Brian Pierce says Marcia Eubank will plead not guilty at arraignment next Friday in Summit County court. Pierce says Eubank will be evaluated by mental health professionals to help with her defense.

The couple had been married for about 25 years.
DALLAS (AP) - A 7-year-old Texas boy died after his father's girlfriend opened fire as the man drove away with his son and two other children, police said Friday.

Greenville police said Kaden Green died at a hospital after being taken there by a witness following the shooting Thursday afternoon.

The woman accused of shooting the boy, 26-year-old Brooke Craig, was arrested early Friday along with the child's father, 24-year-old Cameron Castillo, in the Dallas suburb of Frisco about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of Greenville. Authorities said Craig led police on a car chase before their arrests.

This undated photo provided by The Collin County Texas Sheriff's Department shows Brooke Craig. Craig, a North Texas woman is facing a capital murder charge in the fatal shooting of a 7-year-old child. Police say Brooke Craig was arrested early Friday, Dec. 29, 2017, in a dead-end street in Frisco, a Dallas suburb, after leading police on a car chase. (Collin County Sheriff's Department via AP)

Craig faces a capital murder charge, while Castillo was arrested for a parole violation.

Officers were responding to a report of a disturbance at a home Thursday when they received a call that a boy had been taken to a hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest. Police said they believe Castillo and Craig had been involved in a disturbance at the home before he got into his vehicle and headed down the street.

After the shooting, the vehicle came to a stop and Craig and a witness approached it, police said. The witness then took the boy to the hospital in another vehicle.

Police said the two other children who were in the vehicle were placed in the custody of the state. Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales said they have a 4-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl who are the siblings of Kaden in their custody.

Gonzales said Craig is not Kaden's mother. She said CPS has received a report about the boy's death and will investigate. She said the boy's family has had previous contact with CPS, but that the details are confidential.

McKinney police said Greenville police contacted them early Friday about the capital murder warrant for Craig. McKinney police then located her vehicle leaving a store and she fled into nearby Frisco, going through several residential areas before turning down a dead-end street, police said.

Craig and Castillo, who was her passenger, were arrested without incident after their vehicle struck a police cruiser while attempting to back up, police said.

Jail records show that Craig was transferred from Collin County, where McKinney is located, back to Hunt County, where Greenville is located, by Friday afternoon. The records did not list an attorney in relation to the capital murder charge.

Craig faces an evading arrest charge in Collin County, according to the jail records. The attorney listed in relation to that charge did not immediately return a call Friday.

Castillo was being held in Collin County jail Friday. Jail records did not list an attorney for him.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Jerry Brown is heading to Mexico for a week of vacation before California's longest-serving governor enters his final year in office.

Brown left California on Friday and will return Jan. 5.

Spokesman Evan Westrup wouldn't say where in Mexico the governor and first lady Anne Gust Brown are vacationing or what their activities will include. He cited privacy and security reasons.

FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2017, file photo, California Gov. Jerry Brown speaks in Sacramento, Calif. Brown is heading to Mexico for a week of vacation before California's longest-serving governor enters his final year in office. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

Brown is termed out of the governor's office in January 2019, when he completes his second four-year term. He also served two terms as governor in the 1970s and 1980s.

He'll miss the return of the state Legislature on Wednesday but will be back to present his proposed budget for the next fiscal year and to give his state of the state address.
A mother accused of killing her five-year-old daughter after the girl's body was found in the family's restaurant was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges.

Mingming Chen was initially been charged with murder, but Stark County prosecutors lessened it to involuntary manslaughter as part of a plea deal.

The 30-year-old also pleaded guilty to evidence-tampering, corpse abuse, child endangerment and obstructing justice.

Her daughter, Ashley Zhao, was found dead and hidden in the family's restaurant, Ang's Asian Cuisine, in North Canton, Ohio, after she was reported missing in January.

Mingming Chen, pictured right in court in October, was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges

Chen, left, was initially charged with murder and accused of killing her five-year-old daughter Ashley Zhao, right, after the girl's body was found in the family's restaurant

The report sparked a state-wide manhunt and police combed the nearby area looking for her. Her body was found the next day, still inside the restaurant, near the kitchen's freezer.

Her husband Liang Zhao pleaded guilty earlier this year to attempting to revive Ashley and then helping to hide her body when he realized it was a lost cause

Both parents were arrested after the grisly discovery.

Authorities claim Chen repeatedly hit the girl, causing fatal brain injury, and that her husband tried to revive her before helping hide the body.

County Prosecutor John Ferrero said evidence and interviews in the case indicate Chen didn't plan or intend to kill her daughter and that it was a tragedy 'committed in a fit of anger by a mother who had never bonded with her child.'

Defense attorney Richard Drucker disagreed with that characterization, saying that Chen is apologetic and takes responsibility for her actions.

He also said that if the case had gone to trial, they would have argued that Chen's husband, Liang Zhao, was violent toward both the girl and Chen and that he also bore responsibility in the death.

Zhao pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges including obstructing justice and corpse abuse, tampering with evidence and endangering children and agreed to testify against his wife. In exchange. murder charges against him were dropped.

His attorney previously said Zhao maintained his innocence in the child's death. He will serve 12 years in prison for the guilty plea.

Authorities claim Chen repeatedly hit the girl, causing fatal brain injury, and that her husband tried to revive her before helping hide the body in the back of the family's restaurant Ang's Asian Cuisine

Chen, who came to the US illegally from China more than 10 years ago, got married to Zhao because he was an American citizen who was also Chinese, but ended up in a violent household. Had the case had gone to trial, the attorney said they would have argued that Zhao was violent toward both the girl and Chen

It was a sad situation for Chen, who came to the US illegally from China as a teenager in search of a better life, started a family with an American citizen who also was Chinese and ended up in a violent household, Drucker said.

'I don't think she's a monster,' Drucker said. 'I think she was a woman that made very poor choices in her life at the time.'

Because she was in the US illegally, authorities say Chen is expected to be deported to China after serving her sentence.

Chen had applied for asylum in the United States in 2009 while claiming she was persecuted by the Chinese government as a follower of Falun Gong, a meditation practice outlawed by China's government, and federal judges have twice denied her petitions to stay in the US, WEWS-TV reported.

Court records referred to her as Mingming Chen, though lawyers in the case now spell her name as three words instead of two.
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A federal judge said Friday she needs to see evidence that a former Las Vegas Strip illusionist didn't understand what his sentence could be before she can let him withdraw his guilty plea in a pornography case involving thousands of videos and images, including some depicting kindergarten-age boys in sex acts.

Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro scheduled a March 9 date to hear lawyers involved in the trial of Jan Rouven Fuechtener discuss whether he was fully advised that he could face at least 24 years in prison as a result of his plea.

"I'm very much on the edge," the judge said after Fuechtener's new lawyer, Karen Connolly, said his lawyers told him he might get as few as five years behind bars and rushed the plea to end his trial.

FILE - In this March 17, 2007 file photo, magician Jan Rouven presents the Floating Virgin during the dress rehearsal of a German TV show in Riesa, eastern Germany. The former Las Vegas Strip illusionist from Germany is trying to undo his federal court guilty plea to charges that he acquired thousands of pornographic videos and images, including some depicting sex acts involving kindergarten-age boys. (AP Photo/Eckehard Schulz, File)

"We don't have any evidence that anyone went over the guidelines with Mr. Fuechtener," Navarro said. "A lot ... depends on what the attorneys told the defendant."

Connolly blamed Fuechtener's trial lawyer, Jess Marchese and attorneys Ben Durham and Michael Sanft for focusing on a five-year sentence and not telling him that findings about the number of images and his acknowledgements about sharing pornography and trying to destroy computer files could add years to his sentence.

Connolly said a presentencing report prepared by federal authorities now recommends minimums of 24 to 30 years in federal prison - and a possible life sentence.

"He was not properly advised. He was misinformed," Connolly said. "They didn't tell him that obstruction and knowing distribution could lead to more time."

Fuechtener, 39, is a German citizen who performed under the name Jan Rouven. His show closed following his arrest in March 2016. He remains in federal custody.

Marchese said Friday he couldn't say what he'll discuss under oath. But he noted that his former client will be giving up attorney-client confidentiality if he is asked to testify.

Durham declined to comment. Sanft did not immediately respond to telephone and email messages.

Navarro was hearing the trial without a jury at Fuechtener's request when he stopped the proceedings to plead guilty to possession, receipt and distribution of child pornography.

An FBI agent was testifying at the time about items found in password-protected files on computer devices seized from the Las Vegas home Fuechtener shared with his husband.

Fuechtener agreed as part of his plea to pay $5,000 in restitution per victim. Authorities said at the time they had identified about 85 child sex victims in the case. That would total some $425,000.

The house has been sold, and Navarro noted Friday that Fuechtener has deposited $975,000 in a trust account for fines and restitution.
Roger Federer is in Western Australia for the upcoming Hopman Cup but took some time out to take a quokka selfie.

The 2017 Australian Open champion flew to Rottnest to take a photo with the animals, who have little fear of humans and have been known to pose for snaps.

Meet my new furry friend.

So happy to be back down under #HappyQuokka @westernaustralia #justanotherdayinWA pic.twitter.com/YvgdMCs13u  Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) December 28, 2017

Federer, who said he was so happy to be back down under shared a photo of himself and a quokka on Twitter.

Roger Federer took a selfie with the friendly animal (Adam Davy/PA Wire)

What does Roger Federer do on his first day in Perth? Hit the beach @rottnestisland #justanotherdayinWA pic.twitter.com/2r78UGt0H5  Hopman Cup (@hopmancup) December 28, 2017

The 2018 Hopman Cup starts in Perth on December 30.
Tesco is refunding and compensating customers who complained that the turkey they bought for their Christmas dinner was rotten or had gone off.

The supermarkets social media feeds were bombarded by angry customers who claimed the centrepiece of their festive meal was either inedible or had made people ill.

Tesco has apologised to those affected and said it was providing them with a refund and offering a goodwill gesture.

Tesco faced complaints of "rotten" turkeys (Danny Lawson/PA)

It said complaints made up a small proportion of the more than half a million turkeys it sold leading up to Christmas.

Among those who complained was Kirsten Shore, an events manager from Stafford, who said she was devastated that her Christmas meal was ruined.

Thanks @Tesco for selling me a gone off turkey & wrecking my 1st xmas day cooked at my home! 250 wasted, an awful meal and 8sick people!  Kirsten Shore (@Kirsten_Shore) December 26, 2017

She tweeted: Thanks @Tesco for selling me a gone off turkey & wrecking my 1st xmas day cooked at my home! 250 wasted, an awful meal and 8sick people!

The 29-year-old, who alongside her husband Dan was hosting their first family Christmas, said they realised something was wrong when they tasted the turkey and the gravy made from the giblets.

She said: My mum bought the turkey and prepared it, and we put it in the fridge. Then we cooked it and I was so proud of it.

It seemed fine and we sat down at the dinner table and everybody seemed a bit quiet.

I took a mouthful of turkey and spat it out. It tasted of bleach and everyone else realised the reason everything was a bit funny was because the gravy was made from the giblets.

Its almost like theyve washed the turkey in bleach - it was awful.

It cost me 250 to buy everything and we had to chuck everything away.

She said: Im not going to lie, I know it sounds ridiculous, but it broke my heart - it ruined the day.

From just one mouthful weve all been really ill.

Tesco apologised to Maria Savva-Chirambo after she tweeted: @Tesco Have not had a response to my message dated Xmas Eve 24th Dec about my gone off turkey,Please assist.

A member of the supermarkets social media team replied: Hi Maria Im very sorry your turkey was off and I can understand how disappointing this would be. Can you send us a DM confirming your full name, address, postcode and email address you log into your account with? 1/2

Other complaints included those from Craig Spooner, who tweeted: Thanks for ruining Christmas dinner @Tesco In date fresh turkey roast in tin breast gone off. No Christmas dinner for us this year. Raiding freezer for turkey replacement, @BirdsEye chicken chargrill currently in pole position. #HouseStinksOfRottenTurkey #ChristmasDinnerRuined.

Craig Taylor said: @Tesco well thank you for ruining my Christmas dinner with the rotten turkey you sold us!! Absolutely disgusting smell cant get rid of it. stored correctly and now have no turkey for Xmas.

Thanks for ruining Christmas dinner @Tesco In date fresh turkey roast in tin breast gone off. No Christmas dinner for us this year. Raiding freezer for turkey replacement, @BirdsEye chicken chargrill currently in pole position. #HouseStinksOfRottenTurkey #ChristmasDinnerRuined pic.twitter.com/L3cykKAl4l  Craig Spooner (@CraigSpooneruk) December 25, 2017

A Tesco spokeswoman said: Weve sold hundreds of thousands of great quality British turkeys this Christmas. We have exceptionally high standards so we will look to address the small number of complaints in recent days.

We will get in touch with each customer so we can investigate how these instances may have happened.

The Food Standards Agency said: Tesco have confirmed that they are investigating the complaints they have received about turkeys on a case-by-case basis.

We have no evidence at present to suggest that there is a problem in their supply chain. Investigations are continuing and we will take appropriate action if necessary.
Storm Dylan is expected to cause disruption across the country as the weather front brings a wet and windy end to the year.

With gusts of up to 80mph expected in Northern Ireland and southern Scotland, forecasters warned there is the potential for injuries and danger to life from flying debris.

It comes as heavy snow, rain, thunderstorms and wind caused disruption across much of Britain on Friday as the country was gripped by another day of wintry weather.

With the new year approaching, a yellow warning for wind has been issued for Northern Ireland and Scotland on Sunday, as Dylan begins to roll across the region.

The warning is in place from around 12am to 3pm, during which the Met Office said there is a small chance of damage to buildings, as well as power cuts and potentially issues with mobile phone coverage.

Large waves and beach material being thrown on to coastal areas could also be a hazard, the forecaster added.

(PA Graphics)

There is a small chance of longer journey times or cancellations as road, rail, air and ferry services are affected, with the chance that some roads and bridges could close.

Heavy downpours are also predicted to blight much of south-east Wales, plus south western, central and southern parts of England across the weekend.

With a yellow warning for heavy rain issued by the Met Office from 6pm on Saturday to 9am on Sunday, up to 25mm is predicted as likely to fall, while up to 40mm could be seen in some spots.

(PA Graphics)

With the ground very wet in these areas, this is likely to lead to rising water levels and some flooding in places, the Met Office said.

On Friday morning parts of northern England and Scotland were greeted by thick blankets of snow as the south coast was lashed by torrential downpours and lightning.

Homes were left without power, flights were suspended because of the snow and damage was caused to buildings by strong winds.

Good evening, Alex on duty tonight. Rain and strong winds will spread across many parts of the UK overnight, keeping temperatures well above freezing for most. However some frost and icy stretches across Scotland and northern England. More: https://t.co/a70feA0Qeq pic.twitter.com/Y8WGfO55yu  Met Office (@metoffice) December 29, 2017

Downpours saw roads swamped with water and trees were felled due to the wind as the weather system made its way eastwards.

Glasgow saw the biggest snowfall in the UK, with more than 10cm recorded in Bishopton  forcing the citys airport, one of Scotlands busiest, to temporarily suspend flights.

In other areas 7cm fell at Redesdale Camp in Northumberland, 4cm in Bingley, West Yorkshire, and 4cm in Spadeadam, Cumbria.

In Hampshire a property in East Boldre suffered a large amount of tornado-style damage, with dramatic images showing most of the bricks from its roof blown out and scattered below.

People walk through the snow in York ( John Giles/PA)

The Met Office said at around 8.30am in Southampton, just 14 miles from the detached property, a gust of wind measuring 70mph was recorded.

Grahame Madge, a spokesman for the forecaster, said: With thunderstorms and those sorts of systems you get rapidly rising and falling air.

So it could have been convection that caused the problem (and damage to the house), rather than it being a typical tornado.

He said a tornado cannot be ruled out, but this phenomenon is usually associated with much warmer weather during the summer.

(PA Graphics)

The AA said it had received 13,284 calls by Friday at 6pm to its breakdown hotline, mostly from people in the north of England, particularly around Cumbria, south of Manchester and the Peak District, who were struggling with the snow or ice.

It dealt with 16,000 calls on Thursday and 19,000 on Wednesday making it an incredibly busy three days, AA president Edmund King said.

He added: Our patrol force has been out in record numbers.

Hopefully the weather will now let up slightly in terms of temperature although there is still a major concern due to the amount of standing water on many roads and more rain and wind on the way. It looks like being a wet and windy end of the year on the roads.
Martin McGuinness personally set up the rendezvous which led to the brutal murder of a suspected IRA informer, the Irish Government was told in 1987.

Previously secret files in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin reveal the then Bishop of Derry Edward Daly made the damning claim seven months after the killing of Frank Hegarty.

Bishop Daly said Mr McGuinness normally did not get his hands dirty but had run out of henchmen in the city.

Mr Hegarty, a Provo quartermaster in Derry, was abducted from Buncrana, Co Donegal, and shot in the head in May 1986 after he had been lured home with claims he would be safe.

His body was dumped on the side of a border road with his eyes taped.

A typed letter, marked secret, was filed to the Department of Foreign Affairs by an official who had met Bishop Eddie Daly and talked about the execution.

Released under the 30-year rule, it said: The Bishop understands that, far from using a henchman (as he would ordinarily do), McGuinness personally arranged the rendez-vous with Hegarty from which the latter did not return.

Bishop Daly said the former IRA commander turned peacemaker had been doing reckless things at the time.

He said these actions would make Mr McGuinness vulnerable if he were to come under media scrutiny.

Edward Daly said he was certain Martin McGuinness was a Provisional IRA Chief of Staff (Brian Little/PA)

Over the years, Mr McGuinness, who died last March, faced repeated questions over the Hegarty murder but always insisted he had no role whatsoever.

The dead mans family have said the former Deputy First Minister persuaded Mr Hegarty to come home. And Bishop Daly believed them.

It is understood Mr Hegarty fled to England, protected by British intelligence, and is reported to have given information on a dump of IRA arms smuggled from Libya before being lured home.

Bishop Daly said Mr McGuinness assured relatives on a number of occasions that Mr Hegarty would not be harmed.

The Bishop was reported to have said: McGuinness would usually try to keep his own hands clean in an affairs of this sort but, with the number of Provo volunteers in Derry reduced  by rumours that Hegarty had squealed, McGuinness was left in a position for several months last year in which he had to do much of the dirty work on his own.

Bishop Daly said he was certain Mr McGuinness was a Provisional IRA Chief of Staff at least for the North-West if not for the entire North.

The letter was dated January 22 1987, about seven months after the murder.

It was sent to Dublin and copied to the Tanaiste and the Ambassador in London, as well as the secretary of the Irish Governments Anglo-Irish Secretariat.

It has been reported Mr McGuinness met Mr Hegartys mother Rose on numerous occasions as he tried to coerce him to return home, including a claim he went down on bended knee.

A sister of Mr Hegarty is also said to have unwittingly driven him to the rendez-vous in Buncrana.

The documents can be read in the 2017/20/17 file from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
GENEVA, Dec 28 (Reuters) - A Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen has killed 109 civilians in air strikes in the past 10 days, including 54 people at a crowded market and 14 members of one family on a farm, the top U.N. official in the country said on Thursday.

The fighting is futile and absurd, U.N. resident coordinator Jamie McGoldrick said, in unusually direct criticism of the campaign being waged by the coalition against the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

The Saudi-led coalition, which is backed by the United States, Britain and others, denounced the charges, saying the information lacked credibility. McGoldrick appeared to be taking the Houthi side in the conflict, the Saudis said.

Citing initial reports from the U.N. human rights office, a statement by McGoldrick said air strikes hit a crowded market in the Al Hayma sub-district of Attazziah in Taiz governorate on Tuesday, killing 54 and injuring 32.

Eight of the dead and six of the injured were children, according to the reports.

On the same day, an air strike on a farm in Attohayta district of Hodeidah governorate killed 14, and air strikes elsewhere killed a further 41 civilians and injured 43 over the past 10 days.

"These incidents prove the complete disregard for human life that all parties, including the Saudi-led coalition, continue to show in this absurd war that has only resulted in the destruction of the country and the incommensurate suffering of its people, who are being punished as part of a futile military campaign by both sides," McGoldrick said.

Under international law, the warring sides must spare civilians and civilian infrastructure, he added.

A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said he regretted the information that came in McGoldrick's statement.

"This statement creates a continuous state of doubt about the information and data used by the United Nations, and challenges its credibility," the coalition spokesman said in a statement carried by Saudi state news agency SPA.

"As the coalition spokesman condemns this biased stand, he asserts the need for the United Nations to review the mechanism of humanitarian work and the competence of its employees working in Yemen and to monitor their performance," SPA said, citing the statement.

The United Nations has no up-to-date estimate of the death toll in Yemen. It said in August 2016 that according to medical centres at least 10,000 people had been killed.

The United Nations says Yemen is the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with about 8 million people on the brink of famine, a cholera epidemic that has infected 1 million people, and economic collapse in what was already one of the Arab world's poorest countries. (Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Kevin Liffey, William Maclean, Larry King)
By Ben Martin

LONDON, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Companies seeking to "bulk up" to offset the uncertainty caused by Britain's looming EU exit helped to spur a near doubling of domestic mergers and acquisition activity this year, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The volume of UK domestic deals surged to $68 billion from $34.3 billion in 2016 as the number of deals between British groups jumped from 1,480 to 1,681, the highest level since 2008, the data show.

They included online gambling company GVC's purchase of bookmaker Ladbrokes Coral for as much as 3.9 billion pounds ($5.24 billion) and Hammerson's 3.4 billion pound acquisition of rival shopping centre operator Intu Properties.

It comes against a backdrop of often fractious Brexit negotiations between London and Brussels this year, talks that are yet to provide businesses with clarity about Britain's future relationship with Europe.

Bosses at British companies have also been eyeing new U.S. President Donald Trump, whose decisions have repercussions for businesses around the world.

"At the beginning of 2017 there were a lot of questions about what was going to happen to the M&A market, given the global uncertainty caused by Brexit and the new U.S. president," said Nick Cline, a London-based M&A partner at law firm Latham & Watkins, who said the uncertain environment had acted as a driver for some deals rather than stifling activity.

"There are a lot of corporates out there in the UK and Europe who are seeing the changing landscape and as a result are even more focused on what they're going to do to be tomorrow's leaders."

The jump in domestic deal-making contrasted with falls in both inbound and outbound UK M&A volumes, the data show, with the former slipping 12.9 percent to $115.1 billion and the latter down 9.4 percent to $112.5 billion.

That meant overall M&A volumes with any UK involvement dipped 0.7 percent to $375 billon, a softer decline than the 1.4 percent slide in global deal volumes to $3.5 trillion, according to the data.

DEARTH OF BLOCKBUSTER DEALS

Philip Noblet, HSBC's co-head of global banking in the UK, said that "a lot of the obvious sector consolidation deals that people expected to happen" were struck this year and were "driven by the Brexit climate which is prompting companies to bulk up".

However, a dearth of blockbuster deals meant that overall M&A volumes involving any British companies remained much lower than in 2015, when they totalled $605.5 billion, swelled by Anheuser-Busch Inbev's $110 billion acquisition of FTSE 100 brewer SABMiller and Royal Dutch Shell's $53 billion tie-up with BG Group.

"It's hard to see how any more of the really big deals are going to happen going forward without there being quite significant competition issues," said Noblet.

Kraft Heinz's $143 billion attempt to buy consumer goods giant Unilever in February, which would have been one such megadeal, failed within days when the U.S. food company walked away after the FTSE 100 business rejected its offer.

Potential British government scrutiny of the deal was a concern raised during talks between the two companies, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters at the time.

Since Theresa May became prime minister in July 2016, Britain has taken a more cautious approach towards foreign acquisitions of British assets.

In October, the government proposed new rules to give it more say over deals in the defence and technology sectors, although Cline said the government's change of tack had not represented "a step-change this year in the way the UK looks at deals".

He said: "Occasionally a transaction comes up where there's a question about UK government intervention."

Cline forecasts that British M&A activity will remain strong in 2018, while Jan Skarbek, managing director of UK banking and broking at Citigroup, also thinks there will be an increase.

"Organic growth is very difficult in this environment and staying still is not an option for many companies," he said. "So I think there will be more deals next year, despite the geopolitical uncertainty." ($1 = 0.7446 pounds) (Reporting by Ben Martin; Editing by Adrian Croft)
By Beh Lih Yi

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - From winning a record number of seats in Britain's general election to the first gay Disney character, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people garnered more positive headlines around the world in 2017 than ever before.

Although campaigners say it has been a mixed year for LGBT rights, they agree awareness has risen over the past year.

"There are as many advances as setbacks," campaigner Zhan Chiam from the Geneva-based International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

Here are five of the biggest gains for LGBT rights in 2017:

1) Breakthroughs for same-sex marriages

Same-sex unions became legal in four more countries - Finland, Germany, Malta and Australia - in 2017, while Taiwan is getting closer to become the first place in Asia which would allow gay couples to wed.

Finland's same-sex marriage law, which was passed in 2014, came into force in March, and German lawmakers adopted one in June despite Chancellor Angela Merkel voting against the bill.

A month later, the predominantly Roman Catholic island nation of Malta - once a staunchly conservative nation - legalised same-sex union.

Australia became the 26th nation to allow same-sex marriage, which won overwhelming support in a postal vote and parliamentary approval in December.

In Asia, where no countries allow same-sex marriage, Taiwan's constitutional court ruled in May that gay couples have the right to legally marry and gave authorities two years to amend the laws - first such ruling in the region.

Austria's supreme court ruled in December that gay couples will be allowed to wed from 2019.

2) Game-changing year for LGBT films on the big screen

"Moonlight", a drama about a gay black youth coming to terms with his sexuality in an impoverished Miami neighbourhood, became the first LGBT film to win the Oscar for best picture.

The cast and director of the film, which won multiple other awards ahead of Oscars, said they hoped to give a voice to characters not often seen in movies.

"This movie exists as a beacon of inclusivity," writer-director Barry Jenkins said.

For the first time in its history, Disney featured a gay character in the live-action remake of "Beauty and the Beast".

But the release of the film sparked calls among some ultra-conservative groups around the world for a boycott, including Malaysian censors who tried to pull the film.

3) LGBT lawmakers make record gains in UK and US polls

A record of more than 40 openly gay, lesbian or bisexual parliamentarians were elected in Britain's June national election, which also saw the highest number of transgender candidates.

Five transgender politicians also scored wins in November in the first U.S. elections since Donald Trump became president, signalling growing acceptance in parts of the country despite his pushback on transgender rights.

The victories brought the number of openly transgender elected officials to 11 from six.

Trump rescinded protections for transgender students over bathroom use and tried to ban transgender people from military service.

4) Major brands, corporate giants embrace LGBT rights

Firms around the world are becoming more active in promoting diversity and LGBT rights, a trend hailed in September by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Among others, Coca-Cola launched a gay-friendly ad featuring a brother and sister vying for the attention of handsome pool boy that won praise for diversity.

Banking giant HSBC introduced a range of gender neutral titles - such as Mx or Misc, instead of of the conventional Mr, Mrs or Ms - for transgender customers and others who do not identify as male or female.

The head of Qantas Airways, Alan Joyce, was among 20 high-profile chief executives who backed same-sex marriage ahead of Australia's vote this year. He was hit in the face with a lemon meringue pie by a protester over his stance.

5) Same-sex couples allowed to wed in Scottish churches

The Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) voted in June to allow gay marriage, the first such move for a major Christian church in Britain.

Britain legalised same-sex marriage in 2014 but no major Christian church had allowed same-sex weddings until then.

The move was praised by rights groups but it put the Scottish church at odds with the wider Anglican communion, which has 85 million members worldwide and is headed by Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.

Welby said in October that the SEC would be excluded from leadership roles in the Anglican Communion, the BBC reported. (Reporting by Beh Lih Yi @behlihyi, Editing by Katy Migiro. 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)
SYDNEY, Dec 29 (Reuters) - The Australian government is expected to relax restrictions on visas for foreign pilots as a national shortage sees planes grounded and flights cancelled, aviation officials said on Friday.

Australia earlier this year removed pilots from a list of eligible professions allowed to work in the country as so-called skilled migrants amid a crackdown to promote "Australia-first".

With a global shortage of pilots, Australia's international carriers have lost staff to competitors, forcing them to recruit from domestic carriers, who are in turn employing trained pilots from smaller regional airlines.

Unable to source enough pilots, Australia's regional carriers have been forced to cancel flights, but Mike Higgins, chief executive officer of the industry body, the Regional Aviation Association of Australia, said the country's government has told him it will ease restrictions in January.

"The government has said it will add pilots to the skilled migrant visa list in January and they will be able to work in Australia for two years," said Higgins.

Representatives for Australia's minister for home affairs Peter Dutton did not immediately respond to request for comment.

A relaxation of visa restrictions would be provide some relief to Australia's rural travellers, which have been beset by frequent flight cancellations.

According to Australian government data, 3 percent of domestic flights were cancelled in November, the highest monthly level in nearly six years. Cancellations of Australian domestic flights hit a high of more than 5 percent in December 2011 when a volcanic ash cloud from Chile grounded flights.

The carriers that had the most cancellations were Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd and QantasLink, the regional carrier of Qantas Airways Ltd, the data showed.

Representatives for both companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Australia's centre-right government can ill-afford to alienate rural voters, a central voter block for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is struggling to keep his grip onto power.

Australia's opposition Labor Party welcomed the likely visa relaxation but said the government must do more to improve the ability of locals to train as pilots.

"We need to make sure we can keep our planes in the air, you can't train pilots in just a day or a week or a month," Anthony Albanese told reporters on Friday.

"The problem is training enough Australian pilots to fulfil our domestic aviation needs." (Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
PRAGUE, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Czech financial markets on Friday. ALL TIMES GMT (Czech Republic: GMT + 1 hours) =========================ECONOMIC DATA========================== Real-time economic data releases.................... Summary of economic data and forecasts........... Recently released economic data.................. Previous stories on Czech data............. **For a schedule of corporate and economic events: http://emea1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/Apps/CountryWeb/#/2E/events-overview =========================NEWS=================================== CEZ: Czech power utility CEZ is in talks with several parties interested in buying a stake in its engineering and construction unit Skoda Praha, a spokesman said on Thursday. Story: Related stories: SKODA PRAHA: Montenegro's power utility EPCG has ended a deal with Skoda Praha, a unit of Czech power firm CEZ , for the construction of a new coal-fired power plant due to Skoda Praha's failure to secure funding, EPCG said on Thursday. Story: Related stories: CEZ ESCO: Core earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) at CEZ's energy service provider ESCO unit should rise to around 300 million crowns ($14.02 million) in 2017, from 243 million crowns last year, the unit's chief executive told CTK news agency in an interview. Story: Related stories: CROWN: The Czech crown jumped over 1 percent against the euro on Thursday, rebounding from a sharp drop in the previous session when end-of-year accounting of banks' balance sheets had made it more expensive to hold the currency. Story: Related stories: CEE MARKETS: The Czech crown led a firming of Central European currencies on Thursday, rebounding from a fall on Wednesday caused by year-end balance sheet management by banks. Story: Related stories: ***For real-time stock market index quotes click in brackets: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX For updates on CEE currencies TOP NEWS -- Emerging markets =========================PRESS DIGEST========================== PHILIP MORRIS: Production at tobacco group Philip Morris CR's Kutna Hora plant grew around 20 percent this year as it absorbs production from other plants in the international group that switched to Heets cigarettes. There are no plans for the Czech plant to start producing heat-not-burn IQOS cigarette technology at the moment, the Prague-listed firm's Chief Executive Arpad Konye said. Hospodarske Noviny, page 15 (Reuters has not verified the stories, nor does it vouch for their accuracy.) Prague Newsroom: +420 224 190 477 E-mail: prague.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (Reporting by Prague Newsroom)
SOFIA, Dec 29 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

-- The Bulgarian government voted for changes in the management plan for Pirin mountain that will allow construction in the mountain. The decision sparked protests from environmentalists. Earlier in the day the people in the ski resort of Bansko demonstrated in support of the government decision, demanding a second lift line to Pirin's ski zone. (24 Chasa, Duma, Monitor, Trud)

-- Travels of Bulgarians abroad have increased by about 12 percent in the first 11 months of the year, data showed. (24 Chasa, Monitor)

24 CHASA - Chinese companies are interested to invest in nuclear energy, road infrastructure and an airport in Bulgaria, Chinese ambassador to Bulgaria said.

TRUD - Bulgarian will overhaul its aged MiG-29 fighter jets without intermediaries, Defence Minister Krasimir karakachanov said. An appeal by an Ukrainian company is delaying the government's plan to award the repair of the jets to Russian company RAC MiG.
BUCHAREST, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Friday.

DEBT SCHEDULE

The finance ministry might announce debt issuance plans for 2018.

RAYTHEON

Raytheon Co has been awarded a $634 million contract for Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

CEE MARKETS

The Czech crown led a firming of Central European currencies on Thursday, rebounding from a fall on Wednesday caused by year-end balance sheet management by banks.

Romania's leu steadied but, trading at 4.6499 versus the euro, stayed near Wednesday's five-week lows.

Having lost 2.5 percent so far this year it has heavily underperformed regional peers, though the forint has also struggled, dropping 0.6 percent amid policy-loosening by the Hungarian central bank.

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 John Miller

ZURICH, Dec 29 (Reuters) - The Czech Republic can seek hundreds of millions in funds seized by Swiss authorities from bank accounts linked to the disputed privatisation of one of the nation's coal mines two decades ago, Switzerland's highest court said on Friday.

The sale of lignite miner Mostecka Uhelna Spolecnost (MUS) became one of the biggest Czech post-communist privatisation scandals, among a string of murky disposals of state-owned companies.

Five executives convicted of money laundering and fraud in the case had been accused of using a web of Swiss bank accounts to launder cash linked to the deal. Prosecutors said they used the mining company's own money to buy its stock before buying the remaining stake cheaply from the Czech government.

Swiss authorities seized more than 660 million Swiss francs ($677 million), giving them jurisdiction over the case that delivered its verdicts in 2013.

The Czech Republic had originally been excluded by the Swiss Federal Criminal Court from intervening as a private party after missing judicial filing deadlines relating to the case, despite saying it had been damaged by the MUS deal.

The Swiss Federal Tribunal on Friday directed the Swiss criminal court to now take up the Czech claims.

"The Czech Republic should have been allowed to intervene because it had made a claim as a damaged party that it was entitled to be reimbursed money that had been seized," the tribunal's judges wrote.

On Friday, Prague said it would review the Swiss judgment to evaluate its next steps.

"The Czech Republic succeeded at the Swiss Supreme Court with its complaint and will be admitted ... as a damaged party," the Czech Finance Ministry said in a statement. "The Czech Republic will therefore claim damages in the dispute."

The tribunal, in Lausanne, also said its judges had rejected most of the appeals lodged by the five former MUS managers seeking to challenge their convictions four years ago in which they received prison sentences of 36 months to 52 months and financial penalties.

It did direct the lower Federal Criminal Court to reconsider its fraud conviction of a former International Monetary Fund official, Jacques de Groote, a Belgian financier. He was accused of being enlisted by the managers to convince the Czech Republic that their stake in MUS belonged to a foreign investor, in order to convince the country to sell them the rest of the company.

De Groote, now 90, was originally found guilty of helping the five Czech managers of MUS illegally gain control of the state-controlled company between 1997 and 2003. He was fined. The defendants said they had done nothing illegal.

On Friday, the tribunal said the lower criminal court must reconsider if de Groote, who served at the IMF from the 1970s to 1990s, had acted intentionally in the privatisation scheme.

De Groote could not immediately be reached for comment on the ruling through his lawyer on Friday.

MUS now has different owners, with its name changed to Czech Coal and Severni Energeticka. ($1 = 0.9748 Swiss francs) ($1 = 0.8342 euros) (Reporting by John Miller in Zurich, Jason Hovet in Prague and Julia Fioretti in Brussels; Editing by Alison Williams)
BAMAKO, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Malian Prime Minister Abdoulaye Idrissa Maiga and his government resigned on Friday, the president's office said, without giving a reason.

Maiga is widely expected either to serve as President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita's campaign director for next year's presidential election or to run in Keita's place.

The president will soon name a new government, his office said in the statement. It will be the fifth to serve under Keita since his election in 2013. Usually fewer than half the ministers appointed to a new government have served in the previous cabinet.

Keita's presidency has been dominated by security challenges posed by Islamist militants in northern and central Mali, who have regrouped since a French military intervention in 2013 to wage regular attacks on troops, U.N. peacekeepers and civilians. (Reporting By Adama Diarra; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Non-renewal of US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) does not affect our US trade in a significant way, said Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen at a meeting with top officials at his ministry yesterday.



The US Embassy in Sri Lanka said yesterday that the United States Congress did not re-authorize GSP before adjourning for the year. The immediate effect of GSP expiration is GSP eligible imports to the United States from Sri Lanka and other GSP beneficiary countries and territories will be subject to non-preferential duties beginning January 1, 2018 the Embassy stressed. According to Sri Lankas Department of Commerce, the US is worlds largest buyer of Sri Lankan exports. Total Sri Lanka  US trade remained unchanged in both 2015 and 2016. In both 2015 and 2016, total bilateral trade was at US$ 3.3 billion. The US purchased 27 percent of our overall exports at an unchanged value of around US$ 2.8 billion, each year in 2015 and 2016. Apparel products were Sri Lankas biggest export item to US, taking 75 percent of Sri Lankas exports in 2016 (at US$ 2.1 billion). Interestingly, total US-Sri Lanka bilateral trade from January to November this year 2017 has increased to US $ 3.41 billion in comparison to 2016s entire annual trade total of US$3.3 billion. Of this years US$3.41 billion trade with US (to November), US$2.64 billion consists of exports from Sri Lanka.



What is important to understand is that this non-renewal of US GSP (for 2018) does not affect our US trade in a significant way and the impact is even lower when it comes to total national exports. Only one fifth of our exports to US could be temporarily impacted by this routine event said

Minister Bathiudeen.

Accordingly, apparels, Sri Lankas leading exports to US at an annual value of US$ 2 Billion is not at all affected since apparel exports to US do not come under GSP. Only some other exports, around 20-25 percent of total to US, come under GSP. Most such GSP eligible exports from Sri Lanka to US are smaller value items such as travel bags, certain leather products and some pneumatic tyre types. Also some Lankan exporters dont claim the GSP entitlement and therefore the actual value of affected exports to US is around one fifth of total annual exports to US from Sri Lanka- around 20 percent at US$500 million to US$ 570 million.



The expiration is not only for Sri Lanka but includes many other countries, taking place at the same time. Sri Lanka has one of the highest US GSP utilisation rates among other US GSP beneficiaries -at around 85 percent.



Sources from the Department of Commerce confirmed despite the expiration, the issuance of US GSP entitlement certificates by the Department will continue as usual and with changes to the present procedure. It was also revealed that this GSP expiration appears to be another regular event since the US GSP is routinely reauthorized every year and the expiration takes place before reauthorisation that arrives a few weeks later. The direct beneficiaries of US GSP are US manufacturers who can avail input material for their productions at low or no duties, indirect beneficiaries being Lankan exporters. Once the reauthorisation takes place, the US importers who applied for the Certificates from Colombo and earned it, can submit their claims and collect benefits at their end retroactively.



According to the Department of Commerce, apart from apparels, the other Lankan export items to US in 2016 were tyres and tea. Main import items from US to Sri Lanka were preserved oils such as sunflower, soya etc, various technical instruments (Optical, photographic, precision, medical etc) and plastics. Total imports from US in 2015 was at US$ 470.8 million and it increased by 15 percent to US$ 540 million in 2016.

The GSP entitlement for Sri Lanka and other beneficiary countries could be renewed and returned as soon as the US Congress re-authorises it at any time.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been fined $250 for not wearing a lifejacket while steering his inflatable dinghy near his Point Piper mansion on Sydney Harbour, the Guardian reported.

The prime minister was photographed at the helm of the motorised dinghy by the Australian newspaper on Wednesday. He was wearing a red rashvest but no lifejacket, a breach of New South Wales maritime regulations.

Turnbull said he was only moving the boat 20m between a jetty and the beach next to the house he shares with his wife Lucy while at home over Christmas.

After reports accompanying the photograph noted his breach of regulations, Turnbull said in a Facebook post the first he had learned of the rule was when he called Maritime Services.

The rules can often seem very technical, but they are there to keep us safe and we should all comply with them, he said.

So lesson learned; I will make sure I always wear a life jacket in my dinghy regardless of how close I am to the shore, just as I always do on my kayak.

Maritime Services investigated the incident and on Friday delivered a $250 fine. A spokesman for Turnbull said the fine would be paid.

Angus Mitchell, executive director of NSW Maritime, said the incident was a timely reminder of the need for safety on the water.

We want to ensure everyone enjoys their break and gets home safely this summer so please, wear a lifejacket and take care on our waterways, he said.
AFP: Balis palm-fringed Kuta beach has long been a favourite with tourists seeking sun and surf, but nowadays its golden shoreline is disappearing under a mountain of garbage.



Plastic straws and food packaging are strewn between sunbathers, while surfers bobbing behind the waves dodge waste flushed out from rivers or brought in by swirling currents.



When I want to swim, it is not really nice. I see a lot of garbage here every day, every time, Austrian traveler Vanessa Moonshine explains.

Its always coming from the ocean. Its really horrible, she adds.

Often dubbed a paradise on earth, the Indonesian holiday island has become an embarrassing poster child for the countrys trash problem.

The archipelago of more than 17,000 islands is the worlds second biggest contributor to marine debris after China, and a colossal 1.29 million metric tons is estimated to be produced annually by Indonesia.



The waves of plastic flooding into rivers and oceans have been causing problems for years -- clogging waterways in cities, increasing the risk of floods, and injuring or killing marine animals who ingest or become trapped by plastic packaging.



The problem has grown so bad that officials in Bali last month declared a garbage emergency across a six-kilometre (3.7-mile) stretch of coast that included popular beaches Jimbaran, Kuta and Seminyak.



Officials deployed 700 cleaners and 35 trucks to remove roughly 100 tons of debris each day to a nearby landfill.



People with green uniform were collecting the garbage to move it away but the next day I saw the same situation, said German Claus Dignas, who claimed he saw more garbage with each visit to the island.



No one wants to sit on nice beach chairs and facing all this rubbish, he added.



Balis rubbish problem is at its worst during the annual monsoon season, when strong winds push marine flotsam onto the beach and swollen rivers wash rubbish from riverbanks to the coast, according to Putu Eka Merthawan from the local environment agency.



This garbage does not come from people living in Kuta and nearby areas, he told AFP.



It would be suicidal if Kuta people were doing it.



Some 72 kilometres from Kuta, Mount Agung has been threatening to erupt for two months, prompting tourists to cancel visits and displacing tens of thousands of villagers living within a 10 kilometre-radius of the volcanos crater.



But the islands waste problem is no less of a threat, said I Gede Hendrawan, an environmental oceanography researcher from Balis Udayana University.



Garbage is aesthetically disturbing to tourists, but plastic waste issue is way more serious, he told AFP.



Microplastics can contaminate fish which, if eaten by humans, could cause health problems including cancer.



Indonesia is one of nearly 40 countries that are part of UN Environments Clean Seas campaign, which aims to halt the tide of plastic trash polluting the oceans.
In continuing to give leadership to corporates in the country to adhere to the best practices of corporate governance, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) recently launched the revised Code of Best Practice on Corporate Governance 2017.



Speaking at the event, outgoing president of CA Sri Lanka Lasantha Wickremasinghe said corporate governance is of paramount importance to a company, both big and small. He also said that good corporate governance can contribute greatly to a country such as Sri Lanka, which is going through a phase of revival.



CA Sri Lanka is proud to be the pioneer in introducing corporate governance to Sri Lanka. The first Code was issued in December 1997, and was subsequently updated in 2003, 2008, and 2013. But, corporate governance is a dynamic force that keeps evolving, therefore taking into consideration the global changes and the need to adhere to these changes locally, we decided to update the existing Code by accommodating most of the good governance principals, he said.

Wickremasinghe noted that with Sri Lanka being promoted as a hub in South Asia, and with more investments coming into the country, there is a greater need for organisations to follow the corporate governance code. When a company and its professionals adhered to good corporate governance it not only contributes towards the long term success of the company, but will ensure greater competitiveness and growth, which will ultimately reflect on the country and its economy, Wickremasinghe added.



Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka Thilak Karunaratne said that corporate governance in Sri Lanka had come a long way and the current revision of the code is relevant and timely. He commended CA Sri Lanka for taking the important step to revise the Code to stay abreast of the global corporate governance standards while emphasizing that the revised Code also helped foster ethical business behaviour and greater accountability and transparency.



He said corporate governance is essentially thought of as the way in which enterprises are directed and controlled. Studies have shown that good corporate governance not only enhances the image and reputation of a company, but produces direct economic benefits by making it more profitable and competitive. This in turn creates more value for all stakeholders, Karunaratne said.



Chairman of the Corporate Governance Committee Asite Talwatte said the Code of 2017 builds on the previous Codes to strengthen best practice in governance in the context of global developments relevant to Sri Lanka, emerging contemporary matters of governance and challenges with greater importance to the Sri Lankan capital market.



Securities regulations, accounting standards, audits & assurance standards, company law and other industry specific laws have the force of legislation. Governance on the other hand is a voluntary code by which corporates demonstrate their commitment to strategy and execution in a sustainable manner complying with these laws and regulations, with the right set of skills, knowledge and expertise on its boards, thereby delivering results ethically, and recognising all significant stakeholders interests, Talwatte added.



Keynote speaker Professor Barry J Cooper, Associate Dean (Regional Engagement) of Deakin University spoke on Challenges and recent developments in corporate governance while Guest Speaker Professor Gishan Dissanaike, Adam Smith Professor of Corporate Governance, of the University of Cambridge spoke on Comply or explain vs. mandatory approaches to corporate governance.
The PAFFREL today handed over the details of the candidates who had corruption charges against them to IGP Pujith Jayasundera.

The Peoples Action for Free and Fair Election (PAFFREL) handed over the details received to the March 12 Movement.

PAFFREL Executive Director Rohana Hettiarachchi requested the IGP to inquire into the charges against the candidates when they met the IGP regarding holding a violence-free election.

He also asked the IGP to look into the matter of the political parties, which conducted rallies during the last day of the nominations.

During the meeting, PAFFREL officials also discussed the deployment of observers in the polling centres.

Mr. Hettiarachchi said that PAFFREL would give its fullest cooperation for holding a free and fair election. (Thilanka Kanakarathna)
Highlights of the Chancellors address was the rapid development of the university, recognition of some of the Technology degree programmes by the IESL for Affiliate Engineer Member status and the need to conform to the standards expected by the upcoming Engineering Council for Engineering Practitioners.



I am pleased to be able to present the Chancellors address for the 5th Annual Convocation ceremony of the University of Vocational Technology (UNIVOTEC) which is a unique university in Sri Lanka, established by Act of Parliament No 31 of 2008 to cater to the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector to provide a pathway to degree level higher education for those with vocational qualifications through the National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) and also with mid-level Technological qualifications through lateral entry where there is scope to attract more people to study it.

From the inception, there were concerns as to why the university is called Vocational and Technological



From the very inception, as the Secretary of the Ministry I had to be persuasive in formulating the proposal, as the minister in charge of the subject at that time was not favourable in the establishment of such a university or any university. However, the then minister (who has again been returned to Parliament), within a short time was fully appreciative of the need of such a university and is now a great supporter of same. From the inception, there were concerns as to why the university is called Vocational and Technological. The minister in question at that time did well to convince Parliament that the university was meant for those who wanted to pursue the vocational route ie NVQ and also for the technical personnel with mid-level technological qualifications through lateral entry. At this stage I wish to remind those who still have concerns, that the worlds leading higher education institutes are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) etc. Hence, standing firm on principles and convictions have paved the way for the development of this university as almost all the graduates are gainfully employed and much sought after.



The officers and staff of the university should continue to take firm and preserve the concept, after all we had four ministers in charge of higher Education with diverse opinions in the past. Above all the graduates passing out today has the biggest responsibility through industry interaction to display the high quality the industry demands and to enable the university to develop further. It is very encouraging to hear of the high calibre academic staff who are being attracted to

the university.



This reminds of my days at the University of Moratuwa which was initially run by visiting staff and in my department to start with I was the only PhD holder. With the passing of time the department of Civil Engineering now has about 35 PhD holders, nearly 20 Professors, almost all senior staff being Chartered Civil Engineers and could be classed as one of the strongest academic engineering departments in South Asia. The UNIVOTEC should strive to continue to develop to reach

such heights.

This has been a great achievement, perhaps the first of its kind in Sri Lanka, that the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL) has granted a conditional Accreditation for the three degree programmes namely Building Services Technology, Manufacturing Technology and Mechatronics Technology



During the establishment of the UNIVOTEC, needs studies have indicated that the industry requires competent Engineering Technologists with a degree and if necessary with subsequent specialization in a particular field of a minimum one year post graduate qualification. It should be realized that for academic staff recruitment in universities and / or for research, academic requirements could be achieved through an additional postgraduate degree in the relevant field or with professional qualifications. During the past, the university has been able to develop 13 degree programmes. Some of these programmes have been subject to evaluation by the Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka (IESL), which is the authorised Professional Body for Accreditation for Washington Accord and Sydney Accord status. This was done with both expatriate and local experts, who have indicated that the degrees which were evaluated would be eligible subject to certain conditions, to be considered for Affiliate Engineer member status as indicated in the IESL website under the list of Accredited Engineering Degree Programmes under the Sydney Accord as on October 6, 2017.



This has been a great achievement, perhaps the first of its kind in Sri Lanka, that the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL) has granted a conditional Accreditation for the three degree programmes namely Building Services Technology, Manufacturing Technology and Mechatronics Technology. As the Chancellor and a Past President of the Institution it gives me great joy to see this achievement of the university. While the industry would be largely satisfied with this category of members, for an academic career or research or very senior positions in industry, with a post graduate degree in the relevant field they could qualify and rise up to being a Chartered Engineer. With the establishment probably in a few weeks time of the Engineering Council enacted by Parliament in March 2017 after much deliberations for many years at different levels and fora, the Council is mandated to maintain standards of all Engineering Practitioners from Certificate level qualified Technicians to Engineering Diplomates right upto Chartered Engineers. This Council being a similar body to the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC), would have to ensure standards from the very start to achieve its objectives.

The members of the academic staff of the university should also try to pursue an academic route in the Institution to obtain these

professional qualifications.



However, it is imperative that the present Graduates perform in the industry upholding the standards and competence expected, while the Academic Staff and the Officers of the University ensure that the concerns expressed and conditions imposed by the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka are adequately adhered to and no deviations occur.



At this stage I would like to stress that the present students, staff and graduates passing out and even decision makers not make comparisons with graduates of other conventional engineering faculties or universities in the country as the concept and objectives are different. The industry makes their assessment by competence, adaptability and attitude of the employees, There was a time when diplomates passing out with the National Diploma in Engineering Sciences (NDES) from the then TTI in Katunayake were in greater demand than engineering graduates! Since serving the nation for national development should be the first aim, followed by personal development, be pleased with your chosen career and motivate yourselves both as staff of the university and graduates passing out to develop further from what you have achieved thus far.
Imperial Spices, a leading exporter of spices, was presented with the much coveted Gold award for Excellence in Business and Financial Results and Export Sector (Large Category) and a Silver award in Large category at the National Business Excellence Awards Ceremony 2017 organised by the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka.



This achievement is a reflection of many successful programmes implemented by the company recently, such as venturing into new markets, maintaining quality consistency, investing in new machinery, enhancing production capacity and processing of value added products. With a constant focus on improving the quality of products, Imperial Spices is moving forward gaining access into international markets. The companys rapid growth has created a lot of job opportunities.

Cinnamon, black pepper, white pepper, clove, nutmeg, Garcinia and Areca-nut are prominent among the exports portfolio of Imperial Spices.



As a key player in the spice trade with a high demand overseas, the company exports its products to several countries including United States of America, India, Middle East and Europe. Commenting on the achievement, Imperial Spices Director Kolitha Weerakoon said: I am particularly happy and proud to have been able to contribute to the national economy as a major player in the exports sector. All employees of Imperial Spices have contributed greatly to this achievement.
The Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSSSL) launched an Annual Memorial Lecture Series in honour of Lieutenant General Denzil Lakshman Kobbekaduwa.



The inaugural lecture in the series was delivered by General G.H. de Silva (Rtd.), on the Life and Times of Lt. Gen. Kobbekaduwa in the contemporary context, on December 8th 2017, from 3:00p.m. to 5:00p.m., at INSS premises - Suhrupaya Auditorium (19th Floor).



The event was graced by the Secretary of Defence Kapila Waidyaratne P.C, Secretary - State Ministry of Defence, Sunil Samaraweera, Lalini Kobbekaduwa and family, Commander of the Army Lt. Gen. N.U. M.M.W. Senanayake, Retired Senior Military Officers, distinguished military officers, members of the diplomatic core, civilian scholars and academia.



On behalf of INSS, Director General Asanga Abeyagoonasekera delivered the opening remarks. He stated the motivation behind launching this event in honour of Gen. Kobbekaduwa: To invoke the memory of a great military strategist and discuss an important strategic topic for our nation. In this regard, he thanked President Maithripala Sirisena of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka for establishing INSS, as the first civilian-military national security think tank. It is fitting that we can bring together both the military and civilians to honour this valiant military strategist.



An In Memorium video of the life and times of Gen. Kobbekaduwa was shown to the audience in an attempt to delve into the past of this stoic military strategist. Thereafter, Lalini Kobbekaduwa garlanded the portrait of her late husband Gen. Kobbekaduwa. The opening remarks were then delivered by the Secretary of Defence Kapila Waidyaratne P.C.. As the Chairman of INSS, the Secretary stated that: It was of utmost importance to reflect upon the visionary legacy and strategic depth in forging a military strategy for our country during the war years. The Secretary addressed the defence establishment in the audience stating that: The best blood of the land here should be encouraged to follow in the steps of their illustrious predecessors.



Thereafter, the speaker - General Gerry de Silva (Rtd.) took the stage to deliver his lecture on his friend and comrade Gen. Kobbekaduwa. He was introduced by Brigadier Sri Mudannayake who is providing a volunteer service at INSS. The aim of the lecture was to do justice to the memory of a fallen war hero as well as commemorate his legacy and his strategic thinking on the battlefield. The lecture began with a foray into General Denzil Kobbekaduwas early childhood and adolescence gathered from military records. General de Silva illustrated how Gen. Kobbekaduwa rose to prominence in the military - surpassing records in promotion that were unprecedented in the annals of recent Sri Lankan military history. General de Silva explained that in 1989 Gen. Kobbekaduwa received another rare honour in that he attended the Royal College of Defence Studies in England and became the only Sri Lankan Army officer to be trained entirely in the UK, commencing with his officer cadet training in Sandhurst, followed by the Technical Transport officers course, the Young Officers course of the Armoured Corps in Bovington and the Staff College course in Camberley.



According to General De Silva, this training and Gen. Kobbekaduwas character building during the early war years, contributed to the acquisition of a dominant Battle Space Knowledge, which was invaluable during the formidable challenge that lay ahead in terms of the height of the armed conflict. Gen. Kobbekaduwas foresight, approach, and out-of-the-box thinking brought the desired results for success in all endeavors. This was no more apparent than in the major combat operations that Gen. Kobbekaduwa conducted against armed Tamil Militancy since July 23rd 1983 (Black Friday).



General De Silva, having served alongside Gen. Kobbekaduwa, stated that he was of the personal opinion that Operation Balavegaya was the crowning glory in the battlespan of Gen. Kobbekaduwa. He elaborated that during this combat operation Gen. Kobbekaduwa coordinated a total of 6000 soldiers and true to his military character projected his strategic and tactical acumen to its finest, which in the end brought victory. It is this strategic depth that led others to observe that Kobbekaduwa was a person who could obtain maximum advantage from minimum resources and was therefore known as an excellent strategist.



Despite his untimely demise at Araly Point in the Kayts island on August 8th 1992, Gen. Kobbekaduwas legacy still lives on today. This legacy not only encompasses his strategic acumen, but rather General de Silva was able to enlighten the audience on the Hearts and Minds approach of Gen. Kobbekaduwa in battle, which showcased his leadership from the heart. This was evidenced by the fact that Gen. Kobbekaduwa was trusted, admired and highly respected by Tamils of every political tincture for his sterling qualities of fairplay, honesty and integrity. It is what made the lecture so edifying. General de Silva was able to capture the essence of Gen. Kobekkaduwas character and illustrate it in a contemporary context for the next generation or the armed forces to garner valuable knowledge from.
(c) 2017, The Washington Post  Nick Miroff  Dec 28, 2017 - In a video released Wednesday by the Islamic State, a one-legged fighter identified by the group as an American called on Muslims in the United States to take advantage of the countrys gun laws to obtain weapons and carry out attacks.



The fighter, identified as Abu Salih al-Amriki, wears khaki fatigues with a holstered pistol in the online video, which was published by a propaganda wing of the Islamic State. He speaks in English with what sounded like a New York City-area accent.



Take advantage of the fact that you can easily obtain a rifle or a pistol in America, the fighter implored. Spray the kuffar [infidels] with bullets so that their fear of the Muslims rises and they continue to reveal their hatred towards Islam.



The SITE Intelligence Group, a private organization that tracks Islamist militant media, published a copy of the video.
REUTERS: Nomura Holdings Inc is ready to serve wealthy Chinese as soon as the worlds second-largest economy allows foreign financial institutions to open securities brokerages, the Chief Executive of Japans biggest brokerage and investment bank said.



We have been preparing to start business in China for years. We are waiting first in the queue for when the country eventually opens up, Koji Nagai told Reuters.



Nomura already serves wealthy Chinese from retail operations in Hong Kong, and offers wholesale - or business-to-business - services in mainland China. But we want to do retail business (in mainland China) as well, like we do in Japan, Nagai said in an interview.



China has been gradually opening up in recent years, and stunned the finance industry in November when it unveiled plans to allow foreign control of domestic financial institutions.



Banks such as Citigroup Inc and Credit Suisse Group AG could take advantage of the change by taking majority control of joint ventures they operate with local partners, industry insiders said. For its part, Nomura aims to establish a retail brokerage targeting Chinas growing affluent class, said Nagai, Nomuras chief since 2012. In terms of per-capita GDP, China is nearing the stage where mass consumers start needing brokerage services, Nagai said, referring to gross domestic product. Still, he said Nomura is taking a long-term view toward Chinese market. It will take time to make it a real business. We are hoping to become profitable in five to 10 years at the earliest.



More immediately, he said Nomura needs to build up investment banking operations in the United States, noting its size does not match a market which generates over half of the global investment banking industrys fee revenue.



We have strong sector coverage in Japan, Asia and Europe. There is a missing link in the United States and we need to fill that, he said.

He also said Nomura could pursue both organic and inorganic growth opportunities in the United States. If we see good opportunities to hire bankers, we will do so, and if there is a good boutique house, we might buy it.



Anyway, we are not aiming to compete squarely with bulge brackets. We are an investment bank with strength in Asia and we will connect that with Europe and the United States, he said. Bulge brackets refers to global financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
REUTERS, 29th DECEMBER, 2017

Lebanese politicians on Thursday criticized Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil over a television interview in which he was shown saying that Lebanon did not have an ideological problem with Israel and was not against it having security.



The comments, made to al-Mayadin television channel during a long interview on Tuesday, had just started attracting attention.



Lebanon has no official relations with Israel and tensions have risen this year between Israel and Lebanons Hezbollah group. Israel and Hezbollah, the group it describes as the greatest security threat on its border, have fought wars against each other.



A former government minister called on Bassil to resign and a member of parliament also

criticized him.



Bassils office later said al-Mayadin had distorted his comments through its editing of the interview, without explaining how.



We are not against Israel living in security, he was shown saying in a clip that circulated widely in Lebanon on social media.
Ranil De Silva  Managing Director, Leo Burnett Sri Lanka

Leo Burnett Sri Lankas iconic leader and world-renowned advertising professional Ranil de Silva, will step down from his role after serving as the agencys Managing Director for the last 18 years. After 36 years of making his mark as a mover and shaker in Sri Lankas marketing communications industry and taking Leo Burnett to unprecedented heights, Ranil will step down from his role and responsibilities of managing the Sri Lankan office of the Publicis Groupe. Ranil will pass on the baton of the agencys leadership of Leo Burnett to its CEO Arosha Perera, who along with a seasoned leadership team will take over the management of Leo Burnett Sri Lanka and the other brands within the Groupe.

Arosha Perera has been actively engaged at the company for the last few years and has prepared himself for this new role. He will take over the leadership of the Leo Burnett agency with effect from 1st January 2018. Arosha has enjoyed an illustrious career spanning two decades and has extensive industry experience both in Sri Lanka and the region. The names and roles of the senior leadership team and their specific responsibilities will be announced in the New Year. Leo Burnetts South Asia management team will also play a key role in ensuring a smooth and efficient transition as the new local leadership team takes over the day-to-day operations of the agency.

In what has been an incredible innings and a career filled with a multitude of milestones, powerful ideas and life-changing accomplishments as well as countless global awards, Ranil has helped to not only build Leo Burnett Sri Lanka into the most awarded agency in the country, but he has also played a pivotal role in ensuring the development of Sri Lankas advertising industry at large. His zest to showcase the creative potential of Sri Lankans on the global map, has helped Leo Burnett and the country to make history at some of the worlds most prestigious international award shows, whilst shining a light on the young talent in the industry.

Standing from left to right:

Jude Benedict  Director Broadcast and Photography Production, Kumudini Gomes  Head of People and Culture, Selonica Perumal  Director, Publicis, Murtaza A. Tajbhoy  Chief Strategy Officer, Arosha Perera  Chief Executive Office, Lalindra Nanayakkara  Executive Creative Director, Wasim Akram  Director, Arc, Caryll Van Dort  Group Director,Samantha Wijesundara  Finance Director, MSL Sri Lanka, Mehnaz Ilhamdeen  Head of Operations, Neeraj Karambelkar  Digital Director

anil started his career at JWT and progressed professionally, taking up a posting in Jakarta Indonesia and returning to Sri Lanka to lead the agency at the age of 32, after which he was called to serve in a regional role based in Singapore. He began his journey at Leo Burnett in the spirit of the agencys founder himself  by reaching for the stars. He initially had no clients, no office premises, no portfolio or anything of substance, but he had a vision to build a world-class agency but he had the most valuable asset, a committed team of professionals. Together they have taken Leo Burnett and the other brands within the Publicis Groupe portfolio to its current leadership position.

Commenting on his achievements and journey to date, Ranil de Silva  Managing Director, Leo Burnett Sri Lanka said: I have had the privilege to lead a talented team of the countrys best advertising professionals. These are the people who have made each day I have spent in this industry worth its while, by being the people theyve grown to be. I believe the best people in this industry reside at No.379, R A De Mel Mawatha. And when I look outside the walls of 379, I am equally impressed. The individuals who are playing critical roles in the industry are people who have grown up with us. In fact, many of the industrys leaders are my former colleagues. It is such a pleasure for me to leave behind for the ad industry and for Leo Burnett a legacy of talented, capable and committed professionals. People whom I know will, as we say at Leo Burnett, reach for the stars. These professionals are my gift to the industry. They are also a gift to me for my 36+ years of passion for this industry.

Ranil added: Arosha has enjoyed an illustrious advertising career spanning over two decades, and fulfilled similar roles to the ones I have done. Like me, he was groomed at JWT. He is an accomplished professional, who understands this industry intimately. Arosha brings with him a decade of experience from the region, in addition to spending 8 years in the advertising industry in Sri Lanka. He has had the time to get to know Burnett and to believe in the brand. He has also got to know the realities of the industry in Sri Lanka and has become intimately familiar with the team, our way of doing things and the processes which govern our operations. He will be supported by an illustrious team who have the capability, passion and dedication to make a real difference to the company.



Commenting on Ranils contribution to the agency network and industry Saurabh Varma, Chief Executive Officer South Asia Leo Burnett Group said: Ranil has added immense value to Leo Burnett Worldwides network over the years, helping us to not only bring home metals but to strengthen our reputation as a world-class communications agency in the region and beyond. He has achieved tremendous success and consistent agency growth, strategically positioning Leo Burnett Sri Lanka as a leading office within the global network. His unwavering dedication to grooming young talent through various initiatives and training programmes, has made a significant impact on the development of the industry. He has mentored, nurtured and trained many professionals in the local industry, who with the knowledge he has imparted on them, are now well equipped to handle the challenges and opportunities within their respective fields with confidence and grace. Ranil is known as one of the industrys finest leaders across all corners of the globe and his passion, commitment and sheer enthusiasm for the work, the team and the industry are a key part of the incredible legacy that he leaves behind. We wish him all of the best in his retirement and know that he will always be remembered and honoured for his valuable input and contributions, not only to the agency and the Leo Burnett network, but for all that he has done to elevate the local advertising industry, whilst garnering recognition for his country.

Saurabh Varma also added: We are excited to welcome Arosha Perera on board in his new role from 2018 onwards, and we look forward to working closely with him and his team, so that we can collectively continue to build on our success and add value to the agency in Sri Lanka as it pursues a new chapter.

With Ranil de Silva at its helm for almost two decades, Leo Burnett Sri Lanka grew from strength to strength. Leo Burnett was the first local advertising agency to win a metal at an international awards festival. Since then, the agency has stacked up metals from some of the worlds most respected advertising festivals and awards programmes including (insert specific awards wanted). As Ranil retires from agency life, he will continue to offer guidance to the Leo Burnett team and its clients if it is ever required. Ranil will also remain involved with his initiative Metal Factor. A personal initiative which he started to give back to the marketing communications industry by helping Sri Lankas advertising industry and its young professionals to realize their ambitions of achieving world-class standards and by gaining global recognition for their work.
Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) leader Minister Mano Ganesan had been provided with Special Task Force (STF) security with a backup vehicle with five STF personnel, STF sources today said.

Meanwhile, the Minister said in a statement that he faced serious security issues and sought the intervention of President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and had also written to the IGP in September.

Certain politicos in Colombo are behind these threats. I have discussed with President Maithripala Sirisena. I have also explained my situation to Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe at different occasions. Some fallen politicians are all out to destroy my party and block the fair representation I seek for the communities my party represents in the city council, he said.

The links between such politicos with underworld elements are visible. Some are connected to white-van saga of the earlier era and drug dealers, he said.

The Minister said he decided to keep his party and candidates away from such threats in Colombo north and added that it was one of the reasons why he decided to contest alone in the forthcoming Municipal Council elections in Colombo

I have also written to the IGP as early as September. The Police had already been notified. The threat level has increased due to the election heat, he said.

Certain websites are printing falsehood that President Sirisena ordered STF Security for me in exchange for political support of my party to his party. To be fair to the President, he did not discuss party and election politics with me. He acted with responsibility and authority in the security interest of his Cabinet member.

Besides I am not a person who makes my decision for perks. I have a very long clean history of principled politics. Such reports have been cooked in Colombo and fed from here, he said.

There had been shooting incidents during last Parliamentary elections campaign in the Colombo north. Lately, there was a shooting incident occurred two weeks before at Modera in Colombo north. There had been reports coming from election monitors on the inclusion of underworld elements in the nomination lists.

The Chairman of Elections Commission too had made comments on this issue, he further said in a statement.

I have neither armed gangs nor underworld elements working for me. Therefore when I face threats, I have no alternative but to seek Governmental protection. I am part of the Government. My security concern is not political but logical. It is my right too. On the other hand, my Cabinet colleagues Rajitha Senaratne, Rishad Bathiudeen, Palani Thigambaram, Rauff Hakeem are also provided with STF security, he said. (Ajith Siriwardana)
Pregnant women exposed to high radiation levels from sources like cell phones, wireless devices and cell towers miscarried at nearly three times the rate as those exposed to low levels, according to new research.



I hope this study makes us rethink the notion that magnetic field non-ionising radiation exposure is safe or has no health risk, said lead author Dr. De-Kun Li, a senior research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California. This is certainly something we cant

just ignore.



Cell phones, cordless phones and other wireless devices, appliances, power lines, smart-metre networks and cell towers generate non-ionising radiation from magnetic fields. Writing in Scientific Reports, Li and his team call rapidly proliferating electromagnetic field emissions an ubiquitous environmental exposure and serious looming public health challenge.



For the study, more than 900 pregnant women in San Francisco carried metres that measured their exposure to electromagnetic field radiation for 24 hours. After accounting for age, race, education and smoking, expectant mothers with the highest exposure levels during their typical weekday routines were 2.7 times as likely to miscarry as women with the lowest levels.



Researchers could not determine the emission sources of the radiation. But they write that traditional sources such as power lines and appliances generate low-frequency magnetic fields, while emerging sources such as cell phones and smart-meter networks generate higher frequencies.



The results underscore the need for additional research into possible health harms of a technology to which virtually everyone in the US is now exposed, whether by choice or

circumstance, Li said.



We really want people to start rethinking the assumption that magnetic-field exposure is safe, he said in a phone interview. We really need more research because everybody is exposed, including the genetically vulnerable and fetuses.



Olga V. Naidenko, a senior science advisor with the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C., who was not involved with the study, described the findings as very compelling and very alarming.



Like Li, she called for more research into the biological effects of electromagnetic radiation.

We need a better understanding about what sources of non-ionising radiation around the house most contribute to health risk, so that families - and everyone - have necessary information to protect their health, she said in an email.



In the meantime, she advises children and adults, especially pregnant women, to decrease exposure to electromagnetic radiation by keeping cell phones and other wireless devices away from their bodies. If someone is really concerned, distance is their friend, Li said. Keep away from the source. You dont have to stand right next to the microwave. Theres nothing to watch anyway.



Li said Kaiser, an integrated healthcare delivery system whose members comprise nearly one-third of the residents in its Northern California catchment area, would not issue a warning to pregnant women about electromagnetic radiation. But the California Department of Public Health did issue guidance last week that long-term use of cell phones could pose health harms.



Although science is still evolving, there are concerns among some public health professionals and members of the public regarding long-term, high use exposure to the energy emitted by cell phones, Dr. Karen Smith, Californias public health officer, said in a written statement.



We know that simple steps such as not keeping your phone in your pocket and moving it away from your bed at night can help reduce exposure for both children and adults, she said.



Joel Moskowitz, director of the Centre for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved with the new study, said it builds on previous research, which found that electromagnetic exposure during pregnancy increased the risk of miscarriage. Pregnant women and couples trying to conceive children should minimise their exposure to the electromagnetic fields produced by household appliances and wireless devices including cell phones, he said by email. Previous studies have linked radiation from long-term cell phone use to an increased risk of brain cancer and lower sperm counts, Naidenko said.



A federal study last year found an increased risk of cancer associated with magnetic field non-ionising radiation exposure in rodents. Li called the findings from the National Toxicology Programme stunningly important.



They found the exact cell type of tumor observed in humans. To me, its very strong evidence it might be the same, he said.



We are never going to say were going to take away your device, he said. Engineers are going to figure out a way to use the device in a safe way. But if we bury our heads in the sand, thats a travesty.

(Reuters Health)
Seen here is Herman Gonsal, Managing Director of Nivasie Malabe greeting a member of BNI Abundance

Nivasie Malabe, the countrys very first vertical living experience that spreads across a stunning 22-acres of prime space featuring an exclusive modern community with a mix of houses and apartment, recently hosted a business gathering of BNI Abundance, Sri Lankas first hall of fame and third chapter of the largest business networking organization in the world BNI.

Held on the 21st December at the Orchid-2 apartment complex, the event saw the participation of professionals and leading personalities from many diversified backgrounds. Many members, especially budding entrepreneurs who want to expand their horizons, had the opportunity to share ideas, contacts and business referrals.

Today, for most of the businesses, recommendations are what drive the business. According to research findings, 92pct of the consumers are more likely to trust their peers over advertising when it comes to purchasing decisions. And BNI Sri Lanka continues to strengthen its networking, with the highest valued referral generated within the country amounting to USD5.2mn and counting.

The members also went on to tour the 160-unit 12 storied apartment, the phase two of Nivasies Orchid apartment project ready to be occupied by March 2018. This comes after its previous success of the 94-unit 11-storied apartment. Many members found the apartment interesting as it feels like the ideal location for a home away from the city with many greenery surrounding nature- fresh air, less noise and a relaxing environment.

In the past few months Malabe has seen many commercial and residential infrastructure developments, and has easy access to the outer circular highway. Interestingly many doctors and health professionals are buyers due to its close vicinity to hospitals and institutions such as Dr. Neville Fernando Teaching Hospital, Millennium IT, Horizon Campus, SAITM, CINEC Campus, SLIIT, among many others. The company has also partnered with leading banks and financial institutions that offers attractive and flexible payment structures.

The phase two is built by its parent company and renowned contractor International Construction Consortium Pvt Ltd (ICC), together creating milestones in the construction and housing development industry large-scale housing development projects in Sri Lanka. With a rich and diverse experience for over 35 years, ICC has proved to be the countrys pioneering construction company renowned for maintaining quality standards and timely delivery.

Members of BNI have increased exposure to like-minded professionals, gaining referrals from a global network and sharpening their networking skills with exclusive member resources. With over 222,000+ members worldwide, Business Network International (BNI) is the largest business networking organisation in the world. During the past 12 months, BNI worldwide generated 9.5 million referrals resulting in 13.8 billion dollars worth of business for its members.




Pee Bee Management Services (Pvt.) Ltd, manufacturer and owner of Flora Tissues household brand, was recently crowned with a prestigious BIZZ award by World Confederation of Businesses (WORLDCOB) for its inspiring business journey in addition to being titled a top SME in the Asian region at the Asia Corporate Excellence and Sustainability (ACES) Awards, Singapore.



Held by WORLDCOB on November 15th in Dubai, the 13th BIZZ awards, considered as one of the most important business excellence awards in the world, recognised many companies from the GCC states, Asia, Africa, and the Americas with a passion to award leading business people in each sector who stand out for their business excellence in their respective countries. Organisations are judged based on its leadership, management systems, quality of products and services, creativity and innovation, CSR, and achievements.



Currently, Flora Tissues enjoys a market share of over 60 percent in Sri Lanka with a growing acceptance for its tissue products from both corporate and end user segments, reflecting on the brands unique value and loyalty. Consumers too are moving away from the use of traditional cloth-based products to use hygienic, convenient tissue paper alternatives.



In addition, the company was also named a top SME in Asia at the ACES, held in Singapore in October 2017. This award ceremony is held annually by Mors Group. The organisers of the awards value and recognise services and achievements of businesses, both large and small, national and international, for their esteemed contributions to their communities and the world.



Pee Bee Management Services (Pvt.) Ltd Managing Director Kishore Surtani said: The brand benefits from strong loyalty from consumers who consider our range of Flora products to be unique, hygienic and innovative. The brands core strength lies in providing consumers consistent quality products that build a strong bond and satisfy their needs and this is well reflected by our present market share.



We are proud to have been recognised at a global landscape taking home two awards that are considered to be among the best of the best in business excellence and concluding year 2017 on a highly successful note. We are ambitious and confident to thrive in many similar achievements in 2018 and years to come including many prestigious local awards, Surtani added.



Established with the primary objective of introducing an array of soft disposable tissue paper products to Sri Lanka, Pee Bee Management Services (Pvt.) Ltd and its flagship brand Flora Tissues continues to accelerate as the market leader today selling value-for-money products that are SLS certified, with continuous improvement in quality, evolving technology, innovation, and teamwork and business professionalism. The company is presently on its four-year vision of doubling revenue and increasing brand value effectively and has grown from just 10 employees to over 250 now and owns a state of the art production plant, storage and distribution facility spanning over 50,000 square-feet in the Katuwana Industrial Zone in Homagama.
From Left : Mr Naleen Delthalawa, Mr Amila Bandara, Miss Dharshani Rajanathan(NCCSL), Mr Gamini Wimalasuriya(NCCSL), Mr Wipul Kularathne, Mr Sudesh Rathnayaka and Mr Rangika Kulasuriya

Samson Rajarata Tiles (Pvt.) Ltd. was acclaimed the Winner in the Chemicals, Ceramics and Glass Manufacturing category at the recently concluded National Business Excellence Awards organized by the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL).

The NCCSL evaluates local businesses in parameters such as Corporate Leadership, Corporate Governance, Capacity Building, Performance Management, Local & Global Market Research, Corporate Social Responsibility & Environmental Sustainability, and Business & Financial Results.

The Samson Rajarata Tile factory is located in Thirappane in Anuradhapura, thus moving away from the urban center, while developing the livelihood of the rural population as a result. The production is focused on sustaining natural stability and uses the clay from the depths of reservoirs in Anuradhapura as base material.

The tiles contain several unique product features. The firing process is fuelled by gas and diesel as opposed to wood used by other manufacturers. This enables all the tiles to be fired equally and avoid incompatibilities in shape and size. With high durability each tile contains the capacity to endure a force of 1200 N. Furthermore, Samson Rajarata Tiles are the only tiles in Sri Lanka with an interlocking system which connects each tile together when laid. The water absorbent rate is less than 10%, thus guaranteeing zero leakage.

Commenting on the win, Sudesh Rathnayaka, General Manager  Sales & Marketing for Samson Rajarata Tiles stated, This award is indeed an honour for us, as it reflects the commitment we have undertaken to produce the best high quality tiles for the country. Our products have reached the local market widely and it is evident in the 30% sales growth we have witnessed, in comparison to the previous year. We commenced operations to fill a void which existed for qualitative and sustainable roofing tiles in the market, and throughout the years we have perfected our processes. Today we have reached out to the international market, and are looking at expanding across continents. Our brand is recognized by many distinguished customers in both markets.

The production of Samson Rajarata Tiles is done using Japanese technology and machinery, and produces over 400,000 tiles per month. The factory boasts of being the only tile manufacturer with such technological inheritance and high quality products in South Asia. Furthermore, the tiles are manufactured with 100% natural material in accordance to both local and international quality standards. Samson Rajarata Tiles (Pvt.) Ltd. is an ISO certified manufacturer with the Green Label certificate.

At present, Samson Rajarata Tiles are exported to the United Kingdom and India. Measures are being taken to expand the export market to Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Australia.Roofing tiles being their core product, the company also manufactures Terra Cotta floor tiles, bricks and clay paving blocks.

Samson Rajarata Tiles (Pvt.) Ltd. is a subsidiary of the DSI Group.
Suicide bombers stormed a Shiite cultural centre and news agency in the Afghan capital on Thursday, killing more than 40 people and wounding scores, many of them students attending a conference.



Islamic State said in an online statement that it was responsible for the attack, the latest in a series the movement has claimed on Shiite targets in Kabul.



Waheed Majrooh, a Spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, said 41 people, including four women and two children, had been killed and 84 wounded, most suffering from burns.



The attack occurred during a morning panel discussion on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Sunni-majority Afghanistan at the Tabian Social and Cultural Centre, witnesses said.



The floors of the centre, at the basement level, were covered in blood as wailing survivors and relatives picked through the debri. Deputy Health Minister Feda Mohammad Paikan said 35 bodies had been brought into the nearby Istiqlal hospital. Television pictures showed many of the injured suffered serious burns.



The bloodshed followed an attack on a private television station in Kabul last month, which was also claimed by the local affiliate of Islamic State.



Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid issued a statement on Twitter denying involvement in the attack.



Over the past two years, Islamic State in Khorasan, as the local group is known, has claimed a growing number of attacks on Shiite targets in Afghanistan, where sectarian attacks were previously rare.

KABUL REUTERS 28 Dec 2017
By Carol D. Leonnig The Washington Post, 27 December - President Trumps legal team plans to cast former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn as a liar seeking to protect himself if he accuses the president or his senior aides of any wrongdoing, according to three people familiar with the strategy.



The approach would mark a sharp break from Trumps previously sympathetic posture toward Flynn, whom he called a wonderful man when Flynn was ousted from the White House in February. Earlier this month, the president did not rule out a possible pardon for Flynn, who is cooperating with special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.



Attorneys for Trump and his top advisers have privately expressed confidence that Flynn does not have any evidence that could implicate the president or his White House team.
The discontinuing of the GSP programme by the US from next year to 120 countries including Sri Lanka would not make a significant impact on the exports to the US, the Government said today.

National Policies and Economic Affairs Deputy Minister Dr. Harsha De Silva said people seemed to be confused with the US GSP and Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) Plus given by the European Union (EU).

The US GSP applies to 120 countries and there is nothing special or significant to Sri Lanka. Once it was removed, the cost of exports will rise only by about 3% in tariff.

Sri Lankas total exports to the US was USD 2.8 billion in 2016. Only USD 173 million exports, which amounted to 6.2% of the total, received the GSP.

The number of textile exports was only 1% which amounted to USD 27 million. Any person can realise that this has no significant impact on our exports to the US, he told a news briefing.

He said rubber based products, which were exported to the US enjoyed the GSP benefits largely.

However, USD 173 million worth of exports which received GSP benefit is not a big amount of our total exports of about USD 11,000 million. This will make a negligible impact, he said.

He said the EU GSP plus was more important than US GSP as only nine countries including Sri Lanka harvest the benefits of the GSP plus when exporting goods to 28 European countries.

The GSP plus tariff concessions span from 10-20% which is a considerable reduction in tariff. Our exports to the EU stand at USD 3.1 billion in 2016 and over USD 2 billion worth of exports were textiles. We are able to and continue to benefit from the GSP plus. Due to GSP plus, 47% of our fish exports had increased recently. Therefore it is very vital, Dr. De Silva said.

He said that all 120 countries which received the GSP will have to pay 3% increase in tariff from next year.

This is not significant as the 10-20% tariff reduction we receive from the GSP plus, he reiterated.

The deputy minister refused reports which say the concession was not renewed because of the UN vote over Jerusalem, in which President Donald Trumps decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital was defied.

The GSP has been removed for all 120 countries including the countries which abstained the UN vote and even those who voted alongside the US. The reports are unfounded, he said.

He also said there was no need to go for State-level discussions with the US over GSP as its a policy based decision of that country. (Lahiru Pothmulla)

Video by Buddhi
While Dengue plagues the people in the Asian region, yellow fever has become Dengues partner in crime, severely affecting the health of those living in the African region. Though it is true that yellow fever is not prevalent in Sri Lanka, Health Capsule is ever ready to endow you with knowledge. In this weeks edition, Prof. Arjuna De Silva, Faculty of Medicine, Ragama, speaks on yellow fever.



Yellow fever is a mosquito borne virus that affects the bodys organs, mainly the liver. The non-communicable disease is transmitted by an infected mosquito carrying the virus. The disease shows three phases: infection, remission and intoxication. The condition shares many similarities with Dengue. The symptoms displayed by a patient suffering from yellow fever are just like Dengue symptoms, Prof. De Silva accentuated.



Turning yellow

During the infection phase of yellow fever, a patient may experience headache, fever, muscle and joint aches and vomiting, similar to the case of Dengue.



These symptoms including fever disappear during the remission phase. And during the intoxication phase, most of the bodys organs may malfunction due to damages caused by the disease. The heart, liver and kidney are some main organs that will be influenced adversely.



The characteristic symptom of yellow fever is jaundice. Due to the malfunctioning of the liver, there will be a buildup in a yellow pigment known as bilirubin in the body. Worn out red blood cells are destroyed by the liver. The breakdown of these cells result in the creation of bilirubin. Due to impairment in the livers metabolism, there will be an accumulation of bilirubin which causes the skin and white parts of a patients eyes to turn yellow, Prof. De Silva said.



A blood test says it all

Yellow fever is diagnosed through blood and antibody tests, Prof. De Silva said. When a patient contracts these symptoms, a blood test can confirm the condition so that immediate treatment can be taken.How to overcome the yellow fever challenge

Similar to Dengue, yellow fever has to be treated on time. Otherwise complications may develop and even lead to fatality, Prof. De Silva said.



A person can recover with treatment and rest. So medical care and bed rest are key factors of treatment. Prof. De Silva said the treatment includes a yellow fever vaccine. This vaccine is available in Sri Lanka too. Just like Dengue, there is no particular cure for yellow fever. A patient may recover with time. The positive point of yellow fever over Dengue is that there is a proper vaccine against the disease.



Vaccination is key

The probability of contracting yellow fever in the island is quite nil in Sri Lanka. However, you are under the high risk of yellow fever if you are planning to visit the African region. Therefore, it is strongly advised to get the yellow fever vaccine before migrating to regions where yellow fever is prevalent.
Govt makes it clear that VCs are not legal tender and such VCs do not have any regulatory permission or protection in India.

New Delhi: The Finance Ministry on Friday cautioned that virtual currencies are not legal tender and such currencies have no protection.

Noting that there has been a phenomenal increase in recent times in the price of virtual currencies (VCs) including Bitcoin, in India and globally, it said the VCs don't have any intrinsic value and are not backed by any kind of assets.

"The price of Bitcoin and other VCs, therefore, is entirely a matter of mere speculation resulting in spurt and volatility in their prices," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

There is a real and heightened risk of investment bubble of the type seen in Ponzi schemes which can result in sudden and prolonged crash exposing investors, especially retail consumers losing their hard-earned money, it said.

The statement further said that users, holders and traders of VCs have already been cautioned three times, by the Reserve Bank of India about the potential financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security related risks that they are exposing themselves to by investing in Bitcoin and/ or other VCs.

The RBI has also clarified that it has not given any licence/ authorisation to any entity/ company to operate such schemes or deal with Bitcoin or any virtual currency, it said.

"The government also makes it clear that VCs are not legal tender and such VCs do not have any regulatory permission or protection in India. The investors and other participants, therefore, deal with these VCs entirely at their risk and should best avoid participating therein," it said.

Consumers need to be alert and extremely cautious as to avoid getting trapped in such Ponzi schemes, it said, adding VCs are stored in a digital/electronic format, making them vulnerable to hacking, loss of password, malware attack etc. which may also result in permanent loss of money.

As transactions of VCs are encrypted they are also likely being used to carry out illegal/subversive activities, such as terror-funding, smuggling, drug trafficking and other money-laundering Acts, it added.

"VCs are not backed by government fiat. These are also not legal tender. Hence, VCs are not currencies. These are also being described as 'Coins'," it said. There is, however, no physical attribute to these coins, it said.
Bill will be pushed for consideration and passage in the Lok Sabha and subsequently in the Rajya Sabha in 2018. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: General elections being just over one year away notwithstanding, the government is not looking at slowing down on labour reforms in 2018 and is likely to get at least two codes on wages as well as industrial relations passed by Parliament.

The Ministry of Labour and Employment has envisaged to concise over 44 labour laws into four broad codes in wages, industrial relations, social security, and occupational safety, health and working conditions.

Labour Secretary M Sathiyavathy expressed the ministry's intent to push all four codes for passage in Parliament next year.

"Government is not going slow on labour reforms. All four codes would be pushed in 2018," she said.

The codification of the labour laws will remove the multiplicity of definitions and authorities leading to ease of compliance without compromising wage security and social security to workers.

The draft Code on Wages Bill 2017 was introduced in the Lok Sabha in August 2017. The bill will be pushed for consideration and passage in the Lok Sabha and subsequently in the Rajya Sabha in 2018.

The Code on Wages rationalises, amalgamates and simplifies the relevant provisions of the four labour laws-- The Minimum Wages Act, 1948; The Payment of Wages Act, 1936; The Payment of Bonus Act, 1965, and The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976.

Similarly, Code on Industrial Relations Bill has been finalised by a group of ministers headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and is likely to be approved soon for putting it before Union Cabinet so that it could be pushed for passage in Parliament next year.

The Trade Unions Act, 1926, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, would be combined into the code on industrial relations.

The unions had objected the proposed amendment in the bill to allow units with up to 300 workers to retrench, lay off or close down without the permission of the government. Presently, all units with up to 100 workers can retrench, lay off or close down without the government's permission.

The government is most likely to keep this provision in the new code. Therefore, the codification of industrial relation laws would not allow businesses to hire and fire abruptly.

Similarly, another proposal to increase severance pay for retrenched workers may not be part of the bill as it would be seen as an anti-industry move. It was proposed to increase the severance pay to 45 days salary for each completed year of service, from 15 days provided at present.

The drafts of the other two codes, social security, and occupational safety, health and working conditions, would be finalised for Union Cabinet approval after deliberations on it through a tripartite mechanism.

The sources say that the government has tried to allay apprehensions of central trade unions during a discussion on new social security code but workers representatives are opposing it.

The code proposed to merge retirement fund body Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and state health insurer Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) "Through our comments in general, we have opposed the proposal of merger of Employees Provident & Miscellaneous Provisions Act and Employees State Insurance Corporation Act as EPF & EPS schemes and ESI scheme functioning under these two Acts have been rendering satisfactory service to their members for the last 60 years, All India Trade Union Congress had said in a letter to the labour secretary.

The union had also opposed the other proposal under the code for coverage of unorganised workers with and without identifiable employer, a separate social security organisation be set up for providing social security to them and a token contribution be charged from them while the major part of the contribution should be made by the government.

Unions were also against the proposal of forming a National Social Security Council with the prime minister as chairman, which shall control and regulate all the social security schemes to be implemented in the country.

The code also propose to hand over operation of social security schemes to state governments. A source said that the codes on social security and occupational safety, health and working conditions may take a bit longer and may not be able to get Parliament's approval next year.

Besides these codes, a bill to amend Contract Labour Act will also be pushed for passage in Parliament next year.

The bill seeks to distinguish between contract labour and work labour. The contract labour are workers which work for the organisations provided by contractors whereas the work labour work to completion of certain task like one-time repair of factory or office buildings.

Besides, the law would also provide for registration of labour contractors with states as well as central governments. At present, the contractors have to seek permission of centre and states for every contract to provide workers.

This will also help centre and state governments to monitor these contractors and would be able to blacklist defaulters and offenders. The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2017 is likely to see the light of the day in 2018. It was introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 18, 2017.

The bill seeks to enable central government to enhance ceiling of the maximum amount of gratuity payable to an employee. It is Rs 10 lakh. The government has planned to double it. After this amendment, the government would be able to increase the maximum amount of gratuity by an executive order.

Besides, the bill would also enable the central government to enhance paid maternity leave by executive order. At present, it is 12 weeks under the Act. The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 has enhanced the maximum maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks.

Labour Bureau, a wing of the ministry, would also conduct first of its kind survey to gauge employment generation under Mudra scheme of the central government, which is facing charges of job loss after demonetisation last year.
A source close to the development tells us that the movie has been postponed, and the wait to see Salman in the movie has become longer. (Photo: DC)

Salman Khan is undeniably one of the busiest personalities of Bollywood. The actor, who just turned 52, is currently enjoying the success of Tiger Zinda Hai.

Alongside, hes shooting for Race 3. In fact, on his birthday, his upcoming project Bharat, to be released on Id 2019, was announced too.

However, theres bad news for the fan of bhai, especially those wishing to see inspector Chulbul Pandey in Dabangg 3 soon. A source close to the development tells us that the movie has been postponed, and the wait to see Salman in the movie has become longer.

Since the actor has back-to-back commitments, Dabangg 3 will only be shot after the other films, the source says. Also, the makers are still scripting the project, and will not begin shooting, unless theyre sure about it. Considering its a very successful franchise, these are precautionary measures.

Meanwhile, Bharat, which was announced this week, will be co-produced by Bhushan Kumar and Salmans brother-in-law Atul Agnihotri. With this new movie taking up the 2019 Id slot, we wonder if Dabangg 3 will see the light of day only in 2020.
Mumbai: South star Prabhas has given a special treat to his fans on his birthday this year as the 'Baahubali' actor unveiled the first look poster of his much-awaited film 'Saaho'. Prabhas is all set to welcome New Year with a tiresome schedule of his upcoming film 'Saaho'.

The superstar is getting ready for a month long schedule to happen in Abu Dhabi. The Baahubali actor is going to perform death defying stunts and the makers had sought permission for shooting the stunts on Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Before the schedule commences, Prabhas is stationed in Los Angeles.

Prabhas will be starting the next shoot by January 5 for a month-long schedule. The team has so far shot for 40-45 days. We will start shooting for the major action sequence soon. We plan to release the film next year. But we will be able to finalise the exact date depending on the progress of the film, says Prabhas.

He is going through intense physical training with different techniques like jogging, cardiovascular training, weight training and plyometric obstacle races so that he can be flexible enough to master his moves.

His physical preparation involves jogging, cardiovascular training, weight training, and Plyometrics obstacle races, all of which will help him pick up the moves easily. He trained six to seven hours daily to master his moves, adds the source.

Prabhas is also working on his Hindi as the film is trilingual - Telugu, Tamil and Hindi.

Directed by Sujeeth Reddy, 'Saaho' also features Shraddha Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Chunky Pandey and Mandira Bedi.
As the awards season kicks off, there have been four functions and announcements so far. But if there is one star who has been skipping all of them  apart from Aamir Khan, Ajay Devgn and Kangana Ranaut  it is Ranbir Kapoor. Its not that Ranbir is overtly busy, but then he has not been seen at any of these functions.

Is he following Aamirs footsteps by not attending these dos? It seem so. The actor who often partook in award ceremonies has decided not to attend these functions  at least for now. None of his films are nominated for any awards in the forthcoming year. He is also trying to give his best to the Dutt biopic. And more importantly, he is not too keen to attend awards functions now because he wants to keep every detail of the biopic very secretive, says a source.
1. Priyanka Chopra, who is extremely sharp with her quotes and actions, was was slammed for meeting the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, wearing a dress. However she had a fair amount of people supporting her but some people choose to pull her down with their derogatory comments.

2. Fatima Sana Shaikh posted pictures of herself in a swimsuit where she was seen chilling on the beach in Maldives in a black halter swimsuit. Soon after that some people slut shamed her for dressing inappropriately during the holy month of Ramadan.

3. Esha Gupta posted some bold pictures from her photo shoot, which didnt go down well with few trolls. The trolls soon enough started trolling her on social media platform and also didnt spare her, from calling her sultry to non-Indian.
When Roshna Ann Roy says dancing is an all abiding passion with her, she has proof to support it. She has been studying dance for nine years and had a secure job as a teacher in Malappuram, which she quit to pursue her love for dance. She came down to Kochi and joined the Kochi Guinness Troupe which specialises in dance performances, especially cinematic dance. The move to Kochi did her good; she soon landed a modeling assignment and followed that up with appearances on TV and also acted in three short films. Roshna is among the lucky few who managed to get a footing in tinsel town, which has also been a long-standing dream. She started off with a small role in Varnyathil Aashanka, where she played Kunchacko Bobans brothers wife Manju. She followed that up with Lavakusha opposite Aju Varghese in a comic role. Then came Chakkara Maavin Kombathu where she played a comic role yet again. While these have been small roles, Roshna is now gearing up for the big jump with some lengthy roles.

The upcoming Biju Menon-starrer Rosapoo will see Roshna playing Soubins partner. She speaks about her role, I play a Tamil woman and have two get-ups as a yesteryear actress as well as a junior artiste supplier. This film is a story within a story and what is good is that I have combinations scenes with all the actors. Her next film Ankarajyathe Jimmanmar starring Roopesh Peethambaran, Rajeev Pillai, etc. will have her playing the character Rose, who is an NRI. Also in the pipeline are Cuban Colony and Chanakya Thantram, where she plays a teacher.

Roshna has no complaints about debuting with small roles, but has a statement to make. I used to get typecast offers for small roles, but what people miss out is that even the small roles I have done are important in the story. Doing good characters is important to me. Roshna also got offers for acting in TV serials, but she put that off in the larger interest of cinema. She also faced a nasty experience about which she opens up, I went for a serial audition, but the director insulted me with regard to my colour. I still remember him asking me if I belonged to the SC or ST category. But that comment did not make me give up! The opposite happened. I tried out in films with a vengeance to prove myself, she says proudly.

Roshna is also teaching dance to some students in addition to performing on stage. Though I am trained in classical and cinematic dance, the younger population prefers to learn cinematic dance as it is hugely popular.
The contraband  250 gram of cocaine and 25 gram of heroin  was meant to be sold among New Year revellers, the police said.

Hyderabad: Drugs worth Rs 1 crore were seized from three foreign nationals by the police on Friday. The contraband  250 gram of cocaine and 25 gram of heroin  was meant to be sold among New Year revellers, the police said.

Acting on a tip-off, the West Zone task force nabbed three drug peddlers, including two Nigerians and one person from Ghana, who were in possession of drugs worth Rs 1 crore in the local market.

V.V. Srinivasa Rao, Hyderabad commissioner, said that this is the highest haul of cocaine in recent years. The police had sent the seized contraband to the forensic laboratory for analysis and confirmed its purity.

He said that the police had kept a watch on drug peddlers and brokers. We are keeping track on the source, he said.

The arrested were identified as Ajah John Chukwu alias Pattrick Williams Uzonna, 28, a student, Benard Wilson, 27, both natives of Nigeria, and Mason Lucas, 30, from Ghana. The Nigerians are in the country on a student visa and one of them was convicted twice and his passport was seized by the excise department, he said.

The cocaine was smuggled into India via air cargo. After it reached Mumbai, the accused shifted it to the city through various modes of transport. Later, they packed it for selling at New Year parties, he said.

To hoodwink the authorities, the accused packed it with chocolate bars. They shaped cocaine in the form of chocolate and wrapped in five or six layers of paper over it. In every toffee packet of 100, at least nine cocaine and heroin toffees were concealed, he said. The cocaine is priced relatively low in African countries.

On Friday, the trio met at Zahera Nagar in Banjara Hills and were waiting to sell the stash to the needy customers. Further investigations are on to unearth their local network.
The ACB has been following up the case since then and repeatedly sought prosecution orders.

Hyderabad: Cases of graft detected by the Anti-Corruption Bureau are often not punished because the concerned department does not accord approval for prosecution.

The ACB caught red-handed four officers of the state energy department demanding a bribe. The file was sent to the energy department to get approval for prosecution but was rejected six times. The matter was instead entrusted to the commissioner of inquiry.

The incident that took place during Congress rule but the TRS regime closed the case.

Since the accused were caught red-handed accepting the bribe, the ACB had a very strong case. Yet the state energy department said it was an "unfit case" and closed the file. The four have been subjected to departmental action and not judicial punishment.

The four accused are Ra-mana Prasad, deputy chief electrical; Bhaskar Reddy Bandla, office subordinate; Syed Ashrafuddin, senior assistant, state energy; Nagaiah Kanduri, private person (not a government official) and Udaya Sree, assistant electric inspector.

ACB case No. 032RCTCR22013 stated: On reliable information and complaints received, the ACB laid a trap and caught four energy department officials accepting a bribe amount of Rs 60,000. The ACB after a detailed enquiry has stated that it is a foolproof case and seeks permission for prosecution, as the phenolphthalein test proved the fingerprint identification of the four accused.

The file was sent twice to the Chief Ministers Office by the department for approval of the suspension of the four and later approval of revocation of suspension. The file was first sent to the office of then Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy.

It is not known why the file was sent to the Chief Ministers Office as the regular procedure is that a committee of secretaries reviews suspension cases and not the CMO.

The ACB has been following up the case since then and repeatedly sought prosecution orders. Mr Padmanabha Reddy of the Forum for Good Governance, explained, Approving prosecution requests by the ACB does not mean punishing the accused, but permitting the tainted officer to face the court. It is up to the court to decide either to acquit or convict.

After four years of follow up, the state energy department reverted to the ACB, stating: Dropped further action for four government officials and No action taken against the private person. The case was closed this year.
At least 14 people were killed and as many injured after a major fire in Kamala Mills Compound in Lower Parel. (Photo: AP)

Mumbai: The civic body of Mumbai on Friday started a crackdown on eateries and pubs in Kamala Mills Compound after 14 people died of suffocation when fire engulfed a rooftop restaurant in the complex.

We have parallelly started inspection of restaurants in Kamala Mills and Raghuvanshi Mills. In case of violations, we are taking immediate action, G Ward officer Prashant Sakpale told The Indian Express.

The victims of the blaze included a woman celebrating her 29th birthday and many of her friends, officials said.

While 54 people were admitted for injuries to various hospitals, by evening 41 have been discharged, while 13  eight men and five women  were undergoing treatment, civic officials said.

The police registered a case of culpable homicide against three people including pub owners, while the civic body suspended five of its officials.

The fire started after 12.30 am at the "1 Above" pub on the terrace of Trade House Building in Kamala Mills compound in Lower Parel, a commercial hub housing several offices including national television channels.

From "1 Above", it spread to Mojo pub on the third floor, one level below, said an official of the Mumbai civic body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

Most victims died of asphyxiation, said Avinash Supe, dean of the KEM Hospital where the victims were brought.

Among the dead was Khushbu Bansali who was celebrating her 29th birthday and 10 other women, according to the official list of victims.

Bansali's grandfather, Babulal Mehta, blamed the "irresponsible" hotel management and the civic authorities.

"The hotel had put up a temporary structure supported by bamboo, with the possibility of catching fire. There was no fire extinguishing facility either. It is the responsibility of the police and civic authorities to act against any violations," he said.

Employees of news channels located in the complex had a narrow escape. "I was in the night shift. We heard people screaming at the pub. Initially, we thought it is due to the party which was underway there," said Sanjay Jadhav, a programme producer of a news channel.

"When I came out of my office, I saw that a fire has broken out at the roof-top pub. The main entrance of our office was blocked due to the flames," he said.

The massive blaze engulfed the entire building in about 30 minutes and took several hours to be put out. The cause of the fire is not known yet.

Dr Sulbha KG Arora, a Mumbai doctor, told NDTV news channel that she was at the 1 Above restaurant. "There was no time for anyone to reach out because the fire spread so rapidly. The staff members of the restaurant were trying to help the customers as much as possible," she said.

"There was a stampede and someone pushed me. People were running over me even as the ceiling above me was collapsing in flames," she said separately in a tweet. "Still don't know how I got out alive."

Teams of fire brigade and police rushed to the spot and initially 35 injured people were pulled out from inside the pub and taken to hospital, a police official said.

Police have booked Hratesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Mankar of C Grade Hospitality which manages the pub, along with others, under various charges including culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

DCP Virendra Mishra told PTI that so far nobody has been arrested, and "look-out notice" will be issued for the accused.

They are also charged under IPC sections 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others).

The civic body, on its part, suspended five officials including those attached to the G-South ward for dereliction of duty. There are allegations that civic authorities turned a blind eye to construction irregularities and violation of fire safety norms in the compound.

According to civic officials, the BMC had issued licence for the 1 Above pub in the name of Kripesh Sanghvi and Abhijeet Mankar, while that for Mojo pub was issued in the name of Yug Pathak.

Several media outlets, including TV news channels Times Now, ET Now and TV9 Marathi, have offices in the Kamala Mills compound.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind expressed anguish over the tragedy.

"Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also expressed grief, and said he has directed the BMC commissioner to conduct an inquiry. Action would be taken against errant civic officials as well as owners of the pub, he said, while also ordering safety audit of such structures across the city and demolition of illegal structures.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, tweeting in Marathi, expressed grief and demanded immediate inquiry into the "unfortunate" incident.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya said he had asked Fadnavis and the BMC commissioner to order a special fire audit of all such pubs and 'hooka parlours' in Mumbai.

"Several such establishments at the Mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately. The place where the blaze took place was illegal," he claimed.

The same central Mumbai area  a former textile mill district now dotted by swanky glass-and-concrete towers  had witnessed death of over 20 people in a stampede at a railway bridge on September 29 this year.
14 people were killed and 21 others injured after a major fire broke out at One Above pub, located on the third floor of the Trade House Building in Kamala Mills Compound on Senapati Bapat Marg in Lower Parel shortly after midnight. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)

Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed his grief over the fire in a central Mumbai building, in which 14 people were killed, in

the wee hours on Friday.

"Disturbing to know about the loss of lives in unfortunate Kamala Mills fire incident in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the families who lost their loved ones and prayers for the speedy recovery of the injured. Directed the BMC Commissioner to conduct an in-depth enquiry," Fadnavis said in a tweet.

In another tweet, the chief minister said that he has directed Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner (Ajoy Mehta) "to take strong action against erring officials immediately".

14 people were killed and 21 others injured after a major fire broke out at One Above pub, located on the third floor of the Trade House Building in Kamala Mills Compound on Senapati Bapat Marg in Lower Parel shortly after midnight.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya tweeted, "Fire at Pub at Kamala Mill Compound Mumbai I had urged CM & BMC Commissioner to Order Special Fire Audit of all such Pub, Hooka Parlours & Farsan Mart/Workshops of Mumbai. 2 week back similar type of fire at Farsan Workshop Sakinaka 1 dozen people had died."

"Understood that several such establishments at Kamla mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately, the place where fire took place was illegal," he added.
A fire that started at a rooftop pub hosting a birthday party spread rapidly through the building, killing 14 people, most of them women, shortly after midnight in a posh Mumbai locality. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)

Mumbai: Hours after 14 people were killed in Kamala Mills Compound in Lower Parel on Friday, Mumbai's civic body swept into action and suspended five of its officials in connection with the tragedy.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in the recent past had sent a few notices to the joints at the Kamala Mills Compound for violation of norms, a senior BMC official said.

"We have suspended five officials in connection with the fire tragedy," BMC Commissioner Ajoy Mehta said.

The officials suspended were attached to the fire brigade and the G South Ward.

The suspended officials include an assistant divisional fire officer, while the remaining four are from the ward office including engineers and health officials, civic sources said, adding the ward officer of G South has been transferred.

Read: 14 dead, mostly women, as fire guts Mumbai's Kamala Mills Compound

Mumbai mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar said an enquiry has been ordered and strict action will be taken against errant officials.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis visited the Kamala Mills fire incident site to take stock of the situation.

Talking to the media, Fadnavis said: "Have ordered BMC Commissioner to conduct inquiry. Five people have been suspended. Action is being taken on the owners, who are also responsible for death of these people. Action would be taken against BMC if negligence is found on their part."

A fire that started at a rooftop pub hosting a birthday party spread rapidly through the building, killing 14 people, most of them women, shortly after midnight in a posh Mumbai locality.

The fire, which also injured 21 people, started after 12:30 am in the "1 Above" pub on the terrace, and spread to Mojo pub on the third floor one level below.

Most of the victims, who included 11 women, died of asphyxiation, said Avinash Supe, dean of the KEM Hospital where the injured and dead were brought.

A 28-year old woman, who was celebrating her birthday at the rooftop restaurant, was among the 14 dead.

The building, in Central Mumbai, houses some commercial establishments including hotels.

Read: After 14 dies in Kamala Mills Compound fire, Maharashtra CM orders in-depth probe

Several fire tenders, water tankers, emergency ambulances and police personnel rushed to the spot for the rescue operation.

An FIR has been registered against the restaurant '1 Above' where the fire initiated in Mumbai's Lower Parel locality.

The case has been filed under section 304 (charges of culpable homicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Transmission of the television channels ET Now, Mirror Now, Zoom and TV9 Marathi were affected due to the fire.

(With inputs from agencies)
Righteous Vendetta tops a three-band rock show that also features the Photoshoplifters and Silverbow Society on Friday Dec. 29 at the Pub Station.

Doors open at 7 p.m. and the all-ages show starts at 8. Admission is $10 in advance or $15 at the door.

Righteous Vendetta is ready for battle, driven by the fire of the classic new wave of American Metalcore movement, with a fresh melodic bent. They present a unifying message of hope and inspiration, all delivered with smoldering intensity.

Arising from humble small-town origins, Righteous Vendetta offer positivity and encouragement against adversity, with a sound of defiance and power.

The bands new album for Century Media Records, "Cursed," arrived after a long season of writing, rewriting, honing, shaping and refining. It was a process that resulted in a definitive mission statement for the quintet, laying the blueprint for the bands evolving creative identity. "Cursed" was produced and mixed by Mitch Marlow (In This Moment, Stitched Up Heart).

They combine the diverse melodic Swedish death metal of vintage In Flames with the spirit-filled pop-melodicism of Anberlin, appealing to fans who grew up listening to albums like "The End of Heartache" by Killswitch Engage and "Shadows Are Security" by As I Lay Dying. Theres even a bit of the SoCal hardcore-meets-Pantera fury of Throwdown, not as much in overt sonic thunder as in energetic, steadfast perseverance.

This is metalcore for the underdog, a new collection of anthems for a generation hungry for music thats authentic and pure. Righteous Vendetta is reverent to the greatest strengths of the scenes past, yet equally forward-thinking.

Gestated in a small town in rural Wyoming, which a population of about 3,000, these five musicians have beaten the odds against isolation, outside pressure, and the daily grind to conjure a catchy and relentlessly fierce metalcore sound.

There was no music scene, really, which forced us to tour, explains vocalist Ryan Hayes, who first formed Righteous Vendetta after discovering his college piano teacher could shred on guitar. The closest big market to us was Denver, which is about nine hours from where we live. By the time we were signed, we already had over 1,000 tour dates under our belts. It really helped to shape us as musicians and who we are as a band.

The lineup shifted a bit (wed have to find new members on YouTube or wherever else we could) before it solidified as Hayes, guitarists Justin Olmstead and Carl Heiman, bassist Riley Haynie, and drummer Zack Goggins. After opening for Hatebreed, Righteous Vendetta caught the attention of Jamey Jasta, who encouraged them to explore more of the melodic side of their already crushingly heavy, breakdown-friendly music.
Hyderabad: The long pending demand for the division of the Hyderabad High Court between Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh is at last set to materialise. Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad stated in the Lok Sabha on Thursday that the AP government would allow the AP High Court to be established in Amaravati on a temporary basis and has selected four buildings for the purpose.

He said he had information that the AP government had sent the proposal to the acting Chief Justice of the High Court who in turn will send a team of experts and law officers to visit the four buildings and select one. The minister said once the selection is complete, the High Court would be established and function in AP till a permanent building comes up in the capital city. He said it is for the Supreme Court Collegium to allot judges to the High Courts.

Mr Prasad said as per the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, the High Court located in Hyderabad would serve Telangana state. The Centre had already made funds available to AP to establish the AP High Court. Hailing the ministers statement as well as the AP governments proposal to provide temporary buildings for the AP High Court, TRS leader in the Lok Sabha A.P. Jitender Reddy said people of both states would cooperate with each other and requested the law minister to expedite the process of bifurcation of the High Court.

The minister refused to give any assurance that till the bifurcation of the High Court takes place, transfers and promotions of judicial officers must be kept on hold as Mr Reddy demanded. He said the Supreme Court Collegium was authorised to make appointments and promotions and the Centre cannot intervene.

Union minister of state for science and technology Y.S. Chowdary then said that there were other pending issues and promises that need to be fulfilled, including delimitation of Assembly constituencies. Parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar replied that he was part of the Centre, and it should be the Telugu Desams Lok Sabha leader Thota Narasimham who should get a chance to speak.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan endorsed the view of Mr Ananth Kumar, but Mr Jitender Reddy said there was nothing wrong in Mr Chowdarys remarks as there was every need to address other pending issues also. Union home minister Rajnath Singh immediately got up and said it would be better if the Chief Ministers of both states sat together and resolved the issues and the Centre was ready to cooperate.
HoH started this year on April, after the admin noticed a sudden increase in the number of Facebook pages that offered 'alternative facts,' obviously suited to right-wing explanations. (Photo: Screengrab)

Mumbai: Popular Facebook page Humans of Hindutva (HoH) has made its way out from the social media platform by deleting itself on Thursday, following repeated threats to the admins family.

The admin, who had remained anonymous throughout his 8-month extremely popular stint on Facebook, posted on his blog website satyanash.com that he was quitting of his own accord, and had not been forced to do so by mass reporting or any other action taken by Facebook itself.

HoH started this year on April, after the admin noticed a sudden increase in the number of Facebook pages that offered alternative facts, obviously suited to right-wing explanations.

He sounded extremely helpless as he said his family had been threatened, which he could not take lightly.

I am outnumbered, live in a BJP state and come from a middle-class family with no political or police connections. I have no desire to end up like Gauri Lankesh or Afrazul Khan, he said, referring to veteran journalists who were killed this year for allegedly reporting against the Government.

The admin called an end to this David vs Goliath fight, congratulating Hindutva for winning it, as he himself surrendered the table.

As the news spread, social media exploded in support of the HoH admin.

Jairaj Singh, friend of the HoH admin, who himself also runs a parody page called Beef Janata Party on Facebook, tweeted, Had a brief chat with my friend who runs the Humans of Hindutva page. He told me that trolls have got a hold of his phone number and they're sending him death threats. He's scared for his wife and children, so he's shut the page for now. The nation can't take a joke.

People began asking why trolling other political parties or persona like the Congress, the AAP or Laalu Prasad Yadav (RJD Chief and former chief minister of Bihar) never amounted to death threats, but joking about the saffron brigade did.

There were posts which also saluted the HoH admin, hoping that one silenced voice would inspire many others.

The social media population was distressed at the trouble faced by the page which has made everyone laugh for so many months, with a funny, sarcastic take on the radical right wing in India.

In an interview that he had done in September this year, the admin had said the page had resulted directly from heated exchanges with online trolls and nationalist friends.

He had also mentioned that the hateful, abusive messages that flood his inbox everyday, keeps him going, otherwise he would have quit a long time back.

It is not hard to imagine, therefore, the level the threats amounted to, for a person who claimed to feed off peoples hatred to have actually quit the page.
Eight Meghalaya MLAs including five from the ruling Congress party have resigned from the state assembly. (Photo: ANI)

Shillong/Guwahati: In what may be seen as a major setback for the ruling Congress party in the frontier state of Meghalaya, eight MLAs including five from Congress party on Friday resigned from their membership of the state assembly to join National Peoples Party (NPP).

The eight legislators who resigned their membership in the state assembly included Siawbhalang Dhar (Nartiang), Comingone Ymbon (Raliang), Hopeful Bamon (Sutnga Saipung), Stephanson Mukhim (Amlarem), Prestone Tynsong (Pynursula), Remington Pyngrope (Mawkynriew), Rowell Lyngdoh (Mawkyrwat) and Ngaitlang Dhar (Umroi).

Indicating that all these legislators would be joining the NPP led by Lok Sabha MP, Conrad K Sangma in a public rally on January 4 next year, sources said that out of eight MLAs, five are from the ruling Congress, one belongs to UDP while the remaining two are independent legislators.

Pointing out that ruling Congress led by Chief Minister Mukul Sangma was contemplating major changes in the selection of candidates, sources in the Congress party however admitted that in the run up to the assembly elections next year, it is certainly going to dampen the mood of workers.

However, Sangma has been downplaying the desertion of MLAs claiming that it wouldnt affect the prospect of the Congress party in the upcoming assembly elections in the state.

Meanwhile, the NPP chief and MP from Tura Lok Sabha constituency Conard K Sangma has exuded confidence to win the forthcoming assembly elections in Meghalaya.

Referring as to how his party has succeeded in making its presence felt in Manipur elections by winning four seats and bagging the post of deputy chief minister with BJP, Sangma said,We are confident to form the government by winning maximum number of seats for the party from the Khasi and Jaintia hills region of the state.

He however was tight-lipped about legislators resigning the membership of Congress part to join NPP.
Chennai: Madras high court on Thursday has ordered notice to the state government on a petition to seeking ban on the use of PET bottles for sale of alcohol in state run Tasmac outlets.

A vacation bench of Justices M.S. Ramesh and G.R. Swaminathan, before which a PIL filed by S Prathab, a wholesale dealer of used glass liquor bottles, came up for hearing, has ordered notice to the state government and the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB). The petitioner said PET bottles cause adverse impact on environment.

Several beverages, including wine, are stored in glass bottles to conserve its taste and quality.

Tasmac was using glass bottles till recently in the sale of IMFL till recently. However, Tasmac has been slowly allowing use of PET bottles.

In move to conserve the ecology, over 11 states have prevented the use of such PET bottles.

The state government must adopt similar policy in the sale of alcohol. When the matter came up for hearing, the bench has directed the government to file its response by January 8, 2018.
KALABURAGI: Kalaburagi city witnessed an entire shutdown on Thursday in response to the bandh call given by Dalit Sanghatanegala Samanvaya Samiti, an umbrella organisation of various Dalit outfits, in protest against the recent rape and murder of a Dalit girl at Vijayapura.

Shops, hotels, malls, cinemas, and even medical shops remained closed in view of the bandh which was also supported by farmers organisations, womens groups, proKannada associations, Muslim organisations, etc. While Congress party leaders participated in the bandh, BJP leaders however distanced themselves from the bandh. Even a hearse carrying a dead body was held up at the RTO Circle as the protesters did not allow it move. The vehicle was allowed to pass only after repeated pleas by the relatives. The protesters had put up barricades and boulders at many road junctions and also set fire to tyres to prevent vehicular movement. The lathi-wielding youth also prevented the public from walking on the streets. Even roadside petty shops and pushcart vendors were not allowed to run their business. Groups of youths carrying DSS flags were seen moving from place to place on their vehicles to enforce the bandh.

Schools and colleges remained closed as the managements had declared a holiday a day earlier. Gulbarga University which had rescheduled an examination for the first semester of the third year law course cancelled the examination at the 11th hour. The commuters as well as outstation travellers were put to great hardship as the NEKRTC had suspended vehicular movement since early morning.
Hyderabad: A smart police robot that can recognise people, take complaints, detect bombs, identify suspects, interact with people and answer their queries will be launched here on Friday.

This worlds first smart police robot, a beta version, was manufactured by H-Bot Robotics, a city-based startup.

H-Bot had announced the manufacture of worlds second humanoid robot cop in July and the designs were also finalised. The first robot cop was made in France and deployed in Dubai. During the process of making the humanoid, the makers conceived the idea of a smart police robot, with additional facilities based on artificial intelligence and machine learning and built indigenously.

Their plan was that the robot cop would perform duties at the Jubilee check post on December 31 night, after consultation with the city police.

H-Bots founder Kisshhan P.S.V. had said earlier that unlike the robot in Dubai, which moved only on wheels, the smart cop can walk, recognise people, take complaints and defuse bombs.

We are building capacity to produce 10 such private police robots which can be private security guards and can be deployed in hotels, hospitals and offices, he said.

The smart police robot was manufactured at the H-Bots Robotics lab, the first in south India and second of its kind in the country after Delhi. This facility had a capacity for 50 researchers and has tied up with 40 associates across the country. Mr Kisshhan said the firm would be able to produce 10 such robots a year.

Our plan is to make them available at a price of Rs 3 lakh each so that they are affordable to many. Our dream is to make Hyderabad known for robotics in the world, he added.
DMK and Dhinakaran say the EPS-OPS government has lost its majority and has been reduced to a minority dispensation with just 111 MLAs supporting it.

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Assembly will convene for a short session on January 8 with Governor Banwarilal Purohits maiden address to the House.

Purohit made the announcement on Thursday that the first session in 2018 will be convened on January 8 that will begin with his customary address to the House. The duration of the session will be decided on January 8 when the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Assembly meets after Governors address.

The session will sure be a political potboiler with the DMK and independent MLA TTV Dhinakaran, who won the R K Nagar by-poll on Sunday, expected to ask Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami to prove his majority on the floor of the House. Meanwhile, Dhinakaran will be sworn in as RK Nagar MLA on Friday at the Speakers chamber in the secretariat.

DMK and Dhinakaran say the EPS-OPS government has lost its majority and has been reduced to a minority dispensation with just 111 MLAs supporting it.

However, the government says its enjoys majority after Speaker P Dhanapal disqualified 18 MLAs owing allegiance to the rebel leader. DMK sources said a decision on whether to move no confidence motion against the EPS Government will be taken soon.

Dhinakaran wont be able to move the no confidence motion, since one needs the support of at least 23 MLAs (10 per cent of the total strength of the Assembly) to move such a motion. In such a scenario, he has to depend on arch-rival DMK to move the no confidence motion if there is no ruling from the court or the governor in this regard.

The DMK and Dhinakaran have been demanding convening of the Assembly since August when the 18 MLAs submitted letter of withdrawal of their support to the Chief Minister to Governor. Stalin had knocked at the doors of Raj Bhawan as well as the Madras High Court seeking a direction to Palanis-wami to prove his majority.

Dhinakarans maiden enter into the Assembly, his camp feels, would embolden several of his supporters within the AIADMK legislature party to openly support him and even vote against the government if a no confidence motion is brought against Palaniswami dispensation. The rebel leader has been harping onto his sleeper cells within the legislature party and reiterated even on Sunday that they would come out in the public during the no confidence motion.
The case is related to the purchase of GSM interception and monitoring systems worth Rs 41 crore by ECIL from a German company between 2004 and 2010.

HYDERABAD: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which is investigating the Electronic Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) fraud case, will collect evidence against the guilty former officials before arresting them.

The case is related to the purchase of GSM interception and monitoring systems worth Rs 41 crore by ECIL from a German company between 2004 and 2010.

The complaint was registered in September 2013 and there was a delay in approaching the CBI. Still, we are collecting evidence against the accused officials, said a senior CBI official.

The CBI has found that a few officials had acquired properties with the ill-gotten money. Already, we have started identifying the properties of the concerned persons. A few more days would be required to collect the evidence before proceeding with the arrests, the official added.

The ECIL purchased 12 interception and monitoring systems for GSM phones from German company ELD Industries for Rs 41 crore between 2004 and 2010, the CBI said in its FIR. The agency has registered a case of criminal conspiracy, criminal misconduct, cheating and forgery against former ECIL officials K. Hari Satyanarayana, senior DGM, V. Satyanarayana, general manager, Mudda-gouni Vishny Murthy, DGM, Gadi Naga Venkata Satya-narayana, director, and Katragadda Subba Rao, DGM (purchase), all retired.

The CBI has also booked cases against Col. (retd) Suresh Bhatia, part-time consultant of Schleicher India, who had represented ELD India and Hartron Case Communications; E. Leopold Dieck, owner of ELD Industries Holding, Germany.
The petitioner said relevant details like Nazari Naksha (rough sketch of the area) with door numbers and details of bulk voters deleted were not shown, which was illegal.

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Friday said that the publication of final voters list in the GHMC area will be subject to the final orders of the court.

The order was passed by Justice Challa Kodandaram while dealing with a petition by Mr P. Venkataamana challenging the revision of voters list with untrained private persons. He said relevant details like Nazari Naksha (rough sketch of the area) with door numbers and details of bulk voters deleted were not shown, which was illegal.

The petitioner said the revision of voters had been entrusted to a private agency which had engaged Intermediate students, those who had failed Class 10, people with unknown identities whose antecedents and skills could not be verified. These persons were not trained to revise voters lists, he contended.

He said that a circular issued by the district election officer showed that 65 polling stations in Bahadurpura Assembly Constituency had been identified where the names of more than 30 per cent voters were deleted.

While expressing dismay at the bulk deletion of voters, the judge was not inclined to stay the revision process.

Counsel appearing for the EC urged the court not to grant a stay as a major portion of revision had been completed and the defects and objections raised by the voters would be considered.

Directing the respondents to file counter affidavits, the judge said that final lists would be subject to the final outcome of the petition.
OU had sought some time to hold the event which the ISCA it did not consider.

Hyderabad: The TRS on Friday hit back at the Congress, which had blamed the state government for the cancellation of Indian Science Congress in Osmania University.

TRS MLC Palla Rajeshwar Reddy, the partys whip in the Legislative Council, said the state government had no role in the cancellation of ISC. The university and the ISC Association had discussed the issue and taken a decision on the cancellation.

OU executive council had sought some time to hold the event which the ISC Association did not consider and changed the venue. Nowhere was the state government involved at any stage, he said.

Though the Congress is aware of this, it is resorting to a malicious campaign against the TRS government for selfish political interests, Mr Reddy said.

Due to violent incidents on the campus, he said OU had sought some time to hold the event which the ISCA it did not consider.
Court proceedings are on hold while the Montana Supreme Court decides whether to reverse a lower courts decision not to drop charges against a second man accused in the 1987 rape of a child.

The trial of Ronald Dwight Tipton, who is suspected of raping an 8-year-old in her Billings home in 1987, had been set for Dec. 11.

Judge Mary Jane Knisely denied a defense motion to dismiss charges against Tipton on Nov. 3.

Tipton then filed a petition with the state Supreme Court to reverse the District Court decision and dismiss the case with prejudice on Nov. 8.

The state has until Jan. 5 to file its response, the court ruled after the state filed for an extension.

Jimmy Ray Bromgard was convicted in the case in 1987 and sentenced to 40 years in prison. DNA testing exonerated him in 2002, after he had served 15 years.

Tipton did not surface as the new suspect until 2014, when DNA samples he gave as part of a drug possession charge in Meagher County made a hit on the rape evidence entered in a DNA database. Tipton was charged with three counts of sexual intercourse without consent in 2015.

Tiptons attorney had asked for the charges to be dismissed, citing the five-year statute of limitations in effect when the crime was committed. He also said a state law on DNA evidence leveraged by prosecutors conflicts with a 2003 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that barred the use of new, and more expansive, laws regarding when a person can be charged from applying retroactively.

But Knisely ruled that the Tipton case is different from the Supreme Court case in question, Stogner v. California. Thats because it entails DNA evidence that was not available previously, and there was no delay in reporting by victims.

Knisely also found that the state DNA law, passed in 2007, was intended to apply retroactively in order to prosecute cold cases, and that failing to apply the state law retroactively would be a manifest injustice.
The year 2017 is gradually slipping into a coma. There must be few people across the globe who will mourn its subsidence. Certainly not almost a million Yemeni innocents. They are dying of cholera because Neroic Saudi Arabia wishes to demonstrate its superior might against a puny neighbour. Certainly not the overrich, underarmed state of Qatar. They have discovered that being part of a pack is no protection against cannibalism. Certainly not the beleaguered Syrians. Hundreds of thousands of them have been decimated so that their lanky leader Bashar al-Assad can survive.

Certainly not the European Union. It is losing the UK and can already feel the new tooth of Spanish Catalonia wriggling to occupy the vacant space.

Certainly not the Congress in India. Like some ageing amnesiac chameleon, it is attempting to relearn how to change colour, from the safe camouflage of Nehruvian secularism to a provocative Hindutva saffron. Certainly not the PML(N) in Pakistan. It may have lost its head Nawaz Sharif but, like the British monarchy after Charles Is beheading, it can expect to draw upon a succession of Stuart/Sharif pretenders to his throne.

Opening a portal into 2018 for a moment, should one expect to see a change or an improvement in the international scene? That seems unlikely. The cardinal points on the world map in 2018 have already been locked into place. Key leaders in the US, China, India, Germany and France have until 2020 and beyond then before they need to face national polls. The elections in Russia next year will give Vladimir Putin a legal extension which Josef Stalin would have envied. The worlds leaders and their policies are known; their allia-nces have been forged. They have time to perfect them. Two mavericks though are a cause of concern: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the Saudi crown prince Moham-med Bin Salman Al Saud. Both are less than 35 years old. Both are volatile and unpredictable.

Kim Jong-un is a snarling pet kept on a short leash by his handlers. He is permitted to growl, to gnash his teeth, but he is not allowed to bite. They know that the consequence of firing a nuclear catapult would lead to the annihilation of all Koreans. In Saudi Arabia, given King Salmans age and fragile health, it is possible that his impatient crown price Moha-mmed bin Salman could beco-me the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques before end 2018. Until heaven commands, Crown Prince appears content frittering his wealth by ordering lethal toys. Some might argue, what use is his money if he cannot buy the worlds most expensive painting in the world? Others might wonder how a Wahabi, who eschews representation of the human figure, could justify spending $450 million on a portrait of Christ as Salvator Mundi.

The year 2017 has seen two nations  the US and Saudi Arabia  go solo. Trumps slogan America First has been adapted by the Saudis to mean Others Last. Trump gave notice of withdrawal to his side of the Atlantic. The Sau-dis walked away from the Gulf Cooperation Council with an obedient UAE in tow. Trump has announced the relocation of the US embassy in Jerusa-lem. Was the move to Jerusa-lem part of the royal banquet banter in May 2017 between the Crown Prince and President Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus access through Kushner to the Oval Office is not dissimilar to the confidence placed in 1971 in President Yahya Khan by then President Richard Nix-on. It had fatal consequences. The Kushner/Netanyahu collaboration has begun with the acknowledgement of Jerusalem as Israels capital. The next step assuredly must be recognition of Israel by first proxies of Saudi Arabia. Has anyone in Islamabad determined what Pakistans strategy should be? Or are they waiting for instructions in 2018 from their handlers?

By arrangement with Dawn
The year ends for the BJP the way it began and compelling it to once again maintain a false sense of bravado when it knows something is not quite right. In January, the BJP was rattled about possible damage due to Prime Minister Narendra Modis ham-handed strike on Indias cash economy. It was specially worried that the party would be left high and dry  with its traditional supporters like middle-class traders deserting it and the targeted proletarian class not enlisting. In January, the crucial polls in Uttar Pradesh loomed ahead and prompted by the RSS, the BJP declared that there would be no retrospective hounding of businesses that were entering the formal sector. By end-January it was clear that Hindutva bandwagon revival was the BJPs last hope in UP after the note ban squib. The jury is still out if the unprecedented mandate was an endorsement of demonetisation or due to a blatantly polarising narrative in the course of the campaign.

Not content with a single analogy, Mr Modi had argued last February that if there is a kabristan (graveyard) in a village, then it must have a shamshan ghat (cremation ground) too. If there is electricity during Ramzan, it should be there on Diwali as well; if there is electricity during Holi, it should be there on Id too... Criticising the Samajwadi Party for its tokenistic politics is understandable. But when the Prime Minister steered the campaign into the conceptual dark alley where communities were waiting to resolve 1,200 years of hostility, thereby diverting attention from the notion of vikas, or development, it became clear that despite belief, the Hindu Hriday Samrat visage remains the critical element of his moral fibre. The year ends on the note of clarity that the campaign for the Gujarat Assembly elections had two distinct phases  the pre-Modi entry on November 27 and post his appearance in the garb of the protector of Gujarati asmita. In this avatar Mr Modi emerged as a PM who could even accuse his immediate predecessor, and a former vice-president who demitted office barely a few months ago, of treason if only electoral pursuits warranted it.

The threat to the BJP in the beginning of the year and the challenge it faced in the last weeks of the year were similar. The method deployed by Mr Modi to extricate the party from the marsh it was bogged in due to blunders and miscalculations of its making was the same. In between the two low points was the theatrical rollout of GST at a midnight session of Parliament  an obvious attempt to provide Mr Modi with his own tryst with destiny moment. It required thousands of traders in Surat and elsewhere to convey that a place in history cannot be secured on-demand unless one is looking for a Tughlaquean niche. The worry however is that the two elections underscored that a divisive card works well whenever the party is in a spot of bother.

This home truth acquired an ominous character as the Congress Party in Gujarat, and specially its now newly-elected president Rahul Gandhi chose to play the Gujarat game within the political template of Hindutva.

The year undeniably witnessed removal of the last vestiges of political idealism as converting political parties into election machines became acceptable. While the previous government too modelled state policy with the objective of strengthening the ruling party, a veneer of pretence for the aam aadmi was always maintained. This however was abandoned through the year in the course of elections, in questionable send-offs to people retiring from constitutional posts and by making constitutional institutions subservient to the dominant political party. Irrefutably, the year ends on a note of immense dejection because of the conclusion of the Congress that in the medium and long run, ideology has to be put on the backburner to electorally combat the BJP.

In a land of serial elections, there is no year when crucial polls are not on the calendar. In the coming year even contests in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura in February and Mizoram in November will acquire a national hue because the BJP is making a concerted bid to alter the Centres terms of engagement with the northeastern states. Issues that characterise the BJPs distinctive politics in this region has capacity to generate disquiet and worries will become sharper as under guidance of the RSS, the party will possibly seek to widen the Hindu footprint. After emerging from the trough in Gujarat, the BJP will find the terrain in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and even Madhya Pradesh, all states that will vote in 2018, none too easy. Karnataka already is on the precipice of a social upheaval with the seven-member panel formed by the Karnataka State Minorities Commission to study the demand of the Lingayat community for a separate minority religion status due to submit its report shortly. The Congress has backed this demand to distinguish the Lingayats from Hinduism and consequently the issue has the potential of a political fallout as the BJP believes this is aimed at weakening the partys support within the community. This is not familiar territory for the Congress and its leadership risks being drawn into a dispute although it is not completely familiar with deeper issues involved.

The concern is that social identity has become more complicated and has been the cause of ever-increasing conflicts. In the past three years India has carried the burden of aspiration for self-identification being frowned upon by the BJP and its allies.

Incidents like the recent attack on the migrant Muslim in Rajasthan or the labelling of every Bengali Muslim as Bangladeshi points to the rumble deep in the countrys social belly. The worry is that that the dominant partys priority is to harness conflict for electoral gains and its main adversary too is now increasingly being motivated by the necessities of electoral politics.

In the coming year Indians will be led by its politicians looking at everything in the short run.
It has been a year full of revelations. Some of them have been shocking: the corrupt dealings of some political leaders and the lewd habits of other Hollywood producers, all have been exposed on the pages of newspapers. The #MeToo hashtag that began a few months ago gave women who had access to the Internet a venue in which to share the alarming extent and breadth of workplace harassment.

For women, particularly those who work or study outside the home, the stories that have been told are painfully familiar: bosses who demand illicit relationships, superiors who fire women who do not return their advances, the promotions denied, the pay reduced, all making up the horrific landscape of harassment.

According to UN Women, 120 million girls around the world have experienced forced sexual acts. According to a 2015 survey completed by the charity Action Aid, huge percentages of women  57 per cent in Bangladesh, 79 per cent in India and 87 per cent in Vietnam  report having faced sexual harassment. The misery begins even before they get to work; over half reported that they experienced harassment by the operators of public transportation that they had to take to get there. If it wasnt the operators, it was the men they encountered on the way to work, men who perceived them as morally loose or available simply because they were on their way to work.

According to the NGO What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women, the harassment is particularly bad in South Asia because there is massive sexual entitlement in the region.

Often, when a male boss is supervising a team of men and women, he is more likely to give men the opportunity to lead projects and avail themselves of promotion opportunities. In their turn, women are considered rude or intractable if they are not acting like pleasers and not conforming to the gender stereotypes that are attached to them.

These attitudes translate into wage differentials that are, like sexual harassment itself, a global problem.

In sum, the workplace is a battlefield for women; if they are lucky enough to never face actual sexual assault, unwanted physical touching, groping, etc, they are still going to be subject to lower pay and to the perception that their commitment to work is not as serious as that of their male counterparts.

In South Asia, the misery follows women back to their homes. In many cases, women have to undertake complex negotiations with fathers, husbands and brothers to even be able to work. In many cases, women will choose to wear the hijab or burqa and hand over their entire paycheck to their male guardians just to be able to continue to work. The money that they do make and the economic power that they do get by participating in the workforce is hence rendered somewhat superficial because the permission to work continues to rest with the men of the household.

Recent research focusing on working women in Bangladesh substantiates this; women in that country were found to be more vulnerable to domestic violence if they worked outside the home. One possible explanation for this is that while their husbands want them to continue earning, they feel that their masculinity is somehow impacted by the fact that their wife works outside the home.

Socially and culturally, Pakistan is not that different from Bangladesh. In recent decades, rural-to-urban migration and rising education levels of women have meant that many of them are participating in the workforce. While legislation protecting women is being passed, it is rarely enforced and informal surveys of Pakistani working women have revealed that very few of them believe that reporting harassment will actually lead to repercussions for the harassers.

Cultural values that constantly establish male superiority make it almost impossible for legal actions or even internal disciplinary actions against harassers to succeed. Men cover up for other men, believing that if their friend, or colleague or brother is disciplined, then they too could be next. Other women, raised in a culture of male superiority, also cover up for men by routinely blaming the women involved. With everyone covering up for them, it is no surprise at all that no men are punished.

Perhaps a number of men reading this article feel its okay to harass women who cross the thresholds of their home and enter the public space. Some of them may rationalise their behaviour as just being friendly, as jokes, as good fun. Others may believe that when they pay women to do a certain job, they are automatically entitled to their affection, to their friendship and to their attention.

Still others may imagine that what no one sees, what happens behind office doors or in stairwells or corridors or online, doesnt hurt or doesnt matter. Those who think this way are wrong; their mindset would reflect the thinking of sexual harassers who, it can be guaranteed, are detested by the women around them.

By arrangement with Dawn
For the sake of smoothness of public life and the regular functioning of Parliament, it was good that the government came down from its high horse on Wednesday. This ended the impasse caused by the Congress demand for an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the latters wholly unbecoming remarks practically calling his predecessor Manmohan Singh and former vice-president Hamid Ansari traitors in the course of the recent Gujarat election campaign.

In the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the House and finance minister Arun Jaitley said in a statement: The PM in his speeches did not question, nor meant to question, the commitment to this nation of either former PM Manmohan Singh or former vice-president Hamid Ansari. Any such perception is erroneous. We hold these leaders in high esteem, as well as their commitment to India.

The Congress leader in the House, Ghulam Nabi Azad, thanked the government for the clarification and said that his party dissociated itself with any comments made by any member during elections that may have hurt the PMs dignity. These proceedings, needless to say, were strictly for the record, and in the spirit of balance. In the case of the objectionable remark of senior Congress figure Mani Shankar Aiyar calling Mr Modi neech (low grade), to which Mr Azad appeared to allude, the Congress Party had already suspended him.

As for Mr Modis election speech in which he gave a traitorous colour to a dinner meeting with Pakistani dignitaries attended by Dr Singh and Mr Ansari at the residence of Mr Aiyar, it was more than evident that the government had no intention to prosecute these prominent personalities as it simply had no evidence to back up the implication of Mr Modis observation that the Congress was seeking to collude with Pakistan to interfere in the Gujarat election. What may have also weighed with the government was the fact of the dinner in honour of former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri being attended by a former chief of the Indian Army, who has nothing to do with the Congress Party.

No matter how gross the nature of the politics that Mr Modi had sought to employ against his adversaries in the Gujarat election, public opinion is unlikely to accept that a former head of the Army could be collaborating with Pakistan. To begin with, the governments stance was intransigent. Vice-President and Rajya Sabha chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu had initially taken the stand that the PMs objectionable remarks could not be discussed in Parliament as they were made outside the House. Evidently, the government thought the better of sticking to this line. While the issue has been papered over, the political stain of a PM portraying his predecessor in traitorous light is unlikely to fade anytime soon.
A bunch of people sat exchanging sighs when Santa came up to them. Why are you sad? he asked. We dont have jobs, said one. We dont have food, said another. We dont have a future for our children. We dont have hospitals. We toil in the fields all day, yet we dont get our dues. The complaints went on.

Santa smiled. Friends, he said, thats because you have been cheated by the rich and the powerful, the corrupt have stolen your money and stashed it in foreign banks, they are denying you jobs, and healthcare and your dues. Outsiders are eyeing your wives and daughters, and stealing your childrens future. They are plotting with enemies across the border to kill you and your family. But ho ho ho! What have I got here, in my huge big sack? Yes! Solutions to all your problems! You will be safe. All of you will get jobs. Farmers will get their dues, and make big profits. The cheats will be chased away. Corruption will be finished off. You will have a good life  happy days are here!

The grim bunch sat up. Their faces glowed. Really, Santa? they chirped gleefully. Of course, said Santa. But you must do exactly what I say. Then I will give you Rs 15 lakhs each! The grim bunch clapped in joy and carried Santa on their shoulders to their village heads throne. Then threw themselves into abject misery by following every word of their new leader. Their money was taken away, their rations were denied by machines, they had even fewer jobs than before, farmers made bigger losses, every day became a bigger struggle, their sick continued to die without healthcare, and the future of their children remained bleak. Now there seemed to be outsiders everywhere, and everyone was terrified, there was no trust among friends or neighbours.

The grim became grimmer. Santa? they asked softly after some years, its so much worse than before. And we havent got the Rs 15 lakhs that you promised either... Santa frowned. How old are you? he asked. Im 22... Im 35... 48... 53... 67... 85... they replied. Santa laughed: And you still believe in Santa?

We are a nation of the gullible. We want to believe. Too lazy to use logic, too exhausted to think, we choose blind belief instead. We go with the flow, powered by mob mentality and guided by our biases.

So this is a country where even our leaders pay their respects to stone Ganeshas drinking milk. Where the police thunder down the streets of Delhi to capture the surreal helmeted Monkey Man with steel claws who swings by at night. Where frenzied pujas stave off the next monster, the Muhnochwa, who flies through the night sky with flashing lights, and swoops down to scratch your face with metal fingernails. Where a ghostly braid chopper leads the police on a merry dance as it flits through several states and creates serious security problems in Kashmir simply by creeping up on you and invisibly cutting off your hair.

While earlier such rumours didnt lead to violence, now they do. With the media, especially the social media, egging us on, we kill in the name of imaginary fears. We use WhatsApps unbridled power to spread fake news and drum up violence against the weak and helpless. This year, scores of surprised innocents have been lynched by neighbours or strangers empowered by these ridiculous rumours. And brazen video recordings of the killings drum up support for the killers, like it did for Shambhulal Regar, who hacked and burned to death Afrazul, a migrant labourer in Rajasthan, simply because he was Muslim. And the Hindutva goons who lynched Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer in Rajasthan, are protected by the police.

But this is not new. Rumours playing on our prejudices have been used to kill Muslims and dalits over the years, and engineer the 2002 Gujarat pogrom and the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. What is new is the overwhelming enthusiasm of secular people in believing ill of those they have no natural bias against. Last week, the trial courts acquittal of all the accused in the 2G spectrum case shows how gullible we were in believing then Comptroller and Auditor-General Vinod Rais claim of a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crores. The charge of colossal corruption helped turn the tide against the UPA government and brought the BJP to power, which richly rewarded Mr Rai.

Meanwhile, the country took a real hit as the telecom sector plunged, thousands lost their jobs and foreign companies withdrew, licking their losses. Not to mention the cultural change that the new regime brought in, attacking the very roots of our constitutional democracy. This urge to believe the worst and go with the flow is particularly evident in the Congress shocking suspension of Mani Shankar Aiyar. While defending Jawaharlal Nehrus contribution to India in response to the current PMs scandalous slurs against the first PM, Mr Aiyar had said that Narendra Modi was a neech kisam ka aadmi who had no sabhyata  a lowly kind of character without civility.

Mr Modi snatched it up and built on it  claiming in his campaign for the Gujarat polls that Mr Aiyar had insulted him by saying he was from a neech jaati, or low caste, and thus had humiliated all low castes, even all of Gujarat. He then went on to say that Mr Aiyar had been conspiring against him with Pakistan. Instead of taking on the PMs fabrications, the witless Congress turned on its own. And in a vulgar genuflection to the Oppositions deception and manufactured public perception, it first asked Mr Aiyar to apologise, and when he did, suspended him from the party. Ironically, the lead was taken by Rahul Gandhi, whose family Mr Aiyar has been fiercely loyal to. Then they conveniently blamed Mr Aiyar for the Congress loss in Gujarat. They should have actually congratulated themselves for helping the BJP to win on a false premise. Abandoning logic and facts to kneel at the altar of fake news can destroy us. We have come a long way down that lazy path. Hopefully next year, we will get our senses back. And remember that we are all grown up and dont need Santas. Happy 2018!
Never eat on an empty stomach,

Quaff the exhilarating soma

Some call it Maya, some

call it life 

All consciousness is

a coma!

From The Rigged Veda

(Tr. by Bachchoo)

What does the world expect from America, from Britain or from the torn Islamic world? One may see 2017, for India and abroad, as a year of mass even tragic self-deceptions.

In January President Donald Trump was inaugurated as the leader of the free world. Mr Trumps undoubted expertise is in knowing how to appeal to those incapable of complex or coherent thought. He has hired and constantly fired some who fell for the opportunity to serve in an American administration and soon found themselves contradicting its indirections. Shall we count the fallout of Mr Trumps first six months?

In January his ban on people from Islamic countries entering the United States was overturned by the American courts. In February Michael Flynn, one of his trusted appointees, resigned as US national security adviser. In May Mr Trump sacked James Comey as director of the FBI. Mike Dubke resigned as White House communications director. In July Sean Spicer resigned as the White House press secretary, having served six tumultuous months. Mr Trump replaced Reince Prebus as his chief of staff and appointed Gen. John Kelly, who went on to immediately sack Anthony Scaramucci, who had been in place only a week as Mr Trumps communications director.

This unprecedented volatility of appointments and dismissals makes this US administration either the most paranoid in Americas history, or Mr Trumps manifesto to Make America Great Again is facing the consequences of a deceitful ideal encountering the reality of global economics and politics.

This revolving door in Washington may seem like a clash of egos but is, under the surface of rivalries, driven by a lack of presidential perspective or a huge and national self-deceit.

The slogan to make America great was based on a boast about getting tough in foreign policy  which has (Ahura Mazda be praised), led to nothing but hot words in the face of North Korean defiance. The other boast implicit in the slogan was an intent to bring capital and jobs back to the US. Water doesnt flow uphill. Capital goes to where labour is trained and cheap. The fact defeats the slogan.

Across the pond, the UK continues to deceive itself about leaving the European Union. Theresa May, boasting that she was strong and stable, called an election in July and, losing the majority that she had inherited, proved she was neither. She is now in charge of a divided party and a bribed majority in Parliament.

Nevertheless, she leads Britain into continued negotiations for leaving the European Union under the slogan take back control  another piece, either of conniving propaganda or massive self-delusion, a euphemism for nastier sentiments. To a vast majority of the voters it means keep immigrants out. Those Brexiteering commentators who protest that they have an economic argument are a contemporary version of the three monkeys  see no impending disaster, hear no statistically convincing economic analysis, speak deceitfully to the electorate about the profitability of exit.

They point out that though over 40 per cent of Britains trade is with the EU, Europe exports marginally more to the UK than the other way around. So, they contend, Europe will suffer from restraints on trade.

Heres an arithmetical problem for seven-year-olds in India and China: A sells 27 camels eggs to 27 other persons. The 27 together sell 28 tigers eggs to A. Suddenly, all deals are off. A has to eat or find other markets for his 27 camels eggs. Each of the 27 other tiger egg sellers have, on average, 1 and 1/28 tigers eggs on their hands. Who loses?

Post-Brexit trade with Mr Trumps America, and with China and India, is again precarious self-deception. America wants to import capital and export goods, not the other way around. China and India are fast turning from helot economies, selling cheap labour to make cheap goods, to being sophisticated economies with high technological capability.

Chinese investment in Britain may create jobs but will come with demands for huge returns to China. And is Make in India a perspective that promises riches to the UK? These are rhetorical question which Ms May and the jingo publications havent asked themselves.

The UK and cities around the world experienced horrific terrorist atrocities in 2017. The death cult of ISIS, the inspiration for this slaughter is, in any theological terms, including those of most interpretations of the Quran, a universal and regrettable self-deception. The question in the UK is what to do with the 400 to 800 ISIS supporters who have returned from Syria? Test them for unrepentant intentions and jail them or see if the mirage has faded and assimilate them?

Through the year thousands of economic immigrants attempted to cross the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe. In January over 100 drowned off Libya; in March 200 more; in May 250 were further reported drowned, though agencies claim that there were thousands more. They risk their lives looking for better ones, but does being corralled in virtual concentration camps in Europe achieve this? Such is the saddest delusion as they are all fleeing persecution and poverty. Lastly (since the list must end), the Archbishop of Canterbury is only one of those leaning towards the current delusion that young children can choose their gender. In a free world, there is no restriction on feeling. People can feel and declare that they are living in the wrong body and they have a right to choose to feel they belong to a different gender, race or even species. No harm!

What no amount of self-deception can deny is that there are 100,000,000,000,000 cells in a human body and each of these has either an XX chromosome or an XY chromosome. There is as yet no medical technology to change one into the other  and there is never likely to be, except of course through reincarnation.
Pavel Lerner, 40, the chief executive of a UK-based Bitcoin exchange called EXMO has reportedly been kidnapped in Ukraine. He was abducted while leaving his office in Kiev's Obolon district.

According to the local media reports, Lerner was kidnapped in a Black Mercedes-Benz by a group of men sporting balaclavas.

As per Lerners LinkedIn profile, he graduated Kursk State University in Russia in 2012. He is a prominent Russian blockchain expert and the news of his kidnapping has stunned many in the international cryptocurrency community.

Polegate, Sussexbased EXMO described Pavel Lerner as an analytics manager. Following the unfortunate event, the website also suffered a DDOS attack, which affected the trading temporarily offline.

The broadcaster backed by the Russian government, said that Mr Lerner's kidnapping would not affect the business, reports The Telegraph

"Any information regarding his whereabouts is very much appreciated. Despite the situation, the exchange is working as usual. We also want to stress that nature of Pavels job at EXMO doesnt assume access either to storages or any personal data of users. All users funds are absolutely safe," the company said in a statement.

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The Snapdragon 670 will be replacing the SD 660 as companys most dominant mid-tier processor. It will move to a 10nm manufacturing process from 660s 14nm process. It will have an octa core design with four Kryo 360 cores clocked at 2 GHz and four Kryo 385 cores clocked at 1.6 GHz.. The CPU will be paired by an Adreno 620 GPU.

Qualcomm finally drew the curtains off flagship Snapdragon 845 chip, earlier this month. The chip will be the torch bearer for the company in 2018 and will be used for most forthcoming high end devices.

Qualcomm also produces a variety of chips for different range of smartphones, and thanks to the latest leaks on Weibo, we have an idea of what the company has in stores for its users.

The Snapdragon 670 will be replacing the SD 660 as companys most dominant mid-tier processor. It will move to a 10nm manufacturing process from 660s 14nm process. It will have an octa core design with four Kryo 360 cores clocked at 2 GHz and four Kryo 385 cores clocked at 1.6 GHz.. The CPU will be paired by an Adreno 620 GPU.

Devices with Snapdragon 670 will be able to boast one camera up to 26MP or a 13MP + 13MP dual camera setup. It will support LTE Cat 16 with maximum speeds of 1 Gbps download and 150 Mbps upload.

The Snapdragon 640 on the other hand will have a 6+2 core combination. It will pack two Kryo 360 cores clocked at 2.15 GHz and six Kryo 360 cores clocked at 1.55 GHz. Just like the SD670, the 640 will also be made on the 10 nm process and features 1 MB of system cache. The chip will have the same Image Signal Processor (ISP) as the SD670, and will allow the incorporation of a single 26MP or dual 13MP camera setup.

Lastly, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 460 will come with eight cores in total  four Kryo 360 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz and four Kryo 360 cores clocked at 1.4 GHz, but without any system cache. The chip will be built on a 14nm process and device featuring the SD 460 will be able to tuck in a 21MP single camera.

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The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang's efforts to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States. (Photo: File)

Washington: US President Donald Trump on Thursday said China has been "caught" allowing oil into North Korea and said such moves would prevent "a friendly solution" to the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear 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!" Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.

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

China earlier on Thursday said there had been no UN sanction-breaking oil sales by Chinese ships to North Korea after a South Korean newspaper said Chinese and North Korean vessels had been illicitly linking up at sea to get oil to North Korea.

An official of the US State Department said the US government was aware of vessels engaged in such activity involving refined petroleum and coal.

"We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that US spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels around 30 times since October.

US officials have not confirmed details of this report.

The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang's efforts to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States.

Washington says the full cooperation of China, North Korea's neighbour and main trading partner, is vital to the success of this effort, while warning that all options are on the table, including military ones, in dealing with North Korea.

The UN Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea for a recent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test, seeking to further limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil.

The US-drafted UN resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year.

It also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Security Council to further reductions if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear or ICBM test.

Documents seen by Reuters in December showed Washington called on the Security Council to blacklist 10 ships for circumventing sanctions by conducting ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels or transporting North Korean coal.

China and Russia subsequently asked for more time to consider the proposal.

The ships targeted for blacklisting were the Xin Sheng Hai (flag unknown); the Hong-Kong-flagged Lighthouse Winmore; the Togo-flagged Yu Yuan; Panama-flagged Glory Hope 1 (also known as Orient Shenyu), Kai Xiang and Billions No. 18; and the North Korean-flagged Ul Ji Bong 6, Rung Ra 2, Rye Song Gang 1, and Sam Jong 2.

In September, the Security Council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea.

China has repeatedly said it is fully enforcing all resolutions against North Korea, despite suspicion in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that loopholes still exist.

Asked at a regular briefing whether Chinese ships were illegally providing oil to North Korean ships, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang reiterated that China, including the military, strictly enforced UN resolutions.

"The situation you have mentioned absolutely does not exist," he said.

A State Department spokesman, Michael Cavey, reiterated on Wednesday that the United States had called on all countries to cut economic ties with North Korea.

"We urge China to end all economic ties with the DPRK, including tourism, and the provision of any oil or petroleum products, and expel all DPRK workers," he said, using the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the conservative Center for the National Interest, said China would "never, ever enforce the sanctions to the satisfaction of President Trump," in spite of the effort the US president had invested in developing a personal relationship with China's president, Xi Jinping.

"With President Trump's latest Tweet it seems the 'Bromance' between him and President Xi is finally over," he said.

"This was always bound to happen. China is actually more afraid of North Korea than America," Kazianis said, citing Chinese concerns about instability or collapse in North Korea if sanctions were fully applied.

US Democratic Senator Ed Markey, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Twitter the North Korean threat had only increased since Trump took office and he had to find a way to get China to cut off crude oil supplies.

"The solution is a coherent strategy, not bluster," he said
The shooting comes amid growing attacks on Indians and Americans of Indian descent in recent months. (Photo: Representational Image/File)

Washington: An Indian-origin student was shot dead during an attempted armed robbery in the US, becoming one of the latest victims of gun violence in the country.

Another Indian was injured in the attack.

Arshad Vhora, 19, was shot dead on Thursday at the Clark gas station at 142nd and Langley in Dolton in Chicago, CBS News reported.

Police said two people were shot during an armed robbery attempt inside the convenience store.

The second victim, who was not named, was critically wounded, police said, adding the victims are related.

Vhora was filling in for a family member at the convenience store and gas station, relatives were quoted as saying by the report.

The suspects fled the scene. No one has been arrested yet. A USD 12,000 reward is being offered to help solve the case, the report said.

The shooting comes amid growing attacks on Indians and Americans of Indian descent in recent months.

On December 15, Karunakar Karengle was killed during a robbery by two hooded attackers in Ohio.

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.
NorthWestern Energy is asking a district judge to undo a state decision lumping the utility in with renewable energy developers when it comes to power contracts.

At issue is a Public Service Commission decision to shorten contract lengths for all power purchase agreements involving regulated utilities. The commission in October voted to cut contract lengths from 25 years to 15. The concern, commissioners said, was that NorthWesterns customers risked being locked into long-term prices for power that over time would prove more expensive than the free market.

The utilitys petition for judicial review was filed Dec. 22 in Lewis and Clark County District Court, along with a petition on similar grounds concerning a PSC action involving NorthWestern and a Billings solar farm.

Energy prices are half what they were just five years ago, and 30-year contracts for power approved in 2013 now have NorthWestern customers paying higher than market prices.

NorthWestern objects to the way it was folded into the contract debate. The PSC started out trimming contract lengths for small, renewable energy projects that qualify under state and federal law to sell power to NorthWestern and other regulated utilites at a set rate for a set term.

Renewable energy developers have filed their own lawsuit against the PSC.

In the process of cutting contract lengths for the small qualifying facilities, the PSC decided to apply the same terms to NorthWestern for sake of symmetry. The utility was blindsided by its inclusion and argues there was no due process.

Nowhere in state or federal law are regulated utilities treated the same way as the small energy developers, NorthWestern contends. Being lumped in the qualifying facilities has harmed the utilities' ability to buy power and develop its own energy projects, NorthWestern argues.
Montgomery: Failed candidate Roy Moore has doubled down on his claims of voter irregularities in Alabamas US Senate race in a last-ditch effort to stop the certification of the Democratic opponent who pulled off a historic upset last month in a traditionally deep-red state. Moore asked a judge to issue a restraining order to stop the states canvassing board from certifying Doug Jones' victory. But secretary of state John Merrill said that Moores action is not going to delay certification and Doug Jones ... will be sworn in by Vice President Pence on the third of January.

A spokesman for Jones called Moores action a desperate attempt ... to subvert the will of the people, and said it will not succeed. The election is over. Its time to move on, Sam Coleman wrote in an email. Jones defeated Moore by about 20,000 votes in the Dec. 12 special election. Moores campaign was deeply wounded by accusations of sexual misconduct involving teenage girls decades ago. Moore has denied the accusations and says he has taken and passed a polygraph test to prove they are false.

Moores attorney wrote in the wide-ranging complaint that he believed there were irregularities during the election, including that voters may have been brought in from other states. He attached a statement from a poll worker that she had noticed licenses from Georgia and North Carolina as people signed in to vote.

The complaint also noted the higher-than-expected turnout in the race, particularly in Jefferson County, and said that Moores numbers were lower than straight-ticket Republican voting in about 20 Jefferson County precincts.

The complaint asks for a fraud investigation and eventually a new election. This is not a Republican or Democrat issue as election integrity should matter to everyone, Moore said in a statement released Wednesday announcing the complaint. Merrill said he has so far not found any evidence of voter fraud, but he has said that his office will investigate any complaint Moore submits.
In 2017, the United Nations Security Council slapped three sets of sanctions on North Korea, one on August 5, another on September 11 and the most recent on December 22 focused on refined petroleum products. (Photo: File)

United Nations: The United Nations Security Council on Friday denied international port access to four North Korean ships suspected of carrying or having transported goods banned by international sanctions targeting Pyongyang, diplomats said.

The ban of the four vessels, the Ul Ji Bong 6, Rung Ra 2, Sam Jong 2 and Rye Song Gang 1, was requested by the United States along with measures targeting ships registered in other countries, they said on condition of anonymity.

But China only agreed to target the four North Korean ships, diplomats said, as part of international efforts to curb Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs.

"Only four ships have been accepted" for the ban but "the procedure remains open" to include other vessels in the future, one diplomat said.

The list submitted by the US in December had also included ships flying flags from Belize, China, Hong Kong, Palau and Panama.

In 2017, the Security Council has slapped three sets of sanctions on North Korea: one on August 5 targeting the iron, coal and fishing industries; another set on September 11 aimed at textiles and limiting oil supply; and the most recent on December 22 focused on refined petroleum products.

The US has denounced trafficking of banned goods that allows North Korea to stock up, particularly the transfer of cargo between different ships on the high seas.

Blocking suspected vessels from ports, except in the case of humanitarian need as determined by the council's sanctions committee, is provided for in the August resolution.

On October 5, the UN had already identified four ships "carrying prohibited goods," resulting in a ban on port access that was a "first in United Nations" history, according to Hugh Griffiths, part of a UN panel of experts monitoring the application of sanctions on Pyongyang.

Those four vessels were registered in the Comoros, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Cambodia and North Korea, and were targeted for the illegal transport of coal, iron and North Korean fish.
Warning against Pakistan's deception, the Baloch leader added that Pakistan is not a country to be trusted because 'we Baloch have experienced and learnt that Pakistan is the poisonous snake that bites the very hand which feeds it.' (Photo: Screengrab/File)

Quetta: Baloch leader Hyrbyair Marri has stated that Kulbhushan Jadhav was "never arrested from Balochistan", in fact he was, "abducted from Iran by Pakistani state-sponsored religious proxies and handed over to Pakistani forces."

"The Indian citizen Jadhav was never arrested from Balochistan. He was, in fact, abducted from Iran by Pakistani state-sponsored religious proxies and handed over to Pakistani forces.

There have been numerous such incidents in the past where religious extremists abducted Baloch refugees in Afghanistan or on their way to Afghanistan and sold them to ISI and army," said Marri.

"In the late 70s and the 80s element of Pakistan-backed Taliban killed innocent Marri Baloch refugees, severed their heads from the body and took pictures to get head money from ISI and the Pakistani army," he added.

Responding to the treatment meted out to the mother and the wife of Jadhav, "in the name of security procedures," during the meeting on December 25, the Baloch leader stated that, it "should open India and the rest of the world's eye about Pakistani state's inhuman treatment and humiliation of Baloch women."

"If Pakistan can disrespect an elderly woman who travelled from India to visit her son then it should not need rocket science to imagine what the Baloch prisoners, including women and children, go through at Pakistan army's secret and illegal detention centres," Marri said.

Underscoring the existence of the secret torture cells in Pakistan, Marri said, "Even a Pakistani Senator Farhatullah Babar recently said that "there were secret torture cells operating throughout the country [Pakistan]."

The Pakistani media quoted him as saying, "no one, including the parliament and Supreme Court, knows about how many such torture cells are present, the number of people that are present there and the number of people that have died during interrogation. He further said that no one knew what happened to the people who died."

Warning against Pakistan's deception, the Baloch leader added that Pakistan is not a country to be trusted because "we Baloch have experienced and learnt that Pakistan is the poisonous snake that bites the very hand which feeds it."
Kulbhushan Jadhav met his wife and mother at the foreign ministry in Islamabad on December 25. (Photo: AP | File)

Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday again defended imposing harsh security procedures during the meeting of death row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav with his wife and mother, which it claimed had been bilaterally agreed with India.

Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif rejected Indian allegations and said that the meeting of Jadhav with his wife and mother on December 25 was permitted on humanitarian grounds.

He said the meeting was initially scheduled for 30 minutes but was extended to 40 minutes on request and claimed Jadhav's mother had thanked Pakistan after the visit.

Pakistani authorities had sent the shoes worn by Jadhav's wife for forensic examination to determine the nature of the suspected presence of a foreign object, media reports in Islamabad said on Wednesday.

Pakistan's Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Mohammad Faisal was quoted as saying that authorities had to ascertain whether the "metallic object" in the shoes was a camera or a recording chip.

The foreign minister said Pakistan's "humanitarian gesture" did not obviate the fact that "Jadhav is a serving Indian naval officer and a convicted Indian terrorist and spy".

He said a comprehensive security check was therefore essential. This was agreed between both countries, in advance, through diplomatic channels, adding that Jadhav's family members were treated with "respect and dignity" and the change of clothes and removal of jewellery and ornaments was purely for security reasons.

He said the visitors changed into their own clothes after the meeting and all their belongings were returned to them before they left, though the wife's shoes were retained as they did not clear the security check because a "metal chip" was found in one of the shoes, which is being analysed.

India on Wednesday accused Pakistan of disregarding cultural and religious sensibilities of Jadhav's family members on the pretext of security, pointing to the "removal of mangal sutra, bangles and bindi, as well as a change in attire not warranted by security".

Asif said Pakistan has been open and transparent throughout the meeting, offered in good faith.

"We do not wish to indulge in fallacious accusations and blame game and should focus on the bigger positive outcome that the meeting happened, despite immense challenges and impediments, instead of distortion of facts and baseless propaganda, which vitiates the atmosphere and is counter-productive," he said.

Later, Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesperson accused the Indian media of shaping public opinion for its "nefarious designs".

"Let me assure you that we can win any argument on this (Jadhav meeting), as we have all the paperwork and record with us. However, the intent and the purpose behind this gesture is very important and needs to be registered."

"Unfortunately, the visit has become more about the shoe and less about the meeting," the spokesperson said.

He said that the Indian External Affairs Minister mentioned a Note Verble in her speech in the Indian Parliament.

"We will be responding to it shortly," the spokesperson said.

During the December 25 meeting, whose pictures were released by Pakistan, Jadhav was seen sitting behind a glass screen while his mother and wife sat on the other side. They spoke through intercom and the entire 40-minute proceedings appeared to have been recorded on video.

Jadhav, 47, who was arrested in March, 2016, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged spying, an accusation that India has dismissed as concocted.

New Delhi says Jadhav was kidnapped in Iran where he had legitimate business interests, and brought to Pakistan. To save Jadhav, India moved the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ordered Pakistan in May to stay his execution.
Donald Trumps Jerusalem declaration sparked protests across the Palestinian territories, and Palestinian leaders said Washington could no longer serve as a Mideast peace broker. (Photo: File)

Jerusalem: The US ambassador to Israel says the Palestinian response to President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital was "needlessly provocative."

In an interview with the Jerusalem Post daily, David Friedman says the Palestinians overreacted to Trump's declaration and that some of their response to it has been "ugly," ''largely emotional" and "anti-Semitic."

Friedman also says in the interview, published in part on Thursday, that there will be no peace process without US involvement. "There is no path around the United States," he said.

Trump's Jerusalem pivot upended decades of US policy and countered an international consensus that Jerusalem's fate should be decided in direct negotiations.

His declaration sparked protests across the Palestinian territories, and Palestinian leaders said Washington could no longer serve as a Mideast peace broker.
Fourteen people, including 11 women, were killed and 55 injured in a fire that broke out at a fine-dining restaurant in Mumbai's Kamala Mills compound.



Among the victims was Khusbhu Bhansali, who was celebrating her 29th birthday.

The fire broke out at '1 Above' and then spread to Mojo's Bistro lounge and London Taxi Gastropub.

In the morning, the otherwise busy restaurants wore a charred look.

Several big companies, corporate offices and organisations. besides some media groups are also housed in this compound located on the busy Senapati Bapat Marg at Lower Parel.

The operations of some of the channels were affected.

Of the 55 injured, 25 are women. At present, 14 people, 8 men and six women, have been admitted to the King Edward Memorial Hospital.

The fire started past midnight when people were partying in groups in the upmarket hangouts.

The three joints were crowded as it was the Christmas-New Year week.

A few minutes after Khusbhu cut her birthday cake, the fire broke out and rapidly spread as the bamboo-tarpaulin-plastic sheet structures caught fire.

"We lost our family's daughter on the day of her birthday," said Babulal Mehta, Khusbhu's grandfather.

The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained. However, several theories, like short-circuit, cigarette-butts and hookahs, are doing the rounds.

"The incident will be investigated and the guilty will be brought to book," Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said after inspecting the site.

The BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), one of the biggest civic bodies of Asia, came under heavy criticism, as reports stated that the restaurants had extended their area illegally.

Among the first to notice the fire was Sharad Jadhav, an employee of a Marathi TV channel.

"We saw the fire and heard screams of people," Jadhav said, adding that the fire spread to Mojo's.

"People were finding it difficult to come out," Jadhav said, adding that he raised an alarm and asked people to go to the emergency exit.

Mahesh Sable, a watchman, and two other colleagues were among the first people to help those who were trapped in the restaurants.

"There were about 150 to 200 people on the terrace. We ran up to clear the passage. We could help most of them. They had all gathered at the stairways. We led them out. We realised that some of the guests ran to the other said. In the meantime a part of the temporary roof that was already on fire collapsed and blocked the exit," Sable said.

Dr Sulbha Arora, who had a miraculous escape, said: "There was a stampede and someone pushed me. People were running over me even as the ceiling above me was collapsing in flames. I don't know how I got out alive. Some powers were definitely protecting me."
Moreover, the word Google has been written with Kannada letters in the doodle, it is entirely rare.





The writer completed his studies at Mysore University and he served as a professor for three decades there. Later he became the Vice-Chancellor of UoM. He advocated for Kannada medium for learning throughout his life.





Kuvempu was the first Kannada writer to receive the Jnanpith Award, in 1968. Earlier, the Independence Day flower show at Lalbagh in Bengaluru had themed Kuvempu Malenadu to commemorate the golden jubilee of his Jnanpith award for Sri Ramayana Darshanam'.













The Government of Karnataka honoured him with the tags 'Rashtrakavi' (National Poet) in 1952 and 'Karnataka Ratna' (Gem of Karnataka) in 1992.





He penned the poem 'Jaya Bharata Jananiya Tanujate' which was later declared as the Karnataka State Anthem in 2004.









The Google blog piece featured one of his poems, 'Poovu' (The Flower). It is "rhapsodizing on the beauty of the poets natural surroundings. Kuvempu loved his writing to reflect the simple wonder of the world around him, especially flowers," the blog piece read.

Two years back, Prof KSS Seshan wrote about Kuvempu's first attempt in poetry in the Deccan Herald Spectrum: "A significant but lesser known aspect in the literary career of Kuvempu is the fact that he began writing poetry not in Kannada, but in English. Kuvempu had a great penchant to write poetry even as a small kid. But those poems were all in English, influenced by modern English poets. He was encouraged by teachers and friends as well. When he was in class 10, in 1922, he even published a 16-page anthology of collected poems in English. After this, he joined the Maharaja College in Mysuru and continued to write English poetry."





workshop involving the study of Kuvempu's works is beginning today at Kupalli in Shivamogga district, organised by The Rashtra Kavi Kuvempu Prathishtana.

Google on Friday dedicated its doodle to the renowned Kannada writer and Jnanpith awardee Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa aka Kuvempu to mark his 113th birthday.
A special NIA court, while ordering that Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt Col Prasad Purohit and other accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case will stand trial on terror charges, has said it was accepting the agency's contention that they wanted to establish a "Hindu Rashtra" and the blast was a step towards achieving this goal.

Special Judge S D Tekale in the 130-page order, which was made available on Thursday, said there was insufficient material to charge the accused under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

The court said that while the accused would not be charged under the MCOCA, they would face trial under sections 16 (committing/organizing a terror act) and 18 (criminal conspiracy) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 326 (causing grievous hurt to others) of Indian Penal Code and under the Explosive Substances Act.

Of the 13 accused named by the prosecution, two are still absconding.

The court yesterday discharged three accused Shyam Sahu, Shivnarayan Kalsangra and Pravin Takkalki - from all the charges levelled against them and said it was accepting the NIA's decision to "absolve them" from the case due to insufficient evidence against them.

The court said two accused Rakesh Dhawde and Jagdish Mhatre shall be tried only under the Arms Act before courts in Pune and Thane.

"At this prima facie stage, safe conclusion can be drawn from the statement of witness number 184 that in the Bhopal meeting (where the alleged conspiracy was hatched) Prasad Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni, and Sudhakar Chaturvedi were present."

"There was discussion about growing Jihadi activities in Aurangabad and Malegaon and Purohit expressed his opinion to do something for its prevention by expanding Abhinav Bharat Sanghatna in the said area," the court said.

The court said it was accepting the NIA counsel's submission that the accused persons had made conspiracy to establish a 'Hindu Rashtra' and the conspiracy to cause bomb blast was one step towards the objective of the accused.

The court used strong words in holding that the prime accused must remain to be charged under sections 16, and 18 of the UAPA for conspiring for and committing a terrorist activity.

"The blast took place near a mosque during the holy month of Ramzan. If the place and the timing of the blast is considered at this prima facie stage in the background of available evidence in the form of transcripts (from the conspiracy meetings), witness statements etc., it has to be said that the bomb blast was caused with the intention of threatening the unity of the public by targeting a particular community," it said.

"The intention to take revenge against an individual is one thing, but the intention to take revenge against people belonging to a particular religion is another. The latter shows the intention to strike terror among people, or among a certain section of people," it said.

The court observed that while his predecessor had discharged all the accused from MCOCA charges in the past, the high court, while hearing an appeal by Maharashtra government, had ordered for MCOCA charges to be reapplied.

"The high court ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court. However, the apex court in its order observed that except accused number 7 (Rakesh Dhawde) there is no material to show that the remaining accused persons had nexus with co-accused or with the crime pertaining to the Jalna and Parbhani cases," the court said in its order.

"The apex court had said it would not like to get into the issue of applicability of MCOCA at that stage since NIA investigation was still on. However, now NIA has completed its probe and has come to the conclusion that the charges of MCOCA cannot be applied against the accused in this case," it said.

The court noted that Dhawde was shown as an accused in the Jalna and Parbhani blast cases only after his arrest in the Malegaon blast case.

During 2003-04, when the Jalna and Parbhani blasts took place, there is no record or material to show that Abhinav Bharat was in existence or that Dhawde was even in touch with the other accused in the Malegaon blast case, it said.

"In such circumstances, it cannot be said that the accused persons including Dhawde committed the act in Parbhani and Jalna case as a member or on behalf of a crime syndicate that is Abhinav Bharat," the court said.

"In view of all this, I hold that all accused persons are entitled to be discharged from the offences under MCOCA as there is no sufficient ground to proceed against them under the said Act," the court said.

The court noted that in all the meetings held, prima facie it appears that Purohit was acting as a leader and chairperson of the meeting and that his superiors in the Army did not have any knowledge of this.

The court dismissed NIA's and Sadhvi's claims that the latter had sold her motorbike that was later used to plant the explosive device for the blast.

The court said Thakur was still shown as the registered owner of the bike and thus, despite her claims that she had sold it to someone else long before the incident, it was for the Sadhvi to prove that she had no knowledge of where the bike was.
The government on Friday warned people against investing in virtual currencies, including Bitcoins, saying there were like ponzi schemes.



"There has been a phenomenal increase in the recent times in the price of virtual currencies including Bitcoins in India and globally. The VCs do not have any intrinsic value and are not backed by any assets. The price of VCs is therefore entirely a matter of mere speculation resulting in a spurt and volatility in their prices," the finance ministry said.

It said there was a "real and heightened risk" of investment bubble of the type seen in ponzi schemes, which can result in sudden and prolonged crash exposing investors, especially retail consumers losing their hard-earned money.

"Consumers need to be alert and extremely cautious as to avoid getting in such ponzi schemes," the ministry said in a statement.

It said VCs are stored in digital/electronic format, making them vulnerable to hacking, loss of password and malware attack which may also result in permanent loss of money.

As transactions of VCs are encrypted they are also likely being used to carry out illegal/subversive activities such as terror funding, smuggling, drug trafficking and other money-laundering acts, the ministry said.

"VCs are not backed by government fiat. They are also not legal tender. Hence VCs are not currencies. These are also being described as coins. There is, however, no physical attribute to these coins. Therefore VCs are neither currencies nor coins. The government and Reserve Bank of India has not authorised any VCs as a medium of exchange," the ministry said.

It cautioned that the government or the RBI has not given any licence to any agency for working as an exchange or any other kind of intermediary for any VC.

"Persons dealing in them must consider the facts and beware of the risk involved in dealing in VCs," the ministry said.
With a foot or more of snow set to begin falling Thursday night, the Billings Public Works Department said the citys contract snowplowing company, CMG Construction LLC, will begin plowing residential streets at about 8 a.m. Friday.

Six road graders will be used to plow snow to the side of the roads in six residential neighborhoods spanning all of Billings. The pushed snow will not be picked up.

In about 12-hour increments  maybe more, in some neighborhoods  CMG crews will begin plowing the South Side, moving west into south-central Billings south of Broadwater Avenue Friday evening.

Snowplow crews will finish up one area before turning to the next.

Vern Heisler, the Public Works Departments deputy director, said the South Side was selected for the private snowplowing inaugural because the streets in that neighborhood are generally wider than in other sections of Billings.

On Saturday morning, CMG crews will be plowing between Broadwater Avenue and Poly Drive, moving north between Poly Drive and Montana Highway 3 Saturday night.

On Sunday morning, the private snowplow operators will turn their attention to streets in the Heights. Depending on the amount of snowfall, theyre scheduled to complete their efforts in the downtown area on Sunday night.

Once CMG plowing is complete, city staff will evaluate the need to return to previously plowed neighborhoods.

Heisler said residents can help their own cause  and snowplowing efforts  by moving their cars off the street when crews are expected in their neighborhood.

Thats really going to help, Heisler said.

The graders that CMG crews operate are all equipped with snow gates designed to cut down on the amount of snow left in front of driveways and mail boxes. However, the gates wont completely eliminate the snow deposited in those areas, Heisler said.

Heisler said CMG crews will follow a different order of plowing during the next snowstorm.

On Thursday, city street maintenance crews continued picking up previously plowed snow in the Heights and on Monad Road. Heisler said he expects city crews will resume plowing around midnight Thursday.

During the coming snowstorm, city crews will work two 12-hour shifts plowing the citys arterials and collector streets. One half of the crew will work each shift.

Once these streets are plowed, city crews will begin picking up snow and begin sanding operations.

Residents are asked to give all snowplow operators, private and public, plenty of space to complete their work safely.
Assam has mobilised around 60,000 police and paramilitary troops in the state ahead of the publication of a list of citizens it says will be used to detect and deport illegal immigrants - mainly Muslims - from neighbouring Bangladesh.



The BJP took power in Assam for the first time last year, vowing to act against illegal Muslim residents who take away jobs from local Hindus.

On Sunday, the state government will release a draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) after a census carried out for the first time since 1951.

The exercise could lead to communal tensions in Assam, which has the second highest percentage of Muslims of any Indian state.

Muslims leaders have called the NRC a tool to make them stateless, likening themselves to Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority.

"The NRC is being done to identify illegal Bangladeshis residing in Assam," said Finance Minister, who is also in charge of the citizenship register.

"All those whose names do not figure in the NRC will have to be deported. We're taking no chances and hence all security measures have been taken," he added.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Home Affairs had no immediate comment.

Bangladesh's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said Dhaka had no knowledge of any plans to deport people.

"We didn't receive any information from the Indian government, neither formally nor informally," he said.

It is estimated that there are more than two million Muslims in Assam who trace their roots to Bangladesh.

To be recognised as Indian citizens, they must be able to produce documents proving that they or their family lived in the country before March 24, 1971.

"My grandparents and my parents were all born in India but today we are finding it difficult to provide documents to support our claims that we are Indians," said Asiful Rahman, a teacher at an Islamic seminary in a Muslim-majority district of the state.

"Our parents and grandparents were illiterate and did not keep any legal documents, and for that we are facing the test of proving our Indian nationality now," he added.

Tens of thousands of people fled to India from Bangladesh during its war of independence from Pakistan in the early 1970s.

Most of them settled in Assam, in the Northeast and the neighbouring state of West Bengal, where there are similar demands to send back illegal Muslim immigrants.

'Bags packed'

When the BJP swept to power nationally in 2014, the election was marred by sectarian violence in Assam that killed more than 40 people.

During that campaign, Modi told illegal immigrants in states bordering Bangladesh to have their "bags packed" ready to be sent home should he win.

Since taking office, meanwhile, the government has been making it easier for Hindus, Buddhists and Christians from Bangladesh and Pakistan to gain citizenship in India.

Proposed changes to the law would mean no Hindu or other minority from those countries who arrived in India before the end of 2016 would be considered illegal immigrants.

Modi's administration also plans to nearly halve the number of years Hindus and other minorities from the neighbouring countries need for naturalisation to six years, in line with a long-held belief on the religious right that India is the home for all Hindus.

A pilot project to update the NRC in Assam in 2010, under the previous Congress government, had to be stopped due to what the government called "law and order problems".

The current process is being monitored by the Supreme Court and it could be months or years before the list is finalised.

The Assam government has stepped up security after a senior Muslim leader told a news conference last month that any registration of citizens on the basis of religion would be "devastating" for the country and there could be "unrest".
That Indians love automobiles is evident from the number of vehicles on our roads. From an age where they were hardly any car models in the market to today, when they are dozens of options to choose from, the country has come a long way. The Indian automobile industry is one of the fastest growing in the world, with the affordability of cars being a key factor for this growth.Today, one neednt be a millionaire to buy a car, for banks offer car finance products which can be used by anyone looking to buy a car. What has made it even easier to own a car is the used car market, which is currently worth around Rs.1 lakh crore, with this number expected to jump to Rs.2.5 lakh crore by 2021. This essentially means that around 66 million cars will be resold over the next four years.While it has become extremely simple to buy and sell used cars, most people concentrate only on two main aspects: the cost of the car and the condition of the car. We rope in experts who examine the car, giving a value to it. Then comes the bargaining aspect, trying to reach a middle path with respect to the price. While these are important aspects, a majority of those participating in the process ignore one crucial step, transferring the car insurance policy once the sale is completed.Importance of transferring the car insuranceIt is possible to wonder why transferring the car insurance policy is important after the car has been sold. This can be easily understood through the example of Mr. Rohan, a banker who wishes to sell his hatchback and upgrade to an SUV. He intends to use the money from the sale of his old car as down payment for the new one, hoping to purchase the new car on EMI. Mr. Rohan puts an ad in a prominent portal, asking for Rs.3 lakh for his car. He soon finds Mr. Joy who is keen on buying the car. Both of them meet, with Mr. Joy evaluating the car and deciding to pay Mr. Rohan the quoted amount.Excited about getting his price, Rohan completes the formalities of the sale, transferring the ownership of the vehicle to Joy.Now, in the excitement, neither Rohan nor Joy think about the car insurance policy, which continues to be in Rohans name. One might assume that transferring the car insurance policy is not needed, but two simple illustrations show why both Joy and Rohan should have insisted on getting the transfer done.Situation 1: Joy, who uses the car on a regular basis meets with an accident which results in damages not only to his car, but also to the car of another individual. Joy is aware that the car has insurance, which makes him feel confident about the whole process. He assures the other party involved in the accident that the insurance company will pay for the expenses. Joy then approaches the insurer, armed with a copy of the comprehensive car insurance policy.However, he is in for a shock. The insurance company refuses to entertain his claim, stating that the policy is still in Rohans name. Failing to transfer the policy in his name has resulted in the policy becoming void, which essentially means that Joy will have to shell out the money for the damages incurred from his own pocket. Ouch! A costly proposition indeed.Situation 2: Rohan, who has moved on and purchased a brand new SUV has left all thoughts of his old car behind him. However, on one bright Monday he receives a call from the insurance company stating that his car has been involved in an accident with another car and that he is expected to meet company officials immediately. Now, Rohan knows that his new car hasnt been in any accident and tries to justify this with the insurer, but the insurance agent states that the car involved in the accident was his old car, which he had sold. Given that the insurance policy wasnt transferred, the liability still falls on his head and he is expected to pay a certain amount towards settling the claim.Additionally, he also realises that he is not eligible for a No Claim Bonus, which could have saved him a tremendous amount when buying a new policy.These two instances highlight why Rohan and Joy should have transferred the insurance policy once the sale was completed. Failing to do so put them through some tough moments, which couldve easily been avoided.For most Indians a car is not just a means of transportation, it is their dream. While it has become easier to realise this dream, failing to transfer the insurance policy could turn it into a nightmare.
Pakistan has accused India of using Afghanistan for hatching conspiracies against China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).



Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal said the "enemies of Pakistan" were using different tactics and propaganda to fail the USD 50 billion CPEC economically, the Dawn reported.

"India is hatching conspiracies against CPEC but Pakistan will foil them with the support of the people," he told journalists yesterday after inaugurating an executive passport office in Quetta.

"India is using the soil of Afghanistan for such conspiracies," he said but expressed hope that the CPEC project would be made successful.

The minister also said that the United States should stop hurling threats at Pakistan and recognise the sacrifices it had rendered in the war against terrorism.

China has offered to extend its ambitious CPEC project to Afghanistan.

China's offer to extend CPEC is significant from India's point of view considering New Delhi's strong objection to the project which traverses through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
As many as 77 "vanishing" companies remained untraced after having raised funds through initial public offers (IPOs), Parliament was informed on Friday.



Vanishing companies are those firms which cease to file their statements of return after raising capital, and whereabouts of their registered office or directors are not known.

From the IPOs, which were issued during 1992-2001 period, a total 238 firms were identified as vanishing companies by the Coordination and Monitoring Committee (CMC), a joint mechanism of Corporate Affairs Ministry and markets regulator Sebi.

Of these, 161 companies have since been removed from the list, as they have subsequently been traced, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs P P Chaudhary said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

"Presently, there are only 77 vanishing companies," he said adding that no fresh cases involving such companies have been identified.

These companies are from various states like Gujarat, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, NCT-Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra

He said that the coordination and monitoring committee identifies vanishing companies.

Further, the minister said that FIRs (First Information Reports) have been lodged against these 77 companies and their directors.

"Prosecutions have been filed against these companies and their promoters or directors... for non filing of statutory returns ... for mis-statement in prospectus or fraudulently inducing persons to invest money or false statements made in the offer documents," he added.

Also, Chaudhary said that slew of steps have been taken by the government to save investors from frauds including frauds by vanishing companies.

These measures included amending the Companies Act, which makes it mandatory for existing or prospective directors to obtain a director identification number (DIN) after submitting verification documents.

In addition, the ministry has made it mandatory for the professionals to verify details of the company in case of incorporation of new firm or change of address of an existing company.

Besides, the Registrar of Companies scrutinise the balance sheet and other records of the firms that raise money through public offers and monitors the utilisation of such funds, he said.
The ruling AIADMK continued its crackdown on the rebel TTV Dhinakaran camp by sacking more than 130 functionaries today for bringing "disrepute" to the party.



Party coordinator O Panneerselvam and co-coordinator K Palaniswami announced "removing" 132 people from the party's district units of Tirupur, Pudukottai and Dharmapuri.

A total of 132 functionaries were sacked from the party. Tirupur topped the list with 65 being expelled.

The two leaders said in a statement that 49 people from Pudukottai and 18 from Dharmapuri units were also being removed as they went against the party's principles and brought "disrepute" to the AIADMK.

"Party workers are requested not to have any truck with them," Palaniswami, also the chief minister, and his deputy Panneerselvam, said in a party statement.

Panneerselvam and Palaniswami "relieved" one person from his party post in Dharmapuri.

Stung by the bypoll defeat, the ruling AIADMK on December 25 cracked the whip against nine party functionaries, sacking four of Dhinakaran's aides and expelling five others.

The two leaders had warned of action against those who "betrayed" the party, and had expelled 44 people on Thursday.

In a jolt to the ruling camp, Dhinakaran secured an emphatic win in the December 21 R K Nagar bypoll defeating its candidate E Madhusudhanan by a thumping margin of over 40,000 votes.

The bypoll, necessitated due to the death of sitting MLA, former chief minister J Jayalalithaa, was seen as a litmus test for the 20-month-old AIADMK government.

Dhinakaran, sidelined by the ruling camp a few months ago, contested as an independent candidate.

He had earlier lost his battle for the party symbol 'Two Leaves' to the Palaniswami-led ruling camp and contested the election on pressure-cooker symbol.
China today rejected accusations that it has helped Pyongyang skirt sanctions after US President Donald Trump claimed Beijing had permitted a transfer of oil to North Korea.



"Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea," Trump tweeted yesterday. "There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!"

The US president later told the New York Times that he saw a report on the situation on Fox News that morning.

"The recent series of reports on this situation do not conform with the facts", Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, adding that Beijing did not allow its "citizens or companies to engage in any activities that violate" UN resolutions.

The United Nations and Washington have imposed a series of sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear and missile programme in recent months.

Hua said China had looked into the report of a Chinese ship transferring oil to a North Korean vessel and found it to be inaccurate.

"There is no record of the (Chinese) vessel visiting a Chinese port" since August, Hua said.

"I think making pointless hype through the media is not conducive to enhancing mutual trust and cooperation."
The Centre has sacked Hemavati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University vice chancellor Jawahar Lal Kaul on charges of administrative irregularities.



This comes days after President Ram Nath Kovind approved the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry's recommendation for his removal from the post.

Kaul is the third Central University vice chancellor who has faced dismissal over charges of various irregularities under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime.

The government sacked Sushanta Dattagupta as vice chancellor of the Vishwa Bharati University in West Bengal last year after he was found guilty of indulging in various irregularities during his term.

Pondicherry University vice chancellor Chandra Krishnamurthy was, too, dismissed by the Centre on charges of plagiarism earlier this year.

Kaul was made vice chancellor of the Garhwal University in November 2014 when Union Minister Smriti Irani was at the helm of affairs of the HRD ministry.

He was accused of granting permission to several affiliated colleges to increase their intake to 200 in some of their courses in violation of the prescribed cap of 60 seats for those programmes.

Kaul was also accused of lowering affiliation fee for the colleges from that which is prescribed by the rules.

A fact-finding committee, set up by the government to probe into the charges, found Kaul guilty of them.

On the basis of the report of the committee, the HRD ministry forwarded the file to the President's office, recommending sacking of Kaul from the post of Garhwal University vice chancellor.

A probe was initiated into the accusations against Kaul on the recommendation of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). The CVC had received complaints against Kaul last year.

Kaul resigned from the post on December 18 following the President's approval to his sacking.

The HRD ministry, however, issued an order for the vice chancellor's dismissal from the post, instead of accepting his resignation.


The Centre has told the states to hire specialist doctors in various fields for rural areas with good pay packages, whose salaries it will pay, PTI reports from New Delhi.



Responding to supplementaries in the Lok Sabha, Health Minister J P Nadda said the states are free to hire experts, such as gynaecologists, for rural health facilities.

Seeking to ensure a larger intake of doctors, 5,000 seats have been added in medical colleges, he said.

Reports have it that there was a mere 19% availability of specialist doctors in the community health centres (CHCs), especially those in the rural areas, across the country.
An Indian-origin student was shot dead during an attempted armed robbery in the US, becoming one of the latest victims of gun violence in the country.



Another Indian was injured in the attack.

Arshad Vhora, 19, was shot dead yesterday at the Clark gas station at 142nd and Langley in Dolton in Chicago, CBS News reported.

Police said two people were shot during an armed robbery attempt inside the convenience store.

The second victim, who was not named, was critically wounded, police said, adding the victims are related.

Vhora was filling in for a family member at the convenience store and gas station, relatives were quoted as saying by the report.

The suspects fled the scene. No one has been arrested yet. A USD 12,000 reward is being offered to help solve the case, the report said.

The shooting comes amidst growing attacks on Indians and Americans of Indian descent in recent months.

On December 15, Karunakar Karengle was killed during a robbery by two hooded attackers in Ohio.

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.
Police, fire, and other emergency responders scrambled shortly after 2 p.m. Thursday to the Bert Mooney Airport in Butte after a report that a Gulfstream III jet aircraft was inbound with one engine not in service.

Ultimately, the aircraft landed without incident and no one was injured.

Pam Chamberlin, business manager at Bert Mooney, said the airport became aware of the disabled aircraft after hearing from a control tower in Salt Lake City. Staff there indicated that the pilot was requesting emergency and fire personnel be put on standby, including the airports own fire department.

Emergency crews, told that the aircraft anticipated a hard landing, raced to the airport and vicinity.

Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff Ed Lester said a warning light had indicated a potential problem with a thrust reverser and protocol called for the pilot to shut down that engine.

Occupants included two pilots and a flight attendant, Lester said, and the plane was headed from Kalispell to Salt Lake City.

According to Chamberlin, the plane is owned by Global Air Charters Inc., based out of St. Paul, Minnesota. The names of the pilots and flight attendant are not being released, she said, and the airport will file an incident report with the FAA.

Lester said the incident caused a few moments of anxiety here at the airport and for first responders.
Mumbai Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar courted a controversy when he said he cannot be aware of everything that happens in Mumbai.



When faced with a barrage of questions on the fire in the Kamala Mills compound, he said, "I can't be aware of all that is happening in Mumbai. What do we have ward officers for? Fourteen people have lost their lives and it is a serious matter. An inquiry has been ordered and a report will be sought to see who is responsible. Action will be taken".

He was speaking at the site of the fire, which he visited nearly 11 to 12 hours after the incident.

"The inquiry report will consist of various aspects, such as the possibility of unauthorised construction, whether fire audit was done and if the monsoon shed had permission," he said.
More self-styled godmen, including absconding 'spiritual guru' Virendra Dev Dixit, found mention in the list of ''fake'' babas released by the All India Akhara Parishad (AIAP), an apex body of seers in the country, on Friday.



The list of fake babas, that contained names of three self-proclaimed godmen, was the second released within a span of four months.



The AIAP had released its first list containing names of 14 fake babas in September this year. The first list had the names of Baba Ram Rahim, rape accused Asaram and Radhey Maa.



Besides Dixit, the Parishad also dubbed Sachhidananda Sarswati and Trikal Bhavanta as fake babas.



Releasing the list in Allahabad after a meeting of the representatives of all the 13 'akharas', AIAP president Mahant Narendra Giri called upon people to boycott all these babas.



Giri said that these fake babas had ''amassed'' huge wealth and living ''lavishly''. ''Their conduct and behaviour have tarnished the image of Hindu religion," he added.



''We will make sure that such babas are not able to take part in the forthcoming Kumbh also...the state governments must also ensure that such babas are not accorded any facilities at the Kumbh and other religious gatherings,'' he added.



'Mahatma' prefix vetoed



He warned these babas against prefixing 'Mahatma' before their names. The Mahant sought the support of the people to expose fake babas.



He also said that the AIAP would keep an eye on the conduct and lifestyle of the saints and babas. '' Genuine saints do not seek worldly comfort,'' he remarked.



''The list will be sent to the chief ministers of the states concerned to initiate action against them,'' Giri said.


Several employers and students have sought clarification from the HRD Ministry on the validity of the degrees in technical education granted by Indira Gandhi National Open University and others in distance education mode since 2001.



The requests for clarification comes in wake of a recent Supreme Court verdict which suspended B tech degrees obtained by students from four deemed-to-be universities through various distance education programmes between 2001-2005.



In its verdict on a bunch of petitions, the apex court noted that the JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Udaipur, Rajasthan; Institute of Advanced Studies in Education, Sardarshahr, Rajasthan; Vinayaka Mission's Research Foundation and Allahabad Agricultural Institute, Uttar Pradesh had not taken prior approval from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to offer technical courses.

The court had held that the ex post facto approval granted to these four deemed-to-be-universities for their correspondence courses in engineering by the University Grants Commission (UGC) on the recommendation of the erstwhile Distance Education Council was "incorrect and illegal".

It cancelled all engineering degrees granted by the four deemed-to-be-universities beyond 2005, directing the AICTE to conduct a test for students who obtained their degrees from the four universities between 2001-2005.

"The HRD ministry has received request from several employers and the students groups for clarification on the apex court's verdict," official sources said.

While the employers have requested for a clarification on the validity of the engineering degrees obtained by their employees through distance education programmes of Ingnou and other institutions, students have sought clarification on the impact of the Supreme Court verdict on their engineering degrees that they obtained through open and distance education.

"The employers who have sought clarification includes some government organisations from various states," sources said.

A top HRD ministry official said the department concerned was going through the apex court's judgement to understand its larger implication.

"There are suggestions to seek the opinion of the Attorney General on the issue, besides seeking details from the UGC and other regulatory bodies. A final decision, however, is yet to be taken by the ministry in this regard," another official said.
A man no less than the Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu was conned by an advertisement that promised quick weight loss with the help of a magic pill.



Sharing his experience in the Rajya Sabha on Friday, Naidu said soon after becoming the vice president, he saw an advertisement promising weight loss in 28 days.

Though he had already lost some weight, Naidu decided to give it a try and sent Rs 1,230 to the address mentioned in the advertisement.

"I received a package. But when I opened it, there was a message that I have to pay another 1,000-odd rupee to get the original weight-loss tablet. The message said the company would send me the tablet only after it received the second instalment," he said.

Naidu got suspicious and asked the Ministry of Consumer Affairs to look into it.

The ministry, after a probe, found that the advertisement originated in the US.

"We need to find out a way to curb such advertisements, whether they originate in the US or any other country," Naidu said.

He narrated the incident after Samajwadi Party member Naresh Agarwal raised the issue of misleading advertisements deceiving common people in connection with his Zero Hour notice on adulteration in food articles.

In his response, Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said the government had drafted a new consumer protection law to replace the existing law, which is 31 years old and lacked teeth.

The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2015 and was referred to the standing committee.

A revised bill that enlarges the scope of the existing law to make it more effective and purposeful was approved by the Cabinet on December 20 and is likely to be presented before the House in the ongoing session.

"The members should pass the bill at the earliest, instead of sending it to a committee again," Paswan said.
Rajya Sabha member Partap Singh Bajwa took to Twitter claiming that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has 'blocked' him from accessing her Twitter feeds.



"Is this the way to run external affairs ministry? Does it behove the office of Sushma Swaraj ji to block a Member of Parliament for asking tough questions on 39 Indians missing in Iraq," asked Bajwa, a former Punjab Congress president.

He also posted a screen-shot of the 'block message'.

The confrontation between Swaraj and Bajwa dates back to July when the Congress leader had warned the minister of moving a privilege motion against her for her statement on the whereabouts of the missing Indian nationals.

In July, Bajwa had accused Swaraj of "misleading the nation" by telling the Lok Sabha that the 39 Indians missing in Iraq were lodged in a jail in Badush that was destroyed by the ISIS.

"It is easier for me to declare them dead because then nobody would question me. They would silently accept it. But I cannot declare somebody dead without proof as it would be a sin to do so," Swaraj had said about the missing nationals.

Bajwa reportedly discovered that he was blocked by Swaraj after he was unable to send a Tweet to her regarding the condition of Sikhs in Pakistan.

Bajwa has been raising the issue because out of the 39 missing Indians, 22 were from Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Jalandhar in Punjab.
The Indian Air Force on Friday bid adieu to two of its old Russian-origin MiG fighter aircraft, one of which was flown by the Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa in its swansong flight.



At the Nal airbase in Rajasthan, Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa flew the last sortie of the Hawkeyes, 108 Squadron, bringing a glorious end to the reign of the MiG-21 T-96 aircraft, flown by the squadron.

This comes days after former IAF chief Fali Homi Major flew the last sortie of the Mi-8 helicopter in Bengaluru before the choppers stopped flying.

"It is in the IAF tradition to have the senior-most pilot fly the oldest machine while bidding adieu," said an IAF official.

The 108 Squadron is being 'number-plated', which means it would remain dormant for the time being and would be re-formed to produce new aircraft.

In Hashimara in West Bengal, the last MiG-27 ML roared for the last time in its farewell flight.

Named Bahadur, the swing-wing MiG-27 ML has the single most powerful engine in the world with a variable geometry wing that allows a pilot to change the wing sweep angle while flying as per the mission requirements.

The aircraft, which was flown by the 22 Squadron, is also being number-plated.

Though the MLs have retired, they are not the last swing-wing aircraft in service. Some of the MiG-27s were upgraded to MiG-27 UPG, which will continue to fly.

The MiG-27 UPGs are based in Jodhpur.

Out of its sanctioned strength of 42 fighter squadrons, IAF currently has only 33 squadrons.

But as many as 14 squadrons of the MiG 21, MiG 27 and MiG 29 are due for de-induction in the next 10 years, which will reduce the strength to 19 squadrons by 2027.
The NITI Aayog will soon declare National Institute of Technology-Karnataka (NITK) in Surathkal and Nitte Institution as innovation hubs at university level, under the Atal Innovation Mission, said Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday.



She was speaking after inaugurating Centre for Entrepreneurship Opportunities and Learning (CEOL), an incubation centre for start ups, developed under her MPLAD scheme, at a cost of Rs 1.5 crore in Mangaluru.

She said 55 schools from Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada have been selected for setting up Atal Tinkering Labs, which will be funded by NITI Aayog's Atal Innovation Mission. Sitharaman said two colleges in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi will also be selected under Centre of Excellence whereistate-of-the-art lab will be set up, which can be used by neighbouring colleges as well.
A rally and procession from the city railway station to the Freedom Park on Friday morning by thousands of activists brought traffic to a grinding halt on roads around the place.



Nearly 3,000 protesters representing several organisations paraded along the roads clogged with vehicles, as they agitated against the Justice A J Sadashiva commission report on internal reservation quota.

Police blocked traffic on Anand Rao Circle to allow the procession to reach the Freedom Park, as they diverted vehicles through adjacent roads.

Dalita Rakshana Vedike president Ramakrishnappa told the gathering that the report would deprive hundreds and thousands of Dalits belonging to a host of sub-castes within the community and asked the government not to implement it. Agitators also submitted a memorandum to the government against the report's implementation.
The BBMP is all set to take up the Sivananda steel bridge project work following the positive results it got for the soil test.



The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) was conducting the soil test to know whether the soil was strong enough to hold the pillars of the steel bridge.

A Palike official said: "Since the soil testing results are positive we are going to take up the project."

Meanwhile, the residents opposing the flyover say that the civic body should stop the work till the court comes out with an order.

Srinivas Alavilli of Citizens for Bengaluru told DH: "The local residents are pursuing the matter in the court. The court has been very critical of the project. It has asked about the safety standards and whether there was a need for the project. The court is not working due to leave. Once the court resumes, we are confident that it will find that there is no need of flyover."

Alavilli also said that the Palike should not continue the work till the court order comes out.
Subzero temperatures and a barrage of exploding ammunition complicated a home fire that left one Lincoln firefighter with a bullet wound to the wrist this week.

The mobile home fire was reported just before 10 p.m. Tuesday on 4X4 Road about 5 miles outside Lincoln, Fire Chief Zach Muse said. The fire started in the chimney and burned the home to the ground.

Nine firefighters battled the blaze for about eight straight hours before returning to town Wednesday morning to refuel a pumper truck and get more water, he said. The firefighters who didnt have to return to their day jobs came back around 9 a.m. and remained on the scene well into Wednesday afternoon, he said.

Firefighters had to take cover for about 30 minutes when the large supply of ammunition inside the home started exploding, Muse said.

We had to get back and hide, and we had one guy get hit in the wrist. Im not sure yet if its fractured or not, but it swole up pretty good, he said. He was actually hiding behind one of our pumper trucks and still got hit.

The explosions also reignited portions of the fire that had been extinguished, Muse said.

The ammo really made it tough because there were powder kegs blowing off the walls, and it got everything rolling again that we just put out, he said.

With temperatures hovering around 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit, firefighters had to take extra precautions to ensure their water didnt freeze. They also had to dismantle the homes tin walls and roof piece by piece to allow the water inside.

And the six cords of firewood stacked by the front door made matters worse.

Everything that could go against us kind of did, Muse said.

The husband and wife who lived in the home were able to get out safely before spending the night with their neighbors. If officials receive any information about how to help the family, Muse said he will post it on the fire departments Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/lincolnfirerescue/.
Residents of Indiranagar on Friday urged the police to shut down illegal watering holes in the East Bengaluru locality on New Year's Eve.

Members of I Change Indiranagar, an umbrella group of eight residents' welfare associations, met Seemanth Kumar Singh, Additional Commissioner of Police (East), and urged him to take steps to avoid inconvenience to residents on December 31.

Their move followed a media report that the officer had asked pub owners to make Koramangala another MG Road. On Friday, however, Singh denied making such a suggestion.

"My message has been wrongly interpreted. I said tight security will be provided even in Koramangala and Indiranagar, where a lot of people are expected to gather," he said. He promised zero tolerance against public nuisance in residential areas, besides increasing police patrolling and setting up booths at regular intervals on 100 Feet Road in Indiranagar.

When asked why the BBMP was finding it difficult to shut down illegal rooftop pubs and bars, Dr Ashok, Joint Commissioner (East), BBMP, said: "There has to be a larger change in the policy. If a change in the policy comes through the BBMP council, it will be easy for us to shut down watering holes in residential areas."

As most rooftop pubs and bars do not comply with fire safety norms or building bye-laws, residents have sought a joint meeting with fire and police departments to press them to take steps to prevent fire incidents in the locality.

They said they are hopeful their demands will be met.

Sneha Nandihal, president, BM Kaval Bairasandra Residents' Welfare Association, said: "We have been screaming from the rooftop so that a Mumbai-like fire incident does not occur here. We have not given up hope on the authorities."

Residents of Koramangala, too, met police officers on Friday, urging that revelry in the locality be checked on December 31.

BOX

What do residents want?

* Shut down illegal pubs and bars on December 31.

* Music from pubs should not exceed 45 dB after 10 pm.

* Parking should not be allowed in bylanes.

* Do not allow revelry to spill onto roads.

* Shut down all pubs and bars in residential areas.
The newly formed Bengaluru North University (BNU) and Bengaluru Central University (BCU) are anxious about their preparedness for their maiden academic year, 2018-19, as the parent university has not yet finished transferring properties.

The government had issued an order on December 6, instructing Bangalore University (BU) to transfer assets to the new varsities.

The land and buildings on the Central College campus were to be transferred to the BCU, but officials say the process is getting delayed.

"We have hardly a few months left for the academic year to begin. The buildings on the campus are in a shambles and we need to undertake repair works. We cannot begin any of this work as long as the property still belongs to BU," Prof S Japhet, the vice-chancellor of BCU, said.

In the order, the government had instructed BU to give teaching and non-teaching staff the option to choose where they want to be transferred. Of the total sanctioned non-teaching posts, BU has to transfer 100 posts each to the new universities. A circular regarding this process is yet to be issued.

Prof M S Reddy, the registrar of BNU, said once the posts were transferred, they would need at least three months to complete the recruitment process. "We will have to see how many posts remain vacant. Then, taking into account reservations, we will have to issue advertisements to fill the vacancies. The entire process needs to be completed well before the new academic year," he said.

Formation of a board of studies and a board of examinations can also be done only after the teaching faculty are transferred to the new universities, he pointed out.

Both BCU and BNU have brought the matter to the notice of the Higher Education Department and have also been following up with the parent university, asking officials there to expedite the process.

A senior official of BU said the work on transferring assets was underway. "It will take some time. The property documents are very old, so we need to put them in order," he said.

Though the government order makes syndicate approval unnecessary, BU is undertaking the process through it, calling meetings to ratify the transfers. The official said that they were doing it for the records.
Bengaluru's serpentine traffic is now officially the slowest in the country. Vehicles in the city move at a pitiable speed of 17.2 km per hour, according to data pulled by Ola from its cabs plying in 110 cities across India.

Bengaluru has pipped Chennai in slowest traffic. Bengaluru's average traffic speed dropped by a significant 3.2 km per hour in 2017 to 17.2 km per hour. The drop has been the highest in the country.

The city had an average traffic speed of 20.4 km per hour in 2016, the second lowest in the country.

Chennai, which moved to the second last slot this year, has seen a meagre decline, - 0.7 km per hour (3.6%) in its average speed - to 18.9 km per hour.

According to experts, a disproportionate increase of roads vis-a-vis traffic is causing this slowdown in Bengaluru. "Around 60% of roads in Bengaluru are narrow, and around 4,000 new vehicles are registered every day. Frequent junctions further bring down the traffic speed. In fact, on the Outer Ring Road, the average speed is about 4.4 km per hour," M N Sreehari, an urban transport expert, said.

There are close to 49,000 junctions in Bengaluru.

Police declined to comment on the issue. "We have not seen the Ola study. It is inappropriate to comment on such things without reading it," R Hithendra, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), told DH.

Cab drivers blame the aggressive expansion of aggregators like Ola and Uber for the mess. "These firms are doling out unnecessary offers to woo more drivers than the demand in the city," said Tanveer Pasha, president, Ola, TaxiForSure and Uber Drivers' and Owners' Association.

Transport Department figures show there are 72 lakh registered vehicles in the city as on date. As per estimates, on average, Bengaluru's roads bear a load of close to 15 lakh vehicles every day.

There are 1,51,911 registered taxis in the city, government figures show.

Many drivers whom DH spoke to complained about declining profits because of oversupply. The city is home to 64,83,984 non-transport vehicles; a whopping 98% (63,68,256) are private two-wheelers and four-wheelers. Out of 14 lakh four-wheelers, around 85,000 are estimated to be attached to Ola and Uber. According to Pasha, the need is not more than 40,000.

Only Ola and Uber have been granted aggregator licence by the Transport Department. But sources said two more firms had applied for the licence and were about to get it.

Ola countered Pasha's suggestion, saying its option under the 'Farak Padta Hai' campaign has helped a lot in car-pooling.

Among the metros, Delhi, backed by a sprawling metro infrastructure, continues to top the chart of average speed, albeit with a small decline. The national capital clocked an average speed of 25 km per hour, followed by Mumbai (20.7 km per hour) and Pune (19.4 km per hour). Nationally, there has been a decline of 2.9 km per hour in average speed.
While the National High School (NHS) is all set to welcome its 100th year in a grand way, the alumni are not happy with the way the event has been organised.

"The invitation states 'Inauguration of the Adamya Chetana Seva Utsava 2018 and Centenary celebrations of the National Education Society'. It does not mention the centenary celebrations of the school," said entrepreneur Karan Kumar, an alumnus who is an integral part of the National High School Forum - an association with over 5,000 alumni of the school spread across the globe.

"This came as a shock to us as we were working towards doing something special for the school since the last one year," said Shankar K S, vice president at Exide Life Insurance and an alumnus of the school.

"The alumni in the UK and the US had also made plans to fly down specially to celebrate the school's 100th year. It is unfortunate that the very alumni were informed at the last minute," Shankar added.

"A friend of mine forwarded the invitation to me on WhatsApp. I will not attend the event on Saturday," added Shankar.
(CNN)  As this year comes to a close, 2017 is on track to set the all-time record for the most billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in any single year in US history.

There were 15 in the first nine months (equal to all of 2011, which set the record) and the final count, due early next year from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will no doubt include at least some of the hurricanes and wildfires that have happened since September.

Remarkably, the five costliest billion-dollar disaster years  2004, 2005, 2008, 2011, and 2012  have all occurred in the past 15 years. This trend matches what climate scientists have warned: Climate change makes disasters worse. Higher temperatures bring deeper droughts, extreme heat, higher-intensity storms, more wildfires, and stronger storm surge. 2017 brought us a taste of the Armageddon that lies ahead.

Unfortunately, as the rest of the nation has suffered, the Trump administration has spent its 2017 dismantling federal actions designed to both address the root causes of climate change and to prepare for its impacts. In just one short year, the White House has buried climate information, choked funding for scientific research, and stomped on efforts to prepare the United States for the coming risks.

This path will not only cost all of us more in the long run, it will also place more people in harms way. Yet, the need for commonsense action on climate change, including preparing for its catastrophic impacts, could not be more urgent.The Trump administrations assault on climate information began when the White House web page on climate change disappeared shortly after the Presidents inauguration. Less than two weeks later, information on federal climate plans, international climate cooperation efforts, and even reports that mentioned the role of carbon emissions in causing planetary warming vanished from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) websites.As the year rolled on, the new administration continued to stifle the flow of climate information. In August, the director of soil health at the United States Department of Agriculture blacklisted the words climate change and climate change adaptation, replacing them with weather extremes and resilience to weather extremes.Less than a month later at the EPA, a former Trump campaign worker sought to ban the double C-word (climate change) from the agencys research grant solicitations. Now, in December, we learned that senior officials at a Department of Energy-funded laboratory ordered scientists to censor the phrases global warming and climate change to accommodate the Presidents budget and its lexical contortions.Meanwhile, Trumps EPA boss Scott Pruitt has promised for 2018 a red team, blue team scientific debate on an issue about which 97% of climate scientists already agree. And just this week, even though his own secretary of defense earlier this year told Congress that climate change is impacting stability in areas where are troops are operating today, President Trump issued a 55-page National Security Strategy that omits any reference to climate change as a security threat.Within his first 100 days in office, President Trumps administration smashed the cornerstones of numerous federal climate policies. In a March executive order, Trump killed guidelines on how to consider greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of climate change in National Environmental Policy Act reviews. In the same order, he axed requirements that agencies develop climate adaptation plans and that national security officials plan for climate risks.In June, Trump announced he would withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. Finally, in August, just 10 days before Hurricane Harvey deluged Houston, Trump killed the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, which required construction projects built with taxpayer dollars to account for future flood risk caused by climate change. After Harvey proved just how wrongheaded that decision was, the Homeland Security Advisor promised a new policy was on its way.We are still waiting. [more]
Andrew Anglin, founder of a neo-Nazi website notorious for its racist internet trolling campaigns, has dubiously claimed he lives in Nigeria. A process server swears he recently spotted The Daily Stormer's publisher at a grocery store in his native Ohio.

Anglin's whereabouts  a key issue in a pair of lawsuits he faces  may not remain a mystery much longer.

A federal judge in Montana has warned Anglin's attorneys that he won't tolerate any "game-playing" and expects him to disclose where he has been residing, according to a court transcript obtained by The Associated Press.

Marc Randazza, one of Anglin's lawyers, told U.S. Magistrate Jeremiah Lynch during a Dec. 14 pretrial conference that he didn't know where his client is.

Anglin's site takes its name from Der Sturmer, a newspaper that published Nazi propaganda. It has struggled to stay online since Anglin published a post mocking a woman killed in a deadly car attack at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August.

"I can represent that he is outside of the United States," Randazza said, according to the transcript. "I had asked him where he is situated, and he changes locations regularly, and I don't know his whereabouts."

Montana real estate agent Tanya Gersh sued Anglin in April, accusing him of orchestrating an anti-Semitic internet trolling campaign that terrorized her family amid her dispute with the mother of a leading white nationalist. Months passed before Anglin's lawyers formally responded to the suit, arguing the First Amendment protects his posts calling for a "troll storm" against Gersh.

Anglin's attorneys have argued the court doesn't have jurisdiction over the case  and therefore must dismiss it  because Anglin is "not a citizen of any state." In a Nov. 30 court filing, they cited a CNN report that included Anglin's oft-repeated claim that he is living in Lagos, Nigeria.

The judge told Randazza he should "emphasize to Mr. Anglin there's not going to be any game-playing here."

"I don't want to be perceived as being an advocate, but he's going to have to detail what his travels have been, what his changes in location have been, because as you know, ultimately, again, I have an independent obligation to determine whether there's jurisdiction here. The ultimate question is his domicile," the judge said.

Gersh's lawyers accuse Anglin of playing a "childish game of hide-and-seek" and cite evidence he is living in the Columbus, Ohio, area.

Jeffrey Cremeans, a process server hired by Tanya Gersh's attorneys from the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a sworn affidavit that he was shopping at a grocery store in a Columbus suburb on Dec. 10 when he saw a man who strongly resembles Anglin at a self-checkout register.

"He appeared very paranoid, looking over his shoulder," Cremeans' affidavit says.

Cremeans said he asked the man if his name is Andrew.

"The man replied 'Nope' and then quickly fled the store," he said. Cremeans said he was "absolutely certain" it was Anglin, but couldn't serve him with the suit because he was on a personal errand and didn't have the paperwork.

In response to a Huffington Post report on the alleged sighting  before the affidavit was filed  Anglin mocked the process server's claim in social media posts.

"There are 2 million people in Columbus metro area. A process server happens by coincidence to run into me in a checkout line," he wrote on his Gab account. "No one (expletive) believes this. It is statistically impossible."

Gersh says her family received a barrage of threatening and harassing emails, phone calls and other messages after Anglin published their personal information, including her 12-year-old son's Twitter handle and photo. In a string of posts that began last December, Anglin accused Gersh and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, Montana, of engaging in an "extortion racket" against the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer.

Gersh's lawsuit said she agreed to help Spencer's mother sell commercial property she owns in Whitefish amid talk of a protest outside the building. Sherry Spencer, however, later accused Gersh of threatening and harassing her into agreeing to sell the property.

During the Dec. 14 discussion, one of Gersh's lawyers said they will be exploring whether others  including Richard Spencer  "may have participated in the decision-making process to start the troll storm" and therefore "might bear liability for the actions at issue here."

Anglin faces a separate federal lawsuit filed in Ohio by Muslim-American radio host Dean Obeidallah, who says Anglin falsely labeled him as the "mastermind" behind a deadly bombing at a concert in England. Anglin hasn't responded to that suit.
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NEW YORK (AP)  New York City says its jail population is below 9,000 for the first time since 1982 and is hailing the drop as a step toward closing the notorious Rikers Island jail complex.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday the city is on track for a daily average jail population in December of about 8,980 people.





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DEPOE BAY, Ore. (AP)  State Parks and Recreation officials say this weekend is an excellent time to see whales on the Oregon coast.

Ranger Luke Parsons from the Whale Watching Center in Depoe Bay says an estimated 20,000 gray whale are traveling south from Alaska to warm lagoons off the coast of Baja, Mexico.





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We're looking forward. And we're going to learn, Daines said. There will be lessons learned certainly from this last cycle. You always learn a lot, and we'll take those lessons learned and apply them going forward.
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The family of a Troy teen injured recently during an arrest has retained a Dothan law firm as well as a defense attorney known for representing parties in high-profile civil rights cases.

According to a release, Tallahassee attorney Ben Crump along with local attorneys Dustin Fowler and Steve Etheredge have been retained by the family of Ulysses KeAndre Wilkerson.

Wilkerson, 17, was involved in an incident with Troy Police over the weekend that resulted in Wilkersons hospitalization.

According to police, Troy officers noticed Wilkerson walking behind a closed business Dec. 23 just before midnight. Troy police said Wilkerson ran when approached by officers. He was apprehended after a foot chase and police said Wilkerson failed to comply with officers commands to put his hands behind his back. Police said Wilkerson then attempted to reach for his waistband. A struggle ensued and police subdued Wilkerson. He was taken to Troy Regional Medical Center and later transported to UAB Hospital in Birmingham with significant head injuries. Police said they used an amount of force reasonable and necessary to contain the situation.

Police said a handgun was found in the path from which Wilkerson ran. He was charged with obstructing governmental operations and resisting arrest.

The Alabama Bureau of Investigation is probing the incident.

Crump, 48, represented the parents of Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed in Florida in 2012 by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch coordinator. Since then, reports indicate Crump has represented the families of Michael Brown, whose shooting death in Ferguson, Missouri, led to weeks of rioting there, and Tamir Rice, who was shot and killed by Cleveland police in 2014.

Crump was part of a short-lived reality-based television show on Fox this year titled You the Jury.

We have been in communications with the state bureau of investigation, which has shared that they are diligently working toward answers for the community, the state, and our country as they complete a thorough investigation. The family is adamant about the community staying engaged to help seek for justice for their 17-year-old son. This is not just a matter of black and white; it is a matter of humanity, the two firms said in a joint release Thursday afternoon.
Philip Blumberg wants to invest in Dothan, much like his relatives Larry and Leslie Blumberg have for years, and the recent tax reform bill may help him accomplish the goal.

Philip Blumberg serves as the CEO of Blumberg Partners  a Miami-area firm that manages real estate investments and operates steel and grain facilities, among other investments. He said the recently passed tax reform bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last week is one of two major steps needed for Blumberg Grain to create a cold-chain food storage facility and a peanut processer in the Circle City.

Blumberg believes Trumps administration and pro-business attitude will soon help Blumberg Grain complete the other necessary step  the finalization of two major contracts in Egypt and Algeria.

If they hear from Trump, they will move forward, Blumberg said. We are hopeful he will take action after the first of the year.

Blumberg Grain specializes in the concept of food security, Blumberg said. He said factors like rats, mold, and rot cause up to 50 percent of the worlds produce to be wasted.

Cold-chain storage, though, reduces that percentage greatly  noting Blumberg Grain loses only 5 percent of its products due to those elements. In the case of peanuts, green peanuts are placed in a cold facility where nitrogen replaces oxygen in order to better preserve the peanuts.

The cold-chain process can extend the life of products by months, Blumberg said.

The proposed Dothan facility could create 100 quality manufacturing jobs, and Blumberg credited the pro-business tax reform package for making expansion feasible. One of the aspects that helps is the tax credits corporations receive for any investments in new facilities or equipment.

We get an immediate reduction in the income taxes, Blumberg said. The tax reform provides an encouragement to invest in infrastructure. The reduction in regulation makes it easier and quicker to invest.

Trumps policies provide a stark contrast to the bureaucracy-ridden administrations of past Republicans and Democrats, Blumberg said, calling the moves a sea change.

Im a Democrat, and Ive been impressed with Trump and his business advocacy, he said. I find myself supporting Trump.

Should the company finalize the contracts with Egypt and Algeria, Blumberg expects it to take six months to begin construction on the Dothan facilities. He credited officials with the Dothan Area Chamber of Commerce, the local government, and regional representatives from the Alabama Cooperative Extension Services for providing an easy platform for his business to expand to the Wiregrass.

They have given us access to an industrial park and everything we need, he said. They have been one of the most responsive local governments weve worked with  my compliments to Dothan.

For Blumberg, the project would fulfill a dream of investing in a city where his family has roots.

His great-grandfather, Hyman Blumberg, immigrated to America and eventually settled in the Dothan area. He farmed and operated a local store, and some members of the family still live here today.

Local firm Larry Blumberg and Associates is involved in several industries, particularly hospitality.

Compared to what theyve done (for Dothan), this would be a relatively small investment, Philip Blumberg said.
Access to the Crazy Mountains is back in the news, this time stimulated by a digital report titled Losing Ground: Montanas Endangered Access. If you are expecting a report with detailed maps and statistics, you will be disappointed. In fact you might call it a fake report.

It lists the top five endangered places, with the Crazy Mountains getting the No. 1 one ranking because extremely limited access prohibits many families from hiking, viewing wildlife, and biking this special place. Then it shows a touching, but also fake, 34-second video of a family walking through the woods only to be denied access by orange paint and a No Trespassing sign. There is no trail or road, only a gate to private property.

The only statistic comes from a 2013 report prepared by the Center for Western Priorities claiming 2 million acres in Montana are inaccessible to the public. Even this statistic is misleading because it includes national parks, state lands, and even military bases where access is limited by federal agencies. Indeed, a 2015-16 report from the Environmental Quality Council prepared for the Montana Legislature finds that only 1 percent of Forest Service land 148,000 acres  in Montana is inaccessible.

In the other endangered areas  Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument, Flint Creek Mountains, Bear Paw Mountains, and McGregor Lake  the issue is private road closures.

But if you want to point at road closures cutting off access to public lands, there is no bigger threat than the U.S. Forest Service that has closed nearly 22,000 miles of roads since the mid 1990s.

A simple way to quantify trail access is the number of official trailheads per square mile.

For the most endangered Crazies, the Gallatin Custer National Forest Service map shows 13 official trailheads amounting to one trailhead for every 46 square miles (30,000) acres. In contrast, the Bridger Range has 17 designated trailheads amounting to one for every 69 square miles. By this measure, the Bridgers should be listed as more endangered than the Crazies.

Losing Ground follows a Bloomberg Business Week article quoting retired deputy sheriff Brad Wilson who says private landowners will shut down pretty much the whole interior of the Crazy Mountains. As evidence in support of this claim, Losing Ground says Trail 122 (Sweet Grass Creek) is now inaccessible. In fact, that trail is accessed via a private road, privately maintained, where anyone desiring access can park on and hike across two miles of private land to access public land. You must sign in on a private log saying where you are going and how long you plan to stay, but it is accessible. The report also claims that Lowline and Elk Creek Trails are inaccessible. The Lowline Trail traverses seven sections of land, of which only two are Forest Service sandwiched between private, and it has never had documented historic access. The Elk Creek trail is accessible with permission from the landowner.

Simply giving a number to a trail and claiming historic use does not guarantee legal access. A map on the wall of the Yellowstone District Forest Service Office in Livingston marks six trails in the Crazies with notes saying, disputed. This means that access rights are in question.

The groups that complain about a lack of public access also advocate more wilderness, but more access in the small mountain chains will only reduce the wilderness experience. All of the disputed Crazy Mountain trails are easily accessible from nearby trailheads begging the question  how much access is enough?

The Losing Ground report also claims that the lack of public access creates severe problems managing the elk herd in the Crazies, citing an elk population of 4,800 in Hunting District 580 on the east side. Like almost every hunting district, this population exceeds FWP management objectives  975 in Hunting District 580. Opening access to the steep public lands in the Crazies will do nothing to reduce elk populations. More cow hunting on private land is necessary and that will only come with cooperation between landowners and FWP, not with litigious recommendations in the report.

The Forest Service is working with groups such as the Crazy Mountain Stockgrowers and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and with private landowners to resolve the disputed trails. One of those landowners says its the most cooperation Ive seen in 15 years.

Rather than trying to force access down the throats of private landowners, Montana Wildlife Federation and its comrades might try to find win-win solutions. In short, how about respecting private property and using good old fashion Montana neighborliness.
TWO Dundalk sisters who were victims of a convicted paedophile have said they are relieved he has been locked away because he is a dangerous man.

The sisters, who do not wish to be named, were sexually abused as children over a number of years by Dundalk man Peter Sharkey.

Speaking to the Dundalk Democrat after Sharkey was jailed for 18 years for raping and abusing children, the sisters - now aged 38 and 35 - said they want to warn everyone in town about him.

People need to know about him. He got a long sentence but he will be released eventually, said the 38-year-old woman.

Sharkey lived for a time at Wolfe Tone Terrace and his last Dundalk address was at Parnell Park before he moved to Mucknow Street, Castleblayney, Co Monaghan.

Sharkey sexually abused six children and raped two of them. All of his victims are from Dundalk and the offences occurred at adddresses in Co Louth.

The abuse went on for 28 years, until one of the victims went to gardai in April 2015. Sharkey pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent assault on dates between 1987 and 1990, six counts of sexual assault between 1997 and 2015 and two counts of rape.

The 38-year-old woman said: I've suffered with anxiety, depression and stress because of what he did to me. It was the most horrific time of my life.

I'm constantly reliving memories of it. It never goes away. It's something that I'm going to have to live with.

If anyone else has been affected by something similar I'd encourage them to come forward and not to be afraid.

The 35-year-old woman told the Dundalk Democrat that Sharkey's 18 year prison sentence is a good outcome but his victims have a life sentence.

It's extremely difficult to speak about it. It's been very painful for my parents and brothers  the whole family, she said.

It was a massive relief when he pleaded guilty. It was very emotional for all of us. We're just relieved other people will be safe now he's behind bars.

We have to try and not let him rob the rest of our lives. A lot of credit goes to the staff at Dundalk Garda Station for their work on the case. We are especially grateful to Garda Grace Harvey.

She added: No-one knew he was dangerous. He would have been regarded as nice. People in town would have been shocked by this.

I'd like to get the message across to anyone else who's experienced this to come forward because people like that don't stop offending.
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The job of Billings mayor is officially a part-time job. Mayor Tom Hanel never saw it that way.

From the time he was first sworn into office in January 2010 till this month, the last of his second and final term, Hanel has been the citys tireless ambassador. He hasnt carried that duty alone. Robin Hanel has been her husbands partner in representing Billings, sometimes standing in for the mayor at ceremonies and community meetings when the mayor had multiple commitments.

According to the Billings City Charter, the mayors duties are to preside at Billings City Council meetings, to appoint members to the citys numerous advisory boards and otherwise to serve as one of 11 elected council members. However, most of our citys life happens outside of council meetings. The Hanels have been active in our community. They have been Billings first cheerleaders for the past eight years. The Hanels donated their time, as well as Toms mayoral salary to Billings nonprofit organizations.

In 2017, YWCA Billings honored Tom for his advocacy for women, specifically for traveling to Helena to testify in favor of the YWCA Gateway Vista project before the Montana Board of Housing, which subsequently approved the financing authority needed to start construction on the 24-unit affordable apartment complex. Hanel was on hand for that groundbreaking as well as for Billings Housing Authoritys groundbreaking for Red Fox, a 30-unit low-income housing project in the Heights.

Tom was master of ceremonies for events ranging from the Billings Community Christmas Tree lighting to LIVESTRONG Day at Dehler Park. Tom and Robin co-chaired the American Cancer Societys annual Relay for Life. Dozens of local running races began with Tom firing the starting gun.

Robin, whose unofficial, unpaid work included keeping Toms schedule, estimates that he attended more than 5,000 meetings and other events as mayor.

The Hanels final mayoral event was a Thursday evening gratitude reception that Robin organized to thank the community for the great opportunity of serving. We had front-row seats to see what this community of volunteers is doing, Robin Hanel told The Gazette Thursday.

Robin worked with the successful Yes for Kids campaigns in 2013 that educated voters about the need for funds for more elementary teachers and the $122 million K-8 bond issue to address overcrowding and deferred maintenance.

When Hanel first ran for mayor of Billings, he already had mayoral experience  as mayor of Big Timber  and public service experience in Billings from 20 years as a police officer. Now the Hanels are part owners of Floberg Berkshire Hathaway where Tom is managing partner and broker and Robin is a real estate agent.

Asked what hes going to do next year with the time hes been devoting to city business, Tom told The Gazette: No. 1 is my family and, of course, my work, and I hope to enjoy a little more time with my wife.

Im going to miss it. Ive enjoyed it very much, Hanel said of his two mayoral terms.

Many Billings citizens will miss seeing the always enthusiastic Hanels at virtually every community gathering. Thanks, Robin and Tom, for your devotion to our citys vitality. We look forward to seeing you both around town and wish you well in the post-mayoral chapter of your lives.
The former One World boutique in downtown Bismarck could soon become an Italian eatery and wine bar.

A Bismarck couple is aiming to make the space on the corner of Fifth Street and Main Avenue into a second restaurant venture inspired by their week-long tour of Italy earlier this year.

Kenny and Kendra Howard, who operate Fireflour Pizza, plan to open Anima Cucina, Italian for soul kitchen, in the spring. The menu will focus on charcuterie, rotisserie meats and Italian-inspired baked goods.

Weve just always enjoyed Italian food, Kenny Howard said.

And what they enjoyed most from their travels was a family-style, shared-plate eating experience.

People here are used to eating as families; I think thats what we like about it, Kenny Howard said.

The couple has been considering a second venture for the past couple of years, so when the space became available, they were quick to express interest. The couple has a tentative agreement to lease the space as they wait for a decision on an income tax break from the state through the Renaissance Zone program.

Kenny Howard said they are still finalizing plans and getting construction estimates but the proposed capital investment listed on their Renaissance Zone application is $222,224.

On the Fifth Street side of the building, Kenny Howard said they plan to have a deli and espresso bar. They will be baking Italian breads to sell and to serve as sandwiches. The sandwiches will feature rotisserie meats, such as chicken and an Italian roasted pork called porchetta and specialty spreads. There also will be other baked goods for breakfast.

On the other side of the space will be open seating and a full-service wine and beer bar where customers also can order shareable smoked meat and cheese platters.

There are so many good wines from so many places in the world, said Kenny Howard, adding they wont limit themselves to just Italian wines.

The bar menu will include Roman pizza sold by the pound and could eventually include some pasta dishes.

The restaurant decor will include subway tile and other European cafe touches and will have seating for nearly 60 people.

What we try to accomplish from our restaurants is to give an unique, authentic experience that people cant have elsewhere in town  something that we experienced firsthand that weve really enjoyed, Kenny Howard. We want people to take time to enjoy themselves while eating.

The additional kitchen space also will allow them to expand their catering business.






Canada dairy farmers' annual policy conference slated for Feb. 5-8

The Dairy Farmers of Canada's Annual Dairy Policy Conference (APC) will be held on Feb. 5-8, 2018 (Monday-Thursday) in Ottawa, it was announced.

With the theme "Together for a Healthy Future", the conference has been bringing together the industry's leaders from coast to coast to discuss the issues that impact their everyday lives and livelihoods.

The DFC enjoined all dairy farmers and other stakeholders to join this year's conference to "make your voice heard and to network".

The conference will be followed by a research symposium.

To register, log on to http://dfc-events.ca/.
60 years of impact

In 2018 the European Investment Bank celebrates 60 years of improving lives in Europe and beyond.

The EIB is the lending arm of the European Union owned by its 28 Member States and is the worlds biggest multilateral lender. Since opening its doors in March 1958 it has invested in thousands of companies and projects, from start-ups to massive programmes like the resund Bridge linking Sweden and Denmark.

With more than 11 900 sustainable investment projects in around 162 countries, the EIB is turning good intentions into reality.

60 years - the EU bank at a glance [PDF]
Since the 1910s  or perhaps even earlier  the State Historical Society of North Dakota has been collecting military uniforms.

The collection started off small, but more than 100 years later consists of more than 1,700 uniforms  primarily military uniform jackets, pants, caps and footwear.

Each uniform, the lone Civil War uniform, the Iraqi soldier's jacket with Arabic writing scrawled inside and even their contents  the opera ticket from France or the half-burned photo of a Japanese soldier's late sons  carry stories waiting to be told.

Kept in climate-controlled storage beneath the North Dakota Heritage Center are rows of uniforms spanning from the Civil War era and one combat-associated uniform from the War on Terror.

The uniform collection probably contains the State Historical Society's oldest artifacts, said Geoff Woodcox, assistant curator of collections, who is in charge of maintaining the collection.

Uniforms are organized chronologically in space recently acquired through the Heritage Center expansion.

A majority of the uniforms were donated, Woodcox said. A Museum Collection Committee looks over any material donated to the State Historical Society. The committee tries to avoid redundancy in a current collection, but it also contemplates the history of an item.

"We consider the story behind it  that's one of the important things  it's not just the artifact, we're preserving the story behind it," Woodcox said.

Woodcox enters information on the donated uniforms and other artifacts into a computerized database. Its color, characteristics, text, measurement, even photos are all recorded, in part, to make searching for these items easier.

While doing data entry, Woodcox will occasionally find new information the donor had a misconception about, or something that a relative did. Thanks to the internet, he can learn more about items from 50 plus years ago.

"I'm able to find a complete biography about someone that we had no information in our files about them or what they did, which is sort of cool," he said.

Woodcox will sift through the pockets and oftentimes finds contents still inside. Mostly random items, including an entry pass into France, cigar wrappers and comb. Not all of it is positive, such as the used handkerchief that had visible boogers on it, or, as Woodcox called it when he found it, "historic boogers."

"To me this sort of thing provides that human context, I mean, we all leave things in our pockets," he said. "That's what's so cool ... it takes this sort of abstract story and turns it into a human story."

There's an array of uniforms from World War I, and there's almost a whole row of just World War II items, including women's uniforms from when women were officially allowed to serve. However, there's only one hanging rod containing modern uniforms  the latest from 2005.

"We have one combat-associated uniform compared to an entire row of maybe 150 World War II uniforms," Woodcox said. "I think that is definitely something that is lacking, but we have continued to make an effort."

Donations are made on an ongoing basis, including 15 this past month, according to Woodcox.

The history of one soldier is tied to one of those recent donations. Earlier this month, Kurt Peterson, 63, gave his military possessions to the State Historical Society. The donation process started this summer, and he finally turned over everything  75 items in total  earlier this month. He gave his Battle Dress Uniform, his diplomas and certificates of training and Russian artifacts from the 1990s.

Peterson was 24 years old when he joined the U.S. Army, and he spent 15.5 years on active duty. He learned Russian at a school in Monterey, Calif., which would later become part of his job duties.

"That's probably the thing that was the hardest to give up ... my basic Russian diploma, because I had worked really hard for that," said Peterson, who is an alternative education teacher for Mandan Public Schools.

His first permanent duty was in Germany from 1982 to 1984. He also fought in the Gulf War. Peterson said he traveled across the globe for various missions, remarking that he "almost got completely around the world except for 3 degrees."

Peterson said he was glad to donate his uniform to the State Historical Society's collection and he hopes it aids in education about the Cold War era.

"Being a part of that, you know, that's really cool," Peterson said. "People from way back, and all over North Dakota, and then my two cents' worth."

The uniform collection is open to the public. For more information, call the State Historical Society at 701-328-2666. Appointments are preferred.
The woman who didn't stop at a red light and collided with a Bismarck police officer last week has been cited for driving under the influence.

Andrea Lynn Lawler, 24, of Linton, was cited Friday for the Class B misdemeanor.

The North Dakota Highway Patrol previously reported she did not stop at a flashing red light while westbound on East Rosser Avenue before she pulled out onto North Seventh Street where she collided with Bismarck Police Officer Dawson Rogstad, who was on patrol and southbound in his patrol vehicle.

Rogstad braked but hit Lawler's passenger side with his front. He was later treated and released from a hospital for minor injuries from the Dec. 21 crash.

Roads were snow-covered at the time though the weather was clear, Highway Patrol reported.

Lawler and her passenger, Kellan Geiger, were uninjured.

Lawler also was cited for failure to stop or yield for a flashing red light, a $20 fine.

Lawler's initial appearance for her DUI citation is set for Jan. 17.

Her citation states a minimum mandatory penalty of a $500 fine and a chemical dependency evaluation.

This is her first such offense.
The year 2017 had its fair share of surprise engagements, shocking scandals, and devastating breakups that will probably be talked about in the years to come. Even though we only have a few days shy of the new year, there's no harm in looking back at the most talked about moments from 2017.

Google released the most searched celebrities, films, breakups, and scandals of 2017.

Here are some of the people who made the cut.

Meghan Markle

The former Suits actress began to make headlines when it was reported that she was dating Prince Harry. The Royal Britain, who is fifth-in-line to the throne, and Markle began dating back in 2016. It was assumed that eventually, the Prince would make Markle a Princess, and indeed, it happened. On Nov. 27th, their engagement was announced and Markle quickly became the top priority on every media outlet's list, which is why the future Princess is the second most searched celebrity of 2017.

Harvey Weinstein

Landing the number three spot is the disgraced movie mogul, Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein, who was once a celebrated Producer, came under fire after 80 women accused him of sexual assault, rape, and harassment. The epidemic created the "Weinstein Effect", which led to more men in Hollywood being accused of sexual misconduct. Among those who were accused are Dustin Hoffman, Sylvester Stallone, Russell Simmons, and Brett Ratner. Weinstein has since removed himself from the spotlight and is seeking help for his "sex addiction."

Matt Lauer

Another shocking and disturbing scandal was the termination of former NBC Today Show anchorman Matt Lauer. His dismissal, which blindsided everyone, was announced by his former co-host Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie. Following their announcement, Andrew Lack, chairman for NBC, gave an official statement that Lauer's termination resulted from a sexual harassment claim made by a female colleague. Since then, three more women have spoken against Lauer, with one claiming the two were engaged in a torrid affair. Lauer has not completely owned up to the allegations but did issue an apology to his family, friends, and co-workers. Lauer's scandal made him the number one searched celebrity of 2017.

Kevin Spacey

Landing the number five spot is another Hollywood giant. Kevin Spacey became entangled in the "Weinstein Effect" after he was accused by actor Anthony Rapp of sexual harassment when Rapp was a teenager. Spacey apologized for his behavior and also used the opportunity to announce he was a gay man. The announcement was met with poor reception and harsh backlash. More men began to come forward and publicly accuse the star of inappropriate behavior such as groping, indecent exposure, and harassment. Spacey was fired from the hit Netflix show, House of Cards, and has entered a rehab center for treatment and evaluation.

Anna Faris and Chris Pratt

For the most searched celebrity break-up, the shocking, yet devastating split of Chris Pine and Anna Faris, was at the top of the list. The favored pair decided to call it quits after ten years of marriage. For a while, it seemed that their love story would be a rare success in Hollywood but sadly it wasn't meant to be. The two have stated they will remain friends and focus on raising their son, Jack, together.

Gal Gadot

It's never easy having to fill a legend's shoes, and for Gal Gadot it was even harder. The actress was faced with severe criticism when it was announced that she would portray the iconic Wonder Woman, in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of the Justice League. Gadot, who also starred in Fast and the Furious, proved the critics wrong and blew audiences away with her stellar performance. Though Dawn of the Justice League didn't get the best reviews, the 32-year-old beauty was the true hero of the film, and the same could be said for the film's sequel, Justice League and her solo film, Wonder Woman.
Former guests of Dr. Phil have come forward with claims that the makers of the show tried to entice them with drugs and alcohol.

In an explosive article published by STAT and the Boston Globe on Thursday, Dec. 28, several former guests accused the show's host, Dr. Phil, and the producers of encouraging their addictions in the hopes of boosting TV ratings.

Troubling Claims From 'Survivor' Star Todd Herzog

Todd Herzog, a former contestant on the CBS reality series, Survivor, made an appearance on the show under the heavy influence of alcohol in 2013.

Herzog was on the daytime talk show to discuss his struggle with alcohol abuse. However, he was so intoxicated during the episode that he had to be carried onto the set and lifted into a chair.

He claims that he showed up on the Dr. Phil set completely sober but was left unattended in a dressing room with a bottle of vodka. He drank the entire bottle of Smirnoff and was then given a Xanax pill. The staff member who gave him the pill suggested it would calm his nerves but it only worsened his condition.

Guests Claim 'Dr. Phil' Staff Helped Acquire Drugs

Another former guest, a 28-year-old heroin addict named Kaitlin from Michigan, also made an appearance on the show hosted by Phil McGraw last year. Her mother, Joelle King-Parrish, alleges that the tabloid talk show's staff put her pregnant daughter's health at risk and played a part in their search for drugs.

Video footage of King-Parrish and Kaitlyn trying to buy drugs was aired during their episode. However, King-Parrish reveals that her daughter was going through withdrawal and needed medical attention, so she asked the staff members for help and told to take her daughter to a hospital.

After waiting for 4 hours at the hospital without any medical attention, she left and approached one of the show's producers for assistance. The producer tagged along as they headed to Skid Row in search of drugs.

Marianne Smith, who appeared as a guest on the show along with her heroin-addicted niece in 2012, also alleges that she notified the show's producer about her niece's withdrawal. However, the producer advised her to go to Skid Row to acquire the drug instead.

Martin Greenberg, the show's director of Professional Affairs, has denied claims that guests were given alcohol or told where to procure drugs from, and referred to the allegations as "absolutely, unequivocally untrue."
Tribal police and family members of a missing New Town woman continue to search for her despite a strained relationship between the two camps.

Olivia Lone Bear has been missing since Oct. 24. Her brother, Matthew, has spearheaded volunteer search efforts for her recovery, and said his familys relationship with law enforcement is non-existent.

Police havent showed up at a volunteer search headquarters for days, including a nine-day stretch recently, he said, adding that volunteers have several tip sheets waiting for law enforcement.

They dont come into headquarters; they dont strategize with us, Lone Bear said, adding that his family is considering legal action, but declined to elaborate.

Three Affiliated Tribes Police Det. Sam Lincoln said hes aware of the fractured relationship.

I think they get angry with us because we cant tell them everything were doing, and they know that, he said Friday. There are things were doing we just cant tell them.

Lincoln declined to elaborate on the investigations reach, but did say police have no working theory on Lone Bears disappearance.

The 32-year-old mother of five was last seen driving west on Main Street in New Town after leaving Sportsmans Bar. Neither she nor her truck has been found.

"The biggest issue we have is where in the heck is the truck?" Lincoln said.

Investigators havent ruled out foul play and continue to follow every tip, having received more than 500 leads, all documented, according to Lincoln. Tips have come from as far away as California, Florida and Louisiana.

We want to keep an open mind and were not going to get tunnel vision, and see this thing through and look at all aspects of this, he said. Where could she have went?

Search efforts have taken to land, air and Lake Sakakawea since early November.

Reward money continues to filter in, including $21,000 for information leading to the arrest or conviction of an assailant. On Friday, the Institute for Trafficked, Exploited & Missing Persons contributed $5,000, if foul play is suspected and information leads to an assailant's arrest and conviction.

Three Affiliated Tribes Police Capt. Grace Her Many Horses has been a liaison between the family and police. She said police continue to search, despite the snow and frozen lake.

"Up until it froze, we were continuing searching the water. Search and rescue teams were doing shorelines and open water," Her Many Horses said.

Various search and rescue groups have helped from different county and state agencies, she added. Patrol officers have been searching on their daily shifts, too, though Lincoln said searching has largely stuck to main thoroughfares since winter settled in.

"Were just still continuing everything that we can that we have done in the past," Her Many Horses said.

Matthew Lone Bear said volunteers are searching during the warmest part of the day to play it safe in wintry conditions.

Safety is the No. 1 concern, he said of keeping warm to vehicle reliability in the cold.

As for working with law enforcement, Lone Bear said his family is navigating the current "dysfunction."

We try to be civil with them, but it is what it is, he said.

Olivia Keri Lone Bear, 32, is Native American, about 5-foot-6 in height, weighs 130 pounds, has brown eyes, brown hair and various tattoos. She was last seen Oct. 24, driving a blue granite 2011 Chevrolet Silverado with North Dakota license plate 839 BRC.

Anyone with information related to her disappearance may call in tips at 701-627-6141 or 701-627-3617.
Ukrainian authorities and pro-Russian separatists swapped more than 300 prisoners of the Crimean War earlier this week  the largest exchange since 2014. Ukrainian authorities gave out more than 246 prisoners in exchange for over 70 prisoners that had been held in the no-mans land between government and separatists. Thank you for your endurance, posted Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on his Facebook page after seeing those returning from the separatist territories.

Out of the prisoners Kiev was meant to hand over, around 20 refused to go back to the separatist-controlled territory but appeared at the swap to confirm their decision. The prisoners kept by the rebels included soldiers, bloggers, human rights activists and academics. Both sides added that this successful swap could lead to more prisoner exchanges in the future. The conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in Ukraines eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk began in 2014 after a popular revolt toppled pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych.

The news of prisoner exchanges comes amidst the US decision to supply weapons to Ukraine. The US state department said last week that it would provide Ukraine with enhanced defensive capabilities. So far, Washington has only been providing Ukraine with equipment and training while allowing private firms to sell small arms to the country. Russia commented that this decision could fuel conflict in Crimea further.

Russias deputy foreign minister, Grigory Karasin, said that the US decision raises the danger of derailing the process of peaceful settlement in Ukraine. The White Houses decision to sell weapons to Kiev marks a change in policy and is expected to escalate tensions between Washington and Moscow. Barack Obama had considered sending weapons to Ukraine but in the end did not provide heavy armaments.
The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) has published a report on the security situation in Afghanistan, a third update since February 2015, providing a comprehensive overview of the security issues in the country in order to determine the status of Afghan asylum seekers. Between January and October 2017, more than 40,000 applications have been submitted in the EU by Afghan citizens, ranking third in top countries of origin in the bloc. Moreover, Afghan applications constitute the largest backlog of all countries of origin. At the end of October, there were about 64,000 asylum applications from Afghan nationals in the EU, all pending at first instance.

The Afghanistan security situation gives a brief context to the security situation, describes actors in the conflict, security trends and armed confrontations, as well as outlines tactics and arms used, state ability to secure law and order and the impact of the violence on the civilian population. The report also describes the security background in each of the 34 provinces and Kabul City with a special focus on violence-induced displacement.

Except for migration, the EUs partnership with Afghanistan is centered on the human rights dialogue, especially the rights of women and children. The October 2016 Brussels Conference on Afghanistan co-chaired by the EU and Afghanistan confirmed sustained political and financial support to peace, state-building and development in Afghanistan by the international community. The European Union used the occasion to pledge 5 billion out of a total 13.6 billion in support of the country in 2016-2020.

With this exceptional amount of funding, the EU is Afghanistans largest development cooperation partner. The EU funding is hoped to ensure that Afghanistan will remain on a firm path to political and economic stability. However, human rights organizations have criticized Brussels for repatriations of Afghan migrants under the Joint Way Forward deal signed by EU and Afghanistan last year. Meanwhile, doubts have also been raised about EUs proposal to launch an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconstruction process aiming at reaching a consensus of key state actors in the region.

The idea of encouraging consensus among all relevant stakeholders for the peace and development initiative steered by the empowered Afghan government is likely to fall short of expectations. The EUs efforts on capacity-building in Afghanistan have so far proved largely ineffective, with funds and resources provided by foreign donors having by and large been wasted because of the corruption and ineptitude of Afghan political and administrative institutions.

But, ultimately, the main obstacle to the EUs soft-power strategy to solve the Afghan conflict could be the Trump latest administrations military-oriented policy and the possible increase of US troops in the country  in this case, American bullets may indeed be more efficient, at least in the short run, than lofty European political agenda based on state-building and gender-equality.
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What had been a flood of taxpayers hoping to prepay 2018 property taxes before a cap on deductions takes effect under the new GOP tax bill turned into a trickle after the IRS issued guidelines Wednesday quashing those attempts.

Lisa Anderson, chief deputy of administration for the Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector, said 157 people rushed into the North Pecos Street office Tuesday and Wednesday after hearing they could lock in sizable deductions by prepaying their estimated property tax bills for 2018.

The law signed by President Donald Trump last Friday limits deductions for state, local and property taxes to $10,000, combined. Under the law still in effect until Dec. 31, the deduction for all three is unlimited.

So as of Wednesday morning, a taxpayer who estimated 2018 property taxes at $15,000 thought he could prepay $5,000 that cant be deducted next year and write it off against his 2017 taxes that are due in April. The anticipated loophole set off a flurry of last-minute prepayment, especially in high-tax states like New York and California.

Case in point: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, signed an emergency executive order to facilitate New Yorkers in prepaying.

Cuomos Dec. 22 order slammed Trump and the GOP majority for waging an all-out assault on this state and the nation and authorized local governments to issue warrants to levy property taxes by the end of the year.

Albert Uresti, Bexar County tax assessor-collector, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon, before the IRS issued its clarification.

We are not exactly sure how the new federal tax changes will affect those who pay their property taxes this year instead of waiting until 2018. We welcome our citizens to pay their property taxes early, regardless of the new tax laws, Uresti said. The Tax Assessor-Collectors Office will do everything possible to help our citizens complete their property tax transactions this year, if they feel it will help them receive additional federal tax benefits.

But many of those taxpayers likely will be disappointed.

A payment of anticipated real property taxes that have not been assessed prior to 2018 are not deductible in 2017, the IRS said in the statement issued at about 4 p.m. CST on Wednesday.

While tax policies differ by municipalities, the IRS essentially said that if someone has gotten a bill, say a July 1, 2017, notice of taxes for the July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018 period, they can pay the amount before Dec. 31 and still qualify for the unlimited exemption when they file their 2017 taxes.

However, taxpayers wont be able to claim the extra deduction for 2017 if property tax bills havent gone out yet  even if a county has revised its computer systems to accept prepayment of not-yet-assessed 2018 taxes.

Already, tax attorneys are on Twitter arguing over what a property tax assessment must contain and whether localities could issue them in the few remaining days of the tax year, so we havent heard the last on this issue, Nicole Kaeding of the nonprofit Tax Foundation said in a Wednesday evening blog post. But for many who have already prepaid, the benefit of their action is simply providing an interest-free loan to their municipality.

A Tax Foundation analysis found that eliminating a number of credits and deductions including the state and local tax deduction and a mortgage deduction limit to the first $750,000 in principal value is expected to raise $640 billion for federal coffers over the next decade.

No one qualifies for 2018 prepayment in Bexar County, because tax assessments for the next calendar year wont go out until October.

As of Thursday morning, not everyone had gotten word.

Let me put this on hold, said Brian Thompson of Terrell Hills, who on advice hed gotten from his CPA before the IRS statement, was about to write a check prepaying for 2018. I think Id rather keep that money in the bank.

The good news is taxpayers who prepaid either in the office, online or via postmarked correspondence either can consider themselves prepaid for 2018 or request a refund, though it may take several weeks to process.

If they ask for the money back, were obviously going to give it to them back, but were not going to go voluntarily just refunding, Anderson said.

Those wanting their prepayments back can fill out the Application for Property Tax Refund, which then will close the escrow account set up to prepay the taxes.

And those who still owe on 2017 taxes certainly are urged to finish out the years payments, especially if their bill is more than $10,000, Anderson said. She said about 80,000 out of about 700,000 accounts are on a split-pay option, with more taking advantage of a 10-month program eligible to the elderly and disabled that is unique among Texas 254 counties.

Bexar Countys property taxes on average run about $5,000 to $6,000. But if individuals with high-tax properties waited to pay those taxes in January, theyd count for 2018 and homeowners would lose out on the current deduction. Taxpayers in that category can pay in the office, online or via a check plus letter of intent postmarked on or before Dec. 31.

Thats what Susan Bowman of the Oak Park neighborhood did after showing up at the North Pecos Street office and wondering why there was no one in the waiting room of the property tax department.

Everybody got the memo but me, she said before digesting that while she couldnt save ahead for 2018, she could at least save by writing a check for the second half of her 2017 taxes.

Like many, Bowman has found it hard to keep up with the nuances of a massive tax overhaul pushed through by the Republican majority in the waning weeks of the year.

I even called my CPA and have not heard back, but I left a message, Should I pay or not? He probably doesnt have the answer either, she said. Its a big loss tax-wise for that write-off. You know, you almost want to move into a lesser-taxed home.

lbrezosky@express-news.net
With the San Antonio Symphony musicians contract set to expire Sunday, an orchestra representative said next weeks Tricentennial celebration concerts are up in the air.

While hanging onto hope that labor talks will continue, musicians on Thursday also blasted a nonprofit group that was expected to assume orchestra management for what they called a union-busting power play.

At this point, we plan to be at rehearsal on Jan. 3, said symphony violinist Craig Sorgi, negotiating chairman of the Musicians of the San Antonio Symphony. There have been no cancellations, no work stoppages, and there is still time on the clock to come to an agreement. Its not impossible.

San Antonio supermarket chain H-E-B, the Tobin Endowment and the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation set up the nonprofit Symphonic Music for San Antonio and announced plans in July to take over the symphonys assets and operations from the 78-year-old symphony society by Sept. 1.

The group announced Wednesday that it had pulled out of the deal, citing a $4 million liability related to the musicians pension fund, which it said was disclosed recently in a letter from the American Federation of Musicians & Employers Pension Fund.

Bruce Bugg, chairman of Symphonic Music for San Antonio, acknowledged on Thursday that he made a mistake in citing the number, which was a reference to the multiemployer pensions net unfunded vested benefits of $4.5 billion.

The symphony musicians had pointed out the mistake in a statement released Thursday.

The pension fund letter identifies a $4.5 billion number for the fund's total net unfunded vested benefits aggregated of all participating employers nationwide and all participating employees nationwide, according to the statement. This is not a liability figure of the (Symphony Society of San Antonio).

However, Bugg insisted the symphony society was potentially liable for $8.9 million, which the letter identifies as an estimated withdrawal liability, and that it remains a deal-breaker.

I dont see a path forward working with the symphony society, given what has been exposed in this letter, he said.

Musicians countered that the figure was grossly false.

Right now, there is no debt that the symphony society owes the pension fund, said symphony bassoonist Brian Petkovich, secretary-treasurer of the local musicians union. The annual payment that the symphony society makes to the fund is $120,000, which is such a small part of the symphonys budget (of $7.6 million). That shouldnt keep the orchestra from being onstage.

Alice B. Viroslav, a San Antonio physician recently elected board chairwoman of the symphony society, also said the symphony is not in debt to the pension fund.

The pension penalty is solely related to the shortfall of the overall pension fund, she wrote in an email. The symphony was and has always been current on all payments to the pension.

Chicago arts consultant Drew McManus said the pension fund liabilities did not mean that the symphony society was in arrears.

Withdrawal liabilities only kick in when you pull out of the fund, he said.

A symphony society board meeting to discuss all these matters is scheduled for Tuesday.

Really, were in a wait-and-see mode right now for what the other side is going to do, Petkovich said.

As far as next weeks and upcoming concerts, he added, Were really up in the air.

sbennett@express-news.net
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Its a bittersweet thing, being at Francis Bogside again.

I was here last October, when Bogside and its adjoining sister restaurant, Brigid, launched a new menu that fostered more crosstalk between the two sides. Francis Bogside was the working-class bird, Brigid the well-off socialite. Practically fabulous.

Then the fire happened.

Just a few weeks after the relaunch, embers from an oven set the roof on fire, and both Brigid and Francis Bogside went to ground while owner Steve Mahoney and his team decided what to do next.

On Halloween  a year to the day after the fire  Mahoney brought back Francis Bogside, this time on its own, filling both sides of its South St. Marys Street building with a pub that draws on Irish inspirations but also does whatever the hell it pleases.

And what pleases Francis Bogside pleases me, with a menu that folds creative bar food into a familiar backdrop of pizza, burgers and steak.

Look, I know that steak and fries doesnt sound nearly as sophisticated as steak frites. How about steak and chips? Because for $22, Francis Bogside makes one of the best steak dinners in town.

More Information Francis Bogside ** 803 S. St. Mary's St., 210-369-9192, francisbogside.com Quick bite: Plush Irish-style pub and restaurant with low lights, lots of seating and a menu with creative twists on bar food, plus pizza, burgers and steak. Hit: Flatiron steak, Guinness onion rings, Scotch egg Miss:Yardbird Curry, beef cheek mac and cheese Hours: 4 p.m.-2 a.m. Monday-Saturday. 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Sunday. Price range: Appetizers, $6-$11; burger, $12; pizza, $13-$16; entrees, $14-$22. Alcohol: Beer, cocktails and wine **** Superior. Can compete nationally. *** Excellent. One of the best restaurants in the city. ** Very good. A standout restaurant of its kind. * Good. A restaurant that we recommend. (no stars) We cannot recommend this restaurant at this time. See More Collapse

This place understands flat iron, that marbled chop from the shoulder clod, fanned out in six fat slices to show off its medium-rare core. The steak came with clean, handcut pinkie fries and a smart arugula salad. Bar food? No, raise-the-bar food.

On that same bar-raising note, Francis Bogside makes one of the best vegetable dishes in San Antonio. The kitchen roasted and seared cauliflower to a perfect firmness, then dressed it with golden raisins, pecan, garlic and a sauce advertised as chimichurri that behaved more like honey mustard. Ask your doctor if $14 is right for you.

Here in the U.S. of H(amburgers), even an Irish pubs gotta have a burger. The Bogside Burger employs the dogpile technique: two patties, lots of American cheese and a shiny brioche bun. I added bacon and a fried egg for an extra five bucks. Build it as high as you like. Until it evolves past overcooked burger-shop beef patties, the Bogside Burgers not a landmark.

An Irish pub is a surprising place to find what amounts to a well-made margarita. The William B. Ward was a red-cheeked interloper made with reposado tequila, lime, orange and grenadine. Its no surprise that Bogside pours a proper imperial pint of Guinness, with a short crown of froth and a cascade of blond bubbles churning under the black waters.

Guinness is a magical thing. First for drinking. But its also part of the batter for onion rings with a malty brown armor thick as a puffy winter coat. Its tempura. Its beer batter. Its a drunk bakers cake doughnut. Whatever. Its enough for a hungry table at just $7 with Guinness (again) malt vinegar in the style of fish and chips.

Much to my chagrin, there are no fish and chips to bring that crazy Guinness batter to its highest purpose.

One of the pubs most aspirational dishes came from that most blue-collar of pub creatures, the Scotch egg, starting with pork sausage fried around a soft-boiled egg with a heart of liquid gold. Bogside took it South with a bed of black beans and pork chile verde.

If I can have a decent margarita in an Irish pub, I can abide a Scotch egg that thinks its a bowl of chili.

What should have been the best kind of bar food  macaroni and cheese with beef cheek meat  was a sloppy mess instead, like that friend who just HAS to get wasted every time you go for a drink.

Lets give the bar credit for trying to do tuna aguachile. It was a lovely long canoe of a dish, with a base of olive oil and tomatillo puree spiked with jicama and cherry tomatoes, then a row of seared scarlet tuna dominoes toppled over in a neat row.

All good so far. Then fried capers crashed the party, as inescapable as burned popcorn kernels.

The United Kingdoms embrace of the Indian subcontinent got a mighty bearhug from Yardbird Curry. More like a mosh pit elbow than a hug, really. Hard and chalky knobs of chicken got in the way of an otherwise rich, deep and spicy curry gravy.

A trio of lamb meatballs warmed more convincingly to the embrace, seasoned with grace and dressed with a nice yellow turmeric yogurt. Crisp counter-notes came from a tangle of cucumber ribbons spiked with sharp zaatar spice.

Francis Bogsides also a pizzeria  a show of defiance and fidelity to its roots after the wayward spark that led to its fiery death and resurrection.

One pizza laid a foundation of butternut squash alfredo sauce over a thin and crackery crust similar to a toasted flour tortilla. Sinewy mushrooms and a thin sheet of prosciutto di Parma gave the pie a kind of artisan grilled cheese character. It was an adequate pub pizza. But for $15, it shouldnt need a two-beer buzz to make it more attractive.

I like bacon and pineapple on a pizza, but Bogsides Pit Pig turned that formula into an alien landscape of barbecue sauce and squiggles of sriracha sour cream. Its like they threw a pizza party and just let everybody in with no ID check.

The best pizza was a straightforward pepperoni scattered with toasted garlic over red sauce and cheese. But still, there was that flatbread crust and a $16 price tag.

At the end of the night, a request for an Irish whiskey nightcap came back with a level-headed Teeling single malt. With a water back. And an eyedropper. That kind of attention to detail, plus a kitchen that hits far more than it misses, earns the reborn Francis Bogside two stars.

Note: This is a full Taste Test review, with a star rating based on multiple visits.

msutter@express-news.net | Twitter: @fedmanwalking
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Adrian Batista runs two laps around his house every morning before he leaves for De Zavala Elementary School on the West Side. But the 7-year-old doesnt eat breakfast.

I wake up too late, Adrian said as he sat at his desk in his second-grade classroom eating Cheerios before morning announcements one recent day.

Across from Adrian, 8-year-old Nathaniel Hernandez ate a baked apple bar and drank a carton of orange juice before starting on a larger carton of milk. Nathaniel said he doesnt drink anything until he gets to school and that without his school breakfast he would be thirsty.

De Zavala and the vast majority of San Antonio Independent School District schools serve free breakfast to all students in their homerooms. The breakfast in the classroom procedure drove participation rates so high that SAISD earned the top ranking among the states largest school food programs from Children at Risk, a Houston-based nonprofit think tank and education advocacy group.

We are ecstatic, said Jenny Arredondo, SAISDs senior executive director of child nutrition.We obviously know the need is out there, that it exists in our community, and we want to make sure food is available when and where kids need it.

More Information Top 10 school food programs Children at Risk ranked school districts with at least 10,000 students, at least 60 percent of whom are economically disadvantaged, based on four factors: low-income student participation in school lunch and school breakfast, and whether the district serves supper or offers snacks at after-school programs. 1. Clint ISD 2. Rio Grande City CISD 3. Weslaco ISD 4. San Antonio ISD 5. McAllen ISD 6. Harlandale ISD 7. Los Fresnos CISD 8. Donna ISD 9. Dallas ISD 10. Del Valle ISD See More Collapse

In a separate ranking of districts with more than 10,000 students and with at least 60 percent of them economically disadvantaged, meaning they qualify for free or reduced-price meals based on federal income thresholds, Children at Risk rated SAISD fourth and Harlandale ISD sixth. Several school districts in the Rio Grande Valley  including Rio Grande City Consolidated, Weslaco and McAllen ISDs  also made the top 10.

About 90 percent of SAISD students are economically disadvantaged. State law requires schools in which the figure is more than 80 percent to offer free breakfast to all students. Through the federal Community Eligibility Provision, almost all SAISD schools receive federal funding for all students to eat at least two free meals per day because the campuses have such a high number of students receiving anti-poverty services such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

More than 99 percent of the 610 students at De Zavala qualify for free or reduced lunch, Principal Donna Finch said.

Our children here are hungry, so we have a moral obligation to feed their bellies, Finch said.

This is the second time that Children at Risk has analyzed school districts nutrition programs, and the nonprofit plans to release annual rankings, said Jenny Eyer, director of the organizations Center for Child Health, Research and Policy.

Food and nutrition departments play a very important role in the education of our kids, Eyer said. Hungry kids dont learn as well.

For the rankings, Children at Risk used last school years data from the U.S. Agriculture Department to score school districts on four factors: low-income student participation in school lunch, their participation in school breakfast, whether supper is served for after-school programs and whether after-school snacks are offered.

To calculate breakfast and lunch participation, researchers divided the daily average of free or reduced meals by the number of eligible students. Breakfast participation was weighted to account for 50 percent of a school districts score because schools have an easier time getting students to eat lunch, Eyer said.

For lunch, students are all shepherded into the cafeteria to eat together in the middle of the day. By contrast, students who have to arrive early to eat breakfast in the cafeteria might miss it, or they might stay away for fear of being stigmatized because students who can afford full-price school breakfast tend to eat it at home, Eyer said.

The school districts ranked highly by Children at Risk got around those obstacles with innovative ways to serve breakfast, including breakfast in the classroom or grab-and-go kiosks, Eyer said.

Most SAISD schools have served breakfast in the classroom since 2009, Arredondo said. At campuses with after-school programs, such as tutoring or extended-day classes, the district has served supper at the end of the school day since 2011, she said. Students who are still on campus two hours later can receive snacks, she said.

According to Children at Risk, 86 percent of eligible children in SAISD participate in free or reduced-price lunch and 80 percent participate in breakfast.

Starting next month, SAISD will pilot a new supper program at De Zavala that will be open to all children in the area, Arredondo said. The district is also establishing food pantries for times when students are away from campus, she said.

In the past two years, SAISD has focused anew on food quality, soliciting student feedback and working with culinary students to create menus, Arredondo said.

We want it to be appealing and tasty, and of course, healthy and nutritious, she said.

amalik@express-news.net
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The last ride for Kameron Prescott, the little boy who wanted to become a fireman, came Thursday morning in a fire engine red casket with a smoke-eaters ax and helmet attached on top.

His fireman uncle, Mike Martin, who had inspired the childs passion, was one of the four pallbearers who gently escorted him past a police honor guard to a waiting white Cadillac hearse.

The funeral at the Universal City United Methodist Church came a week after Kameron, 6, was accidentally and fatally shot by Bexar County deputies in his home at a Schertz mobile home park.

Also killed was a woman with a felony record who had broken into the Prescott home, and according to police, appeared to be holding a gun.

The entire episode is being investigated by Bexar County authorities.

Nearly 600 people, including teachers, friends, family, police and firefighters, came together for the 10 a.m. service Thursday. They filled the main sanctuary to standing room only, and spilled out into two overflow rooms. At the request of the family, the service was closed to the media.

It was a very tender, and at times tearful service, said the Rev. Linda Baumheckel, senior pastor of the host church, and at times there was laughter as people remembered the funniness and joy of the child.

Amid the prayer and remembrances, the eulogy and inspirational song, she said, was a message of comfort for those who had known and loved the child.

The promise to Kamerons family is that he is with God, that he has a resurrected life with Jesus Christ. And its our hope that we will see him again, she said.

In the program for the service, Prescott, a first-grader at Wiederstein Elementary and a Tiger Scout in Pack 51, Schertz, was portrayed as a member of a large family, who loved his cousins Arya and Brycen, and taking care of his younger cousin Abrianna. He likewise enjoyed riding his bike and scooter, playing ninja turtles and looking forward to becoming a fireman.

Uniformed police from at least a half-dozen area agencies turned out to honor Kameron, the grandson of a San Antonio Police Department officer.

Firefighters from three area departments also attended, and a bright red tank truck from LaCoste Fire Department rolled prominently in the procession to the burial in San Antonio.

Its the everlasting brotherhood and we support each other. His uncle is a friend of mine, remarked Frank Arocha, 51, a fireman from LaCoste.

And were here because he wanted to be a fireman, he added of the child.

The eulogy was delivered by Pastor Jose M. Cruz of the Bridge Christian Center in San Antonio.

The real message was to live life with purpose. Kameron was an energetic little boy who lived life purposely, loved his family purposely and looked to his future purposely, he said afterward.

So we ought to take his example, to love one another, to hope for the future, and to dream big, he added.

No stranger to the pulpit, Cruz said that standing in front of so many people brought together by a mere child was especially moving.

It was just an overwhelming feeling to see how much love and support came to Kameron and his family. Even though it is a tragic accident, all of that was put aside to show love and support, he said.

jmaccormack@express-news.net
AUSTIN  Texas could become an even larger player in future presidential contests based on new projections that show the Lone Star State's population growing large enough to receive as many as 41 electoral college votes  three more than it has now.

Texas has added nearly 3.2 million people since the last federal census, in 2010, according to population estimates. If the trend continues, the state stands to gain as many as three more seats in Congress while states with declining populations  such as Illinois  would lose seats.

More congressional seats means more electoral votes in presidential elections.

With as many as 41 electoral votes, Texas would wield more clout than ever before in presidential elections. If the extra votes had been in place the last decade, for example, Texas would have increased President Donald Trump's 2016 margin of victory in the Electoral College and trimmed President Barack Obama's 2012 margin over Mitt Romney.

The projections for the additional congressional seats come from Election Data Services, a political consulting firm that relied on data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Dec. 20.

As large states such as California and New York have tended to back Democrats in presidential elections, Texas has become an essential state for Republican candidates to boost their totals. Texas has voted Republican in every presidential election since Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980. For all intents and purposes, a Republican cannot win the White House without Texas' haul of electoral votes.

Texas would still trail California, with 55 electoral votes, as a coveted Election Day prize.

But over the last three decades, the Lone Star State has closed the gap. California has added just one electoral vote since 1990; Texas will have added 10 to 11 by 2020.

"It would take a couple of more decades like this, but Texas is catching up," said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services, a political consulting firm that specializes in redistricting data analysis.

The gains will also surely set off a battle over where those new congressional seats get located.

Starting in 2021, the Texas Legislature would determine which parts of the state get the new seats. Although both Harris County and the Rio Grande Valley have seen big population gains, it doesn't mean those areas will necessarily get the new seats, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.

That's because of how political Texas has been in drawing congressional district lines over the decades, whatever party has been in charge. The party in power has generally pushed the partisan gerrymandering to its limits and forced the courts to step in.

In 1991, a federal court voided primary elections in 13 districts and imposed a court-drawn map after then-majority Democrats tried to use redistricting to hurt GOP numbers. In 2003, the tables turned and it was Republicans that drew a map in their favor that resulted in Democrats hiding out in New Mexico and then Oklahoma in a failed effort to keep the maps from becoming law.

And even now, the state has been operating under temporary court-ordered maps drawn for the 2012 elections and adopted by the Legislature in 2013 that are still part of legal challenges that have yet to be fully resolved.

Texas's messy history of drawing congressional district lines is due to one key reason, Rottinghaus said.

The stakes are so high and both parties know it, he said.

What is certain is that the increase in electoral votes won't be in place until the 2024 presidential election cycle, when Trump conceivably could be finishing a second term. The census won't be finished until after the 2020 presidential election is decided.

In 2017 alone, Texas had the largest population growth of any state in the nation  adding 399,734 people, according to the Census Bureau. Florida was second with 327,811 people added, and California was third with 240,177 new residents.

While Texas is on pace to add at least two seats in Congress and possibly three, northern states stand to lose seats. Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Minnesota are all expected to lose seats in Congress if population trends continue until 2020, when the next official census is conducted.

A big unknown is how the 2017 hurricane season could affect the population numbers.

Data for the population estimates were done in July, before Hurricane Harvey hit Texas and Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. Those storms could have shifted populations enough to ultimately affect how seats, and thus electoral votes, are distributed.

It won't be until next year when we see whether population lost in Houston was enough to keep Texas gaining only two districts instead of three, Brace said.

Florida similarly could be affected by the storms, as reports suggests hundreds of thousands of people from Puerto Rico have relocated to Florida since Maria.

After Hurricane Katrina hammered New Orleans in 2005, the ensuing population loss resulted in Louisiana losing a seat in Congress, instead of gaining one as projected before the storm.

If Texas growth continues, whether it has 38 or 39 U.S. House seats may very well hinge on Montana. Brace said Montana has been growing and could pick up a second seat in Congress. If that happens, Texas could be blocked from getting that 39th seat under a formula used by Election Data Services to project future reapportionments.
Southeastern Oklahoma has received some rainfall in recent days- and that has lessened the level of drought in that part of the state of Oklahoma. However, northwestern counties have continued dry- and the result is that now three fourths of Oklahoma is in at least D1 Drought or worse as we end 2017. The 75% drought total is up from 65% a week earlier- as seen in the Weekly Drought Monitor map above.

Minimal precipitation is in the forecast for the next few days while arctic air will roll into Oklahoma- and the cold wind chills will envelope all of the state by Monday morning- January first.

Wind chills could go as low as fourteen below in the Bartlesville area according to the Tulsa National Weather Service Office- while the Oklahoma City office sees wind chills to zero in Durant and two below in Ardmore that same morning.

The map below captures what the NWS office in Oklahoma City is currently thinking.

Click here to see more...
He said more than 80 per cent of Australias workforce is located in its largest cities, where the public service spends four times more on wages than in the regions.
So while there has not been substantive adoption in the Mid West to liquids as a management practice, Im encouraged by what I see in new products and delivery systems that will make it more cost effective and hopefully, profitable, for farmers to go that way.
Bismarck is looking to deter red light runners in 2018 with the installation of law enforcement confirmation lights at 107 intersections.

When the light turns red, that confirmation light will be illuminated, allowing officers to see lights from the side, said Bismarck Police Lt. Jeff Solemsaas, who is in charge of the traffic division.

The auxiliary lights are connected to traffic control signals with the aim of helping law enforcement officers identify drivers who violate red lights.

A primary goal of this project is ... Bismarck police will be able to enforce red light running more effectively, said Gabe Schell, city engineer. This would hopefully reduce the number or red light violators and improve safety at these intersections.

The city commission approved the project on Sept. 26, entering into two agreements with the North Dakota Department of Transportation  one agreement each for the signalized intersections on the Urban Roads System and the Primary and Secondary Regional Highway Systems.

The lights will be omnidirectional and mounted on top of the pole near the signal head. Some intersections may have as many as eight confirmation lights, as protected left turns will have their own confirmation light, located on the underside of the traffic-signal pole.

In North Dakota, in order to issue a ticket for running a red light, officers must prove the vehicle did not enter the intersection before the light turned red.

There is about a three- to four-second delay where the lights will be red all four directions. In order to issue a ticket, the light has to turn red before the vehicle enters that intersection, Solemsaas said, noting the intersection begins at about the pedestrian crosswalk line.

The fine for running a red light in Bismarck is $20.

In my personal opinion, $20 is a not a deterrent to running red lights, Solemsaas said.

In 2017, Bismarck police issued 297 citations for red light violations through mid-November, Solemsaas said. There were no red light fatalities in 2017.

Confirmation lights are not red light cameras, which are forbidden in North Dakota by the Legislature.

In North Dakota, we need to identify the driver of the vehicle in order to issue a ticket, Solemsaas said. In other states, people are getting tickets even though they are not driving the car.

Installation of the lights is slated to begin in the spring, once the weather allows, with a tentative completion date of Oct. 13.

On Tuesday, the city commission awarded the project to Strata Corp., of Grand Forks, whose bid was the lowest at $478,355. The company will install 498 confirmation lights, at a cost of $450 per unit.

In addition, existing pedestrian signal heads will be replaced in numerous intersections with countdown pedestrian signal heads, which flash numbers that count down the number of seconds remaining until the "don't walk" hand is displayed.

The citys share of the project is estimated at $49,000, which will be funded by sales tax dollars.

The combination of confirmation lights and enforcement efforts has been shown to reduce the number of red light violators, as well as increase the efficiency of enforcing red lights, city officials said.

I think confirmation lights are going to make enforcement a lot easier. If people are aware of them, maybe they wont run red lights as much, Solemsaas said. Were going to step up our enforcements, because it will be easier.
The late Sir Roger Moore has been chosen as PETA's Person of the Year for 2017.

Sir Roger Moore

The legendary actor - who passed away in Switzerland in May this year following a short battle with cancer - has been named as the animal rights organisation's winner of the accolade after he was recognised for his hard work involving animals.

PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk said: "Animals in dire need had a caring, charming friend in Sir Roger Moore.

"PETA is honoured to recognise this wonderful man for sticking his neck out for the vulnerable amongst us time and again.

"We will continue campaigning to help the animals he cared so deeply about."

Roger contributed financially to the welfare of animals when he paid for an advertising campaign to urge Selfridges to stop stocking foie gras.

He also raised awareness of the work PETA do to protect animals from cruelty.

Roger also used his trademark wit and charm to try and ask the Prime Minister to introduce a ban on wild-animal circuses across the country.

The animal rights organisation offered their condolences to the actor's family after it was confirmed the 'Man with the Golden Gun' star had passed away aged 89.

Mimi Bekhechi, Director of International Programmes PETA, said in a statement: "Animals have lost a dear friend with the passing of Sir Roger Moore.

"The long-time PETA supporter may have been best known for his suave portrayal of James Bond, but we believe some of his greatest achievements were his efforts on behalf of animals - including fronting a campaign pushing British department store Selfridges to stop stocking foie gras (it did!), boldly calling for the Queen's Guard's bearskin hats to be replaced with synthetic materials, and offering to pop a champagne cork with Theresa May if she brought forward a long-awaited ban on wild-animal circuses.

"Sir Roger was always an inspiration to work with. He called out animal abuse with wit and charm, and PETA will continue campaigning to help the animals he cared so deeply about."
With just a couple of days of 2017 left to get through, thousands are already putting their 2018 plans into place and for many, that includes setting up some movie dates! Here, we take a look at 5 Movies We Cant Wait To Watch To Bring In The New Year, focusing on those released in January 2018! Read on and find out what YOU should be watching to kick off your year the right way

5) Mollys Game (Released January 1, 2018)

Based on the true story of Olympic-class skier Molly Bloom, who turned her life into something completely different when she set up the worlds most exclusive high-stakes poker game, Mollys Game sees a whole other side to the tabloid sensation explored, with Jessica Chastain taking on the titular role. Eventually taken down by 17 FBI agents in the middle of the night, Molly must fight for her freedom in court, with her only ally being her criminal defense lawyer Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba). Also starring the likes of Chris ODowd, Graham Greene, Joe Keery, Jon Bass, Kevin Costner, Madison McKinley, Michael Cera, Natalie Krill and Rachel Skarsten, Mollys Game looks to be one of the most star-studded pictures of the year!

4) All The Money In The World (Released January 5, 2018)

Ridley Scott returns to the directors chair for All The Money In The World, with Christopher Plummer taking over Kevin Spacey in one of the films leading roles following the sexual assault and misconduct allegations levelled at the latter. A frenzy of reshoots took place to ensure the picture could still be released on time, and now we cant wait to see what has come of the flick.

Following the real-life kidnapping story of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer), audiences will see the teens devoted mother Gail (Michelle Williams) form a close bond with her billionaire fathers (Plummer) advisor (Mark Wahlberg), all while her sons life hangs in the balance. In a race against time, a ransom is sent to Getty Sr., but he refuses to pay the ransom. What happens next ultimately reveals, according to the synopsis, the true and lasting value of love over money.

3) Darkest Hour (Released January 12, 2018)

Winston Churchills tackling of the Nazi forces and Hitler when he ruled over the United Kingdom as Prime Minister is a story thats often explored, but never to the extent were set to see when Darkest Hour finally hits cinemas across the UK. With the Nazi forces rolling across Western Europe, Churchill (Gary Oldman) must make the decision of whether to bow down to their pressures, or stand up for the values of the majority of citizens and fight for the freedoms of millions. Sceptics sit around each corner, so the PM must prove he has what it takes to ensure the United Kingdom remains exactly that; united with one primary goal.

2) Coco (Released January 19, 2018)

Already making a great impression across the world, Coco will finally come to the UK this January, telling the story of aspiring musician Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez), who travels from the Land of the Living to the Land of the Dead. Though hes from a family that have a strange ban on music, Miguel has ambitions of becoming a performer just like his idol Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt), but must find a way to prove his talents. Dropping into the Land of the Dead following a mysterious string of events, he meets trickster Hector (Gael Garcia Bernal), with the two then setting off on a journey like none other. Its there that he discovers his true family history, and a whole new wealth of knowledge is opened up to him.

1) Maze Runner: The Death Cure (Released January 26, 2018)

The final chapter of the Maze Runner film series comes in the form of The Death Cure this January, bringing the saga to its epic conclusion and seeing Thomas (Dylan OBrien) lead his group of friends on their most dangerous mission of all. The legendary Last City may look like an impenetrable place, but the group must find a way to get inside if theyre to save their friends. The labyrinth is tough, but those who make it out alive will finally get the answers theyve been searching for all of this time

by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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Princess Diana's campaign to clear war zones of land mines has been given extra British aid funding.

Princess Diana

The late royal - who tragically passed away in 1997 when she was involved in a fatal car crash in Paris, France - championed the fight to clear land mines from various war zones across the world through her work with charities such as The HALO Trust.

And now, thanks to the Mine Advisory Group's Walk Without Fear Christmas appeal held by BBC Radio 4, the mission to rid the world of the explosive devices will now be given an extra 400,000 to help with the process.

It comes after a whopping 200,000 was raised in donations, which was then matched by the UK government's Department for International Development.

The whopping total comes after International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt pledged a further 100 milllion over three years whilst at an event supported by the late Princess of Wales' son Prince Harry earlier this year.

De-mining work is expected to take place in countries including Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and Angola, where Princess Diana famously walked through a mine field in 1997 to highlight the danger to civilians.

Speaking about continuing the fight against land mines, Penny Mordaunt said: "Landmines have left a shameful legacy of suffering across the world, and the British public can be proud of their contribution to eradicating this hidden, indiscriminate killer.

"These barbaric weapons of war kill innocent people years after a conflict has ended, and have left so many devastated families mourning the loss of loved ones.

"The thousands that do survive have been left maimed and seriously disabled forever, unable to work, unable to feed their families and suffering from a lifetime of debilitating pain.

"Twenty years after Princess Diana's call for action resonated in every corner of the world, Britain is at the forefront in saving thousands of lives and ensuring that future generations will now have the chance to live without fear of being killed by a weapon from the past."
Decisions to amend relevant laws, restart 13 closed mills, cover garment manufacturing-exporting units under the labour ministrys welfare fund, adopt standard operating procedures of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), map all garment factories and act on workplace safety and compliance marked the year in Bangladeshs textile and garments sector.sums up the developments.In November, Bangladesh decided to amend its labour law and the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority Law to comply with the European Union (EU) recommendations. The EU had earlier called on Bangladesh to show tangible progress on labour rights to avoid temporarily losing the generalised system of preferences (GSP) benefit that allows the country duty-free export to the former.

Decisions to amend relevant laws, restart 13 closed mills, cover garment manufacturing-exporting units under the labour ministry's welfare fund, adopt standard operating procedures of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), map all garment factories and act on workplace safety and compliance marked the year in Bangladesh's textile and garments sector.#

In the same month, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) wrote a letter urging the labour ministry to form a minimum wage board to review the existing wages of the readymade garment (RMG) workers. Industry insiders, however, say, the move followed international pressure and is aimed at averting a likely labour unrest. The BGMEA urged the government early this year to establish two new industrial zones near Dhaka and Chittagong.In June, the association requested that tax at source for the RMG sector , which was increased from 0.7 per cent to 1 per cent, should be withdrawn for the next two fiscals and corporate tax be reduced to 10 per cent from the proposed rate of 15 per cent for the next five years.The cabinet committee on economic affairs in December approved a proposal from the Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation (BTMC) to restart 13 textiles mills , shut down 25 years ago due to losses, and run them under a public-private partnership initiative. BDT 15,200 crore will be allocated to purchase new machinery to replace the existing ones and run these mills.Digital RMG Factory Mapping in Bangladesh ( DRFM-B ), a major first-of-its-kind initiative to map all apparel factories and disclose location and data on garment factories, was launched in August. The project is being implemented by Dhaka-based BRAC Universitys Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (CED), coordinated by BRAC USA, with the BGMEA as a strategic partner, along with lead funding from C&A Foundation.Between May and July, the government adopted standard operating procedures (SOPs) relating to unfair labour practices and trade union registrations. Trade union representatives are now better aware of how these SOPs have to be implemented, according to the ILO office in Dhaka. ILO feels this will help facilitate freedom of association in the country and offer greater clarity and transparency in the process.Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced in August that RMG manufacturing and exporting units will be covered under the labour ministrys central fund from which a worker or his children can get BDT 3 lakhs in case of grave injuries or death at workplace. If the injury or death is outside the workplace, the compensation will be BDT 2 lakhs.The labour ministry welfare fund , created with 0.03% of the export volume of the industries under BGMEA and Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA), is solely aimed at providing financial support to the workers families.The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a platform of North American retailers that sets timeframes and accountability for safety inspections and training and workers empowerment programmes, decided in August not to extend its tenure in the country after its expiry in mid-2018. This was in contrast to a June decision taken by another platform of European retailers, the Accord on Fire and Building Safety, to extend its tenure in Bangladesh for three more years until 2021.Accords tenure will also expire in July 2018. In October, the Bangladesh high court halted Accords second term due to its tenure being extended without government approval.According to Alliances latest findings, 85 per cent of all required factory repairs have been completed, 80 per cent of high-priority repairs done, while overall remediation has made 80 per cent progress at RMG factories under Accord inspection.In September, garment makers in Bangladesh proposed forming a factory inspection and remediation agency, similar to Accord and Alliance, to operate under an ombudsman chosen by the prime minister's office. To be called ' Shonman ' (respect), the platform will have a steering committee comprising representatives from the BGMEA, the BKMEA, the ILO, the commerce and labour ministries, various brands, and trade unions. Neither the government nor the BGMEA will have veto power.It has been reportedly agreed that the Accord will be granted an extension to operate beyond its expiry date, if the proposed national regulatory body is not ready to take over its work.There is a need for the Bangladesh apparel industry to continue to nurture the Centre of Excellence for Bangladesh Apparel Industry ( CEBAI ), launched in 2014 to address the skills gap in the sector, to support the industry move up the value chain and gain further share in the world market, CEBAI president Mohammad Atiqul Islam said in December. CEBAI is run by the BGMEA and was supported by the ILO, Sweden and leading international fashion retailer H&M until November 2017.The ILO concluded a comprehensive labour inspection training programme in June, training 239 inspectors in boosting working conditions and worker safety.The EU announced in May that the Sustainability Compact, a joint initiative of the Bangladesh Government, the EU, the United States, Canada, and the ILO that promotes improvements in factory safety and labour rights in Bangladesh's RMG manufacturing industry, has made fantastic progress.HSBC Bangladesh in August arranged $46 million in low-cost foreign currency for apparel exporter Viyellatex for the purchase of goods, equipment and technology from suppliers in Switzerland, Japan, India, Germany and the United Kingdom for a new spinning mill.Deshbandhu Textile Mills announced in July that it will set up a garment factory in Uttara Export Processing Zone in Nilphamari by investing $53.77 million.The countrys first-ever garment factory to facilitate income of prisoners was inaugurated in December at the Narayanganj district jail. The BKMEA trained around 400 prisoners to run the factory in two shifts. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Uzbekistan and South Korea are busy discussing plans to construct a textile techno park in Tashkent city. An Uzbek delegation recently visited South Korea and spoke to representatives of the Cheonan-based Korean Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH) regarding the project. The latter will start supplying technological and laboratory equipment soon.Installation of the equipment will likely start in March and construction will be completed by mid-2018. The park will be commissioned in September 2018, according to an Azeri newspaper. The Korean side wants engineers and technicians to be trained by mid-February 2018.

Uzbekistan and South Korea are busy discussing plans to construct a textile techno park in Tashkent city. An Uzbek delegation recently visited South Korea and spoke to representatives of the Cheonan-based Korean Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH) regarding the project. The latter will start supplying technological and laboratory equipment soon.#

The complex will include a laboratory with textile machinery, finishing and sewing equipment for conducting experiments. The techno park will introduce new South Korean innovations and will be a place for joint research in material science, dyeing and finishing production, fabric design and alternative energy sources.The official development assistance program of the Korean Government will finance the project, who primary contractor is IL Kwan E&C Company. The Uzbek textile industry is mainly focused on cotton, silk and wool. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
ReNew Power Ventures, which is backed by Goldman Sachs, is exploring an opportunity to acquire the solar assets of Waaree Energies ahead of a planned IPO, reports Mint.Media reports in India suggest that ReNew Power Ventures - a Goldman Sachs-backed clean energy developer with a portfolio of 3.5 GW of operational wind and solar projects - is mulling the purchase of Waaree Energies' solar power projects as it looks to boost its portfolio ahead of a planned initial public offering (IPO). Mint ...

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.
STOCKHOLM, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --The number of shares and votes in Tobii AB has increased by 180,373 as a result of exercise of warrants in accordance with the company's incentive programs.

Today, the last trading day of the month, there are in total 97,304,052 shares and votes in the company. After the increase, the share capital amounts to SEK 706,128.92. The increase in the number of shares is due to the exercise of warrants in accordance with the Company's incentive programs.

This information is information that Tobii is obliged to make public pursuant to the Financial Instruments Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out below, on December 29, 2017, at 3:00 p.m. CET.

Contact:

Sara Hyleen

Director of Corporate Communications & Investor Relations, Tobii AB

Phone: +46-709-16-16-41

Email: sara.hyleen@tobii.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/tobii-ab/r/new-number-of-shares-and-votes-in-tobii,c2421263

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WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Miami will host the North American Bitcoin Conference (TNABC) next month.



A part of World Blockchain Forum: Investments & ICOs, the North American Bitcoin Conference is taking place in the sunshine state on January 18 and 19.



The organizers, Keynote Ltd., said 2018 conference will bring together all the major players of the industry to discuss the future of Bitcoin and Blockchain.



'This year we are happy to host over 50 ICOs and our partner Victory Square Technologies is giving away $100,000 to the top three pitches,' said Keynote CEO, Moe Levin.



There are more than 2,000 registered attendees and over 100 exhibitors, he added.



The conference will cover a wide array of topics including blockchain technology, Bitcoin and Ethereum, the initial coin offerings (ICO), token sale mechanics, investing, regulation, startups, and disruption.



This year's TNABC will have a wide variety of speakers from blockchain movers and shakers, venture capitalists, and developers. Companies making huge waves in the crypto world will be represented. There will be interactive sessions where attendees can ask questions and network with upcoming ICOs and bitcoin companies.



The largest conference in the blockchain space, TNABC is coming after a phenomenal year for cryptocurrencies and blockchain assets.



Bitcoin continues to attract intense media attention with volatile price fluctuation.



The most popular digital currency approached $20,000 on December 17, but suddenly dropped to a pre-Christmas low of $11,000. Despite increased scrutiny and regulation across the globe, and warnings of a price bubble, the value of bitcoin has soared 1300 percent since the start of 2017.



The most recent spike was spurred by U.S. regulators allowing exchanges to conduct bitcoin future trading, providing the cryptocurrency with a greater level of credibility in the financial world.



Bitcoin futures began trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and CME Group in December.



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MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 12/29/17 -- HPQ Silicon Resources Inc. (HPQ) (TSX VENTURE: HPQ)(FRANKFURT: UGE)(OTC PINK: URAGF) is pleased to announce that between October 1 and December 29 2017, $ 441,000 was raised through warrant exercises that included the 6,125,000 warrant expiring on December 29, 2017. Specifically HPQ Chairman and CEO increase his holding in HPQ by 1,100,000 shares, HPQ President and COO by 687,000 shares, HPQ CFO by 100,000 shares and one director by 700,000 shares.

Bernard Tourillon, Chairman and CEO of HPQ Silicon stated:

"Our decision to invest significant funds into HPQ demonstrates our belief in the potential of the innovative metallurgical production of Solar Silicon using PUREVAP. The addition of Apollon's expertise to the knowledge of Pyrogenesis will take our development efforts of the GEN 2 PUREVAP and Pilot Plant to the forefront of innovative development in the solar industry."

Options distribution

The Corporation has granted 3,500,000 stock options to Members of Board, Officers and to a consultant of the Corporation. The stock options are exercisable for a period ending December 29, 2022, at an exercise price of $0.12 per share.

The options have been granted under and are subject to the terms and conditions of the Company's Stock Option Plan.

This News Release is available on the company's CEO Verified Discussion Forum, a moderated social media platform that enables civilized discussion and Q&A between Management and Shareholders.

About HPQ Silicon

HPQ Silicon Resources Inc. is a TSX-V listed resource company planning to become a vertically integrated and diversified High Purity, Solar Grade Silicon Metal (SoG Si) producer and a manufacturer of multi and monocrystalline solar cells of the P and N types, required for high performance photovoltaic conversion.

HPQ goal is to develop, in collaboration with industry leaders that are experts in their fields of interest, the innovative metallurgical PUREVAP "Quartz Reduction Reactors (QRR)" process (patent pending), which will permit it to produce in one step SoG Si. The start of the pilot plant that will validate the commercial potential of the process is planned for 2018.

Disclaimers:

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements containing the words "may", "plan", "will", "estimate", "continue", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "in the process" and other similar expressions which constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements reflect the Company's current expectation and assumptions, and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, our expectations regarding the acceptance of our products by the market, our strategy to develop new products and enhance the capabilities of existing products, our strategy with respect to research and development, the impact of competitive products and pricing, new product development, and uncertainties related to the regulatory approval process. Such statements reflect the current views of the Company with respect to future events and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and other risks detailed from time-to-time in the Company's on-going filings with the securities regulatory authorities, which filings can be found at www.sedar.com. Actual results, events, and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements either as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws.

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.

Shares outstanding: 191,979,173

Contacts:

HPQ Silicon Resources Inc.

Bernard J. Tourillon

Chairman and CEO

(514) 907-1011



HPQ Silicon Resources Inc.

Patrick Levasseur

President and COO

(514) 262-9239

www.HPQSilicon.com




Ethereum News UpdateEarlier this week-as investors were in the thick of the holiday rush-South Korean authorities debated how to curb the irrational exuberance of cryptocurrencies.The proposals ranged far and wide.One idea was to close certain exchanges, another was to crack down on anonymous transactions. Whatever the regulators decide, it seems inevitable that Korea will tighten its rules as opposed to opening them up.Investors didn't take the news too kindly.Ethereum prices fell to the low $700.00s; Bitcoin dropped below $15,000; Bitcoin Cash lost its No. 3 spot to Ripple-there was pain virtually across the board.However, that pessimism.

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.
He was last seen in Bismarck at about 2:26 p.m. when he left work walking from the Ground Round on South Third Street. He was expected to return to his residence in the 100 block of Northwest Drive in south Bismarck, but he never arrived.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The White House has announced that President Donald Trump will undergo a physical check-up on January 12, and his medical records would be released by his doctor. 'The president's physical is scheduled for Jan. 12 and Dr. (Ronny) Jackson, the president's doctor, will give a readout of the exam after it's completed,' White House Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Thursday. Trump's physical will take place at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where American presidents routinely undergo comprehensive annual medical exams by military doctors to prove that they are physically fit for duty. Earlier this month, the White House had ruled out any health hazards for the President, and announced that his medical records would be released next year. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was forced to answer a question at a routine press briefing on December 7 why Trump slurred through part of his speech about recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and relocating the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. 'I know that there were a lot of questions on that -- frankly, pretty ridiculous questions. The President's throat was dry. Nothing more than that,' she told reporters. There was speculation about the President's health, and that Trump wears dentures. Trump, who repeatedly mocked Senator Marco Rubio over his 2013 mid-speech water consumption, paused during a live address at the White House on November 15 to awkwardly sip bottled water, which he lifted to his mouth with two hands. Rubio responded with a trolling tweet recommending the 70-year old Commander-in-chief to work on his water-guzzling form. At 70 years, Trump was the oldest man to be elected president. During the campaign, his personal doctor certified that he would be 'the healthiest individual ever elected.' 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.
Technavio's latest market research report on the private label food and beverages market in APACprovides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2017-2021. Technaviodefines an emerging trend as a factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171229005177/en/

Technavio has published a new market research report on the private label food and beverages market in APAC 2017-2021 under their food and beverage library. (Graphic: Business Wire)

Avail Technavio's Year-End Special offer: Get 50% off on this report and all other reports covering industries like ICT; energy; food and beverage; healthcare and life sciences; automotive; industrial automation; education; and many more. Offer valid only from Dec 18 Jan 7

The top three emerging market trends driving the private label food and beverages market in APAC according to Technavio research analysts are:

Growing digitization of private label

Increasing development of new packaging

Rising focus on health and wellness

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.

Growing digitization of private label

Retailers are increasingly taking initiatives and efforts to promote their products by using modern technology and digitization due to the growing competition. The ideal platform to promote, market, and sell their products is the internet. Platforms such as Amazon or other similar portals are being used by customers to buy private label products. Hence, these portals are enabling private label business to cater to a growing demand for private label products.

According to Manjunath Reddy, a lead analyst at Technavio for food, "Private label companies can use social media to search and communicate with potential business partners and clients. Such social networking tools and forums help businesses to connect with potential customers."

Increasing development of new packaging

One of the important criteria that private label brands are adopting across the world is sustainability. Packaging materials that are more sustainable and eco-friendly are preferred by consumers. Thus, packaging becomes a crucial factor that differentiates products provided by private label manufacturers. To improve the image of their products, retailers are designing unique and different packaging designs. Due to this, retailers are investing in R&D activities to develop eco-friendly, temperature-resistant, and insulated packaging that can keep the packaged goods fresh for a long time.

Rising focus on health and wellness

Consumers are becoming increasingly conscious and particular about their health. Hence, they are moving towards healthier and safer food products. Not only cost but ingredients present in the product influence the purchasing decision of consumers. Health-conscious consumers look for simplicity in ingredients. A retailer's private label portfolio must contain healthy foods. Gluten free and organic products are increasingly becoming popular among such consumers.

"Consumers prefer such products because they are certified to be safe. With the growing demand for healthy foods, products made with natural ingredients and organic colors are gaining more shelf space. This has led private label brands to associate their products to health and wellness, environmental stewardship, and sustainability. This trend is expected to help in the growth of the market during the forecast period," says Manjunath.

Browse Related Reports:

Global Organic Food Market in Germany 2017-2021

Global Functional Flours Market 2017-2021

Global Almond Oil Market 2017-2021

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171229005177/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

www.technavio.com
SEATTLE (dpa-AFX) - Noting that the U.S. Postal Service loses billions of dollars a year, President Donald Trump has called on the agency to raise the shipping rates it charges online retail giant Amazon (AMZN) and others. Trump claimed in a post on Twitter on Friday that a partnership in which the Postal Service carries Amazon packages in the 'last mile' of delivery to customers is making the Post Office 'dumber and poorer.' 'Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!' Trump tweeted. Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post and has been target of Trump in the past. A report from the Washington Post cited a Wall Street Journal op-ed by a hedge fund manager who said the Postal Service loses an average of $1.456 for each Amazon shipment it delivers. However, Amazon rejected the claim at the time, telling Fortune magazine the Postal Regulatory Commission has consistently found that the company's contracts with the Postal Service are profitable. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
The coming week will see many traders return to their terminals and swamped with work, as they try to get up to speed with events globally over the previous fortnight and gear-up for a week full of potentially market-moving data and events. Arguably, the most interesting release will come on Wednesday, in the form of the minutes of the US central bank's last policy meeting and chair Janet Yellen's next-to-last. Yet in terms of the potential to prompt an immediate market reaction, at the moment ...

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:

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: 29 December 2017 Number of Shares purchased: 8,805 Shares Highest price paid per Share: 1,017 pence 13.75 USD Lowest price paid per Share: 1,014 pence 13.71 USD Average price paid per Share: 1,016.58 pence 13.74 USD

Trading Venue: Euronext Amsterdam Date of purchase: 29 December 2017 Number of Shares purchased: 43,798 Shares Highest price paid per Share: 13.71 USD Lowest price paid per Share: 13.65 USD Average price paid per Share: 13.68 USD

PSH intends to cancel these Shares. The net asset value per Share related to this Share buyback is USD 17.71 GBP 13.24 which was calculated as of 26 December 2017. After giving effect to the above Share buyback, PSH has outstanding 234,716,810 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/20171229005373/en/

Contacts:

Media Contact:

Maitland

James Devas, +44 20 7379 5151

Media-pershingsquareholdings1@maitland.co.uk
BAAR, Switzerland, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Weatherford International plc (NYSE: WFT) today announced it has sold its U.S. pressure pumping and pump-down perforating assets to a subsidiary of Schlumberger Limited for $430 millionin cash.

The parties agreed to revised deal terms that reflect an asset sale, as compared to the previously announced OneStimSM joint venture. As part of this transaction,Schlumberger will take ownership of Weatherford's U.S. pressure pumping and pump-down perforating related facilities and supplier and customer contracts. Additionally, approximately 100 Weatherford employees associated with the pressure pumping and pump-down perforating businesses will transfer to Schlumberger. Weatherford will retain the entirety of its leading multistage completions portfolio, manufacturing capability and supply chain and will continue to participate in the growing completions markets in both Canada and the U.S. as well as globally.

Weatherford will use the proceeds from the sale to reduce outstanding indebtedness.

"The closing of this transaction represents another step on our path toward building a solid and strong company and unlocking the potential that exists within Weatherford," stated Mark A. McCollum, President and Chief Executive Officer of Weatherford. "Although not as originally anticipated, this transaction delivers cash proceeds that enable our Company to begin the deleveraging process and, coupled with our transformation plans, will lead to a leaner organization with lower debt and significantly higher profit margins. In addition, retaining 100 percent of our leading land-based multistage Completions business allows for significant upside potential for Weatherford."

About Weatherford

Weatherford is one of the largest multinational oilfield service companies providing innovative solutions, technology and services to the oil and gas industry. The Company operates in over 90 countries and has a network of approximately 860 locations, including manufacturing, service, research and development, and training facilities and employs approximately 29,500 people. For more information, visit www.weatherford.com and connect with Weatherford on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Weatherford Contacts

Christoph Bausch

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

+1.713.836.4615

Karen David-Green

Vice President - Investor Relations, Marketing and Communications

+1.713.836.7430

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, the Company's expectations regarding business outlook, debt levels and profit margins, and are also generally identified by the words "believe," "project," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "outlook," "budget," "intend," "strategy," "plan," "guidance," "may," "should," "could," "will," "would," "will be," "will continue," "will likely result," and similar expressions, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs of Weatherford's management, and are subject to significant risks, assumptions and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those indicated in our forward-looking statements. Readers are also cautioned that forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results. Forward-looking statements are also affected by the risk factors described in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and those set forth from time-to-time in the Company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to correct or update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except to the extent required under federal securities laws.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/73933/weatherford_international_logo.jpg
Eureka Resources Inc. (TSXV: EUK) ("Eureka" or the "Company") announced today that is has closed the first tranche of its non-brokered $175,000 private placement of 7,000,000 common shares (the "Shares"), at $0.025 per common share, previously announced November 27, 2017 (the "Offering").

Eureka placed 4,000,000 Shares in the first tranche of the Offering for gross proceeds of $100,000. In connection with closing the first tranche, the Company paid finder's fees of 7% cash totaling $4,550. Company insiders purchased 1,500,000 of the Shares in the first tranche of the Offering.

All Shares issued in the Offering will be subject to a four-month hold period from the date of issuance under applicable Canadian Securities laws. For Shares issued in the first tranche of the Offering, the hold period will expire on April 29, 2018.

The Company intends to allocate the net proceeds from the Offering (subject to the deduction of applicable finder's fees) as follows:

Legal and accounting fees - $25,000;

Regulatory fees - $10,000;

General liabilities - $50,000;

Office rent & communication expenses - $5,000;

Transfer agent fees - $5,000;

Annual General Meeting expenses - $5,000

Accrued management and administrative fees - $25,000;

Working capital - $50,000.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of the Shares in the United States. The Shares have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

ABOUT EUREKA

Eureka is a mineral exploration company based in Vancouver, British Columbia that has acquired projects with discovery potential in prospective areas of Canada and the United States.

Eureka's mineral property assets include the 100%-owned FG Gold property located in the Cariboo Mining Division. Historical exploration has established a Measured and Indicated gold resource (376,000 ounces) at an average grade of 0.776 g/t gold, using a cut-off grade of 0.5 g/t, and an Inferred gold resource (634,900 ounces) at an average grade of 0.718 g/t gold, using a cut-off grade of 0.5 g/t. Details of the gold resource can be found in "NI 43-101 Technical Report, Frasergold Exploration Project, Cariboo Mining Division, dated July 27, 2015" available under Eureka's profile on SEDAR or on its website.

Eureka has a 100% interest in the Gold Creek property located in the Cariboo Mining Division. Gold Creek is a gold project adjacent, and with similar geology, to the Spanish Mountain gold deposit owned by Spanish Mountain Gold Ltd.

Eureka owns a 100% interest 442 mining claims in the historic Klondike district of the Yukon located in the Dawson Range Gold Belt, a district of major porphyry, breccia and vein mineral occurrences. The Company also owns a 50% interest in the Gemini lithium brine project located approximately 40 km (26 miles) south of North America's only producing lithium mine at Silver Peak, Nevada.

Kristian Whitehead, P.Geo., the Company's designated Qualified Person for this news release within the meaning of NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release.

Further information on Eureka can be found on the Company's website at www.eurekaresourcesinc.com and at www.sedar.com or by contacting Michael Sweatman, President and CEO, by email at info@eurekaresourcesinc.com or by telephone at (604) 449-2273.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" under applicable Canadian securities legislation that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results, performance, prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the business and operations of the Company and its review of strategic alternatives. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: failure to complete equity financings and/or exploration programs; general business, economic and social uncertainties; litigation, legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; delay or failure to receive Board of Directors or regulatory approvals; those additional risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com; and other matters discussed in this news release. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which only apply as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. Except where required by law, the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.



NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES. ANY FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THIS RESTRICTION MAY CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF U.S. SECURITIES LAWS
LONDON, ONTARIO and BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS -- (Marketwired) -- 12/29/17 -- Critical Outcome Technologies Inc. (TSX VENTURE: COT)(OTCQB: COTQF) ("COTI" or the "Company") reported its financial and operating results today for the three- and six-month periods ended October 31, 2017. Recent highlights include:

Advanced the Phase 1 trial of COTI-2:

-- In August 2017, COTI completed the dose escalation portion of its Phase 1 trial of COTI-2 in gynecological malignancies, which showed that COTI- 2 is generally safe and well-tolerated at doses up to 1.7 mg/kg; -- In October 2017, COTI dosed the first patient in the expansion arm of its Phase 1 trial of COTI-2 in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC); -- Subsequent to the reporting quarter, in November 2017, COTI announced pharmacokinetic (PK) data from the dose escalation portion of its Phase 1 trial of COTI-2 in gynecological malignancies, which showed that COTI- 2 exhibited rapid absorption, long half-life and lack of long-term drug accumulation. These data support the potential for daily oral dosing and the continued development of COTI-2 as a potential treatment for patients; -- Subsequent to the reporting quarter, in December 2017, COTI announced pharmacodynamic (PD) data and positive signals of efficacy from the dose escalation portion of its Phase 1 trial of COTI-2 in gynecological malignancies, which suggest COTI-2 may be a potentially efficacious treatment for patients. COTI concurrently announced it established a recommended Phase 2 dose of 1.0 mg/kg in ovarian cancer based on strong safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetic data; -- Continued to analyze results from the gynecological arm of the trial.

Secured additional funding

-- In September and October 2017, COTI announced the close of the first and second tranches of a non-brokered private placement with accredited investors. The Company raised gross proceeds of approximately $2.1 million CAD. The funds will support the continued clinical development of COTI-2 in HNSCC. -- Subsequent to the reporting quarter, the Company entered into an engagement with a U.S. investment bank in connection with proposed financing efforts in the U.S.

Reaffirmed identity as a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company:

-- During the quarter, the Company underwent a branding review recognizing its evolution from a technology-driven company to a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company. This led COTI to announce subsequent to the reporting quarter in December 2017, that shareholders approved a name change to Cotinga Pharmaceuticals. Cotinga refers to a diverse bird species in South and Central America, and symbolizes the potential for the Company's cancer therapeutics to treat a wide spectrum of cancer patients.

"We are pleased to report we continued to make significant strides in the second quarter to advance the Phase 1 trial of COTI-2 and secure additional funding to support our clinical development programs," said Alison Silva, President & CEO. "The encouraging data readouts from the gynecological malignancies arm and the successful dosing of the first patient in our HNSCC expansion arm reinforce our confidence in COTI-2 as a potential treatment for a range of oncology indications. We are continuing with our financing efforts as we seek to carry out our mission in the year ahead as the newly-named Cotinga Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company advancing the development of cancer therapeutics to treat a wide spectrum of cancer patients."

Upcoming Milestones

COTI-2:

-- Additional exploratory endpoint data from the dose escalation portion of the Phase 1 trial in gynecological malignancies expected in first quarter of 2018; -- Initial safety readout from HNSCC expansion arm expected in second quarter of 2018; -- Initiation of basket, combination and expansion studies in multiple oncology indications expected in 2018.

COTI-219:

-- Completion of GMP manufacturing and IND-enabling studies expected in 2018; -- IND-filing expected in 2018.

Financial Results

The Company's operational activities during the quarter were primarily focused on advancing the Phase 1 clinical trial of COTI-2 in gynecological malignancies and HNSCC.

For the three-months ended October 31, 2017, the Company incurred a net loss of $1.781 million, or $0.11 per share, compared to a net loss of $0.748 million, or $0.05 per share, for the three-months ended October 31, 2016. The increase in net loss during the three-month period is primarily due to a change in the fair value of the warrant liability, as a large non-cash valuation gain was recorded in the three-months ended October 31, 2016, thus reducing the loss in that period with no comparable valuation change occurring in the same period this year.

For the six-months ended October 31, 2017, the Company incurred a net loss of $2.023 million, or $0.13 per share, compared to a net loss of $3.063 million, or $0.21 per share, for the six-months ended October 31, 2016. The decrease in net loss during the six-month period is primarily due to a significant favorable swing in the valuation of the warrant liability.

There was no revenue for the three- and six-month periods ended October 31, 2017 or in the comparative periods in the year prior.

Operating expenses in the three- and six-month periods ended October 31, 2017 increased by $0.040 million and $0.224 million respectively over the same periods in the year prior, primarily due to increases in Research and Development ("R&D") expense and a decrease in investment tax credits earned. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in General and Administration ("G&A") expense and Sales and Marketing ("S&M") expense.

R&D expense in the three- and six-month periods ended October 31, 2017 increased by $0.252 million and $0.305 million respectively over the same periods in the year prior, primarily due to an increase in synthesis and miscellaneous R&D expenses, other costs, and salaries and benefits. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in clinical trial expenses.

G&A expense in the three- and six-month periods ended October 31, 2017 decreased $0.181 million and $0.052 million respectively over the same period in the year prior, primarily due to reduction in professional fees, corporate governance, marketing and travel, and share-based compensation expense. These decreases were partially offset by an increase in salaries, benefits, rent and insurance.

S&M expense in the three- and six-month periods ended October 31, 2017 decreased by $0.073 million and $0.095 million respectively compared to the same periods in the year prior due to a decrease in professional fees and marketing and travel. These decreases were partially offset by an increase in other S&M expenses.

ITC income for the three- and six-month periods ended October 31, 2017 decreased by $0.039 million and $0.061 million respectively compared to the same periods in the year prior due to a decrease in eligible R&D expenditures.

Financing

The Company executed on financing efforts during the quarter, closing two tranches of a non-brokered private placement with accredited investors in September and October 2017 for approximately $2.1 million in gross proceeds. As at October 31, 2017, the Company had cash, cash equivalents and investments of $1,246,852 and will need to obtain additional financing during the current fiscal year. Subsequent to the reporting quarter, the Company entered into an engagement with a U.S. investment bank in connection with proposed financing efforts in the U.S.

Detailed operating and financial results can be found in the Company's Unaudited Condensed Interim Financial Statements and Management Discussion and Analysis for the three- and six-month periods ended October 31, 2017, which can be found on SEDAR at www.sedar.com or on the Company's website at www.criticaloutcome.com.

About Critical Outcome Technologies Inc.

COTI is a clinical stage biotech company that uses proprietary artificial intelligence technologies to pursue a targeted and transformational approach to treating cancer and other unmet medical needs. COTI's CHEMSAS technology accelerates the discovery and development of novel drug therapies, allowing the Company to build a pipeline of potential drug candidates faster and with a higher probability of success than traditional methods.

The Company's lead compound, COTI-2, has a novel p53-dependent mechanism of action with selective and potent anti-cancer activity. P53 mutations occur in over 50% of all cancers. COTI-2 is initially being evaluated for the treatment of gynecologic cancers and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma in a Phase 1 clinical trial at the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas and the Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern University. The Company has secured orphan drug status in the United States for COTI-2 for the treatment of ovarian cancer. Preclinical data suggests that COTI-2 could dramatically improve the treatment of cancers with mutations in the p53 gene.

The Company's second lead compound, COTI-219, is a novel oral small molecule compound targeting the mutant forms of KRAS without inhibiting normal KRAS function. KRAS mutations occur in up to 30% of all cancers and represent a tremendous unmet clinical need and a desirable drug target. COTI-219 is undergoing IND-enabling studies to support a regulatory submission in 2018.

Follow @CriticalOutcome on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CriticalOutcome.

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 release.

For more information, visit www.criticaloutcome.com.

Notice to Readers:

Information contained in this press release may contain certain statements which constitute "forward- looking statements" as such term is defined under applicable securities laws. For example, the statements "These data support the potential for daily oral dosing and the continued development of COTI-2 as a potential treatment for patients" and "Subsequent to the reporting quarter, in December 2017, COTI announced pharmacodynamic (PD) data and positive signals of efficacy from the dose escalation portion of its Phase 1 trial of COTI-2 in gynecological malignancies, which suggest COTI-2 may be a potentially efficacious treatment for patients" and "The encouraging data readouts from the gynecological malignancies arm and the successful dosing of the first patient in our HNSCC expansion arm reinforce our confidence in COTI-2 as a potential treatment for a range of oncology indications" are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements by their nature are not guarantees of future performance and are based upon management's current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions. COTI operates in a highly competitive environment that involves significant risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Management of COTI considers the assumptions on which these forward-looking statements are based to be reasonable, but as a result of the many risk factors, cautions the reader that actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. Information in this press release should be considered accurate only as of the date of the release and may be superseded by more recent information disclosed in later press releases, filings with the securities regulatory authorities or otherwise. Except as required by law, COTI assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements should circumstances or management's expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions change.

Contacts:

Alison Silva

President and CEO

Tel: 1-800-798-6860

Email: asilva@criticaloutcome.com

www.criticaloutcome.com




APS Group, a Cheshire, UK-based tomato grower, secured funding from Business Growth Fund.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed. In conjunction with the funding, BGFs Matt Widdall will join the board of APS Group.

The company intends to use the funds to build a new glasshouse to extend capacity at existing sites and make further investments into innovative technologies and automation to optimize operational efficiencies.

Founded in 1949 by Albert and Hilda Pearson, APS currently manages 56 hectares of glasshouses and operates several packhouses across sites in Alderley Edge, Middlewich, Kent, West Sussex, Teesside, East Yorkshire and the Isle of Wight. More than 700 people are employed across the group which produces 500 million tomatoes per year using traditional and modern growing techniques to grow a range of high quality tomato varieties in the most environmentally friendly way possible.

APS Group is now under the leadership of CEO Mark Pearson alongside Philip Pearson and several other members of the Pearson family and senior management team.

FinSMEs

29/12/2017
The merger of Forward Markets Commission (FMC) regulating commodity trade in the country with the stock market regulator Securities and Exchanges Board of India (SEBI) a few years ago was actually a precursor for convergence of trading in equity and other financial products and commodities. The SEBI gave its approval for such convergence to take effect from October 2018.

If diversification is the mool mantra of mutual fund investments, convergence should be the hallmark of any exchange because otherwise an investor has to find a separate stock broker and a separate commodities broker. Now he can seamlessly invest in commodities and stock all under one account thus doing away with the need for KYC compliance multiple times. It would also bring into sharp relief and consciousness the existence of two different markets to hedge ones bets as well as to diversify.

Come October 2018, an investor would be as curious as to what stock prices are as he would be of commodity prices. The esoteric character of commodities trading as of now has resulted in it being a shallow market in the hands of a few. First we talked of equity cult. More recently, we were talking of commodities cult, as it were. Now we are talking of integrating the two cults. So far so good.

A note of caution is however in order, without having the slightest intention of being a spoilsport and doubting Thomas. Convergence and shopping under one roof or under one portal etc., are all fine but only so long as customer choice is respected. Nothing should be pushed down his throat. A service provider wearing multiple hats is tantalized to do things that may not be desirable often and just plain unethical and illegal sometimes.

The recent Airtel Payments Bank episode illustrates this. Airtel the market leader in cellular telecom services is alleged to have manipulated the system in such a way that those recharging their cell phone unwittingly and unknowingly ended up opening up Airtel Bank account as well on the basis of KYC data accessible by its telecom services company. Likewise, a home loan provider often arm twists the borrower to take insurance cover both against default and for the mortgage property from an in-house insurance company though he tells him in dulcet terms that such in-house and under-the-same-room-shopping of both loan and insurance is not compulsory.

The point is the SEBI must build strong Chinese walls to ensure that a broker now wearing twin hats does not take his client for granted or does not indulge in delicate and deft arm-twisting. It is de rigueur for banks to ask a new account holder to sign up for mutual funds, demat account and what-have-you. Many unwittingly fall into the trap but soon realize that they are being charged annually for demat account they have never ever used! In other words, it should be for the customer to say what she wants without being browbeaten, sweet-talked or arm-twisted. It is for Sebi to consider if it would be kosher for a broker to offer softer brokerage rates to those opting for combo services as opposed to either commodity or stock services. In my view, that would be a subtle blandishment to subscribe to tie-in services and hence should not be permitted.

Reacting to the Sebi's nod to the convergence of stock and commodity exchanges, shares of BSE closed 3.63 percent up at Rs 944, while NSE Nifty index settled 12.85 points or 0.12 percent down at 10,477.90 on December 28, 2017.

On the other hand, shares of Multi Commodity Exchange settled 0.59 percent down at Rs 938.55 the same day. Does this give a taste of things to come? Will the more experienced and entrenched share brokers put the new kids on the block commodity brokers out of business? Well, time alone will confirm this but on a different plane and context, multiple exchanges is not such a bad thing as competition among them would not only end up in better services for the customers but also act as bulwark against manipulation of prices.
Scientists say they aren't surprised, but climate change in the Northern Arctic is happening so quickly it's forcing NOAA and others to rewrite a data-correcting algorithm.

Climatology sites are very uniform and follow strict guidelines to prevent the data from being contaminated, and algorithms help remove outliers before that information gets to the final data set.

When checking November meteorological data from a site in Utqiagvik, Alaska, scientists discovered their climate monitoring station had reported no data for the entire month.

Upon closer inspection, they realized an algorithm had removed all the data from that Arctic site for the month of November; it simply thought it was an outlier.

The correctly observed data was no outlier; it was real.

The average temperatures in Utqiagvik, formerly known as Barrow, are now just that warm compared to two decades ago: 7.8 degrees warmer in October, 6.9 degrees warmer in November and 4.7 degrees warmer in December.

Later arrivals of sea ice on the coastal town in the fall is keeping temperatures warm, in addition to a myriad of other factors changing the local climate.

Chief of NOAA's Monitoring Branch National Centers for Environmental Information Deke Arndt says this is another piece of evidence that the Earth has moved into a new climate regime.

"[The Arctic] is changing faster than anywhere on the planet," Arndt says.

It's not the first time there's been a broken algorithm. Arndt says this is just the latest example; climate change has broken other algorithms at Arctic sites in Canada and Scandinavia.
New Delhi: The government on Friday cautioned investors to be wary of virtual currencies like Bitcoin, saying they are like Ponzi schemes with no legal tender and protection.

"There is a real and heightened risk of investment bubble of the type seen in Ponzi schemes which can result in sudden and prolonged crash exposing investors, especially retail consumers losing their hard-earned money. Consumers need to be alert and extremely cautious as to avoid getting trapped in such Ponzi schemes," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

VCs are stored in digital/electronic format, making them vulnerable to hacking, loss of password, malware attack etc. which may also result in permanent loss of money, it said.

Noting that there has been a phenomenal increase in recent times in the price of virtual currencies (VCs) including Bitcoin, in India and globally, it said, the VCs don't have any intrinsic value and are not backed by any kind of assets.

"The price of Bitcoin and other VCs, therefore, is entirely a matter of mere speculation resulting in spurt and volatility in their prices," it said.

Earlier in the day, Minister of State for Finance Pon Radhakrishanan in the Lok Sabha said the Department of Economic Affairs had constituted an inter-disciplinary committee to examine the existing global regulatory and legal structures governing Bitcoin; suggest the framework for regulation of Bitcoin if among others etc.

The committee has submitted its report which is under consideration of the government, the minister said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

The Finance Ministry statement further said that users, holders and traders of VCs have already been cautioned three times by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) about the potential financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security related risks that they are exposing themselves to by investing in Bitcoin or other such currencies.

The RBI from time to time has also clarified that it has not given any licence or authorisation to any entity to operate such schemes or deal with Bitcoin or any virtual currency, it said.

Besides, it said, the government or RBI has not authorised any VCs as a medium of exchange. Further, the government or any other regulator in India has not given licence to any agency for working as exchange or any other kind of intermediary for any VC, it said.

"The government also makes it clear that VCs are not legal tender and such VCs do not have any regulatory permission or protection in India. The investors and other participants, therefore, deal with these VCs entirely at their risk and should best avoid participating therein," it said.

As transactions of VCs are encrypted they are also likely being used to carry out illegal activities, such as terror-funding, smuggling, drug trafficking and other money-laundering acts, it added.

"VCs are not backed by government fiat. These are also not legal tender. Hence, VCs are not currencies. These are also being described as 'Coins'," it said.

There is, however, no physical attribute to these coins, it said, adding, persons dealing in them must consider these facts and beware of the risks involved in dealing in VCs.
Theres a reason that short films have their own category at the Oscars (even Filmfare has created a special template just to acknowledge shorts).

Over the last few years, the quality and quantum of short fiction features has increased manifold. In some cases the script, direction and performances outclass big budget full-length feature films. Innovative storytelling, thoughtful content (recurring themes included infidelity, gender discrimination and city life) and impressive acting defined the films that populated the internet in 2017.

Theres also a notable proclivity towards the public service, do-gooder messages or a pandering to brands looking for surrogate advertising, in these films.

Keeping this in mind, and restricting my list to Hindi language, heres a curated pick of some of the finest shorts (under 40 minutes) of the year (most are available on youtube.com), in alphabetical order:

Anukul

Director: Sujoy Ghosh

A modern take on a Satyajit Ray story, in this 21.54-minute film, Parambrata Chatterjee plays a robot in the service of a schoolteacher (Saurabh Shukla). Anukul throws up a number of questions as humans resist the takeover by artificial intelligence and the robot begins to questions morality and conscience. Detailed production design and seamless, if slightly leisurely, storytelling makes this a provocative film with subtle performances.

Chhuri

Director: Mansi Jain

After Chutney, now Chhuri  Tisca Chopra could write a short film manual on satirising infidelity and the reactions of a wife to a cheating husband. In Jains 12-and-a-half-minute film, Chopras reactions cut like a knife as she takes on her husband (Anurag Kashyap) and his paramour (Surveen Chawla). This one is enjoyable mostly for the way Jain creates tension and power play between Chopra and Chawla.

Chumbak

Director: Prabhakar Pant

This one almost blew my socks off  almost, because it was one of the few films to test a different genre. Dark, twisted, experimental and edgy on one hand but theatrical with stilted dialogue on the other, Pant squanders the gain of the first three minutes in the remaining seven. Chumbak makes it to this list for its darker theme, and for what it almost was.

Death of a Father

Director: Somnath Pal

Somnath Pals exploration of grief, loss, ritual and mourning is beautiful and inventive. At a fraction over 10 minutes, the Hindi-Bengali language animated film follows a son as he mechanically goes through the motions after his fathers death, barely finding time to mourn. The colour palette and weather-beaten human figures add to the sombre mood.

Dekhne Main Kya Harj Hai?

Director: Himanshu Rai

It takes Rai just 6.51 seconds to capture a vignette of family life. Ayesha Raza and Brijendra Kala play parents who skillfully connive to guide their otherwise reluctant daughter (Priya Chauhan) to consider an arranged match. Funny, and sly, this short respectfully balances the position of a modern, emancipated woman with that of her concerned and perceptive parents.

Jai Mata Di

Director: Navjot Gulati

At just a shade over 10 minutes, Gulatis satire on urban living captures a slice of Mumbai life with humour. Set around the story of a young, unmarried couple looking to rent an apartment, it paints an accurate picture of the component characters, in particular the broker and the building society secretary. Shriya Pilgaonkar and Shiv Pandit play the couple whose bid for a flat can only be secured by mom (Supriya Pilgaonkar)  and maybe a little divine intervention.

Juice

Director: Neeraj Ghaywan

Between chicken kebabs and office banter, Manju (Shefali Shah, superb) is serving snacks to her husband (Manish Chaudhari) and his office colleagues. In the kitchen, over the sound of spluttering spices, the women are chatting about their domestic lives. Theres a broken fan, a jar of chilled juice and a caustic comment on society. How do you tell a complete story with layered script and taut character interplay all in under 15 minutes? This is how.

Khujli

Director: Sonam Nair

Want a summary of Fifty Shades of Grey and an explanation of BDSM? Watch Neena Gupta and Jackie Shroff as a middle aged couple trying to spice up their lives in this naughty, funny, charming, kinky short. The 15-minute Khujli might just have you checking online shopping sites for fluffy pink handcuffs.

Naked

Director: Rakesh Kumar

At 14.30 minutes, Naked feels long. But Rakesh Kumars film delivers a powerful message. The two-hander featuring Kalki Koechlin as an actress caught in a controversy and Ritabhari Chakraborty as a rookie reporter interviewing the star makes comments on both the vacuousness of celebrity journalism and on violence and abuse of women.

Syaahi

Director: Varun Tandon

The coming of age story of schoolboy Vansh (Himanshu Bhandari) who learns about peer group pressure, family, responsibility, repentance and absolution through one small impulsive act. With passable performances by the adult actors, its down to Bhandari to carry you along his journey in this undulating hilly town. The almost 30-minute narrative feels more long than short, as we stand on the sidelines of the lives of a struggling writer and his family.

The Affair

Director: Hardik Mehta

In just over 6 minutes, Mehta uses irony to spotlight the issue of privacy in a crowded city like Mumbai. The seafront might be the only place where you can catch five minutes of respite and intimacy. Amit Sial and Khushboo Upadhyay play a couple trying to steal time in a city that makes it hard for you to take a break, but its Mumbai that the hero and villain of this succinctly told story with a twist.

The Good Girl

Director: Ritesh Menon

Another female-lead two-hander, Gurdeep Kohli and Plabita Borthakur play mother and daughter, respectively (and impressively). The 11 minute film is set in a bathroom. Using sound design, silences, performance, space and script, Menon tackles issues of pre-marital sex, unwanted pregnancy, parental guidance and conforming to a template of the good girl/boy.

Also check out:

 PaniPath by Jai Mehta is a cautionary tale about the importance of conserving water told from the viewpoint of a low-income family with a moving performance by Tejaswini Kolhapure as the mother.

 Sumit Aroraas The White Shirt is a languid relationship drama where the shirt is a symbol of a couples (Kritika Kamra, Kunal Kapoor) connection and disconnection.

 In The School Bag director Dheeraj Jindals film looks at the impact of militancy and violence on the innocent through the story of a mother and son. Rasika Dugal and Sartaaj RK deliver heart-rending performances.
A 23-year-old woman has accused Kannada actor Subramanya of sedating her, then raping her. When she tried to raise an alarm, he reportedly threatened to throw acid on her face, reports Deccan Chronicle.

The woman has now filed a complaint against the actor at the Basavanagudi women police station on 26 December. An FIR has also been registered against Subramanya, who is reportedly absconding.

The report suggests Subramanya, who featured in the Kannada film Hombanna, had an alleged relationship with the young woman and they had known each other for the past two years. Their families too had agreed upon getting them married, but on Subramanya's insistence the ceremony kept on getting delayed. He reportedly wanted to get married after his film Hombanna released.

The film released in July, but he kept delaying the marriage citing different reasons. Meanwhile, he threatened the woman saying he will throw acid on her face if she marries somebody else.

Eventually, he called the woman and invited her to come along to his sister's house for a party. Having known the family closely, the woman agreed. But, he took her to his room instead of the party where the crime is reported to have occurred. The woman claims Subramanya offered her a soft drink which has some sedative dissolved; she drank it and fell unconscious on the floor, according to a Deccan Herald report.

She further claims when she woke up the next day she realised she had been raped, adds the Deccan Herald report.
New Delhi: A woman officer in the Delhi health department raised serious allegation against Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan of threatening her. She as also filed written complain in the office of the Director General of Health Services against the MLA.

The allegation comes a year after the AAP MLA was arrested under similar allegations of threatening another woman who went to his residence to complain about frequent power cuts in her locality. He was granted bail by the court with a warning not to indulge in any criminal offence.

Barkha Tonk, a nodal officer in the Union Territory's health department alleged in her complaint that the MLA misbehaved with her over getting a patient treated at Apollo Hospital and threatened her with dire consequences.

As per the complaint letter filed by the officer, the AAP MLA said threatening to her, "Tujhe dekh lenge. Tera ilaaj bhi karoonga." (I shall see you. I will treat you).

Hinting that the ruling party MLA has been repeatedly misbehaving her she wrote that, He never talks normally but always in an aggressive way.

Tonk looks after the admission of patients from the economically weaker (EWS) in private hospitals for free treatment.

In 2007, the Delhi High Court had ordered the private hospitals that received allotment of lands from the government to reserve 10 percent of seats for the EWS. Since then the Delhi government has deputed nodal officers to ensure smooth functioning of the scheme. Tonk looks after the EWS scheme run by the Apollo Hospital in Delhi.

Advocate Ashok Agarwal who is a member of the Delhi High Court monitoring Committee for the scheme told Firstpost that Khan often insists the government official admit rich patients under the scheme.

"There is a certain norm about who can be admitted under this category and who cannot be. This facility is only meant for the patients who earn less than the minimum wage prescribed by the government, he said.

Agarwal alleged that Khan in gross misuse of his position often enters into arguments with government officials and misbehaves with them in order to get free treatment for undeserving people.

"This is not the first time he has misbehaved with the lady officer. Earlier too similar incidents happened and the Director General of Health Services had been intimated about his bad behaviour with the woman officer in the past too, he said.

"It is a serious issue this time as he threatened the woman," Agarwal said.

He also said that the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has also been intimated this time though no action has been taken yet.

The AAP which often speaks of women safety is silent when one of the lady government officers has been threatened by its own MLA, Agarwal said.

Last year Khan, who represents the Okhla constituency, was arrested after a woman filed a case against him accusing him of threatening her.

In that case, the woman allegedly went to his Batla House residence to complain about frequent power cuts with him. But he did not meet her. When she was returning, a youth came out of the house and threatened her with dire consequences for politicising the issue. Later a case was registered against him in which he was arrested. He was later granted bail with a warning that he should not create any law and order problem in the area and further not to incite his supporters to indulge in any criminal offence.

Kirti Bhushan, Director General of Health Services told Firstpost that appropriate move will be taken to prevent recurrence of such incidents.

"Such incidents should not happen. It will be conveyed that disturbing a health worker is not acceptable, Bhushan said.

Firstpost tried to contact Khan but he did not respond.
Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday asked Pakistan to adopt a humane approach with Indian prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav and ensure his fair trial.

Expressing sadness over the treatment meted out to Jadhav's mother and wife during their recent visit to Pakistan, she said humanity should be treated above politics.

Mehbooba made the statement in a tweet in Urdu on the micro blogging site Twitter.

Meanwhile, deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh and roads and buildings minister Naeem Akhtar also expressed displeasure over the treatment with Jadhav's wife and mother in Pakistan.

"It is inhumanity of Pakistan. It played this game to mislead the people and got exposed before the world," Singh said.

"This is the reality of Pakistan, which does not believe in humanity," he told reporters on the sidelines of the oath taking function of Mehbooba's brother, Tassaduq Mufti who along with PDP legislator Javaid Mustafa Mir were inducted into the cabinet on Thursday.

Talking about repeated ceasefire violations by Pakistan, he said, "We have made it clear that we will not initiate firing from this side. But if such a thing happens from Pakistan, it will be given a befitting reply."

"Humanitarian outreach should not be made a victim of politics," Akhtar said.
New Delhi: Thousands of elderly persons whose bio-metrics do not match their records anymore are facing trouble in getting their pension as well as getting any other Aadhaar-linked work done, a BJP member of the Lok Sabha said on Friday.

Bihar MP from Aurangabad Sushil Kumar Singh also mentioned the fraud where LPG subsidy belonging to different people worth Rs 190 crore was transferred in the account of telecom company Airtel, and demanded criminal action against the culprits.

"Old people are unable to get pensions since last one year as their thumb prints and retina scan do not match," Singh said.

He also said that his mother could not get a sim card in her own name due to problem in matching of fingerprints.

Mentioning the Airtel incident, he said: "It is a criminal act that someone's money is being transferred to other accounts without permission. Though the Petroleum ministry has taken action, but there should be criminal proceedings against the culprits."

The MP urged the Centre to find a solution to the problem. "The government should seriously think about resolving this issue," he said.

A large number of LPG consumers had complained about non-credit of the LPG subsidy amounts into their earlier bank accounts, and on verification, it was found that these complaints pertained to those consumers who were Airtel customers and have opened account in Airtel Payments Bank.

As per reports, Airtel has written to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) promising to return Rs 190 crore, along with interest, to the consumers' original bank accounts that were linked to the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).
New Delhi: The CBI has written to the United States and Russia, through the Interpol, seeking information about servers on which its arrested software programmer had hosted his illegal software for subverting Tatkal ticket booking system of the Indian Railways.

The CBI sources said an initial investigation it has emerged that Ajay Garg, an assistant programmer at the agency, and his front, Anil Gupta, had hosted their illegal software on a USA-based server while emails were created on a Russian server to avoid detection.

They said the software created by them had to be hosted on a server and the end users could access it through a username and password provided by Garg and Gupta.

The duo used to charge Rs 1,000-1,200 from travel agents using their software.

The software which they christened 'Neo' was hosted on a USA-based server, they said.

The sources said it was done to speed up the traffic on their servers and also avoid any detection and probe by investigating agencies.

They said the agency has approached the Interpol seeking details of these back-end servers from the USA and Russia.

Thirty-five-year-old software engineer Garg had joined the CBI in 2012 through a selection process and had been working as an assistant programmer. He had also worked with the IRCTC, which handles the ticketing system of the railways, between 2007 and 2011.

The CBI probe so far has indicated that Garg learnt the vulnerabilities of the IRCTC ticketing software during his tenure there which he exploited in his software, they said.

Garg and Gupta have been arrested by the CBI and are being questioned by the agency.

During the questioning, it emerged that their network was spread across the country, they said.

The agency has so far identified 10 travel agents who were part of the network but their questioning led the agency to more agents who subscribed to their illegal services, they said.

"...it usually takes 120 seconds in the normal course for a generation of a single PNR but this illegal software enables the user to book multiple Tatkal tickets online in much less time," the CBI FIR alleged.

It said the software enables the user to save all required details to book Tatkal tickets beforehand in the software which are automatically filled-in the IRCTC portal as soon as Tatkal booking starts and PNR is generated very fast.

The software provides proxy IP addresses, bypassing IRCTC captcha, bypassing bank OTP, form autofill, log in with multiple IDs with several pairs with the help of a US-based server, allowing the users to fraudulently gain unauthorised access to a computer network in contravention of rules and regulations.
Bhubaneswar: Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra on Friday said constitutional sovereignty is supreme and all must surrender before it.

Stating that the country will plunge into anarchy in absence of constitutional sovereignty, Misra said it is mandatory for all to abide by the rules of the law.

"We all are under the constitutional sovereignty and we have to surrender to constitutional supremacy," Misra said while addressing a function organised by the All Odisha Lawyers Association.

"We have to keep it in mind that all including legislature, executive and judiciary are under constitutional sovereignty," said the CJI.

He also urged the lawyers to keep up sanctity of the noble profession and serve the people through their works.

In his speech, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik said the state government in last four years has set up over 170 courts and 50 more new courts will be established soon.

With the changing economic scenario and globalisation of business, litigations have increased manifold, he said.

Various laws have been enacted, several quasi-judicial fora have been established and various nature of disputes are coming up, the chief minister said.

Patnaik urged lawyers to dedicate all their efforts in serving poor litigants of the state.
Chennai: The DMK on Friday denounced the Centre over the "haste" shown in getting the 'triple talaq' bill passed in the Lok Sabha and wanted it to be referred to a standing committee.

The Lower House of Parliament on Thursday passed the contentious Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill that criminalises instant triple talaq and makes it punishable by up to three years imprisonment for the husband.

In a statement, DMK working president MK Stalin also objected to the "stringent" three-year jail term for men and wanted to know if the BJP government at the Centre was really concerned about the welfare of Muslim women.

"The three-year jail term is unnecessary," he said. "The haste shown by the BJP government in moving the bill in the Lok Sabha and passing it with a stringent provision of a jail term of three years... It doesn't look like the Centre is concerned about Muslim women," he said.

Questioning the intent of the government on the triple talaq issue, he said the Supreme court had only said that Parliament can enact a law on the matter and there was no mention of awarding a three-year jail term.

Underlining his party's commitment to women's rights, especially Muslim women, Stalin said "questions arise over the government poking its nose into the Shariat law and religious practices and bringing such a bill with haste".

If the Centre was keen about ensuring rights of Muslim women, it should have held consultations with the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and Muslim groups, he said.

"If the BJP government had no such intentions, it could have sent the bill to a Parliamentary Standing Committee to elicit views of all party members," he said.

Keeping in mind the country's unity, integrity and the welfare of Muslim women, the government should have sent the bill to a standing committee, he said.

The DMK leader urged the Centre to "at least now refer the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill to a Parliamentary Standing Committee".

While the government hailed the bill as "historic", a section of the Opposition had disapproved of it.

The Lok Sabha passed the bill by voice vote after rejecting a string of amendments moved by opposition members. The Congress, DMK's ally, had said it supported the bill but wanted it to be scrutinised by a standing committee of Parliament, a demand that was rejected by the Chair.

The RJD and the Samajwadi Party had also backed the demand of referring the bill to a standing committee.
A major fire broke out in a building inside the Kamala Mills Compound in Lower Parel area of Mumbai killing at least 14 people, including 12 women, most of them in their twenties and thirties late on Thursday evening, and spread rapidly to nearby restaurants and offices as well.

Fire-fighters took at least three hours and more to douse the blaze that leapt up in central Mumbai's nightlife hub. Initial reports indicate most of the casualties were reported from the vicinity of the restaurants that had opened in the 37-acre premises over the last few years. The blaze was brought under control at 6.30 am on Friday. The fire broke out on the fourth floor of the building on Senapati Bapat Marg, a commercial hub of the city, a civic official told reporters.

Reports said that the postmortem examination revealed that all 14 deaths were due to suffocation. Police has registered a case under Section 304 of the IPC (culpable homicide) registered against 1 Above, the restaurant where the fire broke out at the NM Joshi Marg police station. The owners had reportedly violated fire safety norms. Around 150 people were inside the building when the fire started. Latest reports also said that the owners of the restaurant are absconding.

The majority of those killed were women attending a birthday party at a rooftop restaurant, police said. The 28-year-old woman celebrating her birthday was among those who died, her grandfather told Reuters. Kamala Mills Compound houses several media companies  TV9 on ground floor, Mirror Now, ET Now, Times Now, Zoom, Times global broadcasting company's office on first floor  and the blaze affected transmission of several TV channels.

#KamalaMills Fire: 'Postmortem reveals that all the 14 deaths were due to to suffocation,' Dr.Rajesh Dere, doctor who performed the postmortems (Earlier Visual) pic.twitter.com/oOqU6CCKz9  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

Casualty details from KEM hospital

Dead



1) Jeet- 49 yrs

2) Preeti - 36 yrs

3) Tejal

4) Unknown - 40 yrs

5) Pramila

6) Vishva- 23 yrs

7) Veena- 28 yrs

8) Kavita- 36 yrs

9) Paroli- 30 yrs

10) Dhairya- 26 yrs

11) Manisha- 30 yrs

12) Yasha- 27

13) Unknown

14) Unknown

Critical

1) Shefali,

2) Khushboo

Condition stable:

1) Rohan- 22 yrs

2) Abhishekh - 22 yrs

3) Deep - 31 yrs

4) Utsav- 27 yrs

5) Ankita - 30 yrs

6) Siddharth- 24 yrs

7) Divya - 24 yrs

8) Neha- 28 yrs

9) Neh - 20 yrs

10) Shankra

11) Jeet- 21 yrs

12) Yash - 22 yrs

Reactions

Shiv Sena lawmaker Sunil Shinde who also reached the hospital demanded a "proper inquiry". "Who has given them (restaurants) the licence? They are responsible for this incident," he told reporters. Aditya Thackeray, leader of the Shiv Sena, said he has spoken to the city's civic body commissioner.

I pray for the families whove been injured and those who lost their lives in the tragic fire at Kamala Mills. Really unfortunate and sad.

On the administrative side, investigation will happen, and the BMC will come down hard on the violations of fire safety norms.  Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) December 28, 2017

I spoke to Honble Municipal Commissioner Mehta sir, MLA Sunil Shinde ji and Leader of the House Yashwant Jadhav ji, who were at the place assisting relief ops. Implementing fire audits of such places are a must, and action will be taken if violations are found.  Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) December 28, 2017

A survivor from the blaze tweeted out her harrowing experience:

There was a stampede and someone pushed me. People were running over me even as the ceiling above me was collapsing in flames. Still don't know how I got out alive. Some powers were definitely protecting me ???? #kamalamills  Dr Sulbha KG Arora (@SulbhaArora) December 28, 2017

President Ram Nath Kovind too extended his condolences to the bereaved families:

Disturbing news about the fire in Mumbai. Condolences to the bereaved families and wishing the injured an early recovery. Commend the valiant efforts of fire-fighters and those in rescue ops #PresidentKovind  President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) December 29, 2017

Prime Minister Office tweeted:

Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly: PM @narendramodi  PMO India (@PMOIndia) December 29, 2017



Click here for live updates on Kamala Mills Compound fire
President Donald Trump, who was already incensed by the idea that his accomplishments weren't getting the credit they deserve, grew more worried on Friday after news broke that Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser and longtime campaign aide, pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI.

"I think that Russia investigation is wearing on all of us, the President most of all," said a source close to Trump. "But I think he is more concerned about the state of his accomplishments and this presidency."

Flynn's plea is the closest that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into the Trump campaign's possible connection to Russian meddling in the 2016 election has come to the Oval Office. It was a dramatic step for an investigation that has infuriated Trump since its creation. Flynn spent countless hours briefing the businessman-turned-politician during the 2016 campaign and was Trump's top national security aide.

How it unfolded

Trump was briefed on Flynn's plea deal on Friday morning, a senior White House official told CNN. The president, the source said, had anticipated Flynn would get swept up into Mueller's investigation for weeks.

Externally, Trump's top aides and surrogates were trying to spin the news as a positive step for Trump that signals Mueller's investigation could soon be wrapping up. A senior White House official said Friday that the president is feeling "no anxiety" about the situation.

Another source close to the White House described the President and his team as in denial on the Russia investigation. They are "totally in a bubble."

This source said the White House should be taking the Flynn news much more seriously. "This is like a red alert," the source said.

But the source said White House officials said the President expects to be cleared by Mueller's team before much longer.

"They think he's going to be exonerated very soon," the source added.

In more reflective moments, though, Trump confidants acknowledge that the President is bothered by the Flynn news, particularly because he is worried that another deluge of stories about Russia could overshadow his achievements.

"Every single one of us has come to expect this, including the President," a source close to Trump said of the Flynn news. "The worry is this could cool down what is otherwise a pretty strong march towards the economic growth we need."

The source acknowledged that Flynn's plea -- along with indictments of former Trump campaign aides Paul Manafort and Rick Gates and another plea by former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos in October -- "damage Trump's ability to get things done."

A manifestation of this frustration: As Trump's White House aides devised a communication strategy for Flynn's plea, Republicans in the Senate said they had the votes to pass the Trump-backed tax plan, an achievement the Trump White House has longed for.

Even as aides swore all was well within the White House, Trump was noticeably kept at arms-length for much of the day. When Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj of Libya stepped out of his car, the at-times loquacious Trump ignored shouted questions. And a previously planned photo-op with Trump and al-Sarraj was abruptly canceled as reporters waited outside the Oval Office.

Clearest sign yet

Mueller's court filings are the clearest sign yet of potential coordination between Flynn and a top Trump advisers regarding contact with Russian officials. CNN reported on Friday that Jared Kushner -- Trump' son-in-law and top adviser -- was the "very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team" who directed Flynn to contact the Russian ambassador and other countries on an upcoming UN Security Council vote on Israeli settlements.

The probe is now zeroing in on Trump's inner circle, making it harder for the Trump administration to distance itself from the action. When Manafort and Gates were indicted, multiple Trump sources told CNN the indictments had nothing to do with the White House because the duo never worked for Trump as president.

That isn't the case for Flynn, who was Trump's top national security aide for less than a month before he was fired for lying to the Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump, according to multiple sources, considered Flynn a friend, enjoyed his company on the campaign trail and in the White House and believed that the retired United States Army Lieutenant General was an honorable person.

That means even though he canned his longtime aide under pressure in February, Friday's news was likely still difficult to take. Trump said earlier this year that Flynn was a "wonderful man" who has been "treated unfairly."

The President "feels sorry for Flynn," a senior White House official said, because he "likes" the former national security adviser. The official add that Trump is "thinking about Flynn and his family" during this time.

One source close to the Trump added that the White House was balancing the fact that "the President was close to Flynn and spent a great deal of time with him" and "the truisms that General Flynn created his own problems here."

As for a presidential pardon for Flynn, the senior White House official said that was "absolutely not under consideration."

While Trump was bothered by Flynn's guilty plea, aides close to Pence feel vindicated because the former national security adviser was fired for lying to Pence in the first place.

What Flynn admitted Friday is "what we have known all along," a source told CNN. Flynn, the source said, lied to the vice president and he lied on the same matter to federal authorities.

CNN's Joe Johns and Sara Murray contributed to this report.
Mumbai: Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed his grief over the fire in a central Mumbai building, in which 14 people were killed, in the wee hours on Friday.

"Disturbing to know about the loss of lives in unfortunate Kamala Mills fire incident in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the families who lost their loved ones and prayers for the speedy recovery of the injured. Directed the BMC Commissioner to conduct an in-depth enquiry," Fadnavis said in a tweet.

In another tweet, the chief minister said that he has directed Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner (Ajoy Mehta) "to take strong action against erring officials immediately".

BMC Commissioner has visited #KamlaMills in the midnight itself and has taken stock of the situation.

Asked him to take strong action against erring officials immediately.  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) December 29, 2017

Fourteen people were killed and 21 others injured after a major fire broke out at One Above pub, located on the third floor of the Trade House Building in Kamala Mills compound on Senapati Bapat Marg in Lower Parel shortly after midnight.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya tweeted, "Fire at Pub at Kamala Mill Compound Mumbai I had urged CM & BMC Commissioner to Order Special Fire Audit of all such Pub, Hooka Parlours & Farsan Mart/Workshops of Mumbai. 2 week back similar type of fire at Farsan Workshop Sakinaka 1 dozen people had died."

Fire at Pub at Kamala Mill Compound Mumbai I had urged CM & BMC Commissioner to Order Special Fire Audit of all such Pub, Hooka Parlours & Farsan Mart/Workshops of Mumbai. 2 week back similar type of fire at Farsan Workshop Sakinaka 1 dozen people had died  Kirit Somaiya (@KiritSomaiya) December 29, 2017

"Understood that several such establishments at Kamla mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately, the place where fire took place was illegal," he added.

kamala mill pub fire-understood that several such establishments at kamla mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately , the place where fire took place was illegal  Kirit Somaiya (@KiritSomaiya) December 29, 2017

Follow our LIVE blog on Kamala Mills building fire
Ahmedabad: Gujarat chief secretary JN Singh has said that distress among farmers, coupled with unemployment, led to some sections of the society to vote against the ruling BJP in the recent Assembly elections.

Farmers across Gujarat in general, and Saurashtra in particular, "expressed their anger" against the BJP for various reasons such as less-than-expected prices of farm produce, Singh said.

He was speaking at the inauguration of Ahmedabad office of the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) at the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) on Thursday.

"Another thing...which has come out during the elections...two factors came out very very strongly. One was farmers' distress. Farmers all throughout Gujarat, particularly in Saurashtra. They have expressed their distress, their anger, by voting against the ruling party," he said.

"Why has it been so? There is some sort of feeling that things are not remunerative, things are not coming out. And second factor is employment...employment among youth ...employment all around," he said.

Singh expressed hope that the AEPC's new office would give a boost to the garment sector and create more jobs. "We wish that Gujarat becomes a major garment hub...from all over Gujarat, people who are unemployed, I mean the unemployment among the youth should be taken care of," he said.

The new BJP government led by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani was sworn in earlier this week.

Though the BJP retained power, its tally came down to 99 from 115 seats in 2012, while the Congress improved its numbers from 61 in 2012 to 77.

Farmers' distress and unemployment were at the centre of Congress president Rahul Gandhi's extensive campaign.

The BJP lost several seats in Saurashtra, the party's bastion for almost two decades.

The Congress won 30 out of 54 Assembly seats across 12 districts of Saurashtra and Kutch, from 16 seats in 2012.

The BJP's tally in the region fell from 35 in 2012 to 23 this time. The party was completely wiped out in Amreli, Gir Somnath and Morbi districts.
Several political leaders have in the past achieved infamy on national television by beating up police personnel for transgressions real or imagined. However, when Himachal Pradesh MLA Asha Kumari tried to join this exalted league, the tabled turned surprisingly on her.

Asha Kumari, a Congress legislator, on Friday slapped a woman constable after being denied entry to a review meeting by party president Rahul Gandhi, ANI reported. The constable, clearly not one to take things lying down, slapped her right back.

#WATCH Shimla: Congress MLA Asha Kumari assaults woman constable, gets slapped back. She was being allegedly denied entry by Police in Rahul Gandhi's review meeting (amateur video) pic.twitter.com/puvMRnHKss  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

This was followed by a brief scuffle in the crowd, after which Kumari moved away.

News organisations have not yet identified the constable who slapped the MLA back.

Rahul Gandhi is currently in Himachal Pradesh to review the Congress' performance in the recently-concluded election there, in which the party lost to the BJP, as reported by The Times of India.

Kumari won from the Dalhousie constituency in the election.

via GIPHY
Jaipur: An Independent MLA from Rajasthan has offered to resign from the legislative Assembly in protest against the government's handling of doctors' strike which ended on Wednesday.

Rajkumar Sharma on Friday went to meet Assembly Speaker Kailash Meghwal to tender his resignation but had to return back as the latter was not available.

"Several patients died during two strikes of doctors in November and December but no responsibility for the deaths was fixed. The government handled the strike very poorly therefore I decided to resign as an MLA," he said.

Sharma, the former MoS for Medical and Health, said the government failed to address the issues of the doctors.

"The government failed to fulfil promises to doctors made to them in November and instead transferred 12 doctors in an vindictive manner which forced the doctors to go on strike again in December.

"It failed to handle their strikes in efficient manner in November and December," he said. Sharma, who represents Nawalgarh constituency (Jhunjhunu), said that he would meet Meghwal when he is available.

He said he had earlier also raised the issue of the government's "mishandling" of the doctors' strike. Sharma had won the 2008-Assembly election as a BSP candidate and supported the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government. He was made the MoS for Medical and Health.

He won the 2013-Assembly election as an Independent candidate.

The in-service government doctors went on mass leave in November to press for their demands.

They, however, ended their strike following assurance from the government that their demands would be looked into.

After the transfers of 12 doctors, including the president of the All Rajasthan In-Service Doctors Association Dr Ajay Chaudhary, the doctors announced another leg of their strike on 18 December and accused the government of "vindictive action" against them.

The doctors, however, went on an indefinite strike on 16 December after the government invoked the Rajasthan Essential Services Maintenance Act and police started taking doctors under custody on 15 December.

The strike was called off on Wednesday after a meeting between doctors and state ministers, including Health minister Kalicharan saraf.
Ahmedabad: The Coast Guard on Friday detained six Pakistani nationals and seized a fishing boat off Gujarat coast near Kutch, a defence spokesperson said.

These Pakistani fishermen were detained by the Coast Guard when they were catching fish in Indian waters after crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL), the spokesperson was quoted as saying in a release.

During its routine patrolling in the Arabian Sea this afternoon, Indian Coast Guard ship C-408 spotted a Pakistani fishing boat 'Sindh Singhar' inside the Indian waters, the spokesperson added.

Acting swiftly, the Coast Guard detained all the six Pakistani crew members and seized their boat.

"They were brought to the coast. The boat and the fishermen were handed over to the local Marine Police Station for a further probe," said the spokesperson.
New Delhi: India on Friday strongly condemned the cowardly suicide terror attack at a cultural centre in Kabul, and said it is committed to extending all possible support to Afghanistan in its fight against terrorism.

41 people were killed in the terror strike at the Shiite cultural centre near a media outlet in the Afghanistan capital on Thursday.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement that India backs all efforts to bring stability and security to Afghanistan and remains steadfast in its

solidarity with the government and the people of Afghanistan at this difficult time.

India strongly condemned the "cowardly suicide terror attack" at a media news agency and the cultural centre in which more than 40 innocent lives were lost and many injured, it said.

India is committed to extend all possible support in their fight against the menace of terrorism and efforts to bring peace, stability and security in the country, it added.

The ministry also extended condolences to the families of the victims of the dastardly attack.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which came days after a suicide bomber killed six civilians in an assault near an Afghan intelligence agency compound in the city.

In November an attack on Afghan broadcaster Shamshad TV in Kabul, claimed by the Islamic State group, left at least one person dead and two dozen others wounded.

Security in Kabul has been ramped up since 31 May when a massive truck bomb ripped through the diplomatic quarter, killing some 150 people and wounding around 400 others - mostly civilians.

Islamic State has expanded its presence in Afghanistan since it first appeared in the region in 2015.

It has scaled up its attacks in Kabul, including on security installations and the country's Shiite minority.

With inputs from agencies
16:39 (ist)

Security guard forcefully kept people inside small bathroom, says Prateek Thakur, an eyewitness

Prateek Thakur, 28, one of the survivors gives a detailed account of the incident. Thakur, who managed to escape on his own, sustained burns in his right hand while helping out others escape.

"People were drunk. They were not in their senses and didn't realise that it will catch fire so soon. I started shouting. It was then that the public started running. They didn't realise that there was a barricade. They were drunk and were not even able to think that they should jump. They just stopped. There was nothing called a fire exit.

I think there are 99% chances that the fire was caused by the hookah. There were at least 150 people. There were eight of us who were there. There is a washroom on the left of the gate. So, those people who couldn't get out they were hiding inside the bathroom. My brother-in-law Lokesh was also there.

The security guard had forcefully kept them inside the bathroom, and didn't allow them to come out. He seemed afraid that the fire will get inside the bathroom too. It was then that the DJ at the restaurant, a Sardar, yelled at the security guard. The moment the guard opened the door, the DJ ran and after him my wife's brother Lokesh also ran. If he had stayed inside little longer he may have been dead."
Mumbai: Opposition Congress and Nationalist Congress Party on Friday slammed the Mumbai civic administration and the state government for the Kamala Mills fire that killed 14 people and injured several others.

They demanded a high-level probe into the tragedy and said strict action should be taken against erring officials.

Senior Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged corrupt practices and functioning of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

"The Opposition rejects the government's stand to hold an inquiry into the incident by the BMC commissioner. The BMC is responsible for the fire and it is inappropriate to announce a probe headed by the BMC commissioner," Vikhe Patil said.

He alleged the BJP-led dispensation in the state was ignoring corruption in the Sena-run BMC to ensure the stability of the state government. The state is run by a BJP-(Shiv Sena) alliance government.

Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam, demanding a probe, said the fire was a result of "clear violation of fire and safety norms".

"In a small area like the Kamala Mills compound, 96 restaurants have come up with zero fire protection. No fire audits have taken place either," he alleged, holding the BMC, the fire brigade and the Maharashtra government answerable.

"All the BMC officials working in that particular ward have to be suspended because fire norms have been violated and that has caused these deaths," Nirupam said.

Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ashok Chavan said that over the last few days, there have been incidents of fire in different parts of the city and innocent people have lost their lives.

He alleged that the civic administration and the state government were just paying lip services and not taking any tough action to curb these irregularities.

Mumbai NCP president Sachin Ahir said the corrupt functioning of the BMC was responsible for the death of innocent people.

He demanded action against guilty officials and maximum compensation to the kin of those dead and injured.
New Delhi: Reacting to the massive fire at a rooftop pub in Mumbai which claimed 14 lives, BJP MP Hema Malini on Friday said such accidents occur due to high population and suggested that a population limit should be fixed for each city.

The fire, which also injured 21 people, started after 12.30 am in the '1Above' pub on the terrace, and spread to Mojo's Bistro pub on the third floor one level below, said an official of the Mumbai civic body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

1Above and Mojo's Bistro are located in the Trade House Building in Kamala Mills compound in Lower Parel area, a popular night spot as well as commercial hub housing several offices including national television channels.

The actor-turned-politician said the accident took place due to negligence of authorities and wondered how could they ignore safety standards before giving permission to run such pubs.

To a query by a TV channel about frequent accidents in Mumbai, she said, "It is because of too much population in Mumbai city.

"Some restrictions should be imposed on population. First of all, each city should have certain population, certain limit. After that they (people) should not be allowed. Let them go to another city, next city," Malini said.

Minister of State (MoS) for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Babul Supriyo said he has spent "half of his life" in Parel area and recalled that just two days before his daughter had gone to Kamala Mills with her friends.

He said stringent action would be taken against those found guilty in the incident.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya said he had asked Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and BMC commissioner to order a special fire audit of all such pubs and hooka parlours in Mumbai.

"Several such establishments at the mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately. The place where the blaze took place was illegal," he claimed.

Stating that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officials were "responsible for the murder of people" in the Kamala Mill fire, Somaiya pointed out this was second such incident in 15 days.

"When will BMC wake up?", he asked.

On December 18, at least 12 workers were killed and one injured when a massive fire broke out at a snack shop in Sakinaka-Kurla area in Mumbai.

"Kamala mill, Raghuvanshi mill, Maatulyaa mill, Toddi mills, Phoneix mill complexes have such huge illegal structures. I had requested BMC commissioner to order investigation of all these death traps. Nexus of BMC Mafias/Officials/Restaurant Owners," Somaiya hit out in a tweet.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he thinks special counsel Robert Mueller is "going to be fair" in his investigation into possible collusion between Trump's team and Russian officials.

His comments -- made during an interview with The New York Times -- come after Republicans and supporters of Trump had raised questions over Mueller and his investigative team.

Several Republicans, including Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, have called for the removal of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe -- a move Democrats have argued is an effort to undermine Mueller as his investigation ramps up and to give Trump cover should he try to remove Mueller, a step the White House insists is not on the table.

Trump said the investigation "makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position. So the sooner it's worked out, the better it is for the country."

The President was also asked if former President Barack Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, was more loyal than his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

"I don't want to get into loyalty, but ... I will say this: Holder protected President Obama. Totally protected him," Trump responded. "When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the President. And I have great respect for that, I'll be honest."

Trump again said in the interview that it was "too bad" Sessions had recused himself from the Russia investigation.

Asked if he would order the Justice Department to reopen the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails, Trump told the Times: "I have the absolute right to do what I want with the Justice Department. But for purposes of hopefully thinking I'm going to be treated fairly, I've stayed uninvolved with this particular matter."

More Americans said they approve of how Mueller is handling the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election than said they disapprove, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS found last week.

A majority of Americans said they disapprove of Trump's handling of the same investigation, while just a third said they approve -- a result that has held fairly steady over the last five months of CNN surveys.
Following the devastating fire at a rooftop pub in Mumbai that burned out 14 lives on Wednesday night, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has suspended five junior level officials on charges of negligence, leaving many fuming that the move may well have been an attempt to shield senior officials who were allegedly hand-in-glove with the owners of the restaurant where the fire broke out.

Municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta also issued transfer orders for G/South ward's assistant commissioner Prashant Sapkale to K/East ward. Devendra Jain would be appointed as the new assistant commissioner in the area.

The incident, which was largely being seen as one that was waiting to happen as safety norms were flouted blatantly, also injured 21 people.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who visited the Kamala Mills compound, where the tragedy struck, said that a high-level inquiry has already been ordered and the municipal commissioner will submit a report within 15 days.

"I have already ordered a high-level enquiry in the matter. The Mumbai commissioner will submit a report and anybody found guilty in the incident will not be spared. All illegal construction would also be demolished at war footing," the chief minister said.

Police have also booked Hratesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Manka of C Grade Hospitality, which manages 1Above, along with others, under various charges including cuplable homicide not amounting to murder. They are also charged IPC sections 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others).

Two of those booked have been detained.

The fire that started at around 12.30 am at 1 Above pub on the terrace during a party, spread rapidly through the building to Mojo's Bistro pub on the third floor one level below, killing 14 people, including a woman celebrating her 29th birthday and many of her friends, officials said.

The incident caused massive outrage among the relatives of the victims and survivors as most people claimed that an avoidable incident was converted into a tragedy due to the restaurants' management's apathy towards safety norms. All the 14 deaths were caused by asphyxiation (inhaling the poisonous fumes) rather than burn or other injuries, confirmed Avinash Supe, dean of the KEM hospital where the injured and dead were brought. This further indicated that proper ventilation and speedy evacuation could have averted a major tragedy.

Blatant violation of fire safety provisions led to massive blaze

Anybody who frequents South Mumbai clubs and restaurants couldn't help but notice that most of them are clustered around the several British-era old mill compounds in Lower Parel area. Kamala Mill compound, another such teeming hub of various eateries, pubs and offices is packed full of buildings erupting in a haphazard fashion. A perfunctory search yielded 36 names of restaurants, bars, cafes, clubs and pubs located inside Kamala Mills. Such a large concentration, in addition to the many shopping destinations and corporate offices which also exist in the area, means that a calamity in one establishment leaves several others in the vicinity equally at risk. There have been allegations, time and again, that civic authorities have turned a blind eye to construction irregularities and violation of fire safety norms in the compound.

The pub, 1Above, where the fire reportedly broke out, seems to have violated a lot of fire safety provisions.

Sources told Firstpost that the BMC had in August this year demolished a parapet which was commonly shared by 1Above and another restaurant Mojo's Bistro. But the parapet was re-constructed to facilitate seating arrangements for guests. The municipal corporation had, in fact, served three notices to 1Above restaurant over illegal constructions on 4 August, 22 September and 27 October, 2017, asking it not to encroach the open space.

TV news channels have also reported that 1Above had also left at least 25 gas cylinders on the rooftop, which could have led to a much higher death toll had the fire spread to the cylinders. The restaurant building had also reportedly blocked its fire exit, which led to the people present at the building being stuck. The only exit available between the two restaurants was a narrow staircase and another emergency exit through the kitchen of 1Above.

The eyewitnesses stated that many of the patrons ended up shutting themselves in a small restroom to avoid the scorching flames as they could not find the exit. All the 14 bodies were later recovered from the restroom and the cause of death was asphyxiation.

Another India Today report said that the presence of untrained staff was also a violation by 1Above. Poor ventilation, improper functioning of fire equipment, and the presence of only a single staircase for people entering and leaving were also some of the other violations.

The eyewitnesses said that the restaurants also did not have fire-extinguishers at the spot. The roof-top section also reportedly had illegal bamboo-sheds and false canopy which are highly inflammable and caused the fire to quickly spread. The two restaurants were completely gutted within minutes.

Among the dead was Khushbu Bansali who was celebrating her 29th birthday, and 10 other women, according to an official list of the victims. Bansali's grandfather, Babulal Mehta, blamed the "irresponsible" hotel management and the civic authorities. "The hotel had put up a temporary structure supported by bamboo, with the possibility of catching fire. There was no fire extinguishing facility either. It is the responsibility of the police and civic authorities act against any violations," he said.

Sulbha KG Arora, a Mumbai-based doctor, told NDTV news channel, she was at the 1Above restaurant. "There was no time for anyone to reach out because the fire spread so rapidly. The staff members of the restaurant were trying to help the customers as much as possible," she told NDTV on the phone.

Drunken stupor, selfie obsession further delayed rescue ops

According to a PTI report, some patrons of 1Above casually took selfies of the massive flames that leapt metres into the sky, while a few others lay immobilised in a drunken stupor, delaying evacuation from the pub. Sanjay Giri, whose office is just on the terrace adjoining the rooftop pubs, said initially the drunken stupor of some of the patrons and an obsession with getting videos of the rooftop pub engulfed in fire delayed rescue efforts.

"I guided whoever we could see. It was later, after we went down, that they told us about their relatives and friends being stuck in the toilet. A few voice and video calls were also made," Giri said.

Sulbha Arora, one of the patrons, said people were falling and running over each other in the rush to get out of the building.

There was a stampede and someone pushed me. People were running over me even as the ceiling above me was collapsing in flames. Still don't know how I got out alive. Some powers were definitely protecting me  #kamalamills  Dr Sulbha KG Arora (@SulbhaArora) December 28, 2017

Warning signs neglected?

An activist of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) had reportedly complained in October to the civic body BMC about illegal structures that could cause a disaster, but he was told there was "nothing illegal", NDTV reported.

Congress corporator and Leader of the Opposition in the BMC, Ravi Raja had also lodged a similar complained with the BMC against offices and restaurant violating rule, converting office premises or open space into a restaurant. The BMC in a written reply to Raja had again stated that no violation was committed by any of the structure in Kamala Mill Compound.

Eyewitness account

"I was on the night shift. We heard people screaming at the pub. Initially, we thought it is due to the party which was underway there," said Sanjay Jadhav, a programme producer of a news channel. "When I came out of my office, I saw that a fire has broken out at the rooftop pub. The main entrance of our office was blocked due to the flames," he said. The massive blaze engulfed the entire building in about 30 minutes and took several hours to be put out. The cause of the fire is not known.

Prateek Thakur, 28, one of the survivors sustained burns in his right hand while helping out others escape. He said, "People were drunk. They were not in their senses and didn't realise that it will catch fire so soon. I started shouting. It was then that the public started running. They didn't realise that there was a barricade. They were drunk and were not even able to think that they should jump. They just stopped. There was nothing called a fire exit. There were 10-15 people ahead of me. I jumped above them and then came out."

He again re-entered to look for his wife but helped other people get out when he learnt that she wasn't stuck inside. He also said that a watchman had forced people into the restroom and wasn't letting them out, apparently afraid that the fire would reach them. The people inside were only rescued after the outlet's DJ intervened and shouted at the guard.

Siddharth Shroff, 41, another survivor had a similar experience.

"We were at the 1Above restaurant for a get together with my relatives from the US. The fire started spreading from the rooftop. We tried to use the exit but since the exit was narrow, people got stuck. There were around 150 people at 1Above," he said.

"My shirt caught fire and then it spread. We started asking for help. There was a stampede inside. There was no other exit," he added.

Restaurants' reaction

In separate statements, both Mojo's Bistro and 1Above said they had implemented all fire and safety norms as per rules and did not store any gas cylinders on their premises. Both the restaurants said that the fire broke out at the other restaurant's premise.

"Our staff were able to evacuate all our guests and themselves out to safety with zero injury. There were no cylinders on our premises," Mojo's Bistro said. The statement added it was saddened by the incident and the loss of lives. The statement from Mojo's Bistro claimed the facility had all its fire safety norms, certificates and procedures in place. The staff, it said, was "thoroughly trained" in fire drills due to which the guests could be evacuated.

1Above on the other hand claimed that the other restaurant did not have a safety exit, which is why the patrons dining there had to use 1Above's exit. They also said that the fire rose from "adjoining quarters" and not their restaurant.

"The facts of the incident, as seen by our staff, indicate a rising fire that began to emanate from the adjoining quarters to 1Above. We presume the unmanageable nature at the preliminary source of the fire resulted in it's escalation to our property where all owners, staff and restaurant management from 1Above engaged immediately in clearing the crowd from the establishment. There was no escape from Mojos Bistro, therefore, we believe that all their guests were told go through the premises of 1Above as we have an emergency exit. Hence patrons from Mojo's Bistro also began to rush into our premises as we helped the fire brigade that had arrived at the scene to evacuate guests. All our premises are well inspected and we have the requisite permissions for the same."

The blaze comes as a huge setback to the government's plans to make nightlife attractive by permitting all shops/malls to function round-the-clock, to generate more employment and boost tourism in the state.

Barely nine days ago the state government had notified the relevant amendments to the laws, though it was not made applicable to bars, pubs, discotheques and wine shops.

However, these were expected to come under the ambit of the new laws in due course, with the BMC initiating several measures in this direction.

The Leader of Opposition in state Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, alleging corruption in the BMC, demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the tragedy, especially with the New Year Eve celebrations around the corner.

Blaming the BMC, Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam sought stringent action against those responsible for allowing the eateries to function despite rules being blatantly flouted.

Quoting a friend who witnessed the conflagration, Congress legislator Nitesh Rane claimed that a hookah parlour caused the blaze and not a short-circuit as speculated. He added that Mojo's Bistro and another restaurant are only issued food licences, but not for serving hookahs to customers.

Yuva Sena president Aaditya Thackeray, one of the proponents of improving Mumbai nightlife, said implementation of fire safety norms was a must and BMC would come down hard on violators.

Bharatiya Janata Party MP Kirit Somaiya attacked the Shiv Sena-controlled BMC for lapses on its part which led to the blaze and demanded a complete fire audit of all buildings in the city.

With inputs from agencies
Mumbai: Following the fire at a roof-top pub in the Kamala Mills compound in central Mumbai in which 14 persons died on Friday, Congress MLA Nitesh Rane alleged that many restaurants get away with breach of safety norms by bribing civic officials.

"Many restaurants in Mumbai do not follow the safety norms and all they do is bribe the local BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) officers and get away with it.

"Now a probe will be ordered. The ones who are responsible will not even be punished. There are many Kamala mills in the waiting. Nothing will change", Rane tweeted.

"Why only blame the restaurant owner and not the BMC officer who kept quiet while he was breaking the rules. Both are equally responsible!" he said.

Rane also claimed that according to one of his friends, `hookah' offered at the restaurant provided the trigger for the fire.

However, the city fire brigade authorities haven't ascribed the outbreak of fire to any specific cause yet.
Thiruvananthapuram: The issue of suspension of a Class XII boy student by the management of a church-run school for hugging a girl is likely to be resolved following the intervention of Congress Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor.

An informal meeting held under the aegis of Tharoor with the representatives of the private school management and the parents of the boy and girl students arrived at a general consensus in this regard, sources in Tharoor's office said.

Tharoor later tweeted:

There are still some is to be dotted & ts to be crossed but we are almost there. I applaud all involved for having approached the issue in a constructive spirit. This has to be win-win: the school must win back its reputation &the kids their academic careers. https://t.co/bZTl1GipWn  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) December 29, 2017

According to management sources, the boy would be allowed to appear for the upcoming examinations, while the girl will be admitted if she produces her transfer certificate.

The St Thomas Central School at nearby Mukkolakkal has been in the eye of a storm after the incident which occurred on 21 July came to the media glare nearly five months later last week.

The boy had hugged the 11th standard girl student after her performance in a music competition.

The school management immediately suspended the boy and had maintained that the girl had not submitted certain admission documents and hence was not their student.

The boy's family had moved the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights challenging the school's action.

The panel had then directed the school to permit him to attend classes.

Opposing it, the church-run school management, moved the Kerala High Court which upheld the institution's decision.
The Lok Sabha passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill on Thursday criminalising instant triple talaq, meaning men who attempt divorcing their wives by saying talaq three times could face up to three years of imprisonment.

MPs from the RJD, AIMIM, BJD, AIADMK and All India Muslim League opposed the bill, calling it arbitrary in nature, but the huge majority the BJP enjoys in the Lok Sabha meant that the ruling government was able to pass the bill without fuss.

On Friday, media outlets across the country reacted cautiously, waiting to see how the issue develops before commenting on what the move entails for women.

An editorial in DNA spoke about the political ramifications of the triple talaq bill. Titled 'Round 1 to BJP', the editorial said that the Congress has "learnt from the error of its ways".

"Congress has dialled back on presenting itself as openly appeasing the Muslim community. This explains the rather nuanced stance that the party has taken on the bill. The Congress wants the bill to be reviewed by the Standing Committee to weed out the shortcomings," the editorial wrote.

"PM Modi, bolstered by the SC judgment, is steering his government to come to the aid of married Muslim women. An act informed with political courage is being spun as a conspiracy, while questions that should have been raised on the legacy of Shah Bano were conveniently given a miss by the Opposition."

If it becomes a law, it would give power to a victim to approach a magistrate seeking "subsistence allowance" for herself and her minor children. A victim can also seek the custody of her minor children from the magistrate.

Under the proposed law, instant triple talaq in any form  spoken, in writing or by electronic means such as email, SMS and WhatsApp  would be illegal and void. It will make instant talaq punishable by a jail term of up to three years and a fine and would be a cognisable, non-bailable offence.

Having been passed in the Lok Sabha, it will now be sent to the Rajya Sabha for passage before it is forwarded to the president for signing it into law. The bill's prospects in the Rajya Sabha, however, are uncertain as the government lacks a majority and the Congress' support for the bill is conditional.

And as pointed out by other media outlets, the bill is far from being perfect. An op-ed in The Hindu by A Faizur Rahman, Chennai-based researcher, said the bill contradicts itself on several grounds.

"The bill presumes that the 'pronouncement' of talaq-e-biddat can instantaneously and irrevocably dissolve the marriage, and proceeds to 'void' it in Section 3. Nonetheless, this begs the question of how after rendering talaq-e-biddat inoperative in Section 3, its nugatory pronouncement can be considered a cognisable and non-bailable offence in sections 4 and 7. Can a law criminalise an act after conceding that it does not result in a crime?" Rahman writes.

"However, the most glaring internal contradiction is found in sections 5 and 6, which discuss post-divorce issues such as a 'subsistence allowance' for the woman upon whom instant talaq is 'pronounced' and the 'custody of her minor children' as if her marriage is dissolved by the mere pronouncement of talaq-e-biddat. How could the authors of this bill talk of post-divorce matters ignoring the fact that the pronouncement (instant talaq) has already been voided in Section 3 and cannot result in a divorce?" he asks further.

AIMIM's Asaduddin Owaisi said the bill violated Fundamental Rights. Owaisi also slammed Prasad, saying, "The Union law minister has failed to discriminate between civil law and criminal law. Not a single Muslim country has a penal provision. Triple talaq is a form of verbal and emotional abuse," he said, alleging that the Centre was giving an advantage to the offenders and was not helping the situation.

Faizan Mustafa, writing in The Indian Express, also criticised the bill, calling it a "textbook case of overcriminalisation".

"The real problem of Muslim women is education and employment... We are advocating decriminalisation of breaches of matrimonial faith in the form of adultery; and second, we are not able to criminalise marital rape despite our revulsion against it," he writes.

"Parliament and the apex court may declare triple divorce as void but they cannot compel husbands to have a loving relationship with their wives. Ideally, choice in these cases should be left with the women."

"The Narendra Modi government is doing a huge disservice to Muslim women as no husband on return from jail is likely to retain the wife on whose complaint he has gone to prison. The bill will lead to more divorces. The remedy to tackle triple divorce is thus worse than the disease. The bill also obliterates the distinction between major and minor crimes by providing the excessive and disproportionate punishment of three years," he adds.

With inputs from agencies
A special NIA court  that ordered on Thursday that Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, Lt Col Prasad Purohit and 10 other accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blasts case will stand trial on terror charges  has said that a conclusion cannot be drawn that Purohit had attended the alleged conspiracy meetings related to the blast in the discharge of his duty as a military intelligence officer.

According to The Indian Express, Purohit had relied on documents from the Court of Inquiry, conducted by the army, to "exonerate" himself from the case. He had claimed that the meetings were aimed at generating counter-intelligence as part of his job.

The special NIA court, however, in its detailed order, said that the incriminating circumstances against Purohit are "not only about his presence in the meetings but also the manner in which he participated and the actual discussion and utterances made by him," according to an India Today report.

The court noted that in all the meetings held, "prima facie, it appears that Purohit was acting as a leader and chairperson of the meeting and also his superiors in the army did not have any knowledge of this".

MCOCA charges dropped

The court had on Wednesday dropped the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) charges against the accused.

Special Judge SD Tekale, in the 130-page order, said that there was insufficient material to charge the accused under MCOCA.

The court said that while the accused would not be charged under MCOCA, they would still face trial under sections 16 (committing/organising a terror act) and 18 (criminal conspiracy) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 326 (causing grievous hurt to others) of Indian Penal Code and under the Explosive Substances Act.

Of the 13 accused named by the prosecution, two are still absconding.

The court discharged three accused  Shyam Sahu, Shivnarayan Kalsangra and Pravin Takkalki  from all the charges levelled against them, and said it was accepting the NIA's decision to "absolve them" from the case due to insufficient evidence against them.

The court said two accused Rakesh Dhawde and Jagdish Mhatre shall be tried only under the Arms Act before courts in Pune and Thane.

"At this prima facie stage, a safe conclusion can be drawn from the statement of witness number 184 that in the Bhopal meeting (where the alleged conspiracy was hatched) Purohit, Pragya, Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni, and Sudhakar Chaturvedi were present."

"There was discussion about growing Jihadi activities in Aurangabad and Malegaon and Purohit expressed his opinion to do something for its prevention by expanding Abhinav Bharat Sanghatna in the said area," the court said.

'Conspiracy to establish Hindu Rashtra'

The court said it was accepting the NIA counsel's submission that the accused persons had made conspiracy to establish a 'Hindu Rashtra' and the conspiracy to cause bomb blast was one step towards the objective of the accused.

The court used strong words in holding that the prime accused must remain to be charged under sections 16, and 18 of the UAPA for conspiring for and committing a terrorist activity.

"The blast took place near a mosque during the holy month of Ramzan. If the place and the timing of the blast is considered at this prima facie stage in the background of available evidence in the form of transcripts (from the conspiracy meetings), witness statements etc, it has to be said that the bomb blast was caused with the intention of threatening the unity of the public by targeting a particular community," it said.

"The intention to take revenge against an individual is one thing, but the intention to take revenge against people belonging to a particular religion is another. The latter shows the intention to strike terror among people, or among a certain section of people," it said.

The court observed that while his predecessor had discharged all the accused from MCOCA charges in the past, the high court, while hearing an appeal by Maharashtra government, had ordered for MCOCA charges to be reapplied.

"The high court ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court. However, the apex court in its order observed that except accused number seven (Dhawde) there is no material to show that the remaining accused persons had nexus with co-accused or with the crime pertaining to the Jalna and Parbhani cases," the court said.

"The apex court had said it would not like to get into the issue of applicability of MCOCA at that stage since NIA investigation was still on. However, now NIA has completed its probe and has come to the conclusion that the charges of MCOCA cannot be applied against the accused in this case," it said.

The court noted that Dhawde was shown as an accused in the Jalna and Parbhani blast cases only after his arrest in the Malegaon blast case.

During 2003-04, when the Jalna and Parbhani blasts took place, there is no record or material to show that Bharat was in existence or that Dhawde was even in touch with the other accused in the Malegaon blast case, it said.

"In such circumstances, it cannot be said that the accused persons including Dhawde committed the act in Parbhani and Jalna case as a member or on behalf of a crime syndicate that is Bharat," the court said.

"In view of all this, I hold that all accused persons are entitled to be discharged from the offences under MCOCA as there is no sufficient ground to proceed against them under the said Act," the court said.

The court dismissed NIA's and Sadhvi's claims that the latter had sold her motorbike that was later used to plant the explosive device for the blast.

The court said Thakur was still shown as the registered owner of the bike and thus, despite her claims that she had sold it to someone else long before the incident, it was for the Sadhvi to prove that she had no knowledge of where the bike was.

With inputs from PTI
New Delhi: Medical graduates willing to procure a licence to practice Indian medicine systems, including Ayurveda, may soon have to clear an exit exam, according to a proposed legislation on the lines of the health ministrys National Medical Commission Bill.

This is a part of a draft bill which seeks to create a new regulator, National Commission for Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy, to replace the two statutory bodies governing higher education in homoeopathy and Indian systems of medicine.

The AYUSH ministry, in consultation with NITI Aayog, has formulated the inclusion of integrative medicine in the proposed bill which will enable AYUSH practitioners to practise modern medicines and vice versa after undergoing a bridge course.

Proposed by the NITI Aayog-led panel, the draft bill known as National Commission for Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy, which seeks to replace Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) and Central Council of Homoeopathy (CCH), also calls for AYUSH National Teachers Eligibility Test to bring in quality teachers in the traditional systems of medicine.

The AYUSH National Teachers Eligibility will be conducted for appointment of all teachers in AYUSH institutions, a senior official in the ministry of AYUSH said.

A committee under the chairmanship of vice chairman, Niti Aayog, additional principal secretary to prime minister, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Niti Aayog and secretary, Ministry of Ayush as members examined the working of the existing regulatory bodies of Indian Systems of Medicine.

It recommended the creation of National Commission for Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy.

There are two statutory regulatory bodies namely Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) and Central Council of Homoeopathy (CCH) set up as per the provision of Indian Medicine Central Council Act, 1970, and Homoeopathy Central Council Act, 1973, respectively, that regulate education and practice of AYUSH systems of medicine through its regulations.

Further, from upcoming academic session, it will be mandatory for those seeking admission in AYUSHs undergraduate courses to clear the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET).

However, we are still exploring whether to merge the entrance exam with NEET or to have our own common entrance exam, the official said.

For all system of AYUSH, minimum 50 % marks have to be obtained by the candidates to be eligible for admission in under-graduate courses.

The draft National Medical Commission Bill which seeks to replace the existing apex medical education regulator Medical Council of India (MCI) with a new body also calls for a licentiate exam which all medical graduates will have to clear to get practicing licences.
Jaipur: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit Rajasthan on 14 January to lay the foundation stone for Rs 43,129-crore Barmer refinery, and later in the month he would visit Jhunjhunu, which has won recognition under the "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao" programme.

Talking to IANS, Additional District Magistrate OP Bishnoi said the administration was making security arrangements for Modi's expected visit. However, he added that confirmation of the Prime Minister's visit was still expected.

Modi is likely to visit Jhunjhunu at the end of January or in the first week of February.

Dinesh Kumar Yadav, the Jhunjhunu District Collector, said the Women and Child Health Department had conveyed that the prime minister might visit Jhunjhunu on 22 January, or in the first week of February.

The Jhunjhunu administration has started making preparations for Modi's visit.

Modi had flagged off the ambitious Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme on 22 January, 2015, from Panipat in Haryana.

Jhunjhunu has won awards at the national level for registering success in improving its skewed sex ratio.

Jhunjhunu has also been ranked among the 10 best performing districts under the programme in the country.

Meanwhile, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia called a high-level meeting on Thursday to review the preparations and security arrangements during the visit of PM Modi in Barmer.

The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Ashok Jain, OP Galhotra and Additional Chief Secretary NC Goyal, among several other senior officers.
Islamabad: Pakistan once again defended imposing harsh security procedures during the meeting of Kulbhushan Jadhav with his wife and mother, which it claimed had been bilaterally agreed with India.

Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif rejected Indian allegations and said that the meeting of Jadhav with his wife and mother on 25 December was permitted on humanitarian grounds.

He said the meeting was initially scheduled for 30 minutes but was extended to 40 minutes on request and claimed Jadhav's mother had thanked Pakistan after the visit.

Pakistani authorities had sent the shoes worn by Jadhav's wife for forensic examination to determine the nature of the suspected presence of a foreign object, media reports here said yesterday.

Pakistan's Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Mohammad Faisal was quoted as saying that authorities had to ascertain whether the "metallic object" in the shoes was a camera or a recording chip.

The foreign minister said Pakistan's "humanitarian gesture" did not obviate the fact that "Jadhav is a serving Indian naval officer and a convicted Indian terrorist and spy".

He said a comprehensive security check was therefore essential. This was agreed between both countries, in advance, through diplomatic channels, adding that Jadhav's family members were treated with "respect and dignity" and the change of clothes and removal of jewellery and ornaments was purely for security reasons.

He said the visitors changed into their own clothes after the meeting and all their belongings were returned to them before they left, though the wife's shoes were retained as they did not clear the security check because a "metal chip" was found in one of the shoes, which is being analysed.

India yesterday accused Pakistan of disregarding cultural and religious sensibilities of Jadhav's family members on the pretext of security, pointing to the "removal of mangal sutra, bangles and bindi, as well as a change in attire not warranted by security".

Asif said Pakistan has been open and transparent throughout the meeting, offered in good faith.

"We do not wish to indulge in fallacious accusations and blame game and should focus on the bigger positive outcome that the meeting happened, despite immense challenges and impediments, instead of distortion of facts and baseless propaganda, which vitiates the atmosphere and is counter-productive," he said.

Later, Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesperson accused the Indian media of shaping public opinion for its "nefarious designs".

"Let me assure you that we can win any argument on this (Jadhav meeting), as we have all the paperwork and record with us. However, the intent and the purpose behind this gesture is very important and needs to be registered."

"Unfortunately, the visit has become more about the shoe and less about the meeting," the spokesperson said.

He said that the Indian External Affairs Minister mentioned a Note Verble in her speech in the Parliament.

"We will be responding to it shortly," the spokesperson said.

During the 25 December meeting, whose pictures were released by Pakistan, Jadhav was seen sitting behind a glass screen while his mother and wife sat on the other side. They spoke through intercom and the entire 40-minute proceedings appeared to have been recorded on video.

Jadhav, 47, who was arrested in March last year, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged spying, an accusation that India has dismissed as concocted.

New Delhi says Jadhav was kidnapped in Iran where he had legitimate business interests, and brought to Pakistan. To save Jadhav, India moved the International Court of Justice, which ordered Pakistan in May to stay his execution.
Islamabad: Pakistan has said that the visa applications of Indian death row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav's family had been received and were being "processed".

Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal tweeted on Thursday that 47-year-old Jadhav's mother and wife had applied for visas. "Visa applications of mother and wife of Commander Jadhav received for their visit on humanitarian grounds," he tweeted.

He further said the applications were "being processed" but did not give any timeline for approval of visas. On Wednesday, Pakistan had rejected India's plea for consular access to Jadhav at the ICJ, claiming that New Delhi wanted the access to get information gathered by its "spy".

In its counter-memorial submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Pakistan said the provision of such an access under the Vienna Convention is only for legitimate visitors and not for spies, a media report said. Pakistan said that Jadhav is not an ordinary person as he had entered the country with the intent of spying and carrying out sabotage activities.

Jadhav, 47, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April, following which India moved the ICJ in May. The ICJ halted his execution on India's appeal pending the final verdict by it.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav alias Hussein Mubarak Patel from its restive Balochistan province on 3 March last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. India, however, maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.

Earlier, Pakistan had agreed to facilitate a meeting of Jadhav with his mother and wife in Islamabad on 25 December. It also agreed to India's demand that they be accompanied by an official of the Indian High Commission.

On Thursday, Pakistan directed its High Commission in New Delhi to issue visas to Jadhav's wife and mother.
Kolkata: Several people were injured and vehicles set ablaze as clashes broke out between a group of protesters agitating against a power grid project and West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress activists in South 24 Parganas district on Thursday.

State Food Processing Minister and local legislator Abdur Rezzak Mollah alleged that the trouble started after activists of the protest group - "Jami, Jibika, Paribesh O Bastutantra Raksha Committee (committee to protect land, livelihood, environment and ecosystem) - who had taken out a procession in Bhangar, hurled bombs injuring two Trinamool activists.

"When our boys regrouped and chased them, they again lobbed bombs, injuring another party worker," Mollah said, alleging that the committee had not taken any police permission for the procession.

"The committee members were moving in a pickup van where bombs and other weapons were stockpiled. The police had no information. They came only after I spoke to senior officials and our party leaders," said Mollah.

Two vehicles were also torched during the unrest.

On the other hand, CPM South 24 Parganas district secretary Sujon Chakraborty alleged that the violence began when armed Trinamool activists attacked the procession, injuring one person.

However, local Trinamool leader Arabul Islam accused the CPM, Congress and Maoists of ganging up to disrupt peace in the area.

A large police picket has been posted in the troubled villages.

Bhangar, known for its history of political violence, was on the boil earlier this year over "forced" acquisition of 16 acres of farmland - spread over the villages of Khamarait, Machhi Bhanga, Tona and Padmapukur - by the state government for setting up a sub-station by the Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL).
New Delhi: Several Islamic nations have regulated triple talaq and India should take a step in this direction, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Thursday.

Moving the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill for passage in the Lok Sabha, he urged the members to pass the measure, saying the bill should not be linked to or seen through the prism of any religion or politics.

"We are going to create history. Today is the day to create history," Prasad said, adding, "I appeal to this House and the biggest panchayat that please do not see this bill from the prism of politics," he said, adding it should neither be confined within the walls of political parties, nor should it be looked as vote bank politics.

He said that Muslim women were victimised by instant triple talaq. On 22 August, the Supreme Court passed a judgment saying it was unconstitutional and arbitrary.

He said that judiciary in various judgments has conveyed its concerns from time to time on this issue.

"We were expecting that after this judgment, triple talaq cases would come down and the situation would improve...about 300 triple talaq cases happened in 2017 and 100 were reported after the Supreme Court's judgment.

"Several countries particularly Islamic nations including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Morocco, Indonesia, Malaysia and Tunisia have regulated this. See where Islamic nations have reached and see where we are," he asked.

Prasad said triple talaq practice has inflicted atrocities on Muslim women, "do we close our eyes and keep quiet".

"We do not want to interfere in Sharia. This bill is on talaq-e-biddat," he said, adding, "The issue is not of religion, faith, puja, the issue is gender justice, equality and dignity". He insisted the government did not intend to politicise the issue and the legislation was brought after taking a humanitarian view of it.

"If it is a crime to bring a bill in the favour of Muslims then we will commit this crime 10 times," he asserted.

Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge demanded that the bill should be referred to standing committee. "We are all for this bill but there are certain flaws and difficulties in this," he said.

He also said that no consultations were held on this bill and there are some lacunae in it which can be rectified by sitting together and the only forum for that is the standing committee.

In the interest of the country and Muslim women, the bill should be referred to the committee for elaborate consultation and time can be fixed for that. "Why you are in so hurry to give empowerment," Kharge asked.

To this, Prasad said the law was in the interest of the country and this is a small bill.

Initiating the discussion, Sushmita Dev (Congress) said that triple talaq was a regressive practice but there were apprehensions about its misuse against Muslim men as has happened in the marital rape law.

Since there is imprisonment clause in the Bill, the maintenance would be in jeopardy, she said.

To ensure that maintenance is meted out to the sufferer, is the government considering to build a corpus to provide maintenance to divorced women as the husband would have to face a jail term up to 3 years, she asked.

Dev wondered if the government was talking about women's empowerment, why was it delaying women reservation bill.

Supporting the passage, Meenakshi Lekhi (BJP) said triple talaq was becoming a social evil and it is a time to firmly deal with this kind of practice.

Opposing the provision of criminality clause, A Anwar Raja (AIADMK) said the Supreme Court had not put the provision of imprisonment.

He expressed apprehension that it was not a social reform but provisions of this Bill is not going to help women but put them under penury.

He also alleged that this government is pursuing communal agenda and it seems that it wants to eliminate identity of Muslim in the country.

Echoing similar views, Tathagata Satpathy (BJD) said, "we support the Bill but not the way it is intended to be applied on the ground."

The party was not in favour of the criminality aspect of the Bill, he said expressing apprehension that the resultant thing could be brutal like misuse of Defamation Act.

He also demanded that this should be thoroughly discussed and all aspects need to be looked into.

A Sampath (CPI-M) also demanded the Bill need to be referred to Standing Committee. "As you are saying it is very important Bill, historic Bill. It is therefore important to be referred to the Standing Committee," he said.

Pointing that the quantum of fine is missing, he said it comes under civil suit and there is no provision for criminality in this.
Washington: An Indian-origin student was shot dead during an attempted armed robbery in the United States, becoming one of the latest victims of gun violence in the country.

Another Indian was injured in the attack. Arshad Vhora (spelled as Arshad Vahora on his Facebook profile), 19, was shot dead on Thursday at the Clark gas station at 142nd and Langley in Dolton in Chicago, CBS News reported.

Police said two people were shot during an armed robbery attempt inside the convenience store.

The second victim, who was not named, was critically wounded, police said, adding the victims are related.

Vahora was filling in for a family member at the convenience store and gas station, relatives were quoted as saying by the report.

The suspects fled the scene. No one has been arrested yet. A $12,000 reward is being offered to help solve the case, the report said.

The shooting comes amidst growing attacks on Indians and Americans of Indian descent in recent months.

On 15 December, Karunakar Karengle was killed during a robbery by two hooded attackers in Ohio.

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 United States 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.
On the ninth day of the Winter Session of Parliament on Friday, the government will introduce a bill to overhaul India's medical education in Lok Sabha, according to media reports.

The National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill 2017 will replace the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, in order to reform the regulation of medical education.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA), which has been strongly opposing the draft NMC Bill, had urged parliamentarians to protect the interests of the medical profession.

According to the IMA's national president KK Aggarwal, the draft NMC Bill which was approved by the Cabinet, would "cripple" the medical profession by making it completely answerable to the bureaucracy and non-medical administrators.

"The medical profession is currently going through a very tough time. It is time that parliamentarians take note of this crisis and act accordingly," he had said.

He said the formation of the NMC would add to the woes of the medical sector as it would be a "regulator appointed by the administrators, under their direct control".

A number of other bills, primarily related to the business sector, are also expected to be tabled in Parliament.

According to Hindustan Times, finance minister Arun Jaitley will push for the passage of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code bill which aims to prohibit willful defaulters or disqualified directors from submitting a resolution plan.

The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment) Bill, The Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Amendment Bill, The High Court and the Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Amendment Bill, The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2017 are the bills which will be taken up in Lok Sabha for consideration and passing, according to PRS Legislative Research.

The High Court and the Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Amendment Bill will hike the salaries of judges of the Supreme Court and the 24 high courts by over two folds, according to NDTV report.

If the bill is cleared by Parliament, the Chief Justice of India will get a monthly salary of Rs 2.80 lakh, increased from the present Rs one lakh. Judges of the Supreme Court and chief justices of the high courts will draw a monthly salary of Rs 2.50 lakh from the current Rs 90,000, added the report.

The Upper House of the Parliament will see the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Amendment) Bill, The State Banks (Repeal and Amendment) Bill and The Central Road Fund (Amendment) Bill for consideration and passing, said PRS Legislative Research.

With inputs from PTI
This article is part of our 2017: A Year In Review series

2017 was a watershed year for Indian feminists. It was a year when the word 'feminist', which had sunk into some sort of disrepute over the years, was dusted out and given a new sheen.

Twenty-four-year-old law student Raya Sarkars 'List' naming well-known Indian academics as sexual harassers came out with a splash on social media at the fag end of 2017. This happened soon after the internationally famous Harvey Weinstein revelations shook Hollywood and had a ripple effect all over that country. Harvey Weinstein, the powerful Hollywood mogul, was accused of harassment by a large number of women who graphically described how he sexually abused them. The Weinstein episode set off a tornado of sorts, with women and men coming out with stories of their own exploitation by not just Weinstein, but also other Hollywood biggies, politicians, professors and powerful men from various walks of life.

Raya, who is in the US on a fellowship, started her list because she found that academia in India was full of similar predators  powerful men who exploited their students and colleagues. While she made the names of the accused predators public, she kept the names of the accusers and their accusations secret. She felt that making the names of the students public would jeopardise their nascent careers. This, however, created a chasm within the feminist sorority. Soon there were the pro-listers and the anti-listers, and each side was passionately defensive about its stand. Young and older women wrote to Raya about their own experiences and asked her to add more names to her list.

Was this disagreement the manifestation of a generational gap between the old guard and the new? Or between those who believed in due process and those who did not? Or was it something deeper?

Perhaps a little bit of everything. Feminists, after all, are not just one cohesive mass. Dame Rebecca West, pioneering journalist and feminist who died in 1983 at the age of 90 once famously said, I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat. She said this in 1913, when she was just twenty years old. Now, more than 100 years later, has anything changed?

Also read: From tweeting to following 'due process', 2017's lessons on battling sexual harassment

Indian feminism came of age in the 1970s. The battles which were fought and won by the older feminists in those stone ages (some of us older feminist journalists have dubbed ourselves 'Journosauruses'!) often seem irrelevant to the younger women who take many of the fruits of those victories for granted. Our battles were marginally different from our sisters in the West. We never had to fight for voting rights, but we had to fight for other types of basic gender justice just like they did. The right to gain employed in any profession, the right to get married and stay employed, to get maternity leave and equal pay for equal work were just some of the more obvious issues we focused on.

In those very early days, sexual harassment at the workplace was not even recognised as an offence, and victim blaming and shaming was the norm. Todays feminists might cringe at the term 'eve-teasing', but not too long ago it was an acceptable term and sexual harassment in the street was considered a kind of fun activity, not by the feminists of course but then feminists were mostly viewed as a humourless lot by society at large!

Things changed over the years, slowly but surely. Changes were brought about thanks to the untiring efforts of many women and men who came from all walks of life. Some called themselves feminists. Others did not. There were many people involved in bringing about this slow change  grass root activists, thinkers, law makers, writers, academics. The change may have been slow and undramatic, but there was solid change.

For example, in 2017 the Chief Secretary and Inspector General of Police for the state of Karnataka were both women. And yet, up until a few years ago, policewomen and women in civil services were asked to leave if they got married. Today, India has some of the best maternity leave provisions for women, far better than many advanced countries. We also have excellent laws which address issues such as sexual harassment at the work place, domestic violence, custodial rape and so on. But the process involved in accessing and utilising these legal provisions is long and cumbersome, and the young in particular have lost faith in them.

In 2017, after Americas watershed moment, things changed in India as well. Talking openly about harassers who were in powerful positions was no longer taboo. Suddenly there were new battles to be fought and the feminist armor could once more be worn with pride.

The approach of this generation was different, and so were the ground rules. The old battles were fought for basic gender justice, but now the central issues are different. The new age technology-and-social-media-savvy feminists are fighting battles over trolling and stalking, both online and on the streets, and discrimination at work. The whisper networks of yore which warned against lecherous bosses gave way to public lists shared on social media. 'Zero tolerance' became the buzz word. Young women who had lost faith in due process were loud and clear about naming and shaming their aggressors and predators.

Words like 'mansplaining' (which describes the act of a man explaining something to a woman in a condescending manner) and 'manel' (panel of experts consisting of only men) crept into the new feminist vocabulary, while ancient terms like 'MCP' (male chauvinist pig) and 'feminazi' sank into well-earned oblivion.

Hashtag activism, which took the form of campaigns such as #MeToo, made feminist issues more visible and offered a certain amount of anonymity to those women who may have hesitated to speak out in a public off-line forum. Issues like gay rights, which were not spoken about even in hushed tones in the old days, now became central to the discourse.

2017 was certainly a tumultuous year for feminism in India. Women cutting across caste, creed and class lines found their voices and stood up for themselves. Hadiya stood up for her right to convert to another religion, and marry and live with the man of her choice. Others had done it before her, of course, but thanks to the changed social and political climate in the country, her case was splashed across the media. Women who had suffered the brunt of triple talaq spoke openly on TV about the need to abolish the archaic practice. Marginalised groups like sex workers and the transgender community spoke up for themselves, as did surrogate mothers. In Kerala, women tea estate workers formed their own union and women in Malayalam cinema formed their own collective. Actresses spoke out in public about the casting couch.

The year ended on a note of hope; feminism in India was alive and thriving!
Chennai: The ruling AIADMK continued its crackdown on the rebel TTV Dhinakaran (also sometimes spelled as Dinakaran) camp by sacking more than 130 functionaries on Friday for bringing "disrepute" to the party.

Party coordinator O Panneerselvam and co-coordinator K Palaniswamy announced "removing" 132 persons from the party's district units of Tirupur, Pudukottai and Dharmapuri.

A total of 132 functionaries were sacked from the party.

Tirupur topped the list with 65 being expelled.

The two leaders said in a statement that 49 persons from Pudukottai and 18 from Dharmapuri units were also being removed as they went against the party's principles and brought "disrepute" to the AIADMK.

"Party workers are requested not to have any truck with them," Palaniswamy, also the chief minister, and his deputy Panneerselvam, said in a party statement.

Panneerselvam and Palaniswamy "relieved" one person from his party post in Dharmapuri.

Stung by the bypoll defeat, the ruling AIADMK on 25 December cracked the whip against nine party functionaries, sacking four of Dhinakaran's aides and expelling five others.

The two leaders had warned of action against those who "betrayed" the party, and had expelled 44 persons on Thursday.

In a jolt to the ruling camp, Dhinakaran secured an emphatic win in the 21 December RK Nagar bypoll defeating its candidate E Madhusudhanan by a thumping margin of over 40,000 votes.

The bypoll, necessitated due to the death of sitting MLA, former chief minister J Jayalalithaa, was seen as a litmus test for the 20-month-old AIADMK government.

Dhinakaran, sidelined by the ruling camp a few months ago, contested as an independent candidate.

He had earlier lost his battle for the party symbol 'Two Leaves' to the Palaniswamy-led ruling camp and contested the election on pressure-cooker symbol.
New Delhi: The turf war between Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal reached Parliament on Thursday, with a Rajya Sabha member claiming that the chief minister was being treated like a "peon".

Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien, who was chairing the proceedings, requested housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri to try and sort out the friction between the duo.

As the issue dominated the discussion on a bill related to Delhi, a number of Opposition members raised the matter of the chief minister not being invited to the inauguration of Metro's Magenta Line. "I have a suggestion for you. You please take initiative to sort out the friction between the lieutenant governor and the chief minister," Kurien told Puri, after a number of members raised the issue of power tussle between them.

Puri accepted it as a "bigger challenge" than challenges faced by him during his four-decade of public life that included negotiations with terrorists.

"In four decades of public life, I have faced many challenges. I tried to negotiate with terrorists etc. This is going to be a difficult one but I will accept your challenge and I will try and negotiate... I will invite both of them for lunch and do something and I will try and sort this out," the minister told the chair.

Puri earlier in the course of reply to a debate has said that the chief minister was not invited to the inauguration event by the prime minister as the stretch fell in Uttar Pradesh, and added that if Kejriwal was so eager he could sanction the fourth phase of metro which had been pending with the Delhi government for approval.

Senior member Raj Gopal Verma said, "When the minister was saying that the inauguration was done in the Uttar Pradesh sector, I was silent. All those who possess general knowledge had objection to it as when the Delhi Metro is executing it, the Delhi chief minister should have been invited... This is a wrong precedent."

Verma cited one such instance during former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's regime wherein Vajpayee had refused to attend a function till the chief minister of the state was invited to be a part of it. "Simple traditions and courtesies should be followed," Verma said.

Earlier, soon after Union minister Vijay Goel lashed out at the AAP government for not regulating unauthorised colonies in the course of a debate on a related bill, Naresh Agarwal of the Samajwadi Party said the Delhi government was not being allowed to function and the lieutenant governor treated the "Delhi chief minister as a peon".

Agarwal said the Delhi government was an elected body and had the right to govern, and questioned the BJP why was it not making the national capital a model city like Varanasi. TK Rangarajan of the CPM echoed him and said the state government should have been given full powers which were being violated not only in Delhi but also in Puducherry.

D Raja (CPI) questioned as to "how long it (power tussle) will be allowed to continue". Demanding that the situation be sorted out in Delhi and Puducherry, he said it should be solved immediately.

Md N Haque (Trinamool Congress) took a strong objection to the Delhi chief minister not being invited to the Metro launch event. "Why is the elected government in Delhi not allowed to run. Lt Governor is dictating... Recently PM inaugurated Delhi

Metro rail but the CM of Delhi was not invited," he said.

Haque said, "In the name of development, this political oneupmanship should stop."

A stretch of Delhi Metro's Magenta Line was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 December, cutting down the travel time between Noida and parts of south Delhi by more than 30 minutes.
WHY DONT YOU READ THESE?
The Congress is on the horns of a dilemma. While it followed a policy of appeasement towards Muslims in yesteryears and did not give in to pandering to the Hindu vote bank  except to specific sections like the Dalits or Other Backward Classes  the Gujarat Assembly election campaign showed that it is moving towards wooing the Hindus as a whole more assiduously.

There was no greater evidence of it than the newly-anointed president of the party Rahul Gandhi's sudden burst of interest in visiting Hindu temples in the state and the assertion of his Hindu identity.

The new direction of policy is reflected also in the attitude towards the instant triple talaq issue, which has become a touchstone of Muslim sensibility.

The BJP on its part has been groping for a way to wean away a section of Muslims towards supporting it but with its sharply Hindu-centric past, it has found little success. By espousing the cause of Muslim women in regard to their legally-uncodified divorce practices, it has now found a way of exploiting the chasm between Muslim men and women on the instant talaq issue.

BJP's strong advocacy of banning triple talaq got a huge boost when the Supreme Court, by a 3:2 majority judgment, banned in August the pernicious practice of Muslim men pronouncing 'talaq' (divorce) by repeating the word thrice, be it in person or even through e-mail or SMS.

Muslim men, especially the mullahs, who have thrived on male superiority, were greatly resentful but could do little before a bill came up in the Parliament to formally legislate the ban that the apex court had decreed was needed to be done within six months.

While the BJP earned brownie points with Muslim women for having championed their cause, the Congress has been set thinking. In its old avatar, it would have perhaps gone with the mullahs but this time around, it is caught on the horns of a dilemma and its spokesperson Randeep Surjewala has announced that the Congress supports the law of banning instant triple talaq but qualified it by saying that it believes that "there is a need to strengthen this law."

He said recently: "We have certain suggestions to strengthen it to protect the rights of divorced Muslim women so they live a life of dignity with adequate subsistence allowance."

It still remains a mystery whether the party would allow smooth passage of the Bill in the Rajya Sabha (the Lok Sabha passed it on Thursday) or that it would seek to stall it by insisting that it be referred to a select committee of Parliament or that the 'criminal' provision in the Bill providing for up to three years of imprisonment for defiance of the ban be dropped.

With the BJP continuing to be in a minority in the Upper House, the role of the Congress is crucial particularly when some parties like the AIADMK, the Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Biju Janata Dal and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) were opposed to the ban on instant triple talaq when it was taken up and passed in the Lok Sabha.

If the Congress joins the BJP in supporting the bill, it would have a smooth passage and many Muslim women would swerve towards it (the Congress) when it comes to electoral politics. But the BJP can draw satisfaction from the fact that it would carve out a slice from the Muslim cake as it is believed it did in the Gujarat elections.

That there is dissent in the Congress on the policy turn that is being effected under Rahul is evident from the fact that senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, a former union law minister, struck a discordant note, insisting the proposed law will be an "intrusion" into the personal lives of individuals and bring divorce, a civil issue, into the realm of criminal law.

Another former Congress minister Kapil Sibal's decision to defend triple talaq on behalf of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) in the Supreme Court on grounds that "it is an age-old tradition and could not be considered unconstitutional" has not gone down well with the party bigwigs.

The party's communications department in charge Surjewala, who has Rahul's ear, said instead that "the Congress has always believed that the issue of instant triple talaq is about gender justice and gender equity. The Congress will support any and every law abolishing instant triple talaq."

He reiterated that the bill should ensure payment of maintenance and/or subsistence allowance to women and children if the husband is in jail for three years, as envisaged under the proposed law. Whether these would find favour with the BJP proponents of the Bill remains to be seen but if the BJP refuses to accept Congress amendments would it still be supported by the Congress on this Bill? That indeed remains to be seen and could be a key factor in the new line-up of vote banks.
Reuters

Smartphone maker Apple and Japanese printer company Epson are facing legal complaints in France over allegedly speeding up the ageing process of their products to stimulate demand.

A French consumer association called HOP  standing for Stop Planned Obsolescence  filed preliminary, legal complaints in court against the two groups over the charges.

HOP said it filed its complaint against Apple in Paris on Wednesday. A prosecutor opened an investigation into Epson last month, a judicial source said on Thursday, following a complaint filed in September by HOP in a court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

Laetitia Vasseur, co-founder of HOP, told Reuters the aim of both complaints was to apply the French consumer law, which was modified in 2015 to include the notion of planned obsolescence.

Apple is already facing lawsuits in the United States over accusations of having defrauded iPhone users by slowing down devices without warning to compensate for poor battery performance.

These lawsuits came after Apple said last week that operating system updates released since last year for the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone SE and iPhone 7 included a feature to smooth out power supply from batteries that are cold, old or low on charge.

Phones without the adjustment would shut down abruptly because of a precaution designed to prevent components from getting fried, Apple said. Under French law, companies risk fines of up to 5 percent of their annual sales for deliberately shortening the life of their products to spur demand to replace them.

A spokeswoman for Epson France said Epson denied the charges made against it by the HOP association. She added that Epson was working with authorities on the matter and that the quality of its products was of the utmost importance for the company. Officials for Apple France could not be immediately reached for comment.
Reuters

The head of a Chinese online financing platform that handled over 50 billion yuan ($7.65 billion)in transactions is under investigation after surrendering himself to authorities, state news agency Xinhua said on Thursday.

Police in the eastern city of Nanjing said on their official Twitter-like Weibo account on Wednesday that the legal representative for platform Qbao.com had surrendered himself at a police station on 26 December.

State news agency Xinhua, which reported the investigation on Thursday, said Qbao.com was a platform that allowed members to make investments that advertised returns of over 40 percent and earn money from watching advertisements.

Also on the platform were retailers who could get goods from Qbao and from whom members could make purchases, Xinhua said

It added that as of September, more than 50 billion yuan had flowed through the five-year-old Qbao.com platform, which required its roughly 200 million members to make deposits. Nanjing police and Xinhua identified the person under investigation as Zhang Xiaolei.

A message posted on Qianbaos website, which has been shut down, said Zhang was suspected of committing crimes. Reuters was unable to reach him for comment.

China has pledged to intensify a crackdown on financial crime to safeguard national security and fend off financial risks after amid a rise in pyramid schemes, frauds and illegal fundraising.

In September, a Beijing court sentenced the architect of the $9 billion Ezubao online financial scam to life imprisonment, and handed down jail time to 26 others, marking the close to one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in modern Chinese history.
A North Dakota judge entered a $1.4 million judgment Wednesday in favor of the Wahpeton construction firm that led the expansion of the Heritage Center in Bismarck.

And the state of North Dakota is apparently agreeing to pay part of that sum, an attorney for Comstock Construction said.

District Judge James Hills order came more than a month after a Bismarck jury sided with Comstock. They said the State Historical Society breached its contract by failing to pay the balance of the contract and for extra work.

Comstock was the general contractor for the museums recent $51.7 million, 97,000-square-foot expansion.

The firm sued the state in March 2016, alleging the State Historical Society improperly withheld payment. Comstock also said it was provided inadequate plans to support hefty exterior limestone panels, which caused damages, delays and safety issues.

Hill ordered that Comstock recover $1,395,264 from the state -- the amount awarded by the jury  plus $9,667 in costs and disbursements, along with 2.25 percent in post-judgment interest per year.

The jurys verdict broke Comstocks award into two claims: $337,204 for the states failure to pay the contract balance and $1,058,060 for its failure to pay for extra work. Aaron Dean, an attorney for Comstock, said the state is apparently agreeing to pay the $337,204 for the contract balance.

Thats the money they say thats already been legislatively appropriated, he said. Dean said the money had not yet been received, however.

A legislative budget analyst and auditor previously said the State Historical Society had about $386,000 retained to pay the projects final costs.

Peter Zuger, an attorney for the state, declined to comment. He cited state policy against discussing ongoing litigation. State Historical Society Director Claudia Berg didnt return a message seeking comment.

Attorneys for the state floated a request for a new trial in a motion filed this month. Dean said that step is a precondition to filing an appeal, but its unclear whether the state will do so.

The state has 60 days from Wednesdays judgment to file a notice of appeal with the North Dakota Supreme Court.
tech2 News Staff

The 28 hour countdown for the launch of Isro's GSLV-F09 mission has began at 12:57 PM on 4 May. AT 4:57 PM today, the GLSV-F09 is scheduled to blast off from the second launch pad at the Sriharikota High Altitude Range (SHAR) in Andhra Pradesh, a facility also known as the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

The satellite is a dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is known to be a space buff. Modi has conceived the idea and has kept working on it over a course of three years.

On 30 June, 2014, just four weeks after coming into power and witnessing the successful launch of five satellites on board the PSLV-c23, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the Isro scientists. "The space community is to take up the challenge of developing a SAARC satellite that we can dedicate to our neighbourhood as a gift from India," he said. "I believe that the fight against the poverty of the countries of SAARC is the fight against illiteracy, the fight against superstition. The challenge of moving forward in the scientific field is the possibility of providing opportunities to young people of SAARC countries. Our dream of this SAARC Satellite will work in the welfare of all our neighbouring countries. And that is why I have proposed in front of you today that we offer a valuable gift to our SAARC countries through a SAARC Satellite launch so that we also become partners in their welfare."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi then unveiled plans for the launch of the communications satellite on November 2014 at a SAARC summit in Kathmandu, Nepal. The satellite was meant to be a gift to the neighbours of India. "India's gift of a satellite for the SAARC region will benefit us all in areas like education, telemedicine, disaster response, resource management, weather forecasting and communication. We will also host a conference in India for all South Asian partners next year, to strengthen our collective ability to apply space technology in economic development and governance. And, we plan to launch our satellite by the SAARC Day in 2016," Modi said.

The 8 December launch would have been a symbolic day to launch the SAARC satellite, but it was not to be because of one country that played spoilsport, that Modi had included in the project despite hostile relations with India. You can guess which country that was.

The initiative is seen as an effort in space diplomacy, but Pakistan tried to sabotage the effort, raised unreasonable objections, and opted out of the project. The SAARC satellite was then renamed as the "South Asia Satellite", and the launch date postponed to March 2017. There were further delays, and the final launch date has been set to 5 May.

Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are all part of the initiative. Bangladesh was one of the latest to ink an agreement with India. The Indian High commission has said, "This satellite is a reflection of Indias commitment to the development of the South Asian region and an expression to share its expertise and technology for the benefit of the region." External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay has indicated that India is opening its heart out to its neighbours. "Neighbourhood first is now being extended beyond the stratosphere," he said.

Pleasing China was one of the reasons Pakistan opted out of the satellite, but the Chinese state run daily newspaper, the Global Times has praised the effort. "The effort that the Modi administration has made in providing satellite services to South Asian countries is worth praising, but China should not be excluded from New Delhis recent moves toward strengthening space cooperation with neighbours. Further opening up of the two countries space industries is worth consideration because normal bilateral cooperation could help the two nations make breakthroughs in space technology. Additionally, Beijing and New Delhi could take advantage of multilateral platforms to boost cooperation" it said.

On 30 April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on All India Radio with his "Mann ki Baat" address. Towards the end of the talk, the Prime Minister spoke about the South Asia Satellite. "My dear countrymen, India has always advanced on the path of progress in the spirit of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas inclusive development for all. And when we say Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, it is not limited to the confines of India. It applies to the global context too. And very specially to our neighbouring countries. May our neighbouring countries be with us in our journey, may they develop equally. There are many projects under way. On the 5th of May, India will launch the South Asia Satellite. The capacities of this satellite and the facilities it provides will go a long way in addressing South Asias economic and developmental priorities. Natural resources mapping, tele medicine, the field of education, deeper IT connectivity or fostering people to people contact  this satellite will prove to be a boon in the progress of the entire region. It is an important step by India to enhance co-operation with the entire South Asia it is an invaluable gift. This is an appropriate example of our commitment towards South Asia. I welcome all the South Asian countries who have joined us on the South Asia Satellite in this momentous endeavour My best wishes to them," he said.

The South Asia Satellite is an initiative that is unprecedented among space faring countries. All other consortia for regional co-operations are on a commercial basis. Prashant Agarwal, an IIT Kanpur-trained engineer and the point-person in the Ministry of External Affairs piloting the project, says, "Prime Minister Modi has actually extended his slogan Sab Ka Saath Sab Ka Vikas to India's neighbourhood, essentially to service the needs of the poor in South Asia."

The South Asia Satellite is a 2 ton class satellite, and has a lift off mass of 2230 kg, with 12 Ku band transponders (36 Mhz each) on board. The Ku band is the name for a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, in the microwave range of frequencies. Each participating country will have at least one dedicated transponder for its own use. There could potentially be common South Asia programming broadcast from the satellite as well. The content generation and use of the transponders is the prerogative of each participating country. Apart from the use cases mentioned by the Prime Minister, the satellite will also be used for forming inter-government networks, communications in emergency situations, television broadcasts and providing DTH services.

Unlike the previous record setting launch of 104 satellites from aboard the PSLV-C37, there is a single passenger on board, the GSat-9, which is known as the "South Asia Satellite." The launch vehicle itself is known as "naughty boy", whereas the PSLV has the moniker "workhorse rocket of Isro." There aren't multiple passengers on board this GLSV launch because the vehicle is taking a payload into the geosynchronous transfer orbit. The orbit is too high for nanosatellites and CubeSats, which are a class of much smaller satellites that were packed into a single PSLV rocket.

The satellite has on board an electric propulsion system, which will allow Isro to save costs. The planned mission duration of the South Asia Satellite is 12 years, but knowing Isro, the duration is likely to be extended further. GSLV stands for Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, and it has three stages. The solid and liquid propellant stages are adopted from the PSLV. The first stage has a solid propellant core with the four strap on boosters having liquid propellant. The second stage has a single engine with liquid propellant and the third is a cryogenic stage with 12 tons of propellant. The GSLV is a two ton class launch vehicle, stands 49 meters tall, has a diameter of 2.8 meters, and it weighs 416 tons at launch.

Doordarshan is expected to telecast the launch operations live, with a pre-launch program that is likely to explain details about the satellite and the launch vehicle. A live web stream of the launch is usually available on the Doordarshan National YouTube channel. The TV schedule for today (PDF), however does not contain a listing for the launch. The blog of a reporter from The Hindu, Prasad Ravindranath, there will be no media presence at the launch, Isro will not be broadcasting the launch Live, and no information will be forthcoming till after the successful launch.
Reuters

Debt-laden Reliance Communications has signed a deal to sell its wireless assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm, for a total value of nearly Rs 240 billion ($3.75 billion), two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on 29 December

The two companies had announced late on 28 December that Reliance Communications, backed by businessman Anil Ambani, would sell all its spectrum, tower, fibre optic and other telecom infrastructure assets to Jio, which is owned by Reliance Industries and is controlled by Anil Ambanis elder brother Mukesh Ambani, Indias richest person. They did not give the value of the deal.

The sale, if finalised, would mark a big step in Reliance Communications quest to cut down its debt, which had sent its shares to record lows and led creditors such as China Development Bank (CDB) to start insolvency proceedings over missed payments.

CDB said earlier on 29 December that it is in talks with Reliance Communications, or RCom as it is called.

RCom shares rose as much as 29.9 percent on 28 December while Reliance Industries rose as much as 0.9 percent.

The sale would also mark the return of the telecom operations back into the fold of Reliance Industries, which forayed into telecoms in 2002, spearheaded by the elder Ambani, under the name of Reliance Infocomm Ltd.

A feud between the two brothers in 2005 led to the split of Reliance Industries, with Mukesh Ambani keeping the cash cow oil and gas business and Anil Ambani walking away with telecoms and power.

But Mukesh Ambani has re-entered the telecom space with the launch of Jio in September 2016, upending the sector with cut-price data and free voice service and pushing RCom into a debt spiral.

RCom has said it is retreating from the consumer telecom space to focus on its enterprise business, and on 26 December announced a new plan to slash its debt pile by Rs 390 billion ($6.09 billion) without any haircut by the banks, leaving it with only around Rs 60 billion in debt.

Morgan Stanley analysts said the deal would allow Jio to further expand into Indias telecom space, though it would also add to its debt.

Acquisition of RComs telecom infrastructure should bring synergies and lower costs while raising clarity on growth CapEx. The deal could potentially raise balance sheet leverage by 10-12 percent near term, Morgan Stanley wrote in a note on 29 December.

Reliance Jio is Indias fastest growing telecom company with a subscriber base of close to 140 million. Through the deal, Jio gets access to four bands of spectrum and 43,000 telecom towers and a countrywide fibre optic network.

Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.
Aditya Madanapalle

In 2017, ISRO accomplished the impressive feat of launching a very large number of very small satellites, indefinitely extended the life of its Mars mission, laid the groundwork for its future "workhorse" rocket and contributed resources for studying an explosive event that unleashed 10,000 Earth masses of gold into the infinite blackness of space.

ISROs launch vehicles continued to shatter records

ISROs workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), started the year on a high note with the record breaking deployment of 104 satellites with a single rocket in February 2017. The primary payload was the CartoSat-2D, the fifth earth observation satellite in the CartoSat series. Co-passengers on the mission were two nanosatellites from India, a flock of 88 Doves by Planet and a number of academic satellites.

Celebratory messages poured in from all sides, including a National Daily in China, which praised ISRO for proving the need for smaller launch vehicles to economically deploy smaller satellites. Space scientist G Madhavan Nair upped the ante by proclaiming that ISRO used reliable technologies for the launch and that the Indian Space Agency had the capacity to even launch 400 nanosatellites in one go.

While ISRO was widely praised for launching so many satellites at once, ISRO was not going out to break any records and actually pointed out that the number was only incidental. The feat of packing 104 satellites into a single launch vehicle was made possible because of the smaller satellites of the CubeSat standard and ISROs own modular bus system for small satellites, the ISRO Nano Satellite (INS). In the run up to the launch, ISRO Chairman AS Kiran Kumar had told reporters, We are not looking at it as a record or anything. We are just trying to maximise our capability with each launch and trying to utilise that launch for the ability it has got and get the maximum in return.

ISRO had to use a number of innovative approaches to pack the PSLV to its full capacity. There were over 114 separation events in a single flight, including the strap on motors and the stages of the rocket. The satellites themselves had to be deployed while making sure that they do not bump into each other during the separation. ISRO had to track 5,460 pairs of objects to ensure that there would be no collision during the launch.

The successful multi satellite launch was a threat to the US private spaceflight sector, which actually has a policy in place to prevent American companies from using cheap Indian launch services. ISROs commercial wing, Antrix was able to bag the order through international intermediaries and benefitted from a lack of the necessary launch capacity among commercial, US-based launch services. After US companies develop the launch vehicles to serve demand, the contracts to ISRO are expected to reduce. The next generation launch vehicles currently in development include NASAs Space Launch System, Blue Origins New Glenn and United Launch Alliances Vulcan.

In May 2017, ISRO launched the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with the South Asia Satellite on board. ISRO did not put up a livestream of the launch on its web site. The national television network DD was also surprisingly silent, with no pre-launch programming or live launch coverage.

The satellite has 12 transponders, with at least one dedicated to each participating nation and was a pet project for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The South Asia Satellite has gone under many names in its three-year journey from conception to deployment.

It was initially called the SAARC satellite, but Pakistan played spoilsport and withdrew itself from the initiative, after which the spacecraft was renamed. ISRO just went with a name it had designated to the satellite and called it the GSAT-9. Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh were all involved in the satellite, and Afghanistan came on board too, a few months before the launch.

The GSLV-F09 mission provided a big boost to Indias space diplomacy. The reason for the secrecy was revealed about half an hour after the successful deployment of the satellite. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, welcomed the leaders of all the participating nations to a surprise video conference. As the conference hopped, skipped and jumped through the capitals of countries ranging from Kabul to Khatmandu to Colombo, every head of state praised the initiative and outlined how the satellite would benefit the people in their countries, as well as boost cooperation in the region, which is home to over one and a half billion people.

The Prime Minister explained the usefulness of the satellite in his Mann Ki Baat podcast after the launch, "Natural resources mapping, telemedicine, the field of education, deeper IT connectivity or fostering people-to-people contact, this satellite will prove to be a boon in the progress of the entire region. It is an important step by India to enhance cooperation with the entire South Asia...It is an invaluable gift. This is an appropriate example of our commitment towards South Asia. I welcome all the South Asian countries who have joined us on this momentous endeavour."

We are a united family of South Asian countries, united in our pursuit of peace, progress & prosperity of our region & the entire humankind.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 5, 2017

ISROs next flight just a month later in June 2017 was also historic. ISRO deployed the GSAT-19 into orbit using its heaviest launch vehicle yet, the GSLV-MKIII. The rocket was informally referred to as Fat Boy owing to its stocky profile, but soon earned the monikers obedient boy and Baahubali after the launch. ISRO personnel have also referred to it as Indias workhorse of the future, a title currently held by the PSLV. It was the maiden developmental flight of the GSLV MKIII, the first to be realised using an indigenously developed cryogenic engine, and it managed to launch the heaviest satellite that India had produced. With the launch, India joined a club of a select few nations with the capability of launching satellites weighing more than three tonnes and cemented its place in the global satellite launch industry.

In the same month, ISRO had yet another multi satellite launch planned, the PSLV-C38 mission. It was the fortieth flight of the reliable PSLV, and this time, there were 31 satellites on board. The primary payload on board was a CartoSat 2 series satellite. The launch took place without a hitch and the 23 minute flight took place exactly as planned.

Eight of the satellites were from the QB50 swarm, an international academic collaboration. As the collaboration was managed by an Institute in Belgium, ISRO listed three satellites as coming from that country when they were actually from China and the United Kingdom. India deployed a Chinese academic satellite this year. That was not the only surprise in the mission. Piggybacking on two of the academic satellites were tiny prototypes of interstellar spacecraft known as sprites. The prototypes were developed by Breakthrough Starshot and were the first to be launched into space. They were also the smallest satellites that ground stations could establish communications with.

With the August 2017 mission of the PSLV-C39, ISRO broke the flawless, 24-year record maintained by the reliable launch vehicle. Except for the maiden flight of the rocket, none of the previous forty missions had failed. The spaceflight actually proceeded smoothly for most of the mission duration. It was only in the very last minute that the heat shield, also known as the payload fairing, failed to separate from the rocket. This is the tip of the PSLV, which opens up like a flower with two petals, deploying the satellite into its intended orbit. On this unfortunate flight, the satellite was trapped within the heat shield.

The space agency was unfazed by the failure and committed to resume launches by the end of the year. Fortunately, it was the best mission to fail on as there was only one passenger on board, the IRNSS-1H navigation satellite. The IRNSS constellation of navigation satellites will provide geolocation services across the country. ISRO is tasked with maintaining the swarm of satellites and the IRNSS-1H was meant to be part of that swarm. It's not an irreplaceable member of that swarm, however.

An exciting upcoming PSLV flight is a trip to the moon that TeamIndus from India and Hakuto from Japan will rideshare on in an attempt to win the Google Lunar XPrize.

Mangalyaan continues to observe Mars well beyond its planned mission duration

ISROs maiden interplanetary mission, Mangalyaan, was hailed for being one of the most cost effective spacecraft to make the jump from Earth to Mars. When the Mars Orbiter Mission or (MOM) started orbiting the Red Planet in September 2014, India became the only nation in the world to succeed in the first attempt of such an endeavour.

MOM was meant to have a planned mission duration of only six months, but in mid June 2015, ISRO indicated that there was enough fuel on board to continue the mission duration for many years.

Mangalyaan celebrated a number of milestones in 2017. In September 2017, the MOM mission celebrated three years in orbit around Mars and showed absolutely no sign of stopping. ISRO said, As the country's low-cost Mars Orbiter Mission completes three years in its Martian orbit, the satellite is in good health and continues to work as expected.

In June 2017, MOM completed 1,000 Earth days in orbit around Mars, or 388 laps around the Red Planet. Mangalyaan was meant to be a technology demonstration mission. Its primary objective was to give ISRO engineers the experience of executing an interplanetary mission.

The science objectives of MOM were secondary The five scientific payloads on the spacecraft have served well over the extended mission duration, studying the surface and the atmosphere of the Red Planet. The space agency allows researchers in the country to use data gathered by MOM for their scientific studies.

In November 2017, ISRO released images of volcanic summits in the Tharsis region of Mars, including Olympus Mons, the tallest mountain in the solar system.

In March 2017, the MOM observed superhot argon in the upper regions of the Martian atmosphere. The discovery of such particles in the region provides hints about the atmosphere around Mars and helps scientists understand why the Martian atmosphere is escaping at such a rapid pace.

All these milestones, and the continued observations of the Red Planet, were possible because of a crafty bit of manoeuvring by ISRO engineers early in the year. The solar panels on board the spacecraft need to be exposed to sunlight to keep the batteries charged. The spacecraft cannot manoeuvre if it is not exposed to the Sun for more than 8 hours.

In every orbit, the spacecraft spends a certain amount of time where the solar panels are not exposed to the sunlight. The scientists at ISRO had been closely monitoring the duration of this blackout in every orbit, and intervened in January to adjust the orbit, just when a long blackout would have meant that ISRO could no longer control MOM.

ISRO plans future missions to explore the solar system

ISRO also announced several plans to continue exploring other bodies in the solar system. Early in the year, a team of ISRO scientists were engaged in studying the feasibility of follow-up missions to the Moon and Mars, considering the successes of Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan. ISRO was also formulating a plan for a maiden flight to Venus.

In April 2017, ISRO started inviting proposals for scientific payloads to be carried on the mission to Venus. The allocated weight limit for science instruments on board the Venus mission was 175 kg, which was much more than MOM, which carried only 15 kg of scientific instruments.

In August 2017, an initial budget of Rs 10 lakh was sanctioned for the Venus mission. ISRO plans to inject an orbiter in an elliptical orbit around Venus, which would allow it to capture images of Venus from never before seen angles. A similar approach allowed MOM to capture unique images of Mars and its moons.

ISRO has announced plans to launch Chanrayaan-2, its follow up mission to the Moon, in March 2018 on a GSLV MKII rocket.

The mission has three components, an orbiter, a lander and a rover. The orbiter will be deployed at an altitude of 100 kilometres above the lunar surface. The lander will execute a soft landing and has a propulsion system on board to slow down the craft as it approaches the surface. Finally, a six-wheeled rover will investigate the surface of the Moon. The lander, rover and orbiter together will perform mineralogical and elemental studies of the Lunar surface.

Even a dysfunctional Chandrayaan-1 mission, which ISRO had lost contact with in 2009, helped to advance science. The tiny spacecraft proved to be a perfect target to try out NASAs fancy new ground-based tracking hardware. The US Space agency managed to track down the orbiter and were praised for the feat by former ISRO chairman, Madhavan Nair.

Gravitational waves from a pair of colliding neutron stars were detected for the first time

The LIGO-Virgo collaboration announced the first detection of gravitational waves from a pair of colliding neutron stars in October 2017. Astronomers and researchers were studying the event since August 2017 itself, when the ripples in spacetime first reached the Earth.

More than 70 space and ground-based astronomical instruments around the world interrupted their scheduled observation campaigns and turned their gaze towards the collision for conducting follow-up observations.

Peter Shawhan, the principal investigator of the Ligo Science Collaboration called it the most intensely observed astronomical event in history. It was the first time that scientists had observed gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum from the same source. The event was also the closest identified source of gravitational waves.

The event has been dubbed GW170817 and is located within a galaxy known as NGC 4993 at a distance of about 130 million light years from the Earth, in the direction of the Hydra constellation. A series of papers published in the journal Science, outlined the various studies by the different astronomical instruments.

The event heralded a new era of astronomy based on the observation of gravitational waves as well as of astronomy based on multiple instruments studying the same event, this is known as multi-messenger astronomy. Over 12 of NASAs telescopes and observatories captured the event, including Hubble, Spitzer, Fermi and Chandra.

Astronomical assets belonging to India also played a role in studying the event. The Himalayan Chandra Telescope at Hanle, Ladakh, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in Pune and AstroSat, Indias first dedicated Space Observatory, all increased the scientific understanding of the event.

Over 40 scientists from 13 Indian institutions contributed to studying the observations by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration, part of a global team of 1,200 scientists from over 100 intuitions around the world. The observations indicate that the collision resulted in the production of about 10,000 Earth masses of gold.

ISRO's certainly been busy this year.
On 26 December 2017, foreign ministers of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan held their first dialogue at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. The dialogue was the culmination of Chinese initiatives since June 2017 to bring Pakistan and Afghanistan together, resolve their differences and ensure China's enhanced role in shaping its immediate neighbourhood.

The press release after the meet exhorted both Pakistan and Afghanistan to jointly work together on political mutual trust and reconciliation, development cooperation and connectivity, security cooperation and counter-terrorism.

The political mutual trust and reconciliation here refer to the removal of hatred between Pakistan and Afghanistan while the development cooperation and connectivity refers to the extension of the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan. This China sponsored dialogue is an attempt to reduce the 70-year-old hatred and animosity between both Pakistan and Afghanistan, through dreams of common prosperity and economic means.

If this cooperation and peace in their common region are achieved, China will be able to stabilise the situation in its western parts. In addition, it will ensure the safety of personnel and goods in the CPEC corridor and finally get a secure access to the sea from its landlocked western region.

Besides, Afghanistan has been eager to join CPEC since October 2016 and often expressed its desire in this regard. One of the main objectives of President Ashraf Ghani is to convert Afghanistan into a crossroad connecting West Asia, south, east and central Asia. Additionally, Afghanistan needs substantial investment in its infrastructure and therefore, looks towards Chinese institutions for financial and technological help. The development of Afghan mines of copper and iron ore are another opportunity for close cooperation.

However, China has so far stayed away from investing in Afghanistan due to the precarious security situation. The opposition from Taliban and Pakistan, as well as the presence of US forces in the country, were other limiting factors that prevented China from taking a serious interest. However, the geopolitical situation in this region has become ripe for a major transformation.

The conclusion of India-Iran-Afghanistan trade corridor and the dispatch of nearly 1.1 million tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan, through Chabahar Port in Iran, has suddenly reduced the importance of Pakistan's ports. China believes that the Chabahar Port and other Indian initiatives, such as its support to 116 influential projects in 31 provinces in Afghanistan, are aimed to undercut CPEC and increase India's hold in Kabul.

These 116 India-sponsored projects will cover hydropower construction, farmland water conservation projects and renewable energy among others that will directly affect lives of the common people. As per China, India aims to win over Afghanistan through these projects and harm Pakistan from there, which the extension of CPEC will disrupt.

This Chinese mediation strategy is another instance of China striving to shape its immediate neighbourhood. In the process, China is also actively seeking to reduce India's long-standing dominance in South Asia through economic and military means. The trend is not difficult to discern.

Wherever China believes that its financial muscle can be used, gradually and in a sustained manner, to buy the allegiances of pro-Indian voices in South Asian countries, it has used that method in copious amounts. However, if the financial muscle doesn't work, other pressure tactics including military ones are used, as evident in the case of Bhutan.

In the last decade, China has used this strategy to increase its influence in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. In Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Maldives, the complicity and corrupt nature of their top leadership and their relative international isolation were effectively used by China for predatory financing and acquisition of crucial dual-use assets.

In Bangladesh, apart from multiple economic collaborations, Chinese state-owned institutions have concluded a number of financial deals with traditional pro-Indian voices to influence and reduce their advocacy. The relative independence of Bangladesh military in its own affairs and corruption in its officer ranks presents as an opportunity for China to increase its influence there.

Most of the China-Bangladesh weapon acquisition deals are opportunities to make money. China uses this corruption to increase its influence. It has further positioned its role as a power broker between the political parties and the military in Bangladesh.

Similarly, Left-oriented political parties and self-serving leaders in Nepal are seen as potential collaborators in facilitating China's influence in South Asia. The weakness and corruption in democratic systems have become an effective route for Chinese exploitation.

Nevertheless, Afghanistan is going to be a difficult case for China. Pakistan has traditionally aspired to increase its strategic depth in Afghanistan. Therefore, it needs to ensure a pliant regime in Kabul which will not provide India with any space against Pakistan. In addition, the pliant regime would ensure that Pashtuns on the other side of the Durand Line do not attempt to secede from Pakistan. To this end, it financed and supported Taliban and the Haqqani terrorists to destabilise Afghanistan and has played a double game since.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, argues that the Durand Line has lost its relevance and Pashtuns rightfully belong to it. Moreover, the constant barrage of terrorists, coming from Pakistan and deteriorating situation in Kabul has sapped any remaining trust and goodwill between two people. Therefore, unless the security situation improves, none of the peace initiatives is going to work. In fact, two days after the trilateral dialogue, a suicide bomber killed 41 people and wounded 80 others in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

In sum, the first China-Pakistan-Afghanistan trilateral dialogue did help to bring all three countries together on a forum and let them discuss crucial issues related to peace and development. However, Afghanistan has tried talking to Pakistan even earlier. Ghani even went to the Pakistan Army Headquarters to talk to the real rulers of the country.

Even then, not much has changed and a lot of frustration has set in between their bilateral relations. Unless, Pakistan becomes sincere in its peace efforts, neither China nor the US will be able to bring much improvement in Afghanistan.

However, with the increase in Chinese investments in Pakistan through CPEC, China's worry on the security front is growing by the day. The increasing Indian role in Central Asia through Iran and Afghanistan is another factor that China considers against its interests. Predictably, China will persist with initiatives of this kind in future. Any success, however, will depend upon China's bargaining leverage over fundamentalist forces and the deep state in Pakistan.
Washington: President Donald Trump attacked China on Friday following reports that Chinese ships transferred oil to North Korean vessels at sea in violation of UN sanctions over the North's nuclear weapons program.

Trump said on Twitter that China had been "Caught RED HANDED," adding he was "very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea."

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

"There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!" the president said, without citing the source of his information.

China accounts for the vast majority of North Korea's external trade and oil supplies. Just two weeks ago, Trump credited China for its help in the US-led pressure campaign against Pyongyang, including support for three UN Security Council resolutions this year - the latest last week - over the North's nuclear and missile tests.

However, on Tuesday the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo cited unidentified South Korean government officials as saying US reconnaissance satellites have spotted Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels some 30 times since October in seas off China. That report was picked up by some US media outlets, including Fox News.

China's foreign ministry has defended its enforcement of UN sanctions against North Korea. A ministry spokeswoman said Wednesday she had no information about the latest report, but said China has strictly enforced trade restrictions.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that report. But in a commentary Thursday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Beijing to exert "decisive economic leverage" on Pyongyang.

"China has applied certain import bans and sanctions, but it could and should do more," he wrote in The New York Times.

Ship-to-ship trade with North Korea at sea is prohibited under UN sanctions adopted on 11 September. The latest sanctions adopted on Friday, in response to the test of a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile, also impose sharp reductions on imports of refined oil products by the isolated nation.

Last month, the Treasury Department sanctioned six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their vessels, and published photos of what it said was a North Korean vessel on 19 October possibly transferring oil to evade sanctions.

The statement did not specify whether Chinese vessels were involved in the transfer. At that time, the US also blacklisted four Chinese-based companies and one Chinese

individual said to have deep commercial ties with North Korea.

Trump has blown hot and cold on China's efforts on North Korea, which despite a dramatic increase in sanctions has made major progress this year on perfecting a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the United States.

On 15 Decemeber, Trump said Russia, another significant trading partner with North Korea, had failed to help, while China had.

"China is helping. Russia is not helping. We'd like to have Russia's help - very important," Trump told reporters after a phone conversation with President Vladimir Putin.

Also today, Trump sought to remind the world that he's long warned about the dangers posed by North Korea's nukes. He tweeted a compilation video that included edited footage of an interview he did with NBC's "Meet the Press" nearly two decades ago.

In the interview, Trump said he'd be willing to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea if negotiating "like crazy" didn't work. And he describes the country as "sort of wacko."
Cairo: A gunman opened fire on a church south of Cairo on Friday, killing at least nine people before policemen shot him dead, officials and state media said.

Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed told state television that the gunman who was shot dead had killed nine people and wounded others, including a police officer.

The gunman had tried to storm the building when police shot him dead, police officials said.

State television reported that a second assailant who escaped had been arrested.

Cellphone footage posted on social media appeared to show the bearded gunman wearing a bulky ammunition vest sprawled on a street, barely conscious, as people restrained his arms and then handcuffed him.

Police later cordoned off the crime scene as onlookers crowded around the church, while a forensics team combed the area.

Congealing blood could be seen at a guard post in front of the church.

The Islamic State group's affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year, and has threatened further attacks against the minority.

Egypt's Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of the country's 93 million people, and are the largest religious minority in the region.

Islamic State had claimed a suicide bombing of a Cairo church in December, 2016 followed by bombings of two churches north of the capital in April.

A month later, Islamic State gunmen shot dead about 30 Christians south of Cairo as they travelled to a monastery.

The jihadists are believed to have also carried out a massacre of Muslim worshippers in Sinai last month, killing more than 300 in an attack on a mosque associated with the mystical Sufi strand of Islam which Islamic State views as heretical.

Egypt imposed a state of emergency following the church attacks and shootings, and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi demanded the army quell the jihadists with "brutal force" following the mosque massacre.

The group has been waging a deadly insurgency based in the Sinai peninsula bordering Israel and the Gaza Strip that has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers.

They have increasingly targeted civilians as attacks on the security forces have become more difficult.

The army has poured in thousands of troops backed with armour and jets in a bid to crush the Sinai-based jihadists, but attacks have continued.

The attack on the church came a day after six Egyptian soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in the Sinai.

Last week, Islamic State claimed responsibility for firing an antitank missile at a helicopter in a North Sinai airport as the defence and interior ministers were visiting.

The attack killed an aide to the defence minister and a helicopter pilot, but both ministers returned to Cairo unscathed.
Lahore: Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday called former military dictator Pervez Musharraf a "big coward" and asked the country's judiciary to bring him back from self-exile and make him accountable for his crimes.

Musharraf is facing treason charges in Pakistan for imposing emergency rule in November 2007, arresting judges and limiting their powers. He could face the death penalty, if convicted

Musharraf, 75, who came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has been living in Dubai since last year when he was allowed to leave Pakistan on the pretext of medical treatment. Sharif, 68, called Musharraf a "big coward" and said he should be brought to justice.

"Musharraf is a big coward who is hiding abroad. If any courage is left in him he should return and face cases against him," Sharif said, adding Musharraf had abrogated the Constitution and he must be punished for that.

"We will soon bring this traitor to justice," Sharif pledged and demanded that the judiciary should bring Musharraf back and make him accountable for his sins.

"This coward man is making excuses of his bad health to extend his stay abroad. Time is not far away to bring such traitors to justice," Sharif said.

Musharraf had toppled Sharif's government in 1999. He remained in power till 2008. Sharif who returned to power in 2013 instituted a treason case against Musharraf who left the country in 2016 when the apex court allowed him to travel abroad on medical grounds.

Sharif's comments came a day after Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto accused Musharraf of killing his mother Benazir Bhutto. Bilawal said his mother paid the price for fighting against the dictatorship and Musharraf got her killed.

"Pervez Musharraf directly threatened my mother that the guarantee of her security upon her return to Pakistan depended on Bhutto's cooperation with the government. I personally hold Pervez Musharraf responsible for the assassination of my mother," he said.

Musharraf, however, dismissed Bilawal's claim, saying some "rouge" elements in the establishment might have been involved in her killing.

Benazir, the Pakistan Peoples Party chief and a two-time prime minister, was killed along with more than 20 people in a gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh during an election campaign rally on 27 December, 2007. She was 54.
New York: Pakistan must demonstrate its desire to collaborate with the US in its fight against terrorism, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Friday.

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Tillerson reiterated what the Trump administration has been saying about Pakistan for the past several months now after President Donald Trump announced his South Asia policy in August.

Trump while announcing his South Asia Policy had criticised Pakistan for not doing enough to combat terrorism.

"Pakistan must contribute by combating terrorist groups on its own soil. We are prepared to partner with Pakistan to defeat terror organisations seeking safe havens, but Pakistan must demonstrate its desire to partner with us," Tillerson said.
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.
BLACK REPUBLICAN BLOG - The Republican Party is the party of civil rights and the four Fs: faith, family, freedom and fairness. The Democratic Party is the party of the four Ss: slavery, secession, segregation and socialism (Quote By Author Michael Scheuer).
Apple (NASDAQ:APPL) CEO Tim Cook will no longer be flying on commercial aircraft.

The worlds most valuable company requires its chief executive to use private aircraft for all business and personal travel as an additional security measure, according to the companys most recent regulatory filing.

Apple said the reason for implementing the new policy for Cook is due to interests of security and efficiency based on our global profile and Cooks high profile as chief executive. His personal air travel expenses totaled $93,109 in Apples 2017 fiscal year, which ended in September, and is based on hourly flight charges and variable fuel charges, as well as departure and landing fees.

Mr. Cook recognizes imputed taxable income and is not provided a tax reimbursement for personal use of private aircraft, Apple said in its filing.

However, Cook isnt the only corporate executive thats required to use a corporate jet for personal travel. Disney (NYSE:DIS) CEO Bob Iger and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg are also mandated to use private aircraft when traveling, according to the companies respective regulatory filings. Igers personal air travel expenses totaled $282,831 in fiscal 2016, while the Facebook chief executive racked up about $871,390 in costs related to personal usage of private planes last year.

Jeff Immelt, the former CEO of General Electric (NYSE:GE), also flew aboard corporate aircraft during his tenure at the helm of the company, and even had an additional plane follow, at times parking far away to avoid attention. The second plane was used as a backup, in case the one Immelt rode in had mechanical problems.

Two planes were used on limited occasions for business-critical or security purposes, a General Electric spokesperson told FOX Business in October.

Cooks total compensation for 2017 rose to $12.8 million, a near 50% increase from the year prior. Due to slumping iPhone sales in 2016, Cooks pay was cut 15%. Still, his current aggregate compensation is noticeably lower than other members of the companys executive suite who were listed in the filing. Apples senior vice president of retail, Angela Ahrendts, former CEO of Burberry, topped the list with a total compensation of $24.2 million in 2017.
Oil prices edged up on Thursday, remaining near 2-1/2-year highs after data showed strong demand for crude imports in China and on increased U.S. refining activity that drew more crude from inventories.

Trading was typically thin at year end, with many traders on vacation.

The U.S. Energy Department said crude stocks fell 4.6 million barrels in the latest week. Inventories excluding the nation's strategic reserve have declined more than 11 percent in the last year.

U.S. refining runs increased, pushing capacity use to 95.7 percent, the highest in December dating to 1998. Refiners have profited in recent months as the spread widened between U.S. crude and Brent futures prices.

"In the week past, strong demand for refined products, especially distillates, continued to incent refiners to process crude oil at increasing rates," said David Thompson, executive vice president at Powerhouse, an energy-specialized commodities broker in Washington.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 20 cents to $59.84 a barrel. Brent crude futures settled up 28 cents at $66.72 a barrel.

This week, WTI broke above $60 a barrel for the first time since June 2015, while Brent breached $67 for the first time since May 2015.

Oil markets have tightened after a year of production cuts led by Middle East-dominated Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia. OPEC cuts kicked off last January and are scheduled to continue throughout 2018.

Countering those cutbacks, U.S. oil production <C-OUT-T-EIA> has soared more than 16 percent since mid-2016 and is approaching 10 million barrels per day, trailing only OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and Russia.

In the most recent week, U.S. production dipped modestly to 9.75 million bpd from 9.79 mln bpd the previous week.

Prices were supported in early trade by China's release of strong import quotas for 2018. China's crude inventories in November hit a seven-year low of 26.15 million tonnes, Xinhua data showed.

Pipeline outages in Libya and the North Sea have also supported prices. Libyan oil supplies were disrupted by an attack on a pipeline this week and flows towards the port of Es Sider were cut by about 70,000 bpd on Thursday.

In the North Sea, the 450,000 bpd capacity Forties pipeline system was shut this month after a crack was found.

Both pipelines are expected to return to normal operations by early January.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov in London and Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Susan Thomas)
From CVS (NYSE:CVS) and Aetna (NYSE:AET), to Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Whole Foods, 2017 has been a year filled with M&A activity across many industries, a trend that could continue well into next year.

In the U.S., 2017 will be the fourth straight year with reported M&A dollar value well above $1 trillion, according to Baird, and all signals point to continued strong deal value and volume in 2018.

Nothing that we see is necessarily deeply concerning that we cant have a fifth solid year here, Chris McMahon, Bairds head of global M&A, told FOX Business. Right now, assuming the environment is reasonably status quo, were optimistic that the M&A run is going to continue.

In November alone, M&A activity approached a record level with $200 billion worth of deals documented, according to Dealogic. Meanwhile, at the start of December, retail pharmacy CVS reached a $69 billion deal to acquire insurance giant Aetna, while Disney (NYSE:DIS) purchased select assets from 21st Century Fox (NASDAQ:FOXA), the parent company of Fox News and FOX Business, for $52.4 billion.

Other notable deals from the past year include United Technologies (NYSE:UTX) acquisition of Rockwell Collins (NYSE:COL) and Amazons $13.7 billion bid to acquire Whole Foods.

Interestingly, Amazon could be partially contributing to the rise in M&A activity, as companies business models come under pressure.

Companies like Amazon are causing many businesses to look at themselves and wonder, Do we have the right business model to compete? If we dont, do we have to go and make some defensive acquisitions? McMahon said, adding that businesses are using M&A deals to advance their strategic objectives at a faster pace.

CVS reached its deal for Aetna after Amazon reportedly received pharmacy-wholesaler licenses, and even held preliminary discussions with drug makers. The $69 billion agreement will allow CVS and Aetna to offer a more consumer-centric model, one area where the health care sector has been slow to evolve. Meanwhile, earlier this year, Amazons bid to acquire Whole Foods put pressure on grocery markets.

There are certain businesses that are really looking over their shoulder and trying to assess what is the impact here?  Just think about the ripple effects of the Whole Foods deal, McMahon said.

Other factors driving M&A activity, according to McMahon, are increasing dry powder reserves at private equity firms, the prospect for successful tax reform that could boost business growth and the fact that capital remains inexpensive compared to historical standards.

Additional notable developments include a formal move by chipmaker Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) this month to take over semiconductor company Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM). Meanwhile, GNC (NYSE:GNC) has reportedly retained the services of Goldman Sachs to potentially shake up its organizational structure.
If its true that to err is human, one might be tempted to conclude from todays public discourse that we have already entered an era of Artificial Intelligence. Educated people once sought out other views, entertaining the notion that they may be wrong about any given matter. Now, increasingly, they wont entertain anyone whose presence threatens their comfortable dogmatic bubble. The good news is that economic principles may hold the key to opening thoughtful dialogue in the new year.

The problem of unwarranted ideological self-assurance is a growing one. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last year found that 16 percent of Americans (including 22 percent of Democrats) had stopped talking with a family member or close friend over the presidential election. Some justify the isolation of the echo chamber as the price of political passion.

But in a new essay for Actons Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website, Steve Stapleton laments the wholesale dismissal of dialogue  the Wests historic crucible of an ideas value. Recovering the West requires a return to rationality, he contends.

The refusal to countenance the mere possibility that our views may be less-than-infallible comes even as science underscores how little we truly know. Stapleton writes:

Ironically, this coarsening of society is happening amid a growing body of scientific evidence that demonstrates how the human brain can err in its conclusions and convictions. Some of this evidence comes from the field of behavioral economics. Research is discovering how and why we can sometimes ignore facts or reason in our decision making  particularly when they conflict with our preexisting understanding or strong desires. These kinds of errors surely exacerbate our growing incivility.

Stapleton cites both the works of behavioral economists, like Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler, and the unintended consequences caused by their preferred brand of nudges to show that every human being is flawed and fallible: both those giving and receiving the nudge. Getting more feedback from people who are not ideological clones may have yielded more successful results, Stapleton argues:

Reason is built upon learning and sharpened through dialogue. The importance of reason to human progress has been recorded since the ancient Greeks. Reason allowed primitive man to survive in a hostile world. Applied by theologians like Thomas Aquinas, reason gave birth to the concept of human equality. Reason ushered in the Enlightenment. All of mans progress in the humanities, science, and industry came through reason.

But before dialogue can resume and reason can once again guide our conclusions, pride must be cast out. Pride, which some Church Fathers considered the root of every other sin, clearly has no place in the life of the believer. But for secularists, economics may be the route to a renewed civil discourse, Stapleton writes:

For those of us who are people of faith, our faith informs us that humility is a virtue and excessive pride a sin. We know that we need to work on making a habit of humility. But what about the non-religious among us who do not share these views? For those who do not believe in God but who do believe in science, perhaps the science behind behavioral economics can bring them to realize that they, too, will benefit from cultivating the habit of humility. If we are to stop ignoring our own ignorance, we will need to listen in order to understand, not merely to respond. Our discourse will become more civil if we will argue as if we were right, but listen as though we could be wrong. Perhaps with newfound humility, people of goodwill on both sides of our cultural and political divide can bring tolerance, reason, and civil discourse back to the public square in the new year.

Lets hope that 2018 gives rise to fewer riots like those in Berkeley and Charlottesville, and more enlightening debates among people of goodwill.

You can read his full essay here.

(Photo credit: Public domain.)
Most private sector workers in the U.S. today do not have defined benefit pension plans, which are employer-provided plans offering guaranteed retirement income. Instead, employers frequently offer 401(k)s as a retirement benefit to workers.

A 401(k) is a defined contribution plan: You must contribute to it and invest contributions so they grow to provide retirement income. While your employer may match contributions up to a certain percentage, the burden largely falls on you to fund your own retirement.

The good news is that participation rates in 401(k) accounts are rising, so more Americans are contributing, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston University. This increase comes from more employees being automatically enrolled in 401(k) accounts. When people have to opt out, rather than opt in, many more participate.

The bad news is that while more Americans are contributing to 401(k) accounts, average 401(k) contributions have actually gone down. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that people who are automatically enrolled in their 401(k) accounts typically contribute far below the average amount.

Automatic enrollment and 401(k) contributions

According to the Center for Retirement Research, the total percentage of workers who participated in workplace 401(k) plans rose from 79% to 80% between 2013 and 2016. This increase was largely driven by a jump in auto-enrollment.

This number makes the increase in auto-enrollment appear smaller than it actually is, because during the same time period, there was a decline in participation rates in plans that don't use auto-enrollment, which account for more than 50% of all plans.

Unfortunately, even as enrollment increased, there was a drop in average employee contributions between 2015 and 2016. While more people contributed, the average amount being contributed decreased from 6.8% of income in 2015 to 6.2% in 2016.

Auto-enrollment was also largely responsible for this slide. Contribution levels for auto-enrollees are typically set at 3% or less, and fewer than four in 10 plans that offer auto-enrollment also automatically escalate the amounts contributed.

While it's a great thing for workers that they're participating more because of auto-enrollment, contributing at a rate of 3% or under is just not going to provide enough income to save for a secure retirement.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported full-time workers earned median weekly earnings of $859 in the third quarter of 2017, making the median salary around $44,668. Contributing 3% of this salary from age 30 to age 65 in a 401(k) earning 7% returns would provide just $185,237 in savings by the time you retire.

Increasing your contributions

If you're auto-enrolled in a 401(k) at work, check with human resources or payroll to find out what you're currently contributing. If you're not auto-enrolled but you have access to a 401(k) at work, talk to them about starting an account and making contributions.

Ideally, you should save at least 15% of your income -- the standard recommendation of saving 10% is no longer good enough because of longer lifespans and lower returns. However, any increase in the percentage of income saved can make a big difference.

This chart shows how much money you'd have if you bumped your contribution up to a larger percentage of the median $44,668 salary, assuming the same timeline and rate of return as above.

Percent of Salary Annual Contribution Savings After 35 Years 3% $1,340 $185,237 4% $1,787 $247,029 5% $2,233 $308,682 6.2% (average contribution for 2016) $2,769 $382,777 10% $4,467 $617,504 15% $6,700 $926,187 20% $8,934 $1,240,000

While saving 15% to 20% to get near -- or over -- the $1 million mark is a worthwhile goal, increasing contributions just 1% would cost you less than $450 per year and could give you more than $60,000 in extra savings by retirement.

Give your 401(k) savings a boost today

While auto-enrollment is great if it increases 401(k) participation and helps more people to save, workers who are enrolled automatically with low contribution amounts are still going to be in rough shape when retirement comes along.

It's up to you to make sure you're putting enough aside in your 401(k) to have a comfortable retirement. By asking HR to increase your contributions, you can make sure more money is transferred right away to your 401(k) before you have a chance to spend it.

Increase contributions as much as you can now to boost your savings, and then as your income rises or as you find ways to cut spending, up the amount you save. If you take control over your financial life now, instead of sticking with low contribution rates, you might just become a millionaire by the time you retire.

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.

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After Republicans scored their first major legislative victory with a tax reform bill passed just before the end of 2017, the Trump administration has started looking ahead to next years legislative docket.

While President Donald Trumps aggressive plans to reform health care, infrastructure and the tax system during the first year of his tenure fell short on some accounts, his plans for next year appear equally ambitious, with welfare and infrastructure reform topping the list, according to National Economic Director Gary Cohn.

Heres a look at what the administration and Congress are set to take on as we head into the New Year.

Health care

While the GOP failed to pass multiple efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act in 2017, the president has not given up on designs to overhaul the former administrations signature legislative achievement.

In a tweet fired off in November, President Trump reiterated that ObamaCare is a disaster, adding that Republicans would begin to repeal and replace right after Tax Cuts.

While different variations of repeal and replace narrowly failed to pass the Senate this year, the president took steps toward dismantling the Affordable Care Act through an executive order issued in October. That order directed the administration to look into allowing employers to form associations and obtain coverage across state lines, expanding the use of short-term limited duration insurance (STLDI) plans and expanding the use of Health Reimbursement Arrangements, or tax-free accounts that allow employers to reimburse employees for medical expenses.

The overall goal of these directives, according to the White House, was to provide near-term relief for Americans and to lower costs by increasing competition and choice.

Welfare reform

One of the other items the president has brought up as a priority after Republicans overhaul the tax system is reforming welfare, which includes government programs like Medicaid, Food Stamps and Housing Assistance.

Were looking very strongly at welfare reform, and thatll all take place right after taxes, very soon, very shortly after taxes, Trump said at the White House last month.

During an interview with Axios in late-December, Cohn said he expected that welfare reform would receive bipartisan support, with at least 60 votes in the Senate.

There are bills currently floating around Congress that aim to strengthen work requirements for welfare programs, something that coincides with the administrations stated goals of using welfare as an interim strategy to help lift Americans out of unemployment and poverty.

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) interim director Mick Mulvaney, a known deficit hawk, said back in March that the administration was looking to create jobs and put those who want to work , back to work.

At the same time, he said the White House would weed out welfare freeloaders and take steps toward making sure Americans arent exploiting programs, while assuring that the administration would not deny deserving people services.

Infrastructure

Senior White House officials have said President Trump will release the full details of his infrastructure plan early next year. It is expected to require at least $200 billion in direct government funds over the course of a decade, in addition to funding from the private sector.

While an infrastructure revamp was widely viewed as a bipartisan proposal at the outset of the presidents tenure, experts believe the outlook may be murkier after the passage of a tax reform bill that could pile on to the deficit. Trump promised a $1 trillion infrastructure overhaul, which was supposed to be detailed within his first 100 days in office.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said in September that states and localities will compete for government funds, with the most innovative projects winning more federal dollars.

The infrastructure revamp is expected to address everything from bridges, roads and airports to energy, broadband and even Veterans Affairs hospitals.

Cohn told Axios that having broadband in rural areas is a priority. He also said that the government needs to reimagine infrastructure based on the future, adding that the U.S. cant keep building cities in 2050.

Housing reform

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has been a key player in the tax reform discussions, but has his sights set on housing reform for the coming year.

I am determined that we have housing reform and that we come up with a permanent solution for Fannie [Mae] and Freddie [Mac] so that theyre not in the current form, which is essentially owned by the government, he said during a November speech at the Economic Club of New York. Thatll be a big focus of mine for next year.

Mnuchin also said this is something he expected housing reform to be completed on a bipartisan basis.
Dylan Sprouse is not the fan of being called a "former" actor.

The Suite Life of Zack & Cody star told Vulture he found the term former child star insulting.

"That term is so derogatory, Sprouse told Vulture. Isn't it always derogatory? Even 'young actor' sounds better. You're already in a box. But they put you in a smaller box inside that box. It also implies past tense. It implies you've already failed, right? I was actually naive enough to think that people wouldn't think of it in that way."

RIVERDALE STAR SLAMS FAN FOR INAPPROPRIATE INTERACTION AND TWITTER RANT

Sprouse and his twin brother, Cole, had their own show on the Disney Channel from 2005 to 2011. The brothers also appeared in movies, such as "Big Daddy" when they were young.

Since leaving the Disney Channel at age 18, Sprouse attended New York University and worked in a restaurant in New York City. He explained he and his brother left because Disney was not willing to work with the brothers on the shows direction.

"I mean, we had a really awesome idea for where the show needed to go. We were 18," Sprouse said. "If that isn't old enough to know exactly what the show needs, then well, I would beg to disagree.

"I don't think [Disney] were willing to work with us, really ever. So we stopped the show, Sprouse added.

Sprouse, 25, has returned to acting and is in the middle of filming Banana Split. He also is opening a brewery soon. Cole Sprouse is currently a main cast member on the hit CW show Riverdale.
Director George Lucas admitted to a screening audience that he may have gone too far in a few places when it came to 1999s Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

Lucas said the story was disjointed in a rough cut of the franchise reboot. His comments were made in a "making of" featurette in the movies DVD set, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

"It's a little disjointed," Lucas told the audience after the screening. "It's bold in terms of jerking people around. I may have gone too far in a few places."

ALFIE CURTIS, DR. EVAZAN IN STAR WARS, DEAD AT 87

The hour-long "making of" footage also includes Ben Burtt, the movies film editor, who criticized the films pace.

"In a space of about 90 seconds, you go from lamenting the death of a hero to escape to slightly comedic with Jar Jar to Anakin returning ... It's a lot in a very short time," Burtt said.

The footage captured Rick McCallum, the fims producer, watching the film with his hand over his mouth in shock.

"It boggles the mind," Lucas told the audience. "I have thought about this quite a bit, and the tricky part is you almost can't take any of those pieces out of it now, because each one takes you to the next place. And you can't jump because you don't know where you are."

CARRIE FISHER REMEMBERED BY STAR WARS MARK HAMILL, CELEBRITY PALS A YEAR AFTER HER DEATH

After the audience left the screening, the footage shows Lucas, McCallum and Burtt in a slightly heated exchange.

"I do a particular kind of movie of which this is consistent," Lucas told Burtt and McCallum. "But it is a very hard movie to follow. But, at the same time, I have done it a little more extremely than I have done it in the past. It's stylistically designed to be that way, and you can't undo that, but we can diminish the affects of it. We can slow it down a little bit, so if it's intense for us, a regular person is going to go nuts."

The film was not a hit with audiences or critics. The movie has a 55 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from critics. The latest Star Wars installment, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, currently in theaters has a 91 percent approval rating from critics, but audiences have been split and gave it a 51 percent approval rating.
Did Prince Harry cost Meghan Markle a major movie role?

According to a new report, Markle was eyed for a Bond Girl gig after she caught the attention of 007 producers following her success playing Rachel Zane on Suits.

But The Sun reports producers ruled out the 36-year-old to play Daniel Craigs love interest in Bond 25 after news broke of her blossoming relationship with Prince Harry.

A source told The Sun producers were on the hunt for a glamorous rising star, specifically someone American or Canadian.

Producers had narrowed down her and four other actresses on a shortlist last year with Bond 25 in mind, a source told The Sun. But the minute her relationship to Harry came to light they assumed she was out of the running so it soon became a list of four.

7 'James Bond' girls scandals

Though Markle may have lost the role for the upcoming 2019 Bond flick, she likely isnt too upset about it.

Markle revealed she has quit acting following her engagement to the royal.

She said in an interview with The BBC following the news of her engagement that she is transitioning out of her acting career, confirming she will not be returning for the eighth season of Suits.

Markle said, as she sat beside her royal fiance, "I don't see it as giving anything up. I see it as a change. It's a new chapter."

Prior to her breakout role in Suits, the actress made appearances on shows like CSI: Miami, 90210 and Castle.

Markle and the prince are set to marry on May 19 at St. Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle.

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.

They met after they were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend in July 2016.

Harry said during their first post-engagement interview he fell in love with the actress so incredibly quickly and felt like the stars were aligned.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding actress Lainie Kazan made headlines when she was arrested on Christmas Eve for shoplifting from a supermarket, but it may not have been the first time the 77-year-old used the five-finger discount.

According to TMZ, Kazan had shoplifted from Gelson's grocery store at least a few times before her Christmas Eve bust.

The gossip site reports the actress allegedly had a routine at the store that included placing items in her handbasket and walking past the checkout line, and the store reportedly has security footage that shows her shoplifting in the past.

As a result, Gelson's was on alert for Kazan, according to TMZ, and staff was ready to apprehend her the next time she attempted to get away without paying for her groceries.

Kazan was arrested on Dec. 24 for shoplifting $180 worth of food from the supermarket.

The actress from one of the highest-grossing romantic comedies ever claimed at the time of her arrest shes destitute, according to TMZ.

The actress walked out of the Gelsons in the Los Angeles Area on Christmas Eve before an employee stopped her at her car and called the cops. Kazan, whose excuse was reportedly that she was penniless, was arrested for petty theft and released from custody at the police station without bail.

Kazan played the boisterous matriarch, Maria Portokalos, in the original 2002 film, as well as the sequel, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2.
Luann de Lesseps has checked herself into a rehab facility for alcohol abuse treatment after she was arrested in Palm Beach, Fla., on Saturday.

The "Real Housewives of New York City" star wrote on Friday on Facebook that she had decided to seek help.

"After the events of last Saturday night in Palm Beach, I am truly embarrassed. I have decided to seek professional guidance and will be voluntarily checking into an alcohol treatment center. I intend to turn this unfortunate incident into a positive life changing event."

According to a police report released Tuesday, de Lesseps was "highly intoxicated" when she was arrested after she snuck into a hotel room. The 52-year-old allegedly locked herself in a bathroom, refusing to come out, and when she emerged she allegedly "shoved one of the cops" and then struck him in the forehead.

The recently divorced reality star threatened police officers yelling, Im going to f---ing kill you."

She wrote Friday, "Once again, I sincerely apologize for my actions. I have the greatest respect for police officers and the job they do. My actions alleged in the police report do not reflect my core values and my law abiding character. I am so grateful for the love and support that I am receiving from my family, friends and loyal supporters.

De Lesseps previously apologized for her behavior following the drunken incident.

"This was my first time in Palm Beach since my wedding, and being here brought up long-buried emotions," she said. I want to offer my sincere apologies to anyone I might have offended with my behavior.

Bravo, which airs the "Real Housewives of New York," did not return Fox News' request for comment.
Model Petra Nemcova was enjoying a fairytale holiday at a beachfront villa in Thailand with her boyfriend, British photographer Simon Atlee, not knowing it would be the last time they would be together.

On December 26, 2004, a powerful earthquake set off a devastating tsunami across the Indian Ocean, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 230,000 people.

SANDRA BULLOCK DONATING $1 MILLION TO THE RED CROSS' HURRICAN HARVEY RELIEF EFFORTS

Nemcova, then 25, held on to the top of a palm tree for eight hours as the tsunami destroyed everything in its path. Nemcovas pelvis shattered in four places and she nearly drowned multiple times as she heard the screams of children begging for help suddenly go silent. Atlee yelled her name as he attempted to cling on. He then vanished.

His body wouldnt be found until months later.

The Czech beauty will certainly never forget the day she lost her great love and nearly her life, but she refuses to run away from her past. In fact, after Nemcova was able to walk again, she was compelled to launch the Happy Hearts Foundation in 2006, a nonprofit organization that aims to rebuild safe, resilient schools for children after a natural disaster.

Earlier this year, Nemcova participated in BTIGs Charity Day in New York City where she served as a guest stock trader and took calls on the global trading floor to help raise funds.

She did it all with a smile on her face.

Nemcova told Fox News that its the kindness of strangers, like the Thai man who found her and risked being swept away just to save her life and many others, not knowing the fate of his own loved ones, that has kept her motivated to live.

So many people around the world have unbelievable compassion and unconditional love, said Nemcova. They inspired me every day. Unbelievable kindness and compassion inspires me People who are willing to face whatever challenges are out there. Thats the beauty of the human spirit. The beauty of compassionate souls? Thats what inspires me.

Nemcova said there isnt enough awareness on what a community can do after a natural disaster strikes. She believes schools will not only provide emotional healing for children, but will also deliver job opportunities for those in need, resulting in an economic boost, as well as encouraging much-needed help.

Theres a big gap there between a natural disaster warning and its aftermath, she said. And when first responders leave, many children can wait up to six, eight years to have a safe school Thats why we developed Smart Response, which helps to address those immediate and long-term needs of communities impacted by natural disasters.

"We want to build safe schools for children, but we also want to hear the needs of the community and try to help as much as possible. If you just do first response and dont take any time to rebuild long-term for the community, its never going to heal properly Theres first response, but there needs to be rebuilding long-term. Thats our goal."

Nemcova is aware first responders are crucial in delivering clean water, medicine and other supplies immediately after a natural disaster. However, she added long-term revitalization is just as important to ensure healing, all while empowering people to help support their community.

And Nemcova has zero plans to ever give up on those who can use some support, wherever they are.

Every day or every two days, Im in a different country, different city, said Nemcova. Im very busy, but everything is meaningful. Because with each trip, I am able to create and co-create with others and help provide opportunities for children to have a better, brighter future. Thats what keeps me going.

"My friends always say, youre crazy or how can you travel like this? But just knowing that you are making a difference, that youre able to uplift the lives of children and their whole families? That gives you energy to go on.

As for the future, Nemcova hasnt given up on the possibility of finding love again or having a family.

One day, I would love to have children of my own, said Nemcova. So well see. Ill accept whatever plan God has for me. If its meant to happen, it will happen at the right time. But I will leave it to God and the universe to decide when is the right time.

But these days, Nemcova is busy helping the growing family she has developed around the world through her humanitarian work.

I definitely would love [children of my own], she said. For now, I have almost 100,000 of them.
If the spirit of the holidays often brings out the best in people, one Ohio church group served up something of a Christmas miracle for local Waffle House staffers  a $3,577 tip.

Churchgoers at Grand Lake United Methodist Church in Celina surprised employees at the Wapakoneta Waffle House with the whopping cash gratuity after a Christmas Eve service on Dec. 24, WHIO reports.

Through the advent season, which this year started on Dec. 3, church pastor Rev. Mick Whistler asked each family to save $1 a week to demonstrate the huge difference they could make together as a church, according to the outlet.

D.C. RESTAURANT CHANGES DRESS CODE AFTER BEING ACCUSED OF 'RACISM'

After Whistler announced during the service that the donation would go to the nearest restaurant open for Christmas, several dozen churchgoers drove to the beloved 24/7 waffle chain to watch staffers receive the good news, church member Barb Vorhees said.

"Are you kidding us?" one of the five female Waffle House employees behind the counter asked as Mickler told them of the donation, as the group hugged and cried. The employees then split the $3,577 tip, amounting to more than $700 apiece.

RESTAURANT PATRONS ARE LEAVING HUGE TIPS FOR THEIR SERVERS THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

Members of the Grand Lake United Methodist Church congregation arent the only ones to recently dole out a little extra Christmas cheer. On Dec. 24, Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive tackle Sealver Siliga left a $1,000 tip at Applebees, and many other restaurant diners have made headlines this season for anonymously leaving major holiday tips, too.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
With Californias legalization of recreational marijuana taking effect Monday, fast-food chain Jack in the Box plans to take full advantage of the pot smokers by offering a new meal aimed at anyone with the munchies.

The weed-themed Merry Munchie Meal will be available at three southern California locations beginning mid-January and includes half servings of curly fries and onion rings, two tacos, five mini churros, three crispy chicken strips and a small drink. You get all of this for the on-theme price of $4.20 plus tax.

NEW JERSEY SANDWICH SHOP AD FEATURING POT-SMOKING SANTA SPARKS BACKLASH

Jacks Munchie Meals have been successful for us because of the authenticity of how we speak to our customers. This partnership is one more way for us to connect with themWe are about welcoming all of our guests, no matter what theyre craving or why theyre craving it, Iwona Alter, Chief Marketing Officer of Jack in the Box, said in a statement.

This limited-time offer was developed in partnership with Merry Jane, a cannabis-focused digital media company launched in 2015 by Snoop Dogg, and will be tested from January 18-25 in his hometown of Long Beach.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

Launching the Merry Munchie Meal is the perfect way for both companies to celebrate legalization in our shared home state of California, Scott Chung, COO of Merry Jane said in a statement.

Merry Jane is the industry leader bridging mainstream brands and legal cannabis culture. Leveraging our Emmy-nominated content production, Merry Jane has created a campaign with Jack in the Box that marries our brands voices.
A mom in England is claiming that a local toy store sold her a doll with a dirty mouth.

Siobhan Fox, of Tamworth, England, claims that the walking, talking My Little BABY Born doll she purchased for her daughter Darcey says the words you b---- instead of the pre-recorded phrases she was expecting.

THESE WERE THE HOTTEST TOYS OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON

It's meant to say mama, dada  it's totally not, Fox told The Sun.

Fox also uploaded a short video of the doll to YouTube, in which the doll is heard giggling, cooing, and allegedly spouting the aforementioned vulgar remark. WARNING: Dolls language may sound slightly NSFW.

Fox, 30, added that she and her husband had to take the doll away from their 2-year-old daughter shortly after she opened her present on Christmas.

"That was what she really wanted and I felt so awful taking it off her but I could not let her go out in public with the doll saying that, added Fox.

The doll, which is manufactured by a German toy company called Zapf Creation, is currently selling on the U.K. Toys R Us website for 14.48 pounds, or a little under $20. (It is not available for purchase on the toy retailers U.S. site.) The Toy's 'R' Us location where Fox purchased the doll has since offered her a refund or an exchange, but shes calling instead for a recall, The Sun reports.

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Zapf Creation, meanwhile, has stated that the the doll's baby babble sounds were not intended to sound vulgar or offensive.

At Zapf Creation we take all feedback very seriously," the company wrote in a statement obtained by Fox News. "Our BABY born products are created to be a fun introduction to imaginative parent-child play. The My Little BABY born Walks doll includes baby babble sounds that are in no way meant to represent language or cause any offense to users.

But as The Sun noted, this isnt the first time a parent has issued a complaint about this exact doll. In October, a mom in Birmingham, England, claimed her daughter was repeating the words you b----," and accusing the doll of teaching her daughter the vulgar remark, the Birmingham Mail reported.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

A customer who bought the doll from the British online retailer Argos also put forth the same complaint in an Oct. 2017 review, writing that the doll sounds like she is swearing.
San Francisco-area chef Charlie Hallowell has stepped down from his restaurant group amid sexual harassment and verbal abuse allegations from 17 former female employees.

In an article published on the San Francisco Chronicle, the women detail a demoralizing work environment where Hallowell's indecent propositions and abuse of power were the norm, along with a near-constant stream of sexually explicit language.

Hallowells three Oakland-based restaurants are Pizzaiolo, Boot & Shoe Service and Penrose.

WAITRESS CLAIMS COWORKER RAN OFF WITH HER HALF OF $300G SCRATCH-OFF TICKET WINNINGS

Hallowells restaurant group, which had no official HR department for the women to report the abuse, has since obtained an outside human resources consultant to perform a full investigation into the company, the Chronicle reports.

One employee described working for Hallowell like an abusive relationship while another described him as having sexual Tourettes disorder. They also said Hallowell expressed an obsession with female bodies, comparing food to female anatomy and speaking about sexual acts. He would also openly express interest in sleeping with his employees and comment on their appearance.

Hallowell admitted to his actions in a statement to the Chronicle, saying that he was deeply ashamed and saddened for his unfiltered and often completely inappropriate behavior.

I can see very clearly that I have participated in and allowed an uncomfortable workplace for women. For this I am deeply ashamed and so very sorry, Hallowell said. We have come to a reckoning point in the history of male bosses behaving badly, and I believe in this reckoning and I stand behind it.

Hallowell is just one of a number of chefs whove recently been accused of using their power to sexually harass and mistreat female employees.

In October, New Orleans-based celebrity chef John Besh stepped down from his restaurant group after 25 current and former employees accused him of inappropriate behavior, including vulgar and offensive comments, aggressive un-welcomed touching and sexual advances.

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In December, Mario Batali, the Food network chef and host of ABCs The Chew stepped down from the day to day operations of his restaurant empire after similar accusations. Four women accused him of inappropriate behavior in the workplace and elsewhere, including grabbing and groping three of his female employees.
An Arkansas waitress claimed her co-worker ran off with her half of $300,000 winnings from a scratch-off ticket.

Leslie Underwood, a waitress at Sportsmans Drive-In, located in Stuttgart, Ark., said her co-worker Mandy Vanhouten owes her some cash.

"It was kind of like somebody died for somebody to tell you that they don't think you deserve it and their decision has been made," Underwood told KARK.

The waitresses were given the scratch-off tickets from their boss on Friday as a gift but told his employees that whatever they won would be split as a Christmas bonus, Underwood said.

D.C. RESTAURANT CHANGES DRESS CODE AFTER BEING ACCUSED OF RACISM

Underwood and Vanhouten split their pile of tickets and one turned out to be lucky. Vanhouten won $300,000 on a Fortune instant ticket  the top jackpot. The women were to each receive $150,000 since they worked the same shift.

"We were both reading the back of it trying to find the little, 'You're pranked!'" Underwood said. "But no, it was a real one."

Underwood said she and Vanhouten discussed what they would do with the winnings but the talks were demolished after the waitress saw her co-worker had cashed in the ticket on Wednesday. Underwood was planning to take her children on a trip with the money.

Its a little emotional, the mother of five told KARK.

To add salt to the wound, Underwood said she was best friends with Vanhouten for two decades and helped her get the job at the restaurant.

"I helped her get the job, put in a good word, stuck my neck out for her, let her stay with me so she didn't have to drive back and forth," Underwood said. "I think that's what hurt me the most is as much as I've done, she could have done right for once."

GUY FIERIS TIMES SQUARE RESTAURANT TO CLOSE BEFORE NEW YEARS

Since she saw a picture of Vanhouten posing with the large check, Underwood said she has not heard from her. Vanhouten has failed to appear at work this week and was not answering her phone, she added.

Haley Johnson, another waitress at the burger joint, told KARK she has been covering Vanhoutens shifts.

"Things have been a little hectic around here since that happened," Johnson said. "I would think you'd have the courtesy to at least split it like you were supposed to instead of just claiming it all for yourself, saying you needed it more than she did."

Underwood told KARK she planned to take legal action if she did not get her fair share. However, as the local station pointed out, Vanhouten was the only person to sign the back of the ticket.
An OB-GYN who was determined not to miss the birth of her patients twins swooped in to deliver the two babies just 14 hours after she gave birth herself.

Hilary Conway, who works at Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic in Washington, gave birth during the afternoon on Dec. 12, and she revealed to People magazine this week she just couldnt handle the thought of missing the labor of her patient Katie Moss. When received a text from Moss alerting her she was in labor, Conway got out of her own hospital bed and got to work.

She found out Moss had been admitted to the hospital, and she discovered Moss was in labor in the room right next door to her, she told People. She quickly nursed her hours-old newborn and then walked into Moss room to take over her ultrasound exam.

Conway delivered Moss twin boys, Luke and Soren, at 5:38 a.m. on Dec. 13, which was about 14 hours after she had given birth to her daughter.

It was awesome to be there for the delivery, its always a bummer to miss them. Being a healthcare provider is such a huge privilege. Patients trust us with so much, and in OB-GYN, this is magnified, Conway told People. As doctor and patient, we go through so much together during the pregnancy, its a huge disappointment to miss the delivery. So, as soon as I realized that delivering Katie was feasible, I was beyond thrilled for the privilege of being there.

Conway said a hospital staffers looked after her newborn, Verna, while she went to work to help Moss through the birth of the twins.

The fact that I got to help Katie deliver twins makes the amazing experience of delivering my own daughter that much more special  if its even possible, Conway said. Honestly, what I did is not that remarkable. Whats remarkable is how well the timing worked out and the support I got from my partner, Dr. Elizabeth Jacobson, and the nurses who watched Verna while I was in the delivery  and Katie. Lets not forget she delivered twins, thats much more amazing!

Conway told the magazine she bonded with Moss during her time as her doctor, especially since they were pregnant at the same time. Moss told the Today show she was relieved to have Conway by her side.

"I was hoping to see her maybe the next day but not so soon and so awake," Moss told Today. "She looked completely normal  unlike she just had a baby half a day earlier. After laughing about how crazy it was that we were both in the hospital at the same time, she was like, 'Well, since I'm here, I might as well deliver your babies.'"

Conway told Today it was amazing the timing worked out so she could be there for her patient.

"There was a whole lot of serendipity that allowed for this to happen."
Alaska Airlines and a Portland International Airport contractor are being sued by a Washington family over the loss of a 75-year-old woman who passed away in June after falling down an airport escalator.

Relatives of Bernice Kekona are charging both parties for failing to ensure the disabled widow was safely transported from gate to gate as she traveled from Hawaii home to Spokane, KXLY reported.

BUMPED UNITED PASSENGER FIRES BACK AT REP. JACKSON LEE'S RACISM CHARGE, AIRLINE

According to ABC News, employees from Huntleigh USA, Alaska Airlines contractor for disability services at Portland International Airport, got Kekona off the plane and into a seat-belted wheelchair, but soon somehow left her alone.

The lawsuit alleges that Kekona then showed her ticket to an Alaska Airlines worker at her arrival gate, who further directed her as to where she needed to go in. Kekona became confused and lost her way, finding herself at the top of an escalator that she thought was an elevator, the outlet reports.

PLANE RETURNS TO LA BECAUSE PASSENGER WAS ON WRONG FLIGHT

Her wheelchair fell down nearly 21 moving steps, causing Kekona to suffer gashes, head and chest trauma, and an Achilles tendon wound that became so severe that doctors had to amputate the leg below the knee.

The 75-year-old passed away the day after the operation due to complications with high blood pressure from the surgery.

According to the federal Air Carrier Access Act, airlines are required to provide assistance with boarding, deplaning and making connections. Travel records further detail that the family had arranged for the airline to assist to and from gates at all points during Kekonas trip.

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"I just want them to make it right. It's not going to bring her back, but someone needs to own up. Someone needs to take responsibility," granddaughter Danielle Kekahuna told ABC.

Though Huntleigh USA has yet to comment on the tragedy, Alaska Airlines claims that Kekona may have declined assistance in the terminal and proceeded to the connecting flight on her own. The airline further added that they are "heartbroken by this tragic and disturbing incident."
Special adviser to the president and fashionista Ivanka Trump has critics divided on the ethics of sporting looks from her eponymous label on official business.

According to a Dec. 27 report from The Wall Street Journal, the first daughter has worn dresses, shoes, jewelry and bags from her namesake label in 68 percent of official appearances. The investigation analyzed images shared on Trumps official social media accounts from when she was appointed to the White House role, in March, through November.

TRUMP SPREADS CHRISTMAS CHEER AT MAR-A-LAGO

Though President Trumps eldest daughter has stepped away from her role at the helm of IT Collection LLC, the intersection of fashion and federal politics seen in her case is unprecedented, the Journal noted.

Ivanka Trump is testing the boundaries on federal rules that bar government employees from using their position to promote brands that personally enrich them, Guian McKee, associate professor of presidential studies at the University of Virginia, told the outlet.

MEGHAN MARKLE LOOK-ALIKE IS EXCITED FOR ROYAL WEDDING

Trumps fashion brand, which currently rests in a trust run by her brother-in-law Josh Kushner and sister-in-law Nicole Meyer, is valued at over $50 million and generated between $1 and $5 million in income between March and May, according to Newsweek.

Nevertheless, because its a private company, theres no way to calculate exactly how it has fared since her fathers inauguration. High end department stores such as Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus dropped Trumps line earlier this year amid boycotts and reportedly floundering sales.

On the one hand, theres something ridiculous about suggesting that Ms. Trump not wear whatever clothes are in her closet, and as the founder of a fashion brand that bears her name, presumably part of her job has been to promote said brand by wearing it  to, in effect, demonstrate her belief in her own products, New York Times chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman said of the Journals report.

On the other hand, Friedman noted, its impossible to sever the visible tie between Trump and her aspirational fashion line, or calculate the promotion her position in the White House has given it.

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For her part, Trump denies the allegation that she is trying to advertise her brand through her political role.



If what motivated me was to grow my businesses and make money, I would have stayed in New York and done just that, she said via email to the Journal.
The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld a decision that forced two Christian bakers to pay $135,000 to a lesbian couple who said they felt mentally raped when the bakers declined to make a wedding cake.



Freedom of expression for ourselves should require freedom of expression for others, First Liberty Institute president Kelly Shackelford said.



First Liberty, one of the nations most prominent religious liberty law firms, represented the Kleins.



Click here for a free subscription to Todds newsletter: a must-read for Conservatives!



The Oregon Court of Appeals decided that Aaron and Melissa Klein are not entitled to the Constitutions promise of religious liberty and free speech, Shackelford said.



The Kleins, who owned Sweet Cakes By Melissa, made national headlines in 2013 when they declined to make a wedding cake for Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer.



The Kleins were subjected to a homofascist mob that boycotted their business, threatened other wedding vendors and subjected their young children to death threats.



The lesbian couple filed a complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries  leading to a drawn-out court battle and tens of thousands of dollars in fines.

Continue reading at ToddStarnes.com.


Heading into 2018, Republicans in Congress are unloved and endangered. Their continued control over the House and Senate after the November midterm elections appears precarious  and that spells trouble for President Trump.

Democrats hold a commanding 13-point lead over the GOP in the generic congressional ballot, according to Real Clear Politics average of multiple polls. And the Real Clear Politics average of polls on presidential job performance found only 39 percent of Americans approve of the job President Trump is doing.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has reportedly privately acknowledged that come January 2019 it looks like Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California  now leaders of the Democratic minority in each legislative chamber  could be running the show, with both chambers controlled by their party.

But looking at the map and that calendar, a Democratic takeover of the House and Senate is not inevitable.

In the Senate, Democrats are defending 25 seats, including 10 in states that President Trump carried in 2016. Five of those states favored Trump by double digits.

Sounds good for the GOP, right? Not exactly.

After the Republicans recent loss in an Alabama special election, the Senate will have 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats starting next month. That means Democrats will have to pick up just two more seats in November to seize control of the Senate. Republican seats in Arizona, Nevada and Tennessee are most definitely in play.

As for the House, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has good reason to worry. Going back in time, the Republicans recaptured the House majority in 2010 after showing little more than a 9-point lead on the generic ballot in pre-election polls.

Democrats wrested the speakers gavel in 2006 from Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, with an 11.5 percent margin in pre-election polling. At the same time, however, in 2006 the Democrats did not emerge with a commanding lead on the generic ballot until September, while in 2010 the Democrats were consistently ahead through June.

In other words, there are plenty of reasons for Republicans to be scared, but it is way too soon for despair. The situation is remediable. It is time for the GOP to breathe deep and think.

Still, some of the problems that haunted the GOP in Alabama arent going away  even if alleged pedophile Roy Moore isnt on the ballot. So here are some early New Years resolutions that Republicans in Congress should make.

For starters, stop talking about stupid stuff that stands to harm the Republican base, like cutting Social Security and Medicare  especially you, Speaker Ryan. Fortunately, Sen. McConnell has finally figured this one out.

In his pre-Christmas news conference, McConnell took entitlement cuts off the table. As New York Magazine headlined: McConnell Says No to Ryans Dream of Cutting Entitlements in 2018.

McConnell said: "I think entitlement changes, to be sustained, almost always have to be bipartisan. The House may have a different agenda. If our Democratic friends in the Senate want to join us to tackle any kind of entitlement reform, I'd be happy to take a look at it.

Translation: Senate Republicans are not prepared to jump off a cliff without the Democrats holding their hands, and if the far-right Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus are suicidal and Ryan is hopelessly ideological  well, its their problem.

Next, dont nominate crazies or candidates who offend women. Sure, venting your collective spleen may be fun, but so is knocking back a pint of Jack Daniels in a single sitting and then doing 110 miles per hour on the highway. It never ends well.

For the record, women made the difference in the special election for a Senate seat in Alabama earlier this month. Democrat Doug Jones won the womens vote by 16 points, which was particularly helpful given that women constituted the majority of voters.

As for crazy, Republican history offers a cornucopia of cautionary tales. In 2010, Christine O'Donnell, the Delaware Republican U.S. Senate nominee, told the states voters: Im not a witch.

Four years later, Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin, delivered what we would today call fake news about the female reproductive system, saying that abortions wouldnt be necessary for rape victims because if its legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.

My final advice to Republicans is to embrace the positive news about the economy. The unemployment rate is at a 17-year low, the stock market is at an all-time high and the economy is humming. These are all good things. As for the tax cuts, your task isnt easy.

The public doesnt like the new tax cuts. And over the weekend, President Trump fessed up to making his rich friends richer. Lots of synonyms for deception come to mind.

But thats life. It your job to turn lemons into lemonade and tie the boom to the cuts. Bottom line, if you can sidestep missteps, smile enough, and stay off Twitter, you may yet still be Kings of the Hill in 2019. Just maybe.
Protesters took the streets in more than a half-dozen cities in Iran for a second day Friday, risking their lives to challenge the Islamist tyranny that has prevailed in the country since 1979, when it held American diplomats hostage.

Whether the protests last only another day or persist long enough to imperil the Iranian regime, President Trump should make it clear that America gives the protesters our moral support.

The protests began as demonstrations against austere economic conditions but have now grown to express general opposition to the Islamist government.

Instead of the usual Iranian crowds stage-managed by government thugs to chant death to America or death to Israel, we instead see spontaneous protesters crying death to the dictator and death to Rouhani, referring to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Protests have even spread to Qom, the intellectual heartland of the 1979 Islamist revolution and the onetime base of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini when he successfully worked to destroy Irans secular government before 1979.

The last widespread and sustained protests in Iran occurred in 2009, after fraudulent elections. At the time, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shamefully sat on their hands, saying and doing nothing to support the protesters. They later justified their silence by claiming that protesters wouldnt want U.S. support, which would enable the Iranian regime to paint the protests as a foreign plot.

In reality, despotic regimes will always make the claim that America is behind protests. Furthermore, pro-freedom protesters always privately want the support of the free world  and the American president. Such support cheers dissidents and raises the cost to the dictatorial regime of brutally suppressing protests.

For example, Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity movement that challenged and eventually brought down communism in Poland in the 1980s, credited President Ronald Reagans unabashed support for the movements success.

Elsewhere in the Soviet bloc, a dissident named Natan Sharansky was rotting in a Russian prison when he and his fellow prisoners heard that President Reagan had referred to the Soviet Union as an evil empire destined for the ash heap of history.

Sharansky later remarked: For us, that was the moment that really marked the end for them, and the beginning for us. The lie had been exposed and could never, ever be untold now.

Clearly, the moral support of the American president can make a big difference in influencing political outcomes abroad.

Cheering those who challenge Irans regime isnt just feel-good moralizing: it could be pragmatic statecraft that is an important part of the pragmatic realism that President Trump has sought to restore to American foreign policy.

If protesters change or even just weaken Irans current political construction, it will make it less likely that Tehran continues to export terrorism, weaken secular states across the Middle East and pursue a nuclear weapons program.

President Trump has the opportunity now to redeem the tragic mistake America made under President Obama in ignoring anti-regime protesters in Iran.

We will never know for sure if Iran could have been a freer nation with a less dangerous government had President Obama and Hillary Clinton spoken up the last time protesters took to the streets in 2009. But President Trump today can stand up for those who are risking their lives to oppose a regime that has considered itself at war with America since it came to power.

If President Trump acts now he will not just be engaging in an act of idealism, but working in a pragmatic way against our Iranian adversaries.
Im one of about 45 million Americans collectively paying back more than $1.4 trillion in college student loan debt. The average student borrower owes more than $31,000 and some owe a lot more  a huge burden for young people just starting their careers or going on to graduate school, where their debt will only increase.

Unfortunately, Congress  where I am privileged to serve  has shown very little urgency to address this growing problem, which has reached crisis proportions. If Congress fails to take substantive steps to change course by offering actionable solutions to disentangle millions of Americans from the crushing burden of student loan debt, the consequences to our nation will be severe.

As a member of the House of Representatives Im in position to do try to do something to help my constituents and all Americans deal with growing student debt. Thats why Ive introduced legislation called the Student Security Act.

My legislation would allow young people to choose  on a strictly voluntary basis  to get student loan forgiveness in exchange for agreeing to raise their own qualifying age for Social Security benefits many decades in the future.

The completely voluntary Student Security Act would not in any way alter the benefits earned by current or prior recipients of Social Security. In fact, it would not even change the benefits structure for those currently burdened with student debt, unless they chose to take advantage of this proposed program.

How exactly would the Student Security Act work?

For every $550 in student loan forgiveness  or roughly the average cost for one credit hour at a public university  a Student Security participant would agree to raise his or her full-retirement age for Social Security benefits by one month. A student could get a maximum of $40,150 in debt relief. To get that, the person would delay the starting age for collecting Social Security benefits by 6 years and 1 month.

Lifting the student loan debt burden from those willing to take charge of their own economic future would preserve the Social Security promise for current and future beneficiaries by saving the program an enormous amount  nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars.

This saving arises because the average Social Security beneficiary receiving roughly $16,000 in benefits each year. Delaying the start of those benefits by several years would save over $700 billion over 75 years, the Social Security Administration projects. Thats over 11 percent of whats needed to make Social Security solvent.

As millennials flock to cities where costs of living are at all-time highs, and average American lifespan is 78.7 years, think of the economic impact that individuals starting their adult lives free from student loan debt would have on our economy.

We cant afford to lose the energy, ideas, and vision of young people who give up their dreams of going to college because it is unaffordable. And we shouldnt saddle young people who graduate with enormous debt, forcing them to postpone marriage, becoming parents, buying homes, starting a business, and many other activities that enhance their lives and strengthen our economy.

The student debt crisis is a huge threat to the long-term economic prosperity of our country. If we fail to take positive measures to address the looming economic challenges brought on by student loan debt, nothing less than the long-term prosperity of our country hangs in the balance.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. was right to address the issue of student loan debt during his presidential campaign  but his solution was wrong. Sanders suggested the people should rely on government for tuition-free college, but I believe that government relies on the people. Thus, people must be given control to reap the benefits of their decisions to shape their own lives.

Unfortunately, the words student loan debt cause many to recoil with images of Sanders and a socialist pitch for free college. But even Bernie knows that nothing is free. Someone always pays, but that is no excuse to ignore this problem.

A recent poll revealed that most millennials would sacrifice their right to vote to eliminate their student loan debt. Yet, for as much flack as millennials take for social media addictions and pumpkin spice everything, no one can deny the economic pressure brought to bear from facing tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.

Why not allow individuals an option of paying their own student loan debt today by taking less from Social Security decades in the future?
Asia was much in the news in 2017, as North Koreas brutal dictator Kim Jong Un surprised experts around the world with rapid progress in his weapons program, testing intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs. The United Nations and U.S. imposed sanctions on the North, but didnt deter Kim from continuing to make military advances.

Kim and President Trump traded insults and threats but, thankfully, avoided going to war. Hopefully, war between the two nuclear nations will be averted in the year ahead as well.

President Trump gave up on President Obamas failed pivot to Asia and said the U.S. would not join the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, which had been a top priority of the Obama administration. The new U.S. president instead embraced an America First foreign policy that amounted to a pivot to America.

So who was up and who was down in Asia in 2017? Heres our assessment:

Worst Year: Aung San Suu Kyi and the Rohingya people

Once touted as a successful example of U.S. diplomatic engagement, the country now known as Myanmar  but still called Burma by many  was plunged into ethnic conflict in 2017 when the military in the primarily Buddhist nation launched attacks on the predominantly Muslim Rohingya minority.

One-time democracy icon and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now serving as state councilor (akin to prime minister) has drawn international criticism for standing by as more than 600,000 Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh following rapes, murders and the burning of their villages.

Whether a humanitarian and human rights nightmare or a clear case of ethnic cleansing  as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has described it  the world has failed to effectively respond to Myanmars brutal treatment of an entire people.

Unfortunately, the year ahead doesnt yet look any better for Suu Kyi or the Rohingya  sadly, the joint winners of worst year in Asia in 2017.

Bad Year: The Political Opposition

Incumbent leaders and parties in much of Asia, from India to Japan, solidified their lock on power. Opposition parties fared badly.

One-party rule continued in China, Vietnam and Laos. And in Cambodia, a Supreme Court ruling has effectively dissolved the only credible major opposition party. The result? Cambodian leader Hun Sen is likely to continue as the worlds longest serving prime minister for some time.

Elsewhere, Thailands return to democracy remains on hold after a May 2014 coup. And in Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abes party scored impressive election results, swamping the nascent Party of Hope of popular Tokyo mayor Yuriko Koike. Incumbency does have its advantages.

A Mixed Year at Best: ASEAN

The year 2017 proved both good and bad for the 10-member Association of Southeast Asia Nations, or ASEAN. A visit by President Trump and a seemingly budding bromance between the U.S. and Filipino presidents helped mark 50th anniversary celebrations for ASEAN in Manila in November.

The Southeast Asian region, with a combined gross domestic product equivalent to $2.4 trillion, is now the seventh-largest economy in the world and on track to become the fourth-largest economy by 2050. Thats good news for American businesses from Texas to Washington investing in and selling to this booming region.

But 2017 also made clear that the associations non-confrontational, consensus-building approach  deemed the ASEAN Way  may well be facing a mid-life crisis in the face of Chinas growing investment and assertiveness.

While ASEAN celebrates 50 years of growing prosperity, some of the regions most pressing problems, including the Rohingya crisis and territorial disputes in the South China Sea, have also continued to fester if not grow.

Good Year: Asias Fintech Pioneers

As in America, technology from e-commerce to mobile banking continues to transform Asia and create vast new fortunes. Not everyone though can be a Jack Ma, the storied Chinese billionaire and co-founder of Alibaba Group. Nor can every company be an Ant Financial Services Group, the Alibaba-affiliated payments company described by The Economist as the worlds most valuable fintech firm.

But 2017 proved to be a good year for Asias pioneers in fintech  a catch-all buzzword for the financial technology that is challenging and reshaping mainstream banking and finance companies.

In the third quarter of 2017 alone, according to consulting firm KPMG, Asia was the global leader in fintech investment, outpacing Europe and the Americas, with more than $1.21 billion raised.

And with companies looking to serve the regions unbanked  only 27 percent of Southeast Asias 600 million people have a bank account  what was a good year for fintech is likely to only get better in 2018.

Best Year: Xi Jinping & Kim Jong Un

Theres a new Mao in town. "Best Year" in Asia goes to: the leader of the most populous nation, China; and the leader of arguably the regions most frightening nation, North Korea.

In 2017, Xi Jinping solidified his rule as Chinas most powerful leader in decades at the Communist Party Congress. Progress also continued on two landmark Xi initiatives. The first is the "One Belt One Road" or new Silk Road infrastructure and development program, which will better connect China to key markets. The second is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a Chinese-led rival to the World Bank.

The major uncertainty in 2017 for Xi Jinping was the behavior of the man dubbed "Little Rocket Man" by President Trump  North Korea's Kim Jong Un. Kim's continued survival may well rest on China's support more than on his small nuclear arsenal. Yet the North Korean leader is likely to know that an erratic North Korea is the price that China accepts for fear of a united, democratic Korea on its border.

And so, in a year that saw Xi Jinping emerge as a voice for Chinese-style globalization and Kim Jong Un survive  if not thrive  as a nuclear-armed provocateur, we give Best Year in Asia to a less-than-dynamic duo linked on the world stage: Xi and Kim, frenemies in 2017.

As President Trump moves to make America great again, America would do well to pay attention to what the billions of people and their leaders on the other side of the world in Asia are up to. In an ever-shrinking world, what happens on one side of the Pacific inevitably will affect the other.

Jose B. Collazo is a Southeast Asia analyst and an associate at RiverPeak Group. Follow him on Twitter: @JoseBCollazo.
U.S. Sen. Al Franken said goodbye to staff members and supporters in Minneapolis on Thursday night, in his first public appearance in Minnesota since being accused of sexual harassment.

Franken will officially step down from the Senate on Tuesday, with his successor  Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith  scheduled to be sworn in Wednesday to complete Frankens term, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported.

The Democrat, a former "Saturday Night Live" writer and performer, said he didn't know what to expect when he first ran for office, and of course, neither did Minnesotans.

Franken thanked his wife, Franni, their family and his staff as well as Minnesota's senior senator, Democrat Amy Klobuchar. He said he still feels like "the luckiest kid in the world.

Franken announced plans to resign Dec. 7, one day after a seventh claim of sexual harassment emerged against him.

Following that development a chorus of female Democratic senators -- including New Yorks Kirsten Gillibrand and Californias Kamala Harris -- calling for his resignation, effectively forcing his departure.

Frankens departure will come about seven months after the publication of his latest book, Al Franken: Giant of the Senate.

Fox News' Joseph Weber and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
President Trump railed against "nuclear menace" North Korea and fumed at the reports China illegally delivered oil to the Hermit Kingdom, exclaiming "That wasn't my deal!" during a wide-ranging interview Thursday with an outlet he's long derided.

During an impromptu talk with a New York Times reporter, Trump said his stance on trade with China has been soft in order to encourage the country to help bring an end to the North Korean nuclear threat.

But after a South Korean report Wednesday said U.S. spy satellites caught Chinese ships illegally sending oil to North Korean boats dozens of times since October, Trump told The Times that sort of transaction wasn't acceptable, adding the only thing more important to me than trade is war.

Oil is going into North Korea. That wasnt my deal! Trump said. If theyre helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And thats what Ive been doing. But when oil is going in, Im not happy about that.

He added: We have a nuclear menace out there, which is no good for China."

The comment followed a tweet from Trump earlier Thursday saying: 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!

In addition to China and North Korea, Trump spoke to The Times about several other topics that have shadowed his first year in the White House, including special counsel Robert Muellers Russia probe. Trump said he believed he was going to be treated fairly by Mueller and ultimately be vindicated.

"I can only tell you that there is absolutely no collusion," Trump said. "Everybody knows it. And you know who knows it better than anybody? The Democrats. They walk around blinking at each other."

He added he believed the investigation was meritless, calling it a ruse devised by members of the Democratic Party as an excuse for losing an election, and lamented the inquiry made the country look very bad."

It makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position, Trump said. So the sooner its worked out, the better it is for the country.

Regarding the investigation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusal -- an event that ultimately led to Mueller's appointment -- Trump unexpectedly touted his predecessors attorney general, Eric Holder, to The Times. In what appeared to be a veiled shot at Sessions, Trump praised Holder for his loyalty to former President Barack Obama, saying Holder totally protected him.

And I have great respect for that, Ill be honest," Trump said.

Regarding his administrations success during the year, Trump hailed his recently-passed tax bill, boasting he knows the details of taxes better than anybody and knows the details of health care better than most.

When asked about Alabama Republican Roy Moores recent failed Senate bid, Trump told the outlet he felt he had to give his endorsement as the head of the party.

Trump added he believed hed win another four years in the White House, and that news outlets would eventually back him because otherwise their ratings would go down the tubes.
From buying bullets to casting ballots, states across the country are ushering in a wave of new laws in 2018.

Californias recreational cannabis market will open its doors to residents beginning Monday at 6 a.m. Buyers 21 years or older will be legally allowed to purchase up to an ounce of marijuana and up to 8 grams of concentrates.

The Golden State joins two others  Maine and Massachusetts  that will legalize recreational pot use next year- bringing the total number of states to eight. But unlike California, residents in Maine will have to wait until July to legally light up.

Currently, Colorado, Washington, Nevada, Alaska and Oregon allow adults to buy, sell and smoke marijuana.

The new year will also bring a boost in the minimum wage in several states.

Unlike the federal rate thats staying put at $7.25, 10 states will phase-in pay bumps that will eventually hit the $15 per hour mark while workers in eight states  Alaska, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio and South Dakota - will see annual cost-of-living adjustments.

The minimum wage jumps by 50 cents in California. Employees at companies with 26 or more workers will be paid at least $11 per hour. Businesses with less than 25 employees will be paid $10.50 per hour.

New Yorkers will also see an increase. On Long Island and in Westchester County, the minimum wage rises $1 to $11 per hour. In Manhattan, the minimum wage for employers with 10 or fewer workers rises to $12 from $10.50. For employers with 11 or more workers, the minimum wage jumps to $13 per hour from $11.

Changes to gun laws are also on the horizon.

Californias 6 million gun owners wont be able to buy bullets online and have them shipped to their homes. A new rule requires purchasers to pick up their orders in person from a licensed vendor. The state is also clamping down on gifting assault weapons. Another new state law also prohibits people convicted of a hate crime from possessing a gun for 10 years.

In Tennessee, members of the U.S. military will be allowed to forgo the firing-range portion of the training requirement to obtain a handgun carry permit if he or she can prove they passed small-arms or combat-pistol training while serving.

New Jersey is carving out an income tax credit to mental health professionals who donate hours of counseling to members of Gold Star families.

The state will also provide Gold Star family members free or reduced-price admission to state beaches, parks, museums and forests. Fees will also be waived by the states professional and occupational licensing boards. Families will also be eligible for admission to Department of Military and Veterans Affairs homes and hospitals.

In Arkansas, there will be no state income tax on military retirement pay. The state currently exempts active duty military pay from state income taxes. In January, it will be expanded to exempt military retirement pay as well.

Texas and West Virginia will see new election laws in 2018.

Voters in the Lone Star State will be able to cast a ballot without a photo ID if they can show they have a reasonable impediment to getting one. In West Virginia, there will be more options on the types of IDs accepted at polling stations. Voters will be able to show traditional forms like drivers licenses and passports but will also be able to use non-photo IDs like bank debit cards, utility bills and concealed carry permits.

The new year will offer more protection to workers in New York who go on sick or family leave.

In New York, workers will be eligible for paid family leave to take care of a sick relative or to take care of a newborn, foster or adopted child. The law allows full-time employees eight weeks of time off. The leave period increases to 12 weeks in 2021.

Employers in Washington state will be required to provide paid sick leave to all employees. Under the new law, employees will earn one hour of sick leave for every 40 hours they work.

Kids caught sexting in Colorado will be subjected to a range of punishments including lengthy lectures and courses on the consequences of sharing nude pics online to being charged with a misdemeanor. In severe circumstances, they could be charged with sexual exploitation.

Domestic violence victims in Illinois will soon be able to break their cell phone contracts. The new law also lets survivors keep their phone numbers and save money on related costs for a new account when they leave their abusers.

If the cops catch someone using a handheld cell phone in a school zone in Tennessee, they will be charged with a class C misdemeanor and fined $50.

In 2018, pets will be elevated in status in Illinois. Dogs, cats and other four-legged fur babies will be fair game in custody battles. Judges will be instructed to take into consideration what is best for the animal during divorce proceedings.

The state is also banning elephants from circuses and traveling exhibits.

Oregon is looking to cash in on bike riders in 2018. Bicycle buyers will have to pay a flat $15 fee for each bike they buy that costs more than $200. Businesses will collect the cash during the sale of the bike and turn it over to the state every quarter. Oregon will also bump up its gas tax by four cents per gallon in January. Vehicle registration fees will jump by $13.

And finally, there may be a little more equality coming to women in Illinois in the new year. All dry cleaners, tailors and hair salons in the state will have to present a price list for services if anyone requests it.

We all know that, historically, women have paid more for dry cleaning, haircuts and tailoring. So this law is really about transparency, and making sure women know what theyre paying for the same services men are receiving, the bills sponsor, state Sen. Melinda Bush said.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had a good year at the expense of city residents  and for that he might want to thank President Donald Trump.

Despite presiding over a city with rampant money and crime problems, Democrat Emanuel has bolstered his approval ratings and become the rising star of the left by placing himself front and center in the anti-Trump "resistance movement."

Emanuel declared the Windy City a Trump-free zone, prevailed in a legal battle against the White House over threats to cut funding from sanctuary cities, and came out in strong support of combatting climate change  an apparent dig at Trump for pulling out of the Paris Agreement.

Most importantly for Emanuel, his profile has risen  with political pundits floating his name as a possible Democratic 2020 presidential candidate, even as he openly says he is not interested.

Anti-Trump stance pays off

The hardline stance against Trump appears to be paying off. According to polls taken during the first half of last year, only a quarter of Chicago residents approved of Emanuel's job performance.

Fast forward to today: His approval rating is hovering above 50 percent  a crucial improvement as the nears next year's Democratic primary for the Chicago mayoral race in 2019.

But local residents, activists and critics of the mayor note that despite Emanuels newfound image as a liberal hero, he continues his lousy leadership and exacerbates the citys problems.

All while appearing as a defender of undocumented immigrants and working-class, the mayor pushes policies that hurt the very same people. His administration continues to channel funds to wealthy developers that were meant for devastated neighborhoods, while slashing public services and jobs, the Chicago Reader reported.

On immigrants, Emanuels public statements about Chicago being a sanctuary city do not resemble the reality, say immigration rights activists. According to the Reader, the citys much-praised laws aimed at helping undocumented immigrants actually allow police to cooperate with immigration officials if a person is facing charges or considered to be a gang member.

Crime still rampant

Chicagos crime problem remains rampant under Emanuel as well. The city was among the key drivers of violence across the country in 2016. While violent crime increased across the board, Chicago saw a 60 percent jump in killings compared to 2015.

Even when it comes to the Trump administration, Emanuels declarations of a Trump-free zone quickly vanish when it becomes politically convenient. Following the police shooting of Laquan McDonald in 2014, the Obama Justice Department indicted the Chicago Police Department in January 2016, accusing the police officers being poorly trained, undisciplined, and inadequately supervised.

Emanuel then signed an agreement to negotiate a consent agreement that would lead to the appointment of a federal monitor focused on implementing the police reforms as recommended by the DOJ, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

But after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions indicated he opposes such agreements, Emanuel covertly worked with the DOJ to come up with another agreement that avoids federal oversight on police reforms.

In an ordinary election, such shortcomings by the two-term mayor would prove to be devastating and career-ending. Yet, Emanuel will try to win a third term in 2019 all while facing no other obvious challenger.

Is being just stanchly against the president enough to win the voters of Chicago?

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Defense Secretary James Mattis says he thinks the world will exert increased pressure on North Korea in the coming months following recent maritime incidents in waters near China and the controversial development of its nuclear weapons program.

South Korea said Friday that it inspected a Hong Kong-flagged ship for allegedly violating U.N. Security Council sanctions by delivering oil to a North Korean vessel in October.

"I think you will see increased pressure, Mattis told Fox News on Friday. What form that pressure takes in terms of physical operations is something that will be determined by the cognizant governments. Obviously if a government finds there is a ship in their port conducting trade that was forbidden under the U.N. Security Council resolution then they have an obligation and so far weve seen nations take that obligation seriously.

Mattis also told Fox News that nothing impresses me when asked about the development of North Koreas missile program.

An official from Seoul's Foreign Ministry told the Associated Press Friday that the Hong Kong-flagged ship in the October incident, the Lighthouse Winmore, is believed to have transferred about 600 tons of refined petroleum products to the North Korean ship in international waters on Oct. 19 after leaving the South Korean port of Yeosu.

The official says South Korean authorities boarded the ship and interviewed crew members after they returned to Yeosu on Oct. 24.

Fox News also reported Thursday that U.S. spy satellites reportedly have captured photos of Chinese ships illegally selling oil to North Korean boats some 30 times since October.

Satellite images released by the U.S. Department of Treasury appeared to show vessels from both countries illegally trading oil in the West Sea, The Chosun Ilbo reported Tuesday, citing South Korean government sources.

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! President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday while on a holiday break in Florida.

The U.S. Treasury in November sanctioned North Koreas Maritime Administration and its transport ministry, in addition to six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their vessels, in an effort to block the rogue regimes transportation networks.

North Korea was barred in September by the United Nations Security Council from importing natural gas and had its crude oil imports capped in response to Kim Jong Uns nuclear missile program.

While Russia exports some oil to North Korea, China is the main source of oil for the rogue nation, according to Reuters. However, the country exported no oil products to the North during the month of November. It was reportedly the second consecutive month China didn't export diesel or gasoline to North Korea.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the Chinese government has been completely and strictly enforcing Security Council resolutions aimed at discouraging North Korea from developing nuclear and missile technology.

Fox News Lucas Tomlinson, Nicole Darrah and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
A guest on MSNBCs Morning Joe oddly declared Friday that she is worried President Trump may try to invalidate the 2018 midterm elections to avoid a Democratic Congress --- something the President cant actually do.

Regular co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were absent, but Republican pollster and Washington Examiner columnist Kristen Soltis Anderson more than made up for the extreme anti-Trump rhetoric that MSNBC viewers have come to expect from the liberal morning show.

Soltis Anderson said she is worried that if Republicans face large losses in 2018, President Trump will fear having a Democratic Congress that may begin to pursue impeachment proceedings and the result will be an attempt to question the validity of elections, period.

The bizarre theory demonstrates the paranoia that is often depicted on liberal networks and the statement is even stranger because it was uttered by a Republican.

She admitted that her theory isnt likely but compared the scenario to what has occurred during the aftermath of a special election in Alabama. Doug Jones became the first Democrat in 25 years to be confirmed as the winner of a Senate seat in the state, but his opponent hasnt conceded and even filed a lawsuit urging officials to delay certification because of systematic election fraud.

Soltis Anderson thinks that other Republicans could use similar tactics if theyre defeated in the midterms.

If Im thinking of a potentially really scary situation, I look at things like whats happening with Roy Moore in Alabama, wondering, is there a chance that that sort of worldview gets brought national by a president who is liable, he likes blaming other people for things, and likes claiming, look, Im a bigger winner than you ever could possibly have realized, Soltis Anderson said.

With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?  Media critic Mark Finkelstein on Kristen Soltis Anderson

Soltis Anderson is presumably referring to Trump attempting to discredit election results with rhetoric, tweets and similar tactics to what Moore has done in Alabama as opposed to literally discounting the outcomes.

Moores attorneys filed an election complaint in the Circuit Court of Montgomery, Ala., to postpone Jones certification until officials had conducted a thorough investigation of potential election fraud that improperly altered the outcome of this election.

Moore's request was rejected by an Alabama judge but the controversial Republican still wont give up. Soltis Anderson seems to thinks that if enough Republican candidates claim voter fraud after a key loss, it could delay the left potentially taking control of Congress in November 2018.

Media critic Mark Finkelstein called Soltis Andersons theory a paranoid fantasy and added, With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?

Soltis Anderson is author of "The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up). She is also co-founder of Echelon Insights, a research and analytics firm. While Soltis Anderson is worried that Trump could invalidate upcoming elections, she is also aware of how popular the president is in particular circles.

Soltis Andersons Morning Joe appearance coincided with Echelon Insights releasing an overview of the year in news to wrap up 2017 which shows that President Trump absolutely dominated Twitter mentions. Trump was mentioned 737,600,959 more times than his closest competitor, Barack Obama.

Never has an individual dominated the online discussion about news, current events and politics like Donald Trump, Soltis Anderson said. When he says that he is driving the conversation, he is 100 percent right.
The State Department on Friday released a batch of work-related emails from the account of top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin that were discovered by the FBI on a laptop belonging to Abedin's estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, near the end of the 2016 presidential campaign.

At least four of the documents released Friday are marked "classified."

One November 2010 document that was released shows Abedin forwarding an email to an address titled Anthony Campaign.

Former FBI Director James Comey said during a congressional hearing earlier this year that he believed Abedin regularly forwarded emails to Weiner for him to print out so she could give them to Clinton.

Comey famously said in July 2016 that Clinton was extremely careless in her handling of classified emails on a private server.

That 2010 email was a callsheet to Clinton about her upcoming call to Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal to warn about an imminent leak of U.S. diplomatic cables -- so-called Cablegate -- from WikiLeaks.

The rest of the document is redacted and marked classified as of August 2015.

Abedin is a longtime aide to Clinton who worked at the State Department and on Clintons campaign.

The emails indicate that Clinton was still invested in party politics despite her cabinet position. In one April 2011 email, Abedin informs her that Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz had been selected as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

Is she leaving the Congress? Clinton replied.

It also shows Abedin in her role as Clintons gatekeeper.

Love when people send her schedule stuff direct, Abedin sarcastically wrote in an email to a colleague in December 2011, after someone emailed Clinton directly to ask her to speak at a conference.

At the time of the emails, Abedin was married to Weiner, a onetime Democratic congressman who began a 21-month prison sentence last month after being convicted of sexting a 15-year-old girl.

Abedin has since filed for divorce.

The Abedin emails jolted the 2016 presidential race after Comey told Congress just days before the election that FBI agents had found more of Clintons messages.

The emails were found on Weiners laptop, as the FBI investigated its sexting case against him.

The discovery of the records reopened the case against Clinton several months after Comey said he wasnt recommending any charges be filed in the case.

HUMA ABEDIN'S COUSIN CONVICTED IN FRAUD CASE INVOLVING FAKE EMAILS

The conservative group Judicial Watch filed suit against the State Department for all official department emails sent or received by Abedin on a non-state.gov email address.

This is a major victory, the groups president, Tom Fitton, said in a Friday statement. After years of hard work in federal court, Judicial Watch has forced the State Department to finally allow Americans to see these public documents.

Fitton added, That these government docs were on Anthony Weiners laptop dramatically illustrates the need for the Justice Department to finally do a serious investigation of Hillary Clintons and Huma Abedins obvious violations of law.

Fox News Bill Mears and Kellianne Jones contributed to this report.
President Trump is drawing attention to the mysterious federal court case against Imran Awan, the former IT aide to a number of congressional Democrats, including former Democratic National Committee chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Whatever happened to this Pakistani guy who worked with the DNC? the president asked in an interview published Thursday by the New York Times.

A grand jury in August returned an indictment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia charging Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, with a total of four counts, which included federal bank fraud and conspiracy. Awan has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Whatever happened to them? Trump continued. With the two servers that they broke up into a million pieces? Whatever happened to him?

The president brought up the case while denying any collusion between his campaign and the Russians during the 2016 election.

Awan has not been charged with anything specific to his IT duties in Congress. But the case has drawn interest from Republican lawmakers because of Awans role for prominent Democrats and the access he had to sensitive data.

Awan and other IT aides for House Democrats had been on investigators radar for months over concerns of alleged equipment theft, access to sensitive computer systems and more, according to reports dating back to early 2017.

Awan and his wife are facing allegations they engaged in a conspiracy to obtain home equity lines of credit from the Congressional Federal Credit Union by giving false information about two properties  and sending the proceeds to individuals in Pakistan.

DOJ WARNS AWAN COULD FLEE TO PAKISTAN IF RESTRICTIONS LIFTED

Awan was born in Pakistan, but came to the U.S. with his family when he was a teenager, according to The Washington Post. He became a U.S. citizen more than a decade ago.

The broader case surrounding him has put renewed scrutiny on Wasserman Schultz for keeping Awan on the payroll for months, even after a criminal investigation was revealed and he was barred from the House IT network.

Most lawmakers fired Awan in February, but Wasserman Schultz had kept him on until his arrest in July.

Earlier this month, prosecutors warned that Awan is a flight risk and could flee to Pakistan if a judge approves his request to lift all of the conditions of his release.

U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu filed a motion before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, urging the court to deny the request from Awan.

Awan is currently enrolled in the High Intensity Supervision Program (HISP) with conditions that he abide by an electronically monitored curfew of 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. and a limit on traveling beyond 150 miles from his residence, according to court documents. Awan and his attorney want to lift those conditions, including the electronic monitoring bracelet.

Whatever happened to this Pakistani guy who worked with the DNC?  President Trump to New York Times

Federal prosecutors warned this could give Awan an opening.

While the government possesses Awans Pakistani passport, nothing prevents him from obtaining a new Pakistani passport at the Embassy in D.C. That passport would permit Awan to board a flight and leave the country at any time, the motion read. The government asserts that Awan is a flight risk and that his participation in HISP is by far the least restrictive condition that can be imposed on him to ensure his return to Court.

Wasserman Schultz has blamed the right-wing media circus fringe for the attention on Awan.

In an interview published in the Sun Sentinel in August, the former head of the Democratic National Committee suggested it's all part of an effort to distract from the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and possible ties to President Trump's team.

Fox News Brooke Singman and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
President Trump doesnt yet have his "big, beautiful" border wall, but the administration is ramping up recruitment of border agents going into the new year in a bid to enhance security with more manpower  if not bricks and barbed wire.

Up until now, the White Houses fix to immigration issues has included Trump reversing many of his predecessors policies, increasing round-ups of illegal immigrants and restricting the number of refugees allowed into the country.

There has been some success: The number of people trying to sneak over the border has dropped to its lowest level in four decades. Illegal border crossings are down 24 percent, according to the Department of Homeland Security's most recent statistics, released in December. During the governments 2017 fiscal year, border agents made 310,531 arrests.

While construction of the highly touted border wall with Mexico still hasnt started, the administration hopes to build on the statistical trendlines by carrying out a January executive order to hire 5,000 new Border Patrol agents.

To accelerate the hires, the federal government on Nov. 17 awarded a massive five-year, $297-million contract to a division of Accenture. Accenture will also be responsible for hiring 2,000 customs officers and 500 new agents for the Office of Air and Marine Operations.

The proposed hiring surge is the largest since the George W. Bush administration, when Congress funded an expansion of border enforcement following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The newest push to recruit 5,000 new agents, though, comes with its own set of pitfalls. Already, the union is concerned about a rush to hire amid concerns about corruption in the ranks.

As long as the Border Patrol continues to place priority on the quantity of recruits rather than the quality of recruits, corruption within the Border Patrol will continue to be a problem, the National Border Patrol Council told Fox News in a statement.

The administration enters this task at a disadvantage. The number of officers has actually dropped by 220 as the Border Patrol continues to struggle to meet minimal staffing quotas set by lawmakers. Congress requires a force of 21,370 agents  but an employee count in May revealed there were only 19,500 agents on the job. Making matters worse is that between 2013 and 2016, an average of 523 agents were hired while another 904 left.

According to former Department of Homeland Security watchdog John Roth, it takes more than nine months to hire one Border Patrol agent and about seven months to hire an ICE officer.

Roth told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in February that an audit highlighted numerous bottlenecks in effective hiring and there were inadequate systems to track and process applicants at DHS.

Critics argue that in order to meet the ambitious hiring goal, the applicant pool will be widened and standards could be sacrificed.

Thats what happened the last time the agency tried to up its workforce in the mid-2000s. More than 140 Customs and Border Protection agents have been arrested or convicted on corruption charges in the past 12 years, according to a joint analysis by the Center for Investigative Reporting and The Texas Tribune.

Corrupt officials gave sensitive information to cartels, accepted millions of dollars in bribes and derailed billions of dollars in surveillance measures.

To combat a spike in corruption, Congress mandated that all new recruits pass lie detector tests.

That didnt work out so well.

The Associated Press reported in January that 65 percent of applicants failed the test  more than double the average rate of eight law enforcement agencies.

Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst for The Cato Institute, says a mass hire of agents isnt an effective way to beef up border security  and that Congress should address DHS personnel issues before hiring new agents or further lowering hiring standards. Hes calling for more investigators instead.

The most critical recommendation is hiring enough CBP-OPR investigators so the office is both entirely operational and has substantially reduced its backlog of cases, he said.

But the Trump administration maintains more boots on the ground to patrol the borders is the way to go.
The mystery of a top-secret UFO program has deepened after government officials claimed there was confusion about its purpose  while experts accused them of backtracking.

The Pentagon last week confirmed the existence of a $22 million program called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) which investigated sightings of UFOs between 2007 to 2012, The Sun reported.

The revelation excited UFO fans around the world as it was the first time the US government had admitted investigating UFOs since 1969.

The organisations work was outed by Luis Elizondo when he told The New York Times he ran the shadowy Department of Defence program from 2007 to 2012 and continued to look into the issue until he resigned in October this year.

Two bombshell videos of unexplained UFO sightings by US military personnel  investigated by the AATIP  were also published.

However, when contacted by Sun Online, the spy organisation Defence Intelligence Agency claimed there had been some misunderstandings.

A spokesman said: There is some confusion about this program and claims about its purpose in press reporting ... the Defence Intelligence Agency has not released any information, files or videos.

But Department of Defence officials disputed this, saying they did not know what confusion the Defence Intelligence Agency was referring to, and stating they had been clear about the programs aims.

A Department of Defense spokesman said: The AATIPs mandate, when it existed, was to assess far-term foreign advanced aerospace threats to the United States.

It is claimed the program ended in 2012, however Mr Elizondo said that he had continued to work with officials from the Navy and the CIA on the program until he resigned from office in October.

UFO experts have claimed that this disagreement could be the government trying to back-pedal because it isnt ready or willing to disclose the information.

Ufologist Alejandro Rojas from Open Minds TV, which is dedicated to extraterrestrial life, said: It does seem to me like they might be backtracking.

They havent clarified exactly what the confusion is, but Im not surprised that they are scrambling over this now.

According to The Washington Post, Luis Elizondo essentially got the videos under somewhat false pretences.

He claimed he wanted to use the videos for training pilots. He didnt say he wanted to use the videos to demonstrate that UFOs are real, which is whats happening.

I think thats why the clips are so short and  especially with the second one. There is so little information attached to it.

I think perhaps they thought just in case somebody gets a hold of this and tries to turn it into a big UFO thing, we just wont give them much information.

It puts them in a spot because perhaps theyre not ready or even willing to come out and talk about this.

And they didnt intend these videos to be used for this purpose.

It wouldnt be the first time the government has tried to spin things in a different direction on this topic.

But weve got Elizondo who led the program going on the record to talk about it  so its clear that they were investigating UFOs.

Sun Online has now lodged a Freedom of Information request with the Defense Intelligence Agency for any other UFO files or videos related to AATIP.

This story originally appeared in The Sun.
It's being called "the most historically significant automobile ever offered for public sale": the 1939 "Super Mercedes" once occupied by a standing Adolf Hitler. The AFP reports just four of the Mercedes-Benz 770K Grosser models were built, and the one being put up for sale in Arizona on Jan. 17 famously carried Hitler through Berlin as the country celebrated its victory over France.

In its listing, Worldwide Auctioneers asks that the car be cut some slack: "It did not choose its user or its use. ... If the original Hitlerian provenance of this Mercedes can be set aside, if only momentarily, surviving examples of the Mercedes-Benz 770 'Grosser' ... remain quite likely the worlds greatest achievement in terms of automotive design, engineering, and construction." The car could fetch up to $14 million.

As far as its engineering goes, it boasted a 7.7-litre supercharged engine that could push the car to speeds in excess of 100mph; design-wise, there were "built-in security measures" that included bullet-resistant glass and protective armor plating.

Deutsche Welle reports the car was known to be used by Hitler from 1939 to 1941, but was subsequently sent for repairs and the paper trail temporarily ends.

It was used by American military police in France, then sent to the US, where it entered the possession of a Veterans of Foreign Wars branch and was featured in military parades.

"Rediscovered" in 1976, it was restored, displayed at the Chicago Historical Antique Automobile Museum, sold to the owner of a Vegas casino, and finally sold to a European collector in 2004 and then a Russian in 2009.

(Did one snub of Hitler change history?)

This article originally appeared on Newser: Auction House Asks That You Not Judge This Car Too Harshly
Concealed carry guns, lasers, sound weapons that attack invisibly, new nuclear bombs.Reveals of new weapons  both personal protection and military use - were big this year. Not just in the sheer number, but in the wide range of types of weaponry.

On the smaller scale, there were pistols and rifles. In two crucial historic shifts, the Army made a radical change in sidearms and introduced a new pistol and the Marines took the Armed Forces lead in adopting a new magazine that eliminates jamming and will save many Marine lives in the future.

There was also a boom in excellent concealed carry options for personal and tactical professional use. With several of the legendary American gunmakers celebrating anniversaries and iconic history, special editions of rifles with meaningful significance were also big alongside innovation for rifle use in law enforcement and military scenarios.

3 OF THE CRAZIES BULLETPROOF BODY ARMOR ADVANCES OF 2017

Futuristic weapons were also big news with landmark advances in weapons like lasers and sound weapons unleashing invisible bullets under the spotlight with the alleged attacks in Cuba. Not to mention new blackout bombs that can turn an entire nation dark in seconds.

And on the massive scale of destruction, nuclear weapons were frequently in the headlines and became a national discussion in 2017.

From new concealed carry options through to new nuclear bombs, here are 10 of our top weapons stories of 2017.

New concealed carry options

Looking for an everyday concealed carry weapon for self-defense? SHOT Show revealed and featured the very latest options for a range of budgets and needs this year.

The top highlights in new concealed carry included a futuristic and customized Taurus Spectrum .380 ACP Pistol and a classic Hollywood chic style Kimber Micro 9 Bel Air. There was also a return of the Colt Cobra and the preferred gunmaker of James Bond, Walther Arms, featured the Creed.

A new color of the excellent FNS-9 Compact FDE also debuted at SHOT as well as an enhanced and advanced Smith & Wesson M2.0.

6 GREAT CONCEALED CARRY GUNS AT SHOT SHOW 2017

Hottest rifle debuts at SHOT SHOW 2017

From hunting rifles to prepared-for-anything rifles, SHOT Show is the place where the new guns are revealed. We took you inside to show you the new limited edition Browning BAR Safari Rifle, a special 200th anniversary Remington, for reacting and moving quickly a Ruger 10-22 Takedown Lite, a chassis based precision rifle Winchester XPC and the Springfield Armory Saint SHOT Show debut.

Unstoppable magazines for the Marines

A reliable weapon can be the difference between life and death for those serving in the military. The Magpul Industries PMAG GEN 3 is a magazine for rifles that ensures the user stays lethal in a fight.

More than 20,000 rounds fired? No problem. Still no magazine stoppages.

The US Marine Corps has made the decision to ensure that all Marines have the best magazine available. Going forward, Magpuls PMAG GEN 3 has become the official magazine, giving Marines that extra advantage to stay alive and lethal in a firefight.

PODCAST: INSIDE THE ELITE MARINE CORPS SNIPER SCHOOL WITH A FASCINATING INSTRUCTOR

New Army pistol

In future battles, U.S. soldiers will have a new sidearm for personal protection. The Armys new pistol may see more action than the last thanks to a design that has great potential for offensive purposes like close quarter combat.

The Sig Sauer 9mm XM17, and the more compact version XM18, are replacing the M9 as the Armys service pistol. At the end of 2017, the Army began fielding the first Sig Sauer XM17 Modular Handgun System (MHS) sidearms.

This is the first change in about three decades since Berettas M9 was first introduced as the Armys sidearm in the Cold War era back in 1986. For all the details: Meet the US Army's new pistol

The U.S. Army has revealed a new holster that soldiers will rely on when drawing their new pistols.

ATHENA laser weapon

For all those naysayers who thought laser weapons would never work2017 delivered undeniable proof that lasers are going to be extremely powerful weapons against enemies of the United States.

Silent, invisible, deadly. The powerful ATHENA laser weapon can destroy enemy threats within seconds. This year, the laser weapon proved itself a mighty force in battle by destroying five Outlaw drones.

ATHENA LASER WEAPON 'KILLS' 5 'OUTLAWS'

Weapons with sound bullets

Weapons that use sound as a destructive force became a national conversation in 2017 after the alleged attack on US State Department officials in Cuba.

How do sound weapons work and what kind of sound weapons exist?

PODCAST: GRAB A BEER WITH RANGER AND THE HILARIOUS YOUTUBE STAR MAT BEST - FIND OUT WHAT LIFE IN THE HARDCHARGING RANGERS IS TRULY LIKE

Blackout bombs

In an instant, the entire country of North Korea would blackout  such is the power of new bombs under development in South Korea.

New powerful bomb for new stealth fighter jet

Adversaries of the United States will soon be facing the most advanced stealth fighter jet in the world - with even more firepower. This fighter can penetrate deep into an countrys airspace without them knowing to deliver this devastating new bomb.

Mini-Nukes- the new American nuclear weapons?

North Korea continues to threaten the United States with a nuclear attack. In the Cold War era, the deterrence approach could be described as the bigger the nuclear bomb, the better.

Are new mini nukes the right solution instead for todays threats? Building a new type of nuclear weapon, mini nukes, is under consideration by the White House.

Americas nuclear arsenal

In 2017, Americas vast nuclear arsenal was regularly in the spotlight.

But what exactly does President Trump have at his disposal in terms of nuclear weapons?
Apple issued an apology after it caused an uproar last week when it admitted it had slowed down batteries on older iPhones for technical reasons.

The tech giant said it will cut the cost of replacing iPhone batteries.

On Thursday, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company expressed regret for the way the issue has been handled. "Weve been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process," Apple said in a statement posted to its website.

"We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize. Theres been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify and let you know about some changes were making."

Apple added that it would reduce the price of replacing a battery on the iPhone 6 and older models to $29, down from $79, starting in late January. That price would be available worldwide through December 2018. Apple also said it would issue an update to iOS, its mobile operating system, to "give users more visibility into the health of their iPhones battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance."

APPLE BEING SUED OVER SLOWING DOWN OLDER IPHONES

The slowdown started with iOS 10.2.1 in 2016, Apple said, to improve power management "to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE."

With the recent iOS 11.2 update, both the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus got the same power management support as well.

The apology comes after the Tim Cook-led company admitted it slowed down older iPhones to help save battery life due to the limitations of lithium-ion batteries.

In the statement, Apple, which has previously mentioned how lithium-ion batteries degrade over time, provided more detail on how the batteries work.

"All rechargeable batteries are consumable components that become less effective as they chemically age and their ability to hold a charge diminishes," the company said, while adding that both time and the number of times the battery has been charged affect the chemical aging process.

The company is the subject of several class-action lawsuits over the matter, including one filed in Los Angeles by Stefan Bogdanovich, an L.A. man and an iPhone 8 user. Bogdanovich said that Apple's slowing down of older iPhone models is not part of an agreement and he believes it is a ploy by Apple to get people to upgrade to new phones.

Follow Chris Ciaccia on Twitter @Chris Ciaccia
The pitfalls of social media and in conjunction, its largest players, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, have been well documented. Former Facebook employees have called out the company for doing untold damages to people's brains and perhaps even "damaging how society works."

Even Facebook itself has acknowledged that using its services in a certain way may be detrimental to one's long-term health.

But according to some health specialists consulted by Fox News, the excessive use of social media, and to an extent Facebook as its biggest player, may wind up having a similar short-term impact as using opioids and cocaine.

FACEBOOK WANTS YOUR FACE DATA - TO BENEFIT YOUR PRIVACY, OF COURSE

Opioids directly impact the brain's reward system, said Dr. Tara Emrani, psychologist at NYU Langone Health, releasing dopamine, a chemical associated with pleasure seeking  similar to what happens when someone receives a Facebook "like" or comments.

"Facebook likes and comments activate similar parts of the brain as opioids, where each like or positive comment activates the reward system and the brain releases dopamine," Dr. Emrani told Fox News via email. She noted similar sensations occur when someone eats food they enjoy, have sex or use other substances, including cocaine.

"So, arguably, the feelings/experiences of the brain as a result of Facebook likes or comments is similar to those resulting from cocaine, albeit less intense," Dr. Emrani added. "In addition, opioids have other significant negative effects on the brain, including shrinkage of grey matter and loss of memory."

Cocaine is not an opiate  rather it is "a powerfully addictive stimulant drug," according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Opioids work directly with the nervous system to relieve pain, while impacting the brains reward system and releasing dopamine, "a chemical associated with pleasure seeking which makes it at risk for addiction and abuse," Dr. Emrani said.

Facebook has not responded to requests for comment from Fox News.

FORMER FACEBOOK EXEC WON'T LET HIS OWN KIDS USE SOCIAL MEDIA, SAYS IT'S DESTROYING HOW SOCIETY WORKS

Concerns about social media's impact

The link between using Facebook and getting a similar sensation to that of cocaine has been made previously.

A 2014 study from the University of Southern California likened the effects of scrolling through one's Facebook feed to that of the sensations experienced through cocaine use or gambling.

Keith Humphreys, a professor and the Section Director for Mental Health Policy in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, said humans are social animals, so there's no reason to believe online social interaction would have a different reward pathway than what's seen in person.

"Drugs affect the same brain reward pathways that are fundamental to our functioning, i.e., the pathway that makes eating when we are hungry, getting warm when we are cold, feel good," Humphreys told Fox News via email. "So the fact that something activates the same pathway as cocaine doesn't mean it's addictive, just that it's rewarding."

The aforementioned dopamine effects discussed by Dr. Emrani have been in the spotlight recently after Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive and the CEO of venture capital firm Social Capital, said in a November interview that social media is damaging society and voiced concerns about its impact on his own children.

"The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works," Palihapitiya said in a November interview at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "No civil discourse. No cooperation. Misinformation. Mistruth. And it's not an American problem. This is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem. So we are in a really bad state of affairs right now, in my opinion. It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other."

Facebook subsequently fired back at Palihapitiya, saying he had not worked at the company in six years and it was extremely different from the one he worked at.

Palihapitiya later backtracked his comments, saying that "Facebook is a force for good in the world," while adding that his comments were meant to be used as a conversation starter on how to use social media responsibly.

No lasting long-term effects?

While the short-term stimulative effects of getting "likes" or comments are well documented, what is unclear at this point are the long-term effects of using social media.

Former Facebook President Sean Parker said in a November interview he wasn't sure what the app was doing to the development of children's brains.

"I don't know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying, because [of] the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and ... it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other ... It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways," Parker was quoted as saying. "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains."

Dr. Emrani said that there is "no conclusive evidence for a long-term cause for concern from use of Facebook" according to the studies that have been done so far.

Humphreys echoed these statements, but added that he does have concerns about the attention span in children, suspecting "it shortens it as people become used to constant stimulation and change."

Facebook's impact and its response

To its credit, Facebook recently released the results of several studies showing that utilizing the site in what it deems a passive manner (i.e. reading articles, but not interacting) could be damaging to one's mental health. It also said that users who are more active on the platform (those talking to others and posting comments) see an improvement in their well-being.

Dr. Emrani said that while using the platform could cause people to be isolated or subjected to negative views, it has become a "platform for individuals to seek support when they are experiencing distress, which then leads to an improved sense of self."

Although comparisons have been made between using social media and the effects of using opioids, others aren't sure there is enough of a connection between the two.

"[T]he harms [of social media] are less clear than most addictions," Dr. Mark D. Sullivan, a psychiatry and behavioral sciences adjunct professor at the University of Washington told Fox News via email.

Dr. Sullivan did caution however, that he is not a user of social media.

Another expert, an assistant neurobiologist professor at a university in New York who declined to be named for this article, said it was a bit of a stretch to compare social media and opioids and specifically cocaine, citing the fact they "do not have the same potency and the same ability in disregulating the brain." The professor added that opioids also have other effects on other parts of the brain that are not related to reward circuits.

However, the professor did acknowledge that any rewarding activity done multiple times could "lead to some forms of abnormal plasticity and in some subjects' habit forming and addictive behaviors," similar to those seen in gambling, exercise, videogames and activities, citing data from the New England Journal of Medicine and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Follow Chris Ciaccia on Twitter @Chris_Ciaccia
Whether youre interested in trucks, tanks, motorcycles, armored vehicles or ATVs, 2017 was a great year, with lots of incredible machines.

And it was a year in which lots of out-of-the-box advances  some might even say shocking  were revealed.

Where do we find these insider machines? All year, I comb through the enormous defense events all over the world, where the best companies showcase their latest and greatest  and where the military and special operations window-shop.

I also meet with military and private sector innovators to closely evaluate the vehicles and put them through their paces.

In the eye-popping category, it will be hard to surpass the militarys announcement that theyve figured out how to use urine as fuel for vehicles in war zones.

PODCAST: DISCOVER HOW THE MOST ELITE, SECRET MILITARY UNITS TRAIN FOR MISSIONS WITH MOTORCYCLES WITH THIS ULTRA-TALENTED PJ

Tiny tanks with virtual reality, snow motorcycles and silent motorcycles that can run on anything from BBQ propane to jet fuel were three of the most exciting this year.

Popular vehicles used on dirt roads and off road, like ATVs and trucks, were transformed into futuristic combat machines. Two of the most outstanding were the thinking self-driving robot Polaris MRZR and the Armys modified Chevy Chevrolet truck powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.

And who wouldnt want a vehicle pimped out with a powerful laser mounted on top?

Here are six of our favorite vehicle stories of the year. Youll want to drive every single one.

Urine fuel for combat vehicles

In one of the most jaw-dropping breakthroughs of 2017, the Army announced it has discovered a way to use urine to power devices they need on the move.

In other words, soldiers in war zones may be using their own urine to produce electricity and power anything from drones and night vision devices to laptops and communications equipment  and even potentially combat vehicles.

Could this urine discovery reduce the extreme load a soldier carries? Could it power entire bases? How would urine provide fuel for combat vehicles? Get the full scoop here: [Will combat vehicles use urine for fuel? ]

The jet fuel bike

Speaking of surprising fuel, another big hit this year in the covert tactical space is the SilentHawk motorcycle that can run on a surprising range of fuel, from locally scavenged propane or jet fuel, in a war zone. With these geniuses, someday even products you would find on a kitchen shelf may provide fuel.

The bike is remarkably capable. The very impressive SilentHawk  a hybrid-electric, two-wheel drive all-terrain motorcycle  handles very tough terrain extremely well, and it can also do so nearly entirely silently.

Find out all about the groundbreaking bike and how special operations can use them to provide major advantages on missions. [AUSA 2017: 4 amazing land vehicles at this year's show]

Snow bikes for snow supremacy

Arguably providing far more tactical advantages than snowmobiles, the Timbersleds have been one of the hottest vehicles at every major defense weapons show this year.

Timbersled tech transforms motorcycles into special operations snow bikes for winter warfare and mountain combat. A Timbersled modified bike will excel not just on hard-pack and trails, but also deep snow in the most remote terrains.

And the great news is that this amazing tech is now available to civilians to have a blast tearing it up on the slopes too.

How does it work? Learn more about this cool tech that converts your favorite dirt bike for Jason Bourne-style snow supremacy. Read all about it here: Cool tech converts dirt bikes for Jason Bourne-like snow supremacy]

Stealthy, spec ops Chevy trucks

US Army TARDEC  renowned tank experts  and General Motors teamed up to explore a new method of power for Army vehicles that could deliver near silent operation and hard-to-detect heat signatures.

It's based on a Chevrolet Colorado truck driven on dirt roads and off-road all across America  but with lots of modifications for military purposes.

This new General Motors prototype, known as the Chevrolet Colorado ZH2, doesnt run on gas but on hydrogen fuel cells.

How else is it different to a typical Chevrolet Colorado? Find out here: AUSA 2017: Stealthy Chevy trucks for soldiers?

PODCAST: LEARN HOW TO DRIVE YOUR TRUCK LIKE REAL LIFE JASON BOURNES FROM A TOP SPECIAL FORCES EXPERT

Tiny tanks

Part tank and part ATV  Future U.S. military tanks may look and perform nothing like they do today.

DARPAs Ground X-Vehicle Technology program (GXV-T) initiative will lead to an entirely new era of tanks and armored combat vehicles.

How different? The smaller size is just the beginning. These futuristic tanks do not have any windows whatsoever and instead seal military personnel inside a closed cockpit to better protect them against threats.

In a massive breakthrough, they proved this groundbreaking way of driving is possible this year.

But how could they see the battlefield around them without windows? Honeywells ingenious augmented and virtual reality.

How does the virtual reality allow you to see and what would it be like to drive it? Explore it here: Powerful tiny tanks with VR and futuristic cockpits could revolutionize the battlefield

Thinking ATV

Robots will soon be serving alongside soldiers in the U.S. Army, but not the sort of humanoid robots seen in "Terminator"  these robots could be more like thinking ATVs.

The U.S. Army launched a revolutionary SMET initiative that aims to create thinking, smart vehicle brigades.

One of the top contenders for selection by the Army is the mysterious MRZR-X made by Polaris Defense, the company that dominates downrange ATVs.

So what can we expect the under-wraps MRZR-X can do? Find out everything you need to know about this military ATV that can think and drive itself. AUSA 2017: This military ATV can 'think' and drive itself

Armored vehicles with laser weapons

Oshkosh celebrated its 100th birthday this year so their presence at the top defense shows was epic.

Theres no question the Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) armed with a Boeing Compact Laser Weapon System (CLWS) was one of the most exciting vehicles showcased at AUSA.

Its hard to beat an advanced armored vehicle regularly responsible for saving American warriors lives in war zones, now amped up with a powerful laser weapon. Who wouldnt want to have a go driving and blasting?

What are the other incredible features? Find out everything you need to know clicking here: AUSA 2017: 4 amazing land vehicles at this year's show
A "belligerent" and "uncooperative" Connecticut woman tried to snort cocaine inside a police station Monday while she was waiting to be searched by a female officer, according to a police report.

Officers with the Ledyard Police Department said they arrested Nicole Hunter, 25, on Monday following an unrelated incident.

OUT OF THE WOODS: CONNECTICUT POLICE DOG FOUND SAFE AFTER 36 HOURS IN WILDERNESS

The report said police had been looking for a black Kia SUV with New Hampshire license plates following reports of an erratic driver. They found the car in Hunters driveway, with her still sitting inside of it, the report said.

Officers described her as uncooperative and said she was screaming outside in a residential neighborhood. They added in the report she was belligerent and charged at the officers.

Hunter was subsequently arrested and brought to the Ledyard Police Department. But while waiting to be searched by a female officer, police said Hunter pulled a pink powdery substance wrapped in paper out of her pocket and unsuccessfully tried to snort the powdery substance.

CALIFORNIA COUPLE USED DRONE TO DELIVER DRUGS, POLICE SAY

The material was later confirmed to be cocaine, the report said.

Hunter was charged with possession of narcotics, interfering with an officer and disorderly conduct, police said. She was released from custody on bond and is expected in appear in court on Jan. 8, 2018.
A grieving California family was shamed by an anonymous neighbor for not decorating their home in a neighborhood known for its over-the-top Christmas decorations.

The Zarra family was heartbroken to discover a letter in their mailbox calling them disrespectful and scrooges for not participating in the neighborhoods tradition of elaborate holiday decoration.

But they have good reason to sit this year out.

Homeowner Lyndia Ives Zarra told FOX40 that she usually loves to decorate her home, especially with her mother Cheris hand-painted displays that she proudly shows off on the familys front lawn.

But Cheri passed away from cancer recently and due to the grief over the loss of her mother, Lyndia refrained from decorating this holiday season.

When you get a letter like that, its heartbreaking, Lyndia told FOX40. Because its not like I was trying to make the street ugly or whatever. I just had to deal with my family and I.

Lyndia shared the nasty letter on Facebook where shes received a lot of support.

The past 4 months have been hard on my family, the Facebook post read. I was out of state for three months caring for my mother who had stage 4 liver cancer. She died in October. I had to handle everything before I could come home. I came home December 1.

Lyndia, who said shes participated in the neighborhoods tradition for 6 Christmas seasons, addressed the scrooge, calling them a coward for hiding behind anonymity: Please think before you shame someone on Christmas!

Read more news from Fox 40 Sacramento.
Recy Taylor, a black Alabama woman whose rape by six white men in 1944 drew national attention, died Thursday. She was 97.

Taylor died in her sleep at a nursing home in Abbeville, her brother Robert Corbitt said. He said Taylor had been in good spirits the previous day and her death was sudden. She would have been 98 on Sunday.

Taylor was 24 when she was abducted and raped as she walked home from church in Abbeville. Her attackers left her on the side of the road in an isolated area. The NAACP assigned Rosa Parks to investigate the case, and she rallied support for justice for Taylor.

Two all-white, all-male grand juries declined to indict the six white men who admitted to authorities that they assaulted her.

In a 2010 interview, Taylor told The Associated Press that she believes the men who attacked her are dead, but she still would like an apology from officials.

"It would mean a whole lot to me," Taylor said. "The people who done this to me, ... they can't do no apologizing. Most of them is gone."

The Alabama Legislature passed a resolution apologizing to her in 2011.

Taylor's story, along with those of other black women attacked by white men during the civil rights era, is told in "At the Dark End of the Street," a book by Danielle McGuire released in 2010. A documentary on her case, "The Rape of Recy Taylor," was released this year.

"It is Recy Taylor and rare other black women like her who spoke up first when danger was greatest," Nancy Buirski, the documentary's director, told NBC News in an email. "It is these strong women's voices of the 40's and early 50's and their efforts to take back their bodies that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and other movements that followed, notably the one we are witnessing today."
Six people were rushed to hospitals after a van rammed into a Gap store in downtown Seattle on Thursday, authorities said.

The Shuttle Express vehicle struck the clothing store shortly before noon local time, KIRO-TV reported.

The van driver had suffered a medical condition and lost consciousness, officials said. The van jumped a curb, went up onto the sidewalk and struck four pedestrians. A fifth person was struck by glass from windows that shattered when the van hit the store, the report said.

One victim, a man in his 30s, was in critical condition, while two women, ages 28 and 39, and a 52-year-old man were in satisfactory condition, according to hospital officials, the Seattle Times reported.

The conditions and locations of the two other victims were not immediately known, the newspaper reported.

The driver, who was not hurt in the crash, was also taken to the hospital to be evaluated, KIRO-TV reported.

Officials said there was no indication that the crash was intentional, the station reported.

The one passenger in the van at the time of the crash was not hurt and was able to help get the van stopped and turned off, the report said. The van has major damage to one fender, while the Gap store had shattered glass.

John Clarke, who works downtown, told the Times he was walking when he saw the van suddenly swerved before crashing into the building about 15 feet in front of him.

It jumped the curb. I yelled, Clarke said. It came toward the building and hit the building.

Clarke said he saw the man and woman hit by the van.

I thought she was dead, he said.
The northern U.S. was in the throes of a brutal cold snap overnight Thursday into Friday morning, with forecasters issuing warnings of hypothermia and frostbite as temperatures remain low through New Year's weekend.

As the Arctic blast spread across the region, a dog was found frozen to death on a porch in Ohio, the Toledo Blade reported.

I dont know how long she was out there, Megan Brown, a cruelty investigator with the local Humane Society, told the paper. She was frozen solid.

The Department of Energy projected a rise in fuel costs, potentially hurting low-income Americans.

In North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper looked to prevent price gouging by signing an emergency declaration to loosen restrictions on transporting heating fuel, allowing it to be more easily distributed.

In the Northeast, Adam Gill, a staffer at a weather observatory in New Hampshire, took video as he poured boiling water out of a pitcher and watched it immediately turn into snow.

Even a polar bear plunge in New Jersey had to be canceled because of the cold.

Homeless shelters across the Northeast were staffing up and bringing in extra beds to accommodate additional lodgers.

President Donald Trump reacted to the frigid weather hitting his home state with a tweet:

"In the east, it could be the COLDEST New Years Eve on record," Trump wrote. "Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"

With New Years Eve drawing closer, Fox News meteorologist Rick Reichmuth said revelers coming to watch the ball drop in New York City's Times Square will likely encounter temperatures in the teens around midnight.

He warned that conditions in Times Square's traditional security "pens" for the gathering crowd could become dangerous as the temperature drops.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
On one of the coldest nights of the year, New York Citys deadliest residential fire in decades ravaged a Bronx apartment building  killing 13 people, including several young children and a U.S. Army soldier who lost his own life after saving several others.

Some of the victims of the Dec. 28 blaze died of smoke inhalation and others from burns, New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro told reporters. He said the fire was started by a 3 1/2-year-old child, who was playing with stove burners in a first-floor apartment.

The fire was historic in its magnitude because of how many people perished, Nigro also said. Excluding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the apartment fire was the worst blaze in the city since 87 people died in a fire at a Bronx social club in 1990. In 2007, 10 people, including nine children, died when a fire caused by a space heater tore through a four-story home in the Bronx.

The fire traveled up the buildings stairwell because the door of the affected first-floor unit was left open, Nigro said.

People had very little time to react, Nigro said, adding that residents were not able to escape the fire by using that staircase.

Our hearts go out to every person who lost a loved one here and everyone who is fighting for their lives, Nigro said.

Officials released the names of all 12 victims Saturday, Dec. 30, but some had been identified shortly after the tragedy by family members. A 13th victim was named on Thursday, Jan. 4 after dying in a hospital from his injuries.

Heres what we know about the victims:

Young girls ages 7 months, 2 and 7, and a boy whose age was not given, were among the victims of the Bronx fire, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. A 17-year-old girl also died, police told Fox News.

Three women, ages 19, 37 and 58, four men, 28, 48, 49 and 54, also died in the fire, police said.

Four others were hospitalized, battling for survival, but a 27-year-old man succumbed to his injuries days later.

Emmanuel Mensah, 28

Emmanuel Mensah, who was at the Bronx apartment building to be home for the holidays, died in the fire. His father, Kwabena Mensah told WPIX-TV that his son, who was a U.S. Army soldier stationed in Virginia, lost his life while trying to rescue others.

His uncle, Twum Bredu, told The New York Times "he brought four people out. When he went to bring a fifth person out, the fire caught up with him."

Mensah immigrated to the Bronx from Ghana five years ago, and, according to The Times, recently graduated from boot camp with the rank of private first class. Authorities reportedly said he died of smoke inhalation.

Shantay Young, 19

Shantay Young was 19 years old.

Young was visiting family members on the fifth floor of the apartment building when the fire began, her father, Howard Williams, told WABC-TV. He said he attempted to get to his daughter but was unable to push through the smoke.

Shevan Stewart, a family member, told the New York Times that she was cooking curry chicken and rice when Young popped into her apartment to see what she was making. Stewart said Young informed her that she was going upstairs to visit Auntie Karan but promised to come back.

But she didnt come back, Stewart told The Times.

Karen Stewart-Francis, 37

Karen Stewart-Francis and her two daughters were among those who died in the fire, The Times reported.

Stewart-Francis was part of a 13-member family from Jamaica, all of whom lived in the building, her mother, Ambrozia Stewart, told The Times.

I dont know what to do and I dont know how to feel. I need somebody to tell me what to feel, Stewart told The Times of her loss. Where do I go from here? Four at one time  what do I do?

Stewart-Francis was also Shawntay Youngs aunt, according to WABC-TV.

Charmela Francis, 7

Charmela Francis mother and younger sister also died in the fire. She was only 7.

Kylie Francis, 2

Kylie Francis mother and older sister also died in the fire. Kylie Francis was 2.

Maria Batiz, 58

Maria Batiz and her 8-month-old granddaughter, Amora Vidal, died, her brother told the New York Daily News.

Maria Batiz reportedly called her daughter, the babys mother, and told her they were trapped in the apartment, according to a GoFundMe account.

Maria told her daughter that were going to die in here, her brother, Fernando Batiz, told the Daily News.

I lost my angel baby and my best friend; my mother. The lady who birthed me and would do anything for me is gone, Christine Batiz, Marias daughter, said on GoFundMe. She added that she would not wish this on my worst enemy and said her heart goes out to the rest of the families that are grieving.

Fernando Batiz told WPIX-TV that his sister, who worked as a home care attendant, was often selfless and helped him when he was homeless.

Maria Batiz came to New York from Puerto Rico, her brother said, and was one of 10 siblings  some of whom still live in Puerto Rico.

Amora Vidal, 7 months old

Amora Vidal, the 7-month-old granddaughter of victim Maria Batiz, died in the fire, relatives confirmed to WPIX.

Vidal's mother, Christine Batiz, wrote on a GoFundMe page: I lost everything in a matter of minutes. One thing you know my daughter is playing with her new toys [and] the next hour they are gone from my life.

The baby's paternal grandmother, Nyvia Vidal, told the Daily News Amora was just learning to crawl.

"She was my love, Vidal said. She was my first grandbaby. It just hurts so much. I still cant believe it.

Police identified the remaining victims on Dec. 30. They included William Donkor, Hannah Donkor, 17, Gabriel Yaw Sarkookie, 48, Solomon Donkor, 49, and Justice Opoku, 54.

Holt Francis, 27, died in a hospital Jan. 4 after succumbing to his injuries.

Fox News' Nicole Darrah, Pamela Ng and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An elderly mobster apologized in court Thursday for ordering a car to be burned because the driver had cut him off.

Vincent Asaro, 82, called the ruling a death sentence.

Earlier this year, the New York-based monster was charged with having his subordinates hunt down a car that had cut him off and torch it in 2012, the New York Daily News reported.

The octogenarian pleaded guilty in June and apologized Thursday for the stupid thing I did.

Asaros lawyer, Elizabeth Macedonio, called the ruling excessive and claimed that authorities were being vindictive in their ruling against an old man in poor health.

Judge Allyne Ross said she didnt believe the sentence would be effective in rehabilitating Asaro because of his age. Asaro requested that he be transferred to a prison close enough so his family could visit him.

Todays sentence holds Asaro accountable not only for using his power as a member of organized crime to address a perceived slight by another motorist, but for a lifetime of violent criminal activity, Acting Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Bridget Rohde said.

Two years ago, Asaro was charged with participating in a 1969 murder as well as the 1978 Lufthansa Airlines heist, which was dramatized in the film Goodfellas.

He was acquitted in a subsequent trial.
A Florida man rigged the front door of his home in a bizarre plot to electrocute his estranged pregnant wife, authorities said Friday.

Michael Wilson, 32, of Palm Coast, intended to cause his wife great bodily harm with the booby trap, authorities said. He was arrested Thursday in Knoxville, Tenn., on charges of attempted aggravated battery on a pregnant person and theft of a firearm.

This is one of the most bizarre domestic violence cases I have seen in my career, Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said. Not only did this man plan to electrocute his wife, but he could have injured a deputy or any person attempting to enter this residence. Thankfully this man was found and taken into custody before he could cause the harm he intended.

Deputies went to the home Tuesday in response to a 911 call from Wilsons father-in-law.

He had contacted authorities about suspicious statements made by his son-in-law regarding not letting a child touch the front door of the house, Stalys spokeswoman Brittany Kershaw said.

She said that deputies observed that the front door appeared to be barricaded and there were burn marks near the door handle. When a deputy kicked the door it gave off a large spark.

Based on observations made by the deputies on scene, it was apparent that the suspect rigged electrical devices to the top door lock and lower door handle in an attempt to electrocute and cause serious bodily injury or even death to whomever attempted to unlock and open the front door of the residence, she said.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that when the father-in-law, Jon Flositz, went to the house with his wife, they found the word Hi and a drawing of two eyes written in lipstick on the homes sliding glass door.

He had gone to check on the house at his daughters urging, Florida Times Union reported.

Ashley Wilson, 29, told investigators after his arrest that she filed for divorce Dec. 6 and that he had been committed to a mental health facility at the end of November, according to the paper. She said he hadnt returned home since then.

She said a little more than a week ago, he called her apologizing for his absence and wanted to be together again. She invited him to Knoxville while visiting family for Christmas, the paper reported.

She told investigators she got him a room at a hotel and he arrived Dec. 21 but left without explanation two days later. That was followed by text messages to her accusing her of cheating on him, the Times Union reported.

She didnt speak with him until the next day Christmas Eve and said she calmed him down. He told her he had gone to visit family in Ohio, and she let him know he was welcome back in Tennessee where he returned that day.

According to the police report, she said when he returned one comment he made particularly alarmed her. She said he told her when she goes home to make sure you use the front door because the garage door is not going to open and to make sure their daughter wasnt with her because he didnt want her getting hurt, the paper reported.

She then contacted her parents about her concerns.

The police report also says Wilson constructed the booby trap with chairs, tape, a shower-type rod, electrical cords, wiring cut from a bedroom lamp and a battery charge with clamps, according to the paper.

The News-Journal reported that in the house deputies found pictures of a sonogram on the kitchen table and sticky-note love letters in the bedroom with a photo album showing Wilson and his wife together.

The paper also reported that a deputy discovered a Facebook account with Michael Wilsons name and photograph in which the profile status had been changed to widowed.

The gun charge stemmed from the alleged theft of a gun belonging to his father-in-law.

Wilson was being held on $150,000 bail and faces extradition to Florida.
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Police in Georgia are trying to solve a bizarre Atlanta-area murder in which a dying man was left on a doorstep of a strangers home after being shot a mile and a half away.

A woman, identified only as Donna, opened her door at her home on West Ridge Avenue in Stone Mountain to find a man clinging to life Thursday afternoon, Fox 5 reported.

"The gentleman, he said, 'Call 911, I've been shot... call my sister,'" the woman told the station, adding that she went to get her cell phone but the man became unconscious.

The man, who has not been identified, then died on her doorstep. Police believe he was shot at a hair salon a mile and a half away from the home.

"I wish he had hung on until [the paramedics] got here," Donna said.

People in businesses near the hair salon on Memorial Drive said they had heard gunshots in the area and several windows were seen busted Thursday after a Fox 5 news crew went to investigate. No one answered the door at the business.
A first cousin of Huma Abedin, a former aide to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and soon to be ex-wife of disgraced former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, was convicted Tuesday in a fraud case involving fake emails.

Omar Amanat, 44, and his colleague Kaleil Tuzman face more than a decade in prison after a jury in New York City found the pair guilty of cooking the books and defrauding shareholders of the technology company Kit Digital between 2010 and 2012.

Amanats brother, Irfan Amana, was also arrested in the United Arab Emirates and faces charges of fraud with the same tech firm, the New York Post reported.

Judge Paul Gardephe revoked Amanats bail after Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Griswold said he was a flight risk, and chastised the father of six children for his "disregard and a disdain for the courts and legal process."

"The evidence of their criminal schemes was so overwhelming that Amanat actually tried to fool the jury by introducing fake emails into the record as exculpatory 'evidence' in this trial," Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said in a release. "Unfortunately for Tuzman and Amanat, the jury saw through their tangled web of lies, convicting them on all counts."

Evidence against Amanat that involved him telling a government informant of his relation to Abedin was withheld from the jury after his defense lawyers successfully argued it could unfairly influence the jurors.

"Again, particularly in New York, jurors are likely to have strong opinions regarding the Clinton campaign and certain individuals connected to the campaign," the lawyers wrote. "Both supporters and those politically opposed to Secretary Clinton could have reasons to be prejudiced against Mr. Amanat based on his indirect connection to her."

According to the Post, the mothers of Abedin and Amanat are sisters.

Amanat was a successful tech entrepreneur and owned stakes in a film studio that produced Hollywood blockbusters such as the Twilight movies.

In November, Abedin's estranged husband, Weiner, began serving a 21-month sentence following his conviction of sending sexual texts to a 15-year-old girl.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Texas man is accused of nearly decapitating his girlfriend with a samurai sword Wednesday night, police said.

Kenneth Wayne Lockings, Jr. 46, turned himself in Thursday, a day after police found 36-year-old Aracely Jernigan dead in the living room of a Houston home, The Houston Chronicle reported.

Police said they were responding to a possible cutting in progress when they came across the gruesome slaying.

It was not immediately clear what led to the slashing.

Marie Carrier, Lockings grandmother who lives next door, told the newspaper that her grandson had visited her earlier in the day for coffee. She said she was unaware of what happened in the hours after he left her home, but said he had mental issues.

Hes really messed up in the head, Carrier said, adding that Lockings received the samurai sword as a Thanksgiving present.

Police said Lockings turned himself in at a nearby police station after family members convinced him to surrender.

He's being held without bond in the Harris County jail on the murder charge and a federal parole revocation. He has a lengthy criminal history including multiple drug arrests and at least one conviction.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Two suspicious wooden crates that showed up at Massachusetts shipping company just days after Christmas led to a massive drug bust.

The Wareham Police Department said it arrested Michael Chen of Providence, Rhode Island, on Wednesday after a search of the crates yielded 112 pounds of marijuana packaged in plastic bags.

Police were called to Cape Cod Express on Wednesday afternoon after the heavy crates arrived, which were deemed suspicious by the shipping company, according to a press release.

Chen then showed up and claimed ownership of the packages. Police say he was arrested at the scene and charged with trafficking marijuana.

Cops also seized his vehicle  a 2017 Ford F-250 -- which an investigation revealed he recently bought outright using only cash.

Chen was scheduled to be arraigned at Wareham District Court Thursday.


A 45-year-old Houston man is accused of nearly decapitating his girlfriend with a samurai sword.

Police investigating a "cutting in progress" Wednesday evening found 36-year-old Aracely Jernigan dead in the living room of a Houston home.

Court records show Kenneth Wayne Lockings Jr.'s relatives convinced him Thursday to surrender to police. He has been charged with murder and is being held without bond in the Harris County jail.

He has a lengthy criminal history including multiple drug arrests and at least one conviction.

Lockings' grandmother, Marie Carrier told The Houston Chronicle that he received the sword as a gift at Thanksgiving.

She says Jernigan had been living in Mexico and only recently returned to Houston.

Court records don't list an attorney for Lockings. He's due in court Wednesday.

___

Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com
A far-left Drexel University professor -- known for making inflammatory remarks on social media -- is resigning from his teaching job, blaming a right-wing internet mob for alleged harassment.

George Ciccariello-Maher, an associate professor of politics and global studies at the Philadelphia school, will be leaving next year, he said in a statement Thursday.

He blamed right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and internet mobs that allegedly harassed him for nearly a year.

Staying at Drexel in the eye of this storm has become detrimental to my own writing, speaking and organizing, he wrote.

The professor had drawn attention for a series of inflammatory remarks. Most recently, he was placed on administrative leave after he blamed the Oct. 1 Las Vegas massacre of 58 people on the narrative of white victimization and Trumpism.

In another instance, Ciccariello-Maher in March said he wanted to vomit or yell after seeing an airline passenger giving up a first-class seat to a U.S. military service member. On Christmas Eve last year, he said that all he wanted for the holidays was a white genocide.

The constant controversy created a backlash for the university, prompting an inquiry into the professor's behavior after donors started reconsidering their partnership with the institution.

The universitys provost reportedly wrote to Ciccariello-Maher that "at least two potential significant donors to the university have withheld previously promised donations while a number of prospective students reversed their decisions to attend Drexel.

In the resignation announcement, Ciccariello-Maher said that we are at war and accused conservatives of targeting campuses with thinly veiled provocations disguised as free speech.

He added: In the face of aggression from the racist Right and impending global catastrophe, we must defend our universities, our students, and ourselves by defending the most vulnerable among us and by making our campuses unsafe spaces for white supremacists.

Drexel previously defended the professors right to free speech, but stressed that his views did not reflect those of the institution.
Serial killer Todd Kohlhepp, who is serving life in prison for killing at least 7 people, attempted to profit from his crime when a website that specializes in true crime collectibles sought to sell a signed pencil tracing of his hands.

Supernaught.com, known for selling memorabilia from high-profile killers knowns as murderabilia, listed the tracing of Kohlhepps hands for $89 earlier this week, The Herald-Journal of Spartanburg reported.

The paper reported Supernaught.com removed the pencil tracing Thursday after it contacted it. It was unclear if the tracing had been sold or just removed from the site.

Other items on the website include Charles Manson's string artwork from and Ted Bundy's signed prison letters.

South Carolina state law prohibits inmates from profiting from their crimes and requires offenders to notify the Attorney Generals Office and the Office of Victims Assistance of any contract theyve entered that would allow them to earn money from behind bars. Failure to notify authorities of any contracts may be subject to a civil penalty of up to $10,000, the newspaper reported.

Jeffrey Taillon, a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections, told the newspaper if profiting off of memorabilia is specifically mentioned in inmate mail, officers are able to stop it and refer the case to the attorney generals office, but its often difficult to spot.

If they can determine if its a murderabilia situation, its absolutely flagged and stopped," he said. "Often times, thats difficult to do based on the types of materials.

Kohlhepp, 46, is serving life in prison after pleading guilty in May kidnapping missing Anderson woman Kala Brown and killing seven people, including Browns boyfriend, Charlie Carver.
A former substitute teacher at an Ohio school district is accused of having inappropriate sexual relationships with two students, including a 14-year-old boy.

Darci L. Lake, 23, pleaded not guilty to nine counts of sexual battery on Wednesday. She faces a maximum of five years in prison for each count.

According to court documents, Lake was a substitute teacher with Maysville Local Schools near Zanesville when she began sexual relationships with two students.

Police said one was 16 years old and one was 14 years old when the offenses began as early as Feb. 1, 2017. They continued through Nov. 1, 2017.

The two students are now 17 and 15 years old.

Lake, who was 22 at the time the offenses began, was arrested on Dec. 21 and posted a $200,000 bond the same day.

Maysville Superintendent Ruth Zitnik told the Zanesville Times Recorder that Lake had been hired through Renhill Group, a company that staffs districts with substitute teachers throughout the state. She said Lake was no longer contracted with Maysville.

Barrie Howell, president of Renhill Group, told the newspaper in an email that Lake has been terminated from the company. He said prior to being hired, Lakes state-required background check came back clear.

Lake graduated from Maysville High School in 2012.
A Texas man was charged with murder after nearly decapitating his girlfriend with a samurai sword he received as a gift, authorities said Thursday.

Police responded to a call Wednesday about a cutting in progress at a Houston apartment and found Aracely Jernigan, 36, dead on the living room floor, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Family members found Kenneth Wayne Lockings, Jr., 45, at the scene before police arrived and helped him turn himself in, the Chronicle reported, citing court documents.

Jernigan was Lockings girlfriend, KTRK-TV reported.

A woman identified as Lockings grandmother told the Chronicle that her grandson had been at her home for coffee earlier that day and that Jernigan had recently returned to Houston from Mexico where she had been living with her family.

Neighbors told the newspaper that Lockings was known to have mental issues.

He's really messed up in the head," Marie Carrier, one of his neighbors, told the newspaper.

Lockings is due in court Wednesday and is being held in Harris County Jail without bail.
An explosion at a supermarket in St. Petersburg on Wednesday that injured 13 people was a terrorist attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

Putin's announcement came despite reluctance by Russian law enforcement agencies to describe the explosion as such.

Officials said a device detonated in a storage area of a supermarket in Russias second-largest city.

The device contained 7 ounces of explosives and was rigged with shrapnel to cause more damage, investigators added.

The president, speaking during a military awards ceremony, said he told the director of the countrys Federal Security Service, while arresting these bandits, to act, obviously only within the limits of the law.

But if the lives or health of our employees and our officers are threatened  to act decisively, to take no prisoners, to liquidate the bandits on the spot, Putin added.

PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA'S SPY AGENCIES PREVENTED 60 TERROR ATTACKS

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, would not offer any specifics on what led Putin to declare the attack an act of terrorism, but said the shrapnel that was part of the explosive device proved the explosion "was a terror attack anyway."

No one has yet claimed responsibility for Wednesdays supermarket attack, and eight of the injured were still hospitalized.

Putin, speaking at a military awards ceremony Thursday, also addressed the U.S. governments help in thwarting a planned terror attack  also in St. Petersburg.

SYRIAN CAMPAIGN SHOWCASED RUSSIAN MILITARY MIGHT, PUTIN SAYS

Information provided to the Kremlin by the CIA was sufficient enough to track down and detain seven suspects connected to ISIS who were planning to bomb the Kazan Cathedral and other locations.

A suicide bombing attack in a St. Petersburg subway in April left 11 people dead and more than 50 others wounded.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
At least 10 people, including one gunman, were shot dead Friday morning outside a Coptic church in south Cairo, according to Egyptian health minister spokesman.

Two gunmen opened fired outside the Marmina Coptic Orthodox church in Helwan, a neighborhood in south Cairo, Khaled Megahed told reporters.

One of the assailants was shot dead, while the other fled, according to initial reports.

The second assailtant was captured soon after, Reuters reported.

Two police officers were among those killed, reports said.

Officials said the exchange of gunfire also injured at least five other people.

Raouth Atta, 40, was attending prayers inside the church when the shooting took place.

"Once the gunfire was heard, the gates were closed immediately," she told The Associated Press over the phone. "People were terrified and wanted to check on their families in other buildings of the church. We stayed inside for 30 minutes before we were able to get out."

A video circulated on social media after the attack shows the dead gunman on the ground. Authorities have closed off the area around the church.

The spokesman for the Coptic Orthodox Church said in a statement that at least six people were killed in the attack including five Copts and a policeman. It also said there was a separate attack on a store in the same neighborhood of Helwan that killed two Copts.

Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population, have long complained of discrimination in the Muslim-majority nation, and say authorities have often failed to protect them from sectarian attacks.

Islamist militants have claimed several attacks on Egypts large Christian minority in recent years, including two bomb attacks on Palm Sunday in April and a blast at Cairos largest Coptic cathedral last December that killed 28 people.

No group has claimed responsibility for Friday's attack.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay says she has received Israel's official letter announcing its exit from the U.N. cultural body.

Israel previously said it intended to leave the Paris-based agency, citing "systematic attacks on the Jewish state."

Azoulay said in a statement on Friday she deeply regretted the withdrawal, which is set to take effect on Dec. 31 2018.

She added: "It is inside UNESCO and not outside it" that countries can overcome their differences.

Israel's decision came on the heels of the United States announcing its withdraw from UNESCO over similar allegations of anti-Israel bias at the agency, where the Jewish state and its allies are far outnumbered by Arab countries and their supporters.

Many Israeli's viewed recent resolutions by the organization as diminishing Jewish ties to Jerusalem and the biblical city of Hebron.
Greek police say they have found the body of a man, believed to be a migrant, in a river that flows along the country's northeastern border with Turkey and which is on an illegal migration route.

The unidentified body was found late Thursday in the icy Evros River. Police announced the discovery Friday.

Thousands of refugees and migrants enter Greece every year from Turkey on their way to Europe's more prosperous heartland, where they hope to make a better life. Most choose the short sea crossing in flimsy smuggling boats to the eastern Aegean islands.

Greece has built a fence along part of its land border with Turkey, but many migrants still cross the Evros.
Israel says militants in the Gaza Strip have fired several rockets at the Jewish state with two intercepted by its air defense system and another damaging a building.

The military said its Iron Dome missile defense system downed two rockets Friday. Police said another exploded near a building causing damage but no injuries.

Israel holds Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, responsible for all attacks emanating from the territory regardless of who fires the rockets. Israel typically responds to each attack.

There has been an increase in Gaza rocket fire since President Donald Trump's announcement Dec. 6 recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Palestinians have been clashing with Israeli forces in the West Bank and along the Gaza border in weekly protests over the decision.
A North Korean nuclear scientist who fled the country while taking time off from work to deal with anxiety over his research projects has killed himself inside a prison cell after being recaptured in China and sent back over the border, according to a report.

The defector worked as a researcher in the State Academy of Sciences in Pyongyang and was part of a group of North Koreans caught in Shenyang in early November, a source inside the reclusive country told Radio Free Asia. They were sent back from the northern Chinese city to North Korea on Nov. 17 and the scientist reportedly died by taking poison while awaiting interrogation.

He killed himself only a few hours after he was placed in solitary confinement at the State Security Department in Sinuiju city the source said.

He died before he could be questioned about the reasons for his escape, who had helped him, and what his route had been, the source added.

The source said the man, believed to be in his early 50s, reportedly took time off from his job because he was showing signs of anxiety over his research projects.

The man then visited relatives near the border but without carrying valid travel documents.

And when he learned that the authorities were looking for him, he simply disappeared, the source told RFA.

During his time of capture in China, the man for some reason never told Chinese officials about his job, which was a major error, according to the source.

If the Chinese government had known who he was, they would have wanted to learn what he knew and would never have sent him back, the source told RFA.

He must have been searched many times while being taken from China to Sinuiju, so its a mystery how he was able to conceal the poison he took, the source added.
A prominent Russian environmental group says its leader has been brutally beaten.

The Environmental Watch on the North Caucasus says Andrei Rudomakha was attacked on Thursday by three masked men in the southern city of Krasnodar. His deputy, Dmitry Shevchenko, says Rudomakha and several other activists had returned from a trip to the Black Sea where they were documenting the illegal construction of a luxury mansion.

Rudomakha has been taken to a hospital with multiple injuries including a fractured skull and broken nose.

Local authorities say they are investigating.

The Environmental Watch for years has exposed illegal landfills, the destruction of landscapes and the contamination of waterways in Russia's south. Some of their investigations have exposed land grabs by local officials.
A Moscow court has sentenced the financier who has advocated for a U.S. law targeting Russian officials over human rights abuses to nine years in prison in absentia over tax evasion and funneling money overseas.

William Browder has been the driving force behind the Magnitsky Act. The legislation is named after Browder's former employee Sergei Magnitsky, who died in jail after accusing Russian officials of involvement in a tax fraud scheme.

Browder, who is based in London, has dismissed the accusations against him as a sham.

The same court convicted Browder of tax evasion in another trial in absentia in 2013.

Shortly after the Magnitsky Act was passed, the Russian government countered by barring Americans from adopting Russian children.
The crew of a Hong Kong-flagged ship that allegedly violated U.N. sanctions by transferring oil to a North Korean vessel in October is being held in South Korea until a full inspection is sent to the Security Council, officials announced Friday.

The Lighthouse Winmore is believed to have transferred about 600 tons of refined petroleum products to the North Korean ship, the Sam Jong 2, in international waters in the East China Sea on Oct. 19, after leaving the South Korean port of Yeosu, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official told the Associated Press.

The announcement came on the same day Defense Secretary James Mattis told Fox News that he believes the world will exert increased pressure on North Korea in the coming months following the recent maritime incidents.

South Korean customs authorities said they boarded the ship and interviewed crew members after they returned to Yeosu on Nov. 24. South Korea formally seized the ship after the U.N. Security Council on Dec. 22 imposed new sanctions on North Korea that allow member states to seize, inspect and freeze vessels that are suspected of transferring banned goods to or from North Korea, the official said. He spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

The ship's 25 crew members  23 of them Chinese nationals and two from Myanmar  are being held at Yeosu but will be allowed to leave South Korea after authorities are finished investigating them, the official said. South Korea plans to report the results of its inspection to the U.N. Security Council's sanctions committee.

The ship, which also transferred oil to three other non-North Korean ships, was chartered by Taiwan's Billions Bunker Group and stopped in South Korea to load up about 14,000 tons of Japanese oil products. It claimed its destination as Taiwan when leaving Yeosu on Oct. 15, the official said.

The official said it hadn't been confirmed whether the Sam Jong 2 returned to North Korea after receiving oil from the Lighthouse Winmore.

The U.S. Treasury Department last month sanctioned six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their vessels, and published photos of what it said was a North Korean vessel on Oct. 19 possibly transferring oil to evade sanctions. The Treasury Department identified the North Korean ship in the photos as Rye Song Gang 1.

North Korea has come under heavy sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council as it accelerated efforts to expand its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles program. In recent months, the North conducted its most powerful nuclear test to date and flight-tested intercontinental ballistic missiles three times, raising concerns it's closer than ever toward gaining a military arsenal that can viably target the United States.

Ship-to-ship trade with North Korea at sea is prohibited under U.N. sanctions adopted on Sept. 11.

The South Korean revelations of the ship inspection came hours after President Donald Trump criticized China following previous reports that Chinese ships transferred oil to North Korean vessels at sea.

Trump said on Twitter that China had been "Caught RED HANDED," adding that he was "very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea."

China accounts for the vast majority of North Korea's external trade and oil supplies, according to the Associated Press.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Spain's prime minister says he intends to call the first session for the new parliament of Spain's restive region of Catalonia on Jan. 17.

Mariano Rajoy made the announcement Friday, just over a week after Catalonia's regional parliamentary elections resulted in separatist parties winning most seats again.

Rajoy had ordered the elections upon firing the regional government and dissolving the previous parliament after it voted in October to declare Catalonia an independent republic. But Rajoy saw his hopes dashed that separatists would not regain a majority.

It remains to be seen if the secessionist parties will be able to form a government. Eight of their 70 elected deputies are either in flight from justice or in jail in Spain, including ousted former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, who is in Brussels.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a triumphant visit to the newly liberated city of Kherson. He hailed the Russian withdrawal from the southern city as the beginning of the end of the war but also acknowledged the heavy price Ukrainian soldiers are paying in their grinding effort to push back the invaders. Retaking Kherson was one of Ukraines biggest successes in the nearly 9-month-old war and delivered another stinging blow to the Kremlin. But large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine are still under Russian control, and the city of Kherson itself is without water, power and heat, and remains within reach of Moscows shells and missiles. Heavy fighting continued elsewhere in Ukraine.
Two Illinois high school teachers created an interactive curriculum that traces the Trail of Tears through southern parts of their state.

Stacie Tefft, one of the curriculums creators, stressed the power of immersing kids in local history, an approach educators call place-based education .

For a lot of our kids, we give them a history book, and theyre like whatever, Tefft told the Southern Illinoisan . This ... its a lot of our kids backyard.

The curriculum centers around a Geographic Information System (GIS) map that the teachers created. Along the trail are outlines of campfires to indicate the sites where Cherokee people stopped on their way west after being forced in the early 1830s from their ancestral homes in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida. The trail goes through Union, Johnson, and Pope counties in southern Illinois.

Students read the map along with journal entries, spanning May 19, 1838 through April 1, 1839, by Daniel S. Butrick, a minister who traveled with the Cherokee across the southern Illinois route. The curriculum asks students to draw conclusions based on their readings of the documents. Here is an example:

Based on the map locating campsites and Butricks journal entries about campsites, what is the strongest claim that can be supported with evidence?

a. There are fewer campsite locations in Pope County due to the lack of resources.

b. There are fewer campsite locations in Pope County due to the lack of rivers.

c. There are more campsite locations in Union County due to the proximity of the Mississippi River.

d. There are more campsite locations in Union County because the Cherokee were treated better there than in Pope County.

All the teaching resources are available for free here . The teachers created the curriculum, which was funded by the Library of Congress, as part of their masters work at Southern Illinois University.

Grant Miller, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at Southern Illinois University, praised the Trail of Tears lessons for providing students with an authentic experience, and not relying on memorization of facts. Whats so exciting about this is this really gets into the kinds of literacy skills that were asking history teachers to be teaching with their students, as far as analyzing primary sources, comparing those primary sources to maps, as you have here, Miller told the Southern Illinoisan.

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A man accused of killing his wife in southern Stafford County on Thursday before firing on police during a pursuit on Interstate 95 has died, police said Friday morning.

Gregory Lee, 42, of Stafford, was pronounced dead overnight Stafford Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Amanda Vicinanzo said. He had been flown to Fairfax Inova Hospital after apparently shooting himself in the head during the chase.

Police said Friday he died of those wounds.

Lee is accused of killing his wife, Melissa Dee Lee, 36, in the England Run North Apartments on Heron Drive off U.S. 17 just before 11:30 a.m. Thursday. She died at the apartment after being shot three times in the chest, police said.

Three children inside the home at the time were not injured, police said.

Court records show Lee had a criminal history dating back to at least 1999, when he was convicted in Alexandria of attempted rape.

Lee was charged in Stafford in December 2005 with felony assault and battery on a law enforcement officer, felony hit and run, eluding police and destruction of property. He was convicted in April 2006 on that batch of charges as well as DUI, driving on a suspended license, possession of marijuana and obstruction of justice, court records show.

Lee was sentenced to three years in prison with all but one year suspended. He was also sentenced to "indefinite supervision" and ordered to pay more than $5,000 in fines and costs.

Lee was charged with malicious shooting or throwing at a vehicle and destruction of property in a 2011 incident two days before Christmas, Stafford court records show, but those charges were later dismissed.

After killing Melissa Dee Lee on Thursday, police say, Gregory Lee left the scene in a black Ford Explorer. When a Virginia State Police trooper in a marked patrol car tried to pull Lee over on Interstate 95, he fled, police said.

According to authorities, the Explorer came to a sudden stop at mile marker 138 and Lee began firing a gun at the trooper. A bullet pierced the windshield and lodged into Trooper Z.G. Torrance's seat. The trooper narrowly avoided being struck when he ducked to the side.

Lee then continued on for two miles before slowing and firing again, this time at a Stafford Sheriff's deputy who'd joined the pursuit. Deputy Cody McCormick also escaped injury when a bullet came through his windshield and pierced a headrest, police said.

Lee sideswiped another vehicle before crashing just north of the Courthouse Road interchange, according to police. His SUV ran off the right side of the interstate, struck a guardrail and overturned.

When authorities pulled the suspect from the vehicle, they discovered he had a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was flown to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where he later died.

No officers fired their weapons during the chase, police said.

The chase and shooting caused a chain-reaction crash involving three more cars on the interstate. Only one person was injured in that crash. Those injuries were considered minor, police said, and the victim was treated at the scene.

The events closed all northbound lanes on I-95 at mile marker 142, which is between the Courthouse Road exit and the Garrisonville Road Exit in Stafford, snarling traffic well into the rush hour. Cars backed up for at least 10 miles in both directions.
A man accused of firing on Virginia State Police troopers in Spotsylvania County following a Christmas Day chase on Interstate 95 has been charged with attempted capital murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

Police had previoulsy charged Jerrell C. Richardson, 21, of Greenville, S.C., with felony counts of eluding police and assault on a police officer as well as possession of marijuana, driving without a valid license, reckless driving and operating a vehicle without headlights.

He is being held without bond at Rappahannock Regional Jail.

Richardson faces more charges in his hometown, the Greenville News reported.

A spokesman with the Greenville County Sheriffs Office told the newspaper that authorities there have charged him with attempted murder, three counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime and two counts of armed robbery.

The attempted murder charge in Greenville County stems from an incident Dec. 22 shooting at an apartment complex there. Law enforcement officers were shot at during the incident but not hurt, the newspaper reported.

Richardson is also accused of robbing two Greenville businesses on Dec. 4 and Dec. 13.

Authorities in Virginia first began looking for Richardson after the Dinwiddie County Sheriffs Office put out a bulletin about a vehicle reportedly stolen at gunpoint at a North Carolina gas station earlier on Christmas Day.

Around 9:30 p.m., about an hour after the bulletin was issued, Henrico County authorities spotted the Ford at a Richmond gas station. A pursuit began on I-95 North, with the Ford traveling at least 120 mph at times, police said.

Around mile marker 119 in Spotsylvania, about one mile north of the Thornburg exit, the Ford Escape rammed a state police cruiser at least twice, police said. The suspect jumped out of the still-moving vehicle and fired on troopers. A foot chase followed.

Authorities arrested Richardson around 1 a.m.

The case is still under investigation.
Micah Ecumenical Ministries is starting to see an increase in the number of homeless people seeking the warmth of its winter shelter in Stafford County.

A handful of people usually spend the night at the facility at 748 Kings Highway when it opens in November, and the number grows as the weather gets colder. Roughly 26 to 34 stayed there each evening last week.

Thats typical for this time of year, especially since some homeless people stay with family members during the holidays, said Micah director Meghann Cotter. Now that the mercury is dipping below freezingand staying therethe shelter is starting to attract homeless people who normally dont use it.

Were really happy when people that we dont see often come in, because it gives us a chance to support them and help them with a lot of things that are hard to offer when theyre not interacting with us on a regular basis, Cotter said.

Those offerings range from such simple things as a place to shower and get food and clothing to help with more complex issues such as mental health, income development and how to access other community resources to help them overcome whatever is keeping them homeless.

Micahs winter shelter, which runs through February, has beds for up to 37 people. The facility also has a gathering/intake area, a small kitchen, three bathrooms and a handicapped sleeping space.

Homeless people who want to use the shelter can take a bus there after one of the community dinners hosted on a rotating basis by churches participating in Micahs ministries. The bus comes back in the morning to take them to the church offering breakfast the next morning. Shiloh Baptist Church (New Site) at 525 Princess Anne St., for example, is hosting Friday nights community dinner, and the Presbyterian Church at 810 Princess Anne St. will serve the breakfast on Saturday.

We discourage people from walking to the shelter because its on a four-lane, divided highway, Cotter said.

She asked that those who wish to help the homeless bring donations of clothing to Micahs office at 1013 Princess Anne St. instead of leaving things in places that the homeless frequent. That way hats, coats, gloves and other items dont get rained on or blown into the Rappahannock Canal.

Those well-intentioned donations have become a problem for Fredericksburgs Parks, Recreation and & Events Department staff, which gets calls from people complaining that the items are littering such places as the citys Canal Path Heritage Trail, said Director Jane Shelhorse. The department will post signs urging people to take things to Micah instead of leaving them near areas frequented by the homeless.

Cotter said that mens and womens long underwear in sizes small to XX are especially needed, as are white socks and new shoes.

Were always looking for volunteers, and there are a lot of new volunteer opportunitiesfor individuals to whole churches, she said. We really encourage folks to get involved.
A man suspected of fatally shooting a woman in southern Stafford County Thursday led police on a high-speed chase on northbound Interstate 95, where he fired on officers twice before crashing just north of the Courthouse Road interchange, Virginia State Police said.

The dramatic chain of events began before lunchtime Thursday and snarled traffic on Fredericksburg-area roads into the rush hour also caused a three-vehicle, chain-reaction crash after a bullet struck the windshield and pierced the drivers seat of Virginia State Police Trooper Z.G. Torrances cruiser, according to a news release from state police.

Torrance narrowly avoided the bullet when he ducked to the side, state police said, and he was not injured.

Stafford County Sheriffs Deputy Cody McCormick, who joined the pursuit, was injured, but not seriously, when a bullet came through his windshield, lodging into the headrest.

One other person, who was involved in the chain-reaction crash, was also injured, but was treated at the scene, state police said.

The man accused of firing on police during the high-speed chase was flown to Fairfax Inova Hospital, where he was being treated Thursday for life-threatening injuries from the crash. The man also appeared to have shot himself in the head, the Sheriff's Office said.

No law enforcement officers fired their weapons, state police said.

The events began Thursday morning when Stafford sheriffs deputies responded to a domestic-related shooting at England Run North Apartments on Heron Drive off U.S. 17, the department said.

The female victim suffered three gunshot wounds to the chest and died at the scene, the Sheriffs Office said in a news release. Deputies learned the man suspected in the shooting had driven away in a black SUV.

The Sheriffs Office issued a bulletin asking law enforcement to be on the lookout for a black Ford Explorer.

Torrance, the state trooper, saw the vehicle traveling north on I95 just after 11:30 a.m., and turned on the emergency lights and sirens on his marked patrol car, state police said.

The Ford Explorers driver refused to stop, and the pursuit began, authorities said.

The Explorer came to a sudden stop at mile marker 138, state police said. The driver, an adult male, leaned out of the drivers side window and fired several rounds at the trooper, before continuing on.

Even though his car had been struck, Torrance continued to follow the Explorer, state police said, and a Stafford deputy joined in the chase.

The Explorer slowed again at mile marker 140, and the driver fired on police again, this time striking the deputys patrol car. The Explorer fled again, this time going two more miles before sideswiping another driver on I95, state police said.

The Explorers driver lost control, ran off the right side of the interstate and crashed into the guardrail. The vehicle overturned and came to rest upside down in the northbound lanes of I95, according to the news release.

The Sheriffs Office is not releasing the names of the shooting victim or the suspect until family can be contacted, the department said, and authorities are still investigating.

The police activity closed all northbound lanes on I95 at mile marker 142, which is between the Courthouse Road exit and the Garrisonville Road Exit in Stafford.

Traffic backed up for at least 10 miles in both directions Thursday afternoon, and one lane was still closed until 6:15 p.m.
Its been almost a decade since oil and coal prices began to plummet. That caused a wave of budget cuts in states that tethered their school funding to booming energy-industry revenue. (I profiled how the fall in oil prices has affected K-12 education in those states here .)

Oil prices have stabilized in the last year, but have not yet rebounded to the prices they were in 2008.

As tax revenue projections come in for the 2018-19 fiscal year, many of the governors in states dependent on revenue stemming from natural resources have said in recent days that they will have to continue cutting, though thats not true for all states.



Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, a Republican, will recommend a $66 million cut in that states school spending for the 2019-20 biennium. The states legislators and school administrators for the last two years have been debating ways to upend its complicated school funding formula

ways to upend its complicated school funding formula Alaska Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, will attempt to hold steady his K-12 education budget at $1.26 billion, despite the looming task of cutting a quarter of the states overall budget. State education Commissioner Michael Johnson said to Education Week that, because of budget cuts, he will have to outsource collecting and analyzing data under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

his K-12 education budget at $1.26 billion, despite the looming task of cutting a quarter of the states overall budget. State education Commissioner Michael Johnson said to that, because of budget cuts, he will have to outsource collecting and analyzing data under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Unlike in other commodity-dependent states, New Mexicos legislature is expecting to see a 16 percent increase in revenue next year. Lawmakers are discussing ways to increase government employees pay (boosts to teacher pay havent yet been mentioned) and investing in early childhood and public education programs, according to local media reports. The state last year pulled millions of dollars from its savings fund in order to, in part, stave off cuts to its public schools.

to see a 16 percent increase in revenue next year. Lawmakers are discussing ways to increase government employees pay (boosts to teacher pay havent yet been mentioned) and investing in early childhood and public education programs, according to local media reports. The state last year pulled millions of dollars from its savings fund in order to, in part, stave off cuts to its public schools. West Virginia, like New Mexico, is expecting a stable budget next year now that natural gas, coal and oil revenue have rebounded somewhat. The state expects to spend $1.6 billion next fiscal year, the same amount it spent last year. Ive profiled how the state has shuttered some schools in recent years after a steep student population loss. Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican who recently switched parties, told Beckley, W. Va. Register-Herald that education will be a central focus of his next year. ""There is going to be a really great big push from my side and a positive push from the other side, too, to revisit education in a really positive way, Justice said."Weve got jobs coming and road building, the coal business is coming back a little bit, tourism is a real opportunitywe have all kinds of opportunities. Weve got to keep all that going and let it multiply itself. Education is a component that is really important to me.

The more interesting story in coal and oil-dependent states is how those states politicians and school leaders are attempting to reorganize their public school systems to better prepare students for careers outside traditional industries which once provided six-figure salaries. Many states are creating career tech training for students to work in technology fields or on new wind farms being built in the state. And earlier this year, my colleague Denisa Superville profiled a program in coal mine town Pike County, Kentucky that prepares students to enter into the drone industry.



Dont miss another State EdWatch post. Sign up here to get news alerts in your email inbox. And make sure to follow @StateEdWatch on Twitter for the latest news from state K-12 policy and politics.
A prosecutor says a witness told police the University of Virginia student suspected of opening fire on fellow students as they returned by bus from a field trip targeted specific victims. The prosecutor gave a brief accounting of what police say happened Sunday night during the suspect's first court appearance Wednesday. Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. was ordered held without bond. His attorney did not address the substance of the charges against him. The school also announced Wednesday it was canceling its final home game of the season scheduled for the weekend against Coastal Carolina. The violence Sunday night left three football players dead and one player and another student wounded.
Shirley Snipes Tiedgen, 78, of Alexandria passed away Saturday, December 23, 2017 at Mary Washington Hospital. Shirley was born October 9, 1939 in Davenport, Iowa. Upon graduation from Davenport High School, Shirley left the calm of the Midwest for new adventures in Washington, D.C. where she worked as a federal civil servant for over 35 years. During her time as a civil servant she worked in a variety of positions and agencies, to include the U.S. Navy. Shirley retired from the federal government in 2000 and continued to live in the Mount Vernon area of Alexandria on the same property that George Washington owned over 220 years ago. While living there she spent many volunteer hours at Reagan National Airport as a traveler's aid, assisting thousands of passengers with their questions. Shirley also volunteered at George Washington's home at Mount Vernon in a variety of functions accumulating 1000 plus hours in her many years of volunteer service. Survivors include her daughter, Lise Tiedgen Keane (Tom) and her granddaughter, Shawna Leighann Tiedgen Keane all of Stafford. She was preceded in death by her parents, Don Sipes and Betty Jean Peters; and four grandchildren. Services will be private. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, 3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, Mount Vernon, VA 22121 or to the charity of one's choice. Online guestbook at covenantfuneralservice.com.
This blog is looking for wisdom, to have and to share. It is also looking for other rare character traits like good humor, courage, and honor. It is not an easy road, because all of us fall short. But God is love, forgiveness and grace. Those who believe in Him and repent of their sins have the promise of His Holy Spirit to guide us and show us the Way.
If recently improved lamb prices are to be maintained in the run-up to Brexit, sterling will need to stay weak to underpin export volumes, while supplies from New Zealand will need to remain at reduced levels.

The weak pound has helped exports rise 13% for the first nine months of 2017 compared with the same period in 2016.

Coinciding with this, historically low production in New Zealand could see exports to the UK fall by over 20% in 2017 compared with the previous year, says Andersons director David Siddle.

See also: Trading with China: Opportunities for livestock producers

Summary Strength of sterling and levels of NZ imports are key factors governing shorter-term lamb prices

Similar number of lambs to 2017 likely to be carried over into the new year; bigger breeding flock looks likely

Longer-term outlook is for smaller but more productive UK flock with lower net costs of production

While a significant strengthening of sterling seems unlikely at least in the short term, low levels of New Zealand imports may not last indefinitely.

The major global exporters of sheep meat, New Zealand and Australia, have both seen their flocks hit by drought and are now rebuilding.

This has come at a time when world markets have been generally stronger and demand from China, now the worlds largest importer of sheep meat, is increasing.

Increase in production

Once flock numbers have been rebuilt, this will lead to an increase in production and export availability. This is likely to have an impact on the UK sheep meat market at some point.

More immediately, the fall in sterling and reduced NZ imports appears fortunate timing as the UK breeding flock has increased from 13.8 million ewes in 2010 to 14.8 million ewes today, says Mr Siddle.

The early part of 2017 was overshadowed by poor prices for hoggets due to a large carryover from 2016. However, as increasing numbers of new-season lambs came on stream, coinciding with the beginning of the main UK export period, prices during the summer were well above the previous year.

We could be looking at a similar carryover of lambs into 2018 as last year. Fortunately, as last spring, there wont be huge amount of NZ supply to compete, which indicates similar price prospects for the first quarter of 2018, he adds.

Judging by the early breeding sheep sales, producers confidence has been boosted by this seasons better prices, says Mr Siddle.

Despite the profitability challenges faced by many producers and the well-trailed risks posed to the sheep sector by Brexit, another increase in the breeding flock looks likely going into 2018.

Smaller flocks

Further ahead, he forecasts a smaller but more productive UK flock, given the mature market for sheep meat, both in the UK and the EU, and difficulty of breaking into China, the only real growing market for sheep meat in the world.

Australian and New Zealand producers are more competitive, and the demand in China tends to be for lower quality cuts, rather than the high-quality carcasses and cuts that UK exports have been built upon.

This smaller flock will be managed by fewer producers able to make sustainable profits with much lower or no support payments. Improved competitiveness and lower costs of production will be key, says Mr Siddle.

To achieve positive net margins, flocks generally need to achieve a net output, after replacement costs, above 95/ewe. This will exclude most flocks incapable of producing lambing percentages in excess of 135%.

Systems need to make maximum use of forage, in particular grazed grass, with purchased feed typically below 10/ewe, he advises.

Flocks selecting for easy-care traits, such as ease of lambing, good feet, lack of daggs, worm resistance and good mothering ability, tend to have not only lower veterinary and medicine costs but also, critically, lower fixed costs, essential to produce positive net margins,

Intensive winter-housed systems targeting very high lambing percentages are increasingly struggling to cover the higher labour, machinery and conserved winter forage costs they incur, says Mr Siddle.

We expect a continued move to forage-based outdoor systems, with perhaps more modest lambing percentages, but lower net costs of production.

Farmers Weekly says Michael Priestley, livestock reporter A weaker sterling ensured decent prime lamb prices (211-246p/kg liveweight) in 2017, particularly through mid-summer, although uncertainty now looms.

The fate of about one-third of UK sheep meat production teeters on Brexit trade talks and with it so does the livestock auctioneering industry as we currently know it.

On the management side, sheep farms must half the amount of high priority antibiotics they use and reduce overall usage by 10% by 2020. This will mean more vaccinations (enzootic abortion, footrot) and moving to outdoor lambing systems, which many are adopting as a cost-cutting measure ahead of direct subsidy cuts.
This is another installment in a Gazette-Times series of stories looking back at the top stories of 2017.

In an effort to save money, Benton County this year started sending some inmates to a regional jail in The Dalles, angering defense attorneys and creating confusion about where it is legal to hold pretrial detainees.

The move caused further conflict regarding the countys criminal justice system, which has for years divided residents over whether a new jail is needed. Over the past twenty years, voters have rejected a bond measure for a new detention center three times.

Proponents say the small jail keeps law enforcement officers from locking up certain, sometimes violent, offenders and removes the threat of jail from community supervision. Opponents say the county needs to focus more on alternatives to incarceration and community-based corrections.

The good news: the county has hired a consultant to conduct an in-depth analysis of the local criminal justice system.

Treatment classes

The cost savings was only one benefit of sending inmates north rather than to the jails in neighboring counties where the county had been housing detainees.

The jail in The Dalles, known as the Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facility or NORCOR, offers courses such as substance abuse treatment for inmates, something the Benton County Jail is unable to provide.

For many years, Benton County rented jail beds from Lincoln, Yamhill and Linn counties. Those agreements cost about $94 per bed per day, Sheriff Scott Jackson has said. NORCOR offered to take up to 40 Benton County inmates at a time for roughly $70 per bed per day.

The move to NORCOR was expected to save the county about $500,000 a year, Jackson said. Benton County terminated its contracts with Lincoln and Yamhill counties and the agreement with NORCOR went into effect July 1.

Benton County still has an agreement with Linn County to house up to 10 inmates at a time.

Since July, several Benton County inmates have completed a 30-day program at NORCOR consisting of a criminal attitudes course that addresses cognitive behavior, an anger management class to teach self-regulation and separate parenting classes for mothers and fathers, in addition to the substance abuse treatment.

The jails administrator, Bryan Brandenburg, said his goal is to increase public safety and reduce recidivism by providing inmates with the tools they need to succeed following release from jail.

NORCOR houses pretrial and sentenced inmates from Benton County. Multiple inmates who spoke with a Gazette-Times reporter in October said they prefer being in The Dalles over the local jail because of the programs offered to them.

Some of those inmates said the conditions at the Benton County Jail are isolating and detainees are often locked in their cells for hours at a time. The countys jail commander, Diana Rabago, said there is not enough space at the local facility to offer treatment classes. The jail has only one dayroom, which the low, medium and high security inmates take turns using for recreation time.

Corvallis defense attorney John Rich said all sentenced inmates from Benton County should be housed at NORCOR so they have the option of participating in the treatment programs. However, he said pretrial inmates should be housed locally so they can have routine contact with their attorneys in order to prepare their cases for trial. Rich cited a state law that says inmates must be housed in the county in which theyre being charged or in an adjoining county.

Using that state law, a Benton County judge in November ruled that pretrial inmates must be housed locally when there are jail beds available before the county considers housing them in NORCOR.

Judge's ruling

Benton County Counsel Vance Croney this summer asked a Circuit Court judge to clarify the legality of the countys contract with NORCOR.

Judge David Connell decided the county has the legal right to enter into contracts for jail beds with nonadjoining counties, but only if all beds at the Benton County Jail are full and all beds in adjoining counties correctional facilities are full.

Following the judges Nov. 20 decision, the sheriff ordered all pretrial inmates at NORCOR to be transported back to Benton County.

Rich applauded Connells ruling, whereas Croney said the judges decision was not what the county had hoped for.

This month, Croney asked Connell to clarify some matters in his decision, including whether law enforcement must consider housing inmates in counties with which it does not have a contract for jail beds and whether inmates can waive their right to local detention upon intake or if they must discuss the issue with their attorneys first.

In a Dec. 21 response, Connell said those matters were outside the scope of the original pleadings and that he could not issue an advisory opinion.

Jackson said the courts November ruling and the ensuing decision to move all pretrial inmates back to Benton County is further stressing a space issue at the local jail. The sheriff said he is concerned about the number of pretrial defendants the Benton County Jail, which has a total of 40 beds, is being forced to release. He said the jail staff is being faced with ugly decisions about who to let go.

Forced releases

Rabago said the contentious contract with NORCOR is one factor causing the jail to force release more inmates than it has before.

Prior to Connells ruling in November, multiple defense attorneys had requested court orders requiring their clients to be held in the Benton County Jail, rather than be sent to NORCOR. This has contributed to the space crunch, which was further exacerbated by the sheriffs decision last month to transfer all pretrial inmates back to the local jail.

Rabago said a spike in crime also is causing overcrowding at the jail and leading to the forced releases of inmates with pending charges. These inmates are released without posting security and given a date to appear in court.

As of Oct. 31, the jail had force released 221 inmates this year, Rabago said. The facility force released 76 inmates in all of last year, she said.

Additional factors are exacerbating the space issue, including an increase in female inmates and detainees with serious mental illnesses, who have to be housed separately, Rabago said.

Rabago said the jail has seen an increase this year in inmates charged with Measure 11 crimes, especially sex crimes.

When an inmate is booked into the jail, they are assigned a matrix score based on a variety of factors, including their current charge, past arrests and convictions, whether they were under the supervision of Parole and Probation, whether theyre employed and more, Rabago said.

If an inmate receives a very low score, they will be released immediately, she said. The rest are sorted into minimum, medium or maximum security blocks. Traditionally, the jail has had one minimum and two medium security cell blocks, as well as one female cell block and 13 single cells for maximum security inmates. However, the jail had to create a maximum security block this year for the first time, Rabago said.

We have almost 20 maximum security inmates right now, which poses a problem, she said.

When space becomes tight, the jail commander reviews the matrix scores of the inmates in custody and whoever has the lowest score is the first to be released, she said.

Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson agreed there has been an uptick this year in crimes against persons. But, he said he doesnt think that increase is outside a normal range of fluctuation for crime rates.

He said crime rates are not static. Benton County could have five pending murder cases at one time and then not have any for a period of time, he said.

Were seeing increases that are stressing our jail capacity, but our jail capacity was already stressed, Haroldson said. Any increase should be concerning but at the same time I think we have to view it in the context of what that range of fluctuation is and whether its outside that range.

Haroldson said his office filed 389 felony counts from Jan. 1 to Oct. 30 of this year. Last year, local prosecutors filed 431 felony charges between Jan. 1 and Oct. 30, 2016.

Justice system study

In October, Benton County commissioners selected a national corrections planning and design firm to do an in-depth analysis of the local criminal justice system.

The assessment, which will be conducted by Miami-based CGL, is expected to begin in early 2018 and take about a year to complete.

Plans for the analysis were launched after the November 2015 election, when voters turned down a $25 million bond measure to build a new jail and work-release center.

The assessment will involve community input, officials have said. CGL will look at the jail, courts, mental health programs, Juvenile Department and Parole and Probation Office. The project will also involve an evaluation of programs meant to reduce recidivism rates, including mental health services and alternatives to incarceration.

CGL is expected to compose a vision statement for how the local criminal justice system should operate and a master plan for achieving that goal.
This log includes incidents in which there might have been a public disturbance or a risk to the public. Information comes from the Corvallis Police Department and the Benton County Sheriffs Office. It does not include all calls for service. The status of incidents might change after further investigation. Locations are approximate. People arrested or suspected in crimes are considered innocent until proven otherwise.

Corvallis Police Department

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 27

DUII: 10:09 a.m., Northwest Fifth Street and Northwest Buchanan Avenue, Corvallis. An officer conducted a drug influence evaluation on Timothy Christopher Gaines, 25, and reportedly determined he was under the influence of cannabis. Gaines was arrested for driving under the influence of intoxicants.

DUII: 9:21 p.m., 190 Northwest Fourth Street, Corvallis. An officer conducted a drug influence evaluation on Gerardo Garcia-Martinez, 28, of Lafayette, and reportedly determined he was under the influence of a central nervous system stimulant, narcotic analgesic and cannabis. Police arrested Garcia-Martinez for attempting to elude a police officer, felon in possession of a firearm, altering firearm ID number, reckless driving and recklessly endangering another person.

BURGLARY: 9:06 p.m., 2800 block of Northwest Polk Avenue, Corvallis. A man reported he was asleep and woke to the sounds of rummaging inside his apartment. He told police he confronted two men who were in the process of burglarizing his home. The two men ran from the area and were not located. They stole a laptop, hard drive, car key and a Nintendo console base.

THURSDAY, DEC. 28

FUGITIVE ARREST: 11:10 p.m., Northwest Jackson Avenue and Northwest 15th Street, Corvallis. An officer stopped a cyclist after seeing him run a stop sign. The officer arrested the cyclist, Mark Shayne Halligan, 54, of Corvallis, for a warrant regarding a possession of methamphetamine charge. Halligan also reportedly had a black double-sided dagger concealed on his right hip and was charged with being a felon in possession of a restricted weapon and carrying a concealed weapon.

Benton County Sheriff's Office

SUNDAY, DEC. 24

METH: 1:25 p.m., Old Peak Road and Milepost 5, Philomath. Laura Lee King, 47, allowed deputies to search her motorhome for stolen property. Deputies reportedly found a methamphetamine pipe with burn meth residue inside. King also reportedly gave deputies a second meth pipe. Deputies cited King for possession of meth.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 27

CARELESS DRIVING: 3:01 p.m., Northeast Highway 20 and Milepost 4, Corvallis. Deputies cited Chip K. Fletcher, 32, of Corvallis, for careless driving after he allegedly pulled out of a driveway into traffic, causing a car to strike his vehicle. The driver of the other car complained of pain but was not taken to the hospital.

THURSDAY, DEC. 28

CRASH: 6:12 p.m., Northeast Granger Avenue and Northeast Pettibone Drive, Corvallis. Deputies responded to a car partially submerged in water in a ditch. The driver told deputies she lost control of her car and crashed. She was not injured.

Oregon State Police

THURSDAY, DEC. 21

DUII: 1:12 a.m., Northwest Harrison Boulevard and Northwest 10th Street, Corvallis. A trooper stopped a car for a traffic violation and arrested the driver, Matthew Alan Harrison, 28, of Corvallis, for driving under the influence of intoxicants. Harrison reportedly had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.13 percent.

FRIDAY, DEC. 22

DUII: 12:27 a.m., Northwest Harrison Boulevard and Northwest 14th Street, Corvallis. A trooper stopped a car that had reportedly failed to maintain its lane. The trooper arrested the driver, Ian Oliver Travelstead, 21, of Corvallis, for driving under the influence of intoxicants. Travelstead reportedly had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.14 percent.

MENACING: 9:54 a.m., Southwest 26th Street and Southwest Jefferson Way, Corvallis. Troopers responded to Weatherford Hall after a woman complained of a man yelling at her and others about uploading pornography. She also said the man was threatening them with a tomahawk. Troopers cited Cameron Matthew Corbell, 43, for menacing, harassment and second-degree disorderly conduct. Corbell reportedly had a large roofing ax with him, which troopers seized. Troopers took Corbell to Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center for evaluation.
 ROSE (roz) n. One of the most beautiful of all flowers, a symbol of fragrance and loveliness. Often given as a sign of appreciation.

 RASPBERRY (razbere) n. A sharp, scornful comment, criticism or rebuke; a derisive, splatting noise, often called the Bronx cheer.

We hereby deliver:

 ROSES to the idea of ending the old year and starting the next by getting outside for a bit. Oregon's state parks have a couple of worthy suggestions that might provide a touch of inspiration.

First, the winter edition of Whale Watching Week is underway and runs through Dec. 31 along the Oregon coast.

Researchers estimate that 18,000-plus gray whales now live in the eastern north Pacific area. About 30 whales per hour migrate past the Oregon coast during the southbound migration, which peaks during the holiday season. By contrast, the northern migration is more leisurely: Researchers say about six whales an hour pass by the coast, but that return trip is spread over four months. (The spring 2018 edition of Whale Watching Week is scheduled for March 24-31, one of the two peak periods for the northbound migration.)

If you're interested in checking out the northbound migration, pack some warm clothes and a good set of binoculars. For more tips about Whale Watching Week, including the best locations for watching, check out the website https://whalespoken.wordpress.com/

And, if you want to clear out the cobwebs in your head from your New Year's Eve celebration, you can do a lot worse than taking in one of the First Day Hikes on Jan. 1. In all, 24 hikes in 22 Oregon state parks will be led by park rangers or volunteers who will share stories about a park's geology, history wildlife and plants. Day-use parking fees will be waived for all visitors at participating parks Jan. 1 only.

In the mid-valley, hikes are scheduled at 10 a.m. at Silver Falls State Park (meet at the South Falls Lodge porch) and at 10 a.m. at State Capitol State Park (meet at the Capitol steps). Other mid-valley event include a noon horse ride at Elijah Bristow State Park (bring your own horse) and two hikes, one at 10 a.m. and one at 2:30 p.m., at the Champoeg State Heritage Area. For a full list of hikes, and details about each outing, check out this website: http://bit.ly/ParkStoreEvents. Although it's not required, you can also register for a specific hike at that site.

The hikes offer a great opportunity to stretch your muscles and breathe in some cool, clean air to get 2018 off on the right foot.

 RASPBERRIES to you if you forgot to celebrate National Fruitcake Day, which was observed this year on Dec. 27. (We can only assume that the day is celebrated after Christmas as a tribute to the fact that the best fruitcake never seems to grow stale.) If you're kicking yourself over missing that holiday, no need to fret: National Bacon Day is coming up on Saturday, Dec. 30.

We are routinely inundated with this type of press release, crafted by legions of hard-working public-relations employees, and we almost feel bad when we just simply hit the "Delete" button on the vast majority of them. This press release caught our eye, though, mainly because it was about bacon. The press release reported that 18 percent of Americans in a recent survey said that bacon was their favorite food, which seems about right. The survey also reported that 21 percent of Americans said they would eat bacon every day for the rest of their lives, which possibly will not last as long as they might have liked because, well, they ate bacon every day.

 RASPBERRIES to everyone who's planning to celebrate New Year's Eve on Sunday with a selection of adult beverages but has yet to make arrangements for a designated driver. You probably don't need a reminder that New Year's Eve and the early hours of New Year's Day will be bristling with police officers on the lookout for impaired drivers. Your 2018 doesn't need to start off with you getting a DUII citation, and having a designated driver on hand is a good way to prevent that. And, of course, if you've volunteered for the designated driver duty this year, ROSES to you. And just think: When you awake on Jan. 1 without a hangover, you might have time to join one of those first hikes.

Finally, this note from the Roses and Raspberries desk to all of you: Have a safe and happy New Year's holiday. We'll see you back here next year. (mm)
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.
Rungsdorf train crossing : 13-year-old boy dies in tragic accident

Bonn A 13-year-old boy died in a tragic accident at a train at a crossing in Rungsdorf on Thursday. According to police, he ran across the track although the gates were closed. The stretch of train track was closed for hours.

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On Thursday afternoon, a 13-year-old boy from Bad Godesberg was killed in a tragic accident at the train crossing at Kapellenweg in Rungsdorf. The time of the accident was approximately 3:20 pm.

According to Bonn police, witnesses said the youth had climbed over the closed barrier at the train crossing and had nearly crossed the railway tracks. At the last minute, he was caught by the train and thrown under the railway gate onto the street. The train was an Intercity train on its way to Bonn Central Train Station, the conductor had no chance to brake in time to prevent the terrible tragedy.

The youth could not be saved. Police are assuming it was a tragic accident. According to a spokesman from the federal police, relatives of the boy were informed immediately and rushed to the scene of the accident.

The stretch of train track between Bonn Central Station and Mehlem was closed until Thursday evening, causing massive disruptions in rail traffic. Also affected were several regional trains that had to stop at the central station or in the opposite direction in Remagen. Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) announced that the regional train RE 5 from Wesel ended its journey already at Bonn Central Station and those trains coming from Koblenz had to end their route in Remagen. Regional trains RB 30 from Dernau also ended prematurely in Remagen.

Railway and police specialists searched the tracks until evening to secure any clues or evidence, using telescope cameras. The fire department illuminated the area with floodlights so workers could carry on in the dark.
Linking religion across Europe : Pastor builds Arab Christian community not only in Bonn

Bonn A Protestant community helps refugees and strives for a European network of Arab Christians. Their primary goal is integration because many have lost confidence they could return home to countries where Christians are oppressed.

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Christian prayers are spoken in Arabic in this service - and like the sermon they are then translated into German. Each week, between 50 and 100 worshipers from many different countries, come to the Free Arabic Protestant Church in Bonn, explains pastor Elia Daoud. The 56-year-old is from Iraq, where he was involved in the founding of churches and in the Iraqi Bible Society. Since 2000, the father of three has been with his family in Germany.

He has been in charge of the Arab Christian communities in Bonn and Cologne since 2005, and became pastor of the Bonn community in 2008. I am also actively involved in founding parishes in Germany and Europe, he explained.

In 2014, Daoud was made president of the Protestant Alliance of Arabic Speakers in Europe. At the last conference held in Karlsbad, Daoud articulated a goal for the alliance of 116 parishes in Europe. He wants to strengthen the network in Europe to encourage the members in their faith. This is important with the background of a growing persecution of Christians especially in Arab countries, and it has recently been documented in an alarming ecumenical report. "The pressure on Christians in the Middle East has become even stronger," Daoud tells his newly added parishioners. The Arabic-speaking Christians have lost confidence that they will ever be able to live in their homeland in peace and with religious freedom, he says.

The Bonn parish concerns itself especially with refugees who have come from Syria, Iraq, Egypt and other Arab countries. Twice a week we have appointments where we accompany people to meetings, says the pastor. Refugees are helped financially so that they can reunite their families. We invite them for a meal together twice monthly. We accompany them to official bureaus and doctors to translate for them, explains Daoud. They help the refugees in setting up their households, and to learn German as quickly as possible. "The primary goal is always integration. Because in the countries of origin, in which Christians are oppressed, nobody wants them back anymore. "

Elia Daoud has a constantly changing community because of the integration goal. They want that their members grow into the local German-speaking communities as soon as possible. "We consciously work with the local communities." That's why his services are always translated into German. Often they worship together with the German community.
An opportunity for foodies and beer lovers to get lost in a world of food and drink from a hand-selected range of food trucks and breweries from around New Zealand.
UPDATE! Nigeria Labour Congress Threatens To Embark On Nationwide Strike If Petrol Scarcity Persists

felicilin at 29-12-2017 04:51 PM (4 years ago) (f)

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has threatened it would embark on industrial action if the petrol scarcity biting the country persists into the New Year.

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has threatened it would embark on industrial action if the petrol scarcity biting the country persists into the New Year.

NLC gave the threat in a statement issued on Friday, December 29.



A member of Nigeria Labour Congress, Issa Aremu said the problems of the downstream sector that have led to the petrol crisis in the country exposes what he described as crisis of corporate governance in the petroleum sector.



According to him, the downstream sector has a problem of abysmal absence of accountability, transparency and openness in the administration of the petroleum resources of Nigeria.



He said only the legislature can bring an end to the crisis in the sector, adding that by directing the Senate committee members to resume duty and tackle the crisis, the Senate had shown that the legislature is true a vent for public grievances, a useful organ of public opinion.



He said there is a deep-seated conflict of interest in the downstream sector. Regulators are operators; regulators are importers; importers are products hoarders, regulators are also saboteurs. Definitely, we have a sector captured in our hands, Nigeria and Nigerians need liberation.



Aremu also called for a total ban on importation to reinvent domestic refineries and beneficiation to crude oil, alleging that the NNPC is the only public corporation that annually awards its directors long service incentives for no service at all, for non-functioning refineries. NLC gave the threat in a statement issued on Friday, December 29.A member of Nigeria Labour Congress, Issa Aremu said the problems of the downstream sector that have led to the petrol crisis in the country exposes what he described asAccording to him, the downstream sector has a problem ofHe said only the legislature can bring an end to the crisis in the sector, adding that by directing the Senate committee members to resume duty and tackle the crisis, the Senate had shown that the legislature is trueHe saidAremu also called for a

Post Reply Posted: at 29-12-2017 04:51 PM (4 years ago) | Hero

kabukabu at 29-12-2017 04:55 PM (4 years ago)

(m) Who cares. Foolish Labour Congress Posted: at 29-12-2017 04:55 PM (4 years ago) | Gistmaniac Who cares. Foolish Labour Congress Reply

kacylee at 29-12-2017 07:44 PM (4 years ago)

(f) abeg make una go sidon one place jare... lost confidence in u guys I have been reporting for several years now and I am very interested in visual news reportage with strong inclusion of photos and video multimedia. Posted: at 29-12-2017 07:44 PM (4 years ago) | Addicted Hero abeg make una go sidon one place jare... lost confidence in u guys Reply

Mykie010 at 29-12-2017 07:52 PM (4 years ago)

(m) Toothless bulldog Posted: at 29-12-2017 07:52 PM (4 years ago) | Gistmaniac Toothless bulldog Reply

crocatum at 29-12-2017 08:58 PM (4 years ago)

(m) why is it only Nigeria, in the whole world, as time progresses the system is becoming a wasted system, and we are going to have a double population soon, do we want to live like animals, I say no, some say no, then stop this artificial scarcity once and for all, don't be greedy, use your oil income to make other business to create more jobs and more money for your greed. Don't Sit on Oil and close the tap, according to your wants, may Oil become useless, with all this greed and waste of economy. Posted: at 29-12-2017 08:58 PM (4 years ago) | Gistmaniac why is it only Nigeria, in the whole world, as time progresses the system is becoming a wasted system, and we are going to have a double population soon, do we want to live like animals, I say no, some say no, then stop this artificial scarcity once and for all, don't be greedy, use your oil income to make other business to create more jobs and more money for your greed. Don't Sit on Oil and close the tap, according to your wants, may Oil become useless, with all this greed and waste of economy. Reply

slimber at 30-12-2017 12:09 AM (4 years ago)

(f) It will not change anything just waste of time Posted: at 30-12-2017 12:09 AM (4 years ago) | Hero It will not change anything just waste of time Reply
/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/

MIRAMICHI, NB, Dec. 28, 2017 /CNW/ - SLAM Exploration Ltd. (TSXV: SXL) (the "Company") announces it has closed the first tranche of the $650,000 private placement announced December 12, 2017. The Company sold 4,700,000 flow-through units (the "FT Units") to raise $235,000. An additional 3,500,000 Units (the "Units") and 4,800,000 FT Units remain available for placement to raise additional funds up to $415,000. The Company expects to close the second tranche on or about January 10, 2018.

Each Unit is priced at $0.05 and comprised of one common share in the capital of the Company and one common share purchase warrant. Each FT Unit is priced at $0.05 and comprised of one common share in the capital of the Company issued on a "flow-through" basis and one-half of one common share purchase warrant issued on a non-flow-through basis (each whole common share purchase warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder thereof to acquire one non-flow-through common share at a price of $0.055 for a period of 36 months from the date of issuance. The 2,350,000 Warrants issued in the first tranche will expire December 28, 2020. The Units and FT Units are subject to a four-month and one day hold period from the date of issuance.

The Company is paying a finders fee of $16,000 cash plus 160,000 broker warrants and 160,000 compensation shares to an Agent in connection with the first tranche. The broker warrants are issued with the same terms as the Warrants described above. The Company has agreed with the Agent to pay 320,000 shares in lieu of the $16,000 cash finders fee.

The Company may pay additional finders fees in accordance with the rules and policies of the TSXV in the second tranche. There may be Insider participation for which a finder's fee will not be paid. The private placement remains subject to the approval of the TSXV. For additional information call Mike Taylor at 506-623-8960.

Proceeds received from the FT Units will be used to fund exploration on SLAM's cobalt and base metal projects in New Brunswick. Proceeds received from the Units will be used for general corporate purposes.

About SLAM Exploration Ltd:

SLAM is a project generating company that holds an NSR royalty on the Coulee, Superjack and Nash Creek zinc?lead?copper?silver deposits and owns a portfolio of cobalt and base metal properties in the Bathurst Mining Camp ("BMC") of New Brunswick. The Company intends to utilize its extensive BMC mineral database to explore and develop properties in this historic mineral-rich region. Other projects include the Menneval gold project and, in Ontario, the Reserve Creek gold project. Additional information about SLAM and its projects is available at www.slamexploration.com or from SEDAR filings at www.sedar.com. Follow us on twitter @SLAMGold.

Qualifying Statements: Mike Taylor, P.Geo. President and CEO of SLAM Exploration Ltd., as the Qualified Person, approves the scientific and technical disclosure in the news release.

Certain information in this press release may constitute forward-looking information, including statements that address the Private Placement, the closing of the Private Placement, future production, reserve potential, exploration and development activities and events or developments that the Company expects. This information is based on current expectations that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those reflected in the forward looking-statements unless and until required by securities laws applicable to the Company. There are a number of risk factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those described herein. Information identifying risks and uncertainties is contained in the Company's filings with the Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com. Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE SLAM Exploration Ltd.
VANCOUVER, Dec. 28, 2017 /CNW/ - Alexco Resource Corp. (NYSE?American:AXU, TSX:AXR) ("Alexco" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has received an amendment to its Water Use Licence from the Yukon Water Board for the development and operation (and eventual closure) of the Flame & Moth mine. The Flame & Moth underground mine, located adjacent to the existing Keno Hill District mill, comprises a potentially mineable 683,000 tonnes of 666 grams per tonne ("g/t") silver and is anticipated to be the primary production source for mine operations in the Keno Hill Silver District (RPA, 20171).

Clynt Nauman, Alexco CEO and Chairman commented, "The receipt of the Flame & Moth Water Use Licence amendment is the final permit and regulatory authorization required for production from the Flame & Moth mine. Receipt of this licence amendment is a milestone in our journey toward mine operations and has involved the cooperation and support of our many stakeholders and partners, including the First Nation of Nacho Nyak Dun."

In addition to Flame & Moth, the Bellekeno, Lucky Queen and Onek mines are also fully permitted for operations in the Keno Hill Silver District. In November 2017, the Company submitted a further Project Proposal to the Yukon Environmental Socioeconomic Assessment Board for environmental assessment of the development, operations and eventual closure for the Bermingham mine. Bermingham is anticipated to contribute approximately 220,000 tonnes of 1,276 g/t silver toward the approximately one million tonne and more than 27 million silver ounce mine production stream outlined over eight years in the PEA mine plan1. Approximately 5,000 meters ("m") of underground exploration and in-fill drilling of the Bermingham deposit will commence later in Q1 2018 upon completion of the currently active 580 m Bermingham exploration decline. Results of the drilling along with other work will contribute to a pre-feasibility study anticipated to be completed in Q3 2018.

In other business, Alexco announces that it has restructured its US environmental division. In this restructuring, Alexco's wholly-owned subsidiary, Alexco Environmental Group Inc. ("AEG Canada") has entered into a share purchase agreement with Arete Property Holdings LLC ("Arete") for the purchase by Arete of all of the issued shares of Alexco Environmental Group (US) Inc. ("AEG US") and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Alexco Financial Guaranty Corp. (collectively with AEG US, the "AEG US Group") for nominal consideration. Arete is wholly-owned by Mr. James Harrington, Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of AEG Canada.

As a result of this transaction, a new Colorado affiliate of AEG Canada, Alexco Water and Environment Inc. will seamlessly continue current and future environmental work in the United States. AEG US Group, together with initial funding provided by AEG Canada required for ongoing administrative and corporate responsibilities, will become subsidiaries of, and will be directly managed by Arete to pursue certain property negotiation rights and further capital opportunities.

Mr. Nauman commented, "The restructuring of Alexco's US environmental division is merely an initial step in facilitating AEG's ability to pursue significant opportunities for new brownfields-related environmental work and revenue while also prudently managing the parent company balance sheet."

The participation of Mr. Harrington (through his ownership of Arete) in the proposed sale of the AEG US Group from AEG Canada (the "Proposed Transaction") causes the Proposed Transaction to be considered to be a "related party transaction" as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 ("MI 61-101"). However, the Proposed Transaction will be exempt from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 as neither the fair market value of the assets acquired by, or the consideration paid by, the related party, Mr. Harrington, will exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization. The Proposed Transaction has been reviewed and approved by a special committee of the Board of directors of the Company and the Board of directors of the Company.

1 "Technical Report Preliminary Economic Assessment of the Keno Hill Silver District Project, Yukon Territory, Canada." NI 43-101 Report. RPA, March 29, 2017.

Qualified Persons

The disclosure in this news release of scientific and technical information regarding exploration projects on Alexco's mineral properties has been reviewed and approved by Alan McOnie, FAusIMM, Vice President, Exploration who is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

About Alexco

Alexco holds the historical high grade Keno Hill Silver District located in Canada's Yukon Territory. Employing a unique business model, Alexco also provides mine-related environmental services, remediation technologies and reclamation and mine closure services to both government and industry clients.

Contact

Please visit the Alexco website at www.alexcoresource.com

Some statements ("forward-looking statements") in this news release contain forward-looking information concerning Alexco's anticipated results and developments in Alexco's operations in future periods, planned exploration and development of its properties, plans related to its business and other matters that may occur in the future, made as of the date of this news release. Forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the restructuring of Alexco's US environmental division, the future remediation and reclamation activities, future mineral exploration, the estimation of mineral reserves and mineral resources, the realization of mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates, future mine construction and development activities, future mine operation and production, the timing of activities and reports, the amount of estimated revenues and expenses, the success of exploration activities, permitting time lines, requirements for additional capital and sources and uses of funds. Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual events or results to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, risks related to the implementation of the restructuring implementation, risks related to actual results and timing of exploration and development activities; actual results and timing of mining activities; actual results and timing of environmental services activities; actual results and timing of remediation and reclamation activities; conclusions of economic evaluations; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; future prices of silver, gold, lead, zinc and other commodities; possible variations in mineable resources, grade or recovery rates; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; First Nation rights and title; continued capitalization and commercial viability; global economic conditions; competition; and delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing or in the completion of development activities. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions that management believes are reasonable at the time they are made. In making the forward-looking statements included in this news release, Alexco has applied several material assumptions, including, but not limited to, the assumption that Alexco will be able to implement the restructuring without negative consequences, Alexco will be able to raise additional capital as necessary, that the proposed exploration and development will proceed as planned, and that market fundamentals will result in sustained silver, gold, lead and zinc demand and prices. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Alexco expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation.

SOURCE Alexco Resource Corp.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- East Africa Metals Inc. (TSX-V:EAM) (East Africa or the Company) announces the closing of a $2M private placement with Luck Sky Resources Investment Limited (LS), under which the Company issued 7,700,000 units at a price of $0.26 per unit, for gross proceeds of $2,002,000. Each unit consists of one common share and one-half of one share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant entitles the holder to purchase one common share at an exercise price of $0.45 for a period of 24 months from the date of closing.



All of the securities issued in connection with this placement are subject to a hold period expiring on April 29, 2018. The proceeds will be used to continue exploration programs on the Companys projects in Ethiopia and general working capital.

The Company has agreed to pay finders fees in connection with the subscription in an aggregate amount of $100,100 in cash to Brookstone Capital Limited, an arms length party. Brookstone has agreed to defer payment of the finders fee until closing of the additional 44,400,000 units, described in the Companys news release dated December 14, 2017.

Pursuant to the binding subscription agreement between the Company and LS, LS has subscribed for an additional 44,400,000 units at a price of $0.26 per unit, for gross proceeds of $11,544,000. Each unit consists of one common share and one-half of one share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant entitles the holder to purchase one common share at an exercise price of $0.45 for a period of 24 months from the date of closing.

Closing of the remaining 44,400,000 units is subject to certain conditions, including but not limited to, disinterested shareholder approval of the creation of a new control person and approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. Upon completion of the private placement for the remaining 44,400,000 units, LS will own approximately 25.8% of the Companys outstanding shares (34.2% on a diluted basis).

The parties are working towards satisfying the conditions and closing the remaining units in a timely manner.

More information on the Company can be viewed at the Companys website: www.eastafricametals.com

On behalf of the Board of Directors:

Andrew Lee Smith, P.Geo., CEO

For further information contact:

Nick Watters, Business Development

Telephone +1 (604) 488-0822

Email investors@eastafricametals.com

Website www.eastafricametals.com

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "forecast", "project", "budget", "schedule", "may", "will", "could", "might", "should" or variations of such words or similar words or expressions. Forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions that have been made by East Africa as at the date of such information and is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of East Africa to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: early exploration; closing of the financing; ability of the LS to provide the debt or participate in the debt financing;; mineral exploration and development; metal and mineral prices; availability of capital; accuracy of East Africa's projections and estimates, including the initial mineral resource for the Adyabo, Harvest and Magambazi Projects; estimated timing of receipt of the Terakimti Oxide Gold mining licence and/or exploration licence extensions, interest and exchange rates; competition; stock price fluctuations; availability of drilling equipment and access; actual results of current exploration activities; government regulation; political or economic developments; foreign taxation risks; environmental risks; insurance risks; capital expenditures; operating or technical difficulties in connection with development activities; the speculative nature of strategic metal exploration and development including the risks of diminishing quantities of grades of reserves; contests over title to properties; and changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, as well as those risk factors set out in East Africas managements discussion and analysis for the year end December 31, 2016, managements discussion and analysis for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and East Africas listing application dated July 8, 2013. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable, including but not limited to the timely closing of the financing; the timely closing of the Handeni Property definitive agreement; the ability of the Company to repay the loan by the required date; the price of gold, silver, copper and zinc; the demand for gold, silver, copper and zinc; the ability to carry on exploration and development activities; the timely receipt of any required approvals; the ability to obtain qualified personnel, equipment and services in a timely and cost-efficient manner; the ability to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner; and the regulatory framework regarding environmental matters, the renewal or extension of exploration licences, and such other assumptions and factors as set out herein. Although East Africa has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. The Company does not update or revise forward looking information even if new information becomes available unless legislation requires the Company do so. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information contained herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

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.
TSX Venture Exchange: NEV

VANCOUVER, Dec. 29, 2017 /CNW/ - Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp. ("Nevada Sunrise" or the "Company") (TSXV: NEV) is pleased to announce it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 100% interest in the historic Lovelock Cobalt Mine property (the "Lovelock Mine", or the "Property"), located in Churchill County, approximately 100 miles (150 kilometres) east of Reno, Nevada. For further details about the Lovelock Mine, please see Nevada Sunrise news releases dated November 21, 2017 and December 14, 2017).

Terms of the Agreement

The terms of the definitive agreement (the "Agreement") provide for the Company to earn a 100% interest in the Property in consideration for cash payments and common shares payments to an underlying vendor (the "Vendor") payable over 3 years from the signing of the Agreement, subject to a 2.0% net smelter returns royalty ("NSR"), as follows:

A $3,000 cash payment for an exclusive due diligence period (paid);

On the later of TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") approval and signing of the Agreement:

$15,000 in cash and 200,000 common shares of the Company;

$15,000 in cash and 200,000 common shares of the Company; 1st Anniversary: $20,000 in cash and 200,000 common shares of the Company;

2nd Anniversary: $25,000 in cash and 250,000 common shares of the Company;

3rd Anniversary: $30,000 in cash and 300,000 common shares of the Company.

Closing of the acquisition is subject to acceptance of the Agreement by the TSX Venture Exchange. Nevada Sunrise will have the right to accelerate the timing of cash payments to the Vendor at its discretion. On or before the 10th anniversary of the execution of the Agreement, Nevada Sunrise shall have the right to purchase 50% of the NSR (i.e. 1% NSR interest) for US$1,500,000. An area of interest applies to the current boundaries of the Property.

For further information about the Lovelock Mine, please visit the Company's website at: http://www.nevadasunrise.ca/projects/lovelock-cobalt-mine/

About Nevada Sunrise

Nevada Sunrise is a junior mineral exploration company with a strong technical team based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, that holds interests in gold, cobalt and lithium exploration projects in the State of Nevada, USA.

The Company's two key gold assets include a 100% interest in the Golden Arrow project near Tonopah, currently the subject of an option earn-in transaction with Emgold Mining Corp. (TSXV: EMR) and a 21% interest in a joint venture with Liberty Gold Inc. (TSX: LGD, formerly Pilot Gold Inc.) at Kinsley Mountain near Wendover, with each of the properties subject to certain production royalties.

In November 2017, Nevada Sunrise announced an option to earn a 100% interest in the historic Lovelock Cobalt Mine property, located approximately 100 miles (150 kilometres) east of Reno.

Nevada Sunrise began acquisitions of Nevada lithium properties in 2015, which includes 100% interests in the Neptune, Jackson Wash and Aquarius projects, a 50% interest in the Gemini project (Eureka Resources Inc. (TSXV: EUK) holds a 50% interest), and the right to earn 100% of the Atlantis project, currently under option to American Lithium Corp. (TSXV: LI).

Forward Looking Statements

All statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp. ("Nevada Sunrise") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements that address future mineral production, reserve potential, exploration drilling, the future price of gold and other metals and minerals, potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, potential size of a mineralized zone, potential expansion of mineralization, the timing and results of current or future mineral resource estimates, or other study, proposed exploration and development of our exploration properties and the estimation of mineral resources. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "project", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "intends", "believe", "potential", and similar expressions, or describes a "goal", or variation of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "should", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievement of Nevada Sunrise to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information.

Such factors include, among others, risks related to the interpretation and actual results of historical work at the Lovelock Mine property, reliance on technical information provided by third parties on any of our exploration properties, including access to historical information on the Lovelock Mine property, current exploration and development activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; current economic conditions; future prices of commodities; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the failure of contracted parties to perform; failure of Nevada Sunrise to complete anticipated work programs; labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals, financing or in the completion of exploration, as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for the Nine Months ended June 30, 2017, which is available under Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com

Although Nevada Sunrise has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Nevada Sunrise disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and accordingly are subject to change after such date. Except as otherwise indicated by Nevada Sunrise, these statements do not reflect the potential impact of any non-recurring or other special items or of any dispositions, monetizations, mergers, acquisitions, other business combinations or other transactions that may be announced or that may occur after the date hereof. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans and allowing investors and others to get a better understanding of our operating environment. Nevada Sunrise does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that are included in this document, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this release. The Securities of Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp. have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to the account or benefit of any U.S. person.

SOURCE Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp.
VANCOUVER, Dec. 29, 2017 - MAG Silver Corp. (TSX:MAG) (NYSE American:MAG) (MAG) today announced that it has filed a preliminary short form base shelf prospectus with the securities commissions in each of the provinces of Canada, except Quebec. The base shelf prospectus will allow MAG to offer up to US$200,000,000 of common shares, preferred shares, debt securities, subscription receipts, units and warrants from time to time over a 25-month period after Canadian securities regulatory authorities have issued a receipt for the final short form base shelf prospectus. The specific terms of any future offering of securities (if any), will be set forth in a shelf prospectus supplement. The Company has filed this base shelf prospectus to maintain financial flexibility but has no immediate intentions to undertake an offering.

A corresponding shelf registration statement on Form F-10 will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and the U.S./Canada Multijurisdictional Disclosure System at the time of filing of the final short form base shelf prospectus. Once filed, a copy of the registration statement will be available on EDGAR at www.sec.gov.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy such securities in the United States. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

A copy of the preliminary short form base shelf prospectus can be found on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

About MAG Silver Corp. (www.magsilver.com )

MAG Silver Corp. is a Canadian exploration and development company focused on becoming a top-tier primary silver mining company, by exploring and advancing high-grade, district scale, silver-dominant projects in the Americas. Our principal focus and asset is the Juanicipio Property (44%), being developed in partnership with Fresnillo Plc (56%) and is located in the Fresnillo Silver District in Mexico, the worlds premier silver mining camp. We are presently developing the underground infrastructure on the property, under the operational expertise of our joint venture partner, Fresnillo Plc, to support an expected 4,000 tonnes per day mining operation. As well, we have an expanded exploration program in place investigating other highly prospective targets across the property. In addition, we continue to work on regaining surface access to our 100% owned Cinco de Mayo property in Mexico while we seek other high grade, district scale opportunities.

On behalf of the Board of

MAG SILVER CORP.

"George Paspalas

President & Chief Executive Officer

For further information on behalf of MAG Silver Corp.

Contact Michael J. Curlook, VP Investor Relations and Communications

Website:

Phone:

Toll free: www.magsilver.com

(604) 630-1399

(866) 630-1399 Email:

Fax: info@magsilver.com

(604) 681-0894

This News Release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation. Statements contained herein that are not based on historical or current fact, including without limitation statements containing the words anticipates, believes, may, continues, estimates, expects, and will and words of similar import, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking information may include, but is not limited to, expectations with respect to the filing of final base shelf prospectus and shelf registration statement on form F-10 or with respect to any future offerings by the Company; and information contained the preliminary base shelf prospectus relating to, among other things, the future price of silver, gold, lead and zinc, the estimation of mineral resources, preliminary economic estimates relating to the Juanicipio Project, estimates of the time and amount of future silver, gold, lead and zinc production for specific operations, estimated future exploration and development expenditures and other expenses for specific operations, permitting timelines, the Companys expectations regarding impairments of mineral properties, the Companys expectations regarding its negotiations with the Ejido to obtain surface access to the Cinco de Mayo Property; the anticipated timing of a formal production decision at Minera Juanicipio; the Companys expectations regarding the sufficiency of its capital resources and requirements for additional capital, litigation risks, currency fluctuations, environmental risks and reclamation cost, and changes to governmental laws and regulations. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events of performance (often but not always using words or phrases such as anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, intend, plan, strategy, goals, objectives, project, potential or variations thereof or stating that certain actions, events, or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur, or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms and similar expressions), as they relate to the Company or management, are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. Such statements reflect the Companys current views with respect to future events and are subject to certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions.

Many factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and information, including, among others, the ability of the Company to successfully close a financing pursuant to the base shelf prospectus or shelf registration statement and those risks identified in MAG's preliminary base shelf prospectus dated December 28, 2017 filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information is based on the expectations and opinions of MAG's management on the date the statements are made. The assumptions used in the preparation of such statements, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise. We do not assume any obligation to update forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by applicable law. For the reasons set forth above, prospective investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Neither the TSX nor the NYSE American has approved or disapproved of the information contained herein.



Please Note:

Investors are urged to consider closely the disclosures in MAG's annual and quarterly reports and other public filings, accessible through the Internet at www.sedar.com and www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html


261217Police on Duty during Festive Season

By- Theresa Baranangko

The Buka Police Station Commander and Senior Sergent, John Popui wishes to pass his sincere Christmas and New Years greetings to the people of Bougainville.

Prior to any comments the PSC thanked the people for behaving during Christmas day celebrations. He says despite of few mishaps, the police are still carrying out their Christmas and New Years operations.

The PSC wishes to extend his condolences on behalf of the Police to the families of the woman who have passed away during this Christmas following an incident during a drinking spree which resulted in a woman jumping off from the cliff at Gogohe and was confirmed dead on arrival at the Buka General Hospital.

Apart from that, police are managing the flow of traffic by conducting road blocks and issuing TIN for Overloading, unlicensed, unregistered and un- roadworthy vehicles. He is appealing to vehicle owners to limit the habit of drinking and driving.

Popui wishes to thank his officers on the ground for their continued effort in ensuring safety during the festive season.

As we are moving towards New Year, the PSC appeals to the people especially in North Bougainville to respect the authority who are carrying out their duties to ensure peace.

According to the PSC the use of fire crackers will not be allowed during New year as it is against the law. He says it is harmful because it might cause severe injury to a person using it or anyone nearby.

Ends//


Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCwire) - Canyon Copper Corp. ("Canyon") (TSX-V: CNC) has closed a non-brokered private placement (the Offering) of 855,000 flow-through units (a FT Unit) at a price of $0.20 per FT Unit for gross proceeds of $171,000.

Each FT Unit consists of one flow-through common share and one-half of one non-transferrable non-flow-through share purchase warrant (a Warrant). Each whole Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one common share at $0.30 per share at any time until the close of business on the day which is two (2) years from the date of issue of the Warrant.

All securities issued in the offering will be subject to a four-month hold period until April 29, 2018. The securities described herein have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States unless registered under the act or unless an exemption from registration is available.

Directors and executive officers subscribed for a total of 100,000 FT Units for total proceeds of $20,000. There were no finders fees payable in connection with the Offering. Canyon will use the proceeds from the Offering to incur qualified Canadian exploration expenses for exploration on Canyons portfolio of mineral properties in Canada. The funds will be utilized for the planned drill program on the Bootleg Lake Gold and VMS project in Saskatchewan and 2018 field work on the Companys three cobalt exploration projects in Ontario.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

Stephen Wallace

CANYON COPPER CORP.

Stephen Wallace, President, CEO and Director

Contact: Canyon Copper Corp. Investor Relations (604) 331-9326 info@canyoncc.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements 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. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to the Companys limited operating history and the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations. 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. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.

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.

To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/CanyonCopper12292017.pdfSource: Canyon Copper Corp. (TSX Venture:CNC)

To follow Canyon Copper Corp. on your favorite social media platform or financial websites, please click on the icons below.

Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. https://www.fscwire.com

Copyright  2017 FSCwire
**NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWS WIRE SERVICES**



VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Centenera Mining Corp. ("Centenera" or the "Company") - (TSXV:CT) (OTCQB:CTMIF) announces that it has closed the first tranche of its non-brokered private placement announced on November 20, 2017 (the "Financing"). In connection with the closing of the first tranche of the Financing, the Company issued a total of 5,750,556 units (each, a "Unit"), priced at $0.18 per Unit for gross proceeds of $1,035,100. The Company expects to close the second and final tranche of the Financing in early January 2018.

Each Unit consists of one common share in the capital of the Company (each, a "Common Share") and one warrant (each, a "Warrant"), with each Warrant entitling the holder thereof to purchase one Common Share for $0.30 for a period of 18 months from the closing of the Financing (each, a "Warrant Share"). The Warrants are subject to acceleration provisions, whereby if the closing price of the Company's Common Shares on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") is $0.40 or greater per Common Share for a minimum of ten consecutive trading days (commencing after four months and one day from the closing of the Financing), the Warrants will expire at 4.00pm (Vancouver time) on the 30th day after the date on which the Company provides notice of such accelerated expiry to the holders of the Warrants.

In connection with the closing of the first tranche of the Financing, the Company paid finder's fees on a portion of the Financing to Haywood Securities Inc. ($1,575.00 and 8,750 finders warrants) and Carter Terry & Company ($6,300.00 and 35,000 finders warrants), consisting of a cash commission equal to 7% of the gross proceeds raised by each finder and finder's warrants equal to 7% of the corresponding number of Units issued. Each finder's warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one common share of Centenera for $0.18 for a period of 18 months from the closing of the Financing (each, a "Finder's Share"). The finder's warrants are subject to the same acceleration clause as outlined above.

The Common Shares, Warrant Shares and Finder's Shares are subject to a hold period of four-months and one day in Canada.

This news release does not constitute an offer of sale of any of the foregoing securities in the United States. None of the foregoing securities have been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act") or any applicable state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) or persons in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor will there be any sale of the foregoing securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

Esperanza Project Update

Exploration logistics at the Company's flagship Esperanza copper-gold project are moving forward on schedule. Since receipt of the drill permit (see news release dated November 20, 2017) the Company has completed road access to the project and construction of the drill camp. Drilling is expected to begin in the first week of January 2018.

About Centenera Mining Corporation

Centenera is a mineral resource company trading on the TSXV under the symbol "CT" and on the OTCQB exchange under the symbol "CTMIF". The Company is focused 100% on mineral resource assets in Argentina and intends to focus its 2018 exploration activities on drill-testing its flagship Esperanza copper-gold project. Other assets, including the Organullo gold project and the El Quemado lithium pegmatite project in Salta Province, are intended to be explored by the Company with the aim of proving project potential and attracting a joint venture partner or a project sale. The Organullo project has approximately 8,000 metres of historical drilling and assay results. Organullo has a geological target range from 19.8 million tonnes grading at 0.94 g/t gold (600,000 ounces) to 31.6 million tonnes grading 0.92 g/t gold (940,000 ounces) using a 0.5 g/t gold cut-off-grade. It should be noted that these potential exploration target quantities and grades are conceptual in nature, that insufficient exploration and geological modelling has been done to define a mineral resource, and that it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the delineation of a mineral resource.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of

CENTENERA MINING CORPORATION

"Keith Henderson"

President & CEO

For further details on the Company readers are referred to the Company's web site (www.centeneramining.com) and its Canadian regulatory filings on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

For further information, please contact:

Keith Henderson

Phone: 604-638-3456

E-mail: info@centeneramining.com

Forward-Looking Statements

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 news release.

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities legislation, including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the anticipated content, commencement, timing and cost of exploration programs in respect of the above mentioned projects and otherwise, anticipated exploration program results from exploration activities, the Company's expectation that it will be able to enter into agreements to acquire interests in additional mineral properties or attract joint venture partners or sell its Organullo and El Quemado projects, the successful negotiation and execution of a definitive option agreement for the projects, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves on the projects, the closing and amount of the Financing, the intended use of proceeds from the Financing and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as "pro forma", "plans", "expects", "may", "should", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", "believes", "potential" or variations of such words including negative variations thereof, and phrases that refer to certain actions, events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and other factors include, among others, operating and technical difficulties in connection with mineral exploration and development and mine development activities at the Project, including the geological mapping, prospecting and sampling program being proposed for the projects (the "Program"), actual results of exploration activities, including the Program, estimation or realization of mineral reserves and mineral resources, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital expenditures, the costs and timing of the development of new deposits the inability of the Company to prove project potential of the Organullo and El Quemado projects, to attract joint venture partners or sell any of its projects, lack of investor interest in the Financing the availability of a sufficient supply of water and other materials, requirements for additional capital, future prices of precious metals and copper, changes in general economic conditions, changes in the financial markets and in the demand and market price for commodities, possible variations in ore grade or recovery rates, possible failures of plants, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry, delays or the inability of the Company to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required, including TSXV acceptance, the Financing or in the completion of development or construction activities, changes in laws, regulations and policies affecting mining operations, hedging practices, currency fluctuations, title disputes or claims limitations on insurance coverage and the timing and possible outcome of pending litigation, environmental issues and liabilities, risks related to joint venture operations, and risks related to the integration of acquisitions, as well as those factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's most recent Management Information Circular and as discussed in the annual management's discussion and analysis and other filings of the Company with the Canadian Securities Authorities, copies of which can be found under the Company's profile on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Except as otherwise required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements in this news release or incorporated by reference herein.
The Oregon Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a decision by Oregon's labor commissioner that forced two Gresham bakers to pay $135,000 to a lesbian couple for whom the bakers refused to make a wedding cake.Melissa and Aaron Klein made national headlines in 2013 when they refused to bake a cake for Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, citing their Christian beliefs. The Bowman-Cryers complained to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, saying they had been refused service because of their sexual orientation.An administrative law judge ruled that the Kleins' bakery, Sweetcakes by Melissa, violated a law that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation in places that serve the public. Brad Avakian, the state labor commissioner, affirmed heavy damages against the Kleins for the Bowman-Cryer's emotional and mental distress.The decision will likely be the most controversial ruling, and the one with the biggest impact, handed down by Avakian during his nearly 10 years in the role. He has decided not to seek re-election when his term expires next year.The Kleins appealed Avakian's decision, arguing for a religious exemption from the Oregon Equality Act, the anti-discrimination law. They also argued Avakian was biased against them, that his actions violated their rights to free expression as artists and their right to due process, and that the fine was excessive.But in their ruling Thursday, a panel of state appeals court judges sided with Avakian, saying the Kleins did, in fact, deny the Bowman-Cryers because they were lesbians. The justices also rejected the Kleins' argument that Avakian's ruling violated state and federal free speech protections.In the ruling, Judge Chris Garrett wrote that Avakian's order does not violate the Klein's free speech rights because it simply "requires their compliance with a neutral law." Garrett also wrote that the Kleins "have made no showing that the state targeted them for enforcement because of their religious beliefs."In a statement, Avakian said the Appeals Court ruling "sends a strong signal that Oregon remains open to all."Through their attorney, the Bowman-Cryers said Thursday's ruling affirms "the long-standing idea that discrimination has no place in America.""All of us are equal under the law and should be treated equally," the couple said. Any ruling to the contrary would "create a sweeping license to discriminate," they said.The appeals court ruling represents an "important victory" for the Bowman-Cryers, who faced humiliation, harassment and death threats after their wedding preparations turned into an ordeal, said Nancy Marcus, senior attorney at Lambda Law, a national pro-LGBT rights group. Marcus said the court's ruling is critical yet "completely unsurprising" because it aligns with courts in other states, which have not allowed businesses to exempt themselves from anti-discrimination laws.Adam Gustafson, lead attorney for the Kleins and the former White House counsel for President George H.W. Bush, was not immediately available for comment. Gustafson had argued the bakers' religious beliefs should shield them from being compelled to conduct speech -- in this case, baking a cake. Such a requirement would "offend the conscience and the constitution," Gustafson argued.The First Liberty Institute, a religious freedom law firm whose attorneys also represented the Kleins, said it is disappointed by Thursday's ruling. "The Oregon Court of Appeals decided that Aaron and Melissa Klein are not entitled to the Constitution's promises of religious liberty and free speech," said Kelly Shackelford, the institute's president.The Kleins paid the fine following Avakian's order and closed their baking business around the same time. Donors gave the bakers more than $500,000, money they say has been spent on legal fees. The $135,000 damage award belonging to the Bowman-Cryers has been locked in an escrow account pending appeals.The Kleins' case is one of several similar cases that has attracted significant media attention. Another, stemming from a Colorado ruling, was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month. The court justices are reportedly divided over whether a baker was justified in turning away a gay couple seeking a wedding cake because of their religious beliefs. That baker, like the Kleins, contends that creating and custom-decorating a cake is an act of artistic expression that deserves more free speech protections than the sales of other goods and services.
Republican leaders fired back Friday against Democrat Shelly Simonds' efforts to be declared the winner in a tied Newport News-area House of Delegates race, urging the recount court to reject Simonds' appeals for a new decision and asking state officials to proceed to a planned tiebreaker "as soon as possible."Lawyers for Republican Del. David E. Yancey are expected to file legal paperwork Friday arguing that the three-judge panel that oversaw the 94th District recount made no errors and there's no evidence to support Simonds' contention that the court should not have reviewed a disputed ballot late in the process and counted it for Yancey.Yancey's lawyers also sent a letter to the State Board of Elections asking for the postponed tiebreaker to be held no later than Jan. 9, one day before the General Assembly reconvenes in Richmond.
(TNS) - When hurricanes Harvey and Irma flooded more than a dozen Superfund sites this year in the Southeast and Puerto Rico, residents in the Philadelphia area might have wondered: Could that happen here?It already has. Earl Wilson, a retired Philly school teacher, recalled when flood waters from Hurricane Floyd in 1999 rushed waist-high, through his Eastwick neighborhood and into homes where Lower Darby and Cobbs creeks meet, near Philadelphia International Airport. But it would be three more years until the two neighboring landfills were declared a Superfund site, a federal Environmental Protection Agency designation that alerts everyone to serious contamination that needs urgent cleanup.In 1999, no one was concerned about what was in that water, Wilson said recently, shaking his head.An Inquirer analysis of EPA documents shows that 14 Superfund sites in Philadelphia, its suburbs and South Jersey are within flood zones or areas susceptible to rising seas connected with climate change. Three of those sites were cleaned or capped, and then removed from a national cleanup priority list. All are near creeks, streams or the Delaware River, a major source of drinking water. Many are in low-income, minority areas.Though each Superfund site on the priorities list gets a score for the threat it poses to public health, flood risk is not part of that calculation. The Trump administration has downplayed the previous administrations emphasis on climate change. So although EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has said the agency would focus on Superfund sites, its no longer talking much about how climate change could spread their toxins. A recent EPA task force report did not even mention threats to Superfund sites from stronger storms or rising seas. In addition, the Trump administrations 2018 spending proposal seeks to slash Superfund program funding by nearly one-third.The Lower Darby Creek area in Eastwick and Folcroft in neighboring Delaware County, where the Folcroft and Clearview landfills, operated into the 1970s. Clearview, literally at the edge of backyards, spans 50 acres and rises 100 feet like a beginner ski hill. It is now being cleaned and capped. Contaminated soil is being excavated from homeowners yards and replaced with clean soil. The EPA has found polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), compounds associated with increased cancer risk.The BoRit Asbestos site, a six-acre, 25-foot-high tomb for deadly asbestos, just off Wissahickon and Prophecy creeks, borders Ambler Borough and Whitpain and Upper Dublin Townships in Montgomery County. It has been capped and is undergoing sampling.The 30-acre Bridgeport Rental & Oil Services site, once a waste oil storage facility that sent 2.5 million gallons of PCB-contaminated oil into a lagoon, is just off Little Timber Creek, Cedar Swamp and the Delaware River in Logan Township, Gloucester County. Even after decades of remediation, its still on the priorities list.The Martin Aaron site in Camden, contaminated with chlorinated biphenyls and other compounds, partly from illegal discharges, borders the Delaware River. The EPA is designing a plan to remove contaminated soils and groundwater.The EPA, under the Obama administration, studied the risks of Superfund sites subject to climate change using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A recent Associated Press review of the data found that 2 million Americans live within a mile of one of the 327 vulnerable Superfund sites.The Inquirer used APs report, along with additional census data, to compile a local list. About 72,000 people in the Philadelphia region live within a mile of Superfund sites that are either within current flood zones or susceptible to sea level rise. About 64 percent of the residents are minorities, primarily black or Hispanic.Marilyn Howarth, a physician and director of University of Pennsylvanias Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology, said that a big storm like Floyd or Sandy that swamps an area would be risky even at Superfund sites that have been cleaned up, since some contaminated soils are still present at lined and capped sites.There needs to be a greater sense of emergency preparedness on behalf of the EPA and the planning process, Howarth said. Specifically, she said, the nations Superfund sites should be ranked according to which pose the most danger if they are flooded, so that its clear which to inspect first for contaminant leaks after a storm.There are hundreds of superfund sites, she says. Theres no way anyone has the manpower to check them all in one week.EPA plans only for whats known as a 100-year flood, meaning such an event has a one percent chance of occurring each year. Hurricane Floyd was so severe it is considered a 500-year flood. Scientists expect such catastrophes to become more common because of climate change.Roy Seneca, a spokesman for EPA Region 3, which includes Pennsylvania, said cleanup plans do consider Federal Emergency Management Agency flood maps, and sites in FEMA flood zones qualify for more stringent construction requirements.Asked about the EPAs cleanup plan for the Eastwick site, Seneca said in an email that testing there has indicated that flood events are not a primary mechanism for transporting contaminants related to the Clearview Landfill.But floods have affected local EPA actions. The area around the BoRit Superfund site was flooded during both Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee in 2011 as the site was being capped, spurring the agency to enhance the capping plan. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry acknowledges flooding has affected the BoRit site in recent years, but concludes it is not likely to cause harmful effects on persons engaging in normal activities such as walking along nearby trails.Many of the residents who see the impact of rising waters are the least financially able to move to a safer place.The Martin Aaron Superfund site in South Camden hosted heavy industry back to the 19th century. The air around it still stings of solvents. Soil and groundwater contain a toxic brew including PCBs and pesticides, testing found. Workers recently began removing contaminated soil and water.During Superstorm Sandy in 2012, foul-smelling water filled the streets of the adjacent neighborhood, flooding many basements, long-time residents said. More than 17,000 people live within a mile of the Martin Aaron site, virtually all of them lower-income African Americans and Latinos.On a recent day, Mark Skinner and his niece Cherise pushed her one-year-old sons stroller in front of her rented rowhouse around the corner from the industrial site. Skinner, 53, shrugged when asked about the ongoing cleanup work.Its really contaminated, theres a lot of stuff in the ground, but I dont know what all it is, said Skinner, who works at a nearby scrap metal yard and also lives in the shadow of the former industrial site.The Associated Press contributed to this report.2017 Philly.comVisit Philly.com at www.philly.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
281217UNPAID MONIES WILL BE PAID IN THE NEW YEAR

By Aloysius Laukai



The Minister for Finance and Treasury, ROBIN WILSON said that ABG Members who did not get their Constituency Support Grants and Development grants will still be paid in the new year.

He said that due to the Christmas and New Year festivities and the instructions by the Ombudsman Commission for the members to create Constituency accounts it was not possible to pay all members in time.

The Minister made these remarks when replying to questions raised by the member for TEUA MR. KAKAPETAI who wanted to know if members who have missed out on their payments will still be paid later.

Minister WILSON said that all monies entitled to members will be fully paid when the accounts open next year.

He said those members who had previously opened Constituency development grants accounts were paid in full.

New Dawn FM understands that the Ombudsman Commission was concerned at the members depositing constituency development grants into their private accounts which were against the Public Finance Management act.



Ends


(TNS)  WASHINGTON  When John Muir helped establish the National Park Service, he argued that such parks were vital to help people unplug from the world. Break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods, Muir was quoted as saying in 1915.But these days at Yosemite National Park, hikers to Half Dome are likely to encounter people talking on cellphones as they climb to the top. For visitors to the parks, the call of the outdoors increasingly comes with crisp 4G service, and not everyone is wild about that.In Yosemite, Yellowstone, Mount Rainier and other iconic parks, environmentalists are pressing the National Park Service to slow or halt construction of new cellular towers within park boundaries. They say the NPS is quietly facilitating a digital transformation with little public input or regard to its mission statement  to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System.Richard Louv, author of several books on connecting young people with the outdoors, said the parks are losing what once made them unique.Can you imagine hiking in Yosemite far from other people, and then suddenly it sounds like you are in McDonalds, with everyone on their phones? said Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods and other books. That is not why most people go to our national parks.Yet advocates for increased cell service, including many NPS officials, say the parks cant cling to an earlier era. Expanded cellular and broadband coverage, they argue, helps rescue teams respond to emergencies and are necessary to draw a new generation to the parks.Visitors want to be able to use their mobile devices to share experiences with their friends and family, said Lena McDowall, an NPS deputy director, in testimony to a U.S. Senate subcommittee in September. They want to take advantage of the many internet-based resources we have developed.Locked in competition, Verizon, AT&T and other telecom companies are aggressively courting the most popular national parks, and under the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, the parks are obligated to at least review proposals for new cellular towers. Yet because the National Park Service is highly decentralized, NPS headquarters does not track construction of cellular towers in parks nationwide. Nor has it developed a national policy to guide parks superintendents in reviewing such proposals.Yosemite has one park that has come under scrutiny for its expansion of cell service. In October, using public records request, the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility found that Yosemite has quietly approved six cellular towers in the park.PEER, which has asked the Interior Departments Inspector General to investigate, said that Yosemite is in violation of both federal laws and agency policies by approving the towers without public notice or environmental review. The group also unearthed emails that suggest that Yosemite officials are uncertain about ownership of five of the towers and how revenues should be handled when telecom companies co-locate on the towers.In an email, Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman said he was aware of PEERs complaint, but could not immediately comment. Jeffrey Olson, a spokesman for NPS headquarters in Washington, also declined to discuss the Yosemite case, other than to note that decisions about cell towers and coverage are up the (park) superintendents.Juggling public demands has always been difficult in the national parks, especially those that draw big crowds and include large expanses of designated wilderness. In 2016, the NPS reported a record 331 million visits to the parks, many of which suffer from overcrowding in the summer.For the last year, Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state has been weighing whether to allow three telecom companies to co-locate a cellular facility at the parks Paradise visitor center.Public opinion appears divided on the plan, which would extend cell service to some, but not all, of the mountain. Of those who commented on the proposal, 249 were supportive and 241 were opposed.In North Dakota, wilderness advocates strongly opposed Verizons plan to build a new cell tower at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, fearing it would blanket the backcountry with cell signals. NPS officials ultimately decided to design the new cell tower so it would not extend service into the parks designated wilderness.Heidi Flato, a spokeswoman with Verizon, said the company is aware that some wilderness advocates have concerns with expanded cell coverage. Weve always sought to work with the National Park Service to find the right balance, said Flato, noting that a major complaint of park visitors is being unable to get a signal.Over the last decade, PEER has emerged as the fiercest opponent of telecom expansion in Yosemite, Yellowstone and other national parks. The nonprofit group is led by lawyer Jeff Ruch, who keeps a close eye on the special use permits the national parks issues for new services and concessions.Under National Park Service guidelines, such special uses are encouraged if they enhance park resources or improve public safety. But such uses should be rejected, the NPS says, if they unreasonably disrupt the atmosphere of peace and tranquility of wilderness.Ruch argues the park service rarely grapples with these tradeoffs when it is approached by cellular providers. A telecom company will come to a park and say, Nice mountain. We want to put a cell tower on it. And the park usually says yes.U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a Democrat who represents the north coast of California, said he doesnt support physical construction of cell towers in wilderness areas. But he sees no problem with telecom companies improving signal strength near visitor centers, park entrances and even into the back country.Huffman has introduced legislation, The Public Lands Telecommunications Act, that would allow parks and federal land agencies to keep the rental income they receive from granting right-of-way to cellular towers. They then could use that money to partner with nearby rural communities on improving their cellular and broadband service.PEER opposes the legislation, arguing it would create incentives for more construction of cell towers on public lands. But Huffman said that districts like his, with remote communities scattered amid a patchwork of federal lands, need help in improving communications, partly for public safety reasons.This shouldnt be an issue, said Huffman. If you want to avoid distractions in the wilderness, you can just turn off your phone. But you might also want to be able to turn on that phone and make a call if you broke your arm and needed help.First responders and other safety officials agree that enhanced cell service helps in many outdoor rescues. But the issue is complicated, said Derek Newbern, a spokesman for King County Explorer Search and Rescue in Washington state.Telecom companies, he said, can only go so far in expanding cell coverage to wilderness areas, because of lack of roads and electrical transmission lines. And yet when many people go into the back country, they often assume they will continue to have a cell signal, creating a false sense of security.In August, hundreds of rescuers spent days trying to locate a lost hiker at Mount Teneriffe, a 4,787-foot-high mountain east of Seattle. The hiker initially had cell service, then lost it and wandered before a search helicopter rescued her four days later.Newbern said he advises adventurers to carry personal locator beacons or a more recent innovation, satellite messengers, in case they get in trouble.People will go into the backcountry and think the cellphone will be their savior, said Newbern. Sometimes it doesnt turn out that way.
Minnesotas top tech official, a longtime government IT architect and transformation advocate, will retire after more than three decades of service, news organizations in the state and around the U.S. reported on Dec. 28.State Chief Information Officer Tom Baden was elevated to his current position in January 2015 by Gov. Mark Dayton.On Dec. 28, the CIO told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in a statement that hes retiring to recover from unforeseen complications stemming from some health issues, the newspaper reported.In the coming days, Gov. Dayton will begin an active search for a new state CIO, Baden said in the statement. It has been the honor of a lifetime leading Minnesota Information Technology Services (MNIT) and watching us grow as an organization.Badens last day will be Feb. 2, according to the Twin Cities Pioneer Press Gov. Dayton indicated his appreciation for the CIO's service to the people of Minnesota."I thank Commissioner Tom Baden for his 36 years of public service to the people of Minnesota and I wish him well in his retirement, " Dayton said in a statement.Hed previously served as CIO of Minnesotas Department of Human Services. Earlier in his now 36-year career, hed been engaged as the states chief enterprise architect; as enterprise architect for the Department of Employment and Economic Development; and as a business analyst, systems engineer and even a coder.Baden took the reins from outgoing CIO Carolyn Parnell, of an organization already in the throes of a transformational change that began in 2011, when state legislators approved plans to consolidate technology systems and IT staffers into the central MNIT Services.And the state government veteran, who reportedly oversees about 2,200 employees, wasted no time indicating that hed continue shepherding that consolidation. In an interview withjust months after assuming that top spot, Baden said MNIT would devote new energy to networking with state agencies to resolve issues.Its not so much a culture shift as it is a purposeful, intentional approach to working with our partners and being very focused on delivering solutions, Baden said in August 2015 But as he indicated in January , the process of transforming government technology is not always swift.I came into it with an altruistic idea of creating a fully integrated intelligent innovation platform for government, including integrating government across jurisdictions, Baden said at the time.We want to use big data and analytics to become more effective in the services we provide as a state government. But I was kind of caught by surprise. We were not quite ready to dive into that yet, he added.Attempts to reach a representative from MNIT were unsuccessful late Dec. 28.
New Features

Mandatory Use

Long before the current opioid epidemic, most states developed drug-tracking systems to allow physicians and pharmacists to check patients prescription drug use, including opioid painkillers, to determine whether they may be receiving too many pills, at too high a dose or in dangerous combination with other medications such as sedatives and muscle relaxants. But few prescribers took advantage of the systems.Now, faced with a drug overdose epidemic that killed more than 63,000 people in 2016 , at least 39 states are insisting that health professionals use the systems, known as prescription drug-monitoring programs, or PDMPs, to analyze each patients prescription drug use before writing another prescription for highly addictive drugs such as Percocet, Vicodin and OxyContin. In Missouri, the only state without a monitoring program, St. Louis County adopted a local drug-tracking system and made its use by physicians mandatory. We saw a big nationwide push this year to make prescription drug-monitoring programs mandatory, more comprehensive and effective, and easier to use, said Chad Zadrazil, a legislative attorney with the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws, a federally funded drug policy organization based in Iowa. He said some states also are expanding access to the databases to assist in public health initiatives.In the past, drug databases were used primarily by police to track down so-called pill mills, where doctors indiscriminately prescribe opioid medications for cash. And most pharmacists consulted them before filling a prescription. But few doctors took the time to review the databases before prescribing highly addictive opioids.Until states began requiring physicians to use prescription drug-monitoring programs, fewer than 35 percent of medical professionals used the tracking systems to identify patients who may be at risk for addiction and overdose, Zadrazil said. Now, in states that require doctors to consult PDMPs, he said, physician usage rates exceed 90 percent.Overall opioid prescribing has declined in those states as well, as have drug-related hospitalizations and overdose deaths. States also are seeing a rise in addiction treatment as more doctors refer patients to treatment after discovering they are taking painkillers from multiple sources and are likely addicted, according to an analysis from Brandeis Universitys Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Training and Technical Assistance Center.In addition to requiring doctors and other prescribers to use the tracking systems before prescribing potentially addictive and deadly drugs, Wisconsin, Utah and a few other states are adding information to prescription drug-monitoring programs  including overdose rescues, hospitalizations for drug-related conditions and drug-related arrests  that can help physicians determine when to curtail a patients drug use.And for doctors who see a need for addiction treatment, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin include referral information about treatment services.Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and a handful of other states are revamping their drug-monitoring programs to make them compatible with electronic health record software systems commonly used by physicians and pharmacists, Zadrazil said. And nearly all states have started allowing busy doctors to appoint a delegate who can access the sensitive information and download patients drug history into their medical records prior to their appointment.At least 47 states have started adding drug-monitoring data from one or more nearby states so physicians can see whether patients are receiving medications from prescribers in other states More than half of all states have added a physician assessment function to their PDMPs so doctors, nurses and other prescribers can see how their prescribing practices compare with others in their state, and whether and how often they are exceeding Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and state-imposed dosage and quantity limits. Washington state and Wisconsin send those report cards to doctors supervisors and medical directors.A growing number of states also send unsolicited alerts to doctors, pharmacists and law enforcement when a patient starts receiving dangerously high doses of prescription opioids, has been taking opioids for longer than recommended, or is taking opioids in combination with other drugs such as sedatives or muscle relaxers that could cause dangerous interactions.In a handful of states, new laws give public health departments access to some information on patients who receive opioids to help identify geographical hot spots where residents are receiving large quantities of opioids and other controlled substances and to analyze relationships between prescription drug use and overdose deaths.In addition, 30 states make drug-monitoring data available to coroners, toxicologists and medical examiners to help determine which drugs may have been involved in an apparent overdose death.In 2010, Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana, Nevada and Oklahoma were the first states to require doctors and other prescribers to search patients drug histories before prescribing opioid painkillers, sedatives or other potentially harmful and addictive drugs. By December 2016, at least 31 states were requiring prescriber use of PDMPs.This year, eight more states  Alabama, Alaska, California, Florida, Michigan, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin  implemented policies requiring doctors to not only log in to the states prescription drug-tracking system before prescribing a controlled substance, but also to analyze each patients history of drug use, and if necessary, limit prescription renewals for opioids and other potentially addictive or dangerous medications, according to the Brandeis center.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Bureau of Justice Assistance are encouraging all states to require PDMP use. The same agencies are also providing grants to help states upgrade prescription drug-monitoring programs to make them more effective at identifying patients who may be at risk of addiction, overdose and illicit sales of controlled substances.Although the American Medical Association supports physician use of drug-tracking systems to identify potential addiction and drug diversion to the black market, some state medical societies have argued against mandatory rules they say interfere with the practice of medicine. Patients privacy and legitimate pain needs, they argue, could be jeopardized by requiring busy physicians to investigate potential patient abuse of pain medications.Despite these objections from some in the medical profession, more states are imposing the requirements. Comprehensive mandates are incredibly important and valuable, said Pat Knue, director of the Brandeis prescription drug center. But it would be better if practitioners used the prescription-monitoring systems voluntarily.
All 50 states, along with two territories and Washington, D.C., have decided to join FirstNet, the dedicated, nationwide first responder network, by its Dec. 28 deadline.The unofficial member list now reflects all states opting in, as well as the territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, both of which are still working to restore infrastructure battered by hurricanes this fall. Decisions from the territories of American Samoa, Guam and Northern Marianas Islands are not due until March 12, 2018, AT&T said in a news release.That includes the state of New Hampshire, which previously indicated on Dec. 7 that it would opt out and work with Rivada Networks LLC to stand up its own statewide network for first responders. California had remained undecided until Gov. Jerry Brown finalized a decision late Dec. 28.In a statement on Dec. 28 , New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu indicated that after his state's decision to opt out, talks with other governors around the country who were themselves interested in pursuing independent networks revealed the deadline was approaching too quickly for these other states to feel confident in an opt-out decision.As a result, it now appears likely that no other states will opt out, Sununu said. While Rivada's plan remains the better option for New Hampshire, I have determined that the additional risk associated with being the only state to opt-out creates too high a barrier for New Hampshire to continue down the opt-out path alone.The governor said opting in now will preserve a pledge from service provider AT&T to build 48 new tower sites across New Hampshire, leading to "a top-quality public safety network for our first responders and enhanced coverage for all of our citizens."The Dec. 28 deadline reflects the end of a 90-day period during which states were asked to decide whether they would participate or opt out. Opting in or doing nothing essentially implements the FirstNet/AT&T build-out plans submitted to each state earlier this year.Users of FirstNets existing network already have access to priority communication, and the company added the ability to pre-empt non-emergency users during the week of Dec. 11. FirstNet SIM cards, which connect users cellphones to the network, are also available, and the FirstNet applications store opened on Oct. 1.FirstNet plans to complete its core network in March 2018 across 56 states and territories, with a complete infrastructure build-out envisioned around 2020.In an announcement from the office of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, New York state said its final, accepted plan created with FirstNet and service provider AT&T addresses New Yorks unique communication needs, including expanding coverage in rural and urban areas, while improving interoperability with border states and Canada and shrinking the cost of services and devices.Joining FirstNet comes at no cost to states, and individual public safety agencies and first responders arent required to join, even within member states. Those that do, however, are expected to face some service and device costs.The New York governors office also cited the networks ability to transform communication between public safety agencies, creating an evolving tool set that includes public safety apps, specialized devices and Internet of Things technologies, as well as driving infrastructure investments and [creating] jobs across the state.The entire state, from the Great Lakes to the most remote areas of the Adirondacks to New York City, must have seamless communication for our public safety community so that they can get more information quickly, make better informed decisions and save lives, Cuomo said in a statement.FirstNet CEO Mike Poth said New Yorks decision was especially meaningful considering the networks origins in the final recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. FirstNet was ultimately created by Congress in 2012 as part of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, and its service is provided by AT&T under a 25-year contract.From giving public safety in New York City dedicated spectrum to bringing a reliable, high-speed wireless connection to rural and remote areas of the state, FirstNet will improve connectivity and foster innovation for law enforcement, fire and EMS, Poth said in a statement.In a letter to Poth, Florida Gov. Rick Scott made the case for his state joining FirstNet simply.I believe this is in the best interest for Florida taxpayers, Scott wrote.In the Pacific Northwest, a Washington official said the state regularly joins its southern neighbor, Oregon, in battling such natural disasters as wildfires  so the two states collaborated on a decision announced Dec. 26 , to join FirstNet.The pair issued an RFP in mid-October, with responses due the following month, aimed at understanding the risks to opting in or out, said Sheri Sawyer, senior policy adviser for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.In Washington and Oregon, as in Colorado, an AT&T commitment to additional tower investments proved key.Having that regional approach to these crises is whats going to save lives, Sawyer said in an interview. They offered more sites and they offered more deployables, which are cells [sites] on wheels. In a disaster event they can be deployed within hours where existing towers may have failed."Whether were responding to wildfires in eastern Washington or floods in western Washington, our first responders must have a reliable communications network and this process was about ensuring we get them the best service possible, Inslee said in a statement.Other states that issued their own RFPs included Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi and Rhode Island. Common issues included the costs associated with opting out and needing to join later, as well as concerns about coverage and retaining local control.In a recent interview, a FirstNet spokesperson characterized potential reconstitution costs incurred by states opting out and failing to create networks, then needing to join FirstNet as "estimates of the very worst-case numbers," and said FirstNet has worked closely with all states and territories to help them make the most informed decisions of whether to opt in or out.Colorado issued a conditional award in November to a team that included U.S.-based Rivada and the Australian financial services provider Macquarie Group  a pact subsequently invalidated when it became the 40th state to join FirstNet.A key turning point was the commitment by AT&T to provide 35 more cell sites to enhance coverage, Denver Fire Chief Eric Tade, the FirstNet Colorado Governing Body chairman, toldrecently.Essentially theyre adding capacity where there was no capacity, Tade said. Which let us focus on addressing some well-known gaps in coverage as well as expanding coverage in rural Colorado.
291217ABG TO APPROVE AGRICULTURE COMMITIES TO BE EXPORTED FROM BOUGAINVILLE

By Aloysius Laukai



The Autonomous Bougainville hopes to collect more monies from the Agriculture sector in the new year once a bill to the Cabinet is approved for all Agriculture commodities to be exported out of Bougainville.

This was revealed by the Minister for Department of Primary Industry, NICHOLAS DARKU when answering questions raised by the ABG member for NISSAN, JERRY NAPTO who wanted to know when the ABG would pass the bill to allow all Bougainville Agriculture commodities to be exported out of Bougainville.

Minister DARKU said that a bill to parliament has been prepared and would be tabled to the March session of the ABG sitting for approval.

New Dawn FM understands that Bougainville needs a commodity board to regulate and collect export fees from exporters.

Currently these fees are collected by KIK for all Bougainville Copra exports and COCOA BOARD for all cocoa exported out of Rabaul and Lae.



Ends


Westport Fuel Systems Inc. signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding with Weichai Power Co., Ltd., setting the framework for finalizing the development, marketing, and commercialization of the Westport high pressure direct injection (Westport HPDI) technology ( earlier post ) in China.

Westport HPDI 2.0 delivers performance and fuel economy equivalent to that of current high performance diesel-fueled engines, but with diesel substitution of more than 90% by natural gas. This combination of high performance and high efficiency is critical for heavy-duty engines in demanding commercial applications.

The MOU states that Westport Fuel Systems will provide support for the Westport HPDI development activities to meet China VI emissions standards and will supply certain components.

The parties are expected to enter into a definitive agreement in early 2018.
Two kids lives changed forever when they met at Northwest High School in 2012.

I was just some kid trying to make his way through high school thinking nothing in my life was going to change until I went to college to become my own person, Robbie Crabtree recalls.

It was about to be senior year, and the end zone was in sight  a few measly months and we would all be in college, he says.

I wanted to follow my dreams of becoming a musician.

Life was planned out and looking good for Robbie.

That is, until Camille Bailey, the most beautiful girl he had ever laid his eyes on, showed up on the first day of senior year.

Robbie admits to stalking Camille on Facebook to learn more about her. They had a good rapport in class, so he asked her out.

She said no.

I told Robbie I wasnt looking for a relationship, Camille says. With college right around the corner, she didnt want to risk starting a long-distance relationship.

But Robbies tenacity paid off, and after a few weeks, Camille said yes. From then on, the two were inseparable. At the end of the year, Robbie set off for college in Virginia while Camille went to UNC-Greensboro. Both were nervous about the distance, but with phone calls, visits and the internet, they made it through four years of college.

Even with competing interests, with friends, school and work, we made time for each other, Robbie says.

Bumps in the road came along, like the summer that Robbie went to Hawaii to work with a friend. Another challenge came during Camilles junior year, when she needed to study abroad for six months to graduate with honors. There would be no visits and few opportunities to talk while she was in Spain. Neither was happy at the prospect of being separated for such long periods.

Determined, Robbie made a video to promote a GoFundMe page to pay for his plane ticket to Spain. He had decided to propose and he researched the Canary Islands off the Coast of Africa, where he found a beautiful beach on the southernmost portion of the island.

Robbie steered Camille toward the beach at Meso Palmas only to discover that it was a nude beach.

We finally made our way to an isolated portion of a sand dune, and I set up my camera, made my way over to her, slowly got down on one knee and asked the same girl that blew my mind in fifth-period photography class to spend the rest of her life with me, Robbie says.

Their wedding on Sept. 2 was all that they had hoped it would be, surrounded by friends and family. Afterward, they roared off in a 1969 orange Pontiac GTO. They honeymooned in Hawaii.

The Crabtrees have started their married life together in Alpharetta, Ga., where Robbie is working for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and Camille is setting up their new home.
291217CLIMATE CHANGE FUNDING SLOW

By Aloysius Laukai

The ABG member for Atolls and Vice President and Mining Minister, RAYMOND MASONO is calling on the Climate Change Development Authority to fast-tract funding sourced from the Asian Development Bank for the PNG Climate Change Resilience Project.

He said that the funds must be released quickly to the Autonomous Bougainville Government to complete climate Change adaptation program in some of the most affected communities in the Atolls.

The Vice President said whilst so much has been said about the Asian Development Funding, we are yet to see the funds actually reach those communities most affected by the menace of Climate Change.

MR. MASONO also announced that the MV DOY will deliver 2,240 Sheets of Roofing Iron to Wards 1-3 in the Tulun Community Government as part of the program to provide a decent shelter for our people.

He explained that the program which started in 2016 with the delivery of the first batch to wards 7-11 is aimed at improving the living conditions of the Atolls people by replacing Sago and Pandanus leaves with roofing iron.

The remaining wards 4-6 will be completed once more funding is secured.

After that the program will roll out to Motlock, Tasman and Nuguria.



Ends


MacGyver

8 p.m. (WFMY)

The Phoenix foundation disavows Mac (Lucas Til) and the team when theyre blamed for a terrorist bombing during Bozers (Justin Hires) first overseas mission. Using coconut oil and a ruler, the team members struggle to clear their names.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

8 p.m. (WXII)

Rollins (Kelli Giddish) and Carisi (Peter Scanavino) have trouble believing a rape victim due to the bizarre details of her assault in this rebroadcast. Meanwhile, Benson (Mariska Hargitay) gets defensive when her personal life is put under a microscope.

Shark Tank

8 p.m. (WXLV)

The Sharks have doubts about a business model in this rebroadcast. A graphic designer and a patent attorney from Olympia, Wash., have developed a high-tech way to make story time more magical for children.

Gold Rush

9 p.m. (DISCOVERY)

With hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake, the miners tackle the most disastrous breakdowns in Gold Rush history, but with time always in short supply, it takes some genius fixes to get the millions of dollars in gold delivered.
Like many 94-year-olds, Ray Ward feels blessed by the Mobile Meals Program.

But hes not a recipient. Im blessed to deliver Mobile Meals, he says.

Ward was 18 when World War II started.

We lived in Adams Farms, when it really was a farm  five of them to be exact, he said. After graduating from Sedgefield Elementary and Jamestown High School in 1941, I went to sheet-metal school in Tennessee, then to Baltimore, Md., to work for the Glenn L. Martin Company.

Martin was an aircraft manufacturer which later became Martin-Marietta and even later became Lockheed-Martin Corporation. The B-26 Marauder was one of their early contributions to the war effort.

The Baltimore rooming house I lived in did not have a good mail system.

By accident, I found out three draft notices had been sent to me  all three had been returned, marked unknown,  he said.

Realizing I might be in dire straits with the draft board, I came by train to Greensboro after work on a Friday, he says.

That night, he had a talk with his sweetheart, Iris Chilton, who graduated from Sumner High School one year after he graduated from Jamestown.

On Saturday morning, we caught a train to South Carolina and got married, he says. On Sunday, we went to Baltimore. I went in the Army Air Forces. She went to work with Martin and became one of the original Rosie the Riveters for the rest of the war.

Wards basic training was absolutely wonderful, he says. We were housed on the 11th floor of Miami Beachs Blackstone Hotel.

After basic training, Ward joined the 100th Bomb Group, with whom he would remain as a B-17 ground crewman until the war ended.

We jumped around all over the country, getting organized, equipped and trained for overseas duty, he says.

Thanks to a fortunate 90-day delay in route at Overseas Replacement Depot in Greensboro, I had the opportunity to see my wife and meet my newborn son, he says. After a troop-train ride to Boston, a troopship took us to England, where we began operations with the 8th Air Force, from Thorpe Abbots Air Field.

On June 25, 1943, the 100th Bomb Group flew its first combat mission against Bremen, Germany  three B-17s were shot down and 30 crewmen killed.

After the war, historians documented that the average life of a 1943 B-17 crew was 11 missions. Wards unit typically operated with fewer than 40 B-17s. Over 80 were shot down between August 1943 and Dec. 31, 1944.

According to 100th Bomb Group archives, The ground echelon of our group was cited frequently for excellent maintenance and preparatory activities. Perhaps that explains an after-hostilities joyride in a B-17: They flew us all over the place and buzzed the Eiffel Tower in Paris  our pilot caught some real flak for that, Ward says.

Ward spent 38 years with Norfolk Southern Railway after the war. That was the last job I was paid a salary for, he says.

For almost 40 years I have volunteered for over 75 disaster relief responses with UMCOR, the United Methodist Church on Relief. Ive worked 14 projects in Puerto Rico, eight in Mexico and others in Costa Rico and Alaska.

Remembering he still delivers mobile meals, I was about to thank him for such magnanimous service, but he interjected, Ive worked for Habitat for Humanity over the years, and I am the oldest and longest-serving volunteer of the Pinecroft-Sedgefield Volunteer Fire Department.

Ward has no regrets about being unsalaried for all these years.

Theres no way I could repay the Lord for all He has done for me, he said.

Iris Ward passed away in 2016 at the age of 92. She spent 35 years with Jefferson-Pilot. The Wards had been married 73 years and were longtime members of Hinshaw United Methodist Church. I interviewed Ward in the church offices  and wasnt the least bit surprised when he mentioned, I helped build this church.

The Wards have one son, one daughter, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. The Rev. Myra Ward-Brown is the daughter and best characterized her father, There are plaques with his name on them all over this church  he does about anything he sets out to do!
Dec. 29, 1890

The U.S. cavalry killed 146 Sioux they were sent to disarm at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. A shrine was constructed on the site of the massacre, and a demonstration in 1973 by the American Indian Movement ended with two AIM members killed and one federal marshal seriously wounded. History.com recounts: On Dec. 15, 1890, reservation police tried to arrest Sitting Bull ... and killed him in the process. ... On Dec. 29, the U.S. Armys 7th cavalry surrounded a band of the tribe ... a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier, and a shot was fired, although its unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which its estimated almost 150 Indians were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men.
A Danville man accused of removing a firearm from the scene of a reported suicide saw his charges certified to a grand jury Wednesday.

Wayne Lamont McCullor, 40, stood before Judge Robert Adams in Danville General District Court during a preliminary hearing for charges of obstruction and possession of a firearm after being convicted of a felony.

Its now up to a grand jury, which next meets Wednesday, to decide whether there is enough evidence in the case to warrant a trial by judge or jury.

It was on Nov. 2 that McCullor told the Register & Bee he was mowing the grass at the Travel Inn at 3500 W. Main St. when he spotted a body behind one of the motel buildings.

I saw the body, McCullor said from the scene. I took off.

Police report ruling the death a suicide after talking with witnesses and family. The deceased, whose name is being withheld by the Register & Bee, had what appeared to be a gunshot wound, police initially reported.

The firearm was unable to be located, Danville Police Department Detective J.M. Epps testified Wednesday.

McCullor told police that he had heard gunshots and said he saw the body, Epps testified, but said nothing about the firearm.

The detective went on to testify that McCullor said he took the weapon to his grandmothers house in Yanceyville, North Carolina.

Epps testified that he went to McCullors grandmothers house and recovered the weapon on Nov. 6.

Public Defender Brendette Walker said McCullor has been meeting with his probation officer and is employed.

Adams also revoked McCullors bond and ordered that he be kept in jail because he tested positive for narcotics use  one condition of his was to be tested for illegal drug use.

Commonwealth Attorney Michael Newman requested that the felony firearm charge and misdemeanor obstruction charge be certified together to the grand jury and tried as one case. Adams granted the request.
A former assistant district attorney who worked in Wilkes and Yadkin counties has been banned from Wake Forest University, where he was accused of using a handheld mirror to look at a female student in April.

The ban is part of a deferred-prosecution program that Brooke M. Webster, 43, of Surrey Path Court in Winston-Salem, entered on Nov. 22 in Forsyth District Court. Webster was charged with one count of misdemeanor secret peeping in connection with the April 20 incident in the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at the university.

Entering the deferred-prosecution program means that Webster admits guilt but essentially will be on probation for two years. During that time, he has to comply with a number of conditions, one of which is staying off WFUs campus.

If he complies with the conditions, Forsyth County prosecutors will voluntarily dismiss the charge. The agreement lasts until Nov. 21, 2019.

If he doesnt, prosecutors will proceed with the case, using his admission of guilt to obtain a conviction on the secret-peeping charge. Because he doesnt have any prior convictions, Webster would not face any active jail time if convicted. He could face possible supervised or unsupervised probation and a fine, among other things.

Webster is not only banned from Wake Forest University but also from areas on any college campus where large numbers of students are present, including libraries.

He also must be accompanied by an adult at all times if he attends a college sporting event, and he is banned from public libraries.

The deferred-prosecution program requires him to submit progress reports from his treating psychologist, Richard Cook, on May 1, 2018; Nov. 1, 2018; and May 1, 2019.

Webster also must make a $750 donation to Family Services, and he also must comply with any requirements from the N.C. State Bar Lawyer Assistance Program and not commit any new offenses. He still has an active law license in North Carolina.

The deferred-prosecution program is designed for defendants who do not have any previous convictions for misdemeanor crimes and certain felonies.

Prosecutors typically consult with the victims before agreeing to allow a defendant to enter a deferred-prosecution program. Forsyth County Assistant District Attorney Lizmar Bosques handled the case.

On April 20, WFU police were called to the Reynolds library. According to an arrest warrant, Webster is alleged to have put a handheld mirror under a desk to look at a female WFU student.

University police escorted Webster from campus and issued him a trespass warning, which meant that Webster would be arrested if he came back onto campus. A Forsyth County magistrate issued a criminal summons against Webster on the peeping allegation.

WFU police also increased campus patrols and monitored suspicious individuals.

Webster resigned his position as an assistant district attorney in Wilkes and Yadkin counties on April 24, according to a statement from Tom Horner, the district attorney for Wilkes, Alleghany, Ashe and Yadkin counties. Webster had worked in the office since 2006 and was handling felony cases in Superior Court when he quit.

David Freedman, Websters attorney, said Thursday that Webster entered the N.C. State Bar Lawyers Assistance Program soon after he was arrested and has been receiving counseling.

We are very appreciative to the prosecuting witness to allow us to enter into this program, and Brooke has taken a number of steps to ensure (there are) no such incidents in the future, Freedman said.
Federal prosecutors have requested records related to a $285 million loan that Deutsche Bank gave Jared Kushner's family real estate company one month before Election Day, the company confirmed this week.

The records were sought by prosecutors in Brooklyn and do not appear related to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

A Kushner Cos. spokesperson said that the firm is cooperating in the review of what it called a "routine" transaction.

The Washington Post reported details of the loan in June. Under the deal, Kushner Cos., which in 2015 had purchased four mostly empty retail floors of the former New York Times headquarters in Manhattan, entered into an October 2016 refinancing agreement with Deutsche Bank. The loan was part of a refinancing deal that gave Kushner's firm $74 million more than it had paid for the property.

The loan was secured while Kushner was both the head of the company and playing a leading role in running the presidential campaign of his father-in-law, Donald Trump.

The refinancing was personally guaranteed under certain circumstances by Kushner and his brother, Joshua. The loan was not listed on Kushner's financial disclosure report because he did not have "a present obligation to repay the loan," his lawyers have said.

Christine Taylor, a Kushner Cos. spokesperson, said in a statement that the request from the U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of New York appears to have been made in response to news coverage.

"Kushner Companies, in its long history, has participated in hundreds of loan transactions with an outstanding track record of success," Taylor said. "We have always taken pride in the principled way we conduct our business and our trusted relationships with all our lending partners, including Deutsche Bank. We do not understand why anyone would look at this fairly routine transaction other than as a reaction to what appears to be politically motivated media coverage. Nonetheless, we have cooperated with inquiries."

Taylor did not specify the news stories to which she referred.

An attorney for Kushner and a spokesperson for Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that prosecutors requested contracts and other information about the loan by issuing a document request in mid-November. Separately, the New York Times reported that the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn had subpoenaed Deutsche Bank records associated with Kushner Cos.

Kushner Cos. said it had no knowledge of a subpoena delivered to Deutsche Bank.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn said he could neither confirm or deny any subpoena or records request.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have been probing Deutsche Bank, issuing a news release in September about charges brought against the financial institution in an unrelated case.

The bank has been repeatedly fined in recent years by a variety of enforcement agencies, including a $7.2 billion U.S. penalty in December 2016 for mortgage fraud and a $425 million New York state fine in January 2017 related to a money laundering case.

It is not clear what prosecutors are seeking to find out about the Kushner Cos. loan. Deutsche Bank is one of the biggest lenders to both Kushner Cos. and the Trump Organization, which had about $364 million in debt to the bank as of last year.

Kushner Cos. previously has confirmed that federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York subpoenaed records related to its use of a visa program called EB-5, in which foreign investors who put $500,000 in a real estate project can be put on a track for U.S. citizenship.

Kushner has not been accused of wrongdoing in any of the cases.

The investigation by the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn is separate from the work of Mueller's team, which is scrutinizing contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign. The Post has reported that Mueller's investigation has included an examination of Kushner's business dealings.

Among the interactions that Mueller's investigators have sought to learn more about was a December 2016 meeting that Kushner held with Sergey Gorkov, the head of a state-owned Russian development bank.

The White House has said the meeting was a typical diplomatic session, while a bank official has said it was related to Kushner's business.

Much of the focus on Kushner's real estate company has been on its 2007 purchase of the 666 Fifth Avenue office building in Manhattan for $1.8 billion, which at the time was the most ever paid for such a building in the United States.

The value of the property plummeted in the wake of the Great Recession, and the company has been searching for financing to redevelop it. Kushner Cos. faces a $1.2 billion debt that comes due in early 2019, and it is not clear whether it can maintain ownership of the property, which it co-owns with another company.

By contrast, Kushner's purchase of the former New York Times headquarters was quickly profitable. His company bought the retail portion of the building in 2015 for $296 million from a company called Africa-Israel Investments, whose chairman is Lev Leviev, one of the world's wealthiest men.

Leviev told the New York Times shortly buying the property that he was a "true friend" of Russian President Vladimir Putin and he kept a photo of Putin in his office. A Leviev spokesperson told the Post earlier this year that Leviev does not have a "personal relationship" with Putin and has met him only a few times.

Kushner's company increased retail leasing in the space from 25 percent to nearly 100 percent and obtained higher rents. A year after its purchase, the property was reappraised for $470 million, a 59 percent increase.

That enabled Kushner Cos. to refinance the property for $370 million, including $285 million from Deutsche Bank, giving the company $74 million more than it had paid.

While Kushner gave up control of his company and divested some properties when he became Trump's senior White House adviser, he retained an interest in 90 percent of his real estate properties, including the former New York Times building, according to his financial disclosure report.

Separately, Kushner and his mother have a personal line of credit with Deutsche Bank worth up to $25 million, according to his financial disclosure report.

The Post's Devlin Barrett, Tom Hamburger, Carol D. Leonnig and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
As we approach the end of President Donald Trumps first year in office, the list of extraordinary things he has done  for both good and ill  is nothing short of remarkable. Trump inspires such deep emotions in his critics and supporters that many have struggled to objectively assess his presidency.

Some are so blinded by their hatred of Trump that they refuse to acknowledge the good he has done, while others are so blinded by devotion that they overlook almost any transgression.

In my columns, Ive tried to give Trump the credit he deserves when he does the right thing, while calling him out when he does the wrong thing.

So, here is my list of the 10 best things Trump has done in his first 11 months. (In a subsequent column, I will give you my list of the 10 worst.)

10. He enforced President Barack Obamas red line against Syrias use of chemical weapons. When the regime of Bashar Assad used a toxic nerve agent on innocent men, women and children, Trump didnt wring his hands. He acted quickly and decisively, restoring Americas credibility on the world stage that Obama had squandered.

9. He has taken a surprisingly tough line with Russia. Trump approved a $47 million arms package for Ukraine, sent troops to Polands border with Russia and imposed new sanctions on Moscow for violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

8. He recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital. Four American presidents promised to do it, but only one actually did. This is why the American people elected Trump. He does what he promises to do, for better or for worse  in this case, definitely for the better. Even Jeb Bush tweeted his approval.

7. He withdrew from the Paris climate agreement. After George W. Bush pulled out of the disastrous Kyoto treaty, U.S. emissions went down faster than much of Europe. The same will be true for Trumps departure from the Paris accord.

Combined with his approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, and opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to exploration, Trump is helping usher in a new age of U.S. energy development.

6. He got NATO allies to kick in $12 billion more toward our collective security. Decades of pleading by the Bush and Obama administrations failed to get NATO allies to meet their financial commitments, but Trumps tough talk and reticence to affirm Americas Article V commitment did the trick. NATO is stronger as a result.

5. He has virtually eliminated the Islamic States physical caliphate. Trump removed the constraints Obama placed on our military and let it drive the terrorists from their strongholds.

4. He admitted he was wrong on Afghanistan and reversed Obamas disastrous withdrawal. In a rare admission, Trump said: My original instinct was to pull out . . . But all my life, Ive heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office. . . . A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum for terrorists.

3. He enacted historic tax and regulatory reform that has unleashed economic growth. Trump signed the first comprehensive tax reform in three decades and removed the wet blanket of Obama-era regulations smothering our economy.

We are now heading into our third consecutive quarter of above 3 percent growth.

2. He is installing conservative judges who will preside for decades. With his appointment of Neil M. Gorsuch, Trump secured a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and he is moving at record pace to fill the federal appeals courts with young conservative judges.

1. He, not Hillary Clinton, was inaugurated as president. Trump delivered the coup de grace that ended the corrupt Clinton political machine.

There are many other significant achievements that did not make the top 10. Trump has taken a clear, strong stand against the narco-dictatorship in Venezuela, and he renamed the Asia-Pacific the Indo-Pacific to include India in the larger task of preventing Chinese hegemony in Asia.

Trump has made clear that he is willing to use force to stop North Korea from deploying nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of destroying U.S. cities  which has prompted China to finally put real pressure on Pyongyang. Well see if it works.

The record of achievement suggests that, despite the noxious tweets and self-inflicted wounds emanating from the White House, Trump has the potential to become one of the most consequential conservative presidents in modern American history.

The question is: Does all this good outweigh the bad? Well review the 10 worst things Trump has done in a forthcoming column.
Tis the season to be generous.

If youve been thinking about giving a sizable donation to a charity, or maybe donations to several good causes, its to your advantage to make those gifts before the end of the year.

Thats because the changes in the tax code that take effect in January will make it less likely that you can deduct charitable donations in the future.

Its not that the tax bill Congress just passed does away with deductions for gifts to charity. Rather, the doubling of the standard deduction  to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples  means that far fewer people will find it advantageous to itemize. And if they dont itemize, they dont get the deduction for charitable donations.

Estimates are that only about 5 percent of people will itemize their taxes under the new rules, as compared to about a third of people now.

So it makes sense, if youre contemplating helping any charitable groups in the near future, to give all that you can afford now, while you can be rewarded for your generosity with a break on your 2017 tax bill.

Dont give unthinkingly, however. Not all charitable donations are equally worthwhile. And some may not even be deductible. If youre going to donate, donate wisely.

Many people give to organizations they know well  churches, schools and colleges, United Way and other community groups, childrens hospitals, public TV and radio, food banks, volunteer fire departments, groups that help children, battered women, the homeless and veterans, to name a few.

The Salvation Army in Greensboro is struggling to meet its year-end goal, and could use a hand.

Many of us also like to donate to organizations that help animals, or those that protect the environment, whether national or local groups such as the Piedmont Land Conservancy.

If youve been meaning to clean out your garage or attic, national and local organizations take everything from clothes to cars and boats.

If you give to a well-established group, youre probably fine. But beware of mail, phone calls, emails, social media pleas and other solicitations from organizations that arent so familiar. Scammers are especially active at this time of year, and some of them arent above calling their charity something that sounds good, or a lot like a legitimate group.

Before giving to a group you dont know well, ask for basic information such as the exact name, address and telephone number, and then double check. Another good question for phone solicitors is whether they are paid fundraisers, and if so how much of your donation would go to them.

The Federal Trade Commission suggests that consumers check with the Better Business Bureaus Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator, Charity Watch or GuideStar to see whether a charity is on the up-and-up.

Not all donations are tax-deductible, and not all nonprofits are qualified to accept tax-deductible donations.

If you have any doubt, the IRS website lists qualifying charities.

Once youve done your homework, be generous these next few days, and keep records for those tax deductions. Enjoy the extra incentive for giving while its still there.

But remember: Thats all the tax deduction should be  a bonus, not the reason for giving. Charities and nonprofit groups are worried that the big decrease in the number of people who itemize will lead to a big decrease in donations.

Those who study such things warn that charities that attract the support of middle-class families  churches and community organizations, for example  might feel the pinch most of all.

Without the incentive of a tax break, they say, people wont necessarily stop giving, but they will likely give less.

That shouldnt happen. If it does, real harm will be done to people and causes weve cared enough about to support in the past.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Walter Earl SAULSBERRY, Defendant - Appellant. No. 16-6306 Decided: December 28, 2017

Before HARTZ, PHILLIPS, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges. Kyle Edward Wackenheim, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (William P. Earley, First Assistant Federal Public Defender, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on the briefs) for Defendant-Appellant. Timothy W. Ogilvie, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Defendant Walter Saulsberry pleaded guilty in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma to possession of 15 or more unauthorized credit cards with intent to defraud. See 18 U.S.C.  1029(a)(3). But his plea agreement reserved his right to appeal the district court's denial of his motion to suppress the cards seized from his car. On appeal he argues that he was unlawfully detained after an anonymous informant reported that he was smoking marijuana in his car and that the search of his car was unlawfully expanded beyond a search for marijuana to include inspection of credit cards found in a bag within the car. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291. Although we hold that there was reasonable suspicion to detain Defendant, we reverse because the arguments presented by the government do not persuade us that there was probable cause to expand the search.

I. BACKGROUND

About 10:30 P.M. on August 15, 2015, a dispatcher informed Sergeant Christopher Eastwood of the Oklahoma City Police Department that a caller had reported someone smoking marijuana in a black Honda with Texas license plates parked at an Arby's. Although the caller did not identify himself (for convenience we will treat the caller as a male), he said he was an employee at the Arby's.

Within two minutes of receiving this information, Eastwood drove into the Arby's parking lot. He was familiar with the location and knew the employees generally parked in the west end of the lot, where he saw several cars. There was only one vehicle on the north end, a dark green Honda with Texas license plates. Eastwood parked his vehicle behind the Honda and approached it. During his approach he noticed that Defendant was doing something in the center console area. R., Vol. II at 12. He went up to the driver's window and tapped on it to get Defendant's attention. Defendant opened the car door, and Eastwood immediately detected the scent of burnt marijuana.

Eastwood asked Defendant for his license and insurance information. Defendant gave his name but did not provide the requested documentation or explain why he could not provide it. Eastwood testified at the suppression hearing that during this exchange:

[Defendant] wasn't listening real well. He kept reaching over. There was a bag in the passenger floorboard area. He kept reaching over there, reaching in the bag, which, again, is just extremely uncomfortable for me. I mean, I don't know what's in the bag and I don't know who he is, we've never met before. So I kept telling him, just kind of keep your hands in your lap, if you would.

Id. at 1415. Eastwood could not provide a description of the bag. He thought there may have been a laptop in the bag but said, I don't even remember if it was a duffel bag or a backpack or what kind of bag it was. Id. at 43.

Eastwood called for assistance. After another officer arrived, Eastwood asked Defendant to step out of the Honda and requested permission to search the car. Defendant granted consent to check the vehicle for marijuana. Eastwood found a marijuana cigarette in the car's center console and arrested Defendant.

While another officer searched Defendant's person, Eastwood began a search of the car. He first looked in the bag that Defendant had been reaching into. Inside the bag Eastwood saw a stack of cards. The chronology of events is not clear from the record, so we cannot be certain when Eastwood acquired this information, but at some point (1) he determined that there were a lot of credit cards, not a normal amount, id. at 19, and (2) on the front passenger seat of Defendant's car was a device that looked similar to a machine used in credit-card fraud that he had seen in a recent investigation. Eastwood took the cards from the bag to examine them more closely. He noticed that all were Capital One credit cards and none had Defendant's name on them. The officers then searched the car for further evidence of credit-card fraud.

Defendant was indicted on a single count of possession of 15 or more counterfeit or unauthorized access devices with intent to defraud. See 18 U.S.C.  1029(a)(3). He moved to suppress evidence discovered during his detention at the parking lot. The district court tentatively excluded statements made by him to officers other than Eastwood but denied the rest of the motion.

II. DISCUSSION

When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, accept the district court's findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous, and review de novo the ultimate question of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Lopez, 849 F.3d 921, 925 (10th Cir. 2017) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). If the district court failed to make a specific finding in support of a ruling on an issue, we can still uphold the ruling if there is any reasonable view of the evidence to support it. United States v. Jenkins, 175 F.3d 1208, 1212 (10th Cir. 1999) (district court failed to make specific findings supporting ruling that officers waited reasonable amount of time before entering home after knocking and announcing, but record supported the ruling).

We conclude that Eastwood's initial detention of Defendant in the parking lot was supported by reasonable suspicion. We believe that Eastwood would have had probable cause to examine the credit cards if before doing so he had seen the machine on the front seat of Defendant's car and had recognized it as a device used in credit-card fraud. But the extent and timing of Eastwood's knowledge concerning the machine is unclear on this record, and neither in district court nor on appeal has the government pointed to the machine as a factor supporting probable cause. We therefore assess probable cause without considering the machine and hold that probable cause was lacking.

A. Reasonable Suspicion to Initiate Traffic Stop

The parties agree that Eastwood detained Defendant in the Arby's parking lot and needed reasonable suspicion to do so. Thus, we examine whether specific and articulable facts and rational inferences drawn from those facts [gave] rise to a reasonable suspicion [that Defendant had committed or was] committing a crime. United States v. McHugh, 639 F.3d 1250, 1255 (10th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Reasonable suspicion in this case must be based on the report from the anonymous informant and Eastwood's observations at the scene. As we have explained:

Whether a tip provides reasonable suspicion to make a traffic stop is case-specific. Although no single factor is dispositive, relevant factors include: (1) whether the informant lacked true anonymity (i.e., whether the police knew some details about the informant or had means to discover them); (2) whether the informant reported contemporaneous, firsthand knowledge; (3) whether the informant provided detailed information about the events observed; (4) the informant's stated motivation for reporting the information; and (5) whether the police were able to corroborate information provided by the informant.

United States v. Chavez, 660 F.3d 1215, 1222 (10th Cir. 2011). These factors support reasonable suspicion here.

To begin with, although the caller did not provide his name, he sufficiently identified himself to establish his status as a citizen informant. The veracity of identified private citizen informants (as opposed to paid or professional criminal informants) is generally presumed in the absence of special circumstances suggesting that they should not be trusted. United States v. Brown, 496 F.3d 1070, 1075 (10th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. (The skepticism and careful scrutiny usually found in cases involving informants from the criminal milieu, is appropriately relaxed if the informant is an identified victim or ordinary citizen witness. (brackets, ellipsis, and internal quotation marks omitted)). As in Chavez, the caller identified himself as an employee of the business where Defendant parked his car. See Chavez, 660 F.3d at 1223 (anonymous caller was readily identifiable when he indicated he was an employee at a specific Wal-Mart store). By conveying information about his employment at a particular restaurant, the caller narrow[ed] the likely class of informants and distinguished himself from a truly anonymous informant who has not placed his credibility at risk and can lie with impunity. Florida v. J.L, 529 U.S. 266, 275, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000) (Kennedy, J., concurring).

In addition, the tip provided all the detail necessary to uniquely identify the suspect vehicle, the information was clearly contemporaneous and firsthand (Eastwood found the vehicle within two minutes of the dispatcher's call), the information was corroborated, and the caller's implicit motive was the public interest (at least there is no reason to believe otherwise). Defendant complains that the caller did not provide further information, such as the suspect's race, age, or clothing, or the length of time the suspect had been in the parking lot; but the caller's description narrowed the suspects to one person. All that was left was to confirm what Defendant was doing in the car. To be sure, the corroborated information is not in itself incriminatory. But that is hardly fatal. The Supreme Court has held that probable cause (a higher standard than reasonable suspicion) can be based on an anonymous tip corroborated only by nonincriminatory information. See Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 24345, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) (officers had sufficiently corroborated anonymous tip accusing defendants of selling drugs by observing cross-country travel patterns consistent with tip); see also United States v. Madrid, 713 F.3d 1251, 1261 (10th Cir. 2013) (tip adequately corroborated [a]lthough the caller's description of the possible criminal activity  was not verified by the officers).

In our view, Eastwood had reasonable suspicion to detain Defendant to check out the tip. There was no need for Eastwood to postpone his investigation until he found the caller, obtained his identity, and inquired about his motivation. Eastwood was investigating the possibility of ongoing criminal activity. For him to drive to the scene in a patrol car and then enter the Arby's to investigate the caller would risk thwarting the investigation by alerting the suspect to the need to drive away, or at least to conceal any evidence.

B. Discovery and Inspection of Credit Cards

On appeal, Defendant does not argue that a warrant was required to search his vehicle. See United States v. Bradford, 423 F.3d 1149, 1159 (10th Cir. 2005) (noting automobile exception to Fourth Amendment warrant requirement). Nor does he complain that Eastwood lacked probable cause to search the vehicle for marijuana. His complaint is that the search for marijuana did not authorize Eastwood to take the credit cards out of the bag and examine them, since he could see at once that there was no evidence in the bag relating to marijuana. He argues that Eastwood needed independent probable cause to search for evidence of a credit-card offense. See Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 323, 325, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987) (Officer could enter apartment to investigate shots fired within it; but it was unlawful to move stereo equipment within apartment to expose serial number (used to determine if it was stolen) because taking action, unrelated to the objectives of the authorized intrusion, which exposed to view concealed portions of the apartment or its contents,  produce[d] a new invasion of respondent's privacy unjustified by the exigent circumstance that validated the entry.); see also Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 375, 113 S.Ct. 2130, 124 L.Ed.2d 334 (1993) (even if an object is in an officer's plain view, the officer cannot seize it unless its incriminating character is immediately apparent that is, the officer has probable cause to believe the object is contraband). The government does not attempt to distinguish Hicks or dispute that Eastwood needed probable cause to expand the search to include examination of the credit cards. Cf. United States v. Carbajal-Iriarte, 586 F.3d 795, 803 (10th Cir. 2009) (officer may expand scope of consensual search of vehicle if expansion is supported by probable cause). We therefore review whether there was probable cause to examine the cards and conclude that there was not.

Probable cause to search a vehicle is established if, under the totality of the circumstances, there is a fair probability that the car contains contraband or evidence. Bradford, 423 F.3d at 1159 (internal quotation marks omitted). Once the officer[s]' suspicions rise to the level of probable cause, they are empowered to search the entire vehicle, including the trunk and all containers therein that might contain contraband. United States v. Chavez, 534 F.3d 1338, 1345 (10th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted).

To begin with, we note that the government did not argue in district court that Eastwood's observation of the machine (which apparently resembled one he had recently seen in a credit-card-fraud investigation) should be considered in the probable-cause calculus. Its brief on appeal does not even mention the object. At oral argument, counsel for the government explained that he chose not to rely on the observation because of the uncertainty about whether the observation preceded the inspection of the credit cards. This omission significantly limits the evidence supporting probable cause.

What the government does rely on is the quantity of credit cards (presumably about 15) observed by Eastwood. In its view, the sheer number of cards alone provided justification for police to examine them. Aplee. Br. at 16. There are two shortcomings in this argumentone legal and one factual. As for the legal component of the argument, the government cites several circuit opinions (all unpublished) to support its position, but the officers in those cases had significantly more evidence than just the observation of a number of credit cards. See United States v. Alabi, 597 Fed.Appx. 991, 993 (10th Cir. 2015) (unpublished) (finding probable cause where officer found a list containing the names, addresses, telephone numbers, birthdates, and social security numbers of hundreds of people; multiple laptop computers and cellular telephones;  more than $1,500 in Wal-Mart gift cards; and 31 credit and debit cards, five of which were in names other than those of the occupants of the vehicle); United States v. Reeves, 604 Fed.Appx. 823, 82528 (11th Cir. 2015) (unpublished) (finding probable cause where officer discovered a laptop computer, a notebook, a plastic bag containing approximately thirty credit cards,  medical records[,]  [and] ledgers listing various names and their corresponding social[-]security numbers and dates of birth and officer recognized from special training that these items were often used in TurboTax fraud); United States v. Ahmad, 118 Fed.Appx. 183, 186 (9th Cir. 2004) (unpublished) (finding probable cause where officers found bank statements, credit card statements, checks and credit cardsall in a large variety of names (internal quotation marks omitted)).

As for the evidentiary predicate of the government's argument, it assumes that when Eastwood looked in the bag he saw a number of credit cards. But the record does not support an inference that Eastwood could tell that the cards in the bag were credit cards. Although he testified that what he found when he looked in the bag was a lot of credit cards, App. Vol. II at 19, his next comment was that the thing that was unusual about that was that [n]one of them belonged to him, id.an observation that undoubtedly had to await his examination of the cards. He was clearly testifying about what he ultimately found, not what he saw upon opening the bag. And Eastwood later repeatedly testified that what he saw was a stack of cards. See, e.g., id. at 19-20, 35. Even if the top of the stackthe card visible to Eastwoodwas a credit card, he would need to examine the stack to determine that the other cards were also credit cards, rather than membership cards, library cards, gift cards, insurance cards, or the like. It would not be uncommon for someone to have 15 plastic, wallet-sized cards. Further supporting this inference is that Eastwood acknowledged on cross-examination that it was only after [he] pulled [the cards] out of the bag, examined them, that [he] felt that there was something  shady or something like that. Id. at 42. The government has failed to explain how Eastwood could have known that all the cards in the stack were credit cards before he handled them.

In our view, a police officer's observation that a suspect possesses a number of cards (about 15) does not provide probable cause to believe that the suspect has been or is committing a crime. And we know of no authority to the contrary.

Defendant's suspicious movements toward the bag while Eastwood was questioning him are not sufficiently probative to raise the evidence to the level of probable cause. Even in hindsight it is hard to explain Defendant's reaching for the bag, particularly since there was no gun there, as Eastwood could immediately tell upon looking in the bag. We find it hard to come up with a chain of inference that begins with Defendant's reaching into the bag and ends with the conclusion that the cards must be involved in criminal activity. Perhaps one can view the reaching as a nervous (and foolish) reaction by a criminal who simply cannot restrain himself from pointing to the evidence of his own guilt. But this court, recognizing the stress inherent in any interaction with law enforcement and the ambiguity of nervous reactions, has consistently expressed concern about giving too much weight to nervous behavior in assessing probable cause. See, e.g., United States v. Lopez, 849 F.3d 921, 925-26 (10th Cir. 2017). Such behavior is certainly a factor to be considered, but it cannot do the job that would be necessary to establish probable cause here.

In short, we hold that the government did not establish probable cause justifying Eastwood's examination of the cards. Evidence obtained from that examination must be suppressed.

III. CONCLUSION

We REVERSE the denial of Defendant's motion to suppress and remand for further proceedings.

FOOTNOTES

. In ruling that there was sufficient reasonable suspicion to support the officers' closer examination of the credit cards found in the bag, Aplt. App., Vol. I at 36, the district court relied in part on the fact that the search of Defendant incident to his arrest uncovered in his pocket a credit card with a woman's name on it. On appeal the government does not rely on the discovery of that card, acknowledging that there is no evidence that Eastwood knew about this discovery when he searched the cards in the bag. Nor does the government rely on any collective-knowledge argument in which the knowledge of one officer is imputed to another. See generally United States v. Chavez, 534 F.3d 1338, 1345 & n.12 (10th Cir. 2008) (discussing horizontal and vertical collective knowledge).We also note that the government does not argue that Eastwood was justified in examining the cards to confirm Defendant's identity, given that Defendant had provided no identification document. We express no view on the matter.

HARTZ, Circuit Judge.
Not so bomb-dot-com anymore. Photo: Courtesy of Guys American Kitchen & Bar

After five years, the Donkey Sauce has run dry at Guy Fieris Times Square restaurant. The party at Guys American Kitchen & Bar will officially be over as of January 1, which leaves New Yorkers just three more days to visit the place that has, over the course of its entire existence, perhaps been a bigger punching bag than any other kitchen or bar in history. Heres a full rundown of all of the highlights, and lowlights, in the entire life span of Flavortowns New York City outpost.

September 10, 2012: Guys American Kitchen & Bar opens, promising the Times Square masses a dose of authenticity. Cars cant fake fast, guitars cant fake rock and roll, the restaurants marketing copy proclaims, and no one can fake the feel-good flavors of American cuisine.

September 11, 2012: Yelpers waste no time in rating the joint; one day after opening, Guys American sits at two-and-a-half stars. (Its since recovered slightly, with three.)

September 28, 2012: Anthony Bourdain weighs in on his nemesiss magnum opus  the first of many, many times  calling it a terror dome and lamenting that its single-handedly turned the neighborhood into the Ed Hardy district.

October 2012: At his own roast, Bourdain once again goes after Guys restaurant, saying Fieri dropped a 500-seat deuce into Times Square, and that it looks like TGI Fridays and Nickelback fucked Giants Stadium, and out came this.

November 13, 2012: Times critic Pete Wells drops his infamous zero-star review  a series of rhetorical questions that lay out in excruciating detail just how bad this restaurant is. The story has been called likely the most widely read restaurant review ever. Also the most scathing.

December 2013: Fieri gets the full SNL treatment. The shows Guy Fieris Full Throttle Christmas features Dog the Bounty Hunter, a 20-layer bean dip, and a spot-on Bobby Moynihan impersonation.

February 2014: Quiet about his feelings for a while, Bourdain reminds the public where he stands on things like Guy-talian Nachos. In this case, that putting any two ingredients together and giving it a douchey name is immoral to me, but Im probably just being a snob about it.

May 2015: Fieri admits that SNLs barbs were actually pretty brilliant.

November 2015: Fieri claps back, telling GQ that Bourdain has definitely gotta have issues, cos the average person doesnt behave that way.

August 2016: Martin Shkreli creates a quasi-Inception situation when he, then the most-hated man in America, visits Guys American Kitchen & Bar, arguably the most-hated restaurant in New York City, in order to prove  something?

November 2016: New Yorks inaugural FieriCon deposits a legion of grown men wearing glue-on goatees and flame shirts in their inner sanctum, Fieris Times Square mecca.

June 2017: Fieri admits that the once-mysterious Donkey Sauce, the linchpin of his entire culinary persona, is basically just mayonnaise. Its aioli, he tells Thrillist. I called it Donkey Sauce because you have to make fun of it.

November 2017: FieriCon fanboys again finish at Guys American, unaware that it will be their last chance to receive the greasy lifeblood of Flavortown.

December 28, 2017: News breaks that Guys American Kitchen & Grill is kaput. Employees say itll go out with a blast on New Years Eve. As word of the restaurants closing spreads, Chrissy Teigen takes to Twitter and offers what will likely be the last  and most positive  critical take in the restaurants short history:
Its getting cozy in the Top Chef kitchen. Photo: Bravo/Paul Trantow/Bravo

Yes, yes, we will get to tonights action-packed Quickfire Challenge momentarily, but first, big news in the Bear Den: Bruce is having a baby! He and his wife have been trying to adopt forever, but their agency went bankrupt in February, and the details after that are a little fuzzy, but the point is, Bruce is having a baby! And theres more, because the baby is due during Bruces tenure on this very show. The fact that my son is going to be born and Im going to be here? Its tough. I cant talk about this, he snuffles. Ive got a whole new chapter starting in my life, and winning Top Chef would be the icing on the cake. Of course, missing your sons birth only to lose on a reality cooking show is a slightly less impressive story, so, you know, no pressure.

Speaking of babies, tonights Quickfire Challenge is guest-judged by Curtis Stone, whom you may know as the head judge of Top Chef Junior. I did not know this, but you might. Carrie, for one, is very excited because Curtis Stone is tall. Tall gets me going, Carrie giggles. Its amazing. Unfortunately, there is no time to dwell on how amazing it is (I vote: moderately), because Padma, who has selected her favorite business-casual sailor suit for the occasion, has a segue: Until now, its kinda been childs play, she smirks. For the challenge, the 11 remaining chefs must update and elevate traditional kid foods, but the twist is that they can only use miniature kid-size kitchen tools. Also, the challenge will be co-judged by a brigade of actual children. Another twist!

To figure out whos doing what, everyone draws (full-size) knives, which is probably also how democracy should work. I drew corn dogs, says Carrie, mournfully. But she puts on a brave face; what choice does she have? After all, Curtis Stone, tall man, is expecting greatness.

This is fucking hysterical! says Papa Bear Bruce, who is reinventing fish sticks as fish croquettes. Kids in the room, watch the F-bombs, suggests Tanya, who is elevating mac n cheese by making mac n cheese. The guest-children  all of whom are the offspring of famous Denver chefs  make the rounds, offering their childlike wisdom, like that it is hard to mess up cheeseburgers. From the mouths of babes!

Honestly, I was prepared to be critical of the mini-judges  does the wisdom of years count for nothing?  but it turns out, they are extremely correct about everything. Though initially skeptical of Adriennes focused, veg-forward pizza with cauliflower crust (correct), they agree it is actually delicious. They also like Tus chicken quesadilla with cheddar fondue because the flavor really goes well with the tortilla  true about basically everything  and one girl says that Chriss deconstructed chicken-rillettes taco is one of the best deconstructed tacos she has ever had, in all her almost-decade of having teeth. Then an even tinier girl announces that she loves Fatimas elevated grilled cheese, which is a Caesar salad, because you have the grilled cheese in it, but you also have something a little healthier.

The first time I had a Caesar salad, I was 25.

It turns out that being a parent doesnt help you win at all, though, because Tyler has three kids, and no one likes his spaghetti-and-meatball-inspired zucchini-noodle pho with shrimp balls. If someone ordered this at a restaurant and you didnt tell them what it is, offers the boy-child, I dont think they would think this was spaghetti and meatballs. The kids also dont like Carries neo-corn-dog bites (too dry), or Bruces latter-day fish sticks (also too dry), so theyre the bottom three, and Adrienne wins, because pizza is pizza, even when it is also cauliflower.

It feels good to have immunity, declares Adrienne. I understand; I got a flu shot recently.

Whole Foods poultry section never fails to impress or confuse shoppers. Photo: Bravo/Paul Trantow/Bravo

In keeping with the general intergenerational spirit of this episode, the theme of the Elimination Challenge is: family heritage! Everyone will cook a meal inspired by their cultural background, Padma sings, and then they will serve that meal to some of the culinary worlds most renowned influencers. I love a good heritage challenge: It is simple, but with the potential of lasting emotional devastation. Soon enough, everyone heads to Whole Foods, just like their ancestors before them.

Tu, child of Vietnamese refugees, is making something Vietnamese. Bruce, whose grandfather was Hungarian, is going goulash. Chris was ashamed for years of his familys soul food, but everything became better once he embraced it. As a kid, Brother Love explains, he was embarrassed by his Creole fathers recipe for dirty rice with gizzards and livers, and then his father died, and now that is the only recipe he has from him. I think thats what this challenge is about for me, telling this story, he says, softly.

I dont have heritage, moans Tyler, reaching balefully for a bunch of greens. Im a white boy from Southern California! Indeed, we all suffer in our own way.

In the morning, everyone arrives at Departures, the site of the heritage cook-off, where Tyler gets to work on his SoCal-Swedish fusion dish of tri-tip and meatballs and scalloped potatoes in the style of a Swedish pancake, because he has some Swedish roots, in addition to the Southern California ones. Im figuring it out, he offers, bleakly. Here is a true story: Just this week, I tried to make a Swedish potato pancake. It did not work.

As the chefs come to terms with their identities in the kitchen, the judges roll up just in time for a chat about the meaning of food, and how it brings us together, and Padma blinks slowly like she has just been awakened from a sleep of ten thousand years. Food is very important for culture! Blink.

The dishes are served two at a time, so you can really tell which cultures are the best ones. Im not terribly sure of my familys heritage, but I do know Im from Idaho! chirps Carrie, explaining her potato-pierogi concept. (The concept is: potatoes.) Shes serving alongside Tylers ode to Sweden and also California in the form of multiple dishes at once. I think Tylers hereditarily challenged here, chuckles Tom, and then everyone goes around the table to say why it was bad.

Joseph (the one with no mustache) presents rustic saffron ribbon pasta with braised squid because he makes it with his Italian grandmother, but the problem is, it tastes like nothing. Its always good to cook like grandma, quips Tom, but sometimes grandmas techniques really arent that good. Tanyas gumbo, though, is a real hit, and chef/influencer Gregory Gourdet says that you can really taste the sense of family. Is it as good as mustache Joes chicken tortellini with farro and cabbage, made in memory of his beloved French mother and his Italian father? I felt the soul in the dish, and its so immensely technical, raves chef/influencer Mourad Lahlou. One vote for yes! Despite his heartfelt presentation and generally delightful personality, Tus canh chua  a Vietnamese bouillabaisse  is a letdown. Maybe Tu cooked with too much emotion, suggests Gregory Gourdet. He wanted to like it, but there were just too many feelings. This is also what people say about me.

The parade marches on! Brother serves his dirty rice with stewed chicken and worries that its too simple, but everyone loves it. I think the flavor is exceptional, announces Tom. I could eat, like, three more of these, announces an unnamed influencer. (Fatimas dal chawal and shami kabab were also good, though if shes honest, and she is, Nilou Motamed has had better.)

Then everything takes a nosedive, because the lamb in Bruces Hungarian lamb goulash with spaetzle is catastrophically overcooked, and Padma may never recover from this experience. Look how dry that is! Its white in the middle. To balance it out, though, Adriennes stuffed pigs trotters are undercooked. Blink.

Finally: Chris, and his lemonade fried chicken with brown-sugar buttermilk biscuits and collards. My grandmothers grandmother made this exact dish, Chris explains. I mean, you can go eight, nine generations back in my blood, and its the same thing. This is because it is the platonic ideal of food.

The top three are Chris, Tanya, and Joe (mustache), and while the judges fawn over the gumbo and the tortellini, we all know the winner is going to be Chris, for his perfect, spicy, juicy chicken. It is time for the reveal. Nilou will do the honors. The chef that won for us was the chef who really took this challenge and embraced it, Nilou says, is  Chris!

Bad news for the Bears: The bottom three are Joseph, Tyler, and Bruce. How do you think today went, Joe? taunts Padma. Not great, suggests Joe, perceptively. Tyler, too, acknowledges that his Swedish fusion menagerie was obviously a bad idea, while Bruce has a breakthrough and realizes that he has been going about the competition all wrong. (Also, his lamb was bad.)

You know what is coming, because it has been edited that way, but that does not numb the pain. The loser is Tyler. Yes, I deserve to go home for this dish, he reflects, glumly, launching into an extended metaphor about a dragon (he is the dragon), and there is nothing to do but hope that, like so many dragons before him, he can fight his way back.
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That DRAM and prices have been too high for over a year now we know, we always blamed low availability and demand for this. However, Chinas economic regulator is paying close attention to a recent surge in the price of mobile phone storage chips and could look into possible price fixing.

A newspaper, citing an official with the National Development and Reform Commissions Pricing Supervision Department, said the NDRC was alerted to the situation after a sharp rise in the price of chips over the last 18 months, reports reuters:

We have noticed the price surge and will pay more attention to future problems that may be caused by price fixing in the sector, the official Xu Xinyu was quoted as saying. The newspaper added that the official referred to possible coordinated action taken by a number of firms to gain maximum profits by pushing the price of the product as high as possible.

A super-cycle of tight supply and soaring demand for memory chips, which power servers and smartphones, has been driving up prices and profits at chipmakers such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and SK Hynix Inc which control the lions share of the global market.

The NDRC has spoken to Samsung, the China Daily reported, citing Wang Yanhui, the secretary-general of the Mobile China Alliance, who the paper said had knowledge of the matter. The paper did not provide further details.

Mobile China Alliance is an industry association that has more than 30 mobile phone companies as members. Wang said it was too early to predict what further measures could be taken but that the government could look at penalties issued by other countries if makers were found to be engaging in such any price fixing.

Samsung and SK Hynix declined to comment. Chinese firms have the capability to produce traditional 2D NAND chips, but analysts said the technology transfer needed for such firms to produce the more premium 3D NAND chips made by the likes of Samsung is taking longer than expected. This, along with demand from fast-growing Chinese smartphone makers such as Xiaomi and Oppo, has caused the average spot price for mainstream DRAM chips to surge by more than half over the past one year while prices for NAND flash chips rose 32 percent, according to research firm TrendForce.

China is the biggest smartphone manufacturer ... so of course China wants to pay more attention and play a more important role in the whole industry, said Hattie He, Shanghai-based analyst at research firm Canalys.

Memory is one of the key components for smartphones so it makes sense that Chinese vendors want to have more capabilities to control these components, she said.

Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by Joyce Lee and Cate Cadell; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Christopher Cushing.






United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. UNITED STATES of America EX REL. Brandon BARRICK, Plaintiff/Relator-Appellant, v. PARKER-MIGLIORINI INTERNATIONAL, LLC; Parker International, Inc., also known as PMI Foods-USA; Cottonwood Trading, LLC; Fortuna Foods, LLC, John and Jane Does 1-10, Defendants-Appellees. No. 16-4136 Decided: December 28, 2017

Before TYMKOVICH, Chief Judge, EBEL, and LUCERO, Circuit Judges. Ann Marie Taliaferro (James C. Bradshaw and Mark R. Moffat, Brown, Bradshaw & Moffat, L.L.P., and Robert B. Cummings, The Salt Lake Lawyers, Salt Lake City, Utah, with her on the briefs), Brown, Bradshaw & Moffat, L.L.P., Salt Lake City, Utah, for Appellant. Mark R. Gaylord (Tesia N. Stanley and Tyler M. Hawkins with him on the brief), Ballard Spahr LLP, Salt Lake City, Utah, for Appellees.

Brandon Barrick brought this action under the False Claims Act on behalf of the United States, alleging his former employer Parker-Migliorini International (PMI) illegally smuggled beef into Japan and China. At the time of the scheme, China banned all imports of U.S. beef, and Japan imposed heightened standards, under which certain types of U.S. beef would have been banned.

The False Claims Act prohibits false or fraudulent claims for payment to the United States. 31 U.S.C.  3729(a)(1)(A). The Act authorizes enforcement either by the Attorney General, id.  3730(a), or by private individuals like Barrick, called relators, who bring qui tam actions in the government's name, id.  3730(b)(1). Section 3729(a)(1)(G) of the Act also creates liability for so-called reverse false claims. These claims reverse the typical claim under the Act: instead of creating liability for wrongfully obtaining money from the government, the reverse-false-claims provision creates liability for wrongfully avoiding payments that should have been made to the government. But, crucially, liability under the reverse-false-claims provision requires the existence of an obligationdefined as an established dutyto pay money to the government. Id.  3729(a)(1)(G).

In this case, Barrick alleges PMI cheated the government out of the inspection fees that would have been paid if PMI had complied with federal law. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) charges an hourly rate for the process of inspecting and certifying meat for export to a country only if the country has higher standards than the United States. In order to smuggle beef into Japan and China, PMI lied about the beef's destination. PMI gave sham destinationsMoldova or several Central American countrieswhich have import standards equal to or less than the United States. Based on these sham destinations, the USDA provided its usual (free) inspection rather than the appropriate heightened (reimbursable) inspection.

In Barrick's view, an obligation to pay the government arises when the USDA is informed that meat is being exported to a country with inspection standards higher than those in the United States. Thus, the government should have been paid for the inspections that would have occurred if PMI had accurately reported the destination countries.

We disagree. Barrick cannot allege there was an established duty to pay the government for inspections for the smuggled beef. First, the obligation would never have arisen for the beef smuggled to China, where it was altogether banned. The relevant regulations do not impose a charge for ascertaining whether a given destination country bans the import of U.S. meat, which is where the process would have ended. Second, the obligation for the beef smuggled to Japan did not rise to the level of an established duty. An established duty is one owed at the time the improper conduct occurred, not a duty dependent on a future discretionary act. Here, the obligation would not have arisen absent a third-party meat supplier's independent wrongful conduct. This is because the meat supplier supplies the destination country to the USDA, thus controlling the type of inspection performed. But PMI did not use meat suppliers who were eligible to export beef to Japan. So, for an obligation to arise, the supplier would have had to report an accurateand illegaldestination country to the USDA, even though the supplier was not eligible to export to that country. This conduct does not create an established duty under the Act.

Therefore, because we do not find Barrick can adequately plead the existence of such an obligation by PMI as the statute requires, we AFFIRM the district court's denial of Barrick's motion for leave to amend.

I. Background

We begin with an overview of USDA regulations governing the inspection and certification of meat destined for export. Then, we summarize Barrick's allegations, the applicable provision of the False Claims Act, and the grounds for the district court's denial of leave to amend.

A. The Export Certification Process

Federal law requires the USDA to inspect and certify meat destined for export. See 21 U.S.C.  615618; 9 C.F.R.  322.2, 322.4. The USDA delegates the responsibility for performing these inspections to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). 9 C.F.R.  300.2. The export certification process normally involves the following three steps.

First, a supplier completes an export application and provides it to a FSIS employee. FSIS Directive 9000.1, Export Certification (U.S.D.A. 2006), at 1. This application indicates the destination country, the establishment from which the product is exported, and the name of the products being exported. FSIS Form 9060-6 (Application for Export Certificate).

Second, the FSIS employee verifies the information on the application and performs a physical inspection. This step includes verifying the product meets the requirements of the destination country. FSIS Directive 9000.1, at 12, 46. The FSIS employee does so by consulting the Export Library, a list of requirements officially communicated to FSIS by various countries. FSIS Directive 9000.1, at 3; USDA, Export Library (Sept. 1, 2017), https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/international-affairs/exporting-products/export-library-requirements-by-country. After verifying the information on the application, the FSIS employee signs the application and issues an export certificate. FSIS Form 9060-5 (Export Certificate of Wholesomeness).

Third, a FSIS certifying official compares the completed export certificate and the signed application. This step includes verifying again that the information is consistent with the destination country's requirements. If the certifying official deems the export certificate accurate, he signs it. The product is then eligible for export. FSIS Directive 9000.1, at 2, 78.

Domestic meat quality standards provide a baseline for exported American meat. For some countries, that is enoughmeat that satisfies U.S. law is good enough for them. Other countries, however, impose additional requirements. When that is the case, [o]nly facilities and products which meet those specific requirements are eligible to export products to that country. FSIS, Export Certification, at 41-25 (Apr. 14, 2017), https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/338f8b52-09e6-477f-bb5b-da6c4f3a996e/42_IM_Export_Certification.pdf?MOD=AJPERES.

Another division of the USDA, the Agricultural Marketing Service, administers Export Verification and Quality System Assessment (EV/QSA) Programs, which ensure these specific requirements are met. Id. The Marketing Service reviews and approves companies as eligible suppliers under the EV/QSA programs, and maintains lists of approved suppliers. Id. Suppliers must also maintain lists of products intended for export, which are approved by the Marketing Service. Id. Again, only eligible products from eligible suppliers can be exported to countries that require an EV/QSA program.

The export certification process is more thorough for products exported to countries that require an EV/QSA program. When the FSIS employees review the export applicationsthe second step of the processthey must always check the requirements of the destination country. Id. at 41-27. If they see the destination country requires an EV/QSA program, they take additional steps, including ensuring that the facility is eligible to export to that country and that the product is eligible for export to that country. Id.

Another difference is that the export certification process can entail charges if suppliers export to countries that require an EV/QSA program.

The USDA distinguishes between basic export services and voluntary reimbursable services. The distinction is that FSIS charges suppliers for voluntary reimbursable services, but not for basic export services. See FSIS Directive 9000.1 at 3 (When export certification services are performed in an official establishment[ ], the issuance of export certificates that are required by 9 CFR Part 322 and 381.104 through 381.111 are not reimbursable services.); see also FSIS Directive 12,600.1, Voluntary Reimbursable Inspection Services (U.S.D.A. 2007), at 2, 3 (same). Only the execution of certifications that are in addition to FSIS regulatory requirements[ ] (e.g., additional certifications that are required by the importing country  ) are considered reimbursable services. FSIS Directive 12,600, at 3. Thus, since it is part of the typical FSIS inspection, [b]asic export services include verifying  that country requirements are met for the applicable products. Export Certification, at 41-33.

Butand this is the central issue in this caseverifying compliance with an EV/QSA program is a reimbursable expense. Id. at 34; see also 9 C.F.R.  350.3(b) (authorizing inspectors to make certifications regarding livestock for export where conditions are in addition to those imposed by U.S. law), 9 C.F.R.  350.7 (requiring export applicants to pay fees and charges for inspections under Part 350).

In this context, the trigger for the charge is when the FSIS employee looks at the Export LibraryFSIS's list of requirements for various countriesand sees the country in question requires an EV/QSA program. The charge cannot be triggered before then, since the FSIS employee always consults the Export Library as a matter of routine. But the additional steps the employee must then carry outfor example, checking that the facility is an eligible supplier and that the product is eligible for export under the relevant EV/QSA programwould incur a fee, since they are not part of the normal export certification process.

B. PMI's Scheme

PMI's business includes exporting meat to local wholesale markets around the world. When PMI exports meat outside the United States, it places an order with an eligible supplier, informing the supplier of the destination country. See App. 24546, 267. Based on that destination, the supplier applies for the proper export certificate and obtains the proper inspection from FSIS. Thus, by supplying the destination, PMI controls which inspection occurs.

The complaint alleges PMI smuggled beef into Japan and China to avoid complying with those countries' import restrictions. After receiving an order from Japan or China, PMI would place an order with a meat supplier. At the time of the scheme, China banned all imports of U.S. beef, and Japan required an EV/QSA program because it banned beef from cattle slaughtered over 30 months in age. So, if the actual destination was Japan, PMI would inform the supplier the destination was a Central American country. If the actual destination was China, PMI would inform the supplier the destination was Moldova. FSIS would inspect the meat for free, since the sham destination countries named by PMI all have standards equal to or less than the United States.

Meat destined for Japan would be shipped to Central America, repackaged and passed off as local beef, and shipped to Japan. PMI allegedly referred to this method of getting meat into Japan as the Japan Triangle. App. 241. Meat destined for China would be shipped to Hong Kong, never making it to Moldova, and smuggled from there into China. PMI allegedly referred to this method of getting meat into China as the LSW Channel. App. 242.

At the time, U.S. beef heading to Hong Kong had to comply with an EV/QSA program. FSIS would only give an Export Certificate for Hong Kong to eligible products produced by eligible supplierseverything meeting the requirements of the EV/QSA program. So PMI did not want the product inspected as if it was going to Hong Kongit could only have shipped eligible products from eligible suppliers and would have had to pay for any inspections. But Hong Kong would not have accepted the beef in question because it would not have been an eligible product. That is why PMI claimed the meat was destined for Moldova.

C. Procedural Background

Barrick worked for PMI as a financial analyst from 2007 to 2012. In 2012, Barrick filed his original False Claims Act complaint under seal, providing the government with a copy so the United States could determine whether to intervene. After reviewing the sealed complaint, the FBI initiated a criminal investigation into PMI. This investigation led PMI to plead guilty to violating 21 U.S.C.  611(b)(5), for knowingly making a false statement in a certificate required under USDA regulations. This is a misdemeanor, and PMI paid a million dollar fine.

In 2015, the government declined to intervene in this action, so Barrick proceeded as a relator on the government's behalf. Barrick raised three claims under the False Claims Act: a reverse false claim, a conspiracy claim, and a retaliatory firing claim. After the district court dismissed Barrick's complaint for various pleading deficiencies, Barrick sought leave to amend his complaint. The district court allowed Barrick to proceed with his retaliatory filing claim, but denied leave to amend on the reverse false claim and the conspiracy claim, explaining amendment would be futile: Barrick failed to allege PMI had avoided an obligation to pay the government. In the district court's view, PMI's scheme was not about avoiding inspection fees; it was about getting banned meat into China and Japan. PMI never would have paid the inspection fees, since they never wanted the meat inspectedthe whole point was that the meat would not have passed inspection under the applicable standards. And the beef headed to China could not have been inspected, since China banned all U.S. beef. So there would never have been an obligation to pay inspection fees. The district court certified the denial of the motion to amend as a final order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), from which Barrick now appeals.

On appeal, we are only concerned with the substantive False Claims Act claims, not the retaliation claim, which remains before the district court.

II. Analysis

Barrick argues the district court erred by finding that amending the complaint would be futile because Barrick failed to allege the existence of an obligation.  A proposed amendment is futile if the complaint, as amended, would be subject to dismissal.  Barnes v. Harris, 783 F.3d 1185, 1197 (10th Cir. 2015) (quoting Full Life Hospice, LLC v. Sebelius, 709 F.3d 1012, 1018 (10th Cir. 2013)). A complaint is subject to dismissal under [Federal Rule of Civil Procedure] 12(b)(6) if the plaintiff fails to allege facts that would allow[ ] the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.  Fields v. City of Tulsa, 753 F.3d 1000, 101213 (10th Cir. 2014) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). Although we generally review for abuse of discretion a district court's denial of leave to amend a complaint, when this denial is based on a determination that amendment would be futile, our review for abuse of discretion includes de novo review of the legal basis for the finding of futility. Barnes, 783 F.3d at 1197 (quoting Cohen v. Longshore, 621 F.3d 1311, 1314 (10th Cir. 2010)).

A. The Reverse-False-Claims Provision

As explained above, the reverse-false-claims provision, 31 U.S.C.  3729(a)(1)(G), reverses the typical claim under the False Claims Act: instead of creating liability for wrongfully obtaining money from the government, the reverse-false-claims provision creates liability for wrongfully avoiding payments that should have been made to the government.

Since the last time our court addressed this provision, in U.S. ex rel. Bahrani v. Conagra, Inc., 624 F.3d 1275, 1279 (10th Cir. 2010) and U.S. ex rel. Bahrani v. Conagra, Inc., 465 F.3d 1189 (10th Cir. 2006), Congress has amended it. Before 2009, the reverse-false-claims provision imposed liability on any person who knowingly makes, uses, or causes to be made or used, a false record or statement to conceal, avoid, or decrease an obligation to pay or transmit money or property to the Government. 31 U.S.C.  3729(a)(7) (1994). The 2009 amendments changed the statute in two significant ways.

First, Congress added a second route to liability. The reverse-false-claims provision now imposes liability on any person who:

[1] knowingly makes, uses, or causes to be made or used, a false record or statement material to an obligation to pay or transmit money or property to the Government, or [2] knowingly conceals or knowingly and improperly avoids or decreases an obligation to pay or transmit money or property to the Government.

31 U.S.C.  3729(a)(1)(G) (bracketed numbers added for clarity). This second route to liability expands on the first by not requiring a false record or statement. Simply knowingly and improperly avoid[ing]  an obligation to pay or transmit money or property to the Government is enough. But, under either clause of this provision, there must exist an obligation to pay  money  to the government.

Second, Congress added a definition for the term obligation, which the statute had not previously defined. As amended, obligation means an established duty, whether or not fixed, arising from an express or implied contractual, grantor-grantee, or licensor-licensee relationship, from a fee-based or similar relationship, from statute or regulation, or from the retention of any overpayment. 31 U.S.C.  3729(b)(3) (emphasis added).

For our purposes, established is the key word in this definition. As the Fifth Circuit recently explained,  established refers to whether there is any duty to pay U.S. ex rel. Simoneaux v. E.I. duPont de Nemours & Co., 843 F.3d 1033, 1037 (5th Cir. 2016); accord U.S. ex rel. Petras v. Simparel, Inc., 857 F.3d 497, 505 (3d Cir. 2017) ([A]n established duty more likely refers to one owed at the time that the alleged improper conduct under the FCA occurred [T]he term does not include a duty that is dependent on a future discretionary act.). Under this interpretation, a duty to pay must be formally established before liability can arise under the False Claims Act. Simoneaux, 843 F.3d at 103840; see also Petras, 857 F.3d at 506 ([F]or a reverse FCA claim, the definition of an obligation refers to one existing at the time of the improper conduct to pay the Government funds, the amount of which may not be fixed at the time of the improper conduct.). In other words, there is no liability for obligations to pay that are merely potential or contingent.

We have not previously addressed the definition of obligation added by the recent False Claims Act amendments, but in prior cases we explained that potential obligations were not actionable under the statute prior to amendment. See Conagra, 465 F.3d at 119597, 1203. In Conagra, we explained that a plaintiff must allege the defendant had an existing legal obligation to pay or transmit money or property to the government. Id. at 1195 (quoting Kennard v. Comstock Res. Inc., 363 F.3d 1039, 1048 (10th Cir. 2004)). And the obligation must arise from some independent legal duty. Id. That meant that potential obligations  are not properly the subject of a suit under [the reverse-false-claims provision.] Id. at 1196 (quoting U.S. ex rel Huangyan Imp. & Exp. Corp. v. Nature's Farm Prod., Inc., 370 F. Supp. 2d 993, 1000 (N.D. Cal. 2005)). We also explained that where government officials were afforded discretion to determine whether to charge fees, the obligation was contingent and thus outside the scope of the provision. Id. at 1203.

Nothing in the statute's new definition of obligation abrogates our previous approach.

B. Application to PMI's Scheme

PMI contends that the allegations do not support a cause of action under either clause of  3729(a)(1)(G). We agree with the district court that they do not. Barrick cannot allege there was an established duty to pay the government for inspections for the smuggled beef.

China is the easier case. There were no eligible suppliers for China during this period, since China banned all U.S. beef. During the normal phase of the inspection processfor which no charge appliesthe FSIS employee would discover from the Export Library that China prohibited imports of U.S. beef. The inspection would never have reached a stage where charges could be incurred.

The fact that the meat stopped in Hong Kong, a permissible export destination, before traveling to China does not affect our analysis. The Act does not require that suppliers pay for an inspection to comply with import standards in a country that is merely a stop en route to their destination country. Thus, the fact that a shipment of meat might have stopped in Central America or New Zealand or Indonesia does not matter for analytical purposes.

Japan requires several more analytical steps, however, but no obligation to pay the government would have arisen in that context either. Barrick does not allege PMI used suppliers eligible to export to Japan. Quite the opposite: he alleges the point of the scheme was to smuggle banned beef (that is, ineligible products from ineligible suppliers) into Japan.

Because the suppliers were ineligible, two things would need to happen for inspection fees to arise for the beef smuggled to Japan, even supposing PMI accurately reported the destination to its ineligible suppliers.

1. PMI and the supplier would have to agree to export to Japan even though the supplier is ineligible. In other words, without the supplier's collusion, no inspection fees would arise. If the supplier declined on the grounds that it was ineligible to ship to Japan, no inspection fees would arise.

2. Despite the illegality of the arrangement, the supplier would have to accurately list Japan as the destination on the export application. So, after deciding to break the law, the supplier would have to decide to tell that to FSIS in order for any inspection fees to arise. If the supplier listed a destination country with standards equal to or less than the U.S. standards, no fees would arise.

Only if these two things happened would any inspection fees arise. If they did happen, some amount of fees would have arisen: the FSIS employee would look at the export application, and access the Export Library to determine Japan's requirements. At this point, the FSIS employee would see that Japan requires an EV program, triggering inspection fees. But the inspection would be extremely short: the FSIS employee would look to see if the supplier is eligible, find it is not, and reject the application.

The key is that for an obligation to arise here, it requires not only the supplier's complicity in an illegal scheme, but the supplier's willingness to list the true destinationand be found out easily. This requires at least the two assumptions aboveif PMI or the third-party supplier decided not to go through with any of those steps, no inspection fees would arise.

The obligation to pay is thus potential and contingent, as we explained in Conagra, because it depends on multiple assumptions, as well as a third party's wrongful acts. That is, even if PMI had told an ineligible supplier it wished to export beef to Japan, there would not have been an inspection unless the supplier cooperated in the smuggling. But, in order to create liability, the obligation must be formally established at the time of the improper conduct, not dependent on a future discretionary actlet alone two acts, let alone implausible ones, let alone by a third party.

Barrick contends our decision in Conagra, 465 F.3d 1189, supports his interpretation of the Act. In Conagra, the plaintiff alleged employees of Conagra, a meat and hide exporter, routinely altered USDA export certificates. If an export certificate contained a substantive deficiencyfor example, the destination of the productUSDA regulations required FSIS to issue a new certificate, for which they would charge Conagra. Id. at 1193. Rather than obtain replacement certificates, Conagra employees would alter or forge export certificates to avoid fees the company would otherwise have to pay. Id. at 1194. We found the USDA's requirement that Conagra obtain replacement certificates in certain situations and pay an accompanying fee constituted an obligation under the statute. Id. When Conagra employees determined changes were necessary, it triggered an established duty to pay the USDA to issue new certificates. Absent Conagra altering the certificates, they would have had to pay the USDA for new certificates. The wrongful act is at one remove from the obligation.

But Conagra is not on point. Absent PMI lying about the destination country, the obligation would not have arisen automatically. For China, the obligation would never have ariseneven if the supplier had colluded in the scheme and accurately listed China as the destination, the export application would have been rejected without incurring a charge. For Japan, the wrongful act would be at two removesat leastfrom the obligation. Absent PMI's misrepresentation about Japan as the destination country, (1) the supplier would have to collude illegally in the scheme, and (2) the supplier would have to report accurately the illegal destination to the FSIS employee. In contrast, the obligation at Conagra was automatic: Conagra employees determining that changes to the certificates were necessary triggered a legally established duty to pay the USDA to issue new certificates. Under the relevant law, Conagra's determination was both a necessary and a sufficient condition for a monetary obligation.

In sum, the obligation in this case is not an established duty and the alleged fraudulent conduct does not create liability under the False Claims Act.

III. Conclusion

We therefore AFFIRM the district court's denial of Barrick's motion for leave to amend because Barrick's proposed amendment would be futile. The complaint, as amended, would be subject to dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), because Barrick fails to allege facts that would allow the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable under the False Claims Act's reverse-false-claims provision. Such an inference would require alleging that there was an established duty to pay the governmentwhich, for the reasons explained, Barrick cannot do.

FOOTNOTES

. See Rockwell Int'l Corp. v. United States, 549 U.S. 457, 463 n.2 (2007) (Qui tam is short for qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hac parte sequitur, which means who pursues this action on our Lord the King's behalf as well as his own. ).

. For clarity, we note that all subsequent references to Conagra refer to the 2006 case.

TYMKOVICH, Chief Judge.




Haiti - Security : The United States supports the new Border Police





Charge dAffaires Robin Diallo, Bureau of Narcotics and Enforcement Affairs (INL), Director Nicholas Hilgert, and other Embassy personnel have participated in the first graduation ceremony for the newly-formed Border Police https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23106-haiti-security-graduation-of-the-1st-promotion-of-the-border-police.html and the inaugural ceremony of the new Border Police (PoliFront) Headquarters in Tabarre.



Diallo congratulated President Moise for the governments support to establish the unit, which will help combat trafficking in persons and contraband along Haitis border with the Dominican Republic.



The U.S. governments Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL), funded the new Bureau of Anti-Trafficking in Narcotics (BLTS) Headquarters and continues to support the International Organization for Migration (IOM) providing motorcycles, quads, and training to the new unit. The new Border Police, known as "PoliFront," will help the National Police of Haiti (PNH) and the government of Haiti combat transnational crime.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23106-haiti-security-graduation-of-the-1st-promotion-of-the-border-police.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gary Alan MCKIBBON, Defendant-Appellant. No. 16-1493 Decided: December 28, 2017

Before BRISCOE, EBEL, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges. Jacob Rasch-Chabot, Assistant Federal Public Defender (Virginia L. Grady, Federal Public Defender, with him on the briefs), Denver, Colorado for Defendant-Appellant Gary Alan McKibbon. J. Bishop Grewell, Assistant U.S. Attorney (Robert C. Troyer, U.S. Attorney, and Robert Mark Russel, Assistant U.S. Attorney, on the brief), Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee United States of America.

In this direct criminal appeal, we conclude both that the district court plainly erred in treating Defendant Gary McKibbon's prior Colorado drug distribution conviction as a controlled substance offense under U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b), and that that error warrants resentencing.

BACKGROUND

McKibbon pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  922(g)(1). In calculating his sentence for that offense under the 2016 sentencing guidelines, the district court consulted U.S.S.G.  2K2.1, which provided for a base offense level of twenty if McKibbon had a prior controlled substance offense as defined by U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b) and its application note 1. See U.S.S.G.  2K2.1(a)(4)(A) & app. n.13. The court, without objection, deemed McKibbon's 2014 Colorado conviction under Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) for distribution of a Schedule I or II controlled substance to be such a controlled substance offense. Using a base offense level of twenty, then, the sentencing court calculated McKibbon's total offense level to be twenty-one which, combined with his criminal history category IV, resulted in an advisory guideline range of fifty-seven to seventy-one months in prison. The district court imposed a within-range sentence of sixty-six months.

On appeal, McKibbon argues for the first time that his prior 2014 Colorado conviction does not qualify as a controlled substance offense. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291 and 18 U.S.C.  3742(a) to consider his appeal.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Because McKibbon did not object at sentencing to classifying his prior Colorado conviction as a controlled substance offense, we review for plain error. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b); see also United States v. Taylor, 843 F.3d 1215, 1219 (10th Cir. 2016), cert. denied,  U.S. , 137 S.Ct. 1608, 197 L.Ed.2d 732 (2017). To obtain relief, then, McKibbon must establish (1) the existence of an error that has not been intentionally relinquished or abandoned, (2) the error must be plainthat is to say, clear or obvious, and (3) the error  [must] have affected the defendant's substantial rights.  Taylor, 843 F.3d at 1220 (quoting Molina-Martinez v. United States,  U.S. , 136 S.Ct. 1338, 1343, 194 L.Ed.2d 444 (2016)).  Once these three conditions have been met, we must exercise [our] discretion to correct the forfeited error if the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.  Id. (quoting Molina-Martinez, 136 S.Ct. at 1343).

LEGAL DISCUSSION

Colorado Revised Statute  18-18-405(1)(a) makes it

unlawful for any person knowingly to manufacture, dispense, sell, or distribute, or to possess with intent to manufacture, dispense, sell, or distribute, a controlled substance; or induce, attempt to induce, or conspire with one or more other persons, to manufacture, dispense, sell, distribute, or possess with intent to manufacture, dispense, sell, or distribute, a controlled substance; or possess one or more chemicals or supplies or equipment with intent to manufacture a controlled substance.

Relevant to the statute's proscription against selling a controlled substance, Colorado defines [s]ale to mean[ ] a barter, an exchange, or a gift, or an offer therefor. Id.  18-18-403(1) (emphasis added); see also id.  18-18-102(33) (emphasis added).

The federal sentencing guidelines, in turn, define a controlled substance offense to mean

the manufacture, import, export, distribution, or dispensing of a controlled substance (or a counterfeit substance) or the possession of a controlled substance (or a counterfeit substance) with intent to manufacture, import, export, distribute, or dispense.

U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b). This definition

include[s] the offenses of aiding and abetting, conspiring, and attempting to commit such offenses.

Id.  4B1.2, app. n.1.

I. The district court erred in classifying McKibbon's Colorado conviction as a controlled substance offense

We apply a categorical/modified categorical analysis to determine whether McKibbon's prior Colorado conviction qualifies as a controlled substance offense under U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b). See United States v. Madkins, 866 F.3d 1136, 1143-44 (10th Cir. 2017). In doing so, our focus is on the elements of the statute of conviction and not [on] the particular facts underlying that conviction.  United States v. O'Connor, 874 F.3d 1147, 1151 (10th Cir. 2017) (quoting Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990)) (alteration omitted).

A. Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) criminalizes a broader range of conduct than U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b) encompasses

Comparing the scope of the conduct covered by the elements of an offense under Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) with  4B1.2(b)'s definition of a controlled substance offense, O'Connor, 874 F.3d at 1151, we conclude the state statute criminalizes a broader range of conduct than that included in  4B1.2(b). Specifically, the state statute criminalizes all offers to sell a controlled substance, while U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b) does not encompass mere offers to sell a controlled substance.

Colorado Revised Statute  18-18-405(1)(a), in pertinent part, makes it unlawful for any person knowingly to manufacture, dispense, sell, or distribute, or to possess with intent to manufacture, dispense, sell or distribute, a controlled substance. Critically and relevant to the state statute's proscription against selling a controlled substance, Colorado defines [s]ale to mean[ ] a barter, an exchange, or a gift, or an offer therefor. Id.  18-18-403(1) (emphasis added); see also id.  18-18-102(33) (emphasis added).

However, the sentencing guidelines' definition of a controlled substance offense in  4B1.2(b) does not expressly include offering to sell. See Madkins, 866 F.3d at 1145. Instead,  4B1.2(b) defines a controlled substance offense to include only the manufacture, import, export, distribution, or dispensing of a controlled substance (or a counterfeit substance) or the possession of a controlled substance (or a counterfeit substance) with intent to manufacture, import, export, distribute, or dispense, U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b). [F]or purposes of this definition, distribute means to deliver  a controlled substance or listed chemical.  Madkins, 866 F.3d at 1144 (quoting 21 U.S.C.  802(11)).

This court reached a similar conclusion in Madkins, holding that U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b)'s definition of a controlled substance offense did not encompass a conviction under a Kansas law that made it a crime to offer to sell a controlled substance. 866 F.3d at 1143-48.

Other circuits have reached similar conclusions about other state statutes criminalizing offers to sell drugs. See United States v. Hinkle, 832 F.3d 569, 571-72 & 571 n.8 (5th Cir. 2016) (concluding Texas statutes that made it unlawful to offer to sell a controlled substance criminalized a broader range of conduct than U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b) encompasses, citing earlier Fifth Circuit cases); United States v. Savage, 542 F.3d 959, 964-66 (2d Cir. 2008) (reaching the same conclusion regarding Connecticut statute that made it unlawful to offer to sell a controlled substance).

Although a controlled substance offense under  4B1.2(b) includes attempts to distribute controlled substances, in Madkins we considered and rejected the argument that such attempts would necessarily encompass a state offense involving an offer to sell a controlled substance:

[W]e note that at first glance, it seems as though an offer for sale would fit squarely within the definition in the Guidelines, since the commentary to  4B1.2 clarifies that a controlled substance offense includes an attempt to commit such an offense. But a closer look reveals that the two are not a categorical match. We have previously explained that in our circuit, an attempt to commit a crime requires the intent to commit the crime and overt acts in furtherance of that intent. See United States v. Taylor, 413 F.3d 1146, 1155 (10th Cir. 2005) (emphasis added). And because a person can offer a controlled substance for sale without having the intent to actually complete the sale, a conviction for an offer to sell can be broader than a conviction for an attempt to sell.

For example, as several other circuits have noted, [a]n offer to sell can be fraudulent, such as when one offers to sell the Brooklyn Bridge. In such a circumstance, the offer to sell is fraudulent in the sense that the person offering the bridge or the drug does not have the intent to distribute or sell the item. Savage, 542 F.3d at 965 [ (2d Cir.) ] (citing United States v. Palacios-Quinonez, 431 F.3d 471, 476 (5th Cir. 2005)). To be sure, courts have relied on this reasoning in distinguishing between a conviction for possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell or deliver, and a conviction for sale or delivery of a controlled substance without the possession element. But the argument applies with equal force in the context of the distinction between an offer and an attempt.

Since the former does not necessarily involve the intent to sell or distribute that is required for the latter, a conviction for possession with intent to sell a controlled substancewhere sale is defined to include an offeris broader than the conduct criminalized in  4B1.2(a) and the authoritative commentary.

Madkins, 866 F.3d at 1147-48 (footnote omitted).

The Government argues that there is no Colorado Supreme Court case expressly addressing a conviction under Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) for a fraudulent or non-bona fide offer to sell controlled substances. But that was true, as well, of the Kansas law addressed in Madkins, yet this Court interpreted an offer for sale under Kansas law to include fraudulent offers made without the intent required in  4B1.2(b), even in the absence of a state case recognizing such a conviction. See 866 F.3d at 1147-48; see also United States v. Bryant, 571 F.3d 147, 156-58 (1st Cir. 2009) (holding New York offense of offering to sell a controlled substance fell within U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b) because it is well-established under New York law that in order to support a conviction under an offering for sale theory, there must be evidence of a bona fide offer to selli.e., that defendant had both the intent and ability to proceed with the sale (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Savage, 542 F.3d 959, 965-66 (2d Cir. 2008) (interpreting Connecticut statute criminalizing offers to include fraudulent offers without citing supporting state case).

The Government unpersuasively contends that, although the Colorado Supreme Court has never addressed the question, that Court would probably require proof of a bona fide offer to sell controlled substances to support a conviction. (Aple. Br. 12.) However, the plain language of the Colorado statute makes it unlawful to offer to sell controlled substances. The statute does not further modify or limit the term offer. Without any Colorado case law to the contrary, we have no authority on behalf of Colorado to insert any new limiting adjective such as bona fide adjacent to the unadorned word, offer. Nor is there legislative or judicial precedent in Colorado that has been cited to us that suggests that the Colorado Supreme Court would engage in its own legislation by rewriting Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1) or 18-18-403(1), if this issue were presented to them. Thus, we cannot conclude the state courts would limit Colorado's statute criminalizing offers to sell controlled substances only to bona fide offers.

Moreover, it makes sense that the Colorado legislature would intend to criminalize both sham as well as bona fide offers to sell drugs. Experience teaches that real drug dealers sometimes engage in sham deals, and those deals are fraught with the potential for violence, and so it is not implausible that Colorado would want to criminalize such activities.

The Government, nevertheless, asserts that a Colorado Court of Appeals case, People v. Farris, 812 P.2d 654 (Colo. Ct. App. 1991) limited offers criminalized under  18-18-405(1)(a) to bona fide offers. But Farris did not address that question. Instead, Farris addressed a prior version of the statutes at issue here, and specifically considered whether a procuring agent defense remained available after the state legislature revised these statutes. 812 P.2d at 655. Farris does not address whether the predecessor Colorado statute (or the current one) criminalizes only bona fide (as opposed to sham) offers to sell controlled substances.

Based on this Court's reasoning in Madkins, then, we conclude that Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) criminalizes a broader range of conduct than is included in U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b)'s definition of a controlled substance offense.

B. The Colorado statute is indivisible

The Government next argues that Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) is divisible, setting forth the elements of multiple criminal offenses, including manufacturing, dispensing, distributing, selling, or offering to sell a controlled substance. If so, the government argues that we can apply the modified categorical approach to determine to which of those offenses McKibbon pled guilty in 2014. See Mathis v. United States,  U.S. , 136 S.Ct. 2243, 2249, 195 L.Ed.2d 604 (2016). If we can do so, and if by references to permitted materials we can tell that McKibbon was not convicted of the overly broad offense of offering to sell a controlled substance, then the Government contends his state conviction could still qualify as a controlled substance offense under U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b). But if the statute lists, not elements of different offenses, but only different means by which a person commits a single drug distribution offense, then the state statute is indivisible and the modified categorical approach will not apply. See Mathis, 136 S.Ct. at 2249-51, 2253.

Mathis indicated that it will be easy to determine whether a state statute lists elements of different crimes or only means to commit a single crime when a state court decision definitively answers the question. Id. at 2256. We have just such a situation here. The Colorado Supreme Court, in People v. Abiodun, held that Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) defines a single offense. 111 P.3d 462, 464 (Colo. 2005). In Abiodun, the defendant was charged and convicted under  18-18-405(1)(a) of both possession and distribution of a controlled substance arising out of the same transaction; that is, the only evidence of the defendant's possession was that he acquired the drugs from a third party for distribution to the informant. 111 P.3d at 464. The Colorado Supreme Court held that convicting the defendant for both possession and distribution under those circumstances violated double jeopardy, id., because the Colorado legislature, in enacting Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405, intended to create a single, unitary offense. 111 P.3d at 468 (stating also that the acts enumerated in section 405(1)(a) all represent stages in the commission of one crime.). In support of its conclusion, the Colorado Supreme Court went on to state that the Colorado legislature, in enacting  18-18-405(1)(a), joined a number of acts  as a disjunctive series, in a single sentence, without any attempt to differentiate them by name or other organizational device; join[ed] in a single proscription an entire range of conduct potentially facilitating or contributing to illicit drug traffic; and criminalized that entire range of conduct  in a single subsection of a statute entitled simply, Unlawful distribution, manufacturing, dispensing, sale or possession.  Id. at 466 (footnote omitted). Abiodun further indicated that the statute's one sentence proscription is structured as a series of acts, with reference to the same controlled substance and governed by a common mens rea; [t]he acts chosen for specific inclusion are not themselves mutually exclusive but overlap in various ways and cover a continuum of conduct from the production of a controlled substance to its delivery to another person, under any of a number of circumstances; and the sentence for violating this statute is in no way dependent upon the particular enumerated act or acts he is found to have committed. Id. Abiodun then concluded:

Nothing in the specific language of the statute or the history of its enactment suggests an intent to create a separate offense for each proscribed act. On the contrary, the scope and structure of the proscriptive provision, combined with sentencing provisions differentiating punishments on the basis of the quantum of drugs (rather than the act) involved, strongly points to the creation of a single crime, the gravamen of which is preventing the unauthorized delivery of a particular quantity of a particular contraband substance.

Id. at 466-67 (internal quotation marks omitted). Based on the Colorado Supreme Court's decision in Abiodun, we conclude  18-18-405(1)(a) is an indivisible statute, setting forth one offense which can be committed by a variety of means.

The Government argues that, because Abiodun was specifically addressing a double jeopardy question, that decision does not directly answer the relevant question here, whether Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) is divisible. To the contrary, Abiodun addresses exactly that question, holding that the state legislature intended to create a single unitary offense when it enacted the alternatively-phrased  18-18-405(1)(a). Mathis, 136 S.Ct. at 2249; see also id. at 2256.

Moreover, Mathis suggested that, in determining whether a statute is divisible, we consider whether it provides different punishments for the different ways listed to violate the statute's criminal proscription. See 136 S.Ct. at 2256. The Colorado Supreme Court did just that in Abiodun, noting that  18-18-405(1)(a) does not provide different punishments depending on whether a defendant manufactured or distributed or offered to sell a controlled substance.

Finally, Mathis suggests that, if state law fails to provide clear answers, we can take a peek at the documents of this defendant's prior conviction for the sole and limited purpose of determining whether the listed items are elements of the offense. 136 S.Ct. at 2256-57 (internal quotation marks omitted). Doing so here, we see that McKibbon pled guilty to distribution of a controlled substance under Colo. Rev. Stat. 18-18-405(1)(a) by either selling or distributing heroin. That further suggests that selling or distributing a controlled substance are only means to commit the single, indivisible offense of distributing a controlled substance. See Mathis, 136 S.Ct. at 2248.

For all of these reasons, then, we conclude Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) sets forth a single indivisible criminal offense. And because that offense criminalizes a broader range of conduct than is encompassed by U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b)'s definition of a controlled substance offense, any conviction under Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) will categorically not qualify as a controlled substance offense under  4B1.2(b). The district court, then, erred in treating McKibbon's prior Colorado conviction under  18-18-405(1)(a) as a controlled substance offense.

II. The error was plain

An error is plain if it is clear at the time of the appeal. United States v. Iverson, 818 F.3d 1015, 1023 (10th Cir.), cert denied,  U.S. , 137 S.Ct. 217, 196 L.Ed.2d 168 (2016); see Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 468, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 137 L.Ed.2d 718 (1997) ([I]t is enough that an error be plain at the time of appellate consideration.). Here, it was plain error to conclude that McKibbon's prior Colorado conviction under Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) satisfied U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b)'s definition of a controlled substance offense.

First, the Tenth Circuit has clearly held that  4B1.2(b) does not include offers to sell controlled substances, unless the criminalized activity amounts to an attempt to distribute controlled substances. That means in essence that  4B1.2(b) includes only bona fide offers to sell, because such activity can be considered an attempt to distribute. But  4B1.2(b) does not include non-bona fide offers to sell because offer itself is not listed in  4B1.2(b) and a non-bona fide offer cannot be considered an attempt to distribute.

Second, the plain language of Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) and 18-18-403(1) criminalizes all offers to sell controlled substances. That phrase has never been limited by the Colorado courts and so it plainly criminalizes non-bona fide offers to sell drugs as well as bona fide offers.

Third, Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1) is non-divisible. That is the clear holding of the Colorado Supreme Court in Abiodun. Thus we may evaluate a conviction under that statute only under the categorical, rather than modified categorical, approach.

Therefore, it is unavoidable that, applying the categorical approach, McKibbon's conviction under Colo. Rev. Stat.  18-18-405(1)(a) does not satisfy the requirements of U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b).

III. The error affected McKibbon's substantial rights

At the third step of the plain-error analysis, McKibbon must show that the plain error affected his substantial rights; that is, that the error was prejudicial and affected the outcome of the proceedings. United States v. Carillo, 860 F.3d 1293, 1300 (10th Cir. 2017). Here, without a previous controlled substance offense, McKibbon did not qualify for a base offense level of twenty. He contends on appeal, and the Government does not dispute this, that his base offense level would have been fourteen and his total offense level would have been fifteen. That would have resulted in an advisory prison range of between thirty and thirty-seven months, instead of fifty-seven to seventy-one months.

Because the guidelines form the essential starting point in any federal sentencing analysis,  it follows that an obvious error in applying them runs the risk of affecting the ultimate sentence. United States v. Sabillon-Umana, 772 F.3d 1328, 1333 (10th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks).

Nothing in the text of Rule 52(b), its rationale, or the Court's precedents supports a requirement that a defendant seeking appellate review of an unpreserved Guidelines error make some further showing of prejudice beyond the fact that the erroneous, and higher, Guidelines range set the wrong framework for the sentencing proceedings.

Molina-Martinez, 136 S.Ct. at 1345.

IV. The error warrants relief because it seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings

Our analysis of the fourth plain-error prong is informed by our recent decision in United States v. Rosales-Miranda, 755 F.3d 1253 (10th Cir. 2014). There we explained that,

[u]nder the fourth prong of the plain-error test, the defendant must show that the complained-of error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. United States v. FigueroaLabrada, 720 F.3d 1258, 1266 (10th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). The fourth prong of the plain error test is discretionary, United States v. Turrietta, 696 F.3d 972, 984 (10th Cir. 2012), and its standard is a demanding standard, and of course, depends on the facts of the particular case, United States v. GonzalezHuerta, 403 F.3d 727, 737 (10th Cir. 2005) [ (en banc) ] (citation omitted).

Reversal on the fourth prong is appropriate only where the error is  particularly egregious' and the failure to notice the error would result in a miscarriage of justice.  United States v. Rufai, 732 F.3d 1175, 1195 (10th Cir. 2013) (quoting GonzalezHuerta, 403 F.3d at 736). As part of this showing, in the sentencing context, a defendant must demonstrate a strong possibility of receiving a significantly lower sentence but for the error. United States v. Mullins, 613 F.3d 1273, 1294 (10th Cir. 2010) (quoting United States v. Meacham, 567 F.3d 1184, 1190 (10th Cir. 2009)) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Rosales-Miranda, 755 F.3d at 1262.

McKibbon has met this demanding standard, Gonzalez-Huerta, 403 F.3d at 737, and has demonstrate[d] a strong possibility of receiving a significantly lower sentence, Mullins, 613 F.3d at 1294 (internal quotation marks omitted). McKibbon argued that, but for the district court's error, his base offense level would have been fourteen, not twenty, his total offense level would have been fifteen, not twenty-one, and his guideline imprisonment range would have been thirty to thirty-seven months, not fifty-seven to seventy-one months. (Aplt. Br. 13.) The district court sentenced McKibbon to a within-guideline sixty-six-month term of imprisonment. (Id. at 13-14.) His sixty-six-month term of imprisonment, as McKibbon argued, is nearly 80% above the top of the thirty to thirty-seven-month guideline range, which would have been the proper range but for the district court's error. (Id. at 14 (emphasis added).)

Because McKibbon has met the demanding standard, Gonzalez-Huerta, 403 F.3d at 737, of the plain error's fourth prong by showing that the district court's error seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings, Figueroa-Labrada, 720 F.3d at 1266, we exercise our discretion to grant McKibbon resentencing.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we remand this case to the district court with directions to vacate McKibbon's sentence and resentence him.

FOOTNOTES

. The Court GRANTS the Government's motion to supplement the appellate record with the plea agreement underlying McKibbon's prior Colorado conviction. See United States v. Armendariz-Perez, 543 Fed.Appx. 876, 880 (10th Cir. 2013) (unpublished).

. At the time Madkins pled guilty, the Kansas statutes at issue there did not expressly make it unlawful to possess the relevant controlled substance with the intent to offer it for sale. 866 F.3d at 1144-45. But Kansas case law and the state's pattern jury instructions at that time provided that proof of a defendant's possession of the controlled substance with the intent to offer it for sale was sufficient to support a conviction under those state statutes. Id. at 1146-47.

. We recognize that McKibbon did not object at sentencing to treating his prior conviction as a controlled substance offense under U.S.S.G.  4B1.2(b), and therefore no one made these arguments to the district court. Further, neither the district court nor the parties had the benefit of Madkins, which the Tenth Circuit issued while this appeal was pending. Nonetheless, the relevant time period in determining whether an error is plain is when we consider McKibbon's direct appeal, which represents our opportunity to right any error that may have emerged with the evolution of the law during the Government's prosecution of McKibbon.

EBEL, Circuit Judge.
The initiative hit the often elusive mark of 50,000 statements of support at approximately 5pm on Thursday.

The sponsors of a citizens initiative demanding that the so-called activation model for unemployment security be scrapped needed only a little over a week to collect the statements of support required to present the initiative to the Finnish Parliament.

Martin-Eric Racine, the organiser of the initiative, describes the activation model that is to be adopted as of next year as the last straw.

Im a long-term unemployed person myself whos frustrated with the ineffectiveness, overall poor services and largely oppressing and sanctions-oriented operations of TE Offices. This activation model was the last straw from my viewpoint. Weve got to put a stop to this, he commented to Uusi Suomi.

Racine, who would like to work as a peacekeeper or in the tourism sector, has been without a job for almost nine of the 20 years he has lived in Finland.

The Finnish Parliament in mid-December voted 103 for and 90 against the introduction of the activation model. The model will slash unemployment benefits by 4.65 per cent for a 65-day period for job seekers who fail to work at least 18 hours, earn at least 240 euros from self-employment or participate in activities that promote their employment prospects for five days during the three-month monitoring period.

Racine criticised the activation model for its failure to take into consideration international treaties and the recommendations issued by the Parliaments Constitutional Law Committee and Social Affairs and Health Committee.

This is a silly law that hurts many for the wrong reasons and without justification, he slammed.

He echoed the sentiments of other critics by arguing that it is unreasonable to punish job seekers for decisions that, ultimately, are out of their control. He also reminded that the situation is particularly complicated in small localities with a high number of job seekers who have been jobless for more than a year.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Screenshot/Kansalaisaloite.fi

Source: Uusi Suomi
YLE on Friday reported that its latest opinion poll found that voter support for the recently established party has almost doubled over the past month  although it remains at a rather insignificant level of 2.3 per cent. The Blue Reform was established on 13 June by 20 ex-members of the Finns Party and entered into the national party register on 15 November, 2017.

The future has become brighter for the Blue Reform.

Pirjo Auvinen, a political journalist for the public broadcasting company, estimated this morning that the successful registration and organisation process has likely evoked confidence in the political movement among voters.

Maybe this will become a real party, with a chairperson, she commented to YLE on Friday.

The poll also confirmed that the power balance between the largest political parties in the country has continued to shift.

The National Coalition and Social Democratic Party remain the most and second most supported parties, respectively, despite both of them seeing notable drops in popularity. Voter support for the former has fallen by 2.5 percentage points to 19.8 per cent and that for the latter by 1.9 percentage points by 17.8 per cent since November, according to YLE.

The Centre Party, by contrast, has recorded a modest up-tick of 0.4 percentage points in support to earn a share of second place at 17.8 per cent.

The Green League was the third party to record a decline in voter support between November and December. The opposition party would receive 14.0 per cent of the vote if the parliamentary elections were held today.

The Left Alliance and Finns Party both recorded up-ticks in voter support, the former one of 0.8 percentage points to 8.8 per cent and the latter one of 0.2 percentage points to 8.6 per cent. The greatest gains in the poll were made by the Blue Reform (+1.2pts to 2.3%) and the Swedish Peoples Party (1.1pts to 4.6%).

A total of 2,658 people were interviewed for the poll between 29 November and 27 December by Taloustutkimus.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Jussi Nukari  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. KENNETH W. MERCER; JAMES HANKS; LARRY FOWLER; JERMAINE JONES; ABEL NINO; SHELBI HYDE-BELL; JEREMIAH HEIKKILA; CHARLES FERGUSON; BLAKE KELLEY; RICHARD JOHNSON; JONATHAN SIMSICH; CHARLES CATES, Plaintiffs - Appellants v. PATTERSON-UTI DRILLING COMPANY, L.L.C., Defendant - Appellee No. 16-20604 Decided: December 27, 2017

Before REAVLEY, ELROD, and SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judges.

The plaintiffs appeal the district court's granting Patterson-UTI Drilling Company, L.L.C.'s motion for summary judgment on their WARN Act claims. We find no error and AFFIRM.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Patterson-UTI is an oil and gas drilling company that has drilling rigs spread throughout the United States. Patterson-UTI provides drilling services to its customers, who are oil and natural gas exploration and production companies. Patterson-UTI and its customers enter into drilling contracts, which vary according to each customer's drilling needs.

The plaintiffs are former employees of Patterson-UTI. Each plaintiff worked on Patterson-UTI's drilling rigs. After Patterson-UTI's customers terminated some of their drilling operations, Patterson-UTI decided to decommission, or stack, some of its drilling rigs temporarily. Due to this stacking, Patterson-UTI terminated the employment of each plaintiff between December 2014 and February 2015.

In February and March 2015, the plaintiffs filed two separate lawsuits against Patterson-UTI. The two lawsuits were consolidated in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The plaintiffs alleged that Patterson-UTI violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (the WARN Act) by terminating their employment without providing them with sixty days' advance written notice. See 29 U.S.C.  21012109.

The plaintiffs characterize Patterson-UTI's business as consisting of seven geographical operational areas. The areas were based out of the following cities: Dickinson, North Dakota; Midland, Tyler, and Victoria, Texas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Eighty Four, Pennsylvania; and Fruita, Colorado. The plaintiffs asserted that the drilling rigs within each operational area should be considered a single site of employment for WARN Act purposes because the drilling rigs satisfied the reasonable geographic proximity test under 20 C.F.R.  639.3(i)(3). The plaintiffs pled in the alternative that each operational area should be treated as a single site of employment under three other Department of Labor (DOL) regulations. See 20 C.F.R.  639.3(i)(1), (6), (8).

In January 2016, the plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification. In March 2016, Patterson-UTI filed both a memorandum in opposition to the plaintiffs' motion for class certification and a motion for summary judgment. In its summary judgment motion, Patterson-UTI sought complete dismissal of the plaintiffs' WARN Act claims. It argued that the plaintiffs could not prevail on their WARN Act claims because an employer is only required to provide advanced notice under the WARN Act before a mass layoff or plant closing, as those terms are defined in the Act.

In their response to the summary judgment motion, the plaintiffs did not argue that the drilling rigs within each operational area were a single site of employment under Section 639.3(i)(6). They did contend, though, that they had fully demonstrated that [the] drilling rigs in each Distinct Operational Area are properly aggregated as single sites of employment in each such area pursuant to [Section 639.3(i)(3)].

The district court held a hearing on the motion and granted summary judgment in favor of Patterson-UTI. The court concluded that there was no basis to aggregate the drilling sites to form a single site of employment and that [n]one of the exceptions apply. So summary judgment must [be] granted to the defendant. Patterson-UTI subsequently filed a bill of costs with the district court, which the district court partially awarded.

On appeal, the plaintiffs seek reversal of both the grant of summary judgment and also the partial award of costs.

DISCUSSION

The plaintiffs raise three arguments on appeal. First, they contend that the district court erred in concluding that the drilling rigs within the Patterson-UTI operational areas could not be aggregated into a single site of employment. Second, the plaintiffs argue that the district court erred in granting summary judgment, without first giving notice to the plaintiffs, on theories of liability not addressed in Patterson-UTI's motion for summary judgment. And, third, the plaintiffs argue that the district court abused its discretion in awarding costs to Patterson-UTI because the WARN Act is a remedial statute and they brought their claims in good faith and presented an issue of first impression. We address each of these arguments in turn.

I. Single site of employment under the WARN Act

Whether the drilling rigs within a Patterson-UTI operational area constituted a single site of employment under the WARN Act is a mixed question of fact and law. See Davis v. Signal Int'l Tex. GP, L.L.C., 728 F.3d 482, 485 (5th Cir. 2013). We review the district court's findings of underlying fact for clear error and review the legal question of whether there was a single site of employment based on the underlying historical facts de novo. Id.

Prior to ordering a plant closing or a mass layoff, the WARN Act requires that certain employers provide each affected employee with sixty days' advance written notice. 29 U.S.C.  2102(a). The Act defines a plant closing as the temporary or permanent closing of a single site of employment, or one or more facilities or operating units within a single site of employment, which results in an employment loss for at least fifty employees over a thirty-day period. Id.  2101(a)(2). A mass layoff is an employer's reduction in work force at a single site of employment during any 30-day period by at least fifty employees, an amount which must also be at least 33 percent of the employees (excluding any part-time employees) at that single site of employment. Id.  2101(a)(3). Hence, both a plant closing and a mass layoff must occur at a single site of employment.

The WARN Act does not define single site of employment. We have, however, looked to the DOL's regulations for guidance in defining the term. See, e.g., Meadows v. Latshaw Drilling Co., L.L.C., 866 F.3d 307, 31112 (5th Cir. 2017); Davis, 728 F.3d at 485. The general rule is that separate facilities are separate sites. Davis, 728 F.3d at 485 (quoting Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, 54 Fed. Reg. 1604201, 16050 (Apr. 20, 1989)).

A narrow exception to this general rule is that geographically separate sites' with an inextricable operational connection  that is, separate sites that are used for the same purpose and share the same staff and equipment can constitute a single site of employment. Meadows, 866 F.3d at 311 (quoting Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, 54 Fed. Reg. at 16049). We have previously noted, though, that two plants across town will rarely be considered a single site. Id. (quoting Williams v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 23 F.3d 930, 934 (5th Cir. 1994)).

Geographically distinct facilities can be aggregated into a single site of employment for purposes of the WARN Act if [1] they are in reasonable geographic proximity, [2] used for the same purpose, and [3] share the same staff and equipment. 20 C.F.R.  639.3(i)(3). We have held that separate facilities are only to be treated as a single site of employment if all three factors  are met; [a]ny other reading would be inconsistent with the plain language of the regulation. Viator v. Delchamps Inc., 109 F.3d 1124, 1127 (5th Cir. 1997).

Under another regulation, the single site of employment for certain types of workers is either the person's assigned home base, the site from which their work is assigned, or the site to which they report. 20 C.F.R.  639.3(i)(6). Those covered under this section are workers whose primary duties require travel from point to point, who are outstationed, or whose primary duties involve work outside any of the employer's regular employment sites (e.g., railroad workers, bus drivers, salespersons)[.] Id.

On appeal, the plaintiffs argue that the district court erred in concluding that the drilling rigs within an operational area could not be aggregated to form a single site of employment under Section 639.3(i)(3), which the parties refer to as the reasonable geographic proximity test. The plaintiffs alternatively argue that the district court erred in not concluding that the plaintiffs worked at a single site of employment under Section 639.3(i)(6), which the parties refer to as the outstationed employee exception.

We first dispense with issues pertaining to Section 639.3(i)(6). Patterson-UTI argued in its motion for summary judgment that the plaintiffs were not outstationed employees under Section 639.3(i)(6). It argued in the alternative that even if the plaintiffs were such employees, their home bases were the drilling rigs on which they worked, not the operational areas. The plaintiffs did not respond to these arguments in their written briefing and did not discuss Section 639.3(i)(6) at the summary judgment hearing. Though plaintiffs do brief that regulation here, we do not consider  arguments that were not presented to the district court for its consideration in ruling on the motion. See, e.g., Lyles v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek, USA, Inc., 871 F.3d 305, 310 (5th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted).

We now turn to the plaintiffs' arguments regarding Section 639.3(i)(3). The district court concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to provide sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment on any of the three Section 639.3(i)(3) factors. A plaintiff must show all factors are satisfied. See Viator, 109 F.3d at 1127. Consequently, we explain only why the district court did not err in concluding that the plaintiffs failed to create a genuine issue of material fact for the first factor. Under that factor, separate facilities are only to be treated as a single site of employment if the separate facilitates are in reasonable geographic proximity to one another. 20 C.F.R.  639.3(i)(3). We have held that a plaintiff had not identified specific facts showing that there is a genuine dispute for trial when he showed merely that an unspecified number of job sites are located an unspecified distance from each other somewhere within an area that is approximately 250 miles wide and 300 miles long.  Meadows, 866 F.3d at 313. Further, the plaintiff had not pointed to any grouping of job sites in which, between the sites, [the employer] laid off fifty or more employees within the relevant WARN Act period. Id.

The plaintiffs argue that they created a genuine issue of material fact because they presented evidence showing that Patterson-UTI employees could drive to another drilling rig and back within a short time period and could see other rigs in the [operational area] from the rig on which they were working. At most, though, the plaintiffs show only that some drilling rigs were within viewing distance of one or more of the others. This is insufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact considering that Patterson-UTI's drilling rigs range from 160- to 180-feet tall. Moreover, the fact that employees could drive from one drilling rig to another in some undisclosed time period also does not create a genuine issue of material fact, considering that the drilling rigs varied from being several miles to hundreds of miles apart and were spread across several counties and states.

Without offering evidence of the distance between any relevant grouping of drilling rigs, the plaintiffs failed to create a genuine issue of material fact that the drilling rigs were within reasonable geographic proximity.

II. Granting summary judgment on all theories of liability

The plaintiffs argue the district court erred in granting summary judgment on two alternative theories of liability pled by the plaintiffs but not briefed in defendant Patterson-UTI's motion for summary judgment. The rejected alternatives were a plant closing theory under 20 C.F.R.  639.3(b) and a truly unusual organizational situations theory under 20 C.F.R.  639.3(i)(8).

We find a similar approach to have been taken by the district court in Meadows. There, the plaintiff contended that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to the defendant on the plant-closing claim and other articulations of a single site of employment because they were not raised in the [defendant's] summary judgment motion. 866 F.3d at 314. We disagreed. Id. We noted that the defendant's summary judgment motion raised the argument that neither a mass layoff nor plant closing had occurred because no single site of employment had suffered an employment loss of fifty or more people. Id. at 315. We held that the district court did not err in awarding complete summary judgment because the defendant's summary judgment briefing should have put [the plaintiff] on notice that he had to come forward with all of [his] evidence.  Id. at 315 (quoting Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 326 (1986)).

We find no meaningful distinction between the summary judgment briefing in Meadows and the briefing on summary judgment here. Patterson-UTI's motion focused on the argument that neither a mass layoff nor a plant closing had occurred because the plaintiffs' employment losses were not a part of an employment loss of fifty or more people at a single site of employment. Thus, it was not error for the district court to grant summary judgment on the plaintiffs' alternative theories of liability because Patterson-UTI's briefing should have put the plaintiffs on notice to come forward with all of their evidence and argument. See id.

III. Awarding costs to Patterson-UTI

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d)(1) permits a district court to provide costs, other than attorney's fees, to the prevailing party. We review a district court's award of costs under Rule 54(d)(1) for an abuse of discretion. Pacheco v. Mineta, 448 F.3d 783, 793 (5th Cir. 2006). Such an award of costs can be overturned [o]nly when a clear abuse of discretion is shown[.] Id. There is a strong presumption under Rule 54(d)(1) that the prevailing party will be awarded costs. Cheatham v. Allstate Ins. Co., 465 F.3d 578, 586 (5th Cir. 2006).

The plaintiffs assert that the district court abused its discretion in awarding costs to Patterson-UTI because the plaintiffs litigated the case in good faith, and the case involved a close and difficult issue of first impression[.] The plaintiffs interpret Pacheco to mean it is proper to deny costs when the losing party brought the case in good faith and also satisfied at least one of five factors identified in a treatise as all or most of the reasons the court had previously denied costs. See 448 F.3d at 794. Plaintiffs misread the precedent. We made no holding that good faith plus one factor requires denying costs to a prevailing party. We were explicit on the point: These reasons are enumerated only for the purpose of exposition. We do not decide whether any of these is a sufficient reason to deny costs. Id. at 794 n.18. We did hold that the losing party's good faith is alone insufficient to justify the denial of costs to the prevailing party. Id. at 795. We later restated the limited holding of that case. See Moore v. CITGO Ref. & Chems. Co., L.P., 735 F.3d 309, 319 (5th Cir. 2013).

The plaintiffs alternatively argue that the district court abused its discretion in awarding costs to Patterson-UTI. They argue that because the WARN Act is a remedial statute, courts have declined to award costs to prevailing defendants when the lawsuit was non-frivolous. The WARN Act, though, was not the basis for the award of costs. Rule 54(d)(1) was. The plaintiffs have not cited any case supporting that a district court abuses its discretion when it awards costs to a party under Rule 54(d)(1), notwithstanding that the underlying lawsuit was brought under the WARN Act.

The plaintiffs have not shown that the district court abused its discretion in awarding costs to Patterson-UTI.

AFFIRMED.

PER CURIAM:*
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit. Carolyn COMBS PlaintiffAppellant v. Nancy A. BERRYHILL,1 Commissioner, Social Security Administration DefendantAppellee No. 16-2849 Decided: December 28, 2017

Before SMITH, Chief Judge,2KELLY, Circuit Judge, and SIPPEL, 3 District Judge. Eugene Gregory Wallace, CAMPBELL UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, Raleigh, NC, Stephanie Bartels Wallace, BARTELS LAW FIRM, Jonesboro, AR, for PlaintiffAppellant. Stuart G. Cox, Assistant Regional Counsel, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, Office of General Counsel Region VI, Dallas, TX, Stacey E. McCord, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, Eastern District of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR, for DefendantAppellee.

Carolyn Combs appeals from the district court's order affirming the Administrative Law Judge's (ALJ) denial of her application for disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income. Because we conclude that the ALJ failed to fully and fairly develop the record, we reverse and remand for further factual findings.

I. Background

Combs applied for disability benefits on July 2, 2012, alleging a disability onset date of May 17, 2012. She claims she is disabled as a result of the combined effects of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, asthma, and obesity. Combs was born on December 24, 1961, and has a ninth grade education. She last worked as a hotel housekeeper and was fired for talking on her cell phone.

The ALJ held a hearing on Combs' application on January 9, 2014, at which Combs and a Vocational Expert (VE) testified. Combs provided the following information. She is 53 tall and weighs 240 pounds. She was first told by a doctor that she had arthritis in August 2011; a little later, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis by a doctor who prescribed meloxicam for the arthritis and tramadol for pain. The medications eased the pain whereas [she] can basically deal with it a little bit, but it didn't take the pain away, but it made it bearable a little bit. She has swelling from [her] knees all the way down to [her] foot, which is worsened by walking and standing. She can walk for about five minutes at a time, but then she has to stop because of the pain in her lower back, knees, and feet. She can only stand for two or three minutes before having to sit down and prop up her legs, which sometimes lessens the swelling. She can sit for one hour but spends the day changing positions. Her hands sometimes cramp up so much she cannot use themthey just get stuck. She has pain daily, and has restless leg syndrome, which disturbs her sleep. She is prescribed amitriptyline, which helps but does not eliminate the problem.

Combs' daily activities consist mostly of sitting on her couch or walking around the house in an effort to keep her legs from stiffening. She sometimes goes to her daughter's house, but because she has trouble getting up from her daughter's couch, she prefers to sit at home where she can be more comfortable. She can shop only if a motorized cart is available. She can make herself a sandwich, but can only cook for her family if she has a chair in the kitchen, where she can sit down after standing for two or three minutes. She sometimes does dishes. She does not have the strength in her hands to wring mops or wipe surfaces, and she can no longer play with her grandchildren.

Combs presented medical records spanning the time period from July 2011 to September 2014 from St. Bernards Regional Medical Center, AR Care, Jonesboro Church Health Center, and NEA Baptist Clinic. Henry Allen, M.D., of AR Care, diagnosed Combs with rheumatoid arthritis in November 2011 and prescribed meloxicam, cyclobenzaprine, and tramadol to treat the arthritis and accompanying pain. Combs has continued treatment with various medical providers for this condition, including Dr. Allen, Beata Majewski, M.D., and Jennifer Long, APN, and these providers continue to prescribe pain medicationincluding toradol, hydrocodone, and tramadolfor severe pain due to her rheumatoid arthritis. X-rays showed severe degenerative changes in both of Combs' knees, narrowing of the joint space in her wrists and in the fingers of both hands. Treatment notes from Dr. Allen, Dr. Majewski, and APN Long reported swelling, warmth, and tenderness in Combs' hands, wrists, knees, and ankles, as well as painful range of motion, but no acute distress and normal movement of all extremities. None of these medical treatment providers offered an opinion about Combs' ability to function in the workplace.

The only medical opinions regarding Combs' residual functional capacity (RFC) that the ALJ considered were from two stateagency medical consultants: Robert Redd, M.D., who conducted an initial review of Combs' medical records, and Sharon Keith, M.D., who reviewed Combs' records at the reconsideration level. Neither doctor examined Combs. Dr. Redd opined that Combs was able to lift ten pounds occasionally and less than ten pounds frequently and was therefore limited to sedentary work. In Dr. Keith's opinion, Combs was capable of work at the light exertional level and could lift twenty pounds occasionally and ten pounds frequently.

Following the hearing, the ALJ issued a decision on July 18, 2014, analyzing Combs' disability following the five-step sequential evaluation process outlined in 20 C.F.R.  420.1520(a)(f). At the first and second steps, the ALJ determined that Combs had not engaged in substantial gainful activity since her alleged disability onset date, and had the following severe impairments: rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and obesity. At step three, the ALJ determined that Combs did not have an impairment or combination of impairments listed in or medically equal to one listed in Appendix 1, Subpart P, Regulation No. 4.

The ALJ next considered Combs' RFC. The ALJ found Combs' subjective complaints of pain not entirely credible in large part based on her treating physicians' notations that she was in no acute distress and had normal movement of all extremities. The ALJ gave some weight to Dr. Redd's opinion but concluded that Dr. Keith's opinion was more consistent with the record as a whole, and with the notations in the treatment notes specifically. Relying on Combs' medical records and Dr. Keith's opinion, as well as the VE's testimony, the ALJ determined Combs had the RFC to perform light work as defined in 20 C.F.R.  404.1567(b) with the following limitations: she can only frequently use her hands to finger and grasp; only occasionally climb ladders, ropes, scaffolds, ramps, or stairs; and only occasionally balance, stoop, kneel, crouch, and crawl. Because Combs' past work as a hotel housekeeper did not require her to perform any work-related activities precluded by her RFC, the ALJ concluded Combs was capable of performing her past relevant work and so was not disabled. Alternatively, the ALJ found that Combs could perform other jobs that existed in significant numbers in the national economy, such as a cashier or a fast food worker.

On August 6, 2015, the Appeals Council denied Combs' request for review. She sought judicial review and, on May 25, 2016, the district court affirmed the Commissioner's denial of Combs' claims. In this appeal, Combs challenges the ALJ's RFC determination.

II. Discussion

Because the Appeals Council declined review, the ALJ's decision is the final decision of the Commissioner. Lott v. Colvin, 772 F.3d 546, 548 (8th Cir. 2014). The findings of the Commissioner of Social Security as to any fact, if supported by substantial evidence, shall be conclusive. Id. (quoting 42 U.S.C.  405(g)). We review the ALJ's denial of disability insurance benefits de novo to ensure that there was no legal error and that the findings of fact are supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. Brown v. Colvin, 825 F.3d 936, 939 (8th Cir. 2016). Substantial evidence is less than a preponderance, but enough that a reasonable mind would find it adequate to support a conclusion. Id. We consider the record as a whole, reviewing both the evidence that supports the ALJ's decision and the evidence that detracts from it. Id.

Combs contends the ALJ's conclusion that she had the RFC to perform light work, and therefore could return to her past relevant work as a hotel housekeeper, is not supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. An ALJ determines a claimant's RFC based on all the relevant evidence, including the medical records, observations of treating physicians and others, and an individual's own description of [her] limitations. Strongson v. Barnhart, 361 F.3d 1066, 1070 (8th Cir. 2004) (quoting McKinney v. Apfel, 228 F.3d 860, 863 (8th Cir. 2000)). Because a claimant's RFC is a medical question, an ALJ's assessment of it must be supported by some medical evidence of the claimant's ability to function in the workplace. Steed v. Astrue, 524 F.3d 872, 875 (8th Cir. 2008) (quoting Cox v. Astrue, 495 F.3d 614, 619 (8th Cir. 2007)). The ALJ may not simply draw his own inferences about plaintiff's functional ability from medical reports. Strongson, 361 F.3d at 1070.

Here, in determining Combs' RFC, the ALJ had opinions from two reviewing physicians. See Casey, 503 F.3d at 697 (recognizing that an ALJ may rely on a reviewing physician's report at step four when the burden is on the claimant to establish an inability to do past relevant work). Dr. Redd and Dr. Keith each considered the total medical and non-medical evidence in Combs' file, yet came to conflicting views of Combs' ability to function in the workplace based on that evidence. Dr. Redd gave Combs a ten-pound weight limit, which would have limited her to sedentary work. See 20 C.F.R.  404.1567(a) (Sedentary work involves lifting no more than 10 pounds at a time and occasionally lifting or carrying articles like docket files, ledgers, and small tools.). It is undisputed that had the ALJ accepted Dr. Redd's opinion regarding Combs' RFC, Combs would have been found disabled under rule 201.09 of the medical-vocational guidelines due to her age, education, and previous work experience. See 20 C.F.R. Pt. 404, Subpt. P, App. 2, rule 201.09. Viewing the same evidence, Dr. Keith opined that Combs was instead capable of work at the light exertional level.

Combs' dispute centers on how the ALJ decided which opinion to credit. Citing to Combs' treating physicians' notations of no acute distress and normal movements, the ALJ gave Dr. Keith's opinion greater weight than Dr. Redd's opinion because it was more consistent with [Combs'] record as a whole. Rather than rely on his own inferences of what those notations meant, Combs asserts, the ALJ should have contacted her medical providers for clarification. Because the ALJ failed to do so, Combs argues, he did not satisfy his duty to fully and fairly develop the record.

Well-settled precedent confirms that the ALJ bears a responsibility to develop the record fairly and fully, independent of the claimant's burden to press his case. Vossen v. Astrue, 612 F.3d 1011, 1016 (8th Cir. 2010) (quoting Snead v. Barnhart, 360 F.3d 834, 838 (8th Cir. 2004)). We recognize that an ALJ does not have to seek additional clarifying statements from a treating physician unless a crucial issue is undeveloped. Vossen, 612 F.3d at 1016 (emphasis omitted) (quoting Stormo v. Barnhart, 377 F.3d 801, 806 (8th Cir. 2004)); see also Ellis v. Barnhart, 392 F.3d 988, 994 (8th Cir. 2005) (duty to seek clarification from treating physician arises only if a crucial issue is undeveloped). But an ALJ must not substitute his opinions for those of the physician. Finch v. Astrue, 547 F.3d 933, 938 (8th Cir. 2008) (quoting Ness v. Sullivan, 904 F.2d 432, 435 (8th Cir. 1990)); see also PateFires v. Astrue, 564 F.3d 935, 94647 (8th Cir. 2009) (noting that ALJs may not play doctor).

We conclude the ALJ erred in relying on his own inferences as to the relevance of the notations no acute distress and normal movement of all extremities when determining the relative weight to assign to Dr. Redd's and Dr. Keith's opinions. Notably, the Commissioner concedes in her brief that the term  no acute distress' [is not] of particular significance with a chronic condition such as [Combs'] rheumatoid arthritis. The Commissioner instead argues that the finding of normal movement of all extremities is inconsistent with Combs' complaints of pain. But the relevance of this finding in terms of Combs' ability to function in the workplace is not clear: Although Combs' medical providers consistently note in their treatment records that Combs has a normal range of motion, they likewise consistently diagnose her with rheumatoid arthritis, prescribe medications for severe pain, and note trigger point and joint pain with range of motion. By relying on his own interpretation of what no acute distress and normal movement of all extremities meant in terms of Combs' RFC, the ALJ failed to satisfy his duty to fully and fairly develop the record. See Byes v. Astrue, 687 F.3d 913, 91516 (8th Cir. 2012) (Failing to develop the record is reversible error when it does not contain enough evidence to determine the impact of a claimant's impairment on [her] ability to work.). Accordingly, we conclude remand is necessary so the ALJ may conduct further inquiry as to what relevance Combs' being in no acute distress and having normal movement of all extremities has for her ability to function in the workplace.

III. Conclusion

Accordingly, we reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

The majority holds that the ALJ failed to fully and fairly develop the record. Specifically, the majority holds that the ALJ failed to seek clarification of the terms no acute distress and normal movement of all extremities. I respectfully dissent.

Combs argues that the ALJ failed to fully and fairly develop the record because he failed to seek clarification of the terms no acute distress and normal movement of all extremities and improperly relied on his own interpretations of these terms. Combs essentially argues that these terms were unclear and that the ALJ was duty-bound to ask the treating physicians for more information. The ALJ's duty to develop the record, however, does not extend so far as to necessarily require an ALJ to seek more information when an opinion is arguably unclear. See Stormo, 377 F.3d at 806. The ALJ must neutrally develop the facts. He does not, however, have to seek additional clarifying statements from a treating physician unless a crucial issue is undeveloped. Id. (citation omitted). The medical record contains dozens of treatment notes detailing Combs's physical limitations. In this case, no crucial issue was undeveloped as to create a duty to seek additional information from Combs's treating physicians. See KKC ex rel. Stoner v. Colvin, 818 F.3d 364, 372 (8th Cir. 2016).

I therefore respectfully dissent.

FOOTNOTES

. A claimant's RFC is what  he or she can do despite his or her limitations. Pearsall v. Massanari, 274 F.3d 1211, 1217 (8th Cir. 2001) (citing 20 C.F.R.  404.1545).

. Light work involves:[l]ifting no more than 20 pounds at a time with frequent lifting or carrying of objects weighing up to 10 pounds. Even though the weight lifted may be very little, a job is in this category when it requires a good deal of walking or standing, or when it involves sitting most of the time with some pushing and pulling of arm or leg controls. To be considered capable of performing a full or wide range of light work, you must have the ability to do substantially all of these activities.20 C.F.R.  404.1567(b). To be capable of performing light work, a claimant must also be able to stand or walk for six hours of an eight-hour work day. Frankl v. Shalala, 47 F.3d 935, 937 (8th Cir. 1995).

. In addition, [i]t is well settled that an ALJ may consider the opinion of an independent medical advisor as one factor in determining the nature and severity of a claimant's impairment. Casey v. Astrue, 503 F.3d 687, 697 (8th Cir. 2007) (quoting Harris v. Barnhart, 356 F.3d 926, 931 (8th Cir. 2004)).

KELLY, Circuit Judge.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. CHARLES G. KINNEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE BAR OF CALIFORNIA; THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT, Defendants-Appellees. No. 16-16689 Decided: December 28, 2017

Before: WALLACE, SILVERMAN, and BYBEE, Circuit Judges.

MEMORANDUM*

Charles G. Kinney appeals pro se from the district court's judgment dismissing his antitrust and 42 U.S.C.  1981 action arising out of California State Bar disciplinary proceedings. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291. We review de novo the district court's order granting a motion to dismiss. Coal. to Defend Affirmative Action v. Brown, 674 F.3d 1128, 1133 (9th Cir. 2012). We affirm.

The district court properly dismissed Kinney's action because his claims against the State Bar of California and the California Supreme Court are barred by the Eleventh Amendment. See Simmons v. Sacramento Cty. Superior Court, 318 F.3d 1156, 1161 (9th Cir. 2003) (California state courts are arms of the state entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity); Hirsh v. Justices of Supreme Court of State of Cal., 67 F.3d 708, 715 (9th Cir. 1995) (the State Bar of California is an arm of the state and is entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity); see also Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 100 (1984) (Eleventh Amendment immunity applies to states and their agencies or departments regardless of the nature of the relief sought).

The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Kinney leave to amend the complaint because amendment would have been futile. See Cervantes v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 656 F.3d 1034, 1041 (9th Cir. 2011) (setting forth standard of review and explaining that dismissal without leave to amend is proper when amendment would be futile); see also Cooper v. Ramos, 704 F.3d 772, 777-78 (9th Cir. 2012) (Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars district court from exercising jurisdiction over a de facto appeal from a state court judgment).

The district court did not abuse its discretion by declining to enter the default of the California Supreme Court because Kinney's claims against the California Supreme Court lacked merit. See Aldabe v. Aldabe, 616 F.2d 1089, 1092-93 (9th Cir. 1980) (setting forth standard of review and holding that district court did not abuse its discretion by declining to enter default judgment [g]iven the lack of merit in [plaintiff's] substantive claims).

The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Kinney's motion for recusal because Kinney failed to establish any basis for recusal. See United States v. Johnson, 610 F.3d 1138, 1147-48 (9th Cir. 2010) (setting forth standard of review and discussing grounds for recusal).

The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Kinney's motion to vacate because Kinney failed to establish any grounds for such relief. See Sch. Dist. No. 1J, Multnomah Cty., Or. v. ACandS, Inc., 5 F.3d 1255, 1262-63 (9th Cir. 1993) (setting forth standard of review and requirements for relief under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) and 60(b)).

We do not consider arguments and allegations raised for the first time on appeal. See Padgett v. Wright, 587 F.3d 983, 985 n.2 (9th Cir. 2009).

AFFIRMED.
BRISTOL, Tenn.  Police responding to a residential burglary on Wednesday in a Bristol, Tennessee, neighborhood arrested a man who remained near the crime scene, according to a criminal complaint.

Ryan C. Brown, 24, of Bristol, Tennessee, was charged with aggravated burglary, theft over $1,000, possession of stolen property and two counts of unlawful possession of a weapon.

Officers with the Bristol Tennessee Police Department responded to the 300 block of Penrod Road to investigate a burglary. The resident told police he left his home that morning and returned to find pry marks on the door and items missing from inside. The back door also appeared to be broken, and a large block was on the back porch, according to the criminal complaint, which was filed in Sullivan County General Sessions Court.

A neighbor told officers she observed a white man walking up to the porch about an hour earlier. She said he was wearing a gray hoodie and baggy pants, the complaint states.

An officer said he observed a man fitting the description walk out from behind a bush at the top of Penrod Road. Officers made contact with the man, identified as Ryan Brown, who said he had been walking to a friends house to get money.

Officers, who said Brown was unable to give his friends real name, drove the man to an apartment on Belmont Drive. Once there, officers searched the residence and found a camouflage bag under a bed, which contained two weapons and four loaded magazines, the complaint states. Officers also said they found a Tennessee identification and various papers that belonged to the burglary victim, the complaint adds.

Brown, who had two prior felonies, had most recently been convicted of burglary in Bristol, Virginia, the complaint states.

Brown was taken into custody and transported to the Sullivan County jail, where he remained incarcerated on Thursday. The complaint said Brown admitted to using the block to enter the home. A court date was set for Jan. 10.
COEBURN, Va.Two Coeburn men faces charges after police said they found materials used to manufacture explosive devices at a home.

On Dec. 23, officers of the Coeburn Police Department responded to a residence in the 600 block of Crab Orchard Road in the town limits of Coeburn. The police department received information that pipe bombs were being manufactured at the address, according to a news release from Assistant Police Chief Jimmy Williams.

Coeburn officers spoke with the owner of the residence and was given permission to conduct a search. During the search, an item was found that contained explosive powder with other items appeared to be intended for use as shrapnel during detonation, the release states. The item was secured by officers and a search warrant was obtained to conduct a more detail search of the residence.

With the assistance of the Wise County Sheriffs Office and the Virginia State Police Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team a detailed search was conducted, and another explosive device was located inside the residence. The Virginia State Police Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team did render both devices inoperative, the release states.

Jerry Douglas Sam Hensley, 53, and William Stewart Winebarger, 50 were both charged with one count of manufacture, posses or use a fire bomb or explosive devices and one count of Possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. They are currently in the Southwest Virginia Regional Jail in Duffield.
As we approach the end of President Donald Trumps first year in office, the list of extraordinary things he has done, for both good and ill, is nothing short of remarkable. Trump inspires such deep emotions in his critics and supporters that many have struggled to assess his presidency objectively. Some are so blinded by their hatred of Trump that they refuse to acknowledge the good he has done, while others are so blinded by devotion that they overlook almost any transgression.

In my columns, Ive tried to give Trump the credit he deserves when he does the right thing, while calling him out when he does the wrong thing. So, here is my list of the 10 best things Trump has done in his first 11 months.

10. He enforced President Barack Obamas red line against Syrias use of chemical weapons. When the regime of Bashar Assad used a toxic nerve agent on innocent men, women and children, Trump didnt wring his hands. He acted quickly and decisively, restoring Americas credibility on the world stage that Obama had squandered.

9. He has taken a surprisingly tough line with Russia. Trump approved a $47 million arms package for Ukraine, sent troops to Polands border with Russia and imposed new sanctions on Moscow for violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

8. He recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital. Four American presidents promised to do it, but only one actually did. This is why the American people elected Trump. He does what he promises to do, for better or for worse, in this case, definitely for the better. Even Jeb Bush tweeted his approval.

7. He withdrew from the Paris climate agreement. After George W. Bush pulled out of the disastrous Kyoto treaty, U.S. emissions went down faster than much of Europe. The same will be true for Trumps departure from the Paris accord. Combined with his approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, and opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to exploration, Trump is helping usher in a new age of American energy development.

6. He got NATO allies to kick in $12 billion more toward our collective security. Decades of pleading by the Bush and Obama administrations failed to get NATO allies to meet their financial commitments to the alliance, but Trumps tough talk and reticence to affirm Americas Article V commitment did the trick. NATO is stronger as a result.

5. He has virtually eliminated the Islamic States physical caliphate. Trump removed the constraints Obama placed on our military and let it drive the terrorists from their strongholds.

4. He admitted he was wrong on Afghanistan and reversed Obamas disastrous withdrawal. In a rare admission, Trump declared: My original instinct was to pull out . . . But all my life, Ive heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office. . . . A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum for terrorists.

3. He enacted historic tax and regulatory reform that has unleashed economic growth. Trump signed the first comprehensive tax reform in three decades and removed the wet blanket of Obama-era regulations smothering our economy. We are now heading into our third consecutive quarter of above 3 percent growth.

2. He is installing conservative judges who will preside for decades. With his appointment of Neil M. Gorsuch, Trump secured a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and he is moving at record pace to fill the federal appeals courts with young conservative judges.

1. He, not Hillary Clinton, was inaugurated as president. Trump delivered the coup de grace that ended the corrupt, dishonest Clinton political machine.

There are many other significant achievements that did not make the Top 10. Trump has taken a clear, strong stand against the narco-dictatorship in Venezuela, and he renamed the Asia-Pacific the Indo-Pacific to include India in the larger task of preventing Chinese hegemony in Asia. Trump has made clear that he is willing to use force to stop North Korea from deploying nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of destroying U.S. cities, which has finally prompted China to put real pressure on Pyongyang. Well see if it works.

The record of achievement suggests that, despite the noxious tweets and self-inflicted wounds emanating from the White House, Trump has the potential to become one of the most consequential conservative presidents in modern American history.
Anyone hoping for a quick end to the debate over who will control the Virginia House of Delegates when it convenes next month had better set those hopes aside. It could be a long wait.

The State Board of Elections was to have broken the 94th District tie between Shelly Simonds and David Yancey on Wednesday by a random drawing. But members have put off that drawing into the indefinite future now that Simonds, the Democrat, is filing suit.

She appeared to have won the seat by a single vote, until a three-judge panel awarded a questionable ballot to Yancey. Simonds contends it shouldnt have done so, and should reverse its decision.

Regardless of the outcome in the 94th District, however, control of the House still wont be resolved, because another district  the 28th  remains up in the air as well. Questions about voters receiving the wrong ballots in the 28th have led Democrats to challenge Republican Bob Thomas victory. They have demanded a new election. Until that contest is settled, nothing else can be.

Simonds could win her contest three ways. Either the three-judge panel could reverse itself. Or she could win the random drawing held by the Board of Elections. Or she could lose the drawing, demand another recount, and win that way.

A Simonds win by any method would produce a 50-50 split in the 100-seat House of Delegates. If a new election were to take place in the 28th District, and Democrat Joshua Cole were to win, then Democrats would claim 51 seats and be able to seize control.

In the event of a Simonds loss, on the other hand, a victory by Cole would split the chamber 50-50, leading to a power-sharing arrangement. Thus, no matter what the outcome in the 94th District, control of the chamber still turns on the outcome in the 28th. (Or, to be more precise, it turns on the outcome in both races, not just one of them.)

A federal court will hear the lawsuit over the 28th District Jan. 5. Theres no indication yet what course Simonds lawsuit will take.

The General Assembly is scheduled to convene Jan. 10. The way things look now, the House will open for business with 50 Republicans (counting Thomas, in the 28th) and 49 Democrats (since nobody has yet won the seat in the 94th).

The lawsuits are likely to play out during the course of the 60-day session. Political science has no precise term to describe such a situation, but we do: a prescription for mayhem.
Pat yourself on the back, America. Unless President Trump accuses Kim Jong Uns mother of wearing Army boots in the next few days, we will have survived 2017.

Some good things happened this year, but they got lost amid the presidential tweets, sexual harassment scandals and storms. Who knew that when Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Gulf Coast in August, it would be only the second-most dangerous Harvey of the year?

Allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct against Harvey Weinstein, movie mogul and casting couch creep, set off a national wave of accusations that had every man in America nervously wondering whether hed ever misplayed a hug and brushed something he shouldnt have. That is, except for the Tweeter in Chief, who delights in grabbing whatever he can, including headlines.

The Trump staffers who werent indicted quit. The president unapologetically made waves with China and North Korea. Mounting evidence indicates Russia interfered to get him elected. But Trump dismissed such reports as fake news or covfefe.

NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem, hipsters sporting man buns, gunmen and terrorists targeting innocent people, O.J. Simpson getting parole  it seemed the only time things were looking up was during the total solar eclipse.

There were a few bright moments, though. The Dow hit the 20,000 mark. Unemployment reached historic lows. Wonder Woman totally rocked. Scientists proved Einstein was right on relativity, and inventors launched the prototype of a flying car. And chances are anyone reading this wont face the prospect of drinking the water in Flint, Michigan or any beverage prepared by Bill Cosby. So we have that going for us, which is nice.

Theres good news here in the fourth estate, too. Newspaper subscriptions and television news ratings surged thanks to Trump, as consumers rebelled against the presidents fake news and alternative facts campaign. They were rewarded when old media  newspapers and magazines  outed Weinstein and other powerful letches.

Consumers were reminded that having dogged journalists on the watch is what it takes to topple titans and ensure guys in bathrobes no longer get to call business meetings in their bedrooms. Or win election to the U.S. Senate from Alabama. Are you ready for 2017 to be over? Me, too.

They call what youre reading right now the first draft of history. I suspect 2017 will go down as a year to forget. Itll be remembered as a time when airline staff beat up  sorry, re-accommodated their passengers, the Internet was sold to the highest bidder (anybody have any bitcoin?) and audiences were subjected to another crappy Batman movie.

The tax code got rigged for the rich, wildfires burned California, the Oscars bungled the announcement of the Best Picture winner, and the third-hottest year on record saw an ice sheet the size of Delaware break off Antarctica. This marked the only time Delaware made news in 2017.

All this came on the heels of 2016, when one otherworldly talent after another died, while most of the worlds pathetic hacks tragically continued to live. As we wave goodbye to a cloudy 2017, lets look for the silver lining: Were due for a good year. Lets raise a toast  of New Years Eve champagne, not Flint water or Cosby cocktails  to the hope that 2018 is it.
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WASHINGTON (JTA)-It's lunch break during a one-day conference on "Israeli Cuisine as a Reflection of Israeli Society"-so naturally I'm eating lunch.

Everything on my white plastic plate can be considered Israeli food. There is a burek (which originally heralds from Spain, by way of Turkey), a chopped cucumber and tomato salad (Israeli or Palestinian, take your pick) and a quinoa salad (from Ecuador? Peru? Or maybe it's Mediterranean). Small triangles of pita surround the centerpiece of my plate: the controversial chickpea spread known as hummus, which has engendered endless debate regarding its origins

Just what exactly constitutes Israeli food-and, in turn, what effects Israeli cuisine has had on Israeli society-is the reason for the event at American University. By and large, the conference is celebratory in nature. The opening session on Sunday night, for example, showcased Israeli celebrity chefs including Michael Solomonov and Lior Lev Sercarz.

"Israel today is not the start-up nation," Michael Brenner, the director of American University's Center for Israel Studies, told the crowd of some 200. "It is the gourmet nation and a champion of sophisticated, healthy cooking."

Despite the laudatory feel of the opening night, however, the sessions throughout Monday's main event addressed complicated duality that constitutes Israeli cuisine. On the one hand, there's the celebration of the commingling of food traditions that Israel-a nation of immigrants eager to join the global community-naturally incubates. On the othe, there's the anxiety that these same immigrants may actually be colonialists who have appropriated an indigenous cuisine.

One panel, for example, "Cuisine as an Expression of Modern Israeli Culture," featured chef Einat Admony, who owns a number of Israeli restaurants in New York City, including Taim and Balaboosta. She kept referring to the "miracle" of Israeli cuisine in a land that once was a desert-enchanting, yes, but also a hoary narrative that ignores the presence of Palestinians and others in the region long before the advent of modern Zionism.

Panel moderator Mitchell Davis, the executive vice president of the James Beard Foundation, visibly winced at Admony's remarks. He asked other panelists to address cultural "appropriation."

The other panelists, including Sercarz and Solomonov, didn't bite-excuse the pun-but appropriation was very much the theme of the next panel, "Israeli-Arab Food Politics."

"There is a lot of politics behind the food you eat," said the moderator, Johanna Mendelson Forman, who teaches a course at American called Conflict Cuisine: An Introduction to War and Peace Around the Dinner Table. "The kitchen has become the venue of new foreign policy."

The three social scientists on the panel-Nir Avieli, Ronald Ranta and Ronit Vered, all Israeli Jews-advanced the theme that there was an original sin to Israeli cuisine: the repression of its origins among Palestinians.

Some of their arguments were salient and recognizable to anyone who has lived in Israel. For instance, there's the tendency for Israelis to refer to "Arab cuisine"-and not Palestinian-although there are dishes adopted by Israelis that are specifically indigenous to Palestinians, such as maqloubeh, a meat, rice and vegetable concoction. (Solomonov is an adamant exception and refers to an indigenous Palestinian cuisine that he has incorporated into his repertoire.)

Other arguments from the academics, however, seemed a tad overeager to make a point about Israel and colonialism. Ranta, a lecturer on international relations at Kingston University in London, decried the "denial of an Arab Palestinian contribution" among Israelis to their cuisine, saying that the argument that many Jews of Middle East origin were likely to already be acquainted with the dishes was a "glaring example" of this denial.

Avieli, the president of the Israeli Anthropological Association, said that pizza was the most popular food in Israel, suggesting it was because Israelis despise their neighbors and long to be European.

"They are in the Middle East, what can you do? Where they would like to be is southern Italy," he said.

The conclusion baffled Forman, who rejoined that Americans also tend to favor Italian food, too-the implication being that it's not because of a national neurosis but rather because Italian food is quick and delicious.

The only chef on the afternoon's panel: Osama Dalal, a Palestinian Israeli who runs Maiar, an upscale, seafood-heavy restaurant in Tel Aviv (currently closed as he seeks a new venue), brought the conversation back to the natural, logical evolution of cuisine-namely, if it tastes good, make it.

Dalal said that growing up in Acre's old city, the site of his first restaurant, he drew inspiration from his Jewish neighbors, both Polish and Moroccan.

"Being 2017, I can do what I want," he said of his menu.

In the most vivid account at the conference, Dalal recalled how as a child, he would lick the walls of his grandmother's home because they were infused with the flavors of her cooking.

These days, Dalal makes a custard dish inspired by his grandmother. But, he added, "Custard is not Israeli or Palestinian."
NEW YORK (JTA)-On Thursday, The New York Times announced that its publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., 66, is stepping down at the end of the year and will be succeeded by his son, 37-year-old Arthur Gregg (A.G.) Sulzberger.

The familial exchange of power wasn't unexpected. The younger Sulzberger is the sixth member of the Ochs Sulzberger clan to serve as publisher of the prominent New York newspaper. He is a fifth-generation descendant of Adolph S. Ochs, who bought the newspaper in 1896 as it was facing bankruptcy.

The family's Jewish history-Adolph Ochs was the child of German Jewish immigrants-has often been the subject of fascination and scrutiny, especially during and after World War II, when the paper was accused of turning a blind eye to atrocities against Jews.

Today the family's Jewish ties are less apparent than they were in the past. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. was raised in his mother's Episcopalian faith and later stopped practicing religion. He and his wife, Gail Gregg, were married by a Presbyterian minister. However, he has said that people still tend to regard him as Jewish due to his last name.

A look back into the family's history shows why. Adolph Ochs, the original member of the Ochs Sulzberger clan, married Effie Wise, the daughter of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, a leading American Reform Jewish scholar who founded the movement's rabbinical school, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

After Ochs' death, his son-in-law, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, took over the reins at The Times. Sulzberger, a Reform Jew, was an outspoken anti-Zionist at a time when the Reform movement was still debating the issue. He and his family "were closely knit into the Jewish philanthropic world as befitted their social and economic standing," wrote Neil Lewis, a former longtime reporter at The Times.

The owners drew criticism for the way the paper covered Jewish affairs, particularly the Holocaust. Critics said the newspaper failed to give adequate coverage to Nazi atrocities committed against Jews, a charge that The Times later owned up to. Arthur Hays Sulzberger had experienced anti-Semitism, and he was worried about his paper being perceived as too Jewish, Laurel Leff wrote in her 2005 book "Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper."

"There would be no special attention, no special sensitivity, no special pleading," Leff wrote.

In a 2001 article for The Times, former Executive Editor Max Frankel wrote that the paper, like many other media outlets at the time, fell in line with U.S. government policy that downplayed the plight of Jewish victims and refugees, but that the views of the publisher also played a significant role.

"He believed strongly and publicly that Judaism was a religion, not a race or nationality-that Jews should be separate only in the way they worshiped," Frankel wrote. "He thought they needed no state or political and social institutions of their own. He went to great lengths to avoid having The Times branded a 'Jewish newspaper.'"

As a result, wrote Frankel, Sulzberger's editorial page "was cool to all measures that might have singled [Jews] out for rescue or even special attention."

Though The Times wasn't the only paper to provide scant coverage of Nazi persecution of Jews, the fact that it did so had large implications, Alex Jones and Susan Tifft wrote in their 1999 book "The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times."

"Had The Times' highlighted Nazi atrocities against Jews, or simply not buried certain stories, the nation might have awakened to the horror far sooner than it did," Jones and Tifft wrote.

In 1961, Arthur Hays Sulzberger stepped down as publisher, three years after having suffered a stroke, giving the position to his son-in-law Orvil Dryfoos. Dryfoos died two years later from heart failure, so his brother-in-law Arthur "Punch" Ochs Sulzberger took over. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who died in 2012, identified as "nominally Jewish, although not at all religious." He was "much more comfortable with his Judaism" than his father, wrote former Times religion reporter Ari Goldman. Still, stories related to Jewish topics were carefully edited, said Goldman, who worked at the Times in 1973-93.

"Those stories got a little more editorial attention, and I'm not saying they were leaning one way or another, but the paper was conscious that it had this reputation and had this background and wanted to make sure that the stories were told fairly and wouldn't lead to charges of favoritism or of bending over backwards," " he told JTA on Monday.

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger raised his son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., in his wife's Episcopalian faith. But Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. still had some connections to his Jewish background. In high school he went on a trip to Israel that left him slightly intrigued by his background, Jones and Tifft wrote. While criticism from the Jewish community under his tenure was less harsh than during his grandfather's time, many, particularly on the right, still saw the newspaper as being biased against Israel.

Nevertheless, given its owners' family history, its disproportionately large Jewish readership and its frequent coverage of Jewish preoccupations, The Times is often regarded as a "Jewish newspaper"-often disparagingly so by anti-Semites.

That perception is "largely because of the family and because of the family's Jewish name and Jewish roots," Goldman said, "so whether they're Jewish or not today, there's a feeling that this is still a newspaper with a heavy Jewish influence."

And that family history lives on. A.G. Sulzberger is part of a generation at the paper that includes his cousins Sam Dolnick, who oversees digital and mobile initiatives, and David Perpich, a senior executive who heads its Wirecutter product review site. Dolnick's mother, Lynn Golden, is the great-great-granddaughter of Julius and Bertha Ochs, the parents of Adolph S. Ochs, and was married in a Chattanooga, Tennessee, synagogue named in their memory. Perpich, a grandson of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, was married by a rabbi in 2008.

A.G. Sulzberger is best known for heading a team that in 2014 put together a 96-page "innovation report" that meant to prod The Times into moving more rapidly in catching up with the new digital media landscape. Asked recently about his working relationship with Dolnick and Perpich, A.G. Sulzberger spoke of their strong journalism backgrounds and invoked the family ethos.

"If they weren't members of the Ochs/Sulzberger family, our competitors would be bombarding them with job offers," he said. "But they are deeply devoted to this place, and the three of us are committed to continuing to work as a team."
Joseph Hara died on Dec. 24, five days shy of his 92nd birthday. He always likened his life to a Horatio Alger tale, a man who rose from a humble background and achieved success beyond his wildest dreams.

Hara was born in Chicago to a Syrian mother, Rose Beyda and Turkish father, Shabo. Hara was one of nine children, and like many, the family struggled to make ends meet during the Depression.

After serving in the Army Air Corps in the South Pacific during World War II, Hara returned determined to jumpstart his career, beginning as a door-to-door stockings salesman. Eventually he learned of a plastic product called Tupperware through his cousin, Jim, who ran a fledgling Tupperware distributorship.

Hara, now an owner of two children's clothing shops, carved out spare time to help Jim's business, and eventually the two became partners. Soon their distributorship became the most successful in the U.S. and headquarters came calling.

In the pre-Disney 1960s, Hara moved his family down to Orlando, Florida, where he quickly ascended from the role of vice president of sales to president and CEO of Tupperware in three years.

In 1970 he was named president of Tupperware worldwide, with 60 Minutes profiling the success of the company under his stewardship. Hara continued to lead Tupperware for over two decades, through the company's unprecedented era of growth across 35 countries.

He ardently believed in the power of positive thinking and was a relentless champion of women in the workplace. "The truth is that women dominate intellectually," he wrote in 2016. "I have observed this in my economic life, having been exposed to thousands of women who, when made aware there are no restrictions and no limit to what they are free to achieve, do incredible things."

In 1947 Hara married his wife, Anita, whom he adored throughout their 70 years of marriage. They brought joy to the lives of their three children: Robert, Barbara and Mark, their six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Hara was extremely active in Orlando and the Jewish Community, becoming a longtime supporter of JFS, an organization that provides food and counseling to people from all walks of life. Hara was also a champion of The Jewish Federation of Orlando, the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center, TOP Jewish Foundation, Foundation for Blindness, Habitat for Humanity, the Orlando Museum of Art, United Way Human Resources, Friends of Santa Claus, The Jewish Academy, Congregation Ohev Shalom, Kinneret Council on Aging, the Brevard Music Festival, among others. Hara served on many of their boards throughout the years.

Hara was also a recipient of the 2001 Heritage Florida Jewish News's Human Service Award. Extremely magnanimous and humble, "He was the only recipient to call me and say he wanted to pick up the award at the Heritage instead of being presented at the Federation Board meeting," Jeff Gaeser, Heritage publisher, stated. "He also once paid for the unaffiliated in the Jewish community to receive the Heritage once a month for one year," Gaeser further said.

"It was a ball," reflected Hara of his life recently. His adoring family is determined to carry on his legacy of love, laughter and community.
The congregational arm of Conservative Judaism has severed ties with the longtime director of the denomination's youth movement after receiving "multiple testimonies" that corroborated an allegation of sexual abuse.

Allegations about Jules Gutin, 67, who in 2011 completed his 20-year tenure as international director of United Synagogue Youth (USY) and since 2012 had conducted tours of Poland for USY, first came to light Nov. 9 through a Facebook post by a man who claimed that someone who worked with thousands of teens had abused him in the 1980s. After confirming with the man that he was referring to Gutin in his post, JNS communicated with several other men who alleged that they were underage victims of unwanted sexual touch by Gutin during that decade.

"Two of my USYers have said very similar things to me over the years, and named the same name," said Arnie Draiman, a former USY youth adviser.

According to an email dated Nov. 21 that was obtained by JNS, Gutin asked the man who made the initial accusation on Facebook not to name him or USY in communication with the media in order to "spare my family from pain" and avoid "any harm to an organization we both love."

"Whatever points you want to make would be just as powerful without people knowing the specific individual," Gutin wrote to his accuser. He also wrote that USCJ was "totally justified" in suspending him from staffing any of its programs, and concluded the email, "Once again I am sorry."

Earlier this month, when The New York Jewish Week first reported that Gutin had been terminated by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism due to sexual abuse allegations, the casual reader might have missed the news.

The development on Gutin appeared in the third-to-last paragraph of an article about an entirely separate abuser, Bob Fisher, who has since admitted to misconduct with children who participated in USY during the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, the initial accusation of abuse was connected to Gutin, not Fisher, and the Gutin allegation was what prompted USCJ to set up a confidential phone hotline and email address in November with the goals of uncovering alleged instances of sexual abuse and investigating their veracity.

After its investigation, USCJ terminated the contract employing Gutin.

Rabbi Steven Wernick, CEO of USCJ, and his staff initially tried unsuccessfully to contact the alleged victim, but they have since been in touch with him and have had multiple conversations. The abuse allegedly occurred 33 years ago, when the victim was 17 years old and Gutin was 34.

When USCJ first learned of the allegation last month and had two conversations with Gutin, he was suspended from his duties. At that point, USCJ established its hotline.

"We had three communications with Jules. In the first two communications, there was equivocation and phrases like, 'I do not recall,'" but in the final communication, an email, Gutin denied the allegations, Wernick told JNS.

Yet Wernick said there were "multiple testimonies that corroborated what was said to us originally. Jules answered those questions with statements such as, 'By today's standards, some of the ways in which USY handled sleeping arrangements would not be allowed today.'"

One alleged victim told JNS, for example, that Gutin had invited him to stay in his home while his family was away, and they slept in the same bed. The victim claimed that Gutin touched him, prompting him to leave the room abruptly. He said that he reported the alleged incident to people in his region, "but I was one small voice and it would have been his word against mine."

"Our investigation led us to sever the relationship with [Gutin] permanently. We found the allegations to be substantive," Wernick said.

Gutin told JNS that under his guidance, USY instituted strict guidelines for staff and student contact during and around 1996-1997 following an incident that took place during USY on Wheels, a summer bus touring program. He expressed concern about people who felt that they had been wronged in some way and claimed he was not aware of any allegations other than the Facebook post that did not name him.

USY, like the Orthodox Union's NCSY and the Union for Reform Judaism's NFTY, provides social programming and educational events for students primarily from ages 14-18.

In the Orthodox Union's youth arm, NCSY, strict protocols on this issue have been in place since 2001, following the guilty verdict and seven-year-imprisonment of former national NCSY director Baruch Lanner for child sexual abuse. The Reform movement's NFTY also has such protocols in place, as do all accredited camps and schools. Gutin said NCSY had contacted USY when it was establishing its guidelines on abuse, and it utilized some of USY's information in forming its own protocols in the wake of the Lanner case.

According to Wernick, USCJ's hotline-managed by Vivian Lewis, the organization's senior director of human resources-received "heavy traffic" and allegations against Gutin as well as Fisher, former director of the Far West USY region.

The allegations against Gutin and Fisher, Wernick stated, centered around the 1980s and early 1990s-before USY or any national Jewish youth organization had protocols and handbooks in place to appropriately prevent abuse or report it.

"We don't have any records for that time period concerning these allegations," said Wernick, noting that he tried to find a paper trail of anything discussed in the same Jewish Week article that revealed Gutin's termination. That article primarily detailed allegations of Fisher's misconduct that were reported in 2001 by David Benkof, a former USY international youth president, to Rabbi Jerome Epstein, then USCJ's executive director. Gutin and Fisher had significant overlap in their years of employment for USY, but there is no evidence that Gutin was aware of any allegations against Fisher.

"I even went so far as to check if our general counsel at the time had the records, but that person is deceased. And this time period, in terms of what attorneys would have to keep...they would have long since destroyed these records," Wernick said.

Benkof, who now feels his comments fell on deaf ears when he reported the allegations to Epstein, expressed skepticism about USCJ's new hotline.

"There needs to be a way for victims to come forward, but the address should be in the media, law enforcement, or an outside company or Jewish organization," Benkof told JNS. "The organization that faces civil action is the last organization that should be in charge of gathering the information."

"The United Synagogue has a financial interest in silencing victims," he added. "I believe they are using the hotline to do to other victims what Rabbi Jerry Epstein did to me when I reported what I knew about Bob Fisher in 2001, while Bob still worked for the organization: He told me I was yotzei (a Hebrew word meaning that one's obligation has been fulfilled), thus convincing me I need not act further."

Epstein declined comment when contacted by JNS, referring the matter to an attorney who participated in the phone interview between JNS and Wernick.

Wernick said the steps USCJ has taken in response to the allegations have gone "beyond any mandated reporting in terms of criminal liability. We are beyond anything we can do from an additional perspective other than severing our relationship with [Gutin]." Any awards given in the name of Gutin or Fisher have been discontinued, said Wernick.

The USCJ leader elaborated, "We talk in a language of chiyuv (obligation). If a person accused of these things continues to have a relationship with your organization, you have to separate, to assure the safety of people in your charge. Harassment issues, these kinds of issues, are not just for your staff, they are about anyone in your orbit."

In 2011, two years after Wernick started his post at USCJ, the organization instituted new protocols for preventing and dealing with accusations of abuse. Staffers have a handbook providing guidelines for appropriate behavior with USY youths, and are required to sign a statement that they have read the handbook and have agreed to its policies. They are required to sign again if the handbook is updated.

Wernick said he is confident that USY now does everything in its power to keep students safe.

"All staff have to have a background check before being hired, and USY now has a youth protection officer assigned at every USY event," he said. "Every USYer has that person's phone number so they have an advocate if they feel threatened in any way, by anyone. USY is a safe place."

Elizabeth Kratz is the associate publisher and editor of The Jewish Link of New Jersey and The Jewish Link of Bronx, Westchester and Connecticut.
Hamas's latest effort to join a Palestinian unity government is little more than a facade, and the terror group's top immediate objective is to seize control of Judea and Samaria and turn it into a second Gaza, according to the assessments of defense experts.

After years of failed attempts at reconciliation, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement and Hamas in October announced that they would implement a unity deal, which included the restoration of PA control in Gaza by Dec. 1. But the so-called unification quickly ran into trouble, and was delayed to Dec. 10. Now, the reconciliation agreement is apparently collapsing, and Hamas seems to be in no rush to revive it.

"Hamas is just waiting for Abbas to die, or that he agrees to elections, to try and take over the West Bank," Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior scholar at Israel's International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), told JNS regarding the 82-year-old Palestinian leader. "And Hamas is again talking about close ties with Iran and Hezbollah."

Dr. Col. (res.) Moshe Elad, one of the founders and former heads of the security coordination between the IDF and the PA, said the PA is utterly dependent on Israel's military presence in Judea and Samaria to prevent a second Hamas-armed Islamist revolution.

Elad, who today lectures at the Western Galilee College, said IDF-PA coordination is "the insurance policy" that the PA has in Judea and Samaria for its survival, since "Hamas is very strong there."

"Hamas can't launch a revolution in Judea and Samaria...but it's a threat that exists all of the time," Elad told JNS. "It's true that on the surface, PA President Mahmoud Abbas attacks Israel, but ultimately, he wants us to be there, so that we can give him security against the possibility of a revolution by Hamas. As absurd as it sounds, he understands that Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria, because of the settlers, holds benefits for him. This means there is a very big convergence of interests... if we leave the area, he will be in a major problem. This is exactly what happened in Gaza."

Elad was referring to the 2007 Gaza coup, which saw Hamas's gunmen seize the coastal territory by force and kill Fatah personnel, widening a massive rift between the two Palestinian camps. The latest stalled reconciliation effort was aimed at bridging this gap. But Elad believes such attempts should not be taken seriously.

According to Elad, Saleh al-Arouri-a senior Hamas operative who is part of a shadow overseas command structure for the terror group that orchestrates attacks from afar-has "sent letters to Hamas operatives in which he ordered them to prepare a similar coup in Judea and Samaria. Abbas knows that the five to six battalions the PA has cannot keep him in power over time on their own. He needs Israel."

Elad, who has written two books on the Palestinians, said he has counted more than 25 unification attempts between Hamas and the PA since 2007.

"It never succeeds," he said. "The Egyptians, the Turks, the Qataris and Saudis-who hasn't tried to mediate? There is a deeper story here than many realize. Hamas will not give up its armed force [in Gaza] so easily."

On the streets of Palestinian cities, towns and villages in Judea and Samaria, the PA continues to repress Hamas, Elad added.

"In terms of popularity, Hamas is stronger than the PA, because the PA controls by force and authority, and not through public support," he said. "There are areas outside of the Muqata (the PA's government complex in Ramallah) where Abbas cannot visit. There are two camps here-a two-headed Palestinian system. Reunification is irrelevant."

In line with Elad's assessments, the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency and IDF ground units in Judea and Samaria continue to operate day and night to keep Hamas in check. Israeli preventative operations represent the majority of the force that is in place against Hamas, with the PA's own efforts-motivated by self-preservation-forming the minority of anti-Hamas operations.

In recent days, the Shin Bet announced that it had disrupted a Hamas cell in the village of Tel, near Nablus, which was in the planning stages of a kidnapping attack targeting a soldier or a civilian from a bus stop. Three suspects were arrested, who were allegedly in touch with Hamas's headquarters in Gaza to receive orders and funding for the attack, designed to secure the release of Palestinian security prisoners from Israeli jails.

Both the PA and Israel continue to observe and sometimes disrupt Hamas's social infrastructure, which spreads its popularity and ideology. These networks include schools, mosques and charity centers, used to keep operatives on the payroll and recruit the masses to the Hamas Islamist cause. University campuses bristle with Hamas student groups that spread radical ideology and promote recruitment drives. Yet the organization's terrorist cells are routinely detected before they can act.

Dozens of the terror plots are orchestrated by Hamas's overseas shadow government, led by Arouri, who today is believed to reside in Lebanon-under Hezbollah protection-after leaving Turkey.

Hamas's goal of conquering Judea and Samaria provides plenty of motivation for the PA to continue its arrest raids on the terror group, prompting Hamas to threaten to end unification talks in recent weeks.

"I do not believe in a real reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah," said ICT's Karmon. "They could for a short time coordinate stances on the issue of Jerusalem, but [Hamas political chief in Gaza] Yahya Sinwar has already announced that the agreement has collapsed."
One of the submissions in the Milstein Family Foundation's pro-Israel meme contest.

(JNS) The Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation (MFF) on Monday announced the winners of its second competition for the creation of pro-Israel social media memes.

The competition brought together hundreds of participants from around the world, including the U.S., Israel, Egypt, South Africa, Germany, Romania, Kenya and Denmark.

Second prize winner Eric Fihman created a meme featuring Israeli actress Gal Gadot's "Wonder Woman" movie character along with the "wonder women" of the IDF and text describing Jerusalem as the "wonder of Israel."

First prize winner Justin Feldman created a meme highlighting the hypocrisy of Palestinian-American BDS activist Linda Sarsour.

"We received a wide range of unique and creative memes, which were funny, entertaining and often moving," said Israeli-American philanthropist Adam Milstein.

"This is only the second meme competition, but I am really impressed with the quality and quantity of memes we received, which are now available as a resource to be shared on the social media channels of our partner organizations and for the entire pro-Israel community," he said.

Milstein added that MFF takes pride in initiating projects that encourage creative thinking and unite "Israel advocates around the world."

A panel of prominent pro-Israel student activists selected the contest's winners. Eighteen contest winners with the most creative and original memes were awarded a total of $2,000 in prize money.

MFF partnered with 18 other Jewish and pro-Israel organizations to sponsor the competition. The foundation states that it "works to safeguard and strengthen the Jewish People and the Jewish State by igniting Jewish pride in the next generation, providing pro-Israel Americans with knowledge and expertise to advocate for the State of Israel, and bolstering the critical U.S.-Israel Alliance."
NEW YORK (JTA)The suspect in a pipe bomb attack on this citys Port Authority Bus Terminal said he was motivated by Israeli actions in Gaza, CNN reported.

Akayed Ullah spoke with authorities at Bellevue Hospital, where he was taken after the bomb went off prematurely. He was among four people injured in the attack when his homemade bomb partially detonated in a tunnel connecting the Times Square subway station with the Midtown Manhattan transit hub during Mondays morning rush hour.

New York Police identified Ullah, 27, as a resident of Brooklyn. He is said to be of Bangladeshi origin and has lived in the United States for the past seven years. CNN cited a law enforcement source who said Ullah said he was upset with an unspecified incursion into Gaza.

On Friday, rockets fired at southern Israel from Gaza damaged the entrance of an empty kindergarten in the town of Sderot. Israel responded late Friday night with airstrikes on Hamas military installations in Gaza that killed two Hamas operatives.

On Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces discovered and demolished a terror tunnel that crossed into Israel from central Gaza.

He detonated the bomb, the explosive chemical in the bomb went off, it did not have the desired affect of causing the pipe itself to shatter, which wouldve caused the more significant damage, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on MSNBC.
BBYO North Florida Region is honored to welcome and host BBYOs International Convention 2018. Over Presidents Day weekend (Feb. 1519, 2018), more than 5,000 of the Jewish communitys top teen leaders, educators, professionals, and philanthropists from around the world will come together in Orlando for one of the largest Jewish communal events of the year. Delegates will hear from and meet inspiring speakers, deepen leadership skills, serve the local community, celebrate Shabbat, learn, have access to exclusive music performances, and do their part to strengthen the Jewish Future.

Two-hundred and fifty-plus volunteers are needed to make the weekend a success. The planners are looking for enthusiastic and friendly individuals, who are at least a sophomore in college, and can help guide the teens and take part in making this a life-changing experience for thousands of young people. You can sign up for shifts at https://tiny.cc/IC18volunteer.

Volunteer Training will be at The Roth Family JCC on Monday, Jan. 22 from 7 to 8 p.m. For all those unable to attend, there will be a make-up conference call on Wednesday, Jan. 24 at 8 p.m. All volunteers must be available to attend one of the trainings.

If you have any questions, please contact Regional Director Jayme Epstein at 407-621-4032 or JEpstein@bbyo.org. We hope to see you this February.
(JNS)The Trump administration said Sunday that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is walking away from peace talks after PA President Mahmoud Abbas declined to meet with Vice President Mike Pence during his upcoming Middle East visit this month.

Its unfortunate that the Palestinian Authority is walking away again from an opportunity to discuss the future of the region, stated Jarrod Agen, Pences deputy chief of staff.

The Trump administration remains undeterred in its efforts to help achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians and our peace team remains hard at work putting together a plan, Agen said.

The PAs move came in response to President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital as well as his expression of plans to move the U.S. embassy to that city.

Abbass meeting with Pence was cancelled because the U.S. has crossed red lines on Jerusalem, Abbass diplomatic adviser Majdi Khaldi said last Saturday.

In his announcement of the U.S. policy changes last week, Trump emphasized that he was not defining the borders of Jerusalem nor altering the status quo at the citys holy sites.

During his visit to the region, Pence will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo.
This year's heartwarming moments include a girl who helped decorate a vandalized cemetery, a dog who saved two lives, and an unlikely friendship between a monkey and a chicken.

(JTA)-Political turmoil, terror attacks and natural disasters around the world: 2017 had plenty of people feeling down, for good reason.

But there were also notable moments of light. As this year draws to a close, here is a chronology of some of the more heartwarming stories JTA published this year.

An Orthodox Jew builds bridges with his Yemeni Muslim neighbors

After President Donald Trump issued his first executive order banning immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries, Alexander Rapaport, a Hasidic Jew, wanted to show his support for his neighbors in Brooklyn. So when New York bodega owners from Yemen went on strike in February in protest of the ban, Rapaport organized community members to put Post-it notes with messages of support on the storefront of a local store owned by Yemeni immigrants.

"I made a point of walking in there today-I actually live a mile away," Rapaport, the executive director Masbia, a kosher soup kitchen network, told JTA. "I just learned that they were Yemenite, and I was looking to do something in solidarity with the people affected by the executive order."

A 6-year-old girl sends painted rocks to decorate vandalized Jewish cemeteries

When 6-year-old Ayel Morgenstern learned that her great-great-grandmother's headstone was among the 100 toppled at a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis in February, she sprung into action.

Ayel, who lives in Florida, decided in March to paint rocks to decorate headstones at the St. Louis cemetery, as well as for additional grave sites that were vandalized at a Philadelphia cemetery. In the end, Ayel painted more than 250 rocks, which she sent to the cemeteries-plus an additional 100 stones that she sent to the family of Adam Krief, a Jewish father of three who died after a highly publicized struggle with blood cancer.

A dog saves a couple from a fire at a kosher supermarket

Daisy, a 3-year-old spaniel, helped avert disaster when fire broke out at a London kosher supermarket in June. The dog's barking roused Alex Gibson and Charlotte Perren, who were sleeping in their apartment above the store. Fortunately, the couple was able to make it out on time-but Daisy, who belongs to Gibson's mother and whom the couple was taking care of, died of smoke inhalation.

"Daisy was our hero," Gibson told The Jewish Chronicle. "It was fate she happened to be staying with us that night. She saved both of our lives and our neighbors."

A Jewish woman comforts a distressed child with autism on an airplane

During a transatlantic flight in July, Rochel Groner noticed an autistic boy crying and shrieking. The atmosphere on the flight grew increasingly tense and she felt she had to do something. Groner, a Chabad emissary in North Carolina, who with her husband runs two groups for young adults with special needs, approached the child and comforted him for about two hours.

"I put out my hand, and he took my hand. It was such a surreal moment, and he just took it, and he stopped crying," she said. "He kind of just followed me into the aisle. I walked to the bulkhead, and I sat down and I put him in my lap, and I gave him a gentle but firm hug and I just started to rock him. He calmed down."

Social media users were touched by the story. Photos of Groner holding the boy, along with a post by her husband detailing the account, received some 6,700 likes and was shared 1,300 times on Facebook.

In Israel, a monkey and a chicken become best friends

At the Ramat Gan Safari Park near Tel Aviv, Niv, an Indonesian black macaque, was having a bit of trouble finding a mate. So he got creative.

When a chicken wandered into his enclosure, the monkey cozied up to it-and an inseparable friendship was born. Niv has been hanging out with the bird on a regular basis, holding it, caressing it and sleeping next to it at night. The friendship, which was documented in August, appears to be mutual; after all, the chicken can easily slip out of the monkey cage but chooses to stay.

While 2017 wasn't a year for forging lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors, at least this pair found a way to put their differences aside and live in harmony.

After surviving Hurricane Harvey, this woman distributes mezuzahs to people in need

Houston resident Chava Gal-Or was lucky: Though flooding from Hurricane Harvey reached her door, her home survived the storm unscathed. But that wasn't the case for many of the members of Temple Sinai, where she works. So Gal-Or wanted to do something to help those families in need-along with assisting scores of others who had been affected by recent natural disasters.

"I can't rebuild their houses," Gal-Or told JTA. "I don't have the money to do much. There was this increasing awareness that there was nothing I could do."

Then she realized she could help by collecting mezuzahs, the small scrolls traditionally affixed to the doorposts of Jewish dwellings, and distributing them for free to Jewish people in need. She started the unofficial organization Door L'Door-a play on the biblical phrase "l'dor v'dor," which means "from generation to generation"-raising money and soliciting donations for mezuzahs, with the goal to to dispatch them to Jews in need.

Supporters raise over $1 million for an Orthodox fashion designer after her husband suddenly died

Tragedy struck Simi Polonsky, the Orthodox co-founder of a modest fashion label, when her husband, Shua, died in November from a condition he had contracted only weeks before. To help alleviate her suffering, supporters quickly came to her aid-and more than 9,000 donors raised over $1 million online for Polonsky and her two young children, with a third on the way.

Polonsky, who said she will continue working on The Frock NYC, wrote movingly on Instagram that the support helped her go on.

"I know no one will be able to heal my broken heart, but at the times when I feel like I just cannot keep my arms raised any longer, your love and support are the rocks that hold them for me," she wrote. "My mind boggles, when I think about the unstoppable love that ushers unto my family on a minute to minute basis."
(JNS) As President Donald Trump was poised to publicize his administrations national security doctrine Monday, reports indicate that the document will emphasize that Israel is not the cause of chaos in the Middle East.

According to The Associated Press, the 70-page doctrine is based upon a significantly different national security approach than that of Trumps predecessor, President Barack Obama, particularly regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For generations the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has been understood as the prime irritant preventing peace and prosperity in the region, states a draft of the doctrine obtained by The Associated Press.

Today, the threats from radical jihadist terrorist organizations and the threat from Iran are creating the realization that Israel is not the cause of the regions problems, the document adds. States have increasingly found common interests with Israel in confronting common threats.

The doctrines publication comes ahead of Vice President Mike Pences trip to Israel this week. Pence is expected to become the first U.S. leader to visit Jerusalems Western Wall in an official capacity.
(JNS) The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a resolution denouncing President Donald Trumps decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital.

The 193-member General Assembly voted 128-9, with 35 abstentions, to express deep regret over Trumps Jerusalem policy changes, which also include plans to move the U.S. embassy to that city.

The nine countries voting against the resolution were the U.S., Israel, Togo, Micronesia, Guatemala, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands and Honduras. The 35 abstentions included a number of countries whom Israel has been courting for support during the past year, including Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Malawi and Rwanda. Additionally, Hungary, Croatia, Latvia, Romania and the Czech Republic broke with the European Union consensus on the resolution by abstaining.

Both Trump and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley have suggested that America might cut foreign aid to countries who supported the resolution, with Haley stating the U.S. would be taking names of such nations. On Thursday, Haley closed her remarks by saying the vote will be remembered.

In defiance of Trump, the General Assembly measure asserted that any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council.

Ahead of the vote, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the U.N. a house of lies and said Israel rejects this vote outright.

Jerusalem is our capital, we will continue to build there and additional embassies will move to Jerusalem, Netanyahu said.

The discussion over the General Assembly resolution began at the behest of Turkey and Yemen after an Egyptian-sponsored measure at the U.N. Security Council was vetoed by the U.S. earlier this week.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon denounced supporters of the resolution as puppets being pulled by the strings of the Palestinian puppet masters.

This resolution is nothing more than a distraction, Danon said. I have no doubt that todays resolution will end up in the trash bin of history.
(JTA)More than 130 Jewish studies scholars from U.S. colleges and universities signed a statement expressing dismay at President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital.

The statement criticizes Trumps decision to reverse decades of bipartisan U.S. policy by declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and authorizing the relocation of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv, outside of a negotiated political framework that ends the legal state of occupation and ensures respect for the rights of all Israelis and Palestinians to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is of immense religious and thus emotional significance to Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. It is the focus of national aspirations for both Israelis and Palestinians. We hope one day to see a world in which all inhabitants of the land enjoy equal access to the citys cultural and material resources. Today, unfortunately, that is not the case, the scholars say in the statement.

The statement cites information from the left-wing Israeli human rights organization BTselem, which documents that Palestinian residents of Jerusalem endure systematic inequalities, including an inequitable distribution of the citys budget and municipal services, routine denial of building permits that are granted to Jewish residents, home demolitions, and legal confiscation of property for Jewish settlement. In addition, Palestinians in the West Bank, unlike Jewish Israelis resident in that territory, require a special permit to visit Jerusalems holy sites.

The statement continues: In this context, a declaration from the United States government that appears to endorse sole Jewish proprietorship over Jerusalem adds insult to ongoing injury and is practically guaranteed to fan the flames of violence. We therefore call on the U.S. government to take immediate steps to deescalate the tensions resulting from the Presidents declaration and to clarify Palestinians legitimate stake in the future of Jerusalem.

U.S. President Donald Trump in a speech Wednesday from the White House recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and directed the State Department to prepare for moving the embassy there from Tel Aviv.

His decision upended seven decades of U.S. foreign policy that has resisted a recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved.
(JNS) The U.S. on Monday vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that called for President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital to be withdrawn.

Following the vote, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley called the Security Council measure an insult and said it will not be forgotten.

The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy, she said, referring to Trumps plans to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. The fact that this veto is being done in defense of Americas role in the Middle East peace process is not a source of embarrassment for us; it should be an embarrassment to the remainder of the Security Council.

The Egyptian-drafted resolution, which was supported by all of the councils 15 members except for the U.S., affirmed that any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon said, Every other country in the world has the right to designate its capital city. But when it comes to Israel, somehow this most basic national right is questioned and condemned. We thank the United States for standing with Israel and staying loyal to the truth.

With the Security Council vote on Jerusalem taking place during Chanukah, Danon said said it seems that some of those who wish us well have forgotten exactly why we celebrate Chanukah. Chanukah is about the liberation of Jerusalem... It is about reinstating Jewish sovereignty more than 2,000 years ago over our capital, Jerusalem.
Nikki Haley throws a party for nations that didnt oppose US Jerusalem stance at UN

(JTA)To thank the 65 countries that did not support a resolution condemning President Donald Trumps position on Jerusalem, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, invited her counterparts from those states to a reception.

Haley extended the invitation Thursday hours after the General Assembly passed a resolution condemning Trumps Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital, the nrg news site reported.

Nine countries voted against the resolution, including Israel, the United States, Guatemala, Honduras and Togo, and 35 abstained, including the six EU member states Poland, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Latvia. The rest of the European Union was among the 128 nations that voted in favor.

The representatives of 21 countries were absent from the vote, which was the 10th time in U.N. history that the General Assembly was convened for an emergency voting. They included Kenya, which was the fifth-largest recipient of U.S. aid last year, Georgia and Ukraine, all of which have close ties with the United States.

Absenteeism is unusual in emergency session votes.

Prior to the vote, Trump wrote on Twitter: Were watching those votes. Let them vote against us, well save a lot. We dont care. His words were widely interpreted as a threat to cut aid to countries that vote against the United States position on Jerusalem.

The resolution, sponsored by Yemen and Turkey, reaffirmed what has been the U.N. stand on the divided holy city since 1967: Jerusalems final status must be decided in direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Later Thursday, an invitation was sent around to the countries that did not support the resolution on Jerusalem to attend a reception with Haley in January. The event was labeled as a means to thank the countries for their friendship to the United States, according to a copy of the invite obtained by CNN.

In her speech at the emergency vote, Haley noted that the United States is by far the single largest contributor to the United Nations and its agencies.

Aid is given, she added, in order to advance our values and our interests. When that happens, our participation in the United Nations produces great good for the world. The United States does this because it represents who we are. It is our American way.

But, Haley said, well be honest with you. When we make generous contributions to the U.N., we also have a legitimate expectation that our good will is recognized and respected. When a nation is singled out for attack in this organization, that nation is disrespected. Whats more, that nation is asked to pay for the privilege of being disrespected.

Trumps pronouncement on Jerusalem ended decades of U.S. ambiguity on the status of the city that both Israel and the Palestinians claim as their capital.

House passes bill allowing disaster funds for houses of worship

WASHINGTON (JTA)The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that allows federal disaster relief funds to go to houses of worship.

On Thursday, the House voted 251-169 to approve the bill. The vote was not strictly along party lines, although more Republicans than Democrats favored it. The Senate is considering a similar bill.

Relief funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, may not go to churches, synagogues and other houses of worship due to concerns about separation of church and state. Other institutions, like community centers or zoos, may receive the funds. The money reimburses the institutions for aid they provide to victims of natural disasters.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has long pushed for the change. In September, amid a string of hurricanes ravaging the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean, President Donald Trump tweeted his support for churches receiving FEMA funds.

Churches in Texas should be entitled to reimbursement from FEMA Relief Funds for helping victims of Hurricane Harvey (just like others), Trump said on Twitter.

According to the text of the bill, A church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or other house of worship, and a private nonprofit facility operated by a religious organization, shall be eligible for contributions  without regard to the religious character of the facility or the primary religious use of the facility.

The Orthodox Union, an umbrella Orthodox body that has advocated such a change for years, said the bill will mean synagogues receive fair treatment.

For far too long, FEMA has unfairly excluded houses of worship from this otherwise religion-neutral program, its Washington director, Nathan Diament, said in a statement. This legislation will finally put an end to this unconstitutional discrimination and help houses of worship get the relief they need from FEMA to rebuild after being damaged in natural disasters. We call upon the Senate to pass this legislation as well.

Also praising the bill was Agudath Israel of America, another Orthodox umbrella body.

Houses of worship are an integral part of American communities and play an important role in assisting devastated neighborhoods revitalize and rebuild, Rabbi Abba Cohen, Agudahs Washington director, said in a statement. After natural disasters, they provide emotional, spiritual and material help to those in need.

Advancing the bill in the House were Reps. Peter King and Grace Meng, respectively a Republican and Democrat from New York, and Chris Smith, R-N.J. The regions they represent were hard hit by Tropical Storm Sandy in 2012.

Leading the Senates legislation are Sens. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., James Lankford, R-Okla., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

US Holocaust museum reposts Syria study that critics said gave Obama a pass

WASHINGTON (JTA)The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum re-released a controversial study on Syrias civil war, removing passages that critics said exonerated the Obama administrations actions.

The study is now available without an executive summary that included a sentence that the United States could have done little to prevent the carnage, which has claimed an estimated 500,000 lives, The New York Times reported Thursday. Added to it are an essay arguing for greater U.S. involvement in Syria and an announcement of a planned survey of Syrian groups assessing what U.S. policies they would like to see.

The offending passage in the paper, posted and then withdrawn in September, had said that a variety of factors, which were more or less fixed, made it very difficult from the beginning for the U.S. government to take effective action to prevent atrocities in Syria, even compared with other challenging policy contexts.

Jewish groups joined some human rights activists in arguing that this absolved President Barack Obama of fecklessness.

Obama critics have argued that in his effort to prevent America from a quagmire in Syria, he did too little to arrest the carnage in a civil war in which 400,000 people have died and Syria has been accused of using sarin gas, chlorine gas and barrel bombs. Many point to his decision in September 2013 to postpone a military strike against the Syrian government in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack and instead to seek authorization from Congress.

The museums Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, which authored the paper, used computational modeling and game theory methods, as well as interviews with experts and policymakers, to determine that U.S. involvement in the wake of the 2013 chemical weapons attack in Ghouta would not have reduced atrocities in the country and may have contributed to them.

Cameron Hudson, who leads the center, told The Times that the original paper may have been skewed too much to academics.

We have to recognize that we also have a general audience for this work, he said, and we also have an audience of victims and survivors.

Palestinian man reportedly killed in Gaza border riots

(JTA)A 24-year-old Palestinian man was shot dead during riots near the Gaza-Israel border.

Locals told the Palestinian Maan news agency that Israeli forces shot Zakariya al-Kafarneh during clashes in eastern Jabaliya, in northern Gaza.

Protesters marched following Friday prayers near the border fence in response to calls from Hamas for a third Friday of Rage in protest of President Donald Trumps announcement earlier this month recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Israels Army Radio reported that Israeli soldiers shot at rioting Palestinians who breached the sterile zone near the security fence, using crowd dispersal means such as tear gas and stun grenades.

Israeli troops fired on main inciters to violence, where rioters were throwing projectiles and setting tires on fire, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces told Ynet.

Meanwhile, 10 Palestinians were injured during clashes in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Maan.

Another six were injured in clashes in the West Bank, Army Radio reported. Israeli army sources estimated that in total, some 1,700 demonstrators participated in disturbances in the West Bank, a drop of approximately 50 percent from last week.

In Montenegro, cornerstone laid for first synagogue in centuries

(JTA)Montenegros foremost politicians joined their president and faith community leaders for the first laying in centuries of a cornerstone for a synagogue in the area that now comprises that Balkan nation.

President Philip Vujanovic was joined Tuesday at the synagogues construction site by the acting and former mayors of the capital of Podgorica, Slavoljub Steipovich and Myomir Mugosha, and the heads of the countrys state-recognized religious streams and faiths, which include Catholicism, Easter-Orthodox Christianity, Islam and Judaism, the Balkan Pro news site reported.

Also in attendance at the ceremony, which took place earlier than scheduled, was the president of the local Jewish community Yasha Alfandari.

Montenegro has 400 Jews, according to the World Jewish Congress, with maybe a tenth of that participating in actual Jewish spiritual life, according to Ari Edelkopf, a Chabad rabbi who earlier this year became Montenegros first resident rabbi in over a century.

The government of Montenegro, which became independent in 2006 after breaking away from Serbia, gave the land for the synagogue in 2013.

The opening of the Podgorica synagogue is set to be the second one this century in the Balkans, following the dedication of a new synagogue in Macedonia in 2000.

Milo Djukanovic, a former prime minister of Montenegro, said that the construction of the synagogue would begin next year during a speech that he gave last month at the annual Mahar conference for Balkan Jewry, which is held in Montenegro with funding from the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.

As he waits for the synagogue to be completed, Edelkopf is hosting worshipers at his home and holding prayers. He settled in Podgorica after being forced to leave Sochi earlier this year. His staying permit was revoked on unsubstantiated claims that he represented a threat to Russias national security.

Edelkopf denied any wrongdoing and demanded a court review of the unspecified charges against him, but it never happened. Russian Jews protested his deportation as a miscarriage of justice.

In Podgorica, his role will be to convert the local Jews to Judaism, Alfandari said last month.

What I mean is that we have a few hundred people who are Jews according to the definition of the wordmeaning those who have a Jewish mother, according to traditional Jewish lawbut they know very little about what it means to be Jewish.
AMSTERDAM (JTA)-Two weeks ago, a 29-year-old man waving a Palestinian flag smashed the windows of a kosher restaurant with a wooden club, stealing an Israeli flag there. Police arrested the suspect on the spot

The Dec. 7 incident, which occurred the day after President Donald Trump declared that the United States officially recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital, triggered an outpouring of condemnations by Dutch leaders. Prime Minister Mark Rutte called it "terrible," and 15 lawmakers ate there that evening as a gesture of solidarity.

Yet just 60 hours later the suspect-identified in the media as Saleh Ali-was free. Authorities never divulged details about his identity and origins despite the absence of a gag order, and reports that Ali was a former combatant in Syria's civil war in the Netherlands on an asylum-seeker visa.

The lack of clarity on these issues is feeding a growing resentment among the Jewish community here regarding the authorities' handling of the attack itself, along with the aftermath. Some point to the police's apparent inaction during the attack-in a video, authorities appear to witness the violent incident without interfering-as problematic. But to many Dutch Jews, perhaps the most disturbing aspect is that the draft indictment against Ali mentions only vandalism and theft.

In other words, Dutch officials don't consider Ali's actions a hate crime. And that, according to Jewish leaders, is a problem.

During the trial, which began here Wednesday, Ali declined to answer the judge's questions and "kept going on about the Palestinian cause," according to Saskia Belleman, the court correspondent of De Telegraaf daily, who reported the suspect has been assigned a psychiatric evaluation.

It also emerged in court that Ali told an officer after his arrest that the attack was "only the first step."

Asked about the next step, he said: "I will tell you later, no one needs to know."

Such statements are "chilling," said Ronny Naftaniel, who spent 40 years at the helm of the Netherlands' main anti-Semitism watchdog group, CIDI.

"I have never encountered a case like this," added Naftaniel, who retired in 2013. "And I am one of many Dutch Jews whose confidence in the judiciary has been compromised here."

By contrast, police held a Dutch Jew named Michael Jacobs for a week this summer for repeatedly standing near anti-Israel protesters while wearing an Israeli flag, even though there are no laws prohibiting it.

"Apparently the judiciary does not see any parallels" between Jacobs and the kosher restaurant attacker, Esther Voet, editor in chief of the NIW Dutch Jewish weekly, wrote in an op-ed published last week.

"Far-right violence is swiftly punished. But this," Voet wrote of the restaurant attack, "that's different. The Jews were asking for it."

The Public Prosecution Service declined to tell JTA anything about the suspect but his age and city of residence in the Netherlands, which is Amsterdam. A spokesman declined to say why other details are being withheld. He said the suspect was released because "there were no grounds to detain him" any longer.

In the background of how authorities are handling the case, Voet said, is fear that the incident may help the Netherlands' rising populist right wing-led by the anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom.

"Authorities attempt, out of fear from further polarization in society, to sweep everything under the carpet, but it's having the opposite effect," she told the Metro daily. "We are not the Jews of past decades, we will not sit quietly as this happens to us. We will speak out."

This reference to a past in which 75 percent of Dutch Jewry was murdered in the Holocaust is unusual for such a prominent representative of Dutch Jewry. But it's not the only one. Frits Barend, one of the country's best-known Jewish journalists, told De Telegraaf daily after the attack: "It reminds of me Kristallnacht"-the name for the 1938 pogroms organized by Nazis against Jews.

CIDI under its current director, Hanna Luden, called the suspect's release "shocking."

Coupled with the scaling back this year of police protection for Jewish-owned buildings in Amsterdam-a precaution that was taken after the 2015 slaying of four Jews in Paris by an Islamist-the incident at the HaCarmel kosher restaurant and its handling by authorities "are making Dutch Jews feel less safe," Naftaniel said.

Earlier this year, similar complaints were heard from many French Jews. They vocally and persistently protested the absence of a hate crime charge from the indictment of a 27-year-old Muslim man who on April 4 killed Sarah Halimi, his 67-year-old Jewish neighbor, while shouting about Allah and calling her a demon. The man, Kobili Traore, had a history of anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Traore was not arrested but was hospitalized for weeks in an institution for treating mental illnesses, although he had no record of such problems. Police refused to disclose his whereabouts and the conditions of his detainment for months.

The Halimi attack occurred just weeks before presidential elections, which brought the far-right National Front party closer to power than ever. As such, the case was "covered up" by the judiciary, charged Francis Kalifat, the president of the CRIF umbrella of French Jewish communities, including during a public address before President Emmanuel Macron.

Amid local and international pressure, French prosecutors added hate crime charges in September.

But the Dutch Jewish community, which on Sunday held a Chanukah ceremony in Amsterdam to thank police and the justice minister for their protection, has not yet reached their "Sarah Halimi moment," Naftaniel said, referring to the silent marches that French Jews held to protest the affair.

"But the kosher restaurant has definitely caused many Dutch Jews to pause, look around and ask tough questions of the authorities," Naftaniel said. "That's a good thing."
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Lawmakers finalizing the proposed tax overhaul reportedly have removed a provision that had sent shivers through the graduate student and Jewish day school communities.

The House version of the reform bill, which was drafted by the Republican leadership, had removed the qualified tuition credit. The credit exempts from taxes the free tuition that private schools, including Jewish day schools, often extend to the children of employees.

However, the Senate version maintained the credit.

On Wednesday afternoon, Bloomberg News reported that the proposal in the House of Representatives to remove the credit was dropped from the reconciled version of the House and Senate bills.

Master's and doctoral students who supplement their education by working at their universities are compensated in part by tuition waivers, which have been tax exempt for decades. Removing the exemption, as House Republicans had proposed, would have had students looking at tax increases of four- to seven-fold, according to an estimate.

"Grad Students Are Freaking Out About the GOP Tax Plan" was the headline in Wired in an article that quoted a number of students who indeed seemed staggered by the prospect.

Unnerved, too, were Jewish day schools, according to two umbrella Orthodox groups that lobbied hard to keep the credit. The tax break has been key to attracting top staff to the day schools, according to the Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel of America; staffers get free or reduced tuition for their own children. Taxing that tuition would make it hard to hire qualified teachers, the groups said.

"Many K-12 schools in our community (and others) are only able to attract quality teachers by providing discounts on tuition for their children," said a letter sent Dec. 7 by the Orthodox Union's Washington office to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the chairman of the House tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

Of the 1,004 Jewish day schools in the United States listed by J Data, the database run by the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University, 731 are Orthodox. A publicist for the Conservative movement, to which the Solomon Schechter schools are affiliated, did not return a request for comment in time for publication.

Dave Sloan, the president of the Modern Orthodox Berman Hebrew Academy in Rockville, Maryland, said school staffers could have taken hits ranging from "thousands of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars," depending on their number of children

"It will be incumbent on our institution to true that up," or compensate the teacher, Sloan said in an interview before the news broke that the credit would not be removed. "It's not an extinction-level event, but it creates pressure on our budget to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Berman, with 700 students, has tuitions ranging from $16,000 to $23,000, depending on the grade.

Agudath Israel of America raised another flag about the proposal: Compensating the teachers for the tax hike through salary increases would place them in a higher tax bracket, which could also have deleterious effects.

"Its elimination can result in higher taxable incomes that would make them ineligible for health insurance and other social service benefits-a devastating loss," said the draft of a letter Agudah was set to send to the conference committee, the gathering of lawmakers and staffers that reconcile the House and Senate versions.

The committee reportedly was close to a reconciled bill on Wednesday afternoon.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to sign the bill before the year is out.

It's not clear whether a separate proposal in the Senate version favored by the Orthodox movements had survived the reconciliation. That proposal, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, would have made a portion of 529s, the tax-free savings accounts for college tuition, available for religious day school tuitions.
President Donald Trump signing a proclamation at the White House that the U.S. government will formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Dec. 6, 2017.

By Ben Sales

NEW YORK (JTA)-When President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, many foreign policy experts called it a blunder.

It could spark a conflagration of violence in the city, they said. It would alienate Palestinians who revere the city and ice any remaining hopes of a peace process. It could be the death knell for an increasingly elusive two-state solution.

"Raising this the way he has done doesn't advance the cause of peace, it doesn't advance the cause of stability in the region, it doesn't make Israel safer, and it doesn't make the United States any safer," James Cunningham, a former ambassador to Israel who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, told the Atlantic Council. "It raises a significant risk with very little upside as far as I can see."

But a countervailing chorus of analysts, mostly on the right but stretching to the center, says the opposite: Trump's recognition of Jerusalem is a strategically savvy course correction of American foreign policy. It has not hurt prospects for peace, they say, and there's a good chance it will help.

"U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem might contribute to peace," Douglas Feith, President George W. Bush's undersecretary of defense, wrote in Foreign Policy. It teaches Palestinians, he wrote, that "[t]here is a price to be paid for perpetuating the conflict: Life goes on, the Israelis create new realities, and the world in general adjusts to those new realities."

Trump's declaration showed that the United States would not be cowed by extremism, tweeted Amos Yadlin, who heads the centrist Israeli Institute for National Security Studies and affiliates with the center-left Zionist Union party. Resisting threats of violence changes the contours of peace negotiations, he added.

"Trump was not intimidated by the threats from Ramallah, Amman, or Ankara," Yadlin wrote in a Twitter thread, referring to the Palestinian, Jordanian and Turkish capitals, respectively. "The refusal to bow to the threats and blackmail, together with the message that the Palestinians do not have veto power, [is] a very important precedent for the future of the peace process."

Jewish groups, meanwhile, largely praised the move as a recognition of Jewish historical and religious claims to the city, long overdue, as well as an acknowledgement of Jerusalem's status in modern Israel as the seat of government. But many of them, too, reiterated their support for the two-state solution and urged Trump to double down on that cause.

"This is a significant step that acknowledges reality: Jerusalem is the political capital of the country and has been the spiritual heart of the Jewish people for millennia," read a statement by the Anti-Defamation League, which has not shied away from criticizing Trump's actions in the past. The statement went on to urge "the rapid resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations leading to a two-state solution"

One week after Trump announced the decision, any peace prospects do appear to have dimmed: Protests did take place in Jerusalem and Palestinian areas, though they were far milder than anticipated. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called on his people to now pursue equal rights within Israel rather than a state of their own, while Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the U.S. no longer has a role to play in brokering talks.

But that does not bother analysts who feel the United States should present itself as a resolute supporter of Israel rather than an evenhanded mediator. Such a stance, some wrote, rightly puts the onus on Palestinians to adjust their demands and show their willingness to reach a deal

"The intention is to disabuse the Palestinians of the notion that the U.S. is neutral between them and our democratic, pro-Western, tolerant, free-market ally Israel," wrote Shoshanna Bryan, senior director of the Jewish Policy Center, a conservative group, in the Daily Caller. "American support for Palestinian's aspirations is not withdrawn, but hinges on Palestinian behavior."

But some analysts who were inclined toward the decision also warned that granting a longstanding Israeli demand could put Israel in Trump's debt if he ever demands concessions.

"Because Trump is viewed as very pro-Israel by the Israeli public, it will be more difficult for Netanyahu to say no to any requests from the president for compromises," wrote Jonathan Rynhold, director of the Argov Center for the Study of Israel and the Jewish People at Bar-Ilan University. "It was easy for Bibi to say no to Obama, since there was no domestic political price; not so with Trump."
U.S. National Security Advisor Gen. H.R. McMaster underlined an important point this week that deserves a wider audience.

Speaking at a conference in Washington, D.C., McMaster highlighted two countries that he said were playing a key role in advancing radical Islamist ideology through the Muslim communitys charities, madrassas and other social organizations.

Not Pakistan. Not Libya. Not Shia Iran. The two countries named by McMaster have been regarded for most of the past century as stalwart allies of the West. One is a member of the NATO alliance and a candidate country for EU membership. The other hosts the most vital American military base in the Middle East, home to the headquarters of CENTCOM and the location of more than 9,000 U.S. troops.

These two countries are Turkey and Qatar. And the promotion of radical Islam, McMaster said, is now done more by Qatar, and by Turkey.

Its not the first time that the Trump White House has linked Qatar with the promotion of terror. Trump himself said back in Juneat the start of the blockade of Qatar by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and other Arab statesthat the nation of Qatar has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level. The evidence of fundraising, money channeling and money laundering in Qatar on behalf of Islamist groups ranging from Islamic State to the Palestinian Hamas has been mounting for more than a decade.

There are no Arab countries where terrorism financing doesnt have a footprint, which is why it would be self-defeating to portray Qatar as the only source of the problem. But because Qatar likes to portray itself as a country apart from the rest of the Gulfblending Islam with enlightenment values; pursuing an independent foreign policy; and its status as a hugely powerful player in global real estate, financial and commodity marketsit becomes necessary to occasionally wipe the gloss from the thriving desert kingdom image the emirate projects outward.

Ditto with Turkey, although that task is made easier by the fact that the country is run by an authoritarian thug in the form of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. McMaster specifically identified Erdogans ruling AKP party with the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, remarking that by operating through civil society, they consolidate power through one party, sadly it is a problem contributing to Turkeys drift from the West.

The word drift is something of an understatement; since the murky coup of last year, Erdogan has assumed near-dictatorial powers, used the war against Islamic State as an excuse to launch brutal air raids on Kurdish fighters in Syria and Turkey, colluded with Iran in the carve-up of Iraqi Kurdistan, and is now leading a renewed charge against Israel following President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. Rarely does the Turkish leader let up on the demonizing, anti-Semitic invective he seemingly revels in.

Dishonesty is a characteristic of nearly all governments, but there is a big difference between unauthorized corruption and willfully employing corruption as ones point of departure. In the cases of Turkey and Qatar, at the level of public relations, this corruption takes the form of communicating in bare-faced lies, and sticking by them or dancing around them when these lies are unmasked as such.

Erdogan does this with many issues, particularly Israelwhich he slanders as a terrorist state, while concocting or regurgitating Islamist conspiracy theories about the Jewish states true designs for Jerusalem. The Qataris do the same, first and foremost with their own record. In June, Sheik Saif bin Ahmed al Thanianother scion of the ruling family who serves as the director of government communicationstold the Los Angeles Times editorial board that Qatar does not fund terrorism whatsoeverno groups, no individuals. Not from afar or from a close distance. (The editorial board did not challenge him on this claim.)

Those blatant lies persisteven as the numerous lobbyists and public relations teams employed by both countries try to divert our attention to, say, Qatars role in African regional development, or Turkeys concern about anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe, or the supposed moderating influence of Doha and Ankara alike on radicals. That these conversations proceed on the basis of long-established, and largely true, assumptions about the historic alignment of both countries with the West only further blurs an understanding of the problem we are dealing with now.

If Turkey and Qatar do not change their behaviorand a guy whose security detail attacks demonstrators in the middle of Washington in full view of the worlds press is probably not going to change his behaviorterrorist outrages, attacks on Israels right to exist, persecution of religious minorities, the promotion of jihadi ideology and even regional war will remain as fixed anxieties of our political life. Put more simply, Qatar and Turkey may have been part of the solution, but they are now firmly a part of the problem.

There are those in the U.S. Jewish community who act as though the Islamist transformations of these two countries havent occurred, and who continue to respond to the outreach of Qatari and the Turkish representatives with flattered hearts and minds. One can concede that there are occasions when direct dialogue might be usefulbut when there is such an imbalance of power as there is when it comes to our communal leaders, and when Qatar and Turkey established long ago their commitment to jihadi anti-Semitism, it is time to end the self-delusion.

Ben Cohen writes a weekly column for JNS on Jewish affairs and Middle Eastern politics. His writings have been published in Commentary, the New York Post, Haaretz, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications.
LOS ANGELES (JTA)The Israeli-American Councils Fourth Annual National Conference in Washington, D.C., held last month felt like a long-overdue family reunion. Enveloping warmth and a powerful sense of togetherness, the love for Israel was infectious, radiating to and from all the participants.

In the corridors of the Washington Convention Center, teenagers spoke with unique pride about their hybrid Israeli-American identity, rooted in the idea that they are deeply connected to their home in America while maintaining a strong affinity to their Jewish homeland in Israel.

Groups of Jewish-American and Israeli-American young professionals exchanged business cards and then headed to a packed dance floor, moving and shaking the steel floors of the convention center to the beat of Israeli music. A young Jewish couplethe man from New York, the woman from Tel Avivjoined with their 2-year-old and hundreds of other young families in a circle with picture books in Hebrew and English.

Groups singing Israeli songs blended with panel discussions about what it means to be Israeli and Jewish in America, centered around the idea that we were connected by the Israeliness in our character and the love for Israel in our heart. Many echoed the sentiment that Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans are one family, need each other and complement each other.

This sense of unity extended to the events political conversations. The politicians at the conference held views that spanned the ideological spectrum. They shared these radically different views on stagein very frank conversations. All received thundering applause from the mixed crowd. In the many conference sessions and events, it was clear that Israeliness is a unifying force that can overcome political disagreements.

We live during a time of growing gaps and serious challenges in the Jewish communityboth inside American Jewry and between Israel and the Diaspora. How do we address a declining Jewish population in the face of assimilation? How do we overcome divides among our different denominations, political orientations, ethnic backgrounds and geographic centers? How do we ensure that Israel is not a wedge that divides our community, but rather the glue that holds us together and strengthens us?

The nearly 3,000 participants in the Washington conference suggested the role that Israeli Americans can and do play as an important partners for American Jewish institutions in addressing these questions, and as a bridge builders to the State of Israel and its people.

There are three unique value propositions that Israeli Americansand groups like ours that represent themcan bring to the table for the Jewish community.

The first is our Israeliness, a character and multifaceted quality that brings together many aspects of our identity: Jewish values, the Hebrew language, Israeli culture, pride in our history and heritage, the unique accomplishments of the Jewish people and the State of Israel, and above all, a belief that All the people of Israel are responsible for one another.

Through Israeliness, our community is bringing new people into our communal conversations and re-engaging others from a wide variety of backgrounds. We understand the importance of Israel not just as a vibrant country and proud culture, but as a crucial part of our spiritual beliefs as Jews. We speak Hebrew at home and at shulthe same language with two unique and intertwined purposes. Our community offers new ways to engage with Israel and Judaism itself.

The second value proposition is our deep love for Israel, rooted in personal experience and an appreciation that it is not just the homeland of the Jewish people, but a source of our pride, common history, culture, courage and strength. We recognize that Israel isnt perfect but accept and support it without any preconditions.

As a result, Israeli Americans are uniquely equipped to advocate for Israel. The Israeli-American Council, for example, has worked to advocate for laws that keep states like California, Nevada and Texas from allowing taxpayer funds to support groups that discriminate against Israelis with economic boycotts. In partnership with existing organizations like AIPAC and Jewish federations, the Israeli-American Coalition for Action and the Israeli-American community have acted to advance bipartisan support for the Taylor Force Act, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act and other important pieces of legislation.

The third value proposition is our willingness and ability to think outside the box. Israeli Americans have much to learn from the American Diaspora community about how Jewish culture and community can flourish outside of a Jewish state. Yet we are also contributing fresh perspectives that have brought a range of programs to American Jewish lifeinitiatives that are engaging not only Israeli Americans, but also Jewish Americans of all ages.

By uniting Israeli Americans and partnering with existing Jewish-American institutions, we believe that we can strengthen the American communities we live in and build their connection to Israel. Our vision for the coming decades is optimistic: Where some see challenges and gaps, we see promise and opportunity to reignite Jewish life, re-inspire Jewish pride and courage, and re-imagine our existing institutions so that they serve the next generation in our community.

By working together as one big Jewish family, Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans of all backgrounds can forge the future we desire.

Adam Milstein is a co-founder and the chairman of the board of the Israeli-American Council.
(JTA)We were wrong.

As Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky pointed out, The Reform response to the recognition of Jerusalem was terrible. When... a superpower recognizes Jerusalem, first you... welcome it, then offer disagreement. Here it was the opposite.

Sharansky was referring to the Dec. 5 statement issued by all 16 North American Reform organizations and affiliates in response to President Donald Trumps declaration recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The operative clause reads: While we share the presidents belief that the U.S. Embassy should, at the right time, be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, we cannot support his decision to begin preparing that move now, absent a comprehensive plan for a peace process.

There have been several attempts to clarify this position, but not by all of the original signatories. It is still the official position of the entire North American apparatus of the Reform movement. If our movements affiliates have had a change of heart, all of them should say it through another statement: We made a mistake.

If not, and if we still stand by our original statement, I want the Jewish world to know that this position is not my position, nor does it reflect the views of multitudes of, perhaps most, Reform Jews.

We were wrong on the politics. With the exception of one small hard-left party, there is wall-to-wall agreement among the Zionist parties in the Knesset supporting the embassy move. We have alienated the very people who support and defend us in our campaign for religious pluralism and equitable funding. Sharansky himself is the most dogged and prominent supporter of the Western Wall compromise.

More important, we were wrong on the merits. We have yearned for Jerusalem for two millennia. It is the source of our strength, the place where our people was formed, where the Bible was written. Jews lived free and made pilgrimage to Jerusalem for a thousand years. Our national existence changed the world and led to the creation of two other great faiths.

The worlds superpower finally did the right thing, and we opposed itnot on the principle, but on the timing. The timing? Now is not the right time? Two thousand years later and it is still not the right time? As if there is a peace process that the Palestinians are committed to and pursuing with conviction.

There were critics who accused the civil rights movement of moving too quickly. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.s response: The time is always ripe to do what is right.

In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, King wrote: For years now I have heard the word wait... that [our] action... is untimely. This wait has almost always meant Never. We must come to see that justice too long delayed is justice denied.

King often reminded us that time is neutral, that it can be used constructively or destructively. Israels opponents have used time more effectively than we have. They have so distorted history that so many around the world question the very legitimacy of Jewish ties to Zion and Jerusalem. We have neglected teaching and conveying, even to our own children, our millennia-old love affair with the Land of Israel and Jerusalem as its beating heart.

Judaism without Eretz Yisrael is not Judaism. Judaism without Jerusalem is not Judaism.

This is not to deny that others consider Jerusalem holy. It is not to deny that the Palestinians seek Jerusalem as their capital. I am in favor of two states for two peoples. For that to happen, some kind of accommodation on Jerusalem will be necessary. If and when it occurs, I will support it

But let no one be fooled. Peace will never rise on foundations of sand. Any agreement will collapse under the weight of its own inconsistencies if constructed on a scaffolding of lies.

President Trump simply acknowledged reality. It is about time. It should have been done decades ago, in 1949, when Israel declared Jerusalem its capital. Many presidentsDemocrats and Republicanspromised to move the U.S. Embassy.

The embassy will be in West Jerusalem. Who contests West Jerusalem? President Trump did not pre-empt the eventual borders of Jerusalem. He did not preclude a permanent status agreement. He simply acknowledged a fact. Where do people meet Israeli prime ministers, presidents, parliamentarians and Supreme Court justicesin Tel Aviv? Where did Anwar Sadat speak when he wanted to convey on behalf of the Egyptian people a message of peace to Israelis: Tel Aviv?

It is for each country to declare its own capital. What other nation declares a capital unrecognized by the nations of the world? What kind of special abuse is reserved for the Jewish nation?

At the same time, it is proper and necessary for us to remind ourselves and others that we are committed to a two-state solution that will require territorial compromises from both sides, including in Jerusalem. We should continue to urge the American government to help bring about a negotiated peace.

We should also urge the international community to disabuse the Palestinian national movement of its exaggerated expectations and its insidious efforts to undermine and erase our connection to Zion. Until that happens, peace is an illusion.

Ammiel Hirsch is senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York.
PORTLAND, Ore. (JTA)As a 27-year-old female Hillel executive director, I spend my days focused on enriching the lives of Jewish students in my community. Working for an organization with a mission and vision so closely aligned with my values is a privilege. Its not lost on me how fortunate I am to hold such responsibility.

One of my most important responsibilities is to raise the funds needed to carry out the work with students that I care about so passionately. Last week, I received an email from a prominent donor in our community asking to meet for breakfast. I have felt uneasy around him before, as he has suggested the type of clothing I should wear for professional events, but like many women in my position, I have become an expert at laughing off inappropriate comments. And meeting with donors to sustain our program is, after all, my job.

When I arrived at our breakfast, we met each other with a hug, which is a common greeting in our tight-knit Jewish community. But this time, the donor reached down and grabbed my butt before putting his arm around my shoulders and walking me to our table. I called him out immediately.

Did you just grab my butt!? I exclaimed.

No, I didnt, he said with a wink.

I sought an explanation, not that anything he said would have made a blatant grope OK. But he denied having done it at all and carried on our conversation as if nothing had happened. His brazen denial of reality made me wonder if Id just made the whole thing up in my head.

During the awkward meal that followed, I felt more and more uncomfortable. At one point I excused myself to take a few deep, calming breaths at the breakfast buffet. Back at the table, the donor told me that my bra strap was showing and asked if I wanted to cover up or show him more. As we left the restaurant, he pulled me in close to his face in what felt like an attempt to kiss me on the mouth, our noses nearly touching, then placed his hands near my breasts and made a squeezing gesture, saying he needed to grab a thing or two.

You can imagine that I left this meeting in great distress. I was shaking. I didnt know what to do. I felt the need to speak up, even though it might affect my standing in the community in several ways. I dont want my name tied to a scandal, and I also dont want other organizations finding themselves with holes in their budgets because I decided to say something.

But while bringing attention to this issue could be costly, I cant afford to stay silent. Since that awful breakfast, Ive been grappling with an ever-growing number of questions. What if this happens to me again? Or to a colleague? Do I want to meet a male donor alone ever again? How can I be more careful in the future? Is this my fault? Should I pretend nothing happened, shrug it off again and carry on?

I may work in a fieldJewish communal servicegrounded in values like tikkun olam (healing the world) and kavanah (positive intention), but I am not so naive to think that my community is immune to the abuses that occur when men in positions of power try to take advantage of women.

Im scared. Im disgusted. But mostly Im heartbroken. Nothing about this has been easy or certain, and the worst part is I have no control over what happened. He did this to me. Yet now my organization and I are the ones dealing with the consequences.

Seeking funding from our own community is often fraught with complex issues. But in the case of a donor sexually harassing a Hillel staff member, there should be no question as to how to proceed ethically, morally and Jewishly.

Thankfully, my local board, Hillel International and my local federation have proven to me what it means to do the right thing, the Jewish thing. My local board insisted that we cut all communication with this donor, despite the financial strain it may cause our organization. Hillel International offered extensive support, including a timely launch of materials for Hillel professionals to help in other situations of sexual harassment and assault. They also put their money where their mouths are, offering to help make up the lost funds. This week, my local federation is convening constituent agency leaders to launch communal discussions around sexual harassment.

All the professional leaders that I turned to believe that I should not only stand up for myself, but also speak out so other Jewish professionals can realize that they will not be alone. This fight is necessary for us to see change.

So, hineni, here I am. I choose to believe that righteousness will carry me. I am mustering my strength not only for me, but also for you, and for my students, some of whom look to me as one of their only Jewish role models. No one should endure such treatment. Our communities need to enable people to speak out, get educated and receive support.

As nerve-wracking as it may be, theres real power in standing up, walking away and saying no thank you.

Rhonda Abrams is the director of Greater Portland Hillel.
We live in a world of big political personalities, breaking news and fast-moving events, but to understand how the world will change in 2018, we must look more closely at four important political trends developing beneath the surface.

First, it is regional, not global, security that will matter most for war and peace. Donald Trumps calls for an America First approach to US foreign policy inspired fear that Trump would dismantle alliances that took decades to build. His early provocative approach to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation added to the worries. Yet, Trump has relied mainly on experienced men in uniform to set policy, with a result, the occasional tweet-storm aside, thats not so different from what we might have gotten from President Hillary Clinton.

The real change is in a more regional approach to security. For the foreseeable future, the United States will remain the only country on Earth capable of extending military power into every region of the world. (The US continues to outspend China on defence by a margin of 3-1.) Yet, Trump is no more likely than Barack Obama was to use that force in surprising ways unless forced to by crisis. Trump, like Obama, is more interested in winning domestic political battles.

This opens the door for heightened competition for influence that includes the US and China, but also India, Japan and the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey in West Asia. These are the arenas of conflict, and potential conflict, that now matter most.

Second, ideological battles over political values like democracy, rule of law, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech are giving way to fights that are grounded more directly in naked self-interest. A decade ago, western political values appeared to have carried the day. Americans and Europeans assumed these values are so obviously central to their security and prosperity, that emerging powers like China, Russia, and Arab states would surely adopt them. They also believed that rising middle classes in developing countries would moderate their politics by using their newfound economic power to hold governments more accountable.

But those who lead China, Russia, and most Arab states had other ideas. They believed they could build prosperity within authoritarian systems. Financial instability and political dysfunction in the United States and Europe in recent years helped make their case  and persuaded them that prosperity depended on their refusal to open their political systems to the chaos created by multi-party democracy. Governments in other emerging countries  Brazil and Turkey, for example  have struggled to maintain political order as middle classes make demands that governments cant meet. Turkeys Recep Erdogan has responded with a heavy-handed bid for more power. Brazils politics is weighed down with a cynicism generated by corruption, recession, and a polarised society.

In 2018, these trends will continue, and international politics will become a battle of every nation, and government, for itself.

Third, the nature of international trade continues to evolve. Trump made headlines in 2017 with an aggressively transactional approach to potential deals and a belligerent approach to existing ones. But its China that will tell the most dynamic trade story in 2018. As Trump backs the US away from new commitments, Chinas government will continue to advance the Belt-Road project to extend its economic  and, therefore, political  influence across Asia and into Europe through investment in new roads, bridges, ports and other large-scale infrastructure projects. This is the project that reveals China as the one significant world power with a coherent global development strategy for the 21st century. Trade will remain a controversial topic in US elections in coming years, and China will continue to invest, expand, build  and to write the rules under which many other countries will do business.

Finally, it is in cyberspace that the global balance of power is shifting most quickly. Here is the arena where poorer countries can compete for influence with much richer ones. Here is where politicians within countries can attack one another with new weapons. Here criminals can create new forms of crime, hackers can expose the deepest secrets of governments, and terrorists can inspire and direct attacks in new places.

In 2017, economies around the world shrugged off domestic and international political turmoil. In 2018, well begin to see more clearly that connections between politics, security, and our economies are changing more quickly and becoming more complex than we might have imagined when 2017 began.

Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group and author of Superpower: Three Choices for Americas Role in the World.

The views expressed are personal

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The external affairs ministrys institutional memory is replete with instances of ugly diplomatic face-offs with Pakistan. One case stands out for the nadir it touched. It involved a counsellor-level official in the Indian Mission, Rajesh Mittal. He was abducted and tortured in Islamabad in the summer of 1992.

Unlike Kulbhushan Jadhav, Mittal enjoyed diplomatic immunity. But Islamabad consigned the Vienna convention to the dustbin, what with its intelligence operatives subjecting Mittal to torture. After seven hours of captivity, the counsellor was a living cabbage when we got him out, according to a diplomat who handled the case.

Ive a good memory of the Mittal saga, posted as I then was in Islamabad as HTs resident representative. That wasnt the age of real-time information platforms. Yet the incident made world headlines in the manner the Jadhav story has. It saw New Delhi calling off foreign secretary-level talksthat eventually took place in early 1994 without making any headway.

Sentenced to death this year by a military court, Jadhav is in captivity since March 2016. His trauma must have been much worse. In just a half days captivity, electrodes were used to brutalise Mittal.

Mittal was lucky; his freedom came early as his father and a domestic help were witness to his capture from outside his residence. The Indian Mission swung into action immediately.

The full story of Jadhavs treatment by his captors will be known only when he returns home. That prospect has been set back by bilateral tensions concomitant to the Indian outrage over Pakistans handling of his meeting with his wife and mother.

It was a given that this meeting would be in a sanitised, highly regimented environ. The terrain wouldve been no different if New Delhi were to facilitate a family union with a person tried and convicted, rightly or wrongly, for terrorism.

Statecraft brooks no emotion. Still, its difficult not to react to the women being made to change clothes and take off their mangalsutras. Islamabad also played foul through a choreographed exposure of Jadhavs relatives to media-persons outside its foreign office.

The scribes heckled and taunted the two women. Howre you feeling on meeting your son whos a murderer.Your husband played holi with the blood of thousands of innocent Pakistanis; what do you have to say about it?

Pakistan failed abysmally if its intent was to come across as reasonable in the eyes of the international community and The Hague court hearing the Jadhav case. It was as much an opportunity lost to effect a thaw in the frosty Indo-Pak relations.

The casualty of it all is Jadhav. He may not be sent to the gallows. But an understanding on his fate is now unlikely till new regimes are in place after general elections on either side of the border. Pakistan goes to the polls next year, India in 2019.

The treatment meted out to Jadhavs relatives in the Pakistan foreign office would seem velvety when compared with what the Mittal family suffered 25 years ago. The diplomats wife and father werent allowed to return with him in the BSF aircraft New Delhi sent to Rawalpindis Chaklala airbase for his evacuation.

There has been much consternation, and rightly so, over the delay in the arrival of a car to ferry back Jadhavs visitors from the foreign ministry after the meeting. The affront was graver in Mittals case. The entrance to the airbase was locked when an embassy official reached there with his injured colleague.

Despite prior intimation, a security guard first wanted to know as to why they were there. He then tossed on the ground the identity card presented by the diplomat who had escorted Mittal.

The objective was to delay the flight. The purpose: deny Doordarshan the footage of the diplomats return for its prime time bulletin. Much in the manner in which Jadhavs kin had to change clothes, remove footwear, Mittal was bundled on the plane in the shirt and trouser he was wearing. His belongings were carted home later by his wife and father.

What a deja vu of diplomatic lows!

vinodsharma@hindustantimes.com
As another year comes to an end, it is perhaps worth reminding ourselves that political leaders and controversies come and go, but ideas, concepts, and terminology often have a longer shelf life. What were the big ideas of 2017?

Some, inevitably, are the product of technological developments: blockchain (a distributed ledger to ensure secure transactions) and deep learning by machines (a more sophisticated form of artificial intelligence) have been around for some time as applied concepts, but have only recently become a part of popular consciousness. Other notions that have gained salience are political in nature, such as fake news. Some are purely linguistic. Online searches for the rather archaic word dotard spiked after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un used it to insult US President Donald Trump.

In the international political realm, I would venture that the idea of the year is the Indo-Pacific. In 2017, with its official adoption by the US, it reached a new threshold, and it may now be with us to stay. The Indo-Pacific is not a new idea, nor is it originally an American one. It actually arises from the natural sciences, referring to a large bio-geographic region of warm water in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Its evolution as a strategic concept is a more recent development.

Its origins can be traced to a speech delivered in August 2007 by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Indian Parliament. Abe did not use the phrase Indo-Pacific, but rather alluded to a book by the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh in describing the dynamic coupling of the Indian and Pacific oceans as the confluence of the two seas. In October 2010, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the importance of the Indo-Pacific basin...to global trade and commerce. The term soon caught on Indian strategic circles. C Raja Mohan, in his book 2012 Samudra Manthan, argued that the seas of the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean must be seen as a single integrated geopolitical theater, the Indo-Pacific. The 2013 Australian Defence White Paper led its strategic outlook with an assessment of the Indo-Pacific. And Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh referenced the Indo-Pacific in a May 2013 speech in Tokyo.

This year, the idea picked up steam, especially in official circles. Abes government outlined a vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific. Australias 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper made numerous mentions of it. In his January address to the Raisina Dialogue, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India believe[s] that respecting freedom of navigation and adherent to international norms is essential for peace and economic growth in...the Indo-Pacific. And, somewhat belatedly, the US described the Indo-Pacific as a priority region in its 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS). Trump appears personally seized with the idea, and used the phrase Indo-Pacific numerous times during his November tour of Asia. Thus, Indo-Pacific is now firmly part of the official strategic vocabulary of India, the United States, Japan, and Australia. The coming together of these four countries in a dialogue earlier this year, while still exploratory, also began to cement the idea of the Indo-Pacific as an operational construct.

A common query is what part of the earths surface is actually covered by the Indo-Pacific? The US NSS defines it as extending from the west coast of the United States to the west coast of India. Japans view is perhaps the most ambitious, extending to two oceans and two continents (Asia and Africa). India has not formally defined it, but it is clear that in Indian conceptions it extends from the east coast of Africa, across the Indian Ocean, to the western and south Pacific.

But the exact geographical scope of the Indo-Pacific is almost beside the point. What matters is the shared understanding of the term. Essentially, it is three-fold. One, it implies that the Indian and Pacific Oceans are a single, shared strategic space. What happens in one, has implications in the other. Thus the militarisation of the South China Sea directly affects India, just as developments in the Indian Ocean have immediate consequences for Japan or the United States.

Two, it suggests that geopolitical competition in the broader region will play out primarily in the maritime domain. By defining the region by its oceans, rather than by any continental features (e.g. Asia), it automatically elevates the maritime element of our way of thinking about the region. For India, this means thinking more seriously about maritime trade, the blue economy, and naval requirements and capabilities.

Three, although the Indo- in Indo-Pacific refers to the Indian Ocean and not India, it is impossible to think about the Indo-Pacific without considering the role of India. Given its central location, its status as the largest economy, its long coastline, and its blue water naval capabilities, India is the geopolitical keystone of the Indian Ocean. Therefore, the use of the term Indo-Pacific implicitly acknowledges Indias central role in regional security and commercial dynamics.

This shared understanding - and the full significance of the adoption of Indo-Pacific by Indian, American, Japanese, and Australian leaders - has not necessarily been appreciated in capitals around the world, including in New Delhi. But it has been noted in Beijing. Its adoption and acceptance in official circles may have been belated, but it is nonetheless a welcome and important addition to the ideas that shape our thinking about the world.

Dhruva Jaishankar is Fellow for Foreign Policy, Brookings India, New Delhi

The views expressed are personal
Sooraj Barjatyas film Maine Pyar Kiya, starring Salman Khan and Bhagyashree, marked the debut of two fantastic actors in lead roles, and was the top grossing film that year. The film was also one of the top grossing films in the 1980s, and is considered to be an iconic film in the same category as Kabhi Kabhi (1996) and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaenge (1995). As the film completes 28 years of its release today, we bring you facts about the film that you probably didnt know

1) Salman Khan was not the first choice for Prem

Sooraj Barjatya rejected Salman Khan after his first audition and thought he looked small.

Before Salman Khan eventually got the role of Prem, a slew of new actors were considered and auditioned for the role. Vindoo Dara Singh, Deepak Tijori and Piyush Mishra are some of the names that were considered for the role, before Salman made it his own. In fact, he was rejected by the films director Sooraj Barjatya after his first audition, who thought that Salman looked small. When he first came to my office, I remember he was sitting at the reception and he looked very small. It (was) the second audition that we liked and we finalised him, Sooraj was quoted as saying.

2) Nutan wasnt happy with villainous son

Nutan wasnt sure about Mohnish Behls role as a villain.

Actor Nutan wasnt very happy with her son, Mohnish Behl, playing the role of the villain in the film. According to several reports, Nutan had even asked the makers if they could cast Mohnish in a different role, since he had done positive roles before the film. The makers, however, assured Nutan that Behls role will be remembered for a long time.

3) Despite films massive success, Salman couldnt find work for a year

Salman Khans father Salim Khan had to put advertisements in the newspapers about his sons acting prowess.

The film went on to become the biggest blockbuster that year, won numerous awards, and made Salman a star. However, in an interview with journalist Rajat Sharma, Salman Khan revealed that he couldnt find work for an entire year. According to reports, Salmans father, writer Salim Khan posted an advertisement in newspaper about his sons acting capabilities, after which Salman started getting movie offers.

4) Love Transcends boundaries



The film was a big hit overseas.

The film was dubbed in English and titled When Love Calls and was a big hit overseas as well. In fact, the film was a big hit in the Caribbean and dominated the box-office that year in Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago. The film was also dubbed and titled Te Amo in Spanish, and the film saw a 10-week run in Lima, Peru.

5) The Handsome Kabootar

The pigeon played cupid in the film.

The white pigeon that played cupid between Prem (Salman) and Suman (Bhagyashree), delivering his love letters to her in the song Kabootar Jaa, was named Handsome.

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Actor Rajesh Khanna aka Kaka, was often referred to as the first and original superstar of Indian cinema. However, it was only in 2013, after his death in 2012, that he was officially bestowed the title: The First Superstar of Indian cinema at the Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Awards.

In a career spanning over three decades, Khanna acted in some 170 films, most of which went on to become classics. While stars today might crave for back to back successes, Khanna held a record of 15 consecutive solo hits from 1969 to 1971. With a perfect mix massy and classy cinema, Khanna was the highest paid Indian actor from 1970 to 1987 and it was only in 1980 till 1987 that Amitabh Bachchan shared the tag with Khanna.

On personal front, the (late) actor married actor Dimple Kapadia a few months before her debut film Bobby (1973) was slated to release and became a proud father to two daughters  Twinkle and Rinke Khanna. He was critically ill for a long time before he breathed his last in July 2012 and left a void in the industry that can never be filled.

Today, on actors 75th birth anniversary, as his fans and friends from the fraternity would be recollecting old memories, we bring you some throwback photos of the legend with his family and co-stars from the industry, that will take you back in time.

Old is gold #jeetendra #rajeshkhanna A post shared by Re (@rajyesh_shrma) on Oct 10, 2017 at 9:04pm PDT

Old is gold #rajeshkhanna #amitabhbachchan A post shared by Re (@rajyesh_shrma) on Oct 6, 2017 at 3:19am PDT

#rajeshkhanna A post shared by Big B (@amitabhbachchan_lovers) on Dec 22, 2017 at 11:07pm PST

Flashback #rajeshkhanna #rajnikanth A post shared by Re (@rajyesh_shrma) on Oct 24, 2017 at 1:12am PDT

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Veteran actor Rishi Kapoor wrapped up shooting in Delhis Chandni Chowk area on December 23, after almost a month, for his next film Rajma Chawal. And the actor cant stop gushing about how amazing people around the area were.

I felt absolutely thrilled to have shot there. Otherwise, I would never have gone there, and thats because I come with my security that used to accompany me to the set. However, the people of Chandni Chowk were extremely cooperative and extended all their help. They never bothered us or created any trouble, says Kapoor, adding that these people are very much a part of the Leena Yadav directorial. Theyre also acting in the film as extras, so, its been possible with their help and their assistance, he shared.

While actors often face the brunt when they have to evade their fans on a shooting location, Kapoor states that no one does it unless absolutely required. When public behaves well with you, you also extend yourself [to them]. Sometimes, when they become unruly and start abusing and hitting each other, then you have to, at times, turn them away, and its not your fault, he maintains.

Eid Milad-Un-Nabi Mubarak! Prayers offered at Jama Masjid,New Delhi. pic.twitter.com/o6yXpg9Kle  Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) December 2, 2017

Kapoor, along with the films cast and crew, was shooting at Lachu Bhai Haveli which was converted into a modern house to suit the films theme. Asked how he managed to reach the sets, considering the narrow lanes that no car can maneuver, the actor quips, Initially, I used to come by car till the main road and then I would walk to the set. But then, I started coming on a bike, as I didnt feel I needed anyone to escort me.

In the past, too, several films have had a feel of Chandni Chowk. So, whats special about this film? Kapoor elaborates, This real Chandni Chowk has not been seen in any Hindi film, as far as I can remember. Delhi-6 (2009) was shot near Jaipur and we had recreated that set. But this is inside Chandi Chowk. All those restaurants, mithai ki dukaan, khane ki jagah, all other small shops, rickshaws, crowd  this atmosphere has never been in films. And they are all an intrinsic part of the film.

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The ministry of finance on Friday cautioned people against the risks of investing in virtual currencies such as bitcoin which lack government fiat, comparing them with ponzi schemes.

This follows a crackdown by South Korean government on trading of bitcoins which led to a 8% drop in its value on Thursday. Currently, the value of bitcoin is around $14,000.

There has been a phenomenal increase in recent times in the price of Virtual Currencies (VCs) including Bitcoin, in India and globally. The VCs dont have any intrinsic value and are not backed by any kind of assets. The price of Bitcoin and other VCs therefore is entirely a matter of mere speculation resulting in spurt and volatility in their prices, the ministry said in a statement.

The finance ministry warned that there is a real and heightened risk of investment bubble in VCs of the type seen in ponzi schemes which can result in sudden and prolonged crash exposing investors, especially retail consumers losing their hard-earned money. Consumers need to be alert and extremely cautious as to avoid getting trapped in such Ponzi schemes, it added.

Virtual currencies are stored in digital/electronic format, making them vulnerable to hacking, loss of password, malware attack etc. which may also result in permanent loss of money, the finance ministry said. As transactions of VCs are encrypted they are also likely being used to carry out illegal/subversive activities, such as, terror funding, smuggling, drug trafficking and other money-laundering Acts, it cautioned.

The finance ministry said the users, holders and traders of VCs have already been cautioned three times, in December 2013, February 2017 and December 2017, by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) about the potential financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security-related risks that they are exposing themselves to by investing in bitcoin and/ or other VCs.

RBI has also clarified that it has not given any licence/ authorization to any entity/ company to operate such schemes or deal with Bitcoin or any virtual currency. The Government also makes it clear that VCs are not legal tender and such VCs do not have any regulatory permission or protection in India. The investors and other participants therefore deal with these VCs entirely at their risk and should best avoid participating therein, it added.
In the washroom at her home in south-east Delhi, a 15-year-old school girl saw blood flowing down her thighs. Unaware of what was happening to her, she took it for a disease and screamed.

Her mother, a home maker, came rushing in and comforted her daughter, saying that this was a natural phenomenon that all girls go through after a certain age. She explained how to use a sanitary pad.

The next day, when she went to Class 10 at her government school in a working class neighbourhood, and informed her teachers about her condition, she was given a free sanitary napkin packet.

A few years ago, in 2011, the Delhi government had announced a scheme with an annual budget of Rs 12-15 crores to give free sanitary napkins to female students.

Before the scheme was implemented, Sonu Nijhawan, vice principal of the Government Girls' Senior Secondary School in Sangam Vihar, said she used to send menstruating girls home. The program made "a huge difference for girls for multiple reasons," she said. "The scheme helped [girls] maintain personal hygiene, kept them regular in school, and eased the financial burden of some really poor families."

But since November 2016, the program has come to a halt. The initial tender given to provide the napkins ended, and a new one, issued in December, included requirements that none of the applicants could meet. Another tender, issued in August, elicited seven qualified applicants. But according to the Delhi Directorate of Education (DoE) (sources), it might be another month or two before they can decide which company is most suitable and the supply of sanitary napkins can be restored. DOE did not respond to a detailed questionnaire sent on the matter.

In the meantime, Nijhawan said she's returned to sending girls home. Around eight lakh girls, ages 10-18, in the government school system now undergo a monthly struggle. The new GST rate of 12% on sanitary napkins makes them expensive for poor families. A 2011 study conducted by AC Nielsen, a global survey company, found that only 12% of India's 355 million menstruating women use sanitary napkins and that 88% of women resort to unsanitised cloth, ash and husk sand.

Menstruation is also the most common reason for truancy among female students, according to 12 girls attending government schools interviewed by Hindustan Times. At least 9 of them had attendance lower than 75%, the minimum required to sit for Board exams. All of them requested total anonymity and seemed uncomfortable discussing a topic.

The former Class 10 student says that, at the time of her first period, she "didn't know much about it. Even though most of my friends used to menstruate, we never talked about it." She had attended seminar in school about menstruation once in Class 7, but "I couldn't understand it much." She misses school, she said, for at least two days whenever she got a period, in part due to the condition of the washroom in her school. Teachers there and at other institutions say they regularly find used rags and cloths in the women's bathroom.
In 2006, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the constitutional amendments favouring reservation in promotion, but stated that state governments would have to prove that SCs were inadequately represented. As state governments dragged their feet on providing the requisite data, litigation moved to state high courts.

In Delhi, the DoE said in a court affidavit, this legal limbo over 10,000 teacher promotions went from 2013 to 2017. In August this year, the Delhi high court said there could be no reservation in promotion until the government produced comprehensive data to prove that scheduled castes were inadequately represented in senior positions.

Now the DoE is awaiting instructions from the Department of Personnel and Training, the central government agency that lays down procedures for hiring, before promoting anyone.

By providing teachers, regular assignments and tests, private tuition centres, like this one in Sangam Vihar, are performing many of the tasks that schools are supposed to do.

Part-time teachers

This lack of promotions has most affected students in higher classes, as middle-school teachers are not graduating to teach senior school.

In the last week of November, Class 12 students in the pahadi school, where the harried guest teacher works, finally got what they had waited for since school began in April this year: teachers for physics and chemistry. A teacher for mathematics was expected soon.

But physics, chemistry and maths classes will be held only on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. For the rest of the week, their teachers will be deputed to other schools that also need qualified science teachers. The pre-board exams begin on January 8, which means the pahadi school students have 15 short classes to start, finish and revise everything from electromagnetic waves to the photo-electric effect.

"Our new physics teacher is very good," said Anuj Gupta, one of the Class 12 science students. "I wish we had had him for the whole year. I wouldn't have needed tuitions."

It has been a hard year for Anuj, who wants to go to medical school as a way to escape the relatively hopeless circumstances of Sangam Vihar. It is a sprawling, crowded settlement in south Delhi. His father, who plies an auto-rickshaw in the neighbourhood, earns only around Rs 10 per trip.

School hasn't given Anuj much encouragement. His physics teacher retired before school even began in April. When schools closed for summer the following month, his chemistry teacher retired. In July, when school re-opened, his mathematics teacher got himself transferred to another school, and the school principal was promoted to an administrative position in the DoE. In October, after the application to extend his tenure was lost, the vice principal retired. None of these teachers were replaced.

The dearth of teachers at the pahari school illustrate one of the major costs of the lack of new hiring. Children like Anuj, who come from some of the city's most marginalised families, are not getting enough decent instruction before they attempt board exams, which will determine their academic future.

Sangam Vihar's pahadi school is currently without a fulltime principal, vice principal, and Class 12 teachers for physics, chemistry and mathematics.

Legal limbo

The current Delhi government has been constrained in its ability to help.

When Hindustan Times first asked Atishi Marlena, advisor to Delhi's education minister Manish Sisodia, about the lack of teachers at Anuj's school in June, she said recruiting new teachers was taking time, but the government was in the process of hiring more guest teachers to hold the fort while the permanent teachers were recruited.

In August, officials at the DoE said this list of eligible guest teachers had been drawn up and the teachers were days away from being deployed. But on September 28, the Delhi high court put a stay on the hiring of any more temporary teachers.

Ironically, the court made these orders in response to a petition filed by Social Jurist, a legal advocacy organization, to urge the Delhi government to hire more teachers.

"The judge felt that the government was hiring temporary teachers as a way to avoid hiring permanent teachers," said Ashok Agarwal, a lawyer and a member of Social Jurist. The stay on recruiting guest teachers, Agarwal said, would force the government to hire permanent teachers.

But hiring permanent teachers would take at least six months, government officials said. With the board exams scheduled in March, the fate of students like Anuj on the pre-boards was sealed.

The problem, Agarwal said, is that the Delhi government is focusing its energies on regularizing the current crop of guest teachers, which they had promised to do in their election manifesto in 2015. To this end, the government wants to give guest teachers 2.5% extra marks in the recruitment exam to account for their years of teaching experience.

The extra-marks policy of the Delhi government, however, was rejected last year by the Lieutenant Governor, whose office argued this was against recruitment norms. The Delhi government says that a subsequent Supreme Court judgement in a similar case in Rajasthan supports their position. Delhi's education minister has written to Lieutenant Governor in this regard, but is yet to hear back.

The Delhi government says they want to help guest teachers because they have proved invaluable to the city's school system.

"Many of these teachers have been teaching at their schools since 2010," said Marlena. "They have gained valuable experience over the years." These teachers had been trained in new teaching methods by the government and were necessary to improve the city's school system.

The government can't act without the governor's consent because an August 2016 decision of the Delhi high court held that Delhi's unique status as a city state meant that all appointments  including school teachers  must be cleared by the office of the city's Lieutenant Governor.

So "Delhi's elected government cannot hire a school teacher," Marlena said.

Guest teachers at Sangam Vihar work long hours at a fraction of the salary of regular teachers.

Prabhanjan Jha, coordinator of the Dilli Atithi Shikshak Sangh (DASS), an association of the city's guest teachers, said that, despite not having sat for the recruitment exam, many were still sufficiently qualified to teach full-time.

"Delhi's guest teachers have been selected through an online application process that ranked applicants on the basis of their school and college marks. Those with the highest marks were selected," he said. "The recruitment also followed all guidelines of regular appointments, with the exception of a test."

Most guest teachers, Jha said, have also passed the Common Teacher Eligibility Test, a centrally-administered test for middle school teachers that was cleared by only 11 percent of all applicants in 2016, which suggests that the teachers are qualified for their posts.

DASS has sent several representations to the Chief Minister and the Lieutenant Governor, but for now, there is little clarity on when this situation will be resolved.

In the meantime, children like Anuj will have to make do with teachers who come for only a few days in the week, while guest teachers divide their time between teaching their students and preparing for their own recruitment exams.

"It is all up to the courts and the governor now," said a senior official who, till recently, used to oversee the education department's hapless efforts at recruitment. "The work of government takes time."
The election had less to do with ideas than placement on the ballot. The candidate who got the most votes happened to be listed first; second place was listed second; number 11 was listed eleventh; and the two losers, who didn't make the cut of being among the top 12 vote-getters, shouldn't have felt too bad about themselves. Their names simply appeared in the final two spots.

At the election to a School Management Committee (SMC) at the Government Girls' Senior Secondary School, known locally in Sangam Vihar as the pahadi school, none of the parents interviewed by Hindustan Times who voted had strong opinions about their choices. Pushpa, whose daughter is a student in Class 6, said she voted out of a sense of "duty" and to ensure a "better future" for her child. Yet she also said that she had "randomly chosen 12 candidates and left two out".

Even though SMCs are designed to be groups run by parents to monitor and improve their kids' schools, many parents at the pahadi school didn't vote to elect members to the group. Rekha Devi Sharma, 37, the mother of Nikki Sharma in Class 12, said that she hadn't voted because she was unwell. "But even if I did go, who would I vote for? I do not know any of the contestants, and the school had not informed us of who was contesting, what they stood for, nothing."

This is partly a function of the SMC election guidelines, which forbid candidates from using posters, speakers or mics within the school premises for campaigning. But most candidates said they did not campaign anywhere. Qadri said he only visited a few of his neighbours. Many parents are already very busy supporting their families.

First established by the Right to Education Act in 2009, SMCs are composed of 12 elected parents, a representative nominated by the local MLA, a social worker, a teacher, and the head of the school. The groups are supposed to meet once every two months to discuss the state of the school.

SMCs have been embraced by the Delhi government as a significant part of their effort to reform education in the national capital. In August of last year, Delhi expanded the powers of local SMCs, giving the parental-oversight bodies the authority to scrutinize school finances and teacher attendance, among other things.

"In the government system as a whole, lack of accountability is a major problem," said Atishi Marlena, advisor to the education minister, Manish Sisodia. "We did not know of the SMCs before coming in to power. But then we realized that it was a good way to ensure stakeholder accountability."

At the pahadi school, parents initially responded to the new SMC with enthusiasm. In 2015, during the first round of elections, 33 parents ran for 12 spots.

But when another round of SMC elections were held last month, only 14 parents were on the ballot. Participants, and authorities, said the number of parents voting seemed to have decreased. In the boys division of the pahadi school, only 12 parents contested, meaning there was no election at all.

The SMC elections at the pahadi schools, as well as conversations with heads of 10 other schools, indicate that candidates and voters don't always understand basic tenets of the groups; that the level of participation among parents is decreasing in many places; and that multiple schools are not holding elections at all.

Though they may have a significant potential to reform Delhi schools, the SMCs' second round of voting shows that the initiative also faces critical challenges.

Fourteen parents contested the election in Sangam Vihar's Pahadi School. Syed Mohammed Izhar Alam Qadri ( centre), was the only one who contested for a second term.

Getting cleaners to clean, teachers to teach

Every school was required to have an SMC in 2009, but according to Marlena and the schools contacted by HT, the elections didn't occur or happened only on paper until 2015.

The Aam Aadmi Party has sought to bolster the capacity of SMCs. According to Marlena, in 2016, 200 to 300 members were given and trained in a smartphone app that enabled them to upload pictures of the school if they saw something inappropriate  a missing guard, for example, or an unclean place. These pictures were sent to the offices of Sisodia, who then convened meetings with the deputy directors of education and gave them three days' time to take action against those responsible, according to Marlena.

"Because of this, around 80-100 heads of schools were issued show cause notices," she said.

Manish Sharma, who served as the vice chairperson of the Government Boys' Senior Secondary School in Kadipur, was one of these parent members who had been trained to use the app. He recalled how he and a colleague, Chanda Devi, inspected the school and took pictures of any lapses they could find.

"We uploaded pictures of a toilet that was unclean, and also of garbage that was strewn around a dustbin," Sharma said. "When we visited the school after around eight days, both places were clean."

Some SMC members, like those at an evening school in Shahdara, took a less bureaucratic approach to ensuring that their children's school ran smoothly, according to Marlena. The Shahdara school was meant to go until 6:30 pm, but teachers would instead leave by 4:30 to make their commute easier. "Two SMC members started going to the school regularly at around 2 pm and locked the gates from inside and sat in the guard's room until school time was over," said Marlena. "They would not allow anybody to leave."
DEHRADUN: Aware that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will have advantage in the urban local body (ULB) polls due in April next year, the Congress plans to highlight the scanty development projects carried out by the BJP-led civic boards across the state as a part of its poll strategy.

The Opposition party recently called a meeting in Dehradun to discuss preparations for the civic polls. The party leaders expressed concern over how the BJP had managed to win the ULB polls in 2013 despite the Congress being the ruling party in the state at that time.

In civic polls, the ruling party (in state) generally holds an edge, but even when we were in power, they (BJP) had won a majority of seats. Its high time we reached out to the urban population (where BJP is considered to have a relatively stronger presence), a senior party leader, who was present in the meeting, told HT.

During the local body polls in 2013, the BJP had won 22 mayoral/chairman positions against the Congress tally of 20, and on 180 ward members seats against the Congress 135.

A section of leaders also pointed to how the party needed to work on strengthening the organisation activities rather than harping on the demand to hold elections via ballot paper instead of electronic voting machines (EVMs).

(Party workers) still reeling under the result of assembly elections. Even more important than the demand (to hold civic polls through ballot papers) is the need to galvanise our organisational activities with a special focus on urban pockets, another leader, who is seeking a ticket for chairmans post, said.

Admitting to the concern, senior Congress leader and former cabinet minister Dinesh Agarwal, however, said that the party was planning to highlight how the BJP had let the people down over the past nine months of its rule in Uttarakhand.

Besides failing to fulfil promises made to people in the assembly polls this year, the BJP (which dominates a number of ULBs in the state) has also not been able to carry out the required civic works in their areas since the 2013 polls. Despite more than four years having passed by, the public is still annoyed at broken streets, damaged roads and defunct drains in their wards. We will highlight this inefficiency of BJP-led civic boards when we reach out to the public for campaigning, Agarwal told HT.

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Rajesh Kumar (49) sells plastic cans to the pilgrims who visit Har-Ki-Pauri in Haridwar.

Kumar who manages to earn between 150-200 per day by selling the cans is clueless about the recent National Green Tribunal (NGT) ban on any form of plastic in Haridwar. Like Kumar, numerous traders along the Ganga stretch sell plastic cans to earn a living.

Plastic cans are ubiquitous as they are cheap, easy to store and use.

Another trader in Ranipur areas who has been penalised in the past says he cannot quit selling plastic as the demand is high.

Citing dozen odd major stockists operating in the city, the trader said they were small fries and catching them wont make much difference. Someone has to bell the cat, who will do it, asked the trader, who wished not to be named.

The green tribunal, earlier this month, expressed resentment over the non-implementation of its earlier order and asked authorities to ensure blanked ban on plastic in Haridwar.

Last year, the NGT ordered ban on any form of plastic between Gaumukh and Haridwar. According to an order issued by the state government, plastic is banned across Uttarakhand.

With back to back NGT orders, authorities responsible for ensuring implementation said they were doing whatever possible.

Nitin Bhadauria, municipal commissioner, said in the last one year, they have collected over 2 lakh as penalty from offenders.

Such steps, however, have hardly made any impact. The use of every form of plastic - from poly bags to plastic cans is rampant in this holy city.

District magistrate Deepak Rawat told HT that besides penalising traders, stockists, the administration would also crack whip on the consumers.

In a first of its kind case in Haridwar, Rawat last week penalised a customer  500 for carrying a plastic bag.

I have asked police for intense checking at bordering areas of Haridwar with Uttar Pradesh. I have authorised sub-inspector level officer and lekhpal to impose fine of 5,000 on those who transport plastic bags in Haridwar.

The DM also announced 1,000 reward for those who will give tip-off about poly bag stockists.

The former MP from Haridwar, Harish Rawat, accused the government of doing little and not giving enough teeth to the local administration.

During my tenure as the chief minister, I had sensitised traders (on no plastic use) and also fixed responsibilities of district administration and municipal corporation to ensure prohibition on plastic and polythene, the Congress leader said.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is still exploring names of candidates for three Rajya Sabha seats in Delhi even as the last date for filing nominations on January 5 comes closer.

With several fresh names floating within and outside the party circles, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party said the final call would be taken by the Political Affairs Committee (PAC), the highest decision-making body, that is scheduled to meet earlier next week.

Among the names floating within the party circles included senior leaders Ashutosh and Sanjay Singh, both insiders. As for outsiders, the party, has already approached many prominent personalities including RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, who, according to sources, have turned down the offer. The fresh name in the list of people is former chief justice of India TS Thakur.

He (Thakur) wanted some more time. But, the party said it could not wait as only few days are left for filing nominations, said a source within the party.

The elections for electing three Rajya Sabha members from Delhi would be held on January 16 as terms of the incumbent members Dr Karan Singh, Janardan Dwivedi and Parvez Hashmi  representing Congress party  would expire on January 27. The ruling AAP, which holds a majority (66) in the 70-member Delhi Assembly, is all set to win all the three seats.

A senior party leader, who did not want to be named, said the three candidates would be a mix of an insider and outsiders. But, he said, the party is deliberately not disclosing the names to avoid any internal rifts. No one in the party knows the final names. The names would be finalised in the PAC. It may be two outsiders and one insider, the leader said.

What seems certain, however, is that the leader Kumar Vishwas will not be nominated. A group of Vishwas supporters, who were called BJP agents by the party, barged inside the party office at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg on Friday demanding their leader be picked for the upper house. The group left the office after Vishwass appeal on twitter in the evening.

Another speculation doings rounds was that of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, which all party leaders have denied so far.

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A six-year-old girl student of a prominent private school in Vasant Vihar was sexually assaulted earlier this month allegedly by a conductor in a bus when it was parked inside the school premises.

The conductor, who molested the girl in the presence of other students on December 12, has been arrested. The matter came to light when the children informed a teacher and she raised an alarm.

It remains unclear how the young students were inside the bus without a supervisor. The teacher who informed the school authorities refused to speak on the subject when Hindustan Times contacted her.

However, in her statement to the police, the teacher concerned said on the day of the incident when she entered the bus, which was set to leave the school, she was approached by a bunch of children, including the victim, who studies in Class 1.

The children reportedly told the teacher that the conductor went to the girls seat and touched her inappropriately besides trying to forcefully hug her.

By the time the teacher learnt about the assault, the bus had started moving. Upon learning about the conductors alleged act, she made the bus stop, which was still inside the school premises. The teacher then informed the transport in charge and the caretaker of the school, who slapped the conductor in the presence of another teacher and the children, said a police officer.

The 21-year-old accused, Mohammad Ahsan, was made to deboard the bus which proceeded to drop the children. The school authorities then informed the police and got Ahsan arrested.

The victim is a resident of west Delhi and after she was dropped at her home, her parents were told about the alleged incident.

Ahsan is a resident of Sheikh Sarai and hails from Uttar Pradesh.

We have registered a case under relevant provisions of IPC and POCSO and the accused has been arrested. He has been now sent to judicial custody, said a senior police officer.
The Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal on Friday gave a nod to three big health schemes of the Delhi government  treatment for road and fire accident and acid attack victims, outsourcing of high-end diagnostic tests and surgeries. He termed it as a step in the right direction.

In addition, the L-G has given a nod to the amendment in the Delhi Arogya Kosh (DAK), which would help pay for the free diagnostic tests and surgeries.

The money for the scheme will be released from the DAK, which already helps pay for surgeries and implants for the people below poverty line. The Rs 5 lakh limit for sanctions for a person from the fund would still remain, said a Delhi government official.

While granting the approvals, the LG, however, asked the government to maintain an income ceiling for the people who would be allowed to avail the benefits of the scheme so that the resources of the government are used to help the poor and the needy and the poor are not crowded out by the well-to-do, the L-G said.

When the government had announced the schemes, the health minister said that the benefits of the scheme could be availed by any Delhi resident, irrespective of their income.

For the diagnostic tests, the L-G also asked the government to put in place a mechanism to ensure that unnecessary tests are prescribed in collusion with private medical centres. To prevent this, the L-G has advised the administrative department to develop an online system that is either based on Aadhaar or biometric to ensure proper follow-up of patients as well as preventing malpractices.

With recent cases of medical negligence and malpractices in private hospitals, the L-G also urges the government to have a mechanism to penalise institutions in case of malpractice or even poor quality of services.

Apart from that, the LG also asked the government to strengthen its own infrastructure. The focus of these schemes appeared to be on outsourcing and there is not mention in the proposal about any action plan to strengthen the diagnostic infrastructure in the government institutions, Baijal said.
A Delhi Traffic Police assistant sub-inspector was thrashed and robbed of his service pistol and wallet by a group of men following an argument over right of way in Uttam Nagar on Thursday night.

The victim, ASI BL Meena, fell unconscious after the two men hit him with a blunt object on his head and face, the police said.

Meena was driving his car from Burari, where he is posted, to his residence in Uttam Nagar when he encountered the suspects travelling in two cars, said the police.

He was taking a shortcut near Najafgarh drain when he saw two vehicles coming from the other direction. As the two vehicles drove past him from the either side, they were close to brushing past each other and an occupant from one of the two cars said something to Meena, said DCP(Dwarka) Shibesh Singh.

Meena also replied and after the heated exchange, all three drivers applied brakes and argued for some more time after which the police officer started driving again.

Meena had driven a few metres when the drivers of the other two cars took a U-turn and followed him. They overtook his vehicles and made him stop. The victim told us that four to five men came out of the two cars and resumed the argument, said Singh.

In his statement, the victim told the police that he doesnt remember much but he was hit a few times by the men and lost consciousness.

As the attackers drove away after the assault, a biker who was passing by noticed them and Meenas car. When he reached closer, he found the injured man next to his car. As Meena regained his senses, he made a call to the police from the passerbys mobile and informed the police.

Meena also found that his wallet and pistol were missing. We have registered a case against unidentified men and efforts are on to trace them, Singh added.

Considering the risks that traffic policemen face on vulnerable areas, Delhi police had recently provisioned firearms for them and Meena too was one of the many who received a pistol.
Despite the toxic haze that engulfed Delhi for more than a week in November, the national capital breathed comparatively cleaner air this year than it did in 2016.

The air quality was severe for eight days in 2017 as against 26 the previous year, according to data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). Besides the three-time drop in severe days, the air quality was very poor for 76 days as against 97 in 2016 and poor for 114 days as compared to 122 the previous year.

In 2016, Delhi didnt witness a single day when air quality was good. In 2017, the city got at least two days of good air, which means pollution levels were bare minimum, said D Saha, head of the CPCBs air quality laboratory.

Hindustan Times air quality monitor

An air quality index (AQI) of 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor and 401-500 severe. There was no comparative data available for the whole of 2015 as the national AQI came into effect in May that year.

Experts said that the credit for this upswing goes largely to favourable weather conditions, and suggested that some tough anti-pollution measures introduced in 2017 may have worked.

Meteorological parameters play an important role in determining Delhis air quality. Strong winds from the north during the winter helps flush out pollutants, Saha said.

Stringent measures under the Supreme Court-mandated graded response action plan (GRAP) to control pollution were enforced for the first time since October 17. They will run till March 15 next year.

A range of additional steps such as mechanised sweeping of roads and a crackdown on the burning of garbage were carried out through the year to reduce street dust and smoke that leads to smog.

The duration and frequency of smog episodes have come down to some extent. But pollution levels are still very high. More sustained and aggressive action is needed to bend the pollution graph, said Anumita Roychoudhury, executive director (research and advocacy) at the Centre for Science and Environment.

The Supreme Courts ban on firecrackers during Diwali also had an impact. A report by SAFAR, an agency under the ministry of earth sciences, had stated that the level of emission from fireworks fell around 40% during the festival this year, compared to 2016.

But some experts pointed out that it would be too early to conclude that the steps were showing results.

We can only say air quality has improved when we monitor pollution data over a period of at least five to 10 years. Secondly, a simple AQI data doesnt give a fair idea of the level of pollutants. We need to monitor each pollutant over a period before coming to a conclusion, said SN Tripathi, coordinator at the Centre for Environmental Science & Engineering in IIT Kanpur.

Tripathi also warned that the authorities should not be complacent just because there were some signs of improvement.

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Violation of fire safety norms, illegal extensions and a narrow entry are some of the reasons being attributed to the fire tragedy in Mumbais Kamala Mills that killed 14 people.

When it comes to scant regard for safety rules, Delhis restaurants and pubs are no different and, therefore, are equally vulnerable to fire accidents, experts and officials said. The national Capital had its tryst with what such criminal indifference could cause in the Uphaar Cinema fire tragedy, in which 59 people were killed.

Loopholes in a law governing restaurants, their faulty structural designs and absence of mandatory security apparatus has made these joints even in upscale areas such as Connaught Place, Khan Market and Hauz Khas Village vulnerable to tragedies.

According to Atul Garg, chief fire officer, Delhi Fire Services, the existing law does not even require eateries with seating capacity for less than 50 persons to obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the fire department.

Several joints exploit this rule by claiming they have fewer seats, but they serve to packed capacity, said a deputy commissioner of police.

Some owners tweak the law by running their restaurants from multiple floors in the same building  showing they abide by the 50 seating rule. But the floors are connected by a narrow and steep staircase. That staircase is the sole escape route in an emergency, said the DCP.

In many restaurants that have the NOC, the emergency exits are often locked. Fire extinguishers are difficult to spot. The restaurant staff is not trained to use the extinguisher or help their guests in an emergency, said an assistant divisional officer of DFS.

According to a news report last year, the then Lieutenant Governor, Najeeb Jung, had given a go-ahead to the amendment to the Delhi building bylaws, but it never happened. So, in Delhi, barely 400 restaurants with a declared seating arrangement over 50 have the NOC to run.

Hauz Khas Village has 70-80 restaurants and most of them accommodate over 50 people, but only four of them have fire NOCs. The number of such establishments is nearly the same in Khan Market. The situation is better in Connaught Place where 114 restaurants and pubs have NOCs, said Garg.

Naresh Kumar, chairman of New Delhi Municipal Council, said a team was constituted late last week to conduct secret and surprise checks at restaurants and pubs flouting the law in markets in the Lutyens Zone.

In any case, most of the buildings from which the restaurants operate were never designed to serve as eateries, said Arunava Dasgupta, head of urban design at School of Planning and Architecture.

There spaces are retrofitted. For example, many of them are not equipped to run commercial kitchens. In an emergency, guests would have no exit. The overall structure cannot be changed now, but the constraints should be dealt with, said Dasgupta.

He said the buildings in Hauz Khas Village were most dangerous due to different designs of all structures there. There has been ad-hoc construction in the village. Multiple builders were involved. So, the vulnerability there is greater (compared to Khan Market and Connaught Place), said Dasgupta.

In a recent report submitted in the Delhi High Court, the police had noted that in Hauz Khas, there was insufficient space even to allow a fire tender to turn back.

Garg also singled out pubs and discotheques in the city as the most dangerous of the vulnerable lot. There is usually a single entry and exit point and that is often restricted for commercial and security reasons. The light is dim, music is loud and most guests are drunk there. So, there is a high chance of stampede and casualties, said Garg.

The new year revelry will again see packed pubs, discotheques and restaurants packed. The owners will look to do maximum business. But they will need to ensure safety or else they will be left without a business, said Atul Bhargava, president of the New Delhi Traders Association.
The New Year cheer has set in and it has spiked the responsibility of the security forces in the city to ensure that Delhiites stay safe, while partying, and do not drink drive. A recent initiative by Delhi Police, #YaDrinkYaDrive, is an addition to the many steps, already taken by the police via social media, radio jingles and even integrated drives.

HT joined a team of Delhi Police in one such drives to see how Delhiites try to go scot-free after partying hard. Some got lucky and went by learning a lesson whereas a few others experienced embarrassment at being challaned for drink driving, in the presence of media.

When caught as offenders, some made excuses and some boasted of their high profile contacts to evade the challan. There are a very few people who accept their mistake and decide to reform, says Chanda Kanta, a Delhi Traffic Police inspector  one of the many officers on duty, who stays calm, dealing with multiple offenders. The drive is an integrated attempt by Delhi Police, Delhi Traffic Police and Parakram vans. Though the drives are to create awareness among people, many a times offenders pick up a fight with us. Thats when the diverse teams come in action, explains Kanta.

If a driver is detected with more than 30 ml of alcohol, a challan is issued by the Traffic Police. (Photo: Shivam Saxena)

And whats the most common excuse given by the rule breakers? Doston ne pila di Sir (Friends forcefully made me drink); Maine pelhi baar pee hai (I drank for the first time); Sir aaj josh mein pee li, waise to mai hath bhi nahi lagata (I drank in excitement today otherwise I dont even touch alcohol) and Aaj galti se 90 percent pee li (By mistake I drank too much today) are some of the lame excuses given. We know these tricks very well, and dont let the offenders pass by. If we dont challan them now, it could risk their life later. Its our duty to protect the citizens, says Manbir Yadav, assistant sub-inspector, Delhi Traffic Police.

During the drive, Mohit Rana (name changed), a photographer was detected under 50 per cent alcohol influence while driving. Its not the first time that Im drink driving. But its the first time that Im caught. I know its for my safety; I promise not to repeat this, he said.

Another offender, Manish Bhatt (name changed) said, Ive drunk and driven many a times. How does it matter? Being challaned in this manner is wrong. Im not the only one who is drink driving. Either everyone should be checked or no one should be checked.

Policemen challan a driver as part of the campaign #YaDrinkYaDrive. (Photo: Shivam Saxena/ HT )

Whatever be the case, no police official can lose their calm. We brief our staff on how to behave with the offenders. No matter how rude the offender behaves, we cant loose our temper. People boast about their influential contacts and even start dialling a few numbers to escape; but we know how to deal with it, adds Kanta.

And this, is just the beginning for such drives will be carried out on the New Years Eve, too. We started these drives in mid-December, and its part of our zero tolerance policy towards drink driving. We have observed that often culprits of serious offences indulge in drink driving cases.We want to stop that. The prosecution has also been strengthened against them, says Madhur Verma, DCP PRO, Delhi Police.

Did You Know? Drivers with above 30ml alcohol consumption according to the breathalyser (a device used to measure the amount of alcohol in a drivers breath) test, are challaned under the offence of drink driving. Drink driving is a non-compoundable offence, that is, no money is charged at the time of challan. But, the offender has to appear before the traffic court on a given date, along with the slip mentioning the amount of alcohol measured at the time of issuing of challan.

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The Delhi High Court had termed Delhis popular hangouts in Khan Market and Hauz Khas Village ticking time bomb and fire traps over their poor safety preparedness while hearing various petitions this year.

Public interest litigations have alleged that the restaurants and pubs in the two areas are running in contravention of the safety rules, prompting the high court to seek reports from the authorities concerned.

A bunch of petitions claim that many eateries and pubs in the Hauz Khas Village are running without approved building plans or no objection certificate (NOC) from the authorities, including the fire department.

The court had directed authorities, including the Delhi Police, Delhi Fire Services and South Delhi Municipal Corporation, to submit reports in the matter.

The Delhi Fire Services (DFS) had told the court that the roads in the area were so narrow that there was no space for the fire engines to turn.

In a report filed in August , the SDMC said that there were 63 restaurants/eating houses/ health trades in the Hauz Khas Village. In the same affidavit, the SDMC noted violations in 49 of those establishments. The Delhi Police pointed out that only 46 licences were valid. As per the DFS, only five restaurants were granted fire safety certificate.

In the circumstances and the reports placed before us, whatever be the final decision, we have no manner of doubt that in case there is a mishap or any loss of life or limb in the present case, the restaurant owners will not be permitted or allowed to escape the liability, civil and criminal for the same, the court said.

In another matter, the Delhi High Court in October last year said that restaurants operating from the first floor flats of Khan Market were a fire hazard and a fire trap with no proper measures for escape in the event of fire.

It was observed that the flats in Khan Market, most of which have now been turned into commercial establishments, were constructed for residential purposes. Most of them have narrow staircases which pose a threat to customers in the event of fire.

The court had said that this was yet another instance of the public-private partnership of municipal and police authorities with the flat and restaurant owners showing scant regard for human life.

It made it clear that restaurant and eateries will be liable for the loss or damages to life or property of anyone from any incident of fire in their premises.

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A routine in-flight announcement informing passengers about their journey saved a passenger bound for Muscat from travelling to a wrong destination.

After issuing boarding card for Muscat, Air India allowed the passenger to board a Mumbai-bound flight but after hearing the announcement, the passenger alerted the on board crew and flight was called back from taxiway.

The passenger, shocked by the announcement, immediately got up from his seat and called the crew. He showed his boarding pass for Muscat while the flight was ready to take-off for Mumbai. The pilot was informed and aircraft returned to the terminal to drop the passenger.

Air India has suspended two staffs for the mistake.

The Mumbai flight, which was already running late, got delayed for another hour. The Muscat flight was also delayed by one hour. But this worked in the passengers favour, who was able to catch the flight despite the mess-up.

The incident took place on December 15.

The passenger was on board AI 24 (Delhi-Mumbai), which was moving towards runway for take-off. As a routine procedure, announcement was made informing passengers about the flight journey. This passenger then informed the crew and flight was stopped as he had the boarding pass for Muscat of Air India flight AI 973, said an Air India source.

The Mumbai flight, which was to depart at 8 pm, took off at 9 pm while, Muscat bound flight that was to depart at 8.20pm departed at 8.50pm.

Both the flights were departing around the same time and initial investigation suggest that boarding card scanner at the departure gate was not working and boarding card was checked manually.

Boarding card has a bar code but that day the scanner was not working. Ideally, the staff posted there should have checked the boarding card carefully but it seems his boarding card was not checked. Incidentally, the seat in the Mumbai flight was also vacant, the source added.

An Air India spokesperson confirmed the goof-up and said two employees at the Delhi airport have been suspended.

The passenger was brought back to the terminal and was subjected to the security check again.

He was issued a transit passenger card and was frisked again as per the procedure. Luckily, the Muscat flight had not departed and he boarded the flight, the source added.

Earlier this month, in a similar incident, a woman bound for Mumbai missed her flight after Air India issued her boarding pass of a male passenger. The woman had requested for a duplicate boarding pass after she lost the original one.

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Dejected over his spurned advances, a man tried to burn a 32-year-old married woman at her Malviya Nagar residence in south Delhi on Friday morning, police said.

Police said the woman was allegedly having an extra marital relationship with the accused, Chanki. However, for the past one month she had distanced herself from him and when she spurned him repeatedly, he took the alleged step, police said.

Deputy Commissioner of police (south) Romil Baaniya said at 7.35 am on Friday, Chanki went to the womans maternal house with a bottle of petrol and threatened to kill her.

Before she could react, he poured some petrol on himself and then emptied the rest of the bottle on her. He then lit his jacket. After the jacket caught fire, Chanki removed it, and threw it on the woman and ran away.

An investigator said the womans brother rushed to save her but got burnt in the process. The womans mother who joined the rescue effort with her son, also received burns.

The brother took the burning jacket and threw it outside the house but not before their mother also reached there to help him and came in contact with fire. Had he not reacted in time, the woman would have received grievous injuries, said the investigator.

All the three persons received minor burn injuries and were provided first aid, police said.

Baaniya said that the accused, Chanki, and the woman had gone missing together on November 17 this year. However, she returned three days later.

She has two children. Her relations with her husband were not cordial and she had been living at her parents house since a month where the incident happened, said Baaniya.

He added that based on the womans statement, a case under section 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC has been registered at Malviya Nagar police station.

The accused is on the run. Police teams have been raiding his possible hideouts, said Baaniya.

Police said that Chanki used to work as support staff in a mall at Gurgaon.

In her statement to police, the woman said that she knew Chanki for the last one year.
New Delhi: Public sector as well as private banks have been imposing unreasonable charges on customers for failing to maintain minimum balance in their savings accounts, a study by an IIT-Mumbai professor has claimed.

The study by Ashish Das shows that some banks like Yes Bank and Indian Overseas Bank have been imposing penal charges of over 100% per annum on shortfall in maintenance of minimum balance in customers accounts.

The Reserve Bank guidelines mandate that charges for non maintenance of minimum balance in savings bank accounts be reasonable and not out of line with the average cost of providing the services.

According to the study: With many banks charging at an average high rate of 78 per cent per annum of the shortfall amount, it makes the whole regulation of reasonableness of charges as per cost quite shallow.

As per the data provided by Das, Indian Overseas Bank imposes annual charge of 159.48% on shortfall in minimum balance. Yes Bank charges 112.8%, followed by HDFC Bank (83.76%) and Axis Bank (82.2%).

The largest lender SBI charges 24.96% penalty, says the study.

The minimum balance requirement in different banks range from Rs 2,500 to Rs 1 lakh.

The RBI, the study said, has formulated the penal charges rule with an objective of bringing in fairness from the customers angle.

Thus, it is time to plug the regulatory and supervisory gaps in a holistic manner and formulate clear guidelines on the formation of slabs and how to measure reasonableness of charges based on costs of funds, it said.

Ashish Das is a professor of statistics at IIT Bombay.
Kolkata About 1,200 students received job offers at the end of phase one of the 2017-18 placement season at the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) - a 15% jump from last year, a statement from the institute said on Thursday.

This placement season started with enrolment of 2,054 students which is the maximum at an individual Indian Institute of Technology.

This is due to the wide variety of disciplines that are offered by IIT Kharagpur. The 1,200 offers are due to 200 companies that visited during the phase 1, the statement said.

In a new trend this year, PSUs started visiting the campus during November, which is much before the actual placement session started.

The placements for undergraduate (UG) students touched the 75% mark, which is an improvement of 12% while the placements for postgraduate (PG) students is at 38%, showing an improvement of 14% compared to last year. B.Arch saw a jump of 20% compared to last year.

This year the Career Development Centre (CDC) has initiated a placement drive for PhDs graduating/graduated within two months and this gave a fruitful outcome with 26 PhDs getting placed across reputed teaching and research institutions, the release added.
Celebrities on vacation season is fully underway, so naturally were looking at their Instagrams for cues on how to style our next holiday wardrobe.

Actor Alia Bhatt, who is vacationing in sunny Bali, is serving up the ultimate outfit inspiration for our next beach vacation: Were loving the chill vibes shes giving off with her sexy, skin-baring yet sophisticated designs in neutral colours that are actually pretty simple. She is styling her looks with minimal accessories and simple make-up and hair, and letting her beautiful surroundings take centre stage.

Whether youre more of a beach gal or a bohemian queen who likes breezy separates, theres a look here thatll totally charm you and speak to your fashion-loving soul. Scroll down to admire Alias laid-back vacation style:

The beach is one of the few places where you can actually get away with wearing your sexiest bikini in public, so you may as well take advantage of a long, flowy coverup, like Alia has. The I-am-never-leaving-your-side bestie and perfect beach glow are just the icing.

Because honestly nothing feels better when youre at the beach than a pale beach wrap that catches the wind.

A low-key way to dress for the beach when youre not having caftans and sarongs? A halter blouse to show-off your toned arms and classic black shorts: Bonus points if its a retro high-waisted style. It is the ideal traffic-stopping outfit to wear in tropical Bali. Just look at Alia.

Do as Alia does when youre at the beach but also dont mind being a bit extra: Your trusted denim-vest combo and a cheeky belt clinged at the waist.

Okay, so shes not exactly at the beach, but lets be honest: Who wouldnt want to be wearing this head-to-toe look on vacation? Basic white tee, skinny jeans plus a colourful bag? Check, check, check.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for more
Investigating the death of a seven-year-old boy because of dengue on November 22, a team from the Gurgaon police on Friday went to Dholpur in Rajasthan where they are gathering information about his treatment before he was brought here.

This came after the father of the deceased lodged a police complaint on December 22 against a private hospital in Gurgaon for medical negligence leading to the death of his son, Shaurya.

We have sent a team to Rajasthan for investigation. Our officer will collect information about the boys health from the hospital where was admitted in Dholpur for the first few days. We will also question the doctors at Delhis RML hospital, Sadar station house officer inspector Vijay Kumar said.

The findings of the investigation will be submitted to the chief medical officer at Civil Hospital in Gurgaon. We will share the details of our investigation with the health department, said Kumar adding that the allegation regarding medical negligence by the private hospital in Gurgaon can only be validated by the health department officials.

Shaurya was admitted to Medanta-The Medicity in Sector 38 of Gurgaon from October 29 to November 20. He was then referred to the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital where he died, his father Bhupender Singh Parmar said in his complaint lodged at the Sadar police station.

In his complaint, Parmar, a resident of Dholpur in Rajasthan, stated his sons condition did not improve after 22 days of treatment for which he spent 15 lakh in Medanta.

When contacted, the medical superintendent of Medanta had told Hindustan Times that Shaurya was given the best treatment possible for his condition.

Shaurya was suffering from dengue shock syndrome, among other complications, when he was admitted to the hospital. He was given adequate treatment based on his condition and was then transferred to RML. We will fully cooperate with any investigating agency, AK Dubey, medical superintendent, Medanta-The Medicity, said.

The complaint has come at a time when the city police is investigate another similar case filed by Jayant Singh, father of seven-year-old Adya who died of dengue at the Fortis Hospital in Gurgaon, against the hospital and doctors concerned for medical negligence.

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The forest department on Friday formed a team for protecting wild animals from poachers in Aravallis. The development comes a day after the environment activists met Union environment minister Dr Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi and urged him to form a special task force to curtail poaching and illegal tree felling in the eco-sensitive areas of Aravallis.

The team, comprises of six wildlife and five forest officers, will monitor and patrol the Aravalli villages where poaching is most often reported from.

Apart from the 11 officers, five wildlife protection watchers will be also be a part of this team. Today, our team conducted patrolling at Ghata, Kadipur and Badshahpur areas, South Haryana conservator of forest D Hembram said.

He added that the team is investigating the case where peacocks were caught in metal traps. Our teams will also visit the areas where possibilities of wildlife poaching is high. We suspect these animals are trapped here and transported to some other place, he said.

This decision to create the wildlife protection team came after 15 environmentalists met Dr Vardhan on Thursday and appealed him to take action to protect the Aravalli ecosystem.

The letter by environmentalists to the Union minister read: There is a dire need to form a task force to keep tab on the illegal activities in the forest area. We would request you to kindly instruct the concerned authorities and the state government to check the forest area frequently to curb illegal felling of trees & construction of structures. The animal poachers must be nabbed & punished severely else the norm would be followed by others also fearlessly. And, surely, Haryana govt. has a certain outlay earmarked only for Aravallis protection, then why arent the funds being utilised?

The activists told the Hindustan Times that the Union environment minister had assured them he would take action against the people involved in wildlife poaching.

We have witnessed rampant destruction of the Aravalli forest areas and now the wildlife is also being targeted, environmentalist Vaishali Rana Chandra said.

Records show that no cases of poaching have been registered in Gurgaon for the past two years despite residents and activists filing police complaints, submitting evidence and even writing to the state government in this regard.

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A letter highlighting illegal constructionof a road and a wall in the Aravalli areas of Gurgaon and Faridabad divisionsalong the Gurgaon-Faridabad highway near Bandhwari village has reached the office of the Gurgaon conservator of forest.

The area from where the illegal construction has been reported comes under sections 4 and 5 of the Punjab and Haryana Land Protection Act (PLPA) 1990, the letter by environment activist Chetan Agarwal, states, adding that road constriction is a non-forest activity and in violation of the Forest Conservation Act.

Areas falling under sections 4 and 5 of the PLPA are protected and any kind of non-forest activity is prohibited.

Talking to Hindustan Times, Agarwal said, This road is perpendicular to the highway and provides direct access to fragments of the Aravalli hills and forests. There are also signs of new construction in the hills along the road.

The activist, in his letter, on Thursday appealed to the forest conservator to stop the road construction, and raze the constructed portions so it does not allow real estate developers access to the Aravalli forests. In his letter, he has urged the conservator of forest to take the strongest possible action against the violators.

Agarwal also pointed out that a wall is also being built in the Aravalli forests of the Faridabad division between Ankhir Chowk and Siddhanta Temple on the left-hand side of the road.

Stating that such illegal activities are rampant in the Aravallis, which lacks patrolling by the forest department, the activist said the authorities have taken no strong action against violators in the past.

More than 90% forest area in Gurgaon and Faridabad is under private ownership and the trees are being felled in the entire region, Jitender Bhadana of Save Aravalli said.

Meanwhile, the forest department officials said that they are aware of the illegal construction in Aravallis and have ordered an inquiry.

Our staff have been asked to investigate both the illegal construction activities and take action against the people involved. We have directed the divisional forest officers of Gurgaon and Faridabad to look into the matter, chief conservator of forest, south Haryana Satya Bhan said.

Theres little clarity on the status of land in most areas in the Aravallis making the forests open to exploitation by real estate developers. Cases of tree felling are rampant and loss of habitat leads to man-animal conflict, in turn threatening wildlife.

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Birding enthusiasts on Thursday wrote to the state wetland authority appealing it to notify Basai as a wetland.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had, on December 14, asked birders to appeal to the state government to declare the area as a wetland. The court is hearing a case by the Delhi Bird Foundation, an NGO, that has stated in its plea that the proposed construction and demolition (C&D) waste treatment plant here may destroy the habitat thats home to more than 280 species of birds.

Building the case for Basai, the letter stated: The large wetland in sectors 101 and 104 of Gurgaon, is a mix of scrubland, fallow and cultivated fields, vegetation and flooded zones that support hundreds of varieties of bird species. The tree cover in the 700-acre area includes the Acacia and small shrubs. In addition, Basai wetland has rich reed beds of typha, phragmites, and water hyacinth stated the letter to the Haryana government.

It is important to note that the area is home to more than 20,000 birds of 280 different species, which is 60% of the total bird species seen in the National Capital Region (NCR). It is, therefore, one of Indias key ornithological hotspots.

The letter to the state government requests it to provide legal protection to the Basai wetland that is strategically located in the NCR. It is an important destination within the Central Asian flyway which is one of the major migration routes for birds flying from Europe and Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent during winter, bird experts claimed.

The wetland area, comprising Najafgarh (Sahibi river basin), Basai wetland and Sultanpur National Park and wetlands in Jhajjar (Dhigal village), together form a large ecosystem for migratory birds, Pankaj Gupta, a birder with the Delhi Bird Foundation, said.

The site qualifies to be declared as a Ramsar, site which implies that it has international importance, reads a remark in the 2004 survey by the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON).

As per the Central Groundwater Board, all water bodies here are a source of groundwater recharge. Thus, Basai wetland is important to the city at a time when the citys groundwater level has been depicting at an alarming rate as Gurgaon is extracting three times more water than it is recharging, claimed experts, the survey states.

Rapid urbanisation is eating into the Basai wetland and the construction activity around the area might disturb the migratory pattern of birds; eventually they might avoid Basai. The area needs protection as the region has been losing its green cover, Abhishek Gulshan, a birder, said.

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The detention of an Indian teenager in Paris has blown the lid off an international human trafficking racket in India in which 25 boys from Punjab and Haryana, aged between 13 and 18 were taken to Paris under the pretext of a Rugby training camp and then deserted there.

Only two of the 25 boys came back to India.

The remaining 22 boys are yet to be traced. Sources in the CentraL Bureau of Investigation (CBI) suspect that parents of some of the boys may have paid 25-30 lakh for sneaking them into Paris.

The French police had informed the CBI about the detention and shared details of his questioning. Three trafficking agents  Lalit David Dean, Sanjeev Raj and Varun Choudhary  based in Delhi and Faridabad were identified by the CBI based on the information.

The agency registered an FIR against the three and carried out searches of their premises. Several incriminating documents and laptops which may hold clues to the whereabouts of the boys were found in these searches.

Questioning of the three accused is on and the laptops are being scrutinised, said a CBI official.

Investigations revealed that the 25 boys were shown as students of two schools in Kapurthala, Punjab and were taken to Paris on February 1, 2016.

French visas for the kids were obtained on the basis of an alleged invitation received from the French Federation in Paris. All of them visited Paris ... Thereafter the agents got their return tickets cancelled. But before this two boys sensed something wrong and managed to return, said a CBI spokesperson.

The Kapurthala schools told CBI sleuths that the kids did not study there.

The agency has traced at least one parent so far. The father has told us he wanted to send the kid to his relatives in the US. But valid documents could not be obtained. Thereafter he got in touch with one of the agents who promised to send the boy in lieu of 27 lakh. But the agents it seems that left the boy in Paris only, said an investigator.

We dont know yet whether other boys finally reached their promised destination, added the investigator.

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It was around 40 days ago when the Nuh family had first approached health authorities for termination of pregnancy of their 17-year-old rape victim daughter. But the family will have to wait for another five days for the court to decide whether the pregnancy can be terminated or not, despite the fact that it had approached the high court legal services authority on December 8.

The minors pregnancy had come to light on November 3 and the FIR was registered on November 9. On November 16, the family formally moved before the local medical authorities to abort the child only to hear a no from them since the pregnancy had crossed 20 weeks time.

Courts allow medical termination of pregnancy up to 20 weeks under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act and can make an exception if the foetus is genetically abnormal. The girl was 17 week pregnant, when family had moved health authorities in Nuh and 20 weeks pregnant when the father approached high court. The pregnancy has now reached 23rd week.

The girl was raped in July by local youths on gunpoint, as per the FIR, but due to fear she did not report the matter to family.

After health officials declined permission to abort the child, they somehow contacted me and upon consultation of the district legal services authority, I asked them to go to the high court. I am surprised how it got delayed, the lawyer, Manjula from Nuh court told Hindustan Times, who met the family in the first week of December.

As per the girls father, he was in Punjab and Haryana high court on December 8 and filed an application the same day. They told me to wait for four-five days. But I did not get any call from them, he said.

The lawyer, Kamaldeep Kaur, who has been assigned the case by high court legal services authority, said that she got to know about the matter on December 22. I hurriedly filed the case. How it got delayed, I cant say anything on this she said, adding that the matter has been adjourned till January 2.

The matter was taken up on Wednesday by a vacation bench and issued notice to Haryana for Thursday. However, the petition got listed before another bench, which has posted the matter for January 2 since the petitioner father failed to file process fee for issuing notices to accused persons in the case.

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Over 150 artists, sculptors and potters came together to contribute their creations to hospitals that treat victims of 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, in what is viewed as a real-life adaptation of O Henrys short story, The Last Leaf.

An initiative of Bhopal gas tragedy relief and rehabilitation department, the move aims at making the ambience of the hospitals more colourful and positive to fight depression among patients who have been suffering for last 33 years.

Paintings of rising sun, blooming flowers, green trees, smiling faces and other modern arts will now adorn the six government hospitals that specialised in treating victims of the gas tragedy, one of the worlds biggest industrial disasters.

These hospitals attend on an average 800 to 1000 patients of gas tragedy every day, department sources said.

Already over 250 artistic creations have been put up in the hospitals.

A deadly gas leak at the Union Carbides Bhopal plant killed over 3,000 people and maimed thousands of others more than three decades ago.

Whenever we think about Bhopal gas victims, black and white pictures of bodies, carcasses and debris come to our minds. We talked to the victims and found that the depression is one of the major causes behind their illness. They are still living under the shadow of trauma. So by improving facilities and ambience in the hospitals, we hope to make them feel better, said Vishwas Sarang, gas relief and rehabilitation minister.

Since the government did not have enough funds for the beautification of the hospitals, the department approached the artists for help, who enthusiastically donated their creations, the minister added.

The artists are happy to be a part of the noble initiative.

We are feeling proud to be a part of this initiative. Nothing is better than healing a wound. Every artists try their best to bring a smile on the face of gas affected people, said Devilal Patidar, a renowned artist from the city.

Patients expectedly were delighted.

In the hospital, we have nothing to do except thinking about our incurable disease. But installation of paintings on the wall is soothing for our eyes, said Salma Khan, 42, a patient admitted at Bhopals Kamla Nehru Hospital.

The Last Leaf, published in 1907, is the story of an old artist who saves the life of a young artist, dying of pneumonia, by giving her the will to live though a painting.

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The NHRC has severely indicted the Uttar Pradesh police for alleged illegalities committed by its staff in connection with a marriage in Balrampur district in 2014, and asked the state authorities to conduct a detailed probe into the entire murky episode.

Terming it an extremely sordid case, the rights panel said the proceedings resulted in grave violation of human rights of the couple, which included wrongful detention, custodial rape, false implication and delay in initiating criminal proceedings against the accused sub-inspector.

The National Human Rights Commission has severely indicted the UP Police for illegal proceedings in a case of love marriage resulting in grave violation of human rights of a newly-wed couple in district Balrampur, the NHRC said in a statement on Friday.

Accordingly, it has issued a notice to the government of Uttar Pradesh through its chief secretary to show cause as to why the victim woman, her husband and father-in-law should not be recommended to be paid Rs 5 lakh, Rs 3 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh respectively, as monetary relief in the case.

The commission had taken cognisance of the case in the past after receiving complaints from human rights activists, an official said.

During the course of an enquiry, the NHRC found that a young man and a girl from Balrampur had eloped and got married in Mumbai. The girls father then lodged a complaint of kidnapping with the police following which the couple was called to Mathura police post of Balrampur district, it said.

However, instead of taking a proper legal recourse in the mater both of them were detained in separate cells at the police post from August 12-13, 2014. The sub-inspector subjected the girl to sexual assault, the NHRC said.

The Commission has sought response from the chief secretary in three months and asked the government to further investigate the case.

The case against the accused sub-inspector shall be taken up for further investigation after obtaining necessary permission from the competent court.

The investigation in the case will be entrusted to the states Crime Branch or CB-CID and shall be conducted by an officer not below the rank of DSP, the NHRC said.

The state shall obtain legal opinion from the Advocate General, UP, about the maintainability of the charge sheet, it said.

A detailed fact-finding inquiry into this entire murky episode shall be got conducted by an officer, not below the rank of a DIG to bring out the acts of omission and commission of police officers of various levels of district, the rights panel said.

Suitable action will be initiated against officers whose conduct will be found to be blameworthy, it added.

The Commission also observed that the girl on the date of her alleged kidnapping on May 20, 2014, had attained the age of 17 years and 9 months, a few months short of attaining age of majority, but had however, attained the age of discretion.

Therefore, she cannot said to have been a victim of inducement particularly when she herself said she had gone with the young man and married him on her free will, it said.

Therefore, the provisions of section 363 and 366 of the IPC cannot be sustained in the case, it added.

The NHRC said that after detention when the girl complained about sexual assault by the sub-inspector, no action was taken in the matter.

The police continued to pursue the case of underage marriage of the couple despite a city court having held both of them of major age and allowed the girl to live with her husband as per her wish, it said.

Not only this, the police subsequently charged her husband with rape by adding section 376 to the main case filed and also falsely implicated her father-in-law, the NHRC said.
A BJP leader said on Friday he has ordered a pair of slippers to be delivered to the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi to avenge the ill-treatment to alleged Indian spy Kulbushan Jadhavs wife and mother during their meeting with him in Islamabad.

Bharatiya Janata Partys Delhis spokesperson Tajinder Bagga tweeted a screenshot of his online order, urging his followers that they should also buy slippers for Pakistan in protest against the humiliation of Jadhavs family.

It came in the wake of the treatment meted by the Pakistani authorities to Jadhavs mother Avanti and wife Chetankul who were asked to change their clothes, remove bangles, mangalsutras and bindis before meeting him in the Foreign Office in Islamabad on Monday. The Pakistan authorities didnt return Chetankuls pair of shoes alleging that it carried a metallic substance, possibly a bug.

Pakistan wants our slippers. Lets give them slippers. I have ordered slippers and sent to Pakistan High Commission. I request everyone to order (a) pair of slippers for Pakistan. After ordering slippers, tweet your orders screenshot with #JutaBhejoPakistan, Bagga said in a tweet.

Pakistan wants our slippers, Let's Give them Slippers. I have ordered Slippers & sent to Pakistan High Commission. I request everyone to Order 1 Pair Slipper for Pakistan. After ordering Slippers tweet your order's screenshot with #JutaBhejoPakistan pic.twitter.com/VzhKvDLq82  Tajinder Bagga (@TajinderBagga) December 29, 2017
As an edgy Assam gears up to publish the first partial draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) by December 31, the Centre has extended the deadline for completion of the entire process of verifying citizens in the state by another five months.

The date has been extended for financial purposes. The publication of first partial draft is a separate issue which will go on as per the directions of the Supreme Court. But to continue and complete the exercise, funds are required to be allocated and therefore the deadline has been extended, a senior home ministry official said on the condition of anonymity.

The publication of the part draft is a major cause of anxiety for many people in the state. The issue has become a political hot potato as minorities have expressed fears of being left out.

The Supreme Court had recently ordered that this would only be a partial roll of citizens and the remaining portion of the draft NRC should be released at a later date, which will also be fixed by the court, to include names of those who might be declared non-citizens erroneously and found eligible later.

The purpose of the NRC is to identify genuine Indian citizens residing in the state and those who had illegally migrated from Bangladesh after March 25, 1971, a date agreed in the Assam Accord signed between the then All-Assam Students Union and the Rajiv Gandhi-led government in 1985.

In an earlier notification on March 27 this year, the Centre said that updating of the NRC in Assam shall be completed by December 31. But on December 19, it came out with another notification which said the enumeration in the State of Assam could not be completed within the period specified earlier.

The Registrar General Citizen Registration hereby notifies that the enumeration in connection with the updation of the National Register of Citizens, 1951 in respect of the State of Assam shall be completed within the period ending on the 31st day of May 2018, the notification issued by the Sailesh, the Registrar General of Citizen Registration, said.

The NRC was last updated in Assam in 1951.

Prateek Hajela, the Assam coordinator for NRC, told the Hindustan Times that the whole process would be completed in three phases as mandated by the Supreme Court.

First a partial draft will be released by December 31. Then, a final draft will be published after taking into considerations the objections and complaints. This will be followed by the official publication of the NRC, Hajela said.

To prove ones citizenship under the verification drive, a resident has to either link ones relation to a family member whose name figures in the NRC of 1951 or to any of the states electoral rolls till 1971.

Union home secretary Rajiv Gauba was in Assam for two days recently and reviewed the security and other arrangements for publication of the part draft.

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A Congress legislator in Himachal Pradesh on Thursday hit a woman constable after she was stopped from entering the party office in Shimla and was slapped back by the police official.

Asha Kumari, Dalhousie legislator and in charge of Punjab, was allegedly trying to force her way inside the Congress office at Circular Road to attend a review meeting held by party chief Rahul Gandhi to assess its performance in the recently held assembly elections in the hill state.

Party leaders and workers started jostling to enter the office soon after Gandhi went inside the building amid a tight security at the Congress office.

Kumari and former ministers Dhani Ram Shandil and Mukesh Agnihotri got down from their vehicles outside the office and were stopped at the main gate by the constables on security duty.

The 62-year-old leader entered into a heated argument with one of the women constables after she was allegedly pushed. Kumari then slapped the woman constable, who hit her back. She was allowed to enter the Congress office after the fracas.

Gandhi even referred to the slapping incident without naming anyone.

Raising hand on anyone is against Congress culture. One should leave this kind of things for the opposition,  Gandhi said.

Kumari blamed mismanagement for the incident and accused the constable of misbehaving with her.

I dont regret the incident but I feel sorry for what happened. It should not have happened. The women cop resorted to unparliamentary language and pushed me. In a rage, I raised my hand in retaliation and she also did the same, Kumari told reporters outside the Congress office.

She denied seeking any action against the policewoman. So far I have not made any complaints, she said.

The video of Kumari slapping the policewoman has gone viral on social media.

Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, who is in New Delhi, told television news channels that he was unaware of the incident and said further action, if any, would be contemplated after gathering the information.

The Bharatiya Janata Party ousted the ruling Congress in Himachal Pradesh after bagging 44 seats in the 68-member assembly.

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Senior police officer Bharati Ghosh, who was serving as SP West Midnapore, resigned from the service on Thursday, within 48 hours of her transfer to a less significant post allegedly after she fell out of favour with the ruling Trinamool Congress.

Ghosh, 55, was one of the most controversial police officers of West Bengal, who often drew flak from political opponents of the TMC for being too close to the ruling dispensation. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee used to refer to her mostly by her pet name.

The IPS officer triggered intense controversy when she termed Banerjee as the mother of Jangalmahal at a public meeting in Midnapore town in 2015.

The Maoist-affected forest-covered areas of three districts of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia are called Jangalmahal.

She was shunted to the post of a battalion commander of state armed police on December 25 after which she sent her resignation to director general of police Surajit Kar Purakayastha, police sources said.

She had taken over as West Midnapore superintendent of police in 2012.

The sudden transfer and subsequent resignation of the once blue-eyed cop of the chief minister has triggered political speculation.

A section of Trinamool leaders claimed that her transfer to an insignificant post could be linked to the recent Sabang assembly bypolls, where the vote share of the BJP candidate rose by about 15% to reach 18%. In 2016 it was a meagre 2.6%.

The election results in Sabang in West Midnapore were announced on December 24.

There are other interpretations too. Ghosh was also known to be a confidante of Mukul Roy, the former second-in-command of TMC, who joined the BJP in early November.

Before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls Jhargram CPI(M) MP Pulin Bihari Baskey alleged that Ghosh had a meeting with Roy even after the announcement of election notifications. The Election Commission took action against her following the allegation.

Before the 2016 West Bengal assembly polls, she was temporarily removed from the post of West Midnapore SP by the poll panel.

But after the results, she was reinstated by the chief minister, who also holds the home portfolio.

BJP leaders, however, rejected conjectures that Ghosh paid a price for her proximity with Roy. BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha told HT that the party will never reach an understanding with an IPS officer like Ghosh, whom he accused of playing a key role in harassing his party workers before elections.

I feel differences between Ghosh and a section of Trinamools district leaders led to the transfer. The development also proves that the chief minister pampers an officer only till he or she serves her purpose. After that she does not hesitate to trash him/her, alleged Sinha.

Attempts by HT to reach Ghosh over phone for her comment failed as she did not take any call.

According to state government sources soon after the transfer order, Ghosh appealed for a 90-day leave that was denied. The resignation came after the application for leave was turned down.

Ghosh, a management graduate from Harvard, used to teach before joining the police service. She was also a part of the United Nations (UN) peace keeping mission in war-torn Kosovo and Bosnia.
Pakistan has accused India of using Afghanistan for hatching conspiracies against China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Interior minister Ahsan Iqbal said the enemies of Pakistan were using different tactics and propaganda to cause the failure of the $50 billion CPEC economically, the Dawn reported.

India is hatching conspiracies against CPEC but Pakistan will foiled them with the support of the people, he told journalists on Thursday in Quetta.

India is using the soil of Afghanistan for such conspiracies, he said but expressed hope that the CPEC project would be made successful.

The minister also said that the United States should stop hurling threats at Pakistan and recognise the sacrifices it had rendered in the war against terrorism.

China has offered to extend its ambitious CPEC project to Afghanistan.

Chinas offer to extend CPEC is significant from Indias point of view considering New Delhis strong objection to the project which traverses through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Eight legislators from Meghalaya, including five from the ruling Congress, resigned from the state assembly on Friday apparently to join the National Peoples Party (NPP), an ally of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Resignations, which came ahead of assembly polls due next February, are a jolt to the ruling Congress government in the state led by Mukul Sangma.

The strength of the Congress in the 60-member assembly has now further depleted to 24 from 29. Last month another Congress MLA P N Syiem had resigned.

However, there is no immediate threat to Sangmas government as it has support of independent and allies.

The legislators who gave up their assembly seats on Friday are Sniawbhalang Dhar, Comingone Ymbon, Prestone Tynsong, Rowell Lyngdoh and Ngaitlang Dhar of Congress, Remington Pyngrope from UDP and Independents Stephanson Mukhim and Hopeful Bamon.

The MLAs submitted their resignations from the state assembly to speaker Abu Taher Mondal. A notification in this regard would be issued soon, Andrew Simons, commissioner and secretary of the state assembly told HT.

All eight legislators are slated to join the NPP at a public rally in Shillong on January 4, the party sources said.

An ally of the NDA-regime at Centre, the NPP is part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in Manipur and also one of the constituents of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA).

The BJP launched its poll campaign in the northeastern state earlier this month with a rally addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Shillong. He urged voters to overthrow the Congress for rapid development of the state.

There are no pre-poll tie-ups yet between the saffron outfit and the NPP or any other regional party in Meghalaya.

We are part of the NDA at the Centre and the BJP-led NEDA in the region. But for this election in Meghalaya we have decided to go alone and contest most of the 60 seats, NPP president Conrad Sangma told HT recently.

The move could be a tactical move in the predominantly Christian state where the BJP has drawn flak for its policy on cow slaughter.

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The dreaded Maoist leader Jinugu Narasimha Reddy alias Jampanna, who surrendered to Telangana police last week, was suspended from the central committee of the Maoist party for two years because of his serious weaknesses and indiscipline, the Maoist party has said.

In a four-page statement issued to the media on Thursday, the party accused Jampanna of choosing the path of the most selfish, heinous and cowardly path of desertion and shamelessly kneeling down before the enemy.

He tried to cover up his weaknesses by taking shelter under the garb of ideological differences with the party line. Our central committee strongly condemns his betrayal and resolves to carry forward the red banner of class struggle, Maoist party spokesman Abhay said in the statement.

Jampanna (57), along with his wife Rajitha (37), surrendered to the Telangana police after spending more than three decades in the Maoist party, serving it in various capacities, starting from a squad member to the level of member of the central committee, the highest decision making body of the party.

His surrender is believed to be a strong blow to the Maoist movement, especially in northern Telangana and Andhra-Odisha border, where he had led several militant movements.

The central committee spokesman said Jampanna was suffering from serious weaknesses, limitations and non-proletarian trends like individualism, bureaucracy and false prestige.

There were several attempts by the party leadership and the comrades who had worked with him at different levels to correct his stand.

He used to resist the tasks given to him by the party top brass. He used to over-estimate the enemy and underestimate revolutionary movement and the people. His stubborn attitude resulted in deadlock in the functioning of the party committees.

Taking into consideration all his anti-organisational activities, the party decided early this year to suspend him from the central committee for two years with a hope that he would rectify his mistakes. The central committee also assigned him to take up the responsibility of a state committee member, but he refused to accept the same, Abhay said.

The spokesman said Jampanna was deeply submerged in ideological and political vacillation and finally informed his colleagues in November 2017 about his decision to surrender. The partys understanding is that Jampannas negative aspects got magnified and finally became dominant under the present difficult condition.

The party has accused him of raising political differences with the party line whenever his suspension issue was raised.

He had disagreed with the party ideology that India is a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country and would argue that it has transformed itself into a capitalist country.

He would argue that the party line should also change according to the conditions and follow the insurrection line in the view of the new conditions prevailing in the country. He had, however, discussed these issues with his comrades and not in a party forum.

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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has again approached the Interpol seeking a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, who the agency has charged with promoting communal hatred through his speeches.

The Interpol general secretariat issues a red notice to locate and provisionally arrest individuals pending extradition, based on an arrest warrant by a member country.

In October, the international organisation had rejected Indias request for an RCN against Naik citing the absence of a formal charge sheet against the televangelist. But in the months between India sending the first request and the Interpol rejecting it, the central anti-terror agency formally charged Naik.

A fresh request for issuance of the RCN against Naik along with the copy of the charge sheet has been sent to Interpol through its Indian nodal agency, the CBI, said a senior home ministry official requesting anonymity.

Naik had come under the focus of probe agencies after Bangladesh told New Delhi that the preachers sermons had influenced a few of the terrorists who attacked an eatery in Dhaka on July 1, last year. Since then, Naik has not set foot in India and his passport has also been revoked. Investigators believe he has taken refuge in Malaysia where he has also been given permanent residency.

If an RCN is issued against Naik, it will be difficult for him to move freely outside Malaysia as other Interpol member countries may arrest him and inform India to deport him back, said the home ministry official.

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No begging please!

This was Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidus directive to ministers on Friday, asking them not to use the term beg while tabling the listed official papers in the House.

Normally, the ministers say I beg to lay the papers ... listed against my name in todays order paper.

Naidu had on the opening day of the winter session advised the ministers and members to shed the imperial mindset of using I beg to lay... the papers in the House.

He had said that instead they should say I rise to present the papers listed against my name...

However, today when Minister of State for Law and Justice PP Chaudhary used the term beg while laying papers, Naidu reminded him of the advise.

No begging please, Naidu told Chaudhary.

He said probably Chaudhary was not present when he had made the suggestion earlier and advised him to avoid using the word I beg while laying the papers.

Just rise to say you are laying papers, he told him and added it would be good if begging word is avoided.

No minister or member has used the word since Naidus advise on December 15.

Chaudhary took the cue and did not use the word when he was called to lay a different set of papers shortly later.

During the paper tabling process, Naidu also chided members for speaking while seated.

He then went about conducting the Zero Hour as a strict headmaster reminding members not to deviate from their topics.

Mentioning an incident during Question Hour yesterday when B K Hariprasad of Congress used certain phrases, Naidu said he has decided to close the matter after the member met him this morning and said his remarks were made on the spur of the moment and he held the Chair in high esteem.

Incidentally, Hariprasads remarks find no mention in the official record of the proceedings of on Thursday.
Jagdeep Malik, who was accused of killing three children of his cousin in Panchkula, was found dead in the Kurukshetra district jail on Thursday late evening, police sources said.

Body of the 26-year-old accused was reportedly found hanging in the toilet.

Confirming the incident Kurukshetra superintendent of police Abhishek Garg told HT that investigations were on to ascertain the cause of the death.

When contacted Sarsa village Sarpanch Karambir said, We have just received a message from the jail officials that Jagdeeps body was found hanging in the toilet of the jail. We will reach Kurukshetra to claim his body on Friday.

Jagdeep had admitted to killing three children of his cousin Sonu Malik and led the police and villagers to the crime spot at Morni hills in Panchkula, where the bodies of Sameer, 11, Simran, 8, and Samar, 4, were found on November 21, two days after they went missing.

The autopsy report found that all the three children were fired at their forehead.

The bodies of the three siblings Samar (left), Sameer (centre), and Simran(right), were recovered by police in Panchkulas Morni forest. (HT Photo)

Jagdeep had initially claimed that he killed the three siblings at the behest of their father, who allegedly wanted to get rid of them to marry his paramour, with whom he had an extramarital affair.

Later he retracted his statement to claim that the triple murder was the fallout of a family property dispute.

Jagdeep was sent to judicial custody six days after his arrest over the triple murder on November 21. Earlier, he was on a six-day police remand.

Recently, childrens mother Sunita Malik, along with the residents of Sarsa village, had met chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar accusing the Kurukshetra police of shoddy probe.

The chief minister had formed a special investigation team in the case under the supervision of inspector general of police (Karnal Range) Subhash Yadav. Karnal SP Jashandeep Randhawa is leading the SIT.

The SIT recorded the statements of all family members and also applied for polygraph tests of Sonu Malik and Jagdeeps wife Reena Malik.

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Congress President Rahul Gandhi through a tweet in Marathi today demanded that those found guilty in connection with the fire at a rooftop pub in central Mumbai, which claimed 14 lives, should be punished sternly.

In his first tweet in Marathi, Gandhi described the incident as unfortunate.

I share the grief of the families of the victims. There should an immediate probe into the incident and the guilty should be punished sternly, he tweeted.

The blaze started at the pub during a party and spread rapidly through the building, killing 14 people, including a woman celebrating her 29th birthday and many of her friends, officials said today.

The fire, which also injured 21 people, started after 12.30 am in the 1 Above pub on the terrace, and spread to Mojo pub on the third floor one level below, said an official of the Mumbai civic body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

Among the dead was Khushbu Bansali who was celebrating her 29th birthday, and 10 other women, according to an official list of the victims.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Fadnavis had said earlier that he has asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner to hold an enquiry and submit a report within 15 days.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi arrived in Shimla on Friday to get feedback from candidates and workers on the partys loss in the just-concluded assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh where it was in power for last five years.

Rahul, who was on his maiden visit to the state after becoming the Congress president, was accompanied by party leaders, Sushil Kumar Shinde and Ranjeet Ranjan, who had few days back met the state leaders to assess the loss, and submitted a report.

Congress had managed to get just 21 seats as BJP romped home with 44 in the 68-member assembly, elections for which were held on November 9 and results for which were announced on December 18.

Rahul had planned two sessions  one with candidates and other with office bearers  to review the loss and get feedback.

The first session commenced at 12:30 pm. Former chief minister Virbhadra Singh and party president Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu were present at the meeting at Rajiv Bhawan in the city.

Most of the losing candidates had cited infighting, sabotage by local leaders and lack of resources for their defeat.

They had earlier asked Shinde to take strict action against local and top-rung leaders who allegedly worked against the partys interests. Some presented audio and video clippings as proof of certain Congressmen sabotaging the partys prospects whereas others reportedly accused Virbhadra Singh of promoting local leaders who had their own interests in mind.

This is a first time Congress is holding a post-poll review in Himachal Pradesh. Rahul had held a similar review in Gujarat, where the party failed to regain power even after 22 years of BJP rule, despite putting up a spirited fight.

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The Samajwadi Party (SP) has opened the application process for candidature in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Each claimant will have to deposit a fee of Rs 10,000 cash along with a form filled up in the prescribed format. Those who have criminal cases against them need not apply.

Although the party earlier considered only those convicted as having criminal antecedents, it has toughened its stand now. That is why a clause in SP state chief Naresh Uttams letter to party functionaries clearly says: There should not be any criminal case against the candidate (with the exception of the cases related to sit-ins and demonstrations).

Naresh Uttams letter dated December 26 is addressed to all the district and city chiefs, general secretaries, MPs, former MPs, MLAs, MLCs, former MLAs, MLCs, district panchayat chairpersons, members and office-bearers of the state and national executives, and office-bearers of all cells and wings at the district and the state levels of the party.

He has asked all of them to convey that those who wish to apply may do so within the deadline.

The deadline for submitting applications is January 31 and the applications have to be submitted at the state headquarters in Lucknow, Uttam wrote.

The clauses in the letter say: Applications must be submitted only in the prescribed format. Rs 10,000 cash fee should be submitted along with the application. The applicant must be an active member of the party and also must have life membership of the partys monthly Samajwadi Bulletin. There should not be any criminal case pending in court against the applicant.

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A post-graduate student was on Friday arrested for posting abusive religious content on social media.

After receiving a complaint about a Facebook page, we immediately sent a mail to Facebook authorities with a request to share IP details and also to block and delete the page, a Rachakonda police official said.

He added that the arrested person, identified as Vinay Kumar, has been charged under relevant sections of the Information Technology Act as well as the Indian Penal Code.
The Congress on Friday announced to hold protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modis proposed visit to Barmer district to lay the foundation of an oil refinery.

The opposition party was waiting for an official announcement regarding Modis visit after which it will disclose strategy, its national secretary and former Barmer MP Harish Choudhary told reporters.

He said it was objectionable that in a bid to take credit Modi was going to lay down the foundation stone of a project that has already witnessed the same about four years ago during the Congress rule.

Notably, the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had lay down the foundation stone for the oil refinery on September 22, 2013.

But after it came to power in the state, the BJP government had halted the project in the name on review. In April this year, it inked a fresh MoU with HPCL.

Choudhary said they were condemning this event as the BJP leadership has intentionally delayed the project for four years because they are very well aware about the facts that the credit of refinery goes only to the Congress.

He alleged that the BJP had not only delayed the project and but also betrayed the people.

The Congress leader said if the state government did not delay the project, then it would have been completed and the prime minister could get a chance to inaugurate it.

He said while opposing the project, chief minister Vasundhara Raje had raised a lots of noise that when oil is our, land is our, then why the state gets only 26 percent stake in the project.

Choudhary alleged that after delaying the project for four years, the Raje government failed to increase the states stake. He sought public apology from Raje over the issue.

Choudhary also raised objection over the proposed PPP model in the education system. He said earlier this government had given health centres on the PPP mode.

At that time the Congress had opposed the move but arrogant government ignored it.

He said the recently government had backtracked on that and now giving the government schools on PPP mode.

Choudhary said his party opposes this move and appeals the government that instead of running government schools on PPP mode, it should fill vacant posts of teachers.

Congress demands judicial probe into crude oil scam

The Congress also demanded a judicial inquiry into the high profile Barmer crude oil scam.

Congress national secretary Choudhary said after the issue came in light, ruling party leaders have demanded high profile probe in the matter but now they are hided and even avoiding to make any statement in the issue.

He said it was BJP leaders who have raised doubts on state agencies like police and demanded CBI probe into the matter and on their demand the government had handed over the probe to special operation group (SOG).

He said all the agencies were working on the governments direction. Instead tracing the culprits, he said, they were harassing tanker owners and drivers.

Considering this scenario, the Congress is demanding a judicial inquiry into this case, Choudhary said.

On July 22, Barmer police unearthed a criminal syndicate smuggling more than 50 million litres of crude oil inside water tankers from Indias largest onshore oilfield in Barmer. The theft at the Cairn India oilfield went undetected for nearly six years until police arrested 34 people involved in it.
The Kolkata police, in an order issued on Friday evening, banned carrying of weapons in public places across the city and its suburbs for one year.

I, Rajeev Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Kolkata, do hereby, prohibit any person from carrying of swords, spears, bludgeons, or other offensive weapons in any public place, reads the notice.

The prohibition will be effective between January 2, 2018 and January 1, 2019 and will apply to areas under the jurisdiction of Kolkata police. However, sources in the state administration said that the director general of the West Bengal Police is also likely to issue a similar instruction.

While this directive will not allow saffron outfits to hold rallies with weapons on occasions as Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti  both scheduled slightly ahead of panchayat elections next year  it will also bar Shia Muslims from Muharram processions with swords.

The state witnessed a high voltage political showdown between the ruling party, Trinamool Congress (TMC), and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), over armed processions across the state in April this year.

Leaders of the saffron camp had justified the processions saying the government never barred Muslim organisations from rallies with weapons during Muharram. This directive shows the government is scared of the euphoria over Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti seen earlier this year. We will wait to see whether the ban applies on Muslims as well, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh told HT.

Muslim organisations welcomed the move. Well be happy to see the administration implement it, said Mohammad Abdur Rafique, secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami Hinds Bengal chapter.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP-led Union government on Friday of attempting to distort Indian history.

Writing history is not the task of politicians, she said at the 78th Indian History Congress in Kolkata, where she indirectly blamed the Centre for twisting historical facts to suit the ruling partys objectives.

What I find strange is that some people are claiming that Mahatma Gandhi was not a patriot, but his assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a real patriot. This is simply unthinkable, the chief minister said.

Her remarks are in context of several right-wing Hindu organisations trying to deify Godse. Several of these groups owe allegiance to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJPs ideological mentor.

If the politicians start writing history, distortions are bound to happen since certain ideologies acceptable to some might not be acceptable to others. History should reveal the truth. Even if I make a mistake, history will reveal that, she said.

Her comments came a day after Marxist historian Irfan Habib raised questions about growing attempts to distort and rewrite history.

History depends on events and facts and any attempt to invent facts will be treated as fiction, Habib said at a function in Kolkata.

The BJP-lead NDA and RSS has been at loggerheads with opposition parties over history lessons in schools and colleges. Sangh ideologues accuse Left and liberal historians of monopolising intellectual space in post-Independence India and deliberately ignoring key historical events and characters that didnt fit their agenda.

Opposition parties, including the Congress, countered that the BJP and RSS were attempting to rewrite and distort Indian history to push their brand of Hindutva.

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The Banaras Hindu University (BHU) administration on Thursday suspended 13 students who allegedly went on the rampage on the university premises on December 20 in protest against the arrest of Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha (SP student wing) leader Ashutosh Singh.

After the BHU administration lodged a complaint against 15 people, including two ex-students, the police had registered a case against them.

Suspended students Gaurav Kumar (MCA) Shubham Tewatiya (BA Hons) Bittu Kumar Singh (BA Hons) Gulam Sarvar (BA Hons) Praveen Rai (MA in Manuscriptology and Paleography) Gaurav Kumar (BA (Hons) Abhijeet Mishra (BA Hons) Rudra Pratap Singh (BA Hons) Saurabh Ray (BA Hons) Lakshmi Narayan Sharma (BA Hons Social Sciences) Satyam Rai (BA Hons) Social Sciences Dheeraj Singh (two-year undergraduate diploma in Russian) Himanshu Prabhakar (BA Hons)

In a press statement, the BHU administration said 13 students were suspended. Any student, who is accused of, or involved in an offence involving moral turpitude or heinous crime (including those involving violence or intimidation) and is wanted by the police or has been released on bail in connection with any such offence, or detained under any provision, or against whom police investigation or criminal prosecution for any such offence is pending, or enquiry under UP Goonda Act is initiated, shall stand suspended from all the privileges activities of the university and hostel and the suspension of such student shall continue till vacated by the University on such student being discharged or acquitted by a court of law or let off on submission of final report by the police, the statement said.

A student suspended under Clause (I) shall not enter the university campus without prior permission obtained in writing from the registrar and shall not be permitted, in any case, to visit or stay in a university hostel, and the allotment of his Hostel seat, if any, shall be cancelled forthwith, the statement added.

Violence had also erupted on the BHU campus on September 23 when a group of students, mostly girls, were cane charged when they were protesting against alleged sexual harassment of a fellow student.
The fire at a commercial building in the Kamala Mills compound in Mumbais Lower Parel that killed 14 people and injured several others could be a case of non-compliance with construction and planning norms.

Fire department officials have said that the restaurant, where the fire allegedly started, did not have a functional fire-fighting system, lacked fire exits and a lot of combustible material was stored on the rooftop that only aggravated the situation.

One of the most important chapters of Mumbais urbanisation is the changing face of the mill lands, spread across 600 acres in central Mumbai, that attracted a huge number of migrants to the city.

As the textile sector saw a downfall, the land on which these mills stood became a prized possession for the real estate sector in a space-starved city.

The effects are visible in the densely-populated areas of Lower Parel as almost all metamorphosed into swanky malls and luxurious buildings in the last decade.

Numerous towers, swanky offices, pubs, bistros, restaurants and cafes have come up in a haphazard manner on the narrow lanes of crumbling infrastructure.

The Maharashtra government promised in 1991 when the mill land was first unlocked that the two-thirds of the area will be utilised for affordable housing and open spaces.

However, these rules were tweaked in 2001 and the new amendment stated that only vacant or surplus land should be considered while looking at housing and open spaces component.

These opened up the lands for development but in an unplanned way.

So, if out of 12,000 square meters of space, the civic body was to get 4,000 square meters as per the original mandate, it got reduced drastically as there was hardly any open space in these lands, Pankaj Joshi, executive director of Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), said.

While the Devendra Fadnavis-led government remodelled this structure to say that the entire land is considered for the component, the caveat is that the new rule wont be applicable where components have already been shared as per prevalent regulations.

Joshi added that these changing development control rules (DCR) over the decades made Lower Parel denser and denser without any check on fire safety compliances.

The immediate need of the hour is to check if all these remodelled buildings in the area are compliant with fire safety norms. Even though fire audits are mandatory, we do not know if it is regularly followed, he said.

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To ensure a peaceful celebration on New Years Eve, the Mumbai police will use drones fitted with cameras and deploy 40,000 personnel for better monitoring and management of crowds.

Mumbai police spokesperson Deepak Deoraj, deputy commissioner, said, Our top priority is to ensure safety and security of women and children. For this, we have formed special teams led by women officers and constables in plainclothes. They will mix with the crowd.

Policemen in uniform will be easily accessible to all people, said Deoraj. The police are combing various areas before New Years Eve, and the anti-terror cells (ATC) are gathering inputs.

Deoraj appealed to Mumbaiites to use emergency numbers 100 and 103 or tag the Mumbai police in their tweet. We have adequate manpower in our Twitter team to deal with queries and complaints. If required, we will increase the staff count on December 31, Deoraj said.

Places such as Juhu beach, Bandstand, Carter Road, Marine Drive, Nariman Point, Gateway of India, Colaba and Madh island draw maximum crowd on New Years Eve. The police will fly drones at some of these spots. The police have not received any application for boat parties.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai police have cancelled policemens leave.

Other security agencies such as State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Quick Response Team (QRT) and home guards will also be part of an elaborate bandobast.

Senior Mumbai police officials including Mumbai Police Commissioner, Datta Padsalgikar will be keeping a close eye on the security arrangements.

There will be several nakabandis to prevent drink driving. Policemen have been asked to use their mobile cameras to shoot any untoward incident. Some have also been given video cameras. Police will also use speed boats for coastal patrolling, Deoraj said, adding that no specific inputs had been received from the Intelligence Bureau.
Almost three months after the Elphinstone Road railway station stampede in which 23 people were killed, the Western Railway will deploy 232 personnel from the Maharashtra State Security Corporation (MSSC) to its 37 railway stations. It will also induct 97 women home guards for security of women passengers.

It comes after railway minister Piyush Goyal directed the railways to take help from the state government to improve security.

The 232 MSSC personnel will coordinate with Railway Protection Force (RPF) officials. One Quick Response Team (QRT) will be deployed at railway stations in case of any untoward incident.

Railway police officials trained the MSSC personnel for two days. They were trained with the different aspects of safety and security at stations. said AK Gupta, general manager of WR. RPF officials will be allowed access to CCTV cameras for crowd management.

Meanwhile, the Central Railway inducted 251 MSSC personnels in November. They were deployed at the entry and exit points, foot overbridges and on platforms.

The railway police are understaffed. This makes monitoring the stations and foot overbridges extremely difficult. MSSC personnel have helped in tackling crowds during peak hours, said a railway official, who didnt wish to be named.
After the Centre abolished 1,503 silence zones in the city in August this year, the citys civic body has chosen 110 areas so far that could be demarcated as such.

The state environment department had issued guidelines to all municipal corporations in the state on November 21, asking them to submit proposals demarcating possible Silence Zones.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is the only one of the 27 municipal corporations in the state to have submitted a proposal.

Silence zones are defined as areas with a 100-m radius around hospitals or courts,among others, where noise standards are laid down as per existing rules, and should not exceed 45 decibels (dB) and 40dB during the day and night.

The fresh list was sent to the urban development department (UDD) in the first week of December. The UDD and BMC did not share information on the areas identified as possible silence zones, but the list includes areas around hospitals, educational institutes and courts. Religion shrines, which were on the list earlier, have been dropped from the final list.

We will scrutinise and consider them based on suggestions and objections from citizens, once a draft proposal is released by us, said a senior official from the state UDD. All other municipal corporations will be sent reminders to submit their proposals at the earliest.

The official said it would take at least another two months to complete the process and announce the new list of Silence Zones in the state. Of the 1,503 Silence Zones that are no longer in operation, we selected the noisiest areas around courts, hospitals and educational institutions after consulting all 24 wards as the first tranche for this proposal, said Suprabha Marathe, deputy chief engineer, BMC environment department. Subsequently, we received suggestions for various other locations from different wards. Once they are compiled, they will be sent to UDD.

Meanwhile, officials from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) said a state-wide noise mapping exercise across 27 municipal corporations had been completed by them in the second week of December. The details are currently being assessed and tabulated. It will help all municipal corporations to swiftly identify different zones, said P Anbalagan, member secretary, MPCB.

Read more:

How new rules drowned out Mumbais golden silence in 2017

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Mumbai police booked three men in connection with the fire at a building in the Kamala Mills compound at Lower Parel area that killed at least 14 people and injured many others, officials said.

According to NM Joshi Marg police, based on inspection of the spot, the FIR was lodged against Hitesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi, and Abhijit Manka, owners of a restaurant in the building. (Updates)

Police registered a case of causing death due to negligence, endangering the life of others, and causing hurt under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Officers said they observed that the restaurant owners did not follow any safety norms and did not have any fire extinguishing equipment on the premise.

Police officers on the spot added that the fire exit door of the restaurant was allegedly blocked by its staff causing a delay in the evacuation. The police also said that after the fire broke out the people named in the FIR fled the spot without helping those trapped inside the restaurant.

The BMC will inspect all restaurants in Kamla Mills compound. And all restaurants in other nearby mill compounds starting today. Even the slightest of unauthorised construction will be demolished, Prashant Sapkale, assistant commissioner of G South ward, under which Kamla Mills falls, said.

The BMC is including fire brigade officials on this team so that the inspection is done from fire safety point of view, Sapkale added.

According to police, they were conducting an inspection of the restaurant to find out the cause of the fire.
The Mumbai police are likely to ask the court to fast-track the case involving two Romanian nationals, who were arrested on Wednesday in New Delhi for allegedly cloning ATM cards of 92 people from Navghar in Mulund (East) and stealing Rs32 lakh a few weeks ago. The accused  Marian Grama and Meu Loneil  were nabbed in Safdarjung in the capital.

We will approach the court to fast-track the case, said Madhav More, senior PI, Navghar police station. The police said they are considering repatriating the accused after quick trial and punishment.

The duo installed card copying devices in an ATM in Mulund and withdrew Rs32 lakh from their bank accounts in Ghaziabad, with amounts ranging from Rs3,000 to Rs1.6 lakh.

The duo was earlier arrested in October 2015 with one Alin Budoie, 31, for targeting unguarded ATM kiosks in Bandra. They had fitted the skimmers at an ATM on Hill Road in Bandra (West) on six different days in September 2015. They scaled these devices with hidden micro cameras. The data was later used to clone ATM cards and withdraw money.

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surendra.gangan@htlive.com

The Maharashtra government has given its nod to the development of the Nagpur airport on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model with a private player operating it for 60 years with an expected investment of Rs1,700 crore. The airport will have two runways, one with the capacity to operate cargo aircrafts. It will also have an additional terminal building and commercial facilities, making it the second most important airport in the state after Mumbai. The proposal is expected to get the cabinets nod in the next few weeks.

The decision to move the proposal before the state cabinet for Request For Proposal (RFP) of the airports development was taken in a board meeting of Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC), headed by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. The developed airport will have an additional runway of 4,000 meters X 45 meters, besides the existing runway to enable the operations of the cargo and military operations.

The finalised bidder will have to invest Rs1,600 crore in first phase and Rs100 crore in the second to design, finance, build, operate the airport for 30 years on PPP model. The contract, which has the revenue sharing clause, will have the provision of its renewal for 30 more years. The airport is the second busiest after Mumbai and the cargo activities are likely to go up once the MIHAN (Multi-modal International Cargo Hub and Airport at Nagpur) is fully operational. The new runway will also facilitate operations of the Indian Air Force, which has a base in Nagpur, said an official privy to the development.

The airport in the CMs home town Nagpur will be the first airport owned by the state to be handed to a private player for construction and operation. We have given five small airports owned by Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation for their operation to Reliance Airports. This will be the first airport owned by the state to hand over to the bidder for development and operations thereafter. This enables the private players to bring in their expertise, complete the project in stipulated period and make necessary modifications whenever needed, the officer said.

Suresh Kakani, vice-chairman and managing director of MADC, said the project is expected to be completed in four years after the award of the bid. We have completed the process of Request For Quotation with good response from the bidders. The CM has directed us, on Thursday, to put up proposal for RFP in the next 15 days for the cabinet nod.
At least 14 people were killed and several others injured when a major fire broke out at a building in the Kamala Mills Compound in Mumbais Lower Parel late on Thursday night. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind offered their condolences. (Photos)

The fire started around 12.30am in the building on Senapati Bapat Marg, a commercial hub, police said. By 2.45am, the fire brigade had managed to bring the fire under control. Police have charged three people over the fire. (Timeline of other fires)

Here are the live updates:

3.10pm: Five BMC officials have been suspended and an assistant commissioner transferred.

2.01pm: I have sent letters to 11 ward offices related to such rooftop restaurants. The BMC does not give priority to such cases, says Congress leader Nitesh Narayan Rane.

2.01pm: Congress leader Nitesh Narayan Rane, who visited the Kamala Mills Compound, criticises BMC over the fire.

1.58pm: Each time I see a fire taking place and people dying, it angers me a lot and I feel I have miserably failed in my endeavour to stop such fire incidents. I would blame the judiciary and the government for this, says Neelam Krishnamoorthy, president of the association of victims of the Uphaar tragedy.

1.55pm: This is not legal. They (One Above) even put bamboo charts and tarpouline sheets to make this balcony space habitable. This is flammable material that increased the fire, says Prashant Sapkale.

1.54pm: Prashant Sapkale, BMC assistant commissioner of G South, says One Above was allowed one-third construction space and two-thirds balcony space, but it used up its balcony space as well.

1.50pm: In July, a notice was served for illegal usage of space without BMCs permission. In August, demolition happened as we have already reported. In September, seizure action happened, to curb use of this space, says Prashant Sapkale, BMC assistant commissioner of G South.

1.45pm: Prashant Sapkale, BMC assistant commissioner of G South, says BMC prosecuted One Above three times -- in July, August, and September.

12.50pm: In August this year, BMC had taken action against two restaurants - Mojo and One Above - for illegal construction. It had demolished part of an extension/parapet of terrace common to both restaurants.

12.48pm: Rajya Sabha member and former Bollywood actress Jaya Bachchan says, I have been to Kamala Mills, it is like a bhool bhulaiaya, has narrow lanes. So obviously there has been negligence.

12.45pm: BJPs Mumbai chief Ashish Shelar inspects the affected areas, says, We noticed that there was no accessible exit. Investigation needed into the restaurants.

12.40pm: Dr Harish Pathak, head of the forensic department at KEM Hospital says almost all the 14 people died due to asphyxiation, none of them died due to the flames but due to fumes. A proper evacuation plan could have avoided this, he says.

12.30pm:

Accused Hitesh Sanghvi and Jigar Sanghvi, owners of the restaurant in partnership with Abhijit Manka owner of C grade hospitality LLP

owners of the restaurant in partnership with owner of C grade hospitality LLP The manager of the restaurant who has not been named yet as his role is being investigated and whether he was aware of the absence of fire safety norms. Deceased Priti, 36

36 Tejal, 36

36 Prachi khetani, 30

30 Pramila

Kinjal Shah, 21

21 Kavita, 36

36 Parul, 30

30 Manisha, 30

30 Yeshu, 27

27 Shefali Doshi, 50

50 Khushbu

Sarabjit, 49

49 Vishwa, 23

23 Dhairya, 26 Injured KEM Hospital Rohan Soni, 22

22 Abhishek Kothari, 22

22 Jeel Rana, 21

21 Yesha Gada, 22

22 Jankhada Gada, 21

21 Roshni Sharma, 28 Sion Hospital Rohan Goyal, 24

24 Sakshi Sharma, 23 Airoli Burn Hospital Akshay, 23 Bhatiya Hospital Rohit Nath, 37

37 Vipshana Thakur, 36

36 Pallavi Jhakhiya, 27

27 Rushan Parekh, 21

21 Utsav Shroff, 26

26 Deepak Shroff, 31

31 Pratik Thakur, 28

28 Neel Doshi, 44

44 Nupur Jain, 30

30 Akshita Doshi, 38

38 Siddharth Shroff, 28

12.20pm: Mumbai MPs discuss Kamala Mills fire incident in the Lok Sabha. Shiv Senas Mumbai South MP Arvind Sawant demands judicial probe into the fire incident while Mumbai North-East MP Kirit Somaiya wants thorough audit of such mills.

12.04pm: BMC mayor Vishvanath Mahadeshwar says an inquiry has been ordered, a report will be sought to see who is responsible and action will be taken.

12.03pm: BMC officials are responsible for the murder of people in Kamala Mills fire, second such incident in two weeks, when will the BMC wake up? says Kirit Somaiya.

12.02pm: Kirit Somaiya, BJP Lok Sabha member from Mumbai, blames BMC for fire.

12 noon: It is a very unfortunate incident, state government and BMC will surely inquire into the incident and strict action will be taken against guilty, says Union minister of state for home Hansraj Ahir.

11.56am: It is an unfortunate incident that claimed many lives. My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. An immediate probe should be conducted and those responsible for the fire should be punished, says Rahul Gandhi.

11.55am: Congress president Rahul Gandhi offers condolences in a tweet in Marathi.

11.33am: Fantastic. BMC Commissioner will conduct the inquiry. Against himself? Has he suspended the Dy Cmmsnr of that area yet? No chance! Entire blame is on BMC officers. They are the ones who take bribes and give permissions, tweets AAP national executive member Preeti Sharma Menon.

11.32am: Aam Aadmi Party blames BMC for fire incidents in Mumbai. Most places in Mumbai area (are) fire traps due to the shameless corruption in the BMC, says AAP national executive member Preeti Sharma Menon.

11.28am: Sharad Jadhav, a 33-year-old working as producer for a TV channel who was on night duty, says he got to know about the fire around 10 minutes after the blaze started. We tried to run out of the building but could not because debris had fallen outside the main door. We came out through the fire exit and saw the entire rooftop structure on fire.

11.25am: Union minister of state for home Hansraj Ahir speaks to Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and inquires about the Kamala Mills fire.

11.22am: Mangesh Kalaskar, an activist from Mumbai, says he filed several complaints regarding illegal structures in the Kamala Mills premises, but the BMC replied that there was nothing wrong there.

11.20am: Several fire incidents have been reported in Mumbai this year. Twelve migrant labourers were killed after a major fire broke out at an illegal snack-making unit at Sakinaka in Andheri (East). Here is a timeline of such incidents.

10.55am: Even the slightest of unauthorised construction will be demolished. BMC is including fire brigade officials in this team, so that inspection is done from fire safety point of view, says assistant commissioner Prashant Sapkale.

10.50am: Prashant Sapkale, assistant commissioner of the G South ward, under which Kamala Mills falls, says the BMC will inspect all restaurants in the Kamla Mills compound, and all restaurants in other nearby mill compounds starting Friday.

10.45am: Piyush Goyal, Union minister of railways and coal, condoles deaths, says My thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved families in the Kamala Mills fire. Hoping for rapid recovery of the injured.

10.40am: CM Devendra Fadnavis says BMC Commissioner visited Kamala Mills in the midnight itself and has taken stock of the situation. Asked him to take strong action against erring officials immediately.

10.32am: Disturbing to know about the loss of lives in unfortunate #KamalaMills fire incident in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the families who lost their loved ones and prayers for the speedy recovery of the injured. Directed the BMC Commissioner to conduct an in-depth enquiry, tweets CM Devendra Fadnavis.

10.30am: Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis condoles deaths, says he has asked officials to conduct an in-depth enquiry.

10.30am: Police said the fire exit door was blocked, which caused delay in evacuation that led to the deaths.

10.22am: Police said they observed that the restaurant owners had not followed any safety norms and did not have any fire extinguishing equipment.

10.20am: Police have registered a case of death due to negligence under section 304 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and other sections include endangering life of others, causing hurt and common intention.

10.15am: There was no time window for escape between when the fire started and when the fire brigade arrived, as the fire spread quickly, says deputy chief fire officer.

10.12am: There were burn injuries but most people got trapped after the makeshift furniture fell on them, and they did not have time to leave, says deputy chief fire officer.

10.10am: R Chaudhari, deputy chief fire officer, says the fire brigade did not find any charred bodies.

10.02am: Sources say a lot of combustible material like bamboo, tarpouline and hay-covered roofs, were used on the terrace for decoration.

10.00am: Fire department sources say fire-fighting systems were not in place in the building. They say it is likely there was no fire exit in the building.

9.58am: Post-mortem examinations of all bodies have been completed, and the bodies are being handed over to their relatives, says KEM dean.

9.55am: KEM Hospital dean says they also received 12 patients with superficial minor burns. All have gone home or to other hospitals, and their condition is stable, he says.

9.50am: KEM Hospital dean Dr Avinash Supe confirms they received 14 bodies.

9.45am: A senior civic official from the disaster management department says the fire - that broke out on the fourth floor - was brought under control at 6.30am.

9.40am: Fire department officials and police continue operations.

9.36am: Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly, tweets PM Modi.

9.35am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi offers condolences over Mumbai fire.

9.32am: Disturbing news about the fire in Mumbai. Condolences to the bereaved families and wishing the injured an early recovery. Commend the valiant efforts of fire-fighters and those in rescue ops, tweets President Kovind

9.30am: President Ram Nath Kovind condoles deaths in Mumbai fire.
The five accused in the Nashik arms haul case had first visited the arms and ammunition shop in Uttar Pradesh they later looted to buy weapons, said the police. When the shop owner refused to sell arms in such large quantity, they decided to come back later and rob the store.

The Nashik police investigating the case said main accused Badrinujam Badshah alias Sumit alias Suka had gone to UP with an intention to buy six pistols to start his own gang in Mumbai. According to the Chandwad police, Badshah and his four accomplices had left from UP in the robbed Bolero to get six pistols to Mumbai in a cavity created in the car robbed from Amboli.

Badshah told the Chandwad police that he had first offered to buy the six pistols but the owner refused saying he could not issue so many to one person and could only sell one. The cops said at the time Badshah and his gang fought with the store owner and left, but returned at night to rob the six pistols they had chosen.

The officers questioning Badshah said after taking the pistols, they could not resist the display of the entire cache and decided to take the remaining guns and revolvers too. Badshah has confessed to the entire incident and we have recovered the entire loot, said a police officer from Nashik crime branch.
The family members of assistant police inspector Ashwini Bidre, who has been missing since April 11, 2016, on Thursday alleged that Navi Mumbai police commissioner Hemant Nagrale has helped the accused hide evidence.

They also claimed that Nagrale delayed taking action even though he knew everything about the missing case and demanded that he be made a co-accused in the case.

Ashwini, 37, who stayed with her family at Roadpali, went missing on April 11 in 2016. Even as the case was registered three months later with Kalamboli police station, the police took 19 months to arrest two accused. The accused  Abhay Kurundkar, 52, a senior inspector with the security branch of Thane (rural) police, and Rajesh Patil, 44, nephew of BJP leader Eknath Khadse  were booked under sections 364, 506 (2), 497 and 323 of the IPC.

We had told the police everything at the time of registering the complaint. But Nagrale took no decision to arrest the accused then. In fact, he misused his post by helping the accused from time to time in hiding evidence, said Anand Bidre, 35, Ashwinis brother. A senior inspector was the prime suspect in this case. So Nagrale should have appointed a DCP-level officer to investigate the case at the beginning. But he did that only after the Bombay high court ordered to do so on October 28, 2016, around four month after the case was registered. So three investigating officers have been changed in this case, he said.

CCTV footage of Ashwinis rented house in Ratnagiri showed Kurundkar assaulting her in 2015. We found that footage and many other videos and audio clips that raised suspicion. We gave all those to the police, but they took no action, Anand said. On December 5 in 2017 a TV channel aired that video. It was only then that the police pulled up their socks and arrested Kurundkar. So we believe the police are hand-in-glove with the accused and hence Nagrale should be made a co-accused in this case, he further said.

The police had earlier demanded narco analysis tests, brain mapping and lie detector tests on the two accused, but the accused did not give their consent. On Thursday, the court also denied the same stating that it would be illegal to go ahead as the accused are not ready.

Nagrale said, I would like to clarify that the investigating officer of the case is not me but ACP Prakash Nilewad of Panvel division. And the day-to-day supervision of investigation is being conducted by DCP Rajendra Mane. The investigation reports of the case have been submitted to the trial court and the HC. There is no question of either me or any other officer casually handling the case in view of its sensitivity. It is true that we could not trace the missing API. The investigation of the case is on right track and we are waiting the DNA reports which may throw more light on the case. This matter is subjudice at this stage and it will not be appropriate to disclose more details of the investigation.

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badri.chatterjee@hindustantimes.com

An eight-year-old male tiger was killed in a road accident on Friday evening, about 35 km from Nagpur near Bazargaon on the Nagpur-Amravati four-lane highway on National Highway 6. While wildlife experts identified the tiger as Bajirao, one of the most famous and oldest tigers from Bor Wildlife Sanctuary, the forest department refused to confirm its identity.

Officials from the forest department said the incident took place between 7pm and 7.30pm.

Members of Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) said that the tiger was T2 or Bajirao. The Bor Wildlife Sanctuary, which spans 138.12 sq km and is located 60km from Nagpur in Wardha district. Our field officers who went to the spot identified the tiger as Bajirao. Bajirao was the most dominant male at Bor, who had a massive territory in the area, and fathered eight to nine cubs. It is a huge loss to the Bor Wildlife Sanctuary and Maharashtra, said Nitin Desai, director, central India, WPSI adding that Bor has close to 10 tigers.

However, forest officials did not confirm the identity of the tiger. As of now, we are not confirming or denying whether the tiger was Bajirao. However, it is a male tiger, between seven to eight years old, who came from Bor Wildlife Sanctuary, said G Mallikarjuna deputy conservator of forest, Nagpur. The animal received severe injuries to his head and hind legs, and was killed due to the impact of the speeding vehicle. We have rushed the animal to a treatment centre in Nagpur for a post-mortem. We will only be able to declare the identity of the tiger after the post-mortem is conducted and camera trap images are matched.

Mallikarjuna added that CCTV footage from the highway would be monitored to track the vehicle that killed the animal.

Fridays incident takes the toll of tiger deaths this year in the state to 24, according to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).

Anish Andheria, president, Wildlife Conservation Trust, also said the tiger was Bajirao. It is a huge loss to the state as the tiger had a huge territory, right from Bor to Kalmeshwar in Nagpur, which is over 150 sq kms, he said. The tiger could have been saved if there were underpasses at this location or any other mitigation measures at these killer roads.

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A major tragedy was averted after Bhaghirath, an on duty officer alerted the signal maintenance department about the rail fracture between Ambernath and Badlapur railway station on Friday morning.

The local services between Karjat and Ambernath were disrupted during peak hours, around 7.30am.

Commuters, who took the 7am Karjat-CST local walked on tracks as the train was halted due to the fracture. The track had developed a major crack. It would have led to derailment of the local train had the fracture not been reported on time, said 40-year-old, Dinesh Kumar, a commuter who was in the Karjat-CST local train.

Railway officials confirmed that train services resumed immediately after the incident was reported.

The fracture was repaired by 8.10 am. Trains running between Karjat and Ambernath railway stations were delayed by 20 minutes till afternoon, said a railway officer from Ambernath.

Last week, a rail fracture was reported at Kasara, but immediate action was taken as Soma Thorad, a railway employee, informed the motorman of LT express.

The railway is always busy carrying out repair work by announcing mega blocks. They should justify to the commuters as to why there are so many incidents reported, when they are carrying out repair works regularly, said Shyam Ubale, general secretary of Kalyan-Karjat-Kasara railway passenger association.

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After two decades of research, Pankaj Sekhsaria, an environmentalist with a keen interest in the state of environmental, social and political affairs of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, is about to release his book, Islands in Flux: The Andaman and Nicobar Story in Pune. He speaks to Ananya Barua ahead of his book release. The book will be released on December 30, from 11 am at Pagdandi Books Chai Cafe, Baner.

What are the major themes dealt with in your book?

Islands in Flux is a book that brings together my journalistic and research-based writing about the Andaman and Nicobar Islands over the last two decades. The attempt is to bring together the wide range of experiences, issues and challenges that constitute the islands. These are subjects I have been writing about since the mid 90s for a range of English publications in India and I realised that there is a considerably vast terrain that these articles have covered.

What was your driving force to shed light on the issues of these islands?

In recent years, it has also been frustrating for me to see that many of these issues have been discussed in various fora, including in my own writings in the past, and yet none of these are seen reflected in new proposals, statements and policies being put forward by politicians, ministers, and the administration. The whole discussion has to be started from scratch. This was one of the most crucial driving forces for me.

Talking about the flux, could you please tell us the back story behind this book and your journey into writing this?

The idea of flux is absolutely central to the book and I suggest that there are three levels of flux that the islands are facing -- socio-cultural, ecological and most important, perhaps, geological. Each is dependent on the other and at the same time intricately linked. Geological flux is critical in the islands, located in one of the most seismically active zones. For the last 50 years, we have not acknowledged these independent, but connected realities.

What is the reason behind marginalisation of islands?

Part of the problem, I think, is that the Islands continue to be known for only three or four major things  Cellular Jail and the freedom struggle, as a tourism destination and more recently for the tsunami or the controversies surrounding the indigenous Jarawa community of the islands. They are seen as an adjunct to Indias superpower aspirations and we are forgetting that they have an unique identity that deserves acknowledgement.
A total of 144 Indian fishermen were released by Pakistan at the Wagah border on Friday evening.

All of them are natives of Gujarat and were arrested by Pakistan on different occasions over the last two-three years for crossing Pakistans nautical boundary in the Arabian Sea.

Most of them were emotional and in tears on returning to their homeland. They were brought in a bus from Karachi to the border and handed over to Indian authorities. After their release, the fishermen were housed at the rest house of the Red Cross in Amritsar and will leave for Gujarat on Saturday.

Speaking to HT, Ramesh, one of the fishermen, said, It is very difficult to identify the nautical boundaries while fishing in the Arabian Sea. He added that though they have been released, most of them will be unable to continue their occupation because their boats, nets and other fishing accessaries are still in Pakistans possession.

Sawant Bhagwan Chaudhary, another fisherman, said, The Indian government should take step to release our boats because we have no other means of earning. How will we earn a living without our boats?

The decision to release the 144 fishermen was communicated to the Indian high commission in Islamabad on December 18 by Pakistans foreign ministry.
Congress Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa on Wednesday accused Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj for blocking him on Twitter. He claimed that the minister was avoiding him for asking tough questions on 39 Indians missing in Iraq.

Is this the way to run external affairs ministry? Does it behove the office of Sushma Swaraj Ji to block a Member of Parliament for asking tough questions on 39 missing Indians in Iraq?, Bajwa tweeted on Wednesday sharing the screenshot of him being blocked by Sushma on Twitter.

I am not following her on Twitter. As an MP, I tweet to her regarding problems faced by Indians, especially Punjabis, in other countries so that she can take it up with her counterparts. But if she can block an MP, what will be her attitude towards others, Bajwa told HT.

During the ongoing winter session, in a written reply in Lok Sabha, Swaraj has stated that India has completed the DNA testing of the families of 39 Indians missing from Iraqs Mosul city since 2014.

A former Lok Sabha MP from Gurdaspur and Punjab Congress president, Bajwa discovered he had been blocked by Swaraj after he was unable to send his tweet on reports of Sikh community in Hangu district of Pakistans Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province alleging that they were being forced to convert to Islam to her. The MP had tagged both Sushma and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the tweet.

Bajwa had accused Swaraj of misleading the House on missing Indians in the July session and then again in August. The 39 Indians, mostly from Punjabs Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Jalandhar districts, went missing in Iraqs Mosul when it was overrun by the Islamic State. The central government continues to classify the 39 men as missing. He had said while Swaraj had been assuring the families that the government was making all efforts to trace the missing men, she had been changing the goalposts.

He had said while Swaraj claimed that the missing youths were in a jail in Iraqs Badush town, but a news channel showed that the jail had been destroyed by the ISIS.

During the ongoing winter session, in a written reply in Lok Sabha, Swaraj has stated that India has completed the DNA testing of the families of 39 Indians missing from Iraqs Mosul city since 2014 and forwarded the samples to Iraqi authorities for matching with the mortal remains in the graves there. The process was initiated after Iraqi authorities informed India about the mass graves found in and around Mosul and Badush areas following the liberation of that region from the control of the ISIS.

HTs efforts to contact the foreign minister did not elicit any response.
Twelve people were killed and four more were seriously injured and fighting for their lives late Thursday in a fast-moving fire at an apartment building on a frigid night in the Bronx, according to New York Citys mayor.

The victims included a child around a year old, Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a briefing outside the building.

We may lose others as well, he said.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro called the fire, historic in its magnitude, because of the number of lives lost.

Our hearts go out to every person who lost a loved one here and everyone who is fighting for their lives, he said.

The blaze broke out at a five-story building, a block from the grounds of the Bronx Zoo.

Fire Department of New York personnel work on the scene of an apartment fire in Bronx, New York, on December 28, 2017. (Reuters Photo)

About 170 firefighters worked in bone-chilling cold, just 15 degrees, to rescue people from the building. Water sprayed from hoses froze into ice on the street.

The fire began on the first floor just before 7 p.m. and quickly ripped through much of the building, officials said.

Neighborhood resident Robert Gonzalez, who has a friend who lives in the building, said she got out on a fire escape as another resident fled with five children.

When I got here, she was crying, Gonzalez said.

Windows on some upper floors were smashed and blackened.

The smoke was crazy, people screaming, Get out!, a witness, Jamal Flicker, told the New York Post. I heard a woman yelling, Were trapped, help!

According to city records, the building had no elevator. Fire escapes were visible on the facade of the building.

One of the deadliest fires in recent city memory happened elsewhere in the Bronx in 2007. Nine children and one adult died in a blaze sparked by a space heater.
China on Friday rejected accusations that it has helped Pyongyang skirt sanctions after US President Donald Trump claimed Beijing had permitted a transfer of oil to North Korea.

Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea, Trump tweeted on Thursday. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!

The US president later told the New York Times that he saw a report on the situation on Fox News that morning.

The recent series of reports on this situation do not conform with the facts, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, adding that Beijing did not allow its citizens or companies to engage in any activities that violate UN resolutions.

The United Nations and Washington have imposed a series of sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear and missile programme in recent months.

Hua said China had looked into the report of a Chinese ship transferring oil to a North Korean vessel and found it to be inaccurate.

There is no record of the (Chinese) vessel visiting a Chinese port since August, Hua said.

I think making pointless hype through the media is not conducive to enhancing mutual trust and cooperation.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday made light of climate change science as an Arctic chill settled on much of the central and northeastern United States and Canada, forcing people indoors, stranding motorists with dead car batteries and complicating firefighting duties.

In the United States, the National Weather Service said that dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills were pummeling much of the central and eastern part of the country.

In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Years Eve on record, Trump tweeted from his Mar a Lago resort in Florida, where he is on holiday vacation.

Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!

In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Years Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo earlier warned residents to prepare for dangerously cold weather, with below-normal temperatures expected to be between minus 12.7 C and minus 6.6 C through Saturday.

Trumps missive quickly drew Twitter eye-rolls from many users exasperated that the Republican US president could use cold weather to mock the science behind climate change.

Weather is not the same as climate, tweeted Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington state. The president should be able to understand that. It isnt hard.

Jon Foley, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences, wrote: Believe it or not, global climate change is very real even if its cold outside Trump Tower right now.

Just like there is still hunger in the world, even if you just had a Big Mac.

Elevated health risk

The Washington Posts Capital Weather Gang on Wednesday had tweeted: US to be coldest region in world relative to normal over next week.

Please note rest of world will be much warmer than normal lest anyone try to claim pocket of cold in US debunks global warming, which they will invariably and irresponsibly do, the weather reporters said.

Trump, 71, has dismissed global warming as a Chinese hoax, vowed to quit the 2015 Paris accord and tapped fossil fuel allies to key environmental posts.

His administration also dropped climate change from the list of national security threats.

In Canada, firefighters saw water at times freeze in their hoses as they battled an overnight blaze south of Montreal, in Quebec province.

Cargo ships make their way down the ice-covered Saint Lawrence River December 28, 2017 at the Sorel-Tracy Ferry crossing in Sorel-Tracy, Quebec. (AFP Photo)

Environment Canada increased the number of extreme cold warnings around the country, bulletins issued only when the cold creates an elevated risk to health such as frost bite and hypothermia.

Thursday morning the thermometer plunged to minus 40 C in Geraldton, in northern Ontario province. And thats not considering the wind chill factor, said meteorologist Alexandre Parent with Environment Canada.

We have to go back in 1993 to see this kind of weather in Ontario and Quebec, he said.

Ice crystals fell in the northwestern city of Whitehorse when rain fell amid freezing wind.

The Arctic temperatures are expected to last into early 2018, Environment Canada said.

Health Canada warned that exposed skin could freeze in less than 10 minutes in places where temperatures were approaching minus 35 C.

Canadian homeless shelters struggled to keep up with the demand for services and issued special appeals for donations of warm clothes.

This months cold wave caps a year that saw ferocious hurricanes, heat waves, floods and wildfires wreak global havoc.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday said China has been caught allowing oil into North Korea and said such moves would prevent a friendly solution to the crisis over Pyongyangs nuclear 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! Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.

China earlier on Thursday said there had been no UN sanction-breaking oil sales by Chinese ships to North Korea after a South Korean newspaper said Chinese and North Korean vessels had been illicitly linking up at sea to get oil to North Korea.

An official of the US State Department said the US government was aware of vessels engaged in such activity involving refined petroleum and coal.

We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

South Koreas Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that US spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels around 30 times since October.

US officials have not confirmed details of this report.

The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyangs efforts to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States.

Washington says the full cooperation of China, North Koreas neighbor and main trading partner, is vital to the success of this effort, while warning that all options are on the table, including military ones, in dealing with North Korea.

The UN Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea for a recent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test, seeking to further limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil.

The US-drafted UN resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year.

It also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Security Council to further reductions if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear or ICBM test.

Documents seen by Reuters this month showed Washington called on the Security Council to blacklist 10 ships for circumventing sanctions by conducting ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels or transporting North Korean coal.

China and Russia subsequently asked for more time to consider the proposal.

The ships targeted for blacklisting were the Xin Sheng Hai (flag unknown); the Hong-Kong-flagged Lighthouse Winmore; the Togo-flagged Yu Yuan; Panama-flagged Glory Hope 1 (also known as Orient Shenyu), Kai Xiang and Billions No. 18; and the North Korean-flagged Ul Ji Bong 6, Rung Ra 2, Rye Song Gang 1, and Sam Jong 2.

In September, the Security Council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea.

China has repeatedly said it is fully enforcing all resolutions against North Korea, despite suspicion in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that loopholes still exist.

Asked at a regular briefing whether Chinese ships were illegally providing oil to North Korean ships, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang reiterated that China, including the military, strictly enforced UN resolutions.

The situation you have mentioned absolutely does not exist, he said.

A State Department spokesman, Michael Cavey, reiterated on Wednesday that the United States had called on all countries to cut economic ties with North Korea.

We urge China to end all economic ties with the DPRK, including tourism, and the provision of any oil or petroleum products, and expel all DPRK workers, he said, using the acronym for North Koreas official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the conservative Center for the National Interest, said China would never, ever enforce the sanctions to the satisfaction of President Trump, in spite of the effort the U.S. president had invested in developing a personal relationship with Chinas president, Xi Jinping.

With President Trumps latest Tweet it seems the Bromance between him and President Xi is finally over, he said.

This was always bound to happen. China is actually more afraid of North Korea than America, Kazianis said, citing Chinese concerns about instability or collapse in North Korea if sanctions were fully applied.

US Democratic Senator Ed Markey, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Twitter the North Korean threat had only increased since Trump took office and he had to find a way to get China to cut off crude oil supplies.

The solution is a coherent strategy, not bluster, he said.
About half a dozen large billboards  hash-tagged #FreeBalochistan  have come up around the iconic Times Square in New York City, drawing attention to rampant human rights abuses by the Pakistan government in its restive southwestern province.

Similar billboards and signs mounted on trucks and about 100 taxis have been driven around New York, especially in front of the consulates of Pakistan and China, said the World Baloch Organisation (WBO), which is behind the campaign that began on December 20.

The slogans include #FreeBalochistan from human rights abuses and Raise your voice against human rights abuses in #Balochistan by Pakistan Army.

Referring to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that goes up to Gwadar port in Balochistan, one of the signs read, No to CPEC, the China-Pakistan project that aims to loot and plunder Balochistan.

A billboard put up in New York City by the World Baloch Organisation to highlight rights abuses in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan. (Courtesy: World Baloch Organisation)

The signs will stay up through the New Years Eve celebrations, when around a million revelers pack Times Square and adjoining areas for the ball-drop that is aired live around the world, taking the campaign to a new high after a feisty debut in London, where the Pakistan government resorted to several steps to stop it.

Our aim is to reach out to the American public and make them aware of the worsening situation in Balochistan, which has long been ignored by the international community mainly due to Pakistans desperate efforts to stop the truth from reaching the international community, Mir Javed Mengal of the WBO said in a statement on Thursday.

Through media reportage of the Times Square New Years Eve celebrations, we hope to get our human rights message across to the American people and the rest of the civilised world, he added.

There have been widespread allegations of torture, killings and enforced disappearances in Balochistan by the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies.

Balochistan was annexed by Pakistan against the peoples will in 1948 and has been under military occupation ever since, with mass kidnappings, torture and executions by the Pakistan Army. Pakistan wants to keep this hidden. We are doing this campaign to expose these abuses, said Bhawal Mengal, spokesperson for the WBO.

Watch: Video on World Baloch Organisations campaign in New York

In its 2017 annual report on the state of human rights around the world, the US state department said more than 20,000 people are allegedly missing since 2000, according to the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, which has maintained an online database.

It listed a total of 739 individuals missing since 1969, including 100 individuals who allegedly were abducted during the year, the report added, citing the Balochistan body, which describes itself as a non-violent and democratic organisation dedicated to defending the Baloch people and promoting their right to self-determination.

The World Baloch Organisation started its campaign of mounting billboards in London and ran it for a month, overcoming the Pakistan high commissions lobbying efforts with British lawmakers and government bodies.

Baloch groups also organised a similar campaign in Switzerland that angered the Pakistan government.
Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza and the occupied West Bank for the fourth Friday in a row, in protests against US President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Israeli tanks and aircraft struck Gaza in response to cross-border rockets fired by militants, the military said, targeting posts that belonged to Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Palestinian enclave.

The military said it intercepted two of the three rockets fired into Israel. Police said the third struck a building causing damage. No casualties were reported in those incidents.

Trump outraged Palestinians and sparked anger in Middle East countries and world powers with his Jerusalem declaration on Dec. 6, which reversed decades of US policy on one of the most sensitive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the West Bank and along the Gaza-Israel border, hundreds of Palestinians, some throwing rocks and setting tyres alight, confronted Israeli soldiers and in Gaza about 1,500 people attended a rally protesting Trumps Jerusalem move.

Palestinian health officials said at least five protesters were wounded by soldiers live fire. An Israeli military spokeswoman said she was checking the report.

The demonstrations, however, appeared less intense in scale than previous Friday rallies called over Trumps announcement.

Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital. Palestinians want the capital of an independent Palestinian state to be in the citys eastern sector, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed in a move never recognised internationally.

Most countries regard the status of Jerusalem as a matter to be settled in an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, although that process is now stalled.

A UN General Assembly resolution passed on Dec. 21 rejected Trumps Jerusalem declaration. A total of 128 countries voted for the UN resolution. Nine opposed it and 35 abstained. Twenty-one countries did not cast a vote.
Saudi Arabia has released two sons of late king Abdullah two months after they were detained in a sweeping anti-corruption purge, a source close to the government said Friday.

They have been released, the source said a day after a family member posted photos of Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, a former head of the Saudi Red Crescent, and Prince Mashal bin Abdullah, a previous governor of Mecca, on Twitter.

Prince Turki bin Abdullah was the only brother left in detention, the source said, without adding if his brothers had reached a cash settlement to be released.

Another brother, influential Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, was freed in late November after three weeks in detention following a settlement with authorities reportedly exceeding $1 billion.

At the time, the former National Guard chief was seen as the most high-ranking royal to be released.

The four brothers were among more than 200 princes, ministers and businessmen rounded up earlier that month, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tightened his grip on power.

Most of those detained have struck monetary settlements in exchange for their freedom, the attorney general said this month.

Other high-profile targets of the crackdown include billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, dubbed the Warren Buffett of Saudi Arabia.

Many of the detainees have been held at Riyadhs Ritz-Carlton hotel, which has been turned into a luxury prison.

Saudi authorities insist the purge was meant solely to target endemic corruption as the kingdom seeks to diversify its oil-dependent economy.

The attorney general has previously said he estimates at least $100 billion has been lost in embezzlement or corruption over several decades.
South Africas top court on Friday ruled that parliament failed to hold embattled President Jacob Zuma accountable for using state funds to upgrade his private home, in a move that could trigger impeachment proceedings.

The opposition had gone to court arguing that the Speaker of parliament had failed to institute appropriate processes to hold Zuma accountable for his failure to abide by the anti-corruption watchdogs recommendations in 2014 over refurbishments at his rural home in the eastern KwaZulu Natal province using some $15 million of taxpayers money.

The scandal came to a dramatic climax when the Constitutional Court last year found the president guilty of violating his oath of office by refusing to pay back the money.

We conclude that (National) Assembly did not hold the president to account, said Constitutional Court judge Chris Jafta.

The failure by the National Assembly to make rules regulating removal of the president... constitutes a violation, of the constitution, the court said.

It ordered that the national assembly must comply with the constitution to make rules that could be used for the removal of the president without delay.

Defeated in court and facing mounting public criticism, Zuma later relented and paid $500,000, a sum set by the treasury.

In power since 2009, Zuma stepped down last week as president of the ruling ANC party after a 10 year term marked by numerous damning court judgements against him.

Fridays ruling is expected to pile up more pressure on the beleaguered leader.

Zuma was succeeded by his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa in a tightly fought contest in which his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma also ran.

He is due to resign as state president after general elections in 2019.

The ANCs deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte said the party had noted the ruling and would discuss its full implications when the party decision-making body the National Executive Committee meets in just under two weeks on January 10, 2018.
A 45-year-old Houston man is accused of nearly decapitating his girlfriend with a samurai sword.

Police investigating a cutting in progress Wednesday evening found 36-year-old Aracely Jernigan dead in the living room of a Houston home.

Court records show Kenneth Wayne Lockings Jrs relatives convinced him Thursday to surrender to police.

Hes being held without bond in the Harris County jail on the murder charge and a federal parole revocation. He has a lengthy criminal history including multiple drug arrests and at least one conviction.

Lockings grandmother, Marie Carrier told The Houston Chronicle that he received the sword as a gift at Thanksgiving.

She says Jernigan had been living in Mexico and only recently returned to Houston.

Court records dont list an attorney for Lockings. Hes due in court Wednesday.
General James Longstreet speaks his mind.

In the summer of 1879, Alexander K. McClure, editor of the Philadelphia Weekly Times Herald General James Longstreet was then working as postmaster, and inter- view him for McClures Annals of the War series. At the time, most Southerners despised Longstreet for his support of Congressional to travel to Gainesville, Georgia, where former Confederate , engaged Henry W. Grady of the New York Reconstruction and for having joined the Republican Party. Two years earlier, Robert E. Lees former Adjutant General Walter Taylor had written Four Years Under Lee, in which he blamed Longstreet for the defeat at Gettysburg. Longstreet responded with two articles on Gettysburg for Annals of the War. But McClure wanted more, and he got it. In a July 23, 1879, conversation with Grady, the general talked frankly about the conflict.

The 29-year-old Grady was the ideal man to put Longstreet at ease. Like Longstreet, Grady wanted to see the former Confederacy peaceably reintegrated into the Union. A brilliant writer and orator, the young Georgian would soon become famous as the spokesman for the New South. His interview with Longstreet appeared in the August 2, 1879, issue of the Philadelphia Weekly Times, headed General Longstreet: His Reminiscences of the War Between the States.

If you should happen to find yourself in this little mountain town [Gainesville, Ga.]and you could not well find yourself in a cooler placeand you were to drop in at the dingy post officeand you could not well drop in at a dingier oneyou would, in all probability, meet with a surprise when you inquired for your letters. Instead of the hurried, pert and inquisitive apparition that pops up at the call hole of the average country post office when a strange voice is heard, you would be confronted with a deliberate and noble face.

Through the little window you would see a large, wellshaped head, a pair of brave, frank gray eyes, a strong, expressive mouth, massive jaws, silken moustache, and whiskers almost as white and worn as Burnsides, the whole fine in tone and fiber, aristocratic in every detail, and carrying a singular impression of power and dignity; you would then be looking into the eyes of the most accomplished soldier on the Southern side of the late war: [General Robert E.] Lees most trusted and best loved lieutenant, the bulldog of the Army of [Northern] VirginiaGeneral James Longstreet.

I had the pleasure of a long and easy talk with General Longstreet concerning the conduct of that war.

Longstreet: I was paymaster in the United States army when the trouble between the states began. I had the rank of major and was stationed in New Mexico. I viewed from my distant point of observation the agitation of the Southern leaders with impatience. I was devoted to the Union and failed to see any cause for breaking it up when secession was accomplished. I held on. I had determined to remain where I was if secession was peacefully accomplished, of which, however, I had little hope. My relatives in Georgia wrote me urgently to come on at once, saying that all the good officers [are] being taken up. I replied that if there was going to be any war it would last for several years, and that in that time every soldier would find his level, and so that it mattered little whether he commenced at the top or bottom.

At length [Fort] Sumter was fired upon, and then I knew that war was inevitable and felt that my place was with my people. I resigned my commission and came home. I was at once made a brigadier general, and may I say that I led the Southern troops into the first battle they ever fought and commanded in the first field of victory that the Southern flag ever floated over. This was the affair at Blackburns Ford, usually known as Bull Run. [Union Brigadier General Daniel] Tyler attempted to force a passage, but my brigade repulsed him handsomely.

Were you much elated over this victory?

I was proud if it, of course, but I did not join in the wild delight that followed it. I never had any doubt that our people would make good fighters, but I knew that the issues must at last be put upon organization. Individual bravery amounts to nothing in a protracted war. Everything depends upon organization. As I feared it would be, the Southern armies were never properly organized or disciplined. The Northern armies were moved like machines and handled like machines. A spring was touched, the whole mass moved regularly and promptly.

With us it was different. There never was a better army than the Army of [Northern] Virginia, but it lacked the machine-like harmony of the Northern armies. We had too much individuality in the ranks and inefficiency at Richmond. The government was to blame, I think, for the lack of organization.

Did the Southern troops display more valor than the Northern troops?

I cannot say that they did. As I said before, individual bravery amounts to very little in a battle. Men must be fought in blocks and masses, just as parts of a machine. Nearly everything depends upon the commander. If the men have confidence in him and his movements, they will stand by him to the end. They will actually come to feel safer in following him, no matter where he leads, than in breaking away from him. A good general can take an army of Chinamen and whip an army of Englishman, if the latter are improperly handled. No matter how brave men are, they will not fight if they feel that they are in doubtful and unskillful hands. This principle explains the wonderful victories of the French under the first Napoleon. If a general can only inspire his men with the feeling that he knows what he is about, he will have good fighters. He can put them anywhere on any field, and in the face of any fire.

I was once dining with Horace Greeley, and he asked me if it was not necessary to swear at your men and whoop them up, as the saying goes. I replied that I thought not. There is nothing like quiet assurances and confidences. A general need never be noisy, and I think quiet troops are the best fighters.

I once sent a brigade to occupy a certain point. As it was mounting a little crest, it came full upon immense masses of Federals. The men were panic-stricken, and I thought I had made a mistake in ordering them forward. They halted irresolute, and then dropped down upon the ground. It was very important that they should advance and make a feint, at least. I therefore rode quietly through their ranks on the crest, and there halting my horse, adjusted my glasses and calmly surveyed the scene in front. I turned carelessly around, and as I expected, there was my brigade at my back, every man in position for anythingconfident and assured.

At another time, in the heat of the battle of Chickamauga, [Brig. Gen. Henry L.] Benning, of Georgia, one of the bravest men I ever saw, came charging up to me in great agitation. He was riding a captured artillery horse, without any saddle, with the blind bridle on, and was using a rope trace as a whip. His hat was gone and he was much disordered.

General, he said, My brigade is utterly destroyed and scattered. Is that so? I asked quietly; utterly destroyed, you say? Yes, sir, he replied; gone all to pieces. His great heart was nearly breaking.

I approached him and said quietly. Dont you think you could find one man, General? One man, he said in astonishment. I suppose I could. What do you want with him?

Go and get him, I said, still quietly, laying my hand on his arm, and bring him here. Then you and I and he will charge together. This is sacred, General, and we may as well die here as anywhere.

He looked at me curiously a moment, then laughed and, with an oath, lashed his horse with his rope trace and was off like a flash. In a few moments he swept by me at the head of a command that he had gathered together somehow or other and he was into the fight again.

But were not the Southern troops, in defending their own soil, inspired by stronger motives than the Northern troops, who were intruders?

I think not. The sentiment in favor of the Union and memories that cling about the old flag were just as strong, if not stronger, than the love of the soil of the states and the feeling aroused in defending homes. There were thousands of men in every state who turned against their native states in deference to this love of the Union and joined with the Federals in invading their own homes. It is impossible to overestimate the love that the Federals had for the Union and the old flag. It was a love that was born with the Revolution and cemented with the blood of our fathers.

I remember myself that after the battle at Chickamauga [Maj. Gen. John C.] Breckinridge made a speech congratulating his men at being able for the first time in their lives to sleep on the battlefield, and he said that they had to thank me for it. The next day someone remarked that I must feel very proud of this. I replied that I felt just as if I was being congratulated over whipping my own brother. The truth is, the soldiers on both sides were nerved by lofty and desperate emotions, and I knew from the first that there would be heroism displayed by both armies, and that the struggle must be prolonged and strenuous.

What were the decisive battles of the war?

It is my opinion that we were whipped when we failed at Gettysburg. After that we had only a chance. After [General Braxton] Braggs failure to follow up the advantage at Chattanooga, I felt that only a miracle could save us, and you know a soldier does not rely to any great extent on miracles. You see, as regards Gettysburg, we had staked a great deal on the invasion of which it was the turning point.

It had been decided that we must make an offensive campaign. I did not favor the invasion of Pennsylvania. My idea was to hurry the army, then concentrating at Jackson for the purpose of succoring Vicksburg, forward to Tullahoma, where Bragg was confronting [Maj. Gen. William Starke] Rosecrans, who might have been easily crushed, and with our grand army we could have swept through Tennessee and Kentucky and pierced Ohio. By sending this great force, with the prestige of victory, through Tennessee and Kentucky, we would have won over both of those doubtful states. I found, however, that General Lee had his head very much set on invading Pennsylvania. I agreed to his plans, only making one point, viz: that we should never attack the Federals, but force them to attack us. I remembered Jacksons saying: We sometimes fail to drive the enemy from a position. They always fail to drive us.

The invasion was made. Its wise plan was changed by the Battle of Gettysburg, and we were forced back across the river. I felt then that we were beaten. I considered it simply a question of time.

Once after this there was a chance (a bare chance) of saving the Confederacy. This was after the Battle of Chickamauga, which was in many respects the most brilliant victory of the war. The enemy was more thoroughly put to rout here than be fore or since.

If ever there was an occasion that demanded pursuit pell-mell, this was the time. The Federals were rushing back on Chattanooga in the utmost confusion. It was a bright moonlit night, and our people were anxious to pursue. We might actually have entered Chattanooga with the flying Federals and thus recovered the key to Georgia and East Tennessee. General Bragg declined to follow up this advantage. The enemy rallied, reformed, and Bragg was driven back to Missionary Ridge.

I had a talk with Mr. [Jefferson] Davis shortly after Chickamauga. I told him that there was no hope for the triumph of our arms. He was very much discouraged and finally grew petulant. He said he never remembered having seen such a movement as I proposed at Chickamauga. I replied that if his memory would carry him as far back as the First Manassas he would see such a movement. He replied very tartly, and we had some sharp words. These were arranged, however, and we parted on good terms.

You say, General, that organization was the military deficiency of the military system of the Confederacy. What was the fault of its operations?

Chiefly thisthe failure to concentrate troops. The government, moved doubtless by a de sire to protect our soil as much as possible, kept our troops scattered, and thus made them inefficient. There was scarcely a time when we had a really grand army at any one point.

The policy of the Federals, and especially General Grants policy, was to mass everything available at one single point and then drive straight at it. Of course our government disliked to leave any section of the Confederacy at the mercy of the Federals. Therefore, our men were scattered over our whole extent of territory. I do not think that our best generals ever comprehended the necessity of concentration of forces. They relied too much on the valor of their own men. They seemed to forget that where good, cautious generals commanded on each side, numbers must triumph over valor.

There was a notable instance of this at Fort Donelson. General Albert Sidney Johnston, one of the loftiest souls that ever lived, had about 45,000 men. Of this force 15,000 were at Donelson, 15,000 at Columbus, and 15,000 in front of [Maj. Gen. Don Carlos] Buell. Grant, having a force of about 30,000 men, fell upon Donelson and captured it.

Had Johnston either concentrated his forces at Donelson or in front of Buell, he could have crushed either Grant or Buell. As it was, General Grant told me afterwards that he was as badly whipped at Donelson as the Confederates were, if the Confederates had only known it and been able to act upon their knowledge.

Who do you think was the best general on the Southern side of the war?

I am inclined to think that General Joe Johnston was the ablest and most accomplished man that the Confederate armies ever produced. He never had the opportunity accorded to many others, but he showed wonderful power as a tactician and a commander. I do not think that we had his equal for handling an army and conducting a campaign.

General Lee was a great leaderwise, deep and sagacious. His moral influence was something wonderful. But he lost his poise in certain occasions. No one who is acquainted with the facts [thinks] that he would have fought the Battle of Gettysburg had he not been under great excitement, or that he would have ordered the sacrifice of Pickett and his Virginians on the day after the battle [of July 2, 1863]. He said to me afterwards, Why didnt you stop all that thing that day?

At the Wilderness, when our lines had been driven in and I was just getting to the field, General Lee put himself at the head of one of my brigades, and leading it into action my men pressed him back, and I said to him that if he would leave my command in my own hands I would reform the lines.

His great soul rose masterful within him when a crisis or disaster threatened. This tended to disturb his admirable equipoise. I loved General Lee as a brother while he lived, and I revere his memory. He was a great man, a born leader, a wise general, but I think Johns  ton was the most accomplished and capable leader that we had.

Who was the greatest general on the Northern side?

Grantincomparably the greatest. He possessed an individuality that impressed itself upon all that he did. [Major General George B.] McClellan was a skillful engineer but never rose above the average conclusions of his council. [Major General William T.] Sherman never fought a great battle and displayed no extraordinary power. But Grant was great. He understood the terrible power of concentration and persistency. How stubbornly he stuck to Vicksburg and to Richmond. He concentrated all his strength, trained his energies to a single purpose, and then delivered terrible sledgehammer blows against which strategy and tactics and valor could avail nothing. He knew that majorities properly handled must triumph in war as in politics, and he always gathered his resources before striking.

What was the most desperate battle of the war?

Gettysburgas far as my observation extended. There was never any fighting done anywhere to surpass the battle made by my men on July 2.

Did you agree with Lee as to the necessity of the surrender at Appomattox?

I did. For some time I had felt that we were fighting against hope. I kept my lips closed and fought ahead in silence. For the week preceding the surrender I fought almost without ceasing. I was covering General Lees retreat, while [Maj. Gen. John B.] Gordon opened a way for him in front. I had [Maj. Gen. Charles W.] Fields division, all that was left.

The Federals pressed upon us relentlessly, and we fell back, fighting night and day, inch by inch, covering the slow retreat of our wagon trains. Our lines were never once broken or disordered. My men fought with the finest regularity and heroism. Wherever I placed a brigade, there it would stand until I ordered it away. I was among my men constantly, so that I knew little of the general situation.

Early in the morning [of April 9, 1865], General Lee sent for me, and I at once went to him. He was in deep concern. He stated to me that his retreat had been cut off and it was impossible for him to escape from the circle that had been drawn around him.

If that is the case, I replied, you should surrender the army. If escape is not possible, not another life should be sacrificed. General Lee then began to talk about the distress and trouble that surrender would bring upon his country and his people. That cannot be put against the useless shedding of these brave mens blood. If you are satisfied that you cannot save the army, it should be surrendered. The people will know that you have done all that men can do. He then told me that he had discovered that there were heavy masses of infantry in front and that he could not hope to cut through.

It was a terrible moment for General Lee. Having fought for years with high and lofty purposes, having won victory after victory and made a record for his army not equaled in our history, it was hard that he must surrender everything. I cannot tell you how my heart went out to him.

I left General Lee and went back to my men. I ordered firing stopped. I stood quietly awaiting events. Suddenly a horse came clattering along my front. I looked up and saw a smart-looking officer [Union Brig. Gen. George A. Custer], with yellow hair streaming behind him, hurrying forward to where I stood. Then he wrenched him suddenly to his haunches and said, in a somewhat violent tone: In the name of General Phil Sheridan, I demand the instant surrender of this army! I was not in a humor for trifling just then, but I replied as calmly as I could: I am not the commander of this army, and if I were I should not surrender to you, meaning of course that I would treat with the proper authority. I make the demand, he rejoined, simply for the purpose of preventing further bloodshed.

If you wish to prevent any further shedding of blood dont shed anymore; we have already stopped, I said, still keeping cool. He reiterated his demand for an immediate and unconditional surrender. I then notified him that he was outside of his lines, and that if he was no more courageous I would remind him of this fact in a way that might be unpleasant to him. I then explained that General Grant and General Lee were then engaged in a conference that would probably settle everything.

He grew pleasant then, and after a while galloped off. He was a brave and spirited young fellow, but my old veterans were not in the mood to humor him when he dashed up to us that day.

The surrender fell with more crushing effect on my troops than on any in the army. They were in fine condition and were flushed with victory. We had thrown back the Federals day after day as they pressed on uspunishing them when they came too near and stunning them when they charged us seriously. Enveloped for six or eight days in the continual smoke of battle, we had little idea of what was going on elsewhere, and when we surrendered 4,000 bayonets to General Grant we surrendered also 1,600 Federal prisoners that had been plucked out of his army during our retreat. Still, we all had the most perfect confidence in General Lees ability and heroism, and we knew that he had done all mortal man could do.

Did you say to General Lee when parting with him that you regretted you had gone into the war?

No sir; I said that before I drew my sword again I would be sure that it was necessary. I did not believe, and I do not believe, that the war was justified on either side. It is a terrible thing and should be resorted to only in absolute self-defensejust as killing in private life. Besides, I had fought all the time knowing that our plans were wrong and believing that we could not succeed.

Still I did not and do not regret my service. I fought for my people. I fought steadily, uncomplainingly, as best I knew how, and there never was an hour that I would not have gladly laid my life down to have assured the success of our cause. No sir, I regret nothing. I only did my duty. The war was a grievous erroran error both sections have deeply atoned. As for me, I only did my duty in a humble way as a man and a soldier, and the same reverent, devoted sentiment that compelled me to draw my sword filled my heart when I sheathed it forever.

Peter Cozzens latest book is Shenandoah 1862: Stone  wall Jacksons Valley Campaign. Suggested reading: Lees Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History, by William Garrett Piston.

Originally published in the April 2010 issue of Civil War Times. To subscribe, click here.
The Crisis Summit of Islamic States counters Trump's Jerusalem decision. Trump declared the east of the city the capital of a Palestinian in Dec.

"We announce that we recognize the Palestinian state, whose capital is East Jerusalem," the Turkish state news agency Anadolu quoted from the statement of the summit of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Wednesday in Istanbul. "We urge the world to recognize East Jerusalem as the occupied capital of a Palestinian state."

At the conclusion of the special summit, OIC members condemned the "unilateral, illegal and irresponsible" decision of US President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
With another bloody attack, the terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS) has killed at least 41 people and injured 84 others in the Afghan capital. Also an assassin died.

The man had blown up himself Thursday morning in a cultural center - when people rushed to help, two more bombs had been detonated in front of the house, said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

A representative of the community, Mohammed Ali, spoke of more than 50 dead in the evening. "No one sitting in this basement room came out of it safely," he said. "Everyone is dead or injured now."

The TV station Tolo TV reported that there had been an academic event in the house at the time of the attack, which was about the 38th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. There were pictures and videos on social media showing a blood-soaked carpet and splintered black folding chairs. On others, motionless bodies could be seen in the courtyard of the house. Interior Ministry spokesman said in a press conference that most of the victims were "knowledge-hungry young people".

The IS reported via the usual channels on the Internet to speak. Apparently he had targeted the Tabian Cultural Center for his contacts with Iran. His statement declared that the center was one of the "major centers for promoting Shiite faith in Afghanistan." Shiite Iran has recruited thousands of fighters to fight the Sunni IS in Syria - including Afghanistan. The website of the Tabian Center states that it also has an office in Iran's Mashad.

The attack happened in a Shiite district of the city. There, the IS has committed several serious attacks in recent months. Not far from the scene, in October, he sent a suicide bomber to a Shiite mosque. 71 people died. In its two most recent reports on the civilian casualties of the war, the UN has highlighted the wave of ISIS attacks on Shiites as "disturbing" and warned that it is trying to spark conflicts between religious groups.

ISIS has committed as many, if not more, attacks in Kabul this year than the radical Taliban, who are far stronger in number than the terrorist militia. Many attacks were particularly cruel, as was the seven-hour shootout in the country's largest military hospital in April. The terrorists had thrown hand grenades into patient beds. According to official figures, 49 people died. Unofficial estimates assume twice as many deaths. In addition, in the past few weeks the IS has twice sent off children as suicide bombers.

The cruelty and force of the IS attacks does not fit in with the official portrayal of the government and its international allies, who fought the IS sharply from the start and like to talk it down. The Supreme Commander of NATO and the US troops in Afghanistan had recently said that 1600 IS fighters had been killed since the spring. Previously, international military had said that there are probably no more than 700 fighters left.

In its July semi-annual report on civilian casualties in July, the UN had warned that IS had killed more than twice as many civilians in the first six months of 2017 than in the same period in 2016.

The number and impact of attacks by the IS and the Taliban in the capital also contradicts the presentation of the federal government, which continues to postpone rejected asylum seekers to Kabul and to a limited extent in August, saying that since end of 2014 the threat situation for civilians in Afghanistan "have not changed significantly".

Already from 2015 to 2016, according to the UN, the number of civilian victims of attacks in Kabul has risen by 68 percent. Since January 2017, there have been more than 20 serious attacks. More than 500 people were killed. The number of dead and injured together is well over 1000. In the worst attack in front of the German Embassy in May alone had killed around 150 people.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the UN and the NATO Resolute Support mission strongly condemned the attack. Germany's Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said: "This insidious terror is directed against education, against free media and against anyone who thinks and decides independently. The intention behind this is to bring discord and unrest into Afghan society. This evil seed must not rise. We continue to be on the side of Afghanistan and will not let up in our commitment. "

In northern Afghanistan, six children died on Thursday morning when one stepped on an explosive device hidden on the street. The children had kept animals. The Taliban are deploying thousands of such explosives nationwide to stop troop movements, but often kill civilians. According to the latest UN report on the civilian casualties of the war, more than 800 civilians were killed or injured by these booby traps between January and the end of September - a third of them children.

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Discussions are going on between Saudi Arabia's capital city Riyadh and the tech-giants Apple and Amazon about establishing a direct presence to sell their products there for the first time ever.

The talks are being pushed by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman as part of his initiative to give a futuristic finish to the conservative nation according to a recent report in Reuters News.

If successful, these discussions would give Apple and Amazon an opportunity to side-step the third parties they currently need to go through to sell products in Saudi Arabia due to regulatory impediments on foreign investment in the kingdom.

These impediments have been easing over the last two years as the price of crude oil has fallen, making it necessary for the Saudi's oil-dependent economy to seek new investment sources.

With a whooping 70 percent of its population under the age of 30 pushing internet and smartphone use to some of the highest levels in the world, Saudi Arabia is a ripe market for Apple and Amazon. These and other giants of the tech industry would put intense pressure on the smaller local players who currently control the market in Saudi Arabia.

Leading up to these discussions, Riyadh officials have been wooing big names in Silicon Valley for the past two years, spearheaded by Prince Mohammed.

An avowed tech enthusiast, Prince Mohammed has styled the reforms paving the way for today's discussions between Apple and Amazon as disruptions in the line of technology breakthrough artists and all-stars Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg.

Apple and Amazon made the shortlist of high-tech companies to attract to further their reform plans, according to reports.

For Amazon, the development highlights how the company is looking to gain an advantage to selling its cloud computing and data storage services to customers who live in the Middle East. If successful, a deal with Amazon also could open the door for a growth in the number of Amazon retail warehouses in Saudi Arabia.

For Apple, a direct presence would open the way for Apple stores to be established in Saudi Arabia that would would raise the brand in the country to an all-time high, especially in relation to Samsung.

Both Apple and Amazon have yet to make any comment about the reported discussions with Riyadh.

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President Donald Trump expressed disappointment with China on Thursday over the decision to allow oil into North Korea. He was very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea.

The decision would totally hinder efforts to find a peaceful solution to the escalating tensions about North Koreas nuclear 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! President Trump tweeted.

Earlier in the day China responded to a report by a South Korean media outlet that claimed China had been providing North Korea oil illicitly by shipping vessels connecting at sea. China said that there had been no such sales breaking United Nations sanctions forbidding such activity.

As a counteractive measure to North Koreas attempts to create missiles with nuclear capability able to strike the United States, the Trump administration has pushed a global initiative to increase worldwide condemnation and sanctions on Pyeongyang.

Critical to these attempts is the support of China, which is North Koreas close neighbor and primary economic partner, says Washington. The Trump administration has also repeatedly made it clear that military actions are among the available options being considered in response to North Koreas aggressive actions.

Following an intercontinental ballistic missile test by North Korea recently, the U.N. Security Council acted to increase the constraints on North Koreas ability to access oil last week, specifically crude oil and refined petroleum products.

The latest sanctions by the U.N. attempt to prohibit almost 90 percent of refined petroleum products to North Korea with a yearly cap at 500,000 barrels.

The U.N. resolution, which was drafted by the United States, also limits the supply of crude oil to North Korea to 4 million barrels each year, with more penalties in the event of another nuclear test or ICBM launch by North Korea.

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China is cracking down on pollution by sending waves of environmental inspectors into some of the worlds most polluted cities and levying hefty fines.

In the latest round of these inspections, over 18,000 Chinese officials were cited for failing to protect the countrys natural resources since 2016.

Currently Chinas official air quality contains pollutants (called PM2.5) at levels that greatly exceed the levels recommended by the World Health Organization. For example, while the WHO recommends that the PM2.5 level be lower than 10 micrograms, Chinas is 35, while Beijings is over 60.

An extensive smog battleplan was released earlier this year to reduce PM2.5 more than 15 percent 28 cities in the northern provinces of Hebei, Henan, Shandong and Shanxi. China has pledged to reduce average PM2.5 levels to below 60 micrograms in Beijing by years end.

Chinas poor performance in meeting worldwide environmental standards is an unwanted by-product of astronomical economic growth over the last three decades. In the interest of reform, from February 2016 Beijing began sending out rounds of environmental inspectors to discover and report violations against its efforts to reduce pollution.

Deputy Director at the National Environmental Inspection Office Liu Changgen said In the next step, we will go through cases found during previous inspections and identify any higher-ranking officials for ill management.

Local-ranking officials comprised the majority of officials caught red-handed making environmental violations, he said.

The campaign also is honing in on government officials who ignore violations to avoid missing local financial growth targets. Whole municipalities have been accused of rises in air pollution in reports by the environment ministry that cite administrative failures.

The names of the officials, their jobs and their violations will be reported up the chain of command, who will decide how the officials will be punished, said Liu.

We will not let the inspection become a passing gust of wind, he added. It needs to keep blowing all the time.

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The guest list for Prince Harry's wedding list is causing a royal headache, as it's unclear whether the Prince will invite Barack and Michelle Obama - and possibly snub President Trump.

In Barack Obamas first media interview since leaving office, Obama sat down with his friend, Prince Harry, who asked Obama how he felt on the day of Trumps inauguration. The ever-classy Obama said he felt serenity and remarked mostly about how thankful he was that his marriage was as strong going into office as it was leaving office.

The first thing that went through my mind was sitting across from Michelle, how thankful I was that she had been my partner through that whole process  but overall, there was serenity there. More than I would have expected.

Can you give us a reason to be optimistic next year? Prince Harry asked President Obama. And then with perfect timing, he added: Please?"

Obama responded, If I had to choose any time in history to be born, Id choose now, an answer both vague yet pointed, contrasting as it does with Trump's constant glorifying of a past where more people were violently oppressed.

Obama revealed the downsides and upsides of no longer being in the White House, remarking that "I didn't used to experience traffic -I used to cause traffic!" He added, "The fact that I can wake up and if I want to spend an extra 45 minutes talking to Michelle and take a long breakfast  I can do it. That feels great."

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However, a later moment between Prince Harry and a Radio 4 host has sparked its own controversy, when Prince Harry was asked would Obama be invited to his upcoming wedding to Meghan Markle.

Prince Harry avoided the question, saying that the invite list had yet to be confirmed and that he didn't want to "ruin that surprise."

There has been speculation British officials fear the political consequences if the couple decide to invite Barack and Michelle Obama, with whom they are friends, but not President Donald Trump. Markle in particular has been very outspoken about disagreeing with the American President.

The wedding's guest list is being drawn up by Buckingham Palace, with the British government in a consultative role. Theoretically, Downing Street could insist on Trump or a representative being invited, or potentially block the Obamas from being invited should Trump not also be invited.
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The morning after Hurricane Harvey struck Houston, Bill Baldwin grabbed his bicycle and started pedaling from his home in the Heights toward the George R. Brown Convention Center.

The route into downtown was treacherous. When the 52-year-old owner of Boulevard Realty tried to cross Interstate 10 at Watson, 4 feet of water blocked his path - Baldwin hoisted his bike overhead and waded through.

Another 2 feet of floodwaters covered the streets between the Downtown Aquarium and Wortham Center. He plodded through that, too.

"It took me about 40 minutes to get to GRB," he said. "The one thing is, I know a lot of people, and I knew everyone there. The Red Cross was very short-staffed, so I just took charge and someone appointed me the volunteer coordinator."

That was Sunday, Aug. 27.

By Thursday, he and fellow GRB volunteers set up an independent operation at Sawyer Yards that would later become the Houston Relief Hub. Once Hurricane Irma struck Puerto Rico, Baldwin found himself on the phone with Mayor Sylvester Turner, who asked if he could lead Houston's response efforts.

That conversation only lasted one minute. "I told the mayor, 'Yes, sir!'"

Baldwin, a father of two, watched the tropical storm unfurl from the comfort of his dry, historic Woodlands Heights estate. Back in 2005, he bought late developer William A. Wilson's 107-year old, 6,363-square-foot former residence. Three years later, he purchased Karen Derr's Heights-based real estate firm, one decade after joining her team as a broker.

"In 2008, I made up the bulk of the firm's income, and I didn't want to work for anyone else, so I bought it," he explained. "With my own firm I was able to take more of a proactive approach to the city and civic involvement."

He and his partner, Fady Armanious, never lost power during Hurricane Harvey. The couple saw the bayous overflow into neighboring homes and businesses on television - and Baldwin decided to act.

"Not a thing happened to us," he acknowledged. "We live in a very safe neighborhood in regard to Harvey, but it's kind of like an island. You couldn't get out or drive easily, and I really wanted to do something."

So, he left.

That first day at GRB, Baldwin delegated hundreds of volunteers to set up sleeping cots for the thousands of wet and hungry evacuees. In a bright yellow hard hat, he was hard to miss.

His watch read 1 a.m. by the time he attempted to bike home. But the floodwaters had risen too high, and he was forced to turn back.

Friends offered him a room at the Hilton Americas-Houston. That's where he crashed for a few hours before rinsing his clothes in the shower, blasting them with a hair dryer and reporting to GRB by 7 a.m. Monday for a second shift. The number of displaced Houstonians had jumped from 2,000 to 10,000.

"Fady was mad as hell because I wasn't communicating," Baldwin recalled with a laugh. "Someone drove me home (that day) in a van, but I popped back up on Tuesday and Wednesday. By then there were plenty of volunteers, and people above my pay grade decided they would no longer need donations."

He partnered with fellow GRB volunteers to launch their own relief effort. Their primary goal was to become a real-time information source. They also didn't want to turn away a single donation or volunteer.

Baldwin understands why some organizations, including the Red Cross, couldn't allow underage children to help. But with school districts closed countywide, dozens of boys and girls wanted to pitch in.

Mothers, housekeepers, restaurant servers and lawn-maintenance workers came forward, too. Developer John Deal provided space at Sawyer Yards, a 36-acre "creative campus" in First Ward, and the Houston Relief Hub was born.

"We received donations from every state in the nation. People would drive and donate their relief items, or fly in for a week just to volunteer," Baldwin said. "We would get 18-wheelers in from Kentucky and Wisconsin that were full of brooms or mops. We would fill a 50,000-square-foot warehouse every day, and it would be depleted every day."

After the mayor tapped Baldwin to helm Houston's aid to Puerto Rico, Turner's next call was to United Airlines - he secured a plane. The Houston Relief Hub transported 55 pallets of supplies, 20 pallets of medical equipment, 11 relief workers and two doctors to the Caribbean 18 hours later.

"The city of Houston had two warehouses: one was on Navigation, the other was Esplanade," said Janice Weaver, director of community relations for the mayor's office. "Navigation was where Carlos Correa was working on getting a plane to Puerto Rico. The mayor wanted to get involved and worked with Bill to get it done."

On Dec. 14, after 112 days in operation, the hub closed its doors. More than 100 volunteers served 250 families, and Turner honored their dedication by proclaiming the date "Houston Relief Hub Day."

"I really thought I was only going to work three hours," Baldwin said, reflecting on that first morning, when he biked into downtown.
JEWETT - On a warm December morning, a steady stream of men, women and children stepped over the threshold of the Leon County Food Pantry, picking up hams, canned goods, and packaged mac and cheese. They included Juanita Gonzales, 76, trying to save on grocery bills, Gloria Diaz, a 32-year-old mother of four whose husband had his hours cut, and Danny Wilson, 60, who last year lost a six-figure job at the nearby power plant and now subsists on $25,000 a year in disability.

Kristy Vandegriff, executive director of Jewett's Chamber of Commerce, which operates the pantry, has kept count. More than 100 people had come in December, following a record November when about 150 people - double the monthly average - sought help. "It seems like times are tougher than ever right now," Vandegriff said.

This is not how this community of 1,200 imagined it would look like nearly a year after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, who pledged to revive the forgotten places of rural America and the industries that sustain them. Here in Jewett, which gave Trump 86 percent of its vote, people haven't lost faith in the president, but they admit they see few signs that things are getting better.

JEWETT: Trump spurs hope in Texas town that relies on oil, coal and steel

Jim Salley, who has owned and operated an apparel store here for nearly a half-century, had hoped that Trump's pledge to boost coal, energy and manufacturing industries would lead to new jobs and trickle down to his business, which sells boots, clothes and gear to men and women who work in the nearby steel mill, oil fields and coal mines. Instead, his sales are down 15 percent from a year ago.

"I'm sure that's part of the reason my store is down some," he said. "People had to go somewhere else to find jobs."

Trump's election in November 2016 spurred high hopes in rural communities like Jewett, which the Houston Chronicle has spotlighted since shortly before the inauguration in January because the local economy features a unique mix of the industries the president promised to aid. Its major employers included a coal-fired power plant and the mine that supplied it, a steel mill, and energy companies that drilled for natural gas in the area.

The Trump administration has taken some steps to support thee industries, including scrapping or reducing regulations seen as hindering their growth, but these moves have been offset by market conditions. Oil and natural gas prices remain low, for example, curtailing production in fields, such as the Barnett and Haynesville shale formations to the northwest and east of Jewett, where extraction costs are higher than West Texas Permian Basin, where drilling is now concentrated.

GRIEDER: Donald Trump has already changed conservatism

The coal mine near Jewett shut down in 2016 and laid off some 250 workers when the power plant, owned by NRG of Houston, turned to lower-cost, cleaner burning coal from Wyoming. More local coal miners will lose jobs when Vistra Energy of Dallas shutters its Big Brown plant 40 miles to the north and associated coal mine because they are hurting profits.

In Leon County, where Jewett is located, the November unemployment rate, 5.5 percent, was more than 1.5 points above the state average of 3.8 percent, and nearly that much above the national rate, 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. While the county's unemployment rate is down from a year ago, that decline is almost completely the result of shrinking labor force as workers give up looking for jobs or move to find jobs elsewhere.

Leon County's labor force has declined 5 percent over the past year even as state and national labor forces have grown. "The mine shut down. And the oil field left," said John Sitton, Jewett's mayor. "We don't have no people here, now."

But none of this has shaken belief in Trump. Most people here blame Congress and an entrenched bureaucracy for thwarting the president's plans. Last January, Sitton hoped a quick turnaround would follow Trump's inauguration; today, he says it will take time.

"He is doing a darn good job," said Sitton. "I think he will eventually drain the swamp."

RELATED: Trump supporters in small Texas town still expect him to come through

At CJ's Kountry Cookin', a diner where friends meet to chat and watch Fox News over eggs and a cup of coffee, the president is as popular as ever. Mike Speer, a rancher and chicken farmer and one of the group of older men who meet here regularly, was hard pressed to name specific Trump achievements, but insisted the president was getting things done.

"He tells you what he wants to do, then he tries to accomplish it," said Speer. "How in the world can that be wrong?"

Jewett, once a poor farming and ranching community, has long struggled, hanging onto to an economically precarious position with the support of a few employers. One of them is Nucor of Charlotte, N.C., which in 1975 opened a steel mill, employing about 400 workers.

Three years ago, the mill was running 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide pipe and steel for the energy industry, but the oil bust forced the company to cut employee hours and scale back production. Cheaper foreign steel imports put more pressure on Nucor.

With Trump's election, local managers saw some hope for increasing production and hours: Trump had promised to crack down on foreign imports with higher tariffs and other sanctions.

That promise, however, has yet to materialize. Profits at Nucor, the nation's biggest steel maker, plunged by more than $50 million or 15 percent in the third quarter, compared to the same period a year ago. Executives blamed declines on imports.

Katherine Miller, a spokeswoman for Nucor, said the Trump administration has taken steps to help the industry, including enforcing trade laws for steel imports, and company hopes Trump will follow with tougher actions in 2018. With tax reform behind it, Miller added, Congress should focus on Trump's long-promised infrastructure bill, which would help the Jewett mill, a producer of the rebar used in road and bridge construction.

Despite the high hopes for Trump, presidents can do little to affect the long-term trends squeezing rural America, including the growth of metropolitan areas, the decline in manufacturing employment and shift from coal to cleaner, cheaper natural gas and renewables, said Michael Webber, the deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Many Trump supporters, however, remain fervent because they may not have wanted help from Washington as much as they need a voice.

"A lot of people feel like they don't have other options, so why not go with the guy who is on their side?" he said.

EDITORIAL: Trump's time

Politics aren't discussed at Jewett's food pantry, housed in a small blue warehouse on the south end of town. Nucor and NRG have given tens of thousands of dollars to the pantry to fund a planned expansion Carol Ball, who helps run the pantry with her husband David and other volunteers, doesn't ask people why they come. Need is just need.

As people picked through used clothes and claimed cans of tomato soup, sardines, beans, carrots and spaghetti sauce, Ball recognized some of the visitors, but many, she said, were new.

"The strange thing is we get a whole new group of people every few months," she said. "Where did the others go? I guess they had to leave to get jobs."
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Shale 1.0 - in which a technological marvel that coupled horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing revolutionized American oil production and opened vast underground reservoirs to production. Shale 2.0 - in which the plunge of oil prices three years ago taught oil companies how to use data to streamline operations, lower costs and still make money.

Now the industry is moving beyond efficiency and into productivity, as companies figure out how to drill, frack and pump to get more oil out of the rock. Call it Shale 3.0, perhaps. Regardless, analysts say it's arrived.

The Houston energy investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. plotted three years of well results from one reservoir in the Midland Basin, the Wolfcamp, in the eastern lobe of West Texas' prolific Permian. And it found that companies are steadily getting more and more oil out of the ground.

From 2014 to 2017, productivity rose between 13 and 17 percent, the bank said.

But

That improvement has slowed this year.

After the crash, companies focused on reducing expenses and increasing returns. That hasn't changed, Tudor, Pickering, Holt reported. Investors expect operators to spend within their means and make money in every well. And that leaves companies accelerating production, even if it means less oil in the long run.

For example, the Permian Basin bellwether, Pioneer Natural Resources, spooked the market last summer when the Irving-based oil company announced higher gas to oil ratios than it anticipated. Companies make less money from gas than oil, and Pioneer's stock price fell nearly 11 percent in one day to about $146.(It has since recovered and closed Friday at $172.85.)

Analysts worried that Pioneer was drilling too many wells too close together, essentially robbing each of the well pressure that forces oil up and out of the ground.

Wastewater protest

Environmentalists and West Texas conservationists are gathering at 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 9 at the Texas Railroad Commission in Austin to protest several permits for new wastewater disposal wells near the teal-blue pool at Balmorhea State Park.

Neta Rhyne, who lives across the street from the park's entrance, said there are at least four disposal well applications to inject oil and gas drilling wastewater into wells near Saragosa, about 10 miles north of the San Solomon Springs. She said more than 200 people have signed up to protest the permits.

Meanwhile, Houston's Apache Corp. has inked another deal with a lab at the University of Texas at Arlington to study surface and groundwater quality at Apache's big West Texas find, Alpine High. The U.T. lab, the Collaborative Laboratories for Environmental Analysis and Remediation, applauded the opportunity to work with industry, a partnership scientists there have called rare.
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Gray Lyman had nearly left for the Harris County tax office to prepay next year's property taxes when he realized that his attempt to save money might be worthless after all.

He spent much of Thursday on the phone, trying to contact his tax consultant to determine whether paying them this year would allow him to take a soon-to-expire deduction on his 2018 federal tax return.

Tax experts generally had agreed the maneuver might have merit for certain homeowners facing a tax hike after Congress scaled back the popular break as part of its tax code overhaul this month.

Then new federal guidance, issued by the Internal Revenue Service late Wednesday, suggested otherwise.

"It's confusing," Lyman said. "No one really knows, or someone knows something that's incorrect."

Lyman and hundreds of other Houstonians who rushed to estimate their 2018 property taxes by year's end learned Thursday that their hefty, unplanned payments could not be used to reduce their next income tax bill because their properties have not been formally assessed. Across Texas, assessments are based on Jan. 1 property values.

Thus, the 2018 property taxes will be still be subject to the new federal rules that cap state and local tax deductions at $10,000 - a threshold exceed by perhaps one in four Houston homeowners.

More Information Tax changes Congress capped deductions for state and local taxes at a combined $10,000 as part of the tax code overhaul. Homeowners who owe more than that hoped to prepay next year's property taxes before the break is reduced. The IRS now says prepayments are eligible only on properties already assessed for 2018. Texans are left out because appraisals are based on Jan. 1 values. Tax changes Congress capped deductions for state and local taxes at a combined $10,000 as part of the tax code overhaul. Homeowners who owe more than that hoped to prepay next year's property taxes before the break is reduced. The IRS now says prepayments are eligible only on properties already assessed for 2018. Texans are left out because appraisals are based on Jan. 1 values. See More Collapse

"Unfortunately, it looks like the IRS canceled the run on property tax prepayments for next year in Texas," state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, said in a statement Thursday.

Bettencourt, a former Harris County tax assessor-collector, said the IRS guidelines "clearly indicate that Texans would not receive a deduction for prepayment" because homeowners won't be billed until after Jan. 1.

The guidelines highlighted the lack of clarity surrounding the hastily negotiated tax plan, which has sent tax accountants and lawyers scrambling to learn its particulars before it takes effect next month. Among other things, the legislation slashes the corporate tax rate, lowers individual rates and lessens the tax burden for small businesses.

But it also limits mortgage and property tax deductions that homeowners have taken advantage of for generations.

The rollback of the longstanding state and local tax deduction is expected to affect millions of homeowners across the country, particularly those in states with relatively high property taxes. That includes Texas, which has no state income tax and relies more heavily on property assessments.

It's estimated that as many as a quarter of Houston homeowners could pay property taxes above the $10,000 threshold.

Sylvie Novotny, vice president of Houston property tax firm Novotny & Co., said that anyone with a home valued at $300,000 or more is likely affected by the changes.

In Harris County, the tax assessor's office has seen an uptick in the number of people rushing to pay before the end of the year, spokesman Mike Lykes said. The office has for years accepted prepayments and Lykes could not offer an estimate of how many people had chosen to pay early this year.

He added, however, that the office has received a flood of calls from homeowners seeking clarification on whether prepayments are eligible for the deduction.

"It has made this week a very busy week," he said.

Novotny said her office had fielded a number of questions from clients asking whether they should cut two separate property tax checks this year. She contacted the Harris County assessor's office after the IRS guidelines came out, seeking a final answer on the prepayment deduction question.

"Most people aren't usually interested in pre-paying," she said.

Lyman, who bought his century-old home near the Museum District for $115,000 in 1979, has watched his property value escalate each year. He's not sure how much more he'll pay in taxes next year, but he said he now pays well more than the $10,000 cap.

While he said he expects the overhaul to benefit individuals across the economic spectrum, he's frustrated at the last-minute nature of the changes. Hours after the IRS released its guidelines, for example, he received a mass email from his Texas property tax adviser recommending that homeowners "pay as much property tax as practical" before the end of the year to receive a greater deduction.

"It's a mess," he said.
Harvey, that monster, shook some of Houston's fine arts organizations so hard in 2017 it's a challenge to remember what else happened.

OK, leaders came and went. Jonathon Glus was out, and John Abodeely was in as CEO of Houston Arts Alliance. Houston Symphony executive director Mark Hanson left for San Francisco. Valerie Cassel Oliver, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston's longtime senior curator and a powerful advocate for artists of color, left for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Toby Kamps left his post as a curator at the Menil Collection to direct the Blaffer Art Museum. Michael Peranteau retired from the Houston Art League, where Kheli Willetts came and went quickly as his successor, and longtime curator Jennifer Ash finally took the reins.

A few cultural sensitivity issues also raised eyebrows: Chronicle theater critic Wei-Huan Chen provoked a stir - and thoughtful conversations - when he was offended by the treatment of Asians in Houston Grand Opera's revival of "Nixon in China." In late June, Catholic protesters objecting to the display of Andres Serrano's infamous photograph "Immersion/Piss Christ" within the powerful exhibition "Torture" crowded the street corner at the Station Museum of Contemporary Art.

The museum-building boom continued, with a few stutters. The Menil Collection, which had planned to open its Drawing Institute in October, postponed the reveal until sometime in 2018. "It's a very sophisticated, innovative building," director Rebecca Rabinow said. "We're in it for the long haul and have very exacting standards. Better to take time and get it perfect than open too early."

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston blamed Hurricane Harvey for the delayed opening of its new Glassell School of Art building. It broke ground in June on the adjacent and more elaborate Nancy and Rich Kinder Building; deeply excavated by late August, that site turned into a retention lake during the storm that was costly and time-consuming to drain.

Ultimately, however, none of this would matter if the city's arts palaces and the people in them didn't produce meaningful work. Of all the eye and ear candy that enriched our lives this year, these performances rank as my top three for reminding us that art is essential, not a luxury, to maintaining our humanity:

"Houston Strong: A Theater District Benefit Honoring Local Heroes"

Virtuosic artists representing all seven of Theater District Houston's resident companies shared the Miller Outdoor Theatre stage in late September for a historic show that came together in just a few weeks, while most of the organizations were still displaced. Against a backdrop that evoked a night sky full of glittering stars, the performers sang, danced and played their hearts out. They all worked for free and used the occasion to solicit donations for the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund.

Such a confab is unlikely ever to happen again.

'Mayerling'

Houston Ballet staged other premieres, including a spectacle-filled "Tempest" that it co-commissioned from David Bintley. But its most notable artistic achievement of the year was the staging of Sir Kenneth MacMillan's "Mayerling" in September. No matter that it had to be hastily moved to Hobby Center. Based on the salacious, true story of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary, the ballet contains a wealth of demanding, complex roles that showcase the diverse talents of the company's principals. The opening-night performance hit all the right buttons emotionally, technically and musically. It also elevated the company's national reputation, as Houston Ballet became the first U.S. company to own and perform MacMillan's masterpiece.

' 'Bout a Stranger'

Open Dance Project's intimate, environmental dance-theater ode to Woodie Guthrie was an emotionally moving, complete package within a museum-worthy, sculptural set. Annie Arnoult and Garreth Broesche produced a seamless, dreamlike sequence of movement, music and spoken word that plunked 30 lucky viewers per show into a world where 14 strong dancers and the four marvelous musicians of University of Houston's American Roots Ensemble brought Guthrie's story to life.
When it comes to drinking in Houston, we have an embarrassing amount of great places to imbibe.

Of course, the old reliables are still around, like Anvil Bar & Refuge and Catbird's in Montrose. The Continental Club near Midtown, and Big Star Bar in the Heights are still winning over converts. There is no bad day that West Alabama Ice House can't fix, ditto for The Flying Saucer downtown.

RELATED: The Harp on Richmond to close end of February 2018

Sadly, in 2018 we will lose venerable Irish bar The Harp on Richmond as the owner shuffles off into retirement in late February.

Declan Plunkett is ready to finally have a St. Patrick's Day holiday all to himself after nearly 35 years of pouring drinks for others on that special day.

Lest we forget that Jimmy's Ice House in the Heights also served its last Lone Star this past summer too. It was just reborn as Bobcat Teddy's with a spit-shine and an expanded booze menu. Don't worry, bottled beers are still the same price as they ever were.

In 2017, Houston became acquainted with two new offerings from bar maven Bobby Heugel's Better Luck Tomorrow and Tongue-Cut Sparrow both opening shop and drawing crowds.

Now Playing: The hot toddy truly is the perfect cold weather cocktail. We opted for maple syrup to sweeten the drink, but feel free to use honey if you prefer. Video: MyRecipes

Lil' Danny Speedo's Go Fly a Kite Lounge on the east end became a local staple with a jukebox beloved by drinkers of every stripe, and The New Potato off Clinton Drive felt like home for many in that area starved for a drink.

They'd still like a grocery store, too.

RELATED: Thanks to Harvey, 2017 was a tumultuous year for Houston restaurants

If adventurous Houstonians are looking to visit a "historic" Houston watering hole for a change in 2018, we suggest visiting Lone Star Saloon, located across the street from the METRO bus station in downtown.

It has a TABC license dating back to 1972, meaning that it has been serving thirsty Houstonians for over 45 years. It's easily one of the most authentic dive bars in Houston and a sight to behold - especially on pay day.

(Yes, the concept of historic in amnesia-ridden Houston doesn't mean much, but we'll take it.)

No telling what 2018 will bring to the Houston bar scene, but rest assured the city's bar owners and bartenders have something up their (tattooed) sleeves.

Remember, it doesn't matter where you drink as long as the company is warm and the drinks are stiff.

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. He's an intolerable native Texan.
This is a story about power and privilege but also want, and about emergent feminism, albeit of an astonishingly contradictory sort, in a doggedly patriarchal society. There's even some Russian collusion in the mix.

The plot revolves around bubbles, too, which makes it a seasonally perfect tale to tell. When you make a toast at midnight Sunday, contemplate the sparkling, happy-inducing beverage in your raised glass for a moment and think of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, La Grande Dame of Champagne. You, of course, know her as the widow Clicquot - veuve is French for widow - the brand name on those bright yellow-orange labels.

She is credited with inventing both how modern champagne is made - the key was remuage, or riddling, which makes the lees easily extracted through the process of disgorging - and how to market bubbly as a luxury good, one that bestowed status on those who could afford to acquire and consume it. Barbe-Nicole's turning the Russian aristocracy on to the sparkling wine of Champagne changed everything, turning a modest regional enterprise into an international phenomenon.

In 1805, the 27-year-old Barbe-Nicole was widowed, having been married for only seven years, under tragically murky circumstances. Her husband, Francois, was the son of a prominent Champenois businessman, and theirs was, for the want of a better word, a negotiated union. But they were kindred spirits who, by all accounts, enjoyed each other's company and they shared the same vision of becoming successful Champagne merchants.

Although he's said to have died of typhoid fever, their fledgling wine business was struggling because of terrible weather and poor market conditions and he had sunk into a deep depression, so speculation lingers that he took his own life. But Barbe-Nicole pulled herself together after the funeral, held in the great cathedral of Reims, and by virtue of being a widow she was allowed to control her own financial destiny. Within a dozen years, despite having had no formal training in either commerce or viticulture, Barbe-Nicole had become one of Europe's wealthiest entrepreneurs.

At the apex of her career, she had arguably become the second most famous woman in the world behind another widow, Queen Victoria.

Her path, however, was hardly without intrigue and, on occasion, downright peril. The complications of the day, because of political/societal changes buffeting the continent and the Napoleonic Wars that resulted, were staggering. At one point, Russia banned the importation of Champagne, nearly destroying her company. But she persevered, finding a way to get the bubbles, thousands and thousands of bottles of them, through the onerous blockades, alternately defying both her own government and the czar.

It's an extraordinary tale that begs to be turned into a major motion picture (Saoirse Ronan plays her as a young woman; Judi Dench, of course, as La Grande Dame). If you're intrigued by her story, I recommend Tilar J. Mazzeo's fascinating book, "The Widow Clicquot" ($15.99 from Harper Perennial). While the history of Veuve Clicquot the company, now part of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH), is easily researched, little was known about the Veuve herself before Mazzeo began her determined quest to unveil the woman behind the brand.

Mazzeo found abundant head-scratching contradictions, not dissimilar to what we must routinely confront, risking whiplash, every day of late. Mazzeo summed up her discoveries thusly: "Barbe-Nicole quietly defied the expectations her culture had about what women were and what they were capable of achieving. Meanwhile, at home and in her opinions, she was anything but a revolutionary.  She was a deeply conservative and sometimes rigid woman. Her family remained staunchly Catholics, even when the religion was outlawed and dangerous in republican France.

"She was a devoted but frankly domineering mother, whose only child - a daughter - she undervalued intellectually and excluded from the family business, preferring instead to marry her off to an idle and flamboyant aristocratic playboy, one to whose charms Barbe-Nicole herself was dangerously susceptible. She did not advocate for the rights of women, although she lived in an era when feminism was born. Instead, she surrounded herself with men, as employees, partners and even friends. In the end, she gave away a large part of the family business and most of her vineyards to her male business partners."

To put Champagne in perspective in Barbe-Nicole's day, the average worker earned the equivalent of roughly $8,000 per year, Mazzeo says, while a bottle of good fizz cost about $70. But because of the technical strides that were made in production methods on her watch, the sparkling wines made by Clicquot and the other "Grande Marques" (Bollinger, Krug, Moet et Chandon, Pol Roger, Ruinart, et. al.) could evolve into a beverage ordinary folks can now enjoy.

"At the most critical juncture in the history of this celebrated wine," Mazzeo writes, "she dominated the industry. The result was a different future for women in the commercial arena. And because of the Widow Clicquot, historians still claim that no business in the world has been as much influenced by the female sex as that of Champagne."

Additionally, I love how the Veuve Clicquot circle gets closed by the fact that the chief winemaker in 2017 is Gaelle Goossens, a native of the Marne Valley in Champagne. Goossens took charge in the vast historic cellars seven years ago at about the same age as Barbe-Nicole was when, suddenly isolated in a man's world, she had no choice but to sink or swim.

"It is very inspiring for me to be in that house and to know this story," admits Goossens, whose parents are both doctors and who honed her winemaking skills at Bollinger, having eschewed pursuing a career in international business, her original plan. She later observed that "making Champagne is not like making juice or yogurt. It is science but also art. You are making dreams (because) you are making people happy. It's magic."

Is that what motivated Barbe-Nicole from the very beginning, too? We'll never know for sure, but it seems a reasonable assumption.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Americans in states that Donald Trump carried in his march to the White House account for more than 4 in 5 of those signed up for coverage under the health care law the president still wants to take down.

An Associated Press analysis of new figures from the government found that 7.3 million of the 8.8 million consumers signed up so far for next year come from states Trump won in the 2016 presidential election. The four states with the highest number of sign-ups  Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia, accounting for nearly 3.9 million customers  were all Trump states.

"There's politics, and then there's taking care of yourself and your family," said analyst Chris Sloan of the consulting firm Avalere Health. "You can have political views about a program like the Affordable Care Act, but when you get an opportunity to get subsidized health insurance for you and your family ... politics is a distant consideration."

AP's analysis found that 11 states beat 2017's enrollment figures. Of them, eight Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming went for Trump, who posted double-digit victories in all but Iowa.

To be sure, Trump states are also home to many people who voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton. But the AP's analysis points to a pattern of benefits from the health law in states the president won. The premium dollars have economic ripple effects, reimbursing hospitals and doctors for services that might otherwise have gone unpaid and written off as bad debt. Also, people with health insurance are better able to manage chronic medical problems, remaining productive, tax-paying members of society.

Such economic and political realities will be in the background when Congress returns in January to another installment of the nation's long-running debate over health care. Republicans and Democrats seem to have battled to a draw for now.

The year 2019  the effective date for repeal of the ACA's requirement that most people have coverage  is looking like a time of reckoning for the law's insurance markets, which offer subsidized private plans to people who don't have job-based coverage.

Unexpectedly strong enrollment numbers announced this week for the 39 states served by the federal HealthCare.gov website testify to consumer demand for the program and its guarantee that people with medical problems can't be turned away. Yet those numbers still lag behind last season's sign-up total.

It's unclear what the final count for next year will be. HealthCare.gov numbers released Thursday are incomplete, and some states running their own insurance websites will continue enrolling people throughout January.

Separately, actions by the Trump administration and the GOP-led Congress are creating incentives for healthy people to stay out of the health law's insurance markets.

Starting in 2019, people won't have to worry about incurring a fine from the IRS for being uninsured, because the tax overhaul repeals that mandate. At the same time, the administration is taking regulatory action to open a path for the sale of low-cost insurance plans that don't provide the health law's benefits or guarantees.

"The real worry for me is what the health plans do," said Sloan. "If they decide that without the mandate it's not worth staying in this market, you could end up with swaths of the country having no insurers."

Bipartisan legislation to stabilize insurance markets is still alive in Congress, but its prospects are unclear.

On Friday, Trump said he thinks repealing the mandate as part of the tax overhaul "ultimately leads to the end of Obamacare." The president continued to ignore other parts of the law that remain untouched by the tax bill, including its Medicaid expansion benefiting low-income adults and the popular protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

Others say a corner has been turned in the health care debate, but where it will end up is still uncertain.

Former President Barack Obama's law "is more durable and important to Americans in terms of getting affordable health insurance than even its advocates expected," said John McDonough, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who served as an adviser to Senate Democrats during the ACA debate more than seven years ago.

"With the end of the attempts to bring it down and to repeal it, perhaps there will be opportunities in the near future to try to actually build up and improve it, because it could use some work," he added.

___

AP broadcast journalist Shelley Adler contributed to this report.
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AUSTIN - To some, Bernie Sanders is the answer.

To others, he could be the problem.

As Texas Democrats prepare for 2018, Democratic hopefuls for all offices face a balancing act. Embracing Sanders supporters can tap a much-needed energy that 18 months ago turned a little-known self-proclaimed Democratic socialist from Vermont into a legitimate contender for the White House. But embrace the Sanders movement too much, and a candidate can quickly get labeled a socialist by Republican rivals in a general election - an albatross in parts of a red state like Texas.

While Sanders conceded the Democratic nomination for president in the summer of 2016, the followers he cultivated haven't gone home and have vowed to remain engaged in politics and reshape the Democratic Party and its platforms.

"This wasn't a one-shot deal," said Chris Kutalik-Couthren, a Sanders supporter who is now a statewide coordinator for Our Revolution Texas, a coalition of former Sanders supporters. "Many of us wanted to keep going."

They have since created nearly 500 chapters throughout the nation with a proclamation: Campaigns end. Revolutions endure.

MORE: Could Texas turn blue in 2018? Stranger things have happened

The results have already shown themselves in local races, with Our Revolution helping recruit candidates and mobilize voters in local races for city councils in San Antonio and school board races in Houston. Now, 2018 offers a chance for the movement to impact congressional races.

"There's a different animal in the cage this time," said Jim Hightower, the former Texas agriculture commissioner who become one of Sanders' most prominent supporters.

Hightower said the Bernie Sanders movement highlights an economic populism that used to be the way Texas Democrats dominated with working men and women. Access to health care, college education and a healthy distrust of corporate greed are all elements of the Sanders rise to prominence that could be tools for Democrats in Texas to finally win back the state, he said.

"We reach out to real working stiffs and farmers," Hightower said. "We can turn people out."

It worked in San Antonio earlier this year. There, Our Revolution put its organizing skills on the front lines to help history teacher John Courage win an uphill battle to get on the city council in one of the city's more conservative districts.

On the campaign trail

In Houston this month, Our Revolution's national office endorsed Elizabeth Santos in the runoff election for the Houston ISD. That resulted in Our Revolution touting Santos on its social media sites and directing people to donate to her campaign. Santos won.

But in Dallas, the results were more mixed. First-time candidate Lori Kirkpatrick rode support from the Our Revolution group to nearly win a school board seat on the Dallas Independent School District earlier this year. But Republican activists fought back in a runoff election with mailers that warned Kirkpatrick would bring "Bernie Sanders-style liberalism to Dallas Schools."

Few races reflect the challenge and potential more than the U.S. Senate race where Democrat Beto O'Rourke, a one time Hillary Clinton superdelegate, touts issues that sound like a page straight from a Sanders platform book.

MORE: Democrat Justin Nelson relishes role as underdog in attorney general's race

O'Rourke touts Medicare for all, promises to be a champion for more affordable higher education that doesn't trap people in debt and talks up opposition to international trade deals that hurt the American worker - all issues Sanders talked about at length on the campaign trail.

And some of his biggest ovations have come from audiences when he declares his opposition to taking political action committee money and decries how big donors carry too much influence in politics - a staple of any Sanders speech.

But that's not enough to get him a pass from ardent Sanders supporters who remember he was a Clinton superdelegate during the presidential election that helped her secure the nomination in 2016.

At a rally in Austin in October, one of the first questions was from a Sanders supporter who grilled O'Rourke on why he voted for fast-tracking authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership when Sanders opposed it. O'Rourke explained that he thought fast tracking would give then-President Barack Obama the ability to negotiate the best deal for the U.S. without having to go through "regular order" and giving the Republican-dominated Congress more influence on the negotiations. Even so, O'Rourke told the crowd later he warned Obama that he would not support the TPP deal because of the poor wage protections for workers overseas.

At the same event, another Sanders supporter questioned why if O'Rourke believed in Medicare for all, he didn't sign on to the House bill that purports to do that. O'Rourke said he supported the idea but backed the Senate version touted by Sanders more because it was more of a pure expansion of Medicare.

While his campaign platform has a Sanders ring, O'Rourke said he's not trying to pattern himself after the Vermont senator, Hillary Clinton or anyone else.

RELATED: 10 Texas Democrats seeking to unseat Abbott must figure out how to get noticed

"I've never met Bernie Sanders," O'Rourke said. "I'm sure he's a wonderful person, and I'm grateful for his service."

He said he's just addressing issues that people from the Panhandle to Houston are talking about.

"Really, people care fundamentally about the same things," O'Rourke said, stressing economic issues like jobs, affording college, and health care costs.

Hightower said O'Rourke is definitely gaining momentum with the Our Revolution network.

No longer a death knell?

Cruz, for his part, has jumped at the opportunity to go head-to-head with Sanders over three debates over the last year on CNN. In October, Cruz seemed to relish Sanders' open use of the term "socialism."

"Now, one of the things I like about debating Bernie is he's honest," Cruz said during the debate. "When he ran in Vermont, he ran as a socialist, an unabashed socialist."

Hightower said while there was a time that throwing that word around could be a death knell for a Democrat in Texas, times are changing fast and there are a lot of places in Texas where it doesn't turn off voters like it once did.

"It's really not a word that scares people anymore," Hightower said.

He said what people are looking for in candidates is a more genuine approach - which he says is something O'Rourke has and something Our Revolution is uncovering around the state in other races.

There is no questioning that the Sanders campaign had an impact on Democratic politics, said Lillie Schechter, the leader of the Harris County Democratic Party.

"It has brought a lot of young people into the party," Schechter said. "It's also opened a dialogue on a lot of issues."

Kutalik-Couthren said victories in local races has only helped build optimism as the calendar turns to 2018.

"We're building a movement, a grassroots movement," he said. "The momentum is just growing as we get closer to the 2018 cycle."
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Alonza Crawley will never forget the day his brother, Gregory, died.

Gregory had been living at Briscoe's Place, a rooming house in south Houston, when the building caught fire.

Most of the building's residents got out, but not Crawley, 60, or his girlfriend, Sandra Bruner, 55. They perished in the flames.

City officials said the unregulated boarding house was operating without proper permits and did not comply with city building codes. After a Houston Chronicle investigation uncovered gaps in the city's regulatory system that allowed such facilities to flourish, Mayor Sylvester Turner pledged to revamp the way the city oversees the few options available for people on the verge of homelessness.

"We need to take a look at them, and we are," Turner said in May.

Months later, Crawley is still waiting for action.

"I had a brother that burnt up in there and couldn't get out," he said. "What are we going to do about that?"

A multi-department city task force is drafting policies for previously unregulated lodging facilities like Briscoe's Place to face annual inspections and permits, plus additional fire safety provisions. The committee is also proposing changes to current regulations for boarding homes and other living facilities in an effort to streamline oversight citywide.

The task force hopes to present the proposed changes to the City Council's public safety committee in January.

"We've been moving as fast as we can, but there are a lot of moving pieces, and we want to get this right," said Lara Cottingham, deputy assistant director at the city's administration of regulatory affairs.

More Information Proposed city regulations A city task force is drafting proposed changes to the regulations covering lodging facilities, boarding homes and alternative housing facilities that had faced little oversight. Here are proposed changes scheduled to be presented to Houston the City Council's Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee in late January. Lodging facilities, including unregulated boarding houses and similar facilities (Does not include apartments, short-term rentals or hotels) Annual permit with process for revocation/denial/appeal First-year building code inspection, which may require the location to obtain a Certificate of Occupancy Annual life safety inspection prior to permit renewal Framed beds Posted and practiced fire evacuation plan Accessible fire extinguishers Operable smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors Readily available first aid supplies See More Collapse

'A complex problem'

After being tasked with overhauling the regulations, city officials realized they'd need to make more comprehensive changes to address other types of congregate living facilities, such as boarding homes, rooming houses and alternative housing facilities, Cottingham said.

"While they're all very similar, there are distinct nuances," Cottingham said. "If it were easy to do we would have done it, but this is a complex problem and it requires a lot of thought and a lot of cross-departmental collaboration and that takes time."

The force had originally planned to present its findings by the end of the summer, but Hurricane Harvey delayed that, she said. The city has held several meetings with residents and operators already, and hopes to schedule more in the coming weeks.

Among the most significant changes: requiring all types of "lodging facility" - a catchall term that includes boarding houses, bunkhouses and other facilities - to receive annual permits and "life safety" inspections.

The city is also planning to require "boarding homes" - a separate type of facility where three or more unrelated people live and receive some kind of medical care - to obtain annual permits. Currently, such facilities were only required to register with the city.

Fire Chief Samuel Pena said he supports the proposed changes.

"The focus on safety, building upkeep and code enforcement is critical to life safety in these facilities," he said. "Too many deaths in these types of buildings have a central theme: inadequate, locked, blocked, missing exits."

Such failures contribute to more nonresidential fire deaths than any other factor, he said.

"It is through code enforcement that fire and building codes move from just another regulation into life safety," he said. "In an effort to prevent needless deaths in these facilities, we need trained personnel in the field performing inspections and generally improving the fire safety in our communities."

Councilwoman Brenda Stardig, who chairs the city council's Public Safety and Homeland Security committee, said the proposed changes are "very important" to protect underprivileged residents who might otherwise be taken advantage of.

"We need to get a handle on and understand what's out there so we can make decisions that don't negatively impact the community, and so we can offer services to those in need," she said.

'In the shadows of society'

Advocates for low-income, disabled and other Houstonians with few places to go said that without stricter regulation, the city is certain to have future tragedies.

"They were low-income people, they were in the shadows of society, so why not put them in substandard housing?" said Dennis Borel, executive director of the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities. "That's the wrong attitude."

He warned against making permits prohibitively expensive, however.

"You don't want to shut down what is often a shelter of last resort for people with very low incomes, but you want to make [sure] there's no life safety threat there," Borel said.

Lonnie Provo, a former convict who runs a weekly broadcast called Oasis Ministry Radio, said former inmates frequently end up in facilities that are more dangerous or unsanitary than the cells they left.

"You can become so discouraged you want to give up," said Provo, who supports the city's overhaul efforts. "You have to make an environment such that you're able to build up character."

'Nobody was watching'

Months after the fire at Briscoe's Place, plywood covers the front of the damaged building. In a brief phone conversation, Moses Briscoe, the owner, said he was unsure if he would try to rebuild.

"That's on the backburner," he said, before hanging up.

The residents are long gone, of course. City officials say a third victim died shortly after the blaze.

Cherika Argus, one of the residents, moved to north Houston after the fire. She lives there still, with Roscoe, her pitbull terrier, and Shaqurria Norris, 21, her son's girlfriend.

Briscoe's Place had given her a cheap place to live. Like her old dwelling, her new unit has its challenges.

In her apartment, the ceiling is buckled in one room, damaged during Harvey.

She'd like to move, she said. Dogs bark in the apartment below, and the air outside reeks with the stench of dog feces.

"There's shootings and threats at night," said Argus, 38. "I don't feel safe."

She still thinks about the fire, when she banged on her neighbors' doors to help them get out. She thinks about Gregory Crawley and Sandra Bruner. She thinks about the locked front door that kept them from escaping, and the lack of windows that almost killed her.

She hopes the city makes good on its pledge to ensure that landlords don't cut corners or endanger residents.

"Nobody was watching," she said. "And there are a lot of buildings run like this."
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SWEENY - Debi and Spanky Boutell watched helplessly from their back deck as the massive steel barge pinballed from one side of the San Bernard River to the other.

Then they heard the unmistakable sound of wood snapping like toothpicks as the barge moved past their boathouse.

"I was standing over here at our place, all of a sudden we looked down there and we just hear these timbers break and my roof came off and started floating downriver," Spanky recounted. "It's probably in the Gulf of Mexico by now."

The runaway barge - 140 feet long, 45 feet wide and weighing 476 tons - was one of two barges and a tugboat that came unmoored on Aug. 28 in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and went careening down the San Bernard River through Brazoria County.

At least 16 docks and boathouses were demolished during the rampage. Now, property owners are bracing for a fight over who will pay for the damage.

The barge was moored at a terminal for Houston-based Phillips 66. A spokesman for the refinery, Dennis Nuss, said the owner of the barge, GSD Companies, and the owner of the tugboat, M&C Oilfield Services, both based in Louisiana, claimed full responsibility for the damage. The Phillips spokesman declined to comment on the timeline of events, including whether the refinery gave the companies ample warning to get the barge and tugboat off the river ahead of the storm.

M&C Oilfield Services did not respond to several requests for comment.

Coy Williams, the executive director for GSD Companies, said claims are under review.

"It's our company policy to not comment on pending or potential legal matters," Williams wrote in an email. "However, we can say that we are aware some property owners along the San Bernard River are making damage claims against our company, and we are currently in the process of reviewing those claims."

Both companies have hired an attorney, Scott Breitenwischer of Houston. He did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

'It's a nightmare'

The spud barge - named for the tall, cylindrical pipes on the vessel's perimeter that are driven into the floor of the river for increased stability - had been docked at the Phillips 66 terminal, less than 3 miles upriver from the Boutells' home.

The barge was contracted by Phillips to dredge the bottom of the river around the terminal. The spud barge was connected to a "pot barge," a smaller vessel used to dispose of the sand and silt dredged up from the river. The barges were still docked at the terminal when Harvey made landfall in Texas on Aug. 25.

At some point on Aug. 28, the two barges and tugboat became unmoored from the docking terminal and floated down the river, the rising waters pushing the spuds up from the riverbed and setting it on a path of destruction.

The barge crushed the wooden pylons of Kevin Sheehan's dock and boathouse on the Brazoria side of the river. It bounced back to the Sweeny side of the river and decimated Brian Rose's dock while folding the roof of Terry and Shelly Stubbs' two-story dock like an accordion.

At some point in the hours after the barge came loose, the U.S. Coast Guard and Brazoria County Sheriff's Office responded to the scene, along with employees from the barge company and Union Pacific railroad. The railroad company was worried that the barge would take out a railroad bridge about 2 miles downriver.

According to a half-dozen residents who live along the river, employees from the barge company managed to chase the barge and hop onto it from a johnboat, taking control of the tugboat and finally anchoring the barge to Josh Huffman's bulkhead on the Brazoria side of the river.

The spuds dumped mounds of sand on his land.

"We were putting our property on the market - it was done, graded, beautiful," Huffman said. "This is costing me the mortgage I'm paying, on top of the mortgage I'm paying for the land. It's a nightmare."

Repair costs add up

More than three months after the runaway barge ran amok on the San Bernard River, the 16 property owners who sustained damage are still trying to pick up the pieces.

The Boutells' house sits about 20 feet above the normal waterline at the top of a hill on the Sweeny side of the river, an area that local residents refer to as "the tunnel" because of the bulkheads that line both sides of the river bank.

In the late afternoon of Aug. 28, all they could see from their deck were the treetops poking out of the water like heads of broccoli and the wayward barge. A neighbor, Arthur Mayfield, called the house.

"I thought I saw your boathouse roof move," Mayfield told Spanky Boutell.

An adjustor estimated roughly $63,000 in damages to the Boutells' property.

"What do they expect us to do with all this sand?" Spanky Boutell wondered aloud recently, pointing to the sliver of dock he was able to salvage. "What's left of my dock was completely covered. The half you see we actually had to shovel that off. It's not fun; that sand's pretty heavy."

The walkway that led to a stairway down to Kevin Sheehan's dock and boathouse is now a plank to nowhere, the collapsed roof of his boathouse slung over the bannister of the staircase to the river bank. His tab for the damage is roughly $62,700. Across the river from Sheehan, Brian Rose's missing dock will cost him $45,000 to replace.

Terry and Shelly Stubbs got hit even harder - a whopping $145,000 in damage. With concrete pylons and a covered upper deck, the Stubbses' dock was built to outlast just about any cataclysmic weather event, but not the force of a steel barge.

Standing next to his dock, Terry Stubbs pulls out his phone, flipping through pictures of his kids jumping into the river, celebrating birthday parties, and using the rope swing that still hangs from the ceiling of the dock's second level, dangling next to a pylon knocked crooked by the barge.

"My dock is only six years old; I built it with pilings that are supposed to last 100 years in saltwater," Stubbs said.

"These other folks built their's with wood pilings which won't last as long, and some of them are 20 years old. They're perfectly fine, work great but you think about it, some of these folks are grandparents. This is their little slice of heaven down there, and this barge comes down and bowls it over."

Footing the bill

The lack of a swift response from the parties responsible for the barge has sowed further confusion and frustration.

Shelly Stubbs believes the breakdown in communication is a calculated play by the barge and tugboat company to force the affected river residents to take legal action. She wonders if the companies would rather take their chances in a lawsuit against a group of overextended property owners than pay to repair hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

"I don't understand why they have an attorney," Shelly Stubbs said. "They have an insurance company, why do they need an attorney? Unless they're going to be uncooperative. To me that was a red flag. They're lawyered up."

Kevin Sheehan agreed.

"They're playing the we've-got-the-insurance-company-with-deep-pockets-and-you-don't card, basically. Which is wrong," he said.

While the group of 16 are considering filing lawsuits against GSD and M&C Oilfield Services, there is hardly a guarantee they will recoup the damage to their properties. The river residents could pay significant out-of-pocket costs even if the barge and tugboat companies are found liable for the damage.

Any potential lawsuit also could be subjected to a nuance of maritime law called the limitation of liabilities, which states that if a vessel causes damage without the knowledge or direct involvement of its owners, they are not liable for anything more than the vessel's post-incident value.

Even for runaway barges, there is precedent for limited liability. In 2011, a district judge in Louisiana ruled in favor of a company that owned a 200-foot barge that came unmoored during Hurricane Katrina, exonerating the company for massive damage that included destruction of several houses and a school bus.

"The owner of the barge may be able to escape liability altogether or limit his liabilities to the value of the barge itself," said Thomas Fitzhugh, a maritime law expert and partner at Schouest, Bamdas, Soshea & BenMaier in Houston. "It's been a feature of maritime law for a very long time."

A letter issued by the Texas General Land Office after Harvey further complicates matters, as it orders any damaged coastal structure to be rebuilt by Jan. 10. The letter states that coastal residents can apply for an extension at a GLO field office.

In the meantime, the victims from the runaway barge find it difficult to even look at the river. The brackish water that once was a haven for summer relaxation is now a harsh reminder of Harvey's residual impact.

"It's too depressing," said Shelly Stubbs. "We usually spend Christmas down here for the last nine years, and we decided this year I just can't do it."

Standing on the piles of sand caked on the bank from the flooding, Debi Boutell is still haunted by the shocking image of the barge weaving the river.

"I look at the river," she said, "and it just makes me cry now."
Godofredo A. Vasquez/Houston Chronicle

Who knows who you'll run into at the succession of holiday wassails and New Year's parties being held across Houston? Maybe J.J. Watt will show up at a neighborhood fundraiser. Perhaps George H.W. Bush will drop by. But there's one guy everyone should keep an eye out for: Kevin Hicks. He's the superintendent of Accelerated Intermediate Academy, a public school charter system in Texas that has received more than $55 million in federal and state monies since opening in 2001, as reported by Jacob Carpenter in the Chronicle.

Apparently he's a rare sight around his school, according to some parents and former teachers, even though he's paid more than a quarter-million dollars each year. So if you happen to run into Hicks, would you mind asking him a few questions?
Free Christmas tree disposal

COLUMBUS  The Christmas tree drop-off site for residents of Columbus is at Platte County Agricultural Park.

This is only for live Christmas trees, which must be left south of the south entrance to Ag Park. Wreaths and garland won't be accepted.

All ornaments, lights, wires and bags must be removed from trees before they're dropped off.

Trees will be accepted through Jan. 22.

For more information, contact the city of Columbus.

Group for blind meeting locally

COLUMBUS -- The National Federation of the Blind will meet from 3-4 p.m. Thursday at the Eagles Club.

Attendees are asked to bring a snack to share and their own beverage. The group will be electing new officers and paying dues at this meeting.

For more information, contact Chapter President Linda Mentink at 402-563-8138.

3 people killed in house fire

INDIANOLA (AP)  Three people died in an early morning house fire in central Nebraska.

Authorities responded to the fire about 1 1/2 miles south of Indianola shortly after midnight Thursday. Indianola Fire Chief Tom Davidson says the single-story house was engulfed in flames, and firefighters spent most of the day battling the flames.

Davidson says four people lived in the home, and only one was able to escape. The Indianola, McCook and Red Willow fire departments all responded to the emergency call.

Davidson says cold temperatures made it difficult to battle the fire. He says flames were coming through the roof of the home.

None of the people inside the house were identified. The Nebraska State Fire Marshal's Office was requested for a fire investigation.

Beer stores fight tax bill

LINCOLN (AP)  The owners of four now-closed stores that sold millions of cans of beer next to an American Indian reservation where alcohol is banned are fighting a steep Nebraska tax bill.

An audit by the Nebraska Department of Revenue determined the shuttered stores owe more than $600,000 in taxes and underrepresented nearly $1.7 million in sales from August 2013 to August 2016. The stores closed in April after the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission denied the renewal of their liquor licenses following concerns that local law enforcement was inadequate to allow beer sales to continue.

The four stores are in the tiny village of Whiteclay on the border of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The reservation is plagued by a litany of alcohol-related problems, including high rates of fetal alcohol syndrome, and activists complain that Whiteclay fuels those issues. The village has only a handful of residents, yet sold the equivalent of about 3.5 million cans of beer annually.

Owners of the shuttered shops  Arrowhead Inn, State Line Liquor, D&S Pioneer Service and Jumping Eagle Inn  have asked a judge to review the audit's findings. The owners say the review was based on incorrect estimates. Their attorney filed nine petitions for review last week alleging the department's decisions were "arbitrary, capricious and/or unreasonable."
My New Year's wish is for the health and resurgence of democracy. What follows is a slightly edited version of a morning prayer I offered last month at the Appleton Chapel of the Memorial Church at Harvard University.

Let us say a prayer for democracy. But let us do more than pray. Let's ask ourselves what it means to live by a democratic ethic. "Here on earth," as John F. Kennedy said, "God's work must truly be our own."

We know that democracy, particularly in its liberal form, is embattled, facing threats within nations that have long been proud of their democratic traditions, and competition from systems that tout themselves as better able to deliver many of life's good things.

But the greatest threat to democracy may be our own indifference.

Democracy properly encourages open-mindedness. But are we so open-minded that we are not willing to say, unequivocally, that a system providing for free speech, freedom of conscience, a free media, freedom of religion, and genuinely free elections is both morally and practically better than alternative systems? Are we so concerned about our tendency to deify our own culture and our own traditions, are we so turned off by the invocation of democracy in defense of wars we might have opposed, that we are unwilling to assert that democracy is worth defending across cultures and nations?

Democracy is and always has been imperfect in practice. Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident who became his country's president, told Congress in 1990: "As long as people are people, democracy in the full sense of the word will always remain an ideal. One may approach democracy as one would a horizon, in ways that may be better or worse, but which can never be fully attained. In this sense, you, too, are merely approaching democracy."

In embracing democracy, as the historian James Kloppenberg has written, we are standing up for three contested principles: popular sovereignty, autonomy and equality. We are also embracing three premises: deliberation, pluralism and reciprocity.

We know that in its liberal form, democracy must at times resist popular sovereignty - a majority of the people cannot vote away their own rights or anyone else's. We know that our own quest for autonomy can conflict with our obligations to the communities to which we owe debts. We know that many democracies, including our own, are a long way from true equality.

Yet in the face of these tensions and imperfections, which values would we place above popular sovereignty, autonomy and equality - and also above deliberation, pluralism and reciprocity? If we would uphold these commitments, we should be prepared, with Havel, to defend the democratic ideal.

We should also be prepared to live it. For religious people, the grounding for democracy is a belief that all human beings are endowed with equal dignity by God. But one need not be religious to insist on the equal dignity of our fellow human beings. One need only be a small-d democrat.

A devotion to democracy thus ought to affect how we treat others. We often have to deal with hierarchies, but we should never internalize them. Those at the bottom of formal authority structures see things and know things that cannot be seen from on high. We should, as Pope Francis has said, seek the wisdom available only on the peripheries. We learn from experience - and from the news - that the distributions of virtue, compassion and judgment are not correlated with the distributions of power and wealth.

Democracy, finally, is rooted in two intuitions, about our aspirations to transcendence, which allow us to imagine a better world, and about our proclivities to sin and failure, which require limits on the power any of us can wield. Thus Reinhold Niebuhr's aphorism: "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."

The conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr. once said that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. I no doubt have a higher opinion of the Harvard faculty than Buckley did, but the instinct behind his provocation should stay with us.

Democracy imposes a discipline. It demands that no fortunate group should ever claim, by virtue of its position or its educational attainments, the unchallenged right to impose its will on others. To invoke the late Benjamin Barber's lovely phrase, the only aristocracy democracy fully sanctions is "an aristocracy of everyone." It is the one sort of aristocracy worth praying for.

E.J. Dionne's email address is ejdionne@washpost.com. twitter.com/EJDionne.
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First, the (really) good news: Today's world has spectacular potential for improvement. And getting to a vastly better life (for all living things) is quite straightforward.

The bad news: Humanity's greatest roadblock is itself. Consider religious intolerance, systemic racism, international conflicts, environmental decline, ruinous health care costs, dysfunctional taxation, stalled immigration reform, domestic terrorism - just a sampling of our own country's always-burning social/political wreckage.

Central to such self-inflicted tragedies, rampant divisiveness continues to fuel the flames. A better future, therefore, depends mainly on each of us recognizing just how severely this polarization weakens our lives, communities, country and planet. Such awareness calls for a keener sense of what really divides us.

In 1776 in Philadelphia, an assembly of forward-thinking colonists completed and signed America's Declaration of Independence, arguably marking the birth of our country.

Aside from divorcing Britain, no words in this monumental document have ever been more significant than "all men are created equal." Yet, how many of these "Founding Fathers" - all white men of privilege and power, most slave owners or sympathetic to slavery - offered this soaring proclamation of equivalence to anyone but fellow white males?

As years passed, and despite our founders' many good intentions, America's affluent white patriarchy only tightened its control. This ruling class, despite countless truly admirable policies, has always ensured itself the best deal - typically at massive cost to the whole, and typically with devastating effect for society's marginalized.

Fast-forward to today. After nearly 250 years of public policy by America's (mostly white male) "elites," the richest one-tenth of 1 percent now owns as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent combined; the world's eight richest individuals own as much as Earth's poorest 4 billion!

Imagine if America weren't forever beset by social and political divisiveness. Might we pause to consider the insane gulf between rich and poor? Might we unite to replace our extractive, exclusive, money-strangled "democracy" - perhaps with a guarantee of true "of the people, for the people, by the people" government?

America's (and the world's) puppeteers understand that a more tolerant, unified population is far more difficult to manipulate and plunder than a divided one. Likewise, a less distracted electorate would quickly rally to end the culture of money and influence that controls our country - and immensely favors the well-to-do.

For these reasons, powerful interests aggressively promote policies intended to deepen our disagreements. Meanwhile, many of us swallow this toxic bait - even though inclusive, "greater good" policies would benefit everyone - not least today's champions of divisiveness.

Humankind can absolutely continue battling today's and tomorrow's (and yesterday's) division-fueled, society-crushing, life-reducing firestorms. Take a moment to imagine a better life for yourself and family, your community, nation and the entire world. (Dream big; our potential for improvement is enormous!)

Amazingly, the route to such a future - the only route - isn't complicated. By recognizing how fully our divisive attitudes and policies block the secure, prosperous, healthy world that each of us wants, space opens for cooperation and fairness. Then simply return to America's founding documents: the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. From daily routines, to teaching our children, to participating in democracy, insist on options that honor these inclusive guidelines. Especially insist on them when voting.

Whether one's focus of advancement is personal, family, all humanity or some combination thereof, we do best via the consistent advancement of everyone. Thus, with little more than a shift in attitude, anyone can help untether the world's fantastic potential.

Come on, America - let's cut the divisiveness that enslaves us! Instead, by unifying around our nation's original creed, the life we now only dream of can quickly begin to take shape.

Fryberger is an architect living in Ketchum, Idaho.
Jan. 20, 2017, marked a new beginning in our country. On that day, President Donald Trump was inaugurated and immediately began working to restore integrity and meaning to our Constitution, to rule of law, and to turning our economy around.

With a focus on individual choice, freedoms and the rights upon which this country was founded, over the last 12 months I have worked alongside our President to once again make this country great. As I sat outside the Capitol and watched our new president taking the oath of office last January, I knew it was no longer going to be business as usual in Washington  exactly the type of change which was needed and exactly the change which millions of Americans had rightfully called for.

When I look back on the past year, I see a booming economy, millions of new jobs, ISIS on the run, the biggest pay raise for our troops in 8 years, and a record number of conservative pro-life judges appointed to the courts  including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. We have also seen historic middle income tax cuts with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Obamacares individual mandate repealed, and droves of Obama-era regulations removed. In fact, for every new regulation, we have repealed 22 old regulations, saving taxpayers more than $8 billion.

Under President Trumps leadership, we have lowered Missourians electric bills by relying on our countrys own natural resources, opening up parts of Alaska to energy exploration, and approving the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. The EPA is no longer a job-killing factory piling on rules and regulations left and right. President Trumps EPA has taken my recommendation to get rid of WOTUS, which tried to regulate every drop of water on Missourians land. The EPA also adopted my proposal to stop the harmful sue and settle practice, a massive loophole that allowed radical groups to sue the government and get taxpayer money through closed-door, out of court agreements.

Despite a total lack of support from obstructionists on both sides of the aisle, President Trump and Congress still managed to overcome historic obstacles to achieve major accomplishments in 2017. Unfortunately, some decided to waste their time and taxpayer dollars to try and tear President Trump down through lies, misinformation and even an embarrassing effort to try and impeach the president that was supported by members of the Democrat leadership. As we worked to cut taxes, repeal Obamacare and defund sanctuary cities, the left threw up road blocks at every turn. As of mid-December, 477 bills had passed the House of Representatives while 378 of those were stuck in the Senate. Included in those efforts was a full repeal and replacement of the government takeover of healthcare, further proposals to lower energy prices, measures to prevent taxpayer dollars from going to abortion providers, protections for your second amendment rights and legislation to provide for full funding of the childrens health program known as S-CHIP  all proposals passed by the House of Representatives, but blocked from reaching President Trumps desk by Senate obstructionism.

Whether we are making our country safer by ending chain migration, defunding sanctuary cities like San Francisco that harbor illegal immigrants, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, changing our federal welfare system from a hand-out to a hand-up, or creating more healthcare choice and competition by getting the government out of the business of health insurance, there is plenty of work to get done together. As we look to 2018, I hope obstructionists in Congress will learn to work with their colleagues and the Trump Administration so we can continue to improve the lives and freedoms of hardworking folks in Missouri and across the country.

We are just getting started in our efforts to restore this nation to what it was intended to be, and while I am proud of the work thus far, I remain mindful, committed and invigorated to meet the challenges and fights which lie ahead.
Gary Glen Miller, 72, of Simmons, Mo., passed away suddenly Dec. 26, 2017, at Cox South Hospital in Springfield, Mo. He was born May 31, 1945, to Martin and Winniefred (Camm) Miller in Cabool, Mo.

Gary was raised south of Cabool on his parents farm and attended Cabool High School, graduating in 1963. He raised purebred hogs in high school and showed them at area fairs and the Missouri State fair. He won many awards for his purebred hogs.

He married Madeline Edith Wells on March 20, 1971. To this union of 46 years were born two daughters, Teri and Trisha.

He went on to be a lifelong farmer of Texas County, Mo., having a dairy herd and raising commercial beef cattle. Among his other endeavors, he was an insurance and real estate agent, in which he co-owned Cabool Insurance and Real Estate in Cabool, Mo., for almost 20 years.

He loved wheeling and dealing with people. Gary enjoyed the used auto business, which he owned for over 15 years in Simmons, Mo., and in his later years PaPas Mall. He made many friends and acquaintances in his many years of being in business and farming. Garys leisure time was spent by being at the picnic grounds on the Piney River with his friends and family.

Gary is survived by his wife, Madeline of the home; daughter, Teri and husband, Steve Harrah of Greenbrier, Ark.; daughter, Trisha Miller of Houston, Texas; two grandchildren, Savannah and Emmett; and sister, Lois Hemphill of the Kansas City area.

Gary was preceded in death by his parents, Martin and Winniefred Miller; his brothers, Charles Miller and Raymond Miller; and two nephews, Mark Miller and Frank Miller.

A memorial service was 3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 29, 2017, at Evans Funeral Home with Pastor Orval Gayer officiating. Mr. Miller was cremated under the direction of Evans Funeral Home.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made in his memory to the American Heart Association or your local animal shelter. To send an online condolence to the family, go to www.evansfh.com.
COLUMBUS  Mariano Menendez has several life experiences he calls "supernatural."

And each helped lead him to Columbus.

The Word of Life Church pastor began his life in Guatemala, where he lived until he was 22 years old. Wanting to spread his wings, he took a job an ocean away.

I lived for one year in Germany, Menendez said. I had a job as an au pair, but it was for a dog.

That's where he met someone who would change his life.

My new friend introduced me to the difference between having a relationship with God versus religion, Menendez said. I had not yet given my life to Christ. I had heard of Jesus, but I didnt know Him personally. But this friend of mine talked about Him like He was her friend. Just like she would talk about anyone else.

This friend noticed Menendez's life was heading down a troubling path. She convinced him to attend a religious retreat back in his home country of Guatemala.

I spent Holy Week, which is what Guatemalans call Easter, at this retreat, Menendez explained. The whole week I wasnt really into the religious part of the whole thing. My friends were starting to really worry and pray hard for me. Then we were at this big fellowship event at the retreat. I had a vision of Jesus when I was in this big crowd of 200 people.

The vision was exactly what he expected Jesus to look like.

He had a white robe and sash with long, brown hair, Menendez said. He had the most loving eyes I have ever seen. He walked up to me through the crowd, and said, It is I you are looking for,' and I said, Yes you are.' And that was it.

This experience inspired Menendez to intensely study the Bible before deciding to leave Guatemala to spread God's word.

God called to me and told me to go into the land and use my languages, he said. I obviously knew Spanish and English, but I also knew a good amount of German from my time there. At this point in my life, if God had asked me to cut off my pinkie I would have said, OK, cut it off quick. So I went to school to learn even more.

He spent one year in Mexico attending the Instituto Teologico Vision Internacional in 1996. The next year he was ordained.

Ive been in full-time ministry for 20 years now, Menendez said. None of this happened until I was 24. So I spent 24 years with the devil and Im working on 20 years with God.

After ordination, Menendez heard another call from God to work in the United States.

The Lord wanted me to stay in the U.S., he said. So I stayed in Texas for a year working at a Spanish mission. After that year was up, I moved to Grand Island to be a youth pastor.

He met his wife Heidi in Grand Island.

God told me that this woman was to be my wife, Menendez said. When I told her this, thinking she would call me crazy, she looked at me, smiled and said, I know.' It was all so supernatural."

Soon after their engagement, the couple moved to Scottsbluff, where they lived for 11 years. Three years into that venture, Menendez was invited to be a guest pastor at Palabra de Vida in Columbus. The one-time visit became an annual trip for eight years before God's plans changed again.

God asked me one day, Why dont you just pastor here?'" Menendez said of Columbus. We heard that Word of Life didnt have a pastor for some time, so I applied there and have been their pastor for five years now.

"We love it. The community is neat and the people always want to help. I know God wants us here, and that makes it paradise.

Sharing the lesson he learned many years ago, Menendez encourages his congregation to understand the difference between religion and having a relationship with God.

When God is in your life, thats a relationship, he said. Hes in your everyday life and every thought. Its not about religious duties, but having a strong relationship. Its about knowing we are children of God."
The world becomes more interconnected every day, and the next advancement in wireless broadband is on the verge of accelerating that trend. New 5G wireless delivers high-speed, low-latency features to support the sensors that power many smart city technologies.

Verizons plan to test the technology in 11 American municipalities could have a significant impact on how cities do business, says Samir Saini, CIO for Atlanta. I dont think people realize what a leap 5G is from 4G, he says. 5G is effectively the speed you get from a direct fiber connection.

While Verizon hasnt yet turned on the 5G tap locally, Saini sees the new technology as a gateway to a range of benefits. Among other advantages, 5Gs high speeds and low latency could enable large numbers of public safety cameras streaming in high definition, he says.

Verizon Embarks on Large-Scale 5G Test

The Verizon 5G Technology Forum formed in late 2015 in cooperation with Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Intel, LG, Nokia, Qualcomm and Samsung. The company believes the 5G project is the widest test to date of the emerging technology, with trials in Atlanta; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Bernardsville, N.J.; Brockton, Mass.; Dallas; Denver; Houston; Miami; Sacramento, Calif.; Seattle; and Washington, D.C.

While 5G is not expected to replace 4G, it does offer the opportunity for a range of uses, including smart city applications that employ the Internet of Things, says Chris McCann, spokesperson for Verizon. Service has already started in eight of the municipalities, he adds. Details on which cities are now live and when a more widespread commercial deployment may occur likely will be released in late 2018.

In addition to boosting public safety, 5G could provide the infrastructure for the rollout of driverless vehicles on a wide scale, Saini says. The technology will allow cars to communicate with each other and with traffic control systems. I think its a major stepping-stone to making vehicles fully autonomous, he says.

Providers Make Widespread 5G Adoption Possible

Other providers are making moves to implement their own 5G initiatives. T-Mobile US will roll out its 5G network across the country by 2020, Reuters has reported. AT&T announced plans to deploy advanced LTE features that will provide faster speeds in selected markets, and predicts that it will deliver standards-based 5G mobile networks as soon as late 2018, the company said in a press release.

I know Verizon has applied for quite a few permits, but so have a lot of others, says William Finch, CIO for the city of Dallas. Atlanta finds itself in a similar situation. Were talking with everyone, Saini says, and everyone is talking with us.
Chris Gruba of BRPC walks town meeting through proposed bylaw changes on Thursday night. The special town meeting ran 2 1/2 hours and some 77 voters attended. PreviousNext

Clarksburg Passes Pot, Solar Bylaws; Nixes School District Article



Voters approve an amendment to one of the zoning bylaws. CLARKSBURG, Mass.  Voters had more of an appetite for marijuana than solar arrays at Thursday's special town meeting.

The final article, which would have authorized the town to enter into a school district agreement with Stamford, Vt., was defeated after School Committee members objected that they had had no input on the question and that there was no agreement in hand.

The amended bylaws 1) aligned three industrial zone areas along actual property lines to clarify districts; 2) turned two industrial 1 zones (the town dump land on West Cross Road and the former Krutiak lumber mill) into industrial and service zones, allowing businesses such as medical and accounting; 3) turned the I-1 zone on at the old bus yard on Middle Road to a commercial 1 zone.

Chris Gruba, a senior planner with Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, walked town meeting through the zoning articles.

"They are interrelated but we tried to break them down to be as separate as possible," he said, in case one or more did not pass.

Gruba has been working with Planning Board and Town Administrator Carl McKinney on adjusting and updating the industrial zoning areas as part of a local technical assistance grant that runs out on Sunday.

"With the steep slopes, and the swamps, and the rivers and the roads, we've got about 37 percent of the town that is usable," McKinney said. "So we're trying to edit our zoning bylaws to make it appropriately usable for that 37 percent to promote growth, to promote a tax base we're going to need."

The change from I-1 to I-S, or industrial/service, was to make those areas more avialable to the development of professional services, medical facilities, and financial institutions while still keeping options for light industry. It also added dry cleaners, banks and credit unions, and drive-throughs that were not listed on the town's table of uses.Senior housing had been added to the uses at a previous town meeting.

One change was made on the floor: to allow automotive garages to exist in industrial/services zones.

The amendment was promoted by Robert Bona, who owns the garage building at the bottom of Cross Road near River Road. He noted the table of uses specifically did not allow garages and asked how that would affect his property. The discussion went on for some time and a motion was made to add garages, which passed. Bona's property, however, is actually located in the adjacent commercial zone.

Another industrial zone on Middle Road was changed to commercial and includes four parcels that have several houses and bus yard owned by the Tietgens family. The change does not affect the bus yard in any way but it does allow for future residential use and removed what McKinney called a "cloud" on the deeds of the other residences. Residential dwellings are not allowed in industrial zones but can exist in commercial ones.

At least an hour of the 2 1/2 hour meeting focused on the marijuana and solar bylaws.

The proposed bylaw on marijuana production, processing, testing and retail would have limited those uses to the only existing Industrial 1 zone that encompasses Town Hall to the former Strong-Hewat mill. However, several residents pushed back on that asking that retail or other uses be expanded into commercial, I-S and agricultural zones.

Gruba said they had tried to "get into the minds" of residents in determining what they would like to see in terms of pot regulation. Most of the bylaw was basic permitting and conditions and would require a special permit from the Planning Board. It would allow the town to institute up to a 3 percent tax on marijuana sales.

The state Cannabis Control Commission is in the process of filing draft regulations that are expected to be released in March. The state will begin issuing licenses in April 1, with about 75 licenses expected to be available statewide.

"What we trying to do is get ahead [of the state regulations] and have a bylaw in place, some sort of protection for the town of Clarksburg, before all this hits on April 1," he said. "The bylaw would be marginally imperfect but you can go back and amend that later. But it's better to have something than nothing."

Residents Jason Morin and Michael Milazzo questioned why the industry was being limited to one location, arguing that it should be allowed in commercial and agricultural zones as well.

Gruba said the cultivation facilities would be large, industrial-style buildings that would not be amenable in residential or agricultural areas. Such buildings would also require a lot of electricty and water. At this point, exterior growing is not allowed by the state.

Milazzo objected to the use of two-year special permits for both the industrial zones (specifically gravel operations) and for the marijuana bylaw. McKinney said special permitting was limited by the Legislature.

"So you're talking about somebody investing once again, potentially building an entire facility with a two-year guarantee for business," he said. "I think it should be SPA so you can go to the zoning board with a site plan review the town can approve it for more than two years so somebody can have a chance for recouping their cost. And I think it should be in all three zones: commercial, I-1 and I-S."

McKinney said he was seeking another grant to tackle the town's commercial zoning. Agricultural uses or further review of marijuana could be done at that time.

In the end, the bylaw was amended to also allow retail marijuana in industrial/service areas.



Matthew Parlon, right, of Blue Wave explains the reasoning behind the agricultural solar arrays, which were not part of the proposed bylaw. When the solar bylaw came up, Matthew Parlon, a project development analyst with solar developer Blue Wave, was allowed by town meeting to speak on behalf of AJ Randall of Daniels Road, with whom Blue Wave has been developing an agricultural solar array. Parlon and Randall asked that the bylaw be amended to allow solar as an agricultural accessory or tabled until they could make a presentation. Randall was hoping to use the solar leases to help him in starting his farm and Parlon said the town could see $1 million in payments over the 20-year lifetime of the array.

Randall had some supporters but others were concerned that the solar panels would be an eyesore. And the information that the arrays would be close to 14 feet tall  about the ceiling height of the school's gymnasium  seemed to cool further support. The panels would have to be that high to allow livestock or crops to go under them, explained Parlon.

The bylaw had already been amended after a public hearing in November with 500-foot setbacks and the creation of a solar overlay district on the more sparsely settled and open west side of town. That decision was also questioned by residents who believed they had land on the east side of town where arrays could be installed without disturbing anyone's views. Could those areas be included or exceptions made?

"If we're talking about that kind of massive change, I don't know how we can write it all tonight," Gruba said. "I can't go back to the office and write it."

Moderator Bryan Tanner noted there were a number of ideas about changes and would the Planning Board and Select Board at some time consider those changes, particularly the large scale overlay?

"Obviously you've segregated one half of the town and said, 'have at it,' " he said. "And yet there are other areas of the town, such as Mr. Davis, where it's out in the middle of nowhere."

McKinney said those could be revisited but his concern was that the town had no bylaw and three arrays have already been installed to some complaints.

"I want to be sensitive to overreaching, we're trying to strike a balance," he said. "We're a Green Community, we're trying to promote nonfossil fuel energy generation where possible, but also to make it work in the town. We held public hearings and it was loud and clear at the public hearing that they wanted to regulate it."

Town meeting also:

 Created revolving funds to capture fees for the Board of Health (building inspector salary), Police Department (for training/equipment) and Town Hall (cable franchise fee for technology). All three funds have existed for years but had not been approved through town meeting.

 Renamed of the town field as Renamed of the town field as Peter A. Cook Veterans Memorial Field , and the installation of signs at Cook Field and the old cemetery at Horrigan Road. Edward Denault, a member of Peter A. Cook Post 9144 Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the VFW would place a plaque and stone at the field and planned to work on the cemetery, which contains some of the town's founders. It will be named Clarks Founders Burial Site, and the sign will include the dates of the first and last buried there.

 Shot down the article to allow the town to enter into an agreement with Stamford after two members of the School Committee angrily objected, saying they had only learned about the article that afternoon.

"We were unaware that this was even on there," Chairwoman Patricia Prengruber said, adding that no one from the School Committee had been invited to any meetings or told of any decisions.

McKinney said the wording had come from the Legislature's general counsel and was being submitted to seek to grant money for a study. The town and Stamford have had informal discussions about forming an interstate district that were prompted by changes in educational groupings in Vermont.

"We've been working on this for quite some time. This is not to enter into an agreement, this is to allow us to negotiate an agreement," McKinney said. A home-rule petition had to been submitted before the town could do anything, he said, and not submitting would mean no grant money and push any further action another six to 18 months out.

School officials, however, said no negotiations or decisions should be made without the School Committee being part of them. Prengruber motioned for the article to be tabled for review, which passed with only a few hands in opposition.
Berkshire County 4-H'ers celebrate their accomplishments this year.

Berkshires Beat: Berkshire 4-H Holds Awards, Recognition Event

Great job

About 100 people gathered to honor and celebrate the accomplishments of 4-H'ers, volunteers and others on Dec. 2. Volunteers were recognized for years of service: one year, Henry Cadorette III, Marie Goodermote, Mathew Goodermote, Glenda Matos-Carter, Melanie Richard, Jonathan Rowe, Nancy Smith, Jennifer Soldato, Courtney Sparks, Elysse Tuper and Haley Vadakin; five years, Michelle Daly; 25 years, Henry Cadorette Jr.; and 45 years, Scott Robinson.



The "Friend of 4-H" award goes to individuals or businesses that help Berkshire 4-H. The recipients this year were Laura Allen, Lisa Dachinger, Gail Guarda and Gregg Petricca. The "Fair Honor Roll" is chosen by those involved with the annual Youth Fair; recipients were Henry Cadorette Jr., Henry Cadorette III, Laurie Cadorette, Donna Chandler, Jenna Gustafson, Hannah Heath and Sherry Mangiardi. The Scott Robinson college scholarship went to Caitlin Moriarty and Isabel Ryan-Smith won the "Loving Hands" award.



Recognized for representing Berkshire 4-H at the Big E were Faith and Hope Motta. For representing Berkshire 4-H at the Massachusetts State 4-H Horse show, the following youth were recognized: Jazmine Bona, Allison Brazie, Brooke Decker, Katilyn Decker and Kayli Smith. Regional 4-H Horse Show recognition was given to Jazmine Bona, Allison Brazie, Brooke Decker, Katilyn Decker, Amber Dube, Lillee Getchell, Kayli Smith, Devyn Vadakin, Vanessa Wald, Brialynn Wells, Brooke Wells and Emily Whitaker. Nominated to the state competition and to Big E for their public speaking were Fiora Caligiuri-Randall, Faith Motta and Hope Motta.



Berkshire County 4-H Ambassadors for the previous 4-H year were Fiora Caligiuri-Randall, Nicholas Soldato and Thomas Williams. County medals are given to youth for turning in their 4-H Records that record the progress on their projects. Cloverbuds who were recognized were Amaya Cannon and Devyn Vadakin (a cloverbud is a member 5 to 7 years of age). County medals for projects were given out to Allison Brazie (horse), Fiora Caligiuri-Randall (community service, leadership, performing arts and visual arts), Brooke Decker (horse), Katilyn Decker (horse), Daniel Epe (sheep), Isaac Epe (sheep), Lillee Getchell (horse), Faith Motta (poultry, veterinary science), Hope Motta (community service, poultry), Isabel Ryan-Smith (sheep), Kayli Smith (horse), Nicholas Soldato (photography), Charlotte Tuper (rabbit), Vanessa Wald (horse), and Brooke Wells (horse).



The "Top H Award" can only be won by a 4-H'er once while they are a junior (ages 8 to 13) and once when they are a senior (ages 14 to 19). It is the highest county award. This award is based on their 4-H record and reviewed by 4-H staff outside of Berkshire County. The 2016-2017 Top H winners were junior Faith Motta and senior Fiora Caligiuri-Randall.

Coming up roses

Three Berkshire County students will be marching in the 2018 Tournament of Roses Parade with the UMass Minuteman Marching Band on Jan. 1. Rosemary Harrison of Pittsfield and William Superneau and John Wood from North Adams will be performing in the parade alongside 400 of their classmates. Coverage of the parade starts at 11 a.m. on various television networks, including NBC, ABC and HGTV.

Goodbye, trees

Christmas tree pickup will accompany the regular trash pickup schedule in the city of Pittsfield. In the event that the truck is full, this may result in a bypass and will require pickup the following week. Residents have the option of leaving their trees curbside until the next pick-up date. If trees are left out, please ensure that they do not obstruct pedestrian or vehicle traffic.

A community cares

Southwestern Vermont Medical Center hosted leaders from a dozen local social services agencies for a lunch in mid-December in celebration of the third anniversary of the Community Care Team. Those in attendance represented Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, United Counseling Services, Bayada, Support and Services at Home, Shires Housing, the Vermont Department of Human Services, and others. Many shared heartfelt success stories as a part of the event's program.



The Community Care Team is an innovative program that helps social service providers coordinate their work for the clients and patients they share. The program improves the lives of patients and clients by meeting their needs more efficiently. The change has related to a 44 percent decrease in Emergency Department visits among the participants.



The program usually meets participants for the first time in the SVMC Emergency Department. While they may have a medical issue, the participants are discovered to have other barriers preventing them from staying well: addiction, behavioral health conditions, or housing and food needs. At that point, they are asked if they would like to participate in the Community Care Team program. Their agreement gives a health promotion advocate stationed in the Emergency Department permission to discuss their needs with community organizations that could help them.



The Community Care Team program is a part of the Accountable Communities for Health project, which gained national recognition as the Magnet Prize recipient at the American Nurses Credentialing Centers Magnet Conference in Houston in October.

Raise the BFAIR roof

BFAIR (Berkshire Family & individual Resources) has kicked off its 2017 Annual Campaign this month. The campaign's title, Raise the Roof, accurately describes how BFAIR intends to utilize the funds raised. All proceeds from the Raise the Roof campaign will be used to support renovations and equipment at their newest residential acquisition in Williamstown.



Already the operator of 11 homes throughout the Berkshires, Northampton, and, soon to open, Westfield, BFAIR is no stranger to renovating homes and providing supportive services to people living with developmental disabilities, acquired brain injury, autism and elders.



Supporting the Raise the Roof 2017 Annual Campaign can be done via credit card or check donation. Click here for easy online donation format, or checks payable to BFAIR may be mailed or hand delivered to their main administrative office in North Adams. All donations made to BFAIR are tax-deductible.

Reaching out

The Northern Berkshire Neighbors program of the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition is seeking community-minded individuals to take part in a free Community Outreach and Civic Engagement training program. Ideal participants must be committed to strengthening the Northern Berkshires by exploring how they can make a positive impact and learning how to assist residents in accessing available services.

Tax volunteers sought

The Berkshire United Way is currently seeking volunteers to support their Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program at three South County locations this coming tax season: Berkshire South Regional Community Center, Community Health Programs in Great Barrington and October Mountain Financial Services adjacent to Lee Bank in Lee.



The VITA program offers free tax help to people with individual/household incomes of less than $54,000 a year, who need assistance in preparing their own tax returns. Free specialized training is available for tax preparers and reviewers; additional roles, which don't require tax certification, are also available. Interested parties should email Julie Singley or call 413-442-6948, ext. 32.

Tow the line

The Pittsfield Department of Community Development Recreation Program is seeking applicants for rope tow operators at the Osceola Park Rope Tow for the winter season. Candidates will be responsible for administering and supervising the operation of the Osceola Park Rope Tow. Those wishing to be considered for the position must be at least 18 years old and possess the stamina and ability to work exclusively outdoors in all weather conditions.



The work schedule will be during weekends and school vacations, and is weather dependent. Interested applicants must submit their application online.














FULLERTON  Milton Lenard Hardle, 92, of Fullerton, passed away peacefully with his wife by his side on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017, at Fullerton Care Center and Rehabilitation in Fullerton.

Services will be held 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 30, at Fullerton Community Church (formerly First Presbyterian Church) in Fullerton, with the Rev. Janice Farrell officiating. Burial will follow at Silver Creek Cemetery in Silver Creek, with military honors by American Legion Post 151 of Fullerton. Visitation will be 5-7 p.m. Friday at the church.

Palmer-Santin Funeral Home in Fullerton is serving the family.

Milton was born July 4, 1925, to Earl and Naomi (Wright) Hardle in Silver Creek. He graduated from Silver Creek High School in 1943. He served during World War II in the U.S. Army. He was honorably discharged in January 1946. On Dec. 8, 1950, he married Doris Engel at the United Methodist Church in Silver Creek. After, they made their home in Fullerton. Milton and Doris both worked at the creamery in Fullerton. He then became self-employed running the cream and egg route for many years until his retirement.

He was a volunteer firefighter for Silver Creek and Fullerton Fire Department for 40-plus years. He was a lifetime member of the American Legion. He was also a member of United Methodist Church in Fullerton. He enjoyed having coffee with his friends in the morning and hauling corn during harvest. He loved going to his grandsons sporting activities and spending time with his family.

He is survived by his wife, Doris of Fullerton; son, Gordon (Norma) Hardle of Lincoln; grandson, Spencer Hardle of Omaha; sister, Lola Urban of Osceola; and his grandsons dog, Jellyroll.

He was preceded in death by his parents and brother-in-law, Frances Urban.

Memorials are suggested to Fullerton Fire Department, P.O. Box 163, Fullerton, NE 68638 and Fullerton Rescue Squad, P.O. Box 243, Fullerton, NE 68638.
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As someone who spent decades living near the Great Lakes, composer Margaret Brouwer has witnessed the shifting environmental fortunes of this vast and crucial body of water.

She knew the stories about the Cuyahoga River (which empties into Lake Erie) catching on fire, having become so polluted that its surface was literally flammable. She watched too, after the 1972 passage of the Clean Water Act helped turn things around and let nature flourish.

In recent years, she has seen Eries health reverse. Runoff from agriculture and the impact of warming lake temperatures have resulted in large areas inundated with thick green algae. Locals call them dead zones. Environmentalists fear Donald Trumps plan to roll back regulations to 1960s levels is poised to make things worse. Ms Brouwer decided to raise awareness by composing and staging a special composition  Voice of the Lake  and involve local people.

Fertiliser chemicals from agricultural runoff are the worst problem for Lake Erie (Getty)

Im very much an environmentalist and have known about the lake. After they passed the Clean Water Act, in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties it was so beautiful. Then it got worse, Ms Brouwer, 77, told The Independent.

The Great Lakes are the largest clean water system in the world. Its so beautiful and it seems important to try and preserve it for our own enjoyment.

Last year, the Associated Press reported that many water bodies in the US suffered from pollution from nitrogen and phosphorus that fed algae. It found government agencies had spent billions of dollars trying to address the problem but had little to show for their efforts.

Meanwhile last month, US-Canada advisory body the International Joint Commission found that both countries had much to do to deal with the environmental challenges that threaten the five lakes, which provide drinking water to 40 million people.

While significant progress has been made to restore and protect the lakes, the governments of Canada and the US and Great Lakes civil society as a whole are living with the costly consequences of past failures to anticipate and prevent environmental problems, it said.

Josh Mogerman, an expert with the Natural Resources Defence Council, said Lake Erie suffered from two particular problems. One was that agricultural runoff was exempted from Clean Water Act. The second was that Erie was the shallowest of the Great Lakes, and therefore more susceptible to the impact of climate change, which was resulting in warmer water temperatures which in turn were encouraging the growth of algae.

Ms Brouwers oratorio, which recently had its debut, includes lyrics, or a libretto, that feature words from Cleveland-born poet David Adams, and witness statements from people who testified to a public hearing over whether the Army Corps of Engineers should dredge the Cuyahoga and dump it directly into the lake.

I wanted to quote the actual people, she said. There was a long letter from a colonel from the Army Corps of Engineers, so I included that.

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 Brouwers four-part, 70-minute composition also raises awareness by including local performers and musicians. The premiere involved her own Blue Streak Ensemble, the Oberlin Musical Union, conductor Domenico Boyagian, the Cleveland Institute of Music Childrens Choir, and four soloists  soprano Angela Mitchell, mezzo-soprano Merav Eldan, tenor Brian Skoog and bass Bryant Bush.

Mr Boyagian said the composition was a way for fans of classical music to have an active role. Everyone has their own way of being able to approach the situation  either watch where you throw your plastic, or dont pollute the river if youre a corporation, or lets write a piece about it and let people know whats going on, he told GreatLakesToday.org.

The Cuyahoga River caught fire several times over a period of decades (Getty)

Ms Brouwer said she believed music had the power to have an impact. I thought this was something I could do to draw attention. And if you think of some of those folks songs from the Sixties, they did bring change, she said.

Music speaks in a different voice. It speaks equally to the emotion and the intellect.

Since entering the White House, President Trump has already signed several executive orders that worked to undo many of the environmental regulations introduced by Barack Obama. He recently said he wanted to reduce the level of federal regulation to what it was in 1960.

Were here today for one single reason: to cut the red tape of regulation, he said.

Activists say they fear Mr Trumps moves will only exacerbate the problem facing the Great Lakes.

They are going tooth and nail after every regulation, said Charlie Cray, a senior research specialist at Greenpeace USA. Its an industry wish list.
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Actress Rose Marie, who worked for nearly a century in theatre, film, TV and radio, has died aged 94.

An official post on her Twitter account read: It is with broken hearts that we share the terribly sad news that our beloved Rose Marie passed away this afternoon.

Born Rose Marie Mazetta on 15 August 1923  the day the Broadway musical Rose-Marie opened  Rose Marie was perhaps best known for portraying the wise-cracking Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

She began her career as a child star aged 3 in vaudeville during the 1920s and 1930s, after winning an amateur contest which took her to Atlantic City and saw her become a popular radio personality, also starring in some of the earliest talking films such as the 1929 short Baby Rose Marie The Child Wonder, which was screened in cinemas before feature films.

TV fans later fell in love with her character Sally Rogers during her time on Van Dykes classic Sixties sitcom which also starred Mary Tyler Moore. She was also famous for frequent appearances on The Hollywood Squares which saw celebrities sitting in boxes on a life-sized tic-tac-toe board. IMDb reports she appeared in 629 of the shows episodes.

Her website offers some of her best one-liners, such as when she was asked on The Hollywood Squares what the best way to slow down the ageing process was, she said: Lie.

On New York clubs she quipped: Where else can you wake up and hear the birds coughing?

I play me in almost everything I do, she explained on her website. I play a part to the best of my ability to get a joke out, to sell it, and to do it best.

Notable deaths in 2017 Show all 28 1 /28 Notable deaths in 2017 Notable deaths in 2017 Hugh Hefner, the creator of Playboy magazine, died 28 September 2017 aged 91 Central Press/Stringer - Getty Notable deaths in 2017 Liz Dawn as Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street, pictured with co-star Bill Tarmey who played her husband Jack. Dawn died 25 September 2017, aged 77 ITV Notable deaths in 2017 Walter Becker, one of the founders of the band Steely Dan, died September 3 aged 67 Rex Notable deaths in 2017 David Tang, one of Hong Kong's most famous businessman, died of liver cancer aged 63 on 29 August AFP/Getty Images Notable deaths in 2017 Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington died July 20 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2017 Holocaust survivor and stateswoman who fought for abortion rights, Simone Veil, died July 4 Getty Notable deaths in 2017 Michael Bond, author and creator of Paddington Bear, died June 28 PA Notable deaths in 2017 TV's Batman, Adam West, died June 12 AFP/Getty Images Notable deaths in 2017 Peter Sallis, who starred in Last of the Summer Wine and voiced Wallace and Gromit, died on June 5 Rex Notable deaths in 2017 John Noakes, The action hero of Blue Peter, died May 29 Rex Notable deaths in 2017 Former MotoGP world champion, Nicky Hayden, died age 35, on May 26. He was knocked off his bicycle by a car in Italy. Getty Notable deaths in 2017 Sir Roger Moore died on May 23 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2017 Soundgarden singer, Chris Cornell, who helped define grunge music died May 17 Kevin Winter/Getty Images Notable deaths in 2017 Moors Murderer Ian Brady died May 15 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2017 Powers Boothe, star of Deadwood and Sin City, dies, aged 68 on May 15 Todd Williamson/Invision/AP Notable deaths in 2017 Robert Miles, Trance DJ behind hit track 'Children', died from cancer aged 47 on May 12 PA Notable deaths in 2017 Happy Days child star, Erin Moran, died at the age of 56 on April 24 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2017 Ex-player and Tottenham U23 coach Ugo Ehiogu died after he suffered a cardiac arrest at the training ground, aged 44 on April 21 Getty Notable deaths in 2017 British athlete Germaine Mason, silver medalist at the Beijing Olympics, died following a motorcycle crash, aged 34 on April 21 Rex Notable deaths in 2017 Actor Tim Pigott-Smith star of TV, film and theatre died on April 7 Getty Notable deaths in 2017 Rupert Cornwell an award-winning foreign correspondent who embodied the spirit of The Independent died on April 1 Notable deaths in 2017 Morse creator Colin Dexter died on March 21 PA Notable deaths in 2017 Rock and roll legend Chuck Berry died on March 18 Getty Notable deaths in 2017 Sir Howard Hodgkin, one of Britain's greatest abstract painters of the post-war period died on March 9 Rex Notable deaths in 2017 Sir Gerald Kaufman was the oldest of the longest-serving MPs and Father of the House of Commons when he died on February 27 PA Notable deaths in 2017 Joost van der Westhuizen died at the age of 45 on February 6 Getty Notable deaths in 2017 John Hurt died aged 77 on 28 January Getty Notable deaths in 2017 Lord Snowdon, husband to Princess Margaret died on January 13 Getty

The creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Carl Reiner, tweeted his sadness at the news of Rose Maries death, saying there has never been a more engaging & multi-talented performer ... [she] always had audiences clamouring for more!!.

Rose Maries career on the show earned three Emmy nominations, along with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

She is survived by her daughter, Georgiana Marie Guy, from her marriage to the late musician Bobby Guy  the first trumpeter for NBCs orchestra on The Tonight Show.

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Chas Oppenheim of Oppenheim Architecture has self-built a house which rests on a sand dune on Harbour Island, Bahamas.

The home, created as a retreat for Oppenheim and his wife, is designed to interfere with nature as little as possible, seamlessly blending in to both the dune and the islands tropical forests. Its location atop the dune provides impressive views of the north Atlantic.

House on a Dune is two storeys and consists of a completely open central space that allows connectivity through the home. Within this pavilion the living and dining areas open onto verandahs which are well protected from the elements by deep overhangs in the gabled roof.

We spoke to Oppenheim Architecture about the challenges of creating a home in such a remote location.

Q: How big is your practice and when was it founded?

Oppenheim was founded in 1999 by Chad Oppenheim in Miami. There are now additional offices in New York and Basel and the practice has built work in 25 countries. Forty staff work worldwide.

House on a Dune, Harbour Island Show all 8 1 /8 House on a Dune, Harbour Island House on a Dune, Harbour Island A gentle slope leads up to House on a Dune Karen Fuchs House on a Dune, Harbour Island Neutral colours match the soothing natural backdrop Karen Fuchs House on a Dune, Harbour Island The house is a hop, skip and jump away from the crystal-clear waters of the Bahamas Karen Fuchs House on a Dune, Harbour Island The open-plan corridor provides plenty of space for entertaining guests Karen Fuchs House on a Dune, Harbour Island Palm trees and the gabled provide just enough cover from the elements Karen Fuchs House on a Dune, Harbour Island If occupants get tired of the sea, theres always the houses harmonious bathroom Karen Fuchs House on a Dune, Harbour Island Simplicity and minimalism is key to all the houses fixtures and fittings Karen Fuchs House on a Dune, Harbour Island Low-level lighting through the main corridor creates a relaxing glow Karen Fuchs

Q: What is the firm known for?

Oppenheims spaces evoke the senses, catering to both pleasure and performance. Inspiration is drawn from vernacular styles and local resources. The green aspects of Oppenheims architecture are celebrated, and holistic to the building expression  establishing an equilibrium of design, sustainability, and economic viability that emphasises constructibility over architectural bravado.

Q: How would you sum up the project in five words?

Retreat paying respect to nature.

Q: What was the brief for this project?

To create a relaxed yet luxurious getaway, perched in waters of the Atlantic edge of the Great Bahama bank, that links with its surroundings.

Located 500 feet from one of the islands main roads, you meander along a sandy driveway overflowing with vegetation, and come upon the simple pavilion. The central space of the house is essentially an open breezeway around which the rest of the living spaces are simply arranged. To one side are two guest suites with private bathrooms; while to the other are the kitchen area and the master suite. Materials have been selected for their distinctive sincerity, environmental sensitivity and a resonance with the vernacular.

Q: What problems did you hope to solve as you designed this home?

In the most essential and elemental means, we wanted to create a way to connect nature and reduce everything down to the most basic elements.

Q: What makes this space unique?

Everyone that comes in, regardless of whether theyre interested in architecture or not, is blown away. Its a simple space that employs drama and silent monumentality, while still being quite simple in nature. It really showcases form follows feeling.

Q: What was your inspiration for the project?

We wanted to distil down the vernacular architecture to its essence. We were also inspired by James Turrel sky framing, a recurring motif in the project.

Q: What was the toughest issue you encountered when the house was being designed and built?

Definitely constructing on a remote island in the middle of the Atlantic  its very difficult to get labour or materials on site. I had the expectation that building something elemental would be much easier. It was much more difficult than planned.

Q: What sort of experience do you hope people using this space have?

We wanted to give this incredible feeling of atmospheric tuning; of the pleasure of connecting with nature.

In this building, we were inspired by the historical primitive building techniques of the area. While the architecture is not overly complex, its been designed in a way to allow for the most pleasure you can experience by being in a space. The building really showcases the philosophy of the studio, which is to show the spirit of a place.
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Google has banned people from posting negative reviews of their former employers on its business tool.

Google My Business is the tool behind the rating that appears on-screen when you carry out search for a business, such as a pub or restaurant, using the search engine or its maps functions.

Now the Internet giant has decided to clamp down on who can post reviews in a bid to make them more accurate.

It has updated its review policies, to ban people from reviewing their former place of work negatively.

Maps user contributed content is most valuable when it is honest and unbiased, it reads, adding that posting negative content about a current or former employment experience is not allowed.

Google considers it to be a conflict of interest.

Users are also banned from reviewing their own business and posting negative content about a competitor to manipulate ratings.

11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Show all 11 1 /11 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Easter Eggs There are a lot of Easter Eggs hidden in Chrome, and more and more are discovered each year. One of our favourites is the dinosaur game. The next time you fail to connect to the internet on Chrome, tap the spacebar. Its also worth Googling barrel roll, zerg rush, super mario bros (and clicking the question mark graphic), festivus, recursion, askew and atari breakout (and then clicking Images). 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Pin tabs If you tend to browse with a lot of tabs open at once, you can clear up the clutter by pinning the ones youre least likely to close. Right-click them and select Pin Tab. Theyll automatically shrink and slide left. 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Save battery You can save some battery life by sacrificing performance. In Settings, scroll down to the System section and uncheck the box reading Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed. We wouldnt recommend having this feature enabled all the time, but it could come in handy if youre nowhere near a charger. 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Browse faster There are loads of Chrome Extensions available, but one of the most useful is Googles Data Saver. It compresses the pages you visit to reduce data usage and speed up loading times. 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Make multiple profiles If you use multiple Google accounts, for work and for personal use, for instance, you can keep your bookmarks and browsing history for each account separate by creating individual profiles. Go to Settings, Manage People and Add Person. This is also handy for when you lend your computer to a friend, and you dont want them to have access to your internet history. 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Downloads Many users would prefer it if Chrome downloaded files straight to the desktop, but by default it sends them to your Downloads folder. You can change this by going to Settings, opening the Show Advanced Settings menu, clicking Downloads and choosing your preferred destination. 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Extra info To see cookies and permissions for every site you visit, click the View Site Information symbol on the left-hand edge of the omnibar. It will also let you quickly control things like Popup and Location settings. 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Task manager You can quickly find out which pages are using up the most memory and slowing down your browsing experience by opening the burger menu, going down to More Tools and opening the Chrome Task Manager. 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Calculator When youre online and need to do a quick sum, you dont have to hunt down your computer calculator or whip out your phone. Just type it into the Chrome omnibar and hit Enter. 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Startup If theres a certain set of pages you always open when you turn your computer on, you can get Chrome to open them automatically when you launch the browser. In Settings, click Set Pages in the On Startup section, and choose the ones you want. 11 hidden Google Chrome features you didn't know existed Search Gmail from omnibar You can search your gmail inbox directly from the omnibar by going to Settings, Manage Search Engines, scrolling to the bottom and pasting https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#apps/%s into the box on the right-hand side.

Previously, former employees were free to post biased reviews of places they used to work at.

These had the potential to damage a company's reputation in the eyes of an actual customer and were difficult to remove, reports Search Engine Land, which spotted Googles policy change.

The alteration will make it easier for companies to get Google to remove any reviews they consider to be unfair, which should result in the ratings becoming more useful for ordinary people.
Cold arctic air dipping farther south than usual prompted Omaha officials to cancel a New Year's Eve fireworks show as a three-day deep freeze chills celebrations in Iowa and Nebraska.

The National Weather Service is warning of hazardous weather conditions with expected temperatures in some locations dipping near records not seen in more than 130 years.

Forecasters expect some snow over the next few days in portions of Iowa and Nebraska but said the extreme cold presents a more pressing danger.

"Messaging will go out and include warning of being outside for any period of time as this is some of the coldest air the region has seen in several years," weather service meteorologists said in Friday's forecast discussion.

Des Moines temperatures were expected to drop to minus 4 Friday night and stay below zero until Tuesday.

"It's pretty unusual to get that long of a streak where it's completely below zero," said Iowa's State Climatologist Harry Hillaker. "Historically, that doesn't happen very often in Des Moines."

The New Year's Day forecast high of minus 5 is just a degree above the city's coldest high temperature for New Year's Day set in 1885. The expected low Monday night of minus 16 is just two degrees higher than the record for the day set in 1887.

A similar story will unfold in Omaha where New Year's Day high of minus 1 is just four degrees above the day's record set in 1885 and the low of minus 12 is just seven degrees above the record low set the night of Jan. 1, 1887.

In Omaha temperatures are too cold for the 18th annual New Year's Eve Fireworks Spectacular so officials postponed it to Jan. 6, according to the Omaha World-Herald. The event draws around 30,000 people to a mall to watch the outdoor display.

"The safety of the public is our greatest concern, and with the possibility of dangerously low temperatures, we feel it is the best interest of the community to reschedule this year's fireworks show," said Marc Nichols, executive director for Downtown Omaha Inc.

Des Moines city officials closed a downtown outdoor skating plaza Friday and said it won't reopen until Tuesday when the city is expected to emerge from sub-zero temperatures by reaching a high of 12. The current forecast calls for Omaha to also reach the teens Tuesday after spending 67 hours below zero, nowhere near the record streak of 204 hours below zero set in 1983.
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Bitcoin and universal basic income were two concepts of fierce debate within global business communities in 2017. Now, a bitcoin fund has announced that it has committed $5m (3.7m) worth of the cryptocurrency to the charity behind a massive universal basic income experiment across parts of Kenya and Uganda.

The Pineapple Fund is an organisation that mines, buys and trades crytpocurrencies. According to its website it donates to a number of charities, including several that work towards supplying poor communities with water, promoting gender equality, and one that is campaigning for the legalisation of psychedelic medicine.

The latest charity it has committed to supporting, according to its website, is GiveDirectly  a charity that provides unconditional cash transfers to people living in extremely poor communities.

Recommended Richard Branson calls for universal basic income

According to GiveDirect, the average recipient of its cash in Kenya lives on just 65 cents per day. In Uganda the average beneficiary lives on around 83 cents a day. GiveDirect uses a system of independent checks to verify that recipients are eligible to get the funds, and those households that are chosen then receive roughly $1,000  or around one years budget.

Typically, recipients in Kenya get a text message alert and then collect the cash from a mobile money agent in their village or nearest town. In Uganda, the charity uses a mobile payment system to send recipients their transfers. GiveDirect also said that it calls each recipient to verify receipt of funds, flag issues, and to assess its own customer service.

The benefits of universal basic income have been a topic of fierce debate this year, largely sparked by well-publicised trials in Finland and Canada.

Some academics have argued that unconditional cash lowers stress levels and actually makes people more productive. So far though, trials have largely been conducted in small communities. Critics have claimed that if rolled out on a larger scale those benefits would vanish.

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Londons FTSE 100 hit a fresh record closing high on its last day of trading in 2017, particularly spurred by a rally in mining stocks and strength across the healthcare sector.

The bluechip stock index ended Fridays shortened trading session up around 0.9 per cent on the day at 7,687 points. Mining companies like Glencore, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton all chalked up advances, thanks to the price of copper hovering near a multi-year high. Resilience in the price of gold, meanwhile, supported sector peers like Fresnillo and Randgold Resources.

The FTSE 100 has had a strong year, rising from around 7,120 at the start of January. But its advances have not been as impressive as in 2016, when a dramatic fall in the value of the pound in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote sent stocks rallying sharply. It ended 2016 at a record high too.

The index generates a significant chunk of its revenues abroad, meaning that a weak pound tends to benefit it. This year, sterling has regained its footing somewhat. In 2016 the index enjoyed gains of around 14 per cent. This year it has risen around 7 per cent.

Nonetheless, some companies on the index have performed impressively. Shares in mining company Antofagasta are up by close to 50 per cent for the year and Glencore shares have added more than 40 per cent in value. Beyond the commodities sector, shares in payment provider Worldpay increased by an impressive 57 per cent over the past 12 months, spurred by a multi-billion pound takeover by US rival Vantiv.

Looking ahead, analysts and economists largely agree that the direction of the pound will dictate the health of the FTSE 100 in 2018 and that sterlings fate will largely depend on the success of Brexit negotiations.

If Brexit talks regarding a trade deal start to go better, then the pound may keep on rising, which will not be good news for those international stocks in the premier index, said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG.

Laith Khalaf, a senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown agrees.

A good Brexit is probably a mixed blessing for investors in the UK stock market, because it would likely lead to a rally in the pound which would see the share prices of the big international companies pared back, he said.

Richard Stone, chief executive of stockbroker The Share Centre, said that based on the strength of the FTSE 100, there have been some concerns that a correction could be on the horizon. Nonetheless, he remains optimistic.

Higher global growth forecasts, a continuation of relatively relaxed monetary policy and a loosening of fiscal policy specifically in the United States are all helping support equities, he said.

The pound was trading around $1.35 on Friday having started the year around $1.23.
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Theresa Mays infrastructure tsar Lord Adonis has quit his post in a row over Brexit in which he accused the Prime Minister of allying with Ukip and the Tory hard right.

The pro-European Labour peer has stepped down from his role at the National Infrastructure Commission due to his opposition to the decision to leave the European Union, which he described as a dangerous populist and nationalist spasm worthy of Donald Trump.

In highly scathing letter to the Prime Minister, Lord Adonis said he felt duty bound to oppose the EU (Withdrawal) Bill when it comes to the Lords in the New Year, describing the flagship Brexit legislation as the worst of my lifetime.

Recommended Brexit compared to appeasing the Nazis by peer Lord Andrew Adonis

However, Whitehall sources said the Europhile peer had jumped before he was pushed, as his increasingly critical interventions on Brexit have left him at odds with the Government and many Eurosceptic MPs.

The former Transport Secretary has been open in his criticisms of the EU divorce process, notably comparing the decision to pursue a hard Brexit to appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930s.

In his resignation letter, Lord Adonis said: Brexit is a populist and nationalist spasm worthy of Donald Trump.

After the narrow referendum vote, a form of associate membership of the EU might have been attempted without rupturing Britains key trading and political alliances.

Instead, by allying with Ukip and the Tory hard right to wrench Britain out of the key economic and political institutions of modern Europe, you are pursuing a course fraught with danger. Even within Ireland, there are set to be barriers between people and trade.

If Brexit happens, taking us back into Europe will become the mission of our childrens generation, who will marvel at your acts of destruction.

Lord Adonis also said Brexit was causing a nervous breakdown across Whitehall and conduct unworthy of Her Majestys Government, which could damage the integrity and authority of the state.

Britain must be engaged as a European power in the face of growing threats from aggressive nationalism in Russia and Hungary, he said.

He also indicated he would have been compelled to quit over the Governments handling of the East Coast rail franchise, accusing ministers of bailing out the firm running the service.

A government source told The Independent: Hes been moving closer towards the exit door with each new onslaught he makes against Brexit. Hes now walked through the door before he was pushed.

However, Lord Adonis later tweeted: I meant what I said in my resignation letter about the PMs courtesy. Which makes it sad that No 10 sources up to dirty tricks.

He said a newspaper article published tomorrow would make it clear why Hard Brexit plus [Transport Secretary] Chris Graylings conduct gave me no choice but to resign.

Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said he is one of the most thoughtful politicians around and accused the Government of mismanagement of its Brexit policy.

It is, then, a great shame that he is no longer leading Britains infrastructure programme. Yet he felt there was no other option but to resign because of the way Brexit has been so badly mishandled.

Notably, he is deeply concerned by how the Conservative leadership has pandered to its right wing over the single market and customs union, leaving which will badly  and needlessly  damage our trade.

Brexit: the deciders Show all 8 1 /8 Brexit: the deciders Brexit: the deciders European Union's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier Getty Brexit: the deciders French President Emmanuel Macron Getty Brexit: the deciders German Chancellor Angela Merkel Reuters Brexit: the deciders Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker EPA Brexit: the deciders The European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt Getty Brexit: the deciders Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May Getty Images Brexit: the deciders Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond PA Brexit: the deciders After the first and second appointed Brexit secretaries resigned (David Davis and Dominic Raab respectively), Stephen Barclay is currently heading up the position PA

Eurosceptic MPs reacted with anger to his comments. Conservative Brexiteer Peter Bone told The Independent: It just shows he does not accept the will of the British people.

The word populist is just code for saying, I am an elitist and I know better than the British public and the millions who vote to leave. Its just patronising to the public.

And former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: Lord Adoniss departure is long overdue.

Its a bit rich for him to pontificate on what he calls populism, but what most would refer to as democracy, when he himself has never been elected by a public vote. He has instead relied on preferment from others.

A Labour spokesperson said: Theresa Mays weak and divided Government cant even command the confidence of its own advisers.

With each resignation, the stench of decay around the Government grows stronger and stronger. The Tories are in office but not in power.

Lord Adonis was appointed as the leader of the new National Infrastructure Commission when it was set up by then-Chancellor George Osborne in October 2015. He was hired permanently by Ms May in April 2017.
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Two men accused of attempting to prepare a homemade bomb to launch a terror attack in the UK have appeared in court.

Andy Star and Farhad Salah, both Iraqi Kurds, were arrested by armed police days before Christmas.

They appeared via video link at Westminster Magistrates Court, which heard the pair possessed low-explosive black powder  otherwise known as gunpowder.

Mr Star, 31, and 22-year-old Mr Salah are both charged with engaging in preparation for an act of terrorism.

Mr Stars lawyer, Sajad Chaudhury, told the court: The offence is denied and at the first opportunity at the Crown Court he will indicate a not guilty plea.

District Judge Tan Ikram remanded the defendants in custody ahead of a hearing due at the Old Bailey on 19 January.

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 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Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. 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Mr Star was arrested in a flat above his business, the Mermaid Traditional Fish Bar in Chesterfield, and his alleged accomplice was detained at his home in Brunswick Road, Sheffield, in coordinated raids on 19 December.

The North East Counter Terrorism Unit said a 36-year-old man from Sheffield who was arrested on the same day remains in custody.

A fourth man, 41 and also from Sheffield, was released on 23 December.

Additional reporting by PA
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Terry Ojuederies Christmas presents were waiting to be wrapped on the living room floor when his partner got a knock at the door from officials bringing the news that he was dead.

The 42-year-old father had been beaten to death using a flat screen television by his cellmate at HMP Peterborough, just two weeks before he was due to be released.

We had made all the plans, says his partner, Hayley Spencer-Tucker. Because he was just missing Christmas we were going to have our Christmas Day when he got out.

It was absolutely devastating, and it still is, to think about the future we could have had.

Mr Ojuederie had four children and a four-year-old grandson, who will not remember his grandfather.

An inquest identified a catalogue of failings that contributed to his death, including the failure to identify his future killer as a risk, allowing synthetic cannabinoid spice to become rife at HMP Peterborough and leaving officers unable to deal with affected inmates.

Mr Ojuederies relatives fear more lives will be lost if private contractor Sodexo and other prison authorities do not make urgent changes.

We cant bring Terry back but Im hoping that this process may save someone elses life in the future, Ms Spencer-Tucker said.

The prison system needs to sort itself out. I know its a hard process but something needs to be done because I am worried for other prisoners, especially vulnerable people being locked up with the likes of his killer around Spice.

Mr Ojuederies sister, Jenny Tucholski, said their father and brothers are still struggling to come to terms with his brutal death.

They all say prisons are underfunded and understaffed and seem to think thats acceptable but its not  this will absolutely happen again, she added.

His youngest girls, who are only seven and 11, now face a life of growing up without their father.

They love and miss him very much and, due to their ages, are yet to be told the circumstances by which their daddy was taken from them.

Recommended The answer to our prison crisis is to send fewer people in jail

A non-violent criminal with a history of burglary and drug offences, Mr Ojuederie was put in a shared cell with a man serving a six-year sentence for grievous bodily harm.

Prisoners told investigators Jordan Palmer had complained about his cellmate and had threatened him during angry outbursts, but officers believed the pair got on well.

So when Palmer rang his cell buzzer saying he felt unwell shortly after 1am on 9 December 2015, a guard saw no cause for alarm.

Noting the prisoner was displaying symptoms of spice inhalation, he informed the duty nurse and delivered a message telling Palmer to drink water.

The inmate claimed he felt better, but when the guard returned 20 minutes later, he found Mr Ojuederie dead and his cellmate repeating: I dont know what I have done.

Palmer had killed his victim in what police described as one of the most vicious attacks they had seen, using a television as a weapon while punching, kicking and stamping on Mr Ojuederie.

HMP Peterborough, a category B private prison, is one of five jails operated by Sodexo in England and Scotland (Google Streetview)

He was unable to defend himself after smoking spice, which was still legal at the time, or escape from the locked cell.

Palmer was convicted of manslaughter by diminished responsibility after a jury accepted claims he had accidentally inhaled the drug before the incident.

A report released on HMP Peterborough by the Chief Inspector of Prisons earlier in 2015 had raised concerns about the prevalence of spice, which could be bought at half the price of tobacco in some jails before a national crackdown.

The synthetic drug is so potent that prison officers have collapsed after inhaling it accidentally, and it has been linked to an alarming rise in prison deaths and violence.

Spice, which can vary hugely in strength, has side-effects including mood changes, aggression, memory loss, hallucinations, paranoia, nausea, seizures and psychosis.

But while jailing Palmer for 14 years, Judge David Farrell QC said consumption could not fully explain the particularly brutal killing.

While you were under the influence of drugs, that influence does not totally explain why you did what you did, he told the court, noting that Palmer had had the presence of mind to wash his hands afterwards.

Mr Ojuederies brother-in-law, John Tucholski, said the family would never know what effect spice had on the murder.

Its almost like a get of jail free card for peoples actions, he told The Independent. Do we think everything was fully explored about what happened on that day? No.

The inquest found prison officers should have recognised the risk that spice might cause an individual to react in an extremely violent manner but that staff had not been formally trained on what to do if they suspected someone was under the influence.

It concluded that efforts to reduce availability were insufficient, with an action plan including searches and netting not implemented, and no documented evidence of spice use.

 BBC Panorama uncover 'chaos' in prison system

The inquest also condemned HMP Peterborough for failing to act on intelligence Palmer was carrying a large blade and indications he was violent, saying a cell sharing risk assessment should have been reviewed.

The coroner said it was possible officers had considered moving Palmer before he killed Mr Ojuederie but there was no documented proof, adding: If staff were aware then insufficient steps were taken to investigate the request. It should have been logged.

A jury at Huntingdon Coroners Court found all of the factors contributed to Mr Ojuederies death, while the prisons disclosure of vital information was described as nothing short of shambolic.

CCTV footage was not retained, being automatically deleted as part of a 30-day cycle, and prison officers claimed their log books had been seized and lost before they appeared on the eighth day of the inquest.

Mr Ojuederies sister said questions remained over how the documents suddenly turned up, but could not be pursued without delaying the inquest further.

Only Palmer knows what happened in that cell, Ms Tucholski added. Justice hasnt been served for Terry  the prison isnt fully accountable for all the things the inquest highlighted about it and the failings that helped cause this.

Ms Tucholski said the family was concerned about vital information not being retained, adding: We believe that evidence which came to light in the inquest was denied to the police investigation and the criminal trial.

Relatives were unaware of how Mr Ojuederie died until they saw a breaking news notification during a meeting with police, being severely distressed by horrible details released to the press.

They have barely had time to grieve through two years of legal processes in the criminal trial and inquest.

Ms Tucholski said she missed her brother more than she could express, telling how he had a troubled relationship with his mother and stepfather that resulted in him being put in care homes.

By the time he was in his twenties, Mr Ojuederie was struggling with an addiction to hard drugs, which started a cycle of prison sentences over crimes to feed his habit.

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

He would come out of prison remorseful, positive and keen to have a new chance at life and would do well for a while, Mrs Tucholski said.

When Terry came off drugs, which was throughout many parts of his life, he would lead a generally happy life and enjoyed spending time with his family and friends. Terry was likeable and had a cheeky, charming way about him.

Mr Ojuederie carried out work including plumbing, joinery, double glazing, factory work and completing courses when he could, but was handed another 21-month prison sentence in 2014.

He was moved to HMP Peterborough in September 2015 after completing a drug detoxification programme and being assessed for early release at another jail.

The inquest heard that some of the Sodexo staff on the wing were young and inexperienced, and had worked for a matter of weeks.

The Assistant Coroner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Sean Horstead, is sending a Preventing Future Deaths report to Sodexo Justice Services and the Ministry of Justice on the lessons learned from Mr Ojuederies death.

His sister said relatives were still tormented by his violent death in a place where he was supposed to be safe.

We do not feel that the full truth about the circumstances surrounding his death has yet been fully uncovered, and wonder if there is still more to come, Ms Tucholski added.

We were very much looking forward to Terry coming home and had hoped that this time there was a bright and happy future for him with his children, partner and us, his family, along with his many friends, but that chance was taken away.

Deborah Coles, the director of Inquest, said the horrendous case was symptomatic of the perilous state of prisons, with high rates of violence, drug problems, murders and suicide.

While government rhetoric on dealing with spice focuses on the supply, it overlooks intelligence sharing, staff training and the health and safety of prisoners, she added.

Sodexo did not respond to The Independents request for comment.
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Two men have been charged with terrorism offences by police who had been investigating a suspected Christmas terror plot.

Farhad Salah, 22, from Sheffield, and Andi Sami Star, 31, from Chesterfield, were among four men arrested in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire on 19 December.

They have been charged with engaging in the preparation of an act of terrorism, West Yorkshire Police said.

The pair are to appear by video-link before London's Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday.

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

West Yorkshire Police said a 36-year-old man from Burngreave in Sheffield remains in custody, while a 41-year-old from Meersbrook in Sheffield was released on Saturday.

The police were originally given until Christmas Day to decide whether to charge the four men, but a court approved an extension of that deadline until 1 January.

The arrests followed an investigation led by Counter Terrorism Policing North East, which was backed by Derbyshire Constabulary and South Yorkshire Police.

During the arrests, an army bomb disposal unit carried out a controlled explosion to "safely dispose of material" found at one of the properties.
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A father has told of his sheer panic when he rushed to help a man who died in minutes after he was engulfed in flames on a road outside his home.

Daniel Lingwood, 32, ran out of his house when he saw through a window what he thought was his van on fire, but was left shocked when he found it was the victim who was ablaze.

The council worker said he and another man rolled him over on the ground in a bid to quash the flames on Thanet Road in Hull, Yorkshire.

Recommended Witnesses of Bronx fire describe hearing building residents screaming

He said he had first-aid skills and performed CPR on the victim until emergency services arrived to attend to him, but he died at the scene despite the efforts to save him.

Police said they were not treating the death as suspicious and were not looking for anyone in connection with the incident.

Mr Lingwood told how he spotted the man in flames from his porch window.

"I felt sheer panic and just rushed over to help, he told the Hull Daily Mail. "Some other people were already there, but it just felt like the whole street was in a panic.

"There were some women going round to get buckets of water to chuck over him, but I have done first aid before and I knew that would be bad for his skin, so me and another bloke tried to roll him on the ground to put the fire out.

"Then we started doing compressions on him until the ambulance arrived."

He added how he had been left traumatized by the experience.

"I just keep seeing his face," he said. "I couldn't go to work today. I keep thinking about what happened."

Humberside Police confirmed the death of the man, who has not been named, and said it was not being treated as suspicious.

Detective Superintendent Dave Wood said officers from the force had attended the scene.

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

"The Ambulance and the Fire Service were already in attendance, he said. The man had suffered serious burns in the isolated incident. He was given emergency treatment but he sadly died.

No-one else was injured, and we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this.

A file is being prepared for the coroner.

Any witnesses to the tragedy are asked to call 101 and quote log 480 of 27/12/17.

The death in Hull came just weeks after a man died after he burst into flames while he was walking down a road in north London.

John Nolan, 70, died in the tragedy despite the efforts of witnesses who tried to put out the blaze and save him.

Investigators with the London Fire Brigade were unable to find anything at the scene that would have sparked a fire.

An inquest is expected in the coming weeks to determine the cause of death of the former construction worker originally from Co Mayo, Ireland.
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A senior police officer who witnessed the Westminster terror attack is among those recognised for their service in the New Year Honours.

Craig Mackey, the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has been awarded a knighthood for achievements throughout his long career in policing

While the acting head of the Metropolitan Police, he was being driven past the Houses of Parliament when Khalid Masood ploughed a car into pedestrians and stabbed one of his own officers to death in March.

Sir Craig confirmed he was a key witness to the brutal attack on PC Keith Palmer and carried out his duty to secure evidence in the aftermath of the atrocity  which was to be the first of five terror attacks in England this year.

His knighthood is not related specifically to the Westminster attack, with the deadline for nominations meaning that honours will be awarded over the response to terror attacks and the Grenfell Tower fire next year.

Scotland Yard praised Sir Craigs role in reforming the force, which is enacting controversial measures to save 400m by 2020 amid a funding dispute with the Government.

He also launched a major initiative to improve community trust over stop and search, as well as pushes for increased diversity among police - with half of the UKs black and ethnic minority officers now serving in the Met.

 Westminster attack: Vigils are held around the UK

Sir Craig said he was amazed and deeply honoured by the knighthood, adding: I truly believe it is a recognition not just for me but for the dedication of all the men and women of the police service that I have had the privilege to serve with during the last 33 years.

It comes at the end of what has been an extraordinarily difficult year, when so many of our officers have demonstrated huge courage, compassion and professionalism in the very worst of circumstances.

Also, most importantly I must mention my wife Debbie. It would simply not have been possible for me to have had this career without her love and unstinting support. Both professionally and personally, I consider myself to be a very lucky man.

Recommended PC Palmer died an exemplar of the best of our police service

Terrorism was a recurrent theme among the dozens of police officers honoured for their service and officers who were injured while trying to stop the London Bridge attack and who responded to atrocities in Manchester, Westminster and Finsbury Park expected to feature heavily in 2018.

The Police Federation, which represents 120,000 officers, is calling for appropriate recognition for two unarmed officers who were severely injured taking on three armed Isis supporters Borough Market in June.

These nominations [for PC Charlie Geunigault and British Transport PC Wayne Marques] have been acknowledged by Government and assurance given that they are receiving the attention they deserve, a spokesperson said.

PC Palmers heroism was officially recognised with a posthumous award of the George Medal earlier this year.

PC Matthew Hone, of City of London Police, was awarded a Queen's Police Medal (QPM) after being praised by superiors as a leader in the field of counter-terrorism and someone who regularly goes above and beyond the call of duty.

The effects of his work in disrupting the activity of not just terrorists, but also other criminals, have been clear to see in the City and have contributed to other forces across the UK using similar tactics with their own officers to keep the public safe. I would like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere congratulations to Matt on behalf of the whole force, Commissioner Ian Dyson said.

London Bridge Terror Attack Show all 16 1 /16 London Bridge Terror Attack London Bridge Terror Attack Armed police on Borough High Street as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Armed Police talk to members of the public outside London Bridge Hospital as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Police Officers outside the Barrowboy and Banker Public House on Borough High Street as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Armed Police talk to members of the public outside London Bridge Hospital as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Armed police on Borough High Street as police deal with a 'major incident' at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Emergency services near the scene of the incident Screengrab London Bridge Terror Attack People run down Borough High Street as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge Reuters London Bridge Terror Attack Emergency services arrive at the scene near Borough market at London Bridge Carl Court/Getty Images London Bridge Terror Attack Emergency personnel on London Bridge as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Police sniffer dogs on London Bridge as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack A second helicopter lands on London Bridge as police are responding to three incidents in the capital, amid reports that a vehicle collided with pedestrians on London Bridge, Scotland Yard said. Officers are dealing with reports of stabbings in Borough Market, where armed officers attended and shots were fired. They are also at an incident in the Vauxhall area PA London Bridge Terror Attack Police attend to an incident on London Bridge in London REUTERS London Bridge Terror Attack Police attend to an incident on London Bridge in London, Britain Reuters London Bridge Terror Attack A police officer escorts members of the public to safety at London Bridge Getty Images London Bridge Terror Attack Police attend to an incident on London Bridge in London, Britain Reuters London Bridge Terror Attack Police attend to an incident near London Bridge in London, Britain Reuters

The policing minister, Nick Hurd, said PC Hones innovative approach to crime prevention has delivered real results.

It is also encouraging to see that more than half of the QPMs continue to be awarded to rank and file police officers, in recognition of their hard work in keeping our communities safe, he added.

Several Metropolitan Police officers and staff were recognised in the annual list, with Acting Detective Inspector John Simm being made an Officer of the Order for his services to national security and counter-terrorism.

DCI Simm, who is attached to the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, said the great personal honour was a reflection of the work carried out by the entire team in a year that saw nine terror plots foiled in the UK.

Recommended Police failing to respond to some crimes because of budget cuts

They have and continue to support me, and who go above and beyond day in and day out as part of our counter-terrorism operational response, he added.

Scotland Yard colleague Paul Lockhart gained a QPM for his service.

Mr Lockhart, who has recently retired after a 360-year-career, is a super recogniser with exceptional abilities to identify and trace suspects and helped crush several prolific criminal networks.

"Policing has always been my passion and the highest priority is always the victims of crime, he said. I hope I have served them well."

Chief Superintendent Richard Wood was also awarded a QPM after overseeing crime reduction as the borough commander of Lambeth - once described by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary as one of the most challenging policing environments in Western Europe.

He said being a police officer was a childhood dream, adding: This award demonstrates the opportunities that policing offers to those from a humble background and it is equally representative of the many dedicated and talented colleagues I have worked with over the years; indeed this is their award as much as it is mine.

Joe Holness, who had policing career spanning 32 years and founded the National Police Memorial Day, has been made an OBE (Supplied)

Also receiving a QPM is retired PC Neill Tully, who was a youth engagement officer in Bromley and recruited vulnerable and troubled children to the police cadets.

Scotland Yards assistant director of legal services, Naz Saleh, was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) after working on contentious cases including the inquest into Princess Dianas death and public inquiries.

She has trained officers on the lawful exercise of their powers, the force said, calling her a role model both to women and to members of minority communities as the most senior female member of its non-officer staff.

A British Empire Medal (BEM) was awarded to Detective Superintendent Fiona McCormack, who is a murder detective currently working on the criminal investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire, for services to policing and education.

Sergeant Stephen Collingwood, former Inspector Rodney Paul Feichtinger; and Inspector Douglas Ian Thompson, from royalty and specialist protection, were made members of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO).

Cressida Dick, Commander of the Metropolitan Police, said: I congratulate these extraordinary members of the Met who have dedicated their working life to policing and to protecting and serving London. They have achieved some amazing accomplishments.

It is to their credit that they are role models to all, for their commitment, hard work and innovation.

I am very proud of them all, as they should be of themselves. To be honoured in this way is so very special and richly deserved.

The next most-honoured force was the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), with six officers recognised.

South Wales Police Chief Constable Matt Jukes was awarded a QPM (Supplied)

Two QPMs were awarded to Superintendent Alywin Barton and retired Detective Inspector Jeremy McFarland for services to policing and the community.

Officers who requested their names not to be publicised were also recognised with two BEMs and two MBEs.

In South Wales Police, Chief Constable Matt Jukes was awarded a QPM after a career spanning violent drugs gangs and counter-terrorism, seeing him represent British policing at the G8.

Sergeant Gary Evans  whose father Bob was awarded the QPM three decades ago  was awarded the BEM for his services to policing and the community in South Wales.

The Assistant Chief Officer at Durham Constabulary, Gary Ridley, was made an OBE for his services to policing after entering the field from local government.

A former Kent Police inspector, Joseph Holness, was upgraded from a QPM to an OBE for his work founding the National Police Memorial Day.

He started the annual event  which is now supported by the royal family and Government, in 2000 following the death of a fellow officer who was run over and killed while on duty in Margate.

Im so pleased the National Police Memorial Day has become such an important annual event and Im humbled and honoured to have my efforts rewarded in this way, he said.

Other officers awarded including a PC who tackled an armed robber while shopping off-duty with her son.

Calum Macleod, the incoming Chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: We extend huge congratulations to everyone who has been recognised with these prestigious honours for exemplary service and commitment.

We are thankful every day for the sheer heroism and commitment shown by officers throughout the country and we will never lose sight of the sacrifices made or forget those who gave their lives to protect us.
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A plasterer hung himself live on webcam in the early hours of Christmas Day morning.

Gregory Tomkins live streamed his own death in an insults chat group as an administrator in the US desperately tried to dial 999.

The chatroom supervisor also pleaded with those in the UK to call the emergency services.

Tomkins, a self-employed plasterer, was found dead when police broke into his home in Wallington, south London.

It followed a call from another concerned chatroom user in the early hours of Christmas Day.

Apple Inc Insults, is one of the several rooms on video chat service PalTalk, where users send abuse to each other.

A user of the chat group, who does not wish to be named, saw Mr Tomkins, known online as Yakka, sit at his computer screen without talking. He then went into another room and appeared to hang himself.

The whole incident took just 30 seconds, he said, adding: He had come into the room on his regular screenname that he uses and then for some reason he went and changed his screenname.

When he actually comes in the room he is always on the microphone and he talks. But this time he didn't talk and he was just sitting there. After he left the room he cammed up, and that was when he did what he did.

It took him literally 30 seconds to go from sitting down to hanging.

The admin for the insults group known as Throat punch said he felt powerless to help as he could not contact the emergency services from America and was frustrated others in Britain would not raise the alarm.

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

He wrote: As an admin in the room at the time this tragedy took place, the frustration of not being able to contact police because dialling 101 or 999 from a country outside the UK became immediately apparent.

By the time it took me to get a room member from the UK to contact 999, it was way too late. Sitting by watching people like a chatter who was present and witnessed it ignore requests to call police was truly futile.

Earlier this month Mr Tomkins changed his profile picture on his G Tomkins Plastering Facebook page to include a Merry Christmas banner.

Two days before he death he wrote: JUST DO IT.

Users reacted on the chatroom message board and said Mr Tomkins would be sadly missed.

 World Suicide Prevention Day: Cathy discusses how she copes with anxiety problems

BrAss KnUckLES H2k said: Yakka was ok. He was a good soul.

Alinity also: Yakka was a funny guy he will be sadly missed.

PLASMA- added: I'm still so shocked, nevr [sic] thought yakka would do that.

Another commenter said the chatroom should be investigated as it targets vulnerable people.

She said; I believe this room in question was no good for Gregg's mental health it certainly wasn't the right place for him he is not the only chatter that has suffered in this room there is a few has I would like the police to investigate this and also to prevent this from ever happening again.

One user said Gregory was very lonely and would often do silly acts online.

He said: Gregory Tomkins was a funny man, he did a lot of funny stuff in the chat room but he also got upset a lot and would do silly things on his cam as well. I just think he was very lonely as he had a difficult past which he spoke about a lot.

Recommended Archives are a reminder of how divisive Europe has been

But he always meant well, you just were never sure what mood he was in when he entered the chat room. I do not think an insult chat room like this was the place for him. This is not the first time that someone has died in this UK chat room.

A lot of the people who were in this UK chat room when Gregory Tomkins died were also in this chat room when Kevin Whitrick died. He also hanged himself live on cam in the chat room after he was egged on by other chatters.

Kevin Whitrick, 42, of Telford, Shropshire, killed himself in 2007 using Paltalk and was even encourage to take his life, an inquest heard.

A Met Police spokesperson said Mr Tomkins death was not be treated as suspicious and his elderly parents have been informed of the incident.

They added: "A file will be prepared for the coroner.

SWNS
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A young mother spoke of how "lucky" she felt in a final Facebook post, weeks before she died on Christmas Day.

Kirsten Hawksey, 23, was diagnosed with Acute Promyelocytic Leukaemia on 27 November.

Taking to Facebook a few days later, the dental nurse from Merseyside, who had a 15-month-old daughter, wrote: "This is by all means not a cry for sympathy because that's not like me as you will be aware haha, but more so awareness.

"I never go to the doctors, so thank god for everyone pushing me to go over some unexplained bruising! I literally couldn't thank all my family, friends and work colleagues for all their support this last week.

"If anything I feel more lucky than unlucky."

Hawksey had initially gone to her doctor with unexplained bruising on her legs, the Liverpool Echo reported. But after blood tests revealed she had Leukaemia, she immediately started a course of chemotherapy.

But on Christmas Eve, she contracted a lung infection and on Christmas Day, after suffering a bleed on the brain, her family decided to switch off her life support.

Her father Neil, 39, said he wanted to pay tribute to his "strong willed" daughter as part of her wish to raise awareness of the condition.

It was weird hearing the doctors say how ill she actually was, because she was sitting there laughing and joking with me," he told the Liverpool Echo.

 NHS England action to save lives by catching more cancers early

Kirsten was not the type of girl who would moan or complain. But sadly things were taken out of her control.
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland says it has submitted enough applications to ensure its own license plates will be available as an alternative for Nebraska drivers once the state's "Choose Life" plates go on sale in January.

The Planned Parenthood plates, which read "My Body, My Choice," will cost $70. Motorists should be able to order them in the next few days, Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles Director Rhonda Lamm said Thursday.

In a news release, Planned Parenthood said it submitted 263 applications for the plate Tuesday, surpassing the state's requirement of 250 to begin printing an organizational plate.

The "Choose Life" plate, available Monday, only costs $5 because it was created by the Legislature, not through the application process.

Planned Parenthood representative Meg Mikolajczyk said the group's plate provides an opportunity for Nebraskans to share views on issues of women's health that counter the anti-abortion stance of their governor, lieutenant governor and a majority of state senators.

"After all, the majority of Nebraskans and Americans overall believe that a woman should maintain her right to reproductive choice as established under Roe v. Wade," Mikolajczyk said.

"Nebraska's First People" plates honoring Native Americans, also created by the Legislature, will be available Monday, as will a series of military honor plates for reservists.

Lamm said the "My Choice" plates can be ordered this week or next, depending on how quickly staff can get the applications processed and an order form online.

The first plates will then take three to four weeks to arrive, as they need to be printed by the Nebraska Department of Corrections and delivered to local DMV offices, she said.

Approval of the Planned Parenthood plates means Nebraska now has 33 specialty, organizational or military-honor designs available.
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Radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster started arriving in the UK during a bank holiday weekend, plunging Whitehall into chaos, newly released official files show.

The catastrophic explosion at the Soviet nuclear reactor on 26 April 1986, the world's worst nuclear accident, released radioactive plumes high into the atmosphere.

It was another week before the first signs of increased radioactivity levels were detected in the UK, just as officials were packing up for the long May bank holiday weekend.

With Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister, out of the country on an official visit to Japan, government files released by the National Archives at Kew suggest the immediate response was shambolic.

Phone lines were overwhelmed and advice issued to calm public fears only inflamed them.

Officials were dismayed to discover they did not have a contingency plan for dealing with an incident involving an overseas nuclear facility.

The children of Chernobyl

In one moment of pure "farce", William Waldegrave, the Environment Minister, mistakenly gave out the telephone number for the Department of the Environment (DoE) drivers' pool instead of Whitehall's technical information centre during a radio interview.

Ms Thatcher complained the government had given the "appearance of disarray" in her absence, while a scathing post-mortem by the No 10 policy unit concluded Whitehall finally gained control only after the bank holiday.

In his report to the prime minister, John Wybrew, of the policy unit, wrote: "Over the bank holiday weekend, when the fall-out first occurred, you, [Foreign Secretary] Geoffrey Howe and (No 10 Press Secretary) Bernard Ingham were away in Tokyo. Whitehall lacked a firm lead.

"Anxious telephone callers inundated Maff [the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries] and seriously hampered communications. Not until after the weekend did DoE and environment ministers firmly take charge of the government's response.

"Before that, the ill-co-ordinated nature of the information and advice aroused rather than calmed public anxiety."

The Environment Secretary, Kenneth Baker, sought to assure the public the risks were "insignificant," only for John Dunster, the head of the National Radiological Protection Board, to say the death toll in the UK would run to "tens of people".

"Both conclusions derived from the the same assumption and analysis. Mr Dunster was quantifying what he regarded as an insignificant risk," Mr Wybrew noted.

"The next day he had to explain that tens of deaths would arise from cancer over the next 30 to 40 years, during which time millions would die from cancer wholly unconnected with the Chernobyl incident."

Additional reporting by Press Association
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Facebook and Twitter must be punished if they continue to refuse to co-operate with a Parliamentary inquiry into Russian interference in the Brexit vote, a senior MP has said.

Damian Collins hit out as anger grows over the social media giants stonewalling the fake news probe by the digital, culture, media and sport select committee which he heads up.

Earlier this month, Mr Collins accused Twitter of a completely inadequate response to the committees request for information and Facebook of doing virtually no work.

The MPs want information about the extent of Russian interference in last years EU referendum, including details of accounts and pages.

Instead, in early December, the two companies merely handed over a copy of information already provided the Electoral Commission about advertising spend from Russia in the six weeks leading up to the vote.

Now Mr Collins has revealed that his committee is looking into what sanctions can be imposed on Facebook and Twitter  suggesting advertisers should also take action.

What I didn't expect was that they would essentially completely ignore our request, the Conservative MP said, describing the companies' response as extraordinary.

They don't believe that they have any obligation at all to initiate their own investigation into what may or may not have been happening on the site - to look at the accounts that have been identified by the American authorities and say: OK, are there other accounts that share similar characteristics that could have come from the same source?

They've not done any of that work at all.

Brexit: the deciders Show all 8 1 /8 Brexit: the deciders Brexit: the deciders European Union's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier Getty Brexit: the deciders French President Emmanuel Macron Getty Brexit: the deciders German Chancellor Angela Merkel Reuters Brexit: the deciders Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker EPA Brexit: the deciders The European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt Getty Brexit: the deciders Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May Getty Images Brexit: the deciders Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond PA Brexit: the deciders After the first and second appointed Brexit secretaries resigned (David Davis and Dominic Raab respectively), Stephen Barclay is currently heading up the position PA

Mr Collins said he recognised that the social media giants are best placed to monitor what is going on your own site  but called for a mechanism to act when they fall short.

If you fail to do that, if you ignore requests to act, if you fail to police the site effectively and deal with highly problematic content, there has to be some sort of sanction against you, he warned.

On the questions of what sanctions, the committee chairman pointed to Germany as having gone furthest down this road.

The German competition authority accused Facebook of violating European data protection principles by merging information gathered through WhatsApp and Instagram with Facebook user accounts.

Mr Collins also suggested advertisers should punish social networks with a loss of revenue when they allowed fake accounts.

If you're selling advertising against those numbers, that cannot be ethical, and clearly that is something the advertising industry should be interested in.

Select committees have no direct powers to punish companies, but a recommendation would pile pressure on the Government, which is also concerned by the companies' stance.

In his letter to Twitter, Mr Collins said his committee had received more information about activities that have taken place on your platform from journalists and academics than from you.

The information given to the Electoral Commission identified small ad spends from known Russian actors.

Facebook said only $0.97 (73p) had been spent on Brexit-related ads seen by British viewers, while Twitter claimed the only Russian spending it was aware of during the period was $1,000 from the broadcaster RT.
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John Major rushed out the news the Queen had agreed to pay income tax in an attempt to deflect growing media criticism during her "annus horribilis," newly released official files reveal.

The year 1992 saw the very public breakdowns of the marriage of Charles and Diana and the Duke and Duchess of York, as well as the divorce of the Princess Royal and her first husband Captain Mark Phillips.

The final blow came when a fire caused extensive damage to Windsor Castle, prompting public outcry when it was suggested the estimated 60m repair bill should be met by the taxpayer.

With the royal family under scrutiny like never before, files released by the National Archives at Kew, west London, show the growing concern among ministers at the effect the "intrusive and intolerable" media coverage was having.

 Sir John Major criticises Theresa May's Brexit strategy

On 26 November, Mr Major finally revealed to the Cabinet that the Queen, who was not subject to taxation, had asked him some months earlier to "consider arrangements by which she could pay the equivalent of income tax on her private income".

The Prince of Wales, he said, had made a similar offer in relation to his income from the Duchy of Cornwall.

A team of officials had been quietly working on the plan, and Mr Major told ministers that he had intended to make announcement in a few weeks, when the exercise was complete.

However, the cabinet minutes noted: "In the light of recent unjustified media criticism of the Queen's taxation position and after discussion with Her Majesty, he had decided to tell Parliament later that day that these discussions were taking place and also that the Queen proposed to take on some Civil List payments."

The Queen and her Prime Ministers Show all 15 1 /15 The Queen and her Prime Ministers The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Liz Truss Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government in September 2022 PA The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Boris Johnson Queen Elizabeth II welcomes newly elected leader of the Conservative party, Boris Johnson during an audience where she invited him to become Prime Minister and form a new government in Buckingham Palace on July 24, 2019 in London Getty Images The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Theresa May Queen Elizabeth II meets Prime Minister Theresa May in July 2016 AFP/Getty The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and David Cameron Prime Minister David Cameron greets Queen Elizabeth II as his wife Samantha (L) and The Duke of Edinburgh (R) look on in Downing Street on June 21, 2011 Getty Images The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Gordon Brown Queen Elizabeth II greets Gordon Brown at Buckingham Palace for an audience at which he tendered his resignation as Prime Minister, on May 11, 2010 in London Getty The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Tony Blair Britains Prime Minister Tony Blair welcoming Britains Queen Elizabeth II at No 10 Downing Street in London, 29 April 2002 AFP/Getty Images The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and John Major Queen Elizabeth II speaks to former Prime Minister John Major as Lord Douro looks on as she opens the refurbished East Wing of Somerset House, on February 29, 2011 in London Getty The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher curtseys to Queen Elizabeth II as she arrives for a dinner at 10 Downing Street, London, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Prime Minister's office PA The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and James Callaghan Queen Elizabeth II welcoming Prime Minister James Callaghan and French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing for a lunch at Windsor Castle PA The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Edward Heath The Queen, Prime Minister Edward Heath and the Duke of Edinburgh (centre, background) in the foyer of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in January 1973 PA The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Harold Wilson British Prime Minister Harold Wilson shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth II outside 10 Downing Street, following his resignation, London, March 24th 1976 Getty The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Alec Douglas-Home Alec Douglas-Home (second from the left) with Queen Elizabeth II and other former PMs at 10 Downing Street in December 1985 PA The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Harold Macmillan Former British prime minister Harold Macmillan (1894 - 1986) gives a speech at the inauguration ceremony of a memorial to John F Kennedy at Runnymede while Queen Elizabeth listens Getty The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Anthony Eden Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden with Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in October 1955 PA The Queen and her Prime Ministers Queen Elizabeth II and Winston Churchill Watched by Lady Churchill, Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill bows low to Queen Elizabeth II as he welcomes her and the Duke of Edinburgh to 10 Downing Street for dinner in April 1955 PA

In the discussion that followed, ministers agreed the move was "most welcome" and should put a stop to one of the major sources of criticism of the royal family.

The minutes added: "On the other hand, this gesture would not by itself change the behaviour of the media and some would represent it as resulting from their pressure.

"The Government should reinforce the Queen's initiative by strong expressions of support for the institution of the monarchy."

Additional reporting by Press Association
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Margaret Thatchers ministers pleaded to be chauffeured around in official Jaguars rather than lowly Rovers, records have revealed.

Government files released for the first time reveal backstage wrangling over official cars in the late 1980s  as Baroness Thatchers grip on power slipped amid historic events including the breakdown of the Soviet Union, Hillsborough disaster and Tiananmen Square massacre.

Whitehalls rules at the time stated that only the most senior cabinet ministers were permitted to travel by official Jaguar on security grounds.

The rest of the cabinet was chauffeured in Rovers, but some members appealed directly to their Prime Minister to be made an exception.

Sir Geoffrey Howe appealed to keep his former car after being moved from the post of Foreign Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister in September 1989.

Records released by the National Archives showed Downing Street officials formally advising Lady Thatcher on the issue.

They noted that she had previously agreed - against official advice - that Chancellor Nigel Lawson could be allocated a Jaguar previously used by the Commons speaker.

The Wales secretary, Nicholas Edwards, had also been allowed a Jaguar because it would make the regular journeys by road between London and Cardiff more comfortable - he had been ill.

Nigel Lawson, then the Chancellor, pushed for a new Jaguar (PA)

As Lord President of the Council, Lord Whitelaw also had a Jaguar on grounds of comfort, the documents said, adding: The standard Rover was judged to have been a little too small for him."

Lady Thatcher appeared unconcerned, writing in a handwritten aside: "What is the price difference? If none, I see no problem."

Alan Clark, a wealthy trade minister, got his hands on an official Jaguar by paying for it himself, even though he was not in the cabinet.

Lord Lawson went on to plead for a new Jaguar to replace the ageing model he inherited.

It came after the Prime Minister handed his official country residence to Sir Geoffrey after a cabinet reshuffle earlier in 1989.

Andrew Turnbull, Lady Thatcher's private secretary, noted that it was a "tricky" decision as Lord Lawson was effectively asking to upgrade from a second-hand vehicle to a new one at a cost of 21,000, compared with 16,300 for a Rover 827.

He admitted the Chancellor was keen to secure another Jaguar "primarily on grounds of comfort and status but also because he would like to avoid the 'first she took away his country house and then his car' story".

Lady Thatcher was prepared to indulge her minister's wishes but the peace offering did not stop him resigning his post that October  little over a year before the Prime Minister was ousted by her own party.

Additional reporting by PA
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Margaret Thatcher thought pandas did not make happy omens for travelling politicians, newly-released government files reveal.

While panda diplomacy may have been a favourite ploy of Chinese leaders, the former Prime Minister was not a fan of such diplomatic gifts.

Her surprising aversion to the nearly universally loved creatures emerged in January 1981, when the Smithsonian Institution in Washington asked London Zoo for the loan of its male panda to be mated with a female panda which the Chinese had given to the United States.

The request was seized upon by the president of the London Zoological Society, Lord Zuckerman, as an opportunity to generate some much-needed publicity for the cash-strapped zoo.

He immediately contacted Downing Street suggesting the prime minister herself might like to preside over the handover.

Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension Show all 12 1 /12 Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-1-.jpg Reuters Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-12.jpg EPA Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-11.jpg EPA Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-10.jpg AFP Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-8-.jpg Rex Features Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-9.jpg EPA Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-5-.jpg AFP Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-6.jpg AFP Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-7.jpg Rex Features Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-2.jpg AFP Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-4.jpg Rex Features Pandaplomacy! Eats shoots and helps ease global tension SU-48-diplomatic-animals-3-.jpg Getty Images

The cabinet secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, wrote: Lord Zuckerman sees this as a signal demonstration of the special relationship and would be very happy to time the announcement of the loan or the delivery of the panda in any way that the prime minister thought would be most likely to benefit Anglo-American relations.

He even suggested that the Prime Minister might like to take the panda in the back of her Concorde, when she goes to Washington next month.

Ms Thatcher, however, was less than enthusiastic.

 Toronto Zoo Giant Panda vs. Snowman

Her private secretary, Clive Whitmorem replied: She has commented that she is not taking a panda with her  Pandas and politicians are not happy omens!

In a handwritten aside, she added: Lord Z knows more about pandas than I do  I am sure he can arrange these things.

Additional reporting by Press Association
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The latest release of official documents are a timely and brutal reminder of just how divisive an issue Europe has been in British, and particularly Conservative Party, politics for so long  and why the disputes of today, with their roots in their past, remain so sensitive today.

Why else, after all, would discussions about such dusty historical matters such as sterlings short and disastrous membership of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism more than a quarter of a century ago be regarded with the same nervous official eyes as, say, the release of documents about the divorce of Charles and Diana?

The feeling can only be that public disclosure would open up old wounds in the Tory party, mainly about Europe. These have hardly healed in the intervening years, centring on the alleged betrayal of national interests in what was a crucial period in the attempt  which ultimately foundered  to settle the issue and place Britain, in the words of the then-Prime Minister, John Major, at the heart of Europe. Yet that is no excuse for holding back facts and arguments and the reasons for historical decisions taken then that have such resonance now, and which, in any case, the public has a right to know about (as indeed it did at the time).

The cliche about history is that is necessary to understand the past to understand the present, but it is true, and nowhere more so than about Britains relationship with the European Union. But many of the papers that can shed light on that are to stay firmly locked away in the Public Record Office at Kew. Many of the protagonists are still alive, but so what? They should long since have ceased to be embarrassed about what was said and done at the time. Most, too, have written volumes of memoirs, necessarily self-serving and partisan. No one would think they were the last or most objective word on the recent past.

If the public is in fact being kept in the dark, just to save the Tory blushes, then that may not work anyhow. The very doubts being stirred about what lies in those files can only serve to fuel speculation and conspiracy theories about knavish tricks by Brussels and their collaborators in the British establishment and the upper reaches of the Conservatives at a pivotal moment. It would, as with most things, all be better understood if there was better freedom of information, but which politician or civil servant ever believes in that?

The holding back of papers about the Scott arms-to-Iraq inquiry simply stinks. This was one of the most morally debased episodes in British foreign policy, where officials and politicians lied  or were economical with the actualite to use the former minister Alan Clarks charming euphemism at the time  about arming Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein secretly during the 1980s, so that he could, in turn, fight the Iranians, who we disliked even more.

Saddam was the man against whom we would later to go to war, twice, and castigate as a monster who made war against his own people  but with weaponry sold to him by the UK. This was undertaken clandestinely against international sanctions, contrary to publicly stated national policy  and with the knowledge of the British government. Maybe the stuff about basing US nuclear cruise missiles in the UK is conceivably a matter of continuing national security, and the breakdown of royal marriages still a personal matter, but there is no excuse for obscuring the truth about the arms-to-Iraq affair, or the later Scott inquiry into it. It looks very much as if the Scott Report may have been doctored at the time to lessen the political damage. Im not surprised they dont want us to know about that.

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 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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 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Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. 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Its all political, of course it is, and its fascinating to see how such long-gone disputes echo down the years, and how powerfully the official instinct for secrecy endures, even if the events are mainly about party politics. Perhaps the single most defining moment in Conservative Party politics and for the UKs position in Europe in the past three decades was the regicide of November 1990: the forced resignation of Margaret Thatcher, and its long aftermath.

Even today there are those who believe that there was a sort of conspiracy to engineer the fall of Thatcher from 1989 not so long after she had celebrated her 10th year as premier and still with the faithfuls chants of 10 more years from the Tory conference of only a few weeks before still ringing in their ears. She herself described the manner of her eventual undoing a year later  the advice of most of her cabinet ministers for her to quit, given in a series of one-to-one interviews, was treachery with a smile on its face.

The Thatcherites, those who grew up politically during her time in office and took their cue from her prejudices, now own the party, after all. Like the lady herself, they were never reconciled to the way she lost office  in a party coup rather than defeat at a general election  and Tory party has never recovered from the trauma of that time.

The arguments between Leavers and Remainers in the Tory party, and now between the so-called hard and soft Brexiters, are pretty much the same arguments as those as have raged for these past couple of decades between dedicated, ideological Thatcherites and the rest of the Conservative family, the battle lines drawn in the 1990s. And with much the same results, it must be said  division, fratricide, massive instability, damage to the national interest. Only when, briefly, the party took David Camerons advice to stop banging on about Europe did they get anywhere near power again. The truce didnt last. The Tory civil war is back on.

Even after Brexit, it is apparent that the British will still not have reached a state of consensus about what Europe means to them. They may never do so, having failed to do so since the Second World War. Failures or disputes over Europe wrecked, or helped to shorten, the Conservative premierships of Harold Macmillan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major and David Cameron, and, with a delayed reaction, they are surely doing the same to Theresa May.

History does tend to repeat itself, and loudly, even if sometimes important documents and voices from the past are kept quiet.
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Over a dozen confidential government files relating to Britains European policy in the early 1990s have been held back from the latest tranche of historical documents released to the public.

Of the 45 European files due to be released by the National Archives at Kew, 13 have been retained by the Cabinet Office. Among those held back is one file covering the creation of the euro.

While it is not unusual for the Government to withhold some files in its biannual disclosures, critics have raised eyebrows over the decision to withhold documents on European policy at a critical juncture in Britains exit from the EU.

In a matter of weeks Theresa May will embark on the second phase of the Brexit negotiations in Brussels, in which Britains future relationship with the bloc will be hammered out along with any future trade deal.

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat leader and former coalition cabinet minister, told The Independent: The Conservatives have form on unnecessarily holding back documents related to Europe so that they avoid public scrutiny.

This looks suspicious, as if they are trying to hide information that could be embarrassing during the Brexit negotiations.

Recommended Theresa May accepts EU plan to postpone real trade talks until March

And Labours Jon Trickett, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, added that citizens are entitled to expect high levels of transparency from government. This Government has abysmally failed in this duty, he said.

He added: Earlier this week, it was revealed that a thousand important files had been lost by the Government. People will be entitled to ask why the Government is refusing to release significant dossiers from our recent history, some of which are of critical importance in connection with the EU.

This seems to be a pattern of obfuscation from this Government, with vital information that could be key to our understanding of the current political situation being concealed from our citizens.

But a Cabinet Office spokesman denied files were being deliberately withheld to prevent media scrutiny. We have to ensure all files are properly reviewed and prepared before they are transferred, so that they do not harm national security or our relations with other countries or disclose the sensitive personal data of living individuals, the spokesman said.

In a letter to the National Archives, the Cabinet Office added: The Government takes its responsibility for transparency very seriously. We have worked with the National Archives to improve the system for releasing records as we make the transition from the 30-year rule to the 20-year rule.

We now release more records, more frequently than ever before and a record 800+ files have been put into the public domain over the two releases in July and December.

The number of temporary retentions is lower than in recent years and we continue to seek to ensure this number is kept to a minimum. In 2015 we retained or closed 24 per cent of files from the Prime Ministers office, in 2016 this dropped to 15 per cent, and this year it will be around 10 per cent, demonstrating our commitment to bringing down the number of retentions year on year.

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

In all, around 100 of the 490 files scheduled for release from the Prime Ministers office this month have been retained by the Government. Under current rules confidential papers are expected to be released to the public after 20 years.

Other withheld files include dossiers on the marriages of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, the Lockerbie bombing, the Scott arms-to-Iraq inquiry, and the basing of US cruise missiles in the UK.

In one document the then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was warned against inviting the former US President Richard Nixon to Downing Street. Diplomats said the White House would be unhelpfully surprised if she agreed to receive him.

The warning came in April 1980  six years after Mr Nixons resignation over the Watergate scandal  when Tory MP Jonathan Aitken contacted No 10 on his behalf asking if she would see him during a forthcoming visit to London.
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Heroes of the Grenfell Tower fire and Manchester and London terror attacks have not been included in the New Year Honours list, while politicians and celebrities do make the cut.

The organisers of the honours list said more time was needed to gather and judge nominations of people praised for their responses to this years biggest tragedies.

But the delay was attacked by a member of the Grenfell recovery scrutiny committee, who said it was absolutely outrageous that community heroes were not being recognised straightaway.

Recommended Children from Grenfell Tower deliver alternative Christmas message

A City Hall source told The Independent that London Mayor Sadiq Khan believed those who played key roles in the responses should be recognised as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the list does include senior honours for a clutch of lesser-known Conservative MPs who backed Brexit in the referendum.

They include Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 backbench committee, who would play a crucial role if enough Tory MPs demanded a vote of no confidence in Theresa May.

Cheryl Gillan, who is being made a Dame, and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Christopher Chope  who are both knighted  also all backed Leave.

Sir Geoffrey, MP for the Cotswolds, said he believed it was completely coincidental when asked if Brexit had influenced any of the political honours awarded.

Brexit: the deciders Show all 8 1 /8 Brexit: the deciders Brexit: the deciders European Union's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier Getty Brexit: the deciders French President Emmanuel Macron Getty Brexit: the deciders German Chancellor Angela Merkel Reuters Brexit: the deciders Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker EPA Brexit: the deciders The European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt Getty Brexit: the deciders Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May Getty Images Brexit: the deciders Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond PA Brexit: the deciders After the first and second appointed Brexit secretaries resigned (David Davis and Dominic Raab respectively), Stephen Barclay is currently heading up the position PA

On the other side of the EU divide, news of the knighthood for Nick Clegg, the former Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister, leaked earlier this week.

There are also knighthoods for Labour MPs Mark Hendrick and Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Deputy Speaker.

Tommy Sheppard, the SNP Cabinet Office spokesman said the honours list should not include doled out political favours.

Sadly, successive Westminster governments have risked demeaning the system by making obvious political appointments, he said.

The Grenfell tragedy claimed 71 lives in June, while more than 30 people were killed by terrorists in London and at the Manchester Arena.

Joe Delaney, who lived on Lancaster West estate and is a member of the local councils Grenfell recovery scrutiny committee, said the tragedy should have been acknowledged in the list.

I think it shows where the Governments priorities lie, he told The Independent, pointing to Nick Cleggs knighthood.

What about people who helped at Grenfell, or people who stepped in to help at the London Bridge attack or Manchester Arena?

 Met police officer describes taking on the London Bridge terrorists

For ordinary people who went above and beyond not to be honoured is absolutely outrageous.

Judy Bolton, campaign coordinator for Justice4Grenfell, said the community know who is honourable, regardless of the names on the honours list.

She said: I will remember those who really sacrificed a lot that night. We have many heroes and many people on our streets here who, every day, still get up and look after those who have broken lives, like all of us.

Just because they don't get recognised on a list, doesnt mean that they are less worthy. It just says a lot about the honours list itself.

Labour MP Karen Buck also said those who were caught up in the fire should be honoured.

"We have a duty as a society to bow our heads in recognition of what incredible things people did that night and in the aftermath," she said.

But a Cabinet Office spokeswoman said it took many months for nominations to be received from the public and properly scrutinised, which explained the absence from the New Year list.

Detailed consideration is given to all honours nominations received and this takes time, she said.

We would expect to see a number of nominations reflecting recent tragedies and events in future lists, and encourage those in affected communities to put forward nominations.

The polling expert Professor John Curtice, the face of TV election night coverage, was also given a knighthood, describing himself as surprised and humbled.
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Margaret Thatcher was warned against inviting Richard Nixon to Downing Street after he was forced to resign as US President over the Watergate scandal, newly released documents reveal.

UK diplomats told the then Prime Minister it would be unhelpful to US-UK relations if she hosted the disgraced former president.

The warning came in 1980  a year after Thatcher entered Downing Street and six years after the Watergate scandal in which Nixon was found to have had involvement in a break-in at Democratic Party offices in Washington DC.

Downing Street had been approached by Jonathan Aitken, a Conservative MP who was later convicted of perjury, to ask whether the Prime Minister would be willing to meet with Nixon when he visited London.

Newly released documents from April 1980 reveal Foreign Office official Malcolm Adams told Number 10 there was no overriding objection to the meeting going ahead but advised the Prime Minister against it.

After consultation with the UKs ambassador in Washington, he wrote: "The ambassador pointed out that Mr Nixon is as much out of touch in the US as he is controversial and he doubts whether the Prime Minister would learn much from him. In the US, more might be read into a call at No 10 than was intended.

In Pictures: Margaret Thatcher, a life in politics Show all 9 1 /9 In Pictures: Margaret Thatcher, a life in politics In Pictures: Margaret Thatcher, a life in politics 191386.bin In Pictures: Margaret Thatcher, a life in politics 191385.bin In Pictures: Margaret Thatcher, a life in politics 192808.bin In Pictures: Margaret Thatcher, a life in politics 168686.bin In Pictures: Margaret Thatcher, a life in politics 192781.bin In Pictures: Margaret Thatcher, a life in politics 168701.bin In Pictures: Margaret Thatcher, a life in politics 110601.bin In Pictures: Margaret Thatcher, a life in politics 192807.bin In Pictures: Margaret Thatcher, a life in politics thatcher_2.jpg

"To judge from our experience when soundings were taken before Mr Nixon's last visit to Britain the US administration would not presume to advise us how to respond; but the ambassador considers that they, and senior Republicans, would be surprised, and unhelpfully so, if the Prime Minister received him."

The advice was included in a ream of documents released by the National Archives in Kew, west London.

Other files revealed how Thatcher clashed with the Irish Government over the extradition of IRA suspects, and once refused to take a panda on a trip to China.

She did eventually meet with Nixon in private two years later, after a further request by Aitken.

Afterwards, the former US president sent her a telegram congratulating her on a recent victory over striking rail workers.

He wrote: "Your gutsy leadership both domestically and internationally continues to inspire free peoples everywhere.
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A former Conservative minister has denounced the idea of a universal basic income to protect workers who lose their jobs as dangerous nonsense.

Former skills minister Nick Boles said the Tories had a moral duty to oppose the introduction of the idea  which guarantees every worker in the UK a minimum income.

Universal basic income, or UBI, would replace means-tested benefits with one single payment to every adult.

It has been suggested as a solution to the threat robots and automation pose to many modern jobs.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has promised to examine the idea and four local councils in Scotland have won a grant from Holyrood to trial it.

But in a new book Mr Boles has urged his party to resist the idea.

He writes: The main objection to the idea of a universal basic income is not practical but moral. Its enthusiasts suggest that when intelligent machines make most of us redundant, we will all dispense with the idea of earning a living and find true fulfilment in writing poetry, playing music and nurturing plants. That is dangerous nonsense.

Mankind is hard-wired to work. We gain satisfaction from it. It gives us a sense of identity, purpose and belonging We should not be trying to create a world in which most people do not feel the need to work.

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

The MP for Grantham also warned the idea would prohibitively expensive as the government is only able to afford to help those who need it most.

He said: Currently, the government is able to target help on those who need it most and can therefore afford to be modestly generous. If, in future, everyone were to receive the same basic income, the poorest would suffer a big drop in their income while average earners taxes would go up.

Instead he argues that the Government should invest heavily in skills training and further education to help workers adapt to the new jobs environment  including the creation of two-year technical qualifications.

Recommended Tory MP Nick Boles reveals he has been diagnosed with cancer again

Mr Boles, whose book Square Deal is due to be published in February next year, is widely viewed as a member of the thoughtful, reforming side of the party which were nurtured under David Camerons leadership.

His new book is supposed to deal with what the says the Conservatives should do to say relevant and reinvigorate itself with fresh ideas after it has been struggling to compete with the enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyns Labour party.

During his party conference speech in September Mr Corbyn suggested that a Labour government could impose a robot tax to ensure the proceedings of automation are shared out across society.

But Mr Boles warned: The only sure result of a robot tax would be lower investment, lower productivity and lower wages.
It took only two days in November for police, under guidance of Carlisles new police chief and Cumberland Countys eventual outgoing district attorney, to make an arrest in the boroughs only suspected murder in 2017.

Police responded to a shooting in a building at the corner of West North Street and North College Street around 3:11 p.m. Nov. 2. The shooting resulted in the death of Rhyhiem Hodge, 35, of Carlisle, from apparent gunshot wounds.

The police response that Sunday evening included a message that they were still combing through a complex crime scene that involved a half a block worth of evidence.

Police hadnt initially released a name or description of the suspect, but they were working on finding the evidence needed to confirm their suspicions.

Christopher Jaquell Williams, 25, of Harrisburg, was charged with felony criminal homicide, robbery, possession of firearm by a prohibited person, two counts of felony aggravated assault, misdemeanor reckless endangerment and unlawful restraint.

In a news conference that afternoon, Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed and authorities credited cooperation of citizens, law enforcement and aid from new technology in leading to Williams arrest.

Freed, who left the county in November after being confirmed as the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, said this case was the first time the county has used a new rapid DNA system, which allowed for quick DNA comparisons between samples from Williams blood-soaked sock and samples from the murder scene.

According to the affidavit of probable cause, Williams went to the home in the 200 block of West North Street Sunday afternoon to purchase marijuana. A witness told police she was taken hostage by Williams, who placed a gun to her head and demanded money. A struggle ensued and Williams shot Hodge, police said.

Freed said during the news conference the purchase of marijuana was just a ruse used by Williams to gain access to the home.

For the citizens who will hear me, what I will tell you is that if you commit a crime in Carlisle borough or Cumberland County, we will find you, Carlisle Police Chief Taro Landis said.
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At least 11 people have been killed after a gunman opened fire outside a Coptic Christian church near Cairo, Egypts health ministry has said.

The Coptic Church said the gunman first shot at a Christian-owned shop 4km away, killing two people, before proceeding to the Mar Mina church in the southern Cairo suburb of Helwan.

The Interior Ministry said he opened fire at the entrance to the site and tried to throw an explosive device.

According to Interior Ministry and Coptic Church accounts, 11 were killed in all, including a policeman at the church.

The health ministry had said earlier that five people were wounded, including two women who were in serious condition.

The Church said a young woman had died later from her wounds.

Earlier reports by security sources and state media said at least two attackers were involved, and that one was shot dead and another fled the scene. The interior ministry did not explain the reason for the different accounts.

It also said there was a separate attack on a shop in the same neighbourhood of Helwan that killed two Copts.

The ministry added that investigators had identified the gunman and that he had carried out several attacks since last year.

Samir Gerges, a witness, said people inside the church closed the gates when the shootout began but bullets from the gunfire still entered the building.

Egypt shooting at Coptic Christian church Show all 8 1 /8 Egypt shooting at Coptic Christian church Egypt shooting at Coptic Christian church Bullet holes are seen in the Mar Mina church following an attempted attack in the district of Helwan, Cairo EPA Egypt shooting at Coptic Christian church A gunman opened fire on a Cairo church, killing at least ten people before policemen shot him dead, state media and officials said EPA Egypt shooting at Coptic Christian church Egyptian security members and forensic police inspect the site of a gun attack. AFP/Getty Egypt shooting at Coptic Christian church A priest reacts after the attack AFP/Getty Images Egypt shooting at Coptic Christian church Blood stains are seen on the ground from the victims killed in the attack Reuters Egypt shooting at Coptic Christian church People gathered outside the Mar Mina Church after the attack REUTERS Egypt shooting at Coptic Christian church Security officials, people from the church and residents speak outside EPA Egypt shooting at Coptic Christian church The Cairo church had to be cordoned off as police and forensics attend the scene REUTERS

Mr Gerges said he was walking in a nearby street when the shooting happened. He saw people running and some of them went to hide from the gunfire inside a nearby restaurant.

Raouth Atta, 40, was attending prayers inside the church when the shooting took place.

Once the gunfire was heard, the gates were closed immediately, she said. People were terrified and wanted to check on their families in other buildings of the church. We stayed inside for 30 minutes before we were able to get out.

Ms Atta said that once she was let outside the building she saw blood scattered everywhere.

A video circulated on social media after the attack apparently shows the dead gunman on the ground.

Authorities have closed off the area around the church, and a joint funeral for eight of those killed was held on Friday evening at the Virgin Mary church in Helwan.

The Christian minority, which makes up 10 per cent of the Egyptian minority, has been regularly targeted by Islamist extremists such as Isis in recent years.

Recommended How the Pope hopes to solve sectarian conflicts in Egypt

Just last week, hundreds of Muslim demonstrators stormed an unlicensed church south of Cairo wounding three people. The demonstrators shouted anti-Christian slogans and called for the churchs demolition, the diocese in the area said at the time. The demonstrators destroyed the churchs contents and assaulted Christians inside before security personnel arrived and dispersed them.

Meanwhile earlier this year at least 43 people were killed in twin bombings in Coptic churches in the cities of Alexandria and Tanta, while they gathered to celebrate Palm Sunday.

Children were among the 28 people killed when gunmen opened fire on a bus travelling to a Coptic monastery in Minya province in May.

The Coptic sect, a branch of Orthodox Christianity, has lived in Egypt and other parts of north-east Africa such as Ethiopia for thousands of years, but have recently been targeted by hardline Sunni Arabs Islamists, including Isis, who regard them as infidels helping the West wage war on Muslims.

In response to the Minya bus attack, the Egyptian military launched an air strike against what it said were militant training facilities in Libya.

Muslim leaders including the Grand Mufti of Egypt and the grand imam of al-Azhar, Egypts 1,000-year-old centre of Islamic learning, condemned that attack as the act of brutal terrorism and called on Egyptians to unite.

Additional reporting by agencies
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A man who repeatedly raped his daughter, fathering eight children with her, has been jailed in Argentina.

Domingo Bulacio, 56, was sentenced to 12 years and eight months by three judges at a court in the northern city of Santiago del Estero.

His daughter testified that he had turned her into his sex slave at seven-years-old, when her mother left their home.

The abuse continued over the next 22-years, during which time, she gave birth to eight of his children.

I was not the only one, there are relatives of his who do the same to their sisters and daughters, the victim, now aged 30, told El Liberal newspaper after the trial.

Some commentators have compared him to Austrias Josef Fritzl, 82, who imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth in the cellar of their home in the town Amstetten.

He fathered seven children with Elisabeth before she alerted authorities in 2008. Now 82, he was jailed for life the following year.

Bulacio was caught in January 2016 after his daughter took her youngest son, aged five, to the doctor when he became seriously ill.

The boy needed to stay in the local care centre for several weeks, during which time the daughter revealed to doctors who the boys father was.

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

It later emerged that they had all lived in a house with one room and Mr Bulacio raped his daughter in front of the children, newspaper reported.

When police went to arrest Bulacio, he had disappeared. He then spent 45 days on the run before being captured in a rural area around 25 miles south of the city of Loreto, according to local reports.

He underwent a DNA test to establish paternity and was subsequently charged with sex crimes.
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A Connecticut court has refused to free three elephants from a zoo after an animal rights group asked it to do so.

The court ruled that Minnie, Beulah, and Karen do not qualify as persons entitled to liberty and equality under state law.

Judge James Bentivegna wrote in the decision that the petition is wholly frivolous on its face because it relied on applying human rights of freedom and equality to the animals.

The Nonhuman Rights Project and Stephen Wise filed the request with the state's Superior Court in Hartford on behalf of the trio, who belong to a travelling Commerford Zoo based in Goshen, Connecticut, the Washington Post reported.

The writ of habeas corpus did not bring issue with any mistreatment of the elephants, but cited deplorable living conditions.

Instead, Mr Wise argued that Minnie, Beulah, and Karen possess such fundamental rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty, and those other legal rights to which evolving standards of morality, scientific discovery, and human experience entitle them.

 Elephant mother 'thanks' people for saving baby

They range from 33 to 50 years old and have been with the zoo for nearly 30 years.

Zoo owner Tim Commerford said the elephants are part of our family.

Its not right to rip them from my family, from their home, he told the newspaper, adding that he felt the animal rights group was picking on his zoo because it is small and family-owned.

India elephants with knitted jumpers Show all 9 1 /9 India elephants with knitted jumpers India elephants with knitted jumpers Badly treated rescued elephants at the Wildlife SOS sanctuary outside Agra, India with their newly knitted jumpers are on show for the first time, they are all effected by the cold after their ordeal at the hands of owners Roger Allen India elephants with knitted jumpers Roger Allen India elephants with knitted jumpers Roger Allen India elephants with knitted jumpers Roger Allen India elephants with knitted jumpers Roger Allen India elephants with knitted jumpers Roger Allen India elephants with knitted jumpers Roger Allen India elephants with knitted jumpers Roger Allen India elephants with knitted jumpers Roger Allen

The court ruled against Mr Wise also because he has had no prior relationship with the elephants.

Mr Wise said the group will amend its petition with the court and continue to pursue its cause.

This is not the first such case for him either. In June 2017, a New York court ruled against Mr Wise when he filed a petition to have two chimpanzees held in cages by private owners released.

The judge in that case wrote: The asserted cognitive and linguistic capabilities of chimpanzees do not translate to a chimpanzees capacity or ability, like humans, to bear legal duties, or to be held legally accountable for their actions.
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An accountant discovered the discrepancy while reviewing the budget for new train platforms under Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.

The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as part of a 3.5-mile tunnel connecting the historic station to the Long Island Rail Road. But the accountant could identify only about 700 jobs that needed to be done, according to three project supervisors. Officials could not find any reason for the other 200 people to be there.

Nobody knew what those people were doing, if they were doing anything, said Michael Horodniceanu, who was then the head of construction at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs transit in New York. The workers were laid off, Horodniceanu said, but no one figured out how long they had been employed. All we knew is they were each being paid about $1,000 (739) every day.

The discovery, which occurred in 2010 and was not disclosed to the public, illustrates one of the main issues that has helped lead to the increasing delays tormenting millions of subway riders every day: The leaders entrusted to expand New Yorks regional transit network have paid the highest construction costs in the world, spending billions of dollars that could have been used to fix existing subway tunnels, tracks, trains and signals.

The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project, known as East Side Access, has ballooned to $12bn (8.9bn), or nearly $3.5bn (2.6bn) for each new mile of track  seven times the average elsewhere in the world. The recently completed Second Avenue subway on Manhattans Upper East Side and the 2015 extension of the No. 7 line to Hudson Yards also cost far above average, at $2.5bn (1.8bn) and $1.5bn (1.1bn) per mile, respectively.

For years, The New York Times found, public officials have stood by as a small group of politically connected labour unions, construction companies and consulting firms have amassed large profits.

Trade unions, which have closely aligned themselves with Governor Andrew Cuomo and other politicians, have secured deals requiring underground construction work to be staffed by as many as four times more labourers than elsewhere in the world, documents show.

Construction companies, which have given millions of dollars in campaign donations in recent years, have increased their projected costs by as much as 50 per cent when bidding for work from the MTA, contractors say.

Consulting firms, which have hired away scores of MTA employees, have persuaded the authority to spend an unusual amount on design and management, statistics indicate.

Public officials, mired in bureaucracy, have not acted to curb the costs. The MTA has not adopted best practices nor worked to increase competition in contracting, and it almost never punishes vendors for spending too much or taking too long, according to inspector general reports.

Its sad, really, said Lok Home, owner of the Robbins Co., which manufactured much of the tunnelling equipment used for East Side Access. Because if they controlled the costs, they could do twice as many expansion projects and still have more money for maintenance.

Asked about The Times findings, union leaders and construction executives insisted that no money had been wasted. They said tunnelling was difficult and dangerous work that must be well-funded.

The MTA, for its part, did not dispute the findings.

Joseph J Lhota, who was chairman of the authority in 2012 and returned to the job in June, said he had recently appointed working groups to study costs and the procurement process.

New Yorks struggles come as transit construction is booming around the world. At least 150 projects have been initiated since 1990, according to a recent study by Yale University researcher David Schleicher.

The approximate average cost of the projects - both in the US and abroad - has been less than $500 million per track mile, the study concluded.

There was one glaring exception, Schleicher said. New York.

That exception has not gone unnoticed. Independent online journalist Alon Levy first noted the MTAs high construction costs, and 28 City Council members urged officials to research the issue in October.

Lhota responded by defending the costs. He said in a letter, There are unique challenges that contribute to high construction costs in New York City in general, and for MTA projects in particular.

Lhota listed 10 explanations, including ageing utilities, expensive land, high density, strict regulations and large ridership requiring big stations.

To evaluate those arguments, The Times took the list to more than 50 contractors, many of whom had worked in New York as well as in other cities. The Times also interviewed nearly 100 current and former MTA employees, reviewed internal project records, consulted industry price indexes and built a database to compare spending on specific items. And The Times observed construction on site in Paris, which is building a project similar to the Second Avenue subway at one-sixth the cost.

The review found evidence for one of the issues cited by the MTA: Because most countries have nationalised health care, projects abroad do not have to fund worker health insurance. That might explain a tenth of the cost differences, contractors said.

But the contractors said the other issues cited by the MTA were challenges that all transit systems face. Density is the norm in cities where subway projects occur. Regulations are similar everywhere. All projects use the same equipment at the same prices. Land and other types of construction do not cost dramatically more in New York. Insurance is more costly but is only a fraction of the budget. The MTAs stations have not been bigger (nor deeper) than is typical.

The reasons for the MTAs high costs start with the sheer number of people employed.

Mike Roach noticed it immediately upon entering the No 7 line work site a few years ago. Roach, a California-based tunnelling contractor, was not involved in the project but was invited to see it. He was stunned by how many people were operating the machine churning through soil to create the tunnel.

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. 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Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. 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Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. 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Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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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 actually started counting because I was so surprised, and I counted 25 or 26 people, he said. Thats three times what Im used to.

The staffing of tunnel-boring machines came up repeatedly in interviews with contractors. The so-called TBMs are massive contraptions, weighing more than 1,000 tons and stretching as much as 500 feet from cutting wheel to thrust system, but they largely run automatically. Other cities typically man the machine with fewer than 10 people.

It is not just tunnelling machines that are overstaffed, though. A dozen New York unions work on tunnel creation, station erection and system setup. Each negotiates with the construction companies over labor conditions, without the MTAs involvement. And each has secured rules that contractors say require more workers than necessary.

The unions and vendors declined to release the labour deals, but The Times obtained them. Along with interviews with contractors, the documents reveal a dizzying maze of jobs, many of which do not exist on projects elsewhere.

There are nippers to watch material being moved around and hog house tenders to supervise the break room. Each crane must have an oiler, a relic of a time when they needed frequent lubrication. Standby electricians and plumbers are to be on hand at all times, as is at least one master mechanic. Generators and elevators must have their own operators, even though they are automatic. An extra person is required to be present for all concrete pumping, steam fitting, sheet metal work and other tasks.

In New York, underground construction employs approximately four times the number of personnel as in similar jobs in Asia, Australia, or Europe, according to an internal report by Arup, a consulting firm that worked on the Second Avenue subway and many similar projects around the world.

The labour deals negotiated between the unions and construction companies also ensure that workers are well paid. The agreement for Local 147, the union for the famed sandhogs who dig the tunnels, includes a pay rate for most members of $111 per hour in salary and benefits. The pay doubles for overtime or Sunday work, which is common in transit construction. Weekend overtime pays quadruple  more than $400 per hour.

Other trades are not paid as much but get overtime more frequently on MTA projects, driving up costs.

Union officials pushed back against the idea that their members are overpaid. The construction unions, after all, arose in response to exploitative bosses who underpaid and endangered workers. More than a dozen people died building New Yorks subway, and many more have perished since. Even today, workers labour in dirty and uncomfortable conditions to build marvels.

Construction workers deserve every penny they make and more, said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. We live in New York. Its very expensive to live here. We take great pride in the work that we do. And the work rules are there to make sure we stay alive.

But statistics suggest that the labour deals multiply costs while doing little to boost safety. During the Second Avenue subway project, for example, there were 5.5 safety incidents for every 200,000 work hours, according to federal data. The national average is 3.2. The Silver Line in Washington, which cost just $300m (221m) per mile, had an even lower rate of incidents.

When complete - East Side Access will serve approximately 162,000 customers per day (Spencer Platt/Getty)

Some labour leaders said they were willing to negotiate the work rules to increase efficiency.

We can figure out a way, said Richard Fitzsimmons, business manager for Local 147, who said that he often sees the construction companies insisting on workers that are not needed. Im the union, and sometimes Im saying to myself, What the hell are they even doing?'

But, Fitzsimmons added, we will never negotiate with the safety of our members.

Even though the MTA is paying for its capital construction with taxpayer dollars, the government does not get a seat at the table when labor conditions are determined. Instead, the task of reining in the unions falls to the construction companies  which often try to drive up costs themselves.

The profit per centage taken by vendors also is itself a factor in the MTAs high costs.

In other parts of the world, companies bidding on transit projects typically add 10 per cent to their estimated costs to account for profit, overhead and change orders, contractors in five continents said. Final profit is usually less than 5 per cent of the total project cost, which is sufficient given the size of the projects, the contractors said.

Things are much different in New York. In a series of interviews, dozens of MTA contractors described how vendors routinely increase their estimated costs when bidding for work.

First, the contractors said, the vendors add between 15 and 25 per cent as an MTA Factor because of how hard it can be to work within the bureaucracy of the transit authority. Then they add 10 per cent as a contingency for possible changes. And then they add another 10-12 per cent for profit and overhead.

Denise Richardson, the executive director of the General Contractors Association, which represents construction companies on MTA projects, said the surcharges are needed because the vendors assume huge risks on transit projects and often are forced to pay for mistakes made by the authority. At the end of the day, she said, the companies make a relatively small profit.

The MTAs high costs are not limited to the companies that build the tunnels. Projects start burning through cash long before construction begins.

On average, soft costs  preliminary design and engineering, plus management while construction is underway - make up about 20 per cent of the cost of transit projects in America, according to a 2010 report by the Transportation Research Board. The average is similar in other countries, contractors said.

The latest federal oversight report for the Second Avenue subway projected soft cost spending at $1.4bn (1bn) - one-third of the budget, not including financing expenses. MTA officials said that number was high because it included some costs for design of later phases of the line. But experts said it was still shocking.

The crazy thing is its so high even with everything else, said Larry Gould, a transit consultant and former MTA subway planner. If we have three or four times as many workers, how can the per centage for soft costs be so high?

Soft costs for East Side Access are expected to exceed $2bn (1.47bn). The project plan called for the hiring of 500 consultants from a dozen different companies, according to a 2009 federal oversight report.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, Paris is working on a project that brings the inefficiency of New York into stark relief.

The project, called the Line 14 extension, is similar to the Second Avenue subway. Both projects extend decades-old lines in the hopes of reducing systemwide overcrowding. Both involved digging through moderately hard soil just north of the city centre to make a few miles of tunnel and a few stations about 80 feet underground. Both used tunnel-boring machines made by the same company. Both faced strict regulations, high density and demands from neighbours, which limited some construction to 12 hours per day.

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But while the Second Avenue Subway cost $2.5bn (1.84bn) a mile, the Line 14 extension is on track to cost $450 million a mile.

On a recent afternoon at a Line 14 construction site, an official expressed disbelief that New York was spending so much.

We thought ours was expensive, said Laurent Probst, managing director of Ile-de-France Mobilites, which controls transit in the French capital.

Frances unions are powerful, but Probst said they did not control project staffing. Isabelle Brochard of RATP, a state-owned company that operates the Paris Metro and is coordinating the Line 14 project, estimated there were 200 total workers on the job, each earning $60 (44) per hour. The Second Avenue subway project employed about 700 workers, many making double that (although that included health insurance).

The tunnel-boring machine chewing through dirt north of Pont Cardinet  a secondhand machine, Brochard noted  was staffed by a dozen laborers who bounced between the control room, the cutting wheel and the sides of the machine.

The small number of workers has not slowed the Paris project. The line, which will run driverless trains every 85 seconds, is set to open by 2020, six years after groundbreaking. The Second Avenue subway, by contrast, took a decade to build.

The New York Times
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A new conservative Christian university is opening in 2018 which will have no safe spaces.

Sattler College is set to begin offering classes in Boston, Massachusetts, next fall and is being funded in large part by wealthy businessman and Harvard alumnus Finny Kuruvilla.

He told Fox News he decided to make the risky $30m pledge to open to the school that the modern educational system is too expensive, its academically weak and its hostile to faith.

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Mr Kuruvilla said that traditional four-year universities are very resistant to change and expensive -- Sattler will only cost students $9,000 a year thanks to his endowment.

According to Time magazine, an organisation working towards access to higher education, the average tuition for students to attend a public university in the US was $9,410 and $32,410 for private schools.

That does not include room and board, books, and miscellaneous fees.

But, it is not just cost that motivated Mr Kuruvilla. Its time for a revolution to get college back on track to think about character as much as it thinks about developing the mind, he 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. 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Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. 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Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

A safe space was originally meant as a literal place for LGBT students at a university to gather and discuss sensitive topics. Lately though, the term has been used in reference to students who have been accused of insulating themselves from political opinions that differ from their own.

Most notable have been the riots and protests ahead of campus speeches by white nationalist Richard Spencer or far right personality Milo Yiannopoulos. Critics have said the safe space mentality is stifling free speech for all students.

After a stint as a resident advisor for Harvard undergraduate students while he was in medical school, Mr Kuruvilla said Sattler students will not face the same issues of pornography addiction, drug use, cheating and promiscuity, according to Fox News.

The whole notion of education has become generally confined to academic thought, not so much to developing of the whole person, character, and integrity, Mr Kuruvilla said about his new school.

Sattlers mission is to prepare students to serve Christ, the church and the world.

Human biology, computer science, biblical and religious studies, history and business will be the initial bachelors degree offerings.

Several of the classes will be offered online to keep costs low and faculty will not only teach their subjects but be spiritual mentors for students.

The college will have three faculty and about 25 students the first year, with the goal of eventually enrolling 300, the Boston Globe reported.
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A pair of Russian comedians appear to have successfully tricked the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, into commenting on a fictional Asian country.

The two comedians Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, known as Vovan and Lexus, posted a 22 minute audio clip of their conversation with the ambassador where they get her to comment on the situation in Binomo  a fictional country in the South China Sea.

Posing as the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, they spoke to Ms Haley in the days after Poland was one of 35 countries to abstain on a UN vote to reject Donald Trumps declaration of Jerusalem as Israels capital as null and void.

The UN General Assembly voted 128-9, excluding the abstentions, in favour of the motion.

She said: Let me start with very much thanking you for the support we received on the vote today. We will never forget it.

Previous Mr Trump suggested he would cut off financial aid to those who voted for the motion.

The pranksters then moved the discussion to the situation in Binomo.

Mr Stolyarov, who was posing as Mr Morawiecki, said: You know Binomo to which Ms Haley replied yes, yes.

They had elections and we suppose Russia had its intervention, he continued.

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 Haley then replied: Yes, of course they did, absolutely.

Weve been watching that very closely, and I think we will continue to watch that as we deal with the issues that keep coming up about the South China Sea.

He then asked her what the US was planning to do about the island to which Ms Haley responded that she needed to find out exactly what our stance is on that and get back to them.

The comedians also questioned her about Ukraine, with whom Russia has been engaging in a proxy war since 2014, and expressed support for the former President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, who was arrested in Kiev earlier this month.

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Mr Saakashvili has been accused of taking money from a Russia-based oligarch to destabilise the political situation in Ukraine but has dismissed the allegations as "lies".

Poland and Ukraine have traditionally been allies but relations have soured in recent months due in part to a spat over the wartime killing of Poles in Ukraine.

A spokesperson for Ms Haley, John Degory, told The Post and Courier he would not confirm or deny the authenticity of the video. "We have nothing to share on that at this time," he said.

The Russian pranksters are known for impersonating Eastern European officials to mock and undermine Western leaders.

Earlier this year, US Energy Secretary Rick Perry was tricked into thinking he was talking to Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman where he reportedly discussed a new fuel made from manure and alcohol.

A spokeswoman for the department told Bloomberg at the time: These individuals are known for pranking high-level officials and celebrities, particularly those who are supportive of an agenda that is not in line with their governments. In this case, the energy security of Ukraine.
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A former member of President Donald Trumps 2016 campaign team has had his house arrest lifted so he can attend a New Years Eve party.

Rick Gates, a business associate of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, asked to be allowed to attend the event with his family, according to court documents.

The party is less than 60 miles from his home. Judge Amy Berman Jackson had previously denied another request by Mr Gates to attend a similar New Years party further afield, but felt this request showed good cause.

Ms Jackson also denied a request last month in which Mr Gates asked permission to drive his children to and from school.

Mr Gates has been under house arrest in Virginia since October 2017 when he and Mr Manafort were charged with 12 counts of conspiracy against the US, conspiracy to launder money, various charges regarding being a foreign agent for Ukraine without properly reporting their work to the US government, and seven counts of failing to report foreign bank and financial accounts.

The document stated that $75m went in and out of offshore accounts controlled by the pair, who both pleaded not guilty to all charges.

 Michael Flynn: Fired Trump adviser's pleads guilty to Russia investigation charge

The indictment was filed by special prosecutor Robert Mueller as part of the overall FBI investigation into alleged collusion between Trump campaign team members and Russian officials.

Experts have said the charges against Mr Gates and Mr Manafort are meant to elicit a plea deal in which they share more pertinent information to the Russia case in exchange for lighter sentencing.

In October Mieke Eoyang, Vice President for the National Security Programme at DC-based think tank Third Way, told The Independent, that the nature of the charges means that [Mr Manafort] isnt the ultimate big fish that they intend to get.

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

However, charging together suggests that [Mr] Gates cant seek a better deal by flipping on [Mr] Manafort, Ms Eoyang said.

[Mr] Manafort can try to negotiate better terms by implicating someone higher  Trump or Pence. But were still at the beginning of this thing. This is like the capture of the burglars in Watergate  its the start of the unwinding, she explained.

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign aide George Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty in the same case to lying to the FBI about their contacts with Russian officials ahead of Mr Trumps inauguration.

The FBI and Congressional investigations into the alleged collusion continue as Mr Gates waits for trial.
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The US sent fewer Mexican nationals back to their home country this year than last, despite Donald Trumps promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants upon taking office.

The US sent 151,647 Mexican nationals back across the border in the first 11 months of this year, compared to 219,905 over the same time period last year, according to data from the Mexican Secretary of the Interior. The numbers represent a 26 per cent decrease in the number of removals this year.

US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported a six per cent decrease in overall removals this year in a report issued in October. At the time, the agency attributed the decrease to a drop in apprehensions at the border. Border apprehensions generally result in faster removals than apprehensions further inside the country, because they are subject to an expedited removal process.

Recommended Immigrants avoiding public services after a year of Trump

Mr Trump actually ordered the Department of Homeland Security to expand its use of expedited removals  which allow certain immigrants to be deported in as little as 24 hours, without seeing an immigration judge  in an executive order issued in January. The same executive order also mandated the hiring of 10,000 additional immigration officers and the construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border.

Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban Show all 20 1 /20 Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-1 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-2 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-3 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-4 SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JANUARY 28: Demonstrators hold signs during a rally against a ban on Muslim immigration at San Francisco International Airport on January 28, 2017 in San Francisco, California. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that suspends entry of all refugees for 120 days, indefinitely suspends the entries of all Syrian refugees, as well as barring entries from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering for 90 days. Stephen Lam/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-5 A crowd of protesters gathers outside of the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse as a judge hears a challenge against President Donald Trump's executive ban on immigration from several Muslim countries, on January 28, 2017 in Brooklyn. The judge issued an emergency stay on part of Trump's executive order, ruling that sending refugees stopped at U.S. airports back to their countries would be harmful. Yana Paskova/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-6 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the new immigration ban issued by President Donald Trump at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-7 NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 28: Protestors rally during a demonstration against the new immigration ban issued by President Donald Trump at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-8 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the new immigration ban issued by President Donald Trump at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-9 Getty Images Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-10 Getty Images Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-11 NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 28: Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-12 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-13 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-14 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-15 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-16 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-17 NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 28: Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-18 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-19 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-20 Passengers wait in line to check in at the American Airlines terminal at JFK International Airport August 10, 2006 in the Queens borough of New York City. British authorities arrested 21 people and halted a anallegedly terrorist plot to use liquid explosives concealed in carry-on luggage to blow up airliners traveling between Britain and the U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said that the plot appeared to be directed at U.S. carriers flying out of Heathrow. such as United Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines. Stephen Chernin/Getty

Tyler Houlton, acting press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, suggested these changes may have deterred potential immigrants and resulted in the lower number of border apprehensions.

For Mexicans who enter illegally, effective tools like expedited removal have led to increased deterrence, which has impacted entry levels," Mr Houlton told Bloomberg News.

 Donald Trump's immigration crackdown encapsulated in poignant footage of father being deported

Mr Trump took office promising to deport up to 3m immigrants he claimed were in the country illegally.

What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate, Mr Trump told CBSs Lesley Stahl shortly after his election.

But the number of ICE removals under Mr Trump has not come close to the number reached under President Barack Obama in 2012. The US sent a record 410,000 people back to their home countries that year, sparking criticism from activists. ICE later refocused its efforts on removing immigrants with criminal records.

Under the Trump administration, the fastest-growing category of arrests is immigrants with no criminal record, according to the Washington Post. Arrests of non-criminal immigrants increased nearly threefold in the months between 22 January and 2 September of 2017, the outlet reported.
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Shivering, snowbound cities are scrapping their outdoor New Years Eve countdowns. Polar-bear plunges are being cancelled because of fears of frostbite and hypothermia. Winter-hardened towns are gaping at their new lows: 32 degrees below zero in Watertown, New York. Minus 36 in International Falls, Minnesota.

Record-breaking snowfalls have stranded older and disabled residents inside their homes for days. Cars are buried under mountains of snow, and lethally low temperatures are forcing cities across the Northeast and Midwest to open emergency warming centres for homeless residents and people whose furnaces are no match for the cold.

A mass of arctic air now has much of the north half of the country wrapped in an icy bear hug, and meteorologists expect the single-digit temperatures to stick around for at least another week.

 Severe weather swamps Pennsylvania city of Erie in 165cms of snow

Its been hell around here, said Rick Pakela, 73, a retired welder and maintenance worker in Erie whose family was stranded inside their home this week as the city was buried under 5 feet of snow.

As the pileup progressed, Pakela said his pregnant granddaughter began having trouble breathing and started vomiting. Pakela said his own truck had been blocked in their driveway, and health problems prevented him and his wife from leaving the house. The family called 911 and waited as firefighters dug a path to their door so they could take his granddaughter to the hospital.

We were all a nervous wreck, Pakela said.

Their neighbour, Mary Foley, 72, spent three days behind a wall of snow that came halfway to the top of her front door. A 12-year-old who lives down the street trudged through the drift to bring her a plate of ham, green beans and mashed potatoes as a Christmas dinner, and Foley, who lives alone, said she had stretched the food out over three days, not knowing when she would be able to get out.

On Thursday, she was one of about 60 Erie residents waiting for volunteer crews to arrive and dig her out.

I cant go to the grocery store or to church or anything, she said. I just stay in the house. Thats all I can do.

Law-enforcement officials said the weather was a factor in several deaths across the country, including two cold-related deaths in the Chicago area and a rollover car crash that killed four people in Kansas. The plunging temperatures prompted cities to urge homeless residents to seek shelters.

In city after city, the heaps of snow and relentless cold bedeviled government services. The deep freeze made it harder to melt icy streets with rock salt, public-works officials said. In western New York and Pennsylvania, snowplow drivers trying to clear the streets faced an obstacle course of immobilised cars. Cities warned drivers to dig them out and move them, or said they would be towed.

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. 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A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. 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Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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Waterways turned just as treacherous as roadways. In northern Michigan, two freighters got stranded in the icy St. Marys River and had to be freed by US and Canadian coast guard ships.

Temperatures dropped to minus 15 degrees in Pittsfield Charter Township, Michigan, where firefighters spent two freezing, soaked days trying to douse a huge warehouse fire. The spray from their hoses iced their gloves and turned their uniforms into suits of armour. Fire hydrants didnt work. Valves froze. The ladders and buckets that extend from their trucks were sheathed in ice.

Everything freezes up, Chief Sean Gleason said. You just cant get the chill out of your body.

And while the weather lifted business in popular ice-fishing and snowmobiling destinations, other cities said they were forced to scuttle their holiday celebration plans. Omaha, Nebraska, where temperatures may dip to minus 22 degrees on New Years Eve, decided to postpone its holiday fireworks. The milk-jug drop in Defiance, Ohio, was cancelled because of the cold. The annual celebration in Times Square was still a go, though temperatures in New York could be as low as 10 degrees when the ball drops.

President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Thursday to mention the chill  and take a shot at climate science:

While scientists routinely find themselves explaining that day-to-day weather patterns are not the same as long-term climate trends, they also widely agree that human-caused climate change is exacerbating extreme weather.

Along the New England coast, the cold appeared to be at least partially the culprit in the deaths of three thresher sharks found washed up on the shores of Wellfleet and Orleans on Cape Cod over the past several days, according to scientists.

If youve got cold air, thatll freeze their gills up very quickly, said Greg Skomal, a marine scientist for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Those gill filaments are very sensitive, and it wouldnt take long for the shark to die.

Skomal hypothesised that the sharks, which are usually about 12 feet long, had begun to make their way south as northerly waters cooled, but got trapped by Cape Cod, as have wayward dolphins before them, and pushed up onto the beach, where the cold may have hastened their death.

Scientists from the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy said they had collected tissue samples and organs from the sharks to be examined once they thaw.

In Erie on Thursday, Carole Van Duzer said she was just glad she had been able to dig herself out and get back to work.

Recommended Glasgow Airport just suspended all flights

Her furnace stopped working during the storm, and the repair company told her their truck was stuck and could not reach her house through the thigh-high snow. The temperature inside her home sank to 56 degrees, then to 43 degrees by Wednesday morning.

Van Duzer, 60, and her 20-year-old daughter, Alyssa, cloistered themselves in their living room, firing up their gas fireplace and turning on their space heaters. They hung sheets over the doorways and made sure to run the water to prevent the pipes from freezing.

It felt like wed been living in a war zone, she said. The whole thing was just exhausting.

By Thursday, patches of blue sky were poking out from the clouds, and Van Duzer was ready to be done with the winter ordeal. But her reprieve may not last. More snow is expected for the weekend.

New York Times
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US officials are urging residents to help the vulnerable as a deep freeze sets in across half the country, bringing colder temperatures than those Antarctica or parts of Mars.

Forecasters warned people to be wary of hypothermia and frostbite from the arctic blast sweeping across from the Midwest to the Northeast, where the temperature, without wind chill factored in, plummeted to -35C degrees in parts of New York state.

In Antarctica, temperatures are currently around -16C.

The prolonged, dangerous cold weather has sent advocates for the homeless scrambling to get people off the streets and to bring in extra beds for them. Warming centres were also set up in some locations.

Segundo Rivera and Sean Stuart told The Boston Herald they were not comfortable spending the night in a shelter.

Weve lived out here so long its like honestly, this is comfortable for us, Mr Rivera said.

The Ohio Department of Ageing said older people were at increased risk from such severe cold, from medication side effects to falling risks, and encouraged people to check on family members, friends and neighbours.

Animal advocates also urged people to remember their pets. In Toledo, the humane society was looking into the death of a dog found frozen solid on a porch, cruelty investigator Megan Brown told The Blade.

I dont know how long she was out there, Ms Brown 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

Cold weather records were set from Arkansas to Maine, and the cold air will linger through the weekend, reaching as far south as Texas and the Florida Panhandle.

In New Hampshire, the cold set a record for the day of -37 atop the Northeasts highest peak, Mount Washington.

In the Midwest, temperatures in Minneapolis are not expected to top zero this weekend.

A winter storm warning was in effect for much of Montana, calling for significant snowfall followed by dangerously cold temperatures as 2017 comes to an end.

People like to think of themselves as being prepared for the weather and things like that, Billings forecaster Dan Borsum said. But this one will get your attention.

Additional reporting by AP
When Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, it opened up a lot of eyes to the world of politics.

For some, it was supporting the new president in a push to drain the swamp of politicians in Washington, D.C., or in their respective states. For others, it was becoming more active and more vocal about public policy changes and national matters.

For residents of Cumberland County, it meant becoming more politically active in a way they hadnt been before.

Residents packed town hall meetings, including those for U.S. Rep. Scott Perry and state Rep. Stephen Bloom in March. Even earlier, groups were officially forming post-election.

A group of residents supporting Trump formed Eagle Strike Force, while residents touting a nonpartisan description formed Cumberland Valley Rising.

It was the latter group that started organizing educational seminars and events. Among its goals was to teach a better understanding of news sources as well as how the legislature works in the country.

The group also helped organize a town hall on womens health and later redistricting reform, but a major event it organized was in August when it held the Carlisle Rally for Unity. The event drew hundreds to the Square in Carlisle to denounce the ideology of white nationalism on the heels of a fatal protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, which occurred earlier that week.
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A woman was killed and 16 others injured, one of the critically, after a 70-tonne crane fell onto a bus in South Korea's capital, Seoul.

Witnesses told how they heard a huge bang when the neck of the crane smashed through the roof of the bus.

A 53-year-old woman, named only by her surname, Kim was killed when it hit the single decker bus after falling from a construction site across the road.

Firefighters told The Korea Times that one person was in intensive care with serious injuries.

The others only suffered minor injuries.

A video of the accident's aftermath shows one of the windows was smashed. Blood appears to have been smeared on a section of the roof which has caved in to the seats.

The base part of the crane can be seen on its side in the building site near the Gangseo District Office in the city.

It collapsed as its operator was trying to hoist a 5-tonne excavator to the top of a five-storey building, police said. The driver was not hurt in the incident.

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 horizontal strut called a boom hit the middle of the bus, a rescue worker told The Korea Times. The people most seriously injured were those who were standing in the middle.

There was a huge bang and I saw people fleeing the bus, a 36-year-old witness told the newspaper.

Police cordoned off the area and forensics officers were examining the scene for clues into the causes of the accident.

Several cranes have collapsed in South Korea in recent years, killing 20 people.

Officials started conducting inspections of 500 construction sites amid claims by experts that some of the equipment being used is old and needed to be repaired or replaced.
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Women attending New Year's Eve celebrations in Berlin this year will be able to attend a purpose-built "safe zone" if they are being harassed or threatened.

The new security measures are being introduced at the Brandenburg Gate party.

The news comes after hundreds of women reported being sexually harassed and assaulted at New Years Eve celebrations in Cologne two years ago.

More than 1,000 criminal complaints were filed by women, many of them alleging sexual assault and robbery, after women were targeted around the citys main station in the early hours of New Years Day in 2016.

Women reported being attacked by men from migrant backgrounds.

Other security measures are to be introduced for this years celebrations in Berlin, including a ban on alcoholic drinks and large bags such as rucksacks.

The police have asked women to come forward to the contact point/protection zone if they are being harassed or if someone is too close or touching them.

The zone will be monitored by the German Red Cross.

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

Make yourself known in any such case, speak to other revellers and ask for help, a statement read. You can turn here if you feel harassed.

While some have praised the organisers for taking action against sexual violence, others have suggested the zone could be discriminatory, and that establishing a safe zone does not tackle the real problem and does not address perpetrators of sexual violence.
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At a small Senegalese restaurant hidden away in the depths of Tangiers Old Town, a 28-year-old Sierra Leonean man with impeccable English tells The Independent about his dream of making the short sea crossing from Morocco to Spain.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a Moroccan man lurches into Amys Restaurant and lunges across the tables, swinging a firm blow at this reporters side, shouting as he does so: Sympathisant de negre. The phrase needs little translation.

Several other diners leap out of their cracked plastic chairs to push the man back, and the bizarre incident is over as quickly as it began. But it is a sudden reminder of the strain that is created when a small city  Tangier has a population of fewer than a million  finds itself at the centre of Europes migration crisis.

Recommended Refugees face deadly winter as charities call for action in Greece

Amys is packed, with refugees from across West Africa tucking into fragrant plates of yassa poulet and thie bou dienne. Talk is of a pantera  a makeshift rubber dinghy more at home in the swimming pools of Marbellas resorts than in the Mediterranean Sea  which has successfully landed near Algeciras on the Costa del Sol.

The Gambians, Cameroonians and Nigerians on board have made it to the promised land  Fortress Europe.

Two makeshift refugee boats moor in the foreground as would-be immigrants rest after being rescued in the waters of the Strait of Gibraltar, in the port of Tarifa (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty Images)

Adorning the walls of the restaurant are printouts of grainy selfies showing anxious yet clearly overjoyed young men being lifted out of their panteras, adrift in the Mediterranean, into larger vessels run by charities such as the Spanish Red Cross, the Cruz Roja.

Christopher, the Sierra Leonean, explains that when the migrants are picked up on the crossing the first thing they do is send a photo back to friends waiting in Morocco to show that, despite everything, they have finally made it.

Christophers parents were among the 300,000 civilians killed in Sierra Leones civil war between 1991 and 2002 and he himself was forced to fight in the conflict as a child.

He has lived in Tangier for three years after an arduous journey via Guinea, Mali, across the Sahara Desert and Algeria.

There is very little for us to celebrate here so when our brothers make it, it is as if every one of us has made it, he says. Pointing to the walls, he laughs: We all dream of making it onto the Hall of Fame.

The Morocco to Spain migrant route has exploded in popularity in 2017, with over 15,000 people so far rescued in the Strait of Gibraltar, marking a 338 per cent increase on last year alone.

The first reason for this is the perceived security situation in nearby Libya, once a major trafficking hub. Much of the country is now run by lawless militias, resulting in many migrants reaching their final departure destination only to be sold into slavery or forced into sex work.

This phenomenon made headlines when it was captured in images and videos by Reuters and CNN in November, news which reaches not just the West but also those back down the people-smuggling routes.

Migrants dream of leaving Tangiers Old Town (pictured) and making the crossing to southern Spain (Joe Wallen)

Secondly, the effectiveness of the Libyan coastguard in stopping boats from leaving has improved dramatically, ever since an agreement was signed in February that saw Italy provide money, training and equipment to the beleaguered Libyan fleet.

And so migrants are now increasingly making for Morocco, and Tangier in particular, where just 14 miles of sea separate them from the Spanish town of Tarifa.

Christopher travelled to Morocco with two friends from Sierra Leone. He tells me one has made it to France and successfully claimed asylum there, while the other died in the Mediterranean when his boat capsized in July.

They called the Red Cross but no one was on duty, so they sunk, he says with a sigh.

Habbas, from Liberia, broke his leg trying to enter the Spanish enclave of Ceuta (Joe Wallen)

Christopher invited The Independent to stay for two nights at his so-called African House with more than 20 other prospective migrants who all share the same dream: after escaping persecution and repressive regimes at home, they want to make it big in Europe.

Id rather die in that sea than stay here or go home, says his housemate Habas, 34, who is from neighbouring Liberia.

Habas is on crutches with a broken leg, the result of falling off the border wall in an attempt to get into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. He has also made four unsuccessful attempts to cross to Spain via boat. Despite his latest injury, he says he is as determined as ever to reach Spain.

2017 has seen a huge spike in the number of refugees trying to make the crossing from Morocco to southern Spain (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty Images)

Diallo, 23, from Mali, describes how his wife was raped before his eyes and then kidnapped on the Algerian border after they ran out of money to pay smugglers.

He has no idea where she is now.

Alfonso, 27, from Cameroon, has a criss-crossing of scars covering his forehead and neck.

He says he was beaten up by the Moroccan police after they found him living in the forest outside of Tangier.

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

Cruelty at the hands of Moroccans soon becomes a running theme. None of the men, despite some living in the country for more than five years, have steady jobs.

Here in Morocco there is a modern-day apartheid, they treat us worse than the dogs in the street, Christopher says shaking his head.

No one will hire us, the only work we ever get is occasional construction work, we can only make money when tourists take pity on us and we can work as guides or porters for them.

All claim they have experienced unprovoked violence at the hands of Moroccans, almost on a weekly basis, stories which ring particularly true after the assault in the cafe.

As sudden and unexpected as the attempted attack was, over the next 48 hours it is no less shocking to witness the group being spat at, sworn at and barked at by groups of locals on a regular basis.

Complicit in the treatment of the migrants are the Moroccan police who, it emerges, play a critical role in either blocking or assisting them in their arduous sea crossing.

It is the biggest game you will ever play, laughs Dieudonne, a Cameroonian who has paid for a place on a potentially lethal pantera next week.

Dieudonne has had his hair done especially for the journey  he dreams of becoming the biggest reggae star since Buju Banton and wants to arrive looking the part.

It turns out the police themselves are the main source of the migrants ramshackle plastic boats.

They come around to our houses every week with a selection of photos and if a house has enough money they will pay for one  it is our very own Christmas catalogue, he says, deadpan.

The house tell me that a typical journey costs between 1000-1500 in a rubber paddle boat but for an extra 1000, they can pay the Moroccan police off.

We tell them the beach we are going from and they just go elsewhere, Dieudonne says.

The next night they will be back, but we are long gone, to freedom, he laughs.
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Europe has seen a surge in support for populist political parties which threatens to destabilise democracy across the continent, a report by Tony Blairs think tank has warned.

The survey by the former Prime Ministers Institute for Global Change found the share of the vote taken by populist parties from both right and left has almost trebled since 2000  rising from 8.5 to 24.1 per cent.

Over the same period, it said the number of European countries with populist parties participating in government has doubled from seven to 14  creating an unprecedented populist belt from the Baltic to the Aegean.

It warned that the trend looked set to continue unless mainstream political parties were able to find a way to counter the populists appeal.

The report defines as populist those parties and politicians which claim to represent the true will of a unified people against domestic elites, foreign migrants, or ethnic, religious or sexual minorities.

It said they are often characterised by inflammatory attacks on independent institutions such as the media or the judiciary and support for highly restrictive immigration controls and protectionist economic policies.

They are strongest in Eastern Europe, currently holding power in seven countries  Bosnia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Serbia and Slovakia  while populist parties are the junior coalition partners in two others and the main opposition in three more.

Parties like Polands Law and Justice party and Hungarys Fidesz tend to emphasise a nationalism based on soil, blood or culture; take a hard line against immigration; and have, especially in Poland and Hungary, quickly started to dismantle key democratic institutions like the free media and an independent judiciary, the report said.

Working largely within the letter of the law, and drawing on widespread popular support, they have destroyed many of the institutions that are needed to safeguard democratic institutions over the long-run.

In contrast to Eastern Europe, where most populist parties are on the right, those in Southern Europe are predominantly on the left, such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain.

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 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Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. 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However, the report said left-wing parties from other parts of the continent  including Labour in Britain  had embraced elements of populism, underlining the impact populist politics was having on the mainstream.

The reports co-author, Yascha Mounk, said: 2016 was the year that populism went prime time, but as our data makes clear: this rise started well before 2016.

The huge transformation we are seeing in European politics is long term, driven by issues such as economic insecurity; a rebellion against immigration and the notion of a multi-ethnic society; and the ease with which extreme voices can make themselves heard in an age of social media.

This populist wave has not crested and unless politicians manage to identify and counteract the structural drivers, populism will keep garnering strength in the years to come.

PA
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A European plan to write off billions of dollars of Soviet debt in return for nuclear disarmament has been revealed by government files.

Documents exchanged weeks before the dissolution of the Communist bloc in December 1991 show detailed plans for a debt-nuclear swap to stop the arsenal falling into the wrong hands upon its collapse.

The files, released for the first time by the National Archives, contain records of frank and affectionate conversations between the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and John Major.

Jacques Attali, president of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, wrote to the Conservative Prime Minister informing him of the debt scheme on 11 December.

Under the proposal, an international fund would be established to purchase the bulk of the Soviet Union's $60bn (45bn) in foreign debt in return for the rights to its nuclear technology and the dismantling of its estimated 25,000 nuclear arms.

Mr Attali argued that the huge cost was justified, as it represented only a fraction of the sums Western powers were spending every year on defence.

The price of world peace might only amount to some 1 per cent of the combined defence budgets of the G7, he wrote.

Tactical missile crew on exercise with an R-300 scud class mobile rocket, 120km south of Leningrad. (Getty)

In the present situation it seems to me that no idea should be discounted in the effort to overcome the difficulties.

Keir Giles, an expert on Russian defence and security issues at Chatham House, said the bold proposal wasnt so crazy at a time of international turmoil.

I think it was a long-shot but in the context of the time, when all options were being urgently considered, it wasnt so crazy, he told The Independent.

When Russia looked like it was going to slide into chaos it was a main concern over where the Soviets nuclear arsenal would end upthis country and many others were throwing money and aid at Russia at an attempt at keeping it from imploding and this wouldnt have been seen as off-the-wall as it seems today.

Mr Giles believes the proposal could not have overcome objections by Russian defence and security officials, including military leaders, who saw the nuclear deterrent as their last line of defence.

But he said some of what had been envisaged took place in a different form because of the huge financial given to Russia alongside international monitoring activities.

It ended up not as a quid pro quo deal, but more one-sided assistance to Russia by the West in the form of money and practical help like expertise, funding and food aid, he explained.

The world today, according to the Soviet Union in 1960 Show all 5 1 /5 The world today, according to the Soviet Union in 1960 The world today, according to the Soviet Union in 1960 Driving force: prototype autonomous cars in a sunny Soviet 2017 The world today, according to the Soviet Union in 1960 Face time: live video communication, as imagined in 1960 The world today, according to the Soviet Union in 1960 Lines man: the "International Metro" across the north of Eurasia The world today, according to the Soviet Union in 1960 Water way: connecting the Arctic Ocean with the Caspian Sea The world today, according to the Soviet Union in 1960 Polar express: high-speed atomic-powered trains across the Bering Strait

But this is not a story you will hear told in Russia now - for for decades they have been saying the end of the Cold War was a great betrayal and Russia was exploited rather than helped.

Mr Giles said Russias nuclear weapons were and continue to be perceived as a symbol of sovereignty, power and status, with the country believed to possess the worlds biggest arsenal alongside the US.

Kate Hudson, general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), said a remarkable opportunity was lost with the failure of the EBRDs proposal.

It would be nice to think that if Mr Attalis suggestion had been taken up, that would have been the first step towards a nuclear-free world: that the ending of the Soviet arsenal would be followed by the dismantling of the others, she added.

Sadly, everything that has subsequently taken place suggests otherwise.

Ms Hudson accused the US of failing to respond in kind to Mr Gorbachevs previous efforts to end the arms race, including freezing deployment of SS-20 missiles in Europe and declaring a moratorium on underground nuclear testing.

No doubt triumphalism in the western corridors of power prevented Mr Attalis proposal from being considered, she added.

Perhaps those in Downing Street felt that everything could be won without writing off the debt."

 US air force carries out drill over Korean Peninsula triggering Pyongyang nuclear war warning

The debt-for-disarmament plan was never tested, appearing to have generated little interest in Downing Street as the Soviet Unions dissolution accelerated.

Two days before his resignation months after a coup by hardline Communists - an emotional Mr Gorbachev told Mr Major the Soviet Union was on the point of collapse and may soon no longer exist.

In a phone conversation, he attempted to reassure the British Prime Minister that the nuclear arsenal remained under strict control.

Mr Major spoke of Britans enormous affection and respect for Mr Gorbachev and his wife, adding that his own wife, Norma, was with him and sent her love.

A record of the conversation said Mr Gorbachev described the Majors as great human beings, adding: Dear John, I and Raisa have developed an affection for you and Norma. I am allowing myself to be sentimental in saying it but at this time I can allow myself to be sentimental.

"In our family we still remember what Norma said during your visit to Moscow on your way to China - her reaction and her tears. Thank you for all of that."

On 25 December 1991 Mr Gorbachev finally announced his resignation, to be followed by a declaration that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist as a functioning state.

Additional reporting by PA
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Police in Irans capital said that they will no longer arrest women for failing to observe the Islamic dress code in place since the 1979 revolution.

The announcement signalled an easing of punishments for violating the countrys conservative dress code, as called for by the young and reform-minded Iranians who helped re-elect President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, earlier this year.

But hard-liners opposed to easing such rules still dominate Irans security forces and judiciary, so it was unclear whether the change would be fully implemented.

Those who do not observe the Islamic dress code will no longer be taken to detention centers, nor will judicial cases be filed against them. Tehran police chief General Hossein Rahimi was quoted as saying by the reformist Sharq newspaper.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency said violators will instead be made to attend classes given by police. It said repeat offenders could still be subject to legal action, and the dress code remains in place outside the capital.

For nearly 40 years, women in Iran have been forced to cover their hair and wear long, loose garments. Younger and more liberal-minded women have long pushed the boundaries of the official dress code, wearing loose headscarves that dont fully cover their hair and painting their nails, drawing the ire of conservatives.

Irans morality police similar to Saudi Arabias religious police typically detain violators and escort them to a police van. Their families are then called to bring the detainee a change of clothes. The violator is then required to sign a form that they will not commit the offense again.

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. 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Men can also be stopped by the police if they are seen wearing shorts or going shirtless.

Last year, police in Tehran announced plans to deploy 7,000 male and female officers for a new plainclothes division  the largest such undercover assignment in memory  to monitor public morality and enforce the dress code.

AP
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Russian tankers have reportedly repeatedly supplied fuel to North Korea in a violation of sanctions on the isolated state.

Reuters said two Western European security officials had said Russian ships were transferring their cargo at sea to Korean vessels.

A source told the news agency there was no evidence that the transfers were state-sponsored but noted the transfers were nevertheless giving a lifeline to North Korea, which has faced global condemnation for its increasing belligerent behaviour.

Russian officials declined to comment and the owner of a ship allegedly implicated denied any involvement.

But the allegations that Russian ships have been thwarting sanctions intended to stifle the North Korean economy demonstrate the types of hurdles the international community faces in seeking to alter North Koreas militaristic ambitions through diplomatic means.

As North Korea has hurled ballistic missiles over Japan, tested a hydrogen bomb and threatened Asian neighbours with annihilation, the United Nations has imposed a series of sanctions intended to weaken the nations economy and punish its leadership.

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

But Americans officials have warned that countries have continued to maintain economic relationships with North Korea, circumventing sanctions and undermining the global effort to curb Pyongyang.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump claimed China had been caught RED HANDEDallowing oil to go into North Korea, and that a claim that China denied.

There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen! Mr Trump said on Twitter.

The United States has also proposed that the United Nations Security Council blacklist 10 ships accused of illegally funnelling coal and refined petroleum from North Korea, an idea that China has resisted.

 UN security council unanimously agrees new sanctions for North Korea

Earlier this year, in an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting convened in response to Pyongyangs latest launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, Americas ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley warned that some countries were continuing to fund the North Korean nuclear program.

Heralding the UN for imposing the most impactful sanctions that any country has experienced in a generation, Ms Haley said there were nevertheless reports of the regime continuing to smuggle coal into neighbouring Asian countries despite a ban on coal exports, and of North Korea illegally obtaining refined petroleum through ship-to-ship transfers.

She urged other countries to sever all ties with North Korea, including ceasing trade and expelling North Korean workers.
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Award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has accused Delta Airlines of discriminating against Nigerian customers.

In a Facebook post, Adichie, whose books include Americanah, Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, took issue with Delta's practice of requesting that customers produce a physical copy of their credit cards when checking in.

She began her complaint by reposting a letter she wrote to the airline in 2010, recounting an incident in which she had bought tickets for a flight to Nigeria for her elderly parents, but was forced to appear in person at the airport and present the credit card she had used before they could fly.

The airline, she said, "insisted that the credit card used to pay for the ticket must be physically produced, and the owner of the credit card physically appear, otherwise my parents would not be allowed to travel." Her parents had already flown the outbound leg of the booking, and the credit card bill had been settled months earlier, she writes - saying it was obvious this was not a fraudulent transaction.

"I called and asked to speak to a manager and was rudely told that nothing could be done.

"I was shocked and unbelieving. My father, a 78-year-old diabetic who had an important family event to attend in Nigeria, was worried about missing his flight. I, unwell, was forced to dash to the airport as quickly as I could. I then physically presented myself and my credit card."

Her parents missed the flight.

Adichie says that, seven years on, "nothing has changed".

The airline, she says, insists that it is policy to see the credit card used to book any flights purchased online or over the phone. However, she says, this has only ever happened to her when flying to Nigeria.

Even when buying tickets for family members from the US to Europe, Delta has not required her to show her card.

A spokesperson for Delta told The Independent:

"To safeguard against credit/debit card fraud, a ticket purchaser may have to show a Delta agent the credit/debit card used to pay for their flights along with a valid photo ID prior to travel.

"If the purchaser is not travelling, they can present their credit/debit card and ID at an airport ticket counter or their local ticket office prior to the passengers departure. Delta implemented this policy many years ago to help protect both customers and the airline.

The policy is not unique to Nigeria and is to protect against fraud.

In her post, Adichie expressed sympathy with Delta's need to prevent fraud but insisted the airline must "treat each case individually and not lump all Nigerian travelers into one group of potential fraudsters."

A number of Nigerian citizens have told The Independent that they have experienced similar problems.

One, who wished to remain anonymous, said that it had happened to them on more than one occasion: Delta started doing that because some [people] stole credit card information and used other peoples credit cards to book flights. When the real owners find out, they just call their credit card companies to reverse the transaction and Delta is out of money.

They found it most common that it happened with people flying to Nigeria, hence they started doing that."

Another passenger, who regularly flies between the UK and Nigeria, told The Independent: I have been asked [to show my card], as have my family members as black Nigerians."

However, they said that while it was common for black passengers to be asked, they had never seen it happen to a white passenger. "I understand there are fraud issues but the approach should be consistent and all passengers should be asked, not just those with a darker complexion," they added.
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Airport layovers take their toll on even the most patient traveller, but for one Zimbabwean family the wait has dragged on for months.

The family of four adults and four children under 11 arrived in Bangkok in May, but have since refused to return to Zimbabwe, citing fears that they will be persecuted. Now, because of visa issues, they have nowhere else to go.

After initially arriving in Thailand, the family tried to travel to Spain via Kiev, but were refused entry for not having visas. They were flown back to Bangkok; only to be fined for outstaying their Thai tourist visas.

They have now spent almost three months in the airport.

Ukraine International Airlines said the family made arrangements to travel to Kiev from DubaI (and onto a third country), only to cancel them. They were later flown back to Bangkok via the UAE city. As reported by the BBC, the family has been living in Bangkok airport ever since.

A now deleted Facebook post by airport employee Kanaruj Artt Pornsopit said that he had spoken to the family, who told him they were there because of the unsettled situation in their country."

In another post, the Thai Dior employee posted a picture of himself giving one of the family's children a present, writing: Merry Christmas to Mashia ,Milan, Eden and Tanaka. To hope all of you back to your sweet home as soon. Nice to meet all of you guys.

Robert Mugabe's autocratic, 37-year rule came to an end in November after he was ousted from power by the country's military.

Despite fears of unrest following the coup, the political situation in Zimbabwe has been relatively peaceful (Reuters/Mike Hutchings)

Speaking to The Independent, a spokesperson from the Foreign Office recommended potential visitors to Zimbabwe read the FCO's latest travel advice, which says:

The situation in Zimbabwe is calm. However, ongoing political developments may result in further demonstrations or celebratory gatherings, especially in urban areas. You should continue to exercise caution, avoid demonstrations or activities which could be considered political. The authorities have sometimes used force to suppress demonstrations.

Taking photographs of members of police and armed forces personnel and of demonstrations and protests is not permitted.

You should avoid political activity, or activities which could be considered political, including political discussions in public places.
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I spent most of the last year reporting two sieges, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, which finally ended with the decisive defeat of Isis. This was the most important event in the Middle East in 2017, though people are already beginning to forget how dangerous the Isis caliphate was at the height of its power and even in its decline. Not so long ago, its emirs ruled an area in western Iraq and eastern Syria which was the size of Great Britain and Isis-inspired or organised terrorists dominated the news every few months by carrying out atrocities from Manchester to Kabul and Berlin to the Sahara. Isis retains the capacity to slaughter civilians  witness events in Sinai and Afghanistan in the last few weeks  but no longer has its own powerful centrally organised state which was what made it such a threat.

The defeat of Isis is cheering in itself and its fall has other positive implications. It is a sign that the end may be coming to the cycle of wars that have torn apart Iraq since 2003, when the US and Britain overthrew Saddam Hussein, and Syria since 2011, when the uprising started against President Bashar al-Assad. So many conflicts were intertwined on the Iraqi and Syrian battlefields  Sunni against Shia, Arab against Kurd, Iran against Saudi Arabia, people against dictatorship, US against a variety of opponents  that the ending of these multiple crises was always going to be messy. But winners and losers are emerging who will shape the region for decades to come. Over-cautious warnings that Isis and al-Qaeda may rise again or transmute into a new equally lethal form underestimate the depth of the changes that have happened over the last few years. The Jihadis have lost regional support, popular Sunni sympathy, the element of surprise, the momentum of victory while their enemies are far stronger than they used to be. The resurrection of the Isis state would be virtually impossible.

But the defeat of Isis in its heartlands has not produced the rejoicing that might have been expected. This is partly because people are uncertain that the snake is really dead and rightly fearful that Isis can kill a lot of people in its death throes. I was in Baghdad in October and November where there are now fewer violent incidents than at any time since 2003. Compare this with upwards of 3,000 people blown up, shot or tortured to death in the capital in a single month at the height of the Sunni-Shia sectarian civil war in 2006-7. At that time, Iraqi young men would have their bodies tattooed so they could be identified after death even if they were badly mutilated. Only 18 months ago, a bomb in a truck in the Karada district of Baghdad killed at least 323 people so Baghdadis are understandably wary of celebrating peace prematurely.

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

Yet there is a good chance the period of wars and emergencies that have battered Iraq for the last 40 years are coming to an end. There is no home-grown insurgency powered by foreign states in the offing. Beyond its borders, the northern tier of the Middle East between Iran and the Mediterranean, stretching through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon appears to be stabilising.

The new area of instability in the Middle East today is further south in the Arabian Peninsula where turmoil rapidly escalated in 2017. The stalemated war in Yemen is now the bloodiest and cruellest in the region, with eight million Yemenis facing famine because of the Saudi-led blockade; there are over one million suspected cholera cases, the biggest outbreak of the disease in modern history.

Much of the destabilisation of the Arabian Peninsula stems from the proactive foreign and domestic policies of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) which have made the Saudi Kingdom, once staunchly cautious and conservative, the regional wild card. Some of his actions, such as the reported detention and enforced resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Harari, have a comic opera aspect to them, but others are more serious.

When President Trump visited Saudi Arabia in May, MbS must have felt that the winds of change were blowing in his favour. But few things have worked out as expected: Trump pleased his Saudi hosts by blaming all the troubles of the Middle East on Iran, but so far the anti-Iranian thrust of US policy has remained largely rhetorical. The main Saudi initiative in the Gulf has been the blockade of Qatar which has so far achieved little for the Kingdom and the UAE, aside from pushing Qatar towards Turkey and Iran. This confrontation has produced some light relief with furious exchanges between the UAE and Turkey, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeting the UAE foreign minister: When my ancestors were defending Medina, you impudent [man], where were yours? On the Red Sea side of Saudi Arabia, Sudan is considering withdrawing its troops from Yemen where they have provided many of the ground forces for the Saudi-backed coalition.

The US and the West Europeans treat Saudi Arabia as if it was a regional hegemon in the making. Their motives are self-interested and they obviously want to go on selling arms to the Kingdom and its remaining Gulf allies. But events in the Arabian Peninsula over the last year illustrate a general truth about oil states: their money may buy them power and influence up to a certain point, but their operational capacity is much more limited than they imagine. This is true of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Iraq and even little Iraqi Kurdistan which unwisely aspired to be a new oil-rich emirate.

The recent history of these states illustrates a general rule: possession of great revenues from oil, gas or any natural resources such as minerals breeds arrogance and self-destructive ambition. When King Idris of Libya was told in the 1960s that oil companies had found oil in his country, he is reputed to have replied: I wish you people had found water. Water makes men work. Oil makes men dream. The quotation is a little too pat, but everything that has happened in the Middle East and North Africa over the last half-century has underlined the truth of his remark. Oil money can achieve only so much: it can buy expensive modern weapons, but it cannot win wars as we are seeing in Yemen. It can buy allies but they do just as little as they can for their pay and their loyalty ends just as soon as the money runs out.

The good news for 2018 is that the barbarous wars in Iraq and Syria may finally be coming to an end. Not only do Iraqis and Syrians and their neighbours benefit from this; what happens in the region soon has repercussions for the rest of the planet, as we saw when the invasion of Iraq in 2003 turned al-Qaeda into a mass movement and finally produced Isis, a militarised cult of demonic savagery. Whatever else happened in the world in 2017, the destruction of the Isis caliphate has made it a good year.
Dickinson College welcomed Margee Ensign as its 29th president on July 1.

Not long after taking the position, Ensign started bringing to life her vision for education for the common good that brings together the college campus and the Carlisle community.

That included an appearance at an August unity rally on the Square in Carlisle in which Ensign spoke of the need to combat hate and identify goals to do so, drawing on her experience as the president of American University of Nigeria in Yola, Nigeria. There, the university and community leaders came together to create programs that were effective in keeping children safe and preventing them from joining Boko Haram, a terrorist group active less than 50 miles away from the university.

Ensign also spoke to many local groups, including the Greater Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce, about the role businesses could play in creating opportunities for young people in Carlisle.

On campus, Ensign prepared a vision statement to provide the foundation for a strategic plan in which the relationship between the college and the community would play a key role, and potentially become a national model for other communities and colleges to solve problems and deal with differences in an increasingly divided population.

Ensign filled a vacancy left by Nancy Roseman, who resigned as the colleges 28th president last year after three years in the position. Provost and Dean of the College Neil Weissman served as interim president until July.
The South Kingstown School Committee announced this week that it is reviewing a proposed memorandum of agreement that spells out the purpose and function of having police officers in its schools. The agreement sets clearly-defined roles about addressing student conduct and says school administrators would be responsible for enforcing the code of conduct and responding to routine disciplinary violations while resource officers would not serve as school disciplinarians or to enforce school regulations but, rather, would be on site to investigate and respond to potential criminal offenses and intervene in situations in order to maintain safety. Do you believe that having dedicated police officers inside locals schools makes students safer? Why or why not? Let us know in this week's poll question below.

You voted:
Saturday, Dec. 30

The Hinson Girls Bluegrass from Lancaster SC, along with The Spencer Mountain Quartet will be in concert at Lowesville Gospel Concerts/Living Word Ministries, 1062 Hwy. 16 S., Stanley (Lowesville) at 6 p.m. This is a free concert and everyone is welcome. Southern Gospel music every 2nd Saturday and Bluegrass every 4th Saturday. For more information, contact Carroll Cooke at 704-618-9762.

Sunday, Dec. 31

Skyland Baptist Church, 200 S. Little Texas Road, Kannapolis, is holding a 5th Sunday Singing at the 11 a.m. worship service featuring The Pathfinders. The public is invited to come and enjoy the singing.

Jackie Widenhouse will be the guest speaker at the 11 a.m. worship service at Ann Street United Methodist Church. Rev. Andy Wall is the church pastor. The church is located at 335 Ann St., Concord.

RECURRING

Blackwelder Park Baptist Church has launched a new church website. The new web address, www.blackwelderpark.org, replaces the old www.bpbc.cc site. The old site has been taken down and traffic routed to the new web address. For more information, call 704-932-4266.

Roberta United Methodist Church has a free Dressings and Blessings clothing ministry. It also accepts all types of clothing, shoes, belts, purses, linens, curtains and textile goods. Rugs cannot be accepted. Call the church office at 704-786-9215 for an appointment.

Monday

Bethel Baptist Church, 1209 Opal St., Kannapolis, clothing pantry will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Monday and Thursday. For information, call 704-933-2324.

GriefShare grief recovery seminar meets at Central Baptist Church Kannapolis every Monday beginning Sept. 11 through Dec. 4. The church is located at 1810 Moose Road, Kannapolis. For more information, call Julia Pope at 704-467-2795.

Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, 204 N. Little Texas Road, is offering free tutoring for any subject in grades K-12 every Monday and Wednesday from 4:30-6 p.m.

Petra House Worship Deliverance Ministries, 64 Lowe Ave., Concord, under the directions of Bishop Bobby Fisher, will be opening the doors of the church Monday through Friday from 4:30 -7:30 a.m. for morning prayer.

Roberta United Methodist Church, 3925 Cochran Road, Concord, gives free clothing with appointment on Mondays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon, and Tuesdays from 6:30-8 p.m. For more information, call 704-786-9215.

Tuesday

Alzheimers Caregiver Support Meeting is held the second Tuesday of each month at noon at Kannapolis Church of Christ, 2315 Concord Lake Road, Kannapolis. Contact Pat for more info at 704-305-3073.

A nondenominational prayer breakfast is held on Tuesdays at 7 a.m. at Troutmans Barbecue, 362 Church St. N., Concord. There will be breakfast, Bible study, prayer and fellowship. For information, call Ed at 704-794-3100.

Wednesday

C.H.O.I.C.E.S. Outreach Ministries holds Bible Encounters through the study of Gods Word on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. at 142 Maple St., Mooresville. Contact our church office if you have any questions or need directions at 704-662-8854.

Mount Olivet United Methodist Church, 301 Mount Olivet Road will have a Bible discussion round table on Wednesday mornings from 10 to 11 a.m. The study will be David Jeremiahs Facing the Giants in Your Life. Workbook is available. Come enjoy the lively discussions.

Tutoring sessions are back on Wednesday afternoons from 5-6:30 p.m. at Harmony United Methodist Church, 101 White St. NW, Concord. For more information, call Ms. Kaylene Thompson at 980-622-8171, or you may call the church at 704-782-8237 and leave a message to speak with Pastor Thad Brown.

Thursday

The food pantry at Blackwelder Park Baptist Church, 2204 Summit Ave., Kannapolis, will serve the community each Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon in the Educational Building classroom. For more information, call 704-932-4266.

Forest Hill United Methodist Church, 251 Union St. N., Concord, has a free clothing distribution every Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. All sizes. For more information, call 704-782-1109 or visit www.foresthillumc.org.

The food pantry at Shady Brook Baptist Church, 1009 Oakwood Ave., Kannapolis, will serve the Kannapolis area each Thursday from 1:30-3 p.m.

The Spirit of Life Ministry, located at 1424 Tyler St., Kannapolis, will hold Street Meetings every Thursday from 6-8 p.m., and every Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Friday

First Friday for youth, focusing on fun, food and fellowship for youth in grades 6-12, will be held from 7-10 p.m. the first Friday of each month at Advent Lutheran Church, 8840 University City Blvd., Charlotte. All are welcome. For information, call 704-549-1555 or email tonih@adventlu.org.

Saturday

Carolina Deliverance Evangelistic Church, 618 Smith St., Kannapolis, will have Community Blessed Day  Free Clothes Giveaway from 1-3 p.m. every first Saturday of the month. Details: 704-605-3106.

Covenant Presbyterian Church USA, 5835 Charlie Walker Road, Kannapolis, will host a food pantry every second and fourth Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to noon.

The First Congregational United Church of Christ, 248 Tournament St. SW, Concord, has a free community breakfast from 7-10 a.m. the third Saturday of each month. The breakfast is a part of the outreach ministry and is open to all.

Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, will have a Community Cafe, offering a free meal, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. the third Saturday of each month. For details, call 704-932-2864.

Sunday

Faith, hope and well-being support group provides for anyone coping with cancer or long term illness. Families/caregivers are welcome to attend. Meetings at held the second Sunday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Taylor Youth Building at Bethel United Methodist Church, 12700 Idlebrook Road, Midland. For more information, call the church office at 704-888-2653.

Food Addicts in recovery anonymous meets at Mt. Hermon Lutheran Church Main Building, 3600 US Hwy. 601 S, Concord, on Sundays at 3:30 p.m. For more information, call Esther B. at 704-488-5931 or Linda P. 704-788-4879.
FRIDAY, DEC. 29

Play duplicate bridge at 9:30 a.m. at the Cabarrus County Senior Center, 331 Corban Ave., SE, Concord. Bring a partner. Regular fee is $5 each. Contact Craig Poplin at 704-699-3662 with any questions.

TUESDAY, JAN. 2

TOPS NC 12, (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), meets at Flow Harris Presbyterian Church, 308 Winecoff School Road, Concord. Weigh in starts at 5:30 p.m. with meeting at 6:30 p.m. For more information, call Gail Floyd at 704-788-8064 or Schaly McCullen at 704-213-2689.

TOPS NC 437, (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), meets at 10 a.m. at Lakeview Baptist Church, 2532 Lane Street, Kannapolis. Weigh-in starts at 9:30 a.m. For more information contact Barbara Lewis at 704-932-1172. Visitors are welcome.

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 3

TOPS Chapter 445, (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), meets at 10 a.m. at Center United Methodist Church, 1119 Union St. S, Concord. For more information, call Jewel Payne at 704-782-4852.

The Cabarrus County Photo Club meets at 1:30 p.m. at the Cabarrus Senior Center, 331 Corban Ave. Concord, on the first and third Wednesdays of each month. Membership is free and anyone interested in photography is invited to attend. For more information, contact the Center at 704-920-3484.

THURSDAY, JAN. 4

Cabarrus Christian Womens Connection at the Cabarrus Country Club, 3247 Weddington Road, Concord, will meet at 9:30 a.m. Henry Lee, chaplain of the Hellfirghters of Concord Motorcycle Ministry will be the feature for January. He will explain how they provide encouragement for those in prisons, rehab facilities and the homeless. Guest speaker will be Becky Morris of Piedmont, N.C. Reservations for brunch and nursery are needed by Monday, Jan. 1. Program cost is $15, all-inclusive. Call Barbara at 704-786-2722 or email barb1960@windstream.net for reservations.

Allen-Graham Masonic Lodge #695 A.F.&A.M. will have a Stated Communication at 7 p.m. Dinner at 6 p.m. The lodge is located at 702 S. Main St., Kannapolis.

FRIDAY, JAN. 5

Play duplicate bridge at 9:30 a.m. at the Cabarrus County Senior Center, 331 Corban Ave., SE, Concord. Bring a partner. Regular fee is $5 each. Contact Craig Poplin at 704-699-3662 with any questions.

MONDAY, JAN. 8

Play duplicate bridge at 12:30 p.m. at the Cabarrus County Senior Center, 331 Corban Ave., SE, Concord. Bring a partner. Regular fee is $5. Contact Craig Poplin at 704-699-3662 with any questions.

Cabarrus Quilters Guild meeting is held in basement of Forest Hill United Methodist Church, 265 Union St. S. Concord. Doors open at 6 p.m, Meet and greet with refreshments from 6:15-6:45 p.m. (meeting begins). The annual business meeting is conducted at our January meeting. Visitors welcome.

TUESDAY, JAN. 9

Cabarrus Veterans Coalition along with Carms Cafe invites all veterans to the weekly coffee meeting at Carms Cafe, 42 S Union St, Concord, between 8:30-10:30 a.m. Come and join your fellow veterans and have a free cup of coffee.

Alzheimers support group for caregivers meets at Kannapolis Church of Christ. The meeting will be held at noon. The meeting is conducted by trained facilitators and is a safe place for caregivers, family and friends of persons with dementia to develop a support system. The church is located at 2315 Concord Lake Road, Kannapolis.

PFLAG Concord/Kannapolis: Promoting the health and well-being of LGBTQ people, their family, and friends through support, education, and advocacy. The group will meet at Trinity United Church of Christ from 7-9 p.m. For more information, go to ckpflag@gmail.com.

The Cabarrus County Branch of the NAACP invites all people of good faith to join them at 6 p.m. This, all-inclusive, all-welcoming group meets at The First Missionary Baptist Church - Fellowship Hall, 59 Chestnut St. SW, Concord. For more information, please call Amos McClorey, at 704-560-1877.

THURSDAY, JAN. 11

The To Live Again Support Group for Widows and Widowers will meet at 5:30 p.m. at Ci Cis Pizza, 1000 Cloverleaf Plaza, Kannapolis. For more information, call 704-786-1787.

TUESDAY, JAN. 16

TOPS NC 12, (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), meets at Flow Harris Presbyterian Church, 308 Winecoff School Road, Concord. Weigh in starts at 5:30 p.m. with meeting at 6:30 p.m. For more information, call Gail Floyd at 704-788-8064 or Schaly McCullen at 704-213-2689.

TOPS NC 437, (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), meets at 10 a.m. at Lakeview Baptist Church, 2532 Lane Street, Kannapolis. Weigh-in starts at 9:30 a.m. For more information contact Barbara Lewis at 704-932-1172. Visitors are welcome.

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 17

TOPS Chapter 445, (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), meets at 10 a.m. at Center United Methodist Church, 1119 Union St. S, Concord. For more information, call Jewel Payne at 704-782-4852.

THURSDAY, JAN. 18

Allen-Graham Masonic Lodge #695 A.F.&A.M. will have a Stated Communication at 7 p.m. Dinner at 6 p.m. The lodge is located at 702 S. Main St., Kannapolis.

The Cabarrus County Photo Club meets at 1:30 p.m. at the Cabarrus Senior Center, 331 Corban Ave. Concord, on the first and third Wednesdays of each month. Membership is free and anyone interested in photography is invited to attend. For more information, contact the Center at 704-920-3484.

FRIDAY, JAN. 19

Play duplicate bridge at 9:30 a.m. at the Cabarrus County Senior Center, 331 Corban Ave., SE, Concord. Bring a partner. Regular fee is $5 each. Contact Craig Poplin at 704-699-3662 with any questions.

SATURDAY, JAN. 20

Famous and Infamous Women of North Carolina, a program by North Carolina Humanities Council Road Scholar Randell Jones, will be presented at the Concord Friends of the Librarys Annual Meeting on Saturday, January 20th at the Concord Public Library, 2nd floor auditorium, 27 Union St. North, downtown Concord. After the program Mr. Jones will be selling and signing copies of his regional history books including Scoundrels, Rogues and Heroes of the Old North State. This free event begins at 1:30 p.m. with a coffee and dessert social, followed at 2:00 p.m. by the program.

MONDAY, JAN. 22

American Legion Post 51, 165 Wilshire Ave. SW, Concord, will be meeting at 7 p.m. For more information, call 704-782-6915.

Play duplicate bridge at 12:30 p.m. at the Cabarrus County Senior Center, 331 Corban Ave., SE, Concord. Bring a partner. Regular fee is $5. Contact Craig Poplin at 704-699-3662 with any questions.

TUESDAY, JAN. 23

Cabarrus Veterans Coalition along with Carms Cafe invites all veterans to the weekly coffee meeting at Carms Cafe, 42 S Union St, Concord, between 8:30-10:30 a.m. Come and join your fellow veterans and have a free cup of coffee.

TUESDAY, JAN. 30

TOPS NC 12, (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), meets at Flow Harris Presbyterian Church, 308 Winecoff School Road, Concord. Weigh in starts at 5:30 p.m. with meeting at 6:30 p.m. For more information, call Gail Floyd at 704-788-8064 or Schaly McCullen at 704-213-2689.

TOPS NC 437, (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), meets at 10 a.m. at Lakeview Baptist Church, 2532 Lane Street, Kannapolis. Weigh-in starts at 9:30 a.m. For more information contact Barbara Lewis at 704-932-1172. Visitors are welcome.

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 31

TOPS Chapter 445, (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), meets at 10 a.m. at Center United Methodist Church, 1119 Union St. S, Concord. For more information, call Jewel Payne at 704-782-4852.
Can Democrats tar President Donald Trump and other Republicans for their support of U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore? Will they pay a penalty for endorsing a man who was credibly accused of improper, indefensible exploitation of young women?

President Trump pulled out the stops to support Moore and urge Alabama voters to elect Moore, because, as he tweeted, "Democrats refusal to give even one vote for massive Tax Cuts is why we need Republican Roy Moore to win in Alabama. We need his vote on stopping crime, illegal immigration, Border Wall, Military, Pro Life, V.A., Judges 2nd Amendment and more. No to Jones, a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet!

Democrats hope to use the support Trump and the other Republicans gave for Moore to undercut them in future elections. Republicans, they will say, support the election of child molesters and sexual harassers if they need their votes in Congress.

Senate Democrats bolstered this righteous position when they forced the resignation of Minnesota Senator Al Franken after several women complained about his inappropriate conduct.

But Republicans can fairly ask if the Democrats would have acted so decisively against Franken if the states governor had been a Republican. If Senate Democrats had thought that a Republican would have been appointed to fill Frankens seat, would they have found a way to protect him? Why? Because the loss of his seat to a Republican would have been a critical blow to Democratic efforts to slow down the Trumps agenda.

More than 30 years ago I found myself in the middle of a similar debate. The recent publication of a new book about the political career of a former South Carolina congressman reminded me how I got involved.

Capitol Steps and Misstep--The Wild, Improbable Ride of Congressman John Jenrette, written by former Jenrette top aide John Clark, tells a remarkable story. In the mid-1970s Democrat Jenrette was a popular, progressive, ambitious politician, whose early success and potential for national prominence could have been a model for the South Carolina Congressman Frank Underwood character, played by Kevin Spacey in Netflixs House of Cards.

In a review of the new book in The State newspaper, John Monk writes that it brings to life a congressman whose sexual exploits were the stuff of legend and whose drinking and money issues made him easy prey to the FBI and its hidden cameras.

Jenrettes sexual exploits--including his sleeping with another woman on his wedding night--are described in depth, as are his struggles with alcohol, his questionable beachfront land dealings and the FBI. Clarks detailed account of how Jenrette fell victim to an aggressive FBI sting called Abscam leaves no doubt that he believes heavy drinking and huge debts made the congressman vulnerable to an entrapment that was both predatory and unfair--but also legal.

My connection to the Jenrette matter arose in 1984 when I was running for Congress, as described in a 1988 book, Honest Graft: Big Money and the American Political Process, by Brooks Jackson. In a chapter titled Were Not Really Interested in Character, my naive conversation with a representative of a liberal political action committee in Washington began when he told me the kind of candidates they liked included former Congressman John Jenrette.

Quoting me, the book continues with the question I asked. How could you support him so enthusiastically, given his character and the things that everybody knew about him?

And he said, were not really interested in character; were interested in votes.

Even today, I am not sure which one of us was right.

If a bad persons vote were necessary for the success of a good cause in Congress, what would you do?

Character or the vote?

D.G. Martin hosts North Carolina Bookwatch, which airs Sundays at noon (11 a.m. beginning in January) and Thursdays at 5 p.m. on UNC-TV. Preview the upcoming program on UNC-TVs North Carolina digital channel (Spectrum #1276) on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. This Thursdays (December 28) guest is Matthew Griffin, author of Hide. Next weeks (December 31, January 4) guest is Sara Foster, author of Fosters Market Favorites: 25th Anniversary. To view prior programs: http://video.unctv.org/program/nc-bookwatch/episodes/
Our legislators are due to return to Raleigh on January 10th, another continuation of the 2017 session they just cant seem to conclude. The January date was set to spend a day or so passing judicial reforms, a prospect that doesnt seem likely.

As the legislative session was coming to a close in July, Representative Justin Burr proposed a judicial redistricting bill to redraw the districts for superior and district court judgeships, as well as those for District Attorneys. The 11th hour proposal drew immediate opposition, as much because it was thrown into the hopper at the last minute as because of opposition to the proposal itself. No system-wide redistricting had occurred since the 1955 creation of our states court system and during that time we have gained millions of residents and population centers have shifted, accompanied by major shifts in judicial workloads.

After more deliberation opposition shifted away from the concept of redrawing judicial maps to who would redraw them and how it would be accomplished. Bluntly stated, too few had confidence in turning over the process to the same group who re-drew Congressional and legislative districts in 2011 and, rather than attempting to allay concerns by establishing a fair and deliberative process that allowed sufficient input, legislative leadership seemed intent to make it happen quickly. Public doubts were confirmed when proposed new maps revealed that 12 district court districts would double-bunk judges and that 53 percent of those were African Americans. The proposed maps also contained 10 districts where superior court judges were double-bunked, 28 percent of them African Americans.

To make the optics of this redistricting worse, lawmakers, wanting to put the new maps in effect for the 2018 election cycle, recognized there wasnt sufficient time to both pass the new districts and hold judicial primaries in the normal time frame, so instead of waiting to establish the new districts another year, decided to eliminate judicial primaries in 2018, triggering lawsuits claiming again that their actions were unconstitutional.

Isnt this another replay of the redistricting movie weve already watched? But wait. It gets even more curious. The Nightmare on Jones Street producers werent content with the level of angst already generated and decided to create almost total maelstrom.

The 2017 legislative session had already passed laws requiring that all judicial candidates list their political party affiliation on the election ballot. Voters freely admit they dont know much about those who run for the bench and evidently lawmakers didnt think the voters were selecting enough Republican judges, so now we will politicize judicial elections. Add to this mix a proposal to limit judicial terms to two years instead of the eight-years currently called for in our Constitution for appellate and superior court judges and four-year terms for district court judges. And while were throwing the judicial system into turmoil lets raise again the suggestion to take away the popular election of judges and develop some undefined process for judicial selection.

Im neither a lawyer, judge nor lawmaker, but I think I have enough common sense to rule that this whole concept of judicial reform needs to tabled until such time as reasoned, fair-minded and adequate debate can come up with something better than what weve seen and heard so far.

Tom Campbell is former assistant North Carolina State Treasurer and is creator/host of NC SPIN, a weekly statewide television discussion of NC issues. Show airs in Charlotte on WCCB Sundays at 6:30 a.m.
The remains of two Northern Arapaho boys were returned to their home in Wyoming in August after a weeklong project at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle to recover the remains.

The remains of Little Chief, also known as Dickens Nor, and Horse, also known as Horace Washington, were uncovered as anticipated in graves identified by headstones and historical records at the Carlisle Indian School cemetery at the Carlisle Barracks.

But in the grave marked for Little Plume, two sets of remains were found. One set was from a 16- to 19-year-old boy and the other from an adolescent or adult whose gender could not be identified.

The remains of Little Chief and Horse were transferred to tribal members with the expectation they would be re-interred on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. The unidentified remains were to be re-interred at the Carlisle Barracks.

The project brought to a close a chapter in the tribes history that began when the three boys arrived at the Carlisle Indian School on March 11, 1881. The school, open from 1879 to 1918, was designed as a social experiment to remove native boys and girls from tribal influences, assimilate them into the white mans culture and teach them a trade.

Little Plume, Little Chief and Horse were ages 9, 14 and 11, respectively, when they arrived at the school. All died at the school less than two years after their arrival. Little Plume died on April 15, 1882, followed by Horse on June 12, 1882 and Little Chief on Jan. 22, 1883.

The families requested that the remains be returned in January 2016. Sixteen family members were on site at the cemetery as a team of archaeologists and forensic anthropologists disinterred the remains and examined them to determine if the remains matched the age and gender of the boys.
A Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, Mr. Peter Ejiofor has welcomed a set of quadruplets in the early hours of Friday, December 29th.

It was gathered that the Editor and his wife welcomes the gifts after 7 years of marriage.

The excited Editor thanked God for the quadruplets, he wrote;

It is simply a miracle as far as I am concerned. I thank God for the wonderful gifts on a day like this; but we never lost faith in God.

I always believe that God has something for us because the doctor always assures us that there is nothing wrong with us, so we were patiently waiting. .

.

I also thank God because their mother (Hannah) is fine and just recuperating because of the caesarean operation she went through; the babies are fine too.

I sincerely thank the doctors, nurses, pharmacists and indeed every member of staff of the hospital. God bless them.

-Gistreel
A 26-year-old Vietnamese man had a penile fracture after trying an unusual position in bed, which prompted him to seek medical attention at the hospital.

The victim who was identified as V.V.C.was hospitalized at 1:45 am on Christmas Day with a swollen, deformed, and bluish colored penis, doctors at the K120 Military Hospital in Tien Giang Province, located in the Mekong Delta, said on Wednesday.

The patient immediately underwent an emergency surgery after an MRI scan showed that he had a penile fracture, said Dr. Vu Dang Trung, deputy director of the clinic.

The man confessed that he was having sex in an unordinary position when he felt pain and his penis became curved and inflamed. He was rushed to the hospital by family members.

Doctor Hua Xuan Phuong, the surgeon in charge of C.s operation, said the patient has recovered and is now able to urinate normally.

But we cannot comment on his erectile function, which might take up to three months of treatment before fully recovering, Phuong said.

Trung recommended that people with injuries from similar sex accidents go to hospital as soon as possible in order to avoid serious complications to both their sexual and overall health.

Source: ( Tuoi Tre)
Nigerian male barbie, Bobrisky has declared his intention to snatch married men in 2018, urging Nigerian sidechics to join him in his mission.

Bobrisky took to his Snapchat to reveal his intention, he wrote;

Girls our new lesson here is how to snatch their husband in 2018 their father.

When God gave them better man they wont allow the man to rest, they will be fighting the man every seconds, they wont fuck him well, all they do is complain of tiredness. Now we are about to snatch them in 2018.

Snatch him, fuck him and clean mouth, infact if you see him in public tomorrow, act as if you dont know him. THIS IS GAME IN 2018.

Anybody that wants to come and confront you for fucking their husband or boyfriend, tell her to go and fuck her man well

See the screen shots below;

-GISTREEL
The Sokoto State Hisbah Commission, on Thursday, said it recorded 59 rape cases in the state in 2017 and blamed parents for the rising cases of the menace.

The Chairman of the commission, Dr. Adamu Kasarawa, told the News Agency of Nigeria in Sokoto that some parents were not mindful of the whereabouts of their children.

He said, Moreover, some parents allow their daughters to be relating freely with their male maids who in some cases end up molesting the girls.

Kasarawa added that the 59 cases recorded this year had, however, reduced, when compared with the 159 cases recorded in 2016.

He further accused some village heads of collecting bribes to conceal cases of rapes in their domains.

He said, Some village heads demand for a bribe from suspected rapists to conceal their atrocities: they even prevail on parents of the victims not to report the case to security agencies.

The chairman said cases recorded had been handed over to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and the police for further action.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
Hanan who is one of President Buharis daughters, gave an update on her brother, Yusufs health status.

According to her, Yusuf is doing well.

Hanan took to her Snapchat to give the update, she wrote;

Yusuf is doing well Alhamdulilah Thank you for all the messages

Yusuf was involved in a bike accident on Tuesday December 26th, he is currently in Cedarcrest hospital in Abuja.

Meanwhile President Muhammad Buhari is furious with the security agents, blames them for their incompetence.

According to THIS DAY;

The president was at the hospital on Wednesday night. He was very devastated when he saw his son, Yusuf, in a very critical situation. He was shaking his head, while looking at his son and thereafter angrily reprimanded his security officials for allowing Yusuf to leave home at that time of the day for power-bike racing.

From the way the president spoke, it appears the security aides are in trouble. He spoke angrily. The Minister of Interior, Lt-Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau (rtd); his FCT ministry counterpart, Alhaji Mohammed Bello; and the Senate Presidents wife, Mrs. Toyin Saraki; stayed throughout the night of Tuesday till Wednesday at the hospital with Hajia Aisha Buhari.

While the doctors were working to stabilise him, Dambazau kept appealing to the doctors to do everything possible to stabilise Yusuf, saying the president would find it very difficult to bear the pain if anything happens to his son.
The Park Hills Public Library will be having two book clubs in the month of January, with one for geared toward young readers and the other toward adults.

Registration for both clubs begin Tuesday, with discussion and activities slated for later in the month.

The adult book club will be reading the novel The Saturday Evening Girls Club by Jane Healey. The novels synopsis describes the novel as the story of a group of women in the early 1900s breaking stereotypes.

For four young immigrant women living in Bostons North End in the early 1900s, escaping tradition doesnt come easy. But at least they have one another and the Saturday Evening Girls Club, a social pottery-making group offering respite from their hectic home lives  and hope for a better future.

Ambitious Caprice dreams of opening her own hat shop, which clashes with the expectations of her Sicilian-born parents. Brilliant Ada secretly takes college classes despite the disapproval of her Russian Jewish father. Stunning Maria could marry anyone yet guards her heart to avoid the fate of her Italian Catholic mother, broken down by an alcoholic husband. And shy Thea is torn between asserting herself and embracing an antiquated Jewish tradition.

The friends face family clashes and romantic entanglements, career struggles and cultural prejudice. But through their unfailing bond, forged through their weekly gathering, theyll draw strength  and the courage to transform their immigrant stories into the American lives of their dreams.

Participants must have a valid library card and can begin registering on Tuesday. The book will be available to download in ebook form only, with audible narration. Book discussion is scheduled for Jan. 31 at 4 p.m.

The childrens book club is for fourth graders, with the chosen book being The Way to Go, which was made available by local sponsors. According to the announcement from library staff, the book has wonderful, character building stories and great family discussion topics.

Participants will take the book home, read along and discuss with their family then come to the library for a book discussion on Jan. 30 at 5:30 p.m. Registration and book pick-up will start Tuesday as well. At the end of the book club, participants will get to keep the book.

For more information about Januarys book clubs or other events at the Park Hills Public Library, contact the library at 573-431-4842.
Apple released iOS 10.3.3 a few days back which includes a number of bug fixes and security improvements including a fix for a vulnerability that could allow a hacker to execute code in the iPhones Wi-Fi chip.

Since this is probably the last iOS software update for iOS 10 with iOS 11 just around the corner, it would be a perfect time to release the elusive jailbreak for iOS 10.3.3  iOS 10.2.1.

So in this post, we will take a look at the latest status of iOS jailbreak.

iOS 10 Jailbreak Status

In case youre new to the jailbreaking world, the first jailbreak for iOS 10 known as Yalu (formerly Yalu + Mach Portal) was released on December 21, 2016, by well-known hacker Luca Todesco, famous by his Twitter handle qwertyoruiop. The Yalu jailbreak made use of Ian Beers, of Google Project Zero, mach_portal exploit. It supported select 64-bit devices such as the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

Read: How to Jailbreak iOS 10.1, iOS 10.1.1 on iPhone or iPad Using Yalu Jailbreak and Cydia Impactor

Todesco then released a more stable version of the Yalu jailbreak tool for iOS 10.2 by using Ian Beers, extra_recipe exploit with the help of Marco Grassi on January 26, 2017. It supported all 64-bit devices except for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

You have to use a computer application known as Cydia Impactor to install the Yalu jailbreak. The jailbreak is a semi-untethered jailbreak, which means that when the iOS device boots, it will no longer have a patched kernel. You are required to run the Yalu app again, to re-jailbreak your iOS device. The other limitation of the jailbreak is that the Yalu app certificate expires seven days, so you have to reinstall it again using Cydia Impactor to renew it for another 7 days.

Read: How to Jailbreak iOS 10.2 on iPhone or iPad Using Yalu Jailbreak and Cydia Impactor

RELATED :Apple Passkeys Support Coming to 1Password in Early 2023

Can I jailbreak iOS 10.3.3?

The exploits that were used in Yalu iOS 10.2 jailbreak have all been patched by Apple in iOS 10.2.1 and iOS 10.3, which means that if your device is running on any of these firmwares, then it cannot be jailbroken.

Downgrading to iOS 10.2 from iOS 10.2.1 or iOS 10.3

Apple closed the signing window for iOS 10.2 a couple of weeks after it was released. This means that you can no longer downgrade to this firmware using iTunes.

If you have saved the SHSH blob for iOS 10.2, there are alternative downgrade methods such as Prometheus. But theyre quite complicated and theres no guarantee that it will work.

Jailbreak iOS 10.3.3 Status Update

As I mentioned earlier, since this is probably the last iOS software update for iOS 10 with iOS 11 just around the corner, it would be a perfect time to release the elusive jailbreak for iOS 10.3.3. But unfortunately, Todesco, the developer of Yalu jailbreak quit jailbreaking in March, so it is unlikely that he will release a jailbreak.

We got excited and carried away when the Pangu team demoed an iOS 10.3.1 jailbreak at the Janus conference at the Mercedes Benz Arena, on Expo Avenue in Shanghai in April. However, they havent announced any plans of releasing Pangu jailbreak tool for iOS 10.3.3  iOS 10.2.1. It has been speculated that the Pangu Jailbreak would support all 64-bit devices including the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, something that the Yalu 10.2 Jailbreak was not capable of doing. But it cant be completely ruled out as Pangu team had released a jailbreak for iOS 9.3.3 the last software update for iOS 9 in July as well.

So there hasnt been any news or development on the jailbreaking front since April to indicate an iOS 10.3.3 jailbreak will be released soon.

Is Jailbreaking Dead?

This brings me to a much-debated question these days about whether jailbreaking is dead. Motherboard has a wonderful story which talks about the life, death, and legacy of jailbreaking, which has sparked off the debate that jailbreaking is probably dead.

It is a valid concern when you consider that it has been more than 6 months since a jailbreak has been released. They are several reasons why the jailbreaking scene is not as active as it used to be.

Apple has tried to kill jailbreaking by first aggressively patching the security vulnerabilities that are or could be used for a jailbreak to make it even more difficult to jailbreak, and by adding features that were the primary reason to jailbreak your iPhone. Even in iOS 11, at least 10 features were inspired by jailbreak apps and tweaks. So slowly Apple has been reducing the need for someone to jailbreak their device. Apple has then tried to poach the hackers behind the jailbreaks by hiring them or launching an invite-only bug bounty program where it was offering security researchers and hackers up to $200,000 for disclosing bugs in iOS.

We initially thought that was the reason why the jailbreak community has been quiet. But Apples bounty program seems to have failed to take off as companies like Zerodium pay a much higher rate for the exploits than Apple. Zerodium has offered up to $1.5 million for exploits that can jailbreak the iPhone.

The iPhone jailbreaking scene has been blessed with some of the best hackers of our generation with hacking teams such as Geohot, Comex, iPhone Dev team, Chronic Dev, evad3r, Pangu, TaiG, and Luca Todesco, but most of them are no longer active in the jailbreaking scene anymore. I wouldnt blame them if they have decided to go underground to cash in on the lucrative business of selling exploits to companies like Zerodium.

But when it comes to hacking or jailbreaking, you can never say never. There are hackers who do it for the money, and there are some who do it for the thrill of breaking into one of the most secure platforms in the world. It is also a great platform to show your skill as a hacker, and get visibility. So I wouldnt say jailbreaking is dead. I wont be surprised if an unknown hacker or a group of hackers will release a jailbreak for iOS 10.3.3 or iOS 11 in the future.

Are you eagerly waiting for iOS 10.3.3 jailbreak or have you given up? Please share some of the reasons why you still want to jailbreak your iPhone.
The Government's plan to split the Justice Department in two has been slammed as "farcical".

The move is in response to concerns over the scandal around Garda Whistleblower Maurice McCabe.

The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has suggested the department could be divided into two units operating separately under the responsibility of one minister, with one Secretary General and two deputy Secretaries General of the two wings.

The Fine Gael leader said it is his intention to proceed with the reform in 2018.

Mr Varadkar said the government could split the department into two fully separate departments at a later date - similar to the UK where there is a Department of Justice and a Department of Home Affairs.

Labour Party Leader Brendan Howlin says that is more "spin" than split.

Mr Howlin said: "There is now an unanswerable demand to make fundamental changes in the way the Department of Justice operates, in what has never happened in the history of the State, we've lost two ministers, two Garda Commissioners and two Secretaries General.

"Everybody, Opposition and Government, are of the view that the current structure of the Department of Justice is not fit for purpose."
Ireland has a new multi-millionaire after a lucky punter landed the EuroMillions jackpot of more than 38 million, writes Dan Buckley

The winning ticket was sold in Ireland. While it was not yet clear where the ticket was sold in the country, players have been urged to check their tickets.

The last jackpot of 2017 amounted to 38,906,715 and the winner managed to land the big win by matching all five and the two lucky stars. The winning numbers drawn were 4,8,22,23,48 followed by Lucky Stars 1 and 12.

A National Lottery spokesperson has appealed to players to check their numbers to see if they are the holder of the golden ticket worth a cool 38,906,715.

The spokesperson said: This is fantastic news! What a great way for a player to end the year and start the new. This has been an amazing year for our EuroMillions players with three Jackpot wins and 31 EuroMillion Plus wins of 500,000 each.

We are urging all our players to check their tickets to see if they are the lucky winner or winners. At this stage we dont know if its a single winner or a syndicate.

She added: We advise anybody who has this ticket to keep it safe until they can get into the National Lottery office next week to make their claim. This is a valuable piece of paper. We are open after the new Years break on Tuesday.

The spokesperson said there is also time left for a lucky National Lottery player to win a guaranteed one million euro in the Christmas Millionaire Raffle draw which takes place on New Year's Eve. As well as the top prize of a a million there are 5,055 other prizes ranging from 50,000 to 500. Tickets are on sale in store or at lottery.ie

The lucky punter is the 12th Irish winner of the EuroMillions jackpot and brings to well over 1bn the amount of money won by Irish EuroMillions players since the draw began in 2004.

This is the third EuroMillions Jackpot win in Ireland this year.

In January a Dublin work syndicate claimed a 88.5 million EuroMillions jackpot . The winning ticket was sold at the Applegreen Service Station on the M1 Northbound in Lusk, Co Dublin.

And in July a lucky West of Ireland syndicate scooped almost 29 million on a ticket sold in the Garryduff XL Store, Castlebar, co. Mayo.

The largest Irish win so far remains that of Dolores McNamara from Limerick. Her massive 115 million win back in 2005 made her the first of many record-breaking EuroMillions winners.

The 12 Irish Euromillions winners to date:

1. July 2005: Dolores McNamara from Limerick was Irelands first and biggest EuroMillions winner scooping over 115 million.

2. July 2008: A lucky ticket bought in Carrick-on-Suir in Co Tipperary won a player 15 million.

3. June 2009: A family syndicate shared the jackpot with a British winner, taking home over 29.4 million.

4. June 2013: A winning ticket sold in Beaumont, Dublin, shared a jackpot worth over 93 million.

5. September 2013: A young man from the southeast shared a jackpot of over 25 million with a player in Spain, taking home over 12.8 million.

6. April 2014: A jackpot prize worth 15 million was claimed on a ticket sold in Castlebar, Co Mayo.

7. September 2014: An 86.7 million jackpot was won by a syndicate from Dublin. The ticket was sold in Centra, Ballybrack, Co Dublin.

8. January 2016: A syndicate of friends won over 66 million , splitting the jackpot of 132,376,632. The ticket was sold in Easons store, Fairgreen Shopping Centre, Carlow.

9. July 2016: 22 colleagues from Dublin Bus won 23.8 million . The ticket was sold in OHanlons in Portarlington.

10. January 2017: A Dublin work syndicate claimed the 88.5 million EuroMillions jackpot . The winning ticket was sold at the Applegreen Service Station on the M1 Northbound in Lusk, Co Dublin.

11. July 2017: A lucky West of Ireland syndicate scooped almost 29 million

12. December 2017: A 38.9m EuroMillions Jackpot ticket sold here.
Ryle Dwyer looks at cross-channel relations after the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed as neither government backed down despite continued terrorist attacks

In the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, the loyalist and unionist opposition  led largely by Ian Paisley  was every bit as strong as the opposition that brought down the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973. But British prime minister Margaret Thatcher took a much more defiant stand than her predecessor.

Harold Wilson soon abandoned the controversial Irish Council dimension of the Sunningdale Agreement, but Thatcher pressed ahead with the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which was designed to bring about power-sharing between unionist and nationalist communities in Northern Ireland. If they could not agree on power-sharing, however, the Anglo-Irish Agreement provided for Intergovernmental Conferences through which the British Government would consult Dublin in running the province.

Following the first Intergovernmental Conference on December 11, 1985, Foreign Minister Peter Barry and Northern Secretary Tom King issued a joint statement.

The RUC and the Armed Forces must not only discharge their duties even-handedly and with equal respect for the unionist and nationalist identities and traditions, but be seen by both communities to be doing so, they said.

The Intergovernmental Conference on March 11, 1986, engaged in extensive discussions about cross-border co-operation in the economic and social fields. They considered 60 different items under 11 different heading, such as economics, transport, agriculture and fisheries, marketing infrastructure and Services, health and social security, education, environment, taxation, joint studies, arts, sports, and cultural affairs.

Giving the Republic a say in just about every aspect of Northern life further inflamed unionist opposition. While the nationalist community had not been very impressed with the agreement initially, the unionists became so vocal in their opposition that nationalists gradually began to look more favourably on the whole thing.

Ms Thatcher made it clear that Dublin and London would have no role once a devolved administration was set up.

The people of Northern Ireland can get rid of the Inter-Governmental Conference by agreeing to a devolved government, she emphasised.

If they do not want an inter-governmental conference, the remedy lies in their own hands. It is to sit down with the SDLP, all of them, and the Alliance, and work out a system of devolved government.

Irish officials were particularly impressed with the attitude of Fr Denis Faul, who had played the major role in ending the H Block hunger strikes.

The nationalists did not support the Agreement very much at the beginning, Fr Faul explained in an RTE radio interview, but as they saw the unionists taking it so badly, they had to believe that there was something in it.

It is a very good thing, because I think it is the beginnings of an alternative to all the violence.

Now I saw the Anglo-Irish Agreement, not as perfection itself but as a very definite and good step in that direction and I think that the Catholic people have accepted it as that.

The Garda Siochana and the RUC improved their co-operation, but peace was still some distance away. Factions of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) engaged in a deadly feud in which they killed in sensational circumstances during the first three months of 1987.

As Charles Haughey had opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, there was uneasiness about his returned to power in March 1987. The attitude of the new government towards the agreement was one of the questions of the hour, according to British ambassador Nicholas Fenn.

But he soon realised there was no need to worry. The fears were very quickly resolved by the in-coming administration accepting the Agreement as an international obligation of the Irish government, said Mr Fenn.

Haughey was anxious to implement the agreement without ever saying that he actually agreed with it.

We recognise fully the need to improve the situation of the nationalist community in the North of Ireland and we approve and support any effective measures taken on their behalf, said Mr Haughey.

The ninth Intergovernmental Conference, held on April 22, was the first since Fianna Fails return to power.

Michael J Lillis, who had attended all nine meetings on behalf of the Department of Foreign Affairs, was delighted with the outcome.

It created a positive public impact, he reported.

Mr King and Nicholas Scott, minister of state for Northern Ireland, appeared greatly encouraged by the interest and commitment shown by the new tanaiste, Brian Lenihan, and justice minister Gerard Collins in relation to subversive violence, according to Mr Lillis.

Nevertheless, the killing continued. On April 27, the Provisional IRA murdered the Lord Justice of Appeal, Maurice Gibson, and his wife after they crossed at Killeen, Co Armagh. They had been escorted to the border from Dun Laoghaire by a garda patrol.

The SAS struck back a little over a week later by ambushing a PIRA unit planning to attack the RUC station at Loughgall, Co Armagh.

The British soldiers, who had been lying in wait, killed eight PIRA and an innocent motorist who happened to drive by in the midst of the ambush. Mr King wrote to Mr Lenihan that ballistic tests have confirmed that the weapons recovered were responsible for every single murder and attempted murder in Fermanagh and Tyrone this year.

Although there were questions about whether the British Army could have taken the would-be attackers prisoner, there was little sympathy for them, according to Seamus Mallon, deputy leader of the SDLP. That PIRA group had it coming to them, according to Fr Faul.

When Haughey met Thatcher on the periphery of the European Summit in Brussels on June 30, 1987, she welcomed the cross-border security co-operation.

The number of Garda/Army patrols on the border had been more than doubled, resulting in increased finds of arms and ammunition destined for the North.

But Thatcher was distinctly uneasy about the continuing level of loyalist opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

I did not expect the extent of this disaffection at the time I signed the Agreement, she complained.

Haughey complimented her for standing up to the loyalists, unlike her predecessor Harold Wilson, who had buckled in the face of unionist opposition following the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973.

You did not, like Prime Minister Wilson, for example, back down, Haughey told her.
Our capacity to inflict savagery on each other is a never-ending mystery. Every society, no matter how exceptional it imagines itself, is at one stage or another complicit in the most bestial behaviour.

The Isis suicide car-bomb attack in Kabul in recent days, which left at least 41 people dead and scores wounded, is just one example in an endless stream of atrocity.
There's no doubt that 2017 was a year of change and transition for the city of Desloge. Long-time city administrator Greg Camp resigned to take on the same task for another city and Dan Bryan was hired a month later to replace him. The city also lost and gained an alderman over the 12-month period.

January

According to City Administrator Greg Camp, high on the citys list of accomplishments in 2016 was the continued push to complete several recreational trails within the city limits.

At its monthly luncheon, North County Superintendent Dr. Yancy Poorman gave Desloge Chamber of Commerce investors an update on the school district hes led for almost 11 years.

February

Hoping to get a few more years of service out of the city pool, the Desloge Board of Aldermen approved a number of repairs that were expected to be completed in plenty of time for the start of this year's swimming season.

The board passed a 2.5 percent increase in city water rates based on an increase of the West Region's Consumer Price Index over the past 12 months.

Associate Circuit Judge Joseph L. Goff Jr. was named St. Francois Countys 2016 Citizen of the Year at the 26th Annual Law Enforcement Appreciation Night held at the Mineral Area Community Elks Lodge in Desloge.

March

The Desloge Board of Aldermen set the schedule of monthly charges for the city's water service. From one gallon up, the charge is $3.14 per 1,000 gallons.

The board of aldermen approved an ordinance that provides guidelines for the keeping of domestic strains of honey bees within the city limits.

April

Camp provided members of the city's chamber of commerce an update on projects either in progress or already completed when he served as guest speaker at the investor's luncheon.

City Clerk Linda Moore led Ward 1 Alderman Jim "Yogi" Jones, Ward 2 Alderman Chris Gremminger and Ward III Alderman Jerry "Hogshead" Hulsey, along with Mayor David Kater, in the oath of office immediately after the board certified the April 4 election results.

Camp announced his intention to resign his long-time position to accept an expected offer from the city of Festus to become its new city administrator.

May

The Desloge Board of Aldermen gave a proper send-off to Camp who resigned after almost 10 years on the job.

The board approved a change in the way the citys fire chief is chosen. The position will now be appointed by the mayor with the approval of the board, rather than by an election held by firefighters at the firehouse.

Survivors of the F-3 tornado which ripped through the towns of Cantwell and Desloge on May 21, 1957, recalled their experiences 60 years later.

June

Desloge Chamber of Commerce members learned about the mission and needs of the Southeast Missouri Family Violence Council when Tracy Carroll served as main speaker at the civic organizations monthly luncheon.

A presentation by Kevin Wolff of Cochran Engineering brought the city aldermen up to speed on a project to repave streets and put in storm drainage, curbing and sidewalk from Fern to Willow streets and then to Hawthorne.

The Desloge Board of Aldermen hired Dan Bryan of Terre Du Lac as the city's new administrator.

July

In a brief meeting of the Desloge Board of Aldermen, a list of proposed street overlay projects for the coming year were discussed. The combined estimated total of the projects was $149,432.65.

State Rep. Mike Henderson, R-Bonne Terre, touted the importance of having a balanced state budget when he spoke before the Desloge Chamber of Commerce at its monthly investors luncheon.

After a more than 18-year career with the Missouri Department of Corrections, Bryan took the reins as the citys new city administrator. He has had extensive ties to the city his entire life.

August

The Desloge Board of Aldermen tackled a lengthy agenda that included a presentation on animal control protocol.

The Desloge Chamber of Commerce officially announced that long-time city firefighter Kenny Hawkins had been selected to serve as grand marshal for this year's annual Labor Day Parade.

The Desloge Board of Aldermen said goodbye to Ward I Alderman Mara Westbrooks who served more than nine years before announcing that she and her husband were moving out of state.

September

The 27th annual Desloge Labor Day Picnic started at Sept. 2 in City Park and continued through Sept. 5.

The Desloge Board of Aldermen approved the purchase of security cameras for the city. The majority of the new cameras purchased will be placed in City Park, including the pool area, to combat increasing acts of vandalism to municipal property.

Newly-appointed Ward I Alderman Deion Christopher was welcomed to the Desloge Board of Aldermen by Mayor Kater.

October

Residents of the Riverview Estates subdivision attended the October meeting of the Desloge Board of Aldermen to voice their concerns about the lack of streetlights in the neighborhood and the subsequent safety issues that have arisen because of it.

About 200 people gathered on the parking lot of the extensively remodeled Desloge Walmart, located at 407 N. State St., to celebrate its grand reopening and ribbon cutting.

The Desloge Board of Aldermen approved the purchase of several items for the Public Works Department when it met in special session. The items were all related to the previous purchase of a 3500 Ram and 5500 Ram pickup truck at the board's September meeting.

November

Plans to work with other St. Francois County cities in placing the addition of an internet use tax on the ballot in August was among a range of items discussed at the Desloge Board of Aldermen November meeting.

A request by El Tapatio Mexican Restaurant for TIF funds in the amount of $7,668.98 was approved for work on the restaurant entrance and ditchline required by MoDOT.

About 80 area veterans recently enjoyed a free Thanksgiving dinner which is provided each year by the Mineral Area Community Elks Lodge 2583 in Desloge.

December

The city of Desloge is facing ever-increasing costs in providing free trash pickup for city residents and is attempting to find ways to cut expenses so it can continue the service.

The Desloge Public Library recently received a $2,500 grant from the Missouri State Library for early literacy collection development. According to Head Librarian Jill Kaufman, the granted funds were used to purchase more than 60 new childrens books.

Almost two weeks after a representative with Jokerst Inc. heard complaints from Bryan and the board of aldermen about the problem-prone railroad crossing project, it was announced the project was now a day ahead of schedule.
Donald Trump has said the USA's East Coast "could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming" as bitterly cold temperatures are expected to freeze large swaths of the country this holiday weekend.

The US president wrote on Twitter on Thursday: "In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record," and added: "Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"
The senior Tory figure, one of Margaret Thatchers closest and most loyal lieutenants, was central to brokering the Sunningdale Agreement in 1973, the first scuppered attempt to establish a cross-party executive.

In a private conversation with then Irish ambassador to London Noel Dorr in 1987, Mr Whitelaw said he could foresee the significance of the Irish border waning in the future.

As to the long term, he said he had always thought that if one could get power-sharing really going in the North, the importance of the border would fade away over 50 years or so, wrote the diplomat.

Then unity would be a real possibility. In a report of their conversation, marked confidential and sent back to the Taoiseachs office in Dublin, Lord Whitelaw described himself as a moderate unionist, adding that he supported the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

However, he said he is at the present in one of his more pessimistic moods about Northern Ireland, according to files released into the National Archives in Dublin.

He said then taoiseach Garret FitzGerald had confided in him his hope that more moderate unionists would emerge, but Lord Whitelaw replied that there seem to be very few of these. Paisley had opposed power-sharing and the SDLP could, on the other hand, not be expected to join in devolution in Northern Ireland without some Irish dimension, he said.

In later years, Lord Whitelaw had described the collapse of power-sharing in 1974 as one of the greatest sadnesses of my life.

Separately, Martin Smyth, then a leading figure in the Ulster Unionist Party, privately told an Irish diplomat that Britain had a deep wish to get out of Northern Ireland. He said he accepted that only the British have any choice in Ireland, the choice to pull out, and that the rest of us in the end will have to accommodate each other. Rev Smyth suggested the Republics economic woes and failure to become a modern, relaxed, confident society would stave off any imminent plans for a UK exit.

He feels that the Republics Roman Catholic conservatism will continue to be a political card in the unionists favour for a long time to come, and that despite Britains deep wish to get out, it cannot while the Republic is clearly economically unviable (sic) and basically unsympathetic to the Unionist identity.

Meanwhile, a Tory minister predicted that a Margaret Thatcher-led Conservative government that was likely to be re-elected in 1987 would become the most disliked administration in many years. Nicholas Scott, then Deputy Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said that while he was confident the Tories would win the British general election that year, he was unhappy with aspects of his governments policy, particularly in relation to education and housing. In a meeting with a senior Irish diplomat, Michael Lillis, in 1987, Mr Scott predicted a new Thatcher administration would be disliked by the electorate.

This will end in tears, he observed.
Though Ireland must now be a friend of Britain as Brexit talks move into phase two in the coming weeks and begin to address future trade arrangements, he said.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, the foreign affairs minister said that Ireland will not interfere with British politics, but that Dublin would welcome a second Brexit vote.

I think it is unlikely, said Mr Coveney. I know the Lib Dems are looking at this concept of having a referendum on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, that would give people a say before they make that jump when they know what it looks like.

Obviously, Ireland would like to see another referendum. Anything that involves a fundamental debate in Britain and the option to change their mind is something that Ireland would welcome. But that is a matter for the British system and the British people.

The Liberal Democrats say a final referendum on Brexit could be held before next Christmas. This would allow British people to decide on a final Brexit deal or vote to stay in the EU.

While relations between Dublin and London were strained after phase one of the Brexit talks, Mr Coveney says Ireland needs to strengthen ties as negotiations move on to trade.

I think Ireland needs to be a friend of Britains in the context of phase two, he said. The way we show that is to try to encourage an outcome that allows Britain to be part of an extended customs union and single market.

However, with just weeks to go before talks begin on a future EU-UK trading relationship after Brexit, the Tanaiste shot down talk of a Canada-style deal.

London has talked about securing the best of the EUs trade deal with Canada, which would allow free trade in most goods but not services and therefore erect barriers for businesses.

Mr Coveney said a Canada-style deal could necessitate border checks in the North and this would therefore revert to the backstop deal secured by Ireland, resulting in the status quo.

I dont see how we avoid the triggering of the backstop if there is a Canada-style agreement in place because it means that when goods travel between Ireland and Northern Ireland or between Ireland and Britain, if a Canada-style trade agreement applies, well then goods are moving from one customs union to another, they are moving from one single market into another, he said.

News: 8
According to the 10th edition of Health in Ireland: Key Trends, published yesterday by the Department of Health, much of this increase is due to reductions in circulatory system diseases and cancer.

Cigarette consumption has declined over the past decade, while alcohol consumption increased slightly in 2016.

There have also been significant improvements in the health and well-being of the population. However, the report for 2017 highlights ongoing challenges in accessing timely health care.

Health in Ireland: Key Trends also reveals that Ireland is now beginning to catch up with other European countries in terms of population ageing. The population of those aged 65 years and over has increased by 34.3% since 2008, and has been increasing at a faster rate than that of our EU neighbours. The numbers of people in this age group is expected to almost double in the next 20 years.

The number of live births has been falling year-on-year since 2009, and in 2016 the number of registered births was 63,897. Despite these reductions, the fertility rate in Ireland remains the second-highest in the EU, behind France. The population estimate for 2017 is 4,792,490, an increase of 1.1% on Census 2016.

Welcoming the report, Health Minister Simon Harris said:  Health in Ireland: Key Trends gives us the opportunity to assess the performance of the Irish health system, and highlights where things are going well, and where we need to improve. It also shows the importance of good-quality data and evidence to health professionals and policymakers alike, in providing a high-quality health service for all our population.

Im particularly struck by the continued reduction in mortality rates from main causes of death, such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer. The contribution of modern health services to the improvements in health outcomes has been significant.

However, I also acknowledge that we still have issues of access to our health services that need to be addressed to lower the time patients can expect to wait for treatment.

He said we are also living longer.

The largest proportional increases in the population in Ireland will be in the category of those aged 85 years and older, he said. The number of people aged 65 and over will grow from one-fifth to over one-third of the working population over the next two decades, which will have implications for how we fund our health services.

In order to be able to provide high-quality services, as our population continues to age, we need to have the ability to assess the performance of the health system in a way that ensures that valuable and finite health-care resources are used in the most efficient way possible.

Mr Harris added that the main aim of any performance assessment should be to improve the health status of the population, with people continuing to live longer, healthier lives.
Mr Martin has said his party is developing legislation to provide State funding to newspapers. It could be allocated by a merit-based system, by way of standard, base-line funding, or a mixture of both.

Currently, RTE is the only taxpayer-funded media outlet (through the TV licence fee), but it also relies on advertising revenue.

Arguing that State support should be widened to include newspapers, Mr Martin said: In a world where democracy is under threat from fake news, exploitation of online media platforms by all sorts of forces and states, there is a need to keep an independent, mainstream, factual, objective-based media.

We are coming up with legislation to create a system whereby the newsprint industry would be supported by taxpayers money, by the Government, because of the difficulties newsprint industry is facing.

However, the Cork South Central TD stressed the importance of the Government remaining at arms length from newspapers and other media.

I believe it needs to be like the French, and others who actually have a system that is at arms length from government, where there is no attempt to influence the editorial content or direction of media, he said.

While Mr Martin said the details of the State funding would have to be finalised, investigative journalism should be especially supported.

It could be to support good journalism and investigative journalism, the media could bid for funding or would get some base-line funding, he said.

Its hard to retain quality journalists on reasonably good salaries that make it worth their while.

The media world is under huge threat and we do need an independent media landscape, we do need good journalists, we need investigative journalists who speak truth to power, and I think that is coming under threat, with the change in the media landscape  its consolidating. The online issue is huge.

Communications Minister Denis Naughten has previously raised the prospect of supporting newspapers.

I think this is something that needs to be debated, he told an Association of European Journalists conference in Dublin in October 2016. I think we need to look at a broad debate in relation to journalism and content, because I think it is important that we have content that you can stand over. How that is transmitted is irrelevant.

The public have respected institutions, like our national newspapers, like our national broadcasters. I think it is important that trust remains there, and I think it does need to be supported and that broader debate now needs to take place.
The Sinn Fein president privately believed that the IRA campaign would not succeed and that terrorism was hampering his personal ambitions and his attempts to win support for the party at the ballot box.

The previously unseen report, released under the 30-year rule by the Department of Foreign Affairs, in Dublin, said Mr Adams viewed the armed struggle as a political liability.

The revelation was passed to a diplomat by senior Catholic cleric, Bishop Cahal Daly, who was said to have spoken, with some vehemence, of Adams deviousness and fundamental untrustworthiness.

The confidential report, dated February 4, 1987 and compiled for officials in Iveagh House, in Dublin, said: The bishop has picked up a rumour that Gerry Adams is currently trying to put together a set of proposals, which would enable the Provisional IRA to call a halt to their paramilitary campaign.

He has reached the view that the armed struggle is getting nowhere, that it has become a political liability to Sinn Fein, both north and south, and that, as long as it continues, there is little chance that he will be able to realise his own political ambitions. What he is believed to be working on is some form of declaration of intent to withdraw, with however long a timescale, on the part of the British government.

If he managed to negotiate something of this kind, the Provisional IRA would be able to lay down their arms without much loss of face, claiming that they had achieved the breakthrough towards which all their efforts had been directed.

Prior to this declassification, it had been known that, as far back as 1982, Mr Adams had contacts with the west Belfast Redemptorist priest, Fr Alec Reid, about a peace strategy.

Fr Reid, who died in 2013, also wrote a letter to Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, in May, 1987, setting out Mr Adams terms for an IRA ceasefire. It would be another seven years before that cessation.

At the time of these contacts, the IRA was importing massive hauls of weapons, including from Libya. One of those arsenals was on board the Eksund, including two tonnes of Semtex, when it was seized in a French port in late 1987.

In the file, Bishop Daly also revealed that he had refused to meet Mr Adams as president of Sinn Fein and that, despite some agonising, he decided he would only have discussions with him as a private individual. Bishop Daly also said that if Sinn Fein won a Westminster seat for West Belfast, that it would be a tragedy.

The file also contained a report on a meeting Mr Adams had with Belfast lawyer, PJ McGrory.

The solicitor told an Irish government official that the conversation showed the Sinn Fein leader privately disapproved of individual IRA atrocities, but that he would never say so in public.

Mr McGrory reported Mr Adams as saying: The Army Council gives me only so much leeway.

The lawyer also claimed that the Sinn Fein leader had the support of the overwhelming majority of Northern Republicans and that the reality is that whatever Adams says the Provos will eventually do.

Mr McGrory said Mr Adams wanted the British to give a timescale for withdrawal from Northern Ireland, maybe 25, 40, or even 50 years, and that he would be able to sell it to the Provos.

It might take some time, and there would be a lot of suspicion and scepticism to overcome, but, eventually, he would carry the Army Council with him, the solicitor was reported as saying.

Separate documents revealed that on January 13, 1987, David Donoghue reported to the Department of Foreign Affairs that Gerry Adams feared trouble from an outbreak of violence between three rival INLA factions, especially from a group in the Dundalk/Newry area and another in the Markets area of Belfast.

The Dundalk/Newry element, under the leadership of John OReilly and Thomas Power, was considered more dangerous, because it was heavily armed. They were believed to have been responsible for an attempt on the life of the loyalist, David Calvert, who was shot in the head and abdomen the previous week, while walking in a Craigavon car park with his 11-year-old daughter.

The smaller Markets group, led by Gerard Steenson  who was dubbed Doctor Death  was suspected of a recent murder of an off-duty RUC man on Fitzroy Avenue, and of the grenade attack on the Queens Street RUC Station. They are all nutters, Adams said, every one of them.

One week after Donoghues report, OReilly and Power were gunned down while having an afternoon drink in the bar of the Rossnaree Hotel in Co Meath.
Kenneth Bloomfield privately told an Irish diplomat he was delighted the senior DUP figure had been taken down a peg over the Clontibret affair, newly declassified government files reveal.

The head of the Northern Ireland civil service at the time said he shared the view of many unionists that Mr Robinsons position in the community was damaged as a result of pleading guilty in a southern court.

Robinson has always had a reputation for cowardice and that reputation has now been underlined, he said, according to a note of his dinner in 1987 with Irish diplomats in Belfast.

Bloomfield was delighted that he had been taken down a peg, the file reveals.

Questions were also asked about the amount of money raised to fund Mr Robinson after being charged over the 1986 loyalist incursion into the Co Monaghan village during anti-Anglo-Irish Agreement demonstrations.

Mr Robinson, who led the invasion, was deputy leader of the DUP and an MP at the time.

John Carson, a former unionist MP and Lord Mayor of Belfast, told a diplomat many DUP supporters even in east Belfast where he has been on a few occasions since the end of the trial, were openly critical of Robinsons cowardly admission of guilt in a southern court. Differences in his treatment and other less important figures in the unionist fold who got into trouble over anti-Anglo-Irish Agreement protests were striking and had not been lost on the unionist community. He noted one DUP member who was fined 275 for assaulting a policeman outside the Anglo-Irish Secretariat in Belfast.

Finding difficulty in paying the fine and worried about his position as a teacher, he first approached Ian Paisley for help and was turned away, he said.

The man was then told by the anti-Agreement Ulster Clubs to take his punishment like a man and he became totally disillusioned with his erstwhile friends and deeply regrets ever having been involved with them. Meanwhile, the DUP has placed ads in the newspapers seeking contributions to pay for Robinsons fine and defence, he added.

A 100 per head dinner in the Mons Restaurant outside Belfast netted some 30,000.

Alan Wright, chairman of the Ulster Clubs, contributed 14,000 and Sammy Wilson, Lord Mayor of Belfast, has committed himself to raising a further five-figure sum.

They expect to raise a total of 100,000 through all of their efforts.

Nobody has been questioned as to why so much is being raised. Mr Robinson was fined IR17,500 over the affair  earning him the nickname Peter the Punt.

Alban Maginness, then SDLP chairman and a solicitor, said his understanding from the legal grapevine was that barrister Desmond Boal seeing his chance to reduce the leadership threat to his old friend Ian Paisley used the case to take Mr Robinson down a peg.

Mr Boal had warned Mr Robinson that only by pleading guilty to an unlawful assembly charge would he avoid a jail sentence.

Mr Robinson decided to opt for the easy way out after fretting over the loss of his Westminster seat, a possible long sentence and the loss of a very comfortable lifestyle, said Maginness.
Records from his office while he was taoiseach in 1987 reveal that the UVF wrote to him to tell him that British intelligence also launched a smear campaign against him.

The loyalists claimed their organisation was used by MI5 and MI6, backed up by British Army special forces, from 1972 to 1978 and again in 1985.

In 1985 we were approached by a MI5 officer attached to the NIO (Northern Ireland Office) and based in Lisburn, Alex Jones was his supposed name, the UVF said. He asked us to execute you.

The previously secret letter, on UVF headed paper, showed the loyalists told Mr Haughey that the MI5 operative gave details of his cars, photographs of his home, his island, Inishvickillane, and his yacht, Celtic Mist.

The paramilitaries also claimed to have been given details of Mr Haugheys trips to Farranfore airport in Kerry and photos of a plane he used.

We refused to do it, we were asked would we accept responsibility if you were killed we refused, the UVF said in the letter.

Mr Haughey was on holiday when the letter arrived in August 1987.

He was shown it later and, according to a handwritten note on another document from his office, he asked for the Department of Justice to let him know if they had any information.

The UVF also claimed MI5 planned to supply a spoon of Anthras (sic), Foort and Mouth Disease (sic), Fowl Pest, Swine Fever, and Jaagsikpi to anyone who would release them in Ireland.

The loyalists said the plot was to destroy the Eire economy.

In the letter, the UVF said it had killed 17 men using information from British intelligence.

Signed in block capitals Capt W Johnston, the name used by the UVF in all its formal statements, it closed with the line: We have no love for you but we are not going to carry out work for the Dirty Tricks Department of the British.

The documents can be seen in the National Archives in file 2017/10/34 from the Taoiseachs office.
The Birmingham Sixs Paddy Hill accused successive Irish governments of abandoning them in their fight for freedom, newly declassified State papers have revealed.

In a handwritten letter from his cell, in HMP Gartree, on September 10, 1987, Mr Hill said they had been offered nothing but false hope and false promises.

The letter was laden with emotion and anger, and in it he penned the iconic words he would voice so emotively on the day he was freed.

Mr Hill wrote: The British system dont know how to spell the word JUSTICE, never mind dispensing (sic) it.

The damning assessment of those who incarcerated him for 16 years is almost word for word what he delivered when he grabbed a microphone on the street, outside the Old Bailey, in 1991. At the time of the letter, Mr Hill had been in jail while four different taoisigh had taken office  Liam Cosgrave, Jack Lynch, Garret Fitzgerald, and Charles Haughey. He said successive governments had done nothing to support him and the five others.

The only thing successive Irish governments have done is help to keep INNOCENT IRISHMEN in prison, he wrote.

The Birmingham Six  Hill, Hugh Callaghan, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power, and John Walker  were wrongly jailed for life in 1975, in England, for the IRA bombings which killed 21 people.

After protracted campaigns, their convictions were quashed in the appeal court. Mr Hills two-page letter to Senator Paschal Mooney, and forwarded on to the Department of Foreign Affairs, was released by the National Archives, along with a tranche of other files relating to the case, under the 30-year rule.

It reveals deep and justifiable anger at his incarceration  at that time, he had served 12 years.

Mr Hill accused Irish politicians of lacking courage and questioned why a cross-party delegation wanted to see him in prison.

I wont be seeing any representatives of any Irish party. As far as Im concerned, they are all a load of shit, he wrote.

I had enough of them when they visited us at Long Lartin and they still havent had the courage to publicly declare that we are innocent and that we were TORTURED + FRAMED for something we know nothing about.

Hill went on: We learned, a long time ago, that we could expect little or no help from the Irish government and everything to date bears that out. The only thing they have done for us is to give us FALSE HOPE and FALSE PROMISES. We got this far without the help of the Irish government and we will prove our INNOCENCE without their help.

Several weeks later, then tanaiste and foreign affairs minister, Brian Lenihan, told Senator Mooney why the Irish government had not publicly supported the Birmingham Six. It is preferable, in my judgment, for the governments view to be conveyed, as a general rule, privately to the British government, he said.

In a separate, open letter from Mr Hill, earlier that year, he said the Birmingham Six were willing to undergo hypnosis, the truth drug, and lie-detector tests to prove their innocence.

He attacked the Irish government for what he said was a lack of courage.

If they do not act publicly, then the possibility of us ever being free is very slim, he said.

Another file revealed SDLP deputy leader, Seamus Mallon, told an Irish official in August, 1987, that he was nervous of getting involved in campaigns for the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, and the Maguire Seven at Westminster.

He thought campaigners, including Chris Mullin, MP, and Labours Clare Short, were using them for political propaganda.
Records show that civil servants viewed the meeting of the two political leaders, on the fringes of an EU summit in Brussels, in June, 1987, as an opportunity to re-establish good relations.

The pair had famously clashed at an Anglo-Irish summit in 1980, during Mr Haugheys first term as Taoiseach.

At their meeting in Brussels, Ms Thatcher described the political situation in Northern Ireland as terrible, because terrorism was continuing despite the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

She expressed horror at the enormous number of IRA murders in previous months and recalled how the British government had been led to believe that the security situation would improve following the agreement.

While the British prime minister restated her determination to implement the agreement, she said she could not stress enough how disaffected Unionists had become.

I did not expect the extent of this disaffection at the time I signed the agreement. I thought that the document had all the requisite guarantees upfront.

But it is not logic, but emotion, that governs their actions, she said.

She later remarked: The SDLP are not as helpful as they could be.

Mr Haughey reassured the British prime minister that the Irish government would handle the Anglo-Irish Agreement sensitively.

He also praised Ms Thatcher for being the first British leader to tell Unionists that there must be progress.

You have stood firm and that is an historic contribution to Anglo-Irish relations. You must not forget that, Mr Haughey said.

He acknowledged the high number of IRA incidents on soft targets, but stressed that cross-border security co-operation had improved.

Conscious of Irelands difficult economic circumstances at the time, Ms Thatcher said she realised that Mr Haughey might have problems with resources.

Jokingly, he responded by suggesting she could lend him 2bn.

A briefing note, in advance of the meeting, prepared for Mr Haughey, advised him that while Ms Thatcher was firmly committed to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, she could sometimes be self-righteous, not to say exasperating, in terms of her views on extradition and security co-operation.

It recalled she was originally sceptical about the agreement, due to the lack of any deep historical feel for Northern Ireland.

However, it said Ms Thatcher now had little or no understanding of the Unionists opposition to an agreement which she regarded as reasonable.

The author of the briefing document, Noel Dorr, the secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs, warned Mr Haughey to expect that she might preach at him about security issues.

Mr Dorr suggested that while the Taoiseach might wish to argue points to defend Irelands position, he could consider showing a measure of patience, which could have longer-term benefits.

Mr Dorr said this was the dilemma that the Irish side faced in meetings with Ms Thatcher, because of her personality and approach.
The St Francois County Commission approved the 2018 county budget when it met Tuesday morning on the third floor of the courthouse annex in Farmington.

According to County Auditor Louie Seiberlich, the coming year's budget projects revenues of $30.6 million with expenditures of $22.8 million  leaving the county with a balance of $7.8 million.

"My office began compiling the necessary figures and requests from officeholders in August after we held a class for them entitled 'Budget 101,'" Seiberlich said. "We believe this gave them and their employees a more clear picture of of the county's finances and where the expenses were going.

"Led by Audit Manager Amber Menjoulet, we spent hundreds of man hours dissecting and bisecting each line item and then visited, individually, with each officeholder to scrutinize their figures and requests."

The 71-page audit previews the projected costs for each department and outlines the history of expenses from 2016-2017.

"This year saw major expenditures, primarily in the road and bridge department as they moved into improved facilities on Woodlawn Drive," Seiberlich said. "Their expense budget for 2018 is at $4.4 million.

"The county also added the Weber Road Facility that is forecasted to produce office rental income to offset the overhead. That building also includes a new morgue for southeast Missouri. Security and computer upgrades were also made in county buildings with additional staffing added."

The budget for law enforcement is more than $5 million, with revenues for the general fund predicted at $10 million.

"In an effort to save the taxpayers money, an ambitious search for lower health insurance premiums and the annual outside audit services netted multiple bids and a savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars with both bids locked in for the next three years," Seiberlich said.

Seiberlich noted that County Clerk Mark Hedrick and County Treasurer Kerry Glore were also instrumental in formulating what he described as a "conservative budget" for the next 12 months.

The commissioners will next meet in regular session at 10 a.m. Jan. 2, on the third floor of the courthouse annex, located at 1 W. Liberty St. in Farmington.
Adjudication officer at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) Enda Murphy said he was making the award of 3,000 under the Equal Status Act due to the seriousness of the discrimination and the humiliating effect it had on the man, due to the very public manner in which he was refused entrance to the hotel restaurant.

The hotel refused entrance to the man on March 13, 2016, claiming at the WRC that patrons were required to pre-book their meals for the Sunday, as it was Mothers Day.

However, Mothers Day actually took place one week prior, on March 6, 2016.

Mr Murphy said that he found the complainant to be an impressive witness and his detailed evidence to be wholly credible, in relation to the circumstances giving rise to this complaint.

In his evidence, the man said he and his family arrived at the hotel at 4.15pm on March 13, 2016, and they were met by two doormen, with one of them stating: Sorry, not today. We have been told not to serve you.

When the man asked for a reason for the refusal, he was told that they were advised not to serve Travellers.

The father immediately reported the incident to the Garda Siochana and he was extremely upset and distressed.

The man said he frequented the hotel monthly and had done so as recently as March 6, 2016, which was Mothers Day.

He said that he is a well-known member of the community in the locality and has not been barred from any licensed premises, or in any way been associated with trouble or unsavoury activity.

He said that there was no reason to deny him or his family access to the restaurant.

In cross-examination, the man denied that the reason he was refused entry to the hotel was that only pre-booked customers or residents were being served lunch, on account of it being Mothers Day.

He said that the date in question was not, in fact, Mothers Day, as that was March 6, 2016. The man claimed he was refused access to the hotel because of his membership of the Traveller community.

The hotel said that there was a large sign outside the hotel on March 13, 2016, stating that reservations were required for Mothers Day lunch. The hotel also stated that other Travellers were served lunch in the hotel on the date in question. The hotel stated that the complainants evidence that a security guard would openly state that he would refuse entry to the hotel because someone was a Traveller is not plausible.

In his findings, Mr Murphy said that he fully accepts the complainants uncontradicted version of the events. Mr Murphy said that it was open to the hotel to request hotel staff, including the security guard, who were on duty, to attend the hearing to provide evidence, but such witnesses were not produced.

Mr Murphy said that the hotel had changed hands since the March 2016 incident, but finds that the new owners are vicariously liable for the discrimination, in accordance with the provisions of Section 42 of the Equal Status Acts.

In his ruling, Mr Murphy found that the complainant was refused access to the restaurant at the hotel on March 13, 2016 and that this was attributable to the fact of his membership of the Traveller community.

No parties are named in the report.
Government figures are playing down any chance of a general election next year and believe the so-called confidence and supply agreement will be reviewed before the next budget.

Mr Varadkar said: Confidence and supply runs until the budget, which will be October of next year. I think at a certain point, we will have to have a conversation.

It is, as you know, an agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail so at a certain point we will have to have a conversation. Built into it is a review and potentially it could be continued and I certainly see no reason why it cant be continued beyond the third budget. But obviously that is a matter for I to discuss with Micheal Martin [the Fianna Fail leader] in the first instance, and we havent yet, then the two parties subsequently.

The Taoiseach ruled out reviewing the deal early in 2018, but added: I wouldnt like to see it drop dead the day after the budget either. That wouldnt be in anyones interest and it would not be in the best interests of the country certainly to have a government on budget night with confidence and supply agreement but not the day after.

His comments were echoed by Tanaiste Simon Coveney, who in an interview with the Irish Examiner, said he believes the deal would go beyond three years: I do actually. I think it has a very good chance of that.

Mr Coveney also spoke about the Governments 100bn capital spending plan, to be unveiled in the new year.

This will include plans for the new Cork to Limerick M20 route: It is a big, big project, it will cost about a billion euro. And it will take time to do. We will look at new funding models for the M20. I know the European Investment Bank wants to support that. I think there will be some tolls on that road, just like there are tolls on the Dublin-Cork road, M50. Most big motorways have a toll somewhere.

Meanwhile, Mr Varadkar has revealed that he is unlikely to reshuffle the Cabinet: Im not planning a reshuffle so the Cabinet will remain as it is. I have no plans at all to reshuffle the Cabinet. Unfortunately, vacancies do arise on occasion but Ive no intention of creating any.

But, with only 11 female Fine Gael TDs, he wants to see more women getting involved in politics, particularly at the next general or local elections

He also left the door open on former tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald returning to high office, after her recent resignation over a justice scandal.

Mr Varadkar refused to say if she could be a potential future presidential candidate for Fine Gael. But he did signal that she may return to a senior government position in the future. Theres no vacancy [in Cabinet] at the moment. Well see what the president decides to do.

I still hold Frances Fitzgerald in very high regard. Im not planning a cabinet reshuffle but I certainly dont think for a second that shes somebody who is debarred from holding high office in the future.
The British prime minister Margret Thatcher expressed anger at the taoiseach Charles Haughey over the lack of extradition of terrorist suspects from Ireland to the UK when the two political leaders met on the fringes of an EU summit in Copenhagen in 1987.

State records released under the 30-year rule show Ms Thatcher criticised Mr Haughey during a 30-minute meeting on December 4, 1987 for how several extradition cases had collapsed in the Irish courts for what the British regarded as frivolous reasons.

Ms Thatcher claimed one extradition case had been thrown out of court because documents were not stapled together. She was also afraid that the Irish courts would require the British attorney general, Patrick Mayhew, to appear as a witness.

My feelings go deeper than anger, she told the taoiseach as she also hinted at regret at signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement two years earlier.

I did not have to sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement. I could have got by without it. The only thing it has brought me is criticism and bad blood with the Unionists, she remarked.

Mr Haughey replied: I am sorry you feel so strongly. I can see you feel anger. He argued that on security issues Britain was getting more out of the Anglo-Irish Agreement that he had ever thought possible.

The taoiseach cited a recent meeting between the Garda commissioner Eamon Doherty and the RUC chief constable John Hermon, as an example.

Mr Haughey said gardai had also recently mounted the most massive security operation in the history of the State which had led to the discovery of weapons and a number of escaped prisoners from the Maze as well as two big dug-outs which seemed to have been intended to be used to store weapons from the Eksund  a ship carrying arms from Libya that had been intercepted by the French navy in November 1987.

All that is far more important than the legalities involved in the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism. You are getting full co-operation in that area, said Mr Haughey.

He pointed out that terrorist suspects could no longer use political motivation as an excuse for alleged offences to avoid extradition.
DEAR HARRIETTE: I am a woman of faith. Now that I am in my 40s, I can see even better how important my faith has been in my life. I know, of course, that I have worked hard and that has helped me to have the wonderful job that I have. I am a good wife and mother. So far, even though I have had some challenges, my life is great. I don't take this for granted; I believe that this is happening because I have faith in God. I am active in my church and do my best to live a well-balanced life. When people ask me why I am so positive, I like to tell them why. But I worry that I shouldn't talk about faith at work. I never try to get people to follow my path, but I do want to be able to tell my truth. What do you recommend? -- In the Spirit, Atlanta

DEAR IN THE SPIRIT: You are wise not to proselytize anywhere, especially at work. Your focus at work should be the tasks at hand. Of course, it is also important to build relationships with the people on your job. What you are already doing sounds right. Be a good example of honorable behavior and focus. When asked why you are the way you are in a one-on-one situation, feel free to express your belief that you know you work hard but that your faith is your foundation. Keep it simple unless you believe the person asking is sincerely interested in learning more. Do not invite co-workers to pray with you or go to church with you.

Be mindful that a work environment is legally supposed to be free of any religious affiliation. That said, if someone asks to learn more about how you practice your faith, you can share more information. There is no need to be paranoid, by the way. Just remember that everyone's religious views are acceptable in a work environment.

DEAR HARRIETTE: I know that my former boss came onto a couple of the interns and young assistants at my job when I first started my career. I know because on two occasions I saw him do it, and on other occasions the women confided in me when they were upset about it. I got in touch with the ones I knew how to reach to find out if they want to speak up in light of so many people telling their story these days. They said, "absolutely not." I feel like this man should be held accountable, but he did not do anything to me. Can I speak out for them? -- Me Too, Dallas

DEAR ME TOO: It is noble that you want to stand up for your former co-workers, but there is not much you can do. Even for the brave women who have included their voices in this horrific discussion about sexual misconduct in the workplace, it is very difficult to prove the allegations. For you to lead a charge as a witness when the alleged victims will not say anything will not work. Worse, it would expose them to unwanted public scrutiny. You can let them know that you will stand as a witness if they ever change their minds.

DEAR HARRIETTE: My husband is completely immersed in what I call conspiracy theories. He has always been like this, only now he's focused on some financial investments that seem awfully risky. I don't know anything about investing -- and neither does he. We both realize we need to make more money, but now he wants to take money out of his retirement to invest in this thing. The investor sounds extreme, if not on the fringe. I don't want to emasculate my husband, but I also do not want him to blow the only retirement we have on what seems like a whim. What can I do? -- Risky Business, Rockville, Maryland

DEAR RISKY BUSINESS: The best way for you to have some say in how your husband invests is for you to get involved. I'm not sure how the investor in question is a conspiracy theorist, but you should tell your husband you want to learn about this investment strategy with him. Read what he is reading, and do independent research to get a sense of how this idea is regarded in the industry. Speak to a financial adviser to get a professional perspective on what kinds of investments are wise for someone in your family's financial situation.

By demonstrating sincere interest in this topic that so interests your husband, you may be able to bond with him over your plans for the future and decide to agree together on the next steps.

DEAR HARRIETTE: One of my son's classmates has epilepsy. She has had it for years, often having seizures at school. The kids try to be nice to her, but over the years, it has gotten tough. She is often rude and annoying to them. Now that they are teens, they are less patient than they used to be. I'm sure the students are unkind to this girl. I have witnessed them ignore her repeatedly. And my son says that she has no friends in the school.

I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to get my son and his friends to be nicer to their classmate. I know they will say she doesn't deserve it, but her mother has told me that the girl's illness affects her brain and sometimes leads her to behave rudely. I don't want my son to be mean to this girl, but I also don't want him to suffer abuse from someone even if she has an illness. How can I direct his behavior? -- Navigating Friendship, Raleigh, North Carolina

DEAR NAVIGATING FRIENDSHIP: Remind your son of the importance of treating everyone with respect. Add that having compassion for people who live with challenges is a sign of character. Even when it is tough to show kindness, it is worth it. Talk to your son about boundaries. If this student crosses physical lines, he should immediately tell her to back off. If she speaks in rude or insulting ways, he should stand up for himself and say, "Please do not speak to me like that." When she is "annoying," he can ask her to stop whatever she is doing. Only after repeated offenses should he totally ignore her.

Harriette Cole is a lifestylist and founder of DREAMLEAPERS, an initiative to help people access and activate their dreams. You can send questions to askharriette@harriettecole.com or c/o Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106
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A Florida Circuit Court judge has ruled that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. remains responsible for annual Master Settlement Agreement payments on four traditional cigarette brands even after selling them to Imperial Brands Plc.

At stake is $78 million in MSA payments that Florida has been due since the June 2015 closing of Reynolds $29.25 billion purchase of Lorillard Inc., Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

Reynolds divested Kool, Salem and Winston, while Lorillard divested Maverick, to gain federal regulatory approval of the megadeal. Imperial spent $7.1 billion to buy the brands from Reynolds, transferring them to U.S. subsidiary ITG Brands LLC.

Judge Jeffery Gillen of the 15th Circuit Court ruled that Reynolds still has liability obligation for the brands even though ITG is getting the revenue from their sales.

Bondi pursued legal enforcement action in January to also make either Reynolds or ITG responsible for an estimated $30 million in annual payments on the brands.

Florida is among the states getting annual MSA payments in perpetuity, in its case $440 million altogether from participating manufacturers.

To put $30 million in annual payments to Florida into perspective, Reynolds paid on April 17 its fiscal 2017 MSA obligation of $1.9 billion, including $655 million paid into its disputed payments account.

Reynolds has spent more than $42 billion on payments since the MSA was reached. Since 2006, it has put at least $6.16 billion into escrow.

Reynolds has argued in litigation in Florida and Delaware courts that Imperial took over the liability for the brands MSA payments.

The Reynolds-Imperial deal included language that called on ITG to use its reasonable best efforts to reach an MSA settlement with Florida.

Imperial has countered that it did not agree to assume the payments, and that it was relieved of payment responsibility since it could not reach an agreement with Bondi before the closing of the simultaneous purchases.

Bondi said her action made clear (the state) does not claim that by closing on the asset-purchase agreement Imperial automatically assumed liability for the payments. The sale of major, pre-existing tobacco brands to another company for billions of dollars does not cause the payment obligations to vanish like a puff of smoke.

Gillen agreed with Bondi and Imperial, ruling that Reynolds is still obligated to make the payments pursuant to the Florida agreement.

It is nonetheless clear that the closing of the asset-purchase agreement did not result in Imperials assumption, either expressly or implied, of the payment liability created by the Florida agreement.

Philip Morris USA filed a similar legal motion to Bondi, while Imperial joined the Bondi motion March 30. A three-day hearing before Gillen was held Dec. 18-20.

Bondi said the next step in the Florida court case is for Reynolds and ITG to provide the necessary information to accurately calculate the amounts owed pursuant to reporting requirements under the settlement agreement.

Todays ruling will ensure Floridas landmark tobacco settlement is honored and our state receives the money it is owed, Bondi said.

Reynolds declined to comment Thursday on the ruling.

ITG said in a statement Thursday that we are obviously pleased with the Florida courts ruling.

Most importantly, the court agreed we have no obligation to make payments under the Florida settlement agreement. While we expect there will be appeals, we remain confident the courts will continue to agree with this finding.

Agreement

The landmark MSA was reached in November 1998 between the top U.S. tobacco manufacturers and 46 state attorneys general. The manufacturers agreed to pay at least $206 billion over 20 years to those states to help pay for health-care expenses related to smoking.

However, Florida is one of four states that reached its own MSA agreement with Philip Morris USA, Reynolds and Lorillard.

The payment amounts are based primarily on sales and market share of individual cigarette brands.

The four brands sold to Imperial represented in 2016 about 8 percent of the U.S. market share for traditional cigarettes.

Gillens ruling comes nearly a month after Reynolds received what was considered as a partial, but pivotal, legal victory Nov. 30 in the Court of Chancery in Delaware.

Andre Broussard, a chancellor in the Delaware court, ruled ITG has not met its obligation to use its reasonable best efforts to reach an agreement with Florida on assuming responsibility for the MSA payments.

I find that Reynolds interpretation is supported by the plain language of the asset purchase agreement, and that ITG Brands interpretation is not, Broussard said.

He said ITG continues to receive the benefit of the sales to which those payments relate.

ITG said following the Delaware court ruling that the chancellor ruled on a narrow technical issue which does not settle the underlying dispute. This was simply an interim ruling. Reynolds did not comment on the Broussard ruling.

Gillen said that although the Delaware court case has implications for the Florida court case, it is up to the Florida legislature to pass legislation making Imperial legally responsible for making the MSA payments on the four brands.

A contract requiring reasonable best efforts to reach agreement with a third party is simply not tantamount to a contract requiring a party to reach agreement with a third party, Gillen wrote.

Nothing in the Florida agreement allows Reynolds to relieve itself from its obligations unless the transferee becomes a successor or assign/assignee.

Gillen said in the conclusion of his ruling that Reynolds and Imperial are ... sophisticated enough to come to resolution of their differences, which is consistent with both the clear meaning, intent and purpose of the Florida agreement on the one hard, and their business objectives and shareholder interests on the other.

It is for the Delaware court, not this court, to determine Reynolds and Imperials rights and obligations under their asset-purchase agreement.
Clara007 said: Every other president had sense enough to know that this move would signal the end of peace between Israelis and Palestinians and overturn 70 years of international consensus. Even the United Nations Security Council responded with a resolution condemning Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem and declared it a violation of international law.

It was a stupid thing to do just to get your name plastered on a sign in a train station....don't you think?? Click to expand...

When has their ever been peace between with the Palestinians.Israel gave them self governance (first step to a Palestinian state) in return for peace.3 days later the Peaceful Palestinians launched Rockets into Israel targeting elementary Schools and Hospitals.What claim do Palestinians have to Jerusalem. which has been the Capital of the Israel for Centuries,What right does ANY nation have to tell any other nation were to locate their capital within the Borders of their nation.Why is it the JEWS have to submit to the Rule of PUTIN..Thank God Trump isn't a Putin whore like Obama and HIllary
A leak in a natural gas line closed a block-long section of Peters Creek Parkway for more than five hours Friday, causing drivers to experience long delays as they detoured around a section of one of Winston-Salems busiest streets.

The roadway was closed between Link Road and Hutton Street, where members of a work crew installing guardrail posts smelled gas and called 911 about 11:23 a.m.

When firefighters arrived as a first response, they heard the hiss of natural gas leaking through cracks in the asphalt and realized they had more than a routine leak on their hands.

Firefighters and police closed the road and waved drivers onto detour routes, but it was hours before the leak was brought under control.

With the leak stopped and the roadway partially reopened around 5:30 p.m., work crews labored into the night to replace the leaking section of pipe so that businesses in the area would regain their natural gas service.

Police said Friday night that they were doubtful the line would be fully repaired and all the lanes reopened before midnight.

Jay Walsh, a division chief with the Winston-Salem Fire Department, said a contractor was working on the state-maintained road near the bridge that carries Peters Creek Parkway over Salem Creek.

Battalion Chief Joe Ramsey of the fire department said reports show construction workers from a company called Nickelston were placing guard rail posts in the ground and probably ruptured the gas line.

The crew was working in the median, which is where the leak occurred.

It was a serious leak, not just a small residential one, on one of their major feeder lines, Ramsey said.

Walsh said he and other fire department personnel knew as soon as they arrived that they needed to close the road.

You could hear the high pressure and the gas coming out of the cracks in the pavement, Walsh said.

Besides closing off the road, authorities checked with nearby businesses and made sure everyone knew what was going on and to be careful not to create any sources of ignition. Authorities also watched anyone walking through the area to make sure they werent smoking, Walsh said.

Still, a breeze dispersed the escaping gas and authorities said they did not need to evacuate any of the nearby businesses, Walsh said. Authorities did encourage anyone leaving a business to take a rear route out if possible.

Walsh said that workers for Piedmont Natural Gas initially planned to shut off the gas line at two locations, at Link Road and at Hutton Street. That plan had to be abandoned when it was realized that one of the two shutoff valves was beneath the asphalt on Peters Creek Parkway.

Walsh said crews were then mobilized to dig down to the leaking pipe. Ramsey said the work crew had to be brought from Charlotte to take on the specialized task, which led to delays in getting the leak stopped.

Workers from the citys transportation department reopened one outside lane in each direction on Peters Creek Parkway after the leak was stopped, allowing traffic to resume travel though the block. Portable lights were brought out and work crews worked Friday night to repair the line.
Alex Ewing, the chancellor emeritus of the UNC School of the Arts who died Wednesday at the age of 86, embodied the Winston-Salem schools brilliant and creative spirit. Make that embodies, for his legacy will long live at the school.

His productive years as chancellor, from 1990 to 2000, were bookended by years of service to the school before and after.

Ewing presided over the founding of the School of Filmmaking, which has achieved national prominence, just as the school as a whole has.

Ewing came from arts royalty and was arts royalty himself. His mother, Lucia Chase Ewing, co-founded and was artistic director of American Ballet Theatre in New York, the Journals Lynn Felder reported Thursday, and was also a principal ballerina with the company.

Before becoming chancellor, Alex Ewing was a founder and general director of the Joffrey Ballet, which started in New York and moved to Chicago. He was founder and president of the Foundation for American Dance. And he had served as chairman of the school of the arts board of visitors.

Ewing, a father and grandfather, was a natural fit at the school of the cool. As former arts council head Milton Rhodes told Felder, Ewing was a true Renaissance man who could handle every aspect of the arts: dance, drama, design and production  He was into diversity and inclusivity before any of the rest of us were.

Ewing led in raising millions of dollars for the school and donated millions of his own dollars to the school as well, including for a scholarship in memory of his late wife, Sheila Cobb Ewing. A three-theater exhibition complex is named for him, the Journal reported, and the largest performance venue on campus will be named for him.

The latter is especially fitting, for Alex Ewings service to the school of the arts was a fine performance. He moved easily in New York circles and could have lived there or anywhere, but he chose to live right here, enhancing the school he loved. Long live his shining legacy.


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Bosnian authorities have charged 25 Muslim wartime officials in two separate cases for war crimes against Serb civilians and prisoners of war in the country's bloody 1990s conflict, prosecutors said Friday.

Eleven former members of the Bosnian army were charged with taking part in an attack against the Serb village of Cemerno in the region of Ilijas, north of Sarajevo, in which 30 people were killed.

In another case, 14 former police and military officials were indicted for war crimes committed against dozens of Serbs in the southern region of Konjic.

The crimes included murder, torture, inhumane behaviour and unlawful imprisonment, the prosecutor's office said.

Among those arrested in the case was the military attache to the Bosnian embassy in the Netherlands.

Serb victims' associations often denounce the Bosnian judicial system for not doing enough to prosecute war crimes against them.

They were outraged over the acquittal in October of Naser Oric, who commanded Bosnian Muslim troops in the 1992-1995 conflict, which left some 100,000 people dead.
The US embassy in Kosovo issued a strongly-worded warning to the country's leaders Friday over attempts to abolish a new war crimes court trying ethnic Albanian ex-guerrillas.

The statement from Kosovo's traditionally close ally warned that any renewed efforts to scrap the tribunal "would have profound negative consequences for Kosovo's European future and its relationship with the United States".

The court, based in The Hague, was set up to prosecute crimes allegedly committed by top members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as it battled Serbian forces in the 1998-1999 war.

It is poised to begin issuing indictments.

Dozens of Kosovo's lawmakers made a failed bid last week to revoke the law allowing the tribunal's work to go ahead, after war veterans handed in a petition saying the court was "biased".

"Kosovo's leaders have made repeated public statements this week that an initiative in the Kosovo Assembly regarding the Special Court won't damage Kosovo's international relationships. They are mistaken," said the US embassy statement.

"We are extremely disappointed at those who would sacrifice their country's future and the unwavering support of the United States, in favor of their personal interests."

Speculation is rife that President Hashim Thaci, the former head of the KLA's political wing, could be among those prosecuted for the alleged kidnapping and disappearance of around 500 civilians, mostly ethnic Serbs.

Despite operating under Kosovo's law, the EU-backed tribunal is composed of international judges and prosecutors and will be seated in The Netherlands with the aim of protecting witnesses.

The conflict between the KLA and Serbian forces controlled by late strongman Slobodan Milosevic ended after a three-month NATO air campaign that forced Serbs out of Kosovo and put it under UN protection.

The war killed around 13,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians.

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but Belgrade has rejected the move and still considers the breakaway territory as its southern province.
Waverly Lake was stocked with about 50 large-sized brood trout on Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon, aptly-named angler Mike Rivers was holding a fish he estimated at 18 inches long.

To have a home lake like this where I can walk here, fish and walk home  I cant ask for anything else, the Albany resident said. The 25-year-old added that he fishes throughout the year at the pond.

Waverly Lake and nearby Timber-Linn Lake offer a bit of the outdoors within city limits. They both sit off Interstate 5, and also are in city of Albany parks, so theres no need for a lengthy hike to find a spot to cast.

Nevertheless, these urban lakes are regularly stocked by the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife. Last week, about 100 trophy-sized trout were dropped in Timber-Linn Lake.

Ryan Hogan, the technician for the Roaring River Hatchery near Scio, estimated that 5,000 fish or more are placed in the two city of Albany ponds by the state each year.

We stock Timber-Linn and Waverly quite a bit throughout the early spring, Hogan added.

Waverly and Timber-Linn arent getting unusual attention from the state, however. Alex Farrant, an ODFW assistant district fish biologist in Adair Village, said that from Salem to Eugene, his agency stocks several urban ponds and lakes just outside city limits, including the Freeway Lakes east of Albany.

We dont want to put these fish where it would be too difficult for anglers to get to. These trout are basically raised to be caught, Farrand said.

And thats a great opportunity for local families to do something different without having to travel far, said Jorge Salinas, assistant city manager for the city of Albany.

Kids can go on their bikes and experience the sport of fishing, and get fish that are legal size and sometimes large fish, Salinas said.

ODFW shared the news about the trout arriving in Waverly Lake on Wednesday, and Salem resident Ed Waggoner was at the pond on Thursday to try out his luck. The retiree usually comes to the Albany area when lakes get stocked, or when he feels the need for a change of pace.

I would say I come to Waverly three times a year and Timber-Linn four times a year. Freeway Lakes, once a year, Waggoner said.

Eli Perkins of Brownsville also heard the news, and was visiting Waverly Lake for the first time on Thursday. Despite the noise from traffic, Its pretty nice out here, Perkins said. I just got off work to come here and try it out, he added.

Skylar Garber of Lebanon was hoping to land a whopper. Yesterday I got a bunch of bites, but nothing so far today, he said.

After work, the Mega Foods employee sometimes heads to Waverly or other nearby ponds to fish. On Tuesday, he caught a 25-inch trout at Timber-Linn.

Were pretty fortunate. A lot of states, you dont have these types of opportunities, Garber said.

Hogan grew up in Albany during the 1990s and fished regularly at Waverly and Timber-Linn. He doesnt have any fish tales of massive creatures he hauled out of the lakes, however. Usually just some legal sized trout. But its lots of fun, he added.
Three large U.S. cities this week filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense, alleging that many service members who are disqualified from gun ownership haven't been reported to the national background check system.

The odd thing about this particular lawsuit is that the facts really aren't in dispute: Military officials, although they can't comment directly on the lawsuit, have previously acknowledged problems with their reporting, and a Pentagon spokesman this week said a review of the policies and practices at each branch of the armed forces is continuing. Last month, the Justice Department ordered a federal review of the database. (The official name of the database is the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, but it's better known by its acronym, NICS).

All of those actions occurred in the wake of the shooting last month at a Texas church. The gunman, Devin P. Kelley, killed 26 people in the Nov. 5 shooting before taking his own life, authorities say. But Kelley, a former Air Force serviceman, shouldn't have been allowed to buy the rifle he used in the attack: He had been convicted in a 2012 court martial of assaulting family members and served 12 months' confinement. Since federal law prohibits selling a gun to a person who has been convicted of a crime involving domestic violence against a spouse or child, the conviction should have prevented Kelly from purchasing firearms. But the Air Force failed to report the conviction to the NICS database.

What's most worrisome about the lapse that let Kelley slip through the system is that it's not nearly the only one. The Pentagon's watchdog agency said this month that it had found a "troubling" number of failures even this year by the military services to alert the FBI to criminal history information.

Obviously, for the national database to do its job, it needs to have access to as much relevant information as possible.

In the wake of the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech, committed by a mentally ill man named Seung-Hui Cho, Congress passed a bill to strengthen the system with more criminal records and mental health information. And the bill did just that: Data from the Department of Justice data suggest the number of federal and state records entered into the system has increased significantly since the law was signed in January 2008.

Now, a new piece of legislation pending in Congress aims to close some of the remaining gaps in the system. The so-called "Fix NICS Act" would improve the reporting of domestic violence convictions. A Senate version of the bill would impose a financial penalty by barring bonuses for the heads of federal agencies that fail to report the convictions. The measure also would reward states that improve their reporting, and would provide funding for those efforts.

This bill is not controversial. One of the senators leading the push for the measure is John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and a strong gun-rights advocate. The measure has bipartisan support. The National Rifle Association backs the bill. This should not be a difficult burden for Congress to lift  although the House of Representatives managed to gum up the works by linking its version of the bill to partisan legislation that would allow national concealed-carry reciprocity. It's exactly this sort of legislative maneuver that too often manages to sink important works of legislation such as the Fix NICS Act.

Congress left Washington for its holiday break with a long list of unfinished business, including work on relatively uncontroversial but nevertheless important areas. (The list includes, of course, the renewal of the Children's Health Insurance Plan.) Is it too much to ask Congress to take care of these matters quickly upon its return, before it again bogs down in the gridlock that appears to be its usual state of affairs? (mm)
SWEET HOME  The Sweet Home School District is counting completion of a seismic rehabilitation project among its blessings this year, and is working on new seismic projects at three elementary schools.

The school district received $1.4 million in grant funds in 2016 to put toward a seismic upgrade project. District officials applied for the grant to redo the auditorium roof at Sweet Home High School.

The old roof was part of the original construction, which dates to the 1940s. The district chose the project because the high school frequently has large-scale assemblies, which means more than 600 students would be at risk in the 11,000-square-foot building if a quake were to strike.

The district held a celebration in November to dedicate the auditorium and mark completion of the project. Officials published details of the work in the district's December newsletter.

Work included strengthening the roof structure and support walls. Other renovations included a coat of paint, energy-efficient lighting and new acoustic panels, plus new windows in the choir room.

In addition to the grant, funding came in from $30,000 in district long-term maintenance funds, plus contributions from the Sweet Home Auditorium Revitalization Committee, which held a talent show in October to contribute to the work.

Work next year includes seismic upgrades at Foster, Hawthorne and Holley elementary schools. The schools all received grants of approximately $1.5 million from the Oregon Infrastructure Finance Authority.

Hawthorne is first, with work to be completed in summer 2018. The other two schools should be finished during summer 2019.
A strong harvest tops the list of agricultural stories for 2017.

The year also brought an expanded Husker Harvest Days, the Aksarben Stock Show and trade agreements between the Nebraska beef industry and China. Heres a look at the top 10 stories:

1) The 2017 harvest

It was another good crop production year for Nebraska farmers. The corn harvest is forecast at 1.66 billion bushels. The soybean production is forecast at a record 328 million bushels. But it wasnt easy. Excessive fall rains and strong winds delayed and impacted this years harvest.

2) Low commodity prices

While it was another productive crop year for Nebraska farmers, commodity prices remained below the cost of production, causing economic woes not only for farmers, but also for the state government as revenue forecasts are down.

3) Property taxes

Low commodity prices are also causing another hardship for farmers. Farmers and ranchers throughout the state are saying that property taxes are too high. Property taxes are on the rise, but farm income isnt. Ag producers are looking for a legislative solution next year. If not, it could be a ballot issue in November.

4) Husker Harvest Days

During the last 40 years, Husker Harvest Days has been expanded to host more than 600 exhibitors and vendors for three days each year, as well as permanent buildings and other structures, along with welcoming nearly 100,000 annual visitors. But much of its infrastructure is 40 years old and needs repair. Some repairs will be underway for next years event, but the shows owners and the Grand Island community are looking at ways to fund infrastructure repairs to keep the show in Grand Island for another 40 years.

5) Aksarben Stock Show and Purple Ribbon Auction

The largest 4-H stock show in the country made Fonner Park in Grand Island its new home this year after 89 years in Omaha. The show brought hundreds of 4-H-ers from across the country to the community in late September. The Grand Island Livestock Complex Authority helped to bring the Asksarben Stock Show to Grand Island. It also worked to bring five major national livestock shows and 4-H shows to the community, generating millions of dollars in economic activity.

6) NAFTA concerns

Concerns built among Nebraska farmers and ranchers regarding U.S. NAFTA negotiations. NAFTA trade with Canada and Mexico brings millions of dollars annually to Nebraskas economy.

7) State Fair executive director retirement

Joseph McDermott retired as executive director of the Nebraska State Fair. Under his leadership, since the State Fair moved from Lincoln to Fonner Park, attendance has grown to more than 370,000 during the 11-day event.

8) Ibach moves on

Greg Ibach, who had been Nebraska director of agriculture since 2005, was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as under secretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Gov. Pete Ricketts named Steve Wellman as Ibachs replacement.

9) (tie) Global Industries sale

A Canadian company, AG Growth International, purchased Global Industries of Grand Island for $100 million.

9) (tie) Professional rodeo in Grand Island

Some of the worlds top professional rodeo athletes were in Grand Island for the Tom Dinsdale Rodeo Grand Island at the Heartland Events Center. Steve and Kim Sutton of the South Dakota-based Sutton Rodeo are the rodeos promoters. It is the first PRCA-sanctioned rodeo ever held in Grand Island.

10) Nebraska beef to China

After a 13-year ban, Nebraska beef returned to China this year. Since beef trade has resumed with China, Nebraska has led the nation in beef exports to China.

By Robert Porerobert.pore@theindependent.comA strong harvest tops the list of agricultural stories for 2017.The year also brought an expanded Husker Harvest Days, the Aksarben Stock Show and trade agreements between the Nebraska beef industry and China. Heres a look at the top 10 stories:1) The 2017 harvestIt was another good crop production year for Nebraska farmers. The corn harvest is forecast at 1.66 billion bushels. The soybean production is forecast at a record 328 million bushels. But it wasnt easy. Excessive fall rains and strong winds delayed and impacted this years harvest. 2) Low commodity pricesWhile it was another productive crop year for Nebraska farmers, commodity prices remained below the cost of production, causing economic woes not only for farmers, but also for the state government as revenue forecasts are down.3) Property taxesLow commodity prices are also causing another hardship for farmers. Farmers and ranchers throughout the state are saying that property taxes are too high. Property taxes are on the rise, but farm income isnt. Ag producers are looking for a legislative solution next year. If not, it could be a ballot issue in November.4) Husker Harvest DaysDuring the last 40 years, Husker Harvest Days has been expanded to host more than 600 exhibitors and vendors for three days each year, as well as permanent buildings and other structures, along with welcoming nearly 100,000 annual visitors. But much of its infrastructure is 40 years old and needs repair. Some repairs will be underway for next years event, but the shows owners and the Grand Island community are looking at ways to fund infrastructure repairs to keep the show in Grand Island for another 40 years.5) Aksarben Stock Show and Purple Ribbon AuctionThe largest 4-H stock show in the country made Fonner Park in Grand Island its new home this year after 89 years in Omaha. The show brought hundreds of 4-H-ers from across the country to the community in late September. The Grand Island Livestock Complex Authority helped to bring the Asksarben Stock Show to Grand Island. It also worked to bring five major national livestock shows and 4-H shows to the community, generating millions of dollars in economic activity.6) NAFTA concernsConcerns built among Nebraska farmers and ranchers regarding U.S. NAFTA negotiations. NAFTA trade with Canada and Mexico brings millions of dollars annually to Nebraskas economy. 7) State Fair executive director retirementJoseph McDermott retired as executive director of the Nebraska State Fair. Under his leadership, since the State Fair moved from Lincoln to Fonner Park, attendance has grown to more than 370,000 during the 11-day event.8) Ibach moves onGreg Ibach, who had been Nebraska director of agriculture since 2005, was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as under secretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Gov. Pete Ricketts named Steve Wellman as Ibachs replacement.9) (tie) Global Industries saleA Canadian company, AG Growth International, purchased Global Industries of Grand Island for $100 million.9) (tie) Professional rodeo in Grand IslandSome of the worlds top professional rodeo athletes were in Grand Island for the Tom Dinsdale Rodeo Grand Island at the Heartland Events Center. Steve and Kim Sutton of the South Dakota-based Sutton Rodeo are the rodeos promoters. It is the first PRCA-sanctioned rodeo ever held in Grand Island.10) Nebraska beef to China. After a 13-year ban, Nebraska beef returned to China this year. Since beef trade has resumed with China, Nebraska has led the nation in beef exports to China.
They were loving grandparents who seemingly never met a stranger. She was a successful student and the apple of her dads eye.

John and Jean Dalton and their granddaughter, Leonna Dalton-Phillip, were being remembered Wednesday for all the good things they brought to the world. The three were slain Tuesday in the Daltons home.

The Daltons own son, who previously spent time in prison for killing his wife, was arrested Wednesday on a first-degree murder warrant. John Dalton Jr., 46, was apprehended outside Jackson, Tennessee, and was being held in the Madison County Jail in that state Wednesday night.

Police have not described a motive.

Claude Phillip said he just saw Leonna, his oldest daughter, over the holiday. A Des Moines resident, Phillip came to Omaha for the holiday and spent time in the Dalton home on Christmas Eve.

They loved everybody, Phillip said. They even treated my other kids like they were their own grandkids.

The violence appears to have unfolded quickly, Phillip said.

Dalton-Phillips car was still running outside her maternal grandparents home at 3912 N. 37th St. when police arrived to investigate the shooting Tuesday night. The 18-year-old Burke High senior had gone to the house to pick up her younger sister, Phillip said.

Leonna was stopping by after work to pick up her sister and get a plate of food from her grandmother, Phillip said Wednesday. Her car was still running. Thats how fast all this happened.

The younger sister, London Dalton, ran to a neighbors house about 7:30 p.m. and said, They shot my family.

Police found John W. Dalton Sr., 70, his wife, Jean, 65, and Leonna Dalton-Phillip all dead inside the home. Dalton-Phillip was Dalton Jr.s niece.

Leonna had a bright future, her father said. She received straight As and had scholarship offers for college.

She thought she might want to go to school in California, he said. We were just investigating that.

Phillip described his daughter as a very loving person who worked at the Target store at Sorensen Park Plaza.

She was so smart and bright, he said. Last April or May, she won an essay contest on the Holocaust. There were 300 entries, and hers was the best one.

Leonna lived with her mother, Jalisa Dalton, a daughter of John and Jean Dalton. In addition to her sister London, Leonna is survived by three brothers and four sisters, Phillip said.

Jalisa is just in shock, he said. We all are. I cant believe this happened.

Even though Phillip and Jalisa Dalton were no longer together, Phillip said John and Jean Dalton always welcomed him into their home. John Dalton Sr. was a retired packinghouse worker and his wife retired from Lozier Store Fixtures last spring.

John Dalton Jr. was pulled over Wednesday afternoon on Interstate 40 in Jackson, Tennessee.

Radio dispatch traffic indicates that Dalton was eastbound in a Black GMC Terrain SUV.

A trooper who was tracking him radioed dispatchers: Hes weaving in and out of traffic. I think hes going to exit the first chance he gets  Looks like there is only one occupant in the vehicle.

After more troopers were in place, they pulled Dalton over about 5 miles farther down the road, on the northeast side of Jackson.

Jackson is about 130 miles west of Nashville, where Dalton was captured in a traffic stop after killing his wife in Omaha in 1998. Following that arrest, he was held without bail because he was considered a flight risk.

Given the chance, hed run again, Jennie Dugan-Hinrichs, a deputy Douglas County attorney, told a judge.

John Dalton Jr. served more than 11 years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter in the death of his wife, Shannon Dalton.

He lived just a couple blocks away, but I dont think (his parents) saw him a lot, Phillip said. Jean would try to talk to him, but she said he was never the same after he got out of prison.

On Wednesday, a woman who came out of the Daltons home said the family is still grieving and trying to deal with what happened. She also said that more family members are coming into town.

A First Responders Prayer Walk has been scheduled for 5:15 p.m. today outside the familys home at 3912 N. 37th St..

The Omaha Public Schools put out a statement after the news of Dalton-Phillips death.

We extend our deepest, heartfelt sympathy to the family, it said. Counselors were available at Burke High on Wednesday afternoon, the district said.

In the 1998 killing of his 22-year-old wife, Dalton initially faced a second-degree murder charge but later pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The couple had been married about five years.

The couples three daughters, who were 6, 5 and 3 at the time, were at their home at 3489 Ruggles St.. They heard, but did not see, the shooting.

After the death of their mother, the children were put in the care of Jean Dalton, and she had custody of them until they became adults.

The oldest daughter, Brittiney Faison, wrote heartfelt tributes to her grandparents and cousin on social media.

This cant be, she posted above photos of them smiling. She recalled the talks they had and her cousin imploring her to come over.

I wish I said yes to her every time she wrote.

World-Herald staff writers Alia Conley and Andrew J. Nelson contributed to this report.
Toyota Vietnam recalls another 8,000 cars over airbag fault

About 8,036 cars with Takata airbag have been recalled by Toyota Vietnam over defective inflator and propellant devices.

Toyota Vietnam recalls another 8,036 Toyota Corolla Altis







According to Tienphong News, over 71,000 Toyota cars in Vietnam have Takata airbag but only 18,000 cars were recalled. On December 27, Tran Ky Hinh, head of Vietnam Register, signed official document 8339 to recall another 8,036 Toyota Corolla Altis. Those cars were made between July 24, 2008 to December 31, 2009.



The Vietnam Register also asked Toyota Vietnam to notify their customers, inspect the cars and provide replacements in accordance with the procedures and the announced time frame.



Toyota Vietnam must submit a report once every three months about the recall in Vietnam. After the recall process is completed, they must submit a report about the results to the Vietnam Register.



More than 40,000 other cars also have Takata airbags, however, according to Toyota Vietnam, not all cars have the defective inflator. Toyota Vietnam also has to wait for more directives from their mother company in Japan.



The faulty airbag device may deploy improperly and shoot metal fragments into the driver and passengers. No accident has been recorded by Toyota Vietnam. Toyota Vietnam will check and provide free replacements for their cars.



The Japanese airbag maker Takata filed for bankruptcy in June and will be sold for Key Safety Systems under China's Ningbo Joyson Electronic.
LINCOLN  The owners of four now-closed beer stores in the border village of Whiteclay are now contesting a very pricey state tax bill.

The Nebraska Department of Revenue is seeking to collect more than $600,000 in taxes from the owners of the shuttered stores, alleging that they underreported nearly $1.7 million in sales from August 2013 to August 2016.

The Whiteclay stores recently filed a court appeal, claiming that the Revenue Department used inaccurate assumptions in estimating the taxes owed.

The steep tax bill presents another challenge to the Whiteclay stores, which closed in April after a state liquor boards ruling that law enforcement in the unincorporated village was inadequate to allow alcohol sales.

The beer-only stores sold the equivalent of 3.5 million cans of beer a year, with almost all sales going to residents of the adjacent Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where alcohol possession and sales are banned.

Activists have blamed the beer stores for exacerbating alcohol-related problems on the reservation, which include epidemic rates of fetal alcohol syndrome. Beer store owners, meanwhile, say that they sold legal products and that shutting them down would do little to affect the liquor problems.

The legal challenges filed by the beer stores on Dec. 22 were the first public disclosure of the tax case pending against them.

The stores, in the appeals, argued that the Revenue Department incorrectly estimated sales by the beer outlets and that they do not owe the taxes claimed.

State Tax Commissioner Tony Fulton, in his Nov. 22 order in the case, said the beer stores failed to produce records that could rebut conclusions by department auditors.

One of the stores, State Line Liquor, did not use a cash register or generate hand-written sales receipts, court records indicated. Another store, Arrowhead Inn, indicated that it discarded cash register tapes each week and logged information into a sales journal, but that journal was not provided to state auditors, court records stated.

A department auditor testified that since sales records were not provided, he reconstructed the stores sales by obtaining records from their beer distributors and using price lists provided by the stores. The auditor said he assumed that every can in a 24-can case was sold as a single can, which would serve to increase profits and the taxes owed.

The beer stores contested the estimates, saying they were flawed and misrepresented the number of single cans sold.

The other two beer stores are D&S Pioneer Service and Jumping Eagle Inn.
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Seven months into a renewed mandate, and more than four years after he first won power campaigning on a "doctor for every Nova Scotian," McNeil said he believes some progress is being made on the province's persistent shortage of family physicians. Premier Stephen McNeil is seen at the legislature in a year-end interview in Halifax on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
If President Donald Trump fired special counsel Robert Mueller the first visible response would appear within hours, in the streets. In this June 21, 2017, file photo, Special Counsel Robert Mueller departs after a closed-door meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee about Russian meddling in the election at the Capitol in Washington. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-J. Scott Applewhite
Wichita police investigate a call of a possible hostage situation near the corner of McCormick and Seneca in Wichita, Ks Thursday night 12/28. A man was fatally shot by a police officer in what is believed to be a gaming prank called "swatting." (Fernando Salazar /The Wichita Eagle via AP)
It flew by.

Thats how Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian describes 2017, his first full year in office since ending his eight-year hiatus and reclaiming his seat in spring 2016.

Infrastructure is going to be a major aspect of this administration, said Antaramian, who spoke with the Kenosha News for an hour Thursday afternoon in his office. We will do a lot more when it comes to infrastructure.

Antaramian, 63, offered his reflections on 2017 and his hopes for next year.

Q: How do you feel 2017 went?

A: I think in general it went fairly well. It was a busy time. It was a little bit of me getting my feet wet again as to how I like things to work and where I want to go with things. Were making changes internally and in operations. Those are the normal things that happen when youre getting through your first full year.

Q: A lot got done this year. What are you most proud of?

A: I think the biggest issue for the city has been the intergovernmental agreement between Paris, Somers, the county and the city dealing with land west of the interstate. That was a huge issue for the city, because had that gone wrong the citys growth pattern would have been damaged dramatically. We would have been a lot like Racine, where they have no ability to expand at all. We would have had some ability  because we still had some land through our other agreements  but that would have been used up quickly.

Youre looking at Somers and the city and the water agreements with Paris. Without the agreement, a lot of the projects would not be able to occur, because the city would not be providing water outside its boundaries other than under the agreements they presently had. It would not have been a positive for anybody.

I think of all the things we got done, that was the most important from a city perspective as to where the future is going to lead us.

Q: There were also a lot of changes to the downtown area. How is that going?

A: I think were getting there. Downtown still needs to have housing redevelopment occur. High-end housing in the downtown area is very important now. It will generate the revenues we need to get more retail and more activity. Retail is important, but other types of restaurants and activity are also necessary.

Weve cleaned out a couple of areas that needed to be cleared out, purchased a couple buildings that we hope to eventually have rehabbed. There are a couple other things were looking at in the downtown area that need to get done. And we need to have a parking ramp that needs to get done in the next few years in the downtown area.

Theres a lot of things that have happened. We also transferred 14 parcels at the last City Council meeting, transferred to the city from the county on back taxes. A lot of those will be torn down, some of them have clean-up, some of them will be land-banked, some of them will be used for other purposes as we move forward. There are opportunities well continue to work with the county on. The city and the county are working together to get a lot of projects done.

Q: Do you have a good working relationship with County Executive Jim Kreuser?

A: Yes. Very good. The county and the city are working well together.

We have our own little issues once in a while, but thats the norm with any intergovernmental relationship. Jim and I have known each other a long time. Im very pleased with the strength of the relationship between the two of us.

Q: What do you wish would have happened in 2017 that didnt?

A: I never can get enough projects done fast enough.

I would love to have had the (Chrysler site) cleaned up and ready to go. I would have loved to have the retainment walls on the lakefront funded. I would have loved for the state to have passed the bill on lead pipes faster so I could have actually started working on that this year instead of next year. Lots of things. Theres lots of Id like to haves. There are a lot of programs I still need to get at. Well get at them, were just going to do it a little at a time.

One of the areas that were looking at in the future is going to be how to deal with the property the citys accumulated. Weve accumulated a lot of property over the last 25 years. A lot of it we just kept ... we land-banked. The question comes down to: What are we going to do with the land-banked property? Which ones should be put back on the market in the sense that now theyve been demolished and cleaned up. How do we want to reuse these properties? Those types of issues are things well have to deal with. The decisions take time. These issues need to be thought out. You dont want to do something that will be a problem for you in the future.

Q: Do you stand by your decision to drop out of the bid for Foxconn?

A: Absolutely. I think it was the right decision for us. We have none of the risk  in the sense of putting up $750 million. The sites are 11 minutes away from each other  from where the site would have been in the city to the site over there (in Mount Pleasant). People looking for jobs will be able to get jobs, and we dont have any of the risk.

Kenosha will benefit dramatically. We get the jobs, and I dont use any of the 3,300 acres coming into the city. That can be used for other development and done in a more timed basis instead of trying to do everything right away.

I would rather have my 3,300 over the next 20 years being used than all of it used at one time.

I believe (people) are supportive of my decision. I have not had many people tell me that they disagree with the decision.

This is the first segment of our three-part series with Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian. See the Saturday and Sunday editions for parts two and three.
Two of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporations largest financial incentive projects in 2017 were in Kenosha County.

Both Haribo of America, a new division of the German gummy candy maker, and Gold Standard Baking, a Chicago-based bakery, announced the development of new production facilities in 2017 that would create more jobs and capital investment in the region.

The two Pleasant Prairie companies were among WEDCs top 25 economic development projects for the year.

A third company, Prestige Metal Products, a sheet metal fabrication company headquartered in Bristol, was listed 38th in the top 50 companies.

Haribo was third on the list, with an estimated total project cost of $220 million that is expected to create 385 jobs. WEDC said it would invest $21 million in tax incentive credits to the company, based upon meeting investment and job creation benchmarks.

Haribo announced plans to build in Pleasant Prairie this past spring. The village approved a land purchase agreement with the company on a 137-acre parcel earlier this month.

Gold Standard, listed 15th, opened its 200,000-square-foot Pleasant Prairie production plant in July. The estimated total project cost was $42.7 million, and the company is expected to create 96 jobs. It obtained $575,000 in WEDC tax credits.

Prestige Metal

Projects relocates

Prestige Metal Projects relocated from Antioch, Ill., to an 85,630-square-foot building in Bristol. The relocation is expected to create 46 jobs. The estimated project cost was $4.2 million. WEDC granted the company $165,000 in tax credits.

Area leads

states economy

WEDC said this year southeastern Wisconsin had 40 percent of the states largest economic development projects, with Foxconn as the largest with an estimated $10 billion project cost and the creation of 13,000 jobs.

The Taiwan-based electronics company has chosen to build its 10-million-square-foot flat-panel screen manufacturing facility in Mount Pleasant, Racine County.

Kenosha County played a key role in the great economic success the state of Wisconsin achieved in 2017 with three projects landing in the top 50, said WEDC spokesman Mark Maley. A reliable infrastructure, proximity to both Milwaukee and Chicago and an outstanding workforce are among the many reasons Kenosha County continues to attract companies from all over the world.

The fact that a global company like Haribo chose Kenosha County for its first North American manufacturing facility speaks volumes about all the county has to offer, he added. This is a game-changing development that will benefit the county and its residents for years to come.

Economic agencies help

Maley noted that local economic development agencies also played an important role.

The importance of the Kenosha Area Business Alliance and Milwaukee 7 regional economic development organization cannot be overstated when it comes to attracting businesses to the county or working with existing companies seeking to expand their operations here, he explained. Attracting companies like Haribo takes a coordinated effort on the part of state, regional and local partners  and thats exactly what we see in Kenosha County on a regular basis.
Retailers had their best holiday season since 2011, a major tax reform bill was signed into law before Christmas, the stock market is at an all-time high and unemployment is well below 4 percent in Wisconsin. The right is celebrating, and the left is predicting Armageddon.

While liberal TV news media predicts major GOP losses in the midterm, Im not so sure. After all, you dont have to go back that far to understand just how inaccurate polls can be. Forget the polls, you say? What about the senate race in Alabama? I think that result was more about a severely-flawed candidate versus a reasonable candidate.

To be sure, President Trump is an enigma. He enrages a group on the left (Hollywood, big media and the Antifa). But, he delights a group on the right (conservative radio and fringe alt-right groups). Both ends of the political spectrum are small compared to the middle.

This larger middle group consists of moderates with preferences based on issues. They are the ones who gather information and different perspectives, while both ends are shouting at each other. I believe the middle ultimately decides who wins elections. And I think they do this by including factors the fringe groups havent even considered.

To the middle, support for a candidate or an issue is more about liberty than it is power. Voters in fly-over states believe in the personal freedoms guaranteed to them in the constitution. They demand the freedom to choose their own path to happiness and they accept the responsibility of their actions and decisions. Mostly, they believe in live and let live. They dont like to be told who or what they must condone. They also dont appreciate being ridiculed or minimized because of their personal beliefs.

In my view, the last presidential election was more about the liberty versus power balance instead of integrity and leadership. If you believed that government should attempt to equalize opportunity through regulations, giveaway programs and entitlements, you probably voted one way. If you believed in rollbacks on legislation and regulations, smaller government, protection of the Second Amendment and a border wall, you probably voted the other way.

The surprising twist came with the way people actually voted compared to how they said they would vote. Pollsters got it wrong and most media got it wrong. At best, if you thought Trump was going to win, you stayed quiet for fear of ridicule.

Who isnt embarrassed by some or most of President Trumps tweets? Beyond our borders, one can only imagine the unintended consequences of his emotionally-charged words.

However, the Democrats continue to search for a candidate who can change the hearts of the middle. The short-list of Democratic hopefuls, attack each presidential tweet as if it matters. The constant barrage of counterattacks is mind-numbing.

Meanwhile, those in the middle are becoming more confident in the economy, their employer and their future paycheck. All this good news, sitting right there in front of them, overshadows the relentless rhetoric.

I havent seen a lot of President Trump bumper stickers around town, but I have seen plenty of Dont tread on me bumper stickers. Thats the difference between endorsing liberty over the person sitting in the White House.

There is still plenty of time before the midterm elections. Nobody can accurately predict the outcome. Anyone who thinks they have it figured out will likely be embarrassed all over again.

This past year has been baffling, amusing, troubling, disgusting and exciting. To survive next year, Im tuning out both ends and sticking with the middle.
It has been more than 50 years since I took my first hunting trip into the vast, desert country of northwestern Nevada. This is the area of northern Washoe County that includes the Black Rock Desert, Soldier Meadows and the dry expanse of Massacre Lake. A few miles closer to the California border lies the slender marsh called New Year Lake.

For thousands of years this region had been inhabited only by hunting and gathering bands of wandering Indian tribes. Then, in December 1843, the expedition led by John C. Fremont arrived searching for the legendary Buenaventura River and the elusive Marys Lake.

It was a discouraged little band of explorers on New Years Eve 1843 that wished each other luck. For days, Fremonts band of half-frozen men had been sure it was nearing Marys Lake. Now, it was wading in the snow and salt grass of Soldier Meadows, and Marys Lake still was unfound. To make matters worse, the hoofs of the animals were so worn and cut by rocks, many of them could barely stagger along.

Five nights before, Kit Carsons horse had been stolen by the Indians. The next day, the party had surprised an Indian family in wickiups, captured the squaw and questioned her. So terrified had she been by her first glimpse of white men, she had closed her eyes to ward off the sight, and screamed. Eventually, she calmed down and spoke in a Snake dialect, but had little news or information to give them.

This day, the band had wandered down the magnificent gorges of High Rock Canyon, a strip of grass underfoot  a strip of sky above, almost a crack in the towering rock above. Spirits soared. High Rock Creek was running full, and the lush grass, willow groves and the slope of the land made them confident the canyon would lead them to Marys Lake. The steep rock walls echoed their shouts and calls.

Suddenly, the colorful canyon had ended, flaring out into a small valley, floored by an alkali lake (High Rock Lake) and rimmed with tall sagebrush. Fremont realized this was no Marys Lake, and sent scouts out, combing the sloping hillsides and probing Little High Rock Canyon to the right. Finally, a scout reported an ancient Indian trail over the brow of the hills to the left, and told of a deep pothole filled with sweet water in the sandstone.

Beyond each hill always lay the possibility of finding the elusive Marys Lake. But beyond this hill lay only another of the thousands of gently rolling, sage-covered valleys of the Great Basin Desert. Bitterly disappointed, the shambling line of men and animals moved slowly down the long slope into Soldier Meadows.

In the chilly late afternoon, they reached the bottom of the valley at a junction of small streams. The streams were tightly frozen and had to be cut to water the stock. Here would be a cold camp for their first New Years Eve in what would become Nevada. Captain Fremont logged another wasted day in the futile search for Marys Lake. Even the grass was salty and unpalatable.

By now, Fremont was beginning to realize why this great area had been so studiously avoided by the Spaniards, Mexicans, mountain men and others. These vast, desert valleys and barren wastes seemed to fill him with uneasiness and foreboding.

He noted that The country was singularly unfavorable to travel. His notes seem more and more concerned with survival, and less with the legendary Marys Lake and Buenaventura River he was seeking. New Years Eve was but a sample of what was yet to come.

Fremont and his expedition never did find the mythical lake and river they had set out to find. Later on, however, he did discover other treasures, including Pyramid Lake, the Truckee River and Lake Tahoe. These explorers truly were the pathfinders for this part of the American West, despite the discouragement they felt on New Years Eve of 1843.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia  Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp. signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 100 percent interest in the historic Lovelock Cobalt Mine property in Churchill County, approximately 100 miles east of Reno.

The agreement, announced Dec. 29, stipulates that the company will earn a 100 percent interest in the property through cash payments and common shares payments to an underlying vendor payable over three years from the signing of the agreement, subject to a 2.0 percent net smelter returns royalty, as follows:

A $3,000 cash payment for an exclusive due diligence period (paid);

On the later of TSX Venture Exchange approval and signing of the agreement: $15,000 in cash and 200,000 common shares of the company;

First anniversary: $20,000 in cash and 200,000 common shares of the company;

Second anniversary: $25,000 in cash and 250,000 common shares of the company;

Third anniversary: $30,000 in cash and 300,000 common shares of the company.

Closing of the acquisition is subject to acceptance of the agreement by the TSX Venture Exchange.

Nevada Sunrise is a junior mineral exploration company based in Canada that holds interests in gold, cobalt and lithium exploration projects in Nevada.

The companys two key gold assets include a 100 percent interest in the Golden Arrow project near Tonopah, currently the subject of an option earn-in transaction with Emgold Mining Corp. and a 21 percent interest in a joint venture with Liberty Gold Inc. at Kinsley Mountain near Wendover, with each of the properties subject to certain production royalties.

Nevada Sunrise began acquisitions of Nevada lithium properties in 2015, which includes 100 percent interests in the Neptune, Jackson Wash and Aquarius projects, a 50 percent interest in the Gemini project, and the right to earn 100 percent of the Atlantis project, currently under option to American Lithium Corp.
SHANGHAI, Dec 29 (Reuters) - China's Ministry of Finance auctioned 15 billion yuan ($2.30 billion) of 3-month bills in the interbank market on Friday at an average yield of 3.7628 percent, traders said.

The auction yield came in below Thursday's benchmark secondary market yield of 3.9929 percent for 3-month government bonds .

For stories on Chinese debt issues, click on . ($1 = 6.5188 Chinese yuan)

($1 = 6.5155 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by the Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
HANOI, Dec 29 (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 0418 GMT.

December 29 USD/VND mid-point 22,425 USD/VND interbank 22,705/22,710 USD/VND unofficial 22,690/22,710 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.37/36.61

Interbank offered rates Overnight 1.0-1.6

1 week 1.0-1.8

1 month 2.8-3.5

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)
By Deisy Buitrago and Girish Gupta

CARACAS, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Venezuela's cryptocurrency will launch within days and be backed by 5.3 billion barrels of oil worth $267 billion, in a bid to offset a deep financial crisis, the socialist government said on Thursday.

President Nicolas Maduro surprised many earlier this month when he announced the "petro" cryptocurrency, to be backed by OPEC member Venezuela's oil, gas, gold and diamond reserves. Despite the scepticism of cryptocurrency experts who do not think Venezuela has the wherewithal to pull it off, communications minister Jorge Rodriguez said the first petro offering would come within days.

"Camp one of the Ayacucho block will form the initial backing of this cryptocurrency," Rodriguez told reporters, referring to part of Venezuela's southern Orinoco Belt.

"It contains 5.342 billion certified barrels of oil. We're talking about backing of $267 billion," said Rodriguez, adding that that differentiated the petro from other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Miners were already lined up, he said, without giving more details. Cryptocurrencies are obtained by users setting up computers to do complex mathematical calculations in a process known as mining.

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized and their success relies on transparency, clear rules and equal treatment of all involved. Venezuela gave no technical details about the petro.

The government appears to be hoping the petro will offset a collapse in Venezuela's currency - 97 percent in one year against the U.S. dollar on the black market - and isolate the country from the U.S. dollar and Washington.

Rodriguez also hopes to use the petro as part of a mechanism to pay international providers, many of whom have stopped supplying to Venezuela given its inability to pay its debts.

With Venezuela's 30 million people suffering shortages, runaway prices and a fourth year of recession, Maduro has long blamed the U.S. government for an "economic war" against it. Critics say incompetent policies are to blame for Venezuela's economic mess.

Earlier on Thursday, Maduro blamed U.S. pressure on Portugal for blocking imports of pork leading to a shortage over Christmas in Venezuela. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has imposed various political and financial sanctions on Maduro's government, accusing senior officials of rights abuses and corruption.

"It will be materially impossible for the dictatorial financial centers of the world to intervene against this initiative," said Rodriguez, citing the Portugal case.

"It will allow us to overcome any financial blockade."

Cryptocurrencies have grabbed global attention partly because of the remarkable rise in the price of Bitcoin, making millionaires of many early investors, including some in Venezuela who used Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to shield themselves from strict foreign exchange controls which economists blame for the crisis.

(Additional reporting by Corina Pons.; Writing by Girish Gupta; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Grant McCool)
Dec 29 (Reuters) - Following are domestic prices of Vietnam's key commodities. Unit: Million dong per tonne Item Dec 25-29 Dec 18-22 Location Robusta beans 35.2-36.0 35.0-36.3 Central Highlands Black pepper 71.0 71.0-77.0 Southern region Refined sugar 15.0-16.0 15.0-16.0 Southern region Summer-autumn paddy 6.1-6.6 6.1-6.6 Mekong Delta SJC gold 3.656-3.662 3.652-3.655 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 = 22,705 dong)

(Reporting by Mi Nguyen)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
* Egypt government wants to be major energy hub by 2021

* Well-developed oil, gas infrastructure in place

* ENI, BP making advances in production

By Patrick Werr

CAIRO, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Egypt is set to inaugurate a new wharf for natural gas and petroleum product tankers on the Gulf of Suez in the coming days, another step in its plan to become a regional energy hub.

The new 2.5 km wharf is being built by SUMED, which for decades has operated two pipelines from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

The wharf will have three berths to receive natural gas and petroleum products carriers. It is due to be completed by the end of the month, Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper quoted SUMED chairman Mohamed Abdel-Hafez as saying. Abdel-Hafez confirmed the remarks in a text message to Reuters.

The country has been building fuelling depots for ships along the Suez Canal and expanding its refining capacity. It has an extensive pipeline network and two idle gas liquefaction plants ready to export new gas as it arrives.

SUMED, owned 50 percent by the Egyptian government and the rest by Arab oil exporters in the Gulf, is spending $415 million to expand its facilities, mainly at the Red Sea end.

It is also building nine 300,000 cubic metre petroleum storage tanks and loading and offloading facilities. The tanks are due to be completed by the end of 2018, Abdel-Hafez said.

NBK-Egypt provided $300 million in financing for the project, the bank said in May.

The country believes its strategic location straddling the Suez Canal and the land bridge between Asia and Africa and its well developed infrastructure will help turn it a trading and distribution centre for countries in the region and beyond.

A slew of announcements of new gas production and the expansion of its infrastructure have helped advance the plan.

Italy's Eni this month delivered the first gas from Egypt's giant offshore Zohr field, whose estimated 30 trillion cubic feet (tfc) makes it the biggest gas field in the Mediterranean, and BP delivered the first gas from another offshore field, Atoll, north of Port Said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government has announced the hub approach part of its energy policy, but still faces logistical and political obstacles to its goal.

"By the beginning of 2021, Egypt will be a main regional hub for gas and crude oil," Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla told a press conference last month.

CHEAP SUPPLY ROUTE

Energy analysts say the cheapest way for Egypt's neighbours to send their gas supplies abroad would be through Egypt's two unused liquefaction plants, but this is complicated by legal and logistical problems or by financial constraints.

"The lack of a political framework between all these countries is still an obstacle," said Riccardo Fabiani, a Middle East and North Africa analyst at Eurasia Group.

Sisi on Nov. 20 also visited Cyprus, where he discussed construction of a pipeline to deliver gas to Egypt from Cyprus's Aphrodite field, and a delegation representing Israel's Tamar gas field came to Cairo to discuss possible imports into Egypt.

Officials from Exxon Mobil have also recently held talks with Egypt to discuss investments in oil and gas.

One plan now is to reverse the flow on the pipeline to send gas from Israel's 7 trillion cubic feet Tamar field and the roughly 20 tcf Leviathan field to Egyptian liquefaction plants.

But this has been stymied by a dispute over gas that Egypt failed to deliver after 2012. The late-November visit to Cairo by Tamar field negotiators was their second in as many months.

The Israelis may prefer to build a new undersea pipeline that would bypass Sinai to avoid sabotage or use a separate pipeline that Egypt has built to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, analysts said.

The challenge with Cyprus's 4.5 tcf Aphrodite field is mainly economic. At current gas prices, it is not big enough to justify an undersea pipeline to Egypt unless more discoveries are made elsewhere in Cyprus, analysts say.

Alternative routes for Egypt's neighbours, such as direct pipelines to Turkey, Greece or Italy, could be prohibitively expensive because of the depth of the seabed.

"Egypt is the least bad candidate. And it is also going very fast, which gives it a head start," Fabiani said.

(Reporting by Patrick Werr, additional reporting by Abdelrahman Adel; editing by Patrick Markey and David Evans)
* Holiday mood dents retail purchases across Asia

* Premiums in China, Hong Kong largely unchanged

By Sethuraman N R and Rajendra Jadhav

BENGALURU/MUMBAI, Dec 29 (Reuters) - A rally in gold prices to the highest level in a month and the year-end holiday mood dampened demand across Asia.

Gold prices hit one-month peaks on Friday and were on track for their best year since 2010, driven higher over the past 12 months mainly by a weaker dollar and safe-haven buying prompted by global political uncertainties. In top consumer China, premiums quoted this week were around$10 an ounce to the global benchmark, unchanged from last week.

"There was a bit of buying in China in the middle of the week, but (that) tapered as prices started rising," said Ronald Leung, chief dealer at Lee Cheong Gold Dealers in Hong Kong.

"Overall, gold demand has been soft due to the holidays."

Hong Kong premiums were also mostly unchanged from the previous week at 70 cents.

In India, second largest gold consumer, dealers were offering a premium of up to $1 an ounce this week over official domestic prices, compared to a discount of $2 an ounce last week. The domestic price includes a 10 percent import tax.

"Both demand and supplies are limited. Many dealers are on leave. Retail buyers are also not making purchases," said Daman Prakash Rathod, a director at Chennai wholesaler MNC Bullion.

Local gold prices in India have gained 3.2 percent since falling to 28,055 Indian rupees per 10 grams ($1,365.80 per ounce) earlier this month, the lowest level since July 17.

"Trading is negligible due to holidays. Jewellers are not stocking due to price rise," said a Mumbai-based dealer with a private bank.

India's gold imports in November nearly halved from a year ago, industry officials and analysts said. A quiet market ahead of the year-end holidays kept premiums flat in Japan, a Tokyo-based trader said.

Spot gold was trading near $1,297 an ounce late on Friday, hitting its highest since Nov. 28.

($1 = 63.8825 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in BENGALURU and Rajendra Jadhav in MUMBAI; Editing by Tom Hogue)
Dec. 15

Jean Angel Ortega pleaded guilty to resisting a public officer and was ordered to serve 240 hours in jail and 120 hours in jail for contempt with credit for 164 hours served.

Dec. 18

Kristopher R. Andersen pleaded guilty disturbing the peace and was ordered to pay $355 in fees and fines.

-

Megan Taylor Andersen pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace and was ordered to pay $355 in fees and fines.

-

Blake Eugene Evans pleaded guilty to one count of driving under the influence and was given a suspended sentence of 30 days in jail. He was ordered to serve 240 hours in jail with credit for 11 hours served, attend DUI school and pay $1,255 in fees and fines.

-

Octavio Adolfo Juarez pleaded guilty to petty larceny and was given a suspended sentence of 120 hours in jail. He was ordered to pay $355 in fees and fines.

-

Rosemary Belle Sears pleaded guilty to one count of driving with a revoked drivers license and was ordered to pay $355 in fees and fines.



Heather L. Usko pleaded no contest to one count of animal at large and was ordered to pay $115 in fees and fines.

Dec. 19

Wade Alan Knight was found guilty of resisting a public officer and was given a suspended sentence of 10 days in jail. He was ordered to serve 77 hours in jail with credit for time served and pay $355 in fees and fines.

-

Daniel Ryan Szczawinski pleaded guilty to two counts of false statement to or obstruct a public officer and was given a suspended sentence of 90 days in jail on each count to run consecutively.

Dec. 20

Jonathan Daniel Haycook pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace and was ordered to pay $355 in fees and fines.

-

Elba Ruth Gonzalez-Marin pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and was given a suspended sentence of 30 days in jail. She was ordered to serve 48 hours in jail with credit for time served, attend DUI school and pay $897 in fees and fines.
(Updates to close)

Dec 29 (Reuters) - Australian shares finished lower on Friday, dragged by financials, but posting their best annual performance since 2013 on the last trading day of the year.

The S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.4 percent, or 23.0 points, to 6,065.1 at the close of trade. The benchmark added 0.3 percent on Thursday and rose 7.1 percent this year, registering two consecutive years of gains.

Banks accounted for most of the losses on the benchmark, with the Australian financial index posting an annual decline for the first time since 2011. Australia's banks have been troubled by instances of money laundering and rate-rigging over the course of 2017. Westpac Banking Corp fell 0.6 percent, dragging the index, while Commonwealth Bank of Australia declined 0.2 percent.

The metals and mining index capped a strong year by gaining 0.2 percent to finish near a five-year high on Friday, supported by higher iron ore and copper prices. The index climbed 22.3 percent in 2017. Global miner BHP Billiton gained 0.2 percent, rising to its highest close since May 2015, while its peer Rio Tinto Ltd ticked up 1.2 percent.

Australian-listed shares of diary firm a2 Milk Company Ltd were the best performers on the benchmark as they gained 261.3 percent annually. Conversely, Retail Food Group Ltd's shares were the worst performers on the benchmark as they declined 64.8 percent in 2017.

Meanwhile, New Zealand stocks dipped on the last trading of the day of the year, led by industrials and consumer staples, but still posted solid gains 2017, its best year since 2012, marked by multiple record highs.

The benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index fell 0.1 percent or 10.45 points to finish the session at 8,398.080. However, the benchmark gained 22 percent this year and extended its annual winning streak to a sixth consecutive year.

Auckland International Airport Ltd fell 1.3 percent to its lowest since Dec. 5 and was the biggest drag on the benchmark.

New Zealand-listed shares of a2 Milk Company Ltd ended a stellar year in which it gained 278.9 percent down 0.7 percent.

(Reporting by Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Sam Holmes)
MILAN, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Italian government bonds held by banks operating in the country fell to 347.31 billion euros ($415.8 billion) in November from 362.02 billion a month earlier, data from the European Central Bank showed on Friday. The November data marks the lowest level since September 2012. ($1 = 0.8353 euros)

(Reporting by Luca Trogni, writing by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Isla Binnie)

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.
(Adds Turkey, Valeant,IAG and Hopewell; Updates Rosneft)

Dec 29 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals were reported by 2100 GMT on Friday:

** Russia's top oil producer Rosneft said it had asked the country's competition watchdog for permission to bid for gas fields put up for sale by diamond miner Alrosa , a day after saying it was unlikely to take part in the auction. ** Turkey and Russia signed an accord for Moscow to supply Ankara with S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries, Turkish authorities said, finalising a deal set to deepen military ties between NATO member Turkey and the Kremlin. ** Activist investor William Ackman's Pershing Square and Valeant Pharmaceuticals decided to pay $290 million to settle a lawsuit that accused them of insider trading before bidding for Allergan Plc in 2014. ** British Airways' owner IAG said it would buy Niki, Air Berlin's insolvent Austrian holiday airline, for 20 million euros ($24.01 million) and provide additional liquidity to the company of up to 16.5 million euros. ** An infrastructure unit of Hong Kong's family-run Hopewell Holdings Ltd is to sell its majority stake to the Shenzhen municipal government's flagship investment firm for HK$9.87 billion ($1.26 billion), the company said. ** Swiss-based trading and mining giant Glencore Plc has partly completed the sale of a 51 percent stake in its storage and logistics businesses to a unit of China's HNA Group, although transfer of some assets is pending U.S. clearance. ** Britain's Balfour Beatty said it has agreed to sell a further 7.5 percent stake in Connect Plus, the operator of London's M25 orbital motorway for 62 million pounds ($83.5 million) in cash, a week after it announced the sale of a 12.5 percent stake. ** Debt-laden Reliance Communications has signed a deal to sell its wireless assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm for a total value of nearly 240 billion rupees ($3.75 billion), two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. ** Australian casino operator Crown Resorts said it has agreed to sell its 62 percent stake in online betting firm CrownBet to a consortium including the unit's chief executive for A$150 million ($117 million). ** Specialty chemicals and pharmaceuticals manufacturer Aarti Industries Ltd signed a supply contract with a U.S. affiliate of Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) worth 100 billion rupees ($1.56 billion). (Compiled by Taenaz Shakir and Sonam Rai in Bengaluru)
LONDON, Dec 29 (Reuters) - European stocks steadied in early deals on Friday, the final trading day of the year, and were set to record their strongest year of gains since 2013 thanks to a surge among tech stocks and a robust resources sector.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was flat in percentage terms on the day, while euro zone blue chips declined 0.1 percent.

Britain's FTSE 100 hit a new record and was 0.1 percent higher, while Italian equities declined just 0.2 percent after the president dissolved parliament on Thursday and an election day was scheduled for March 4. Overall 2017 has been a positive year for European stocks, fuelled by strong company earnings, a supportive economic backdrop and no major political upsets.

The STOXX is set to end 2017 with a gain of around 8 percent, its strongest year since 2013. Germany and Italy's benchmarks have been standout performers, rising 13 percent and 14.7 percent respectively this year.

Periphery markets have also had a strong year, with Greece's benchmark up more than 24 percent while Portugal has gained 14.5 percent.

Britain's FTSE 100 has lagged slightly, rising 6.9 percent in 2017, as has Spain's IBEX , which is up 7.8 percent.

Brexit uncertainty has dented sentiment towards UK equities, while a recovering pound has also put pressure on the blue chips' large proportion of overseas earners.

Among sectors, this year has been dominated by a near-20 percent rise among Europe's tech stocks , closely followed by basic resources . Chipmaker AMS has been the top-gaining firm on the STOXX, surging 206 percent in 2017.

Telecoms , retail and media have brought up the rear, with year-to-date losses ranging between 2.2 to 3.7 percent.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Major European Indexes YTD Price Performance ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Kit Rees; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)
NEW DELHI, Dec 29 (Reuters) - India's finance ministry on Friday cautioned investors about the risks of trading in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, saying digital currency investments are like "Ponzi schemes."

Cryptocurrencies are not legal tender and have no regulatory permission or protection in the country, the finance ministry said in a statement, but stopped short of announcing an outright ban or imposing any curbs.

Investors and other participants dealing with such digital currencies are doing so "entirely at their risk and should best avoid participating therein," the statement said.

"There is a real and heightened risk of investment bubble of the type seen in Ponzi schemes", with investors risking a sudden and prologed crash, the statement said.

A Ponzi scheme is a swindle offering unusually high returns, with early investors paid off with money from later investors.

The ministry also cautioned that encrypted transactions in cryptocurrency were likely being used for illegal activities such as "terror-funding, smuggling, drug trafficking and other money laundering acts."

India currently has no regulation for cryptocurrencies, and like other global policymakers, it is seeking to understand how to supervise a market that many feel is a speculative bubble.

"Mere issuance of an advisory is not sufficient when thousands of people have lost money in cryptocurrency," said Pavan Duggal, a cyber expert and a lawyer with India's top court.

"Government has the sovereign duty to come up with a legal framework to regulate the cryptocurrencies and protect genuine investors," he said.

Last week, India's capital market regulator said it was in talks with the government and central bank on how to regulate cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, has gained more than 19-fold this year.

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.

On Thursday, South Korea's government said it would impose additional measures to regulate speculation in cryptocurrency trading within the country. (Reporting by Malini Menon and Manoj Kumar; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
JAKARTA, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Indonesia's financial service regulator (OJK) said on Friday it has revised regulations on municipal bonds to encourage provincial governments to issue them to finance their infrastructure projects.

"It is aimed at removing obstacles in issuing municipal bonds," Wimboh Santoso, head of OJK, told reporters.

The new rules relaxed some administrative requirements, while also clarifying procedures provincial governments need to follow to launch bond sales.

Central Java, West Java and East Java provinces are prepared to raise money through bonds sales to finance infrastructure developments, Santoso said, adding that he hoped issuance would begin in 2018.

Domestic media have reported that West Java has delayed municipal bonds issuance for many years due to regulatory difficulties.

The revision is an "effort to support government priority program" in boosting infrastructure development, the OJK said.

President Joko Widodo has been encouraging domestic companies to raise funds through new financial instruments.

In December, state-controlled toll road operator PT Jasa Marga issued Indonesia's first London-listed, rupiah-denominated global bonds. Three other state firms may follow suit. (Reporting by Cindy Silviana; Writing by Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
PORT LOUIS, Dec 29 (Reuters) - The weighted average yield on Mauritius' 91-day Treasury bill fell to 2.41 percent at auction on Friday from 2.48 percent at the last sale on Dec. 22, the central bank said.

The Bank of Mauritius offered a total of 1.4 billion Mauritius rupees ($42 million) worth of the 91-day and 364-day papers. It sold 575.9 million of the 91-day instruments.

Complete auction results were as follows:

MATURITY 91-DAY 182-DAY 364-day WEIGHTED AVERAGE PRICE THIS AUCTION 99.403 98.749 97.539 LAST AUCTION 97.385 98.725 97.350 WEIGHTED AVERAGE YIELD (PCT) THIS AUCTION 2.41 2.54 2.53 LAST AUCTION 2.48 2.59 2.73 BIDS ACCEPTED (RUPEES)575.9(MLN)600(MLN)824.1 (MLN)

(The table includes both government (182-day) and Bank of Mauritius (91-day, 364-day) bills) ($1 = 33.5000 Mauritius rupees)

(Reporting by Jean Paul Arouff; Editing by Katharine Houreld)
Dec 29 (Reuters) - 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):

DEBT SUPPLY

The Polish Finance Ministry to publish the treasury debt supply plan for the first quarter of 2018 at 1100.

HEALTHCARE

A number of hospitals have stopped accepting patients as doctors decline to take excessive overtime after their protests aimed at forcing government to massively increase spending for health sector failed, Rzeczpospolita daily reported.

TAXES

A number of businesses will effectively be paying higher taxes next year, despite no change in tax rates, as the government has limited cost deductions, Rzeczpospolita reported.

SALARIES

Seventy-two percent of companies are considering pay raises for their employees in 2018, Rzeczpospolita reported, quoting a report prepared by recruitment agency Hays Poland.

GOVERNMENT RECONSTRUCTION

After Jan. 6, prime minister may dismiss ministers of defence, environment, foreign affairs, and health, and wind up the digitisation ministry, Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported.

****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; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)
(Repeats Thursday's story with no changes to text)

* Oligarchs asked for bond to bring funds home

* Fin ministry offers special conditions for Eurobond

* May cut local borrowing to accommodate demand

By Darya Korsunskaya, Tatiana Voronova and Gleb Stolyarov

MOSCOW, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Demand has soared for a planned Eurobond that sources said is meant to help Russians bring money back home in a way that would protect them from being damaged by potential new sanctions.

Initial bids for the Russian sovereign Eurobonds, due to be issued next year, had come in at $200 million, a source in a state bank and another from the finance ministry told Reuters.

But demand has now topped $3 billion, the finance ministry source said, declining to speculate on the reason.

Sources told Reuters in early December that wealthy Russians facing the prospect of targeted U.S. sanctions next year had floated the idea of a special treasury bond to help them repatriate assets. Crucially, unlike with bank accounts, holders would remain anonymous under the proposal, they added. Two weeks later, authorities said they planned to adjust the terms of a Eurobond planned for next year, in a way that would help Russians repatriate financial assets. Russians would be given preference over foreigners during the sale, finance minister Anton Siluanov later told reporters. The ministry would be ready to increase the Eurobond offer and to cut the domestic borrowing plan to accommodate the demand if needed, Siluanov said.

"REQUESTS BY BUSINESSMEN"

The issues would be issued via the Russian National Settlement Depository - a local version of Euroclear, the finance ministry said earlier, a move which would allow the holders to keep anonymity.

The finance ministry said in the emailed comments to Reuters on Thursday that the proposed special conditions of the Eurobond issue were "a step towards a number of requests by businessmen." It declined to elaborate further.

The finance ministry source said the adjusted Eurobonds had been nicknamed 'Beryozki', after the oligarch Grigory Berezkin, who the source said was a driver behind the original proposal to launch a special treasury bond.

Berezkin, whose assets range from power transmission to the media, said on Thursday the idea for a special instrument had first come from the finance ministry but acknowledged he had supported it and discussed it with other business leaders.

"We have supported this idea within the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and I was among whose who took part in the discussions on the different levels, including in the government," he told Reuters.

Berezkin, asked by Reuters whether he would buy the new Eurobond, said: "I will study it when the issuance documents are ready... If it is a standard Eurobond, then it is a very good tool."

There is no reliable data on how much money Russians have abroad. According to a rough estimate by Gabriel Zucman, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, Russians had about $200 billion worth of financial assets in offshore tax havens as of 2014, equivalent to 10 percent of Russia's GDP that year.

The U.S. government is due to draw up a blacklist of individuals early next year under a sanctions bill passed overwhelmingly by Congress soon after Donald Trump became president and signed by him in August. (Writing by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
MOSCOW, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Russian businessman Grigory Berezkin was among those who floated the idea of issuing a special treasury bond to repatriate funds back to Russia to mitigate against the risk of new U.S. sanctions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

Sources told Reuters on Thursday that initial bids for the Russian sovereign Eurobonds, which have special conditions for wealthy Russians and are due to be issued next year, had come in at $200 million, but that demand already topped $3 billion.

One of the Reuters sources said that the adjusted Eurobonds had been nicknamed 'Beryozki', after the oligarch Berezkin, who the source said was a driver behind the original proposal to launch a special treasury bond. (Reporting by Denis Pinchuk and Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber; Writing by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
ELKO  One person was injured Thursday afternoon when an 18-wheeler semi truck carrying soft drinks drove off Interstate 80, crossed both lanes of Idaho Street at the east end of Elko and overturned.

The accident occurred at 12:08 p.m. when the U.S. Express truck was headed east at mile marker 307. It drove down the embankment, hit a tree and crossed Idaho Street near Valley View RV Park, the Nevada Highway Patrol said.

The semi continued south toward the railroad tracks before overturning on its left side in a vacant lot.

It is not known how fast the semi was traveling when it left the interstate.

The passenger was transported to Northeastern Nevada Regional Hospital with unspecified injuries. The driver remained at the scene.

The NHP said the truck was carrying Coca-Cola products but would not know the weight until it was turned back onto its wheels.

Traffic was slowed down to one lane near the accident site while NHP, Elko County Sheriffs office and Elko County firefighters attended to the scene.

The NHP plans to have a final report available on the accident Friday morning.
ISTANBUL, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Turkey's main stock index rose to a record high above 115,100 points on Friday, bringing its gains this year to 47 percent, most recently boosted by the resolution of a visa row between Turkey and the United States. At 0740 GMT, the BIST 100 index was up 0.38 percent at 114,927.54 points, having touched a high of 115,102.80. It closed 2 percent higher on Thursday after the United States and Turkey lifted all visa restrictions imposed in a dispute which had tested relations between the NATO allies. (Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Tuvan Gumrukcu)

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.
ANKARA, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Turkey will create loan volume amounting to 100 billion lira ($26.47 billion) by the end of the first quarter through its Credit Guarantee Fund, state officials said.

The officials said the cabinet was set to approve a 50 billion lira tranche of this total volume in the coming days, and the other half would come from the payment of loans previously granted.

The Credit Guarantee Fund is designed to stimulate the economy by guaranteeing loans to small and medium-sized enterprises that could not otherwise get credit. Its volume was increased by more than ten-fold to 250 billion lira in March.

($1 = 3.7775 liras)

(Reporting by Orhan Coskun and Nevzat Devranoglu; Writing by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Daren Butler)
ANKARA, Dec 29 (Reuters) - The number of foreign visitors arriving in Turkey rose 22.13 percent in November to 1.65 million, data from Turkey's Tourism Ministry showed on Friday.

Between January and November, foreign arrivals to Turkey surged 27.68 percent to 30.7 million people, the data showed. The number of Russian visitors to Turkey in the same period rose 465 percent to 4.65 million people, the data indicated.

Tourism, which contributes about $30 billion to gross domestic product each year, was hit by an attempted coup in July last year and a spate of bombings blamed on Islamic State and Kurdish militants, which scared away tourists.

(Reporting by Nevzat Devranoglu; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Daren Butler)
New Year's is just a few days away, which means new Idaho laws will go into effect.

On Jan 1., two laws will take effect  House Bill 211 and House Bill 216.

One law will include a fee increase, and the second law will give Idaho homeowners the right to rent their property and short-term rental marketplaces to collect state and local taxes.

The persistence to keep our Idaho waters from aquatic invasive species such as quagga mussels seems to be a never ending fight. The House Bill 211 will increase the invasive species sticker for nonresidents from $22 to $30. All funds are generated for boat vessel inspections and the prevention of invasive species.

We have a lot of beautiful mountain lakes that people travel from thousands of miles to enjoy with their families, said Southern Idaho RV & Marine Finance Manager Casy Pearson. Paying the $30 to make sure our boats are clean before they get into our water isn't that much to pay.

Pearson agrees with how the funds will support boat inspections.

Its good that they are out there with their supplies and you could get your boat cleaned up and continue on with vacation," she said.

Motorized vessels registered in the state of Idaho will continue to be $10.

If youre a homeowner and wanting to rent out your property, House Bill 216 will protect your right to do so.

The law will require short-term rental marketplaces such as Airbnb or other service providers that do contracts with homeowners to collect taxes for state and local governments.

"I want to be able to rent out my home out to whoever I want, for whatever length of time I want along as its not hurting the neighbors around me," said Keller Williams Broker Nicole Gabiola. I think it's super important to keep your property rights intact, and I want the money to go back to the community so Im fine with them collecting taxes.

Theres more information on the two new laws at
WASHINGTON  In 2017, President Trump signed into law a total of 15 bills that U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., authored or helped introduce and move over the finish line. Of the more than 400 bills that the U.S. Senate passed, the President has currently signed into law 97 of them.

From legislation that holds the VA accountable to a bill that encourages women entrepreneurship, Im proud that the president signed more than a dozen bills that I helped introduce and pass, said Heller. As a senior member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, I have worked to move legislation that improves care and strengthens education benefits for Nevadas veteran population. In 2017, we certainly made progress, but we have a lot of work to do next year and I look forward to continue fighting for solutions that will help Nevadans get ahead.

The majority of Hellers bills that are now law are focused on helping the more than 300,000 veterans who live in Nevada. That includes legislation to expand veterans GI Bill education benefits and ensure veterans continued access to life-saving surgeries. The President signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017, legislation that Heller authored to give veterans more options when appealing their disability claims in Reno.

Heller is the author or original cosponsor of the following bills that were signed into law in 2017:

S. 1362, Guard and Reservists Education Improvement Act (authored by Heller): Restructures the G.I. bill eligibility tiers for certain Guardsmen and Reservists.

S.1024, Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017 (Heller original cosponsor of the Senate substitute amendment to H.R.2288 that ended up becoming law): Reformed the VA appeals process for disability claims.

S.1094, Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 (Heller original cosponsor): Provides the VA expedited firing authority for bad VA employees.

S.1598, Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017 (Heller original cosponsor): Provides comprehensive reform of the Post 9/11 G.I. educational assistance program and includes three of Hellers provisions.

S. 42, INSPIRE Women Act (Authored by Heller): Directs NASA to encourage women to study STEM and pursue aerospace careers.

S.114, VA Choice and Quality Employment Act (Heller bill used as vehicle): Provides $2.1 billion in funding to continue the Veterans Choice Program.

S.83, Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship (Heller a co-author): Authorizes the National Science Foundation to encourage its entrepreneurial programs to recruit and support women to extend their focus beyond the laboratory and into the commercial world.

S. 1489, Veterans Education Relief and Reinstatement Act Guard and Reservists Education Improvement Act (Heller original cosponsor): Ensures veterans who suffer a permanent school closure are able to have their G.I. bill benefits reinstated.

S. 1277, VET TEC Act (Heller original cosponsor): Establishes pilot program to allow veterans to enroll in non-traditional courses related to technology careers like coding.

S.327, Fair Access to Investment Research Act (authored by Heller): Would give investors access to more research and information on Exchange Traded Funds.

S. 3152, Empowering Employees through Stock Ownership Act (co-authored by Heller): Promotes employee ownership through stock options in privately held businesses.

S 784, The Veterans Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2017 (Heller original cosponsor): Increases veterans disability benefits based on rising costs of living.

S. 583, The American Law Enforcement Heroes Act of 2017 (Heller original cosponsor): Amends federal law to allow Community Oriented Policing Services grantees to use grant funds to hire veterans as law enforcement officers.

S.782, PROTECT Our Children Act of 2017 (Heller original cosponsor): Reauthorizes the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program, a national network of 61 coordinated task forces representing 4,500 federal, state, and local law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies that combat online child exploitation across the country.

S.2183, CHIP Stability Act (authored by Heller): Provided states with certainty for the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for December 2017.
Narine Dilbaryan: One-sided policy, which Armenia used to have, could not be the way to success (video)

Linguist Narine Dilbarian said that 2017 could be considered a positive and successful year. She pointed out the signing of the Armenia-EU agreement. "One-sided policy, which Armenia used to have, could not be the way to success. So I think that November brought us that success. We continue to be a member of the EAEU; but the cooperation with the European Union has started, which is a very important fact. " The second important event, according to the linguist, was students' strikes and protest marches, demanding to maintain the right of academic procrastination. Narine Dilbaryan mentioned that the protest and struggle had a positive and inspirational impact on the society. "I was inspired by our youth who were trying to protect their right of serving in the army and then getting education. I am absolutely sure that every young man should serve in the army, but I think that these young people have the desire to receive education and can join the army after graduating from Universities." Speaking about the future expectations, Narine Dilbaryan stressed that she was sure that Serzh Sargsyan would become Prime Minister.
By Yoon Ja-young



After the government hinted property taxes will be raised on real estate investors, the market is examining various scenarios of the tax revision.



During a briefing on economic policy directives for the next year, Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said the government will comprehensively consider diverse factors such as equity in taxation.



"Since tax revision has a huge impact, it is crucial to have a discussion. We will prepare measures after gathering diverse opinions through a special committee," he said.



The official tax hike plan on homeowners is expected to be unveiled in August when the government announces its tax revision plans.



Raising property taxes has been regarded as the government's last hidden card to stabilize housing prices, as it had been cautious about the tax hike. Policymakers have trauma over tax hikes since they witnessed how the 2003-08 President Roh Moo-hyun administration was damaged by "comprehensive real estate tax." The Roh administration, whose ideology the Moon administration has inherited, introduced the tax to curb soaring housing prices, but it ended up losing votes due to strong resistance from taxpayers who criticized it as a "tax bomb."



Since the housing market shows signs of overheating, the administration seems to be left with no option but the property tax hike. Unlike previous administrations which tried to bolster the housing market to pull up economic growth, the Moon Jae-in administration has declared war on real estate speculators. On Aug. 2 it announced real estate stabilization measures, which include levying heavy capital gains taxes on those who have invested in multiple homes on top of restricting mortgages.



However, it failed to curb apartment prices in Seoul. According to Korea Appraisal Board, apartment prices in Seoul rose 3.82 percent between January and November this year, picking up pace from the previous year. Prices rose especially steep in southern districts where high-priced apartments are located.



"There has been polarization between Seoul and provinces following the Aug. 2 measures. Demand has always surpassed supply in Seoul as additional supply of homes is restricted there." said Chae Sang-wook, an analyst at Hana Financial Investment.



He added those who have invested in multiple homes in the provinces seem to be selling them to purchase one good apartment in Seoul instead, further pulling up the apartment prices in key areas of Seoul. Following the Aug. 2 measures, housing prices in Seoul rose 2.8 percent, while prices in other regions rose a mere 0.7 percent.



"If the polarization continues, it will hinder the government's real estate market stabilization policies. It may have to boost the real estate market in the provinces," he said.



Market watchers expect the Moon administration to target those who own multiple homes instead of raising overall property taxes since that would face strong resistance from homeowners.



On top of pressuring demand by raising property taxes, the government plans to stabilize the market by increasing the supply of new homes. The government unveiled its housing welfare roadmap, according to which 1 million homes will be supplied for the next five years through public sector companies such as the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH). It especially targets newlyweds, young people and low-income households.
By Yi Whan-woo



The government has seized a Chinese vessel suspected of transporting oil products to a North Korean ship in international waters, in violation of U.N. Security Council (UNSC) sanctions, a foreign ministry official said Friday.



The official said a Hong Kong-flagged vessel, named Lighthouse Winmore, secretly transferred 600 tons of refined petroleum products to a North Korean ship on Oct. 19.



South Korean customs have been inspecting the ship after it entered port at Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, on Nov. 24.



"UNSC sanctions on Pyongyang prohibit any ship-to-ship transfer with North Korean vessels," the official said.



Lighthouse Winmore was chartered by a Taiwanese investment firm _ Billions Bunker Group.



It previously entered Yeosu on Oct. 11 to load up on refined petroleum products.



It was supposed to deliver the products to Taiwan. But it instead transferred them to four ships, including a North Korean vessel, according to South Korean customs.



The foreign ministry said it will take relevant measures before filing a report to the UNSC.



"The case shows how North Korea has been dodging UNSC sanctions through its illegal trade network," a ministry official said.



The incident came after the United States found Chinese vessels transferring petroleum products to North Korean ships in international waters up to 30 times since October.



The UNSC is currently examining the illegal trafficking cases, according to the foreign ministry.


The leader of the ruling Democratic Party on Friday called for a new agreement to settle the long-simmering dispute over Japan's wartime sexual slavery in a way acceptable to the victims.



Choo Mi-ae made the remarks a day after President Moon Jae-in criticized the 2015 deal between Seoul and Tokyo as seriously flawed, as the negotiations failed to reflect the opinions of the victims and the citizens.



"We need a new agreement that can be accepted by the victims," Choo said during a meeting with senior party officials. "An agreement that aims to cover up the truth rather than uncovering it cannot be an (acceptable) agreement."



She then urged Japan not to respond "emotionally" to the recent review of the deal by the foreign ministry's task force, which concluded parts of the deal were kept secret to apparently avoid criticism of Seoul's concessions to Tokyo.



"Japan should refrain from emotionally responding and reflect on how it can resolve the issue in a way that serves its national interests," she said. "I urge Japan to act in a way that befits Japan's national prestige."



Tensions flared anew between the two neighbors after Seoul re-examined the bilateral deal reached under the former Park Geun-hye administration to settle the issue involving Korean women who were forced by Japan to serve at front-line military brothels during World War II.



Moon, who took office in May, has said that the agreement is "emotionally" unacceptable to Korean citizens.



Under the deal announced on Dec. 28, 2015, they agreed to "finally and irreversibly" resolve the sex slavery issue, while Tokyo apologized for its colonial-era atrocities and agreed to contribute 1 billion yen ($8.9 million) to a foundation dedicated to supporting the victims.



The deal, however, prompted strong criticism from victims and civic groups who claim that Japan's apology was not sincere enough and that the government did not consult with them. Some call for renegotiating or even scrapping the deal. (Yonhap)




Paul Laan is a suspect in a missing-person case in Canada. / Captured from CBC



By Chyung Eun-ju



A former professor at a Seoul-based university is a suspect in a mysterious missing-person case in Canada, according to South Korean broadcaster JTBC.



Canadian Paul Laan taught English at Sahmyook University in Nowon, northern Seoul, from 2014. The university stripped him of his professorship early this month after learning of the accusations in Canada and then terminated his contract.



According to the report, Laan came to Korea in 2006 and earned a living by teaching English at private or public institutes.



According to JTBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), he was a suspect in a high-profile missing-person case in Ontario in 1998. A woman in her 70s, known as the "Cat Lady," was a tenant in his house and disappeared outside Huntsville. Police later found that three other tenants were missing.



Police investigating the case saw Laan as a suspect but they found no evidence, and it became a cold case.



CBC put the case back in the spotlight on its investigative program "The Fifth Estate," aired in September.



The program said the residents' disappearance was not reported and that pension checks were stolen from them by the Paul family. The youngest of the family was living in South Korea as a professor, according to the program.



"Paul now teaches English at a university in South Korea and travels with his wife extensively, professing their love for God on their family blog," CBC reported.



It is not known if Canadian police will reopen the case and seek his repatriation.



The Korea Times contacted the university, the justice ministry and immigration office for comment and if there was any cooperation request from Canada. There was no immediate reply.


By Kim Bo-eun



Ten Seoul citizens including former sex slave Lee Yong-soo and Korean-Nigerian model Han Hyun-min will take part in a bell-striking ceremony welcoming 2018 at the bell pavilion Bosingak in central Seoul, Sunday.



The selected citizens will strike the bell 33 times, along with Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and chiefs of the Seoul Metropolitan Council, Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency and Jongno-gu Office.



The 10 citizens are those who made achievements in various sectors this year. Seoul citizens nominated candidates and the city government selected the final representatives after review.



"We selected people who endeavor to make our society just and safe and those who overcame difficult circumstances to achieve prominence in their professions," the city government said.



Former sex slave Lee, 89, made known the Japanese military's atrocities. She was the protagonist in the movie "I can Speak" released in September.



Model Han was listed as one of Time magazine's 30 most influential teenagers in the world.



Park Eun-jeong, 50, became a notable scientist after years out of the workforce. She has been recognized as being among the world's top 1 percent of researchers.



Kwak Kyung-bae, 41, saved a citizen from a random assault at Nakseongdae Station in April.



Na Ho-seon, 60, a mechanic who has worked in Sewoon Shopping Mall since 1996, is assisting startups by teaching young people his skills and know-how.



Kang Hyung-wook, 33, a professional dog trainer, has informed the public how people and animals can happily coexist through a TV program.



Park Moo-jin, 26, provided elderly citizens collecting wastepaper with handcarts as well as advertising earnings.



Seo Eun-song, 20, an honorary youth mayor of the city, is making the voices of 1.7 million young people in Seoul heard by taking part in establishing related policies.



Shin Jong-kyun, 61, has run a small grocery store behind Bosingak for the past 37 years.



Kim Hye-yeon, widow of a late diver who searched for missing passengers of the sunken Sewol ferry, will also take part.



The two mascots for the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, white tiger Soohorang and Asiatic black bear Bandabi will also be present.



Around 100,000 citizens are expected to attend the ceremony.



The city will extend public transportation hours for Sunday night. Subways will run until 2 a.m. and the number of trains will be increased. Thirty-nine buses passing Bosingak will run until 1 a.m.



Traffic will be controlled in the area Sunday 11 p.m. to Monday 1:30 a.m.



The city government will place 25 ambulance vehicles and fire engines on standby along with 254 safety personnel.


Cho Young-sook, 83, poses in front of her house in Dong-gu, Incheon, Tuesday, after an interview about donating 50 million won this October. / Korea Times photo by Kim Ji-soo



By Kim Ji-soo



Cho Young-sook, 83, lives in a small white house that sits on a small hill near Dowon Station in Dong-gu, Incheon. The neighborhood, which is only two subway stations away from Incheon Chinatown and the resort area of Wolmido, is a traditional one yet to be affected by the onslaught of residential and commercial development.



Cho has lived in the same house for 30 years, and since her husband, Im Cheol-ho, passed away about 20 years ago, she has lived alone. She has no children of her own, just two stepchildren from her husband. The interior of the house features a mixture of furniture she purchased decades ago and secondhand ones she bought in more recent years. A small kerosene stove in her living room is lit only when there are guests, reflecting her frugal lifestyle.



Cho works as a neighborhood "environment-keeper" for Dong-gu, doing such jobs as picking up wastepaper and boxes in the neighborhood. She receives a pension for senior citizens. In October, she made headlines when she donated most of her 50 million won in life savings to the Community Chest of Korea, the nation's largest charity organization, hoping the money will help collegians in their studies.



"Oh, I feel embarrassed about the attention I am getting over the donation. I feel like I donated in order to extend my life," Cho said, referring to her worsening physical condition.



Cho, who has worked all her life starting from an early age, has been feeling unwell since earlier this year. "I get a lot of headaches," she said, speaking in her living room. But around fall, her condition worsened; she began to sweat profusely and could barely move 30 centimeters. She survived, and still manages her health by herself. While she remains healthy, she wants to save more to give away.



"It feels good to give. People should try it," she said.

Born in 1935, she grew up during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation and the 1950-53 Korean War, experiencing the poverty that accompanied these tumultuous times in Korean history. "I wonder if there is anyone as frugal as me in Korea," she said. She still uses a bedpan and does not use her washing machine to save on water and electricity bills, wearing only secondhand clothes people give her.

"I am not embarrassed by that. If I save, I can help others more," she said.



Her work ethic may well have come from being the eldest child of her family. Cho and her family arrived in Incheon when she was seven years old. "I was smart; I even skipped one year in elementary school. I was also diligent; I cleaned the classrooms, so the teachers called me a rabbit. But I left before graduating," she said.



She joined the labor force early to help support her family. She has held numerous jobs, including selling melons and as a laborer at a textile company. This hard life prompted Cho to give up on certain things in life, like her dreams, and to put others before herself. "I don't think I've ever really wanted anything for myself," she said.



Her mother was strict, Cho remembers.



"My mother used to give me one cup of uncooked rice a month, which I rationed. That meant I would go hungry several times, but over time it meant I could buy what I really needed, like female amenities. I had to make ends meet. No one gave me an allowance," Cho said.



Those days as a young girl and later young woman were bleak: she hardly remembers having uttered the word "mother," and she often went hungry and thought of not wanting to continue living. Yet, the practice of setting aside a little for a rainy day has set in with her. She also advises rationing when it comes to giving or donating.



For example, she said, if you have 1,000 won, spend 700 won and set aside 300 won for giving.



Things improved slightly after marriage. She began selling sundries at a market in Incheon, and briefly ran a successful snack shop in her current neighborhood. She gave up the snack shop when her respiratory health was affected.



"Now, when doing business, it's important to sell products at a low price but in large volumes, so customers will come back and only purchase from other stores the items I didn't carry in my store. A kind reception, a cup of warm water or a small container of yogurt goes a long way," she said.



Cho Young-sook in her 40s, while volunteering for the Red Cross and the elderly / Courtesy of Cho Young-sook
A group of people watch the sunset on Anmyeon Island in Taean County, South Chungcheong Province, Friday, bidding farewell to 2017. / Yonhap



By Jung Min-ho



The year of 2017 will be remembered for its many shocks and thrills.



The nation's president was impeached and ousted for the first time in its democratic history. A new leader was elected two month later. North Korea claimed the completion of its nuclear arsenal.



Outside the Korean Peninsula, political upheavals, wars and terrorism created the potential for a fundamental change in the world order.



Here, the year began with candlelight. Almost every weekend, crowds thronged the streets with candlelit vigils. In one voice, they demanded the Constitutional Court remove Park Geun-hye from the presidency over a massive corruption scandal involving her friend Choi Soon-sil.



On March 11, the court upheld the National Assembly's impeachment motion, making her the nation's first president to be ousted peacefully by the court. It was a moment of triumph for the common people who rose up against those in power who had forgotten who holds the power in a democracy.



The ruling immediately triggered the race for the next president. Moon Jae-in, the son of North Korean refugees and a former human rights lawyer, came to power on promises of a fairer and more just society. During his May 10 inauguration, Moon promised to do everything he could for peace on the Korean Peninsula.



The task was never going to be easy. Donald Trump, sworn in as U.S. president the same year, already vowed to shake up U.S. foreign policy  a signal of profound changes to the very nature of its relationship with South Korea, for the first time since the end of the Korean War.



At the same time, under the strong leadership of Xi Jinping, China flexed its political muscle to pressure South Korea over the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system here.



China's economic retaliation over the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) deployment was one of the most complicated issues the Moon government and Korean firms had to deal with throughout the year.



The biggest national security crisis came on Sept. 9, when North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test. The regime later claimed it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb small enough to be fitted in an intercontinental ballistic missile that can strike anywhere in the United States mainland.



The test, which allegedly achieved the very thing Trump warned not to, escalated tension in the region. Just a month ago, Trump threatened North Korea would meet with "fire and fury" if it continued to develop nuclear weapons capable of striking America.



It was also a year of many unusual natural phenomena around the world, and here was no exception. A magnitude 5.4 earthquake hit Korea's southeastern city of Pohang on Nov. 15, sending shockwaves throughout the country.



It was the second most powerful tremor felt in Korea in the whole time it has been collecting seismic records since 1978. Smaller quakes continued to hit the area, which brought about calls for more government investments into earthquake-resistant technologies.



The beginning of the countdown for the PyeongChang Olympics was one of the most exciting events of the year for Koreans. On Nov. 1, the Olympic flame was lit, precisely 100 days ahead of the opening ceremony for Korea's first-ever Winter Games.



Few Koreans believe 2018 will be any easier; North Korea now possesses nuclear weapons that may not be able to strike the United States but have no problems reaching here; Trump will intensify the pressure on North Korea and China's THAAD retaliation is still in place.



But there is room for hope, as Koreans have successfully coped with many difficulties over this tumultuous year, and they will begin their new year with the Olympic torch instead of candles this time.


By Rachel Lee



The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced a set of action plans for next year to strengthen public diplomacy, Friday.



This is the first comprehensive program after the country established its first basic public diplomacy plan in August.



The plan includes public diplomacy projects worth 410 billion won submitted by 15 metropolitan councils and nine central administrative agencies. It excludes, however, Official Development Assistance (ODA) projects and other overseas investment- and economic cooperation-related projects.



The plan consists of 49 tasks in six fields, including infrastructure, policy, knowledge and culture, according to the ministry. By content, it includes about 320 culture-related projects, 200 knowledge-related projects and 190 policy-oriented diplomacy projects.



The foreign ministry said it will host a think-tank forum targeting opinion leaders in the United States, China, Japan and Russia. Other projects include networking events to raise awareness of domestic policies among foreign diplomatic missions in Seoul, surveys to find out the country's perceptions abroad, and conferences with private committees to expand technologies and correct factual errors regarding the country.



The ministry said it has for the first time summed up a public diplomacy plan as part of the government's efforts to organize projects by central administrative agencies and local governments.



Based on the overall plan, the diplomatic offices' public diplomacy activities will be set up, the ministry said.



It added the ministry will actively cooperate with such agencies and institutions in order to push ahead with planned activities.



A committee on public diplomacy, a governmental coordinating body on public diplomacy, held its first meeting on Aug. 10 with Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha as its chair.



The meeting brought together the committee's four members from the private sector: 10 members from the government and three observers. The committee finalized Korea's first basic plan on public diplomacy (2017-2021), which will serve as a public diplomacy guideline during the tenure of the Moon Jae-in government, and designated the Korea Foundation (KF) as its public diplomacy overseer. The KF was founded in 1992 for international exchanges and public diplomacy initiatives.



Meanwhile, the government has decided to spend 3.48 trillion won on ODA projects next year.



The budget, up 412 billion won from this year, has for the first time surpassed the 3 trillion won mark since the country joined the OECD Development Assistance Committee in 2010.



Next year's budget includes projects worth 150 billion won with Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which are now recognized as ODA projects, the government said.



About 74 percent of the budget will be spent on supporting developing nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs).






Ruling Democratic Party of Korea Chairwoman Rep. Choo Mi-ae attends the party's Supreme Council meeting at the National Assembly, Friday. / Yonhap



By Yi Whan-woo



Ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Chairwoman Rep. Choo Mi-ae urged the Moon Jae-in administration Friday to strike a new deal with Japan over "comfort women."



This is virtually a call to discard the previous deal reached in December 2015 between the governments of Moon's predecessor Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which was criticized for neglecting opinions from the victims of Japan's wartime sex slavery.



Her remark came a day after President Moon Jae-in described the 2015 deal as "gravely flawed," prompting strong protests from Tokyo.



Despite Japan's opposition, Moon hinted at renegotiating the 2015 accord after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' fact-finding team revealed Wednesday that the Park administration fell short of listening to the victims before striking the deal.



"There should be a new agreement that can convince victims," Choo said during the party's Supreme Council meeting at the National Assembly. "A deal cannot be considered a deal if it is aimed at covering up the truth and also muzzling the victims."



She cited a need to deal with historical issues separately from the "future-oriented" relationship between the two neighbors.



"History and the future should be dealt with separately," she said. "We should not give up future-oriented relations while trying not to dent the truth and principles regarding history."



Cheong Wa Dae said Moon may announce follow-up measures to be taken over the 2015 agreement during his New Year's address.



Japan has been reacting sensitively to Moon's move. Citing multiple Japanese officials, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Friday that Abe is geared toward delaying his decision on whether to accept Moon's invitation to attend the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in February 2018.



The officials said the timing is not appropriate for Abe to visit Korea, considering the Seoul-Tokyo accord is about to fall apart.



Against this backdrop, Choo asked Japan to "refrain from dealing with the case emotionally," saying "I urge Japan to act accordingly to match with its honor reputation."



"Japan should think it over to find solutions that can best serve its national interest," Choo said.



Meanwhile, Cheong Wa Dae said Moon remains unchanged in his pursuit of a two-track strategy in dealing with Japan -- separating economic and security matters from history-related issues.



The rival parties here have responded differently to the findings of the foreign ministry's task force aimed at uncovering the hidden details of the 2015 agreement.



The DPK accused the previous government of not openly sharing the sensitive parts of the deal in a bid to avoid public criticism.



It also demanded an apology from the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) lawmakers who supported the controversial deal when Park was in office.



The liberal opposition parties -- the People's Party and the Justice Party -- each asked for the deal to be scrapped and renegotiated.



The LKP criticized the Moon government for "exploiting diplomatic issues for political retaliation" against the previous government. It said the Moon administration's move to revise the Korea-Japan accord could heighten security risks instead of resolving the row with Japan over "comfort women."



The Bareun Party, a breakaway group from the LKP, said the Moon administration should "prudently consider" before finalizing its decision on the 2015 deal.
Levon Tokmajyan: They are pretending to guess the next Prime Minister (video)

Sculptor Levon Tokmajyan found it difficult to remember where that reform came from. He had heard with his own ears that the President had said he wanted to become neither Prime Minister, nor President. "So, they started to think of ways to leave him in office. And they decided to introduce this reform project,"he said. "They are pretending to guess the next Prime Minister. One year ago, it was already decided. I remember Artsvik Minasyan saying, vote for the reform and your life will change in two days. She cheated us, nothing changed the next day or two days later. nothing changes even today," he complained. To the question of A1 +, how would he evaluate the role of contemporary intellectuals in social and political life, Mr. Tokmajyan replied: "I cannot estimate because we do not receive evaluation from above. And who does take intellectuals into account?" He criticized the current appearance of Yerevan, the "Old Yerevan" program. "Next year we will celebrate the 2800th anniversary of the capital. But what is left from the 2800-year-old city? " asked he. The artist wants to create a memorial dedicated to 7 national heroes who died in Artsakh war. The idea has already been approved by the Minister of Defense. The wall will be from basalt stone, heroes dancing Kochari (Armenian national dance). The sculpture will be a happy one. The Armenians living in the Netherlands appealed to him asking for a sculpture of a dog. It will be a gift to Yerevan. The place of the statue still is not determined. The mastiff is an Armenian dog, and it will coincide with the symbol of the year.
The government said Thursday it is banning the use of anonymous virtual accounts in cryptocurrency transactions as part of efforts to curb virtual currency speculation.

Hong Nam-ki, minister of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, made the announcement after a meeting of vice ministers from related ministries, saying the government "can't let this abnormal situation of speculation go on any longer."

Under the measure, only real-name bank accounts and matching accounts at virtual currency exchanges can be used for deposits and withdrawals, while the issuance of new virtual accounts to cryptocurrency exchanges will be banned, Hong said. (Yonhap)
By Kim Bo-eun



The government granted special pardons for 6,444 people including former lawmaker Chung Bong-ju, Friday. They are the first pardons to be granted by the Moon Jae-in administration.



The pardons were mostly granted for the socially vulnerable. Business tycoons and politicians involved in corruption, as well as those convicted of violent crimes such as murder and rape, were excluded.



Included on the list were migrant workers, elderly and ill convicts, those who are imprisoned with their children and those who committed theft due to harsh living conditions.



Moon earlier pledged to subject business tycoons involved in embezzlement or malpractice to strict penalties and limit pardons for them as a means to put an end to the long-continued practice of excusing chaebol owners.



"The pardons have been granted to alleviate the burden on the working classes who face difficulties due to criminal punishment or administrative measures, and to provide them an opportunity to return to society," Justice Minister Park Sang-ki said.



Former lawmaker Chung is the only politician on the list. Chung raised suspicions against former President Lee Myung-bak over ownership of BBK, a financial firm involved in an investment fraud scandal, when Lee was a candidate for the 2007 presidential election. Chung was sentenced to one year in prison for violating the election law.



Chung, who completed his sentence and was released in 2012, had been deprived of electoral eligibility until 2022, but it has been restored based on the special pardon.



Also included on the list were 25 tenants of Yongsan District 4 in Seoul, who were part of a violent conflict surrounding a redevelopment project in 2009.



The residents resisted eviction by fortifying themselves on a building rooftop along a busy street. Police attempted a daring raid on Jan. 20, 2009, using a crane to lift a construction crate filled with anti-terrorist riot police to the roof. A fire broke out, killing five evictees and one police officer.



In addition, the government pardoned 1.65 million who are subject to administrative penalties such as the cancellation and suspension of drivers' licenses as well as fishing licenses, if their livelihoods depend on it.



Those who were found guilty of drunk driving, causing fatal accidents or being involved in reckless driving, were excluded.



Han Sang-kyun, chief of one of the nation's two largest umbrella unions, who is serving a three-year term for orchestrating a mass anti-government rally under the conservative Park Geun-hye administration in 2015, was excluded from the list.



Also excluded were residents of Jeju Island who faced judicial action for opposing the construction of a naval base there.



Lee Seok-ki, former lawmaker of a now-defunct ultra-progressive party, who is serving a nine-year term for "instigating plots to topple the government," was also excluded.


Corporate sector needs to do more to help working parents



President Moon Jae-in has been vocal about the need to boost the nation's falling birthrate, but has failed to back up his words with effective policies. The latest meeting of the Presidential Committee on Low Birth and Aging Society earlier this week failed to produce any convincing measures that will encourage Koreans to have more babies.



The number of newborns has continued to decline this year. A Statistics Korea report showed only around 27,000 babies were born in October, down 11.7 percent from the same month last year. From January to October, 306,000 babies were born, which is 12.2 percent less than the same period last year. Korea's birthrate, the number of children a woman is expected to have during her lifetime, has plummeted to around 1.06, which is one of the lowest among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.



The report also showed more than 36 percent of newlywed couples did not have children last year. These numbers reflect the growing trend among young Koreans to shun having babies.



President Moon said that the past governments have not been successful in boosting childbirth. "The birthrate policies so far have failed," the President said during the committee's meeting Tuesday. The committee is chaired by the President and consists of officials from relevant ministries and experts. "Since 2006, more than 100 trillion won has been spent on raising the birthrate, but still not much has changed. From now on, we must have a completely different approach to the problem," Moon said, stressing more state support should be provided to parents.



One of the reasons for the failure of the birthrate policies is they have been scattered among various ministries. That is why it is important for the Moon administration to establish a cabinet ministry for birthrate policies, similar to the ones in countries like Japan that have been successful in turning their birthrates around. Korea needs a separate ministry for birthrate policies for maximum effect.



The committee announced some new measures, such as enabling fathers to take longer family leaves and reducing work hours for parents with young children.



These measures are ultimately aimed at enabling parents to have more time with their children and improving the quality of their lives. But none of these measures will be fruitful unless the corporate sector significantly changes its culture to become more family-friendly and promote work-life balance for working mothers and fathers.




By Oh Young-jin





At my office on Christmas Day, I received an inquiry from a reader about an article on Facebook that was attributed to The Korea Times.



I checked and found the problematic article, which by most appearances looked at first glance like an authentic and legitimate news story about an alleged biological attack in northern Seoul.



The "article," bedecked with dateline and credit, claimed that the attack triggered an evacuation and was believed to be the work of North Korean and/or British agents. It was datelined: "SEOUL, South Korea (Dec.25, 2017) and credited "Complied for The Korea Times from Agencies."



I called the writer and told him that it was not acceptable. He obliged. Minutes later, when I checked back, the attribution was changed and the Korea Herald took the fall, with the credit attributed to a gibberish name that unmistakably sounded like the name of our competition.



Then I rechecked and found the article was yanked altogether, replaced by the writer's explanation attributing the withdrawal to the fear of panic similar to that triggered by Orson Welles' radio adaption of H.G. Wells' "The War of Worlds."



Before it was removed, I posted a statement saying that it was a dangerous example of fake news and our paper reserved the right to resort to legal action against the writer. The statement was aimed at protecting our paper's reputation and the integrity of our reporting to ensure readers can count on what we say. After all, the media's primary mission is to inform the public and help it make critical decisions, perhaps including ones that can make a difference between life and death.

Understandably, there were some sympathetic posts for the writer besides rebellious and knee-jerk sniping at my post.

One may claim the fake story had parts that could signal to readers that it was not serious and intended as a prank to chase away Christmas boredom. In other words, not fake news, but a joke.



One post called it an attempt in the tradition of satirizing  using irony, sarcasm, ridicule or the like in exposing, denouncing and deriding folly or vice. The logic goes that anybody who fails to appreciate the satirical ethos behind it should be taken to lack humor.



Another observed that it was "just" Facebook, wondering aloud who would take it seriously.



With no offense intended, we want to ask them to realize that we don't belong to the good old days of Welles, back in the 1930s. We are living in the Facebook age.



Eighty years ago in 1938, Welles was credited as a master who made gullible listeners believe his drama that an alien invasion was actually under way. Some panicky people took to the streets. I bet it was a small turnout and the level of panic it caused bordered on amusement.



Facebook is a different animal. Billions of people use it all over the world (including some in China), disgorging, regurgitating, producing and consuming "tons" of information  some true, some false, some on the borderline, some satirizing, some libelous, some fictional, some documentary, etc. True, it is each user's responsibility to guard against falsehood in cyberspace. But it is not hard to imagine how one of those billions or two or three or thousands or millions would take one piece of (mis- or dis-)information  false or true  and act on it, or how it would pique herd mentality and cause a stampede  triggering a bank run, a revolution, a stock market crash, an assassination and what not.

Sounds far-fetched? True, but these worst-case scenarios can't be ruled out when one remembers how fake news on Facebook is seen as having affected the 2016 U.S. presidential election.



Here is one known case. The fake news site Denver Guardian reported that a special agent, investigating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's leaked email case, had committed suicide  and it went viral. Some must have been affected to change their vote or become more convinced of their favorite, not being able to fact check it before the election three days later.



In the election, Clinton beat Republican rival and ultimate winner Donald Trump in the popular vote but lost in Electoral College tallies. The election was more of a nail biter than it looked, making one wonder whether fake news made the difference.



It is anybody's guess how many cases of fake news are circulating on Facebook and what impact they are having on our daily life.



That stream of fake news makes up for incessant voice phishing attempts to victimize any unsuspecting people, like an imposter telling a mom that her child has been in an accident and asking for a large sum of money via wire transfer. That mom would be swept by concern and send the money without thinking twice. The regret would come too late. You could be that mom.



A crisis of trust is already happening on Facebook. Dealing with this spreading cyber disease is a tall order for Mark Zuckerberg, or he is not trying hard enough for fear of damaging his internet empire. He was chided after the U.S. election and pledged to fight fake news.



The made-up story about the bio attack in Seoul is only good for reminding us of the dismal situation we are in. We never know what fake story will add a straw that can help eventually break the camel's back of trust and turn Facebook into a sea of fake news.





Oh Young-jin (foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com ) is the managing editor of the Digital Korea Times.


By Jhoo Dong-chan



China and Japan are mobilizing all their national capabilities to secure overseas mines across the globe for battery production while Korea is standing idly by in what could become a resource war.



According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Korea invested $2.78 billion in overseas resources development projects last year. This is only 3 percent compared of what China invested _ $82.35 billion in the same period



Japan, in the meantime, spent $106.9 billion to develop overseas mines to secure resources for battery production, including cobalt, manganese and lithium.



China's state energy firms have already secured deals at most of the cobalt mines in the Congo Democratic Republic, the country with the world's largest cobalt reserves. It also recently signed a deal with the Bolivian government to build a lithium battery plant in the country while Korea withdrew from the bidding.



A Chinese firm has also secured the management rights of the Talison lithium mine, the world's largest lithium reserve, in Australia, and is the largest shareholder of the Mount Marion Lithium Project in West Australia.



Toyota Tsusho, Japanese carmaker Toyota's trading affiliate, has joined the resource race by establishing a joint venture with Australian mineral explorer Orocobre in 2010. Prime Minister Abe Shinjo also recently visited five Latin American countries, including Chile, Columbia, Mexico and Brazil, to deliver its intention to invest their crude and shale gas projects.



The United States is even reviewing its plan to deploy troops additionally to Afghanistan where over $1 trillion worth of natural resources such as lithium, cobalt and rare earth materials are abundant.



Blaming the former Lee Myung-bak administration's energy diplomacy as a total failure, however, the government has since reduced its investment in developing overseas resource reserves.



The government invested $11.4 billion to develop overseas mines under the Lee administration in 2011, but cut the investment in five years by a quarter.



It also completely slashed its loan program budget for overseas energy-related operations last year.



Highlighting the importance of the upcoming battle for battery-related resources, it revived the program by allocating 100 billion won this year, but has so far only committed to spending 32 billion won.



Industry insiders said it's already too late and the investment hasn't been enough.



"China has carried out its full-scale mine development project along with Tesla's announcement for the Model 3 production in March last year. But, I've got a call from a Korean firm for the first time this March," Australian Mines Managing Director Benjamin Bell was quoted as saying.



"If the Korean government is not directly involved in the related project, the nation is likely to keep depending on Chinese raw material support and eventually experience difficulties in securing resources for battery production. It is now, or never."


By Jhoo Dong-chan



Old diesel cars will not be allowed to enter 17 cities in Gyeonggi Province next year, the local government said Friday.



The 17 cities are: Suwon, Ansan, Gunpo, Uiwang, Gwacheon, Anyang, Gwangmyeong, Siheung, Bucheon, Seongnam, Hanam, Namyangju, Guri, Uijeongbu, Yangju, Goyang and Gimpo.



The decision follows an agreement between Gyeonggi Province, Seoul and Incheon Metropolitan Government from August last year.



The Seoul government implemented it this year.



And Incheon and Gyeonggi Province will prohibit the entrance of old diesel vehicles into their areas next year.



Under the decision, the 17 cities will have a guidance period for six months and then crack down on old diesel vehicle drivers starting July 1.



Over 12-year-old diesel vehicles weighing more than 2.5 tons that fail to pass emissions test are subject to the new regulation. The fine will be 200,000 won ($187).



In 2020, another 11 cities in Gyeonggi Province, including Yongin and Gwangju, will join the move, the local government added.



In a bid to enhance the crackdown, the local government said it will add surveillance cameras in 51 areas in the 17 cities by June.



About 483,900 old diesel vehicles are registered in Gyeonggi Province. Of them, 405,200 cars have yet to install emissions reduction devices.






Ucoms mobile customers will benefit from the best internet roaming rate of 8 AMD/MB when travelling to Georgia, Egypt or the UAE

Ameriabank Launches Google Pay and Google Wallet Support for Card Users in Armenia

Karen Vardanyan donated 112 million drams for the medical equipment for National Center for Infectious Diseases.

UCOM HAS INTRODUCED FUTURE NETWORK WI-FI 6E ROUTERS

Statement by the Spokesperson on the conflict resolution and reconciliation efforts

Foreign Minister of Armenia to participate in the Fifth Paris Peace Forum

Armenia: EU and Armenia Hold annual Dialogue on Human Rights

Todays Shushi, Occupied and Cleared of Armenians, is a Real Example of Turkish-Azerbaijani Policy of Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh

Ookla, the the global leader in internet testing and analysis has awarded Ucom

Sweden will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union

Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH

SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

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Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS

There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces
Exercising during holiday season combats calories, improves mental health The cookies are baked and that glass of milk has been set out for Santa but you find yourself low on energy and need to combat those holiday blues. The...

Winter an ideal time to beef up lawns, plant new additions The recent week-long visit of late-summer warmth may have been a distraction from the seasonal change on the horizon, but the piling up pin oak and maple droppings  combined...
PRESS RELEASE

The Astana/Sochi Plan for Peace in Syria

Dec. 28, 2017 (EIRNS)Russias grand planwith Turkey and Iranfor the upcoming Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi, Russia, provides an inspiring image of what is possible for mankind now, especially if Presidents Putin, Xi Jinping and Trump work in tandem. Sputnik News Service transcribed and posted a special interview yesterday with Alexander Lavrentyev, the Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Syria. The Syrian National Dialogue Congress will be a two-day gathering, Jan. 29-30, of roughly 1,500 envoys from every section and faction of Syrian society which wants to move from armed conflict to negotiations.

"We have proposed to invite a certain number of representatives of, for example, Sunnites, Alawites, Christians, Kurds, and the Arab tribes whose sheikhs command authority and whose opinion can make a difference, who will express their opinion on in which direction the country should move."

Only the terrorists and those who want to continue fighting will be excluded.

Further on this inclusivity: Among all the others, the Syrian Kurds will also be fully represented. Turkey has vetoed participation by the PYD which governs most of the northern Kurdish enclaves in Syria, but Lavrentyev said,

"I think the leadership of the PYD understands that there is no point in insisting that the party take part. The most important thing for them should be to see their interests taken into account through the presence of other representatives of the Kurdish diaspora. So I think it is less of a problem than some tend to believe."

The next Geneva meeting on Syria will be convened on about Jan. 21. But the Russians, the Turks and Iran are asking UN representative de Mistura to get United Nations endorsement for the Sochi meeting and to attend it himself as well. "We are counting on it and we have told him so." The U.S. has not weighed in, but Lavrentyev thinks the U.S. would be invited to observe if it wishes.

Only two days for such a big conference? Lavrentyev said that it would have a tight, structured agenda, to lead towards the next step, which is to begin consultations towards a new Constitution for Syriain a legal fashion under the current Constitution. A long, unstructured congress might degenerate into squabbling. He said that delegates who want to discuss getting rid of President Assad should stay homeit is clear that they only want to continue the armed struggle. And only Syrians will have speaking rightsthey must determine among themselves how their country is going to work. All of this as laid out in UNSC Resolution 2254.

"For us the most important thing is for the intra-Syrian dialogue to be inclusive, that is, that all the social strata be represented, and then let them come to an agreement among themselves."

The international community is not doing enough to help,

"but the most important thing is that these should be efforts in the right direction. The boat of the Syrian settlement should be just one, and everyone should be in it and row in the same direction. If we row in different directions, then we will be spinning in one place..."

The Astana guarantors power of Russia, Iran and Turkey have also established a committee for exchange of prisoners in Syria, intending to mediate between the non-terrorist parties there to exchange prisoners and thus increase mutual trust and confidence.

The whole thing is really quite a concept.

In reflections from the U.S.President Trump tweeted on Dec. 27,

"On 1/20 - the day Trump was inauguratedan estimated 35,000 ISIS fighters held approx 17,500 square miles of territory in both Iraq and Syria. As of 12/21, the U.S. military estimates the remaining 1,000 or so fighters occupy roughly 1,900 square miles."

And in a Pentagon briefing the same day, British Maj. Gen Felix Gedney, representing the U.S.-led "Coalition," said that U.S. forces would no longer operate in areas of Syria controlled by its government. "We will continue to deconflict with the Russians, but we have got no intention to operate in areas that are currently held by the regime," Gedney said, according to Reuters.
All thats left of the onions at the Wheeler Farms shed here is the smell. The only crop around it is the field of discarded shopping bags flagged to the thorns of desert weeds.

For cannabis power couple Lisa and Bob Selan, though, this drive-by plot of high desert in suburban Antelope Valley could be a cornerstone of Los Angeles medical marijuana market, which is days from expanding to include any adult who wants to take off the edge.

The Selans, whose clients include the largest cannabis dispensary organization in Los Angeles, hope to convert more than 45 acres of land into cannabis campuses, akin to movie studio lots, where pot entrepreneurs large and small can grow cannabis and convert it into medical products.

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If all of the couples plans work out, they could be offering more than a million square feet at the Lancaster onion plant, the surrounding land, and a second property they hope to purchase near Fox Field airport.

Already, legacy medical marijuana businesses looking to expand into the recreational, or adult-use, market have snapped up all of the 54,000 square feet in the onion plants refrigerated cold storage, amid worries that they wont be able to keep up with supply pressure caused by the expanding market.

They are coming in pretty much from all over, but primarily from Los Angeles, Bob Selan said. Very few people have enough space to even grow enough for their shop.

Like housing, malls, auto dealerships and big-box stores, cannabis is fleeing the city and taking the first exit where land is cheap, rules are reasonable and markets are still within reach.

In this case, that would be the W. Avenue I exit from the Antelope Valley Freeway, a 70-mile drive past Santa Clarita and Palmdale, which have opted to sit out the cannabis development wave for the time being.

(Swetha Kannan/Los Angeles Times )

Lancaster has never been short of land or aspiration, hitching its fortune to railroads, farming, mining, military bases, prisons, the aerospace industry and, more recently, to Chinese manufacturing.

Often, Lancaster has had to compete with neighboring cities and offer incentives. In this case, it only had to persuade City Council members to reverse previous bans and approve a tax of $15 per square foot for cannabis cultivation, or 3% of manufacturing revenue. That could add millions to the citys coffers, with relatively few costs, according to city officials.

Lancasters early gamble on the Los Angeles market wont pay off for months. But time is on the citys side. On Jan. 1, when California makes marijuana legal for all adults, Los Angeles will become the largest urban retail market for marijuana in the country  without any certainty about where all that pot will come from.

Regulations adopted just weeks ago by Los Angeles are so complicated that even a cottage industry of cannabis attorneys, like the Selans, cant figure out where it can be grown or distilled into other products.

I think come January 1, its going to be a mess, said Hilary Bricken, an attorney specializing in cannabis regulation. Its going to be a nightmare.

Bricken said she cant be sure yet whether convoluted formulas and limits will allow one of her developer clients to offer tens of thousands of square feet in Chatsworth to large-scale businesses, or just 350 square feet for micro-cultivators.

Just logistically speaking, with the amount of uncertainty and these complicated calculations, I dont think L.A. is going to be a hub for manufacturing and cultivation, Bricken said. I think its going to be a distribution-delivery hub, heavily focused on tourism, and not so much on the manufacturing and cultivation side.

That has left it to smaller cities to leap into the cannabis space on an a-la-carte basis.

While Long Beach, Lynwood and Maywood, for example, picked all of the above  commercial dispensaries, cultivation, manufacturing, distribution and testing  Calabasas banned everything but home delivery.

Lancaster voted in February to permit cultivation and manufacture of medical marijuana only, reversing previous bans to become the only city in the Antelope Valley to embrace the cannabis economy.

Cannabis was not an easy sell in a city known for its Christian conservatism. Longtime Mayor Rex Parris presided over a ban on cannabis-related businesses in 2009. A year later, he drew controversy when he publicly boasted that he was growing a Christian community in the city.

Parris said he became convinced of marijuanas pain-management benefits after having surgery in 2016 to remove a cyst on his brain  an example he used to persuade the city council. The Selans also took city officials on tours of marijuana facilities in Los Angeles.

Bob and Lisa Selan were among the cannabis entrepreneurs who flocked to Desert Hot Springs two years ago. They helped Los Angeles craft Proposition D, passed in 2013, that granted immunity to the citys marijuana dispensaries. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times )

The Selans are rainmakers in the marijuana market  persuading cities to draft ordinances, then crafting real estate deals around those rules. They helped Los Angeles write Proposition D, passed in 2013, which granted immunity to the citys marijuana dispensaries.

The couple were among the entrepreneurs who flocked to Desert Hot Springs two years ago, when that city launched plans to become a regional cannabis hub. Daunted by the challenge of bringing electrical power and other infrastructure to the desert sites, they since have slimmed down plans there in favor of Lancaster, which already has that infrastructure.

Besides the 12 acres at the onion plant, purchased for $5.4 million in cash in October, the couple are eyeing 32 acres near Fox Field airport, where at least one other developer is offering cannabis-permitted space.

The Selans hope to offer turnkey facilities with roofs that take advantage of sunlight.

Were trying to make it very simple for them, Bob Selan said. Weve thought of everything. Weve hired cannabis efficiency experts who are designing the interior of the spaces. They can utilize our people or not.

One thing the future tenants cant do, however, is sell to the recreational market.

Theres people approaching us now to represent them that want to be in the adult space, but weve told them they cant go to Lancaster  at least not now, Bob Selan said.

We really respect that, Lisa Selan said. Lets do it the way they want it, and see what happens.

geoffrey.mohan@latimes.com

Follow me: @LATgeoffmohan

UPDATES:

Jan. 2, 2:40 p.m.: This article was updated with information from Lancaster Mayor Rex Parris.

This article was originally published Dec. 29, 2017 at 11 a.m.
The Golden Globes are a week from Sunday. I dont know about you, but Ill be using the long New Years weekend to finish watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, SMILF and a couple of other backlogged shows to make sure Im caught up before the ceremony.

Welcome to the Gold Standard, the newsletter from the Los Angeles Times that helps guide you through the ins and outs of the awards season leading up to the Oscars.

Im Glenn Whipp, The Times awards columnist, your newsletter host and the guy who thinks New Years Eve is overrated.

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Golden Globes preview

Who will win the Globe for motion picture drama this year? I can honestly say that I have no idea, which I realize isnt particularly helpful. But it is indicative of the unpredictable state of this years awards season. You could make a case for any one of the five nominees  Call Me by Your Name, Dunkirk, The Post, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri  and youd probably convince me that youre correct.

I went with The Shape of Water, as it picked up a leading seven nominations, so more than a few of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.s 89 voting members must like it. I make other predictions too  presented with slightly more conviction.

In this weeks issue of the Los Angeles Times Envelope, we interview Globes television nominees Rachel Brosnahan (marvelous as Mrs. Maisel), SMILFs Frankie Shaw, and the great Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks: The Return, which, somehow, Santa forgot to leave under the tree). Well have plenty more coverage leading up to next weeks show, so stay tuned.

Big Sick cast members Ray Romano, Zoe Kazan, Kumail Nanjiami and Holly Hunter. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times )

Whats in store for The Big Sick at the Oscars?

The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. completely ignored the years best comedy, The Big Sick, despite the fact that they have separate categories entirely devoted to movie comedies (and musicals). But then, Im glad someone enjoyed The Greatest Showman. (Maybe theyre angling for Hugh Jackman to host the show next year?)

We spoke to the The Big Sicks fine quartet of actors  Ray Romano, Zoe Kazan, Kumail Nanjiami and Holly Hunter  a group (along with Adeel Akhtar, Anupam Kher and Zenobia Shroff) that the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominated for its movie ensemble honor.

The Big Sick looks to be on the bubble right now in the best picture Oscar race, its fate dependent on the size of this years nominations class. (Will it be eight or nine?) Nanjiani and his wife, Emily V. Gordon, are strong contenders for their original screenplay, a category that is ridiculously crowded. Hunter stands as the movies safest Oscar bet for her superb supporting turn as the films caring mother.

Gary Oldman talks Churchill; Times writers share favorite movie characters

Gary Oldman looks nothing like Winston Churchill, which is why he turned down the opportunity to play the British prime minister years ago. But when director Joe Wright came calling with Darkest Hour, Oldman had a change of heart  provided he could convince legendary makeup artist Kazuhiro Tsuji to transform him into Churchill.

Now Tsuji and Oldman are prohibitive Oscar favorites. Oldman explained how it all came together at a recent Envelope Screening Series presentation of Darkest Hour.

And as the year comes to an end, Times film critics Kenneth Turan, Justin Chang, Mark Olsen, Jen Yamato and yours truly picked our favorite movie characters from 2017. I guarantee you its the only place youll find Stefan Zweig and Dina from Girls Trip mentioned on the same list.

Happy new year!

Feedback?

Id love to hear from you. Email me at glenn.whipp@latimes.com.

Cant get enough about awards season? Follow me at @glennwhipp on Twitter.

glenn.whipp@latimes.com

Twitter: @glennwhipp
The recent article An Arts Plaza for All of L.A. [Dec. 20] reported on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approval to spend $30 million (plus an additional $10 million directly from the Music Centers purse) for the renovation of the Music Center Plaza. This shows the very wrongheaded approach that the supervisors and others at the Music Center have taken for the past half-century regarding a public complex built with and largely supported by taxpayer money, turning it into a second rate bus-and-truck company stop.

With the cheapest ticket for a seat way up in the rafters for the current production of Something Rotten! at the Ahmanson, the price for a family of four, especially when one adds the absurdly high cost of parking, is beyond what most families can afford.

Daniel Sherkow

Los Angeles

Avoiding the casting couch

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I was reading some of the letters in Feedback [Dec. 24] re: Not Business as Usual [Dec. 17]. I wondered, if so many women and some men have come out and identified themselves with the #MeToo movement, why didnt they get together and do something about it earlier? People who had been victimized, especially celebrities, could have created organizations (production companies, talent agencies) that would have helped others avoid the pitfalls of the legendary casting couch syndrome. I understand they needed the backing and parts in movies and TV to boost their careers, but when they finally made it why not help others? Why not bring these issues to light years ago? Perhaps all this could have been minimized if people in power knew they were being monitored or turned in to the authorities.

Sandra Shields

Palmdale

A dancer also falls, but why

Regarding Quick Takes: NYC Ballet Dancer Resigns [Dec. 22]: Marcelo Gomes, principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, was accused of sexual misconduct. Although nothing was proven, he resigned his position. For many years, he gave his heart and soul to his employer, the ABT. This is how they repaid him: ABT does not tolerate this alleged behavior. I wish a group of high-profile donors would tell ABT: We do not tolerate closed minds and your view that Gomes is guilty until proved innocent.

David Tulanian

Las Vegas

Considering a maestros life

Re: Artistry Is Under a Dark Cloud by Mark Swed (Dec. 24): Mark Swed describes James Levine as the ultimate maestro at the Met and around the world. His brilliance has contributed beyond measure to the world of music as well as to his mentoring of newer conductors and musicians through the years. He also has flaws, which unfortunately hurt others years ago.

Sweds article asks whether we can let those lapses diminish the awe, admiration and respect he has earned for unparalleled artistry for almost half a century. Perhaps if maestro Levine can find redemption, in his own meaningful way, it would be easier to move forward in todays climate. We may have to acknowledge that for better or worse, life sometimes seems to be a package deal.

Roberta Beierfeld

Los Angeles

Women of color were missing

As an Angeleno, white woman and film fan I was deeply upset to see only white women grace the cover of your latest issue and be interviewed as leading actresses of Hollywood [The Envelope: A Shift in Focus, Dec. 21]. Was Salma Hayek not available? Mary J. Blige? Zoe Saldana? Tessa Thompson? Penelope Cruz? The cast of Girls Trip, the biggest comedy of the year? These are just the obvious recent ones...

In todays conversation about the importance of diversity in film (remember the backlash to the Oscars?), why would you perpetuate the position that only white women can hold places of power

Wendy McClellan? Anderson

Altadena

Critic nails movies failures

Regarding Hows That for a Con Job? [Dec. 20]: Plaudits to Justin Chang for his dead-on panning of The Greatest Showman. He aptly concludes that the films failures stem from a dispiriting lack of faith in the audiences intelligence and a dawning awareness of its own aesthetic hypocrisy.

Who wouldnt agree that Changs powerful take applies beyond the big screens realm? Surely most readers feel that one or the other (or both) major political parties today have lost faith in voters intelligence yet barely have begun to perceive their own peremptory hypocrisy.

Betty Turner

Sherman Oaks

A Hedy Lamarr film to catch

Regarding Hedy Lamarrs Heady Life [Dec. 13]: What an enlightening and terrific documentary. Not only was she a knockout, but a brilliant inventor. Lets hope the academy rewards the filmmaker with an Oscar.

Robert Stuart Richards

Canyon Country

calendar.letters@latimes.com
Here are the 2018 SAG Awards nominees reactions to their nods

The on-camera talent recognized during the 24th Screen Actors Guild Award nominations on Wednesday shared their excitement and gratitude for the special honor bestowed upon them by the acting community.

The SAG Awards serve up laurels for actors and ensemble casts working in television and film as voted by their peers. The awards show, hosted by The Good Place star Kristen Bell, will take place on Jan. 21.

LIST: The 2018 SAG Award nominees

In statements to the Los Angeles Times, several nominees repeatedly thanked their drama families, particularly the casts and crews of their respective projects. Heres what some of them had to say about the recognition:

Alison Brie. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Alison Brie, GLOW

It is such a great honor to be recognized by my fellow actors with this nomination. I am so proud to be part of a show that celebrates the craft of acting, with all its pitfalls and glories, and to be able to work with such a diverse group of insanely talented women. GLOW has meant the world to me and Im deeply thankful for this recognition for me and the cast. Thank you SAG-AFTRA!!

Millie Bobby Brown. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Millie Bobby Brown, Stranger Things

Screen Actors Guild! Thank you SO much for recognizing me and our cast for the second year in a row! This means the world coming from you, our peers. I am so lucky and honored to have the privilege of playing Eleven  a strong, powerful, badass, strange, wonderful character! Cant wait to celebrate with my Stranger Things family!

Timothee Chalamet. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Timothee Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name

What an incredible morning! This nomination is very close to my heart because its from the actor. When we made Call Me By Your Name, we had no idea what it would turn into. The experience in making the film with Armie [Hammer] was so special, and yet, we just didnt know. Simply put, Ive been blown away by the response this film has received. And, to be included in ensemble along with my Lady Bird family (congrats, Saoirse [Ronan]!) makes this recognition that much more special.

David Harbour. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

David Harbour, Stranger Things

If it isnt wildly apparent by now, Ill say it directly  I love actors! To be recognized by my peers in such distinguished company gives me a special joy. And Millie [Bobby Brown] and the show! Beyond.

When I act, when I create, I feel alive, full to bursting, and I feel of service to the mysterious goodness that firmly exists in this world. I have been rewarded with a life that indulges in the primacy of self, but at its core and at its purest and its best, it is a life of service. A service to audiences. To prod and poke when necessary, to comfort and entertain when times seem dark, to ever expand the human experience, to offer a reason to live, to celebrate to the gods the great gift and scourge that is consciousness. Sometimes it means expressing iron intellect and rigorous truth that bonds us all in the achingly profound wisdom of no escape. Sometimes it means revealing the intimate moments of endurance, of unexpected kindness, unasked for love. And sometimes it simply means making a fierce and joyful noise, to spin, to twirl, to throw your hands up with the relentless dips and climb aboard this roller coaster of life. Ya know, to dance. *insert Hopper dancing gif*

Thank you for recognizing me, as it might mean itll be easier to get more jobs doing it.

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water

I am beyond thrilled to have received the honor of this nomination. And to receive it from fellow colleagues is huge to me. Guillermo [del Toro], this film and the entire cast and crew hold a very special place in my heart and always will. Each and every one of them made me better. I am truly delighted more than I can really express in words but my heart is fit to burst with pride for us all. Thank you dearest SAG members. Thank you for your embrace.

Sean Hayes. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Sean Hayes, Will & Grace

I am so honored to be recognized in this category with these extraordinary actors. I love acting because I love actors. I also like to bake sometimes.

Richard Jenkins. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water

I am thrilled and humbled to be nominated by my peers for a SAG Award. This union is very close to my heart. Well, the SAG card is in my wallet, so its a little further south.

Zoe Kazan. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Zoe Kazan, The Big Sick

Thank you to SAG for honoring The Big Sick ensemble with a nomination. It means so much to us, especially from our acting peers. I am deeply proud to be a part of this film and to have brought Kumail [Nanjiani] and Emily [V. Gordon]s story into the world, especially at this time. We are particularly moved to have been recognized as an ensemble, as this was such an extraordinary collaborative experience Im excited to be reunited once more with my movie family, and to share this with Kumail, Holly [Hunter], Ray [Romano], Zenobia [Shroff], Anupam [Kher], and Adeel [Akhtar] and everyone else who helped bring The Big Sick to life.

Nicole Kidman. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Nicole Kidman, Big Little Lies

What an amazing morning! Thank you to SAG-AFTRA for recognizing Big Little Lies in such a significant way. Ive been acting since I was 14 and have dedicated an enormous amount of my life to my craft so to be acknowledged by my acting family is the most incredible honor.

Jason Bateman and Laura Linney. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Laura Linney, Ozark

I am so proud to be included in a list of such wonderful actresses who have raised the bar so high. What an amazing year for women in television. And I am especially proud to be representing Ozark with my TV spouse, the ever deserving Jason Bateman! Thank you SAG-AFTRA!

Marc Maron. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Marc Maron, GLOW

I am stunned and excited to be recognized by other actors in this way. I really never thought this was possible in my life. It helps to be surrounded by amazing actors and to have such a defined and well written character as Sam Sylvia and to be on a show as unique as GLOW. I am just a small part. So, thanks SAG for recognizing me and the mind-blowing ensemble that is GLOW.

Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, The Big Sick

We are so lucky to have been graced with the enormous talents of every single member of our cast. They each put a piece of themselves into our story and we are thrilled at being recognized. Thank you. And a special shout out to Holly Hunters individual nomination!

Now we have to go tell our real parents that they arent actually nominated.

Bob Odenkirk. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul

I am thrilled to get this nomination from my fellow actors! At Better Call Saul I am surrounded by an ensemble of excellence  Michael McKean, Rhea Seehorn, Jonathan Banks, everybody raises my game. Thank you to SAG-AFTRA.

Gary Oldman. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Gary Oldman, The Darkest Hour

No actor could ever deny the special satisfaction that comes from being recognized by your fellow artists  we all share the same challenges, insecurities, and uncertainties, chief among them, the question am I any good? this nomination, and in the wonderful company of the other nominees, is so very satisfying.

Margot Robbie. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Margot Robbie, I, Tonya

Im so incredibly moved and excited to be nominated by my fellow actors. I feel very fortunate to be able to have had the opportunity to bring Tonyas story to the big screen. Thank you to Steven [Rogers] for his brilliant and unique script, to Allison [Janney] and Sebastian [Stan] for being such incredible screen partners and to Craig [Gillespie] for his amazing direction and perfectly capturing the tone and essence of the film. Im so honored to be recognized among the truly powerful and wonderful women in the category. I cant wait to celebrate with everyone.

Sam Rockwell. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

It is such an honor to be nominated by your fellow actors, I have been a proud member of the Screen Actors Guild for as long as I can remember. To share it with this wonderful ensemble whom I have had the pleasure to work with over the years and others I got to collaborate with for the first time is truly special. I want to thank Martin McDonagh, our director and writer, for crafting these characters, as well as Woody [Harrelson], Fran [McDormand] and the rest of the cast who brought the town of Ebbing to life on screen. I am thrilled.

Ray Romano. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Ray Romano, The Big Sick

This is awesome but I wont believe it till the recount.
Peter Turners twinkling eyes scan the weekday crowd at Naten Al delicatessen as he nestles into a corner booth with Jamie Bell, who plays him in the new drama Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool.

Everybody comes here. All different kinds, says Turner, whose 1986 memoir chronicled his bittersweet love affair with Hollywood star Gloria Grahame, who died at 57 in 1981. Last time I was here, Robert Wagner was sitting over there. You have people who are at the top of the tree and people who havent made it. Its like Hollywood on a sandwich.

Turner was a young aspiring actor when he met Grahame, nearly three decades his senior, in a London boarding house. She was a Hollywood siren at the tail end of a career that began with films like Blonde Fever (1944) and Its a Wonderful Life (1946). She won an Academy Award for her turn in 1952s The Bad and the Beautiful.

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The two bonded over disco dancing and theater and became friends and then lovers. After a tough separation, Turner was home in Britain when he got a call. Gloria was sick and wanted to spend what would eventually be her final days with him.

Their love story comes to life in Film Stars with sensitivity and crackling chemistry between Bell and Annette Bening, who plays the enigmatically charismatic Grahame, a onetime femme fatale still searching for happiness after a tumultuous Hollywood career, several failed marriages and an intensely private battle with cancer.

Awash with fond memories, Turner orders the house pastrami and tells the story of the special place Naten Als holds in his history with Grahame.

When I come back here to California, I always come and check it out again, because this was the very first place I came to with Gloria Grahame, says Turner, the torch bearer of her legacy, speaking her full name with love. Once, Zsa Zsa [Gabor] was here. Jolie Gabor [Zsa Zsa and Evas mother] tried to school Gloria in how to be a young film star, but it didnt happen, so Zsa Zsa was like the bane of her life. We went to the theater and it was the opening night of Evita and we walked in and somebody said, Hello, Gloria. We turned around and it was Zsa Zsa.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Turner still feels at home in California, where his relationship with Grahame turned into a shared life. We used to live in the Pacific Palisades, so I love just driving down the coast  the sunset, the grunion running. We went to Magic Mountain with her kids. Wed just drive around in a little Honda car. Even the names of the stores used to excite me: Sears!

He laughs, gazing around. It has these memories, this vibe about it.

Actor Jamie Bell, right, plays real-life Peter Turner, left, in the film Film Stars Dont Die In Liverpool. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times )

Bell, 31, shares an easy rapport with the man he plays on-screen, despite having minimal interaction with the real Turner before filming. Their friendship, though, deepened after making the movie.

Its always quite surreal, sitting with Peter, Bell says. I feel so aligned with him in so many ways.

The actor first met Turner at a birthday dinner for Film Stars producer Barbara Broccoli (best known for taking up the reins from her father, Albert Cubby Broccoli, on the James Bond films) before shooting began.

Instantly, there was this ease, Bell says of Turner. He puts people at ease immediately.

I was nervous, Turner says. I saw you come in through the door and thought, Should I go to say hello now or wait to be introduced? But I felt immediately secure with Jamie. Hes so perceptive and so knowing.

And what did he think of Bells portrayal after filming was finished?

I think [Jamie Bells] is an iconic performance on the level of when I saw Michael Caine in Alfie.  Peter Turner

I think [Bells] is an iconic performance on the level of when I saw Michael Caine in Alfie, Turner says. Albert Finney in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. As an actor, what he can say without saying anything is brilliant. But on a deep, personal level, hes the best thing thats ever happened to me. I just love him hugely.

Turner pauses, smiling. Are you going to cry?

Bell grins. Hes my cheerleader.

The feeling is mutual for the Billy Elliot and Adventures of Tintin star, who praises Turners story, adapted by screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh and directed by Paul McGuigan. In the film, we see Peters emotional journey unfold in waves of memory and re-memory as he processes the past, present and future of his relationship with Grahame.

Its beautiful. Love is a beautiful thing, but theres also an inevitability to it sometimes  that it has a life, and an end, Bell muses. I have a really horrible time with goodbyes myself, and I love a love that isnt completed. I think all the greatest love stories are the ones where they dont end up together. Theres an inevitability and a hopefulness as well, which is that that person has left you with something with which youll live out your entire life. Its beautifully tragic.

Bell, a self-declared romantic (I saw Titanic eight times.) wasnt familiar with Grahame and her story before the script found its way to him. But speaking with Turner and with Broccoli, who knew the couple in real life, opened his understanding of their connection.

She said they were incredibly ordinary, Bell says of Broccolis assessment. They were just two people who fit together.

Both men abound with admiration for Bening, whose layered take on the capricious Grahame brims with complexities seldom written into roles for women in Hollywood.

Annette Bening (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times )

Nobody wanted her to do an impersonation. What Annette wanted to do was to understand this woman who happened to be an actor, who happened to win an Academy Award and who happened to have had a turbulent life  and a misunderstood life, says Turner, who spoke with Bening in depth about Grahame. She said to me, I might not be exactly the Gloria Grahame who you knew, but what I promise is you I will be the Gloria Grahame that I now know, through you.

One element of Grahames life that history got wrong, Turner says, is how her time as an MGM and RKO contract star scarred her, made her image-conscious and spit her out; its one explanation for why she kept her battle with cancer secret from even close friends and family.

She was offered the role in Born Yesterday, but Howard Hughes punished her and wouldnt let her play the role because she didnt want to spend private time with him, Turner says. She was subject to that kind of abuse as well, being a woman in Hollywood at that time. But she didnt like to say too much, and she didnt give interviews. People got her wrong, but she didnt fight back. And she was also very stubborn.

I think more than anything, this level of expectation that has been put on women to look a certain way: Dont age, ever, and dont get sick and lose all your hair because we wont give you a job. The result of all of that has been suffering in silence, Bell says.

The films May-December romance has also brought scrutiny to the persistent, hypocritical way that Hollywood movies view and value older women.

Weve been asked a lot about why its such a stigma for a woman of a certain age to be portrayed romantically with a much younger man, and for that relationship to be a loving one and a complex one, a physical one and a sexual one, Bell says. Why does that make people feel uncomfortable? I think the answer is that women of a certain age have been written out of that narrative. You havent seen it enough. Were used to seeing a fiftysomething actor hanging out with a 20-year-old actress and we dont question it. Its a male gaze issue. Thats why we need more women running studios, more women writing stories, more women directing movies.

Were used to seeing a fiftysomething actor hanging out with a 20-year-old actress and we dont question it. Its a male gaze issue.  Jamie Bell

The love scenes Bell and Bening share give Film Stars a rapturously sensual charge, but one of the most romantic scenes, in which Peter and a gravely ill Gloria recite a passage from Romeo and Juliet, made Bell anxious  for a much different reason: Whenever youre dealing with something that you know is there for dramatic purposes, for me, its much more worrisome. Then [on top of that], having to do Shakespeare, which is something Ive never done before.

Turner, whod performed as Romeo onstage, turns to Bell. You should do Shakespeare because your verse-speaking is just so wonderfully natural and easy. Thats the key to speaking verse. Both of them were just so great in that scene. You should play Romeo.

Visiting the set during filming at Pinewood was in itself an emotional experience, not just for Turner.

People were crying everywhere, Turner says. Ive never heard silence before the way I heard it when Annette and Jamie were working. I watched the crew and it was all about the magic before them. I was enthralled by the whole thing.

In fact, watching Bell work has reinvigorated his own desire to act again.

Its beautifully told. Its beautifully crafted. Its beautifully measured. And, he says, its taught me to release something in me.

jen.yamato@latimes.com

@jenyamato

ALSO:

Why Annette Bening fans need to see Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool, the Gloria Grahame story

Annette Bening and Jamie Bell share a sweetly oddball love story in Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool

Classic Hollywood: Remembering Gloria Grahame before Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool
Veteran news anchor and reporter Soledad OBrien is ready to do crime. The former CNN, MSNBC and Al Jazeera America host now presents Oxygens Mysteries & Scandals, a true crime series she produced. For the show, she uses her journalist skills to reexamine headline-grabbing cases, from O.J. Simpsons Las Vegas heist to the deadly influence of Slenderman.

The series, which premieres Jan. 5, is one of many projects OBriens tackled since leaving daily journalism in 2013 to start her own production company, Starfish Media. In between producing multiple forthcoming shows and shooting her weekly syndicated political talk show Matter of Fact, the New York-based Harvard alum spoke with The Times about crime, the state of journalism and the freedom/responsibility that comes with being your own boss.

I spent many nights assuring my young son that Slenderman was not real so he wouldnt have nightmares. Was I wrong?

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I have to kill you if I tell you that.

Another crime story for your show.

I put Slenderman in Mysteries & Scandals because people believed he was real and that motivated them to do utterly horrific things. To dig into why is just fascinating. It doesnt matter if hes real or not if you believe in him and you act on that belief.

Youve made serious documentaries for CNN and Al Jazeera America on things like the opioid crisis and incarcerated women who raise their children behind bars. Is Mysteries & Scandals a total change of pace for you?

Ive been a reporter who covered crime. Ive been a producer who was dealing with crime stories on a national level. Most of these are cases Ive covered in some capacity, so its not totally new for me. [Back then] I literally sat on O.J. Simpsons mothers porch every day, begging her for an interview. But when I left day-to-day journalism and started the production company, the goal was to switch things up. And obviously crime is [a genre] thats really hot right now. We bring a journalistic eye to it. I like to focus on the motivations. How did this happen? I want to understand why someone does what they do.

Do you think youve been granted more access to insider angles on these stories because youre an established news figure as opposed to, say, a celebrity host?

I think I was able to leverage off that reputation very easily, because people know the stories Ive done [in the past] were complicated, challenging, dealing with race and class. Tricky stories. We navigate them in a way that people felt like theyre heard. We would never ambush anybody. Anyone who ever came on any show Ive done knew what we were going to talk about.

Now the work youre doing really matters. The stakes are high. It matters to speak up and say This thing is not true. This is the truth. Even on Twitter.  Soledad OBrien

Youve been at the center of broadcast journalism, with CNN, MSNBC, HBO, various morning shows, for some time now. What do you think about the state of journalism today?

Oh, no, I feel like you need to hand me a drink for this one [laughs]. Theres high value in journalistic voice, something that I wasnt sure was going to exist when I left day-to-day journalism. Now the work youre doing really matters. The stakes are high. It matters to speak up and say This thing is not true. This is the truth. Even on Twitter.

You are fearless on social media, especially involving matters that involve race equality. Yet you often manage to disarm arguments with reason and compassion, on a platform where those two things are in short supply.

Im not afraid to ask the questions that need to be asked. Some of that is that Im not 20 years old anymore. Whats amazing is that the worlds changed. Look at all the different and diverse stories that there are on all these different channels and platforms. But its not always easy. It feels bad a lot of the time, really bad, but I think were going to look back on this time and say it was really critical to speak up. And to have good journalism. A lot of things shifted and we all sort of went through a transformation in this era. But its exhausting. Arent you tired? Im so tired.

Yes. Theres no amount of coffee ...

Im waiting for 2018. Pretty sure things will calm down. Ha! Talk about cultural shifts. Theyre seismic. Seismic! Especially for women. Whats happening now, its crazy.

How do you feel about all these powerful men in the broadcast news world falling from allegations of sexual misconduct?

Im not really surprised. Things happened to me, nothing as dramatic as some of the things weve heard ... it was being groped, massaged, touched. The thing I find heartbreaking is women whose careers didnt go as far as they could in television because they figured, If I have to have a relationship with my boss in order to get an opportunity, then forget it, Im out. Thats the part thats so sad.

Still, theres been commentary out there about all the great men weve lost in the #MeToo tsunami.

How many women did we lose?! That is what were not even calculating. And you see how pervasive it is. Does this explain some of the lack of women in leadership positions in television news?

It seems any woman who has been in the industry long enough has a story.

There was a dinner I went to, and I was wearing a strapless dress, and this guy who was a famous anchorman came over and started massaging my chest and back. The contortions you do to get someone off of you. You do the quick duck and twist, like hey there! Its so interesting. If someone grabbed your handbag youd stand up and yell. But someone touches you inappropriately, and you do backflips to make everybody else at the table feel comfortable. I dont want anyone to think that Im not a get-along kind of gal. That I cant take it. That Im not a team player. That Im not good to work with. Its an incredible thing when you think about it.

Yet you made it through, now run your own company and are in a position to make the decisions men once made for you.

It is an interesting time to think about ownership and voice. I get to work with other women producers, which is exciting because there werent that many of them. At the same time I think the industry is also shifting and a lot of those opportunities are opening up [for other women] as well.

When you just serve as producer, do you miss being in front of the camera?

I like being talent. Im good at it, but I want to grow. I dont want to do the same thing over and over again. I want to do docs and docu-series that Im not in, that Im producing. I wanted to be in charge of the vision and not necessarily the talent, and I say that as someone who likes being the talent.

What else are you working on?

We have five docs in production now. Were busy. Its great. And stressful. Ive also got a deal for a scripted show based on an anchorwoman. And someone asked me to direct, which Ive never really done. But I was like, if youre fine with that, Im fine with it too.

Mysteries & Scandals

Where: Oxygen

When: 9 p.m. Jan. 5

Not rated

lorraine.ali@latimes.com

@lorraineali
President Trump lashed out at Vanity Fair in a tweet on Thursday morning after the magazine issued an apology for a video of advice aimed at Hillary Clinton, which was seen as sexist for including the suggestion that the 2016 presidential contender take up knitting.

Vanity Fair, which looks like it is on its last legs, is bending over backwards in apologizing for the minor hit they took at Crooked H. Anna Wintour, who was all set to be Amb to Court of St Jamess [and] a big fundraiser for CH, is beside herself in grief [and] begging for forgiveness! Trump tweeted on Thursday morning, seeming to confuse the new editor in chief of Vanity Fair, Radhika Jones, with Wintour, Conde Nasts artistic director and Vogue editor in chief, (although rumors of Wintour going to London to become U.S. ambassador have long circulated, stretching back to her fund-raising for Barack Obama in his race for the presidency).

The video, which was released earlier this week, showed editors for The Hive, VF.coms tech and news focused site, sipping Champagne while offering Clinton advice on New Years resolutions for 2018. Take up a new hobby in the new year, writer Maya Kosoff suggested. Volunteer work, knitting, improv comedy  literally anything that will keep you from running again.

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Kosoff came under attack for the suggestion that Clinton take up knitting, which was seen as sexist, with people on Twitter declaring that they would cancel their Vanity Fair subscriptions. After being the subject of intense Internet outrage, Kosoff locked her Twitter account and wrote that she would take some time off-line.

Vanity Fair issued an apology, noting that it was an attempt at humor and we regret that it missed the mark, but did not remove the video. The magazine has not issued any additional statements.

The entire incident, including the magazines apology, was heavily covered by Fox News, which reportedly provides the President with inspiration for his tweets.

Trump had sparred repeatedly with former Vanity Fair editor in chief Graydon Carter, with whom he had decades-long feud that went back to the days of Spy Magazine. But it would seem that Carters departure, and replacement by Jones in December, hasnt made the President any less antagonistic toward the magazine.
A Mexican restaurant and bar in Washington, DC, has eliminated its no sneakers policy after guests complained the rule was racially biased. In a report by The Washington Post, Brian Gordon claims he visited El Centro D.F. on 14th Street where he was denied entry because he was wearing sneakers - leather Converse high-tops - which was against the establishments dress code.

Theyre not like ratty, dirty sneakers, he told The Washington Post. Theyre brand-new, theyre leather. They were clean, fresh, white. Its not like I showed up in five-year-old Chucks.

So Gordon, who is black, texted his friends who were already inside to let them know he wouldnt be making it in for drinks. One of the message recipients, Yesha Callahan, looked over to the bar where she allegedly saw a group of white men wearing sneakers.

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Photos posted to Callahans Twitter capture the evidence.

Hey @ElCentroDF your 14th Street bouncer John wouldnt let a black guy in who was wearing sneakers but all these white dudes in sneakers were allowed in, she captioned the post.

https://twitter.com/YeshaCallahan/status/944784087386083328

Others responded to the tweet claiming theyd experienced similar situations, and additional accounts are detailed on the businesss Yelp and Facebook pages.

https://twitter.com/AlexandraBold89/status/944795776252772352https://twitter.com/LisaGalperin/status/944788379878731776https://twitter.com/mike_pinson/status/944932825450602497

About 10 minutes after Gordon was denied entry, Callahans friend, who works as a bartender at El Centro D.F., helped him get inside. Callahan pointed out the hypocrisy of others wearing sneakers at the bar, thanked the bartender, and the group left.

Ayyaz Rashid, managing partner of Sandoval Restaurant Group, which operates El Centro D.F., has issued an apology via The Root. The bouncer who denied Gordon entry has reportedly been fired, and the restaurant has lifted its no sneakers policy.

Rashids statement reads: The security in question has been relieved of his duties and will no longer be working at the venue. Furthermore, there will be no dress code applied anymore at all. Not to stop there, I am scheduling a training workshop for the rest of the team to make sure such incidents may never happen again.

This isnt the only recent incident to have racial prejudice called into question. Just this year, a Texas restaurant came under fire for having a vintage neon sign of an African-American man labeled Coon Chicken Inn, and a Chick-fil-A cashier named two Asian customers CHING and CHONG on their receipts. All this and more make the need for reform in restaurant culture one of the top 20 lessons we learned about food in 2017.

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Former Los Angeles schools Supt. Roy Romer gave an A+ to the polished cement under his feet this month at the newly constructed Maywood Center for Enriched Studies.

The cement had the sheen of the tile flooring that is common in most schools, but it should last much longer and cost less to maintain.

That is one of the things we learned as we built, Romer said.

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Romer pushed through the nations largest school construction project while superintendent from 2000 through 2006. The Colorado resident was back in the Los Angeles Unified School District to see the fruits of that labor, as part of an extended 89th birthday celebration this month.

The Maywood school, which opened in the fall, was the last of 131 new campuses in a $20-billion construction and modernization program.

There was plenty of skepticism about Romer when the Los Angeles Board of Education named him to lead the states largest school system. Other candidates had taken themselves out of consideration, and although Romers resume was impressive  as a former three-term Colorado governor and head of the Democratic National Committee  his background was in politics, the law and business, not education.

Some skepticism greeted the selection of Roy Romer as L.A. schools chief. In this photo from 2005, Romer prepares to address protesters demanding better schools in low-income neighborhoods. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times )

Romer quickly decided that a primary focus would be the classroom space crisis. Campuses were operating year-round, but individual students had schedules that resulted in nearly a month less of instruction. Many could not get the advanced courses needed to apply to selective colleges.

Before Romers arrival, the district had launched two high school projects but canceled both over environmental concerns, after spending some $250 million. A $2.4-billion bond issue in 1997 to repair schools was falling far short of the mark.

Romer got to work with the backing of a school board that, for the most part, got out of his way.

He was a finisher, said former board member Mike Lansing. Ideas are aplenty, but finishers are not. He recruited and cajoled us on the board to overcome the politics and NIMBYism of a city that had been paralyzed by not meeting the need for decades. And he knew how to throttle up and down the pressure as needed.

Romer worked with Mayor Richard Riordan and his successors to find parcels for schools in the crowded urban environment. But he also stood up to the city or developers in going after land projected for commercial projects. This included prime Wilshire Boulevard frontage at the site of the Ambassador Hotel, which Romer also visited during his return.

Romer also had to battle preservationists over that site. They wanted to save the historic hotel building.

The district agreed to recreate some historic elements. A Paul Williams-designed coffee shop was rebuilt as a faculty lounge. And the perimeter of the school library matched that of the hotels banquet hall, where Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 gave his final speech before being assassinated in the hotel pantry. Murals in the library commemorate Kennedys life.

The front of RFK Community Schools shimmers like a glassy mirage on the site of the Ambassador Hotel, which was torn down to make way for the campus. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times )

Preservationists were not truly placated and the extras added major costs, which brought out critics of district spending. Still, the RFK Community Schools campus, which has six separate schools, got built.

I remember how dense the student population of that area was  how you could fill up a school from the eight blocks around it, Romer said.

Romer also insisted on completing the abandoned, half-finished Belmont Learning Complex, an infamous project whose rusting frames perched next to the 110 Freeway.

L.A. schools Supt. Roy Romer walks across the grounds of the unfinished Belmont Learning Complex in 2002. He made finishing the project a top priority. (Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times )

The sites environmental problems were manageable, but the project had become politically toxic, contributing to election losses for school board members who supported it.

He quickly figured out that Belmont was this symbol of failure and reviving it wasnt just about seats for kids, said former aide Glenn Gritzner. He knew we just had to figure out how to get that school back. We had to prove to everybody we were not a failing district and we could get stuff done.

The Belmont complex, renamed the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, opened in 2008.

Romer and his team brought in needed expertise by importing Seabees, construction experts from the United States Naval Construction Battalions. He also worked to persuade voters to pass school construction bonds in 2002, 2004 and 2005.

After the first bond measure, Romer moved forward with a daring, potentially foolhardy strategy. Rather than use the money to pay for a relatively small number of projects from start to finish, he (and the school board) authorized work on all the needed schools. If subsequent local and state bonds had not passed, Romer could have been left with 80 holes in the ground and few schools  and a political catastrophe for all time.

We had momentum to build these schools, and we needed to build them all, Romer said.

The effort also survived another political gamble by putting the new schools  and thus the bond money  where they were most needed: in dense, high-poverty areas. That made sense for helping students, but it also meant that badly needed repairs were postponed indefinitely at schools that served more prosperous areas, which is where most voters live.

Within low-income communities, the district took flak for taking homes and small businesses from the very families the schools would serve.

Former L.A. schools Supt. Roy Romer visits a class in December at the Maywood Center for Enriched Studies. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times )

By the time he left, Romer had won respect from many educators and district officials whod had doubts. His original backers, however, in the corporate and philanthropic elite were less satisfied. They had hoped he would shake up the school system from top to bottom.

Although Romer also oversaw academic reform efforts, progress on that front has satisfied no one, including Romer.

My only regret is that we couldnt have done more and gone faster, he said.

howard.blume@latimes.com

@howardblume
A brush fire that broke out Thursday evening in the Sunland-Tujunga area burned 13 acres before it was doused by firefighters, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

No evacuations were ordered in the blaze.

The fire broke out just before 8 p.m. near Oro Vista Park at Big Tujunga Canyon Road and Oro Vista Avenue, according to the fire department. It was knocked down by midnight.

The blaze, which erupted near the Creek fire burn area, was fueled by heavy brush and driven by 10 mph wind gusts, the fire department said.

Aerial video showed water-dropping helicopters and large flames burning along the canyons, and not far from many hillside homes.

Initially, officials said, there was some threat to homes sitting north and northeast of the fire, just above Big Tujunga Canyon Road, but firefighters were in place to protect those structures.

Due to the quick actions by firefighters, no structures were damaged despite being initially threatened in the Riverwood community area, said LAFD spokeswoman Amy Bastman.

More than 130 LAFD firefighters took part in battling the blaze, along with personnel from the Los Angeles County Fire Department and the U.S. Forest Service.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

ruben.vives@latimes.com

For more Southern California news, follow @latvives on Twitter.

UPDATES:

Dec. 29, 9:40 a.m.: This article was updated with details on when the fire was knocked down.

Dec. 28, 9:35 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from a fire official.

This article was originally published on Dec. 28 at 8:50 p.m.
Live music. Free T-shirts. A Fweedom celebration with mystery prize boxes worth up to $500, and a shot at a behind-the-scenes tour.

Marijuana legalization arrives Monday in California with lots of hoopla, but only a handful of cities will initially have retail outlets ready to sell recreational pot.

By Thursday afternoon, California had issued only 42 retail licenses. Another 150 applications were pending, and regulators planned to work a second straight weekend to review them.

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Los Angeles and San Francisco were late to approve local regulations, meaning no recreational pot shops there will open their doors Monday.

The lucky few outlets with licenses  mainly in San Diego, the Bay Area, the Palm Springs area and Santa Cruz  think they have an edge being first out of the gate.

But excitement about California joining the growing list of states and Washington, D.C., with legal recreational weed is tempered with the stresses of ensuring shelves are stocked in the face of uncertain demand.

The state issued its first 20 retail licenses two weeks ago and an additional 22 have trickled out since, some for already established medical marijuana businesses that have thrived in California for two decades and will continue.

Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the California Bureau of Cannabis Control, said a dozen employees were vetting applications to issue as many licenses as we can in the coming days.

The temporary permits represent just a sliver of the thousands of licenses expected to eventually be issued for retail recreational sales. Local permits are a prerequisite for the state licenses, and many cities  including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Long Beach  have yet to issue any local rules, putting huge swaths of the state on the sidelines for opening day.

The Palm Springs area had nine of the states first retail licenses, including seven in Cathedral City, population 54,000.

San Diego had eight. Santa Cruz and San Jose had four each, and others were scattered around the Bay Area and the states northern reaches.

An outlet known as Caliva in San Jose is promoting the Fweedom celebration Monday with the prize boxes and exclusive tours of its growing areas, along with massages, acupuncture, waffle desserts and music with mellow beats.

A county supervisor will attend a 7 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony at KindPeoples in Santa Cruz. Its chief executive, Khalil Moutawakkil, said pot has long been a huge part of the culture of the oceanfront college town.

Berkeley Patients Group, which opened as a medical marijuana dispensary in 1999 and has received a permit for recreational sales, expects lines around the block to mark opening day. The mayor of the city is expected at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 6 a.m.

Youll see the people who have been consumers for decades and they were for legalization back in the 60s, said Sean Luse, chief operating officer. But youre also going to see a more mainstream group of people who were waiting for the green light.

Harborside is planning brass bands at its locations in Oakland and San Jose, with flags and T-shirts for the first 100 people in line.

A few outlets with recreational licenses are passing on the hoopla.

For them, excitement at being first out of the gate is tempered with the stresses of complying with new regulations.

Golden State Greens, with a modest storefront amid car repair shops and budget hotels in San Diego, houses a bustling business that has sold marijuana for medical purposes since 2015. It will open its doors at 7 a.m. Monday, like it does every other day of the year.

After California voters approved recreational weed last year, the shop changed its name from Point Loma Patients Consumer Cooperative, reflecting its ambitions for a broader clientele.

Were planning for the worst and hoping for the best, said Adam Knopf, its chief executive. There are a lot of unknown factors but were prepared.

Gary Cherlin, chief executive of Desert Organic Solutions Collective in North Palm Springs, received holiday news of his recreational sales permit as he devised promotional packages with hotels aimed at tourists who come for warm winters. He said being among the first shops to sell recreational pot means less competition.

I dont know how many more are coming but they dont have a lot of time left, he said.

Mount Shasta Patients Collective, which opened three years ago in the northern part of the state as a medical dispensary, has already turned away people coming for recreational pot.

Others with medical marijuana cards have been stocking up ahead of price increases expected after recreational weed is legal.

Well have all hands on deck, general manager Austin Freeman said of opening day. It could be really hectic.
A renowned cancer expert at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla has been ousted as editor of one of the worlds top science journals after being implicated in a deepening controversy over how the center treats female faculty.

Inder Verma confirmed to the San Diego Union-Tribune that he has been placed on temporary leave as editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), effective Jan. 1.

He said the move stems from lawsuits that Salk professors Vicky Lundblad, Katherine Jones and Beverly Emerson separately filed in July, alleging that the institute systemically discriminates against women in pay, promotions and access to grants and potential donors.

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Salk President Elizabeth Blackburn has said the allegations are untrue, but the lawsuits apparently factored in her decision to announce last week that she will retire as president late next summer, after barely two and a half years on the job.

Earlier, Ted Waitt, chairman of the board of trustees, also unexpectedly announced that he was retiring from his position.

Blackburn, who is a Nobel laureate, could not be reached for comment about a controversy that has overshadowed the research the Salk Institute does on cancer, diabetes, Alzheimers and other diseases. The institutes achievements include helping to develop the cancer drug Gleevec.

The controversy also has raised questions about whether the allegations will make it difficult for the Salk Institute to recruit high-quality scientists and executives.

Verma has been a bit more public about recent events.

He told the Union-Tribune that he sent an email to the editorial board of PNAS that states:

I am writing to let you know that the NAS Council has decided to place me on temporary leave as Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, effective January 1, 2018 and until the resolution of the employment-related lawsuits filed against The Salk Institute of Biological Studies, where I am a Professor.

Being part of the NAS family and having the privilege of serving as the PNAS Editor-in-Chief have been among the great honors of my career.

As you can imagine, the Councils decision saddens me deeply, particularly because the lawsuits have nothing to do with my work with NAS and I am not named individually for any claim.

That said, I recognize the sensitivities present in this current environment and have far too much esteem for NAS to risk the possibility that events related to Salk would in any way distract from the Academys extraordinary work, so I will gracefully step aside. I very much look forward to working with you all again, hopefully soon.

Lundblad did mention Verma in her lawsuit, saying that he was one of the leaders who made it difficult for women to succeed at the Salk Institute. At the time, Verma told the Union-Tribune that he was not aware that a lawsuit had been filed.

The 70-year-old Verma joined the Salk faculty in the 1970s and rose to international acclaim, notably for his insights about oncogenes, or genes that have the potential to cause cancer. His basic research has helped advance gene therapy, which involves altering a persons DNA to prevent or treat disease. Gene therapy is currently one of the hottest fields in science and medicine.

His broad expertise in genetics and cancer is among the reasons he was appointed editor of PNAS, which is more than a century old and was previously edited by people who had, or would, win the Nobel Prize, including Linus Pauling, Robert Millikan, Randy Schekman and Wendell Stanley.

Verma became the journals editor in 2011 and has held the position while continuing to run his genetics laboratory.

Verma said he has been largely unaware of many of the changes that have been occurring at the Salk Institute lately.

Both Dr. Blackburn`s and Ted Waitts decision for unexpected retirement were as much surprise to me as perhaps to you or others, Verma said in an email. I have had no chance to talk to either one of them, so your guess [about why theyre leaving] is as good as mine 

Robbins writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Robbins writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
As flames closed in, trapping Maria Batiz and her 8-month-old granddaughter in a burning apartment building, her daughter could hear the growing panic in her mothers voice.

Were going to die in here! Batiz, 58, screamed during a final phone call to her daughter, the babys mother.

Batiz and the baby were found dead in a bathtub where they had sought refuge as a fast-moving fire tore through their building Thursday night in the New York borough of the Bronx. She was frantic, said Fernando Batiz, the dead womans brother. I guess the smoke overcame her.

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The fire, which killed 12 people, was started by a child playing with a stove, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said Friday.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called the blaze, the citys deadliest in more than 25 years, an unspeakable tragedy.

In the middle of the holiday season, a time when families are together, tonight here in the Bronx there are families that have been torn apart, he said.

The fire occurred in a five-story brick building in the Belmont neighborhood, a residential area known as Little Italy of the Bronx. The building was home to a mix of residents, including Latinos and West Africans.

Not counting the Sept. 11 attacks, It was New Yorks deadliest fire since a blaze at the Happy Land Social Club, less than a mile away, killed 87 people in 1990.

Nigro said fire investigators worked through the night and determined that the blaze originated in a first-floor apartment, where a 3-year-old boy had been playing with the burners on a stove in the kitchen.

The boys mother was alerted to the fire by the boys screams, Nigro said. She grabbed him and another child, a 2-year-old, and fled the apartment, leaving the door open.

Fire travels up, Nigro said. The stairway acted like a chimney. It took the fire so quickly up the stairs that people had very little time to react.

Flames blocked some people from exiting down the stairwell of the walk-up building, while others were overcome by smoke.

Twelve people died and four others were critically injured. The victims were spread out over multiple floors, authorities said.

Some of the victims were identified by police. In addition to Batiz and her granddaughter, they include four members of the same family: Karen Stewart-Francis, 37; her daughters Kylie Francis, 2, and Charmela Francis, 7; and her niece Shantay Young, 19.

Stewart-Francis sister-in-law, Rosette Morgan-Stewart of Queens, said her husband identified the bodies. The Stewart family is a large, loving family from Jamaica, she said, and they were all reeling over the deaths.

Somewhere in my head, I want to think its a dream, and Im going to see them walk through the door saying, Were OK,  Morgan-Stewart told The Times.

She remembered her sister-in-law as a lively woman who loved to dance. For much of her adult life, she took care of her nieces and nephews, not interested in having her own children. But then she fell in love, got married and had children.

I really still cant believe that theyre dead, she said.

Neighbors described seeing thick smoke emanating from the buildings windows and people climbing down fire escapes, some wearing only T-shirts and shorts in the bone-chilling cold, with temperatures in the teens.

As many as 20 people were out on fire escapes when firefighters arrived, about three minutes after the first call came in just before 7 p.m., Nigro said. Firefighters were able to rescue at least 12 people.

Marisol Santana, 35, who lives across the street from the apartment building, said she came outside late Thursday after smelling gas and saw firefighters pull out a child, whom she estimated to be under 5, who was still on fire.

They tried to put it out, but they couldnt, she said. Its tragic what happened to those families.

Esther Sakyi, 49, was making a phone call in her fourth-floor bedroom about 7 p.m. when she smelled smoke.

I rushed to open the door and the smoke just hit me and pushed me back, so I closed it and went to the fire escape, she said. She fled into the frigid night before putting on clothes.

I was naked, she said. I didnt have time to put clothes on. I didnt know what was going to happen.

Milka Garcia, who lives on the fifth floor of the building, said her three children had already been evacuated when she came home.

Garcia, 40, said the children saw lots of smoke and had to get out through an emergency door.

She said her 10-year-old daughter went to school with one of the victims, whos about 8 years old.

This is horrible, Garcia said. It makes me sad because they were my neighbors, and friends of my daughter.

New York City records show that the apartment building had open violations for faulty smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in a first-floor apartment. Nigro said he didnt know whether alarms in the first-floor apartment where the fire started were working at the time of the incident.

He said there was nothing structurally unusual about the building that would have contributed to the fires spread. But he added that the fire showed how dangerous it could be to leave children unattended and urged people to follow fire safety precautions.

Youve seen the ads  close the door, close the door, close the door, he said. The results if you dont are what happened here last night.

Times staff writer Agrawal reported from New York and Cosgrove from Los Angeles. Poggio reports for the New York Daily News.

nina.agrawal@latimes.com

Twitter: @AgrawalNina

jaclyn.cosgrove@latimes.com

UPDATES:

4:25 p.m.: The story was updated with additional interviews of victims relatives.

2:45 p.m.: The story was updated with the names of some of the victims and more details about how the fire unfolded.

8:50 a.m.: The story was updated with officials confirming that the fire was started by a 3-year-old child playing with a stove and other details about why the fire spread so quickly.

7:20 a.m.: The story was updated with news about a possible cause of the fire.

The story was originally published at 6:40 a.m.
When 21-year-old Matthew Shepard was punched, pistol-whipped, tied to a fence and left to die in 1998, his killers attorneys said the attackers were triggered by Shepard making sexual advances toward them.

When a 14-year-old California boy gunned down his gay classmate in 2008, his attorneys argued that it was because the victim provoked him by flirting with him.

And after a 21-year-old transgender woman in Harlem was beaten to death in 2013, one of her attackers said he hurt her out of blind fury after he flirted with her and then realized she was transgender.

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For decades, LGBTQ people have been brutally attacked or killed and then blamed for their own deaths in cases where attorneys attempt, sometimes successfully, to use a gay panic or trans panic defense.

Starting Monday, attorneys in Illinois will be barred from using the approach after a state law passed  without a single no vote in either the state House or Senate  making it the second state in the country to ban the defense in the courtroom.

Anthony Michael Kreis, who drafted the Illinois legislation, said the passage of the gay panic defense law has boosted efforts in other states to enact similar bans.

Kreis has heard from advocates in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Jersey, among others, asking for help pushing their own bills. Similar legislation has been discussed by lawmakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Other states where the defense has been allowed include, Maryland, Texas and Washington.

Kreis said because the LGBTQ community is at higher risk for violence, the law comes at an important time.

This year marked the deadliest year on record for the transgender community, with at least 28 people shot and killed across the United States, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

It sends an important message to the LGBTQ community that the state will protect them equally and the courts will not be allowed to entertain these types of defenses, which victimize victims again, Kreis said of the new Illinois law.

There isnt an exact definition, but a gay or trans panic defense is essentially when someone doesnt realize theyre interacting with an LGBTQ person and becomes so overcome with rage when they realize it that they physically attack the person in the heat of the moment.

Its estimated that gay and trans panic defenses have been used in at least 23 states since the 1960s, according to the Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law.

Gay and trans panic defenses have allowed people accused of killing LGBTQ people to receive lesser sentences, and in some cases, avoid any punishment, according to the institute.

California was the first state to ban the defense, in 2014, and the American Bar Assn. pushed for a ban in 2013.

In Washington state, a bill banning gay and trans panic defenses is expected to be introduced in the coming weeks for the next legislative session.

Its a defense that allows people to perpetuate hate crimes, said Monisha Harrell, Equal Rights Washington chairperson. It is saying youre surprised that somebody might be different than you, whatever that difference is, and that that would allow you to initiate violence, and in some cases, lethal violence. That should never be a defense.

Cynthia Lee, a criminal law professor at George Washington University, said although she understands the underlying sentiment supporting the passage of these types of bans, there could be unintended consequences.

In her research on gay and trans panic defenses, Lee has found that in most cases, the usage of the defense is reprehensible, largely playing off stereotypes about gay men or transgender women.

However, a legislative ban might not be the best solution, she said.

Social science research has shown that juries can be affected by attorneys calling out racial stereotypes and bigotry. There is less research on what happens when LGBTQ stereotypes are used, but it brings up an interesting argument, she said.

For example, if a defense attorney makes an argument largely based on racial stereotypes, and a prosecutor calls that out, research has found that a jury will often respond by treating a black defendant the same as they would a white defendant, she said.

If attorneys were properly trained on how to respond to a gay or trans panic defense when it was brought up, it could potentially help a jury see the problems in making that argument.

Instead of banning these arguments, confront them head on and challenge them in court, Lee said. The prosecution should be aware of the bias. Whenever the defense tries to make these kinds of arguments, [prosecutors] should try to challenge them head on.

Advocates say that the sentiment behind panic defenses is a problem, even outside the courtroom.

Lou Weaver, transgender programs coordinator with Equality Texas, said one example was the reaction of law enforcement to the recent killing of Brandi Seals, a 26-year-old transgender woman, in Houston.

After Seals was killed, Detective Fil Waters of the Houston Police Department, told a local TV station: The fact that we have a man in womens clothing, the speculation is hes been working the street, that someone picks up and then realizes hes not what hes representing himself to be and take this kind of ultimate action.

Weaver said the detective assumed Seals was a sex worker because she was transgender and didnt have information to actually prove that was her profession.

Regardless, his comments had a trans panic argument within them, and are an example of how transgender women continue to be misunderstood and stereotyped, Weaver said.

Unfortunately, I think it will still be seen as a valid reason for hurting somebody, he said. Defense attorneys are ruthless, and they have one job  to prove their client is not guilty, and they will do whatever it takes.

jaclyn.cosgrove@latimes.com

@jaclyncosgrove
Police and the FBI are investigating whether an argument over an online game prompted a hoax call that led to a house where an officer shot and killed a Kansas man who apparently wasnt involved in the dispute.

Wichita Deputy Police Chief Troy Livingston on Friday blamed a prankster who called 911 and made up a story about a shooting and kidnapping. He did not mention reports that an argument over online gaming was at the heart of the prank, although he said investigators had made good progress tracking online leads.

Police have not disclosed the name of the man who was killed Thursday evening, but relatives identified him as Andrew Finch, 28.

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Livingston, speaking at a news conference, said the hoax call was a case of swatting, in which a person makes up a false report to get a SWAT team to descend on an address.

Due to the actions of a prankster we have an innocent victim, Livingston said. He said no one has been arrested in connection with the hoax.

Police played audio of the call to 911. A man said his father had been shot in the head. He said he was holding his mother and a sibling at gunpoint. The caller, speaking with relative calm, said he poured gasoline inside the home and I might just set it on fire.

Several officers arrived and surrounded the home, braced for a hostage situation. When Finch went to the door police told him to put his hands up and move slowly.

But Livingston said the man moved a hand toward the area of his waistband  a common place where guns are concealed. An officer, fearing the man was reaching for a gun, fired a single shot. Finch died a few minutes later at a hospital. Livingston said Finch was unarmed.

The officer, a seven-year veteran of the department, is on paid leave pending the investigation.

The Finch family on Friday allowed reporters inside their home. Lisa Finch told them her son was not a gamer.

What gives the cops the right to open fire? she asked. That cop murdered my son over a false report in the first place.

Lisa Finch said the family was forced outside barefoot in freezing cold and handcuffed after the shooting. She said her granddaughter was forced to step over her dying uncle and that no guns were found in the home.

Dexerto, an online news service focused on gaming, reported that the series of events began with an online argument over a $1 or $2 wager in a Call of Duty game on UMG Gaming, which operates online tournaments including one involving Call of Duty.

We woke this morning to horrible news about an innocent man losing his life, UMG spokeswoman Shannon Gerritzen said in an email to The Associated Press. Our hearts go out to his loved ones. We are doing everything we can to assist the authorities in this matter. She declined to disclose other details.

In addition to the 911 call, police also released a brief video of body camera footage from another officer at the scene. It was difficult to see clearly what happened.

The FBI estimates that roughly 400 cases of swatting occur annually, with some using caller ID spoofing to disguise their number. An FBI supervisor in Kansas City, Missouri, which covers all of Kansas, said the agency joined in the investigation at the request of local police.

In other cases of apparent swatting, three families in Florida in January had to evacuate their homes after a detective received an anonymous email claiming bombs had been placed at the address.

A 20-year-old Maryland man was shot in the face with rubber bullets by police in 2015 after a fake hostage situation was reported at his home.

Rep. Katherine Clark, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced an anti-swatting bill in 2015  then was herself the victim of swatting. Armed officers in 2016 responded to an anonymous call claiming an active shooter was at Clarks home.

UPDATES:

10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 11:35 a.m.
The glow of a white Christmas is long gone. Now its just winter across much of the Midwest and East Coast, where bitter temperatures and snow squalls have been blamed for a handful of deaths and canceled a long list of New Years celebrations.

Already winter-weary parts of the nation are dealing with mounting weather-related headaches, including highway pileups, frozen pipes and a rash of car thefts.

Icy roads in central Michigan caused more 30 crashes on highways near Flint on Friday morning. Coastal South Carolina saw a rare bout of freezing rain and drizzle on Friday that forced bridges from Charleston to Myrtle Beach to shut down for de-icing.

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Police in the Cincinnati area say a half-dozen cars have been stolen in recent days after being left running unattended by owners trying to warm them up. Cincinnati police warned on Twitter that leaving your car running means the only person who will be warm is the thief who stole your car.

More snow is on the way in Erie, Pa., where 65 inches have fallen since Christmas Eve. Now parts of the surrounding county could get up to 16 inches on top of that by Sunday.

A call center set up to help people dig out has been overwhelmed. The phones have been ringing off the hook, Josh Jaeger, a coordinator for the center, told the Erie Times-News.

Cleanup continued inside Michigan State Universitys basketball arena after a frozen water pipe burst and flooded a hallway, although the mess wasnt expected to interrupt a game Friday.

Several deaths have been linked to the wintry weather during the last week.

In South Dakota, an 83-year-old woman died from exposure to the cold after she crashed her car and got out to look for help. Search crews found her body in a ditch Sunday. Three people were found dead in a canal along Lake Erie this week after their car slid off an icy road.

The National Weather Service predicts another blast of arctic air will chill much of the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. through the weekend and into 2018.

Temperatures could fall into the single digits as far south as Oklahoma and sink to zero or below Friday night in Nebraska and Iowa and remain there for at least three days.

Its pretty unusual to get that long of a streak where its completely below zero, said Iowas state climatologist Harry Hillaker. Historically, that doesnt happen very often in Des Moines.

The Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies were bracing for storms that forecasters warned could bring several feet of mountain snow and freezing rain.

With the bitter cold expected to stick around, many New Years Eve plans are being scuttled.

Shore towns in New Jersey canceled plans for polar bear plunges in the Atlantic Ocean, and organizers pulled the plug on the annual light bulb drop in Sunbury, Pa.

Fireworks shows have been called off in Omaha, Neb., and at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. And New Yorks Coney Island says it will be too cold for free rides on the Wonder Wheel and Thunderbolt roller coaster.

Pet owners were urged to protect their animals from the cold. Wild animals werent immune from the dangers of winter either.

In Ohio, wildlife officers mulled how to rescue a deer whose legs were stuck in an ice-covered river. They managed to lasso the deer with a rope and pull it to shore Friday, but they later had to euthanize the injured animal.

UPDATES:

1:20 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with information about weather affecting the Plains and Pacific Northwest.

This article was originally published at 7:50 a.m.
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Friday, Dec. 29, and heres whats happening across California:

TOP STORIES

A whole new day

Starting Jan. 1, Californians lives will be governed by hundreds of new laws including new controls on concealed weapons, unprecedented state protections for those in the U.S. illegally, an increase in the minimum wage, legal sales of recreational marijuana and even a new state dinosaur. Here is a rundown on how Sacramento is about to change your life in big and small ways. Los Angeles Times

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Flaw in the system

Californias destructive fire season highlighted the inadequacies of the emergency warnings officials employed and have prompted a push for new safety protocols. Some of the same problems occurred two months later when the Thomas fire  the largest on record in California  swept through Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. In the end, the warnings that officials did send reached only a fraction of those in the path of the fire, and emergency agencies struggled to target their warnings to the correct geographic areas. The situation left officials frustrated and looking for answers. Los Angeles Times

Wheres Donald?

Donald Trump is the first president in decades not to visit California, the most populous and economically powerful state. Even past presidents who didnt get the states electoral votes made it a destination, if only for being the Golden State of campaign cash. Now its ground zero for the resistance. Los Angeles Times

BEST OF 2017

Essential California is rebooting some of the stories that moved us most this year. Have a nomination? Let us know:

Investigation: The drug is called Nuedexta and the Orange County manufacturer said it is designed to treat a rare neurological condition that causes sudden and uncontrollable laughing or crying. But there is growing evidence the drug is being improperly used in nursing homes  and wasting huge amounts of taxpayer money. Blake Ellis, Melanie Hicken and Sergio Hernandez investigated the drug and its strange history. CNN

Romancing the stone: The crazy story of the 752-pound emerald that has been the subject of a legal drama that seems to never end. After so much rancor, one question remains: Is the emerald worth $1 billion or practically nothing? Elizabeth Weil tries to find out. Wired

Archaeology as blood sport: Standing atop a road-widening project near National City in San Diego County, Richard Cerutti could hardly imagine he was about to discover something that could rewrite the opening chapter in the history of the New World. Tom Curwen on the the ancient mastodon that ignited debate over humans arrival in North America. Los Angeles Times

Changing scene: Oakland spent years in the shadow of San Francisco as a troubled city known for its violent streets and troubled economy. But in a dramatic upheaval fueled by Silicon Valley cash, Oakland has become San Francisco of the east. Sarah Carpenter, Brian Howey and KR Nava explore what is happening to Oakland and its soul. Medium

Woke: The rise of Kendrick Lamar as one of musics most celebrated and beloved artists has been much chronicled. But his music  well, several specific songs  have a powerful meaning to other African American young people of his generation. They say his lyrics gave them the strength and the hope to rise out of the troubled world of South L.A. They spoke with Justin Tinsley. The Undefeated

The pool people: In the horror of the wine country firestorms, there were many harrowing stories of survival in a catastrophe that killed more than 40 people. But few were more dramatic than the couple who spent hours in a swimming pool to avoid being burned to death. Robin Abcarian tells their story. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

As seen on TV: Is Dr. Phil helping his guests get through addiction or actually making their problems worse? Stat

What winter? Southern California reported the warmest temperatures in the nation on Wednesday and Thursday, with more in store today. Los Angeles Times

Virulent: A grim flu season is bringing more visits to emergency rooms, officials say. Los Angeles Daily News

Not just a mall: South Coast Plaza is a playground for people with money. It is parochialism defined. But  the Segerstrom family who created, owns, and still runs South Coast Plaza have created a Rodeo Drive for all stations of life. Its aspirational living. Whether you can afford a bejeweled Rolex that costs as much as a two-story house in the Inland Empire or only a croissant at the French bakery, the Segerstroms will treat you like a queen for a day.  Gustavo Arellano on the mall with it all. Curbed Los Angeles

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

A serious problem: How the #MeToo movement is roiling Bay Area high school campuses. East Bay Times

Placard abuse: California officials were shocked to learn how many disabled car placards were issued to dead people. Heres what they did about it. Sacramento Bee

Shakeup: A renowned cancer expert at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla has been ousted as editor of one of the worlds top science journals after being implicated in a deepening controversy over how the center treats female faculty. San Diego Union-Tribune

CRIME AND COURTS

Sign of the times: A donation center in Santa Rosa to help fire victims must close because of repeated break-ins. Its heartbreaking, its disappointing, one official said. Its really not personal.  It points to a bigger need in Santa Rosa. The Press Democrat

Wrongfully convicted: He spent decades behind bars for murders officials now say he didnt commit. This week, he went back the police station where the ordeal began to set the record straight. Ventura County Star

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

High-rise neighborhood: San Francisco is famously a city of neighborhoods. But the city has never seen a place like what is developing south of Market Street, a high-rise village of wealth and mass centered around the new Salesforce tower. Does it show the future of cities? San Francisco Chronicle

Enough already? Some California food trends that critics hope will disappear in 2018: Cereal as toppings, food made for Instagramming, and mash-up meals (like spaghetti grilled cheese sandwiches). Orange County Register

Plus: Was this $14 rice bowl the essential L.A. dish of 2017? Los Angeles Magazine

The force: Meet the women who really run the Star Wars universe. New York Times

The Die Hard 2 guy: China is turning to a veteran Hollywood action director to make its movies better. Wall Street Journal

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles area: sunny and 80. San Diego: sunny and 73. San Francisco area: partly cloudy and 59. Sacramento: partly cloudy and 61. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

Todays California memory comes from Richard Emery:

Although I had summered in Southern California, my first exposure to the delights of the area in the winter was the 1971 Rose Parade and Rose Bowl. My ex-wifes uncle was a member of the Tournament of Roses, and he scored tickets for us. I was enthralled with the beautiful weather and pageantry of the entire day. It was one big party with 105,000 people in attendance. And to see Jim Plunkett and the Stanford Indians (now Cardinal) upset the mighty Buckeyes of Ohio State made the day that much more special. We were able to go several more years until he retired in the mid-1980s.

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad.
This could become President Trumps Sen. Jim Inhofe moment, in which a dramatic flourish to make a political point instead just displays an astounding mix of arrogance and ignorance.

So what did Trump do this time (hows that for an evergreen question)?

Its cold in most of the country. Of course, its also winter, and they go hand in hand in most of the U.S. As does snowfall. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, famously carried a snowball made of fresh-fallen snow on Capitol Hill to the Senate floor in February 2015 as evidence that global warming isnt real. Which is like citing a few sprinkles of rain as proof that a drought isnt happening.

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On Thursday, amid all that cold back East, the climatologist in chief tweeted:

In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Years Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

Lets dissect that. The line about using a little bit of that good old Global Warming by itself is a shrug-off, the kind of (predictable and not funny) one-liner youd hear around a water cooler in just about any worksite (probably not at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). But then Trump undercut the joke (if it was one) by crowing about his decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement. Look how smart I am! he implies. I saved us trillions of dollars!

Not really. The U.S. pledged $3 billion in aid to developing countries to help them develop energy sources and comply with the emissions reductions necessary to keep the global atmospheric temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The U.S. also pledged to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases 28% below 2005 levels. To do so will be expensive, and likely will cost jobs in the fossil fuel sector, but it also offers investment and development opportunities in renewable energy sources  and add jobs.

Not confronting global warming itself will be expensive. In fact, over the last decade climate change propelled by global warming has cost the U.S. about $350 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget. And the country will spend billions a year over the next few decades to cope with rising seas inundating infrastructure, damage from more frequent and more powerful extreme weather events, and shifting agricultural and human migration patterns. Doesnt it make sense that, if we have to incur costs, we do so along a path to a better and more habitable world?

Its like having a 4-year-old at a cocktail party, where an adult conversation is impossible until the little noisemaker gets packed off to bed.

Incidentally, some scientists believe that cold snaps like the one hitting most of the U.S. now can also be traced to global warming, as reduced ice on the Arctic Ocean affects the polar vortex, sending extremely cold temperatures farther from the polar region. So the frozen fountain at Bryant Park depicted above might be evidence of the very phenomenon that Trump so steadfastly refuses to accept.

These are serious issues, but they are being addressed by the president in a decidedly unserious manner. True, the nation is used to Trump firing up his little Tweet machine first thing in the morning and blasting out ridiculous comments. When theyre not self-aggrandizing, theyre needlessly provocative, designed to rile people up and simultaneously distract attention from serious issues confronting the administration and the nation, while making Trump the focus point of attention. Its like having a 4-year-old at a cocktail party, where an adult conversation is impossible until the little noisemaker gets packed off to bed.

Thats why many of us try to ignore the bleating tweeted out from the presidential phone. So much of it is just tantrums  annoying and distracting, but inconsequential.

But here we have the president of the United States yet again braying on about global warming as if he knows what hes talking about. His ignorance and his hubris seem to be locked in a death struggle with each other. The net effect is he gives cover to the small segment of people who deny the scientific reality about what human activity  notably burning fossil fuels  has done and is doing to the atmosphere. And he sets back necessary discussion and planning for an inevitable future.

If the president is going to give ignorance a platform, the least he could do is deny gravity exists so people wouldnt feel the need to make losing weight one of their New Years resolutions.

Scott.Martelle@LATimes.com

Follow my posts and re-tweets at @smartelle on Twitter
To the editor: The United States Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Ala., spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on theoretical and useless system studies. If the MDA were serious, it would pull the ground-based midcourse defense interceptors out of their silos in Alaska and test them monthly. (Trump administration moves to boost homeland missile defense system despite multiple flaws, Dec. 24)

The initial interceptors deployed in Alaska and at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc have notoriously high annual maintenance costs, so testing these interceptors would, if anything, result in cost savings.

The MDA should spread out its budgeted money over a seven-year plan, testing everything before it deploys anything new. At the same time, current-year MDA funding should be cut, and the savings should be put into State Department diplomacy.

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As many have stated previously, going down the same failed path over and over again is the definition of insanity.

Gary Wonacott, San Diego

The writer is an engineer and consultant who has worked on missile defense projects.

..

To the editor: We worry about attacks using expensive missiles from places like North Korea; our solution is to defend ourselves with even more expensive (and maybe unreliable) missiles.

I wonder why a foe would not attack us by detonating nuclear bombs brought close to our big coastal cities in cheap, small, reliable and possibly undetected boats. Alternatively, from a little further away, the bomb might be carried ashore by a drone flying at very low altitude.

What consideration is being given to these scenarios?

W. Michael Johnson, San Marino

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
Its not the promise of prompt delivery that has residents of Washington, D.C., spending fifty bucks for nondescript glass jars, nor is it the small jars themselves, which resemble something found on the bottom shelf of a Dollar Tree.

It is the unmentioned gift which a local online upstart, Trendingleafs, tucks inside each jar: fragrant clusters of Grape Ape, Purple Kush or Woody Harrelson OG. Or it might be cannabis-laced snickerdoodles or a vial of Lemon Haze concentrate.

The explosion of small businesses openly distributing thousands of such mind-altering gifts daily throughout the capital is not what Congress had in mind when it banned regulated sales of recreational pot in the nations capital, defying the will of local voters. Instead of shutting the legalization movement down, however, Congress has helped make this often-staid East Coast city the Wild West of recreational pot distribution.

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Nowhere is more pot sold so openly and publicly without any of the rules and regulations that elsewhere have come with legalization.

Hawkers of bud here will tell you they are not selling it, but giving it away. They bestow gifts on strangers who make ostensibly legitimate purchases of other goods from them  a bottle of juice, for example, or a bag of cookies priced at $50, which happens to be the going rate for a delivered dime bag. Sometimes these companies forget to deliver the item they nominally sold. But the customers generally dont complain, as long as the gift arrives.

Selling a token container of food or a pair of socks for fifty bucks and attaching a free bag of pot is technically illegal in Washington. But local officials are hardly cracking down.

Congress action left city officials unable to impose any oversight on the recreational pot trade, which local voters legalized by referendum in 2014. The congressional ban, adopted shortly after the referendum, prevented the city government from using any of its funds to implement legalization. Even holding a hearing on setting up a regulated legal market could constitute a felony.

The result has been to turn Washington into the countrys biggest experiment in largely unregulated marijuana selling.

This is an enormous market over here, said Joe Tierney, who plays a crucial role as the author of a blog called the Gentleman Toker, which guides smokers to start-ups providing pot gifts and posts exhaustive reviews. He counts some 30 companies taking delivery orders through well-established websites, and another 300 or so upstarts selling over social media on any given day.

It is the only recreational market on the East Coast, Tierney said. People come up to buy all the way from South Carolina. They come down from Pennsylvania, Jersey, Ohio. Even companies out West are looking at how can they get in on this crazy market. It is a very interesting time.

Local law enforcement hasnt turned an altogether blind eye. Occasional raids do take place, typically directed at the most flagrant operators.

The ones we come across are usually pretty brazen, said Lt. Andrew Struhar of the Narcotics and Special Operations Division of Washingtons Metropolitan Police Department. There are so many of these companies that we wind up just scratching the surface, he said.

This speaks to the fact that you can possess and use marijuana in your home, but there is technically no legal way to get it other than grow it, Struhar added. A lot of these companies are trying to fill a void, and they are trying to figure out a way to do it cleverly and legally.

To some, the thriving industry of start-ups openly selling pot online, at head shops and at almost daily publicly advertised pot flea markets in bars, clubs and private homes throughout the city has become a symbolic snub of Washingtons congressional overlords.

On a recent weeknight at the XO Lounge, a few blocks north of the White House, each of three floors was packed with vendors collectively selling enough weed to keep the neighborhood of lobbyists and deal makers high throughout the Trump administration. House music thumped. The air was thick with smoke. The event was open to anyone who clicked on an easy-to-find Eventbrite link. Ten bucks or a toy donation for local kids got you inside.

Across town in Adams Morgan, the Funky Piece head shop alerts entering customers with a curbside sign directing them to ask about the free gifts that come with purchase of smoking accessories.

Even some legalization proponents worry Washingtons inability to impose any regulations over its rapidly emerging pot market creates public health and financial problems. The city lacks any of the safeguards in place in states that have legalized, such as those that will govern sales in California starting in January.

Marijuana here is not tested for dangerous pesticides or mold. Nor is it sent to a lab for an assessment, which buyers can use to gauge potency and potential psychoactive effects. The city is not collecting tax revenue on the sales, which could be used to fund public health programs.

At the same time, the path the city has reluctantly forged has kept it relatively free of corporate marijuana players, who have an outsize role in influencing marijuana rules in the states that have regulated pot sales. The entrepreneurs thriving in DC are all small operators, and they are a diverse group.

It shows how you can have legalization without mass commercialization, said Adam Eidinger, who led the 2014 legalization campaign. There are some things about it that are really nice.

And some who have studied markets elsewhere question whether the consumer protections other states promise are overblown.

Im not sure how valuable a lot of those regulations in other places are, said Mark Kleimann, a professor of public policy at NYU. The product testing that some states require lacks rigor and may remain unreliable as long as the federal government refuses to get involved in setting standards, he says.

Critics of Washingtons situation typically direct blame at one man, Rep. Andy Harris, the Maryland Republican who wrote the budget amendment prohibiting the city from regulating the sale of recreational pot.

One congressman from Maryland single-handedly created the least effective system in the U.S. for guarding against any challenges marijuana presents, said John Hudak, a senior fellow of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

Harris, who is a medical doctor, says he has no second thoughts.

The ban on recreational pot sales in Washington, he said, sends a powerful signal to the rest of the country that other jurisdictions should think twice about this. It is a dangerous substance. We have not done the medical research necessary to outline what the dangers are.

He says Washington is in a mess of its own making.

Im shocked they are not doing something about this, he said. They could choose to enforce the law.

Yet even Congress is sending mixed signals on pot  maintaining Harris ban, but also keeping in place a prohibition on federal drug agents raiding medical marijuana businesses that operate legally under state laws. The restrictions on the Drug Enforcement Administration so far have been kept in place despite aggressive lobbying by Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, who wants a free hand to go after legal pot.

In some ways, says Kleimann, Washingtons situation is a workable compromise  legalization without the proliferation of marijuana storefronts and marketing campaigns that in other jurisdictions create a constant temptation.

In Washington, Kleimann said, marijuana is easy to find. But at least you have to look for it.

I like cannabis being available to people who want it, he said, without entrapping them into substance abuse.

evan.halper@latimes.com

Follow me: @evanhalper
A political dispute over how to pay for the repair of Californias pothole-plagued roads and crumbling bridges is spilling over into 2018, with new vehicle fees taking effect, followed by court dates and ballot measures.

The increase in gas taxes and vehicle fees to raise more than $5.2 billion annually for road and bridge repairs and improvements to mass transit was approved in April by the Democratic-controlled Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown.

Here are four things to watch for in 2018.

Paying at least $25 more starting in January

The 12-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax increase (and more for diesel) took effect in November. The new $25-per-vehicle highway user fee will begin showing up when motorists get auto registration renewal notices in 2018.

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That includes about 2.5 million drivers who are scheduled to renew their registration in January.

Customers wait in line at a DMV office in Lincoln Park in Los Angeles. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times )

How will Californias new laws affect you? 

The new annual fees will range from $25 for cars valued at under $5,000 to $175 for cars worth $60,000 or more.

State officials estimate that 86% of vehicle owners will pay $25 or $50.

Senator targeted

Republicans have launched a campaign to recall freshman state Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) because he voted for the gas tax and vehicle fee increases. The aim when the recall began was to deprive Democrats of their supermajority.

The GOP has made the gas tax hike a centerpiece of its argument that the Democrats have overreached in Sacramento.

State Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press )

The secretary of state announced in October that a group seeking to unseat Newman turned in more than the 63,593 petition signatures needed to put the measure on the ballot, but the Legislature adopted a new law that delays the process. It requires, among other things, a financial analysis of the election first.

The analysis, completed Dec. 11, estimated a special election on the recall of Newman would cost $2.67 million. Should the question land on the regular June primary ballot, which will also feature races for governor and congressional seats and draw more voters, it would only cost taxpayers $931,000, the analysis found.

Brown and the Senate have until Jan. 10 to consider the financial report. The governor is expected to use the costs to opt for the recall election to be consolidated with the June 5 primary election.

As Californias gas tax increases, the political fallout is likely to spill over into 2018 elections 

Recall organizer Carl DeMaio, a former San Diego City Council member, called the delaying tactics unconstitutional, adding, Gov. Jerry Brown and Sacramento politicians are sending a message to politicians who engage in misconduct that they need not leave office in a hurry because the governor and their fellow politicians will protect them for as long as possible.

Derek Humphrey, a Newman campaign spokesman, said the recall is a waste of tax dollars, and another example of the partisan politics as usual that people are tired of.

Repeal effort

Two groups of Republicans are hoping to qualify initiatives for the Nov. 6 general election ballot that would repeal the gas tax and vehicle fee increases.

DeMaio is leading an effort to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would repeal the tax and fee hikes, and prevent future increases without a statewide vote of approval.

The measure is backed by most Republican members of Congress from California, as well as Republican gubernatorial candidate John Cox.

Assemblyman Travis Allen is among the organizers of a gas tax repeal effort (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times )

Supporters of the initiative have begun circulating petitions and need to collect signatures of at least 580,000 registered voters to qualify the ballot measure.

Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) another candidate for governor, has also proposed a repeal initiative, but circulation of the petition for his proposal has been delayed by a court fight.

Court battles

In that dispute, Allen challenged the fairness of having the state attorney general, a partisan official, draft the crucial title and summary for petitions on initiatives that threaten Democratic policies.

Allen has asked the California Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision that approved what he feels is a misleading title and summary for his gas tax repeal initiative.

The title and summary were drafted by California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, a Democrat.

A Superior Court judge ruled in September that Becerras title for the initiative was misleading. But a state appeals court upheld Becerras title and summary as accurate.

In filing an appeal with the state Supreme Court, Allen accused the attorney general of deliberately lying to California voters. He said he was confident the top court will right this injustice and will give the voters of California a fair and honest opportunity to repeal the gas tax.

But the Supreme Court opted against taking up the matter.

A second lawsuit spawned by the gas tax increase is challenging the Legislatures new law that delayed the Newman recall election by requiring a financial analysis. That case is expected to be heard in 2018 in state Superior Court.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Twitter: @mcgreevy99
Trump promotes sons Justice with Judge Jeanine interview President Trump promoted via Twitter an interview with his son Eric Trump just before it aired Saturday night on Fox News Justice with Judge Jeanine. Eric Trump on @JudgeJeanine on @FoxNews now!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 21, 2018 Eric Trump called into the show to defend his father from criticism prompted by the first government shutdown in more than four years, as well as a series of Womens March events that saw protesters in dozens of cities take to the streets to oppose the presidents policies. .@EricTrump joined me over the phone from Mar-a-Lago ! pic.twitter.com/Hro3TzUW52  Jeanine Pirro (@JudgeJeanine) January 21, 2018 Speaking to host Jeannine Piro  who is reportedly an old friend of the presidents  Eric Trump offered effusive praise for his father, ticking off glowing statistics to illustrate the strength of the U.S. economy and gains against Islamic State fighters overseas. My fathers working like no ones ever worked before to bring back this country and to fulfill his promise to make America great again, said the executive vice president of the Trump Organization. He also repeated a sentiment recently expressed on Twitter by his father: That Democratic lawmakers forced a government shutdown on the anniversary of the presidents inauguration in a bid to distract from his achievements. You look at this whole government shutdown, and the only reason they want to shut down government is to distract and to stop his momentum, Eric Trump said. I mean, my father has had incredible momentum. Hes gotten more done in one year than arguably any president in history. Facebook

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Trump tweets: a perfect day for all Women to March President Trump hailed the nationwide Womens March gatherings Saturday. On Twitter, the president called it a perfect day for all Women to March, seeming to imply that those taking part were celebrating his administrations accomplishments: Beautiful weather all over our great country, a perfect day for all Women to March. Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months. Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Participants in the marches across the United States were actually seeking to deliver a powerful rebuke to Trumps policies and mount a crucial mobilization for this years midterm elections. But Trump continued to tout his administrations unprecedented success in tweets sent later in the day: Unprecedented success for our Country, in so many ways, since the Election. Record Stock Market, Strong on Military, Crime, Borders, & ISIS, Judicial Strength & Numbers, Lowest Unemployment for Women & ALL, Massive Tax Cuts, end of Individual Mandate - and so much more. Big 2018!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 The Trump Administration has terminated more UNNECESSARY Regulation, in just twelve months, than any other Administration has terminated during their full term in office, no matter what the length. The good news is, THERE IS MUCH MORE TO COME!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 21, 2018 In addition to the roll call of major American cities where womens marches took place  including New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta  protesters also raised their voices in suburbs and small towns, reflecting the aim of coalescing a broad-based movement on the anniversary of Trumps inauguration to oppose the presidents stance on immigration, healthcare, racial divides and an array of other issues. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Laura King. Facebook

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Trump calls shutdown a present from Democrats By Associated Press President Trump is blaming Democrats for the government shutdown  tweeting that they wanted to give him a nice present to mark the one-year anniversary of his inauguration: This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present. #DemocratShutdown  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 That comes after Senate Democrats late Friday killed a GOP-written House-passed measure that would have kept agencies functioning for four weeks. Democrats were seeking a stopgap bill of just a few days in hopes that would build pressure on Republicans, and they were opposing a three-week alternative offered by GOP leaders. Democrats have insisted they would back legislation reopening the government once theres a bipartisan agreement to preserve protections against deporting about 700,000 immigrants  known as Dreamers  who arrived in the United States illegally as children. Trump on Saturday accused Democrats of holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration: Democrats are holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration. Cant let that happen!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Democrats are laying fault for the shutdown on Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House and have struggled with building internal consensus. In a series of tweets hours after the shutdown began, the president tried to make the case for Americans to elect more Republicans to Congress in November in order to power through this mess: Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border. They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead. #WeNeedMoreRepublicansIn18 in order to power through mess!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 He noted that there are 51 Republicans in the 100-member Senate, and it often takes 60 votes to advance legislation: For those asking, the Republicans only have 51 votes in the Senate, and they need 60. That is why we need to win more Republicans in 2018 Election! We can then be even tougher on Crime (and Border), and even better to our Military & Veterans!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 #AMERICA FIRST!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 The stopgap spending measure won 50 votes in the Senate, including five from Democrats. Although the House and Senate were in session Saturday, it was unclear whether lawmakers would take any votes of consequence. Trump had been set to leave Friday afternoon for a fundraiser at his estate in Palm Beach, Fla., where he intended to mark the inauguration anniversary. But he remained in Washington and ended up scrapping his plans to attend the Saturday fundraiser. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweet casts doubt on likelihood of averting shutdown President Trump appeared to cast doubt on the likelihood of reaching a deal to avert a government shutdown Friday night in a tweet. Trump also sought to blame Democrats for what would be the first shutdown since 2013. His message came just hours before the midnight deadline by which lawmakers must pass a measure to fund government agencies, or some operations will cease. Not looking good for our great Military or Safety & Security on the very dangerous Southern Border. Dems want a Shutdown in order to help diminish the great success of the Tax Cuts, and what they are doing for our booming economy.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Despite last-minute negotiations Friday between Trump and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Congress remained deadlocked over a spending bill and the federal government was headed toward a shutdown at midnight. Senate Democrats  joined by some GOP deficit hawks and immigration allies  were set to filibuster a stopgap funding bill approved by the House on Thursday. A Senate vote was planned for 10 p.m. Eastern, and even White House officials predicted it would fail. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Lisa Mascaro. Facebook

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Trump signs surveillance law after confusing tweets By Associated Press President Trump on Friday signed a bill into law to renew a foreign intelligence surveillance program, announcing his action in the latest in a series of confusing tweets about the spy program: Just signed 702 Bill to reauthorize foreign intelligence collection. This is NOT the same FISA law that was so wrongly abused during the election. I will always do the right thing for our country and put the safety of the American people first!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 19, 2018 Trumps tweet on Jan. 11 created chaos in the House just before it voted to reauthorize what is known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He linked the intelligence program to a dossier that alleges his presidential campaign had ties to Russia. That caused people to wonder if he didnt support the program that allows U.S. spy agencies to collect intelligence on foreign targets abroad. Trump and other Republicans have alleged that Obama administration officials improperly shared the identities of Trump presidential transition team members mentioned in intelligence reports. Democrats say there is no evidence that happened. Shortly before the House vote, and after conferring with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Trump did an apparent about-face. This vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land, he tweeted. We need it! Get smart! In his tweet announcing that he had just signed the bill, Trump wrote: This is NOT the same FISA law that was so wrongly abused during the election. I will always do the right thing for our country and put the safety of the American people first! There are no obvious links between the dossier Trump spoke of, which includes salacious but unsubstantiated allegations against him, and the reauthorization of the spying program, or between the program and Trumps oft-repeated claims that the Obama administration conducted surveillance on Trump Tower during the presidential campaign. Facebook

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In tweet, Trump suggests that Pennsylvania trip is a political one The White House press office was once again forced to walk back a tweet from President Trump on Thursday morning after he described a trip to Pennsylvania later in the day as a political one  a statement that would force the Republican Party, not taxpayers, to pay for the journey. The White House had said Trump was going to an industrial equipment company outside of Pittsburgh to highlight the good economy and new tax cuts, making it an official, policy-oriented event. It was widely assumed that the trip had a political cast  the area is holding a special election to fill a congressional seat vacated by a Republican who resigned. Trump, by his tweet, seemed to confirm that politics was the whole purpose: Will be going to Pennsylvania today in order to give my total support to RICK SACCONE, running for Congress in a Special Election (March 13). Rick is a great guy. We need more Republicans to continue our already successful agenda!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 Trump later shared via Twitter a pair of video clips of his speech at H&K Equipment, in which he touted the tax cuts he signed into law just before Christmas and tried to turn the conversation back to his accomplishments after weeks dominated by distractions, including questions about his mental health and comments about immigration that some considered racist: Departing Pittsburgh now, where it was my great honor to stand with our incredible workers, and to show the world that AMERICA is back - and we are coming back bigger and better and stronger than ever before! pic.twitter.com/kWPgylqFzj  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 AMERICA will once again be a NATION that thinks big, dreams bigger, and always reaches for the stars. YOU are the ones who will shape Americas destiny. YOU are the ones who will restore our prosperity. And YOU are the ones who are MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/f2abNK47II  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 The Republican National Committee, rather than the White House, is supposed to pay for political travel so that taxpayers are not financing party activities; for trips that combine policy and politics, parties have split the cost under past presidents. Neither the RNC nor the White House responded to emails sent Thursday asking who would pay. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement later Thursday suggesting that taxpayers would foot the bill. She insisted that Trump would be conducting government business while in Pennsylvania. Read More This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump tweets praise of Bob Dole after awarding him Congressional Gold Medal By Associated Press Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole knew the art of the deal before President Trump published the 1987 book of the same name. The two shared a stage under the Capitol dome Wednesday as Dole, 94, accepted Congress highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, for his World War II service and decades of work in the House and Senate. Trump later praised Dole in a tweet, attaching to his message a video composed of clips from the ceremony: Today, we witnessed an incredible moment in history  the presentation of Congress highest civilian honor to our friend, and true AMERICAN HERO, Bob Dole. #CongressionalGoldMedal pic.twitter.com/qNQqDLRmCk  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2018 At the ceremony, the president saluted Dole as a patriot and gave tribute to Doles struggle as a veteran who worked his way back from a grievous shoulder wound he suffered in Italy. He knows about grit, said Trump. But it was Doles penchant for working across the aisle that earned him his latest award, according to the legislation. Bob Dole was known for his ability to work across the aisle and embrace practical bipartisanship, reads the legislation Trump signed in September. Some of the awards 300 recipients include George Washington and Mother Teresa, according to the Congressional Research Service. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts report that seeks to link terrorism cases with immigration By Joseph Tanfani The Trump administration on Tuesday released a report attempting to link terrorism with migration, arguing that it was evidence of the need to dramatically reshape the nations immigration system. New report from DOJ & DHS shows that nearly 3 in 4 individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges are foreign-born. We have submitted to Congress a list of resources and reforms....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 ....we need to keep America safe, including moving away from a random chain migration and lottery system, to one that is merit-based. https://t.co/7PtoSFK1n2  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The report, ordered by President Trump in an executive order last year, said that 75% of the 549 people convicted of terrorism charges since 9/11 were born outside the U.S. Administration officials called that a sign that the U.S. needs to scrap its policy of family preferences for visas, which they call chain migration, and a diversity visa lottery program. But the report did not specify how many  if any  of the convicted terrorists entered the country through those means. It also did not detail how many of the convictions were related to attacks or plans in the U.S. versus overseas and how many involved people who went to fight overseas for the Islamic State or another terrorist group. Those details were not available, officials said. The report, due last year, is being released in a highly charged moment in the immigration debate, as Trump and some Republicans in Congress seek tough new border and immigration measures in return for a deal protecting the 690,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump also fired off a pair of tweets on the topic earlier Tuesday: We must have Security at our VERY DANGEROUS SOUTHERN BORDER, and we must have a great WALL to help protect us, and to help stop the massive inflow of drugs pouring into our country!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The Democrats want to shut down the Government over Amnesty for all and Border Security. The biggest loser will be our rapidly rebuilding Military, at a time we need it more than ever. We need a merit based system of immigration, and we need it now! No more dangerous Lottery.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The focus of our immigration system should be assimilation, a senior administration official said on Tuesday, speaking on condition that his name not be used. He said the nation should give priority to potential immigrants who speak English, who have an education and those who are committed to supporting our values  not family members of people already here. The official said the timing of the report was coincidental. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets welcome to president of Kazakhstan By Associated Press President Trump said Tuesday that he and the president of Kazakhstan are united in a shared determination to prevent North Korea from threatening the world with nuclear devastation. Trump and President Nursultan Nazarbayev discussed North Korea along with other issues during meetings at the White House. Today, it was my honor to welcome President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan to the @WhiteHouse! pic.twitter.com/TerYFZViax  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 Trump said Kazakhstan, once part of the Soviet Union, is a valued partner in our efforts to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. Together we are determined to prevent the North Korean regime from threatening the world with nuclear devastation, he said, as both presidents addressed journalists between meetings. Nazarbayev noted that his country once had one of the worlds largest nuclear arsenals but voluntarily gave it up after the Soviet Union collapsed. He said his country is in talks with Iran, which was the focus of a global deal that lifted some economic sanctions in exchange for Irans curbing its nuclear program. Trump has sharply criticized the Iran nuclear deal and threatened last week to pull out soon unless other countries fix what he says are terrible flaws. Read More Facebook

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Trump falsely claims his approval rating among black Americans has doubled By Alex Wigglesworth President Trump lashed out at the news media Tuesday morning in a tweet denouncing the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion among members of his campaign team. Do you notice the Fake News Mainstream Media never likes covering the great and record setting economic news, but rather talks about anything negative or that can be turned into the negative. The Russian Collusion Hoax is dead, except as it pertains to the Dems. Public gets it!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 It wasnt immediately clear exactly what prompted the presidents tweet, but it appeared as though he was watching Fox & Friends. A short time later, Trump tweeted a headline from a report that aired during that mornings episode: 90% of Trump 2017 news coverage was negative -and much of it contrived!@foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The segment focused on the latest survey results from conservative watchdog Media Research Center, which purportedly analyzed the evening news broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC from Jan. 20 to Dec. 31 and found that 90% of the statements made about Trump were negative. Study: 90% of Trump media coverage in 2017 was negative pic.twitter.com/vbrwup4Drg  FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) January 16, 2018 But believe it or not, through all this negative coverage, they did a survey of 600,000 people about how black America views this president, co-host Brian Kilmeade said. His numbers have actually doubled in approval. Trump highlighted the statement in another tweet: Unemployment for Black Americans is the lowest ever recorded. Trump approval ratings with Black Americans has doubled. Thank you, and it will get even (much) better! @FoxNews  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 But its not true. The claim appears to have originated from a misreading of data from the online polling firm SurveyMonkey, according to factcheck.org. The firm polled 600,000 Americans in 2017 and found that Trumps approval rating among blacks actually dropped from 23% early in his presidency to about 17%, as of the week ending Jan. 3. Some conservative outlets, including Breitbart, produced an average from those and other SurveyMonkey figures and compared them to the scores Trump received from black voters in the 2016 exit polls. That methodology is not sound. And since the statistics measure different things, the comparison is misleading. Facebook

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Trump goes after senator who surfaced his immigration remark By Associated Press President Trump turned his Twitter torment Monday on the Democrat in the room where immigration talks with lawmakers took a famously coarse turn, saying Sen. Richard J. Durbin misrepresented what he had said about African nations and Haiti and, in the process, undermined the trust needed to make a deal. Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting, Trump tweeted, using a nickname to needle the Illinois senator. Deals cant get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military. Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals cant get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 Trump was referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects young people who came to the United States illegally as children. Members of Congress from both parties are trying to strike a deal that Trump would support to extend that protection. Trump also cast doubt on the likelihood of reaching an agreement in tweets sent earlier Monday: Statement by me last night in Florida: Honestly, I dont think the Democrats want to make a deal. They talk about DACA, but they dont want to help..We are ready, willing and able to make a deal but they dont want to. They dont want security at the border, they dont want.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 ...to stop drugs, they want to take money away from our military which we cannot do. My standard is very simple, AMERICA FIRST & MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 On a day of remembrance for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Trump spent time at his golf course with no public events, bypassing the acts of service that his predecessors staged in honor of the civil rights leader. Instead, Trump dedicated his weekly address to Kings memory, saying Kings dream and Americas are the same: A world where people are judged by who they are, not how they look or where they come from. That message was a distinct counterpoint to words attributed to Trump by Durbin and others at a meeting last week, when the question of where immigrants come from seemed at the forefront of Trumps concerns. Some participants and others familiar with the conversation said Trump challenged immigration from shithole countries of Africa and disparaged Haiti as well. Without explicitly denying using that word, Trump lashed out at the Democratic senator, who said Trump uttered it on several occasions. Read More Facebook

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Trump thanks pundit for laudatory Fox & Friends spot By Alex Wigglesworth President Trump thanked Fox News personality Stuart Varney after Varney praised Trump during an appearance on Fox & Friends. In a pair of tweets early Sunday, Trump quoted from Varneys commentary, in which he argued that Trump deserves more credit for the booming economy. The pundit, who also hosts a show on Fox Business Network, cited moves by some corporations to raise workers minimum wage or pay out one-time bonuses in response to the GOP tax cuts. President Trump is not getting the credit he deserves for the economy. Tax Cut bonuses to more than 2,000,000 workers. Most explosive Stock Market rally that weve seen in modern times. 18,000 to 26,000 from Election, and grounded in profitability and growth. All Trump, not 0...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2018 ...big unnecessary regulation cuts made it all possible (among many other things). President Trump reversed the policies of President Obama, and reversed our economic decline. Thank you Stuart Varney. @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2018 Varney was reacting to a quote from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who on Thursday called the bonuses handed down to workers pathetic in comparison to the gains corporations are expected to see from the tax cuts. In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on is so pathetic, Pelosi told reporters. Its pathetic. Varney shot back Sunday that the bonuses, along with explosive stock market growth, are enriching all Americans. This is a huge shot in the arm, its the result of this tax cut deal and I think President Trump should get the credit for it, he said. .@Varneyco Sets the economic record straight after Nancy Pelosi calls U.S. mass bonuses crumbs pic.twitter.com/BvjIHGm3HE  FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) January 14, 2018 The sweeping tax plan passed last month lowers the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and cuts personal income taxes. Analysts say the benefits will largely flow to corporations and the wealthy, as theyre more likely to be in positions to share in corporate profits. For instance, Wells Fargo & Co., which responded to news of the tax overhaul by announcing it will raise workers pay to at least $15 an hour, also reported that it expects to pay an effective tax rate of 19% this year, down from about 31% in previous years. That should amount to tax savings of more than $3 billion annually. On average, middle-class Americans are expected to see a very small tax cut in the near term and a tax increase after 2025, when all of the tax cuts for individuals expire. The tax cuts for corporations, however, are permanent.  This post contains reporting from Times staff writer James Rufus Koren. Facebook

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Trump touts MLK proclamation in tweet, but ceremony is overshadowed by reports of racist remarks By Associated Press President Trump signed a proclamation Friday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, noting the contributions of a great American hero. Today, it was my great honor to proclaim January 15, 2018, as Martin Luther King Jr., Federal Holiday. I encourage all Americans to observe this day with appropriate civic, community, and service activities in honor of Dr. King's life and legacy. pic.twitter.com/samlJsz1Nt  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018 Overshadowing the event was mounting backlash from Trumps comments during a private meeting with lawmakers the day before. A short time after the meeting, which was called to discuss a possible immigration deal, reports emerged that Trump had asked participants why the United States should accept immigrants from shithole countries in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the Senates second-ranking Democrat, appeared to confirm those reports on Friday. Trump did not respond Friday to several questions about the incident, including whether he actually used vulgar language to describe African nations, or if he is racist. The president said at the White House that love was central to the slain civil rights leader. Trump said the nation celebrates King for standing up for the self-evident truth Americans hold so dear, that no matter what the color of our skin or place of our birth, we are all created equal by God.  This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump criticizes Democrats in tweet calling for stricter immigration rules President Trump hit out at Democrats on Thursday night in a tweet calling for stricter immigration rules. Trump wrote that members of the party seem intent on having people and drugs pour into our country from the border with Mexico: The Democrats seem intent on having people and drugs pour into our country from the Southern Border, risking thousands of lives in the process. It is my duty to protect the lives and safety of all Americans. We must build a Great Wall, think Merit and end Lottery & Chain. USA!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018 It wasnt immediately clear exactly what prompted the tweet. Earlier Thursday, Trump rejected a bipartisan compromise to resolve the standoff over so-called Dreamers, young immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children but have temporary permits to work, attend school or serve in the military. The president drew widespread condemnation after reports emerged that he had asked participants in an Oval Office meeting about the proposal why the United States should accept immigrants from shithole countries in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts bill aimed at improving border screening for fentanyl By Associated Press President Trump signed legislation Wednesday aimed at giving Customs and Border Protection agents additional screening devices and other tools to stop the flow of illicit drugs. Speaking at a surprise bill-signing ceremony while flanked by members of Congress from both parties in the Oval Office, Trump described the bill as a significant step forward in the fight against powerful opioids such as fentanyl, which he called our new big scourge. He echoed that language Thursday in a tweet: Yesterday, I signed the #INTERDICTAct (H.R. 2142) with bipartisan members of Congress to help end the flow of drugs into our country. Together, we are committed to doing everything we can to combat the deadly scourge of drug addiction and overdose in the United States! pic.twitter.com/ELZvFol5Lo  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018 The legislation will pay for new portable and fixed chemical screening devices to detect and intercept fentanyl at ports of entry and in the mail, along with other laboratory equipment and personnel, including scientists. Trump has made fighting the opioid epidemic a centerpiece of his administration, though critics say he hasnt dedicated nearly enough money or resources to make a difference. Trump suggested during his remarks on Wednesday that hed like to take a more aggressive approach to the drug crisis  but the countrys not ready for what he has in mind. So were going to sign this. And its a step. And it feels like a very giant step, but unfortunately, its not going to be a giant step, because no matter what you do, this is something that keeps pouring in, he said. And were going to find the answer. There is an answer. I think I actually know the answer, but Im not sure the countrys ready for it yet, he added. Does anybody know what I mean? I think so. Facebook

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Trump applauds news that Toyota-Mazda plant is slated for Alabama By Associated Press Japanese automakers Toyota and Mazda on Wednesday announced plans to build a mammoth, $1.6-billion joint-venture plant in Alabama that will eventually employ about 4,000 people. President Trump lauded the news in a tweet: Cutting taxes and simplifying regulations makes America the place to invest! Great news as Toyota and Mazda announce they are bringing 4,000 JOBS and investing $1.6 BILLION in Alabama, helping to further grow our economy! pic.twitter.com/Kcg8IVH6iA  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Good news: Toyota and Mazda announce giant new Huntsville, Alabama, plant which will produce over 300,000 cars and SUVs a year and employ 4000 people. Companies are coming back to the U.S. in a very big way. Congratulations Alabama!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018 Several states had competed for the project, which will be able to turn out 300,000 vehicles per year and produce the Toyota Corolla compact car for North America and a new small SUV from Mazda. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and company executives held a news conference to announce that the facility is coming to the Huntsville area not far from the Tennessee line. Production is expected to begin by 2021. The decision to pick Alabama is another example of foreign-based automakers building U.S. factories in the South. To entice manufacturers, Southern states have used a combination of lucrative incentive packages, low-cost labor and a pro-business labor environment, because the United Auto Workers union is stronger in Northern states. Read More Facebook

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Trump highlights call for border wall in tweets on visit with Norways prime minister By Associated Press President Trump praised Norways prime minister in a tweet on Wednesday after Erna Solberg became the first foreign leader to visit with the president in 2018. Today, it was my great honor to welcome Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway to the @WhiteHouse - a great friend and ally of the United States! Joint press conference: https://t.co/qWR1BhfQZI pic.twitter.com/PJvwznjRCO  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Trump also shared via Twitter a video clip of a joint news conference he held with Solberg on Wednesday afternoon. In the clip, Trump responds to a question from a reporter by saying there can be no bipartisan immigration deal absent funding for his long-promised wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been seeking a solution for hundreds of thousands of so-called Dreamers, young people who were brought to the United States as children and are living here illegally. The United States needs the security of the Wall on the Southern Border, which must be part of any DACA approval. The safety and security of our country is #1! pic.twitter.com/4CFzQXb5aS  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 We need the wall for security, we need the wall for safety, we need the wall for stopping the drugs from pouring in, Trump said Wednesday.  Any solution has to include the wall because without the wall, it all doesnt work. On Tuesday, Trump drew widespread attention when he said during a meeting with a bipartisan group of lawmakers that he would be agreeable to signing a stand-alone bill to protect the Dreamers, before moving on to a more comprehensive immigration bill. That contradicted the Republican consensus that Dreamers fate needed to be part of a broader immigration bill that would include some version of Trumps promised border wall and other immigration reforms. Trump backed away from a stand-alone Dreamer bill in subsequent tweets and public comments. Read More This post contains reporting from Los Angeles Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump praises Cabinet in tweet touting meeting By Associated Press President Trump promoted a meeting of his Cabinet on Wednesday, sharing via Twitter a link to a video of the session posted on the White House YouTube account. In his tweet, Trump thanked his Cabinet for working tirelessly on behalf of our country and wrote that the last year has been one of monumental achievement. I want to thank my @Cabinet for working tirelessly on behalf of our country. 2017 was a year of monumental achievement and we look forward to the year ahead. Together, we are delivering results and MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! https://t.co/ptXa1hAPwW pic.twitter.com/yv6RALkQf3  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 The former reality television star continued to dispense accolades at the meeting Wednesday, greeting reporters in the Cabinet Room by saying: Welcome back to the studio. Then he proceeded to relive a Cabinet Room session from the prior day, when he had allowed reporters and TV cameras to stick around for much of his meeting with a bipartisan group of legislators on the thorny issue of immigration. It was a tremendous meeting. Actually, it was reported as incredibly good. And my performance  you know, some of them called it a performance  I consider it work, Trump said. Trump went on to say he had received letters from news anchors calling it one of the greatest meetings theyve ever witnessed. He added that the media will ultimately support Trump in the end, because theyre going to say, if Trump doesnt win in three years, theyre all out of business. Asked for examples of letters received from news anchors, the White House said it had received private communications. It also offered a series of positive on-air comments and tweets from journalists about the unusual access to the meeting. During his remarks, Trump swung from praising his own meeting coverage to telling journalists that they were dependent on his presidency for ratings to threatening a strong look at libel laws. Still, Trump thanked the journalists in front of him, joking: Youve gotten very familiar with this room. I appreciate your nice comments yesterday. Facebook

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Trump blasts DACA ruling in tweet calling courts broken and unfair By Lisa Mascaro President Trump denounced the federal courts Wednesday as broken and unfair after a district judge in San Francisco issued a nationwide injunction keeping protections in place for so-called Dreamers. Trump tweeted: It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 On Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco temporarily blocked the Trump administrations decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, which has protected from deportation some 700,000 people who came to the country illegally as children. Alsup granted a request by the state of California, the University of California and other plaintiffs to stop Trump from ending DACA on March 5. The administrations decision to end DACA, which was announced in September, was based on a flawed legal analysis, Alsup wrote in his decision. Dreamers would be irreparably harmed if their DACA protections, which allow them to live and work legally in the U.S., were stripped away before the courts had a chance to fully consider their claims, he ruled. The action is the mirror image of a ruling in 2015 by a federal judge in Texas who ruled in favor of that state when it sought to block President Obama from expanding DACA to include the parents of Dreamers. Trump administration officials praised that judicial ruling. By contrast, they sharply criticized Alsups decision. Read More Facebook

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Trump thanks lawmakers for productive immigration meeting, says deal must include border wall President Trump thanked a bipartisan group of lawmakers for participating in a meeting on immigration legislation on Tuesday. Much of the discussion involved so-called Dreamers, an estimated 700,000 young people who were brought to the country illegally as children and are now facing deportation. In a tweet, Trump wrote that there was strong agreement to negotiate a bill to protect Dreamers, as well as put into place some of the reforms favored by Republicans. Thanks to all of the Republican and Democratic lawmakers for todays very productive meeting on immigration reform. There was strong agreement to negotiate a bill that deals with border security, chain migration, lottery and DACA. https://t.co/SdqAQ3aL3z pic.twitter.com/8DYHZHspAy  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 The most notable exchange of the meeting came when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the San Francisco Democrat, asked Trump whether he would be agreeable to signing a stand-alone bill to protect the Dreamers, before moving on to a more comprehensive immigration bill. Yeah, I would like to do it, Trump responded. The statement drew widespread attention because it contradicted the Republican consensus that Dreamers fate needed to be part of a broader immigration bill that would include some version of Trumps promised border wall and other immigration reforms. Trump later backed away from a stand-alone Dreamer bill, tweeting that a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico must be part of any deal: As I made very clear today, our country needs the security of the Wall on the Southern Border, which must be part of any DACA approval.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Pressure has been mounting for Congress to broker an immigration deal by Jan. 19 as part of a must-pass budget package to fund the government. This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump thanks officers and veterans in tweets President Trump doled out a slew of accolades Tuesday via Twitter. He thanked the nations law enforcement officers, including in his message a hashtag denoting a day of appreciation organized by a national support group for law enforcement families. On behalf of the American people, THANK YOU to our incredible law enforcement officers. As President of the United States - I will fight for you, and I will never, ever let you down. Now, more than ever, we must support the men and women in blue! #LawEnforcementAppreciationDay pic.twitter.com/Qb4uxB4JRm  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 Trump later expressed gratitude for federal immigration agents, in particular: .@ICEgov HSI agents and ERO officers, on behalf of an entire Nation, THANK YOU for what you are doing 24/7/365 to keep fellow Americans SAFE. Everyone is so grateful!#LawEnforcementAppreciationDay

President @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/HXCpTlruVo  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 The president thanked veterans as he cited his administrations efforts to curb the number of veteran suicides by improving mental health treatment for the high-risk group: Today, it was my great honor to sign a new Executive Order to ensure Veterans have the resources they need as they transition back to civilian life. We must ensure that our HEROES are given the care and support they so richly deserve! https://t.co/0MdP9DDIAS pic.twitter.com/LP2a8KCBAp  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 Trumps tweet included photos of the president signing an executive order Tuesday directing the secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs to develop a plan to provide seamless access to mental health and suicide prevention resources for 12 months for members leaving the armed forces. Also on Tuesday, Trump touted a law he signed the day before designating the birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a national historic park: It was my great honor to sign H.R. 267, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park Act, which redesignates the Martin Luther King, Junior, National Historic Site in the State of Georgia as the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park. https://t.co/Qe0b6HBFTY pic.twitter.com/QTgaqTawPT  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 And he thanked House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) for sharing a video compilation comprised of clips of politicians and commentators praising the GOPs tax cut bill: Thank you @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy! Couldnt agree w/you more. TOGETHER, we are #MAGA https://t.co/QaxtqpyXTR  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018  This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writer Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump hails tax bill in tweets recapping speech to farmers By Associated Press Connecting with rural Americans, President Trump on Monday hailed his tax overhaul as a victory for family farmers. Farm country is Gods country, Trump told the annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Trump became the first president in a quarter-century to address the federations convention. His Southern swing also included a stop in Atlanta for the national college football championship game. Cant wait to be back in the amazing state of Tennessee to address the 99th American @FarmBureau Federations Annual Convention in Nashville! #AFBF18



On my way now - join me LIVE at 4:00pmE: https://t.co/QaljAqekdD. pic.twitter.com/Wm7Io0hYT8  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Joined by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and a group of Tennessee lawmakers, Trump said most of the benefits of the tax legislation are going to working families, small businesses, and who  the family farmer. The package Trump signed into law last month provides generous tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and more modest reductions for middle- and low-income individuals and families. In every decision we make, we are honoring Americas PROUD FARMING LEGACY. Years of crushing taxes, crippling regs, & corrupt politics left our communities hurting, our economy stagnant, & millions of hardworking Americans COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN. But they are not forgotten ANYMORE! pic.twitter.com/MdYS7xnukQ  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 The president vastly inflated the value of the package in his speech, citing a total of $5.5 trillion in tax cuts, with most of those benefits going to working families, small businesses and who? The family farmer. The estimated value of the tax cuts is actually $1.5 trillion for families and businesses because of cuts in deductions and the use of other steps to generate offsetting tax revenue. We have been working every day to DELIVER for Americas Farmers just as they work every day to deliver FOR US. #AFBF18 pic.twitter.com/QDH7fvFkZ7  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 From Nashville, Trump traveled to Atlanta to watch Alabamas Crimson Tide and Georgias Bulldogs face off Monday night in the College Football Playoff National Championship. We are fighting for our farmers, for our country, and for our GREAT AMERICAN FLAG. We want our flag respected - and we want our NATIONAL ANTHEM respected also! pic.twitter.com/16eOLXg6Fi  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Before departing for the game, Trump referenced his ongoing defense of the American flag and the national anthem, saying there was enough space for people to express their views. We love our flag and we love our anthem, and we want to keep it that way, he said. Facebook

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Trump tweet hails drop in unemployment rate for African Americans By Associated Press President Trump touted a drop in the unemployment rate for African Americans on Monday in a tweet. African American unemployment is the lowest ever recorded in our country. The Hispanic unemployment rate dropped a full point in the last year and is close to the lowest in recorded history. Dems did nothing for you but get your vote! #NeverForget @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 The rate fell to 6.8% in December, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1972. The reasons range from a greater number of black Americans with college degrees to a growing need for employers in a tight job market to widen the pool of people they hire from. Trump also hailed the development via Twitter on Saturday. His latest tweet on the topic came about an hour after it was discussed during an episode of Fox & Friends, according to Mediaite. Facebook

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Trump talks up the economy and dresses down the media in Sunday tweets With President Trump cheering from the sidelines, the White House on Sunday pressed its defense of the presidents fitness to govern, as fired former aide Stephen K. Bannon reversed course and apologized for his role in a new books explosive portrait of Trump. The presidents critics, meanwhile, said Trumps stream of taunts and insults in response to the book  Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, released last week  served only to underscore the authors unsettling portrayal of Trumps year-old presidency, depicting a leader whose own aides consider him childish, ignorant and dangerously erratic. Trump provided more ammunition Sunday morning, as he continued to attack the book via Twitter while preparing to depart Camp David for the White House: Leaving Camp David for the White House. Great meetings with the Cabinet and Military on many very important subjects including Border Security & the desperately needed Wall, the ever increasing Drug and Opioid Problem, Infrastructure, Military, Budget, Trade and DACA.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Ive had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President. Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author. Ronald Reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will I!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 The most vehement defense of Trump on Sunday came from senior advisor Stephen Miller, a onetime Bannon acolyte who distanced himself from his former mentor. In a combative appearance Sunday on CNNs State of the Union, Miller called the book grotesque and writer Michael Wolff the garbage author of a garbage book. Trump is known to closely monitor aides televised performances in putting forth his case, and he gleefully weighed in within moments of Millers televised clash with host Jake Tapper. CNN has long been a particular target of Trumps ire. Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Trumps reaction, however, seemed to bolster Tappers on-air depiction of Miller as using his appearance on the show to play to the president rather than addressing questions put to him. I get it  theres one viewer that you care about, the host said exasperatedly after Miller turned the discussion repeatedly to negative news coverage of the president while deflecting specific queries. Later on Twitter, Trump took up two themes that have been prevalent on his social media feeds recently. The president again went after the news media, tweeting that the recipients of his self-proclaimed most dishonest & corrupt media awards of the year, which he promised earlier in the week to announce on Monday, would actually be revealed the following Wednesday: The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Trump later lauded a New York Post opinion piece that compared him favorably with his predecessor, President Obama, as well as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In quoting the op-ed, Trump initally misspelled consequential as consensual, but he deleted those tweets and re-sent the messages. His is turning out to be an enormously consequential presidency. So much so that, despite my own frustration over his missteps, there has never been a day when I wished Hillary Clinton were president. Not one. Indeed, as Trumps accomplishments accumulate, the mere thought of...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 ...Clinton in the WH, doubling down on Barack Obamas failed policies, washes away any doubts that America made the right choice. This was truly a change election  and the changes Trump is bringing are far-reaching & necessary. Thank you Michael Goodwin! https://t.co/4fHNcx2Ydg  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Trump also continued talking up the economy, which has been enjoying a period of strong gains. The Stock Market has been creating tremendous benefits for our country in the form of not only Record Setting Stock Prices, but present and future Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Seven TRILLION dollars of value created since our big election win!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 In addition to Miller, other senior administration officials made the rounds of Sunday news talk shows to decry the claims made in Wolffs book. CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Wolffs characterization of Trump as averse to digesting classified briefing material was ludicrous, and the ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, insisted that that those around Trump love their country and respect their president. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Laura King. Facebook

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Responding to book that mocks his intelligence, Trump tweets hes like, really smart By Tracy Wilkinson President Trump declared himself a very stable genius on Twitter on Saturday and later in a televised news conference called the author of a book that questioned his mental fitness a fraud. His comments came on a bone-cold day at Camp David during a weekend retreat with top administration officials and Republican congressional leaders strategizing on the years legislative agenda, including matters such as infrastructure, immigration, welfare reform and national security. Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 ....Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 ....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 Still, Trumps explosive rebuttal to author Michael Wolffs claims not only opened the day, but it also ensured the presidents capability to fill the highest office in the land was a topic that would not go away. In his early-morning tweets, Trump said two of his greatest assets have been mental stability, and being, like, really smart. He noted that his former Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, played these cards [about competence] very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). Read More Facebook

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In morning tweets, Trump touts job numbers and takes digs at news media By Associated Press President Trump used Twitter on Saturday morning to tout a drop in the unemployment rate for African Americans. He also used the tweets as an opportunity to take digs at media outlets whose past coverage he has found to be critical. The African American unemployment rate fell to 6.8%, the lowest rate in 45 years. I am so happy about this News! And, in the Washington Post (of all places), headline states, Trumps first year jobs numbers were very, very good.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 The unemployment rate for African Americans fell to 6.8% in December, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1972. The reasons range from a greater number of black Americans with college degrees to a growing need for employers in a tight job market to widen the pool of people they hire from. Still, the rate for black workers remains well above those for whites and some other groups, something experts attribute in large part to decades of discrimination and disadvantages. Robust job creation has lowered unemployment for all Americans. U.S. employers added nearly 2.1 million jobs in 2017  the seventh straight year that hiring has topped 2 million. In his tweet, Trump praised a report that noted the numbers, touting the fact that it appeared in the Washington Post (of all places). Minutes later, Trump renewed his attack on an ABC News reporter who was suspended last month after filing an erroneous report on Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security advisor. Brian Ross, the reporter who made a fraudulent live newscast about me that drove the Stock Market down 350 points (billions of dollars), was suspended for a month but is now back at ABC NEWS in a lower capacity. He is no longer allowed to report on Trump. Should have been fired!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 The reporter, Brian Ross, was reportedly reassigned within ABC News upon returning from his unpaid suspension. But on Saturday, Trump wrote that he should have been fired. Trumps tweets came hours before he was set to host congressional Republicans and administration officials at Camp David. The meeting scheduled to begin at midmorning Saturday was expected to touch on the budget, infrastructure, immigration, welfare reform and the shape of the midterm election this fall. Facebook

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Trump commends Sen. Rand Paul after he proposes eliminating all U.S. aid to Pakistan President Trump commended Sen. Rand Paul after the Kentucky Republican announced plans to introduce legislation that would eliminate all U.S. aid to Pakistan. Trump tweeted Friday night: Good idea Rand! https://t.co/55sqUDiC0s  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 On Thursday, the Trump administration announced it was suspending security assistance to Islamabad until the country moves aggressively against local militants who have attacked U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration at the apparent inability of Pakistani authorities to rein in militants who cross out of the countrys rugged tribal areas to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson. Facebook

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Trump continues to lash out at Sloppy Steve Bannon in tweets on tell-all book By Associated Press President Trump is praising a major Republican donor family for distancing themselves from his former advisor Steve Bannon. Trump tweeted Friday: The Mercer Family recently dumped the leaker known as Sloppy Steve Bannon. Smart!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Trump has continued to lash out at Bannon over an explosive new book that quoted his former aide as questioning Trumps competence and describing a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower among Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer as treasonous and unpatriotic. On Thursday, billionaire GOP donor Rebekah Mercer issued a statement distancing her family from Bannon. Mercer is a co-owner of Breitbart, the populist website Bannon helps run. I support President Trump and the platform upon which he was elected, Mercer said. My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements. The book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, quickly shot atop Amazons best-seller list, and the publisher moved up its release date by four days, to Friday. Trump took up the topic again on Twitter on Friday night, denouncing both Bannon and the books author, Michael Wolff, in starkly personal terms: Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! https://t.co/mEeUhk5ZV9  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 Trumps message linked to a meme depicting a parody book cover titled, Liar and Phony, that featured a photo of Wolff and disparaging quotes about the author. In a tweet sent earlier Friday morning, Trump suggested the book was intended to serve as a distraction from the FBIs investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which Trump wrote is proving to be a total hoax. Well, now that collusion with Russia is proving to be a total hoax and the only collusion is with Hillary Clinton and the FBI/Russia, the Fake News Media (Mainstream) and this phony new book are hitting out at every new front imaginable. They should try winning an election. Sad!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 That came amid reports that Trump directed his White House counsel to tell Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to not recuse himself from the Justice Departments Russia investigation. Trumps effort to keep Sessions, a vocal and loyal supporter of his election bid, in charge of an investigation into his campaign offers special counsel Robert Mueller yet another avenue to explore as his prosecutors work to untangle potential evidence of obstruction. Read More Facebook

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Trump praises the economy ahead of meetings at Camp David By Associated Press President Trump is praising the strength of the U.S. economy ahead of meetings at Camp David with congressional Republicans. Trump tweeted early Friday: Dow goes from 18,589 on November 9, 2016, to 25,075 today, for a new all-time Record. Jumped 1000 points in last 5 weeks, Record fastest 1000 point move in history. This is all about the Make America Great Again agenda! Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Six trillion dollars in value created!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 The president also told reporters on the South Lawn that the tax cuts are really kicking in after Congress passed a package of tax cuts at the end of 2017. And the president praised the December jobs report, which found U.S. employers added 148,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1%, the lowest level since 2000. The modest but steady pace of hiring is a reassuring sign for investors who have been buoyed by the just-passed Republican tax plan and have been sending stock market indexes roaring to uncharted heights. The president is meeting with Republican congressional leaders and members of his Cabinet on Friday and Saturday to discuss the 2018 agenda. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets as Dow crashes through 25,000 By Associated Press President Trump dispatched a congratulatory tweet as the Dow Jones industrial average rose above the 25,000-point mark Thursday, just five weeks after its first close above 24,000. Dow just crashes through 25,000. Congrats! Big cuts in unnecessary regulations continuing.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 After the Dow closed above 25,000, Trump shared a graphic depicting the stock indexs record-setting rise. MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/iONbr1DkVk  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Later in the day, the president was back on Twitter, complaining that news outlets had barely covered the stock market milestone. He suggested that the strength of the economy would be the biggest story on earth, had it unfolded during the presidency of his predecessor. The Fake News Media barely mentions the fact that the Stock Market just hit another New Record and that business in the U.S. is booming...but the people know! Can you imagine if O was president and had these numbers - would be biggest story on earth! Dow now over 25,000.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 The Dow broke past 1,000-point barriers in 2017 on its way to a 25% gain for the year, as an eight-year rally since the Great Recession continued to confound skeptics. Strong global economic growth and good prospects for higher company earnings have analysts predicting more gains, although the market may not stay as calm as it has been recently. The Dow has made a rapid trip since it reached 24,000 points Nov. 30, partly on enthusiasm over passage of the Republican-backed tax package, which could boost company profits this year with across-the-board cuts to corporate taxes. Read More Facebook

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Trump reacts to Fire and Fury book in tweet lashing out at author and Sloppy Steve President Trump lashed out at the author of a soon-to-be-released book about the chaotic first year of his presidency Thursday night. In a tweet, Trump called Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, a phony book and claimed that hed never spoken to its author, Michael Wolff. Look at this guys past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve! Trump wrote. He appeared to be referring to former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, whose stunning criticisms of Trump and his circle figure prominently in the title. I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that dont exist. Look at this guys past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Trumps tweet came hours after he had his lawyer demand that Henry Holt & Co. and Wolff stop publication the book. Instead, the publisher expedited the books release to Friday, four days before it was slated to hit bookstore shelves, in response to unprecedented demand. Published excerpts on Wednesday and Thursday whetted that appetite and roiled Washington. Bannons comments, including that it was treasonous and unpatriotic for Trumps son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign manager Paul Manafort to have met in 2016 with Russians said to have dirt on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, prompted Trump on Wednesday to rebuke his former advisor, saying Bannon had lost his mind. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Brian Bennett and Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump thanks senators who attended meeting on immigration President Trump tweeted thanks to Republican senators who attended a meeting about possible immigration legislation on Thursday. In his message, Trump also listed his top priorities when it comes to any type of overhaul of the nations immigration system. Thank you to the great Republican Senators who showed up to our mtg on immigration reform. We must BUILD THE WALL, stop illegal immigration, end chain migration & cancel the visa lottery. The current system is unsafe & unfair to the great people of our country - time for change!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Trumps tweet echoed his remarks at the beginning of Thursdays meeting, when he insisted again that constructing a border wall and overhauling two legal immigration programs must be part of any deal with Democrats to protect the so-called Dreamers from deportation. Two-year deportation protections and work permits given under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program begin to expire March 6 under an executive order. Trump announced in September that he was ending the Obama-era program, but told Congress to draft a law to continue protections for people brought to the country illegally as children  a group that has widespread public support. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Brian Bennett. Facebook

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Trump resumes Twitter war against kneeling NFL players President Trump has resumed his Twitter war against NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest social injustice and racial inequality. In a tweet early Thursday, Trump replied to a supporter who shared a meme that appears to depict family members lying on the grave of a fallen soldier with the caption: This is why we stand. Show this picture to the NFL players who still kneel! Trump wrote. So beautiful....Show this picture to the NFL players who still kneel! https://t.co/tJLM1tvbvb  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 The president has denounced players who kneel during the anthem in previous tweets. Hes also called for the firing of players who do so. His latest message came amid news that the NFL finished the regular season with TV ratings that fell nearly 10% below the previous season. Analysts attribute the drop to controversies facing the league, as well as changing viewing habits and a possible saturation point in the number of games available. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Stephen Battaglio and Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump credits himself with facilitating talks between North and South Korea By Associated Press President Trump says his tough stance on nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula is helping push North Korea and South Korea to talk. Trump tweeted early Thursday: With all of the failed experts weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasnt firm, strong and willing to commit our total might against the North. Fools, but talks are a good thing!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 That assertion is in conflict with some of the presidents own statements. Last year, he ridiculed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for talking about negotiations with the North. This week, Trump seemed open to the possibility of an inter-Korean dialogue after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a rare overture toward South Korea in a New Years Day address. But Trumps ambassador to the United Nations insisted that talks wont be meaningful unless the North is getting rid of its nuclear weapons. The overture about talks came after Trump and Kim traded more bellicose claims about their nuclear weapons. In his New Years Day address, Kim repeated fiery nuclear threats against the United States. Kim said he has a nuclear button on his office desk and warned that the whole territory of the U.S. is within the range of our nuclear strike. Trump mocked that assertion Tuesday evening in a tweet. Facebook

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After disbanding his vote fraud panel, Trump still says voting system is rigged By Brian Bennett One day after disbanding his troubled voter fraud commission without any findings of fraud, President Trump continued to call the U.S. voting system rigged and said states should require that Americans have voter-identification cards. In two tweets on Thursday morning, Trump blamed the commissions failure on the lack of cooperation from mostly Democrat States that refused to hand over voter rolls because they know that many people are voting illegally. However, voting supervisors in Republican-led states refused as well, objecting on privacy and other grounds. Many mostly Democrat States refused to hand over data from the 2016 Election to the Commission On Voter Fraud. They fought hard that the Commission not see their records or methods because they know that many people are voting illegally. System is rigged, must go to Voter I.D.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 As Americans, you need identification, sometimes in a very strong and accurate form, for almost everything you do.....except when it comes to the most important thing, VOTING for the people that run your country. Push hard for Voter Identification!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Despite Trumps assertions, analysts have not found evidence of widespread voter fraud. Trump created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May after alleging, without proof, that millions of illegal votes were cast for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Trump was elected after winning a majority in the electoral college, but the nationwide count showed Clinton received nearly 3 million more votes. The commission sought personal data on voters across the country and faced mounting lawsuits in recent months over privacy concerns. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts another good day for stocks, credits tax cut By Associated Press President Trump touted another good day for the stock market Wednesday in a tweet. Stock Market had another good day but, now that the Tax Cut Bill has passed, we have tremendous upward potential. Dow just short of 25,000, a number that few thought would be possible this soon into my administration. Also, unemployment went down to 4.1%. Only getting better!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Big gains for technology and healthcare stocks helped U.S. indexes set records again Wednesday. Some analysts attributed the surge to investor enthusiasm for Trumps $1.5-trillion tax cut. All told, Wall Street analysts estimate the tax package should boost earnings for companies in the Standard & Poors 500 index by roughly 8% this year. Thats much more generous than the average tax cut of 1.6% that middle-class families will receive, according to the Tax Policy Center. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 The public has been less enthusiastic about the tax law. A Monmouth University poll last month found that nearly half of Americans disapproved of it, with only 26% in support. Still, as Trump also noted on Twitter, some workers have seen a benefit: So far, dozens of companies have announced bonuses and higher minimum wages as a result of the tax cut. AT&T, Comcast, Bank of America, and American Airlines have all pledged to pay $1,000 bonuses to their employees. Some 40 U.S. companies have responded to President Trumps tax cut and reform victory in Congress last year by handing out bonuses up to $2,000, increases in 401k matches and spending on charity, a much higher number than previously known. https://t.co/bmWrwWzxMR  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Investors also appear less concerned than many politicians about how the additional profits will be used. The Trump administration says it expects companies will plow much of the extra profit back into their businesses, purchasing more software, machinery, and other equipment. Those investments will make workers more productive and provide a key boost to the economys long-run growth. They should also boost wages and salaries for employees. Opponents of the tax law respond that companies are more likely to pass the windfall on to shareholders in the form of higher dividend payments and share buybacks, which raise the price of those shares still in investors hands. Previous cuts in corporate tax rates, in the United States and overseas, havent always led to higher wages. For Wall Street, its all good, at least in the short run. Most analysts take the view that either way, companies and the economy will benefit. Facebook

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Trump reacts to death of Mormon Church president By Associated Press President Trump mourned the death of Mormon Church leader Thomas S. Monson on Wednesday evening. Trump tweeted a link to a statement in which he said that Monson demonstrated wisdom, inspired leadership, and great compassion and delivered a message of optimism, forgiveness, and faith. Melania and I are deeply saddened by the death of Thomas S. Monson, a beloved President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...https://t.co/ETD3fWtfU3  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 A church bishop at the age of 22, Monson became the youngest church apostle ever in 1963 at the age of 36. He served as a counselor for three church presidents before assuming the role of the top leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February 2008. After a life of church service, Monson died Tuesday at his home in Salt Lake City, according to church spokesman Eric Hawkins. He was 90. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets that Iranian protesters will see great U.S. support at the appropriate time By Associated Press President Trump continued to express support for Irans anti-government protesters on Wednesday. In a tweet, Trump commended the protesters and pledged that the United States will support them at the appropriate time. Such respect for the people of Iran as they try to take back their corrupt government. You will see great support from the United States at the appropriate time!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Trumps tweet Wednesday morning came as Iranian Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo sent a letter to United Nations officials complaining that Washington was intervening in a grotesque way in Irans internal affairs. The President and Vice-President of the United States, in their numerous absurd tweets, incited Iranians to engage in disruptive acts, the ambassador wrote to the U.N. Security Council president and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The U.S. didnt immediately respond to the letter, which maintains that Washington has crossed every limit in flouting rules and principles of international law governing the civilized conduct of international relations. At least 21 people have been killed and hundreds arrested in Iran during a week of anti-government protests and unrest over economic woes and official corruption. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people took part in counter-demonstrations Wednesday backing the clerically overseen government, which has said enemies of Iran are fomenting the protests. Trump has unleashed a series of tweets in recent days backing the protesters, saying Iran is failing at every level and declaring that it is time for change in the Islamic Republic. Facebook

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Trump congratulates Sen. Orrin Hatch upon news of his retirement By Associated Press President Trump congratulated Sen. Orrin Hatch for an absolutely incredible career upon news of Hatchs impending retirement. In a tweet Tuesday afternoon, Trump called Hatch a tremendous supporter and wrote that he will be greatly missed in the Senate. Congratulations to Senator Orrin Hatch on an absolutely incredible career. He has been a tremendous supporter, and I will never forget the (beyond kind) statements he has made about me as President. He is my friend and he will be greatly missed in the U.S. Senate! pic.twitter.com/0VjzLEeHTl  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Hatchs decision to retire from the Senate after four decades lets the Utah Republican walk away at the height of his power after helping to push through an overhaul of the tax code and persuading Trump to downsize two national monuments. Retirement also preserves the 83-year-olds legacy by allowing him to avoid a bruising reelection battle that would have broken his promise not to seek an eighth term. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweet exaggerates progress in improving veterans care By Associated Press President Trump played up tremendous progress in improving care for veterans in his first year on Tuesday in a tweet. His message linked to an Instagram video describing eight accomplishments that show Trump is fighting for our veterans. But it overstates the impact of these steps. We will not rest until all of Americas GREAT VETERANS can receive the care they so richly deserve. Tremendous progress has been made in a short period of time. Keep up the great work @SecShulkin @DeptVetAffairs! https://t.co/ir25vW15hx pic.twitter.com/OtuzIgxMn6  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Of the eight achievements cited, two are ceremonial proclamations recognizing National Veterans and Military Families Month and National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Two are pieces of legislation that extended the troubled Veterans Choice program on a temporary basis. This became necessary because the Trump administration repeatedly miscalculated the amount of taxpayer dollars available to pay for care from private doctors outside the Veterans Affairs system when veterans had to endure long waits for treatment at VA medical centers. The departments poor budget planning caught lawmakers off guard. A fifth claim involves telehealth, a step letting doctors practice medicine across state lines using digital technology. Announced in August, it has yet to take full effect because a proposed VA regulation hasnt been completed. The VA wants authority to practice across state lines to come from legislation, not a regulation. On Wednesday, the Senate approved a telehealth measure that now goes to the House. A sixth claim refers to legislation that streamlines the appeals process for disability compensation claims within the VA. This step has had limited effect so far because it applies to new disability claims, not the 470,000 pending claims. The last two initiatives make it easier for the VA to discipline employees. The department has pointed to more than 1,300 employees who have been fired under Trumps watch. Because their infractions are not detailed in public documents, the effect on veterans care is not fully known. Facebook

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Trump unleashes his first tweetstorm of 2018 By Noah Bierman President Trump clearly didnt resolve to change his Twitter habits this year. With nine disparate tweets over three hours on Tuesday morning, the first working day of 2018, Trump continued to exploit social media to be the most aggressive commentator in chief in American history. For any other president, his posts would have made for a monumental day of (mis-)statements. Yet for Trump, the series  attacks on political foes and media, provocations of foreign leaders and self-praise for events he had nothing to do with  was all but unremarkable. His Twitter barrage  sent between 7:09 a.m. and 10:16 a.m.  reflected a familiar gamut after nearly a year in office: Attacks on political foes: Nearly 14 months after his election, Trump called for the jailing of Huma Abedin, Crooked Hillary Clintons top aid (his misspelling, another occasional feature of Trump tweets). Crooked Hillary Clintons top aid, Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols. She put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Remember sailors pictures on submarine? Jail! Deep State Justice Dept must finally act? Also on Comey & others  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 In the same tweet, he disparaged the Deep State Justice Dept, headed of course by his appointees, calling on it to act against James B. Comey, the FBI director he fired for investigating the Russia thing. Diplomatic provocations: Trump again called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un Rocket man, ridiculed the volatile nuclear-armed foe for recent military defections and openly speculated about potential talks between North and South Korea. Sanctions and other pressures are beginning to have a big impact on North Korea. Soldiers are dangerously fleeing to South Korea. Rocket man now wants to talk to South Korea for first time. Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not - we will see!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not  we will see! Trump wrote. Later Tuesday, Trump tweeted: North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times. Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Also later Tuesday, Trump tweeted an attack on Pakistan, his second in as many days, and added a new one against Palestinians: It's not only Pakistan that we pay billions of dollars to for nothing, but also many other countries, and others. As an example, we pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They dont even want to negotiate a long overdue...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 ...peace treaty with Israel. We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Undermining media: Trump offered Congratulations! to A.G. Sulzberger, who took over as publisher of the New York Times this week. The Failing New York Times has a new publisher, A.G. Sulzberger. Congratulations! Here is a last chance for the Times to fulfill the vision of its Founder, Adolph Ochs, to give the news impartially, without fear or FAVOR, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved. Get...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 ....impartial journalists of a much higher standard, lose all of your phony and non-existent sources, and treat the President of the United States FAIRLY, so that the next time I (and the people) win, you wont have to write an apology to your readers for a job poorly done! GL  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 But the two-part post was really yet another slam against a perceived media foe: Trump said the paper had a last chance to fulfill its journalistic mission, and accused it of relying on phony sources and substandard reporters  just days after he granted another exclusive interview to the paper. As a bonus, the tweet contained a recycled falsehood, that the paper apologized after the election for reporting on him unfairly. It didnt. Trump later said on Twitter that he would soon announce the most dishonest & corrupt media awards of the year. Stay tuned! I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 oclock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 The president also tweeted a quote from Fox Business Networks Lou Dobbs Tonight, which aired a segment praising Trumps first-year accomplishments. Dobbs reportedly joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday for a gala to celebrate New Years Eve. President Trump has something now he didnt have a year ago, that is a set of accomplishments that nobody can deny. The accomplishments are there, look at his record, he has had a very significant first year. @LouDobbs Show,David Asman & Ed Rollins  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Taking credit: Trump congratulated himself for policing the border with Mexico, an area where his policies and anti-immigration rhetoric are believed to have had some effect on reducing illegal crossings. Thank you to Brandon Judd of the National Border Patrol Council for your kind words on how well we are doing at the Border. We will be bringing in more & more of your great folks and will build the desperately needed WALL! @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 He took credit for employee bonuses by companies after he signed Republican tax cuts into law last month. Companies are giving big bonuses to their workers because of the Tax Cut Bill. Really great!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 But the jaw-dropper was Trump congratulating himself for planes not crashing. Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 It was the safest year on record worldwide, but the American streak without commercial jet passenger deaths goes back to 2009. Trump, who has promoted deregulation as one of his top accomplishments, has not signed off on any new airline safety regulations. The White House pointed to new security screening of passengers, to electronic devices to prevent terrorist attacks and to Trumps support for privatizing air traffic control  a proposal that has gotten nowhere in Congress. Falsehoods: Trump said President Obama, in brokering the 2015 nuclear arms limitation deal with Iran, foolishly gave money to the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. He didnt. The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their pockets. The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 The nuclear deal, which included major U.S. allies as signators, released Irans own funds that had long been frozen. Trumps art of the deal: When Trump sees a big deal looming, he often blasts the other side  to gain leverage, as hes written. This week he resumes a showdown with Democratic lawmakers over funding the government and immigration protections for so-called Dreamers, who were brought to the country illegally as children. Democrats are doing nothing for DACA - just interested in politics. DACA activists and Hispanics will go hard against Dems, will start falling in love with Republicans and their President! We are about RESULTS.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Trump, who in September ordered a gradual end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, sought to shift blame for the resulting controversy, saying Democrats are doing nothing for DACA and are just interested in politics. Trump has insisted that any help for Dreamers be paired with funding for a border wall and a crackdown on legal immigration. Democrats, and some Republicans, are opposed. Read More Facebook

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In tweet, Trump suggests U.S. will withdraw financial assistance to Pakistan By Shashank Bengali Pakistan lashed out Monday after President Trump accused its leaders of lies & deceit and suggested the United States would withdraw financial assistance to the nuclear-armed nation it once saw as a key ally against terrorism. It was the presidents latest broadside against Pakistan after a speech in August in which he demanded its leaders crack down on the safe havens enjoyed by Taliban militants fighting U.S.-backed forces in neighboring Afghanistan. The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2018 U.S. Ambassador David Hale was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to discuss the presidents statement, U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire said. Pakistan lodged a strongly worded protest and asked for clarification about Trumps comments, according to two foreign office officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Pakistans prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, called a Cabinet meeting for Tuesday and a meeting of the National Security Committee on Wednesday to discuss Trumps New Years Day tweet. Read More Facebook

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Trump continues to tweet in support of Iranian protesters By Laura King President Trump expressed renewed support Sunday for protesters in Iran, declaring that people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. In a tweet from his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, the president said the nationwide economic protests that began on Thursday  and have taken on wider political overtones as they have grown in size  were a signal that Iranians will not take it any longer. Big protests in Iran. The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Trump has tweeted about the protests for three days straight as Iranians took to the streets despite a heavy police presence, tear gas and scores of arrests. The defiance gained urgency after two people were reported shot to death in the city of Dorud, about 200 miles southwest of Tehran. As the conflict escalated, Iranian authorities on Sunday slapped a temporary ban on Instagram and the messaging app Telegram, which were widely used to fan protest fervor. Iran, the Number One State of Sponsored Terror with numerous violations of Human Rights occurring on an hourly basis, has now closed down the Internet so that peaceful demonstrators cannot communicate. Not good!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Irans leaders already are casting Trumps increasingly effusive expressions of support for the demonstrators as opportunistic meddling and are painting the demonstrators as foreign pawns, adopting a strategy that some analysts say could jeopardize the legitimacy of the nascent antigovernment protests. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets condolences after Colorado deputies are shot in ambush, one fatally By Associated Press A man fired more than 100 rounds at sheriffs deputies in Colorado early Sunday, killing one and injuring four others, before being fatally shot himself in what authorities called an ambush. Two civilians were also injured. President Trump expressed sorrow, writing on Twitter: My deepest condolences to the victims of the terrible shooting in Douglas County @DCSheriff, and their families. We love our police and law enforcement - God Bless them all! #LESM  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said deputies came under fire almost
Wait  did the president really say, Mission Accomplished? By Marc Olson Some are recalling the last time a president declared Mission accomplished, in May 2003 when George W. Bush was talking about Iraq. (Stephen Jaffe / AFP/Getty Images) President Trump on Saturday morning thanked his allies in a tweet that declared the airstrikes on Syria perfectly executed, but he might have wished hed stopped there. Instead, he ended his message with the phrase, Mission Accomplished! Thats a line that might have a previous president shaking his head. On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq under a Mission Accomplished banner aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. That war, which began in March 2003, grew into a prolonged conflict that didnt end until 2011. In 2008, the White House said it had paid a price for the backdrop. A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 14, 2018 Facebook

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Auditor says Pentagon is censoring key data on the war in Afghanistan By Shashank Bengali The Pentagon is blocking the release of data showing how much of Afghanistans territory lies outside government control, censoring a key metric used to gauge progress in the 16-year war, a watchdog agency said Tuesday. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, an auditing agency established by Congress, said in its latest report that the Pentagon instructed it not to release unclassified data on how many districts and people are controlled or influenced by insurgent groups. This is the first time SIGAR has been specifically instructed not to release information marked unclassified to the American taxpayer, the head of the agency, John F. Sopko, wrote in a letter. Sopko also said the U.S.-led military coalition, for the first time since 2009, classified information about the size and attrition rates of the Afghan security forces, important indicators of progress in building up army and police forces on which the U.S. already has spent $70 billion since 2002. The decision to withhold more information from congressional oversight and the public comes amid growing violence in Afghanistan and an intensifying combat mission involving a greater number of American troops. Following a series of bombings in Kabul that left at least 136 people dead in 10 days, President Trump signaled on Monday that he was focused on trying to win the conflict militarily, saying, We dont want to talk with the Taliban. But data released by SIGAR since 2015 have shown how the insurgents have gained ground against Afghan security forces. In its previous quarterly report, the watchdog said that only 57% of Afghanistans 407 districts were under Afghan government control or influence as of August 2017, the lowest level of control since it began tracking the statistic in December 2015. The steady decline in government control should cause even more concern about its disappearance from public disclosure and discussion, Sopko wrote. The watchdog also accused the Pentagon of overstating the impact of its efforts to combat drug cultivation and trafficking, among the Talibans main sources of revenue. The Pentagon touted airstrikes that destroyed 25 drug labs in November and December, saying it eliminated nearly $100 million of Taliban revenue. The labs being destroyed are cheap and easy to replace, SIGAR said. According to some estimates, they only take three or four days to replace. Facebook

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Women journalists shunted to rear for Pences visit to Western Wall By Noga Tarnopolsky The view from the womens section. (Noga Tarnopolsky / Los Angeles Times) Vice-President Mike Pences 48-hour visit to Israel stumbled into a public storm Tuesday when female reporters covering his final stop at Jerusalems Western Wall were penned behind four rows of their male colleagues. White House officials told stunned journalists that the arrangement emanated from a request made by the Western Wall rabbi, Shmuel Rabinowitz, and followed Western Wall rules. Some women journalists said they could not recall such treatment in the past. In a statement to Israels Channel 10 news, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation said it was exactly as it was during the visit of the U.S. president to the Western Wall last May. Later in the day, in a statement to the newspaper Haaretz, the foundation blamed the United States embassy in Tel Aviv and Israeli security officials for the segregation, and announced they would reexamine the way they handle such events. Women who covered previous VIP visits said the Pence arrangements were significantly more onerous than previous visits, when male and female journalists were separated but not offered substantially different work conditions. LIVE coverage of our male colleagues granted access to cover VP at Western Wall as we are penned into #PenceFence pic.twitter.com/k3svkxfQsa  Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) January 23, 2018 The arrangement reflected procedures at the Western Wall, Judaisms holiest site, where on regular days, men have access to two thirds of the area available for prayer. Tal Schneider, the diplomatic analyst for Globes, a financial newspaper, protested that the separation of men and women may be valid for the requirements of Orthodox prayer, but no one is praying here. We are here to work. I dont appreciate being restricted in my ability to work because I am a woman, she said. The discriminatory attitude towards women is infuriating and is unbefitting of a modern country. Yael Freidson, the Jerusalem affairs correspondent for Yediot Ahronot, Israels widest circulation newspaper, said she worried that her editors could choose male colleagues for the next assignment, knowing they would have better access. Before Pence arrived, journalists were herded onto a specially constructed platform in the middle of the Western Walls esplanade, with women guided to the right behind a white fence, and men, many carrying cameras, directed to the left, where they had more than double the space. Towards the end of the vice presidents 10-minute visit, male journalists were permitted into the VIP tent where he received a gift from Rabinowitz, while the women remained in their enclosure. None of the men publicly protested the treatment of their female colleagues. Israels Association of Women Journalists filed a formal complaint with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, herself a woman. Facebook

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Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, after his pardon from Trump, says hell run for Senate in Arizona By Kurtis Lee (Mary Altaffer / Associated Press) (Mary Altaffer / Associated Press) Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who last year was pardoned by President Trump in a case stemming from his enforcement tactics aimed at immigrants, announced Tuesday he will run for the open Senate seat in his home state. I am running for the U.S. Senate from the Great State of Arizona, for one unwavering reason: to support the agenda and policies of President Donald Trump in his mission to Make America Great Again, Arpaio, 85, said on Twitter. Hell enter a Republican primary for the seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Jeff Flake. Last summer, Trump pardoned Arpaio, who was convicted in July of criminal contempt for violating a federal court order to stop racially profiling Latinos. It was Arpaios roughly quarter-century as sheriff that gave him a national reputation for his tough treatment of people suspected of being in the country illegally. Repeated court rulings against his office for civil rights violations cost local taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. In the early 1990s, Arpaio directed construction of a tent city for immigration detainees, a measure he said was intended both to alleviate overcrowding and to underscore his aggressive enforcement measures. But it was open to the burning Arizona sun, and drew widespread criticism. After Trump entered the presidential race in July 2015, Arpaio invited him to Phoenix to talk about a crackdown on illegal immigration. He endorsed Trump just before the first votes in the Iowa caucuses in 2016 and frequently spoke out on behalf of Trumps campaign. Facebook

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President Trump ends controversial voter fraud commission By Kurtis Lee President Trump signed an executive order late Wednesday ending the voter fraud commission he launched last year as the panel faces a flurry of lawsuits and criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. Trump signed the order disbanding the commission rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, created by executive order in May with the stated goal of restoring confidence and integrity in the electoral process, has faced a barrage of lawsuits in recent months over privacy concerns, as the commission sought personal data on voters across the country. Read More Facebook

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Congress returns to work with slimmer GOP majority to accomplish Trumps agenda By Lisa Mascaro Congress returns to work this week with unfinished business on spending, immigration and other crucial issues, but with an even narrower GOP majority that will make it tougher to move on President Trumps agenda. The House and Senate will convene Wednesday, swearing in the newly elected Democratic senator from Alabama, Doug Jones, and Minnesotas Tina Smith to replace a fellow Democrat, Sen. Al Franken, who is resigning as the latest high-profile public figure sidelined by allegations of sexual misconduct. The change gives Republicans only a one-seat margin in the Senate. Trump, fresh off passage of the GOP tax cuts bill, is pushing lawmakers to pivot quickly on his new year priorities of infrastructure investment and immigration, as well as his foreign policy agenda. But another legislative victory seems far off. Republicans have struggled to hold their majority together and Congress first must tackle critical stalled agenda items that leaders punted to 2018. Read More Facebook

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Trump threatens to cut off U.S. aid to Palestinians By Tracy Wilkinson President Trump on Tuesday angrily threatened to cut off U.S. aid to Palestinians as punishment for what he called their failure to show appreciation or respect to the United States. Writing on Twitter, the president compared the Palestinians to Pakistan, a nuclear-armed ally that abruptly drew his ire this week and a similar threat to drastically curtail aid. He accused the Palestinians of recalcitrance in what he described as their refusal to negotiate a peace deal with Israel. Palestinian officials have said they can no longer use Washington as a broker to restart peace talks with Israel following Trumps Dec. 6 decision to overturn decades of U.S. policy and recognize the disputed city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and ultimately to move the U.S. Embassy there. The Palestinians also claim part of Jerusalem as the capital of an eventual independent state. Until now, the United States and most of the world agreed the citys political status was a matter to settle in final peace talks. The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly condemned any effort to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the Palestinian leadership said it would not meet with Vice President Mike Pence, who had planned a trip to the region. That trip is on hold. [W]e pay the Palestinians HUNDRED [sic] OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect, Trump wrote on Twitter. [W]ith the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them? In response to Trumps tweet, Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, issued a statement saying: Palestinian rights are not for sale. By recognizing Occupied Jerusalem as Israels capital Donald Trump has not only violated international law, but he has also singlehandedly destroyed the very foundations of peace and condoned Israels illegal annexation of the city. We will not be blackmailed, she said. President Trump has sabotaged our search for peace, freedom and justice. Now he dares to blame the Palestinians for the consequences of his own irresponsible actions! The United States does not pay large amounts of money directly to the Palestinian Authority, the government that rules over parts of the Palestinian West Bank. Instead, most money goes to the U.N., refugee or aid agencies and even Israel to pay for roads, welfare, schools, security and other Palestinian projects. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, said Tuesday that the administration was planning to cut off one of those organizations, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, until the Palestinians return to the negotiating table. UNRWA, which receives around $300 million annually from the U.S., for years has been the lifeline to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It was not clear if Haley was threatening to cut all U.S. support for the agency. Special correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky in Jerusalem contributed to this report. Facebook

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The White House stops short of calling for government overthrow in Iran By Brian Bennett President Trump wants Iran to give its citizens basic human rights and stop being a state sponsor of terror, his top spokeswoman said, but the White House stopped short of calling for a change of government in Tehran. If they want to do that through current leadership, if thats possible, OK, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters. Sanders praised the organic popular uprising, which she said the widespread protests in Iran represented. The protests grew out of years of years of mismanagement, corruption, and foreign adventurism have eroded the Iranian peoples trust in their leaders, she said. Earlier Tuesday, Trump called Irans government brutal and corrupt and wrote in a tweet: The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching! Trump also blamed President Obama for foolishly giving Iran money that he said went to fund terrorism. The money he referred to were funds belonging to Iran that had been frozen by the U.S. and were released as part of the deal in 2015, which blocked Irans development of nuclear weapons. The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their pockets. The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Facebook

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Retirement of Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch clears the way for a Mitt Romney revival By David Lauter The retirement of Utahs senior senator, Orrin G. Hatch, opens the way for a widely expected Senate bid by Mitt Romney, the Republicans 2012 presidential nominee and a frequent critic of President Trump. Although Romney previously served for two terms as governor of Massachusetts (and was raised in Michigan, where his father was governor and his mother ran for the Senate), he comes from a prominent Mormon family with strong ties to Utah. He also served as chief executive of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Hes viewed as a strong candidate for the Senate seat. Romneys criticisms of Trump, however, could prompt a challenge in a Republican primary. Trump was widely reported to have tried to convince Hatch to run for a seventh term, in part to head off a Romney candidacy. Last month, Romney and Trump were on opposite sides of one of the biggest political fights of the fall  the battle over the Senate seat from Alabama. The president strongly supported Roy Moore, the Republican candidate who had been accused of sexual misconduct by several women. Romney called Moore a stain on the GOP. Roy Moore in the US Senate would be a stain on the GOP and on the nation. Leigh Corfman and other victims are courageous heroes. No vote, no majority is worth losing our honor, our integrity.  Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) December 4, 2017 On Tuesday, Romney tweeted praise for Hatch, but did not immediately reveal his own plans. I join the people of Utah in thanking my friend, Senator Orrin Hatch for his more than forty years of service to our great state and nation. Read my full statement: https://t.co/YwjUpjez5y  Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) January 2, 2018 Facebook

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U.S. calls on Iran to unblock social media sites amid protests By The Associated Press The Trump administration is calling on Irans government to stop blocking Instagram and other popular social media sites as Iranians are demonstrating in the streets. Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein says the U.S. wants Iran to open these sites. He says Instagram, Telegram and other platforms are legitimate avenues for communication. The United States is encouraging Iranians to use virtual private networks, known as VPNs. Those services create encrypted links between computers and can be used to access blocked websites. Goldstein says the U.S. is still communicating with Iranians in Persian through State Department accounts on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. He says the U.S. wants to encourage the protesters to continue to fight for whats right. Goldstein says the U.S. has an obligation not to stand by. Read More Facebook

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Trump blasts Democrats in advance of immigration meeting By Brian Bennett The day before a meeting of administration officials and congressional leaders on outstanding legislative business, President Trump accused Democrats of doing nothing to hammer out an immigration deal to protect from deportation people brought to the country illegally as children. Democrats are doing nothing for DACA  just interested in politics, Trump wrote in a Tweet on Tuesday morning, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program by its acronym. Democrats are doing nothing for DACA - just interested in politics. DACA activists and Hispanics will go hard against Dems, will start falling in love with Republicans and their President! We are about RESULTS.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer along with the Republican leaders, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are scheduled to meet on Wednesday at the Capitol with Trumps legislative director, Marc Short, and budget director, Mick Mulvaney. The White House on Tuesday said the meeting is to discuss separate spending caps on military and domestic programs. Yet the Democrats insist the discussion also must include a variety of legislative issues that Trump and Congress punted into the new year  on immigration, the budget, healthcare and more. That stance reflects Democrats leverage: Republicans need Democratic votes to pass a government-funding bill and avert a federal shutdown when the current funding expires Jan. 19. Democrats especially want separate legislation replacing the Obama-era DACA program; Trump in September ordered a phase-out of the program, beginning March 6, and called on Congress to act before then on an alternative way to address the plight of the group. However, Trump has demanded that any alternative must be part of a package including both money for a border wall and immigration limits. Democrats are opposed. Facebook

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Pakistan hits back after Trump accuses its leaders of lies and deceit By Aoun Sahi Pakistan lashed out Monday after President Trump accused its leaders of lies and deceit and suggested the United States would withdraw financial assistance to the nuclear-armed nation it once saw as a key ally against terrorism. U.S. Ambassador David Hale was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to discuss the presidents statement, U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire said. Pakistan lodged a strongly worded protest, according to two foreign office officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Pakistans prime minister, Shahid Abbasi, called a Cabinet meeting for Tuesday and a meeting of the National Security Committee on Wednesday to discuss Trumps New Years Day tweet. It was the presidents latest broadside against Pakistan after a speech in August in which he demanded its leaders crack down on the safe havens enjoyed by Taliban militants fighting U.S.-backed forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Read More Facebook

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Trump again cheers on Iran protests By Laura King President Trump expressed renewed support Sunday for protesters in Iran, declaring that people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. In a tweet from his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, the president said the nationwide economic protests that began on Thursday  and have taken on wider political overtones as they have grown in size --- were a signal that Iranians will not take it any longer. Big protests in Iran. The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 The presidents earlier hailing of the protests drew condemnation from Irans government. A Foreign Ministry spokesman called his comments deceitful and opportunistic. Following an overnight report of the first two fatalities stemming from the protests, Trump raised some eyebrows by expressing concern over human rights violations as authorities move to crack down on the demonstrations. During his first year in office, the president has shown scant inclination to press foreign governments to respect the fundamental rights of their citizens. The USA is watching closely for human rights violations! Trump said in his tweet Sunday. Some domestic critics have pointed to the presidents inclusion of Iranian nationals in his travel ban, suggesting he was more interested in bashing the Tehran government than in supporting freedom of speech in Iran. Even some of the presidents allies said that supporting the protesters on social media did not amount to making policy. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he had urged Trump to give a national address laying out his Iran strategy. President Trump is tweeting very sympathetically to the Iranian people, Graham said on CBS Face the Nation. But you just cant tweet here. You have to lay out a plan. Facebook

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Australian diplomats tip a factor in FBIs Russia inquiry By Associated Press Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downer. (Alastair Grant / Associated Press) An Australian diplomats tip appears to have helped persuade the FBI to investigate Russian meddling in the U.S. election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign, the New York Times reported Saturday. Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos told the diplomat, Alexander Downer, during a meeting in London in May 2016 that Russia had thousands of emails that would embarrass Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, the report said. Downer, a former foreign minister, is Australias top diplomat in Britain. Australia passed the information on to the FBI after the Democratic emails were leaked, according to the Times, which cited four current and former U.S. and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians role. The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016, the newspaper said. White House lawyer Ty Cobb declined to comment, saying in a statement that the administration is continuing to cooperate with the investigation now led by special counsel Robert Mueller to help complete their inquiry expeditiously. Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is a cooperating witness. Court documents unsealed two months ago show he met in April 2016 with Joseph Mifsud, a professor in London who told him about Russias cache of emails. This was before the Democratic National Committee became aware of the scope of the intrusion into its email systems by hackers later linked to the Russian government. The Times said Papadopoulos shared this information with Downer, but it was unclear whether he also shared it with anyone in the Trump campaign. Facebook

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Trump offers fresh support for protesters in Iran as demonstrations continue By Lisa Mascaro Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the Iranian people will face a choice. The world is watching! pic.twitter.com/kvv1uAqcZ9  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2017 President Trump again offered support Saturday for anti-government protesters in Iran, where a third day of demonstrations, the largest in years, spilled across the country amid fears of a crackdown. Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the Iranian people will face a choice. The world is watching! Trump wrote on Twitter. Trump took a break from playing golf near his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to tweet clips from his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September when he called for Iranian democratic reforms. Iranian authorities warned of potential violence as the street demonstrations, which began over economic conditions, swelled into frustrations with the theocratic rule of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump has maintained a hawkish stance toward Iran, sharply criticizing the landmark nuclear disarmament accord that Tehran reached with then-President Obama and five other nations in 2015. In October, Trump declined to certify the accord to Congress although the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency says Iran is complying with it. Several conservative GOP senators signaled their support for Trumps position and backed the protesters in Iran. Others in Congress did not immediately respond, however, amid conflicting reports over who had organized the demonstrations. Even after the billions in sanctions relief they secured through the nuclear deal, the ayatollahs still cant provide for the basic needs of their own people, said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a Trump ally and opponent of the nuclear deal. We should support the Iranian people who are willing to risk their lives to speak out against it, he added. Trump initially tweeted his support on Friday night. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement at that time as protests spread. There are many reports of peaceful protests by Iranian citizens fed up with the regimes corruption and its squandering of the nations wealth to fund terrorism abroad, Sanders said. The Iranian government should respect their peoples rights, including their right to express themselves. The world is watching. Facebook

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When it comes to U.S.-Russia relations, it takes two to tango, Kremlin says By Sabra Ayres The deteriorating relationship between the United States and Russia is one of the biggest disappointments of 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putins spokesman told reporters today. Russia would like to rebuild relations between the two adversaries, but it takes two to tango, Dmitry Peskov said today during a conference call with the press. We want and are looking for good mutually beneficial relations based on mutual respect, mutual trust with all countries, primarily with European ones, including the United States, but it is necessary to dance tango, as they say. Peskov blamed the ongoing anti-Russian Russophobia in Washington for playing a major role in blocking the two countries from moving forward in their relationship. U.S. investigations into the Trump presidential campaigns alleged collusion with the Kremlin during the 2016 U.S. election and accusations that the Kremlin tried to interfere with the electoral process continue to cast a dark shadow over the relationship, he said. Peskov told reporters that Moscow was perplexed by the investigations. The Kremlin has continued to deny having any involvement with the Trump campaign or doing anything to interfere with the American election. This is definitely a U.S. domestic affair, but in this case it naturally hurts our bilateral relations, which is regrettable, Peskov said. Relations between the U.S. and Russia have been categorized as the worst theyve been since the end of the Cold War. This year, Washington and Moscow have engaged in a diplomatic tit-for-tat in which both sides have been forced to reduce diplomatic staff, embassy properties have been repossessed by the hosting countries and visa services have been interrupted. The U.S. diplomatic mission to Russia shrank from 1,200 personnel, including some Russian local staff, to just over 450 across all its three consulates and embassy in Moscow. In the U.S., Russia was forced to vacate its San Francisco consulate. Moscow has also blamed anti-Russian sentiments on the recent decision by the International Olympic Committee to ban Russian teams from wearing their tricolor uniforms or flags during the upcoming games in South Korea. The international body accused some of the Russian national teams of doping. Facebook

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U.S. and Turkey resume reciprocal issuing of visas but frictions remain By Tracy Wilkinson The United States and Turkey began issuing reciprocal visas again on Thursday, more than two months after normal visa service was suspended in a dispute over the arrest of two U.S. diplomatic staffers in Istanbul  the latest friction between the two nominal allies. The State Department said it was lifting the visa restrictions after it was assured by the Turkish government that U.S. Embassy employees would not be arrested when performing their official duties. But the Turkish Embassy in Washington denied assurances were offered concerning the ongoing judicial processes, and suggested that the arrests were legal and justified. It is inappropriate to misinform the Turkish and American public that such assurances were provided, the embassy said in a statement. The dispute has aggravated the already tense relationship between the United States and Turkey, which is a member of the NATO military alliance. The two countries have clashed over U.S. support for Kurdish rebels in Syria and over Turkeys demands that the U.S. extradite a Turkish cleric who lives in rural Pennsylvania. After a failed coup attempt killed more than 250 people in July 2016, Turkeys autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, launched a harsh crackdown on his political opponents, arresting or firing tens of thousands of teachers, police, journalists, military officers and others. Erdogan accused Fethullah Gulen, an Islamic educator and former political ally, of orchestrating the coup. Gulen, who has lived in a compound in the Pocono Mountains, has denied any involvement. The Justice Department has so far denied Turkeys repeated demands to extradite Gulen. Erdogan raised the issue again at the White House in May, but his visit ended in a public relations disaster when his security guards brutally beat peaceful protesters outside the Turkish ambassadors residence. Two Turkish employees of the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul were arrested this fall for alleged ties to the 2016 coup attempt. The U.S. responded by suspending most visa services at its missions in Turkey in October. The Turkish government reciprocated in November. State Department officials said they have repeatedly demanded more information about any formal charges against the two employees. They reiterated on Thursday that serious concerns about the allegations remained. Facebook

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Trump: China caught RED HANDED allowing oil to reach North Korea By Brian Bennett (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press) President Trump isnt taking a holiday vacation from Twitter. In one of three tweets early on Thursday from his West Palm Beach golf club, he charged that China was caught RED HANDED allowing oil shipments to reach North Korean ports. Pronouncing himself very disappointed, Trump in effect was acknowledging the failure of his months-long effort to convince China to clamp down further on energy shipments going to the isolated country, which relies heavily on Beijing, as a way to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2017 Trumps tweet came after a South Korean newspaper published what it said were U.S. spy satellite images of Chinese ships selling oil to North Korean ships. The United Nations Security Council, which includes China, has voted repeatedly to restrict fuel shipments to North Korea. Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping in November to cut off North Koreas oil supply entirely, the American ambassador to the U.N., Nikki R. Haley, said at the time. It is unclear if Trumps admonishment of China was based on news reports or classified information he received from U.S. intelligence officials. There was no daily intelligence briefing on Trumps public schedule Thursday. He is expected to return to Washington next week after spending the Christmas holiday and New Years Eve at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. Facebook

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President Trump again falsely claims hes signed more bills than any president By Brian Bennett President Trump visits a firehouse in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Wednesday. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP) After another morning at his Florida golf club, President Trump visited firefighters and paramedics at a West Palm Beach firehouse and praised his own performance as president, including with a false boast. Trump touted his administrations work to roll back government regulations and cut taxes and claimed credit for the stock market hitting record highs. He also said hes signed more bills into law than any other president, which isnt true. We have signed more legislation than anybody, Trump said, standing in front of a rescue vehicle inside the fire station. We have more legislation passed, including  the record was Harry Truman a long time ago, and we broke that record, so we got a lot done, Trump said. An analysis by GovTrack, a website that tracks bills in Congress, shows that Trump has signed the fewest bills into law at this point than any president in more than 60 years, back to Dwight D. Eisenhower. Facebook

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Trump administration urges Russia to reinstate monitors in Ukraine, lower violence By Tracy Wilkinson Sergei Lavrov (AFP/Getty Images) Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked Russia on Wednesday to reinstate its military personnel at a monitoring station in eastern Ukraine intended to quell escalating bloodshed. In a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Tillerson also urged Russia to lower the level of violence and underscored the Trump administrations concern over increased fighting in Ukraine, the State Department said in a statement. Russia last week withdrew its monitors from the Joint Center on Coordination and Control, which is tasked with verifying a much-violated ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists. Moscow cited what it called restrictions and provocations from Ukrainian authorities that made it impossible for the observers to do their jobs. Washington has accused the pro-Russia forces of being responsible for many of the truce violations. Late last week, the State Department also announced plans to provide Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, a decision that angered Moscow. The State Department statement did not say whether the weapons deal came up in Tillersons conversation with Lavrov. The two also discussed North Korea, its destabilizing nuclear program and the need for a diplomatic solution to achieve a denuclearized Korean peninsula, the statement said. Russia has offered to serve as a mediator between Washington and Pyongyang, but direct talks do not seem likely at this point. Facebook

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U.S. sanctions two more North Korean officials for ballistic missile program By Tracy Wilkinson The Trump administration announced sanctions Tuesday against two more North Korean officials for their alleged role in Pyongyangs expanding ballistic missiles program. The Treasury Department is targeting leaders of North Koreas ballistic missile programs, as part of our maximum pressure campaign to isolate [North Korea] and achieve a fully denuclearized Korean Peninsula, Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said in a statement. The nuclear-armed country tested an intercontinental ballistic missile last month that U.S. officials said appeared capable of reaching New York or Washington, a significant milestone in the countrys growing arsenal. The Treasury Department identified the two North Korean officials as Kim Jong Sik, who reportedly is a key figure in the ballistic missile program and led efforts to switch missiles from liquid to solid fuel (which makes them easier to hide before launch), and Ri Pyong Chol, who was reported to be a key official in the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles. The sanctions block banks, companies and individuals from doing any business with the targeted officials. It also allows the U.S. government to freeze any American assets owned by the officials. On Friday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously voted to add more sanctions on North Korea, its third round this year. The new measures order North Koreans working abroad to return home within two years, and ban nearly 90% of refined petroleum exports to the country. In a statement published Sunday by North Koreas state-run KCNA news agency, the foreign ministry denounced the new U.N. sanctions as an act of war. We define this sanctions resolution rigged up by the US and its followers as a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our Republic, as an act of war violating peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and the region and categorically reject the resolution, it said. Facebook

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Salt Lake Tribune calls on Sen. Orrin Hatch to not seek reelection in scathing editorial Perhaps the most significant move of Hatchs career is the one that should, if there is any justice, end it. The last time the senator was up for reelection, in 2012, he promised that it would be his last campaign. That was enough for many likely successors, of both parties, to stand down, to let the elder statesman have his victory tour and to prepare to run for an open seat in 2018. Clearly, it was a lie. Read the editorial>> Facebook

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Christmas Eve, Trump on Twitter: New attacks on FBI official, decrying Fake News By Laura King President Trump launched a Christmas Eve attack on FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whom he accuses of favoritism toward his former opponent, Hillary Clinton, and also returned to a longtime favored theme, excoriating the news media for failing to sufficiently extol his accomplishments. .@FoxNews-FBIs Andrew McCabe, in addition to his wife getting all of this money from M (Clinton Puppet), he was using, allegedly, his FBI Official Email Account to promote her campaign. You obviously cannot do this. These were the people who were investigating Hillary Clinton.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2017 Thank you President TRUMP!! pic.twitter.com/LKdkT0FL99  oregon4TRUMP (@shawgerald4) December 23, 2017 The Fake News refuses to talk about how Big and how Strong our BASE is. They show Fake Polls just like they report Fake News. Despite only negative reporting, we are doing well - nobody is going to beat us. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2017 Trump, who is spending the holidays at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, also sent Christmas greetings to deployed military personnel, praising them for success in the fight against terrorism. The early-morning swipe at McCabe followed a flurry of tweets attacking the deputy FBI chief on Saturday. McCabe, who has been a lightning rod for Republican attacks on the FBI, is expected to retire early in the new year. How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wifes campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017 FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017 Critics say the president and his allies are in the midst of a systematic campaign to denigrate the FBI and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is looking into potential collusion by the Trump campaign in Russias attempts to sway the 2016 presidential election. In a pair of statements on Twitter, Trump again expressed scorn regarding news coverage of his administration. For months, the president has been particularly critical of reports regarding the Russia investigation and more recently has repeatedly complained he does not receive enough credit for a booming stock market. In his video conference message to troops overseas, the president made apparent reference to the fight against the militants of Islamic State, who over the last year have lost most of the territory they previously controlled in Iraq and Syria, including former strongholds in Mosul and Raqqah. Were winning, Trump told military personnel deployed in Qatar, Kuwait, Guantanamo Bay and aboard the guided missile destroyer Sampson. Reporters traveling with the president heard his address, but were ushered from the room before he took questions from the troops. The president often breaks with longtime custom and makes politically charged statements at events in which he addresses military personnel. Facebook

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Trumps Wells Fargo tweet cited in court hearing as reason to remove Mulvaney as CFPB acting chief By Jim Puzzanghera A recent tweet by President Trump about possible penalties against Wells Fargo & Co. was cited during a court hearing Friday as a reason for removing White House official Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The attorney for Leandra English  the bureaus deputy director who has said she is the rightful acting head  said Trumps tweet showed he was trying to exercise improper influence over the independent consumer watchdog. I think that [tweet] shows you this isnt just some hypothetical concern, the attorney, Deepak Gupta, told Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia during a nearly two-hour hearing. Read More Facebook

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Trump administration recognizes Honduran presidents reelection By Tracy Wilkinson The Trump administration on Friday formally recognized the incumbent president of Honduras, conservative Juan Orlando Hernandez, as the winner of a bitterly contested presidential election held last month. In a statement, the State Department congratulated Hernandez while also acknowledging widespread irregularities in the Nov. 26 vote and calling for a robust national dialogue to overcome political discord in the Central American country, a close ally of the administration. The Organization of American States, which monitored the election, said it was so flawed that only a new round of voting could establish a fair and transparent outcome. But the U.S. rejected that determination. Uproar over the contest led to demonstrations in Honduras that left numerous civilians dead after state security forces opened fire on the protests. Activists and others voiced criticism Friday of the administrations decision. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a leading Democratic voice on Central American issues, said he was angry and deeply disturbed by the State Department decision. The recent elections in Honduras were deeply flawed, chaotic and marred by numerous irregularities, McGovern said. U.S.-Honduran cooperation on matters such as drug-trafficking, violence and immigration requires a credible, legitimate government that has the support of its people, in Honduras, McGovern said. Hernandezs victory also was controversial because it was the first time a sitting president was allowed to run for re-election, barred until now by the Honduran Constitution. Facebook

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Senate Leader Mitch McConnell says fixing DACA is no emergency until March By Lisa Mascaro Amanda Bayer, left with banner, and Marisol Maqueda, right, join a rally in support of so-called Dreamers outside the White House. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday hes committed to allowing a vote on a bill for so-called Dreamers in January, but sees no rush to resolve the deportation threat posed by President Trumps decision to end a program protecting immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. There isnt that much of an emergency there, he said. There is no emergency until March. Well keep talking about it. Trump called for phasing out by March the Obama-era program that allows the young immigrants, many of them longtime residents, to get two-year deferrals of any deportation threat so they can legally attend school or work. Beneficiaries must be vetted for security purposes. Trump told Congress to come up with a legislative alternative for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which President Obama created by executive order, to protect those currently eligible. A bipartisan Senate group has been working with the White House, but talks stalled this week amid administration demands for curbs on legal immigration flows in exchange for protecting the DACA recipients. Meanwhile, Dreamers and immigrant advocates stormed the Capitol in recent days pressing for the help promised by Trump and Democratic congressional leaders that failed to materialize in the years final legislation. Advocacy groups say more than 120 immigrants each day are falling out of compliance without DACA renewals, putting them at risk of deportation. The number that is projected to swell to more than 1,000 a day in March. Weve been gridlocked on this issue for years, McConnell said. We want to have a signature. We dont just want to spin our wheels and have nothing to show for it. Facebook

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President Trump signs tax bill By Noah Bierman (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) President Trump on Friday morning signed a sweeping tax-cut measure  his first major legislative achievement  before heading off for a Christmas vacation at his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Fla. The president also privately signed a short-term spending bill to fund government operations through Jan. 19. Congress approved it Thursday, after Republican leaders were unable to bridge differences in their own party as well as with Democrats to get agreement on funding for the full fiscal year. The stopgap bill punts fights on immigration and other issues to January. The tax bill, approved earlier this week in Congress in largely party-line votes, slashes corporate tax rates from 35% to 21% and also includes a host of other provisions for individuals, all intended to boost the economy. Critics point to nonpartisan analyses showing that the package, including changes greatly reducing the number of estates subject to taxes, steers the bulk of tax benefits to top earners and the wealthy, including Trump, despite his repeated claims that hell take a hit. Trump signed the bill quietly Friday, but held a public ceremony with Republican lawmakers on Wednesday after the bills passage; he also tweeted about the measure extensively. He is expected to hold another public ceremony after the New Years holiday. Facebook

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Pelosi urges Ryan to prevent Republicans from curtailing Houses Russia probe By Chris Megerian House Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin greets House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Friday urging him to ensure the Houses investigation into Russian interference with last years presidential campaign is not cut short. The American people deserve a comprehensive and fair investigation into Russias attacks, wrote Pelosi, of San Francisco, in her letter. Political haste must not cut short valid investigatory threads. The House Intelligence Committee has been probing the issue since March 1, and Democrats have repeatedly warned that Republicans are trying to wrap up its work prematurely. Pelosi said Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, should take urgent action to ensure this investigation can continue. AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan, said Pelosi simply wants to see this investigation go on forever in order to suit her political agenda. Whether it concludes next month, next year, or in three years, she will say it is too soon, Strong said in a statement. She added, The investigation will conclude when the committee has reached a conclusion. The committees work is led by Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Texas). His spokeswoman, Emily Hytha, said he remains committed to conducting this investigation as thoroughly and expeditiously as possible. With more interviews scheduled, the investigation shows signs of extending into next year, Bloomberg reported Friday. BREAKING: Steve Bannon and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski have been sent letters requesting they testify to House Intel panel in early January, per @HouseInSession  Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) December 22, 2017 Facebook

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Congress votes to avert government shutdown, but Senate fails to pass disaster aid package By Lisa Mascaro ( (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)) Congress approved a temporary spending bill to prevent a government shutdown, but failed to complete work on an $81-billion disaster aid package to help California, Gulf Coast states and Puerto Rico recover from wildfires and hurricanes, as lawmakers scrambled Thursday to wrap up business before a Christmas break. The stopgap measure continues federal operations for a few more weeks, setting up another deadline for Jan. 19. But it left undone a long list of priorities that members of both parties had hoped to finish this year. Read More Facebook

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Wells Fargo says raises were not linked to tax bill passage  then backtracks By James Rufus Koren Wells Fargo & Co.s move to raise its minimum pay to $15 an hour was part of a long-term plan and not related to the passage of the Republican tax overhaul as the company implied, said a bank spokesman, who later backtracked and stated the hikes were a result of the bills approval. The bank was among several large corporations to publicly announce pay raises or new investments immediately following the final House vote in an apparent public relations offensive to boost the popularity of the tax bill The San Francisco bank had implied the direct linkage to the tax legislation in a news release Wednesday, shortly after Congress passed the tax overhaul, which slashes the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35% starting Jan. 1. Read More Facebook

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Obamacare signups beat expectations, despite Trump administrations opposition By Noam N. Levey President Trump with Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) Despite Trump administration efforts to discourage people from signing up, the number of people enrolling for Affordable Care Act coverage nearly hit last years level, the government revealed Thursday. Exchange open enrollment for 2018 coverage ended w/ approx 8.8M people enrolling in coverage. Great job to the @CMSGov team for the work you did to make this the smoothest experience for consumers to date. We take pride in providing great customer service.  Administrator Seema Verma (@SeemaCMS) December 21, 2017 The 8.8 million people who enrolled in the 36 states that use the federal governments healthcare.gov system significantly exceeded most forecasts. The Trump administration stopped most outreach and other efforts this year aimed at getting people to sign up. The president also repeatedly said publicly that Obamacare was dead. Open enrollment continues in California and several other states that run their own healthcare marketplaces. The figures from the federal government indicate that when those states wrap up for the year, the number of people covered by Obamacare will be nearly the same as in 2017. Read More Facebook

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U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly condemns U.S. policy change on Jerusalem despite Trumps threats By Tracy Wilkinson The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted Thursday to condemn President Trumps decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, despite Trumps threats to punish countries that voted against the U.S. position. The resolution passed in an emergency session at U.N. headquarters in New York with 128 in favor, nine opposed and 35 abstentions. The nonbinding resolution demands that Washington rescind its declaration, which included a plan to transfer the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in coming years. The resolution value is mostly symbolic, showing how isolated the U.S. is in the move. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., warned this week that she would be taking names of countries that opposed the U.S., and Trump on Wednesday suggested he might cut U.S. aid to governments that voted in favor of the resolution. Let them vote against us, Trump said. Well save a lot. We dont care. The U.S. recognition of Jerusalem reversed decades of international consensus on the political status of the divided city. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as their capital in a future independent state. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said the U.N. was facing an unprecedented test and that history would remember those who stand by what is right. Facebook

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Democrats defend Robert Mueller, saying Russia investigation must be allowed to continue By Chris Megerian Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) speaking during a committee hearing earlier this year. (Molly Riley / Associated Press) House Democrats said they will fight Republican attempts to discredit and undermine the work of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating whether President Trumps associates helped Russian meddling in last years election. There is an organized effort by Republicans, in concert with Fox News, to spin a false narrative and conjure up outrageous scenarios to accuse special counsel Mueller of being biased, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) said. Trump has said he has no plan to fire Mueller, but Democrats are alarmed by escalating criticism of the special counsels work. Why is the president afraid of the facts and the truth? Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) said. He added, No matter what the facts are, were satisfied if the investigation is complete. A letter of support signed by 171 Democratic members of Congress will be sent to Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, a former FBI director, and oversees his investigation. Rosenstein has defended Mueller in the face of Republican criticisms. Facebook

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U.S. blacklists Myanmar army general who it says oversaw atrocities against Rohingya Muslims By Shashank Bengali The Trump administration on Thursday blacklisted a Myanmar army general who it said oversaw human rights abuses committed by security forces against Rohingya Muslims. Imposing economic sanctions against the general, Maung Maung Soe, was the toughest action the United States has taken in response to a brutal army offensive that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has described as ethnic cleansing. In a statement, the Treasury Department said it had examined credible evidence of Maung Maung Soes activities, including allegations against Burmese security forces of extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and arbitrary arrest as well as the widespread burning of villages. The Rohingya are an ethnic and religious minority of about 1 million people in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, also known as Burma. The United Nations says that more than 640,000 Rohingya have fled the country since August, after the army launched clearance operations in response to attacks carried out by a Rohingya insurgent group against security forces. Rohingya refugees in crowded camps in neighboring Bangladesh have described horrific violence by Myanmar forces, including mass rapes, summary executions and children being burned alive. The aid group Doctors Without Borders estimates that 6,700 people were killed in the first month of the operation. Myanmar authorities deny committing atrocities and say that only a few hundred fighters were killed. Maung Maung Soe was chief of the armys Western Command, which carried out the offensive. He was transferred from his position last month, according to news reports. He was one of 13 individuals worldwide who were blacklisted Thursday under a new U.S. law that gives the Treasury Department authority to target officials for human rights abuses and corruption. Others included former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh; Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the late Uzbekistan dictator Islam Karimov; and Artem Chaika, son of Russias prosecutor-general. Today, the United States is taking a strong stand against human rights abuse and corruption globally by shutting these bad actors out of the U.S. financial system, said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. The sanctions freeze any assets Maung Maung Soe holds in the United States and bars Americans from doing business with him. It is also a sign of how quickly U.S. relations with Myanmar have soured. Under the Obama administration, the United States forged closer ties with the former military dictatorship and eased economic and political sanctions as the country began implementing democratic reforms. But Myanmar, which does not regard the Rohingya as citizens, has lashed out at the international community over the current crisis. It has jailed journalists, blocked access to affected areas in the western state of Rakhine and this week barred a U.N. human rights investigator from entering the country. Rohingya activists said the U.S. action would not have much effect on a country that survived under economic sanctions for years. It is the whole military institution that has a policy to persecute these people, said Nay San Lwin, a Rohingya activist and blogger in Germany. According to the U.S.s own definition, the army is carrying out ethnic cleansing. They have a responsibility to protect these people. Sanctions on one person are really not enough. Facebook

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Dreamers will have to wait until next year for Congress long-promised protections By Lisa Mascaro Amanda Bayer, left with banner, and Marisol Maqueda, right, join a rally in support of so-called Dreamers outside the White House. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)) A promised year-end deal to protect the young immigrants known as Dreamers from deportation collapsed Wednesday as Republicans in Congress  fresh off passage of their tax plan  prepared to punt nearly all remaining must-do agenda items into the new year. Congressional leaders still hope that before leaving town this week they can pass an $81-billion disaster relief package with recovery funds for California wildfires and Gulf Coast states hit during the devastating hurricane season. But passage even of that relatively popular measure remained in doubt as conservatives balked at the price tag. Rather than finish the year wrapping up the legislative agenda, the GOP majorities in the House and Senate struggled over their next steps. Read More Facebook

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Chants of protest drown out any caroling this holiday season at the Capitol By Lisa Mascaro U.S. Capitol Police arrest a man wearing a Santa Claus hat during a protest against the Republican tax bill. (Alex Edelman / AFP/Getty Image) Outside the U.S. Capitol, the lights on a towering Christmas tree are flipped on each evening, giving the Engelmann spruce a festive twinkle; inside the marble halls, wreaths and garlands decorate doorways and alcoves ahead of the holidays. But the spirit of the season has been punctuated by other sights: a Jumbotron parked across from the Capitol reflecting pool broadcasts images of young immigrants who face deportation; Little Lobbyists, children with complex medical needs, were featured in a recent news conference; protesters filed into the visitor galleries to shout against the Republican tax plan. While its beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the Capitol, its also shaping up to be a holiday season of protest. Read More Facebook

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Tax bill simplifies filing for some but complicates it for others  and dont count on that postcard By Jim Puzzanghera A priority of the Republicans tax overhaul was simplification, and they drove home the point this fall with an omnipresent prop: a red-white-and-blue postcard. Were making things so simple that you can do your taxes on a form the size of a postcard, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said last month, pulling one from his jacket pocket as he and Republican leaders unveiled their bill. They gave a couple of the cards to President Trump at a White House meeting a few hours later and flashed them often during news conferences and TV interviews in the coming days. Read More Facebook

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Top U.N. human rights official reportedly wont seek reelection The top United Nations official for human rights, who has frequently criticized the Trump administration, has reportedly decided not to seek a second term, saying his work had become untenable. Zeid Raad Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, notified his staff in an email that was obtained by several news outlets, including Agence France-Presse. Staying when his four-year term is up for renewal at the end of August might involve bending a knee in supplication, AFP quoted Husseins email as saying. Hussein is a Jordanian prince who has criticized, among other things, President Trumps attempts to ban visitors or refugees from six predominantly Muslim countries. The news comes a day before the U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote on a nonbinding resolution condemning the Trump administrations formal declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a decision that went against international consensus. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., has warned she will be taking names of those who vote against the United States on Thursday. Trump echoed that sentiment Wednesday, voiced support for Haley and implying to reporters that he would consider cutting off U.S. aid to countries that vote against the U.S. Well, were watching those votes, Trump said. Let them vote against us. Well save a lot. We dont care. On Monday, the United States lost a Security Council vote 14-1 on a binding resolution that would have required Washington to rescind its declaration. Haley then vetoed the resolution. Facebook

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Top Democrat warns Trump not to fire Mueller or interfere with his investigation By Chris Megerian Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, one of the top Democrats involved in the congressional inquiries into Russian interference in last years election, said Wednesday that any attempt by President Trump to interfere with the separate criminal investigation would be a gross abuse of power. Warner, who is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, delivered his warning from the Senate floor as Republicans escalate their criticism of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team of prosecutors and FBI agents. Some Democrats believe Trump is laying the groundwork to fire Mueller even though the president has publicly denied it. Mueller was appointed in May after Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey. In the United States of America, no one, no one is above the law, not even the president, Warner said. Congress must make clear to the president that firing the special counsel or interfering with his investigation by issuing pardons of essential witnesses is unacceptable and would have immediate and significant consequences. Some Democrats say the White House may try to in effect short-circuit the Mueller investigation by replacing Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, who is the only official empowered to fire Mueller. Rosenstein recently told Congress that the special counsel is acting appropriately and that he would not dismiss Mueller without just cause. Facebook

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We have essentially repealed Obamacare, Trump says after tax bill passes By Brian Bennett President Trump at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday at the White House. (Chris Kleponis / Getty Images) President Trump is celebrating Republicans passage of the tax overhaul bill as a two-fer: On Wednesday, in addition to tax cuts, he checked off his promise to repeal Obamacare, pointing to a provision in the bill to end the penalty on Americans who dont get health insurance. We have essentially repealed Obamacare, Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. Other provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act are still in place, and Trump and congressional Republicans failed completely on the replace half of their vow to repeal and replace the program. In Trumps view, however, stripping away the laws individual mandate to get insurance or else pay a tax penalty amounts to repeal of the whole law. Congressional analysts have said that millions of people would lose insurance as a result, either by choice or because they cannot afford it without subsidies, and that premiums would increase for others as younger, healthy people drop coverage. We will come up with something much better, Trump said, adding that block grants to states could be one approach. By his comments, Trump tacitly acknowledged that repeal of the mandate is likely the best he can do following Republicans failure this year to agree on a repeal-and-replace bill. Looking back on his first year, Trump also boasted of his administrations efforts against the Islamic State and increased immigration enforcement. He said he had not given up on funding a border wall or tightening immigration law to limit citizens ability to resettle foreign relatives in the country. He said he would very shortly visit the border with Mexico near San Diego to see wall prototypes that have been built. He didnt answer a reporters shouted question about how he would personally benefit from the tax bill. Facebook

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House gives final OK to GOP tax plan, sending it to Trump By Lisa Mascaro Congress gave final approval to the GOP tax plan Wednesday, 224-201, after the House took an unusual do-over vote to clear up differences with the Senate-passed bill. The $1.5-trillion package now heads to President Trump, who plans to sign it into law. The House had approved the tax bill on Tuesday but was forced to take another vote Wednesday because a couple of provisions in the version it approved were found to be in violation of Senate procedures. Those provisions were dropped before the Senate gave its approval early Wednesday. Critics complained the Republicans rushed to pass the sweeping tax plan to deliver Trump a year-end legislative victory, but supporters shrugged off the problems as minor. The tax plan dramatically cuts corporate rates and provides some individual rate reductions, overhauling the tax code for the first time in 30 years. Facebook

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Trump administration effort to block immigrant from having an abortion fails By David Savage Scott Lloyd is director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images) President Trumps lawyers rushed to the Supreme Court and U.S. appeals court in Washington on Monday evening to file emergency appeals seeking to prevent an immigrant in detention, dubbed Jane Roe in court, from having an abortion. That set the stage for a legal showdown on whether the administration can block pregnant minors in custody from choosing to have an abortion. But the legal clash, which the administration has seemed eager to have, fizzled out Tuesday when the governments lawyers admitted the 17-year-old unaccompanied minor in their custody was actually 19. They said they had obtained her birth certificate and realized she was not a minor after all. As a result, Roe, who is 10 weeks pregnant, will no longer be held in a detention center for immigrant minors, and will not be subject to an administration policy that tries to prevent minors in immigration detention from having abortions. Administration lawyers told appeals court judges Tuesday night that Roe was being sent to a facility for adults and likely would be released until her immigration status can be resolved. In a brief order, the D.C. Circuit Court agreed to put the case on hold, but told government attorneys to confirm that she will be permitted to obtain an abortion. The administration had earlier tried to delay another young woman, referred to in court as Jane Poe, from having an abortion, but officials relented on Monday because she was 22 weeks pregnant and nearing the time limit for a legal abortion. Facebook

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Senate panel rejects Trumps pick to lead Export-Import Bank, a leader in the effort to shut it down By Jim Puzzanghera A Senate committee on Tuesday rejected President Trumps nominee to lead the Export-Import Bank, extending the chaos at the embattled agency whose job is to help U.S. companies sell their goods abroad. Two Republicans joined all Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee in voting against former Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) to be the banks president. Garrett had been a vocal critic of the Ex-Im Bank and a leader of a conservative effort that shut the bank down for five months in 2015 by blocking its congressional authorization. He and other bank opponents branded the banks aid as crony capitalism. Read More Facebook

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Congress proposes $81-billion disaster aid package, including funds for California wildfires By Lisa Mascaro Congress is set to consider an $81-billion disaster aid package that includes wildfire recovery money for California and other Western states as well as hurricane relief with a price tag reflecting a year of record-setting natural calamities. The legislation, the text of which was released late Monday, would provide almost twice as much as the $44 billion the White House sought last month to cover relief efforts along the Gulf Coast and in the Caribbean. Republican congressional leaders added more money after California lawmakers objected that the administration had failed to include help for areas damaged by wildfires and Democrats protested that the overall amount President Trump asked for was insufficient. Read More Facebook

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White House blames North Korea for worldwide WannaCry cyber attack By Noah Bierman The Royal London Hospital, a victim of the unprecedented global cyberattack in May. (Niklas Hallen / AFP/Getty Images) The White House officially blamed North Korea on Tuesday for the cyberattack in May known as WannaCry that infected hundreds of thousands of computers in 150 countries, affecting healthcare, financial services and vital infrastructure. Thomas P. Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism, noted in a briefing with reporters that the consequences were beyond economic. He warned that North Koreas malicious behavior is growing more egregious. Bossert did not specify what evidence American officials have to blame North Korea, citing security issues, but he cited the countrys prior attacks as revealing hallmarks of how Pyongyang and its network of hackers operates. He said other allied countries had joined the United States in making the determination. The administration did not announce any penalties on the regime, which is already subject to severe sanctions over its nuclear program. They want to hold the entire world at risk, Bossert said of North Koreas rulers, referring to the nations nuclear and missile provocations as well as its alleged cyberattack. Given its isolation and international sanctions, North Korea is desperate for funds. Bossert said the country did not appear to make much money on the ransom attack, as word spread that paying a ransom did not result in getting computers unlocked. Its primary goal, he said, was spreading chaos. Bossert and Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary of homeland security for cybersecurity and communication, said the United States, through a combination of preparation and luck, escaped the worst of the attack, as a patch to the malware was found before U.S. companies and other interests were severely crippled. However, Manfra said, We cannot be complacent. Bossert added, Next time were not going to get so lucky. Manfra praised Microsoft and Facebook for their efforts to combat WannaCry and to block more recent attempts to hack U.S. systems. She and Bossert urged more cooperation and information-sharing from American and multinational companies, arguing a united front is vital to protecting against bad actors who do not differentiate between government and business. Bossert rejected criticism that the the Trump administration has more aggressively called out North Korean cyberattacks than it has Russias meddling in the 2016 election. He said the administration has continued the national emergency initiated by President Obama. Facebook

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GOP lures some mountain bike groups in its push to roll back protections for public land By Evan Halper When their vision of creating a scenic cycling trail through a protected alpine backcountry hit a snag, San Diego area mountain bikers turned to an unlikely ally: congressional Republicans aiming to dilute conservation laws. The frustrations of the San Diego cycling group and a handful of similar organizations are providing tailwind to the GOP movement to lift restrictions on the countrys most ecologically fragile and pristine landscapes, officially designated wilderness. Resentment of these cyclists over the longstanding ban on mechanized transportation in that fraction of the nations public lands presents a political opportunity for Republicans eager to drill fissures in the broad coalition of conservation-minded groups united against the GOP environmental agenda. Read More Facebook

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Vice president postpones Israel trip a second time in case his vote is needed to pass tax cut bill By Noah Bierman (Ethan Miller / Getty Images) Vice President Mike Pence is delaying his trip to Egypt and Israel for a second time in case he is needed to break a tie in the Senate for the tax bill that is expected to pass narrowly this week. Two White House officials confirmed the changed schedule, which they say is unrelated to to protests in the region over the administrations decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital. Pence had initially been scheduled to leave last Saturday. Late last week, the White House moved the trip back a few days to Tuesday night, in case Pence was needed to break a Senate tie. But Monday, they decided to postpone the trip further, to January, given the possibility of a late Senate vote and the coming holidays. He wants to see it through the finish line, said a White House official, referring to the tax measure that is a centerpiece of the Republican legislative agenda. We dont want to leave anything to chance. The mid-January dates will allow Pence more breathing room to merge schedules with embassies and hotels, the official said. Trump still plans to address the Israeli Knesset, a high-profile venue to discuss the Jerusalem decision where it is most popular. Facebook

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Trump judicial pick who drew ridicule at hearing withdraws By Associated Press A White House official says the Trump judicial nominee whose qualifications were questioned by a Republican senator has withdrawn his nomination. Matthew Petersen, who was nominated by President Trump to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, has been the subject of widespread ridicule since he was unable to define basic legal terms during his confirmation hearing Wednesday. A White House official says Petersen has withdrawn his nomination and that Trump has accepted the withdrawal. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the development publicly. Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy pressed Petersen, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, who testified he had never tried a case, on his qualifications to the bench. Facebook

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Trump says McCain will return to Washington if needed for tax vote By Laura King President Trump said Sunday that Sen. John McCain, who is battling an aggressive form of brain cancer, was returning home to Arizona for the holidays but would come back to Washington if needed to cast a vote on the Republicans tax overhaul bill. The Arizona Republicans office announced last week that McCain was receiving treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington for complications from his cancer treatment. McCains daughter Meghan tweeted earlier Sunday that her 81-year-old father would be spending Christmas in Arizona. The Senate is expected to vote early this week on the tax cut legislation, but the GOP appeared to have secured sufficient support without McCains vote. John will come back if we need his vote, Trump told reporters as he returned from a weekend at the presidential retreat at Camp David. Hes going through a very tough time. Facebook

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Putin calls Trump to thank him for U.S. help foiling terrorist strike By Laura King Vladimir Putin phoned President Trump to thank him for what the Russian president said was CIA help in foiling a terrorist attack, the Kremlin said on Sunday. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed the two leaders conversation to reporters. It was the second time that the two leaders had talked in four days; Trump called Putin on Thursday to thank the Russian leader for lauding the U.S. economy. Putin, in his annual year-end news conference, had praised Trump for a strong performance by the U.S. stock market. Perhaps ironically, given his credit to the CIAs recent help, Putin at that news event dismissed as hysteria the consensus among American intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign. In reporting Putins call to Trump on Sunday, the official Russian news agency Tass said Putin thanked his American counterpart for information shared by the US Central Intelligence Agency that had helped break up a plot to set off explosives in St. Petersburgs landmark Kazan Cathedral and elsewhere in the city, which is Russias second-largest. Russian authorities last week had credited their countrys counter-intelligence service, the FSB, for foiling the attacks. They reported that seven people affiliated with Islamic State had been detained in St. Petersburg in connection with the plot. The FSB, the successor organization to the KGB, announced Friday that the group had planned to carry out the attacks on Saturday, and that one of those in custody had confessed to the cathedral bomb plot. Facebook

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Mnuchin: Government shutdown unlikely but could happen By Laura King Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said on Sunday that a government shutdown this week was unlikely but possible. A two-week stopgap spending bill passed by Congress earlier this month provided enough funding to keep the government running through Friday. A deadlock on another temporary funding measure would open the door to a possible shutdown. I cant rule it out, but I cant imagine it occurring, Mnuchin said on Fox News Sunday, suggesting everyone had an interest in avoiding the government grinding to a halt and federal workers going unpaid, especially in the holiday season. I would expect that both the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats, understand if they cant agree on this, they need to have another short-term extension to move this to January, the Treasury secretary said. We cant have a government shutdown in front of Christmas. In May, irate over concessions made to Democrats in hammering out a spending measure, President Trump tweeted that a good shutdown might help matters. While both parties agree that a government shutdown involves a degree of disruption that is not beneficial to either side, shutdowns in 1995-96 and in 2013 mainly caused a backlash against Republicans. The latest funding measure is to be taken up after a vote on a massive GOP tax overhaul, expected by midweek. Facebook

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Trump transition team says sensitive emails should not have been shared with Robert Mueller By Chris Megerian (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) President Trumps transition team is crying foul over how special counsel Robert S. Mueller III obtained emails for his investigation into Russian meddling in last years campaign and possible Trump campaign complicity. Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for the transition team, sent a letter to Congress on Saturday saying there was an unauthorized disclosure of emails. While the Trump transition is long over, the transition team remains a nonprofit organization. Its emails were hosted by the General Services Administration, a federal agency. Mueller reportedly obtained the emails directly from the agency. There are attorney-client communications, Langhofer said in an interview. There are executive-privileged communications. He added, What were asking Congress to do is to take some legislative action to make sure this never happens again. Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsels office, defended the process for obtaining emails. When we have obtained emails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation, we have secured either the account owners consent or appropriate criminal process, he said. The letter was first reported by Fox News. A request for comment from the General Services Administration was not immediately answered. This story has been updated with a comment from the special counsels office. Facebook

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Virginia house arrest is ending for Paul Manafort By Chris Megerian (Mark Wilson / Getty Images) A federal judge agreed Friday to end Paul Manaforts house arrest in Virginia, allowing President Trumps former campaign manager to return to Florida while awaiting trial. The decision followed a dispute between Manaforts legal team and prosecutors working for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who accused Manafort of violating a court order restricting public statements about the case. Under the terms of the judges order, Manafort will be allowed to live at his home in Florida as long as he stays within Palm Beach and Broward counties and obeys a curfew from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. If he misses a court appearance, he would forfeit four properties valued at $10 million total. The deal, which includes GPS monitoring, is not as permissive as Manafort originally sought. He had asked to be able to travel freely among Florida, New York, Virginia and Washington. Manafort faces criminal charges of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. He has pleaded not guilty. Facebook

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GOP negotiators enhance child tax credit to win over Sen. Rubio By Lisa Mascaro Republican negotiators slightly increased the refundable portion of the expanded child tax credit in their tax plan, raising it to $1,400 in hopes of winning back Sen. Marco Rubios (R-Fla.) support ahead of next weeks vote. Rubio announced Thursday he was withholding support after negotiators ignored his push to make the expanded tax credit, which increases from the current $1,000 to $2,000 in the proposed bill, fully refundable for lower- and moderate-income filers. The refundable portion in the original bill was $1,100. The Florida senator argued that was not enough to help working-class Americans, many of whom already view the GOP plan as tilted toward the wealthy. Rubios office was waiting to see the final text before commenting on whether the change was enough to win him over. We have not seen the bill text, and until we see if the percentage of the refundable credit is significantly higher, then our position remains the same, Rubios spokeswoman said. Negotiators meeting Friday before unveiling the bill said they thought they had the support they needed from Rubio and other holdouts. Im confident both chambers will pass it next week, said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Facebook

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Sen. Marco Rubio opposes GOP tax bill, depriving leaders of crucial support By Lisa Mascaro 20.94% Corp. rate to pay for tax cut for working family making $40k was anti-growth but 21% to cut tax for couples making $1million is fine?  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) December 12, 2017 Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) says he is currently opposed to the GOP tax plan because it fails to include his proposed enhancements to the child tax credit, leaving leaders without crucial support ahead of next weeks expected vote. Republicans can only lose two GOP senators from their slim 52-48 majority as they push the plan forward under special budget rules to prevent a Democratic filibuster. Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday altered his planned Israel trip so he could be on hand, if needed, to cast a tie-breaking vote. Rubio, and GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, have fought to increase the child tax credit, doubling it to $2,000 in the GOP plan, but they also want to increase its refundability. They argue it will lower taxes on middle-income families at a time when the tax plan is being criticized as tilted to the wealthy. Sen. Rubio has consistently communicated to the Senate tax negotiators that his vote on final passage would depend on whether the refundability of the Child Tax Credit was increased in a meaningful way, Rubios spokeswoman said. Lee stopped short of opposing the bill, but his spokesman said Wednesday he is undecided. GOP leaders, though, have said they believe they have the support for passage. Facebook

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White House gives Roy Moore a unsubtle shove: Time to concede By David Lauter (Alex Wong / Getty Images) The White House sent a clear signal Thursday to the defeated Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama: Its time to concede. Roy Moore refused to concede the race on Tuesday night when Doug Jones, the Democrat, was declared the winner. Election night results show Jones winning by about 1.5 percentage points, three times more than the states standard for a recount. Although a few absentee and provisional ballots remain to be counted, theres no indication they would change the result. On Wednesday, Moore notably did not call to congratulate Jones  even as President Trump and other leading Republicans did. Instead, he released a video declaring the battle rages on. Asked at the daily news briefing whether the White House thinks Moore should concede today, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, It probably sounds like it maybe should have already taken place. Sanders also dismissed the idea, pushed by some Moore supporters, that Jones victory was tainted in some fashion. Asked if the Democrat had won fair and square, she said, I think the numbers reflect that. The states Republican senator, Richard Shelby, offered a similar comment in an interview with MSNBC in which he said he was willing to work with Jones. If I was 25,000 votes behind, its not going to change much, Shelby said. Facebook

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House Speaker Paul Ryan says hes not leaving anytime soon By Lisa Mascaro House Speaker Paul D. Ryan shot down suggestions Thursday that he might soon be retiring. Stories often circulate that party leaders, especially the House speaker, are stepping aside. Ryans tenure has been as rocky as that of his predecessor, Rep. John Boehner, who abruptly resigned in 2015 amid GOP infighting. Asked Thursday if he would be leaving, Ryan answered a simple no, as he left his weekly press conference in the Capitol. Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who reluctantly took over the speakers gavel after Boehners departure, had just finished talking up the GOP tax plan, which leaders hope to pass next week. He also outlined his sweeping agenda for his longtime goal of entitlement reform of welfare benefits next year. Two stories published Thursday suggested Ryan may soon be out. This is pure speculation, said spokeswoman AshLee Strong. As the speaker himself said today, hes not going anywhere anytime soon. Facebook

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GOP leaders reach tax deal, cutting corporate rate to 21% and top individual rate to 37% By Lisa Mascaro Republican leaders on Wednesday agreed on a revised plan to cut taxes that would lower the corporate rate from 35% to 21% and drop the top individual rate for the richest Americans to 37%, according to GOP senators and others briefed on the deal. The tentative accord marked a significant step in the Republican push to have a tax bill on President Trumps desk by Christmas. Leaders did not release details of the compromise or the text of a final bill as negotiations continued. Its critically important for Congress to quickly pass these historic tax cuts, Trump said Wednesday, promising that Americans could begin to reap the benefits of the plan as early as February, if passed. Critics, however, said the latest changes  particularly the lowering of the top individual rate from the current 39.6%  only reaffirmed several independent analyses that show the bulk of the savings from the Republican plan would go to businesses and the wealthy. Read More Facebook

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Farenthold to retire from House amid harassment accusations By Associated Press Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold wont seek reelection next year, two Republicans said Thursday, adding his name to the list of lawmakers leaving Congress amid sexual harassment allegations that have cost powerful men their jobs in politics, the arts and other fields. The accusations against Farenthold surfaced in 2014, when a former aide sued him alleging sexually suggestive comments and behavior and said shed been fired after she complained. The lawmaker said he engaged in no wrongdoing and the case was settled in 2015. But the House Ethics Committee said last week that it would investigate Farenthold after congressional sources said hed paid an $84,000 settlement using taxpayers money. Though Farenthold said hed reimburse the Treasury Department, such payments have drawn public criticism from people saying lawmakers should use their own money for such settlements. A House official said Farenthold spoke twice Wednesday to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), while another official said the congressman spoke once with Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) who heads the GOPs House campaign committee. Those discussions suggested that Farenthold may have come under pressure from leaders to step aside. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Last week, three lawmakers facing accusations of sexual harassment announced their resignations. Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) have already left Congress while Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has said he will step aside soon. Mike Bergsma, Republican county chairman in Farentholds home county of Nueces, Texas, said Fare
Scientists make New Years resolutions like the rest of us, but their lists are just a little more ambitious.

In 2018, they plan to fly machines into the suns atmosphere, onto the surface of Mars and alongside an object 4 billion miles away in the Kuiper belt. Theyll deploy a gene-editing system inside the cells of living people to fight a cancer-causing virus. Theyll try to see the edge of a black hole, and to win seats in Congress.

And thats only some of what they have in store.

Here are 11 science stories we cant wait to follow in 2018.

Searching for other life-friendly planets

NASAs Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, will identify planets orbiting nearby stars that might have the conditions for life. (NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center)

NASAs Kepler mission taught us that solar systems like our own  where planets orbit a central star  are the norm, not the exception. In 2018, the space agencys new planet-hunting mission, known as TESS, will begin a more targeted search for planetary systems around stars in our stellar neighborhood  that is, those within 300 light-years from Earth.

The difference between the two missions is primarily one of approach. Kepler stared long and deep into a narrow patch of sky, looking for the brief dimming of distant stars that would indicate a planet had moved past, obscuring a bit of their light. TESS will use the same detection technique, but will focus on a much more shallow field that encompasses the entire sky. That includes all 10,000 stars we can see without a telescope.

TESS, which stands for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, is scheduled to launch between March and June. It will begin its search for local exoplanets two months later.

Flying into the suns atmosphere

The Parker Solar Probe will provide new data on solar activity and make critical contributions to our ability to forecast major space-weather events that affect life on Earth. (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory)

This summer, NASA will launch a mission to touch the sun.

The Parker Solar Probe, scheduled to lift off July 31, will swing within 4 million miles of the suns surface, tasting charged particles from the atmosphere and making detailed measurements during 24 planned orbits. NASA has sent spacecraft out to the fringes of our solar system, but never so close to the blazing ball of gas that lies at its heart.

The probe, whose first close approach to the sun should take place in November, could answer two major questions: Why is the sun's ghostly corona so much hotter than its surface? And what factors power the solar wind, the stream of charged particles that flow from the sun into space? The answers could help scientists better understand solar flares and the solar storms that can wreak havoc with Earths satellites, energy grids and other vital infrastructure.

Previously known as Solar Probe Plus, the spacecraft was recently renamed in honor of University of Chicago astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who proposed the existence of the solar wind in a paper in 1958. Its NASAs first spacecraft named after a living scientist.

Scientists will be on the ballot

Stem cell scientist Hans Keirstead is one of many scientists, engineers and other STEM professionals running for political office. The 2018 midterm elections will provide an important test of whether voters are receptive to their pro-science message. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

After a year that has seen hundreds of scientists driven from the federal government and the work of those remaining greatly diminished, the mobilization of science-minded political candidates has continued to pick up steam.

At the heart of that effort has been 314 Action, an organization dedicated to recruiting, training and endorsing candidates with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and math. In 2017, 314 Action trained roughly 1,400 would-be candidates on the nuts and bolts of running for office.

And its endorsed eight who will be on the ballot for federal office in 2018. Two are running in California House races  stem cell researcher Hans Keirstead is vying to unseat Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa), and pediatrician Mai Kanh Tran is challenging incumbent Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton). Another 314 Action-backed candidate, software developer and Democratic U.S. Rep. Jacky Rosen, will face off against Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller.

The 2018 midterm elections are just a warm-up. With an eye on elections in 2020 and beyond, 314 Action will run two mass-training events for scientists this year, including one in the Bay Area.

Looking deep into the heart of Mars

Engineers test the solar arrays on NASAs InSight Mars lander to be sure they will deploy properly when they reach the Martian surface. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin)

NASA has studied Mars for decades. Now the space agency will examine it from within.

When it arrives in November 2018, the InSight Mars lander will deploy a package of instruments to explore the Red Planets inner workings and composition. The three-legged lander will use a seismometer to track the vibrations from seismic activity and meteorite impacts. It will also send a thermal probe about 16 feet beneath the surface to study the heat flow of the planets interior. A third instrument will measure the planets wobble as it circles the sun by tracking the Doppler shift in radio signals between the lander and Earth.

Together, these tools will allow scientists to understand the structure and composition of the planets crust, mantle and core. Mars interior experienced less churning than Earths, so the Red Planets contents could offer a window into the early history and evolution of our home.

Mars InSight (short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) was originally scheduled to launch in March 2016, but those plans were foiled by a leak in one of the instruments. If all goes well, the spacecraft will lift off from Californias Vandenberg Air Force Base in May.

CRISPR goes inside humans

A representation of human papillomavirus cells, magnified by an electron microscope. A clinical trial planned for 2018 will use the CRISPR gene-editing system to attack HPV cells. (BSIP / UIG via Getty Images)

Ever since the gene-editing toolkit known as CRISPR burst onto the scene in 2012, weve been hearing about its potential to treat diseases in humans. But so far, its mostly been used on cells in petri dishes and animals.

Scientists in the U.S. and China are already using the CRISPR system to modify immune system cells so theyre better able to attack various kinds of cancer. The process involves removing cells from a patients bloodstream, altering them in the lab, multiplying them and then putting them back in the body.

In 2018, however, we expect to see the first trial that will deploy the CRISPR gene editor inside a living persons body. This groundbreaking study, set to begin in January, plans to use CRISPR to fight the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes cervical, anal, throat and other cancers. The CRISPR machinery will be delivered to the patient via a topical gel. The hope is that once it gets into the cells, it will inactivate HPVs viral genes without harming the DNA of healthy cells.

Scientists are also making plans to use CRISPR to treat blood disorders like sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia, and a rare eye condition called Leber congenital amaurosis.

A global effort to see a black hole

Scientists make improvements to the South Pole Telescope to aid in the search for the event horizon of a black hole. The telescope is among eight being used for the Event Horizon Telescope project. (Daniel Michalik / South Pole Telescope)

Scientists have witnessed the effects of black holes in countless phenomena throughout the universe, but no one has ever seen one directly. In 2018, that might change.

In the coming months, researchers working with the Event Horizon Telescope hope to produce the first-ever image of a real black hole silhouetted against a backdrop of hot, spiraling gas.

The target is Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole that lies 26,000 light-years away at the center of our galaxy. To take an image of it, astronomers needed to create a telescope with such high resolution that it could locate an orange on the moon  in other words, a telescope the size of our entire planet.

They were able to do this by linking eight telescopes from across the globe. In April 2017, they took measurements of Sagittarius A* and another black hole even farther away. Now comes the hard part of filtering out the background noise and piecing together an image from all that data. It will take time and patience for the research team to determine the best way to interpret the data, but surely the result will be worth the wait.

Faster drug approvals

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb at the agencys Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. (Food and Drug Administration)

The head of the Food and Drug Administration wants to get medicines out of the lab and into the clinic more quickly. The coming year will begin to test whether this is possible  and if so, whether there are any unexpected costs.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says the agency will soon issue new guidelines for speeding the approval process. For instance, a drug company running a clinical trial would not have to show that patients who get an experimental treatment live longer, or that their disease progresses more slowly. Instead, the company might use surrogate markers to satisfy the FDA by showing that its treatment halts or reverses some process that is a hallmark of a disease, such as the accumulation of beta-amyloid protein in the brains of Alzheimers patients.

Gottlieb is also expected to champion the FDAs broader acceptance of adaptive clinical trials whose design, study populations and objectives can be altered along the way in response to early signals. Rather than conducting a series of trials to discover which patients benefit most from a particular drug, a single adaptive trial could answer that question if it were allowed to flex along the way.

It will take time, and manpower, for these changes to work their way through the system. As the agency fast-tracks new therapies, doctors and drug-safety experts will be watching to see if they are any less safe or effective.

Rendezvous with an asteroid

NASAs OSIRIS-REx will reach the asteroid Bennu in 2018, then begin scanning its surface in search of a good place to land. (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)

In 2016, NASA launched its first mission to bring back precious samples from an asteroid. In 2018, the spacecraft will finally meet its target.

OSIRIS-REx (short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) will arrive at the asteroid Bennu in August. In October, it will start mapping the surface, eventually pinpointing a good spot to grab at least 60 grams of dust and rocky material. Just as the decades-old moon samples brought back by NASAs Apollo missions are still being studied today, the asteroid samples returned from Bennu could offer planetary scientists an unprecedented trove of material that they could study for decades to come.

Asteroids like Bennu are space fossils  the building blocks of planets left over from the solar systems formation that contain crucial, unaltered information about its early history. Bennu is also rich in organic matter, and scientists believe such asteroids were a source of crucial life-friendly molecules for Earth. Finally, since Bennu is a near-Earth object, it could help scientists better predict the risk of an asteroid hitting our planet.

As for when those samples are coming back to Earth, dont hold your breath: OSIRIS-REx isnt scheduled to return them until 2023.

Policing the language of government scientists

Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were among the first government employees to be told they couldnt use terms like science-based and evidence-based. (David Goldman / Associated Press)

Can government agencies that fund, conduct and make decisions based on biomedical research carry out their missions while avoiding words that describe what they do?

In December, the Washington Post reported an effort by Trump administration officials to expunge at least seven terms from certain budget documents making their way to Congress in 2018. In a meeting with policy analysts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials were said to have discouraged the use of such phrases as evidence-based and science-based, as well as the words diversity, fetus vulnerable, entitlement and transgender.

Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, have downplayed the report. I want to assure you there are no banned words at CDC, Director Brenda Fitzgerald said in a tweet. We will continue to talk about all our important public health programs.

When Trumps 2019 budget documents emerge in February, well see whether its possible for the CDC, an agency that tracks the health of all Americans, to avoid any reference to vulnerable populations. Or whether the National Institutes of Health can fight pathogens such as the Zika virus without using the term fetus. Or whether the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force can avoid making reference to science-based or evidence-based medicine. After all, science (and evidence) is pretty much what they do.

The most distant flyby on record

The New Horizons spacecraft will spend 2018 closing in on 2014 MU69. Its scheduled to reach the Kuiper belt object on New Years Day in 2019. (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)

NASAs New Horizons spacecraft made history when it gave humanity our first up-close look at Pluto in 2015. Now it is set to make history again when it whizzes past a mysterious object 1 billion miles beyond the dwarf planet.

Mission leaders said the planned flyby will be the most distant in the history of space exploration. It is scheduled for New Years Day 2019 (technically, New Years Eve 2018 for those of us in the Pacific time zone). However, the journey really begins about six months earlier, when the spacecraft will awake from hibernation and begin gathering intel on its next target.

The distant object, known as MU69, lies 4 billion miles from Earth. It was discovered in 2014, and scientists still dont know much about it. It appears to be peanut-shaped, though it might be composed of two objects closely orbiting each other. It might even have a small moon.

With a rendezvous that will take New Horizons within just 2,175 miles of the objects surface, well know a lot more soon.

Testing our faith in the flu vaccine

The flu vaccine is likely to do a poor job of protecting Americans this flu season. Scientists are working on a universal flu vaccine that could make the annual flu shot a thing of the past. (Jason Hoekema / Associated Press)

This years flu season could test Americans faith in the flu vaccine. In Australia, where the flu season has just ended, the vaccine was only about 10% effective against the most widely circulated strain of flu. That same strain, an influenza A known as H3N2, is now on the loose here, and health experts expect the flu vaccine will fall well short of the 34% effectiveness level seen here last year.

The vaccines protection has been waning steadily in recent years. But dont blame public health officials for making the wrong guess about which strains of flu virus will circulate  theres growing evidence that producing the vaccine in eggs introduces mutations that suppress our immune response to the vaccine itself.

A universal flu vaccine could be the solution. This type of vaccine would train the human immune system to recognize parts of the virus that are shared by all flu strains and dont change from year to year. It would also be produced in bacterial slurries, not in eggs. Both of these attributes could make annual flu shots a thing of the past. But such vaccines are still years away, and they wont help Americans weather this flu season, which typically peaks in February.

Yearly flu-related deaths in the United States average about 36,000. But they range from a low of about 12,000 to a high  during the 2012-13 season  of roughly 56,000. Last year, when a pretty robust 46.8% of Americans got vaccinated against the flu, 101 children died of the flu-related causes. Officials have not yet tallied the final toll on adults.

deborah.netburn@latimes.com

Twitter: @DeborahNetburn

amina.khan@latimes.com

Twitter: @aminawrite

melissa.healy@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATMelissaHealy

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An Orange County woman who was arrested in Newport Beach is suing the city, alleging that its Police Department violates womens civil rights by putting female arrestees through a more arduous process than men when theyre booked into jail.

Connie Barraclough, 52, was driving through Newport Beach around 4 a.m. April 4 last year when a police officer pulled her over, according to the lawsuit filed last month in federal court in Santa Ana.

Barraclough had been drinking earlier that night at an Angels game in Anaheim and was taken into custody on suspicion of driving under the influence, according to her lawyer, V. James DeSimone. He would not disclose Barracloughs city of residence.

But instead of booking her at the city jail, police took Barraclough to Orange County Jail in Santa Ana because Newport Beach did not have a female jailer available to process her, the lawsuit claims.

Barraclough alleges she was held for 12 hours at the county facility before being released, whereas the same process at the Newport Beach jail would have taken about three hours.

While in county jail, sheriffs deputies confiscated her shoes, gave her food she wasnt able to eat and wouldnt let her make an additional phone call so she could tell her children what had happened, according to DeSimone, who called the process dehumanizing.

Youre basically stripped of your dignity when youre sent to Orange County Jail, he said.

According to DeSimone, jails in California are required to have female jailers available whenever theyre needed. By not doing so, and instead shifting responsibility to the Orange County Jail, Newport Beach discriminated against Barraclough and other female inmates, according to the lawsuit.

By holding her in jail for 12 hours, authorities appeared to be trying to punish Barraclough for her actions before she was given a fair trial, DeSimone said.

Newport Beach City Attorney Aaron Harp said Friday that he hadnt had a chance to discuss Barracloughs allegations with the Police Department, and he declined to comment.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a judges order barring the Police Department from treating female inmates the way Barraclough alleges she was handled.

Her motivation here really is to make sure that this doesnt happen to anyone again, DeSimone said.

DeSimone is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit. He said he has already started getting calls about people wanting to join the legal action.

Barraclough ultimately was convicted of two misdemeanors related to her arrest. She pleaded guilty in October to driving under the influence and driving with blood-alcohol content above 0.08%.

A judge sentenced her to probation and a three-month alcohol education program, according to court records.

DeSimone said Barraclough understands she made a mistake.

Theres a consequence for her actions, but it should be a fair and balanced consequence, he said.

--

jeremiah.dobruck2@latimes.com

Twitter: @jeremiahdobruck
Two construction workers pleaded not guilty Friday to animal cruelty and other charges related to the deaths of baby birds that fell from a tree that authorities say the men cut down in a Newport Beach neighborhood.

Stephen John Esser, 47, of Dana Point and David Roger Stanley, 40, of Downey could each face up to one year and six months in jail if convicted of misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty, unlawful possession and destruction of bird nests/eggs, unlawful taking of migratory nongame birds and harassing a bird or mammal.

Jeremy Goldman, a lawyer representing Esser and Stanley, entered the plea on their behalf in Orange County Superior Court. Goldman declined to discuss the case after the hearing.

Prosecutors allege that Esser and Stanley were doing demolition work on a lot in the 1500 block of East Balboa Boulevard on May 28 when they used a backhoe or similar equipment to remove a ficus tree.

The tree contained eight or nine nests of snowy egrets and black-crowned night herons holding baby birds that werent yet able to fly, according to prosecutors.

Authorities believe about a dozen birds fell from the tree; five did not survive.

The incident outraged neighbors who said they pleaded with the workers to stop cutting down the tree.

Bystanders rescued most of the nestlings from the debris and took them to the Wetlands & Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, where they were rehabilitated, according to authorities.

Prosecutors said Esser and Stanley could be required to pay about $20,000 for the birds care at the center.

The defendants next court date is scheduled for February.
The 18th Surf City Splash, an annual New Years Day run into the chilly ocean, is set for Monday near the Huntington Beach Pier.

This years event, which benefits the International Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach, includes a pancake breakfast and costume contest.

Registration is $25 and includes the breakfast and a certificate. The breakfast is from 9 to 11 a.m. at Zacks at 405 Pacific Coast Hwy.

The ocean dash will start at noon.

Onsite registration begins at 9 a.m. To register and for more information, visit hbsurfcitysplash.com or call (714) 698-9837.

Two music events set at Bolsa Chica State Beach

Bolsa Chica State Beach in Huntington Beach will be the site of music and dancing Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday, an anti-New Years Eve bash will feature the Tijuana Dogs, a heated tent, a full bar and dancing starting at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $10 and available at sealegs.ticketleap.com/tijuanadogs-anti-nye-bash.

On Sunday, New Years Eve, DJ Dig Dug and DJ Ravi Drums will perform starting at 7 p.m. The event also will include dancing, a bar and a midnight balloon drop.

Tickets are $75 online and $100 at the door. For more information, visit sealegs.ticketleap.com/newyearsatthebeach.

Newport fire chief to speak at forum

Newport Beach Fire Chief Chip Duncan will give an update on fire safety programs during the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerces next Wake Up Newport forum Jan. 4.

The event will run from 7:45 to 8:30 a.m. in the Friends Room at the Newport Beach Public Library, 1000 Avocado Ave.

Admission is free and walk-ups are welcome, but reservations can be made by calling (949) 729-4411 or emailing psmith@newportbeach.com.

Upper Newport Bay parking lot to close for overhaul

Orange County Public Works will overhaul the Upper Newport Bay parking lot at University Drive and Irvine Avenue from mid-January to late February.

The work will include removing decomposed granite and replacing it with sand-colored pervious concrete, installing wheel stops and striping parking stalls.

The lot will be closed during construction, including on weekends.
Terri Swanson lives at the Crossing apartment community, a transit-oriented development adjacent to the Anaheim Canyon Metrolink Station.

Swanson and her husband moved to the complex at 3530 E. La Palma Ave. in June so she could take a Metrolink train to Orange Station where she walks to her administrative assistant job at Chapman Universitys Attallah College of Educational Studies.

Thats the main reason we decided to live there, Swanson said.

The community rents a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment for $1,743 to $2,072 per month, according to the buildings website.

Swanson said she usually sees one other passenger get on her morning train while employees disembark on their way to Kaiser Permanente Orange County - Anaheim Medical Center or the PacifiCenter office park. Her husband uses his car to commute to work.

I see other cars leaving all the time, she said.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments encourages city governments to offer incentives for residential development, especially affordable housing, near transit hubs to alleviate traffic on some of the most congested freeways in the country.

Since transit-oriented development is a land-use issue, the Orange County Transportation Authority does not take a policy stance on the practice, said Eric Carpenter, an OCTA spokesman.

OCTA does, of course, encourage people to use public transportation, including the Metrolink rail system as an alternative to getting behind the wheel and adding congestion to our crowded freeways, Carpenter said.

In 2016, the city of Anaheim adopted the Anaheim Canyon Specific Plan which rezoned commercial properties on both sides of Anaheim Canyon Station as a transit-oriented area that could include workforce housing.

OCTA plans to start construction in 2019 on a second track and platform at the Anaheim Canyon Station. The new platform will be on the same side as the Crossing apartments, allowing residents to board trains without crossing tracks.

From July to November 2017, a daily average of 338 Metrolink riders boarded at Anaheim Canyon Station on weekdays. In that same time, a daily average of 1,614 riders boarded in Fullerton, 862 riders boarded in Santa Ana and 711 riders boarded in Orange.

While transit-oriented living at apartment buildings like the Crossing may not be incredibly popular now, public officials such as Placentia City Manager Damien Arrula believe Orange Countys demand for this type of housing will increase as the 91 Freeway becomes even more crowded.

Arrula spearheaded Placentias role in a planned Metrolink station and a 246-space parking structure in the citys historic downtown. OCTA plans to advertise bids for the stations construction in late April or early May 2018. Placentia will be the first new station on the Union Station to Riverside line in a decade.

As city employees its our job to serve the community and to plan for the needs of our citizens, residents and visitors and to support our local economy, Arrula said.

Arrula came to Placentia in 2014 from the city of El Monte, where he helped shepherd a transit-oriented development next to a regional bus station.

The low vacancy rate among industrial or commercial properties can make it expensive for developers to purchase and redevelop them as high-density housing. Arrula said cities and developers who miss opportunities to build workforce housing run the risk of higher land costs in the future. This could translate into higher rents.

Placentia plans to sell a parcel that formerly held a deteriorating packing house to a developer for a future transit-oriented development. Its preparing to request proposals from developers interested in acquiring the site.

To capitalize on this planned transportation hub, Placentia City Council approved dual plans to encourage redevelopment of the industrial properties south of the BNSF railroad and revitalization of buildings in its historic downtown.

Another common strategy in transit-oriented development is to build parking structures in downtown areas so people can drive from their homes, park in a structure, and take trains to downtown Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, or South Orange County.

Construction crews are excavating space for underground parking at the site of a future parking structure near the Metrolink Station in Old Towne Orange. The structure is also expected to serve as desperately needed nighttime parking for local merchants.

In 2016, Chapman Crafted Beer opened its brewery and tasting room next to the site of the future parking structure. Once the structure is done, Chapman Crafted co-owner Wil Dee plans to work with the city of Orange to transform an alley on the side of his building into a paseo that will allow pedestrians walk unimpeded to the train station.

With the temporary loss of a public parking lot, Chapman Crafteds customers have to park a little farther but the long-term benefits to business owners, local residents, and train riders will be huge, Dee said.

As far as the structure goes, its a long time coming, Dee said. Its fantastic for the city to be able to partner with OCTA to get that [parking].

Daniel Langhorne is a contributor to Times Community News.
Rufio is 9, Rinoa and Gizmo are 8, Cowboy is 6, Tails is 5 and Maya is 2 1/2.

Christian and Ashley Casillan have a team of huskies, but they live in Long Beach, not Alaska.

Whats a family of huskies to do in Southern California without snow and a sled?

A group of dog owners in the area asked themselves the same question and the answer is Urban Mushing.

The dogs come here just to run and have fun because they like to do it, said husky owner and Fountain Valley resident Rancy Reyes, who began the activity of running his dog in parks and on trails in Orange County in 2005 when he got his first husky, Niko. He was the one that got me started on this because he was just a spaz.

Reyes got the idea from people in the Northwest riding on scooters attached by lines to their dogs harnesses.The idea is similar to dog sledding on snow but the Urban Mushing group uses wheeled non-motorized vehicles like mountain bikes, scooters and carts.

Hooked him up to it and he had a blast, Reyes said of Niko, who has since died.

Reyes began posting on Craigslist about the activity, inviting others to join.

It just got bigger and bigger, he said, adding that the group size peaked around 2010 with about 50 dogs.

He organized races for a few years at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa, where the weekend morning meet-ups usually take place.

On a recent Saturday morning, about a dozen people and 20 dogs  mostly huskies but the group does not discriminate  arrived for a meet-up. According to Reyes, any medium to large, high-energy dog can participate and the group includes other breeds such as Samoyeds, German shepherds and a French bulldog.

Belinda Torrez, who moved to Oregon recently, was in town for the weekend and visited the park with her 1 1/2-year-old Samoyed, Nyssa, to help release some of the young dogs energy.

Shes a maniac, said Torrez.

Urban Mushing helps dogs expend energy via running.

When you have a dog who loves to pull and lives to run and you let them, its just beautiful, Torrez said.

While each person or couple arrives with their own set of dogs, a community approach is taken to the runs. Some dogs, like Reyes 12 1/2-year-old Lyka, are getting older and may need to be walked. Because Lyka is partially blind, Torrez walked her, while one of the others took Nyssa on the run.

Jenny Kan and her boyfriend, Viet Tran, of Van Nuys are some of the newest members of the group.

They recently adopted a 70-pound, 10-month-old, black-and-white husky named Max. Tran, on a mountain bike, was pulled along by the large puppy.

I feel like its worth it for him to be able to do this, Kan said of Maxs mushing. Its fun to be able to get the energy out this way rather than running on pavement.

Christian Casillan, who in addition to his six dogs also brought along his 3-month-old baby in a stroller, said he got his first husky in 2009. Because he now has many dogs, he has a cart to pull around eight larger dogs at once.

Its a lot of work but its a lot of fun, he said about the mushing activities. Its different and its a way to get outdoors.

Monica Emmerson of Long Beach has been running her dogs with the group for about a year now. She has three huskies and one that she fosters.

It was her 3-year-old Sprocket who inspired her to try Urban Mushing because of behavioral issues such as high energy and anxiety.

He needed an outlet  this is a great outlet for him, Emmerson said, noting Sprocket became the leader of the pack during runs. Huge changes. Huge improvement.

For more information, visit urbanmushing.com.

Jessica Peralta is a contributor to Times Community News.
You might call them the most sophisticated ladies and gents on the Newport social scene. After all, these residents are passionate about the decorative arts in all forms from architecture and interior design to landscape design, visual arts and publishing.

They appropriately call themselves the Decorative Arts Society (DARTS) and they have been championing the pursuit of elegance in design for more than two decades on the Orange Coast with proceeds from their many events and lectures assisting worthy nonprofits that aid families and children in need in Orange County.

This fall DARTS launched its 23rd annual lecture series welcoming the design team of Steve and Brooke Giannetti to front the first sold-out lecture, Stories and Dreams: Designing a Personal Home.

The design force combines their individual skills with Steve functioning as architect and Brooke as interior designer. The pair is working on projects in California, France, Connecticut and Nashville, Tenn.

Working out of their home base in Ojai on a farm called Patina, the Giannettis have been featured in publications such as Veranda and C Magazine, among others.

Maureen Madigan, president of DARTS. commented: Steve and Brooke have such a wealth of knowledge and expertise blending architecture, interior and furniture design. We are thrilled to have them kick off our 23rd season.

A highlight of the lecture presentation was the reveal of a line of Giannetti fashion garments created by their son Charlie. Clearly, design talent follows the generational line.

To learn more about the 2017-18 season of DARTS lectures, visit decorativeartssociety.net.

Earlier this fall social season, Romance of the Mission attracted some 450 guests for an annual al fresco black-tie gala raising significant funds for preservation of the early California church in San Juan Capistrano.

Mission San Juan Capistrano executive director Mechelle Lawrence Adams and Mission Preservation Foundation president George OConnell welcomed the crowd including special guests and major benefactors such as Sheila and Jim Peterson of the Microsemi Corporation.

The Petersons joined mega-supporters including the George OConnell family, Ed Tracy, sponsor Lugano Diamonds and dinner underwriter Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel, who all helped to raise $221,000 for mission restoration.

The swallows are not the only creatures that return to San Juan Capistrano year after year.

The O.C. crowd heads to South County for this event to enjoy a night featuring a concert held under the stars in the courtyard of the old Great Stone Church. This season, Tony and Grammy Award-winning vocalist Heather Headley fronted the show, beginning with an a capella version of Amazing Grace with a 12-member choir.

An elegant and first-class dinner catered by the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel followed.

Supporting Mission preservation were Alex and Pam Munro, Laurie and Bruce Horn, Joan and Bill Cvengros, Janet Curci, Trevor Baird, Tiffany Powell and Tim and Stephanie Busch.

A fall masquerade ball attracted a sold-out crowd in support of Vocational Visions, an O.C.-based agency supporting adults with disabilities.

The Irvine Marriott Hotel welcomed the costumed guests for cocktails at sunset, while they perused a silent auction and greeted fellow donors.

Joan McKinney, executive director of Vocational Visions, joined board chair Linda Albers to address the crowd at dinner.

Also front and center for the evening was advocate Joe Orak who joined McKinney in presenting the Wal-Mart Employee of the Year honors to J.T. Thorson, director of the Laguna Niguel Wal-Mart.

Since 1974, Vocational Visions has provided vocational, economic and social services to Orange County adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. They serve some 500 citizens needing assistance in the county.

B.W. COOK is editor of the Bay Window, the official publication of the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach.
Americans treasure the wall of separation, as Thomas Jefferson put it, between religion and state. It has enabled the nations great variety of faiths  with few exceptions  to thrive free of government interference.

Yet its also important to recognize how much religion impacts public life in ways that please some and frustrate others, and 2017 was no exception.

Judge Roy Moore, twice-removed chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, was almost elected to the Senate because of his conservative religious values, especially his anti-abortion stance. For the past 40-plus years, the stance of politicians on the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate has been a crucial determinant of peoples voting choices. Without the powerful influence of Roman Catholics and Evangelical Christians, the morality of abortion would have gone largely unchallenged.

The rights of LGBT Americans have also been profoundly affected by the religious convictions of conservative people of faith. Last fall, the Supreme Court heard the case of Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission about whether the bakery could refuse to do a cake for a same-sex couple. It is a complex case that involves both religious rights and freedom of expression, but its outcome could have huge implications for gay rights and the values of conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews. The high courts ruling is expected in June.

The rights of clergy to endorse political candidates from the pulpit or bema also arose in 2017 when some evangelical leaders attempted to revoke the so-called Johnson Amendment. Since 1954, the rule has forbidden preachers from making such endorsements, though they could speak out on various ethical issues such as climate change, evolution and, of course, abortion and gay rights. Abolition of the rule had been tacked onto the massive tax overhaul, but in the end the objections of liberal clergy and others got it expunged from the tax bill.

Finally, the evolution vs. intelligent design debate remained alive at the Texas Board of Education that ultimately voted in April to remove the word evaluate from the high-school science standards as it relates to teaching evolution. Though the courts have ruled that intelligent design or creationism may not be taught in science classes, biologists in Texas and elsewhere worried that evaluate might open the door to classroom debates on whether intelligent design was legitimate science.

The reflexive reaction to these religion-state controversies is that the other side represents either fanatical fundamentalism or godless secularism. In fact, however, though there are extremists on both sides, these ethical debates force us to think empathetically about why people can see these matters so differently. We probably will not change our stances, but we might end up respecting our religious and political others and gaining a more nuanced understanding of the really complex issues they raise, especially perhaps regarding abortion.

Costa Mesa resident BENJAMIN J. HUBBARD is a professor emeritus of religious studies at Cal State Fullerton.
The first time my wife and I rode the Glendale Holiday Trolley, it was to accompany our grandson who loves anything on rails. We immediately realized how pleasant it was to park well north of the 134 Freeway and ride into downtown, listening to Christmas carols, avoiding the search for a parking space and meeting families on their way, like us, to buy holiday gifts. It made our shopping so much easier. Our thanks to our City Council for bringing the Holiday Trolley to us all.

Dan and Judy Cabrera

Glendale

--

Re: City Plans to Reinstall Damaged Glendale Sign, Dec. 23-24. The Welcome to Glendale sign near the intersection of Foothill and Pennsylvania is a terrible idea for several reasons.

First, it is extremely unattractive. It is just a hunk of concrete right in the middle of the boulevard. Whatever nominal plants may or may not be installed, the fact remains that the sign is unappealing. In fact, the Glendale upon it scarcely stands out, so that the sign does not effectively serve its purpose. If the city of Glendale wants a sign here, it should be part of an entire landscaped median, such as the beautifully landscaped medians in the La Canada Flintridge portion of Foothill Boulevard.

Second, it is a road hazard. It is an obstacle because it is not a real landscaped median strip. It does not surprise me that a vehicle has already crashed into it. Drivers may start moving into the median in order to turn left on Pennsylvania and not see the sign in time to avoid crashing into it, especially if this obstacle is not illuminated at night. It is likely that more accidents will occur.

Third, the sign is inaccurate. It should read, Welcome to the La Crescenta Area of the City of Glendale. La Crescenta is a distinct area, such as the Montrose area of Glendale, and should be recognized as such. I agree with the petitions asking that the sign be removed or changed as referred to in the article.

If, in fact, the concrete sign does lead to more accidents, and the city is sued for this obvious road hazard, perhaps then Glendale will remove the sign or create a proper, full-scale landscaped median.

Bruce Hale

La Crescenta
The bays and inlets of Alaskas Inside Passage have traditionally drawn small cruise ships, which find it easier to maneuver into tight passages and shallow waters. But things are changing, Two mega-ships have been scheduled to begin cruising the popular route, with the first arriving next summer.

The new Norwegian Cruise Line ship Bliss carries 4,000 passengers and will start making port calls in June. In 2019, the 5,000-passenger Ovation of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean International ship that debuted in 2016, will begin visiting too.

Most Alaskan cruise ships carry less than half as many passengers as the two newcomers, which weigh in among the 10 largest cruise ships in the world. Each carries an additional 1,200 to 1,500 crew members.

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The Norwegian Bliss will sail weekly seven-day Alaska voyages that will depart Seattle on Saturdays, visiting Alaskas Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan, and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Ovation of the Seas will also homeport in Seattle, sailing weeklong cruises to Alaska that will include destinations such as Juneau and Victoria. It will join another Royal Caribbean ship in the region, Radiance of the Seas, which will offer seven-night itineraries between Seward and Vancouver, British Columbia.

More than 1.8 million people toured the nations largest state (by area) last year, setting a record, according to the Alaska Tourism Industry Assn.

Cruise ship passengers make up the majority of Alaskas visitors, totaling 1,025,900 last year. Cruise ship volume is expected to continue to grow in 2018, when Norwegian Bliss arrives and Princess Cruises, a heavyweight in the Alaska cruise market, increases its capacity.

Alaskan port cities are making changes to accommodate the new ships. But not everyone is happy. Last summer, the Ketchikan Council discussed trying to limit how many cruise passengers arrive in a single day but didnt arrive at any decisions, according to reports.

Normally, the busiest cruise ship days bring about 10,000 visitors to Ketchikan, which has a population of about 7,000. Some members of the community worry that as many as 20,000 visitors could arrive on the same day.

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travel@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimestravel
You can fly round-trip to San Francisco from LAX for $79, including all taxes and fees, through May 1 on American, Delta, United and Virgin America.

Because some of these fares may be basic economy fare, please know that that fare class comes with few amenities. (The Nov. 6 On the Spot column explains more about this low fare.) Check with the websites of American, Delta, United and Virgin America to see the restrictions, which vary from carrier to carrier.

If you dont need overhead space, a basic restriction on United and American, and you dont need seat selection in advance, this may be just the ticket for you.

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Other restrictions: You must buy your ticket at least 21 days in advance. That means that if youre reading this Dec. 29, the earliest ticket you can buy at this rate is Jan. 19.

Availability is not guaranteed. The Delta fare requires a Saturday night stay.

The fare is good for travel any day of the week through May 1.

Info: American, (800) 433-7300; Delta, (800) 221-1212; United, (800) 864-8331; and Virgin America, (877) 359-8474

Source: Airfarewatchdog

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travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
The collapse of a grandstand that led to multiple fatalities marred the 1926 Rose Parade. The Jan. 2, 1926, Los Angeles Times reported that about 1,000 men, women and children were on the grandstand. According to the Times article, about 250 were injured, and almost twenty in a critical condition.

Over the next couple months, a total of 11 people died from their injuries.

In a 2003 article headlined A Day Filled With Tragedy at Rose Parade, Los Angeles Times staff writer Cecilia Rasmussen reported:

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Consider the 115-year legacy of the Rose Parade: The New Years Day spectacle has endured the Depression, wars, detractors, bomb threats, no queen, no theme  even the rise of the parodic Doo-Dah Parade.

But in 1926, the first time the event was broadcast live by radio, tragedy struck. The day remains the deadliest in Rose Parade history. 

The deadly disaster began with a loud crack, like the sound a snapped tree trunk might make. Then a wooden grandstand at the southeast corner of Colorado Boulevard and Madison Avenue crashed to the ground, taking several hundred people with it.

A survivor, William F. Thompson, described the scene to a reporter afterward:

I was sitting in Row 19, one from the top, he said. The parade was passing. Hook and ladder just went by when there was just a slight trembling, and then slowly the whole stand moved forward. I heard boards splintering, women crying and then everything tumbled down.

Something hit me on the head, Thompson added. I was dazed but not clear out. I could see faces of agony all around me. Then I remember someone pulled a board off me, and several men came and dragged me out.

The last thing I saw as boards and other people fell on me was the arms of a man holding a child over his head, he said. This man was partly buried by timbers, but the little girl was safe."

Eleven people died of their injuries  some within hours, others within days or months. More than 200 were injured.

Followup investigations determined the grandstand was poorly constructed. Building contractor Paul F. Mahoney was convicted of manslaughter. Mahoney served one year in jail, then was released following successful appeals.

Because of the 1926 collapse, strict construction rules are now enforced at all Tournament of Roses activities.

This restrospective was originally published on Dec. 27, 2011, and updated in 2013.

See more from the Los Angeles Times archives here
Female laborers work in melon plantation near Palaung Kone village, Myanmar. (Thet Htoo / For the Times) (Thet Htoo / For the Times) Female laborers work at a melon plantation near Palaung Kone village, Myanmar. (Thet Htoo / For The Times) (Thet Htoo / For the Times)

Kneeling in the dirt, blood leaching from his scalp, Htay Aung pleaded with the mob that had just thrashed him with sugar cane stalks and bamboo poles.

Oh my God, he gasped. Please stop. Please stop.

The 47-year-old activist knew his assailants. They were his neighbors, some his distant relatives. He had married a woman from their ethnic community and lived with her in this village  until a personal tragedy opened a rift in the family and impelled them to leave.

Htay Aung believed the farmers were occupying his land illegally and had petitioned authorities asking for its return. He showed up with two other men the morning of Oct. 28 and began snapping cellphone pictures as the villagers tended the sugar cane crop theyd planted on the property.

The farmers had warned him not to take photos. One grabbed his cellphone while another pulled out his own and, as the violence escalated, pressed record.

The video would soon spread on Facebook. It shows the slight, shaggy-haired Htay Aung doubled over in the red dirt moments after the beating, a dozen farmers looking on. He reaches into his mouth, seemingly for loose teeth, then retches and sits back in a stupor with his head bowed.

Four days later, he was dead.

Thiha Than Soe posted this video on Facebook of Htay Aung doubled over moments after being beaten. Four days later, he was dead. The video went viral and garnered more than 180,000 views. Left, a villager shows video of Htay Aung, who was killed in a land dispute in Inn Wine Pahel village. Right, Daw San San Aye, a member of the National Peasants Union, shows photos of a land dispute near Naungcho township. (Thet Htoo / For The Times)

In Myanmar, a lush Southeast Asian nation where 70% of the population makes a living from agriculture, a slow transition from half a century of military rule has reopened old grievances over army seizures of land. The disputes pit farmers against the government, influential business interests, foreign investors  and often each other.

The land battle is one of the crucial tests of a nation struggling to build democratic institutions while positioning itself as Asias new economic crossroads, a largely untapped source of mineral and agricultural wealth at the junction of India, China and Thailand.

ENVIRONMENTAL WARRIORS: Defending the environment has become a suicide mission in many parts of the world 

Starting in the 1990s, the army confiscated millions of acres, uprooting farmers who had lived and worked on their small plots for generations. The generals built bases and infrastructure, started commercial enterprises that propped up their increasingly isolated dictatorship, sold concessions to crony developers  or left the land vacant and charged farmers rent to use it.

The seizures robbed countless citizens of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, of their only tangible resource as the economy and education systems crumbled.

Green farmland gave way to giant rubber plantations. Waste from coal and tin mines fouled creeks and wells. Forests were denuded to produce teak and rosewood prized in China and other countries. Activists who opposed the land seizures were harassed, jailed or killed  joining hundreds of environmental defenders worldwide who have lost their lives in recent years.

(Los Angeles Times)

Now, with the generals ceding some powers to a civilian government and introducing new land tenure laws in the hope of attracting investment, more farmers across Myanmar are trying to recover what was taken.

A sweeping victory by pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyis party in parliamentary elections in November 2015 sparked a wave of petitions and protests calling for restitution. In less than five months, state media reported, the new government received more than 2,000 complaints involving land seizures, although very few have been resolved.

There was a time when campaigning against land confiscation was unthinkable in Myanmar, but now there is more space for farmers, human rights defenders, activists, Buddhist monks and sometimes even politicians to campaign on land issues, said Andrea Giorgetta, Asia director for the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights.

Inevitably, that comes with increasing risks for defenders in an environment where protections afforded by legal frameworks and law enforcement agencies are still very weak.

(Los Angeles Times)

At least six people have been killed since 2015 for fighting land seizures or environmental exploitation in Myanmar, according to the nongovernmental organization Global Witness. They include a journalist who was found dead after writing a Facebook post listing the names of people apparently connected to illegal logging; a 22-year-old anti-mining activist who was stabbed at a fundraising event; and a farmers advocate who was shot in front of his house.

Htay Aungs land battle was just beginning. Weeks before the attack, he wrote to a committee established by the government last year to resolve land grab cases. His letter called for the return of 346 acres seized from 31 households in Inn Wine Pahel, in rural eastern Myanmar.

Left, a Palaung woman works with sesame in Palaung Gone village, Myanmar. Right, Myint Sein, wife of Htay Aung, sits with four children in Inn Wine Pahel village. (Thet Htoo / For the Times)

In the hills of southern Shan state, three hours by road from Mandalay, the hamlet of Inn Wine Pahel is wet and verdant.

Yellow wildflowers and pale green stalks of sugar cane press up against winding dirt roads dappled with puddles. Under misty clouds, women in long patterned skirts walk along the fields balancing bamboo poles on their heads. The air smells of fresh rain and fertilizer.

Everything grows here, said Kyaw Tun, a village leader in his 60s.

Into this quiet land, in 1997, trooped army soldiers, who did not need to use force among a population worn down by decades of repression.

They didnt have to say anything, recalled Myin Oo, a 36-year-old farmer who lost 5 acres in the land grab. Everyone was just scared of them.

The army briefly leased the land to an agribusiness company, then reallocated it in 2005 as the generals sought to make peace with an array of ethnic minority groups in Shan and other outlying states that had taken up arms to seek greater rights.

One was the Palaung, tea farmers whose traditional homeland lies about 30 miles north of Inn Wine Pahel, on the other side of a range of low green hills. The army had reached a cease-fire agreement with the groups armed wing, the Palaung State Liberation Army, and granted 120 members farming rights on the land.

They created a settlement just outside Inn Wine Pahel and named it Palaung Gone; there, they set about cultivating sugar cane, sesame and rice just a few hundred yards from Myin Oos house.

The people of Inn Wine Pahel were members of a smaller ethnic group, the Danu, which had no militia  and therefore no standing with the army. Myin Oo and his wife went from growing their own potatoes and sugar cane to working as laborers on the farms of larger landholders, earning just a few dollars a day to support their three children.

The Danu resented what they saw as the army rewarding an insurgent group. They would later learn that the army, known as the Tatmadaw, had forged a relationship with the PSLA, training some former insurgents and recruiting them into a pro-government militia to fight other ethnic armies in Shan.

That is classic Tatmadaw, said Jennifer Franco, a Myanmar expert at the Transnational Institute, a research organization based in the Netherlands. They are so good at divide-and-rule, and setting up people-to-people conflict that serves their interests.

At first, residents of the two villages attended each others weddings and observed Buddhist festivals together. At the end of the long rainy season, Palaung Gone villagers brought new robes to the monks of Inn Wine Pahel, an annual rite of giving thanks to the keepers of the faith.

Among the Palaung Gone residents were Htay Aung and his wife, Myint Sein. They had moved in 2014 from Htay Aungs ancestral home in Mogok, a valley in northern Myanmar famed for mines that bear some of the worlds most expensive blood-red rubies.

His family had little land in Mogok, where companies linked to army generals had taken over many of the lucrative mining areas, and the couple struggled to raise their six children. So they came to work alongside Myint Seins siblings in Palaung Gone.

Htay Aung, left, and his wife Myint Sein, in an undated photograph provided by his family. (Handout)

We had enough to educate the children and save a little bit every month, said Myint Sein, a petite woman 11 years her husbands junior.

Then, in 2015, their simple life was destroyed.

One morning, while Htay Aung was at work in the fields, Myint Seins sister took the couples eldest son, 9-year-old Htet Thar Aung, into town on a motorcycle. They were traveling near a sugar cane factory when a truck collided with the motorbike. Htet Thar Aung was thrown to the ground and died of his injuries.

Htay Aung blamed his sister-in-law for the death. He never forgave her, Myint Sein said.

Htay Aung stopped associating with other families and participating in meetings. In a small, ethnically homogeneous village, such gestures ripped at the social fabric. Palaung leaders decided he should be removed.

Htay Aung reacted calmly, recalled his brother-in-law, Kyaw San. He said he would go and live in Inn Wine Pahel, he said. Thats when our problems started.

In May 2016, the family moved a few hundred yards away to the edge of Inn Wine Pahel, into a one-room house with a sloped tin roof and walls made of cane. Htay Aung and Myint Sein worked in the sugar cane fields, each earning $3 a day. From their doorstep, they could see the house of the prosperous Palaung Gone village chief, a sturdy concrete dwelling with a new Toyota truck parked outside.

Across the Myanmar countryside, unrest was bubbling. Unions, first allowed by the military rulers in 2011, were forming to teach farmers technical skills and press land claims. As the government made slow progress in hearing cases, protests on seized land broke out in several states, with dozens of farmers and activists arrested.

Unlike most of his new neighbors, Htay Aung had studied well into high school. Books had been one way to escape the risks of working in the ruby mines. Now, digesting reports in newspapers and on Facebook, Htay Aung sought to rally his new neighbors.

He began inviting farmers to his house to lecture them about agricultural practices that could improve crop yields and read from union treatises posted online. His favorite topic was human rights.

He told the villagers not to be afraid, said San San Aye, a local leader of the National Peasants Union, founded in 2016. He told them that they were the natives on this land and they should organize to get it back.

San San Aye is a voluble middle-aged woman with long black hair and face streaked with thanaka, a yellow-white traditional makeup made from tree bark. Her family has been locked in a battle over land seized from them by a former army officer. This summer, her husband, Sein Na, spent three months in jail on charges of trespassing during a protest.

From a small grocery overlooking her former land, San San Aye has been managing dozens of land cases, filing documents in crinkled plastic bags and making weekly trips to the courthouse in Naungcho township on a motorcycle. The Inn Wine Pahel villagers had a strong claim, she said, because they had lived there for generations and possessed tax receipts from the 1980s showing they were cultivating crops before the army arrived.

Though he wasnt native to the area, Htay Aung struck San San Aye as honest and dedicated. If the villagers had their land restored, he stood to gain a plot  the only one he would ever own. She asked him to collect evidence.

Over several days in the spring, Htay Aung, Myin Oo and others walked the perimeter of Palaung Gone with a length of rope, carefully measuring the 346 acres. But when they tried to take pictures, the Palaung villagers chased them away and cautioned them not to return.

They used to be fighters, so were scared of them, Myin Oo said. But Htay Aung did not want to stop. He said that if someone has been a victim, they should fight back.

The whole land management of the country is under the control of the military.  Saw Alex Htoo, Myanmar land rights activist

A local administrator called a meeting of the two villages on Oct. 28 to discuss the case. Htay Aung was walking down the hill to Palaung Gone when he began taking pictures again.

A mob quickly formed, said Myin Oo, who was trailing behind. Before he and another farmer could intervene, the Palaung villagers had knocked Htay Aung to the ground. They kicked and punched him for several minutes, then began beating him with sticks.

He shouted back at them, Dont do this, but they didnt care, Myin Oo said.

The local administrator arrived to find Htay Aung lying motionless on the ground and summoned the police. Htay Aung was taken to a hospital an hour away, but doctors said his injuries were life-threatening and sent him to Mandalay in an ambulance.

Myint Sein rode with him, holding his hand.

Three Palaung villagers  Kyaw Swin Thet, Ko Naw Ngin and Aik Kyaw  were arrested that afternoon but released after a few hours.

Htay Aung lay in a coma for 72 hours before doctors in Mandalay said they could not save him. He was pronounced dead Nov. 1.

A few days later, after the video surfaced online, the three Palaung villagers were rearrested. They are jailed in Naungcho and awaiting trial for murder, which carries a maximum life sentence. None has enlisted a lawyer, and police would not make any of the accused available for an interview.

In Palaung Gone, the defendants garnered as much sympathy as Htay Aung.

Im sorry for my brother-in-law, and Im sorry for the people who were arrested, said brother-in-law Kyaw San. But he was making a lot of problems here. He has no farm, he has no land, he has nothing. You see the poor condition of his house. We were given the land legally, and still he was raising his voice everywhere against us.

Every week, family members of the defendants visit them in jail, a police official in Naungcho said. Sometimes they are allowed to bring them food, cooked by other Palaung families.

A month after Htay Aungs death, neither Kyaw San nor any other Palaung villager had spoken to his widow.

Bus drivers face accidents; fishermen drown, Kyaw San said, shrugging. It is part of Buddhas teachings that everyone will face death.

In April 2017, one year after the government formed the Central Review Committee on Confiscated Farmlands and Other Lands, state media reported that the committee had reviewed 10,891 cases and resolved 2,057 by returning the land to original inhabitants.

But activists say that nearly all the returned land was vacant or unused. Despite promises by Suu Kyis government to uphold farmers rights, the committee has not transferred land being used by farmers or businesses. The success rate has been very low, said Joseph Wah, a human rights activist in Myanmar who has studied land issues. Only land where there is nothing going on at the moment has been possible for villagers to claim.

Some question the review committees independence. The whole land management of the country is under the control of the military, said Saw Alex Htoo, a member of the secretariat of Land in Our Hands, a consortium of Myanmar farmers and human rights groups.

In January, Myanmars parliament is expected to approve changes to a land acquisition law that activists say would criminalize attempts to challenge land seizures. The government has also failed to revisit laws passed during military rule that privilege businesses and allow authorities to seize any land that isnt being cultivated, ignoring traditional farming practices under which many farmers leave plots fallow for periods of time to allow soil to regenerate.

Saw Alex Htoo said the government is caught up in a gold rush for Myanmars land and is catering to investors from China, Thailand and other countries as it seeks to rebuild the economy.

If you look at social justice, this is not fair, he said. There will be more protests, people will continue to fight for land rights and there will be more political instability. The laws are favoring investment too much instead of protecting the native communities and marginalized people.

Without Htay Aung, the future of the Inn Wine Pahel case is uncertain. Villagers say they are still gathering evidence, but express little hope for a resolution. Since his death, no one has dared set foot in Palaung Gone.

We had put our hope in the new government, but we havent seen any change, Myin Oo said. We didnt know anything about the laws. That is why we are grateful to Htay Aung. He was very brave.

This story was reported with a grant from the United Nations Foundation.

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia

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In the latest assault on Egypts Coptic Christian minority, at least nine people were killed Friday in a shootout outside a church and an attack on a nearby store, security and health officials said.

The extremist group Islamic State claimed responsibility in a statement carried by the affiliated Amaq news agency but offered no evidence to support the assertion.

Coptic Christians, who have long complained of discrimination in the Muslim-majority country, have faced escalating attacks from Islamist militants in recent years. Police stepped up security measures around Christian places of worship ahead of Coptic Christmas celebrations on Jan. 7, deploying officers outside churches and in surrounding streets.

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Fridays shootout occurred when a gunman on a motorcycle tried to break through the security cordon outside the Coptic Orthodox Church of Mar Mina in Helwan, a southern suburb of Cairo, in order to throw an explosive device, according to statements from Egypts Interior Ministry.

A police officer was killed in the exchange along with six worshippers, church and Health Ministry officials said. Another officer was among four people reported injured.

The gunman, identified as 33-year-old Ibrahim Ismail Mostafa, was injured and apprehended, according to the Interior Ministry, which also blamed him for an earlier attack on a nearby appliance store in which the Christian owners two sons were killed.

The statements made no mention of any accomplices. But Sherif Wadi, an assistant to the health minister, and state media reports said there were at least two people involved, one of whom was shot dead and the other injured. There were also reports of a possible third assailant who got away.

Witnesses described the chaos that erupted outside the church during a Friday Mass.

Tarek Afifi, a 30-year-old factory worker who lives across the street, said he woke to the sound of gunfire shortly after 10 a.m.

I went to the balcony and heard all the kids say, Dont go outside, dont go outside, he said.

At first he heeded their warnings, but after about 15 minutes, he went to see what was happening.

People were running back and forth, he said. He and his neighbors spotted a man armed with an automatic rifle sitting on a motorcycle in the middle of the street, and started throwing stones at him. The man shot at them before approaching the church gate and opening fire through a glass door at the worshippers inside, Afifi said.

One of the dead is our neighbor who sells coffins across from the church, he said. He happened to be inside.

Video circulating on social media shows a group of armed men who appear to be trying to fire back at one or more assailants.

One man, hiding behind a car, brandishes an assault rifle as gunfire is heard. He disappears off-camera and is then seen running away. Moments later, a gunman in military-style fatigues walks into view.

Another clip captured by onlookers appears to show an attacker lying spread-eagled on the ground wearing a bulky vest that could contain explosives or ammunition magazines. A voice off-camera is heard saying that the man is still breathing, while another urges a growing crowd to stay away.

The Interior Ministry described the captured assailant as a dangerous terrorist who has been linked to several previous attacks but did not say whether he belongs to any militant groups. The suspect was found in possession of an automatic weapon, five magazines containing 150 rounds each, and a locally made explosive device, it said.

A joint funeral service was held for the eight Christian victims on Friday evening at the Virgin Mary church in Helwan.

Hundreds of mourners filled the church, spilling out into a courtyard and the street beyond, and they were joined by Muslims who came to support their Christian neighbors. The crowd wailed with grief and cried out, Oh God!

We will not be silent if this keeps happening, one man called as he exited the church. We will carry arms if we have to.

President Abdel Fattah Sisi offered his condolences to the families of those killed and ordered his forces to increase security at key institutions, his office said in a statement.

These desperate terrorist attempts will not affect Egyptians determination and their national unity, but will only increase their resolve to continue down the road to purging the country of extremism, the statement said.

Egyptian authorities have struggled to contain an escalating Islamist insurgency since the military toppled the countrys first democratically elected president, the Islamist Mohamed Morsi, in July 2013. Egypts Coptic Christians, who make up about 10% of the population of 95 million, are frequent targets.

Islamic States local affiliate, which is based in the Sinai Peninsula, has claimed responsibility for previous attacks on the community. They include a pair of bombings that killed 47 worshipers at churches in the northern cities of Alexandria and Tanta on Palm Sunday and a blast at Cairos largest Coptic cathedral last December that killed 29 people.

The government also blamed the militants for an assault inside a mosque in the Sinai Peninsula that killed 311 worshipers in November, the deadliest such attack in Egypts modern history.

Special correspondent Medhat reported from Cairo and Times staff writer Zavis from Beirut. Special correspondent Nabih Bulos contributed reporting from Amman, Jordan.
South Korea said Friday that it was holding a Hong Kong-flagged ship and its crew members for allegedly violating U.N. sanctions by transferring oil to a North Korean vessel in October.

The Lighthouse Winmore is believed to have transferred about 600 tons of refined petroleum products to the North Korean ship, the Sam Jong 2, in international waters in the East China Sea on Oct. 19, after leaving the South Korean port of Yeosu, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said.

South Korean customs authorities boarded the ship and interviewed crew members after they returned to Yeosu on Nov. 24. South Korea formally seized the ship after the U.N. Security Council on Dec. 22 imposed new sanctions on North Korea that allow member states to seize, inspect and freeze vessels that are suspected of transferring banned goods to or from North Korea, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

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The ships 25 crew members  23 of them Chinese nationals and two from Myanmar  are being held at Yeosu but will be allowed to leave South Korea after authorities are finished investigating them, the official said. South Korea plans to report the results of its inspection to the U.N. Security Councils sanctions committee.

The ship, which also transferred oil to three other non-North Korean ships, was chartered by Taiwans Billions Bunker Group and stopped in South Korea to load up about 14,000 tons of Japanese oil products. Taiwan was listed as the vessels destination when it left Yeosu on Oct. 15, the official said.

The official said it hadnt been confirmed whether the Sam Jong 2 returned to North Korea after receiving oil from the Lighthouse Winmore.

The U.S. Treasury Department last month sanctioned six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their vessels, and published photos of what it said was a North Korean vessel on Oct. 19 possibly transferring oil to evade sanctions. The Treasury Department identified the North Korean ship in the photos as Rye Song Gang 1.

North Korea has come under heavy sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council as it accelerated efforts to expand its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programs. In recent months, the North conducted its most powerful nuclear test to date and flight-tested intercontinental ballistic missiles three times, raising concerns that its closer than ever toward gaining a military arsenal that can viably target the United States.

Ship-to-ship trade with North Korea at sea is prohibited under U.N. sanctions adopted Sept. 11.

The South Korean revelations of the ship inspection came hours after President Trump criticized China following previous reports that Chinese ships transferred oil to North Korean vessels at sea.
Kept as a slave by Islamic State militants, the mother prayed for her rescue and made a promise to God: If she ever saw her 10 children again, she would fast for three months to demonstrate her gratitude.

Her prayers were partially answered. In September, as the militants were being driven from their last strongholds in Iraq and Syria, she was freed and reunited with four daughters and a son. Her daylight fast has now come to an end.

But five other sons, along with her husband, are still missing.

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I honestly dont know what hope is anymore, said the woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Seve, so as not to endanger family members who might still be held captive. There are very few places that havent been liberated, and my children still arent back.

Her family belongs to Iraqs Yazidi minority, followers of an ancient faith linked to Zoroastrianism that was targeted as heretical by the militants who overran its heartland near Mt. Sinjar in August 2014.

Thousands of Yazidi men and teenage boys were killed, while more than 6,000 women and children were taken captive. Sold at slave markets or gifted between fighters, they were passed from owner to owner like chattel across Islamic State-held lands in Iraq and Syria. Girls as young as 9 were pressed into domestic and sexual servitude, and boys were indoctrinated and trained as fighters or suicide bombers.

The collapse of the militants self-professed caliphate over the course of this year raised hopes for family reunions. But, according to a tally kept by authorities in Iraqs semiautonomous Kurdish zone, as of late December barely half of those taken captive had been freed or managed to escape.

Now that major combat operations against Islamic State have been declared over in Iraq and Syria, Yazidi activists fear that the worlds attention has moved on and that the same powers they accuse of failing to avert a genocide three years ago have again forsaken their people.

There is no one asking about the fate of more than 3,000 people, said Ahmed Khudida Burjus, deputy executive director of the U.S.-based advocacy group Yazda. We were expecting that the international community would do more to help save our community from extinction.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters show what they say is a mass grave of more than 50 Yazidis killed by Islamic State in Sinjar, Iraq. (John Moore / Getty Images )

Human rights activists fear that many of the missing are dead  killed by their captors, used as suicide bombers or fighters, or caught in the crossfire as Islamic State battled local forces backed by U.S. and Russian air power. Cities such as Raqqah in Syria and Mosul in Iraq were pummeled for months, leaving neighborhoods in ruins.

But Yazidi activists  including smugglers who have pulled off hundreds of daring rescues  are convinced that others are still being held by Islamic State fighters or their families.

As cities came under assault, the militants often moved their families and household slaves to areas they still controlled. There were also captive Yazidis mixed in with the tens of thousands of civilians who fled the fighting.

::

Khaleel Aldakhi believes hundreds could still be alive  and hes trying to find them.

A lawyer married to a former member of the the Iraqi parliament, he used his extensive contacts to set up one of several Yazidi rescue networks that operate out of the northern Iraqi city of Dahuk.

His collaborators would find opportune moments  often when the militants were at prayer  to sneak away with their captives. Those who were caught were beheaded.

The job became more difficult as Islamic State lost its territory and militants went underground. But Aldakhi said his network still averages two or three rescues a week, many of them captives brought to Syria by fighters driven out of Iraq. A few wound up in Turkey with Islamic State families.

On a recent evening, Aldakhi was drinking tea at a local cafe when his cellphone lit up. It was a WhatsApp message from a Sudanese fighter who was holding a teenage Yazidi girl in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib.

The fighter wanted to sell the girl back to her family so he could use the money to escape to Turkey. If you swear to Allah that you wont give my information to anyone, I will bring the Yazidi girl out, he wrote in Arabic.

Aldakhi gave his word, then laughed. He is Yazidi himself and wasnt bothered about an oath to Allah. His only concern was for the mans captive.

He called a contact in Syria and told him to do whatever it would take to get the girl into territory held by Kurdish militias  the United States principal ally in northern Syria in the fight against Islamic State.

Do it tonight. What happens to the Daesh guy, I dont care, Aldakhi said, using a derisive term in Arabic for Islamic State.

He is still waiting for word about whether the girl was rescued.

 Zedan, 10, was captured with his grandmother after their car crashed while trying to escape the fighters who attacked their village. Relatives assumed both were killed.

That same morning, he had delivered a 10-year-old boy named Zedan to his parents at a camp for displaced Yazidis outside Dahuk.

Zedan was captured with his grandmother after their car crashed as they tried to escape the fighters who attacked their village. Relatives assumed both were killed. But a year later, Zedans father received a furtive call from a captive relative who had seen the boy with an Islamic State family in the Iraqi city of Tall Afar.

The father, Khalaf Khodeida, met with government officials and aid groups, and he reached out to activists like Aldakhi with contacts behind Islamic State lines. No one could locate the boy.

News of Tall Afars capture by Iraqi forces in August revived his hopes, but there was still no word of Zedan. Then on Nov. 4, Khodeida received a text message from a stranger offering to return Zedan if someone could come pick him up in Syria.

It turned out Zedans captors had taken him to the town of Mayadeen, one of Islamic States last refuges there. The man who called was a neighbor who took pity on the unkempt little boy he saw running barefoot in the street and somehow managed to spirit him away from his captors.

Zedan couldnt remember his parents names or where they were from. So the neighbor shared pictures of the boy on social media, hoping someone would recognize him. Thats how he eventually got Khodeidas number.

We thought our son was dead, Khodeida said, and now he has been reborn.

Aldakhi recorded video of the reunion on his phone. In the clips, relatives crowd around Zedan, offering candy and kisses. The shy little boy in a green-and-gray hoodie appears confused. He no longer understands his native Kurdish, only the languages of his captors, Turkmen and a little Arabic.

He is led to an elderly man sitting on a plastic chair: his grandfather. The man embraces the boy four times and starts to cry.

The grandfather told me I have only one wish, to see my grandson before I die, Aldakhi said. I got his wish done.

::

Tales like these sustain Seve as she waits for news of her children.

She lives in a sparsely furnished house lent by fellow Yazidis in the village of Baadra, near Dahuk, in Iraqs northern Kurdish zone. Her own home, in the farming community of Hardan, was destroyed by an airstrike after Islamic State took over the Sinjar region.

Seves daughter-in-law, Amira, makes breakfast at the sparsely furnished house that was lent to them by fellow Yazidis in Baadra, Iraq. The womens relatives had to borrow thousands of dollars to smuggle them out of Islamic State territory. (Alexandra Zavis / Los Angeles Times )

Seves eldest daughter, who is married and lived in another village, managed to escape the militants, joining a massive exodus to the Dahuk region, to the north. But fighters took Seves husband and two adult sons at gunpoint. Seve and the rest of her family were bused from one crowded prison to the next, where they were starved and beaten until they were sold off.

Three daughters  19, 17 and 13 at the time  were the first to be dragged away. Then her mother-in-law, daughter-in-law and newborn grandson. Seve and the four boys, ages 5 to 12, were sold to a Saudi Arabian fighter who brought them to his 19-year-old sister and her husband in Mosul as domestic help.

The young woman told Seve she considered the boys like her own. If one of them wanted potato chips, Seve said, the woman, who never left home unarmed, would pick up her rifle and go buy chips.

Daesh was very, very bad, Seve said. But there were some who were better than others.

But the couple also told the boys that their parents were infidels; they forced the family to memorize passages from the Koran and pray five times a day.

When Seve was told the two older boys were going to be enrolled in a military institute, she cried for days. She knew if her sons learned to handle weapons, they would be forced to fight.

After about six months, the couple sold Seve and the boys to another family who could not afford to keep them together. They took photographs of the children and posted them at checkpoints and military bases, until one by one, they were sold off.

The youngest, Saidou, was 6 when he was taken from Seve, who screamed and threatened to kill herself. The slave trader just laughed.

She eventually ended up cooking and cleaning for a couple in Raqqah, Islamic States would-be capital in Syria. When that city came under assault, they brought her to Mayadeen. When it looked like Mayadeen too would fall, the couple decided to sell her back to her family.

They demanded $17,000, far more than Seve thought her relatives could afford. But they went door-to-door until they had raised the money. Smugglers were enlisted to drive Seve to a nearby village, where she caught a ride with civilians who were fleeing to Kurdish territory. A brother and other relatives picked her up from there.

To Seves amazement, Saidou was with them in the car. His captors had sold him back to the family for $10,000 last year. Two daughters had also been rescued, found by Iraqi forces after being abandoned during the fighting in Mosul. But the family had to borrow more than $30,000 to smuggle Seves mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, grandson and another daughter out of Islamic State territory.

The Kurdish regional government reimbursed most of the familys expenses. But it is in the midst of a financial crisis and has not yet reimbursed anything for Seves rescue. She wonders how her family will repay their creditors or rebuild their lives.

If I had my boys back, they would do something for us, but I dont know if theyre still alive, she said, fighting back tears. The world doesnt make sense if your children arent around you.

An Iraqi Yazidi woman, who fled her home when Islamic State militants attacked the town of Sinjar, looks at her baby as they rest inside a building under construction where they sought refuge on the outskirts of the Kurdish city of Dahuk, in August, 2014. (Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP/Getty Images )

This article was reported with a grant from the United Nations Foundation.

Special correspondent Bawar Ihsan contributed reporting from Dahuk, Iraq.

alexandra.zavis@latimes.com

Twitter: @alexzavis
A Portarlington man has had his driving licence restored after appealing a disqualification for careless driving at the recent circuit court.

James Bracken, Portarlington, was convicted of careless driving at the district court in July this year, and disqualified from driving for two years.

At the recent appeal, State solicitor, Mr Donal Dunne said that at 3.10am on December 18, 2016, a woman driving at Ballymorris saw the appellant driving towards her on her side of the road.

He was swerving to and fro until he came to a stop.

The appellant had one previous conviction.

Defence, Mr Rory Hannify said his client had been using a space saver wheel on the day, with which the advisable driving speed is 50km/h.

The appellant was driving over this speed, said Mr hannify, and he ended up partially in a ditch.

Defence said the appellant needed his licence for work, as he lives in Portarlington but works in construction in Kildare.

In ruling, Judge Keenan Johnson said it would be disproportionate for the appellant to lose his licence. The judge agreed to lift the driving disqualification if the appellant donated 750 to the Cuisle Centre.

Judge Johnson affirmed the fine of 200 which was imposed in the district court.
A 16 year old male is scheduled to appear before a Special Sitting of Naas District Court this morning at 10.30am charged in connection with the arrests on the Naas Road on Thursday evening.

One youth was released without charge last night, another remains in Garda custody and one remains in Tallaght Hospital.

The three teenage males were arrested by Gardai following Thursday afternoon's crash on the N7 northbound at Johnstown. Their car had been stopped as part of an inquiry into a burglary in Athy.

According to a garda statement, at approximately 3pm on Thursday, December 28, gardai received a report of a burglary at a house in Athy. The intruders were disturbed and fled from the scene in a waiting car when the occupants of the house returned home.

During a follow up operation members of a Garda anti-burglary unit intercepted a car on the N7 Naas Road at approximately 3.45pm. The car initially stopped for Gardai but when approached took off a speed in the direction of Dublin.

According to gardai, moments later this car was involved in a collision with a second car at on the N7 at junction 8, Johnstown. A young man in his teens, who was one of the occupants of the car, was injured in the collision and was taken by ambulance to Tallaght Hospital, where his condition is described as serious. Three other youths, all male and understood to be in their teens, were arrested during follow up searches near the crash site a short time later.

All three are currently detained for questioning under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984 at Naas Garda Station.

The driver and sole occupant of the second car was taken to Naas Hospital with minor injuries.

The scene of the collision is currently being examined. The collision has been referred to GSOC (Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission) for investigation.

Investigations are ongoing and updates will follow.

The incident caused traffic chaos in the area all evening. Traffic had been diverted via the Johnstown slip road, but the N7 has fully reopened northbound.
The Irish Prison Service has advanced plans for the refurbishment of the E Block and the demolition of the D Wing at Portlaoise Prison.

The plans were confirmed following a visit by the Minister for Justice and Equality, Charlie Flanagan to Portlaoise Prison and the Midlands Prison to meet staff just before Christmas.

Minister Flanagan said it was important to take the opportunity to acknowledge the work done by staff of the Irish Prisons Service (IPS) and all uniformed services throughout the year and, in particular, over the Christmas period.

The Minister told staff: "I fully recognise the sacrifice you and your colleagues across the uniformed services make by reporting for duty over the festive period. Your hard work and dedication is especially appreciated by myself, my colleagues in Government, your Governors, the Director General and the wider community you serve. Your public service is greatly valued."

The Minister, accompanied by the Director of the Irish Prison Service Mr Michael Donnellan, was briefed on the day-to-day operation of both prisons and the continuing improvements in the prison system. The Minister commended in particular Governor Ethel Gavin, the Campus Governor of the Portlaoise Prison Campus which includes both Portlaoise Prison and the Midlands Prison and her staff for their dedicated work in managing more than 25% of the total prisoner population (Portlaoise Prison has 231 prisoners and Midlands Prison has 833). Portlaoise Prison is a high security prison while the Midlands Prison is the largest prison in the State.

The Minister noted the wide range of improvements underway in the prison service and pledged the reform process would continue. He said: I commend the IrishPrison Service for its continued implementation of the Government policy of rehabilitative initiatives, in conjunction with the Probation Service, the aim of which is to protect the public and make Irish society safer. Much of the important work undertaken by the Prison Service and the Probation Service goes unseen but it is vital work and greatly valued by me as the Minister for Justice and Equality.

Examples of the continuing improvements in the prison system include:

- A significant decrease in prison numbers due to significant reforms which provide for important alternatives to prison. The overall daily average number in custody for 2016 was 3,718 compared to 4,390 in 2011, a decrease of 15%.

- The near elimination of the practice of slopping out. Examples of the improvement of the infrastructure of the prison estate are the construction of a new prison in Cork which opened in 2016 and the complete refurbishment of all the wings in Mountjoy Prison. These advances have led to an enhanced living environment for prisoners and working environment for staff across the prison Estate.

- In relation to Portlaoise Prison specifically, the IPS has advanced plans for the refurbishment of the outdated E Block and the Demolition of the D Wing.

- The commencement next year of the modernisation & expansion of facilities in Limerick Prison, which will include the provision of high qualityprison accommodation & services for female prisoners with a capacity of approximately 50 individual cells and 8 transition units.

- The closure in April 2017 of St. Patricks Institution which means that 17 year olds are no longer held in the adult prison system.

- A more joined up approach to the management of offenders as reflected in the first Joint Strategy on Offender Management agreed between the Department of Justice and Equality, An Garda Siochana, the Probation Service and the Irish Prison Service that has been operating since September 2016.

- The continued national roll out by the IPS, in conjunction with the Probation Service, of the Community Return Programme. This is an incentivised scheme for earned temporary release under which carefully selected offenders can be granted structured temporary release in return for supervised community service. The Community Return Scheme, in operation since October 2011, continues to have a 90% compliance rate. To the end of 2016 over 1,600 offenders had successfully completed the Community Return Scheme

- Continued improvements to the range of rehabilitative programmes available in prisons. These include education, vocational training, healthcare, psychiatric, psychological, counselling, welfare and spiritual services.

- Continued improvement to work and training facilities and visiting facilities within the Estate.

- The introduction this year of a Statutory Instrument entitled Prison (Amendment) Rules 2017 (no. 276 of 2017) brings Ireland into line with the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners  (known as the Nelson Mandela Rules) in respect of the issue of solitary confinement.

- The maintenance of an increased focus of the IPS on supporting prisoners and their families to maintain relationships to enable them desist from criminal behaviour upon their release.

Portlaoise man who took care of everyone at local court retires
A 16-year-old male appeared before a special sitting of Naas District Court this morning charged in connection with a serious collision on the N7 at Johnstown on Thursday afternoon.

The young male, from Tallaght, allegedly drove the vehicle that was involved in a serious crash on the N7 yesterday, leaving one teenager in a critical condiiton in hospital.

The defendant was before the court on charges of dangerous driving, having no insurance and the possession of an article with the intent to commit burglary.

He was represented in court by barrister Gerard Kennedy, on instruction from Aonghus McCarthy solictors.

Dectective Kevin Williamson from Naas Garda Station said he received notification about four young males heading northbound on the N7.

He went to the scene in an unmarked patrol car with flashing sirens. He told the court that the young men would have been aware of the vehicle and stopped accordingly. As gardai approached, they drove off.

They were then involved in a road traffic accident, and one of the youths was injured. The other three fled the scene on foot, and were later apprehended following a search of the area.

There was no objection to bail and an application was made for legal aid.

Superintendent Declan McCarthy from Naas Garda Station explained that there was no objection to bail because the juvenile has no warrant history and his father was in attendance in court.

The detective said there was no ojbection to bail, under strict conditions that the defendant keeps the peace, provides gardai with a mobile phone number that is accessible all the time and signs on every day at Tallaght Garda Station between 4pm and 6pm. He must also adhere to a strict curfew of 9pm to 8am daily. He is not to drive any vehicle that requires a licence.

The court heard that it was possible the youths had permission to drive the vehicle.

They are all under 17, somebody remains seriously injured, one is still in custody and one has been released with a file sent to the DPP, said Judge Desmond Zaidan.

Judge Zaidan adjourned the case until January 9 at Athy District Court for DPP directions.

The judge told the youth that if the gardai have any concerns about his behaviour they can revoke the bail and put him in custody pending a trial.

One youth was released without charge last night, another remains in Garda custody and the third remains in Tallaght Hospital.
There can be no doubt, but that the types of offences to which the accused have pleaded guilty have contributed to the destruction of trust in rural Ireland.

- Judge Keenan Johnson, sentencing three men caught with items stolen in a number of rural burglaries.

We are not out of a job because these people have been locked up. People have to remain vigilant. While we have seen a significant downturn in rural crime due to a number of significant arrests, into all vacuums of criminality comes other criminality to replace them.

- Garda Supt John Scanlon responds to the conviciton of the gang.

I have a habit of prevailing against the odds and I wouldn't necessarily see this as being very bad for us at all.

Brian Stanley, Sinn Fein TD on the proposal to move Portarlington voters into Kildare.

Ireland is the only country that has entries from voluntary Tidy Towns groups. It was obvious that the work in Abbeyleix has been ongoing for years and we were not just putting on a front for the judges. We already had the silverware, we just polished it off.

- Mary White from Abbeyleix Tidy Towns on the judging of the Entente Florale Europe competition.

Portarlington has become the forgotten town. The only thing we have left is the car park up at the train station.

- Joe Dwyer at a Fianna Fail meeting in Portlarlington on the move proposed move of the town into the South Kildare constituency.

I am very concerned by the latest figures which show an absence of IDA focus on county Laois which has been historically neglected. It is time for that neglect to end.

- Minister Charlie Flanagan responding to figures showing the IDA bypassed Laois during the year.

I was underwhelmed by the amount of money, after the amount of time staff put into the applications. We did write back looking for more.

- Laois CEO John Mulholland after not getting more funding from a national scheme.

There was a couple of hundred ducks floating up the River Barrow at one stage, it was a good laugh.

- David Hainsworth of Portarlington French Festival
Three members of a Laois family were jailed at Portlaoise Circuit Court for injuring four gardai when they rammed garda vehicles in a stolen jeep containing numerous items in Mountrath.

All three pleaded guilty to the possession of stolen property and the unauthorised taking of a MPV.

Judge Keenan Johnson said the actions of the men, caught with items stolen in a number of burglaries from farmyards and residences across the midlands have contributed to the destruction of trust in rural Ireland.

Judge Johnson also noted that the four gardai injured deserved all our sympathy, support and admiration.

According to Gardai the conviction of the local gang led to a significant fall in the incidence of rural crime.

The people of Laois and surrounding counties can feel safer as a result of the outcome of this investigation, Chief Supt John Scanlon told the Leinster Express.

Gardai were also investigating an armed raid on Mountrath Post Office in which a woman was held and threatened with a hand gun.

A large quantity of cash was also taken by the man who raided the post office in the early afternoon of July 4.

Residents in Esker Hills, Portlaoise where a vacant house was completely gutted by a fire in early July felt that their numerous attempts at tackling the anti social behaviour at the house fell on deaf ears. They said the fire was the last straw as they had tried for nine years to find the owner of the vacant house.

Census figures revealed that over 22,500 people in Laois travel to work by car, making up two thirds of the total 32,000 travelling to work everyday.

The figures also showed that Portlaoise was ranked as one of the youngest towns in Ireland.

The average age of Laois' population in April 2016 was 35.6 years, an increase of 1.3 years since 2011.

The Constituency Commission recommended scrapping the two three seat Laois and Offaly constituencies, replacing them with a new five seater. The move could involve Portarlington moving into the Kildare South constituency.

July also saw the opening of a new school in Ballyroan.

Scoil Eoil Phoil 11 Naofa consisted of an amalgamation of the boys and girls school. The honour of cutting the tape for the news school of 158 pupils and 7 teachers went to Jack Murphy, the retired groundskeeper of the old boys school, Scoil Faolan Naofa.

Today is a long held dream brought to a reality, said Principal Niamh Kelly.
Tributes were paid to popular and long-serving Garda Inspector Patsy Glennon, who on Wednesday, December 20, appeared in Naas court for his last day as a member of An Garda Siochana.

From Hollywood, Co Wicklow, Inspector Glennon served in both Ballymore Eustace and Naas.

In more recent years he would have been better known for prosecuting on behalf of the State at the Wednesday sittings of Naas District Court.

Solicitor Tony Hanahoe said Inspector Glennon would be sorely missed, that he was always a gentleman and a man you could do a deal with.

He looked to the good in people, the veteran solicitor noted.

Inspector Oliver Henry also paid tribute to his soon to depart colleague, saying that he had been a great friend and had offered great help and advice. State Solicitor Geraldine Gillece said that after she got to know him, she always looked forward to working with Inspector Glennon.

He has become and will always a remain a friend, she added.

Barrister Sarah Connolly said that in her six years appearing at Naas District Court, he had been very easy to work with, a sentiment echoed by the Probation Services Martia Costigan.

Judge Desmond Zaidan praised him for, among other things, his adherence to his strong faith.

Inspector Glennon will likely appear in court again shortly once he passes his exams in Kings Inns and is called to the Bar.
WARM tributes have been paid to Limerick gentle giant Shane Stokes, who tragically lost his life in a British road accident over Christmas.

The popular 29-year-old  described as having a heart of gold  was killed in a road accident in Oxfordshire, in south-east England.

He was driving back to his home in Leamington Spa, West Midlands, from where he was set to travel the following day to return to his family in Lisnagry.

His passing has sparked widespread shock and grief on both sides of the Irish Sea.

A grandson of Limerick All-Ireland hurling winner Dick Stokes, Shane had moved to England to chase his dream of working in the motor industry.

Munster prop Dave Kilcoyne had Shanes name written on his strapping during the provinces St Stephens Day game against Leinster. He later posted a picture of this, with the words RIP, to social media.

Both men lined out for UL Bohs, with Shanes grieving father Gerry currently chairman of rugby with the club.

Former club president Tony Quilty said: Its just awful, dreadful news. Everyone in the club is absolutely shocked. There is no good time for this. But it couldnt have come at a worse time, particularly as he was on his way home for Christmas. The thoughts and prayers of everyone at the club are with Gerry and his wife Ronnie, Brian his brother and Sarah his sister.

Popular Shane was driving on the M40 near his home in Leamington Spa in the West Midlands when he was involved in a five-car pile up. His girlfriend Ashley remains in hospital following the incident.

Louis Quirke, of Ahane GAA Club where Shane played under-age, said: There are no words. The time of year it happened. They are a very well-known family and highly respected. All his pals would live locally. Id say they were probably going to meet up at Christmas. They are devastated.

As a result of his association with Ahane  where his legendary grandfather hurled  Fr Brendan Kyne, the local parish priest also got to know Shane.

He was always a lovely, pleasant lad, and it was always a pleasure to be in his company. The parish extends its deepest sympathy to Ger and Ronnie and all the family on the deep tragedy on the loss of their beloved son Shane. It is so sad, especially at this time of year to lose a beautiful son, Fr Kyne added.

One of the original students at Castletroy College, the schools principal Padraig Flanagan said his teachers are heartbroken by his death.

He was a lovely guy, a really friendly person. He was a good student, an excellent rugby player and a very popular young man. It would appear he had found his niche in Britain, and was doing really well there. Its just so sad, he said.

Shanes friends and family were comforting each other following the tragedy, with one taking to Facebook to say: Im still in shock. What a lovely guy, and a gentle giant. It was such a pleasure to know you.

The youngster had moved to Britain, where he worked in the motor industry, becoming an integral part of the team run by leading touring car driver Rob Austin at Rockingham in Northamptonshire.

In a Facebook post, the driver called Shane a good luck charm.

He has progressed to become a pivotal and much loved member of our team and a true friend. He was strong and supportive for us through the tough times, something I will never forget. He was without question a special guy, who had a heart of gold and will be deeply and sorely missed, Rob wrote.

Shanes grandparents Dick and Cissy are well-known in the Castletroy area for running a pharmacy at the Dublin Road. The return of Shane's remains are currently being arranged by Griffin's Undertakers. A spokesperson said it is expected that his funeral arrangements will be finalised by the end of this week.

Its anticipated his funeral will take place next week.
A LIMERICK judge has given a chance to a former drug user who admitted storing cannabis worth more than 12,000 at his home.

Keith Millar, aged 32, who has an address at College Park, Corbally, pleaded guilty, at Limerick Circuit Court, to possession of more than 600 grams of the drugs for the purpose of sale or supply.

During a sentencing hearing last year, Limerick Circuit Court was told the drugs were seized during a search of the defendants home on June 12, 2014.

Detective Garda Damien Kennedy of the divisional drugs unit said most of the cannabis was found in a plastic container, which was concealed in the lawnmower while a smaller quantity was found during a follow-up search inside the house.

Following his arrest, Millar told gardai he was doing a favour for another person and that he was getting some weed out of it.

He accepted he was not under pressure or duress and that he had not been threatened by the owner of the drugs.

While the defendant was a drug user around the time of the offence, Detective Garda Kennedy said he did not believe he was an addict.

Eimear Carey BL, defending, said her client  a father-of-two  had made full and frank admissions and that he is making efforts to get his life in order.

He got in over his head, it was something he should not have done, she said.

Having heard the evidence and noting the extremely favourable contents of a court-sanctioned probation report, Judge Tom ODonnell adjourned the matter for 12 months for review.

During a brief hearing before Christmas he was told Mr Millar has not come to the attention of gardai in the intervening period that he has made strident efforts to adjust his lifestyle.

The judge noted he is highly regarded within his local community and that he represents a low risk of reffending.

He was given a chance to prove himself and he has done so, he commented.

He imposed an 18 month prison sentence which he suspended for 18 months.

In doing so he told Mr Millar he was giving him a chance and that he did not want to see him before the court again.
SANTA Claus wasnt the only one to bring a surprise to boys and girls in the Childrens Ark Unit in UHL.

Limericks All-Ireland U-21 winning hurlers brought the James Nowlan Cup on Christmas morning. It was the second time in a matter of months the young men have dropped in to cheer up young patients.

They have been hailed as great ambassadors for Limerick hurling.

While the purpose was to cheer up the ill children, Cian Hedderman said the boys and girls would brighten up anyones days with their smiles.

Nice to visit the Childrens Ark Unit today. Were not all as lucky to spend Christmas together at home with family. Some young fighters in there that would brighten up anyones day with their smiles. Hopefully Liam McCarthy can make a visit very soon, tweeted Cian, who hurls with Ballybrown.

Thomas Grimes, who added Limerick and Munster club honours with Na Piarsaigh to his All-Ireland U-21 medal, tweeted: Was nice to get into the Childrens Ark Unit this morning to help in putting a smile on a few young faces. Unfortunately were not all blessed to be at home with family on Christmas day.

Dolores Crowe said the U-21 stars gave her 13-year-old son William a big boost when they called to the childrens ward in September. The hurlers put his teddy into the cup. They were lovely, said Dolores.
A JUDGE has been urged not to jail a grandad who discharged two shots at an apartment in direct reprisal for the murder of a County Limerick biker two and-a-half years ago.

Dermot McKenna, aged 52 of Hillview Park, St Patricks Road, Limerick has admitted possession of a 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun in suspicious circumstances at Newcastle Court, Dublin Road, Limerick on June 21, 2015.

McKenna is the one of the founders of the Murroe-based Road Tramps MC while a man who lives in the apartment is a senior member of the rival Caballeros MC.

During a sentencing hearing, Detective Garda Donnacha Coakley said the shooting took place shortly after 5pm on June 21, 2015 - the day after Andrew AOD ODonoghue was murdered outside the Road Tramps clubhouse.

He said the 51-year-old victim was one of McKennas best friends and that he was also one of the founding members of the Road Tramps.

Limerick Circuit Court heard the defendant had been drinking with other club members in the hours after the fatal shooting and that he had also visited the scene to lay flowers.

The following day, he drove to the apartment complex Castletroy and waited outside for a short time before using his legally-held shotgun to discharge two shots at a balcony window. The window was damaged but none of the pellets entered the apartment.

Det Garda Coakley said a ten-year-old child had been playing on the balcony a short time earlier and that the apartment was occupied when the shots were fired.

John OSullivan BL, instructed by state solicitor Padraig Mawe, said gardai quickly established the shooting had been carried out by McKenna in direct reprisal for the murder of his friend.

Judge Tom ODonnell was told the gun, which had been forensically cleaned, was found during a search of the defendants home a number of days later.

While there were no witnesses to the actual shooting, Det Garda Coakley said CCTV footage was obtained showing the defendant in the Castletroy area around the time of the shooting.

Following his arrest two days later, McKenna initially denied any knowledge of the shooting, but later accepted he had shot at the apartment knowing a member of the Cabbelloros lived there.

However, he said could not remember what happened and insisted he was not aware the apartment was occupied.

The married father-of-two told gardai he did not intend hurting anyone and had intended frightening the occupant as he held him responsible for Mr ODonoghues murder.

I just got it into my head that I wanted to frighten him, he told gardai.

Anthony Sammon SC, said his client had consumed a significant quantity of alcohol and had also taken Xanax and antidepressants on the day of the shooting.

He said what happened is a source of deep regret for his client - particularly as he missed the funeral of Mr ODonoghue as he was in custody at the time.

It was a moment of madness, he said submitting that McKennas admissions and guilty plea were vital.

While Mr OSullivan said the Director of Public Prosecutions is of the view the offence is at the top of the range, Mr Sammon urged the Court to consider not imposing a custodial sentence.

He said what happened has been life changing for his client who accepts he did something very stupid and terribly wrong.

Mr Sammon submitted the offence should be viewed in the context of his clients grief at the time.

It was a disturbed mind and a grieving mind and a drunk mind, he said.

Judge ODonnell will impose sentence next March.
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Year-End Special: A readers guide to rereading In an age of endless new recommendations, a rereader muses on the unexpected joys of revisiting a book /news/talking-point/yearend-special-a-reader-s-guide-to-rereading-111646914539330.html 111646914539330 story

Between August and October, I readreally read, with both heart and mindonly one novel. It was Edward Seidenstickers 1957 translation of Junichiro Tanizakis The Makioka Sisters, which I loved so deeply that it dislodged every long-standing favourite from the top of my list of most beloved books. For two months, the clock ticked, and my to-read pile, which I will never get around to finishing in this life, grew too large to think about. Two months! It wasnt even my first time reading the novel; and yet, strangely, it was the happiest and most fruitful time I spent with a book this year.

I wish I could say The Makioka Sisters, which may baldly be described as the saga of a genteel Osaka family in the 1930s trying to arrange a suitable match for their ageing third sister, had inflamed me when I first read it. The truth is I didnt remember a word of it when I reopened it on a rainy evening commute. Fifteen years ago, hungry for literary prestige after a lifetime of reading school stories, I cracked open the tattered paperback, clumsily reinforced with cardboard covers by the librarians of Mumbais St Xaviers college, and swallowed it whole. I read it in four days. In return, Tanizaki left me only a check mark on my list of renowned world classics. I was filled with self-importance at having consumed a prime specimen of the Japanese novel, but frustrated and resentful that it wasnt more rewarding, like something on the Booker Prize shortlist.

Some books resist our desire for their intellectual capital. They yield only to a humble quest for pleasure, and for repose in a different world. Tanizaki, who spent his life writing about people compelled to lie to themselves, did not write to display, much less reward, cleverness. In October, I emerged from The Makioka Sisters like someone coming up from cool, still water into the sunshine of a winter morning. My mind was buoyed by its challenge and respite. If I could have hugged my child self for being so prickly and obtuse, I would have.

Amidst happy announcements of resolutions fulfilled and annual reading goals achieved, to write in favour of slow rereading must seem like posturing. Isnt it a form of silly machismo, like the young man I once worked with who claimed that he bought a copy of The Catcher In The Rye every time he entered a book store? The 19th century English essayist William Hazlitt, author of the waspish screed On Reading Old Books, said he wanted only to read twenty or thirty volumes" for the rest of his life, and dismissed women as gadflies who judge of books as they do of fashions or complexions, which are admired only in their newest gloss." Leave us alone, William Hazlitt. Life is short; we are not obliged to finish every book on our Amazon wish list, but we must at least try.

Hyper-literacy is a completely reasonable approach to a world in which information is more readily available than time. Yet reading accumulatively can often feel like fighting an unwinnable, unwanted fight. Take my case, that of a work-a-day editor and writer. I enjoy most books the way a contestant in a pie-eating competition enjoys the pie. I cannot have read more than five novels purely for fun in 2017. How, then, could I further break down the experience of reading into the census of read/now reading/to-read lists? It would make an already utilitarian process repressive. I cant be both reviewer and accountant, because reading remains, and will always be, my deepest and most sentimental pleasure.

This may sound like a shameless want of gratitude for the spigot of information opened for us by capital and its opposable thumb, technology. Nonetheless, its striking to consider that through most of the history of literacy, people were lucky to grow up with one book in the house. Hazlitt, an inheritor of the European Enlightenment, lived in a glut of knowledge. Religious practice in most major faiths is founded on scholarly interrogation and interpretationin other words, literary criticismof holy writ. For long centuries, one life was not considered long enough to truly know a work of scripture in any religion.

That is why the Catholic saint Thomas Aquinas said, or may have said, to beware homo unius libri, the man of one book". It was not to disparage the person who read too little, but to sound a warning about single-minded readers, who knew one thing, but so well that they could use that knowledge as a weapon (the fictional seer Jojen Reed in G.R.R. Martins A Song Of Ice And Firea series that does not support rereading, in my sad experiencetakes a more forgiving view. He proclaims, with the boundless self-assurance of boys in fantasy novels, that readers live many lives before they die, while others live but one).

This is not at all to knock #ReadingGoals, or having three books going simultaneously, or taking every book discussion as a source of recommendations. After all, to be able to read widely and ambitiously is a dazzling and very new privilege. The history of literacy is also the history of humans fighting, and sometimes dying, for the right to read more than one book. To Aquinas, eclecticism was dangerous business; to us, its a way to live democratically and creatively.

But there is a difference between productive chaos and frenzy. Theodor Adorno used a wonderfully resonant phrase, the belly turned mind", to describe the hunger to consume all experience and systematize ita fault peculiar to ideological thinkers, but not uncommon in a world in which the value of knowledge increases when it can be consumed as data.

Books and reading lists have always been aspirational for readers, but in a consumer culture, its proportions can be senselessly magnified. Earlier this month, for example, the website Literary Hub produced an Ultimate Best Books" list of 2017 that analysed entries on the best-of lists published by most major American magazines. There were 520 discrete entries and the survey left out The New York Times 100-strong Notable Books" of the year. Possibly to some readers all this looks like a feast. To me, it looks like overeating.

In this context, the act of rereading provides some critical resistance. It allows us to hang on to the usable parts of our consciousness, and to prune its decayed and outgrown pathways. Anne Fadiman, who edited the Rereadings" column of The American Scholar for many years, writes that revisiting a book can force you to spend time, at claustrophobically close range, with your earnest, anxious, pretentious, embarrassing former self, a person you thought you had left behind but who turns out to have been living inside you all along."

Sometimes, that means letting go of beloved old books that have lost their meaning, or revealed the minefields of bigotry and self-hatred we could not see in them when we were younger. Who among us can now read Ayn Rand without rolling our eyes? Fadiman, rereading C.S. Lewis The Horse And His Boy to her little son, is disturbed to discover that the book is casually racist and seriously woman-hating.

Even so, an old, abandoned bookor a book that has abandoned us, as Tanizaki did mecan often repair our relationship with the past. No one has expressed this more beautifully than Pico Iyer, who wrote an essay about rediscovering a juvenile D.H. Lawrence novella for Fadimans column. When he thought back to his 15-year-old self, devouring the dubious The Virgin And The Gypsy at his stuffy boarding school, Iyer saw just how valuable the whole exercise was, because: Escape was less the point than a kind of tenderness that could flicker into something higher."

No two novelists could be more different than Tanizaki and Lawrence. Yet Iyers words moved me, because I too felt that tenderness, derived not from the writers vulnerability, but my own. Im now convinced that to renew that feeling for a little while, it is worth turning away from the ticking clock and the to-read pile. To eschew the consumption of new things is often just a form of inverse snobbery. But it is a miracle to grant literature the vast luxury of time.
Year-End Special: Shine on, you crazy diamond From childhood memories to separation and modern love, the story of a piece of jewellery outshines everything else /news/talking-point/yearend-special-shine-on-you-crazy-diamond-111646914501915.html 111646914501915 story

Bhag Malhotras story of Partition, or batwara as she calls it, is centred on a single objecta beautiful maang tikka passed down from her grandmother to her mother and her. The jewel, with a ruby flower at the centre, is a piece of the past. The other gems in this elaborate headpiece, peculiar to the region, are all from the Northwest Frontier Province (now in Pakistan), the familys erstwhile home. This jewel is one of her few connections with an imaginary homeland; it is an artefact, a memory and a story that has in turn been passed down by Malhotra to her daughter and her granddaughter.

Azra Haqs black velvet pouch is no ordinary jewellery case. For her, what lies within is not just a necklace and a matching pair of pearl earringsit is a symbol of her childhood across the border. Her upbringing in Jalandhar was one of privilege, laden with old-world charm. With the onset of the Partition violence, her family had to leave home almost overnight and move to Lahore. All young Azra carried with her were those Basra pearl earrings and the necklace, a gift from a maharaja and a symbol of a life she had left behind forever.

A diamond ring, with its sketch, from Zameer Kassam Fine Jewelry.

These stories are part of Aanchal Malhotras Remnants Of A Separation (HarperCollins), a moving collection of Partition narratives told through specific objects. Both these stories describe the emotional resonance of jewellery and make us ask what exactly constitutes preciousness.

Across the world, whenever women have fled persecution and war, leaving their familiar worlds behind, they have carried their jewellery with them. Stitched into their underskirts and petticoats, hidden in the lining of their luggage, these jewels are both artefacts of a past left behind and an assurance for the future. And this is perhaps why jewellery also finds a place in literature as an artefact of magic and power as well as a symbol of a particular human condition or frailty.

The front and back of a diamond ring that Kassams client, Aasif, presented to his wife Shefali.

Perhaps the most famous piece of jewellery in literature is The Lord Of The Rings all-powerful One Ring, the central object around which the plot turned, and an instrument of a terrible and dark power. Rabindranath Tagore, in his haunting short story Monihara (The Lost Jewels), describes a womans obsession with her jewels at the cost of all else. A similar tale of passion and possessiveness is outlined in Shirshendu Mukhopadhyays novel Goynar Baksho (The Jewellery Box), where the ghost of an elderly widow refuses to pass on into the next world owing to her attachment to her earthly jewellery box. The ornaments in these stories have a value that is far greater than their actual physical worth because for these daughters, wives and mothers, their jewellery was the only asset they could lay claim to.

It is the storytelling aspect that draws designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee to the craft of jewellery. In fact, Mukherjee started his career in 1996-97, by selling costume jewellery. Although he focused on fashion thereafter, his interest in jewellery stayeda passion he believes he has inherited from his grandfather. My grandfather was what you would call a shaukeen (enthusiast). He would buy jewellery from different parts of the country, sometimes from Europe, for my grandmother and daughters, all of which has been passed down generations," says Mukherjee. He narrates the story of a family jeweldiamonds and emeralds set in platinum and crafted in the art deco styleas one of the only heirloom he desired.

- Suvankar Sen

Apart from the aesthetic beauty and the family association embodied in a jewel, Mukherjee dwells on the history of the object, how it was made, and the level of skill that it represents. It was made by a British-era company called Hamilton and Co., which in itself is historic. Bengali karigars (artisans) were famous for their workmanship. It was how the British operated; to find the best in India and start trading with them. Thats how Hamilton and Co. was born. They were the benchmark of craftsmanship and their quality was up there with a Cartier or Tiffany," says Mukherjee. He believes that at this time jewellery was treated as art. Every time people bought or made jewellery, they took pride in telling its story." Mukherjee believes that even today, jewellery is a conversation point, and while the fashion might be more mainstream, jewellery is always more personalized. His love for jewellery translates into an extraordinary knack. I can tell a womans personality from the kind of bangles shes wearing on her wrist."

This personal note also feeds into the craft of mainstream jewellery houses like Kolkata-based Senco Gold and Diamonds, which is over 75 years old. Many of our clients want to hold on to the pieces of jewellery they have had in their families for years and want these mended a little (if there is a break in it) and polished so they look as good as new. But there are others who want to keep up with the times and want the old pieces of jewellery remodelled. So, we have a granddaughter seeking to preserve the old memories of her grandmother and (who) will not brook any attempts to change the old pieces of jewellery. At the same time, we have a grandson who wants an old piece of jewellery melded with a modern design for his wife. Old jewellery is not just ornamental but carries the blessings of our ancestors," says Suvankar Sen, executive director, Senco Gold and Diamonds.

The company considers the craftsmanship of its karigars as one of the brands biggest strengths. Some of these karigars have been with the company for more than half a century and across generations, with a father handing down his skill to his son. This means that they have the know-how to replicate old designs and visit specific clients houses to note down finer nuances to fix or adapt them to a newer set," says Sen.

For Zameer Kasam, a third-generation jeweller based in New York, every piece that he makes is a personal memento. Growing up, a lot of his time was spent looking out from behind the counter of his parents jewellery store in Vancouver, as people walked in and bought pieces to celebrate special occasions. As a student at the Harvard Business School, he had a stint with De Beers group and understood various aspects of the jewellery business, including the enduring appeal of diamonds. When he finally set up Zameer Kassam Fine Jewelry in New York in 2011, it was a studio with a focus on storytelling, and, surprisingly, love stories told by men. I wanted to give men a chance to really share how they felt about the woman they loved and enabled them to be their most romantic selves," he says.

The clients are led through a three-step process that typically takes three-six weeks depending on how complicated the design is", to arrive at their special ring or piece of jewellery. The company works with diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds only, and the client is first given a brief tutorial to understand the gemstones. This is followed by the discovery step", which involves Kassam or a team member taking out his clients (often flying across the world to meet and talk to them) for a meal or drinks, listening to the couples love story and understanding the moments, emotions or qualities that can be manifested in the design of the rings. The conversations are really pivotal to the process and draw on the first moment when they knew" or the landscape of the Hamptons where they vacationed and fell in love", which are then embedded into the ring. This is followed by the third stage, where Kassams team gives his clients design options based on their conversation and budget.

One ring Kassam designed recently was for his clients Aasif and Shefali. A prominent diamond in the centre was held together by prongs that followed the contours of the roof of Shefalis family home in Atlanta, Because I want her to have a part of her childhood home always with her," Aasif told Kassam. The inside of the band has hand-carving resembling a beaded necklace that Shefalis father gave her just before his death; Her father was the most important person in her life," Aasif had told them. On one side of the ring, there is an engraving of a night-flowering jasmine, the flower Shefali gets her name from. And finally, in the centre of the flower, theres a yin and yang, as a representation of Shefali and her counterpart. A piece of jewellery lasts forever. It is the perfect artefact to hold the stories of peoples lives and loves. Imagine this ring being passed down generations. At some point in time a granddaughter would be wearing it and having the love story of her grandparents in her ring and on her person," says Kassam.

And just like good stories old or new, this ring of modern love and Bhag Malhotras old maang tikka have the same immeasurable value.
Year-End Special: Life on the margins Inscriptions, annotations, dedicationswhat if we looked at a book's journey through the readers who have held it through time? /news/talking-point/yearend-special-life-on-the-margins-111646914574881.html 111646914574881 story

Recently, while rummaging through my grandmothers trunk of old clothes for her handwritten recipe book, I came across a frayed old book of Hindi poetry, tucked between the Chikankari saris she was so fond of. Published by Sadhna Sahitya Sadan and titled Udgaar, it featured poems by a lady called Homwati Devi, who was born in Meerut. First published in the weekend edition of Hindi newspapers in 1932-33, this collection comprised a series of melancholic poems. As I leafed through the book, I found a couple of them had been ticked by my grandmother. Slowly, a pattern emerged. She had marked only the rare cheerful onesChitrakar Se, Prateeksha and Smritiand written gaa ke dekhna" on the side, maybe in the hope of presenting these as songs on some occasion. I found myself interpreting the poems through the lens of my grandmothers thoughts, and the lines acquired a different kind of significance, maybe because they had meant something to her.

What if we looked at a books journey not through its writer, but through readers who have held it through time? Inscriptions and annotations help build an image of previous owners who had existed only as wispy forms from the past. Notes on the margins, funny comments, affectionate dedications, awkward attempts at poetryall create a parallel narrative within the book, offering a peek into the personal histories of readers, and how they might have made the content their own. Sort of like Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince, with Potter being given a battered old book in a potions" class in which a former student had written down tips, modifications and new spells in the margins.

It is the urge to unearth such lived histories that sees Hindustan Times journalist Mayank Austen Soofi scavenging for second-hand books in shops at Daryaganj and Paharganj. When you see hand-written jottings or bookmarks of previous owners, or even seals of unknown book stores on the title page, you dont feel alone as a reader," he says. For instance, he recently acquired an edition of Toni Morrisons Beloved in which almost every other passage had been underlined. Some scribbles are so matter-of-factly mundane that they evoke a chuckle. Soofi cites the example of a first-edition hardbound copy of a Saul Bellow book in a library. The library is frequented by PhD students. So, this edition contains, on one of its pages, a phone number and note left by an enterprising Bellow expert, in case the students want someone to write their PhD thesis for them," he says.

Such is the fascination with inscriptions that people have now made a project out of collecting these. One of these is The Book Inscriptions Project, started online by Atlanta-based journalist Shaun Raviv in 2006, when he found the following lines in the book The Road To Human Destiny": A Life Of Pierre Lecomte Du Nouy at an underground Manhattan bar: Joey, I love you so much! You have surpassed the definition for all. I will always cherish our orgasmic moment. Love + resistance Mark." That inscription inspired Raviv to look for more, for it was so powerful that he wanted to meet the person who wrote it, and the person it was written for. I had no idea what their relationship was, nor their genders, nor their location on the planet. But I knew that at the moment it was written, they had shared something unique. I still wonder if that connection lasted, or disappeared moments later," he says. Today, The Book Inscriptions Project features 300-400 inscriptionssome from Ravivs own collection and some shared by other readers. These range from suicide notes, love poems and odes to nature, to pictures and notes too obtuse to make sense of. Ive noticed that some people like to scribble in books as what seems like therapy. Perhaps they cant wait for clean paper, or maybe they want the words to be found by a stranger like me," he says.

A similar project in India, EndPapers, has been started by three PhD scholarsSujaan Mukherjee, Anushka Sen and Shalmi Barman. One of my favourites from the collection is a list of unconnected, evocative words scribbled on the opening endpaper of Prize Stories 1984The O. Henry Awards. Its almost as if a deluge of words, all spat out in a single breathcanny burgler, fomenting, coddling, hammock, winnow, alianthus (tree), whanged, vamoosed, rancid, drunk-clobbered, hombre, tummy, sniveling, purblind, jowled, whoop, hubris, bravado, permeated, gravy mix, acne, pantyhose, defecation"has hit you. This page always gave me the impression of a freeflowing prose poem," writes Barman, who inherited this book from her father, on the site.

The trio initially wanted to start Endpapers as a formal archival project but then decided to give it a more personal form. This collection of nearly 200 inscriptions has been crowdsourced, with contributors sending in images of the pages, along with some basic publication details, a brief note on how the book came into their possession, and more.

Notes found in the pages of old books collected by The Book Inscriptions Project.

The idea of finding secrets and mysteries hidden within the pages of a book acts as an adrenalin rush for some collectors. Subbiah Yadalam, a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur, seeks out such antiquarian books for this very reason. He has a number of books that were owned by great Indologists such as Moriz Winternitz, whose copy of the first English translation of the Arthashastra is in his possession. The fact that this book was read by, and scribbled into, by him is enough to give me goosebumps," says Yadalam, who founded the Rare Book Society of Indiaa virtual space for rare-book collectors. He also has books in which scholars have inserted letters and elaborate notes. Particularly significant is the note left by J.M. Dawkins in The Heetopades Of Veeshno Sarma, with explanatory notes by Charles Wilkins on how he came to possess this book, first purchased by his brother, Prof. R.M. Dawkins, in 1890. This book was published in 1787. Its interesting that R.M. Dawkins, a 19-year-old young Englishman, was studying Sanskrit at Kings College, London, in 1890, when he purchased the book. Also fascinating is the set of six-eight volumes by Raphael Sadatini, which have five-six pages of his handwritten original manuscript stuck on to the first page of the first volume," he says.

In case you too want to embark on the quest for inscriptions, there are countless second-hand book stalls, often located in cramped alleys or on footpaths, where you might come across a note that could change you. Or you could visit historic book stores, such as Maria Brothers in Shimla, where you can curl up on a chair, surrounded by centuries-old books on philosophy and travel, inscribed by the British officers who were stationed in India at the time. Then there is Select Book Shop on Brigade Road, Bengaluru, whose owner, K.K.S. Murthy, opens the entire space for you to explore. It is very common to find books with inscriptions there. These are books that his father had collected from World War II soldiers living in the city and other foreigners, who sold them before leaving the country for good," says Basav Biradar, a Bengaluru-based heritage consultant and second-hand book enthusiast. You will find a lot of pulp fiction and romantic thrillers with the officers names and inscriptions written on them. The other place for these is Blossoms (a book store in Bengaluru)."

Internationally, several online marketplaces, such as AbeBooks, offer rare and used books with interesting inscriptions. There is one, The Missile Crisis, on AbeBooks, which was inscribed by the author, Elie Abel, for Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel. Many passages have been marked in the margins, with Kennedy having made extensive notes in the last four blank pages.

Such inscriptions dont just tell personal stories but offer a broader history of the time as well. For instance, gifting books was a common practice during weddings and festivals till the 1980s. My parents were gifted a book, containing paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, on their wedding by a favourite college professor. Now Boschs paintings are very grotesque and when I saw the book, it made me wonder why he had chosen this as a wedding gift. It tells you a lot about the relationship between teachers and students," says Mukherjee.

So, next time you pick up a second-hand book, allow it to speak to you, through its squiggly scribbles and hastily written notes, of relationships that once existed, the time that was, and of secrets that lay buried behind the inscriptions.
Year-End Special: In search of my old self Rewinding in time to discover your buried self can foster an incredible lightness of being /news/talking-point/yearend-special-in-search-of-my-old-self-111646914876386.html 111646914876386 story

This was the year I reclaimed an old sense of self, one that I didnt quite realize had gone missing.

Essentially, I attempted to retrieve certain aspects of my personality, including a sense of lightness that I started the year with. It was an impromptu birthday brunch, in early February, for which the invite said: Im a year older on Sunday, and the only thing I want to reclaim is a measure of spontaneity. So please juggle what you can juggle, and hope to see you for brunch." Fifty people turned up at only three days notice.

I put wanderlust back on the menu in 2017: My husband and I took time off to attend a couple of destination weddings. My girlfriends and I made it to Jaipur for the literature festival for the first time, I stole a trip to Kochi for the closing weekend of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, photographed Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur at both dawn and moonlight during the annual folk music festival, and former classmates and I reconvened on the dance floor for our five-yearly business school reunion in Boston.

I found new meaning in my writing, with more opportunities to write longer, more exploratory pieces on design. Intellectual curiosity introduced me to the joys of teaching millennials, as I accepted a position as a visiting faculty member at the Anant National University in Ahmedabad. My sense of purpose sharpened as I came across several social enterprises I could help with design thinking and capacity-building.

The many tributaries of my spiritual quest seemed to merge into one this year, as I signed up for a new series of weekly Vedanta classes, attended regular satsanghs with my family and began a closer study of the Bhagavad Gita.

Remember the 1980s Tom Hanks film Big, in which a teenager finds himself transformed overnight into an adult? My search took me in the opposite direction, only I believe there was more to it than youthful irreverence.

There is nothing quite like reconnecting with old hobbies to recover buried selves, especially when they involve family. Piano, horse riding, badminton and a minor Lego obsession dominated evenings and weekends after a break of nearly three decades.

Finally, reclaiming an old self entailed some personal renovation, quite literally. A new blingy best friend persuaded me to adopt red lipstick and Jimmy Choos, which I found just as exciting as experimenting with grunge" as a teen in the 1990s.

I believe each of us has these transformational years every so often in our lives, sometimes even once in a decade, where professional ascendancy and personal growth coincide in an organic way. For me, the architecture of my portfolio" lifewrite, teach, speak, give back to society and self improvementfinally became clearer, helping me to define myself, beyond the usual binary tropes of professional identity or family life.

The obvious question is: Why did I feel the need to rediscover myself? What pushed me? It is not that Ive been unhappy or that my growth has been stuntedfar from it. But like many individuals in their late 30s and early 40s, the fundamental contours of my daily life changed dramatically over the last decade. Marriage, a subsequent relocation to a different country, a transition to a new career and industry, motherhood and an ongoing health condition imbued a sense of responsibility, which often overshadowed my capacity for humour. As Radhika Sheth, a family friend and practising psychotherapist based in Mumbai, put it, I needed to strike a balance between fulfilling my responsibilities as a parent and adult, and locating the spontaneity within me.

This is, of course, an occupational hazard at this life stage for nearly everyone. Whether we are stay-at-home moms or fast-track professionals, female or male, personal and professional commitments pull us in different directions. However cliched it might sound, our old selves can begin to fade and dissolve.

Friends, luckily, are the best rear-view mirrors. A couple of years ago, one pointed out to me that I needed to explore and push intellectual and creative boundaries, to get back to being me". Another friend reiterated that she liked the new sense of maternal warmth, but missed the edge". I didnt know what they meant until this year.

The other trigger was spiritual. Over the years, I had noticed that nearly all the spiritual teachers I had encountered had a sense of levity in their approach. Midway through 2017, I came across two lines in one of the videos on Bhagavad Gita by the late Swami Chinmayananda, which captured this approach to life beautifully. Referring to chapter 3, verse 30 of the Gita, he said: Life is a tragedy to those who feel, life is a comedy to those who think." My weekly Vedanta lectures reinforced this point, over and over again. Step back from your emotions, and wield intellect, reason and rationality instead. In other words, take life seriously, but not yourself, I reminded myself.

Over the course of the year, the difference became perceptible: Youre back to what you were like at school," my high-school friends told me. This is what you were like at college," my sister said. And I remembered a line from a Graham Greene novel, to the self, we always remain the same age." For me, that age is always somewhere around 20, the wondrous moment of being a young adult, straddling independence and responsibility, saturated with curiosity and adventure, living in the moment, but not trapped by it.

The timing was both intentional and accidental. More professional opportunities came my way this year; I had grown as a design thinker and writer. It is natural that I have more time for myself, now that my boys are well past kindergarten.

Equally, timing can only be left to the universe. I went to see Sonam Kalra and the Sufi Gospel Project perform at the Kala Ghoda arts festival in Mumbai in February on a whim, never having heard of her. Now I listen to her music almost every day. She helps me meditate through music.

My weekly Vedanta lectures reinforced this point.... Step back from your emotions, and wield intellect, reason and rationality instead. In other words, take life seriously, but not yourself, I reminded myself-

Interestingly, this search for an old self was not about claiming happiness in itself, even though that was the inevitable outcome. I sought professional validation, I wanted to channel creativity and passion, I was looking to feel lighter". But the business of finding happiness is now a popular psychology genre, with blockbuster authors researching it. Many individuals, such as my close friend Jagriti Bhattacharyya, actively pursue it. Bhattacharyya is a committed lawyer, single parent and what I call attitudinal superstar".

Happiness is a choice. When you make the choice, youre not always prepared for what lies ahead. Thats the journey," she says.

Like me, Bhattacharyya looked to the past, as well as the future, for personal self-renewal. She revived favourite rituals that were dropped off along the way, such as cooking new cuisines, and going back to her love of wearing saris.

Predictably, investing in activities that gave her joy has made her happier, she says. I lost my peace of mind for many years. I had a dying parent, a baby, a stressful job. It manifested itself in many ways, including impatience. I will always be a feisty Bengali to the outside world, but Im much calmer in my head and heart now."

Some might interpret this back-to-the-future quest as nothing but a midlife crisis, but Sheth highlights the difference. A midlife crisis is about ageing and facing the eventuality of ones existence, but this is a search about having the courage to face yourself, your thoughts and emotions. It is rewarding, but difficult," she says.

She is right about the challenges. When I looked more deeply at the architecture of my life, some windows and doors remain unhinged, and need repair. I must confront my sugar addiction (as bad as class A drugs, according to some studies) and its drivers. My home internet connection is no less severe a problem.

She is also right about the rewards. The biggest beneficiaries of having emerged as a more playful mother, are my children. My boys and I play games and make silly videos in the evenings at dinner time. We like hearing you giggle on the video, Mamma," they tell me. I have to say, I do too. I have a long way to go, especially in my spiritual journey, but giggling is really one of the best ways to get there.
The theater plays Five Acts of Life is adapted from five short stories by Chinese author Lao She, including Assuming Office and Death Dealing Spear. [Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

A play comprising five short stories by Lao She returns to Beijing after its recent two-month nationwide tour. Chen Nan reports. Chen Nan

Theater director Lin Zhaohua met Shu Yi, the son of novelist and playwright Lao She (1899-1966), after Lin premiered his play Hamlet, adapted from William Shakespeare's work, in October 2008.

While congratulating Lin on his take on the classic, Shu talked about commemorating his father's 110th birth anniversary.

Every year, commemorative programs, like staging plays written by Lao Shewhich include Teahouse, Rickshaw Boy, Four Generations under One Roof and The Peking Manare held to pay tribute to Lao She, whose original name was Shu Qingchun.

Regarded as one of the literary giants of the country, Lao She is noted for his works with a strong Beijing flavor and a vivid depiction of human nature.

However, both Lin and Shu Yi wanted to do something different.

So, they decided to produce Five Acts of Life, a play comprising five short stories by Lao She, which offers a vivid view of Chinese society from 1898, the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), to 1948.

Before that, Lao She's short stories had never been adapted for theater.

The play, directed by Lin, premiered to great success at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, with four sold-out shows, in March 2010. And it has toured the country every year since then with hundreds of performances.

Five Acts of Life will return to Beijing on Jan 2, after a two-month nationwide tour.

During a recent rehearsal at Beijing's 300-year-old Zhengyici Theater, veteran actor Li Chengru, along with six actors, were preparing for Assuming Office, or Shang Ren, which takes a bold look at the tensions and blurred boundaries between criminals and the authorities.

"Though these five short stories were written decades ago, they are still relevant today," says Li.

The 63-year-old Beijing native has performed different roles in the five parts of the play since 2012.

In Assuming Office, he plays the role of a head of a police department, who used to be a criminal like all the other members of the office. He tries to be a good man but has to make compromises.

Speaking about his performance, Li says: "It is exhausting and challenging to switch between different roles. But a major motivation for me is the Beijing flavor and the way people lived and spoke, which Lao She portrayed."

Li also says he took up the project as he wants that the audience, especially the younger generation, to experience Beijing culture, which is in danger of dying out.

Wang Xiang, who adapted the five short stories into the play, says: "The city's unique personality is vanishing due to fast urbanization. Beijing has become an international city, but it has lost its original character, such as the Beijing dialect."

Wang says that he accompanied Lin to the Edinburgh International Festival in the United Kingdom in August 2008, two months before they decided to turn the five pieces into a play. During their trip, they went to London and watched English theater and film director Peter Brook's play Fragments. Brook brought together five short stories by Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett.
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A drug-impaired driver, charged with murder for killing a 2-year-old girl in a crash, wanted jurors at his second trial to learn that he had already been convicted of vehicular manslaughter in his first trial, so they wouldnt think hed be set free if acquitted of murder.

A Los Angeles County judge refused the proposed instruction, and Marvin Hicks was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 22 years to life in prison. On Thursday, the state Supreme Court upheld the verdict in a 6-1 ruling and said it was justified for a driver who acted with complete disregard for human life.

The case required the court to weigh two delicate issues: how to discourage jurors who are weighing guilt and innocence from considering the punishment the defendant faces, which is supposed to be irrelevant to their verdict; and what evidence is needed to convict an intoxicated driver of knowingly committing a life-threatening act that can be charged as murder.

Hicks, 45, of Palmdale (Los Angeles County), was high on marijuana and PCP when he was pulled over by sheriffs deputies in the town of Lancaster in December 2012. After giving what a deputy described as a blank stare, he sped away, ran a red light and, while driving at least 70 mph with officers in pursuit, smashed into another car at an intersection, killing Madison Ruano and seriously injuring the girls mother, Tina Ruano.

Hicks had previous convictions for reckless driving and driving while intoxicated and had attended DUI education programs as part of his sentences. He testified that he had known he was doing when he started driving, and officers said he was alert and coherent after the crash. Officers also testified, however, that Hicks was hanging out the window and screaming incoherently when he was first stopped.

Jurors at his first trial convicted him of gross vehicular manslaughter, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but deadlocked on second-degree murder, which required proof of a conscious disregard for human life. He was convicted of murder at a retrial in October 2014 after the judge denied a defense request to tell jurors about the manslaughter conviction.

In Thursdays ruling, Justice Ming Chin said informing jurors about the earlier verdict would have kept them from wrongly assuming that an acquittal would let Hicks escape punishment, but could also have unfairly harmed the prosecution by leading jurors to question why he was being retried.

Judges can strike a proper balance in future cases by telling the jury not to consider punishment or to speculate about any previous trials, Chin said. But in this case, he said, such an instruction would not have changed the outcome, because the evidence showed that Hicks was in an alert state of mind before the fatal crash.

In dissent, Justice Goodwin Liu disagreed with the majoritys view of the evidence and said the second jury probably would have acquitted Hicks of murder, or deadlocked, if it had been told of his manslaughter conviction.

Omitting that information may have led that jury to believe it faced an all-or-nothing choice and unfairly hampered the defense, Liu said.

The case is People vs. Hicks, S232218.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko

See the ruling: www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/revpub/B259665.PDF
Charles Darwin: Victorian Mythmaker

By A.N. Wilson

Harper. 438 pp. $32.50

---

I've been an evolutionary biologist for nearly half a century and have read hundreds of books about Charles Darwin and his science. If we exclude books written by creationists - a group that A.N. Wilson doesn't identify with - "Charles Darwin: Victorian Mythmaker" is by far the worst. Appalling in its sloppy arguments and unrelenting and unwarranted negativity, its most infuriating flaw is its abysmal failure to get the most basic facts right. It's a grossly inaccurate and partisan attack on both Darwin and evolution.

Given that many of Wilson's earlier biographies have been admired for their style and insight, and not criticized for pervasive errors, this new project is baffling. Where Darwin's other biographers have seen a sensitive and kindly man, a scrupulous scientist who willingly credited his predecessors, Wilson finds a greedy "self-mythologizer" desperate to become famous, even if it required ignoring or plagiarizing his forerunners and fellow naturalists. Because the documentary record is so rich - we have some 15,000 bits of correspondence to and from Darwin, and he was a meticulous note-taker and letter-keeper - and because Darwin and his ideas occupy such a prominent place in the history of science, a vast amount of scholarly energy has been devoted to understanding his life and influences. We truly know a huge amount about him. How is it, then, that Wilson can come up with a completely new take on his subject?

There are two possibilities: All preceding Darwin scholarship is wrong, or, alternatively, the mistakes lie with Wilson. Parsimony alone would suggest that Wilson is the anomaly here, unless of course he has discovered some important new information. But there's nothing remotely new in this book beyond Wilson's anti-Darwin bias. That Wilson is the confused outlier among Darwin biographers is easily confirmed by even a cursory inspection of the book, which is replete with factual errors. This is not the place to describe all of Wilson's misrepresentations, many of which are frankly daft. A few examples must suffice.

Wilson says repeatedly that Darwin didn't persuade his contemporaries of evolution's truth, but in fact by Darwin's death in 1882, virtually all scientists - and most educated people - accepted evolution (he was, after all, buried in Westminster Abbey). The rediscovery of Mendelian genetics in 1900 did not undercut evolution, as Wilson argues, but supported it, even correcting Darwin's mistaken ideas about how inheritance worked.

Wilson also asserts that Darwin had low libido, which, in Wilson's world, is apparently a character flaw. Yet he fathered 10 children. Wilson claims Darwin feigned illness to avoid commitments and visitors that would interrupt his work, yet Darwin complained incessantly that severe and lifelong gastric problems cost him weeks of productivity. We're not sure what disease afflicted him: Cyclic vomiting syndrome or lactose intolerance are the latest hypotheses. But hypochondria is not credible.

In the most embarrassing error, Wilson claims that the first 50 pages of an important Darwin notebook have been lost forever, asserting that Darwin destroyed them to hide his intellectual cribbing from his contemporary Edward Blyth. In reality, Darwin simply placed those pages in a folder for later use, and they can easily be found online. Whatever Wilson was doing during the five years he spent researching and writing this book, it bears little relation to what we call "scholarship."

Why the sustained animus against Darwin? I think Wilson's issue is not really Darwin but his ideas. "Darwin was wrong," is how he opens the book, referring to the theory of evolution. Wilson plainly dislikes evolutionary biology, but, lacking scientific credentials, is not in a position to provide a thorough scientific critique of the field. Instead, he seems to have written a biography - a task he is at least in principle qualified for, having written 20 books on history - as a platform to launch an assault on evolution. Darwin's character is simply collateral damage.

So what does Wilson have against a body of science about which, it is clear, he knows next to nothing? Wilson has taken a somewhat tortuous (and public) spiritual path: Raised a Christian, he became an atheist and then returned to Christianity. Now writing as a believer, he seems reluctant to see humankind's genesis and fate removed from divine hands. My evidence for this: Wilson's reliance on discredited creationist cliches; his claims that human traits such as language, consciousness, altruism and even bipedality simply could not have evolved; and his avowal that his return to religion derived from writing about Wagner and Nazi Germany and seeing "how utterly incoherent were Hitler's neo-Darwinian ravings" in contrast to the views of anti-Nazi Christians.

In good creationist style, Wilson asserts that Darwin's "gradualism" is wrong: that many changes in life's history were neither slow nor adaptive. To support this, he argues that we find almost no transitional forms connecting major groups, suggesting that while evolution might occur within species ("microevolution," such as the evolutionary acquisition of drug resistance in bacteria in response to antibiotics), it cannot create new forms ("macroevolution"). He's wrong. Darwin's gradualism was largely a pushback against claims that transitions happened (BEGIN ITAL)instantaneously(END ITAL), such as the idea that a reptile could give birth to a mammal in a single generation.

And we now understand how sustained evolution over long periods of time results in the appearance of innovations (such as a fish fin becoming a tetrapod limb) that Wilson insists cannot evolve. The evidence against Wilson's view is overwhelming. We have thousands of transitional fossils connecting major groups: fish to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, reptiles to birds and mammals, small deer-like animals to whales, and of course ancient tree-dwelling apes to modern humans. Wilson's claim is grossly misleading and, frankly, ridiculous.

Another familiar creationist claim lies at the core of Wilson's problem with evolution: that Darwin promoted "social Darwinism," the view that evolution tells us that "might makes right" in our own species, and that a struggle among races and classes picks out superior groups with the right to control others. In fact, Darwin was never a social Darwinist and certainly can't be held responsible for others' misuse (and abuse) of his ideas.

Wilson takes this to its logical extreme by proclaiming that Darwin's views led to the Holocaust. He states that the Nazis' race and eugenics laws were "all based on bogus Victorian science, much of which had started life in the gentle setting of Darwin's study at Down House." But as science historian Robert Richards showed decisively in his essay "Was Hitler a Darwinian?" (not cited by Wilson), Adolf Hitler and the Nazis explicitly rejected Darwinism and its materialistic underpinnings, basing their genocidal policies on anti-Semitism and ideas of racial superiority that existed long before Darwin. In fact, Darwin spurned the notion of interfering with the lives and reproduction of others, saying that "we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind."

Wilson's use of the familiar and discredited tropes of creationism - humans are too special to be products of evolution, complex organs such as eyes can't evolve, we see microevolution but not macroevolution, evolution can't create new information in DNA, evolution is itself a religion, Hitler's genocide traces back to Darwinism and so on - forces us to conclude that, even if he isn't a creationist, he surely walks and quacks like one.

In the end, Wilson's book is harmful, because its ignorance and denial of scientific evidence, coming from an established author, will promote the mistaken view that evolutionary biology is seriously flawed. And by flouting the research on Darwin carried out by serious historians of science, it betrays those historians and history itself.

---

Coyne is professor emeritus in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago. He is the author of "Speciation" (with H. Allen Orr), "Why Evolution Is True" and "Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible."
As it is with The Post, so it is with many Steven Spielberg movies. We sit there, a little interested, a little bit detached, thinking, well, this is OK, nothing special, but perfectly fine. And then  who knows how he does it?  the camera moves in on a face, the soundtrack swells, and suddenly half the crowd has tears in their eyes, and youre one of them.

In The Post, the moment comes when the political columnist Meg Greenfield (Carrie Coon) gets word of a Supreme Court decision concerning a newspapers right to publish material gleaned from whistle-blowers. She holds the phone and repeats to her colleagues the decision of Justice Hugo Black: that Americas founders affirmed freedom of the press to serve the governed, not the governors. And if someone could put a mirror in front of your face as you watch this, youd be surprised at your own transport and wonder.

Spielberg is so good at this sort of thing that the question raises itself: Is he feeling it, too, or is he just a master manipulator? In a way, the question is immaterial  the movie is the movie, however its made  and yet it would be nice to know if were all just that easy.

Spielberg crafts another moment, almost as effective. Publisher Katharine Graham leaves the courthouse after testifying on behalf of her newspaper, and a phalanx of young women watches her walk down the steps, in speechless awe. Did it really happen that way? Probably not. Is the scene so obvious that the ghost of Frank Capra himself would call it corny? Oh yes. But Spielberg knows something about movies, and that tableau, obvious though it may be, is lovely.

It also hammers home the feminist nature of this real-life journalism tale. The Post is set in 1971 and deals with the Washington Posts decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, a leaked secret report proving that just about everything presidential administrations had said about the Vietnam War was a lie. By this time the New York Times had run some stories, but theyd been silenced by a court injunction. Now it was up to Graham whether to risk violating the court order by publishing the papers in the Post.

As played by Meryl Streep, Graham is a woman from an earlier time who became the boss only because her husband died. The newspaper, owned by her father, was in a sense part of her dowry  and she took it for granted that her husband should be in charge. Now that its all hers, she has to push through her own insecurities and the stridency and condescension of her board of directors in order to find herself. The Post is a rare coming-of-age film, in that its about a womans coming of age in her mid-50s. Yet for middle-aged women of that second-wave feminist era, this was not an unusual phenomenon.

The Post is on safe ground when it focuses on Streep as Graham  tentative, slightly affected, but growing by the day  and with Grahams relationship with her gruff, hotshot editor, Ben Bradlee, played by Tom Hanks, against type but winningly. The movies challenge is the journalism story, which is not as clear-cut as Watergate and is therefore harder to dramatize.

In fact, as a story, the whole Pentagon Papers saga has everything against it. The revelations were about the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations, but Nixon was now president. The papers didnt represent one story, but a number of stories. And the stories themselves were complex, not as simple as dirty tricks, a break-in and a cover-up  or, as in Spotlight, priests molesting boys. Also, the reporters didnt have to dig for the story. It landed on their lap, thousands of undigested pages, which they had to read.

These challenges cant completely be overcome, no matter how many times they crank up the John Williams score, and so the movie sags in the middle. Still, when Spielberg has to bring it home, he does. If the intention was to send audiences out feeling inspired about journalism and its function in a republic, consider that mission accomplished.

Finally, it hardly needs to be said, and yet it needs to be acknowledged, that everyone connected with the film was thinking about the story in terms of todays events. The Post was filmed in a hurry  principal photography began at the end of May  with the intention of celebrating an institution and a profession under constant attack by the present administration. As such, The Post is not just a pretty good Spielberg picture, but mainstream Hollywoods first response to life in the Trump era  the trickle before the flood.

Mick LaSalle is The San Francisco Chronicles movie critic. Email: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MickLaSalle

The Post

Drama. Starring Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep. Directed by Steven Spielberg. (PG-13. 115 minutes.)
In the years before moving to the White House, Donald Trump used Twitter to call climate change "nonsense" peddled by "con artists" and "created by and for the Chinese."

Whenever temperatures reached teeth-chattering lows during New York winters, he would tweet, tongue in cheek, that what we needed was a "heavy dose of global warming."

But since becoming president, Trump laid off the broadsides - at least on Twitter - against the broad scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels and other human activity is indeed warming the planet.

However, he couldn't let 2017 pass without one last swipe.

Even though he is vacation in Palm Beach, Florida, where temperatures are in the 70s, Trump tweeted Thursday seemingly mocking those who accept climate science, suggesting that the East Coast will be so cold on New Year's Eve that global warming may be a good thing instead of an environmental calamity.

Trump tweeted: In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!

Before sending that message, Trump had not sent any tweet containing the phrase "climate change" or "global warming" since becoming president, according to the Trump Twitter Archive.

In contrast, two years ago during the chilly winter of 2015, Trump sent off at least nine tweets holding up the thermometer as evidence global warming can't be happening.

- It's record cold all over the country and world - where the hell is global warming, we need some fast!

- Record low temperatures and massive amounts of snow. Where the hell is GLOBAL WARMING?

Indeed, temperatures some 15 to 30 degrees lower than normal will grip much of the United States east of the Rockies for the next seven to 10 days. The cold snap will likely be the most frigid since February 2015 - when Trump last cast doubt on climate science because it was cold outside.

But a single cold streak does not prove climate change is fake. Man-made global warming, as the name suggests, refers to the steady rise of average temperature of Earth's climate system due to the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. Indeed, at the moment much of the rest of world is warmer than normal even if a portion of the United States is chilly.

And from January to November, the Lower 48 experienced the third warmest period on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That added energy to Earth's climate system alters more than just average temperatures. One active and heavily debated area of climate research concerns the degree to which climate change causes the jet stream encircling the Arctic to wobble southward, and send a surge of cold air across portions of North America - as it is now.

Right now, the jet stream is crashing south in the eastern half in the continent while surging northward in the west half. That phenomenon, called the North American Winter Dipole, is strangely enough simultaneously responsible for freezing temperatures in the East and the roasting temperatures in the West, which are fueling recent forest fires in California.

Brian Brettschneider, a climatologist based in Alaska, calculated that New Year's Eve would be third coldest since 1948. In the eastern United States, 2014 was actually a hair colder than the current forecast. His basis for comparison is the forecast from the Global Forecast System forecast model, which is the National Weather Service's main prediction model, sometimes called the American model.

Trump's tweet is reminiscent of the remarks Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., made on the Senate floor in February 2015, after a Washington snowstorm. The senator, who has consistently questioned the connection between human activity and climate change, brought a snowball onto the floor and recalled how his children had built an igloo.

"It's very, very cold out. Very unseasonable," remarked Inhofe, who chaired the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at the time.

Referring to the snowball as an example of "scientific analysis," he threw it at the sitting Senate president, and declared, "So, catch this."

- - -

The Washington Post's Jason Samenow and Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.
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
2017 was filled with many tragic tales of those seeking refuge, but it took until Christmas for one of the most striking cases to emerge. For about three months, a Zimbabwean family with four adults and four children has been stuck at Bangkok's main airport, with no imminent solution in sight.

Thai immigration authorities confirmed the family's legal limbo after a post on social media emerged that appeared to show an airport worker handing over a gift to one of the children. (The post has since been deleted.)

As authoritarian leader Robert Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe for almost 40 years, more than 3 million fled the country to South Africa and elsewhere for economic or political reasons. The family now stuck in Bangkok says it left the country when Mugabe was still in power, and watched the dramatic events unfold there from abroad in recent months.

In a move bearing all the hallmarks of a coup, Zimbabwe's military took control of the country and of Mugabe himself in November. There had long been concerns about the health of the 93-year-old president and what would come next for the African country he has ruled since 1980. When Mugabe announced that he would resign after almost four decades as the country's leader, crowds poured into the streets of Zimbabwe.

Despite Mugabe's resignation, Thai immigration officials told the BBC that the family is refusing to fly back to Zimbabwe because of fear of prosecution, even though the country's new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has indicated that he would welcome the return of Zimbabwean refugees.

The family first arrived in Thailand in March on tourist visas, according to authorities there. Thailand offers on-arrival visas, which makes it relatively easy for asylum seekers to enter the country for a limited period of time. However, Thailand very seldom grants asylum to any refugees and offers no appropriate legal status.

So the family was forced to explore multiple other options to relocate to Europe. But because of their lack of visas, all attempts appear to have failed. Because the family initially overstayed their Thai tourist visas, they are now stuck in airport no man's land.

The United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said it was working on a possible solution which would allow the family to relocate to a third country, but it did not indicate how long this process could take, according to AFP. Other cases of individuals stuck at international airports have taken years or even decades to resolve.

Meanwhile, Bangkok airport staff has been providing the family with food and beverages, and officials said that the four adults and four children were not at risk. "They could travel to other countries that are willing to take them...We also offered to relocate them to our holding centre where there is childcare. But they refused. They are happy to stay here," one immigration official told the BBC. The family itself has so far not publicly commented on their stay at the Bangkok airport and it remains unknown what options were offered to them.

There have been a number of individuals stuck at international airports in recent decades in cases that have drawn international attention. The case of Iranian citizen Mehran Karimi Nasseri who was in diplomatic limbo at a Parisian airport for 18 years, for example, inspired the 2004 movie "the Terminal."

More recently, American whistleblower Edward Snowden spent 40 days in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, while he was waiting to be granted asylum in Russia. At the time, his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena compared Snowden's airport stay to "house arrest, only not at home," and emphasized the psychological toll being forced to stay indoors in a legal limbo had on him.
More than 50 people were arrested in Iran's holy city of Mashhad, following anti-government protests over the economy and rising food prices, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Friday.

Videos purporting to be of the protests in Iran's second-largest city circulated widely on social media platforms including Twitter and Telegram, and showed protesters chanting against President Hassan Rouhani and calling for "the economically corrupt" to be executed.

The arrests were for "demolishing public property and lacking a permit for the protests," Mashhad's deputy attorney general, Hassan Heydari, told Tasnim.

Rouhani's government has faced criticism since his May re-election from both hardline opponents and disillusioned supporters, who had been expecting a broader economic recovery following the country's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and easing of international sanctions. Households have been strained by rising prices of some key goods, while instability among unregulated lenders has also triggered unrest over the past six months.

Several provinces this week reported the price of eggs had risen by up to 50 percent, according to the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency. The price hike was caused by an outbreak of avian influenza at battery farms, Iran's government spokesman, Mohammad-Bagher Nobakht, told reporters on Wednesday, according to Tasnim.

Rouhani's first vice-president, Eshaq Jahangiri, dismissed the demonstrations in a speech on Friday, and said economic issues were "being used as an excuse and something else, behind the curtain, is going on," the Iranian Students News Agency reported.

In Mashhad, Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, the leader of Friday prayers who is seen as a close ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that protesters shouldn't allow their concerns "to become fodder for the foreign media, which wants to sow sedition." A day earlier, he said people had a right to be unhappy with the economic situation.

A clip circulating on unofficial Telegram channels purportedly from Nishapur, close to Mashhad, showed protesters chanting "leave Syria alone, think about us." Commentators saw it as a referring to Iran's economic and military support for Syrian President Bashar Assad.
CAIRO - A gunman clashed with police outside a Coptic church in Cairo on Friday after trying to break through security barriers protecting the site. At least nine people were killed, an official said, in the latest violence targeting Egypt's Christian minority.

The gunman, identified by Egyptian authorities as 33-year-old Ibrahim Ismail, was suspected to have links to several past attacks, including one by a group that opened fire on a police bus last year in Cairo. At least eight policemen were killed in the May 2016 attack. Ismail was killed during the shootout with police.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday's assault by larger militant factions in Egypt such as the Islamic State, leaving open questions on whether Ismail had ties to wider networks or acted alone.

The spokesman for Egypt's Health Ministry, Khaled Megahed, said at least nine people were killed in the shootout, including eight Coptic Christians and a policeman, The Associated Press reported. At least five people were wounded, Megahed said.

The attack began when gunmen on a motorcycle begin firing outside the Mar Mina church in the Helwan neighborhood south of central Cairo, while some worshippers were inside.

Egypt's state-run Middle East News Agency, citing the Interior Ministry, initially reported at least two attackers tried to enter the church. The second attacker apparently fled, the agency reported.

A video posted on social media purports to show Ismail roaming a deserted street before being dropped by gunfire. Dozens of people then rush out from hiding to tackle and beat the fallen gunman.

Egypt's Coptic community had come under increasing attacks from Islamist militants in recent years, prompting tighter security measures around churches and other sites.

After Friday's bloodshed, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi condemned the assault as "vicious." A statement from Egypt's parliament said the "bullets of terrorists did not differentiate between a Muslim and a Christian, or between a mosque and a church."

In May, gunmen ambushed a bus carrying a group of Coptic Christians to a monastery in the Minya region, about 150 miles south of Cairo, killing at least 30 people.

In April, twin bombings targeted churches in Alexandria and Tanta, killing 49 people. Last December, a bomb exploded in the main cathedral in Cairo, killing 29 people.

In Cairo last week, hundreds of Muslim protesters stormed an unlicensed Christian place of worship, chanting anti-Christian slogans and calling for the destruction of the site.

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The Washington Post's Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump gave an impromptu half-hour interview with The New York Times on Dec. 28. We combed through the transcript and here's a quick round-up of the false, misleading or dubious claims that he made, at rate of one claim every 75 seconds. (Some of the interview was off the record, so it's possible the rate of false claims per minute is higher.)

"Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion. There is no collusion. . . . I saw Dianne Feinstein the other day on television saying there is no collusion."

Trump appears to be referring to an interview with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. She did not flatly say there was no collusion and instead was more nuanced. Asked by CNN's Jake Tapper on Nov. 5 whether she had "seen any evidence that this dirt, these emails, were ever given to the Trump campaign," she replied: "Not so far." Tapper than asked: "Have you seen any communications that suggested that the Trump campaign wanted them to release them through a different means?" She answered: "I have not."

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"I think it's been proven that there is no collusion."

Trump is entitled to his own opinion but he sidesteps the fact that the investigation has revealed that members of the Trump campaign interacted with Russians at least 31 times throughout the campaign. There are at least 19 known meetings, in addition to the indictments or guilty pleas of his campaign manager, national security adviser and others.

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"There was collusion with the Russians and the Democrats. A lot of collusion. . . . Starting with the dossier. But going into so many other elements. And Podesta's firm."

Trump has falsely accused Clinton campaign manager John Podesta of being involved with a Russian company. Tony Podesta co-founded the Podesta Group, a lobbying firm, with his brother John. But it's a U.S.-based company, not a company in Russia. Trump likely is referring to the Podesta Group being paid $170,000 over six months to represent Sberbank, a Russian bank. The Podesta Group said its work for Sberbank USA was "never about getting sanctions lifted," and "was simply about helping to clarify to what extent our client, the U.S. subsidiary [of Sberbank], was subject to sanctions. We confirmed they were not." As for alleged collusion between the Democrats and Russia, Trump is referring to the fact that Fusion GPS, the political research firm which assembled the dossier as part of an assignment for Democrats, relied on a British intelligence agent who used Russian sources for his research. So that's a rather big stretch.

Now Playing: President Trump said that all forms of media will tank if hes not re-elected in 2020. Ryan Sartor (@ryansartor) has that story. Video: Buzz 60

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"I won because I campaigned properly and she didn't. She campaigned for the popular vote. I campaigned for the Electoral College."

There is no evidence that Hillary Clinton campaigned for the popular vote, which Trump has previously has said he would have won if not for fraud. Clinton campaigned in many battleground states, including Republican-leaning ones where she thought she had a chance. She did not campaign as much in two states - Michigan and Wisconsin - that were considered locks for Democrats but which Trump narrowly won. Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million. If 40,000 votes had switched in three states, Trump would have also lost the Electoral College.

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"Paul [Manafort] only worked for me for a few months."

Trump skips over lightly the fact that Manafort, now under indictment, was his campaign manager in the critical period in which he secured the nomination and accepted it at the GOP convention.

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"There was tremendous collusion on behalf of the Russians and the Democrats. There was no collusion with respect to my campaign."

This is a breathtakingly false statement. Little evidence has emerged of any collusion between the Democrats and Russia, whereas evidence has emerged of many contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian-linked individuals. The FBI, CIA and National Security Agency earlier this year concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government "aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him."

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"What I've done is, I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department."

Presidents do not have unfettered right to interfere with Justice Department investigations, unless they actively seeking a constitutional crisis.

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"I'm the one that saved coal. I'm the one that created jobs. You know West Virginia is doing fantastically now."

West Virginia's gross domestic product increased 3 percent in the first quarter of 2017. The recent bump is due in part to the increased price of metallurgic coal, which is used to make steel, and a price increase in natural gas exports. West Virginia produces roughly 5 percent of the natural gas in the U.S. and as the price of natural gas rises, the demand for coal increases, spurring growth in the state. Trump can't take credit for the change in prices, which fluctuate with market forces.

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"There is tremendous collusion with the Russians and with the Democratic Party. Including all of the stuff with the - and then whatever happened to the Pakistani guy, that had the two, you know, whatever happened to this Pakistani guy who worked with the DNC?"

Trump echoes a conspiracy theory that a criminal case involving a Pakistani information technology specialist who worked for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz - who had chaired the Democratic National Committee - was somehow related to the Russian hack of DNC emails. The case involves a fraudulent loan, and no evidence has emerged to connect it to the Russia investigation.

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"They made the Russian story up as a hoax, as a ruse, as an excuse for losing an election that in theory Democrats should always win with the Electoral College. The Electoral College is so much better suited to the Democrats."

Trump is falsely labeling nonpartisan investigations as made up by Democrats. The CIA concluded in 2016 that Russia intervened in the U.S. presidential election to help elect Trump, an assessment backed up by FBI Director James Comey and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. As we noted, the intelligence community released a declassified report expressing "high confidence" in this judgement. Senate and House committees led by Republicans have begun their own investigations, and a special prosecutor has been appointed. Meanwhile, Democrats obviously do not have an Electoral College lock. According to a tally by John Pitney of Claremont McKenna College, every Republican president since Rutherford Hayes in 1876 won a larger share of the electoral college votes than Trump, with the exception of George W. Bush (twice) and Nixon in 1968.

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"I was for Strange, and I brought Strange up 20 points. Just so you understand. When I endorsed him, he was in fifth place. He went way up. Almost 20 points."

Polls indicate that Trump's endorsement made little difference - and in fact Strange lost to Ray Moore by a greater margin than polls suggested at the time of Trump's endorsement. While Trump says Strange was in fifth place, there were only three candidates in the GOP primary.

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"I endorsed him [Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore]. It became a much closer race because of my endorsement. People don't say that. They say, Oh, Donald Trump lost. I didn't lose, I brought him up a lot."

Polls can vary, but there is little evidence this is the case. The fact remains that Moore lost an election in a state where Democrats usually lose by double digits.

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"We have spent, as of about a month ago, $7 trillion in the Middle East. And the Middle East is worse than it was 17 years ago. . . . $7 trillion."

Trump, who previously would cite a number of $6 trillion, is lumping together the wars in Iraq (in the Middle East) and Afghanistan (in South Asia), which together cost about $1.6 trillion from 2001 to 2014. He is also adding in estimates of future spending, such as interest on the debt and veterans' care for the next three decades.

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"By the way, and for that, we've ended across state lines. So we have competition. You know for that I'm allowed to [inaudible] state lines. So that's all done."

Trump signed an executive order encouraging the formation of health plans across state lines. But there is still a law in place which exempts insurance companies from aspects of federal antitrust law and ensures that individual states remained the primary regulators of insurance.

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"I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of health care better than most, better than most."

Lawmakers who dealt with Trump on taxes and especially health care privately told reporters they were shocked how little he knew about these issues.

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"We've created associations, millions of people are joining associations. Millions. That were formerly in Obamacare or didn't have insurance. Or didn't have health care. Millions of people."

Trump is referring to an executive order, mentioned above, but it has no force in law on its own and no one has yet joined these associations. The rules spelling out how the executive order would work have not been issued yet, so Trump is simply making up his "millions" number.

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"Now that the individual mandate is officially killed, people have no idea how big a deal that was. It's the most unpopular part of Obamacare. But now, Obamacare is essentially. . . . You know, you saw this. . . . It's basically dead over a period of time."

While the individual mandate was an important incentive for Americans to seek health insurance, it was only one part of a far-reaching law that remains intact. The repeal does not take effect until 2019, and enrollment in Obamacare has remained strong. The Congressional Budget Office says the marketplaces are expected to remain stable for years.

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"We see the drugs pouring into the country, we need the wall."

The wall will have virtually no effect on drugs coming into the country. According to reports by the DEA, the majority of drugs are smuggled through legal ports of entry or smuggled through underground tunnels.

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"They have a lottery in these countries. They take the worst people in the country, they put 'em into the lottery, then they have a handful of bad, worse ones, and they put them out. 'Oh, these are the people the United States. . . .' . . . We're gonna get rid of the lottery."

This is a gross misrepresentation of the diversity visa program. Individuals apply for the visa system, and must have at least a high school diploma or work in specific industries to be eligible for the program. As the term "lottery" implies, applicants are selected via a randomized computer drawing. The selected applicants undergo a background check before entering the country, and some applicants undergo an additional in-depth review if they are considered a security risk.

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"I like very much President Xi. He treated me better than anybody's ever been treated in the history of China."

The Chinese put on a show for Trump, knowing he likes them, but this is a fairly ridiculous comment to make, especially given the limited interactions between the two men - and China's 3,500-year history.

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"This [North Korea] is a problem that should have been handled for the last 25 years. This is a problem, North Korea. That should have been handled for 25, 30 years, not by me. This should have been handled long before me. Long before this guy has whatever he has."

Previous presidents, notably Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, made major efforts to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions. But the deals they struck did not stick.

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"When I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade. They made - last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum."

The trade deficit in goods and services in 2016 with China was $310 billion. Trump often just cites the goods deficit, which was $347 billion, according to the U.S. Trade Representative. Under the Trump administration, the trade deficit with China has increased seven percent so far in 2017.

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"We lost $71 billion a year with Mexico, can you believe it?"

Trump, as is his practice, inflates the size of the trade deficit by only counting goods, not goods and services. The 2016 trade deficit with Mexico was $55 billion, according to the U.S. Trade Representative.

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"$17 billion with Canada - Canada says we broke even. But they don't include lumber and they don't include oil. Oh, that's not. My friend Justin he says, 'No, no, we break even.' I said, 'Yeah, but you're not including oil, and you're not including lumber.' When you do, you lose $17 billion."

In recounting a conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump gets his facts quite wrong. Trudeau said Canada had a total trade deficit with the United States while Trump insisted it was the other way around. In reality, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Canada was $12.1 billion in 2016, but the U.S. services trade surplus with Canada was $24.6 billion in 2016, according to the U.S. Trade Representative. So Trudeau was right, according to U.S. government data.
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SABRATHA, Libya - For nearly two years, this ancient, beachfront city, famed for its Roman ruins, was one of North Africa's largest smuggling hubs, a gateway for tens of thousands of migrants seeking better futures in Europe. Now, there are none on the beaches where hundreds of rickety boats once ferried them to Italy illegally, none in the migrant detention center where they ended up when an attempt failed.

At the five-star West Taleel resort, the white, two-story villas once housed as many as 3,000 migrants at a time waiting to set sail. Their traffickers had erected sand dunes along the beach to hide them from Libyan coast guard patrols and curious swimmers.

The resort is now empty, as are the smugglers' other safe houses.

Ferocious street battles among rival armed groups erupted this fall, ultimately driving out the young warlord Ahmed Dabbashi, whose militia ran the trade in migrants. The victors then expelled the migrants.

A rare visit by a reporter to Sabratha last week revealed how the massive trafficking of Africans, which has roiled European countries and raised concerns about widespread abuses of the migrants, is tied up with Libya's internal power struggles. The ebb and flow of migration reflect the shifting fortunes of the city's civil war, emblematic of the strife afflicting Libya since the Arab Spring.

Dabbashi, a black-haired and bearded fighter from a prominent tribe, had been above the law. As a teen, he had stolen cars and robbed shops, then graduated into trafficking arms and fuel. By the summer of 2015, he had entered the burgeoning migrant trade, according to local officials, tribal leaders and United Nations investigators. His control over that trade deepened as Libya's weak, U.N.-installed government in the capital, Tripoli, looked the other way.

"He was a vicious fighter," Col. Najmi Farah, a police investigator, said of Dabbashi. "He always carried two revolvers."

Locals say he once killed two men and dumped their bodies on the street to stir fear in people. From then on, residents were too scared to look him in the eye.

The fierce urban clashes broke out after one of Dabbashi's cousins was killed in September in a skirmish with a competing armed group. Soon, other militias and tribes joined the fray, making common cause against Dabbashi's forces, called the Anas Al-Dabbashi Brigade.

Some migrants were killed in the crossfire, their bodies strewn in the streets. Thousands more fled to neighboring areas. When the migrants re-emerged, an unlikely coalition of Libyan National Army soldiers and ultraconservative Muslim fighters were in control of Sabratha. Known as the Anti-ISIS Fighting Room, they swiftly dispatched most of the migrants to detention centers in other cities.

"It's finished for now," said Muhammed Amma, 32, a migrant from Chad who fled the fighting and was now cleaning streets for the municipality. "The boats to Europe have stopped."

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Amid the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, Dabbashi helped lead a rebel brigade during the NATO-supported revolt that toppled Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi. When Dabbashi's cousin, Anas, was killed in one clash, the brigade was renamed in his honor.

In the ensuing chaos, criminal and smuggling networks expanded. Human smuggling became the most lucrative.

"It's easy money," said Hussein Dhwadi, Sabratha's mayor. "It's better than trafficking in drugs."

In August 2015, more than 200 migrants drowned off the coast of Zuwahra, 15 miles west of Sabratha. That disaster triggered an angry backlash by locals in Zuwahra, who pushed the smugglers out. Thousands of migrants headed toward Sabratha, generating even more wealth for Dabbashi.

Though Dabbashi was known to smoke and drink whiskey and seldom prayed at the mosque, members of his clan aided or sympathized with the Islamic State, which had by then turned Sabratha into a clandestine haven, according to interviews with local officials, police and tribal leaders. In a report this year, U.N. investigators said the Dabbashi militia had "links with local elements" of the Islamic State.

Neither Dabbashi, who is in hiding, nor a senior member of his militia could be reached either by phone or through messages left on his Facebook page.

After U.S. airstrikes pummeled an Islamic State compound in Sabratha in February 2016, killing scores of militants, tribal and local armed groups rose up to push out the remaining extremists. Dabbashi himself turned forcefully against the Islamic State, a strategic decision to preserve his trafficking. He also nominally aligned himself with the Western-backed government in Tripoli, one of three regimes competing for authority in the country.

"The Dabbashi militia was in control of everything," said Khalid Muhammed Hassan, an influential leader of a rival tribe. "They had money and power."

Dabbashi's fighters manned round-the-clock checkpoints at the entrance and the exits to Sabratha and sometimes demanded bribes. They parked their tanks and trucks at a former Islamic State camp. They also trained there, using an obstacle course with tunnels to crawl through, spiked fences to jump over and climbing ropes.

Anyone deemed a threat to their trade in humans was a target. In April, gunmen followed Jamal Ali to his office. An aid worker, he had worked with the United Nations to expose beatings and sexual assaults against migrants.

"They fired bullets at me," recalled Ali. "But I got out of my car and ran."

Resentment against Dabbashi's militia was on the rise.

"We were against them," Hassan said. "War was inevitable."

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On Mayor Dhwadi's desk at the Sabratha Municipal Council, his wooden nameplate is marred by a pair of bullet holes. In the summer, Dabbashi's gunmen entered the building searching for the mayor, who was out of town.

"It was an aggression not against me but against the whole municipality," Dhwadi said.

Tensions between the militia and the wider community, including local authorities and influential tribal leaders, finally boiled over. When the killing of Dabbashi's cousin touched off a full-blown war, rival tribes and even ordinary citizens picked up arms to fight alongside the Anti-ISIS Fighting Room.

Fierce battles between militiamen armed with Russian-made Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy artillery raged through Sabratha's neighborhoods. Shells pounded the walls of Sabratha's ancient outdoor theater, built by the Romans more than 1,500 years ago. Artillery and rifle fire tore into schools, municipal buildings, hospitals and storefronts.

On Oct. 6, after 19 days of fighting, Dabbashi was ousted from the city.

When the Room captured a tan-and-black military building that had been Dabbashi's operations center, they made a disturbing discovery. There were 15 African migrants locked inside what had become a makeshift jail.

"Some were sick," recalled Sgt. Shaqir Oshash, who now guards the site. "Others couldn't move. They hadn't eaten in a long time."

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Silence now fills the large warehouse that served as the government-run detention center. On the floor are worn-out mattresses, blankets, ragged shoes and empty water bottles - debris left behind by thousands of migrants.

Since Dabbashi's militia was ousted, more than 10,000 migrants have been expelled from Sabratha, local anti-migration officials said. Those who arrive are quickly detained and placed on a bus to detention centers elsewhere in Libya. In Tripoli, many are being put on planes to be deported back to their home countries.

While the battle for Sabratha choked off the flow of migrants bound for Europe, it had already been declining in the months before hostilities broke out.

Italy and the European Union had begun training and equipping the Libyan coast guard, which increased patrols in the summer to intercept and return migrants to Libya, often to face more abuse.

Leading figures in Sabratha provide another explanation for the reduction. They say they believe Dabbashi had received a significant payment from Italy to stop the migrant smuggling trade.

In a telephone interview, Italy's ambassador to Libya, Giuseppe Perrone, disputed that account. "We don't fund militias," he said.

The number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe this year has declined 47 percent from 2016. But more than 170,000 migrants still arrived, and more than 3,000 drowned this year.

Around Sabratha, thrilled residents said prices of food and other goods have gone down because of the sharp reduction in migrants.

On a recent day, uniformed soldiers manned checkpoints, carefully searching vehicles. More residents are driving their cars at night, no longer afraid of drugged-up militia fighters. In an enclave once dominated by Dabbashi, graffiti on a wall reads: "Libya is back. Sabratha is back."

Sabratha's residents said they feel more secure.

"Previously, we couldn't walk at night," said Abdul Hakim Al Mashawat, who lives across the road from the rubble of the ISIS compound destroyed by the U.S. airstrike. "By sunset, we locked ourselves inside. Sometimes, the militiamen can take your car."

But few believe Sabratha's woes are over.

The commanders of the Anti-ISIS Fighting Room said they are getting little assistance from the Tripoli government. At stake, they said, is their control over the city. "We need support," said Col. Ibrahim Majoub. "Otherwise, things could deteriorate at any moment."

The group's allegiances are also in question. Some officers openly express support for Gen. Khalifa Hiftar, a strongman based in eastern Libya who doesn't recognize Tripoli's authority.

Dabbashi, meantime, is sending threats to local authorities and tribal leaders and calling his supporters to stage an uprising, community leaders said. In a Dec. 5 Facebook post, Dabbashi wrote: "We will return to the city during these days with our weapons and force."

African migrants who were trapped in the middle of the street fighting said they now have another journey in mind: After seeing a few bullet-riddled bodies of fellow migrants, Muhammad Amma wants to return to Chad.

"There are too many problems now," he said. "Once I have the money, I will go home."
TOKYO - Donald Trump's inauguration as U.S. president was selected as this year's top international news. Since 1989, The Yomiuri Shimbun has asked its readers to choose the top 10 international news stories of each year, seeking to get a picture of tumultuous global situations from the viewpoint of the public. This year, a total of 11,511 readers voted on this year's top international news, choosing 10 from a list put out by The Yomiuri Shimbun on Dec. 2. Overall, 11,352 people gave valid answers.

1. Trump inaugurated as U.S. president

Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on Jan. 20. Touting a policy of "America First," the business mogul pledged to thoroughly pursue the national interests of the United States, reversing the trend of international cooperation advocated by former U.S. President Barack Obama. Earlier this month, Trump declared he recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, igniting protests from Arab states and others.

(10,785 votes, chosen by 95.0% of respondents)

2. North Korea holds 6th nuclear test, launches more missiles

North Korea significantly advanced its nuclear and missile capabilities this year and conducted its sixth nuclear test on Sept. 3. The Japanese government estimated its explosive yield at about 160 kilotons, or about 10 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Pyongyang also launched the Hwasong-14, its first intercontinental ballistic missile, on July 4, a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile on Sept. 15 and a Hwasong-15 on Nov. 29, claiming the completion of its nuclear forces.

(10,447 votes, 92.0%)

3. Kim Jong Nam murdered

Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and the half-brother by a different mother of Kim Jong Un, was killed in Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13. The lethal nerve agent VX was detected in his body, which suggests Pyongyang's involvement in the murder.

(9,594 votes, 84.5%)

4. Kazuo Ishiguro wins the Nobel Prize in Literature

Kazuo Ishiguro, 63, received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature at an award ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10. Born in Nagasaki, Ishiguro moved to Britain when he was 5 years old. The British novelist won the Man Booker Prize in 1989 for "The Remains of the Day," gaining international acclaim.

(7,335 votes, 64.6%)

5. South Korea's Park ousted by court

South Korea's Constitutional Court on March 10 decided to remove President Park Geun-hye from office after she was impeached by parliament in December last year. She immediately lost her position, becoming South Korea's first president to be ousted by impeachment.

(7,095 votes, 62.5%)

6. Macron elected French president

Pro-European Union centrist Emmanuel Macron won the French presidential runoff on May 7, beating the far-right National Front's Marine Le Pen, who during the election campaign advocated leaving the EU.

(5,945 votes, 52.4%)

7. Britain tells EU it will leave

British Prime Minister Theresa May officially notified the European Union on March 29 that the country will leave the bloc. Negotiations began in June for the Brexit date set for March 2019.

(5,602 votes, 49.3%)

8. Shooting rampage in Las Vegas

A gunman opened fire on an open-air concert in Las Vegas on Oct. 1 from a 32nd-floor hotel room, leaving 58 dead and more than 400 injured.

(5,518 votes, 48.6%)

9. U.S. announces withdrawal from Paris climate accord

U.S. President Donald Trump on June 1 announced he would withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, a global pact to fight climate change.

(4,080 votes, 35.9%)

10. 369 dead in Mexico quake

A magnitude-7.1 earthquake jolted the vicinity of Mexico City on Sept. 19. As of Oct. 4 when the rescue operation was called off, the quake had taken 369 lives.

(4,052 votes, 35.7%)

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Dates reflect local time, and people are identified by the titles they held at the time.
Hunger. While many of us gorged on Christmas ham and holiday chocolate this season, more than 3 million children were at risk of going through the holiday break without access to nutritious foods. But this is not just a holiday hunger  for these children it is every day of the year. With the numerous funded programs available, why are so many of our children still at risk of going hungry?

Unfortunately, that answer is easy. While these funded programs exist, they are not being used by many school districts. Through federal meal programs made available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, most Texas schoolchildren can have access to three meals a day at no cost to them or the district. Over the holiday break, school districts can still offer meals to their neediest students through the Child and Adult Care Food Program, better known as CACFP. Yet very few school districts operated this program over the holidays or during the school year.

According to Children at Risks recently released School Food Rankings, which looked at how well school nutrition departments were serving their most vulnerable students, our local school nutrition departments are some of the best in the state, with seven of the top 10 departments in or around the San Antonio and South Texas area.

The top 10 districts on the School Food Rankings had high participation in school breakfast and school lunch, and all but two of these districts served an after-school meal last school year. With the exception of one district, all the top performing nutrition departments can be found in San Antonio/South Texas or the El Paso area.

Yet there are children who do not have the privilege of attending one of these districts. Instead, these children attend a district that chooses to forgo serving an after-school meal and/or does not utilize best practices when it comes to serving breakfast or the meals they do offer.

Why does it seem to be an uphill battle to get districts to serve meals to their students, especially when the data show how vital a full belly is for children to retain the information they learn in school and achieve academic success?

Understandably, there is hesitation with implementing a new program. It can be difficult for school districts and their nutrition departments to change the status quo. But from years of working with school nutrition departments, we can tell you that the growing pains are worth it. For instance, children who were going home to a bag of chips or a handful of Goldfish crackers now have the option to eat a full meal before leaving school.

Can you imagine eating your last meal of the day at 11:30 a.m.? That is the reality for so many of our schoolchildren, and changing that reality is worth the additional steps it takes to implement an after-school meal program.

Clearly there is work to do. Until all of our districts  locally, across the state and nationally  recognize their part in reducing child hunger, children will continue going without. Children are the future workforce of our state; our future teachers, doctors, accountants and perhaps even a future president. We need to ensure our schools are utilizing every available meal program. If our schools dont, then districts in other states wind up getting our funding. Lets keep the money in our state so that it can benefit Texas children.

Find out if your childs district is doing all it can to feed its students. Ask if an after-school meal program is being served. Ask if breakfast is brought to the classroom for students or served in bags for students to eat on their way to class. If not, ask why. These programs are available to help alleviate hunger, so lets make sure every child in Texas has a bright future. No child should go hungry in our great state.

Dr. Bob Sanborn is the president and CEO of Children at Risk, a Texas-based research and advocacy group. Sanborn is also executive editor of the Journal of Applied Research on Children and the Journal of Family Strengths. Jenny Eyer is director of the Center for Child Health Research and Policy at Children at Risk.
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Amid concerns for the integrity of the site, Longford County Council recently refused to grant planning permission for the installation of a wakeboarding facility in Lanesboro.

John Tully and Paraic Jordan c/o John Lambe Architectural & Engineering Services Ltd, Quay Street, Westport, Mayo, lodged their application for the proposed development with the local authority on December 21 of 2016.

It was proposed that the wakeboarding facility at Commons North, Lanesboro, Co Longford would consist of the erection of two 6 metre high aluminium towers separated from each other by a distance of 194 metres.



The applicants continued, These towers will be supported on base plates which will sit on the river bed and will also be supported by cables tensioned to two concrete anchor blocks laid on the river bed. Wakeboarders will be towed by a tether attached to an electrically operated motor which will be suspended between the two towers. The facility will be serviced by boat from the Ballyleague marina. This application is accompanied by an Environmental Report.

The Planning Department of Longford County Council received a number of submissions in relation to the planned wakeboarding facility, including from An Taisce, Longford Environmental Alliance and Lough Ree Conservation Society.

The submissions raised concern over a lack of detail contained in the planning application in relation to the works required to complete the installation. There were also concerns raised about parking, the facilities required for its operation (ticket office / changing facilities), power supply details and the impacts to both participants and spectators at both the Roscommon and Longford sites adjacent to this facility. The absence of appropriate assessment of the impact of the development under Article 6(3) of the EC Habitats Directive was also raised in the submission.

Outlining the reason for refusal, Longford County Council stated, The applicant has not demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Planning Authority that the proposed development will not have adverse effects on the integrity of a Natura 2000 site namely Lough Ree SAC (Special Area of Conservation) and SPA (Special Protection Areas).

The Planning Authority can only agree to the plan or project after having ascertained that it will not adversely affect the integrity of the site concerned and as such, given, the lack of information submitted, the application in its current state would be contrary to Article 6(3) of the EC Habitats Directive and the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.

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Culture / Art Republik

Phuket Rendezvous is pleased to bring the world-famous Elephant Parade to raise awareness for the need of elephant conservation. Read on to find out more

Dec 29, 2017 | By Andrea Sim

Were just about a week away from the inaugural Thailands Phuket Rendezvous, running from Jan 4-7, 2018. One of the important highlights include the world-famous Elephant Parade taking place at Phuket Rendezvous, which is the shows first.

Activities: Be a part of the Elephant Parade at Phuket Rendezvous 2018

The Elephant Parade will be showcasing 20 life-size and baby elephant models in the exhibition hall. Look out for a host of attractive merchandise and smaller replica models to purchase.

Also, visitors will be able to sign up for a workshop and put their creativity to the test  paint a small replica elephant with help from the professional artists, plus there will also be painting competition on a model elephant for kids.

View from 20 life-size to baby elephant models, the statues are all exhibited throughout the international cities to create awareness to bring back the endangered species from the brink of extinction.

Established by a social enterprise that runs the worlds largest art exhibition of decorated elephant statues, each statue is an artistic creation by artists and celebrities. More than 1,350 artists have participated and over 1,480 elephants have been created; each an original piece of art, according to Elephant Parade.

Amongst some of our artists and supporters are Jack Vettriano, Ronald Ventura, Paul Smith, His Royal Highness Prince Consort of Denmark, Katy Perry, Diane von Furstenberg, the Duchess of York, Karim Rashid, Leona Lewis and Sir Richard Branson.

Phuket Rendezvous Auction

Since the first exhibition was held in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 2007, more than 3,000 people have attended Elephant Parade auction events.

Next year, auction of the statues will take place towards the end of the Phuket Rendezvous, and 30 per cent of the sales revenue will proceed to fund the Elephant welfare and Conservation Projects (view the projects here).

Be a part of it: Lets save the elephants

Each year, about 33,000 African elephants are killed or at least one elephant every 15 minutes, mainly from ivory poaching and human-elephant conflict, have become the biggest issues threatening elephants.

The Elephant Parade reported that there are less than 50,000 Asian elephants left. In the last 100 years, their habitat has shrunk by 95 per cent as poaching activities increased and their population has declined by 70 per cent.

Due to the food-chain in ecology, both plants and animals are dependent on elephants for their own lives. If elephants disappeared, many other species would too.

The Elephant Parade Welfare and Conservation Group

To save the elephants from becoming extinct in the next 30 years, the Elephant Parade Welfare and Conservation projects, whom the organisation is committed to, will help raise funds. The Elephant Parade currently supports eleven projects in eight elephant range countries such as Cambodia, Laos, India, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, providing financial, material and technical assistance.

Now it is your turn to be part of it at the Phuket Rendezvous. For more information, visit www.elephantparade.com.
Style

Designed by the Chopard design teams and the Scheufele family, renowned luxury brand Chopard unveiled its new St Moritz boutique, imbuing a cosy feel and warm atmosphere of a modern chalet

Dec 29, 2017 | By Andrea Sim

Chopard has recently opened a new St Moritz boutique in addition to its existing range of boutiques in new countries, such as Sydney and Melbourne in Australia and Jakarta in Indonesia to bring the latest haute horlogerie and high jewellery creations to the most discerning.

Chopard opens new St Moritz boutique

The new St Moritz boutique by renowned luxury watch-maker and jewellery-maker presents a new concept, embracing style, class and elegance in its design that are specifically intended for mountain boutiques. Helmed by the Chopard design teams and the Scheufele family, Chopard co-president Caroline Scheufele unveiled the new boutique to her client at the official opening that took place in early December.



Step into the new St Moritz boutique, a sense of warmth from the oak wood and natural stones of Vals in the Grisons region overwhelms. Remarkable geometrical shapes and the ancient grooving technique by master artisans in the region can be seen throughout its interior.

The whole idea is to promote a sense of privacy and make visitors feel at ease while browsing around the point of sales. The boutique has been exclusively designed to accommodate the finest high jewellery, watchmaking and accessories.

In addition to getting a new interior design, the boutique has been relocated to Via Da Vout 2  7500 St. Moritz, which lies in heart of the resorts finest shopping street where many international customers visit to discover the latest Happy Hearts, Ice Cube and Mille Miglia collections, along with creations from the Haute Horlogerie and High Jewellery workshops that have forged Chopards worldwide reputation.

By skillfully combining artisan-style techniques, modern technology and a love of art, we wish to offer our customers an authentic experience where they discover the finest creations from our Maison.  Chopard co-president Karl-Friedrich Scheufele

The interior is imbued with the Maison Chopards characteristic warmth to the accompaniment of the best whiskies selected by the Bacchus Cellar, along with the greatest vintages from the Chateau Monestier la Tour, which has belonged to the Scheufele family since 2012.

Caroline Scheufele said: Im delighted with the work we have accomplished. Cooperation between our in-house teams and our family has been extremely productive and we are thrilled with the result.

As Chopard is a family business with its first boutique opened in Hong Kong in 1983 and the brand grew stronger throughout the years, and has established a strong presence on New Yorks legendary Madison Avenue with a flagship boutique that also heralded a new architectural concept dreamed up by famous designer Thierry W. Despont. Since then, Chopard has actively pursued the expansion and renovation of its boutique network.

This new concept also reflects our social and environmental commitments, since we have chosen materials from nearby regions in order to keep our ecological footprint to an absolute minimum. This was a very important factor in the project. We have opted for responsible luxury in our production and this must also apply to our boutiques, said Scheufele.

For more details on Chopard and its exclusive Swiss watches and jewellery, visit www.chopard.com.
Kochi: The misogyny in the Malayalam film Industry took an ugly turn with the producer of the Mammootty starer 'Kasaba' offered a overseas job for the accused in the cyber bullying against actress Parvathy.

In a Face Book post that went viral in social media, producer Joby George asked Printo to meet him and also offered a job in UK or Australia till his death.

Though the police detained Vadakkancherry native Printo, he was later released on bail. During the 'Kasaba row', Joby had earlier called Geethu Mohandas and Parvathy as 'auntie' and offered to screen the movie on their birthday as a birthday gift.
Ukraine raises export of electricity by 34.4% in 11 months

Ukraine in January-November 2017 increased electricity exports by 34.4% (by 1.204 billion kWh) compared to the same period in 2016, to 4.708 billion kWh, the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry has told Interfax-Ukraine.

Energy supplies from the Burshtyn thermal power plant's energy island towards Hungary, Slovakia and Romania increased by 6.9% (by 183.9 million kWh), to 2 849 billion kWh.

Electricity deliveries to Poland decreased by 6.6%, to 780.1 million kWh.

Electricity deliveries to Moldova stood at 1.079 billion kWh against 3.7 million kWh in the eleven months last year.

Ukrainian electricity was not exported to Belarus and Russia in January-November 2016 and 2017.

At the same time, exports of Ukrainian electricity in November 2017 totaled 258.6 million kWh, which is 22.3% (74.3 million kWh) less than in November 2016.

In addition, Ukraine imported 44.4 million kWh of electricity in January-November 2017 (43.3 million kWh from Russia and 1 million kWh from Belarus), compared to 71 million kWh in the eleven months of 2016. The import is accounted under contracts of State Enterprise Energorynok (Energomarket) as in-process shipments.
Enterprises belonging to the state Ukroboronprom Concern in 2017 fully fulfilled the state military order and by 56% the state order for supplying weapons and military gear to the army and the security agencies, Ukroboronprom's press service said on Friday.

According to the press service, Ukraine's Armed Forces, the National Guard of Ukraine and other security agencies in 2017 received 3,673 units of military equipment, of which 2,053 are new and modernized weapons.

Armored fighting vehicles, artillery pieces, anti-tank missile systems, anti-aircraft systems are among weapons supplied. In addition, more than 50 Bulat tanks, several dozen armored personnel carriers (BTR-4 and BTR-3), new missile launchers, electronic warfare gear and high-precision missile systems were supplied.

Ukroboronprom said new weapons systems provided in 2017 included the Korsar anti-tank missile system, with a range of 2.5 km, produced by the state-owned Kyiv-based Luch design engineering bureau, which launched serial production of the system.

"In total, over a dozen weapons and military gear produced by Ukroboronprom have been delivered this year alone," the press service said.

More than 130 state-owned enterprises in the military industrial complex are part of Ukroboronprom, which was created by a presidential decree in 2010, including Ukrspecexsport and its subsidiaries. Pursuant to a law adopted by parliament in 2011, Ukroboronprom together with Ukraine's government is entrusted with managing military industrial entities belonging to the state.
Each of these items gives us clues to what the future of manufacturing might look like.

by Erin Winick

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609634/the-five-most-amazing-things-that-were-3-d-printed-this-year/?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&utm_campaign=818c198b2c-weekly_roundup_2017-12-28_edit&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_997ed6f472-818c198b2c-153904269&goal=0_997ed6f472-818c198b2c-153904269&mc_cid=818c198b2c&mc_eid=4d778a166c
The Mountain States reintroduced elk herd has survived its first year on the grassy habitat of old strip mines. Hunters and businesspeople look forward to the day when the animals numbers are sufficient to allow West Virginians to hunt elk there for the first time in more than 150 years.

By Andrew Moore
As a serial clean technology entrepreneur, I strive to offer my expertise to Boise-based startups. Ive had many mentors in my life, so its an honor to save the next person some trouble as they navigate the all-consuming work of starting a company. Two of the challenges I hear most often from Idaho entrepreneurs is that their companies struggle to gain national exposure and to earn respect from the major players in Silicon Valley and larger tech hubs.

BY LEIF ELGETHUN

http://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article191802829.html
Ukraine's Interdepartmental Commission for International Trade has initiated an anti-dumping investigation into imports of general-purpose incandescent light bulbs from Belarus to Ukraine.

Ukraine's largest light bulb producer, Lviv-based PrJSC Iskra plant lodged a respective complaint with the Commission, an announcement in the government's Uriadovy Kurier newspaper said on Friday.

Iskra says that the share of imports from Belarus in relation to Iskra's production in 2015, 2016, and a combined period of the second quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017 decreased by 13% and increased by 63% and 113% compared to 2014, respectively. However, the plant's production decreased by 18%, 27% and 45%, and production capacity by 5%, 15% and 15%, respectively.

In addition, the applicant's sales in the domestic market fell by 4%, 20% and 22%, respectively; while the selling price decreased by 20%, 24% and 24% and sales revenue shrank by 61%, 1% and 40%, respectively.

Iskra also announced a decrease in profitability by 72%, 49% and 79%, respectively, and a decrease in the average number of the employment by 6%, 15% and 21%, respectively.

According to the announcement, the investigation concerns general-purpose incandescent light bulbs with wattage of no more than 200 watts and voltage exceeding 100 volts (code 8539 22 90 10 under the Ukrainian classifier of goods UKT VED ) that originate from Belarus.

The Commission's decision of December 28, 2017, shall come into force from the date of its publication.

The Iskra plant produces light bulbs, quartz-halogen lamps, floodlights, mini and car lamps, compact florescent tubes, and sodium and mercury lamps. It also offers incandescent lamps, lighters, headlight lamps, and bulbs and glass pipes. The company operates in Ukrainian and internationally.
Electricity production in the united energy system of Ukraine in January-November 2017 increased by 1.1% compared to the same period in 2016, to 140.603 billion kWh, the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry has told Interfax-Ukraine.

Nuclear power plants (NPP) increased electricity generation by 7.1% over the 11 months, to 77.871 billion kWh. In particular, electricity production at Zaporizhia NPP amounted to 31.261 billion kWh (15.3% up compared to January-November 2016), Yuzhnoukrainsk NPP to 15.662 billion kWh (2.2% down), Rivne NPP to 18.320 billion kWh (13.2% up), and Khmelnytsky NPP to 12.629 billion kWh (6.1% down).

Thermal power plants (TPPs), as well as combined heat and power plants (CHPP) and cogeneration plants reduced output by 8.7%, to 50.288 billion kWh. In particular, the generating companies of TPPs reduced production by 9.3%, to 40.860 billion kWh, while CHPP and cogeneration plants by 6%, to 9.428 billion kWh.

Hydroelectric power plants and pumped storage hydroelectric power plants in January-November 2017 increased production by 10.4%, to 9.328 billion kWh, while block stations reduced production by 1.1%, to 1.372 billion kWh.

Electricity production by non-traditional sources (wind power, solar plants, biomass) for the indicated period increased by 21.7%, to 1.744 billion kWh.
State-owned Production Association Pivdenny (Yuzhny) Machine-Building Plant named after Makarov (Pivdenmash) based in Dnipro, one of the leading Ukrainian producers of space rocket equipment, is developing cooperation in rocket production with southeastern Asian countries, including South Korea and India.

A source among leaders of the concern told the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency that today Pivdenmash is fulfilling contracts signed in 2016 on rocket engine with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, KARI and preparing to expand the partnership.

"Work with KARI is being conducted in two areas  the production of turbo pump units and model valves for the RD-8 engine, as well as preparation of spherical tanks with capacity of 130 and 25 liters. In 2017 we signed one more contract for spherical tank production," he said, adding, "The experience of successful cooperation was the reason our South Korean partners wanted to broaden cooperation. Today we are conducting talks about signing another contract for the production of a rocket engine tank, as well as a contract for making elements of a liquid rocket engine for the South Korean rocket engine KSLV-II."

In addition, the source said Pivdenmash is also involved in a rocket project with the Indian organization of space studies ISRO.

"We signed a contract with ISRO for conducting through 2019 fire tests of Indian liquid rocket engines at the Pivdenmash testing grounds. The first stage of the contract has been successfully fulfilled.

The source said expanding cooperation in the area of creating space rockets with southeastern Asian countries is viewed as one of the areas of the Pivdenmash diversification production program, which is being conducted in conditions following the disruption of traditional cooperation with Russia.

Pivdenmash is one of the key enterprises of the space engine industry of Ukraine, known internationally as the producer of rocket engines and satellites used for civilian, scientific and military use. As a result of the disruption of traditional cooperation with Russia due to its annexation of Crimea and invasion of Donbas, for three years production capacity at the enterprise has dropped 50% and is practically at a standstill.

As of today Pivdenmash within the framework of cooperation with the U.S. produces the first stage of a new medium class rocket Antares for delivering equipment to the International Space Station under contract with NASA. Ukraine is currently in talks with the U.S. on organizing cooperation in the sphere of rocket production in a project to create rocket engines to replace the Russian RD-180 for the new generation of U.S. Air Force rocket engines.
The top five miscellaneous or offbeat stories of 2017 in McDowell

Editors note: This is the fourth in a five part series looking back at the top five stories in cops and courts; government and civic affairs; education; miscellaneous and offbeat; and events and happenings.

30-year-old KFC coupon honored at local chain restaurant

A Marion man who held onto a KFC coupon since 1986 was pleasantly surprised when a McDowell store let him redeem it. Paul Boyd, of Marion, had the coupon in his wallet for 30 years, and said it had become a conversation piece. It was valued at $2.59 for a three-piece meal on any Tuesday. The expiration date was Dec. 31, 1986. On this date 30 years later, Boyd decided to try and use it at Marions KFC on N.C. 226. The restaurant accepted the coupon saying, We always are going to honor any (KFC) coupon that comes across our path. A similar three-piece meal today costs around $8.50.

McDowell County embraces mythical creature, announces festival

Since 2014, a small but dedicated group of investigators called Bigfoot 911 have trekked through the woods of McDowell County in search of the mythical creature Bigfoot. The group has received national attention after starting a Facebook page where they and others share their experiences. The city of Marion has even embraced the concept, and have approved a Bigfoot Festival scheduled for next year in downtown Marion. The group is led by Marion local John Bruner, who said they have documented extensive evidence that Bigfoot exists in McDowell County, particularly around Lake James. Even with all the skepticism surrounding the groups efforts, many supporters have come forward to share their own stories. To learn more, visit Bigfoot 911 on Facebook.

Former NC governor and wife buy home in McDowell County

Pat McCrory and his wife Ann purchased a 2,800 square-foot home on Lake James in McDowell County on Aug. 18. The home was sold at $650,000, and is located on Lentz Landing Lane in the Waterglyn Subdivision. The tax value on the home is $410,970, according to property records. McCrory was governor from 2013 to 2017, but lost to his Democratic opponent Roy Cooper during the 2016 election. McCrory won McDowell County, however, with 66.43 percent of the vote.

Mission Health Systems, Blue Cross Blue Shield reach agreement

Thousands of western North Carolina residents lost in-network coverage at all Mission Health Systems on Oct. 5 during a months-long contract dispute with Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. The ongoing feud even prompted the McDowell County Commissioners to request a representative from both sides to speak at one of their monthly board meetings since it affected many McDowell County residents. However, exactly two months later on Dec. 5, both companies announced they had reached an agreement and in-network coverage would be reinstated on Dec. 15. A news release from the December announcement said, Both parties are pleased to reach an agreement on the mutual goal of ensuring that the people of western North Carolina receive the affordable, quality health care that they need.

Marion natives film added to Library of Congress

Marion native Barbara Lodens 1970 film Wanda was selected in December to join the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Loden wrote, directed and starred in the film on a budget of $115,000. Wanda is described by the Library of Congress as an affecting and insightful character study about an uneducated, passive woman from the coal-mining region of Pennsylvania. Films chosen for the eclectic honor are picked for their cultural, historical and/or aesthetic importance. Wanda was just one of 25 highly-acclaimed films to be selected, including Titanic, Die Hard, The Goonies and Superman, to name a few. Loden was born in Marion in 1932 and was raised on Sugar Hill Road. As a teen, she left the countryside for the bright lights of New York City to become an actress.
Metinvest B.V. (the Netherlands), the parent company of Metinvest mining and metallurgical group, has announced that Spartan UK rolling mill (Britain) had received a renewable line of trade funding in the amount of GBP15 million.

According to a company press release, the credit line is provided by Bank of London and the Middle East (BLME), the largest Islamic bank in Europe, with an initial term of 12 months and the possibility of its prolongation.

According Director for Trade Finance at BLME Chris Edwards, trade financing, consistent with the norms of the Sharia Islamic law, is not fully represented in the European market.

"Therefore, we are happy to use our unique position in London and the Gulf to work with Metinvest within this credit line," the banker said.

Metinvest CEO Yuriy Ryzhenkov, in turn, added that this is the first trade financing received by the British asset of the group in recent years, as well as the first Islamic financing for the company.

The main shareholders of Metinvest are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart-Holding (23.76%), jointly managing the company.

Metinvest Holding is the managing company of Metinvest Group
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has presented certificates for free housing to seven orphans from Odesa region.

According to an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent, the ceremony to present housing certificates was held in the village of Mayaky, Biliaivka district, Odesa region, on Thursday, December 28.

Before that, the head of state informed residents of the village about successes in the sphere of decentralization and prospects for the development of medicine, including in rural areas in Ukraine.

"I have just signed the law on rural medicine, and we will get a radical improvement of medical services in rural areas and district centers. Thanks to telemedicine, medical services will appear where they were not available before," Poroshenko said, adding that paramedical centers in populated localities will receive modern diagnostic equipment that will help improve the general situation with health of the population.
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An electronic nose (e-nose) is a device that identifies the specific components of an odor and analyzes its chemical makeup to identify it. An electronic nose consists of a mechanism for chemical detection, such as an array of electronic sensors, and a mechanism for pattern recognition, such as a neural network.Electronic noses have been around for several years but have typically been large and expensive. Current research is focused on making the devices smaller, less expensive, and more sensitive. The smallest version, a nose-on-a-chip is a single computer chip containing both the sensors and the processing components.The nose can detect volatile organic compounds which act as diagnostic markers or to reveal the intensity level of the disease's activity."Volatile organic compounds are created by physiological processes of the human body's metabolism and are expelled as waste through feces," said Pilar Nos, Head of the Digestive System Medicine Department at La Fe Health Investigation Institute in Spain.The concentration of these components can be a differentiating marker between certain bowel diseases and their accurate detection by way of non-invasive devices such as the electronic nose would be a great step forward for the detection and monitoring of the evolution of these diseases.The system is being tested for further medical uses, such as detecting prostate cancer. Other studies, with positive results, are also being performed such as detecting the microbial contamination of water or determining the maturity level of fruit, which could have key applications within the agro-food industry.In the future this type of equipment could be available for digestive system specialists who could, thanks to a simple stool analysis which takes three minutes, determine the state of the patient, according to researchers from Valencia's Polytechnic University in Spain.Source: Medindia
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A major 10 million study, Golden Hour aims at improving outcomes for patients by developing the understanding of what happens to the immune system within the first 60 minutes from the moment of traumatic injury - a crucial time in which prompt medical treatment is key to survival.Major David Naumann, a research fellow at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine and the University of Birmingham, said: "When someone is very seriously injured, for example in a car crash, the body sometimes behaves as if there is a massive infection that it needs to fight, even when none is present."When this happens, the immune system can cause the patient to deteriorate rapidly and could even cause their organs to fail."Dr Jon Hazeldine, of the University of Birmingham, continues: "One of the things that may be to blame for this process is endotheliopathy which occurs when the lining of blood vessels is damaged."Prior to our study, it was not known when this process happens after injury, or whether having endotheliopathy within an hour of injury might lead to organ failure later on in hospital."Professor Janet Lord, of the University of Birmingham, says: "We found that the damage to the lining of the blood vessels happens within minutes of injury, even before an ambulance has arrived, which has never been shown before."We also found that if the lining of the blood vessels improves in the following few hours that patients have lower rates of organ failure."Professor Tony Belli, also of the University of Birmingham, adds: "Our research has identified a potential target for treatment, to heal the damaged blood vessels, which could be administered by ambulance and helicopter crews on arrival at the scene of injury and improve outcomes for injured patients."As part of our ongoing Golden Hour study we have several ongoing studies examining the causes of endotheliopathy and which treatments may best be used to treat it."Key to the research was an around-the-clock blood sampling and analysis operation working in collaboration with West Midlands Ambulance Service and Midlands Air Ambulance, which has seen paramedics being specially trained to take blood samples from patients at the scene of major traumas.The observational study used the blood samples taken from 91 seriously injured patients at the scene of a major trauma. Of the 91 patients, who had an average age of 38, 78 were male and 13 were female. Around 19 non-injured individuals were also used as a healthy control. Biomarkers were used to detect endiotheliopathy within the blood. Endiotheliopathy was found to occur five to eight minutes after injury.Source: Eurekalert
Militants have fired at the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces six times over the past 24 hours, wounding one serviceman, the press center of the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) headquarters has reported.

"Over the past 24 hours, Russian occupation troops have carried out six targeted shelling attacks against the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. All ceasefire violations were recorded in the Donetsk sector. Ukrainian servicemen did not return fire. One ATO soldier was wounded as a result of enemy fire. He was taken to a medical institution and given the necessary medical assistance," the ATO HQ's press center said in a statement posted on its Facebook page early on Friday.

In the Mariupol sector, militants fired from 82mm mortars and infantry weapons at Ukrainian positions in Pavlopil and Talakivka. They also used small arms on the outskirts of Krasnohorivka. An enemy sniper was active near this town, firing at the fortified positions of the Ukrainian army. The enemy used grenade launchers and light infantry weapons near Verkhniotoretske, as well as heavy machine guns and small arms near the Butivka mine.

Ceasefire violations were not recorded in other sections at the front.

The ATO HQ reported that militants had intensified air reconnaissance using unmanned aerial vehicles that are banned by the Minsk agreements. An enemy drone was spotted in the area of the Svitlodarsk Bulge. At around 22.00, Ukrainian servicemen shot down a Russian Orlan-10-type UAV near Kurdiumivka. An operation is now under way to find the remaining parts of the drone.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov plans in 2018 to complete the changes in the criminal police and create a new state system of helicopter rescue service.

"As a minister, I have a lot of specific tasks in 2018: from changes in the criminal police and a full, 100% implementation of the service center doctrine instead of interregional registration and examination department of the State Road Safety Inspectorate - to the creation (this is an innovation) of the new state helicopter rescue and emergency response system," the minister said to the weekly 'Mirror of the Week. Ukraine' answering the question "What is the main task to be solved in the next 12 months? What kind of miracle do we expect from the Year of the Dog?"

As for the miracle in the new year, the interior minister described it like this: "I turn on the TV, and there the president of my country speaks with New Year's address and speaks about the need for constitutional changes and removal of the dualism of power as a basis for management dysfunction and corruption risks ... I would like such a miracle."

Avakov said that before the presidential and parliamentary elections due to be held in Ukraine in 2019, "the window of opportunities and sound strategies will have been closed."

"While we have time, it is important not to miss the chance and implement the realistic possible strategies for the country's development - by consolidating the Ukrainian super activists and the Ukrainian elite. One cannot waste the chance for personal projects and ambitions once again. We would like everyone in his place to do what he should, no matter how hard it is," the minister said.
Power supply has been completely restored in the front-line settlements of Travneve and Hladosove, the press center of the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) headquarters has reported.

"On December 28, in cooperation with local authorities, close coordination of the group on civil and military cooperation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, workers of DTEK Donetskoblenergo and the State Service for Emergency Situations of Ukraine finally connected the front-line settlements of Travneve and Hladosove to power supply," the press center reported on Facebook late on Thursday, December 28.

The report notes that representatives of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission were present during repair and restoration works.

The headquarters also said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces fully support and help the civilian population, restoring the social infrastructure and private houses that were damaged as a result of shelling by militants.
Verkhovna Rada First Deputy Speaker Iryna Gerashchenko, who represents Ukraine in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group, has said, citing medical data, that 24 servicemen released from certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions are currently undergoing rehabilitation at a military hospital, and 41 more people at a hospital of the State Affairs Department.

"The heads of medical institutions informed me that to date 24 ex-hostage servicemen are undergoing medical examination and rehabilitation at a military hospital, and 41 more (among them civilians and military) are at a hospital of the State Affairs Department," she wrote on her Facebook page in Friday.

According to Gerashchenko, all will be provided with the necessary medical assistance, in particular, dental services.

In addition, she recalled that the Ukrainian Social Policy Ministry was working on all technical details, and in the near future, those released from captivity would receive one-time cash assistance.

"A team of psychologists led by Vadym Svyrydenko is also actively working with those liberated and their families," Gerashchenko added.

"Meanwhile, we are working to implement the second stage of the release as soon as possible," she said.

As reported, 74 Ukrainians held in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions were released on December 27.

Early on December 28, the main military clinical hospital in Kyiv received 24 Ukrainian soldiers released from occupied Donbas.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed decrees that envisage the liquidation of local courts and the creation of district courts.

"I have signed decrees on the liquidation and creation of local courts in Ukraine, and I call on lawyers and scientists to actively participate in competitions for the posts of judges," he wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.
The end of 2017, a really tough year, is near and a brand new year is on its way!

Santas big trip went well, the reindeer managed to pull their way through all the snow, sleet, fog and tropic heat to deliver gifts where they were expected.

The pretty, twinkling trees in living rooms everywhere did the job of presenting flashing colors in all directions. For some, the great scent of fresh cut pine was an added treat. The big, small, fresh or synthetic trees sure looked inviting with all the gifts gathered around it.

Ive learned that winter has visited Huron County and is making roads slippery and traveling for the New Year could be a problem. The snow is welcomed by many, however, who enjoy hitting the ski trails and sliding down hills on toboggans. Some of the ponds will freeze and the new ice skates Santa dropped off will be laced up and tried out.

If temperatures stay cold; scarfs, earmuffs, boots and gloves will be kept handy. After playing outside with the new winter toys, hot chocolate will be sipped by a fireplace if a family is lucky to have one. Of course, hot chocolate can be enjoyed just about anywhere after being out in the cold. I remember when my kids were youngsters and we would jump on the snowmobiles and ride the trails. After a long ride, it was time to pick a nice stop in a clearing. We would all gather around and build a fire and boil hot dogs in Styrofoam cups. I still wonder to this day how that worked, but it did. We made sure to bring along thermoses of hot chocolate for the kids and coffee for the adults. Sometimes we would add a nip or two to make that coffee go down better.

As I reviewed my copy of the paper online, I was pleased to learn that many joint efforts among generous groups provided reasons to make the holidays brighter for many. Toys for Tots Im sure put smiles on the faces of those less fortunate. The youngsters receiving gifts provided the biggest smiles. I, like many others, know if you come upon a young person with a big, happy smile it is impossible to look them in the face without returning the smile. So kids and adults alike were grinning and perhaps laughing out loud as deliveries were made.

I began the New Year of 2017 with a new family member; Rayland Scott, arrived out in Arizona on New Years Day. I have become well acquainted with happy faces  almost daily I get a picture of him online to brighten my day. As much as I grumble about the electronics, they sure are welcome when it comes to sending images cross country.

Our extended family has been growing by leaps and bounds so there are many other happy faces joining in. It is just great to know our clan is expanding and will march through the next century. We are proud and so pleased that in spite of world events being indeed troublesome, our family is confident of the future.

As the New Year approached, we received news that we would welcome another man in our immediate family in the spring, Nathanial Harner in Ocoee, Florida. With the great-grandsons spread from coast to coast, how will we ever keep up with all the photos coming in daily? I will surly try and hope the experience never ends.

Happy New Year 2018. I hope you all enjoy health, happiness and prosperity.

Capt. Fred Davis is a long-time columnist and author of "As I See It" columns in the Huron Daily Tribune.
Editor's note: The Huron Daily Tribune started running the Top 10 stories of 2017. Here is No. 1...

HURON COUNTY  2017 may prove to be a turning point for wind energy development in Huron County.

After residents and officials spent several years debating whether or not wind turbines are good for the county, voters turned down additional development in Sherman, Sigel, Sand Beach, Lincoln, Dwight and Bloomfield townships in May.

The referendums for wind energy overlay zones proposed by NextEra Energy Resources and DTE Energy failed in county-zoned municipalities by a 2 to 1 margin.

A majority of the turbines from those two developments would have been in Sherman and Lincoln townships.

Both of those townships voted this year to take zoning back from the county by creating their own planning commissions.

Huron County ended the year with 472 turbines standing, and still has more of the structures than any county in the state.

There are no current wind development proposals in the county, and there is a moratorium on wind development.

It is not clear, however, whether we've seen the end of wind development in county-zoned municipalities.

Officials do not rule out that the state may someday mandate further wind energy production in the county, as Michigan heads for a required 15 percent renewable standard in coming years.
HARTFORD  It look less than five minutes for the Connecticut General Assembly to announce Friday that it will return next week to find $54 million to restore funding for the Medicare Savings Program.

A handful of lawmakers gathered in the House and the Senate Friday to essentially agree to return next week to deal with the situation.

The program changes adopted as part of the budget signed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy on Oct. 31 would have reduced or eliminated benefits for more than 113,000 elderly and disabled in the state.

The House has agreed to return Thursday to address the issue and the Senate is expected to return either Jan. 4 or Jan. 5.

The short session comes a day after Office of Policy and Management Secretary Ben Barnes scolded lawmakers for proposing what he speculated could be imaginary savings.

He said he has no specific details of how they plan to close the $54 million gap created by restoring the benefits there are indications that the legislature will try to close the gap with additional lapses in overtime and in Other Expenses, the budget line item in each agency that is used for a variety of non-personnel activities including IT, professional services, supplies, vehicles, property maintenance and leasing, and direct program costs.

Barnes warned that the replacement cuts or revenue increases have to be real in order to avoid putting the state further into deficit.

Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, who wasnt at the Capitol Friday, said Barnes memo is a lot of words from someone who is desperately trying to be relevant.

He said the speculations Barnes made in the memo about the savings are false.

Senate President Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said the memo from Barnes was pegged to a prior approach we had contemplated.

This story has been modified from its original version. Read more at ctnewsjunkie.com.
The day after Christmas begins another frenzy, the returning and exchanging of gifts, scouting stores for huge after-Christmas sales and of course, the preparation for New Years Eve celebrations. For those who celebrate in the comfort of their homes or host a home party, the menu is at the forefront. If you are looking for some bite-size finger food that looks sophisticated but easy to prepare, look no further.

Displays of Athens Mini Fillo Cups on display in several supermarkets caught my attention. Filo, also spelled phyllo, means leaf in Greek, and it consists of flaky sheets of paper-thin pastry. Phyllo is one component of a recipe that might not be worth the time and energy to make, especially when there is a quality product available. Common recipes using phyllo are baklava and spanakopita (spinach pie).

I did a bit of research and learned that Athens Foods, founded in 1958, is the worlds largest producer of phyllo dough products. They produce 85 percent of this type of dough in the United States.

Curiosity led me to prepare a few recipes using the mini cups. Whether used right out of the box or heated and served warm, they add a sophisticated and elegant presentation and crispy texture to appetizers, snacks and desserts. One simple and delicious shell with endless possibilities. Perfect for your New Years gathering.

More Information CULINARY CALENDAR Jonathan Edwards Winery Dinner: Jan. 10, 6 p.m., Shell & Bones, 100 South Water St., New Haven, 203-787-3466 $100 includes tax, gratuity and a gift from the winery.. Reservations are required. For menu and pairings visit http://bit.ly/2DwDist Consiglio's Cooking Demonstration and Dinner: Jan. 10, 6:30 p.m., Consiglio's Restaurant, 165 Wooster St., New Haven, 203-865-4489 (reservations required), $65 (beverages, tax and gratuity not included). Preparation of a four-course meal is demonstrated. Each course is shown, step-by-step, and then served. Learn how to make some of Consiglio's trademark dishes: Spicy Tuscan Shrimp, Iceberg Wedge with Gorgonzola and Pancetta, Homemade Four Cheese Ravioli with Meat Sauce, Almond Amaretto Cake. Date Night, Cast Iron Cooking Class: Jan. 13, 6:30 p.m., Chef's Emporium, 449 Boston Post Road, Orange, 203-799-2665, $75. Invite a special someone to join you for a fun night out. If you have never tried cooking with cast iron or if you just want some useful tips, then this class is for you. Cast iron cookware is one of the most versatile, and can easily withstand a beating in the kitchen from repeated use. You and your date will also learn the tips to cleaning and caring for your cast iron pan properly. If you don't have a cast iron pan, then you will want one by the end of this class! Bring a bottle of wine or your favorite beverage with you to this class. One Pan Crispy Chicken Legs with Brussel Sprouts, Pumpkin Pecan Skillet Cake with Salted Butterscotch Glaze. Tickets at http://bit.ly/2kH7hWM Consiglio's Murder Mystery Dinner - "... Or Not to Be" Jan. 19, doors at 6 p.m., dinner and show at 7, Consiglio's Restaurant, 165 Wooster St., New Haven, reservations at 203-865-4489, http://bit.ly/2cyB02Y. $55 includes dinner and show (beverages, tax and gratuity not included). An interactive comedy show that goes on as you dig into a three-course dinner. See More Collapse

Best wishes for a happy, healthy and food-filled New Year. I look forward to another year of sharing my passion for food with you.

Power Phyllo Bites

3/4 cup instant or rolled oats

1/3 cup Yumbutter Almond butter

3 tablespoons dark chocolate, chopped

2 tablespoons hemp seeds

2 packages (15 count, each) Athens Mini Fillo Shells

30 dried cranberries, for garnish

In a medium bowl, thoroughly combine oats, Yumbutter, honey, chocolate and hemp seeds. Form mixture into 30 small balls. Press each gently into mini fillo shells. Garnish with dried cranberries. Serve at room temperature. For added crispness, preheat oven to 350F. Place empty shells on a baking sheet and bake for 3-5 minutes. Cool and fill. In just a few minutes, this easy energy snack is perfect, providing extra energy as you prepare for your guests. They contain healthy and delicious super foods. I couldnt eat just one.

Champagne Phyllo Toast

2 packages (15 count, each) Mini Fillo Shells

1 cup heavy cream

4 egg yolks

1/4 cup sugar

1 2/3 cups champagne, divided (1 1/2 cups + 3 tablespoons)

2 1/2 teaspoons powdered gelatin

1 pinch salt

15 raspberries, cut in half

Preheat oven to 350F. Place empty shells on a baking sheet and bake for 3-5 minutes. Cool. In a medium chilled bowl, whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Fill a medium pot 1/3 with water and bring to a simmer. In a small metal bowl, whisk together egg yolks and sugar until combined and light in color. Add 1 1/2 cups champagne and whisk to combine. Place the bowl with the egg mixture on top of the simmering water. Whisk continuously until the mixture thickens and foam subsides. Remove from heat and whisk for 2 minutes as the mixture continues to thicken. Set aside. Pour remaining 3 tablespoons champagne in a microwave safe bowl, sprinkle with gelatin and let sit until absorbed. Once absorbed, microwave for 10 seconds or until gelatin has dissolved. Whisk the gelatin into the egg mixture. Add salt. Gently fold in whipped cream. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes or until firm enough to pipe. Pipe into each shell and top with a raspberry half. This recipe is sure to be all the buzz at your New Years Eve gathering.

Santa in a Phyllo Sleigh

Kids will have fun helping you make these.

2 packages (15 count, each) Mini Fillo Shells

1  cups sweetened coconut flakes, divided

1 cup confectioners sugar

1/2 cup slivered almonds, chopped

1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

30 small candy eyes

15 medium strawberries

30 candy canes

1 tub (16 ounces) vanilla cake frosting

Preheat oven to 350F. Place empty shells on a baking sheet and bake for 3-5 minutes. Cool. In a medium mixing bowl, combine 1 cup of the coconut, confectioners sugar and almonds. Add sweetened condensed milk and vanilla extract, mixing well. Roll the mixture into 15 balls approximately 3/4-1 in diameter. Roll balls in the remaining coconut. Place 2 candy eyes on each ball and squeeze the area between the eyes to sculpt a nose. Hull the strawberries, cut off the tips and set tips aside to be used as hats. Place a strawberry into each of the 15 shells, hulled side up. Gently press the coconut balls onto each. As you press, pull a little of the coconut down to the front of the strawberry to represent a beard. Press strawberry hats on top. Pipe a small amount of cake frosting onto each as a pom pom.

On a plate, pipe two rows of cake frosting approximately 3/4-1 apart and fill in the area between with more frosting. (This will be the glue that will hold the sleigh together.) Press 1 candy cane into each line of frosting. Set the Santa in between the canes towards the front. Place another empty shell behind it to form the back of the sleigh

 Candy eyes can be purchased at most grocery, craft and baking supply stores.

Peppermint Christmas Tree Mini Shells

2 packages (15 count, each) Mini Fillo Shells

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

2/3 cup marshmallow cream

1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract

1 cup whipped topping

4 drops green food coloring

Preheat oven to 350F. Place empty shells on a baking sheet and bake for 3-5 minutes. Cool. In a medium bowl, whip the cream cheese, marshmallow cream and peppermint extract. Fold in whipped topping and food coloring. Pipe filling into the shells using a round pastry tip.

Garnish trees with candy stars, rainbow nonpareils or sprinkles.

Brie & Fig Tartlets

1 4-ounce package sliced prosciutto

1 13 ounce wheel of brie cheese, rind removed, cut into  inch cubes

2 packages (15 count) mini fillo shells

10 ounce jar fig preserves

In a large pan over medium heat, or on a baking sheet in a preheated 375 degree oven, crisp prosciutto. Place on paper towels to cool. Once the prosciutto is cooled, cut it into small pieces. Place one cube of brie into each shell. Spoon a teaspoon of fig preserves over the brie. Bake shell in preheated 375 degree oven for 8-10 minutes until brie is melted. Remove shells from oven and garnish each shell with small pieces of crisp prosciutto.

Tips: substitute prosciutto with raspberries, apples, blueberries or pomegranate. Fig preserves can be substituted with apple butter, pumpkin butter, marmalade. Garnish with pistachios, walnuts, pecans or almonds.

Shrimp Cocktail

A new twist on an old favorite, and so easy.

1 box mini fillo shells

Cocktail sauce

15 medium cooked shrimp

Fresh dill for garnish

Spoon 1 teaspoon of cocktail sauce into each shell, add one cooked shrimp (tail up and garnish with a sprig of dill.

Send us your requests: Which restaurant recipes or other recipes would you like to have? Which food products are you having difficulty finding? Do you have cooking questions? Send them to me.

Contact Stephen Fries, professor and coordinator of the Hospitality Management Programs at Gateway Community College, at gw-stephen.fries@gwcc.

commnet.edu or Dept. FC, Gateway Community College, 20 Church St., New Haven, 06510. Include your full name, address and phone number. Due to volume, he might not be able to publish every request. For more, go to stephenfries.com
Human rights activists, together with the Ukrainian Justice Ministry and the Education and Science Ministry, will prepare a national education program in the field of human rights to raise awareness and create conditions for effective human rights education in the system of secondary and higher education in Ukraine.

"Today we are talking about the fact that representatives of the state and civil society came together to work out a nationwide program for human rights education, which we really need... We have already created a working group, and we hope that at the beginning of next year we will be able to show a draft of such a program for discussion," the head of the educational department of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, Serhiy Burov, said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.

According to him, Ukraine now needs highly-skilled personnel in the field of education who can teach law, and there is a distortion of information about human rights.

Burov added that the program would cover five areas, in particular, the inclusion in the normative-legal acts of the state of relevant references to human rights, the implementation of programs with the priority of human rights, including in the sphere of education, the training of teachers, professors in the field of law, and technical maintenance of the education process.

"We see and summarize the information requested by people on their legal issues. It is clear that the population has a big problem in the field of law... At the same time, together with the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, we are starting work on developing the program," Acting Head of the Department for Informing the Population and Reforming the Legal Education at the Ukrainian Justice Ministry Oksana Yukhta said.

According to her, a memorandum on cooperation in the field of human rights will also be signed between the parties.
Harold Wimberly, an intervention specialist at Scarlett Middle School, talks with students in between classes on Friday, September 29, 2017. Matt Weigand | The Ann Arbor News

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Recruiting a diverse workforce

By Lauren Slagter | lslagter@mlive.com

For at least the past four years, the racial and ethnic demographics of Ann Arbor Public Schools staff has remained largely unchanged. About 80 percent of the teachers and professional school staff are white, compared to around 50 percent of the student population.

Ideally, the demographics of school staff would mirror the diversity of the student body and the broader community, said Superintendent Jeanice Swift, during the district's annual staffing and recruitment report at a board of education meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 20.

"We recognize that diversity is our strength, and we hold closely the importance and the priority of having the absolute best quality individuals and ensuring that our workforce is diverse, and richly diverse," Swift said. "We know the importance for a child that they see someone at school and in all kinds of roles around them, that they see folks who look like them."

Keep reading to see how the racial makeup of AAPS staff compares to the student body and what the school district is planning to do to recruit more minority staff.

From 2015: With 81% of professional staff white, Ann Arbor Schools looks to hire more minorities

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Graphic courtesy of AAPS

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African American representation in AAPS staff

As of the Dec. 20 school board meeting, Ann Arbor Public Schools employs more than 2,000 people, including:

1,411 teachers and professional school staff like counselors, social workers, speech therapists, school nurses and others;

548 paraeducators and other support staff like office professionals, community assistants, rec & ed coordinators and technical support staff;

32 school principals;

65 building leaders like assistant principals, class principals, deans, assistant deans and athletic directors; and

35 central leaders like the superintendent, cabinet, directors, assistant directors and coordinators.

About 14 percent of AAPS students identify as African American, compared to 10 percent of teachers and professional staff, 28 percent of para-educators and other support staff, 31 percent of school principals, 31 percent of building leaders and 37 percent of central leaders.

Shonta Langford, executive director of human resources and employee relations, said relatively few African Americans pursue a career in education.

"Minorities are really just not going into the field - African Americans in particular," Langford said. "Every year, the statistics and the data shows there are less minorities going into education."

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Graphic from federal Title II data on the number of people enrolled in Michigan teacher preparation programs in the 2014-15 academic year.

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Trends in teacher prep enrollment

The most recent federal data - from the 2014-15 school year - shows a total of 3,650 people completed teacher preparation programs in Michigan that year, which is about an 18 percent decline from the number of Michiganders completing teacher prep programs in the 2012-13 academic year.

Total enrollment in teacher preparation programs in Michigan dropped by about 23 percent over those same years, according to Title II data.

Of the 11,099 people enrolled in Michigan teacher prep programs in 2014-15, 760 (or 6.8 percent) were African American, compared to 9,233 (or 83.2 percent) who were white.

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Graphic courtesy of AAPS

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Asian representation in AAPS staff

About 15 percent of AAPS students identify as Asian, compared to 4 percent of teachers and professional staff, 3 percent of para-educators and other support staff and none of the school principals, building leaders or central leaders.

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Graphic courtesy of AAPS

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Caucasian representation in AAPS staff

About 50 percent of AAPS students identify as white, compared to 82 percent of teachers and professional staff, 64 percent of para-educators and other support staff, 66 percent of school principals, 66 percent of building leaders and 57 percent of central leaders.

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Graphic courtesy of AAPS

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Hispanic representation in AAPS staff

About 4 percent of AAPS students identify as Hispanic, compared to 3 percent of teachers and professional staff, 2 percent of para-educators and other support staff, 3 percent of school principals, 3 percent of building leaders and 3 percent of central leaders.

Update: Additionally, 17 percent of AAPS students fall into an "other" category that includes people who identify as two or more races, multi-ethnic or Hawaiian. At AAPS, 1 percent of teachers and professional staff, 2 percent of support staff and none of the school principals, building leaders or central leaders are included in that "other" category, according to the district's staffing report.

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Students wait for the bell to ring on the first day of school at Carpenter Elementary School in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, September 5, 2017. Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor News

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What's the next step to increase diversity in AAPS staff?

Langford and Stephani Field, director of employment services, outlined several steps AAPS already takes to try to recruit minority candidates, such as offering programs for current staff on diversity and sensitive topics, delivering recruitment materials to historically black universities and hiring teachers early in the hiring season when possible.

The Ann Arbor Education Association's Minority Affairs Team assists the school district in those recruitment and hiring efforts.

One effort AAPS plans to expand is a "grow your own" approach to identifying minority high school students, para-educators, student teachers and substitute teachers who may be interested in obtaining a teaching certification. The "grow your own" teacher preparation program would provide additional support and possibly financial assistance for those individuals who are already connected to AAPS to become certified teachers.

"I can't stress enough how much I think this ('grow your own' approach) is really the way to go," Langford said. "This is really how we get more of a group of minority applicants in all areas so we'll see those numbers increase."

A formal vote was not required, but the four trustees in attendance at Wednesday's meeting authorized district administrators to move forward in developing a plan for the "grow your own" program and assessing the potential cost.

"I like that idea very much," said board President Christine Stead. "It reminds me a lot of what we've learned around funding - that growing our own, protecting our own, taking care of things locally is a very effective strategy."
ANN ARBOR, MI - For the last six years, Ann Arbor has been on a mission to improve pedestrian safety by installing pedestrian-activated, flashing signals at dozens of crosswalks.



The overhead signals now in operation in many locations are known as RRFBs, or rectangular rapid flashing beacons, which produce a strobe-like yellow light to alert drivers to the presence of pedestrians, who activate the solar-powered signals with the push of a button.



They've been credited with improving safety and yield rates at crosswalks, and the city planned to continue installing more.



The Ann Arbor City Council this month approved spending another $100,000 for RRFBs at four more crosswalks next spring.



But a Florida businessman who claims to have invented RRFBs and holds two patents alleges the RRFBs that have been installed in Ann Arbor and elsewhere by various companies are "pirated" copies of his patented design, and the federal government is now prohibiting new RRFB installations, as well as future replacement of existing ones.



The Federal Highway Administration issued a letter of termination on Dec. 21, rescinding its previous interim approval of RRFBs that was issued on July 16, 2008. RRFBs were never fully approved under the federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways, but were allowed on an interim basis starting in 2008 after being tested in Florida. Patents for the flashing beacons were issued to a Florida company in 2011 and 2012.



According to the FHWA, federal regulations through the MUTCD prohibit the use of patented devices. The reason for the rule is to avoid promoting or endorsing one particular patented product and favoring one producer or manufacturer over another.



For that reason, the FHWA has rescinded its previous interim approval of RRFBs, though it says RRFBs already installed can remain in service until the end of their useful life.



U.S. District Court records show Florida-based R.D. Jones, Stop Experts Inc. and RRFB Global Inc. filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against a Canada-based company called Intelligent Traffic Equipment Marketing LTD in June 2016, claiming the Canadian company was doing business in Florida and infringed on RRFB patent rights.



Stop Experts has links to its RRFB patents prominently featured on its website. The patents name Richard D. Jones of Venice, Florida, the company's CEO, as the inventor of the flashing beacons.

"If it is solar powered and radio controlled, make sure you purchase it ONLY through an official authorized supplier of R.D. Jones, Stop Experts Inc.," the company's website states.



Court records show the patent-infringement lawsuit from last year was dismissed without prejudice in August 2016.



In a phone interview this week, Jones said the matter has become heavily political and it's been frustrating. He said several companies have stolen his design and produced RRFBs that have been installed in various places, including Ann Arbor.



"Every one you've got in Ann Arbor is pirated," he said.

A map showing the locations where the city of Ann Arbor, as of 2017, had installed flashing crosswalk signals known as RRFBs or rectangular rapid flashing beacons, and where more might be installed.

According to the FHWA, the federal government is not expressing any opinions about the validity or scope of any patent, nor is it taking a position in any litigation related to RRFBs.



The administration maintains it's simply sticking to the federal rule that prohibits patented devices from being included in the MUTCD or even used on an interim or experimental basis.



In response to questions from The Ann Arbor News/MLive, the FHWA provided the following written statement on the matter:

"The FHWA has responsibility to withdraw its interim approval for the Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon used at pedestrian crosswalks. This device has been patented, and it is against the public interest to encourage the exclusive use of proprietary products through the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). While existing installations with proper approvals may remain in place until replacements are necessary, other options and devices remain available for crosswalk safety. To assist local agencies with their pedestrian safety efforts, the FHWA has developed an informational brief of available treatments for crosswalks. Safety remains FHWA's top priority."

Ann Arbor City Administrator Howard Lazarus, who has been closely involved in the city's pedestrian safety efforts, declined to comment on the matter other than to say he plans to strategize with city staff on alternatives to RRFBs and the city will continue to explore ways to continue to make progress on pedestrian safety.

One alternative to RRFBs is a pedestrian hybrid beacon or PHB. The city has preferred the flashing-yellow RRFBs over PHBs because of the lower cost and similar effectiveness.

Formerly known as HAWK (high-intensity activated crosswalk) signals, PHBs allow pedestrians to trigger red stop signals for motor-vehicle traffic at crosswalks with the push of a button. PHBs were installed at Third/Huron in Ann Arbor in 2010, but RRFBs were

The FHWA released an

this month explaining there are several other treatments, including PHBs, that comply with the MUTCD and can be used to control traffic at crosswalks.

That includes pedestrian-activated, flashing LEDs around the borders of pedestrian crossing signs; in-street and overhead pedestrian crossing signs; high-visibility crosswalk markings; and pedestrian-activated warning beacons that function somewhat similarly to RRFBs with flashing-yellow signals to supplement pedestrian crossing signs, but the signals are circular like traditional traffic signals and don't appear to have the strobe-like effect of RRFBs.

The MUTCD also permits in-roadway warning lights, which are described as pedestrian-activated yellow lights installed in the roadway surface to warn drivers that a pedestrian is waiting to cross or is in the process of crossing the roadway.

Other approved treatments include curb extensions or bump-outs, pedestrian refuge islands, raised crosswalks, crosswalk lighting and other types of signage to alert drivers to yield or stop.

Ann Arbor already is using several of those treatments in addition to RRFBs at various crosswalks.

Mount Pleasant-based J. Ranck Electric has been

and was supposed to install more in 2018.

Company president Adam Ranck said he's not aware of the issues with the federal rules and patent rights regarding RRFBs.

"We only install materials specified in bid packages given to us by owners," he said.

The City Council also previously approved purchasing traffic-signal materials and supplies for RRFB installations from Carrier and Gable Inc. of Farmington Hills. A representative for the company couldn't be reached for comment.
HUDSONVILLE, MI - In 1963, when Don Vruggink first started working at the local barber shop, he charged $1.25 for a haircut.

At the time, three haircuts would earn him enough money to fill his car's gas tank.

As Vruggink prepares to give his final haircut at the Hudsonville barber shop this week, he's charging a little bit more for a trim, all while maintaining the same coffee-shop-style atmosphere.

After 54 years of service, Vruggink, 73, is set to retire on Friday, Dec. 29, and close Don's Barber Shop on 3410 Chicago Drive in Hudsonville.

His phone has been ringing off the hook in the weeks leading up to his last day because people are trying to get a haircut in before he is done for good, his daughter Stacey Zeeff said.

She said everyone in the community knows her dad and his shop is like a coffee shop, as people like to come in and chat.

Vruggink, a native of Hudsonville, graduated from the high school right across the street from the barber shop. He went off to barber school after graduating and on July 17, 1963, he started working at the shop.

When he thinks about how many customers and all the money that have gone through his shop doors, he wonders what happened to all the money.

A rough patch for the barber shop was when they "went through the long hair thing in the 70s," he said, jokingly.

He has been serving some families for five generations.

"It's been a lot of good times and I always say the one who was always behind me was my wife," Vruggink said.

Vruggink said his wife has always been very supportive for 51 years of marriage. They are set to celebrate their anniversary on Jan. 6.

He said he plans on staying busy in retirement, as he has a woodworking shop at home, and he and his wife like to travel.

He made the decision to retire when a developer wanted to buy him out, so he thought it was time for the younger generation to take over, he said.

"I don't want to stand in the way of progress," he said, jokingly.

Vruggink said he has always felt it's important to have a relationship with his clientele. He said not having that relationship anymore will be the hardest part of retiring.

On Friday, Vruggink will be giving his last two haircuts at the barbershop to the highest bidders. He thought this would be a fun way to say thank you to all his customers for his 54 years of business, Zeeff said.

Don's Barbershop.... As many in the community know, Don will be retiring as of December 29. He would like to have fun... Posted by Stacey Zeeff on Saturday, December 23, 2017

The haircuts will take place at 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. and all proceeds will be donated to Cran Hill Ranch in Rodney, Michigan.

When he's done, Vruggink said he won't think about the money he made as a barber, but what he gave to people.

"I hope my footprints behind me are going to be positive and good," he said. "That's always my goal and my wish and my prayer every day."
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The success of West Michigan's Medical Assistant Registered Apprenticeship Program has gotten national attention and is the catalyst for developing other healthcare apprenticeships.

Industry and education leaders think apprenticeships could help close the skills gap. West Michigan community colleges are among those aligning themselves with the movement, and promoting the programs as another option for students.

Michigan's first accredited apprenticeship program for medical assistants launched its first cohort in 2016 to meet a pressing need in the region's health care workforce.

In November, the state announced the program was recognized as a national Promising Practice by the U.S. Department of Labor for helping health care providers fill a critical shortage of talent.

"While we build Michigan's talent pipeline we are proud to have proactive partners, and appreciate that the U.S. Department of Labor named the West Michigan partnership a Promising Practice,'' said Roger Curtis, director of the Michigan Department of Talent and Economic Development.

According to the Department of Labor, employers have been so satisfied with the program that apprenticeships are being developed in other healthcare occupations, including Central Sterile Processing Technician and Surgical Technician.

The Medical Assistant apprenticeship emerged after Mercy Health officials reached out to representatives of Grand Rapids Community College to discuss how to meet the high demand for workers.

West Michigan Works! was immediately brought to the table to bring the program to fruition.

Three community colleges are now providing training - Grand Rapids, Muskegon and Montcalm. Jobs are provided by Mercy Health, Cherry Health, Spectrum Health, and the Cancer & Hematology Centers of Western Michigan, according to Linda Witte, program developer for health programs for GRCC.

"I am a big believer that the only way you get good work done is when you partner with others to work together to get things done," GRCC President Bill Pink told the Board of Trustees Dec. 18, about the program during a presentation regarding its success.

Medical assistants perform a variety of roles that are a hybrid between clinical patient care and clerical responsibilities, including checking vital signs, drawing blood, performing EKGs, handling medical records, and conveying clinical information to the patient.

The apprentices, who earn a salary while they learn, attend classes for two days each week of the year-long program and work at area health care employers for three days. West Michigan Works! collaborates with employers to cover their tuition.

Witte said the program graduated its second cohort of students Dec. 15. In total, she said GRCC has graduated a total of 28 students and Muskegon 20.

She said the program is the first in the nation to be accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs, and the first in which the workforce development organization sponsors the standards.

A few of the factors referenced in the Labor Department's Promising Practice designation that state officials say make the West Michigan program a national model include:

The Workforce Board serves as an intermediary between the partners, helping negotiate the common curriculum, on-the-job training, competencies, recruitment, student financial aid and supportive services.

West Michigan Works! as sponsor of the apprenticeship program, coordinates administrative aspects of registering and running the apprenticeship, which removes administrative burdens from employers.

One of most critical roles is combining funding to offset costs for apprentices and employers. Through various funding streams West Michigan Works! secured funding for 72 percent of the training costs for the first cohort of apprentices and 100 percent for the second cohort.

In October, Bloomberg BNA cited the program among four case studies in "Return of the Apprentice'' to highlight how apprenticeships are being promoted as a solution to the skills gap.

Shana Welch, Mercy Health's regional director of talent acquisition, told the publication that it took a year to design the program and establish the partnerships.

GRCC students have two medical assistant options, the apprenticeship program or a six-month full-time program.

"I want to thank you for supporting us as we continue to seek innovative ways to meet our area workforce needs in ways that brings value to our students and uses all the resources of the college,'' Witte told Pink and the board.

The median annual wage for medical assistants was $31,540 in 2016 and $15.17 per hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Julie Parks, GRCC's executive director of Workforce Training, said the college attributes its increased diversity in the program to the apprenticeship. She said they've seen 40 percent diversity in the open enrollment program.

Employment of medical assistants is projected to grow 29 percent by 2026.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the growth of the aging baby-boom population will result in physicians hiring more assistants to perform routine administrative and clinical duties, allowing the physicians to see more patients.
One of the candidates running to replace former Rep. John Conyers in Michigan's 13th Congressional District is suing Gov. Rick Snyder over the chosen date for the district's special election.

Detroit attorney and activist Michael Gilmore announced Friday he'd be taking legal action against the Governor for choosing to run the special election concurrently with the 2018 election cycle, with the primary in August and the election in November. Conyers resigned from his seat in the wake of several sexual harassment allegations earlier this month.

Gilmore, who filed to run for the seat prior to Conyers' resignation, is set to elaborate further on the lawsuit 10 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 2 at the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse in Detroit.

In a press advisory sent Friday, Dec. 29, Gilmore's office said Snyder "continues to treat residents of urban areas across the state as second-class citizens and is violating a laundry list of constitutional laws in doing so."

"A year of laws will be passed, with far reaching impact, that our residents, minority or otherwise, will have no representation on," the press advisory states.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit, asks the court to order Snyder to call a "timely, real and actual special election" on grounds that holding the special election 11 months after Conyers' seat was vacated violates several Constitutional rights of 13th District residents.

Snyder spokesperson Anna Heaton said they don't comment specifically on litigation, but noted the Governor's office consulted with the Wayne County Executive's office, Mayor Mike Duggan's office and the Secretary of State Elections Bureau before making the decision.

Snyder ultimately decided that "aligning with the currently existing election dates were the best choice to allow candidates ample time to mount a campaign and at the same time, save money for local taxpayers," Heaton said.

Michigan's 13th Congressional district -- vacated after Conyers abruptly resigned following claims of sexual harassment, calls for his resignation and a brief hospital stint -- includes parts of Detroit and Dearborn Heights as well as several surrounding cities and townships in Wayne County.

Buzzfeed News reported one woman who accused Conyers of sexual harassment was paid more than $27,000 from Conyers' taxpayer-funded office to settle the complaint under a confidentiality agreement. Since Buzzfeed's initial report, more have come forward to accuse the Congressman of inappropriate sexual conduct.

Prior to stepping down, Conyers was the longest-serving member of the U.S. House.

Others who have said they plan to get in the race include state Sen. Coleman Young II and state Sen. Ian Conyers, both of Detroit. While announcing his resignation, the elder Conyers endorsed his son, John Conyers III, to replace him. He said in a statement he hasn't yet decided whether he'll enter the race.
The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine (PGO) has filed an appeal against the verdict of the Shevchenkivsky district court of the city of Kyiv to Yuriy Krysin, a suspect in the case on the murder of Vesti journalist Viacheslav Veremiy in 2014, according to the Public Relations and Media Department of the Prosecutor General's Office.

"The sentence imposed on the person in accordance with Part 4 of Article 266 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine [hooliganism] in the form of four years of imprisonment with the application of Article 75 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, on the basis of which the latter was released from serving the appointed punishment with the trial, does not meet the general principles of appointment punishment, the principles of legality, justice, validity and individualization of punishment and is not sufficient and necessary to correct a person and prevent new crimes," it said.

Taking this into account, the Prosecutor General's Office on Thursday appealed the verdict "on the basis of improper application of the law of Ukraine on criminal liability, inconsistency of the conclusions of the court of first instance to the actual circumstances of criminal proceedings and the inconsistency of the appointed punishment to the gravity of the criminal offense and the identity of the accused due to leniency of the sentence."

As reported, on December 22, Shevchenkivsky District Court of Kyiv found Yuriy Krysin, a suspect in the case on the murder of Vesti journalist Viacheslav Veremiy in 2014, guilty of hooliganism with the use of arms and released him with a two-year suspended sentence.
Twenty-seven criminal proceedings related to the events on the Maidan in 2013-2014 were transferred to the Ukrainian courts in 2017, 33 persons were served with notices of suspicion, and 91 people were placed on the wanted list, the head of the department for special investigations of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine (PGO), Serhiy Horbatiuk, has said.

"Our department has sent to the courts the proceedings on 21 people. Other bodies transferred proceedings on [six] others. That is, 27 completed cases were submitted to court in 2017. In the same year, 33 more people were notified of suspicion. These are 18 employees of the internal affairs bodies, three prosecutors, 11 hired thugs, and a court employee," Horbatiuk said in an interview with the Tyzhden weekly, when asked how many Maidan-related cases were transferred to the courts in 2017.

According to him, 26 investigators, 16 prosecutors and 16 judges were informed of suspicion for crimes on the Maidan.

"Indictments were sent to the courts on 13 judges, 21 investigators and 12 prosecutors, but there is not a single guilty verdict," Horbatiuk said.

"Now 91 people are on the wanted list if the issue concerns cases investigated by our department. We are investigating over 100 criminal proceedings. These are more than 3,400 episodes of criminal acts that were united into these proceedings," he said.
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SEBI has relaxed investment norms for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) - allowing them to invest at least 50 percent stake in holding companies.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Sanjay Dutt, CEO India Operations & Private Funds Ascendas-Singbridge, India and Anuj Puri Chairman and Country Head of Anarock shared their views and readings on the same.

Puri said it's good that REITs will be allowed to invest at least 50 percent in holding company.

He further said that REITs being allowed to hold 50 percent in holding companies will facilitate REIT listings.

He expects a couple of REITs to come up in the next few months.

According to Dutt, SEBI's move could be a tipping point for REITs in India.

Dutt expect credible REITs players to come into the market going ahead.
While 2017 was a year of transition for businesses as India switched to a new indirect tax regime, 2018 may alleviate the struggles of exporters grappling with liquidity crunch, as the government plans ease the refund-claiming process.

In its next meeting, GST Councilthe apex decision making body of the new indirect tax systemmay relax rules to claim Goods and Services Tax (GST) refunds from the Centre and states, a senior government official told Moneycontrol.

Exporters are facing challenges claiming IGST (integrated GST) and input tax credit refunds, as the process is cumbersome. We are looking at easing these rules, the official said.

The Council will meet on January 18 in New Delhi.

Exporters complain that procedural hurdles, coupled with new rules and regulations have made claiming export refunds difficult. The relaxation in norms should bring cheer for exporters who have been complaining about technical issues, locked up tax refunds affecting working capital availability and hurting operations.

The Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will also look at the provisions and specific rules pertaining to the e-wallet facility to facilitate speedy refund.

In October, the Council had approved a plan to operationalise up an e-wallet from April 1, 2018 that could be used by each exporter. A notional amount will be given as an advance amount in this wallet, which will enable GST credit against which the exporters refund will be offset.

Apart from easing rules related to refunds, the apex body is unlikely to continue with further rationalisation of GST rates.

Considering the decline in monthly revenue collection from GST, there may not be further rate cuts announcements next month, the official said.

Revenue collection from GST for the month of November slipped further to Rs 80,808 crore, lowest since the implementation of the indirect tax system from July 1.

The dip in revenue collection was mainly due to a decline in overall incidence of taxes on most commodities, especially after the apex decision making body of the new tax system--GST Council--cut rates of more than 200 items in its 23rd meeting in Guwahati. According to estimates, the government will face revenue loss of Rs 20,000 cr annually owing to the rate cut.

While only 50 items remain in the 28 percent tax slab, the industry, has been pushing for bringing down rates for some more items such as cement, paints, and white goods.

Sources said that rate cut at this juncture is unlikely as items such as cement constitute a major chunk of revenue.

According to experts, revenue may fall down further in the next two-three months as the government has to look at other aspects such as refund, and utilisation of credit.

The GST Councils 25th meeting will be crucial as the government may propose significant changes in the laws and rules, to simplify procedures and ease rules for the business.

The changes may include simplifying the tax return filing process and the composition scheme, apart from the decision on whether to continue with reverse charge mechanism (RCM), tax deducted at source (TDS) and tax collected at source (TCS).

The Council will deliberate on the recommendations of the law advisory group that will finalise its report on January 5. The committee will propose key recommendations pertaining to amendments in laws and rules to make the new tax system simple.
By Upasana Taku, co-founder, MobiKwik

Despite rising number of women-led businesses in recent years, there is a renewed debate on how India needs to bridge the gender divide stemming from socio-cultural factors.

Many agree that if women have equal access to health, education and earning opportunities, their talent and new technologies can be harnessed for sustainable economic growth and innumerable benefits to the society.

At the recently-concluded 8th annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad, a large number of participants were of the view that though Indian women entrepreneurs are beginning to make a mark on the global horizon, they face steep obstacles along the way.

Hence the need to bridge gender entrepreneurship gap in the worlds fastest-growing major economy.

Unless women  who comprise nearly half of the population  are integrated into radical transformations underway, the country will compromise on innovation and productivity both.

There has been a growing demand for concerted action to facilitate womens integration in the workforce. Still, women entrepreneurs face hurdles while accessing capital, mentors and equitable laws.

A recent report by the World Bank says that India can grow in double digits if more women participate in the product line of Indian economy.

And thus bring about a transformational change as the Fourth Industrial Revolution dawns upon us in a new digital age.

Key challenges

Women in India have not got the place they deserve. They have been a neglected lot despite having the potential to become entrepreneurs.

Over two-thirds of them are not directly involved in any productive workforce. In a way, this amounts to crippling a 2.3 trillion dollar economy.

In a patriarchal society, women are discouraged from going into business. They hardly have access to training, financial literacy, and financing beyond the micro level. Even if they secure loans, many struggles to manage it.

The business culture remains largely dominated by men, and there is little for women entrepreneurs for effective networking that supports business advice, mentoring, learning and creating resources.

All this must change fast. It is critical to note that with more than 65 percent of Indians below the age of 35, the country is poised to rise as an economic superpower which will contribute one-fourth of the world's total workforce by the year 2025.

Changing dynamics

Since the economic liberalisation in 1991, the government has come up with many policy initiatives to support women entrepreneurs.

Organisations supporting micro, small and medium enterprises, public sector banks and even NGOs have launched various schemes, including entrepreneurship development programmes, to encourage potential entrepreneurs who may not have adequate educational background and skills.

The Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has been running special schemes for women entrepreneurs.

Under the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (PMRY), preference is given to women beneficiaries. Overall, the government has over 27 schemes for women under different departments and ministries.

On top of it, many sectors like artisanship can support semi-skilled women workers and leverage e-commerce to sell their products within and outside the country.

Similar initiatives can build a large ecosystem of women entrepreneurs, and give a fillip to infrastructure development and the overall economy.

Despite odds, there are thousands of women who have excelled as entrepreneurs and inspired others.

India needs to encourage this trend so that they can make a difference in the rapidly changing world of work being impacted by automation and globalization.

Equitable growth

There is a fundamental case for empowering women with equal access to health, education, earning power and political representation.

Promoting women entrepreneurship is crucial at this juncture when India is positioning itself as a world leader in business and trade.

India has done well by moving 30 points up to rank as a 100th country in terms of ease of doing business in the World Banks latest Doing Business 2018 report.

This will further help and support in creating a sizeable base of entrepreneurs in India.

As the government accelerates gender equality with initiatives in the space of skilling, job creation and more importantly linking new skills to jobs, businesses to need to devise solutions and adopt best practices like closing the gender pay gap, non-discrimination while hiring women and career breaks for them due to parenthood duties.

Removing barriers for women and giving them access to technology is undoubtedly a must for nation building, innovation, and inclusive development.
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, Shahina Mukadam, Pankaj Jain and Ruchit Jain battle it out for top honours.

Below their top stock picks and analysis:

Shahina Mukadam, Independent Market Expert

Sell Bank of India with a stoploss at Rs 176 and target of Rs 155

Sell L&T Finance Holdings with a stoploss at Rs 180 and target of Rs 165

Buy Fortis Healthcare with a stoploss at Rs 152 and target of Rs 180

Buy Jindal Saw with a stoploss at Rs 128 and target of Rs 144

Pankaj Jain of SW Capital

Buy DLF with a stoploss at Rs 261 and target of Rs 279

Buy Hindustan Copper with a stoploss at Rs 99 and target of Rs 109.50

Buy Intense Technologies with a stoploss at Rs 118 and target of Rs 132

Buy Jaiprakash Associates with a stoploss at Rs 22.50 and target of Rs 25.50

Ruchit Jain of Angel Broking

Buy Dish TV with a stoploss at Rs 79.50 and target of Rs 85

Buy Just Dial with a stoploss at Rs 512 and target of Rs 560

Buy CG Power with a stoploss at Rs 89.50 and target of Rs 97

Buy Deepak Fertiliser with a stoploss at Rs 407 and target of Rs 452
Employees of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) units for counter-intelligence protection of Ukraine's interests in the field of information security ceased in 2017 the activity of 388 offenders involved in the administration and moderation of anti-Ukrainian resources on the Internet, the SBU's press center reported on December 28.

According to the results of the fight against Russia's hybrid aggression, 43 criminal proceedings were registered against agitators who, mainly in Russian social networks, disseminated calls for overthrowing the constitutional order and state power, conducting mass riots and other anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

Since the beginning of the year, the courts have issued 36 convictions against owners and administrators of anti-Ukrainian communities and pages in social networks, in particular, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. Their actions are qualified under Article 109 (forcible change or overthrow of the constitutional order), Article 110 (encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine) and Article 258-3 (the creation of a terrorist group or terrorist organization) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

In addition, in 2017, SBU officers stopped the use by international criminal groups of 24 sites in the Ukrainian segment of the Internet, through which the activity of terrorists and other illegal activities were coordinated. The SBU closed a network of ten information sites created by Russian special services for spreading false and manipulative reports as part of hybrid information aggression against Ukraine.

In 2017, SBU specialists also launched large-scale preventive measures to localize threats to the stable functioning of the government sites with the domain gov.ua. According to the findings of analysts, more than 2,500 resources with the domain gov.ua functioned with numerous violations of the requirements of the current legislation. Thanks to preventive measures, threats to the sustainable functioning of more than 60 state information resources were prevented.
Rajat Bose of rajatkbose.com told CNBC-TV18, "I would be buying Bharat Forge, Rs 727.80 is my stop loss and Rs 738 and 743 are the two targets. This is one stock that I also hold in my personal investment portfolio."

"Apart from that in the same sector CG Power, I would put a stop loss below Rs 90.40 and targets would be Rs 95 and 97.40."

"I am quite bullish on reality. I could have chosen DLF but that has moved up considerably, so for HDIL Rs 57.75 is my stop loss, Rs 61 and 63 are the two targets that I am looking at HDIL."

"Finally, I would be selling IDFC Bank January Futures stoploss above Rs 55.30, targets are Rs 53.75 and Rs 52.85."

"L&T Finance Holdings should be a sell. I am expecting it to fall below Rs 169, so chances are that we would see some kind of weakness happening out there."

"I personally hold DLF in my portfolio. If Rs 267 is crossed, then Rs 273-274 could be scaled up. It looks pretty good to me, in fact, even from a medium term perspective."

"I see UPL doing pretty well. UPL January Futures Rs 773, it is actually a range breakout that is happening there. Chances are that we will see Rs 780-785 on the upside and if you take a position here, you should put a stoploss below Rs 768.80," he added.
Ashwani Gujral of ashwanigujral.com told CNBC-TV18, "As far as individual stocks are concerned IFCI is a buy with a stoploss of Rs 29, target of Rs 36. BF Utilities is a buy with a stoploss of 490, target of Rs 515 and Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation is a buy with a stoploss of Rs 1,690, target of Rs 1,760."

He further added, "Paints are not in strong trends, these guys did very well when crude fell, for the last I think one odd year Berger Paints has been sideways. Now it is trading around the higher end of its range which is about Rs 280 thereabouts. We can get pass Rs 280 then there could be further follow through and that may not be crude related that could be consumption story. If we get pass Rs 280 you could see Rs 325-330 here."
Sudarshan Sukhani of s2analytics.com told CNBC-TV18, "Today because it is the end of the year, we really want to go with bluechips. Today I am looking at Reliance Industries and Infosys for buying and in a midcap, Dish TV, where also I think finally a base is being built and a breakout is in the offing. I have positions in Dish TV, and maybe in the other stocks, but be on the buy side -- Reliance, Infosys, and Dish TV for the day."

"I really do not track smallcap stocks. I dont have a target on Jaypee Infratech, but my only suggestion is that you exit whenever you can."

"In Nalco, there is still more to go, although I would suggest there are other stocks also in the same sector. Nalco is a good buy at current levels. One should have a long term time horizon. It can easily go to Rs 150 sooner or later, maybe in three years time," he added.

Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.
The market could trade subdued on the last trading session for the year, with trends on SGC Nifty showing a flat start. The Nifty which started on a bullish note on Thursday failed to hold gains and closed near its opening level making a Spinning Top kind of indecisive pattern on the daily candlestick charts.

Here are stocks that are in news today:

Reliance Communications

Reliance Communications will sell its wireless business to Reliance Jio Infocomm. It will give Jio access to valuable 4G spectrum of RCom. Newspaper reports said the deal valuation could be close to Rs 23,000 crore. RCom's assets include 122.4 MHz of 4G spectrum in the 800/900/1,800/2,100 MHz bands over 43,000 towers, 1,78,000 RKM (route km) of fibre with a pan-India footprint and 248 media convergence nodes covering five million square feet, used for hosting telecom infrastructure.

RCom said the transaction is expected to close in a phased manner between January and March 2018. The deal comprises cash payment and transfer of deferred spectrum installments payable to the DoT and the proceeds would be used to reduce its debt.

Alkem Labs

Alkem Labs has received approval from US FDA for Triamcinolone Acetonide cream that is indicated to treat inflammation and dermatoses.

Tata Global Beverage:

Tata Global Beverages (TGBL) has sold its stake in joint venture firm Estate Management Services Private Limited (EMSPL) for a consideration of Rs 120 crore.

Lupin Ltd:

Pharma major Lupin Ltd aid it has received final approval from the US health regulator for its generic version of Dovonex scalp solution used in the treatment of psoriasis of the scalp.

Can Fin Homes:

The Committee of the Board at its meeting held on December 28, 2017 allotted 52,915 Rights Equity Shares of Rs.2/- each (in lieu of 10,583 equity shares of Rs.10/- each) to Mr. Koshy George and 3 others.

Astron Paper:

Astron Paper & Board Mills will make its stock market debut on Friday after successfully concluding its initial public offer (IPO) last week. The company's IPO was subscribed 243 times during December 15-20.

Bank of Baroda:

Bank of Baroda on Thursday said it will purchase its joint venture partner UniCredits entire 51 per cent stake in Baroda Pioneer Asset Management Company (AMC) and Baroda Pioneer Trustee Company Private Ltd (Trustee), said a report.

L&T:

Larsen & Toubro (L&T), India's biggest infrastructure and project execution company, has won a Rs 1,000-crore contract to maintain 5 million smart meters in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar over the next eight years, ET reported quoting sources.

Indiabulls Housing Finance:

The Company on December 28, 2017, allotted its Third tranche of Secured, Redeemable, Non-Convertible Debentures of face value Rs. 10 lakh each ('NCDs') aggregating to Rs. 780 crore.

Amulya Leasing & Finance:

Amulya Leasing & Finances promoter Sameer Gupta today sold over 35 percent stake in the firm for more than Rs 98 crore through an open market transaction. According to the bulk deal data available with BSE, Gupta disposed of 17,62,991 shares, amounting to 35.25 per cent stake, in the firm.

-BM Sharma nominated to be director of IDBI Bank Quess Corp acquired 100 percent in Master Staffing Solutions between Manipal Integrated Services and Quess Corp Srikalahasthi Pipes allotted 69.34 lakh shares at Rs 360.5 per share in QIP GTPL Hathway to acquire remaining 49 percent stake in GTPL Surat Telelink and additional 23.5 percent stake in GTPL Ahmedabad cable network-Advertising Standards Council of India has upheld complaints against misleading advertisements including those of HUL Dabur , Uber, Hindustan Petroleum , Usha International & Indian Oil Corporation -Enforcement Directorate has seized diamonds, rubies, sapphires & gold ornaments worth Rs 40 crore in money laundering probe into the Rose Valley Chit Fund-Liberty House, AION, SSG Capital, Deccan value bid for Amtek Auto : BS-Brookfield  Kotak Mahindra Group make joint bid for 2200 MW of Jaiprakash Power assets; deal may close at a value of Rs 3,500-4,000 crore: Media Report Centrum Capital board meeting on January 3 to consider and approve raising capital via equity shares

-Healthcare Global board approves allotment of 11 lakh shares at Rs 300 per share on preferential basis, to Indgrowth Capital Fund 1

: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.
16:02 "BMC has been instructed to audit all the structure to whom it has granted permission. And, places where such exercises are carried out with permission, it should be demolished on a war footing," Devendra Fadnavis said.

14:34 "Now audits will be conducted in Mumbai and if such blatant violations are found then licenses of such places will be cancelled,"

Mumbai's chief fire officer (in-charge) KV Heervale told CNN-News18.

14:13 A quick recap:

- The fire broke out in Kamala Mills complex around 12:30 am.

- 14 people died and 21 people were reported injured.

- Autopsy reports have revealed that all the 14 deaths were due to suffocation.

- Police have detained two of the three people booked under section 337 and 338

- An FIR has been lodged against the '1 Above' restaurant owner.

15:52 "I have asked the Municipal Commissioner to conduct a thorough enquiry and submit a report within 15 days. Guilty wont be spared," CM Devendra Fadnavis said.

15:40 Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis visits Kamala Mills tragedy site. He said that strict action will be taken against people who are responsible for this negligence.

Criminal cases will be registered not only against the owners but also the BMC officials who are involved, he added.

15:37 Five BMC officials have been suspended after the Kamala Mills fire tragedy that left 14 people dead. One ward officer has also been transferred, reports CNN-News18.

15:17



#KamalaMillsFire : Five BMC officials have been suspended  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017



14:55



Shocked and deeply saddened with the unfortunate and tragic event at #KamlaMills ....my prayers with the families and loved ones.....this is just so sad and heartbreaking.....  Karan Johar (@karanjohar) December 29, 2017



14:54 A team of policemen inspect the site after a fire broke out in Mumbai. (Image Courtesy: PTI)

Mumbai: A team of policemen inspect the site after a fire broke out in Mumbai on Friday. At least 14 people were killed and as many injured after a major fire in Kamala Mills Compound in Lower Parel. (PTI)

BJP

Kirit

Somaiya

Building complexes that have come up in mill compounds in Mumbai have become death threats,MPsaid in the

Lok Sabha on Friday, alleging collusion between municipal authorities and their owners for violation of fire regulations.

Somaiya claimed that the building ran the pub illegally and recalled that 12 labourers had died in fire incidents recently in the western metropolis.

(With inputs from PTI.)

14:23 "Saddened to read about the fire at Kamala mills and the loss of life. Condolences to all families affected. Safety regulations in our city have to be strengthened and adhered to," Farhan Akhtar tweets.

14:18 "Each time I see a fire taking place&people dying, it angers me a lot & I feel I have miserably failed in my endeavour to stop such fire incidents. I would blame judiciary and government for this," Neelam Krishnamoorthy, President, Association of victims of Uphaar tragedy, told CNN-News18.

14:16

#KamalaMillsFire -- We prosecuted the owners of 1 Above thrice. But they kept on violating and so we finally we demolished the structure: BMC #KamalaMills pic.twitter.com/D84FA1gppn News18 (@CNNnews18) December 29, 2017

14:00 "Whatever happened at the Kamala Mills, it is certainly BMC's fault. They did not take any preventive measures. The tragedy must be investigated," BJP MP Kirit Somaiya told CNN-News18.

Vishvanath

Mahadeshwar

CNN-News18

"I cannot be aware of all that is happening in Mumbai," Mumbai Mayortold

13:40

Police have booked Hratesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Manka of C Grade Hospitality, which manages the pub, along with others, under various charges including culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Two of those booked have been detained.

They are also charged IPC sections 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others).

(With inputs from PTI)

13:22



#KamalaMillsFire -- @SuPriyoBabul says not just BMC but the restaurant owners are equally responsible for the tragic incident. #KamalaMills pic.twitter.com/Oo8E2zKZFU  News18 (@CNNnews18) December 29, 2017



13:19 Two restaurants  One Above - owned by Sanghvi, and Mojo's Bistro  operated on the fourth floor of the building where reportedly the fire broke out last night. According to CNN-News18, the open space of '1 Above' and 'Mojos Bistro' was demolished by the BMC in August 2017.

Mojo's Bistro, in an official statement, has expressed grief and condolences to victims' families.

13:12 BMC has released old documents which show that the municipal corporation had served three notices to '1 Above' restaurant, reported CNN-News18.

13:01 "If BMC collects taxes from every house, it's their responsibility to ensure the safety of every house and every shop. They can't escape accountability," Satyapal Singh told CNN-News18.

12:58 "It's the rampant corruption which is responsible for these deaths. Existing laws and their implementation must be reviewed," Union Minister and former Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh to CNN-News18.

12:50



I have been to #KamalaMills , it is like a bhool bhulaiaya, has narrow lanes. So obviously there has been negligence: Jaya Bachchan,RS MP pic.twitter.com/y1m2UORUff  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017



12:48 The BMC documents reviewed by CNN-News18 show that no norms were flouted. The report says there were no irregularities.

12:42 "BMC is responsible for the mishap. I had written to them but no enquiry was conducted," an RTI activist, Ahmed Sheikh told CNN-News18.

12:37 The fire brigade has rescued at least 35 injured persons, who were trapped inside the hotel last night.

12:27 Shiv Sena's Arvind Sawant has raised the Kamala Mills fire issue in the Lok Sabha, adding the guilty must be punished. While demanding a judicial probe into the tragedy, he said that all other buildings must be audited, reported CNN-News18.

Almost all died to asphyxiation, none of them have died to flames but due to fumes. A proper evacuation plan could have avoided this: Dr. Harish Pathak,Forensic dept head,KEM Hospital #KamlaMillsFire pic.twitter.com/ymgiibrQ7e ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

enquiry

"We have ordered aninto the matter. 14 people have lost their lives and it is a serious matter," Mumbai Mayor

Vishwanath Mahadeshwar told CNN-News18.

12:13 Mumbai Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar visits Kamala Mills fire site to take a stock of the situation, reports CNN-News18.

12:02 Until now, 14 people have died of suffocation and 21 people are reportedly injured in the fire that broke out at Kamala Mills compound in Mumbai last night.

11:58



Deeply anguished to learn about the tragic #KamalaMills fire. Praying for the injured & families who lost loved ones. Mumbaikars expect a speedy investigation followed by FIRs against negligent/colluding officials. No more empty platitudes



11:56



BMC officials are responsible for the murder of people in #KamalaMills fire, second such incident in two weeks, when will the BMC wake up?: Kirit Somaiya,BJP Mumbai MP pic.twitter.com/4t73av8nO8  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017



11:54 Anyone found guilty of negligence should be punished. BMC cannot escape the responsibility since this has happened in their domain: Anand Geete, Shiv Sena MP and Union Minister told CNN-News18.

11:53 Anyone found guilty of negligence should be punished. BMC cannot escape the responsibility since this has happened in their domain: Anand Geete, Shiv Sena MP & Union Minister

11:41 "Local bodies cannot just say we have given the licences and now we hold no responsibility. There has to be an accountability," the former Telecom Minister Milind Deora told CNN-News18.

11:34 The fire broke out at 1 Above, a Mojo's Bistro spokesperson told Firstpost.

"The fire was set off not at Mojos but 1 Above next door; this pub had stored cooking gas cylinders on its rooftop. The fire then spread to Mojos and London Taxi," he said.

11:31 A general view of the restaurants destroyed in a fire in Mumbai. (Image Courtesy: Reuters)

A general view of the restaurants destroyed in a fire in Mumbai. (Reuters)

11:27 A local Mumbai MLA admits to corruption, says there is nothing much we can do about it, reports CNN-News18.

11:25 MoS Home Hansraj Ahir spoke to Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and inquired about the Kamala Mills fire incident, reports ANI.

Its really sad to see 15 people die and 14 injured due to the callous attitude of the owners of a restaurant. Nothing can be more tragic than this. My heart goes out to the families who lost their dear ones & I pray for the speedy recovery of those injured. #KamalaMillsFire pic.twitter.com/T89Xn5SPn9 Ashoke Pandit (@ashokepandit) December 29, 2017

11:14 Firefighters inspect the restaurants destroyed in a fire in Mumbai. (Image Courtesy: Reuters)

Fire fighters inspect the restaurants destroyed in a fire in Mumbai. (Reuters)

11:06



I made several complaints regarding illegal structures in #KamalaMills' premises, but the BMC replied that there is nothing wrong here: Mangesh Kalaskar, Activist #Mumbai pic.twitter.com/npv20egqmN  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017



11:03 "A case of culpable homicide and negligence has been registered against restaurant owners and managers. Three to four people have been named in the FIR. Arrests are yet to be made," Deepak Deoraj, DCP PRO of Mumbai Police told CNN-News18.

BMC Commissioner has visited #KamlaMills in the midnight itself and has taken stock of the situation.

Asked him to take strong action against erring officials immediately.  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) December 29, 2017

10:52 Dr Rajesh Dhere who conducted post-mortem told CNN-News18 that people would not have been confined to a room without ventilation, then they could have been alive with no injuries. There were only minor abrasions on their bodies and people died due to asphyxia.

10:50 A firefighter rests amidst debris at a restaurant destroyed in a fire in Mumbai. (Image Courtesy: Reuters)

A firefighter rests amidst debris at a restaurant destroyed in a fire in Mumbai. (Reuters)

10:44



Disturbing news of the fire at #KamalaMills. My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and prayers for the injured.  Jayant Sinha (@jayantsinha) December 29, 2017



#KamalaMillsFire -- It's not just BMC, fire department, police and all others who give permission are responsible. I will try to raise it in the Parliament. There should be a judicial investigation into the incident: Arvind Sawant, Shiv Sena #KamalaMills pic.twitter.com/OK7aYMVOUH News18 (@CNNnews18) December 29, 2017

10:38 "All our teams are in the hospitals with the police, the investigation will happen but for now what is important is to help the injured and to help the families who lost their lives," Sanjay Raut, a Shiv Sena member told CNN-News18.

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire at a restaurant in Mumbai. (Picture Courtesy: Reuters)

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire at a restaurant in Mumbai, India (Reuters)

10:24 After the fire broke out last night, eight fire engines, three jetties and five water tankers were rushed to the spot to control the fire.

10:21 Some portion of the rooftop restaurant '1 Above' was illegal. A notice was also sent to the restaurant by the BMC regarding the illegal construction, reports CNN-News18.

10:18



Hope authorities wake up now. #KamalaMills was a disaster waiting to happen. This is what happens when human greed is way beyond value for human life. Going to that compound is a nightmare. Sometimes you get stuck while walking!!!  Anuj Singhal (@_anujsinghal) December 29, 2017



10:14 "During post-mortem, we have found there were burnt injuries and most of them died due to suffocation. Few patients were shifted to private hospital, they are stable now," Dr Avinash Supe, Dean, KEM Hospital told CNN-News18.

Deeply saddened to know about fire in #kamlamills restaurant. My heartfelt condolences to the families of all 15 Mumbaikars who lost their lives in the fire.#kamalamillsfire Sanjay Nirupam (@sanjaynirupam) December 29, 2017

10:04 Here are the details of causalities reported so far:

Dead

Jeet (49), Preeti (36), Tejal, Pramila, Vishva (23), Veena (28), Kavita (36), Paroli (30), Dhairya (26), Manisha (30), Yasha (27), 3 others unknown

Critical

Shefali, Khushboo

Condition Stable

Rohan (22), Abhishek (22) Deep (31), Utsav (27), Anita (30), Siddharth (24), Divya (24), Neha (28), Neh (20), Shankra, Jeet (21), Yash (22)

09:59



Disturbing to know about the loss of lives in unfortunate #KamalaMills fire incident in Mumbai.

My thoughts are with the families who lost their loved ones and prayers for the speedy recovery of the injured.

Directed the BMC Commissioner to conduct an in-depth enquiry.  Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) December 29, 2017



09:57 "In a matter of seconds, the fire spread quickly. There was a narrow entrance, every few minutes we could hear explosions. We barely managed to escape," Sulbha Arora, a survivor of Kamala Mills fire told CNN-News18.

09:55 The '1 Above' 'restaurant had no emergency exits when the fire broke out, according to sources quoted CNN-News18.

#SpotVisuals from Mumbai: Police & fire officials at #KamalaMills compound in Lower Parel, where fire broke out last night & claimed 14 lives. pic.twitter.com/cOsIUJbhVG ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

09:48 A quick recap:

- The death toll due to fire at Kamala Mills has risen to 15.

- An FIR has been lodged against '1 Above' owner.

- Autopsy reports have revealed that al the 14 deaths were due to suffocation.

09:40



I spoke to Honble Municipal Commissioner Mehta sir, MLA Sunil Shinde ji and Leader of the House Yashwant Jadhav ji, who were at the place assisting relief ops. Implementing fire audits of such places are a must, and action will be taken if violations are found.  Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) December 28, 2017



09:34 Fire-fighters are currently engaged in cooling operations at Kamala Mills, reports Mirror Now.

Mumbai: Top angle view of the #KamalaMills compound in Lower Parel, where fire broke out last night & claimed 14 lives pic.twitter.com/eg49XFBpxr ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

09:25



Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly: PM @narendramodi  PMO India (@PMOIndia) December 29, 2017



09:25 The injured are undergoing treatment at the civic-run KEM and Sion hospitals, an official from the BMC disaster management unit told PTI.

Mumbai: Top angle view of the #KamalaMills compound in Lower Parel, where fire broke out last night & claimed 14 lives. pic.twitter.com/Y9gLIcCfpd ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

09:16 The restaurant '1 Above' did not conform to fire safety regulations, according to sources quoted CNN-News18. Police have registered an FIR under section 304 against '1 Above' restaurant owner.

09:13 Death toll rises to 15, including 12 women and 3 men, reports CNN-News18.

09:11



I spoke to Honble Municipal Commissioner Mehta sir, MLA Sunil Shinde ji and Leader of the House Yashwant Jadhav ji, who were at the place assisting relief ops. Implementing fire audits of such places are a must, and action will be taken if violations are found.  Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) December 28, 2017



Deeply saddened by the news of big fire at #KamalaMills in Mumbai! Praying for the recovery of injured! Sharing the grief of the near and dear ones of those who died! Anup Jalota (@anupjalota) December 29, 2017

09:01



#KamalaMills Fire: Transmission of the TV channels ET Now, Mirror Now, Zoom & TV9 Marathi affected due to the fire. pic.twitter.com/rF07LhfcsR  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017



09:00 This comes just 10 days after 12 persons were killed in a major blaze at a shop in Andheri East.

Last night visuals of fire at #KamalaMills compound in #Mumbai's Lower Parel, the incident has claimed 14 lives. pic.twitter.com/wD2vm0o1u6 ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

08:40



#KamalaMills Fire: 'Postmortem reveals that all the 14 deaths were due to to suffocation,' Dr.Rajesh Dere, doctor who performed the postmortems (Earlier Visual) pic.twitter.com/oOqU6CCKz9  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

08:32 The fire broke out shortly after midnight on the third floor of the four-storeyed building on Senapati Bapat Marg, a commercial hub of the city, a civic official told PTI. Several fire tenders, water tankers, emergency ambulance and police personnel rushed to the spot for the rescue operation, he added.

08:27 "Disturbing news about the fire in Mumbai. Condolences to the bereaved families and wishing the injured an early recovery. Commend the valiant efforts of fire-fighters and those in rescue ops," President Ram Nath Kovind (@rashtrapatibhvn) tweets.

08:25 The cause of the fire remains to be ascertained, officials told PTI.

08:22 'All the 12 injured are out of danger now,' Dean of KEM Hospital Avinash Supe told ANI.

08:10 A majority of those killed were women attending a birthday party at a rooftop restaurant. The 28-year-old woman celebrating her birthday was among those who died, her grandfather told Reuters.

08:07 Of the 14 people dead, 11 are females and 3 are males. Patients admitted to the hospital are stable and are taken care of, Dr Avinash, KEM Hospital Dean told CNN-News18.

08:05 "The Kamala Mills fire has impacted the Transmission of Mirror Now and other channels from the Times Network. Our staff is safe," Faye DSouza, Editor of Mirror Now had tweeted.

08:01 Transmission antenna of the TV channels ET Now, Mirror Now, Zoom and TV9 Marathi are affected due to the fire, reports ANI.

07:59 The campus of Kamala Mills houses various news and entertainment channels including the Times Now, Mirror Now, ET Now, Zoom, and Tv9. Offices of these channels are affected by the massive fire.

07:55 Police have registered an FIR under section 304 against '1 Above' restaurant owner. Search and rescue operations are over as of now and cooling process of the area is underway by the fire department, reports CNN News 18.

07:47 The injured were taken to the KEM, and Sion hospitals, the official from the BMC disaster management unit said.

Several fire tenders, water tankers, emergency ambulance and police personnel rushed to the spot for a rescue operation, he said.

The building, in Central Mumbai, houses some commercial establishments including hotels.

07:47 A massive fire at a restaurant at the Kamala Mills compound in Mumbai's Lower Parel area has reportedly left 15 dead and several injured. Reports suggest most of those dead are women.

While the cause of the fire has yet not been identified, it is believed to have started off at some under-construction site of a restaurant located at the top floor of the building.
Andhra Pradesh had pitched to set up the country's first railway university, but the proposal was turned down as plans for setting up the same is underway in Gujarat's Vadodara, the Centre informed parliament today.

In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Railways, Rajen Gohain, said Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had sought the establishment of the railway university in the state.

"Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh has been informed that setting up of the first railway university at Vadodara is under way. As and when setting up of any additional railway university would be considered, locations as well as assistance offered by the state government will be kept in view," Gohain said.

The Union cabinet had approved the establishment of India's first national rail and transportation university at Vadodara on December 20.

Christened 'National Rail and Transport University (NRTU)', the institute is expected to have 3,000 full-time students.
The year gone by was an important one for Indian politics and one that could affect its future of for decades to come. Be it the Gujarat election, the Bihar election or the political drama in Tamil Nadu, a feature common to most major political events in the country this year was the emergence of new faces.

If we take a look at our history after independence, there have been a few years now and then that saw important political figures rising to prominence. The years 1975 and 1976, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had declared emergency in the country, saw the emergence of leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, George Fernandes, Parkash Singh Badal, LK Advani and Subramanian Swamy.

When looked at with an eye towards the future, 2017 seemed to be that kind of year for leaders like Yogi Aditynath, TTV Dhinakaran, Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor, among others. So as we bid goodbye to the year gone by, let us take a look at some of the political leaders who rose to prominence over the last 12 months.

Jignesh Mevani

Much to the chagrin of BJP leaders, 37-year-old independent candidate Jignesh Mevani became an overnight star when he won his first-ever election during the Gujarat assembly elections this year.

Contesting the election from Vadgam, Mevani bested BJP's Vijaykumar Harkhabhai by more than 20,000 votes. In what was a strategic move, the Congress withdrew its candidate from Vadgam in order to let Mevani contest from there against the BJP.

Mevanis political rise came in the wake of the lynching of four Dalit youth suspected of having killed a cow in 2016 when he used his skills as a lawyer to bring the perpetrators of the lynching to justice. This incident, dubbed as the Una flogging, caused a huge movement in Gujarat's Dalit population.

The young leader led the struggle as a lawyer and trademarked the slogan,'you keep the cow's tail/ give us our land.' From then on, Mevani rose to find an ally in the Congress and a friend in the head of party Rahul Gandhi. But don't let that fool you because Mevani has no plans to join the INC and plans to maintain his political stance as an independent candidate.

Mevani's beef with the BJP is because of the treatment meted out to Dalits. "I want Dalits, who are 18 percent of the population in India, to mercilessly vote against the BJP in 2019," Mevani had told Huffington Post in an interview.

Alpesh Thakor

Alpesh Thakor is another rising star who emerged from the battleground of the Gujarat assembly elections.

The 40-year old leader was recruited by the Congress to win OBC (other backward classes) votes for them. Thakor defeated his BJP rival Lavingji Thakor by nearly 18,000 votes. His father was also a Congress leader who reportedly switched from the BJP more than two decades ago.

Thakor became famous when he launched a protest against the consumption of alcohol in January 2016. As an important leader in the Gujarat Kshatriya Thakor Sena and the OBC SC ST Ekta Manch, Thakor joined the Congress in October.

In the run up to the elections, he made the lack of educational opportunities in the state his focal point for the campaign, since OBCs account for about 40 percent of the state's population, while the Thakor community represents 20-22 percent of it.

Hardik Patel

Hardik Patel who heads Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), also played a major role in the Gujarat polls.

Though the Patel community was a staunch supporter of BJP in the past, demands for granting the Patidar community put them at loggerheads with the party after they were rejected by the government.

The main demand of PAAS has been their inclusion in the list of OBCs, who have 27 percent reservation in Gujarat. Instead, the BJP offered reservation to a few of the economically backward classes as a consolation prize.

Even though BJP won the majority in the election this year, Hardik Patel remains a strong independent player and contesting for reservations for the Patidar community.

Jai Ram Thakur

When Jai Ram Thakur was sworn in as chief minister of Himachal Pradesh,

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president Amit Shah attended the swearing-in ceremony among others.

The BJP ousted the Congress from power in Himachal Pradesh by winning 44 of the 68 seats in the recently held assembly polls. But what people might have overlooked is that this was a show of solidarity by the party's upper echelon for the new leader.

In the run up to the Himachal Pradesh polls, Thakur was not the party's chief ministerial candidate. But when Prem Kumar Dhumal, former Himachal CM and long-time BJP leader, lost from his constituency, the BJP put Thakur at the forefront and all its strength behind him.

Thakur has had a long career in politics. Other than holding the Rural Development and Panchayati Raj ministry portfolios in Dhumal's government between 2008 and 2012, Thakur was also the chief of BJP's Himachal Pradesh unit from 2006 to 2009.

The newly-elected CM was interested in politics since his college days and joined the student wing of ABVP only to become a full-time activist later on. He worked in Jammu and Kashmir as an ABVP office bearer and contested his first assembly election from the Chachiot constituency of Mandi on a BJP ticket in 1993 when he was just 28. Although he lost that election, Thakur has never looked back since.

Deepa Jayakumar

When Tamil Nadu lost is beloved Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa last year, a new player emerged in the state's politics -- her niece Deepa Jayakumar.

Jayakumar bears a strong resemblance to her aunt and was was hailed by the AIADMK as Jayalalithaa's one true political heir. She is the daughter of the former CM's deceased brother Jaya Kumar, with whom she had a falling out.

The reason for the fallout was the enormous amount of money Jayalalithaa spent on the wedding of her 'foster son', Sasikala's nephew VN Sudhakaran, whom she later disowned.

Jayakumar then launched her own political party, MGR Amma Deepa Peravai on her aunts 69th birth anniversary in February 2017 in opposition to the AIADMK and has vowed to carry her aunts legacy forward.

TTV Dhinakaran

Deepa Jayakumar was not the only player who emerged in Tamil Nadu politics after Jayalalithaa passed away last year. TTV Dhinakaran, the nephew of the late CM's aid VK Sasikala, has emerged as a strong player in the state politics this year.

Dhinakaran was thrown out of the AIADMK five years ago by Jayalalithaa amid reports that he was interfering in the party's and government's functioning. He was earlier a member of the Lok Sabha, representing Periyakulam from 1999 to 2004. He has also served as a member of the Rajya Sabha.

TTV Dhinakaran contested the RK Nagar by-election this year as an independent candidate where he defeated AIADMK's candidate E Madhusudhanan by a margin of 40,000 votes.

Stung by the RK Nagar by-election defeat, the ruling AIADMK on December 25 cracked the whip against nine party functionaries. The two AIADMK leaders had then sacked four of Dhinakaran's aides as district secretaries while expelling five others.

Dhinakaran had earlier lost his battle for the party's 'two leaves' symbol to the Palaniswami-led ruling camp and contested the election with a 'pressure cooker' symbol.

Yogi Adityanath

A list of rising stars from 2017 cannot be complete without Yogi Adityanath, who became one of the most prominent faces in this year's politics after being elected Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh this year.

Adityanath made his debut in Parliament after winning the 1998 general election from Gorakhpur. He continued to win the seat five times with large margins, except in 2004 when the Samajwadi Partys Jamuna Nishad gave him tough fight and he won by just 5,000 votes.

Adityanath also took over as chief priest of the Gorakhnath temple after his uncle Mahant Avidyanath passed away in 2014. His very radical, pro-hindutva image came into focus in February 1999, when he tried to capture a graveyard land by planting a peepal tree at Panch Rukhiya village in Maharajganj district. A case under several sections was registered against him in the Kotwali police station.

His radical right wing image kept him center stage this year. Some of his landmark decisions after taking over as CM are the decision to waive farm loans worth over Rs 36,000 crore, cracking down on illegal slaughter houses in the state, and asking state ministers to stop using read beacons atop their cars.
Representative image

Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan said today that the Centre was taking steps to reduce vehicle emissions and promote green mobility, and attacked the Delhi government for not taking steps to deal with the rising air pollution in the National Capital Region (NCR).

Vardhan said the Union government was doing its best to reduce pollution levels but there was a need to create a mass movement involving people from all walks of life, including the youth.

"Government of India is doing its best what can be done regarding the matter. The work done in last three years is more than what has been done earlier," he said, replying to a debate in the Rajya Sabha on the air pollution situation.

The pollution levels did not touch the severe category on 214 days this year, compared to 181 days in 2016, due to the proactive steps taken by the central government, he said.

He said while the Centre was working to tackle the problem, the Delhi government has lacked in taking proactive measures to combat the problem.

"There are certain critical issues like water sprinkling to curtail air pollution. Likewise, landfill sites are not being maintained properly," Vardhan said criticising Delhi's Arvind Kejriwal government.

He said the Delhi government was not following guidelines to manage solid waste and dust mitigation.

Earlier today, participating in the debate, Rajiv Shukla of the Congress said heavy vehicles should be taxed more in order to discourage people from buying such models.

"The money generated through such measures should be diverted into strengthening public transport," he said.

Cutting across the party lines, Rajya Sabha members sought concerted efforts by the government to deal with rising pollution levels in Delhi and its adjoining areas.

The members also asked the government to refrain from putting the blame on farmers for causing pollution by burning stubble or husk after harvest and suggested steps to help the farmers for proper disposals of this agriculture residue.

Initiating a short duration discussion, SP leader Naresh Agarwal said, "farmers are blamed for causing pollution by burning stubble/husk. The government should take steps to deal with the situation rather than blaming farmers because vehicle /industrial emissions and others area also the reasons for it."

Referring to the 12-point charter unveiled by the government to deal with the issue, Agarwal said that pollution will not come down just because the government would give directions to states or departments.

He expressed unhappiness over the non-spending of Rs 800 crore cess collected in the name of environment by the Delhi government as it said it does not have the right to spend the money.

Agarwal said the government should not refrain from taking steps to curb pollution because of fear of media criticism.

T S Reddy (Congress) also expressed dissatisfaction over the government's 12-point charter to deal with the issue, saying he wanted to understand the 12 points charter. He drew attention towards solid waste management saying garbage was being dumped in an improper manner.

Referring to the government's plan to use electric cars for officials, he said there was a need for an electric public transport system, including buses and metro rail, to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

He was also of the view that the state governments of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan should take steps to deal with stubble burning after harvest.

A Navaneethakrishnan (AIADMK) also echoed similar views and asked the chair to consider conducting Parliament session in winters in Chennai where pollution levels are low.

Derek O Brien (TMC) said a large number of lives have been lost due to pollution and suggested that the government should also look at other metropolitans and small town to deal with the problem there.

He suggested that the government can ask people to plant one sapling on the birth of every girl child as practiced in West Bengal, where 15 lakh saplings have been planted.

Prasanna Acharya ((BJD) and Harivansh (JDU) expressed similar views and asked the government to take steps to deal with the problem, instead of blaming farmers.

C P Narayanan (CPI-M) said people of Delhi were suffering from pollution due to lack of coordination among the Centre, state governments and local government. He also spoke about the need to educate people on waste management.

Veer Singh (BSP) suggested that industrial units should be shifted from the national capital and action should be taken against big farmers for burning crop residues.

D Raja of the CPI said air pollution was a health issue and was not limited to Delhi alone and suggested that public transport should be encouraged and massive efforts should be taken to shift towards cleaner fuel. Raja said farmers should be given subsidy for adopting to to new technology to re- plough crop residues in the field.

INLD member Ram Kumar Kashyap said trees should be planted to tackle pollution, while Pratap Singh Bajwa (Congress) urged political parties to make Delhi liveable by forgetting their differences. On crop residue burning, he said farmers would have to incur additional cost to remove residues and they should be adequately compensated.

Satyanarayan Jatia (BJP) said pollution levels have increased and there was a need to find a solution, while Kanimozhi (DMK) said the pollution problem was not only in Delhi but also in other cities of the country. Many cities of Tamil Nadu were facing similar situation because of industrial pollution, she said, adding that emission norms should be adhered to.

The DMK member said farmers should be given alternate choice so that they stop burning of crop residues. The government should not intervene and help farmers, she said.
Digital forensic expertise of recordings purporting to contain the voices belonging to former Georgia President and Movement of New Forces leader Mikheil Saakashvili and disgraced Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Kurchenko was falsified, Saakashvili's lawyer Ruslan Chornolutsky has said.

"Saakashvili has never made the acquaintance to Kurchenko or spoken with him. Our position is clear. We believe all these recordings, all these voices were falsified. And it is clear that the state institute of expertise controlled by Ukraine's SBU Security Service could not have sponsored a forensic examination of the recordings without concluding otherwise," he told the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Friday.

The lawyer said he does not understand how the press secretary of the chief of Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) Larysa Sarhan was able to publicize information about the results of the expertise, because they are part of the PGO's pretrial investigation.

"She did not have access to the recordings and it is highly unlikely she could have access. Therefore it is necessary to figure where information about this so-called expertise comes from," the lawyer said.
India Pakistan

One hundred and forty-five Indian fishermen on Friday crossed the Attari-Wagah border into India after Pakistani authorities released them from jail.

The Indian fishermen were brought here on a train from Karachi this morning.

The Edhi Foundation provided them with cloths and Rs 5,000 each.

"We also served them lunch before they crossed the Wagah border into their homeland," Edhi Lahore spokesman Muhammad Younas told PTI.

He said it took a little long as the fishermen were handed over to the Indian authorities by the Pakistan Rangers after going through their papers. "Some 11 months ago my boat's engine stopped and I was arrested (by Pakistan's Maritime Security Agency). I am happy to go back home," a fisherman who was sitting in a queue at Wagah border, said.

All 145 Indian fishermen were languishing in Malir jail in Sindh province of Pakistan.

Indian fishermen are usually arrested by the PMSA which is responsible for guarding and protecting Pakistan's territorial waters.

Both India and Pakistan routinely arrest each other's fishermen who cross over the unclear and disputed water border of Sir Creek which opens up in the Arabian Sea and divides the Pakistani province of Sindh from the state of Gujarat.

Once arrested, fishermen from India are first brought to the Docks police station and from there they are sent to the Malir jail.

Owing to lengthy and slow bureaucratic and legal procedures, the fishermen usually remain in jail for several months.

A number of non-governmental organisations in both India and Pakistan have raised the issue, pressing their governments to release arrested fishermen without much delay.
assam, sarbananda sonowal

The government of Assam has asked its employees to reach office 30 minutes early from the beginning of 2018. The decision, which will see the change of government office timings from existing 10 am to 5 pm to 9.30 am to 5 pm is aimed at improving the work culture of government officials.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, the decision was made by the state government after a cabinet meeting that was held on Wednesday. Beginning January 1 next year, all government employees will have to report for work at 9.30 am. They will get a 30 minutes lunch break from 1.30 pm to 2 pm, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary was quoted saying in the report.

Earlier Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, while addressing a meeting had urged government employees to reach offices early so that people do not have to wait to get their work done. Why should you wait till 10am? Start coming to office at 9.30am since the sun rises earlier in Assam than the rest of India. By developing such work culture you can inspire future generations, he had said.

The new decision will affect the work timings of over four lakh employees who work in various government offices and institutes. The employees have so far responded positively to the new decision and urged the government to ensure that all officials including senior staff would follow it. Theres nothing to complain about the change. The government should have discussed the issue with us and it should ensure that officers too are made to comply, Basab Kalita, President of Sodou Asom Karmachari Parishad (SAKP), the umbrella body of government employees was quoted in the report.

The move also comes at the back of demands in the North East that the region should have a separate time zone as the sun rises much earlier in the region compared other parts of India.
After overcoming mild tremors in the just-concluded Gujarat assembly polls, the RSS top brass and BJP leaders are holding a two-day meeting in Delhi to discuss and dissect core socio-economic issues as the Modi government prepares to present its last full budget before the next general elections.

The meeting in Delhi, which kicked off on Thursday, is being attended by RSS Joint General Secretary Dr Krishna Gopal, BJP chief Amit Shah, leaders of RSS-affiliates Swadeshi Jagran Manch, Bhartiya Kisan Sangh, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Sahakar Bharati, Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat and Laghu Udyog Bharti.

The implementation of GST, effect of demonitisation, the state of rural economy and unemployment emerged as key challenges to the BJP in the poll-bound state of Gujarat where the party managed to retain simple majority.

The high-level meeting focuses on improving key economic policies, especially the agrarian distress.

In the last coordination meeting held at Mathura in UP, the members, especially the Laghu Unyog Bharti, had warned the government on the impact of GST on small traders.

The meeting will also discuss agrarian distress, to see if Gujarat results are an indication that farmers have expressed their angst electorally.

The BJP could survive the Gujarat scare due to the demographics of the state with the party performing exceptionally well in urban seats.

The BJP does not enjoy the same advantage in other parts of the country, especially the four big poll-bound states in 2018.

RSS-backed Farmers' Body had, in the run-up to the Gujarat elections, alerted the state government of the perils of 22 years of anti-incumbency, but none of the forewarnings got translated to any policy change. The major problem of farmers has been low procurement prices for crops and bad implementation of crop insurance.

The poll results show the BJP lost 14 rural seats, while the Congress gained in all these seats in Gujarat.
Rahul Gandhi (C), president of India's main opposition Congress party, stands to attention after hoisting the party's flag on its 133rd Foundation Day at the party headquarters in New Delhi, India (Reuters)

All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Rahul Gandhi on Friday held a meeting with newly elected MLAs and defeated candidates, and got their feedback regarding the recent debacle in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls, sources said.

Gandhi, who arrived here for the first time after becoming the AICC president, held separate meetings with candidates of Mandi and Shimla Parliamentary constituencies, and Kangra and Hamirpur Lok Sabha seats, they said.

He got feedback from the candidates and asked the party leaders to "tightened their belts" for 2019 Lok Sabha polls, party officials said.

"Indiscipline and anti-party activities by any leader, howsoever tall he may be will not be tolerated," Gandhi told party leaders, and added that dedicated, honest and loyal workers would be given due respect.

He also addressed the state party office bearers, presidents of district and block Congress committees, and heads of frontal organisations, party officials said.
Swiss company Berlinger is a 150 year old company. After a feedback that their bottle Bereg-Kit Geneva developed a crack when frozen. This initiated Berlinger to stop production of its specially designed bottles for their most famous customer. What is these bottles used for & who is the customer?

Soon, a urine sample could be used to detect cancerous cells in your body. A team of researchers centred at Nagoya University have developed a novel medical device that can efficiently capture extracellular vesicle and potentially use them to screen for cancer.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) can be thought of as small "chunks" of a cell that are able to pinch off and circulate throughout the body to deliver messenger cargo to other cells.

"EVs are potentially useful as clinical markers. The composition of the molecules contained in an EV may provide a diagnostic signature for certain diseases," lead author of the study, Takao Yasui explains.

"The ongoing challenge for physicians in any field is to find a non-invasive diagnostic tool that allows them to monitor their patients on a regular basisfor example, a simple urine test."

EVs are known to harbour microRNAs, which are short pieces of ribonucleic acid that play diverse roles in normal cellular biology.

The presence of certain microRNAs in urine might serve as a red flag for serious conditions such as bladder and prostate cancer.

However, this is a big breakthrough but there remain certain practical hurdles to bring in in regular medical practice. One such hurdle: finding a feasible method to capture EVs in sufficient quantities to analyse them in a routine clinical setting.

"The content of EVs in urine is extremely low, at less than 0.01 percent of the total fluid volume. This is a major barrier to their diagnostic utility," Yasui notes.

Our solution was to embed zinc oxide nanowires into a specialized polymer to create a material that we believed would be highly efficient at capturing these vesicles. Our findings suggest that the device is indeed quite efficient. We obtained a collection rate of over 99 percent, surpassing ultracentrifugation as well as other methods that are currently being used in the field."

The research team then compared the microRNAs of EVs isolated from healthy patients with those isolated from patients who were already diagnosed with bladder, prostate, and other forms of cancer.

"Sometimes finding just one reliable microRNA is considered a success. Using this approach, we were surprised to find that not just one, but whole combinations of microRNAs might be associated with different types of cancers. The findings are preliminary, of course, but we hope our device can help to lay the groundwork for easier ways to diagnose life-threatening diseases as early as possible," co-author Yoshinobu Baba added.

You can read the full report here.
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Daimler India Commercial Vehicles' steady operational expansion has translated in to strong growth in volumes and market share for the German brand. The jump comes at a time when Indian companies are upping the ante.

BharatBenz  DICV's local brand that makes medium and heavy duty trucks and buses  saw volumes grow 26 percent during January-November to 15,200 units against 12,100 units in the same period last year.

DICV volumes have more than doubled since 2013  when it had its first full year of operation in India, clocking sales of 6,000 units.

The company pegs its market share has jumped 2.3 percentage points to 9 percent by end of the same period. This puts DICV ahead of Mahindra & Mahindra but behind Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and VE Commercial Vehicles.

DICVs rise in share in the domestic market has come at the cost of loss in share of rival Tata Motors whose share dipped below 50 percent. DICV is now the fourth largest player in the medium and heavy commercial vehicle segment.

Although the overall market in India was smaller than in 2016  as a result of regulatory and tax changes especially in the first half of the year  Daimler Trucks significantly increased its unit sales in the fifth year since the launch of the BharatBenz brand, said a statement from Daimler.

The plant in Chennai produces BharatBenz trucks not only for the local market, but also for export to more than 40 markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Hoping to keep the momentum going, DICV hopes to turn profitable next year, a top company official had told Moneycontrol recently. During this year DICV recorded profits in two months and said that the company is on track to break-even next year.

Marc Llistosella, head, Daimler Trucks Asia, had said, Margins are getting better and FY19 should be a profitable year. On the basis of this DICV is targeting a 20 percent market share in heavy-duty trucks and a double-digit market share in medium-duty trucks segment by 2020.

Since its entry in 2012 DICV has sold more than 55,000 trucks. The company developed trucks and buses in India from scratch and refrained from bringing its international range here citing need for finding local solutions.

As per data supplied by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) sales of medium and heavy commercial vehicles rose 1 percent during April-November to 183,302 units.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko intends to initiate bills to ensure the continuity of judicial proceedings if a judge is transferred to a new court within the framework of the second stage of judicial reform.

"I will initiate changes to the legislation that would ensure the continuity of the trial. If a judge who successfully passed the examinations, passed the integrity checks, or won a tender, or was transferred to a new court working in the same territory, they should have the opportunity to go through with the same cases, which they considered in the old court," the presidential press service quoted Poroshenko as saying on Friday.

The head of state noted that this issue caused a lot of fears.

"Of course, we must give an adequate answer to these questions, and I am sure that the Verkhovna Rada will support me in this matter," the president said.

Earlier this day, Poroshenko signed decrees that envisage the liquidation of local courts and the formation of district courts to replace them.

As reported, on December 26, the NGO "Advocate Advisory Group" and the NGO "Homeland of Heroes of Heavenly Hundred" appealed to Poroshenko asking him not to sign decrees on the liquidation of local general courts and creation of district courts, as this would lead to the delay in the consideration of cases of crimes against participants of EuroMaidan and bringing those responsible to justice.
Vodafone Idea (Image: Reuters)

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On Tuesday, Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications said that the telecom sector has become a money guzzler where only those with deep pockets can survive.

Even the "mighty" house of Tatas had to "gift away" their telecom business (to Airtel), Ambani asserted, sounding bitter about the regulatory framework. He said the long time taken to clear RCom's merger with Systema Shyam Telecom represents an "unease of doing business".

For every telecom company in India that cannot be considered a giant in the sector, the last couple of years have been the same. Companies have had to either pump in a lot of money into their business to stay competitive enough to survive, or merge themselves with other companies. And as if that were not enough, when companies did try to merge with each other, they were held up by regulatory hurdles.

So when Reliance Jio finally arrived late last year, other telcos were left high and dry quite literally. According to a report by Kleiner Perkins Internet Trends 2017, Indias wireless consumer data prices fell 48 percent as incumbent mobile operators responded to Jios pricing.

The Jio effect

As of September this year, the top three telcos in the country had together lost over 50 lakh subscribers, according to a report by Business Standard. Idea and Vodafone had lost 28 lakh and 24 lakh subscribers, respectively, while Airtel's base contracted by two lakh subscribers, the report said.

However, Prashant Singhal, Global telecommunications Leader at EY, told the newspaper that for a market like India, it was the revenue that must be monitored to check a telcos' health rather than the subscriber base.

"The health of industry is driven by revenue and we have to see if revenue is shifting in favour of Reliance Jio. In India, people have got multiple SIMs and losing subscribers does not give a clear indication of an operators health," Singhal said.

Both Airtel and Vodafone were forced to slash tariff after they started losing customers to Jio. However, the two companies continue to charge for voice calls and text messages, at least on some of their plans, whereas these services are offered free of cost by Jio on all its plans.

The country's largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel's consolidated net profit for the second quarter fell 6.6 percent, dented by pricing pressure, while Vodafone saw its operating profit fall 39 percent year-on year in the first half of this fiscal year.

Speaking to The Economic Times, Bharti Airtel's Sunil Mittal had said that Jio's entry with prolonged free offers had led to unexpectedly rapid consolidation.

"Market has consolidated to a level which was an aspiration, but never thought would be a possibility. Now we're looking at 3-4 players. Number 2 Vodafone and Number 3 Idea being put together, is unprecedented... you never see two strong companies merging...this is just because the market structure has got completely damaged," he told the newspaper.

Mittal estimated that around USD 40-50 billion (approximately Rs 2.5-3.2 lakh crore) has been written off by various telecom companies, which he believes is "largely due to Jio".

However, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani quickly rebutted Mittal, saying businesses must stop looking at regulators and governments to guarantee their profits, according to a report by Gadgets Now.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, former chairman of Micromax Sanjay Kapoor said in October that consolidation in the telecom space is good, while competition remains severe.

According to Kapoor, two things are happening in the sector. Firstly, there is clear consolidation in a space where an unsustainable perfect competition structure is dying down. A more sustainable structure is now coming into shape and three long-term players seem to be standing out.

Secondly, he said, Jio starting to publish its earnings numbers will drive change in behaviour of other telcos, considering their revenue steams had been completely disrupted by the new carrier.

According to a report by The Hindu BusinessLine, analysts at Goldman Sachs feel that as a result of consolidation, consumers can hope to benefit from their service providers who are on a stronger footing to expand their networks and improve quality of service.

Indian telecom companies are now looking for mergers and acquisitions to stay ahead of the competition. In February, Telecom Secretary JS Deepak said that the Indian telecom market would eventually consolidate to have only five major players. He also said "consolidation is going to be very good for India as we are likely to get four private and one government player (BSNL-MTNL), which is ideal."

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), there were more than 1.18 billion wireless telephone subscribers in the country in April this year, being serviced by as many as 12 operators.

For the telecom sector in India, 2017 was a year marked by unprecedented consolidation. Here are some of the key mergers and acquisitions of the sector from this year:

Airtel and Tata Teleservices

In October, Airtel announced a merger of its mobile operations with struggling Tata Teleservices. According to the deal, Airtel would acquire Tata's consumer mobile business in 19 circles.

The merger was done on a debt-free, cash-free basis. The deal also gave Airtel access to Tata's 1,800, 2,100 and 850 MHz spectrum bands, all widely used for 4G. In December, both boards had cleared terms for the customer business merger.

Vodafone and Idea Cellular

India's second largest (Vodafone) and third largest (Idea) telecom operators are now in the process of merging to form what would become the country's largest operator. The merged entity will also be the world's second largest telecom service provider.

According to the terms of the deal, Idea's parent entity Aditya Birla Group will gradually raise its stake in the combined entity while the Vodafone Group will reduce its stake until both their shares are equal. The two companies have received regulatory approval and have started picking key executives. They are hopeful that the merger will be concluded in 2018.

Airtel acquires Telenor India and Tikona

In February, Airtel bought Telenor's ailing Indian subsidiary, Telenor India. According to the deal, Airtel took over Telenor India's liabilities pertaining to licence fees and lease obligations for mobile towers.

The deal, which gave Airtel 44 million additional users, did not involve any cash payment to Telenor. Airtel also got Telenor India's 43.4 MHz spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band as a part of the deal.

In September this year, Airtel announced it had fully acquired Tikona Digital Network's share capital. Earlier, the company had announced a plan to purchase Tikona's 4G airwaves for Rs 1,600 crore. The acquisition gave the Sunil Mittal-led telecom company access to Tikona's 4G spectrum in five circles.

Reliance Communications and Aircel

In April 2017, Reliance Communications and Aircel approved a merger that would create one of the largest networks in the country in terms of subscribers. RCom and Aircel's parent firm Maxis were supposed to own 50 percent stake each in the merged entity.

The proposed merger was crucial for RCom as it would have retired Rs 25,000 crore of debt from its total debt of around Rs 45,000 crore. However, RCom shelved merger talks with Aircel, citing regulatory uncertainties.

On December 26, RCom unveiled a new resolution plan to reduce its debt by up to Rs 39,000 crore through prepayment and sale of assets and form a new RCom with debt levels of less than Rs 6,000 crore.

The resolution plan involves exiting strategic debt restructuring (SDR) and monetising some of the company's assets, including transfer of spectrum liabilities by March 2018.

Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd
Brother and Sisters, we are living in 21st century. Has it ever pained us that our mothers and sisters have to defecate in open? Whether dignity of women is not our collective responsibility? Cant we just make arrangements for toilets for the dignity of our mothers and sisters? these were the exact words of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his first Independence Day speech in 2014.

To accelerate the efforts to achieve universal sanitation coverage and to put focus on sanitation, the Prime Minister of India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on 2nd October, 2014. The aim is to achieve Swachh Bharat by 2019, as a fitting tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th Birth Anniversary.

In Rural India, this would mean improving the levels of cleanliness through Solid and Liquid Waste Management activities and making villages Open Defecation Free (ODF), clean and sanitised.

Three years down the line, Modis dream project of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is a mixed bag of success. As per official records, 49.62 million more households in India have toiletsrising from 38.7% in 2014 to 69.04% in 2017and 250,000 of Indias 649,481 villages have been declared free of open defecation, as per a Hindustan Times news report.

Swachh Bharat Mission Urban (SBM-U) has helped in building of 3,074,229 individual toilets and 226,274 public and community toilets. 150 cities have been declared open defecation free. 44,650 wards in the country has been covered under door-to-door waste collection scheme.

The aim is to construct 95 lakh individual toilets with an overall program target of 1.04 crore units by the end of 2017-18. . For public and community toilets, the cumulative figure is for 5.08 lakh units which is also the overall target. Also, scientific solid waste management set up has to reach 4,000 villages by end of this year.

Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin (SBM-G) is meant to sanitize rural India. Till date, 49,906,655 toilets have been constructed. Since 2014, there has been a steady increase of building of toilets in rural India.

Six Indian states have been declared Open Defecation Free, which include Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana and Kerala. A survey done by National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) points out the cleanest states and the dirtiest ones in India. The cleanest states in India are Sikkim, Kerala, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Haryana, whereas Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the dirtiest states.

According to reports, Rs 2,850 crore has been released in 2014-15 and Rs 10,000 crore in 2016-17. However the allocation in 2017-18 jumped 33% to Rs 13,948.
China on Friday denied reports it has been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was not happy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation.

Trump said on Twitter the previous day that China had been "caught" allowing oil into North Korea and that would prevent "a friendly solution" to the crisis over North Korea's nuclear programme.

"I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war," Trump said in a separate interview with The New York Times.

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that U.S. spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times since October.

U.S. officials have not confirmed details of this report.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters she had noted recent media reports including suggestions a Chinese vessel was suspected of transporting oil to a North Korean vessel on Oct. 19.

"The Chinese side has conducted immediate investigation. In reality, the ship in question has, since August, not docked at a Chinese port and there is no record of it entering or leaving a Chinese port," Hua said.

She said she was not aware if the vessel had docked at the port in other countries but the relevant media reports "did not accord with facts".

"China has always implemented U.N. Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfils its international obligations. We never allow Chinese companies and citizens to violate the resolutions," Hua said.

"If, through investigation, it's confirmed there are violations of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, China will deal with them seriously in accordance with laws and regulations."

In the New York Times interview, Trump explicitly tied his administration's trade policy with China to its perceived cooperation in resolving the North Korea nuclear crisis.

"When I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade. They made a last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum. That doesn't include the theft of intellectual property, O.K., which is another $300 billion," Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview.

"If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that."

An official of the U.S. State Department said the U.S. government was aware of vessels engaged in such activity involving refined petroleum and coal.

"We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The United States says the full cooperation of China, North Korea's neighbour and main trading partner, is vital to the success of efforts to rein in North Korea, while warning that all options are on the table, including military ones, in dealing with it.

China has repeatedly said it is fully enforcing all resolutions against North Korea, despite suspicion in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that loopholes still exist.

'EVADING SANCTIONS'

South Korea said on Friday it had seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship suspected of transferring oil to North Korea in defiance of the sanctions.

A senior South Korean foreign ministry official said the ship, the Lighthouse Winmore, was seized when it arrived at a South Korean port in late November.

"It's unclear how much oil the ship had transferred to North Korea for how long and on how many occasions, but it clearly showed North Korea is engaged in evading the sanctions," the official told Reuters.

South Korea said it had obtained intelligence showing the Hong Kong-flagged Lighthouse Winmore transferring as much as 600 tons of refined petroleum products to a North Korea-flagged ship, the Sam Jong 2, on Oct. 19 in international waters between China and the Korean peninsula.

Employees at the office of Lighthouse Ship Management, the ship's registered manager, in the Chinese port city of Guangzhou, declined to comment and said they had no knowledge of the situation.

China's foreign ministry spokeswoman said she did not have any information about the matter.

Both ships were among 10 vessels that the United States had proposed that the U.N. Security Council should blacklist for transporting banned items from North Korea, documents seen by Reuters this month showed.

China and Russia subsequently asked for more time to consider the U.S. proposal.

Ship tracking data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows that the Lighthouse Winmore has mainly been doing supply runs between China and Taiwan since August.

Prior to that, it was active between India and the United Arab Emirates. In October, when it allegedly transferred petroleum products to a North Korean ship in international waters, the Lighthouse Winmore had its tracking transponder switched off.

The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea in response to its efforts to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States.

The U.N. Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea for a recent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test, seeking to further limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil.

The U.S.-drafted U.N. resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year.

It also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Security Council to further reductions if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear or ICBM test.

Beside the Lighthouse Winmore and the Sam Jong 2, the ships targeted for blacklisting were the Xin Sheng Hai (flag unknown); the Togo-flagged Yu Yuan; Panama-flagged Glory Hope 1 (also known as Orient Shenyu), Kai Xiang and Billions No. 18; and the North Korean-flagged Ul Ji Bong 6, Rung Ra 2, and Rye Song Gang 1.

In September, the Security Council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea.
China's central bank on Friday said it will let some commercial banks temporarily keep fewer required reserves, to help them cope with heavy demand for cash ahead of the Lunar New Year.

The People's Bank of China usually provides short-term liquidity support for banks to help deal with greater demand for cash ahead at that time of year.

The move will help "promote smooth money market operations and support financial institutions' financial services before and after the Spring Festival", the central bank said.

In 2018, the first day of Lunar New Year is Feb. 16.

National commercial banks with higher cash demand will be allowed to temporarily keep fewer reserves with the central bank.

According to the PBOC statement, some banks will be allowed to lower their reserve requirement ratios (RRR) by up to 200 basis points, for 30 days.

For major banks, the current RRR rate is 17 percent of their deposits.

The PBOC statement did not specify when the temporary arrangement to make more cash available will begin.
The United States should take action to reduce demand for the drugs fuelling its deadly opioid crisis rather than simply accusing China of being the major source, a top Chinese drug control official said.

"The biggest difficulty China faces in opioid control is that such drugs are in enormous demand in the U.S.," Yu Haibin of the China National Narcotics Control Commission said at a news briefing, the China Daily reported on Friday.

U.S. President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency in October and said he discussed with Chinese President Xi Jinping how to "stop the lethal flow" of the drugs during his visit to China last month.

Opioids include prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, a highly addictive synthetic drug 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.

American law enforcement agencies and drug control experts say most of the fentanyl distributed in the United States, as well as its precursor chemicals, come from China.

While Chinese officials dispute that assertion, the government has taken steps to crack down on the production and export of them, and has placed fentanyl and other related compounds on its list of controlled substances.

Yu said the United States should intensify law enforcement and share more police intelligence with Chinese authorities to combat the problem.

China's drug control agency said on Thursday that five more precursor chemicals that can be used to produce fentanyl and methamphetamines had been added to its list of controlled substances, the China Daily reported.

Wei Xiaojun, the deputy secretary-general of China's National Narcotics Commission, said last month that China did not "deny or reject" that some fentanyl produced in China had made its way to the United States but there was not enough evidence to say most of it originated from China.

The U.S. Department of Justice indicted two major Chinese drug traffickers in October on charges of making illegal versions of fentanyl and selling the highly addictive drug to Americans over the internet and through the international mail.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday said he had "been soft" on China on trade issues and said he was not happy that China had allowed oil shipments to go into North Korea.

"I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war," Trump said in an interview with The New York Times.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump said on Twitter that China has been "caught" allowing oil into North Korea and said such moves would prevent "a friendly solution" to the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear 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!" Trump wrote.

In The New York Times interview, Trump explicitly tied his administration's trade policy with China to the country's perceived cooperation in resolving the North Korea nuclear crisis.

"When I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade. They made a last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum. That doesn't include the theft of intellectual property, O.K., which is another $300 billion," Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview.

"If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that."

China earlier on Thursday said there had been no U.N. sanction-breaking oil sales by Chinese ships to North Korea after a South Korean newspaper said Chinese and North Korean vessels had been illicitly linking up at sea to get oil to North Korea.

An official of the U.S. State Department said the U.S. government was aware of vessels engaged in such activity involving refined petroleum and coal.

"We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that U.S. spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels around 30 times since October.

U.S. officials have not confirmed details of this report.

The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang's efforts to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States.

Washington says the full cooperation of China, North Korea's neighbor and main trading partner, is vital to the success of this effort, while warning that all options are on the table, including military ones, in dealing with North Korea.

The U.N. Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea for a recent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test, seeking to further limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil.

The U.S.-drafted U.N. resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year.

It also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Security Council to further reductions if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear or ICBM test.

Documents seen by Reuters this month showed Washington called on the Security Council to blacklist 10 ships for circumventing sanctions by conducting ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels or transporting North Korean coal.

China and Russia subsequently asked for more time to consider the proposal.

The ships targeted for blacklisting were the Xin Sheng Hai (flag unknown); the Hong-Kong-flagged Lighthouse Winmore; the Togo-flagged Yu Yuan; Panama-flagged Glory Hope 1 (also known as Orient Shenyu), Kai Xiang and Billions No. 18; and the North Korean-flagged Ul Ji Bong 6, Rung Ra 2, Rye Song Gang 1, and Sam Jong 2.

In September, the Security Council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea.

China has repeatedly said it is fully enforcing all resolutions against North Korea, despite suspicion in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that loopholes still exist.

Asked at a regular briefing whether Chinese ships were illegally providing oil to North Korean ships, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang reiterated that China, including the military, strictly enforced U.N. resolutions.

"The situation you have mentioned absolutely does not exist," he said.

A State Department spokesman, Michael Cavey, reiterated on Wednesday that the United States had called on all countries to cut economic ties with North Korea.

Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the conservative Center for the National Interest, said China would "never, ever enforce the sanctions to the satisfaction of President Trump," in spite of the effort the U.S. president had invested in developing a personal relationship with China's president, Xi Jinping.

"With President Trump's latest Tweet it seems the 'Bromance' between him and President Xi is finally over," he said.

"This was always bound to happen. China is actually more afraid of North Korea than America," Kazianis said, citing Chinese concerns about instability or collapse in North Korea if sanctions were fully applied.

U.S. Democratic Senator Ed Markey, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Twitter the North Korean threat had only increased since Trump took office and he had to find a way to get China to cut off crude oil supplies.

"The solution is a coherent strategy, not bluster," he said.
Former Indian navy officer Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav's mother Avanti (C) and wife, Chetankul arrive to meet him at Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad, Pakistan December 25, 2017. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood - RC17E6201140

A section of Pakistani journalists have come forward to condemn the mistreatment meted out against the mother and wife of Kulbhushan Jadhav. The scribes have openly spoken up against the conduct by local journalists who verbally harassed the women after they met Jadhav.

Prominent Pakistani journalist Hassan Belal Zaidi lashed out heavily against the journalists after they insulted the women by calling them relatives of a murderer. Tweeting about the incident for which the journalists were congratulated by Pakistani authorities, Zaidi claimed that it displayed the unbecoming of those journalists.

Reporters shouted taunts and slogans at the two women, said they were related to a killer who has blood on his hands. FO even messaged reporters to thank them for 'job well done'. Conduct unbecoming of journalists was on display that day..., he tweeted.



Reporters shouted taunts and slogans at the two women, said they were related to a killer who has blood on his hands. FO even messaged reporters to thank them for 'job well done'.

Conduct unbecoming of journalists was on display that day... https://t.co/bNLczGBacb

 Mighty (@mightyobvious) December 26, 2017

Besides Zaidi, other journalists also came forward against the mistreatment of the women by a section of media. Taha Siddiqui, Bureau Chief of Wion News, too expressed his anguish against the mistreatment and misconduct that was showered at women terming it as shameful. Somedays we do a story tht disgusts us. Today was one such day. But it wasnt cuz of what I covered. Rather it was cuz of how my fellow journos behaved with mother & wife of #KulbushanJadhav whn they left FO building. They shouted taunts. It was very shameful, he tweeted.



Somedays we do a story tht disgusts us. Today was one such day. But it wasnt cuz of what I covered. Rather it was cuz of how my fellow journos behaved with mother & wife of #KulbushanJadhav whn they left FO building. They shouted taunts. It was very shameful December 25, 2017





No words for the Pakistani journalists who think heckling and harassing a 70-year-old woman is the best way to express patriotism. https://t.co/YOyFfyYOfF

 Benazir Shah (@Benazir_Shah) December 27, 2017

Benazir Shah also condemned the act by tweeting that she had no words for the Pakistani journalists who think heckling and harassing a 70-year-old woman is the best way to express patriotism.

Mother and wife of Kulbhushan Jadhav- who has been sentenced to death by Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism - were visited him on December 25. However, the women met with heckling and humiliation prompting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to state that the entire arrangement lacked humanity and goodwill besides accusing Islamabad of using the event as a propaganda exercise.
Washington: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks at the 2017 Atlantic Council-Korea Foundation Forum in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017. AP/PTI(AP12_13_2017_000095B)

Pakistan must demonstrate its desire to collaborate with the US in its fight against terrorism, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said today.

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Tillerson reiterated what the Trump administration has been saying about Pakistan for the past several months now after President Donald Trump announced his South Asia policy in August.

Trump while announcing his South Asia Policy had criticised Pakistan for not doing enough to combat terrorism.

"Pakistan must contribute by combating terrorist groups on its own soil. We are prepared to partner with Pakistan to defeat terror organisations seeking safe havens, but Pakistan must demonstrate its desire to partner with us," Tillerson said.

"A commitment to stop Islamist terrorism and extremism also motivated the administration's decision to adopt a new South Asia strategy, which focuses on Afghanistan. That country cannot become a safe haven for terrorists, as it was in the days before the September 11 attacks," he wrote as he summarised up his key diplomatic accomplishments in the first year.

Defeating terrorism remains one of Trump's highest priorities, Tillerson said.

"The administration's aggressive strategy to counter the Islamic State delegates greater authority to American military commanders on the battlefield, giving our forces more freedom and speed to do what they do best, in partnership with indigenous fighting forces," he asserted.

As a result, the Global Coalition to Defeat the ISIS has accelerated operations and has recaptured virtually all of previously held Islamic State territory in Iraq and Syria, he said.

"While our military was helping clear Iraq and Syria of Islamic State forces, our diplomats were following up with humanitarian aid and assistance, such as clearing land mines, restoring water and power, and getting children back in school," Tillerson wrote.
U.S. sanctions against Russia over the non-compliance with the Minsk agreements would have been lifted if Ukrainian sovereignty had been restored and Minsk agreements had been implemented, U.S. State Department spokesman Kurt Volker has said.

The most severe sanctions were imposed on Russia for non-compliance with the Minsk agreements, and if Russia had withdrawn its forces from Donbas and the provisions of the Minsk agreements had been observed, and we would see the restoration of Ukraine's sovereignty, then these sanctions would have been lifted, he said in an interview with the 'Echo of Moscow' radio station.

According to Volker, different groups of sanctions were applied to Russia. There are sanctions imposed for the annexation of Crimea, there are sanctions imposed later for the invasion of Donbas, there are sanctions under the Magnitsky law. There are sanctions for Russia's interference in the U.S. elections, and these are all different groups of sanctions, he explained.

Volker clarified that the military operation in Donbas costs Russia sanctions, international reputation, military costs, human losses.

Washington really wants Russia to change the assessment of the situation and leave eastern Ukraine. The U.S. would like to see peace and security in the region, so that people start live a normal life and forced migrants return home. This would be the best outcome for all, the diplomat added.
For a small town (at least for now), Morgan Hill has a way of making headlines each year, and 2017 was filled with noteworthy acts of nature, community activism, progress and, on occasion, controversy.

There are usually two sides, if not more, to every story, and, as Morgan Hills favorite hometown newspaper, our reporters try to cover every angle of an issue that pops on the newsroom radar. Following is a recap of some of the most memorable stories from 2017, and how some of them are likely to pan out as 2018 begins.

Teens killer convicted, sentenced

After a nearly four-month trial that lasted throughout the summer of 2017and another four months of delays and challenges by the defendantthe man who killed 15-year-old Sierra LaMar was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of parole.

Antolin Garcia Torres, 26, of Morgan Hill, was sentenced after a Dec. 12 hearing in which Sierras parents and other family members tearfully read statements directly to their daughters killer, pleading with him to reveal the location of the girls remains. A jury convicted Garcia Torres of murdering Sierra in June.

The same jury also convicted him of three unrelated attempted carjackings in the parking lots of two Safeway stores in Morgan Hill, in which he targeted three different women in 2009.

While the DAs Office argued for the death penalty for Garcia Torres, the jury recommended life in prison.

Sierra has been missing since March 16, 2012. She disappeared while she was walking to her school bus stop at the intersection of Palm and Dougherty avenues in north Morgan Hill. She was a sophomore at Sobrato High School at the time.

While her remains have not been found, authorities are still on alert for any sign of her whereabouts. Volunteer searcher Roger Nelson, of Gilroy, said its possible that the volunteer crews could schedule more search efforts, but only if they receive new leads.

Councilmember charged

Morgan Hill City Councilman Larry Carrs colleagues and constituents were surprised to learn that prosecutors charged him with domestic battery in relation to a Nov. 25 incident at the home he shares with his longtime girlfriend in the citys downtown.

More research by the Times found that Carr, 48, pleaded no contest to an earlier domestic battery chargeinvolving the same victimin 2015 at the couples previous home in Morgan Hill. He was also convicted in 1993, at the age of 24, of driving under the influence resulting in bodily injury in relation to a vehicle accident on Hale Avenue. Two occupants of the vehicle Carr collided with suffered numerous injuries.

Carr has denied ever physically harming any woman, particularly in relation to the charges filed in 2015 and 2017. Both charges are misdemeanors, as was the DUI conviction. In 2015, Carr agreed to complete a counseling program, but did not receive a fine or jail time for the no contest conviction.

Carrs arraignment on the Nov. 24 domestic battery charge is scheduled for Jan. 26, 2018.

Anderson overflows

April showers might bring May flowers, but Februarys heavy rains brought more than anyone bargained for, as Anderson Reservoir overflowed from its spillway for the first time since 2006. To make matters worse, an ill-prepared Santa Clara Valley Water District and City of San Jose did not anticipate Coyote Creeks inability to hold the substantial runoff, as widespread flooding overtook South San Jose neighborhoods, which were evacuated with belongings left behind. The floods resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damages.

This winter, the water district is planning to keep Andersons water levels low enough that it will not reach the spillway, even if we see similar downpours in the coming months. SCVWD officials have also noted that a scheduled retrofit of Anderson Dam will not only strengthen the earthen structure, but also minimize future flooding. Construction is set to begin in 2020.

Neighbors steamed over new elementary school project

Residents near a Peet Road and Mission Avenida site brought strong vocal opposition to Morgan Hill Unified School Districts plan to dig up tons of contaminated soil on a donated 10-acre parcel of land to give way to a new elementary school.

Assurances from school district leaders and state environmental experts did not quell the concerns of residents, who were forced to be schooled in the dangers of a banned pesticide called dieldrin that was found in dangerous levels in the soil throughout the parcel. The state-approved plan to offhaul the toxic soil is on its way in 2018 and residents remain suspect of the method that they believe will allow harmful particles to be blown around in their neighborhood.

Construction of the new $20-$30 million school, which will be named S.G. Borello Elementary, is estimated for completion in February 2019. The new school will be funded through the $198 million Measure G capital improvements bond along with developer fees.

New president sparks local action

The national political climate heated up in the local community when it was discovered a new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office opened in Morgan Hill. Local organizations, including the Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers (MHFT), Services, Immigration Rights and Education Network (SIREN) and Community Agency for Resources and Advocacy Services (CARAS), banned together and planned three protests in front of the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) sub-office. It is located on Vineyard Court, just down the street from the Morgan Hill Police station.

The protests were in response to executive orders and other policies put in place by President Donald Trumps administration which attempt to vastly restrict immigration in the U.S. and deport those who are here undocumented.

The presidents policies also inspired a successful lawsuit by Santa Clara County and San Francisco officials, in which an executive order prohibiting federal funds for undefined sanctuary cities was struck down.

Housing values hit record highs

By midyear 2017, it was reported that finding a house in Morgan Hill for under $800,000 was like finding a needle in a haystack, as home sale prices skyrocketed to record highs locally and regionally. The median Morgan Hill home sales price in June 2017 was estimated at $860,000.

Those values have steadily skyrocketed even as residential construction continues throughout Morgan Hill, and after the city council in April approved only 195 new homes for the 2019-20 fiscal yeara sharp reduction from the annual average of about 250 homes over the last decade.

Homeless population grows

With home and rental prices through the roof in 2017, it was no surprise that Santa Clara County saw a 13 percent increase in homelessness over a two-year span with a point-in-time census of 7,394, according to the county homeless count report. In Morgan Hill, the number of unsheltered homeless increased 379 percent from 81 in 2015 to 388 in 2017, according to that same report. Also, a growing trend of individuals living in Recreational Vehicles parked on the side of roads and in shopping centers becomes an issue throughout the county.

Some local authorities, including Morgan Hill Police Chief David Swing, noted that these rising numbers are largely due to the closure of the Thousand Trails RV park on Uvas Road in unincorporated Morgan Hill.

New animal shelter approved

County supervisors approved a $26 million budget to construct a 36,000-square foot, state-of-the-art, no-kill animal shelter in San Martin. The long overdue project, which will move the shelter out of its current facility on Murphy Avenue on airport grounds to behind the South County Office Building located at 80 Highland Ave., is expected to break ground in early 2019.

No love lost between MHUSD, charter

The seemingly never-ending war between local school district and charter school officials came to a head in late 2017 when Charter School of Morgan Hill sought approval to seek millions in state rehabilitation funds. While Morgan Hill Unified School Districts Board of Trustees supported the charter schools play, district leadership attempted to derail their plans by passing along a failing grade for CSMH to the state authority in charge of distributing the Proposition 51 funds. It got testy at a Dec. 5 school board meeting, but ultimately the board majority rebuffed district staff and backed the charter in its request for more than $11 million in funds to fix up the aging Encinal school site. To be continued.

Beloved middle school teachers die

Students, faculty, alumni and the community lost Martin Murphy Middle School teacher Mary Francis, 61, and Britton Middle School teacher George Flores, 65both veteran educators beloved by students and colleaguesin 2017. Francis died in a tragic car accident on her way to work. Flores succumbed to lymphatic cancer. While their lives were cut short, both left lasting legacies at their respective schools.

Britton Middle School set for $50 million remake

The oldest and most rundown school in the district will be completely rebuilt in early 2018 after the school board approved the $50 million project, which includes a state-of-the-art student center and library. A ground-breaking in December, however, was postponed due to delays from the Department of State Architect.

Phase 1, which includes two solar-ready, Net Zero Energy classroom buildings at the campus on Central Avenue on the north side of downtown Morgan Hill, is expected to break ground January 2018 with an August 2018 target for completion.

Construction continues downtown

The ongoing development of downtown Morgan Hill is a story that persisted from 2016 throughout the entirety of 2017. The latest completed aspect of the city councils years-long, $25 million effort to revitalize the neighborhood was three new parks, for which city officials and hundreds of residents celebrated a grand opening Dec. 2.

Construction of various residential and commercial projects continues throughout the downtown, while some sites wont see intensive construction until 2018 starts.

In 2018, Frank Leal is expected to complete the 60-room Granada Hotel project (next door to the theater of the same name that he renovated last year), and Rocke and Glenda Garcias crews will begin construction of an 83-unit residential project.

In the meantime, four new restaurants at the corner of Monterey Road and East Third StreetWillard Hicks, Opa, Mos and Tac-Oh!are expected to be open by January.

Public improvements associated with this revitalizationincluding assistance for private developershave been funded by $25 million in leftover Redevelopment Agency funds. City officials have said the expenses have generated more than $60 million in private developer investment downtown.

Scott Forstner and Michael Moore, Times staff
Lake James State Park and South Mountains State Park are joining with state parks across North Carolina to offer a unique way to celebrate the New Year.

Both parks are offering a First Day Hike, an opportunity to take a guided tour of each park, on New Years Day.

Both hikes are free and will begin at 10 a.m. The Lake James hike will start at the Paddys Creek Area bathhouse breezeway. The South Mountains hike will start at the Jacob Fork parking area.

The First Day Hike tradition was started by Americas State Parks and the National Association of State Park Directors, according to a previous News Herald article. Mike Murphy, director of North Carolina State Parks, shared the inspiration for offering the hikes.

As the holiday season draws to a close, the First Day Hikes offer a rededication to fitness, family time and enjoyment of the outdoors and the rich, natural resources that distinguish North Carolina, Murphy said in a previous interview. Its also a reminder that the state parks are a year-round resource for recreation, wellness and learning for more than 17 million visitors.

Kevin Bischof, a ranger at Lake James State Park who will lead this years First Day Hike there, agreed.

With New Years resolutions, a large portion of the population tries to start off the New Year with more exercise, Bischof said. Thats one thing we try to support, getting out in the parks, enjoying the natural resources. Its become a popular thing at all of our state parks. Its getting folks out during a time when they might not normally go hiking.

North Carolina State Parks reported that 3,469 hikers traveled 8,228 miles in the states parks on New Years Day 2016. Bischof said the Lake James hike averages 20-25 people per year, depending on weather conditions.

South Mountains State Park superintendent Jonathan Griffith said the park has offered the First Day Hike for the past five years.

It gets folks outside enjoying nature, Griffith said. Theres a tradition that whatever you do on the first day of the year, youll continue doing throughout the year.

The hike at Lake James will take place on the Paddys Creek Trail along the lake and will take close to two hours to complete.

Well go out a mile and come back a mile, Bischof said. Well talk about the natural history of the lake, and well talk about Paddys Creek.

The hike at South Mountains is approximately 2.75 miles and should take about one and a half hours, ending up at the High Shoals waterfall.

It will be led by a ranger, who will talk about what you see as you go along the way, Griffith said of the hike. Its rated as moderate to strenuous. The first three quarters of a mile is not too bad at all, but the last quarter of a mile to get to the waterfall is all steps.

The High Shoals waterfall is 80 feet high, one of the highest in the area.

Its a pretty thing to look at, Griffith said. Weve got an observation platform, so you can get right up next to the bottom of it and get good views and pictures.

The hikes will take place rain or shine. Bischof said the hike at Lake James would only be called off if the weather conditions were dangerous, such as if lightning were predicted.

If people want to walk in the rain, Ill walk with them, Bischof said. I enjoy it.

Visitors are advised to wear appropriate clothing and footwear, and to bring water to drink.

I encourage people to come out, because it starts out the New Year on a good foot, Bischof said.

For more information, contact Lake James State Park at 828-584-7728 or South Mountains State Park at 828-433-4772.

Staff Writer Tammie Gercken can be reached at tgercken@morganton.com.
The following charges were served on Friday, December 1:

 Antionette Yevette Whitson, 30, of 14 Spruce Pine Road, in Asheville, was charged with one count each of aid and abet a felony larceny, aid and abet a misdemeanor larceny and possession of a schedule VI controlled substance. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,500 secured bond.

 Deborah Carol Mapp, 27, of 335 Livingston St., A, in Asheville, was charged with aid and abet a felony larceny and aid and abet a misdemeanor larceny She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,500 secured bond.

 Marcus Ray Whitson, 23, of 328 S French Broad Ave., in Asheville, was charged with felony larceny by destroying antitheft device and misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,500 secured bond.

 Mary Ann Lane, 37, of 5419 Chapman Hollow, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $50,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

 Stewart Allen Carr, 39, of 1429 Burkemont Ave., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor resist, delay or obstruct a public officer. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 12.

 Bob Eugene Harrell, 35, of 266 Riverfront Drive, in Belmont, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 12.

 Jason Robert Hill, 31, of 3063 Brandon Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor defrauding a drug and alcohol screening. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $15,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 2, 2018.

 Kaitlyn Terese Baker, 24, of 905 Salem Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 4, 2018.

 Jessica Dawn Compton, 33, of 3428 Crawley Higgins Ave., in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $20,000 in secured bonds. Her trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

 Robert Arnold Stephenson, 34, of 134 Walker Road, Lot 7, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of first or second degree burglary, larceny after breaking or entering and larceny of motor vehicle parts. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and. His trial date was set for Dec. 25.

 Selma Wright Stephenson, 36, of 154 Spring Wyatt Drive, in Gastonia, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Dec. 12.

 Rafael Septine Soto, 31, of 5956 Icard Dairy Barn Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under an $8,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 17, 2018.

 Susan Blanche Dunn, 43, of 5136 Taylor Farm Road, in Lenoir, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 18, 2018.

 Alicia Beth Newton, 34, of 1294 Drexel Road, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 6, 2018.

 Tamika Danielle Squire, 35, of 2140 US 70 E, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Jan. 16, 2018.

The following charges were served on Saturday, December 2:

 Bao Lor, 32, of 103 Lytle St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and safe movement violation. She was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for May 2, 2018.

 Jalen Martin Moore, 24, of 1528-A S Sterling St., in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, stop sign violation, registration plate violation, failure to change address on license and failure to change address on registration. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Steven Pete Vallini, 63, of 2685 Eric Teague Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony possession of methamphetamines and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond.

 Johnnie Mitchell Parker, 47, of 5193 Laurel Haven Ave., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property; receiving or possessing stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 9, 2018.

 Morgan Marie Hess, 19, of 116 Edgewood Ave., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

 Jason Alexander Ellis, 16, of 116 Edgewood Ave., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

The following charges were served on Sunday, December 3:

 Susie Dawn Hicks, 47, of 1236 Windy Acres, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, expired registration, speeding, possession of an open container, failure to change address on drivers license and carrying a concealed weapon after consuming alcohol. She was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for Jan. 1, 2018.

 Lee Edwards Rafferty, 37, of 5193 Laurel Haven Ave., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor violation of a domestic violence protection order. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

 Adam Travis Gravley, 35, of 1706 Old NC 18, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property; receiving or possessing stolen goods and second-degree trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 13.

 Richard Wayne Terry Jr., 48, of 95 Hennessee St., in Glen Alpine, was charged with misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He was issued a $1,500 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Jessica Marie Sprouse, 29, of 2839 Dale St., in Glen Alpine, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, driving left of center and no operators license. She was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

The following charges were served on Monday, December 4:

 Brittany Stubbs, 23, of 1810 Conley Road, Lot 8, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor cyber stalking and first-degree trespassing. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Rebecca Nichole Larcinese, 25, of 200 Hillcrest Ave., in Rhodhiss, was charged with misdemeanor possession of a schedule II, III, IV controlled substance. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Alexa Jo Carnes, 30, of 5822 Willow Point Drive, B, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor larceny by trick. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Oct. 25, 2018.

 Jessica Lynn Mull, 29, of 103 Pine Trail, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 2, 2018.

 Logan Joseph Shipley, 16, of 1300 Burkemont Ave., C304, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of a schedule VI controlled substance. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Feb. 21, 2018.

 Michael Coy Reed, 23, of 1118 Harmony Grove Road, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

The following charges were served on Tuesday, December 5:

 Nathaniel Hastens Wood, 28, of 1445 2nd Drive SW, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was served at the Burke-Catawba jail where he was being held on other charges. He was issued an additional $1,000 secured bond and a trial date was set for Jan. 4, 2018.

 Jammy Lee Carswell, 34, of 2407 Watts St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. He was issued a $500 secured bond and released.

 Salina Renee Widner, 33, of 4510 Johnson Bridge Road, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for Jan. 2, 2018.

 Timothy Ryan Williams, 25, of 1153 Church St. NW, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female and assault on a child under 12. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 12, 2018.

 Duane Alfred Church Jr., 43, of 8950 Spring Meadow Drive, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $500 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Brenda Diane Edney, 18, of 3425 Pax Hill Road, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of larceny by trick, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and damage to personal property. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $1,000 in secured bonds. Her trial date was set for Jan. 9, 2018.

 Joy Yvonne Bowman, 46, of 111 Linda Way Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Chad Anderson Newton, 36, of 9060 Bridges Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony breaking or entering and felony larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond.

 Tamantha Ponder Ramsey, 35, of 318 Walker Road, Lot 4, in Morganton, was charged with felony larceny by employees. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $15,000 secured bond.

 Michael Francis Cali, 36, of 318 Walker Road, Lot 4, in Morganton, was charged with felony larceny of property. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $30,000 secured bond.

 Forrest Henry Mask Jr., 40, of 440 Walker Road, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Tonya Sue Davis, 27, of 1086 US 70, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor violating a domestic violence protection order. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold. Her trial date was set for Jan. 2, 2018.

The following charges were served on Wednesday, December 6:

 Perri Danielle Teague, 23, of 9520 View Drive, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property and possessing stolen goods. She was served by criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Dec. 14.

 Joshua Randall Pearson, 33, of 3059 Clark Loop, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 11.

 Larry Cristopher York, 45, of 103 Ed Mull St., in Glen Alpine, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault and probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $10,500 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Jan. 2, 2018.

 Thomas Hayes Frank, 44, of 4457 Miller Bridge Road, Lot 5, in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony possession of methamphetamines. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $6,000 secured bond.

 Marlee Dare Griffith, 19, of 3541 Ritchie Road, in Lincolnton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Jason Shea Ali, 40, of 230 Sequoyah Circle, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of possession of methamphetamine with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver and maintaining a dwelling, vehicle or place for drugs or controlled substances. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond.

 Matthew Thomas Welborn, 25, of 107 Jessie Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,800 cash bond.

 Meghann Meckenzie Bollinger, 26, of 2687 Mount Home Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $20,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Marcarlos Lysander Williamson, 46, of 3213 Clark Loop, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold. His trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

 Robert Kyle Morgan, 28, of 3802 Laurel Heights Drive, 88, in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony larceny of a motor vehicle, felony probation violation and misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $30,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Preston Luke Collingwood, 19, of 1746 Waterford Way, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a schedule II controlled substance and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 16, 2018.

 Phillip Nicholas Jones, 28, of 131 Stephens Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats and damage to personal property. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

The following charges were served on Thursday, December 7:

 Emily Elaine Pickard, 18, of 4696 Homestead Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Jose Francisco Francisco, 64, of 613 Carbon City Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a child under 12. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Ryan Seth Dehaven, 28, of 3233 Clark Loop, Lot 1, in Morganton, was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond.

 Tyrone Lamonte Carpenter Sr., 43, of 303 Center Street, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor first-degree trespassing. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Dec. 12.

 Jamie Elizabeth Houston, 32, of 225 Mope Farm Road, in Highpoint, was charged with felony possession of heroin and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $6,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Dec. 11.

 Alivia Marie Barus, 24, of 2108 St. Paul's Church Road, in Newton, was charged with one count each of felony possession of heroin, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $11,000 in secured bonds. Her trial date was set for Dec. 11.

 Randy Duncan Jr., 24, of 409 Lost Corner Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 18.

 Gary Dean Wilcox, 36, of 5218 New Haven Circle, Lot 2, in Morganton, was charged with felony fugitive from justice. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Dec. 11.

 Michael Lavon Lowman, 20, of 7461 S Mountain Institute Road, in Nebo, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of failure to appear or comply and one misdemeanor count of probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $28,000 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

 Stephen Wayne Brittain, 39, of 4699 View Road, in Morganton, was charged with six counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 14, 2018.

 Keetje Gale Woolridge, 43, of 2521 Burke Memorial Park Road, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Feb. 12, 2018.

 James Deleon Cox, 41, of 4986 Duckworth Circle, Lot 13, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple possession of a schedule VI controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

The following charges were served on Friday, December 8:

 Justin Daniel Roberson, 22, of 300 Bristol St., in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, open container after consuming and stop sign violation. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 John Travis Holt, 47, of 5297 Dysartsville Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for Jan. 17, 2018.

 Paula Hardy Flynn, 45, of 4226 Quarry Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and driving the wrong way on a one way street. She was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Elsie Leona Farris, 40, of 513 Ridge St., in Rutherford College, was charged with eight misdemeanor counts of failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $30,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

 Lisa Clark Carswell, 48, of 2253 Hidden Pines Drive, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was issued a $500 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for Feb. 14, 2018.

 Jessica Marie Sprouse, 29, of 2839 Dale St., in Glen Alpine, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Feb. 27, 2018.

 Brandy Nicole Baker, 19, of 5260 New Haven Circle, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Feb. 27, 2018.

 Jonathan Carl Drake, 34, of 5260 New Haven Circle, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Feb. 27, 2018.

The following charges were served on Saturday, December 9:

 Natasha Yvonne Street, 33, of 109 Ross St., Lot A, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor affray. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold. Her trial date was set for Jan. 24, 2018.

 William David Benfield, 44, of 109 Ross St., A, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold. His trial date was set for Jan. 24, 2018.

The following charges were served on Sunday, December 10:

 David Eilberto Lopez, 26, of 116 Ross St., F, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, no operators license, speeding, reckless driving, resist, delay or obstruct a public officer and failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $7,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 12, 2018.

 Stevie Dean Cook, 45, of 1705 Bethel Road, Lot 14, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $320 cash bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 14.

 Aura Mendoza Mendoza, 24, of 116 Ross St., F, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor aid and abetting a DWI and permitting an unlicensed driver to drive. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Feb. 12, 2018.

 William Ryan Harton, 29, of 2204 NC 181, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 3, 2018.

The following charges were served on Monday, December 11:

 Agustin Lopez Chavez, 40, of 230 Falls St., B, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of possession of a false or fraudulent ID card, resist, delay or obstruct a public officer and failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 4, 2018.

 Barbara Ann Hudson, 61, of 8650 Rhodhiss Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was issued a $500 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for Feb. 14, 2018.

 Karen Renee Harris, 34, of 1414 N Green St., in Morganton, was charged with felony failure to appear on a felony charge. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $100,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Jackie Lynn M Rich, 54, of 5485 Dewey Sisk Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony larceny by trick and felony identity theft. She was released on a written promise to appear.

 Kalone Jajuante Maxwell, 23, of 2509 NC 18-US 64, Lot 52, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of assault on a female, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and damage to personal property. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Elvis Aaron Coleman, 28, of 309 East Over Circle, in Lenoir, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property and second-degree trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

 Catherine Denise L Causby, 25, of 715 Carbon City Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Feb. 12, 2018.

 Taylor Sierra Kirby, 22, of 2676 Timerill Drive, Lot 122, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of a schedule VI controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 16, 2018.

 Christopher Richard Jones, 31, of 131 Stephens Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats and damage to personal property. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

 Natasha Lynn Anthony, 35, of 2114 Williams Wood Drive, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $10,000 in secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 2, 2018.

 Randy Lee Poteet, 34, of 2276 Enola Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Michelle Revis Hartley, 42, of 604 Praley St. NW, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 10, 2018.

 Dale Jason West II, 31, of 129 View St., Apt. A, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold. His trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Lakinda Chanell Edwards, 30, of 4055 South Park Drive, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, speeding and failure to drive on the right side of a roadway. She was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for Jan. 17, 2018.

The following charges were served on Tuesday, December 12:

 Daniel Scott Swink, 30, of 1298 Washboard Lane, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 14.

 Jeremy Ray Byers, 44, of 1310 9th Ave. NW, in Conover, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for March 19, 2018.

 John Thao, 26, of 811 Vinearden Road, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of assault on a child under 12 years old, failure to appear on a felony charge and failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $36,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 9, 2018.

 Tyrone Lamonte Carpenter Sr., 43, of 303 Center Street, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 14.

 Ivan Christopher Williams Jr., 27, of 145 10th Ave. Se, in Hickory, was charged with felony malicious conduct by a prisoner. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 13.

 Dennis Lee J Crawford Jr., 28, of 4024 Phillip Lane, in Hudson, was charged with four felony counts of breaking or entering into autos, trailers, boats, aircrafts or watercrafts. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 15.

 Terrel Jamaul Avery, 22, of 103 Branch St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 14, 2018.

 Douglas Lee Edwards, 36, of 202 Amherst Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony interfering with an electronic monitoring device and felony habitual felon. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $30,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

 Courtney Riddle, 24, of 2176 Old NC 18, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was issued a $322 cash bond and released. Her trial date was set for Dec. 19.

 Jackie Delaine Mullins, 52, of 4156 Club Creek Circle, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

 Melissa Renee Webb, 38, of 3191 Arthur Mull Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was issued a $1,000 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Leslie Maria Bradley, 47, of 2520 Sigmon Road, in Granite Falls, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and failure to burn two headlamps. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 19, 2018.

The following charges were served on Wednesday, December 13:

 Andrew Keith Bolick, 59, of 2165 US 70 E, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of failure to register vehicle, no liability insurance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Curtis Brian Lindsey, 27, of 116 Walnut Ridge Way, Trailer 1, in White Pine, TN, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Christopher Aaron Wilkinson, 23, of 36 Reed St., in Concord, was charged with three misdemeanor counts of failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $33,000 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Dec. 25.

 Pachea Charlene Tomlinson, 40, of 5591 Miller Bridge Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor resist, delay or obstruct a public officer. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 16, 2018.

 Kimberly Deanna Sechrist, 37, of 3131 Faith Temple Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor parole violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail.

 Andrew Lee Cole, 35, of 5591 Miller Bridge Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with one count each of felony failure to appear or comply, felony failure to appear on a felony charge and five misdemeanor counts of failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $175,000 in secured bonds.

 Tonya Lynn Rector, 47, of 4202 Pops Buchanan Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of heroin and misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $6,000 in secured bonds.

 Teri Ann Thomas, 34, of 4701 McDowell Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

 Rebekah Ann Meise, 22, of 4441 Bill Epley Ave., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 2, 2018.

 Lloyd Pitman, 48, of 4441 Bill Epley Ave., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 2, 2018.

 Earl Jason Stewart, 54, of Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 14, 2018.

 Dominique Jiarra Johnson, 24, of 807 Vine Arden Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

 Terri Marie Duckworth, 41, of 4515 Rainhill Drive, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of methamphetamines and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,500 secured bond.

 Jerry Lee Duckworth III, 25, of 4515 Rainhill Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor parole violation and second-degree trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail.

 James Kody Peters, 22, of Morganton, was charged with felony motor vehicle theft. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond.

 Daniel Jackson Hudgins, 47, of 4449 Scott Road, in Morganton, was charged with obtaining property by false pretense. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under an $8,000 secured bond.

 Walter Harold Brigman, 48, of 300 Fletcher St., Lot 20, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female and communicating threats. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

 Joshua Allen Jubin, 29, of 319 Fletcher St., Lot 9, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 23, 2018.

 Steven Tyler Burnette, 26, of 4690 Silver Creek Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Jan. 2, 2018.

 Daphne Vandyke Poovey, 46, of 922 E Union St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 9, 2018.

 Chris Eugene Johnson, 43, of 101 Ridge St., in Morganton, was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $100,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

The following charges were served on Thursday, December 14:

 Michael Dale Mclean Jr., 36, of 5114 Mountain View Blvd., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $20,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Travis Eugene Hildebrand, 38, of 7178 Hildebran Mountain Ave., in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor cyber stalking. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 10, 2018.

 Joshua Allen Abee, 38, of 2236 Mount Home Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with three counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $15,000 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Karen Renee Harris, 34, of 1414 N Green St., in Morganton, was charged with felony failure to appear on a felony charge. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 5, 2018.

 Angela Beth/Smith Duncan, 40, of 1370 East End Court, in Claremont, was charged with misdemeanor possessing stolen goods. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 24, 2018.

 Rebecca Myers Watkins, 51, of 913 Faet St. SW, in Valdese, was charged with felony failure to appear on a felony charge. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 5, 2018.

 Jerome Lee McNeely, 46, of 2349 Liberty Church Road, Lot 4, in Hickory, was charged with felony breaking or entering and felony larceny after breaking or entering. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Christopher Eugene Bridges, 46, of 222 Center St., in Morganton, was charged with felony larceny by financial transaction card. He was issued a $5,000 secured bond and released. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

The following charges were served on Friday, December 15:

 Kong Lor, 23, of 3176 Barus Pond Loop, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. He was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for Jan. 31, 2018.

 Eric Thomas Riddle, 32, of 1606 Kennedy Drive, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of larceny of property, damage to personal property and first-degree trespassing. He was issued a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 7, 2018.

 Jefferey Leonard Shuford, 46, of 816 E Lincoln St., in Lincolnton, was charged with felony failure to appear on a felony charge. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $75,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Jonathan Wayne Loven, 42, of 125 Silver Creek Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 11, 2018.

 Barry Lee McMahan II, 23, of 482 Joe Ross St., in Lincolnton, was charged with felony breaking or entering and larceny after breaking or entering. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $20,000 secured bond.

 Priscilla Chapman Lambert, 30, of 996 22nd Ave Place SE, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $4,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Feb. 14, 2018.

 Elvis Dewayne King, 52, of 329 Boyd Road, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

 Douglas Michael Garrison, 57, of 5826 Chapman Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 10, 2018.

 Lukas Dalton Houston, 20, of 3979 Leger Road, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor damage to personal property. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Caroline Aileen Houston, 40, of 3979 Leger Road, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor damage to personal property and first-degree trespassing. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Jerry Dean Rice II, 37, of 31110 Hollyfield Road, in Damascus VA, was charged with two counts of felony failure to register or falsification of sex offender information. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $50,000 secured bond.

 Eric Thomas Riddle, 32, of 1606 Kennedy Drive, in Morganton, was charged with three counts of felony breaking or entering into autos, trailers, boats, aircrafts or watercrafts. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond.

 Kyle Edward Poteat, 30, of 105 Benview Lane, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of speeding, reckless driving wanton disregard and stoplight violation . He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 14, 2018.

 Craig Herman Lytle, 43, of 3372 Lytle Drive, in Morganton, was charged with four counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $8,500 in secured bonds.

 Shawn Ray Matthews, 39, of Hickory, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of assault inflicting serious injury, larceny by trick, damage to personal property, violating a domestic violence protection order and two counts each of misdemeanor probation violation and failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold and a total of $21,000 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Feb. 15, 2018.

 Boyd Eugene Hedrick, 34, of 222 Davis Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

The following charges were served on Saturday, December 16:

 Andrell Cornellius Kincaid, 35, of 4241 Piney Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor violation of a court order. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Feb. 12, 2018.

 Vickie Lynn Scarberry, 60, of 8364 Cedar St., 9, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury . She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

 Michael Dean Emory, 53, of 111 Vine St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and no operators license. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 19, 2018.

 Ronnie Robert D Benfield, 26, of 1933 Johns River Loop, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 18, 2018.

 Jeffrey Lynn Branch, 46, of 109 Bethel St., in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony possession of methamphetamines, misdemeanor simple possession of a schedule VI controlled substance, possession of Suboxone and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $15,000 secured bond.

 Erica Dawn Poteat, 32, of 104 Lynn Drive, in Marion, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and failure to burn tail lamps. She was granted a custody release and a trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Gregory Lance Houston Jr., 27, of 7878 Shoupes Grove Church Road, in Hickory, was charged with one count each of felony possession of methamphetamines, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and carrying a concealed weapon. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $4,000 secured bond.

 Dylon Stephen Clark, 21, of 3822 Calico Road, in Lenoir, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Jan. 25, 2018.

 Preston Wayne Minton, 34, of 3943 Walsh Road, in Lenoir, was charged with misdemeanor driving during revocation and failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 16, 2018.

 Joshua Luis Ramos Mendez, 21, of 2499 NC 18-US 64, Lot 18, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 George Robert Castle Jr., 53, of 1947 Cullen Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor sewage disposal violation. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 2, 2018.

 Chastity Marie Hicks, 38, of 404 2nd St. Place SW, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 10, 2018.

 Armando Aguilar Aguilar, 34, of 100 Ross St., Lot A, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, open container after consuming, failure to reduce speed and no operators license . He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

The following charges were served on Sunday, December 17:

 Nathan Claude Hall, 36, of 135 Brentwood Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 10, 2018.

 Ricky Allen Blalock, 29, of 1705 Bethel Road, Lot 38, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of assault on a female, communicating threats and failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold and a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 9, 2018.

 Dusty Eugene Hicks, 33, of 4292 Valley Trail, in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of breaking or entering into a place of worship, larceny after breaking or entering and possession of stolen goods, one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, driving during revocation, fictitious information to an officer, fictitious registration, no liability insurance, reckless driving to endanger and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under an $18,000 secured bond.

 James Robert Gurley, 44, of 1439 Ivy Lane NW, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and driving during revocation. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for March 19, 2018.

 Vicki Lynette Walker, 49, of 5331 Pea Ridge Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. Her trial date was set for Jan. 17, 2018.

The following charges were served on Monday, December 18:

 Tamatha Ponder Ramsey, 35, of 318 Walker Road, Lot 4, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 2, 2018.

 Michael Francis Cali, 36, of 318 Walker Road, Lot 4, in Morganton, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 2, 2018.

 Jaron Wade Pennell, 39, of 5331 Pea Ridge Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold. His trial date was set for March 19, 2018.

 Christopher Shea Houser, 32, of 200 Shannonbrook Drive, in Newton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $3,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 21, 2018.

 Karen Michelle Dennis, 45, of 4663 Homestead Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Feb. 9, 2018.

 Nathan Claude Hall, 36, of 135 Brentwood Road, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of breaking or entering, damage or injury to real property and second-degree trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Jan. 10, 2018.

 Michael Allen Wright, 36, of 2271 Shang Lane, B, in Conover, was charged with felony failure to appear on a felony charge. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Justin Dean Chapman, 32, of 5248 Mineral Springs Mountain Ave., in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick and violating a domestic violence protection order. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold plus an additional $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Michael Raye Shuping, 49, of 4803 Crystal Creek Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony failure to appear on a felony charge. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018

 Jason Shea Ali, 40, of 230 Sequoyah Circle, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of a weapon by felon. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

 Kenneth Ray Walker, 47, of 107 Whitley Road, in Morganton, was charged with second-degree misdemeanor trespassing and two counts of misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

 Matthew Odell Helms, 48, of 512 Bravard St., in Valdese, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $5,500 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Feb. 14, 2018.

 Ashley Rose Teague, 28, of 2222 Highway 70 East, in Icard, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of larceny by trick, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and second-degree trespassing. She was served by criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 15, 2018.

 Adam Travis Gravley, 35, of 1706 Old NC 18, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor second-degree trespassing. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 12, 2018.

 Michael Brenton Leonard, 48, of 1362 Conley Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for March 29, 2018.

 Thomas Vance Klutz, 47, of 3233 Clark Loop, Lot 10, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Amanda Sue Williams, 32, of 2559 19th Ave. NE, in Hickory, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor violations of school attendance law. She was served by criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Billy Ray Smith Jr., 36, of 3259 19th Ave. Ne in Hickory, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor violations of school attendance law. He was served by criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Karen Lackey Ray, 46, of 911 Saint Mary's Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 30, 2018.

 Johnny Allen Kaylor, 48, of 970 Airport Rhodhiss Road, Lot 3, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $300 cash bond and released. His trial date was set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Jenna Marie Hutchinson, 19, of 6313 George Hildebran Drive, in Connelly Springs, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $12,500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 4, 2018.

 Jason Keith Thomas Wilson, 38, of 3311 Mineral Springs Mountain Road, 10, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor driving while revoked for DWI. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 31, 2018.

The following charges were served on Tuesday, December 19:

 Marcus Eugene Simmons, 39, of 81860 Highway 231, in Arab, AL, was charged with felony fugitive from justice. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $200,000 secured bond.

 Karissa Renee Cummings, 29, of 81860 Highway 231, in Arab, AL, was charged with felony fugitive from justice. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $200,000 secured bond.

 Adam Lee Fortwengler, 32, of 5097 Paxhill Road, in Lenoir, was charged with four counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was issued a $4,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 9, 2018.

 Dakkota Lee Haas, 20, of 2291 NC 18-US 64, in Morganton, was charged with six misdemeanor counts of failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $6,250 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Jan. 17, 2018.

 Katie Ann Ross, 42, of 2445 Pax Hill Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor resist, delay or obstruct a public officer. She was issued a $500 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for Jan. 24, 2018.

 Bryan Kevin Lowery Jr., 21, of 2545 Pax Hill Road, in Morganton, was charged with three counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply and one misdemeanor count of resist, delay or obstruct a public officer. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $5,500 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Jan. 24, 21018.

 Hannah Marie Ross, 18, of 2445 Pax Hill Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor resist, delay or obstruct a public officer. She was issued a $500 secured bond and released. Her trial date was set for Jan. 24, 2018.

 Rory Marshall Clark, 35, of 116 Curtis St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor probation violation. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 3, 2018.

The following charges were served on Wednesday, December 20:

 Ruth Smith Tevepaugh, 58, of 2665 Mill Race Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony possession of methamphetamines with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver and two misdemeanor counts of possession of drug paraphernalia . She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond.

 Samuel Everette Young, 33, of 3470 Spaniel St., in Connelly Springs, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under an $800 cash bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 28.

 Earl Anthony Jefferson Jr., 28, of 110 Glendale St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Brandon Shawn Pendley, 39, of 2786 Snipes St., in Morganton, was charged with one felony count each of breaking or entering, larceny after breaking or entering and possession of stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $30,000 secured bond.

 Jeffrey Leonard Shuford, 46, of 816 E Lincoln St., in Lincolnton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. He was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Vernon Eugene Dale, 46, of 3931 US 64, Lot 30, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor assault by pointing a gun and communicating threats. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 22, 21018.

 Kenan Thomas Greene, 25, of 5074 Celia Creek Road, in Lenoir, was charged with felony larceny by destroying antitheft device and felony obtaining property by false pretense. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,000 secured bond.

 Meagan Adaire Hudson, 26, of 102 N Amity St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick. She was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Aug. 10, 2018.

 Clinton Russ Burton, 40, of 118 Jones St., in Morganton, was charged with felony probation violation and misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Dakota Ray Smith, 16, of 4591 Mount Gilead Church Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with felony larceny of a firearm and felony possession of stolen goods. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond.

The following charges were served on Thursday, December 21:

 Dustin Allen Shuffler, 34, of 4993 Lakeview Acres Road, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for March 19, 2018.

 Shannon Bell Coleman, 45, of 4176 Chambers Chapel Road, in Glen Alpine, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for March 19, 2018.

 Nicole Buchanan Effler, 37, of 227 Lucky St., 2, in Marion, was charged with felony failure to appear on a felony charge. She was issued an $8,000 unsecured bond and released. Her trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Lara Ann Wilson, 47, of 301 Salem Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to return rental property with purchase option. She was served by a criminal summons to appear for a trial date set for Jan. 3, 2018.

 Joshua David Ingram, 32, of 3918 Bradley Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,360 cash bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Jody Burge Buchanan, 48, of 1045 Park Lane Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Feb. 27, 2018.

 Mark Wesley Massagee, 50, of 8609 Cramer Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and driving during revocation. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for March 19, 2018.

 Princess Ann Vaught, 33, of 1482 Old North Road, in Lenoir, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of larceny of property, possession of drug paraphernalia, second-degree trespassing and resist, delay or obstruct a public officer. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $7,500 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 19, 2018.

The following charges were served on Friday, December 22:

 Kelly Morgan Jeter, 37, of 403 N Green St., in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of driving while impaired, possession of an open container, driving left of center and failure to maintain lane control. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for March 19, 2018.

 Wesley Eric Wright, 24, of 5051 Pittstown Road, in Hickory, was charged with misdemeanor possession of a schedule VI controlled substance and resist, delay or obstruct a public officer. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 24, 2018.

 Matthew Benjamin Gardner, 31, of 65 Indian Waters, in Old Fort, was charged with felony trafficking methamphetamines. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $100,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 28.

 James Zachary Porter, 28, of 618 First Street, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor interfering with emergency communication and two counts of misdemeanor assault on a female. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold. His trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 James Brandon Thomas, 31, of 6020 Vein Mountain Road, in Nebo, was charged with felony larceny by destroying antitheft device and misdemeanor larceny of property. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $10,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 29.

The following charges were served on Saturday, December 23:

 Armondo G Ramirez, 43, of 203 Hopewell Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired and no operators license. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $500 secured bond. His trial date was set for April 23, 2018.

 Nicholas Cage Cordell, 22, of 429 Waterglyn Way, in Nebo, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of failure to appear or comply, hit and run causing property damage, driving during revocation and failure to report an accident. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $4,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Ashley Nichole Cannon, 31, of 101 Ridge St., in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of larceny of property, possessing stolen goods, possession of a schedule III controlled substance and second-degree trespassing. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $2,250 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Feb. 12, 2018.

 Broshell Caldwell III, 44, of 944 Chambers Chapel Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony larceny by destroying antitheft device and misdemeanor larceny of property. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 28, 2018.

 Jason Matthew Grady, 38, of 129 Stephens Drive, A, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by changing price tag and larceny of property. He was cited and released. His trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

 Helena Brooke Singleton, 37, of 129 Stephens Drive, A, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by changing price tag and larceny of property. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

The following charges were served on Sunday, December 24:

 Eric Tait Robertson, 39, of 240 W Park Drive, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor driving while impaired. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $5,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 12, 2018.

 Liam James McInnis, 38, of 6520 Vein Mountain Road, in Nebo, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats. He was released on a written promise to appear for a trial date set for Feb. 6, 2018.

 Amanda Diane Scott, 28, of 226 Center St., in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony common law robbery, misdemeanor unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and possession of stolen goods. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold. Her trial date was set for Dec. 28.

 Quanyeisha Dashell Maxwell, 28, of 210 Branch St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by changing price tag. She was cited and released. Her trial date was set for Jan. 30, 2018.

The following charges were served on Monday, December 25:

 Mark Lewis Tate Jr., 28, of 104 North Chestnut St., 1a, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor communicating threats. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. His trial date was set for Jan. 9, 2018.

 Katheryn Brooke Nightengale, 36, of 200 Conley St., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail. Her trial date was set for Jan. 9, 2018.

The following charges were served on Tuesday, December 26:

 Robert Warren Perkey Jr., 40, of 4105 Ruritan Club Road, in Hudson, was charged with misdemeanor possession of a schedule IV controlled substance and two counts of misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $6,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 5, 2018.

 Cecil Ray Bishop II, 38, of 300 Church St. NW, in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor larceny of property and damage to personal property. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 16, 2018.

 Ryan William Shambre, 34, of 2639 Ridgecreek Drive, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of drunk, intoxicated and disruptive, consuming alcohol on premises having off-premises permit only and resist, delay or obstruct a public officer. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for March 28, 2018.
The following mug shots are taken from the top bond amounts from the week of Dec. 10-16:

 Andrew Lee Cole , 35, of 5591 Miller Bridge Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with one count each of felony failure to appear or comply, felony failure to appear on a felony charge and five misdemeanor counts of failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $175,000 in secured bonds.

 Chris Eugene Johnson , 43, of 101 Ridge St., in Morganton, was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $100,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Karen Renee Harris , 34, of 1414 N Green St., in Morganton, was charged with felony failure to appear on a felony charge. She was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $100,000 secured bond. Her trial date was set for Jan. 8, 2018.

 Jefferey Leonard Shuford , 46, of 816 E Lincoln St., in Lincolnton, was charged with felony failure to appear on a felony charge. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $75,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Jerry Dean Rice II , 37, of 31110 Hollyfield Road, in Damascus VA, was charged with two counts of felony failure to register or falsification of sex offender information. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $50,000 secured bond.

 John Thao , 26, of 811 Vinearden Road, in Morganton, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of assault on a child under 12 years old, failure to appear on a felony charge and failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $36,500 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 9, 2018.

 Christopher Aaron Wilkinson , 23, of 36 Reed St., in Concord, was charged with three misdemeanor counts of failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $33,000 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Dec. 25.

 Douglas Lee Edwards , 36, of 202 Amherst Road, in Morganton, was charged with felony interfering with an electronic monitoring device and felony habitual felon. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $30,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 22, 2018.

 Eric Thomas Riddle , 32, of 1606 Kennedy Drive, in Morganton, was charged with three counts of felony breaking or entering into autos, trailers, boats, aircrafts or watercrafts. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond. UPDATE: The charges against Riddle were dismissed in 2018, according to an official with the Burke County Clerk of Court's office.

 Ivan Christopher Williams Jr. , 27, of 145 10th Ave. Se, in Hickory, was charged with felony malicious conduct by a prisoner. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 13.

 Dennis Lee J Crawford Jr. , 28, of 4024 Phillip Lane, in Hudson, was charged with four felony counts of breaking or entering into autos, trailers, boats, aircrafts or watercrafts. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Dec. 15.

 Shawn Ray Matthews , 39, of Hickory, was charged with one misdemeanor count each of assault inflicting serious injury, larceny by trick, damage to personal property, violating a domestic violence protection order and two counts each of misdemeanor probation violation and failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a 48 hour hold and a total of $21,000 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Feb. 15, 2018.

 Michael Dale McLean Jr. , 36, of 5114 Mountain View Blvd., in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $20,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.

 Barry Lee McMahan II , 23, of 482 Joe Ross St., in Lincolnton, was charged with felony breaking or entering and larceny after breaking or entering. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $20,000 secured bond.

 Jeffrey Lynn Branch , 46, of 109 Bethel St., in Morganton, was charged with one count each of felony possession of methamphetamines, misdemeanor simple possession of a schedule VI controlled substance, possession of Suboxone and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $15,000 secured bond.

 Joshua Allen Abee , 38, of 2236 Mount Home Church Road, in Morganton, was charged with three counts of misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a total of $15,000 in secured bonds. His trial date was set for Feb. 5, 2018.
I hope everyone had a merry Christmas. Mine was excellent, shared with family members near and far. The telephone comes into its own when you are separated from people you love by considerable distance.

Now, a new year is upon us. I suppose I should make some New Years resolutions. I always have trouble with New Years resolutions. I dont want to seem arrogant or selfish, even if Im the only one who knows what resolutions I might make.

I dont think God is listening in, ready to pounce or praise, depending on what I resolve. In truth, however, the measure of our character  collective and individual  is how we act when we think nobody is watching. What we say to ourselves when we are alone is as telling as what we speak in a crowd.

I remember what Marmee said in Little Women about her temper. She said she had spent her life learning not to show it and wondered if she could ever learn not to feel it. A wise person was Marmee.

A good resolution for me would be to better contain my temper when Im alone. That would be a good gift to myself. And not mutter to myself in a manner unnecessarily critical of others.

I admit I went to the World Wide Web, that fortress of knowledge and hallowed cyber-hall of wisdom, to see what others have to say about New Years resolutions. I discovered there are many sites that will help us keep our resolutions  for prices that range from so-low-why-bother to the ridiculous.

There is a site that lists Resolutions for Democrats. One that touts Resolutions for Republicans. I didnt read them. Politicians are notorious for making resolutions prior to Election Day. They probably would have the same rate of success with promises made New Years Day, unless their prime objective is to be obstinate and combative.

I didnt see anything about resolutions for Independents.

I notice where Pope Benedict urges peace and prays for peace in the new year. I have lived during the reigns of seven popes, beginning with Pius XII. All have prayed for peace, and rightly so. I believe in prayer, but as long as the dictum God helps those who help themselves remains in force, I am not confident we shall see real peace in 2018.

As long as some people believe that God urges them to fight, they will fight. As long as some people dont believe in God and thus have no higher authority or manifest spiritual objective, they will fight or maybe just bully.

We should continue praying, however, and keep working for universal non-aggressive relationships. My choice of words is not an attempt to be politically correct, but due to the realization that we can live together even if were not friends.

I think what I might resolve for the New Year is to take no steps backward. I will try to go forward. In Kiwanis, we focus on doing good things for children. Its easy to get motivated about kids. And their families. Same with being involved with The Salvation Army.

I probably ought to do more. I can promise that I wont do less. Doing nice things for children  most of them I dont know and never will  does bring a lot of light into ones life. So thats an easy resolution. I can keep that one, no problem.

Just how we can bring self-important adults together the way children enjoy togetherness is a puzzler. We mustnt give up, though. We still live in a great nation, a great state and a great area.

Ah, I have another easy resolution: Never step back from trying to do something positive for my country, my state and my home ground.

I look forward to the new year. I hope 2018 is better than 2017, although this year has been pretty good so far. However, the celebrations of the holiday season and the supernal promise, hope and joy of Christmas are sobered somewhat by New Years Day when we realize that in spite of all the gladness, we still have a lot of stuff thats unresolved.

Thats all the more reason to stride briskly and not plod into the new year because we really do have everything we need to make our lives and the lives of others better than ever. It starts with a smile and Happy New Year! And mean it.

Larry Clark is a News Herald columnist who can be reached at wryturlc@yahoo.com.
Jeremy Pagett is looking to maximise the value of his investment portfolio over the next 10 years in order to secure the best possible retirement.

He says: Im currently in my mid-50s. Initially I was hoping to retire at 60 but realise this isnt now realistic. Im hoping that by focusing on my investments I can stop work for good by the time Im 65.

Pagett works as an IT consultant, working on a contract basis. He has worked for a number of financial companies in the past and this helped ignite his interest in investing.

Pagett utilises a SIPP wrapper in order to maximise returns and minimise his tax bill. In the past, when I was in full-time employment I tended to put any surplus savings into an ISA. I also had a work pension, but didnt really take too much notice of where it was invested, he said.

Now that I am working for myself, I have focused my savings into my SIPP as these benefit from tax relief. This seems to be the most sensible way to boost my overall savings.

Pagett says hes been delighted with the recent changes to pension rules, which means he has far more freedom about how he uses these savings.

He is considering using the tax free lump sum he can withdraw from his pension at 55 to help his daughter get on the property ladder.

He adds: In the past, I always assumed Id have to buy an annuity with my company pension which never seemed particularly attractive.

Im hoping to keep my company pensions and SIPPs invested and draw an income from them when I eventually stop working.

Mixing Stocks and Funds to Maximise Returns

Pagett invests in a number of funds, plus some individual shareholdings, which he hopes will boost overall returns.

Ive tended to invest in smaller company shares. I know these are inherently more risky, but if I get it right this has the potential to deliver superior returns. Pagettt balances this risk by ensuring the bulk of his portfolio is in rather more steady sounding funds.

One of his best investments has been in Cranswick (CWK), the food wholesaler. This company sells fresh and other premium products to retailers and other food outlets.

Pagett first invested in this company about three years ago when shares where price around 13.21. He says: They had already enjoyed quite a boost over the previous year, but this seemed like a really well-run company and an interesting proposition. I was a bit worried that Id missed out the main gain, but it seemed a good long-term holding. It is now priced at 32.50."

According to Morningstar data, investors in this company have seen a 35% return on their money over the past three years. Over the last year alone shares have increased by 43%.

Less Successful Investments

Not all shares have produced such buoyant returns though. Pagett has been disappointed with his holding in Tesco (TSCO). Pagett invested in 2013. The share price had already fallen moderately, partly because the supermarket faced increased competition from the newer discount supermarkets, like Lidl and Aldi, he said.

Pagett says this seemed like an ideal time to buy, as shares were considerably lower than they had been prior to the credit crunch. However, a couple of months later the supermarket was embroiled in an accounting scandal and share plunged lower.

Pagett bought into Tesco at around 340p, but saw shares fall to a low of around 143p. He says: It didnt seem worth crystallising this loss. They have recovered slightly, but are still well below the price I paid for them. Still the trading updates have been more positive recently so I am hoping this still might pay off over the long term.

Fund Picks for a Pension Portfolio

When it comes to funds, Pagett says one of his best holdings to date has been Fundsmith Equity. Its not hard to see why sales have been buoyant: the fund has outperformed many of its peers, and has a five-star performance rating as well as a coveted Gold Analyst Rating.

Morningstar analyst Peter Brunt says: This is one of the strongest options for investors seeking exposure to high quality global equities. He describes the funds manager, Terry Smith as an original thinker who has often demonstrated his willingness to bet against the crowd.

Brunt says: Smith's investment philosophy is to buy and hold, ideally forever, high-quality businesses that will continually compound in value.

High-quality companies are defined as having little need for leverage, an above-average cash return on operating capital employed, and an ability to sustainably grow at this rate of return.

This has certainly been a sweet spot for the fund which has delivered annualised returns of 22.8% over the past five years.

Pagett says: I have only been invested in this fund for a couple of years. I wouldnt expect such stellar returns to continue, but Im hoping it will be a steady part of my portfolio for years to come.

A handful of tracker funds supplement the portfolio, which invest in most of the major stock markets, including the US, Japan and Europe. He says these are a combination of Vanguard and HSBC tracker funds. Both management houses are rated highly by Morningstar analysts.

He also has a substantial holding in a number of equity income funds, including Invesco High Income, which has a Bronze Rating. He says: This is one of my older holdings, Ive been invested for 15 years or more. I initially invested through an ISA, but now also have a holding in my SIPP.

Brunt says: This fund benefits from an experienced manager in Mark Barnett, who is proving a steady hand despite his increased responsibilities and assets under management. Barnett has been at Invesco Perpetual for over two decades. In March 2014, he took over the management of this fund from Neil Woodford, who had departed the group.

Pagett says: I am aware a lot of people switched when the previous manager left, but Ive kept my holding. It has done well since.

I dont tend to switch funds, or sell shares very often. If something isnt doing as well, I tend to hold it, but may divert future contributions into alternative holdings.
Kameron Prescott, the 6-year-old boy fatally shot last week by Bexar County deputies, was laid to rest Thursday in San Antonio.

The funeral got underway at the United Methodist Church in Universal City at 10 a.m., with a lunch celebrating his life scheduled for 1 p.m.
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At least 11 tier 1 or tier 2 gangs are active in Midland County, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety gang assessment threat from July.

The report showed activity from Tango Blast/Tango Clicks, Latin Kings, Texas Mexican Mafia, Texas Syndicate, Crips, Bloods, Bandidos Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, Surenos, Aryan Circle and Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.

The most significant gang in 2016, according to the report, was Barrio Azteca. Midland Police Department Officer D.J. Goswick said Barrio Azteca has been active maintaining crime through firearms and narcotics trafficking.

They tend to have more organized criminal scenes, Goswick said.

The report states the most significant gangs for 2016 in Region IV, which includes Midland and Odessa, are Barrio Azteca and the Tango cliques of El Paso (Chuco) and West Texas (WTX).

The largest and most active street gangs in the region are Surenos (all sets), Gangster Disciples and Crips (all sets).

The largest and most active prison gangs, according to the report, are the Tango cliques in West Texas (West Texas Tangos) and El Paso (Chuco), Barrio Azteca and Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.

Midland police reported 57 arrests of gang members in 2016 and 39 between January and June of this year. MPD said the arrests may not have been due to gang activity but those were arrests in general of gang members (MPD) had on file.

Goswick said it is difficult to recognize gang members, but residents should contact police if they see anything suspicious.

Gangs are involved in crimes related to firearms, property crime and narcotics, he said. Most of the firearms traffic comes from weapons stolen in burglaries, so people should lock up their firearms, said Goswick, one of 12 members of Midlands gang unit.

DPS gang assessment threat notes:

- Among convicted tier-ranked gang members entering into the Texas Department of Criminal Justice during calendar year 2016, about 7 percent came from counties in Region 4, which extends from just east of San Angelo to Presidio and El Paso to Midland-Odessa and Big Spring and includes Andrews and Seminole. Tangos members represent 37 percent of those convictions. Barrio Azteca accounted for 28 percent of convictions

- More than half of all tier-ranked gang members incarcerated in TDCJ prisons are serving sentences for violent crimes, including robbery (23 percent), homicide (16 percent), assaultive offenses (14 percent), and sexual assault (6 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 []
Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei offer 144-hour visa-free transit

07:36, December 29, 2017 Xinhua

Passengers go through the procedure of 24/144-hour International Transfer at the Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 28, 2017. China on Thursday extended its visa-free period for people transitting through Beijing to 144 hours, and added neighboring Hebei Province and Tianjin City to the program. Transit air, train, and ship passengers entering either of the six border ports in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei can stay in the region for six days before heading for another destination, according to Beijing's Port Office. (Xinhua/Luo Xiaoguang)

BEIJING, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- China extended its visa-free period for people transitting through Beijing to 144 hours Thursday, and added neighboring Hebei Province and Tianjin City to the program.

Transit air, train, and ship passengers entering either of the six border ports in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei can stay in the region for six days before heading for another destination, according to Beijing's Port Office. A valid travel document and a connecting ticket are required.

People from the 53 nationalities that previously benefited from Beijing's 72-hour visa-free transit policy are eligible for the new policy.

Beijing offered 72-hour visa-free transit from 2013. In 2016, the border office logged more than 26,000 such visits, up 32 percent from a year earlier.

Beijing Vice Mayor Cheng Hong welcomed the first foreigners exempted from visas at the Beijing Capital International Airport.

Cheng said the visa-free period was extended after about 40 percent of the foreign guests enjoying the previous transit policy said time was too short.

"We open rail and land ports for the first time and allow passengers to visit more places (Tianjian and Hebei)," she said. "The policy is expected to boost Beijing's economic and cultural exchanges with the world and is good to the city's image."

Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei is the second region in China where transit passengers can stay up to six days. In January 2016, Shanghai and neighboring provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu began offering the visa-free service.
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President Xi Jinping addresses China's diplomats at a meeting at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday. DING LIN/ XINHUA

Envoys are required to implement policy of CPC Central Committee

President Xi Jinping called on China's diplomats to remain loyal to the Party and make contributions to the nation on Thursday.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remark while meeting with a group of several hundred representative Chinese diplomats who returned from abroad for the Foreign Ministry's annual meeting at the Great Hall of the People.

"Absolute loyalty to the Party, country and people is the root and spirit of diplomats," Xi said.

The diplomats should uphold the Four Consciousnesses  to enhance political integrity, develop a better understanding of the general picture, follow the core leadership of the CPC Central Committee and act consistently with CPC Central Committee policy, Xi said.

The president required the diplomats to firmly maintain the authority and unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee, resolutely implement the Party's diplomatic policy, safeguard national interests and esteem, and work to serve the people.

Xi fully recognized the country's diplomatic work in the past five years, and he told the diplomats to understand the spirit of the CPC's 19th National Congress.

On behalf of the CPC Central Committee, Xi extended sincere greetings to the country's diplomats. Since the Party's 18th National Congress in late 2012, the diplomats have overcome difficulties, safeguarded national sovereignty, safety and developmental interests, proactively participated in global governance and pushed the building of the Belt and Road, Xi said.

Noting that socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, Xi said that it's essential for diplomats to understand the spirit of the CPC's 19th National Congress.

As long as the Chinese people stick to their goals and strive along the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the country will definitely become more prosperous, Xi said.

The president encouraged the diplomats to stay true to their original aspirations, being creative and innovative, and make greater efforts for the development of the Party and the country.

The diplomats should press forward with building a community of a shared future for mankind, Xi said, adding that China's "friends circle" should be enlarged continuously through the diplomats' efforts.
An arrest report out of Polk County is shedding some light on who may be the person of interest identified in a hit-and-run crash on International Drive that killed a 12-year-old boy.

Sebastian Duque, 12, struck in hit-and-run crash on I-Drive

Troopers have a person of interest but have not released ID

Polk County arrest report indicates Jonathan Williams is that person

RELATED: FHP: Child dies after being hit by vehicle on I-Drive FHP seeks witnesses in I-Drive hit-and-run that killed boy





The Florida Highway Patrol has not confirmed who that person of interest is, but the Polk County Sheriff's arrest report says 21-year-old Jonathan Williams is the suspect.

The arrest report shows that deputies jailed him in Polk County on Wednesday for driving into Orange County a day earlier  a violation of his parole on a prior arrest.

The report said Williams admitted he was in Orange County at the time of the I-Drive hit-and-run crash, which happened Tuesday evening at about 7:15.

Sebastian Duque, 12, was crossing International Drive with his brother when a man driving a 2005 Ford Focus struck Duque and then ran away after the crash.

The Florida Highway Patrol said it's still gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses. Troopers stopped by a gas station Thursday and said they're looking for surveillance video.

Troopers were still trying to identify the current owner of the Ford Focus, which was registered in Ohio.

FHP is urging anyone with more information on the crash to call 407-737-2213.
Walk above the trees and glide along the water as you check out some of Floridas most famous wildlife. Myakka River State Park is a nature lovers dream come true and truly has something for the entire family to enjoy.

40,000 acres of protected land at Myakka River State Park

39 miles of hiking trails, canoes, and campgrounds

Take a trip around Florida with the Emmy Award winning Florida On A Tankful

A big welcome sign off a rural road greets visitors as they enter nearly 40,000 acres of protected land at Myakka River State Park. Its a giant gem in our own backyards. The drive through the park is breathtaking enough but if you stop along the way, there is 39 miles of hiking trails, canoes, and campgrounds.

Plus, a bridge that hovers above a pond of alligators. Rangers said the visitors reactions are priceless.

"Excitement for sure...seeing all the alligators and all the different birds and other wildlife here," Erin Gilliland said. "Wildflowers are blooming its an amazing site and its right in our backyards."

One of the most popular spots at Myakka River State Park is a canopy walk where you can explore above the trees and check out endangered plant life.

A lookout spot nearly 80 feet in the air gives families a beautiful glance at the entire park. After getting a birds eye view, you can head down a boardwalk for bird watching.

Theres going to be birds and frogs and snakes right underneath that boardwalk right underneath your feet and its amazing to give you that close proximity to the wildlife that we have here, Gilliland said.

You do get to see Florida before it was developed and its amazing to see the environment and the plants ant the animals just as it would be every where in the state before anything was built here, before people were here, Gilliland said.

Whether you come for just a day, or stay for a vacation, chances are youll leave Myakka River State Park with a new love for nature.



The parks campground also has historic cabins for rent that were built in the 1930s and made out of palm trees.

Myakka River State Park is in Sarasota off of State Road 72.
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Robert L. Owens has been everything from a preacher to a decorated war hero, so it was no wonder Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Darnton of the New York Times wanted to interview the Plainview man.

At 91, Owens has lived a full, exciting, colorful life.

"I didnt do anything special. Im just glad I got to fight for my country," Owens said modestly.

Having received a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and good conduct medal, Owens is all about being special.

  

While documenting World War II on the ship King John, Darntons father, Barney Darnton, was tragically hit with shrapnel and killed. John Darnton was only 11 months old. Having no memories of his father, John began to explore his fathers past while writing his memoir, "Almost a Family."

After his fathers death, Johns mother, Eleanor "Tootie" Darnton, became severely depressed and turned to alcohol for consolation. She attempted to keep the family together by telling John and his brother that Barney was a real-life superman. Dashingly handsome, sharp as a tack with a golden heart and good sense of humor, Tootie planted the persona of the perfect man in her childrens minds.

Unfortunately, that was far from the truth.

As John discovered, Barney was not the mythical man his mom made him out to be. A prodigal son of the Roaring 20s, Barney was a jovial, womanizing, drunken man who often abandoned his family for a night on the town.

Darnton began searching for war veterans who might have known his father before he was killed. However, all of the vets who he talked to who were on the King John didnt know his dad.

Darnton was at a dead end . . . until the day Owens sent him a letter. In it, Owens told Darnton that he met Barney moments before he was killed.

In his memoir, John Darnton writes of his travels from New York City to Plainview.

  

"I flew to Amarillo and drove down the Panhandle, across pool table-flat country. The land was treeless and windswept, with not much to see, just wooden telephone poles leaning toward the dusty ground and an occasional silo. The radio played three things: preachers, country music and heavy metal. I was in the middle of nowhere."

Owens had sent Darnton a letter so intriguing he couldnt help but jump on a plane and fly to Plainview to meet him. Darnton met Owens and his daughter, Sherita Hatch, at his home. There, Owens told his story.

Owens began his journey when he was inducted into the Army in January 1942. At age 21, Owens joined the 32nd Infantry at Fort Ord in California. From there, he joined the Australian campaign aboard the Monterey.

When they arrived Down Under, Owens remembered the directions given by military officers.

"I remember them telling us, Now youre the foreigners. Dont start popping off your mouth about them driving on the wrong side of the road. They were glad to see us at first, but boy, going out with their girls and everything, they was ready to run us out before it was over with."

The 32nd was deployed to New Guinea. Owens remembers one night that he and two other men were trapped in the jungle by themselves. They went ahead of the group to scout out the jungle. The company got pinned down by the Japanese, leaving Owens and the two others stranded. The company went back to base, thinking Owens and the others were dead. The three stayed in the jungle that night.

"There were birds that screamed, Hey, hey! Youd think it was one of your own men, but it wasnt," Owens recalled. "The bugs would eat you alive. We used to joke that the mosquitoes were so big they could land on a carrier, and we would fill it all the way up (with gasoline) before we realized it wasnt a plane."

The most prominent and somber of Owens memories is what happened to Darnstons father.

Right before their departure, the infantry dyed their uniforms green to blend in with the jungle. Owens remembers trying to dry his wet uniform before they left.

"I tried to dry it quicker over the fire, but ended up with holes in my uniform," he said.

The uniforms were still wet when they boarded the ship.

Owens told Darnton, "The one I was on . . . your dad was on it and I got to talk to him for a while. I dont remember the conversation now, probably just little things."

American planes flying back from Japan saw the King John with men in green uniforms and began to bomb them, thinking they were Japanese.

"The bombs made the water go a hundred feet in the air," Owens recalled.

Shrapnel hit Darnstons father, killing him instantly.

Owens helped bring Barney Darnstons body to shore.

"Then we went to the beach and laid him on the shore back aways. And handling him . . . there was blood. The blood seeped through my trousers . . .," Owens told Darnston, regrettably.

Owens remembers sitting around the campfire later that night with his rations before him.

"When it came time to eat, I looked down at the blood on my pants and I couldnt do it."

After their interview, Darnston was able to go back to New Guinea and find a native who remembered what happened 60 years ago and was able to point to the exact spot where Darnstons father lay.

With Owens help, Darnston was able to find who he is through exploring his past.

To comment:

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806.296.1321
Brewers, spirits distillers and wine makers, are toasting changes in the new tax law that reduces their excise tax per barrel and offers tax breaks on sparkling wines, increased alcohol content, and more carbonated wines.

Included in the Tax Cut and Jobs Act is the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, designed to boost production at craft breweries, vineyards, and spirit distilleries.

Under the law, the federal excise tax on beer will be reduced to $3.50 a barrel  from $7 a barrel  on the first 60,000 barrels for domestic brewers producing less than 2 million barrels annually, and reduced to $16 barrel  from $18 a barrel  on the first 6 million barrels for all other brewers and all beer importers.

The bill maintains the current $18 barrel rate for production over 6 million barrels. In total, this represents more than $142 million in annual savings, according to the Brewers Association, which represents small brewers.

In Connecticut, the number of breweries and vineyards has been growing annually, with many rehabilitating obsolete factory and warehouse space. The Connecticut Wine Trail is a successful part of the states tourism campaign. A new Spirit Trail was recently founded for micro distillers.

In Southington, two new breweries have opened near the Farmington Canal Linear Trail in the past two years.

(Tax breaks) are definitely a boost to us, said Greg Caucci, owner of the Kinsmen Brewing Co., 409 Canal St. For a smaller business, that will help free up some cash. Its definitely a great incentive to take some of those dollars and invest in brewing.

The Kinsmen Brewing Co. employs about 20 workers, including two full-time employees. Any reinvestment will go toward boosting production and adding employees. The company now produces about 1,000 barrels per year and hopes to double that.

Were hoping to reinvest it into capacity, Caucci said.

The bill makes the first reduction in wine excise taxes in over 80 years and only the second reduction in the nations history, and followed heavy lobbying from the wine industry.

The Craft Beverage bill will help propel the growth of wineries across the nation, including the nearly 5,000 in California, most of which are small and family owned, said Robert P. Bobby Koch, president of the Wine Institute. Wineries are some of the most heavily taxed and regulated businesses in the country and this will provide meaningful relief from some of these burdens.

The legislation will reduce excise tax payments for every winery in the country by expanding the value of the existing producer credit and doing away with the phase-out that currently prohibits many wineries from receiving any benefit. The excise tax burden for small- and medium-sized wineries will be reduced by 55 percent to 70 percent. The bill will also allow for the innovation of new products. The wine provisions go into effect on Jan. 1, 2018.

The tax reform bill also expands the excise tax credit for wineries and allows sparkling wine to qualify for it; increases the maximum alcohol by volume allowed for drinks to be eligible for a reduced tax rate; and increases the carbonation allowed in some low-alcohol wines.

Wallingford has two successful wineries that are included on the Connecticut Wine Trail. Joseph Gouveia, owner of Gouveia Vineyards said Thursday he wasnt familiar enough with the legislation to comment. Representatives from Paradise Hills Vineyard & Winery could not be reached for comment.

Craft distillers are also getting some sizeable breaks, including a drop in the federal excise tax from $13.50 to $2.70 per proof gallon for the first 100,000 gallons per year for a two-year period, a savings of up to $2.16 million.

For the little guy, the benefit far exceeds the average annual yield, and craft distillers finally join the ranks of small production wineries and breweries who have long enjoyed similar benefits. Taxes on distilled spirits are among the nations highest, averaging about 54% of a typical products purchase price.

The Craft Spirits Data Project reports that the craft industry continues to skyrocket, employing close to 20,000 people and investing over $600 million over the last decade. American Craft Spirits Association President Mark Shilling sees lots of room for growth with the tax break.

For years, we have fought for excise tax fairness, and with this change, our industry will see immediate benefits, including the ability to hire more Americans and increase production with new equipment, says Shilling. We look forward to reinvesting these critical and long overdue savings into growing our workforce, production capabilities, and tourism experiences and supporting local agriculture.

Although still outnumbered by brewers, distillers are also cropping up in the state. Tom Dubay, the chief executive of the Hartford Flavor Co., created a coalition of about 12 other small distillers to form the Connecticut Spirit Trail, modeled after the wine and beer trails.

It certainly lets us plow money back into our operation, and offer incentives to grow our overall operation, said Dubay, who produces a line of artisanal liquors, Wild Moon, with his wife, Lelaneia.

Hartford Flavor Co. has been in business for two and a half years and has about a dozen employees, most of which are part-time. Spirit production is governed by size, meaning there is a limit to how much smaller businesses can generate, and windfalls will go toward increased hours or more employees for trade events.

Larger distillers, on the other hand will burn through the tax benefits in a very short time. Its really meant to help the small craft distiller, Dubay said. Every little bit helps.

mgodin@record-journal.com

203-317-2255

Twitter: @Cconnbiz
By Bryan Lipiner

WALLINGFORD  Several motorists face DUI and narcotics charges after police conducted a DUI checkpoint on Main Street in Yalesville Thursday night. One motorist charged with DUI had a 7-year-old in the vehicle.

The three motorists charged with DUI had additional charges including DUI with a passenger under age 18, possession of marijuana and drinking while driving, Lt. Anthony DeMaio said in a statement.

Seven motorists were charged with possession of marijuana, four motorists were charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and one motorist was charged with possession of narcotics, DeMaio said.

Drivers were also charged with misuse of marker plates, operating a motor vehicle without insurance, operating an unregistered motor vehicle, operating a motor vehicle without a license and operating a motor vehicle in violation of passenger restrictions.

DeMaio said warnings were issued for traffic violations, including improper turns, failure to have headlamps lit and use of a cell phone.

Funding for this effort was made available by the police departments participation in a State of Connecticut Department of Transportation Highway Safety DUI Enforcement Grant, DeMaio said. The funding supported the staffing necessary to allow Wallingford Police Officers to specifically dedicate out efforts on DUI enforcement in a continual endeavor to reduce alcohol related accidents and the resulting injuries and fatalities.

blipiner@record-journal.com

203-317-2444

Twitter: @BryanLipiner
Two sections of the new E35 highway, the first link on the China-Pakistan economic corridor, opened to traffic on December 27, 2017. Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi attended the opening ceremony in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in northwestern Pakistan, reports cctv.com.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi (2nd left) attends the opening ceremony of two sections of the new E35 highway, the first link on the China-Pakistan economic corridor in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in northwestern Pakistan on December 27, 2017. [Photo:China Plus/Zhu Xi]

In his speech at the opening of the highway, the Prime Minister thanked the Chinese government and Chinese companies for their help in the construction of the first high-quality highway in northern Pakistan. He said that the project would deepen the friendship between the two countries.

The 40km stretch of six-lane asphalt concrete road was jointly built by China Gezhouba Group Corporation and Pakistan GRC. The two sections that have opened will cut in half the travel time between the northern city of Havelian and the country's capital Islamabad, from three hours down to an hour and a half. The remaining 20km of the highway is still under construction by Pakistan.

The E35 highway is linked to the north with the Karakoram Highway project, which is under construction. It also connects with the extension to the Karakorum Highway, which is already open to traffic, to tie together the China-Pakistan economic corridor in northern Pakistan.

The highway will play a significant role in improving the road conditions in the north of the country. The road will promote local economic development, and in turn improve the livelihood of the local people.

Chinese premier Li Keqiang first proposed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor during a visit to Pakistan in May 2013 with the goal of strengthening exchanges and cooperation between the two countries in areas such as transportation and energy. The project was launched on April 20, 2015.
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BOGOTA, Colombia - Jorge Gutierrez leaps onto a packed bus in Colombia's capital, proudly announcing that he comes bearing gifts from neighboring Venezuela.

He holds up a thick wad of bolivars- the nearly worthless currency of his crisis-racked homeland - and then asks for a small donation in exchange for each 100-bolivar note.

"Do you know what I can buy with this?" he says as the bus rumbles down a street in Bogota. "Absolutely nothing, gentlemen."

This creative stunt has become a common scene in Colombia as a record number of Venezuelans pour across the border seeking a better life.

An estimated 550,000 Venezuelans have migrated to Colombia, crossing a spottily policed 1,242-mile border. Of those, some 200,000 have come in just in the last six months, threatening to overwhelm Colombia's limited resources.

"No country is prepared to deal with an emerging phenomenon of this magnitude," said Julio Saez Beltran, an adviser at Colombia's Ministry of Health.

Venezuela, a country of 30 million, sits atop the world's largest oil reserves but has been suffering a political and economic meltdown since global crude prices fell sharply three years ago. Shortages of food and medicine under the socialist rule of President Nicolas Maduro are dire, and Venezuelans struggle to afford basic goods and services with incomes that fall short.

With jobs short in Colombia, some Venezuelans sell sweets and arepas, a traditional cornbread. Many turn up as panhandlers in the mass transit system.

Eager to find work abroad, Gutierrez, 32, arrived in October with his wife, baby daughter, and a backpack crammed with 2 million bolivars that he saved up. But the stash of bills is worth just $20 on Venezuela's commonly used black market, so he kept it.

And when no job offers came his way, he started hopping on buses to sell the currency as novelty items.
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Musical acts Pat Benatar and REO Speedwagon will help San Antonio kickoff their year-long, 300th birthday celebration Sunday night at Hemisfair Park, but the throwback headliners have some calling for local attorney Thomas J. Henry to takeover.

Along with being known for winning cases, Henry has earned his reputation of a top-notch party host, with money to boot and a family to spoil. His bash-throwing repertoire landed San Antonio on the map in February 2016, when he hosted a $6 million quinceanera for his daughter, Maya.

Henry followed that up with hosting the 2017 Maxim Super Bowl Party in Sugarland, and a $4 million party for his son's 18th birthday.

READ ALSO: Lavish details emerge as Thomas J. Henry's $4 million celebrity-filled party goes viral

So if Henry took over the 300 celebration, what stars would show up?

The celebrity lineups for his past parties brought in people like Nick Jonas, Travis Scott, Pitbull, Migos, Dj Khalid and J Balvin. Twitter users asked how one family was able to bring the star power but a commission could not.

"Thomas J Henry dropped $4Mill on his kid, got Diplo and Migos," Sobre Sound tweeted. "The SA Tricentennial doesn't have at least $3 Mill to drop on someone better than REO Speedwagon and Pat Benatar???"

Aside from his usual star-studded performances, a list of celebrities from Ja Rule to Instagram-famous models like Arianny Celeste partied with the Henry teen, his family and an exclusive list of San Antonians. Henry's previous shindigs had stars like Ludacris and Fergie on the guest list.

RELATED: Thomas J. Henry and family starring in their own YouTube-based reality show

The jaw-dropping events for the Henrys have also attracted world-wide attention, as sites like DailyMail an TMZ caught wind of the jaw-dropping birthday parties.

Henry has had the help of top party planners and deep pockets to land the big names, and even though he will not have a hand in the Tricentennial celebration, the city can surely anticipate even more grandiose parties in 2018.

Madalyn Mendoza is a digital reporter for MySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| mmendoza@mysa.com | Twitter: @MaddySkye
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George Strait retired from touring in 2012, but he's still keeping busy.

That was especially true in 2017, when The King grabbed headlines for landing in hot spot bars and helping out his fellow Texans.

Aside from extending his Las Vegas residency throughout 2017, the 65-year-old also announced an Austin concert for next year and hosted the Hand in Hand Harvey relief show with Miranda Lambert, Lyle Lovett and Chris Stapleton.

RELATED: Photos show how the Spurs spent their holidays

But not all of the Strait stories were as positive. The clubhouse at Tapatio Springs Hill Country resort, which he co-owns, burned and was considered a "total loss." He also made a trip to the Texas Coast to visit Harvey victims.

Check out the gallery above for his year in review.

Madalyn Mendoza is a digital reporter for MySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| mmendoza@mysa.com | Twitter: @MaddySkye
ANSONIA  An investigation independent of the citys Board of Education will help determine if there was any wrongdoing in the case of High School Principal Terri Goldson and his personal Twitter account which allegedly contained a link to a 28-second pornographic video.

For nearly an hour Thursday night the citys seven-member Board of Education met in execution session before taking the advice of their lawyer, Fred Dorsey.

Neither Goldson, his lawyer, his union lawyer or any members of the public attended the session, which took place mostly behind closed doors in the Robert E. Zuraw Administrative Office Building on Grove Street.

Dorsey said it will be up to the citys school administrators to pick the investigator and the expertise needed to conduct the probe.

Theyll go with whatever specialities they think they need, Dorsey said.

In this case, that task presumably falls to Superintendent of Schools Carol Merlone and Assistant Superintendent of Schools Joseph DiBacco. Since Twitter is an online social networking and broadcasting site, it is more than likely the investigator chosen will have a background in information technology and the workings of the internet.

Dorsey said individuals with other expertise could be brought in if needed. He also said he could make recommendations if asked.

Neither Merlone nor board members would estimate how long the investigation would take.

Dorsey said state statute 10-151 governs procedures for disciplining educators.

In the end, Dorsey said three things could happen.

Goldson could be cleared of any wrongdoing and returned to his position.

There could be a finding of some infraction resulting in discipline which would be imposed by the administration.

Or there could be a recommendation for termination which would have to be approved by the Board of Education. In that case a hearing might result.

If any discipline is imposed, there are grievance and arbitration procedures which can be invoked through the contract that Goldsons union, the Ansonia Administrators Association, has with the Board of Education.

Its much too early to predict what will happen, Dorsey said. There may be no wrongdoing involved.

Merlone placed Goldson on paid administrative leave last week after information surfaced that his personal Twitter account showed he liked a Nov. 6 28-second pornographic video, according to several published reports.

While Goldson has not responded to media requests for comment, he did post the following message Dec. 19 on his personal Facebook page: There was a very inappropriate video with sexual content on my Twitter feed today. Please...be careful with social media. That message is still up.

Since then more than 100 people have posted notes of support and encouragement on Goldsons Facebook page. Some claim Goldsons account was hacked, others propose that an accidental like may have occurred.

In the meantime Merlone said Goldson, a longtime city resident who became the High Schools principal at the start of the 2016-17 school year, will remain on paid administrative leave for the forseeable future.

The union contract calls for the high school principal to earn $144,000 during the 2017-18 school year with a two percent bump to $146,888 in 2018-19 and $149,819 in 2019-20.

Goldson previously served as the Middle School and Mead School principals.

With Goldson on leave, Merlone appointed Sara Crooks, the high schools assistant principal as the acting principal. The superintendent said she assigned Lou Puglisi, who previously served as the interim principal of Prendergast School and has been working as an education consultant, to assist Crooks.

All this comes at a time when U. S. News & World Report recently ranked Ansonias High School as 34th best among 200 state high schools.
Boeing recently offered a first glimpse of its newest military aircraft, a large, stingray-shaped drone it hopes will win an intense Navy competition to build an uncrewed aircraft capable of landing on an aircraft carrier.

Drones have been a vital part of the Pentagon's arsenal for years, but the competition for a Navy carrier-based version that can refuel jet fighters in the midair would mark a significant advancement in the technology - and become another sign how the military is increasingly integrating robots into the way it fights.

In addition to Boeing, two of the Pentagon's top suppliers, General Atomics and Lockheed Martin, are also vying for a contract to build as many as 76 of the vehicles that would become operational in the mid 2020s. Bids are due Jan. 3, setting the stage for a high-stakes competition in 2018. Though the Navy has not yet released the value of the contract, an earlier incarnation of the effort - in which the drones would both serve as refueling aircraft and have attack capabilities - would have been worth $3 billion through 2022. As conceived now, the aircraft would not be configured to strike targets.

In recent years, the Pentagon has shown that drones are not just capable of flying from airstrips around the world, but from sea as well. In 2013, Northrop Grumman's X-47B became the first drone to take off and land from an aircraft carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush in a flight that one top Navy official said marked "an inflection point in history on how we will integrate manned and unmanned aircraft on carrier flight decks in the future."

Then, a year later, the X-47B flew in concert with F/A-18 fighter jets. It took its next step in 2015 when it was refueled in midair by a tanker jet.

If successful, the MQ-25 would become a key component for the Navy. With more capable defense systems, potential adversaries, particularly China, are pushing the Navy's aircraft carriers further and further away from shorelines - and out of striking distance of fighter jets.

The ability to refuel those jets in midair with a drone would allow them to strike deeper into enemy territory, even while the carriers stay safely off shore. Without that capability, defense analysts fear the U.S.'s long-held air dominance could be diminished and its fleet of aircraft carriers, perhaps one of the most significant ways the Pentagon projects force from wherever, whenever, could become obsolete.

"The Navy has a growing concern with threats to its aircrafts carriers," said Loren Thompson, a defense consultant, who works with many of the large contractors. "Carriers cost billions of dollars and have thousand of personnel on board, so if it can attack targets without having to get too close, that's a big warfighter advantage."

In addition to refueling fighter jets, including the F/A-18 Super Hornet and the F-35C, the drones could also be used on surveillance missions, staying aloft for long stretches, Thompson said.

Though it developed the X-47B, Northrop Grumman suddenly dropped out of the competition in October, stunning many in the industry that had thought it had a good chance to win. During a conference call with Wall Street analysts to discuss quarterly financial results, Wes Bush, Northrop's chairman and chief executive, said the program didn't make financial sense for the company, which is already developing a new stealth bomber for the Pentagon.

"When we're looking at one of these opportunities, let me be clear: Our objective is not just to win. Winning is great, it feels good on the day of an announcement," he said. "But if you can't really execute on it and deliver on it to your customer and your shareholders, then you've done the wrong thing."

For Boeing and Lockheed, which teamed up on the bomber contract but lost, the Navy competition represents a significant opportunity to build a new military airframe. That's especially important for Boeing, which has slowed down its F/A-18 production line, while Lockheed Martin is ramping up manufacturing of its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

"Boeing has been delivering carrier aircraft to the Navy for almost 90 years," Don "BD" Gaddis, a retired admiral of Boeing's Phantom Works technology organization, said in a statement. "Our expertise gives us confidence in our approach."

It faces tough competition, however. Lockheed Martin is the world's largest defense contractor, and General Atomics has a long history in developing remotely piloted aircraft, including the Predator and Gray Eagle.
Law to help protect interests amid increasing tourist visits

China's research icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, sails against ice on its way to Zhongshan station in Antarctic, Dec. 20, 2017. Xuelong set sail from Shanghai, east China, on Nov. 8, beginning the country's 34th Antarctic expedition. Researchers will conduct preliminary work on China's fifth station in the Antarctic, which is one of the key objectives of this expedition. (Xinhua/Bai Guolong)

China's top legislature has listed the country's first Antarctic law into its legislation plan, a move that Chinese experts said will help protect China's future Antarctic development and interests amid an increasing amount of Chinese tourists heading to the area.

The 12th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) on Wednesday approved a report from the Chinese Environment and Resources Protection Committee (ERPC) on making an Antarctic law and suggested the 13th Standing Committee include it into its legislation, the Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday.

"China is internationally responsible by making an Antarctic law. The long-standing Antarctic Treaty and related agreements signed by various countries require consultative parties to make their own laws in an effort to better engage in protection of the area," Dong Yue, a research fellow at the Polar Research Institute of the Ocean University of China, told the Global Times on Thursday.

The Antarctic law could also help China protect its resource use and joint future development interests in the area, Dong said.

The ERPC said in the report to the Standing Committee of the NPC that better legal management is required as civilian activities in Antarctic areas increase and the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council set new development goals in the Southern polar region.

According to the report, Antarctica is a new strategic region related to future national security and development. The State Oceanic Administration has actively promoted the legislative work by laying the foundation to make the Antarctic law.

"The Antarctic law, once it is passed, will also endow Chinese citizens and companies with more rights on development in the area as well as regulating their dealings there," Wang Wen, executive dean of Renmin University's Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, who also joined a journey to the Antarctic Pole in December, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Wang noted that no Chinese company has gained the required qualifications to organize cruises to the Antarctic or have airlines land on the area yet.

In recent years, more Chinese have been traveling to the two Polar regions - the Antarctic and Arctic - according to a document online travel agency Ctrip sent to the Global Times in early December.

"Over the past years China has played an active role in the development of the Antarctic and has been a leader in many fields, including scientific research. Moreover, China has always advocated for more equitable ways to safeguard the peaceful development and protection of the Antarctic," Dong said.

In May, China published its first full report on its undertakings in Antarctica over the past three decades, titled "China's Antarctic Activities."
Running for the Democratic nomination for governor, Middletown Mayor Dan Drew is soliciting campaign contributions with a pledge to impose a single-payer medical insurance system on Connecticut  that is, a government monopoly on medical insurance.

Drews pledge comes in the context of a Department of Children and Families that cant get out from under 25 years of federal court supervision despite many supposed reforms and improvements, a Motor Vehicles Department that recently was crippled for months by installation of a new computer system, and a state budget that hasnt been balanced for years, is already $200 million in deficit just weeks after its belated enactment, and is projected to be billions of dollars in deficit in another two years unless huge cuts in spending or increases in taxes are enacted.

While Drews platform includes soaking the rich by increasing the state income tax, as if the rich arent already leaving Connecticut in growing numbers, the projection of enormous budget deficits suggests that even expropriating the rich wont be enough to fund state governments ordinary operations, much less pay for everybodys medical insurance.

But who running for governor wants to address the hard issues of day-to-day public administration when he can pander to the socialists and welfarists of the Democratic left or the gun enthusiasts and nihilists of the Republican right?

Quite apart from state governments limited ability in public administration, a government monopoly on medical insurance in any one state would be unlikely to succeed for long because it would attract every hardship insurance case from the rest of the country and quickly go broke. Thats why any medical insurance system covering everyone will require national rules and administration.

The Affordable Care Act  Obamacare  recognized this in principle but failed in practice, as it may have been meant to fail to hasten a government monopoly on medical insurance. Instead Obamacare hastened a national administration that seems intent on destroying medical insurance for all but the wealthy.

So for the moment in Connecticut medical insurance is a mechanism candidates for governor can use to distract voters from state governments incompetence with its basic work.

* * *

A LIFE OF CITIZENSHIP: Community organizer and activist, local journalist and radio personality, elected Republican and appointed town official, real estate agent, mentor, kind soul, friend to hundreds, and lifelong resident of her town, Vivian Firato Ferguson embodied the old Manchester -- self-contained and independent but welcoming and full of civic engagement and caring.

"Viv," as she was known, was nicknamed the queen of Manchester not for any heavy-handed political influence but rather for her selfless involvement. Because of her help and support, hardly anyone could become part of a community undertaking in Manchester without coming to know her.

When she died this month at 92, the old Manchester pretty much passed on with her, as the town's civic engagement and sense of itself are much diminished, its demographics are declining, half its schoolchildren lack parents, and many of its political officials are themselves government employees and thus not as attached to the public interest as political officials were in Ferguson's day.

The big lesson of Ferguson's life may have been [ITALICS] citizenship. [END TALICS] Manchester should create some permanent remembrance of her. But then the town is overdue in creating a permanent remembrance of another great citizen of the old Manchester, the longtime Democratic town chairman, Ted Cummings, who died two years ago.

Chris Powell is the managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Connecticut.
BERLIN - To many, New Year's Eve is the time they commit to living a healthier life in the next year.

They could start by not leaving their homes that night, German authorities say.

Officials there issued a stern warning this week over extreme pollution during the upcoming New Year's celebrations, saying that within only a few hours, fireworks were expected to spread about 5,000 tons of dangerous fine particles that are responsible for about 400,000 deaths each year in the European Union, according to official estimates. In Germany alone, New Year's Eve fireworks pollution amounts to about a fifth of the country's fine particles emitted on the streets (mostly by cars).

To German authorities, the pollution levels have become so hazardous that doctors are recommending the use of masks that are more commonly seen in China and other Asian countries where heavy pollution is prevalent. "Breathing in fine particles endangers people's health, with repercussions ranging from temporary impairments of the bronchial system over an increased need for drugs among asthmatics to severe respiratory or cardiovascular diseases," Germany's environmental agency wrote in a statement.

A recent report by Germany's environmental agency found an almost identical threat across many of the nation's major cities - especially in centers or areas with lots of traffic - and the report's findings indicate that other European and U.S. cities are likely facing similar challenges on New Year's Eve or July 4.

The possibility of long-term health implications of New Year's Eve fireworks is difficult to predict, however. "Strong winds help to quickly disperse the pollutants. If there's a lack of wind with a limited horizontal air circulation, the pollutants remain in the air for many hours," the researchers assessed.

Hence, pollution levels differ strongly between years.

Several Western cities have already banned New Year's Eve fireworks in recent years, including New York, mostly due to pollution and public safety concerns.

Similar precautions are being taken in various places in Asia. In China - where fireworks were invented - their use will be prohibited in central Beijing this year. The Chinese ban comes after a Supreme Court decision in India this year, where the sale of fireworks was also banned ahead of this October's Hindu festival of lights, Diwali.

The Indian ruling was part of an effort to prevent a repeat of 2016's post-Diwali toxic smog that plunged New Delhi into an air pollution nightmare. As a result, authorities there had to shut down power plants and close high schools for half a week.

Similar scenarios remain unlikely in major European cities, even though pollution levels there resemble those of toxic-smog-affected Asian capitals for several hours at least once each year.
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis gave a full-throated defense Friday of U.S. efforts to prevent civilian casualties in the conflict in Yemen, making the case that without American involvement, there would be more.

Mattis, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, said that "it's a tragedy every time" a civilian dies, but that the United States is held to a high standard when it comes to preventing civilian fatalities.

"We are being held to a standard - 'we' being us and anyone associated with us - that has never been achieved before in warfare," he said.

The comments came after two separate airstrikes on Dec. 26 by a Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen killed dozens of people and prompted a rebuke from a top United Nations official in the country. Initial U.N. reports said that at least 54 civilians, including eight children, were killed in a strike on a crowded market, and an additional 14 people from one family were killed in a bombing on a farm.

The United States does not drop bombs as a part of the Saudi-led air war against the Houthis, but provides aerial refueling to Saudi jets, shares intelligence to improve their targeting and attempts to teach Saudi pilots how to be more accurate. Mattis bristled Friday when a reporter suggested that the effort isn't working, saying "that's your call."

Asked whether he was "okay" with the current level of civilian casualties, the defense secretary grew stern.

"I'm never okay with any civilian casualty," he said. "Don't screw with me on this."

The U.S. military's handling of civilian casualties has remained in question in several war zones in which the U.S. military operates, especially as it touts the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as the most precise in world history. An extensive New York Times investigation published in November found that about 1 in 5 airstrikes in a sampling of 150 bombing sites surveyed by the Times resulted in a civilian death, with many uncounted by the coalition.

Mattis said that in Yemen, the Saudi government is attacking Houthi rebels "with military necessity in their minds." The rebels have launched numerous ballistic missiles over the Yemeni border into Saudi Arabia.

The United States targets Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) militants in Yemen, but has mostly avoided targeting the Houthis themselves. One exception occurred in October 2016, when the Navy launched "limited self-defense strikes" using Tomahawk missiles at rebel radar sites after several missiles were launched at Navy ships.

The war between the Saudis and Houthis dates back to March 2015, when the Saudis intervened on behalf of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi after the Houthis attempted to overthrow him.

Mattis said the U.S. military will continue to work with Saudi pilots to improve their bombing and target identification. He noted that other military forces that are part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) required U.S. assistance as they struggled to prevent civilian casualties in their operations in Libya after the 2011 U.S.-led intervention there.

"Not all nations can be held to the standard that we've achieved," Mattis said.

Mattis visited the press center in the Pentagon to wish journalists a Happy New Year, and unexpectedly went on the record in a wide-ranging conversation that lasted about 45 minutes.

The defense secretary said he expects more U.S. civilians involved in the reconstruction effort in Syria in 2018, including contractors and "more diplomats." The effort, he said, will be geared toward stabilizing the country, with the U.S. military in a support role to provide security and transportation.

"It is an attempt to move toward the normalcy and that takes a lot of support," Mattis said.

Mattis also predicted that more conventional U.S. troops will take on missions that were once the province of Special Operations forces in 2018 - an effort to reduce deployments of the Pentagon's most elite forces after years of heavy use.

"If I was to put it in philosophical terms, you want a force that can deal with today's challenges and not be dominant in yesterday's challenges," Mattis said. "The general-purpose forces are going to have to have some of the capabilities that you and I used to only associate with Special Forces."

He added that over time, capabilities once associated with Special Operations troops have transitioned to being conventional military missions. In one example, a new Army Security Force Assistance Advisory Brigade is expected to deploy in the spring, training Afghan forces as part of an increase in U.S. troop deployments approved by President Donald Trump.

Mattis declined to offer any message to transgender people who might seek to enlist in the military beginning Jan. 1, when a federal court has ordered the Pentagon to allow them to do so. That came in response to legal challenges to President Trump's proposed ban on all transgender people serving.

"I'm not going to get into this right now," Mattis said. "It's a court case right now. The Department of Justice is handling it. If they're not appealing it, we'll be notified of that. And I don't get into singling out and welcoming this group or that group or that gender or anything else. That's not my role."

Asked how he feels about his first year as defense secretary, Mattis played it coy.

"I don't have any feelings," he said, deadpan.

As to whether he planned to stay in office through Trump's term, he replied: "I take one day at a time."
Washington

When John Muir helped establish the National Park Service, he argued such parks were vital to help people unplug from the world. "Break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods," Muir was quoted as saying in 1915.

But these days at Yosemite National Park, hikers to Half Dome are likely to encounter people talking on cellphones as they climb to the top. For visitors to the parks, the call of the outdoors increasingly comes with 4G service, and not everyone is wild about that.

In Yosemite, Yellowstone, Mount Rainier and other iconic parks, environmentalists are pressing the National Park Service to slow or halt construction of new cellular towers within park boundaries. They say the NPS is quietly facilitating a digital transformation with little public input or regard to its mission statement  to preserve "unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System."

Richard Louv, author of several books on connecting young people with the outdoors, said the parks are losing what once made them unique.

"Can you imagine hiking in Yosemite far from other people, and then suddenly it sounds like you are in McDonald's, with everyone on their phones?" said Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods" and other books. "That is not why most people go to our national parks."

Yet advocates for increased cell service, including many NPS officials, say the parks can't cling to an earlier era. Expanded cellular and broadband coverage, they argue, helps rescue teams respond to emergencies and are necessary to draw a new generation to the parks.

"Visitors want to be able to use their mobile devices to share experiences with their friends and family," said Lena McDowall, an NPS deputy director, in testimony to a U.S. Senate subcommittee in September. "They want to take advantage of the many internet-based resources we have developed."

Locked in competition, Verizon, AT&T and other telecom companies are aggressively courting the most popular national parks, and under the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, the parks are obligated to at least review proposals for new cellular towers.

Yet because the National Park Service is highly decentralized, NPS headquarters does not track construction of cellular towers in parks nationwide. Nor has it developed a national policy to guide parks superintendents in reviewing such proposals.

Yosemite has one park that has come under scrutiny for its expansion of cell service. In October, using public records request, the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility found that Yosemite has quietly approved six cellular towers in the park.

PEER, which has asked the Interior Department's Inspector General to investigate, said that Yosemite is "violation of both federal laws and agency policies" by approving the towers without public notice or environmental review. The group also unearthed emails that suggest that Yosemite officials are uncertain about ownership of five of the towers and how revenues should be handled when telecom companies co-locate on the towers.

In an email, Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman said he was aware of PEER's complaint, but could not immediately comment. Jeffrey Olson, a spokesman for NPS headquarters in Washington, also declined to discuss the Yosemite case, other than to note that "decisions about cell towers and coverage are up the (park) superintendents."

Juggling public demands has always been difficult in the national parks, especially those that draw big crowds and include large expanses of designated wilderness. In 2016, the NPS it reported a record 331 million visits to the parks, many of which suffer from overcrowding in the summer.

For the last year, Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state has been weighing whether to allow three telecom companies to co-locate a cellular facility at the park's Paradise visitor center.

Public opinion appears divided on the plan, which would extend cell service would extend to some, but not all, of the mountain. Of those who commented on the proposal, 249 supportive were supportive and 241 were opposed.

In North Dakota, wilderness advocates strongly opposed Verizon's plan to build a new cell tower at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, fearing it would blanket the backcountry with cell signals. NPS officials ultimately decided to design the new cell tower so it would not extend service into the park's designated wilderness.

Heidi Flato, a spokeswoman with Verizon, said the company is aware that some wilderness advocates have concerns with expanded cell coverage. "We've always sought to work with the National Park Service to find the right balance," said Flato, noting that a major complaints of park visitors is being unable to get a signal.

Over the last decade, PEER has emerged as the fiercest opponent of telecom expansion in Yosemite, Yellowstone and other national parks. The nonprofit group is led by lawyer Jeff Ruch, who keeps a close eye on the special use permits the national parks issues for new services and concessions.

Under National Park Service guidelines, such "special uses" are encouraged if they enhance park resources or improve public safety. But such uses should be rejected, the NPS says, if they "unreasonably disrupt the atmosphere of peace and tranquility of wilderness."

Ruch argues the park service rarely grapples with these tradeoffs when it is approached by cellular providers. "A telecom company will come to a park and say, "Nice mountain. We want to put a cell tower on it.' And the park usually says yes."

U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a Democrat who represents the north coast of California, said he doesn't support physical construction of cell towers in wilderness areas. But he sees no problem with telecom companies improving signal strength near visitor centers, park entrances and into the back country.

Huffman has introduced legislation, The Public Lands Telecommunications Act, that would allow parks and federal land agencies to keep the rental income they receive from granting right-of-way to cellular towers. They then could use that money to partner with nearby rural communities on improving their cellular and broadband service.

PEER opposes the legislation, arguing it would create incentives for more construction of cell towers on public lands. But Huffman said that districts like his, with remote communities scattered amid a patchwork of federal lands, need help in improving communications, partly for public safety reasons.

"This shouldn't be an issue," said Huffman. "If you want to avoid distractions in the wilderness, you can just turn off your phone. But you might also want to be able to turn on that phone and make a call if you broke your arm and needed help."
When the asteroid named 3200 Phaethon passed by our planet in December, people were watching. The asteroid is not a huge space rock, but it zips close enough to Earth that NASA classifies Phaethon as a "potentially hazardous asteroid."

This does not mean that Phaethon posed any immediate danger. Potential space hazards are matters of cosmic perspective: On Dec. 16, the nearest Phaethon has been since the 1970s, it was 6 million miles from us. The moon, for comparison, is 240,000 miles away.

In Puerto Rico, the Arecibo Observatory watched Phaethon's passage. The world's second-largest radio telescope has not had an easy year. Hurricane Maria roughed up the observatory, destroying a 40-foot dish and damaging other instruments. All told, the hurricane cost between $4 million and $8 million in damage, National Science Foundation acting assistant director James Ulvestad told The Washington Post.

But the telescope escaped total devastation. All staff evacuated safely, an NSF representative told The Post in September, and the massive main dish remained intact. The Universities Space Research Association, which helps operate the observatory, distributed generators to some Arecibo employees. By December, the observatory had resumed normal operations. (Meanwhile, a recent estimate by Puerto Rican engineers showed that 50 percent of the country's 3.3 million people still lacked power, the AP reported on Monday.)

The hurricane was not the only threat to Arecibo's future. The observatory's funding has been shrinking, and under some proposals, it would have been demolished or turned into an educational facility. The NSF, which owns the observatory, announced in mid-November that it was committed to keeping Arecibo operational.

The observatory, once back online, captured the best-resolution images of Phaethon ever taken, which NASA released in late December. The asteroid has a curious dark splotch near one of its poles. "The dark feature could be a crater or some other topographic depression that did not reflect the radar beam back to Earth," said Patrick Taylor, a scientist at Arecibo Observatory and the Universities Space Research Association, in a news release. The new, detailed inspection of Phaethon showed that it is shaped like ball, though it has a depression along its middle.

Radar revealed that the asteroid was 0.6 miles wider than thought, at 3.6 miles in diameter. If an asteroid of Phaethon's size hit Earth, the impact would be so devastating it would destroy the ozone layer "several times over," planetary scientist Dan Durda told NBC News recently, plunging the planet into a period of global chill.

Phaethon remains too far away to be a threat, but its influence may, on occasion, take a dramatic turn. The asteroid spews out dust in a trail behind it. When the granules of space rock collide with Earth, fireballs appear in the atmosphere. These are the Geminids, a meteor shower that peaked earlier this month.

This is not the last we will see of Phaethon. It will return, dashing by Earth again in 2093.
China's defense ministry confirmed Thursday that it has updated weaponry of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force for national defense purposes and that it does not target any third country.

"The Rocket Force is the core of China's strategic deterrence, the pillar to support China as a great power and the cornerstone to safeguard national security. It is normal and necessary for the Rocket Force to develop and update its weaponry. And this is a normal practice of other countries to modernize their militaries," Ministry of National Defensespokesman Ren Guoqiang told a press conference on Thursday.

Ren's remarks came in response to media reports on the strategic missiles owned by the Rocket Force. One report said that it was noticeable that the missiles were developed to be vehicle-mounted and launched by electromechanical equipment and that previously they were "hidden in mountainous areas" with low mobility.

A PLA Rocket Force brigade conducted a drill in an effort to enhance the mobility of the force and soldiers' ability to accurately operate weaponry, the PLA Daily reported on Monday.

The PLA Daily report also noted that the informatization of nuclear weapons of the Rocket Force has increased and the organization of military units has improved.

More efforts are needed in managing and using the weaponry, it said.

"The survival ability and mobility of the strategic missiles of the Rocket Force are enhanced. And these improvements are in accordance with China's policies on nuclear weapons," a Beijing-based military expert who asked for anonymity told the Global Times on Thursday.

The expert said that when China first gained nuclear capabilities in 1964, it was the first nation to propose and agree to the No-First-Use treaty, pledging no first use "at any time or under any circumstances."

"China has adopted a defensive policy on developing nuclear weapons. And it is keeping its nuclear deterrence to avoid possible nuclear wars," the expert said.

The Rocket Force had focused on strengthening its strategic deterrence and combat capability by modernizing weaponry that aims to safeguard national security and does not target any third country, Ren said.

"We stick with the peaceful development path and pursue a defensive national defense policy. We hope all parties could adopt an objective attitude toward China's defense construction," Ren said.
It has been a year of reckoning for women in the United States. It began with hundreds of thousands of women across the U.S. and the rest of the world marching for women's rights. It would close out with powerful men like Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein accused of serial sexual harassment and abuse of women - and finally facing consequences for their behavior.

But what has changed for women in 2017, particularly in government and policy? The Trump administration has taken actions on issues that directly affect women, including funding for sex education, how colleges handle sexual assault cases and how some workers can obtain birth control. On the political side, women in the U.S. Senate became key players in dealing with sexual harassment in Congress, while the November election showed early signs of a new wave of women running for office.

"Under President Trump, women, working families and children have seen opportunities expand," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

We've catalogued and assessed some of the most significant changes below.

- What has changed for women and family planning

As one of his first acts as president, Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, otherwise known as the "global gag rule." The rule, which has been implemented by every Republican president since Ronald Reagan and revoked by every Democratic one since Bill Clinton, bars foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform or discuss abortion from receiving U.S. funding.

"This is a pro-life administration and pro-life president," said Sanders. "This an issue he campaigned on, advocated for, and was proud to take action on as one of his first acts."

However, certain NGOs and agencies that focus on diseases from Zika virus to AIDS could lose funding because they also offer family planning services that mention abortion.

The Trump administration notified several grant recipients in the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program that their funding would end in June of 2018, instead of in 2020, even though their research had not concluded. The TPPP provided grants to organizations that would implement "evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs."

The HHS under the current administration argues that the TPP Programs that lost funding were ineffective at preventing teen pregnancy, but the programs had not yet finished their research and supporters in Congress argued the programs contributed to the government's understanding of how to prevent teen pregnancy. The teen birthrate in the U.S. has fallen steadily over the last several years, though the U.S. still trails behind other Western nations in making progress.

"Early action from the Trump administration has signaled renewed support for abstinence-only programming," according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In October, the Trump administration allowed employers to refuse to cover birth control on their insurance plans on religious grounds, a change long sought by conservative groups. The decision sparked immediate legal challenges, and so far it has been blocked in two federal courts. The requirement was a key component of the Affordable Care Act.

- Changes in education rules

In September, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos revoked Obama-era requirements for how universities are required to deal with sexual assault, arguing that they went too far in dictating how campuses should handle these incidents.

Under Obama, colleges were required to use a lower standard of proof, "preponderance of evidence," when investigating a claim. With DeVos' changes, colleges will have to use "clear and convincing evidence," a higher standard of proof that an assault was committed. Supporters of DeVos' change said that it makes the process more fair for all students and parties involved in these disputes, while critics argued it would make victims of assault less likely to report.

- Health care, taxes, and entitlement programs

Though the Affordable Care Act was not repealed outright, and sign-ups continue apace , the program has been cut back through other means. The Republicans' new tax bill essentially axed the individual mandate, which was seen as the backbone of the ACA.

The Trump administration sees these changes as positive for women and families. "We believe that more freedom for people to choose more diverse plans with less mandates imposed upon them are good for all consumers, women and men alike," said White House spokesman Raj Shah.

Some experts believe that such dramatic changes to health-care policy could have an adverse impact on women. "The health-care market is destabilized. I think we can reasonably expect some women to lose coverage, we just don't know how many," said Laurie Sobel, Associate Director of Women's Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. The uninsured rate among women aged 19-64 has dropped from 17 percent in 2013 to 11 percent in 2016, according to KFF. In 2016, about 91 percent of women under 65 had some form of coverage, up from 85 percent in 2009, according to census data.

The precarious future of the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, could also impact women and families. The program provides coverage for millions of children whose families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but can't afford or access private insurance. The program ran out of funding on Sept. 30, 2017 and has yet to be reauthorized. Congress just injected the program with emergency funds that will last until March, but its future is still in limbo despite bipartisan support and the backing of the Trump administration.

The Republican tax overhaul, which Trump signed into law just before Christmas, includes an expanded child tax credit thanks to a late push from Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah. The Trump administration pointed to the expansion of the child tax credit as a boon for women and families.

"The President is standing with working families by doubling the child tax credit and being the first to propose federal paid family leave in his budget," Sanders said.

Republicans said the tax plan will help the middle class, but nonpartisan studies suggest it will favor wealthier individuals.

- Women in Congress

After starting in Hollywood and working its way through the media, the #MeToo movement came for Congress. Several members of Congress lost their jobs, including Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, announced that he would not seek re-election next year after allegations surfaced.

After organizations like The Washington Post revealed the secretive, byzantine system for reporting sexual harassment on Capitol Hill, female lawmakers led the charge to fix the process. The Me Too Congress Act was introduced in November, aimed at changing the system by which Congress deals with sexual misconduct. The Senate also mandated that all elected officials and their aides would need to undergo anti-sexual harassment training . Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., has said that the House would mandate similar training.

- Female representation in national politics

Early indications from organizations like Emily's List and She Should Run show record interest from women in running for office.

In Virginia's 2017 elections, 11 new women were elected to the House of Delegates, several of them ousting Republican incumbents. The number of women in Virginia's House rises from 17 to 27, and new members will include the chamber's first Asian American woman and Latinas.

On the executive side, President Trump's first Cabinet has the lowest percentage of women and nonwhite men of any since President Ronald Reagan's. Trump's predecessor, President Barack Obama, had seven women in his first Cabinet. In comparison, Trump has four, and only two are in the "inner Cabinet." However, several women hold other powerful positions within the White House. Sanders is the first woman to serve as White House press secretary since Dana Perino in 2009, and is only the third woman to ever hold the position. Other women, including Kellyanne Conway and Ivanka Trump, hold prominent administration roles. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has gained particular prominence this year.

- Trans women see changes in politics and policy realms

Election Day was a landmark day for transgender women in government. Andrea Jenkins became the first openly transgender black woman elected to public office in the U.S. when she won a seat on the Minneapolis City Council. That same night, Danica Roem was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, running against a Republican incumbent who had, in the past, referred to himself as the state's "chief homophobe" and introduced a failed "bathroom bill."

It was a bad year for "bathroom bills," legislation that requires individuals to use the bathroom that corresponds to their sex assigned at birth and is often seen as discriminatory by the LGBT community. North Carolina was forced to repeal such a law after national backlash. A Texas bathroom bill failed to pass during this year's special session after a similar outcry.

- Looking ahead

All of these shifts indicate that 2018 will be another year of change for women in the political realm.

"What we saw when it came to women running this year is a little window into what we might see come next year, both in state legislative races and also in congressional races," said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

"People have been galvanized, particularly women," said Niambi Carter, assistant professor of political science at Howard University.

However, we'll have to wait to see how much that interest and energy translates into actual female candidates. "The number of people expressing interest is unquestionably through the roof," said Jennifer Lawless, Director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University. "It's a lot different to actually throw your hat into the ring and run for Congress."

- - -

Dan Keating contributed to this report.
Midland County Sheriffs Office

A Midland County constable surrendered Friday afternoon after the sheriffs office received a state jail felony warrant for a criminal mischief charge, Sheriff Gary Painter said.

The charge against Precinct 3 Constable Jeffrey Rowland, 34, stem from an investigation by the Midland County Sheriffs Office regarding damage to Rowlands patrol vehicle, according to the press release. The monetary damages to the car totaled $2,800, Painter said.
Researchers plan to probe causes of sickness

The world's largest human genome research project of 100,000 people was launched by China on Thursday to document their genetic makeup for a study that aims to help generate the precision medicines of the future.

It is the country's first large project detecting the genetic links between health and sickness and will involve 100,000 people from different ethnic backgrounds and regions, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Thursday.

The project will collect the genetic data of Han ethnic majority people from all over the country and nine other ethnic minority groups with a population of more than 5 million including the Zhuang and Hui peoples.

There are about 25,000 human genes and the project aims to decode the hereditary information contained in each, according to the CCTV report.

The project includes four stages - collecting, sequencing gene samples, gathering the data and sharing the findings, one of the project's founders told the Global Times.

Currently it's the first stage, said Yu Jun, former deputy head of the Beijing Institute of Genomics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Researchers will create a "health contrast" pool, he said, gathering genetic information from those who suffer a variety of diseases.

In this way, they hope to dig deeper into the links between specific genes and particular diseases such as diabetes, he said.

The project's chief scientist Wang Yadong was quoted as saying by CCTV that the major research aim is to study what makes Chinese people get sick, "providing references for China's medical research, clinical diagnoses and treatments."

The project will help all Chinese people, including Han majority and ethnic minorities, Zhao Guoping, a CAS academician and director of the Chinese National Human Genome Center in Shanghai, told CCTV.

The project will conclude all its gene sequencing and analysis within four years, which will also make it the fastest genome engineering project in the world, the report said. It did not disclose the budget.

Yu revealed that the project was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, which has been working on promoting precision medicine for years. He declined to disclose the budget.

The key stage of the project was the sharing phase which remained unclear at the moment, Yu said, as China does not have a national gene database.
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News of an East Side shooting that took the life of a well-known Fort Sam Houston cook stunned social media Friday morning.

Lonnie Franklin was stepping inside his home on the 4700 block of Belinda Lee after starting his car when a gunman approached him and fatally shot him in the chest, police say.

RELATED: Well-known San Antonio cook gunned down on his front porch, suspect at large

The 47-year-old's brother was inside the home at the time of the shooting, but was unable to see who killed him. Friends and family quickly arrived at the scene and expressed their disbelief in the death of the man nicknamed "Stump," who leaves behind two young daughters.

Many couldn't believe Franklin was dead after recently spending time with him and his daughter.

Others demanded to know answers.

"The suspect had to have known who this individual was, because he walked up to him," said Sgt. Michelle Ramos, a spokeswoman for the San Antonio Police Department, said. "That's what homicide detectives are investigating at this point: Who would want to do this?"

Read more of the reactions in the gallery above.

Staff writer Caleb Downs contributed to this report.

Madalyn Mendoza is a digital reporter for MySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| mmendoza@mysa.com | Twitter: @MaddySkye
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HOUSTON  The groups helping to rebuild on the Texas Gulf Coast after Hurricane Harvey have collected close to $1 billion in donations, according to an Associated Press tally of major national and local organizations.

Much of that money is already being put to work after Harvey, which ravaged cities in Southeast Texas in August with high winds before dumping record amounts of rain on the rest of the coast, including Houston, the nations fourth-largest city.

Here is a look at the fundraising picture after Harvey:

Q: Whos raising money?

A: Of the $928 million raised by major groups involved in the recovery, the most money has been collected by the Red Cross, which said this month that its raised $493 million for Harvey relief.

The Greater Houston Community Foundation, which is operating the relief fund endorsed by Houstons top elected leaders, has raised more than $108 million. The Rebuild Texas Fund, administered by the family foundation of computer magnate Michael Dell, has raised more than $89 million. The evangelical group Samaritans Purse has also raised $86 million. United Way has raised more than $54 million.

The online campaign by Houston Texans star J.J. Watt raised $37 million. The Salvation Army and a fund created by the government of Qatar have each pledged $30 million.

Q: How is the money being spent?

A: At least 40 percent of the total amount has been spent or distributed so far, though some groups could not confirm how much they had disbursed for the APs tally. Several major groups say theyre planning to announce new recipients of aid this month and in January.

The Red Cross used $254 million  more than half the money it has raised  to give out financial assistance, food and other relief. It also funded emergency shelters for weeks after the storm and other financial assistance to individuals and community funds.

Most of the other funds are helping smaller organizations that directly manage the cases of individual people in need or provide housing, job training, new furniture or mental health assistance. The Greater Houston Community Foundation has distributed at least $36 million to local groups so far, with plans for a new round of grants in January focused on housing.

Were trying to balance a sense of great urgency to make sure people who need help are getting it rapidly, while at the same time a sense of care and responsibility to our donors to ensure that the funds are being spent effectively and efficiently, said Renee Wizig-Barrios, the foundations senior vice president.

Q: Are the groups working together?

A: Coordination between groups working to resolve a crisis is key, say experts on disaster recovery and people who were part of the rebuilding after disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy.

Many of Houstons major aid groups have met twice so far to discuss priorities and the work theyre doing. But the Red Cross was not invited to those two meetings, even though it has raised the most money. A spokeswoman for the Houston Endowment, which convenes the meetings, said the Red Cross wasnt included because the meetings are for groups that will make grants to local nonprofits.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have both criticized the Red Cross publicly. Abbott said in November that he was concerned that money given to the Red Cross was not getting into the hands of the people who need it.

A Red Cross spokesman said this month that the group has active collaborative efforts with other organizations. The Red Cross has publicly committed that 91 cents of every dollar raised will go toward recovery work, though the organization has been sharply criticized for perceived misspending after the Haiti earthquake and Superstorm Sandy.

Q: Will nonprofit aid be enough?

A: By all accounts, no. Local and state officials say that while donor funds can help fill in gaps and immediately help people in need, most of the support for Texas rebuilding will have to come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other U.S. government agencies.

FEMA says it has approved about $1.5 billion in funding so far for almost 900,000 people in Texas. Many thousands more are still waiting for an answer on their applications for disaster aid, or starting to file appeals of denials for help.

The U.S. House on Thursday passed an $81 billion disaster aid package for hurricane-hit Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, along with regions of California ravaged by recent wildfires. The Senate isnt expected to vote until next month.

Associated Press journalists Juan A. Lozano in Houston and Paul J. Weber in Austin contributed to this report.
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A man accused of prostituting two young girls was arrested by San Antonio police Thursday, officials said.

Rakim Sharkey, 24, has been charged with two counts of human trafficking, police said.

While being escorted out of SAPD headquarters, Sharkey told reporters he was surprised to hear the charges against him.

RELATED: Friend told woman killed in alleged murder-suicide to seek safety

Im the good guy, Sharkey said. Ive got nothing to say about nothing.

He now joins his alleged partner, Elijah Maleek Teel, in the Bexar County Jail. Rakim was booked on a $75,000 bond, while Teel, a former West Orange-Stark High School football player, was booked earlier this month on a $100,000 bond.

Carlos Ortiz, an SAPD public information officer, said detectives issued a warrant for Sharkey and Tell after a mother of one of the girls called police and said her daughter was being held against her will.

When police arrived at the location, Sharkey was not present, but the girls disclosed to police that they were being pimped out and prostituted and had met the suspects after running away from a rehab center.

RELATED: Police report: S.A.-area school board member put son in headlock

Teel and Sharkey allegedly agreed to rent the girls a room at an EconoLodge on Interstate 35 because they weren't old enough to do it themselves.

Later, the men returned to the room and told the girls they could help them make some money, according to the affidavit.

They took photos of the girls posing in their underwear and posted the images to Backpage.com, a website used for paid sex, the affidavit said.

On Oct. 1, one of the girl's mothers told police where they could find her daughter.

After hearing the girls' stories, a Special Victims Unit detective requested surveillance camera footage from the motel and spoke with employees about the two suspected pimps, according to the affidavit.

Authorities were able to link Teel to the girls through his license plate number and phone number, according to his arrest affidavit. After his arrest, he told police Sharkey had been his partner.

Crime Reporter Caleb Downs contributed to this story.

aluna@express-news.net | Twitter: alexluna801
San Antonio police say one man is dead following an attempted home burglary in a Northwest suburb Friday afternoon.

Officers responded to the 7300 Block of Marble Creek Drive, near Leon Valley, around 2:40 p.m. to a shooting in progress where they found a man had been shot by a homeowner, police say.
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The 48-year-old San Antonio man who fatally shot a San Antonio caterer and then turned the gun on himself Wednesday has been identified by the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office.

Mark Edward Espinosa, 48, shot 46-year-old Linda Vela sometime Wednesday morning at her home in the 5000 block of Sunset Glade. Vela's 10- and 14-year-old sons were in the home at the time of the shooting.

RELATED: Woman killed in alleged murder-suicide warned by friend to seek safety

The older son went upstairs to check on his mom and Espinosa, her boyfriend, around 1 p.m. and found them both dead from gunshot wounds.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office on Friday said Espinosa's cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, indicating he first shot Vela then killed himself.

Relatives told the Express-News that Vela and Espinosa's relationship was contentious and that she had recently kicked Espinosa out of the house, but allowed him back in for the holidays.

In the weeks leading up to the tragic slaying, friends had warned her of the danger that Espinosa posed to her.

"My wife warned her, just get him out of the house," said Theodore Martinez, 51, a family friend who described the last moments of Vela's relationship as tumultuous. "She (Vela) found a single shot revolver in his possession. ... She took it out of his truck and hid it out in the house."

RELATED: Friend identifies San Antonio mother found dead by teen son in apparent murder-suicide

Hours after her death, a GoFundMe account was set up by a family friend to help pay for Vela's funeral expenses and to provide for her three youngest children, who are now in the care of her eldest daughter.

Nina Duran, 36, publisher for La Prensa newspaper, said that Vela lived her life to the fullest and sought to inspire others through her life motto, "The power of you."

"She wanted to be a motivational speaker, that was her dream," Duran said, adding that Vela confided to her how she wanted to start a business, to train potential leaders through self-determination.

"She was talking about this, how powerful we each are," Duran said. "Smiling, empowering each other...putting forth your best you."

*Staff writer Alexandro Luna contributed to this report.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
Marco Garza Give Me a Shot/By Marco Garza, for mySA.com

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A San Antonio woman is facing a drug trafficking charge after police found suspected methamphetamine in her bra.

Officers approached 30-year-old Jacklyn Torres outside the Walmart in the 5000 block of North West Loop 410 on Nov. 30, according to an arrest affidavit.

Torres then allegedly gave them permission to search her purse, where police found marijuana.

READ ALSO: San Antonio mother found dead by teen son in apparent murder-suicide is identified

After being taken into custody, a female officer searched the woman and found 12.3 grams of methamphetamine in her bra, according to the arrest affidavit.

Police also found a digital scale and small baggies, leading them to believe she was packaging and selling the narcotics, records show.

Police then arrested Torres Wednesday on suspicion of possessing a controlled substance with intent to deliver. Her bail was set at $20,000.

Court records show Torres is on probation for a previous conviction of possessing a controlled substance.

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
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A San Antonio woman and her son are accused of possessing $44,000 worth of stolen construction equipment, some of which they were allegedly trying to sell.

Bryan Hernandez, 20, and Ernestina Barela, 36, now face a charge of theft. Both were booked into the Bexar County Jail Thursday on $15,000 bonds.

RELATED: Friend identifies San Antonio mother found dead by teen son in apparent murder-suicide

According to an arrest warrant affidavit for Hernandez, the two tried to sell a $27,000 underground surveying tool to Martin Instrument in the 12000 block of Starcrest Drive. An employee said they were interested and would let them know if they wanted to buy it the following week.

A Martin Instrument employee then sent photos of the equipment to Travelers Insurance Company, who informed them the equipment had been stolen from Sitech-Tejas on Nov. 16.

They then contacted police about the situation. San Antonio police officers posed as Martin Instrument employees and texted Hernandez and Barela about the equipment, saying they wanted to buy the equipment.

RELATED: Teen killed in fiery rollover crash on South Side identified

When Hernandez and Barela arrived to Martin Instrument the morning of the scheduled deal, police detained both of them. According to the affidavit, the pair had the underground surveying tool along with a $17,000 piece of equipment belonging to Yantis Corporation, a civil construction company.

During interviews with police, Hernandez allegedly said Barela is his mother and that he was going to help her sell the equipment for $5,000.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
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CAIRO - A gunman on a motorcycle opened fire Friday outside a church in a Cairo suburb and at a nearby store, sparking a shootout that killed at least nine people, including eight Coptic Christians, authorities said. It was the latest attack targeting Egypt's embattled Christian minority.

The gunman also was killed, along with at least one police officer, officials said.

The local affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack late Friday, saying it was carried out by a "security detail" and that one of its men was "martyred" in the strike. The claim was carried by the group's Aamaq news agency.

The attack began when the gunman tried to break through the security cordon outside the Coptic Church of Mar Mina. It was not clear how many assailants were involved. Egypt's Interior Ministry referred to only one, but the Coptic Orthodox church mentioned "gunmen."

Five people were wounded, including another police officer, Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said.

The attack came amid tightened security around churches and Christian facilities ahead of the Coptic Orthodox Christian celebrations of Christmas on Jan. 7. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has personally chaired meetings with his top security chiefs in recent days to discuss security during New Year's Eve and the Orthodox Christmas.

A video circulating on social media after Friday's attack apparently showed the gunman lying on the ground with his face covered in blood.

Growing brutality

The Interior Ministry identified the assailant as Ibrahim Ismail Mostafa, who, the agency said, was involved in several previous militant attacks. The Interior Ministry said he was wounded and arrested but made no mention of his death, which was reported by the Health Ministry.

The assailant had earlier opened fire at the nearby store owned by a Christian, the Interior Ministry said.

Islamic militants have for years battled security forces in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in an insurgency now led by ISIS. It is centered in the turbulent northern part of Sinai but has also carried out attacks on the mainland.

The militants are targeting mainly security personnel and Egypt's Coptic Christian minority.

The latest attack, in the southern Cairo suburb of Helwan, showcases the difficulties faced by security forces in containing an insurgency that is growing in sophistication and brutality. The assault came a little more than a month after militants killed 311 worshippers inside a mosque in Sinai, the deadliest attack by militants on civilians in Egypt's modern history.

Last week, they fired a guided rocket that destroyed an army helicopter at the airport of the city of el-Arish in northern Sinai during an unannounced visit there by the defense and interior ministers. At least one senior officer was killed and two wounded in that attack, which pointed to an unusually high level of intelligence available to the militants.

Samir Gerges, a witness to Friday's church attack, said people inside the church closed the gates when the shooting began but that some bullets penetrated the building.

Saw blood everywhere

Another witness, 40-year-old Raouth Atta, was praying inside the church when the violence broke out.

"People were terrified and wanted to check on their families in other buildings of the church," she told the Associated Press by phone. "We stayed inside for 30 minutes before we were able to get out."

Once she was able to leave, Atta said, she saw blood everywhere.

Since December 2016, Egypt's Copts have been targeted by the militants, who waged a series of attacks that left more than 100 dead and scores wounded. The country has been under a state of emergency since April after suicide bombings struck two Coptic Christian churches on Palm Sunday.

The local ISIS affiliate has claimed responsibility for all the bombings targeting Christians.

Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population. They have long complained that authorities have often failed to protect them from sectarian attacks.

Just last week, hundreds of Muslim demonstrators stormed an unlicensed church south of Cairo, wounding three people.
2018 quality regulations could impact Chinese sales

Half of US soybeans exported to China in 2017 would not have met new Chinese routine delivery rules to be enacted in 2018, according to shipping data reviewed by Reuters, signaling new hurdles in the $14-billion-a-year business.

More stringent quality rules, which take effect on January 1, could require additional processing of the US oilseeds at Chinese ports in order to remove impurities. This could raise costs and reduce sales to the world's largest soybean importer, according to US farmers and traders.

Half of the 473 vessel shipments and half of the total 27.5 million tons of US soybeans exported to China in 2017 contained more than 1 percent of foreign material, exceeding a new standard for speedy delivery, according to US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data compiled by grain broker McDonald Pelz Global Commodities LLC.

"It's going to raise the costs of sending the soybeans to China," said Richard Wilkins, a Delaware farmer and former chairman of the American Soybean Association.

Growers often receive a higher price for selling soybeans with 1 percent or less foreign material, known as No.1 grade, because importers pay more for better quality.

Wilkins said the change would deliver higher-grade soybeans to Chinese buyers without requiring a premium price. "They basically want to pay us for No.2 grade but they want it to be No.1 grade," he said.

Osama El-Lissy, a deputy administrator at the USDA, said farmers should not face additional burdens under the new standards. "Nothing in the agreement we have with China would lead anyone to believe that there would be a change in whatever price arrangement [is] currently being agreed to," he said, noting Chinese buyers already may subject some shipments to additional processing.
New Year's Eve will be a chilly one in San Antonio, according to the latest models released by the National Weather Service.

Temperatures are expected to reach the 20s in areas around San Antonio as revelers count down to the new year. These stark lows will follow the arrival of the "coldest" surge of air early Sunday evening, according to the latest NWS advisory forecast.
To travel the liberal byways of social media over recent weeks was to learn that President Donald Trump was on the precipice of axing Robert Mueller and was likely to use the days just before Christmas, when we were distracted by eggnog and mistletoe, to lower the blade.

Christmas has come. Christmas has gone. Mueller has not.

To listen to Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders, the tax overhaul that Trump just signed into law is armageddon (Pelosis actual word). Their opposition is righteous, but how will millions of voters who notice smaller witholdings from their paychecks and more money in their pockets square that seemingly good fortune with such prophecies of doom on a biblical scale?

Some of these Americans may decide the prophets arent to be trusted  and that the president isnt quite the pestilence they make him out to be.

Im not minimizing Trumps capriciousness or cupidity. He could yet fire Mueller, the special counsel. And the tax bill is indeed a messy, fiscally reckless means for Republican lawmakers to please their donors and crow that they are getting big things done.

But the end of the world? Come on. Thats not par-for-the-course hyperbole. Its peculiar-to-Trump hyperventilation, an understandable response to such an indecent president but quite possibly a tactical mistake. It could weaken the odds of hobbling him next fall, in the midterm elections, and of putting him far behind us in November 2020.

But I worry. When Trumps opponents react to so much of what he says and does with such unfettered outrage, that howl becomes background noise, and it is harder to make sure that his unequivocally foul maneuvers stand out from his debatably foolish ones.

Fury isnt strategy, and theres no need to extrapolate beyond the facts already in our possession. Take the inquiries into the Trump campaigns dealings with Russia. They could screech to a halt tomorrow, and wed be left with more than enough evidence of corrupt business dealings, conflicts of interest, shady back channels, awful judgment and outright lies among Trumps intimates to present voters with a powerful case against his fitness for office.

But by obsessing over clear collusion and insisting on visible puppet strings by which Vladimir Putin controlled Trump, we have set the bar dangerously high. Muellers ultimate findings could be plenty ugly and still be deemed underwhelming.

Our overreach is everywhere. Some of those social-media threads forecasting Muellers pre-Christmas firing went further, envisioning street protests that would prompt a brutal response from government forces just itching for the chance.

Much of the tax-overhaul pushback, which painted the whole of the legislation as an abomination, didnt acknowledge that Democrats themselves had long favored corporate-rate reductions. Nor did the ferocious back-and-forth over Trumps declaration of Jerusalem as Israels capital make clear that many politicians before him had proposed the same step.

The issue here is credibility and not giving the president ammunition to discredit opponents as overwrought, ahistoric partisans in a state of indiscriminate freak-out. When we answer melodrama with melodrama, were playing his game, by his rules, and he wins. Better to patrol our language and pick our issues, so that crucial areas of focus  the demoralization of our diplomatic corps, the stacking of the judiciary, the transformation of the presidency into a marketing scheme  arent lost in the welter and the whirl.

Frank Bruni writes a column for the New York Times.
Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize in economics for reshaping our understanding of human motivation, once said: No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story. Thats as true for nations as for individuals. Countries have always oriented themselves within a larger international story. But what is todays global story?

For decades, the great overarching narrative was the Cold War. Almost every nation acted or reacted in the context of that ideological, political and military struggle. Then came 1989 and the collapse of communism. For the next 20 years or so, the opening up of the world  globalization  became the dominant thread, as countries jostled to become hot new markets and Western democratic capitalism seemed inevitable, undergirded by American power and prestige. Then 9/11 dealt a sharp blow to this benign narrative and, for a while, Islamic terror seemed to be steering the course of history. But terrorism has proved too weak and limited a force to be the big global story.

So what is it now? I would argue that the largest trend today is the decline of American influence. Not the decline of American power  the country remains economically and militarily in a league of its own  but a decline of its desire and capacity to use that power to shape the world. The current administration seems intent on dismantling Americas great achievements  as it is doing with the World Trade Organization  or to simply be uninterested in setting the global agenda. Donald Trump will be the first president in nearly a century to end his first year in office without having held a state dinner for a foreign head of state.

And this erosion of Americas global leadership is already causing other countries to adjust.

Earlier this month, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel declared that the most important changes affecting our Western world and, indeed, the world as a whole stem from the United States current withdrawal under Trump from its role as a reliable guarantor of Western-influenced multilateralism.

He urged Europe to take its fate into its own hands and decouple itself from American foreign policy.

Consider also the speech in June by Canadas foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, in which she thanked the United States for its seven-decade-long stewardship of the international system and strongly implied that, under the Trump administration, American leadership of that system had reached its end.

Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech to the 19th Communist Party Congress in October that reflected his own recognition of these new realities. Chinas international standing has risen as never before, he noted, and the nation is blazing a new trail for other developing countries to achieve modernization. Xi announced a new era  that sees China moving closer to center stage and making greater contributions to mankind. In previous speeches, he suggested boldly that China would become the new guarantor of the global trading order.

This, then, is the global story of our times. The creator, upholder and enforcer of the existing international system is withdrawing into self-centered isolation. The other great supporter and advocate of the open, rule-based world, Europe, has not been able to act assertively on the world stage with any clear vision or purpose and remains obsessed with the fate of its own continental project. Filling the power vacuum, a host of smaller, illiberal powers  Turkey, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia  are surging forward in their respective regions. But only China truly has the wherewithal and strategic prowess to potentially shape the next chapter of the story of our age.

A decade ago, I described a post-American world, brought on not by the decline of America, but by the rise of the rest. That world is indeed coming to fruition because other countries are prospering, but the changes are being dramatically accelerated by the Trump administrations foolish and self-defeating decision to abdicate Americas global influence  something that has taken more than 70 years to build.

As the president might tweet, Sad!

comments@fareedzakaria.com
The quality of the training a teacher receives makes a difference in the classroom and in student performance levels.

School districts have been dependent on federal funding for teacher and school administrator development programs. The programs are instrumental in retaining teachers in the profession and in building a steady pipeline of education leaders.

The financial forecast in the coming year looks bleak for educator training programs.

Congress is considering reducing and even possibly eliminating Title II-A funding earmarked for supporting effective instruction state grants from the U.S. Department of Educations 2018 appropriation.

Most local school districts are cash strapped and lack the resources that would allow them to absorb the cost of these much needed programs.

Chiefs for Change, a coalition of over two dozen state and district chiefs from across the country that includes San Antonio Independent School District Superintendent Pedro Martinez, is urging Congress to maintain at least the current level of funding for the training programs, which is $2.055 billion.

In SAISD, these federal education dollars have been used to launch the Relay Teaching Residency which gives prospective teachers invaluable one-on-one training. The resident teachers in San Antonios inner city school district program work closely with expert educators who mentor and provide invaluable feedback.

In an op-ed in this newspaper recently, Martinez and Senior Dean Chris Fraser of the Relay Graduate School of Education pointed out that although the SAISD/Relay partnership is new it is showing how Title II funding can reinvent what teacher development looks like.

We believe that over time, this residency will help build a strong pipeline of effective, diverse teachers who stay in the profession and help all students reach their full potential, they said.

Success in the classroom boosts high school graduation rates, and college-ready students make a better transition to higher education and are more likely to earn a degree or finish a certificate program.

A well-educated workforce creates a strong foundation for a robust economy.

Students need a solid foundation. A well-trained teacher is a major component in that equation.
Gu Chujun appears at a press conference on May 22, 2013. The banner placed beside Gu says "I am innocent."

Chinas Supreme Peoples Court (SPC) on Thursday announced its retrial in three cases related to former business tycoons, a move that has been hailed by media outlets and law experts as the countrys latest legal action to protect property rights of private entities.

The cases, which involve Gu Chujun and Zhang Wenzhong, respectively former chairman of an electrical appliances manufacturer and a retailer, will be heard by the top court or its circuit court. The SPC said it would form collegiate benches for the two cases, pledging fair and just trials with a responsible attitude for the law, the people, and history.

Gu was arrested in September 2005, when he was chairman of Kelon, on suspicion of fraud and embezzlement. He was convicted of falsifying and withholding information and embezzlement and was sentenced to 10 years in jail and was also fined 6.8 million yuan in 2008. While in a separate case, Zhang was sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud, embezzlement, and a bribe-related crime in 2009. Both men have claimed themselves as innocent and unfairly-treated, petitioning for impartial retrials.

Ive done nothing wrong that is against the law. I want to show my gratitude to the Party Central Committee for stepping up the countrys law-based governance, Gu was quoted as saying by news portal Yicai.com.

Liu Huizhi, a Beijing-based law expert, told Peoples Daily Online that such retrials are quite rare, as serious criminal cases like Gus have already been thoroughly studied and investigated in two former instances.

According to Chinas Criminal Procedure Law, a retrial may be granted when new evidence to prove that the determination of the facts or written order is wrong or the evidence upon which the conviction was made is unreliable.

The Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that the retrial should be completed within 6 months, so its still early to say whether the original judgments are reliable or not. Nonetheless, the Courts decision shows that the country is determined to protect property rights, especially when private property is infringed by public power, Liu added.

Major media outlets have welcomed the retrials. Peoples Daily issued a commentary on Friday, noting that the legal move would enhance peoples sense of security in property and wealth, as well as create a rule-by-law environment that is fair, impartial, transparent, and stable.

Xinhua News Agency has also echoed the proposition, noting in its commentary on Friday that the property right system is the cornerstone of the socialist market economy, and the protection of property rights is an inevitable requirement of persistence in the socialist basic economic system.

According to statistics from Xinhua, private investment now accounts for 60 percent of Chinas total investment, and has created 80 percent of jobs. With the rise of private economic entities, the country has been making great efforts to tackle infringement of property rights in the private sector.

China released its first national-level guideline on the protection of property rights in November 2016, in which the protection of non-public properties was raised as a priority, while property right cases that remain unresolved due to historical reasons should be dealt with appropriately.
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Cite a real poll

Re: Will anyone even notice the tax cut? Catherine Rampell, Other Views, Wednesday:

Finally, a columnist run by the Express-News all but acknowledges that she is a Democrat. Most readers knew this from the extreme bias of your paper. She indicates the public hates the tax bill. Which public? The New York-California public hates Donald Trump for winning against the Hillary-guaranteed-win public?

Since many polls are run by Democrats and the people questioned are Democrats, what do you expect? Find a real poll company that will indicate the politics of people questioned and report results by political percentages, and then we could agree with you.

Too bad Rampell is not able to do her own research because she is tied to a newspaper, the Washington Post, that marches to a Democratic bias. Of course, she brings up the tried-and-true phrase some people are not paying their fair share. How about her? Is she paying her fair share? Prove it in another column.

Philip McKeon, Converse

Easily duped

The tax bill passed.

You will get a tax break (maybe).

The tax break will last long enough for some voters to believe the Republicans are helping them.

Those voters will vote for Republicans.

Then the tax breaks will fade away for We the People.

Corporations and special interests will keep their tax breaks.

It is so easy to fool voters.

Karen Dalglish Seal, La Coste

Lumps for Trump

A source from the North Pole reports that due to his bad behavior, President Donald Trump only got lumps of coal in his stocking this year.

That should be fine with The Donald. He loves coal.

Marsha Guthrie

Someone will suffer

Re: Give Trump a break, Your Turn, Dec. 26:

The letter writer praised President Donald Trump for rolling back regulations, which in turned has caused the economy to drastically improve. This may or may not be true, but I do know that every time I board an airplane or open a can of tuna fish, I am glad we have regulations.

Corporations will definitely improve their bottom line, but what about the environment, the safety of their employees and customers, or the quality of their product? Someone will suffer.

Richard Harris
State Police say a West Haven man has been arrested for driving the wrong way on Route 8 when he was DUI.

The accident that injured four people happened shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday near Exit 32 in Waterbury, less than a half-mile north of The Mixmaster.

Timothy Michael Ryan, 38, of North Street in West Haven, was arrested on charges of operating under the influence of drugs/alcohol and driving the wrong way on a divided highway.

According to state police, two vehicles were traveling northbound on Route 8. One vehicle was in the left lane, the other in the right lane.

Ryan was traveling southbound in a 2012 Ford Escape, owned by Network Services of Plainville.

Ryans vehicle struck a 2011 Honda CRV that was traveling in the left lane. Along with the driver, there were passengers inside the CVR.

From the impact, a trooper said in a report, (the CRV) spun clockwise and veered into the right lane.

The driver traveling in a 2016 Nissan Rogue in the right, nortnhound lane, was unable to slow down and struck the CRV.

From the impact, (the CRV) veered across both lanes, and the drivers side rear quarter panel struck the concrete Jersey barrier in the median. All three vehicles had heavy front end damage with airbag deployment.

Three of the four people in the CRV were transported to St. Marys Hospital for suspected injuries. The driver of the Nissan Rogue was transported to St. Marys for chest pains.

State police said Ryan was arrested on the scene after failing field sobriety tests.

He was arrested on a $2,500 bond and will appear in Waterbury Superior Court on Jan. 10.
The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed T.D., recently confirmed the continuation of the supports from his Department for the early removal of PI (persistently infected) calves under the national Bovine Viral Disease (BVD) Eradication Programme in 2018.

Minister Creed said that he was very pleased with the progress made in the eradication of BVD in the course of 2017.

He added: The supports are helping the eradication effort. In addition, the move from February 2017 to automatically restrict herds that retain PIs beyond the 5 week period is proving very effective.

The Minister noted that substantial savings were being achieved by farmers - in excess of 70 m in 2017 alone with incidence of PIs falling this year to just 0.1% from 0.66% in 2013 - the first year of the compulsory phase of the eradication Programme.

The supports available in 2018 in respect of early removal of PI calves will be as follows:

Dairy

150 if the female dairy and dairy cross calves are removed within 21 days (3 weeks) of the first positive or inconclusive test.

 35 if the female dairy and dairy cross calves are removed between day 22 and 35 (the 4th and 5th week) of the first positive or inconclusive test.

 30 towards the disposal of dairy bull calves through the abattoir or knackery within 21 days of the first positive or inconclusive test.

Beef

 185 if the calf is removed within 21 days (3 weeks) of the first positive or inconclusive test.

 60 if the calf is removed between day 22 and 35 (4th and 5th week) of the first positive or inconclusive test.

Herd Restrictions

The system of automatic restrictions will continue to apply 5 weeks following the date of the original positive or inconclusive test. This arrangement has avoided an immediate unanticipated close down of the herd and provides a window in order that animals may be retested if required.

Confirmatory testing

Similar to the arrangements in 2017 confirmatory testing will be done through blood sampling. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine will continue to fund the collection of blood samples by a Private Veterinary Practitioner (PVP), their subsequent testing, and when sampled at the same time, the testing of their dams.

The Minister also confirmed that the system of mandatory farm herd investigation once a PI is disclosed (TASAH) will continue in 2018. This arrangement, funded under the RDP 2014-2020, has proven beneficial to farmers in assisting them in the eradication of the disease.

Finally, the Minister took the opportunity to thank Animal Health Ireland and the industrys BVD Implementation Group for their valuable work in the course of 2017.
Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi (L) shakes hands with Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in New Delhi, India, Dec. 22, 2017. Senior officials of China and India have agreed to properly handle border issues so as to jointly safeguard peace and tranquility in their border areas. (Xinhua/Zhang Naijie)

Chinese authorities on Thursday called for better military relations with India in 2018, urging the latter to manage its border troops in a proper way.

We hope that the Indian side can abide by relevant agreement and pact, managing its border troops in a proper way and do more for peace and stability in the border area, said Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense (MND) of China, at a regular press conference on Dec. 28.

According to Ren, the two countries military relationship is a crucial component for bilateral ties, and it is important for the two nations military authorities to strengthen strategic communication, in an effort to maintain peace and stability along the China-Indian border.

Rens remarks come after senior officials from both sides agreed to properly handle border issues at the 20th round of talks between Chinese and Indian special representatives on boundary issues on Dec. 23.

Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi and Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval have decided to focus on talks between the two nations, maintaining contacts and negotiation, as well as boosting strategic dialogue and communication in a bid to create favorable conditions for the development of China-India relations.
The members of the Tipperary Gospel Choir realised one of their ambitions to perform abroad when they sang at the Prague Autumn Choral Meeting.

The 19-member choir, along with musicians Paul Nugent and Pat Buckley and choir director Marji Maxwell, travelled to the Czech Republics capital city Prague, to take part in this unique European choral event.

The choir performed at two concerts in what is known as the Golden City of a Thousand Spires, at St. Martin in the Wall Church in Old Town and at St. Nicholas Church on the Old Town Square.

PRO for the Tipperary Gospel Choir Justin MacCarthy described how the choral festival worked. Each choir was given a designated 30-minute time slot and it can be safely said that the overall standard was incredibly high.

As well as the Tipp Gospel Choir, the Carrigtwohill Gospel Choir was in attendance and to complete the trio of Irish choirs, The Nire Valley Voices was also present.

Members of the choir arriving in Prague.

There were also two choirs from France, one from Russia, Moldova and the truly outstanding Coro Samaniego from the Basque region of Spain.

On the Saturday afternoon, all participating choirs assembled again in St. Nicholas Church for a combined performance of songs that included Hallelujah and Wonderful World.

All the Tipperary Gospel Choir members found this to be a really magnificent experience, said Musical Director Marji Maxwell. But it wasnt all about the singing as this was a also a social as well as a cultural trip.

The choir was able to enjoy a very informative walking tour of the Old Town, Prague castle, and a traditional folklore show with the best of local food on offer. A highlight of the cultural experiences was taking a Jazz boat down the River Vltava.

The group had an amazing experience and hopefully one that may be repeated at some time in the future. Great credit is due to choir director Marji Maxwell for undertaking the organisation of this venture and many thanks again to Tipperary County Council for generously grant-aiding this project, added Justin.
1. Successful 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was held in Beijing from October 18 to 24. It was a meeting of great importance during a decisive stage in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and at a critical moment as socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era.

The meeting approved the report to the 19th CPC National Congress delivered by Secretary General Xi Jinping of the CPC Central Committee on behalf of the 18th CPC Central Committee, approved the Report on the Work of the 18th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), reviewed and approved the Revised Constitution of the Communist Party of China, and elected members for the new CPC Central Committee and CCDI.

Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era has been enshrined in the Revised CPC Constitution as part of the Partys guide to action.

On Oct. 25, Xi Jinping was elected as the General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee at the first plenary session of the 19th CPC National Congress.

2. Establishment of Xiongan New Area

Xiongan New Area, a state-level new area in the Baoding area of Hebei province, was established in March. The area covers the counties of Xiong, Rongcheng, and Anxin.

The establishment of the new area was a major decision made by the CPC Central Committee to promote the synergetic development of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei, and its construction is part of the countrys millennium strategy.

3. Passing and implementation of General Provisions of the Civil Law

Chinas national legislature passed the General Provisions of the Civil Law at the 5th session of the 12th National Peoples Congress on March 15. The provisions took effect on October 1.

Comprising 206 articles, the provision will play a significant role in the protection of the legitimate interests of civil entities, adjustment of civil relations, and preserving social and economic order.

4. Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation

The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held from May 14 to 15 in Beijing. The forum is the highest level and largest meeting under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, participated by more than 1,500 delegates, including 29 heads of states and governments, from 130 countries and 70 international organizations.

Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed in his keynote speech that with a spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, and mutual learning and mutual benefit, each country should build on the sound momentum generated to steer the Belt and Road Initiative toward greater success, and build it into a path for peace, prosperity, openness, and innovation, one that connects different civilizations.

5. Chinas first domestic-made aircraft carrier hits water

Chinas first home-built aircraft carrier was transferred from the dry dock to the water on April 26. The independent design and construction of the aircraft carrier marked a major achievement for the country, and it revealed Chinas improved overall national strength.

6. Grand military parade celebrating the 90th anniversary of the PLA

A grand military parade celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) was held at Zhurihe Training Base in Inner Mongolia on July 30. General Secretary Xi Jinping inspected the troops and delivered an important speech. It was the first grand military parade for celebrating the founding of PLA. A total of 12,000 soldiers, 600 vehicles, and 100 aircraft were inspected.

7. Maiden flight of Chinese-built airliner the C919

The C919, Chinas first domestically-made large passenger aircraft, completed its maiden flight on May 5. The success marked a significant breakthrough for the countrys civil aircraft technology. China is one of the few countries in the world with the ability to develop large passenger aircraft.

8. National pilot project for supervision system

The 30th session of the 12th National Peoples Congress (NPC) Standing Committee adopted a decision to promote a nationwide pilot project to reform the supervision system on November 4. The move is considered a major political reform to improving the supervision system with Chinese characteristics and strengthening the self-supervision of the Party and the country.

9. CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting

Themed Working Together toward a Community with a Shared Future for Humanity and a Better World: Responsibilities of Political Parties, the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting was held in Beijing from November 30 to December 3. General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. It was a historical meeting for the CPC and a groundbreaking one for the worlds political parties.

10. Completion of the main structure of Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge

Upon the completion of its undersea tunnel, the main structure of worlds longest cross-sea bridge linking Hong Kong, Zhuhai, and Macao was finished on July 7. The 55-kilometer-long bridge is the worlds most complicated and difficult bridge, with the worlds longest span in the history of highway construction.
By Express News Service

For a year that saw films dominating every debate, discussion and day-to-day life, 2017 failed to work in favour of the industry. Good movies, barring a few like Angamaly Diaries, were overshadowed by unwanted attention and films expected to work wonders fizzled out, casting a sombre mood over the box office. But, the silver line is the few projects in the making that promises to brighten up 2018. As new year dawns, City Express takes a look at half-a-dozen movies that we await eagerly.

IN PICS | 10 Malayalam movies which made 2017 memorable

Odiyan

Ever since it was announced, Odiyan has been keeping film buffs on their toes. Everything from the teaser to Mohanlal's make over was received with so much excitement that the movie already has a huge hype surrounding it. And, by the look and feel of it, Sreekumar Menon's debut movie Odiyan is going to be a cinematic milestone.

Bilal

Amal Neerad created a style and space of his own when he made a grand debut with Big B. And, when he announced a sequel to it, expectations skyrocketed. While we wait for Bilal John Kurisingal to return, fan groups are already speculating the story and cast. Though Amal is mum about the details, we are sure it is going to be a treat.

Kayanmkulam Kochunni

When director Roshan Andrews gets together with scriptwriter duo Bobby-Sanjay, you feel the birth of a good cinema. And what if it is a period movie with Nivin Pauly playing the legendary

Kayamkulam Kochunni? That's what makes the wait worth. Nivin as Kerala's legendary thief has already set the tongues wagging and we are sure it is going to be one of Nivin's best.

Trance

Not many can boast the success record Anwar Rashid has. The director/producer, who spin magic on screen, will direct his next Trance, with Fahad Faasil in the lead.Nothing about the movie, except the title, has been leaked so far. But, that has only hyped our interest in it. We hope to see Fahad's acting brilliance in this one.

Anjali Menon's untitled movie

Last time Anjali Menon made a movie, it set a new cinematic trend, besides opening up the markets for Malayalam cinema across the borders. And, we expect nothing short of that when she yields the megaphone again. With Prithviraj and Parvathy in the lead, the movie is already a talking point. And, Nazriya is set to make a comeback too. Well, this has got our attention.

Kammarasambavam

Let's give controversies a break and warm up to the fact that Kammarasambavam is one of the most anticipated movies of the next year. Reason: The period drama scripted by Murali Gopy is touted to have Dileep in his career-best role, besides marking the debut of Tamil actor Siddarth. The peek into the mammoth sets of the movies has already triggered audience interest and we know this one is going to be a different cinematic experience.

For a year that saw films dominating every debate, discussion and day-to-day life, 2017 failed to work in favour of the industry. Good movies, barring a few like Angamaly Diaries, were overshadowed by unwanted attention and films expected to work wonders fizzled out, casting a sombre mood over the box office. But, the silver line is the few projects in the making that promises to brighten up 2018. As new year dawns, City Express takes a look at half-a-dozen movies that we await eagerly. IN PICS | 10 Malayalam movies which made 2017 memorable Odiyan Ever since it was announced, Odiyan has been keeping film buffs on their toes. Everything from the teaser to Mohanlal's make over was received with so much excitement that the movie already has a huge hype surrounding it. And, by the look and feel of it, Sreekumar Menon's debut movie Odiyan is going to be a cinematic milestone. Bilal Amal Neerad created a style and space of his own when he made a grand debut with Big B. And, when he announced a sequel to it, expectations skyrocketed. While we wait for Bilal John Kurisingal to return, fan groups are already speculating the story and cast. Though Amal is mum about the details, we are sure it is going to be a treat. Kayanmkulam Kochunni When director Roshan Andrews gets together with scriptwriter duo Bobby-Sanjay, you feel the birth of a good cinema. And what if it is a period movie with Nivin Pauly playing the legendary Kayamkulam Kochunni? That's what makes the wait worth. Nivin as Kerala's legendary thief has already set the tongues wagging and we are sure it is going to be one of Nivin's best. Trance Not many can boast the success record Anwar Rashid has. The director/producer, who spin magic on screen, will direct his next Trance, with Fahad Faasil in the lead.Nothing about the movie, except the title, has been leaked so far. But, that has only hyped our interest in it. We hope to see Fahad's acting brilliance in this one. Anjali Menon's untitled movie Last time Anjali Menon made a movie, it set a new cinematic trend, besides opening up the markets for Malayalam cinema across the borders. And, we expect nothing short of that when she yields the megaphone again. With Prithviraj and Parvathy in the lead, the movie is already a talking point. And, Nazriya is set to make a comeback too. Well, this has got our attention. Kammarasambavam Let's give controversies a break and warm up to the fact that Kammarasambavam is one of the most anticipated movies of the next year. Reason: The period drama scripted by Murali Gopy is touted to have Dileep in his career-best role, besides marking the debut of Tamil actor Siddarth. The peek into the mammoth sets of the movies has already triggered audience interest and we know this one is going to be a different cinematic experience.
1. Chinese proposals become international consensus

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered important speeches at the World Economic Forum in Davos and the United Nations Geneva Headquarter on January 17 and 18, making a strong voice to promote the rebalance of globalization and the building of a community of shared future for mankind.

China not only formulated a series of creative, leading, and constructive results during the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and the 9th BRICS Summit, but also raised schemes and plans in multiple areas of global governance.

These all served as a witness of the improved international status and influence of China.

2. US withdraws from multiple international mechanisms in shift toward unilateralism

On January 23, the US President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. This was followed by the disavowal of the Paris Agreement, the retreat from UNESCO, and the quit from the Global Compact on Migration. The America First policy pursued by the Trump Administration is a reflection of the countrys unilateralism and expanding divergence with the international society on global governance. Such withdrawal not only reflected Americas abandonment of some of its international responsibility, but also injected further uncertainties into the international landscape.

3. Tensions over Korean Peninsula escalate

The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) tested a ground-to-ground intermediate and long-range missile on February 12, and kept its nuclear and missile tests ever since, despite of opposition from the international community.

The military drills conducted by the United States and South Korea further escalated the tensions over the Korean Peninsula. The two countries kicked off their biggest-ever joint air force exercise on December 4, which set the situation on the peninsula into a vicious circle.

4. European integration faces severe challenges

Officially initiating the Brexit process on March 29, the government of the United Kingdom reached initial agreement with the European Union after several rounds of hard negotiations. In addition, during the elections of Netherland, France, Germany, and Austria, the influence of mainstream parties waned after the fight against right-wing populism.

5. Meeting between the presidents of China and the United States

The highly anticipated first meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump took place at Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida from April 6 to 7. Four high-level dialogue mechanisms focusing on diplomacy and security, the economy, law enforcement and cyber security, and social and people-to-people exchanges were established.

The two countries reached multiple agreements on the development of bilateral ties during Trumps visit to China in November. The stable and healthy development of relations between the two major powers has become a wide aspiration for the international society.

6. Turbulence in the Middle East

In June 2017, a number of Islamic countries including Saudi Arabia cutoff diplomatic relations with Qatar, throwing the future of Gulf Cooperation Council into doubt.

The United States declared its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on December 6, triggering continuous opposition.

7. Ease of tensions in the South China Sea

China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) adopted a framework for the Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea during a ministerial meeting held from October 6 to 8. China and ASEAN countries restored and consolidated the consensus to settle disputes peacefully through dialogue and consultation between countries directly concerned.

8. Global economy gains vitality

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued the latest World Economic Outlook on October 10, raising the forecast of the global economy for both 2017 and 2018. According to the report, 75% of the global economies are expected to see accelerated growth in 2017.

An economic report released by the United Nations in December also suggested a roundabout of the world economy in 2017.

IMF predicted a 34.6% contribution to be made by China to the world economic growth in 2017.

9. Successful holding of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China

The 19th CPC National Congress was held in Beijing from October 18 to 24. It was a meeting of great importance during a decisive stage in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and at a critical moment as socialism with Chinese characteristics entered a new era.

10. Defeat of ISIS

Iraqi Prime Minister Hadir Al-Abadi declared military victory over the Islamic State in Iraq on November 21 just hours after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that Iranian-backed forces had driven the terror group out of Syria. Russia also declared its intention to withdraw troops from Syria, declaring its counter-terrorism mission accomplished.

However, many countries are still suffering from the spillover effect of the extremist organization, with increased pressure to counter terrorism.
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The micro-rotor serves to rewind automatic movements, but stands out from traditional rotors in terms of its size, it shape and its position. The customary oscillating weight is a flat half-disk topping the movement. The micro-rotor is a small, thick half-disk fully integrated into the movement. It was invented almost concomitantly in 1957 by Buren and Piaget, and subsequently popularized by Universal Geneve, which had patented its own in 1954. It represented a quest for technical performance, and of course for greater slimness. These two objectives have remained in place and are now even more strongly present. Of the three original firms involved, only Piaget continued using the micro-rotor, which proved a determining factor in the second race for horological slenderness undertaken in the 2000s. One should also mention a fourth actor that came to play an indispensable role in the field : Patek Philippe. In 1997, in the midst of the quartz crisis, the brand developed an ultra-thin self-winding movement, named Caliber 240 in accordance with its thickness. To achieve this, the brand had recruited the creator of the Universal caliber, thereby vividly proving the importance of experience in conceiving these distinctive movements.

Calibre 240  Patek Philippe

New lease on life

In the 2000s, the pursuit of perfection and diversification was an integral part of the grand watchmaking revival. To stand out from the crowd, several brands opted for the micro-rotor despite its inherent disadvantages. Given its lower inertia than a large-size rotor, it winds barrels less efficiently. By way of example, the newly introduced Montblanc micro-rotor requires 11 hours on a Cyclotest machine stimulating daily wear to be fully wound, as against eight hours for a standard automatic model. To compensate for this fact, the micro-rotor is made from extremely heavy materials : tungsten in cheaper versions, and 22K gold or even platinum for prestigious interpretations. It thereby achieves standard and even comfortable power reserves. Such is the case of several Roger Dubuis movements, of the Vaucher Caliber 5401 used by Hermes, Richard Mille and Parmigiani, and also of Caliber 1.98 by Chopard, which has a 65-hour power reserve.



Expansion

In 2002, Girard-Perregaux had developed a variation of its Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges featuring a micro-rotor concealed beneath the barrel, which meant it went almost unnoticed. Based on the Peseux 7001 caliber, MCT has created its own movement that it still uses to this day. Then came the turn of Laurent Ferrier. This technically elegant and distinctive solution is still in vogue, since no less than three brands have opted for this solution in 2017 : Romain Gauthier, Peter Speake-Marin and Bell&Ross (via its movement producer MHC). But the big names are still in search of the most favorable technology/ergonomics/slenderness ratio for the micro-rotor. Panerai and Bulgari have adopted this solution and their technical choices are representative of the current trend. The micro-rotor is definitely more efficient when it is heavy, and even more so if it is broad, meaning as part of wide movements. Calibers have definitely grown, from Patek Philippes 240 movement measuring 27.5mm to the 36.6mm BVL138 by Bulgari. The concept is also becoming increasingly flexible and adaptable to movements ranging from the simplest to the most elaborate, as showcased in the Grande Complication de Cartier.

Calibre S2 de MCT  MCT

Paul's position

The micro-rotor is a great way of saving height in a movement for an ultra-thin watch or for freeing up space to show off a wonderful open-worked movement. But as I discovered earlier this year while researching an article for WorldTempus, micro-rotor movements do not come cheap. Only a handful of brands offer micro-rotor watches below 10,000 Swiss francs, making them a watch for the connoisseur. - Paul O'Neil, WorldTempus editor-in-chief


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New Delhi: The Finance Ministry on Friday cautioned people on the risks of investing in virtual currencies like Bitcoin, which are not regulated by the government, calling them ponzi schemes.

There has been a phenomenal increase in recent times in the price of Virtual Currencies (VCs), including Bitcoin, in India and globally. The VCs dont have any intrinsic value and are not backed by any kind of assets. The price of Bitcoin and other VCs therefore is entirely a matter of mere speculation resulting in spurt and volatility in their prices, said the ministry said in a statement.

The statement said there was a real and heightened risk of an investment bubble in virtual currencies of the kind seen in ponzi schemes, which can result in sudden and prolonged crash, exposing investors, especially retail consumers, to losing their hard-earned money.

Consumers need to be alert and extremely cautious as to avoid getting trapped in such Ponzi schemes, it added.

Virtual currencies are stored in digital/electronic format, making them vulnerable to hacking, loss of password, malware attack etc., which may also result in permanent loss of money, the ministry said.

As transactions of VCs are encrypted, they are also likely being used to carry out illegal/subversive activities, such as, terror funding, smuggling, drug trafficking and other money-laundering Acts, it warned.

India has exchanges such as Zebpay, where users can buy and sell Bitcoins. Other forms of cryptocurrencies include ethereum and litecoin, which are yet to find prominence in India.

The finance ministry said that the users, holders and traders of virtual currencies have already been cautioned three times  December 2013, February 2017 and December 2017  by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) about the potential financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security-related risks that they are exposing themselves to by investing in Bitcoins and others such currencies.

The RBI has also clarified that it has not given any licence/ authorization to any entity/ company to operate such schemes or deal with Bitcoin or any virtual currency. The Government also makes it clear that VCs are not legal tender and such VCs do not have any regulatory permission or protection in India. The investors and other participants therefore deal with these VCs entirely at their risk and should best avoid participating therein, it added.

The Income Tax Department had recently conducted survey operations at major Bitcoin exchanges across the country on alleged suspicion of tax evasion. They said various teams, under the command of the Bengaluru investigation wing, visited the premises of nine such exchanges in the country including in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi and Gurugram.

Currently, the value of Bitcoin is around $14,000.
Having brutally murdered a Muslim for his religion and recorded it on a widely shared video a fortnight ago, Shambhulal has since the last fortnight not only created a name for himself, he has created a communal fissure in Rajasthan the likes of which the state hasnt seen in decades.

Coming from a person who had suffered a string of business losses, was burried under debt, and couldnt stay sober for long, the idea sounded slightly fanciful to his friend. It sounded like the routine desire that people voice at least once in their lifetimes. But it did not, to Chandulal (name changed), sound anything like a pledge.

Ek din aisa kaam karunga ki duniya mujhe yaad rakhegi [One day Ill do something that the world will remember me by]. Shambulal Regar, one of the most infamous persons in India today, said this to a friend around a year-and-a-half ago.

I have spent 8 years with him. Not once have I seen him angry. He loved children. He would never allow anyone to raise their hand at a child nor shout at them. For the last few years he would go to the nearby lake and practice Yoga, taking the kids along. They loved him, said Sohan a friend.

No one in Rajsamand knows for sure why the mild-mannered, easy-go-lucky, yoga practicing, father of three, brutally murdered a Muslim migrant labourer on video.

I have spent 8 years with him. Not once have I seen him angry. He loved children.

Ye chunaavi varsh hai. Agar chunaav jeetna hai to Hindutva ko laana hi hoga aur Hindutva ko leke aaye to Shambhu ke samarthan mein utarna hi hoga [This is an election year. If we have to win the elections we will have to bring in Hindutva and if we do that then we will have to support Shambhulal Regar], said a senior member of Bajrang Sena, a right wing Hindu group.

Some political Hindu outfits have meanwhile promised to take care of the educational expenses of Regars children, others have assured his family free rations and groceries for a year. Those close to Regars family say that privately some lawyers have also volunteered to fight Regars case pro bono. And there are already strong rumours that Regar will fight as an independent candidate in the assembly elections, from jail.

With state assembly elections only a few months away, more such marches are being planned. Social campaigns are busy mobilising people in Regars name.

Protest marches by Muslims and counter protest marches by far right Hindu groups have been held in immediate succession, violently in the latter case. Reactionary Hindu protests have broken out in various cities across Rajasthan, including Kota, Udaipur, Bhilwara and in the state capital Jaipur.

Shambhulal had tattooed his daughter, suffering from a mental illness, holding the globe, on his chest. His brother Lokesh points to the tattoo as a proof of Shambhulals love for children.

So what turned him into the dreadful killer?

His friends claim Shambhulal was under threat from the Muslim labourer from whom he rescued a Hindu girl. They also point out that he was in a debt of Rs 2 lakh, which is not a small amount for someone like him who came from a poor Dalit family, all of whose 15 members lived in a very small house in a very humble locality.

Some other things about him stand out. For instance, the fact that Shambhulal was quite ambitious.

Rajsamand and other small towns around Udaipur have made name for themselves from the flourishing marble business. Regar too wanted to get rich trading in marble. So he went first to Gurgaon, 15 years ago, where his business partner duped him and then to Anand, Gujarat, where again he lost all his money. Chandulal, his friend and disciple, followed him everywhere.

Shambhulal also was a spendthrift.

He wanted to enjoy himself. So we went to all the big cities. We also went to Delhi and visited the good bars there. Shambhuji always used to say enjoy yourself because you only live once.

Both eventually got tired and bored of their lifestyles. They returned to Rajsamand where Shambhulal tried to get a loan to start a new business. No bank approved. All this while his creditors were closing in. So Shambhu decided to sell a property in his mothers name.

He said that he didnt trust any of the existing Hindu outfits. He wanted to do something independently. He said that he didnt trust any of the existing Hindu outfits. He wanted to do something independently.

He was quite hungry for fame.

Chandulal, to whom Regar boasted of doing something big, was the one who first introduced Regar to social media. It was about one and a half years ago. Internet prices had dropped quite drastically. We used to spend most of our time watching videos on the internet. On Shambhujis request I opened his Facebook account, showed him how to browse Youtube and connected him with WhatsApp.

Chandulal began working at his brothers furniture shop, but just like Shambhulal, felt restless all the time.

So it happened one fine day. I asked Shambhuji, who is also my guru, what do you think will we do in our lives? We are nobodies in this world, coming from a place whose name many havent heard. Thats when he talked about doing something memorable and look how the world knows him now, Chandulal said beaming with pride.

At the same time he was warming up to the idea of Hindutva.

Some time after he started watching different videos, and he was mostly interested in news, he began talking about Hindutva. He didnt talk much except saying that we have to do something about it soon. He also said that he didnt trust any of the existing Hindu outfits. He wanted to do something independently.

It didnt take him long. On the morning of December 6  a day that is celebrated by extremist Hindu groups to commemorate the demolition of Babri Masjid  sometime between 11:30 and 12, Shambhulal Regar brutally murdered Afrazul. His 13 years old nephew recorded the entire episode on phone.

According to a senior police officer, Regar arrived at the spot a day earlier with his nephew to rehearse the sequence. His family members say that both had wholesome dinner the previous night, the usual breakfast on the fateful morning, between which both slept peacefully. After his arrest, Regar went on to claim that he killed the wrong Muslim. According to some friends he expressed remorse on finding out the actual identity of his victim.

While the body of his victim  Mohammed Afrazaul  was still smouldering, the video of the murder started appearing on local Rajsamand WhatsApp groups. The motive of the murder wasnt immediately clear. By evening local television channels started showing a blurred footage of the video. Few hours later other videos, in which Regar talked about his motives, also appeared. The brutal murder turned out to be a communal hate crime. The WhatsApp videos spread like a wildfire throughout the country. Both Shambhulal Regar and Rajsamand gained instant and widespread notoriety.

He has awakened the sleeping Hindutva in us. He has awakened the sleeping Hindutva in us.

Among many far right Hindu groups hes since become a legend for some. A bit like Mumtaz Qadri, who after shooting down the man he was supposed to protect  Salmaan Taseer  became a hero for Pakistans Islamists.

Extremist outfits like Bajrang Dal have been taking out protest marches in his support, songs have been composed in his praise, people have replaced their own display pictures on social media with those of Shambhulal.

A BJP state office bearer, who did not want to be named, boasted about having swapped his WhatsApp display picture with that of Shambhulals.

Shambhulals friends, many of who were rounded up by police and interrogated for days, express themselves on condition of anonymity. Usne hamare andar sote hue Hindutva ko jagaya hai [He has awakened the sleeping Hindutva in us], said Bhupesh [name changed], going on to peddle conspiracy theories like Love Jihad, Land Jihad and so on.

At what time did they find out these phenomena?

Only recently. After this he refused to entertain the subject anymore.

Another friend of Shambhulal (contrary to the popular belief he seemed to be very friendly and quite social) said this about his friend: Humko to garv hai uspe. Ismein koi sharm ki baat nahi. Love jihad ka matter hai. Hamare mohalle mein hi agar ek do case hai to socho pure Bharat mein kitne case honge. Unke pure samaj mein dar bitha diya hai usne. Ye ek chetaavani hai. [Were proud of him. Whats there to be ashamed of? Its an issue of Love Jihad. If there have been a couple of cases in our street, imagine how many cases must there be in the whole country. Their community is scared now. This [murder] is a warning].
Mumbai: Mumbai Mayor Vishvanath Mahadeshwar, who visited the Kamala Mills premises on Friday morning, 12 hours after 15 people perished in a massive fire that engulfed an entire building, said, "I cannot be aware of all that is happening in Mumbai".

Triggering outrage among survivors and the devastated families of the victims, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Mayor arrived at the spot only around noon on Friday while the fire had started at 12:30 am and ravaged through the area for several hours.

Fourteen people have perished and 21 persons left injured after a major fire wreaked havoc at the Kamala Mills Compound in Lower Parel. Most of the casualties were women who were attending a birthday party at one of the restaurants in the compound.

Mahadeshwar said, "I can't be aware of all that is happening in Mumbai. What do we have the ward officers for? Fourteen people have lost their lives and it is a serious matter. An inquiry has been ordered and a report will be sought to see who is responsible. Action will be taken."

Five BMC officials have been suspended while police have booked three persons of a hospitality firm that manages the pub that caught fire.

The BMC Mayor said that he has asked the commissioner to set up an inquiry committee to probe the incident. "The report will come soon and action will be taken after the report is prepared," he said.

Inquiry has been ordered,a report will be sought to see who is responsible and action will be taken: Vishvanath Mahadeshwar, BMC Mayor on #KamalaMills fire pic.twitter.com/L7GXpDBj1I ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

Doctors who examined the deceased and conducted post mortem said that almost all victims died due to asphyxiation and not burns. Both firefighters and survivors have narrated how the narrow exit of the building complex posed a hindrance for the evacuation process.

The entire building with several commercial establishments, hotels, restaurants and popular pubs, has only one narrow entrance and exit point. The late night fire caused a stampede-like situation when the panicked crowd tried to reach the exit point. Some rushed to a nearby restroom to escape the fire, but later suffocated to death as there was no ventilation in the toilet as well.

Activist Mangesh Kalaskar raised the issue of illegal construction and said, "I made several complaints regarding illegal structures at Kamala Mills' premises, but the BMC replied that there is nothing wrong here."

When CNN-News18 posed a question to the Mayor about alleged malpractices in the civic body, he said, "Fire audit of all places must happen. We want to see why the BMC didn't investigate cases where there were violations of norms. I can't say if all officers of the BMC are involved in taking bribe, we don't have proof of that. But action is taken against those who take bribes."
New Delhi: In a case of human trafficking, 25 children, mostly from Punjab, were taken to France and were dumped in a Gurudwara there. They were taken there allegedly on the pretext of a rugby training camp but their return tickets were cancelled by the traffickers.

While three of the group managed to get away or be rescued, the whereabouts of 22 children are still not known.

CBI has filed a human trafficking case against three accused Lalit David Dean, Sanjeev Raj and Varun Choudhary and efforts are on to nab them.

According to CBI, in Feb 2016, a group of 25 students was taken from Delhi to Paris to participate in international rugby training on the basis of alleged invitation received from the French Federation.

All of them visited Paris and also attended the said training camp there for about a week.

Subsequently, they were dumped in a Gurudwara and their return ticket was cancelled. The FIR says that even their visas, which were obtained from French Embassy at Delhi, were on the basis of forged and fabricated documents.

Two of the boys, however, managed to return from Paris. One of the stranded boys was confronted by French police, who then told them their saga. This is when French police got active and through the Interpol informed CBI.

CBI registered a case on 28th December and raided four premises associated with the accused.

CBI says that the accused had collected 25 to 30 lakh from their parents for the alleged rugby training. The whereabouts of 22 children are yet to be traced. The children were in the age group of 13-18. While most of them were from Punjab, some also come from Haryana and Delhi.
Lucknow: Almost three months after releasing its first list of fake babas, All India Akhada Parishad, the apex body of sadhus has released a second list of fake godmen after a meeting in Allahabad. Fridays meeting was called to review the Kumbh preparations.

Names of three people, Sachidanand Saraswati, Trikal Bhawanta and Virendra Dev Dixit were added in the second list.

The list comes days after police raided the ashrams of Virenda Dev Dixit in Delhi and other parts of north India after a number of women alleged sexual exploitation at the ashrams. Last week, UP Police raided the ashrams of the spiritual leader in Farrukhabad and had rescued more than 50 girls, including minors, from the two ashrams there.

The police also discovered some secret chambers below the ashrams floor that was being used to confine girls after intoxicating them with drugs.

Irked by the controversies surrounding self-styled godmen, the Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, had released its first list of 14 fake babas on September 10 and demanded a crackdown on rootless cult leaders by legislation.

The first list issued by the Akhada Parishad included the names of convicted godmen Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, Rampal, Asaram and his son Narayan Sai. The Parishad's president Swami Narendra Giri had said, We appeal to the common people to beware of such charlatans who belong to no tradition and by their questionable acts, bring disrepute to sadhus and sanyasis.
The terrorist attack on the Coptic Church of Mar Mina has left nine dead and five injured, police say one of the terrorists arrested has carried out previous terror attacks on civilians and police

Two unidentified gunmen killed nine people as they opened fire early Friday on a church south of Cairo, ahead of Coptic Christian celebrations next week, Egypt's state TV and health ministry said.

Security forces shot dead one of the terrorists in an exchange of fire outside the church of Mar Mina in Helwan district while the other assailant has been captured, state TV and state news agency MENA said.

Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed told state television that nine people  including a Muslim and eight Christians  had been killed, in addition to the gunman, and five injured. Those wounded include two women in critical condition, he added.

State TV aired footage of the assailant's body, showing a bearded man wearing an explosive vest lying on the ground as crowds gathered.

The interior ministry said in a statement in the afternoon that it arrested an attacker on a motorcycle who attempted to drive through security forces outside the church armed with a machinegun, ammunition and a bomb that he intended to detonate in the church.

The ministry said he killed two people when he opened fire on a shop before heading to the church where he shot dead seven people, including a policeman.

The arrested attacker is an active terrorist who has carried out a number of terrorist attacks targeting police and civilians, the statement added.

Cairo's security chief and a number of security officials visited the scene of the attack earlier Friday.

Friday's attack took place as Egyptian Coptic Christians, who make up 10 percent of the country's 93 million population, make preparations to celebrate Christmas on 7 January.

Dozens of Christians have been killed in terrorist attacks on churches and congregations in recent years.

Police have beefed up security around churches during the Christmas celebrations. The ministry of Interior has deployed 230,000 personnel to guard churches, parks and other vital institutions. Police have cordonned off streets around churches to preempt suicide attacks and installed metal detectors outside larger churches.

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Bengaluru: Taking lessons from last years incidents of mass molestation in Bengaluru, the city police have made elaborate security arrangements at the central business areas of MG Road and Brigade Road to turn it into a fortress for the New Years Eve.

The over 2,000 police personnel who will guard the New Year revellers this time is double the usual police strength.

With several cases of molestation reported last year on December 31, the Bengaluru Police have decided that they are not going to take chances this time and have roped in 15,000 policemen for the special duty.

Two thousand personnel would be deputed just around the central business area 500 women police officers and about 500 patrol vehicles doing the rounds starting December 31 evening till the morning of January 1.

My one request to partygoers is, please go and have fun with your friends, wish everyone you want to, but dont go out of your way to wish those people who dont want to accept your wishes. It is irritating for the others and can lead to serious concerns, said Bengaluru police commissioner T Suneel Kumar about the police preparedness.

Although there were only two official molestation cases reported last year as the victims chose not to pursue the cases, police wants to be doubly sure of their preventive methods this time.

A Karnataka High Court order had earlier specified that the police will be held responsible for anything untoward that happens on New Years Eve. The court also noted that the police had refused permission to a private company for an event with Sunny Leone called Sunny Night after protests by fringe groups against the event.

Police are also installing more lights and about 500 CCTVs surveillance cameras across the city, half of which will be around the MG Road area. Police are also looking at installing drones around the crowded areas to keep track of any misbehaviour by revellers.

Areas like Koramangala and Indranagar that draw heavy crowds will also see a security overdrive.

We will take up a special drive against drunken driving and book violators immediately. If people go around wishing other people against their wishes, they will be booked again. We have decided to show no lenience if someone misbehaves with women or for those who disturb peace on the streets after getting drunk, or create public nuisance, Kumar added.

Last year, women faced strangers who would accost them and insist on wishing them or taking selfies, leading to panic among young women who were pushed around on the streets.
Mumbai: In a bizarre statement, actor-turned-MP Hema Malini has blamed population for the blaze at Mumbais Kamala Mills compound which killed 11 women and three men on Friday.

Talking to reporters outside Parliament, the BJP lawmaker said, Its not that the police are not doing their job. They do a great job, but the population is so high. When Bombay ends, another city should begin. But the city keeps extending. Uncontrollable she said.

Each city should have a certain limit on population. After that they should not be allowed. After that, let them go to another city, the next city, Malini said.

A birthday girl and a Green Card holder back home for vacation were among the 14 people killed in the fire that broke out around 12:30am.

The fire, which also injured 21 people, started at the "1 Above" pub on the terrace, and spread to Mojo pub on the third floor one level below, said an official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

Most of the victims died of asphyxiation, said Avinash Supe, dean of the KEM hospital where the injured and dead were brought.

The two gutted pubs are located in the Trade House Building in Kamala Mills compound in Lower Parel area, a popular night spot as well as commercial hub housing several offices, including national television channels.

"I was in the night shift. We heard people screaming at the pub. Initially, we thought it is due to the party which was underway there," said Sanjay Jadhav, a programme producer of a news channel. "When I came out of my office, I saw that a fire has broken out at the roof top pub. The main entrance of our office was blocked due to the flames," he said.

The massive blaze engulfed the entire building in about 30 minutes and took several hours to be put out. The cause of the fire is not known.

Teams of fire brigade and police rushed to the spot and 35 injured people were pulled out from inside the pub and taken to hospital, a police official said.

Police have booked Hratesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Manka of C Grade Hospitality, which manages the pub, along with others, under various charges including cuplable homicide not amounting to murder.

They are also charged IPC sections 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others).

Two of those booked have been detained.

Several media outlets, including TV news channels Times Now, ET Now and TV9 Marathi, have offices in the complex.

There have been allegations that civic authorities have turned a blind eye to construction irregularities and violation of fire safety norms in the compound.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind expressed anguish over the tragedy. "Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also expressed grief, and said he has directed the BMC commissioner to conduct an inquiry.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya said he had asked Fadnavis and the BMC commissioner to order a special fire audit of all such pubs and hooka parlours in Mumbai.

"Several such establishments at the Mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately. The place where the blaze took place was illegal," he claimed.

(With PTI inputs)
Thiruvananthapuram: Parents of the two students, who were suspended for hugging in public, have held a meeting with the school in Thiruvananthapuram to find an amicable solution to the issue.

The meeting between St Thomas Central School and the parents of the teenagers was convened by Congress leader and MP Shashi Tharoor.

Arun M, the father of the suspended boy, told CNN-News 18, "The meeting was convened by MP Shashi Tharoor. The meeting was quite positive. But we are yet to get their official confirmation and hope that by January 3 we will have a solution."

"Things are moving on a positive note. The discussions were in such a way that my son and the girl will be allowed to write their exams," he added.

The girl and the boy were 11th and 12th standard students respectively. They were suspended after the duo hugged each other in full public glare inside the school campus.

While the teenagers said it was a congratulatory and friendly hug, the school maintained that it was against their disciplinary practices and that the hug was too long to be a congratulatory one.

The incident happened on July 21 during the arts festival in the school. Since then, both the students have not attended school. The Kerala High Court had also upheld the school's decision.

The boy had earlier told CNN-news 18 that he is under tremendous pressure as he is not sure whether he will be able to write his board exams that are scheduled to be held in a few months.

"I cannot afford to lose one year because of a friendly hug, I gave my friend. The secretary had used really bad words at me, abused me. They had given this whole incident a sexual colour. I want to write my exams."

The girl had also told CNN-News18 that she and her mother were harassed by the secretary of the school. "My mother and I visited the secretary. He harassed us in a lot of ways. He slut-shamed me, he shamed my family for bringing me up this way, called my family immoral. He has used sexually harassing and demeaning words against me. He made my mother cry because he was using really abusive words," she said.

She also hoped that she will be able to appear for her 11th standard exam so that she does not lose a year.

The school had initially maintained that they will let the students appear for the exam only if the court or the CBSE allows them, but have since changed in the stand. On January 3, an official meeting will be held between the parents and the school authorities.
New Delhi: India generates 25,940 tonnes of plastic waste a day (t/day), said the union environment ministry, on Friday.

Answering a question raised on plastic waste in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State Dr Mahesh Sharma quoted a study by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) that surveyed 60 major cities. These cities together produced 4059 T/day.

Surat produced a particularly high amount; 12.47 percent of its municipal solid waste (MSW) is plastic, while only 3.1 percent of Chandigarh's MSW is plastic.

Plastic waste is a major concern in urban areas, with repeated efforts, over the years, to ban or limit its use. The minister went on to say that the heavy metals, chloride, phthalates migrate from plastic waste into the surrounding medium.

"The leachate can cause considerable pollution problems by contaminating the surrounding soil, ground or surface water, says the ministry's answer.

The data come from a study assigned to Indian Institute of Toxicological Research (IITR), Lucknow, by the CPCB, which is called the Impact of Plastic Waste Disposal on Soil and Water Quality at Lucknow Dumpsites.

The ministry added that the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, puts the onus on the water generators to minimise the amount of plastic, to not litter and to segregate their waste at source when handing over to local authorities. The rules put the responsibility on local bodies, gram panchayats, waste generators, retailers and street vendors to manage the plastic waste, and on producers, importers and brand owners to manage the waste collection.

Efforts are on to reuse and recycle plastic waste, so as to keep it from leaching chemicals in landfills. A popular solution seems to be using it to construct roads, as Maharashtra recently announced and other cities have implemented.

Recently, the Centre for Science and Environment launched a forum of 20 municipalities and cities that have committed to achieve 100 percent source segregation by October 2, 2019.

Alappuzha emerged as a model city on this forum, while Surat was not part of it.
An Online Quiz on Gallantry Awards in India viz Param Vir Chakra, Mahavir Chakra, Vir Chakra, Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra is going to be organized by the Ministry of Defence in collaboration with the government's e-portal MyGov.in.

The Quiz is scheduled to be conducted online from 1st January 2018 to 10th January 2018 and candidates can participate in two categories viz Under 18 and above 18 years of age. The online quiz will comprise of bilingual questions in Hindi and English medium.

The quiz will be based on the information about various Gallantry Awards in the country and the Awardees who have shown bravery beyond their call of duty. The information is available on the government's web portal honoring the Awardees of Indian Gallantry Awards - www.gallantryawards.gov.in, released on last Independence Day i.e. 15th August 2017.

A total of five prizes will be awarded in each group viz 1st, 2nd, 3rd and two consolation prizes. The winner of first prize will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 1 Lakh, the second prize winner will receive Rs 75,000, the third prize winner will get Rs 50,000 while the winners of consolation prize will win Rs 15,000 each.

The quiz masters will be felicitated during the Republic Day 2018 ceremony in the capital, getting an invite for the Republic day parade on 26th January 2018 followed by the Beating Retreat on 28th January 2018.

The stay and commutation (via rail route) of the winners for five days from 25th January 2018 on arrival in Delhi, to 29th January 2018 for departure from Delhi, will be sponsored by the government. Winners in Under 18 category and all female winners will also be provided same arrangements for one guardian.
Mumbai: Three of a family, including a US Green Card holder who was in India to celebrate the new year, were among 14 people killed in a fire at Mumbai's Kamala Mills compound early on Friday.

Dhairya Lalani, 26, perished in the blaze along with his 23-year-old brother Vishwa and 70-year-old aunt Premila Kenia.

Dhairya, who lives in the US, was back in India for vacation and was out for dinner with his brother, two aunts and an uncle at '1 Above' restaurant.

While the uncle and one of their aunts managed to escape, Dhairya and Vishwa were trapped when they tried to help out Premila.

The Indian Express quoted a friend as saying that the family had booked a table near the restaurant's entrance. "When the fire broke out, those near the table ran down through the main gate. But when they reached the lower floor, they realised that their aunt wasn't with them. They rushed upstairs to help their aunt."

Most of the victims reportedly died of suffocation. In the chaos after the fire, several women reportedly entered the men's washroom, thinkin they were safe from the fire, but were suffocated to death since there was no ventilation outlet.

"The incident occurred after 12.30 am at '1 Above', located on the third floor of the Trade House Building in Kamala Mills compound on Senapati Bapat Marg, a commercial hub of the city," a police official said.

"The fire brigade rescued at least 35 injured persons, who were trapped inside the hotel. They were shifted to a hospital," he said.

"During treatment, 14 people, including 11 women, were declared dead. Most of the victims died of suffocation," he said, adding that 21 others sustained serious burn injuries.

Police have booked Hratesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Manka of C Grade Hospitality, which manages the pub, along with others, under IPC sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others).

They have been booked by NM Joshi Marg Police Station and two of them have been detained, the official said.
Mumbai: Eleven women were among 14 people killed in a massive fire near the London Taxi Gastrobar in Mumbais Kamala Mills Compound early on Friday.

The fire broke out around 12:30am on the top floor of a four-storied building in the commercial hub which houses several restaurants, pubs and offices of television channels. The massive fire quickly engulfed the entire building after it started at a rooftop restaurant and raged for several hours before it could be brought under control.

According to eyewitness accounts, in the ensuing chaos after the fire broke out, several women entered the mens washroom, which had no ventilation outlet.

My sister Preeti Rajgariya, 48, was there to have dinner with her daughter Ruchi. They started rushing out when they got to know of the fire, but got separated. Her daughter ran down the staircase, but my sister was stuck in the washroom and died of suffocation, the victims brother Ajay Agarwal told CNN-News18.

#KamalaMillsFire -- My sister died due to suffocation. There was a complete chaos at the compound: Ajay Agarwal, Victim's Brother to CNN-News18's @vinivdvc #KamalaMills pic.twitter.com/3OJBvuFlT6  News18 (@CNNnews18) December 29, 2017

Dr Sulbha KG Arora, a Mumbai doctor who was at one of the restaurants when the fire broke out and managed to come out safely, spoke to CNN-News18 and said, We were running helter-skelter to look for an exit when the fire broke out. I saw some women entering a washroom. The fire was spreading to other parts of the building every minute and there was a stampede-like situation.

Arora, who sounded very disturbed, added, The restaurant staff helped us find a back exit which led us to safety. They helped us and waited for all of us to move out of the building. I dont think I would be alive today had they not helped us at the back exit as the front exit was too crowded.

Fire department officials had earlier told CNN-News18 that they had to break through glass panes to first allow for ventilation and then proceed with the rescue operations.

A Reuters report said many women who died were attending a birthday party at the rooftop restaurant. The 28-year-old woman celebrating her birthday was among those who died, her grandfather told Reuters.
Moving closer to making instant triple talaq a criminal offence, the Lok Sabha passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage), Bill. All amendments to the bill were defeated. The bill has provision for jail up to three years for the husband.

However, questions were raised in the Lok Sabha, in a heated debate, on the constitutional validity of the proposed legislation. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader Asaduddin Owaisi and Biju Janata Dal leader Bhartruhari Mahtab strongly opposed the bill, saying it lacked legislative coherence and was conflicting with existing legal provisions. The government said it was moving the bill as it had received 66 complaints of men resorting to the practice of instant divorce despite the Supreme Court declaring it void. So why did the bill create so much controversy? We decode it for you.

Should the Muslim women frame and hang the SC verdict in their homes now? asked Ravi Shankar Prasad. MJ Akbar said that the atmosphere of fear must be removed surrounding the Muslim women. Here are the key points made my members of the Lok Sabha that defined the Triple Talaq debate.

When speaker Sumitra Mahajan called out all MPs to speak at the time of the introduction of the Bill by Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, all those who had given a notice objecting to the introduction were given an opportunity to speak. Congress MPs were on their feet, but none got a chance to go on record because no notice had come from the Congress party. For a party signed by the Shah Bano Case during Rajiv Gandhi government, Congress is being extra cautious. It was an unknown case in the overburdened courts that sprang out to acquire large political overtones that ultimately gave enough leeway to both the BJP and other regional players to grab a large section of loyal Congress voters.

There are exactly 33 words that defined the triple talaq hearings in the Supreme Court. What are they? What do they mean? Find out here.

In other news, at least 14 people were killed and 12 persons injured after a major fire in a building in Kamala Mills Compound in Lower Parel. The fire broke out shortly after midnight on the third floor of the four-storied building on Senapati Bapat Marg, a commercial hub of the city.

Pakistan, yet again, defended imposing harsh security procedures during the meeting of death row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav with his wife and mother, which it claimed had been bilaterally agreed with India. Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif rejected Indian allegations and stated that the meeting of Jadhav with his wife and mother on December 25 was permitted on humanitarian grounds.

Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, while addressing the Parliament, said that Indian navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav thought something 'bad" had happened back home when he saw his mother without a bindi and 'mangal sutra' when they met in Islamabad. Swaraj said the removal of the 'mangal sutra' was a height of disrespect as Jadhav's mother had told the Pakistani officials that it was a symbol of marriage, but they did not relent.

Former President Barack Obama remains the most admired man and woman in the United States  a 10-year trend for Obama and 16 years running for Clinton. President Donald Trump took the second spot.

Indias largest software company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is facing a legal trial in the US over allegations of being biased against American workers. According to a Bloomberg report, TCS request to dismiss a 2015 lawsuit that accused it of violating anti-discrimination laws by favouring South Asian workers was rejected by a federal judge in California. The federal judge expanded the case filed by American workers who lost their jobs at TCS offices in the US into a class-action suit, adding to the worries of the IT giant.

Agree or disagree?

The last three years have probably been the toughest for Congress since the formation of the party on December 28, 1885. It has been 133 years. The grand old party, though, has been much more confident of upsetting the ruling party, ever since it took the sting out of BJPs war cry of a Congress Mukt Bharat (Congress Free India) in its formers den in Gujarat. The Congress has to pass three litmus tests before it can claim that Gujarat was no flash in the pan. More on it, here.

On reel

How Indore became a role model of cleanliness. Watch it here.

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As news poured in on the large-scale human tragedy at Mumbais upscale Kamala Mills compound, I was filled with sadness, anger and frustration.

Sadness, because as a father, who had also lost a son in a fire accident I could immediately relate to what each of those families was going through.

Anger, because like most fire accidents, this was highly avoidable too, only if the guidelines were followed.

Lastly, I am frustrated that we as a nation dont put a premium on public safety.

Each of those emotional outbursts in me gets me more convinced on the path I have chosen to put fire safety on the table in India with Beyond Carlton.

So what went wrong at Kamala Mills?

Well, seemingly almost everything violations of fire safety laws, illegal construction hindering entry of fire tenders, lack of auditing by the administration, and we could keep adding to this list.

Who is accountable for this tragedy? Of course those who put profits over human safety.

A case has been filed against the restaurant owners. While one has to wait for investigations, culprits must be punished. And it cant just be owners of the property. My belief is that public safety is finally the responsibility of the government authorities that should not just pass orders but ensure the implementation of it.

This was a negligence by many. All of them should be brought to book and served with the strictest punishment so it serves as a deterrent.

Lets look at Indias public safety statistics. In 2015, 17,700 Indians died due to fire accidents. Of these, 62% were women. Heres a rude remainder: Like Kamala Mills, fire kills more women than men.

And its not just commercial spaces that are unsafe. More than 40% of fire related deaths take place in residential areas.

Yet, we refuse to learn from our mistakes. In Mumbai alone, more than 30% of the buildings audited by fire brigade were declared unsafe. But no one talks about the corrective actions which should be taken swiftly.

So, what do these statistics tell us? They tells us that we are very vulnerable.

Here are some quick and obvious reasons for the mess we are in:

1. Urbanization and its challenges - With more and more Indian cities bursting at its seams, it clearly shows our urban planners had never planned for this explosion. The huge migration from smaller towns and villages in search of jobs and employment has seen a huge strain on the urban infrastructure. So, we now have more vehicles on roads than ever before and inadequate city infrastructures like roads, traffic management and inefficient local bodies are unable to keep pace with this huge urban explosion.

We were told that smart cities will address some of these issues. We are patiently waiting for that dream day to arrive.

2. A casual mindset towards safety  As a nation, we seem to pay very little premium on life and our own safety. How often do we see two wheeler riders avoiding the use of helmets or the sheer negligence to have and maintain fire prevention systems in high rises or many who avoid wearing seat belts in their cars? Why do we take action only when a policeman hauls us up or is seen in the distance? Mind you, a lot of these defaulters have had good education and exposure to global travel. It almost seems like they lack education and understanding in keeping themselves and their families safe. We need a systemic change here to get us to see safety as a priority and not wait for the next fatality in our family.

3. Inefficient local bodies and authorities  How often do we hear that local authorities that are meant to monitor safety arent doing their job? While one does recognize that most of these entities are political battlefields, poorly managed, corrupt, inefficient and unprofessional there is a growing desperate need to deliver services to citizens.

4. Archaic laws not in pace with our world today  Most of these entities have archaic laws that havent kept pace with the growth of our urban centres. An example, in the case of fire safety in Karnataka, was when we heard that the Karnataka fire department was not authorized to enter buildings and check for violations. How could that be? Who else is competent to check for fire safety? It took an initiative from a citizens body like Beyond Carlton to file a PIL and get this corrected through a Court order. Why do we need citizens to get similar changes made that seem obvious? It is time our lawmakers stepped up to deliver the needs for todays Indian cities.

You could probably add to this list and find many more reasons for why we lose so many fellow citizens to fire, almost on daily basis.

But simply blaming the government and greedy builders wont be enough. We, as citizens, need to start believing that safety is paramount. Dont wait for the next fatality or serious injury to take care of your familys safety. You could be the next statistic in a report otherwise. Wear that seat belt, the helmet; ensure your house and office follow fire safety norms. I would say ask Zomato and Swiggy to rank restaurants based of their safety preparedness.

You may just save your own life or that of a close one. After all, who knows when the next accident or a Kamala Mills fire can happen?

Author is Founder & Managing Trustee of Beyond Carlton (www.beyondcarlton.org) Indias first peoples initiative on fire safety. Uday lost his young son in 2010 in the Bengaluru Carlton Towers fire and has been working on fire safety awareness.
The parties should either hold together on equitable terms or separate with kindness

(Quran: 2:229 Surah al-Baqarah).

A recent judgment by the Supreme Court where it struck down instant Triple Talaq as unconstitutional has now been followed up by the government with a newly passed Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasads reasoning justifying the governments action that instant triple talaq or talaq-e-biddat  the practice by which Muslim men divorce their wives by saying the word talaq three times in one sitting which Supreme Courts order had set aside in August, has not worked as a deterrent.

He further added, it is, therefore, felt that there is a need for State action to give effect to the order of the Supreme Court. Union Law Minister failed to cite any data or facts to support his claim by which it was concluded that Supreme Courts order has not worked during this period from August to December 2017.

The intervention by the State through this Bill placed before Parliament mainly states and declares instant triple talaq as void (SCs judgment had already done that) and imposes a criminal penalty on the husband for pronouncing it in one sitting (three years imprisonment and fine).

The Supreme Court judgment while declaring instant triple talaq as unconstitutional, had cited laws from 19 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka among them) that have abolished the practice, seen as an unfavourable form of divorce in Islam. The instant Triple Talaq judgment was mostly welcomed as a measure of rectifying an extremely cruel and anti-women practice which finds no mention in the Quran.

ISLAMIC LAW

A marriage is purely a contract under the Islamic law (unlike Hindu/Christian laws). Islamic law was much more progressive for its time made a provision for termination of marriage where both husband and wife could dissolve it. It was an undesirable act, therefore had an elaborate process where reconciliation, arbitration from both sides were encouraged.

When a divorce is initiated by the husband over three sittings, it is known as Talaq (Arabic for freeing or undoing the knot).

Pronouncement can be verbal or written, and should only be done once in the presence of two witnesses. If the wife initiates a divorce it is known as khul'a. In any Islamic divorce procedure, there is a three-month waiting period, where reconciliation also exists as an option before the divorce is finalised.

Husband is supposed to pay maintenance and alimony to the wife once the divorce is settled.

Instant Triple Talaq is pronouncing divorce in one sitting which has no validation from the Quran. Prophet in one of Hadith mentions instant triple talaq in one sitting to be considered with an effect of one divorce and hence, a possibility of reconciliation.

Instant divorce provision came to be used in Caliph Umars reign when he thought that elaborate process was getting distorted and people were taking divorce non-seriously. Instant Divorces increasingly started getting pronounced through a letter, phone call or sometimes even through text message, WhatsApp or Skype and we witnessed instant Talaqs misuse in our era. Although there is lack of data on women affected by instant Triple Talaq, as a practice, it needed to be done away with.

GENDER EQUALITY AND JUSTICE

Men following arbitrary practices to abandon their wives is something seen across religions. Abandoned women outnumber divorced women at 23.7 lakh (among women abandoned without divorce, 80 per cent are Hindus and 12 per cent are Muslims, according to Census, 2011).

Abandoning women provides an easy escape from the lengthy legal process and also the requirement for the husband to pay suitable alimony and compensation to his wife can be avoided as well.

Personal laws draw sustenance from religion. There are many provisions of Hindu law, Muslim law, Christian law or Parsi law which can be seen as anti-women in modern times. Women empowerment as an issue has multiple concerns that need to be redressed.

CONCERNS AND POLITICS

BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made strong claims that Muslim women in their fight against instant triple talaq have support from his administration. Since the Bill concerns interests of most Muslim women, it would be interesting to know if any of them were part of the drafting committee.

Muslim bodies like AIMPLB (All India Muslim Personal Law Board), AIMIM (All India Majlis-e-Ittahidul Muslimeen of Owaisi) and Bebaak Collective (Womens group which had supported Shayara Bano's petition against Triple Talaq in the Supreme Court) have opposed the Bill.

Stakeholders were not consulted before bringing in such an important legislation as consultations with the community which it concerns have been close to none.

Criminalization of instant Triple Talaq as cognizable and non-bailable offence means not just the wife but anybody can make a complaint and police can arrest or investigate a Muslim man, leaving ample scope for harassment. Instant Triple Talaq itself has been outlawed, so the wife is still married and if the husband goes to jail, maintenance of family will be an issue.

Also, a pronouncement of Talaq thrice in one sitting would need admissible evidence in the court for the husband to be convicted, meaning more work for our over-burdened police and judiciary. Present Bills overreach in making a criminal offence of a civil act has been severely condemned.

Under the watch of the present government wherein, the name of Gau-Raksha and other flimsy reasons Muslims have been lynched with impunity and killers have enjoyed political patronage, support for rights of Muslim women seems quite superfluous.

Women, Muslims and others need the support of the government for them to move ahead in society but this support at the cost of their husbands going to jail may just complicate conjugal matters even more for Muslim women.

(Author is a PhD in Sociology and a freelance researcher. She is currently teaching at Jamia Millia Islamia. Views are personal.)
New Delhi: The fight against patriarchy from Shah Bano to Shayara Bano has come a long way with the Lok Sabha passing the Muslim Women (Protection of Marriage) Bill, 2017, which criminalises the practice of instant divorce.

There were no laws then at the time of Shah Bano. It was the fight of a lone women. But now scores and scores of women came out to fight patriarchy, said Zakia Soman, one of the founding members of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan.

Soman said that in the absence of any law on triple talaq, there were misinterpretations of personal laws, thus leading to suffering of Muslim women. Without any law, we wouldnt be able to fight the patriarchy, she said.

Ishrat Jahan, 31, was divorced through instant triple talaq over phone from Dubai in April, 2015. She is now empowered to take the fight further. Ishrat was divorced after 15 years into her marriage.

Her lawyer Nazia Elahi said, She has been deserted for a long time now  she is filing a case for maintenance. The new law will instill fear in men, now they know they will either have to suffer or give the woman the rights she deserves.

Arshiya Ismail, chief training officer in Army College, who has been waiting for justice for past six years, was married to an Indian Air Force Officer. She said, The law will give more legality to my fight. It will instill fear and knock some sense in men before they arbitrarily leave their wives.

Arshiya cant help but wonder what happens to all those women who fight for their justice without any support. My talaq was not even certified by the All India Muslim personal law Board. They told him I am his legally wedded wife, yet my husband had his way and deserted me. This law is a welcome move. Men will be forced to think before giving triple talaq.

Gulshan Parveen, 31, from Rampur, Uttar Pradesh was married in April 2013 and was subjected to domestic violence for dowry for over two years. She received talaqnama from her husband on Rs 10 stamp paper. This is a piecemeal move  focus is more on criminalization. As citizens of India we follow the constitution and for the real victory we need codification of Muslim Personal Law, said Parveen.

Riding high on the new development, Somam said, We dont care about the criticism from those who did not help us and were not part of the struggle.
Christmas may be over, but the party is still on. And celebrities are making sure they ring in the New Year with their loved ones in style.

From posing together in front of the stunning beaches of Koh Samui to enjoying the snowy weather 'somewhere in the Alps', celebrities are leaving no stone unturned in making sure that 2018 begins with a bang.

And while most of the married couples in B-town have taken time off work to spending time with their family and better halves including Saif Ali Khan-Kareena Kapoor Khan, Akshay Kumar-Twinkle Khanna, Virat Kohli-Anushka Sharma and others, the 'good friends' of B-town too seem to be enjoying each others company, ringing in the New Year together.

Here's a list of celebrities who are celebrating New Years together.

Sushant Singh Rajput-Kriti Sanon

Rumoured couple Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon are making sure they welcome the New Year in one of the most beautiful and romantic places 'somewhere in the Alps'. Yes, the two are in Zermatt, Switzerland, enjoying the snowfall, partying hard in the stunningly beautiful winter wonderland.

The duo are accompanied by a few friends, who shared some amazing pictures on Instagram and gave us a glimpse of all the fun that they are having. Take a look.

A post shared by Sushant Singh Rajput (@sushantsinghrajput) on Dec 28, 2017 at 4:35am PST

A post shared by Sharada Karki (@sharadakarki) on Dec 28, 2017 at 11:41am PST

A post shared by Tushar Jalota (@tusharjalota) on Dec 28, 2017 at 10:55am PST

A post shared by Tushar Jalota (@tusharjalota) on Dec 28, 2017 at 3:13am PST

A post shared by Tushar Jalota (@tusharjalota) on Dec 28, 2017 at 1:31am PST

Rajkummar Rao-Patralekhaa

Unlike a lot of couples in B-town, Rajkummar Rao and Patralekhaa have been quite open about their relationship. The two, who worked together in 2014 critically acclaimed film CityLights, are currently in Thailand for a romantic vacation. Giving a glimpse of the beautiful locale and the chemistry that they share, the duo shared some hot and adorable pictures on Instagram. Take a look.

A post shared by Raj Kummar Rao (@rajkummar_rao) on Dec 27, 2017 at 9:52am PST

A post shared by Raj Kummar Rao (@rajkummar_rao) on Dec 25, 2017 at 8:32am PST

A post shared by Patralekhaa (@patralekhaa) on Dec 26, 2017 at 5:31am PST

A post shared by Patralekhaa (@patralekhaa) on Dec 27, 2017 at 7:19am PST

Tiger Shroff-Disha Patani

Although Tiger and Disha have been rumoured to be together for a while now, the two have never acknowledged their relationship in public.

But, photos of the duo at Bandaranaike International Airport, Sri Lanka, recently went viral on social media when actor Ranveer Singh bumped into them at the airport. While the two were headed for a romantic getaway, Ranveer was spotted travelling solo at the airport.

In one of the photos that surfaced on the Internet, Tiger is seen sitting on Disha's lap (who didn't seem to mind it all), since Ranveer hitched a ride with them in the airport car.

The trio were seen clicking photos and having some fun time together at the airport. Take a look.

A post shared by  SaVinDi WaKkUmBuRa  (@savi_wak) on Dec 28, 2017 at 4:51am PST

Anand Ahuja-Sonam Kapoor

Although Sonam and Anand have not officially announced that they are in a relationship, the duo have never shied away from PDA on social media. Time and again, the two have shared some cutesy, adorable and fun-loving pictures on their respective Instagram handles, giving us a glimpse if the cute relationship that they share.

The two were together celebrating Christmas in England and it's possible that for New Years too, the duo will be together, ringing in 2018 in each others company.
After celebrating a royal birthday at the Pataudi Palace, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor's little prince Taimur Ali Khan is having fun in Switzerland. The trio left for the European country on Tuesday after ringing in Taimur's first birthday with family.

In the latest picture, shared on Instagram, the little munchkin can be seen enjoying the feeling of seeing snow for the first time. The adorable kid is joined by his parents, who look classy in the photo.

Check out the picture here:

Credit: @SAMA AL-SAQAA

Meanwhile, the entire Kapoor clan had gotten together at Shashi Kapoor's residence to celebrate the festival of Christmas and remember the legendary actor who breathed his last on December 4.
New Delhi: After overcoming mild tremors in the just-concluded Gujarat assembly polls, the RSS top brass and BJP leaders are holding a two-day meeting in Delhi to discuss and dissect core socio-economic issues as the Modi government prepares to present its last full budget before the next general elections.

The meeting in Delhi, which kicked off on Thursday, is being attended by RSS Joint General Secretary Dr Krishna Gopal, BJP chief Amit Shah, leaders of RSS-affiliates Swadeshi Jagran Manch, Bhartiya Kisan Sangh, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Sahakar Bharati, Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat and Laghu Udyog Bharti.

The implementation of GST, effect of demonitisation, the state of rural economy and unemployment emerged as key challenges to the BJP in the poll-bound state of Gujarat where the party managed to retain simple majority.

The high-level meeting focuses on improving key economic policies, especially the agrarian distress.

In the last coordination meeting held at Mathura in UP, the members, especially the Laghu Unyog Bharti, had warned the government on the impact of GST on small traders.

The meeting will also discuss agrarian distress, to see if Gujarat results are an indication that farmers have expressed their angst electorally.

The BJP could survive the Gujarat scare due to the demographics of the state with the party performing exceptionally well in urban seats.

The BJP does not enjoy the same advantage in other parts of the country, especially the four big poll-bound states in 2018.

RSS-backed Farmers' Body had, in the run-up to the Gujarat elections, alerted the state government of the perils of 22 years of anti-incumbency, but none of the forewarnings got translated to any policy change. The major problem of farmers has been low procurement prices for crops and bad implementation of crop insurance.

The poll results show the BJP lost 14 rural seats, while the Congress gained in all these seats in Gujarat.
New Delhi: Four years in politics is a long time. On his electoral debut, as cadre milled with activists, outside the old Aam Aadmi Party office in Ghaziabad, Kumar Vishwas would step out on to the balcony with a mic in hand to announce unsurmountable lead taken by Arvind Kejriwal over the then Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. Arvind Kejriwal, New Delhi se 10,000 vote se aage! (Arvind Kejriwal is leading from New Delhi by 10,000 votes! Vishwas would announce to the cheering crowd.

Now cut to 2017, the two leaders who have not been on talking terms since the Punjab election campaign may be preparing for a showdown early next month as AAP prepares to finalise its nominee for the three Rajya Sabha seats from Delhi.

With an overwhelming majority in Delhi, AAP can nominate three MPs to RS. Vishwas has openly staked the claim for a seat but sources indicate the party may disappoint him yet again.

That Vishwas has been trying to build a case to confront the leadership can be traced from his statements after poll debacles in Punjab, Goa and Delhi by-pols.

After reports emerged of a rift between the two, Kejriwal took to Twitter to write, "Kumar is my younger brother. Some people are trying to create a rift between us. Such people are enemies of the party. They better mend their ways. No one can separate us."

When the crisis deepened and it looked like Vishwas would not buckle, the Delhi Chief Minister had to go to Vishwas's residence to pacify him. "Naraz hai, milne ke liye aaya hoon, (He is upset, I have come to meet him)" a smiling Kejriwal told reporters outside Kumar Vishwas's house before he went in for a dramatic midnight meeting.

Soon, images of Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and other senior leaders meeting a miffed Vishwas flooded TV screens. Vishwas looked defiant with his hands behind his back while a despondent-looking Kejriwal stood at a distance.

In October, in an exclusive interview with News18, Vishwas had said, he believed that personal relations between leaders shouldnt influence the partys affairs. But what I will say is that those who have been with us since the days of the Anna movement should be fearless and speak the truth. They should say what is right and what is wrong.

The relationship was tested yet again last month, during the partys National Council (NC) meeting when Vishwas was denied a speaking slot.

Although, Manish Sisodia reached out to Vishwas yet again to sooth his bruised ego by personally inviting him to speak.

And now just a week ahead of the RS nominations, on Thursday, a group of Aam Aadmi Party volunteers, all donning the AAP cap, reached the partys headquarters on Rouse Avenue, New Delhi. Amidst chants of Humara Vishwas, Kumar Vishwas! (Our faith lies with Kumar Vishwas!), they demanded that Vishwas be sent to the Rajya Sabha.

Given the current situation in the country, where the PM and government are fooling the people on a daily basis, the country and the party need a strong voice in Parliament. Who better to take on the government than Kumar Vishwas? said Omendra Bharat, an AAP worker.

My sincere appeal to @AamAadmiParty volunteers gathering at party office, Pl refer to my Nov 26 appeal,Country first,Party next and Person last.Fight for Swaraj, BackToBasics, Trasparency but I won't appreciate any unrest in my name.Abhimanyu is a winner,even if killed  Dr Kumar Vishvas (@DrKumarVishwas) December 28, 2017

Despite the show of strength, party insiders say Vishwass chances of making a cut to the Rajya Sabha are slim.

While names of several other party leaders, such as Ashutosh and Sanjay Singh, are also doing the rounds, party sources suggest the AAP may surprise everyone in its final selection. Candidates, infact may be announced on the last day of the nominations to leave little time for the disgruntled elements to protest.

An AAP MLA said, The party is considering picking complete outsiders. The idea is to get people who are experts in their fields so that they can corner the Modi government. This will raise the partys appeal nationally as a party that is interested in policy. That is why we made an offer to (former RBI Governor) Raghuram Rajan, although he politely declined our offer.

When asked if a decision on the Rajya Sabha nominees would come soon, AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said in a stock response, The decision will be taken by the PAC. You will all know soon enough.

An AAP source close to Kumar Vishwas said the deterioration of the Kejriwal-Kumar relationship began with the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Arvind took all party workers to Varanasi for his own campaign. Vishwas, who was contesting from Amethi, was left to fend for himself. The party had three founding members who are still around  Kejriwal, Vishwas and Manish Sisodia. Kejriwal is CM, Sisodia is Deputy CM, but what did Kumar Vishwas get?

Vishwas finally seems to be seeking his pound of flesh from Kejriwal in the RS nomination. His friendship with the Delhi Chief Minister hangs by a fine thread which may break anytime soon.
Chennai: Sidelined AIADMK leader T T V Dhinakaran was on Friday sworn-in as a member of the Tamil Nadu Assembly days after he won the byelection to the RK Nagar constituency represented by late chief minister Jayalalithaa.

The newly elected MLA was sworn-in as a member of the 15th Assembly by Speaker P Dhanapal in his office here after the former arrived there to a rousing reception by his supporters who lined-up all along the route from his residence.

The supporters threw flower petals at the vehicle of Dhinakaran even as they raised slogans hailing "TTV annan" (elder brother) and his recent win.

Some of them also presented him shawls and bouquets as he halted his vehicle at several places along the arterial Kamarajar road off the famous Marina Beach leading to Fort St George, housing the assembly and the state secretariat.

Standing in the vehicle through the sun-roof for sometime, the newly elected MLA waved to his supporters and also showed the victory sign of thumbs up.

After the swearing-in, Dhanapal shook hands with Dhinakaran, who has been sidelined by the ruling camp of the AIADMK along with his aunt and jailed leader Sasikala.

The sidelined leader later claimed that the Palaniswami government will not last beyond "three to four months".

The ruling camp brushed aside his claim with Deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam saying he can't be replying to "those who are in dreamland."

A battery of Dhinakaran's supporters, including key aides and disqualified MLAs P Vetrivel and Thangatamilselvan, were present at the swearing in.

Aranthangi MLA E A Rathinasabapathy was also present. He had joined the Dhinakaran camp after 18 AIADMK legislators loyal to the sidelined leader were disqualified in September.

Contesting the December 21 bypoll as an independent, Dhinakaran defeated AIADMK's E Madhusudhanan by a thumping margin of 40,707 votes, dealing a blow to the ruling camp headed by Chief Minister K Palaniswami.

The bypoll was held to fill the vacancy caused by death of then sitting member Jayalalithaa on December 5 last year.

The ruling camp has attributed Dhinakaran's victory to a "tacit understanding" between him and principal opposition DMK, whose candidate N Maruthu Ganesh finished a poor third and lost deposit in the bypoll.

Dhinakaran, who has vowed to oust the Palainiswami government for betraying Sasikala, will make his legislature debut next month when the assembly meets on January 8 for its first session of 2018 with the customary Governor's address.

Dhinakaran is a former MP, having represented AIADMK in both houses of Parliament between 1999 and 2010. He was made party deputy general secretary by Sasikala ahead of going to the Bengaluru prison after the Supreme Court convicted her in a corruption case in February last.

Speaking to reporters after taking oath as MLA, Dhinakaran urged the top "5-6" persons in the ruling camp to "step away as an atonement of your mistakes" and allow continuation of "Amma (Jayalalithaa) rule".

The RK Nagar verdict has shown "we are the true AIADMK, working under the aegis of Chinnamma and in the lines of Amma and Puratchi Thalaivar MGR (party founder, the late MG Ramachandran)," he said.

Sasikala, serving a four year jail term in Bengaluru in the Rs 66.65 crore disproportionate assets case, is addressed as 'Chinnamma' by her supporters.

Dhinakaran has been accusing the rival camp of "betrayal," in an apparent reference to the revolt against Sasikala by Panneerselvam and Palaniswami patching up with him later. Palaniswami was handpicked by Sasikala to lead the state after she was convicted in the assets case.

"Be it the Chief Minister or Deputy Chief Minister or four others (senior Ministers)---their conscience knows how Chinnamma or TTV had helped them on different occasions. They (rival camp leaders) have come to a dead end. If they don't change they will vanish from politics," he claimed.

Without naming any Minister, he said people would make them change if they did not do so on their own.

He said the ruling dispensation should ponder over the bypoll verdict and a "self-assessment" would reveal "betrayal has been given a reply," by the voters.

He also claimed many on the ruling side "are with us mentally though not physically... Many have started coming towards us."

Expressing hope of a favourable court verdict on the pleas against disqualification of 18 MLAs, he said that in such a scenario the Palaniswami government could face a trust vote. "During voting our sleeper cells will do their job," he said.

He has been claiming his "sleeper cells" were embedded in the ruling camp and would be 'activated' at appropriate time.

Dhinakaran also chided the ruling camp for expelling his supporters in the wake of the RK Nagar bypoll defeat, saying "people are laughing at these expulsions."

Earlier in the day, Panneerselvam and Palaniswami cracked the whip on 132 pro-Dhinakaran functionaries in AIADMK, expelling them from the party for bringing "disrepute" to it. They had yesterday sacked 44 persons, besides five others on Monday. Key Dhinakaran aides including Vetrivel and Thangatamilselvan had been removed as party district secretaries.
New Delhi: For the first time in six years, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party National Convener Arvind Kejriwal will go on a holiday with his family.

Kejriwal has been unable to take a break with his family since the eruption of the anti-corruption movement in 2011.

Starved of time with his family, he is certainly looking forward to flying out of Delhi for Andaman and Nicobar on Saturday. Kejriwal has kept his date with vipasana and naturopathy sessions but this would be a rare family holiday.

Interestingly, he would be accompanied by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and his family as well. A short trip of just four days, Kejriwal and Sisodia are expected back in Delhi in the New Year, on January 2.

AAP is expected to announce its three nominees for the Rajya Sabha on January 3, a day after Kejriwal returns to Delhi with a meeting of the political affairs committee squeezed in between. The last date of nominations of candidates is January 5.

Far from Delhi and its incessant lobbying, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands could be the perfect setting for Kejriwal to make up his mind on the Rajya Sabha nominees and discuss with Sisodia.

This is the first time that the party will have three voices in the Rajya Sabha by virtue of its majority in Delhi. Top sources within the party have independently indicated that a final decision on the names is yet to be taken. Not just that, the party is yet to make up its mind on whether it should bank on eminent professionals outside of AAP, or should it also send one of their own to the upper house.

The party has been in talks with a handful of people from diverse fields, including law. It is hunting for credible voices that can challenge the BJP and take on the Prime Minister in the upper house on issues of economy and communal harmony. This is important as Kejriwal, in a re-think of strategy, has held himself back from attacking the Prime Minister directly. It is also looking for a strong legal voice.

AAP has four MPs in the Lok Sabha but two of them are dissidents. In the Rajya Sabha, the NDA government does not have the numbers, and that, a source said, will give more opportunity to AAP to intervene on important issues, the party gets to make its presence audible. It is unfortunate that we could not utilize our presence fully in the Lok Sabha and that will not be repeated, said a source within AAP.

There has been churning within AAP as Kumar Vishwas ,a member of Political Affairs Committee has made no secret about his claim to a Rajya Sabha seat with his supporters even pitching a tent in the party office. However, the chances of the poet making it are next to negligible. Managing the ambitions of prominent party faces and their views on nominating people and lack of consensus on names from outside is perhaps driving Kejriwal to tread cautiously.

Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan had earlier turned down AAP offer of a Rajya Sabha seat.
Beijing/ Washington: China on Friday denied reports it had been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea in violation of UN sanctions, after US President Donald Trump said he was not happy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation.

Trump said on Twitter on Thursday that China had been "caught RED HANDED" allowing oil into North Korea and that would prevent "a friendly solution" to the crisis over Pyongyang's development of nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States.

In a subsequent New York Times interview, Trump explicitly tied his administration's trade policy with China, North Korea's neighbour and lone major ally, to cooperation in resolving the North Korea standoff.

"I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war," he said. "If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that."

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that US spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times since October.

US officials have not confirmed details of this report but a US State Department official said Washington had evidence of vessels from several countries, including China, engaged transhipping oil products and coal.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters she had noted recent media reports, including suggestions a Chinese vessel was suspected of transporting oil to a North Korean vessel on October 19.

"In reality, the ship in question has, since August, not docked at a Chinese port and there is no record of it entering or leaving a Chinese port," Hua said adding that the reports "did not accord with facts.

"China has always implemented UN Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfils its international obligations. We never allow Chinese companies and citizens to violate the resolutions," Hua said.

"If, through investigation, it's confirmed there are violations of the UN Security Council resolutions, China will deal with them seriously in accordance with laws and regulations."

South Korea said on Friday that in late November it seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship, the Lighthouse Winmore, suspected of transferring oil to North Korea. The ship's registered manager, Lighthouse Ship Management, is in the Chinese port of Guangzhou.

A South Korean Foreign Ministry official said the ship transferred as much as 600 tons to the North Korea-flagged Sam Jong 2 on October 19 in international waters between China and the Korean peninsula, on the order of its Taiwan-based charterer, Billions Bunker Group Corp.

A spokesman for Taiwan's presidential office, Alex Huang, said the firm was not incorporated in Taiwan and China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said she did not have any information about the matter.

US SHIP-BAN PROPOSAL

Both ships were among 10 vessels the United States has proposed that the UN Security Council should blacklist for transporting banned items from North Korea, documents seen by Reuters this month showed.

China and Russia have asked for more time to consider the US proposal.

The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea and the U.N. Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions in response to Pyongyang's November 29 test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Those sanctions seek to further limit North Korea's access to refined petroleum products and crude oil and Washington says the full cooperation of China, North Korea' main trading partner, is vital if this peaceful pressure campaign is to succeed.

It has warned that all options are on the table, including military ones, if sanctions fail.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was asked by reporters on Friday whether the US Navy might become involved in seizing vessels suspected of transferring oil to North Korea.

He said he would not speculate on future operations but added: "Obviously if a government finds that there is a ship in their port conducting trade that was forbidden under the UN Security Council resolution, then they have an obligation and so far we have seen nations take that obligation seriously."

In September, the Security Council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea.

The latest UN resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year.

It also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Security Council to further cuts if North Korea conducts another nuclear or intercontinental ballistic missile test.

Ship tracking data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows that the Lighthouse Winmore has mainly been doing supply runs between China and Taiwan since August.

Prior to that, it was active between India and the United Arab Emirates. In October, when it allegedly transferred petroleum products to the North Korean ship, the Lighthouse Winmore had its tracking transponder switched off.

South Korea's customs service concluded that the Lighthouse Winmore had loaded about 14,000 tons of Japanese refined petroleum products in South Korea on October 11, reportedly bound for Taiwan, the South Korea official said.

"It's unclear how much oil the ship had transferred to North Korea for how long and on how many occasions, but it clearly showed North Korea is engaged in evading the sanctions," the official told Reuters.

It was not immediately possible to find contact information for the Taiwanese charter company.

The Hong Kong government said it was "liaising with the Korean parties concerned to obtain further information about the incident, and will take appropriate actions as necessary".

Employees at the office of Lighthouse Ship Management declined to comment and said they had no knowledge of the situation.
Beijing/Washington: China on Friday denied reports it has been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was not happy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation.

Trump said on Twitter the previous day that China had been "caught" allowing oil into North Korea and that would prevent "a friendly solution" to the crisis over North Korea's nuclear programme.

"I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war," Trump said in a separate interview with The New York Times.

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that U.S. spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times since October.

U.S. officials have not confirmed details of this report.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters she had noted recent media reports including suggestions a Chinese vessel was suspected of transporting oil to a North Korean vessel on Oct. 19.

"The Chinese side has conducted an immediate investigation. In reality, the ship in question has, since August, not docked at a Chinese port and there is no record of it entering or leaving a Chinese port," Hua said.

She said she was not aware if the vessel had docked at the port in other countries but the relevant media reports "did not accord with facts".

"China has always implemented U.N. Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfils its international obligations. We never allow Chinese companies and citizens to violate the resolutions," Hua said.

"If through investigation, it's confirmed there are violations of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, China will deal with them seriously in accordance with laws and regulations."

In the New York Times interview, Trump explicitly tied his administration's trade policy with China to its perceived cooperation in resolving the North Korea nuclear crisis.

"When I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade. They made  last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum. That doesn't include the theft of intellectual property, O.K., which is another $300 billion," Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview.

"If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that."

An official of the U.S. State Department said the U.S. government was aware of vessels engaged in such activity involving refined petroleum and coal.

"We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The United States says the full cooperation of China, North Korea's neighbour and main trading partner is vital to the success of efforts to rein in North Korea, while warning that all options are on the table, including military ones, in dealing with it.

China has repeatedly said it is fully enforcing all resolutions against North Korea, despite suspicion in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that loopholes still exist.

'EVADING SANCTIONS'

South Korea said on Friday it had seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship suspected of transferring oil to North Korea in defiance of the sanctions.

A senior South Korean foreign ministry official said the ship, the Lighthouse Winmore, was seized when it arrived at a South Korean port in late November.

"It's unclear how much oil the ship had transferred to North Korea for how long and on how many occasions, but it clearly showed North Korea is engaged in evading the sanctions," the official told Reuters.

South Korea said it had obtained intelligence showing the Hong Kong-flagged Lighthouse Winmore transferring as much as 600 tons of refined petroleum products to a North Korea-flagged ship, the Sam Jong 2, on Oct. 19 in international waters between China and the Korean peninsula.

Employees at the office of Lighthouse Ship Management, the ship's registered manager, in the Chinese port city of Guangzhou, declined to comment and said they had no knowledge of the situation.

China's foreign ministry spokeswoman said she did not have any information about the matter.

Both ships were among 10 vessels that the United States had proposed that the U.N. Security Council should blacklist for transporting banned items from North Korea, documents seen by Reuters this month showed.

China and Russia subsequently asked for more time to consider the U.S. proposal.

Ship tracking data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows that the Lighthouse Winmore has mainly been doing supply runs between China and Taiwan since August.

Prior to that, it was active between India and the United Arab Emirates. In October, when it allegedly transferred petroleum products to a North Korean ship in international waters, the Lighthouse Winmore had its tracking transponder switched off.

The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea in response to its efforts to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States.

The U.N. Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea for a recent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test, seeking to further limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil.

The U.S.-drafted U.N. resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year.

It also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Security Council to further reductions if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear or ICBM test.

Beside the Lighthouse Winmore and the Sam Jong 2, the ships targeted for blacklisting were the Xin Sheng Hai (flag unknown); the Togo-flagged Yu Yuan; Panama-flagged Glory Hope 1 (also known as Orient Shenyu), Kai Xiang and Billions No. 18; and the North Korean-flagged Ul Ji Bong 6, Rung Ra 2, and Rye Song Gang 1.

In September, the Security Council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea.
Aden: Nahla Arishi, chief paediatrician at the al-Sadaqa hospital in this Yemeni port city, had not seen diphtheria in her 20-year career. Then, late last month, a three-year-old girl with high fever was rushed to Arishi's ward. Her neck was swollen, and she gasped for air through a lump of tissue in her throat. Eight days later, she died.

Soon after, a 10-month-old boy with similar symptoms died less than 24 hours after arriving at the hospital.

Two five-year-old cousins were admitted; only one survived.

A 45-day-old boy, his neck swollen and bruised, lasted a few hours. His last breath was through an oxygen mask.

One morning in early December, 16-month-old Sameh arrived at the hospital carried by his aunt and delirious with fever. Arishi immediately recognised a new case of diphtheria. "Put on your mask," she ordered the aunt.

Sameh's father, a fighter in Yemen's three-year war, rushed in, grabbed his son, yanked off the baby's shoes and threw them on the floor. "Sameh is the light of the house," he wailed, feeling the boy's feverish brow and body.

This is the emergency ward to a nation. After three years of warfare, cholera and hunger, Yemen faces a new battle: In the past four months, doctors across the country have recorded at least 380 cases of diphtheria, a bacterial disease that last appeared here in 1992.

Arishi, like her country around her, is struggling to cope. Every month, she and her team drip-feed dozens of Yemen's half a million severely malnourished children. Her ward has also treated hundreds of the one million people infected by cholera.

This spring, Arishi and her colleagues reopened an abandoned wing of al-Sadaqa hospital, fenced it with chicken wire and created a makeshift cholera treatment centre. Now, they are converting part of that centre into a diphtheria ward, cordoning off isolation units by barring hallway doors.

But with rusty oxygen tanks and only two functional ventilators in a different part of the hospital  and with the expectation that the cholera epidemic will worsen in coming months  her triage upon triage is no longer working.

"We're getting more patients but we can't deal with them. We don't have supplies. We don't have money," said Arishi, "This war has got to end."

For the past three years, Yemen has been the combat zone of a struggle for regional supremacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Riyadh and some of its Arab allies jumped into Yemen's civil war in 2015 to help quell an uprising by the Houthis, an Islamic political-religious movement backed by Iran. In addition to airstrikes, Riyadh  with US and UN backing  has positioned ships in Yemeni waters as a way to stop arms reaching Houthi militia.

But the blockade has ended up isolating a country that was already the poorest in the Middle East. Vital provisions  food, medicine, fuel, medical equipment, batteries, solar panels and more  are not getting through. Humanitarian shipments of food and medicine have mostly been allowed into the country. Yet Saudi-led forces have severely delayed aid shipments or closed ports outright, especially in northern Yemen where fighting and the humanitarian crisis are most acute.

The war and blockade have also thwarted Yemen's vaccination programmes.

Seven years ago, 80 percent of children were fully immunised with three doses of diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus vaccine, or DTP as the combined shot is called, according to Zaher Sahloul, a critical-care specialist who cofounded a nonprofit called MedGlobal. Now, he says, that has dropped to 60 percent.

Poor record keeping means there are discrepancies in data related to vaccine coverage. Yemen's Ministry of Health says 85 percent of Yemeni children have been immunised against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, Hepatitis B and bacterial influenza since the beginning of the conflict, a mere two percentage point drop from pre-war years.

In late November, the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) sent a shipment of diphtheria antitoxins - designed to treat those already infected - and vaccines to the capital Sanaa. The vaccines were delayed by the Saudi blockade for a week, the WHO said.

In July, the Geneva-based International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision earmarked a million cholera vaccines for Yemen. An initial shipment of 500,000 doses was sent to the African Horn country of Djibouti, and was ready to send on to Sanaa. But the WHO and local authorities in Sanaa decided together to scrap the vaccination plan, citing logistical and technical issues.

"Yemen needs a Marshall Plan," said Sahloul, who was visiting al-Sadaqa's treatment centre in December. "It is difficult to foresee an optimistic scenario if the current conditions persist," he said.

DISEASE AFTER DISEASE

Arishi began her medical career in the mid-1990s after Yemen unified following years of conflict between communist and pro-western forces. She joined the al-Sadaqa hospital, which was built in the 1980s with funds from the Soviet Union.

In her two decades at the hospital's paediatric ward, Arishi has seen Yemen slowly come apart again. Even in the mid 2000s, the country faced widespread hunger because of rising food prices. The feeding centre of al-Sadaqa's hospital, she said, was crowded even before the new civil war began.

In the spring of 2015, Houthi forces, aided by the now-deceased former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, advanced south from their stronghold in the Yemeni capital Sanaa and took over Aden's airport. It was then that the coalition of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia joined the war and began launching airstrikes against Houthi-held enclaves. Fighting raged until troops backing the officially-recognised government wrenched Aden from Houthi control in July of that year.

During the first months of fighting, al-Sadaqa filled with hundreds of wounded children and adults.

By the middle of 2016, another group of patients began pouring into the hospital. A cholera outbreak that started in Sanaa had spread to Aden. Dehydrated children, their condition made worse by malnutrition, flooded into her paediatric ward. Many did not survive, Arishi said.

Cholera can kill because patients quickly lose their fluids through vomiting and watery diarrhoea. When caught early, it can be treated by replacing fluids.

When a second wave of cholera infections swept Yemen in April this year, Arishi and her colleagues decided to set up the new treatment centre. They picked a building away from the main wings of the hospital to avoid contamination and repaired it with funds from the WHO and medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). Converting the building, which had been abandoned for two years after the war, required "heavy cleaning work, electricity, water system repairs as well as installing air conditioners," according to MSF.

Yet, like the country itself, al-Sadaqa was overwhelmed by the cholera epidemic. Nationwide, a million people have been infected, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The WHO says cholera has killed more than 2,200 people.

Most of the infected were in the populous north of the country. But al-Sadaqa, which took in patients from across south Yemen, was also unprepared. Arishi and her colleagues had expected 10 patients at a time. Instead, by the summer, they were treating more than a hundred, mostly adults, a day.

Since September, the spread of cholera across the country has abated. However, doctors agree that a new wave of infections is likely in March, when the country's rainy season returns. Cholera spreads more easily in wet weather, because the bacteria live in rivers and coastal waters which swell with the rain. Rain brings sewage into sources of drinking water.

In August, a new disease began to emerge. In Ibb governorate, 170 km south of Sanaa, a 17-year-old boy was diagnosed with diphtheria, according to the WHO.

Diphtheria is caused by bacteria that mainly infect the throat, nose and airways and send toxins into the bloodstream. It has largely receded as a global health threat, because much of the world's population is protected through routine immunisation.

But the disease is highly contagious once it takes root, doctors say, since it spreads in the droplets from coughing and sneezing. Small children are particularly vulnerable because toxins from the bacteria build up a coating of dead tissue that blocks their small airways.

Since the mid-August case, more than 380 patients have been admitted to hospitals across Yemen with diphtheria-like symptoms, according to the WHO. Doctors diagnosed the cases based solely on patients' symptoms. Close to 40 of the patients have died, by WHO estimates.

The first case of suspected diphtheria reached al-Sadaqa in November. Of the seven children who arrived within a fortnight, nearly all were initially misdiagnosed with mumps or flu. Four died.

Arishi faced the problem of isolating children with symptoms of diphtheria. She asked hospital administrators to block a hallway door with a cupboard. Behind it, she tried to isolate those who might infect others.

But she lacked basic resources to treat the new disease. Al-Sadaqa hospital, like most others in Yemen, does not have the reagents needed to test for diphtheria. In fact, none of Arishi's diagnoses has been confirmed by laboratory tests.

Marc Poncin, an MSF emergency coordinator in Ibb governorate, said the lack of recent experience means it could be harder to treat diphtheria.

"There has been a loss of knowledge regarding its treatment, because it's become something of a neglected and forgotten disease," he said.

After a diagnosis, treatment is far from easy. Doctors can prescribe antitoxins and antibiotics. But until a few weeks ago, Yemen had no such antitoxin stocks.

The United Nations Children's Fund and the WHO have imported more than 5 million doses of vaccines to immunise children in the worst affected areas. The WHO has already distributed antibiotics to patients and, as prophylactics, to their families.

Some diphtheria patients need emergency surgery to remove blockages from their airways or need machines to breathe. But most of Yemen's hospitals don't have such equipment. As of early December, only two of al-Sadaqa's three mechanical ventilators were working, and the hospital didn't have an isolated operating room for diphtheria patients.

The lack of resources has caused strains with the hospital's supporters. When Arishi cordoned off a part of the cholera ward for the incoming diphtheria patients a couple of weeks ago, the WHO was not happy with the decision, according to Hussein Hassan, head of the WHO's Aden office.

"We cannot confidently say that cholera is over. It is a seasonal problem and it may come back. What happens if another wave starts and the ward is filled with diphtheria patients?" said Hassan.

"I DIDN'T WANT TO LOSE MY KID"

Arishi says there is another sign that Yemen is breaking down: parents' waning faith.

She sees more examples of families that have not vaccinated their children because they distrust both their government and international organisations.

Earlier this month she confronted Saleh Khaled, the father of a five-year-old boy called Yasir, who arrived with severe diphtheria symptoms.

"Why did you not vaccinate your son?" Arishi asked.

Yasir's first cousin, who was also five years old and unvaccinated, had died a few days earlier. When the first symptoms had appeared on Yasir's neck and chin, the boy's parents had given him honey.

Khaled said he had heard rumours, years earlier, about children who had died after healthcare workers had allegedly switched vaccine vials with insulin during a door-to-door vaccination campaign.

"I didn't want to lose my kid because of something like this," he said. "We don't trust the people who work in the health department."

Others in the al-Sadaqa ward that day echoed similar fears.

"We live only because of God's mercy," said Khaled Nasser, the father of 16-month-old Sameh. Nasser, a member of a local armed group that fights alongside Saudi-allied forces, said fellow fighters had helped him buy medicine when Sameh got sick.

Arishi herself barely ekes out a living. She makes $210 a month at al-Sadaqa and works at a private clinic three days a week to supplement her income. The mother of three treats neighbours and relatives without getting paid. Her husband, also a paediatrician, works at another clinic in Aden.

For Arishi, war is both burden and inspiration. She says it has made her commitment to medicine stronger.

"If I leave and my husband leaves and everyone leaves, who will stay to treat our patients?" she said. "Aden is my city. It is my responsibility."
Egypt's Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb has called on Egyptian Muslims to join Copts in Christmas celebrations, as a form of rejection of the evil plans of terrorists

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and top Egyptian institutions and officials have condemned Friday's terrorist attack on a Helwan church, calling for heightened security and for Muslims to join Christians in their religious celebrations to show unity against terrorism.

El-Sisi praised the "heroic spirit and high sacrifices" of security personnel foiling the terrorist attack, which was aimed at Mar Mina Coptic church in south Cairo.

A statement by El-Sisi's office described the attack as "vicious" and urged heightened security around vital state institutions.

El-Sisi extended his condolences to the families of the martyrs of the terrorist attack, adding that desperate attempts to sow terror will only increase the insistence of Egyptians to continue cleansing the country of terrorism and extremism.

The interior ministry said in a statement on Friday afternoon that police had arrested the attacker who attempted to drive through security forces outside the church armed with a machine gun, ammunition and a bomb that he intended to detonate in the church.

The ministry said he killed two people when he opened fire on a shop, before heading to the church where he shot dead seven people, including a policeman.

The arrested attacker is an active terrorist who has carried out a number of terrorist attacks targeting police and civilians, the statement added.

Egypt's Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayyeb harshly condemned the terrorist attack, calling on Egyptian Muslims to join Copts in Christmas celebrations, as a form of rejection of the evil plans of terrorists.

El-Tayyeb said in a statement that the aims behind terrorist attacks that target Copts on days of celebration is now exposed, and that foiling these aims by holding onto love and attachment that bring together Muslims and Christians is the most painful response to the terrorists.

Egyptian Grand Mufti Shawky Allam said that those who "attack churches and terrorise the people in them" is "an enemy of the Prophet," adding that what terrorist and extremist groups have done is religiously forbidden and violates the high principles of sharia law, which calls for preserving souls, making the sacredness of innocent blood the same as the sacredness of the holy Kaaba.

The Coptic Orthodox Church spokesperson Boules Halim announced that a collective funeral for the martyrs in the attack will be held at a time and place to be later announced.

The Egyptian cabinet also condemned the Friday attack, extending condolences to the families of the victims, affirming that terror will not shake the determination of the government and the unity of Egyptians fighting in terrorism.

Egypt's parliament also extended condolences to the families of the victims, saying that the "bullets of terrorists did not differentiate between a Muslim and a Christian, or between a mosque and a church," as terrorism targets all from the national social fabric.

Cairo's security chief and a number of security officials visited the scene of the terrorist attack on Friday.

Coptic Christians, who make up around 10 percent of the country's 93 million population, celebrate Christmas on 7 January.

Dozens of Christians have been killed in terrorist attacks on churches and congregations in recent years.

Police have deployed 230,000 personnel to protect churches, parks and other vital public institutions during the Christmas season.

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The Amherst County Sheriffs Office is working to identify two people they suspect may be involved in a theft in Amherst County, according to a news release from the sheriffs office.

Numerous items, including a credit card from a purse, were taken from a vehicle in Madison Heights on Sunday, Dec. 17, according to the release.

A man and woman used the credit card at multiple locations, including Walmart stores in Madison Heights and Altavista, the release states.

Anyone with information about the crime is asked to contact the Amherst County Sheriffs Office via Facebook Messenger or call Investigator Greg Jones at (434) 946-9373 with any information.

Contact Central Virginia Crimestoppers at 1-888-798-5900 or text CVCS with the information to 274637 to remain anonymous.
A number of Western and Arab countries including the USA, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Jordan condemned Friday's terrorist attack on a church in Egypt's Helwan, which left nine killed and five injured

The US embassy in Cairo said on their official Twitter account that the United States "stands steadfastly with the people of Egypt in the face of such cowardly attacks."

The German embassy in Cairo has also condemned the terrorist attack, saying that there is no justification for attacks on peaceful worshippers of any religion, affirming that Germany stands by Egypt and Egyptians in the war against terrorism.

The German ambassador in Cairo Julius Georg Luy added: "I am filled with sadness that terrorism revealed its inhumane face by attacking places of worship, even at the end of this year, and it cannot be allowed, and it will not be able to part Egyptians.

A spokesperson for the French foreign ministry stressed his country's solidarity with and support for Egypt in its war on terrorism, referring to the intensified bilateral talks between the two countries on that issue at all levels, which Egypt and France intend to consolidate in the coming months.

In a statement, the spokesperson added that France condemns the attack and extends its condolences to Egypt, adding that these acts will not jeopardise the foundation of tolerance that distinguishes Egyptian society.

Several Arab countries have also condemned the terrorist attack.

Saudi King Salman Abdulaziz Al-Saud conveyed his deepest condolences via cable to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, according to statements reported by the Saudi Press Agency.

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia firmly stands with the Arab Republic of Egypt and its people against whoever dares to harm Egypt's security and stability, the cable read.



Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman also offered his condolences to the Egyptian President, expressing his strong condemnation and denunciation of this sinful terrorist act.

Kuwaiti Emir Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah sent a condolence telegram to El-Sisi, saying that "this terrorist act violates all religious laws and human values, as it targets innocent safe souls, and disputes the security and stability of our brotherly country."

Al-Sabah stressed his country's support for all measures taken by Egypt to protect its security and stability.

UAE also condemned these "criminal acts," stressing its rejection of all forms of violence and terrorism, affirming its strong support for Egypt against these dangerous crimes, a statement by UAE official news agency was reported by MENA.

The Jordanian minister of media affairs, Mohamed Al-Momeny, also condemned the criminal attack, praising the efforts of Egyptian security bodies in foiling the attempt that "would have led to catastrophic results, leaving more victims," and affirming his country's support for the Egyptian government and people.

The Palestinian ambassador to Egypt, the Yemeni foreign ministry, and Omans government have also condemned that attack, stressing their countries' support to Egypt in its war on terrorism.

The interior ministry said in a statement on Friday afternoon that police had arrested the attacker who attempted to drive through security forces outside the church armed with a machine gun, ammunition and a bomb that he intended to detonate in the church.

The ministry said he killed two people when he opened fire on a shop, before heading to the church where he shot dead seven people, including a policeman.

The arrested attacker is an active terrorist who has carried out a number of terrorist attacks targeting police and civilians, the statement added.

Cairo's security chief and a number of security officials visited the scene of the attack.

Friday's attack took place as Egyptian Coptic Christians, who make up around 10 percent of the country's 93 million population, are preparing for Christmas on 7 January.

Dozens of Christians have been killed in terrorist attacks on churches and congregations in recent years.

Police have deployed 230,000 personnel to protect churches, parks and other vital public institutions during the Christmas season.

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Minister of State for Midlands Provincial Affairs Owen Ncube has warned illegal settlers against invading dairy farms that were spared by Government during the Land Reform Programme.



Minister Ncubes concern comes amid reports that illegal settlers had invaded dairy farms in the province where in some instances they restricted dairy farmers to about 13 hectares. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has reiterated that there was need to spare dairy farms in the land redistribution exercise as these were contributing directly towards the growth of the economy and import substitution.



Addressing Midlands dairy farmers yesterday, Minister Ncube said it was Government policy to spare dairy farms in the land redistribution exercise to maximise milk production. Minister Ncube warned lands officers against allocating unproductive people land on dairy farms, adding that this would adversely affect milk production.





I understand that Midlands is one of the leading provinces in terms of milk production and we would want it to remain like that, he said. In the past years, we have spared the dairy farmers, but of late we learnt that some of the farms were downsized to levels that made their business non-viable and uneconomic. We want to correct the anomaly. We are not witch-hunting, but we want to ensure that we increase milk production.





We are going to sit down with the lands committee and the responsible ministry and map the way forward on how best these affected farmers can be assisted. Some of the cases are before the courts, therefore, we cant make a decision before the court outcome.





Minister Ncube said Government was prioritising agriculture as a key production sector that had a potential of turning around the economy. Meanwhile, dairy farmers have targeted to produce more than 61 million litres of milk annually by 2020. Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers chairperson Mr Edward Warambwa revealed the statistics.





Local farmers are producing 4,5 million litres a month against the national demand of eight million litres. The country has become a net importer of milk from neighbouring countries such as South Africa. Midlands has 33 dairy and cattle farmers and the province recommended that these be issued with offer letters to enable them to increase production. herald
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What you may know: U2's new album, Songs of Experience, came out in early December. What you may not know: Bono apparently almost died while making it. That's per a new interview with Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner in which the U2 frontman doesn't reveal exactly what happened, but notes he considers it an "extinction event." He explains that such a happening for people "could be psychological or it could be physical," and for him it was physical. He says it was in sync with the "political apocalypse" going on in the US and abroad and that "you get warning signs, and then you realize that you are not a tank." Bono also talks about how this near-death experience shaped the album. But what has raised more than a few eyebrows is his assessment in the interview of the current state of the industry for male musicians and the "rage" that should be at the center of rock music.

"I think music has gotten very girly," Bono notes. "And there are some good things about that, but hip-hop is the only place for young male anger at the momentand that's not good." That remark has spurred online eyerolling, with Rebecca Fishbein noting at Jezebel that white male musicians are "relegated only to releasing their rage at being the least oppressed members of society via mediums like film, television, national lawmaking, company CEOing, and Twitter-threading." And for the Independent, Roisin O'Connor says Bono's remarks "reduce hip-hop to the laziest possible stereotype of 'aggressive' black masculinity," while his "pejorative" use of the word "girly" seems to ignore that some of U2's biggest hits have been romantic ballads. "Rock music never was, and never should be, simply a place to channel male anger," O'Connor writes. The Rolling Stone interview here. (Read more Bono stories.)
Dr. Phil McGraw prides himself for pulling people out of addiction, but a new report from STAT and the Boston Globe alleges he may have put some at-risk guests right back into it. Ex-guests on McGraw's syndicated talk show, including a former winner of TV's Survivor, say as they waited in hotel rooms to tape the shows focusing on their addictions, they were left without medical help in what STAT calls a "painful and potentially dangerous detox." The former guests, backed up by family, also say they were provided with booze and drugs (or told where they could find drugs) before they taped their appearances. Survivor winner Todd Herzog is one of those who talked to STAT, noting he detoxed at his hotel for two days after the show flew him out to LA, then showed up completely sober for his Dr. Phil taping. When he got to the studio, however, Herzog says he found vodka and Xanax in his dressing room.

He couldn't resist temptation and became intoxicated, spurring McGraw to have him breathe into a Breathalyzer on stage. "You know, I get that it's a television show and that they want to show the pain that I'm in," Herzog says. "However, what would have happened if I died there?" The mother of a pregnant heroin addict, meanwhile, says a staffer took her daughter to Skid Row to get heroin, and that the staffer filmed her daughter as she sought it from the homeless. McGraw didn't comment for the STAT report, but Martin Greenberg, a rep for the show, says Herzog's claims are "absolutely, unequivocally untrue" and that guests were never given drugs or alcohol. A USC professor tells STAT the accusations suggest a "callous and inexcusable exploitation." "These people are barely hanging on," Dr. Jeff Sugar says. "It's like if one of them was drowning and approaching a lifeboat, and instead of throwing them an inflatable doughnut, you throw them an anchor." More here. (Read more Dr. Phil McGraw stories.)
Pope Tawadros II extended his sincere condolences to the victims of a terrorist attack on a church on Friday, describing the treachery and cowardliness of the evils that were the reason for this painful incident," state-run news agency MENA reported on Friday.

Two unidentified gunmen killed nine people when they opened fire on a church in Helwan, just south of Cairo, on Friday morning, according to state TV and the health ministry.

Security forces shot dead one of the terrorists in an exchange of fire outside the church of Mar Mina, while the other assailant was arrested, state TV said.

Eight bodies have arrived at the Lady Virgin Church in Helwan archbishopric, where the funeral services will be held, MENA reported.

"All condolences to their families and to the police, the church and to Egypt, which will still be strong and capable of defeating insensitive and dark and violence forces which have no conscience, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church said.

The pope added that he is praying for all the martyrs and those injured, and to save the country and its people.

The Coptic Orthodox Church said that the funeral of those killed in the attack will be at 7pm on Friday at the Lady Virgin Church, MENA reported.

The victims will be buried in the Bishop Barsoum cemetery in the 15 May district of Cairo.

Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed told state television that nine people  including a Muslim and eight Christians  had been killed, in addition to the gunman, and five injured. Those wounded include two women in critical condition, he added.

State TV aired footage of the assailant's body, showing a bearded man wearing an explosive vest lying on the ground as crowds gathered.

The interior ministry said in a statement in the afternoon that it arrested an attacker on a motorcycle who attempted to drive through security forces outside the church armed with a machine gun, ammunition and a bomb that he intended to detonate in the church.

The ministry said he killed two people when he opened fire on a shop before heading to the church where he shot dead seven people, including a policeman.

The arrested attacker is an active terrorist who has carried out a number of terrorist attacks targeting police and civilians, the statement added.

Cairo's security chief and a number of security officials visited the scene of the attack earlier Friday.

Friday's attack took place as Egyptian Coptic Christians, who make up 10 percent of the country's 93 million population, make preparations to celebrate Christmas on 7 January.

Dozens of Christians have been killed in several terrorist attacks on churches and congregations in recent years.

The interior ministry has beefed up security around churches to secure celebrations.

Police have deployed 230,000 policemen to guard churches, parks, and vital institutions during the holiday season.

The ministry has cordoned off streets around churches and installed metal detectors at some larger churches.

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The White House says President Trump will undergo the customary presidential physical on Jan. 12, with press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirming the date Thursday, the AP reports. Sanders has said the results will be released after the physical. The White House had previously indicated Trump would have the physical early in the year at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He drew scrutiny several weeks ago when he seemed to slur his words during an address; the White House said his throat was dry.

The 71-year-old president has released limited information about his health. During the campaign, his gastroenterologist released a four-paragraph letter saying he would be "the healthiest individual elected." Trump also appeared on The Dr. Oz Show to say he felt great, while releasing his cholesterol levels and cancer screenings.

(Read more President Trump stories.)
A man on the "brink of death" on a Delta flight has two nurses to thank for saving himone who overcame her fear of being in the air to concentrate on helping him. The Citizen Times reports that Morgan Anderson, 26, and her mom, Rose Anderson, 57, were on a Delta flight from North Carolina to Salt Lake City on Dec. 13 when a medical emergency was announced. Morgan, who graduated from nursing school last year, and Rose, who has more than 30 years behind the stethoscope, approached the patient, an unresponsive man who looked to be in his 60s and who had thrown up on himself. Rose determined he was in life-threatening hypovolemic shock, likely from dehydration, and needed fluids. His blood pressure hovered at 56/30, which Morgan says put him on the "brink of death."

The onboard medical kit contained only a limited amount of saline solution, so the two women stretched what they had to keep the patient going, all while communicating with a doctor on the ground. Morgan was so intently working she forgot about her fear of flying. "I just got tunnel vision and focused on him and my mom." The patient eventually came to, and Team Anderson helped him drink water and stay comfortable until the plane landed. He was in stable condition when paramedics boarded the plane. The Anderson women received an official message of thanks from Delta, as well as a bottle of wine and vouchers to cut the cost of their next flight. An extra bonus: The pilot managed to shave more than an hour off the flying time as the plane rushed to Salt Lake City. Read the full story. (Read more uplifting news stories.)
The "Fake News contest" that President Trump tweeted about last month is now a reality. The Trump campaign emailed supporters Thursday, asking them to choose the fakest news story of the year, USA Today reports. "Americans are sick and tired of being lied to, insulted, and treated with outright condescension," the email says. "That's why President Trump is crowning the 2017 KING OF FAKE NEWS." It adds: "There's no point in pretending that some journalists are anything more than peddlers of falsehoods and liberal propaganda." Trump's November tweet said the contest should pick which network, "plus CNN but not including Fox," had the most dishonest coverage of "your favorite President (me)" and should "receive the FAKE NEWS TROPHY."

The email includes a poll with three stories: An ABC report that Trump told Michael Flynn to contact Russian officials before the election, a CNN report that Trump and Donald Trump Jr. had access to hacked emails from WikiLeaks, and a Time report that Trump removed a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. Participants can also suggest other stories. The Hill reports that all three stories listed were either retracted or corrected. A poll carried out after Trump first suggested a "Fake News" trophy found that 40% would award the trophy to Fox. CNN was runner-up with 25%, and MSNBC third with 9%. (In October, Trump said "fake" was "one of the greatest terms" he had come up with.)
The stretch of Ontario's Highway 401 that goes through Toronto is believed to be the busiest highway in North Americamaking it all the more terrifying when the driver of a bus with dozens of passengers on board passed out at the wheel. "There was a bit of a commotion at the front and then someone turned around and yelled, 'Can anyone drive a bus?'" passenger Laurie Gennings tells the CBC. "And at that point we all kind of panicked because the bus was still moving." A quick-thinking woman managed to get to the driver's seat, take the driver's foot off the gas pedal, and steer the bus to the shoulder, CTV reports.

The Ontario Northland bus was traveling from Sudbury to Toronto with 47 passengers, the Toronto Star reports. The bus company says the driver, a man in his 60s, "experienced a medical issue and is currently receiving medical care." Another driver was sent to bring the passengers to their destination. Police say the incident could have been a lot worse if not for the actions of the passenger, who was identified only as Rebecca. "If you're out there watching, thank you," one passenger says. "Youre going to get your blessings in 2018 after this good deed." (Last year, a driver in Maryland saved 20 kids from a burning school bus.)
A young man who went for a pre-Christmas haircut got a disorderly one, while his barber got slammed for disorderly conduct, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. Per Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain, the 22-year-old patron headed over to Ruby's Salon on Friday and asked for an inch off the top and the sides shaved, and his stylist, 46-year-old Khaled A. Shabani, set to work. The police report notes the customer asked for a No. 2 buzzer for the sides and that scissors be used to trim the top. The customer soon realized things were "not going well," however, when Shabani started chastising him for not keeping his head still, which earned him an ear-twisting, per the report. The situation got worse when Shabani allegedly "snipped" his ear with the scissors, drawing blood, and used a "zero" buzzer (which provides the closest cut) to swoop right down the middle of his head.

The result? The customer got a buzz that left him "looking a bit like Larry from the Three Stooges," DeSpain says. Which is when the customer says he got up to leave, with Shabani allegedly yelling after him, "You want a zero, right?" Shabani was cited for mayhem and disorderly conduct while armed, which the Journal notes is not a criminal charge but a county ordinance violation. "While it is not a crime to give someone a bad haircut, you will get arrested for intentionally snipping their ear with a scissors," DeSpain says. The customer had another stylist elsewhere shave his head all the way to rid himself of the Stooges look. Per a police report, Shabani told cops the ear-snipping was an accident, but BuzzFeed reports on Yelp reviews that note other bad experiences at the salon, including one ex-patron that says his visit felt like it "[bordered] on assault." (Read more weird crimes stories.)
The former owner of a Russian candy factory has been ordered to remain in jail while the slaying of a plant security guard is under investigation. Investigators said Ilya Averyanov argued with the factory's new owner and opened fire with a hunting rifle on Wednesday, killing the guard and wounding three other people. Averyanov then told a radio station that he had barricaded himself inside the Moscow plant and was defending himself against a "gang" that had colluded with Moscow prosecutors to seize his property, the AP reports.

"My plant was seized with the use of fake documents, they have ruined me," Averyanov told the radio station, per the Moscow Times. "I have a service weapon and used it in defense today." Averyanov told a court Thursday he didn't kill anyone and pleaded to be put under house arrest. The court instead ordered him jailed for two months. (Read more Moscow stories.)
The curator of the US Naval Academy Museum wasn't exactly sure what would be found: Records indicated five display boxes long used to exhibit captured British flags from the War of 1812 actually concealed more banners underneath. But not until all 61 banners were painstakingly removed in December for a conservation effort did curator Charles Swift actually see what was hidden. He was gratified to learn conservationists had uncovered dozens of other flags, many captured by the Navy in other conflicts of the 19th century, per the AP. The 46 newly discovered flagsincluding banners from battles in Asia and from the Spanish-American Warhad originally been put on display in 1913. But seven years later, they were covered up by the 15 flags from the War of 1812 and sealed up for nearly a century. No one alive had seen the flags long hidden from view.

"The colors ... is what struck me immediately," Swift says. "It was sort of dark, but you could see the ... vibrant colors of them having not been in light for 100 years, and so it was exciting." The flags, covered by the others in boxes with large plate-glass lids, speak to an earlier era of US intervention overseas. They include one taken from a Chinese pirate fort off Macau dating to 1854 and another captured in Korea in 1871, per Swift. There were even some replicas of Revolutionary War-era flags among them. In 1849, then-President James Polk designated the Annapolis, Md., academy as the repository of flags captured in battle by the Navy. The museum is now home to about 800 flags.

(Read more discoveries stories.)
Andrew Anglin, founder of a neo-Nazi website notorious for its racist internet trolling campaigns, has dubiously claimed he lives in Nigeria. A process server swears he recently spotted The Daily Stormer's publisher at a grocery store in his native Ohio. Anglin's whereaboutsa key issue in a pair of lawsuits he facesmay not remain a mystery much longer. A federal judge in Montana has warned Anglin's attorneys that he won't tolerate any "game-playing" and expects him to disclose where he has been residing, according to a court transcript obtained by the AP. Montana real estate agent Tanya Gersh sued Anglin in April, accusing him of orchestrating an anti-Semitic internet trolling campaign that terrorized her family amid her dispute with the mother of a leading white nationalist. Anglin's lawyers argue the First Amendment protects his posts calling for a "troll storm" against Gersh.

Jeffrey Cremeans, a process server hired by Tanya Gersh's attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a sworn affidavit that he was shopping at a grocery store in a Columbus suburb on Dec. 10 when he saw a man who strongly resembles Anglin at a self-checkout register. Cremeans is "absolutely certain" the man was Anglin, but he didn't have the paperwork on him at the time. Anglin later mocked the process server's claim in social media posts. "There are 2 million people in Columbus metro area. A process server happens by coincidence to run into me in a checkout line," he wrote on his Gab account. "No one (expletive) believes this. It is statistically impossible." Anglin's whereabouts affect jurisdiction and whether the case can proceed. Anglin faces a separate federal lawsuit filed in Ohio by Muslim-American radio host Dean Obeidallah.

(Read more Daily Stormer stories.)
On the heels of reports Chinese ships were transferring oil to North Korean vessels in violation of UN sanctions, South Korea has announced it seized a ship suspected of doing just that last month, the BBC reports. South Korean officials say the Lighthouse Winmore picked up oil supposedly bound for Taiwan on Oct. 11 at a South Korean port before transferring 600 tons of it to a North Korean ship days later in international waters. The Lighthouse Winmore was seized when it returned to South Korea in November. According to the New York Times, the registered owner of the vessel is Hong Kong's Win More Shipping, whose only listed director lives in China. The Lighthouse Winmore's 25-person crewalmost entirely Chinese citizenswill be free to leave South Korea following an investigation, South Korean officials say.

A UN Security Council resolution bans ships from transferring any goods headed to North Korea, and President Trump recently claimed China had been "caught red-handed" facilitating the shipment of oil to North Korea. China denies it, and there's no evidence it was involved in any activity involving the Lighthouse Winmore, which had been leased to a Taiwanese company. Diplomats say the US is pushing the UN Security Council to blacklist 10 ships it accuses of violating international sanctions against North Korea, the Wall Street Journal reports. But China is apparently only agreeing to blacklist four shipsand the Lighthouse Winmore isn't one of them. Meanwhile, Reuters has an exclusive report that Russian tankers have transferred fuel to North Korean ships at sea at least three times recently. (Read more North Korea stories.)
Athlete who killed girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp might meet with her parents in South Africa

(Newser) - The name Oscar Pistorius is once again back in the headlines, this time because he is up for parole. And as the BBC reports, that process might result in him sitting down with the parents of the woman he killed, Reeva Steenkamp. The former South African Olympian fatally shot Steenkamp...
Turkey and Russia have signed an accord regarding the supply of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles to Turkey, CNN Turk and other media reported on Friday, finalising a deal the two countries have been working on for more than a year.

The S-400 deal, reportedly worth about $2.5 billion, has caused concern in the West because Turkey is a member of NATO and the system cannot be integrated into NATO's military architecture.

No details of the accord were available and officials were not immediately available to comment. But Sergei Chemezov, head of the Russian state conglomerate Rostec, told the Kommersant daily on Wednesday Russia would supply Turkey with four batteries of S-400s for $2.5 billion under the deal.

He had said Moscow was expected to begin the first deliveries in March 2020 and that Turkey was the first NATO member state to acquire the advanced S-400 missile system.

Earlier on Friday, Turkish newspapers cited President Tayyip Erdogan as saying Turkey would borrow in roubles in a loan deal under the accord.

Turkey would pay 45 percent of the cost up front, with Russia providing loans to cover the remaining 55 percent, Chemezov had told Kommersant.

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An Iranian official said Friday that 52 people had been arrested in the previous day's protests against high prices that highlighted deep-rooted economic problems in the second city of Mashhad.

Hundreds took to the streets of Mashhad, a site of holy pilgrimage in the northeast of the country, on Thursday with slogans mostly directed at President Hassan Rouhani's government for failing to tackle a range of economic problems.

The head of Mashhad's revolutionary court, Hossein Heidari, said people were arrested for chanting "harsh slogans", the Fars news agency reported.

"We consider protest to be the people's right but if some people want to abuse these emotions and ride this wave, we won't wait and will confront them," Heidari said.

Videos published by a small reformist media group, Nazar, showed people in Mashhad chanting "Death to Rouhani".

More provocatively, there were also chants of "Death to the dictator" and "Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life for Iran" -- a reference to anger in some circles that the government is focusing on the wider region rather than improving conditions at home.

Similar yet smaller protests reportedly took place in a few other cities, responding to calls on the Telegram messaging service for a day of demonstrations to say "No to high prices".

Egg prices have doubled since last week due to the government's culling of millions of chickens diagnosed with avian flu, government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht told reporters on Tuesday.

But the reasons behind the protests were more deeply rooted, according to one local lawmaker.

"There is a major crisis in Mashhad caused by illegal financial institutions," Hamid Garmabi, who represents the city of Neyshabour near Mashhad, told Fars.

He was referring to the mushrooming of unauthorised lending institutions under former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad between 2005 and 2013.

A poorly regulated banking sector combined with a construction boom left many credit companies stuck with toxic debts and unable to repay investors.

Since coming to power in 2013, Rouhani's government has sought to clean up the financial sector, shutting down three of the biggest new credit institutions -- Mizan, Fereshtegan and Samen al-Hojaj.

He has tasked the central bank with reimbursing lost deposits, but progress has reportedly been slow.

Mashhad was one of the worst-hit areas by the closure of Mizan, which had around one million accounts, leading to several protests in the city since 2015 according to the official IRNA news agency.

Other financial scams have also hit the region, notably the collapse in 2015 of a mega project to a build the new town of Padideh next to Mashhad, which left more than 100,000 investors out of pocket.

"The shadow of stagnation in Mashhad and Khorasan Razavi province is more than other places in the country due to the unfortunate investment events in companies such as Padideh, Mizan Financial Institution and other credit funds," a senior housing official in the province told IRNA last year.

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Syrian rebels prepared to evacuate an enclave in southwestern Syria on Friday in a surrender deal with the government, state media said, as the army thrust into the northwest - the insurgents' main remaining stronghold.

Government forces and allied Shia Muslim militias have forced numerous rebel pockets to surrender since Russia brought in heavy air power to help them in 2015, pushing the insurgents into an ever smaller number of enclaves.

The northwestern area around Idlib province is the rebels' most important territory. They also hold a large area bordering Jordan and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights near Deraa in the southwest, as well as scattered pockets elsewhere including eastern Ghouta near Damascus.

Fighters and their families started to leave Beit Jin, 40 km (25 miles) southwest of Damascus, on Friday after losing nearby areas to the army and its allies in heavy fighting earlier this month, state television reported.

Some were heading to Idlib in the northwest, an area controlled by jihadists and the destination for all previous evacuees from surrendered rebel pockets, others to rebel territory in the southwest held by nationalist insurgents.

Beit Jin's location near Israeli-controlled territory made it a strategic flashpoint given the role of Lebanon's Hezbollah group - Israel's sworn enemy - in fighting the rebels there.

Israel has bombed Hezbollah convoys and weapons caches several times in Syria this year and fired on military positions in Syria after projectiles landed in the Golan Heights.

The Syrian army's advance against rebels in the northwest involved bitter fighting and intense air strikes on Thursday and Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor.

Fighting killed dozens on Friday and is concentrated in the village of Abu Dali in southern Idlib after weeks of incremental government gains in adjacent areas of Hama province.

The army has only recently advanced into Idlib for the first time since a string of rebel victories there evicted the government from the province in early 2015.

The government's gains across many fronts have ended rebel hopes of ousting President Bashar al-Assad by force.

On Friday his office distributed photographs of Assad meeting a family in Homs, a sign of his growing comfort travelling around Syria this year after years in which he mostly stayed in Damascus.

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New Delhi:

After Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad demanded ban on new year celebrations in Mangaluru, members (saadhu's) of Sukshetra Kalika Ashram followed a similar line by pening down a letter to Chief Minister of Karnataka, Home Minister of Karnataka and Bengaluru's police commissioner demanding ban on new year celebrations in Bengaluru.A

Shiv Bhagat, Secretary, Kalika Math has said,"after last year's shameful incidents on MG Road, government is still allowing new year celebrations on mg road this year,which is shameful and MG road will become the den of drinkers. By celebrating in this manner they are bringing disrepute to the Hindu nation. We will not tolerate this any longer".A

Shiv Bhagat has threatened that if the government didn't stop new year celebrations,then they will launch protests on 31st December and if any untoward incident happens, government shall be held responsible.

Here is the transcription of the letter written to Chief Minister/Home Minister/Police commissioner Bengaluru....

To

Chief MinisterA Karnataka,

"Despite the shameful incidents that happened last new year, the government is allowing such new year celebrations again. A road named after Mahatma Gandhi will become the den of drinkers.

By celebrating in this manner they are bringing disrepute to the Hindu nation. We will not tolerate this any longer. If the government does not stop this we will launch a protest on December 31.A

The government will be responsible if anything untoward happens then.We are peace lovers, our Hindu nation is a peaceful nation. Do not provoke us. Through this we are giving a call to all Hindu organizations. All Hindu friends, let us join together and stop Bharat mata and Karnataka mata from being dishonoured."

Regards

Shiv Bhagat, secretary,A

Kalikamath
Mumbai :

Actress Twinkle Khanna is celebrating her 43rd birthday in Cape Town with her hubby Akshay Kumar. On her special day, husband Akshay shares a heartfelt message along with a picture on Twitter.

In the picture, the celebrity couple can be seen enjoying ride in a convertible driven by Akshay while Twinkle is sitting beside him.

He wrote, "Forever making every ride full of adventure and amusement, my favourite companion...for life! Happy birthday, Tinaaa.

Last year also Twinkle celebrated her birthday in South Africa along with Akshay and kids.

Meanwhile, Twinkle posted a picture of herself with her father Rajesh Khanna and captioned it aHappy Birthday Dadaa.

Happy birthday Dad A post shared by Twinkle Khanna (@twinklerkhanna) on Dec 28, 2017 at 7:44pm PST

Currently, after giving up acting career, Twinkle Khanna is a successful interior designer and a popular author. On the other hand, Akshay Kumar is a well-known actor in Bollywood and is currently busy in promoting Pad Man.

Helmed by R Balki, Pad Man is an upcoming comedy-drama flick and is based on the life of a social activist from Tamil Nadu, Arunachalam Muruganantham. The film also features Radhika Apte and Sonam Kapoor in lead roles.

The movie is set to hit the theatres on January 26.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

There are some actors who leave behind a very strong legacy which is very difficult to surpass. Bollywoods first ever Superstar Rajesh Khanna was one of them.

The actor who debuted in Hindi cinema with Aakhri Khat would have turned 75 if he were alive today. With his breath-taking smile and alluring charm, Khanna managed to win millions of hearts in his four-long decade.

It was his unique combination of impeccable acting, grace and style which made him a star. The Amar Prem actor portrayed all his roles with ease and was a favourite of both critics and movie lovers.

On his birthday, we pay a tribute to the evergreen actor by going down the memory lane and having a look at his top songs.

# Pyar Deewana Hota Hai (Kati Patang)

# Mere Sapno Ki Rani (Aradhana)

#Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai (Kati Patang)

# Diye Jalte Hain (Namak Haraam)

# Mere Dil Ke Chain (Mere Jeevan Saathi)

#Mere Dil Mein Aaj Kya Hai (Daag

Karvaten Badalte Rahe Saari Raat Hum (Aap Ki Kasam)

#Woh Shaam Kuch Ajeeb Thi (Khamoshi)

#Zindagi Ka Safar Hai Ye Kaisa Safar (Safar)

# Kora Kagaz Tha Ye Man Mera (Aradhana)

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Congress Rajya Sabha MP Pratap Singh Bajwa on Wednesday accused External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for blocking him on Twitter for raising the issue of 39 Indians missing in war-torn Iraq.

Bajwa tweeted, Is this the way to run external affairs ministry? Does it behove the office of Sushma Swaraj Ji to block a Member of Parliament for asking tough questions on 39 missing Indians in Iraq? and shared a screenshot that read @SushmaSwaraj blocked you.

Bajwa discovered that Sushma Swaraj has blocked him on twitter when he wanted to tweet her about the grievances of Sikh community in Hangu district of Pakistans Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province where they are allegedly being forced to convert to Islam.

The Punjab Congress president Bajwa has been accusing the Foreign Minister of misleading the House on 39 Indians missing in war-torn Iraq.

Also Read | Iraq PM Haider al-Abadi declares war with Islamic State is over

The 39 Indians, mostly from Punjab, went missing in Iraqs Mosul when the town was attacked by Islamic State terrorists.

The Congress MP had said that Suhsma Swaraj was misleading the nation when she said that 39 Indians were lodged in a jail in Iraqs Badush town but a TV channel reported that the jail was destroyed by the Islamic State.

Recently, Sushma Swaraj has told Lok Sabha that India has taken the DNA samples of family members of the 39 missing Indians and forwarded them to Iraqi officials for matching them with the mortal remains of mass grave found in Mosul, Badush and surrounding areas.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Mumbai:

At least 14 people were killed and many injured after a major fire broke out in a building in Kamala Mills Compound in Lower Parel, an official said. The fire broke out shortly after midnight on the third floor of the four-storeyed building on Senapati Bapat Marg, a commercial hub of the city, a civic official told PTI.

The injured were taken to the KEM, and Sion hospitals, the official from the BMC disaster management unit said. Several fire tenders, water tankers, emergency ambulance and police personnel rushed to the spot for rescue operation, he said.

"The cooling operations are underway. Some of the injured people are in critical condition," the official said. The injured are undergoing treatment at the civic-run KEM and Sion hospitals, the official from the BMC disaster management unit said.

Several fire tenders, water tankers, emergency ambulance and police personnel rushed to the spot for rescue operation,he said.

The building, in Central Mumbai, houses some commercial establishments including hotels. According to the official, the cause of the fire remains to be ascertained.

Here are the Live updates:

# Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant in Lok Sabha demands a judicial inquiry in the KamalaMills incident

# I have been to Kamala Mills , it is like a bhool bhulaiaya, has narrow lanes. So obviously there has been negligence: Jaya Bachchan,RS MP

# Almost all died to asphyxiation, none of them have died to flames but due to fumes. A proper evacuation plan could have avoided this: Dr. Harish Pathak,Forensic dept head,KEM Hospital

# It is a very unfortunate incident, state govt and BMC will surely inquire into the incident and strict action will be taken against guilty: Hansraj Ahir,MoS Home

# Maharashtra CM expresses grief over loss of lives

# MoS Home Hansraj Ahir spoke to Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis & inquired about the #KamalaMills fire incident

# Mumbai: Top angle view of the #KamalaMills compound in Lower Parel, where fire broke out last night & claimed 14 lives

# Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly, tweets PM Modi

# Mumbai: Top angle view of the #KamalaMills compound in Lower Parel, where fire broke out last night & claimed 14 lives.

# Postmortem reveals that all the 14 deaths were due to suffocation,' Dr.Rajesh Dere, doctor who performed the postmortems

# 14 dead & 14 injured, out of which 2 are critical: BMC on #KamalaMills fire (Earlier visual)

# Disturbing news about the fire in Mumbai. Condolences to the bereaved families and wishing the injured an early recovery. Commend the valiant efforts of fire-fighters and those in rescue ops- President Kovind

# Transmission of the TV channels ET Now, Mirror Now, Zoom & TV9 Marathi affected due to the fire.

#  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

# Last night visuals of fire at #KamalaMills compound in #Mumbai's

# 'All the 12 injured are out of danger now,' Dean of KEM Hospital Avinash Supe; Early morning visuals from KEM hospital

# Transmission of the TV channels ET Now, Mirror Now, Zoom & TV9 Marathi affected due to the fire.

# Twelve killed, 16 injured in Mumbai building fire

# FIR under charges of culpable homicide registered against the restaurant '1 Above' where the fire broke out.

# 14 dead and 12 injured

# 9 dead and 12 injured reported

# Three injured in the fire at Kamala Mills compound

# Fire breaks out in Kamala Mills compound in Lower Parel area of Mumbai. Six fire tenders at the spot.

With PTI Inputs

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New Delhi:

Amid the ongoing war of words between BJP and Shiv Sena leaders on Mumbai Kamala Mills fire that killed at least 14, BJP MP from Mathura Hema Malini has given a bizarre statement on the incident.

Hema Malini has held increasing population of Mumbai responsible for the tragic Kamala Mills fire and praised the efforts of Police.

When asked about the incident, the BJP MP said, This was not an incident where police didnt work. The Police, in fact, did good work. Population is so much; the city is spreading like anything. Some restrictions should be done on the population. Each city should have certain population/limit, after that they should not be allowed. Then let them go to another city.

#WATCH BJP MP Hema Malini says "population is so much, the city is spreading like anything. Some restrictions should be done on the population. Each city should have certain population/limit" #KamalaMillsFire pic.twitter.com/iL2EXdsULh  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

A massive fire that started at a rooftop pub hosting a birthday party spread rapidly through the building, killing 14 people, most of them women, shortly after midnight in central Mumbai's Kamala Mills complex.

Highlights: Mumbai Kamala Mills fire: 5 BMC officials suspended, Maha CM orders probe

The fire, which also injured 21 people, started after 12.30 am in the 1 Above pub on the terrace, and spread to Mojo pub on the third floor one level below.

Most of the victims, who included 11 women, died of asphyxiation, said Avinash Supe, dean of the KEM Hospital where the injured and dead were brought.

Five MBC officials have been suspended and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has ordered an in-depth probe in the incident.

Fadnavis has also directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to carry out a safety audit and demolish illegal structures on war footing.

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New Delhi:

The Himachal Pradesh Congress MLA Asha Kumari alleged had to face severe reverse on Friday when she slapped a woman constable on-duty.

A video shared by News Agency ANI shows Himachal MLA Asha Kumari slapping a police constable who was in security duty outside the venue of Rahul Gandhis review meeting in Shimla.

However, it was not like any other usual incident of politicians assaulting police personnel and this time Asha Kumari messed up with a wrong lady who slapped her right back on the face.

Miffed Congress MLA didnt stop here and again tried to hit the lady constable but by then other people around interfered and stopped the slap-fest getting uglier.

According to the ANI, Asha was trying to forcefully enter the party headquarters in Shimla where Rahul Gandhi was holding a review meeting to assess the Congress's poll performance, but police denied her entry.

The story was not over yet, and Asha Kumari feels the women constable should have used restrain as she was of her mothers age.

However, she also apologized for losing her temper.

She (woman constable) abused me and pushed me, she should have shown restrain, I am her mother's age, but yes I agree I should not have lost my temper. I apologize, the Congress MLA said.

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New Delhi:

The World Bank on Thursday committed USD 40 million (about Rs 260 crore) for the development of tourism facilities in Uttar Pradesh.

An agreement for IBRD credit of USD 40 million from the World Bank for the UP Pro-Poor Tourism Development Project was signed on Thursday, a finance ministry statement said.

The five-year programme is worth approximately USD 57.14 million, of which USD 40 million will be financed by the bank, and the remaining amount will be funded out of state budget, it said.

Read: Fire at Mumbai's Kamala Mills Complex: 16 killed, many injured in building fire

The programme is aimed at increase tourism-related benefits for local communities in targeted destinations, it said.

It is expected to have far-reaching social, economic and environmental benefits by targeting local communities and entrepreneurs near some of the main tourist and pilgrimage attractions in Uttar Pradesh, namely, Agra as well as Mathura, Vrindavan, Barsana and Govardhan in the Braj region.

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New Delhi:

How lucky are those who get to experience the variations caused in time zones and the benefits arising thereof. The astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) will experience the New Years eve 16 times on December 31 as it hovers around the earth every 90 minutes.

This means the ISS and its members will face 16 sunrises and sunsets at 402 kms above the earth, said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The ISS houses six astronauts, three from the US, two Russian and one Japanese who will be having a pretty relaxed schedule for the day, which will consist of family conferences before they take the day off for the New Year.

The current challenge these onboard astronauts are facing is that of health, so they are researching on matters of life sciences to help mission doctors to keep them stronger and healthier.

Doctors measure the astronauts breathing and other parameters during exercise to ensure they have the strength to perform strenuous activities such as spacewalks and even emergency procedures.

Scientists are exploring how plants respond to microgravity and observe molecular and genetic changes.

The US space agency is planning longer human missions beyond low-Earth orbit and learning how to keep crews self- sustainable.

(With PTI inputs)

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Israel has formally notified the UN's culture and education body of its withdrawal from the organisation, two months after it announced it would follow the US by walking out over resolutions critical of Israel.

In a statement UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay said she had been officially notified on Friday that Israel would leave on December 31, 2018.

"I regret this deeply, as it is my conviction that it is inside UNESCO and not outside it that states can best seek to overcome differences in the organization's fields of competence," she said.

The October 12 announcement by the United States that it was pulling out of the organisation underlined Washington's drift away from multilateral institutions under nationalist President Donald Trump.

The US at the time accused UNESCO of having an "anti-Israel bias" -- a sentiment echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who accused UNESCO of becoming "the theatre of the absurd".

Their pullout followed two Arab-sponsored resolutions adopted by Paris-based UNESCO this year which were critical of Israel.

One referred to Israel as "the occupying power" in the divided city of Jerusalem. Another declared the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank a Palestinian World Heritage site.

Tensions had been bubbling since UNESCO controversially admitted Palestine as a member state in 2011 -- a move opposed by the US and Israel, who argue that any recognition of Palestinian statehood must await a negotiated Middle East peace deal.

The US cut funding to UNESCO over the decision, depriving it of around a fifth of its budget.

The 195-member body is best known for producing a list of World Heritage sites that have become tourist favourites.

Israel, which has been a member since 1949, has nine sites on the list, including the ancient Masada fortress next to the Dead Sea.

UNESCO also runs science, educational and cultural programmes, including programmes to educate people about the Holocaust and promote intercultural dialogue.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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New Delhi:

A new water-adapted species of spiders has been discovered and is named after Jamaican reggae legend Bob Marley. This discovery has been associated with Marleys song High Tide or Low Tide by the Researchers.

The study was published in the journal Evolutionary Systematics, researchers from Queensland Museum in Australia and University of Hamburg in Germany described the intertidal spider.

In 2009, the sea along the coastline of Queensland in Australia receded to such an extent that it exposed a population of spiders.

Unlike the spiders which people are familiar with, the intertidal species have adapted to the underwater life by hiding in barnacle shells, corals or kelp holdfast during high tide.

To breathe, they build air chambers from silk. Once the sea water recedes, though, they are out and about hunting small invertebrates that roam the surfaces of the nearby rocks, corals and plants.

The new species, listed under the scientific name of Desis bobmarleyi, is described based on male and female specimens spotted and collected from brain coral.

Both sexes are characterised by predominantly red-brown colours, while their legs are orange-brown and covered with a dense layer of long, thin and dark grey hair-like structures.

The females appear to be larger in size with the studied specimen measuring nearly nine millimetres, whereas the male was about six millimetres long.

While the exact distribution range of the newly described species remains unknown, it is currently recorded from the intertidal zones of the Great Barrier Reef on the north-eastern coast of Queensland.

The song High Tide or Low Tide promotes love and friendship through all struggles of life, researchers said.

It is his music that aided a field trip to Port Douglas in coastal Queensland, Australia, to collect spiders with a highly unique biology, they said.

With PTI Inputs

Scientists have discovered a water-adapted species of spiders and named it after Jamaican reggae legend Bob Marley. In 2009, the sea along the coastline of Queensland in Australia receded to such an extent that it exposed a population of spiders. Researchers associated their emergence with Marley's song "High Tide or Low Tide". In a study published in the journal Evolutionary Systematics, researchers from Queensland Museum in Australia and University of Hamburg in Germany described the intertidal spider. Unlike the spiders which people are familiar with, the intertidal species have adapted to the underwater life by hiding in barnacle shells, corals or kelp holdfast during high tide. To breathe, they build air chambers from silk. Once the sea water recedes, though, they are out and about hunting small invertebrates that roam the surfaces of the nearby rocks, corals and plants. The new species, listed under the scientific name of Desis bobmarleyi, is described based on male and female specimens spotted and collected from brain coral. Both sexes are characterised by predominantly red-brown colours, while their legs are orange-brown and covered with a dense layer of long, thin and dark grey hair-like structures. The females appear to be larger in size with the studied specimen measuring nearly nine millimetres, whereas the male was about six millimetres long. While the exact distribution range of the newly described species remains unknown, it is currently recorded from the intertidal zones of the Great Barrier Reef on the north- eastern coast of Queensland. "The song 'High Tide or Low Tide' promotes love and friendship through all struggles of life," researchers said. "It is his music that aided a field trip to Port Douglas in coastal Queensland, Australia, to collect spiders with a highly unique biology," they said.

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New Delhi:

How is that possible? Isnt it the first question that will strike any of us when we learn that dinosaur eggs with more than 130 million years were found in perfectly preserved condition at a construction site in China.

Workers at Ganzhous Dayu County on December 25, discovered around 30 fossilized eggs lying preserved in a nest in perfect condition at a construction site.

This has given rise to the long existing question that if at all dinosaurs roamed around the parts of Asia.

Dayu County is known as the hometown to dinosaurs where the workers were breaking the ground with explosives and a number of black debris of about 2 mm thickness were discovered. Between the oval rocks.

Immediately after the discovery work at the site were held and the police and other authorities were alerted. The police had sealed the property and the debris.

Experts suggest that these eggs were from Cretaceous period which is by far the last times when these mighty creatures are thought to have existed. The eggs are kept at the museum for further studies.

Also Read: New species of GPO discovered off the coast of Alaska: Scientists

Dinosaurs are estimated to have lived between 230 and 65 million years ago, at a time known as the Mesozoic Era. This was many millions of years before the first modern humans, Homo sapiens, appeared.

A lot of excitement has risen in recent times with film adaptations of dinosaurs starting with Steven Spielbergs, Jurassic Park that was followed by sequels. The latest dinosaur flick, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is slated to release in January 2018.

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Cairo:

A terrorist attack targeted a church in Egypt on Friday killing six people and injuring eight others, the government said.

Some local media outlets reported that a group of terrorists opened fire on the church in Helwan killing at least nine people and injuring five others.

However, the ministry of health said six people were killed and eight others were injured in the attack.

According to the ministry, two of the injured are women.

The ministry that it employed 10 ambulances to transfer the injured to hospitals.

Also Read: IMF approves USD 2 billion loan instalment for Egypt

The attack comes days before the Coptic celebration of the new year and orthodox Christmas Day on January 7.

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New Delhi:

China today rejected accusations that it has helped Pyongyang skirt sanctions after US President Donald Trump claimed Beijing had permitted a transfer of oil to North Korea.

Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea, Trump tweeted yesterday. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!

The US president later told the New York Times that he saw a report on the situation on Fox News that morning.

The recent series of reports on this situation do not conform with the facts, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, adding that Beijing did not allow its citizens or companies to engage in any activities that violate UN resolutions.

The United Nations and Washington have imposed a series of sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear and missile programme in recent months.

Hua said China had looked into the report of a Chinese ship transferring oil to a North Korean vessel and found it to be inaccurate.

There is no record of the (Chinese) vessel visiting a Chinese port since August, Hua said.

I think making pointless hype through the media is not conducive to enhancing mutual trust and cooperation.

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Washington:

President Donald Trump attacked China on Friday following reports that Chinese ships transferred oil to North Korean vessels at sea in violation of UN sanctions over the North's nuclear weapons program.

Trump said on Twitter that China had been "Caught RED HANDED," adding he was "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!" the President said, without citing the source of his information.

China accounts for the vast majority of North Korea's external trade and oil supplies. Just two weeks ago, Trump credited China for its help in the US-led pressure campaign against Pyongyang, including support for three UN Security Council resolutions this year, the latest last week, over the North's nuclear and missile tests.

However, on Tuesday the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo cited unidentified South Korean government officials as saying US reconnaissance satellites have spotted Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels some 30 times since October in seas off China. That report was picked up by some US media outlets, including Fox News.

China's foreign ministry has defended its enforcement of UN sanctions against North Korea. A ministry spokeswoman said on Wednesday she had no information about the latest report, but said China has strictly enforced trade restrictions.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that report. But in a commentary on Thursday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Beijing to exert "decisive economic leverage" on Pyongyang.

"China has applied certain import bans and sanctions, but it could and should do more," he wrote in The New York Times.

Ship-to-ship trade with North Korea at sea is prohibited under UN sanctions adopted on September 11. The latest sanctions adopted on Friday, in response to the test of a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile, also impose sharp reductions on imports of refined oil products by the isolated nation.

In November, the Treasury Department sanctioned six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their vessels, and published photos of what it said was a North Korean vessel on October 19 possibly transferring oil to evade sanctions.

The statement did not specify whether Chinese vessels were involved in the transfer. At that time, the US also blacklisted four Chinese-based companies and one Chinese individual said to have deep commercial ties with North Korea.

Trump has blown hot and cold on China's efforts on North Korea, which despite a dramatic increase in sanctions has made major progress this year on perfecting a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the United States.

On December 15, Trump said Russia, another significant trading partner with North Korea, had failed to help, while China had.

"China is helping. Russia is not helping. We'd like to have Russia's help, very important," Trump told reporters after a phone conversation with President Vladimir Putin.

Also Read: Muhajirs in US welcome Trump's move to put Pakistan on notice

Also, on Friday, Trump sought to remind the world that he's long warned about the dangers posed by North Korea's nukes. He tweeted a compilation video that included edited footage of an interview he did with NBC's "Meet the Press" nearly two decades ago.

In the interview, Trump said he'd be willing to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea if negotiating "like crazy" didn't work. And he describes the country as "sort of wacko."

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Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law Friday a bill toughening sentences for terrorist recruitment as the country deals with the issue of returning Islamist militants from Syria.

Official publication of the law came two days after a bomb attack on a supermarket in Saint Petersburg, Russia's second city, injured 14 people.

The new law, which parliament voted through on December 14 and the upper chamber approved on December 26, immediately raises the maximum sentence for terrorist recruitment and finance to life from 10 years.

Russia's military intervened in Syria in September 2015 to shore up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and combat Islamist militants, making Russia a major target for such groups.

After Putin announced a partial troop withdrawal earlier this month, security services voiced fears of Islamist militants returning to Russia from Syria after the Islamic State group (IS) lost most of its self-proclaimed caliphate straddling Syria and Iraq.

Putin called Wednesday's blast in his home city of Saint Petersburg an "act of terror" and Thursday warned armed criminals they faced being "liquidated on the spot."

Russia's FSB security service said two weeks ago it had broken up an IS cell planning a December 16 terror attack at an Orthodox cathedral in Saint Petersburg, a key tourist attraction.

That attack was foiled with the help of America's CIA, which led Putin to thank US President Donald Trump.

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A 44-year-old male musician from Canada has been sent to prosecutors for attempting to smuggle nearly 10 kilograms of stimulant drugs through Narita International Airport earlier this month, reports Nikkan Sports.

According to customs officials and police, Daniel Burton Whitmore was found to have 9.8 kilograms of kakuseizai, or stimulant drugs, concealed inside a guitar case upon arrival on a flight from Canada at the airport on December 11.

The contraband has an estimated value of 627 million yen, police said.

"I was supposed to carry a guitar case as requested by a Chinese-based person in Canada," Whitmore told police. "I was scheduled to deliver it to a hotel in Narita City." He was sent to prosecutors on Thursday.

The drugs were concealed in a hidden compartment built into a panel of the guitar case and canisters of tea. Customs officials became suspicious after noticing the weight of the case seemed high. A X-ray examination later revealed the contraband.

Dec 29 (ANNnewsCH) - eseac10aaaaaaaaaaaaes aaaeaaaaaaYaaaaaaSaaacaeaeeaaaaaYa
An unemployed 46-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after he stabbed his 74-year-old mother in the back at their apartment in Kawasaki, Kanazawa Prefecture.

According to police, the suspect, Yoichi Hibiya, stabbed his mother Mitsuki Kawai, with whom he lives, on Wednesday afternoon, using a knife with a 16-cm-long blade, Sankei Shimbun reported. He then called 119 to report what he had done.

Kawai was taken to hospital but her wound is not life-threatening, police said.

Police said Hibiya has admitted to the charge and quoted him as saying he lost his temper after he and his mother got into an argument.
iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- A police chase in Oregon this week ended with a fleeing suspect driving off a pier at full speed into the Columbia River.

Timofey Erofeeff, 27, was allegedly trespassing at a marina in Astoria, Oregon, according to the Daily Astorian, when the police chase was triggered.

The unbelievable video shows the rest, as Erofeeff drove his truck right off the end of a pier. Police estimated he was driving 45 mph at the time he launched into the river.

According to Clatsop County Sheriff records, he has been charged with six counts, including attempt to elude, criminal trespass, escape, interfering with an officer, offensive littering and reckless driving.

Astoria police shared another video of a crane fishing the truck from the river on Thursday.

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DANBURY - The revamped website of the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce includes all the bells and whistles of a modern site, including a Member Information Center where users may find business profiles, job openings and special offers.

The site also includes a new events calendar, business directory and refreshed look. The new site comes as the city of Danbury recently launched #DiscoverDanbury, a web-based community engagement platform.

Commerce functions at its best when business relationships are forged and resources utilized to their fullest potential, creating a partnership for the betterment of the region, JoAnn Cueva, acting president of the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce, said in a release. The Chamber is your business advocate working with, and for, you to help you meet your business objectives. Our new and improved website is just one of the ways were helping our members share their information with the community and, forge new business-to-business relationships with one another.

The Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce has about 800 members, representing a workforce of more than 105,000 individuals. Members come from a diverse range of industries, including manufacturing, technology, retail, and service. The size of members range from sole proprietors to corporations of more than 2,000 employees.

The Chambers new site - still at wwwdanburychamber.com -- gives members access to tools to promote their business, such as coupons, hot deals, profiles and job listings. There are also links for businesses to access press releases and network with other members.

The city of Danburys #DiscoverDanbury, found at the citys main website, has similar community features such as calendars built on user-submissions and other user-generated information. Local residents, businesses and organizations may submit information for free.

Businesses may submit information to be listed on an interactive map for free, or they can buy an annual premium listing that will give them their own webpage off of the map.

Businesses may create a free CivicLift profile through www.discoverdanbury.live.

One of the primary purposes of my job as Mayor is to help all of our residents stay active and engaged in our community. DiscoverDanbury.live is an out of the box initiative that accomplishes this in the current technical age, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said in a statement. The #DiscoverDanbury campaign will give  businesses the means necessary to communicate with a wide consumer-base here in Danbury.

cbosak@hearstmediact.com; 203-731-3338
Over the past few months, the Blockchain ecosystem has grown tremendously. Not only have cryptocurrencies continued to rise in value, with Bitcoin nearing $19,000 on December 16; but a number of emerging startups have entered the blockchain battlefield.

Related: 5 Sectors Blockchain Is Disrupting That Are Not Cryptocurrency

Though many of these fledgling projects seem poised to have a foundational impact on our global economy, it can be difficult to filter out the needles from the growing haystack.

Taking the time to understand the nuances of this technology can help guide your investment thesis and pay dividends in the long term. At its most basic level, as defined by the podcast Future Thinkers, Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that provides a way to record and transfer data safely and transparently. Theoretically, we can leverage this technology to optimize industries, eradicate the need for costly intermediaries and create secure marketplaces.

Related: 6 Reasons Why Blockchain is Worth Getting Excited About

While the time scale for this disruption is yet to be determined, there are a number of promising areas for implementation. Here are four of the industries most likely to be disrupted by Blockchain systems:

1. International logistics

Free trade is stitched into the fabric of the international economy. Though critical, this multi-trillion-dollar sector is largely run on legacy infrastructure that is incredibly inefficient, costly and sluggish. Plagued by a host of error-prone intermediary parties, the logistics industry is overdue for a serious overhaul.

One example of a company at the forefront of this is Shipchain. Shipchain is building a fully integrated Blockchain system to unify the modern supply chain. By logging transactions via an encrypted public ledger, the platform will provide users with complete control over and access to the status of their shipments. This will give entrepreneur-customers a top-down view of their products movements.

The logistics industry is notoriously complex, with dozens of intermediary parties who broker each and every transaction. This not only fragments ownership among independent stakeholders but also slows down the shipping process in general. Furthermore, the industry runs largely on legacy processes, like pen and paper, which are due for an upgrade.

2. Health care

For years now, everyone has been talking about amending our broken healthcare system, but no one has ever been able to actually do it at scale. A primary reason is that hospitals lack a secure hub to store and share confidential patient information. As a result, this information often leaks due to cyberattacks. This is a major security concern in hospitals around the country, which are facing growing threats of hacking.

Replacing this dated system, Blockchain technologies will empower hospitals, along with other healthcare providers, with the tools they need to efficiently and safely store intimate information. Over time, we'll be able to leverage insights gleaned from this store of data to provide better care for patients and improve the industry.

Furthermore, we'll use the information and lessons collected in hospitals to better inform researchers, thus boosting health services at all levels.

3. Real estate

As evidenced by housing bubbles of years past, the real estate industry is certainly vulnerable to widespread corruption and abuse. Much of this is due to paper-based record-keeping that is prone to mistakes and costly to maintain. Furthermore, there are tedious, slow-moving processes that need to be completed by multiple intermediaries. As a result, fraud is rampant throughout the real estate community, driving up the cost of doing business.

Blockchain offers an opportunity to reduce the need for these dated systems and employ intelligent technology to automate manual processes. Companies like TrustToken, for instance, are bridging the gap between the trillions of dollars of real-world assets, like rental properties and timeshares, and the frontier technology of Blockchain. Users, the TrustToken platform claims, can easily tokenize and trade assets on a global liquid exchange.

Effectively, companies in this category can eliminate the threat of bad actors by aligning incentives among platform participants, thus helping to ensure the accuracy of ownership and verify identities. "Tokenization" of real estate will enable unprecedented exposure to real estate markets for investors around the world.

4. Government

Due to misaligned incentives and human error, government processes are notoriously slow, opaque and prone to manipulation. The reality is that we cannot afford to rely on a number of different stakeholders with such unfettered power to manage our futures.

Clever implementation of Blockchain-based systems will allow us to hold politicians more accountable, thereby radically increasing transparency in government offices. The government will no longer be a big black box that collects our taxes, but rather an open and inclusive system that serves the people. We can also increase the security of government intel, using cryptographically encrypted blockchain ledgers to keep government data safe.

Related: Beyond Cryptocurrency: 5 Do's and Don'ts for Using Blockchain in Your Business

Furthermore, we'll be able to use Blockchain to solve one of the weakest points of the American democracy: the election system. The technology will allow us to securely and sustainably transition to a completely electronic voting system, to remove any threat of voter fraud. Now, that's good news for this new year and many more to come.

Related:

4 Trillion-Dollar Industries Blockchain Is Poised to Disrupt -- in a Good Way

Blockchain-based Business Integration with Unibyte

5 Signs an Initial Coin Offering Is a Scam



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


Entrepreneur Network

Award-winning Chef Bill Kim was born in Seoul, Korea and immigrated to the United States at age 7. His first formal kitchen duty -- roasting sesame seeds and grinding them using a mortar and pestle for his mothers kimchi recipe -- sparked his interest in pursuing a culinary career.

Since then, Kim has gone to Paris, New York and Philadelphia to work beside some of the best chefs in the world, before settling in Chicago.
We love routine. Doing the same thing over and over, day in and day out, is safe, predictable, and yet it lulls us into complacency. When the train shows up at the same time every morning, we know everything is okay. We can settle into a groove, get our work done and go about our lives smoothly, unruffled. In short, we like being comfortable.

Our comfort zones, however, can become incubators of stasis. While we might feel cozy planning our days around habitual behavior, it is easy to fall into the trap of staying the same and never changing.

Related: Your Comfort Zone Is Killing Your Success

Particularly for entrepreneurs, stasis is our enemy. If things arent changing, we arent growing. If we and our businesses arent growing, we will quickly become irrelevant.

To grow both personally and professionally requires us to step out of our comfort zones, even if only slightly. Doing things that make you uncomfortable can teach you more about yourself, your personality and your potential.

Here are a few ways that you can step out of your comfort zone and improve your life and business in the process:

1. Dont dive into the deep end (until youre ready).

Taking a step outside of your comfort zone is uncomfortable by definition. Phoning a potential client or CEO of a major corporation can be daunting. By doing so, however, you open yourself and your business to opportunities that you would never have thought possible. Though Hollywood is laced with big break stories, the truth is opportunity presents itself to those who go looking for it.

We all know that the more sales conversations we have, the more conversions well make, and yet, how many of your day-to-day activities revolve around having these conversations? How many more clients could you bring into your business if you got out from behind your computer and started meeting people face-to-face?

Start small. Rather than attempting to making ten cold calls, how about making one call? Or, better yet, making one call a day for five days?

2. What are you afraid of?

Comfort zones are just that, comfortable. They are full of the things that make us feel safe and are devoid of things that we fear. But we cant land that big client if we dont reach out and risk rejection, which almost everyone fears.

Related: 5 Ways Criticism and Rejection Builds Your Capacity to Succeed

Public speaking is most peoples number one fear, and yet, you cant present your product to a room of a thousand people any other way. You cant become a thought leader without sharing your thoughts with the world and risking criticism.

Most things that were afraid of -- rejection, criticism, failure -- are not as terrible as we make them out to be. Weve all been rejected and criticized, and weve all failed at one time or another. And, we lived to tell the tale. Most of our fears have no real-life danger attached to them. Its been years since our supper depended on wrestling a wooly mammoth, mano y mano.

So ask yourself this question, What am I afraid of? Whats the worst that can happen? As you realize that the worst is survivable, and most likely improbable, you gain will courage to take the necessary risks to move your business forward.

3. Get out of your own way.

Most obstacles that we have to overcome in moving our business to the next level are our own. Its not Jeff Bezos whos rejecting us or our offer, its we who talk ourselves out of calling him. Yes, he may reject our offer, but well never know unless we step out of our comfort zone and initiate the call.

If your business idol is attending the same mixer as you, dont talk yourself out of introducing yourself. Make the connection. Or even better, if you know ahead of time she will be at that event, plan what you will say to get and maintain her attention.

Related: 7 Mistakes Standing Between You and Your Big Break

Big breaks rarely come knocking on our door. Rather, we have to get out of our comfort zones to meet them.

4. Repetition, repetition, repetition.

Step out of your comfort zone and confront your fears regularly. Each time you step a little outside of your comfort zone, you are training yourself to be comfortable with discomfort, much in the same way as you train a muscle group at the gym.

As you become increasingly more comfortable with the discomfort, youll find you have turned your old discomfort into a new comfort zone. When this happens, step outside again, a little at a time and train the next comfort zone. Youll find yourself getting closer to your goals as you develop new comfort zones along the way.

Related:

How to Take 4 Strategic Steps Outside of Your Comfort Zone

4 Tips to Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone and Living Your Dream Life

5 Entrepreneurs Who Changed Careers at Midlife and Triumphed



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


Craig Gralley spent more than 30 years at the CIA, where he worked as a chief speechwriter for three agency directors: William Webster, Robert Gates, and R. James Woolsey Jr. When Gralley, now 62, retired from Langley in 2013, he began writing in the voice of someone quite different: legendary World War II spy Virginia Hall, a woman known as "The Limping Lady."

For the past four years, Gralley, who still works as a part-time CIA contractor, has been researching Hall's life for a book. Not a work of nonfiction, though. Two Hall biographies already exist, and another volume - along with a movie starring Daisy Ridley of "Star Wars" - is apparently on the way.

Instead Gralley has written a novel, tentatively titled "Hall of Mirrors," that he hopes to sell to a publisher. It's narrated in the first-person, in the voice of Hall, who worked for the British in France during World War II and later became a CIA officer. The Maryland-born operative helped organize the French resistance against the Nazis and once fled the Gestapo by hiking through the Pyrenees on a wooden prosthetic leg she nicknamed Cuthbert.

At a time when few women worked as spies, Hall went on to work for the Office of the Strategic Services, the CIA's precursor, and then the CIA itself before retiring at the age of 60 in 1966. She became such a celebrated figure at Langley that the agency named a training facility after her earlier this year called "The Virginia Hall Expeditionary Center."

Although Gralley's book is a piece of fiction, it is based on a surfeit of facts. He hiked Hall's route through the Pyrenees and unearthed hundreds of documents related to her career from the National Archives in Britain, many of which have not circulated beyond the collection, he said.

He shared two typed letters to Nicolas Boddington, a senior official at the Special Operations Executive, the British wartime spy service. (Multiple spellings of Boddington's first and last name appear online.) These are not mere greetings, however. Gralley said Hall, a former code clerk for the U.S. Department of War, encrypted them.

She had to work as covertly as possible. By August 1941, she had established a headquarters in southern France and was passing along intelligence about the Vichy government and the underground resistance movement to her British spymasters. Armed with forged documents, she disguised herself as a New York Post reporter, according to an article Gralley wrote earlier this year for "Studies in Intelligence," a CIA publication. All the while, she was cultivating a network of spies in France, supporting British agents with weapons and supplies, and offering safe houses to British operatives. Hall became so well-known that even the Gestapo's chief, Klaus Barbie, known as the "Butcher of Lyon," began hunting for her.

"My dear Nic," she wrote on May 1, 1942 from her perch in Vichy France. "All things in series of three, as usual, a cold in the head, an ache in the thorax and mingled snow, rain and slush out of doorsThe dark days are fairly abysmal and a short English word describes one's mood.I have hoped for many days to go yodelling in the delightful, peaceful neighboring country, but alas for some bloody idiocy the usual keenness for new hotel guests is momentarily dampened by horrid suspicions which like an old fashioned detective story has tendencies toward complications lurid and even spectacular. Nerts, and nerts again! I get so 'fed up.' Queer, ain't it?"

By early November, after their defeat in North Africa, the German forces swept into France's free zones. Hall was convinced they would close down the borders. She knew she had to escape quickly, even if she was hobbled by Cuthbert, her seven-pound wooden leg, which she had relied on after a hunting accident. She teamed up with resistance members and left France on Nov. 11 to cross into the Pyrenees, seeking refuge in Spain. When she reached Spain a few days later, she got arrested for illegally crossing the border.

While she was incarcerated, Hall somehow managed to smuggle out another letter to Boddington - a letter Gralley said he believes she must have written in France before her trek through the Pyrenees. The letter is dated Nov. 25, 1942. Hall was still in a Spanish prison. She wasn't freed until early December.

So how did Hall get the letter out from her cell?

"She might have been able to bribe someone," Gralley said. "Also, her cellmate was a Spanish prostitute who got out before Hall's release. She could have taken the letter to the U.S. or British consulate."

Regardless, the note is mystifying, comically so. Several letters are circled and underlined. Those are the markings of British spy officials, Gralley said, searching for clues in the patterns of her words and letters.

"My dear Nic," she wrote on Nov. 25, 1942. "You were probably as stunned as we by the news of Weygand's departure. An event quickly arranged and greatly surprising the poor populace which thought that the tenacity of the umpire, I mean the chef d'Etat was no Kedegerris. Unfortunately the old fellow is not uninfluenced by all his horrid queezy ministers, although knowing that this beastly business of kowtowing means the quagmire for the country. Alas! there is however a new rumour, one which I can not check but on which I do not look haughtily. Strange things - you know - often do happen."

Hall was eventually released from prison. In the spring of 1944, she signed up with the OSS and worked her way back to France, now entirely occupied by the Nazis. While she was away, the OSS sent letters back to her mother, Barbara Hall, who was living outside Baltimore. Here, again, is where Gralley's digging paid off. He came across a series of letters the OSS sent Hall's mother, reassuring her of Hall's safety, but omitting any frightening details.

"My dear Mrs. Hall," a military official wrote on June 2, 1944. "From a security point of view there is little I am permitted to tell you about your daughter's work. For this I am sorry; it may however be of some consolation to you to know that my own husband knows absolutely nothing of my work; and such is the case of the family of every soldier in our forces. But this I can tell you: that your daughter is with the 1st Experimental Detachment of the U.S. Army; that she is doing an important and time-consuming job which has necessitated a transfer from London, and which will reduce her correspondence to a minimum."

A few months later, Hall's mother received another letter.

"You must not worry, Mrs. Hall," the official wrote on August. 23, 1944. "Virginia is doing a spectacular, man-sized job, and her progress is rapid and sure. You have every reason to be proud of her."

Gralley, who lives in Great Falls, Virginia, said he approached writing from the perspective of a woman with great care. He selected a female professor for his final workshop at Johns Hopkins, where he got a master's degree in creative writing, and asked her and fellow female students to critique portions of his manuscript.

"They wouldn't let me get away with anything that was less than authentic," Gralley said.

He also modeled Hall based on his own observations of agency women who served in hazardous postings overseas.

"To be successful officers they have to be tough and confident," he said. "That's Virginia Hall."

- - -

Part of a continuing series about facets of the past that remain relevant.
TSX Venture Exchange: NEV

VANCOUVER, Dec. 29, 2017 /CNW/ - Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise" or the "Company") (TSXV: NEV) is pleased to announce it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 100% interest in the historic Lovelock Cobalt Mine property (the "Lovelock Mine", or the "Property"), located in Churchill County, approximately 100 miles (150 kilometres) east of Reno, Nevada. For further details about the Lovelock Mine, please see Nevada Sunrise news releases dated November 21, 2017 and December 14, 2017).

Terms of the Agreement

The terms of the definitive agreement (the "Agreement") provide for the Company to earn a 100% interest in the Property in consideration for cash payments and common shares payments to an underlying vendor (the "Vendor") payable over 3 years from the signing of the Agreement, subject to a 2.0% net smelter returns royalty ("NSR"), as follows:

A $3,000 cash payment for an exclusive due diligence period (paid);

cash payment for an exclusive due diligence period (paid); On the later of TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") approval and signing of the Agreement:

$15,000 in cash and 200,000 common shares of the Company;

in cash and 200,000 common shares of the Company; 1st Anniversary: $20,000 in cash and 200,000 common shares of the Company;

2nd Anniversary: $25,000 in cash and 250,000 common shares of the Company;

3rd Anniversary: $30,000 in cash and 300,000 common shares of the Company.

Closing of the acquisition is subject to acceptance of the Agreement by the TSX Venture Exchange. Nevada Sunrise will have the right to accelerate the timing of cash payments to the Vendor at its discretion. On or before the 10th anniversary of the execution of the Agreement, Nevada Sunrise shall have the right to purchase 50% of the NSR (i.e. 1% NSR interest) for US$1,500,000. An area of interest applies to the current boundaries of the Property.

For further information about the Lovelock Mine, please visit the Company's website at: http://www.nevadasunrise.ca/projects/lovelock-cobalt-mine/

About Nevada Sunrise

Nevada Sunrise is a junior mineral exploration company with a strong technical team based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, that holds interests in gold, cobalt and lithium exploration projects in the State of Nevada, USA.

The Company's two key gold assets include a 100% interest in the Golden Arrow project near Tonopah, currently the subject of an option earn-in transaction with Emgold Mining Corporation (TSXV: EMR) and a 21% interest in a joint venture with Liberty Gold Inc. (TSX: LGD, formerly Pilot Gold Inc.) at Kinsley Mountain near Wendover, with each of the properties subject to certain production royalties.

In November 2017, Nevada Sunrise announced an option to earn a 100% interest in the historic Lovelock Cobalt Mine property, located approximately 100 miles (150 kilometres) east of Reno.

Nevada Sunrise began acquisitions of Nevada lithium properties in 2015, which includes 100% interests in the Neptune, Jackson Wash and Aquarius projects, a 50% interest in the Gemini project (Eureka Resources Inc. (TSXV: EUK) holds a 50% interest), and the right to earn 100% of the Atlantis project, currently under option to American Lithium Corp. (TSXV: LI).

Forward Looking Statements

All statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements that address future mineral production, reserve potential, exploration drilling, the future price of gold and other metals and minerals, potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, potential size of a mineralized zone, potential expansion of mineralization, the timing and results of current or future mineral resource estimates, or other study, proposed exploration and development of our exploration properties and the estimation of mineral resources. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "project", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "intends", "believe", "potential", and similar expressions, or describes a "goal", or variation of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "should", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievement of Nevada Sunrise to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information.

Such factors include, among others, risks related to the interpretation and actual results of historical work at the Lovelock Mine property, reliance on technical information provided by third parties on any of our exploration properties, including access to historical information on the Lovelock Mine property, current exploration and development activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; current economic conditions; future prices of commodities; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the failure of contracted parties to perform; failure of Nevada Sunrise to complete anticipated work programs; labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals, financing or in the completion of exploration, as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for the Nine Months ended June 30, 2017, which is available under Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com

Although Nevada Sunrise has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Nevada Sunrise disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and accordingly are subject to change after such date. Except as otherwise indicated by Nevada Sunrise, these statements do not reflect the potential impact of any non-recurring or other special items or of any dispositions, monetizations, mergers, acquisitions, other business combinations or other transactions that may be announced or that may occur after the date hereof. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans and allowing investors and others to get a better understanding of our operating environment. Nevada Sunrise does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that are included in this document, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this release. The Securities of Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to the account or benefit of any U.S. person.

SOURCE Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation

For further information: Warren Stanyer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Telephone: (604) 428-8028, Facsimile: (604) 484-7143, email: [email protected]

Related Links

www.nevadasunrise.ca


Acute senses, especially hearing, allow foxes to hunt effectively in different environmental conditions. This composite of images was also taken in Yellowstone National Park and shows how the animals precision is combined with a well-rehearsed routine. After locating a target, it will leap high enough to punch through the deep snow; sometimes remaining upside-down for several seconds after landing.

More often than not these hunts are successful, but the vole this fox was after made a lucky escape this time.

While foxes hunt and forage alone, they come together to mate and raise their young. Fox cubs (or kits) are born in spring and families remain together until the autumn. After a couple of months of feeding her cubs with regurgitated food, a vixen will start to deliver live prey to her young to help develop their hunting skills.
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I felt like Santa Claus earlier this month  the Amazon.com version, at least.

Ive spent the past few weekends trying my hand as a driver for Amazon Flex, the companys Uber-esque platform that lets everyday people like you and me deliver packages with our own cars.

The program, which debuted in 2015 and is now active in 50 cities, helps Amazon complete the last mile for customer orders  the final stretch of a delivery that is short in distance, yet often the most expensive part of the e-commerce supply chain. Its becoming increasingly important as Amazons shipping costs could balloon to $7 billion this holiday quarter while the tech giant meets growing customer expectations  in particular from its Prime members, who pay $99 per year to receive free 2-day shipping on millions of items, among other benefits.

Amazon Flex covers not only Amazon.com orders, but also items from Prime Now, the companys two-hour delivery service; AmazonFresh, its grocery delivery service; and Amazon Restaurants.

My experience thus far has been fascinating and actually sort of fun during the holidays, when many are relying on Amazon for their gift shopping. Its not a glamorous high-paying job by any means  youre a contractor, not an employee, using your own car and paying for your own gas without any direct benefits from Amazon. But its also relatively simple, thanks to Amazons impressive technology and demand for more people to deliver packages.

RELATED VIDEO: Amazon Prime Expands to More Than 8,000 Cities For Last-Minute Shopping

Now Playing: Amazon Prime Expands to More Than 8,000 Cities For Last-Minute Shopping Amazon Prime will now accommodate folks countrywide by making its service available to more than 8,000 cities. That means same-day delivery and free one-day shipping. Once more, Amazon also says that customers can expect orders placed just before Christmas to be delivered on the same day. Just a reminder: Amazon doesnt control some of the logistics for actually delivering many orders. Deliver companies, like UPS and DHL, have said that the excess amount of holiday packages has caused delays. Video: Wibbitz

The slick Amazon Flex app powers everything, from scanning your packages at a pickup center, to figuring out what routes to take, to ultimately confirming that an order has been delivered  which includes taking photos of packages left at a doorstep.

Ive done two shifts for Amazon.com orders and made $118.50 total, not counting gas expenses and overall wear and tear on my car. They were quite different  one evening I only had to deliver three packages and made $60, while a week later I spent nearly three hours on a Saturday afternoon stopping at more than 35 different houses within a half-mile of each other. (Note: Im donating my earnings to GeekWires Geeks Give Back campaign to support the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship)

Its funny watching customer reactions when a guy in a beanie, hoodie, and sweatpants  not a uniformed UPS or USPS driver, for example  shows up on their doorstep, package in hand.

Are they doing private deliveries now? asked one nice elderly woman as she did a double-take.

(Side note: Amazon says you are free to choose your attire while delivering for Amazon Flex.)

To become a Flex driver for Amazon.com deliveries, you need to meet some basic requirements; a smartphone and a 4-door vehicle for starters. Amazon also runs a background check and asks you to watch a series of instructional videos that are always accessible on the app. Other than that, its pretty easy to join the program.

Once activated on Flex, you find work by checking on available blocks that Amazon offers, which frequently change and vary on time, pay, and pickup location.

First day on the job

For my first attempt, I chose a $60 three-hour shift from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on a Sunday evening, starting from the pickup center in Seattles Georgetown neighborhood. The app pushed a notification one hour prior, providing me directions to the center.

I rolled up and waited in a long line of cars also working the same shift. I had a nervous excitement, kind of like arriving on the first day of a job. After driving into the warehouse and parking, I found an Amazon rep who had a QR code I scanned with the app that checked me in. He noted that there werent a ton of packages to be delivered on this particular night.

The evening shift seemed to consist partly of packages that couldnt be delivered by other drivers during the day. I was only given three orders, all of which were to customers in the Bellevue area, east of Seattle.

I scanned each package with the app and put them in my car. One was extremely heavy and large; I wondered how I was going to actually get this to someones doorstep by myself.

When I was ready to leave, the app automatically directed me to the first stop, as decided by Amazons algorithms. You can also choose your own route and order of delivery, but I followed what Amazon provided. The maps software is based on HERE, originally developed by Nokia. Amazon may be avoiding Google Maps or Apple Maps because it wants to keep its delivery data close to the vest.

After arriving at the first house, the app automatically knew where I was and prompted me to scan the package. It noted that there was no recipient needed, meaning I did not have to hand the package to a person. I rang the doorbell  Amazon recommends this for deliveries before 8 p.m.  and handed off the box to my first customer. Amazon asked me where I left the package  the recipient; a receptionist; front door; back door; secure mailroom; etc.  and I checked off the appropriate box.

Next up was an apartment, which proved to be much more complicated. The recipient did provide an access code, but it was difficult finding the specific complex, especially in the dark. I spent an extra ten minutes trying to locate the actual apartment.

Finally, I arrived at the door and knocked. No one responded. This was another no recipient needed, but when I selected the front door, the app asked me to take a photo of where I left the package. This was one of several times during my Amazon Flex work when I thought about the increasing number of package thefts and what companies are doing to prevent them.

The app does provide a way to call the customer or Amazon support, which is helpful. If youre unable to deliver a package, you drive back to the pickup center when your shift is complete and drop it off.

On the way to my third delivery, I had some time left in my block, so I stopped for a quick bite at Burgermaster  a classic joint around Seattle, and a favorite of Bill Gates.

Speaking of Gates, my third and final package was addressed to a home in his Medina neighborhood. It wasnt for the Microsoft co-founder, but the home seemed like a mansion at the end of a windy road. The package itself was massive, and I barely could lift it up the stairs to the doorstep. It seemed a little unreasonable for Amazon to expect a Flex driver to deliver this box, particularly to this specific home, without any help from a trolley or cart.

The customer greeted me at the door and had a lot of questions: why was I driving a regular car? Does Amazon deliver on Sunday?

My job was done after 71 minutes and 20 miles of driving, with a burger break in between  not bad for $60. Amazon asked a few survey questions at the end of the shift as a way for me to provide feedback.

My next Flex experience was much, much different.

41 packages, 3 hours, $58.50

I nabbed a 3-hour shift on a Saturday afternoon, set to start at a facility in North Seattle. This one was much different  not a big warehouse, but a small dedicated Amazon Flex office with a parking lot.

I parked, walked into the office, and checked in by scanning a QR code. Shortly after that, a friendly attendant lifted a blue cover off of this:

GeekWire

41 packages? For me? In my car? Wowza.

The attendant told me that 15 packages per hour was the average workload, so I prepared myself for a full 3-hour shift.

I had watched some how-to Amazon Flex videos on YouTube uploaded by other couriers and learned that some people strategically organized packages in their vehicle depending on address and drop-off order, to speed up the delivery process.

After scanning each package with my smartphone, I wasnt quite sure how to position each box in my car to optimize for efficiency. I wish Amazon made this process more systemic, because I ended up spending a lot of time searching for the right package during my drive.

This shift took much longer than my first  two hours and 25 minutes  but I drove less than 10 miles. Some quick observations from this particular shift:

All 41 packages were within a one-mile radius. At some points there were deliveries for three consecutive houses  it was another reminder of how dominant Amazon has become.

I saw several Ring doorbells, which seem like a good way to prevent package theft or at least have a way to see whats going on your doorstep.

When I had an issue, the app seemed to have an answer. For example, sometimes my GPS wouldnt detect that I was at a particular address and the app wouldnt allow me to continue with a delivery. However there was an option in the app  Im at the address but my GPS isnt working  that let you continue, which was clutch.

I felt a little nervous leaving my car running while I made a delivery  I had 41-plus packages in the back of my car that were clearly visible.

I also wondered if people thought I was a porch pirate, given my attire and how I was walking around carrying Amazon boxes. This article notes Amazon drivers being confused for thieves.

Sometimes it was tough finding a safe place to park, especially on busy streets.

The work was somewhat labor intensive  getting in and out of your car each time, carrying heavy packages, etc.

I forgot to scan one package at the outset, so I had to bring it back to the Amazon Flex pickup facility when my shift was over.

Analysis

Amazon Flex, like other gig economy services such as Uber or Postmates, provides people with an easy way to make some cash. Signing up is simple; the work isnt too demanding; and you get paid within a few days.

Amazon says you can make up to $18-to-$25 per hour. After subtracting costs of gas; parking/tolls; smartphone data usage; and wear and tear of your car, the pay seems to be a little more than minimum wage. The job can also get stressful when you deal with apartment buildings, app errors, or other problems.

But being able to pick from plenty of shifts and make a quick buck is pretty nice, especially if youre trying to pay a bill or supplement your primary income. To that point, it would be difficult to justify doing Amazon Flex for a full-time gig.

Amazon Flex provides a flexible opportunity for Delivery Partners looking to turn free time into supplemental or part-time income, Amazons FAQ page reads. The available delivery blocks may fluctuate week to week and are not guaranteed.

My experience so far has been pretty smooth, but a quick look on Glassdoor and Indeed reveals some complaints. Other Flex drivers are also suing Amazon, claiming that they should be treated as employees, not contractors.

This Gizmodo story also described Amazon Flex as a network of supposedly self-employed, utterly expendable couriers enrolled in an app-based program which some believe may violate labor laws. It noted that government agencies and customers alike are nearly oblivious to the programs existence.

Does Amazon Flex make sense economically for the company? Amazon paid me $60 to deliver three packages  not so sustainable  but it also paid me $58.50 to deliver 41 packages, which comes out to about $1.50 per order.

Its unclear how that stacks up to a paying a company like UPS, or a third-party delivery provider like OnTrac. One thing is certain: Amazons drones, if they ever make it, would be much more cost-effective.

So why did Amazon launch Amazon Flex? Put simply, the company needs help. Long ago, Amazon relied on USPS and UPS to get its packages delivered. Fast forward to today, though, and the company is not only selling more products on its site, but also guaranteeing speedy delivery to customers, in particular its valuable Prime members.

Amazon Flex is just one part of the companys expansive logistics network. As it continues to make more first- and third-party products available on its site, many of which are eligible for 2-day shipping, Amazon is looking at new ways to manage and deliver the inventory.

The tech giant still relies on USPS and UPS, but it also now uses its own trailer trucksand jumbo jets to deliver packages.

For third party sellers, Amazon is reportedly testing a service called Seller Flex in the U.S. that consists of the company picking up packages sold on its site directly from the third-party warehouses. Its an expansion of Fulfillment by Amazon.

Handling more deliveries itself would give Amazon greater flexibility and control over the last mile to shoppers doorsteps, let it save money through volume discounts, and help avoid congestion in its own warehouses by keeping merchandise in the outside sellers own facilities, Bloomberg reported in October.

The company also recently expanded its Lockers concept with a Amazon Hub, a new delivery locker for apartment lobbies that accepts packages from any sender, shipped via any carrier. Its the latest move by Amazon to expand its physical retail and delivery infrastructure, ranging from its Whole Foods acquisition to its rollout of the Treasure Truck into new markets across the country.

As Amazon invests more into its delivery infrastructure, the companys traditional retail rivals, including Walmart, Best Buy and Target, are also spending big on their own e-commerce and shipping initiatives in an effort to keep up with the e-commerce juggernaut.

Amazon has an advantage over those competitors, in that it can leverage growing profits from its Amazon Web Services cloud computing division to allow its e-commerce operations to run on razor-thin profits margins, and even at a loss.

MORE FROM GEEKWIRE:

Amazons rising shipping costs and related initiatives to manage delivery logistics also demonstrate the larger shift toward online shopping. For the first time this year, shoppers surveyed by Deloitte say they are planning to spend a majority of their holiday budgets online  51 percent  compared with 42 percent in store, and 7 percent through catalogs and direct mail. Adobe reported that a record $6.59 billion was spent online in the U.S. on Cyber Monday, an increase of 16.8 percent year-over-year  the largest online shopping day in history.

So all that being said, would I recommend driving for Amazon Flex? I found the job to be straight-forward and relatively stress free. A few 3-hour shifts here and there provide nice little boost to your wallet. Its nice knowing what work youll be doing, at what time, and how much youll be paid upfront, versus driving around for a platform like Uber where its a bit more spontaneous.

Amazon Flex isnt the right fit if youre looking for full-time work, but if you have some free time and dont mind driving your own car for the job and using your own smartphone, its worth a look.

This story originally appeared on GeekWire.
A coalition of eight states, including Connecticut, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force it to control pollution from power plants in the Midwest.

The other states are Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Vermont and New York, whose state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is leading the lawsuit.

The suit takes issue with a Trump administrations decision to allow nine upwind states to escape tighter smog requirements.

Connecticut has stringent air-quality laws and regulations, but Connecticut suffers from significant pollution and air-quality issues because the state is downwind of out-of-state sources of pollution, said Jaclyn M. Severance, a spokeswoman for Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen.

Connecticut is a downwind state and much of our air quality is affected by the pollution produced by upwind states like Ohio, West Virginia and Indiana, said Chris Collibee, a spokesman for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The sad reality is that every

power plant in the state could be forced to shut down during the summer months because of the pollution that blows in from the Midwest.

This is not the first time EPA actions  or inaction  concerned Hartford. In March, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy sent a letter to Trumps controversial EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, blasting the agencys preliminary decision to exempt nine states, most of which are in the Rust Belt, from tougher scrutiny of coal-fired power plants.

Those states, the governor wrote, should be held accountable for their adverse impact on the air quality in the Northeast.

In October 2016, six northeastern states sued the EPA to compel the agency to add nine upwind states to its so-called Ozone Transport Region.

Those states were Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

The states already in the OTR are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. These states are required to submit plans and install a certain level of controls for pollutants that form ozone. The states outside the OTR do not have to follow those requirements.

Connecticut leaders fear the Trumps administration, under pressure from U.S. automakers, will unwind Obama-era fuel efficiency standards and caps on tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide.

Obviously, this is a guy (Pruitt) who was a sellout to fossil fuels to begin with and doesnt mind polluting Connecticuts air with (emissions) from Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, Malloy told reporters at the time.

EPA officials could not be reached on Wednesday for comment.

Staff writer Neil Vigdor contributed to this story. jburgeson@ctpost.com
File photo

Thanks to Susan Campbell for highlighting the need to invest in children in her op-ed, Belt-tightening at our childrens expense. Campbells advocacy for Connecticuts children echoed a case made by Ethiopian global education activist, Selamawit Bekele, in Stamford recently. Its not like I have a super power. I am here because I had opportunity, reflected Bekele. She noted that globally 263 million children are not in school who should be, primarily girls; 130 million are in school but illiterate. While the aspirations of the worlds children are rising, the percentage of development assistance committed to education is dropping.

The evidence of the effects of education, especially for girls, is nothing short of a super power. Educated girls realize higher wages, have lower maternal mortality, improved infant mortality rates, they and their children are healthier, their children better educated. Educating girls is the most powerful lever available for breaking the cycle of intergenerational extreme poverty.
File photo

I was delighted with the choice of Chris George of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, or IRIS, as the New Haven Register's 2017 Person of the Year. I have had a number of IRIS refugees come through my English As a Second Language classes at East Haven schools and Gateway Community College. Without exception, all of them have been striving to contribute to American culture and our economy. They show their gratitude every day: They start businesses, they come to class regularly even when working 40-hour weeks or more, they will take any job and work hard at it. We are richer by far by their presence in our community.

 Ellen Creane
South Korea briefly seized and inspected a Hong Kong-registered ship in November for transferring oil products to a North Korean vessel and breaching UN sanctions, a foreign ministry official said Friday.

The Lighthouse Winmore, which was chartered by a Taiwanese company and carrying around 600 tonnes of oil products from South Koreas Yeosu port, transferred part of its cargo to a North Korean vessel on October 19, the official said.

South Korean customs authorities briefly seized and inspected the ship when it returned to Yeosu Port on November 24, he added.

The ship, chartered by Taiwanese company Billions Bunker Group Corp., previously visited Yeosu on October 11 to load up on Japanese refined oil before heading towards its purported destination in Taiwan.

Instead of going to Taiwan, however, the vessel transferred the oil to the Norths Sam Jong 2 as well as to three other non-North Korean vessels in international waters, the official said.

This marks a typical case of North Korea shrewdly circumventing UN Security Council sanctions by using its illegal networks, the official told journalists.

The actions taken will be reported to the UN Security Council sanctions committee on North Korea in the future, he said.

South Korea has shared intelligence with the US about the detection of the illegal transaction, he added.

Taipei said the Billions Bunker Group is not incorporated in Taiwan but in the Marshall Islands, and that it would continue to fully comply with UN sanctions against North Korea.

Taiwans transport ministry said it is investigating whether any Taiwanese entities were involved.

The Lighthouse Winmore came to Taiwan twice this year to load supplies, the ministry added, but gave no further details.

The ship is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company called Win More Shipping Limited. There was nobody Friday at the address given for the firm on Hong Kongs companies registry.

The Sam Jong 2 was one of four North Korean ships that was blocked from international ports by the UN Security Council on Thursday over suspicions of carrying or transporting goods banned by sanctions targeting Pyongyangs weapons ambitions, diplomats told AFP.

The Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions on North Korea this year: one on August 5 targeting the iron, coal and fishing industries, another set on September 11 aimed at textiles and limiting oil supply, and the most recent on December 22 focused on refined petroleum products.
A youth group in the South-South geo-political zone, Nigerian Youths Project 2019, NYP, has opened a campaign office for the former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.The body also urged Atiku to declare his intention to contest the 2019 presidential election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, promising that the group would purchase his (Atikus) nomination form.The body, established to actualise Atikus presidential ambition, made the disclosures in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, yesterday, while officially flagging off the South-South zone of NYP and unveiling of the campaign office on Olu Obasanjo Road, Port Harcourt.Speaking, the National Coordinator of NYP, Alhaji Orlu Nyekachi, said the call was based on Atikus track records in business and his leadership qualities while serving in the capacity of vice president.Nyekachi expressed sadness that the present administration after much promises, had failed the nation, claiming that the only northern candidate that could turn around the fortunes and economy of the nation if voted into power, is Atiku.He said: Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is seen as a threat to the ambition of the APC-led government to hold unto power in 2019. As a group, we have conducted an opinion pool of all the northern elites who have indirectly or directly shown interest to run for the presidency in 2019 in both the PDP and APC including the incumbent president and we discovered that Atiku stands as the best option.The Nigerian Youths Project 2019 therefore urge Atiku Abubakar to declare his ambition to contest the 2019 presidential election on the platform of PDP.
A cross section of students of Niger Delta region, yesterday, protested the continued trial of High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo, and called on the Federal Government to immediately withdraw all charges against him.The students, comprising members of the National Association of Gbaramatu Students, NAGS, and Law Students Association of Nigeria, LAWSAN, Delta State University, DELSU Chapter, made the call during a peaceful protest in Warri, Delta State.The protesters displayed placards with inscriptions such as, Tompolo is not guilty; Tompolo is a prominent builder of the future of youths in Nigeria; EFCC must drop all charges against Tompolo; Though politically prosecuted, Tompolo maintains his support for national security.The students claimed Tompolo was a saviour to many students who hitherto had no access to education and should be commended instead of vilified.Freeborn Abraiye, President, NAGS, said: Tompolo is being witch- hunted, his efforts in education of students cannot be overemphasised and his passion is enormous. Tompolo always ensured that youths of the region get scholarships to study. He is a selfless leader; the charges against him should be dropped.Attorney General of LAWSAN, Delsu, Jonathan Obiri, on his part added: Tompolo has done well. The charges against him are frivolous and of no effect. The government is only witch-hunting him, they have no issues tangible against him. Tompolo is our saviour in the region. He knows the importance of education and has fought to give it to us. The government is doing little in the development of Niger Delta. But people like Tompolo came out to challenge the impunity.Similarly, Rachel Briyai, a beneficiary of UK Masters degree sponsored by Tompolo, urged the government to swallow its pride and quash all charges against Tompolo considering the efforts he had put in development of the region.
Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State has said that no other state in the country can compete with Osun in terms of infrastructural development in primary and secondary schools.According to a statement made available to our correspondent in Osogbo on Wednesday by his media adviser, Mr. Sola Fasure, the governor said this while featuring on an NTA network programme, Good Morning Nigeria.Aregbesola, the statement noted, described the provision of free meals to pupils in all government-owned primary schools in the state as exceptional.He said that Osun had received many awards, particularly from international organisations, based on its school-feeding programme which, he claimed, had drastically increased pupil enrolment in primary schools in the state.The statement read, Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme is one of our programmes. Thousands of pupils are fed on every school day, while the state recruited thousands of young women as food vendors discharging the responsibility of cooking and serving the pupils in all the government-owned elementary schools delicious and salubrious meals.We also invested hugely in school infrastructure as this initiative brings about the successes with which we have recorded on our massive school infrastructure development.Osun, with the exception of Lagos, remains the state that has concentrated the largest chunks of her resources on bringing meaningful development to education.We didnt stop at that; we provided the necessary infrastructure to aid quality and functional education, which we called the infrastructure of the mind, regardless of what you read in the newspapers.I dont think there is any state in Nigeria today that can rival us in the provision of massive quality infrastructural facilities as we put down at both elementary and secondary education in Osun.If one is aware of the reports from the National Bureau of Statistics, one will find a reasonable high level of human development index that Osun is being positioned in today.Aregbesola also said that public schools in the state ranked the best anywhere in the country, saying the motive behind this was to create a conducive environment for teaching and learning for teachers and pupils.
The Senator representing Kano South, Kabiru Gaya, on Thursday gave an indication that President Muhammadu Buhari will be seeking re-elec...

The Senator representing Kano South, Kabiru Gaya, on Thursday gave an indication that President Muhammadu Buhari will be seeking re-election.Shortly after meeting the President inside the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the senator told State House correspondents that Buhari will, during his second term, complete whichever projects he cannot complete before the end of his first term.On road projects, we have to thank President Buhari for putting extra efforts and may Allah continue to give him good health and strength to continue.I know he is going to inaugurate some projects in 2018 and those not completed will be completed during his second term, he said.Gaya said he was in the Presidential Villa to thank Buhari for visiting Kano State recently.He said he was happy that the present administration had awarded the road projects from Kano to Abuja which will cost N165bn.The senator said, I am the Chairman of Works Committee. No government for the past 16 years has been able to put so much money on road project like this government.The budget of 2011-2014, it was only N26bn that was allocated to works but in 2016 when President Buhari came in, we had a budget of over N200 bn for works and in 2017 we have over N400bn and for 2018, we have about N500bn for works.So we are rehabilitating our roads and those that were abandoned for years the contractors have gone back to site.I have gone round 26 states of the federation as Chairman Senate Committee on Works, is remaining the states in the south-west and three states in the north-west for me to visit.We have seen that work are going on, in some places, there are issues of payment but the contractors are back to site because the president has orders for them to be paid and Im sure payment to contractors commenced last week and will continue till next week.
President Muhammadu Buhari Friday in Abuja said his administration will not rest in continually reviewing and strengthening ongoing reforms in the agricultural sector until Nigeria regains its pride of place as a food exporting country.He made this known through his SSA on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu via Femi Adesinas facebook handle.Receiving the All Progressives Congress (APC) family from Kebbi State in the Presidential Villa, the President said about 90 per cent of some food imports into the country, which usually gulped the countrys foreign exchange reserve, had been sliced, with Nigeria now targeting self-sufficiency in food production.We are not doing badly in the agricultural sector and Nigerians, and the world, are beginning to appreciate our efforts. We will not be satisfied; we will work harder until we start exporting food.We are happy that rice and beans importation into the country have gone down by 90 per cent, and visibly everyone can see how productive states like Kebbi have turned out to be and states like Lagos, Ogun and Ebonyi are following the example, he said.He said Kaduna, Katsina and Sokoto states had already reported remarkable turn around in the agricultural sector, with more youths taking interest in entrepreneurship.The President said he disagreed with the astronomical food import bill presented by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from the inception of the administration, pointing out that it was later discovered to be fraudulent practices by some of the elites to deplete the foreign reserves.When I was told that the CBN had no savings after the windfall of selling oil for more than $100 dollars per barrel for many years, and the production was 2.1 billion barrel per day, I did not believe them.I did not believe them because majority of Nigerians cannot afford imported food; they rely on what is locally grown. It turned out that 50 per cent of the export bills were fraudulent. That is what the Nigerian elites did.Unfortunately, we will not know all that happened because the elites worked in collusion with institutions in developed countries, like insurance firms and other financial outfits, to perpetuate the fraud, he added.On security, President Buhari said the return of farmers to their farm lands in the North East, with glaring results of high yields, was a testimony to the relative peace that had been achieved.He assured that more would be done to check the mayhem of suicide attacks.The President said his administration will put in more effort to reposition the educational and health sectors to compete with other global institutions.In his remarks, the Kebbi State Governor, Atiku Bagudu said the APC family was pleased with the performance of the administration in securing the country, reviving the economy and fighting corruption.Bagudu and members of the delegation, which include the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami and former PDP stalwarts in Kebbi State, also prayed for the quick recovery of the Presidents son, Yusuf.
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, said yesterday he survived a plot to remove him b...

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, said yesterday he survived a plot to remove him because he did not do any dishonourable thing.He said he was targeted because of his loyalty.Odigie-Oyegun, who spoke in Benin City when he was honoured as Ogbe Eni (Elephant Killer) by the Benin National Congress (BNC), said God vindicated him.He hailed President Muhammadu Buhari for building the country on an economy based on the sweat of Nigerians.The APC national chairman said Buhari was elected by ordinary Nigerians, who believed in him.He said: We will never again suffer from the collapse of crude. Today agriculture is booming, today we are self-sufficient in the production of agro products. President Buhari has concluded plans to deliver 3,500 megawatts of electricity to us. We took over a collapsed country, but today things have started to improve, our economy is growing and Nigeria will never experience that type of recession we witnessed.Change mantra is not electricity, is not water, but changing our morals, doing what is right, changing our attitude, a system that rewards competence and productivity. So we must change those bad aspects of our lives and we will enjoy the Nigeria we all crave for and the Nigeria President Buhari intends to put in place for all.So, all my life this is the circumstance that has conditioned me. One, I do nothing that will not make me have a sound sleep; I do nothing that I will be afraid to see in the headline of any national newspaper. Yes, I have been put to trials and I have overcome them. Why have I done so, because at the end of the day, under forensic, your examination, you will tell that John Odigie-Oyegun has not done anything dishonourable.President Buhari wants to bring Nigeria back to the path of progress, a modern Nigeria. It is important we do not lose the present momentum. We should assist the President in creating a new nation.The President of BNC, Mr. Aiyamenkhue Edokpolo, said the resolve to honour Odigie-Oyegun was to thank him for re-asserting the irreplaceable norm of the average Benin man and woman, which is courage in the expression of truth and exemplary standards.
A law that got the Mahwah Council sued by the state Attorney General and a Jewish group was officially changed Thursday.

Language in the ordinance that banned out-of-state residents from using township parks was removed in a 6-1 vote following a scathing lawsuit, filed in October by Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino. The suit accused Mahwah council members of using the law to keep Orthodox Jews in neighboring New York State towns from crossing into Mahwah.

The council introduced the ordinance change Dec. 15, and at the same meeting permanently tabled a sign ordinance that would have effectively prohibited eruvs by further restricting what items can be attached to utility poles.

The township was also sued in August by the Bergen Rockland Eruv Association and two Rockland County residents over the erection of lechis, PVC pipes attached to telephone poles, that extended an eruv into Mahwah.

The eruv allows Orthodox Jews to do things outside the home that are normally prohibited on the Sabbath, including carrying keys and pushing strollers.

Officials told the group that the lechis violate a sign ordinance and they would be fined.

The lone dissenting vote on the parks ban ordinance Thursday was cast by Councilman Steve Sbarra, who did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Council President Robert Hermansen also could not be reached immediately for comment.

Hermansen has said that when the change was introduced earlier this month, the council listened to its attorney's advice and acted on it. He would not say if the action was in response to the lawsuits.

Porrino has said the law made on an "archaic, fear-driven and discriminatory mindset" and carries a "hateful message." The suit filed by his office has been moved last month to federal U.S. District Court in Newark from state Superior Court in Bergen County at the request of the township.

The state is seeking more than $3.4 million it claims Mahwah received and used in state Department of Environmental Protection Green Acres grants to purchase and maintain its parks. The land acquired in the state program cannot be restricted based on religion or residency, the attorney general's office said.

The ban on out-of-state residents using parks, which council members have said was passed to address overcrowding, was never enforced while it was on the books, officials said.

Mahwah police Chief James Batelli wrote to Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir Grewal asking for direction on how to enforce it without violating people's rights. Grewal, who was since been nominated by Murphy to be attorney general, responded by telling Batelli not to enforce it.

Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AllisonPries. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Firefighters have rescued a New Jersey couple and their daughter when a fast-moving fire roared through their home.

The fire in Delanco broke out around 1:30 a.m. Friday and took nearly two hours to get under control. Firefighters say the bitter cold and icy conditions hampered their efforts to fight the blaze.

Authorities say two of the residents were found on the roof while the third was found in the home.

All three adults and a firefighter were taken to the hospital for treatment of injuries that were described as minor. Several animals were also safely rescued from the home.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Q. Can a person max out their 401(k) contributions and apply for welfare benefits for their children?

-- Trying to balance

A. There are a number of programs available in the State of New Jersey that can benefit children. These include free milk and school lunches and health insurance.

All of the programs offered by the State are "means tested" on the either the applicants' income or both income and assets, said Claudia Mott, a certified financial planner with Epona Financial Solutions in Basking Ridge.

"If you are able to contribute the maximum amount to your 401(k) which would be $18,000 for 2017 with an additional $6,000 catch up contribution for those over age 50, it is very unlikely that you are going to qualify for assistance," Mott said.

She said the income limit for school lunch and milk programs for a family of four is just under $45,000. At this level of income, it would be hard to imagine how there would be enough extra cash in your budget to make a 401(k) contribution, she said.

Then there's the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food stamps to families in need. Mott said to be eligible for this benefit, a family of four can earn no more than $45,500 each year and must have less than $2,500 in assets.

Then there's Work 1st New Jersey, a program that can provide temporary cash support for a maximum of 60 months, Mott said. The program requires that applicants have no more than $2,000 in assets and income of less than $8,000 per year for a family of four, she said.

Finally, there's the NJ Family Care program, which provides low income families with health insurance for children under the age of 18.

"For a child to qualify for this benefit, a family of four could earn no more than $7,278 per month or $87,336 annually," she said. "While this higher income may afford the opportunity to set aside something in the way of savings, making the maximum 401(k) contribution would leave about $70,000 remaining to support the family which could prove challenging."

Email your questions to Ask@NJMoneyHelp.com.

Karin Price Mueller writes the Bamboozled column for NJ Advance Media and is the founder of NJMoneyHelp.com. Follow NJMoneyHelp on Twitter @NJMoneyHelp. Find NJMoneyHelp on Facebook. Sign up for NJMoneyHelp.com's weekly e-newsletter.
STATE PARK SERVICE KICKS OFF 2018 WITH FIRST DAY HIKES PROGRAM

EVENTS SCHEDULED ACROSS STATE FIT WIDE VARIETY OF FITNESS LEVELS TO SHOWCASE THE BEAUTY OF NEW JERSEYS PARKS, FORESTS AND HISTORIC SITES

(17/P128) TRENTON  The New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry will offer a variety of fun and invigorating recreational opportunities across the state on New Years Day as part of the annual Americas State Parks First Day Hikes program designed to get people outdoors.

In total, 27 guided hikes, two mountain bike rides and one horseback riding event will be offered at state parks, forests and historic sites statewide on January 1, 2018. Exercise activities will range from easy to strenuous, offering something for just about everyone.

First Day Hikes are yet another way for the State Parks System to showcase our parks and forests in a fun and healthy way, whether on foot, mountain bike or horseback, Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said. This is a great way for families to get outdoors, learn about the parks in their communities, and be inspired to visit them again.

The more unique offerings this year include mountain bike rides at Belleplain State Forest and Wharton State Forest, both in Burlington County, and horseback riding for those with their own horses is offered at Kittatinny State Park in Blairstown, Warren County. The bike rides are planned along 10 miles of trail, and have minimum age requirements for participation. Children 10 years and older with an adult rider may join the horseback ride.

New this year is the Barnegat Lighthouse State Parks New Years Day Bird Walk, which offers the opportunity to possibly see birds often difficult to find elsewhere in New Jersey. Participants will walk from the lighthouse to the end of the jetty to look for winter birds including Loons, Eiders, ducks and more.

The annual First Day Hikes program offers visitors a great incentive to head outdoors, get some exercise and explore the natural beauty of our parks, forests and historic sites, said Mark Texel, Director of the Division of Parks and Forestry. We invite everyone to wrap up the holiday season with this wonderful opportunity to enjoy the beauty of nature found across the state.

Overall, hikes are scheduled at parks and forests in 14 of New Jerseys 21 counties.

CENTRAL/COASTAL

Hikes are scheduled at Round Valley Recreation Area in Clinton Township, and Spruce Run Recreation Area in Lebanon Township, both in Hunterdon County; Washington Crossing State Park in Titusville, and Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park in Princeton, both in Mercer County; Cheesequake State Park in Old Bridge, Middlesex County; Monmouth Battlefield State Park in Manalapan in Monmouth County; Island Beach State Park in Seaside Park, Barnegat Lighthouse State Park in Barnegat Light, and Forest Resource Education Center in Jackson, all in Ocean County; and Boxwood Hall in Elizabeth, Union County.

NORTH

Hikes are scheduled at Grover Clevelands Birthplace and Grover Cleveland County Park in Caldwell, Essex County; Liberty State Park in Jersey City, Hudson County; Ringwood State Park in Ringwood, Passaic County; High Point State Park in Sussex, and Waterloo Village in Stanhope, both in Sussex County; and Kittatinny Valley State Park in Andover Township, Warren County.

SOUTH

Hikes are scheduled at Bass River State Forest in Woodland Township, Brendan T. Byrne State Forest in Pemberton Township, Rancocas State Park in Westampton, and Wharton State Forest in Shamong and Washington townships, all in Burlington County; Belleplain State Forest in Woodbine Township, Cape May County; and Parvin State Park in Pittsgrove, Salem County.

The State Park Service began participating in First Day Hikes after the program became a nationwide event in 2012. First Day Hikes began more than 20 years ago at the Blue Hills Reservation, a state park in Milton, Mass. The program was launched to promote healthy lifestyles and year-round recreation at state parks.

The Division of Parks and Forestry manages nearly 450,000 acres of land, including 40 state parks and forests. In addition, the Division of Fish and Wildlife manages about 350,000 acres as multiple-use Wildlife Management Areas.

All events are free. Some require preregistration, others do not. Some events also are weather-dependent. For a detailed list on event start times, how to dress, difficulty ratings and lengths of hike, age requirements, accessibility issues, whether dogs are permitted, and who to contact in case of inclement weather, visit: www.njparksandforests.org/parks/first_day_hikes.html

To learn more about New Jerseys Parks, Forests and Historic Sites, visit: www.nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/

Like the New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry page on Facebook: www.facebook.com/newjerseystateparks

Follow the New Jersey State Park Service on Instagram @newjerseystateparks

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The Orleans Parish Coroner's Office has identified Peter Hill, 36, Tyler Munster, 20, and Fernell Richmond, 41, who were killed in shootings over the Christmas weekend. (iStock Photo)
No criminal charges or citations have been issued in the fatal crash, which occurred shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday (Dec. 27, 2017) near the Diversion Canal in St. Charles Parish, according to Louisiana State Police.(File photo)
A 13-year New Orleans police veteran was arrested on a count of domestic abuse battery after a warrant alleges he slammed his girlfriend's head into a police vehicle. (NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune file photo)
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Along with Allstate Sugar Bowl and New Year's Eve revelers, the long weekend ahead looks to bring traffic headaches, parking impediments and extra security to the French Quarter and the Central Business District. (Dinah Rogers Photo)
Today

Mainly clear skies. Low near 40F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.

Tonight

Mainly clear skies. Low near 40F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.

Tomorrow

Generally sunny. High 56F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.
A Council Bluffs man awaiting trial for first-degree murder has been charged with breaking jail property for the second time after allegedly breaking sprinkler heads.

Arthur Crum, 36, is currently being held at the Pottawattamie County Jail, charged in the murder of Larry Scott, who died on Aug. 30, 2016.

According to law enforcement, jail staff told Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office deputies Crum had become angry and broke a sprinkler head, causing water to spray and cover the floor in the booking area in July.

Crum told deputies he was angry because the people he was around have accused him of being a child molester, the report stated. Police said Crum apologized for causing the damage.

On Tuesday, Crum was charged with causing $300 in damages to a sprinkler head in the jail.

Crum was arrested Sept. 25 in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, on a warrant from Council Bluffs in connection with Scotts death. He allegedly later confessed to authorities that he killed Scott over money for drugs, records stated.

Crum pleaded guilty on April 10 to simple assault, admitting he threw a glass full of urine on a fellow inmate.

Crums murder trial is set for Feb. 13.
Two residents of Papillion, Nebraska, were arrested by Page County Sheriffs deputies Thursday evening after a brief vehicle chase.

Authorities reported pursuing a vehicle northbound on Highway 71 from Wilcox, Missouri, at 8:07 p.m. The vehicle entered a stalk field where it stopped, then backed into a sheriffs office vehicle, according to a news release.

Shawn Michael Jones, 34, and Jennifer Kay Hendricks, 35, were arrested without incident. Law enforcement learned the vehicle was stolen.

Jones is charged with theft, eluding and assault on a peace officer. Hendricks is charged with theft.

Both suspects were taken to the Page County Jail and are being held without bond until their initial appearance in court.
Two Iowa high school seniors will receive full scholarships to attend the 2018 National Youth Science Camp this summer in West Virginia.

The students will exchange ideas with scientists and other professionals from the academic, corporate and government worlds during the nearly month-long experience, according to a news release from Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds office.

The camp includes lectures and hands-on research projects presented by scientists from across the nation; overnight camping trips into the Monongahela National Forest; and a visit to Washington, D.C. The selected delegates must not only demonstrate academic achievement in science, but also show potential for thoughtful scientific leadership.

The NYSCamp experience is offered at no cost to participants. Contributions to the National Youth Science Foundation allow delegates to participate in this educational experience. Educational and recreational programming as well as meals, lodging and round-trip airfare are provided.

Delegates arrive in Charleston, West Virginia, on June 27 and depart on July 21. The NYSCamp is held near Bartow in the eastern mountains of West Virginia.

Application forms are available online at bit.ly/2C3S0tN. All applications must be submitted by 5 p.m. on Feb. 28.
On Tuesday, businesses on Council Bluffs 100 Block of West Broadway will be hosting a Red Cross Blood Drive.

The event will run from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The bus will be located at the east end of the 100 Block, near 1st Street.

Donors can reserve a time to donate by calling Courtney at the Red Cross at 402-575-1338 or visiting redcrossblood.org and entering 100BLK. Those who donate will receive a free, long-sleeve T-shirt.

January is National Blood Donor Month, the perfect time to resolve to give more life by being a blood donor.

Winter weather and illness can make it difficult for the American Red Cross to maintain a sufficient blood supply at this time of year. Healthy, eligible donors are urged to give now.
Lizzie Gilday, Fort Dodge, Ia. May this reach my true love.

The message was written on an egg that Charles Percy H. Smith held in his hands in his office in Guines, Cuba, in 1900. It came to him in an unusual way, and his curiosity led him to a woman who might have been his true love.

In the summer of 1899, Lizzie worked as a clerk in the A. R. Loomis egg house in Fort Dodge. The city was a hub of the egg and poultry industry at the time. Trainloads of live and dressed poultry and hundreds of thousands of dozens of eggs shipped from Fort Dodge each year.

On a whim, Lizzie scribbled her message along with her address on an egg with permanent ink. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reported that she was in a romantic, daring and sentimental mood at the time.

The Loomis company shipped its eggs all over the world. This particular egg, nestled in a crate with 277 other eggs, left Fort Dodge by train for New York, where it sat in cold storage for almost a year. In 1900, it was loaded onto a ship for Cuba, where a Cuban merchant had purchased a shipment of eggs.

When the Cuban noticed the writing on the egg from the United States, he was baffled. He couldnt read English, so he had no idea what message the egg carried. Taking the egg to the office of the U.S. Signal Corps, he showed the egg to an acquaintance, Charles Percy H. Smith.

I wonder what sort of a girl it is who sends her address around like this? Charles wondered. It wont do any harm to write her a polite note and ask her for her picture.

The signal corpsman sent off his letter to Lizzie in Fort Dodge.

I am curious to know the one who adopted so novel a method of correspondence, he wrote. I have a camera and have had a snapshot taken of myself with the egg in my hand, he added.

He wrote that if Lizzie replied that she would like to see the photo, hed send it in his next letter.

Lizzie did request the photo of Charles, and he provided more information about himself. He said he was in charge of the government office in Guines and that he believed the Cubans think an American is a small god. Over the next few months, letters were exchanged between the two. Some were of such a nature that the public was not entitled to their contents.

However, in one of those letters, Charles indicated that he would secure a leave from his duties in Cuba and planned a vacation in Iowa.

InOldFortDodge.com provides a follow-up to the story. According to The Fort Dodge Messenger from 1903, Lizzie never married Charles. He wasnt able to get a leave from his Cuba post. She married a man named Fay Cronlin.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources have cancelled the annual First Day Hikes planned on Monday at a number of state parks because of expected frigid temperatures.

While its a great disappointment to us to cancel this event, the safety of park visitors comes first, Todd Coffelt, state parks bureau chief, said in a release. We know that frost bite can set in fairly quickly at those cold temperatures, so we are using caution in making this decision.

The department had planned hikes to kick off the new year at 27 state parks, including a handful in southwest Iowa. Last year in Iowa, more than 1,200 people participated in hikes across the state, the department said.

We definitely will plan on hosting hikes again next year, and anyone can visit state parks during the winter and enjoy the beautiful scenery thats unique to this time of year, Coffelt said.

Editor's note: The original story is below.

Sure, it might be frigid  the sort of cold where frostbite is a real concern  but that shouldnt keep anyone from enjoying the outdoors to kick off 2018.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is organizing 27 First Day Hikes in participating state parks, inviting hikers to take in the quiet beauty of nature in winter and experience spectacular views, beautiful settings and the culture treasures offered by Iowas state parks, according to a news release.

Hikers should dress to stay warm, though, as the forecast calls for a sunny day with a high of around a balmy 10 degrees. (For evening hikes, the forecast is partly cloudy with a low of about 4 degrees.)

Parks in all 50 states are hosting hikes through the Americas First Day Hikes initiative, the Iowa DNR said in a release. The national event, now in its seventh year, encourages starting the new year with guided outdoor exploration.

We are excited to host First Day Hikes again as part of this effort to get people outdoors and into our parks, Todd Coffelt, chief of the Iowa DNRs State Parks Bureau, said in a release. These hikes are a great way to get outside, exercise, enjoy nature and welcome the new year with friends and family.

More than 1,200 people across Iowa visited a state park for last years event. Hikes average between 1 and 2 miles, although some hikes are longer  with nearby DNR hikes rated as easy or moderate.

Those hikes planned in the region include:

 Wilson Island State Recreation Area, Pottawattamie County, 9 a.m., meets at the park office at 32801 Campground Lane in Missouri Valley. A 1-mile, easy hike. Friends of Wilson Island will offer warm drinks and cookies following the hike. Expect to carpool to the campground and explore trails at the heart of the park. Call 712-642-2069 for cancellation information.

 Prairie Rose State Park, Shelby County, 5:30 p.m., meets at the park office at 680 Road M-47 in Harlan. A 1-mile, easy hike. Naturalist Christina Roelofs will lead an evening owl prowl through the park. Prairie Rose Friends Group will provide hot chocolate and treats. Bring a flashlight, but follow directions on when to use them so you dont spook the owls. Call 712-579-1801 for cancellation information.

 Waubonsie State Park, Fremont County, 1 p.m., meets at the Wa-Shawtee Lodge on Waubonsie Park Road in Hamburg. A moderate hike of 1.5 to 2 miles. The hike will be moderately hilly, so wear appropriate footwear and bring a walking stick. Friends of Waubonsie State Park and local Boy Scouts will provide refreshments. Photo opportunities with wildlife are usually abundant this time of year. Call 712-310-3460 for cancellation information.

 Lake Anita State Park, Cass County, 10 a.m., meets at campground entrance. Moderate hike of about 4.4 miles with shorter routes available. Hot chocolate and snacks will be provided after the hike at the park office. Call 712-762-3564 for cancellation information.

 Viking Lake State Park, Montgomery County, 9 a.m. run or 10 a.m. hike, meets at Viking Lake restaurant. An easy pace 6-mile run around the lake or a 2-mile hike, both of which end at the restaurant, where drinks and snacks will be available. Public meeting to learn about Viking Lake will be held at about 11:15 a.m. Trail has a few hills. RSVP by email at Viking_Lake@dnr.iowa.gov. Call 712-250-4499 for cancellation information.

For a complete list of First Day Hikes, visit iowadnr.gov/firstdayhikes. A comprehensive national map of First Day Hikes can be found at stateparks.org. Those participating are asked to post on social media using the hashtags #IowaStateParks and #FirstDayHikes, a release stated.
DENISON  Work on a county-wide housing study, seen as a tool to attract more residential development and more workers, will likely begin early in 2018.

A number of partners are being contacted to share with the City of Denison in the cost of the study, including the Crawford County Board of Supervisors, Denison Municipal Utilities and Black Hills Energy, The Bulletin & Review reported.

While no formal vote has been taken to proceed with the study, the supervisors involvement would cover the county-wide share of the cost.

The City of Denison recently received proposals from three entities to conduct the study. Hanna:Keelan Associates P.C. of Lincoln, Nebraska, proposed the lowest overall cost among the three at $24,000. The citys portion is $18,000, while the countys portion is $6,000.

Denison City Manager/City Engineer Terry Crawford said that the person from Hanna:Keelan that would conduct the study is originally from Harlan and is acquainted with the community and the county.

Region XII Council of Governments out of Caroll submitted a proposal for $32,600, while RDG Planning & Design of Omaha and Des Moines had a bid for $32,500.

The plan to pursue a housing study was developed at a Denison City Council meeting in late October.

At the Oct. 17 meeting, Evan Blakley, executive director of the Chamber & Development Council of Crawford County, said a housing study is innately tied to sustaining and growing the workforce and attracting new industry.

Denisons most current housing study was completed in 2005 or 2006. Housing studies have a shelf life of five years, Blakley said, adding that housing is the lowest hanging fruit right now for community growth.

Intuitively, officials know that a need exists for more housing, even after the 50-unit Hilldale Estates development opened late last year along North 10th Street, Blakley said.

But he indicated through his discussion that anecdotal information is not good enough when talking to a developer or lender or applying for a grant.

We dont have any data that can formulate an answer that says heres how many housing units we need, heres what those should cost to occupy, heres the type that is in most demand, Blakely said, adding that the data has to be backed by a third-party source.

Crawford and Blakley visited the Crawford County Board of Supervisors to gauge interest in county participation in the study. Crawford said along with the housing study proposals for Denison, the city had asked for proposals to study the housing needs of the whole county, including outlying communities.

The proposals came back with a range of $6,000 to $16,500 on top of the cost of the Denison study.

Chairman Steve Ulmer said he thought the county would see an advantage from participating for $6,000, but not for $16,500. The study would be good for the medium-sized communities in the county, he said.

Supervisor Dave Muhlbauer asked about the advantages the study would bring to the county.

The primary purpose is its going to give us some very important data we need when were talking to developers from outside the area or developers that are local, as well, Blakley said.

Several local developers are curious about what could be built that would meet the needs of the market, he said. Housing studies are necessary for securing financing, he said.

Blakley said the addition of $6,000 to the study would add the whole geographical area of the county.

I think this is going to be a nice tool at the end of the day for the entire area that I serve and not just one community, he said. I think at $6,000 its a bargain.

Crawford said housing studies are needed to receive funding.

Were convinced we could do a couple more 50-unit housing developments with no problem, he said.

Supervisor Kyle Schultz said he wanted to know what the study would do for the county.

Muhlbauer said Manilla Mayor Pat Wuestewald told him that Manilla would love to have a housing study as a tool in their toolbox, but the town doesnt have the money.

None of them do, Schultz said.

Ulmer said it would probably help incorporated cities more than unincorporated areas.

I dont care where the housing goes, Blakley said. I just want to feed our employers. This is how we do that.

Blum asked whether county power suppliers might also be considered for participation in the county portion of the study. Muhlbauer asked about the timetable.

If we gave them an answer within a few weeks or in a month they could get started on it, Crawford said.

For budgeting purposes, the city would specify payment would take place after July 1, 2018, he added.

Ulmer said the supervisors would have the same budgeting constraint.

All five supervisors indicated they would support the countywide portion of the study for $6,000.

Crawford said a discussion with DMU General Manager Rory Weis about sharing in the cost of the study was well received. The cost-sharing proposal would have to be reviewed and acted upon by the DMU Board at its monthly meeting in January.

He suggested that the Denison City Council wait until the decisions of the DMU Board and Black Hills Energy are known. Crawford said he would inform Region XII and RDG that the city was leaning toward the Hanna:Keelan proposal.

He said the study would take about six months to complete and that he hoped the work could begin in late January. That timing works out well for the city and the county budgets for the next fiscal year.
Inspection data for a school bus that caught fire earlier this month in Oakland have been sealed.

The Des Moines Register reported Thursday that three years of inspection data are sealed from public view. The newspaper said it requested the records of the states twice-yearly inspections on Dec. 12, the day of the fatal fire.

Megan Klindt, 16, and driver Donald Hendricks, 74, died after a fire started as the bus exited the teenagers driveway.

Local, state and federal officials contacted Thursday by The Nonpareil said there was no new information regarding the case.

The federal National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation and said earlier that additional information should be released soon, although it could be more than a year before a final report is filed.

Klindts and Henricks deaths have been ruled accidental, but a specific cause for the fire has not been publicly announced. The cause of death have been reported as smoke and soot inhalation and thermal injuries.

Some Iowa schools have a history of ignoring inspections or falsely certifying with the state mechanical problems as fixed, investigations by The Register found in 2012 and again in 2014.

The Riverside Community School District  which employed Hendricks and where Klindt attended school  was not cited as a problem district in The Registers previous bus inspection investigations.

The Register said that school bus records before December 2014 show that the bus that caught fire had mechanical violations. Riverside officials certified that those problems were fixed within 30 days, the records show.
Pull the blankets over your head. Youre not going to like this.

The record-breaking cold thats settled over the region is about to get worse.

Merl Heinlein, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hastings, Nebraska, said a reinforcing shot of arctic air is headed into the central U.S. this weekend.

Below-zero temperatures are forecast from Saturday evening through Monday morning.

In the metro area, daytime highs arent expected to climb above zero on Sunday, and the overnight lows are forecast to drop to 15 degrees below zero New Years Eve, according to the weather service.

The area may get a wind-chill reading of minus-32. It could be the coldest air in at least seven years.

Hallie Dusselier, a meteorologist with the weather service, said the metro area hasnt had a temperature that low since January 2010, when the city was in the midst of one of its harshest winters in years. That was the winter that the metro saw successive blizzards and set a record for the length of time  88 days  that snow blanketed the ground.

On Jan. 4, 2010, Omaha dropped to 20 below zero, and the next day it had a low of 16 below, Dusselier said. This year, however, Omaha has yet to set a record for freezing temperatures.

Heinlein said the unusual cold is due to a strong shot of arctic air making a deeper dive than usual into the United States. Canada is blanketed in snow, as is most of the northern U.S., which helps further chill the air mass as it drops south.

The forecast offers no hopes for a break in the near term, Heinlein said.

It looks like a pretty stable pattern for at least another week or so, he said. Looks like it will be unseasonably cold for at least a week if not more.

The weather service also said odds favor continued cold and snowy conditions through the first part of January.

The latest metro-area forecast, according to the weather service:

 Today  A chance of snow with a high around 15.

 Tonight  A chance of flurries with a low around zero.

 Saturday  A 30 percent chance of snow with a high in the lower single digits.

 Saturday night A 30 percent chance of snow with a low around minus-8.

 Sunday  Partly sunny and cold with a high around minus-2.

 Sunday night  Partly cloudy, with a low around minus-15.

 Monday  Sunny and cold, with a high around 5.

 Monday night  Mostly clear, with a low around minus-7.

 Tuesday  Mostly sunny with a high in the mid- to upper teens.

 Tuesday night Mostly cloudy with a low around 5.

 Wednesday  Partly sunny with a high in the mid- to upper teens.
This editorial appeared Dec. 22 in The Quad-City Times.

Gov. Kim Reynolds administration this month killed off a set of milquetoast proposed regulations drafted by state Department of Human Services that would have finally imposed basic requirements for firearm storage at childcare centers, reported The Des Moines Register.

The rules were pretty straight forward: Firearms must be unloaded and locked up, ammunition should be kept separately and parents should be notified if a childcare center keeps a weapon on the premises.

Clearly, DHS staffers considered this slate of proposed rules a watered-down compromise to what should be in place. They basically said as much, in the documents attached to the rule, that went out of the way to note that it strongly discourages firearms in childcare facilities.

But even DHS incredibly self-aware fig leaf to Iowas gun lobby wasnt good enough. Suddenly, and without warning, the proposed rules  designed to keep guns out of the hands of young children  disappeared from the Dec. 13 agenda of Iowa Council on Human Services, which must OK regulations before they take effect. Mark Anderson, chairman of Iowa Council on Human Services, said he had never seen an item just evaporate from the agenda like it did here.

It took just one call to Reynolds office from Iowa Firearms Coalitions lobbyist to stop the common-sense process in its tracks.

There should be no question about who holds power over the Reynolds administration.

Reynolds defended her decision to scuttle rules that can only be described as minimally invasive. The Legislature should hash it out, Reynolds said. There needs to be more discussion, she insisted.

In essence, Reynolds handed the issue to the GOP-run Legislature, which would rather see guns in courtrooms and bars than impose any type of limitation.

Reynolds punted, kicking the issue to the Legislature lest she be blamed for imposing even the most minor limits on gun owners. So much for strong leadership from the Governors Office, especially when heading into an election year.

Iowas in the minority regarding its lack of any regulation over guns in childcare centers.

In 2013, a survey conducted by Early Learning Policy Group found that just 12 states dont regulate guns in childcare centers. State-level regulations range from all-out bans to those similar to what DHS proposed.

And no one is arguing that the proposed rules were outside the authority of the Reynolds administration. Instead, the rush to quash the rules were all about politics.

Theyre politics so toxic that even the rights of parents are superseded by bizarre hypothetical fever dreams where a gun owner might be inconvenienced.

Theyre politics so paranoid that even the most justified oversight of gun ownership is considered an attack on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Theyre politics that have rendered the likes of Reynolds unwilling to face honestly legitimate questions about public safety, even that of children.

DHS officials were correct: Guns have no place in a childcare facility. But the agencys proposed requirements for gun safes, ammunition storage and parental notification were a legitimate attempt to navigate politics that have paralyzed any and all honest discussion about guns in America.

Even that attempt didnt cut it for an administration so cowardly that Iowas gun lobby unilaterally dictates policy.
INDIANOLA (AP)  Three people have died in an early morning house fire in central Nebraska.

Authorities responded to the fire about 1 miles south of Indianola shortly after midnight Thursday. Indianola Fire Chief Tom Davidson said the single-story house was engulfed in flames, and firefighters spent most of the day battling the flames.

Davidson said four people lived in the home, and only one was able to escape. The Indianola, McCook and Red Willow fire departments all responded to the emergency call.

Davidson said cold temperatures made it difficult to battle the fire. He said flames were coming through the roof of the home.

None of the people inside the house were identified. The Nebraska State Fire Marshals Office was requested for a fire investigation.
The Market at the former Strongbow Inn site at 2405 Morthland Drive in Valparaiso closed the restaurant portion and has been re-conceptualized as a special events space.

The restaurant group that also owns Valparaiso's Ricochet Tacos and the popular Tomato Bar pizzerias decided the sprawling 10,000-square-foot building at U.S. 30 and Ind. 49 where generations of Region residents ate Strongbow's famed turkey dinners would better serve as a banquet hall hosting events including wedding receptions, corporate office parties and trade shows. It also will stage pop-up events such as an upcoming one-night-only return of the Valley Kitchen & Bar that was a dining destination in downtown Valpo.

Owners Cory and Blair Muro decided to pull the plug on the chef-driven contemporary Southern restaurant that replaced the Strongbow Inn in 2016.

"It was hard to manage the restaurant," said owner Cory Muro. "You couldn't see the bar from the hostess stand. You couldn't see the kitchen from the bar. It was laid out so wide it was hard to feed people. Tour buses would pull up on a Monday when we weren't ready because we were staffed for a Monday. The size of it makes it well-suited to events, but challenging to do a restaurant. We gave it a shot."

The 250-seat restaurant served high-end versions of down-home favorites including chicken and waffles, shrimp and grits, smoked brisket with Miller High Life barbecue sauce, bone marrow-braised greens, and the Ol' Dirty Biscuit, a biscuit and gravy dish named after the legendary Wu Tang Clan rapper.

Some of the food, such as the fried chicken, brisket, pulled pork and pimento cheese, will remain on the catering menu, which Muro said strives to be more than the usual "steamed veggies, instant mashed potatoes and dry chicken." The Market also does off-site catering for corporate functions, family reunions and other groups between 50 and 200 people.

The new main focus of the business however is now hosting wedding receptions, which are mostly booked a year in advance. The Market has rooms that can accommodate 40 people to 400 people, and can host as many as 600 at the same time.

The Market also plans to host special events, such as the Valley Kitchen pop-up, a cabaret, brunches and a beer dinner.

The Market is partnering with a ticket service to sell tickets to these events, which gives it more flexibility to try new culinary concepts.

"We can do something fun and have a dining experience without the grind of a restaurant," he said. "We're not tied down to doing the same thing all the time and can create a little bit of excitement."
A lavish production blending the beauty of dance, orchestral music and vocal selections once will again star in Chicago.

The Salute to Vienna concert will grace the stage of Orchestra Hall on Saturday.

"It's quite a tradition in Chicago," Marion Glatz, co-founder with husband Attila, said of Salute to Vienna.

The show, which is based on and inspired by the annual New Year's Concert in Vienna, Austria, is celebrating its 20th anniversary in Chicago this year.

"I grew up with the concert and my husband did as well," Glatz said. She said the concert has been a tradition in Vienna for more than 80 years. The production usually features a large mix of Strauss compositions and other music from Viennese composers.

The Chicago show will star Nir Kabaretti conducting The Strauss Symphony of America and also feature The Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra. Other performers include tenor Martin Piskorski; Viennese soprano Hege Gustava Tjonn; members of Europaballett St. Polten of Austria; and international champion ballroom dancers.

"The music is so uplifting and happy," Glatz said. Among compositions to be featured are the popular "The Blue Danube" and overtures from "Die Fledermaus" "Merry Widow" and others.

Glatz said she and her husband presented their first Salute to Vienna concert in 1995 in Toronto, Canada. The production is annually presented in more than 20 cities in North America over the holiday season.

For Glatz, it's always a pleasure when she and her husband attend some of the Salute to Vienna shows.

"We travel from time to time. And it's a wonderful experience," she said about the show. "It's a fun-filled afternoon full of happiness." Glatz said the production is a "celebration of life."

FYI: Salute to Vienna will be presented at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Orchestra Hall, Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago. Call 312-294-3000 or visit cso.org.
HAMMOND  Police saved two people this week with an overdose-blocking drug originally issued to officers for personal use, a spokesman said.

Officers made the "saves" as overdose deaths across Northwest Indiana continued to increase, and Hammond last month joined a growing number of communities suing opioid manufacturers and distributors for their alleged role in causing the opioid addiction crisis.

Hammond police Officer Collin Lopez arrived to a home in the 4000 block of Sheffield Avenue on Christmas Day, and noticed a 21-year-old victim  identified by witnesses as a heroin user  was not breathing, Lt. Steve Kellogg said.

Lopez administered naloxone, and the 21-year-old started breathing again. The Hammond Fire Department arrived shortly after to continue treatment, he said.

On Tuesday, Officer Lindsey Fritz responded to a call in the 500 block of Kenwood Street and administered naloxone to a 41-year-old woman, Kellogg said. The woman was later transferred to a hospital.

Hammond police began carrying naloxone in September, after two officers required medical treatment following accidental exposure to heroin containing the potent drug Fentanyl.

The accidental exposures occurred Dec. 29, 2016, and Feb. 5 as officers were inventorying evidence from heroin arrests, Kellogg said.

In one case, the officer was wearing gloves and a face mask when the exposure occurred. It was unclear if gloves and a mask were worn in the other case.

Kellogg said Hammond police didn't previously consider carrying naloxone, because the Fire Department already carried it and typically arrived to calls before or immediately following police.

In the two saves this week, the officers arrived to the scene first and decided to use the naloxone issued for their personal use to save someone else, he said.

This is the second time this year that Hammond officers have used equipment issued to protect themselves to save others. Earlier this year, an officer used a tourniquet issued for personal use to save a gunshot victim from bleeding out before arriving at a hospital.

"Our officers have taken a tool meant for their safety and used it to save civilian lives in our community," Hammond police Chief John Doughty said in a statement. "They've saved lives with the tourniquets they carry, and now have another tool to aid in their efforts.

"I am proud of the empathy of our officers and their respect for life. We may not be able to solve the opioid epidemic, but we can offer these victims a second chance at life and recovery."

The Sheriff's Department and Northern Indiana Transportation District Transit Police were among the first in Lake County to begin carrying naloxone. Many departments in Porter and LaPorte counties began carrying the drug several years ago.

There were 114 overdose deaths in Lake County reported in 2016, 80 in 2015 and 68 in 2014, according to data provided by the Lake County coroner's office. Hammond had the second-highest number of overdose deaths in 2016 in Lake County, according to the city's lawsuit.
Police in two jurisdictions are investigating incidents from Wednesday night where descriptions of the suspects are similar.

Westville police are investigating an attempted armed robbery at the Dairy Queen at 56 S. Flynn Road, just before 9 p.m. Valparaiso police are investigating an armed robbery of the Subway at 1710 Lincolnway at 10:23 p.m.

In the Westville attempted robbery, Town Marshal Darin Mercer said the store was closed when the gunman walked in. Employees had stopped accepting customers, but failed to lock the door the suspect entered while they were preparing to close for the night.

He displayed a gun and demanded money. Police said an employee was heading to the back to the store to retrieve the keys to the registers when the man fled.

"It looks just by the appearance of the video like the suspect was definitely nervous. He waited only for a second or two and fled," Mercer said.

In the Valparaiso incident, police said a man entered the business, displayed a handgun and demanded money from the cash register. He fled after taking an undetermined amount of money.

The suspect in both incidents is described as a black male, 6-feet 3-inches tall, wearing black sweatpants and a white T-shirt with a black sweatshirt. The description from the Valparaiso police estimates the suspect weighs about 180 pounds and was between 30 years and 40 years old. Mercer described the suspect as thin.

Mercer said his department will work with police in Valparaiso to see if there's a connection.

Valparaiso police spokesman Sgt. Mike Grennes said they will "look into every possibility," but have not come to any conclusions to determine if it is the same suspect or different individuals.

Anybody with information on the Valparaiso armed robbery is asked to call Detective Lt. Tom Horn at the Valparaiso Police Department at 219-462-2135.
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Hidden deep inside the new national security strategy are a few paragraphs outlining the Trump administrations aims in space. While the presidents announcement of a new push to put Americans back on the moon and eventually Mars was met with some fanfare, the strategy content on space has faced far less scrutiny.

There isnt anything particularly objectionable to the three action items listed: putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the National Space Council, making it easier for commercial companies to operate in space and working with our allies to explore the solar system.

What is much less clear is how any of these will promote space security. Even worse, the stated intent of maintaining freedom of action in space is usually read in defense circles as code for developing weapons in space.

Ideas behind weaponizing space crop up almost annually. These ideas are misguided at best and critically detrimental to our security at worst. Crucially, the new National Security Strategy misses the opportunity to solidify the norms of cooperation in space.

Modern American life would be impossible without a wide range of space technologies. Space-based satellites connect Americans by phone to friends and relatives in distant countries, help predict dangerous weather patterns and provide television coverage of newsworthy events. Global positioning satellites guide American automobiles through city streets and provide critical navigation to civilian airliners, cargo ships and oil tankers.

The American military and Intelligence Community are reliant on space-based assets, too.

But if U.S. space capabilities give it such a major advantage over the rest of the world, why would other nations agree to sign a treaty that would serve to secure our advantage long into the future? The answer is that other space-faring nations want to safeguard their own space assets as well. Indeed, this is the same logic that kept space weapons free during the Cold War.

Despite intensive research into anti-satellite weapons, Soviet and American policymakers decided independently that space weapons would jeopardize intelligence gathering capabilities and other space assets.

In some ways the United States was lucky. Because the United States had very few spies in the Soviet Union, we depended on our satellites to a much greater extent than the Soviets. Paradoxically, it was the decision of Soviet President Yuri Andropov to seek unilaterally a moratorium on anti-satellite weapon testing that ensured the United States would maintain its advantage in space.

It is not mere conjecture that other nations want to keep space weapons-free today. At the United Nations in 2002, the Russians and the Chinese proposed a ban on space weapons. The United States at the time rejected the offer.

Russia and China still support a ban on space weapons, as they put forward proposals to do so at the United Nations in both 2008 and 2014, but their willingness to cooperate may not last forever.

The fact is that any nation capable of routinely launching satellites could develop an ability to attack satellites, too. North Koreas most recent missile launches give it such an ability.

The net result would be that none of the actors could protect their own satellites, but all of the actors could attack one anothers satellites.

Keeping outer space free of weapons is in the supreme interest of the United States.

The Trump administration tends to see international treaties and organizations as fetters with which the rest of the world seeks to constrain the United States from pursuing its interests. In the case of space weapons, a treaty would actually ensure our freedom of maneuver and make America stronger.
Gov. Eric Holcomb is showing encouraging signs he's willing to do what it takes to improve state services provided to the most vulnerable Hoosiers.

On Thursday, Holcomb announced a new Department of Child Services director, Terry Stigdon, would assume the reins following the recent resignation of Region native and former Lake County Juvenile Court Judge Mary Beth Bonaventura from the DCS post.

On her way out, Bonaventura lamented a lack of state resources being channeled to the children, often in situations of abuse or other danger, who are served by DCS.

Though she clearly had differences with Holcomb, it's good to see Holcomb responding to the situation with urgency.

Stigdon, who will take over the agency Jan. 22, appears to have a pedigree of high-level service to children. Stigdon will be leaving a post as clinical director of operations for acclaimed Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health in Indianapolis to take on the DCS role.

At Riley, Stigdon reportedly oversaw strategy, finance, personnel, research and programs of the hospital's key divisions, including emergency, trauma and nursing, according to the governor's office.

Meanwhile, Holcomb also has directed the Indiana Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group to audit DCS funding and practices, including probing whether:

systems are in place to assure children and families are healthy and safe.

funding is being used in the best and most appropriate ways to serve children and taxpayers.

staffing levels are appropriate for caseloads.

the agency is reaching appropriate resolutions for children and families in need of the state's services.

Holcomb also is seeking empirical data to determine how Indiana DCS's caseload, costs and programs compare to other states and the nation.

This last point is crucial.

DCS has been plagued in recent years by climbing cases of abuse and child death in our state.

An empirical audit could be the best way of determining the optimum response and fixes for this problem.

In an editorial last week, we asked the governor to listen to the overtures of the departing Bonaventura, who we've known to be a dogged and perennial champion of children, regarding the state of programs and funding at DCS.

Holcomb's recent director appointment and call for an agency-wide review appear to be in keeping with that admonition.

It's time to gather the evidence and act appropriately on the findings.
A variety of experiences emerge as one ages, and one local agency is devoted to helping ease matters among the elderly.

Established in 1974 by Auburn and Opelika residents, East Alabama Services for the Elderly, Inc. (EASE) is a part of United Way and offers supportive assistance to seniors in Lee and Russell counties, according to Sherri Long, the agencys executive director and home health director. Funding for the agency is provided by United Way, state and federal grants, as well as local support and donations.

The agencys mission encompasses four goals, Long said, which includes improving outlooks about aging and bringing awareness to the difficulties and needs of seniors. The agency offers housing, educational, health and nutritional programs, in addition to addressing various other factors that affect the lives of seniors.

Our focus is to keep our seniors independent, which means keeping them out of a nursing home facility, or institutionalization, Long said.

To accomplish its goals, EASE offers multiple helpful highlights, such as the 100-unit facility, EASEHouse, which Long said provides independent housing to seniors aged 62 and older who have low-to-moderate incomes and qualify. The facility also features an exercise room, beauty shop and social services, and residents are provided transportation to shopping facilities and to doctor appointments.

EASEhouse is the bridge between ones being completely able to take care of a home and living in a nursing home, Long said. It is an independent facility with many, many resources.

The agency also has programs that help seniors with activities of daily living, Long said, which includes personal care and homemaker assistance, in addition to providing sitters for those who are dependent and homebound.

Foster Grandparent Program

Through the Foster Grandparent Program, Long said those aged 55 and older with limited incomes can tutor and mentor children with special needs.

Most of the children that we take care of in this setting are from single-parents homes, Long said while discussing the Foster Grandparent Program. The foster grandparent serves in the classroom 20 to 40 hours a week in a one-on-one setting, and they have been trained to give that child nurturing, security and a confident environment.

The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program is also available to people 55 and older, Long said, in which they can assist the community through volunteer efforts at a variety of local nonprofit agencies and facilities.

Its kind of two-fold, Long said. The RSVP program, as we call it, is to enable a nonprofit agency to carry on business in an affordable way. Because that is a strictly volunteer program. But the second part is it allows senior volunteers to give their talents and their arts back to the community to make sure that those arts stay in the community, or stay anywhere. Like knitting and quilting. Those are dying arts. If we dont have anyone teaching those arts, then theyre going to truly die.

Having always had a soft spot for seniors, Long said she and the EASE staff enjoy spending time and helping people who have so many talents and insight from unique life experiences.

Were all about promoting healthy senior living, Long said. Whether it be through providing services to the senior who is just short of institutionalization, or whether its for the senior who has so much to give back to their community through their time, talent and skills.
State Senator Tom Whatley (R-Auburn) was named a Legislator of the Year at the national Autism Law Summit, a conference in San Diego that brought together more than 200 autism service providers, lawyers, state and federal lawmakers, and parents of children with autism.

Senator Whatley co-sponsored a bill in the 2017 session of the Alabama Legislature that required insurance companies to offer coverage for autism treatment. On May 19, Governor Kay Ivey signed the bill into law, making Alabama the 46th state to ensure insurance coverage for the treatment of autism.

Senator Whatley was our bill sponsor in the Senate - he eagerly volunteered to carry the bill and was key to getting it out of the Senate, said Michael Wasmer, the Alabama State Director for Autism Speaks, a national non-profit dedicated to increasing healthcare access for autistic individuals. In addition to steadfastly representing autism families, Senator Whatleys district includes Auburn University, which houses a premier Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) program.

On Thursday morning, Senator Whatley said it was a deep honor to receive the Legislator of the Year award.

Autism affects thousands of families across Alabama, and it was time that we made sure those families could access affordable treatment for their children, Whatley said. There are a lot of dry legislative battles in Montgomery, but this was a fight that was clearly worth it, and it is an honor to be recognized for the small part I played in the process.

The 2018 session of the Alabama Legislature will begin on Tuesday, Jan. 9.
Until September 2017, Caesar Mulenga, the flamboyant chairman of St Augustine International University (SAIU) in Bunga, along Ggaba road in Kampala, bought cooking oil for his household by the jerrycan.

Then one day, as he walked out of his house, he was told there was no cooking oil in the house, a month after his last purchase.

You mean we consumed a jerrycan of cooking oil in one month? asked a shocked Mulenga. They had been frying everything from groundnuts to rice  it was unbelievable.

Worried about his familys health, he immediately ordered a ban on cooking oil in his home.

Man serving African food. Eating unhealthy foods leads to non-communicable diseases

Mulenga now supports a new initiative by Makerere Universitys college of Health Sciences, to fight the spike in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Uganda.

NCDs are the latest challenge to our community. Some people have a combination of say hypertension, diabetes and cancer, Mulenga said.

I have seen even children under 10 years with cancer. My heart sinks just thinking what their mothers are going through.

Speaking during the launch of the campaign at Sheraton Kampala hotel recently, Mulenga acknowledged that treating NCDs is too costly; so, the best alternative is prevention through awareness.

We are starting a campaign to inform the public that NCDs are here and they are real, he declared.

As SAIU, we are saving money for a clinic for early screening; people should not wait until they are almost dead before they are screened for these diseases. I also want people to educate themselves about the nutrition choices they can make to prevent NCDs, he said.

Earlier, Prof Charles Ibingira, who is the principal of the college of health sciences at Makerere, said NCDs are chronic or lifestyle diseases. These include heart attacks and strokes, cancers, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma, sickle cell disease and mental illness.

Ibingira said NCDs account for almost two-thirds of all deaths globally, with 80 per cent of these occurring in Africa.

Our statistics show that more than 40 per cent of Ugandans suffer from NCDs. Indeed, these days one in four people are expected to live with raised hypertension.

His colleague, Prof Moses Kamya, warned the public about soft beverages.

Each bottle of soda contains 12 spoonfuls of sugar and we think that is too much for the average consumer, he said.

Makereres acting deputy vice chancellor for Finance and Administration, Prof William Bazeyo, said St Augustine International University will also support the first international symposium on NCDs to be held at Speke Resort Munyonyo in February 2018.

Dr Bruce Kirenga, the director of the Makerere University Lung Institute, is leading preparations for the symposium.

About one in four people take alcohol, but a further 10 per cent of these use it harmfully [more than six beers in a week] and that is a cause for concern, Kirenga said.



mtalemwa@observer.ug
When government introduced Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 1997, the intention was to offer free primary school education for four children per family.

Enrolment in UPE schools grew from 3.1 million pupils to the current 8.6 million, according to the ministry of Education and Sports factsheet 2002-2016.

Under the programme, government introduced the capitation grant, which is seed money schools use to buy books, writing tools and chalk. The schools receive Shs 10,000 for each pupil, disbursed three times a year.

The Local Government Management and Service Delivery operational manual of 2009 spells out the minimum standards for schools. Among them is for one teacher to teach 53 pupils; 55 pupils to study in one classroom; one desk for three pupils and a latrine stance for 40 pupils.

A crowded class of pupils at Dokolo primary school

Twenty years later, many schools are struggling to meet the set standards in the face of financial constraints and the high enrolment numbers.



DOKOLO STRUGGLES

Dokolo district in Lango sub-region has terribly fallen short, according to the June 30, 2016 auditor generals report. Schools there have inadequate infrastructure, which dont meet standards.

Out of the 60 UPE primary schools in the district, 17 dont meet standards. They include Kachung, Hassa Memorial, Akwanga, Angwenya, Adeknino, Atabu, Apye, Agwata and Atur. Others are Alwitmac, Akolodong, Ageni, Apewotneki, Amunamun, Awiri, Dokolo and Angwecibange.

Failure to meet the ministry minimum basic standards may affect the overall academic performance of the schools I advised the accounting officer to engage the ministry of education and ensure that funds are provided, wrote John Muwanga, the auditor general, in his report.

The Observer visited Dokolo primary school. At this school, whose enrolment stood at 1,012 pupils during the reports preparation, the teacher-pupil ratio was 1:53; classroom-pupil ratio at 1:84. The school adhered to the desk-pupil ratio of 1:3 and the latrine stance-pupil ratio stood at 1:36 compared to the required 1:40.

Deputy head teacher Kizito Opio Agetta said things have deteriorated further since the AGs findings were released. The pupil population has grown to 1,206. Compared to the upper primary classes, which have two streams (P3, P4, P5 and P7), the lower classes of P1, P2 and P6 were merged into one stream due to shortage of teachers.

The 15 teachers employed translate into one teacher for 80 pupils. The lower classes have one teacher each teaching large classes as indicated: P1 has 181 pupils while P2 has 152 pupils. The P6 class has 118 pupils, twice the recommended enrolment.

We have few teachers in the school, prompting us to merge some of the classes. You will find that someone teaches both lower and upper level classes. If you look at the enrolment, you find that especially P3 to P7, the class is more than the expected ratio but our hands are tied, Agetta explains.

This situation is no different at Angwecibange primary school, two kilometres away. In the AGs report, the school also never met the minimum standards. With a population of 1,457 pupils, the teacher-pupil ratio stood at 1:69; classroom-pupil ratio at 1:121 and desk-pupil ratio at 1:8. The student population has since grown to 1,581.

The deputy head teacher, Charles Alal Ayo, has a chart in his office, detailing the current state of affairs. There are 23 teachers, averaging one teacher for 68 pupils. Each of the 12 classrooms averages 132 pupils.

This poor classroom-pupil ratio is one big challenge. Ayo cited the P5 class, which accommodates 318 pupils in two streams. When The Observer visited, the P4 and P5 classes were packed, in some cases six pupils shared one desk.

If only we could divide the P5 class into three streams, it would reduce the numbers in each classroom. However, even if we do this, we would still not meet the required ratio of one teacher to 53 pupils, he laments.

Luckily, in September this year, Child Fund, a child rights NGO, built a two-classroom block to help decongest classrooms. For both Dokolo and Angwecibange, the only standard the school meets is the 1:40 toilet stance per pupil ratio. While Dokolos stands at 1:36, Angwecibanges stands at 1:36.



RECRUITMENT BAN

Dokolo District Education Officer David Eryatu says the government ban on teacher recruitment, which was lifted recently, affected efforts to bring in more staff.

Alfred Okino told The Observer that as an English teacher, teaching both lower and upper primary, he is overwhelmed. It gets worse during the assessment and examination period.

Marking their work is very tedious. It is very hectic when the books are many; so, you end up failing to follow the syllabus Okino says.

Both schools have asked for an increase in capitation grant. In the 2017/18 budget, Dokolo received Shs 10 million for the three terms. This translates to Shs 6,633 per child for the year.

Angwecibange, on the other hand, received Shs 11.3 million, which is Shs 7,162 per pupil. Ayo and Agetta believe that more money could go to a special fund for hiring teachers and classroom construction.

Eryatu admits that funding has greatly reduced. Dokolo used to receive Shs 800 million each year to build infrastructure. He reveals that over half has been reallocated to livelihood programmes in sub-counties, yet over 5,000 pupils enroll in UPE schools annually.

Now we get Shs 300m and it can just build two classroom blocks yet we have 60 schools in the whole district. We are doing only three drainable latrines in a year; so, it will take us 20 years to build a pit latrine in every school at the rate of three per year, Eryatu says.

The district also needs 350 teachers. Rebecca Mwima, the acting deputy chief administrative officer, says the shortage of teachers reflects in the poor performance of pupils.

Consequently, the schools are planning a new initiative, recruiting parent-teachers. These are retired as teachers who will be paid between Shs 100,000 and Shs 120,000 through the parents and teachers associations (PTAs).



editorial@observer.ug

This feature was compiled with support from the Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA)
The ruling party, NRM has secured yet two more election victories after the Court of Appeal today overturned two previous High court judgements, which had thrown out of parliament two of its MPs over electoral malpractices.

Vincent Waboyo (Budadiri West) and Isaac Mulindwa Ssozi (Lugazi Municipality) will have another tenure in parliament after two different panels of the Court of Appeal ruled that the High court judges who kicked them out parliament either didnt properly evaluate evidence on the record or they completely misinterpreted the law.

BUDADIRI EAST

On June 15, the High court in Mbale annulled the election of NRMs Woboya as Budadiri East MP. Justice Andrew Bashaija ruled that Woboya had failed to prove to court that he resigned his job at the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) before getting nominated. The petition was filed by Forum for Democratic Changes Isaiah Sasaga.

Court of Appeal justices led by Steven Kavuma have overturned previous High court rulings

Justice Bashaija ruled that the Electoral Commission illegally nominated Woboya because he had not retired as the principal disaster management officer at OPM. Bashaija said although documents tendered in court showed that Woboya retired on May 10, 2015, he continued to receive a salary up to December of the same year.

Court records showed that Woboya also received Shs 12 million, Shs 14.5 million, Shs 10.3 million, Shs 1.8 million and Shs 1.98 million in June 2015 from OPM to disseminate disaster management information in Kween, Sironko and Bulambuli districts.

However, justices led by Steven Kavuma who has since retired, Richard Buteera, who has since been promoted to the Supreme court and Geoffrey Kiryabwire faulted Bashaija for failing to evaluate evidence on record thus arriving to a wrong conclusion of dismissing Woboya from parliament.

First, the trio took exception to Bashaijas ruling which was to the effect that, instead of Woboya resigning from his office as the law envisages, he just retired. But the judges in their unanimous judgement faulted Bashaija for drawing a difference between retiring and resigning saying that they have the same effect.

We therefore find that our re-evaluation of the evidence presented at the trial shows that indeed the appellant did properly and legally retire from service as required by law, the three ruled in unison.

They also overturned Justice Bashaijas findings which were to the effect that Woboyo continued to receive a salary after May 10, 2015, the month in which he claims to have retired, saying that upon securitizing evidence, they found that upon retirement, the legislator only received salary for June.

They agreed with Woboyos contention that the June salary accounted for the salary of May since civil servants are paid in arrears.

LUGAZI MUNICIPALITY

Minutes later, again Justices Kavuma, Alfonse Owiny-Dollo and Buteera set aside the June 14, 2016, judgement of High court judge Margret Mutonyi in which she nullified the election of Isaac Mulindwa Ssozi as the Lugazi Municipality legislator citing lack of academic qualifications.

In order to come to the conclusion of dismissing Mulindwa from Parliament, Justice Mutonyi had agreed with Nabatazi Lugudde, the loser in the February 18 election that the academic papers that the legislator had used during nomination contained names of one Mulindwa Hassan and Isaac Hassan Mulindwa.

In 2016, Justice Mutonyi who was sitting at the High court based in Jinja district concluded that Mulindwa Hassan and Isaac Hassan Mulindwa cannot be one and same person as Isaac Mulindwa Ssozi the names the MP currently uses.

However, Kavuma, Owiny-Dollo and Buteera had different understanding of the case saying changing names doesnt in any way change the person. They cited how President Museveni and Retired Colonel Dr Kizza Besigye have varied names in the different Supreme court cases and presidential election petitions.

In the Supreme court election petition number one of 2001, they said, the names of the two characters were set out as follows: Col (RT) Dr Kizza Besigye (petitioner) vs Museveni Yoweri Kaguta (respondent), they ruled, adding the Supreme court was simply following the order of names which were written by the Electoral Commissions of the two characters during the 2001 presidential elections.

Yet in 2011 presidential elections, they pointed out that both Museveni and Besigyes names were tweaked as follows, Kifefe Kizza and Museveni Kaguta.

Four years later during the 2016 presidential elections, the three justices noted there were again changes in the way the names were assembled. While Besigye went with Kizza Besigye Kifefe his eternal rival Museveni said that he will be known as for the purposes of the election as Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.

We know that the order of names of those parties have been changing almost on every election at the instance of the election commission, the judges said,  We dont agree with the preposition that the order of names would have any effect on the candidates academic qualifications on their own, they added.

More evidence must be adduced to prove to the satisfaction of the court, that a person who sat and obtained certain academic qualification is not the same person who was nominated for parliament.

MORE CONTROVERSY

The Mulindwa ruling is going to come under serious scrutiny in legal circles since the court seems to have departed from its earlier rulings in cases where it was faced with similar facts.

First, there is the peculiar case of DPs Nsereko Wakayima Musoke, the ousted Nansana Municipality legislator. On September 15, Justice Kavuma, who was joined by Cheborion Barishaki and Hellen Obura, upheld a High court ruling which had thrown him out of parliament.

The three agreed with High court judge Vincent Okwanga that Musoke did not qualify being an MP since he is not a registered voter and therefore never qualified for nomination and election. The judges ruled that the name Wakayima Musoke Nsereko which was used by the DP politician for his nomination was nowhere on the voters register.

Mr Wakayima was nominated in error as his name is not registered in the constituencys voter register; it was the name of Musoke Hannington Nsereko which validly appears on the National Identification card. We find that the purported change of names is null and void, the judgment read in part.

The judges further agreed with justice Okwanga that there should be no by-election, thus declaring Kasule, who came third, as the elected legislator for Nansana.

Ironically, when justices led Kavuma, Barishaki and Paul Mugamba were confronted with a similar scenario in May, they ruled differently.

That appeal rotated around the names of NRMs Taban Idi Amin, the Kibanda North MP who was challenged by Sam Otada Amooti. The latter argued that Amin was not a registered voter.

In the end, Kavuma, Barishaki and Mugamba agreed with Otada that indeed Amin failed to give a satisfactory explanation for the discrepancies in his name.

For instance, he had Idi Taban Amin Tampo on the national voters register and national ID, Taban Idi Amin on the nomination form and academic documents while his passport indicated he was Idi Taban Amin.

However, unlike in the Wakayima situation where the judges declared his rival the winner, this time round they ordered for a by-election, giving Amin another chance to get his papers in order. And indeed, Amin returned to parliament unopposed.

dkiyonga@observer.ug
Flat-earthers, people who believe that the Earth is flat, have been catching a lot of flack for their ridiculous claims, but theirs is not the craziest theory regarding our planets shape and structure. Some people actually believe the Earth is hollow and that a race of superior humans live inside it.

The hollow Earth theory was first proposed in the 17th century by some of the leading scientists of the time. Unlike their predecessors, however, the modern hollow Earth theorists also believe that a race of superior humans, Vikings, and Nazis live in paradise at the center. These residents of the core frequently send UFOs, via holes in the North and South poles, to spy on us surface dwellers in an attempt to prevent a nuclear war.

Photo: 2012.com.au

Spearheading the modern Hollow Earth movement is Rodney Cluff, author of a book called World Top Secret: Our Earth IS Hollow. In 2007 Cluff organized a voyage to the core, with plans to sail from Russia on an icebreaker ship seeking the supposed opening at the North Pole. He had to cancel the 15,000-per-head expedition, but he claims that this hasnt dampened his enthusiasm for the theory, and told The Sun Online that the movement is only growing in popularity.

More and more people are coming to terms with the fact that the Earth is hollow. I get emails from people learning about it every day, Cluff said. Its definitely growing in popularity  certainly not in the millions but maybe in the thousands.

So how does the theory hold up against modern science? Right now, the scientific consensus is that the Earth is made up of a series of unbroken layers and crusts surrounding a solid ball composed mainly of an iron-nickel alloy. Surrounding that solid core is a layer of liquid that is about 2,260 kilometers thick. Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann deduced the presence of the core in 1936 while studying seismograms from earthquakes in New Zealand. Her findings have been backed up many times in the decades since.

Photo: YouTube screengrab

These mainstream theories are considered part of the conspiracy to cover up the truth, by Hollow Earth believers, who subscribe instead to the 17th century science. Edmund Halley, of Halleys Comet fame, first proposed the theory of a hollow Earth in 1692 as a way of explaining unusual compass readings. Halleys theory suggested that the planet is a series of spherical shells stacked like a Russian nesting doll, all spinning in different directions around a central core. This model could account for the inaccuracies in his compass readings. He postulated that the space between each shell might contain a luminous atmosphere capable of supporting life.

Halleys bizarre theory was expanded upon over the centuries by various proponents, and in 1818, John Cleves Symmes, Jr. published his Circular No. 1, stating to the world that the Earth is hollow. He posited that unlike Halleys multi-layered model, the planet was a giant cavern that housed a miniature sun. Symmes also claimed that there were massive holes at the North and South poles allowing for access to the world inside. This aspect of his theory became known as Symmes Holes.

The 19th-century public and scientific community met Symmes theory with derision, but he continued giving lectures and publishing letters about the Hollow Earth. He aimed for an expedition to the North Pole, even getting Congress to vote in 1822 on funding it, but his vision never came to fruition. He never let up campaigning for the expedition until his death in 1849.



Symmes son and other loyal followers kept the Hollow Earth theory alive into the 20th century when it began to take on a more supernatural air. Works of fiction that used Halley and Symmes visions as starting points have profoundly influenced modern believers of the theory. Author Jules Verne published A Journey to the Centre of the Earth in 1864, which proposed a lush world inside the planet. The novel inspired an entire sub-genre of science fiction about prehistoric jungles and highly advanced and enlightened races of humans living beneath us.

Some modern hollow earthers believe Nazis who escaped from World War Two, as well as the lost Viking colonies of Greenland and the lost tribes of Israel all live in the center of the Earth. Others think that it is home to around 100 subterranean cities full of superior humans, known as the Agartha network.

They have flying saucer technology. They live lives of perfect health for hundreds of years. Their science is much more advanced because they live much longer lives, Rodney Cluff told Atlas Obscura. It has a perfect temperature. God made the inner sun so that it provides heat, during the night, and a little bit less at night. Trees grow up to a thousand feet tall. Humans even grow up to 15 feet tall.



Cluff claims that the only reason we on the surface havent had any verifiable contact with those in the core is that a vaguely defined international banking conspiracy has worked to cover up the Hollow Earth and hide any evidence of Symmes holes. Hes not the only one. YouTube conspiracy theorists secureteam10 told The Sun: Every single satellite image that we have of the North Pole shows a massive hole or a blackout hole put there to hide whatevers underneath.
Louisiana Man Arrested For Beating Black Teens Who Talked To White Girl Ivie Ani Ivie is a Nigerian-American, native New Yorker, and journalist covering

Though an arrest has been made, police say theres evidence lacking of a racial motive.

St. James Parish Sheriffs Office arrested a white man in connection to an incident at an annual Christmas Eve bonfire event in Gramercy where two black teenagers who were beaten and hospitalized.

Jordan Hitt, 21, was arrested Dec. 28 and charged with aggravated second-degree battery. Hitt is currently awaiting a bond hearing at St. James Parish Jail in Convent.

READ: Resisting Arrest Can Now Be Considered A Hate Crime In Louisiana

LaQuesha Scott, the mother of one of the victims, posted a statement on Facebook saying her 15-year-old son, Sam Scott, was attacked by a group of four or five white men after a white girl began talking to them at the bonfire. The other victim is her sons 17-year-old cousin, Shannon Dumas.

One of the boys maintained severe injuries around his eyes, cheeks, scalp, and what appears to be a split earlobe, while the other reportedly ended up with 17 stitches. Scott claims her nephew had been hit with a Crown Royal bottle several times and knocked unconscious.

https://www.facebook.com/laquesha.scott.1/posts/1657208934331512

Neither parent was present at the site of the incident but say their sons have the same account of what transpired.

A white girl started talking to one of my black friends and they were running it with each other and she had a boyfriend and her boyfriend got mad, Shannon Dumas told Fox 8 Live.

From there, Shannon Dumas says the conversation escalated and more people gathered around.

And I asked him if he wanted to fight and he said, Yeah, so he was like yeah, so I took my jacket off and when I took my jacket off, somebody hit me with a bottle and I fell and they hit me again and I fell again and they started jumping me, Dumas added.

The cousins claim they did not throw the first punches and that five or six white teenagers surrounded them and attacked.

READ: Washington, DC Teen Killed Over $200 Pair of Jordans, Mother Says

St. James Parish Sheriff Willy Martin said investigators have not found evidence of a racial motive for the fight so far.

I dont see anything that supports its a racial/hate crime, Martin said in an interview shortly before the announcement of Hitts arrest. Prior to the fight, they were all up there having a nice timeWe all know it was a fight between young black men and young white men, but we dont know if its over hate. We have not determined the motive of this fight.

It feels like its about to be a pushover and were not going to let that go like that, Lahoma Dumas, the mother of the 17-year-old, told Fox 8 Live.

Down here, to me, its like when youre white, youre right, one of the mothers said. I feel like if they would have done that to them, they would have been in jail the same night All I want is justice.

Officials say the investigation is ongoing.
We Americans may not agree on much these days, but many of us are probably united in this thought: 2017 stank.

Pick any objective measure  natural disasters, terrorism, mass shootings, the sudden possibility of nuclear winter, the next beloved icon revealed to be a #metoo monster.

This has been, for most people, a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year. Personally, Ive never been gladder in my life to see a page on the calendar change. Buh-bye, 2017.

And yet  all evidence to the contrary  I believe that 2018 will be the Year of the Rebound. I have faith in the new year. I have hope.

I have zero empirical proof to back up something I feel in my bones. Its not like climate change is going to reverse itself. Man does not appear ready to universally start being more humane to man. Our red-and-blue politics has gotten redder and bluer. In all likelihood, more gloom and doom is in the forecast for those not standing in the sunshine of the booming stock market or at the end of the tax bill rainbow.

Still, hope persists and I cant exactly explain why. It feels so personal, so individual, like no matter whats on fire, Ill be OK.

Yet to avoid the charge of fake news, I reached out to people who specialize in matters we cannot see or touch or prove.

In Christian tradition, the theological virtues are faith, hope and love, said Pastor Carm. I cannot grow any of those in a petri dish. But they sure are real. And I cling to them.

The Rev. Carmala Carm Aderman heads a small Lutheran congregation, Luther Memorial, in midtown Omaha. Hers is the church that last fall celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation with beer and brats, which ought to cement her bona fides as a wise woman of the cloth. Before that, she was a microbiologist.

Im with you, she said on being hopeful for a better year ahead. I look around and go, Oh yeah. Its awful. Except it isnt.

Come again?

Theres a greater reality, she said. Theres a greater energy  one all the great faith traditions recognize. And its an intangible. I dont have any math or science for it, but I know its truth.

When she said that, I remembered a quote I once saw framed and hanging in the Foltz familys living room in Grand Island. Bereaved parents Gerald and Jill Foltz were about to mark their first Christmas without son Sam, the Husker kicker who died in a car crash in 2016. It was 19th century poet Emily Dickinson who brought them comfort. There, on their wall, were her words: Hope is a thing with feathers.

In Dickinsons poem, hope is a bird perched in the soul who sings a wordless tune. The bird never stops at all and keeps so many warm.

Hope as a bird was an image the Rev. Larry Gillick evoked when I called for a Jesuit perspective.

Father Gillick went straight to the poetic, invoking the late Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose poem Gods Grandeur speaks to the idea that the world is good but man screws it up.

Hes saying its bleak, said the Jesuit. But the Jewish-Christian belief is that God has not given up on creation.

That is expressed in the poems last line, which describes dawn coming with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Father Gillick argued against the thesis that 2017 was a bad year.

There are people that will read your paper and be very happy with the way politics are. They will be very happy there is some kind of tax relief. That were being very, very carry-a-big-stick,  he said.

But no matter what your politics or tax bracket are, wouldnt everyone feel the same sense of unease? Wouldnt people agree that wildfires in California, a hurricane-swamped Houston and a massacre at a country western concert are universally, objectively bad events?

Gillick said there is light in the darkness and offered two examples: The #metoo women who have started an important cultural sea change. The many students at Creighton University, where he works, who seem increasingly willing to give up some of their 20s to volunteer in service to others.

Every year, he said, we get more and more kids saying, We dont like the darkness. 

Finding light in the darkness was a theme that Rabbi Brian Stoller used. He referenced Hanukkah, which ended Dec. 20, and Christmas  both holidays of light held around the naturally darkest time of year that symbolize hope.

Our Hebrew Bible teaches that the light of God lives inside every human being and that the light of God is in the world, he said. Sometimes its covered by darkness and clouds. But deep inside all of us  and within this world where we live  we know that the divine light is there and its powerful.

This isnt so much hope, he said, as it is faith.

Rabbi Stoller defined faith as believing the impossible is possible despite everything that you can see in front of you.

He said you dont have to be explicitly religious to be a person of faith. Faith is what gets us out of bed and through the wilderness of our hardships, whatever those may be.

Jill Foltz said she hadnt thought of 2016, the year her son died, as being the worst year of her life.

We hope we dont have to experience anything harder, she said. But if something worse has come, you hope youve mustered up the energy and faith to face it, too.

Pastor Carm said that hope, while intangible, must be outwardly expressed.

Hope doesnt get to be passive, she said. It drives me to be part of the fix. I have to live out what that hope means.

Imam Mohamad Jamal Daoudi of the American Muslim Institute in Omaha said hard times are tests that can be passed through patience, love and outreach to one another. He said that hearts soften toward love  and that basic kindness can be a light in the darkness, an antidote to a tough year.

The continuum of time, after all, has both light and shadow.

Think of the eclipse, Father Gillick said.

On Aug. 21, right over the state of Nebraska, in some parts it was darker than others, he reminded me. It got dark. And it got light.

It is a good symbol of the balance of our lives. Light and shadow. Dark and light. Events that are catastrophes or natural wonders.

Do we judge a year by what happens? Or by how we respond?

Perhaps its both. Remember the California couple caught in one of Californias 2017 fires? They survived by jumping in a pool and stayed there, bobbing in the cold water, for six hours. Though they lost everything, they were mindful of what they had still  life. And each other.

They said later that they lost everything  yet lost nothing.

I fully anticipate that the new year will bring darkness and loss but also lightness and joy, and thats where Ill pin my hopes.
With a new federal tax code on the way, nows the time for the Nebraska Legislature to find ways to make state and local taxes and government spending more competitive, Nebraska Chamber of Commerce & Industry lobbyist Jamie Karl said Thursday.

Its time to put pen to paper and see what can be done, long-term, Karl said of a process that may take more than one session by state senators.

The state chambers board of directors marked taxes as one of four top priorities for the 2018 Legislature, along with resolving shortages of skilled workers and housing outside Omaha and Lincoln and battling inefficient government services.

The chamber board also elected Rich Herink, president of the First National Banks Lincoln market, as chairman for 2018 and Todd Foje, CEO of Great Plains Communications of Blair, as chairman-elect.

Karl said worker shortages have been the top concern of chamber members for five years in a row.

For the most part, the same challenges have faced our employer community for the past decade, he said.

Missing from this years list of top priorities is the states business incentive program. I dont think this is the year for an overhaul of the incentive program, Karl said.

Because of the new federal tax law, taxes will be debated in all states in 2018, he said. Its unclear how the federal changes will affect state tax revenue. I dont think anyone really knows.

But he said Nebraska taxes are too high, including maximum income tax rates that are 15th highest at 6.84 percent on individual earnings above $29,000 and 7.81 percent on corporate earnings.

Those tax rates make Nebraska less competitive and hurt economic growth and job creation, the chamber said, adding that sales and income taxes should not be raised, sales taxes should not be broadened to other goods and services and tax revenue should not be earmarked for specific programs.

To address the worker shortage, Karl said, the state should broaden its Intern NE program, customized job training and career academies for vocational skills, and should recognize other states job licensing standards.

The Legislature appropriated $1.5 million to pay half of the cost of new internships in the state, but that money also was quickly claimed, Karl said, as was money for customized job training.

The state has been chipping away at the shortage of housing, he said, but there are still no houses for sale or rent in many communities with populations of 5,000 or less, even though employers may be hiring. As a result, people end up finding residences elsewhere and driving long distances to work or move to other states.

The state started a $2 million grant program last year that provided partial home financing for people taking new jobs, but the money quickly ran out, he said.

One of the proposals to be carried over from the 2017 Legislature is Legislative Bill 496, which would let communities use tax-increment financing for housing projects. Karl said the chamber favors the measure, even though opponents have disputed that use of potential property tax revenue.

The chamber also favors encouraging local governments to merge services as a way of saving money. Karl said such service-sharing has reduced costs in some other large states with relatively small populations, including New Mexico and South Dakota.
BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo (AP)  A naturalized U.S. citizen who was detained in the Republic of Congo for more than a year has been released, the U.S. Embassy there said Friday.

Marcel Pika, a former Nebraskan, is a retired colonel who served in the Republic of Congos military. He was arrested early last year and held for inciting disorderly conduct amid unrest and other detentions that followed President Denis Sassou NGuessos re-election.

U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Jacqueline Mourot said Pika, 70, was freed Friday without further judgment.

The U.S. Embassy is very grateful to the government of Congo for having decided today to release Mr. Pika. We think this is a good step forward in the framework of good relations between our two countries, she said.

The U.S. State Department requested Pikas release in June, citing concerns over his diabetes and the conditions under which he was being held.

Gov. Pete Ricketts in August had joined those calling for the Republic of Congo to release Pika.

Pika fled from the country in the late 1990s and settled with his family in Lincoln as refugees in 1999. He became a U.S. citizen in 2005. He retired to his original country with his wife in 2007.

Republic of Congo is often overshadowed by its much larger neighbor, Congo.

Pika was close to Gen. Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko, who placed third in the 2016 presidential election. Mokoko was also arrested after the vote on charges of undermining state security.

Human rights groups have criticized Sassou NGuesso and called for the release of political prisoners.

The countrys March 2016 election came five months after a constitutional referendum removed term and age limits that would have barred the president, then 72, from running. He has ruled the Central African country for more than 30 years.
Ezana Tedros

A 21-year-old man was arrested early Thursday after authorities say he crashed a minivan into a house in Cedar Hills, injuring two of his passengers.

Ezana Tedros of Manteca, California was booked into the Washington County Jail on suspicion of driving under the influence of intoxicants, second-degree criminal mischief and fourth-degree assault. No one inside the house was injured.

According to the county sheriff's office, the silver 2016 Honda Odyssey went off road around 1:35 a.m., hit a tree, spun around and careened backwards into a house in the 10700 block of Southwest Walker Road.

Tedros' 24- and 21-year-old passengers sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey
A search for a man sought in connection with a Washington shooting ended in Fairview Thursday after authorities say he was found in a stranger's home and apparently shot himself.

A SWAT team and crisis negotiation unit surrounded a home near Northeast Lincoln Street and Sixth Avenue after finding the unidentified man alone inside, said Lt. Marc Shrake, a Multnomah County Sheriff's Office spokesman. The man surrendered soon after police heard one gunshot as they were waiting outside the home, according to Shrake.

The man was taken to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center for treatment. The sheriff's office has not released an update on his condition.

Shrake said he didn't know the details of the shooting that took place in Washington because the U.S. Marshals Service, which was searching for the man, did not publicly disclose details of the case.

According to the sheriff's office, authorities spotted the man near a Motel 6 in Troutdale around 11:20 a.m. and he drove away. He crashed near Northeast Halsey Street and 217th Avenue in Fairview and then ran away.

U.S. marshals and county deputies locked down an area of Northeast Halsey Street from 207th Avenue to 223rd Avenue to look for the man. By 5:30 p.m., a two square-block area of homes between Fairview Avenue ad Seventh Street had been evacuated during the search, the sheriff's office said.

Authorities went door to door looking for the man until they found him, Shrake said.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey
Authorities late Thursday identified the man at the center of a manhunt Thursday as Joshua D. Weber.

The 22-year-old Yakima man was sought in connection with a Washington shooting. Authorities say he was found in a stranger's home Thursday and apparently shot himself.

A SWAT team and crisis negotiation unit surrounded a home near Northeast Lincoln Street and Sixth Avenue after finding the unidentified man alone inside, said Lt. Marc Shrake, a Multnomah County Sheriff's Office spokesman.

The man surrendered soon after police heard one gunshot as they were waiting outside the home, according to Shrake. He was taken to an area hospital. Authorities did not release his condition.

According to the Yakima Herald, Weber shot at bail recovery agents in Washington earlier this month. Yakima police told the news organization that two men working for a bail bond company were shot when they tried to pick up Weber. Weber, the paper reported, forfeited his bail when he failed to appear in court to face theft and obstruction charges.

According to the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, authorities spotted the man near a Motel 6 in Troutdale around 11:20 a.m. and he drove away. He crashed near Northeast Halsey Street and 217th Avenue in Fairview and then ran away.

U.S. marshals and county deputies locked down an area of Northeast Halsey Street from 207th Avenue to 223rd Avenue to look for the man. By 5:30 p.m., a two square-block area of homes between Fairview Avenue and Seventh Street had been evacuated during the search, the sheriff's office said.

Authorities went door to door looking for the man until they found him, Shrake said.

-- The Oregonian
By Liz Szabo, Kaiser Health News

Elena Altemus is 89 and has dementia. She often forgets her childrens names, and sometimes cant recall whether she lives in Maryland or Italy.

Yet Elena, who entered a nursing home in November, was screened for breast cancer as recently as this summer. If the screening is not too invasive, why not? asked her daughter, Dorothy Altemus. I want her to have the best quality of life possible.

But a growing chorus of geriatricians, cancer specialists and health system analysts are coming forth with a host of reasons: Such testing in the nations oldest patients is highly unlikely to detect lethal disease, hugely expensive and more likely to harm than help since any follow-up testing and treatment is often invasive.

And yet such screening  some have labeled it overdiagnosis  is epidemic in the United States, the result of medical culture, aggressive awareness campaigns and financial incentives to doctors.

By looking for cancers in people who are unlikely to benefit, we find something that wasnt going to hurt the patient, and then we hurt the patient, said Dr. Sei Lee, an associate professor of geriatrics at the University of California-San Francisco.

Nearly 1 in 5 women with severe cognitive impairment  including older patients like Elena Altemus  are still getting regular mammograms, according to the American Journal of Public Health  even though they're not recommended for people with a limited life expectancy. And 55 percent of older men with a high risk of death over the next decade still get PSA tests for prostate cancer, according to a 2014 study in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Among people in their 70s and 80s, cancer screenings often detect slow-growing tumors that are unlikely to cause problems in patients lifetimes. These patients often die of something else  from dementia to heart disease or pneumonia  long before their cancers would ever have become a threat, said Dr. Deborah Korenstein, chief of general internal medicine at New Yorks Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Prostate cancers, in particular, are often harmless.

Patients with dementia, for example, rarely live longer than a few years.

It generally takes about 10 years to see benefit from cancer screening, at least in terms of a mortality benefit, Korenstein said.

Enthusiasm for cancer screenings runs high among patients and doctors, both of whom tend to overestimate the benefits but underappreciate the risks, medical research shows.

In some cases, women are being screened for tumors in organs they no longer have. In a study of women over 30, nearly two-thirds who had undergone a hysterectomy got at least one cervical cancer screening, including one-third who had been screened in the past year, according to a 2014 study in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Even some patients with terminal cancers continue to be screened for other malignancies.

Nine percent of women with advanced cancers  including tumors of the lung, colon or pancreas  received a mammogram and 6 percent received a cervical cancer screen, according to a 2010 study of Medicare recipients over age 65. Among men on Medicare with incurable cancer, 15 percent were screened for prostate cancer.

Although screenings can extend and improve lives for healthy, younger adults, they tend to inflict more harm than good in people who are old and frail, Korenstein said. Testing can lead to anxiety, invasive follow-up procedures and harsh treatments.

In patients well into their 80s, with other chronic conditions, its highly unlikely that they will receive any benefit from screening, and more likely that the harms will outweigh the benefits, said Dr. Cary Gross, a professor at the Yale School of Medicine.

By screening patients near the end of life, doctors often detect tumors that don't need to be found and treated. Researchers estimate that up to two-thirds of prostate cancers are overdiagnosed, along with one-third of breast tumors.

Overdiagnosis is serious, Gross said. Its a tremendous harm that screening has imposed.  Its something were only beginning to reckon with.

A variety of medical specialties  from the American College of Surgeons to the Society of General Internal Medicine  have advised doctors against screening patients with limited time left. For example, the American Cancer Society recommends prostate and breast cancer screenings only in patients expected to live 10 years or more.

In November, a coalition of patient advocates, employers and others included prostate screenings in men over age 75 in its list of the top five "low-value" medical procedures. Dr. A. Mark Fendrick, co-director of the coalition, referred to the five procedures as "no-brainers," arguing that health plans should consider refusing to pay for them.

Prostate cancer screening in men over 75 cost Medicare at least $145 million a year, according to a 2014 study in the journal Cancer. Mammograms in this age group cost the federal health plan for seniors more than $410 million a year, according to a 2013 study in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Taxpayers usually foot the bill for these tests, because most seniors are covered by Medicare.

And while cancer screenings generally aren't expensive  a mammogram averages about $100  they can launch a cascade of follow-up tests and treatments that add to the total cost of care.

Most spending on unnecessary medical care stems not from rare, big-ticket items, such as heart surgeries, but cheaper services that are performed much too often, according to an October study in Health Affairs.

A Hard Habit To Break

Many older patients expect to continue getting screened, said Dr. Mara Schonberg, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and Bostons Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Its jarring for someone whos been told every year to get screened and then at age 75 you tell them to stop, she said.

John Randall, 78, says he plans to live into his 90s. He sees no reason to skip cancer screening.

I, for one, do not like to hear what my life expectancy is, said Randall, who lives near Madison, Wis. He plans to have his next colonoscopy in January. He feels healthy and walks 2 miles at a stretch several days a week. No one knows when I am going to die.

Decades of public awareness campaigns have convinced patients that cancer screenings are essential, said Dr. Lisa Schwartz, a professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Her research found that many people see cancer screening as a moral obligation and can't imagine a day when they would stop getting screened.

Such campaigns have convinced many women that mammograms saves lives.

But those campaigns don't mention that doctors need to screen 1,000 women for a decade in order to prevent one death from breast cancer, said Schonberg.

Yet screenings can have dire consequences. Medical complications during colonoscopies  such as intestinal tears  are almost twice as common in patients ages 75 to 79 compared with those 70 to 74, according to a study published in January in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Colonoscopies, which require extensive bowel cleansing before the procedure, also can leave many older people dehydrated and prone to fainting.

PSA tests can lead to prostate biopsies  in which doctors use needles to sample tissue  that cause infections in about 6 percent of men. These infections send about 1 in 100 men who undergo the procedure to the hospital, according to a 2014 study in the Journal of Urology.

Even removing nonfatal skin cancers can cause problems for older patients, said Dr. Eleni Linos, an associate professor at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine. Frail patients can struggle to care for surgical wounds and change dressings; their wounds are also less likely to heal well, Linos said. More than 1 in 4 patients with nonfatal skin cancers report a complication of treatment, Linos research shows.

Yet most of the 2.5 million slowest-growing skin cancers found each year are diagnosed in people over 65, according to Linos' 2014 study. More than 100,000 of these nonfatal skin cancers are treated in patients who die within one year.

Screenings, follow-up tests and treatments can cause emotional trauma as well.

For a woman of that generation who doesnt have the cognitive ability to understand whats going on, having private parts of their body exposed and pressed against a machine can be very agitating and upsetting, Lee said.

Among older women, about 70 percent report significant stress at the time of a biopsy, Schonberg said. Simply lying on a table for a 45-minute biopsy can cause pain for women with significant arthritis, she said.

Virtually all older women with breast cancer wind up getting surgery, which poses additional hardships, Schonberg said. Many are prescribed hormonal therapies that can cause bone pain, fatigue and increase the risk of stroke.

With prostate cancer, doctors today try to reduce the harm from overdiagnosis by offering men with early-stage disease "active surveillance" instead of immediate treatment. A study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine found that men are just as likely to survive 10 years whether they choose to be treated or monitored.

Jay Schleifer, 74, of Wellington, Fla., was diagnosed with a low-risk prostate cancer last year. Since then, his doctor has monitored him with additional tests. Hell be treated only if tests suggest his cancer has become more aggressive.

This less aggressive approach aims to spare Schleifer from long-term side effects.

Among men who have had prostate cancer surgery, 14 percent lose control of their bladders and 14 percent develop erectile dysfunction, according to a 2013 study in JAMA Internal Medicine.

In a study published in July in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dr. Richard Hoffman found 15 percent of prostate cancer survivors regretted their treatment decision. Those treated with surgery and radiation were about twice as likely to regret their choice compared with those who opted to monitor their disease.

Men are more likely to regret their prostate cancer treatment decisions if they dont understand the risks beforehand, said Hoffman, director of general internal medicine at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine/Iowa City VA Medical Center.

Harold Honeyfield, 87, said he didnt fully understand the risks when he had prostate cancer surgery 12 years ago. Although he is glad he was treated, the surgery caused irreversible erectile dysfunction, which has caused stress and sadness for him and his wife of 47 years.

When a man has no erections, that is paralysis, said Honeyfield, of Davis, Calif., who started a support group for other men dealing with prostate cancer. Youve lost the ability to be a man.

A Tough Sell

Doctors have a number of incentives to continue ordering screening tests as people age.

Its a lot easier to say, Fine, get your regular mammogram this year, than to have the much more difficult conversation that its not helpful when life expectancy is limited, Gross said.

Schonberg said she tries to be diplomatic when talking to patients about halting screening.

Its hard to tell people, Youre not going to live long enough to benefit, Schonberg said. That doesnt go over well.

Many physicians continue screening older people because theyre afraid theyll be sued if they miss a cancer, Schonberg said. And she notes that some health systems award bonuses to clinicians whose patients have high screening rates.

In addition, doing less can be perceived as a lack of caring or as ageism, Schonberg said. It can be uncomfortable for a physician to explain why doing less is more.

Doctors should prioritize what they can do to help patients be healthier, said Dr. Louise Walter, chief of geriatrics at the University of California-San Francisco and a geriatrician at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. For many older patients, screening for cancer is not their most pressing need.

Instead of spending time and effort on things that are hurtful and never going to help them, why not direct time and energy on things that will help them live longer and better? Walter asked.

For example, Walter might tell a patient, Right now, you have really bad heart failure and we need to get that under control, Walter said.

Other key issues for many older people include preventing falls, treating depression and alleviating stress in their caregivers, Walter said. Gross said he urges patients to take steps shown to improve their health, such as getting a flu shot or exercising at least 15 minutes a day.

These are things that can help them feel better very quickly, Walter said. Screenings can take years to have a benefit, if at all.
A Washington County deputy was sentenced to a year and a half of probation for possessing steroids while off duty in May.

Deputy Bryce Kampwerth, 33, was sentenced last Thursday in Washington County Circuit Court. The Sheriff's Office said he was placed on unpaid administrative leave the next day pending the results of an internal investigation. He had been on paid leave before then.

The terms of Kampwerth's probation include him not having or using steroids or any other controlled substance unless he receives written permission from a licensed medical professional, court documents show.

Kampwerth, a patrol deputy, has been with the sheriff's office since January 2014. He is a bodybuilder who promotes fitness meal plans online.

The sheriff's office said someone contacted the agency in early December with information about Kampwerth and steroids. Kampwerth was arrested Dec. 18 after an investigation by the Beaverton Police Department.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey
The Midland County Youth Action Council through the Midland Area Community Foundation has awarded a $8,470 grant to expand the Midland Young Life program for high school students.

This grant supports Midland Young Life's effort to impact the lives and future paths of Midland at-risk high school students by providing more relationship building activities for leaders and students and offering additional leadership training opportunities. Funding will also be used to provide camp scholarships for low-income students who might not otherwise be able to attend.

Young Life is an international, non-denominational ministry that reaches out to adolescents through volunteers, staff and camps by building meaningful relationships with them.

"Midland Young Life has been bringing mentors and students together for over 55 years and we are exceedingly grateful for the generous grant that was extended to us by the community," said Linden Rogers, chair of the Midland Young Life Committee. "Young Life reaches out to youth -- all youth -- to let them know they are valued and that they have huge potential. Midland is a community that strongly supports high-quality youth programs and this grant is a prime example of that support."

MCYAC is a project of the Midland Area Community Foundation, and is made possible through the Council of Michigan Foundations and supported by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
The employees at Mid Michigan Community College took time this year to help area children have a merry Christmas. Despite the snowy Michigan weather, the employees hosted a Christmas party for roughly 60 children in need from Clare and Gladwin counties.

"All of the families who attended were so happy," said Sarah Gariglio, MMCC administrative specialist, who coordinated the event. "We enjoyed Santa's special reading of 'The Polar Express,' had a Christmas carol singalong, filled goody bags, ate pizza and decorated sugar cookies."

As part of the event, each of the 25 families also received a Family Fare or Witbeck's grocery store gift card to help them prepare a proper Christmas dinner. Each child will also have presents to open on Christmas morning thanks to donations from MMCC faculty and staff.

Bob and Linda Guiliani from Guys and Dolls Photography in Clare donated their services to take a picture of each child on Santa's lap. Volunteers at the event included MMCC staff and faculty, Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society students and early childhood education students.

"The children's faces just lit up when Santa came in, and that makes all of the work worth it," Gariglio said. "It's very rewarding to be a part of the MMCC team, because so many members of the college contribute and work together to make this event so special."
The American Association of University Women - Midland Branch is offering scholarship assistance for two college/university women to attend the 2018 National Conference of College Women Student Leaders May 30 through June 2 at the University of Maryland campus at College Park, Maryland.

Two $1000 scholarships will be offered. Scholarship applicants should have a 3.0 GPA, either be attending a local college/university, or be from the area and attending college elsewhere. The award process includes an application with a short essay, a recommendation from a college/university official or faculty member, and a list of college and community activities noting any leadership roles held. A brief oral report of the experience is expected to be presented at the AAUW-Midland Branch meeting in September.
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BLOOMINGTON  While frigid temperatures have many people pulling out extra layers and cranking up the heat, some of the animals at Miller Park Zoo are basking in the chill.

We dont give animals enough credit. They adapt and handle the cold better than we do, said zoo Superintendent Jay Tetzloff.

Tetzloff said the snow leopards, red pandas, Pallass cats, otters, seals and reindeer at the zoo enjoyed the recent snowfall and cold weather.

The animals who arent fond of the cold are moved to indoor exhibits.

It all starts with the animals we chose to have at the zoo. If we didnt think we could accommodate an animal here for every season, we wouldnt have it here, said Tetzloff.

Some animals did more than tolerate the low temperatures Thursday.

The North American river otters dipped in and out of the pool in their exhibit, stopping to examine the ice and snow crusted around the bank.

The otter pups were born in February, so this was the first time they got to experience snow. It was fun to see their responses, said Tetzloff.

In a large outdoor exhibit, a pair of snow leopards curled up on beds of hay. They blinked sleepily at guests before going back to snoozing in the snow, much like a house cat, said the zoo staff.

Tetzloff said its never too cold" for the cats, but the zoo still gives them the option to warm up inside.

A pair of orange-eyed, Eurasian eagle owls  the largest species of owl and a new addition to the zoo  nestled on branches in a central exhibit formerly inhabited by lemurs.

We bring our lemurs inside for the winter and the owls take their place outside. They are cold-hardy, said Tetzloff.

All outdoor exhibits have heated water bowls for the animals and a shelter of some form, said Tetzloff, and meal servings are increased for outdoor animals to bump up their caloric intake.

In the winter, the otters and snow leopards grow a thicker coat and the harbor seals get a little chunkier, said Tetzloff.

Tetzloff, who also serves as director of the Bloomington Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts Department, said visiting the zoo in colder months has its perks: The animals are more interested in guests and you almost have the zoo to yourself.

Domestic animals

As for domestic animals, not all can bear the Illinois winters like wild animals can.

Dr. Kristin Heiden, veterinarian at Bortell Animal Hospital in Bloomington, has the following tips for pet owners:

"If you're cold, they're cold," said Heiden. "Some animals love the cold, but most will be much happier snug in bed with us." In cold weather, give pets short trips outside with just enough time to do their business.

Check their paws for snow, ice and salt. "They can get little snowballs stuck in their paw pads. A quick wipe-off after going outside will prevent frozen, sore paws," she said.

Small pets or animals with short fur should spend less time outside on freezing days. "If the temperature is in the teens, as long as they're a bigger dog with long fur, 15 to 20 minutes outside isn't harmful," said Heiden.

Always provide water for outdoor pets via a heated bowl.

"Just like humans, animals can get frostbite," she said. Cats and small dogs are prone to frozen ear tips and tails.
BLOOMINGTON  There is a theory that it can be too cold to snow and when the temperature drops below zero and struggles to reach double digits in the afternoon, the threat of snow is low.

This is not entirely true, said Daryl Onton, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Lincoln.

As temperatures get bitterly cold, there can be a limit to the amount of moisture the atmosphere can hold, he said. It certainly decreases, but it can still snow at very cold temperatures.

As evidence, the NWS has issued a winter weather advisory from noon Friday until midnight for portions of Central Illinois, mainly along and north of Interstate 74 and including McLean, Woodford and Tazewell counties. An advisory means periods of snow will cause travel difficulties.

The NWS forecasts 2 to 5 inches in the region with the heaviest snowfall between noon and 6 p.m.

Snow began falling in downtown Bloomington around 11 a.m.

Motorists are urged to be prepared for snow-covered and slick roads and limited visibility, and to use caution while driving, particularly during the Friday evening commute.

When temperatures decrease, the maximum capacity of water vapor that can be in the air also decreases. So, the colder it gets, the less water vapor there will be in the air. When the temperatures drop into the single digits or below zero, heavy, wet snow is unlikely, according to the NWS.

Temperatures often rise as a weather system moves through an area, which is expected to be the case on Friday that includes the possibility of 2 to 4 inches of new snow falling in Bloomington-Normal in the afternoon or evening.

Temperatures are expected to warm up slightly, but the high could still only reach 18 degrees, Onton said; even colder temperatures will return on Saturday.

It doesnt appear that we are going to break the freezing mark for at least another week, he said. And the 4 inches of snow that fell on Christmas Eve hasn't melted.

On Saturday, the high is expected to be only 8 degrees and the overnight lows will be around minus 4 degrees. Sundays high will be around 10 degrees and the New Year starts with a high of around 11 degrees, said NWS.

Tuesdays high will be around 11 degrees and on Wednesday, the high will be about 17 degrees.

This cold snap is going to ebb and flow and those overnight lows will drop below zero, Onton said. As far as reaching 32 degrees, its not in our forecast at this point.

The last time the temperature was above freezing in Bloomington-Normal was Dec. 23 when it was 36 degrees.
NEW YORK (AP)  Twelve people were dead and four more were fighting for their lives late Thursday after a fire swept through a Bronx apartment building on one of the coldest nights so far this winter, city officials said.

The victims included a child around a year old, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a briefing outside the building.

"We may lose others as well," he said.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro called the fire, "historic in its magnitude," because of the number of lives lost. Excluding the Sept. 11 attacks, it was the worst fire in the city since 87 people were killed at a social club fire in the Bronx in 1990.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation, Nigro said.

"Our hearts go out to every person who lost a loved one here and everyone who is fighting for their lives," he added.

The blaze broke out on the first floor of a five-story building just before 7 p.m. and quickly ripped through the structure, a block from the grounds of the Bronx Zoo.

About 170 firefighters worked in bone-chilling cold, just 15 degrees, to rescue people from the building. Water sprayed from hoses froze into ice on the street.

Thierno Diallo, 59, a security guard originally from Conakry, Guinea, who lives in a ground floor apartment said he was home asleep when he heard banging on the door. It took a moment to realize what was happening.

"Only when I heard people screaming, 'There's a fire in the building!'" he said. "I heard somebody, 'Oh! Fire! Fire! Fire!'"

He ran out in his bathrobe, jacket and sandals.

Neighborhood resident Robert Gonzalez, who has a friend who lives in the building, said she got out on a fire escape as another resident fled with five children.

"When I got here, she was crying," Gonzalez said.

Other witnesses described seeing burned bodies being carried away on stretchers.

Windows on some upper floors were smashed and blackened.

"The smoke was crazy, people screaming, 'Get out!," a witness, Jamal Flicker, told the New York Post. "I heard a woman yelling, 'We're trapped, help!"

A tenant in an adjoining building, Ana Santiago, told The New York Times that she fled when she smelled the smoke and saw young girls who had escaped the burning building on the fire escape standing barefoot outside with no coats.

The death toll surpassed the 10 who died, including nine children, in a four-story home in another part of the Bronx in 2007. That blaze had been sparked by a space heater.

Diallo said the apartment building has tenants who hail from all over the world.
SPRINGFIELD  An Illinois judge dealt a blow to anti-abortion groups Thursday, dismissing a lawsuit aimed at stopping a law that's about to take effect that would expand Medicaid and state-employee group health insurance to cover abortions.

Associate Circuit Judge Jennifer Ascher ruled that the judiciary should not intervene in "political questions" in the General Assembly, such as a law's effective date or whether there's an appropriation to fund it.

Those are the pillars of the lawsuit seeking to stop the law from taking effect Monday. It was filed by the Catholic Thomas More Society on behalf of 11 conservative and Christian groups and a dozen legislators.

State Rep. Peter Breen, a Republican from Lombard and special counsel to the Thomas More Society, said he will appeal the ruling on Friday in Springfield's 4th District Appellate Court and seek the same injunction he sought from Ascher.

Breen argued that lawmakers passed the measure too late in the year for it to take effect Jan. 1 and that they didn't appropriate funding to cover the cost of the abortions through the publicly funded insurance plans. Despite the ruling, he remained upbeat after the hearing.

"After today's argument, I'm more confident than ever in the truth and the correctness of our position," Breen said. "I heard nothing today ... that caused me to think that somehow, the General Assembly has done its job any more than it had a few days ago."

John Wolfsmith, an assistant attorney general representing the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services and other defendants, claimed Breen's clients are simply trying to buy time by delaying the law's implementation to June 1.

The law, signed by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in September, expands Medicaid and state group health insurance plans to cover abortions.

Breen contends that taxpayers will be billed for 30,000 elective abortions annually in Illinois. They will cost $1.8 million, according to the state health care agency.

Democrats in the General Assembly initially sold the measure as a way to keep abortion legal in Illinois if a U.S. Supreme Court, bolstered by anti-abortion justices President Donald Trump has promised to appoint, reverses the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

After Roe, Illinois restricted public funding for abortions under the 1977 Hyde Amendment  named for Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde  to women who were victims of rape or incest or in cases where pregnancy endangers a mother's life.

More than two dozen states follow the Hyde Amendment, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group supporting abortion rights. But a state can use the state portion of Medicaid state-federal program funding for women seeking abortions for other reasons. Seventeen states do that, 13 because of a court order.

The issue generated a subplot when Rauner signed the plan in September. The private equity investor ran for governor in 2014 supporting abortion rights and maintaining that he had no social agenda. But after signaling last spring that he would veto it, his signature so infuriated conservatives that he invited a primary challenge from state Rep. Jeanne Ives, a Republican from Wheaton who is a plaintiff in the abortion-funding case.
2017 was a big year for PAPER cover shoots. Kicking off with Rihanna's "Break the Rules" shoot in a New York bodega, replete with spiked green hair and plenty of Dior, led into a summer marked by breakout bubblegum trap star Lil Yachty as the face of our Youth issue. Summer was also home to PRIDE month, during which a diverse crew of LGBTQ queens sat down to talk with PAPER and shoot covers, including Janet Mock, Nyle DiMarco, Halsey, Beth Ditto, Jeffree Star and RuPaul herself.

French Montana took us all the way to his native Morocco for a digital cover shoot, and some of the most iconic stars of the past generation  Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, the Backstreet Boys and Ricky Martin  joined PAPER in celebrating a very special Las Vegas-themed edition of the magazine.

Beautiful People kicked off New York Fashion Week with a host of gorgeous faces across creative industries gracing our cover, including Gucci Mane, Jordan Barrett, Alek Wek, Priyanka Chopra, Duckie Thot and Ashton Sanders.

And finally, the one and only Nicki Minaj helped us break the internet once again with her empowering, racy cover shoot by Ellen von Unwerth in which she gave us not one Nicki's, but three. (Only superbabystar Asahd Khaled could hold a candle to the queen of rap, with his own digital cover that #broketheinternet).

Relive this year's magic and the looks, below, and stay tuned for all that's to come in 2018:
News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
Khamenei Compares Trump To 'Smarter' Reagan, Says U.S. Will Not 'Weaken' Iran

12/28/17

Source: RFE/RL

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump and asserted that his policies will not "weaken" Tehran. In a series of tweets and a televised speech on December 27, Khamenei suggested that U.S. efforts to rein in Iran have been failing since Ronald Reagan was president three decades ago. "Reagan was more powerful and smarter than Trump. He was a better actor in making threats," Khamenei said.



Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

(source: Tehran Times daily)

Khamenei reiterated Iranian claims that a U.S. warship deliberately shot down an Iranian passenger plane over the Persian Gulf in 1988, killing all 290 people aboard. The United States said it was a mistake.



Khamenei said that "Iran has made great advances in all areas since Reagan's time" and added, "This trend will continue under the current American president, and any hopes on their part that the Islamic republic would back off or weaken is futile."



Trump has called Iran, where Khamenei has final say over government policies, a "dictatorship," and his administration has imposed a series of tough new sanctions over Iran's ballistic-missile activities, which the United States maintains violate the spirit of the 2015 agreement between Tehran and global powers on Iran's nuclear program.



The administration also accuses Iran of arming Yemen's Shi'ite Huthi rebels in their war against Yemen's Saudi-backed government -- a charge Tehran denies.



In an October speech, Trump outlined a more aggressive approach to Iran over its nuclear and missile programs and its support for militant groups in the Middle East.



He declined to certify that Tehran was complying with the nuclear deal, which obliged it curb its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, and warned that the United States might ultimately withdraw from the agreement.



With reporting by Reuters, The Times of Israel, and The Hill
Maintenance works on Tema Oil Refinery TOR) has been completed ahead of the scheduled commencement of crude oil refinery in the first quarter of 2018.



With the discovery of oil and gas in Ghana, the company has attempted to expand and position itself to improve its infrastructure.



This is to ensure reliability of petroleum products on the Ghanaian market and also to enhance export to the ECOWAS sub-region.



Management of TOR is counting on workers to put in more efforts to ensure the efficiency of the refinery.



A positive attitude of employees towards work is what will keep the company high as production starts, in order to have TOR bounce back on its feet, TORs Board Chairman, Mr. Tongreaan Kugbilsong Nanlebegtang noted.



Since 1963, TOR has been the engine of growth for Ghanas economy in the vision of successive governments efforts at having a vibrant and robust energy sector. Ghanas only refinery has been plagued with funding challenges, which have resulted in several shutdowns.



Successive governments have had to institute a recovery debt levy to offset its indebtedness.



Managing Director of TOR, Mr. Isaac Osei said the refinery will expand further than it is currently with prudent management at the helm of affairs.



He noted that training and re-training of staff will play an integral role in strategizing for growth in the coming year.



Speaking at a special send-off ceremony to honour a number of retired staff in recognition of their dedicated service to TOR, Board Chairman and the Managing Director pledged their willingness to vigorously embark on key strategies to turn the refinery around.



The send-off ceremony is a programme instituted by TOR to recognize and celebrate retired employees for their long service, commitment and dedication to duty when they were with the company.



A total of 50 staff who retired between 2015 and 2017 were honoured in recognition of their meritorious service.





Source: today









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Informal business operators have been advised to keep good records and run their businesses in a very transparent way to ensure easy honouring of their tax obligations.



Apart from keeping good records, the informal business operators have also been urged to adopt strategies that would enable them to effectively compete and make profit.



Ms Rebecca Naa Kai Adjetey, a tax officer at the Nima Small Taxpayer Office (STO), gave the advice at a days tax education seminar organised for members of the Kowaa Na So Tailors and Dressmakers Association at Maamobi in Accra.



The seminar, organised by the Nima STO of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in collaboration with the National Commission for Civic Education, was part of the national tax campaign aimed at sensitizing the public on the need to honour their tax obligations.



Ms Adjetey urged workers in the informal sector to make it their duty to pay their taxes to ensure development at all levels.



She advised them not to see tax collectors as enemies but people who could help them to make their businesses progress.



The taxes mobilized by a government, she said, would be used to provide roads, hospitals, schools, electricity and water and other infrastructure to improve the living standards of Ghanaians.



She expressed worry that people in the informal sector, including tailors and hairdressers, usually failed to declare their actual profits and were also unwilling to pay taxes.



The organizer of the Association, Mr Osman Abdul Raman, appealed to GRA to involve the Association in the determination of taxes.



He said high taxes and fees imposed on members of the Association affect their businesses and that results in the tax evasion.

Source: today









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The Commission on Human rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has cleared the Minister of Finance (MOF), Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, of allegations of conflict of interest in the issuance of some bonds.



The Commission, however, after its investigations of allegations made against the minister by a citizen, Mr Yaw Brogya Genfi, gave wide-ranging directives in relation to the bond issuance processes to ensure transparency and clarity.



After five months of investigations, which included interviews with the parties involved, industry players, transaction advisors, security brokers and the Registrar General., and the review of guidelines, regulations, laws, and other documents, CHRAJ concluded that, On the basis of the evidence available to the Commission, it has come to the conclusion and therefore holds that the allegations by the complainant that the respondent has contravened Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution by putting himself in a conflict of interest situation in relation to the issuance of the 5-year, 7-year, 10-year and 15-year bonds, have not been substantiated.



The decision was contained in a 140-page document detailing the investigations, analysis and conclusions.



Allegations



On April 25, 2017, Mr Genfi petitioned CHRAJ in a letter titled "Petition to investigate conflict of interest in the recent US$ 2.25 billion bond issued by the Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Finance.



In his petition, he alleged that, "a number of issues of conflict of interest and lack of transparency have emerged from the bond issuance."



According to him, the bonds were not on the issuance calendar, and that the transaction seemed to have been shrouded in secrecy with the bond processes being limited to one day compared to past processes that were open.



Mr Genfi said one single investor, Franklin Templeton Investment Limited, an American global investment management organisation founded in 1947 purchased 95 per cent of the bond issued.



He insisted that, a relational interest existed between the Minister of Finance and Mr Trevor G Trefgarne, who in a semi-annual report of the Franklin Templeton Investment Limited of December 31, 2016 is one of the Board of Directors of the organisation, while also being the Chairman of the Enterprise Group Limited.



GRAPHIC ONLINE







CHRAJ clears Finance Minister of Conflict of Interest allegations in bonds deals

CAROLINE BOATENG

28 DECEMBER 2017

Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance



The Commission on Human rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has cleared the Minister of Finance (MOF), Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, of allegations of conflict of interest in the issuance of some bonds.



The Commission, however, after its investigations of allegations made against the minister by a citizen, Mr Yaw Brogya Genfi, gave wide-ranging directives in relation to the bond issuance processes to ensure transparency and clarity.



After five months of investigations, which included interviews with the parties involved, industry players, transaction advisors, security brokers and the Registrar General., and the review of guidelines, regulations, laws, and other documents, CHRAJ concluded that, On the basis of the evidence available to the Commission, it has come to the conclusion and therefore holds that the allegations by the complainant that the respondent has contravened Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution by putting himself in a conflict of interest situation in relation to the issuance of the 5-year, 7-year, 10-year and 15-year bonds, have not been substantiated.



The decision was contained in a 140-page document detailing the investigations, analysis and conclusions.



Allegations

On April 25, 2017, Mr Genfi petitioned CHRAJ in a letter titled "Petition to investigate conflict of interest in the recent US$ 2.25 billion bond issued by the Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Finance.



In his petition, he alleged that, "a number of issues of conflict of interest and lack of transparency have emerged from the bond issuance."



According to him, the bonds were not on the issuance calendar, and that the transaction seemed to have been shrouded in secrecy with the bond processes being limited to one day compared to past processes that were open.



Mr Genfi said one single investor, Franklin Templeton Investment Limited, an American global investment management organisation founded in 1947 purchased 95 per cent of the bond issued.

He insisted that, a relational interest existed between the Minister of Finance and Mr Trevor G Trefgarne, who in a semi-annual report of the Franklin Templeton Investment Limited of December 31, 2016 is one of the Board of Directors of the organisation, while also being the Chairman of the Enterprise Group Limited.



Enterprise Group Limited is a company partially owned by Data Bank Limited, a company in which the Finance Minister is known to have significant interest, Mr Genfi said.



He also complained that Mr Tevor G Trefgarne and the Minister of Finance had also been described as great friends.



Findings



Although there was no evidence that Mr Ofori-Atta benefited personally from the transaction, the Commission, however found breaches of the rules on the issuance of bonds.



On the basis of that, it gave wide-ranging directives in the exercise of its powers under Article 287 (2) of the Constitution that provides that "The Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice or the Chief Justice as the case may be, may take such action as he considers appropriate in respect of the results of the investigation or the admission, directed that the Minister ensure that all processes in the issuance of bonds by MoF and the Bank of Ghana (BOG) are complied with.



It also directed that the minister, as a matter of urgency, pass regulations, rules or guidelines to regulate the format of and criteria for the auctions and the procedures for participation, bidding, and allocation in auctions in relation to the issuance of securities in the domestic market.



CHRAJ further charged the minister take measures in preventing Primary Dealers who are also bookrunners/Transaction Advisors from gaining unfair advantage because of their dual roles.



It urged the implementation of section 56 of the Public Financial Management Act, 921 of 2016 in the shortest possible time due to the imperative of Bonds becoming a feature of the countrys debt payment system and the appetite of investors.



It said section 56 (1) provided that, The terms and conditions of all government borrowing shall be laid before Parliament and shall not come into operation unless the terms and conditions are approved by a resolution of Parliament in accordance with article 181 of the Constitution.



The issuance of bonds is a form of borrowing and therefore operationalising section 56 (2) of the PFM Act with standard terms and conditions for government borrowing through a legislative instrument or through a resolution of Parliament to enable greater transparency in all borrowings is long overdue, CHRAJ stressed.







Observations



Among the 21-point findings in its decision, CHRAJ observed that Primary Dealers also doubled up as Bookrunners/Transaction advisors, and that dual role gave them an undue advantage.



It also observed that the Respondent is either a director, former director or shareholder, or beneficial owner, of several companies whose objects relate to the securities market sector. The companies include Databank and EGL. As such, Respondents interests in the growth and wellbeing of those companies, have the potential to conflict with the interests of the state in relation to the securities market such as the issuance of bonds.



It stated that, The Respondent has business partners and associates related to the securities industry where, according to the Respondent, he has been working for over thirty years. These business partners and associates include partners in Databank, Enterprise Group Limited, Ventures and Acquisitions Limited, as well as Keli Gadzekpo, Trevor Trefgarne and Angela Ofori Atta, also Respondent's spouse.



Decison



CHRAJ, however, said that There was also no evidence before the Commission that there was a personal benefit to the Respondent or his private businesses and other relations.



It said evidence available to the Commission did not support the Complainants allegations that the initial pricing guidelines of the Bond were issued around 5:37 pm on March 30, 2017, by e-mail, which was after normal working hours; or that the transaction was opened at 9:00 a. m. on March 31, 2017; or that the public announcement of the transaction was sent by e-mail at approximately 9:09 am. on March 31, 2017, which meant that the transaction was opened before the announcement was made to the public; and also that the issuance summary was issued on March 31, 2017, at about 4:20 pm. by e-mail indicating that the Bond transaction had been closed and announcement made to the public.



It further said that it did not find evidence that the size of this virtual private placement makes it akin to a sovereign bond or foreign loan; or that the Virtual private placement approach that was used was opened in the morning and closed in the evening of the same day March 31, 2017; or the Enterprise Group Limited is a company partially owned by Data Bank Limited, a company in which the Finance Minister is known to have significant interest; or that the Finance Minister issued the bond in a manner that would favour his friend, family, associates and /or business partners, and that the Bond transaction seems to have been shrouded in secrecy.



Support



Some of the evidence gathered, however supported other claims of Mr Borgya Genfi.



For instance, claims made by him about the fact that the 7-year and 15-year Bonds were not on the 1st Quarter Issuance Calendar (January-March 2017). They were on the 2nd quarter issuance calendar which was released to the BOG on 30th March 2017 at 12:31 PM but operationalized before the end of the 1st quarter 2017; that April 3, 2017, was the Settlement Date; that the process leading to the issuance of the 5-year and 10-year bonds through the tap in arrangement or tap in simpliciter, took place in one (1) day, that is from 12:31 PM on March 30, 2017 when the notice was sent out by the BOG inviting bids and closed at 2:00PM same day; and that Franklin Templeton Investment Limited (an American global investment management organization founded in 1947), purchased about 95 per cent of the Bond issued were all substantiated.

Source: Graphic.com.gh









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The Peoples National Convention (PNC), has condemned its National Chairman, Bernard Mornah, over his calls for the expulsion of Israeli Ambassador to Ghana, Ami Mehl, saying that is not a party position.



Mr. Mornah made the call following statements from the Ambassador describing Ghanas vote against the US on making Jerusalem the capital of Israel as a regrettable mistake.



According to Mr. Mornah, the Israeli Ambassador had shown gross disrespect to the integrity of the President Akufo-Addo and the people of Ghana by his comments.



In a statement issued shortly after the UN vote, the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana expressed his countrys disappointment over the vote. The statement said it was hopeful that Ghana will not repeat such mistake in subsequent motions before the General Assembly.



Speaking to Citi News, Vice Chairman of the PNC, Henry Asante, reprimanded Mr. Mornah and dissociated the party from the call.



So long as the party is concerned, the party has not made any statement or come together to think of anything of that nature, so for the Chairman to go out to make that statement is a surprise to some of us. We can assume that he was making it out of his personal conviction, and with that we have no qualms with it. But the party will not take kindly to him being associated with it he said



He noted that any statement that comes from the party must be well-thought through and must be approved by the leader.

Source: Citifmonline









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Former Vice President, Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur says the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is not ready to choose who leads it into 2020.



According to him, the leadership of the party are reorganising the party to make it stronger to become the voice that reflects the mood of the people.



We are not there yet, why are people so interested in candidacy and leadership? We are reorganizing the party to make it stronger, to make it a voice that reflects the mode of the people. So I dont think that it is time for leadership yet because the leader will come from a reorganized party, not a leader imposed on a party that is disorganized.



He was therefore of the view that those expressing interest in leading the NDC into the 2020 polls, should first concentrate on contributing to efforts at rebuilding the party.



He said this when he addressed the media in Ho, the capital of the Volta Region on Christmas Day.



He added that any attempt to impose a leader on the NDC ahead of elections 2020, will rather hurt the opposition partys fortunes.



He said, a reorganised strong party at the branch level will elect the leader that represents the best interest of our country.



A number of high profile members of the NDC have announced their intentions of vying for the flagbearership position.



Key among them are former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Prof. Joshua Alabi; a former Chief Executive of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr Sylvester Mensah and former Trades Minister, Ekow Spio-Garbrah.

Source: Daily Graphic









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Each year we take a look back at the top most popular stories we published over the course of the calendar year. While Russia has remained at the top of most news cycle stories this year, the year-at-a-glance at Peacock Panache has produced some interesting results. Here are the top 5 most viewed stories of the year here at Peacock Panache:

#5 Story of 2017: Dana Loeschs year of incendiary calls to violence as a part of her new NRA role Our #5 story of 2017 nearly tied with our story about ICE raids in Texas. When taking the total views of all related stories into account though, the Dana Loesch story prevailed. The fifth-most viewed article is actually our initial reporting on her first NRA video earlier this year where she proclaimed The only way we stop thisthe only way we save our country and our freedom is to fight this violence of lies with a clenched fist of truth. She followed up that video with another in October  shortly after the mass shooting in Las Vegas  using the same inflammatory tone and language arguing her enemies will perish in the political flames of their own fires. You can read both stories here: Words Matter: Dana Loeschs Violent NRA Commercial

New Post-Las Vegas Dana Loesch NRA Ad Stokes Violence

#4 Story of 2017: A free speech double standard  the Kathy Griffin incident Our #4 story of 2017 revolves around a subject near and dear to our hearts here at Peacock Panache: free speech. At the end of May, comedian Kathy Griffin participated in the making of and published a deliberately provocative photo expression playing on Donald Trumps Islamophobia. That photo featured her holding a bloody rendering of Donald Trumps head. Though she issued an immediate apology after public outcry, the damage was already done: she went from snarky comedian to public enemy number one almost overnight. We wrote at the time: At the core of the outrage and teeth-gnashing over a photo depicting the severed head of Donald Trump is whether free speech has equal application for all persons. More specifically, why are some forms of corrosive speech and abhorrent expression more acceptable to the country when they come from certain segments of the population than others? You can read the full story here.

#2 Story of 2017: Corruption By The Numbers: Republicans Versus Democrats Our #2 story of 2017 details the differences between Republican and Democratic presidential administrations when it comes to corrupt and illegal behavior. Its served as a popular guide post for many this year as the Trump administration comes under scrutiny from the Mueller probe. We wrote in the article: In the 28 yrs that Republicans have held office over the last 53 yrs they have had a total of (a drum roll would be more than appropriate), 120 criminal indictments of executive branch officials. 89 criminal convictions and 34 prison sentences handed down. Thats more prison sentences than years in office since 1968 for Republicans. If you want to count articles of impeachment as indictments (they arent really but we can count them as an action), both sides get one more. However, Clinton wasnt found guilty while Nixon resigned and was pardoned by Ford (and a pardon carries with it a legal admission of guilt on the part of the pardoned). So those only serve to make Republicans look even worse. You can read the full story here.

#1 Story of 2017: Trump, Syria & How Not To Be Presidential Our #1 story of 2017 is the widely read story about the moment Donald Trump decided to shirk existing Syrian foreign policy to impulsively bomb another country after seeing footage of dead children on Fox News. We wrote at the time: Nothing thats happened in the past 24 hours warrants a complete reversal in White House foreign policy  particularly a reversal that has the power to take the United States into war. This isnt the first time Bashar al-Assad has engaged in outright genocide. Its not even the first time hes engaged in chemical warfare, in fact. That Donald Trump sat, watching cable news and images of dying children in Syria, and decided to throw everything hes argued over the last four years out the window isnt just unnerving  its downright terrifying. Its shooting from the hip foreign policy that has the potential to land us in another Bush-style post-9/11 Iraq quagmire. You can read the full story here.

While 2017 didnt have the intensity and fire of 2016 (and its historic election under the backdrop of a foreign power engaging in a cyber attack against our nation), it certainly kept us busy keeping up with news stories that would be unthinkable in any other (normal) era.

Thanks for sticking with us throughout the year and heres to a better 2018!

Peacock Panache readers:

Tim Peacock is the Managing Editor and founder of Peacock Panache and has worked as a civil rights advocate for over twenty years. During that time hes worn several hats including leading on campus LGBTQ advocacy in the University of Missouri campus system, interning with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, and volunteering at advocacy organizations. You can learn more about him at his personal website.

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After closing their business last year, the owners of Sweet Cakes By Melissa appealed a decision requiring them to pay a $135,000 fine for releasing the personal information of a lesbian couple who filed a discrimination complaint against them with the state of Oregon. Owners Melissa and Aaron Klein just lost their latest appeal before the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Background

In February 2013, Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer asked Sweet Cakes to make a cake for their upcoming nuptials. Theyd already purchased a wedding cake from the bakery previously for someone elses opposite-sex wedding, so there shouldnt have been a problem.

Thats when the Kleins refused to serve the Bowman-Cryers stating they do not make wedding cakes for same-sex couples  an act that violated the Oregon Equality Act of 2007.

While the couple was able to obtain a cake elsewhere, the damage was already done  the bakery violated the law in refusing service based solely on the couples sexual orientation. They filed a complaint with the state and moved on with their lives.

In the interim, in the ensuing media firestorm over the bakerys discrimination, undercover investigations exposed just how sincere the Kleins sincerely-held religious beliefs were (as thats the basis they used to deny service to the couple). We reported in June 2013:

We wondered what other requests these cakemakers would decline to honor. So last week five WW reporters called these two bakeries anonymously to get price quotes for other occasions frowned upon by some Christians. Surprisingly, the people who answered the phone at each bakery were quite willing to provide baked goods for celebrations of divorces, unmarried parents, stem-cell research, non-kosher barbecues and pagan solstice parties.

Sweet Cakes owners Melissa and Aaron Klein were upset that we would even try to entrap a business and contacted conservative talk-show host Lars Larson.

Not long thereafter, the Kleins closed their brick and mortar location and blamed the LGBTQ community for using Mafia-style tactics to target them.

The following year in January 2014, the The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) found substantial evidence Sweet Cakes violated state law sending the business into conciliation proceedings. In the interim, the Kleins utilized their newfound national martyrdom to raise money for their cause by touring the conservative anti-LGBTQ circuit.

Before heading into conciliation, the Kleins attempted to appeal the original decision  an appeal they lost. Ultimately, in July 2015, BOLI fined the Kleins $135,000 not for the actual discrimination they carried out against the couple, but for the sustained campaign of harassment they promoted that led to credible death threats against the Bowman-Cryers.

The BOLI Final Order awards $60,000 in damages to Laurel Bowman-Cryer and $75,000 in damages to Rachel Bowman-Cryer for emotional suffering stemming directly from unlawful discrimination, the decision read. The amounts are damages related to the harm suffered by the Complainants, not fines or civil penalties which are punitive in nature.

The Kleins announced their immediate intentions to appeal the decision.

When that appeal failed, the Kleins filed another appeal last year as the money they reluctantly paid into escrow remained in limbo, inaccessible to the Bowman-Cryers. All the while, the couple who merely filed a discrimination complaint continued experiencing ongoing harassment and death threats each time the Kleins toured and used their name to raise money for their anti-LGBTQ religious cause.

That appeal last just came to a predictable conclusion.

Moving Forward

In the courts decision, a panel of judges sided with the original judge in continuing to deny the Kleins discrimination defense.

The Oregonian reported:

In the ruling, Judge Chris Garrett wrote that Avakians order does not violate the Kleins free speech rights because it simply requires their compliance with a neutral law. Garrett also wrote that the Kleins have made no showing that the state targeted them for enforcement because of their religious beliefs. In a statement, Avakian said the Appeals Court ruling sends a strong signal that Oregon remains open to all.

Responding to the courts decision, the Bowman-Cryers said, All of us are equal under the law and should be treated equally. Oregon will not allow a Straight Couples Only sign to be hung in bakeries or other stores.

The Kleins still contend their First Amendment rights are being violated  an argument used recently at the similar Masterpiece Cakeshop case heard at the U.S. Supreme Court.

We believe that freedom of expression for ourselves means freedom of expression for others, said First Liberty attorney Mike Berry, representing the Kleins. And whats unfortunate here is that a family and their business has been punished because of their religious beliefs. And thats not America. Thats just flat out wrong.

It should be noted that attorneys made the same arguments a generation ago when defending business owners right to refuse service based on skin color. Then, just as now, conservative Christian business owners argued they had a sincerely held religious belief that should exempt them from being forced to serve people with differing skin colors.

Regardless of the outcome of the Masterpiece case, the Kleins have a month to mount another appeal if they should choose to do so. They have not announced any plans as of today.

PREVIOUSLY

Peacock Panache readers:

Tim Peacock is the Managing Editor and founder of Peacock Panache and has worked as a civil rights advocate for over twenty years. During that time hes worn several hats including leading on campus LGBTQ advocacy in the University of Missouri campus system, interning with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, and volunteering at advocacy organizations. You can learn more about him at his personal website.

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We hope you enjoyed reading this article! If you would like to support our ongoing work, please consider buying us a cup of coffee. It's not much, but we don't do this for the money. We do, however, need caffeine to keep going some days!If you do donate, send us a message through our Contact Us page or via social media so we can thank you!
Humane society officers found two dogs covered in burrs from head to toe, a makeshift pig shelter with a tarp roof, three goats unable to stand up due to foot rot and three underweight calves during an inspection Tuesday at a Bethlehem Township animal rescue.

A search warrant obtained by lehighvalleylive.com shed more light on the condition of 30 animals seized during a raid that followed the inspection the next day.

The animals were taken from the Heaven on Earth Farm on Bethman Road because they needed veterinary care, according to court papers.

According to the papers filed Wednesday by Kelsey Beam of the Pennsylvania Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the three calves were kept in a feces-spattered enclosure without access to food or water. One of the calves had a large amount of loose feces on it, Beam reported. She said goats suffering from foot rot tried to walk on the joints of their legs.

Shelter owner Jahjah Melhem told her a veterinarian had checked on the goats two weeks ago, then changed his story to say the veterinarian checked on the calves a week ago, according to her report.

He had no prescriptions for the animals nor proof they had received any veterinary care.

The paperwork says Melhem didn't have a heat source for a tank of aquatic turtles kept in his barn. A large number of roaming cats with nasal and eye discharge appeared to have upper respiratory infections, Beam reported. There were loose stools in the area of the cats, she reported.

Melhem allegedly told Beam he couldn't remove the burrs from the two Husky dogs because it was too cold outside to groom them. She said the burrs were "tangled and matted into each dog's coat all the way down to the skin."

A tarp thrown over some wooden sides served as a shelter for 35 pigs, the report says. Melhem allegedly said he's working on building a better shelter.

One pig was taken for emergency veterinary care and another went to the Pennsylvania SPCA headquarters in Philadelphia, according to SPCA spokeswoman Gillian Kocher.

Kocher said charges against Melhem are pending the conclusion of a full investigation. The Pennsylvania SPCA inspected the farm after receiving a tip that animals weren't being properly cared for.

No one answered the phone at Heaven on Earth Farm and the answering machine was not set up to take messages.

"Many of these animals needed our help and yesterday we went to work doing just that," said Nicole Wilson on Thursday. She's the Pennsylvania SPCA's director of humane law enforcement.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health closed the farm temporarily in March after an outbreak of an intestinal parasite that leads to severe diarrhea.

ANIMALS TAKEN

The following animals were removed Dec. 27 from Heaven on Earth animal rescue

12 cats

2 pigs

4 bulldogs

6 goats

3 calves

2 Husky dogs

1 emu

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
A 17-year-old girl was taken to Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center after a two-vehicle crash on Route 72 in Lebanon County on Thursday afternoon.

North Cornwall Township police said Friday that the accident occurred just before 4:30 p.m. at the intersection with Quentin Road.

One of the drivers, Dennis V. Sweeney, 77, of Lebanon, told officers he was northbound when the teen driver pulled into the intersection in front of him, police said. They said the teen, who police didn't identify, was unable to give a statement at the scene because of her injuries.
Temperatures aren't expected to climb above the freezing mark this weekend, and will drop even lower at night.

The wind chill could make it feel even colder.

A trough of low pressure has enabled cold air to spill into the U.S. from Canada, which has caused temperatures to plummet.

National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Dangelo said the wind chills will remain well above zero on Saturday.

"I think the worst of it might be overnight there on New Year's Eve," he said.

Dangleo predicted wind chills could dip as low as -6 to -8 in Harrisburg on New Year's Eve night. Farther north into the Poconos, wind chills could dip as low as -20, according to Dangelo.

Dangelo encouraged those going out on New Year's Eve to bundle up, and cover up as much exposed skin as possible.

AccuWeather

AccuWeather predicts RealFeel temperatures anywhere from 0 to 10 degrees in most of Pennsylvania on New Year's Day, and anywhere from 0 to -10 degrees in the northern part of the state.

Frigid RealFeel temperatures are also expected throughout parts of the upper Midwest and the Northeast, with -20 degrees and below possible in Maine and into Canada.

WGAL

Meteorologists with WGAL anticipate colder wind chills into Monday morning to kick off 2018.

Harrisburg and Carlisle's predicted wind chills are -13 degrees for 7 a.m. Farther to the north, wind chills of -19 degrees are expected for Pottsville.

You can see live weather updates via the National Weather Service and other Twitter sources below.

Tweet us at @pennlive with photos of inclement weather at your place, incidents you see on your commute or send a submission to submissions@pennlive.com.
Editor's note: This story was updated to reflect new information.

HARRISBURG (AP) -- A Pennsylvania judge says Democratic voters suing to invalidate the current map of Pennsylvania's congressional districts haven't proven that it violates the state constitution by unfairly favoring Republican candidates.

Commonwealth Court Judge Kevin Brobson, a Republican, issued a 130-page report to the state Supreme Court by Friday's deadline, set by the Democratic-majority high court that ordered the lower court to fast-track hearings and sum up the evidence.

The justices quickly scheduled oral arguments to be held Jan. 17.

Brobson wrote that the Democratic voters challenging the map had shown that the Legislature's Republican majority leaders used partisan considerations when they drew the plan in 2011, and that it favored Republicans in some of Pennsylvania's 18 congressional districts.

However, Brobson said the plaintiffs have not spelled out a standard for a court to determine whether the 2011 map "crosses the line between permissible partisan considerations and unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering under the Pennsylvania Constitution."

Benjamin Geffen, a lawyer representing some of the 18 petitioners said he's confident plaintiffs will demonstrate to the Supreme Court that the map is unconstitutional and "utterly responsive to the will of voters."

"We will demonstrate to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that the partisan bias in the 2011 districting plan is the largest and worst in state history and that the map should be struck down and redrawn immediately," he said.

Meanwhile, a separate lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania's congressional map is pending in federal court in Philadelphia after a three-judge panel there heard arguments this month.

Time is ticking since candidates for the 2018 election can start circulating petitions Feb. 13 to get on the primary ballot.

The primary election is May 15.

No congressional map in Pennsylvania has been struck down because of partisan gerrymandering claims, and the lawsuit, filed in June, was the first to challenge Pennsylvania's 6-year-old congressional map. The lawsuit says Pennsylvania's map is one of the worst gerrymanders in the country.

Pennsylvania's 2011 map moved whole cities and counties into different districts and produced contorted district shapes that broke decades of precedent as Republicans sought to protect the delegation's majority in a state with more registered Democratic voters.

Republicans now fill 13 of Pennsylvania's 18 seats in the U.S. House, despite winning roughly half of the statewide congressional vote in the last three congressional elections.
The full moon on New Year's Night will be the second of three consecutive supermoons. It will peak at 9:24 p.m. Monday, January 1.

The first of the three was December 3. The third will be the full moon on Wednesday, January 31.

A supermoon occurs when the moon is in its full moon stage and also at the point in its orbit nearest to Earth, which is called perigee. Under those conditions, the full moon appears to be as much as 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than a full moon when the moon is at its farthest point from Earth, which is called apogee.

That supermoon on January 31 also will be a blue moon, which is the name given to any second full moon in one calendar month.

On average, we see blue moons every 2.7 years, but in 2018 there will be two blue moons in a single year. After the January 31 blue moon, there will be no full moon in February and then two full moons in March.

And, that super/blue moon on January 31 will have a red sheen to it, because it will be part of a lunar eclipse, according to NASA.

The eclipse will cover the face of the moon, turning it dark, as the Earth blocks the light of the sun from the moon. Only light reflected off the Earth will show on the surface of the moon, which will have a red to reddish-brown cast.

"The lunar eclipse on January 31 will be visible during moonset. Folks in the eastern United States, where the eclipse will be partial, will have to get up in the morning to see it," said Noah Petro, supervising research assistant at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Native Americans knew the full moon of January as the Wolf Moon, a time when wolves roamed the edges of the village in search of whatever food they might find.
Oil resurrection sets stage for another OPEC-Shale clash in 2018. WTI, Brent up more than 11% this year; set for 2nd annual gain. OPEC curbs drive price gain as threat of U.S. output persists. OPEC's control of the oil market is running on fumes - watch video

Oil's revival from the biggest crash in a generation persisted, with prices set for a second annual gain after weathering everything from hurricanes and Middle East conflict to the tussle between OPEC and U.S. shale.

Benchmark futures are up more than 11 percent in 2017, after going into a bull market in September. While gains were driven by glut-shrinking output cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies including Russia, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East as well as pipeline disruptions from the North Sea to Canada and Libya have also helped. In 2018, investors will watch if U.S. output undermines OPEC's curbs.







Speculation is rising that American drillers will put more rigs to work as oil strengthens, with shale growth driving forecasts of record U.S. supply in 2018. That could act counter to plans by producers including Saudi Arabia, who have pledged to extend production curbs through end-2018 to wipe out a global glut. After Hurricane Harvey shut Gulf Coast refiners at the end of August and hurt prices, violence in Iraq and a pipe crack in the U.K. have helped buoy crude.

The key driver for the oil market this year has been that the OPEC and Russian production cuts were introduced, complied with and extended, said Ric Spooner, a Sydney-based analyst at CMC Markets. This has allowed the market to reduce inventory despite production increases in the U.S., Libya and Nigeria.

West Texas Intermediate for February delivery was at $60.28 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 44 cents, at 2:58 p.m. in Seoul. Total volume traded was about 62 percent above the 100-day average. Front-month prices are 12 percent higher this year, after rising 45 percent -- the most since 2009 -- in 2016.

See also: Five key oil signals to watch in 2018

Brent for March settlement added 46 cents to $66.62 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The February contract expired Thursday, after rising 28 cents to $66.72. The benchmark for more than half the world's oil has gained 17 percent this year, after climbing 52 percent in 2016. It was at a premium of $6.29 to March WTI.

Oil's trading at the highest level since mid-2015 after WTI breached above $60 a barrel for the first time in more than two years. The benchmark traded at an average price of about $51 this year. Nationwide stockpiles fell 4.6 million barrels last week to the lowest level since October 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration Thursday. That beat the 3.75 million average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of analysts.

The tug-of-war between OPEC and the U.S. will continue to pressure oil from trading above $60 a barrel in 2018, said Kim Kwangrae, a Seoul-based commodities analyst at Samsung Futures Inc. Like we've seen this year, geopolitical risks will be the key factor going forward for oil to breach $60.

Following an explosion on Tuesday, Waha Oil Co. is working to repair the pipeline that carries crude to Libya's Es Sider port, the North African nation's biggest export terminal, while a major U.K. North Sea pipeline is nearing a return to full service after an outage this month.


Brazilian President Michel Temer signed a measure that paves the way for the privatization of Eletrobras, Latin America's largest power company, according to a government official.

Eletrobras can now join the ranks of government-run businesses that Brazil's privatizing, with a decree that's ready to be signed, according to Paulo Pedrosa, executive secretary for the Ministry of Mines and Energy. Its shares jumped as much as 5.5 percent in Sao Paulo.

The provisional measure, kickstarting the formal process of selling the state's controlling 67 percent stake in the utility giant, comes as Temer tries to fix a deep budget crisis. He's seeking to attract investors to jump-start the economy following prolonged political turmoil that's included one president being impeached, another charged with corruption and dozens of executives and politicians imprisoned over a massive kickback scheme.

It also creates conditions for the sale of Eletrobras's indebted distribution units, according to Pedrosa. Those six units should be sold off by the middle of next year, a key step in attracting investors for the overall utility.

The planned selloff is also part of a broader effort to overhaul Brazil's energy sector. A new regulatory framework is geared toward undoing interventionist policies created under former leaders Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. Seven out of 10 Brazilians are against the privatization of state-owned companies, according to pollster Datafolha .


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
A Philadelphia judge has granted the Post Bros. property group zoning clearance to convert the decayed North Philadelphia warehouse known as the Quaker Building into high-end apartments, with lower-floor retail and office space.

This week's decision by Judge Daniel J. Anders reverses a ruling in September by the city's Zoning Board of Adjustment against allowing residences at the 900 N. Ninth St. building, which stands on a parcel designated for industrial use.

Attorneys for Post Bros., led by Ronald Patterson, argued in their appeal of the ZBA's ruling that the developer's plan for the building in the Poplar neighborhood is consistent with the residential uses that surround it and that the zoning board has routinely awarded variances for similar proposals around the city.

"The ZBA's decision was contrary to the law and in conflict with the unanimous support of community groups and area residents," the lawyers wrote.

Anders' order Wednesday reversed the ZBA decision and granted Post Bros.'s appeal. It did not include any explanatory remarks.

ZBA spokesman Paul Chrystie said the city panel "believes it made the correct legal decision" but "respects the judge's ruling." Messages left with Patterson and Post Bros. president Matthew Pestronk were not immediately returned.

Post Bros.'s plan calls for renovating the six- and 10-story Quaker Building warehouse, built in 1918 for Strawbridge & Clothier, into a 350-unit apartment building. A new parking structure would be built on an adjacent lot with space for about 135 vehicles.
TEL AVIV  In 2017, Donald "America First" Trump relinquished America's 70-year role as global leader, a post already diminished by his two predecessors. Nowhere is the U.S. withdrawal more evident than in the Middle East.

Even in Israel, whose government lauds Trump for his strong support and recognition of Jerusalem as its capital, the president's erratic behavior stirs caution. Trump's admirers and detractors have both reached the same conclusion: The Mideast is entering a new era where Washington is no longer the major player.

And as the United States pulls back, Russia and Iran rush in (along with Turkey and even China). Their interests are in conflict with America's  and guarantee future problems for Washington, unless Trump reverses his retreat in 2018.

Nothing symbolizes this ongoing power shift better than Vladimir Putin's triumphant visit to Syria on Dec. 11, followed by whirlwind visits to Cairo and Ankara. Putin's victory lap stands in sharp contrast to the negative international fallout from Trump's recognition of Jerusalem the previous week.

The stunning video of Putin's arrival at Russia's Khmeimim air base in Syria rocketed around Arab social media. "Visiting Syria, Egypt and Turkey in one day, Putin establishes himself as the only world leader with real influence in the Middle East," read the headline in the Israeli paper Haaretz.

As the Russian president stepped onto the tarmac, he was greeted not by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but by a Russian officer. Putin finally shook Assad's hand but quickly walked ahead of the Syrian president. Another Russian officer held Assad back when he tried to walk alongside Putin.

The message was clear: The new master of Syria, whose air force (along with Iranian ground forces) saved Assad, was demonstrating who was now in charge. The spoils include large and long-term Russian air and naval bases near the Mediterranean Sea.

If the United States and Israel want to restrain Iranian expansion in Syria, they must now appeal to Putin, who is far less concerned about Tehran than Trump is.

"Now the feeling is that Putin is the king of Syria and the United States is in retreat," I was told by former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon.

How can this be, you ask, when Trump was welcomed warmly in Jerusalem and lavishly in Saudi Arabia? In contrast to Barack Obama's muffing of red lines, Trump fired missiles at a Syrian base that used chemical weapons. He also sped up Obama's war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

But, since then, Trump's short attention span and unsteady performance have confused Mideast allies and cheered adversaries  just as he has done in Europe and Asia. His intense focus on personal relationships with autocrats  Putin, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, and China's Xi Jinping  has yet to deliver the rewards he seems to expect.

Having won a military "victory" over ISIS, Trump has shown little interest in a follow-on strategy to prevent a jihadi resurgence. Nor  despite his embrace of the Saudis  has he developed any clear strategy to contain Iran's expansionism in the region.

But the president has shown himself willing to betray America's Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish allies, who did much of the fighting against ISIS, in strong contrast to Putin, who stood firmly by his ally Assad.

Such inconstancy  and Putin's toughness  has been well-noted by America's Sunni Arab friends. They sense which way the wind is blowing: Russia and Egypt have now agreed that the military aircraft of the two countries can share airspace and air bases  nearly five decades after Anwar el-Sadat kicked the Soviets out.

Meantime, Trump's disdain for tough diplomacy, his insults to his secretary of state, his gutting of the diplomatic corps, and tweeting taunts that undercut his team have muddied policies from Europe to the Mideast to Asia.

Indeed, in the Mideast, far from displaying a mastery of big deals, the president has given away key bargaining chips gratis. In recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital without distinguishing between Arab and Jewish sectors, he handed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a huge win, while requiring nothing in return.

At the same time, Trump squashed his own son-in-law's efforts to concoct "the peace deal of the century": The Palestinians now insist the United States can no longer act as an honest broker, and are seeking to internationalize any future peace talks.

When it comes to Russia, Syria, and Iran, Trump's style has proved even more self-destructive. His obsessive belief in his (imaginary) close relationship with Putin has left him open to manipulation by a Kremlin leader who knows just how to play the president. Trump has approved "deconfliction" deals with Moscow that leave Iran free to expand its presence in Syria along the Israeli border.

Putin is on his way to becoming the major power broker in the region, the man whom leaders from Riyadh, Cairo, Libya, Ankara, Ramallah, and Jerusalem  and even Tehran  must consult to work out new geopolitical arrangements. "Obama opened the door for Russia and President Donald Trump is now keeping it wide open," writes Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz.

Israelis, Arabs, Kurds  all are trying to calculate how to operate in a new era where the United States is no longer the main player to turn to in a dicey region. And all are wondering (without much optimism) if American policy will rebound in 2018.
The below-freezing temperatures forecast for the holiday weekend have Philadelphia-area officials canceling polar bear plunges, debating whether to let the Mummers march on New Year's Day, and warning about the health effects of extreme cold for those willing to brave the Eagles game on Sunday afternoon or New Year's Eve fireworks that evening.

But if you think it is cold here, try heading up to Allagash, Maine, where the temperature was a brisk 14 below zero on Friday morning.

"That is not with the wind chill," said Patricia Pelletier, the chair of selectmen for the 200-person town in the northern, wooded part of the state. Allagash is the closest town to Big Black Bear River, which boasted the nation's coldest temperature of the day with minus 32 degrees at 7 a.m., according to the National Weather Service.

So what do Allagashers do when it is that cold?

"We go to work," said Pelletier. "We're used to it. It is always cold up here in the winter."

There are a few concessions they make to the cold, Pelletier acknowledged. She usually tosses an extra blanket, coat and boots into her car "just in case." Everyone checks on elderly neighbors.

"I wear a sweatshirt," she added. "Anything that is warm and thick. You want to be prepared in case your car freezes up."

Mostly, people and their pets just stay inside, Pelletier said.

"Everyone just knows it's winter," she said.

In Pennsylvania, it's a crime to leave a dog tied up outside for more than 30 minutes if the temperature is below freezing (32 degrees), thanks to "Libre's law," the animal-cruelty legislation signed this summer. And you'll want to take precautions even when you take Fido outside for walks.

In most places, you never want to let a dog wander around unleashed, but the Pennsylvania SPCA notes this is especially critical when it's so cold, since canines can get disoriented due to a diminished sense of smell. When you get back indoors, wipe off your pet's paws to remove any snow or road salt. And keep an eye out for signs of frostbite  in both canines and humans.

Health risks from the cold

Frostbite in people is a special risk to the nose, toes, fingers, ears, face  anything that's exposed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Early warning signs are redness, numbness, or pain, white or grayish-yellow skin, and skin that feels unusually firm or waxy. People who have poor circulation due to chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure are especially prone to frostbite, as are, of course, those who aren't dressed properly.

Hypothermia, caused by prolonged exposure to very cold temperatures, occurs when the body temperature drops below normal. Shivering, exhaustion, confusion, fumbling hands, and slurred speech are some of the first symptoms. Older adults who are not dressed properly, babies who sleep in cold rooms, the homeless, hikers, and hunters who are outside for long periods, or anyone who drinks alcohol or uses illicit drugs, may be at particular risk.

Anyone with symptoms of either condition should seek medical care promptly, according to the CDC.

How to dress for chilly conditions

If you must venture out, dress properly.

"Layering is key," said Nicole Kulp, spokeswoman for Buckman's Ski & Snowboard Shops, a local chain of seven stores.

"What we always start people with is a good base layer," Kulp said. She recommends a polyester-blend fabric that will wick away sweat for both the trunk of the body and the legs. Forget cotton, which tends to hang on to moisture.

"Cotton is a huge no if you are trying to stay warm," Kulp said. "That is no. No, no, no, no, no."

After the base layer comes a mid-layer, like a fleece or wool sweater, for insulation. Again, never cotton, Kulp said. The outer layer depends on the activity, but you can't go wrong with something that has more insulation and will stop wind. Down coats are a good choice to keep warm, she said.

Kulp suggests wearing mittens, so the fingers can work together to stay warm. A thin glove liner will help keep your hands from the elements if you need to slip off a mitten momentarily to use your phone, she said.

The right socks are critical, and Kulp suggests Smartwool or a poly blend.

"Always one pair of socks," she said. "Two creates sweat."

On single-digit days, any kind of hunting or snow boot will provide the most warmth and insulation, she said.

Any hat will do  as long as it is not cotton. A neck gator or balaclava will keep the face and neck protected, she said.

What you put in your body also matters. Alcohol may feel warming for a moment, but it encourages hypothermia. It makes your blood vessels expand, so heat is lost more rapidly.

Plus, cold air is drying to the skin, which is why you'll want to keep your skin moisturized (use sunscreen on any exposed areas), carry lip balm and drink water. "Make sure you keep the body hydrated," Kulp said.
Dozens protest outside Uber's headquarters in Long Island City, the day before Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick, was to met with Donald Trump as part of his advisory council. Just prior to the protest's start, and after thousands deleted the ride-sharing service's app over the weekend, Kalanick announced he would not join Trump's advisory team. (Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/ ZUMA Wire/TNS) Read more

Addiction is the story of 2017.

Not addiction to opioids, though of course tens of thousands of families are mourning this season the death of a loved one to fentanyl or heroin or some other variant of the scourge coursing through the United States.

Not addiction to the toxic combination of power and lust that has metastasized for so many decades and burst onto the public stage in so many places, with the name of Harvey Weinstein now synonymous with a sociopathic need to dominate, humiliate, and exploit for a twisted set of pseudo-pleasures.

And no, not an addiction to President Trump, either on the part of his adoring legions or his self-anointed "worst enemies," whose ritual condemnations of Trump seem just as calculated to oblige notice of the virtue of the condemners themselves as the president's tweets are to bring the collective gaze back to him and his agendas, personal and political.

No, the centerpiece addiction of this year, widespread and growing, is to outrage itself  to the state of being perpetually offended, to the need not only to be angry at someone or something, or many people and issues, but also to always and everywhere be, well, hating. We are all trapped in this ongoing carnival of venom, a national gathering of unpleasant souls like that assembled in C.S. Lewis' 1959 essay "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" in the Saturday Evening Post (written two decades after Lewis's famed Screwtape Letters). Google and read it. It is remarkably resonant with the times.

This outrage isn't a current that is always on full strength, like Boston's Citgo sign. But it never quite turns off either, as once upon a time television stations did with a ritual playing of the national anthem. (Quaint, especially this year.)

Outrage, rather, pulses, sometimes quicker and sometimes slower, like the human pulse. And like the human pulse, it is nowadays a sign of life. Not to be outraged is to be almost disqualified in the eyes of many from being a participant in politics, even though the perpetually outraged fall across the political spectrum. Not only can they not imagine anyone not being outraged, but also they can't imagine any kind of outrage save their own.

This may be the fault of Silicon Valley's algorithms, which provide us with near-constant friendly echoes of what we already believe and a steady stream of bias-confirming stories from bias-bent sources that further bend our biases along the arc they were already traveling (and it isn't, believe me, some preordained arc of history). All very convenient, these self-congratulatory seances with the unseen millions who agree with us about our own particular outrage.

Wait a bit after this column posts online, then check the comments. It will be a cut and paste of every other comment section of every other column, left, right and center. Just as cable news talking heads are beginning to blur into one long declarative sentence of certainty surrounded by nodding heads.

The amplification of the incendiary and the extreme in the comments section has broken through into podcasts and some into talk radio, cable and network news. Outrage is the kudzu of all media platforms. It will cover us all completely soon enough.

Like some undiscovered Mayan temple covered over by dense jungle, we will eventually all be a blip of angry noise picked up in a galaxy far, far away. "What were they so angry about?" our distant cousins will ask. "All of them, all the time, about everything? Did they ever dance?"

Of course we do. But you'd never know it from the majority of media  broadcast, print, social and all. The kudzu spreads faster and faster, and it seems we can't do business without it. Its launch year was 2017. An early New Year's resolution to throw the trend into reverse would be a start, as well as a good, long look in the mirror.

Hugh Hewitt, a Washington Post contributing columnist, hosts a nationally syndicated radio show and is author of "The Fourth Way: The Conservative Playbook for a Lasting GOP Majority."
Earl Wilson, of the Eastwick Friends and Neighbors Coalition. The EPA is removing contaminated soil from homes behind him. The area is bordered by the Lower Darby Creek Superfund site, which is comprised of two landfills. Read more

When hurricanes Harvey and Irma flooded more than a dozen Superfund sites this year in the Southeast and Puerto Rico, residents in the Philadelphia area might have wondered: Could that happen here?

It already has. Earl Wilson, a retired Philly school teacher, recalled when flood waters from Hurricane Floyd in 1999 rushed waist-high, through his Eastwick neighborhood and into homes where Lower Darby and Cobbs creeks meet, near Philadelphia International Airport. But it would be three more years until the two neighboring landfills were declared a Superfund site, a federal Environmental Protection Agency designation that alerts everyone to serious contamination that needs urgent cleanup.

In 1999, "no one was concerned about what was in that water," Wilson said recently, shaking his head.

An Inquirer analysis of EPA documents shows that 14 Superfund sites in Philadelphia, its suburbs and South Jersey are within flood zones or areas susceptible to rising seas connected with climate change. Three of those sites were cleaned or capped, and then removed from a national cleanup priority list. All are near creeks, streams or the Delaware River, a major source of drinking water. Many are in low-income, minority areas.

Though each Superfund site on the priorities list gets a score for the threat it poses to public health, flood risk is not part of that calculation. The Trump administration has downplayed the previous administration's emphasis on climate change. So although EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has said the agency would focus on Superfund sites, it's no longer talking much about how climate change could spread their toxins. A recent EPA task force report did not even mention threats to Superfund sites from stronger storms or rising seas. In addition, the Trump administration's 2018 spending proposal seeks to slash Superfund program funding by nearly one-third.

Among local sites still on the national priorities list:

The Lower Darby Creek area in Eastwick and Folcroft in neighboring Delaware County, where the Folcroft and Clearview landfills, operated into the 1970s. Clearview, literally at the edge of backyards, spans 50 acres and rises 100 feet like a beginner ski hill. It is now being cleaned and capped. Contaminated soil is being excavated from homeowners' yards and replaced with clean soil. The EPA has found polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), compounds associated with increased cancer risk.

The BoRit Asbestos site, a six-acre, 25-foot-high tomb for deadly asbestos, just off Wissahickon and Prophecy creeks, borders Ambler Borough and Whitpain and Upper Dublin Townships in Montgomery County. It has been capped and is undergoing sampling.

The 30-acre Bridgeport Rental & Oil Services site, once a waste oil storage facility that sent 2.5 million gallons of PCB-contaminated oil into a lagoon, is just off Little Timber Creek, Cedar Swamp and the Delaware River in Logan Township, Gloucester County. Even after decades of remediation, it's still on the priorities list.

The Martin Aaron site in Camden, contaminated with chlorinated biphenyls and other compounds, partly from illegal discharges, borders the Delaware River. The EPA is designing a plan to remove contaminated soils and groundwater.

No one has the manpower to check them all

The EPA, under the Obama administration, studied the risks of Superfund sites subject to climate change using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A recent Associated Press review of the data found that 2 million Americans live within a mile of one of the 327 vulnerable Superfund sites.

The Inquirer used AP's report, along with additional census data, to compile a local list. About 72,000 people in the Philadelphia region live within a mile of Superfund sites that are either within current flood zones or susceptible to sea level rise. About 64 percent of the residents are minorities, primarily black or Hispanic.

"There needs to be a greater sense of emergency preparedness on behalf of the EPA and the planning process," Howarth said. Specifically, she said, the nation's Superfund sites should be ranked according to which pose the most danger if they are flooded, so that it's clear which to inspect first for contaminant leaks after a storm.

"There are hundreds of superfund sites," she says. "There's no way anyone has the manpower to check them all in one week."

Its really contaminated

EPA plans only for what's known as a 100-year flood, meaning such an event has a one percent chance of occurring each year. Hurricane Floyd was so severe it is considered a 500-year flood. Scientists expect such catastrophes to become more common because of climate change.

Roy Seneca, a spokesman for EPA Region 3, which includes Pennsylvania, said cleanup plans do consider Federal Emergency Management Agency flood maps, and sites in FEMA flood zones qualify for more stringent construction requirements.

Asked about the EPA's cleanup plan for the Eastwick site, Seneca said in an email that testing there "has indicated that flood events are not a primary mechanism for transporting contaminants related to the Clearview Landfill."

But floods have affected local EPA actions. The area around the BoRit Superfund site was flooded during both Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee in 2011 as the site was being capped, spurring the agency to enhance the capping plan. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry acknowledges flooding has affected the BoRit site in recent years, but concludes it is "not likely to cause harmful effects" on "persons engaging in normal activities" such as walking along nearby trails.

Many of the residents who see the impact of rising waters are the least financially able to move to a safer place.

The Martin Aaron Superfund site in South Camden hosted heavy industry back to the 19th century. The air around it still stings of solvents. Soil and groundwater contain a toxic brew including PCBs and pesticides, testing found. Workers recently began removing contaminated soil and water.

During Superstorm Sandy in 2012, foul-smelling water filled the streets of the adjacent neighborhood, flooding many basements, long-time residents said. More than 17,000 people live within a mile of the Martin Aaron site, virtually all of them lower-income African Americans and Latinos.

On a recent day, Mark Skinner and his niece Cherise pushed her one-year-old son's stroller in front of her rented rowhouse around the corner from the industrial site. Skinner, 53, shrugged when asked about the ongoing cleanup work.

"It's really contaminated, there's a lot of stuff in the ground, but I don't know what all it is," said Skinner, who works at a nearby scrap metal yard and also lives in the shadow of the former industrial site.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Campbell Soup Co.s planned acquisition of Snyders-Lance Inc. for a total value of $6 billion, including debt, is this years largest deal by a Philadelphia-area company, according to data from Bloomberg L.P. Read more

Philadelphia-area companies stepped up their acquisition game in 2017, announcing 11 deals worth at least $500 million, compared with just two such deals last year.

Leading the pack was Campbell Soup Co., whose Dec. 18 agreement to acquire snack maker Snyder's-Lance Inc. for a total value of $6 billion was the largest this year by a Philadelphia-area company, according to Bloomberg LP data.

The region's second-biggest was aluminum- and metal-can maker Crown Holdings Inc.'s $3.91 billion deal to buy Signode Industrial Group Holdings, a firm that makes steel and plastic strapping, as well as other products used in shipping.

Also notable were two deals by Aramark Corp. worth at least $1 billion.

The stirrings by old-line area companies  the Aramark and Campbell deals were the biggest in their histories  occurred during a second consecutive down year for U.S. mergers-and-acquisitions activity.

"However, despite being slow out of the gate, and the expected contraction continuing from 2015's record year, in 2017 the U.S. market will end with a fourth consecutive year of more than $1 trillion in value," Bryan Adams, director of FactSet M&A, wrote in a recent assessment of this year's mergers-and-acquisitions activity.

FactSet Research Systems Inc., a Norwalk, Conn., company that sells data and analytics to investors, valued this year's transactions at $1.3 trillion, down from $1.44 trillion last year and $1.46 trillion in 2015.

Adams said U.S. M&A cycles usually run cycles that last between two and three years. "We had 25 months of growth ending in May 2016, and we are only 16 months into contraction," he noted.

Last year's biggest acquisitions by local companies were Comcast Corp.'s $3.8 billion purchase of the California movie studio DreamWorks Animation LLC and Teleflex Inc.'s $962.6 million purchase of Vascular Solutions Inc., a Minneapolis medical-device manufacturer.

A common thread in the deals by Aramark, Campbell and Crown was a move into adjacent markets.

Aramark's $1.35 billion acquisition of Avendra LLC, which manages $5 billion in purchasing for major hotel chains, moves the Philadelphia provider of food, uniform, and other services further into something it already does for itself: buying all sorts of supplies for its customers. Aramark completed that acquisition Dec. 11. Its second deal, the $1 billion purchase of a complementary uniform-services company, Ameripride Services Inc., is still pending.

Camden-based Campbell Soup has long had a presence in snacks, particularly with its popular Goldfish crackers, but the purchase of Snyder's-Lance, of Charlotte, N.C., will plunge Campbell into a far deeper world of snacks, including pretzels, potato chips, and sandwich crackers. Campbell completed its $700 million acquisition of organic-broth maker Pacific Foods on Dec. 12.

Crown chief executive Timothy J. Donahue acknowledged in a conference call with analysts that Signode Industrial Group Holdings, of Glenview, Ill., makes a different kind of packaging than Crown does, but he asserted that Signode's business is still packaging. In addition to strapping, Signode makes edge protectors and other products to prevent damage to goods in transit, as well as the tools and equipment needed to use its products.

Unlike the Campbell/Snyder's-Lance deal, for which cost-cutting and the achievement of greater efficiency in the operation of Snyder's-Lance is front and center, Crown's pending purchase of Signode does not feature cost-cutting as a key goal.

"We didn't announce any synergies because we believe the financial output of the combination stands on its own," Donahue said.

Signode, which it is buying from private-equity giant Carlyle Group LP, is supposed to be a new growth platform for Crown, which already has 146 factories in 36 countries and typically adds two beverage-can factories a year, he said. Including Signode, Crown is expected to have $11 billion in annual revenue.

The Philadelphia region, defined as Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania and Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties in New Jersey, also saw some large sales in 2017.

The biggest of those was the sale of VWR Corp., a Radnor distributor of laboratory supplies, to Avantor Performance Materials Inc. of Center Valley, Lehigh County, for $6.3 billion.
Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives should be a fraction of its size Read more

Time is running out on a once-in-a-decade opportunity for the Pennsylvania legislature to reform itself, and perhaps restore voters' faith in Harrisburg lawmakers' ability to govern beyond their own self-interest.

In the coming weeks, lawmakers must act on a bill that would reduce the size of the state House by 25 percent. The looming deadline must be met for the measure to get on the May primary ballot. That would allow enough time for new district maps to take effect with the 2020 census.

But hurdles remain. Reducing the size of the House requires amending the state constitution. Any constitutional amendment must be approved by the House and Senate in two consecutive legislative sessions before going to voters.

The bill was approved in the last session and awaits a second vote. But for the past year, House Bill 153 has sat in the State Government Committee. If lawmakers don't act by mid-January, another decade will pass before the next census provides an opportunity to redraw the districts.

Reducing the size of the House will not solve all the state's problems. But it will eliminate one dubious distinction: Pennsylvania has the largest and most expensive full-time legislature in the country.

Each of the 203 House members is paid at least $87,000 a year, plus $159 per diem and free health-care benefits. (Ranking members are paid more. For example, House Speaker Mike Turzai's salary is $135,000.) Elected officials are eligible for a generous pension and free health care for life at age 55 and 10 years of service.

State Rep. Jerry Knowles (R., Schuylkill) is the primary sponsor of a bill that would reduce the size of the House to 151 members. Knowles believes a smaller House would be less unwieldy and more cost-effective. Trimming the size of the House would save taxpayers $15 million a year.

The same logic applies to the state Senate, which has 50 members, though that is not part of the bill. That should be next. Pennsylvania does not need half the number of senators the entire country has.

Even if the proposed reduction were to take effect, Pennsylvania would still have more House members than California, New York, or Texas, all bigger states.

The Pennsylvania legislature is not known for its effectiveness. For years, the state has struggled to pass a budget on time. Nearly half of the state's registered voters believe Pennsylvania is on the wrong track, according to a Franklin and Marshall poll in September. An earlier poll placed the legislature's approval rating at a paltry 14 percent.

The Republican-controlled legislature often talks about smaller government. Here is a bill that matches the rhetoric.

Finally, Pennsylvania is not a model of good government. A parade of lawmakers has been convicted of corruption in recent years. Several studies have ranked the state among the most corrupt.

Expecting the House to act on a measure to reduce its membership may require an extra push from voters. Voters should contact their representative at http://www.house.state.pa.us/. Let him or her know how you feel about H.B. 153.
Theresa Nightingale, a medical marijuana activist in Pittsburgh, received her registration card two days before Christmas 2017. Federal law prohibits such card holders from owning a gun. Read more

The town drunk can buy firearms. So can someone who has been involuntarily placed in a mental hospital for a short stay. But anyone who wants to treat Crohn's disease with medical marijuana is forbidden from owning a gun.

Pennsylvania is preparing to roll out a statewide program in early 2018 that will provide medicinal cannabis products to patients suffering from 17 serious health conditions.

But some sick people will have to make a difficult decision: Is taking the medicine worth surrendering what gun-owning advocates see as an enshrined constitutional right?

"It's hypocritical," said lawyer Andrew Sacks, the co-chair of the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Medical Marijuana and Hemp Law Committee.

"You can be an opioid addict, or buy a bottle of rum, drink it and go to a store and buy one," Sacks said. "But a person who is registered as a medical marijuana patient in Pennsylvania, and has a very small dosage of THC, can't own a gun to protect themselves or hunt."

A state police spokesman strongly suggested that patients also consider the consequences of holding on to any guns bought before enrolling in the medical marijuana program.

"It's unlawful to keep possession of firearms obtained prior to registering," spokesman Ryan Tarkowski said. "The Pennsylvania State Police is not in the business of offering legal advice, but it might be a good idea to contact an attorney about how best to dispose of their firearms."

Twenty-nine states, including Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, have legalized marijuana in some form.

But under federal law, all forms of marijuana remain strictly forbidden. The DEA considers it a Schedule 1 drug, on par with heroin and LSD, with "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse."

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulates the sale and ownership of guns and ammunition across the nation. ATF spokeswoman Cherie R. Duvall-Jones said any use of marijuana is a disqualifier.

"There are no exceptions in federal law for marijuana purportedly used for medicinal purposes, even if such use is sanctioned by state law," said Duvall-Jones.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled last year that the federal prohibition does not violate the Second Amendment.

The NRA has remained silent on the issue. A spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Gun dealers last year were sent an ATF bulletin that left no room for loopholes. A dealer who even suspects that a customer may be using cannabis is obliged to stop a sale, ATF's Duvall-Jones said. Federal regulations bar firearms ownership to anyone who illegally uses a controlled substance or might be addicted to any drug.

Alcohol is not considered a controlled substance, Duvall-Jones said. "Therefore, a person who is addicted to distilled spirits, wine or malt beverages would not be prohibited" under the law.

A federal judge in Pittsburgh ruled last week that the government could not restrict the gun ownership rights of a man who had been involuntarily placed in a psychiatric hospital.

In Pennsylvania, firearms dealers must conduct a background check on each customer. A registry, administered by the state police, identifies medical marijuana patients.

"If you're a card holder, you'll be flagged," said Tarkowski, the state police spokesman.

But even before the background check is run, all customers must fill out a Form 4473, a firearms transaction record required by the U.S. Department of Justice.

One yes/no question asks:

Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug or any other controlled substance? Warning: the use of possession marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.

"It's game over if you check 'yes,' " said Jim Benoit, owner of Cajun Arms in West Chester. "I can thank you for coming by, but I'll have to tell you I can't sell you this gun."

Patients also may be required to surrender guns and ammo bought before joining the marijuana program, whether they are using the medicine or not. Police in Honolulu, Hawaii, fired off letters this month to patients ordering them to turn in their weapons. The following outcry had the department put the order on hold two days later. No other jurisdiction has made a similar request.

The issue has been a hot-button topic in New England states that have legalized marijuana, said Becky Dansky, legislative counsel of the national Marijuana Policy Project, which opposes prohibitions.

"The compromise most of those states are reaching is 'no new guns for patients,' but they're not tracking down guns and asking them to be surrendered," Dansky said.

Commenters on one Second Amendment online group had mixed feelings about the law.

"How far of a jump is it to extend this process to other medications?" said Cephas, a longtime member of the Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Discussion Forum. "Antidepressants and warning of suicidal thoughts come to mind. Someone has a rough spot in their life, gets help, and the next thing they know they're prohibited."

Forum member GMAN106 of Delaware County took a more nuanced view.

"I'm against government promotion of the narcotization of its citizenry. A doped-up, dumbed-down electorate is certainly no bulwark against tyranny," he said. "As for stoners and firearms, I vote no, but they probably present less a public threat than the alcohol-fueled maniacs who wreak havoc among us already."

And that's part of the problem. According to Dansky, law enforcement agencies are operating under the belief that medical marijuana patients are just looking to get high. But for stoners, it's less of a hassle, and probably cheaper, to find a dealer of illegal pot on Reddit or Instagram.

"You have to go through a significant amount of work to get a medical marijuana card," Dansky said. Those hoops include state charges, doctor fees that aren't covered by insurance, and a criminal background check. Buying illicitly "is a lot easier."
Violent crime in Philadelphia continued to fall in 2017, with offenses including rape, robbery, and aggravated assault likely to rival last year's notably low totals, according to preliminary police statistics.

But for the first time since 2012, the city recorded more than 300 homicides  an uptick of nearly 15 percent and the only category of violent crime to substantially increase, the statistics say.

Police officials and criminologists are hard-pressed to explain why murders were up when other crime was down, particularly because fewer shootings were reported in 2017 than the year before.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a New York-based policy institute, said in a preliminary analysis of 2017 crime data that some other cities, including Baltimore and Charlotte, N.C., also experienced higher murder totals even as national levels of urban crime continue to decline, but analysts stopped short of offering explanations.

"It's tough to point to an iron-clad cause," said Ames C. Grawert, counsel for the Brennan Center.

Locally, officials point to several factors that could have contributed to Philadelphia's 2017 homicide spike, including the opioid epidemic, a department that had been several hundred officers short of what Commissioner Richard Ross feels is an adequate staffing level, and easy access to guns.

Let's analyze some of those elements.

The opioid crisis

Two of the city's most violent police districts  the 24th and 25th  intersect in Kensington, in the heart of the city's open-air drug markets and where heroin users have flocked amid a national opioid epidemic.

Those two districts alone recorded about a quarter of the city's homicides and shootings in 2017, according to police statistics. And Ross believes competition from the drug trade is fueling the violence, with dealers angling to control lucrative territory.

"It drives competition, and with competition and drug-trafficking organizations you tend to get drug violence that comes with it," Ross said.
Meredith Bush and Aaron Brill

August 8, 2017, in San Francisco and October 7, 2017, in Philadelphia

Hello there

They met at a June 2010 Phish concert at the BB&T Pavilion. Meredith, who grew up in Marlton, lived in Philadelphia, where she was an accountant. Aaron grew up in Lower Merion, but since 2003 has lived in San Francisco, where he teaches outdoor education and tech integration at the San Francisco Day School. Some of her friends had been friends of Aaron's since their high school days at Episcopal Academy, and one of them had bought a passel of tickets to the show.

They had fun dancing with their friends at that show. Meredith, Aaron, and about 10 others in the group began spending much of their vacation time and discretionary income to travel to Phish and other shows around the country. "The whole group became really tight," Aaron said.

Concert by concert, he and Meredith became good friends. "She was really easygoing, and on the level," he said.

"He was such an honest and genuine friend," Meredith said.

They talked about concerts, music, restaurants, and cooking. Soon, they found they could talk to each other about nearly anything and were often each other's sounding board on the romantic relationships they had with other people. Their friendship lasted and grew closer long after those other relationships ended.

Aaron had been single for nearly a year and Meredith for nearly two years when she finally allowed herself to consider the feelings she had been rationalizing away. Perhaps obstacles such as the geography between them were worth overcoming.

In May 2014, as Aaron's birthday approached, Meredith scoured eBay for Phish memorabilia. She sent him a brochure, map, and plastic cup from the first show Aaron attended. Meredith signed the card: "To eternal joy and never-ending splendor."

"It changed my whole perspective," Aaron said. "Clearly, she had been listening to me over the years, because that gift struck right into who I am. I was blown away."

They saw each other that summer, when Aaron made his annual trip east. The vibes between them had changed, but neither openly acknowledged it until that August. "I want to take you out on a proper date this week," Aaron, now 36, told Meredith, now 34.

At the now-defunct Petruce et al, the waiter was still pouring their champagne when Aaron spilled the more important things: "I'm really into you. I'm really not into long-distance relationships, but I have an amazing life in San Francisco," he said. "Please respond."

"I'm really into you," Meredith said. "And I'm willing to make the move, if we can make it work."

They left their first real date as a couple, with a goal that Meredith would move to California by Jan. 1.

After a week of constant togetherness, Aaron returned home. They spoke by phone daily and saw each other on one coast or the other four times, including when Meredith flew out for a job interview in October. The first week of January 2015, she moved to San Francisco. The following October, she moved in to Aaron's Western Edition home, where they still live.

Once they stopped trying to talk themselves out of what they felt, the couple's love grew quickly, Meredith said.

"He's got that big magnetic smile that makes you want to see what he's up to," she said. "He likes to have a good time, but he's also caring and sensitive. And manly. He's dreamy."

Aaron said Meredith is a fantastic partner. "She prioritizes us, and she's fiercely loyal. She's an excellent dancer. She's smart and tough  she's the package," he said. "She's what I was looking for."

The Engagement

In July 2016, the couple took a friend up on an offer to stay at his home in Lake Tahoe, Calif. The Squaw Valley Ski Resort keeps a lift running even in summer, with a pool and hot tub at the top. It was on the ride that Aaron found out Meredith is very much not into heights. " 'Look at these views! Look at the lake!' I said. She was looking at her shoes, white-knuckling it, and breathing deeply."

Uh-oh, Aaron thought. But they proceeded. Off the gondola, he suggested a climb to the top of an outcropping of boulders so they could have some privacy. "No," Meredith said. His expression persuaded her to try, but her nerves made her an awkward hiker. Aaron found himself in outdoor education teacher mode, suggesting she lower her center of gravity. That did not make her happy, so Aaron stopped with the hints she wasn't finding so helpful.

Once at the top, Aaron wanted to make sure his breath was fresh for the celebratory kisses he hoped were soon coming. He took an apple out of his backpack. "Want to share an apple with me?" he asked.

As Meredith chewed, she wondered what, exactly, was happening. She had reluctantly climbed because she knew Aaron wanted to, but she could not wait to get back down.

Aaron could tell she was ready to go. "Hang on a minute, I have a question to ask you," he said. "Will you marry me?"

Meredith was shocked, then excited. "It's always been you!" she exclaimed.

"Thank you," Aaron said. "Answer my question."

"Oh yes! Yes!" she said. And then she had a question for him: "How do I get down?"

It was so them

The couple opted to wed at San Francisco City Hall on the Mayor's Balcony  an ornate space overlooking the grand staircase and rotunda.

The ceremony was led by their friend David, who became ordained online to do the honors. Including the couple, 16 people were present. Most were family, including Aaron's parents, Lynn and Charlie, and Meredith's mom, Sondra, dad, Alan, and stepmom, Cindy. Stepdad Frank couldn't attend, but he texted and called with good wishes.

Aaron's niece Sophie and nephew Ben performed a piece about love from Calvin and Hobbes. The couple's parents did readings.

During their vows, Aaron told Meredith: "You always say, 'If you want something, ask for it.' Well, I want this." Meredith promised to always keep the kid in him alive.

Two months later, the couple held a local reception they could celebrate with many more friends and family members in Philadelphia  180 of them. "My mom picked the venue  she looked for a place that would be exactly what we wanted," Meredith said. She and Aaron agree Stotesbury Mansion was perfect. The first floor provided space quiet enough for conversation and a dance floor. The second held the bar and photo booth. The third had two billiards tables and a cigar lounge.

They had first heard the California Honeydrops play in San Francisco, at officiant David's 50th birthday party, and they brought them to Philly.

Meredith and Aaron loved the Honeydrops' versatility with soul, funk, and New Orleans Second Line. "We wanted a band we loved, that was musically great and would also please the crowd," Aaron said. People danced all night.

Awestruck

The couple greeted their guests for the first half-hour of the reception, then retreated for a few private moments together in the ballroom. "I was bursting with joy," Meredith said. "It was, 'It's here, and it's happening.' It was so overwhelming and exciting and everything I wanted."

Aaron felt that way, too. In the middle of the reception, his dad pulled him aside. "He asked me, 'Would you change anything?' And I couldn't think of a single thing," Aaron said. "It was just perfect."

The budget crunch

A bargain: The couple didn't want to spend a lot on invitations. Thanks to friend Leah, who works at Shutterfly, they didn't need to. Leah helped with design, and also told them when sales and coupons were available.

The splurge: Their budget began with the band. They made everything else fit around it.

Honeymooning

Two weeks in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Hong Kong in summer 2018.

Behind the scenes

Officiant: David Cherner, friend of the couple.

Ceremony venue: San Francisco City Hall, Mayor's Balcony.

Reception venue: Stotesbury Mansion, Philadelphia.

Catering: Feastivities Events, Philadelphia.

Music: California Honeydrops.

Photography: Hoffer Photography, Downingtown.

Flowers: Offshoots Floral Artistry & Tailored Designs.

Dress: Designed by Anna Maier. Purchased at Nordstrom.

Hair/Makeup: Maria at Rescue Spa, Philadelphia.

Artwork: Brian Steely designed a logo featuring a Brill fish, the Liberty Bell, the Golden Gate Bridge, and other images from the couple's life.
This editorial board writes more than 300 editorials a year, and we want each one to inform readers, improve our world, and make a difference. Here is a review of our opinions on some of the most important issues in the city and state for each month of 2017, and the progress (or lack thereof) that has been made since.

January

In reaction to the election of Donald Trump, millions of women protested in Washington and in cities around the country  50,000 in Philadelphia alone. Even though it was the largest protest in the nation's history, the key question remained: Would it make any difference?

The Upshot: Harvey Weinstein. Matt Lauer. Dustin Hoffman. Garrison Keillor. Al Franken. Roy Moore. Twelve months later, the fall of these and other powerful men amid public accusations of sexual harassment  which also lost Vincent Fenerty his Parking Authority job and surfaced in allegations against State Sen. Daylin Leach and Philadelphia Sheriff Jewell Williams  suggests that the spirit of gender solidarity in January lived well into the year.

February

An Inquirer and Daily News review found many Philadelphia City Council members skipped required annual ethics training. Why does it matter? The Board of Ethics has issued settlements for investigations for nine of the 17 current Council members since 2015. We urged the board to hold more regular training, and for Council to partake.

The Upshot: The Board of Ethics said all Council members received the training in 2017.

March

Congress repealed a protection for Planned Parenthood patients who get family planning care through Title X. Not long after, the attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act included a provision to defund Planned Parenthood. In Harrisburg, a bill moved forward that would place further restrictions on the organization. We said, "This morally bankrupt strategy imperils a basic lifeline for health-care services in many poor communities."

The Upshot: Ten Planned Parenthood health centers closed in the Midwest and Southwest in 2017; two states now lack any Planned Parenthood services.

April

The culture wars came to Boyertown, and we applauded its School District for not flinching at a lawsuit that would prevent a transgender student from using the boy's locker room to change for gym class.

The Upshot: The district stood firm, refusing to bow to groups that press so-called bathroom bills in state legislatures. A federal judge in August denied a request for a preliminary injunction against the district, which is now under appeal.

May

The Inquirer and Daily News revealed that the 2016 Democratic National Convention Host Committee in Philadelphia paid $1 million in staff bonuses from a surplus. The $86 million to pay for the event included a $10 million state grant. We criticized former Gov. Ed Rendell, host committee chairman. He defended the bonuses as "deferred compensation" for early, unpaid work or low staff salaries.

The Upshot: Gov. Wolf on Dec. 4 issued new restrictions, prohibiting staff bonuses funded by "special event" state grants.

June

We called the city's deal with Conrail to clean up a notorious railway gulch in Kensington and Fairhill, which served as a way station for heroin addicts to inject and was littered with thousands of used needles, "a rare win in the demoralizing fight against the opioid crisis."

The Upshot: That crisis hasn't abated. In fact, opioid deaths have lowered the life expectancy in the U.S. for the second year in a row. Philadelphia is on track to record 1,200 deaths for this year.

July

City Councilwoman Cindy Bass used the summer break to visit "stop-and-go" stores that sell beer using state licenses, masquerading as restaurants. She later proposed a bill requiring some store owners to remove bullet-resistant barrier windows. On one side were customers who saw the windows as disrespect. On the other were store owners who said they protected employees from robberies and other violence. We said Bass could wind up with blood on her hands if the barriers came down.

The Upshot: The legislation passed, but amended to remove the mandatory ban and instead instruct the Department of Licenses & Inspections to draw up regulations by 2021 for the "use and removal of any physical barrier" in places that serve food and alcohol.

August

City Councilwoman Helen Gym's response to Confederate statues protests  a tweet that the 2,000-pound, 10-foot-tall statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo should be removed from its location across from City Hall  touched off a battle between Old Philly and New Philly tinged with the still-reverberating ring of Philadelphia racial politics.

The Upshot: While the Kenney administration said the statue will be relocated, the city's Art Commission still has to hold hearings and vote on its fate.

September

The state's Liquor Control Board raised prices on hundreds of brands of wine and spirits, which we called "the latest reminder of the need for lawmakers to privatize the State Stores."

The Upshot: The state has loosened laws to allow the sale of beer and wine in grocery stores. But even with those improvements, Pennsylvania remains out of step with the majority of the country.

October

To pay for a $32 billion spending plan passed in July, state lawmakers agreed to expand gambling, among other things. As we pointed out: "How could this state have generated new revenue of nearly $2.4 billion a year in the last 10 years (from gaming) but still can't craft a budget that doesn't end in panic and chaos at the end of each year?"

The Upshot: Pennsylvania is now second only to Nevada in gambling.

November

A mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, became the latest chapter in the country's gun horrors, just weeks after a gunman killed dozens in Las Vegas. America in 2017 saw 341 mass shootings, defined by four or more people shot or killed, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Philadelphia made that list 11 times in 2017. Going into the weekend, the city had seen 314 homicides, 80 percent killed with guns, in 2017, the highest rate since 2012.

The Upshot: President Trump, in his inaugural speech, promised: "This American carnage stops right here and stops right now." Not even close.

December

Former State Rep. Leslie Acosta, a Philadelphia Democrat, started 2017 by resigning on Jan. 3; she ran and was reelected after secretly pleading guilty to a federal felony embezzlement charge. Former Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams pleaded guilty to a bribery charge. Former Philadelphia Traffic Court Judge Willie Singletary, who spent 20 months in prison for lying to the FBI, ended 2017 by announcing his run for the U.S. House.

The Upshot: Can we go a year without an elected official in the city not being indicted and/or incarcerated?
Dennis Plowden Jr. (left), with his mother, Chinita McCoy, in a 2016 family photo. Plowden was shot by police Dec. 27, 2017, at Nedro Avenue and Opal Street in East Germantown, and died the next morning. Read more

Family members of Dennis Plowden Jr. say they are angry that he was fatally shot by police this week as he was on his way to visit his mother in East Germantown, taking her Christmas gifts.

"He was unarmed," his grandmother Stacy McCoy said Friday in the living room of her West Oak Lane home. "They shot him like a godded dog."

Plowden, 25, was shot by a plainclothes police officer on the sidewalk on Opal Street near Nedro Avenue on Wednesday night. He was pronounced dead at Einstein Medical Center the next morning.

On Saturday night, police identified the officer who fired the shot as Eric Ruch, a nine-year veteran assigned to the 35th District.

Police said that about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, plainclothes officers in two unmarked vehicles stopped Plowden, who was driving a white Hyundai sedan with a Pennsylvania license plate that was being sought in connection with a Kensington homicide this month. At least one of the unmarked vehicles had its police lights activated, police said.

But after Plowden stopped his car at 16th Street and Nedro, he rammed the Hyundai into one officer who was getting out of his unmarked vehicle and struck the car itself, then drove away and crashed into two parked cars three blocks west on the 1900 block of Nedro, police said. Police said a 27-year-old woman was in the front passenger seat of the Hyundai at the time.

Plowden's parents and grandmother said they don't know who she was and said they don't know who owns the Hyundai.

The two officers in the undamaged vehicle pursued the Hyundai and came upon the crash scene. Both got out and repeatedly ordered Plowden, who had gotten out of the Hyundai, to show his hands, police spokesman Capt. Sekou Kinebrew has said. Plowden had at least one hand in his jacket pocket while sitting on the sidewalk and did not heed the officers' commands, he said. That's when one of the officers shot Plowden in the head, Kinebrew said.

McCoy said she doesn't know what happened, but believes police could have resolved things in a different manner. "They could have stun-gunned him. They didn't have to do a kill shot," she said. "They murdered my grandson like all the other black kids out here."

"I want justice for my grandson," she said. "They [the officers] need to be charged with something.  They didn't have to shoot my grandson in the head.  They just killed another little black kid, unarmed. That's the way I see it. It's horrible."

McCoy said this is her second grandson to be slain over the last two years. On Aug. 1, 2016, Plowden's brother, Darryl, 20, was shot and killed in an unsolved homicide, she said. Police said Darryl Plowden was shot on the 5700 block of Keystone Street in Wissinoming.

Dennis Plowden Jr. had previously lived with her, McCoy said. Most recently, she said, he was living with his wife, their 6-month-old son, and his two stepdaughters in the Oxford Circle area. Plowden was attending night school to get his high school diploma while taking care of his kids, including an 8-year-old daughter who lives with her mother, McCoy said.

Court records show Plowden was facing a Jan. 10 trial on DUI charges stemming from an incident this year. He had previously been convicted of drug-related charges stemming from 2011 and 2013 offenses, and of a charge of receiving stolen property from a 2010 offense. Court records show he had spent about one to two years behind bars.

During the interview at her home, McCoy put a reporter in touch by phone with Plowden's mother and father.

His mother, Chinita McCoy, said that on Wednesday night her son was on his way to her East Germantown house, a few blocks from where he was shot, bringing her boots and shoes. They were Christmas gifts, the grandmother said.

Plowden's father, Dennis, said in a separate interview that his son was driving the Hyundai, which was not his car, because his car was in the shop.

At a news conference Thursday, First Deputy Police Commissioner Myron Patterson said homicide detectives have determined that Plowden was not connected to the Dec. 21 shooting on the 1800 block of East Atlantic Street in Kensington that killed another man. They declined to say why the car was sought in connection with the homicide, which remains under investigation.

No weapon was found on or near Plowden after he was shot or in the Hyundai, police said.

After learning about the shooting that night, family members met at Einstein. It was at the hospital when they saw TV news reports of the shooting that they learned that an officer had shot Plowden, the grandmother said.

Stacy McCoy also said medical staff told the family that Plowden was shot three times  once in the forehead and twice in his fingers. Kinebrew maintained Friday that Plowden was shot once. An examination of the officer's gun indicates one shot was fired, he said. He said it was possible the bullet passed through Plowden's fingers.

The Police Department's officer-involved-shooting investigation unit and Internal Affairs, as well as the District Attorney's Office, are investigating the shooting.

"We promise a very thorough investigation," Kinebrew said. "The most serious action a police officer can take is lethal force.  We don't take this lightly."

Hans Menos, executive director of the city's Police Advisory Commission, a civilian oversight agency, extended his agency's condolences Friday to Plowden's family. "We want the family to know that we will do everything to ensure that the investigation is transparent, objective, and thorough," Menos said in a statement.

"Whenever there is a loss of life, it is tragic," the statement said. "However, the loss of yet another young, black, and unarmed man is something that many in the city of Philadelphia and around the country understand to be especially problematic, and for marginalized black and brown communities, especially painful. We want to work towards fully understanding, acknowledging, and easing that pain."
FILE  In this Jan. 12, 2013 file photo, Miss New York Mallory Hytes Hagan reacts as she is crowned Miss America 2013 in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken, File) Read more

The remaining leadership of the Miss America Organization was unable Thursday to quell the firestorm it has faced since the revelation of cruel and vulgar internal emails that ridiculed pageant contestants.

The organization late Wednesday said it wanted the input of former Miss Americas and state directors to fill current and anticipated vacancies on its board of directors, but that was swiftly rebuffed by some of the targets of the emails exchanged by Sam Haskell, the former executive chairman and CEO, who resigned after their publication last week by the Huffington Post.

In a statement from a key trio of past Miss Americas, including Kate Shindle, a South Jersey native who won the crown in 1998, the organization's offer was called "completely unacceptable."

"The only solution that will #SaveMissAmerica is the resignation of all current board members  who expressed 'full confidence' in Haskell after reviewing his appalling emails, and have reportedly handed him a generous severance package  so that a new generation of leadership can step up to secure Miss America's future," read the statement from Shindle, Gretchen Carlson, and Mallory Hagan.

Shindle, who posted the statement on her Twitter account, added Thursday afternoon that "we don't want a pat on the head; we want seats at the table."

In its report, the Huffington Post included some of the emails, which engaged in fat-shaming, mocked some former winners' intellect and sex lives, and used a vulgar term for female genitalia when referring to past winners.

The future of the 96-year-old pageant  held annually at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, except for a decade in Las Vegas beginning in 2004  remains in doubt.

Dick Clark Productions, which produced the nationally televised pageant, announced last week that it had cut its ties to the Miss America Organization because of the emails, which were provided to the company several months ago.

"We were appalled by their unacceptable content and insisted, in the strongest possible terms, that the Miss America Organization board of directors conduct a comprehensive investigation and take appropriate action to address the situation. Shortly thereafter, we resigned our board positions and notified MAO that we were terminating our relationship with them," the company said in a statement.

In a video posted on Facebook, Hagan seized on the loss of the lucrative Dick Clark Productions partnership as proof that the Miss America Organization leadership was most interested in preserving the status quo.

"These people do not have the best interest of this program at heart, period, point blank. That should be enough," Hagan said. "These people were presented with these emails and chose to overlook them, did nothing about them, thought this was a big fat nothing burger, and voted to keep Sam Haskell and others in leadership in this program. That in and of itself should be enough for them to have to go."

Before he resigned Saturday, Haskell apologized for some of the emails, but claimed that much of the reporting in the Huffington Post story was "dishonest, deceptive, and despicable."

Along with Haskell, organization president and chief operating officer Josh Randle and board chairman Lynn Weidner also resigned last weekend.
Yvonne Blake took over Hakims Bookstore from her father Dawud Hakim after he passed away. It is thought to be the oldest surviving black-owned bookstore in the country. Read more

At Hakim's Bookstore in West Philadelphia, there are signs of life for what is believed to be the oldest black-owned bookstore in the country. Only a couple of years ago, the store was near death's door.

There is fresh, yellow paint on the walls, brand-new bookshelves, and a newly renovated office space at the back of the store.

"I finally got a website about three months ago," said Yvonne Blake, daughter of Dawud Hakim, who founded the store in 1959.

Two years ago, the landmark at 210 S. 52nd St. was in danger of closing: Competition from internet booksellers and its limited hours  a family member was ill  led many people to falsely believe that Hakim's was no longer in business, Blake, 66, said.

But after attention from a column by Inquirer and Daily News writer Helen Ubinas, Blake said, "I had a lot of people offer to help."

She had already launched a GoFundMe campaign (more than $1,140 has been raised), but hearing from people all over the country gave her even more hope  and help. Joel Wilson, the owner of a computer-consulting firm who went to elementary school with her daughter, created the new website and offered a reorganization plan. And Ron Green, founder of a clothing company featuring T-shirts and other apparel aimed at young black activists, paid her a visit.

"I had never heard of Hakim's," said Green, CEO of What's Up African? "I told her, you don't have social media. You're not online. You have to go to festivals and events. You have to be visible."

And he advised her: "How can we expect the next generation of readers and leaders to access this store if they don't know you exist?'

Now, some of Green's T-shirts, items that appeal to a younger generation, are available at the bookstore.

Troy D. Johnson, president and founder of African American Literature Book Club, said only Marcus Books in Oakland, Calif., founded in 1960, has been around as long as Hakim's.

Johnson also said he was pleased to learn that Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill just opened Uncle Bobbie's Coffee & Books at 5445 Germantown Ave.

Hill's store, "along with the opening of at least seven new black-owned independents this year, is a very positive sign," Johnson wrote in an email. This is the first year his website added more bookstores than it flagged as having closed. "As Amazon becomes a near-monopoly for online book sales and eBooks, they are certainly having an adverse impact on not just black independents, but all booksellers online and brick-and-mortar," Johnson wrote.

Joshua Clark Davis, a professor of history at the University of Baltimore who has studied black-owned bookstores in the country, said that the "rise and fall of black radical politics has always had an impact on the popularity of black bookstores."

The first big boom was during the height of the Black Power movement, from the late 1960s until the mid-'70s. "Then came a big decline, but another upswing in black bookstores was when Afrocentrism and Malcolm X and black nationalism boom again in the late 1980s and early '90s," Davis wrote in an email.

Today, Davis points to the rise of Black Lives Matter activism and the growing criticism of mass incarceration  illustrated in best sellers like Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow or Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me  as reason for a renewed interest in black bookstores.

The number of black-owned bookstores nationally peaked in the early 2000s at about 150, but by 2012 had dropped to about 50. In 2017, the number rose to about 70, Davis said.

Black-owned Black & Nobel at 1409 W. Erie Ave. launched a GoFundMe page earlier this year when owner Hakim Hopkins thought he also might have to close his store, which, in addition to selling books acts as a hub for young rap artists and health product entrepreneurs. The campaign raised about $9,500, and Hopkins said he worked with UrbanToons Inc., to publish a new children's graphic book called The King of Mali: Rise of Mansa Musa.

"We're still here," said Hopkins.

While Black & Nobel is known for its huge "We Ship to Prisons" sign visible from Broad Street, a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections spokeswoman said the store may no longer ship to state prisons after contraband was found in one of its shipments. (Hopkins denies any wrongdoing, and claims someone used his store's name to make the illegal shipments.) But Hopkins said he still can send books to county and federal prisons across the country.

And he said he is working to develop an app to provide a delivery service for merchants called "Black and Mobile."

Many people confuse Hopkins' store (because of his first name) with Hakim's, but there is no connection.

On a recent December day, Blake pointed out new children's books, Christmas cards, Bibles and Islamic literature and Korans for sale. And with Kwanzaa approaching, a weeklong celebration of African heritage and harvest traditions ending Jan. 1, there were candles, kinaras and mats on display, too.

It's been a long time since the FBI used to take photographs of customers coming and going at the store in the late '60s, when the government thought it was a source of extremist literature. Blake didn't even know about that until her father's death in 1997. To a visitor at the store, she read from the obituary his quote:

"Anybody who owns a bookstore should be considered an asset to the community and not a contributor to racial strife," Hakim had said, "because books are here to inform people."
Vladimir Putin is well-known for showing off his masculinity in photo ops. In this August 2009 photo, he rides a horse shirtless. Then the prime minister, Putin is now Russias president. Read more

Whether it's Donald Trump bragging about the size of his hands (and, err, something else), a shirtless Vladimir Putin riding a horse in the mountains, or Hollywood promoting buff heroes like Superman and Captain America, masculinity is often used to symbolize strength and glory.

Not surprisingly, Americans say they look up to masculine men more than feminine women, according to a Pew study released this month.

But it's not just gender that dictates these beliefs. Racial makeup and political affiliation play a role: Republicans are more likely than Democrats to describe themselves as masculine. Black men and women are also more likely than whites and Hispanics to identify as "very masculine" or "very feminine," Pew found from its survey of 4,573 people across the nation.

To explain what's behind these differences, local professors of gender and race studies weighed in.

When it comes to race 

This may be a result of racial stereotypes, said Heath Fogg Davis, a political science professor at Temple University who focuses on issues of gender and race. Society tends to value black men more for their physical abilities than intellectual abilities, he explained, which causes black men to perceive masculinity  especially physical masculinity  as a symbol of strength.

"Stereotypes have an impact on how people think of themselves and how they're valued," Davis said. "American society values and valorizes black male professional athletes, and this heavy association with the body and physical strength."

[Read the story: Conflicting identities: Being black and gay in Philadelphia]

White men, on the other hand, are valued by society more for their intellectual abilities  how much economic and social success they can attain  than their physical prowess, Davis said.

"One of the hallmarks of white privilege," he said, "is that you get to be more associated with the mind than the body."

When it comes to role models 

That's because masculinity is associated with strength, logic, rationality, and leadership, said Shauna MacDonald, co-director of Villanova University's gender and women's studies program.

"According to these ideas that we've created of gender, men should be masculine, and we have an understanding of what that looks like: It's powerful, it's strong," MacDonald said. "So we want to admire that. We want to aspire to that power."

Being a woman, on the other hand, can be associated with being emotional, nurturing, and even weak, she said. Pew found that, too: Women were much more likely than men in the survey to describe themselves as nurturing or sensitive.

"We're caught up in believing this fiction that we've all created for ourselves  that masculine equals powerful, feminine equals less powerful," MacDonald said. And that mindset starts at a young age. Think about what parents sometimes teach, she said: Rugged trucks are for boys; nurturing dolls are for girls.

When it comes to politics 

More men, particularly white men, identify as Republicans. More women and people of color identify as Democrats.

The ideology of each party also influences opinions about masculinity. As MacDonald notes: "The Republican is more associated with tradition," or ideals like being the "man of the house" or the breadwinner of the family.

When it comes to transgender individuals, a divide also appears: Less than 20 percent of Republican-leaning individuals say a person's sex can be different from that at birth, compared with 64 percent of Democratic-leaning individuals, a separate Pew survey found this year.

Some conservatives have suggested men are becoming weak because they lack traditional values of strength and hard work. The National Review said in an article titled, "Men are getting weaker  because we're not raising men" that today's young men are "exactly the kind of person who in generations past had your milk money confiscated every day."
A Commonwealth Court judge recommended Friday that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court uphold the state's map of congressional districts in a high-profile gerrymandering lawsuit that challenges the map as unconstitutionally drawn to benefit Republicans.

Democrats hold a 5-2 majority on the state's high court, which has fast-tracked the suit. On Friday, the justices scheduled oral arguments for Jan. 17 in Harrisburg.

"A lot can and has been said about the 2011 Plan, much of which is unflattering and yet justified," wrote Commonwealth Court Judge P. Kevin Brobson, who had been tasked by the high court with holding a trial and submitting "findings of fact" and "conclusions of law" before the end of the year.

The plaintiffs had shown that partisan considerations were taken into account in creating the map, he wrote, and that more politically neutral maps could have been drawn that would not have been as favorable to the GOP.

But some degree of partisanship is considered acceptable in redistricting, he said, and the plaintiffs had not created a "judicially manageable standard" for the court to decide whether the map crossed the line.

"Petitioners, however, have failed to meet their burden of proving that the 2011 Plan, as a piece of legislation, clearly, plainly, and palpably violates the Pennsylvania Constitution," he wrote. "For the judiciary, this should be the end of the inquiry."

Lawyers from both sides praised the decision: The plaintiffs focused on the factual findings, including that partisanship was likely taken into account, while the defendants focused on the legal conclusions, including that a clear standard had not been established.

"We are very pleased that Judge Brobson made the factual findings that he did. He recognized that the 2011 plan was deliberately drawn to maximize the partisan advantage for the Republicans and to penalize Democrats for their voting histories," said Ben Geffen, a lawyer for the Democratic voters bringing the suit.

Drew Crompton, the GOP-controlled state Senate's top lawyer, called Brobson's decision "incredibly detailed" and well reasoned.

"Even though it's not always a flattering process, he found it to be constitutional on all grounds," Crompton said.

Brobson's conclusions hit upon a point that has frustrated legal challenges in the past: Exactly how much partisanship is considered extreme has never been well-defined. In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court came close to ruling that gerrymandering is a question outside the purview of the courts.

In the years since, social scientists and legal scholars have proposed a variety of measures. This term, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing two gerrymandering cases, one from Wisconsin and one from Maryland, that could create just such a standard.

The state Supreme Court can take Brobson's conclusions into account but will ultimately make its own ruling.

Some lawyers, advocates, and court-watchers from multiple sides had speculated that Brobson, who was elected as a Republican, would recommend upholding the map. But few have been willing to predict what might happen at the Supreme Court, given its Democratic makeup. Depending on where the source sits on the political spectrum, there is fear of an "activist court" that tries to make a statement or hope of a "progressive court" that saves the day.

If the high court orders the map redrawn, it could potentially do so in time for the 2018 primary elections.

The suit was brought by a group of 18 Democratic voters, one for each of the state's congressional districts. The voters, represented by the Philadelphia-based Public Interest Law Center, argued that Pennsylvania's map is designed to favor Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, discriminating against Democratic voters and candidates.

Pennsylvania's map is considered one of the country's most gerrymandered. Since the map's adoption in 2011, Republicans have won 13 of the 18 seats, even as statewide votes have been roughly equal.

During a one-week trial earlier this month in Harrisburg, the plaintiffs called a series of professors as expert witnesses to attack the map from several angles. One said the map was unlikely to have been based on politically neutral principles, according to hundreds of simulated maps randomly drawn by a computer; another said the map unnecessarily divides "communities of interest" such as towns and counties.

Because of the state constitutional doctrine of legislative privilege, the mapmakers could not be forced to hand over documents, testify or otherwise explain factors they considered.

Pennsylvania's congressional map is passed by the General Assembly and signed by the governor. Every state redraws its districts after the census every 10 years, accounting for population shifts and changes in the allocation of of House seats.

"What the petitioners' case forgets about is the fact that this is a legislative process and that ultimately, at the end of the day, computers aren't the panacea that their experts claim them to be," Robert Tucker, a lawyer for the Republican lawmakers, said after the trial. "And you have to have actual humans involved in drafting these lines."

The next census takes place in 2020, and Pennsylvania is likely to lose a House seat in the reapportionment process afterward. The next map would be drawn in 2021, to take effect for the 2022 elections.

If the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ultimately rules against the Republicans in this case, declaring the current map unconstitutional and ordering it redrawn, it would have a tight timeline to create a new map before the 2018 elections.

To stay on the current schedule for the May 15 primary elections, the state needs a new map in place by Jan. 23, state officials have said. There is some flexibility, but the latest a new map could come in is the beginning of April, which would require delaying the primary election into the summer.

Staff writer Angela Couloumbis contributed to this article.
Motorists drive though the King of Prussia road bridge, located near the Radnor Train Station in Radnor, Pa. Wednesday, December 27, 2017. There have been many accidents involving trucks not clearing the bridge. Read more

It was around 9 a.m. Dec. 22 when the truck got stuck underneath the overpass, closing a section of King of Prussia Road in Radnor for hours as crews worked to extricate the vehicle.

For drivers heading to work or last-minute Christmas shopping, it was a hassle. For authorities and neighbors, it felt like deja vu.

Since 2008, at least 43 trucks have struck that bridge, which sits between Matsonford and Radnor Chester Roads and over which SEPTA and Amtrak trains run. In the last two months alone, at least three have gotten stuck there, an uptick that has officials frustrated and scrambling for solutions.

"Most of the [truck drivers] appear to not even touch the brakes," Radnor Police Lt. Christopher Flanagan said.

"It's a huge problem," said Richard Booker, the Radnor Township commissioner for that area. "I couldn't be more distressed about this."

The problem in part, Flanagan said, lies in truck drivers' reliance on turn-by-turn GPS navigation apps, such as Waze and Apple Maps, which don't account for low-clearance bridges.

"They're not looking for the signs," said Officer Alex Janoski of the Radnor police highway patrol. "They're not watching the roadway anymore."

That stretch of King of Prussia Road is well-marked, with multiple signs noting the bridges 10-foot, 10-inch clearance, police said. But trucks continue to plow through, often following GPS shortcuts to I-76 or I-476.

Several of the strikes have caused damage to vehicles or the bridge, police said. (But, Flanagan noted, the overpass is inspected by Amtrak engineers after each strike and remains stable.) Nearly all have resulted in citations for the truck drivers, Janoski said.

Increased development in the King of Prussia area over the last few years has led to more congestion, which means more of the massive vehicles cutting through Radnor, Janoski said.

"This is a symptom of the massive amounts of traffic we're getting," said Booker, who lives about a quarter of a mile from the bridge.

He said residents come to him two to four times a month with concerns about traffic safety in that area. It is not only a problem when drivers slam into the overpass, he said, but also when trucks have to turn around on the two-lane road near Radnor High School and Archbishop John Carroll High School.

Sometimes, he said, tractor-trailers end up cutting through the surrounding neighborhoods, riling residents and stoking concern about the safety of pedestrians  who include commuters getting on and off trains, and students walking to and from school.

"This is nuts," Booker said.

Strike prevention has proven a predicament for officials, especially since King of Prussia Road is a state road and the Amtrak bridge over top of it is federal property.

But "it's costing the taxpayers of Radnor every time a truck hits the bridge," Janoski said. Over the years, bridge strikes have shut down that section of King of Prussia Road for anywhere from 45 minutes to 12 hours, he said.

Radnor police have asked the state to look into the problem, Flanagan said, and they are hoping PennDot and the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association will alert drivers. PennDot officials said they are concerned.

Chuck Davies, assistant district executive for design at PennDot's Philadelphia-area chapter, said PennDot has been in talks with Radnor Township officials over the last few weeks. Throughout the Philadelphia area, he said, he has seen more bridges being struck more often, due in part to increased traffic, but the "Radnor [bridge] is certainly at or near the top of the list."

One proposed solution: An over-height vehicle detection (OHVD) system, which uses a laser sensor to send drivers a visual or audible warning that their truck won't clear the bridge before they strike it.

Janoski said police began looking into the technology after a bridge strike this summer during which a piece of heavy machinery fell off a truck onto a car, nearly crushing a child's car seat. Thankfully, he said, the seat was unoccupied; the woman driving the car had just dropped her child off at day care. Janoski said that accident made police realize that a system must be implemented near the bridge before someone is seriously injured.

An OHVD system would cost about $100,000, Janoski said, but research has shown the cost of just one accident can often outweigh the price of the technology.

"There's the matter of payment  who would fund these systems?" Davies said. "And whether or not they'd be effective."

With the area already adequately signed, Davies said, "will a light [alert] make a difference?"

Meanwhile, an audible warning from an OHVD system could be a nuisance to neighbors, Booker said.

Police said they have concluded the OHVD system is the best possible solution they have seen. They said they have sent their findings to the township board of commissioners for approval.

While an OHVD device would be installed, owned, and maintained by the township, Davies said PennDOT has recommended Radnor apply for two competitive statewide grant programs to help with funding.

Commissioner Booker said that an OHVD system would mark progress but that police aren't doing enough to monitor the area.

"We need to keep the trucks off King of Prussia Road," Booker said. "We need the enforcement."

Flanagan said the department agrees that increased officer presence in the area would help.

"But unfortunately, we have many other duties," Flanagan said. "We can't just sit at a bridge and wait for someone to smash into it."
President Donald Trump turns to talk to the gathered media during a Christmas Eve video teleconference with members of the mIlitary at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. Read more

In his first year in office, President Trump has done many positive things  from enforcing Barack Obama's red line in Syria to recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, driving the Islamic State from its physical caliphate, getting NATO allies to kick in more money for our collective security, reversing Obama's Afghan withdrawal, enacting historic tax and regulatory reforms, and installing conservative judges who will preside for decades.

But his record of conservative achievement has been overshadowed by a series of self-inflicted wounds. Previously, I wrote my list of the 10 best things Trump has done in his first year in office. Here are the 10 worst:

10. He has made no effort at bipartisanship. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush reached across the aisle in their first year in office, but Barack Obama told Republicans that "elections have consequences" and "I won." Instead of repeating Obama's mistake, Trump should have reached out across party lines. Perhaps the "Resistance" would have refused, but Trump would have gotten credit for trying.

9. He has spent more time attacking Republicans than Democrats. Trump needs to expand his Senate majority if he wants to pass his agenda. Yet he spent an inordinate amount of time in his first year at war with members of his own party.

8. He is empowering al-Qaida in Syria. By forging a de facto alliance with Russia and Iran to defeat the Islamic State, Trump is driving Sunni Arabs into the waiting arms of al-Qaida  which is preparing to replace the Islamic State and is much more dangerous.

7. He is giving Miranda rights to captured terrorists. Trump promised to start treating captured terrorists as enemy combatants again, but instead of intelligence-driven interrogation and sending terrorists to Guantanamo Bay, he has continued Obama's criminal-justice approach to terrorist detention.

6. He has attacked the FBI and the intelligence community. Trump is right to be angry about leaks of private conversations with foreign leaders and the political bias of some individuals involved in the Russia probe. But the vast majority of those in the FBI, the Justice Department and the CIA are honorable patriots who deserve the president's respect. Trump should not undermine our institutions because of the corrupt or illegal actions of some individuals.

5. His noxious tweets undermine his presidency. He overshadowed his policy achievements, his excellent address to Congress and speeches in Saudi Arabia, Poland and South Korea by tweeting about Obama "wiretapping" him and attacking the hosts of Morning Joe. Trump fails to understand that the power and grandeur of the presidency are greater than any of the smash-mouth tactics that got him into the office.

4. He fired James Comey. If he wanted a change in FBI leadership, he should have announced it the day after the election. Comey's belated firing led directly to the Mueller probe, which hangs over the Trump presidency like the Sword of Damocles.

3. He has dismissed Russian interference in the 2016 election. During his trip to Asia, Trump said he really believes that when Vladimir Putin tells him Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election, Putin believes it. This is patently absurd. Putin directed Russia's meddling. It is possible to accept that Russia sought to influence our election without accepting that there was any collusion. The fact that a foreign government tried to undermine our democracy should outrage all Americans, regardless of party  including the president.

2. He stood by Roy Moore. His endorsement of an alleged sex predator was morally indefensible and sent a message to women everywhere that Republicans do not believe that credible allegations of a grown man molesting teenage girls are disqualifying. And that message has been received. Polls show a significant increase in the percentage of women who favor Democrats over Republicans in 2018.

1. He has failed to condemn the alt-right. His "many sides" response to Charlottesville, Va., was shameful. There a lot of things about the presidency that are hard, but condemning neo-Nazis isn't one of them. While Trump eventually did so, as white nationalist Richard Spencer pointed out, "Trump has never denounced the alt-right. Nor will he." Sadly, Spencer is right. Trump's failure to condemn the right's fever swamps hurts his presidency and the conservative movement.

Trump should be celebrating a year of achievement, but instead his administration is hemorrhaging public support. Trump's approval has dropped 10 points to 35 percent, the lowest of any modern president at this time in his administration. If he wants to understand why, he can start with this list.

Marc Thiessen, a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute and former chief speechwriter to President George W. Bush, writes for the Washington Post.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent and two other people have died after a sport utility vehicle collided with a wild hog and swerved into the agent's vehicle in Southwest Texas, authorities said.

The accident happened late Monday on a rural road near Uvalde, about 110 miles southwest of San Antonio. Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Sgt. Conrad Hein said Tuesday that a preliminary investigation indicates a Ford Expedition collided with the hog, which caused the vehicle to swerve into oncoming traffic and hit a Mercedes SUV head-on.

The Expedition's driver, 51-year-old Ruby Garza, and the driver of the Mercedes, 27-year-old Border Patrol Agent Antonio Cordova, were pronounced dead at the scene. A passenger in the Expedition, 51-year-old Julia Vasquez, died later at a hospital.

Border Patrol officials in Del Rio, Texas, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Cordova was driving home after finishing a shift at the station in Uvalde.
Jonathan Beavers, founder of Georgia Cop Block, was arrested and faces charges connected with disrupting police communications. (Photo: Cherokee County SO)

Police have arrested a Canton, GA, Cop Block activist and he has been charged with several offenses for interrupting law enforcement radio traffic and impersonating a police officer.

Jonathan Beavers, 29, was charged with four counts of harassing communications, two counts of obstruction of an officer and one count of impersonating an officer, according to Cherokee County Sheriffs Office spokeswoman Sgt. Marianne Kelley.

The Sheriffs Office Criminal Investigations Division arrested Beavers earlier this month after deputies working on patrol heard someone talking on the radio giving false information about calls for service and using noise to interrupt normal radio traffic, Kelley told the Cherokee Tribune and Ledger-News.

Beavers is founder of Georgia Cop Block, an affiliate of a national group called Cop Block that says it encourages people to record encounters with police to discourage abuse of authority and is anti-police in its ideology.
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Thousands of police officers are calling in sick every day in Puerto Rico to press demands for unpaid overtime pay related to hurricane recovery efforts.

The increase in absences recently prompted Puerto Rico Police Chief Michelle Hernandez to recommend that U.S. National Guard soldiers help fill the temporary vacancies.

However, the administration of Gov. Ricardo Rossello on Wednesday rejected the idea of using the National Guard.

Public Affairs Secretary Ramon Rosario told the Associated Press the government has already made nearly $15 million in overtime payments since Hurricane Maria hit more than three months ago and $6.4 million more will be distributed Saturday.

It's estimated the officers are owed another $35 million in back overtime pay.
While delivering gifts to needy kids, Pensacoloa PD employee Tara Spencer gave her shoes to a girl who admired them. (Photo: Pensacola PD)

An employee with the Pensacola (FL) Police Department (PPD) gave the shoes off her feet to a girl who simply admired them.

Tara Spencer works for PPD as Chief Tommi Lyter's administrative assistant.

Last week, she helped organize PPD's annual Christmas party. Thanks to a donation, 73 kids received gifts, WEAR TV reports.

On Thursday, she returned to Pensacola Village Apartments to drop off presents to kids who couldn't make the event.

The James family was the first stop. They reminded her of her upbringing

There, an off-the-cuff comment by Tykevia James caught Spencer's attention.

"Everybody was ready to go to the next stop and I was behind of course making sure that everything was taken care of and the little girl said, 'Ms. Tara, I like your shoes,'" Spencer explained.

Without hesitation, Spencer took her sneakers off and gave them to Tykevia.

For the rest of the day, Spencer walked around in white socks delivering Christmas cheer to other families in need.
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Outgoing Minnesota Sen. Al Franken may be resigning from the U.S. Senate, but in a speech to supporters on Thursday, he remained defiant and said he will still remain in the political arena.

Here is my promise to you: I may be leaving the Senate, but Im not giving up my voice, the popular Democratic senator said. I will continue to stand up for the things I believe in as a citizen and as an activist.

His full remarks:

Its true that some of Frankens past conduct was inappropriate, but it pales in comparison to that of other individuals that Republican leaders have supported in the past or continue to support today, like Roy Moore and Donald Trump.

Even Frankens own constituents appear to recognize the difference between Frankens conduct and that of others.

According to a new poll, 50 percent of Minnesotans think the Democratic senator should remain in the Senate, not resign, including 52 percent of independents. The same survey shows that Franken is most popular among women.

Despite the recent calls from his supporters to remain in his job, Frankens office has said that his resignation will be official on Jan. 2 of next year, with Tina Smith, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Minnesota, set to replace him.

The optimistic and defiant Democrat made it clear in his remarks on Thursday that while he may be leaving Congress, his voice will not be silenced. He will continue to fight for progressive causes, he said.

We still have a lot of work to do together on issues ranging from net neutrality and climate change  and we still have to be ready to speak out for economic justice and to defend the truth, Franken told supporters.

With the recent outpouring of support for Al Franken as he prepares to leave the Senate, it wouldnt be surprising to see him make a political comeback sooner rather than later.
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Trump admitted that he is using Dreamers as hostages as part of a scheme to get Democrats to pay for his wall.

Trump tweeted:

The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc. We must protect our Country at all cost!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

The President is shooting himself in the foot with some of the worst political strategy imaginable.

As Public Policy Policy pointed out in their reply to the President:

Support for DACA: 66%

Support for the wall: 37% https://t.co/CmDX4knQ1f  PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) December 29, 2017

The smart thing for any president to do in this situation would be to push for a fix to keep the Dreamers in the country. It would boost the approval rating of the reeling president and his party before a critical midterm election. However, Donald Trump has the worst instincts of any president in US history, so he is going to pretend like DACA is an episode of The Apprentice, and he is going to use leverage to get the Democrats to do what he wants.

What the President is missing is that it is the Democrats who have the leverage. They are on the side of the popular policy and are poised to retake all or part of Congress.

Trump promised that Mexico would pay for the wall, and Democrats are holding him to that promise. Republicans and Trump will pa
ST. PAUL  Lawyers and accountants in the renewable energy industry are poring over the details of the tax overhaul President Trump signed into law last week , trying to figure out what companies will lose or gain.

While key tax credits for clean energy were preserved under the new law, it's unknown how the industry will fare under the changes.

The initial good news that wind and solar tax credits are preserved in the law isn't the whole story, said Michael Noble, executive director of Fresh Energy, who has been following developments for the renewable energy sector.

"It's yet to be seen whether renewable energy tax credits are still going to be valuable and help projects get done," he said.

Minnesota utilities have been taking advantage of tax credits to expand wind and solar in the state. That growth is expected to continue in 2018 regardless of the tax bill because companies have been planning them for years.

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Beth Soholt, executive director of Wind on the Wires, said the situation may be different for every company and every project.

"Do they have their financing secured? If they don't, they might have impacts to their financing, but it kind of depends on what stage they're at in developing their project," she said.

Tax credits aren't the only thing driving growth in wind and solar energy. The cost of the technology has come down, and more companies and individuals want clean power.

The problem with the new tax law is that it has created uncertainty, which is always bad for business, said Gregg Mast, executive director of Clean Energy Economy Minnesota, a nonprofit that represents clean energy businesses.

Mast said he's working with members of Minnesota's congressional delegation and business leaders to understand what impact the tax bill could have on renewable energy and energy efficiency.

"It's early," he said. "I think with a tax bill this large, there's always an opportunity to come back with a fix bill to address some of those provisions that perhaps were not thought of early on."
An early happy new year from the Digital Mike column. Life is full of change, and the Post Bulletin has plans for the new year.

Although a newspaper won't be printed on Fridays, Digital Mike will persevere and exist in the online world we have written about for more than a decade. Next Friday look for Digital Mike at PostBulletin.com in the Lifestyle section, and it will be there each Friday thereafter. Happy new year!

First day hike

I love the first day of the year. I don't always rise early, but that is sometimes a fun thing to do to witness the quiet of the day as the sun edges up from the horizon. What's next? How about a hike? The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources holds its annual First Day Hike on the Jan. 1. You still need a state park pass  either day or yearly  to enter, but there are activities at some of our area parks. Nothing beats a good hike in some of the state's beautiful places. Where? If you're in the neighborhood in southeast Minnesota, you can take in hikes at Whitewater and Forestville Mystery Cave state parks.

www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/firstdayhike.html

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Lives they lived

The New York Times ' annual reminder of the people who passed away in 2017 is one of my annual favorites. It's a reminder that everyone has a story. The Times handles it well with nicely done pieces and art. Spend some time with the list and then look around at your own life and those who are part of it.

tinyurl.com/y8un3svc

Ball drop

How do you count down the minutes or hours to the new year? I think the default for me is the Times Square ball drop and the hoopla show that accompanies this. It's not every year I tune in, but it's a good go-to. Check out the Times Square site. It's full of tidbits of information about the big event. I didn't realize there was a wish wall where folks can post their wishes for the new year. Yesterday, Dec. 28, was Good Riddance Day at the site where folks could pony up their thoughts on what they're glad to be rid of as they enter the new year. Do you know the history of the ball drop in Times Square? Yes, I do post this site annually, but it's fun to read back. Click on the link in the column to tell you more . Here's the quick version without details: "Revelers began celebrating New Year's Eve in Times Square as early as 1904, but it was in 1907 that the New Year's Eve Ball made its maiden descent from the flagpole atop One Times Square. Seven versions of the Ball have been designed to signal the New Year."

www.timessquarenyc.org

Fly like an eagle

The eagle cam world is among my favorites. The DNR has tinkered with its own eagle cam and has made some improvements. Take a look. So far, I've only seen the empty nest, but it's good to remember that it's December. But make a bookmark and dig around in the other information and cameras the DNR puts out about this and other creatures. It's good.

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www.dnr.state.mn.us/features/webcams/eaglecam

Young readers book list

Got some young readers in the house? It's prime reading time with winter in Minnesota. Here's a list to keep your kid happy and engaged. Or maybe they'll wow you and note that they've read many from the list. It's culled from the work of the Young Adult Library Services Association into a few good lists. Give it a look. You might even find something for yourself.

www.ala.org/yalsa/2017-best-best

Shopping assistance

I'm so-so on the grocery store apps, but I'm always interested.. Here's an assembly of the best grocery shopping list apps. Don't mind if I do. Not sure if I'll use them. I'm still a bit of a list on the back of an old envelope guy as my checklist in the aisles and coupons clipped from the venerable PB , but I'm always looking for something new. Maybe you are too.

tinyurl.com/ybwl2bh9

Beers for my friends

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I'm not sure if I'll ever find myself in one of these bars  touted as the 50 best bars in 2017  but it's a fun jaunt around the world to see what whets one's whistle. There are a number in the United States, so you may have some some luck. And if you're a world traveler, you should really look to see if there's one in your next destination. Cheers!

www.worlds50bestbars.com/fifty-best-bars-list-2017
AUSTIN  An area man has pleaded not guilty to multiple felonies, including kidnapping and criminal sexual conduct that allegedly occurred during an hours-long assault.

Ryan Arthur Sanvick, 44, of Sargeant, entered the pleas Wednesday during his initial appearance in Mower County District Court.

He remains in custody in lieu of $1 million unconditional bond and is due back in court April 13.

The case began about 12:30 p.m. Dec. 11, when law enforcement responded to the BP Lake Geo Travel Plaza in Dexter.

The caller said a woman who left in a red pickup had told him she was afraid of the driver, and asked him to call 911. The pickup was registered to Sanvick.

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When a Minnesota State Patrol officer arrived at Sanvick's home, a woman answered the door and mouthed the words "help me" to the trooper, who asked to speak to Sanvick outside.

As soon as Sanvick left the residence, the woman locked the door.

Based on interviews and an investigation of the crime scene, the criminal complaint outlines the following information:

About 5:50 a.m. that day, as the woman prepared to leave for work, she checked on Sanvick, who had gone into the garage. She told authorities he'd had suicidal ideations, and being in the garage at that time of day was unusual.

Sanvick was sitting on a stool, with a shotgun beside him, crying. The woman gave him a hug, but when she tried to release him, Sanvick wouldn't let her go.

A struggle began, the court document says, and Sanvick threw her onto the ground, where they wrestled. He was on top of the woman, straddling her upper body, then grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the concrete floor, the document continues.

Sanvick allegedly strangled her until she nearly blacked out, then told her to get on her stomach. He told the victim if she kept fighting with him, "she wouldn't make it through the day," the complaint says.

Sanvick hog-tied the woman, the report says, and tried multiple times to cover her mouth with duct tape, at one point sticking a rag in her mouth first. She was able to remove it every time.

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Sanvick told the victim since she wouldn't stay home from work with him, now she'd have to spend the whole day with him, and that at the end she would have to watch the back of his head get blown out, the report says.

The woman said Sanvick put her in his pickup, still hog-tied with zip-ties, and drove to a nearby pond. En route, Sanvick "kept sticking his fingers into the victim's eyes," the complaint says. He had his pocket knife out and allegedly told her he was going to cut her eyes out so she couldn't see her kids grow up, then said he was going to kill himself.

Once at the pond, Sanvick used the knife to cut the zip-ties from the victim's ankles and wrists, but used new ones to tie her left arm to the driver's side headrest and her right arm to the passenger's headrest, the paperwork says.

According to the court documents, Sanvick physically and sexually assaulted the woman; "fearing for her life," she asked to go back to the house to "cuddle and talk." Sanvick cut her loose from the headrests, retied her wrists behind her back and drove back to the residence.

He led her upstairs, where the woman convinced him to remove the zip-ties; he didn't reapply them.

Sanvick sexually assaulted the victim twice in a bedroom, the complaint says; the woman said she couldn't leave because she was afraid he'd kill a 4-year-old child who was in the home, in order to hurt her.

During the rest of the morning, Sanvick kept the woman away from her phone. She was allowed to respond to text messages from a friend, but Sanvick watched her replies.

Eventually, the woman convinced Sanvick to take her and the child to the Lake Geo Truck Stop for more cigarettes. She planned to grab the child and run behind the counter, but changed her mind when Sanvick told her he had three guns in the truck.

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She told authorities she was afraid Sanvick would go back to the truck "and then start shooting everyone," the reports say.

Once at the truck stop, the woman saw a young man in the aisle and whispered to him, "please call 911." She tried to stall Sanvick and remain at the business, but was unsuccessful.

Shortly after they got home, the trooper arrived, and Sanvick was arrested.

He faces four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct; two counts of kidnapping; two counts of second-degree assault; and one count of domestic assault. All are felonies.

A loaded shotgun was later recovered from the pickup.
A man accused of pistol-whipping an acquaintance last year was sentenced recently to prison, but the time he spent in jail will fulfill the sentence.

Bolus Andre Dimbiti, 24, of Rochester, was charged in December 2016 with one count each of first-degree attempted aggravated robbery and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, both felonies, as well as a gross misdemeanor count of possession of a firearm after a previous felony conviction.

He pleaded guilty Dec. 22 to the assault charge and was immediately sentenced to 12 months and a day in prison, with credit for 382 days already served, and fined $135.

The two other charges were dismissed.

The case began Nov. 13, 2016, when an 18-year-old male told Rochester police he'd been pistol-whipped after a party.

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The victim said Dimbiti displayed an Uzi-style firearm as the two talked. The conversation continued, and they eventually left the party together.

As the two walked away, Dimbiti demanded the teenager's belongings. When the victim refused, Dimbiti pulled the weapon and assaulted him with it.

As investigators worked on the case, they learned about an incident Nov. 28, 2016, at Colonial Lanes, 1828 14th St. NW, that resulted in the arrest of Lou Issac Ijong.

She was taken into custody after police responded to calls that about 10 people were fighting and throwing chairs at the bowling alley; by the time officers arrived about 11 p.m., most of the participants were gone, said Capt. John Sherwin, except Ijong, who was in a bathroom.

She'd been injured in the fight, the report says, and wasn't cooperative with officials  initially supplying a false name.

Ijong was in possession of a 9 mm, semi-automatic, Uzi-style handgun, Sherwin said, which was connected to a string tied to her bra. She also had four outstanding warrants for her arrest, he said.

The weapon was eventually tied to the pistol-whipping on Nov. 13; Ijong and Dimbiti are acquaintances, the report says.

Ijong was convicted in May of one count of carrying a pistol without a permit, a gross misdemeanor, as well as one count of giving a peace officer a false name, a misdemeanor.

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She was sentenced to 30 days in jail, stayed for two years, and placed on probation for two years.
A Stewartville man was sentenced Monday to 90 days in jail, stayed for a year, and ordered to complete a program for men who use prostituted women after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor prostitution charge.

Gilbert Edward Gage, 54, was also placed on probation for a year and fined $1,085.

Gage was charged in February in Olmsted County District Court following an undercover operation targeting sex trafficking in Rochester.

On Jan. 13, an officer posted an advertisement in an online website that contains a section for adult services. Members of the street crimes unit often monitor the site and place false ads to target people involved in prostitution, or respond to ads placed by others.

Gage called the phone number that accompanied the ad, the criminal complaint says, and asked what the prices were. He agreed to the price quoted and other terms, and arranged to meet the "escort" at a Rochester motel.

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He was arrested after knocking on the door at the motel; Gage was carrying the agreed-upon amount of cash, court documents say.
Two men from Georgia are in jail in Rochester after a traffic stop the day after Christmas recovered about 19 pounds of marijuana.

Teandre Dawayne Johnson, 27, of Atlanta, and Trenton D. McMullen, also 27 and of Palmetto, Ga., made their first appearance Wednesday in Olmsted County District Court.

The case began about 1:20 p.m. Tuesday, when a Minnesota State Patrol officer performed a traffic stop on a vehicle on Interstate 90.

Johnson was driving; McMullen was in the passenger seat.

"Based on his interaction with Johnson," the trooper suspected Johnson was trafficking controlled substances from California, the complaint says, but didn't explain the interaction.

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The trooper's drug-sniffing dog alerted on the car. When the officer opened the trunk, he discovered a single duffel bag containing multiple vacuum-sealed bags of marijuana, court documents say.

An unlabeled pill bottle containing 23 amphetamine salt pills was in the center console.

Johnson first told the trooper he was traveling from California to Rochester, N.Y., then back to Georgia. He later allegedly admitted he picked up the marijuana in California.

McMullen denied knowing anything about the marijuana, but reportedly said he was taking the pills found in the console, adding that they were prescribed to his sister.

The duffel bag contained 19 sealed bags, each weighing about a pound and holding what field-tested positive as marijuana, the complaint says.

The men were both charged with one count each of third-degree controlled substance crime-sale; fifth-degree controlled substance crime-sale; fifth-degree controlled substance crime-possession; and failure to affix a tax stamp-marijuana. All are felonies.

Johnson remains in custody in lieu of $15,000; McMullen's conditional bond is set at $5,000. They're due back in court Jan. 10.
The United States announced Thursday that full visa services for Turkish citizens wishing to travel to the U.S. will resume and said it received assurances Ankara would inform Washington before moving to detain or arrest any embassy employees.

Turkey welcomed the decision on visas, but said that it had not provided the U.S. any such assurances.

The U.S. suspended all non-immigrant visa services in Turkey earlier this year, in response to the arrest of Metin Topuz, a consulate employee in Istanbul, on terrorism charges. Turkey shut down visa services in the U.S. in retaliation.

In a statement released Thursday, the State Department said that since October, Turkey had adhered to promises that no local employees of the embassy were being investigated, that no employees would be detained for "performing their official duties", and that the government of Turkey would consult with the U.S. before detaining or arresting local staff in the future.

"Based on adherence to these assurances, the Department of State is confident that the security posture has improved sufficiently to allow for the full resumption of visa services in Turkey," the statement read.
WINONA  A Winona man who was killed after he lost control of his vehicle and crashed Thursday near Dakota Township was identified.

James Weaver, 61, was eastbound on Interstate 90, south of the I-90 and U.S. Highway 61 split, and following a semi truck in the left lane. The semi created a snow cloud, causing Weaver to lose control, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

Weaver's vehicle went through the median, across the westbound lanes, through the guardrail and rolled over the embankment. The vehicle came to a rest on its roof on Riverview Street in Dresbach. The incident happened at 10:37 a.m. and road conditions were described as snowy and icy.

The Dakota Fire Department, Pickwick Fire Fire Department, Nodine Fire Department, Gunderson Tri-State Ambulance, and Winona County Sheriff's Office assisted on scene.
The Steele/Trump dossier gave critical support to claims of Russian collusion with the Trump presidential campaign. It seems to have served as the predicate for the FBI counterintelligence investigation of Trump campaign associates. Then FBI Director James Comey briefed President Trump on the contents of the dossier before his inauguration in January. BuzzFeed posted the dossier online.

When President Trump fired Comey, Comey engineered the appointment of his friend Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to continue the counterintelligence investigation, now including everything Trump. NOTE: Though he capably plays a straight talking G-Man on television, Comey is one sophisticated operator.

Things are not as they seem. The claim of Trump/Putin collusion lies at the heart of the controversy leading to the investigation, yet the only substantial collusion that we know of is the Clinton presidential campaigns with the friends of Vladimir Putin. Now we know that the dossier was bought and paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign through the campaigns general counsel at the Perkins Coie law firm, which contracted Fusion GPS, which contracted former British MI-6 officer Christopher Steele at Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd. Why the cutouts? One might get the impression that the dossier was not to be traced to the Clinton campaign.

The claim of Trump/Putin collusion hasnt panned out as its advocates hoped. Rowan Scarborough examined it most recently here in the December 25 Washington Times story Democrats case for Trump-Russia grand conspiracy crumbles with lack of evidence. At the same time, Scarborough reported that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is sticking with the dossier here in his related story Embattled FBI admits it cant verify dossier claims of Russia. Scarborough reported that McCabe conceded the FBI has not verified the dossier but considers it credible.

Victor Davis Hanson conveniently summarized some of these events in his American Greatness column Back to the future: From Scooter Libby to Donald Trump. Asking whether there was Trump team collusion with the Russians, Dr. Hanson wrote: No evidence has yet suggested such.

In early July 2016 Steeles initial work on the dossier made its way to the FBI, apparently courtesy of Steele himself. See Byron Yorks helpful Washington Examiner article here (Here I am relying on Doug Rosss timeline.) The counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign followed shortly in due course.

This raises an obvious question that I have rarely seen addressed. Did the FBI know that Steele produced his dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign? Andrew McCarthy writes in his most recent column on the FBI and dossier: At some point, though, perhaps early on, the FBI and DOJ learned that the dossier was actually a partisan opposition-research product. And why did the FBI think that Steeles sources  the friends of Vladimir Putin  would confide the truth to him?

The claim of collusion with Putin made for a great controversy when it was Trump on the other end. For some reason, the Clinton campaigns evident collusion through Steele is okay. It lacks carbonation. It is without fizz. It is flat. Is Mueller on the case?

Steele worked to get the contents of his dossier into the media before the election. Byron York reports that Steele personally briefed reporters from the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, the New Yorker, and Yahoo, all to little or no effect. Mother Joness David Corn gave the received version of Steeles story on October 31 in A veteran spy has given the FBI information alleging a Russian operation to cultivate Donald Trump.

Corns account gives us the heroic version of the dossier. Howard Blum followed up in the credulous Vanity Fair article How ex-spy Christopher Steele compiled his explosive Trump dossier. Blums article is useful in helping us understand the line Steele and his employers were peddling to the FBI and to the media.

Blums starstruck article presents Steele and Simpson (but especially Steele) as the heroes of The Dossiad. Read how Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson threw caution to the winds and selflessly gave their all to save the republic from Donald Trump. This version of the story enacts an update on The Dunciad, or so it seems to me.
2017 posed a challenge to the mainstream media. Could it set aside its hatred of President Trump and report honestly on him and his administration? To the surprise of no one who had been paying attention, the media flunked this challenge.

The failure commenced immediately. The day Trump was inaugurated, a White House reporter claimed, incorrectly, that the Trump transition team had removed a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office.

Sadly, say the editors of the Washington Examiner, this erroneous report and a handful of others on that same day breathlessly and unquestioningly parroted by reporters across platforms and outlets proved to be the norm, not the exception, for a year that has seen a dismaying and troubling decline in the quality of political journalism. A few days after the phony MLK story, the Washington Post reported that the State Departments entire senior administrative team had resigned en masse in protest of President Trump. The story was misleading at best, and the Post had to back away from it.

In February, the New York Times reported that Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence. But James Comey, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, said of this story: In the main, it was not true.

In a June editorial about the shooting of Steve Scalise, the New York Times falsely stated that a link existed between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting of Democrat congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The Times was later forced to admit that in fact, no such link was established. (This wasnt an anti-Trump story per se, but the story wrongly attacked Sarah Palin, an early Trump supporter, and the falsehood stemmed from the same bias that drives big journalisms resistance to the president).

Also in June, CNN falsely reported that then-Trump transition team official Anthony Scaramucci met with a Russian state bank four days before the inauguration. CNN had to retract the story and apologize to Scaramucci. It accepted resignations from the three reporters responsible for the story.

The same month, several mainstream media outlets followed the lead of the New York Times Maggie Haberman in reporting that all 17 American intelligence agencies agreed that Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during the 2016 presidential election. In reality, only the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the office of the director of national intelligence made this assessment. The Times was forced to issue a correction.

This month, ABC News reported, falsely, Michael Flynn would testify that Trump told him to make contact with Russian officials before the November election. And CNN falsely reported that members of the Trump campaign received an email offering a decryption key and website address for hacked Wikileaks documents on September 4. In reality, the email arrived ten days later, after all of the information contained therein was already publicly available.

These falsehoods (hat tip to The Daily Wire for collecting them) and others we could cite, have one thing in common  they all made Trump (or, in one case, Trump supporters) look bad. Im not aware of any false stories peddled by the the mainstream media that made Trump look good.

The Examiner concludes:

Too many reporters have revealed this year theyre willing to believe the worst of this administration. Too good to check has never had it so good.

Clearly, the mainstream media has flunked the Trump challenge.
PLEASANTVILLE  A suspect wanted in a series of bank robberies in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware was captured Friday morning at a local motel.

Special Agent Jessica Weisman of the FBIs Northfield office and Capt. Matthew Hartman of the Pleasantville Police Department confirmed the arrest of Thomas Dougher, 41, about 11:30 a.m. Friday at the Quality Inn in the 1000 block of the Black Horse Pike.

Dougher is suspected to have committed at least nine bank robberies in four states, Hartman said. He previously served time for 11 robberies in 2007.

Locally, Dougher is charged in three robberies: Dec. 23 at the PNC Bank on the Black Horse Pike in Pleasantville, Tuesday at the Sun National Bank in Northfield; and Friday at the PNC Bank in Absecon just prior to his arrest, Hartman said.

FBI, Northfield police search for suspect in area bank robberies NORTHFIELD  Police and the FBI are searching for a man wanted in several bank robberies in 

Shortly after the Absecon robbery, FBI and Pleasantville police started to check areas prior investigations revealed Dougher may be frequenting, which led to him being observed leaving a room at the Quality Inn and taken into custody without incident, Hartman said.

The vehicle Dougher used during the robberies, a silver Mazda 6 stolen from Maryland, was subsequently located in the parking garage of Caesars Atlantic City by Pleasantville police, Hartman said.

Dougher is a known gambler with ties to Atlantic City, Weisman said.

Assisting agencies included police departments in Absecon, Atlantic City and Egg Harbor Township, and Caesars security, Hartman said.
China's foreign ministry accused the American and German embassies on Thursday of interfering in its affairs after they objected to the prosecutions of an activist and a lawyer who handled sensitive cases.

Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters a joint statement by the embassies calling for Wu Gan's release and for lawyer Xie Yang to be allowed to return to work was irresponsible.

Wu, who criticized Chinese officials online, was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison on subversion charges. Xie was convicted of inciting subversion but spared a prison term after he admitted committing the offense.

"The embassies of those two countries are diplomatic missions, which have no right to point the fingers at China's internal affairs and judicial sovereignty," Hua said. "We hope the relevant embassies can have a clear understanding of their duties and do something to help improve mutual trust, mutual understanding and cooperation, not the opposite."


ATLANTIC CITY  A New Years tradition will go on as planned in the resort in rain, sleet snow or hail, organizers said, even as neighboring towns cancel or delay similar events due to concerns about temperature.

The 27th annual Polar Bear Plunge, which brings thousands of people to the Jersey Shore, is scheduled to begin at noon Monday in front of Resorts Casino Hotel.

Ive been doing this for 31 years, and weve gone in when its been like this  very cold, said Michael Kahlenberg, who organizes the event. Id say 65 to 70 percent of the people who come to this are returners from previous years.

The Polar Bear Plunge is a popular event in several countries around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Canada.

In the Netherlands, an estimated 30,000 people participate in plunges every year. In Scotland, the annual Looney Dook on New Years Day attracts thousands of people to dress up and act like loonies while they run toward the ocean in South Queensferry.

In New Jersey, several shore towns host plunges to bring people back to the area during the slow winter months.

This year, however, fewer South Jersey towns will host the event.

Earlier this week, New Years Day plunges in Ocean City and Ventnor were canceled because of extremely cold temperatures.

Brigantine postponed its plunge until Jan. 13.

And on Friday, a decision was made to postpone Mondays Roberts Place plunge in Margate until Jan. 7.

Brigantine postpones polar plunge, O.C. and Ventnor cancel The weekend's forecasted cold weather has event organizers reconsidering several first day d

Officials involved in the decision-making said the plunges were canceled with public safety in mind.

Cold conditions are, of course, the idea of any polar plunge. But Ocean Citys event attracts about 1,000 people, many who may not be conditioned for the extreme temperatures expected this year, said Doug Bergen, Ocean Citys public information officer.

Press of Atlantic City meteorologist Joe Martucci said South Jersey may experience record cold temperatures this weekend. Those frigid temperatures will likely continue until next weekend, he said, and he cautioned people that staying exposed in the cold or in the water could lead to serious medical conditions.

What happens to your body when you take a polar plunge? If youre prepared to brave freezing air and chilling waters, chances are youll have fun kicking off 2018 by participating in a New Years Da

If your skin is exposed when its that cold, you could get frostbite after about 30 minutes, he said. The ocean water is about 38 degrees right now, so if you stay in that for more than 10 minutes, you could experience hypothermia.

Still, the frigid temperatures wont stop people from taking part in the annual New Years Day tradition in Atlantic City.

The plunge will be held in rain, sleet, snow or hail, according to a release from Resorts.

Ive never heard of a Polar Bear Plunge being canceled because its too cold, and Ive been doing this for a really long time, Kahlenberg said, adding this will be the last year he organizes the event. Im from Langhorne, Pennsylvania, and I come with 30-35 people every year.  Its great to see a lot of returning people.

Meanwhile, a smaller event, the sixth annual Penguin Plunge, will take place at the water near Caspian and Maine avenues to benefit the African-American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey. Admission is free, and T-shirts will be sold for $20.
OCEAN CITY  A couple of days ago, John McCall received a call from his accountant urging him to prepay his 2018 property taxes, so he could take advantage of a deduction that is set to expire under the newly enacted federal tax code.

McCall and residents in high-tax states, like New Jersey, are scrambling to pay their taxes before a $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions goes into effect Jan. 1. The provision is part of a new tax federal tax code signed into law by Republican President Donald J. Trump earlier this month.

On Friday morning, a steady stream of people came and went from the Ocean City Tax Collectors Office to prepay their 2018 property taxes.

My accountant called me and told me this was a one-shot deal where I could possibly save $500, McCall, 65, of Ocean City, said after paying his taxes.

The 17 biggest stories of 2017 Whether it was good news like the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Atlantic City announcing its ar

On Wednesday, Gov. Chris Christie signed an executive order requiring towns to accept property-tax prepayments for 2018.

This Executive Order will not only save thousands of dollars for countless New Jersey families, but also provide municipalities with a prepayment windfall that they will be able to invest and use the interest for the benefit of their taxpayers, state Senate President Steve Sweeney said.

Frank Donato III, director of financial management for Ocean City, said traditionally the city carries a balance of prepaid taxes, but this year that number is tripled.

In a normal year, the city would have a prepaid tax balance of about $2.5 million. This year, that balance is expected to be more than $8 million, Donato said.

Ocean City tax office to open on Saturday for prepaid 2018 taxes OCEAN CITY  The Tax Office will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday to accept prepayment

I knew that there was going to be more activity ever since I read the details of the federal tax law, but honestly, I didnt expect this level of activity, he said.

Around the state, some tax collectors offices are opening Saturday to deal with the rush. The Ocean City Tax Collectors Office will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. Taxpayers can also pay online.

In Avalon, where the average property is valued at $1.3 million, taxpayers have been coming in to pay their taxes for 2018. The average tax bill in the affluent oceanfront community is more than $7,200, according to records.

A couple of hundred people have either inquired or paid their taxes for the first two quarters of 2018 to take advantage of the deduction, said Scott Wahl, business administrator in Avalon. Avalon property owners are certainly interested in this, and taking advantage of it.

But the IRS warned earlier this week that some prepaying their taxes might not get the benefits that have been touted.

Don Guardian to be appointed Toms River business administrator ATLANTIC CITY  Outgoing Mayor Don Guardian is set to be named the new business administrato

The IRS said some homeowners who prepay local property taxes due in 2018 will be able to claim the deduction on this years returns, but only if the taxes have already been assessed and billed. People cant guess at what next years assessment might be, pay it now and claim a deduction for that amount.

A prepayment of anticipated real property taxes that have not been assessed prior to 2018 are not deductible in 2017, the IRS said on its website.

Bill Brydges, 61, who owns a second home in Ocean City, said he had to take advantage of the deduction. Brydges pays $17,000 a year in taxes between his Ocean City home and his house in the Philadelphia suburbs.

I dont want Uncle Sam taking any more of my money, Brydges said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
ACUA deploys robust landfill emission controls

Regarding the Dec. 25 letter, County landfill smells:

The Atlantic County Utilities Authority is committed to keeping landfill odors to a minimum and has many systems and procedures in place to regulate the gases emitted from the landfill. Management tools including wells, pumps, pipes and meters collect gas under vacuum to control odors and prevent methane (a potent, odorless greenhouse gas) and other gases from entering the atmosphere.

Over 100 landfill wells direct gas to two engines that generate electricity. Two gas flares burn off excess gas not used by the engines. In addition, a $2 million plastic cap was installed over a 30 acre closed portion of the landfill to stop gas from leaking to the atmosphere and causing odor issues.

There have been a few breaks in this plastic cap over the past year, mainly due to severe weather conditions. The most recent damage occurred in November and authority staff made timely repairs.

We have experienced some operational difficulties with the engines that use landfill gas to generate power, but are proactively taking steps to assure a more stable and reliable system to collect, filter and process landfill gas. ACUA and its landfill gas-to-energy partner recently installed a hydrogen sulfide treatment system costing $1.2 million.

Managing landfill gas is a dynamic, 24-hour per day process. ACUA will continue to monitor and upgrade landfill gas control systems, and to promptly address any mechanical issues that may develop.

ACUA is committed to being a good neighbor as well as being an environmental leader in the community.

Rick Dovey

Egg Harbor City

President, Atlantic County Utilities Authority

Against tax law, MacArthur

Congressman Tom MacArthur is still defending the Republican tax plan.

He says that the law is still good for families in New Jersey, but independent analyses show that some middle-income New Jersey taxpayers would pay more. He says his financial models prove that most taxpayers in the state will save money but he hasnt shared his data or the models. He says he was initially against the estate tax repeal but he took one for the team. He shows up for photo ops with veterans but the Work Opportunity Tax Credit that helps unemployed vets get jobs was proposed for repeal before it was preserved under the tax reform law. He decries the lack of cooperation from Democrats on the tax bill but never stuck his neck out to demand the inclusion of the other party in the bills negotiations.

Large medical expenses and catastrophic losses on properties cant be deducted in order to offset some of the tax cuts.

MacArthurs loyalty to the Republican rip-off and to President Trump may work for him now, but its at the expense of his constituents and his state.

Kevin Kennedy

Waretown
AMSTERDAM, Dec. 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sandhills East announces the addition of an office location in Amsterdam. The company's local brands include Machinery Trader Europe, TractorHouse Europe, and Truck Buy & Sell Internationalprint publications and online marketplaces that serve buyers and sellers of heavy machinery, agriculture equipment, and commercial trucks and trailers. The new office location continues a larger trend of companywide growth for Sandhills East, which has acquired a number of brands across Europe over the last two years. With its office in place, the company has turned focus to recruiting for internships and full-time sales positions in Amsterdam.

Sandhills East is a subsidiary of Sandhills Publishing, the Nebraska, USA-based tech company behind Machinery Trader, TractorHouse, Truck Paper, and AuctionTime.com. Its print publications and websites are the go-to resources for buying and selling farm and agriculture equipment, commercial trucks and trailers, plant equipment and heavy machinery, as well as parts and attachments for these assets. Fortnightly and weekly editions of its print publications distributed by Sandhills reach buyers at key distribution points in markets across Europe, and local website domains help buyers source the equipment they need quickly and easily.

Over the last two years, Sandhills East has acquired a number of brands including: Farm & Plant Buyers Guide, MOMA Agri, agri-Business.fr, A Come Agricoltura, Farm Machinery Locator, trucks-Business.fr, Truck Buy & Sell International, Truck Locator, Transporter, Commercial Vehicle Dealer, CercoCamion.com, Camion SuperMarket, tp-Business.fr, Trasporto, TODO V.I., Resale Weekly, Plant Locator, Maquinaria OP, Trattori SuperMarket, and Cantierissimo con Carrellistica.

Sandhills East also builds and hosts custom websites, and provides a number of cloud-hosted business apps and resources to dealers and manufacturers in its core industries. These mobile-friendly added-value resources include everything from inventory management to equipment valuations and market trends powered by real-time market data. Sales reps at offices all over the world work closely with equipment sellers to implement effective sales and marketing campaigns that deliver results for their businesses.

"Our products and services are actively growing in markets all over the world, and especially in Europe," explains Sandhills Publishing's Chief Administration Officer Nancy Paasch. "Establishing an additional office location in the Netherlands enables us to build on that growth by adding the support staff needed to serve buyers and sellers as effectively as possible."

Sandhills East and Sandhills Publishing are actively recruiting for positions in Amsterdam, the U.S., and offices worldwide as it looks to expand its workforce by nearly 400. Openings in Amsterdam include both full-time sales positions and internships. For more information or to submit an application, visit www.Sandhills.jobs.

About Sandhills

Sandhills Publishing has served the heavy machinery industry since 1978. The company has since added publications and websites serving the trucking, agriculture, aviation, and technology industries. Its successful brands include: Machinery Trader, CraneTrader, Truck Paper, TractorHouse, AuctionTime, RentalYard, MarketBook, Controller, Executive Controller, Charter Hub, and more.

As a subsidiary of Sandhills Publishing, Sandhills East builds on the company's decades-long presence in its core industries. Sandhills East was established in 2011, expanding to include office locations across Europe. The company continues to expand its existing presence in the markets it serves through the ongoing international growth of new and existing products and services that meet the needs of buyers and sellers worldwide.

Contact Sandhills East

+44 (0) 1618718760

feedback@sandhills.com

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/473503/SandhillsEast_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Sandhills East
Japanese authorities on Thursday indicted the North Korean captain of a boat that drifted to its coast on charges of stealing a generator, appliances and other equipment from an uninhabited island, officials and media reports said.

The captain and his nine crewmembers on the dilapidated boat were rescued near a tiny island off of Hokkaido, northern Japan, in late November. Japanese police said they arrested the captain and two crewmembers earlier this month on suspicion they stole a generator and appliances from a barn on the island.

Prosecutors on Thursday charged the captain with theft, meaning he will stand trial in Japan, according to reports from Japanese media, including NHK public television. The prosecutor's office declined to comment on the case when contacted by telephone.

NHK reported that the captain played a leading role and also stole nearly 40 items including a television, appliances, as well as solar panels and equipment for a lighthouse on the island, worth more than 5.6 million yen ($50,000).


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Mumbai, Dec 23 : Bestselling author Pankaj Dubey wants to cast Bollywood actors Alia Bhatt and Sushant Singh Rajput and Pakistani actor Fawad Khan in the film adaptation of his new book "Love Curry".

In the past, Dubey has produced indie films like "Geelee" and "Naach Ganesh", and made a short film titled "Maratha Mandir Cinema" featuring actress Sarika and actor-lyricist Swanand Kirkire.

"I have already started scripting the film and thinking about the casting. As the story is mainly about three boys from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, I want to cast Sushant, Fawad for the two of them," Dubey told IANS.

"For the female lead, I think Alia can play the part. Let's see how the casting goes," he added.

Dubey launched the book on Friday night.

The story of "Love Curry" revolves around three guys from three different continents who live in the UK and how they go through a journey of their life, love and cultural identity.

Though the book is a light read, asked what made him bring the element of identity struggle of South Asians in a western country, Dubey said: "I lived in London for quite some time for my study and work. I have seen how people are narrating their story of identity struggle."

"Though the time has changed drastically and thanks to the internet, people know that India is not a country of snake charmers anymore, there are snob people with disinterest and misconception regarding our culture."

"But at the same time, I do not want to treat the issue with so much seriousness, rather wanted to focus on how these three guys, who are otherwise fighting against each other as Indian and Pakistani unite as one in a western country," Dubey added.
New Delhi, Dec 26 : An advocate on Tuesday sent a legal notice to mobile messaging app WhatsApp, asking it to remove the "middle finger" emoji within 15 days.

Gurmeet Singh, who practises as a lawyer in city courts here, said showing the middle finger is not only illegal but an obscene and lewd gesture -- an offence in India.

In the notice, the advocate said: "...showing of middle finder is not only offensive but a highly belligerent, invasive, obscene, lewd gesture."

"As per the Indian Penal Code Sections 354 and 509, it is an offence to show obscene, lewd, offensive gestures to females. Use of a lewd, offensive, obscene gesture by anyone is hereby illegal also as aforesaid. As per section 6 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act, 1994 showing of the middle finger is also an offence in Ireland," Singh stated in his notice.

"By offering to use middle finger emoji in your app, you (WhatsApp Inc) are directly abetting the use of offensive, lewd, obscene gesture," the notice said. Emoji is a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion.

Therefore, it is requested that the middle finger emoji or character or photo must be removed from WhatsApp within 15 days from the date of the present legal notice, it said, threatening to file civil or criminal cases if the app fails to remove it.
Beijing, Dec 27 : China on Wednesday said Afghanistan's willingness to join the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor should not worry India and warned it against "disturbing" the key project of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative.

A day after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China and Pakistan want Afghanistan to join the CPEC, the Foreign Ministry said Kabul is willing to join the multi-billion dollar corridor, which cuts through Pakistan-administered Kashmir claimed by India.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying sought to allay India's fear that the project was directed at it and, at the same time, warned New Delhi of not "disturbing and influencing it".

"They are willing to integrate into the regional connectivity process and they are willing to integrate into the CPEC," Hua said at the daily press conference.

However, there has been no public announcement by Afghanistan.

Hua said in the Wednesday trilateral meet of the Foreign Ministers of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan, that the three countries agreed to promote connectivity under the Belt and Road framework.

"Just as Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the joint press conference, CPEC is not directed at the third party and we hope to bring benefit to the third party and the whole region," Hua said without naming India.

"Afghanistan is the common neighbour of China and Pakistan and it has a strong desire for developing the economy and in improving people's livelihood."

"The trilateral cooperation and dialogue is not directed at any country or any party and the dialogue and cooperation should not be influenced and disturbed," Hua said.

The CPEC - a network of highways, railways, roads and special economic zones, which connects China's Xinjiang with Pakistan's Gwadar port, is opposed by India as it passes through a part of Kashmir held by Pakistan and claimed by India.

China has always sought to allay India's apprehensions about the project, describing it purely as an economic initiative.

Beijing also says the project will not affect its neutral stance on the Kashmir issue.
New Delhi, Dec 28 : At a time when bitcoins are in focus also for the wrong reasons, cryptocurrency dealer Pluto Exchange on Thursday announced the launch of India's first mobile application for transacting in virtual currencies.

At a press conference here, Pluto Exchange founder and Chief Executive Bharat Verma said his company is all set to launch the country's first app-based wallet that enables bitcoin transactions using a mobile number.

"The Pluto Exchange mobile app offers a solution to the coordination problem between payment processors, financial gateways and banks," Verma said.

"All other apps already in the market do transactions using bitcoin addresses, which are long and prone to error while copying. Pluto Exchange will change this scenario by enabling transactions using mobile numbers only, which are just 10 digits," he said.

By using a four-digit personal identification number (PIN), users can now buy, sell, store and spend bitcoins via a mobile number, Verma added.

Elaborating, he said the app would permit a range of transactions, including payments, remittances, business-to-business commerce, supply chain finance, asset management and trading.

He also said that the Reserve Bank of India is concerned about the use of cash for dealing in virtual currencies, whose values have turned volatile recently.

"The RBI considers bitcoins as decentralised trading that is completely unregulated... so their status is not clear," he said.

In India, there are at least 15 bitcoin exchange forums, with the majority being set up over the past two years.

Bitcoin values in New York, for instance, have soared nearly 1,600 per cent over the past year and currently range upwards of $15,000.

In India, bitcoins have been trading at more than Rs 10 lakh each, while people are investing amounts ranging from Rs 3,000 to several lakhs of rupees to buy these.

According to investigation agencies here, with the demand and price of cryptocurrencies on the rise, cyber criminals have found innovative ways to dupe those looking to invest.
Washington, Dec 29 : Democrat Doug Jones has been officially certified as the winner of the US Senate race held in the state of Alabama earlier this month, despite fraud claims by his opponent, Roy Moore.

Jones defeated Moore on December 12 by about 22,000 votes, making him the first Democrat in 25 years to win a Senate seat in deeply-red Alabama.

Moore, whose campaign was dogged by sexual misconduct accusations, including some involving teenage girls decades ago, refused to concede defeat and even filed a lawsuit on Wednesday raising claims of election fraud, Xinhua reported on Thursday.

But a judge rejected Moore's claims. Alabama election officials also said they found no evidence of voting irregularities.
Lima, Dec 29 : Preu President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and his main rival, Keiko Fujimori, have been questioned by prosecutors investigating the corruption scandal that has dominated Peruvian politics in 2017.

While prosecutors met Kuczynski at the presidential palace, Fujimori -- the daughter of disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori -- reported to the Attorney General's Office for her interrogation on Thursday, Efe news reported.

Their cases are not directly linked, but both have to do with the activities in Peru of Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, which has acknowledged paying $788 million in bribes to obtain government contracts in a dozen countries.

Kuczynski, accompanied by his attorney, spent four hours answering questions about payments from Odebrecht to his financial-consulting business.

The firm, Westfield Capital Ltd., received more than $782,000 from Odebrecht between 2004 and 2007, a period when Kuczynski served as economy minister and prime minister in the 2001-2006 administration of President Alejandro Toledo.

When word of those payments became public two weeks, Keiko Fujimori's Popular Force, which has a majority in Congress, pushed to impeach Kuczynski for having lied when he denied any connections to Odebrecht.

The President addressed Congress last Thursday before the vote on the impeachment motion, telling lawmakers that during his tenure with the Toledo administration, he turned over management of Westfield to then-business partner Gerardo Sepulveda, and that it was the latter who signed the consulting contract with Odebrecht.

Kuczynski said that he was unaware at the time of the work for Odebrecht, as he had erected a "Chinese wall" between himself and Westfield's operations.

The impeachment bid failed, thanks to the votes of Kenji Fujimori -- Keiko's younger brother - and nine other dissident Popular Force legislators.

At the AG Office, Keiko Fujimori, who lost to Kuczynski in the 2016 presidential runoff, submitted to five hours of questioning about allegations that Popular Force received illegal campaign contributions from Odebrecht over the course of a decade.

The Odebrecht scandal has implicated Peru's major political parties and every presidential administration going back to 2005.
New York, Dec 29 : US President Donald Trump has mocked the Vanity Fair magazine for apologising to Hillary Clinton over a video that poked fun at the former Secretary of State, the media reported.

"Vanity Fair, which looks like it is on its last legs, is bending over backwards in apologising for the minor hit they took at Crooked H (Hillary Clinton)," Trump tweeted on Thursday.

The video featuring Vanity Fair staffers offering cheeky New Year's resolutions for Clinton was first published on December 23, reports CNN.

"Take up a new hobby in the new year," technology writer Maya Kosoff said in the video.

"Volunteer work, knitting, improv comedy -- literally anything that will keep you from running again."

However, three days later one line in the video became the focus of intense criticism leading to widespread outrage among Clinton supporters who decried the reference to "knitting" as sexist.

A hashtag, #CancelVanityFair, spread on Twitter.

Adam Parkhomenko, a former Clinton adviser, tweeted a photo of the magazine engulfed in flames.

Hollywood actress Patricia Arquette reacted with similar anger, CNN reported.

"Hey stop telling women what the f**k they should do or can do," Arquette tweeted. "Get over your mommy issues."On Wednesday night, a Vanity Fair spokesperson had put out a statement saying the video was "an attempt at humour and we regret that it missed the mark".
New York, Dec 29 : At least 12 people, including a one-year-old infant, was killed after a massive fire broke out at an apartment building in The Bronx, New York City, media reports said.

Authorities said the death toll could still rise from the fire that began at 6.51 p.m., on Thursday and gutted the building in the Belmont neighbourhood near the Bronx Zoo, reports the New York Post.

"We're here at the scene of an unspeakable tragedy in the middle of the holiday season, a time when families are Atogether," Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a press briefing late Thursday night.

"Tonight here in The Bronx, there are families that have been torn apart. This is the worst fire tragedy we have seen in this city in at least a quarter-century.

"There are four people critically injured who are fighting for their lives. Other serious injuries as well."

A law enforcement official said that the infant was discovered cradled in her mother's arms in the bathtub of one of the apartments. They were both dead.

According to Fire Department New York Commissioner Daniel Nigro the fire started on the first floor and quickly spread upstairs into the five-storey building with 25 apartments, reports the New York Post.

The commissioner said it was too early to determine what caused the fire.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted: "We are closely monitoring the devastating fire in the Bronx. As always we are thankful for our first responders. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families tonight."

The fire stands to be the most deadly in New York City since 87 people perished in March 1990 in the infamous Happy Land social-club arson attack which took place less than a mile away from Thursday's location.
Sydney, Dec 29 : Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was fined on Friday for not wearing a life-jacket while steering his inflatable dinghy near his residence on the Sydney Harbour.

The Prime Minister was photographed at the helm of the motorised dinghy on Wednesday. He was wearing a T-shirt but no life-jacket, a breach of New South Wales (NSW) state maritime regulations, reports the Guardian.

Turnbull said he was only moving the boat 20 metres between a jetty and the beach next to the his house.

NSW Maritime Services investigated the incident and on Friday delivered a A$250 fine. A spokesman for Turnbull said the fine would be paid.

In response, the Prime Minister said on a Facebook post: "The rules can often seem very technical, but they are there to keep us safe and we should all comply with them.

"So lesson learned; I will make sure I always wear a life jacket in my dinghy regardless of how close I am to the shore, just as I always do on my kayak."

Angus Mitchell, executive director of NSW Maritime, said the incident was a "timely reminder" of the need for safety on the water, the Guardian reported.

On December 22, a 73-year-old man died and two others were rescued after their vessel capsized in the seas off Kurnell in Sydney's south.

The police said the the three men were "caught out by the waves" and were not believed to be wearing life-jackets.
Korea breathed a sigh of relief after the largely peaceful ouster of President Park Geun-hye, but hopes for a new, more transparent government soon gave way to fresh anxiety over North Korea's rapidly accelerating development of intercontinental missiles capable of threatening the entire world. A ray of sunshine was provided by acclaim for K-pop and Korean movies abroad.  Park Geun-hye Ousted as President The Constitutional Court in a unanimous decision on March 10 upheld the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye, who was immediately stripped of office, the first-ever Korean president to be impeached.



Park was indicted and detained in a remand jail later that month on charges of receiving bribes, abuse of power and divulging state secrets. Since a court extended her detention in October, Park has refused to attend court and is being tried in absentia. Park has a weak case, but her defense is that the charges against her are a stitch-up and part of a political vendetta. The Liberty Korea Party, renamed from the Saenuri Party that enthusiastically did Park's bidding until the scandal broke, stripped Park of her membership.  Moon Jae-in Elected President

Moon Jae-in, the lackluster candidate of the center-left Minjoo Party, was elected president on May 9 with 41.1 percent following the impeachment of his predecessor Park Geun-hye. The runner-up was Hong Joon-pyo of the rump-ruling Liberty Korea Party, who captured 24.03 percent in a late surge, trailed by one-time favorite Ahn Cheol-soo of the People's Party with 21.41 percent after he failed to win over wavering conservatives. Moon's election win marks the return of a progressive leader after nine years of conservative rule. Moon immediately assumed the presidency, forgoing the 60-day transition period between administrations, and pledged to clean up the deep entanglements between politics and big business that were exposed in Park's corruption scandal.  N.Korea Edges Closer to Building Intercontinental Nuclear Missile North Korean leader Kim Jong-un announced in his New Year's address that the North has reached the "final stage" of testing an intercontinental ballistic missile. Since then, the North conducted 15 test launches of long-range ballistic missiles. On July 4 it launched the Hwasong-14 ICBM followed by the Hwasong-15 on Nov. 29 and announced that it has now become a nuclear-armed state. On Sept. 3, North Korea also conducted its sixth and biggest nuclear test. The UN Security Council adopted six separate resolutions against the North this year alone, while the U.S. deployed strategic weapons in South Korea.

The North Korean nuclear threat weighed heavily on the Korean Peninsula all year, with the North threatening to launch "enveloping fire" around the U.S. territory of Guam and engaging in an escalating war of words with U.S. President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, North Korean agents assassinated Kims half-brother Kim Jong-nam with VX nerve gas at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13. Malaysian police concluded that they had put up two Southeast Asian women to the attack, but the North vehemently denied the allegations and held Malaysian diplomats in Pyongyang hostage. After negotiations, four North Korean suspects who had not yet fled Malaysia were let go, and the dead body was taken to North Korea against the initial wishes of his family. Rumors said that Kim Jong-un had his brother assassinated because he believed or knew that China was grooming him as his successor in the event of a coup. Kim Jong-nam in turn knew he was a marked man and carried antidotes for a slew of poisons in his carry-on luggage, but did not reckon with a biological weapon.  5.4-Magnitude Earthquake Rattles Pohang

A 5.4-magnitude earthquake shook the southeastern port city of Pohang on Nov. 15, the second-largest quake to hit Korea after a 5.8 tremor in Gyeongju the year before. The quake forced around 1,300 residents of Pohang to seek shelter in a gymnasium, and the government postponed the nationwide college entrance exam by a week to make sure that test venues on Pohang were safe. It was the first time that the exam was postponed due to a natural disaster, and 2,045 candidates in Pohang were shuttled to locations further south to take the exam.  Bangtan Boys Lead Global Resurgence of K-Pop

Seven-member boy band Bangtan Boys, also known as BTS, was invited to two of three major American music awards. In May, BTS won the Top Social Artist Award at the Billboard Music Awards, beating Justin Bieber and other heavyweights. They made their U.S. debut at the American Music Awards in November. Their new single "MIC Drop," which was released in late November, reached No. 28 on the Billboards Hot 100 chart, the highest ranking for a Korean act since Psy's "Gangnam Style." BTS said their goal in 2018 is to reach the top 10 in the U.S. music charts.
Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 29 : Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday ordered action against a school in Palakkad for allowing RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to hoist the national flag during the Independence Day celebrations.

Vijayan directed the Director of Public Instruction (DPI) to ensure that proper action was taken against the Headmaster and Manager of the state-run Karnakeyamen School.

The Chief Minister also asked the police to examine whether criminal proceedings could be initiated against them.

Being financially supported by the state government, the school was expected to function according to government guidelines. It was also told that political personalities could not take part in August 15 event.

The District Collector and police had informed the Karnakeyamen School management that only people's representatives or the head of the institution could raise the flag.

Apparently the school belongs to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh supporters and hence they had invited Bhagwat to be the chief guest.

Kerala BJP General Secretary M.T. Ramesh, had then said that the RSS chief was in Palakkad to attend a few functions and "RSS is not a political party and Bhagwat is not a political leader".

Reacting to Vijayan's decision to initiate action, state BJP President Kummanem Rajasekheran told the media on Friday that they will deal with the issue legally.

"There is no harm in what had happened then as there was no violation of any rules. Similar incidents have taken place the same day at several places, but why is the CPI-M taking action only here.

"The Vijayan government is playing the political card. We will deal with this legally," said Rajasekheran.
Beijing, Dec 29 : China's ban on importing 24 types of waste that comes into force on January 1, will serve as a wake-up call to countries that export waste to seek more sustainable methods, environmental organisation Greenpeace said on Friday.

The measure, announced in July, prohibits the entry into China of 24 types of waste grouped into four categories: domestic plastics, unsorted paper, various types of mine slag and textile waste, reports Efe news.

For Greenpeace, this prohibition will send warnings around the world and will promote the search for methods to generate less waste and to treat them adequately in the country of origin just as within China.

"Rather than find new places to export waste, governments and the private sector must find ways to simply reduce the amount of waste we are creating," it said in a statement.

Since the 1980s, China has been the world's largest waste importer and in 2012, 56 per cent of global exported plastic waste ended up in China, according to Greenpeace data.
Mumbai, Dec 29 : Veteran actress Dimple Kapadia's nephew and producer-entrepreneur Twinkle Khanna's cousin Karan Kapadia is set to make his Bollywood debut with Tony D'Souza and Vishal Ranas upcoming yet-untitled film.

"I've learnt to ride a horse and the bike. I've been swimming and I trained in martial arts for six months in Bangkok," Karan said in a statement.

Karan's Bollywood debut will be directed by Behzad Khambata.

The actor learnt the craft from Jeff Goldberg Studio. He said he was earlier obese at 112 kg, but following regular gymming, he is now a fit and healthy 88 kg on the weighing scale.

Karan's brother-in-law and actor Akshay Kumar shares a close association with D'Souza. They have worked together on two films -- "Blue" and "Boss".

Jointly produced by Shrikant Bhasi, Nishant Pitti, D'Souza and Rana, the film is slated to release next year.

Latest updates on Bigg Boss Season 13

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Hyderabad, Dec 29 : H-Bots Robotics, a Hyderabad-based startup, has developed a smart policing robot which can take complaints, detect bombs and identify suspects.

The company on Friday launched the Beta version of the robot, which will now be tested on ground over the next six months before its commercial deployment in July next year.

A completely indigenous robot, it recognises people, interacts and answers queries. H-Bots founder Kisshhan PSV told reporters here after the launch that it is the world's second humanoid police robot. The first humanoid police robot, deployed in Dubai, was manufactured in France.

"Our smart policing robot is specifically equipped to protect and secure malls, airports, offices, buildings and other public and private places," he said.

The robot can recognise voices in English but in future it will have features to recognise Hindi, Telugu or other languages. It also has the ability to do 360 degree eye level surveillance, face and gesture recognition, detect metals, monitor temperature and control theft.

The Beta version was launched by Jayesh Ranjan, Telangana's Principal Secretary, Information Technology, in the presence of individuals who mentored and invested in the startup.

Kisshhan said they plan to make the robot available at a price of Rs 5 lakh. The company has plans to produce 70 police robots every year. "We will increase the production to 700 different robots by 2020," he added.

H-Bots already has orders for 38 robots both from India and abroad. The company is in talks with Telangana Police and also hopes to get orders from Assam Police, which provided inputs for the project.

On the occasion of the launch, the startup signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Amigo Group of Thailand for supply of robots.

Chandra Sekhar Avvaru, Chairman, Amigo Group, said the company was looking for deployment of 100 robots for their hospitality and construction businesses. It has also partnered with H-Bots for research and development and will be investing $1 million.

Kisshhan said the company had so far invested $1 million and plans to raise another $5 million next month.

Some startups from T-Hub, country's largest technology incubator here, have teamed up with H-Bots to work on different components of the project.
Chennai, Dec 29 : Indonesia is planning to attract Indian wedding planners to promote that country as the big fat Indian wedding destination with attractive offers, said a top official of Visit Indonesia Tourism Office (VITO)-India.

He said Indonesia is also interested in promoting the country as the movie shooting spot for Indian filmmakers.

"We are targeting the wedding planners in India to promote Indonesia as the destination of Indian weddings. There are several Indian restaurants and even Jain food is available there.

"So, wedding food will not be an issue. Similarly, purohits can also be arranged to conduct the wedding," Sanjay Sondhi, Country Manager, VITO-India told reporters here on Friday.

"Similar to the MICE (meetings, incentives, conferencing and exhibitions) events, incentives like a cultural programme and a special spa session for the bride and bridegroom can offered," Sondhi said.

According to him, Non-Resident Indians are coming to Indonesia for conducting weddings in their families.

That apart, Sondhi said Indonesia has decided to promote actively other destinations like Lombak, Bondung and JogJakarta for Indian tourists and necessary infrastructure was being created.

On tourist arrivals from India, Sondhi said the target for 2017 is 456,000 persons and till October 2017, a total of 397,000 Indian tourists have come to Indonesia, expressing confidence that the target will be achieved.

He said there are three-star hotels that offer good facilities for $50.

"Indian tourists normally spend six nights in Indonesia and the average spend per head will be around $1,200," he said.
Bengaluru, Dec 29 : Search engine Google on Friday honoured eminent Kannada poet and Jnanpith awardee Kuvempu with a doodle on his 113rd birthday.

"It's a great day for Kannadigas and Karnataka, as Google joined us in celebrating 'Rashtra kavi' (national poet) Kuvempu's birthday with a sketch on him in a locale that reminds us of his scenic native place Kuppali (in Shivamogga district," an official told IANS here.

Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, who wrote as Kuvempu, was the first Kannada writer to win the prestigious Jnanpith award for his epic poem "Sri Ramayana Dashanam" in verse form five decades ago.

The occasion also coincided with the golden jubilee of Kuvempu's famous novel "Malegalalli Madumaglu" released 50 years ago on his birthday in 1967.

"Day-long celebrations, including reading of Kuvemu's select poems and writings in the lawns of his ancestral house 'Kavi Mane' at Kuppali in the presence of about 1,000 people from the region," said the official of the state Kannada and Culture Department.

Located in the heart of the picturesque Malnad area near Thirthahalli in central Karnataka, Kuppali is a cultural centre and a popular tourist spot.

Born on December 29, 1904, Kuvempu spent his childhood at Kuppali and moved to Mysuru in his teenage years to study. He graduated in Kannada and English literature from the Maharaja College at Mysuru.

"Though education and teaching profession forced Kuvempu to live at Mysuru, Bengaluru and other cities in the state, he visited Kuppali every year and spent a few weeks to relive his childhood, as he was so captivated by the Sahyadri mountains around and the breathtaking view of the Malnad region," said the official.

Kuvempu taught Kannada literature in Maharaja College and National College in Bengaluru in the 1930s-40s before he became Vice-Chancellor of Mysore University in 1956.

"Besides poetry, Kuvempu penned short stories, plays, novels and articles in Kannada and English. His beautiful poem 'Jaya Bharata Jananiya Tanujate' is sung as the state anthem," added the official.

Awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1988, he passed away at the age of 90 on November 11, 1994.
New Delhi, Dec 29 : The government has no plans to waive off corporate loans and banks while banks have advised to either resolve their issue of non-performing assets (NPAs), or stressed loans speedily, or start insolvency proceedings in this regard, Parliament was informed on Friday.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla also said that the stressed advances ratio of banks fell to 11.75 per cent by end-September, from 12.1 per cent by the end of June this year.

"No proposal for waiver of corporate loan is under consideration of the government," he said.

Referring to data from the National Company Law Tribunal, Shukla said that 2,434 fresh cases had been filed with it till end-November and 2,304 cases of winding up of companies have been transferred from various high courts since the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, came into force.

Of these, 2,750 cases had been already disposed of, while 1,988 cases were pending up to the end of November.

Shukla also said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has already identified 12 accounts adding up to 25 per cent of the NPAs for insolvency proceedings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code which provides for a time-bound insolvency resolution process. These 12 accounts constituted about 25 per cent of the gross NPAs of the banking system.

Also on Friday, replying to the debate in the Lok Sabha before it passed the amendments to the IBC, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that banks and creditors would need to take a "haircut" on their bad loans, even as defaulting promoters could make their businesses operational again by paying the outstanding interest on the loan, A haircut signifies accepting a lower than market value for the asset for a resolution of the NPA.

Bad loans of state-run banks amounted to a staggering Rs 7.34 lakh crore by the end of second quarter of the current fiscal ended September, most on account of corporate defaulters, as per official data.

RBI data last week, however, showed that NPAs of private sector banks stood at a much lower level of around Rs 1.03 lakh crore by the end of the July-September quarter.

It said leading corporate entities and companies accounted for around 77 per cent of the total gross NPAs of banks from domestic operations.

Among the major government-owned banks, State Bank of India had the highest level of NPAs at over Rs 1.86 lakh crore, followed by Punjab National Bank (Rs 57,630 crore), Bank of India (Rs 49,307 crore), Bank of Baroda (Rs 46,307 crore), Canara Bank (Rs 39,164 crore) and the Union Bank of India (Rs 38,286 crore).

Up to end-September, among private banks, ICICI Bank had the most amount of NPAs at Rs 44,237 crore, followed by Axis Bank (Rs 22,136 crore), HDFC Bank (Rs 7,644 crore) and Jammu and Kashmir Bank (Rs 5,983 crore).
Majuli (Assam), Dec 29 : Aiming to give a boost to the inland water transport sector in the North-East, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday flagged off regular cargo transportation through waterways from Pandu Port near Guwahati to Dhubri along the Indo-Bangladesh border.

Speaking on the occasion, the Union Shipping and Water Resources Minister said: "The central government is keen to develop Brahmaputra as a major waterway for boosting trade and commerce as it would enable the cargos to ply through Bangladesh till Chittagong Port and open sea route for Assam to connect with other important ports of the country."

"An MoU has already been signed between the governments of India and Bangladesh to dredge the river Brahmaputra including the portion of the river that falls in Bangladesh for rapid development of water navigation and cargo transportation," said Gadkari, who was accompanied by Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

Cargo transportation through inland waterways was the cheapest mode of transportation and once the dredging work in both Brahmaputra and Barak was complete, it would bring huge economic benefit to the state and the region, he added.

The minister also called upon the state government to explore ways to develop river tourism in the state and suggested to it to initiate action for production of bio-ethanol from bamboo taking advantage of the huge bamboo plantations in the state.

Appreciating CM Sonowal for making sincere efforts to develop Majuli and the state, the Union Minister said that the central government was fully supporting the state government's endeavours to uplift the state's economy.

Gadkari also laid the foundation stone for a project for protection of river island Majuli from the floods and erosion of the Brahmaputra river and assured that the island would not shrink any further.

The central government has sanctioned an amount of Rs 233.54 crore for the project.

Addressing a public meeting, the union minister said the scheme envisaged four components including construction of geo-bag bank revetment work for a total length of 27 km, construction of RCC porcupine screens at 41 locations, construction of a Pilot Channel and construction of a sluice gate at Birinabari.

"The works implemented by Brahmaputra Board has reversed the trend from erosion to siltation. The area of land mass of Majuli island, which was 502.21 sq.km in 2004 stood at 524.29 sq.km in November last year, as per satellite imagery," he said.

The present scheme to be executed by the Brahmaputra Board was as per the recommendation of a team of experts called the Technical Advisory Committee constituted by the Union Water Resources Ministry, Gadkari said.

"My ministry has cleared the project and it is my pleasure to mention here that the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) has also agreed to allocate an amount of Rs.207 crore and the balance amount is to be funded by the Brahmaputra Board.

Gadkari also laid the foundation stone for the Brahmaputra Board office complex at Majuli, to be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 40 crore.

Majuli island is surrounded by the mighty Brahmaputra river in the south, and Kherkatia Suti, Luit Suti and Subansiri rivers in the north and is susceptible to both floods and erosion.
Chicago, Dec 29 : An Indian-origin college student was shot dead during a robbery attempt at a gas station in the US on Thursday and his relative critically injured, media reports said.

Nineteen-year-old Arshad Vhora was filling in for his father -- who was in India to attend a wedding -- at the gas station in Dolton, Illinois, when the attempted robbery took place, ABC 7 Chicago reported. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The other victim, 55-year-old Bakar Saieed, was taken to a hospital and is in serious condition.

The business is family-owned and operated and the victims were related, though it was not immediately clear how, Chicago Sun-Times said, quoting Dolton Police chief Robert M. Collins Jr.

The attempted robbery took place about 11 a.m. and no one was in custody as of Thursday afternoon, Collins said.

Police said they received a 911 call from the Clark gas station from a man who was unable to speak. The officers rushed to the scene and found the victims.

"This is another act of senseless killing. As we know, it happens too often," said Abdul Vhora, a relative. "He was a very intelligent kid. He was filling in for his father while his father was out of the country. His father is on his way back."

Vhora was a sophomore business major at South Suburban College, relatives said.

Police are reviewing surveillance video from the gas station, and are investigating the incident as an armed robbery homicide. Police are also interviewing a delivery man who had just arrived at the gas station as a potential witness to the shooting. He was not injured.

According to ABC 7 Chicago, the police believe the suspects came and left on foot. Though they are investigating the shooting as an armed robbery, police said the cash register appears to be untouched and they have not had problems with the gas station in the past.

"Investigators are still combing through video and canvassing the area and seeking out potential witnesses, so right now we do not have any potential suspect information," said Collins.

"Right now, we're looking at one suspect but that doesn't rule out the possibility that there may be more suspects involved."

A $12,000 reward is being offered by the victims' family, community activist Andrew Holmes and Dolton Mayor Riley Rogers for information leading to the arrest of the killer.

"To the perpetrators, we're not going to stop. We're just going to work with all the law enforcement agencies until someone is brought to justice," Holmes said.
Cairo, Dec 29 : At least ten people were killed in a shootout outside a church here on Friday, state media reported.

"The security forces thwarted an attack on Mar Mina Church in the Helwan district," said an Interior Ministry statement.

The Health Ministry said the ten killed include one attacker and one policeman, who are Muslims, and eight Copts with one of them a policeman, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Interior Ministry added that at least five others were injured, with two of them being in a serious condition. It said the other attacker fled the scene on a motorbike and was later arrested.

A bomb disposal team has defused two bombs planted near the church.

TV footage showed one attacker wearing a bulky ammunition vest lying on a street.

The other attacker was later arrested carrying a bomb, 150 bullets and an automatic gun, the head of the Cairo Security Directorate said.

In a statement, the church said the eight dead Copts include five church visitors, one security man of the church and two owners of an appliance shop nearby the scene.

Eyewitnesses told Xinhua that the two masked militants on a motorcycle entered the street leading to the western side of the church, and then got off and targeted the security post outside the church. They added that the exchange of fire continued for around 20 minutes.

The attack came in the run-up to Orthodox Christmas celebrations next week. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Islamic State group's affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year.

Egypt's Coptic Christians, the largest religious minority in the region, make up about 10 percent of the country's 93 million people.
The world seemed bleaker place in 2017 as populist and authoritarian leaders the world over appealed to their populations' basest instincts and tensions rose in hot spots around the globe. Terrorists became more unpredictable and many of the world's greatest cities felt less safe, while a solution to climate change looks ever more remote as freak weather batters vast swathes of land.  Trump's "America First" Doctrine U.S. President Donald Trump made America a more insular, hostile place with his "America First" campaign pledge that caused ripple effects around the world. Inside his borders, Trump signed executive orders resulting in tougher immigration rules aimed at prohibiting Muslims from apparently random countries from moving to the U.S., and building wall along the border with Mexico.



He also scrapped the "Dreamers" program that allows children of illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. when they were small to complete their education there. Abroad, Trump threw his weight around in pushing for the renegotiation of free trade pacts that even his own Republican Party has described as win-win deals -- not least the one with Korea that went into effect in 2012 and had served him as a straw man on the stump. He also scotched the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major legacy of the Obama administration, and pulled out of the Paris Agreement on climate change to benefit the domestic fossil fuel industry, his major backers. In the last weeks and days of the year, Trump overthrew decades of diplomatic consensus by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and then scrapped some funding for the UN when the world united in condemnation against him.  Xi Jinping Begins Second Term as China's 'Emperor'

China at its 19th National Party Congress in October elected President Xi Jinping to a second five-year term. Xi emerged as China's most powerful leader in decades, dominating the party, government, military and state economy and "enshrining his thinking" in the party constitution, which aims to "strengthen self-confidence in the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics." Unlike previous meetings, the latest one did not name a successor, while his thoughts on political theory were written into the party constitution. The congress signaled a brasher, more expansive era in Chinese foreign policy that is clearly bent on establishing a hegemony in Asia.  Lone Wolf Terror Attacks Strike New York, London, Barcelona

Lone wolf attacks by radical terrorists who have sworn fealty to ISIS rocked the world.

Attacks occurred in London in March 22, killing five people, in Manchester on May 22, killing 22 people, in Stockholm on April 7, killing five people, in Barcelona on Aug. 17 killing 16 people, and in New York on Oct. 31 killing eight people. The terrorists used trucks to plow into crowds of pedestrians on busy streets spreading fears that nobody is safe from random attacks.

 Bitcoin Bubble Bursts and Rises Again

The cryptocurrency bitcoin, which was worth just W0.9 when it was first minted in 2009, surged in value to W25 million toward the end of 2017 as feverish speculation swept through the world, only to crash and rise again (US$1=W1,070). People around the world parked their cash in bitcoins with office workers, college students, housewives and even children investing in the cryptocurrency in Korea. The Chicago Board Options Exchange began trading in bitcoin on Dec. 10 adding more credence to the cryptocurrency. In April, the Japanese government recognized bitcoin as a means of payment.  #MeToo Anti-Sexual Harassment Movement Spreads Sexual assault and rape allegations against Hollywood film producer and executive Harvey Weinstein triggered a global movement called #MeToo by women to publicize their experiences of abuse.

Prominent actresses like Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow said they had suffered sexual harassment by Weinstein, which led to his ouster from the movie production company he co-founded with his brother. His ouster was followed by a slew of allegations against other figures, from stars like Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman to right-on comedian Louis CK. The #MeToo movement spread to the political and media establishments leading to the firing of NBC anchor Matt Lauer, chat show host Charlie Rose, Democratic Representative John Conyers and others. The movement spread around the world, leading to the suicides of two politicians in the U.K.
Gandhinagar, Dec 29 : Miffed at being given "light-weight" portfolios, Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel was on Friday conspicuous by his absence in his office even as all the newly-anointed Cabinet colleagues took charge of their respective ministries allotted to them by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani in the new BJP government in Gujarat.

Patel was holding the hefty departments of Finance, Petrochemicals, Urban Development and Urban Housing, Roads and Buildings, Capital Project, Narmada, and Kalpasar, in the previous regime. Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who took more than 48 hours to decide on his new team, snatched Finance, Petrochemicals and Urban Development and Housing from Nitin Patel this time.

The crucial portfolios of Finance and Petrochemicals have been given to Saurabh Patel, who was curiously dropped when Rupani took over the reins the first time in August 2016, while the Chief Minister has himself retained the Urban Development and Housing beat.

Saurabh Patel, the son-of-law of industry doyen Dhirubhai Ambani's elder brother Ramnik Ambani, won the Botad seat by a narrow margin of 900 votes. He was earlier an MLA from Akota constituency in Vadodara city.

Sources claimed that Rupani took a long time to decide his team because Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah were reportedly busy in finalising the name of the new Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister and he would not take a unilateral decision.

While the new 20-member two-tier Rupani Cabinet was sworn in on December 26 in the presence of a huge gathering, attended among others by Prime Minister Modi, Shah and chief ministers of all 18 BJP-ruled states as well as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, it took late Thursday night for the portfolios to be finalised and distributed.

Not only did Nitin Patel keep away from office most of Friday, Secretariat reports claimed that the veteran politician used his personal four-wheeler instead of the government vehicle and official escort.

The Deputy Chief Minister looked glum and lost even during the first joint press conference of the new Cabinet late on Thursday night and maintained an uncanny silence.

The meeting had itself started after a delay at 9 p.m. in the wake of arguments over portfolio distribution. Besides Nitin Patel, former senior cabinet Minister Babubhai Bokhiria from Porbander and former Minister of state from Vadodara Rajendra Trivedi expressed their anger at being dropped.

Meanwhile, it was difficult to reach Nitin Patel on Friday and he did not return the calls made to him for his version of the story.
New Delhi, Dec 29 : A 33-year-old property dealer was gunned down and another severely injured by their two friends following a money-related brawl in the national capital, police said on Friday.

The police said the incident was reported on Thursday night at around 10.30 p.m., when the victims -- identified as Nitin, 33, who was killed, and Himanshu, 33, as the injured -- were partying with their friends Virender and Sandeep at the house of their common friend Kuldeep.

"During investigation, we found that all the persons were known to one another and were into property dealing. They are residents of different places of Kanjhawala (west Delhi)," Deputy Commissioner of Police M.N. Tiwari said.

"Followeing a money dispute over a property, accused Virender and Sandeep fired shots at Himanshu and Nitin and fled the spot," Tiwari said.

"Kuldeep informed the police. Nitin died on the spot, while Himanshu was admitted to a hospital," Tiwari said.
Indore/Neemuch, Dec 29 : The Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court on Friday stayed any police action against journalist Jinendra Surana, who had posted a sarcastic comment in social media on the government's announcement to honour a rape victim with Padmavati Award.

According to accused journalist's lawyer Sunil Gupta, the police had on November 25 registered an FIR against Surana -- a resident of Neemuch -- after his social media post went viral.

Protesting against the FIR, Surana filed a petition in the high court bench, and admitting his petition, Justice Vivek Rusia put a halt to any action against the journalist based on the charges made in the FIR.

State Home Minister Bhupendra Singh had reportedly made an announcement to honour the rape victim with the Padmavati Award. Subsequently, on November 24, Surana commented in the social media: "Get raped in Madhya Pradesh to get the Padmavati Award. The government's new announcement."

On Friday, Surana told IANS that taking cognizance of the "objectionable comment", the Khargone police had lodged the FIR on its own.

Senior advocate and Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha will be present at the final hearing of the case.
New Delhi, Dec 30 : The BJP has decided to field Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri as its candidate in a Rajya Sabha bypoll in Uttar Pradesh, a party release said.

Puri, a former Indian Foreign Service Officer, was inducted as a minister in the Narendra Modi government in September.

The seat fell vacant following the resignation from the cabinet and Parliament of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, who returned to Goa to take over as Chief Minister.

The last date of nominations for the Rajya Sabha bypoll is January 5.
Canadian Legation, Washington, D.C. An example of the thousands of photographs from Indiana Limestone Company being conserved and archived by a team from the Indiana Geological and Water Survey. I think they illustrate that, regardless how the building was treated over the past 100 years, the limestone remains as the buildings most durable, and to me, most precious part.

A long-term project is cataloging and preserving thousands of vintage photographs that document Indianas storied limestone industry, creating an extensive image archive thats available to scholars, researchers, and the general public.

Rediscovered in a disused house owned by the Indiana Limestone Company of Bloomington, this remarkable pictorial record is believed to contain some 8,800 separate images. (Including duplicates, the collection numbers more than 26,000 individual prints.)

A team from the Indiana Geological and Water Survey at Indiana University, Bloomington, has processed more than 10,000 of the photos since beginning work in 2012. The work has been supported by state and university grants, survey resources, and private funding totaling about $90,000.

The collection dates from the early to mid-1900s. It illustrates Indiana limestone quarries and mills, as well as building sites across the country. The photographs showcase the prized stones legacy in building some of the nations most iconic buildings. Hundreds of the buildings documented in the collection stand today in excellent condition, testifying to the lasting strength and beauty of this native Hoosier resource.

The photos were originally made in support of Indiana Limestone Companys marketing efforts. When rediscovered, they were at serious risk, stored in a structure without heat or air conditioning near the firms quarries in Oolitic, Ind. To preserve them, the geological survey undertook the process of cleaning and scanning them, and creating digital copies and metadata.

As they are processed, the photos become available for viewing at Indiana Universitys Image Collections Online site: http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/images/splash.htm?scope=images/VAC5094. Currently, more than 5,000 photographs are available for viewing, and the collection is one of the more actively viewed areas of the ICO for the past year.

Whether used for the entire building or just as adornments, Indiana Limestone has a beauty that transcends time, said Todd A. Thompson, state geologist and director of the Survey. We have also produced photographs showing then and now images of just a small fraction of the buildings captured in the Indiana Limestone Photograph Collection. I think they illustrate that, regardless how the building was treated over the past 100 years, the limestone remains as the buildings most durable, and to me, most precious part.

Photographs in the collection document the extraordinary place of Indiana limestone in North American architecture and U.S. history. Including skyscrapers, residences, cathedrals, schools, banks, and librarieswith examples from nearly every statethe collection demonstrates the importance of the stone in creating Americas architectural environment.

Duffe Elkins, Chief Operating Officer at Indiana Limestone Company, expressed the firms pride in the heritage illustrated by the photographs. This is a record unlike any other, not just of our companys history but also of the whole limestone-quarrying region, he said. A find like this comes along very rarely. Its a precious thing, and were so glad for the preservation efforts that the geological survey team is devoting to it.

For more on Indiana Limestone Company and its products, visit http://www.indianalimestonecompany.com.

For additional information on the Indiana Geological Survey, visit https://igs.indiana.edu/.

About Indiana Limestone Company

Indiana Limestone Company is unmatched as the premier supplier of Indiana limestone in a range of beautiful and lasting building products. Founded in 1926 (with predecessor firms that had been quarrying limestone since the mid-1800s), Indiana Limestone Company today remains the provider of choice for this internationally renowned natural stone. Throughout an illustrious history in which its stone has made such iconic structures as the Empire State Building, National Cathedral, and the Pentagon, Indiana Limestone Company has reliably provided the highest quality products and services carefully tailored to the needs of the market with an environmental, natural focus.
C&S Technologies, the parent company of Paycheck Manager, recently introduced educational videos for small businesses through its YouTube channel. Paycheck Manager has long been a go-to resource of small businesses. The Paycheck Manager Small Business Payroll Blog has helped hundreds of thousands of owners gain independence by learning to manage payroll taxes, and to process payroll themselves. Now, the combination of mediums supports the owner in their chosen way of learning, providing detailed lessons through succinct videos and comprehensive blog posts.

As a leader in the development of IRS authorized payroll software, and a payroll tax e-file partner, C&S Technologies is excited to build an educational platform for small-business owners on YouTube. The companys first video, Payroll Basics for Small Business, was released last month. More are in production, and small businesses can expect a litany of payroll tax educational video lessons to come.

These YouTube videos are meant as a companion to the Paycheck Manager Small Business Payroll Blog. The popular blog has helped hundreds of thousands of business owners retain independence, allowing them to correctly and efficiently become their own payroll solution. Theyve found answers in blog articles like, How to Correct a Previously Issued 1099-MISC, Payroll Basics for Part-Time and Seasonal Employees, and "Federal IRS Form 941 Instructions, Employers Quarterly Federal Tax Return and E-File. This expert advice, along with a variety of other useful articles, can be found on the Paycheck Manager Small Business Payroll Blog.

For more information, visit http://www.paycheckmanager.com or call (408)935-8969.

About the C&S Technologies

C&S Technologies, Inc. has been providing small businesses throughout the nation with business payroll and tax services since 1996. The Silicon Valley based company offers six business payroll management solutions that allow business owners and managers to choose which specialty services suit their individual needs, including eSmartPaycheck.com, PaycheckManager.com, SimplePayroll.com, w2manager.com, 1099manager.com, and eSmartPayroll.com.
Spa Treatment Room at Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara, Abu Dhabi

At a glittering awards gala ceremony in Phu Quoc, Vietnam early December, 2017, Anantara Spa received an incredible grand total of 12 wins in the 2017 World Spa Awards. The brand received three sought after Words Best awards, including the Worlds Best Hotel Spa Brand; two individual resorts were named the best in the world. Adding to the impressive award bank, nine additional hotel, resort, safari and wellness spas saw the brand shine across Asia, the Middle East, Indian Ocean and Africa.

Epitomizing authentic luxury, Anantara Spa journeys embrace the indigenous culture and nature of each hotel or resorts locale through a passionate integration of architecture, treatments, service and ambience. In recognition of the success of this brand philosophy, Anantara Spa won the prestigious accolade of World's Best Hotel Spa Brand 2017 as part of a hat trick of Worlds Best awards. Two individual Anantara Spas also shone on the global stage. Providing a palatial oasis of rich Arabian traditions in the heart of the worlds largest desert, Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara in the UAE was named the World's Best Desert Spa. Offering island exclusivity in Qatar, Banana Island Resort Doha by Anantara won World's Best Private Island Spa.

Nine national awards highlight uniquely luxurious sanctuaries in iconic destinations. Anantara Spa was born in Thailand and two spas there proudly upheld the brands roots  each offering exotic Thai treatments in striking locations. Boasting a prestigious address in the capital, Anantara Siam Bangkok Hotel received the title of Thailand's Best Hotel Spa 2017. Overlooking a lotus-filled lagoon in the royal seaside town of Hua Hin, Anantara Hua Hin Resort was named Thailand's Best Resort Spa.

Showcasing the brands authentic spa journeys across Asia, Anantara Sanya Resort is revered for its precious pearl and tea-infused treatments, and shone as China's Best Resort Spa.

In the Indian Ocean, Anantara Veli Maldives Resort was crowned the Maldives's Best Wellness Retreat, an honor impeccably timed to the inauguration of its new Balance Wellness Sanctuary, which offeris a multidimensional approach to relaxation and health. Coaxing blissful seclusion in an African island paradise, Anantara Bazaruto Island Resort was awarded Mozambique's Best Resort Spa. Bringing a second award to Africa, the Royal Livingstone Hotel by Anantara celebrated the title of Zambia's Best Safari Spa, pampering guests with indigenous African treatments in sumptuous colonial spa suites, as well as poolside massages overlooking the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls.

In the Middle East, three Anantara Spas shone in the award limelight. Perched on the rim of a great canyon, Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar Resort is famed for its local rose oil, frankincense and pomegranate spa journeys, and proudly scooped Oman's Best Resort Spa award. Bestowed with two desirable awards, in addition to World's Best Private Island Spa, Banana Island Resort Doha by Anantara was also hailed Qatar's Best Hotel Spa, while on stunning Sir Bani Yas Island, Desert Islands Resort & Spa by Anantara lavishes guests with ancient Arabian rituals, and was honored with the accolade of Abu Dhabi's Best Resort Spa.

Launched in 2015, the dynamic World Spa Awards sets a benchmark in excellence. Designed to drive the evolution of spa and wellness tourism, the awards raise standards by recognizing and rewarding industry leaders. With votes cast by spa professionals and the public, Anantara Spa shone in the eyes of both the industry and consumers in the World Spa Awards 2017.

Editors Notes:

Anantara is a luxury hospitality brand for modern travellers, connecting them to genuine places, people and stories through personal experiences, and providing heartfelt hospitality in the worlds most exciting destinations. The collection of distinct, thoughtfully designed luxury hotels and resorts provides a window through which to journey into invigorating new territory, curating personal travel experiences.

From cosmopolitan cities to desert sands to lush islands, Anantara connects travellers to the indigenous, grounds them in authentic luxury, and hosts them with passionate expertise. The portfolio currently boasts over 35 stunning properties located in Thailand, the Maldives, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, Zambia, the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Portugal, with a pipeline of future properties across Asia, the Indian Ocean, Middle East and Africa.

For more information on Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas, please visit http://www.anantara.com.

Follow us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/anantara; Twitter and Instagram: @anantara_hotels

Link to High-Resolution Images: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/avijidzhhu4ycjm/AAB6qs_hf7xbmWx8qHYIAPiqa?dl=0

About Global Hotel Alliance:

Global Hotel Alliance (GHA) is the worlds largest alliance of independent hotel brands, bringing together 35 brands with 550 hotels in 76 countries. GHA uses a shared technology platform to drive incremental revenues and create cost savings for its member brands. GHAs award-winning loyalty programme, DISCOVERY, provides over 10 million members exclusive opportunities to immerse themselves in local culture wherever they travel. For more information visit gha.com

For Media Enquiries, Please Contact:

Jessica Bradford, jessica(at)2bprinc.com

Emily Baldwin, emily(at)2bprinc.com
Its heartbreaking that 1 in 6 children in the U.S. struggle with hunger, especially during the summer months when school food programs are not as available

Bar-S, the brand behind Americas No. 1 selling franks for 12 years in a row, continues their annual partnership with No Kid Hungry in collaboration with Mediaplanets Future of Food campaign for USA Today. Bar-S upholds their ongoing support for the cause as the front cover sponsor for the campaign with Jamie Oliver, a leading advocate for healthy eating and childhood food security.

In an effort to provide 1 million meals to children in need with its first major nationwide Cause Marketing effort, Bar-S Fighting Childhood Hunger campaign will help alleviate childhood hunger in the United States together with the brands customers, employees and partners. Beyond a donation that will benefit kids nationwide during the summer months  often the most food insecure time of year for many children  the campaign will also engage employees and shoppers via volunteer activities, on-pack information and a dedicated microsite. Bar-S also previously donated hot dogs, sausages, and lunch meat for over 160,000 meals to the No Kid Hungry affiliate, Houston Food Bank, to help the victims of Tropical Storm Harvey. The campaigns efforts began in September and will incorporate various hunger awareness initiatives throughout the next year.

Its heartbreaking that 1 in 6 children in the U.S. struggle with hunger, especially during the summer months when school food programs are not as available, commented Warren Panico, CEO, Bar-S. Our support of No Kid Hungry is the next natural step in our ongoing commitment to serving our community and the children of our community. At Bar-S, we operate on the belief that you cant out give and were honored to be a part of No Kid Hungrys important work.

The print component of Future of Food is distributed within USA Today, with a circulation of approximately 250,000 and an estimated readership of 750,000. The digital component is distributed internationally, through a vast social media strategy, and across a network of top news sites and partner social media platforms. To explore the digital version of the campaign, go to Mediaplanets Modern Wellness Guide website.

About Bar-S

For more than 35 years, Bar-S has earned a reputation for high quality meat products including bacon, hot dogs, sausages, lunch meat and more. Bar-S believes shoppers shouldnt sacrifice great taste to stay on budget. The brand is committed to giving back to the communities where their customers, employees and partners live, especially to causes that help alleviate hunger in the U.S. For more information, visit http://www.bar-s.com/serves.

About No Kid Hungry

No child should go hungry in America, but 1 in 6 kids will face hunger this year. Using proven, practical solutions, No Kid Hungry is ending childhood hunger today by ensuring that kids start the day with a nutritious breakfast, eat healthy summer meals and families learn the skills they need to shop and cook on a budget. When we all work together, we can make sure kids get the healthy food they need. No Kid Hungry is a campaign of national anti-hunger organization Share Our Strength. Join us at NoKidHungry.org.

About Mediaplanet

Mediaplanet is the leading independent publisher of content-marketing campaigns covering a variety of topics and industries. We turn consumer interest into action by providing readers with motivational editorial, pairing it with relevant sponsors, and distributing it within top newspapers and online platforms around the world. Our unique ability to pair the right leaders with the right readers, through the right platforms, has made Mediaplanet a global content marketing powerhouse. Just call us storytellers with a purpose. Please visit http://www.mediaplanet.com for more on who we are and what we do.

Press Contact:

Mila Hudson

mila.hudson@mediaplanet.com

(646) 619-3303
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President Moon Jae-in on Thursday said a controversial deal with Japan to compensate Korean wartime sex slaves is "seriously flawed" and "cannot settle" the dispute.

In a statement read by Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Park Soo-hyun, Moon said, "It was an official agreement by both countries, but I have to reaffirm that the matter can't be settled like that."

His remarks came after a report by a Foreign Ministry task force on Wednesday concluded that the Park Geun-hye administration had been furtive about the details of the December 2015 deal and kept several promises to Tokyo secret.

"The announcement from the task force confirmed that the deal was gravely flawed," Moon said. "Above all, it was a political agreement without considering the opinions of victims and citizens."

Japan has reacted angrily to the report, with Foreign Minister Taro Kono warning that relations will become "unmanageable" if Korea goes back on the deal.

Top Cheong Wa Dae officials on Thursday told reporters that the president's comments "do not signify an intention" to nullify or renegotiate the deal. Moon added he wants to separate the sex slavery issue from the pursuit of diplomatic relations with Japan. "I hope Korea and Japan will overcome the history of an unfortunate past and become true friends," he said.

The government is to listen to the opinions of experts and civic groups that support the former sex slaves before Moon announces his position at a New Year's press conference.

There has been no contact between Moon and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about the report, but Korean officials said they talked to their U.S. counterparts in view of the impact frayed ties with Tokyo could have on U.S.-led regional military alliances.

Abe told the Nihon Keizi Shimbun, "The agreement will not be moved even 1 millimeter." Japanese media, both liberal and conservative, also lambasted the Korean government on their front pages.

Rightwingers in Japan are especially keen on the deal because it lets Tokyo off without admitting direct responsibility for forcing thousands of Korean and other Asian women to work in brothels for the Imperial Army.

One former high-ranking diplomat said, "I had expected this to happen, but I am worried that Japan's reaction to the report is stronger than expected."


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President Donald Trump responded to claims that he does not have a solid handle on congressional legislation by saying he understands it better "than any president that's ever been in office."

"I know the details of taxes better than anybody," the president told The New York Times. "Better than the greatest CPA. I know the details of healthcare better than most, better than most."

Trump said his in-depth knowledge of such legislation goes deeper than healthcare and taxes, stating that he understands all the "the big bills" on the floor of Congress better than "than any president that's ever been in office."

The president also mentioned his willingness to work with Democrats on legislation in the near future, but lamented what he characterized as their inability to follow through on promises of bipartisanship of their own. Trump called out one Democrat in particular.

"Like Joe Manchin," Trump said, referring to the Democratic senator from West Virginia. "He talks. But he doesn't do anything. He doesn't do. Hey, let's get together, let's do bipartisan.' I say, 'Good, let's go.' Then you don't hear from him again."

Manchin is a centrist Democrat who told Politico last week that Trump has repeatedly put pressure on him to switch parties, vote to repeal Obamacare, and support the Republican tax bill. Manchin also said Trump warned him that he would face a tough reelection campaign in 2018.

But Manchin said he remains undeterred.
READ MORE: Man loses ability to speak after pretending to be mute for 12 years

Unsuspecting people have allegedly bought phones from there and realised upon getting home that they had paid for either soap or banana.

Just recently, a well-dressed man was arrested at the Societe General bank branch at Kokomemle, near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle after he allegedly attempted to withdraw money from an account the bank had red-flagged for a long time.

This time round, it was a plywood that had allegedly been sold to somebody as a flat screen TV set.

Yen.com reported based on social media commentary that the said buyer got home only to realise that he had paid for a plywood which had been wrapped with black polythene with stickers looking like a brand-new TV.

READ ALSO: Christmas day robber arrested by victims after they noticed his gun was fake

What is even marveling is the fact that the man reportedly had the supposed TV set tested after negotiating for the price, before he made payment.
Though 23-year-old Michael Joseph Oleksik had apologized for his conduct, explaining that the ATM was giving too much money at a time he was almost late for work, UPI.com reported that the bank still pressed charges against him.

READ MORE: Man allegedly buys flat screen TV set at Kwame Nkrumah Circle only to see plywood at home

The Cocoa police are reported to have said that the bank was notified around 1p.m on November 29 about Michaels strange conduct, leading to a damage to the ATM worth over $5,000.
The statistics do not show how many of the deaths were linked to narco-trafficking, but experts believe the majority were attributable to the wave of drugs-related violence that has risen incessantly since 2006, when the government launched all-out war on Mexico's powerful cartels.

Collective violence

"Since the start of this absurd war on drugs, Mexico has entered into what the World Health Organization technically defines as 'collective violence,'" said Juan Ramon de la Fuente, a psychiatrist and former dean of the Autonomous National University of Mexico, or UNAM.

"It is a kind of epidemic when there are more than 10 homicides for every 100,000 people," he said.

WHO figures show that in 2015 Mexico was suffering 19 murders per 100,000 people, but De la Fuente, who participated in a multidisciplinary study of the impact of violence on society, puts that figure at at least 22 per 100,000.

The lack of security that has reigned over large tracts of Mexico for years has had a tangible emotional impact on the population, said De La Fuente, while life expectancy has dropped yearly among young people because of the number of youths being killed.

"We cannot separate the violence from the mental health problems which are on the rise across the country," said De La Fuente. "There is a feeling of helplessness which creates reactions that people express symptomatically, in terms of anxiety, a disturbance to sleep patterns, or the increased use of alcohol and other drugs."

According to government data, drug consumption has in fact increased by more than 40 percent since 2010.

"In Mexico there are no fewer than a million people who probably have suffered from some emotional or psychological impact derived from the drugs war since the army was sent on to the streets," said Rogelio Flores, a researcher into the societal effects of violence at UNAM's psychology department.

De la Fuente estimates that with the 200,000 people murdered, and tens of thousands missing since 2006, around 250,000 homes in Mexico have been affected by "a process of pain, depression, helplessness, frustration and fear, a gamut of very powerful and complicated emotions which is overlooked by the state from a medical and psychological point of view."

Scenes from Dante

In other cases, people display the phenomenon of "normalization" or "habituation" to the endless violence that is incorporated into daily life, from school children learning how to protect themselves during shootings to drugs lords being lionized in television shows or in the folk ballards known as "narco-corridas."

"It is worrying that we come to see death as an element of everyday life," said Flores. "There is a process of desensitization in large parts of society which is promoting and legitimizing violence, without considering its consequences."

The spectacular cruelty of the drug cartels has produced scenes of Dantesque horror, with people being beheaded, dismembered, skinned alive, tortured and hung from bridges -- their bodies dumped, often by the dozen, in the streets for all to see.

Martin Barron, a criminologist at the National Institute for Criminal Science, said that in the past the cartels had "codes of respect" that included not killing a victim's wife or children.

But in 2009, with the rise of the Zetas -- the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel, which was made up originally from government special police who defected to the drugs lords -- all the rules started to disappear.

"The criminals now have no limitations preventing them inflicting whatever degrading acts they wish upon another human being," he said.

He underlined the lack of importance given to the origin of the Zetas, former elite commandos around whom swirl macabre legends, such as the story that one their late leaders used to eat the human flesh of his victims.
A family is suing Alaska Airlines and a contractor after Bernice Kekona, age 75, died after falling down an escalator while in a wheelchair at Portland International Airport, according to CBS News.

Kekona's family had indicated that she needed assistance traveling between gates to a connecting flight when they bought her ticket, but the family alleges that the contractor, Huntleigh  which Alaska Airlines hired to perform the service  did not fulfill its duties. According to the lawsuit, Huntleigh claims it was not told by Alaska Airlines that Kekona had needed the service.

A surveillance video showed that after exiting her initial flight, Kekona navigated the airport alone before falling down an escalator headfirst and suffering multiple injuries. She eventually had to have her right leg amputated below the knee, and she died the day after the surgery.

Though it doesn't cite specific monetary damages, the suit says that Kekona's medical bills were nearly $300,000.

Alaska Airlines said in a statement to Business Insider: "We don't have all the facts, but after conducting a preliminary investigation, it appears that Ms. Kekona declined ongoing assistance in the terminal and decided to proceed on her own to her connecting flight."

The airline said that Kekona "went off on her own" after being helped into her wheelchair.

"Their version of the facts isn't true," Brook L. Cunningham, the family's lawyer, said in a phone interview with Business Insider.

Cunningham denied that Kekona had rejected assistance, and said the family "called and confirmed three separate times" to make sure the assistance would be provided, adding that he believed that the airline was legally required to make sure Kekona was escorted to the gate for her connecting flight.
The family of Barry and Honey Sherman, the Canadian pharmaceutical billionaires found strangled in the basement of their Toronto mansion, have reportedly hired private detectives to solve the mystery of their deaths.

It is now two weeks since the bodies of the couple were discovered by a real estate agent, and Toronto police are yet to publish a meaningful update since December 17.

Now, Brian Greenspan, the renowned Canadian lawyer acting for the Shermans' family, has retained the services of two private detectives to carry out an independent investigation.

He told Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail that the investigators, named as former Toronto Police Service detectives Michael Davis and Tom Klatt, will "provide a second lens and to ensure that no stone is left unturned."

The Globe and Mail reported that a second autopsy was conducted on the Shermans before they were buried. A memorial service was held for the pair on December 21.

Police are still in control of the couple's $5.4 million (4 million) mansion, the newspaper added, and have quizzed neighbours to assess whether they saw anything suspicious.

The police theory that the family has rebuked

There has been some disagreement between the family and police over the reason for the Shermans' death earlier this month.

Initial post-mortem examinations showed the couple died from "ligature neck compression," or strangulation from tying or binding, the Toronto Police Service said on Sunday.

Officially, police have marked the deaths as "suspicious" and a homicide  but not murder. Canadian newspapers have reported a police theory that deaths were part of a murder-suicide.

Citing a "Toronto police source," The Globe and Mail said investigators were working on an early theory that Barry killed Honey before killing himself.

The pair's children have rejected this theory. They said: "Our parents shared an enthusiasm for life and commitment to their family and community totally inconsistent with the rumors regrettably circulated in the media as to the circumstances surrounding their deaths."
According to the draft leaked to the press on Thursday, the city government plans to distribute condoms at schools and community health clinics. A Seoul city official said the measure "reflects the views voiced by city residents during a policy forum."

A draft of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's policy agenda to be announced early next year includes distributing condoms to teenagers to stem unwanted pregnancies.

The city also plans to set up condom vending machines in public buildings.

While the policy has been standard practice in many Western countries for decades, not all Seoul citizens welcomed the idea.

Opponents of a mostly religious bent warned it could promote sexual promiscuity. Lee Gwang-ho, who runs a Catholic educational center, said, "Teens need to learn about responsibility, not birth control. It makes no sense to pass out condoms that can help them dodge responsibility."

One parent of a middle-school student said, "Passing out condoms to teens is like telling them to have sex. The problem can be solved by stepping up sex education rather than passing out condoms to teens using taxpayer's money."
LONDON  2017 was a tough year for retail.

The High Street is feeling the impact of this squeeze on retail, with traditional retailers losing out to online retailers like Amazon. Richard Fleming, managing director and head of European restructuring at consultancy Alvarez & Marsal, predicted a "long-term, straight line decline" for physical retail in an interview with Business Insider earlier this year.

"Change is constant," Matt Truman, the CEO and cofounder of True, told Business Insider recently. "The reality is that the pace of change is in fact quickening."

Truman, a former longtime JPMorgan retail analyst, is trying to help traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers deal with that quickening pace of change.

London-based True, which he cofounded three years ago, invests in and incubates retail tech startups, getting involved at both the venture and private equity stage.

The company also connects startups with big retailers, in the hope that both parties will get something from the introduction.

"The real challenge for traditional retailers is: how do I access  in a sustainable, pre-emptive way  that innovation, that change, that access to the behavioural shift?" Truman told BI.

"By putting them [startups and big retailers] together, they both benefit from this reciprocal advantage. The startup gets accelerated because of the scale of the traditional retail company. The traditional retailer gets the benefit of seeing something they may never have seen because they're not set up to see it."

True works with the likes of department store John Lewis, supermarket Morrisons, discounter TK Maxx, Australian supermarket Woolworths, and shoe retailer Jimmy Choo  all brands with big physical footprints.

"If I'm a big behemoth of a traditional retailer, I don't see that every day because I'm trying to run a big retail company," Truman said. "What True provides them with is an always-on, 365-days-a-year view of thousands of companies from 38 countries.

"We effectively act as the innovation filter for them, identifying the technologies, products and services that offer a response to fast-changing consumer behaviours and a challenging business environment."

On a recent visit to True's office, BI met a wide range of startups: mobile payment startup Mishipay, analytics platform Localistico, customized video editing platform Photospire, mobile analytics business Pixoneye, and digital mental health platform Unmind.

If you didn't know that the focus was retail, you probably wouldn't have guessed. But the idea is to push traditional retailers to think more creatively about what they do and how they might be able to do it differently.

"The benefit may be millions of pounds, it may end up being a new product on the shelves, it may end up being robotic tech in the distribution channels," Truman said. "Whatever it is, by bringing these two networks together, we are able to provide solutions to combat escalating challenges and ensure retailers are fit for the future."

Retailers are increasingly cottoning on to the appeal of working with startups. John Lewis first launched a 12-week retail startup "accelerator," JLAB, in 2014 as part of efforts to see what ideas are out there. Earlier this month department store House of Fraser announced a partnership with startup Popertee, which will run "pop-up" space within the department store that will allow other startup brands to pilot products and services.

These types of partnerships are not limited to the UK. True recently led a trade mission to New York in partnership with the UK Department of International Trade. While there, True showcased UK retail tech startups to 13 major US retailers.

"The Trade Mission resulted in 70 targeted and purposeful introductions lead by True that allowed the startups to discuss areas they can support the retailers, such as personalisation, digital marketing, product discovery, in-store experience and consumer analytics," Truman said.
President Donald Trump's lawyers are reportedly preparing to cast former national security Michael Flynn as a liar if Flynn accuses Trump of any wrongdoing as part of his ongoing cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller.

But that strategy could raise an "obvious question," said criminal law professor David Sklanksy: Why did Trump "stick with Flynn, trust him with national secrets, and defend him as a 'very good person' even after learning about the precise behavior that they now say shows that Flynn is utterly untrustworthy?"

The defense strategy Trump's team reportedly plans to adopt is fairly standard, legal experts say. By impugning the character of the prosecution's star witness  especially one who has already admitted to lying to federal agents  defense lawyers can argue his testimony isn't credible.

Any attacks on Flynn by the defense, however, "would be an uncomfortable 180" given Trump's consistent and public praise of Flynn over the past 10 months, said Jens David Ohlin, a criminal law expert and vice dean at Cornell Law School.

"It is a standard or typical defense strategy, but thats because clients usually listen to their lawyers and keep quiet so as to preserve their options down the line," Ohlin said Thursday.

"Trump didnt do that. Hes repeatedly said over and over again, in private and public, that Flynn is a good guy who has been treated unfairly by the media and by this process. If Trump turns around and impugns Flynns character, it would be an uncomfortable 180. It doesnt withstand rational  or logical  scrutiny."

Flynn pleaded guilty earlier this month to making false statements to federal agents about the nature of his conversations with former Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak during the presidential transition period. Flynn evaded more serious charges related to his undisclosed foreign lobbying work  and alleged involvement in a kidnapping scheme  by agreeing to cooperate with Mueller's ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.

Asked about Flynn's guilty plea earlier this month, Trump lamented what he saw as "unfair" treatment by the FBI and Department of Justice.

Trump tweeted on December 3 that he had to fire Flynn in February because he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence "and the FBI."

That remark jumped out at legal experts who said it could prove that Trump had corrupt intent when he asked former FBI Director James Comey, one day after Flynn resigned, to consider "letting Flynn go."

Trump has also refused to rule out a pardon for the man his legal team reportedly plans to demean, and he continued to praise Flynn's character even after he was forced out of the administration.
President Donald Trump told The New York Times in an interview published Thursday that Eric Holder "totally protected" President Barack Obama while serving as attorney general.

Trump added that he had "great respect for that," lamenting that it was "too bad" his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself earlier this year from the Justice Department's Russia investigation.

"I don't want to get into loyalty, but I will tell you that, I will say this: Holder protected President Obama. Totally protected him," Trump said, adding: "When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I'll be honest."

Trump for months has both publicly and privately stewed over Sessions' recusal from the Russia investigation, which is now being overseen by Robert Mueller after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named him special counsel following Sessions' recusal. Trump has suggested that he would have never hired Sessions for the job had he known that the former Alabama senator would later recuse himself from the investigation into Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign's possible involvement.
President Donald Trump told The New York Times in an interview published Thursday that the investigation into potential collusion between his campaign team and Moscow had strengthened his base and prompted some "great congressmen" to begin "pointing out what a witch hunt the whole thing is."

Trump told The Times that he did not intend to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the investigation.

But while Trump said he expected Mueller would treat him "fairly," his remark about how the investigation had galvanized his supporters is perhaps a better indicator of why Trump may have taken firing Mueller off the table, for now, as it suggests he is aware of, and confident in, his allies' ongoing campaign to undermine and discredit the special counsel.

"Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion," Trump told the newspaper.

He continued:

The most recent attacks on the FBI by Trump and his supporters began after news surfaced that the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General discovered text messages exchanged by two FBI employees, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, during the campaign that expressed disdain for Trump and other political leaders.

Strzok, a veteran counterintelligence agent, was among those overseeing the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server last year. He and Page and were also members of Mueller's team, but Strzok was removed in late July after the texts were discovered, and Page left for unrelated reasons.

A senior Justice Department official and his wife, meanwhile, have come under fire for their reported ties to Fusion GPS  the opposition-research firm that funded the collection of memos known as "the dossier" outlining alleged Trump-Russia collusion. The official, Bruce Ohr, was recently reassigned.

There is no evidence so far that these revelations have affected the public's perception of Mueller or the Russia investigation. A CNN poll released earlier this week found that more Americans approved of how Mueller was handling the investigation than disapproved.

But the incidents have fueled GOP lawmakers' calls either for FBI Director Chris Wray to clean house or for Mueller to resign.

Republican Rep. Francis Rooney on Tuesday said he wanted to see the upper ranks of the FBI purged of politically motivated agents whom he believes were working for "the deep state."

Another Florida congressman, Rep. Matt Gaetz, has accused Mueller and his team of staging a "coup d'etat" against Trump. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio has called the FBI "corrupt" and claimed recently that the bureau was "putting together a plan" last year "to keep Donald Trump from becoming the next president of the United States."

Jordan said earlier this month that he'd been in touch with the White House about Mueller. Gaetz, the first lawmaker to openly demand Mueller's firing, discussed the special counsel's investigation with Trump aboard Air Force One earlier this month ahead of a rally in Florida.

Rep. Ron DeSantis, a House Judiciary Committee member who put forward a provision in August that would have severely limited the scope and funding of Mueller's investigation, was also on the flight with Gaetz and Trump.

GOP Rep. Andy Biggs recently slammed what he called Mueller's "unlimited reach" and "unvetted hires," accusing the special counsel of making "blatantly partisan hires that place the direction of his probe under a cloud of suspicion" and calling on him to "step aside."
If you stay at a Walt Disney World resort in the coming months, you may have less control over when cleaning and maintenance staff enter your room.

Some resorts are beginning to replace "Do Not Disturb" signs on guest rooms with signs that say "Room Occupied," Walt Disney World News Today reports. The change means that resort employees can enter your room while you're in it, but will attempt to alert you before doing so. Employees are now required to enter every room at least once per day.

These changes have gone into effect at the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Polynesian Village Resort, and Contemporary Resort near the Magic Kingdom, with other Walt Disney World resorts to follow soon, according to Walt Disney World News Today.

Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but there is speculation that the changes were put into effect to prevent events like the October shooting that killed 58 people at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Many Walt Disney World resorts have rooms that give guests views of crowded areas below.
The holiday shopping season was a big win for retailers.

But it wasn't because Americans headed out to the mall in droves. Online sales were up 18.1% this year, driving much of the growth in consumer spending.

Visits to the mall, meanwhile, have declined by as much as 50% in recent years, according to an estimate from real estate research firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Like all malls today, America's first modern shopping mall, Northgate Mall, faces tremendous headwinds as American consumers shift their spending patterns. Northgate opened in 1950 in the outer neighborhoods of Seattle, Washington, and has so far survived for nearly 70 years as a hub of commerce.

Simon Property Group, Northgate's owner, has added amenities like couches, phone charging stations, virtual reality experiences, and massage chairs to draw shoppers to the mall  and keep them there.

We visited recently to see how one mall is trying to buck the "retail apocalypse."

Designed by architect John Graham Jr., Northgate Mall pioneered the dumbbell, big-box shape for malls, in which two rows of stores face each other and a department store anchors each end.

For nearly 70 years, the mall has been a hub of commerce for the area. But as American consumers' desires have changed, and amidst the boom in online retail, Northgate has begun to reinvent itself.

Northgate underwent significant remodeling in 2006, when the space was renovated to add new anchor stores like Bed, Bath & Beyond and Barnes & Noble.

The mall was also opened up so stores could be accessed from the outside. In some areas, it makes the mall look like a city block, but it is far from consistent.

Despite the remodeling, the interior still looks like your typical mall. On a weekday just before Christmas, there was a fair amount of foot traffic and the parking lot was filled.

But major anchor stores like J.C. Penney were fairly empty despite what seemed to be a busy day for the mall.

Retailers like Famous Footwear seemed to be empty as well, even though the parking lot was full.

In recent years, many malls have leaned on small specialty stores to drive foot traffic. That appeared to be the case at Northgate. Fuego, a local chain that sells a mix of funky art, novelty items, and clothes, was the busiest store in the shopping center.

ThinkGeek, a smaller retailer that sells "geek culture" novelties and toys mostly from popular franchises like Star Wars, was another busy store.

This was the only store that appeared to be closed in the mall. Northgate does approximately $400 in sales per square foot for non-anchor tenants. The national average is around $474, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Source:

Simon Property Group, the owners of Northgate, has added amenities like couches, phone charging stations, and massage chairs to keep consumers hanging at the mall.

As malls compete with online retail, they've had to offer things that web shopping can't. This virtual reality experience kiosk at Northgate seemed poised to play that role, but it drew little interest from shoppers.

I saw a few kids riding around on these rolling animal vehicles. They seemed like a nightmare for parents.

When Northgate first opened, the center concourse was an open-air sidewalk. The concourse was partially enclosed in 1962 and fully enclosed in the 1970s.

In recent years, urban and suburban development has trended towards mixed-use spaces that combine retail, office space, public parks, and housing. Despite its remodeling, Northgate felt positively stuck in the '90s and early 2000s heyday of malls.

A second mall was built across the street in 2005 anchored by Best Buy and Target, but it's little more than a parking garage with a few stores attached.

A third development, Thorton Place, is located on the other side. It is a mixed-use development that combines more than 500 apartments with a Regal Cinema, a medical clinic, and more than 30,000 square feet of retail space.
Take a look back at some of the biggest environmental changes, events, and catastrophes from the year through these 15 impactful images.

California's Oroville dam  the tallest in the United States  collapsed in February.

From 2011 to 2016, California underwent the worst drought the state had seen in 1,200 years. But after an unprecedented amount of rain in late 2016 and early 2017, the Oroville area's water levels began to rise.

In early February, the Oroville dam reached water-level capacity, which caused a giant hole to open in the middle of the spillway.

Early 2017 temperatures ranked as the hottest in 122 years for the contiguous US.

From April 2016 to March 2017, the US went through an unusually warm period that brought record-high temperatures to the Lower 48 states (everywhere but Alaska and Hawaii), according to the National Oceanic and

A groundbreaking study warned that continuing to burn fossil fuels at the current rate could bring atmospheric carbon dioxide to its highest concentration in 50 million years.

the study published in April, if the world continues to emit greenhouse gases at its current pace,

This fall, the Trump administration took steps towards repealing the Clean Power Plan, which was e

Another alarming study found that the rate of global sea-level rise may have nearly tripled since the 1990s.

Throughout 2017, multiple studies suggested that global sea-level rise is becoming even more dire than previous estimates.

In April, one such study suggested that from 1990 to 2012, the rate of sea-level rise tripled from

Some scientists point to increased ice loss from Greenland and parts of Antarctica, made worse by rising temperatures, as one root cause. Rising sea levels put ocean-side communities at risk of flooding.

Two controversial oil pipelines  the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL  were approved.

Protests against the DAPL and Keystone XL pipelines, which began in 2014, continued in 2017.

The Trump administration officially approved both pipelines this year. The DAPL started delivering oil in May, and the Keystone pipeline extension's construction was greenlit in November.

Opponents to the pipelines argued that each one will lead to more CO2 being emitted, and harm local wildlife, farmland, and water sources.

In early November, the existing Keystone pipeline spilled over 200,000 gallons of oil.

In June, Trump announced that the US will withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate change.

agreement would make the country the only one in the world not signed on to the accord.

The agreement, created in 2015, set a global goal to keep the planet from warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. After that threshold, scientists say, the planet will see irreversible consequences including unpredictable superstorms, dramatic heat waves, increased wildfires, and severe drought.

A Delaware-size iceberg broke off from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf in July.

A giant crack in Antarctica's Larsen C caused a 1.1-trillion-ton iceberg  the third-largest in recorded history  to break off and float away.

Scientists say that the ice chunk, called A-68, will likely lie in the ocean for years until it ultimately melts into sea water.

A-68 won't noticeably raise sea levels, but the rest of the shelf is now less stable than it was before the rift. If its accompanying glacial ice collapses, sea levels could rise by up to four inches.

A total solar eclipse captured America's attention in August.

In August, those within treated to a total solar eclipse (

The Gulf of Mexico experienced a record-breaking hurricane season.

The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season was " target="_blank"extremely active," according to the definition used by the National Hurricane Center.

In August, Hurricane Harvey brought unprecedented rain levels to Houston area, and Irma plowed through theVirgin Islandsslamming into

This summer and fall, monsoons left some cities in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan underwater.

Communities in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan suffered an intense monsoon season that began in late August. Flooding destroyed buildings, breached dams, and killed more than 1,400 people across South Asia.

Meanwhile, more than 500,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh due to violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state, leading to a humanitarian crisis in the region.

A powerful earthquake jolted central Mexico in September.

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake killed more than 200 people in Mexico on September 19.

California endured the deadliest series of wildfires in the state's history throughout September, October, and December.

In 2017, more than 9,050 wildfires raged across California and burned more than 1.2 million acres of land, according to the state's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

In October, 250 wildfires ripped through Northern California, causing more than $9.4 billion in insured property damages. At least 100 people were injured and 44 people were killed in the fires that month.

An earthquake near the Iran-Iraq border killed more than 500 people in November.

In November, the Mount Agung volcano erupted in Bali, Indonesia.

On the Indonesian island of Bali,

As many as 100,000 locals in 22 villages were living in the expanded danger zone, Reuters reported

In December, the Trump administration announced it will shrink the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah by 85%.

Decreasing the size of Bears Ears National Monument by 85% would make the move the largest reduction of a national monument in American history.

The Trump administration also announced plans to cut Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in half.
During a White House news conference, Trump outlined his reasons for leaving the agreement. Many of them, however, were based on questionable data. Here are some of Trump's main arguments for exiting the pact  and what the numbers say about them.

Job losses

Trump suggested that US compliance with the Paris accord could "cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025, according to the National Economic Research Associates."

The report on which that claim is based has been widely criticized by environmental groups. As the World Resources Institute pointed out, the NERA study uses a scenario in which the US industrial sector is forced to reduce the country's overall emissions by nearly 40% in 20 years. That calculation doesn't take into account the role of other sectors in reducing emissions.

The WRI also faults the NERA report for assuming a low rate of clean-energy innovation. That rate was calculated by the Department of Energy as a minimal case that "may underestimate advances." What's more likely, the National Resources Defense Council suggests, is that the development of clean energy technologies will accelerate. Even since 2016, solar costs have decreased by about 8%.

Today, solar jobs vastly outnumber those in coal, and those numbers continue to grow  a recent report from the International Renewably Energy Agency estimated that employment in the solar industry expanded 17 times as fast as the US economy overall in 2016.

Just a tiny temperature decrease

Trump also suggested that the Paris Agreement would lead to only a minuscule reduction in global temperature.

"Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree  think of that, this much  Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100," he said. "Tiny, tiny amount."

A detailed analysis of the impact of the Paris goals by Climate Interactive suggests those numbers are off.

The global temperature will rise  there is no scenario in which there will be an overall reduction. But let's assume that Trump meant a reduction from the projections of temperature increases that would happen without the Paris Agreement.

Under a "business as usual" scenario in which past trends continue, the expected temperature increase in 2100 is 4.2 degrees Celsius (7.6 degrees Fahrenheit). If all nations fully achieve their Paris pledges, however, the average global surface temperature in 2100 is expected to be 3.3 degrees. That means the accord would lead to a reduction of nine-tenths of one degree, not two.

Nine-tenths of a degree on a global scale is huge. Since the industrial revolution, global temperatures on average have risen 0.99 degrees Celsius, according to NASA. That's not so far from .90, and we're already seeing plenty of dramatic changes around the planet. Even a reduction of two-tenths of a degree would not be "tiny"  it would be 20% of the increase we've already seen.

Trump went on: "In fact," he said, "14 days of carbon emissions from China alone would wipe out the gains from America  and this is an incredible statistic  would totally wipe out the gains from America's expected reductions in the year 2030."

That claim also does not appear to be accurate. With the US abandoning its commitments, Climate Interactive calculates that by 2025, the country would emit 6.7 gigatons of CO2 a year instead of the 5.3 gigatons of CO2 a year that the US would emit under the agreement.

As of 2013, China emitted 9.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide a year  which comes out to 0.025 gigatons a day. Fourteen days' worth would be 0.35 gigatons  far less than the annual US decrease.

A negative economic impact on the US

In his speech, Trump suggested that remaining in the agreement would cost the US economy "close to $3 trillion in lost GDP and 6.5 million industrial jobs, while households would have $7,000 less income, and in many cases, much worse than that."

Trump didn't cite a source for that statistic, but he suggested in a speech on April 29 that the cost would be $2.5 trillion  and the nonpartisan website Factcheck.org looked into that claim.

White House spokesman Steven Cheung told Factcheck.org that the number came from a report published by the conservative Heritage Foundation in April 2016.

Factcheck.org ran Heritages analysis by Roberton C. Williams III, a resource economist at the University of Maryland who is a senior fellow at the economic-analysis nonprofit Resources for the Future. Williams said the Heritage estimate was correct based on the methodology the foundation used  the analysts estimated a carbon tax rate of $36, which would increase by 3% each year from 2015 to 2035. With those numbers, the US gross domestic product would take a hit of 0.55% annually through 2035.

But according to calculations done by Resources of the Future, the US could reach its Paris goals with a much lower carbon tax rate over less time (either a constant rate of $21.22 a year until 2025 or a rate that starts at $16.87 and increases by 3% each year in the same period). By those numbers, the US GDP would be negatively affected by about 0.10% to 0.35% a year from now until 2025.

Blackouts and brownouts

By adhering to the goals set in the Paris accord, Trump said, "our country will be at grave risk of brownouts and blackouts." The statement seems to imply that the US needs to use whichever energy sources it can (namely fossil fuels) to keep up with demand for electricity.

This is incorrect. Inclement weather (such as solar and atmospheric storms), animals, falling trees, failing equipment, earthquakes, digging, and lightning most often cause dips or losses in power. High energy demand is also a common cause, though this typically happens only during hot summer days, and it's not from a lack of adequate power.

The root cause is when excess heat  both from heavy electrical loads and a heat wave itself  overburdens, melts, or otherwise damages equipment like electrical transformers and power lines.

Trump also downplayed the significance of rising global temperatures, which is likely to increase overall demand to power grids through increased use of air conditioning. His administration initially froze new energy-efficiency standards from going into effect, which would have exacerbated demand, though it later reversed course (after a coalition of US states sued the administration).

Trump's latest budget  if enacted  would make deep cuts to smart grid, power-grid operations, and other research that could improve the reliability, efficiency, and cost of US energy infrastructure.

"Billions and billions and billions of dollars"

In addition to the impacts Trump suggested the Paris Agreement would have on the US economy, he also suggested that participation would require the US to pay a significant sum to the Green Climate Fund that was set up by the accord.

"So we're going to be paying billions and billions and billions of dollars and we're already way ahead of anybody else," he said. "Many of the other countries haven't spent anything. And many of them will never pay one dime."

The US committed to contribute $3 billion to the fund. That number is indeed higher than any other country, so Trump's statement here isn't entirely wrong.

But the US is also responsible for approximately one-third of the carbon dioxide that has been emitted, which makes the fact that the country is pledging a larger sum of money a bit more logical. Plus, the US contribution is far from the largest per capita  Luxembourg pledged to pay $93.60 per capita, and Sweden pledged $60.54 per capita, compared with $9.30 per capita from the US.
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Having said that, here are some things that Christians can learn from Muslims.

Dedication and faithfulness in prayer

Muslims are known worldwide for keeping their prayer time no matter where they are. Hence, it has become normal to see them open their mats and proceed to pray in public places like the market, airports and so on.

Christians should learn to adopt this attitude when it comes to praying to God, to be unashamed to pray anywhere, to have scheduled times like Muslims do to go to the Heavenly Father in prayer (See James 5:16).

I think this would benefit our prayer lives immensely.

Fasting

Muslims do not joke when it comes to their fasting periods, it would do us some good to not just learn this attitude but also to learn to fast as often as they do.

ALSO READ: What Quran says about Jesus Christ

Almsgiving

Muslims are encouraged to give to the less fortunate, in fact, it is one of the five pillars of their religion. Fun Fact - The rich ones have to pay Zakat in order to take care of the poor.

I wish more Christians could take almsgiving seriously, not doing out of a sense of duty but a cheerful heart because God has been so great to us.

Lets not forget Jesus tells us that whatsoever we do we do to the least of us.

Their absolute submission, surrender, and obedience to Allah

Wouldn't it be great if we were just as dependent on our God? If we put all of our faith, trust in the God we worship? To totally submit and be obedient to our Father in Heaven?

Pulse Nigeria

Their modesty

Muslims are the go-tos when it comes to modesty. Their ladies are covered from head to toe and the men are dressed appropriately.

Sadly, Christians are not as good when it comes to this part. We often rely on the 'God does not care about the outward appearance, He only cares about the heart.' While this may be true, it does not hurt for us to do better in this department.

Just so you know

I am not a Muslim, I am a proud Christian who is not proud to say that Muslims have a great, admirable way about them when it comes to their faith.

I have a friend who used to stay in the Northern part of Nigeria. He told me that seeing the steadfastness of Muslims pushed him to do better, to pray more, read his bible and basically be a better Christian.
The Education Ministry on Thursday bowed to a public outcry and reversed plans to ban English language education in kindergartens and childcare centers.

The ministry said Thursday, a day after announcing the measure, that "no decisions have been made" and that it would "listen to the opinions of the public."

Regional governments were in disarray because they had already notified kindergartens and childcare centers that no more English was to be taught after hours.

One official at the Korea Kindergarten Association said, "The government pushed ahead with the measure without listening to our views. It looks like it pursued the plan without considering how many children will be affected."

Websites were inundated with complaints on Thursday. The ministry's plan was to crack down on overburdening small children with extracurricular study, which is endemic in Korea, and make sure they learn their own language. But critics said the plan would inevitably backfire and drive people into the arms of expensive private crammers.

"I've decided to send my child to an English crammer regardless of the cost," wrote one commenter. "I'll probably have to get a moonlighting job."

Some 4,000 people signed a petition on the Cheong Wa Dae website urging the government to scrap the plan.

English-language classes remain banned in regular hours, which usually end at 1 p.m., but most of the country's 50,000 kindergartens and daycare centers teach English after hours instead.


Since then, a lot of terrible things have been done to the members of the religious group. The latest is the government seizing the groups property.

Officials raid and seize property

World Religion News reports that the Kolomyazhskiy Assembly Hall in St. Petersburg owned by Jehovahs Witnesses has been raided and seized by the Russian authorities.

ALSO READ: How Russia continues to abuse religious freedom of Christians

Reportedly, both the raid and seizure was authorized by a Russian Supreme Court ruling, that permits the Kremlin to seize all properties owned by the Witnesses.

Thankfully, no members of Jehovahs Witnesses were injured during this raid.

According to the attorneys working for Witnesses, the 1,500 seater property has been re-registered to a health center, whose sign has been posted on the gate.
Speaking at society's annual Islamic Vacational Course, IVC, the President of the society, Dr Saheed Ashafa said 4000 pupils were trained on leadership during the first phase of the camping programme.

Apart from the pupils, Ashafa added that about 3000 undergraduates from different institutions would be trained in the second phase of the program.

He said, It gives us delight that we have been able to touch the lives of about 7,000 youths with this camping programme. The delegates have undergone training on leadership, morality and even entrepreneurship. We are delighted with their level of understanding and cooperation.

Our hope is that as the delegates go out of the camping programme, they will effect a change in any society that they find themselves.

ALSO READ:6 societies and clubs fresh students should join on campus

Meanwhile, the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr Idiat Adebule advised the organisers of the programme not to derail from its objectives.

Adebule who was represented by Abdur-Razak Ekemode, a director in the Civil Service Office of Lagos State also urged the pupils to imbibe the spirit of peaceful co-existence.

The 2018 IVC holding in Epe is the 104th edition of the annual holiday program of the Muslim Student Society of Nigerian, Lagos branch.

Muslim students criticise Nigerian leaders

Meanwhile, Dr Saheeed Ashafa while speaking during the formal opening ceremony of the camping program criticised Nigerian ruling class and warned them of the impending death of the country.
According to the Police report, Omowunmi Teleda, the mother of the child was said to have filed a complaint at the Adigbe Police Division that she quickly went out to see her first child that she had with her ex-husband, leaving the six-month-old baby behind with Andrew the suspect.

She told the police that when she returned to the house, she met Precious dead.

Abimbola Oyeyemi, the Police Public Relations Officer, said Omowinmi explained that the baby was healthy when she left home.

The PPRO said, The development made her to suspect her husband, who happened to be the only person with the baby.

Consequent upon her complaint, the Divisional Police Officer, Adigbe division, Sunday Oladipo, detailed detectives to the scene and the suspect was arrested on December 24.

During interrogation, the suspect confessed that to the crime, he then claimed that he killed the baby because he feared that his wife would leave him.

Ahmad Iliyasu, the police spokesman said the state Commissioner of Police, had directed that the case be transferred to homicide section of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for further investigation.
If you visit Costa Rica, here are 4 amazing things to do

1. Climb Volcan Poas  Active volcanos are the most exciting features of Costa Rica's geological composition. This is considered to be the largest active crater in the world at almost 1.5 kilometers wide and 900 feet deep.

There are six in the tiny country, and the most popular one is within easy driving distance of San Jose which is one and a half hours north of the city. The Poas volcano has frequent eruptions, though not major ones. You'll have a good chance of seeing its famous phreatic eruptions if you visit.

2. Discover a Pre-Columbian Gold Museum  Located in the capital city San Jose, this unique museum houses a collection of over 1600 gold pieces from multiple Latin American cultures.

The pieces range in age from 500-1500 A.D., showcasing Pre-Columbian artefacts. The exhibition highlights the technology, use and purpose of the objects displayed, these communities relation to nature and their daily life practices. Where else in the world can you see so much gold in one place?

3. Visit Cartago  This is Costa Ricas first capital city and is one of the oldest communities in Costa Rica. It is a small city not far from its current capital San Jose. Here, you can explore 16th-century ruins that are still famous in this city.

4. Go to Monteverde  High up in the mountains of Costa Rica is the area known as Monteverde. Famous for its Cloud Forest Reserve which was established in 1972. Monteverde has plenty of hiking trails and hanging bridges for walks above the forest canopy.

Once you step foot in Costa Rica, youll understand the meaning of their national motto  Pura Vida meaning Pure Life. It is much more than pure life, Pura Vida is a state of mind  an appreciation of lifes simple pleasures.

Thanks in part to this Pura Vida, Costa Rica is consistently ranked one of the worlds Happiest Countries.
This statement is true of the Eyo masquerade and many other novelties that Lagos hides, ready to show anyone whos willing.

Sometimes, the secrets are the kind that has earned Lagos a subtle reputation for infamy, the scary and the scandalous. On Allen Avenue, for instance, the story becomes one of sex and debauchery as soon as night falls.

ALSO READ: Why keeping Lagos clean will take a collective effort

Here are 5 such streets that Allen Avenue would be proud of:

1. Ayilara Street, Ojuelegba

Surulere has long been one of the main residential suburbs in Lagos. Its many neighbourhoods are dotted with recording studios that have produced icons like OJB Jezreel and Wizkid.

However, Ayilara Street is more famous for its brothels than creative spaces. Ayilara is split into two parts: one goes down Lawanson to join Clegg Street; the other was what Nigerian newspapers described as Sodom and Gomorrah and a prostitution haven.

A fair number of the old hotels now shelter praise and worship sessions on Sunday or have been rented, but at places like Empire Hotel, it is still business as usual.

2. Demurin Road, Ketu

If you have heard of Ketu or lived there, you have heard of the idea of another of Lagos large neighbourhoods, with an improbable balance of young lower-middle-class families and street gangs that form in secondary school.

What you have heard of is Demurin Road. Most of Ketu sprouts from Demurin and through its length, it is punctuated by schools, front shops and apartment buildings where pastors and a colony of yahoo boys live in the same block of four flats.

3. Ojelade Street, Mushin:

Even though it has lost the suffix, Olosa (meaning: the deities), Mushin is still like the crown jewel of chaos in Lagos nether-regions. It is notorious for housing thieves, prostitution, arms stashing and cult wars.

Ojelade Street has helped it to earn this reputation. It is one that set of in-roads that latch on to Ikorodu Road from Onipanu to Ojuelegba.

Dealers in marijuana and pills are scattered along its length but everyone clears out when violence erupts and this happens fairly often, for many reasons.

4. Ipodo Street, Ikeja

One thing that Ipodo does not share with any of the streets above is guile. At one end of the street, there is a shrine to Esu, a rarity even on the mainland.

With that same energy, the cast and crew of Ipodos shenanigans are always out in the open, day or night, with no regard for who sees.

Traders haggle and professionals walk past while beside them, marijuana and cocaine exchange hands in the open.

Drug addicts and destitute men sit beneath the sun ogling commercial sex workers who are there any time of the day looking for customers.

ALSO READ: Olamide showed us why Nigerian music needs a vibrant concert culture

Between all these players, the economics of a troubled neighbourhood is near perfect; which makes it likely that the reports of an Ipodo drug cartel may be true.

5. Broad Street, Lagos Island

This is one of the oldest streets in Lagos. Its colonial architecture sits beside modern skyscrapers that tell two sides of its long history.

Broad Street is at the centre of Lagos Islands financial district and it is home to banks, discount houses, and other similar institutions.

But within the abandoned shells of old banks and dilapidated buildings, another side of Broad street flourishes. The area is the scene of a thickly veiled drug trade where dealers stash substantial quantities of cocaine and heroin.
Describing Barus actions since the fuel crisis as an embarrassment to the Buhari administration the group expressed fears that the issue is threatening the peace and stability of the country.

Speaking at a press conference in Abuja, convener of the group and human rights activist, Philip Agbese, said the worsening fuel scarcity in the country "is an economic terrorism being perpetrated by enemies within the Buhari government

This, to us, is considered to be the height of embarrassment to the Buharis Presidency and the Nigerian people who go through this harrowing experience on a daily basis just to celebrate this season of love with their families and friends, Agbese began.

We have watched the worsening fuel crisis with alarm and concern as Nigerians are coerced into wasting useful man-hours queuing for Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise called petrol, while almost half of the countrys population are denied the most important religious holiday having been prevented from spending Christmas holidays with their families.

This is not the best of times for anyone as a patriot to sit on the fence as the situation is at variance with the welfare policies of the Buharis administration. Anyone that prophesses to love the country must first love the President and at all times be supportive of his well-articulated programs and policies in line with this vision.

ALSO READ: DPR dispenses petrol for free over station's failure to sell at pump price

It is unfortunate that the enemies within have had a field day in the last few days perpetrating this economic terrorism and do not care about what happens to the image and personality of President Buhari who have been trusted by Nigerians with the mandate to redeem them from sufferings and pains inflicted on us by past leaders of this country.

SUN-CO therefore call on Maikanti Baru to immediately resign as NNPC GMD since he has lost the confidence of Nigerians after proving that his loyalty lies with the industry cabal and not for the well-being of the common man.

It is wickedness and callousness the action allegedly exhibited by the GMD and his cronies at the NNPC. It is a further proof that some highly placed persons were deliberately sabotaging the efforts of the President.

The kind of failing that resulted in the current scarcity is therefore the sole responsibility of Baru, who must at this point acknowledge that he has failed Nigerians. He has lost the moral right to continue to preside over the affairs of the NNPC since he has proven helpless in dealing with the problem for which several organizations and opinion leaders have indicted him.

We therefore urge President Muhammadu Buhari to save his government from further incurring the anger of Nigerians by ensuring that Baru is shown the way out if he lacks the decorum to fall on his own sword after the punishment he has imposed on the country at a time when all citizens should be joyous.

We urge Mr. President to immediately name a new leader for NNPC so that Nigerians would not have a repeat of the 2012 scenario when they had to rise up against the government over the handling of fuel issues.

The only understanding after series of meetings and consultations is for fuel to immediately return to the filling stations and let us end this suffering and pains caused by the ineptitude of one man who is abusing his rights and privileges, he added.

The group threatened to organize a nationwide protest against the ineptitude at the NNPC if the fuel scarcity is not resolved.
The Korean military started a defense drill in waters off the country's easternmost islets of Dokdo on Thursday.

The Navy said the two-day biannual exercise is aimed at preventing "outside forces" from coming near Dokdo. It is being staged alongside a combat maneuver and brings together the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Air Force.

Taking part in the drill are a 3,200-ton King Gwanggaeto the Great-class destroyer, P-3C maritime patrol aircraft, F-15K fight jets, and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.


While speaking to State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Friday, December 29, 2017, Dr Baru said the efforts of the corporation has "tamed the monster" that was created by greedy marketers who were hoarding petroleum products at the detriment of Nigerians.

According to Dr Baru, after the public crackdown on a host of establishments caught engaging ion dubious practices, "the situation has been brought into normalcy" especially in Lagos and Abuja.

He said, "I'm happy to report that we have tamed the monster that reared its head as a result of the rumoured price increase about three weeks ago.

"Unfortunately, that rumour instigated a lot of marketers to be very greedy and they decided that their fellow citizens should not enjoy the Christmas holiday and New Year with ease and decided to profiteer, starting by hoarding and diversion of products.

"At the beginning, I did address the press, telling the world that we have sufficient products that will last us 30 days through the New Year into January; but because the marketers wanted to inflict harm and pains on fellow citizens, they decided to hoard products, divert them and in some cases, even smuggled products out of the country.

"This has been tamed by the actions we took and I personally led the war around Abuja and other teams led the war in Lagos and other parts of the country.

"As of this (Friday) morning, I have gone round the Abuja metropolis and I have seen that the queues have reduced significantly to almost normal level and few motorists that I heard speaking on morning programmes concerning what I have seen said they have not spent up to 30 minutes to fuel their car.

"So, the monster has been tamed in Lagos, the situation has been brought into normalcy as far as two days ago and we are also achieving the same thing in all other cities."

The NNPC boss reiterated the corporation's assurance that there's enough petroleum products to last the country for the next 30 days.

Fuel scarcity crisis

The country has been plagued with the crippling crisis of fuel scarcity since the opening week of December, with fuel queues at filling stations growing longer everyday.

The NNPC has made several promises to solve the problem with the commission blaming the problem as a sabotage by marketers who are hoarding fuel.
In a report by Punch, Adekanmbi was arrested on Thursday, December 28, 2017 by men from the state. headquarters of the Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State.

The Peoples Democratic Party chieftain was planning said to be planning his annual thanksgiving ceremony as well as the inauguration of a water fountain he constructed in the town, when he was arrested.

Adekanmbi's arrest has sparked off allegations by politicians in the state - most especially PDP loyalists - who feel the state government led by Governor Rotimi Akeredolu was behind the arrest.

Adekanmbi accuses Akeredolu of political vendetta

Speaking with journalists at the State Criminal Investigation Department office, in Akure, Adekanmbi accused Akeredolu of allegedly masterminding this arrest out of sheer vendetta.

He said, This is a clear case of political vendetta and an attempt to silence political opponents. This is not about political gathering or rally, but we only planned the annual thanksgiving which has been in existence for over 10 years.

No arrest or intimidation can silence me and my followers. This will not affect my love for my people and the urge to bring development to the ancient town of Owo. I am ready to work hand in hand with any individual or organisation toward developing Owo town irrespective of the political beliefs or leaning.

ALSO READ: Mimiko left over N220bn debt  Akeredolu says

Adekanmbi also said he was surprised when he was referred to the state CID, explaining that his arrest was in connection with a petition written against him over a fracas in Owo last November.

Ondo Police reacts

The Ondo state Police command has also reacted to the arrest of the political chieftain.

The states Police Public Relations Officer, Femi Joseph, denied the arrest of the former commissioner by the command, saying he was only invited to clear the air on certain issues.

Joseph assured the people that the PDP chieftain would be released as soon as the command was through with its findings.

ALSO READ: Mimiko says he left N20 billion in Ondo State accounts

Akeredolu's aide refutes allegations

Meanwhile, the Ondo state Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Yemi Olowolabi, has described Adekambis allegation as totally untrue.

Olowolabi said, The governor is too busy with developmental projects and programmes for the people of the state than to engage in political vendetta.

Akeredolu is a politician who believes in equality, justice and fair play and would not engage in such kind of politics or political vendetta.

If Adekanmbi has been invited by the state police command, he should try and honour the invitation rather than pointing fingers towards the direction of the state governor.
The command's spokesman, DSP Joseph Alabi, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lagos that the allegations could not be substantiated by those making them.

NAN recalls that two incidents of alleged poaching were recently reported, the latest being that which was said to have occurred on a chartered flight from on Dec. 26.

However, Alabi said the command, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and other security agencies, were still investigating the alleged incidents.

According to him, so far, the purported victims have failed to appear before the inter-agency committee and have also not lodged any complaint with the police.

He said: "If anything of such happens at the airport, the victim is expected to report it to the police, but nobody has come to us to make any such report.

"We have our officers who patrol the airside with the FAAN security operatives and it is practically impossible for anyone to burgle an aircraft in motion as being alleged."

ALSO READ: Tiwa Savage reveals how her luggage was stolen at Lagos airport
Idris, who was represented at the occasion on Friday by the Commissioner of Police in charge of Police Cooperative Society, Mr Sholla David, said apart from fighting crimes, the police also showed love, care for members of the public.

What we have come to do is just to show love to people that needs love. Out of the little we have, we are here to show we care.

It is not only you seeing the police running after criminals, we are friends of the society and we are friends of the public.

All we have come to do in this festive season is to show love to these little ones.

We dont know what they will be in future; we know they are the future leaders.

We are not here in religion; we have Christians and Muslims here. We are diverse in the Nigeria Police. And in diversity lays our strength.

In professionalism, we put up our best. I commend the proprietress and management of the orphanage for keeping the children well and healthy, Idris said.

Responding, the proprietress of the home, Mrs Hannah Omeze, commended the police boss for the visit, stressing that their presence at the home had changed their orientation about the Nigeria Police.

We appreciate the visit today. We are surprised to see police visiting. We have always thought that, it is only crime fighting that police is known.

But, this visit has changed our perception, our orientation about Nigeria police, Omeze said.
President Buhari in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, in Abuja on Friday, also commended the Liberian people on the peaceful conduct of the historic presidential run-off election.

He described the peaceful conduct of the election as another plus on Africas democratic scoreboard.

The President equally applauded the efforts of the National Election Commission of Liberia, as well as regional and international observers who had contributed immensely to the electoral process and the strengthening of post-conflict democracy in the West African country.

While describing Weahs victory as an affirmation of the will of the Liberian people to remain united, peaceful and prosperous, Buhari pledged Nigerias readiness to work with Liberia on issues of mutual interest at bilateral, regional and global levels for the benefit of citizens of both countries.

The Nigerian leader also commended outgoing President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,under whose 12-year watch Liberia had transformed from being a pariah state to a country doing remarkably well on many fronts.

He noted that under Sirleaf, Liberia had performed well in areas such as, women and civil rights issues, peace building and consolidation, ECOWAS and the Mano River Union.

According to him, Sirleaf deserves special commendation for the statesmanship she has shown in ensuring free and fair elections that will pave the way for a peaceful transfer of political power from one democratically elected leader to another for the first time in 73 years.
Saraki gave the commendation in response to Wednesdays announcement by Nigeria Air Force that the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Stuart Symington, had presented Letters of Offer and Acceptance to Nigeria.

This represents the official American governments offer to sell defence articles and services to Nigeria during a visit to Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshall Sidique Abubakar.

In a statement by his Special Adviser, Media and Publicity, Mr Yusuph Olaniyonu the president of the Senate said the development was a positive indication that Americans were genuinely desirous of helping to enthrone peace in Nigeria.

He promised that the Senate would support the plan by the Buhari Adminstration to purchase high powered security equipment to strengthen the armed forces.

He noted that I recall on Aug. 28 when I received an eight-man U.S. Congressional delegation headed by Sen. Christopher Coons of Delaware and we discussed on the need to lift embargo on sale of weapons to Nigeria by U.S.

My gratitude and that of my colleagues go to Sen. Coons and other members of his delegation for giving Congressional backing to the arms sale arrangement.

They have kept their words and back it up with action. During that visit, they promised to ensure that the arms sale embargo against Nigeria was lifted. Now, we can see that they are true partners in the fight against terrorism in Nigeria.

ALSO READ: Air Force says Boko Haram is back in Sambisa forest

Saraki urged Nigerias partners across the world to emulate the U.S. by also supporting the anti-insurgency campaign of the present administration through gestures like sale of arms and other assistance toward rebuilding, reconstructing and rehabilitating war-ravaged areas in the North East.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Fayemi made the statement while addressing newsmen at his Isan-Ekiti country home shortly after hosting APC leaders from across the state.

He urged Nigerians not to use the current fuel scarcity to rate President Muhammadu Buharis performances, saying What we are witnessing is just a normal curve in the life of any administration.

"We will get over it and move on, but largely President has not disappointed Nigerians, he said.

The Minister didnt say categorically whether he was still nursing governorship ambition.

He said the APC was incurably committed to making sure that Ekiti rejoined the league of developing states by ensuring that the party won the 2018 governorship poll.

What the PDP wanted to come back and do is stealing.

The options for Nigerians in 2019 is not to return to the old age of criminalisation and brigandage by voting for the PDP.

There is nothing to convince Nigerians that they have changed with the shenanigans that characterised their national convention and poor performances by their governors.

Up to now, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and his henchmen have not apologisedabout how they ran the country aground.

 So, there is nothing to suggest that PDP remains a credible alternative to APC in 2019, he said.

Fayemi discountenanced the attacks by his political adversaries that he had not used his ministerial position for the benefit of the state.

He said: What I have done is measurable and clear. This government has begun the construction of a federal secretariat and housing estate in Ekiti and the rail-line was extended to this state in the Federal Governments proposal due to my intervention.

About 4,000 Ekiti indigenes are benefitting from N-power and very soon it will go up to 12,000. The proposal for kaolin exploration in Ekiti has just been completed, that of the bauxite will begin soon.
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill certified the results of the December 12 special election and dismissed claims of voter fraud by the campaign of the defeated Republican candidate, Roy Moore.

"This election has been conducted with the utmost integrity," Merrill told a news conference. "It's been safe, secure. It's been credible."

With Jones' upset victory in Alabama confirmed, the Republican party of President Donald Trump now holds 51 seats in the Senate and the Democrats have 49 -- the slimmest of majorities.

Jones, the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Republican bastion Alabama in 25 years, will be sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on January 3 when Congress returns to Washington after the holiday break.

"I am looking forward to going to work for the people of Alabama," Jones, a 63-year-old former federal prosecutor, said in a statement.

"I will be an independent voice and work to find common ground with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get Washington back on track and fight to make our country a better place for all."

In his own statement after the results were certified, Moore repeated his charge that the election was "fraudulent."

"I have stood for the truth about God and the Constitution for the people of Alabama," the conservative Christian said. "I have no regrets."

Moore did not say, however, whether he would seek a recount. He has 48 hours in which to do so.

Merrill said the allegations of voting irregularities by Moore's team had been thoroughly investigated and found to be baseless, while a judge threw out a suit seeking to delay the results certification.

22,000-vote margin

Jones won 49.97 percent of the vote compared to Moore's 48.34 percent, a margin of nearly 22,000 votes out of 1.35 million cast, officials said -- a record for a special election.

The Alabama result dealt a stinging blow to Trump, who had thrown his support behind the 70-year-old Moore, a former chief justice of the state's Supreme Court.

Moore appeared to be the favorite in the contest to fill the Senate seat held by Jeff Sessions, who is now Trump's attorney general.

And Trump had easily captured the state in last year's presidential election.

Moore, who has suggested the 9/11 attacks may have happened because of a lack of faith in God and argued Muslims should be barred from holding office, had wanted to bring his fiery brand of Christian religious activism to Washington.

But his campaign was rocked in the final days of the race by allegations by several women that he had assaulted, molested or pursued them when they were teenagers -- and he was in his 30s, working as an assistant district attorney.

One said he had touched her inappropriately when she was 14.

Late Wednesday, Moore launched a last-minute legal challenge of the results, with his campaign citing "irregularities" in 20 precincts in Jefferson County, which it said were "enough to reverse the outcome of the election."

To back up the claims, Moore's team cited mathematician Richard Charnin, a conspiracy theorist who also asserts the 2004 presidential election and 2016 Democratic presidential primary were rigged.

The complaint also contained an affidavit from Moore "stating that he successfully completed a polygraph test confirming the representations of misconduct made against him during the campaign are completely false."

But Montgomery County Circuit Judge Johnny Hardwick threw out the complaint.

Controversy

Moore served twice as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court but was relieved of his duties on both occasions.

jpegMpeg4-1280x720The first time was in 2003 for refusing a judge's order to remove a granite monument of the 10 Commandments from the state supreme court building.
"Do not turn a blind eye: The heirs of Nazism have come into a position of power in the new Austrian government," said the open letter, published Thursday on French newspaper Le Monde's website.

Led by European Grassroots Antiracist Movement president Benjamin Abtan, the statement was signed by international figures including former French and Spanish foreign ministers.

FPOe secretary-general Harald Vilimsky said in a statement Friday that the "so-called" boycott came from "retired leftist politicians trying to get publicity".

"No serious current politician will attach importance to these voices from the political past," said Vilimsky.

The letter was "the last-ditch attempt of the united left to do harm to the new Austrian government", he added.

Vilimsky said FPOe ministers, who were sworn in mid-December were "honourable, competent and beyond reproach".
The 33-year-old Briton will speak on "Challenges of the Western World", while Gotz Kubitschek, a figure linked to Germany's "neue-rechte" movement will also deliver a keynote speech.

Other scheduled speakers include French philosopher Pascal Bruckner, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto and an MEP from Fidesz, Hungary's ruling rightwing party led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Yiannopoulos casts himself as a gay crusader for free speech and against "political correctness" in all its forms -- and has revelled in provoking the outrage of America's liberal left, which accuses him of spreading hate.

But he lost a book deal and resigned from an editorial position at the right-wing news site Breitbart last February amid a storm triggered by a video leaked on Twitter in which he seemed to condone paedophilia.

The Budapest event comes shortly before a general election expected in April when the fiercely anti-immigration Orban, like Yiannopoulos a staunch fan of US President Donald Trump, is forecast to win a third consecutive term in office.

A pro-Orban news-site called Yiannopoulos "one of the architect's of Trump's success" and his upcoming visit a "historic moment".

"It will be a dream come true for many," said PestiSracok.hu.

In 2014 however, Hungary banned a conference of the US-based National Policy Institute led by a Yiannopoulos associate, the white supremacist leader of the so-called "alt-right" movement Richard Spencer.
Tourist taxis launched by the Seoul Metropolitan Government nine years ago to provide visitors with quality transport are likely go out of service because they are too expensive and losing money.

The taxis have been used by fewer than one percent of tourists since 2009. The city government has pumped a whopping W8.64 billion in subsidies into the service over the last nine years (US$1=W1,070).

The city kicked off the project by recruiting drivers who spoke some English, Japanese and Chinese and proved it by sitting a written and oral test.

But their flat fare works out about 20 percent higher than regular metered taxis, with a trip from Incheon International Airport to downtown Seoul costing W55,000 to W75,000 (US$1=W1,070). The city government at the time thought that foreigners would still prefer them because of the flat rate but has been proved disastrously wrong.

Tourists are giving the exclusive hire desks at Incheon and Gimpo airports a wide berth and heading straight to the regular taxis, airport subway or airport bus.
The crew was shooting a documentary in Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw.

Expecting to receive a fine, they confessed to flying the drone but were instead sentenced to two months in jail under Myanmar's aircraft act.

On Friday morning the group was released from a jail north of the capital after a court dropped additional charges that carried between three and five more years in prison.

"They were all released this morning at 7:00 am from Yamethin prison," lawyer Khin Maung Zaw told AFP.

He added that the two foreign journalists were being taken directly to Yangon international airport for flights out of the country, while the two Myanmar nationals have already been reunited with their families.

Aung Naing Soe, the local reporter who spent his 27th birthday behind bars, said he hoped other detained journalists in Myanmar would soon be released too.

At least 11 reporters have been arrested in the former junta-run country in 2017.

Press freedom concerns

Several have been released but two Reuters journalists remain in custody and are facing up to 14 years in prison under the draconian colonial-era Official Secrets Act for allegedly possessing classified documents.

Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27 -- Myanmar nationals who had been reporting for the news agency on a military-led crackdown on Rohingya Muslims -- were arrested a fortnight ago after they were invited to meet police for dinner.

They were remanded in custody for a further two weeks after an emotional reunion with family members at a brief court hearing on Wednesday -- the first time the pair had been allowed access to relatives, colleagues or lawyers.

"I also hope and demand that the other similar cases like us ... will be set free," Aung Naing Soe told AFP, adding that authorities have not returned his crew's phones, computers or drone.

The TRT crew's arrest came with ties more strained than ever between Myanmar and Turkey, whose president has lambasted the mainly Buddhist nation over its persecution of Rohingya Muslims.

The UN has also accused Myanmar's army of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against the minority, some 655,000 of whom have fled an army crackdown for Bangladesh since late August.

In September Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Myanmar was incubating "Buddhist terror" that amounted to genocide.

TRT has not confirmed the subject of the documentary but said the reporters told Myanmar's Ministry of Information about their filming plans in advance.
Among the stains on his presidency have been allegedly fostering a culture of government corruption and leading the country into a quagmire of low growth and record unemployment.

He stood down as ANC party chief at a conference earlier this month but remain as national president ahead of the 2019 election.

As leader of the late Nelson Mandela's party, which has won every election since South Africa became a democracy in 1994, Zuma easily won a new five-year term in 2014.

The son of a domestic worker, he has "a very strong appeal" to the working class and the poor, says Sdumo Dlamini, head of the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), an ANC ally.

"He is a people's person and he has grown through the ranks of the working class. He knows the suffering of the ordinary folk."

Grassroots support

Born on April 12, 1942, in the Nkandla rural hamlet in KwaZulu-Natal province, Zuma had a rapid political ascent.

Popularly referred to as "JZ", he commands loyalty from ANC grassroots supporters awed by his journey from uneducated youth to president, with a 10-year stint as an apartheid-era political prisoner on Robben Island along the way.

When he took the reins of the ANC in 2007 in a putsch against ex-president Thabo Mbeki, Zuma inherited a party riddled with divisions.

Tensions have only deepened as the ANC has been accused of losing its moral compass.

As criticism of his reign mounted, Zuma has maintained a cheerful public facade, often chuckling when allegations against him are repeated.

But he has been significantly weakened as increasingly senior ANC figures have criticised him in public.

He was forced into a humiliating climbdown in 2015 after firing a minister of finance and appointing a man widely seen as a stooge.

As the national currency, the rand, went into free-fall, Zuma bowed to pressure and re-appointed Pravin Gordhan, an admired former finance minister, to the key post.

In a tussle that symbolised his tenacious grip over the ANC, Zuma finally got the finance minister of his choice in March this year when Gordhan was ousted in a midnight reshuffle.

In 2016, Zuma agreed to pay back some of the public money spent on his private residence at Nkandla -- backing down in the face of a stinging Constitutional Court rebuke.

On Friday the court again added to his woes by ruling that Parliament had not done enough to censure him over the scandal and needed to establish an impeachment mechanism for a sitting president.

He has also been accused of corrupt dealings with the wealthy Gupta family, even allegedly granting them influence over his cabinet appointments.

Zulu warrior

Zuma's private life is as colourful as his political career.

A proud traditionalist, he often swaps tailored suits for full leopard-pelt Zulu warrior gear, engaging in energetic ground-stomping tribal dances during ceremonies in his village.

At ANC rallies, he is often the first to break into tuneful song.

In the past, he relished leading supporters in the rousing anti-apartheid struggle song "Umshini Wami" (Bring Me My Machine Gun), which became his signature tune.

The teetotaller and non-smoker has four wives and at least 20 children.

He joined the ANC as a teenager, becoming the strategic and ruthless head of intelligence in the underground organisation.

Before taking office, Zuma dismayed the nation during his 2006 rape trial when he told the court he had showered after having unprotected sex with his young HIV-positive accuser to avoid, he said, contracting the virus.

The claim incensed safe-sex campaigners -- not least because Zuma was head of the country's national AIDS council at the time.

Zuma was acquitted of rape but is often mocked in newspaper cartoons and depicted with a shower nozzle sprouting from his bald head.

At Mandela's memorial service in 2013, he was loudly booed by ordinary South Africans in front of world leaders.

During Zuma's time in power, South Africa has also been rocked by increasing social unrest over the failure to provide housing and basic services.
Four evacuations took place on Tuesday and another group of 12 made it out late Wednesday, but a top humanitarian envoy questioned a deal under which medical emergencies are used as bargaining chips.

A total of 29 emergency medical cases are expected to be evacuated under a deal with the government that saw rebels release 26 individuals, including workers detained during fierce clashes with the army in March.

The numbers are still a far cry from the nearly 500 patients in the Damascus suburb the UN said weeks ago would die if they did not urgently receive better treatment.

"Yesterday we evacuated 12 patients together with their family members, the majority of them are children," International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Ingy Sedky said.

At the Syrian Red Crescent headquarters in Douma, an AFP correspondent saw the latest group of evacuees waiting for ambulances to pick them up.

Among them was Abdel Rahman, a seven-month-old baby with respiratory assistance in his mother's arms. A Red Crescent worker tried to make another baby smile.

"Most of them suffer from cancer, chronic diseases and heart diseases," Sedky said, adding that the evacuees were transferred to Damascus.

From the list of 500 urgent cases announced in November at least 16 have already died for lack of medical assistance.

Around 400,000 people live in the Eastern Ghouta area on the edge of the Syrian capital.

The enclave is controlled by rebels, the dominant faction among them Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), and has been under siege by the government for four years.

Exchange

Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council and currently a UN special envoy for humanitarian access in Syria, was critical of the deal that allowed the patients to leave.

The agreement between the rebels and the government was reached with support from Turkey, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and led to the release of 26 men held by Jaish al-Islam rebels.

It is "not a good agreement if they exchange sick children for detainees that means children become bargaining chips in some tug of war," Egeland told the BBC.

"That shouldn't happen. They have a right to the evacuation and we have an obligation to evacuate them," he said.

According to the Observatory, the first five released by the rebels are workers who were caught in the fighting earlier this year.

Among them are civilian hostages who had been held for several years as well as pro-regime fighters, said the British-based monitor's head Rami Abdel Rahman, without providing further details on the exchange.

It was not immediately clear when the next batch of patients would be evacuated.

Mohammed Alloush, a leader with Jaish al-Islam, said the total number of hostages and prisoners his group would release would match the 29 medical evacuations.

The Eastern Ghouta region is one of four "de-escalation" zones agreed in May in a deal brokered by government backers Russia and Iran and rebel supporter Turkey.
Charge d'affaires Todd Robinson had a "frank" discussion with Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza for 20 minutes, in which he asked for Joshua Holt, a 25-year-old Mormon missionary from the US state of Utah, to be freed, the statement said without giving further details.

Holt was arrested by Venezuelan intelligence officers on June 30, 2016 at his home on the outskirts of Caracas.

He is being held in the headquarters of the SEBIN intelligence agency under accusations of possessing weapons, being a spy and plotting against President Nicolas Maduro.

His family, which rejects the charges, says Holt's health has deteriorated in captivity.

His detention is one of several thorny issues festering between the United States and Venezuela.

Relations between the two nations have long been fraught and have worsened as US President Donald Trump's government has ratcheted up sanctions on Maduro, whose tightening grip on power has seen him criticized as a "dictator."
His remarks came a week after Catalan separatist parties claimed victory in a divisive snap election.

Madrid had called the poll after Catalan lawmakers declared independence on October 27, triggering Spain's worst political crisis since democracy was reinstated following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Following the declaration, Rajoy had sacked Catalonia's government, dissolved its parliament and stripped the region of its treasured autonomy.

Puigdemont fled to Brussels to avoid arrest over charges linked to rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds.

Other independence leaders, including Puigdemont's former deputy Oriol Junqueras, are behind Spanish bars pending trial.

Rajoy reiterated Friday that a vote to choose a new Catalan president would take place within 10 days after the new regional parliament reconvenes on January 17.

Puigdemont's advisors are currently looking into whether he can run in next month's ballot from abroad.

Although the unionist Ciudadanos had the biggest share of the vote in the October ballot, three separatist groupings headed by Puigdemont retained their parliamentary majority.

The pro-independence parties have said they no longer plan to push for independence unilaterally and favour a negotiated settlement instead.
The ban of the four vessels -- the Ul Ji Bong 6, Rung Ra 2, Sam Jong 2 and Rye Song Gang 1 -- brings the UN's total number of blocked ships to eight. The United States requested the most recent ban along with measures targeting ships registered in other countries, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

But China only agreed to target the four ships flying North Korean flags, diplomats said, as part of international efforts to curb Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs.

"Only four ships have been accepted" for the ban but "the procedure remains open" to include other vessels in the future, one diplomat said.

The list submitted by the US in December had also included ships flying flags from Belize, China, Hong Kong, Palau and Panama.

Shortly before the Council decision US President Donald Trump -- who has often hailed China's efforts to put pressure on North Korea -- sharply criticized Beijing for failing to cut off Pyongyang's oil supply.

"Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea," Trump said on Twitter.

"There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!"

It was not immediately clear if Trump was referring to the report or US intelligence in his tweet, or if he was accusing China -- the North's main ally -- of directly violating sanctions targeting Pyongyang.

Transshipment at sea

In 2017, the Security Council has slapped three sets of sanctions on North Korea: one on August 5 targeting the iron, coal and fishing industries; another set on September 11 aimed at textiles and limiting oil supply; and the most recent on December 22 focused on refined petroleum products.

The US has denounced trafficking of banned goods that allows North Korea to stock up, particularly the transfer of cargo between different ships on the high seas.

Blocking suspected vessels from ports -- except in the case of humanitarian need as determined by the council's sanctions committee -- is provided for in the August resolution.

On October 5, the UN had already identified four ships "carrying prohibited goods," resulting in a ban on port access that was a "first in United Nations" history, according to Hugh Griffiths, part of a UN panel of experts monitoring the application of sanctions on Pyongyang.

Those four vessels were registered in the Comoros, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Cambodia and North Korea, and were targeted for the illegal transport of coal, iron and North Korean fish.

South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, citing government sources in Seoul, reported earlier this week that US satellites had spotted Chinese ships selling oil to North Korean vessels dozens of times since October.
The interrogation came a week after Kuczynski survived an impeachment motion in the opposition-dominated Congress over the same matter.

The motion was launched on accusations that Kuczynski, a 79-year-old former Wall Street banker, had lied to cover up his ties to Odebrecht.

After initial denials, Kuczynski this month admitted he had taken money from Odebrecht for what he and the Brazilian company insisted were legitimate consulting fees.

The money was received between 2004 and 2013, a period during part of which Kuczynski was economy minister and head of cabinet for then-president Alejandro Toledo.

Odebrecht has admitted to paying millions of dollars in bribes to top officials in several Latin American countries to secure lucrative and inflated public works contracts. It has paid a record $2.6 billion in fines to the US, Brazilian and Swiss governments.

$5 mn in payments

The company has said it paid $20 million in kickbacks to Toledo, whom Peru wants extradited from the United States to face charges.

Kuczynski survived the impeachment vote because Kenji Fujimori, a lawmaker and son of a disgraced former president, Alberto Fujimori, drained some votes away from the main opposition Fuerza Popular party led by his sister Keiko Fujimori.

Three days later, Kuczynski pardoned Alberto Fujimori, who had been serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses, including several murders by death squads, as well as corruption during his brutal 1990-2000 rule.

Kuczynski said the pardon was on humanitarian grounds, because Alberto Fujimori, 79, was said by his doctors to be in frail health.

Keiko Fujimori turned up to the prosecutors' office almost at the same time as Kuczynski, to also answer questions over Odebrecht funding for her electoral campaigns.

Kuczynski's interrogation was meant to have taken place a week ago, but was postponed because of the impeachment moves in Congress. The president had already been questioned before, in March, on the same matter.
On Wednesday, authorities in Kiev and the rebels who control large parts of eastern Ukraine exchanged more than 300 prisoners, in one of the largest such exchanges since the outbreak of the insurgency almost four years ago.

"This exchange is one step toward implementation of the Minsk agreements" signed in February 2015, the US State Department said in a statement.

The peace deal, brokered by Germany and France, led to a reduction in fighting but is still violated almost daily.

The US called on both sides to "fully implement their Minsk commitments including through a true 'all-for-all' detainee exchange; a full ceasefire; the withdrawal of heavy weapons; safe and secure access for OSCE Special Monitoring Mission monitors; and humanitarian access to the conflict zone."

"Russia, which started this conflict and perpetuates it through active leadership of military units on the ground that attack Ukrainian positions daily, must commit to bring it to an end," the State Department said.

The war in the former Soviet republic broke out in April 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea the previous month. It has already claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Russia of funneling troops and arms across the border.

Moscow has denied the claims despite overwhelming evidence that it has been involved in the fighting and its explicit political support for the rebels.

The United States reiterated its call for a peacekeeping force with a "broad mandate for safety and security across the entire conflict zone" that would also include "control of the international border, and responsibility for ensuring the cantonment of heavy weapons."
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Prosecutors appeal sentence of former Russian Deputy Culture Minister Pirumov again

MOSCOW, December 29 (RAPSI)  Prosecutors have again filed an appeal against sentence given to ex-Deputy Culture Minister Grigory Pirumov, who had been found guilty of embezzling public funds allocated for restoration of cultural heritage objects, the Moscow City Courts press office has told RAPSI.

Prosecutors have asked to overturn a decision issued by the court on December 19 and to send the case for review to an appeals court.

On December 19, the Moscow City Court toughened punishment for Pirumov. The court imposed a 1-million-ruble fine ($17,000) on ex-official and deprived him of the second-class medal of the Order of Merit for the Motherland.

Prosecutors in their appeal demanded to sentence the defendant to 5 years in prison. Defense lawyer Fedor Kupriyanov and victims in the case asked the court to uphold the initial sentence.

In October, the Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Pirumov to 1.5 years in a penal colony. The court took into consideration the time Pirumov spent in detention and freed him in the courtroom.

The defendant pleaded guilty in full and his case was reviewed under special procedure. Prosecutor in the case noted that Pirumov met all conditions of his deal with investigators.

Other defendants in the case are head of the Center of restoration Oleg Ivanov, and director of the Ministrys department of property management and investment policy Boris Mazo, project manager of companies Stroykomplekt and Baltstroy Vladimir Svanbek, BaltStroy manager Alexander Kochenov, businessman Andrey Kokushkin and ex-director of the State Center of Contemporary Art Mikhail Mindlin.

In late August, BaltStroy head Dmitry Sergeyev received a 4.5-year suspended sentence. According to the prosecutor, the fraud involving Sergeyev resulted in the embezzlement of 71 million rubles ($1.2 million) and the defendant himself unlawfully obtained 11 million rubles ($188,000).

In June, it was revealed that former Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Pirumov and other defendants in the case paid about 163 million rubles in damages (about $2.7 million).

Investigators believe that between 2012 and 2016 the defendants embezzled over 160 million rubles allocated on restoration of the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow, Ivanovsky Convent in Moscow and other objects across Russia.

In December 2016, Dmitry Medvedev, the Chairman of the Russian Government, relieved Pirumov of his post.
Russian court sentences Browder to 9 years in prison for deliberate bankruptcy

MOSCOW, December 29 (RAPSI, Nikita Shiryayev)  The Tverskoy District Court of Moscow on Friday sentenced Hermitage Capital head William Browder to 9 years in prison in absentia for deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion, RAPSI correspondent reports from the courtroom.

Additionally, Browder was fined 200,000 rubles (about $3,500) and prohibited from running business in Russia for 3 years.

His business partner Ivan Cherkasov received an 8-year prison term and a 200,000-ruble fine in this case.

Moreover, the court granted a civil lawsuit and recovered 4.3 billion rubles (about $75 million) from the defendants in favor of the Russian Federation.

Browder has been charged with several economic crimes, including deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion, his attorney Alexander Antipov has told RAPSI earlier. Investigation into Browder was completed within the shortest possible time, from February 8 to 17, 2017, the lawyer added. However, neither the defendant nor his legal team were notified about investigation. According to Antipov, this fact exemplifies secret justice and violates the law.

Prosecutors claim that the defendants caused damage estimated at over 4 billion rubles. The businessmen, residing in the United Kingdom, were put on the international wanted list.

In February 2017, the Tverskoy District Court arrested the defendants in absentia. However, the United Kingdom refused to extradite its nationals on Russias request.

In 2013, a Russian court sentenced Browder in absentia to 9 years in a penal colony. The court found that between 1997 and 2002, Hermitage Capital auditor Sergey Magnitsky created and applied an illegal tax evasion scheme in the interests of Browder.

Magnitsky worked for Firestone Duncan and represented Hermitage Capital, which the Russian authorities accused of tax evasion. Magnitsky was arrested on fraud charges in November 2008 and found dead in a Moscow detention center in November 2009. The lawyers death provoked an international outcry.

In July 2013, Moscows Tverskoy District Court found Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion and closed the case due to his death. According to the case materials, Magnitskys and Hermitage Capital director William Browders actions cost Russia over 500 million rubles (over $8 million).
Ex-head of Russian Border Agency gets 9 years in prison for embezzlement

MOSCOW, December 29 (RAPSI)  Moscows Meshchansky District Court on Friday sentenced former head of the Federal Border Development Agency Dmitry Bezdelov to 9 years in prison and fined him 1 million rubles ($17,400) for embezzling about 500 million rubles ($8.7 million), the courts spokesperson Yulia Kotomina told RAPSI.

His accomplices were also found guilty, and received prison terms ranging from 2 to 8 years in prison.

A prosecutor earlier demanded 10 years in prison for Bezdelov, 9 years for his former deputy Boris Khaitovich, and jail terms varying from 3 to 8 years for seven other defendants.

In December 2016, the Meschansky District Court of Moscow ruled to return the case against Bezdelov to the Prosecutor Generals Office. The case was also consolidated with similar cases against other defendants. Earlier, lawyer Boris Kozhemyakin expressed an opinion that cases may be united because of potential existence of documents proving innocence of the agencys ex-head in another case. In April 2017, the Moscow City Court upheld consolidation of the cases.

Investigators claim that in 2009, Bezdelov, then head of the Federal Border Development Agency, conspired with a number of other people to embezzle public funds allocated for the construction of checkpoints on the state border. From September 2009 to May 2013, they allegedly stole and laundered over 490 million rubles.

Bezdelov resigned from his post in October 2013 after a probe had revealed inappropriate use of budget funds by the agency. He was arrested in Rome in October 2014 after he had been put on the international wanted list. Italy's court of appeals upheld the decision to extradite Bezdelov to Russia in October 2015. The Supreme Court left the judgment intact.
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Dr Priya Varghese's appointment to the Associate Professor post at Kannur University was withheld by the High Court earlier this week.
Fourteen lives have been lost; the BMC should be charged with murder for this loss of lives, says Congress MLA Nitesh Rane.

IMAGE: An aerial view of the damage caused by the fire at Mumbai's Kamala Mills on Thursday night. Photograph: Sahil Salvi.

On Friday afternoon Nitesh Rane, Maharashtra Congress legislator and son of former chief minister Narayan Rane, while visiting Mumbais Kamala Mills, where 14 people were killed in a fire at two pubs on Thursday night, lashed out at the alleged corruption in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the countrys richest civic body, and the Mumbai police.

Speaking to Rediff.coms Prasanna D Zore, Rane said, People will continue to die in Mumbai so long as exemplary action is not taken against the corrupt.

Do you think the government or the BMC will act against illegal pubs and restaurants after the death of 14 people in the Kamala Mills fire?

The government or the BMC may set up a committee but nothing is going to happen.

If you expect any change to happen after these incidents, then as Mumbaikars we are fools.

Nothing is going to change in Mumbai because the BMC is corrupt enough to know that only a committee will be set up to inquire into these deaths, people will create a furore for a few days and then everything will start running smoothly.

There is a rule book that every restaurant has to follow but no one follows it. You see the bank accounts of BMC officials and you will find out how they have become richer through the years.

They earn so much they wear expensive Swiss watches because all these restaurant owners bribe them to run their illegal businesses. Who has given them permission to run hookah parlours when they have licence to serve only food?

They know there are helping hands above them; they know they are going to be protected eventually. Nothing is going to happen at the cost of Mumbaikars lives.

Let me assure you that after a few months the same kinds of restaurants will continue to operate; same kind of rules will be broken and the same hookahs will be served illegally without any fire safety audits.

This particular restaurant was served a notice a few months ago and they were told to rectify all the illegalities but they knew that the BMC is always there to help them. So, they knew nothing will happen and so they continued with their illegal operations.

As part of the Opposition in the BMC, will your party make any efforts to change this?

I have given nine letters to the BMC seeking action against illegal hookah parlours run from Juhu till the north suburbs, to the concerned BMC officers.

IMAGE: Maharashtra legislator Nitesh Rane (in blue shirt) at Kamala Mills on Friday afternoon. Photograph: Sahil Salvi.

Does merely sending letters change anything?

In the vidhan parishad (the legislative council of Maharashtra), the honourable CM (Devendra Fadnavis) while replying to Mr Narayan Ranesaheb (Niteshs father) had said that he had ordered an IG level inquiry against a hookah parlour restaurant right next to my house.

If such a fire takes place there, even my family members will be in such danger. But nothing has happened to that restaurant. It is running smoothly; there are helping hands that embolden these restaurant owners to go about their illegal businesses.

Whatever happened at Kamala Mills will happen somewhere else a few months later -- until and unless we do not punish the responsible BMC officers in an exemplary way.

Fourteen lives have been lost; the BMC should be charged with murder for this loss of lives.

Dont you think that for this very reason the opposition parties in the BMC should be much stronger and aggressive?

The only way we can be stronger now is by slapping these BMC officials because as an MLA I have sent them letters, but they have ignored them. They are waiting for such incidents to happen, people to die, then set up committees and they will continue to act the same after the fire dies down.

Will you be more aggressive as part of the opposition after the death of these 14 people?

Definitely!

As a united opposition we are going to demand severe action against any illegal restaurants which flout rules and result in the death of precious lives.

Will you demand the resignation of BMC chief Ajoy Mehta?

You take the resignation of the commissioner or the mayor; nothing is going to change in this city.

I will be happy if after these resignations somebody gives it in writing on an affidavit that Mumbaikars will not die in this manner.

Nobody will do it that because the system is so corrupt in the BMC that everybody will want to save his own skin.

So, what must be done now?

We have to raise our voice against such a corrupt system. We dont trust the BMC anymore. We had hopes from the citys police but it seems they too are hand in glove with the BMC officials.

When a former chief minister (Rane) wrote a letter of complaint do you know what they said? Now that Ranesaheb has lodged a complaint against the restaurant, let us demand Rs 20,000 instead of Rs 10,000 from the hotel owners.

This is our police.

You said that nothing happened to your fathers complaint about running of an illegal hookah parlour right next to your house even after the chief minister ordered an IG level inquiry. Are you saying even the CMs words are ignored?

The inquiry was done but the restaurant is still continuing with its illegal operation.

So are you saying nobody is taking the CM seriously?

You find that out. This is our personal experience right next door.

To tell you the truth, the chief minister had ordered an inquiry but the officers who conducted this inquiry are so shameless that they dont give a damn to anybody.

I only hope that the chief minister takes note of this at least after what has happened at Kamala Mills.

How are you planning to take on the Shiv Sena and BJP that run the BMC?

Instead of me saying anything, you wait to see that action we take.
'Laws are made for every citizen to get justice.'

'If there is abuse of law, then the law will have its own course correction mechanism also.'

IMAGE: Maulana Rabe Hasani Nadvi, president, All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB); Wali Rahmani, general secretary; Khalid Saifullaha Rahmani, assistant general secretary; Fazlurrahman, secretary; and senior member Zafaryab Jjilani, Asaduddin Owaisi, MP, and other Muslim leaders attend a meeting on triple talaq in Lucknow, December 24, 2017. Photograph: Nand Kumar/PTI Photo

Within four months of the Supreme Court pronouncing instant triple talaq to be invalid, the Narendra D Modi government introduced the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights of Marriage) Bill 2017 in Parliament which voids the declaration talaq-e-biddat or the practice of declaring talaq in one sitting. The Lok Sabha passed the bill on Thursday, December 28, 2017.

Muslim organisations, including the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, have opposed the bill's provisions making instant talaq a cognisable and non-bailable offence, and political parties too have expressed their dismay over this.

Among the voices of support for the bill is that of Zakia Soman, founder of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan who has been waging a long battle for gender equality in Muslim society.

It was her petition against instant triple talaq that was upheld by the Supreme Court in August 2017.

"Private laws cannot operate in a democracy," Zakia Soman tells Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf in an interview.

Instant triple talaq is now history after the Supreme Court judgment in August 2017. Is your organisation happy with the bill introduced by the government?

We have been calling for a law for a very long period now. This move of the government is welcome because we are entitled to a law just like all other communities, but we were denied the benefit of the law.

There is the Hindu Marriage Act, Christian Code Bill, but Muslims were denied this right.

As far as the bill is concerned we would like to have certain changes. One is we would like the bill to lay down the procedure of divorce based on talaq-e-ehsan method.

Another is, there is a bigamy law, anti-dowry law, domestic violence law and these all are civil laws. In bigamy also there is punishment up to seven years under IPC Section 494 but it is non-cognisable.

So even in triple talaq law, it should be proportionate punishment.

(Under the talaq-e-ehsan, once a man pronounces talaq there has to be a three-month waiting period to factor in three menstrual cycles of the woman. This time is meant for reconciliation and arbitration. During this period, if cohabitation occurs, the talaq is considered to have been revoked.)

Does this bill outlaw bigamy among Muslim men?

No. Not this bill.

What are the objections to this bill, then? Why are those opposing it creating such a hue and cry?

The (Muslim) Personal Law Board has still not accepted this decision. They have not come to terms with the fact that in a democracy the government's job is to make laws.

Private laws cannot operate in a democracy. They have a problem in accepting that and it is a fundamental (problem), actually.

This bill talks about criminalising instant talaq, to which the Muslim Personal Law has objections.

There is criminalisation in women's positive law. There is punishment for dowry, domestic violence and, as I said, bigamy is punishable up to seven years, but it is not a cognisable offence.

That is why I am saying in the bill, we can make this also a non-cognisable offence.

(In the case of a non-cognisable offence, a police officer does not have the authority to make an arrest without a warrant and investigation cannot be initiated without a court order.)

Those who oppose the bill say that once the bill becomes law Muslim women can trap their husbands by falsely accusing them of pronouncing instant talaq.

These are all false bogeys. The woman can trap a man, but what about a man so badly abusing woman forever and ever?

But are such cases possible?

How? This cannot be the reason for men to abuse their position. This is not how laws are made.

Laws are made for every citizen to get justice. If there is abuse of law, then the law will have its own course correction mechanism also.

Does section 498A of IPC (cruelty) apply to Muslim marriages, too?

As such it applies to all citizens, but because this common sense that exists in our society, even in the judiciary, that if you are a Muslim you have your own something, you have to manage on your own.

This kind of ignorance is there even in the police. So Muslim women were not able to benefit from this section.

It was practised in Muslim society too, but among a very small percentage where the woman is empowered.

Otherwise, the general attitude of society was, you are Muslim and you have a different law.

The Muslim Personal Law Board says the new bill will create trouble in Muslim marriages.

That is a baseless argument. Earlier they said the abolition of instant talaq will create a problem. Any positive and good move will create problems, according to them.

This is an unsubstantiated argument and I would say this is propaganda against any reforms.

How many instant talaq cases have come up post the Supreme Court judgment in August 2017?

The government says that 67 cases came up after the judgment.

Was any punishment meted out to the men for giving instant talaq to their wives?

The judgment did not lay down any punishment and, therefore, we need a law. The judgment only made instant triple talaq invalid.
'In the recent Rajsamand case (the Afrajul murder), we were able to arrest the accused within 18 hours and the police deserves credit.'

'To ensure the law and order was maintained, we monitored the situation closely and even used water cannons against those who came out in support of the accused.'

'The response time in the Pehlu Khan case was short and the accused were arrested.'

IMAGE: Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje being greeted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's swearing-in ceremony in Gandhinagar on December 26, 2017. Photograph: PTI Photo



Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, whose government started on a strong note four years ago by announcing a series of labour and industrial reforms, breaks her silence over alleged communal tensions in the state as she enters the final year of the government.

Raje says her government has taken swift action in all cases related to cow vigilantes and love jihad cases.

In an interview to Sahil Makkar, Raje claims her government managed to reform the power and education sectors, despite financial constraints.

The murder of Mohammad Afrajul in a 'love jihad' case and the alleged killings of Muslims by cow vigilantes have shocked everyone. Has intolerance and communalism increased in Rajasthan?

This is perhaps an outcome of the pressure of population and angst in society. No one is proud of it.

The state government has taken this very seriously. In the recent Rajsamand case (the Afrajul murder), we were able to arrest the accused within 18 hours and the police deserves credit.

To ensure the law and order was maintained, we monitored the situation closely and even used water cannons against those who came out in support of the accused.

The response time in the Pehlu Khan case was short and the accused were arrested.

Similar incidents are happening in other states also. But, unfortunately, some of the issues get twisted.

The Zafar Khan (who was allegedly lynched by municipality employees for stopping them from scaring women defecating in the open) case was completely blown out of proportion.

Medical report states he died in the hospital because of a heart attack but his death was also given a religious angle.

The fact is that our government is all for inclusive growth and protection of each section of society.

There is a perception that the state government is soft on those associated with certain Hindu groups and cow vigilantes?

This is absolutely incorrect. Had this been true, we would not have used water canon on people who had come out in support of Shambu Singh (arrested for the murder of Mohammad Afrajul) in Udaipur.

Over 200 people were arrested. We are taking swift action against all crimes.

We registered 543 cases of cattle smuggling in 2015, 474 in 2016 and 389 in 2017. Not just minorities, every community must believe that we are committed to peace, law and order, and safety of all our citizens.

There have been a lot of protests over the movie Padmavati. Will the state government now allow its screening?

Like I said, maintaining law and order in Rajasthan is the highest priority for my government.

In the case of Padmavati, the censor board needs to take into account that a section of society is unhappy about it and this can lead to a law and order situation. We will allow the screening if it doesnt not create any public disorder.

What is the current fiscal situation? Rajasthan continues to be among the states with a high fiscal deficit.

The fiscal deficit during 2015-16 and 2016-17 was beyond the ceiling of 3 per cent of state gross domestic product due to the takeover of debts of power distribution companies under UDAY (Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana).

We are looking forward to the Government of India releasing states' share of central taxes on a regular basis, which will further enable us to manage finances smoothly.

What has been the progress under UDAY?

When we came to power in 2013, the energy sector was in disarray.

Discoms were bleeding -- the annual loss in FY14 alone was Rs 15,645 crore.

Debt on discoms was Rs 72,727 crore, or an average of Rs 70,000 a consumer.

For every unit sold, the discoms were making a loss of Rs 3.65. Such accumulated losses are an example of financial mismanagement, typical of the previous government.

Our government took the courageous decision to implement UDAY. More than Rs 62,000 crore of discoms loans were taken over.

It did put stress on government finances but helped discoms save about Rs 5000 crore annually on account of interest payment.

The state, however, has failed to increase tariff, as suggested under UDAY.

To improve financials, we are focusing on cost reduction rather than on tariff measures.

A campaign was launched to reduce AT&C losses and it reduced last year by about 5 per cent, resulting in savings of about Rs 1,800 crore.

It is expected to give a savings of Rs 2,800 crore this year.

Power purchase cost, which comprises about 70 per cent of the cost of supply, has been kept in check. It increased by only 16 paisa per unit in three years, or about 1.25 per cent per annum.

Discoms are poised to turn around in two years. Annual financial deficit is expected to come down from the historic high of Rs 15,645 crore in FY13-14 to about Rs 2,500 crore this year.

The per-unit gap is projected to decrease by 90 per cent from an all-time high of Rs 3.65 a unit in FY 13-14.

What is the outcome of the Rajasthan Resurgent Summit, which received overwhelming support from investors?

Out of total MoUs (memorandums of understanding) worth Rs 3.3 lakh crore, investments worth more than Rs 2 lakh crore have either been implemented or are being implemented.

We have always said the government alone cannot do what we dream for Rajasthan.

We are very happy to state that our conversion rate at 60 per cent is second only to Gujarat.

Over the past four years, we have been burning the midnight oil in implementing these investments and creating jobs for our people.

Rajasthan has been among the states with the lowest literacy rate. What has the government done to improve literacy rate and elementary education?

Low literacy rates and poor learning outcomes are components of a legacy we inherited.

You would be surprised to know that in 2012-13, there were 28,000 elementary schools with less than 30 students and there were 8,800 schools with less than 15 students each.

Students between Classes I and XII often had to change schools thrice.

More than 50 per cent of teachers' posts were vacant and 40 per cent of principals' posts were vacant.

We have invested around Rs 2,000 crore in school infrastructure in the past three years. We consolidated, integrated and upgraded schools.

Thanks to our efforts, the per-class teacher availability has significantly improved.

Over 110,000 teachers have been promoted, 68,000 teachers recruited and 49,500 recruitments are in the pipeline. Managerial positions have also been filled.

All this hard work has started to give dividends.

Enrolment ratio has gone up and more than 1 million students have increased in government schools.

Every index is showing improvement and the Class X board results (2016-17) showed a pass percentage of 76 per cent, up from 58 per cent (2013-14).

In fact, we are observing reverse migration from private schools to government schools in the state.
An Indian-origin student was shot dead during an attempted armed robbery in the United States, becoming one of the latest victims of gun violence in the country.

Another Indian was injured in the attack.

Arshad Vhora, 19, was shot dead on Thursday at the Clark gas station at 142nd and Langley in Dolton in Chicago, CBS News reported.

Police said two people were shot during an armed robbery attempt inside the convenience store.

The second victim, Bakar Saieed, was critically wounded, police said, adding the victims are related.

Vhora was filling in for a family member at the convenience store and gas station, relatives were quoted as saying by the report.

"This is another act of senseless killing. As we know, it happens too often," said Abdul Vhora, victim's first cousin.

"He was the oldest of the family, a very intelligent kid. He was filling in for his father while his father was out of the country. His father is on his way back," Abdul said.

Family said Vhora, who was pronounced dead at the scene, was a sophomore business major at South Suburban College.

His father was in India for a wedding.

Police are reviewing surveillance video from the gas station, and are investigating the incident as an armed robbery homicide.

They believe the suspects came and left on foot. Though they are investigating the shooting as an armed robbery, police said the cash register appears to be untouched and they have not had problems with the gas station in the past.

A USD 12,000 reward is being offered to help solve the case, the report said.

"Investigators are still combing through video and canvassing the area and seeking out potential witnesses, so right now we do not have any potential suspect information," Dolton Police Chief Robert Collins, Jr, was quoted as saying by ABC News.

"Right now we're looking at one suspect, that doesn't rule out the possibility that there may be more suspects involved," Collins said.

Police said they are also interviewing a delivery man who had just arrived at the gas station as a potential witness to the shooting. He was not injured.

The shooting comes amidst growing attacks on Indians and Americans of Indian descent in recent months.

On December 15, Karunakar Karengle was killed during a robbery by two hooded attackers in Ohio.

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, a not for profit corporation providing public access to gun-related violence.
Mangesh Kasalkar, an MNS worker, and RTI activist Iyas Khan had repeatedly warned the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation about the illegal extensions and violations by 1 Above, a rooftop pub inside the labyrinthine Kamala Mills in Mumbai's Lower Parel, where 14 people where died in a fire on Thursday night, but nothing was done.

Both these activists had repeatedly brought the illegalities of several such pubs and rooftop restaurants in Kamala Mills and the neighbouring Raghuvanshi Mills to the notice of the civic authorities.

Khan, after repeatedly being ignored by G South ward authorities (the municipal ward in whose jurisdiction lies both these mills), had even sent a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta, but to no avail.

Both Kasalkar and Khan contend that precious lives could have been saved had the local municipal authorities paid attention to their repeated complaints.

Ilyas Khan: "The chief ward officer of the area told me that if they began their demolition drive it would result in lot of debris and we don't have the provision to store the debris in our ward."

I complained online about these rooftop restaurants and pubs way back in July through the BMC's mobile app that solicits information from people about such illegal activities. Nothing much happened and the response that I got from the officials was that we have served a notice (to these joints) and action will be taken.

The officials told me that they (the G South ward officials) had served a demolition notice to several hotels about who I had complained. But that was only hot air. Despite the demolition notices served to these restaurants in August, they did not demolish any of the illegal structures or acted against the illegal activities in any of these restaurants.

Fifteen days after that, when no action was taken, I sent a complaint to the building and factory department of the BMC, to the municipal commissioner (Ajoy Mehta), quoted my online application number, and sent a copy of the same to Chief Minister Fadnavis.

The building and factory department only served a demolition notice to these restaurants, while it is their responsibility to demolish anything illegal at these places. In the last three months I have been visiting the officials of G South Ward every Monday and Friday -- you can check their registers for proof -- but nobody responded.

In fact, just eight days ago I had sent a reminder to G South Ward officials about my complaint and now this has happened.

The chief ward officer of the area told me that if they began their demolition drive it would result in a lot of debris and that we don't have the provision to store the debris in our ward.

He later told me that the BMC had begun the e-tendering process for the same and assured me that whenever a bidder succeeds, he will demolish these illegal structures and dispose of the debris.

The chief ward officer even told me that since there was no guarantee of people like me remaining alive or dead after eight days, he could not guarantee when the demolitions would be carried out.

I just got empty assurances, no action, and now 14 people have died.

Thank god it wasn't a Friday or Saturday night, else hundreds would have died there.

***

Mangesh Kasalkar: 'The BMC administration has not done anything to save the lives of the people and it won't do much even in the next 50 years."

I had complained to the building and factory department of G South Ward about illegal encroachments taking place inside several restaurants in Kamala Mills compound.

First they said there was no illegality and so they had given permission to these pubs and hotels to run their businesses.

They repeatedly denied these illegalities and the officials there did not entertain my complaints.

I had sent this notice to the concerned officials in October, just two months before the fire at Kamala Mills. They replied to this complaint on December 8, but did not say if there were any illegalities involved here.

I'd have felt good had the BMC taken my complaint seriously and acted upon it. But the BMC officials are responsible for these deaths and they should be booked for murder.

I'd request the young patrons to demand the fire safety audit certificate from the owners before entering such places. After all, the people who receive bribes and allow such illegal operations to continue, despite knowing that these could be hazardous to the lives of people who patronise them, don't die when such mishaps happen.

It is you who die.

Like the Elphinstone Road stampede, when the government blamed it on the people who created the stampede, here too the same reason might be given.

The BMC administration has not done anything to save the lives of people and it won't do much even in the next 50 years. We will have to be the saviours of our own lives.

So I request the youth to not patronise such places.
Police have booked the owners of the restaurant for culpable homicide.

IMAGE: A team of police inspect the debris after a fire broke out in Mumbai. Photograph: PTI Photo

A fire that started at a rooftop pub during a party spread rapidly through the building, killing 14 people, including a woman celebrating her 29th birthday and many of her friends, officials said on Friday.

The fire, which also injured 21 people, started after 12.30 am in the 1 Above pub on the terrace, and spread to Mojo pub on the third floor one level below, said an official of the Mumbai civic body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

Most of the victims died of asphyxiation, said Avinash Supe, dean of the KEM hospital where the injured and dead were brought.

IMAGE: Firefighters carry a victim on a stretcher after a fire broke out at Mumbai's Kamala Mills. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters

"Almost all died due to asphyxiation. None of them died due to flames," Dr. Harish Pathak, KEM Hospital's Forensic Department head told ANI.

A proper evacuation plan could have avoided this incident, he added.

"All the bodies have been identified, out of which eleven were of women and three are men. All the bodies were found inside the women's washroom," said Dr. Pathak.

He added that all these people were sent to the washroom to save them from flames, but the toxic fumes took away their lives.

Among the dead was Khushbu Bansali who was celebrating her 29th birthday, and 10 other women, according to an official list of the victims.

IMAGE: Firemen inspect the debris after a fire at a restaurant in Mumbai. Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Bansali's grandfather, Babulal Mehta, blamed the "irresponsible" hotel management and the civic authorities.

"The hotel had put up a temporary structure supported by bamboo, with the possibility of catching fire. There was no fire extingushing facility either. It is the responsibility of the police and civic authorities act against any violations," he said.

1 Above and Mojo are located in the Trade House Building in Kamala Mills compound in Lower Parel area, a popular night spot as well as commercial hub housing several offices including national television channels.

"I was in the night shift. We heard people screaming at the pub. Initially, we thought it is due to the party which was underway there," said Sanjay Jadhav, a programme producer of a news channel.

"When I came out of my office, I saw that a fire has broken out at the roof top pub. The main entrance of our office was blocked due to the flames," he said.

IMAGE: Friends of a victim killed in a fire at a restaurant wait at a hospital in Mumbai.

Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

The massive blaze engulfed the entire building in about 30 minutes and took several hours to be put out. The cause of the fire is not known.

Dr Sulbha KG Arora, a Mumbai doctor, told NDTV news channel, she was at the 1 Above restaurant.

"There was no time for anyone to reach out because the fire spread so rapidly. The staff members of the restaurant were trying to help the customers as much as possible," she told NDTV on the phone.

"There was a stampede and someone pushed me. People were running over me even as the ceiling above me was collapsing in flames," she said separately in a tweet. "Still don't know how I got out alive."

Teams of fire brigade and police rushed to the spot and 35 injured people were pulled out from inside the pub and taken to hospital, a police official said.

IMAGE: Several fire tenders, water tankers, emergency ambulance and police personnel rushed to the spot for rescue operation. Photograph: ANI/Twitter

WATCH THE VIDEO OF THE BLAZE

Police have booked Hratesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Manka of C Grade Hospitality, which manages the pub, along with others, under various charges including cuplable homicide not amounting to murder. They are also charged IPC sections 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others). Two of those booked have been detained. Several media outlets, including TV news channels Times Now, ET Now and TV9 Marathi, have offices in the complex. There have been allegations that civic authorities have turned a blind eye to construction irregularities and violation of fire safety norms in the compound.

IMAGE: Family members carry the body of a victim killed in a fire at a restaurant from a hospital. Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind expressed anguish over thetragedy.

"Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also expressed grief, and said he has directed the BMC commissioner to conduct an inquiry.

"Five (civic) officials have already been suspended and appropriate sections of the Indian Penal Code will be invoked against the owners of the pub, making them responsible for the loss of lives. The guilty won't be spared," Fadnavis said.

Bharatiya Janata Party MP Kirit Somaiya said he had asked Fadnavis and the BMC commissioner to order a special fire audit of all such pubs and hooka parlours in Mumbai.

"Several such establishments at the Mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately. The place where the blaze took place was illegal," he claimed.

The same central Mumbai area -- a former textile mill district now dotted by swanky glass-and-concrete towers -- had witnessed death of over 20 people in a stampede at a railway bridge on September 29 this year.
A massive fire swept through a five-storey apartment building in New York, killing at least 12 people including a toddler and injuring four others in the deadliest blaze to hit the city in decades.

IMAGE: Firefighters leave after putting out a major house fire on Prospect avenue. Over 160 firefighters respond to the evening fire in which at least 12 persons were killed with others injured. Photograph: Amir Levy/Getty Images

The fire broke out around 6:50 pm (local time) on Thursday on the first floor of the Prospect Avenue apartment in the Bronx borough of the city and spread quickly, officials said, adding that the cause of the blaze is under investigation.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio during a late night briefing outside the building, near the Bronx Zoo, called the fire the worst fire tragedy in this city in at least a quarter century.

This is the worst fire tragedy we have seen in this city -- it will rank as one of the worst losses in a fire in many years, the mayor said.

IMAGE: Evacuees wear blankets as they stand after a fire at an apartment building in Bronx.

Photograph: Amr Alfiky/Reuters

More than 160 firefighters helped bring the blaze under control. The building had no elevators.

A one-year-old child was among those killed in the blaze.

The victims, ranging in age from 1 to 50, died on various floors of the apartment building, New York Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Niger said.

He said that the tragedy is historic in its magnitude.

IMAGE: Fire Department of New York personnel work on the scene of an apartment fire in Bronx, New York. Photograph: Amr Alfiky/Reuters

At least 12 people were rescued, but the search of the building continues, and the death toll could rise further, the mayor warned.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in a tweet said that he is closely monitoring the devastating fire in the Bronx.

As always we are thankful for our first responders. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families tonight, he said.

IMAGE: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio during a late night briefing outside the building, near the Bronx Zoo, called the fire the worst fire tragedy in this city in at least a quarter century. Photograph: Amr Alfiky/Reuters

The building, which had more than 20 flats, was built just over 100 years ago, the New York Times reported, adding that it was not fireproof.

The daily citing the city records said that the building had six open violations, including one for a defective smoke detector on the first floor.

That was the floor where the fire began, Commissioner Nigro said.

The blaze was the worst in the city since 87 people were killed in a 1990 inferno at a Bronx social club.
'All restaurants and pubs must treat the issue seriously and appoint safety officers. This chalta hai attitude cannot work.'

IMAGE: Mumbai Fire Brigade officers inspect the scene of fire in a restaurant in Kamala Mills. Photographs: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters, Satish Bodas/Rediff.com

Kishor Shinde, below, who was a vigilance officer at Mumbais Hotel Taj Mahal, saved nearly 100 people during the 26/11 terror attacks.

Employed now with a news television company located in a building inside Kamala Mills compound, he rushed out on seeing the blaze on Thursday night and helped in evacuating many people who were caught in the fire.

He shares his experience with Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.

The fire started around 12.15 am and due to the strong winds it spread very fast.

I called the fire brigade immediately and they reached the spot in 30 minutes.

I, along with two of my colleagues, Mahesh Sable and Suresh Giri, first switched off all the electrical points in Trade House building.

Times Now staffers were immediately rescued and we ensured they were out of the building since it was our duty.

Unfortunately, neither 1 Above pub nor Mojo lounge has any security officer, they only have bouncers.

I feel if they had trained security officers, things would have not gone that bad.

Worse, both the places had only one exit and therefore the casualties were more.

When we reached the place we evacuated at least 30 people. We went inside the kitchen of the restaurants and removed the gas cylinders, it was our top priority, as we knew if the fire spread to the kitchen area there could be an explosion. Luckily, we managed to do that.

While one person went to the kitchen, the other two started moving the injured people to safety. There were 10 of them.

Sadly, 10 people died due to suffocation, they were gasping for breath in the smoke. There was no sign of burns on their body. In comparison, five persons died due to burns.

As citizens we all need to be alert about fire safety. Whenever we enter hotels, we must look at fire extinguishers, where they are placed. Nobody takes this issue seriously.

Also, exit points must be framed in your mind so that you can escape if there is an emergency.

Lastly, I feel all restaurants and pubs must treat the issue seriously and appoint safety officers. This chalta hai attitude cannot work.

If we keep ignoring this issue and not appoint safety officers, such incidents will keep happening.
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The tax bill passed last week by Congress was hailed by President Donald Trump as really something special. In southwestern Connecticut, large companies have been much quieter about the legislation.

American companies will see the corporate tax rate drop from 35 percent to 21 percent, in one of the key changes resulting from the most sweeping federal tax reform passed since 1986. While one Stamford company has said it would reinvest its savings from lower tax bills in employees and services, most multinationals headquartered in the area have not revealed their plans. Also uncertain is the overhauls impact on Connecticuts economic competitiveness.

Its a very complicated piece of legislation, and how it affects individual industries will be interesting to see, said Joe McGee, vice president of public policy for The Business Council of Fairfield County. And I dont think were sure yet of the impact. It will unfold over the next six to eight months.

ISG leads with response

Stamford-based technology research and advisory firm Information Services Group appears to be the first public company in southwestern Connecticut to announce changes related to the bill.

As a result of an expected reduction of $10 million to $15 million in its cash taxes during the next four to five years, ISG said last week it planned to allocate most of its savings for business-building initiatives, including expanded digital services for clients and employee training. It also plans to add $500 to the 401(k) retirement accounts of its approximately 500 U.S. employees on April 17, which is U.S. Tax Day.

Our people and our clients are the keys to our success and we believe continued investments in their future are the best response to the rationalization of the corporate tax code, ISG Chairman and CEO Michael Connors said in a statement. We firmly believe (tax reform) will spur growth and investment across many businesses, including those of our clients in such industries as financial services, manufacturing, health care, energy and retail.

Other major companies in the area so far have not committed to enacting similar changes.

Stamford-based United Rentals and Greenwich-based XPO Logistics declined to comment on whether they would make changes in response to the new law. Officials at Stamford-based Synchrony Financial and Harman International Industries were not available to comment.

Messages were not returned from any of Fairfield Countys other 2017 Fortune 500 companies: Charter Communications, EMCOR Group, Frontier Communications, Praxair, Priceline Group, Terex, W.R. Berkley, and Xerox.

Officials at Stamford-based technology firm Pitney Bowes, which is a Fortune 1000 company, did not commit to changes, but said in a statement that the tax reform will increase our competitiveness globally. It also creates opportunities for American companies to invest further in the United States and bolster our local economies.

Status quo with state rates

The tax reforms impact on Connecticuts economic competitiveness is questionable. While corporations will ostensibly benefit from the drop in the corporate rate, many affluent residents in the state will feel the pinch of local and state tax deductions being capped annually at $10,000.

We dont have an indication yet from any of the economists in the state that this will be a major boost to the Connecticut economy, McGee said. It will probably be modest at best.

Proponents of Connecticuts tax system cite its total effective business tax rate, which measures the ratio of state and local taxes to private-sector gross state product. At 3.5 percent, the effective rate ranked in the 2016 fiscal year as the lowest in the country alongside those of Michigan and Missouri, according to a report by professional-services firm EY, the State Tax Research Institute and the Council on State Taxation.

Connecticuts effective rate runs well below the national average of 4.5 percent largely because it hosts a number of high-output industries, including insurance, aerospace and financial services, that contribute significantly to the gross state product, according to the report.

But other assessments do not rate Connecticut well. A report earlier this year by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Tax Foundation ranked Connecticut as the seventh-worst business tax climate. New York ranked second worst, and New Jersey received the lowest score.

Connecticuts comparative position to other states doesnt change, but Connecticuts position compared with other countries does, said Pete Gioia, economist for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. This lower corporate tax rate means it is more likely for companies to produce stuff and invest and hire here. All those things are benefits compared to competitors in Europe and Asia.
As temperatures drop in Connecticut, the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning tends to rise, according to the Connecticut Department of Public Health.

Carbon monoxide gas is an odorless, colorless gas. It has no other warning properties. The only way to detect the gas is with a carbon monoxide alarm.

Every resident using oil, liquid propane, natural gas or wood and pellet stoves should take some time to ensure their heating system has been cleaned and inspected in the last year. Carbon monoxide gas can form and build up in a home if the burning of fuel is incomplete.

If you think you may have carbon monoxide poisoning, get people and pets out of the house immediately, the department said.

Carbon monoxide alarms should be tested on a consistent basis to be sure its properly working. The Department of Public Health said residents who dont have an alarm should take some time now to purchase one.

The alarms should be close to a bedroom or wherever residents spend most of their time. As a precaution, an alarm could be placed near a furnace to set off an early warning signal.

It is very important to have a working carbon monoxide alarm in your living space because the deadly gas can enter your home by getting in around window casings, door frames and any penetrations through outside walls, the department said.

Symptoms of carbon monoxide exposure tend to mimic those of the flu  headaches, feeling lightheaded and fatigue.

Long-term exposure to carbon monoxide without treatment can be dangerous, leading to brain damage or even death. When it enters the body, carbon monoxide targets the bloodstream, replacing oxygen.

All public and private schools buildings in Connecticut are required to have carbon monoxide alarms. Certain one- and two-family homes are required to have alarms if they have building permits issued on or after Oct. 1, 2005.

If residents are buying or selling one- or two-family homes where building permits were issued after Oct. 1, 2005, the seller must provide an affidavit that certifies that the home is equipped with working carbon monoxide detection or that there is no possible exposure source.

Questions about required placement of carbon monoxide detection and warning equipment should be directed to local building officials or local fire marshals.

More information about the dangers of carbon monoxide can be directed to local health departments or to the Connecticut Department of Public Health at 860-509-7740.
A chunk of Sempra Energy's natural gas pipeline sits in the dirt behind a community center in the village of Loma de Bacum in northwest Mexico. Guadalupe Flores thinks it would make a great barbecue pit.

"Cut it here, lift the top,'' he says, pointing to the 30-inch diameter steel tube. "Perfect for a cook-out.''

It would be an expensive meal. The pipeline cost $400 million, part of a network that's supposed to carry gas from Arizona more than 500 miles to Mexico's Pacific coast. It hasn't done that since August, when members of the indigenous Yaqui tribe - enraged by what they viewed as an unauthorized trespass their land - used a backhoe truck to puncture and extract a 25-foot segment. They left the main chunk about a mile from the community center, perpendicular to the rest of the pipeline, like a lower-case t.

The impact extends far beyond Loma de Bacum and its 4,500 residents. Arizona's gas exports to Mexico have plunged 37 percent since the shutdown, hitting an eight-month low in December. Mexico's state utility is having to burn fuel oil instead to generate power, raising costs.

It's not an isolated case. Mexico's opening of its energy industry has succeeded in attracting capital, but it's also been beset by territorial or environmental disputes, often involving the country's myriad indigenous groups. When protest turns into sabotage, there's a risk that investors will be put off from future phases, like an extensive shale development. It's also grist to the mill of the leftist frontrunner for next year's presidential election, who's vowing to reverse some of the reforms.

The Yaquis of Loma de Bacum say they were asked by community authorities in 2015 if they wanted a 9-mile tract of the pipeline running through their farmland -- and said no. Construction went ahead anyway.

The Energy Ministry acknowledged that account is true, in a statement that highlights the difficulties its officials confront. Consultation of the eight Yaqui communities along the route was carried out, as required by law. Seven of them gave a green light, the ministry said by email, "while the town of Loma de Bacum refused consent.''

The project is now in a legal limbo. Ienova, the Sempra unit that operates the pipeline, is awaiting a judicial ruling that could allow them to go in and repair it -- or require a costlier re-route. "If they want to build a pipeline, that's fine,'' said Flores, the would-be barbecue designer who's a local community leader. "But it won't pass through here.''

At the Energy Ministry in Mexico City, that's becoming a familiar refrain.

As many as four pipelines have been stalled or temporarily suspended -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg, according to Jesus Reyes Heroles, a former energy minister. "I can't quote the number but it's more than that," Heroles said in an interview. He said the stalled projects go beyond pipelines; in some cases, opposition comes from ranchers who are "abusing the situation to make some money off of it."

Still, it's indigenous peoples who've been at the forefront of resistance. In June, their protests in Chiapas state led the ministry to scrap an auction of two onshore blocks for oil exploration. In neighboring Oaxaca, communities have stalled development of wind energy projects, claiming a lack of consultation.

Mexico recognizes about 70 indigenous groups, numbering more than 12 million people. The task of consulting those communities falls to the ministry's Social Impact Evaluation team - which has just six members.

Its mandate, which includes ensuring that there's no damage to water supplies or other natural resources, is a key element of the energy reforms, says Aldo Flores, the deputy minister.

"Could the Energy Ministry become even more efficient in the procedure of consultation? Yes, it could,'' Flores said in a Dec. 8 interview. "It's part of our homework to improve.'' The ministry says it's contemplating a significant expansion of the team early next year.

That would be in time for Mexico's planned shale offensive. It's promising to lease swaths of land for development, much of it in states like San Luis Potosi and Veracruz that numerous indigenous groups call home. Shale accounts for "more than the half of the new oil potential in Mexico,'' and the Burgos Basin alone may hold 50 percent more reserves than Texas's famed Eagle Ford, Flores said.

It's politically sensitive too. Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed to revise energy and oil contracts if he's elected in July. That could put deals signed by oil majors from ExxonMobil to BP at risk. Amlo, as he's known, is ahead in early polls, but most analysts expect a tight three-way race. Indigenous votes could be vital.

It's not just in Mexico that pipeline projects have revivified old tribal claims. It's happening across North America. In Canada, Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline has encountered legal challenges led by indigenous groups. In the U.S., the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline faced months of protests from members of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.

Like many such groups, the Yaquis have a history of fighting to defend their land from intruders, starting with Spanish colonialists in the 1500s. In the last 200 years, the tribe has frequently clashed with the Mexican government, suffering massacres and losing land. "Little by little, their territory has been taken away,'' says Rodrigo Gonzalez-Enriquez, a professor at the Technical Institute of Sonora and consultant for the Loma de Bacum community.

The Yaqui language predominates in homes, though local schools teach only in Spanish after kindergarten. The tribe is famous for its deer-dance ritual. Throughout southern Sonora, you can find statues of the Yaqui dancer -- shirtless, holding gourd rattles, with an antlered deer perched on his head.

The pipeline has caused tensions within the tribe. Last year, there was a clash at the community center, leaving one person killed and several injured. Townspeople say it was an attempt by neighbors to get rid of local leaders who resisted the pipeline.

Just off the central plaza, there's a row of 12 charred vehicles. "The cars are witnesses to what happened here,'' said Juan Antonio Maldonado, an 81 year-old resident.

He had a message that could have been meant for other Yaqui towns - or for the energy companies. "We are a peaceful community and we don't like intruders,'' Maldonado said. "Don't come here anymore. Please leave.''

---

Bloomberg's Ryan Collins contributed.
WATERBURY  The Waterbury Regional Chambers Y.P.O.W.R.  Young Professionals of Waterbury Region - will host the annual Influential Business CEO Speaker Series, Community Cornerstones and Driving Change In Higher Education. Attendees will be able to capitalize on the rare opportunity to directly engage with three longstanding and dedicated higher education leaders in the greater Waterbury community.

The 2018 series will begin on Friday, Jan. 12 with speaker William J. Pizzuto, Ph.D., campus director of UCONN Waterbury and chairman of the Waterbury Regional Chamber Board of Directors. On Friday, Jan. 25 the series will continue with speaker Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Ph.D., president of Naugatuck Community College in Waterbury, and John Hopkins, CEO of Post University in Waterbury will be the final speaker on Friday, Feb. 23. All three presentations will be held from 8:00 to 9:15 a.m. and on each speakers respective college campuses.

Attendees will gain insights into the challenges and triumphs of these three outstanding Waterbury institutions while learning about the three accomplished leaders, their individual paths to success, plus the excitement of their current and future initiatives and plans at each college.

CEO Series speaker, William J. Pizzuto, Ph.D., who possesses more than 20 years of experience in higher education administration and has served as director of the University of Connecticut Waterbury campus for the past 17 years, will provide his insights into the exciting new changes at UCONN Waterbury. For more than 60 years, UCONN Waterbury has provided access to quality education for thousands of Connecticut residents.

In the last two years, the campus has expanded across East Main Street into the renovated Rectory Building, has opened a Starbucks operated through UCONNs Dining Services which provides jobs for students and the community, and for the first time in its history, offered campus dorms. UCONN Waterburys very hands-on student population allows Dr. Pizzuto to innovate and create a unique, exciting and valuable space for the future leaders of the business community. During his presentation, Dr. Pizzuto will share his keen insights into the latest developments and struggles in an ever-changing environment for expansion and growth of UCONN Waterbury.

Daisy Cocco DeFilippis, Ph.D., is the Jan. 25 speaker. Dr. DeFilippis has served as president of Naugatuck Valley Community College (NVCC) since 2008. The hallmark of her service is a shared vision of community, student-centeredness, collaboration and civic engagement. Under her guidance, NVCC student retention has steadily risen with an enrollment increase of about 500 new students, and graduation awards have grown from 521 in the academic year 2007 to 2008 to 1,123 total awards for the year 2016 to 2017.

NVCC has also observed the successful development of a growing campus in Danbury; added two new classroom buildings to provide students with better resources and hands-on classroom experiences; has expanded programming for manufacturing and nursing; extended library and tutoring hours to evenings and weekends; implemented college-wide mentoring, advising and job-readiness programs; and established a Bridge to College office for high school students. Attendees will hear from DeFilippis on the challenges she and her team have overcome and the triumphs they have faced. They will learn of the important differences in management between a community college and a private or public university.

The Feb. 23 speaker, John Hopkins, has a successful history of working with institutional and private equity investors to create significant value in companies with challenges ranging from struggling organizations in their infancy to turnarounds or growth companies with revenues ranging from initial formation to over $2 billion. In February 2016, John Hopkins joined Post University and since then has created significant value and awareness across the country, launching a new logo and marketing campaign to put Post University in the forefront of top colleges of choice.

The series open to Y.P.O.W.R. and Waterbury Regional Chamber members and potential members. Costs for the series are $15/session for Y.P.O.W.R. members, $20/session for chamber members, and $25/session for potential Waterbury Regional Chamber members. For attendance at all three sessions, total costs are $35 for Y.P.O.W.R. members; $45 for Waterbury Regional Chamber members; and $65 for potential chamber members. All cost offerings expire Jan. 12.

To register for individual programs, or the full 2018 Y.P.O.W.R. CEO series, visit www.ypowr.org, or email to info@ypowr.org, or call 203-757-0701.

Walmart Foundation donates $75K to Connecticut Food Bank

The Connecticut Food Bank recently received a $75,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation to fund the infrastructure that will ultimately help the food banks partner agencies secure and distribute more nutritious food to families in need. The grant will support investments in the equipment necessary to handle perishable products, such as refrigerated vehicles; coolers and freezers for transporting, storing and distributing food; thermometers and temperature calibration devices; among other items.

One in eight people struggle with hunger in Connecticut, including more than 127,000 children, said Connecticut Food Bank CEO Bernie Beaudreau, in a written statement. We are thankful to the Walmart Foundation for helping to ensure that people who struggle with hunger have access to nutrient-rich food. This grant will go a long way in helping the Connecticut Food Bank and our partner agencies provide much-needed food to hungry neighbors in the six Connecticut Counties we serve. Beaudreau noted that 57 programs located throughout the Connecticut Food Banks six-county service area received refrigeration equipment through the grant. Its a tremendous capacity builder for programs, he said.

According to the USDA, more than 42 million people nationwide are food insecure, which means that they may not know where they will find their next meal. In the Connecticut Food Bank six-county service area, nearly 300,000 residents are food insecure. To learn more about what the Connecticut Food Bank is doing to fight hunger, visit www.ctfoodbank.org.
Tamarac, FL -- (ReleaseWire) -- 12/29/2017 --No one can deny the importance of a clean office, It is the first step to success. It is not just desired by the employees but also clients who come in for a visit. Having cleaning staff for regular office cleaning is fine, but they will never come up with the professional cleanliness that is brought by the professionals at Tri-County Cleaning Services. There is another reason for opting professional help regarding office cleaning in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Florida. Tri-County Cleaning Services has been doing this for long, and they are the one trusted company for carrying out the job too.



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Chinas fishing fleet, which reaches as far as Latin America, West Africa, and even Antarctica, is adding to a worldwide strain on fish stocks.

So its no surprise that Chinese fishermen have been involved in clashes with foreign fishermen and coast guards at great distances from their homeland.

In perhaps the most dramatic clash, which occurred in March 2016, Argentinas coast guard sank a Chinese trawler that was fishing within its territorial waters more than 11,000 miles from its home base on the China coast. The trawler had tried to ram the Argentine vessel.

Argentine Navy submarines have been assigned to chase down illegal fishing vessels in the frigid waters off southern Argentina, according to a Wall Street Journal report from that country published early this month.

Reuters news agency, meanwhile, reported at the end of August that Ecuador had jailed 20 Chinese fishermen for up to four years for illegally fishing off the Galapagos Islands, where they were caught with some 6,600 sharks.

Their vessel contained some 300 tons of near-extinct or endangered species, including hammerhead sharks.

Incidents have also occurred near South Korea and in disputed areas in the South China Sea, where Chinese Coast Guard ships have clashed with Vietnamese fishermen.

Pressures in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea leading to incidents like this are driving China to fish elsewhere in the world.

Chinese fishermen target West Africa

In April 2017, The New York Times reported from Senegal that Chinese fishermen were increasingly heading to West Africa.

The fishermen are enabled by corrupt local governments and their weak enforcement of fishing limits.

Citing experts, The Times states that West Africa now provides the vast majority of fish caught by Chinas distant-water fishing fleet.

Fishing off the coast of Senegal, most of the Chinese ships are so large that they scoop up as many fish in one week as Senegalese boats catch in a year, The Times report said.

Most of the fish are sent abroad, with some of it ending up as fishmeal fodder for chickens and pigs in Europe and the United States.

For Senegalese citizens, many of whom depend on fish as a source of protein, diminishing fish catches mean higher food prices.

In nearby Sierra Leone, meanwhile, a similar scenario is playing out.

The Economist Magazine reported on Dec. 7 from Sierra Leone that nearly half of the population of 7.4 million people in the small west African nation does not have enough to eat.

But the countrys once plentiful shoals, combined with its weak government, have lured a flotilla of unscrupulous foreign trawlers to its waters.

Most of the trawlers fly Chinese flags, but dozens also come from South Korea, Italy, Guinea, and Russia.

According to Tabitha Mallory, an expert on these issues, by 2015 more than 160 Chinese fishing enterprises had agreements to operate off the shores of some 40 countries, the high seas, and Antarctica. But other Chinese vessels may be operating in more countries illegally.

But in contrast with West Africa, where Chinese fishermen have done great harm to local economies, Antarctica stands out as a new frontier where the fishermen appear to have begun playing by internationally agreed upon rules.

China has joined a commission for the conservation of marine life in Antarctica and has pledged its support for a marine protected area on the cold continent.

However, poor regulation of Chinas distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet elsewhere has added to a strain on global fish stocks, according to experts and nongovernmental organizations monitoring the issue.

Greenpeace, a nongovernmental organization which campaigns to change attitudes toward the environment, has found that from 2014-2016, Chinas distant water fishing (DWF) fleet -- vessels operating outside Chinese territorial waters -- increased by 400 to nearly 2,900.

This followed a similar period of expansion between 2012 and 2014, when the fleet grew by 15 percent each year on average.

By comparison, the United States had just 225 large-size DWF vessels, according to 2015 data.

China plans to restrict fishing fleet growth

The danger posed to fish stocks by Chinas growing fleet and the clashes between Chinese fishing boats and foreign fishermen and coast guards, appears to have caused Beijing to start trying to better regulate Chinas distant waters fishing fleet -- the largest in the world.

Chinas Ministry of Agriculture recently released its 13th Five-Year Plan for distant water fisheries management, restricting the total number of offshore fishing vessels to under 3,000 in 2020 and capping the number of ocean fishing enterprises at 2016 levels.

Writing for the Australia-based Policy Forum, Tabitha Mallory says that the recent policy moves by the Chinese government encouragingly point to a new focus on the long-term sustainability of global fish stocks.

Fisheries experts, Mallory says, dont agree on the extent to which global fish stocks are depleted. But they do agree that most stocks are in decline.

Fish stocks in Africa and Southeast Asia are under-assessed and under-regulated, says Mallory.

But these are precisely the regions where the Chinas distant-water fishing fleet is highly active, says Mallory, who is an affiliate professor at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

Mallory is also a consultant at the China Ocean Institute.

The good news is that the Chinese government has recently acknowledged that theres a problem, she says.

But Mallory says that this should not be overstated.

Were not out of the woods, she says, adding that a number of Chinese fishing vessels are still fishing illegally and unsustainably.

Chinas fishing fleet expansion has been fueled by preferential policies, including tax breaks on imports of fishing equipment purchased abroad and subsidies for fuel and vessel building.

But for the first time, the Chinese government is currently no longer calling for an expansion of the fleet.

These policy shifts indicate that China values its reputation abroad and that it pays attention to the reactions to its behavior from the international community, Mallory says.

Another positive sign is that China has been shifting much of its fish production to aquaculture. Prof. Mallory describes this as a boom.

But also worth watching in the future are Chinese provinces and companies which would still like to expand their fishing catch rather than curb it.

Greenpeace says that a decision to delegate the management of Chinas vessel monitoring system (VMS) to the China Distant Water Fisheries Association, a private organization representing fishing boat operators, constitutes a conflict of interest.

Then there is the murky issue of fuel subsidies for fishing-boat operators, which are often provided by provincial authorities.

For more than a decade, the World Trade Organization has been calling for a more disciplined policy regarding fishing-boat subsidies.

Dr. Mallory predicts that more mergers and acquisitions will occur in the Chinese fishing industry. Transparency in these deals is essential but often lacking, she says.

Dan Southerland is RFA's founding executive editor.
A court in Cambodia on Friday found the exiled former chief of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) guilty of defamation and fined him for accusing Prime Minister Hun Sen of bribing a political operative to undermine the opposition.



The Phnom Penh Municipal Court ordered Sam Rainsywho has been living in self-imposed exile in Paris since 2015 to avoid convictions on similar charges widely seen as politically motivatedto pay 4 billion riel (U.S. $1 million) for a January Facebook post which alleged that the prime minister had offered pro-government social media activist Thy Sovantha U.S. $1 million to attack the CNRP.



Sam Rainsy, who was found guilty in absentia, was also ordered to pay a fine of 10 million riel (U.S. $2,500) to the state.



The former CNRP presidents accusation stemmed from leaked social media messages between Hun Sen and Thy Sovantha in November 2016, in which they discussed bringing down the opposition party, which was dissolved by the Supreme Court last month for allegedly working to topple the government with the backing of Washington.



In the leaked messages, Hun Sen calls Thy Sovantha grandchild and offers her U.S. $1 million. Thy Sovantha has said her page was hacked.



According to The Phnom Penh Post, Hun Sen was represented at Fridays hearing by Ky Tech, the same lawyer who represented the government last month in its case against the CNRP.



What Sam Rainsy said was not true and it affects the reputation of Samdech Techo Hun Sen, Ky Tech said, using an honorific title for the prime minister.



Som Sokhong, an attorney for Sam Rainsy, told RFAs Khmer Service that he found Fridays ruling unacceptable and failed to provide my client any justice.



We will discuss whether to file an appeal, he added.



Kangaroo court



Sam Rainsy, who resigned in February this year in a bid to preserve the CNRP in the face of a law that bars anyone convicted of a crime from holding the top offices in a political party, dismissed Fridays decision by what he called Cambodias kangaroo court.



Judicial officials know nothing and simply listen to instructions from their superiors, who make arbitrary decisions, the former opposition leader said.



I am even somewhat happy with the judgmentit gives me an opportunity to reveal more clear evidence of the wrongdoings of the governments top leaders, who waste the national budget and undermine the dignity of the country, he said.



They might think that they can do whatever they want, but they are making fools of themselves in the eyes of the world and bringing shame to the country.



Sam Rainsy said the ruling will provide the country with another chance to see the truth about the regime.



He later posted images of the more than 400 messages of correspondence between Hun Sen and Thy Sovantha, which he said are real, adding that he had his own means of verifying  that Hun Sen gave U.S. $1 million to Thy Sovantha to carry out activities against the CNRP.



If someone had wanted to invent something to discredit the two concerned persons, they would not have needed to fabricate so many fake messages, he said.



They have never been convincingly denied by Hun Sen over that period of time, meaning that the public is entitled to believe that these photos effectively reflect the substance of a real exchange involving Hun Sen, especially when it comes to the point concerning the one-million-dollar bribe.



Sam Rainsy is also facing a charge of incitement brought by Cambodias military after he urged soldiers on Facebook to disobey dictators who order them to shoot protesters.



Months-long crackdown



Fridays conviction comes amid a months-long crackdown by Hun Sens government on the opposition, the media and NGOs.



The CNRPs dissolution followed the arrest of the partys president Kem Sokha on charges of treason, and has left Hun Sens ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) virtually unchallenged ahead of senate and general elections set for February and July.



In recent weeks, the U.S. and EU said they plan to compile lists of individuals who spearheaded the dissolution of the opposition and other rights violations in Cambodia, with a view to level sanctions against them, and have pledged to review trade agreements with the country.



Both the U.S. and EU have withdrawn funding of the elections next year, and Washington recently placed visa restrictions on individuals responsible for undermining Cambodian democracy in response to the arrest of Kem Sokha and the dissolution of the CNRP, which it said had called the legitimacy of the ballots into question.



Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
The West Kowloon terminus of a high-speed rail link that will connect Hong Kong to the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is under construction in Hong Kong, Dec. 28, 2017.

China's decree that part of a high-speed railway station linking the former British colony of Hong Kong to its high-speed rail network will be subject to its laws has prompted a public outcry from the city's legal profession.

Beijing's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), said on Wednesday that it would extend Beijing's authority to the high-speed rail terminus to enable a streamlined process for passengers boarding the trains in Hong Kong, despite of the city's status as a separate immigration, policing, and customs jurisdiction.

The "co-location" arrangement has already been criticized as unconstitutional as a violation of Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law. Now the city's Bar Association (HKBA) has weighed in with a detailed criticism of the NPC standing committee ruling.

"The integrity of the Basic Law has now been irreparably breached," said a lengthy statement issued by the group on its website.

"The HKBA is appalled by the ... Decision, which merely states that the NPC standing committee ... 'confirms' that [the rail terminus plan] is consistent with the ... Basic Law without stating how this is so," the statement said.

"This plainly amounts to an announcement by the NPC standing committee that the [plan] complies with the Constitution and the Basic Law 'just because the NPC standing committee says so,'" the HKBA said.

"Such an unprecedented move is the most retrograde step to date in the implementation of the Basic Law, and severely undermines public confidence in one country, two systems and the rule of law in [Hong Kong]," it said.

It also said the Hong Kong immigration department, not the mainland Chinese border police, should be in charge of entry and exit control checks for passengers entering and leaving the city, citing Article 154(2) of the Basic Law.

Articles in the Basic Law allowing Hong Kong to make certain arrangements to enable cross-border trade and economic links "do not authorize" the city's government to act inconsistently with the rest of the law, the HKBA said.

Giving mainland Chinese authorities access to a part of the station to speed up the movement of passengers doesn't mean Hong Kong should give up its jurisdiction over any part of its territory, it said.

"The ... Decision is both wholly unconvincing and unsatisfactory in achieving its purported purpose, namely to provide a firm legal basis for ... local legislation," it said.

"The HKBA notes, with utmost concern and regret, that such a strong perception will surely impair and undermine the confidence of the local and international communities on the maintenance of the rule of law and the 'one country, two systems' policy in Hong Kong," it said.

Previously, only Chinese laws entered into Annex III of the Basic Law have been eligible for implementation in Hong Kong.



Open to legal challenges

Opposition lawmaker and barrister Tanya Chan, who heads a group protesting the rail terminus plan, agreed that the NPC standing committee decision can't form the legal basis for legislation implementing the plan.

"If they pass legislation in Hong Kong without this legal basis, this could be open to legal challenges," she warned.

Chan's group has called on the government to clarify the legal basis for the proposed joint-immigration checkpoint.

It says that a failure to do so could delay the 26-kilometer (16-mile) rail link scheduled to open in late 2018.

The government has said it will table legislation to deliver on the rail terminus plan by the end of January.

The HKBA statement follows criticisms from a panel of legal experts, including human rights lawyer Philip Dykes and Hong Kong University law professor Johannes Chan, earlier this week, who warned that the rule of law in the city will be "threatened and undermined" by the ruling.

"The rule of law will be threatened and undermined if the clear meaning of the Basic Law can be twisted and the provisions of the Basic Law can be interpreted according to expediency and convenience," the lawyers said.

The Chinese government's argument that Hong Kong's government has a duty to promote the development of tourism and transport doesn't hold water, they said.

"It is obvious that such articles do not provide the basis for Basic Law to be disapplied in certain parts of Hong Kong," they said in a statement. "[That] would be stripping different articles out of context and do violence to the solemnity of the Basic Law."



No right to question

But former Hong Kong justice secretary Elsie Leung said the Basic Law can't be interpreted using Hong Kong's common law system.

"The Basic Law is a constitutional instrument, it cannot provide for details," Leung said in response to the HKBA statement.

"We already possess the power of the administration of the land, customs regulations and the regulations relating to entry and exit of travelers, so we already possess all the powers to enter an agreement with the mainland, and the Standing Committee of the NPC has confirmed that," she said.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong administration official Ronny Tong warned it would be "very dangerous" for Hong Kong people not to recognize the supreme authority of the NPC standing committee.

"People have no right to question its controversial decision on the West Kowloon Station just because they hold different opinions," Tong told local media.

Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service and by the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Police in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on beat up and detained a group of rights activist who went to inquire about the whereabouts of Zhao Suli, wife of veteran activist Qin Yongmin, who remains missing, nearly three years after being detained veteran alongside her husband.



Zhao Suli was detained alongside her husband and veteran opposition activist Qin Yongmin in , and both were initially held in unknown locations.



But while Qin has since been tracked down by friends and lawyers to a detention center in the central city of Wuhan, Zhao has been missing for nearly three years.



Zhao's sisters have previously told RFA they believe she may be dead, but Qin, a co-founder of the short-lived, banned opposition China Democracy Party (CDP), reportedly thinks she is still alive.



On , police swooped upon a group of rights activists campaigning alongside her two sisters and son for Zhao's release, or at least some information about her fate.



An activist surnamed Li from the southwestern region of Guangxi said he and a group of fellow activists were detained and forced to leave Wuhan this week by dozens of police after they traveled there to attend Qin's trial, which has been postponed, and to report Zhao missing as a form of protest at her disappearance.



"Zhao Suli has been disappeared for nearly three years, so we wanted to report her as a missing person," Li said. "We also went to the complaints department [of the Wuhan municipal government] where we were received by an official."



The group showed up at the police department in Wuhan's Qingshan district on to register a missing person, but were shoved aboard a truck by unidentified men shortly after leaving the police department, and taken to the high-speed railway station, where they were put aboard trains for their hometowns, he said.



"There were a lot of people in black uniforms, and they took off all of their insignia before they made their move," Li said. "They were rough and violence, and they shoved us into the truck ... where they threatened us, saying they would beat us to death."

Thugs in black uniforms



Fellow activist Chen Siming was also at the Qingshan police station, he told RFA.



"We got to the Qingshan police department at about 10.00 a.m. and demanded to know where Zhao Suli is, and they received us, before going into a room and speaking in low voices for a long time," Chen said.



"Then, just after we left at about 1.15 p.m., outside the gates, a bunch of thugs in black uniforms came up and forced us into a truck," he said. "They forcibly separated us from Zhao Suli's sisters and son, and now we don't know where they are."



"They they took us to the high-speed railway station."



He said rights activist Xu Qin, who heads the China Rights Observer organization founded by Qin, was injured after being roughly treated by the men.



"One of us, a guy called Dongsheng, had his leg broken by one of the uniformed men; I saw it with my own eyes," Chen said. "They wouldn't allow any of us to speak, and they gave us no explanation."



"I was secretly filming it on the truck but they saw me and snatched my phone away, and deleted all of the video before giving it back to me," he said.



'Picking quarrels and stirring up trouble'

A campaigner surnamed Yuan said the group had been given two options.



"The first choice was that we should all buy tickets and leave, and the second was that they would take us somewhere we didn't want to go," Yuan said. "Some of us weren't in good physical shape, and they had been treated very roughly, and they weren't allowed to get medicine or even go to the toilet."



She said she was among four activists who opted to leave immediately, while the others had stayed in the truck.



Repeated calls to the Qingshan district police department rang unanswered during office hours on .



A Wuhan-based activist surnamed Yu said he had managed to call the police and ask why the activists had been detained, however.



"I called the Qingshan branch and the police officer who answered said they were 'picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,'" Yu said.



Qin, who is being held at the Wuhan No. 2 Detention Center, was originally scheduled to stand trial on on charges of "incitement to subvert state power," but the date was postponed at the last minute by the authorities, citing 'procedural' reasons.



It is unclear exactly how many of his and Zhao's supporters remain in detention. RFA was unable to confirm the whereabouts of Zhao's sisters and son.



A contemporary of exiled dissident Wei Jingsheng, Qin was sentenced to eight years in prison for "counterrevolutionary propaganda and subversion" in the wake of China's Democracy Wall movement in 1981.



He served a further two years' "re-education through labor" in 1993 after he penned a controversial document titled the "Peace Charter."



Qin then served a 12-year jail term for subversion after he helped found the CDP in 1998 in spite of a ban on opposition political parties.



"Subversion of state power" carries a minimum jail term of 10 years in cases where the person is judged to have played a leading role.



Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wong Lok-to for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
From left to right, Myanmar interpreter Aung Naing Soe, driver Hla Tin, Singaporean cameraman Lau Hon Meng, and Malaysian producer Mok Choy Lin.

Myanmar authorities on Friday released two foreign journalists, their interpreter, and their driver who were detained in late October for illegally flying a drone over the parliament building in the countrys capital Naypyidaw.

Singaporean camera operator Lau Hon Meng, Malaysian producer Mok Choy Lin, their Myanmar interpreter Aung Naing Soe, and driver Hla Tin were arrested on Oct. 27 as they worked on a documentary for Turkish Radio and Television Corporation subsidiary TRT World.

They were sentenced on Nov. 10 to two months in Yamethin Prison in Mandalay region, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital, for violating Myanmars colonial-era Aircraft Act and were scheduled for release on Jan. 5.

Naypyidaws Zabuthiri township court had also charged them with illegally bringing a drone into Myanmar, and the two journalists were further charged with immigration violations after their visas expired while they were in custody.

The court dropped those additional charges on Thursday.

We admitted we were guilty of violating Article 10 of Myanmars Aircraft Act, so we each received a two-month sentence, Aung Naing Soe told RFAs Myanmar Service. We have been freed today because the court dropped two other charges.

Aung Naing Soe also said that authorities questioned him about his recent trips to Myanmars volatile Shan and Rakhine states rather than the drone incident.

Ethnic militias have been battling the Myanmar army in parts of Shan state, and a recent military crackdown in Rakhine state has driven 655,000 Rohingya Muslims across the border to Bangladesh in what the United Nations and United States have called ethnic cleansing.

The crew, which had informed the Myanmar government in advance of their intention to film, was shooting a documentary in Naypyidaw, though TRT World has not disclosed the subject of the project.

Muslim-majority Turkey has been a vocal critic of Myanmars treatment of the Rohingya, with President Tayyip Erdogan months earlier accusing the country of genocide.

Nearly a dozen journalists have been arrested this year under the civilian-led government of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, earning her administration the wrath of rights groups for appearing to backpedal on press freedom after decades of stifling military rule in Myanmar.

Two Reuters reporters arrested on Dec. 12 remain in detention for violating Myanmars colonial-era Official Secrets Act by allegedly possessing classified documents. They face up to 14 years in prison if found guilty.

Reported by Aung Theinkha for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
On Dec. 25, Tibetan filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen arrived safely in San Francisco after escaping from Tibet, where he had been jailed for six years for producing a film, Leaving Fear Behind, documenting the harsh conditions of Tibetans lives under Chinese rule. On Dec. 28, RFA reporter Tashi Wangchuk spoke with Wangchens wife Lhamo Tso about her feelings following their reunion.



RFA: When Dhondup Wangchen first arrived in America, what went through your mind?



Lhamo Tso: It had been ten years, two months, and ten days since we last saw each other. And now, after so many years, we finally met on Dec. 25. In general, this is a cause for joy because this is a new day for us as a family. But at the same time, it is a feeling of joy mixed with sorrow. It has been three days now since we met again, but we still wonder if its true.



RFA: What did Dhondup Wangchen and the children say when they saw each other? What were their feelings?



Lhamo Tso: In the past, I used to think that children are forgetful and have short memories. But when Dhondup Wangchen arrived in person and hugged them, and spoke with them, I saw their faces change. Their way of speaking also changed. I never saw such a change in their manner before. So now when I think of them, I feel they are not just children. They are like adults, with the same feelings of heartache at missing their father. They would often run around jumping and ask When will father come home? Tomorrow, or maybe the day after? So even now I am in a state of joy and sorrow together.



RFA: Who helped him to successfully escape?



Lhamo Tso: Mainly his elder brother Jamyang Tsultrim in Switzerland, his friend Wangpo Tethong, and several other friends. It was also thanks to all those people who had helped in the production and promotion of his film from the beginning. There were also people inside various governments who had a special interest in his case and who wrote to the government of China, asking for his release. To all those friends and supportersto everyone who extended themselves in so many ways to help with his caseI would like to say Thank you from the bottom of my heart.



RFA: Is there anything else that you would like to say?



Lhamo Tso: Through this interview, I would also like to say Thank you to those friends, both men and women, who showed support to my husband Dhondup Wangchen. To those living in other countries, to those who called me on the phone, and to those who let us know you were holding us in our hearts even though you were unable to help with his case: I am grateful to you all, because when you shared your feelings and concern for us, it helped boost my willpower and showed me that in your hearts the same wish was there for our familys reunion.



Today, I feel that my familys wishes have been fulfilled, and I want to say that I have never felt happier than I do today.



Translated by Benpa Topgyal.
Li Aijie, wife of jailed rights activist Zhang Haitao, a critic of the ruling Chinese Communist Party's treatment of the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, landed with the couple's young child in the United States on Dec. 23 after fleeing China via Thailand. She had been targeted for threats by local authorities after Zhang was handed a 19-year jail term by the Intermediate People's Court in Urumqi, regional capital of the northwestern region of Xinjiang, on Jan. 15, 2016. She spoke to RFA's Cantonese Service about her escape, and her plans for the future:



RFA: How did you decide on a route out of China?



Li Aijie: Well, I have a story to tell about the first time I went to Hong Kong. I had signed up with a tour group, and I separated myself from them. I just left without telling them I was going. Then the tour group leaders reported it to the police, and several police came to find me. So [I knew] none of the tour group people could be trusted. If I was going to leave, I knew it would have to be with a friend [but] they weren't going to allow that. They followed us [as we were leaving] for quite a long way, all the way onto the subway. Back then I had been planning to bring my son along, but I didn't in the end, because the family didn't agree. This time, I just left, taking my son with me. I had a visa for Thailand and a return plane ticket, from Hong Kong to Thailand, so arrival went pretty smoothly.



RFA: So you finally landed in Texas with your son on Dec. 23. What are your plans now?



Li Aijie: I plan to get used to the new environment and learn the language, first of all. Now I am in a free country, I want to speak out about my husband's plight, and let the whole world know the truth. My husband is innocent, yet he has been sentenced to 19 years in prison. He is not guilty.



RFA: How are things going for you here in the U.S.?



Li Aijie: People here in the U.S. have been so very kind. I have really felt their genuine concern and care, as if we were their own family. [My son] is very happy. Sometimes he jumps and runs around the place, or he suddenly starts singing or dancing by himself. He is very, very happy.

But my son has never seen his father before, and we just hope one day to be reunited with Zhang Haitao. We call on the international community to show concern for all Chinese prisoners of conscience, and to work for their eventual freedom.



Reported by Ma Lap-hak and Pan Jiaqing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Gao Shan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
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Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday commuted the death sentence of a killer who had been found mentally incompetent to be executed.

William Joseph Burns, who was convicted of raping and murdering his 73-year-old mother-in-law in Shenandoah County in September 1998, will now serve life without parole.

Virginia governors have granted clemency to death row inmates nine times since the death penalty was allowed to resume in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

On April 20, McAuliffe commuted the death sentence of Ivan Teleguz to life in prison without the possibility of parole, saying the sentencing phase of Teleguzs trial in the murder-for-hire case was terribly flawed and unfair.

McAuliffe said in a statement on the new commutation that Burns has long suffered from severe mental illness, that experts have confirmed that Burns is not likely to be restored to competence, and that he has not showed signs of stabilizing while in custody.

There is no doubt that Mr. Burns committed an unimaginably heinous crime, McAuliffe said.

He will not evade punishment  he will be incarcerated for the remainder of his life. Commuting Mr. Burns sentence to life without possibility of parole brings finality to these legal proceedings; it assures the victims family that Mr. Burns will never again enjoy freedom, but without the torment of post-trial litigation; and it allows the commonwealth to devote its resources towards other cases. In my view, this is the only just and reasonable course.

In recent decades, Virginia governors granted clemency to two other mentally ill killers who were facing execution. In 1999, Gov. Jim Gilmore commuted the death sentence against Calvin Eugene Swann and, in 2008, Gov. Tim Kaine commuted Percy Levar Waltons death sentence. Both were diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Burns was sentenced to death in Shenandoah County for the murder, rape and forcible sodomy of his wifes mother, Tersey Elizabeth Cooley, fatally beaten at her home in Edinburg.

Burns was sentenced to death in 2000, and the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the sentence in March 2001.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in the case of Atkins v. Virginia that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendments prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Supreme Court of Virginia subsequently held that Mr. Burns claim of intellectual disability was not frivolous and sent his case back to Shenandoah County Circuit Court, McAuliffe said.

During those proceedings Mr. Burns again showed signs of severe mental illness, the governor added.

The state Supreme Court ruled that Burns has a constitutional right to be competent for adjudication of his intellectual disability claims, McAuliffe said. It sent the case back to the trial court for further proceedings, but ruled that it could not proceed to trial on the intellectual disability claim unless Burns was mentally competent.

Del. C. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, his partys pick for majority leader if Republicans retain an edge in the House of Delegates, tweeted that the malingering William Burns escapes justice for his horrific crimes.

McAuliffe said he had considered the views of the commonwealths attorney who prosecuted the case and the victims family  noting that they oppose clemency in Burns case.

But I have determined that continued pursuit of the execution of Mr. Burns is no longer in the best interests of the commonwealth.

As of now, there is no lawful way to impose the death sentence on Mr. Burns, and there is no clear path for that ever being possible. To do so would require returning Mr. Burns to competency (which experts believe unlikely to occur), defeating his claim of intellectual disability in a jury trial, exhausting appeals of that and other claims, setting an execution date, defeating subsequent litigation over his execution, and maintaining his mental competence for execution.

McAuliffe added: As governor, it is my responsibility to ensure that the commonwealth carries out the death penalty in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment (here, potential execution of the intellectually disabled) and requires due process (here, the mental competence to participate in ones defense).

These are unyielding requirements, and I have concluded that continued pursuit of the execution of Mr. Burns, both as a matter of constitutional principle and legal practicality, cannot be justified.
The top Republican in Virginias House of Delegates said Friday that the GOP plans to elect its own speaker on the first day of the legislative session, claiming Democratic efforts to challenge the tied result in a Newport News-area House race will force the body to move forward without one member or risk jeopardizing aspects of Gov.-elect Ralph Northams inauguration.

Del. M. Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights, who hopes to become the next House speaker if Republicans can hold on to their majority after losing at least 15 seats in last months elections, called the Democratic legal filings and PR campaign crying foul over the apparent tie between Republican Del. David E. Yancey and Democrat Shelly Simonds in the 94th House District a deliberate strategy to make it more difficult for the House to organize smoothly.

With the outcome in the 94th District still unsettled, Cox said in a conference call with reporters that even if a planned tiebreaker occurs before the legislative session begins Jan. 10, the House wont seat the winner if the loser asks for a recount. Cox didnt say definitively if Yancey will ask for a recount if Simonds wins, but he said its unlikely a second recount could occur before Jan. 10. If other results hold, that means Republicans would have a 50-49 majority on opening day, presumably allowing Cox to be elected speaker.

We will not allow the intentional and politically motivated blame tactics to impede the organization of the House, said Cox, who was announced on the press call as speaker-designee, a presumptive title Cox had dropped when it appeared Simonds had won the 94th District race over Yancey by a single vote.

At the end of a recount last week, a three-judge panel decided to count one additional ballot for Yancey, creating a tie that could prove pivotal to who controls the nearly evenly split House.

Shortly after Cox said the winner of the tiebreaker wont be seated in time to vote in the speakership election, the chairman of the State Board of Elections announced that the random drawing to break the tie has been rescheduled for next Thursday, Jan. 4.

The tiebreaker had been scheduled to be held this week, but the elections board called it off after Simonds filed a new legal motion asking the recount court to reverse itself. Elections Board Chairman James B. Alcorn said the rescheduled drawing will happen unless the court intervenes.

If Simonds wins the tiebreaker and is seated in time for organizational votes, the House would be split 50-50, forcing Democrats and Republicans to share power. If Yancey wins, Republicans would have a 51-49 majority.

If the House cant organize on Jan. 10, Cox said, the General Assembly wont be able to follow through with Gov. Terry McAuliffes farewell speech that night or some formalities of Northams Jan. 13 inauguration because there wont be a joint assembly of the legislature.

Those things simply cannot happen in their current form if the General Assembly isnt organized, Cox said.

Simonds has repeatedly denounced the recount process as unfair, saying Yanceys legal team broke recount rules by disputing a ballot late in the process when it appeared Simonds had won by one vote. Simonds has said her attorneys werent afforded the same opportunity to contest ballots during the final court hearing to certify the recount results.

In response to Coxs comments, House Democrats said in a statement Friday that Simonds was the rightful winner and accused Republicans of taking desperate measures to keep the majority.

We find it disappointing that the House Republicans are using the inaugural festivities as a smokescreen to hang on to power, said Katie Baker, communications director for Virginia House Democrats.

Simonds said Friday that she understands Coxs frustration with the delay, but she said Yancey caused this delay by making an end-run around the rules.

Democrats were planning a series of rallies for electoral justice Saturday, with events planned in Richmond, Fredericksburg and Alexandria.

Meanwhile, Republicans filed new legal paperwork of their own Friday asking the three-judge panel that oversaw the recount in the 94th District to reject Simonds appeals for a new decision that would declare her the winner. Yanceys lawyers also sent a letter to the State Board of Elections asking for the postponed tiebreaker to be held as soon as possible.

The recount judges  Newport News Circuit Judge Bryant L. Sugg, Powhatan County Circuit Judge Paul W. Cella and Chesterfield County Circuit Judge David E. Johnson  have not yet responded to Simonds request to revisit the matter.

Democrats picked up 15 other GOP-held seats in the Nov. 7 elections, destroying what had been a 66-34 GOP majority. A Democratic lawsuit is also pending in the 28th House District election, but Republicans appear to be operating on the assumption that lawsuit wont impact their ability to seat Republican Bob Thomas, who finished 73 votes ahead of Democrat Joshua Cole in a recount last week. The lawsuit in the 28th District asks a federal court to throw out the result and order a special election because of system errors that caused 147 voters to cast ballots in the wrong House district.

In the 94th District, Yancey entered the Dec. 19 recount with a 10-vote lead over Simonds. Simonds emerged with what appeared to be a one-vote victory until the judges decided to accept the one additional vote for Yancey during a hearing Dec. 20. On the ballot in question, a voter filled in bubbles for both Simonds and Yancey, but put a slash mark through Simonds bubble.

Simonds lawyers have argued that the ballot should have been discarded as an impermissible overvote and that the court shouldnt have reviewed it to begin with because it wasnt set aside during the recount.

The ballot came to light when a Yancey-aligned recount official wrote a letter saying he initially felt it should have counted for Yancey but ultimately agreed it should be tossed out under pressure from fellow recount officials.

The Republican legal filing argues that, under state law, a written statement from a recount official challenging a ballot is enough to trigger a judicial review regardless of when its brought forward.

The filing also notes that Democrats used the same process in the 28th District to persuade judges to count a ballot for the Democratic candidate there.
Despite evidence of a sharp economic downturn after this summer in Charlottesville, city officials are planning to continue with a parking meter program that some downtown business owners think has added insult to injury.

In a news release Thursday, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce said the September sales decline of approximately $14 million is of particular interest. Chamber President Timothy Hulbert did not respond to requests for comment Thursday evening.

The city saw a 12 percent decline in sales tax revenue in September, as compared with September 2016. The September drop contributed to a 4 percent decrease for the first three quarters of 2017, as compared with the same period in 2016,

The city announced Thursday that it will resume its downtown parking meter program on Tuesday. The city suspended the program in November and made parking in the Market Street Parking Garage free on weekends to promote economic activity during the holiday season.

The chamber report is likely to stoke fears local business owners have shared recently about the state of the economy in the city. Business owners have cited the recent series of white nationalist demonstrations, the new parking meters downtown and competition from newer retail centers in Albemarle County as possible causes for the apparent downturn in economic activity in the city in recent months.

According to the release from the city, the parking meter pilot program was launched Sept. 5 to help the city manage mobility in the downtown area.

At a City Council meeting earlier this month, PLACE Design Task Force member Andrew Mondschein, who studies transportation systems as an assistant professor at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, promoted the program. He said the additional revenue could help pay for new infrastructure downtown.

But the downtown business community is currently circulating a petition to end the parking meter program. Entrepreneurs from the downtown, midtown and university areas met in private Thursday to discuss the recent decline in retail and restaurant sales and a potential economic recovery program, said Joan Fenton, president of the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville.

In an email Thursday afternoon, Fenton said the downtown business community believes the parking meters are partially to blame for the sales downturn.

First, we believe the circumstances under which the city decided to try the pilot program changed with the events this summer, and the subsequent downturn on the [Downtown Mall], Fenton said, alluding to the series of white nationalist events that occurred between May and August.

The tax data show there has been a loss in sales since the especially inflammatory Aug. 12 rally, which resulted in one direct fatality (and two indirect deaths) and scores of injuries.

The timing could not have been worse, Fenton said of the parking meter pilot. The downtown business community has been working together to counteract that downturn, but the meters have added to it, as evidenced by the response to them, Fenton said.

She said the implementation of the parking meter program also has been problematic, calling the meters, which require users to enter their license plate number, unwieldy and difficult to use.

In addition to using the meters or calling a phone number to pay to park, motorists now will be able to use the Parkmobile application to park at any of the 105 paid-parking spaces downtown, the city announced Thursday.

Susan Payne, president of the Blue Ridge Group, a public relations firm that recently issued a news release promoting the petition against the parking meters, said her firm might make another statement regarding the meters or the potential recovery program in the next few days.

I dont think anything was decided, Payne said Thursday when asked about the private meeting. I have nothing to say on the record. The meeting was more of a conversation, but, hopefully, something is down the road.

We are hoping that council will be responsive to our requests, and we are asking everyone to reach out to them, Fenton said in her email before the meeting.

Fenton did not immediately respond to calls Thursday evening.

Though the citys economy is not performing as well as it has in recent years  the last year-to-year decrease in retail sales for the city was in 2013, when it fell by 3.7 percent  the chamber report notes that retail sales in Albemarle County and Charlottesville combined increased by 2.7 percent for the first three quarters of 2017, as compared with last year.

The report says the combined sales numbers could approach last years 12-month record of $2.74 billion, depending on holiday sales.

In the first three quarters of 2017, according to Virginia Department of Taxation sales tax data, the city and county saw $2.04 billion in total sales, an increase of $48 million over the same period last year, the chamber report says.

Outside of Central Virginias economic hub, Fluvanna County saw an increase in sales of 1.72 percent for the first three quarters in 2017, while Louisa County recorded sales that were 1.12 percent higher. Retail sales in Greene County fell by 4.6 percent through the same three-quarter period.
Poring over the years-end wrap-ups from various news organizations, were struck by how many of the top stories qualify as bad news: devastation from hurricanes, the Las Vegas massacre, the alt-right violence in Charlottesville, the opioid epidemic ... But the year also had its share of good news. Well take a more comprehensive view of the past 12 months in another editorial. For now, here are seven stories that should gladden your heart.

(1) The economic rebound. Economic growth has topped 3 percent for the past two quarters, the stock market is soaring, wages have begun to creep up, and unemployment has plunged almost as far as it structurally can.

(2) The defeat of ISIS. Just a year ago the maniacally sadistic terrorist group inspired fear and dread around the globe. Now it has been expelled from its stronghold and is on the run.

(3) The rise of women. From the womens march to the #MeToo movement to the success of Wonder Woman, women in America stopped taking it and started kicking  well, you know.

(4) Tax cuts. Eighty percent of Americans will find themselves richer next year as the government confiscates less of their money.

(5) The repeal of the individual mandate. Obamacares least popular provision also was its most egregious, vastly expanding the scope of government power and infringing on the personal liberty of every American citizen.

(6) Danica Roems victory over Bob Marshall. The states first transgender delegate will replace one of the authors of Virginias gay-marriage ban.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
CHRISTIANSBURG  A new shopping center to spread in and around the former Kmart building is set to spring to life early next year, bringing new retailers to the area.

Anticipation has swirled around the site for more than a year, since German grocer Lidl first filed plans for a store in what is being called Laurel Plaza.

While its now unclear whether or not Lidl will come at all, the other tenants  Dollar Tree, Hobby Lobby and Aldi  are announcing firmer plans for their grand openings.

Dollar Tree expects to be the first to open, occupying a 10,000-square-foot corner of the old Kmart building on the end furthest from North Franklin Street.

The discount retailer plans to close its current Christiansburg location beside Walmart and move into the updated space in early February, according to Dollar Tree spokeswoman Kayleigh Painter.

Hobby Lobby, which will sit next door, is following not far behind. According to a December news release, the craft store plans to open in March.

That 55,000-square-foot space will be Hobby Lobbys first location in Southwest Virginia. It will employ 35 to 50 people.

The company has already posted job listings for store managers. Spokesman Bob Miller says Hobby Lobby typically fills those positions first, and then announces a local hiring event to find other associates.

Aldi has a little further to go before its grand opening sometime in summer 2018.

The discount grocery chain will occupy a new building between Hobby Lobby and North Franklin Street.

Aldis Salisbury Division Vice President Krysta Cearley wrote in an email statement that everything is on schedule for that project.

Lidl, meanwhile, put construction on hold earlier this year after telling town planning and building officials that crews had discovered unexpected underground rock. The company told the town it would reevaluate its plans for a store beside the planned Aldi.

This happened as Lidl put three other projects in the Roanoke Valley on hold. Economic development officials there have told The Roanoke Times the company has not responded to their questions since work stopped.

Asked if Lidl still intended to build a Christiansburg location, company spokeswoman Chandler Ebeier wrote in an email that the company is developing several sites around Virginia and is not addressing each individual one at this time.
The owner of a truck stop that was torn down to make way for a highway improvement project will receive $7.2 million from the Virginia Department of Transportation, which used its power of eminent domain to shutter the Botetourt County business.

Legal wrangling over the fair value of the property off Interstate 81 was resolved Dec. 21 in Botetourt County Circuit Court.

As part of a settlement approved by Judge Jonathan Apgar, VDOT will pay nearly $1 million more than what it originally offered for the Travel Centers of America truck stop.

The settlement is the largest so far in the approximately half-dozen cases in which the state exercised its eminent domain authority  which allows the taking of private land for a public use  to obtain the property it needed to revamp the Exit 150 interchange.

For more than 40 years, the truck stop  which consisted of 129 overnight parking spaces for tractor-trailers, a gas station, shower and rest facilities, a restaurant, a convenience store and a truck repair shop  was a fixture of Botetourt Countys busiest intersection.

The business was demolished in 2015 as work began on improvements aimed at easing chronic congestion at the interchange.

At the time VDOT condemned the travel center, it was a profitable multi-faced business that generated substantial annual profits, lawyers for the truck stop wrote in court papers. It is not disputed that VDOT completely eliminated this profitable business when it condemned the property.

When the transportation agency took the 12-acre parcel in 2013, it placed the $6.28 million it believed the property was worth in an account designated for its owner, HPT TA Properties Trust, a real estate investment trust based in Maryland.

After that amount was distributed to HPT, the company continued to argue that it was entitled to a larger sum for the loss of its land and business. A jury trial was scheduled for November to determine what that amount would be.

But several weeks before the trial date, VDOT and HPT agreed to settle the case for $7.2 million, meaning that the truck stop owner will now receive another $920,000. It took two months to finalize the deal with Apgars Dec. 21 order.

The legal dispute  which included an earlier, unsuccessful effort by HPT to collect lost profits in addition to just compensation for the propertys value  dragged on for longer than it took construction crews to do their work.

Improvements to Exit 150 include new interstate ramps, re-directed traffic flows and a multi-lane roundabout to better handle the high vehicular flow where I-81, U.S. 220 and U.S. 11 converge in the southern part of Botetourt. The work was substantially completed this year.

While VDOTs aim was to reduce congestion, county officials see a second benefit. The hope is that new roads will make the surrounding land more suitable for commercial, retail and housing development in an area that is considered a key gateway to Botetourt.

County officials believe that higher-end growth will be an improvement over the commercial activity previously generated by the truck stop.

However, the former Travel Centers of America site itself is not likely to be developed. The now-barren spot is landlocked between the interstate to the north and a new traffic lane to the south that offers no access to the property.
A 74-year-old pedestrian who was hit by an SUV earlier this month in a Roanoke parking lot has died.

A Honda CRV drove off the road and into the parking lot of a car wash in the 3600 block of Williamson Road Northwest on Dec. 10, according to search warrants filed in Roanoke Circuit Court. The SUV then struck Jose Bonilla-Lopez.

Bonilla-Lopez was taken to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where he died Dec. 18, police spokesman Scott Leamon said Thursday.

No charges have been filed.

Police have executed four search warrants to seize medical records from Roanoke Fire-EMS and Carilion for Bonilla-Lopez. Police also seized blood and urine samples and laboratory records from Quest Diagnostics for Bonilla-Lopez.

Police also obtained the motor vehicle inspection report for the SUV.  Amy Friedenberger
RICHMOND  The top Republican in Virginias House of Delegates said Friday that the GOP plans to elect its own speaker on the first day of the legislative session, asserting that Democratic efforts to challenge the tied result in a Newport News-area House race will force the body to move forward without one member or risk jeopardizing aspects of Gov.-elect Ralph Northams inauguration.

Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, who hopes to become the next House speaker if Republicans can hold onto their majority after losing at least 15 seats in last months elections, called the Democratic legal filings and publicity campaign crying foul over the apparent tie in the 94th House District a deliberate strategy to make it more difficult for the House to organize smoothly.

With the outcome in the 94th District still unsettled, Cox said in a conference call with reporters that even if a planned tiebreaker occurs before the legislative session begins Jan. 10, the House wont seat the winner if the loser asks for a recount.

If other results hold, that means Republicans would have a 50-49 majority on opening day, presumably allowing Cox to be elected speaker.

We will not allow the intentional and politically motivated blame tactics to impede the organization of the House, said Cox, who was announced on the press call as speaker-designee, a presumptive title Cox had dropped when it appeared Democrat Shelly Simonds had won the 94th District race over Republican Del. David Yancey by one vote.

At the end of a recount last week, a three-judge panel decided to count a previously disqualified ballot for Yancey, creating a tie that could prove pivotal to who controls the nearly evenly split House.

Shortly after Cox said the winner of the tiebreaker wont be seated in time to vote in the speakership election, the chairman of the State Board of Elections announced Friday that the random drawing to break the tie has been rescheduled for Thursday.

The tiebreaker had been scheduled to be held this week, but the elections board called it off after Simonds filed a new legal motion asking the recount court to reverse itself. Elections Board Chairman James Alcorn said the rescheduled drawing will happen unless the court intervenes.

If Simonds had won the tiebreaker and been seated, the House would be split 50-50, forcing Democrats and Republicans to share power. If Yancey had won, Republicans would have had a 51-49 majority.

If the House cant organize on Jan. 10, Cox said, the General Assembly wont be able to follow through with Gov. Terry McAuliffes farewell speech that night or some formalities of Northams Jan. 13 inauguration because there wont be a joint assembly of the legislature.

Those things simply cannot happen in their current form if the General Assembly isnt organized, Cox said.

Coxs office clarified that the House having no settled leadership wont prevent Northam from taking office, but it could mean Northam wont be able to give an inaugural speech to assembled legislators.

Simonds has repeatedly denounced the recount process as unfair, saying Yanceys legal team broke recount rules by disputing a ballot late in the process when it appeared Simonds had won by one vote. Simonds has said her attorneys werent afforded the same opportunity to contest ballots during the final court hearing to certify the recount results.

Republicans filed motions of their own Friday asking the three-judge panel that oversaw the recount in the 94th District to reject Simonds appeals for a new decision that would declare her the winner. Yanceys lawyers also sent a letter to the board of elections asking for the postponed tiebreaker to be held as soon as possible.

Noting that Alcorn, the elections board chairman, has said the process of drawing names from a bowl to decide the winner is an action of last resort, a Republican attorney said the drawing is the only resort.

The State Board of Elections is obligated to act, and the delay sought by counsel for Ms. Simonds only circumvents the laws of this commonwealth and, ultimately, deprives the people of House District 94 their rightful representative in the House of Delegates, wrote Trevor Stanley, an attorney with BakerHostetler.

The recount judges  Newport News Circuit Court Judge Bryant Sugg, Powhatan County Circuit Court Judge Paul Cella and Chesterfield County Circuit Court Judge David Johnson  have not yet responded to Simonds request to revisit the matter.

Democrats picked up 15 other GOP-held seats in the Nov. 7 elections, evaporating what had been a 66-34 GOP majority.

A Democratic lawsuit is also pending the 28th House District election, but Republicans appear to be operating on the assumption that lawsuit wont affect their ability to seat Republican Bob Thomas, who finished 73 votes ahead of Democrat Joshua Cole in a recount last week.

The lawsuit in the 28th District asks a federal court to throw out the result and order a special election because of system errors that caused 147 voters to cast ballots in the wrong House district.

In the 94th District, Yancey entered the Dec. 19 recount with a 10-vote lead over Simonds. Simonds emerged with what appeared to be a one-vote victory until the judges decided to accept the one additional vote for Yancey during a hearing Dec. 20. On the ballot in question, a voter filled in bubbles for both Simonds and Yancey, but put a slash mark through Simonds bubble.

Simonds lawyers have argued the ballot should have been discarded as an impermissible overvote and that the court shouldnt have reviewed it to begin with because it wasnt set aside during the recount.

The ballot came to light when a Yancey-aligned recount official wrote a letter saying he initially felt it should have counted for Yancey but ultimately agreed it should be tossed out under pressure from fellow recount officials.

House Democrats on Friday accused the Republicans of engaging in desperate efforts to retain the majority.

We find it disappointing that the House Republicans are using the inaugural festivities as a smokescreen to hang on to power, said Katie Baker, communications director for Virginia House Democrats.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook apologized to customers Thursday for not being clear that the company slows down phones with aging batteries. Cook promised that, in the future, Apple will "give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone's battery" and let people see if their battery's age affects their phone's performance.

Apple is offering a discount on battery replacements to anyone with an iPhone 6 or later, the company said in a statement. A replacement will now cost $29 instead of $79 starting in late January 2018. The cheaper price is more in line with third-party repair shops.

While Cook's message was apologetic, he still rejected allegations that Apple slowed down phones with older batteries as a way to push people into buying new phones. "First and foremost, we have never - and would never - do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades," he said.

The company said previously that unless it reduces the performance of its phones, the older batteries run a higher risk of spontaneously shutting down. This explanation makes technical sense, many experts have said.

Apple's disclosure last week that it slows down phones has sparked much criticism and a string of lawsuits. A French consumer rights group filed a suit on Dec. 27 that accuses Apple of degrading its old phones in order to sell new ones. In France, it's illegal to degrade old products to promote the sale of new ones, meaning that the suit filed in France by the group Halte a l'Obsolescence Programmee is the only lawsuit that carries the possibility of up to two years in prison.

The group, which lays out its case in an online statement, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has also previously sued printer companies including Epson over claims that they violate the same law. The printer case is currently under investigation.

Apple also faces at least eight lawsuits from iPhone owners in places including California, New York, New Jersey and even Israel that claim Apple owes its customers money for not previously disclosing the slowdowns. The suits ask the company to pay iPhone owners varying amounts. One California suit seeks nearly $1 trillion in damages.

South Korean government telecommunications officials have also said they will look into the reports, according to the Korea Herald.

The argument of the people criticizing Apple largely have rested on two claims: one, that Apple hurt the performance of the phones in secret and two, that doing so made it more likely that someone would buy a new iPhone rather than fix their old one.

That, argues one lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of New York, amounts to a sort of fraud: "Had Plaintiffs been informed by Apple that a simple battery replacement would have improved the performance of their iPhones, Plaintiffs would have chosen to replace their batteries which was clearly a more cost effective method rather than upgrading to a new iPhone that was extremely costly."

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suits or the investigation.

The suits cap off a rocky year for Apple, which saw a lot of financial success but also a good deal of small controversies - including a bug that prevented iPhone owners from typing "i" and several software issues. It also faced criticism over a lukewarm reception for its iPhone X and had to delay the release of its smart speaker, the HomePod, to 2018.

That said, Apple's not hurting on the business front, though. Cook earned his $9.33 million end-of-year bonus thanks to strong stock market performance. And Apple appears to be finishing the year strong, with more people starting up new iPhones and iPads than devices from any other gadgetmaker this year, according to research firm Flurry Analytics.
Nov. 23 was not a typical workday at one Toronto-area office building. When employees showed up, there was a gaping hole in the ceiling above one desk. Underneath the desk, near the legs of a red chair, sat a masked intruder looking remarkably relaxed.

It was a raccoon, and it had crashed through the ceiling.

For Brad Gates and his team, the event was a typical workday. The wildlife control company hes run for three decades fields such a call  about a raccoon plummeting through a ceiling, stunning the people below  about every month, making this little fellow a usual suspect, if a bit heftier at 40 pounds. Also, Gates recalled, because it was morning, the nocturnal animal was fast asleep under the desk.

Such incidents occur year-round. But wildlife professionals say they are a bit more common in the cold of winter, when raccoons, which are adept at locating and squeezing through even small crevices in buildings and houses, cozy down in nooks of human shelters for longer stretches of time. Squirrels love attics, too, but when testing the load-bearing limits of ceilings, raccoons have a weight disadvantage. That is particularly true in commercial buildings, which often feature dropped ceilings meant to hide infrastructure, not serve as raccoon terrain.

They may have been living in the building for a long period of time and may have found the one tile that wasnt set in as it should be, Gates said. And everything just comes tumbling down under the raccoon.

Their surprise appearances happen often enough that the Internet features plenty of hilarious video of raccoons, legs splayed, suddenly dropping into human habitat, as well as tales of havoc wreaked during their attempts to escape. This year, falling raccoons seem to have favored Texas, plunging into the apartment of an Arlington woman who told a local television station that shed heard the animals have a party in the ceiling; dropping into a San Antonio College building as a cleaner mopped nearby; and crashing into a corrections office in Angelina County.

Raccoons flourish in nearly every corner of the United States, and they are super smart, so you might say nowhere is safe from an intrusion. In December 2016, a raccoon breached the ceiling of a liquor store in Bristol, Tennessee. In Facebook posts, storekeepers shared security camera video of the animal landing on all fours, collecting itself, then ransacking shelves as though hunting for the perfect vintage. At one point, it flips what the store manager reported was a $45.99 bottle of Bakers Bourbon onto the ground and nails the landing. The managers post continued: Warning there is evidence of alcohol abuse in this video. ... the raccoon broke a few bottles.

Southern Canada also is home to the animals, and Toronto has been the site of several well-known raccoon capers. In May, for example, one peeked out of a ceiling hole above baggage claim at the citys airport; its masked face promptly went viral.

Raccoons frequently encroach on attics and ceilings, of course. But while invading protected and warm human space is certainly intentional, falling is not, said John Griffin, director of urban wildlife for the Humane Society of the United States. In houses, this usually happens when ceiling drywall has been weakened by moisture or mold  or raccoon urine and feces, if the critters have spent enough time above to have amassed a heavy latrine, as their toilet area is known.

Believe me, when it happens, it is a surprise to everybody, including the raccoon, said Griffin, whose role used to involve responding to wildlife conflict calls in the Washington area.

One time, Griffin said, the owner of a townhouse in the tony neighborhood of Georgetown returned from a three-day weekend away to find the home plundered. The drapes were torn. The dishes were broken. But the giveaways were a hole in the ceiling and what Griffin calls the final insult: a piece of raccoon scat near the bathroom sink, next to a tube of Colgate and a toothbrush.

Eventually, the owner was able to laugh about it, said Griffin, who pinpointed the animals entry point as an opening near a satellite dish that had not been properly installed. By the time the owner came home, the raccoon had escaped through a dryer vent  showing, Griffin argued, the perseverance, and the ability for the raccoon to contend with these kinds of human-built structures and all the things it has to do to stay alive in a city.

Its not a good idea to have raccoons in the house, and not just for curtains. The animals can carry rabies and a very rare form of roundworm that can cause neurological damage, and even death, in people. Last week, a Philadelphia woman said her 4-month-old baby was brutally mauled by a raccoon that had gotten inside their apartment.

Thats why keeping them out in the first place is crucial. At businesses, Gates said, the animals usually make their way through ventilation systems and rooftop air conditioners. At homes, roof vents, openings where two sections of roof meet and structural flaws are their typical front doors, he said.

When he captures a raccoon, Gates releases it nearby, because the animal will be familiar with local water resources, competitors and denning spots  the natural, outdoor kind. (Laws about trapping nuisance wildlife, as well as whether and where it can be released, vary from state to state.) Then Gates talks to the property owner about blocking holes in the building.

By this point, an owner has been given signs that this is not a friendly tenant in the attic, and it can do damage, Gates said. Its easy to convince them that now is the time to seal the roof and make sure the animals cant get back inside.

It is particularly easy in the extreme cases of falling raccoons. Gates recalled one client who was reading in bed when she reached over to pet what she thought was her cat. When it growled, she observed that it was a raccoon  and that there was a hole in her ceiling. She corralled it out the door.

But Gatess ultimate raccoon-crasher story occurred four or five years ago. The animal had made itself at home in an attic, and it had established its latrine right above the master bed. When it ambled over to do its business in the middle of one night, onto the sleeping homeowners crashed 30 pounds of raccoon waste, drywall and the furry critter itself.

It was a rude awakening, Gates said, but no one was injured. By the time he arrived, the raccoon was sleeping in a sink, as if hed heard there was a guy who would come to escort him out.

One thing about raccoons is theyre so highly intelligent that they quickly can realize theyre in a trapped environment and no effort is going to make a situation better, Gates said. So they conserve their energy.
It has been a year of reckoning for women in the United States. It began with hundreds of thousands of women across the U.S. and the rest of the world marching for womens rights. It would close out with powerful men like Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein accused of serial sexual harassment and abuse of women  and finally facing consequences for their behavior.

But what has changed for women in 2017, particularly in government and policy? The Trump administration has taken actions on issues that directly affect women, including funding for sex education, how colleges handle sexual assault cases and how some workers can obtain birth control. On the political side, women in the U.S. Senate became key players in dealing with sexual harassment in Congress, while the November election showed early signs of a new wave of women running for office.

Under President Trump, women, working families and children have seen opportunities expand, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

Weve catalogued and assessed some of the most significant changes below.

What has changed for women and family planning

As one of his first acts as president, Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, otherwise known as the global gag rule. The rule, which has been implemented by every Republican president since Ronald Reagan and revoked by every Democratic one since Bill Clinton, bars foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform or discuss abortion from receiving U.S. funding.

This is a pro-life administration and pro-life president, said Sanders. This an issue he campaigned on, advocated for, and was proud to take action on as one of his first acts.

However, certain NGOs and agencies that focus on diseases from Zika virus to AIDS could lose funding because they also offer family planning services that mention abortion.

The Trump administration notified several grant recipients in the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program that their funding would end in June of 2018, instead of in 2020, even though their research had not concluded. The TPPP provided grants to organizations that would implement evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs.

The HHS under the current administration argues that the TPP Programs that lost funding were ineffective at preventing teen pregnancy, but the programs had not yet finished their research and supporters in Congress argued the programs contributed to the governments understanding of how to prevent teen pregnancy. The teen birthrate in the U.S. has fallen steadily over the last several years, though the U.S. still trails behind other Western nations in making progress.

Early action from the Trump administration has signaled renewed support for abstinence-only programming, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In October, the Trump administration allowed employers to refuse to cover birth control on their insurance plans on religious grounds, a change long sought by conservative groups. The decision sparked immediate legal challenges, and so far it has been blocked in two federal courts. The requirement was a key component of the Affordable Care Act.

Changes in education rules

In September, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos revoked Obama-era requirements for how universities are required to deal with sexual assault, arguing that they went too far in dictating how campuses should handle these incidents.

Under Obama, colleges were required to use a lower standard of proof, preponderance of evidence, when investigating a claim. With DeVos changes, colleges will have to use clear and convincing evidence, a higher standard of proof that an assault was committed. Supporters of DeVos change said that it makes the process more fair for all students and parties involved in these disputes, while critics argued it would make victims of assault less likely to report.

Health care, taxes, and entitlement programs

Though the Affordable Care Act was not repealed outright, and sign-ups continue apace, the program has been cut back through other means. The Republicans new tax bill essentially axed the individual mandate, which was seen as the backbone of the ACA.

The Trump administration sees these changes as positive for women and families. We believe that more freedom for people to choose more diverse plans with less mandates imposed upon them are good for all consumers, women and men alike, said White House spokesman Raj Shah.

Some experts believe that such dramatic changes to health-care policy could have an adverse impact on women. The health-care market is destabilized. I think we can reasonably expect some women to lose coverage, we just dont know how many, said Laurie Sobel, Associate Director of Womens Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. The uninsured rate among women aged 19-64 has dropped from 17 percent in 2013 to 11 percent in 2016, according to KFF. In 2016, about 91 percent of women under 65 had some form of coverage, up from 85 percent in 2009, according to census data.

The precarious future of the Childrens Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, could also impact women and families. The program provides coverage for millions of children whose families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but cant afford or access private insurance. The program ran out of funding on Sept. 30, 2017, and has yet to be reauthorized. Congress just injected the program with emergency funds that will last until March, but its future is still in limbo despite bipartisan support and the backing of the Trump administration.

The Republican tax overhaul, which Trump signed into law just before Christmas, includes an expanded child tax credit thanks to a late push from Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah. The Trump administration pointed to the expansion of the child tax credit as a boon for women and families.

The President is standing with working families by doubling the child tax credit and being the first to propose federal paid family leave in his budget, Sanders said.

Republicans said the tax plan will help the middle class, but nonpartisan studies suggest it will favor wealthier individuals.

Women in Congress

After starting in Hollywood and working its way through the media, the #MeToo movement came for Congress. Several members of Congress lost their jobs, including Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, announced that he would not seek re-election next year after allegations surfaced.

After organizations like The Washington Post revealed the secretive, byzantine system for reporting sexual harassment on Capitol Hill, female lawmakers led the charge to fix the process. The Me Too Congress Act was introduced in November, aimed at changing the system by which Congress deals with sexual misconduct. The Senate also mandated that all elected officials and their aides would need to undergo anti-sexual harassment training. Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., has said that the House would mandate similar training.

Female representation in national politics

Early indications from organizations like Emilys List and She Should Run show record interest from women in running for office.

In Virginias 2017 elections, 11 new women were elected to the House of Delegates, several of them ousting Republican incumbents. The number of women in Virginias House rises from 17 to 27, and new members will include the chambers first Asian American woman and Latinas.

On the executive side, President Trumps first Cabinet has the lowest percentage of women and nonwhite men of any since President Ronald Reagans. Trumps predecessor, President Barack Obama, had seven women in his first Cabinet. In comparison, Trump has four, and only two are in the inner Cabinet. However, several women hold other powerful positions within the White House. Sanders is the first woman to serve as White House press secretary since Dana Perino in 2009, and is only the third woman to ever hold the position. Other women, including Kellyanne Conway and Ivanka Trump, hold prominent administration roles. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has gained particular prominence this year.

Trans women see changes in politics and policy realms

Election Day was a landmark day for transgender women in government. Andrea Jenkins became the first openly transgender black woman elected to public office in the U.S. when she won a seat on the Minneapolis City Council. That same night, Danica Roem was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, running against a Republican incumbent who had, in the past, referred to himself as the states chief homophobe and introduced a failed bathroom bill.

It was a bad year for bathroom bills, legislation that requires individuals to use the bathroom that corresponds to their sex assigned at birth and is often seen as discriminatory by the LGBT community. North Carolina was forced to repeal such a law after national backlash. A Texas bathroom bill failed to pass during this years special session after a similar outcry.

Looking ahead

All of these shifts indicate that 2018 will be another year of change for women in the political realm.

What we saw when it came to women running this year is a little window into what we might see come next year, both in state legislative races and also in congressional races, said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

People have been galvanized, particularly women, said Niambi Carter, assistant professor of political science at Howard University.

However, well have to wait to see how much that interest and energy translates into actual female candidates. The number of people expressing interest is unquestionably through the roof, said Jennifer Lawless, Director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University. Its a lot different to actually throw your hat into the ring and run for Congress.
On Dec. 23 at the Lyric Theatre, Downtown Blacksburg Inc. announced the winners in the fifth annual Holiday Tree and fourth annual Gingerbread House contests in Kent Square. More than 250 community members attended the event.

Voting on the trees and houses ran from Nov. 25 through Dec 21. More than 350 votes were cast, voting for first, second and third place.

The holiday tree that received the most votes, winning first place and the much coveted Soaring Eagle Award, was Blacksburg Library. Coming in second was the Blacksburg Childrens Museum, and in third place was the tree decorated by Ed Tuchler and his team at Energy Check.

The trees will remain on display in Kent Square through Jan. 4, 2018.

The Gingerbread House contest in Kent Square raised more than $600 for Micahs Backpack and was sponsored by Kent Jewelers and Nest Realty. The winning house was created by the Jilk/Stowe family, with its theme based on the movie UP. In second place was Cook Family Dentistry with a Rudolph-themed dentist office, and in third place was Caroline Barnard with a beach-themed house.

Names of voters were drawn at random to win downtown gift certificates. Jessie Richards, Rebekah Waldrep and Alice Coddington were the lucky winners!

Other trees were decorated by Mount Tabor Ruritan Club, Pointe West Management, Kent Jewelers, Sundee Best Boutique, Sideline Orthopedics, Downtown Blacksburg Inc., Bookholders, YMCA at VT, Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Ozmo, Tuck Chiropractic, Community Housing Partnersand Nest Realty.

Other Gingerbread houses were created by Qualtrax Headquarters, Qualtrax, Shelter Alternatives, VT Senior Fellow for Resource Development, Curie & DaVinci Science Living Learning, XYZ Art Gallery, VT Softball, the Clay sisters, the Reusch family, the DeJesus family and Harding Avenue Elementary School.
July 21, 1964 December 26, 2017 Roy Dale Martin, 53, of Christiansburg, went to be with the Lord on Tuesday morning, December 26th, 2017 at UVA Medical Center. Born in Pearisburg, Virginia, on July 21st, 1964, he was a son of the late Billy E. and Shirley S. Martin. He was a 1982 graduate of Giles High School. He was preceded in death by his father; grandmothers Sylvia I. Goad and Margie Poe, William M. Flinchum; and great nephew Thatcher McKinley Savage. Roy Dale was a loving husband, father, son, brother, uncle, and friend that will be remembered and sadly missed. Left to cherish and honor his loving memory are his wife, Teresa, and daughter, Kasey Davis; his mother, Shirley, whom he protected and loved dearly; his brothers, Larry Martin (Laurlene) and Timmy Kurstedt; sisters, Priscilla Soucek (Dale), Betty Linkous (David), Brenda Martin, Sandy Fisher (Ricky); and his special friend, Walter Breeden. His special babies (dogs) Dixie Mae, Chloe, Merrissa, Little Man, and Cie Cie (cat). Also he cherished his nephews and nieces Randy (Brittany) and Johnny Soucek, Nikki Whitlock and Brooke Linkous, Travis (Breanna), Danny, and Amanda (Rod) Savage, Morgan and Maggie Fisher; great nieces and nephews Ava Dickerson, Landon Perkins, Samuel Savage, Silas Savage, and Adalynne and Riley Whitlock. Also his extended special family, A-1 Heating and Cooling. Roy was a dedicated and integral part of building the business for over 20 years. Roy Dale was a loving, caring, and special man. He always put family and friends first and foremost. We cannot express in words to convey the man Roy was to everyone he met. He could make you laugh and he loved to joke around with anyone about his Redskins and his Hokies. He also let everyone know how he felt about the "Cowgirls" (Dallas Cowboys) or "losers" as he referred to them. His favorite time of year was hunting season when he practically lived on the mountain. Roy loved the Martin family get-togethers or the "Waltons" as we were referred to over the years. Funeral Services will be conducted Saturday, December 30th at 1 p.m. at Kendall Funeral Home, 605 Snidow St. in Pembroke with graveside services immediately following in the Martin-Meredith Cemetery on Doe Creek. The family will receive friends at the funeral home on Friday evening, December 29th from 4 to 7 p.m. Online condolences may be sent by visiting kendallfuneralhome.com.
The diamond industry has moved from a stable environment to a highly dynamic environment, ABN AMRO special report says. The miners and the rough diamond buyers have adopted different strategies to survive in this new environment.

Threat of laboratory-grown diamonds

Laboratory-grown diamonds have entered the industry of diamond gems, creating uncertainty about the long-term value of natural diamonds. According to the US Geological Survey the annual production of laboratory-grown diamonds for industrial use in 2016 was estimated to be 4.41bln carats. Roughly 99.9% of the annual laboratory-grown diamond production is for industrial purposes. The production of laboratory-grown diamonds for jewellery purposes is only a fraction of the total laboratory-grown diamond production between 2.5 and 4.4 million carats according to Bonas Diamond Brokers & Consultants.

The laboratory-grown diamond production for jewellery purposes is set to increase as technology improves the quality of the laboratory-grown diamonds as well as the size. For laboratory-grown diamond producers the profit earned on gem quality laboratory-grown diamonds is more attractive than on industrial laboratory-grown diamonds. Therefore, it is likely that these producers will focus more on gem-quality laboratory-grown diamonds. Currently gem-quality laboratory-grown diamonds are 0.1% of the total laboratory-grown diamond production. If this share would increase to 5% over the coming decades, laboratory-grown diamonds would be more than 1.5 times the total annual mined diamond production (industrial and gems) and 3 times more than mined gem-quality diamonds. Such an increase in production will probably result in downward pressure on prices of laboratory-grown diamonds. In short, taking into account how quickly technology changes, probably sooner rather than later laboratory-grown gem-quality diamonds production will exceed mined gem-quality diamond production. This would be a revolution and fundamentally challenge the mined-diamond sector.

Natural gem diamond marketing magic lost its sparkle

Last but not least, the natural diamond marketing magic has lost its sparkle and the laboratory-grown diamond producers have used this to their advance. The laboratory-grown diamond producers have done a strong marketing campaign that laboratory-grown diamonds are more sustainable.

Laboratory-grown diamond producers have been able to connect with the millennials by promoting themselves as high tech, innovative and clean.

The natural diamond producers are facing a challenge to improve the sentiment towards mined diamonds and to connect with the millennials. The Diamond Producers Association (DPA) is having an enlarged marketing budget to address this.

If laboratory-grown diamonds really take off, the industry structure will change completely. In case of a take-off of laboratory-grown diamonds, the power will move from the suppliers to the buyers resulting in fierce competition among the suppliers. The price will then most likely decline especially for laboratory-grown diamonds because of the large production. Natural diamond prices will probably decline as well because of lower demand.

Profitability is no longer there, and survival is at stake. Hopes that old times will revive and profitability will return have resulted in paralysis. If survival is at stake, a change in supply strategy may need to be considered. In the end the decision rests with the buyers of rough diamonds. The era of win-win situation is over and the battle for profit is the new reality.

Finance in the mid-stream may be less challenging than thought

Up to a few years ago, buyers could fully finance rough diamond purchases. Since then, banks have exited the business and some other banks do not finance the total amount of rough diamond purchases anymore. As a result, the buyers need to finance the gap from their own equity or get the financing via another way. There are also other ways to finance the purchase of rough diamonds.

First, a form a crowd funding or via venture capital. Second, revolving credit facility with online diamond trading platform of for example IDEX online (this is for polished diamonds).

Third, the financing could also come from the large mining companies. This could have an interesting side-effect: the buyer is not only dependent on the miner for the supply for diamonds but also for the loans.

The miner has more at stake and will probably set more reasonable rough prices. The more reasonable prices the higher the likelihood that he will sees his money back.

Transparency could open the door to investors

Another form of financing will be to increase the interest of investors in diamonds as an asset class.

But ABN AMRO thinks it is unlikely that investors will embrace diamonds as an asset class in the near-term. That because of uniqueness, a diamond will remain a niche product where the estimation of the value is an insiders job. Large high-quality diamonds with price guidance of the auction houses or coloured diamonds could be attractive for specialty investors though.

Diamonds will become interesting for investors as an asset class if the market is transparent in terms of where the diamond comes from, where the money is made and how the price is calculated. Currently, if an investor would like to have a relative liquid and transparent diamond asset it would invest in the large mining companies, ABN AMRO report says.

Alex Shishlo, Editor of the Rough&Polished European Bureau in Brussels




De Beers plans to finalize the shutdown of its Snap Lake diamond mine in Canada. The company will file a closure and reclamation plan in 2019.

De Beers Canada has notified the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board it intends to file a final closure and reclamation plan for its defunct Snap Lake diamond mine.

"Until that plan is submitted, it is premature to discuss what final closure will look like or what the associated costs will be," said De Beers spokesperson Terry Kruger in an email to CBC.

Snap Lake was De Beers' first diamond mine outside of Africa, according to the company's website. It is located 220 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife.

It opened in 2008 and was expected to produce diamonds for 15 years. In 2014, the mine produced 1.2 million carats of diamonds.

In December 2015, De Beers announced it was closing the mine and laying off 434 workers. The closure came in the wake of a downturn in diamond prices and water problems at the mine that required an amendment to the mine's water licence.




ALROSA has formed a long-term client list for the new contract period of 2018-2020. The companys long-term clients will take part in the first trading session on January 15 to 19 in the coming year. The complete list of clients will be published on ALROSAs trading website Long-term contracts are the mainstay of the marketing policy pursued by ALROSA, as they account for up to 70% of the miners rough sales. The contracts guarantee the volume in carats and assortment of monthly diamond deliveries, as well as the possibility of purchasing additional parcels of rough diamonds. This kind of cooperation provides the company and its clients with stable supplies of rough and protects against the volatility of diamond prices in the global market.ALROSA has formed a balanced client base involving major market players from different geographical areas. This helps to increase the focus of sales on final diamond manufacturers and major jewelry retailers.All the long-term clients of ALROSA are subject to rigorous selection by a number of legal and financial criteria. In addition, the companys long-term clients must comply with the Responsible Business Practices, which include, inter alia, transparency and disclosure, anti-corruption, adherence to the Kimberley Process principles and respect for human rights.As in the current contract period coming to its end, one of the decisive factors in selecting clients was their trading activity with ALROSA and especially their actual demand in the periods of low diamond market.Among the innovations of this contract period, it is necessary to note the increased volume of goods directed to the domestic market of the Russian Federation for the purposes of supporting the domestic diamond-cutting sector, as well as more rigorous requirements to the company's clients in terms of meeting the required level of financial performance, as stipulated by the terms of their long-term contracts (covenants).The company is expanding the list of clients included in the ALROSA ALLIANCE. The selected clients receive the right to use the trademark of ALROSA ALLIANCE, which confirms not only the availability of regular supplies of diamonds from ALROSA, but also the clients reputation as a reliable and trusted participant of the global diamond pipeline.
Biosimilar Trastuzumab, co-developed by Biocon Ltd. and Mylan N.V. (MYL), has been approved by ANVISA, the Brazilian regulatory agency, through their partner Libbs Farmaceutica (Libbs), a leading Brazilian pharmaceutical company.

Co-developed by Biocon and Mylan, this is the first biosimilar Trastuzumab to be approved in Brazil and is indicated for the treatment of overexpressing HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, HER2-positive early stage breast cancer and HER2-positive advanced gastric cancer.

Libbs will commercialize the product in Brazil under the brand name Zedora, which will provide affordable access to a cutting-edge biologics therapy for patients in Brazil.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Airbus said that it finalized agreements with Indigo Partners and its four portfolio airlines for the purchase of 430 additional A320neo Family aircraft for ultra-low-cost airlines Frontier Airlines (United States), JetSMART (Chile), Volaris (Mexico) and Wizz Air (Hungary). The signed purchase agreement follows a Memorandum of Understanding among the parties announced at the Dubai Air Show last month.

The 430-aircraft order is made up of 274 A320neos and 156 A321neos worth $49.5 billion at list prices. Airlines in the Indigo Partners family had previous placed orders for a total of 427 A320 Family aircraft.

Indigo Partners' Franke indicated that engine selections will be made at a later date.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Miami will host the North American Bitcoin Conference (TNABC) next month.

A part of World Blockchain Forum: Investments & ICOs, the North American Bitcoin Conference is taking place in the sunshine state on January 18 and 19.

The organizers, Keynote Ltd., said 2018 conference will bring together all the major players of the industry to discuss the future of Bitcoin and Blockchain.

"This year we are happy to host over 50 ICOs and our partner Victory Square Technologies is giving away $100,000 to the top three pitches," said Keynote CEO, Moe Levin.

There are more than 2,000 registered attendees and over 100 exhibitors, he added.

The conference will cover a wide array of topics including blockchain , Bitcoin and Ethereum, the initial coin offerings (ICO), token sale mechanics, investing, regulation, startups, and disruption.

This year's TNABC will have a wide variety of speakers from blockchain movers and shakers, venture capitalists, and developers. Companies making huge waves in the crypto world will be represented. There will be interactive sessions where attendees can ask questions and network with upcoming ICOs and bitcoin companies.

The largest conference in the blockchain space, TNABC is coming after a phenomenal year for cryptocurrencies and blockchain assets.

Bitcoin continues to attract intense media attention with volatile price fluctuation.

The most popular digital currency approached $20,000 on December 17, but suddenly dropped to a pre-Christmas low of $11,000. Despite increased scrutiny and regulation across the globe, and warnings of a price bubble, the value of bitcoin has soared 1300 percent since the start of 2017.

The most recent spike was spurred by U.S. regulators allowing exchanges to conduct bitcoin future trading, providing the cryptocurrency with a greater level of credibility in the financial world.

Bitcoin futures began trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and CME Group in December.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
President Donald Trump has said he believes special counsel Robert Mueller will be fair in his investigation of Russian meddling in last year's election but argued the probe is hurting the image of the U.S.

In a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times on Thursday, Trump repeatedly insisted there was "no collusion" between his presidential campaign and the Russians.

"There was no collusion with respect to my campaign. I think I'll be treated fairly," Trump said. "Timing-wise, I can't tell you. I just don't know. But I think we'll be treated fairly."

The president claimed his only concern about the length of the investigation is the impact that the probe has had on the country's image.

"It makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position," Trump said. "So the sooner it's worked out, the better it is for the country."

Trump also discussed his post on Twitter responding to reports of China selling oil to North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions.

"Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea," Trump tweeted on Thursday. "There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!"

Trump suggested that he would follow through on his campaign promise to take aggressive trade actions against China if the communist country continues to illegally sell oil to North Korea.

"China's hurting us very badly on trade, but I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war," Trump said.

"If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing," he added. "But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that."

Trump said China has tremendous power over North Korea but argued the Chinese are not doing enough to rein in a country he described as a "nuclear menace."

The president also expressed confidence that he will win another four years in the White House and suggested the media would actually help him.

Trump said he expects to be re-elected in 2020 primarily because the U.S. is starting to do well again and being respected again.

"But another reason that I'm going to win another four years is because newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I'm not there because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes," Trump said.

"So they basically have to let me win," he added. "And eventually, probably six months before the election, they'll be loving me because they're saying, 'Please, please, don't lose Donald Trump.'"

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
President Donald Trump has expressed a willingness to reach a bipartisan agreement to protect young illegal immigrants brought to the country as children but is insisting on major concessions from Democrats.

Trump stressed in a post on Twitter on Friday that there cannot be a deal on the program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals without funding for his controversial border wall and other reforms to the immigration system.

"The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc.," Trump tweeted. "We must protect our Country at all cost!"

Trump rescinded the DACA program in September with a six-month delay, setting up a March 5th deadline for lawmakers to reach an agreement on protections for the illegal immigrants known as Dreamers.

Democrats have previously offered to beef up border security in order to secure protections for Dreamers but remain opposed to building Trump's proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The president's insistence that any deal include border wall funding could hamper negotiations over a government spending bill, as Democrats have demanded the legislation include protections for Dreamers.

However, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Democrats would not negotiate through the press and look forward to serious talks at a meeting next week.

(Photo: Michael Vadon)

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Report: Over 7 Yemeni civilians killed, injured in 48 airstrikes





SANAA, Dec 29 (Saba)  At least seven civilians were killed and wounded in 48 airstrike launched by US-backed Saudi-led aggression coalition warplanes on several Yemeni provinces over the past 24 hours, officials and medics told Saba on Friday.



In northern province of Jawf, two civilians were killed in an airstrike on a main road of Matama district and burning their truck loaded with vegetables.



Also, in Jawf, the aggression fighter jets waged nine raids on Khab washaaf and Matama districts.



In central province of Taiz, the warplane carried out a strike on national telecommunication networks of Zaher district.



In the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, a medic was killed and four patients were wounded when the warplanes of aggression waged four raids on Hais hospital and on an ambulance.



In the northern province of Saada, the fighter jets launched seven strikes on Baqem and Dhaher area, an air raid on Bani Maaen area of Razeh district, and three airstrikes on Saweh area of Ketaf district.



Meanwhile, the Saudis enemy fired missiles and artillery shelling in Aal-Tareq and Manbah areas of Razeh border district, leaving heavy damage to residents houses and farms .



In the province of Hajjah, some 127 km northwest of the capital Sanaa, ten Saudi aggression airstrikes targeted edi and Haradh districts.



In Marib province, about 173 km to the northeast of Sanaa, the aggression coalition warplanes waged 12 strikes on several areas of Serwah district, damaging residents houses and properties.



Meanwhile, the Saudi-paid aggression mercenaries targeted several areas in Serwah district by missiles and artillery shelling.







Writing by Sameera al-Mahdi, Editing by Zak





Saba

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[29/December/2017]
By SA Commercial Prop News

Desiree Nafte, Director of Hyprop Investments.



The real estate sector will be exempted from certain provisions of the Consumer Protection Act if industry players have their way.

Many believe the act is overly protective of tenants rights, to the detriment of landlords. Property owners, both residential and commercial, are particularly peeved about section 14 of the act.

This relates to the structuring of lease agreements between landlords and tenants. The most contentious issue is that consumers and small businesses with an asset value or annual turnover below R2m have the right to cancel fixed lease agreements by giving 20 business days notice. Furthermore, fixed lease agreements are not permitted to exceed 24 months.

Section 14 is making it potentially difficult for many property businesses to turn a decent profit, says Desiree Nafte, a director of JSE-listed shopping centre owner Hyprop Investments and deputy chair of the legal committee of the SA Property Owners Association (Sapoa).

Speaking at a workshop on the CPA convened by Sapoa and the Estate Agency Affairs Board, Nafte said that though there are variances in the way the act is interpreted, the general understanding is that tenants are entitled to cancel rental contracts willy-nilly . In stark contrast, landlords are allowed to cancel a lease agreement with 20 days notice only if there is a material breach of contract by the tenant.

Nafte says the financial implications for landlords are huge. Owners of commercial buildings in particular stand to make large losses from this provision given that hefty up-front costs such as broker commission and tenant installations are recouped over the full period of the lease, which typically is five years.

The 24-month restriction on the lease period also creates problems for both landlords and tenants. In fact, Nafte notes that smaller commercial tenants are severely prejudiced by this stipulation, as they may no longer be able to use lease agreements as security for bank loans to grow their businesses.

Though residential rental contracts are usually signed for shorter periods  typically from six to 12 months  buy-to- let investors are also left out of pocket when leases are cancelled prematurely.

Money spent on agents commission, repairs and improvements is difficult to recoup when a tenant ups and leaves a month or two into the lease period, says Dexter Leite, head of Pam Golding Properties rental division. Owners of upper-end rental homes that fetch more than R30000/month are the biggest losers, says Leite, as it is difficult to replace tenants in these properties.

Patrick Bracher, senior director at legal firm Norton Rose SA, believes theres a good chance that an application to exempt the property industry from the provisions of section 14 will be successful. He argues that property leases shouldnt have fallen within the ambit of the CPA in the first place.

Brachers understanding of the act is that the fixed-lease clause applies to the provision of goods and not services. And providing accommodation to either a residential or a commercial tenant should be regarded as a service, he says.

Sipho Tleane, a director in the office for consumer protection at the department of trade & industry, says any industry is welcome to challenge provisions of the act that they believe may stifle acceptable business practices, provided the industry in question already has a regulatory body or code of conduct in place to protect consumers from unfair business practices. We know the CPA has created unintended consequences. And the only way to ensure the best interpretation of the act is to test contentious provisions through the national consumer commission.

Sapoa and the Estate Agency Affairs Board, the regulatory bodies that look after the interests of the commercial and residential property sectors respectively, are expected to lodge an application for exemption from section 14 with trade & industry minister Rob Davies within the next few months.
An Indian-origin college student was shot dead during a robbery attempt at a gas station in the US on Thursday and his relative critically injured, media reports said.

An Indian-origin college student was shot dead during a robbery attempt at a gas station in the US on Thursday and his relative critically injured, media reports said.

Nineteen-year-old Arshad Vhora was filling in for his father -- who was in India to attend a wedding -- at the gas station in Dolton, Illinois, when the attempted robbery took place, ABC 7 Chicago reported. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The other victim, 55-year-old Bakar Saieed, was taken to a hospital and is in serious condition.

The business is family-owned and operated and the victims were related, though it was not immediately clear how, Chicago Sun-Times said, quoting Dolton Police chief Robert M. Collins Jr.

The attempted robbery took place about 11 a.m. and no one was in custody as of Thursday afternoon, Collins said.

Police said they received a 911 call from the Clark gas station from a man who was unable to speak. The officers rushed to the scene and found the victims.

"This is another act of senseless killing. As we know, it happens too often," said Abdul Vhora, a relative. "He was a very intelligent kid. He was filling in for his father while his father was out of the country. His father is on his way back."

Vhora was a sophomore business major at South Suburban College, relatives said.

Police are reviewing surveillance video from the gas station, and are investigating the incident as an armed robbery homicide. Police are also interviewing a delivery man who had just arrived at the gas station as a potential witness to the shooting. He was not injured.

According to ABC 7 Chicago, the police believe the suspects came and left on foot. Though they are investigating the shooting as an armed robbery, police said the cash register appears to be untouched and they have not had problems with the gas station in the past.

"Investigators are still combing through video and canvassing the area and seeking out potential witnesses, so right now we do not have any potential suspect information," said Collins.

"Right now, we're looking at one suspect but that doesn't rule out the possibility that there may be more suspects involved."

A $12,000 reward is being offered by the victims' family, community activist Andrew Holmes and Dolton Mayor Riley Rogers for information leading to the arrest of the killer.
Nothing is impossible if you have the determination to achieve what you want.

For Pule Amataga, 31-year-old father of three from the villages of Falefa and Siusega, his commitment is to look after his family.

Mr. Amataga said life in Samoa now is all about money.

And that requires hard work.

In Samoa today, nothing comes easy for anyone that is just sitting around and doing nothing, he said.

For Samoa itself you have to have money to provide for your family as well as to support your whole family in terms of family obligations.

So to me the best way to cope with these struggles is to work hard and make sure you do your best to support your family.

Mr. Amataga works for a local supermarket.

He said he appreciates the fact he has a job, unlike many people who are unemployed.

Looking back, Mr. Amataga said life hasnt changed much at all. The struggles we are facing today, he said, were the same faced by our parents.

Its just that it has new dynamics, he said.

The cost of living is not a new struggle because Im sure our ancestors and parents came through the same pathway.

Our parents knew exactly what life would be now and thats why they took us to school in the first place.

So the only thing for us right now to do is to continue what they did for us and try our best to move forward.

Mr. Amataga knows the cost of living is an issue.

I also told myself that the cost of living is the reason why people of Samoa are moving out and going overseas for better opportunities, he said.

Will he consider doing the same?

He wouldnt rule it out.

When the opportunity comes I guess, he said.

In the meantime, he knows what he has to do.

It starts by continuing to work hard and leading by example for his children.

We need to work together, he said. Every parent must go out and find any way possible to provide for their families.

I am struggling too in terms of finances I know if I give up on my work, my family will be a lot worse off so I want continue to work hard and endure suffering.
This year was a special year for Dr. Alo Silia Pausisi Finau from the villages of Safaatoa Lefaga and Sataoa Safata.

She completed her P.H.D. in Philosophy and graduated from the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand recently.

Surrounded by her family for the celebrations in Wellington, there was one key person that wasnt there and Dr. Finau and her siblings felt her absence very deeply.

Due to health reasons their mother, Asomaile Lepetiomalo Finau Pausisi, was unable to fly to New Zealand for the occasion.

According to Dr. Finau, their mother had been present at every graduation until now and with five children with three of them possessing multiple degrees  that is a lot of travelling for graduations.

Mum was part of all of our graduations and the fact is that this qualification really means something to her. Its great that shes able to see it, she said. Even though she is not expressive enough to say that shes happy, but her tears of joy really means that she is appreciative.

A sad turn of events meant that Asomalie could not make her daughters recent graduation at the Victoria University of Wellington where Silia received a P.H.D in Philosophy.

Mum couldnt go to New Zealand to attend my graduation. It was just sad that she was not fit to fly so I decided to bring her in because this qualification is supposed to be for her.

Mum had a massive stroke which resulted in her being paralysed and she is now bedridden.

The family has a strong traditional in pursing and achieving higher education with the endless support of their mother who pushed them to achieve at the highest levels at university.

Mum had that vision, she could see that in order for us to live life to the fullest, we have got to be well educated and she really worked hard for that.

It was mum who worked on the foundation of making sure that we were able to achieve these higher qualifications. Mums mission for all of us is that we should be well educated so that we can enjoy life.

Mum was able to see the significance of education for all of us. Shes like the backbone and the rock of the family. Although my siblings had taken a lot of photos at my graduation, I just thought that something was missing because mum wasnt part of the celebration

With multiple degrees under her belt, pursing her P.H.D in philosophy was something that she knew her mother would appreciate as well as compliment her career as a senior lecturer and H.O.D for the teachers education department at the faculty of education N.U.S

It should mean a lot to mum because mum is a woman of principles. Shes like very firm, very strong. She always disciplined us. No one ever messed around with mum.

Dr. Alo Silia Pausisi Finau is a highly respected academic in Pacific Academia circles around the region and is looking forward to using all her knowledge and experience to train the next generation of educators.

Im going to utilize my skills I got from my study to engage in training the teacher trainees. Philosophy to me is an all-encompassing concept; its very inclusive in the sense that you can apply it to every situation.

For somebody who is traditionally-oriented, I like the idea that I can blend in my cultural knowledge and values and morals in the teaching of the future teachers of Samoa.
The life of Iokapeta Fualuga Petaia was celebrated yesterday at the C.C.C.S. Vaivase Tai.

Among mourners who turned up to pay their respects were Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Minister of Health, Tuitama Dr. Talalelei Tuitama, Cabinet Ministers, members of the diplomatic corps and members of the Samoa Nursing Association.

Her final service was conducted by Rev. Seilala Luamanuvae.

During Tuilaepas eulogy, he spoke of how Iokapeta was very proud of her calling as a Registered Nurse.

Iokapeta was recognized during the celebration of the 100 years of the service of the nursing association in Samoa, he said.

I always hear people talk about how these nurses have the warmest hand when they care for a patient.

Iokapeta was one of the first nurses who had founded the Association.

I always speak highly of the work done by the nurses which included Iokapeta. She will be sorely missed and her great work in the Nursing Association will always be remembered.

One of her daughters, Galumalemana Nuufou Petaia, spoke about their mothers love during her eulogy.

Our mother is very proud of her date of birth, she said.

She was born on February 29, 1924. Her birthday is celebrated every four years because she was born on a leap year.

And that is how we would do it; it would be a big celebration when its time for her birthday.

Another thing is that she would always say that she is younger than her siblings because she celebrates her birthday every four years.

Galumalemana also recalled how their mothers job as a nurse was very dear to her heart.

The people who are more affected in the passing away of our mother are our children, great grandchildren, and great, great grandchildren, she said.

The reason being is that when they needed help in the culture and the faasamoa and especially in the spiritual side, she is the right person to go to.

They really miss her and she was a loving and humble mother.

Iokapeta Fualuga Petaia is the daughter of the late Suasua Setu and Aigaletai.

She has one brother and five sisters.

She was married to the late Memea Toafitu Petaia and they have nine children.

She attended the Pastors School Manunu, L.D.S. Sauniatu School, Malifa Primary School, Nursing School at Motootua, before she obtained a Certificate in Samoan Studies from the National University of Samoa.

She worked as a Registered Nurse in Samoa, Niue and briefly for work experience in New Zealand.

She was a nurse at Samoa College and Matron of Samoa College Hostel from 1962 until retirement in 1981.

She was a housewife and part-time shopkeeper at a family shop upon retirement while continuing to render tautua to extended families, villages, and her beloved church E.F.K.S. Vaivase Tai.

She won first prize in adults Category Award, Story Writing Competition, U.S. Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Celebrations.

She received the Nurse Best Performance Trophy (circa 1950s). She was recognizes by the Samoa Nurses 100th Anniversary Celebration this year and was also awarded for her contribution to the education sector by the class of 1981 in 2016.
Apple Inc. announced Thursday that it will temporarily lower the price of replacing iPhone batteries, hoping to ease the backlash over its acknowledgment that it deliberately slowed down older-model iPhones.

The announcement  along with an apology  came less than two weeks after the company said that in order to prevent iPhones with aging batteries from drawing too much power and abruptly shutting down, it issued software updates to smooth out the power flow. Such smoothing can cause apps to launch more slowly and otherwise hinder the devices performance.

Since last weeks announcement, iPhone owners have filed at least 10 class-action lawsuits against Apple, saying the companys choice to keep quiet about that software led them to buy newer, more expensive iPhones instead of just replacing the batteries. Some accused the company of fraud.

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Apple pushed back. We have never  and would never  do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades, the Cupertino, Calif., company said Thursday.

Starting in early January and lasting through December of next year, Apple said, it will charge only $29 to replace the battery of an iPhone 6 or later whose warranty has expired. Thats $50 less than the current price of a battery replacement.

It also said it will release a software update that enables iPhone users to see whether their batteries condition is affecting the performance of their phones.

Apple has grown reliant on iPhone sales  the devices account for well over half of the companys revenue.

lauren.raab@latimes.com

UPDATES:

3 p.m.: This article was updated to note that iPhone sales make up more than half of Apples revenue.

This article was originally published at 2:40 p.m.
The fate of a proposal to develop hundreds of new hotel rooms on the bay side of the San Diego Convention Center will be determined early next year by port commissioners.

The project, known as Fifth Avenue Landing, reached a key milestone this month, with the release of a nearly 1,000-page environmental analysis.

The $300 million project is planned for a five-acre site coveted by backers of a plan to expand the convention center.

A coalition of tourism and business leaders are hoping to qualify for next Novembers ballot a measure that would raise the hotel tax to pay for the expansion, plus fund homeless services and road repairs.

The required environmental impact report for the proposed 44-story, 840-room hotel says it will have slightly greater impacts on public views and traffic than an expansion of the convention center.

The board of commissioners of the San Diego Unified Port District expect to consider the project and its environmental impact report in April.

Fifth Avenue Landing: Heres the full story

A $300 million hotel project that threatens to foil a hoped-for expansion of the San Diego convention center has reached a key milestone this month, with the release of a nearly 1,000-page environmental analysis.

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Completion of the environmental document, nearly a year in the making, is a pivotal step before the bayfront development known as Fifth Avenue Landing can move forward.

While a number of challenges loom, including needed approvals from the California Coastal Commission and San Diego port commissioners, the project is barreling forward in the face of a parallel effort to secure funding for an expanded convention center on what would largely be the same site.

Fifth Avenue Landing calls for an 840-room, four-star hotel rising 44 stories; a second hotel with 565 beds catering to budget-minded guests; nearly two acres of public plaza and park areas; and an expanded marina.

The development team, which includes longtime Port of San Diego tenants Ray Carpenter and Art Engel, currently controls the state tidelands site via a lease that is not due to expire until 2024.

It is expected that the board of the San Diego Unified Port District could hold a hearing by April to consider the hotel project after soliciting and responding to public comments on the environmental impact report.

Although there is no funding yet for what would be a competing convention center expansion costing more than $600 million, a coalition of civic and tourism leaders is hoping to qualify a citizens initiative for the November 2018 ballot to fund the project. The group is also hoping to secure the support of organized labor.

While those leading the effort are not talking publicly about the ballot measure, which has yet to be released, it is widely known that it would seek a hike in the hotel room tax to cover the expansion costs, as well as fund homeless services and road repairs.

In a statement that revealed little, Laura Fink, spokeswoman for the backers of the initiative, said, Our diverse group looks forward to the launch of significant plans for San Diegos future in 2018.

Carpenter said he is confident that the Fifth Avenue Landing project will continue to progress and hopes that all approvals could be secured by the end of 2018.

Its unfortunate that its evolved this way and the convention center and the city havent complied with our lease that allows us to move forward with our project but well see what happens, Carpenter said.

Until two years ago, the Convention Center Corp. had control over the five-acre site but opted to back out of a deal it struck in 2010 to acquire the leasehold at a cost of $13.5 million as part of its plans to enlarge the convention center. But the expansion project fell apart after a judge ruled in 2014 that the plan to finance it with a hotelier-approved room tax hike was unconstitutional.

One advantage the expansion project has over Fifth Avenue Landing is that it already has received approval from both the port and the Coastal Commission. In a side-by-side comparison in the environmental document, the convention center project is shown to have fewer impacts in areas like public views, traffic and parking.

The expansion, notes the report, would result in a substantially lower structure than what would occur under the proposed project and would involve implementation of an elevated 5-acre public park/plaza that would include the introduction of five new public vista areas to the project site.

In contrast, the high-rise hotel tower would be located within the viewshed of the existing centers plaza and grand staircase and as a result would block or substantially obstruct existing expansive and uninterrupted views of the San Diego Bay, including views of the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, the report states.

While some measures should be taken to minimize those impacts, like better signage directing visitors to the proposed public plaza and rooftop park areas atop the hotel ballrooms and parking structure, the impacts would remain significant and unavoidable, the report says.

Traffic impacts are more modest, with the most problematic roadways limited to just three intersections  15th and F streets, 17th and G streets and 19th and J streets.

Just because there are significant environmental impacts in some areas, those do not mean a project cannot win approval.

Charles Black, who years ago worked on the convention center expansion project for former Mayor Jerry Sanders and now is legal adviser to Fifth Avenue Landing, said he doesnt understand why the hotel project would have more impacts than the expansion.

The expansion is more than twice the size of the hotel project and it strains credulity to believe that a single hotel tower can be more impactful, Black said.

He noted that Fifth Avenue Landing has already negotiated an agreement with the San Diego hotel workers union, Unite Here, to allow the hotel to be union-operated. A similar pact with the building trades for construction of the project has not been consummated as union leaders consider lining up in support of a convention center expansion, Black added.

While the port is not obligated to approve the Fifth Avenue Landing project, it is required to process the development application, per the lease with the port, points out port spokeswoman Tanya Castaneda.

The environmental review of FALs proposed hotel project does not foreclose the Convention Center expansion or some other development on the site subject to the Boards decision on the Fifth Avenue Landing proposed project, Castaneda said in an email. We cant speculate as to what Fifth Avenue Landing or the city might consider with regard to the site.

In a move to reassert its right to develop the bayfront property, Fifth Avenue Landing filed a lawsuit in October asking for a court order that would effectively bar the city and the Convention Center Corp. from continuing to pursue an expansion of the center on land it says they do not control.

The city is seeking a dismissal of the suit and a hearing has been scheduled for next month, said Black.

Still unknown is how the city will gain control of the bayfront site should a convention center ballot measure win approval by voters.

We hear all the time these negotiations with the mayors office are ongoing, Black said, and the guys at FAL look at each other and laugh.

Business

lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-2251

Twitter: @loriweisberg
The most attention-getting Internet news during the past couple of weeks has undoubtedly been the Federal Communications Commissions 3-2 decision to repeal net neutrality, a policy it had put into place in 2015.

While it existed, net neutrality declared that ISPs (Internet Service Providers) must treat all Internet data equally, and stipulated that they could NOT charge users differently based on factors such as content, website, platform, application, or method of communication.

A 2003 FCC ruling declared that an ISP would henceforth be viewed as a common carrier (as are the various telephone companies).

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Under this concept, ISPs were NOT allowed to block or slow down individual websites or their online content.

An example of a ruling violation was the Madison River Communications Co., which was fined $15,000 by the FCC for restricting its customers access to Vonage Internet Voice service, which rivaled Madison Rivers own VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service.

Another example was Verizons throttling of content when customers noticed videos being played via Netflix and YouTube had been slowed down. Verizon claimed it was conducting network testing and that net neutrality policy permits reasonable network management practices.

The ruling has led some foreign governments to regulate Internet services as a public utility, as they do with gas, electrical and water supply companies.

By now youve probably expected me to express an opinion on the FCCs decision to kill net neutrality. Well, as a likely minority of one, I tend to favor less government intervention rather than more.

However, there was an FCC ruling in 1970 that I have always fully embraced: the ban of tobacco and alcoholic ads shown on over-the-air radio and TV. Before the ban, cigarette advertising was reputed to have become nearly 40 percent of all TV advertising.

Pardon my paranoia, but Ive known too many people who shortened their lives with cigarettes.

PhotoPad for Windows

Sherman DeForest wrote to tell me about a free image-editing program called PhotoPad for Windows.

Sherman said he recently encountered a man who was doing a Paint-by-Numbers project. The man had made the numbered background himself by using an option in PhotoPad.

Sherman went on to say, As with many freebies, PhotoPads creators really want us to buy the complete $35 version, so thats what I did. Both versions of the app have an easy-to-follow interface, which is helpful for beginners.

Well, I obtained all my other image-editing programs for free (Windows Paint, Irfanview and Gimp) so, at the risk of being seen as a cheapskate, I downloaded the no-cost version, which has some interesting features Ive not previously found in my other image-editors.

PhotoPad can be obtained at photopad.en.softonic.com/download.

Be aware, however, that Softonic earns no money on free apps, so it surrounds the PhotoPad download link with several other download links that will likely put adware or spyware on your computer.

On any Free App site, be sure you download only the app you want, and not be tricked into accidentally downloading any surrounding bloatware.

Contact Don Edrington at (949) 891-1731 or donedrington@gmail.com.
More than two years ago, at the request of the corporation that owned the Westfield North County shopping mall in Escondido, city planners fast-tracked a proposed 10-screen movie theater complex in the northern parking lot of the shopping center.

Plans were to have the theaters built by Christmas 2016.

But since then, nothing has happened and the city has been given little explanation as to why.

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Meanwhile, the Westfield Corp. this month was purchased for $16 billion by French commercial real estate giant Unibail-Rodamco.

Westfield, based in Australia, owns 32 upscale malls in the United States and Britain. Other Westfield holdings in San Diego County are UTC in University City, Horton Plaza downtown, Mission Valley, and Plaza Bonita in National City.

What the ownership change might mean to the theater plans or for the future of the North County mall are unknown. Escondido City Manager Jeff Epp said he met with Westfield representatives a few weeks ago and they assured him nothing would change at the shopping center.

As for the theaters, Epp said Westfield officials say the plans have not been abandoned.

Every time I talk to them they say they are still on track and still working on the details, Epp said.

A year ago, a Westfield spokeswoman said theater construction plans had been delayed but were still active. Calls to Westfields Los Angeles headquarters were not returned.

The theaters would be contained in a 57,000-square-foot building near Nordstrom, Forever 21 and the dining court. The plans approved by the city include screening rooms of various sizes, including two that seat up to 194 people. Seating will consist of leather recliners and would be arranged in a stadium-style format.

Escondido currently has one movie complex.

jharry.jones@sduniontribune.com; 760/529-4931; Twitter: @jharryjones
Since 1970, newspapers have experienced massive changes: online editions, digital photography, the death of most afternoon papers.

Theres been at least one constant, though: Dave Cramer has helped deliver papers to San Diego County subscribers.

On Sunday, Cramer will conclude his 47-year-plus career at The San Diego Union-Tribune and its predecessor, The San Diego Union.

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The companys longest tenured employee, Cramer began at the Union on June 22, 1970. His initial duties included answering the phone, taking new subscriptions and cancellations, as well as addressing complaints.

He rose through the ranks and is now circulation field support coordinator, working with contractors who oversee newspaper carriers.

His longevity is rare, especially when you add his two years as an Evening Tribune paperboy. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor calculated that the median tenure of workers at their current company was a mere 4.2 years.

Cramer has no regrets: About 90 percent of the time, I enjoyed my job.

Married and the father of two grown children, Cramer plans to travel  the couple has visited all 50 states  and volunteer for the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society.
Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer recently carried a pistol while visiting a forward base in Afghanistan, raising questions about whether and when civilian political appointees should be armed when traveling with the troops.

Reached by email on Thursday evening, Navy spokesman Capt. Patrick McNally said that Marine commanders in Task Force Southwest provided the secretary with a handgun, ammunition and a holster when he toured Camp Shorab and other spots in the war ravaged country on Dec. 23.

He was offered the weapon to carry while he was traveling around (Afghanistan) and he accepted that offer, McNally said. It was not something that he specifically requested and it was offered to everybody on the travel team.

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Mostly composed of military members, the only other civilian supervisor in Spencers party was an Army National Guard helicopter pilot who has served in Afghanistan, McNally added.

Spencer, 63, was a Marine H-46 Sea Knight pilot before leaving active duty in 1981 to enter the private finance sector. The Wyoming resident was sworn in as the 76th secretary of the Navy on Aug. 3.

Photographs released by the military authorities in Afghanistan show Spencer accompanied by Marine Corps commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller and the Sgt. Maj. of the Marine Corps, Ronald L. Green.

They met with Marines and sailors in the task force as well as key Afghan leaders in restive Helmand province, including Governor Hayatullah Hayat, to reaffirm a mutual commitment to wage war against the Taliban, according to a statement from NATO Resolute Support headquarters in Kabul.

As images of Spencers firearm circulated on the social media, many military veterans defended Spencers decision to pack a pistol, pointing to what GIs call green on blue incidents  assassinations of NATO military advisers by Afghan troops secretly loyal to the Taliban or other insurgent groups.

By mid-2017, insider attacks had killed at least 157 NATO personnel and 557 members of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, according to an analysis by the Modern War Institute at West Point.

But other war veterans thought it was strange to see President Donald Trumps pick to run the Navy and Marine Corps toting a firearm overseas.

Its odd for a senior civilian political appointee to carry a weapon in a combat zone, said Phillip Carter, an Army veteran of the war in Iraq and now the director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for a New American Security think tank.

Very few senior officials have formal weapons training, let alone recent marksmanship qualifications or training on military rules of engagement. Senior appointees at that level have a protective detail assigned just so they can focus on their job and not worry about their personal security.

Carter was a political appointee in President Barack Obamas administration in 2009, responsible for foreign fighter detainee policy issues, and couldnt recall ever seeing a high-level civilian Pentagon supervisor brandishing a firearm overseas.

But if youre going to carry then you should do so safely, with proper training, including both weapons qual and (rules of engagement) training, Carter said.

Military regulations issued in 2006 allow local American commanders to issue weapons to federal civilian employees and contractors, but commanders are urged to issue that authorization in writing and the policy mandates firearms training to those granted the privilege.

Its unclear whether Spencer received written authorization from a junior commander he oversaw and his spokesman McNally did not know whether the secretary was trained and certified under military standards to carry a sidearm.

Three decades ago, as a Marine officer Spencer would have training and been tested on the use of the M1911 semiautomatic .45 caliber pistol, not the M9 9mm Beretta thats issued to troops today.

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cprine@sduniontribune.com
A newspaper thats no stranger to controversy found itself in hot water with readers this week after an employee changed a reporters byline to include an anti-gay slur in its Christmas Day issue.

The Santa Barbara News-Press ran a story from staff writer Paul Gonzales on Monday about last-minute Christmas shoppers. Online, his byline is accurate and identifies him as a News-Press writer.

But readers who picked up a print copy of the paper saw his name printed as Paul Gayzalez and his title doctored to include an anti-gay slur.

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Readers quickly noticed and posted images on social media. Some called for the papers executives to be fired, along with the employee responsible.

The paper addressed the controversy on Wednesday, writing: In Mondays News-Press, one of our employees changed another employees byline to reflect an offensive slur. The News-Press has taken immediate and swift action with this employee; we do not tolerate any form of harassment in the workplace. We apologize to our readers.

The paper did not name the employee who altered the byline.

Gonzalez, whose LinkedIn profile says he has been with the paper for three years, said in an email that this person has offered me a personal apology which I have accepted.

The person no longer works at the paper, he said. He declined to comment further.

The paper has twice made national headlines in recent years.

In January 2015, the paper sparked protests after it published a story about undocumented immigrants heading to the DMV to apply for drivers licenses under the headline Illegals Line Up for Drivers Licenses. Last year it became the first daily newspaper to endorse President Trump in the general election, although 62% of county residents voted for Hillary Clinton and 32% for Trump.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.
A man was fatally shot by South Gate police late Thursday afternoon after he was chased into a backyard and brandished a handgun at the officers, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.

The officer-involved shooting was reported about 4:15 p.m. in the 9800 block of Bowman Avenue, according to the sheriffs department, which was asked by the South Gate Police Department to help investigate the shooting.

The sheriffs department said the person was taken to the nearest hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

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No officers from the South Gate Police Department were injured in the shooting.

According to the sheriffs department officials, the shooting followed a brief car pursuit. South Gate police tried to pull over a gold Lexus for a traffic violation, but the vehicle refused to stop for about two minutes, authorities said.

When the vehicle did pull over, the driver was taken into custody but the passenger walked away, the sheriffs department said in a news release.

He was later found in a backyard, at which point he brandished a handgun at the officers and an officer-involved shooting occurred, the department said.

Two officers fired several times and the man was hit at least once, killing him, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear if the man had fired at officers. A handgun was recovered at the scene, officials said.

The mans identity was not immediately available, a coroners official said.

The shooting remains under investigation.

ruben.vives@latimes.com

For more Southern California news, follow @latvives on Twitter.

UPDATES:

Dec. 29, 7 a.m.: This article was updated with the death of the suspect has died and additional details of the shooting.

This article was originally published on Dec. 28 at 8:15 p.m.
The California Supreme Court today upheld a former Palmdale residents second-degree murder conviction for leading deputies on a high-speed pursuit that ended in a crash that killed a toddler and seriously injured her mother in Lancaster in 2012.

The court upheld an earlier ruling by a three-justice panel from Californias 2nd District Court of Appeal, which rejected the defenses contention that the trial judge erred by refusing to tell jurors in Marvin Travon Hicks murder retrial that the defendant had been convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter by the first jury to hear the case against him.

The first panel convicted Hicks in April 2014 of one count each of gross vehicular manslaughter and DUI causing injury and two counts of evading but deadlocked 11-1 in favor of guilt on the murder charge. The second jury to hear the case against him convicted him in October 2014 of second-degree murder for the Dec. 6, 2012, death of 2-year-old Madison Faye Ruano.

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In its 2015 ruling, the 2nd District Court of Appeal panel found the evidence of defendants guilt on the murder charge to be overwhelming.' The state Supreme Court, in its ruling Thursday, echoed that sentiment.

Defendant acted with complete disregard for human life, and he did so in an alert state of mind,' according to the ruling. He admitted a general awareness that his actions were dangerous. Moreover, he demonstrated, while driving, his ability to make intentional decisions, and his comments immediately after the fatal collision indicated his full awareness of the intentional decisions he had just made, including driving through a red light.'

Hicks led Los Angeles County sheriffs deputies on a chase during the afternoon rush hour, running five red lights and spinning out at one point, Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig Kleffman said during his trial. Hicks was believed to be driving at least 70 mph while heading west on Avenue I when he slammed his black Toyota into a blue Lexus at 10th Street West, killing the child and seriously injuring her mother, Tina Marie Ruano.

A number of area intersections were closed in an effort to rush the girl to Antelope Valley Hospital, with a trauma surgeon testifying that it felt like forever that emergency room personnel tried unsuccessfully to save her life, Kleffman said after the verdict.

Sheriffs deputies ordered Hicks out of his car at gunpoint after the crash, according to the prosecutor.
While federal policymakers debate a controversial proposal that would separate asylum-seeking families after they reach the U.S. as a deterrent to future migrants, some immigrant rights advocacy groups say theyre already seeing increases in parents separated from children along the southwest border.

Several nonprofits filed a complaint earlier this month with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security documenting at least 15 cases of asylum-seeking families split apart and sent to different detention facilities. Not all of the cases described in the complaint are indicative of a policy change, but circumstances in some of the cases suggest that the new proposal is already having an effect.

The complaint asks two oversight divisions of the department to investigate.

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The separation of parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border and within the United States, absent a justifiable child protection grounds, is so fundamentally unconscionable it defies countless international and domestic laws on child welfare, human rights and refugees, the complaint says.

An official with Customs and Border Protection declined this week to comment about the complaint.

As a matter of policy, we do not comment on pending investigations, the official said. However, lack of comment should not be construed as agreement or stipulation with any of the allegations.

Adults seeking asylum in the U.S. are generally held in immigration detention after they arrive at the border. The federal government has a limited number of facilities capable of housing women with children and even fewer for men with children, so families are often released more quickly than adults who are detained by themselves.

Beyond the trauma of being separated from a loved one, asylum seekers who are split from family members can also end up with different outcomes in their immigration cases because they are no longer linked in court. That means a child could win his case and stay in the U.S. while the parent loses and is deported, or vice versa.

Reports that federal authorities were considering family separation as an official policy first surfaced in early March. By the end of the month, after public backlash, then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly walked back the idea.

It resurfaced as a proposal just before Christmas, according to The Washington Post, when end-of-year statistics showed numbers of arriving families and unaccompanied minors returning to levels seen before President Donald Trumps inauguration.

In November of last year, 1,356 people traveling with family members either came to a San Diego port of entry without documents to enter the U.S. or crossed illegally and were caught by Border Patrol, according to data from Customs and Border Protection. That number dropped to 267 in March 2017.

At the time, 0fficials celebrated the change as proof that Trumps immigration policies were working as intended.

By November, the number had climbed to 1,202.

About 70 percent of families arriving at San Diegos border in the last year went through a port of entry rather than sneaking in.

The complaint filed in mid-December suggests that though the policy to separate families has not yet been approved by the highest levels of the department, some families are already feeling its effects.

Four fathers described in the complaint were together in a temporary processing cell in San Diego in mid-November when immigration officials forced them to hand over their children, whose ages ranged from one to 12.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency involved in the incident, said that its officers could not verify the relationships between the men and the children. The agency said that some smuggling organizations have tried pairing adults with unrelated children to avoid being detained when they try to enter the U.S.

The only thing I know for certain is that I was looking for help from this country, which is my right, said Eric Matute Castro, whose 3-year-old son was pulled from his arms. I feel powerless. I came here to protect my son and to protect myself.

The men said the officials who took their children told them that the decision came from higher up.

The four fathers, three from El Salvador and one from Honduras, all said they fled gang violence in their home countries that included extortion and death threats.

Some of the parents listed in the complaint were separated from their children because they were charged with illegal entry or reentry and placed in U.S. Marshals custody while criminal proceedings are pending.

Advocacy organizations have pointed out that under a 1951 convention on refugees, countries are not supposed to penalize refugees or asylum seekers for illegal entry or being in the country without permission.

In other cases listed in the complaint, those who came to the U.S. as a family group  including mother, father and child  probably would have been separated in the past even without the Trump administrations suggested policy. In those instances, children stayed with the mother, and the father was detained separately., as were any other adult family members.

A Guatemalan womans case suggests that this, too, may be changing to further separate parents and children.

She said in the complaint that she was separated from her two children and husband in September at the San Ysidro port of entry.

The children, ages five and 14, are currently in a shelter in New York, according to the complaint, while both parents are held separately at Otay Mesa Detention Center.

She has a phone number to call the shelter where her children are staying.

When I do talk to my kids, they tell me they dont want to be there, they miss me, and they want to be with me, she said.

Immigration Videos On Now New developments in family separation case 9:53 On Now A San Diego woman volunteered as a medic in Texas helping migrant families 2:35 On Now Immigration policy protests in Carlsbad nearly cancelled after permit issue 1:38 On Now When children are separated from their parents at the border, here is where they go next On Now Prospects of a deal for 'Dreamers' may hinge on separating Trump from hard-liners on his staff On Now What is DACA? On Now Border wall prototype contractors selected On Now Video: Ukrainian boxer wins asylum in U.S. On Now 30 apprehended after Border Patrol agents discover tunnel On Now Video: Kurdish diaspora prepare to vote on independence

Follow me on Facebook for live updates about immigration news

kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate on Twitter
A San Diego attorney has asked the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate Rep. Darrell Issa for not reporting a business he owns in an ethics report.

Gil Cabrera said that Issa, R-Vista, violated the Ethics in Government Act by failing to report a real estate investment and property management company he owns with his wife to the Clerk of the House.

Issas office, however, said he hasnt included the firm, DEI Investments, LLC, in his annual financial disclosures because the company never conducted any business and is consequently exempt from the annual reports.

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This was a name which was registered and never used. It had no income, no value and no business activity and therefore was not reportable, Issas spokesman, Calvin Moore, said.

Cabrera, the former director of San Diegos ethics commission, said that the company needs to be included.

It is critical that Mr. Issa make the disclosures necessary to comply with the requirements of the Act so that the public is granted a complete picture of Mr. Issas finances as a U.S. representative and candidate for federal office, Cabrera said in his Dec. 11 letter.

Cabrera did not return follow-up messages requesting comment.

The House Ethics Committee declined to comment, but its financial disclosure instruction manual says members must report ownership interests in privately held companies if they are valued at $1,000 or more or generate at least $200 in income.

San Diego County property records do not show any properties owned by DEI Investments, a real estate investment and property management company, since it was formed by Issa and his wife Katherine in 2008. But as a privately owned business, many of the companys financial transactions are usually not publicly available.

The business takes its name from the congressmans initials, and it lists a suite in the same building as the congressmans district office in Vista as its headquarters. California Secretary of State records show DEI Investments, at various points, was intended to be used for business in the commercial real estate investment and property management industries.

Records also show that the Franchise Tax Board suspended DEI Investments in 2014 for failing to file a tax return.

Representatives as well as candidates are required to provide the Clerk of the House financial reports that list their sources of income and their assets, investments, and businesses they own or work for. Its common to find that members of Congress have a home with a mortgage, a nest egg, and pensions from past elected positions theyve held as well as other sources of income and investments.

These reports also list what properties a member of Congress owns, and, if relevant, any rent they receive.

These reports can also be used to calculate - roughly - a candidate or politicians net worth. Roll Call, a news publication that tracks members wealth, estimates that Issa has at least $379.65 million in assets, but at least $125 million in liabilities, making him, by far, the richest member of Congress. Nearly all of his assets are in investments, but he does own $17 million in real estate, Roll Call said.

The Ethics Committees financial disclosure manual says statements are reviewed for completeness, accuracy, and timeliness. If the committee finds an error or omission, it will notify the member. From there, the politician can accept the committees review and submit an amended report. If the member disagrees, they can explain their position to the committee to reconsider. The process is not publicly disclosed, the committee said.

The committees manual said that unintentional errors and omissions and amendments are ordinary.

Generally, unless there is some evidence that errors or omissions are knowing or willful, or appear to be significantly related to other potential violations, the Committee notifies the filer of the error and requires that he or she submit an amendment or provide an explanation or other information explaining why the filer believes an amendment is not necessary. Once an amendment is properly submitted, the Committee takes no further action, the manual says.

Under the Ethics in Government Act, a member who willfully and knowingly falsifies their statement, however, can be pursued by the attorney general and may be fined as much as $57,847 and a one-year prison sentence.

Twitter: @jptstewart

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1841
A clash in a Clairemont convenience store ended in the middle of a street Thursday when an assailant clubbed a man on the head with the blunt end of a hatchet, police said.

The 44-year-old victim suffered a 1  inch cut on the back of his head and was taken to a hospital with injuries not considered to be life-threatening, Officer Tony Martinez said.

The 21-year-old suspected assailant landed in police custody about 20 minutes later in downtown San Diego, Martinez said.

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The confrontation started inside a 7-Eleven on Genessee Avenue near Mt. Alifan Drive, shortly before noon, when the suspect began to argue with the victim.

The clerk booted the suspect and his three buddies, who all waited outside, Martinez said.

When the victim left the store, the suspect chased him into Genessee and slammed the blunt end of a hatchet into his head, authorities said.

The assailant and his companions took off in a green Honda minivan  which Martinez said police spotted about 20 minutes later on G Street near 16th Street, roughly 11 miles from the site of the attack.

One of the men was arrested and, during an ensuing curbside lineup, was identified as the suspected assailant.

He was booked into jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.

Video footage following the downtown arrest shows police removing a hatchet from the Honda.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
La Mesa police said Wednesday they are investigating the suspicious death of a hospital patient.

Grossmont Hospital staffers contacted police officers about 2 p.m. Wednesday to report the concerns about the death of the 58-year-old man. Police detectives were also called to the hospital.

Officials said that hospital employees were not considered subjects in the investigation.

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Police did not say what made the mans death appear suspicious. They also did not release his name, nor did they give any other details about the case.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
New findings from a team of astronomers at the University of California, San Diego, and elsewhere increase understanding of how powerful winds generated by supermassive black holes regulate the growth of galaxies.

Supermassive black holes are captivating. Understanding why and how galaxies are affected by their supermassive black holes is an outstanding puzzle in their formation, said University of California San Diego Professor Shelley Wright.

Professor Wright and co-authors examined the energetics surrounding the powerful winds generated by the bright, vigorous supermassive black hole (known as a quasar) at the center of a galaxy called 3C 298.

We study supermassive black holes in the very early Universe when they are actively growing by accreting massive amounts of gaseous material, Professor Wright said.

While black holes themselves do not emit light, the gaseous material they chew on is heated to extreme temperatures, making them the most luminous objects in the Universe.

The study revealed that the winds blow out through the entire galaxy and impact the growth of stars.

Today, neighboring galaxies show that the galaxy mass is tightly correlated with the supermassive black hole mass, the astronomers said.

Our research indicates that 3C 298 does not fall within this normal scaling relationship between nearby galaxies and the supermassive black holes that lurk at their center.

But, in the early Universe, the study shows that 3C 298 is 100 times less massive than it should be given its behemoth supermassive black hole mass.

This implies that the supermassive black hole mass is established well before the galaxy, and potentially the energetics from the quasar are capable of controlling the growth of the galaxy.

To conduct the study, they utilized several state-of-the-art astronomical facilities: W.M. Keck Observatorys OSIRIS integral field spectrograph (IFS) with adaptive optics, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and the Very Large Array.

The most enjoyable part of researching 3C 298 has been putting together all the data from different wavelengths and techniques, said Andrey Vayner, also from the University of California, San Diego.

Each new dataset that we obtained on this galaxy answered one question and helped us put some of the pieces of the puzzle together.

However, at the same time, it created new questions about the nature of galaxy and supermassive black hole formation.

These findings are the first results from a larger survey of distant quasars and their energetics impact on star formation and galaxy growth. We will continue developing results on more distant quasars, the researchers said.

The findings are described in a paper appearing in the Astrophysical Journal.

_____

Andrey Vayner et al. 2017. Galactic-scale Feedback Observed in the 3C 298 Quasar Host Galaxy. ApJ 851, 126; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa9c42
The upcoming encounter of NASAs New Horizons spacecraft with 2014 MU69 will be an important and rare opportunity for close-up study of a Kuiper Belt object. The New Horizons team was already excited to learn earlier this year that 2014 MU69 might be either peanut-shaped or even a binary. Now new data hints that this object might have a tiny moon.

2014 MU69, also known as 1110113Y, was discovered on June 26, 2014 by astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

It orbits the Sun once every 293 years at a distance of more than 4 billion miles (6.5 billion km) from Earth.

2014 MU69 is a relatively small Kuiper Belt object  it appears to be no more than 20 miles (30 km) long, or, if a binary, each about 9-12 miles (15-20 km) in diameter. Its surface is just as red as, if not redder than, Plutos surface.

Like other objects in the Kuiper Belt, 2014 MU69 offers a close-up look at the remnants of the ancient planet-building process, small worlds that hold critical clues to the formation of the outer Solar System.

We really wont know what 2014 MU69 looks like until we fly past it, or even gain a full understanding of it until after the encounter, said New Horizons team member Dr. Marc Buie, from the Southwest Research Institute.

But even from afar, the more we examine it, the more interesting and amazing this little world becomes.

The data that led to hints at 2014 MU69s nature were gathered over six weeks in June and July 2017, when Dr. Buie and colleagues made three attempts to place telescopes in the narrow shadow of the object as it passed in front of a star.

The most valuable recon came on July 17, when five telescopes deployed by the team in Argentina were in the right place at the right time to catch this fleeting shadow  an event known as an occultation  and capture important data on 2014 MU69s size, shape and orbit.

That data raised the possibility that 2014 MU69 might be two like-sized objects, or whats known as a binary.

The prospect that 2014 MU69 might have a moon arose from data collected during a different occultation on July 10, by NASAs Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).

Focused on 2014 MU69s expected location while flying over the Pacific Ocean, SOFIA detected what appeared to be a very short drop-out in the stars light.

Further analysis of that data, including syncing it with 2014 MU69 orbit calculations provided by ESAs Gaia mission, opens the possibility that the blip SOFIA detected could be another object around 2014 MU69, Dr. Buie said.

A binary with a smaller moon might also help explain the shifts we see in the position of 2014 MU69 during these various occultations.

Its all very suggestive, but another step in our work to get a clear picture of 2014 MU69 before New Horizons flies by, just over a year from now.

Dr. Buie and co-authors reported their results December 11 at the 2017 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans, Louisiana.

_____

Marc W. Buie et al. A Preview of 2014 MU69 Revealed by HST and a Ground-based Stellar Occultation. 2017 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, paper # P13F-08

This article is based on text provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Investigators have charged a Darlington man in connection with the Nov. 29 slaying of 55-year-old Larry Moody in a Flat Creek Road residence.

On Thursday, Darlington County Sheriff's Office investigators arrested, without incident, Darquan Larchelle Gattison, 26, at a residence on Wallflower Lane, according to a release issued by the agency.

Gattison is charged with murder and is being held without bond in the W. Glenn Campbell Detention Center, according to the release.

"My Investigators remain determined to bring all those responsible for this senseless crime to justice," said Darlington County Sheriff Tony Chavis through the release. "We will continue to seek additional charges and more arrests are expected."

Deputies were dispatched to a Flat Creek Road residence at 11:30 p.m. Nov. 29. and arrived to find Moody, 55, of Darlington, dead, according to the release.

South Carolina Law Enforcement Division agents assisted in the investigation.

This case remains under investigation. If you have any information you are asked to contact Darlington County Sheriffs investigators at (843) 398-4501 or Crime Stoppers of the Pee Dee at 1-888-CRIME-SC or visit www.p3tips.com. You do not have to reveal your identity to leave information.
WASHINGTON -- One of the biggest beneficiaries of the massive, slapdash tax bill that President Trump and Republican lawmakers celebrated on Dec. 20 at the White House will be, wait for it, President Trump. What a coincidence!

The rest of Trump's wealthy family will benefit lavishly as well, including his son-in-law and all-purpose adviser Jared Kushner. And, of course, it's not a coincidence at all. The chance that this president would preside over a revision of the tax code without lining his own pockets was zero. Anyone who believed Trump's claim that the tax bill would "cost me a fortune" hasn't been paying attention.

It is not possible to calculate precisely how much money the president will save, since he  unlike all other recent presidents  refuses to release his tax returns. But the figure surely is in the millions, assuming Trump is anywhere near as wealthy as he claims. His extended clan will have plenty of liquidity for Donald Jr. and Eric to jet off to Africa and kill more leopards and water buffaloes; for Jared and Ivanka to disappear on ski trips whenever they need to claim deniability regarding the latest administration outrage; and for the president himself to consume as many Big Macs, Filet-o-Fishes and chocolate shakes as his constitution can bear.

Trump claims to be worth $10 billion; Forbes estimates his wealth at $3 billion, and some analysts believe the true figure is lower. Any way you look at it, however, he's a wealthy man  and the tax bill, which awaits only Trump's signature to become law, is designed to make the very rich even richer.

Like all 1-percenters, Trump will benefit from the lowering of the top tax rate from 39.6 percent to 37 percent. But that's just for starters. As is always the case with the tax code, the devil is in the details.

Trump conducts his business affairs through hundreds of "pass-through" companies whose income is taxed at the personal rate, not the corporate rate. The House wanted to dramatically slash the pass-through rate across the board, but the Senate initially balked. At the last minute, however, the Senate wrote into the final bill a 20 percent deduction for pass-through income. If a taxpayer had, say, $100 million in pass-through earnings, he or she would only be taxed on $80 million; the rest would be tax-free.

At first, senators sought to limit this sweetheart deal to companies with large numbers of employees or high payrolls  unlike Trump's pass-through businesses, which are mostly paper entities. But the final legislation gives the full deduction, regardless of the number of employees, to pass-through companies that own a lot of depreciable property, such as commercial real estate. Which just so happens to be the president's livelihood.

It would be hard to craft a measure more tailor-made to enrich Trump and his family. If he wanted to avoid even the appearance of corruption, of course, Trump could decline to take this tax break or donate an equivalent amount to the Treasury. Somehow I doubt either of those things will happen.

Trump also gets to continue using a frequently abused tax loophole called "like-kind exchange." Usually, if you sell a piece of property at a profit, that profit is considered income and is taxed. Creative accountants and tax lawyers came up with ways to structure sales so that they technically qualified as trades, meaning that as far as the IRS was concerned, there was no income to tax. This practice is now ending for all types of property  except real estate. Another coincidence, I'm sure.

Oh, and most businesses will be negatively affected by a measure capping the amount of interest expenses they can deduct  except real estate investors and hotel operators, who are explicitly exempted. If this were a movie, lobbyists and lawmakers would have hammered out this last provision in a back room at the Trump International Hotel.

On the flip side, Trump's ability to deduct the state and local taxes he pays in New York would be drastically limited. But that is nothing compared to the likely upside.

Join with me in a thought experiment. Imagine that the legislature of some other country  Brazil, say, or Mozambique, or Thailand  decided to rewrite the tax code, with no public hearings or expert testimony, in a way that benefited the rich overall, with maximum financial gain for businesses like that of the sitting head of government. What would you say?

I'm pretty sure you'd use the word corruption. And you would be right.

Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.
Thang served as board chairman of the state-owned PetroVietnam between 2006 and 2011 before his political career took off as Minister of Transport in Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dungs cabinet.

His political career was all but doomed in May this year, when he was voted out of the then 19-member Politburo, the Partys decision-making body, and later fired as the top leader of Ho Chi Minh City. He was later appointed as deputy head of the Central Economic Commission, which advises the Party on economic policies.

The prosecution's proposals against Thang come shortly after his arrest on December 8 that riveted Vietnam. Thangs younger brother Dinh Manh Thang, another oil executive, was arrested the next day as part of the corruption crackdown.

In addition, Dinh La Thang is facing separate charges of economic mismanagement at the state oil firm and the scandal-hit Hanoi-based bank Dai Duong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OceanBank).

Investigators at the Ministry of Public Security said that Thang should be charged with deliberate violation of state regulations on economic management", causing serious losses at PetroVietnam Construction Corporation (PVC) and separately for a failed investment in the scandal-hit OceanBank. The Supreme People's Procuracy, Vietnam's highest prosecutors' agency, will consider ratifying the charges.

The PVC case involves the notorious runaway Trinh Xuan Thanh, PVCs former board chairman and general director who is set to stand trial in January for causing losses of around VND3.2 trillion ($147m) at the unit.

According to the investigation, Thang, as board chairman of the state-owned PetroVietnam, appointed Thanh as PVCs general director in December 2007, before making various promotion, funding and recruitment decisions to boost Thanhs power and facilitate the companys operations.

In 2010, Thang assigned PVC to be in charge of a thermal power plant without assessing its capability or experience, and his poor supervision caused losses worth more than VND119bn to the state budget.

Thanh also allegedly embezzled VND4bn at another PVC thermal power project.

In the OceanBank case, PetroVietnam held a VND800bn stake in the lender, but that was completely written off when the central bank took it over in 2015.

According to investigators, despite OceanBanks small and inefficient operations back in 2008, Thang plowed ahead with a 20% stake purchase without appraising it or reporting the venture to the then-prime minister.

Vietnams energy and banking sectors have been at the centre of the sweeping clean-up spearheaded by Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong. Scores of people have been ensnared.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, speaking at a teleconference between the Government and localities nationwide in Hanoi on December 28, said directions to be issued by the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the prime minister will ban giving and accepting Tet gifts.



The fight against corruption should begin from the grassroots level to create visible changes, he noted.



The December 28-29 conference is the largest annual conference of the Government to evaluate the national socio-economic performance in 2017 and set forth key solutions and tasks for 2018.-
ASIA

Afghanistan and Central Asia as a Model to link Security and Development

Expected Council Action

The January 2018 Council President Kazakhstan will hold a ministerial-level debate on the threats to international peace and security focusing on the topic: Building Regional Partnership in Afghanistan and Central Asia as a Model to Link Security and Development. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Kairat Abdrakhmanov will chair the debate, and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to brief. Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Salahuddin Rabbani will address the Council. The Council is expected to adopt a presidential statement.

Background

In preparation for the January debate, Kazakhstan has circulated a concept note to Council members outlining some of the main issues that the debate will seek to address. The note emphasises the strong interlinkages between security and development and the importance of integrating the economies of Afghanistan and its Central Asian neighbours. The concept note focuses on three aspects that are crucial for achieving progress in Afghanistan. First, there is a need to recognise that security and development are closely interrelated. Second, the solutions to country-specific issues generally require a regional approach. Third, international assistance requires integrated and better coordinated regional development strategies on the part of the UN, considering the vast number of UN agencies operating in the area.

As a prelude to the debate, on 27 November 2017, Kazakhstan, together with Afghanistan and Germany, organised an Arria-formula meeting that addressed issues of security, development and peace in the Central Asian region. Briefers at this meeting included: Ambassador Kairat Umarov (Kazakhstan); Ambassador Christoph Heusgen (Germany); Ambassador Mahmoud Saikal (Afghanistan); Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Miroslav Jenca; Barnett Rubin, Associate Director of the Center on International Cooperation; and Jasmin Jahanshahi, Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager at the Aga Khan Foundation. The participants at the meeting discussed ways to formulate coherent strategies on stabilisation, peacebuilding and development in Afghanistan and the region. During the meeting, the Council members emphasised the importance of a regional and comprehensive approach to Afghanistan with an aim of achieving long-term stability.

There are various regional platforms that focus on economic cooperation specifically on Afghanistan. The most notable ones are the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA) and Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process. Both of these initiatives are in their seventh year of existence and have so far facilitated the undertaking of various projects in the field of economic development and greater integration of the region.

Key Issues and Options

The Council faces multiple, closely interrelated issues with regard to Afghanistan and the broader region. The deteriorating security situation, the growing number of civilian causalities, and political instability remain the most prominent concerns for the Council regarding Afghanistan. In the context of the debate, the Council could explore ways in which it could promote a more coordinated regional approach toward addressing the regional implication of instability in Afghanistan, while developing more coherent approaches to preventive diplomacy.

The Council is gradually becoming more cognisant of the interlinkages between security and development. In the case of Afghanistan, support for economic development is a crucial part of the effort to build peace in Afghanistan with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) mandated role to coordinate international assistance. The lack of viable economic opportunities in some areas has pushed the local population towards opium production and trafficking, activities also undertaken by some insurgent elements to finance their efforts to undermine government authority. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, opium production and cultivation reached record high numbers in 2017, while also expanding to more regions in Afghanistan.

There also persists the strong link between the insurgency and illicit drug production and trafficking. In this regard, the Council could explore ways to increase the efficiency of the existing sanctions regimes and counter-terrorism platforms to address the insurgency, terrorism and drug production problems in Afghanistan. A related issue for the Council is how to facilitate better international and regional security cooperation to counter a threat posed by the terrorist groups and returning foreign terrorist fighters, as the security environment has been severely exacerbated by the presence of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Afghanistan in recent years.

A significant number of international and regional organisations, with often overlapping agendas, operate in Afghanistan and the region. The Council could address ways in which these efforts could be better coordinated and made more effective on the ground. .

Kazakhstan has announced that it will seek to adopt a presidential statement at the meeting. This statement, among other things, could:

emphasise the importance of regional development and cooperation for achieving security in the region;

call for greater coordination between the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA), UNAMA, and the relevant UN agencies and regional organisations in strengthening the regions capacity to overcome its challenges;

encourage greater international and regional security cooperation, including information-sharing, border control, law enforcement, and criminal justice to counter the threat of terrorism; and

commend efforts by Central Asian countries in support of peace efforts and development in Afghanistan.

Council Dynamics

The Councils discussions of Afghanistan have mainly been limited to quarterly debates on UNAMA, which are primarily focused on the political and security situation in the country and the role of the UN mission. Semi-annual briefings in consultations on the UNRCCA have provided another opportunity for the Council to address the situation in Afghanistan through a more regional approach, although the UNRCCA meetings have been limited in raising wider awareness of the issues facing the region due to the closed format of the meetings (briefing in consultations).

During its term, Kazakhstan, the first Central Asian country to be elected to the Council, has placed a great emphasis on addressing issues pertinent to its region. In Council deliberations, Kazakhstan has underscored the importance of reviewing the Councils approach to Afghanistan with an aim of strengthening regional partnerships in Central Asia. In particular, Kazakhstan has stressed the importance of devoting more attention to interlinkages between security and development regarding Afghanistan. To that end, Kazakhstan has been a proponent of increased regional interconnectivity and integration of Afghanistan into the Central Asian regions trade and economic cooperation.

The Council shares the concern about the volatile security situation in Afghanistan and its particular impact on the civilian population. In general, the Council seems to share the view that economic development and greater regional cooperation is an important factor in achieving security in Afghanistan. However, there might be some differences as to what is the Councils role in addressing the nexus between development and security. Some members, most notably Russia, might be wary of the Council taking up issues that they perceive as beyond the Councils mandate to maintain international peace and security.

Similarly, Council members generally support the efforts of regional organisations in Afghanistan, although there are some diverging views on their specific roles. In the previous debates on UNAMA, Kazakhstan and Russia have emphasised the importance, among others, of regional organisations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). P3 members seem to mistrust the SCO and CSTO as they see them as vehicles for enhancing Russian influence in the region. These diverging views are an important reason why the Council failed to adopt a press statement following the UNRCCA briefings during the past two years.

Among permanent members, Russia has continued to emphasise the urgency of the threat posed by ISIL while also expressing disappointment that some members have, in its view, tried to downplay its significance. Several Council members, most notably France, Russia and Kazakhstan, continue to raise concerns regarding the connection between the insurgency and drug production and trafficking in Afghanistan.

The Netherlands will be the penholder on Afghanistan in 2018.

UN DOCUMENTS

The Council renewed the mandate of UNAMA until 17 March 2018. This was the Councils quarterly debate on Afghanistan, which focused on the most recent UNAMA report. This press statement welcomed the briefing in consultations on 21 January by Miroslav Jenca, the Special Representative and head of the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia, and reiterated support for UNRCCA as an early-warning and preventive-diplomacy tool.
AMERICAS

Colombia

Expected Council Action

In January 2018, the Council will receive a briefing from Special Representative Jean Arnault on the Secretary-Generals 90-day report on the UN Verification Mission in Colombia. Consultations will follow the briefing.

Assuming that the government of Colombia and the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN) decide to renew their temporary, bilateral ceasefire, the Council will most likely renew the part of the missions mandate dealing with monitoring and verification of this ceasefire. This aspect of the missions mandate expires on 9 January 2018.

The overall mandate of the Verification Mission expires on 26 September 2018.

Key Recent Developments

On 29 September 2017, the government of Colombia and the ELN issued a joint communique requesting the Council to expand the mandate of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia to include participation in a monitoring and verification mechanism composed of representatives of the Colombian armed forces, the ELN, the UN, and the Catholic Church. The parties indicated that the mechanism would verify compliance with the 102-day temporary ceasefire they had agreed in Quito, Ecuador, on 4 September 2017. They called for the mechanism to have a presence at the national, regional and local levels. The UN, as the international component of the mechanism, was asked to coordinate its work, to resolve potential disagreements between the parties, and to make recommendations accordingly.

Special Representative Arnault briefed Council members about the temporary, bilateral ceasefire on 11 September 2017. He informed them that the Secretary-General would make recommendations to the Council in response to the request of the government and the ELN.

On 2 October 2017, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres forwarded a letter to the Council in which he conveyed his positive assessment of the viability and desirability of the role proposed to the United Nations (S/2017/830) by the parties. He emphasised that the UNs engagement could instill further momentum into the positive dynamics that have been emerging in the past few months, both in terms of upholding (and eventually extending) the ceasefire and bringing about humanitarian relief to affected communities.

The Council adopted resolution 2381 on 5 October 2017, expanding the mandate of the UN Verification Missionwhich is responsible for verifying the political, economic and social reintegration of the members of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejercito del Pueblo (FARC-EP), as well as security guaranteesto also include the activities outlined in the 29 September joint communique agreed by the government and the ELN. Also on 5 October, the Council adopted a presidential statement in which it recognised the work of the UN Mission in Colombia, which expired on 25 September 2017, and welcomed the remarkable achievements in Colombia following the 2016 peace agreement.

The UN Verification Mission started its work on 26 September 2017 as the successor mission to the UN Mission in Colombia. Through resolution 2377 of 14 September 2017, the Council authorised the deployment of 120 unarmed, non-uniformed international observers as an appropriate civilian component to carry out the tasks of the verification mission. When the Council expanded the missions mandate in resolution 2381, it authorised the deployment of no more than 70 additional international observers to help it fulfil its further responsibilities, bringing the total number of international observers to 190.

On 8 December 2017, the Secretary-General submitted a letter to the Council in accordance with resolution 2381, which requested him to provide an update on the additional tasks accorded to the verification mission (i.e. those related to the monitoring and verification of the temporary ceasefire between the Colombian government and the ELN). He highlighted some positive developments since the start of the ceasefire, noting that offensive armed clashes had not occurred between the parties, that communities had reported a decrease in violence and improvement in humanitarian conditions, and that a wide array of social organisations had taken part in public hearings designed to determine the methodology for a nationwide dialogue.

However, he also observed that the parties have different interpretations of the Quito agreement, which lacks such a critical feature as a separation of forces, and that UN teams have faced challenges in accessing remote areas affected by conflict, where inhabitants are afraid of sharing information for fear of retribution.

Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman visited Colombia from 13 to 15 November 2017. He met with senior government officials, including President Juan Manuel Santos; FARC-EP representatives; civil society groups; and UN officials in Colombia.

In a press conference near the end of his visit, he highlighted three key issues central to the peace process. First, he underscored the importance of providing opportunities for reintegration of former FARC-EP fighters, including female fighters. In particular, he expressed concern at the lack of an overall strategy for reintegration matched by concrete plans and resources to enable its success. Second, he emphasised the need for enhanced government authority in former conflict zones, especially in areas vacated by the FARC-EP, where insecurity has led to the killings of community leaders and some former FARC-EP members. Third, he expressed concern about delays in approving legislation regarding the FARC-EP, including in relation to aspects of accountability..

Feltman briefed Council members on his visit in consultations on 29 November 2017. On 30 November, Council members issued a press statement marking the one-year anniversary of the signing of the peace agreement between the government of Colombia and the FARC-EP. In the statement, members noted the importance of the international community remaining closely engaged to continue to support and encourage Colombias work to implement the peace process. They emphasised the importance of making progress in reincorporating former FARC-EP combatants into civilian life and in improving security in former conflict zones.

On 17 December 2017, the ELN indicated that it was willing to renew its ceasefire with the Colombian government, saying that it needed more time to assess the progress, confidence and results of the current one. On 19 December, President Santos in turn expressed the governments willingness to extend the ceasefire, announcing the appointment of a new lead negotiator to engage with the ELN. The current ceasefire expires on 9 January 2018.

Human Rights-Related Developments

In a 9 October 2017 statement following a six-day visit to Colombia, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Andrew Gilmour expressed concern over continued attacks against human rights defenders and community leaders. According to the statement, the governments efforts to adopt policies aimed at preventing such attacks had yet to produce significant results. Since the beginning of 2017, there had been more killings of human rights defenders and community leaders, particularly in areas formerly occupied by the FARC, than in previous years, Gilmour said.

Key Issues and Options

An important issue is ensuring that the next steps in the peace process are effectively implemented. In this sense, the governments ability to develop a well-resourced strategy for reintegrating FARC-EP members into society and to provide safety and security in areas formally occupied by the FARC-EP will be critical issues in ensuring successful implementation. Council members already highlighted the importance of these issues in their 30 November 2017 press statement, and the Secretary-Generals 90-day report will provide an opportunity for them to assess how much progress has been made. The Council could decide to adopt a statement encouraging further steps toward the reintegration of former fighters and security in certain areas of the country, while recognising any progress achieved.

Another key issue for the Council is the importance of renewing the aspect of the missions mandate that focuses on monitoring and verification of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the ELN. Assuming that the parties agree to extend their ceasefire, the Council will need to take action in early January. This could be done through an exchange of letters between the Secretariat and the Council or through a resolution.

Council Dynamics

Members are unified in their support of the peace process in Colombia, including the enhanced role for the UN Verification Mission in Colombia to monitor and verify the ceasefire between the government and the ELN. Several members view engagement in Colombia as a rare bright spot for the Council, which has struggled to play an effective role on several other agenda items in recent years. However, members realise that the challenges of implementing the peace agreement are significant and success cannot be taken for granted. Legislative and presidential elections scheduled for 2018 in Colombia create political uncertainties that could impact the implementation of the agreement. Feltmans emphasis on the need for an effective plan for reintegrating the FARC-EP and for promoting safety and security in areas vacated by the FARC-EP has been noted by several members in consultations.

The UK is the penholder on Colombia.

UN Documents on Colombia

This was a resolution expanding the mandate of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia. This was the resolution establishing the UN Verification Mission in Colombia, a successor mission to the UN Mission in Colombia. This was a presidential statement recognising the work of the UN Mission in Colombia and welcoming the remarkable achievements in Colombia following the 2016 agreement. This was a letter from the Secretary-General providing an update of the tasks provided to the UN Verification Mission in Colombia with regard to the temporary ceasefire between the government of Colombia and the ELN. This was a letter from the Secretary-General conveying his positive assessment of the viability and desirability of the role of the UN proposed by the government of Colombia and the ELN. This statement marked the one-year anniversary of the Colombia peace agreement.
EUROPE

Cyprus

Expected Council Action

In January 2018, the Council is expected to renew the mandate of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) for another six months, ahead of its 31 January expiry. Elizabeth Spehar, Special Representative and head of UNFICYP, is expected to brief on the latest UNFICYP report.

Key Recent Developments

The past year was characterised by several noteworthy developments regarding the reunification talks between Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci. The latest round of talks, which formally started on 15 May 2015 and lasted over two years, concluded without agreement on a final settlement. Nevertheless, during the talks, both Cypriot leaders and their negotiating teams had a notably greater level of engagement with each other than in the previous talks, which resulted in major substantive progress on several issues.

During the meeting in Geneva on 11 January 2017, Anastasiades and Akinci exchanged maps with their respective proposals on territorial adjustments. This was a significant development, as it was the first time the Cypriot leaders presented their proposals regarding territory. A day later, the negotiations moved to a format of a high-level conference on Cyprus involving the Cypriot leaders and guarantor powers Greece, Turkey and the UK, with the EU as an observer. Given that any agreement on the issue of security and guarantees would require their approval, the presence of the guarantor powers was indispensable. Though no settlement was reached during the high-level segment, the participants agreed to reconvene the conference after the newly formed working groups identified the core issues on security and guarantees questions.

After some delays and intense diplomatic efforts by then-Special Adviser Espen Barth Eide, the Cypriot leaders and the guarantor powers resumed the Cyprus conference on 28 June 2017 in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, but again failed to reach an agreement because of the inability to bridge differences on the issue of security and guarantees. This led Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to announce on 7 July that the conference had been formally closed. Later in July, the Council extended the mandate of the UNFICYP for the customary six months but also requested the Secretary-General to conduct a strategic review of the mission.

In August 2017, Eide formally relinquished the post of Special Adviser on Cyprus after serving more than three years in the position. On 28 September, the Secretary-General issued a comprehensive report on his good-offices activities, led by Eide and covering developments from 15 May 2015 to 11 August 2017. In the report, the Secretary-General noted that the parties had come close to a strategic understanding on the elements of a comprehensive settlement and that a historic opportunity was missed in Crans-Montana. He called on the leaders to reflect on the talks and decide if and when the conditions would be met for a resumption of the process. To that end, he reiterated the readiness of the UN to facilitate the negotiations.

Since the collapse of the conference on Cyprus, the leaders have not engaged in direct talks. This is partially due to upcoming presidential elections in Cyprus in January 2018. Because of its political implications, the reunification talks have usually stalled in the period preceding elections. In October 2017, Anastasiades formally announced his candidacy for the presidency. In public comments during the past several months, Anastasiades has expressed confidence that the reunification talks would resume following the elections.

As mandated by resolution 2369, on 28 November 2017, the Secretary-General submitted to the Council his report on the strategic review on UNFICYP. The report emphasised the importance of maintaining the preventive and deterrent role of UNFICYP and recommended a slight reduction in the actual military strength from the current 888 to 802 troops while maintaining the authorised strength at 860 troops to allow for an increase in case it is needed. Furthermore, the Secretary-General noted that UNFICYP plays an important role in resolving military and civilian incidents in the buffer zone and that the missions liaison and engagement activities should be reinforced quantitatively by allocating more human resources to it and qualitatively by redeploying resources from the headquarters to other sectors.

Issues and Options

There are several interrelated issues for the Council to consider in January 2018, the most immediate being the renewal of UNFICYPs mandate. The Council is also likely to examine what role it could play in encouraging the resumption of talks between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders given the current stalemate. Considering the inability of the Cypriot leaders to achieve a final settlement in the more than 50 years the mission has been present on the island, an issue for the Council is whether to consider significant changes to the missions mandate and further downsizing options.

Over the years, the Council has been generally cautious in initiating or even discussing any drastic changes to the mandate or the size of the mission, fearing negative impact on the situation on the ground and on the political process. With the recommendations from the strategic review in mind, the most likely option for the Council is to renew UNFICYPs mandate for another six months with only minor adjustments, leaving further decisions regarding UNFICYPs future until after the January elections.

Council Dynamics

The situation in Cyprus is followed closely only by the Council members that have a particular interest in the issue, mainly the UK, France and Russia. Over the past several years, the US has also gradually become more engaged in finding a solution to the Cyprus problem as the island gains more prominence due to its potential hydrocarbon resources and strategic location regarding the fight against terrorism in the Middle East, as well as security concerns in the eastern Mediterranean region.

The Council remains united in its support for negotiations between the leaders that would head towards the settlement of the Cyprus problem. However, some differences between the members exist in relation to the conditions and time-frame for the reunification talks. These divergences might become more apparent given the collapse of the latest round of reunification talks and no clear prospects for the resumption of dialogue between the leaders. Some members, the UK in particular, seem frustrated by the protracted process. These members seem to share the view that this process cannot be open-ended and that the Council could stimulate the negotiations by putting some pressure on both sides. However, Russia has strongly opposed any attempt to assert pressure on both sides and affect negotiations in any way, since it maintains that the process must be Cypriot-led and Cypriot-owned for the results to be effective.

During the negotiations on the latest mandate renewal resolution in July, the Council expressed strong support for the Secretary-General to conduct a strategic review of the mission and submit it to the Council. It seems likely that the Council will be equally supportive of the Secretary-Generals recommendations given that implementing them would not significantly change the mandate of the mission at this stage but rather make it more effective in implementing its tasks.

The UK is the penholder on Cyprus.

UN DOCUMENTS

This was a resolution which extended the mandate of UNFICYP for another six months. This was the Secretary-Generals strategic review of the UN mission in Cyprus. This was a report on the Secretary-Generals mission of good offices in Cyprus. This was a meeting on Cyprus during which the Council adopted resolution 2369.
AFRICA

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Expected Council Action

In January, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix will brief the Council on the latest UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) report and on recent developments in the country.

MONUSCOs mandate expires on 31 March 2018.

Key Recent Developments

The political uncertainty in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to be a serious concern. President Joseph Kabila, whose second and last term in office ended in December 2016, remains in power. According to an agreement reached between Kabila and the opposition on 31 December 2016, elections were to be held by the end of 2017. Before the deadline, the DRC Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) and government officials had said that elections would not be possible by the end of the year, citing logistical difficulties with voter registration and violence in several regions in the country. The opposition is of the view that Kabila is purposely stalling elections to remain in power.

The political tensions have been exacerbated by the DRC governments curbing of political freedoms of the opposition and curtailing the freedom of the press. A report released by the National Episcopal Conference of the Congo (CENCO) on 21 November 2017 asserted that between April and October 2017, government forces killed at least 53 protesters during anti-government demonstrations. In what the report called a disproportionate use of force, 52 people were shot dead and one died from tear gas.

Over the last few months, the AU, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the International Community for the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) all took the view that holding elections by December 2017 was unrealistic and that publication of a clear timetable for elections was vital and necessary to avoid further tensions and possible escalation of violence.

On 5 November 2017, the CENI announced a new electoral calendar, with presidential, legislative and provincial elections set for 23 December 2018. The announcement came about a week after Ambassador Nikki Haley (US) visited the DRC and called for elections to take place by the end of 2018. Opposition figures denounced the new calendar and called for protests, while the authorities in major cities have banned protests and have reportedly arrested opposition leaders. On 27 November, CENCO, which brokered the 31 December 2016 agreement, urged President Kabila to pledge that he will not seek a third term in order to ease fears of unrest.

In an 11 December 2017 statement, the EU called for respect for the freedom of assembly and peaceful demonstration, warning that its technical and financial support for the elections depends on such respect. It further extended sanctions against 16 senior members of the Kabila regime for one year.

Representatives of the guarantors of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the Regionthe UN, AU, ICGLR and SADCmet on 22 November 2017 in Addis Ababa to discuss coordinated regional and international support for the electoral process. The Special Representative and head of MONUSCO, Maman Sambo Sidikou, and the Secretary-Generals Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region, Said Djinnit, also attended. The guarantors welcomed the publication of the new electoral calendar and called for the DRC to ensure the required political space throughout the country, including freedom of peaceful assembly and equitable access to state media.

Council members issued a press statement on 28 November 2017, taking note of the new electoral calendar and emphasising the critical importance of ensuring the elections are not postponed beyond 23 December 2018. They also called for transparent, credible and inclusive elections. Council members noted the need for the release of political prisoners and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. They further called upon all political actors to refrain from violence of any kind.

In parallel to issuing the press statement, Council members were negotiating a draft resolution on the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the Region (PSC Framework). The Council adopted resolution 2389 on 8 December, reaffirming that the PSC Framework remains an essential mechanism to achieve durable peace and stability. The resolution invites the Secretary-General to assess the progress, challenges and shortcomings in the implementation of the Framework, and to present his vision, supported by concrete recommendations, to the Council in his next report, which is due by 31 March 2018.

Meanwhile, the violence in the Kasai region has continued. Intercommunal conflict and clashes between militias and government forces in the region began in August 2016 when the leader of the Kamwina Nsapu militia was killed in fighting with the DRC police. Violence has also continued in the east. A 7 December 2017 rebel attack on a MONUSCO base in North Kivu claimed the lives of 15 Tanzanian peacekeepers and wounded dozens of others. Five DRC soldiers were also killed in the attack. Reports suggest that the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist group originating from Uganda and currently based in eastern DRC, is responsible. This is the worst attack on UN peacekeepers in the Organizations recent history said the Secretary-General in a statement the following day. Council members condemned the attack and reiterated that targeting peacekeepers may constitute a war crime under international law in a press statement on 8 December. Lacroix visited the DRC after the attack and also met with Kabila and visited Goma on 15 December. The Ugandan military announced that more than 100 ADF rebels were killed on 22 December in eastern DRC, in an operation coordinated with the DRC.

On 12 December 2017, the International Organization for Migration reported an alarming deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the DRC as fighting continued to spread throughout the country, with more than 4 million internally displaced people.

In a landmark case, a military court in Bukavu, South Kivu, sentenced 12 militia members to life in prison on 13 December 2017 for events that took place between 2013 and 2016, involving rape and violence against dozens of girls and young children. Ten were convicted of crimes against humanity and two for being members of an armed group.

The Secretary-General announced on 27 December 2017 that Leila Zerrougui (Algeria) will replace Sidikou, who will complete his role as Special Representative and Head of MONUSCO in January 2018.

Human Rights-Related Developments

In a 15 October statement, High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein called on the authorities in the DRC to halt their inflammatory rhetoric against protesters and to ensure that demonstrations across the country in response to the announcement of the delayed elections are handled in line with international human rights laws and standards. The inflammatory comments by police authorities ahead of the protests are deeply alarming, the High Commissioner said. I call on the government and security forces to work to defuse tensions instead of creating the conditions for suppression, confrontation and violence.

Sanctions-Related Developments

The Council adopted a presidential statement on 7 November 2017, reiterating its readiness to sanction individuals who undermine the peace, stability or security of the DRC, including those who attack UN personnel, such as members of the Group of Experts. (Two of the groups experts, Zaida Catalan [Chile/Sweden] and Michael Sharp [US], were murdered in Kasai in March 2017.)

The outgoing Chair of the DRC 1533 Sanctions Committee, Ambassdaor Amr Abdellatif Aboulatta (Egypt), briefed the Council on 8 December for the last time, along with other outgoing chairs of subsidiary bodies. On 11 December, the committee met with the Group of Experts assisting it to discuss the groups midterm report. The report focuses on the continued illegal exploitation of natural resources in the DRC, such as gold. During the meeting, the groups coordinator, Zobel Behalal (Cameroon) cautioned that more information is needed before the ADF can be deemed responsible for the 7 December attack on MONUSCO.

Key Issues and Options

With a new electoral calendar published, a key issue is ensuring the elections are free and fair, are not postponed further, and the electoral process is not accompanied by violence. The Council will likely monitor the developments closely and take action if signs of delay begin to emerge in early 2018. It may opt to visit the DRC during the preparatory period to take stock of the electoral process and deliver messages to stakeholders. It may strengthen and emphasise MONUSCOs existing mandate to provide technical assistance and logistical support for the electoral process. It may also choose to resort to the imposition of targeted sanctions against those identified as interfering with the electoral process, including perpetrators of election-related violence.

Another important issue is addressing the continued violence in the east, as well as the increasing violence in Kasai, and the adequacy of MONUSCOs mandate and posture to address these threats. In the longer term, the Council will need to assessparticularly in light of the electoral and security challengesMONUSCOs mandate and troop levels, both of which were altered in resolution 2348 that renewed MONUSCOs mandate in March 2017, along with a request to the Secretary-General to conduct a strategic review of the mission by 30 September. These assessments may lead to discussions on the suitability of the current mandate and possible changes in MONUSCOs mandate during its renewal in March 2018.

Council Dynamics

Council members remain concerned about the ongoing political crisis. The 28 November 2017 press statement reflects a consensus that the publication of a clear timetable for elections should help to avoid further tensions and the possible escalation of violence. Previously, there were divergent views in the Council on the importance of holding elections in 2017, as stipulated by the 31 December 2016 agreement, with some members insisting that the DRC adhere to that timetable and others emphasising the importance of a realistic schedule. The position expressed by Council members in the press statement reflects a compromise, recognising that elections have been postponed by another year but insisting they not be postponed any further. It also reflects a closer alignment with the position of regional actors. However, it remains to be seen whether Council members will be able to maintain consensus in the event of further delays in the electoral process.

Some Council members are of the view that the new electoral timetable and continuing violence in parts of the country, including direct attacks against MONUSCO, necessitate a new strategic review of MONUSCOs mandate and posture. During negotiations over resolution 2348 in March 2017, several Council members were of the view that plans for downsizing MONUSCO and an eventual exit strategy would be premature prior to the successful implementation of the 31 December 2016 agreement. However, the US insisted on a shorter time schedule for the strategic review to advance discussions of the future of MONUSCO. With the new electoral calendar now in place, some members have been signalling their interest in having an updated assessment of the situation and MONUSCOs role in that context.

France is the penholder on the DRC and Kuwait will chair the 1533 Sanctions Committee in 2018.

UN DOCUMENTS ON THE DRC

This resolution was on the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the region. The Council renewed MONUSCOs mandate until 31 March 2018. This was a presidential statement that reiterated the need for the government of the DRC to fully investigate the killing of the two members of the Sanctions Committee Group of Experts and bring the perpetrators to justice. This was a briefings by the chairs of subsidiary bodies of the Security Council. This condemned an attack by rebel groups that killed 15 peacekeepers and five Congolese soldiers. This was a statement on the electoral process in the DRC in which the Council noted that presidential, legislative and provincial elections are now scheduled for 23 December 2018.
Israel/Palestine

Expected Council Action

In January 2018, the Council is expected to hold its quarterly open debate under the agenda item the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, which will focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Key Recent Developments

On 18 December 2017, the Council voted on a draft resolution, tabled by Egypt and drafted with the Palestinians, in reaction to the 6 December declaration by US President Donald Trump that the US would recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy there from Tel Aviv. The resolution was drafted following bilateral discussions between the Palestinian delegation and various Council members. The draft obtained 14 affirmative votes but was vetoed by the US.

The text that was presented for a vote affirmed that any decisions and actions that purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void, and must be rescinded. It called upon all states to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in Jerusalem pursuant to resolution 478 (1980) of the Council and demanded that all states comply with Council resolutions regarding Jerusalem and do not recognise any actions or measures contrary to previous Council resolutions on the legal status of Jerusalem. The resolution reiterated the Councils call for the reversal of the negative trends on the ground that are imperilling the two-state solution and for the intensification and acceleration of international and regional efforts and support aimed at achieving, without delay, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

The text also reaffirmed several previous resolutions of the Council, including resolutions 476 and 478 of 1980 and 2334 of 2016. Resolution 476 said that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of the [Fourth] Geneva Convention. Resolution 478 was adopted in the wake of Israels enactment of its 1980 basic law, which declared that Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel. The resolution decided not to recognise the law, called on all member states to accept this decision, and called on those states that have established diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such missions from the Holy City. Resolution 2334 reaffirmed in December 2016 that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution. All three of these resolutions were adopted with 14 affirmative votes and a US abstention.

Following the US veto, Yemen, which serves as Chair of the Arab Group, and Turkey, Chair of the Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, sent a letter to the President of the General Assembly requesting the resumption of the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly on Illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory under Uniting for Peace. (General Assembly resolution 377 of 3 November 1950, known as the Uniting for Peace resolution, states that in any cases where the Security Council fails to act as required to maintain international peace and security because of a lack of unanimity amongst its five permanent members, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately and may issue any recommendations it deems necessary. By a 16 January 2009 resolution, the General Assembly decided to temporarily adjourn the tenth emergency special session, first convened in April 1997 at the request of Qatar, which could later be resumed at the request of a member state. Yemen also presented a draft resolution that was very similar to the draft that was vetoed by the US. The General Assembly adopted the resolution with 128 votes in favour, 9 votes against, 35 abstentions and 21 absences.

The following day, Ukraine and the US co-sponsored an Arria-formula meeting on Humanitarian aspects of missing and captive persons in Gaza. During the 2014 conflict in Gaza, Hamas seized the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed, and on two other occasions, Hamas captured two Israeli civilians who entered Gaza. According to the concept note, the objective of the meeting was to provide an opportunity to discuss the related violations of humanitarian obligations and international law. Leah Goldin, whose son was killed in combat battle with Hamas and whose remains are being held, briefed Council members, along with Irwin Cotler, Founder and Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

The Security Council first met to address President Trumps announcement on 8 December 2017, after eight council membersBolivia, Egypt, France, Italy, Senegal, Sweden, the UK and Uruguaycalled for an emergency meeting when the announcement was made. Briefing the Council, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nikolay Mladenov warned that the move could present a serious risk of sparking a chain of unilateral actions, which can only undermine the achievement of our shared goal, and reiterated that the position of the UN on Jerusalem was that the city remained a final-status issue to be determined through a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to be negotiated between the two sides.

At the briefing, US Permanent Representative Nikki Haley defended the decision, asserting that the US had not taken a position on boundaries or borders, and that the decision did not predetermine final-status issues. All 14 other Council members expressed dismay at the decision, with most asserting that it contravened international law and Council resolutions and reiterating that Jerusalem is a final-status issue, with its sovereignty to be determined through negotiations between the parties.

On 18 December, Mladenov briefed the Council on the fourth report on the implementation of resolution 2334 on Israeli settlements. He said housing construction in occupied Palestinian territory has continued, with significantly more units advanced and approved in 2017. Overall, he said that the conflict has not seen significant positive moves towards peace during the reporting period, 20 September to 18 December 2017. He added that the security situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory has become more tense in the wake of Trumps announcement recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, citing an increase in incidents, notably rockets fired from Gaza and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces.

Human Rights-Related Developments

On 27 October 2017, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Michael Lynk, presented his report to the Third Committee of the General Assembly (A/72/556). The report addresses a number of concerns pertaining to the situation of human rights in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in Gaza. It finds that in the 50th year of Israels occupation, the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is in a state of severe deterioration. The report also presents a detailed analysis of the international legal framework of the occupation.

Key Issues and Options

The overarching issue is determining how the Council can encourage the resumption of direct negotiations between the parties to achieve a two-state solution, including promoting compliance with resolution 2334 and reversing further negative trends that have emerged in recent weeks. Given the increasingly confrontational Council dynamics on this issue and the objection of the US administration to the Councils engagement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, any Council outcome is unlikely.

Council Dynamics

The US under its current administration has made it known that it plans to staunchly defend Israel at the UNincluding through its unwavering opposition to resolution 2334, which was adopted with 14 votes in favour and a US abstentionbut tensions within the Council reached a crescendo in December following Trumps 6 December 2017 proclamation concerning Jerusalem. All other Council members voted in favour of a resolution that reaffirmed that any decisions and actions that purport to have altered the status of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded. US representative Haley called the matter an insult that wouldnt be forgotten. It is likely that tensions over this issue will persist, and that the US will continue to prevent any outcome in the Security Council and elsewhere in the UN system that it feels challenges Israel.

Israel remains staunchly opposed to international initiatives on the issue, including involvement by the Council, while the Palestinian Authority favours international participation.

UN DOCUMENTS ON ISRAEL/PALESTINE

This was a resolution paying tribute to outgoing Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. This resolution censured Israeli enactment of the basic law on Jerusalem. This resolution reconfirmed the illegality of Israeli actions to change the character and status of Jerusalem. This was the vote on a draft resolution on Jerusalem that was vetoed by the US. This was the fourth report by Mladenov on the implementation of resolution 2334. This was a briefing by Mladenov requested by eight Council members in response to the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital and announcement that it would move its embassy there from Tel Aviv. This resolution decided to temporarily adjourn the tenth emergency special session. This was a draft resolution tabled by Egypt on the status of Jerusalem that received 14 affirmative votes but was vetoed by the US.
In Hindsight: The Demise of the JIM

Six draft resolutions were vetoed in 2017, the most since 1988, and five of them focused on the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN was the centerpiece of the Security Councils efforts to determine responsibility for the use of chemical weapons in Syria. It was established through resolution 2235 on 7 August 2015, largely a result of negotiations between the US and Russia. Three consecutive vetoes by Russia led to its termination at the end of 2017, dismantling what had been one of the rare examples of Council action on the Syria file.

The JIM worked on the basis of reports from the OPCW fact-finding mission (FFM), which determined whether chemical weapons had been used in particular incidents. It produced seven reports and assigned responsibility to the Syrian government for four attacks (Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017, Qmenas and Sarmin on 16 March 2015, and Talmenes on 21 April 2014) and to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant for two (Um-Hawsh on 15-16 September 2016 and Marea on 21 August 2015). As the JIM began to assign responsibility in its third and fourth reports in 2016, its working methods were questioned by Russia, which criticised what it considered unsubstantiated conclusions in the reports. Russia also maintained that these findings were not definitive, pending investigations by the Syrian government, and could not be the basis for taking legal decisions regarding accountability.

Since the beginning of the JIMs mandate, Russia and China advocated for an increased focus on the use of chemical weapons by terrorist groups, and they circulated a draft to that effect in April 2016. Even though the draft was never put to a vote, this was one of the issues that featured prominently in the negotiations regarding the renewal of the JIMs mandate in October and November 2016. The negotiation process required a technical rollover resolution to buy time for the negotiations because of the divisions in the Council. In the end, language was added to the draft that became resolution 2319, encouraging the JIM to consult with the 1267/1989/2253 Al-Qaida/ISIL Sanctions Committee, as well as to engage with states in the region to identify how non-state actors and terrorist groups were involved in the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

The period of uncertainty regarding the JIMs future in late 2016 created difficulties in the planning and hiring of staff, which disrupted the JIMs work for several months. The negotiation process also reflected the fundamental divergences of Russia and China with the P3 regarding the JIM and the extent of its mandate. This was further demonstrated by a P3 initiative to seek accountability for chemical weapons attacks. On 28 February 2017, China and Russia vetoed a P3-drafted resolution that would have imposed sanctions on perpetrators identified by the JIM reports.

The 4 April attack in Khan Shaykhun resulted in heightened visibility for the Councils consideration of the use of chemical weapons in Syria. A P3 draft resolution condemning the attack and emphasising Syrias obligation to provide the JIM and the FFM with information on air operations, was vetoed by Russia on 12 April. In the following months, through several letters and statements, Russia questioned key aspects of, first, the FFM investigations and, then, the JIMs methodology on Khan Shaykhun.

The US tabled a draft to renew the JIMs mandate, which was due to expire on 17 November 2017, on 24 October, two days before the release of the JIMs final report, in order to delink the JIMs conclusions from its continuation. However, this move was blocked by a Russian veto. In explaining its vote, Russia stated that it considered the JIM needed to continue. However, when the report was released, Russia made it clear that it would not accept the result of the investigations on the Khan Shaykhun attack. It raised the lack of on-site visits and criticised the non-observance of the chain of custody, the failure to use all available methods and methodologies of investigation, and the questionable credibility of sources.

On 2 November, the US and Russia circulated competing draft resolutions on the renewal of the mandate of the JIM. The initial US draft characterised the information obtained by the JIM as constituting sufficient, credible and reliable evidence to reach conclusions on those responsible for the use of chemical weapons, while the Russian text expressed its methodological concerns. Even though the head of the JIMs leadership panel, Edmond Mulet, addressed some of the issues raised by Russia in a public briefing on 7 November, Russia made clear its opposition to the working methods of the JIM and refused to engage on the US draft. However, there were several rounds of negotiations on that draft with other members. The US opposed including language from the Russian draft that it considered discredited the previous work of the JIM and questioned the independence and professionalism of its staff. Both drafts were put to a vote on 16 November, but neither was adopted. The US draft was vetoed by Russia, and the Russian draft received only four favourable votes (Bolivia, China, Kazakhstan and Russia)..

Immediately after the failed votes on 16 November 2017, Japan circulated a draft that would have extended the JIMs mandate for one month while requesting the UN Secretary-General, in coordination with the OPCW, to submit proposals to the Council for the structure and methodology of the JIM reflecting views of Security Council members. Twelve members voted for the draft resolution on 17 November, but Russia, which had already signaled that it did not support this draft in a meeting in consultations earlier that day, cast its 11th Syria veto.

Council members met after the veto in an attempt to find a compromise before the expiration of the JIMs mandate by midnight, but no further action was taken that day. In a last-ditch attempt, Italy as President circulated a draft letter to the Secretary-General requesting that the JIMs organisational and administrative arrangements be maintained until 31 December 2017 pending a final decision on the renewal of its mandate. Sweden and Uruguay circulated a draft resolution to extend the JIMs mandate for a year, adding language on investigation standards and aiming to reach a compromise among the competing perspectives in the Council.

Russia ultimately opposed both initiatives and the JIMs mandate ended; however, the dynamism shown by some elected Council members in the last stretch of the negotiations on a file traditionally monopolised by permanent members is worth noting. An earlier example had been the discussions regarding the Khan Shaykhun attack, when the E10 proposed a compromise draft on 6 April in an effort to bridge the divide between the P3 and Russia. On that occasion, China was the only permanent member to praise the merits of the compromise draft. However, the initiative was soon overtaken by events, with the US striking the Shayrat airbase that evening.

Even though elected members met regularly on the JIM renewal for weeks, divergent views prevented them from forming a unified front. While some felt that the E10 were well-positioned to break the impasse, others thought that tabling a third draft would undermine the then-ongoing negotiations on the US draft. Sweden discussed elements of an alternative draft with the E10 but found most members reluctant to pursue the idea. Eventually, Sweden decided to circulate a draft jointly with Uruguay at the very last minute, even though it would face opposition from both Russia and the US. While acceptance by Russia and the US was a requirement for the JIMs renewal, it is impossible to know whether a draft from an elected member could have bridged the widening gap between the P3 and Russia if there had been solid engagement by all Council members earlier.

This, however, assumes that the permanent members would have acted differently if presented with other options. Russias rush to put its drafts in blue with no negotiation, even though it was well aware that the drafts would not be acceptable to most Council members, has led some Council members to question whether it was ever serious about retaining the JIM.
AFRICA

Libya

Expected Council Action

In January 2018, the Council is expected to receive a briefing from the Special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Ghassan Salame, followed by consultations.

UNSMILs mandate expires on 15 September 2018, and the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee expires on 15 November 2018.

Key Recent Developments

December 2017 marked the two-year anniversary of the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA), signed on 17 December 2015. Some actors on the ground saw this anniversary as a deadline for the legitimacy of the LPA and the institutions it created. Particularly, Khalifa Haftar, the head of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), repeatedly threatened to take action to avoid an institutional vacuum as the perceived deadline approached, and LNA elements attacked offices of the High National Elections Commission in the east.

At a Council briefing and consultations on 16 November 2017, Salame raised the potential for military escalation in December. On 14 December 2017, the Council adopted a presidential statement emphasising the continuity of the LPA throughout Libyas transitional period and rejecting incorrect deadlines that undermined the UN-facilitated political process. It also stressed, recalling its resolution 2259, adopted soon after the signing of the LPA, that any attempt, including by Libyan parties, to undermine the Libyan-led, UN-facilitated political process is unacceptable. Disregarding the statement, in a televised speech on 17 December, Haftar questioned the validity of the LPA and the institutions it established, including the Government of National Accord.

When he previously briefed the Council, Salame updated Council members on his efforts to facilitate talks among Libyans. In October 2017, he organised for the first time meetings between delegations from the Tobruk-based House of Representatives and the Tripoli-based High Council of State, which constituted a mutual recognition of the two assemblies. Convergence started to emerge on key issues (including the separation of the executive authority into a three-member Presidency Council and a ministerial cabinet), but other questions remained outstanding. Chief among them was agreeing which office would include the responsibility of supreme commander of the armed forces.

Other issues he reported working in parallel on included:

brokering an agreement on a limited set of amendments to the LPA;

organising a national conference (scheduled for February 2018);

encouraging progress toward finalising a new Libyan constitution; and

preparing for parliamentary and presidential elections, including through UN support to the High National Elections Commission (it launched a voter registration campaign in early December 2017).

Violence in Libya continues, and clashes among armed groups in the east and the west have persisted. Briefing the Council, Salame highlighted the violations of international humanitarian law and the impunity and lawlessness prevailing in the country. On 17 December 2017, the mayor of Misrata, Mohammed Eshtewiwho was going to participate in talks with rival militias from Zintanwas fatally shot by unknown assailants.

The situation of refugees and migrants in Libya continues to be critical. Following reports of migrants being sold into slavery in Libya, France requested an urgent meeting of the Council on 28 November 2017. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi and Director General of the International Organization for Migration William Lacy Swing briefed the Council. Grandi said that the grave abuses perpetrated against migrants and refugees along the central Mediterranean routes could no longer be ignored. In a presidential statement adopted on 7 December 2017, the Council condemned the heinous abuses of human rights which may also amount to crimes against humanity.

ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda briefed the Council on 8 November 2017 and presented an update on the arrest warrants outstanding since the ICC referral in 2011 (LNA commander Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf al-Werfalli, former official of the Muammar Gaddafi regime Al-Tuhamy Mohamed Khaled, and Saif al-Islam Gaddafi). Reportedly, the three individuals remain at large. She also described how the ICC continues to monitor what may amount to international crimes, both as part of the ongoing conflict and regarding the situation of migrants and refugees.

Human Rights-Related Developments

In a 14 November 2017 statement, High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein said the suffering of migrants detained in Libya is an outrage to the conscience of humanity and that the dire situation has now turned catastrophic. According to the statement, UN human rights monitors visited four Department of Combatting Illegal Migration facilities in Tripoli from 1 to 6 November and were shocked to see thousands of emaciated and traumatized men, women and children with no access to the most basic necessities, and stripped of their human dignity. The statement urged Libyan authorities to take concrete steps to stamp out human rights violations and abuses in centres under their control, remove those reasonably suspected of carrying out violations, investigate and prosecute those responsible, and publicly signal that such abuses will no longer be tolerated. A 30 November 2017 joint statement by nine special procedures of the Human Rights Council called on the government of Libya to take urgent action to end the trade of enslaved people in the country and to hold the perpetrators accountable. It is now clear that slavery is an outrageous reality in Libya, the statement said. On 1 December 2017, UNSMIL released a human rights report on civilian casualties for November, which documented 16 civilian casualties (six deaths and ten injuries), a drop from previous months. The majority of civilian casualties were caused by gunfire, explosive remnants of war or other unknown explosives, and shelling.

Key Issues and Options

Generally, Council members could continue to discuss and devise ways to support, collectively and bilaterally, the UN-led mediation efforts in Libya. At the appropriate time and in support of Salames mediation efforts, Council members could undertake a visiting mission to Libya and neighbouring countries to engage with key stakeholders to ensure progress in the implementation of the UN action plan.

The Council could issue a statement condemning any unilateral actions that undermine the political process and question the LPA as the only framework for the political transition. It could also recall that these actions constitute designation criteria in the 1970 sanctions regime.

A long-standing issue for which the Council is responsible, but which continues to be unresolved, is the impact that the freezing of assets resulting from resolution 1970 is having on Libyas wealth. In his November 2017 briefing, Salame criticised the mismanagement of frozen assets (by not being reinvested) and urged the Council to revisit this issue. Since 2015, the Panel of Experts has recommended the Sanctions Committee to issue guidance allowing for the reinvestment of frozen assets to prevent economic losses in funds belonging to the Libyan people. The Council has also received several letters from Libya in this regard, but the Sanctions Committee has not taken up this issue. An option in this context would be for the Council to make a point of addressing this issue through its 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee.

Council and Wider Dynamics

Council dynamics on Libya have not always been easy. Despite unanimous outcomes, its members have often had different sensitivities over the way forward to achieve a solution. It remains to be seen whether and to what extent recent outcomes, such as the endorsement of the UN Action Plan and the presidential statement ahead of the 17 December 2017 anniversary, signal increased convergence among Council members.

The UK is the penholder on Libya, and Sweden chairs the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee.

UN DOCUMENTS ON LIBYA

This renewed the authorisation for member states to inspect vessels on the high seas off the coast of Libya that they have reasonable grounds to suspect are being used for migrant smuggling or human trafficking. This extended UNSMILs mandate until 15 September 2018. This was a resolution renewing the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee and the measures regarding attempts to illicitly export oil from Libya. This statement emphasised that the Libyan Political Agreement is the only viable framework to end the Libyan political crisis. This statement expressed grave concern about reports of migrants being sold into slavery in Libya. This endorsed the UN action plan for the resumption of an inclusive Libyan-owned political process. This was a meeting on slavery and trafficking of sub-Saharan African migrants in Libya, requested by France. High Commissioner for Refugees Flippo Grandi and Director of the IOM William Lacy Swing briefed the Council. This was a briefing for the Council to explore the challenges to peace and security in the Mediterranean region. This was a briefing from the Special Representative and head of UNSMIL, Ghassan Salame and the chair of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Olof Skoog (Sweden). This was a briefing by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, expressing concerns at the discovery in the town of al-Abyar of the bodies of 36 people who appear to have been tortured and executed.
Overview

Kazakhstan will preside over the Security Council in January. There will be a special focus on the Central Asia region. A ministerial-level debate on building relationships between Afghanistan and Central Asia, chaired by Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov, with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expected to be among the speakers, is planned. In addition, the regular semi-annual briefing on the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) will be held. Kazakhstan is also planning a high-level briefing on non-proliferation and confidence-building measures, chaired by the countrys President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, with the Secretary-General briefing.

Following the December adoption of a resolution renewing the authorisation of cross-border and cross-line humanitarian access in Syria, the Council will continue to receive its regular monthly briefing on the humanitarian situation, as well as on the political situation and chemical weapons. The other Middle East meeting will be the quarterly open debate on Israel/Palestine.

Council members will be following closely developments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and will receive a briefing from Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix, followed by consultations. Other briefings followed by consultations on African issues in January are: Darfur, with an update on UNAMID; Somalia; South Sudan; Mali; Libya; and the work of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel. The Council is also expected to adopt a resolution renewing sanctions in the Central African Republic and the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 2127 CAR Sanctions Committee.

The Council will also be updated on situations in South America and Europe in January.

It will hold a briefing, followed by consultations, on Colombia, with Special Representative Jean Arnault presenting the Secretary-Generals 90-day report on the UN Verification Mission in Colombia.

On Cyprus, it will be briefed in consultations on developments and the latest report on UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus and is expected to renew the mandate of UNFICYP for another six months.

Over the month, Council members will likely follow closely developments in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, Myanmar, Ukraine and Yemen, and other meetings may be scheduled.
AFRICA

Somalia

Expected Council Action

In January 2018, the Council expects to receive the Secretary-Generals report on the situation in Somalia.

The mandate of UNSOM expires on 31 March 2018.

Key Recent Developments

On 4 December 2017 the President of the Federal Government of Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo Mohamed, convened the Somalia Security Conference in Mogadishu with representatives of the Federal Member States of Somalia and the Benadir Regional Administration. The conference was co-convened by the UN and AU and attended by 29 of Somalias partners.

A communique that followed outlined progress made since the May 2017 London Conference and outlined how the Somalia Security Conference offered a pivotal opportunity to reflect on that progress, the result of efforts by the Federal Government of Somalia, the Federal Member States, and the Benadir Regional Administration to reform the security sector with the support of the international community. It stressed that Somalia continues to face a grievous threat from the Al-Shabaab terror group, which continues to perpetrate atrocities across Somalia. The participants agreed that the three priorities for immediate action were implementation of the National Security Architecture; urgent development of a realistic conditions-based transition plan with clear target dates to transfer security responsibility from the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to Somali security forces; and continued international support to build the capacity of Somali security forces and institutions. According to the communique, the next security conference will be held alongside the next Somali Partnership Forum in 2018 in order to assess progress and set the priorities for the next phase.

On 6 December 2017, the Council issued a press statement that welcomed the successful conclusion of the 4 December Security Conference.

On 14 December 2017, a suicide bomber killed at least 18 police officers and wounded at least 15 others during a parade at a training centre in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The bomber, disguised as a policeman, blew himself up at the General Kaahiye Police Academy. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack.

More than 100 Al-Shabaab militants were killed in a US airstrike on a camp in Somalia, US Africa Command said in a statement on 21 November 2017. The strike was carried out by a manned aircraft, 125 miles northwest of Mogadishu. According to the command, the US Defense Department now has 500 personnel in Somalia, including military, civilians and contractors, more than double the 200 personnel that had been reported to be in Somalia in March 2017.

On 14 December 2017, the US announced it would suspend food and fuel aid for most of Somalias armed forces over corruption concerns. A Reuters report said the US suspension came after the Somali military repeatedly failed to account for food and fuel, according to private correspondence between the US and Somali governments seen by Reuters.

Head of AMISOM Francisco Madeira told a news conference in Mogadishu on 7 November 2017 that AU troops would begin withdrawing from Somalia in December 2017 when 1,000 soldiers from the five troop-contributing countriesBurundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Ugandawould depart. Madeira said the withdrawal would be conducted with caution to ensure that security was not compromised and that the drawdown would be gradual, responsible and conditions-based.

The US reportedly appealed against the downsizing of the mission. A US State Department official told media sources on 12 November 2017 that the decision called for concern and the US does not support further drawdown of forces beyond that level at this time, due to ongoing security concerns. The US supports a conditions-based AMISOM drawdown that is tied to the development of capable, professional Somali security forces.

A 10 December 2017 report prepared by UNSOMs Human Rights and Protection Group, titled Protection of Civilians: Building the Foundation for Peace, Security and Human Rights in Somalia, focused on violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed in the context of Somalias long-standing armed conflict. The findings and analysis in the report were a first attempt by the UN mission to quantify the toll that the conflict has had on civilians between 1 January 2016 and 14 October 2017. According to the report, UNSOM documented a total of 4,585 civilian casualties (2,078 killed and 2,507 injured) during that period, 60 percent of which were attributed to Al-Shabaab, 13 percent to militia, 11 percent to state actors, four percent to AMISOM, and 12 percent to undetermined or unidentified actors. In addition, Al-Shabaab abducted 729 civilians and was responsible for 86 targeted assassinations and the execution of 46 persons during the reporting period. UNSOM reported that state and non-state actors also carried out extrajudicial executions, sexual and gender-based violence, arbitrary arrests and detention, and abductions.

Key Issues and Options

Ensuring that UNSOM is properly equipped to support the Somali government in the three priority areasstate-building, security strategy, and socio-economic reformis the key issue. Thus, Council members can take the opportunity of the briefing to discuss how the mission can best help the government in facilitating key political processessuch as the constitutional review; preparations for one-person, one-vote elections; and establishing a functional federal stateas well as advising and assisting the government on security matters and promoting economic development.

Concerning AMISOM, a key issue is ensuring that the mission is equipped to adequately strengthen the Somali forces so they can progressively take the lead in providing security. A premature handover of security responsibilities would risk undermining Somalias security and political gains.

Closely related is the need to secure predictable and sustainable funding for AMISOM and Somali security institutions. Regarding this, the Council may consider the AUs requests for the UN to provide AMISOM with funding through assessed contributions, also suggested by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during his March 2017 visit to Somalia.

Council Dynamics

On Somalia generally, Council members are united in supporting state-building processes and in their support for UNSOM, as demonstrated by unified messages conveyed during the Councils visit to Somalia in May 2016 and the uncontentious adoption of several recent Council outcomes on Somalia. Concerning AMISOM, however, some Council members have expressed more caution about the drawdown of troops than others.

The UK is the penholder on Somalia, and Kazakhstan is the chair of the 751/1907 Somalia and Eritrea Sanctions Committee for 2017.

UN DOCUMENTS ON SOMALIA

This resolution reauthorised AMISOM until 31 May 2018. This resolution renewed the mandate of UNSOM until 31 March 2018. This statement welcomed the successful conclusion of the Somalia Security Conference and the inaugural Somalia Partnership Forum in Mogadishu on 4 and 5 December 2017.
AFRICA

South Sudan

Expected Council Action

In January 2018, the Council is expected to receive a briefing on the Secretary-Generals monthly assessment of the deployment and future requirements of the Regional Protection Force (RPF) and impediments to the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in carrying out its mandate.

The mandate of UNMISS expires on 15 March 2018.

Key Recent Developments

As the conflict in South Sudan entered its fifth year, the political, security, humanitarian, human rights and economic situations remain dire, with 7.6 million people now in need of aid, four million people displaced both inside South Sudan and in neighbouring countries, and six million people lacking enough food to feed themselves. Violent clashes between government and opposition forces in several areas of the country continue, including in the greater Upper Nile and Equatorias regions, as well as high levels of intercommunal fighting. Displacement and violations against civilians could escalate further with improved mobility in the coming months of the dry season.

On 14 December 2017, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 2392, extending until 15 March 2018 the provisions of resolution 2327 which renewed UNMISSs mandate for one year in December 2016. The three-month technical rollover allows for the completion of the strategic review of UNMISS currently underway and for Council members to consider its recommendations. At the initiative of the Secretary-General, a strategic review of UNMISS began in mid-November, one of several comprehensive reviews of peacekeeping operations. An integrated review team recently visited South Sudan to consider the security and humanitarian situations and to consult with a wide range of actors, including the government, international and humanitarian communities, and UNMISS, both in Juba and in more remote parts of the country. The team also travelled to Addis Ababa, where it met with some South Sudanese groups, including the opposition and regional actors. The review team will report back to the Secretary-General, who is expected to submit a report to the Security Council in early 2018.

At the most recent briefing on South Sudan on 7 December, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the Council that in a challenging environment, UNMISS had endeavoured to be more robust, nimble and proactive; helped to protect humanitarian facilities, facilitate aid delivery, and evacuate humanitarian personnel; and intervened to protect civilians from abduction, illegal recruitment, sexual violence, and harassment. He added that mission patrols had reached areas where they had long been denied access.

Also on 14 December 2017, the Council adopted a presidential statement expressing strong support for the High-Level Revitalization Forum (HLRF) organised by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), adding that it looks forward to the convening of a fully inclusive forum and substantive progress on the initiative by the end of December 2017. The presidential statement also underlines that no party should set pre-conditions to participation, and that there must be cost and consequences for those who undermine the HLRF process. It added that the forum is a last chance for the parties to achieve sustainable peace and stability. The statement also took note of the 20 September 2017 communique of the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC). The communique stated that if the parties continue to delay the full implementation of the August 2015 peace agreement, the PSC will consider the necessary steps, including sanction measures.

IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan Ismail Wais, who briefed the Council for the first time on 7 December 2017, outlined the factors necessary to the forums success, including:

 inclusivity and political will;

 cessation of hostilities and the establishment of a permanent ceasefire;

 a unified position on the part of the opposition;

 IGADs leadership and credibility as an impartial arbiter;

 a robust enforcement mechanism agreed to by IGAD, the AU and the Security Council;

 gender parity and participation by women;

 participation of Riek Machar;

 coordination of concurrent political initiatives, such as the national dialogue, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement re-unification process, and revitalisation; and

 wider consultations and transparency.

The HLRF officially began with meetings in Addis Ababa from 18 to 22 December 2017, attended by representatives of the parties to the conflict (including all parties to the 2015 peace agreement and estranged groups formed after July 2016), the international community, South Sudanese civil society (including youth and womens groups) as well as representatives from South Sudanese refugee communities. President Salva Kiir reportedly instructed those representing the government not to accept renegotiation of the August 2015 peace agreement. On 21 December 2017, the parties attending the HLRF signed an agreement on cessation of hostilities, protection of civilians, and humanitarian access. The agreement required parties to cease all hostile military actions on 24 December 2017. At press time, it was unclear whether the ceasefire was holding with both sides alleging that violations had occurred. The members of the Troika (the UK, US and Norway) issued a joint statement welcoming the agreement, calling for its immediate implementation and for the parties to reconvene urgently to address the important security and governance arrangements that are essential for peace in South Sudan. At press time, IGAD was expected to convene in the first week of February 2018 to begin phase two of the HLRF, at which governance issues are expected to be discussed. The AU PSC is scheduled to discuss South Sudan on 19 January 2018.

Sanctions-Related Developments

On 8 December 2017, there was a briefing by the chairs of subsidiary bodies of the Security Council, at which Ambassador Fode Seck (Senegal) briefed on the work of the South Sudan Sanctions Committee. He highlighted the Panel of Experts recommendations that the Council impose a general arms embargo on South Sudan and that the Committee identify those responsible for actions and policies that threaten peace, security and stability in South Sudan.

Human Rights-Related Developments

From 11 to 22 December 2017, two of the three members of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, Yasmin Sooka and Andrew Clapham, conducted the Commissions fourth field mission to South Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia. In a 22 December 2017 statement, the Commission welcomed the cessation of hostilities agreement concluded at the HLRF, but said it remains gravely concerned over the lack of accountability for serious crimes with widespread and gross human rights violations being committed by all parties to the conflict. According to the statement, Sooka and Clapham met with numerous victims during their mission who shared harrowing accounts of indiscriminate attacks, revenge killings, torture, abduction of women and children, forced displacement, looting and burning of homes and crops, starvation, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. The Commission will submit a report to the Human Rights Council at its 37th session in March 2018.

Key Issues and Options

An immediate issue for the Council is how to support IGADs efforts to revitalise the political process in South Sudan and what consequences it should impose on those who undermine the process, including implementation of the recent agreement on cessation of hostilities, protection of civilians, and humanitarian access concluded by the parties at the HLRF. The Council will also need to determine what role it can play in curbing the collapse of South Sudan as the crisis gripping the country has entered its fifth year and in light of the extraordinarily difficult circumstances UNMISS is forced to operate under.

In an effort to reduce the level of violence and exert leverage on the parties, Council members could decide to revisit the proposals for an arms embargo and targeted sanctions.

The Council could also consider holding a briefing on ways to combat hate speech and incitement to ethnic violence in South Sudan, inviting the participation of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, international NGOs with a presence in South Sudan, and key South Sudanese religious figures, among others.

Council Dynamics

Council members share deep concern about the political and humanitarian situation in South Sudan, as set out in the presidential statement adopted on 14 December 2017, including the need for a permanent ceasefire, continuing obstacles to the delivery of humanitarian aid and attacks on humanitarian workers, attacks against civilians and the military use of hospitals and schools, and the need for accountability for violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of human rights. While Council members expressed strong support for IGADs efforts in the presidential statement, differences arose during negotiations over language on potential consequences for undermining the peace process. These differences were in line with the long-standing divide in the Council over whether to impose an arms embargo and further targeted sanctions. While the presidential statement refers to the need for cost and consequences for those who undermine the HLRF process, it remains to be seen whether and how Council members will take this forward in 2018.

All Council members supported the idea to adopt a technical rollover of UNMISSs mandate in anticipation of receiving the findings of the strategic review, which will inform their discussions on the mandate early in 2018. Following the 7 December 2017 briefing, Uruguay and Bolivia made statements referring to the mandate renewal. Bolivia voiced its support for a short-term extension in light of the strategic review and hoped that, with the progress in the deployment of the RPF, it will be possible to extend and guarantee a more robust presence for UNMISS patrols in areas of major conflict, such as the Equatorias, the Bahr el-Ghazal region and the Upper Nile, as well as greater flexibility of movement. Outgoing member Uruguay expressed confidence that the conclusions of the strategic review will enable the Security Council to take a responsible decision on the future of the mission.

The US is the penholder on South Sudan. New Council member Poland succeeds Senegal as chair of the South Sudan Sanctions Committee in January 2018.

UN Documents on South Sudan

This resolution extended the mandate of UNMISS until 15 March 2018. This extended the mandate of UNMISS for one year and reauthorised the Regional Protection Force. This was a presidential statement on the situation in South Sudan, focusing on IGADs efforts to revitalise the peace process. This was the 90-day report on UNMISS. This was a briefings by the chairs of subsidiary bodies of the Security Council. This was a briefing on South Sudan by Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations; Mark Lowcock, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator; and Ismail Wais, IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan.
Status Update

Central African Republic

On 4 December, Council members issued a press statement condemning an attack on a MINUSCA detachment in Bria that day by suspected antiBalaka elements, which resulted in one Mauritanian peacekeeper killed and two other Mauritanian peacekeepers and one Zambian peacekeeper injured (SC/13102). Also on that day, the CAR Sanctions Committee met with its Panel of Experts to discuss the final report of the panel and hear briefings by the UN Mine Action Service and UN Institute for Disarmament Research on weapons and ammunition management in the country (SC/13123).

Yemen

On 5 December, Council members were briefed on Yemen in consultations by Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock. On 22 December, Council members condemned in a press statement the 19 December ballistic missile attack by the Huthis against Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia (SC/13143).

International Criminal Tribunals

On 6 December, the Council held a debate on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in which the presidents and prosecutors of these bodies briefed (S/PV.8120). The meeting focused on the assessment reports of the Residual Mechanism and the ICTY (S/2017/971 and S/2017/1001) and on the ICTYs closure on 31 December 2017.

Subsidiary Bodies

On 8 December, the Council held the annual briefing of subsidiary body chairs from outgoing elected Security Council members, which this year were Egypt, Italy, Japan, Senegal, Ukraine and Uruguay (S/PV.8127).

Great Lakes Region

On 8 December, the Council adopted resolution 2389, reaffirming that the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the Region remains an essential mechanism to achieve durable peace and stability, and inviting the Secretary-General to assess the progress, challenges and shortcomings in the implementation of the Framework, and to present his vision, supported by concrete recommendations, to the Council in his next report, which is due by 31 March 2018.

DPRK

On 11 December, the Council held its fourth meeting on the human rights situation in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK). The briefers were the High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein (by video teleconference) and Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Miroslav Jenca (S/PV.8130). The meeting was convened in response to a joint letter from France, Italy, Japan, Senegal, Sweden, Ukraine, the UK, the US and Uruguay (S/2017/1006). At the beginning of the meeting there was a procedural vote to adopt the agenda at the request of several members, which was subsequently adopted with 10 votes in favour, three against (Bolivia, China and Russia) and two abstentions (Egypt and Ethiopia). On 12 December, the Council was briefed in consultations by Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman on his visit to the DPRK from 5 to 8 December. It was the first visit by a senior Secretariat official since 2011. While in Pyongyang, Feltman met with Minister for Foreign Affairs Ri Yong Ho and Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Pak Myong Guk. He also met with the UN country team and diplomatic corps and visited UN project sites. On 15 December, the Council held a ministerial-level meeting on the Threats and Challenges posed by the DPRK to International Peace and Security, with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as the briefer. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono chaired the meeting, and the DPRK and the Republic of Korea participated under Rule 37 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Council. The Secretary-General warned that an accidental escalation could lead to conflict on the Korean peninsula and emphasised that it was time to re-establish and strengthen communications channels, including inter-Korean and military-to-military ones in order to lower the risk of miscalculation or misunderstanding (S/PV.8137). On 22 December the Council adopted resolution 2397 tightening sanctions on DPRK (S/PV.8151).

Myanmar

On 12 December, the Council was briefed by Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman and Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten on developments in Myanmar (S/PV.8133). Representatives from Bangladesh and Myanmar also participated in the meeting. In the consultations that followed, besides Feltman and Patten, representatives from OCHA, OHCHR, and UNHCR were present. Feltman welcomed the recent Memorandum of Understanding between Myanmar and Bangladesh but noted that although the violence had subsided, the flow of refugees to Bangladesh was continuing, and Myanmar leaders needed to adopt measures to defuse tensions and create an environment for safe and dignified repatriation of refugees and internally displaced persons. Patten reported on her visit to Rohingya refugee camps and said the accounts she heard of sexual atrocities against girls and women in Rakhine state indicated a pattern of grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

Golan Heights (UNDOF)

On 12 December, Council members met in consultations with troop-contributing countries to UNDOF. On 14 December, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Bintou Keita briefed Council members in consultations on the report on UNDOF for the period from 10 September to 24 November 2017 (S/2017/1024). On 21 December, the Council adopted resolution 2394 renewing the mandate of UNDOF until 30 June 2018 (S/PV.8145).

Lebanon

On 12 December, France initiated a meeting under any other business on the situation in Lebanon. Ambassador Francois Delattre (France) briefed the Council on the 8 December meeting of the International Support Group for Lebanon which was held in Paris. On 19 December, the Council adopted a press statement that welcomed Prime Minister Saad Hariris return to Lebanon and his decision to continue his term (SC/13130). Furthermore, the statement reiterated the need to protect Lebanon from crises that are destabilising the Middle East.

UNOCA/LRA

On 13 December, Francois Lounceny Fall, Special Representative and head of UNOCA, briefed the Security Council on the Secretary-Generals semi-annual report on UNOCA (S/2017/995) and the implementation of the UN regional strategy to combat the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) (S/PV.8134). The meeting was followed by consultations.

Liberia

On 13 December, Special Representative for Liberia and head of the UNMIL, Farid Zarif briefed Council members in consultations. As mandated by resolution 2333, Zarif provided an oral update following the presidential elections Liberia. In particular, Zarif briefed the Council on the latest developments regarding the organisation of the run-off elections and transition arrangements.

Climate Change

On 15 December, the Security Council held an Arria-formula meeting on the theme Preparing for security implications of rising temperatures. The meeting was co-organised by a wide array of member states, including Council members France, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the UK; the Netherlands and Peru, which enter the Council in 2018; and Germany, the Maldives and Morocco. Briefers included Halbe Zijlstra, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, and Caitlin Werrel, the co-founder and President of the Center for Climate and Security, a Washington, D.C.-based policy institute that focuses on climate-related security threats.

Small Arms

On 18 December, the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, briefed the Council on the Secretary-Generals biennial report (S/2017/1025) on the spread of small arms, light weapons and their ammunition (S/PV.8140).

Iran

On 19 December, the Council held a briefing on the implementation of resolution 2231, adopted on 20 July 2015, which endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Irans nuclear programme (S/PV.8143). Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman briefed on the Secretary-Generals 8 December 2017 report (S/2017/1030) on the implementation of the resolution. In addition, Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi (Italy), the Councils 2231 facilitator, reported on the work of the Council related to Iran; and Joanne Adamson of the EU briefed on the work of the JCPOAs Joint Commission. (The EU is the coordinator of the Commission, which is made up of the eight parties to the JCPOA and is responsible for overseeing the agreements implementation.)

Complex Contemporary Challenges to International Peace and Security

On 20 December, the Council held an open debate on addressing complex contemporary challenges to international peace and security (S/PV.8144). Secretary-General Antonio Guterres briefed, describing various security challenges, including nuclear weapons, climate change, terrorism, drug smuggling, and human trafficking. He underlined the importance of conflict prevention and womens participation in sustaining peace.

Counter-Terrorism

On 21 December 2017, the Council adopted resolution 2395, renewing the mandate of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, the Secretariat body that assists the Counter-Terrorism Committee, as a special political mission, until 31 December 2021. On the same day, the Council adopted resolution 2396 on foreign terrorist fighters and returnees. The resolution acknowledges that returning and relocating foreign terrorist fighters have participated in attacks in their countries of origin, or third countries, including against public spaces and civilian targets and aims to address this threat.

Peacekeeping

On 21 December, Council members issued a press statement underscoring the importance that peacekeeping operations endeavour to minimise their impact on the sustainability of the ecosystems where they are deployed, based on sound consideration of the risks, benefits and costs (SC/13134).
AFRICA

Sudan (Darfur)

Expected Council Action

In January 2018, the Security Council will hold a briefing on the 60-day report of the Secretary-General on the AU/UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) and the written assessment from the Secretary-General and the chairperson of the AU Commission on the reconfiguration of UNAMID, as requested in resolution 2363. The mandate of UNAMID expires on 30 June 2018.

Key Recent Developments

With a reduction in the intensity of the armed conflict and improvements in humanitarian access over the past year, the situation in Darfur provides reasons for some cautious optimism, but it has not yet normalised. Security issues, unlawful killings, and human rights violations make the conditions volatile, along with continued reports of sexual violence. Improvements in the overall security situation have also not led to the voluntary and sustainable return of Darfurs 2.1 million internally displaced persons. While disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration is essential, there are concerns that the governments ongoing disarmament campaign is leading to increased tensions and armed confrontations that threaten to undermine recent improvements in the security situation.

In accordance with resolution 2363, phase one of UNAMIDs reconfiguration, to be completed before 1 January 2018, includes the closure of 11 team sites and reductions in military personnel from 15,845 to 11,395 and in police personnel from 3,403 to 2,888. While all 11 team sites were closed in October 2017, the allocation of land by the Sudanese government for a temporary operating base for the Jebel Marra Task Force in Golo, Central Darfur is still pending. The written assessment from the Secretary-General and the chairperson of the AU Commission, requested in resolution 2363, is expected to address progress in implementing phase one of UNAMIDs reconfiguration; the impact of the phase one reductions on areas that UNAMID has withdrawn from; the governments cooperation with the mission; the removal of bureaucratic obstacles to the mission; and the question as to whether conditions on the ground are conducive for further reductions. With the findings of the assessment, the Council can then decide whether to adjust the scope and pace of UNAMIDs reduction ahead of phase two of the missions reconfiguration, to begin on 31 January 2018.

On 12 December 2017, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda provided the semi-annual Council briefing on the ICCs work with regard to Darfur, saying the ICCs entire judicial machinery could be frustrated unless the suspects it had indicted appeared before it. Bensouda noted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashirs most recent travels to South Africa, Jordan, Uganda, Chad and Russia and requested that the Council take action to respond to ongoing instances of non-compliance or non-cooperation relating to the situation in Darfur and outstanding arrest warrants. Al-Bashir has been indicted by the ICC on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Sanctions-Related Developments

On 7 December 2017, the Chair of the 1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko (Ukraine), briefed the Council on the Committees work from 25 July to 7 December 2017, including the first joint meeting of the Sudan (1591), Libya (1970) and South Sudan (2206) Sanctions Committees on Darfuri rebel groups activities in South Sudan and Libya, which took place on 10 November 2017. The informal meeting was held to discuss the spread of Darfuri armed groups into Libya and South Sudan and seek to develop common approaches to addressing the problem. Yelchenko also spoke at an 8 December 2017 briefing by the outgoing chairs of subsidiary bodies of the Security Council. He said that a sanctions committee could be paralysed by its politicisation and by what he described as an abuse of the consensus rule, such as the fact that in recent years the Committee had been unable to present its 90-day report in an open format. He noted that his briefing in the open chamber the previous day broke with this trend. He also expressed hope that this practice of public briefings will continue by default. The Committee met at the end of December 2017 to discuss the recommendations contained in the final report of the Panel of Experts.

Human Rights-Related Developments

On 21 November 2017, UNAMID released a joint report with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The report, covering the period from January 2014 to December 2016, notes that despite a ceasefire between the government and various armed opposition groups, which has largely held since June 2016, violence against internally displaced people continues to be widespread and impunity for human rights violations persists. It calls on the Sudanese government to pursue effective, transparent and durable policies to enable internally displaced persons to return home voluntarily or to reintegrate into host communities. During the reporting period, UNAMID documented 1,286 allegations of human rights abuses and violations against 3,358 victims, including 2,108 women and 299 children. In a 21 November 2017 statement, the High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein urged the government to address fundamental issues that are preventing the return of displaced people, such as continued violence, including from armed militias, which raise continuing and justifiable fears for their safety and the lack of basic services that leave them dependent on aid.

Key Issues and Options

A key issue for Council members to consider is whether any adjustments to the scope and pace of UNAMIDs reduction are necessary, taking into account the assessment by the Secretary-General and the chairperson of the AU Commission as well as other UN reports from the ground. An option in this context would be to invite the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to provide an update on the human rights situation.

Another key issue is to support efforts to break the ongoing impasse in the negotiations between the government and Darfuri rebel movements, leading to a durable cessation of hostilities and a final settlement. One option is to invite Thabo Mbeki, chair of the AU High-Level Implementation Panel, to address the Council on his efforts.

The Council may also need to tackle how to promote intercommunal reconciliation, given the high levels of intercommunal fighting in Darfur in recent years. An option for the Council would be to request the Joint Special Representative for Darfur and head of UNAMID, Jeremiah Mamabolo, to brief on the issue. Another option would be to organise an Arria-formula meeting with experts on intercommunal violence to discuss its root causes and ways to bring opposing parties together.

Council Dynamics

Improvements in stability in the region have created an opportunity for a degree of unity amongst Council members on several issues, including recognising improvements in the overall security situation and the governments efforts to improve humanitarian access and agreeing on troop reductions. Traditionally, some Council members, notably China and Russia, have tended to emphasise the importance of upholding the sovereignty of Sudan and improvements in the security situation in Darfur. Other members of the Council, such as France, Italy, Sweden, the UK, Ukraine, Uruguay and the US, have been critical of the government for committing human rights violations, restricting the operations of UNAMID, and fostering a culture of impunity. While concerns remain, a number of these states have expressed the view that the government is making an effort to improve humanitarian access to the region and have welcomed reduced violence in Darfur.

During the 12 December 2017 briefing, the UK welcomed the progress that UNAMID has made in completing the first phase of its reconfiguration and the governments improved cooperation with the mission. However, it urged the government to agree formally to the opening of the temporary operating base in Golo, without further delay. The UK also added that as UNAMIDs reconfiguration continues, it is crucial that the mission and the Security Council closely monitor the impact of the reconfiguration on the situation on the ground, as well as the governments cooperation. Ethiopia, France, Sweden and the UK emphasised the need to address the root causes of the conflict in Darfur in their statements on 12 December 2017.

The UK is the penholder on Darfur; Ukraine chairs the 1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee. New Council member Poland will succeed Ukraine as chair in January 2018.

UN Documents on Darfur

This was a resolution renewing the mandate of UNAMID for an additional year. This was the Secretary-Generals 60-day report on UNAMID. This was the semi-annual briefing by the ICC Prosecutor. This was a briefings by the chairs of subsidiary bodies of the Security Council. This was a briefing on South Sudan by Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations; Mark Lowcock, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator; and Ismail Wais, IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan.
MIDDLE EAST

Syria

Expected Council Action

In January 2018, the Council expects to receive the monthly briefings on political and humanitarian developments in Syria and on chemical weapons.

Key Recent Developments

December 2017 saw the first Council decision on Syria in a year. On 19 December, the Council adopted resolution 2393, drafted by Egypt, Japan and Sweden, which renewed for a year the authorisation for cross-border and cross-line humanitarian access to Syria. Through this authorisation, first established by the Council in resolution 2165 in July 2014, UN actors and implementing partners have been able to deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance to millions of people in northwest and southern Syria through Turkey and Jordan, respectively.

The resolution was adopted with the abstentions of Bolivia, China and Russia. In explaining their vote, they highlighted the importance of working through the government and eventually rolling back a provision that had been devised originally as a temporary measure. They also highlighted the need to increase monitoring and transparency of the mechanisms used to deliver cross-border aid. In an effort to address the concerns already expressed by these and other countries in the lead-up to the negotiations, the resolution requests the Secretary-General to conduct, within six months of the adoption, an independent written review of the UN humanitarian cross-border operations and provide recommendations for how to further strengthen the existing UN monitoring mechanism.

After welcoming the adoption, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock briefed the Council on the critical situation in Eastern Ghouta, which remains besieged by government forces and has seen an increase in fighting and a worsening in the living conditions of nearly 400,000 people. He described the extremely limited access allowed to humanitarian actors and the need for more than 500 urgent medical evacuations that are expected to be approved by the government. According to a 15 December 2017 Secretary-Generals report, aid delivery to besieged and hard-to-reach areas has been hindered by the removal of items, access restrictions as a result of bureaucratic impediments imposed by the government, and insecurity.

At the same meeting, Special Envoy Staffan De Mistura briefed the Council on the eighth round of intra-Syrian talks that were held between 28 November and 14 December 2017 in Geneva. He expressed his disappointment that the parties had not engaged in direct talks as a result of preconditions imposed by the government. In particular, he mentioned the governments refusal to hold discussions with the opposition unless it withdrew a statement issued at the Riyadh II conference in November 2017 that does not foresee any role for President Bashar al-Assad during the political transition. At the talks, the opposition discussed with the envoys team all four baskets of the agenda (governance, constitutional issues, elections, and counter-terrorism), but the government focused only on counter-terrorism.

Despite the absence of direct talks between the parties, de Mistura elaborated on the ways resolution 2254, which mapped out a political process, could be further implemented. He focused particularly on the process of drafting and deciding on a new constitution and the organisation of UN-supervised elections. He reiterated that any initiative, such as Russias proposal to hold a Syria Peace Conference in Sochi in early 2018, is to be assessed as to whether it supports the UN-mandated political process and the implementation of resolution 2254. In the context of military victories against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), de Mistura has stressed how winning the war will not translate into winning the peace without a meaningful political process.

On 11 December 2017, Russia announced a partial pullout from Syria, claiming victory against ISIL. While much of ISILs territory has been seized, counter-terrorism operations continue in eastern Syria, including Deir ez-Zor.

Despite the failure to renew the Joint Investigative Mechanism of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN in November, the Council continues to receive information regarding the chemical weapons dossier on Syria. On 7 December 2017, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu briefed Council members in consultations on the efforts to eliminate Syrias declared arsenal. Nakamitsu reiterated that the Syrian governments cooperation with the OPCW was limited. Among other issues, different perspectives emerged as to whether the JIM could transfer evidence to other UN bodies as it winds down. The Council did not reach any conclusion regarding proper follow-up to the November 2017 finding of the OPCW fact-finding mission that sarin was more than likely used as a chemical weapon on 30 March 2017 in Latamineh.

Key Issues and Options

Almost seven years since the start of the war, P5 divisions have limited the options at the disposal of Council members. The adoption of resolution 2393, while not unanimous, constitutes an important Council decision against the backdrop of the demise of the JIM, the lack of direct talks between the government and the opposition, and the initiatives that may provide an alternative platform to Geneva to discuss political matters. On the latter, Council members could ask the sponsors of these initiatives to brief them on their plans and the mechanisms in place to ensure coherence with UN efforts sanctioned by the Council.

Council members could devise a mechanism for adequate follow-up to fact-finding mission reports and for preserving the evidence gathered by the JIM.

Council and Wider Dynamics

Ahead of the negotiations, there were concerns about how difficult it would be to get agreement on resolution 2393. Russia had expressed its preference for rolling back the authorisation for UN cross-border delivery of humanitarian aid, highlighting the establishment of de-escalation areas and the need to work with the Syrian government. Council members were divided about how to characterise the security situation in Syria. While Russia and others advocated including language welcoming the creation of de-escalation areas and the improvement of security conditions on the ground, the P3 and others emphasised the continued violence, the ongoing sieges, and the critical humanitarian situation in Eastern Ghouta. It seems that the penholders intention was to focus efforts on the operational aspects of the draft and not to be distracted by the divergent narratives put forward by Council members. In the spirit of compromise, while noting the ongoing work on de-escalation areas, the resolution acknowledges the severity of the devastating humanitarian situation and expresses grave alarm at the dire situation in besieged areas, including Eastern Ghouta.

Overall, Council members were constructive in the negotiations on the resolution, which made possible a compromise. Among the relevant factors were the efforts by the penholders (which are elected members of the Council) to facilitate and reach a compromise between the P3 and Russian positions. The role played by neighbouring countries in support of the renewalparticularly Turkey, which is a co-guarantor along with Iran and Russia of the ceasefire agreed to in Astana, Kazakhstan in December 2016was worth noting as well.

UN DOCUMENTS ON SYRIA

This resolution renewed the authorisation for cross-border and cross-line aid delivery. Welcomed efforts by Russia and Turkey to end violence in Syria and jumpstart a political process. This was the first resolution focused exclusively on a political solution to the Syrian crisis. It was adopted unanimously. This resolution was adopted unanimously by the Council and required the verification and destruction of Syrias chemical weapons stockpiles, called for the convening of the Geneva II peace talks and endorsed the establishment of a transitional governing body in Syria with full executive powers. This was the Secretary-Generals monthly report on the humanitarian situation. This letter transmitted an OPCW report on progress in the elimination of the Syrian chemical weapons programme. This was a letter forwarding the OPCWs Fact-Finding Mission report concluding that sarin was more than likely used as a chemical weapon on 30 March in Lataminah. This was a briefing by Staffan de Mistura and Mark Lowcock on the situation in Syria and the meeting at which resolution 2393 was adopted.
ASIA

UNRCCA (Central Asia)

Expected Council Action

In January 2018, the Special Representative and head of the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA), Natalia Gherman, will brief Council members in consultations on key regional issues, including the threat of terrorism and extremism, the impact of the situation in Afghanistan, drug trafficking, trans-boundary water management, and tensions linked to border-related disputes.

UNRCCA was established in 2007 for an open-ended time period.

Key Recent Developments

The briefing in January will be the first occasion for Gherman to address Council members in her capacity as Special Representative for UNRCCA, a post she was appointed to on 15 September 2017 (she succeeded Petko Draganov, who had served in the position since May 2015).

On 17 November 2017, the General Assembly adopted a resolution marking the tenth anniversary of the establishment of UNRCCA and emphasising the Centres role in preventive diplomacy in the region. The Secretary-General initiated the process to create the Centre in May 2007, and it was formally established on 10 December in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. On 11 December 2017, UNRCCA organised a meeting of foreign ministers from Central Asian countries to mark the anniversary. The meeting was held in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan and focused on security developments and regional cooperation. Following the meeting, the participants issued a joint declaration, which among other things, welcomed the General Assembly resolution on UNRCCA adopted in November.

From 10 to 11 November, UNRCCA and the regional office of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime co-organised a conference on security and development in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The participants included high-level officials from Central Asia and the wider region as well as representatives of various international organisations, such as the EU, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The conference provided a forum for the participants to address security and development; political, social and economic cooperation; and the role of international organisations in implementing regional development projects.

In November 2017, UNRCCA participated in the seventh ministerial-level Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan, held in Ashgabat. The conference focused on ongoing investment projects and regional cooperation in the areas of energy, transport, communication and trade. On 30 November and 1 December, Gherman participated in the seventh ministerial conference Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process held in Baku. This annual conference seeks to address challenges in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries.

Since assuming the post in September, Gherman has visited several countries in the region, where she has met with high-ranking government officials. This included visits to China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Issues and Options

One of the main issues for the Council is how to make better use of UNRCCAs experience in conflict prevention and what more the Council could do to support UNRCCAs role in preventive diplomacy and regional cooperation.

The situation in Afghanistan and its effects on the Central Asian region is another issue for the Council to consider, as well as how to incorporate the regional impact in its regular debates on Afghanistan.

Since the Centre was established ten years ago, the Central Asian region has seen the emergence of a new set of challenges, mainly the rise of terrorism and extremism. An issue for the Council is whether to review the mandate of the Centre to better address these new challenges.

In addressing the aforementioned issues, the Council could consider several options. Regarding the regional impact of the situation in Afghanistan, the Council could invite the UNRCCA Special Representative to participate in the regular debates on Afghanistan. When the Council extends UNAMAs mandate in March 2018, it could request the Secretary-General to include comprehensive and integrated analysis of the regional impact in the UNAMA report, using contributions from the UNRCCA.

The Council could request a review of UNRCCAs mandate and activities to assess the effectiveness of the regional office and to determine whether there is a need to modify the scope of its activities.

Another option for the Council would be to change the format of the briefing from a closed to a public meeting, thus allowing Council members to publicly express support for the work of UNRCCA.

Council Dynamics

While Council members are generally supportive of UNRCCAs work, tensions between Russia and the P3 members have emerged over the past two years regarding the inclusion of language on cooperation with specific regional organisations in a press statement that had been customarily issued following each briefing. This practice of issuing a press statement commending UNRCCAs conflict-prevention role started in 2008 and was interrupted in 2015. These statements usually encouraged increased cooperation and coordination between the Central Asian countries, UNRCCA, and relevant regional organisations to strengthen the regions capacity to overcome challenges to peace, stability and sustainable development. In September 2015, however, Russia, the penholder on this issue, sought to add specific references to cooperation between the Central Asian countries and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), CSTO and the SCO, as well as the OSCE and the EU. The P3 opposed this addition, as they tend to see the CIS, the CSTO and the SCO as vehicles for enhancing Russian influence in the region. Similar differences arose in February 2016.

During a 28 October 2016 debate on cooperation between the UN and the CIS, CSTO, and SCO, the US noted that in the case of Georgia and Ukraine, the CSTO and CIS failed to defend or advocate the principle of territorial integrity. The UK did not single out any of these organisations individually, but noted that cooperation between the UN and regional organisations must be based on adherence to the Charter principles.

In February 2017, while again unable to issue a press statement, Council members succeeded in agreeing on press elements following the 2 February briefing in consultations by the head of the UNRCCA. The comments read out by the Council President welcomed the briefing, reaffirmed the importance of conflict prevention tools, acknowledged the role of UNRCCA, and encouraged greater cooperation between the states in the region, UNRCCA, and relevant regional organisations.

As the only Central Asian country on the Council and a member that is directly involved in UNRCCAs work, in 2017, Kazakhstan has attempted to find a compromise and suggest possible alternatives to Russias proposals. Nonetheless, no compromise was possible because of diverging and entrenched positions of the P3 and Russia, and there were no public comments following the June briefing by the head of UNRCCA.

UN DOCUMENTS

This press statement welcomed the briefing in consultations on 21 January by Miroslav Jenca, the Special Representative and head of the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia, and reiterated support for UNRCCA as an early-warning and preventive-diplomacy tool. This resolution was on the tenth anniversary of the establishment of UNRCCA and emphasising the Centres role in preventive diplomacy in the region.
AFRICA

UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel

Expected Council Action

In January 2018, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, Special Representative and head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), will brief the Council on recent developments and the semi-annual UNOWAS report.

Key Recent Developments

Terrorist and armed groups, as well as drug- and human-trafficking networks, continued to threaten the region, particularly Sahel countries. Reflecting the spread of such groups from Mali and Libya into neighbouring countries, terrorists attacked a cafe in Ouagadougou on 13 August 2107, resulting in at least 18 deaths, and increasingly frequent attacks by a group called Ansarul Islam continued in Burkina Fasos north. On 4 October 2017, an ambush in Niger, near the village of Tongo Tongo in the Tillaberi region near the Malian border, killed five Nigerien and four US soldiers of a mixed Niger-US military patrol. The attack was allegedly carried out by the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.

The Group of Five for the Sahel (G5 Sahel)Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Nigermade progress in establishing the joint force (FC-G5S) that they committed to creating earlier in 2017 for combatting terrorist groups and drug- and human-trafficking networks. In early November, the FC-G5S carried out its first mission in the border zone of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

The Security Council undertook a visiting mission from 19 to 22 October 2017 to Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania to assess the threats to the region and the challenges of establishing the joint force and to discuss delays in implementing Malis 2015 Peace and Reconciliation Agreement. On 8 December 2017, the Council adopted resolution 2391, outlining how the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) should provide operational and logistical support to troops of the FC-G5S deployed on Malian territory.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has made the Sahel region a top priority. In early July 2017, the Executive Committee Working Group on the Sahel was established, chaired by Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohamed, to improve implementation of the UN Integrated Strategy for the Sahel. The strategy was developed in 2013 to address root causes of the regions instability and to ensure coordination of the broader international support to the Sahel countries. In resolution 2391, the Council welcomed the Secretary-Generals efforts to give renewed impetus to implementing the Sahel strategy.

Boko Haram has remained a serious threat around the Lake Chad Basin region. After progress in taking territory held by Boko Haram during 2015 and 2016, attacks by the extremist group in north-east Nigeria intensified over the past year. On 21 November 2017, a suicide bomber at a mosque in Mobi in Adamawa State killed 59 people. Other deadly attacks included two suicide bombers who killed at least 13 people on 22 October in the outskirts of Maiduguri in Borno state; a series of attacks on the Dikwa displaced persons camp from 7 to 18 November in which 33 were killed, including 13 suicide bombers; and suicide bombers who killed at least 13 people in the town of Biu and injured 53 others on 2 December 2017. In October, Chad completed the withdrawal of its 2,000 soldiers who had been deployed to fight Boko Haram in Nigers Diffa region, a move that Chadian Defence Minister Bissa Ichara said was meant to reinforce Chads northern border with Libya as part of the G5 Sahel joint force.

According to OCHA, more than 2.3 million people were displaced by violence related to the Boko Haram insurgency across Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria as of 19 November 2017, with 7.2 million people at crisis and emergency levels of food insecurity. From 2 to 4 November 2017, Lake Chad Basin Commission countries held their first regional stabilisation strategy conference in NDjamena to develop a holistic approach to address the crisis.

Togo has experienced demonstrations since August 2017, often numbering in the tens of thousands of protesters, demanding presidential term limits and the resignation of President Faure Gnassingbe, who has been in office since 2005 after succeeding his father, who had ruled for 38 years. At times, the protests escalated into violence between demonstrators and security forces. An initial protest in Lome on 19 August 2017 by 100,000 demonstrators resulted in the death of two protestor. The Togolese parliament passed a draft bill to amend the constitution to limit presidents to two terms. The vote, though, was boycotted by the opposition, which believed that the changes would not apply retroactively, allowing Gnassingbe to run in the 2020 and 2025 elections. The Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS), the AU and UNOWAS issued a joint statement on 4 October 2017 encouraging the opposition to use a referendum on the bill to advance reforms and calling on all actors to show restraint in order to preserve peace and cohesion.

The ECOWAS heads of state and government summit on 16 December 2017, held in Abuja and chaired by Gnassingbe, covered efforts to combat the terrorism threat, as well as political situations of The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Togo and recent elections in Liberia.

Key Issues and Options

The terrorism threat to West Africa and the Sahel and instability linked to transnational organised criminal activities, such as human smuggling, represent important issues for the Council. This includes challenges facing regional initiatives towards addressing these threats through the G5 Sahel Joint Force and the Multinational Joint Task Force, established by Lake Chad Basin countries to fight Boko Haram.

A related issue is addressing underlying causes of instability across the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, such as poor governance, underdevelopment and climate change. This includes improving implementation of the UN Sahel Strategy and the development by Lake Chad Basin countries of a regional approach to tackle root causes of the Boko Haram insurgency.

Political tensions and upcoming elections across the region, which have been triggers for violence in West Africa, are likely to be closely watched.

Depending on the content of the Secretary-Generals report and the discussion with Chambas, the Council may adopt a statement that would, among other elements, express the Councils support for the conflict prevention and good offices role of UNOWAS, while reiterating concern over the increasing threat of terrorism to West Africa and the Sahel and commending the collective efforts of G5 Sahel and Lake Chad Basin countries to combat this threat.

As an additional option, the Council may request the Secretary-General to provide more regular, separate reports on the Lake Chad Basin, on which it is currently kept informed through the six-month reports of UNOWAS and the UN Office for Central Africa.

Council and Wider Dynamics

Members view the regional office as playing a significant conflict-prevention role and have valued the good offices activities undertaken by Special Representative Chambas in addressing political crises and electoral tensions in recent years. Chambas frequently seeks close coordination in the messaging and actions of ECOWAS, the AU and the UN as part of such efforts.

UNOWAS, which is headquartered in Dakar, has established a liaison office in Nouakchott to ensure information-sharing with the G5 Sahel Secretariat, whose headquarters are in the Mauritanian capital. Council members often stress the importance of a holistic approach to the challenges facing Sahel countries and the Lake Chad Basin, in addition to military action. Following a Council request in January 2017, the Peacebuilding Commission has also become active in attempting to use its convening role to bring together actors involved in the Sahel to focus attention on the UN Sahel Strategy and to find ways to support its implementation. Regarding the FC-G5S, differences have persisted between France and most other members who support using UN-assessed contributions to help address the funding needs of the force, versus the US and the UK who prefer supporting the force bilaterally. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates committed 130 million euros to the FC-G5S at a 13 December 2017 summit that France hosted, also involving G5 countries Belgium, Germany and Italy.

Incoming member Cote dIvoire will replace Senegal as the penholder on West Africa and the Sahel. Senegal, which hosts UNOWAS, began a practice of pursuing Council presidential statements following the bi-annual UNOWAS meetings.

UN DOCUMENTS ON WEST AFRICA AND THE SAHEL

This was a resolution on MINUSMA support to the G5 Sahel joint force. This welcomed the deployment of the G5 Sahel force. This was a presidential statement on West Africa and the Sahel. This was a ministerial-level briefing on ways in which the international community can support the joint force of the G5 Sahel. This was a briefing by Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman on the latest Secretary-Generals report on the situation in the Lake Chad Basin region.
The latest blood transfusion technologies have emerged in response to the need for improved safety, traceability, desire for standardization, and increasing workloads. The emergence of new technology has been enabled by advances in software and interfacing, so that many laboratories are now able to take advantage of these options.

Hemagglutination has limitations including the subjectivity of results, difficulty in phenotyping certain patients (e.g. those recently transfused, those with a positive DCT), and small antigen-negative donor red cell stock due to time intensity of hemagglutination methods. It can be very difficult to find compatible donor blood for patients requiring repeated transfusions due to infections, or chronic disorders such as sickle cell anemia or thalassemia.

Molecular diagnostics could overcome the limitations of hemagglutination, and the use of DNA-based tests to predict phenotype is increasing. Until now, molecular characterization has been laborious, time consuming and not suited to the transfusion laboratory. Modern DNA microarrays have the potential to allow for a high enough throughput to make molecular testing viable. To date this technology is not fast enough to be considered suitable for routine blood bank testing and there are no such systems approved for diagnostic use.

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Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionisation, Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) a new technology for molecular diagnostics, could have an impact on transfusion diagnostics in the future. MALDI-TOF MS generates a parent ion signature of all small and macro-molecules in the sample, including proteins, glycans, glycoproteins and nucleic acids. It is possible that this technology could be used for identifying clinically significant RBC antigens and corresponding atypical antibodies, and a collaboration between researchers in Switzerland and Germany has suggested that this could be a feasible method for high throughput blood group genotyping.1
If you are a looking to purchase a routine clinical chemistry analyzer for your laboratory, or to replace an existing instrument, this guide provides important information to help you make the right decision.

Learn about the different types of technology, laboratory integration, point-of-care analyzers and other important considerations.
Open vs Closed Automation Systems

This is quite probably the most important decision to make when planning for your laboratory system. An open system is an automation line on which both the software and hardware can incorporate all types of analyzers, and different makes of pre- and post-analytical instrumentation.

For an open system you purchase the track separately and then custom build your system based on your laboratory requirements. The major advantage of this is that it gives the laboratory the freedom to pick and choose the instrumentation for the automation line as well as giving a large amount of flexibility in track layout and design. Some vendors form partnerships with external track suppliers and are able to offer the track as part of an arranged agreement with the laboratory. The disadvantage of an open system is that it requires significant work and validation on the behalf of the laboratory to determine which instruments and track system to include.

A closed system is usually a pre-defined package of instrumentation and automation lines from a specific vendor. This may include other manufacturers equipment but this will be specified and chosen by the vendor. The hardware and software in a closed system is designed to be specific to the vendors analyzers which can make incorporation of an outside instrument extremely difficult, if not impossible. Closed systems do not offer the flexibility of open systems and are more difficult and costly to modify, however the major advantages of installing them are that they are organized by the vendor, they are complete systems, and they are ready to use upon installation.

Figure 1: Sysmex HST-N Total Hematology Automation System

Continuous Flow & Batch Processing

Sample flow through a laboratory takes one of two forms in a fully automated laboratory. In batch processing, samples are prepared for processing by pre-analytical integrated instruments, then in high-throughput laboratories, large numbers of specimens will be racked-up and transported to instrument starting points. Batch processing offers the advantage of allowing laboratories to be efficient with QC and reagents. A disadvantage of batch processing is that it is necessary to take numerous aliquots at the pre-analytical stage leading to potential problems with sample retrieval and quality management.

Figure 2: Cobas 8100 Intelligent Automated Workflow Series, Roche Diagnostics

Continuous flow systems allow single patient specimens to be placed on a continuously moving conveyor belt which stops at all analyzers necessary for the appropriate tests to be performed. These systems are becoming increasingly popular for the enhanced workflow efficiency that they offer; from a LEAN perspective, continuous flow provides consistent flow of process  eliminating wasteful steps and the potential for error.

Figure 3: Aptio Automation, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics

Watch video: Workflow IVD Solutions Premiered at AACC 2015 - Franz Walt, President, Laboratory Diagnostics at Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, discusses the latest developments in clinical workflow solutions at the AACC 2015 Clinical Lab Expo.

Pre-Analytical & Post Analytical

Pre-analytical refers to the preparation of specimens prior to processing and can vary considerably depending on the type of laboratory and the sample types being handled. The method of processing will depend on whether a continuous flow or batch processing approach is being used. Integrated instruments which de-cap, centrifuge, sort and aliquot samples are available. There are instruments available which are capable of interfacing with both continuous flow and batch processing automation.

Figure 4: Power Processor Sample Handling System, Beckman Coulter

Download case study: Lean Lab Chooses Beckman Coulters Power Express: Driving Peak Performance - This case study explains why the Community Regional Medical Center in the US chose the Power Express automation solution to aid their laboratory, optimizing and reducing time spent on pre-analytical processes.

Alternatively, modular components can be utilized to perform de-capping, centrifugation and aliquoting processes as part of the continuous automation line.

Figure 5: VersaCell System, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics

The last approach is to perform pre-analytical tasks manually however this really should be avoided. Manual de-capping and aliquoting in particular can cause carpal tunnel injury and are repetitive tasks for staff.

Post-analytical instrumentation requires removal of samples to a holding area or stockyard from which it may be retrieved if additional testing is required. Exit robots vary in their capabilities; some sort samples for distribution to other laboratories, some have a refrigeration unit, and others have aliquot modules. The type of instrument that you require will depend very much on your further testing requirements.

Figure 6: Sysmex XN-9000 Sorting & Archiving, Sysmex Europe.
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Standalone Mass Spectrometers

Integrated Mass Spectrometers

Mass Spectrometers are frequently combined with separation techniques to form powerful integrated systems such as GC-MS, LC-MS, IC-MS, and CE-MS. The type of inlet or sample introduction dictates the choices for ionization sources. For example, electron ionization (EI) and chemical ionization (CI) are used with GC. HPLC is usually coupled to electrospray ionization (ESI) or atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI).

GC-MS couples gas chromatography (GC) with mass spectrometry (MS) to separate, quantify and identify volatile organic compounds. An example is the LCMS-8050 from Shimadzu, which provides combined liquid chromatography (LC) and mass spectrometry (MS) for separation and analysis of complex mixtures. Hear Professor Jack Henion, of Advion BioSciences, describe using LC-MS to analyze dried blood spots in the pharmaceutical industry (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Shimadzu LCMS-8050

Tip: If you have an existing separations instrument (e.g. HPLC, GC) and want to couple it to a mass spectrometer, note that improved software integration and service support are achieved if both instruments are made by the same vendor.

Analyses of volatile and semi-volatile organics by GC-MS are carried out across many fields. Electron ionization is the most common and probably the standard form of ionization, while quadrupole is usually the mass analyzer (there are other options, of course). There are several options for the analysis of non-volatile polar molecules, from stand-alone systems to the more commonly used LC-MS configuration. LC-MS is being used in many diverse applications, from research to routine analyses. (Common ionization sources and mass analyzers for LC-MS are found in Table 1). Organic molecules can also be analyzed using DART (direct analysis in real time). This instrument requires no sample preparation or significant method development, with potential applications ranging from forensics to food safety.

Tandem/Hybrid Mass Spectrometers

Coupling two mass analyzers in tandem (tandem MS, hybrid MS)4 improves resolution, sensitivity, mass accuracy, and/or dynamic range. The difference between a tandem and hybrid MS is that the latter uses different types of analyzers for the first and second stages of mass analysis. Examples of tandem/hybrid MS are triple quadrupole (QqQ), quadrupole time-of-flight (Q-TOF), TOF-TOF, and quadrupole linear ion trap (QqLIT).

Tandem quadrupole allows both sensitivity and robustness. An example is the Waters Vion IMS QTof, (UPLC/MS/MS), which couples the benefits of ion mobility and greater separation power to routine analysis. Watch the video below to learn how this bench-top system can analyze every ion in a sample with minimal spectral interference and the generation of collision cross-section (CCS) values, enabling scientists to have more confidence in their analyses (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Waters Vion IMS QTof

Tandem MS offers additional sensitivity and selectivity over single stage MS. The application, sample characteristics and type of information you require from a mass spectrometer will dictate your need for either a single stage or tandem MS. Instruments that can undertake tandem MS are more expensive than single stage instruments.

In a more applied setting, such as a pharmaceutical QA/QC laboratory, there is a need to process samples more quickly than a basic research laboratory, and a comparatively small, defined set of analytes need to be detected/measured. Thermo Fisher Scientific has recently launched the Thermo Scientific Q Exactive Focus MS, which enables selective quantitative and qualitative analysis in a single, affordable system. Watch this exclusive on-demand webinar to hear how Dr Hans Mol, of RIKILT Institute for Food Safety, uses this system to analyze pesticides residues in food samples (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Dr Hans Mol, RIKILT Institute for Food Safety, utilizes the Thermo Scientific Q Exactive Focus

In other applied laboratories, ESI with a triple quadrupole mass analyzer is commonly used. There are a number of common mass spectrometer configurations used in different applications, both in research and routine analyses (see Table 1).

Table 1. Popular mass spectrometry techniques/configurations (Definitions of the acronyms can be found in the Glossary at the end of this guide).
Press Release

December 29, 2017 RIZAL DAY MESSAGE OF SEN. SONNY ANGARA To many of us, December 30 is a holiday to celebrate the life and works of Dr. Jose Rizal, the national hero. One cannot help but wonder why we don't think about Rizal Day as the day of Rizal's execution. The fact is that while we celebrate his life and works today, we also mourn his death. He died in Bagumbayan, our present day Luneta Park, on December 30, 1896, in the early morning, by firing squad, convicted of the crimes of rebellion, sedition, and forming illegal association. He was 35 years old. On that fateful day 121 years ago, he walked to the field of his execution calm and unafraid and, at the last moment, turned to face the firing squad because he wanted to face his executioners. This, perhaps, is what should give us pause every December 30. And what should give us inspiration and pride is the fact that he fought for something, far greater than self-preservation: reforms, social equality, and freedom. "Courage," said Maya Angelou, "is the most important of all virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently." Rizal and the other heroes during his time, gallantly fought with all courage for our independence and freedom from foreign oppressors. Today, we are in the middle of another battle - the war against poverty - and all of us are called upon to act and respond. Will we respond with all courage and willingness too? I am optimistic that we will. This is worth sharing as we commemorate Rizal Day. Let us pause to reflect, and acknowledge, the many acts of courage that everyday heroes around us perform.
Press Release

December 29, 2017 Villar bats for animal wastes management Small steps to prevent pollution from animal wastes and to promote renewable energy sources (biogas) and sustainable methods (vermicomposting) will really go a long way in minimizing the effects of climate change and protecting the environment, said Sen. Cynthia A. Villar. Villar said she is glad that the ATI-International Training Center on Pig Husbandry (ATI-ITCPH) has incorporated in their School-on-the-Air (SOA) training course animal waste management, particularly how to efficiently and appropriately manage and utilize wastes into a beneficial energy source (biogas) and compost including vermicomposting as well as its relevance on the climate change and disease prevention. Villar, chairperson of both the Senate Committees on Agriculture and Food and Environment and Natural Resources, was invited Guest Speaker to the graduation of participants of SOA Program: "DUMIskwela: Duming Kita, Duming Alaga, Duming Sagana" (Basic Course on Pig Husbandry, Animal Waste Management & Swine Artificial Insemination) "Your course is very relevant and unique because farmers should not only learn hog-raising or animal production but also the profitable aspect of it," said Villar. Furthermore, she said farmers should also learn how to care and protect the environment. The senator said the course and topics are both very relevant and crucial to the Philippines for two main reasons. First, the Philippines is an agricultural country. About two-thirds of the country's population is, directly or indirectly, involved in agriculture. Second, the Philippines is an archipelago, and as such, is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. She cited a recent United Nations report which identified the Philippines (with a population of 100 million) as the third-most at-risk from climate change in the world. The Philippines was ranked behind the South Pacific island nations of Vanuatu (with a population of only 255,000) and Tonga (with a population of 105,000). Given their smaller population, she pointed out that the extent of risks associated with climate change between our country and theirs are really not comparable. "We are also on another report, released by Environmental organization German Watch-- the Global Climate Risk Index--the list of countries most affected by weather-related disasters like storms, floods, and heat waves. It ranked the Philippines as number one, followed by Cambodia and India," related Villar. Furthermore, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), she said the Philippines and other countries in Southeast Asia would each need to spend US$5 billion a year by 2020 on climate change adaptation measures. She said problems due to climate change are realities that "we Filipinos or even nationalities in other countries have been facing, particularly in recent years when extreme weather conditions such as super typhoons, massive flooding, El Nino and La Nina phenomena, among others, have been causing death and destruction in our country." To make matters worse, the most vulnerable groups within our society -- those living in flood-prone urban and rural areas as well as coastal communities (both vulnerable to rising sea levels and storm surges)--are also mostly indigent families. The poor need protection from risks. As stated in the Philippine Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP), "Protecting the poor and vulnerable groups is imperative in winning the battle against poverty." "But of course, we are not without options to make us more resilient to climate change--most, especially Filipino farmers and fisherfolks or agriculture, the most affected sector." Due to this, the Department of Agriculture and its attached agencies such as ATI are also implementing programs and strategies to mitigate climate change. Sustainable agriculture is the key.
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For Fernando Mora and Sondra Edwards, the death of two horses in their care on the first night of the October Wine Country fires remains very raw. On that night, they were awakened by the sound of trees exploding around their Santa Rosa home. Mora tried to let the horses out of the barn, but smoke and wind-swept burning embers forced him back, leaving the horses to the unrelenting flames.

It crushed me. It was total devastation, said Mora. They were housing the two young Andalusian males, who had arrived only the previous day, for a friend. It was as bad as having to turn around and leave a human behind.

Unlike human casualties, which stand at 44 from the wildfires, theres no official count for animal deaths in such disasters, including pets, farm animals and wildlife. Thats one of the reasons that animal welfare groups organized a recent memorial for the fires forgotten victims, a ceremony that included poems, prayers, spirit stones and a talk from uniformed Cal Fire personnel.

To have the ceremony acknowledging animals just felt like huge validation for me, said Dixie Keith, who cried while describing her last day with Giorgio, her horse of 27 years. The white Arabian died at a Santa Rosa boarding facility near Mark West Springs Road in an area hit hard by the Tubbs Fire.

The Sonoma County Farm Bureau did not receive reports of large-scale loss of livestock, but the number of animals displaced, injured or endangered by the disaster was vast, said Monica Argenti, community engagement manager of Sonoma County Animal Services.

The Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, just one of several regional evacuation centers, housed 600 large animals at one point during the fires. During the first month of the emergency, the countys shelter took in 360 stray animals compared with 196 during the same period in 2016.

Given the circumstances, the shelter kept stray animals longer than usual before making them available for adoption, Argenti said. In some cases, injured animals have not yet been returned to their owners, while others are in foster care while people rebuild their homes.

We know there are still people looking for their animals, said Argenti.

That kind of uncertainty and loss was one of the reasons for the recent memorial in Napa, said organizer Monica Stevens, who called it a large therapy session  a way to come together, grieve, and then give it up and move on.

Michael Short/Special to The Chronicle

People are having a hard time moving on, added Stevens, co-founder of Jameson Animal Rescue Ranch in St. Helena, which helped move farm animals in evacuation zones during the fires.

All but 45 of the 200 chickens at Leisens Bridgeway Farms perished when the farm, which has been in the Leisen family since 1870, burned. Its on the same private road as Mora and Edwards property, where only one of 28 houses survived.

One of the roosters I lost was one of the first I raised from a chick, said Janet Leisen. It was part of her breeding stock of heritage Delaware chickens that were all lost in the fire. She and her husband were on vacation when the fire happened, but a neighbor saved many of the chickens, even opening the door of one coop that was on fire. But the barn housing 80 of them was already fully engulfed.

It was pretty devastating to see the ones that were up in the barn, she said. It was clear that they were trying to escape.

Even more upsetting was when some of the surviving birds didnt make it because they no longer had shelter at night, making them vulnerable to raccoons. Since the bridge to their private road burned down, it was difficult to get to the farm, but she was finally able to persuade the rest of the flock to roost in one of the remaining coops. She installed an automatic door so she could close them in remotely at night.

There were some other bright spots. Their barn cat, Kitty, showed up 12 days after the fire; she was starving and her paws were burned to the bone. After they took her to an animal shelter, she was transferred to UC Davis and given free veterinary care for more than a month. (A friend offered to care for the cat while the Leisens rebuild.)

Meanwhile, a neighbors peacock, who lost his mate in the fire, has been keeping the hens company during the day.

The roosters are tolerating him, said Leisen.

Her neighbor, Edwards, is still haunted by having to call her husband back when he was trying to let the horses loose.

It was a horrible, horrible decision, said Edwards. But I felt like we were in immediate danger.

In fact, they were the last on their street to cross the burning bridge to safety.

Frankly, the only thing we have shed tears about through all of this was the agony that we imagined the horses went through, she said. Not the loss of our home.

Tara Duggan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taraduggan
Over the fall, as wildfire smoke shrouded the Bay Area and people rushed to buy face masks, a San Francisco company called Aclima seized the chance to track the pollution. It sent two cars bristling with air-monitoring equipment northward toward the fire zone. One made a notable discovery: In the East Bay hills above El Cerrito, smoke on that day was far stronger than in the flatlands.

It was just like, you passed a boundary, and the concentration was definitely higher, said Melissa Lunden, the companys chief scientist, who followed the results remotely.

With wildfire danger expected to rise further over the years as global warming intensifies, the race is on to produce more detailed maps of smoke pollution. Regional authorities have stationed 16 permanent monitors for fine particles  an especially harmful ingredient of wildfire smoke  around the Bay Area. But low-cost sensors, satellites and other tools are rapidly evolving. In future fires, people in San Leandro may be able to look at their phones and know that the air is healthy enough to exercise even if Berkeleys air remains polluted.

Its kind of a little bit the Wild West out there, with lots of new products and technology, said Frank Freedman, a research scientist with the Center for Applied Atmospheric Research and Education at San Jose State University. He is working with NASA to help build neighborhood-scale pollution maps with satellite data.

Unlike Los Angeles and the Central Valley, the Bay Area generally meets annual federal standards for fine particle pollution, which can bury itself in peoples lungs and contribute to asthma and other respiratory problems. But wildfires deviate from the usual pattern: They can send plumes of smoke across cities that are hundreds of miles away.

Besides the bad air in October, a string of eight Spare the Air days in the Bay Area in a row in early December occurred, in small part, because of smoke drifting northward from the Southern California wildfires. However, wildfires were not a factor in the current run of bad air.

Government pollution monitors are generally highly accurate. The problem is that they are stationary, so they cannot move around to take pollution readings in different neighborhoods. And there arent many of them. Thats because they are expensive, costing $200,000 to $250,000 apiece, estimates Eric Stevenson, director of meteorology and measurement at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which handles regional air monitoring. That figure includes not only fine-particle monitoring, but also equipment for measuring other pollutants such as ozone and nitrogen oxides.

Basic sensors can cost just $20 or $30, according to John Volckens, a professor of mechanical engineering at Colorado State University, though companies often sell them for a few hundred dollars after adding battery power and Wi-Fi or cellular connections.

San Francisco has only one permanent government fine-particle monitor. Santa Rosa, the largest city in fire-devastated Wine Country, has not had one since the air district lost a lease in late 2013 on a monitoring site. After failing to quickly find another Santa Rosa location, the district sent the monitor 10 miles down the road to Sebastopol. When the fires struck, authorities installed temporary fine-particle monitors at sites in Wine Country, including some at schools such as John B. Riebli Elementary in Santa Rosa, to make sure that harmful dust or ash did not spike at the sites during the cleanup. It has not, according to Stevenson.

Government monitors have other problems. One in Napa got knocked out of service for about a day during the fires because of the power failure. Another quirk: There is a natural lag in the flow of information from the monitors, as the heavy-duty equipment finalizes the scientific readings, so information conveyed to the public generally lags real-time readings by an hour or more. More peculiarly, during daylight-saving time  which includes October, when the fires occurred  the readings provided to the public were generally at least two hours late. That is problematic because a change in the wind direction could shift wildfire smoke with remarkable speed.

Sensors, by contrast, can provide real-time information across a vast geographic area. The challenge, Volckens said, is that theyre generally just not good enough yet to provide high-fidelity data.

However, with technology advancing and getting dramatically cheaper, Its likely that a decade from now, the low-cost devices will be performing as well as a type of monitor governments use, he said.

Information from satellites is improving too. Two new satellites that can monitor smoke have gone into orbit in the past 14 months. Another, which will be geostationary over the western United States, is scheduled to launch in March.

Essentially we have three new satellites that are bringing unprecedented resolution and quality of data, said Susan ONeill, a research scientist with the U.S. Forest Service. Satellites traditionally have trouble distinguishing pollution at a high level from that near the ground, but scientists ability to overcome that problem is improving, she said.

On the ground, one company that scientists are watching closely is Aclima, founded in 2007. It operates four Google Street View cars  the companies have a partnership  from a cavernous garage on an Embarcadero pier. Inlets on the top of the car draw in fine particles and other pollutants (when vehicles go electric, it will be even easier to avoid pulling in immediate air pollution from exhaust, Lunden noted). The cars pollution monitoring equipment includes both lab-grade measuring capabilities and low-cost sensors, which are measured against the former for accuracy.

Google is its primary customer for outdoor monitoring, according to Aclima, which monitors the indoor air quality at several Google buildings. The company did not detail how much funding it has, saying that founder bootstrapping and customer revenue helped the company at an early stage.

Other companies are piling into the pollution monitoring market too. The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which includes most of Los Angeles, tests dozens of sensors to see how their readings correlate to those of standard, government-grade monitors.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Particle sensors tend to perform relatively well, said Andrea Polidori, the air districts atmospheric measurements manager, as do ozone sensors.

Stevenson said that sometime in 2018, the Bay Area air district hopes to have guidance and technical expertise available to local communities that want to test out low-cost air monitors.

One particle-measuring technology that has impressed regional air district officials is PurpleAir, a laser-based sensor system made by a Utah company that costs in the neighborhood of $200. It uploads data to the cloud and displays it on a world map.

Lunden, of Aclima, has one at home. During the October fires, she noticed that one day it reported the indoor concentration of particles as high, at a time when the outdoor pollution was diminishing. So she knew to open the windows to air out the house.

I really enjoyed playing around with it, she said, noting that she  like many in the Bay Area  could really feel the smoke.

At Aclima, the company has consolidated a set of sensors, for fine particles and other pollutants, into a container the size of two shoeboxes. It has enough confidence in its measurements that this year, it will send the sensors without the lab-grade equipment (which it currently uses to verify the sensors readings).

Meanwhile, the company is gearing up to watch for wintertime smoke, as its cars continue to roam Bay Area streets.

Everyone around Christmas and New Year starts to burn wood in their fireplaces, Lunden said. You can definitely see that signal.

Kate Galbraith is The San Francisco Chronicles assistant business editor. Email: kgalbraith@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kategalbraith
There were some high points, of course, but overall it was a dark year for pop music in the Bay Area. Even with the good vibes of the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love superficially hanging in the air, it was a period marked by tragedy and tumult as real world events  from the mass shooting in Las Vegas to the raging wildfires in the North Bay  left an indelible mark on the local scene.

Two members of Tower of Power seriously injured by train in Oakland (Jan. 12): Two members of longtime Oakland rhythm and blues band Tower of Power were hit by a train in Oakland near Jack London Square minutes before a scheduled show at Yoshis. The groups longtime drummer, David Garibaldi, and bassist Marc Van Wageningen were struck by an Amtrak commuter train passing outside the popular venue and were taken to the hospital in critical condition after the accident. Both of its scheduled shows  an annual affair  were canceled after the accident, and while the band continues to tour, Garibaldi and Van Wageningen are still recovering.

Grandaddy bassist Kevin Garcia dies at 41 (May 3): The bass player and co-founder of the Modesto indie rock group Grandaddy died at 41, after suffering what the surviving members of the band said was a massive stroke. After the release of its first full-length album, Under the Western Freeway, in 1997, the group gained an international cult following buoyed by subsequent releases such as 2000s The Sophtware Slump and 2003s Sumday. Before the official release of Last Place, Grandaddys first album of new material in more than a decade, the band performed a sold-out concert at San Franciscos Bimbos 365 Club in February during the Noise Pop Festival.

U2 breaks curfew, fans patience at Levis Stadium (May 19): When tens of thousands of U2 fans descended on Levis Stadium in Santa Clara for the only Bay Area stop on the Joshua Tree Tour, the band gave what was, by many accounts, a dazzling performance. But fans said the performance of stadium management left something to be desired. Fans blasted the venue on social media for problems that included blinding stage lights, painfully slow concessions and security lines, an ill-publicized ban on large purses and a parking lot snarled with poorly controlled traffic. Some said it was the worst concert experience theyd ever had.

BottleRock pulls plug on Foo Fighters (May 31): Foo Fighters were supposed to shut down the fifth annual BottleRock Napa Valley festival. But in the end, it was the concert organizers who pulled the plug on the multiplatinum rock band led by Dave Grohl. Even though the group was allotted a two-hour headlining slot on the third day of the luxe festival in the heart of Napa, the band made it only midway through Everlong, its hit song from 1997, when it ran up against the concerts strict 10 p.m. curfew. The promoters promptly shut down the speakers and video screens as Grohl and the band kept going to the wild cheers of the sold-out crowd.

Neil Young cancels annual Bridge School concert (June 14): After 30 years of hosting the all-star Bridge School Benefit Concert, Young and ex-wife Pegi announced that this years event was canceled with no plans to bring it back in the future. Traditionally at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View over the last weekend of October, the acoustic concerts had seen one-of-a-kind performances by rock royalty such as Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Brian Wilson, Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Metallica, Elvis Costello, Dixie Chicks and Beck.

Monterey International Pop Festival celebrates 50 with eye on the past (June 16-18): The Monterey International Pop Festival celebrated its 50th anniversary  on the same days 50 years to the date. While it couldnt replicate the musical magic of 1967, the artists on the bill promised to honor those who came before them and they delivered: Michelle Phillips, the only surviving member of the Mamas & the Papas, joined the Head and the Heart for a rendition of California Dreamin; Leon Bridges covered (Sittin on) the Dock of the Bay with help from Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats; and Booker T. Jones, one of the artists from the original lineup, joined Gary Clark Jr. for a cover of Bright Lights, Big City.

Treasure Island Music Festival takes a year off (June 28): While plans for the annual Treasure Island Music Festival in October fell apart, organizers promised the event will return with the same name at a new location in 2018. Jordan Kurland, co-founder of the festival, said The biggest obstacle in moving forward is finding a new site as construction is under way on Treasure Islands long-awaited redevelopment project.

Outside Lands marks its 10th year as events darken popular festivals mood (Aug. 11-13): It wasnt just the bone-chilling summer fog that put a damper on the 10th anniversary of the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, which was headlined by Metallica, the Who and Gorillaz. With the grim news of the violence following the white nationalist counterprotest in Charlottesville, Va., spreading through the crowd via social media and a series of scheduling setbacks that put the festivals lineup in disarray over the weekend, the mood was less than jovial around the annual three-day concert in its milestone year at San Franciscos Golden Gate Park.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass offers sweet musical respite to grim week (Oct. 6-8): The free three-day outdoor concert, a gift to the city by the late financier and philanthropist Warren Hellman, has long offered a refuge from the daily grind with its freewheeling music and attitude. This year, it seemed to serve a higher purpose. After a grim week marked by the massacre at a country music festival in Las Vegas that left 58 victims dead and hundreds injured, and the death of American rock icon Tom Petty at age 66, Hardly Strictly brought together thousands of music lovers eager to embrace the good vibes and great tunes. We wouldnt miss this for anything, said Anne Baylor of Santa Rosa, who brought her family out Saturday morning to stake out a prime spot in front of the main stage in Hellman Hollow. It was a sentiment that was echoed across the festival.

Band Together Bay Area producers say concert brought in $17 million (Nov. 10): The North Bay fires caused havoc not only to thousands of homes and lives, but on a much smaller scale also threw the Bay Area music scene into disarray with several venues shutting down and others frantically rescheduling shows. But the Band Together Bay Area benefit concert at AT&T Park generated $17 million for relief for low-income families, immigrants and other victims. With a lineup that featured popular Bay Area acts Metallica, Dead & Company, G-Eazy, Rancid and Raphael Saadiq (along with visitors Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds), the sold-out concert drew more than 40,000 people to the ballpark. Some 6,500 tickets were donated to first responders and residents of the areas hardest hit by the fire.

Aidin Vaziri is The San Francisco Chronicles pop music critic. E-mail: avaziri@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MusicSF
An East Bay man battling environmental watchdog agencies over his efforts to establish an elite duck club and kite-surfing center in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta won a legal victory when a judge overturned a $3.6 million fine that the agencies had imposed against him.

Solano County Superior Court Judge Harry Kinnicutt found that two state water agencies  the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission  had acted with an appearance of vindictiveness in imposing the highest penalties the Regional Board and BCDC had ever imposed against John Sweeney, who owns Point Buckler, a 39-acre island in the Suisun Marsh wetlands area near Pittsburg.

The delta duck duel pits Sweeney against environmentalists who argue that the property owner violated the Suisun Marsh Preservation Act in reconstructing about a mile of levees in the wetlands around Point Buckler, an island that was operated as a duck club until the 1990s. In a May 2016 lawsuit, water board officials said the levees blocked tidal flows onto the property, compromising habitat for endangered species, including migrating salmon and delta smelt.

But in his decision on Wednesday, Kinnicutt said BCDC staff started monitoring the levee repair work that Sweeney was doing in March of 2014 but waited six months to issue a cleanup and abatement order. They then delayed another four months before imposing millions in penalties against the property owner.

If the levee work was the most egregious violation in the Regional Boards history, why didnt the (board) take action when it learned about the work in 2014? Kinnicutt wrote. The answer, Kinnicutt said, is that the penalties were imposed in retribution for a related lawsuit that Sweeneys business, Point Buckler Club LLC, filed against the regional water board in September 2015.

Sweeney, who said he has racked up $2 million in legal fees on the case, characterized the decision as a big victory for the little landowner.

This was all in retaliation for my wife and I accusing them of fraud, said Sweeney. They wanted us to go away, but we fought them and we won.

BCDC Executive Director Larry Goldzband said his agency has yet to see the ruling and cant comment on it.

Assuming we get it next week, we will sit down with the attorney general, figure out what the next steps are, and go from there, he said. What I can tell you is that the BCDC based its finding on firsthand observation, site visits and a lot of scientific evidence.

The Suisun Marsh area is home to about 160 duck clubs, which take up about 90 percent of the brackish territory just east of the Carquinez Strait, an area also popular with kite surfers. Duck clubs use levees and tide gates to maintain duck ponds, and they plant vegetation that provides food for ducks and other waterfowl.

Under the surface of the legal battle is the question of what Sweeney intends to do with the property. Sweeney, who made his money selling advertising space on sailboats and bought the island in 2011, insists that the motivation for his work is to reopen the duck club that closed in the 1990s when the wooden clubhouse on the island burned down. Sweeney said the plan is to sell shares to eight to 10 partners and operate in a similar manner as other duck clubs in the delta.

But marketing materials Sweeney put together suggest his more ambitious goal was to create a hangout for wealthy Silicon Valley tech executives who would be able to land helicopters on the island and spend weekends both hunting waterfowl and kite-surfing. The Point Buckler website offers a private island 50 miles from San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Marin featuring kiteboarding in summer and fishing and hunting in winter.

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen
Happy End is the latest from Michael Haneke, an uncompromising filmmaker whose work is sometimes brilliant and sometimes hard to watch  and sometimes both, but not this time. Happy End is just hard to watch.

Its a movie that seems to have been made with little regard for the fact that other human beings will have to sit through it. True, to his credit, Haneke does point his camera in the direction of the actors, but thats his last concession to convention. Haneke, who also wrote the screenplay, takes material that might have been dramatic, and deliberately renders it stultifying, filming irrelevant scenes while skipping over any moment that might possibly interest somebody.

Its the story of a wealthy industrialist family in the Normandy region of France. Dad (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is 85 and painfully aware that he is slipping into dementia. His daughter, Anne (Isabelle Huppert), is running the company but is being undermined by her drunken son, Pierre (Franz Rogowski), who may be responsible for a workplace accident resulting in the death of a worker.

Meanwhile, one of the grandchildren, little darling Eve (Fantine Harduin), has just poisoned her mother, although no one knows it. Everyone thinks that Eve is a sweet little girl grieving over Moms irreversible coma.

So the point is, there is stuff going on here, more than enough to fill a 107-minute movie. Oh, but to make something entertaining out of all this, well, that would be socially irresponsible, or artistically ordinary, wouldnt it? So we never see Mom getting poisoned, for example, but we do see little Eve packing a suitcase. Just packing. And packing some more. Then zipping up the suitcase. Then walking out of the room.

Nor do we see the old man attempt suicide in his car. That would be cheap. That would be typical. That might even, horror of horrors, be interesting to watch. Instead, we see him later, in a wheelchair, rolling down the street. He rolls down one block, then he wheels himself down another. And another. At the end of the street, he has a conversation with several men, but we dont hear it. We have no idea what hes saying.

Are you still there? The boring nature of this movie is having an impact on the review, so lets just put it this way: It is actually possible to fall asleep during a shot, have an entire dream and wake up to find the same shot still going on. No, really, its easy. Ive tried it.

At one point, the old man says, Now Im a captive of this damn chair with no hope of escape  anticipating exactly how audiences will feel while watching the movie.

Heres the shame of it. Trintignant is a great actor, and his depiction of dementia, in that particular middle stage where the consciousness and intelligence are still there but the memory and awareness are going, is haunting and precise. And Isabelle Huppert is quite interesting, or could have been, as the publicly adept businesswoman dealing with multiple problems simultaneously. Even Fantine Harduin, as the bantam Borgia, suggests a tumultuous, twisted inner life.

Yet having creating these fascinating characters , and cast his film with the best possible actors, Haneke gives them nothing to play. They just arrive on screen and exist. Its not enough. Its not drama. Its not cinema. Its an endurance test, and theres no reason that anyone should take it.

Mick LaSalle is The San Francisco Chronicles movie critic. Email: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MickLaSalle

Happy End

Drama. Starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Isabelle Huppert and Fantine Harduin. Directed by Michael Haneke. In French with English subtitles. (R. 107 minutes.)
Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press

As the Trump administration ratchets up criminal prosecutions and efforts to deport undocumented immigrants and legal residents with criminal convictions, Gov. Jerry Brown has doubled-down on exercising his power to grant clemency and demonstrate his belief in the power of redemption.

On Saturday, the governor issued 132 pardons and 19 commutations, including pardons to two men, Mony Neth of Modesto and Rottanak Kong of Davis, whose past criminal convictions made them targets for deportation to Cambodia. In April, he pardoned three veterans who had served honorably in the U.S. military but then were deported to Mexico after serving time for various crimes. A pardon technically creates a path to avoid deportation.
When my car was broken into last month, I became by my estimate the 26,000th person in San Francisco to meet that fate this year  and thats just the people who bothered to report the crime. People at every level of the socioeconomic ladder, in every corner of the city, have been affected by this crime epidemic. But, as Ive learned over the past few weeks, city government is long on excuses and short on plans to solve the problem.

The number of auto burglaries has tripled since 2010, with no signs of slowing. In fact, there were 5,333 more car break-ins by the end of October 2017 than in the same period of 2016, according to Police Department crime statistics.

The district attorney blames the police and judges, the police blame the district attorney for undercharging cases, and City Hall turns the issue into a debate about homelessness. But leadership is not about casting blame. Leadership is about taking responsibility and fixing problems.

In the interest of starting a productive conversation on how to reduce auto burglaries in San Francisco, here are the three most important things Ive learned about addressing car break-ins:

It is not about criminalizing the homeless. Although some car break-ins surely are crimes of opportunity by those battling financial desperation and/or drug addiction, the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury found that nearly 80 percent of auto burglaries are actually committed by organized gangs who come into the city specifically to break in to cars. Given the identity of the culprits, increased enforcement and aggressive prosecution of auto burglaries need not, and should not, target the homeless population.

It is not about Prop. 47  at least not directly. The 2014 initiative, which reduced most drug and theft offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, is often blamed for the rapid rise in property crime in San Francisco and elsewhere in the state. While we should have a dialogue about the unintended consequences of that proposition, courts have held that Prop. 47 does not apply to auto burglaries. Thus, if a police officer or district attorney tells you that a car break-in cannot be prosecuted as a felony because of Prop. 47, you should direct their attention to the California Court of Appeals holding in People vs. Acosta (2015) that auto burglaries can still be prosecuted as felonies. If prosecutors choose not to charge a break-in as a felony, thats their decision, not a limitation in the law.

Many victims believe city government simply does not care about this problem. Of the dozen or so friends and neighbors I spoke to who had gone through the same ordeal and filed a police report, none had received more than an email confirmation of their report. Not one person felt the crime had been taken seriously. Not one person had obtained any semblance of justice. When a type of crime that directly or indirectly touches every San Francisco resident is routinely ignored, it erodes peoples faith in government and their leaders. That damage to the public trust is harder to replace than a broken window.

All this said, there is reason to be hopeful.

In response to growing outrage over the explosion of property crime, the San Francisco Police Department recently announced an expansion of officer foot patrols in each police district across the city. In addition to the community policing benefits of such a program, the increased officer presence in high-crime neighborhoods could deter organized gangs from committing crimes in the first place and improve the low rate of apprehension (4 percent in San Francisco, compared with the national average of 14 percent) when auto burglaries do occur. This program is supported by the Mayors Office and by members of both the progressive and moderate camps on the Board of Supervisors. But as initial results from the program have shown, foot patrols themselves will not have any impact unless arrests are followed by meaningful prosecution. That means felony charges and gang and weapons enhancements when supported by the evidence.

If that happens, Im hopeful we can begin to stem the tide of this serious problem.

Attorney Leif Dautch is a San Francisco juvenile probation commissioner and the secretary of the California State Bars Executive Committee on Criminal Law. These views are his own.
As a registered Republican, small-business owner, philanthropist and member of the 1 percent, I have something to say about the new GOP tax law: Its 360 degrees of wrong, and I dont want it and I dont need it.

Being a practical Republican, which is rapidly becoming an oxymoron, Im looking at this new law through a pragmatic rather than partisan lens. I employ about 50 people at my company, and this law is going to benefit me because I can pass income through my limited liability company and get a huge tax discount. But a lot of my employees are going to get hurt, especially in the long run, which is more than unfair  its heartless.

This law penalizes people who work for a living and, despite campaign promises from Donald Trump, entitlements soon will be on the chopping block, as promised revenue fails to materialize. The needy will then be lectured that their benefits should be reduced so they can fully appreciate the honor and dignity of work. What has become apparent is that while the Republican Party claims to represent the working class that helped elect Trump president, in reality, the GOP is treating extremely wealthy individuals as somehow better than middle-class citizens.

This law falls somewhere between a sham and a scam, although a scam presupposes somebody buys into it, and polls show that a majority of Americans simply dont. Republican leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell knew this, but they didnt care because they were so desperate for a win to reward the GOPs largest donors.

The harsh reality is that even if Republicans lose both legislative chambers in the 2018 midterm elections, President Trump can veto any repeal attempts for two more years after that (unless he somehow manages to implode while in office). So we will be stuck with it until at least 2021.

The president has said he will address rebuilding Americas infrastructure next year. If the Republican Party really wants to show that it cares about the working class, then require companies including Google, Apple, Pfizer and General Electric, which will get a permanent tax break of about half a trillion dollars, to repatriate and deposit in a national infrastructure bank at least several hundred billion dollars of the nearly $3 trillion held overseas. This concept would be a new and improved version of one proposed in 2007 by Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. Rebuilding Americas infrastructure will be complex, both fiscally and logistically, but can anyone deny that the countrys entire substructure needs upgrades, maintenance and repair?

What can someone like me, who will gain from this law, do besides taking a political stand against this noxious legislation? I plan on investing in my business, which will help both employees and customers. I will also be able to donate more to my philanthropic interests. I can only hope this laws ultra-rich individuals and corporate beneficiaries will do the same.

But hope is not enough. First and foremost, concerned citizens, including the GOP supporters most affected by these cuts, need to let their congressional representatives and senators know that they will not have their votes in 2018 and beyond. They must understand that this tax law will be a nail in the midterm-elections coffins. Republican losses in Virginia and Alabama have gotten the GOPs attention, but the only language that creates action in Washington is the stark message that you are about to lose your job.

Dave Spencer of Hillsborough is the founder of Practically Republican, which seeks to engage and organize practical supporters of the GOP.
Through his astonishing work on Broadway stages, Hollywood films, concert halls and classrooms, Savion Glover has propelled tap to the center of American culture.

A direct link to the masters who brought the bipedal art form to national consciousness in the 1930s and 40s, hes forged new avenues for what he calls hoofing. Continuing to evolve as a choreographer, hes created dazzling steps for projects like the animated Happy Feet films and Broadway hits, like Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk, and disappointments, like last years collaboration with George C. Wolfe, Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed.

But hes at his most freewheeling and unfettered in rhythmic dialogue with fellow maestros of percussion, who recognize Glover as a kindred spirit. Bestowing the ultimate jazz praise, drummer and pianist Jack DeJohnette declares that hes the John Coltrane of tap as far as Im concerned.

Theyve collaborated numerous times over the years, and DeJohnette joins forces with Glover again for the second half of the tap stars four-night run at SFJazz, Thursday, Jan. 4, through Sunday, Jan. 7. I first played with Savion about 30 years ago, with Ron Carter and Geri Allen, when he was about 16, says DeJohnette, 75. After that I started doing these residencies with him at the Blue Note. We spent a year and a half, me with a trio and him with Marshall Davis, all of us coming together and improvising.

Glover calls these sessions dance jams, and he collected a quartet of the Blue Note performances with NEA Jazz Masters on his 2012 DVD Fours (Half Note Records), which features his thrilling terpsichorean encounters with pianists Eddie Palmieri and McCoy Tyner and drummers DeJohnette and Roy Haynes.

All of the jams are riveting, and its no knock on the famed pianists to note that connections between drummers and hoofers run especially deep. Haynes, still a creative force at 92, is a fine hoofer himself, and at the 2012 NEA Jazz Masters Awards Ceremony he and DeJohnette broke into a tap routine thats been viewed thousands of times on YouTube.

Roy very much looked the tap dancer, tapping the way he plays drums, DeJohnette says with a chuckle. Me, not so much, but I played for tap dancers and shake dancers in Chicago at dances and shows when I was coming up.

For Glover, hoofing isnt so much a style, practice or tradition as a creative portal. He absorbed knowledge directly from formative figures such as Jimmy Slyde, Henry LeTang, Honi Coles, Sammy Davis Jr. and Gregory Hines, knowledge he seeks to pass on at his HooFeRzClub School for Tap in Newark, N.J., where he was born and raised. Like many of the greatest jazz artists, he considers himself a work in progress, eager to soak up new information, and prefers not to talk about the particular sonic characteristics that unite tap shoes and trap drums.

Its all sound, says Glover, 44. How we get the sound out, whatever that sound or vibration turns into, its all the same. Im at a point in my life where these categories are starting to not make much sense. Im a man of the world. I think for me to put a cap on these inventions or talents are a disservice. I feel that Jack DeJohnette is a legend and contributor. Im just honored and happy to be able to learn and share. Thats what its about.

Glovers rhythmic partner for the first half of his SFJazz run is part of the hoofer family by both blood and practice. One of jazzs best young drummers, Marcus Gilmore has performed in the Bay Area in recent years with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, saxophonist Steve Coleman, and pianist Vijay Iyer (with whom he returns to SFJazz on Jan. 19-20). Hes also the grandson of Roy Haynes, and he grew up watching Glover up close.

As a child, he longed for a pair of tap shoes that never showed up under the Christmas tree, but he never lost the affinity for that part of the culture, says Gilmore, 31. Id see Savion perform, usually with my grandfather, and we ended up doing this duo series. Its a conversation. I have a bunch of sensors with me, and I can trigger samples from something we just played.

Sonic explorers like Gilmore and DeJohnette offer Glover the opportunity to stretch his imagination, to the point where his beat can be a flute, a heart, a harmonica or drums, he says. I imagine theyre hearing words and tones, and the relationship is that were both in the state of imagination as we approach the sound.

Andrew Gilbert is a freelance writer.

Savion Glover and Marcus Gilmore: 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Friday, Jan. 4-5. Savion Glover and Jack DeJohnette: 7:30 p.m., Saturday-Sunday, Jan. 6-7. $30-$105. SFJazz Centers Miner Auditorium, 201 Franklin St., S.F. (866) 920-5299. www.sfjazz.org.
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SACRAMENTO  Advocates and lawmakers who have pushed to end Californias backlog of untested rape kits say they are hoping the national attention to sexual harassment and assault will drive efforts to pass much-needed reforms in the state.

And, entering the New Year, they are focusing on one area in particular: California has no idea how many rape kits are sitting on shelves in police evidence or hospital storage rooms.

We want that changed, said Ilse Knecht, director of policy and advocacy for the Joyful Heart Foundation, a national group pushing to end backlogs.

The foundations initiative, End The Backlog, tracks how well states are tackling the issue and tallies how many untested rape kits each state has based on public-records requests and media reports. The foundation says California has more than 13,000 untested rape kits and that legislative efforts to address the backlog are trailing other states, including Texas and Kentucky.

Right now, California has a law in the books that says rape kits should be sent to the lab for testing, but thats a loophole big enough to drive a truck through, Knecht said. We want to see that should turn into a shall.

Knecht said California has made progress. On Jan. 1, California will add several laws to the books, including AB41 by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, which requires law enforcement agencies to report how many rape kits they have collected and examined, then disclose why any kit is not being tested.

AB41 applies only to new rape kits, and would not require agencies to do an inventory of their evidence rooms.

Peter DaSilva/Special to The Chronicle

Also going into effect in January is AB1312, by Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, which creates additional protections for rape victims, including a requirement that police keep rape kits in evidence for at least 20 years. The law also will make emergency contraception available at no cost to a victim. AB280 by Assemblyman Evan Low, D-San Jose, allows taxpayers to designate a donation on their income tax return to a fund that would help eliminate the states rape-kit backlog.

Last year, California ended its 10-year statute of limitations on rape. That law applies only to victims of crimes that occurred on or after Jan. 1, 2017. The state passed a law in 2014 that encouraged law enforcement to test rape kits within certain time frames.

Those bills are helping, Chiu said, but there is more to do. Chiu said he is looking at what bills he could author in 2018 to further help victims.

With more attention on sexual assault and related issues, my hope is in the coming year we will have more political will to address the rape-kit backlog, Chiu said. There is a heightened focus and commitment to addressing these issues. I hope that continues.

Victim advocate Heather Marlowe said many of the proposed bills fail to meaningfully tackle the reasons so many rape kits have languished in police custody. Many police departments are quick to label a report of rape unfounded with little to no investigation, she said.

Legislators should focus their efforts on holding police accountable in thoroughly investigating all rape complaints, said Marlowe, who sued the city of San Francisco and its Police Department, charging that her sexual assault case was mishandled in 2010. The case was dismissed. She said she is appealing to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In the past, police departments did not test rape kits when the the suspect was known to the victim, finding little need for DNA evidence if the identity was not in question. However, prosecutors like Alameda County District Attorney Nancy OMalley said that thinking has changed in recent years. As police agencies tested their backlogs, they found many instances in which one suspect was linked to several victims.

OMalleys office is prosecuting a case involving a rape kit that languished in the Berkeley Police Department for six years from a 2008 case in which two teens said they were abducted and raped near Berkeley High School.

Once evidence was tested in 2014 at OMalleys behest, DNA evidence linked the incident to a man with a lengthy criminal history who had assaulted a woman in Berkeley.

The suspect, Keith Kenard Asberry Jr., is facing multiple counts of rape, sexual assault and kidnapping in the two cases. He has pleaded not guilty.

The Berkeley Police Department said it could not explain why the rape kit from the teens was never sent to a laboratory to see if there was a DNA profile that could help identify the assailant.

Asberrys next court date is Jan. 26.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez
In the wake of a foiled terror plot that may have targeted Pier 39, the San Francisco Police Department is putting more officers on the street for New Years Eve, when large crowds will gather around the city to watch fireworks, drink Champagne and ring in 2018.

A Modesto man was arrested Dec. 20 for what the FBI said was a planned Christmas terror attack inspired by the Islamic State, possibly targeting Pier 39. Days later, Police Chief William Scott said the departments plan for public safety at New Years Eve celebrations remains mostly the same  with added backup.

Not so much significant changes (to the plan), but there will be additional deployment, Scott said, at a news conference Friday with acting Mayor London Breed and Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White. A spokesman for the Police Department declined to say how many additional officers would be deployed. Scott emphasized the collaboration between San Francisco police and other local, state and federal agencies, including the FBI.

We want the public to know that there are no credible threats, he said.

Still, he said there would be a heavy police and law enforcement presence all over the city.

There will also be a very visible presence along the wharf area at Pier 39, he said, citing the recent arrest. There will also be officers out there that you wont see, because we will have a plainclothes presence there as well. There will be no discretionary time off for officers on New Years Eve, Scott said.

There were several deadly terror attacks in 2017 and other reminders of the nightmare scenarios that can occur in large crowds. On Oct. 1, for example, a man fired repeatedly into a concert in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds of others. On Halloween, another man drove a truck down a bicycle path in New York City, killing eight people.

Scott declined to discuss specific plans for different types of attacks, citing tactical reasons for keeping them secret. Other police departments, including those in Las Vegas and New York City, have said they are adding countersnipers to their deployment this year.

Terror attacks are only one of the threats officials are preparing to address. Breed, Hayes-White and Scott all admonished citizens not to drive drunk. Muni and Caltrain will be free to all in San Francisco starting at 8 p.m. on New Years Eve in hopes of keeping partygoers from getting behind the wheel. There will also be additional late-night service on Muni, BART and Caltrain.

I do like to underscore the fact that there are really no excuses for drinking and driving any night of the year, particularly New Years Eve, Hayes-White said.

Breed also reminded the public that shooting off fireworks is both illegal and dangerous.

If you want to see fireworks, go to the show, Hayes-White said. The San Francisco Fire Department will have dedicated resources monitoring illegal fireworks.

Despite the concerns that come with New Years celebrations, Scott emphasized that San Francisco residents and visitors should be able to ring in 2018 in the city  safely.

Our public needs to be able to do the things they want to do freely, Scott said. When we have a terrorist event or threat of a terrorist event, and then we start changing our behavior ... we stop doing things that we as Americans or residents of this nation that we have a right to do, then were in the wrong place.

Sophie Haigney is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sophie.haigney@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SophieHaigney
Now Playing: The city of San Francisco experienced more car break-ins this fall despite increased police patrols: New numbers released by the police department shows a 26 percent increase in reported car break-ins. Leigh Martinez reports Video: KTVU

Car break-ins continued to be a major problem for many San Franciscans in 2017, as the recorded instances of "larceny theft from vehicle" is up 26 percent over this time last year.

The most recent numbers released by the San Francisco Police Department, dated to the end of November 2017, show the number of thefts from vehicles actually decreased between October (2,938) and November of this year (2,620), but the year-to-date numbers recorded so far this year are substantially worse than they were at this point in 2016.
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Childrens literature has been a lifelong passion for Charlies Corner owner Charlotte Nagy. As an elementary school teacher for more than 25 years in St. Louis and Chicago, she dreamed of opening a bookstore that would specialize in the kinds of stories she read to her students.

I always sort of knew that this was going to be the next chapter, said Nagy, 53. The question was where. When she found an open retail space on 24th and Castro streets in San Franciscos Noe Valley neighborhood two years ago, that dream became a reality.

I tell people I live in a town and I work in a village, Nagy said. Theres a lot of foot traffic here; families come in over the weekends. Its a very diverse community. People come here from all over the world.

Charlies Corner, named for both Nagys childhood moniker and her beloved dachshund (now deceased), is filled with whimsical interior touches: A giant tree hung with kites and with stuffed animals peeking from branches takes up much of one side of the store. The bathroom is painted with a mural featuring childrens book characters, and mushroom-shaped stools are scattered through the story-time area.

But since its opening, the store has been best known for its windows, depicting scenes and characters from kids books.

Nagy chose Goodnight Moon, the 1947 picture book by Margaret Wise Brown, for her first window display, due to its wide generational appeal and also because it takes place in one, easily recognizable setting: The great green room.

The Goodnight Moon window, crafted from simple materials like painted cardboard and construction paper, is still up today. Children (and their caretakers) who come in for the stores four-times-daily free story hours respond to the display enthusiastically, Nagy said. They say, Theres the red balloon, theres the bowl of mush, theres the old lady whispering hush, theres the comb and the brush.

Assisting Nagy with the stores window designs is Charlies Corner artistic director Jeff Gomez, 26, who helps plan and construct the scenes in the stores five windows. In two years, there have been homages to E.B. Whites Charlottes Web (with a spider web spelling out Some Pig), Roald Dahls James and the Giant Peach (complete with custom-made insects) and others with custom puppets created by artist Lauren Bailey.

Nagy said that originally she and Gomez had planned a traditional window for the holidays this year that would include different childrens book characters all together in one window celebrating, but that at the eleventh hour they decided to start from scratch.

We really asked ourselves this year, What does the holiday mean? Nagy said. We decided it was about people coming together, whether its in a church or around a table.

Nagy and Gomez then looked to a childrens book by San Francisco author Dave Eggers and illustrator Shawn Harris called Her Right Foot (Chronicle Books, 2017), which tells the story of the Statue of Liberty and the monuments role in welcoming travelers and immigrants to the United States.

Holidays remind me of family and what it takes to bring everyone together in one place, Gomez said. ... Its about being together. Dave Eggers book expresses that way better than I can.

After a quick de-installation of the current window (Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham), Nagy and Gomez carefully placed hand-painted cardboard and papier-mache figures from the books illustrations. People of different ethnic backgrounds and cultural dress are depicted in the scene, as is Lady Liberty herself at the center.

Asked if theyre worried about community reaction to a window that might be interpreted as too political in the era of immigration bans and debates about sanctuary cities, Nagy said no.

Everything we do is based on community support and reaction, said Nagy. This is a very diverse, accepting community in the neighborhood. Response to a window themed around Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, featuring portraits of prominent women, was very positive, she said.

After a few adjustments to the cardboard ships and hanging airplanes in the window  Gomez and Nagy didnt want to create the impression of a potential collision  the display was done. For Gomez, the theme of immigration and inclusion has a personal connection: Hes a first-generation Mexican American whose 83-year-old grandfather just became a naturalized citizen.

As caretakers and parents began to line up their strollers outside the shop for the next story hour, Sonal Singh and her 11-month-old baby, Vera, stopped to take in the new window.

This is just great, Singh said. As a person of color, it really hits me and speaks to the times. With the current climate with the president and everything thats happening in the world, its nice to reflect on multiculturalism and diversity.

Nagy agrees: The U.S. is this inclusive, welcoming place. No matter where you come from you can celebrate your holidays as you wish. Its what San Francisco is all about. We celebrate all the holidays here.

Tony Bravo is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tbravo@sfchronicle.com
Marijuana is becoming legal in California, and entrepreneurs are rushing in with infused artisanal chocolates, specialized farming equipment and security teams to guard large hauls. On Monday, companies will be able to produce and sell marijuana in the state, making it one of eight in the United States where the recreational use of cannabis has been legalized. But finding expertise and financing wont be easy.

Cannabis use still lacks legal standing with the federal government. That means growers, processors and retailers cant open accounts or access lines of credit from federally insured banks. They cant write off business expenses when they file their taxes, and its extremely difficult to purchase crop insurance (think of the recent spate of fires).

Its federally illegal, and that makes running a cannabis business more challenging than arguably any other kind of business, said Kris Krane, co-founder of 4Front, a medical marijuana investment and management firm.

Cannabis-focused accelerators and investment companies aim to change that.

These enterprises have long been a presence in Silicon Valley, offering mentoring and investment in exchange for an ownership stake. Companies that provide these types of resources are critical to expanding a nascent industry around legal marijuana, said Krane, if only because they can introduce entrepreneurs to angel investors and other private capital sources.

Funders have reason to be interested. Selling cannabis in California has the potential to generate $5 billion a year, once a critical mass of businesses have proper permits, according to the Agricultural Issues Center at UC Davis. Each harvested acre of cannabis could be worth millions of dollars, based on current prices in Washington, Oregon and Colorado, according to Greg James, the publisher of Marijuana Venture, a monthly business magazine.

Two years ago, Ben Larson and Carter Laren co-founded Gateway, an accelerator in Oakland, that has helped expand 19 cannabis-related startups specializing in a wide variety of business activities, including payment services, cannabis products for seniors, agricultural technology and hemp plastics.

When the pair started, medical marijuana had been legal for two decades, but Gateway found many companies business practices were still not far departed from those of the black market, Larson said. With legal adult use in sight, the industry is making a rapid transition to more sophisticated, transparent and mainstream business practices, he said.

Gateway now offers $50,000 in exchange for 5 percent of a companys ownership and brings the management team of startups into its offices for about six months to work with experts, mentors and potential investors. Applicants present their business plans and answer questions on legal issues, trends and the competitive landscape. Larson sometimes assigns homework, asking founders to conduct customer interviews and do market research.

Entrepreneurs bring a wide variety of ideas because the industry is just forming. For example, new apps, sensors and machinery help control growing conditions, save energy and reduce labor costs in greenhouses.

Even the boring areas of the marijuana industry offer terrific opportunities, said Larson, because growers are spread too thin. The same company might be cloning plants, harvesting crops, selling to dispensaries and making deliveries. There may be eight different steps in their value chain that could be specialized and contracted out, he said.

Increasing brand recognition for products and retailers is another major opportunity for startups. Theres no Starbucks or Nordstroms yet  names that mean things to people, Larson said.

One of Gateways graduates is Carrie Tice, the founder of Octavia Wellness. She quit her job at a technology company in 2015 when her mother became ill and now sells cannabis as tinctures, salves and other products to seniors looking for alternatives to opioids for pain relief and better sleep. Most of her products have little to no THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis.

Gateway helped Tice refine her pitch and introduced her to Big Rock, a private family fund and investment company. Big Rock helps with everything from community intros and tech support to marketing resources and updates on regulatory developments, said Tice in an email.

Octavia Wellness now has a network of 80 wellness consultants who advise more than 1,100 clients in California, and will be expanding to Nevada, where both medical and recreational marijuana is legal. Tice said that legalizing recreational use will boost her sales considerably because people will no longer have to obtain a doctors recommendation to buy her products.

Companies like Big Rock, which has invested more than $10 million in the cannabis industry, are playing an important part in funding the industrys growth. Starting up a testing lab or a dispensary is extremely capital intensive, said Stephen Kaye, Big Rocks chief operating officer. Private firms can make decisions and move large amounts of money quickly, he said. He receives pitches every day from entrepreneurs and is especially interested in medical research.

For Jody Hall, an entrepreneur in Seattle, joining an investment company has freed her to focus on her core business rather than on the myriad regulations that accompany its operation. Hall, who runs a conventional cupcake business, started a new venture, GoodShip, two years ago to make cannabis edibles. She found that she was spending way too much time getting advice from lawyers on what was or wasnt allowed. Hall recently sold GoodShip to Privateer Holdings, a private equity firm, and is staying on. The cash infusion has given her more time to develop products, she said, and has accelerated her plans to expand to California.

While states are collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues from marijuana businesses, and a rising number of Americans favor legalization in some form, Attorney General Jeff Sessions firm opposition to it poses a risk to cannabis-related companies. He could shut the industry down tomorrow, said Micah Tapman, co-founder of the Canopy cannabis accelerator and venture capital fund in Colorado.

Of course, there are other challenges. Evolving rules and regulations, like new packaging requirements, can add unexpected costs to processors and retailers. Companies forced to deal only in cash can run into safety and theft issues. Many small growers emerging from the black market have no idea how to run a commercial-scale facility, James of Marijuana Venture said.

Despite the hurdles and uncertainty facing the industry, Larson of Gateway has remained optimistic. People are gaining confidence as legalization spreads, and the growth is going to be huge, he said.

Julie Weed is a New York Times writer.
Siri, call my attorney

The latest lawsuit over Apple slowing down older iPhones comes with a potential twist: jail time. A French consumers rights group outlines the same basic claim as the U.S. suits: Apple owes its customers money for not previously disclosing the slowdowns, which it does with some iPhones whose batteries are old. But in France, its actually illegal to make old devices worse to sell new versions  a process known as planned obsolescence. Meanwhile, Apple apologized and said it soon will reduce the price of an out-of-warranty battery replacement for the iPhone 6 and later models by $50  from $79 to $29.

Number of the day

$102 million

Thats about how much Apple CEO Tim Cook received in pay, bonuses and stocks for the fiscal year, Apple disclosed in a regulatory filing. No figures were immediately available on how many cigarettes that would buy in a French jail.

UPS: We take it back

Some 1.4 million packages are expected to be sent back to retailers Wednesday, according to UPS, which has called it National Returns Day. The anticlimactic Internet retail holiday tops a record December of package returns, as consumers shipped backed more than 1 million packages per day during the month. National Returns Day traffic is expected to be up 8 percent over last year, according to UPS.

Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items and links at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techchronicle
Netflixs top executives will no longer get bonuses, but that doesnt mean their tears are streaming. The recently passed tax plan eliminates companies ability to deduct performance bonuses for managers who are paid more than $1 million, so the Los Gatos company just decided to lump all cash payments into executives salaries. Netflix shares gained more than 50 percent this year.

Stamping out Amazon?

President Trump said Friday that Amazon.com should be charged more by the U.S. Postal Service for the packages it sends around the world. Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, have been frequent targets of Trump, who said in a tweet that the post office has been losing many billions of dollars a year while Amazon gets richer. His tweet doesnt mention that the Postal Service has lots of competitors for Amazons business, especially UPS, so raising rates could backfire.

Steve Jobs is a brand name

 at least in Italy

After legal wrangling, there is a Steve Jobs clothing and tech firm in Naples, Italy. Apple is not exactly amused. La Repubblica Napoli reported that entrepreneurs Vincenzo and Giacomo Barbato noticed in 2012 that Apple had not trademarked its co-founders name, so they created the business. The more-famous Cupertino company tried to fight it, but lost.

Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services.

See more items and links at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techchronicle
In a year where politics and natural disasters dominated news headlines, the humble food story still managed to attract its own attention between each new upper-cased Big. Issue.

This year, the food articles and trend pieces that dominated the favorites lists showed a glimpse at the topics that readers are interested in and affected by. There was everything from the tragedy-laced stories on wineries deeply affected by the Wine Country fires to infinitely more fun and Instagram-driven food items, such as the Unicorn Frappuccino.

Here's a look at the food stories from 2017.

The food trends (or, how SFGATE ate its way through 2017)

Instagram has, for better or worse, affected a lot of the food scene since its inception and 2017 is no different. The major difference is that a lot of corporations bought into the idea of making their foods photo-worthy... and ended up influencing the market. Never forget that 2017 was the year of the Unicorn Frappuccino at Starbucks (as well as the to-be-expected barista backlash to the drink) and the subsequent attempt to recapture that popularity with the Zombie Frappuccino.

RELATED VIDEO: Cheese tea is trending in the Bay Area

Now Playing: Would you try cheese tea? The owner of STEAP Tea Bar in San Francisco shows us what the new fad is all about. Video: SFGATE

SFGATE wound up subjecting staff members to these food trends for the sake of Journalism, researching the local trends that were popping up in our foodsphere (Millionaire's bacon, cheese tea) as well as the questionable pumpkin spice food selection at Trader Joe's. We ate a lot of things this year and while that may sound like bragging, not all of it was good (just ask those of us who could not stomach more Mashed Potato ice cream  even if it did come from gourmet ice cream purveyor Salt & Straw).

The best of the weird

Pop culture played a lot into the weirdest food stories of the year. There was the Long Beach brunch spot that was discovered to be serving Popeyes chicken to its customers. The McDonald's Szechuan sauce frenzy stoked by cult favorite "Rick and Morty" that resulted in despair after a limited-edition release by the fast food giant. Denny's also made news with its "crappy" mascot, while strawberry-less strawberry snacks from Annie's warranted a lawsuit from consumers.

CHECK YOURSELF: New California laws going into effect in 2018

Of all the weird food stories, however, the food MVP of the year is the avocado. For as basic (or extra) as you may think the fruit is, that green, palm-sized fruit was a news magnet and received blame and praise whenever it was mentioned. (Vice's food site, Munchies, even dubbed 2017 a "Strange Year for Avocados.")

Among the headlines for the avocado: Millennials can't afford a house because of avocados. Pre-peeled and pre-halved avocados for the lazy. "Avocado hand" sends people to the hospital. New, improved (and pitless) avocados are here to save people from "avocado hand." A record-seeking 5-pound avocado discovered in Hawaii. The list goes on.

The local food scene

Locals were on the hunt for their next great food adventure, and plenty were also looking for what they've been missing out on. The Bay Area food experience was a mixture of looking at where newcomers should head to first, where to eat on the cheap and also which restaurants are the newest of the new. Locals also aren't as San Francisco-centric as before, leading to explorations outside of the city and searching for food road trips, or even quick dips out of the city via BART for some new food.

San Francisco Chronicle food critic Michael Bauer's Top 100 Restaurants also piqued everyone's attention. While the experience of a dinner at Single Thread might make your heart stop (from both the exquisite presentation to its jaw-dropping price) many were relieved to find there were some bargain places to eat on Bauer's list. He also chooses among his favorites of 2017 in his year-end list, which can be found here.

The serious food issues

The world of food and wine suffered in October's deadly Wine Country fires and oenophiles were curious as to which wineries were able to survive the flames that torched much of Northern California. The constantly evolving food scene meant a number of closings for long-running restaurants, including Buca di Beppo and LuLu in SoMa, AQ and Rose Pistola closing after almost 21 years and others.

ALSO: Oakland chef Charlie Hallowell steps away from restaurants as 17 women accuse him of sexual harassment

The world of sexual misconduct allegations hit the culinary world first with San Francisco and New York restaurateur Ken Friedman being accused of sexual harassment, leading to accusations and backlash against celebrity chef Mario Batali. Ayesha Curry's new show "Great American Baking Show" was also embroiled in its own scandal when fellow judge Johnny Iuzzini was accused of sexual misconduct, and the show was pulled by ABC after one episode.

::

If you weren't already certain of it, 2017 proved that the world of food is not as dismissible and useless as perhaps a Soylent advocate may tell you. The meal has come to stand for the one place where people are willing to gather with others  at the very least during the holidays and at its most as a daily communal event.

Food, the thing that can be taken as a mere daily requirement, instead became a great retreat from the larger stories or was itself the conversation-starter. Scroll through the above slideshows to see some of the year's most intriguing, funny and downright odd food stories of the year.
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CHICAGO  Starting in January, Illinois will bar a rare criminal defense allowing the use of a victims sexual orientation as justification for violent crime, a ban gay rights advocates say they will attempt to replicate in about half a dozen states next year.

Defense attorneys will no longer be able to mount the gay panic defense in Illinois, the second state after California to prohibit the tactic. It isnt common, but one study shows it has surfaced in about half of all U.S. states and has been used with some success. Advocates say bans are necessary because crimes against gay and transgender people are on the rise, but some attorneys remain skeptical, calling the ban politically motivated and unnecessary because the old-fashioned defense wouldnt hold up in court today.

After a lackluster attempt in 2016, the Illinois ban sailed through the Legislature in May with no opposition and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed it into law without comment. Supporters called it a major victory for LGBT rights  especially as advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign report spikes in murders of transgender people  that could provide momentum for change elsewhere.

For us, it was important to eradicate (the defense), regardless of use, said Brian Johnson, CEO of Equality Illinois, which backed the ban. It makes our identity sufficient reason for murder. We never wanted it to be used going forward.

There are variations, but it generally goes like this: A person doesnt realize someone is gay or transgender and engages in a flirtation, then discovers that persons sexual orientation and that discovery triggers a passionate involuntary response such as murder.

Advocates point to the beating death of Islan Nettles, a transgender woman who died on a New York City street in 2013. James Dixon, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced last year, flirted with Nettles before realizing she was transgender. He punched her in the face and she fell and hit her head.

Legal experts including Anthony Michael Kreis, a Chicago-Kent College of Law professor who helped write the Illinois law, said Dixon got a lenient 12-year prison sentence in a plea deal because of the trans panic defense. Dixon has said he doesnt hate transgender people.

Supporters plan to revive legislative attempts to ban whats also known as the trans panic defense, in statehouses in Washington and New Jersey, where proposals havent yet received committee votes.

Advocates also hope to make inroads in New York, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota and Texas.

The gay and trans panic defenses are outdated relics reminiscent of a time when widespread antipathy was commonplace for LGBT individuals. It asks jurors to find that a victims sexual orientation or gender identity excuses the actions of a violent criminal, said DArcy Kemnitz, the National LGBT Bar Associations executive director. Our nations courtrooms cannot truly be places where law rules supreme while these defenses are still allowed to persist.

Such panic defenses have come up in court opinions in about half of U.S. states since the 1960s, according to a 2016 study by the Williams Institute at the UCLAs law school. But the defense is hard to track and identify. No state recognizes it as a free-standing defense in the criminal code and its often used in conjunction with insanity or self-defense claims.

The American Bar Association called for a prohibition in 2013. California outlawed the defense in 2014.

Kreis called the Illinois law a remarkable win and perhaps the first unanimous roll-call vote in a statehouse on a gay and transgender issue. But while no one voted no, over two dozen legislators  Democrats and Republicans  didnt vote. Their reasons varied from non-attendance to human error.

Chicago defense attorney Steve Greenberg, who represented former police officer and convicted killer Drew Peterson, said the ban wouldnt have much practical effect in courts where the defense is hardly used.

Thats just not a defense, he said. The legislation is political pandering and window dressing.

The last time the defense came up in Illinois was in two suburban Chicago murder cases, but the 2009 court proceedings illustrate divided opinion on the tactic.

In one, Joseph Biedermann of Hoffman Estates admitted killing Terrance Hauser, who was stabbed over 50 times. Biedermann said Hauser threatened to sexually assault and kill him. He was acquitted. Advocates say the gay panic defense was in play, but Biedermanns attorney called it self-defense.

In another, Timothy Bailey-Woodson pleaded guilty in the murder of Bloomingdale mechanic David Coungeris, receiving a 25-year sentence. Prosecutors said Bailey-Woodson claimed he killed Coungeris after the mechanic made sexual advances toward him. Bailey-Woodsons public defender declined comment on that aspect, but argued at the time that his client was abused as a child.

Attorney Kathleen Zellner, who has won several high-profile wrongful conviction cases, supports the ban, but says the defense wouldnt survive in court.

Most attorneys would find it very flawed, she said. I would never stand in front of a jury and try to get somebody acquitted on a first-degree murder charge with that.

Sophia Tareen is an Associated Press writer.
TOLEDO, Ohio  The glow of a white Christmas is long gone. Now its just winter across much of the Midwest and East Coast, where bitter temperatures and snow squalls have been blamed for a handful of deaths and canceled a long list of New Years celebrations.

Already winter-weary parts of the nation are dealing with a mounting number of weather-related headaches, from highway pileups to frozen pipes and a rash of car thefts.

Icy roadways in central Michigan caused more 30 crashes on highways near Flint on Friday. Frigid conditions slowed mass transit in Boston. Coastal South Carolina saw a rare bout of freezing rain and drizzle that forced bridges from Charleston to Myrtle Beach to shut down for de-icing.

Police in the Cincinnati area say a half-dozen cars have been stolen in recent days after being left running unattended by owners trying to warm them up. Cincinnati police warned in a Tweet that leaving your car running means the only person who will be warm is the thief who stole your car.

More snow is on the way in Erie, Pa., where 65 inches have fallen since Christmas Eve. Now parts of the surrounding county could get up to 16 inches of more snow by Sunday.

A call center set up to help people dig out has been overwhelmed. The phones have been ringing off the hook, said Josh Jaeger, a coordinator for the center told the Erie Times-News.

Several deaths have been linked to the wintry weather during the past week.

In South Dakota, an 83-year-old woman died from exposure to the cold after she crashed her car and then got out to look for help. Three people were found dead in a canal along Lake Erie earlier this week after their car slid off an icy road.

The National Weather Service predicts another blast of arctic air will chill much of the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. through the weekend and into 2018.

With the bitter cold expected to stick around, many New Years Eve plans are being scuttled. Shore towns in New Jersey canceled plans for polar bear plunges in the Atlantic Ocean and fireworks shows have been called off in Omaha and elsewhere.

John Seewer is an Associated Press writer.
NEW YORK  With a gunman raining bullets down on a crowd of Las Vegas concertgoers in October, police officers who rushed into the hotel where he was holed up struggled at first to figure out what floor he was on.

That quandary  and the many other difficulties of disarming a high-rise sniper  have informed how the New York Police Department is preparing for hundreds of thousands of people to gather in Times Square on New Years Eve.
Andrew Anglin, founder of a neo-Nazi website notorious for its racist internet trolling campaigns, has dubiously claimed he lives in Nigeria. A process server swears he recently spotted the Daily Stormers publisher at a grocery store in his native Ohio.

Anglins whereabouts  a key issue in a pair of lawsuits he faces  may not remain a mystery much longer.

A federal judge in Missoula, Mont., has warned Anglins attorneys that he wont tolerate any game-playing and expects him to disclose where he has been residing, according to a court transcript obtained by the Associated Press.

Marc Randazza, one of Anglins lawyers, told U.S. Magistrate Jeremiah Lynch during a Dec. 14 pretrial conference that he didnt know where his client is.

Anglins site takes its name from Der Sturmer, a newspaper that published Nazi propaganda. It has struggled to stay online since Anglin published a post mocking a woman killed in a deadly car attack at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August.

I can represent that he is outside of the United States, Randazza said, according to the transcript. I had asked him where he is situated, and he changes locations regularly, and I dont know his whereabouts.

Montana real estate agent Tanya Gersh sued Anglin in April, accusing him of orchestrating an anti-Semitic internet trolling campaign that terrorized her family amid her dispute with the mother of a leading white nationalist. Months passed before Anglins lawyers formally responded to the suit, arguing the First Amendment protects his posts calling for a troll storm against Gersh.

Anglins attorneys have argued the court doesnt have jurisdiction over the case  and therefore must dismiss it  because Anglin is not a citizen of any state. In a Nov. 30 court filing, they cited a CNN report that included Anglins oft-repeated claim that he is living in Lagos, Nigeria.

The judge told Randazza he should emphasize to Mr. Anglin theres not going to be any game-playing here.

I dont want to be perceived as being an advocate, but hes going to have to detail what his travels have been, what his changes in location have been, because as you know, ultimately, again, I have an independent obligation to determine whether theres jurisdiction here. The ultimate question is his domicile, the judge said.

Gershs lawyers accuse Anglin of playing a childish game of hide-and-seek and cite evidence he is living in the Columbus, Ohio, area.

Jeffrey Cremeans, a process server hired by Gershs attorneys from the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a sworn affidavit that he was shopping at a grocery store in a Columbus suburb on Dec. 10 when he saw a man who strongly resembles Anglin at a checkout register.

Gersh says her family received a barrage of threatening and harassing emails, phone calls and other messages after Anglin published their personal information, including her 12-year-old sons Twitter handle and photo. In a string of posts that began last December, Anglin accused Gersh and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, Mont., of engaging in an extortion racket against the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer.

Michael Kunzelman is an Associated Press writer.
1 Health coverage: More than 8.7 million people signed up for coverage next year under the Obama-era health care law, as the program that President Trump has repeatedly pronounced a disaster exceeded expectations. Enrollment for the 39 HealthCare.gov states reached nearly 95 percent of last years level, outperforming projections in a show of consumer demand, despite a shortened sign-up season and big cuts in the ad budget. A complete national tally may not be available until March, as states running their own health insurance markets are continuing to sign up consumers. In California and New York, enrollment season ends Jan. 31.

2 Virginia vote: Republican leaders said Friday that Democrats are trying to litigate their way to victory in a tied state House race that could decide the balance of power in the House of Delegates. GOP House Leader Kirk Cox made his comments after lawyers for Republican David Yancey urged state elections officials to schedule a random drawing of the winners name before the legislature reconvenes Jan. 10 in Richmond. Yanceys lawyers urged a recount court to deny Democrat Shelly Simonds motion to reconsider its ruling declaring the election a tie. If Simonds wins, the partisan split will be 50-50. If Yancey wins, Republicans will have a 51-49 majority. The drawing will take place next Thursday.
ATLANTA  A decades-long effort to identify and prosecute members of the Georgia lynch mob who shot and killed two black couples in what became the nations last mass lynching has come to an end without anyone held accountable, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is preparing to officially close the 1946 Moores Ford lynching case, possibly by the end of January, after learning in recent weeks that the FBI quietly closed its investigation into the murders. The decision comes 17 years after then-Gov. Roy Barnes ordered the GBI to reopen the investigation, and state and federal authorities worked jointly to develop new information about one of the most notorious acts of racial terror in postwar America.

The passage of time always made those efforts doubtful. The last promising break came nine years ago, but it failed to turn up useful evidence. Authorities identified 162 suspects over the years, including more than 150 that date back to the original FBI inquiry in 1946.

Authorities zeroed in on 22 main suspects in 1946, but agents could never develop direct evidence linking anyone to the crime. Only four main suspects were living when investigators reopened the case in 2000 and, like all the other suspects, they died years ago, according to the Journal-Constitutions review of the GBI case file.

We do not have any leads to pursue, said GBI Director Vernon Keenan. The targets of the investigation are all dead.

The killings of two young African American couples  Roger and Dorothy Malcom; George and Mae Murray Dorsey  shocked the nation. They were were shot repeatedly by a mob carrying shotguns and pistols near a remote wooden bridge in Walton County. The case made global headlines and stained the small city of Monroe 50 miles east of Atlanta.

The empty conclusion 71 years later makes the case like so many of the thousands of other lynchings of African Americans across the South from 1877 to 1950, said E.M. Beck, a University of Georgia scholar who has studied the issue.

Will the truth ever be known? Beck said. Thats all gone to the grave. In the whole history of these events, thats typical. At least now, Beck said, the investigative files will be opened so the public can learn what authorities did and what they found.

The murders terrorized an entire community and tore families apart. The victims survivors lived with years of anguish and pain. Some left the area never to return.

Roger Malcom Hayes was 2 years old at the time his father was lynched. His mother, Mattie Louise Campbell, the estranged wife of Roger Malcom, took the toddler to Ohio where a family friend adopted him. Hayes returned on occasion to visit family and he regularly attended the memorial efforts to remember his father and the others lynched at Moores Ford, said his daughter Atanya Lynette Hayes.

Roger Hayes was hopeful when authorities reopened the case in 2000 that his fathers killers would be found, but he died in April 2016 with nothing resolved, his daughter said. He would not be OK with authorities closing the case, she said.

He wanted justice, she said. He never cared about retributions or money or anything. He wanted someone held accountable for murdering his father. It bothered him that people knew who did and protected those people.

Authorities concluded that the main motive for the lynching was revenge. Roger Malcom stabbed a white farmer during an argument 11 days earlier.

A secondary factor was racial intimidation linked to the 1946 gubernatorial election in Georgia.

That year, African Americans had won a Supreme Court battle ending the all-white primary, which for decades had effectively blocked African Americans from voting. Eugene Talmadge, one of the Democratic candidates for governor, used the new black enfranchisement to mobilize supporters and appealed to rural whites with virulent racist rhetoric. The Democratic primary occurred just a few days after the stabbing.

Among the new details contained in the GBI files is evidence  long suspected  that four of the original suspects belonged to the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Investigators found charter membership documents for the Walton County KKK chapter from the 1930s and 40s. A prominent white funeral director in Monroe was listed as the Exalted Cyclops, or leader of the chapter, as of 1939. His funeral home initially received the victims before they were transferred to a black-owned funeral home.

Roger Malcom had spent more than a week in the county jail in Monroe after he stabbed Barnette Hester during a fight on July 14. On July 25, a white farmer, Loy Harrison, bonded Malcom out and drove him and the other three victims along Highway 78 toward his farm.

Harrison told authorities a white mob ambushed his car at the Moores Ford bridge just before he tried to cross the Apalachee River into Oconee County. They dragged the couples to a nearby wagon trail along the river and shot them repeatedly. Even though the mob wore no masks, Harrison said he didnt recognize any of the men. From the start, Harrison was the only known eyewitness and one of the main suspects.

President Harry Truman ordered the FBI to investigate and the bureau sent 25 agents to Monroe in the days following the crime. But a mix of fear and hostility across the community enforced a code of silence.

Brad Schrade is an Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer.
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University of California Regent Norm Pattiz, who was recorded last year asking an actress at his podcast company if he could hold her breasts and had recently been pressured to leave the board, will step down in February, The Chronicle has learned.

The board took no action against Pattiz when the recording surfaced in October 2016 because he wasnt conducting UC business at the time, said the regents, whose job includes holding UC faculty and executives accountable for sexual misconduct. The regents have since changed their policy so that alleged outside misconduct can trigger an investigation.

This fall, attention returned to the Pattiz case as the #MeToo movement emerged and led to vast numbers of women speaking out about sexual harassment. Student protesters demanded his resignation, UC employees threatened a constitutional amendment to make it possible to fire a regent, and three fellow regents raised the matter again with board Chair George Kieffer.

In his resignation letter to Kieffer, Pattiz did not mention the sexual harassment accusation but said it was time to retire after 16 years on the board.

Serving the greatest educational institution in the world has been a privilege and a pleasure, Pattiz wrote, noting that he will retire Feb. 16. Thats when Regent Ellen Tauscher will take over Pattizs key role as chairman of the Boards of Governors for Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories, which are managed in part by UC.

Pattiz, 74, has been a regent since 2001 and was reappointed to a new 12-year term in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Kieffer accepted Pattizs decision, saying, After so many years you deserve a break.

The controversy came to light in October 2016, when actress Heather McDonald posted the recording of Pattizs comments on her Juicy Scoop podcast, which by then was no longer hosted by Podcast One, Pattizs Los Angeles company.

McDonald also said she often felt uncomfortable during her weekly visits to the recording studio because Pattiz repeatedly commented on her appearance or joked about following her into the restroom.

A second woman, Ji Min Park, told the Los Angeles Times in 2016 that she left Podcast One that year after Pattiz frequently commented on her looks and made other demeaning remarks, including telling her she was the hottest Asian hed ever seen. Park told the Times that Pattiz later apologized.

Pattiz has denied creating a hostile work environment and has apologized for the recorded remarks. He could not be reached for comment Thursday.

McDonald said she was thrilled to learn that Pattiz is leaving the regents.

I just didnt want this type of person making decisions about student life and tuition and everything else, she told The Chronicle. Im very happy.

Student Regent Paul Monge expressed satisfaction at Thursdays announcement. In November, he joined Regents Gavin Newsom, the states lieutenant governor, and Tom Torlakson, the state superintendent of public instruction, in asking Kieffer what had been done to discipline and investigate Pattiz.

For months now, students have been unwavering in arguing that Regent Pattizs continued presence on the board is inconsistent with the UCs commitment to addressing the culture of sexual harassment and sexual violence on our campuses, Monge said. We appreciate that Regent Pattiz has come to understand this and has agreed to step down.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
Officials with the San Francisco branch of the FBI confirmed today that they have captured the "Orange Goatee Bandit," a suspect they asked the community for help in locating after he robbed banks in Fremont and Millbrae within a matter of days of each other earlier this month.

The suspect was arrested in Colorado for allegedly committing similar crimes there. He remains in custody.
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The son of a top Mexican drug cartel member lived the high life while he was committing crimes, according to the photos posted on an Instagram account that bears his name.

Damaso Lopez Serrano, nicknamed El Mini Lic, turned himself into U.S. authorities on Wednesday, after reportedly crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in California at Calexico.

CARTEL WAR: A major player in the struggle for control of the Sinaloa cartel just surrendered in the US

Serrano is the son of Damaso Lopez Nunez, a man believed to be one of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's top henchman and now competitor for control of the Sinaloa cartel, reports Business Insider.

Story continues below...

Blog Del Narco first linked the Instagram account @damasojrminilic to Nunez's son Serrano. The account features the younger cartel member surrounded by gold-plated guns and drugs.

THE NEXT GENERATION OF CARTEL: No one parties like the son of 'El Chapo'

Cars and exotic pets like tigers and leopards are also flaunted on the account.

Flaunting ill-gotten gains on social media is common for young narcos. Accounts reportedly tied to El Chapo's sons also showcase guns, exotic cars and private planes.

Serrano's father helped Guzman escape from a Mexican prison in 2001, according to Mexican TV station Noticieros. After Guzman's latest arrest, Nunez attempted to take over the Sinaloa cartel. Since then, Serrano has been battling with Guzman's sons.

BUSTED: Mexico arrests major Sinaloa Cartel operator

Mexican authorities told Notcieros that Serrano turned himself in as a protected witness and to escape escalating violence surrounding the cartel.

Click through the slideshow above to see how Serrano lived his life with the drug cartel.
Zenplace, a property management startup in San Francisco, is using robots to lead prospective tenants around for showings. The startup says it wants to make the scheduling process easier for real estate agents and tenants; apparently the best way to do that is to switch out a human body for 3-foot-tall robotic devices.

Realtors can control the robots remotely from anywhere. During showing hours, if a tenant walks by a Zenplace home, they can schedule a tour either by smartphone or just by unlocking the front door. The app provides an access code for the door and step-by-step instructions for dealing with the real estate robot.
WARRI, Nigeria  Itohen used to sell secondhand clothes in Nigerias Edo state before she was lured at age 24 into a trip abroad. A woman told her and others they could be nannies in France. Itohen said she traveled through Niger and Libya with 150 others who hoped to make it to Europe. At least 20 died along the way from dehydration, hunger and illness.

Many girls were raped in the course of our journey, even in the camps where the traffickers kept us before being handed over to Libya militiamen, she said, giving only her partial name for fear of retaliation. I was lucky because I disguised as a boy before we left Nigeria.

Two weeks ago, she disembarked from a plane and came home. She is among the thousands of West African migrants being repatriated by their governments amid outrage over recent video footage in Libya showing a migrant slave auction.

As many as 700,000 migrants are stranded in dozens of camps across Libya, and a new emergency task force with the backing of the European Union, African Union and United Nations aims to send 15,000 of them home by February.

Exhausted and regretful, many migrants speak of dreams lost and trust broken.

Now the returnees are posing a challenge. Back home, they face the same conditions that led them to leave: high unemployment, often weak economies, an increasingly harsh climate.

Governments across Africa are under pressure to give their citizens a reason to stay.

The EU launched a $166 million project last year with the International Organization for Migration to assist migrants repatriating to some 14 countries. It has helped in the voluntary return of over 15,000 migrants. In Nigeria, the project says it has created 300 jobs. It is not clear how many jobs have been created overall.

Local governments are launching their own efforts. Nigerias Edo state, the source of about 80 percent of the countrys migrants, is creating farming projects to help returnees. Governor Godwin Obaseki this month approved 370 acres of land and more than $326,000 for 150 people who returned from Libya a year ago and completed agribusiness training.

Nigeria, which has the highest number of illegal and legal immigrants in Libya, has taken the lead in bringing people home even as the lure of Europe remains.

Solomon Okodugha, a Nigerian deported from Libya four years ago, said governments, aid groups and others must join hands to tackle what comes next as thousands return.

More than 6,600 Nigerians have been repatriated so far this year.

Hilary Uguru is an Associated Press writer.
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BEIJING  China on Friday denied violating U.N.-imposed limits on oil supplies to North Korea after President Trump criticized Beijing for allowing oil to reach the North.

Beijing has completely and strictly complied with sanctions meant to discourage leader Kim Jong Uns government from pursuing nuclear and missile technology, said a foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying.

A South Korean newspaper said this week, citing unidentified officials, that ships believed to be Chinese transferred oil to North Korean vessels at sea.

Trump said on Twitter he was very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea.

China is North Koreas main trading partner and energy supplier. The U.N. sanctions allow limited supplies of oil but prohibit transfers of any goods to North Korean vessels at sea.

Beijing, long North Koreas main diplomatic protector, has expressed growing frustration with its nuclear and missile tests. It supported the latest sanctions but argues against any steps that might harm the Norths public or destabilize its government.

China has been completely and strictly implementing Security Council resolutions and fulfilling our international obligations, Hua said at a regular news briefing. We will never allow Chinese citizens and enterprises to engage in activities that violate Security Council resolutions.

Hua said authorities investigated a report a Chinese ship that she didnt identify transferred oil to a North Korean ship at sea on Oct. 19 and concluded it was false.

The U.S. Treasury Department released satellite photos in November that showed what it said was a North Korean ship receiving oil from an unidentified vessel on Oct. 19.

On Friday, South Korean authorities said they seized a Hong Kong-flagged vessel suspected of transferring oil to a North Korean vessel at sea on Oct. 19.

The Lighthouse Winmore is believed to have transferred about 600 tons of refined petroleum products to the Sam Jong 2 after leaving the South Korean port of Yeosu, the South Korean government said. The ship was seized when it returned to Yeosu.
1 Yemen conflict: The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen says Saudi-led coalition air strikes have killed 109 civilians over the past 10 days. Jamie McGoldrick said Thursday that those killed include at least 54 in air strikes on a market in the western province of Taiz, and 14 people from the same family in an air strike on a farm in Hodeida province. The coalition, backing an internationally recognized government, has been at war with Iran-allied Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, since March 2015. The stalemated war has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced 3 million, damaged critical infrastructure and pushed the country to the brink of famine.

2 Zimbabwe swearing-in: A former general who led the ouster of Zimbabwes founding leader has been sworn in as vice president. The appointment of Constantino Chiwenga had been widely anticipated amid concerns about the militarys influence on new President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The military stepped in last month and forced the departure of Robert Mugabe as Zimbabweans feared his unpopular wife was preparing to succeed him. Mnangagwa has spelled out benefits for Mugabe, including government-funded accommodation, office space and personnel, a luxury Mercedes-Benz vehicle, security details, and first-class air travel abroad at least four times a year.
WARSAW Two Turkish journalists face possible life sentences on charges they sent subliminal messages on television encouraging a government coup. In Hungary, oligarchs loyal to the prime minister have gained control of much of the media after the leading independent newspaper was shut down. And in Poland, a reporter is being threatened with a military trial for writing a book critical of the defense minister.

These are trying and dangerous times for the media in countries that until recently had begun embracing democratic norms of free expression. News organizations are under attack in dramatic ways, as elected governments turn public outlets into their mouthpieces and try to silence critical voices.

Michael Abramowitz, president of democracy watchdog Freedom House, said whether governments imprison journalists or flood the public sphere with misinformation, their goal is the same  to ensure that negative coverage about the regime is marginalized and positive coverage dominates, especially for the plurality of citizens whose support you need to continue to rule.

In undermining free expression, some of these governments have portrayed the press not as a pillar of a democratic society but as a threat to it.

Its an issue of growing interest in the U.S., where President Trump condemns unfavorable coverage as fake news and brands journalists enemies of the people.

Lata Nott, executive director of the First Amendment Center at the Newseum Institute in Washington, said the threat in the U.S. is not that First Amendment press protections will be directly overturned, but that the administrations continued attacks could sow so much distrust that attempts to undermine the media will become accepted. She cited Trumps suggestion earlier this year that the government could challenge NBCs broadcast license, after he was angered by a national security story.

I think some of what Trump says is just bluster, Nott said. But there are some times where it becomes a tangible threat, and thats what I worry about.

In theory, Turkey, Hungary and Poland also guarantee freedom of speech and of the press. The principles were enshrined in the Polish and Hungarian constitutions following the collapse of communism in 1989, and in Turkeys constitution decades earlier.

Vanessa Gera is an Associated Press writer.
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It may not look like it today, with the cloud covering over Canberra, but we'll be starting the new year with a mostly sunny day.

In the lead up to New Year's Day on Monday, Friday will be wet, most likely in the late afternoon, with Saturday to have the same conditions. We can expect a top of 29 to 30 degrees.

Weatherzone meteorologist Joel Pippard said the rain will clear away by New Year's Eve and a top of 28 degrees is forecast.

"By midnight on New Year's Eve, winds should be light at that time so there should be no problems with fireworks or anything like that," Mr Pippard said.

"For New Year's Day, it's looking to be a mostly clear day for Canberra, looking at a fairly sunny day with a top of 29 degrees.
His original hat had obviously been through the wringer, battered and torn.

But don't worry, it's just the hat retiring, not him.

Tim the Yowie Man and his Akubra 2.0 - ready for new adventures together.

Tim the Yowie Man is hanging up his much-loved Akubra hat.

His hat is as famous as Molly Meldrum's Stetson.

Tim the Yowie Man's old battered - and very well-travelled - hat. Credit:Emma Minion

"It's actually held together by gaffer tape and staples," Tim said, with a laugh.

The Akubra has been with him for 23 years, his constant companion as it travelled the world with him.

"It went to every corner of the globe," Tim said. "From the frozen Arctic Circle to ancient pyramids in Samoa."

And like any loyal friend, the hat was difficult to discard.
Two inmates have been hospitalised after a spate of drug overdoses inside Canberra's prison over the Christmas period.

It is understood as many as four prisoners overdosed in the lead-up to Christmas, with at least one man taken to Canberra Hospital in a coma.

There has been a spate of overdoses inside Canberra's prison in the lead-up to Christmas. Credit:Jay Cronan

One of the two men who had been taken to hospital was a convicted murderer, two prison sources told Fairfax Media.

The spike in prison overdoses comes just seven months after inmate Mark Anthony O'Connor, 29, collapsed and died inside the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
The boom in social media use has created a trove of data about consumers, and the finance sector is keen to put this information to use. Banks, insurers, credit bureaux and financial technology companies are working at ways to use this data to verify your identity, and figure out the risks of lending you money, or providing insurance. That means that just as banks have traditionally looked at your job, your income, and your spending habits, they may soon be keen to also look at your Facebook friends, or who you engage with on Twitter. Indeed, it is already happening overseas and there are moves to introduce such a system in Australia. China's government is creating a massive "social credit" system that aims by 2020 to have a database rating all of its citizens on their trustworthiness. Social scoring

In late 2017, an Australian start-up called Lodex launched with the goal of introducing "social scoring" locally, another way of predicting credit risk. The idea is that customers can apply to have their "social score", which is determined by an algorithm that sifts through their email account, and that banks will use this information alongside more traditional credit scores when assessing clients. The platform then acts as a "market place" for loans and deposits. Banks and brokers can look at a customer's traditional credit score, and their social score, and then bid for their business. Lodex co-founder Michael Phillipou says at this stage no banks are offering loans based on social scores, but he is hopeful this will change if he can prove the predictive power of social scoring. Wed like to believe that in the short term, well be able to demonstrate some correlation and it will be up to discussions with those individual lenders and organisations to take the insights which social credit scoring can offer.

Identity checks Fintechs such as peer-to-peer lender Moneyplace also look at a customer's social media as part of their identity checks, to prevent loan fraud. So, how can a business figure out whether to trust you based on your social media accounts or email? Phillipou says if a customer wants a "social score" through Lodex, they can allow an algorithm to plug into their main email and look at "12,000 variables within their email and contacts". This includes such details as how quickly you respond to an email and whether you write a title in the subject line. The idea is that when all 12,000 variables are put together and analysed, it produces a score which can help predict whether you will repay the loan.

Whats been shown is that the way you interact with friends, family and acquaintances, the behavioural analysis correlates to how you will behave when youre going to pay back credit with a bank, Phillipou says. Semantic analysis Suncorp's Trustbond works differently, but it is a similar concept. The founder of Suncorp's partner Traity, Juan Cartagena, says the company sifts through data obtained through platforms including Twitter, Airbnb, and Facebook. One technique it uses is "semantic analysis", looking at things such as reviews of you as a guest on Airbnb, to build a picture of how likely you are to look after a property. If people say that you are a wonderful guest, you will be in the top 90th percentile of all Airbnb. If people say you are a nice guest, you are in the lowest 10th percentile, he says.

It may also collect information from your digital social network including your friends, photos, tweets, "likes", followers and status updates. Cartagena says the technology could potentially be used in all sorts of scenarios where people find it hard to prove they can be trusted financially. This happens to all sorts of people. Young families, freelancers, migrants  people who dont have a traditional blue-chip background. They are subject to the evils of the traditional credit industry. Data assets Suncorp's executive general manager of global partners, Nigel ORorke, says Trustbond is also a test for people owning their own data and using this as an asset.

Your digital profile is an asset  and it can be used to determine whether youre suitable for tenancy, O'Rorke says. KPMG's national leader for banking and global co-lead for fintech, Ian Pollari, says the move towards a "gig economy" is another reason why banks are increasingly keen to look through customers' digital footprints. If more people move towards contract work, with less-stable incomes, banks will need to look at other ways of assessing risk, aside from traditional data such as pay slips, or your employment. As more people move to contract forms of employment, this will become an important dimension, Pollari says. It is also a way to target millennial customers who may have less of a credit history.

The 2017 breach of US credit bureau Equifax, in which a cyber attack affected the financial data of up to 143 million Americans, illustrates the serious privacy and security issues at stake. Credit:AP Privacy concerns But what about the obvious privacy concerns? The 2017 breach of US credit bureau Equifax, in which a cyber attack affected the financial data of up to 143 million Americans, illustrates the serious privacy and security issues at stake. Lodex's Phillipou points out that having a "social score" is completely optional.

He says the algorithm looks only at metadata, not personal information. Its service is provided by Lenddo, which he says operates in 20 countries overseas, and has never had a breach of data. Cartagena acknowledges customers are worried such technology will probe what they get up to in their private lives, but he says this isn't the goal when it is trawling through Facebook. People always think of the example, oh, you are going to look at my drunk pictures," he says. "Its not like that, its more about consistency of the network. You say that you live in Sydney, do you have any friends in Sydney? You say that you studied at Harvard, do you have many friends from Harvard? Cartagena says. Whether Australian consumers are willing to allow such detailed sharing of their personal information with big companies remains to be seen.
Malcolm Turnbull is pushing for a significant overhaul of national security laws and ASIO director-general Duncan Lewis has declared that espionage and foreign interference in Australia is "an insidious threat". Lewis has described the threat today as unprecedented.

These are surprisingly strong words, but are they warranted, and is the government overreacting?

It's worthwhile putting these remarks in historical perspective. Lewis' declarations suggest he perceives the threats to be greater than those associated with the Soviet penetration of the Australian government in the 1940s. That was when Soviet penetration of Australia's Department of External Affairs almost broke Australia's security ties with Britain and the United States, and led to ASIO's formation in 1949.

David Horner and Des Ball detailed what that penetration involved in Breaking the Codes and Horner further elaborated on the political damage of excessive secrecy in The Spy Catchers.
Kiribati was the first country to welcome in the New Year. It's a tiny Pacific island right beside the International Date Line and they celebrated New Year's Eve just like everywhere else on earth.

A young couple, Safaila and Tiaon, were heading to a friend's party by the lagoon and they stopped on the way to pick up a bottle of bubbly kava.

Yep, fireworks. Just for a change. Credit:Stephen Harman

Tiaon wanted to buy the cheap sparkling kava, but Safaila said: "Come on! It's New Year's! We're getting the expensive French kava! Sometimes you can be such a tightarse!" So she bought the fancy stuff, they had a massive argument, and they didn't talk to each other for the rest of the night. The bottle didn't even get opened at the party, so Tiaon snuck it home at the end of the night in a Go Green supermarket recyclable bag.

New Year's Eve now travelled across New Zealand, over the eastern seaboard of Australia, arriving in the Papua New Guinean highlands.
Justice Hayne was famous for what former chief justice Robert French termed his "devastating questions" to counsel. Credit:High Court of Australia A Sydney silk said Hayne, a former Rhodes scholar, is "super intelligent" but could be "rude" and "very dismissive" of barristers in court. "If he heard an argument he didn't like he would actually turn his chair around," the silk said. Many of these exchanges have gained a cult following on the Tumblr blog "Shitjudgessay", which bears the tongue-in-cheek claim it is run by former High Court justice William Gummow. Famous for what former chief justice Robert French termed his "devastating questions" to counsel, Hayne was fond of telling barristers they should be wary of the "knife in the napkin", or that it would be "unwise to go back into the lion's den to recover one's hat". Treasurer Scott Morrison describes Kenneth Hayne as a "jurist of impeccable standing". Credit:Alex Ellinghausen In 1997, former prime minister John Howard was looking for a judge to settle what was seen as an increasingly activist High Court, after former chief justice Sir Anthony Mason declared "the protection of individual rights is better left in the hands of judges than it is in the hands of politicians" three years earlier.

He appointed Hayne, a QC and highly regarded Victorian Court of Appeal judge, in September that year. As a judge, Kenneth Hayne held banks "responsible to their customers not only in contract, but also for damage to reputation". Credit:Paul Rovere Two decades later, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Treasurer Scott Morrison and Financial Services Minister Kelly O'Dwyer turned to Hayne to placate activists of a different kind. They asked him to lead the banking inquiry they didn't want but couldn't avoid. But Hayne has never been a stooge of the government. In 2014, he delivered a dissenting judgment after 157 Tamil asylum seekers were held by the Australian navy at sea, and would have allowed them to seek damages from the Commonwealth. "He is a jurist of impeccable standing, and I would have thought he would have been completely unchallenged in his suitability for the role," says Morrison, who was the immigration minister when the asylum seekers were intercepted. "If you can pick him on your team you will."

In fact, Hayne has taken on the banks before. He was one of three judges to order Westpac to pay a $50,000 fine for dishonouring 30 rent cheques sent by a real estate agent from Auburn in Sydney's west, "to hold banks responsible to their customers not only in contract, but also for damage to reputation". He has been on the other side of the fence as a barrister too, helping the Bank of Melbourne settle a $65 million sale of two life insurance companies. But this latest task is much bigger, and will require Hayne to choose what to cover in the limited time available, under very broad terms of reference that will include not only the banks, but superannuation funds, mortgage brokers and pay-day lenders as well. Ben Whitwell, a commercial lawyer at Slater and Gordon, says the inclusion of pay-day lenders and mortgage brokers is a "double-edged sword". "The greater scope hasn't been met with an increase in time for the commissioner to carry out inquiries in those additional areas," he says. "[A year] is a manifestly inadequate amount of time to give proper consideration to the lens of the inquiry."

Those familiar with Hayne's work ethic have no such doubts. "I've seen outstanding barristers in action and have been very impressed by their capacity to extract what really matters from crushing amounts of material; Ken has developed that skill to an exceptional level, both at the bar and in the High Court," Crommelin says. Former royal commissioner Neville Owen, who led the 2001 investigation into the failure of HIH, believes the tight time frame can be an advantage. "It causes you to focus your mind and get on with the job," Owen said in December. "There comes a time when the findings you make and the report you make are too distant from the problems that have arisen to be of any real use." Professor Cheryl Saunders, who has worked with Hayne for several years, says he would have thought very seriously before agreeing to take on the commission and how he could serve the public interest.

"I imagine that each of the main protagonists will be trying to protect their patch. This may be the biggest challenge; trying to cut through the thicket of representations to the commission," she says. "He strongly believes in the value of law and the legal system, and has a very structural approach to problem-solving. He likes to see the big picture." When Hayne retired from the High Court in June 2015, after 18 years on the bench, he was replaced by his wife and former Federal Court judge Michelle Gordon. Both Gordon and Hayne continued to teach, sometimes together, at the University of Melbourne while they were on the bench and still do so today, after Hayne also took the unusual step of returning to practice as a barrister after leaving the High Court. "When people leave the bench they don't want to become hermits, they want to continue to mix with the people in their field," says Saunders.

"It's a real labour of love," adds Crommelin. But the phalanx of QCs set to appear before the royal commission should not expect any hand-holding. Victorian barrister James Peters, QC, a former president of the Victorian Bar, says he appeared before Hayne in a number of cases in the Victorian Supreme Court. He says he was "very generous" to junior lawyers and championed diversity in the profession. "He wasn't terrifying, [but] he was to the point," Peters says. "You're unwise to dwell too long on a point that's already accepted, or not a good one."

In one of many exchanges with former solicitor-general Justin Gleeson, SC, Hayne warned: "If you sit on the fence too long, Mr Solicitor, it becomes deeply uncomfortable." In another instance he asked prominent NSW barrister Bret Walker, SC: "What exactly are we meant to do with the last three minutes of your submissions? "Can I tell you what I take from it?" he continued. "That if there is an elephant in the room we are not to look at it." Peters says Hayne is "definitely his own man - it's neither wise nor possible to dictate to him". Loading
When households gather on Sunday night to watch the Sydney New Year's Eve fireworks and dance along to a score of classic rock, pop and alternative music, few would know that the fireworks were designed to accompany the broadcasted soundtrack, not the other way around.

New Year's Eve Sydney's soundtrack producer Alex Gooden has spent the past three years sifting through tracks and sampling sections of songs to create the soundtracks for the eight minute-long 9pm family fireworks and the 12-minute midnight displays.

Alex Gooden has produced the music soundtrack for the 2017 NYE fireworks displays. Credit:Katherine Griffiths

Love was the inspiration for this year's soundtrack, he said.

"We've just had a significant milestone in the country's history with the marriage equality plebiscite. I am very proud of the country and it's a nice kind of tip to the hat to acknowledge that this has happened," Gooden said.
A twice bankrupted self-styled "Lord" who claims he is the illegitimate son of Prince Philip has launched legal action to get part of his late aunt's $7 million estate.

There was no mention of an Andrew, let alone "Lord Andrew Battenberg", in the death notice of Blanche Millie Condon of Kensington, which appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald in December 2016. Instead, the notice of the 86-year-old's death read: "Beloved wife of James (deceased). Dear sister of Ruth and Harold (deceased). Much loved aunt of Robyn, Bruce, Merryn, Wayne and David."

"Lord Andrew Battenberg", who claims to be Prince Philip's love child. Credit:Edwina Pickles

Mrs Condon's brother Harold Lee, a banker, and his wife, Ailsa, had adopted Andrew from Hornsby Hospital in August 1962. He has since claimed that when he was 21 a mysterious letter arrived from England, containing the Barony of Craigstown and access to an endowment in the form of the Battenberg Trust 103.

In reality, Andrew Lee purchased the title himself and began styling himself as Lord Andrew of Craigstown. He then changed his name to Lord Andrew Battenberg and, while bankrupted in Australia for not paying the costs of a failed lawsuit against his previous solicitors, he moved to Scotland in 2004 where he changed his name again to Lord Leitrim.
A new program at the University of Sydney will see its brightest senior students running mentoring groups for top performing high school graduates, with critics saying it is a "waste of resources" that doesn't "provide the opportunity to students who need it most".

From next year, incoming students with an ATAR score above 98, and first year uni students with an average grade above 80 per cent, will be invited to join the University's Dalyell Scholars Program.

The Dalyell Scholars program will give students the chance to undertake additional units in "Great Books" and access "enrichment opportunities". Credit:Paul Jones

The Dalyell Scholars program will give students the chance to undertake additional units in "Great Books" and access "enrichment opportunities", including acceleration to master's level study and a "tailored mentoring and professional skill development to enhance your study and career opportunities", an email sent to high-achieving older students in the Faculty of Arts said.

According to Murdoch University Associate Professor Dr Laura Perry, it's clear initiatives like the Dalyell Scholars program are less about equity and enrichment, and more about "trying to compete with other elite universities for these high achieving students".
Police armed with rifles, undercover cops, the bomb squad and road barriers will support uniform officers on Sunday night, during a major security operation on New Year's Eve in Brisbane.

Superintendent Tony Fleming, who has been tasked with leading the security efforts for the festive celebrations, said there would be a heavy presence of uniform officers supported by a strong overwatch network.

Public transport will be fare-free from 8.45pm on New Years Eve until 5.30am on New Years Day to help revellers escape the city after their celebrations finish. Credit:Glenn Hunt

Road closures, road barriers, undercover officers and uniform police would be at the forefront of the security operation on New Year's Eve, with the bomb squad and heavily armed police ready to go if needed.

He emphasised on Friday that there was no known threat to Queensland and urged those planning on coming to Brisbane to "be alert, not alarmed".
The historic Kevington Hotel sits in such a quiet pocket of north-eastern Victoria that there is no store, no cafe and  gasp -- no mobile phone coverage.

But life at the 'Kevington Hilton', built into a curve of Woods Point Road, 45km south of Mansfield, is never dull.

Four wheel drives, fishing and good times: Wayne Poole at the Kevington Hotel, built in 1862 - in Victoria's north-eastern high country - which is for sale. Credit:Jason South

Ever since Wayne and Lyn-Maree Poole took over the 155-year-old hotel 10 years ago, they've met a weird and wonderful array of characters.

There was the couple who parked their six camels outside. Which they had walked 1700km, from Ipswich, Queensland.
What could be more Melbourne than whingeing about Metro trains, talking about the weather and predicting the Melbourne Cup winner?

Nothing, it seems, if social media is any guide.

Media monitoring firm Meltwater tracked what people said about Melbourne on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram through September, October and November.

Over the three months, Meltwater found 2.58 million social media posts about Melbourne.
In her absence, councillor Jemma Green was surprisingly elected Acting Lord Mayor after the council became deadlocked attempting to vote in Ms Scaffidi's temporary replacement. 7. Esperance shark attack On the morning of April 18, news broke a surfer had been attacked by a shark off the coast of Esperance. 17-year-old Laeticia Brouwer was in Esperance with her family for the Easter long weekend when they decided to head out to Kelp Beds for a surf. Laeticia was out surfing with her father and sister when she was attacked by a shark just after 4pm.

She was seriously mauled on one of her legs, leading to massive blood loss, and was unconscious when she was pulled to shore. The 17-year-old Singleton Beach local passed away from her injuries, and both the Esperance and Mandurah communities mourned with the Brouwer family. Laeticia Brouwer (left) was fatally attacked by a shark on a WA beach. More than a hundred people gathered at Singleton Beach to pay a heartfelt tribute to her, and the Brouwer family posted a message addressed to the Esperance community, thanking them for their support. We have been overwhelmed with care and love from the Esperance community and the people that helped," they wrote.

"There were people standing on the beach with my younger daughters for a long time that I didn't get to thank. "The nurse who did CPR while I breathed for Teesh. All the paramedics involved and the police officers who went above and beyond. "We thank you all. "We loved Esperance and will miss our morning skate to the Coffee Cat in the mornings." 6. Perth Stadium nears completion

It's the project plagued by hundreds of issues, but the much-anticipated new stadium is almost ready and raring to go. The $1.6 billion, 60,000-seat stadium did not come cheap to taxpayers, but it's already being heralded as the "biggest WA drawcard" to date. Cost-blow outs and naming rights put a hamper on the State Government's celebrations, but a series of events tipped to be hosted on the stadium's calender are sure to get tongues wagging. Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Women's AFL, a West Coast Eagles-opener and more - the 2018 stadium schedule is looking bright. An overview of the parks and facilities surrounding Perth Stadium.

5. The Western Force rollercoaster ride Western Force fans across the state were outraged when Rugby Australia announced it would axe the Force from its SuperRugby competition. The WA club lost its fight with Australian Rugby Union in August, when the ARU won its arbitration case against Rugby WA and said it would discontinue the Western Force Super Rugby licence. But the fight didn't end there. RugbyWA took the ARU to the Supreme Court of NSW after the decision, and even mining magnate Andrew Forrest got behind the boys in royal blue.

The axing of the Western Force has overshadowed the Wallabies Test. Credit:AAP 4. WA Senator Scott Ludlam kicks off the citizenship crisis It was the move that made waves across the country. Greens WA Senator Scott Ludlam was the first politician to discover he was ineligible to stand at last year's election back in July due to section 44 of the Australian Constitution, and was consequently the first domino to fall in a long line of dual-citizenship pollies. The Western Australian, who was born in New Zealand but left when he was a child, was told he remained a dual citizen, meaning he was disqualified from running for office at the 2007, 2013 and 2016 elections.

Senators who have left the 45th Parliament. Clockwise from top left: Scott Ludlam, Sam Dastyari, Skye Kakoschke-Moore, Malcolm Roberts, Chris Back, Larissa Waters, Jacqui Lambie, Stephen Conroy, Stephen Parry, Nick Xenophon, Rod Culleton, Fiona Nash and Bob Day. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen 3. The murder of Aaron Pajich In November, Jemma Lilley and Trudi Lenon were found guilty of the teen's murder after a five week trial in the Supreme Court of Western Australia. The trial uncovered grisly information of the beloved boy's final moments, after he went missing in June this year. Aaron Pajich, an 18-year-old teenager with Asperger's syndrome, disappeared on June 18, and his body was discovered in the backyard of Lilley's Orelia home.

Homicide detectives said they believed they had stopped a serial killer-in-the-making when they arrested 26-year-old Lilley and her housemate, Lenon, 43. The court heard of Lilley's strange "darkness", including her fantasies about killing someone, her affinity with fictional serial killer Freddy Krueger and the bizarre fictional book she wrote based on a serial killer. When they killed Mr Pajich, it's understood Lilley and Lenon thought no one would miss him. They were wrong. His parents Sharon Pajich and Keith Sweetman, and step-mother Veronica Desmond continued to make public appeals for their son, and when police confirmed his body had been found buried underneath a concrete slab, the community mourned.

Following the pair's conviction, Sharon spoke to the media outside the courtroom. "I'm happy with the outcome, now that we've got justice, I hope I can move on and I'd like to thank the detectives for what they've done," she said. "It's heartbreaking to see what's happened to your boy. They deserve everything they get for what they've done. They've taken an innocent boy away from his loved ones." Hundreds came to pay tribute to teenager Aaron Pajich on Tuesday, whose death sent shockwaves through the community. Credit:Heather McNeill 2. The Australia Day tragedy

The Lotterywest Skyshow over the Swan River draws thousands of people to the foreshore each year on Australia Day. However on January 26 2017, a light plane crashed into the Swan River in front of thousands of horrified onlookers moments before the Skyshow was set to begin.. Pilot and owner of the plane Peter Lynch, 52, and his partner Endah Aricakrawati, 30, died when the 1948-built Grumman Mallard plane crashed into the river, and the City of Perth celebrations were cancelled while WA Police and authorities commenced an investigation into the horrific accident. Acting WA Police Commissioner Stephen Brown was at the foreshore event preparing for a live television cross when he heard what happened. "People around me were screaming out and turning their heads," he told Radio 6PR.
The day after Donald Trump was inaugurated on Friday, January 20, Spicer called his first White House press briefing, two days earlier than planned. Spicer was furious. He accused the press of deliberately underestimating the size of the inaugural crowd  about a third the size of Obama's first inauguration  in its reporting the previous day in order to "lessen the enthusiasm" for the President. This had been "the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe", and he accused the media of reporting false crowd estimates. That this was obviously untrue to anyone who attended the event, or watched it on TV, or compared photographs of the event to previous inaugurations, or considered the crowd estimates of local police and public transport officials did not matter. During the Trump administration truth would no longer be tethered to any mooring in reality, it would be a declaration of political intent and tribalism. A few days later Spicer's colleague Kellyanne Conway confirmed this when she defended Spicer during a live interview, saying he had not been lying, simply offering "alternative facts". Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th President of the United States on January 20 in Washington. Credit:AP Lacking the White House's keen sense of the post-modern absurd, much of the press corps set about keeping a tally of Trump's lies. According to The New York Times by mid-December he had told 103 "lies or falsehoods" compared with 18 during the same period for Barack Obama. The Washington Post was far testier, measuring 1628 false or misleading statements in the year to mid-November.

The 'Pharma Bro' Clearly the tone of the Trump administration had been set the previous year as he campaigned. One man particularly well-adapted to the new ways was Martin Shkreli. Known in the US as the Pharma Bro, Shkreli became a public figure in 2015 when his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, purchased the rights to a crucial HIV drug, Daraprim, and jacked up the price by 5000 per cent from $US13.50 to $US750 per tablet. Shkreli spent some of his new wealth buying unreleased recordings by bands including the Wu-Tang Clan. As Trump closed in on victory last year, Shkreli announced via Twitter he would celebrate Trump's win by releasing the unpublished copyrighted music for free. Martin Shkreli became known in the US as the Pharma Bro. Credit:Bloomberg His comeuppance finally came in June 2017, when he faced a trial for securities fraud. For days the court struggled to lock in a jury because, it turned out, so many people hated him.

Harpers Magazine published excerpts of the selection process: Juror No. 1: I'm aware of the defendant and I hate him ... I think he's a greedy little man.

Juror No.52: When I walked in here today I looked at him, and in my head, that's a snake - not knowing who he was. I just walked in and looked right at him and that's a snake."

Juror No.28: Is he stupid or greedy? I can't understand.

Juror No.144: I don't think I can [be open-minded] because he kind of looks like a dick.

Juror No.77: You'd have to convince me he was innocent rather than guilty.

Juror No.125: I already sense the man is guilty.

Juror No.59: It's my attitude toward his entire demeanour, what he has done to people.

The court: All right. We are going to excuse you, sir.

Juror No.59: And he disrespected the Wu-Tang Clan. Shkreli was eventually convicted and released on bail pending sentencing, which was revoked when he offered, via Facebook, $5000 to anyone who could bring him a strand of Hillary Clinton's hair. He is now in jail. Celebrities and politics collide There were moments this year when pop culture collided with news in ways that would have previously been unimaginable.

During the US election campaign, Julian Assange's special loathing for Clinton became clear with his own public statements, as did apparent ties between WikiLeaks and Russia and Trump. Nigel Farage, the right-wing Brexit campaigner, paraded around Trump's nomination convention in Cleveland as a VIP guest, only to beat a path straight to Assange's spider-hole in the Ecuadorian Embassy the moment he returned to Britain. The Trump adviser Roger Stone, who maintains close ties to both his own Russian contacts and the Trump campaign, was able to foreshadow anti-Hillary document drops from WikiLeaks, documents which appeared to come from Russian hacking of Democratic Party computer files. Minutes after The Washington Post released video tape of Trump boasting how he liked to "grab" women "by the pussy", Assange was at work releasing documents damaging to the Clinton campaign. WikiLeaks' Julian Assange on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Credit:AP But it took Pamela Anderson's appearance to give an already weird story the full 2017 treatment. Rumours of a romance between Assange and Anderson bubbled around early in the year, and in April Anderson published a poem on her blog about their special relationship. In an exhaustive profile of Assange published in August, a writer for The New Yorker describes how one of his interviews with Assange in the embassy was interrupted at length by a visit from Anderson. He listened through the door as Assange lectured her.

"Hours go by, and I take a lot of notes," she later told the interviewer of their conversations. By then the barriers between political and celebrity culture in the US that had been eroding for years had finally collapsed and the following month Anderson's former husband, the country-rap star Kid Rock, made his first speech in support of a potential bid for a Michigan Senate seat. He noted that "God has blessed me and made my pockets fat", but argued that "a redistribution of wealth seems more like [the Democratic Party's] plan, and I don't believe that you should say, 'Sacrifice, do things by the book, and then have to take care of some deadbeat milking the system, lazy ass motherf---ing man.'" Crunching the numbers, few political analysts were willing to rule Mr Rock out as a viable candidate and a couple of Republican political action committees said they would support him. Last month he said the whole thing had been a stunt, as though that makes any difference these days.

Race relations By August some of the only stable themes of the year were clear. Trump was the most unpopular new president in modern history, having failed to either wedge the Democrats with the infrastructure spending bill or reward Republican loyalty by destroying Obamacare as promised. But he had maintained the support of his nationalistic base, including the majority of Republican voters. He kept the faith of the former even when a gathering of far right-wing activists groups in Charlottesville, Virginia, descended into violent mayhem, leading to the murder of Heather Heyer, a protester against the rallying racists. A white supremacist gives a Nazi salute in Charlottesville. Credit:New York Times In normal circumstances the political playbook here was clear. A president would unequivocally condemn the group that had been filmed chanting "Sieg Heil" and "blood and soil" and offer the nation's condolences to Heyer's grieving family. Instead in the hours after her death on Saturday, August 12, Trump found an equivalence between the groups of protesters, declaring: "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides."

This language was reported to have originated with Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart boss who had harnessed the political power of nationalism and hitched it to Trump's wagon early in the presidential campaign. Trump stood by his comments days later, telling reporters: "You also had some very fine people on both sides." And in a peculiarly 2017 twist he went on to plug a local vineyard that he owned. "I know a lot about Charlottesville," he said. "It's a great place that has been badly hurt over the last couple days. I own one of the largest wineries in the United States. It is in Charlottesville." The virtue of wealth Trump's administration has been good to people who own lots of things, a point his chief consiglieres have not been shy about celebrating. Even before the GOP passed a tax bill with specific goodies for the owners of private jets and billionaires seeking to hand off their wealth to heirs unmolested by the state. Through the year Trump's treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, diligently signalled how seriously the administration took the virtue of wealth. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his wife Louise Linton hold a sheet of $1 notes bearing Mnuchin's name. Credit:Bloomberg Mnuchin had come up through Goldman Sachs, but during the great financial crisis of 2008 he had beat a path of his own, foreclosing on 36,000 over-leveraged property owners who had borrowed from his California-based residential lender IndyMac. By the time Trump appointed him to cabinet to help him "drain the swamp" of Wall Street and DC corruption, Mnuchin had amassed a fortune of $US300 million. Nevertheless, he has been notably parsimonious in office, spending $25,000 of public money per hour on private jet flights to Paris for his honeymoon in June, and on a trip to Kentucky with his new wife, Louise Linton, to view a total eclipse of the sun in September.

Through it all the Democratic Party waited on the sidelines as though expecting that Trump's support among the party that elected him would collapse of its own volition. It never did. The depth of the partisanship that facilitated Trump's takeover of the Republican Party was rendered clear for all to see during Roy Moore's Senate race in Alabama. After Trump appointed Jeff Sessions to be US Attorney-General, a Senate seat had opened up in one of the most Republican states in the Union. Moore, the state attorney-general, wanted it badly, and Bannon, who has since quit his official role in the White House, wanted him to have it. Moore was a Christian hardliner, the sort of man who was made for Bannon's project of blowing up the establishment. He had twice been removed from office  once because he refused to remove a tablet of the Ten Commandments he had installed in his court house, once for refusing to acknowledge the Supreme Court's recognition of gay marriage. During his Senate campaign it was revealed that Moore had also once been banned from visiting a local mall due to his habit of accosting and propositioning teenage girls. As he ran for office, nine women came forward with allegations about his behaviour. Despite all this, Trump  who faces sexual harassment and/or assault allegations from 19 women  stood by Moore, as did the Republican Party and evangelical Christian groups. Moore suffered a narrow defeat earlier this month and continues to dispute the result.

Upending the social order A look at Alabama's exit polls confirms something significant about this dark, odd year. Trump's first serious electoral loss was inflicted by women, two-thirds of whom voted against Moore. This made sense. In January it had been the vast rallies of women around America  and the world  against Trump the day after his inauguration that had prompted Spicer's tantrum at the White House. And since October it has been women who have upended the standing social order with revelations of sexual harassment. It began with a story in The New York Times about the relentless abuse of women by the most powerful man in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein, but since then the #metoo movement, or variants of it, have spread around the world, serving as both an assertion of basic human rights and a kind of proxy war against Trumpism. The sexual harassment allegations involving movie mogul Harvey Weinstein supercharged the MeToo movement. Credit:AP Through October, November and December the revelations kept coming. It wasn't just the extent of the behaviour that was being revealed that shocked, but the kinds of behaviour. Weinstein grabbed and groped, harassed and terrorised. He stands accused of rape. But the journalist Lauren Sivan also reports that after she refused Weinstein's advances he blocked her exit from a deserted restaurant and masturbated into a potted plant in front of her. This method of abuse is apparently not unique to Weinstein either. The comedian Louis CK has confessed to similar behaviour in his abuse of women. The po-faced business magazine Forbes was reduced to running an article entitled "Why Would High-Powered Men Masturbate in Front of Women".
China on Friday denied reports it had been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea in violation of UN sanctions, after US President Donald Trump said he was not happy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation.

Trump said on Twitter on Thursday that China had been "caught RED HANDED" allowing oil into North Korea and that would prevent "a friendly solution" to the crisis over Pyongyang's development of nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States.

In a subsequent New York Times interview, Trump explicitly tied his administration's trade policy with China, North Korea's neighbour and lone major ally, to cooperation in resolving the North Korea standoff.

"I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war," he said. "If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that."
Hua Chunying, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, has denied allegations that China has been selling oil to North Korea. Credit:Mark Schiefelbein "China has always implemented UN Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfils its international obligations. We never allow Chinese companies and citizens to violate the resolutions," Hua said. "If, through investigation, it's confirmed there are violations of the UN Security Council resolutions, China will deal with them seriously in accordance with laws and regulations." In the interview with The New York Times, Trump explicitly tied his administration's trade policy with China to its perceived cooperation in resolving the North Korea nuclear crisis. "When I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade. Last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $US350 billion, minimum. That doesn't include the theft of intellectual property, OK, which is another $US300 billion," Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview.

"If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that." An official of the US State Department said the US government was aware of vessels engaged in such activity involving refined petroleum and coal. "We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The United States says the full cooperation of China, North Korea's neighbour and main trading partner, was vital to the success of efforts to rein in North Korea, while warning that all options are on the table, including military ones, in dealing with it. China has repeatedly said it is fully enforcing all resolutions against North Korea, despite suspicion in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that loopholes still exist.

'Evading sanctions' South Korea said on Friday it had seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship suspected of transferring oil to North Korea in defiance of the sanctions. A senior South Korean foreign ministry official said the ship, the Lighthouse Winmore, was seized when it arrived at a South Korean port in late November. "It's unclear how much oil the ship had transferred to North Korea for how long and on how many occasions, but it clearly showed North Korea is engaged in evading the sanctions," the official told Reuters. South Korea's customs service concluded that the Lighthouse Winmore had loaded about 14,000 tons of Japanese refined petroleum products in South Korea on October 11, reportedly bound for Taiwan, the official said.

But instead, it transferred as much as 600 tons to the North Korea-flagged Sam Jong 2 on October 19 in international waters between China and the Korean peninsula, on the order of its charterer, Billions Bunker Group Corp., based in Taiwan, the ministry official said. It was not immediately possible to find contact information for the company. The Hong Kong government said it was "liaising with the Korean parties concerned to obtain further information about the incident, and will take appropriate actions as necessary". Employees at the office of Lighthouse Ship Management, the ship's registered manager, in the Chinese port city of Guangzhou, declined to comment and said they had no knowledge of the situation. China's foreign ministry spokeswoman said she did not have any information about the matter.

Both ships were among 10 vessels that the United States had proposed that the UN Security Council should blacklist for transporting banned items from North Korea, documents seen by Reuters this month showed. China and Russia subsequently asked for more time to consider the US proposal. Ship tracking data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows that the Lighthouse Winmore has mainly been doing supply runs between China and Taiwan since August. Prior to that, it was active between India and the United Arab Emirates. In October, when it allegedly transferred petroleum products to the North Korean ship, the Lighthouse Winmore had its tracking transponder switched off. The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea in response to its efforts to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States.

The UN Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea for a recent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test, seeking to further limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil. The US-drafted UN resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 per cent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year. It also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Security Council to further cuts if North Korea conducts another nuclear or intercontinental ballistic missile test. Loading In September, the Security Council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea.
Kabul: Suicide bombers killed more than 40 people and left scores injured in Kabul on Thursday, setting off multiple explosions at a gathering inside a pro-Iranian cultural centre and newsagency in the Afghan capital. It was the latest attack in a terror campaign against the minority ethnic Shiite community that has intensified over the past two years.

The attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State terrorist group through its Amaq propaganda agency, struck the Tabayan centre in a Shiite neighbourhood, where hundreds of people had come to commemorate the December 1979 anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops.

An Afghan photographer walks through the scene of a suicide attack on a Shiite cultural center in Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday. Credit:Rahmat Gul

The attack, which involved at least three explosions, occurred during a morning panel discussion on the anniversary at the Tabian Social and Cultural Centre, with many of those attending students, witnesses said.

The floors of the centre, at the basement level, were covered in blood as wailing survivors and relatives picked through the debris, while windows of the news agency, on the second floor, were all shattered.
Donald Trump accused China of letting fuel oil flow into North Korea through illicit ship-to-ship transfers on international waters. Credit:AAP The Security Council has also banned ship-to-ship transfers of oil on the high seas because they can be used as a loophole to avoid the sanctions. The Lighthouse Winmore remains in South Korean custody, officials said Friday. Its 25 crewmen  23 Chinese citizens and two men from Myanmar  will be allowed to leave after the investigation is over. Word of the seizure emerged after Trump used a post on Twitter and an interview with The New York Times to accuse China of letting oil flow into North Korea in defiance of U.N. sanctions, warning that there will be no "friendly solution" until the flow stops.

Trump's accusation came amid deepening suspicions in Washington and among its allies that Chinese oil tankers were secretly transferring petroleum to North Korean ships on the high seas. China insists that there was no sanctions violation. "Caught RED HANDED  very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea," Trump wrote in a Twitter post Thursday. "There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!" The UN Security Council has ramped up its efforts to squeeze oil supplies for North Korea after the country conducted its sixth nuclear test September 3 and followed it with the launching of an intercontinental ballistic missile November 29. But the impact of sanctions depends largely on how faithfully they are enforced by China, which handles 90 percent of North Korea's external trade, including nearly all of its oil imports, analysts say. If the reports of ship-to-ship oil transfers are true, it could mean that much more oil is flowing secretly into North Korea than allowed under UN sanctions, with or without Chinese authorities' knowledge. Trump has repeatedly urged President Xi Jinping to use China's economic leverage to stop North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. But analysts warn that Beijing is unlikely to push North Korea to the brink of collapse, still cherishing its neighbour as a buffer against the influence of the United States and its closest allies in the region, Japan and South Korea.

In the interview with The Times, published Thursday night, Trump explicitly said for the first time that he had "been soft" on China on trade matters in the hopes that its leaders would press North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. He hinted that his patience might soon end, signalling his frustration with the reported oil shipments. "Oil is going into North Korea. That wasn't my deal!" he exclaimed, raising the possibility of aggressive trade actions against China. "If they don't help us with North Korea, then I do what I've always said I want to do." Despite saying that Xi "treated me better than anybody's ever been treated in the history of China" when he visited in November, Trump said Thursday that "they have to help us much more." "We have a nuclear menace out there, which is no good for China," he said. When it blacklisted several Chinese trading companies and North Korean shipping companies and their vessels in November, the US Treasury Department said that North Korea was "known to employ deceptive shipping practices, including ship-to-ship transfers."

Trump's criticism of China came after the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, quoting anonymous sources, reported that US spy satellites have spotted 30 ship-to-ship transfers of oil and other products since October in international waters between North Korea and China. The report said the "smuggling" took place between North Korean vessels and ships believed to be from China. In its latest sanctions, adopted December 22, the Security Council expressed concern that North Korea was "illicitly exporting coal and other prohibited items through deceptive maritime practices and obtaining petroleum illegally through ship-to-ship transfers." Washington has called on the Security Council to blacklist 10 ships  including the Lighthouse Winmore,the Sam Jong 2 and the Rye Song Gang 1  for circumventing sanctions by conducting ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels or transporting North Korean coal, Reuters reported, citing UN documents. The South Korean Foreign Ministry refused to confirm the Chosun Ilbo report, saying that the matter was being discussed at the Security Council's sanctions committee.
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In the second incident, police say a male is hospitalized in critical condition after he was stabbed by his father.
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Apart from hosting and possible maintenance costs, there are not exactly downsides to having your own website. Even if its just a personal blog it can always become more useful down the line, if you utilize it in the right manner. In other words, more
NOAH Chief Executive Dawn Howard comments:

We estimate that well over 40% of NOAHs resource this year has actually been spent on Brexit-related activity.

With Article 50 triggered in March, the shape of how the UK will leave the EU is only now starting to become a little clearer, with the December divorce settlement announcement. Many questions still remain. During the year, fact-finding and information-exchanging has been core. This has been two-way  keeping our membership well informed on the constantly changing political agenda, and spreading the word wider about what is needed to ensure the animal health sector continues making its important contribution to UKs economy, food security and society  and to grow. Equally, so we can find out exactly what is needed and where opportunities and potential pitfalls lie, we have actively sought views and feedback from our members and others in our sector. NOAH was pleased to welcome 2 new members during the year: Krka UK Ltd and Cyton Biosciences, she says.

Critical to NOAHs understanding and communications during the year has been its Brexit Barometer series of reports  with the first edition published in the summer and the second imminent.

This shows opinions of members and stakeholders through 6 different areas relating to animal health with varying degrees of optimism, but overall uncertainty about the future of the animal medicines industry. The report will be repeated again in 2018 to track shifting sentiment, as the Brexit process unfolds, adds Dawn.

Standing behind this is more analysis: NOAHs committees have been undertaking detailed work such as looking at Day zero and identifying what needs to be in place to ensure that business and trade can operate as smoothly as possible when the UK exits.

We need to make sure there are not problems accessing veterinary medicines for UK vets, SQPs and animal owners, says Dawn.

She adds: We have been working with others with participation in structured groupings such as the Agri-Brexit Coalition and the Life Sciences Group along with our colleagues in the human health sector, and have met many others throughout the year to exchange views and lobby government.

Business needs certainty to be able to plan. We have welcomed whats being done, but need more clarity  animal medicine companies are making decisions right now about their businesses in the UK.

She goes on to explain that in parallel with NOAHs Brexit work, the association has been continuing with its other major activities. For example, the regulation of animal medicines remains key: in particular, the review of the EU legislation for veterinary medicines and medicated feed.

She says:

Despite Brexit, this new legislation will still impact on us in the UK, and needs to be right  the original concept was to encourage innovation and medicines availability, while cutting back on unnecessary red tape, so presents opportunities for our sector.
If you thought 2017 was a challenging year for airline passengers, just wait until you see what's ahead.

That's the consensus of airline experts, consumer advocates and frequent travelers. They say the domestic airlines have charted a course for this year that includes more fees and ticket restrictions and, inevitably, additional confrontations with unhappy customers. No one may be able to persuade the airline industry to change its flight plan, but passengers can take steps to ensure their vacations are relatively surprise- and problem-free in 2018.

Air travelers griped about the usual hassles in 2017, according to a year-end survey by Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection, with canceled flights, lack of legroom and missed connections, topping the list. But there are other annoyances that will almost certainly emerge in the year ahead.

To get a preview of 2018, scroll back to just before the holidays, when Delta Air Lines dropped a bombshell on its Europe-bound passengers. Starting April 10, it will charge basic economy passengers checked-baggage fees - $60 for the first bag and $100 for the second.

Now Playing: FOX 5's Ronica Cleary reports. Video: FoxM9NJ

About the same time, the U.S. Department of Transportation quietly abandoned two proposed consumer rules, one that would have required airlines to disclose baggage fees at the start of a ticket purchase and one that would have made airlines report more information about their revenue from fees charged for extra services, such as early boarding, seat reservations and carry-on luggage.

While the government's decisions had no immediate effect on passengers - after all, they were still on the drawing board - they signaled to the airline industry that the Transportation Department's attitude toward consumer protection has shifted. An exuberant airline industry, via its trade organization Airlines For America, issued a statement that the decision would usher in "a new era of smarter regulation focusing on jobs and economic growth."

The agency delivered another wink to the industry when it dramatically reduced the number of regulatory enforcement actions taken against airlines last year. Only 18 consent orders were issued for $3.1 million in civil penalties compared with 29 orders worth $6.4 million for 2016.

Look closer, and an even more troubling picture comes into focus for passengers. The department hasn't implemented rules required by Congress that would allow families to sit together or regulations that would require airlines to refund checked-baggage fees when they lose passengers' luggage. "It's as if the police decided not to do their job," said Charles Leocha, chairman of Travelers United, a Washington passenger-advocacy group.

That's the framework for flying in 2018: Airlines, emboldened by a government that can't or won't regulate it in the way most customers expect it to, will try to squeeze passengers for every dollar. Leocha said he expects airlines to ask the federal government to begin dismantling the few existing rules on the books, which they have derisively referred to as "command-and-control" regulations. Indeed, they've already formally asked regulators to discard two of the most significant consumer-protection rules recently enacted: a 24-hour refund rule and a "full fare" advertising rule that requires an airline to quote a ticket price that includes all taxes and fees. If that happens, it may be even harder to determine the actual cost of a ticket, persuade an airline to cover your expenses when you're delayed or get a ticket refund.

So what do consumers need to do in an age of lax regulation and rising fees? "Travelers will need to do a deeper dive to determine what is - or is not - included with each fare they purchase when they are comparison shopping," said Craig Fichtelberg, president of AmTrav Corporate Travel of Chicago.

Fliers' options are perhaps more limited than ever. With just four major carriers, which many consider an oligopoly, you can't threaten to take your business elsewhere. But there are ways to even the playing field a little.

Even though the government may be looking the other way, other travelers aren't. Consider last year's customer-service disasters, virtually all of which involved a viral video taken on a smartphone camera. Airlines fear your camera and the power of social media because they have the power to influence public opinion. That's one reason they're fighting so hard to ban photography on planes, an issue that is certain to come up again in 2018.

"Changes are going to be driven more by consumers than by regulation or even the threat of new regulations," said Seth Kaplan, the editor of Airline Weekly, a trade publication. "The good that came out of the Dr. Dao incident is that airlines are now bumping far fewer customers involuntarily than before, even in the usual less dramatic ways than by dragging them off airplanes. Airlines got the message loud and clear that the public won't tolerate that kind of incident and then an airline's initial indifference to what happened. Hopefully, they also got the broader message that it's better to prevent problems before they happen than to scramble to address them later."

In the meantime, keep your phone charged and at the ready. An airline employee delivering good service has nothing to fear from being photographed on the job, but someone who is doing passengers wrong, and knows it, will try to force you to stop filming, citing a bogus "interfering with the flight crew" excuse. Use your camera and leverage the power of social media when necessary. It may be your only option when the courts and regulators have failed.

Also, keep a calculator handy when you're shopping for airfares. Airlines have scored an important victory when it comes to how they can display fares. Next, they'll probably go after the DOT's full-fare advertising rule, which requires airlines to quote an airfare that includes taxes and all mandatory fees. When that happens, we'll go back to the days of seeing a $199 fare that, many clicks later after adding fuel surcharges and taxes, costs $599.

One thing is certain: Barring a dramatic regulatory shift or a sudden change of heart in the airline industry, 2018 could prove to be the most challenging time for air travelers since the one immediately following 9/11 - and perhaps ever.

- - -

Elliott is a consumer advocate, journalist and co-founder of the advocacy group Travelers United. Email him at chris@elliott.org.
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Residents attempting to prepay their yet-to-be billed July 1, 2018, property taxes in order to claim those deductions on their 2017 federal returns might be in for a rude awakening.

In keeping with city policy, the city will accept early payments for property taxes, a news release from Stamford Mayor David Martins office reads. However, the city cannot, and does not, provide any assurance or opinion that the IRS will allow these payments to be deductible on federal income taxes for the calendar year ending on Dec. 31, 2017.

While Stamford is accepting prepayment, most area tax collectors offices are not.

Weve had people coming in and asking about this, said Lisa Theroux, Sheltons tax collector. Weve gotten a lot of phone calls about this.

So many calls that Theroux and other collectors have either put messages on their phones or issued explanatory notices on their municipal websites.

More News Dan Haar: Prepaying tax chaos strikes state

Like most tax collectors, Theroux, Johanna Figueroa of Ansonia and Dana Flach of Seymour explained that since their municipalities have not set a mill rate, no tax bills have been computed. And since no tax bills have been computed  theres no authorization to accept them.

As a result, most tax collectors said they are only accepting payments on tax bills due Jan. 1 or in some towns, like Fairfield and Westport (which offers four installments, with the last bill due April 1). However those payments are all for the current fiscal year and can be deducted on the 2017 federal income tax returns.

More Information Here are the office hours for area tax collectors on Dec. 29. Some municipalities allow tax payments to be made online with a credit card. Residents should check with their local tax collector's office or consult the municipalities website. ANSONIA - Closed Friday BRIDGEPORT - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. DERBY- 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. EASTON - 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. FAIRFIELD - 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. GREENWICH - 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. MILFORD - 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. MONROE - 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. OXFORD - 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. SEYMOUR - 8 a.m. to noon SHELTON - 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m STAMFORD - 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. STRATFORD - 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 30 9 a.m. to noon TRUMBULL - 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. WESTPORT - 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. See More Collapse

Edward Snyder of New Haven was frustrated when he learned that officials in the citys tax offices werent taking prepayments of 2018 taxes.

Its only a one time thing, but the city should have stepped up to accommodate people who want to do this, Snyder said.

All of this confusion and concern stems from the new federal tax laws taking effect for 2018. That law caps real estate and motor vehicle property tax deductions at $10,000.

More than likely thats going to impact many taxpayers who own more than one home and car -- or one very expensive home.

Fairfield Tax Collector David Kluczwski said at least 50 residents have asked about prepaying the next fiscal year taxes. His town also accepts payment for taxes due April 1, but those bills apply to the current fiscal year.

On Wednesday afternoon a line of people flowed out the Milford tax office into the hallway while offices in Ansonia, Derby and Shelton had no waits. Lines in the New Haven tax office were more than a dozen people deep for much of Thursday afternoon.

Additionally some tax collectors said payments sent through the mail using checks dated and showing envelopes postmarked by Dec. 31 are usually allowed to be deducted.

If all this isnt taxing enough, Seymour Tax Collector Dana Flach has been confronted with another issue.

Her office and probably others had to deal with taxpayers wanting to personally prepay residential taxes they owed Jan. 1, instead of allowing their mortgage holder to use the funds being held in escrow.

Flach said shes advising taxpayers to come back with a permission letter from their mortgage holder.

Still, that could create an Excedrin headache for municipalities. What happens when one payment is made by the taxpayer using their personal funds and a duplicate payment is made between Jan. 1 and Feb. 1 by the mortgage holder using the escrow funds? Are those duplicate funds refunded? To whom? Or are they applied to future taxes?

All the confusion led Ben Barnes, the secretary of the states Office of Policy and Management, to email municipal chief executives encouraging them to advise their taxpayers of the local policy and procedure.

In the email, Barnes said his office is in no position to offer an opinion as to the federal tax treatment of property taxes made in December, 2017, to Connecticut local governments. Furthermore, OPM does not have a role in the supervision of local tax collection beyond a role in the certification of tax collectors.

Barnes said prepayment of Jan. 1 bills and supplemental motor vehicle bills by Dec. 31, appears to be a lawful way to take advantage of the expiring deduction.

Any taxpayers who have prepayment questions should consult their tax preparer or accountant.

And anyone upset by this should contact their U.S. Representatives and Senators.


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STAMFORD  Waiting in the line winding through the tax collectors office Thursday, K.J. Fisher traded information with a woman in sunglasses who had her husband on the phone.

They discussed whether they will be allowed to pay their 2018 property taxes in advance to avoid the Jan. 1 enactment of President Donald Trumps new tax code, which limits the federal deduction for state and local taxes to $10,000, a paltry amount for Stamford.

They tried to figure out how pre-payment would work and whether it will save them money one last time.

Fishers conclusion: Too many unknowns.

We shouldnt be making these decisions in a hallway, said Fisher, whod already gone over her taxes with her accountant and financial planner.

One of them had a document that tries to explain it, but it was really confusing, Fisher said. There was no warning about this; no information. Its politics. Its incompetence. This is not the way to run a railroad.

Republicans have come under fire for rushing the legislation  the most sweeping overhaul of the federal tax code in 30 years  through Congress in a few weeks.

The thing was practically written in pencil, Fisher said of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Since Trump signed the law last week, residents of high-property value, high-tax states such as Connecticut have been crowding municipal tax offices to take advantage of existing deductions for state and local taxes.

According to reports, the new law is ambiguous about whether the $10,000 cap can be avoided by pre-paying 2018 property taxes. It makes clear, though, that prepayment cannot be used to skirt the cap for 2018 income taxes.

That could leave Matthew Burroughs partly in the lurch. Burroughs pays Stamford property taxes and income taxes in New York, where he works as a real estate agent.

My accountant told me that, in my tax bracket, if I pay ahead of time, I can save 30 percent, he said. Im hoping, but I dont know how much of that I will be allowed to do.

On Wednesday, the IRS issued a statement saying tax filers can avoid the cap only if their property was assessed in 2017, which is the case in Stamford.

Jimmy Xia heard it on CNBC, the cable business news channel, and made his way to the sixth floor of City Hall, where so many people were gathered that a tax office employee asked them to form a line in the long hallway leading to the registrars of voters offices.

It will definitely make a difference to pay my taxes in advance  if CNBC is correct, Xia said.

Kay Maxwell ventured out into sub-freezing temperatures to stand in line at the tax office one day after returning from a holiday trip to sunny southern California.

Maxwell had already paid her property tax bill for the first half of 2018, and was looking to pre-pay the bill for the second half.

My tax guy said, Do it if you can. So I came, she said. At least its warm in here.

Ronald Burban said he visits City Hall this time each year to pay his tax bill, and the size of the crowd was a surprise. He thinks the new law wont affect him much because his property taxes are less than $10,000, Burban said.

But he felt for the city employees working behind the tax window.

These poor clerks are going to have a rough, rough couple of days, Burban said.

In the line, taxpayers exchanged stories of difficulties reaching their accountants, who are inundated with calls. One woman said she couldnt get through to Webster bank to ask that her 2018 property taxes not be paid in escrow because she intended to pre-pay them herself.

Taxpayers must do that, Director of Administration Michael Handler said.

The clerks in the tax office are giving out receipts, but if people are pre-paying, its up to them to make sure their mortgage company knows, Handler said.

City officials said last week they will accept advance payments before Jan. 1, but cannot promise that the IRS will allow them to be deducted from 2017 federal income taxes.

If you choose to prepay, we will accept it and keep track of it. The rest is up to the IRS, Handler said. All I can say for sure is that, if you dont make the advance payment, theres zero chance of using the existing deduction.

Two people in the tax-office line wondered aloud about notices they received from City Hall this month about re-assessments of their homes, just calculated for the 2017 property revaluation. Their values dropped, and, depending on the new mill rate, which wont be set until May, their taxes might also drop, they said. What if they prepay their tax bills and it was too much?

The amount will be credited toward the following years tax bill, Mayor David Martin said.

He said he understands why residents are lining up to prepay.

Lots of people are going to go over the $10,000 cap, Martin said. I dont know if the IRS will allow pre-payments, but we thought if we can save residents money and its legal, we should try it. Were just allowing people the possibility.

Shell take it, Franca Ottaviano said as she waited for her turn at the tax window.

I called my accountant and he said based on my income, property and car taxes, its beneficial for me to pre-pay if I could. The amount I could save would be impactful, Ottaviano said  with a reminder.

Its only for now. Next year, there will be nothing you can do, she said.

Susan Duarte, an accountant, acknowledged all the question marks.

Pre-paying wont matter for some income levels, Duarte said. We really wont know until we do our taxes.

Martin, a Democrat, said the new tax law gives far too many benefits to the nations wealthiest residents, and he thinks Congressional Republicans targeted states that lean Democratic.

I believe it was a tax against the blue states, Martin said.

acarella@stamfordadvocate.com.
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NORWALK  New year, new week, new me.

Thats the mantra many are reciting as Jan. 1 falls on a Monday this year. But with only 8 percent of people achieving resolutions annually, is the effort worth the disappointment?

Katie McCabe, of Wilton, said she doesnt usually set a resolution because she never keeps them. Shes also not a fan of arbitrarily setting goals just because its the start of a new year.

If I wanted to achieve something why do I have to wait for a new year? Why wouldnt you just do it, McCabe said. It could be a September 4 resolution. If theres something I should do, I should just do it.

Fewer than 50 percent of Americans set New Years resolutions annually, but for those that do, there are usually common themes.

The most popular resolutions, according to the Statistic Brain Research Institute, are health related. Most people want to lose weight, eat healthier, and quit smoking.

John Deilus, of Norwalk, said he wants to do just that, resolving to lose 10 pounds in the new year.

Im going to stay away from pasta, he said. Because its healthier.

More Information Top Resolutions of 2017 1. Lose weight / healthier eating 2. Life / self improvements 3. Better financial decisions 4. Quit smoking 5. Do more exciting things 6. Spend more time with family / close friends 7. Work out more often 8. Learn something new on my own 9. Do more good deeds for others 10. Find the love of my life 11. Find a better job Fast Facts 41 percent of Americans usually make New Year's resolutions 8 percent of people who set New Year's resolutions keep them See More Collapse

Other popular resolutions include making general self or life improvements, find a better job, learn something new and find a lover.

Laura Kelly, of Massachussetts, said she set her 2018 resolution months ago, and plans to find better work-life balance in the new year.

I will be finding a company thats a better fit for me, Kelly said.

Stew Leonards employee Mike DAntonio, of Bethel, said his resolution in the new year is to attend church more often, something hes struggled with this year. DAntonio attends St. Peters in Danbury, but said hes only been able to make it a couple times a month when hed prefer to go every week.

I want to be more consistent, DAntonio said. I feel better as a person when I do it, it reinforces my faith, that hour of quiet. Its a struggle to get there sometimes, but once youre there you appreciate it.

Staples High School Student Anne Machata said shed like to improve her drawing and painting skills.

Though Norwalker Mike Palmer didnt set a 2017 resolution, hes part of a long-standing tradition. His annual end-of-year celebration features a jar filled with resolutions.

We all write one down and put it in the jar, and the next year see if we fulfilled it, Palmer said. I didnt set one this year and I havent had time to stop and think about it yet. I havent gotten that far.

kkrasselt@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2563; @kaitlynkrasselt
was born and brought up in Basingstoke, UK. As a child he was fascinated with Lego, Star Wars and Transformers that fueled his imagination and he spent quite a bit of his growing up years playing around with such. He began writing at the age of fourteen however soon discovered the fallacies of his work. After four years at University studying Zoology and three years working for a string of high street banks as a desk jockey/keyboard monkey.lived on a desert island in Fiji for three months. It was there he re-discovered his love of writing and, more specifically, of writing fantasy.The Pirate Isles are united under flag, but the war has only just begun.Theres still a long way to go before hes able to call himself King, and traitors at every turn. The Five Kingdoms and Sarth have assembled a fleet of ships unlike any the world has ever seen and they intend to purge the Pirate Isles once and for all by fire and steel.Revenge, never far froms mind, is finally within his grasp and he sets sail to the Forgotten Empire. But more than dense jungles and ruined cities await him there. Vengeful gods and malignant spirits now call those cursed lands home, and they are not wisely disturbed.Meanwhile,tries to secure herself powerful allies and the forces those allies can spare. Shes set her course on the throne: either bys side or over his dead body.is divided into four parts which are spread out over fifty-seven ship titled chapters and an epilogue. The narration is in third person omniscient via. This book is the concluding volume ofand can be read as a starting point to themarked the US and UK e-book publication ofand was being self-published by the author. Cover art is by& cover design is provided byFocusing on a wide character cast of pirates and epic sea battles,is the grimdark version ofif imagined byas far as fantasy book titles go is a terrific title. It is the concluding volume to theand a story that is epic in every sense of the word. I was lucky to be able to read this story in its draft form and I can safely say that the final version is something that will readers slack jawed at the very least. A warning though for readers who havent read, the books blurb might be a little spoilerific so you might want to avoid this review if you dont like things spoiled even a little bit.We begin with the immediate events ofwhereinhas been pronounced king of the pirates withs support. However the support is tentative with the caveat thathas to takeas his consort.is certainly chafing at that but he has his mind on the final prize. On the other hand,has been sent by her father to gather support and when we last saw her, she had just reached Chade. Within the city, she meets a few fan favorite characters from the preceding trilogy and it was fun to see their interactions. The start of this book also references events in Chade and I believe this book runs concurrently with the events that will be featured in 2018s City Of Kings s journey is only beginning though as she will also have to travel to Larkos and therein lies the rub as she tries to do the impossible.had a huge hand to play in the events which played out in the climax ofs belief in him proved strong in the end but for him the ultimate prize is all about revenge. Thats the one thing thats been his main focus even amidst all the changes and hes perhaps closer than hes ever been. We are also reunited withand his crew as they find themselves in an impossible bind. Amidst his crew we get to meet a new character,who is a character that I would love to read more of. Lastly thereswho while in the background has perhaps the most crucial role andalso gets a POV wherein we learn all about his backstory.is a book that takes the baton from its predecessor and amps them up even more. Firstly as is the case with the previous book & the preceding trilogy, characterization is the most prominent highlights of writing and in this book, we are given a whole array of awesome characters. Whiles focused onsquarely, it also introduced. This concluding volume gives them bigger roles and also gives a POV turn to newer fascinating characters such as. In fact it could even be argued that this iss book as her arc easily eclipses that ofhas always been the central focus of this duology and its his ambition which has fueled almost all the events however this duology easily could have beens story and the second volume goes a long way in proving that. We not only get a swashbuckling pirate story but we get to see four fantastic character POVs. Firstis ever present with his scheming and secrets, then theresand then& lastlyas well. These four pirate captains are what power the story to its exciting conclusion but the biggest stage is set for. She is a Black and iss true daughter, shes intelligent, brave, bloodthirsty but calculating and is perhaps the only character who seesfor what he is. For those complaining about strong female characters, look no further than. Shes a complex, bloody pirate who will have readers in the palm of her hand and rooting for her no matter what.on the other hand suffers a bit in this volume. His thirst for revenge takes a backseat in this volume as he finds amidst a love triangle of sorts (keep in mind this isafter all). So theres no smoldering looks, waxed chests, etc. but simply characters who get entangled with each other and it was fun to read after all. Lastly the best part tos arc is a family reunion of sorts which I believe was a highlight for me. This is due to this character being mentioned inin relation toisand in this book, we get to see what a leviathan of a warrior he is and also the secret behind his crews prowess is revealed in a very, very bloody manner.This concluding volume also doubles up on the naval battles, magical revelations and a climax twist worthy of. Oh the sea battles in this one, there are so quite a few and each of them is spectacular to say the least. The action in this volume never lets up and when the action slows down a bit, we are treated to secrets (s main one, the Drurr), world history (Larkoss founding, the problem with witches & their magical dealings) and character interactions. All in all this book had me flipping pages as fast as I could to get to the end to see how it all goes down and its right before the end, that the author pulls the rug rather brilliantly under the readers. I will say watch out for the epilogue as it is a shocker and perhaps a clue to what lies ahead in the(I believe this is version of end credits scenes wherein the entire plot of the story is upended and we get an idea about the next story.)This book for me didnt have any drawbacks and was a complete winner. While the first book is a SPFBO 2017 finalist , I hope the other judges and readers read this volume as well to see how amazing a storytelleris.has a unique title and certainly the story to herald itself as one of the best books (if not the BEST) of 2017. I dare you to read it and not be enthralled by this dark story of feuding pirates. I certainly was and will continue to spread the word about the wonderful gem that is the
A month after police said they arrested the wrong man, a new suspect has been charged in connection with a shooting on Ora Drive in November that injured one person.
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Despite a long recovery and record streak of job growth, the share of Americans moving to a new location continued a steady decline in 2017, reaching a new post-World War II low, an indicator of a less mobile workforce that reflects both an aging society and economic problems facing younger workers.

The decline marked the fifth straight year in which the share of the population moving dropped. In 2017, the number fell to 11 percent, according to the Census Bureau. The level was nearly twice as high in 1985, 20 percent, but has fallen steadily, except for occasional cyclical zigzags, for the last three decades.

For decades, high rates of mobility sharply distinguished the U.S. from other developed economies in Europe and Japan. The decline in mobility is due partly to what has become a less-dynamic and fluid American labor market, some economists believe.

The decline also reflects social and demographic factors such as an aging population and declining birth rates; older people tend to stay put more and starting families often motivates people to go out on their own.

But economics has pushed the trend: Even though the job fortunes of young adults have improved after several difficult years following the Great Recession, many are still living in their parents homes or stuck in apartments with multiple roommates.

Stricter requirements for mortgages and large student debts may be keeping some from homeownership. But high prices, particularly in larger urban centers favored by young adults, also play a role. Builders have tended to bank on more-profitable, higher-priced houses or luxury apartments, and thats helped exacerbate a shortage of affordable homes in many cities.

Ive been waiting for now a long time for these young people to get out of their parents basement, said William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer who compiled and analyzed the census statistics, which cover the period between March 2016 and March 2017 and also include a sliver of foreign migration in the U.S.

Part of the slowing mobility could be a lifestyle issue, Frey said. Maybe a little bit of inertia based on having not followed the norm of earlier generations. Still, given all the economic improvements, he added, its stunning to see the overall mobility the lowest ever.

There was, however, an encouraging sign in the data: Even as local moves, that is within counties, fell to a record low, pushing down total domestic migration, the percentage of the population relocating from one state to another picked up slightly over the last year. Those long-distance moves are driven largely by job changes, and the last year saw noticeable mobility gains on the part of adults 25 to 34 years old, those with college degrees and older people, according to Frey.

In recent decades, the rate at which firms create new jobs has fallen; so has the rate at which they eliminate positions, said Steven J. Davis, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Both trends discourage workers from moving.

Lower gross job destruction rates mean less impetus from ones labor market experience to pick up and move locations, he said. At the same time, lower gross job creation rates mean less opportunity to find a job in a new location.

Some analysts say the recently signed GOP tax overhaul, and President Donald Trumps efforts to reduce government regulations on business, could help strengthen the creative destruction in the American economy and spur migration. The tax bill, which mostly benefits corporations, is expected to increase economic growth next year. That could give a boost to mobility and in turn a lift to the housing market.

My sense is that we are on the verge of a little boomlet coming, said Los Angeles housing economist G.U. Krueger, principal of Krueger Economics. With that and some of the baby boomers exiting the labor market, there will be a lot of young people who will be moving around.

Just how much people will pull up stakes and relocate as a result of economic growth remains to be seen, however. No one expects a major reversal of the long-running trend of lower mobility, in part because of strong demographic trends that include slower overall population growth.

Separate census data released last week showed that as of July, the U.S. population rose by 2.3 million from the prior year to 325.7 million. Thats an annual growth rate of 0.72 percent  the second lowest since 1937.

Californias population increased by 0.61 percent from the prior year, slightly lower than the year before. Western states including Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Washington saw the fastest growth, while four states saw an overall decline in population, Illinois plus three states heavily dependent on declining energy industries  Wyoming, West Virginia and Alaska.

The slowing growth of the U.S. population reflects a steady decline in births and growing numbers of deaths. The resulting natural increase over the year was 1.2 million, the smallest in at least 17 years.

Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer at the University of New Hampshires Carsey School, estimates that the Great Recession resulted in 4 million fewer births than what otherwise might have been. With the economy growing, some women who are in their 30s and who put off having children earlier could do so now and give a bump to the natural increase in the population.

Still, lingering effects from the recession and demographics suggest that many people will remain tethered to where they are. Young people account for the bulk of moves, and the U.S., like other developed countries, is aging, Johnson pointed out.
Updated at 1 p.m.

NEW YORK  President Donald Trump returned to a favorite target Friday, saying that Amazon.com should be charged more by the U.S. Postal Service for the packages it sends around the world.

Amazon has been a consistent recipient of Trump's ire. He has accused the company of failing to pay "internet taxes," though it's never been made clear by the White House what the president means by that.

In a tweet Friday, Trump said Amazon should be charged "MUCH MORE" by the post office because it's "losing many billions of dollars a year" while it makes "Amazon richer."

Amazon lives and dies by shipping, and increasing rates that it negotiates with the post office, as well as shippers like UPS and FedEx, could certainly do some damage.

In the seconds after the tweet, shares of Amazon, which had been trading higher before the opening bell, began to fade and went into negative territory. The stock remained down almost 1 percent in late trading Friday.

Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post. The Post, as well as other major media, has been labeled as "fake news" by Trump after reporting unfavorable developments during his campaign and presidency.

He has labeled Bezos' Post the "AmazonWashingtonPost."

The Seattle company did not respond to a request for comment Friday. A spokeswoman for the Postal Service said, "We're looking into it."

Between July and September, Amazon paid $5.4 billion in worldwide shipping costs, a 39 percent increase from the same period in the previous year. That amounts to nearly 11 percent of the $43.7 billion in total revenue it reported in that same period.

In 2014, Amazon reached a deal with the Postal Service to offer delivery on Sundays.

Trump has also attacked U.S. corporations not affiliated in any way with the news media.

Just over a year ago, he tweeted "Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!"

Shares of Boeing Co. gave up almost 1 percent when trading opened that day, but recovered.

Several days later, and again on Twitter, he said that Lockheed-Martin, which is building the F-35 fighter jet, was "out of control." Its shares tumbled more than 5 percent, but they too recovered.

The Postal Service has lost money for 11 straight years, mostly because of pension and health care costs.

One part of the operation that is not suffering, however, is shipping and packages, which handles Amazon and other online orders from retailers. In the year that ended Sept. 30, the postal service reported higher-than-expected revenue of $19.5 billion, "due to e-commerce growth."

The post office does not break down what is driving that growth, but online orders from retailers, particularly Amazon.com, has revolutionized the way goods are bought and delivered. Analysts at Bain & Co. expected Amazon to capture 50 percent of all online shopping growth during the holiday shopping season.

Amazon has taken some steps toward becoming more self-reliant in shipping. Earlier this year it announced that it would build a worldwide air cargo hub in Kentucky, about 13 miles southwest of Cincinnati.

Shares of Amazon.com Inc. slipped almost 1 percent Friday to $1,174.86. The Seattle company's stock is up more than 57 percent this year and surpassed $1,000 each for the first time in April.

Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey contributed to this report from Palm Beach, Fla.
With all the wines on the shelves vying for your attention when you walk into a wine store or a supermarket, how do you choose which one to take home for dinner? A catchy name or pretty label stands out. A heavy bottle looks and feels important. But you wouldn't be wrong to wonder whether the money you shell out for that wine might be paying for that designer label or studly bottle, rather than the juice inside.

In 2017, I recommended more than 250 wines in this column. Of those, I labeled slightly more than 100 as "Great Values." The Great Value designation is subjective - after all, I recommend only wines I believe are worth what they cost. A Great Value offers extra excitement, performing at a level above its price. Value doesn't necessarily mean cheap. The Ayala Brut Majeur Champagne I recently recommended impressed me so much, I gave it three stars ("exceptional") and a Great Value tag because it far outperforms other $40 champagnes. But only a handful of my Great Values were more than $20, and most of those were sparkling wines.

My list would suggest that wine's best values come in the $12 to $20 range. In all, I put the tag on 27 wines that I also gave my highest rating of 3 stars. These ranged in price from $13 to $40. I gave 2 1/2 stars (excellent to exceptional) and the Great Value label to 36 wines ranging from $10 to $24, and 2 stars (excellent) and Great Value to 38 wines ranging from $9 to $20. Eight wines, from $8 to $12, scored 1 1/2 stars (very good to excellent) and great value.

France led the way with 41 Great Values, followed by the United States with 15 (10 from California, four from Oregon and one from New York), Italy (13), Spain (nine) and Portugal (six). Other countries included Chile, Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey, Armenia and South Africa. As 2017 was the year of rose, 26 pink wines made the list - nearly a quarter of the total. That reflects the growing number of roses in the market as well as my enthusiasm for them. Fifteen Great Values were sparkling.

So here is a case of wine for you: my 12 favorite Great Values from 2017, with the most expensive at $16 a bottle and the cheapest at $8. These are not just top scorers. Those I list here were memorable in a certain way, either their sheer quality for the price, or their uniqueness, or some other factor. I've ranked them in descending order, after applying a simple equation that takes into account my star rating - my enthusiasm for the wine - and the price. The better the wine and the lower the price, the higher the ranking. Consider these my Greatest Values of the year.

Note that some of these wines have moved on to the next vintage; don't let that stop you from trying them. Others may be sold out. It's always best to call and check, or to ask a favorite retailer to order for you. Wines this good, at this price, are worth the wait - or the hunt.

- - -

12. Chateau Montaud Cotes de Provence Rose 2016

2 stars

Provence, France, $13

I like this rose every year, but in 2017 it came in a three-liter box for $26, or about $6.50 a bottle, making it cheaper and more fun. Bottles are still available, though the boxes have sold out. I suspect they will reappear with the 2017 vintage for next summer's picnics and patio parties. Alcohol by volume: 12 percent.

11. Evolucio Blaufrankisch 2014

2 stars

Weinland, Austria, $12

When I first tasted this spicy, delicious red, I made a note and put it aside. When I found it two weeks later and tried it again, I was even more impressed with its vibrancy and "flavors of black cherry, raspberry, caraway and fenugreek." I used no vacuum pump or inert gas to preserve it, just replaced the screw cap and kept it at room temperature. Well-made wine can keep that way. (The distributor has moved on to the 2015, a great vintage in Austria.) ABV: 13.5 percent.

10. Chateau de Passavant 2015

2.5 stars

Anjou, Loire Valley, France, $15

Chenin blanc deserves more respect for its ability to delight, both dry and sweet. You could enjoy this dry version by itself, but it really wants to dance with poultry or seafood. Demeter-certified as biodynamic, made from organic grapes. ABV: 12.5 percent.

9. Loosen Bros. Dr. L Sparkling Riesling

2.5 stars

Germany, $15

Sparkling Riesling may be Germany's best-kept secret. This delightful example shows riesling's bubbly personality at its best. ABV: 12.5 percent.

8. Cavalchina Bardolino Chiaretto 2016

3 stars

Veneto, Italy, $16

This zesty, juicy rose made from the grapes that typically go into Valpolicella (corvina, rondinella and molinara) is super, year after year. It's great by itself, but it excels with salty or garlicky foods such as olives or hummus. This is a rose to drink year round and not worry about having the freshest vintage. ABV: 12.5 percent.

7. Domaine de Chevalier La Petite Lune 2015

3 stars

Bordeaux, France, $16

The only thing getting the Bordelais more excited than their 2015 vintage is the 2016. When I saw this wine was from Domaine de Chevalier, one of my favorite producers, I immediately had high expectations. The wine didn't disappoint, and is phenomenal for the price. This blend of 70 percent merlot and 30 percent cabernet franc is rich and ripe with cherry, plum and blackberry fruit and a lush texture to carry all that fruit. Classy. ABV: 13.5 percent.

6. Marietta Cellars Old Vine Red Lot Number 66

3 stars

California, $16

What a treat it was to reunite with this old friend and find it as good as ever. Based on zinfandel, this savory, stylish blend is so good it may distract you from your meal. ABV: 13.5 percent.

5. Hugl Weine Zweigelt Rose 2016

2.5 stars

Austria, $13

Austria is most famous for its outstanding white wines from gruner veltliner and Riesling. This delightful rose from Zweigelt, Austria's main red grape, is vibrant and peppery, with loads of cherry and raspberry flavors. The distributor is now sold out. ABV: 12 percent.

4. Chateau de Marjolet Cotes-du-Rhone 2015

3 stars

Rhone Valley, France, $15

Rhone wines have crept up in price, but this beauty manages to overdeliver for the category. Deep and savory, with a sense of mountain air, sea breeze and wild herbs. ABV: 14 percent.

3. Confidencial Reserva 2013

2.5 stars

Lisboa, Portugal, $12

This wine reminded me why Portugal is one of my favorite regions to hunt for value. It's a stylish, juicy red with Bing cherry and sour plum flavors, a texture like the rough side of velvet and elegant tannins. It's a red-meat wine. ABV: 13.5 percent.

2. Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi Chardonnay 2016

2 stars

California, $8

This wine shined when I rated 29 of America's favorite cheap wines. It stood out from the crowd of mediocre plonk because it had clean, bright fruit flavors and "a good balance of acid and sweetness." Best of all, it's available everywhere, from convenience stores to wine megamarts. ABV: 13.5 percent.

1. Goru Verde 2015

2.5 stars

Jumilla, Spain, $10

When I started compiling this list, this was the first wine I thought of. Back in June, I said it "may be the best $10 red I've tasted in a long time." It still is. Made from organic monastrell (mourvedre) grapes, it features dark cherry and dried fig flavors with hints of black olive, tea and tobacco. Alcohol by volume: 14 percent.

- - -

McIntyre blogs at dmwineline.com. On Twitter: @dmwine.

- - -

Prices are approximate. Check Winesearcher.com to verify availability, or ask a favorite wine store to order through a distributor.
When employees showed up for work on Nov. 23 at a Toronto-area office building, there was a gaping hole in the ceiling above one desk. Underneath the desk, near the legs of a red chair, sat a masked intruder looking remarkably relaxed.

It was a raccoon, and it had crashed through the ceiling.

For Brad Gates and his team, the event was a typical workday. The wildlife control company he's run for three decades fields such a call - about a raccoon plummeting through a ceiling, stunning the people below - about every month, making this little fellow a usual suspect, if a bit heftier at 40 pounds. Also, Gates recalled, because it was morning, the nocturnal animal was "fast asleep under the desk."

Such incidents occur year-round. But wildlife professionals say they are a bit more common in the cold of winter, when raccoons, which are adept at locating and squeezing through even small crevices in buildings and houses, cozy down in nooks of human shelters for longer stretches of time. Squirrels love attics, too, but when testing the load-bearing limits of ceilings, raccoons have a weight disadvantage. That is particularly true in commercial buildings, which often feature dropped ceilings meant to hide infrastructure, not serve as raccoon terrain.

"They may have been living in the building for a long period of time and may have found the one tile that wasn't set in as it should be," Gates said. "And everything just comes tumbling down under the raccoon."

Their surprise appearances happen often enough that the Internet features plenty of hilarious video of raccoons, legs splayed, suddenly dropping into human habitat, as well as tales of havoc wreaked during their attempts to escape. This year, falling raccoons seem to have favored Texas, plunging into the apartment of an Arlington woman who told a local television station that she'd heard the animals "have a party" in the ceiling; dropping into a San Antonio College building as a cleaner mopped nearby; and crashing into a corrections office in Angelina County.

Raccoons flourish in nearly every corner of the United States, and they are super smart, so you might say nowhere is safe from an intrusion. In December 2016, a raccoon breached the ceiling of a liquor store in Bristol, Tennessee. In Facebook posts, storekeepers shared security camera video of the animal landing on all fours, collecting itself, then ransacking shelves as though hunting for the perfect vintage. At one point, it flips what the store manager reported was a $45.99 bottle of Baker's Bourbon onto the ground and "nails the landing." The manager's post continued: "Warning there is evidence of alcohol abuse in this video. . .the raccoon broke a few bottles."

Southern Canada also is home to the animals, and Toronto has been the site of several well-known raccoon capers. In May, for example, one peeked out of a ceiling hole above baggage claim at the city's airport; its masked face promptly went viral.

Raccoons frequently encroach on attics and ceilings, of course. But while invading protected and warm human space is certainly intentional, falling is not, said John Griffin, director of urban wildlife for the Humane Society of the United States. In houses, this usually happens when ceiling drywall has been weakened by moisture or mold - or raccoon urine and feces, if the critters have spent enough time above to have amassed a heavy latrine, as their toilet area is known.

"Believe me, when it happens, it is a surprise to everybody, including the raccoon," said Griffin, whose role used to involve responding to wildlife conflict calls in the Washington area.

One time, Griffin said, the owner of a townhouse in the tony neighborhood of Georgetown returned from a three-day weekend away to find the home plundered. The drapes were torn. The dishes were broken. But the giveaways were a hole in the ceiling and what Griffin calls "the final insult": a piece of raccoon scat near the bathroom sink, next to a tube of Colgate and a toothbrush.

"Eventually, the owner was able to laugh about it," said Griffin, who pinpointed the animal's entry point as an opening near a satellite dish that had not been properly installed. By the time the owner came home, the raccoon had escaped through a dryer vent - showing, Griffin argued, "the perseverance, and the ability for the raccoon to contend with these kinds of human-built structures and all the things it has to do to stay alive in a city."

It's not a good idea to have raccoons in the house, and not just for curtains. The animals can carry rabies and a very rare form of roundworm that can cause neurological damage, and even death, in people. Last week, a Philadelphia woman said her 4-month-old baby was brutally mauled by a raccoon that had gotten inside their apartment.

When he captures a raccoon, Gates releases it nearby, because the animal will be familiar with local water resources, competitors and denning spots - the natural, outdoor kind. (Laws about trapping nuisance wildlife, as well as whether and where it can be released, vary from state to state.) Then Gates talks to the property owner about blocking holes in the building.

Gates's ultimate raccoon-crasher story occurred four or five years ago. The animal had made itself at home in an attic, and it had established its latrine right above the master bed. When it ambled over to do its business in the middle of one night, onto the sleeping homeowners crashed 30 pounds of raccoon waste, drywall and the furry critter itself.

"It was a rude awakening," Gates said, but no one was injured. By the time he arrived, the raccoon was sleeping in a sink, as if he'd heard there was a guy who would come to escort him out.

"One thing about raccoons is they're so highly intelligent that they quickly can realize they're in a trapped environment and no effort is going to make a situation better," Gates said. "So they conserve their energy."
A 3-year-old playing with a stove accidentally started the deadliest fire in New York City in more than 25 years, officials said Friday.

The flames spread quickly through a Bronx apartment building Thursday night, racing out the open door of the ground floor apartment and up the stairwell, which the city's fire chief said "acted like a chimney." Five of the building's residents were already dead when the fire department arrived three minutes after the first 911 call.

By the time firefighters had extinguished the flames a few hours later, 12 people, including five children, had been killed, and four others were "fighting for their lives" in local hospitals, New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said Friday.

The youngest victim was Amora Vidal, a week shy of turning eight-months-old, her mother Christine Batiz said. Batiz, who lived in the building, was at work when the fire started just before 7 p.m.

Batiz wrote on a Go Fund Me page that her mother, Maria Batiz, 57, called her at work to tell her that a fire had broken out in the building and she and the baby were trapped.

"I never heard from her again," Christine Batiz wrote Friday. "Later on at around 1am i heard the news i never thought i would hear. I lost my angel baby and my bestfriend ; my mother."

The fire started Thursday night around the time that many residents of the 25-unit, five-story building would have been eating dinner.

On the ground floor, a 3-year-old boy who Nigro said "had a history of playing with the burners and turning them on" was toying with the stove in his family's kitchen. His mother discovered the fast-moving fire when she heard the child's screams from another room. Grabbing her son and her 2-year-old child, the woman quickly fled, leaving her apartment door open as she exited the building, Nigro told reporters Friday.

Soon, the flames were shooting up the open stairwell, trapping residents on the higher floors. As people panicked, fleeing into the halls and the fire escapes, the open doors and windows sucked the fire upward. "It took the fire so quickly upstairs that people had very little time to react," Nigro said.

Some tried to flee down stairs that were already consumed by flames and smoke. About 20 others had already climbed onto the building's fire escapes into the frigid night air, with temperatures hovering in the teens, when the first firefighters arrived, he said.

The victims, he said, died from burns and smoke inhalation, most of them fairly quickly.

Esther Sakyi, 50, said she was alone in her bedroom when she felt the room getting hot. Not considering the possibility of a fire, Sakyi said she initially took off all of her clothes, but then went to the door to see what was happening.

"I opened it, and the smoke just hit me," she said.

Sakyi ran back through her apartment to the fire escape, still naked in the frigid night air. Firefighters, already on the scene, helped her into a ladder to safety. Paramedics then transported her to a hospital, where she received stitches for a cut sustained during the rescue.

It took 150 firefighters working over the course of a few hours to extinguish the blaze.

"It was terrifying," Sakyi said. "I am still in shock."

December was the worst month of fire in New York City in a decade, Nigro said. And the Thursday night blaze was New York City's deadliest since a blaze at a Bronx club killed 87 people in 1990. Another 10 people were killed at a Bronx fire in 2007, nine of them children.

But Nigro said there was nothing unusual about the structure of the building that would have made it especially prone to such a disaster, a point that Mayor Bill de Blasio, D, reiterated later on WNYC radio.

"From what we know right now, there was not a problem with the building," de Blasio said.

The building had more than 20 apartments with six open violations, however, including one for a defective smoke detector in an apartment in the building's first floor, according to records of the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Nigro said investigators had not yet determined how many of the building's fire alarms were working at the time of the fire.

The building's owner, Howard Alkoff, could not be reached for comment.

Nigro said it's not rare for children to start fires.

"We get 75 to 100 referrals per year of children who are fascinated with fire, playing with fire," he said.

"And also you've seen the ads: close the door, close the door, close the door," Nigro said. "If, unfortunately, you do have a fire in your apartment, then you must close the door when you exit because the results if you don't are what happened here last night."

Many of the 25 families who lived in the Bronx apartment building were immigrants, "hard-working people going about their lives," said Jonathan Morris, the priest at the nearby Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, who said he spent Thursday night with the families at St. Barnabas Hospital as they were called upon to identify the dead.

They included Karen Francis, 37, her 2-year-old daughter Kylie, and her 7-year-old daughter Charmela. Francis' niece, Shantay Young, 19, also perished in the fire. Francis' mother told the New York Times that 13 members of the family lived in the building.

The American Red Cross set up an aid station for survivors at a local high school, providing food, blankets, and other support, including temporary housing, to the displaced. "It was horrific, heartbreaking," said Michael de Vulpillieres, a Red Cross spokesman.

Investigators remained at the scene Friday afternoon, where fire trucks lined the street and pedestrian access was blocked. Fire department officials stood beneath a tent at the intersection, handing out fliers with information about kitchen safety and free smoke detector installations.

Some neighborhood residents ventured by in the cold to offer donations and support.

"When I saw it on the news this morning I started crying," said Nancy Clark, a 42-year-old Bronx resident, who came to the scene Friday to donate blankets, phone chargers and toiletries to the families who had been displaced. "You think of those kids [who were killed] and you just imagine what those families are going through."
CLAYTON  As the region prepares for single-digit temperatures in the days ahead, an animal rights group sued to stop carriage rides at Winter Wonderland in Tilles Park in Ladue.

St. Louis County officials responded Thursday, with a late afternoon announcement that carriage rides at the annual Winter Wonderland in Tilles Park would cease when temperatures hit 15 degrees or colder.

Out of an abundance of caution for the safety of the horses and patrons, we have decided this is the best course of action, County Executive Steve Stenger said in a statement.

Dan Kolde, a lawyer and animal rights activist who has fought for stricter regulation of horse-drawn carriages in downtown St. Louis, filed the lawsuit Thursday on behalf of the nonprofit St. Louis Animal Rights Team. The suit sought a St. Louis County judges order halting the use of carriage horses in frigid temperatures.

The suit claimed that horse-drawn carriages are regulated by the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission and that St. Louis County ordinances require the health department to comply with the commissions Vehicle for Hire code.

Winter Wonderland, an annual light display in Tilles Park from Nov. 22 through Saturday, includes carriage rides offered by the St. Louis Carriage Co.

Meanwhile in St. Louis, city aldermen have been weighing a bill to bar horses from city streets following a judges order blocking enforcement of rules for carriages for at least a year.

The same animal rights group sued after the 2013 death of a carriage Clydesdale named King in Tilles Park at the parks Winter Wonderland event. The Clydesdales owner, Brookdale Farms of Eureka, said at the time that King was 22, died of a heart attack and had demonstrated no signs of distress.
BELLEVILLE  A man charged with murder in the death of a 2-year-old boy here in April was arrested Thursday.

Gyasi K. Campbell, 24, was captured by the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force at an address on St. Michael Street in Cahokia. Campbell is being held in the St. Clair County Jail.

Campbell was charged Dec. 15 with first-degree murder in the death of Kane Friess, 2, who was pronounced dead April 14 shortly after his mother and boyfriend brought him to a hospital.

Police said Campbell was living with Kane's mother at a home in the 2600 block of Eastview Drive in Belleville at the time of the boy's death. Kane died of head trauma, but police did not release more details about his injuries or Campbell's motive.

Associate Judge Julie Katz set bail for Campbell at $1 million.

The Attorney General's Child Death Task Force was activated to investigate Kane's death. It includes a Department of Children and Family Service investigator and sheriff's investigators.
Hank Schafermeyer, a charismatic educator who bridged divides between thousands of St. Louis and St. Louis County students by taking them on survival trips into the wilderness, died Dec. 22, 2017, after a decade-long battle with kidney cancer. He was 76 and lived in Webster Groves.

For about three decades, Mr. Schafermeyer  a St. Louis native and St. Louis Public Schools alumnus  took St. Louis-area students, teachers and principals out of the classroom on outdoor excursions that sometimes lasted several days.

The point was to have them learn not by listening to lectures or taking tests, but by getting outside and sharing real-life adventures. To Mr. Schafermeyer, outdoor adventures were about breaking down  the many buffers that protect students from themselves, he wrote in a 1978 article in the Journal of Physical Education and Recreation.

If a student can pick up a challenge, accept it, and see the impossible become possible, then positive personal things start to happen, he wrote.

On Mr. Schafermeyers adventures, students and teachers had to learn not just how to cook or use a map and compass, but how to work with people different from them to survive. One of the main programs Mr. Schafermeyer spearheaded as the executive director of the Student Leadership/Environmental Adventure Program was to foster interaction among students from about 20 city and county high schools participating in the St. Louis school desegregation program.

After a few days were just like, hey, youre just like me. I forget what color your skin is, said Bette Bell, who worked with Mr. Schafermeyer. I forget what country youre from or what your nationality is, because were both out here trying to fix the macaroni and cheese.

Some students had never even been to a city park before. In Mr. Schafermeyers programs, they learned how to hike in the woods on their own with no phones and no adult help, said Victor Nelson, another of Mr. Schafermeyers co-workers. They were given the task of making it to a camp checkpoint by themselves, and whether they got there at 8 p.m. or 5 a.m. was up to them, Nelson said. It was difficult, but those high expectations set for students produced a kind of grit that impressed Nelson, he said.

You had immediate results from your actions, and it was all based on your choices, Bell said.

Mr. Schafermeyers work was grounded in a tenderness for nature. He and his wife, Carolyn Schafermeyer, bought 70 acres of farmland near Giant City State Park in Southern Illinois and repopulated it with thousands of pine trees to return the land to its rugged and natural state, said his son, Jeff Schafermeyer of suburban Chicago. They set up more than five dozen bird houses on their property, Carolyn Schafermeyer said, to keep the local bluebirds from dying out.

Mr. Schafermeyers outdoor leadership program for desegregation students died by the end of the 20th century after he left the district, as desegregation funding dwindled and as a nationwide culture of testing rose to dominate public education. His St. Louis Regional Experiential Adventure Movement program, which was for students from public and private schools across St. Louis, merged with the American Youth Foundation in 1987 before dissolving in 2000. Members of a local group formed in 2013 called the St. Louis Experiential Exchange seek to carry on Mr. Schafermeyers vision.

A visitation will be held at 9 a.m. Saturday at Kutis Affton Chapel, 10151 Gravois Road, followed by a 10:30 a.m. service at Sunset Memorial Park.

In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Schafermeyer is survived by a daughter, Sue Guyot-Schafermeyer of Webster Groves, and four grandchildren.

Editor's note: This obituary has been revised to correct the spelling of Hank Schafermeyer's surname.
The Sunshine Law, Missouri's open records law, requires governments to respond to a request for access within three days. The law lays out three valid responses: the public agency can provide the records on time; it can deny the request and cite the part of the law that allows records to be kept confidential, or it can explain why more than three days are needed and provide a date and time the records would be ready.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts, said the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. And nowhere is this truer than rhetoric from a guest commentary about St. Louis Community College (Colleges trustees add a stinging insult to layoffs, Dec. 24).

St. Louis Community College enrolled approximately 19,000 students this fall semester. Thats 35 percent fewer students than fall 2010. Enrollment was in a free-fall between 2010 and 2015. Stagnant population growth in the region is a factor but so is relevance of course offerings for high-wage jobs and clear transfer pathways available to our students. Combined with the enrollment issue, Jefferson City has cut state funding at the college by $5 million. By ignoring these challenges, the college would have faced a deficit of $13 million by 2020.

The Board of Trustees and the administration are addressing these issues in the most responsible and thoughtful ways possible: with not one but three incentive programs to encourage faculty and staff to leave full-time employment voluntarily and reduce the need for mandatory layoffs. These programs work: this year, the first Voluntary Separation Incentive Program persuaded 117 faculty and staff to retire from the college. We now need to see if there are 58 more teachers and up to 25 staff who will do the same under two new incentive programs.

We are addressing this budget problem in several ways; the faculty are not bearing the burden by themselves. The administration is smaller by 20 percent from two years ago, and we have cut administrative salaries by more than $600,000. The college is cutting expenses where possible: We are selling the headquarters building at 300 South Broadway and downsizing total square footage at the Forest Park campus to reduce operating costs.

The colleges contract with the National Education Association has a staffing guideline that compares favorably with most community colleges in the state and nation and sets faculty levels based on enrollment. The pending reductions will restore the balance called for in this contract, and the decisions concerning reductions in faculty and staff were made strategically to minimize impact on students.

The budget review process leading up to decisions about voluntary separation incentives and the potential need for layoffs included college leaders from academic affairs, student affairs, human resources and campus leadership, students and unions that chose to participate. We were open and transparent during the process, and communicated frequently with all faculty and staff as the process unfolded, all a matter of record. The NEA initially asked to delay separation notices until March, only to change their minds after talking to members and return to Dec. 15, the date called for in the contract that drove the timeline for decisions made.

We must be responsible to the taxpayers in the region who fund the college. Moreover, we have to align the college with the communitys needs. With the lowest completion rate of any community college in Missouri, we are changing programs and courses to ensure we are relevant with the workforce and transfer opportunities available to residents. This is what higher education leaders do during disruptive times despite the unpopularity of change with internal constituents.

To address the enrollment issue at the college, we are pursuing several initiatives. The fastest growing job sector in the region is health care, and the college is responding. That is why a new Center for Nursing and Health Sciences will replace two aging buildings on the Forest Park campus. Other enrollment initiatives include increasing our work with high schools by expanding early college and dual enrollment programs, increasing online course offerings to make the college more accessible to students; and forming alliances with companies in the St. Louis region to align programs and services to meet the expectations of regional employers.

Some of these actions are already taking hold. For the fall semester, the college is up in every category of enrollment with the exception of returning students, and we have just realized an increase in our three-year completion rate.

Residents and elected officials in the St. Louis region deserve to know the facts behind St. Louis Community Colleges needs and its plans to remain a key regional asset in the years ahead.

Jeff L. Pittman is chancellor of St. Louis Community College. He also serves as chair of the Missouri Community College Association.
A Chinese censor.

TWO Chinese souvenirs dating back to the 17th century have fetched 11,000 at auction.

They were bought by a bidder from China and are now on their way back to Beijing.

The souvenirs  known as Chinese censors - are bronze and belonged to someone in the Stratford area; they were auctioned by Hansons.

Television auctioneer Charles Hanson said the censors were used for rituals or religious purposes perhaps even a decorative offering in a temple.

They come from the Emperor Kangxi reign, 1661 to 1722 about the time of our own King Charles II. They may well have found their way to Britain as a gift or souvenir as many of our forebears travelled to the Far East in the 19th and 20th century and brought items like this back with them. Isnt it amazing how they turned up in Stratford-upon-Avon at one of our valuation days when we are more used to looking at items that might have been made of oak from years ago? Charles said.

One of the censors sold for 8,000 and the other for 3,000. Charles Hanson said the phone lines stayed open for some time as two bidders from China battled it out to own the items.
Mario Tama/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Residents in the mountain municipality of Morovis, Puerto Rico are still experiencing the intense effects of Hurricane Maria.

In the community of San Lorenzo within Morovis, people were severely affected when a crucial bridge linking them to the rest of the island was washed away during the storm and some have been without electricity for more than 100 days.

Maria slammed through the U.S. territory on September 20. Puerto Rico's Department of Public Safety has attributed 64 deaths to the hurricane. However, the official tally has come under scrutiny from the New York Times and others. This has prompted the Puerto Rico's governor to order a review and inspection of all the deaths that have taken place since Maria.

For lifelong resident Aglae Cruz, her daily routine has been a struggle.

"I've lived here 44 years. All my life. Every day is very difficult. Getting water. Living. It's very hard," Cruz told ABC News.

The community has been using a cable spanning the river that separates them from the island to transport people and supplies. ABC News followed a medical team from Bantiox Community Clinic based in Toa Baja as they prepared to reach San Lorenzo to provide aid. Their team made of doctors, nurses and non-medical volunteers traversed mountain roads only to encounter the raging river that keeps people isolated. The team traveled an additional two hours to get to the other side.

On Puerto Rico, tropical weather systems bring rain nearly every day, which makes crossing a river dangerous.

"Each time it rains, this is whats going to happen. Theyre going to be incommunicado. They wont be able to get out. If theres an emergency there, theres no way for an ambulance to get there. This is happening in a lot of places in Puerto Rico," said Dr. Jorge Gabriel Rosado of Bantiox Community Clinic.

Once the team reached San Lorenzo, they met residents who had been going without prescriptions to treat chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension.

Even though most of the people of Morovis are still without power, construction crews have begun work on a replacement bridge. Information on its estimated completion was not immediately available by Puerto Rico's Department of Transportation and Public Works.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Brian Rogers

Rogers Rabbits

www.sunlive.co.nz

As we move beyond the festive furore for another year, were doffing our collective caps to the upcoming awards season with a look back at the mad, the bad and the sad of the last 12 months. So here, in no particular order, is The Weekend Suns New Year Dishonours List:

Best Fat Loss Programme of the Year: Extradition of Dotcom.

Best Fireworks Display: Kim Jong-un for his series of super-duper skyrockets.

Most Spectacular Election Loss Despite the Most Votes: National Party.

Shot Self in Foot Award: Metiria Turei for trying to milk emotional brownie points but finding it backfires; loses job and any remnants of credibility.

Drop Kick Award: Dan Carter caught drunk driving in France in February. Kicked into touch as brand ambassador for Land Rover.

Really Stupid Award: To the ACC for agreeing to pay thousands of dollars for Pokemon Go injuries.

Forward Thinking Award: The chap who dug up the Marsden Point fuel pipeline and plunged the top half of the country into fuel shortages including Auckland Airport.

Resort of the Year: Manus Island Retreat. You'll have a smashing time. What a riot. Views to die for...

Stupid Headline of the Year: "Murder Gone Wrong" in the case of Ben McLean's admission of killing his wife and shooting her new partner. When did murder ever go right?

Best Emergency Call of the Year: To the woman who dialled 111 because her dyed hair did not match the colour on the packet and she wanted a refund. Runner-up goes to the guy who called emergency services because he could not turn off the television set.

Silly Idea of the Year: Attempts to shift the school holidays to February when "its warmer." Then this November-December turns out to be one of the hottest on record.

Best New Thing: The strand waterfront steps. Amongst the complete stuff ups, such as one-laning McLean Street, and we need to celebrate the successes. Whoever reconnected Tauranga with its waterfront must be congratulated.

Good Riddance Award: To the crusty old barge wreck in Hunters Creek. Thanks to harbourmaster Peter Buell and team, the rusty piece of garbage is finally going to be dealt with. Half a century too late, but better late than never. If any of us had left our trash lying around the shores of the harbour, the regional council and its predecessors would have put the boot in.

Best Impersonation of the Year: To Jacinda Ardern, in a convincing portrayal of Mrs Trudeau.

Biggest oversight: Goes to Santa Claus, for his outright failure to understand the Kiwi accent (in the recent Air New Zealand ad). After all, it was exactly 375 years ago, just before noon in 1642, that the first European - Dutch explorer Abel Tasman - sighted NZ. Youd think Santa would have this sorted by now.

Deserter of the Year Award: The closing down of New Zealands iconic Cadbury chocolate factory in Dunedin its move to Australia is pretty much up there, yes? We dont want croc scales in our chocolate bars.

Dud punt of the year: The Nats put all their money on The Bill, only for this old stayer to run second yet again. Will he get a start next time around?

The Duke of Edinburgh Award: Phil steps down because he cant think of another person in the world to offend.

Worst All Black Set Play of the Year: Aaron Smiths Christchurch Airport dunny dalliance.

The Blind Mice Award: All the fawning rugby punters who tried to shift the blame and the shame for Smiths indiscretion onto the people who recorded the evidence.

Best Post-Brexit Extended Scene in a Movie: Goes to the makers of the next James Bond film, which is now an hour-and-a-half longer to accommodate scrutiny of his passport every time he jets between exotic European locations.

Most Inappropriate Use of a Condom Award: Goes to Conservative Spokesman Andrew Roth, who tweeted: Trump condoms everything that happened in Charlottesville. Remember folks, stay safe, use a condemn.

Contradiction of the Year Award: Goes to the UKs propped-up Conservative government, who have pledged more than 50 million in aid to war-torn Yemen - but not before selling arms worth over 4 billion to the Saudi coalition that caused the devastation in the first place.

Bittersweet Moment of the Year: Andrew Little watching Jacinda Ardern become Prime Minister.

Paul Walker Driver of the Year Certificate: The guy who took a luge down the Kaimais.

United Future Award for Biggest Political Wipeout: A tie between United Future and Maori Party

Hone Harawira Cup for Maori Activities: Maanu Paul, for claiming the entire foreshore and seabed on behalf of all Maori.

The Give and Take Award: Bestowed upon the Auckland intermediate school which collected $3700 for Fiji flood victims before deciding the money could be better spent - on itself.
When Junji Kumano and Takayuki Ban visited Tauranga on their recent travel research trip, they tried out the newly-launched Arataki Cultural Walking Trail app developed by local entrepreneurs.



Takayuki, a freelance journalist for Japanese travel and outdoor magazines, and photographer Junji, received a positive response to their 2016 South Island Traveling NZ with camping car. As their readers are mature drivers who love outdoor activities, the pair decided to write about the North Island.



Tourism BOP and Tourism NZ requested that we be a part of our Japanese visitors travel itinerary, says Aratakis CEO Lee Timutimu.



The Japanese pair met three of the four partners of the Arataki Cultural Walking Trail app at the base of Mauao, before setting off on a guided tour.



We have installed beacons at each of our culturally significant sites, says Lee. Your smart device uses its Bluetooth connection to connect to the beacons. When youre within physical range of it, you can unlock cultural information specific to that site.

The idea of listening to mountains, rivers and landmarks while seamlessly receiving information about sites of cultural significance is strongly appealing.



This proximity technology allows a user to connect with the beacons to access data, by using connectivity methods such as Bluetooth, NFC, GPS & geofencing.



The beacons are small Bluetooth radio transmitters. Similar to a lighthouse, they repeatedly transmit a single signal that other devices can see. Instead of emitting visible light though, they broadcast a radio signal that is made up of a combination of letters and numbers transmitted on a regular interval of approximately 1/10th of a second. A Bluetooth-equipped device like a smartphone can see a beacon once its in range, much like sailors looking for a lighthouse.



Once the app has been downloaded to a mobile device, users can select from a variety of virtual guides, with each guide representing a selection of sites. Apart from the initial app download, internet access is not required. The app will be useful for sites that are in poor cellular coverage areas or remote locations.

There are many culturally significant sites or waahi located around NZ, say the team, with each having its own unique story or history.





The information provided through the app covers Maori place names, landmarks, stories, proverbs, history and songs.



Lee points out that they never share cultural content that has not first been vetted and approved by Iwi and Hapu.



Joe Harawira, who is a founding member of Te Reo Wainene o Tua, a storytelling initiative, is the narrator on the app which officially launched on September 1.



The app is available on Google Play store or the App Store.
Friends of Baycourt is pleased to announce three Tauranga Girls College graduates are this years winners of the FOB Annual Performing Arts Youth Scholarship.

Overall 2017 scholarship winner Teagan Wilson has been awarded $3000, first runner-up Danielle Sigley has won $2000, and second runner up Darrel Nitschke will receive $1000.

The annual scholarship is awarded to Western Bay of Plenty secondary school students, aged 16 and over, who intend to undertake tertiary education in their chosen field of the performing arts in the following year.

FOB chair Anna Finlayson Smith says due to the high standard of applications this year, selecting the three winners proved a difficult task for the judging panel.

We are hugely delighted to be supporting the next generation of performers with this scholarship and it is wonderful to see the skills and strengths of the applicants. Friends of Baycourt wishes them all the very best in their next steps in gaining more qualifications in the area of Performing Arts.

Next year, overall winner Teagan Wilson will commence fulltime study at Transit Dance Studio in Melbourne, Australia, where she has been accepted to study a two-year Diploma in Dance  Elite Performance.

Having danced since the age of seven, Teagan hopes her studies in Melbourne will eventually lead to a professional dance career.

I feel like Ive lived at Baycourt for most of my life with different dance shows and productions, so when I saw Friends of Baycourt was offering a scholarship I decided to try my luck and see what happens.

This was my first time applying for a scholarship and I am so grateful for the support Ive been given from Friends of Baycourt.

First runner-up Danielle Sigley plans to shift north next year to undertake a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Drama and Education at The University of Auckland.

Heavily involved in drama and singing, Danielle says her future goal is to become a drama teacher, on top of continuing her involvement in the local theatre community.

Ive never won a scholarship before so its really quite a big deal for me, especially because Im extremely passionate about the performing arts.

Being involved in performing arts is so rewarding. Its the inclusiveness, anyone can take part, and its fulfilling being able to put your everything, your creativity and emotions into it.

As for second runner-up Darrel Nitscheke, in 2018 she will travel south to Victoria University of Wellington where she will study towards a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Theatre and a minor in Political Science.

Though shes focused mainly on music over the years, Darrels dabbled in drama too and hopes to expand on her experience and become a director of a theatre company in the future.

I feel absolutely fantastic, especially because this scholarship is recognition for people in our local community who contribute to the arts and want to continue contributing to the arts.

Because Ive been going to Baycourt all my life, watching shows and things like that, being named as a recipient makes it all the more special.
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In his Christmas message this year the Governor of Gibraltar, Lieutenant-General Edward Davis, reflected upon the unity and harmonious coexistence among people on the Rock. My thoughts gravitate, as ever, to the power of Gibraltar's inclusive, respectful and generous multi-faith and multicultural Community. It is something wonderfully reassuring and uplifting to be a part of; and something that must not go unheralded, as I believe it offers an enlightening example of what makes a positive difference to our beautiful yet troubled world - unity, he said.

The source of the power of Gibraltarianness became vividly apparent to me during this year's National Day Celebrations when we commemorated the brave and inspired Referendum Generation of 1967...it struck me that Gibraltarianness draws its power from its respected and celebrated heritage. A heritage that is inclusive and reconcilable. A heritage that gives Gibraltar its identity, its belief and its ambition.

His Excellency went on to say that in the past year there have been many times when he had felt humbled by the power of Team Gibraltar's unity of purpose and compassion, but he especially highlighted Gibraltar's extraordinary contribution to the UK's response to Hurricanes Irma and Maria, which devastated huge swathes of the Caribbean. This ranged from the Gibraltar government's donation of ten all-terrain vehicles, to three days of non-stop harbour and airport operations, the provision of food and building materials by the Rock's business community, and the collection of clothes by local Scouts.

Everybody did their bit, he said, because Gibraltar knows, through shared experience, that the only way you get through hard times is to stand together. Misfortune may befall everybody; but good fortune favours a Community that thinks of the collective before the individual.

The governor also paid tribute to army, police and medical personnel.
As a major tourist destination and the southern gateway to Europe, Malaga port is used to welcoming passenger ships and luxury private yachts almost every day. However, when a classic tall ship anchors beside its quays it is something unusual, a special occasion which may even feature in the history books of the future.

This Christmas, the Nao Victoria Foundation has set its sights on Malaga, and from now until 7 January there will be the chance to tour the impressive Galeon Andalucia, a replica of the galleons used by the Spanish for their maritime expeditions between the 16th and 18th centuries.

Together with two other sailing ships, Nao Victoria and Nao Santa Maria - which is still being built, it is one of a collection managed by the foundation, which are used as museums and also as venues for events.

During its tour this year the Andalucia has visited Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Virgin Islands, USA, Canada and several Spanish ports. This is its first time in Malaga, although the foundation's flagship, the Nao Victoria, was here in February. A ticket to visit the ship costs six euros for adults and three euros for children aged from five to ten, and the tours take place between 10am and 7pm.

Boarding a galleon and walking across its decks gives an idea of what it must have been like to be a cabin boy; to step back in time and put yourself in the place of the crew members who sailed the seas over half the world for three centuries. The aim is for people to appreciate the challenges and feats of the Spanish sailors centuries ago, says foundation representative Fernando Viota. A visit to the ship is full of symbolism.

Malaga was also the birthplace of one of the greatest explorers of the 16th century, Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, who some historians think discovered what is today Hawaii.

Almost the whole of the Galeon Andalucia can be visited. The ship is 55 metres long, has six decks, seven sails and ten cannons. There are also quarters for top-ranking officers, such as the captain, with cabins, bathrooms and what is known as the Admiral's Room. Although the view hardly differs from that of the quay, looking at the cathedral, the Gibralfaro castle, big wheel and Equitativa building from the deck of a tall ship takes visitors back in time. If we also take into account the characteristic movement of this type of ship in port, it is almost like being in a film.

This is a fascinating experience, and something different to enjoy during the festive season, before the ship leaves for its next port of call, with a fair wind and at full sail.
Saint Thomas of Canterbury is perhaps one of the best known martyrs of today, with a complex and tragic tale of religion, friendship, and betrayal leading to his canonisation and the celebration of this day, 29 December, as his Saint's Day.

Thomas Becket became Lord Chancellor in 1155, as then Archbishop of Canterbury Theobald of Bec, recommended him for the post to King Henry II after serving as Archdeacon of Canterbury for a year. As part of this role, Becket had to foster the King's son, Henry, for some time and the younger Henry was reported to have said that he was shown more fatherly love in one day from Thomas Becket than his father showed him for his entire life. His kindness was not unnoticed by others, being described as &ldquosweet and pleasant in conversation, amiable in his manners&rdquo by a monk of Canterbury who worked with Becket.

It was during Becket's time as Lord Chancellor that he and Henry II's friendship began. When Becket was made Archbishop of Canterbury on 23 May 1162, following the death of Theobald, the king hoped that their close, personal friendship would mean that the new archbishop continued to put the royal family first, ahead of the church. There was fierce opposition from within the clergy at this choice for the new Archbishop of Canterbury as Thomas Becket was not a monk. Nevertheless, the king was insistent and the members of the church reluctantly accepted.

However, giving his close friend and confidante a position of power within the church did not go as well for King Henry II as he had intended. After becoming archbishop, Becket renounced his former life of pleasures and became a serious, simply-dressed cleric. Within this great change, he stopped aiding the king and putting the royal's interests first and started championing ecclesiastical rights.

A rift grew between the former friends and Becket resigned his chancillorship. Henry II attempted to influence the other bishops against Becket in October 1163 when he sought approval of the traditional rights of the royal government in regard to the church. He received approval from every bishop except Becket.

In 1170, Becket excommunicated three bishops who crowned Henry the Young King, a job done by the archbishop. He then went on to excommunicate his opponents within the church. Upon hearing this, King Henry was furious and uttered his immortal words &ldquowill no one rid me of this turbulent priest&rdquo (although his exact words are subject to debate), and four knights set out to confront Becket. When he refused their demands to go to Winchester to meet the king, the knights assassinated him.

After his death, people began venerating Thomas Becket as a martyr and he was canonised by Pope Alexander III in 1173. In 1174, Henry made a pilgrimage to Thomas Becket's tomb and publicly wept and repented.

There are several churches and chapels dedicated to the 'turbulent priest' in Spain, including the Iglesia de Santo Tomas Cantuariense in Salamanca and the Vegas de Matute church in Segovia.
It can come as a great shock to move to a country you don't know, and one which has a different culture, and it can sometimes also lead to loneliness. That was what the Department of Internationalisation team at Malaga university were thinking, when they set about finding a way of helping students to make friends. Together with the Welcome to UMA office, they recently came up with the idea of organising an Andalusian Cookery Workshop.

Those who attended this workshop were international students who had come to study at Malaga University, and who were mostly on their own. Through this workshop they not only learned to make typical Andalusian dishes, but also learned more about the culture of the region and, at the same time, met other people who, like them, are a long way from home.

The workshops and events of this type which are organised for international and Erasmus students are free of charge and are always a great success. On this occasion there was only room for 30 people to attend, but sources at the Welcome to UMA office say they received more than 300 applications.

The students learned how to cook potato omelettes, fried aubergines and 'porra antequerana'

The workshop was for 30 people, but more than 300 students applied to take part

The workshop was held at La Mesa Malaga, and the students were of many different nationalities, having come from countries such as Namibia, Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, France, Lithuania, Mexico, Italy, Belgium, the USA and South Korea.

The recipes they learned to make were 'porra antequerana', fried aubergines with molasses and potato omelette. These dishes were chosen because they are the simplest ones but at the same time are most typical of the gastronomy of Andalucia. Although many of the students found it rather difficult to turn their 'tortilla' over, the laughter this produced created links of friendship between them and that, of course was one of the objectives.

Two who were already friends, Ana and Maryam, signed up for the workshop to get to know more people and, especially, to learn to cook Spanish food. I wanted to learn to make local dishes, because I thought it would be a fun thing to do and also it has been a good way of meeting people, said Ana. It also helped that it was free. Other Spanish cookery courses cost money, added Maryam.

After cooking the dishes, the students were able to enjoy eating them and they were also given a book of the recipes so they can make them at home.
As the old year comes to a close and we begin to embrace the new one, many of us will be thinking about our New Year's resolutions, even though the majority of them will have fallen by the wayside by the second week of January.

A New Year's resolution is a tradition most common in the Western Hemisphere in which a person resolves to change an undesired trait to accomplish a personal goal, or otherwise improve their life in the year ahead. Resolutions come in many forms and are usually undertaken to help one quit a bad habit such as smoking, while others make pledges to develop a positive approach to a strict exercise programme or learning a new language.

Religious parallels

88 per cent of those who make New Year resolutions fail because they set themselves unrealistic goals

During Judaism's New Year, Rosh Hashanah, one is to reflect upon one's wrongdoing over the year and seek and offer forgiveness. The concept, regardless of creed, is to reflect upon self-improvement annually.

It is believed that the Babylonians were the first to make New Year's resolutions around 4,000 years ago, and people all over the world have been making, and breaking, them ever since.

New Year's Day celebrations began in pre-Christian times, beginning with the Babylonians, who celebrated the New Year in March. March was a logical time for the New Year because spring begins and crops are planted. But the Babylonians had a greater motivation to stick to their promises than what we have today, because keeping their promise would mean that their gods would bestow their grace on them throughout the course of the following twelve months

The practice carried over into Roman times with worshippers offering resolutions of good conduct to the two-faced deity named Janus, the god of beginnings and endings who looks backward into the old year and forward into the new one. January is named after Janus, also the patron and protector of bridges, gates and doorways, and the Romans believed good luck would bless those who touched his head.

The Romans usually made resolutions with a moral flavor, but when the Empire accepted Christianity as its official state religion in the fourth century, the Feast of Circumcision began to be celebrated on January 1. The circumcision of Jesus has traditionally been seen as the first time the blood of Christ was shed, and thus the beginning of the process of the redemption of man.

Early Christian beliefs

Early Christians believed the first day of the New Year should be spent reflecting on past mistakes and resolving to improve oneself in the coming year. During watchnight services, many Christians prepared for the year ahead by praying and making these resolutions.

During the Medieval period, the Knights took the Peacock Vow. Supposedly, one by one, during the last feast of the Christmas week, the knights would place their hands on a roasted peacock and recommit themselves to the ideals of chivalry.

These noble birds perfectly represented the splendour and majesty of kings and their plumage was considered the richest ornament with which they could deck the crowns.

The Puritans

In the 17th century, the Puritans avoided the indulgences associated with Christmas and New Year's celebrations and they even avoided using the name January, instead, referring to it as the First Month.

The Puritans urged people to avoid the revelry and spend their time reflecting on the past year and contemplating the year to come. In this way, they adopted the old custom of making resolutions, but they were enumerated as commitments to better employ their talents, treat their neighbors with charity, and avoid their habitual sins.

The American revivalist preacher, philosopher and Protestant theologian, Jonathan Edwards, comprised a list of 70 resolutions on various aspects of life. These included never speaking anything but the pure and simple verity, never to speak evil of anyone, and to always maintain and establish peace.

Today, little has changed, but rather than making promises to gods, we make promises to ourselves. Since we cannot possibly rain the wrath of the gods down on ourselves as punishment for not keeping our promises, it need not surprise us that sooner or later we fail in staying true to our words.

Choosing realistic goals

A study carried out by the University of Bristol involving 3,000 people showed that 88 per cent of those who set New Year resolutions failed, despite the fact that 52 per cent of the study's participants were confident of success at the beginning.

The most common reason for participants failing their New Year's resolutions was setting themselves unrealistic goals and not keeping track of their progress, while one in ten respondents claimed they simply made too many resolutions.

So, when we have finished singing Auld Lang Syne -and bid farewell to the old year at the stroke of midnight - we should remember that when resolutions are too ambitious, we become discouraged when we fail and ultimately give up altogether.

It is claimed that resolutions are made to be broken, although we often rely on this premise to justify our failings.

So instead of making hard-line resolutions this year, try small, incremental resolutions, for they will have a much greater chance of creating real lifestyle change.
A new addition to Torremolinos' impressive collection of bronze sculptures by internationally renowned Elena Laveron was unveiled in the town last week.

The sculpture, called 'Los Oficios' (tradesmen), is made up of five bronze figures and will be centrepiece of the planned pedestrianisation of the Plaza Costa del Sol. It was previously displayed in the Palmeral de los Sorpresas in Malaga and for the moment will be temporarily located in the patio of the Pablo Ruiz Picasso Cultural Centre.

One the pedestrianisation work is complete the one tonne work will take pride of place in the main plaza on the new central boulevard. The two-metre high piece will be situated in front of the Barrabino mansion, which will house the town's new cultural and artistic centre.

This will not be the first time the Plaza Costa del Sol has displayed the work of Elena Laveron. Last year, Torremolinos hosted the exhibition Poesia Multiforme, a collection of eleven bronze and stone pieces. Other works by Malaga's adopted artist can be found in Plaza Blas Infante and Plaza La Nogalera.

Laveron was born in Ceuta in 1938 and lived in Morocco until 1954, when she moved to Barcelona and attended the San Jorge School of Fine Arts. She settled in Malaga in 1966 and still resides in the city today.

She has received international recognition and her creations can be found at the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris and at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid.
Last week's election in Catalonia delivered little change to the status quo. Pro-independence parties secured a majority in the 135-seat regional chamber, although anti-independence Ciudadanos emerged as the biggest party, even if some way from taking control.

The election was ordered by central government after the last regional parliament illegally declared independence from Spain. Madrid had invoked Article 155 of the constitution to take back some direct control and call a regional election.

In the final result, votes cast for the parties against independence were narrowly ahead of the separatist parties, however as the distribution of seats favours more pro-independence areas, it was the latter that won the most, taking 70, two over the majority of 68 needed.

To the surprise of many who had been following opinion polls, the Junts per Catalunya candidacy of ousted regional president, Carles Puigdemont, won 34, more seats than its separatist rival, left-wing republican ERC (who won 32). Oriol Junquera's ERC had been expected to do the best of the two. The third secessionist party, anti-system CUP saw its number of seats reduced to four.

In terms of the parties campaigning against independence, centre-right Ciudadanos became the biggest party overall in Catalonia with 37 seats, helped by tactical voting and a big turnout in the more densely-populated coastal areas. However with the addition of the regional MPs of the other parties, there are not enough seats on paper for a pro-union coalition to govern.

Instead the same situation as early autumn remains, with the secessionists most likely to form the new regional government. Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, accepting the result, said that any regional government was acceptable as long as it stayed within the constitution.

This time round there are added complications for the separatist parties due to the ongoing legal action against those allegedly involved in the illegal independence referendum and parliamentary vote in October. Eight of their new MPs are either in jail or absent from Spain.

Carles Puigdemont of Junts per Catalunya is currently a fugitive in Belgium with four other of his ex-ministers. While Oriol Junqueras, leader of ERC, is in jail in Madrid while investigations continue, along with two other new MPs.

This week it wasn't clear if the detained MPs would be able to take part in a debate and vote for a new regional president. Neither was it clear who that regional president could be, as Puigdemont, former president and leader of the biggest separatist group would face arrest if he returns to Spain.

On Thursday legal experts dismissed the suggestion that Puigdemont could be invested as president remotely from Belgium.

Under its emergency powers under Article 155, it is now central government's responsibility to summon the new regional parliament to vote on the next Catalan government before 6 February.
King Felipe VI used his traditional Christmas Eve broadcast to send out a conciliatory message to Spain at the end of a year dominated by secessionist threats in Catalonia.

The king called on the nation to live together in harmony, to talk and to respect the laws and diversity of the country.

Referring to the Catalan political crisis, he urged both sides to avoid any further unilateral actions that would only lead, he said, to exclusion and confrontation.

The king's message was eagerly awaited, as the last time he appeared in a televised address was in October to directly criticise the Catalan secessionists. This time his speech was more conciliatory, stating that ideas shouldn't separate or distance families or friends.

He went on to say that he hoped Catalonia would soon recover its position as a leader of the Spanish economy and that the events of the last year had served to demonstrate the strong commitment of the Spanish people to the democratic Spain that we've all built together.

Speaking from the Salon de Audencias at the Zarzuela palace, the king recalled the successes over the last 40 years, including the end of ETA terrorism and the entry into the European Union, urging Spaniards to not stay still and to be disposed to evolve and  to inspire.
The interior ministry has launched an investigation after widespread criticism of the quality of the traditional Christmas Eve dinner served to riot police on secondment to Catalonia from across Spain.

Hundreds of officers have been working away from family recently during the suspension of some of the region's autonomous powers and the recent regional elections, staying on cruise ships docked in Barcelona.

Police unions have said that criminals get better treatment, referring to the meal served on the ship Rhapsody.

The special festive dinner included dishes such as spaghetti, croquettes or fried cod and pepper and olive salad, and unions said Christmas meals in prison were much better quality.

Meanwhile, the government has announced that the extra police reinforcements brought into Catalonia will be withdrawn by 30 December.
Books bringing a community together



CNY Reads One Book will be kicking off their 2018 reading selection, "The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry," with a special event at the DeWitt Barnes and Noble on Jan. 11 at 7 p.m.

Publisher's Summary:

A. J. Fikry's life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. But when a mysterious package appears at the bookstore, its unexpected arrival gives Fikry the chance to make his life over--and see everything anew.

The Gabrielle Zevin novel is the organization's selection for the 17th year of their community project. CNY Reads structures events around a single book that everyone in the Central New York area is invited to read with the goal of stimulating thoughtful conversations within the community. The kickoff event includes an interactive community story performance by Vanessa Johnson.

The events for the reading program are held primarily January through March, but there will be a special author event held by the Liverpool Public Library on April 2, where Gabrielle Zevin will answer questions about the book, as well as about her other publications, via Skype. A limited amount of the author's books and signed bookplates will be for sale at the event. For details on all the CNY Reads One Book events, visit their website.

A tale for tiny dancers

Earlier this year first time children's author, Lindsay DeRollo published "Sugarplums and Shooting Stars," an illustrated story about a little bunny named Emma who has big dreams about becoming a ballerina. Emma's back in a second book, and this time she's joined by her friend Pinky. As the two characters get ready for their ballet recital Pinky develops stage fright and looks to her friend and teacher for help.

DeRollo shares that the plot of the second book comes from a personal place, saying,"What inspired me to write this story was my own history of shyness and a bit of stage fright when I was a dancer in my teens. I want children to know that it is okay to be shy and that it is perfectly normal to have stage fright. I want to show kids how to gain confidence in themselves, and how it is important to seek the help of others they trust."

"Emma and Pinky Take the Stage!" is available in both print and ebook editions on Amazon.com, and you can learn more about DeRollo and her work by visiting her website.

New book club

The Liverpool Public Library is debuting a new book club next month: Best Sellers to Blockbusters. The monthly Monday series kicks off January 15 with a screening of "The Glass Castle," and the Jeannette Walls memoir on which the movie is based is available for checkout at the customer service desk. Subsequent showings will include "A United Kingdom" on February 12 and "Brooklyn" on March 12.

Books will be available at the customer service desk a month before the screening, allowing readers adequate time to read before the post-movie discussions, comparing and contrasting the two mediums.

Update

Creator Paul Pflanz presents a copy of "Exploring Green in the 'Cuse" to Mundy Branch Library Manager Carol Johnson.

In September author Paul Pflanz and the Syracuse Parks Conservancy announced that they would be donating copies of "Exploring Green in the 'Cuse" to the Onondaga County Public Libraries. On December 16, 32 copies were officially presented to the OCPL. The book will be available on every local library shelf once the cataloguing process is complete.

Have a book to share?

Are you a local author or have you come across a book set in Central New York? Tell us about it. Send a brief description of the book and the author and we'll add it as a candidate for coverage. Write us at features@syracuse.com.
Syracuse, N.Y. - Morgan Striggles has spent the past few days studying pop culture trivia from the 80's and 90's.

"I was up last night until 3 a.m. going over 80's trivia," he said Thursday afternoon. "I'm better with 90's trivia. Van Halen, I think it is? I'm going to study some more tonight."

Striggles is going to be part of Fox's "New Year's Eve with Steve Harvey: Live from Times Square." Striggles said he'll be on air in the "VIP" section with Harvey on the program, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. and again from 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.

Striggles, 32, of Syracuse, works at Loretto in human resources, he said. He's also a model who has walked the runways during New York Fashion Week and modeled for Kanye West's "Yeezy Season 3" line.

On Sunday, he'll be in Times Square for Fox's countdown for 2018. Part of the show involves playing trivia games, he said.

"This is so exciting," he said. "This is like a bucket list thing for me."

Striggles said he was unsure how many others would be in the group with him on the television show. He said he was told to dress warm, as the venue is heated but outdoors. He's planning to wear jeans, a button-down with a sweater, a coat and scarf. He said he went through two rounds of casting to get the gig.

Striggles is a graduate of Syracuse University. He grew up in Augusta, Ga., but finished high school in Syracuse. He formerly worked as a staffer for Common Council President Van Robinson.

The model also gives runway lessons in the Syracuse area. He said he's helped about half a dozen people from Syracuse get signed with New York City modeling agencies.

"I never have met a model from Syracuse," he said of his time working in fashion in New York City. "But I've gotten seven people signed to an agency. It's a great feeling to help people."
Syracuse, N.Y. -- A federal judge has delayed the start of a trial of four men, including two Syracuse business executives, facing corruption charges related to economic development projects in Upstate New York.

U.S. District Court Valerie Caproni on Friday postponed the trial until Jan. 22.

The trial had been expected to start Jan. 8 in New York City for Cor President and co-founder Steven Aiello; Cor general counsel and co-founder Joseph Gerardi; Joseph Percoco, a former top aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a consultant to Cor; and Peter Galbraith Kelly Jr., an executive at the energy company Competitive Power Ventures Holdings LLC.

However, lawyers for Kelly sought a two-week delay to give them more time to review more than 6,000 "new and potentially relevant emails" that the energy company just recently began providing to them.

"The revelation that the parties have not received 6,000 potentially relevant documents comes at a time when we are working long days at maximum speed," Daniel Gitner, an attorney for Kelly, said in a Dec. 24 letter to Caproni. "My colleagues and I have taken no break for the holidays because, even before the existence of this new tranche of documents was disclosed, there was no time to spare."

The trial, which is expected to last two months, will focus on allegations that Aiello, Gerardi and Kelly paid bribes to Percoco to obtain development contracts with the state.

Lawyers for Aiello and Gerardi say the case against them is built on lies from former lobbyist Todd Howe, who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors.

Contact Rick Moriarty anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
Two prominent Syracuse politicians considering a bid for governor against Andrew Cuomo in 2018 will likely decide early in the new year if they want to jump into the race.

State Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-DeWitt, and Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner, a Democrat, will be racing the clock as they face a series of deadlines to launch their campaigns.

DeFrancisco, the Senate deputy majority leader, said he plans to decide in the next few weeks if he will seek the Republican nomination. He said he does not want to see a Republican primary.

Miner, whose second and final term as mayor expires Sunday, has not said when she will decide whether to launch a primary campaign against Cuomo.

Miner is also considering whether to seek the Democratic nomination for Congress to challenge U.S. Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus in 2018. The Onondaga County Democratic Committee has asked interested candidates to declare by Feb. 1, allowing the party to designate a candidate on Feb. 24.

Here's a look at the key deadlines that DeFrancisco and Miner face as they consider running for governor in 2018:

May 15 to June 5: The dates when political parties can hold state committee meetings to nominate candidates for statewide office in the November election. No dates for the meetings have been set by Democrats or Republicans.

June 5: The first day candidates can collect signatures on designating petitions for the primary election.

July 9 to July 12: The dates when designating petitions for the primary must be filed with the New York Board of Elections.

July 16: Last day to accept or decline designations for governor.

Sept. 11: State and local primary election.

Nov. 6: General election in New York for local, state and federal offices.

Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
The owner of an Upstate New York bar has been accused of sexually assaulting two unconscious women.

WHAM-TV reports Bob Champlin faces multiple charges including criminal sexual act in the first-degree, attempted rape in the first-degree and sexual abuse. Champlin, who owns the Lloyd's Limited Pub in the Finger Lakes village of Penn Yan, pleaded not guilty in court Thursday.

Penn Yan police opened an investigation after a video showing one of the alleged assaults was shared on Facebook earlier this week. Authorities say Champlin assaulted an unconscious woman on the bar sometime between Christmas Eve and early Christmas morning, while the bar was closed. The incident was filmed by another woman on her cell phone.

After reviewing surveillance video, police said footage showed the other woman, who was a bar employee, was also sexually assaulted while unconscious.

"Much later on, it would actually be the early hour of Christmas morning, the second female, who videotaped the incident to begin with, was seen passed out on the floor behind the bar, and Mr. Champlin was touching her underneath her clothes as well," Penn Yan Police Chief Thomas Dunham said.

"The females in this are victims; that's clear," he added. "If you're drinking and you've had too much to drink, if someone passes out, that's not free reign for anyone to sexually assault someone."

Brianna Champlin, who is Bob's cousin, came forward Thursday to reveal that she was the first alleged victim. She told WROC that the video was first posted on Snapchat before being shared on other social media sites; when she saw it, she was horrified.

"I really don't remember much," Brianna told the Rochester TV station. "I don't understand why he thought that was okay, I don't understand why she videotaped it and didn't stop it or wake me up or something."

Police told WROC that the other alleged victim, who took the video, could also face charges.

Bob Champlin was in the bar with the two women and another man after it closed at 8 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 24. Lloyd's Limited Pub hasn't been open since the alleged incident.

NEW: Penn Yan Police Dept. release the booking photo of Bob Champlin, who is accused of sexually assaulting two women in his pub on Christmas Eve. https://t.co/rwxMqk7qqA pic.twitter.com/BDjGuUqNNO  news10nbc (@news10nbc) December 29, 2017

According to WHEC, Champlin's lawyer said he has voluntarily entered rehab for alcohol addiction.

WHAM-TV reports Champlin was remanded to jail on $50,000 cash/$100,000 bond. He's due back in court on January 2.
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Seemingly out of the blue, Google just pulled the Pixel C tablet from its online store, two years after it first started selling the device.

Upon launch, critics were divided on the tablet, praising its decent hardware but deducting points because it was saddled with software that's not apropos for a tablet. Google supported it for a very long time, having recently rolled out Android Oreo for the device, in fact. But now its run has come to a close.

Google Retiring Pixel C Tablet

"As is common when a device has been out for a few years, we're now retiring Pixel C and it is no longer available for sale," said Google, adding that while the tablet will no longer be available, the company will still be "committed" to updating it going forward.

Google also took upon the chance to encourage everyone eyeing the Pixel C to look elsewhere instead, specifically its recently launched Pixelbook 2-in-1 device, which has garnered stellar acclaim hardware-wise, but received minus points for its steep price and relatively limited operating system.

"Our newly launched Google Pixelbook combines the best parts of a laptop and a tablet for those looking for a versatile device."

Google Hardware: Then And Now

The Pixel C tablet was released at a time when Google's hardware effort was far more experimental than it is currently. Now it seems Google has acquired a keener sense of what its product line is, but it's far from perfect, of course  the disappointing Pixel Buds and creepy Clips camera bring two of the clearest examples of that. Even still, the Pixel phones, the Home smart speakers, and the Pixelbook all represent the best of Google, and what direction the company will tread in terms of hardware is promising.

The Pixel C represents Google's initial mistakes and successes in the hardware aspect  the tablet had terrific specs at the time, but it was hampered by a limited operating system and Android apps that didn't run as great on a tablet ecosystem as they did on a smartphone.

It did eventually pick up, however, with Google giving it features such as split screen multitasking, among many others. But such addition proved almost useless, because Android apps are still not very good on tablet-sized screens. Until Google improves the ecosystem itself, its tablet experience will remain lackluster.

Visiting the URL for the Pixel C now leads to the Pixelbook, yet another clear indication that the company is intent on convincing users to purchase its powerful 2-in-1 device now that the tablet is gone.

Did you have a Pixel C? As always, feel free to sound off in the comments section below!

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
New guidelines released by the American Academy of Neurology claimed that regular exercise may improve thinking ability and boost memory, possibly delaying the onset of dementia.

There is currently no medication available to improve brain health, so the best way to battle cognitive decline is to actively prevent the worsening of its symptoms.

Exercising To Improve Thinking Ability, Boost Memory

There are at least 2.4 million Americans that are estimated to have mild cognitive impairment, and by 2060, the number is expected to balloon to at least 5.7 million.

To help improve the thinking ability and boost the memory of aging people suffering from MCI, exercise has been determined as a possible recommendation by the American Academy of Neurology.

In new guidelines published in the Neurology journal, doctors should recommend patients with MCI to exercise regularly as part of the overall management of the symptoms. According to six-month studies, workouts twice a week could possibly improve memory.

"It's exciting that exercise may help improve memory at this stage, as it's something most people can do and of course it has overall health benefits," said Ronald C. Petersen, the lead author of the study from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and a fellow of the AAN.

According to Petersen, 150 minutes per week of exercise such as light aerobics or even just walking should be enough for people who are starting to experience the symptoms of MCI.

"If we can push it back two, three, five, years, that's a big deal," he told Newsweek.

Difference Between Mild Cognitive Impairment And Dementia

Mild cognitive impairment, however, should not be confused with dementia. People suffering from MCI, unlike those with dementia, are capable of doing routine tasks such as preparing their own meals and getting themselves dressed. What people with MCI have trouble with are things such as remembering where they left their car keys or the date and time of appointments.

MCI, however, sometimes leads to dementia and the dreaded Alzheimer's disease. If exercise can improve the symptoms of MCI, then it may also delay the onset of dementia.

Different Methods To Prevent Dementia

In addition to the new guidelines issued by the American Academy of Neurology, there are various studies into methods of possibly preventing and delaying dementia.

Recent studies revealed that eating leafy greens and playing video games such as Super Mario 64 may help in preventing the onset of dementia. Another study, meanwhile, claimed that simply getting married helps in lowering the risk of dementia.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A new discovery revealed that the sea creature referred to as the giant Pacific octopus is actually made up of two different species.

The new giant octopus species was hiding in plain sight for so many years until an undergraduate student took a closer look at the eight-armed aquatic animal.

Frilled Giant Pacific Octopus Discovered

Scientists have long suspected that the giant Pacific octopus was an umbrella name for the sea creatures that covers more than just one species. The hunch has now been confirmed by Alaska Pacific University undergraduate student Nathan Hollenbeck, who focused his senior thesis on studying the giant octopus.

Hollenbeck spent time with Alaska's shrimp fishers, who made a living by lowering pots with bait into the water to catch shrimp. Sometimes a giant octopus crawls into the pots to eat the shrimp and perhaps also out of curiosity.

After simply looking at the octopuses that the shrimp fishers brought up out of the water, Hollenbeck realized that he was able to identify two different kinds. There was the giant Pacific octopus that looked like most of the others, and then there was a second type that featured distinctive frills along the lengths of their bodies and had so-called eyelashes of raised skin. They also had two white spots at the front of their head, compared to only one white spot in the others.

To make sure that his discovery of a new giant octopus species is legitimate, Hollenbeck collected DNA from the new species by swiping their skin using cotton swabs. This is the first time that a researcher collected DNA samples from octopuses through such a method. Hollenbeck also cut off very small pieces off the arms of the octopuses.

After analyzing the DNA samples, the new species was confirmed and named for now as the frilled giant Pacific octopus. Research is now ongoing to determine various details about the animal, such as its estimated population and the impacts of fishing on the species.

New Giant Octopus Species Was Hiding In Plain Sight

The DNA samples confirmed the new discovery, but it remains hard to imagine how a second giant octopus species was found through simple observation.

"Presumably, people have been catching these octopuses for years and no one ever noticed," said David Scheel, Hollenbeck's advisor who helped him publish his discovery on the American Malacological Bulletin.

The new species is not yet fully described and named, but the frilled giant Pacific octopus is definitely one of the strangest scientific discoveries ever.

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Officials of Baton Rouge Community College failed to return $520,000 in federal funds on time, according to a state audit released Friday.

The school also improperly used student technology fees to pay for salaries and benefits for five employees, Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera said.

In addition, the school has nearly $2 million in property that cannot be located, mostly computers, according to the report.

New chancellor named for Baton Rouge Community College An educator at Delgado Community College was named Wednesday as chancellor for Baton Rouge Community College.

BRCC officials, in written responses, generally agreed with Purpera's criticism.

The review covered the financial year that ended on June 30, 2017.

Federal rules require the money under review to be returned in 45 days.

In one case, the audit said, school officials were 254 days late returning part of $262,945 in federal dollars.

In another case they returned the money 189 days after the 45-day deadline.

The report said school officials were unaware of the time requirements.

In its response, the school said it will provide annual training to financial staff members to ensure compliance with federal rules.

Larissa Littleton-Steib, chancellor of the school, said delays returning the money had no fiscal impact on students or the school.

In another area, Purpera's audit said the school incorrectly used $174,597 and $86,136 respectively to pay salaries and benefits for five employees using student technology fees.

Those payments are not included in the student technology budget.

Corrective action is underway and will be in place by Jan. 31, 2018, Littleton-Steib wrote.

The audit also said the school failed to locate $1.9 million in movable property and $58,237 for items still listed as unlocated after being cited in three previous reports.

"Failure to establish sufficient controls over property increases the risk of loss arising from theft or unauthorized use, noncompliance with state laws and regulations and possible errors and misstatements in financial reporting," the audit says.

It said the missing property is especially troubling because sensitive information could be recovered from computers.

In its response, school officials blamed part of the problem for missing property on high staff turnover.

A total of $748,126 in assets has since been found, they said.

BRCC is part of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System.

It had about 8,000 students when the audit was done.

State aid for the school has dropped by seven percent in the past five years, the report says.

Tuition and fee revenue dropped eight percent during the same period due to enrollment drops.
One of every five Louisiana households receiving food stamps  mostly the elderly, disabled and veterans  will see their benefits decline starting Monday.

The reduction will be small and will be offset by a cost-of-living increase in other federal benefits, said Sammy Guillory, who as deputy assistant secretary at the state Department of Children and Family Services runs the states side of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. SNAP is the food stamps program.

Guillory calculates the average SNAP benefit of $270.22 monthly will go down $6.50 to $263.72.

But at the same time the client will be receiving about $20 more per month from their other program benefits, Guillory said. Overall theyre better off. Their income has to go up for their SNAP benefits to go down.

Exactly what a household receives in the way food stamps is determined by a complex formula that takes into account income, number of dependents, monthly expenses and other variables, Guillory said. Its an individual calculation in every case.

SNAP cost the federal government $71 billion in 2016. Of that amount about $1.4 billion was spent in Louisiana. About a quarter of all Louisiana households receive food stamps.

Generally, a household with four members making $2,665 per month, or $2,050 after eligible expenses are deducted, can receive up to $640 in SNAP benefits. For most recipients, SNAP is available for a year, but the client has to give government updates about the households financial condition every six months.

Recipients can use the benefits to buy bread, vegetables, meats and other foodstuffs. The Louisiana Purchase card has a long list of forbidden items, such as beer, cigarettes, cleaning supplies and hot foods.

The federal government annually uses the Consumer Price Index, which weighs the costs of various necessities, to determine whether benefits among its various programs need to be increased. Often no cost-of-living adjustment is made, but for 2018, the government calculated a 2 percent increase each month for recipients of Social Security Retirement, Survivors and Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income and Veterans Administration benefits.

Mostly, but not exclusively, those federal programs help the elderly, the disable and military veterans. So, those are the populations that will be most affected by the decrease in food stamps benefits.

The const-of-living increase for those programs impact about 21 percent or 86,250 out of the 410,116 Louisiana households that received food stamps in November. Guillory is unsure exactly where the effected population lives, but suspects that about a third live in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette and Jefferson Parish.

The federal government informed the state in October of the cost of living adjustment. But it took several weeks to change the computers and filter out the names of those who receive benefits through SNAP, Guillory said.

The state is not individually informing those whose food stamp benefits have been reduced. To do so would require mailing all those effected, which would be too costly, Guillory said. But clients can check their accounts online or phone the service desk.

The new amount a person receives in benefits will be automatically uploaded on individual Louisiana Purchase cards. For the elderly, disabled and veterans that generally occurs on the first four days of the month. For others, depending on social security numbers, the cards are loaded between fifth and 14th days of the month.

Recipients of Supplemental Security Income should see their cost-of-living increases Friday, for veterans itll be on Sunday and for Survivors and Disability Insurance the increases will be include in January checks.
Former state Sen. Derrick Shepherd's hopefully brief reappearance on the public stage, where he caused a scandal by merely showing up to a transition meeting between New Orleans Mayor-elect LaToya Cantrell and the city's current legislators, was a reminder of his sordid track record that includes a federal money laundering conviction and several domestic violence arrests.

It was also a reminder of some unfinished legislative business.

Once out of prison following his guilty plea, Shepherd tried to run for office once again, despite a constitutional amendment barring convicted felons for serving for 15 years. He challenged that provision in court and won, due to a glitch in the ballot language, but it was already too late by then to appear on the ballot. So in effect, his challenge paved the way for others with similar records to return to public office, or for Shepherd himself to try again.

At the time, lawmakers vowed to reinstate the provision, properly this time. After all, the idea had already been endorsed in a popular vote.

That's not what happened. After the House overwhelmingly endorsed a new constitutional amendment by state Rep. Gregory Miller, R-Norco, limiting the ban on running to eight years, the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee took up the matter at the end of a long hearing. Nobody made any big speeches for or against the idea. The committee just voted it down without comment, 3-2. And that was that.

There are a couple of interesting footnotes here. New Orleans legislators were said to be appalled that Shepherd showed up at their meeting with Cantrell. But if he ever runs again, he'll have three city lawmakers to thank; State Sens. Wesley Bishop, Troy Carter and Karen Carter Peterson, the committee's chair, who provided the three "no" votes.

Then there's this: The legal client for whom Shepherd had admitted laundering money was referred by former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, who was already under investigation for the separate crimes that would end his career and send him to prison. After having called Jefferson unfit for public office during his own third-place primary campaign, Shepherd turned around and endorsed him in the 2006 Congressional runoff. The fifth place finisher in that primary was none other than Troy Carter. And the runoff candidate Jefferson ultimately beat? Karen Carter Peterson.
Acting Superintendent Andrew Koutsoufis is said the impact of a road death sent "shockwaves" through a rural community. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong "It's been hard for the children, they found out they lost their dad, and earlier this year they lost their mum. They kept saying 'we've got nothing now, we've got nothing'," Mrs Vidler said. "It's mind-numbing and changes you. I've had to try to be strong for the kids, you just have to think about them." A 72-year-old woman died after her van and a truck collided south of Gunning on Thursday morning. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong Mrs Vidler said Christian was trying to turn his life around when the incident happened. She said the impact went well beyond her immediate family, affecting everyone involved, including emergency service personnel.

"It affects people so differently and each person suffers differently. It cripples you." Gabrielle Stewart, who was killed on the Hume Highway in July, 2017. Acting Superintendent Andrew Koutsoufis, who heads the Hume area command, based in Goulburn, was confronted by the reality of policing in the area on his first day as commander in 2016. "My very first shift ... dealing with a local 27-year-old Goulburn male losing his life reaffirmed that road safety would be a priority of mine," he said. Christian Vidler, who died in September 2017 when the car in which he was a passenger crashed into the rear of a B-double truck. Mr Vidler was 40 when he died.

"It was a very sobering one and hit home the massive issue that is road safety in our area. Acting Superintendent Koutsoufis, who has 25 years on the force, said the impact of a road death sent "shockwaves" through a rural community, hitting the whole community hard. "I'm just frustrated myself. We put so many messages out and unfortunately people don't listen," Acting Superintendent Koutsoufis said. "There are rest areas all along the Hume Highway - take advantage of them. I mean, what more can you do to a straight stretch of road?" Fatigue, speeding, drink driving and improper use of seatbelts were consistently the biggest killers on roads, he said.

In the Hume area there have been more than 150 fatal crashes over 10 years, including on regional roads. The Hume Highway, though, was the scene of by far the biggest proportion, representing 31 per cent of fatal crashes. The Barton Highway is the second worst spot in the area, at six per cent of fatalities, followed by the Old Hume Highway at four per cent. Natasha Stewart - whose mother Gabrielle was killed in an accident on the Hume in July - said the road toll would continue to climb until the highways were upgraded. Gabrielle Stewartand Berlio O'Brien, both in their 70s, died when their sedan collided with a southbound semi-trailer at Sutton Forest about 6.30pm on July 19. Natasha Stewart said the Hume Highway required improvements to prevent further loss of life, including new underpasses or overpasses so cars were not first forced to cross the highways to turn right, extra overhead lighting at intersections, vegetation management, and extra signs to warn of traffic entering ahead.

"I will be delighted if some positives can come out of this tragedy," she said. "I would like to see all entrances to highways and freeways have mandatory overhead lighting. "Regular inspection of intersections should be conducted to ensure that the growth of suckers and grass is maintained to ensure good vision. "Overpasses are used on most freeways but in rural areas sufficient upgrades have not taken place." The Kings Highway from Canberra to the coast has seen 28 deaths over 10 years. In 2017, to the end of November, there were two fatal crashes. The 48 kilometres from Bungendore to Braidwood is the deadliest stretch of road to the coast, with 14 deaths. The 47 kilometres from Northangera to Nelligen saw 11 fatalities. On the Hume Highway, the worst spot for crashes over the past decade is the 46km from Berrima to Marulan, which claimed 15 lives, 10 of them at Marulan.

The area around the turn-off from the Hume to Federal Highway has seen six deaths. Acting Superintendent Koutsoufis said most of the fatalities he saw on the Hume were on the stretch between Mittagong and the outer reaches of Goulburn, with more than a third in the Southern Highlands section. Speed was the main factor in 40 per cent of fatal crashes in the Hume command. In the past year, the Hume command issued 12,291 speeding tickets. Of that, only 97 infringements were given to heavy vehicles. "These towns are the furthest from both Sydney and Canberra, and that's when fatigue starts to hit and people start making mistakes and bad decisions.

"Have a rest - take advantage of all of the truck stops, buy a chocolate or an ice-cream at a service station, take a break, stretch your legs and just drive carefully. It's a simple message." Mrs Vidler urged drivers to take care and think about the impact it would have on loved ones. "Cut it out. You've got no idea of how wide a traffic accident affects not just the immediate family but right across, it has such a far reaching affect," "People, they just don't think that it's going to happen to them, but it can and it's just awful. Loading
Australias two biggest miners, BHP and Rio Tinto, have capped off a year of recovery by finishing 2017 at their highest stock prices in years.

Shares in Rio surged by 92 cents (1.2 per cent) on Friday to close at $75.81, its highest closing price since 2011. Shortly before the market closed it rose as high as $76.03.

Shares in big miners Rio Tinto and BHP are driving higher. Credit:Christian Sprogoe

And BHP, which last week crashed through the $29 mark to hit a 31-month high, kept moving up as it rose six cents on Friday to close at $29.63. It rose as high as $29.76 in early trade.

Weaker commodity prices in the first half of the year saw shares in the two major miners spend most of the early months of the year retreating, with Rio hitting a closing price low of $57.15 in May, and BHP a closing price low of $22.10 just a few weeks later.
Australia's infrastructure boom has kept Sydney's office rents the world's fastest growing for a second year.

Prime office rents in Sydney surged 30 per cent in the 12 months ended September 30, according to Jones Lang LaSalle.

In Sydney's central business district, 17 towers were being knocked down to make way for two metro stations. Credit:Wolter Peeters

Commercial space in the city is being squeezed as buildings are torn down to make way for a $12.5 billion metro line, while developers are cashing in on the housing boom by converting harbourside towers into luxury apartments.

"You can't dump a planned infrastructure spend on an economy and not expect things, particularly in the office sector, to be buoyant," said Kevin George, executive general manager of office and industrial at Dexus, Australia's largest office manager.
Which is why it might be worth a little refinement. Maybe it's time to test the tax professionals who sign off on all the legal-but-ethically-questionable-bean-counting on "the vibe" of what their clients are doing.

A quick example (we'll use IKEA as currently topical but it could be any of many):

The fairly brief accounts filed with ASIC were signed off by one of the big audit firms, EY, as being fair and true and rhubarb rhubarb in the legal sense.

Let's add another page to the audit, requiring the EY partner to voice an opinion on "the vibe" of IKEA's tax effort, whether the company's accounting is in keeping with the ethics and spirit of the ideal that entities should report the full profit made on revenue gained from a country and then pay full tax on the moral intent  rather than the legal necessities  of our complex Tax Act.

Among other things in IKEA's case, the auditor would have to consider IKEA reducing its Australian profit by paying IKEA a $38 million "franchise fee". (Yes, it does sound silly, but it seems to work for the curiously structured Dutch/Swedish company.
Malcolm Turnbull may not have intended to make a biblical point  one inviting divine intervention  but when he appeared at Sydney's Wayside Chapel for a Christmas lunch for the destitute he wore a striped shirt of many colours.

Genesis records that Jacob presented his favourite son, Joseph, with a "coat of many colours", and the rest, as they say, is history.

In Turnbull's case history will be weighing heavily as he contemplates a year that will likely decide whether he becomes the first prime minister since John Howard more than a decade ago to secure a second term in elections due by 2019.

None of Turnbull's immediate predecessors, Tony Abbott, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd completed their terms.
Its a chance to celebrate New Years Eve  and help a missions team get to Papua, New Guinea.

On Sunday night, members of the Fremont Nazarene Church will host a New Years Eve party.

The event, which is open to the public, starts at 6 p.m. and lasts until 12:01 a.m.

Admission is free to the family friendly event in the church at 960 Johnson Road. A freewill offering will be accepted with proceeds going toward a missions trip planned from Sept. 28-Oct. 7, 2018.

Kevin Sukut, one of the event organizers, hopes area residents will attend a party that provides an opportunity for families to enjoy the evening instead of having an activity solely for adults.

Typically, New Years Eve focuses on adults partying, he said. Wed rather see families have a good time, reflect on the past year and look toward the new year.

The event will include a cake walk, Minute to Win It and other family board and card games. Festivities are designed for people of all ages, but no child care will be provided.

Hot dogs and chips will be sold for $1. Other snacks will be sold as well.

Proceeds will go toward the Work and Witness Mission Trip next fall.

During that trip, missions team members plan to build a housing structure for people who work at Kudjip Nazarene Hospital.

Thus far, six people have committed to making the trip, but the group could have a team of between 10 and 15 people, Sukut said.

Besides working on the construction project, group members could have opportunities to visit and pray with patients, have Bible studies and vacation Bible school, sing in the hospital wards and meet people of the area.

Sukut said trip costs are estimated at between $3,000 and $3,500 per person.

We also will be raising $10,000 to cover the cost of the materials for the project, Sukut said.

Church members are having various fund-raising events. The churchs affiliation with the hospital  which touches lives medically and spiritually  began years ago.

The hospital has existed for 50 years and last year, they were recognized by the Papua, New Guinea government as a provincial hospital, meaning that they are a go-to hospital for that area, Sukut added.

Many different people are needed to run a health care ministry with a major hospital and nursing college  from cleaners to doctors, grass cutters, secretaries, administrators and midwives need good housing.

Some of these people come from miles away or other countries and serve for several months before going home, church information states.

Much of the housing is in dire need of repair. Some houses have rotting walls and floors. Others have been damaged severely by weather.

New housing also is needed because of a growing hospital.

Mission trip takers need not be skilled in construction as there will be something for every skill level.

Anyone wanting to go on the mission trip needs to complete an application and put down a $75 deposit by Jan. 31.

Sukut noted that the Nazarene church is involved in the local community with several organizations including: the Low Income Ministry of Dodge County; The Hope Center for Kids-Fremont; The Bridge and Fremont Area Habitat for Humanity.

Were just feeling very strongly to be a missional church body near and far, he said.

More information about the trip is available by calling: Marsha Christ at 402-689-1745; Kelvin Sukut at 402-317-0871; Cindy Sukut at 402-317-0870 or the church office at 402-727-6445.

In the meantime, area residents are invited to ring in the New Year at the church.

Sukut said the event offers attendees an opportunity to meet new people, have fun and be active.

Were looking to make this an ongoing event, Sukut added. Our youth also go on missions trips so if needed it could be something to raise funds for them or we could designate a nonprofit within the community to receive whatever is raised.
An old war continued into a new year as public servants entered 2017 with long-fought workplace battles still raging.

Twelve months later, peace has fallen on multiple fronts of the conflict that ignited over new industrial agreements following the Abbott-era workplace bargaining policy, but the Christmas shutdown has started with as many questions unanswered for public servants.

Former Nationals senator Fiona Nash announced the Coalition's decentralisation push in April. Credit:AAP

An armistice was drawn following prolonged industrial fights at several departments as Defence, Prime Minister and Cabinet, the ATO, Human Services and Agriculture voted up new deals, but the war remained hot in the Immigration department where its high-profile industrial showdown entered Fair Work arbitration and stand-offs continued at the Federal Court and the weather bureau.

Tech meltdowns, job cuts, a growing consultancy spend, the departure of veteran mandarins and the creation of a massive new department combined to rattle and reshape the Australian Public Service, but none of these were its greatest agent of potential change.
A father who drowned during a fishing trip with his son and a friend south of Sydney on Friday was not wearing a lifejacket when their boat capsized, police say.

The man, 73, and his 47-year-old son were fishing with a 61-year-old man at Cape Solander, off Kurnell, about 10.30am when the five-metre boat was "caught out by the waves".

The two younger men swam to shore to get help but the father was unconscious when he was found during the major search operation.

Officers and a lifeguard performed CPR on the man, but he could not be revived.
Illustration Credit:Minh Uong / New York Times Amid Uber's laundry list of scandals, which included sexual harassment accusations and an undisclosed security breach, there was an important revelation that everyone can learn from. It involved Unroll.me, a free service that unsubscribes you from junk mail. To gather intelligence about its competition, Uber bought information about its main rival, Lyft, from Unroll.me. How did Uber do that, exactly? Unroll.me scanned the contents of its users' inboxes and sold anonymised data, information that did not have individuals' names attached to it  in this case, emailed Lyft receipts  to Uber. Many were shocked to learn about Unroll.me's business model. But the truth was always there in the fine print: The company's privacy policy clearly stated that "we may collect, use, transfer, sell and disclose non-personal information for any purpose" and that data can be used "to build anonymous market research products and services." Still, people were understandably outraged by the misleading nature of Unroll.me. A company that promised to rid you of spam mail scanned your inbox and sold information about you to other companies, including marketers. So make it a habit to read a company's privacy policy. As boring as it sounds, a bit of reading will go a long way. I recently considered using a free internet service for sending a fax, and upon reading the privacy policy I learned that the company collects sensitive information like Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers. (I went out and found a traditional fax machine instead.)

Delete unnecessary apps Illustration Credit:Minh Uong / New York Times The Unroll.me episode also raised awareness of the sheer number of third-party apps that may be leeching off your personal information. There are probably apps and web services you don't remember downloading or subscribing to, and they could still have access to your data. At least once a year, it's worthwhile to do an audit on your third-party apps. On your smartphone, delete apps that you have not touched in several months. For a clean break, in some cases you will also have to visit the company's website and request that your account be deleted entirely. Also check your primary online accounts, like Facebook, Twitter or Google, to see which apps are hooked into them. Chances are you have used those accounts to quickly sign up for a web tool or app. The ones you never use may still be leeching off your personal data, so you should disable them.

On Facebook, go to the settings page and click on the Apps tab to see which apps are connected to the account. On your Google account page, you can find a similar apps list labelled "Connected apps & sites." And on Twitter, go to the Apps page under "Settings and privacy." On my neglected Facebook account, for example, I had 82 connected apps. After removing many unused or defunct apps, like LivingSocial, Words With Friends and Draw Something, I had 32 left. Use a VPN Illustration Credit:Minh Uong / New York Times In April, the US Congress voted to overturn privacy rules that would have made it more difficult for broadband providers like Comcast and Charter to track and sell information about your browsing history to advertisers. The stronger privacy rules never went into effect, meaning nothing changed. But the privacy repeal underlined the sheer magnitude of data that internet service providers can collect and share about you. Subscribing to a virtual private network, or VPN, is a meaningful safeguard for your online privacy.

When you browse the web, a broadband provider helps route your device's internet traffic to each destination website. Every device you use has an identifier consisting of a string of numbers, also known as an IP address. When you are on the internet, a service provider can see which devices you use and which sites you visit. VPNs help cloak your browsing information from your internet provider. When you use VPN software, your device connects to a VPN provider's servers. That way, all your web traffic passes through the VPN provider's internet connection. So if your internet provider was trying to listen in on your web traffic, all it would see is the VPN server's IP address connected to the VPN service. VPNs aren't perfect. They often slow down internet speeds significantly, and some apps or services don't work properly when you are connected to a VPN. But everybody can benefit from using a private network, especially in certain situations, like connecting to an open Wi-Fi network at a cafe or an airport. Protect your hardware Illustration Credit:Minh Uong / New York Times
The release of a 1500-page contract for the $6.7 billion West Gate Tunnel project on the final business day of the year has seen the state government accused of attempting to dodge scrutiny of the controversial plan.

The toll road, linking the West Gate Freeway at Yarraville with CityLink at Docklands, now faces a roadblock in the Victorian Parliament with the Opposition warning it will vote to revoke planning approvals.

The contract, released quietly on Friday, details tolling requirements for the tunnel, including an additional "administration fee" if a driver fails to pay tolls on time.

It shows there will be key performance indicator benchmarks that Transurban will need to meet or face additional payments to the state.
Northcote man Antonios Crocaris, 83, has died in hospital from injuries after he was hit by an alleged car attack in Flinders Street last week.

His family spoke of their distress and love for their father and grandfather who they described as their "hero".

"Our father Anton had his life cruelly taken away in a senseless act of violence. These circumstances are devastating to our family. Dad is simply irreplaceable and we will never fully recover from this loss," the family said in a statement.

"He was a beloved husband of Elizabeth (dec), adored father of Freda, Tony and Bill, and cherished grandfather of Verity, Lysander and Jackson.
Two men have been charged after riots broke out in Melbourne during an event staged by controversial British speaker Milo Yiannopoulos.

Hundreds of left and right-wing protesters clashed outside Mr Yiannopoulos' Troll Academy show at the Melbourne Pavilion in Kensington on December 4.

A 33-year-old Wonthaggi man and a 28-year-old Sunbury man have been charged with affray and riotous behaviour and will front Melbourne Magistrates Court on June 8, police said on Friday.

Riot police stormed the protest and used pepper spray to subdue the crowd, which included members of left-wing group Campaign Against Racism and Fascism and right-wing groups Reclaim Australia and The Freedom Party.
While the resounding yes result in the marriage equality plebiscite was celebrated with dancing in the streets, even the fiercest campaigners for assisted dying met the final vote in Victoria's upper house with solemnity and tears of weary relief.

And yet the state's assisted dying legislation, passed into law on November 22, is a social reform just as bold, on one of the most important issues of all  how to have a good death.

The steady, inclusive way Premier Daniel Andrews championed the assisted dying bill into law earned the respect of Age readers, who have named him Victoria's Newsmaker of the Year.

Mr Andrews was nominated by 42 per cent of Age readers, in a subscriber poll that attracted 1575 responses.
"Who's taking the burden of all this? It's women," Basharen said. That wartime shift is happening inside Yemen, where stories are spreading of women breaking taboos by selling vegetables at street stalls, or starting bakeries. Journalists are largely barred from entering Yemen, so it's difficult to capture the trend. But it's happening among refugees too. "Women have become the sole breadwinners of entire families," said Mayada Saleh, who works at a non-governmental organisation in Amman, Jordan - one of the few countries where Yemenis can get refugee status. "When the war started, women started to look for creative ideas to earn more money and to make ends meet." That's a constant preoccupation at the Obock camp in Djibouti. It was set up three years ago, in an area that has centuries-old ties with Yemen. In the early days, there were security problems for women and their families: Aid workers reported cases of adolescent girls lured into sex work in exchange for food and money.

Now, the camp has settled into life as a makeshift Yemeni village. Several aid agencies have set up shop, offering handicraft lessons and reading programs. Children run in and out of neighbours' tents. The camp's men work in fishing and construction, at restaurants in town, or for aid agencies. Or, like Ahmad Abdu Ragab, not at all. There aren't enough jobs and only a bare minimum of food, mostly rice, he said. "We've become addicted, like sheep." Meanwhile, many of the camp's women are having to break new ground. Mahina Saleh, a middle-aged divorcee, has been in the camp since its early days. She crossed by sea from Dhubab on Yemen's south-western tip, along with her children and relatives, after their coastal homes were destroyed in the war. Inside her tent, Saleh displays a series of purses and wallets she's made at the camp. One design has a labyrinth of red and khaki squares, another is like a rainbow.

"I think about how I used to live in Yemen," Saleh said. "I imagine, and then I cry, and contemplate suicide. And then I say, God forgive me. And then I tell myself, 'This is my destiny, this is what was written for us by the Most Merciful."' Deep in the capital's central bazaar, the Souq al-Dhubab, is where Saleh's handiwork finds a market. It's a bustling scene. Hawkers sell perfume and Yemeni sweets; women crush into a small abaya shop, sizing up the designs. Further down, another refugee is selling her own goods. Afrah Suhail stands outside her shop near the bustling central market of Djibouti's capital. Credit:Nafeesa Syeed/Bloomberg

Afrah Suhail's shop has signs in Arabic and French. Open the door, and a waft of bukhoor, Yemeni frankincense, fills the air. Inside, tubs of Yemeni and Ethiopian honey sit on shelves, along with spices and herbal teas. Almost everything is hexagonal, from the yellow honeycombs painted on the walls, to the light fittings and storage boxes. "It's all my idea," says Suhail from behind her desk. Trained as a chemist, Suhail worked for Yemen's education ministry before the war. She flew to Djibouti with her teenage son shortly after the fighting started and hadn't reckoned on staying there. But Egypt - where she was planning to join some relatives - imposed new entry requirements for Yemenis. Suhail found herself with a visa to nowhere. The money she'd brought out of Yemen started to dry up. Then, her son fell ill with a high fever. She couldn't find a taxi, and had to carry him to the hospital. She found herself thinking of the remedies she would've tried at home - including honey, for which Yemen is famous. And she was surprised that she couldn't find anywhere selling it. "I wasn't thinking about honey as a business," Suhail said. "But suffering produces ideas." She arranged for the sale of her car and other assets back in Yemen, and found a store to rent. Family members helped out with money, and sent tubs of honey from her homeland; she also found suppliers from Ethiopia. The shop opened in August 2015.

Afrah Suhail in her hexagonal store in Djibouti's capital, where she sells Yemeni and Ethiopian honey. Credit:Nafeesa Syeed/Bloomberg "I had a comfortable lifestyle in Yemen," Suhail said. "I had to push myself through a much harder situation here." The store has brought in enough money for her to send her mother and son to Egypt, once visa rules were eased. The boy, Majdi, studies there; back in Djibouti during vacation, he was helping his mother with the labelling as she poured dark honey from five-litre tubs into smaller jars. When he was gone, for almost a year, Suhail said she felt alone. "Yemeni men come to me and say, 'How could you open the project all by yourself, as a woman, in Djibouti?"' she said. "I transformed from a refugee into a businesswoman." Yemenis like Suhail who earn money abroad are sending much of it back to their homeland - providing a lifeline for the broken economy. Remittances totaled about $US3.4 billion ($4.4 billion) in 2014, the last available estimate, according to the World Bank. That's about 8 per cent of GDP.

Across the sea, Jordan has a sizeable concentration of refugees from Yemen, with about 8500 officially registered. They tend to be better off than their compatriots in Djibouti, and many were already in Jordan when the war broke out. Most feel welcomed by Jordanians, but many also grumble that it's hard to get by in its capital Amman, which also hosts some 2 million Syrian refugees. You can get a residency permit by depositing 20,000 dinars ($36,250) in a Jordanian account. Few have that kind of money. Yasmeen al-Nadheri, a divorcee who's supporting her parents and daughter with her income from a job at a foreign NGO, started a network dubbed #TransitYouth; she says she's trying to build a database of exiles, in Jordan or Egypt but also further-flung outposts like Malaysia, where Yemenis have ended up, and "raise awareness among donors that we exist". The group set up a telephone hotline for Yemenis coming to Jordan, or just passing through, in case of medical emergencies. Many of its members were shaken by the story of a Yemeni who was transiting through Amman to get medical treatment in India, but wasn't allowed onto the plane because he didn't have a doctor's note saying he was well enough to travel. He then died. Nadheri's outfit has also voiced concerns to Ismail Ould Sheikh Ahmed, the UN special envoy to Yemen, whose office is based in Amman, and whose efforts to broker peace talks have struggled. But for all their ambitions, the gatherings also serve as a kind of support group for these young people, many of whom haven't seen their families for almost three years.

One thing that the Yemeni women in Jordan have noticed is that their roles are changing. Some of the shifts may look tiny. "I put my picture up,'' says Soumaia al-Montaser, who's studying to be a nurse, with a smile. It's the first time her Facebook profile carried her photo. That's just the visible part of deeper shifts that the war has brought, says Montaser, who also tutors kids in Amman to earn extra cash which she sends back to her family in Sanaa - helping pay school fees of her nieces and nephews. "The suffering has opened up something different," she said. On a busy street in Amman, Montaser recounts just how it's different. When her father passed away a few years ago, she said, her brothers forbade her from continuing her education. After four years of sitting at home, she was "broken". She gathered all her clothes and possessions from her room, dumped them in the back yard, and sprinkled petrol over them. She set them on fire. Then, she says, she turned to her brothers: "You want me to be like that? I'm like that - I'm burning."

They relented, and she eventually studied English at Sanaa University, before the war got her thinking about a stable career like nursing. Across town, near the University of Jordan, Sala Khaled, who moved to Amman with her family in 2015, also talks about a silver lining to the hardships of war. It's not that an elder generation of Yemenis suddenly became more open-minded, she says; it's that they're afraid. Parents, she said, think: "We have to find an alternative future for our daughters. So even if they're not married, they can go to wherever." Khaled, who's part of a venture called Innovative Yemen that aims to encourage entrepreneurs, sees social changes afoot as well. Even previously conservative friends have stopped wearing not only the face-veil but the staple black abaya, and in some cases even headscarves. She's now hunting around for scholarships to continue her studies abroad, something her family never would have countenanced before. There's a sense of transience in Amman. "We don't know if the war's ending tomorrow or after 10 years,'' says Nadheri, of #TransitYouth. "If we're staying here or leaving to another country." Houthi rebels at a parade in Sanaa, Yemen in January. Since then their alliance with former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh has collapsed. Credit:AP

There have been comings and goings at the Obock camp in Djibouti, too. Locals described the scenes early on, when boatloads of refugees were arriving daily. Restaurants offered free meals of Yemeni spicy grilled fish for the new arrivals, as they waited at the port for their cases to be processed. But many have moved on. Djibouti's government estimates that more than 20,000 Yemenis have passed through the country since 2015. The camp hosted more than 6000 Yemenis at its peak; the number is now less than one-fifth of that. The war hasn't eased; it's just harder to get out. Those still in Obock probably aren't going anywhere. Around the tents, workers have been busy erecting more permanent structures paid for by Saudi Arabia. "At the beginning, we thought these people would stay one or two months,'' says Hossein Hassan Darar, director of Djibouti's refugee agency. "But I think it will be protracted and they will stay for a long time." In May, 22-year-old Niyala Salem married Abdu Ibrahim, a shy guard at the camp. She wore a white dress, and there was music, Yemeni and African. Salem, in a black face-veil, works as a nutritionist at the camp's clinic. She's made friends with two other young women, Iyhan and Fatima, who also have jobs there. All of them help support their families with their income, though they insist that women in Yemen worked before the war too.
if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...
On Dec. 15, the accomplishments of more than 1,000 students were celebrated by family and friends as the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) held its annual December commencement ceremony at Baxter Arena.

Undergraduate and graduate students from across each of UNO's six colleges were recognized for their accomplishments during the ceremony. The celebration recognized graduating students from both December and August.

The following area students were awarded degrees:

Arlington: Kathryn Andersen, Cum Laude, Bachelor of Science in Education; Laura Gloeb, Bachelor of Multidisciplinary Studies; Susie McWhirter, Master of Science.

Fremont: Lainey Diers, Bachelor of Multidisciplinary Studies; Hayley Frazee, Magna Cum Laude, Bachelor of Science in Social Work; Elizabeth Kopisch, Bachelor of Science in Gerontology; Alexis Nosal-Hemminger, Bachelor of Multidisciplinary Studies; Ashley Roumph, Bachelor of Science; Sheila Sookram, Master of Science; Jeffrey Dolejs, Master of Business Administration.

Mead: Devynn Patocka, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.

North Bend: Marissa Hoops, Magna Cum Laude, Bachelor of Science in Education.

Prague: Cheyenne Paseka, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.

Scribner: Mallory Boyle, Bachelor of Arts.

Tekamah: Alexis Gibson, Bachelor of Science in Education; Nicole Robinson, Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art.

Valley: Alison Schult, Cum Laude, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.

Wahoo: Makenzie Rhoads, Summa Cum Laude, Bachelor of Science in Education; Karie Vasa, Master of Social Work.
Members of the Dodge County Sheriffs Office over the course of the last three years have donated thousands of dollars to Project Pinkd, the American Cancer Society and the Relay For Life of Dodge County through their annual No Shave November campaign.

This year, the department participated in No Shave November once again and stretched it out over the course of December, too. Each deputy of the DCSO contributed money for the cause through a portion of union dues, and additional funds were collected from private donors and from area businesses, Investigator Craig Harbaugh said during a Thursday interview with the Tribune.

Money is still being accepted, but as of now, Harbaugh said that a grand total of $1,500 has been generated throughout the two-month endeavor. In years past, the money has gone toward benefiting cancer support and awareness, but this year, its being kept by the DCSO to be used to benefit a member of the office if he or she would need the assistance.

This year we decided to create an account, in-house, basically so that if we ever  god forbid  have a deputy that would be diagnosed with cancer, we would be able to help with some of their costs  offset some of those costs, he said.

No Shave November is the third fundraising campaign the office has held this year, with the other two being Stuff the Cruiser and the Pink Patch Project, where deputies wore pink Dodge County Sheriffs Office patches on black uniforms during the month of October in support of breast cancer awareness.

The public was  and still is  able to purchase a patch for $10. Originally, 250 patches were donated to the DCSO and around 100 patches were purchased by the public. All of the $1,000 from the patch purchases is going to benefit Project Pinkd, a non-profit organization that provides tools, resources and a strong network to strengthen and renew the mind, body and spirit of breast cancer survivors in Nebraska and Western Iowa, information off of the organizations webpage says.

Harbaugh said that while $1,500 has been raised through the No Shave November campaign, more funds may still be coming through the Sheriffs Office doors.

Weve got a private donor who has talked to us  who obviously wants to stay anonymous  who has talked about, depending on how much money we make, matching those funds, he said.

Harbaugh added that while the funds raised this year are intended to benefit any deputy or office member who could be diagnosed with cancer down the road, the money could be allocated for another instance of helping somebody diagnosed with cancer if the money wasnt used for some period of time.

In terms of philanthropy, its been a busy year for the Sheriffs Office, but Harbaugh said being able to do these positive things builds rapport with residents of Dodge County.

With all the things going on around the country, which at times, unfortunately, puts a negative light on law enforcement, we want everyone to see that we are just people too who want to help, he said. We want the community to know that we are there for them, not only with the jobs that we do when we get called out, but also just in terms of being good public servants not only in a professional atmosphere, but also a personal one, as well.
Nongkran Daks, chef and owner of Thai Basil in Chantilly, Virginia, recently served a customer who made her feel like a Dr. Seuss character. After ordering the restaurant's Thai custard, he scoffed at the green tint of his dessert.

"He said: 'Custard is supposed to be beige. I will not eat green custard,' " remembers Daks. "And I thought, is this 'Green Eggs [and Ham]'?"

Daks's sweet, fragrant dish gets its emerald color from pandan, a tropical plant found throughout Southeast Asia. It's long been a staple of Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese and Indonesian cuisine, though the ingredient is becoming more ubiquitous. In October, British cooking celebrity Nigella Lawson deemed pandan "the new matcha."

Sometimes called the vanilla of Southeast Asian cooking, pandan has leaves that lend a slightly sweet and nutty hint to any dish they grace - plus that unmistakable green hue. The plant is also so aromatic that some people use the dried leaves as an air freshener. "It's very light and fresh and delicate," says Daks, who makes her own pandan extract at Thai Basil by blending the plant with water and squeezing it through a cheesecloth.

Snocream Company, a small Taiwanese shaved ice shop in Annandale, Virginia, likewise uses fresh pandan leaves in its sweets. Mei boils the leaves, mixes the strained liquid into his shaved ice base and freezes it. He then runs the frozen block across the blade of a slicing machine for ribbons of bright green ice that melt in your mouth like snow. "People think it's mint because of the color," Mei says. "But the flavor is closer to a coconut. It's subtle."

Because pandan has a hint of sweetness, it's most often used in desserts. However, the plant is a common ingredient in many savory Malaysian curries and some Vietnamese chicken dishes. At Mondayoff, a Vietnamese restaurant in Brooklyn, co-owner Benjaporn Chua uses pandan in the marinade for gai yang bai toey, a traditional grilled chicken dish. Following her mother's recipe, Chua cooks buttermilk, cilantro, Thai chile peppers, garlic, galangal and fresh pandan leaves. After it cools, she uses it to marinate chicken thighs for hours before grilling them. "It gives the chicken a little sweetness, and you get a lot of fragrance," Chua says of the dish, which is among the new restaurant's most popular.

Pandan is available in pre-bought extract form, which is usually more concentrated than the homemade version, with an almost neon-green color.

Chef Russell Smith at the Source in Washington, D.C., uses pandan extract in ice cream, and pastry chef Mollie Bird uses it to flavor the cream filling in doughnut holes at Kyirisan. "I've played around with boiling the leaves, but you can't get the same intense color," Bird says. "It's really hard to get that just from the leaves."

Still, many prefer the real thing. Daks from Thai Basil is particularly skeptical of pandan extract. "I don't trust it," she says. "I don't know how long it's been on the shelf, and I don't know how clean it is when they made it." In other words, she will not eat it, Sam I Am.

food-pandan
The Texas A&M College of Science has big plans for its participation in a university-wide collaborative research initiative in 2018 with goals to provide up to $600,000 in support for teams participating in the Strategic Transformative Research program.

The program, which began earlier this year and offered $504,882 in funding to 11 research concepts, has already selected seven proposals to receive seed funding totaling $344,155 in fiscal year 2018. It is jointly funded by the College of Science and the Office of the Vice President for Research. Other colleges -- including the Colleges of Medicine, Engineering and Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences -- participate through a cost-sharing partnership.

James D. Batteas -- who serves as director of the Strategic Transformative Research program, associate dean for research and a professor of chemistry -- said in a statement the program will be accepting a second round of 2018 proposals in March.

"We view fundamental science as central to so many areas," Batteas said in a statement. "The STRP provides a critical bridge toward building interdisciplinary research teams at Texas A&M University by supporting the innovative concepts of our faculty, both in the College of Science and across the university, and providing a pathway to foster translational research."

Batteas added that he has been particularly pleased with the response the program has drawn from junior faculty. He said the cohort's engagement has been helpful in the "process of building interdisciplinary research efforts."

Funding awards for the 18 individual projects supported thus far have ranged from $25,000 to $50,000.

Batteas said the goal of the program is to provide an "influx of funds at the critical development phase of a project to help our researchers greatly enhance their competitiveness for higher level funding" as the faculty members test and develop new ideas for potential future expansion.

As part of the program's requirements, projects that receive support must develop and submit new grant applications to an appropriate agency -- such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Department of Energy -- within the 12-month timeframe of the award.

According to university officials, each of the 11 teams from the 2017 round of funding have complied with this stipulation.

The seven projects already selected for the first round of 2018 funding are researching topics including how circadian rhythms play a role in certain infections and disorders, the mapping of Milky Way halo structures, biomolecule synthesis and more.

Previous projects funded in 2017 focused on subjects including data-driven simulations of large power systems, anti-cancer drug vehicle efficiency, applications of novel directional neutron monitors, the relationship between galaxies and their central black holes and more.

For more information on the Strategic Transformative Research program, visit science.tamu.edu/research.
January 11, 1947 - December 26, 2017

William Lawrence Smith, 70, of College Station, passed away on Tuesday, December 26, 2017 in College Station. His family will receive guests during visiting hours from 6pm to 8pm on Friday, December 29, 2017 at the Callaway-Jones Funeral Center in Bryan, TX. Life Tribute Celebration honoring his life will begin at 1pm, Saturday, December 30, 2017 at Callaway-Jones Funeral Center and continue with graveside services at the College Station Memorial Cemetery.

Lawrence, as his family and friends better know him, was born on January 11, 1947 in Criesman, TX to Roy and Annelle Brymer Smith and raised in Caldwell, TX. From early childhood, Lawrence was a hard worker. He became one of the best wood-workers in the area and spent his career building homes alongside his father-in-law and ultimately retired from the Texas A&M University Building Services department.

Lawrence enjoyed the life he was blessed with especially being a husband, father, grandfather and friend to many. He enjoyed competitive shooting with his friends at area shooting ranges and could talk for hours on end about his love of hunting and firearms.

He honorably served our country as a Marine from 1968 to 1969 in Da Nang, during the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, this location had the second highest concentration of Agent Orange, which directly led to his suffering and his untimely passing.

Lawrence never ceased being a Marine, as he lived out their core values daily. A great man and an incredible father, there is so much that could be said about Lawrence, but he will be forever remembered for his honesty and integrity he gave to all he knew and met.

He cherished his bride of 48 years, Sandra Kay Armstrong Smith. Having only met her for a brief few minutes before he left for Vietnam, their love grew from letters sent back and forth over his time serving his Country. They were wed just three days after his return home and they continued this unbreakable love throughout their lives together.

Lawrence was preceded in death by his parents, Roy and Annelle.

Lawrence is survived by his wife, Sandra Armstrong Smith; his daughters, Robin and husband Christian Pope, and Misty Smith; his grandchildren, who will deeply miss him, Jacob Goldwater, Wesley Goldwater, Jacob Goldwater, Jordan Smith, Rhys Beasley, Devon Daniel, Logan Luce, and Kyler Luce; and close friends.

Lawrence's family asked that your memorial gifts are given to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund at www.donate.vvmf.org in Memory of Lance Corporal William Lawrence Smith.

Express condolences at CallawayJones.com
Americans want tax cuts that benefit the average person

Don Connealy asked "Why do corporate tax cuts enrage liberals so much?" Liberals are angry because corporate tax cuts ultimately benefit Wall Street firms and investors, not the many average Americans who can't afford to save and invest.

In Forbes magazine's 2017 list of the richest Americans, 56 of the top 250 were investors or had Wall Street occupations such as hedge fund or money management. Their collective net worth was $389 billion.

In 2016, almost 44 million families had annual incomes under $40,000 (U.S. Census). In a Federal Reserve Bank survey, only 44 percent of respondents making under $40,000 had retirement savings. However, 94 percent of respondents with an annual family income more than $100,000 had retirement savings.

Connealy advises people to plan to finance their retirement independent of government programs. Easier said than done. Many employees do not have access to 401(k) or similar plans. Of people surveyed by the Federal Reserve Bank, 53 percent reported their employer didn't offer a retirement plan, and 5 percent reported they weren't eligible for their employer's plan. (People often weren't eligible because their income was too low.)

Liberals want corporations to respond to tax cuts by making specific commitments instead of promising future jobs and higher wages and giving employees one-time "feel good" bonuses.

For example, Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati responded by making a corporate commitment to raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour (Eagle, Dec. 21). In 2016, more than 26 million families earned less than $25,000/year (U.S. Census). Many of these families had to rely on government programs such as food stamps. A nationwide corporate commitment to a $15 per hour ($31,200 a year) minimum wage would help needy Americans and benefit taxpayers by reducing entitlement program costs. A win-win.

When you vote this November, remember who cared about you.

ANN PAWLAK

College Station

Bullies simply just aren't making America great again

The theme of President Donald Trump's administration has been to Make America Great Again.

I always have understood that greatness on the international stage is to be a positive example of democratic principles. So it is with much puzzlement that I heard the bullying tone and threats by U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley to cut off aid to any country that declared U.S. action on placing the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem as "null and void."

The current administration has the right and the responsibility to make decisions that are in the best interests of the U.S. And if placing the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem is in our best interests, then, so be it. However, the greatness of the U.S. will be defined by how it represents democratic principles and how it displays respect to other nations.

Bullies do not reflect greatness; they reflect weakness.

GARY BALMAIN

College Station
Mary Louise Kroenke

May 21, 1927  Dec. 26, 2017

FREMONT  Mary Louise Kroenke, age 90, of Fremont died Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2017, at Providence Place.

Mary Lou was born May 21, 1927, in Hastings to Albert and Mary Ann (Pavelka) Svoboda. She was raised and graduated from Lawrence (Nebraska) High School in 1944. She received her teaching certificate, student taught, then returned to Hastings College for more education. She was employed as a GS-3 with the Department of Price Administration, rent control division, in Hastings for two years. When the office closed, she returned to Hastings College and worked on a degree in Business Administration. She graduated in 1950. Mary Lou taught in Red Cloud for two years. She taught everything in the department and was the sponsor for the Pep Club and school newspaper, plus many other duties.

Mary Louise Svoboda married Robert Kroenke on June 11, 1951. After their marriage, they moved to Lincoln where she worked again as a GS-3 with the Department of Agriculture, Regional Division. She worked there for 13 months until Bob graduated from UNL. After Bob finished his Masters in Education, the two went to Blue Hill, where she again taught all the business classes and sponsored the Pep Club and school yearbook.

The couple began their teaching careers in Fremont after moving here in 1956. Mary Lou continued her education, completing her Masters Degree. While in Fremont she raised two children, did a great deal of typing for Midland College students and for Fremont teachers. She also took care of insurance forms under both Prudential and Lincoln National Insurance companies.

In 1977 she returned to part-time teaching after doing some subbing in the Fremont Senior High. She began at the Fremont Junior High with Typing 9, she then taught at both Fremont Junior and Senior High Schools for several years, and for the last seven years taught word processing on the computers. Mary Lou retired in May of 1989, the same year Bob retired.

The couple traveled extensively over the past 30 years. Visiting all 50 states, Australia, New Zealand and four sea cruises. They also visited Europe three different times.

Mary Lou was active in St. Patricks Catholic Church for over 50 years. She has been Eucharistic Minister, lector and marriage counselor for young people planning to get married. She also served on the Parish Council, finance boards over the years at different times and helped Bob with the St. Patricks Catholic Youth Program and Cub Scouts several years ago.

Survivors include: her husband, Robert of Fremont; sons, Steve Kroenke of Omaha and Tom (Mimi) Kroenke of Nederland, Colorado; and grandson, Bridger Kroenke.

Mary Lou was preceded in death by her parents and a brother, Albert Svoboda

The funeral Mass will be 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Patricks Catholic Church in Fremont. Burial will follow in Calvary Cemetery. Memorials are suggested to St. Patricks Catholic Church. Visitation will be Tuesday from 3-7 p.m. with the family present from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. A wake service will follow at 7 p.m., all at the Ludvigsen Mortuary Chapel in Fremont.

Online guestbook at www.Ludvigsenmortuary.com.
Given that our local school division is marching toward a major capital expansion that could top out at upwards of $100 million  and still faces day-to-day resource challenges  we are against any state requirements that would make it more difficult to manage our own schools finances.

Several proposals on the table in Richmond and Washington would put a greater strain on local governments as a result of well-intended efforts to increase education standards. However, in more rural and spread-out school districts such as in Franklin County, it will be crucial to ensure adequate levels of funding as new mandates come down.

As reported in recent editions of the Franklin News-Post, local leaders have endorsed a wide-ranging series of policies that affect counties  often in key fiscal areas such as how we pay for education  as developed by the Virginia Association of Counties.

While not necessarily supporting all of the groups positions, we see the issue of school funding as a paramount concern, especially in a county with one centrally located high school serving a wide geographical area that is experiencing what can only be termed growing pains.

Among the positions Franklin County supports is that the General Assembly must provide full state funding for public education, including the Standards of Quality, where state recommendations coincide with prevailing local practice. Also the advocacy group for counties backs full state funding for targeted incentive programs, capital and maintenance support, and teacher salaries.

Full state funding should be achieved without reduction to other parts of state public education budgets or to other core services, the county association says, further pointing out that in fiscal 2016, local school divisions spent some $3.9 billion above the required local effort, or the portion of overall school costs not funded through the state budget.

In other words, local divisions already pay more than their fair share and should not be short-changed even as education standards rise.

Along with opposing any plan to divert state or local education funds from the division level, VACo notes that changes to high school graduation standards will require added resources to carry out, and those costs must be allocated fairly between the state and localities.

Another important point arises from the county advocacy group: Virginia needs to retain its current practice in which all year-end funds appropriated to the schools by the locality revert to that district. This retains the current discretion with the governing body on how to re-allocate money accrued in year-end balances. While its unclear how much money will be left in Franklin Countys school coffers going forward considering the many changes taking place, its critical any of that remaining money gets poured back into local schools.

Also, the advocacy group supports proposals that give more leverage to local governing bodies in determining school costs, such as creating an appeals process to challenge the Local Composite Index, the often-criticized state index used to calculate local districts share of costs.

It will be a heavy lift to make some of these changes or to prevent policies that increase the cost burden on local schools, but in general these proposals deserve our full support. We urge area representatives to get behind them in Richmond.
A couple of months ago, a writer friend proudly tweeted about his annual donation to Wikipedia. He noted its function as the world's first resource when looking into factual topics and admitted that it had replaced the almanacs he once bought every year. He even kvelled over its capacity to surpass them: The Wiki entry on rivers by length, for example, runs on for a highly un-almanac-like 181 rivers.

He's right, of course. We no longer breathlessly await the publication of, say, the World Almanac and Book of Facts. Yet this time each year almanacs still come out, and we still buy them. They must offer something more than simple information, which makes me think about the Old Farmer's Almanac - the nation's longest-running almanac. You know the one: with its homey, Ye Olde-style cover, bearing portraits of Ben Franklin and founder Robert Thomas, who published its first annual edition in 1792. The 2018 edition is No. 226. The title page announces that it contains a "large number of Astronomical Calculations and the Farmer's Calendar," along with "a variety of New, Useful, & Entertaining Matter." If stilted syntax and 18th-century capitalization don't get the point across, note the hole drilled in the top left corner. So you can hang it on a nail. In your outhouse.

The Old Farmer's Almanac has always been our cutest almanac, with a broad wink and a game of let's pretend served up with information. Apart from the fact that it contains horoscopes and guidance for things like "Setting Eggs by the Moon's Sign," the Old Farmer's Almanac inspires a predictable discussion each year about its famously vague weather forecasts, based on "a secret formula" devised in 1792. At a time when much of our population dangerously dismisses actual climate science, we have to think hard about whether this jokey pretend science is OK.

But first: What is an almanac? The very word is shadowy. With its mathematical-looking tables, the almanac conjures the passage of ancient Greek texts to Europe through the Arabic translations that saved them for the Renaissance, and probably has some of that in its history. Just the same, even the Oxford English Dictionary admits that nobody quite knows where the word came from.

Before they became desk encyclopedias, almanacs had a simple job. They were calendars, tables of daily celestial information: sunrise, moonrise, tide tables, moon phases, planetary positions, along with things like religious festivals and, yes, horoscopes. Calculated for particular latitudes and longitudes, they functioned as a kind of universal handbook to life when life was guided by seasons, by sunrise and sunset - and by where we were in Lent and whether Mercury was in retrograde. As astronomical observation improved by the late 18th century, nautical almanac tables became extremely precise, vital to navigation.

In this country, almanacs proliferated and settled into a cheerfully American type of publication, full of information, folksy wisdom and pure bunk in approximately equal measure: a bathroom book for the household that likely had only a couple books (and no bathroom). Today's Old Farmer's Almanac, for example, has a "Secrets of the Zodiac" table, identifying which part of the body is influenced by which zodiacal sign. The 1753 edition of Poor Richard's Almanack, published by Ben Franklin, offered almost exactly the same diagram.

The modern Old Farmer's Almanac, though it contains a lot of hooey interlarded with its tables of sun declination and length of day, is much less a remnant of our degraded information ecosystem than a harbinger of it. America, it seems, has always thirsted for fake news.

But the Old Farmer's Almanac may now slyly urge us to do better. In those lovely two-page monthly spreads, the right-hand pages are filled with delicious arcana like planetary symbols, in multiple typefaces conveying specific meanings. Their visual satisfaction encourages close study, the delight in figuring things out. And as you look closely, you find little facts, often celebrating science: the first rendezvous of two manned spacecraft, say, or the birthday of Joseph Priestley. The informative "Glossary of Almanac Oddities" explains that "Cat nights," which start Aug. 17, hark back "to the days when people believed in witches." With Breitbart whipping up hysteria about feminist witches hexing the president, which publication is more modern? More trustworthy?

So I find myself with a resigned appreciation for the Old Farmer's. If nothing else, it reminds us: Check your sources; believe only what can be proved.

You'll never be able to hang a website on a nail.

---

Huler's next book, "A Delicious Country," about 18th-century explorer John Lawson, will be published by the University of North Carolina Press.
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NORWALK  Elizabeth Stockers employment as Norwalks director of economic development ended Dec. 1 following a meeting that day with Mayor Harry Rilling.

This is to confirm our discussion today that effective immediately your employment as the Director of Economic Development at the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency is terminated, Rilling wrote in the Dec. 1 letter to Stocker. You will receive whatever pay and benefits you are entitled to under the law and under the policies of the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency in accordance with the terms and conditions of those policies.

In the letter, co-signed by Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Timothy Sheehan and obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media under the Freedom of Information Act, Rilling thanked Stocker for her good efforts and services on behalf of the City of Norwalk and the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency.

Rilling didnt explain the grounds for Stockers termination but said earlier this month that he intended to move in a different direction with the position. 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, he said.

The citys Department of Personnel and Labor Relations, while releasing Rillings letter under the FOI request, declined to release a letter it received from Stockers attorney after her termination. Department Director Raymond Burney limited his comments on the matter.

Nobody wanted to disparage her, Burney said. The mayor wanted to go in a different direction. She was employee at will and the city let her ago. I dont want to get into the details of what her attorney is saying.

Neither Stocker nor her attorney responded to requests for comment Friday afternoon on their response to the termination.

Stocker became Norwalks economic development director in July 2014, filling a position that had been vacant for more than a half-year. The position paid approximately $91,000 per year.

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 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.

On Nov. 2, she went to Manhattan as part of a Fairfield County Five effort aimed at drawing New York City-based businesses to southwestern Connecticut.
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NORWALK  The Norwalk Tax Collectors Office will be open extra hours to accommodate taxpayers who want to pay their current tax bills before years end.

The office, which is located in Room 105 of Norwalk City Hall, 125 East Ave., will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 29, and from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 30.

Mayor Harry Rilling said he reached the decision to extend office hours after a conference call early Thursday morning with Common Council members and city staff.

I was adamantly opposed to the President's Tax Bill which unfairly targets residents of blue states. I am outraged by the actions of House and Senate Republicans in passing it along party lines, Rilling, a Democrat, said in a statement. Norwalk will do everything possible to ensure residents are able to pay their current year property taxes in this calendar year to limit their exposure to this unfair tax scheme.

Issued in early December, Norwalks current property tax bills are due Jan. 1, but taxpayers have until Feb. 1 to pay without penalty. Some will chose to pay them before the close of 2017 to avoid being hurt by the new federal tax law that takes effect in 2018.

The Republican tax bill signed into law by President Donald Trump on Friday caps the deductibility of state and local taxes at $10,000. Thats prompted some homeowners to try to pay not only their current tax bills but also ones that havent yet been issued.

In recent days, the telephone has rung off the hook at the Norwalk Tax Collectors office with calls from taxpayers wishing to pay  before years end  anticipated taxes that will come due in July 2018 and afterward.

Citing a legal opinion from the Connecticut Tax Collectors Association, Norwalk Tax Collector Lisa Biagiarelli said Tuesday that her office would not accept prepayment of July 2018 tax installments at this time and that doing so would conflict with state law.

The Internal Revenue Service announced Wednesday that prepaid real property taxes may be deductible in 2017 if assessed and paid in 2017. State or local law determines whether and when a property tax is assessed, which is generally when the taxpayer becomes liable for the property tax imposed, the IRS said on its website.

Norwalk Tax Assessor Michael Stewart said Thursday that city taxpayers havent received assessment notices needed to calculate July 2018 tax bills.

We havent prepared an assessment for 2017 Grand List as of yet, Stewart said. Notices will go out for that toward the end of January 2018. The tax collector would have no idea what properties to assess, because she doesnt have a Grand List to create bills at this time.
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WESTPORT  Right from the beginning, it was a year of national headlines for Westport Schools.

TEAM Westports annual essay contest, this year asking Staples High School students to reflect on white privilege, drew angry responses from anonymous callers and writers around the country and was covered by the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, at home, Coleytowns mold remediation project dragged on overbudget and past due, Staples was ranked a top high school in the state, an elementary administrator left his post unexpectedly and a middle school social studies teacher was honored at the state level.

Here is a look at some of the top stories from the education beat in Westport this year:

When mold was discovered in a Coleytown Middle School classroom in August 2016, it was first expected to cost $250,000 to remediate. The job was supposed to wrap up by January 2017. More than a year later, rooms continue to be found with unacceptably high levels of mold. As of this fall, 27 classrooms and a second-floor hallway had been remediated at a cost of $628,560, necessitating a transfer of $327,000 into the schools carryover account in August of this year. There was $213,000 in the account at that time.

In November, four additional rooms were found. The cost of remediation, according to Director of School Operations Elio Longo, is not yet available for the remaining classrooms. It remains unclear whether any further remediation will need to be done in the school.

In June, Staples High School was ranked fifth best school in the state by U.S. News and World Report, beating out other local schools like Darien High School, New Canaan High School and Greenwich High School.

The report noted Staples high graduation rate, low teacher-to-student ratio, and a high number of Advanced Placement test takers.

Parents were nearly forced to find alternative rides to school for their children in April as contract negotiations between Westport Public School bus drivers and their employer, Dattco, appeared stalled. Though the drivers contract expired April 26, buses continued operating the following day amid negotiations.

An agreement was ultimately reached in May.

Long Lots Principal Jeffrey Golubchick was placed on administrative leave in February so the school could review letters allegedly sent by Golubchicks lawyer to some teachers and subordinate administrators making legal claims against them. The school did not elaborate on the content of the letters, nor did Golubchick comment at the time.

In April, Superintendent of Schools Colleen Palmer announced in an email to parents that Golubchick, who was still on leave, would resign at the end of the school year.

Westport drew national attention this past winter when an essay topic for the annual essay contest put on by TEAM (Together Effectively Achieving Multiculturalism) Westport. The essay asked Staples High School students to reflect on white privilege and its impact on them personally and more broadly on society. A record number of students participated, but the topic drew a troubling amount of racist and hate-filled calls and emails after the Associated Press ran a story on the essay on Jan. 31.

Staples High School discontinued two child development classes and the Play School, and an eight-student preschool after it was discovered that the instructor of the classes and director of the school, Linda McClary, did not possess the necessary certifications from the state. It was announced to parents in February that no Staples teacher possessed the family and consumer science certification needed, and that the classes and preschool would be terminated at the end of the school year.

In April, the Board of Education approved a Psychology of Child Development course as a way of continuing the child development course. In August, Superintendent of Schools Colleen Palmer announced that Little Wreckers, a preschool that would allow high school students to experience early childhood education, would be launched in January.

Courtney Ruggiero, an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Bedford Middle School, was honored this year as Westports top teacher and was named a finalist for the states Teacher of the Year.

In October, Greens Farms Academy announced a replacement for longtime Head of School Janet Hartwell. Longtime educator and former professional musician Bob Whelan was named Hartwells successor effective July 1. Whelan will come to Westport via Lake Forest Country Day School in the Chicago suburbs, where he was head of school.

justin.papp@scni.com; @justinjpapp1
A Lincoln state senator is calling for more oversight of Nebraskas child welfare system to address child sexual abuse of state wards and those adopted from foster care.

The Department of Health and Human Services responded quickly, balking at the idea of more legislative oversight, saying that already falls to the Legislatures Health and Human Services Committee.

HHS has already taken steps to address the sexual abuse issues, CEO Courtney Phillips said.

Sen. Kate Bolz said Friday she will request that a special oversight committee be formed by the Legislature. And she will ask for performance and financial audits of the child welfare system.

Inspector General Julie Rogers issued a report this week after a nearly yearlong investigation that showed 50 verified child and youth sexual abuse victims in a recent three-year period. That number could actually be higher, she said.

The investigation also discovered cases beyond the 50 reported to the child abuse hotline that were either screened out incorrectly, or not investigated properly and so not substantiated. For others, officials just couldnt gather the needed evidence.

The investigation also showed attitudes toward sexual abuse of youth in state care that concerned her and her staff, Rogers said, including problematic attitudes among system professionals and caregivers toward child sexual abuse and children in the states care.

Among the 50 abused children and youth noted in the report, 27 were state wards and youth in residential placements and 23 were in adoptive or guardian homes. They ranged in age from 4 to 18 when abuse was disclosed.

Some children reported that the abuse had occurred in a foster home, in an adoptive home or when they were under state guardianship. Some were in the juvenile justice system or in a home licensed by the department or at a Youth Residential Treatment Center.

Bolz will formally request the audits during the first week the Legislature is in session, she said. The session begins Jan. 3. She will also introduce a legislative resolution to call for a special oversight committee.

As a state senator and representative on the Childrens Commission, I believe it is essential that we move forward with increased oversight by the legislative branch to promote the safety and best interests of children in state care, Bolz said in a news release. I call on my colleagues to join these efforts.

Bolz said Rogers Dec. 27 report illustrates unacceptable performance of the child welfare system.

Coupled with the inspector generals Sept. 13 report outlining problems related to child welfare caseloads, workloads and workforce, and the recent request for significant additional investment in the child welfare system, Bolz said, it creates concern regarding its overall well-being.

Phillips said there was no need for another oversight committee. The departments response to Rogers report acknowledged needed improvements and it has taken steps to implement recommended changes over the past few months, including underscoring zero tolerance for sexual abuse of state wards.

The department extended an offer to Chairman Merv Riepe and the HHS committee to brief them on the response, she said. She has directed the division of children and family services to issue an annual report on the sexual abuse cases identified, including new steps for identifying and preventing abuse.

DHHS has been open to working with senators and will continue to collaborate with them to ensure our system protects the children in our care, she said.

Phillips said the department is also working with Gov. Pete Ricketts to review the divisions operations, including its finances, the details of which will be unveiled in coming days.
Special Events

Friday, Jan. 5  Fairfield County Arts Association Winter Collection Art Exhibition/Reception at Wilton Library, 6-7:30 p.m. A diverse group of talented artists are featured in Wilton Librarys art exhibition this month. The exhibition showcases artists from Fairfield County Arts Association who work in a variety of media including watercolor, oil, acrylic, pastel, graphics, mixed media, drawings, photography and sculpture with subject matter encompassing figures, portraits, still life, abstracts, botanicals, landscapes and more. Reception free and open to the public. Exhibition runs through Jan. 25. A majority of the 65 works will be available for purchase with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the library.

Saturday, Jan. 6  New Perspectives Film Series  An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, 7:30-9:30 p.m. More than ten years have passed since the movie An Inconvenient Truth was released which documented Al Gores fight against climate change. But what has happened since then? This sequel addresses how climate changes that were predicted in that movie happened and their very real impact on people and cities. Follow the progress that Gores work and fellow environmentalists have made as well as see the behind the scenes efforts at the United Nations 2015 Climate Change Conference. Directed by Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk. Winner of three awards: Biografilm Festival 2017: Audience Award, International Competition Critics Choice Documentary Awards 2017: Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary Environmental Media Awards, USA 2017 Documentary Film. Suggested donation: $5. Refreshments served. The New Perspectives Documentary series is programmed and moderated by filmmaker Megan Smith-Harris. A Q&A will follow the film. Registration highly recommended. Register online or call 203-762-6334.

Calendar

Now through Wednesday, Jan. 3  Wilton Librarys Giving Tree and Giving Gelt Last chances to give something to the library during the holiday season. The Giving Tree is loaded with ornaments for items that will go into the librarys collection. Giving Gelt is another way to donate money to the Childrens collection. The circulation staff at the front desk will be happy to help anyone wishing to give something from the Giving Tree or who wishes to make a Giving Gelt donation.

Now through Wednesday, Jan. 3  Wilton Library Holiday Book Sale. The Holiday Book Sale is winding down but there are still bargains to be had in books, DVDs and loads of CDs. Fill up a bag with CDs for only $3. All sales support the library. Sale is continuous during regular library hours through January 3, 2018. Library closed on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

More Information 137 Old Ridgefield Road 203-762-3950 www.wiltonlibrary.org See More Collapse

Friday, Jan. 5  Fun with Lynn Lewis, 11 a.m. to noon. Come to Wilton Library and see popular entertainer Lynn Lewis. There will be songs and dancing for all. She will bring a special friend so that kids can play with him and participate in all the fun! Registration required, ages 2-6. Register online or call 203-762-6336.

Tuesday, Jan. 9  Random Acts of Kindness (RAKtivist) Club for Middleschoolers, 3:30-5:30 p.m. Life's most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others? ~Martin Luther King, Jr. We're looking for students in grades 6-8 who would like to join RAKtivists -- a world-wide movement which practices Random Acts of Kindness. On the first or second Tuesday of every month we'll do something nice and think of ways to spread kindness and put smiles on peoples faces. We'll bake cookies for a senior living community, make dog and cat toys for animal shelters, decorate gingerbread houses for local agencies, read to the elderly and more. Additional dates: 2/6, 3/6, 4/3, & 5/1. Full seasons commitment is highly encouraged. Sponsored by the John & Patricia Curran Teen Fund. Registration required. Register online or call 203-762-6342.

Tuesday, Jan. 9  Storytime STEM, 4:15-5 p.m. Children in grades K-2 are invited to join us weekly for a story and various STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) activities. This fun and hands-on program will include a read-aloud of a popular children's picture book along with a correlating STEM craft and activity and a whole group science demonstration. This week's story is It's Snowing! by Gail Gibbons. Supported by the Amadeo Family. Registration required. Register online or call 203-762-6336.

Tuesday, Jan. 9  Breast Cancer Survivors Support Group, 6-8 p.m. Post-treatment breast cancer survivors are invited to join in this monthly support group led by Nina Marino, LCSW. Nina was the Clinical Director for 15 years of the former Breast Cancer Survival Center and is a breast cancer survivor. Please email Nina at Cancersurvival2@aol.com with any questions. No charge. Registration highly encouraged. Register online or call 203-762-6334.

Tuesday, Jan. 9  Author Talk: Joseph Williams  The Sunken Gold, 7-8:30 p.m. Librarian, archivist and historian Joseph A. Williams brings the true story of the HMS Laurentic sunk by German mines off the coast of Ireland during the Great War in his book, The Sunken GoldA Story of World War I, Espionage and the Greatest Treasure Salvage in History. Williams brings this exciting, true tale of undersea diving and naval operations to life, exemplifying human persistence, bravery and patriotism with Lieutenant Commander Guybon C.C. Damant at the helm. Williams hold masters degrees in History and Library and Information Science from Queens College. He worked at the State University of New York Maritime Colleges Stephen B. Luce Library which specializes in nautical research. He currently is the Deputy Director of the Greenwich Library. Q&A will follow the talk. Book signing and purchase will be available courtesy of Elm Street Books, New Canaan. No charge. Registration highly recommended. Register online or call 203-762-6334.

Classes in Innovation Station this week  Wednesday, Jan. 3: Embroider or Monogram It!, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.; Saturday, Jan. 6: Embroider a Chefs Apron, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.; Monday, Jan. 8: Monogrammed Tea Towels, 10-11:30 a.m.; Monday, Jan. 8: Create Thank You Cards, Gift Tags & More, 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.; Monday, Jan. 8, 22 & 29: Stitch Time for Knitters and Crocheters, 1-2:30 p.m.

Childrens programs  Monday, Jan. 8 through March 12: Ready Readers, 4:15-5 p.m.; Tuesday, Jan. 9 through March 13: Terrific Tales for Twos and Threes, 10:15-10:45 a.m.; Wednesday, Jan. 10 through March 14: Books for Babies, 10:15-10:45 a.m.; Wednesday, Jan. 10 through March 14: Wonderful Ones and Twos, 11-11:30 a.m.
An unsolved murder heads the list of Grand Islands law enforcement stories for 2017.

The year also brought a new county judge in Hall County, the sentencing of a man who tried to hire a hit man and a manhunt in Aurora. Heres a look at the top 10 stories:

1) Unsolved death of Christian Peterson

The April 8 death of Christian Peterson is still unsolved. Peterson, 59, died from a stabbing inflicted at his home at 1309 W. Seventh St., near Jefferson School.

2) Arrest of Ahmed Said

Ahmed Said, 23, was arrested in June for causing the April death of Abdulma Khamis. Khamis, a 41-year-old homeless man, was found the night of April 13 in a yard at 420 S. Cedar St., the victim of serious head injuries. Khamis died on April 19. In Hall County District Court, Said has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony. He is accused of using a metal object to commit murder.

3) Three charged in shooting death of Jose Hansen

In late December in Hastings, three people were charged in the Sept. 11 shooting death of Jose Joey Hansen. Hansen was 19.

4) Hit-and-run accident

Justin Foster, 28, died in a hit-and-run accident Aug. 7 near the intersection of Faidley Avenue and Howard Street. Robin Nehls, who voluntarily came forward, pleaded not guilty to failing to stop following a personal injury accident. The case is still in Hall County District Court.

5) Child abuse case

Jocelyn M. Nordin of North Loup, who served prison time for intentional child abuse in 2014, was sentenced to 60 to 70 years for the child abuse death of her 4-week-old baby in 2016. Nordin, 26, was sentenced in December in Valley County District Court in Ord.

6) Murder-for-hire case

Robert Honken of Aurora, who was found guilty of trying to hire a man to kill his wife, was sentenced in January to 45 to 50 years in prison for each of two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. The two sentences will be served at the same time. Honken, 38, was given credit for 327 days already served.

7) New Ninth Judicial District county judge

In May, Al Corey of Grand Island was sworn in as the new Ninth Judicial District county judge. Corey, 43, succeeded Judge Philip M. Martin Jr.

8) Animal cruelty cases

In Merrick County Court in July, Tommy Leetch Sr. of Grand Island was sentenced to jail in two animal cruelty cases and three other cases.

9) Aurora manhunt

During a manhunt in Aurora in February, Aurora schools and Memorial Community Health ordered a lockdown as a precautionary measure. Two men fled after they were stopped for speeding by a Nebraska State Patrol trooper near the Aurora exit on Interstate 80. They left their pickup on the interstate and ran into a cornfield west of Aurora. Two other Minnesota men came to try to pick up the two suspects.

10) Police officer charged with third-degree assault

Michael Lyon departed from the Grand Island Police Department after he was charged with third-degree assault, which is a Class 1 misdemeanor. His last day with the department was Nov. 20. Lyon, 31, had been a Grand Island police officer since 2013.
Calvary Lutheran Church will host a Red Cross Blood Drive on Jan. 5.

The blood drive will be from noon to 6 p.m. at the church at 13th and Custer streets.

For an appointment contact Ileane McCoy at (308) 384-1720 or visit www.redcrossblood.org. Walk in donors are welcome.

A long-sleeve Red Cross T-shirt will be given to those who come to donate, while supplies last.

Financial Peace University classes to begin Jan. 14

Third City Christian Church in Grand Island will host a session of Financial Peace University classes beginning Jan. 14.

More than 4.5 million people have positively changed their financial future through Ramsey Solutions Financial Peace University (FPU). Created by financial expert Dave Ramsey, the nine-week course provides families and individuals with practical tools to gain control of their finances and set themselves up for long-term financial success.

Through common-sense principles, FPU gives people the tools they need to change their behavior and succeed financially. Along with Ramsey Personalities Rachel Cruze and Chris Hogan, Ramsey teaches lessons on budgeting, relationships and money, getting out of debt, saving for emergencies and investing. On average, families who complete FPU pay off $5,300 and save $2,700 in the first 90 days. Following the class nearly 94 percent of those families budget regularly.

The church is located at 4100 W. 13th St. in Grand Island. The classes will meet at 6 p.m. each Sunday. Go to www.fpu.com/1055887 for more information or to register.

An FPU membership includes access to online video lessons, a one-year subscription to the EveryDollar Plus budgeting tool, a member workbook for all nine lessons and additional resources.
Augusts total solar eclipse eclipsed the regional stories of 2017, bringing thousands of visitors to Central Nebraska.

Also denoting attention was the closing of Nathan Detroits and Kinkaiders move into the building, Bella Volkers fight against pediatric brain cancer, Pete Kortums retirment from the Hastings Police Department and the opening of Arrow Hotel East in Broken Bow. Heres a look at the top 10 stories of 2017:

1) Total solar eclipse

The total solar eclipse on Aug. 21 made history around the world and in Central Nebraska, which was in the path of totality. It was a sight to see as thousands of people watched the sky go completely dark. Area towns and communities held many events to lead up to the eclipse, including having astronauts speak. One couple who traveled from Omaha to Grand Island for the eclipse began their life journey together as they got engaged. A timelapse video of the eclipse even caught the happy moment on tape, leading to a search to find the mystery couple who was later identified.

2) BG&S Transmission Hastings burns to the ground

BG&S Transmission in downtown Hastings was destroyed on Feb. 17 by a fire. A malfunctioning transmission flushing machine was the cause. Thankfully, no one was injured. The fire started at about 9 a.m. and about 50 to 75 firefighters responded from many area departments.

3) Bella Voelker beats pediatric brain cancer and defies odds

Izabella Voelker, 13, of Holstein won a hard fight against pineoblastoma, which she was diagnosed with in May 2016. She had a surgery that she had a 5 percent chance of coming out of alive, but she survived. She inspired many people, young and old, along the way and continues to share her story and do speaking engagements. She had to plan her funeral at 12 years old, not knowing what the outcome of the surgery would be. She said she just had to stay positive throughout the whole process, because if not, youre not going to have a good life.

4) Nathan Detroits closes, Kinkaider moves in

Treasured bar and restaurant Nathan Detroits closed at the end of April 2017. The business opened in 1984 and was owned by Robert Mahood. Many community members shared fond memories made at Nathan Detroits, which had its own unique character and personality. A Broken Bow brewery and restaurant, Kinkaider, has since moved into the downtown space at 316 N. Pine. St.

5) Families file tort claims against Central City Public Schools

Two families filed tort claims against Central City Public Schools that alleged two special needs students in middle school were harassed and urinated on by their peers. The parents who filed the claims said the school didnt contact them about what happened to their children and didnt handle the situation well. In September, a group of students organized a protest against bullying, stemming from the tort claim situation.

6) Arrow Hotel East opens in Broken Bow

The new Arrow Hotel East opened on Oct. 25 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The hotel, envisioned by RJ and Anne Thomas, replaces the old hotel on the Broken Bow square that burned down 10 years ago. It offers 20 rooms and is located on South E Street.

7) Boone Central Public Schools unveil addition and expansion

Boone Central Public Schools held an open house Nov. 22 to unveil the nearly $13 million bond issue project. Construction on the renovation and addition to the school buildings began May 1, 2016, and was finished for the 2017-2018 school year. The bond issue passed on a third attempt. The improvements include a new kitchen and commons area, a wrestling deck, weight room, locker rooms, science rooms, concession stand, administration offices and restrooms and a new gymnasium at the high school. A new fire sprinkler system was installed throughout and a new HVAC system was replaced in a portion of the portion of the school that was built in 1996. The 1953 and 1972 sections of the school were completely remodeled. Safety and security features were also added.

8) Coyotes in Hastings

On July 4, Hastings Police received a report that a 1-year-old boy had been bitten by a coyote while his family lit off fireworks near a sidewalk. The incident happened in the 500 block of South Boston Avenue on the west side of Hastings. On July 6, a 51-year-old Hastings resident shot a coyote, wounding it, after he said it went after his dog. Police later put the coyote down after locating it. Its illegal to discharge a firearm in city limits, but the resident wasnt charged, according to Hastings Police. The USDA, which worked to eliminate the coyotes in town, found two dens the same day the coyote was shot, each near the area where each incident happened.

9) Pete Kortum retires; Hastings Police changes

Pete Kortum, Hastings police chief, retired in December. He announced his retirement in August. He was police chief there for five years after having served on the Grand Island Police Department since the 1970s. He had 43 years of experience and held many ranks. Kortum said he has been impressed with the quality of people serving in Central Nebraska and in Hastings. Capt. Adam Story has since been promoted to chief and former Sgts. Raelee Van Winkle and Brian Hessler were promoted to captain.

10) Goat paradise

What better way to wrap up the year than with cute goats? Grand Island native Jessi Pattebaum and her husband, Josh, now live in Kentucky and raise pet goats. Her social media for their farm, Goats Gone Grazing Acres, gained popularity after being featured in national media such as Buzzfeed. I had suffered from depression, anxiety and social anxiety for many, many years, and I actually credit the goats with helping me beat the depression. Theyre my reason to get out of bed every morning, Pottebaum said. Nothing else in the world can make me smile and laugh as much as the goats do.
Geekologie has shut down.

Thank you to everybody.

Now go be happy.
WASHINGTON  So whats new?

Certainly not the late J. Edgar Hoovers antipathy toward Dr. Martin Luther King as revealed again in the recent discovery of a long-ago letter from the FBI director to his third in command, William Sullivan, who headed domestic intelligence, and shared the concern about King... or if he didnt, he found it prudent to say he did.

In the letter dated Nov. 18, 1964, Hoover thanks Sullivan for his praise of his bosss handling of a long press conference with women correspondents to whom he explained how the bureau works. He also talked about King, noting that response in letters had overwhelmingly agreed with him. He then tells Sullivan his own views are the same as Sullivans that Kings exposure is long overdue, adding that maybe he is now beginning to get his just desserts. I certainly hope so.

Whether from inherent racism by one who took over the bureau at the height of Jim Crow in the South and the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan and did nothing about it all those years or the fact he thought King to be a tool of the Communists, his feelings about the civil rights giant were well known to the press, to those around him in the bureau, Congress, and Justice Department and to a great deal of the public.

The animosity between the two was palpable and King had accused Southern FBI agents of doing nothing to alleviate the injustices. Hoover denied that his agents had failed to act because of their Southern leanings. In the midst of all this vitriol, King received an anonymous hate letter that clearly threatened violence. The minister and others believed it was a plant from the FBI. Sullivan testified in Congress that he knew of the letter but denied having anything to do with it and was against it although a draft copy was later found in Sullivans files.

A year earlier, the FBI was able to get permission from Attorney General Robert Kennedy to begin electronic surveillance of King at all levels, including bugging his hotel rooms, offices, etc. What was discovered was not any affiliation with communism but sexual incidents that were taped by listening agents  one of these was explicit and Hoover played that tape around town to those friendly in the press and others of influence to prove Kings indiscretions.

Why would the Kennedys  Robert and John  agree to permit this intrusion into the life of a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize at a time John was facing a tough re-election? Because Hoover had evidence that gave him leverage  the knowledge that President Kennedy had been having a passionate affair with Judith Campbell who had been introduced to him by Frank Sinatra and was also an intimate of Chicago mobster Sam Giancana. Hoover lost little time making Bobby Kennedy aware he knew about the Mafia party girl, warning him at a luncheon of the difficulties of this situation, including the fact she had carried messages between Giancana and the president.

The implications to Kennedy were clear, especially since the administration had pledged to go after organized crime and despite the fact that his own father, Joseph, was alleged to have had dealings with the Mafia including in Johns election campaign. The presidents long relationship with Campbell, later to become Judith Exner, would have been nearly impossible to explain and it prompted one of his best friends, Ben Bradley, executive editor of the Washington Post, after it was revealed a decade later, to say that Kennedy would have been impeached had it been known.

During the Senate Watergate hearings it was revealed that Sullivan, called the professor because of his decidedly rumpled, un-FBI look and his intenseness, had written a memo to White House General Counsel John Dean, outlining the political use of the bureau by presidents over the years. It was not released, but interviews with Hoovers top lieutenants re-created most of its claims such as black bag break-ins at foreign embassies, unauthorized surveillance of a personal nature, and on and on.

I knew Bill Sullivan well but we never discussed the King matter. I talked to him from his home in New Hampshire and we planned lunch when he got to Washington the following week to appear before a Senate committee chaired by Frank Church. He was shot and killed over that weekend by an errant hunter.
Glen Carbon residents who have received ordinance violations will no longer have to go to the courthouse to resolve the issue.

At the last regular meeting of the Glen Carbon Board, trustees unanimously approved an ordinance establishing an adjudicatory hearing process and adjudicatory hearing officer for the Village of Glen Carbon.

Police Chief Todd Link said the establishment of the ordinance would allow the village of Glen Carbon to conduct its own municipal court for village ordinance violations.

The Village Court will deal with ordinance violations such as nuisance animals, yard maintenance, junk storage or illegal dumping.

Link said the establishment of the municipal court is part of the ongoing effort to reorganize how the village deals with ordinance violations.

Our ultimate goal is to get remediation on these violations and not just collect fines, Link said. I do expect that once we start this process we will be more effective and efficient in the way we handle ordinance violations.

Currently individuals who have been issued an ordinance violation have to go to the Madison County Courthouse to have the issue resolved. Village ordinance violations are on the docket at the courthouse five times a month.

Trustee Ben Maliszewski asked about the cost of the program.

Link said he believed in the long run, the program would pay for itself.

We already have the staff on the payroll. Two officers will be assigned as bailiffs in the court and we already have the records manager, Link said. The officers and the records manager will not be paid any more to handle the docket and the paper work twice a month.

Preliminarily Link said the court would be held on the first and fourth Thursday of the month in the Community Room at the Glen Carbon Police Station.

Village Administrator Jamie Bowden said another cost saving aspect of the program is that the village would not have to pay the Village Attorney Jim Schrempf to attend court a the Madison County Courthouse.

Currently we are paying Jim (Schrempf) to go to the courthouse five times a month for a minimum of two hours, Bowden said.

Trustee Micah Summers, who served as a prosecutor for the Edwardsville Municipal Court, said the program was successful in Edwardsville.

Its a benefit to the residents because it allows us to adjudicate smaller violations without having to go to the Circuit Court, he said. When fines are collected the village will be able to retain more of those fines and get compliance with property violations and offenses.

The twice-monthly court sessions would be four hours long and overseen by two police officers.

A third-party attorney would serve as the adjudicatory hearing officer in charge of hearing the cases, determining remediation or imposing fines in accordance with village ordinances for both police-enforced codes and property maintenance codes.

The staff at the Glen Carbon telecommunications office would collect fines.
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Linkedin EDITORIAL (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 29, 2017 08:45 1785 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f5c48b 4 Editorial #Editorial,shoot-on-site,shoot-to-kill-order,human-rights,New-Order,drug-abuse,#drugs,#shooting Free

The death penalty and shooting drug dealers on sight is the most effective way to end drug abuse, according to many Indonesians including President Joko Jokowi Widodo and his chief of the National Drug Agency (BNN), Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso.



However, it remains unclear how authorities can close loopholes for organized crime here. Southeast Asias illicit drug trade is estimated annually at US$30 billion, quite apart from the lucrative smuggling of people, weapons, timber, wildlife and counterfeit goods across borders, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.



What is for certain is that Indonesia is blithely trampling on due process, not to mention human rights, as chief Budi boasted Wednesday that police and BNN officers had shot and killed 79 suspected drug dealers this year alone.



Few who know a drug addict or cured survivor sympathize with those who were shot; but we should not be dependent on trigger-happy sheriffs.



BNNs Budi has echoed the tough rhetoric of National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian and President Jokowi, saying law enforcers had enough ammunition for 58,000 arrested suspects this year. He jokingly added officers had hoped they would resist so they could be shot, but the suspects immediately surrendered during the raids; not very funny, unfortunately.



Are our leaders seeking to steal the limelight of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte? Since he took office in mid-2016 the neighboring countrys drug war has left over 6,000 drug pushers, addicts and those associated with them dead; a few infants also died in the crossfire.



At home, of the 79 shot this year including 10 foreigners, it also remains unclear how many were shot because law enforcers or others lives were in immediate danger  the National Polices criteria for using firearms. But its too easy to pull the trigger when your President has said, Gun them down. Have no mercy, regarding suspected drug dealers resisting arrest.



Health advocates question how Indonesia can curb the epidemic of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and its complications, as addicts hide and avoid treatment for fear of being criminalized. The Health Ministry records nearly 75,000 people in Indonesia inject drugs, including 36.4 percent diagnosed as HIV-positive. In 2011. the BNN and the University of Indonesia estimated the country had 1.1 million non-injecting drug users. The figures suggest lower estimates than the 4.5 million addicts with up to 50 dying daily from drugs  the oft-cited figures by Jokowi, which won him popular support for the national drug emergency and the tough action.



Parents are indeed constantly worried about new drugs being offered to their children, while raids indicate Indonesia is becoming a producer of methamphetamine among other drugs, apart from being a major regional market. But dumping addicts into cells close to convicted terrorists and executing them has significantly helped neither the war on drugs nor on terrorism.



Authorities say we are moving toward more stress on prevention and rehabilitation for drug addicts. But measures harking back to the New Orders mysterious shootings, or Petrus, confirm our old addiction to violence instead of rehabilitating anyone.
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Linkedin Shin Ji-hye (The Korea Herald/Asia News Network)  Fri, December 29, 2017 18:02 1784 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f71280 2 Science & Tech Apple,lawsuit,South-Korea,iPhone Free

Apple faces multiple lawsuits in South Korea after admitting to slowing down iPhones as the batteries aged. This is to be the first class-action suit in Asia on the issue after iPhone owners filed at least nine class-action lawsuits in the US and Israel.

The latest legal action comes after the US tech giant admitted to slowing down older iPhone models to keep them running at optimal performance and stop the batteries from shutting down.

Korean law firm Hannuri said Thursday it would recruit plaintiffs through its website for two weeks and file a lawsuit against the headquarters of Apple to seek compensation in early February.

Because Apple made users upgrade their phones without informing them of the side effects, it deceived consumers and violated consumer protection law, said Cho Gye-chang, an attorney who represents the complainants at Hannuri.

Local law firm Hwimyoung has already gathered around 20 victims and is also preparing a similar lawsuit. The firm said it plans to sue Apple Korea for damages in early January in Seoul Central District Court. The litigation cost is around 500,000 won ($468) to 1 million won per person.

The Korean government has also stepped in to look into the issue by asking for an explanation from Apple Korea.

Read also: Apple faces lawsuits for slowing down old iPhones

If Apple intentionally degrades the performance of iPhones, it may cause damages for users. We will look into the issue and take action accordingly, a senior government official was quoted as saying by a local media outlet.

However, there is no legal grounds for the government to directly investigate global firms, as they are not subject to regulation under the Telecommunications Business Act. Rep. Kim Sung-tae of the Liberty Korea Party is currently preparing a bill that would obligate local arms of global firms to address reverse discrimination against domestic firms.

Amid ongoing legal action, experts say the lawsuits may not directly impact iPhone sales in the country, or Apples market share.

Apple currently has around 20 percent share in Korea, the largest among foreign brands.

Apple slowing down old models does not matter much to its loyal fans here. They wont easily ditch the premium brand image of Apple and the iOS they already feel comfortable with, said Seo Ki-man, an analyst at LG Economic Research Institute.

Meanwhile, Apple stood as the worlds most profitable smartphone maker around the globe in the third quarter of 2017, according to industry tracker Counterpoint. The firm accounted for a whopping 59.8 percent of the combined profit generated from the global smartphone industry over the cited period, followed by Samsung Electronics with 25.9 percent.

Topics :

This article appeared on The Korea Herald newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 29, 2017 16:40 1784 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f6e503 1 City #Jakarta,#drugs,#drugabuse,#TioPakusadewo,#BNN Free

Award-winning veteran actor Tio Pakusadewo will undergo drug rehabilitation starting from Friday at the Polices Bhayangkara Hospital in South Jakarta, as recommended by the National Narcotics Agency (BNN). Tio was apprehended at his house last week for drug abuse.

[Tio] will be rehabilitated at the polices hospital starting from tomorrow at 9 a.m., in accordance with the assessment of the Jakarta BNN, said a top official at the Jakarta Polices narcotics division, Adj. Sr. Comr. Doni Alexander, on Thursday, as quoted by tempo.co.

The police seized three packages of crystal meth with a total weight of 1.06 grams, a set of tools to consume the drug consisting of a bong, water pipe and lighter during the raid at Tios house in Ragunan, South Jakarta.

Doni explained that, according to the BNNs assessment, Tio was merely a drug user.

The actor, who has been in at least 55 movies since 1987, admitted that he had been using the drug over the last 10 years. He claimed that he had stopped using it a few months ago, but started to consume it again after suffering leg injuries.

The police said the case was still ongoing as they were looking for a woman, identified only as V, who sold the drug to the actor, who had a role in award-winning movie Cinta dalam Sepotong Roti (Love in a Slice of Bread) in 1990. (vny)
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Beijing, China  Fri, December 29, 2017 20:41 1784 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f7855d 2 World trump,China,US,statue Free

A mall in northern China has installed a larger-than-life canine statue with more than a passing resemblance to US President Donald Trump to welcome the coming Year of the Dog.

The giant pooch towers above shoppers in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province, sporting a slick golden pompadour, angled brows and a red scarf with one index finger raised in a distinctly Trumpian manner.

As he was born in 1946, Trump, who has been accused of having more bark than bite, is a dog under the Chinese zodiac -- a trait which he shares with his predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Those born in the Year of the Dog, according to Chinese astrology, are forthright and extremely loyal, in addition to having a strong sense of justice. But they can also be stubborn, irritable and easily angered.

Last year the mall erected a large Trump-like rooster, which inspired numerous replicas, including a giant inflatable one placed not far from the White House this summer.

Topics : trump China US statue
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Hong Kong, China  Fri, December 29, 2017 13:42 1785 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f6ac84 2 Business aviation,Airbus,China,expansion Free

A Chinese aircraft leasing company said on Thursday it will buy 50 Airbus A320neo jets for $5.42 billion as part of a drive to capitalize on ever-growing demand for air travel in China.

Hong Kong-listed China Aircraft Leasing Group (CALC) will take delivery of the airliners in stages through to 2023, it said in a statement.

The move comes as airlines in China benefit from a boom in domestic and international air trips as the country's middle class spends more on travel and leisure.

It will also come as a boost to European giant Airbus, which is competing heavily with US rival Boeing in China, the world's second aircraft market.

The US company has forecast China needs more than 7,200 commercial aircraft in the next 20 years, while the International Air Transport Association predicts the country will overtake the US as the world's largest air-travel market by 2024.

The country's three biggest carriers -- Air China, China Eastern and China Southern intend to increase their fleets by more than 600 aircraft in total within the next three years.

CALC chief executive Mike Poon said: "We are proud to augment our fleet by adding 50 in-demand A320neo jetliners that have outstanding fuel efficiency, and are reliable and comfortable.

"Since CALCs inception, we have maintained a close and dynamic relationship with Airbus, and the commitment marks yet another endorsement of our mutual trust.

"This bulk purchase will significantly expand CALCs fleet portfolio and further solidify our position as a full value-chain aircraft solutions provider."

The statement from CALC said the announcement takes its total orders with Airbus to 202 aircraft, adding it would "purchase 15 additional Airbus A320neo aircraft in January 2018 subject to the fulfillment of certain conditions".

The firm, which also has 50 jets on order from US giant Boeing, currently has 102 aircraft.

The firm's shares were up 2.0 percent at HK$8.17 by the break in Hong Kong trade.

Topics : aviation Airbus China expansion
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 29, 2017 18:37 1784 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f73979 1 National health,vaccine,diphtheria Free

The government has secured sufficient supplies of diphtheria vaccines for the outbreak response immunization (ORI) program and antidiphtheria serum (ADS) for diphtheria infected patients, Health Minister Nila Moeloek has said.

State pharmaceutical company Bio Farma, the countrys vaccine producer, collaborated with the WHOs Southeast Asia Regional Office (WHO SEARO) to ensure the supply of both the vaccines and serum amid the current diphtheria outbreak, Nila said.

The Health Ministry had requested Bio Farma to produce more vaccines to cover the needs of the ORI program, Nila said, adding that she hoped the supply would also be enough to vaccinate citizens outside of the ORI program.

Last week, WHO SEARO sent 500 vials of antidiphtheria serum through the Indonesian Embassy in New Delhi. All citizens and diphtheria infected patients should no longer worry, Nila said in a statement on Friday as quoted by Antara news agency.

Previously, Bio Farma had supplied 700 vials of ADS for diphtheria infected patients. WHO SEARO had also sent 500 vials of ADS to assist in fighting the virus outbreak.

The minister went on to say that Bio Farma should prioritize the availability of diphtheria vaccines before considering exports. (afr/ahw)

Topics : health vaccine diphtheria
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Linkedin Samer al-Attrush (Agence France-Presse) Cairo, Egypt  Fri, December 29, 2017 19:40 1784 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f76ff0 2 World Egypt,terror-attack,church Free

A gunman opened fire on a church south of Cairo on Friday, killing at least nine people before policemen shot him dead, officials and state media said.

Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed told state television that the gunman who was shot dead had killed nine people and wounded others, including a police officer.

The gunman had tried to storm the building when police shot him dead, police officials said.

State television reported that a second assailant who escaped had been arrested.

Cellphone footage posted on social media appeared to show the bearded gunman wearing a bulky ammunition vest sprawled on a street, barely conscious, as people restrained his arms and then handcuffed him.

Police later cordoned off the crime scene as onlookers crowded around the church, while a forensics team combed the area.

Congealing blood could be seen at a guard post in front of the church.

The Islamic State group's affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year, and has threatened further attacks against the minority.

Egypt's Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of the country's 93 million people, and are the largest religious minority in the region.

IS had claimed a suicide bombing of a Cairo church in December 2016 followed by bombings of two churches north of the capital in April.

A month later, IS gunmen shot dead about 30 Christians south of Cairo as they travelled to a monastery.

The jihadists are believed to have also carried out a massacre of Muslim worshippers in Sinai last month, killing more than 300 in an attack on a mosque associated with the mystical Sufi strand of Islam which IS views as heretical.

Egypt imposed a state of emergency following the church attacks and shootings, and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi demanded the army quell the jihadists with "brutal force" following the mosque massacre.
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.
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Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 29, 2017 10:18 1785 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f5ea48 1 Business coal,production,Indonesia Free

It is unlikely that Indonesia will set a cap on coal production in the near future due to uncontrollable coal mining activities in the country, according to an official.

The government initially planned to reduce domestic coal production from 419 million tons in 2016 to 413 million tons this year. The figure was expected to fall to 406 million tons next year, before hovering at only 400 million tons a year starting in 2019.

However, as of Wednesday, this years coal production had reached 477 million tons, already surpassing last years achievement of 434 million tons.

Indeed, we previously expected to produce only 406 million tons of coal in 2018, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministrys mineral and coal director general, Bambang Gatot Ariyono, told reporters on Wednesday.

But looking at the current condition, it might be impossible for us to prevent all holders of coal mining permits, particularly ones that have conducted feasibility studies or have started construction process [at the mining sites], from entering the production stage.

In fact, Bambang said the government would have to increase the countrys coal production to boost its non-tax state revenues (PNBP)

As of Wednesday, the PNBP from the mineral and coal sector reached Rp 39 trillion ($2.73 billion), already surpassing the full-year target of Rp 32.7 trillion.

Indonesia had coal resources amounting to 128.06 billion tons and coal reserves of 28.46 billion tons by the end of 2016, located mostly in Kalimantan and Sumatra. (bbn)

Topics : coal production Indonesia
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 29 2017

Police at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport have arrested the manager of a haj travel agency for allegedly selling customers forged visas and plane tickets in what appears to be the latest case of fraud against would-be pilgrims.

The chief of the airport police, Adj. Sr. Comr. Ahmad Yusep, said the scam had allegedly been organized by the manager, Hermansyah, without the knowledge of the travel agencys owner.

Dozens of customers received fake plane tickets, Ahmad said, as quoted by kompas.com on Thursday.

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Linkedin Kharishar Kahfi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 29, 2017 17:39 1784 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f70cf2 1 Politics KPK,bogor,election Free

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is set to lose its director of networking inter-institutional cooperation, Dedie Rachim, who is planning to run in West Javas Bogor election in 2018.

The antigraft bodys chairman, Agus Rahardjo, said Dedie had announced his resignation to the commissioners.

He also showed me his resignation letter dated Dec. 27. The administration process in currently under way, Agus told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

He added that the antigraft body would select Dedies successor soon through an open competition mechanism.

Dedie will be the running mate of incumbent Bima Arya, who is seeking reelection in next years mayoral election. They will run as independents.

Bima decided on August that he would not run in the West Java gubernatorial election although he had been favored by two parties, namely the NasDem party and the National Mandate Party (PAN), to do so. At the time, the Bogor mayor was set to run alongside current Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil. (ahw)

Topics : KPK bogor election
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Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post)  Fri, December 29 2017

The government claims it has been able to encourage the development of 18 nickel and bauxite smelters worth US$8.3 billion following the relaxation of the raw mineral export ban earlier this year, saying that Indonesia is on the right track to boost its processing sector.

The government relaxed its export ban on mineral ores in January. However, miners are only allowed to export low-grade nickel ores with content below 1.7 percent and washed bauxite with an aluminum oxide content of 42 percent or more in return for their commitment to build a new smelter within the next five years.

As a result, the government has recorded throughout this year committed investment of $4 billion for the development of four bauxite processing facilities with a combined input capacity of 13.76 million tons of ore. All of these facilities will process bauxite into smelter-grade alumina, the raw material required to produce aluminum.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 29 2017

The online bullying against two brothers accused of being a gay couple after a video of them hugging on a motorcycle was uploaded on the web by a random Facebook user has sparked concerns over rising online vigilantism.

The rise of social media, coupled with growing conservatism and the lack of respect for privacy, has made it possible for many Indonesians to act like morality police on the web, experts have warned. The incident involving the two brothers caught the attention of netizens on Saturday when Facebook user Sri Mulyani posted the video on her wall and drew angry comments from other users.

In the video, Sri said: Hey sir, please dont do that  respect my people.

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Linkedin Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 29, 2017 10:43 1785 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f6137d 1 City jakarta,#SatpolPP,#AniesBaswedan,#publicorder Free

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan transferred over 3,000 Jakarta Public Order Agency officers on Friday following recent criticism over the officers' integrity.



Of the transferred officers, 68 were from the city level, 623 from the Central Jakarta agency, 546 from the North Jakarta agency, 774 from the West Jakarta agency, 774 from the South Jakarta agency, 766 from the East Jakarta agency and 37 from the Thousands Island agency.



"The transfers are to rejuvenate the Satpol PP officers," Anies said at Merdeka Square in Central Jakarta on Friday.



Anies said the transfer of duty was a common practice across agencies to provide new experiences and challenges for Satpol PP officers in the field.



Last month, the Indonesian Ombudsman revealed that Satpol PP officers had asked for illegal fees from street vendors in six areas in the city in return for permission to conduct their business activities.



From the investigation conducted by the Ombudsman, it was revealed that Satpol PP officers had accepted Rp 500,000 (US$36.90) to Rp 8 million per month from the vendors.



The practice of paying illegal fees was also found to have occurred in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, as well as in the vicinity of Mal Ambassador in Setiabudi, Central Jakarta.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 29, 2017 13:47 1785 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f6b4f1 1 Business tiki,pick-up-service-Jempol,launching Free

Indonesian courier service and logistics company PT Citra Van Titipan Kilat (TIKI) launched on Thursday a free online pick-up service called Jempol (Jemputan Online).

The service, which is available in Jakarta, is integrated with TIKI's mobile application.

"These days, customers really want to be spoiled. Even though our outlet is just 500 meters away from their homes, they still want us to pick up their items," TIKI managing director Tomy Sofhian said in Jakarta on Thursday.

Jakarta contributed about 50 percent to TIKI's nationwide deliveries, he added.

With the new service, TIKI expects to see a 30 percent increase in deliveries in Jakarta next year.

It currently operates 349 outlets in Jakarta and will add 200 more in 2018.

Tomy said the online application service would be available in other big cities like Surabaya in East Java, Medan in North Sumatra, Bandung in West Java, Semarang in Central Java, Yogyakarta and Makassar in South Sulawesi in the first quarter of 2018.

"We are still preparing the necessary fleet, so that when we start the service, everything will go smoothly, he said, adding that TIKI has targeted a 30 growth in revenue next year, both from retail and corporate customers.

The company will boost promotion of its Jempol services to expand its corporate customer base.

"We will take a different approach for each company to personalize the service," Tomy said.

TIKI sales manager Ferry W. said the company delivered 25 million packages in 2016, a 25 percent increase from the previous year. He gave no complete data on this years delivery figure. (srs/bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Depok  Fri, December 29, 2017 16:22 1784 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f6df86 1 City #Depok,#GangMember,#robbery Free

The Depok Police have arrested two members of motorcycle gang Jembatan Mampang (Mampang Bridge) who allegedly looted a clothing store in Depok, West Java.

The suspects, one of whom was allegedly a gang leader, ordered other members to rob a clothing store in Sukmajaya, Depok, West Java, on Dec. 24.

We just caught them today in the Pancoran Mas area, Depok Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Didik Sugiarto said on Friday as quoted by tempo.co.

The police have detained a total of 17 suspects in the robbery case.

According to an investigation, the gang members were suspected to have been involved in separate criminal acts in three different locations on Dec. 22. One of the crimes allegedly occurred in Sawangan while the other two were in Limo. The suspects face charges under the Criminal Code's article 365 on theft with violence and article 368 on extortion. If convicted, they could be sentenced to a maximum nine years imprisonment.

The police seized sharp weapons suspected to have been custom-made by the gang and clothes allegedly obtained from the looting. (wnd)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Depok  Sat, December 30 2017

The Depok Police have arrested two members of motorcycle gang Jembatan Mampang (Mampang Bridge) who allegedly looted a clothing store in Depok, West Java.

The suspects, one of whom was said to be a gang leader, allegedly ordered other members to rob the store in the Sukmajaya area on Dec. 24.

We just caught them today in the Pancoran Mas area, Depok Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Didik Sugiarto said on Friday, as quoted by tempo.co.

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Linkedin Kharishar Kahfi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, December 30 2017

In August, 22-year-old Gary Bencheghib and his brother, 20-year-old Sam, hopped into canoes made of plastic bottles and bamboo, starting their expedition along the Citarum River in West Java.

The French brothers spent a total of two weeks cruising the 270-kilometer river  the longest in the province  to find shocking visual evidence of the polluted Citarum.

They found plenty of it in the form of plastic waste, dead animals, trash fires and waste from textile factories along the river. The journey was recorded into a video that was then uploaded to YouTube and gained notoriety in September.

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MASON CITY | A Mason City man has been arrested and charged with felony forgery after allegedly using fake movie money to purchase items from local stores in December.

Charles Edward Reich, 40, has been charged with forgery and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia in two separate incidents in Mason City.

Reich allegedly used fake money marked "For Motion Pictures Use Only" to purchase merchandise from Yes Way, 1303 Fourth St. S.W., and McDonalds South, 2010 S. Federal Ave., on Dec. 13, according to court documents.

He was pulled over for an unrelated traffic stop in the 700 block of South Pennsylvania Avenue on Dec. 15.

While executing a search warrant of Reich's vehicle, police said in charging documents they found a glass pipe commonly used to smoke methamphetamine with burnt residue inside, as well as another fake $50 bill.

An arrest warrant was filed Dec. 19. Reich was arrested and booked in the Cerro Gordo County Jail Wednesday.

Reich will appear in Cerro Gordo County District Court Jan. 17 for the forgery charge. His non-jury trial for the drug paraphernalia case is scheduled for June 28.

Reich was released under supervision of the Department of Correctional Services Thursday afternoon after his initial court appearance.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 29, 2017 09:00 1785 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5381c9e 1 News bali,India,foreign-tourists,travel,tourism Free

Central Statistics Agency (BPS) data on Thursday revealed that 55.1 percent more Indian tourists visited Bali from January to October than during the same period last year.

Data shows that 222,516 Indian tourists visited to Bali during the 10-month period this year.

"Most of them entered through Ngurah Rai Airport by direct flight from India. Only 1,400 came to Bali by cruise ship," said BPS Bali head I Gede Nyoman Subadri in Denpasar on Thursday as quoted by Antara news agency.

Read also: Why American tourists don't come to Indonesia

Subadri added that India contributed the fourth-most foreign visitors to Bali after China, Australia and Japan. It contributed 4.43 percent of total of foreign visitors to the Island of the Gods, which reached 5.02 million people between January and October this year, up 23.3 percent from last year.

Subadri said of the top 10 countries whose citizens traveled to Bali, only two showed a decrease in number, namely Australia and Malaysia. Meanwhile, the other eight recorded an increase of foreign visitors, namely China (57.06 percent), South Korea (26.77 percent), Germany (19.18 percent), the United States (18.39 percent), the United Kingdom (15.39 percent), Japan (12.27 percent) and France (10.09 percent). (kes)
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Linkedin Lee Seok Hwai (The Straits Times)  Fri, December 29, 2017 11:38 1785 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f63997 2 News Asia,weather,Thailand,Japan,Myanmar Free

Tropical South-east Asia has not been spared the wintry chills.

Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia have been enveloped by an unexpectedly cold front, which descended from China last week.

In Samoeng, a district in the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai, the government distributed blankets and winter clothes to 7,000 residents last Friday as temperatures plunged to 5 deg C, The Nation newspaper reported.

Thailand's Meteorological Department has predicted that temperatures in areas, excluding the south, will drop by another 2 to 4 deg C during the New Year holidays.

People in parts of Myanmar were also shivering in temperatures as low as 3 deg C.

Snow fell in the districts of Loilen, Panglong and Pinlaung in the southern Shan state, where temperatures dropped to between 3 deg C and 5 deg C, residents told the Eleven newspaper. "Plantations have been destroyed," said villager Sai Tuu. She said older people, especially, were suffering in the cold snap.

Read also: Making the most of an Asian winter

Tourists flock to Wat Rong Khun in Chiang Rai province despite the rain as a cold front from China and the weakening storm Tembin continued to influence weather patterns across Thailand. (The Nation via The Straits Times/File)

Even elephants have had to be bundled up. At the Winga Baw camp for orphaned elephants in Bago, a region in Myanmar 90km north-east of Yangon, workers wrapped the seven pachyderms in their care with blankets.

"We haven't had weather this cold in 40 years," Ms Sangdeaun Lek Chailert, founder of the Save Elephant Foundation which runs the camp, told The New York Times on Sunday.

Meanwhile in Japan, heavy snow and strong winds continued to blanket the country's northern and central regions, broadcaster NHK said yesterday. The areas had seen up to 60cm of snow in the 24 hours starting Wednesday, and was expected to receive 40cm more by this morning, it added.

Weather officials warned of avalanches in some areas and said transport systems may be affected.

On the other side of Asia, severe cold weather coupled with dense fog blanketed many cities across Pakistan last week. At least 11 people were killed and 28 others injured last Thursday after a bus hit a trailer in Khanewal, Punjab province, due to low visibility.

Topics : Asia weather Thailand Japan Myanmar

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Linkedin Wang Keju and Luo Wangshu (China Daily/Asia News Network)  Fri, December 29, 2017 20:08 1784 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2f77479 2 News visa-free,Beijing,China,tourism Free

Nationals from 53 countries and regions became eligible for 144-hour visa-free entry in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province starting Thursday in a move linked to the Belt and Road Initiative and the integrated growth strategy of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei.

Nationals from 53 countries with eligible travel identification and reserved tickets with a fixed date to a third country or region within 144 hours are eligible for the new visa-free entry period. They include the United States, Australia and the Republic of Korea.

"The new policy extends the visa-free stay for travelers who want to visit the three regions, allowing foreigners sufficient time for a short visit for travel, business meetings or visiting friends and family. It will boost the tourism industry," said Zhu Lei, deputy head of Beijing's port of entry office.

Beijing and Tianjin previously allowed a 72-hour visa-free stay. The 72-hour stay has been allowed by Beijing since 2013.

"The number of foreigners eligible for the free-visa policy has increased gradually," Zhu said.

Read also: South Korea offers temporary visa-free entry to Indonesians

"The policy has been praised by international travelers. But based on a survey, about 40 percent of international travelers said 72 hours is insufficient for them to enjoy the city of Beijing, and they wished to extend their stay," Zhu said.

In 2016, the 72-hour stay in Beijing was used on 26,323 passenger trips, an increase of 32 percent from 2015.

Ports of entry are also extended to designated international railway ports, seaports and airports, said Ji Lixia, deputy general head of the Beijing General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection.

Travelers can arrive using six entry points, two in each jurisdiction: Beijing Capital International Airport and Beijing West Railway Station in the capital, Tianjin Binhai International Airport and Tianjin International Cruise Home Port in Tianjin, and Shijiazhuang Zhengding International Airport and Qinhuangdao seaport in Hebei province. Previously, the policy applied only at airports.

"The diversification of ports for entry is convenient for international travelers to choose suitable transportation based on their travel plans," Ji said.

The Beijing airport has started a new policy to help travelers. "The airport can keep luggage for those travelers for 144 hours for free," said Meng Xianwei, general manager of the aviation business department of the airport.

In 2016, Shanghai and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces took the lead in permitting 144-hour visa-free entry for visitors from 51 countries and regions.

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This article appeared on the China Daily newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
OTTAWA, Illinois | A Mason City man will stand trial for murder after he was initially charged for involuntary manslaughter.

Mason Shannon, 43, was charged with murder Dec. 22, according to court records. He previously had been charged with involuntary manslaughter in mid-September.

Shannon was released from Cerro Gordo County's custody Sept. 22 and later extradited to Illinois, Sheriff Kevin Pals told the Globe Gazette in October.

The LaSalle News Tribune reported this week that Shannon, who allegedly fatally choked Michael Castelli, 32, of Ottawa, Illinois, appeared in court.

His lawyer, Douglas DeBoer, said Shannon and Castelli were co-workers at Bonnie Plants when the incident occurred on July 20, the News Tribune reported.

Castelli was possibly on psychedelic mushrooms and was "filled with rage," DeBoer said. Others present at the scene had to restrain Castelli for 21 minutes, he added.

"Nobody wanted him to die," he said in court. "This was an accident."

Persecutors, however, allege Shannon knew what he was doing when he put Castelli into a chokehold, an action likely to cause death.

Shannon faces 20 to 60 years in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.

His trial has been scheduled for Feb. 26, 2018.
Leading academics in the UK say they have been pushed out of the country to pursue their research abroad because British universities fear online backlash from activists.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, academics claim that university ethics committees are 'drifting into moral vanity' by putting a stop to research in areas deemed 'politically incorrect.'

Their comments come at a time of widespread concern for free speech on campuses. This week minister Jo Johnson announced that the Office of Students will be given the power to fine universities that fail to uphold free speech as of April next year.

Leading gender specialist James Caspian disclosed plans to take Bath Spa University to judicial review over its decision to reject his research on transgenderism.

Bath Spa University previously accepted the proposal analysing why growing numbers of transgender people are reversing their transition process.

However, the university reversed their decision after Mr Caspian asked to look for study participants in online forums.

The university informed him that this approach could provoke 'unnecessary offence' and 'attacks' on social media platforms.

Bath Spa has declined his request for an internal review, but have since offered to refund a third of Mr Caspians fees.

Mr Caspian has since set up a crowdfunding campaign to fight the case, and has received over 6,000 in donations.

He has also sent a letter to universities minister Jo Johnson, writing that the suppression of research on spurious grounds is a growing issue in the UK.

I have already heard of academics leaving the UK for countries where they felt they would be more welcomed to carry out their research, the letter continues.

I believe that it should be made clear that any infringement of our academic freedom should not be allowed. I would ask you to consider the ramifications should academics continue to be censored in this way.

A spokesman from Bath Spa University stated that they would not be commenting further at this stage."

Leading image courtesy of James Caspian
University of Sheffield student Ahmed Sedeeq is being detained at the Home Office facing possible deportation after applying for a Phd extension.

Ahmed first came to the UK to complete an Masters in Advanced Software Engineering, from the University of Sheffield.

Upon completion he returned to his home city of Mosul, Iraq where his father lost his life and family are greatly affected by the occupation. He applied for asylum in the UK after his hometown became the capital of so-called Islamic State.

His case was rejected multiple times, but he was eventually accepted for a shortened student visa. After some apparent miscommunication between the university and the Home Office, Ahmeds visa expired.

Alvin Pastore created a petition on his behalf friend Ahmed, the petiton has been signed by nearly 10,000 people.

He is currently detained by the Home Office, treated like a criminal, kept in a room with no toilet and with limited access to the internet, Pastore wrote on the page.

Ahmed applied for an PhD extension but before the University could finish processing this request he was detained by the Home Office... He is facing deportation at any time.

All his friends and colleagues know him for the kind-hearted person he is, a selfless friend who has always been there for everyone, in any circumstance.

The petition has gained over 7,000 signatures in the last 5 days alone, with a letter of support directed at MP Amber Rudd and the Home Office.

A spokesman for The University of Sheffield said:

"The University is aware of Ahmed's situation, however we cant comment on the details of the case at this time.

We remain committed to ensuring our universities remain diverse, inclusive communities of international scholarships open to students and staff from across the world.
Having accepted his fate, the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) regenerates into the Thirteenth (Jodie Whittaker) who, making history as the first female Doctor, is (as is now traditional) faced with a TARDIS which is exploding and/or crashing. Glimpsing her reflection, the new Doctor says just two words: Oh, brilliant!This scene has confirmed the feeling that the show will be moving into largely new territory, what with the replacement of showrunner Steven Moffat with Chris Chibnall, a new roster of companions, a new Doctor, and a largely new behind the scenes crew. Change is on the horizon, and is underscored by our last glimpse of the TARDIS interior which has been embroiled in flames, ready to be reborn. It is difficult to judge a new Doctor on their fleeting appearance at the tail-end of their predecessors swansong, but Whittakers face as the Doctor realises he is now a she and her enthusiastic reaction to that fact gives one hope. Whatever happens, Jodie Whittaker feels and looks like the Doctor in that brief scene. But this is not just the Thirteenth Doctors debut, it is more importantly the Twelfth Doctors farewell. The story begins in 1966, with the First Doctor (William Hartnell/David Bradley) story The Tenth Planet. This story, which saw the first regeneration, is recreated here with new actors and original footage, with a lovely morphing of a black-and-white William Hartnell into latter-day First Doctor David Bradley. Twice Upon a Time takes place between two scenes from The Tenth Planet and brings the First Doctor face to face with his future in the form of the Twelfth Doctor.Both men refuse to regenerate, preferring death to losing their identities. And so, a paradox is created and they are thrown together with a WWI Captain (Mark Gatiss) and reunited with Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie). Oddly, for a regeneration story, there is no big bad to fight, no epic adventure in the style of Matt Smith or David Tennants departures. There are merely two old men facing change, unable to embrace the future, meditating on the nature of identity and who they are, while the importance of memories in what makes people people is demonstrated by Bill and reasserted by the return of a former companion (see below) - memories about whom the Doctor had wiped.It is, of course, a Christmas special and so it is not all grimness and melancholy. Humour is abundant, the Twelfth Doctor acting like a grandchild embarrassed by a grandparents lack of political correctness at Christmas dinner. The First Doctor is old-fashioned, seeing his female companions as maids for the TARDIS rather than, well, companions. He even threatens to smack Bills bottom for her rude language (incidentally directly quoting a classic story where the First Doctor really did threaten to do that to his granddaughter). Nonetheless, he is also wise and warm and kind, played to perfection by David Bradley, who is nigh-indistinguishable from William Hartnell in his First Doctor costume and make up. This goes both ways, however- reflecting some fans, the First Doctor is aghast at his future selfs guitar and sonic sunglasses. More seriously, the First Doctor does not recognise himself, for whereas he is a doddering adventurer, his future selves end up as epic heroes - sometimes even warriors. A lovely scene shows us snippets of past Doctors, who are the future for the First - from a grumpy but warm old man to a man of godlike, mythical stature. However, the glory must go to Peter Capaldi, who manages to convey an extraordinary range of emotions and states of mind in his swansong. He is funny, angry, epic, heroic, melancholy and, finally, accepting of his fate. Rusty the Dalek (Nicholas Briggs) from Capaldis first series returns and the Doctors great friend the Brigadier is sweetly referenced. We see Clara (Jenna Coleman) and Nardole (Matt Lucas) again, and the latter, with Bill, urges the Doctor to accept that he must change or the universe will lose a saviour. Mackie and Capaldi effortlessly re-establish their chemistry, which was one of the finest things about this years series. Viewing the Christmas Truce of WWI, the Doctors accept their fates and return to their TARDISes to regenerate. Peter Capaldis final speech, giving advice to his successor, is emotional and beautifully executed. He tells himself to laugh hard, run fast, be kind and his final words show how far he has come: Doctor, I let you go. These words apply to the character, Capaldi and Steven Moffat. A great era has come to an end, and a new one is about to begin. Melancholy but hopeful, like Christmas. All that remains to be said is: onwards.

Doctor Who will return for an eleventh series in 2018.

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MASON CITY | The City Council voted 6-0 Thursday night to formally approve an agreement with G8 Development of San Diego to build a downtown hotel.

Outgoing Mayor Eric Bookmeyer, in his last action at a City Council meeting, signed the document. G8 President Philip Chodur had already signed it.

In contrast to recent meetings in which supporters of Gatehouse Mason City LLC pleaded with the council to approve Gatehouse  and G8 supporters were just as passionate, only four people spoke during a public hearing  two in favor of G8, two against.

Councilman John Lee, who abstained at the last council meeting rather than voting for G8, said Thursday he had some questions, including whether Chodur had dropped his lawsuit against the city.

Interim City Administrator Kevin Jacobson said the agreement calls for him to drop the suit within five days of the signing or he would be in default.

Councilman Travis Hickey said, "This is a huge positive for the community. We've got the project in place; we've got the developer in place; we've got the best deal in place.

Bill Schickel, an early Gatehouse supporter, said his many important conditions are being met  the lawsuit will be dropped; Chodur will be working with The Music Man Square on a memorandum of understanding; the development agreement is in place; and G8 financing will be finalized once the development agreement is signed.

"This is a great project," said Councilwoman Janet Solberg. "We need this to build on. We haven't seen the full potential of what's coming down the pipeline."

Steve Noto of HPI Hospitality, one of the local backers of G8, clarified a statement he made at a previous meeting. Noto had said G8 had a hotel under construction in Hawaii. Actually, he said, it's "under development, not under construction."

Now that a decision has been made, Noto urged the community to get behind the project and support it.

John Barron, president of the Mason City Foundation which oversees The Music Man Square, was a proponent of Gatehouse. He said after the meeting he will support the decision of the council.

"It's time to move on," he said.
MASON CITY | The city will have to pay $600,000 to a retired firefighter who has incurred major medical expenses due to heart problems, Interim City Administrator told City Council members Thursday night.

The name of the retired fireman was not released due to the confidentiality of medical records.

Jacobson said under Chapter 411 of the Iowa Code covering the Municipal Fire & Police Retirement System of Iowa, cities are required to provide medical attention for members when injured in the line of duty and must continue to provide it for members receiving an accidental disability retirement benefit.

"Cities, and not the retirement fund, are required to fund the cost of this medical attention and are prohibited from funding the cost through an employee-paid health insurance policy," Jacobson said.

He said under Chapter 411, heart, lung, and respiratory tract diseases, as well as certain cancers, are presumed to have occurred in the line of duty.

The billed expense for the retired firefighter was $748,000, but was negotiated down to $600,000, according to Jacobson

The ex-firefighter does not receive Social Security and is not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid, Jacobson said.

The council agreed to approve the $600,000 claim and to amend the budget to cover it.
TORONTO, Dec. 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Scythian Biosciences Corp. (TSX-V:SCYB) (Frankfurt:9SB) (OTC Pink:SCCYF) (Scythian or the Company) is issuing this press release in response to a request by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada to comment on recent trading activity of its common shares. The Company announces that it is not aware of any material undisclosed developments and has no material information or change to report at this time. Scythian is also unaware of any material undisclosed change related to the Company that would explain the recent movements in the price of its common shares. The Company will keep the market informed as required.



Scythian is a research and development company committed to finding a solution for the prevention and treatment of concussions and traumatic brain injury with its proprietary Cannabinoid combination.

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.

This news release may contain assumptions, estimates, and other forward-looking statements regarding future events. Such forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties and are subject to factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control that may cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Scythian Biosciences Corp.

Jonathan Gilbert, CEO

Phone: (212) 729-9208

Email: info@scythianbio.com
FREMONT, Calif., Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Digital Power Corporation (NYSE American:DPW) ("Digital Power" or the "Company"), a company seeking to increase revenues through acquisitions and organic growth, announced that at its annual meeting that all 10 matters up for consideration by its shareholders were approved. Digital Power noted that one of the most significant proposals voted upon by its shareholders authorizes the reincorporation of the Company to the state of Delaware from California. The Company has achieved another milestone in its reorganization strategy, including the formal name change to DPW Holdings, Inc. which will be effective as of the close of business today. The stock symbol DPW on the NYSE American national securities exchange will be retained while the name change will be reflected over time.



The ongoing transition to a business model and structure as a holding company will provide the opportunity to be more shareholder centric and incorporate financial sophistication to all elements of the Company. We look forward to leveraging the many years of experience our management team has in investing, mergers, divestitures, capital deployment, credit analysis and setting capital structures, commented Milton Todd Ault, III, the Companys Executive Chairman. The Company now has the option to consider spinoffs, IPOs of its subsidiaries and other strategic transactions designed to maximize shareholder value and enhance the Companys ability to raise the capital it will need to further its long-term objectives. Our focus for 2018 is to reward our shareholders and increase shareholder value as we continue to grow and expand the Company. We also are very committed to being transparent with our shareholders, investors and the public, said Mr. Ault.

The Company reported today that during the current quarter it has experienced a significant improvement in its balance sheet and expects, among other improvements, that its December 31, 2017 balance sheet will reflect:

Cash and marketable securities, which are classified as available-for-sale securities, of approximately $2.5 Million;

Other investments, inclusive of the Companys investment in Avalanche International Corp of approximately $9 Million;

A significant reduction in short-term debt during the month of December 2017 of approximately $4 million;

The conversion of Series C Preferred Stock, a 10% dividend paying equity security, into Common Stock.

Additionally, the Company is announcing that it has developed a new web site scheduled to launch the morning of January 2, 2018 that will show the transition to a holding company business model displaying its new corporate structure.

The Companys annual meeting was held at its corporate headquarters located in Fremont CA and was open to shareholders only.

ABOUT DIGITAL POWER

Headquartered in Fremont, CA, Digital Power Corporation, through its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures and sells high-grade customized and off-the-shelf power system solutions. Our products are used in the most demanding communications, industrial, medical and military applications where customers demand high density, high efficiency and rugged power solutions. The Companys wholly owned subsidiary, Coolisys Technologies, Inc., is dedicated to providing world-class technology-based solutions where innovation is the main driver for mission-critical applications and lifesaving services. Coolisys growth strategy targets core markets that are characterized by high barriers to entry and include specialized products and services not likely to be commoditized. Coolisys Technologies, Inc., a developer and manufacturer that services the defense, aerospace, medical and industrial sectors, has three subsidiaries including Digital Power Limited dba Gresham Power Ltd., www.GreshamPower.com, a manufacturer based in Salisbury, UK.; Microphase Corporation, www.MicroPhase.com with its headquarters in Shelton, CT 1- 203-866-8000; and Power-Plus Technical Distributors, www.Power-Plus.com, a wholesale distributor based in Sonora, CA 1-800-963-0066.

Digital Power Lending, LLC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, is based in Fremont, CA, and is a California private lending company dedicated to strategically providing capital to small and middle size businesses for an equity interest in addition to loan fees and interest, www.DigitalPowerLending.com.

Excelo, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, is a national search firm specializing in fulfilling strategic executive, professional and hi-tech placements for businesses delivering world-class services, www.Excelo.com. Digital Power Corporation's headquarters is located at 48430 Lakeview Blvd., Fremont, California, 94538; 1-877-634-0982; www.DigiPwr.com.

For Investor inquiries: IR@digipwr.com, www.DigitalPowerCorp.com or 1-888-753-2235.

Forward-Looking Statements

The foregoing release contains forward looking statements regarding future events or results within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including statements concerning the Companys current expectations regarding revenues for the remaining 2017 and thereafter from contracts and operations on a consolidated basis, the Companys ability to continue to finance its current operations, the ability of the Company to finance or complete the manufacturing of its new product line for the digital mining community, the ability of the Company to sell digital mining power systems or the ability to raise sufficient capital to establish digital mining farms or its ability to operate successfully those farms and be profitable. The Company cautions readers that such forward looking statements are, in fact, predictions that are subject to risks and uncertainties and that actual events or results may differ materially from those anticipated events or results expressed or implied by such forward- looking statements. The Company disclaims any current intention to update its forward looking statements, and the estimates and assumptions within them, at any time or for any reason, unless required by applicable law. More information, including potential risk factors, that could affect the Companys business and financial results are included in the Companys filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, the Companys Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. All filings are available at www.sec.gov and on the Companys website at www.DigitalPowerCorp.com.
India and Jordan on Thursday discussed deepening bilateral ties across multiple sectors during a meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Al Safadi here.

EAM @SushmaSwaraj and FM of Jordan Ayman Safadi discussed steps to set up a robust agenda for deepening and diversifying areas of cooperation in the fields of trade and investment, defence and security and people-to-people contact, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted following the meeting.

Our relations have been warm and cordial based on commonality of views on regional and international issues, Kumar said.

Earlier in the day, Safadi said that Jordan sought an increased role for India in the Middle East peace process while appreciating New Delhis support for a two-state solution to end the Palestinian conflict.

We also value an increased role for India in our region, he said while delivering the 27th Sapru House Lecture organised by the Indian Council for World Affairs here.

Your support for our efforts to end regional crisis and bring about stability has had a tremendous impact, Safadi said. We strongly appreciate your support for the two-state solution.

After US President Donald Trump this month recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution opposing this, India went along with the rest of the world and voted for an Arab resolution against Washingtons decision in the UN General Assembly.

On India-Jordan bilateral ties, Safadi said that Jordans King Abdullah II, who would be visiting India next year, wanted to see ties expand in every field, be it in trade, investment, tourism, education, cultural exchanges and intelligence and security cooperation, as both countries were facing the common enemy of terrorism.
The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed a Bill that criminalises instant divorce with three years of imprisonment for Muslim husbands after the government rejected an overwhelming demand from the Opposition to refer the legislation to a Parliamentary standing committee for detailed consideration.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 was passed by a voice vote after rejecting a resolution moved by Revolutionary Socialist Party member N.K. Premachandran that the legislation be circulated for public opinion.

Various amendments moved by opposition members, including Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM) and Premachandran, were negatived in divisions. The BJD and AIMIM later staged a walk out.

The governments determination to get the Bill passed could be gauged from the fact that it was introduced in the morning and taken up for consideration in the afternoon by suspending relevant rules, and then passed in the evening by sitting late beyond the scheduled close of the House.

Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who introduced the bill and later piloted it in the Lok Sabha, said history was being created today.

He said the issue was not of religion or faith but of gender justice and gender equality and appealed to all the parties to rise above political considerations and politics of votebank. Women are seeing that justice will be done to them. Let us speak in one voice that we are for gender justice and gender equity and pass the Bill unanimously, Prasad said, winding up the discussion.

Opposition parties accused the government of bringing the bill with ulterior political motives.

Prasad said instances of instant triple talaq continue despite the Supreme Court ruling it as unconstitutional in August this year.

He said the government had hoped the situation will improve after the Supreme Court verdict. We had hope. The judgment came on August 22. There were 300 triple talaq cases in 2017 of which 100 had taken place after the Supreme Court verdict. This raises a big question, Prasad said.

He also referred to media reports on Thursday about an incident at Rampur in Uttar Pradesh in which a woman had been given talaq-e-biddat for waking up late.

The bill seeks to declare pronouncement of talaq-e-biddat (three pronouncements of talaq at one go) by Muslim husbands void and illegal in view of the Supreme Court verdict.

Prasad said while Justice Rohington Nariman and U.U. Lalit held in their judgment in August that instant divorce was unconstitutional and the government should look at bringing a law, Justice Kurian Joseph had observed that what is a sin in Islamic laws cannot be legal.

The Minister saw no justification in the demand for referring the Bill to a standing committee saying the affected Muslim women were crying for justice and were fully backing it. He said there was contradiction in members wanting it to be referred to a standing committee and some arguing why it was not brought earlier.

The Bill makes the act of pronouncing talaq-e-biddat punishable offence. There is provision for subsistence allowance from the husband for the livelihood and daily supporting needs of the wife as also of the dependent children. The wife would also be entitled to the custody of minor children.

Intervening in the debate, Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar said time was now ripe for the passage of the legislation in the interest of Muslim women. He recalled an instance of a British journalist interviewing the late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru after the passage of the Hindu Code Bill when she asked when would the government introduce reforms in Muslim laws.

Nehru was not opposed to reforms of Muslim personal laws but merely said the time was not opportune then, Akbar said. That time has come now.

Though Opposition members, including from the Congress, supported the legislation, they wanted it to be referred to a parliamentary committee so that several lacunae can be removed and the provisions strengthened in favour of Muslim women. The law must ensure that subsistence allowance and maintenance to the women and the children was not stopped, they felt.

Some felt that the BJP government was in a haste to pass the Bill not because of its concern for Muslim women but because it sees this as a first step towards bringing in a Uniform Civil Code. They wanted the measure to be given up immediately.

During the debate, BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi accused the Congress of appeasing Muslims and said there is a need for codification of Muslim personal laws in the country.

They (Congress) always did appeasement politics for which the country has paid for 30 years and today we have this chance. If we lose this chance today we will not have another chance., she said.

Codification of Islamic law is needed in this country. No one knows what is Sharia, Talaq-e-Biddat No one knows the difference, she added.

She also said that Muslim women need not be in any fear as they had a brother in Narendra Modi

Owaisi took several digs at the Modi government and also said those who marry and abandon their wives should be punished and the government should bring a law to this effect.

He termed the bill as bad law.

Prasad, who responded to the concern of opposition members about making triple talaq punishable, said such concerns were not raised when punishment was provided under Dowry Prohibition Act. He said the amount of subsistence will be decided by courts.

He said the bill was against those who seek to keep women in fear.

Sushmita Dev of Congress said the government was not legislating on the issue of marital rape citing that the law might be misused, and asked if the law on Talaq-e-Biddat may not be misused.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday arrived in Shimla to chair a review meeting on the partys loss in the recently concluded Assembly polls, officials said.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi will be in Himachal Pradesh today. He will hold review meetings with party workers and leaders, the Congress said in a tweet.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi will be in Himachal Pradesh today. He will hold review meetings with party workers and leaders. #ChintanWithRahul pic.twitter.com/MyJKuiT87Y  Congress (@INCIndia) December 29, 2017

In the day-long visit, the Gandhi scion will meet party legislators, defeated party candidates and district presidents at Rajiv Bhawan, the Congress headquarters in Shimla and discuss with them the reasons for their defeat.

According to Congress leaders, Rahul Gandhi will seek the views of party workers and evolve ways to strengthen the party in the hill state.

In the afternoon, he will also interact with party workers from across the state.

The Congress chief had held a similar review meeting in Ahmedabad as well after the party failed to defeat the incumbent BJP which had been in power for 22 years. Though, it did give a tough fight to the ruling BJP.

Riding a wave of anti-incumbency against Congress, BJP won 44 of the 68 seats in the Himachal assembly polls and increased its vote share substantially, from 38.7 per cent in 2012 to 48.7 per cent in 2017.

Congress mustered only 21 seats, as its vote share fell from 42.8 per cent in 2012 to 41.8 per cent this time.
The impasse in the Rajya Sabha has blown over courtesy a brokered truce in which both the NDA government and the Congress backed off from stridently stated positions. Yet, as subsequent events in Parliament painfully projected that truce was trivial, superficial and has not even obliquely addressed a pathetic situation in which the political discourse has degenerated from rhetoric to vicious personal abuse ~ as exemplified by Rahul Gandhi dubbing the finance minister as Jaitlie. Even going to the extent of ridiculing the terms of the agreement which restored a semblance of peace to the Upper House.

It is true that ministers, of any government, bear an added responsibility for keeping the debate decorous, but the head of what claims to be the principal Opposition party is also required to play ball. Alas, such decency has disappeared from the political arena and the more denigrating the comment the more effective it is presumed to be. The pointlessness of the Rajya Sabha accord is heightened by the mistaken belief that only in the legislatures chambers does the concept of parliamentary conduct have relevance: it is silly to expect dignified language from those who use fish-market terminology elsewhere. Parliaments greatest quality is that it mirrors the political scenario, scary though that image may be.

The terms of the truce rightly draw attention to both sides making sweeping statements, wild allegations and what have you during election campaigns. For that is where the rot begins. The lust for power justifies seeking it using means foul rather than fair, and while everyone talks of a development agenda in reality the accent is on polarising the electorate on religious, community or caste lines ~ the new meaning of divide and rule. The reality is that all the nice words used by Arun Jaitley and Ghulam Nabi Azad in their compromise solution will fade away as soon as the next election is announced. Which could even be a municipal poll, since the squabble for power has no lower limit.

While the government claims that Mr Narendra Modis comments against Dr Manmohan Singh and Mr Mohd Hamid Ansari were erroneously interpreted out of context, most people are clued up enough to know that injecting a Pakistan angle into the Gujarat poll was a way of consolidating the Hindu vote. Similarly the Congress distancing itself from Mani Shankar Aiyars distasteful remark is meaningless unless the party goes the distance and expels him ~ and not merely because it was directed against Mr Modi and had a negative impact on the partys poll prospects.

In the same way a junior minister for parliamentary affairs bid to distance the government from Anantkumar Hegdes ridiculing the concept of secularism and threatening to re-write the Constitution is hardly convincing. The sum total of all these comments confirms that contemporary politics have truly reached a nadir.
US President Donald Trump has said that he believes Robert Mueller, the special counsel in the Russia investigation, will treat him fairly and insisted there has been no collusion  discovered by the inquiry, a media report said.

In an interview to The New York Times on Thursday, Trump said of the investigation: It makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position. So the sooner its worked out, the better it is for the country.

Asked whether he would order the Justice Department to reopen the investigation into his Democrat rival Hillary Clintons emails, Trump appeared to remain focused on the Russia investigation.

I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department, he said, echoing claims by his supporters that as president he has the power to open or end an investigation.

But for purposes of hopefully thinking Im going to be treated fairly, Ive stayed uninvolved with this particular matter.

Hours after he accused China of secretly shipping oil to North Korea, Trump told The New York Times that he has been soft on Beijing on trade in the hopes that its leaders will pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

He hinted that his patience may soon end, however, signaling his frustration with the reported oil shipments.

Despite saying that when he visited China in November, his counterpart Xi Jinping treated me better than anybodys ever been treated in the history of China, Trump said that they have to help us much more.

We have a nuclear menace out there, which is no good for China, he added.

In the interview, the President touted the strength of his campaign victories and his accomplishments in office, including passage of a tax overhaul this month.

But he also expressed frustration and anger at Democrats, who he said refused to negotiate on legislation.

Trump said he still hoped the Democrats will work with him on bipartisan legislation in the coming year to overhaul health care, improve the countrys crumbling infrastructure and help young immigrants brought to the country as children.

He told The New York Times that members of the news media will eventually cover him more favorably because they are profiting from the interest in his presidency and thus will want him re-elected.
Pakistans ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif today called former military dictator Pervez Musharraf a big coward and asked the countrys judiciary to bring him back from self-exile and make him accountable for his crimes.

Musharraf is facing treason charges in Pakistan for imposing emergency rule in November 2007, arresting judges and limiting their powers. He could face the death penalty, if convicted Musharraf, 75, who came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has been living in Dubai since last year when he was allowed to leave Pakistan on the pretext of medical treatment.

Sharif, 68, called Musharraf a big coward and said he should be brought to justice.

Musharraf is a big coward who is hiding abroad. If any courage is left in him he should return and face cases against him, Sharif said, adding Musharraf had abrogated the Constitution and he must be punished for that.

We will soon bring this traitor to justice, Sharif pledged and demanded the judiciary to bring Musharraf back and make him accountable for his sins.

This coward man is making excuses of his bad health to extend his stay abroad. Time is not far away to bring such traitors to justice, Sharif said.

Musharraf had toppled Sharifs government in 1999. He remained in power till 2008. Sharif who returned to power in 2013 instituted a treason case against Musharraf who left the country in 2016 when the apex court allowed him to travel abroad on medical grounds.

Sharifs comments came a day after Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto accused Musharraf of killing his mother Benazir Bhutto.

Bilawal said his mother paid the price for fighting against the dictatorship and Musharraf got her killed.

Pervez Musharraf directly threatened my mother that the guarantee of her security upon her return to Pakistan depended on Bhuttos cooperation with the government. I personally hold Pervez Musharraf responsible for the assassination of my mother, he said.

Musharraf, however, dismissed Bilawals claim, saying some rouge elements in the establishment might have been involved in her killing.

Benazir, the Pakistan Peoples Party chief and a two-time prime minister, was killed along with more than 20 people in a gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindis Liaquat Bagh during an election campaign rally on December 27, 2007. She was 54.
Albany, New York, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Increasing sales of consumer electronics continues to drive the demand for electrical circuit boards, wherein die-attach materials are key constituents. Growing proliferation of the electrification trend across industries has driven the sales of electrical components such as die-attach materials. However, in the face of the brimming demand, manufacturers of die-attach materials are facing challenges in extending their production capacities. The production of die-attach materials is becoming more complex as suppliers are finding difficulties in cost-effective procurement of raw materials.

According to Transparency Market Researchs recent report, the global die-attach materials market is anticipated to expand at a sluggish CAGR of 3.1% during the forecast period. By the end of 2026, the report has forecasted that the global die-attach materials market will reach US$ 970 Mn value. Leading manufacturers of die-attach materials have been profiled in the report, and they include, Creative Materials Inc., Dow Corning Corporation, Master Bond Inc., Henkel, Hybond Inc., AI Technology, and Alpha Assembly Solutions, among others. In the near future, a majority of players in the global die-attach materials market are expected to create new production techniques for lowering the overall manufacturing costs.

APEJ  Largest Market for Die-Attach Materials

A regional analysis of the global die-attach materials landscape has been provided in the report. According to it, the Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region is expected to account for the largest share of the global die-attach materials market value throughout the forecast period. In actuality, the growth of the overall global die-attach materials market will be largely dependent on the APEJ region. Countries such as China (particularly Taiwan) and South Korea have emerged as leading producers of die-attach materials.

Request a PDF Brochure at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=19547

Industrial regulations in the APEJ countries are estimated to remain lucrative for mass-scale production of die-attach materials. In 2017, the APEJ die-attach materials market is expected to be worth half a billion dollars. The report also projects that by the end of the forecast period, nearly 70% of revenues procured in the global die-attach materials market will come from the APEJ region. Apart from the APEJ region, Japan is also expected to remain at the forefront of global die-attach materials market expansion. By the end of 2026, the tech-driven country will solely account for over US$ 100 Mn worth of revenues procured from the sales of die-attach materials. Japans die-attach materials market will also witness a considerable traction in terms of voluminous exports.

Global Die-Attach Materials Market: Additional Forecast Highlights

In addition to the regional analysis, the study has segmented the global die-attach materials market on the basis of form, materials and products.

In 2017 and beyond, the demand for powdered die-attach materials is expected to plunge in the global market.

Through 2026, a majority of die-attach materials sold in the global semiconductor industry will be in the form of pastes.

The demand for die-attach materials in the form of wires will be relatively steady, compared to that of pastes.

Predominantly, polymer adhesives will witness more sales in the overall die-attach materials market, pertaining to their efficiency in providing adhesion to metal and plastic surfaces. In 2017, the global sales of polymer adhesive die-attach materials is estimated to bring in over US$ 200 Mn in revenues.

Throughout the forecast period, die-attach films will be the top-selling products in the global die-attach materials market. Sintering products, on the other hand, will register a sluggish CAGR of 2.4% during the forecast period.

Purchase Die-Attach Materials Market Report at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=19547<ype=S

About Us

Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.

Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.
Things to do in the Attleboro area and beyond
Job Title: Program Coordinator

Organization: International

Rescue Committee (IRC)

Duty Station: Kampala,

Uganda

Reports to: Deputy Director

of Programs

About Us:

The International Rescue Committee helps people whose lives and

livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and

gain control of their future. It was created by Albert Einstein more than 80

years and has been working in Uganda since 1998. It has particularly working in

the conflict zones where tens of thousands of people have been kills and over

1.6 million displaced. Following a peace agreement in 2006, Ugandans are

returning home and looking to rebuild their lives. The IRC is there to protect

women and children from violence and exploitation by fostering a safe

environment and encouraging education, and is supporting farmers and small

businesses, and helping communities promote peace and long-term development.

Job Summary: The Program

Coordinator is responsible for ensuring the completion of special initiatives

including Exemplar, as well as advancing the country programs commitments

towards partnership with local NGOs, usage of program tools, development of a

funding strategy, and development of communications tools.



Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Exemplar initiative

Manage the Exemplar initiative, which

includes the integration of key strategic initiatives IRC aims to rollout

globally towards 2020 (specific initiatives to be chosen by the country

office in February 2018).

Support sector teams including Protection

and Rule of Law (ProL), Womens Protection and Empowerment (WPE), Economic

Recovery and Development (ERD), and Health, as well as operations

departments such as HR, Supply Chain, IT, and Finance across the country

to adopt the Exemplar new tools and practices in the way they design and

implement their programs.

Through the Exemplar initiative, work with

the DDP and M&E Manager to ensure IRC programs are measurably more

outcome-focused, gender sensitive, cost-efficient, responsive to clients

needs and preferences, and adapted to contexts of intervention.

Partner mapping

Carry out a partner mapping of local NGOs

in Uganda that could be potential sub-grantees to IRC in Uganda.

Assess IRC Ugandas capacity to partner

with local organizations, including program, HR, Finance, and Supply Chain

departments. The analysis could include an assessment of IRCs capacity

gaps or strengths in partner management knowledge and training, funding or

other resources, or time.

Recommend and organize subsequent trainings

or facilitate support through the regional office or headquarters to

address capacity gaps found in assessment; as well as come up with

strategies to capitalize on existing capacity strengths.

Work with the region to organize a

training for staff on IRCs partner/sub-grant management systems and

processes.

Map out potential synergies between IRC

Uganda programs and local partners found in the mapping, and act as a

starting focal point to contact local partners for future collaboration.

Funding strategy

Work closely with SMT and Grants to

develop a funding strategy for IRC Uganda to widen and strengthen the

donor base, using guidance from the Awards Management Unit and analyzing

IRC Ugandas Strategic Action Plan versus its operating budget.

Work in close coordination with the Senior

Management Team, begin rollout of strategy.

Program tools

Ensure that program tools, including work

plans, spending plans, procurement plans, and staffing plans, are

developed prior to the start of each grant by field teams.

Facilitate in-depth trainings for all

relevant field staff on each of these tools.

With technical coordinators, ensure that

these are reviewed systematically and at all grant meetings.

With technical coordinators, ensure that

corrective actions and updates are systematically made to plans in

accordance with program changes.

Communications materials

Work with the DDP and Program Fellow to

identify needs for communications and information materials.

Design and develop communications

materials such as brochures, fact sheets, articles, posters, or

audio-visual materials to promote the work of IRC Uganda among various

stakeholders.

Confidentiality:

Ensuring the non-disclosure of any

information whatsoever relating to the practices and business of IRC acquired in the

course of duty, to any other person or organization without authority,

except in the normal execution of duty.











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The applicant for the Program Coordinator

job opportunity must hold a Bachelors degree in Development Studies,

International Relations, Social Sciences or a similar field (Masters

degree preferred).

At least two years of international

experience working in a humanitarian or development setting.

Previous experience in the management of

local partners and partner mapping and analysis.

Experience with fundraising and working

with humanitarian and development donors.

Experience managing humanitarian projects.

Skills in creation of communications

materials.

Organized approach with ability to work on

several different projects independently.

Ability to work and be flexible under

difficult circumstances in a stressful environment

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested candidates should send an updated

CVs and cover letters clearly indicating the position applied for as the

subject to: UA-IRCJobs@Rescue.org (The Human Resource and Administration

department, International Rescue Committee)

rd January

2018 Deadline: 3January2018
Job Title: Projects Officer

Organisation: Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of

Africa (SIHA)

Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda

About US:

The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa  SIHA Network

 is a coalition of civil society organisations from Sudan, South Sudan,

Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Somaliland and Uganda. Founded in 1995,

the organisation advocates for social change and gender equality in the Horn

region and works specifically on protecting womens human rights, promoting

womens access to justice, supporting economic empowerment and activating

womens political participation. SIHAs secretariat/HQ is located in Kampala,

Uganda and SIHA maintains field offices in Sudan and South Sudan.

Job Summary: The Projects

Officer will be responsible for the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation

of the SIHA project currently in the region, through a series of activities and

grassroots capacity building, project mentoring and evaluation as well as the

conducting of local-level advocacy, awareness, and education activities.

Specific project documentation will be made available to the PO upon agreement

The PO will be SIHAs main contact point for all elements of the projects

occurring in and around Uganda in addition to being involved in regional

activities as requested by the SIHA Secretariat.



Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Ensure efficient and effective

implementation of project tasks;

Regularly monitor and evaluate Projects

activities particularly in Uganda and ensuring effective outputs;

Provide financial management, ensuring

transparency and accuracy in financial reporting;

Refine and monitor the project

implementation time line, suggesting modifications as necessary;

Work closely with SIHAs Regional Director

(RD) and Regional Programmes Officer (RPO) and other SIHA programme staff;

Work closely with SIHAs local-level

partners in the project, supporting them in the implementation of the

project or as otherwise requested by the SIHA Secretariat;

Uphold donor and SIHA reporting

requirements in reference to the project;

Ensure adequate stakeholder connections

are established in Uganda, and that project activities can be safely

shared with various stakeholders;

Facilitate for the planning of all SIHA

public and stakeholder events;

Facilitate the conduct of any and all

necessary SIHA research work in Uganda.

Act as SIHAs contact for Uganda, alerting

Regional SIHA Secretariat staff in Kampala to regional activities, events,

political/social trends, and opportunities for furthering SIHAs core

objectives in Uganda and across the Horn of Africa;

Facilitate visits to the field from SIHA

Secretariat staff, assisting with necessary logistic arrangements;

Participate, as requested, in SIHA

meetings, trainings, events;

Liaise regularly with SIHA member

organizations in Uganda, providing SIHAs Regional Secretariat with

updates and other information as needed;

Perform any other duties as deemed

necessary by SIHA or SIHAs member organizations in Uganda.











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The ideal candidate should preferably hold

a University-level education in human rights, womens rights, project

management, development / humanitarian studies, gender studies, law, or a

related field;

Previous experience working in the human

rights / non-governmental organization sector, with ability to provide

relevant references;

Strong experience in working grassroots

community and ability to lead community based projects is essential

The candidate for this position should have

strong knowledge and understanding of Uganda Political and economic

context particularly Northern Uganda; West Nile and Karamoja regions .

Added advantage is knowledge of and interest in the Horn of Africa, Sudan,

South Sudan, Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia.

Show commitment to womens rights and the

principles of gender equality and interest in social movements is

essential, with proven track-record on right-based programming and

grassroots project management combined with field work experience being a

precondition for shortlisting.

Show commitment to women at the grassroots

level and their essential role in promoting the improvement of conditions

for women and girls across the Horn of Africa.

Strong writing skills and knowledge of quantitative

and qualitative research methods, ability to collect and document

information is central in to this post.

Multi-tasking skills with ability to put

in extra hours during peak periods of activity;

Proven knowledge of local-level political

/ social / cultural dynamics;

Proven knowledge of local-level

stakeholders, persons of influence, and the ability to liaise with these

actors in reference to SIHA work in the region;

Ability to travel within Uganda and abroad

as required;

Punctual, attentive, and enthusiastic;

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested candidates should send an updated

C.V., contact details for three professional references, application letter and

two samples of writing, preferably proposals you have written, to humanresourcesiha@gmail.com.

Please enter Application Materials: SIHA Project Officer in the subject

field.

Deadline: 9th January 2018
Organization: Windle Trust Uganda (WTU)

Funding Source: United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees (UNHCR)

Duty Station: Uganda

About US:

Windle Trust Uganda is Non-profit organization whose primary mission is

to equip refugees and others affected by conflict in Africa to meet the

challenges of development through providing access to education, training, and

employment opportunities by advocacy and direct programme activity. Windle

Trust Uganda has been a leading provider of access to university education,

post-primary education, and vocational training for conflict-affected Africans

since 1996. WTU works in partnership with United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees (UNHCR).

Job Summary: The Regional

Project Accountant will contribute to the development and implementation of the

department accounting systems, policies and procedures. Supports the department

through the collection, processing, recording, reconciliation and reporting of

financial data, verifying the validity completeness and accuracy of the source

documentation. The Accountant is responsible for ensuring all payments to both

service providers and staffs are processed timely, preparing monthly financial

reports, reconciling and monitoring movement of cash at the head office. S/he

should maintain complete and proper records of revenue, expenditure, assets and

liabilities and ensures the accuracy and integrity of financial information.

This position reports to the Finance Manager. Key functions of this position

are under the lamplight and the general direction of the Finance Manager



Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Prepare weekly, monthly, quarterly

financial reports

Maintain and file financial records and

regularly post accounts data into Quickbooks

Update accounting records as and when

transactions take place, and ensure that proper documentation is filed for

each transaction

Conduct cash counts on regular basis

Provide feedback on budget verses actual

expenses

Make wire requests for the office

operations

Maintain the books of accounts and

database

Assist in monthly reconciliations

Liaise with Senior Finance Officer and

Manager on Financial Planning

Other tasks as assigned/delegated by

supervisors









Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

The ideal candidate for the Windle Trust

Uganda WTU Regional Project

Accountant job opportunity must hold an advanced University degree in

development studies, programme management, sociology, gender, economics,

international relations, international development, public administration,

management or other related field.

At least five years of progressive

professional experience in development programmes, of which

Three years at senior and managerial level

with reputable organization or government agency;

Strong track record of leadership and

proven ability to produce demonstrable results;

Extensive network within the development

community;

Field experience is a strong asset.

Fluency in English is required.

Working knowledge of Ugandas PESTEL.

Excellent organization and coordination

skills

Must be result-oriented

Working experience in the civil society

sector;

Demonstrated work experience in

campaigning, lobbying and policy engagement, stakeholder management in

civil society arena, project management, advocacy and representing an

organization at various levels;

Excellent negotiation skills;

Verbal and written communication skills;

Ability to build working relationships;

Analytical skills;

Presentation skills;

Time management;

Intercultural and interpersonal skills;

Ability to work under pressure and to work

with multiple conflicting priorities.

Proficiency in MS Word, Excel, Power point

How to Apply:

All interested applicants should submit their applications including

detailed curriculum vitae, , current salary information, copies of academic

transcripts and certificates, including telephone contact and details of at

least three references addressed to:

Human Resource Manager,

Windle Trust Uganda,

Plot 726, Mawanda Road, Mulago Hill,

P. O. Box 24230 Kampala. Uganda

Deadline: 2nd January 2018
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: Jupiter Asset Management Ltd (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 Ladbrokes Coral Group PLC (d) If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree: (e) Date position held /dealing undertaken:

For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure 28th 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:



28 1/3p Ordinary



Interests Short positions Number % Number % (1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled: 100,309,948 5.23 (2) Cash-settled derivatives:



(3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:



TOTAL: 100,309,948 5.23

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: None Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages: None

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 28 1/3p Ordinary Sell 994,064 1.800000 28 1/3p Ordinary Sell 630,451 1.801242 28 1/3p Ordinary Sell 14,549 1.802000

(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 NONE





(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 NONE

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security Product description

e.g. call option Exercising/ exercised against Number of securities Exercise price per unit NONE





(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) NONE





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: 29th December 2017 Contact name: Nabeel Ashraf Telephone number: 0203 817 1407

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.
But the tribe has a long way to go
Four Indian soldiers, including Major Moharkar Prafulla Ambadas, could have warded off splinter injuries, had they been wearing a fully protected bullet proof jacket while patrolling in the Chingus area of Rajauri, on the Line of Control. All four martyred, during an attack by the Border Action Team of Pakistan army on December 23.

Similary, Colonel M.M. Rai, Commanding Officer of the 42 Rasthriya Rifles, died fighting two militants in a hideout in Tral area of Pulwama district in the Kashmir Valley. Bullet hit him on his neck, an unprotected area of the bullet proof jacket that he was wearing during the operation.

But, now the Army's long wait for nearly a decade will come to an end as the new modular Bullet Proof Jacket (BPJ) clears trials, which is designed to ensure maximum body coverage of the soldier and similar to the ones being used globally. According to sources, the existing BPJs used by the army in operation can only secure a smaller body area, which is far below the standards used internationally.

Indian army's programme to acquire 1.86 lakh bullet proof jackets, to bridge the gap in its requirement of 3.53 lakh jackets, has been pending since 2009 is reaching its conclusive stage and is expected to be finalised by next month.

According to infantry directorate official, all three Indian players, who were in the fray have met requirements of the Indian Army and have cleared the evaluation trials. "Trials have been completed and the report has been accepted. Now, the commercial negotiations will start to select the vendor. We expect the selection process to get over by the end of next month, so that the production and then delivery of the BPJs can start quickly," said a defence source. But, it may take another few months before it reaches the soldiers.

Indian Army has approved Rs 900 crore for the purchase of 1.86 lakh bullet proof jackets. Each jacket costs between Rs 50,000-60,000, will be ultra light and easier to wear during combat situations, that will also provide protection to the neck, chest, and groins. "New modular BPJs can withstand 7.62mm bullet at a distance upto 10 meters," said an officer.

Last week, a parliamentary panel has come down heavily on the ministry of defence for not providing basic infantry weapons including the life-saving BPJs to the armed forces.

Standing Committee on defence, headed by Major General B.C. Khanduri (Retd), in its report tabled in the Lok Sabha last week noted that there was a serious deficiency of Bullet Proof Jackets. Even after the approval of Defence Acquisition Council was obtained on October 19, 2009 for purchase of the desired BPJs, the necessary purchases could not be made due to various reasons, the committee observed. The parliamentary panel also said that it regret that even after the approval in 2009, our soldiers continue to suffer due to the insufficiency of BPJs.

Based on the present position regarding BPJs and the progress made in its procurement, the Committee was intimated that, 'based on the emerging threats', the requirement of BPJs is increasing. However, as on date, the total authorisation of BPJs in Army is to the tune of 3,53,765 pieces.

While analysing the information submitted by the ministry on comparison of BPJs currently available with Indian soldiers and other developed countries, the Committee noted the aspect of lesser body coverage area existing in Indian BPJs as compared to the BPJs of other developed nations. "The Committee hope that the new BPJs are designed and made keeping in mind the aspect of ensuring maximum body coverage," parliamentary panel stated.

In 2015, Army had to cancel its Request for Proposal (RFP) due to rejection of all samples in the trials, citing lack of technology and manufacturing expertise as main reasons for cancellation.Eventually, a year later, Army initiated a fresh process by RFP in April 2016.

The Committee observed that when the trial is rejected, all the expenditure incurred from sanction of procurement to trial stage goes in vain. "Therefore, there is a need to conduct extensive research before tendering for the BPJs. At the same time, the decision should be more specific and timely so that delays in procurement do not occur," the Committee observed.

Last year, with the increase in terrorists initiated incidents in the Kashmir valley, Army had to make an emergency procurement of 50,000 jackets to meet the urgent requirement of the forces. Ministry officials confirmed that the deliver of these 50,000 BPJs have been completed.
The cauldron of identity politics brewing in Assam is likely to spill over if the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which the Centre is set to introduce in Parliament in the monsoon session, is passed.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who introduced the bill in Parliament in July 19, 2016, seeks to give citizenship by naturalisation to immigrants from three countries Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan belonging to six communitiesHindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christianwho faced religious persecution and came to India before December 31, 2014. Such people would be living illegally in the current context of the provisions of the Passport (Entry into India) Act 1920 and the Foreigners Act 1946.

While no feathers have been ruffled in the rest of the country, in Assam, people are up in arms. This is because the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC), which will be released on December 31, has apparently left out the names of 79 lakh people in the state. To become eligible for citizenship, documents regarding the identify proof of a person and those of his/her ancestors prior to March 25, 1971, need to be provided. But in the context of the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, the same provisions become irrelevant for migrants from six religions coming from these three countries. They would be exempted and become citizens by naturalisation.

Opposition to the proposed bill has been growing in Assam on the premise that Hindus from Bangladesh who came to the state would obliterate the culture of local indigenous communities. Various organisations, who have been garnering support to squash the bill, hold the view that Assam will have to shoulder the burden of nearly 20 lakh Hindu Bangladeshis once the bill is passed.

Besides, the bill proposes to reduce the number of yearsfrom eleven to sixrequired to live in India to obtain citizenship by naturalisation. This could further be relaxed as persecuted people from the three Muslim countries have nowhere to go. Also, the amendment to section 6A of the current act would be of paramount importance so that these communities are exempted from its provisionsthe term Bangladesh is in section 6A.

Firebrand Assamese farmer leader and adviser to the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samity ( KMSS) Akhil Gogoi termed the bill as a ploy of the ruling BJP government to turn Assam into a Hindu Rashtra by rolling out the red carpet to Hindu migrants from Bangladesh.

The proposed bill has put the BJP chief minister of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal and the governments coalition partner the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) on the mat. Across the state, the refrain is the samepeople who love Assam should quit in protest of the notorious bill.

 It is very unfortunate that Sarbananda Sonowal, who once led a movement against foreigners as the All Assam Students Union (AASU) president, is now speaking in favour of the bill, said Palash Changmai, general secretary of the Assam Jatiya Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP). He added that voting the BJP-led coalition to power was a historic blunder.

Akhil Gogoi appealed to the AGP to pull out of the ruling coalition in Assam over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The BJP formed the state government in 2016 with support from the AGP and the BPF (Bodo Peoples Front).

Meanwhile, the AGP has threatened to pull out from the coalition if the Narendra Modi government goes ahead and passes the bill in Parliament, as it poses a major threat to the identity of the indigenous people.
Speaking at a party function in Kolkata, on Thursday, Tripura's four-term chief minister Manik Sarkar identified BJP as the main competitor as he accused the party of trying to tie up with separatists forces in the state ahead of assembly elections in February.

Sarkar's worries are for real as he faces an aggressive BJP in the state. Perhaps, taking a cue from the Congress strategy in Gujarat, Sarkar landed at a Hindu religious gathering in the state capital a week ago. It sparked off a controversy among the hardline Left circles given partys ideological mooring. But it was aimed at projecting an image that the Left party was not against Hindus who constitute the majority in the state.

A day before Sarkar visited the religious gathering, the BJP chief Amit Shah had appointed architect of partys victory in neighbouring Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, as election in-charge for Tripura. Sarma, who left the Congress to join the BJP, had been instrumental in ensuring the party's victory in Assam.

The BJP is currently holding rallies and carrying out local campaign to build up resentment against the Sarkar government. With a clean image, Sarkar is still a formidable foe. Dislodging him would require carpet bombing by a host of senior BJP leaders including UP CM Yogi Adityanath, who finds traction among the Nath caste in the state, to counter two-decade-old CPM government.

After registering victories in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, the BJP is slowly shifting its focus to other states where elections are due in the next a few months. Eight states will face assembly elections in 2018 of which four  Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Karnataka  will go to polls between February and May. Without wasting much time, Amit Shah had already appointed Sarma as election in-charge of Tripura and Union minister Kiren Rijiju in-charge of Nagaland on December 23.

Meghlaya, ruled by the Congress, is where a keen contest is awaited. In this Christian majority state, BJP had appointed Union minister Alphons Kannanthanam as election in-charge hoping he could send a message to the community. If this move will prove beneficial to the BJP is yet to be seen.

Several thousands of kilometers away, preparations are under-way for another pitched battle. BJP is currently holding a parivartan yatra across Karnataka to drum up support against the ruling Congress government. The saffron party is facing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah who is proving to be a tough competitor. The Congress CM had been using Kannada pride to keep BJP's nationalist sentiment at bay.

As elections are still six months away, in May, the BJP is likely to employ a mixture of development and Hindutva narrative in its campaign. Minister of State Anant Kumar Hegde's provocative speeches are interpreted as evoking the Hindutva sentiments which could help the party rise above the strong caste equations (read Lingayat) in the state. The BJP suffered strong opposition from caste leaders like Jignesh Mevani, Alkesh Thakor and Hardik Patel in Gujarat. This had come as eye-opener for the BJP strategists including Amit Shah, who agreed that these caste equations by way of election strategy have to be acknowledged.

While the basic BJP strategy will remain the same, that is to employ organisation to reach out to people, with senior leaders fanning out across the region, localised sentiments will be taken care off says sources.

Before that the BJP may use Union budget to give enhanced allocations for these states going to polls to send out a message. 2018 will say a lot about what happens in 2019.
Pakistan will release 147 Indian fishermen via Attari border in Punjab's Amritsar on Friday afternoon.

The fishermen, who were arrested for allegedly fishing in territorial waters, were freed from a Karachi jail on Thursday.

As per reports, the fishermen will be handed over to Indian officials at Wagah border crossing.

The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) had earlier this week arrested 28 Indian fishermen for allegedly fishing illegally in the country's territorial waters in the Arabian Sea.

Around 168 Indian fishermen have been held by the Pakistan Maritime Security personnel since the last five weeks.
The election result in just one constituency in a state cannot be considered as an indication of the general political trend in that state. In Tamil Nadu, where caste, money power and regionalism hold great sway over elections, each election result could be regarded as isolated occurrences.

Nonetheless, the results of the byelection held recently in R.K. Nagar assume significance on more than one count. For the first time in the history of Tamil Nadu, an Independent candidate won; after many decades a candidate of the ruling party tasted defeat in a by-election; and, for the first time in three decades, a candidate of the AIADMK was beaten in the constituency.

The historic victory of T.T.V. Dhinakaran in R.K. Nagar is sounding alarm bells in the AIADMK camp. The constituency, named after former president Dr S. Radhakrishnan, has taught the DMK and the BJP a few lessons.

Who will have the two leaves?

The All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has always been a crowd that revolves around a charismatic leader. Party members go to political meetings like they go for a movie. The AIADMK, which had revolved around M.G. Ramachandran and J. Jayalalithaa, was rendered leaderless since December 2016 with the demise of Jayalalithaa.

V.K. Sasikala, O. Panneerselvam and Edappadi Palaniswamy attempted to fit into Jayalalithaas shoes, but in vain. Finally, Panneerselvam and Palaniswamy together tried to lead the party and the party managed to get back its two leaves symbol. However, the AIADMK led by the Panneerselvam-Palaniswamy combine lost in the byelection despite the ruling party having used all means in its command.

The verdict in R.K. Nagar clearly indicates that T.T.V. Dhinakaran possesses the appealing personality that the partys rank and file expect. At present, Dhinakaran enjoys the support 18 MLAs. These MLAs were disqualified by the assembly speaker, and a case regarding this is being considered by the court. A total of 50 leaders who were offered tickets by Sasikala had won in the last assembly elections.

Dhinakarans entry into the assembly is likely to change the stance of these 50 MLAs. Dhinakaran might even take over the reins of the party with the blessings of the Panneerselvam-Palaniswamy factions. However, the corruption charges against the Mannargudi mafia will turn out to be a major obstacle in Dhinakarans way.

Rainbow alliance turns colourless

The DMK in Tamil Nadu was seen like the CPM in Kerala which gets votes come what may. However, this myth was debunked in the R.K. Nagar bypolls. In its worst electoral performance since the R.K. Nagar constituency came into being, the DMK lost the deposit. Even while the DMK argues that Dhinakaran won with money power, it is a dangerous trend that even the most faithful followers of a party could be swayed by money power.

A move to hold mid-term elections to the assembly would have been relevant had the DMK won in R.K. Nagar, close on the heels of the court clearing the DMK leaders in the 2G scam case. The DMK leadership would find it tough explaining to the cadres as to why the party suffered an ignominious defeat in R.K. Nagar despite the support and campaigning it got from the UPA member-parties Congress and Muslim Leagues as well as from the MDMK, VCK, and the Left parties. At the same time, the DMK is justified in describing the defeat as an isolated phenomenon. In 2010, when the DMK was in power, the party had won the by-election held at Pennagaram, while the AIADMK had lost the deposit. The AIADMK came to power in the assembly elections held in 2011.

M.K. Stalins ability to lead the DMK after M. Karunanidhi is being questioned by Azhagiri, Stalins brother. More dissenting voices are likely to arise from the party and its allies.

BJPs game plan

Though the BJP claims that it has 50 lakh members in Tamil Nadu, the partys state vice president who contested in R.K. Nagar got less votes than did NOTA. Tamil Nadu is on the BJPs radar for the next Lok Sabha elections. It has been proved again that the BJP badly needs the support of a dravida party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi meeting Karunanidhi at the latters residence sends out a clear signal that the BJP has kept its doors wide open.

The DMK, even while softening its stand towards Narendra Modi, has not given any indication to the effect that it would sever its alliance with the Congress. Though the BJPs natural ally is the AIADMK, the BJP is of the view that the AIADMK is not an ally that can help win elections since the latter could not even keep Jayalalithaas seat. Hence, the BJP might try to bring Dhinakaran to its fold as it did earlier to unite Panneerselvam and Palaniswamy. Anyway, the BJP will not be contesting alone in Tamil Nadu in the next Lok Sabha elections.

Waiting for a Thalaivar?

Two things that happened in Tamil Nadu recently are bound to discourage those movie stars who are waiting in the wings to enter politics  the court verdict in the 2G Spectrum case and the results of the R.K. Nagar byelection. The main slogan of the movie stars who are raring to enter politics, including Kamal Haasan, is anti-corruption. The judgment in the 2G case has taken the sheen off the anti-corruption mantra. These stars had hoped to cash in on the chaotic situation in the AIADMK arising out of the absence of a strong leader. Now, the entry of Dhinakaran has dashed those hopes.

With Dhinakarans pressure cooker gaining supremacy over two leaves and the rising sun, the golden era of election symbols in Tamil politics is coming to an end. Dhinakarans victory also stresses that money is more powerful than political loyalties. It was presumed that the storm that started in Tamil politics with the demise of Jayalalithaa would subside with the results of the R.K. Nagar byelection. Instead, a new storm is brewing with Dinakarans victory.

All these notwithstanding, is Tamil Nadu looking forward to the arrival of a Thalaivar from the field of cinema? Probably yes, and that may be the reason why any news about the entry of Rajinikanth or Kamal Haasan into politics are hits. Rajinikanth is scheduled to announce his political stand on December 31. What Kamal Haasan has in mind will be released in the New Year.

(This article was originally published in Malayala Manorama)
An Indian-origin student was shot dead during an attempted armed robbery in the US, becoming one of the latest victims of gun violence in the country.

Another Indian was injured in the attack.

Arshad Vhora, 19, was shot dead on Thursday at the Clark gas station at 142nd and Langley in Dolton in Chicago, CBS News reported.

Police said two people were shot during an armed robbery attempt inside the convenience store.

The second victim, who was not named, was critically wounded, police said, adding the victims are related.

Vhora was filling in for a family member at the convenience store and gas station, relatives were quoted as saying by the report.

The suspects fled the scene. No one has been arrested yet. A USD 12,000 reward is being offered to help solve the case, the report said.

The shooting comes amidst growing attacks on Indians and Americans of Indian descent in recent months.

On December 15, Karunakar Karengle was killed during a robbery by two hooded attackers in Ohio.

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.
The Pakistan Army today rejected claims that the Indian commandos selectively targeted a post across the Line of Control killing three Pakistani soldiers in a tit-for-tat action.

Army spokesman Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor also said the armed forces are fully prepared to meet any eventuality.

"India recently claimed that 10 of their soldiers came in Pakistan's territory and killed Pakistani soldiers," he said, adding this is all "false propaganda" for their domestic audience to take the focus off Kashmir.

Addressing the media in Rawalpindi, Maj Gen Ghafoor also termed last year's "surgical strike" by India across LoC as "false propaganda". "You cannot lure us into such unprofessional undertakings."

The Indian Army sources in New Delhi earlier this week said a "small group" of 'Ghatak' commandos carried out a tactical level selective targeting of the Pakistani post around 200-300 metres across the LoC in which three Pakistani soldiers were killed and one was injured.

The operation is seen as avenging the killing of four Indian Army personnel by a Border Action Team of the Pakistan Army in Keri sector Rajouri district last week.

Maj Gen Ghafoor also rejected Indian concerns over treatment of Kulbushan Jadhav's family and said the Foreign Office had already given a detailed response to it.

"India always looks to reduce the relevance of any gestures that Pakistan makes. However, every effort that anti-Pakistan elements make, we will counter," he said.

"Even if we do something as a good gesture, the Indian media will colour it in a negative light. We allowed Jadhav to meet his family as a responsible state," he added.

He also accused India of a record number of ceasefire violation in 2017, which he claimed was being done to divert attention of Pakistan from fighting terrorism on its western border.

The spokesman also reiterated Pakistan's "moral, political, and diplomatic support" to Kashmiris.

He rejected the US demand to do more and Washington's allegations about the presence of "safe havens" of terrorists.

Ghafoor said Pakistan had fought against militants without any discrimination and destroyed their infrastructure.

"No organised infrastructure of any banned organisation is present in Pakistan. There are no facilitators [of terrorist groups] in Pakistan and we have gone a long way towards supporting peace in the region," he said.

The spokesman also rejected US Vice President Mike Pence's remarks in Afghanistan wherein he had said that US had put Pakistan on notice. "What kind of friends are we that we are being given notices," Ghafoor said.

When asked about former military ruler Pervez Musharraf's recent statements regarding "rogue elements" being responsible for Benazir Bhutto's death, he said: "I am the spokesperson for the sitting army chief and the media should ask Musharraf to defend his own statements. As of now, I can say that there are no rogue elements within the Pakistan Army."

He also responded to a question that Maryam Nawaz and Nawaz Sharif were allegedly targeting armed forces.

"We will maintain our silence on the matter as Pakistan's armed forces are well aware of the threats and challenges we are facing and our achievements against them; thus we will not be distracted," he said.

He said it was for the people to decide if there was a conspiracy against someone.

 PTI
ORLANDO, Fla., Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hemispherx Biopharma, Inc. (NYSE MKT:HEB), focused on pharmaceutical research, today announced, that it will be presenting at the Biotech Showcase 2018. The conference will be held January 8-10, 2018 at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square. Chief Executive Officer, Thomas K. Equels, M.S. J.D., will give the presentation and meet with investors.



Hemispherx has two flagship products: Alferon N Injection and the experimental therapeutic Ampligen. The Company also has six orphan drug designations with four in the U.S. and two in the European Union.

Biotech Showcase is an investor and networking conference devoted to providing private and public biotechnology and life sciences companies with an opportunity to present to, and meet with, investors and pharmaceutical executives in one place during the course of one of the industry's largest annual healthcare investor conferences.

To view the webcasting after the conference, please use this link: https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1176628&tp_key=1520205446

About Hemispherx Biopharma, Inc.

Hemispherx Biopharma, Inc. is an advanced specialty pharmaceutical company engaged in the clinical development of new drug entities for treatment of seriously debilitating disorders.

Hemispherxs flagship products include Alferon N Injection and the experimental therapeutics Ampligen. Ampligen is an experimental RNA nucleic acid being developed for globally important debilitating diseases and disorders of the immune system, including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Hemispherxs platform technology includes components for potential treatment of various severely debilitating and life threatening diseases. Because Ampligen is experimental in nature, they are not designated safe and effective by a regulatory authority for general use and are legally available only through clinical trials.

The FDA approval of Alferon N Injection is limited to the treatment of refractory or recurrent external genital warts in patients 18 years of age or older. The Companys Alferon N approval in Argentina includes the use of Alferon N Injection (under the brand name Naturaferon) for use in any patients who fail, or become intolerant to recombinant interferon, including patients with chronic active hepatitis C infection.

The Company wholly owns and exclusively operates a GMP certified manufacturing facility in the United States for commercial products.

CONTACT

Hemispherx Biopharma

Phone Number: 800-778-4042

Email: IR@hemispherx.net
Forecast: Rising wages and construction growth could boost the UK economy in 2017

Rising wages and a boost to building could drive up growth in Britain next year, a top economist has said.

Simon Ward of Janus Henderson Investors said the economy is likely to expand at a similar rate to the 1.8 per cent it is thought to have achieved this year.

He looked at share prices and growth in money circulating compared to a year ago.

When money growth and share prices both rise, it suggests a country is headed for a boom.

When both fall, it suggests growth will be sluggish. This year, Ward said, UK-focused stocks are up 5.9 per cent while money growth fell.

The economist said this suggests solid but not outstanding performance in 2018, similar to this year.

And he believes the average prediction of 1.6 per cent growth could be too low.

Ward said: 'Reasons for modest optimism include a prospective easing of the squeeze on real incomes; recent orders suggesting a recovery in construction; and an expected Brexit transition agreement.'

It came as the pro-Remain CBI said Brexit uncertainty hit growth. Boss Carolyn Fairbairn has demanded an agreement on a transition deal by April.
TORONTO, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Claren Energy Corp. (Claren or the Company) (TSX-V:CEN) announces the results from its annual and special meeting of shareholders, which was held on December 22, 2017. All matters put forth in the management information circular of the Company dated November 23, 2017 were passed. The circular is available for download under the Companys profile on SEDAR.



Shareholders at the meeting elected Henry Aldorf, Nico Civelli, Robert McMorran, Mark Jarvis and Mark Lawson as directors of the Company for the ensuing year. Steven Harding and Lyle Davis did not stand for election as directors at the meeting. The Company thanks Steven Harding and Lyle Davis for their time as directors.



Further, shareholders at the meeting appointed Dale Matheson Carr-Hilton Labonte LLP, Chartered Professional Accountants as the Companys external auditor, and approved and adopted the Companys rolling stock option plan.



Shareholders of the Company also approved the Companys plan of arrangement whereby the Company will spin out its subsidiary Terra Nova Resources Inc. (Terra Nova). Upon completion of the arrangement, Terra Nova will hold a 51.49% working interest in two onshore petroleum exploration licenses ("PELs"), being PEL 112 and PEL 444, including a 1.47% gross overriding royalty interest on the PELs, located on the western flank of the Cooper Eromanga Basin in the State of South Australia, Australia and will be an independently publicly listed company.

Under the arrangement, each shareholder of the Company will receive one (1) common share of Terra Nova for every ten (10) common shares of the Company held by such shareholder of the Company. Full details of the arrangement are set forth in the Companys management information circular dated November 23, 2017.

The court hearing for the final order on the arrangement is expected to take place on or around January 12, 2018. The Company continues to expect the arrangement to close in the first quarter of 2018. The arrangement is subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals.

About Claren Energy Corp.

Claren Energy Corp. is an oil and gas company that has a (40%) participating interest in the Bobocu License, onshore Romania, and has the right to acquire an additional forty percent (40%) participating interest in the license. Claren also has a 51.49% working interest in two onshore petroleum exploration licenses ("PELs"), being PEL 112 and PEL 444, including a 1.47% gross overriding royalty interest on the PELs, located on the western flank of the Cooper Eromanga Basin in the State of South Australia, Australia. Its common shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "CEN".

For more information please contact:

Claren Energy Corp.

Mark Lawson

T: +1 647 302 0393

Email: mark@clarenenergy.com

Investor Relations

Email: info@clarenenergy.com

www.clarenenergy.com

This news release contains forward-looking information relating to Claren's intentions to conduct the drilling programs and other statements that are not historical facts. Such forward-looking information is subject to important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is currently expected, for example: risks related to oil and gas exploration, development, exploitation, production, marketing and transportation, loss of markets, volatility of commodity prices, currency fluctuations, competition from other producers, inability to retain drilling rigs and other services, reliance on key personnel, and insurance risks.. Findings by other oil and gas issuers does not necessarily indicate that Claren will be successful in making such findings in Australia and Romania. In making such forward- looking statements, Claren has relied upon certain assumptions relating to geological settings, commodity prices, the stability of markets and currencies and the availability of capital to Claren in order to continue with the seismic and drilling programs. You should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. While Claren may elect to, Claren is under no obligation and does not undertake to update this information at any particular time, except as required by applicable securities law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
High Street chains look set to be sold after experts warned their owner could run out of cash.

Poundland, Bensons for Beds, Harveys and Pep & Co are all on the rack after their South African owner Steinhoff was gripped by a major crisis triggered by a probe into accounting irregularities.

Shares are now down more than 90 per cent since early December.

Last night the future of its UK operation was thrown further into doubt after credit agency Moody's downgraded the firm's bonds to junk, and warned that unless it gets a cash boost its chains will have to be sold off.

On the rack: Poundland, Benson for Beds, Harveys and Pep & Co are all on the rack after their South African owner Steinhoff was gripped by a major crisis

Chief executive Markus Jooste, 56, and chairman Christo Wiese, 76, both quit earlier this month as the Frankfurt and Johannesburg-listed firm delayed financial statements.

It was under investigation for accounting irregularities in Germany, with South Africa's finance minister calling the scandal a grave concern.

The crisis started to hit Poundland, which has 896 stores in the UK and Ireland, employing 18,000, just before Christmas, when an insurer reportedly cut cover on its stock.

Moody's downgraded Steinhoff for the second time in weeks and said it risks running out of cash to sustain European operations if it is unable to shore up its cash balances.

Steinhoff bought Poundland last year from private equity firm Warburg Pincus, for 610million.

Share crash: Steinhoff has been gripped by a major crisis triggered by a probe into accounting irregularities. Shares are now down more than 90 per cent since early December

Last night retail analyst Richard Hyman said: 'It is not likely Steinhoff can survive in its previous form. And, given what's happened to the share price, it also seems very likely that its assets will have to be sold.

'It's difficult for the UK businesses: Poundland is trading well. Having said that, the appetite to buy retail businesses right now is not going to be very strong.'

In the UK, Steinhoff also owns furniture stores Bensons for Beds and Harveys, and clothing store Pep & Co.

But Poundland is considered a more attractive prospect for sale. The risk for Poundland comes as banks and private investors including Goldman Sachs and HSBC are braced for heavy losses from Steinhoff's 15billion of debt.

Wiese is also thought to have lost 4billion in the share price slump.

Steinhoff has promoted chief operating officer Danie van der Merwe to chief executive and met lenders before Christmas in a bid to reassure them about the state of the business.

Last night it said: 'Steinhoff remains in discussion with the group's lenders seeking their ongoing support as well as further funding for the group so as to meet short-term liquidity needs and enhance the stability of the group's operations.'

A spokesman for Bensons for Beds and Harveys said: 'We have always operated independently from Steinhoff and we are proud of the work we have done and are doing on both brands.'

A Poundland spokesman said the firm had always been run at arm's length from Steinhoff and was independent, profitable and financially strong.

He added that all the Pepkor Europe retail businesses, which includes Pep and Co, were trading strongly.
THE majority of countries around the world may be cursing United States of Americas President Donald Trump for his decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but Swaziland is loving him for giving over 15 000 jobless textile workers something to wake up to once again.



The textile industry has regained its heartbeat following Swazilands readmission as a beneficiary of Americas African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which opens the door to duty-free access to the US market for products from eligible countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.



Although we had no business losing AGOA in the first place, this is the sort of news that this country needed, probably even more so than the South African currency needed Cyril Ramaphosa to win the African National Congress (ANC) presidential election.



To think that we caused so much heartache and pain for failing to give workers the rights given to them by the countrys Constitution is regrettable. It raises the question about what we understand about the clauses we put into our national guiding document, particularly the Bill of Rights, which gives freedom of association, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, etc.

These are the guarantees sought by the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) when it lobbied the American workers federation to put pressure on the US Government to act on Swaziland. After years of unsuccessful engagement with the current government and pressure applied at the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the country was subsequently removed as an AGOA beneficiary in January 2015.



Tough decisions have had to be made leading to the countrys re-admission and we must thank everybody who played a part in the process for doing a good job at rekindling hope where hopelessness had taken residence in a vulnerable section of our society that never really had much to live on when it lost its only means of livelihood.

Our poverty level stands at a stubborn 63 per cent, unemployment sits at 27.5 per cent while economic growth is drowning at -0.6 per cent. Attracting foreign direct investment has been a challenge over the years and AGOA offered government the best record of success in this regard, albeit bringing in textile and apparel jobs that are considered very low scale. However, in the absence of anything better, the current celebrations give good indication to the market value of these low paying jobs on the local employment scale today.



The government of the day leaves office in a few months mightily relieved, no doubt, because the suffering experienced by the thousands of textile workers who lost their jobs came under its reign.

However, they will never be able to heal the wounds inflicted on these workers by the loss of AGOA. They remain scars for life.

Next year we head to the polls and a majority new Cabinet is set to run the show. Can we expect anything different? We can only hope that it will build on the new hope for the lower class citizens to engineer a revival of the local economy which is bleeding from mismanagement.

Like our Constitution, the government structures have well documented plans of action, pieces of legislation, polices and guidelines to make this country work very well. The only inadequacy comes in the lack of adherence thereto or lack of implementation.

We take a left turn where the direction arrows point right. Now the country is unable to pay service providers, unable to provide for the sick, incapable of paying elderly grants consistently, feed school children properly, pay doctors overtime or even find the money to pay salaries.

We refuse to put our money where priorities lie, preferring to fund the security forces more than we do agriculture in a peaceful country where thousands of people are starving.

It is for this reason that we embarrassingly have to be told what to do. America has just taught us how to observe our own Constitution and it begs the question; can we still proudly call ourselves a sovereign State?

The reality is that the unions have scored a remarkable victory here and it may just have created an appetite for them to use more of the external means at their disposal in order to get slices of the constitutional cake which government is seemingly reluctant to share.

We dont want that, never. We are a highly educated nation and certainly lack no skill in the ability to lift this country from this quagmire of self inflicted poverty. We just lack the moral obligation to serve and this we must correct immediately if we are to save the little thats left of our sovereignty.
MANZINI  It is now a common thing for people to be threatened to be shot and killed by suspects who use toy guns in the city, especially this festive season.



On Wednesday, at about 9pm, Tiger City Filling Stations fuel attendants were attacked by two armed men who entered the store and demanded cash and valuable items.



Not knowing that employees did not keep cash at the store, the thugs threatened to shoot everyone if they did not surrender any money.

Some of the employees are to have told the suspects, who were carrying fake pistols, that they did not have any money kept inside the store but only change for people who filled up petrol and bought household items.



After opening the till, the thugs took the money which had been kept inside and escaped using the main entrance. However, others had already raised the alarm outside. The suspects were chased after by a mob, however they did not shoot at anyone.



The two men only threatened to kill anyone who came near them as they escaped and vanished within the nearest bushes.

The fact that they did not use the guns when being chased after made members of the public to conclude that the thugs were carrying toy guns.



Some members of the public immediately abandoned the chase, fearing for their lives.

The police were called and upon arrival at the filling station, statements were recorded and fingerprints taken.

Allegations are that the police also went through surveillance cameras, which greatly assisted in their investigations.



Yesterday morning, the two suspects were arrested after they were both found in a house in Trelawney Park, a suburb situated near the Tiger City Complex. The two will make a court appearance this morning after they were positively identified by the fuel attendants during an identification parade held at Matsapha Police Station.
MBABANE  Grade VII results will be released by the end of today.



This was according to the Minister of Education and Training, Phineas Magagula, during an interview yesterday.

Information gathered last night was that a special Cabinet sitting has been called today where the ministers are expected to review the results.



Magagula said he would today meet the Examination Council of Swaziland (ECoS) where it is expected that a briefing about the results and possible release of them will be discussed.



He confirmed that he had an appointment between 8 and 9am with ECoS and stated that if the results were presented to him, he would follow certain channels before they could be released.



Elaborating on the procedure to be followed, Magagula said after receiving the results, he would then present them to Cabinet for approval.



If Cabinet gives them a thumbs up, the minister will then call a press conference and release the results. Magagula was asked about the possibility of all these processes to be completed by today to which he responded to the positive and added that the ministrys velocity was high.



Magagula then said, Either way, if the results are not released tomorrow (today), they will be out by the end of this month.

This publication reported yesterday that the ECoS Registrar, Dr Edmund Mazibuko, hinted that the results might be released today based on the progress they had made regarding the marking.



News of the release comes at a time when the public was not at ease about the possible date of release.

In that article, Mazibuko said they were not sure when the results would be released because there were still logistics which needed to be addressed.



The registrar said after the meeting with council, only then could they contact minister Magagula to confirm that the results were ready.

Mazibuko said the lack of markers had really set them back in terms of releasing the results earlier and they had to work over the Christmas holidays to ensure that the results were out on time.



According to Mazibuko, there were a very few markers yet the volume of the scripts was very large, particularly since over 20 000 pupils sat for the Swaziland Primary Certificate (SPC) examination.



Last year, the SPC results were released on December 30, while the Form III results were released four days later. It should be noted that a total of 27 966 candidates sat for the SPC exam last year.
MANZINI  Traitors! This is how the Swaziland Revenue Authority Workers Union (SRAWU) described the previously on-strike employees who have returned to work.



The union leadership took turns to address the issue of those employees who have decided to betray the struggle.

President of the union Tremendous Dlamini said those employees had acted irrationally. Dlamini reflected on Nelson Mandelas quote; Fools multiply when wise men are silent. Fools have betrayed us, Dlamini said. He said the impressive presence of the members reflected on how wise they were. Wise men should stand up for their rights.



According to Dlamini, they were not returning to work without receiving the 6.5 per cent cost-of-living adjustment.

Over 387 SRAWU members converged at Shosholoza Preschool yesterday and took a resolution of going forward with the strike action. First Deputy Secretary General Trevor Mabuza said they were amazed with the attendance and realised the propaganda propagated by the company. Mabuza said they were willing to listen to the members as they were under their grace. Vice President Nhlanhla Lukhele said they should stick to their agenda, which was the decision they had taken when engaging in the strike action.



Lukhele said the traitors who have decided to go back to work would be sorry with the choice they had made.

SRAWU Secretary General Moses Masilela said they would never forget those who have betrayed the struggle and the just cause of the union. Masilela said the previously on-strike employees have been disloyal to the workers union.

He said those members would soon face challenges at work and be short of some funds and would come running to the union.
English Spanish

TURBO, ANTIOQUIA, Colombia, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Inca Worldwide (OTC Pink:QEDN), GMS and Fungestores got the green light to start with the PNUD (http://www.co.undp.org/) by the end of January 2018. The project will be funded by the government of Colombia.



The initial budget that Fungestores has proposed to the PNUD is $1,430,746,100 Colombian Pesos or $476,915 USD to establish two pilots, one in Guaviare and one in Putumayo, two of the most important states or departamentos in Colombia that required crop substitution.

The project in Guaviare will require GMS and Fungestores to work directly with Farc, Armando Rios del Frente 1. The government of Colombia has allocated $19,000,000 Colombian pesos or $6,333 USD per family to do crop substitution. The project will have required Fungestores and GMS to complete the establishment of the first 200 hectares in Guaviare and 200 hectares in Putumayo in 4 months. After this stage is completed we can expand to Taraza Antioquia, which has 4,000 farmers that are already signed up, and then to a good portion of the 96,000 hectares of Coca leaves that are concentrated in Putumayo, Guaviare, Narino and Norte de Santander.

Kate Bahnsen, CEO of Inca Worldwide, states: This is a very big milestone for our project. Working directly with the PNUD and having a project funded directly by the government, show the support of the government and the commitment of the government to do substitution of Coca leaves with Sacha Inchi.

Contact information: info@incaworldwide.com

About Inca Worldwide

Our Inca Seeds (Roasted Sacha Inchi) contain a complete protein with all nine essential amino acids, and they are rich in Omega 3, 6, and 9 antioxidantsa real Superfood!

www.incaworldwide.com

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements:

Our public communications and SEC filings may contain "forward-looking statements"  that is, statements related to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address our expected future business and financial performance and financial condition, and often contain words such as "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "seek," "see," "will," "would," or "target."

Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to various degrees, uncertain, such as statements about our announced plan to reduce the size of our financial-services businesses, including expected cash and non-cash charges associated with this plan and earnings per share of QED retained businesses (Verticals); expected income; earnings per share; revenues; organic growth; growth and productivity associated with our Digital business; margins; cost structure; restructuring charges; acquisition-related synergies; cash flows; returns on capital and investment; capital expenditures, capital allocation or capital structure; and dividends.
Ocean New Jersey, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Palmer Adminstration Services ups it's 2018 forecast for business expansion in the automotive protection plan industry.

One of the leading administrators of long-term auto service protection plans in the industry, Palmer Administration Services (www.palmeradministration.com) has recently announced that the upcoming calendar year will not only be a positive one, but one in which the entire auto protection sector will be growing rapidly.

Palmer offers entrepreneurs the tools they need to give vehicle owners the largest selection of valuable, sought-after coverage types in existence. No matter the car, truck, or budget, Palmer makes sure its partners have access to auto protection plans that make sense and work for consumers.

For 2018, there will be even more features included in the already generous menu of plan benefits, like: numerous payment and plan options, competent collection management support, quick processing of claims, and solid protection from a rated insurance organization.

Depending on a driver's habits and needs, Palmer can give business owners an administrative support network that includes much more than the company's traditionally low finance fees. For products and support in an industry that is growing by leaps and bounds, Palmer is the go-to administrator that has the widest array of customizable products.

The automotive protection industry is growing alongside the booming economy, which means that as auto sales increase quarter after quarter, so will the need for customized protection plans at the retail level. When vehicle owners search for a specific type of coverage to suit their budget or personal wishes, entrepreneurs who team with Palmer will be one step ahead of the competition, armed with an assortment of products in all price levels and for every type of customer need.

The upcoming year not only looks to be one of the best in the industry's recent history, but will likely be one in which all of Palmer's partners are able to see record profits, more customers, and an increasingly diverse clientele.

In the auto protection plan business, there's more to success than great plans: two of the other pieces to the puzzle are financing and customer service support. When entrepreneurs can offer their customers wonderful protection plans paired with excellent customer service, that's when the formula for long-term success begins to come together. In addition, by offering its partners the industry's best-rated financing packages, Palmer is able to contribute to the prosperity of its entire family of partners.

The forecast for 2018 is looking better than ever for business owners who want to join hands with Palmer and give vehicle owners the very best experience possible.

For more information visit: http://www.palmeradministration.com/


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NISKAYUNA - The four Syed siblings are sitting in their father's office at Ellis Hospital on a Saturday afternoon, on the verge of crying/hyperventilating from laughter as they list their nicknames for each other.

"I call Yasmine Spatty," said Solomon, who is 35 and the oldest of the four brothers and one sister.

"The full form is Spatty Woodshed," Jacob, 25 and the youngest, asserted.

"Jacob used to be Bucky. Now he's Ringy," Solomon continued. "Noah is Nug, Isaac is Chee-Boss, but now we just call him Boss."

"I started calling him Young Chooch. I have no idea why," Jacob said. "And I call Yas Spleeno."

"Mom and Dad are now Mimi and Papi because of our niece, Dahlia," Solomon said. "But because our family is so close we feel like Dahlia is our littlest sister."

"We don't go a single day without seeing each other," said Noah, the middle child at 30 and father of 4-year-old Dahlia.

After spending a few hours with the Syeds, what Noah said isn't a surprise. The family's friends describe them as close-knit  as well as "polite, educated, respectable, hard-working and successful," said Natalie Tiberio, their neighbor for 22 years.

The family has risen to prominence in their hometown of Niskayuna, notably with Iftikhar, the father and one of the top surgeons at Ellis Hospital; Solomon, who is an on-air broadcast journalist for Spectrum News; and Yasmine, a 34-year-old Republican who just ousted 10-year incumbent Democratic town Supervisor Joseph Landry in last month's election.

Noah, who's "crazy about numbers," recently received a job offer from the state Department of Taxation and Finance. Isaac, 26, graduated top of his class in an accelerated program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is in his first year at Cornell Law School. Jacob, a Gordon College graduate, is starting at Florida State University College of Law next year.

The siblings' impressive resumes are, they say, a result of supportive parents and a particularly hard-working father. When presented with the possibility that their middle-aged dad would ever retire, the kids burst out laughing and talked over one another.

"I have never met someone with more energy than my dad," Solomon said.

"When he's not working 60 hours a week, he's mowing the lawn," Noah said.

"In his scrubs!" Jacob said.

Iftikhar said he's been the busiest surgeon in Schenectady since 1995.

"To succeed, you have to work harder than everyone else," he said.

Iftikhar's colleague, Dr. Peter Weinberg, said, "he puts the Energizer bunny to shame," but works as hard as he does to ensure the best for his family.

Anne-Marie, Iftikhar's wife, was a stay-at-home mom, "trying to meet each individual's needs," supporting her husband's and kids' endeavors and "living vicariously through them." As a young woman, she'd had many ambitions, she said, but "every time I went back to school after we were married I would get pregnant."

She and her husband have opposite personalities: Iftikhar is solemn and serious. He wears his scrubs with a small American flag pinned to his white coat. His voice remains at one, calm volume as he speaks, carefully choosing his words. Anne-Marie is warm and sentimental, wears bright colors and tears up every time her kids talk about how close they are. She's eight years younger than her husband.

"But six inches taller!" Solomon said.

"An inch for each year," Jacob said.

"My principle I've adopted from the get-go is constant, open communication," she said.

Noah said he has implemented that same concept in raising his daughter.

Anne-Marie said her children are "similar and different at the same time."

Solomon, who was wearing five different patterns and gold shoes, is spirited and talkative.

Yasmine, like her father, is strong, calm and quiet and lets her brothers do most of the talking.

Noah is a mix of his two older siblings' personalities. Isaac, his siblings said, is dependable, humble and intelligent. And Jacob, according to Anne-Marie, is the comedian of the family, with countless stories about getting in trouble in school.

The family is a religious and ethnic mix. Iftikhar is a Pakistani immigrant and a Muslim. Anne-Marie is the granddaughter of European immigrants and a Christian. The children are Christian  with various degrees of religiosity  except for Noah, who is agnostic.

"We're the League of Nations," Anne-Marie said.

"We discuss religion and politics vigorously  you should see our house," Iftikhar said.

Solomon said he was "kind of ignorant on racial differences. I knew that Dad was brown and Mom was white, but mixing seemed normal to us."

"There's definitely been some troubles with being ethnic," Noah said, recalling racial slurs thrown at him growing up. "But we don't feel downtrodden. We just prove ourselves."

"I feel like you dealt with that at Christian Brothers' Academy,'' Solomon responded to Noah, "but I went to Niskayuna High School, and I never dealt with racism. The only time we felt racially targeted was around two elections: my dad's election for chief of surgery in 1995 and Yasmine's election for supervisor."

With Yasmine's inauguration as town supervisor fast-approaching, the family is eager to see what she'll accomplish.

"I'm excited to be a role model as a woman in a leadership position," Yasmine said. "And I'm not looking at it as Republicans versus Democrats  for me it's about the town, the residents."

Noah told his sister he's confident in her leadership skills because "you're going to watch out for the town as you would for your family members."

And if she faces any adversity during her two-year term?

"We're all involved in each others lives, and that's what keeps us on the straight and narrow," Noah said.

Solomon recalled a conversation his parents had with him and his siblings when he was six.

"You're all more closely related to each other than you are to your father and me," their mother told them. "As much as you love and care about us, you need to care about each other even more."

"It stuck with us," he said. "We're all best friends."

Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Jacob Syed attended Boston University. He graduated from Gordon College.
Troy

Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel E. Abelove found himself in an uncomfortable position when he was seated as a defendant in a Rensselaer County courtroom.

Abelove pleaded not guilty on Dec. 1 to a felony count of first-degree perjury and two counts of official misconduct for his handling of the fatal shooting of a Watervliet man by Troy police in April 2016. The charges were handed down by a grand jury convened by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office.

RELATED: Top 10 stories of 2017

Three years into his first term as district attorney, Abelove's office has been swamped by his handling of the aftermath of the fatal shooting of Edson Thevenin by Sgt. Randall French during the 2016 DWI stop.

Abelove's management of his office also has drawn criticism from the county's legal and law enforcement community regarding the high turnover rate of assistant district attorneys. He's also had hundreds of felony cases that were never presented to a grand jury returned to lower level courts for disposition. Many of them ended up being dismissed for speedy trial violations.

Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel Abelove, left, talks to his attorney William Dreyer before Columbia County Court Judge Jonathan Nichols indicts Abelove on two official misconduct charges and one charge of 1st degree perjury for his handling of an April 2016 fatal shooting by Troy Police Sgt. Randall French of Edson Thevenin at the Rensselaer County Court House on Friday, Dec. 1, 2017, in Troy, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union) less Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel Abelove, left, talks to his attorney William Dreyer before Columbia County Court Judge Jonathan Nichols indicts Abelove on two official misconduct charges and one charge ... more Photo: Lori Van Buren Buy photo Photo: Lori Van Buren Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Abelove goes from prosecutor to defendant 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

What should have been an easy securing of the Republican endorsement for re-election has given way to speculation about alternative candidates to run for district attorney in 2018.

Abelove's path to being indicted began when French shot Thevenin. The state attorney general's office responded to the shooting under an executive order signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo allowing the attorney general to investigate any incidents in which an unarmed civilian is killed by a police officer.

Abelove presented the case to a county grand jury within days of the fatal shooting. The Times Union reported that the district attorney did not require French to waive his immunity from prosecution when he testified before the grand jury  an action that made it virtually impossible to bring charges against the officer, regardless of his testimony.

When Abelove went before Schneiderman's grand jury this fall, he allegedly testified that a Troy officer in an August 2015 fatal shooting was similarly granted immunity  an assertion that was not true.

One of the misdemeanor charges against Abelove says he unlawfully allowed French to testify with immunity from prosecution. The other misdemeanor count accuses the district attorney of withholding evidence from the grand jury in Thevenin's case. The Times Union reported in 2016 that Abelove did not subpoena two civilian witnesses who were at the scene of the shooting and told investigators they did not believe the officer was in imminent danger when he opened fire on the motorist.

Abelove said after his arraignment that he would stay in office and expects to be exonerated.

But the charges are unlikely to help Abelove's office address numerous management issues that have hampered his office. A Times Union investigation of cases found that nearly 40 percent of felonies returned to local courts have later been sealed, often after they languished and were then dismissed by judges due to violations of the speedy trial rights of defendants, according to defense attorneys and court officials.

Abelove picked up a minor victory when the Rensselaer County Legislature at its final 2017 meeting permitted him to use his department's funds to pay $22,799 in legal fees related to an unsuccessful court challenge to the attorney general's probe. The county's insurance carrier has refused to pay any legal costs so far associated with the grand jury investigation and Abelove's indictment.

While Abelove deals with his defense, county Democrats and Republicans are speculating about candidates for district attorney in 2018.

Republicans have mentioned Joseph Ahearn, Craig Crist, Gregory Cholakis and John Turi as possible candidates. Democrats say William Comiskey, Shane Hug, Carmelo Laquidara and Ian Silverman are on their list.

kcrowe@timesunion.com  518-454-5084  @KennethCrowe
BUFFALO  The commissioner of Erie County Social Services who abruptly resigned Thursday is under criminal investigation in Albany, local authorities said.

"We are aware of the allegations against Al Dirschberger and an investigation is open and pending at this time," Cecilia Walsh, a spokeswoman for the Albany County District Attorney's Office, said on Thursday evening. "As there have been no arrests in relation to this matter, no further comments are presently available."
Kabul, Afghanistan

A series of bomb blasts targeted a Shiite Muslim cultural center and news agency in the Afghan capital on Thursday, killing at least 41 people and wounding dozens in an attack that underscored the threats facing the country's journalists and religious minorities.

Three explosions struck a compound that houses Tebyan, a cultural center with links to Shiite-dominated Iran, during a commemoration of the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, officials said.

Witnesses and journalists said that dozens of students and other visitors had gathered at the cultural center in Dasht-e Barchi, a western Kabul neighborhood with a large Shiite population. The majority of Afghan Muslims are Sunnis.

The attack began when a suicide bomber walked into the building shortly after 10 a.m. and detonated a vest packed with explosives. That was followed by two more explosions caused by "sticky bombs" that had been planted on the walls of the compound, according to Afghan interior ministry officials.

The attack also wounded 84 people, according to the public health ministry.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it targeted the center because it "sends students to Iran to learn from the ayatollahs," according to the group's Amaq news agency.

The South Asian branch of the Sunni militant organization has previously targeted Shiites and other religious minorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan. U.S. and Afghan forces have waged a sustained bombing campaign against its strongholds in eastern Afghanistan, where 600 militants are believed to be based, but the group has continued to carry out major attacks in Kabul.

In October, at least 50 people were killed when an Islamic State suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque in Dasht-e Barchi.

Zia Rezayee, a 22-year-old university student who lives near the Tebyan compound, said he heard the blast as he was walking and rushed to the scene.

"Everyone was dead or injured," he said. "There was no one in sight who hadn't been wounded."

He was helping move a wounded person into an ambulance when he heard the second and third blasts, he said.

"Then we all, including the security forces, fled the area," Rezayee said. "It was a nightmare. People were lying everywhere."

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani called the attack "an inhuman act that is against all Islamic and human principles."

The suicide bomber struck on the ground floor of the building, which houses the Tebyan cultural center. The second and third floors are home to the Afghan Voice news agency and Ensaf, a daily newspaper.

Tebyan is one of several cultural and media organizations in Afghanistan that are sponsored by Iran, which has sought to project its influence in the neighboring country. Iran has also recruited Afghan Shiites to fight Islamic State militants in Syria as part of militias loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Islamic State's attacks against Afghan Shiites were part of an effort to weaken Iran's influence in the region, analysts said.

It was the second attack in as many months to strike an Afghan news outlet. In November, Shamshad, a television station broadcasting in the Pashto language, was bombed and two employees were killed in an attack claimed by Islamic State.
State and federal police agencies are searching for six fugitives with ties to the Capital Region.

The five men and one woman are accused of charges ranging from rape, murder and criminally negligent homicide to fleeing prosecution, absconding parole and drug conspiracy.

Read the descriptions of each fugitive below and click through the slideshow to see their photographs.

Do not attempt to apprehend any of these individuals. Many are considered armed and dangerous. Call the U.S. Marshals Service 24-hour number (1-877-926-8332) or email usms.wanted@usdoj.gov with information.





Ena McNeish faces an indictment for criminally negligent homicide in a 1992 crash in the town of Bethlehem. Police say McNeish, who was transporting cocaine, passed a tractor trailer in a no-passing zone and hit a car head-on, killing the other driver, a 46-year-old Ravena man. Despite her injuries, she escaped while being treated at a local hospital.

Charges: Criminally negligent homicide, felony criminal possession of a controlled substance

Wanted by: State Police, U.S. Marshals

Aliases: Nicole LNU, Ena Mae Jones, Ena Mae Walcott, Ena Mae Highgate, Ena Mae Taylor

Description: She is a 5-foot-6 black woman with black hair and eyes, weighing about 140 pounds. She has unusually long fingernails. She was born on July 12, 1952 in Jamaica and has strong ties to New York City and Atlanta, Georgia.

Raul Castro is accused of gunning down 17-year-old Anthony "ZaQuan" Jones on Nov. 11, 1987 outside the State Lounge Inn on Broadway in North Albany. Police believe the killing was drug-related and the second suspect was found shot dead in Harlem weeks later. Castro was 19 and living in New York City at the time of the killing.

Charge: Second-degree murder

Wanted by: Albany police, U.S. Marshals

Aliases: Rodney Castaneda, Antonio Figueroa, Rodney Castaned, Rakim

Description: Castro is described as a 5-foot-11 white man with tan skin, brown eyes and black hair, weighing about 150 pounds. He was born on either Jan. 9 or Feb. 9, 1969 in New York.

Michael Hawkins is accused of raping two Schenectady County women. On June 10, 2012, Hawkins allegedly sexually assaulted a woman who uses a wheelchair and has intellectual disabilities in her Schenectady apartment while her family members were asleep. On Nov. 8, 2013, he allegedly raped the wife of a friend who had invited Hawkins to his Rotterdam home for a family gathering. Police are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

Charges: Rape, aggravated sex abuse

Wanted by: Schenectady and Rotterdam police, U.S. Marshals

Aliases: Zombie Mike

Description: Hawkins is described as a 5-foot-9 white man with brown hair and eyes, weighing about 160 pounds. He has a 1  inch scar on his face, a burn mark scar on his right arm, and a chest tattoo of the Grim Reaper. Hawkins is known to have poor hygiene and knows how to hide in wooded areas. He is in his early 30s and has ties to New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Oregon, California and Florida, primarily through his work traveling with carnival companies.

Richard Todd Adams was arrested in July 2009 after a two-year federal investigation named him as one of 13 reputed members of an international criminal organization that allegedly smuggled marijuana across the Canadian border into New York. Federal prosecutors in Albany said the ring used heat-sealed bags inside large duffel bags to transport more than 2,200 pounds of hydroponic pot across the Akwesasne/St. Regis Mohawk reservation, as well as the secluded wooded area in Churubusco in Clinton County in order to deliver drugs across the northeast.

Charges: Attempt and conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance

Wanted by: U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency

Aliases: Acid, Chief

Description: Adams is described as a 5-foot-8 Native American man with black hair and brown eyes, weighing about 250 pounds. He was born in 1963 in Summerstown, Ontario.

Edward E. Nye was charged with 30 counts of first-degree sodomy after he was arrested on Jan. 13, 1982, in Canaan, Columbia County, and accused of raping several young boys he met in the five months he worked as a local school counselor. Nye eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual abuse and two counts of sodomy. He was taken to the Capital District Psychiatric Center for evaluation of suicidal tendencies and, days later, reported missing.

Charges: Unlawful flight to avoid confinement

Wanted by: State Police

Description: Nye is described as a 5-foot-11 white man with brown eyes, weighing about 210 pounds. He has an appendectomy scar. He has worked as a youth counselor, maintenance worker, carpet installer and mechanic. Nye plays the guitar and at one time had his own country-western band. He has been known to emulate Elvis Presley.

Howard James Nodine absconded his parole immediately after being released from prison and a warrant for his arrest was signed in August 1993. He had served 12 years for raping a 13-month-old baby girl in Poughkeepsie while on probation for sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl. Although his roots are in Dutchess County, authorities have said that Nodine has friends and relatives in Albany County. Police are concerned he could victim other children while on the run.
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One recent afternoon, a mother and two teenagers made their way through Her Treasure Box, an arts and crafts thrift store, in Schenectady.

"She looked older than her age, worn and weary," said Debbie Fowler, founder of Eyes Wide Open NENY, a nonprofit for which Her Treasure Box serves as both home base and a revenue stream.

"Although she [had] many tattoos, I noticed the tattoo on her neck indicating she had been branded," Fowler said. "Traffickers will do that  brand the girls and women who work for them. She waited until there were no others around and introduced her daughters to me."

Then, she told Fowler: "What you are about is needed here. This happens, and it happened to me."

More Information CONNECT For more information or to make a donation visit: https://www.eyeswideopenneny.org/. See More Collapse

She then gestured toward her daughters, saying, "They know the danger of the streets and I want them to know [they] are in a safe place here."

Fowler said 17 children under the age of 18 have been human trafficking victims during the past 10 months in Schenectady County.

Fowler learned about the worldwide problem of human trafficking when she lived in Kuwait for two years, starting in 2010.

While her husband worked on building a power plant for General Electric, Fowler joined a quilt group with women from around the world, where she learned about runaway maids who were victims of human trafficking. Fowler began volunteering at shelters, which were hidden to protect the young women, many of whom were from Nepal and Ghana. It took some time, but Fowler began to gain their trust.

"It's modern day slavery," Fowler said. "This was something I had never heard about."

When she returned from Kuwait, Fowler wrote ''Fragrance in the Desert,'' a book based on her experience.

Interactions with people at book events inspired Fowler to start Eyes Wide Open, which collaborates with existing organizations in the Capital Region like the Schenectady County Safe Harbor Anti-Trafficking Task Force and Sisters of St. Joseph's Coalition to End Human Trafficking. Its mission is to be a sanctuary of healing for survivors of human trafficking.

"We are dedicating ourselves to be a community that welcomes women home and provide the necessary resources," Fowler said.

Eyes Wide Open is involved in educating the community on the issue of human trafficking and inspiring people to take action. Fowler gives talks at book clubs, Kiwanis and Rotary clubs, women's groups, and church meetings. She has also spoken to students at Hudson Valley Community College, Schenectady County Community College, and Russell Sage College.

Eyes Wide Open is currently developing a healing program to serve women. It includes yoga, journaling, meditation, and support groups. The nonprofit will begin offering yoga with a trained trauma-sensitive yoga instructor this January.

"We have met many interested and supportive people, and so many say they have heard about trafficking ... but think it's somewhere else, the other side of the world, not here in our own backyard," Fowler said. "That's the first part of our mission. The second is to provide housing and a loving, healing program for women to recover."

In order to accomplish this, the nonprofit sponsors three main fundraisers per year.

An estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked annually worldwide, according to the U.S. State Department. A crime that's notoriously hard to track, human trafficking exploits women, men and children for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labor and even the extraction of organs.

Fowler is committed to helping women heal from the horrendous psychological, addictive and physical trauma they have endured in the world of trafficking, prostitution and addiction, she said.

"We want to give women the opportunity for economic independence and a strong community of advocates and partners," she said. "Knowing about a problem is the beginning. It takes a community working together to make a difference."

Her next goal, with the help of donations, is to purchase a house that will become a home for the women the nonprofit serves. It would provide a two-year program for the victims.
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Network Solutions Provider, a Managed Service Provider and leader in technology-enabled business solutions, was recently recognized as one of the Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America by Entrepreneur magazines Entrepreneur 360 List.



Network Solutions Provider ranked #143 top companies in the nation on Entrepreneur Magazines list Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America. The Entrepreneur 360 List is a premiere study that examines and names the nations top 360 most well-rounded companies that excel in innovation, impact, growth and leadership.

This annual list is a premier study delivering the most comprehensive analysis of private companies in America. Based on this study forged by Entrepreneur, Network Solutions Provider is recognized as a well-rounded company that has mastered a balance of impact, innovation, growth and leadership.

"We are thrilled and honored to be recognized as an impactful, growing business," says Phillip Walker Customer Advocate Leader. "We will use this recognition as motivation to continue innovating and being leaders in our industry."

When Network Solutions Provider began, it was the epitome of an entrepreneurial endeavor  an idea, sparked by a real need that I experienced in the Information Technology space, turned into an innovative Customer Centric Solutions Provider serving thousands of Business, said Phillip Walker, Customer Advocate Leader at Network Solutions Provider. As a company, we focus on thoughtful growth that best serves our industry and clients, and we are honored to be included on this years Entrepreneur 360 list.

Our annual evaluation is a 360-degree analysis of top privately-held companies representing and serving a variety of industries, explains Lisa Murray, Chief Insights Officer of Entrepreneur Media, Inc. These businesses are real-world case studies for any entrepreneur who seeks to master the four pillars that can greatly impact the longevity and growth of their businesses. With the Entrepreneur 360, success is measured by achieving balance throughout the entire organization, predicated by revenue.

Honorees were identified based on the results from a comprehensive study of independently owned companies, using a proprietary algorithm and other advanced analytics. The algorithm was built on a balanced scorecard designed to measure four metrics reflecting major pillars of entrepreneurshipinnovation, growth, leadership and impact.

The 2017 Entrepreneur 360 list can be found here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/360

About Network Solutions Provider, We Make Your Business Better

A leader in technology-enabled business solutions

We recognize that technology moves fast. At Network Solutions Provider, we focus on helping your business stay up to date with the latest IT solutions. We specialize in designing, implementing and managing technology, communication and security solutions for businesses of all sizes, healthcare providers and all branches of the U.S. government. Whether you need all of your IT managed or youre looking for a supplement to an understaffed IT department, our integrated team of consultants and network engineers can tailor a solution that delivers the most effective results for YOUR business.

To learn more, visit Network Solutions Provider.

Follow us on Twitter at @NSPtelco and like us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/networksolutionsprovider/.

About Entrepreneur Media Inc.

For nearly 40 years, Entrepreneur Media Inc. has been serving the entrepreneurial community providing comprehensive coverage of business and personal success through original content and events. Entrepreneur magazine, Entrepreneur.com, and publishing imprint Entrepreneur Press provide solutions, information, inspiration and education read by millions of entrepreneurs and small business owners worldwide. To learn more, visit entrepreneur.com. Follow us on Twitter at @Entrepreneur and like us on Facebook at facebook.com/entmagazine.

To learn more, visit entrepreneur.com.

Follow us on Twitter at @Entrepreneur and like us on Facebook at facebook.com/entmagazine.

Contact:

info@networksolutionsprovider.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a20b915f-74d0-4d97-bfe1-77806983d73b
International dairy markets support Glanbias decision to hold its November milk price, according to Gerald Quain, chairperson of ICMSA's Dairy Committee.

Glanbia Ireland will pay its milk suppliers 35cpl, including VAT, for November manufacturing milk supplies at 3.6 per cent butterfat and 3.3 per cent protein. This price is unchanged from the October price.

Higher global milk supply has led to reduced market returns for the basket of dairy products. The Board will continue to monitor market developments on a monthly basis," said Glanbia chairman Henry Corbally.

Mr Quain of ICMSA said that the decisive factor in the milk market over the last number of years had been supply and the expectation of where that supply will go.

"In 2015 and 2016, we had decisive over-supply with all the growth coming from the EU 28. Then 2015 was a bumper year for milk supply with the EU up 2.2 per cent on 2014, itself a record production year," he said.

Mr Quain said that the initial turnaround factor in the middle of 2016 was the Commissions introduction of the Voluntary Supply Reduction Scheme (VSRS) that saw milk supply reduction of one billion litres, with farmers compensated for cuts in production.

The introduction of this voluntary scheme, coupled with global supply reduction, brought price back from the brink and dairy markets and milk price strengthened substantially in the intervening eighteen months, said Mr Quain.

In 2017, we saw low prices for the first five months of 2017 for the EU 28 resulting in lower year-on-year production compared to 2016. Since then, in response to increasing prices, EU 28 has increased year-on-year to lie 1.1 per cent at the end of October. The US also has continued to increase their supply of milk consistently for the last four production seasons, probably due to low grain prices and margin protection. In Oceania, production in New Zealand was up 1.9 percent while Australia was 1.6 per cent lower for its production seasons. This possible production surge is causing nervousness, he continued.

The chairperson said that the demand side of the dairy equation had been positive for 2017. On the whole, demand has been steady but the continued existence of products in storage and the relatively low (but increasing) oil price is reducing demand in some regions. China has improved its import figures 2017 compared to 2016 in terms of volume for SMP by 32 per cent, for WMP (+15 per cent), for cheese (+20 per cent) and for butter (+15 per cent).

The demand for butter worldwide has been notably impressive and while the price has fallen back in the last number of months, butter has played a large part in the milk price rise of 2017. However, and much to the annoyance of Irish farmers, butter prices have remained low in Irish supermarkets due to internal competition from processors and the power of the retailers. This has inhibited returns to farmers on the ground this summer when returns should have been even higher," said Mr Quain.

He said that, on the world market, returns generally increased from April through September, but exclusively through the increased price of butter. Powders were holding steady with the result that the overall market was rising.

But the average increase was masking the imbalance between butter and SMP with the latter unable to rise too far above intervention price and little or no sale of that product out of intervention.

Since September, butter prices have fallen to a lower level, but powder prices have also fallen.

The Ornua PPI has shown stability throughout the course of 2017 and for October it reached it highest returns of the year at 116.4 (35.4cpl), it has fallen slightly for November to 115 (34.9cpl) and given the time lag associated with markets it is reasonable to believe that the PPI should remain at this level for the coming months, said Mr Quain.

"ICMSA would give a cautious welcome to the decision by Glanbia Ireland to hold price at 35cpl for November, but its important to note that this price trails Kerry and the West Cork Co-ops. We consider it vital that Glanbia Ireland continue to hold price at this level into 2018," he said.
A Nursing Home near Roscrea has been given a positive assessment by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA).

St. Kierans Care Home is located at The Pike, Rathcabbin, Roscrea, and had 21 residents on the day of inspection on September 12 last, with one vacancy.



This was the first inspection of this centre since the new provider Laurel Lodge Nursing Home Ltd had taken over the running of the centre in July 2017. All Nursing Homes are subject to regular inspections to ensure they conform with standards.

The report, published on December 14th, sets out the findings of an unannounced inspection, which took place to monitor on-going compliance with the regulations and following notification from the provider of a change to the person in charge.

The inspector met with residents, staff members, the provider representative and the person in charge.

The inspector observed practices and reviewed documentation such as care plans, medical records, policies, procedures and staff files.



Overall, the inspector found that the person nominated to represent the provider and the person in charge demonstrated a commitment to meeting the requirements of the Health Act 2007 (Care and Welfare of Residents in Designated Centres for Older People) Regulations and the National Quality Standards for Residential Care Settings for Older People in Ireland.

The provider continued to financially invest in the centre and renovation works were in progress at the time of inspection. The location and layout of the centre was suitable for its stated purpose and met the 23 residents individual and collective needs in a comfortable and homely way.



The inspector found it to be comfortable, bright and nicely decorated. It was warm, clean and odour free throughout. There was evidence of good practice in many areas. The person in charge and staff demonstrated a comprehensive knowledge of residents needs, their likes, dislikes and preferences."

Full report in the Tipperary Star next week.
[December 28, 2017] Dynacorp Energy Services and Energes Oilfield Solutions Combine to Form EnerCorp Sand Solutions

Dynacorp Energy Services ("Dynacorp") and Energes Oilfield Solutions, LLC ("Energes") have come together to form EnerCorp Sand Solutions ("EnerCorp"), a leading provider of sand management products and technologies for the oil and gas industry. EnerCorp designs, manufactures, sells, rents and services patented and proprietary sand control solutions for onshore operators across North America. EnerCorp is a portfolio company of Intervale Capital, an energy services investment firm based in Houston, Texas. The combination strengthens the combined balance sheet of EnerCorp, while providing significant growth capital to support ongoing product development and strategic initiatives. EnerCorp's suite of products and services include patented and propriety sand separation technologies aimed at solving its customers' challenges with increased completion intensity and proppant loading, as well as standard flowback services. Justin Morin, EnerCorp's Chief Executive Officer, has more than 15 years of oilfield service experience managing manufactured products and services businesses, and has served as the Dynacorp CEO since 2013. He will be joined by James Pung, who will serve as President of the U.S. Operations of EnerCorp. Mr. Pung has spent more than 15 years focused on the flowback and well testing market, and served as the Energes CEO since 2014. Mr. Morin commented, "The relationship between Energes and Dynacorp allows us to move faster from engineering and new product development to the field. Our customers are focused on maximizing production more efficiently, safely, and without equipment failure due to sand erosion. EnerCorp will be uniquely positioned to provide a broad suite of products, sevices and technologies to our customers, as well as explore new innovations to optimize sand control across the entire well life cycle. We are excited about the large market opportunity ahead of us, and are very proud of all the employees that have come together during this process."



Mr. Pung added, "The Energes and Dynacorp teams have been working together since 2016. There is great cultural alignment between these businesses and we expect a seamless combination of our respective strengths. Through effective collaboration, innovation, focused engineering and a commitment to strong service quality, we are focused on changing the landscape of the traditional flowback and early production flow period." EnerCorp Sand Solutions (www.enercorpsandsolutions.com)

About Dynacorp Energy Services (www.dynacorp.ca) Dynacorp is a Canadian designer and manufacturer of patented & proprietary sand filtration, sand cyclonic, and flowback equipment. The company is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta with a manufacturing facility in Grand Prairie, Alberta, and has deployed equipment across North America. About Energes Oilfield Solutions, LLC Prior to the transaction, Energes Oilfield Solutions was a wholly owned subsidiary of Energes, LLC. Energes is an oilfield services company providing a full suite of flowback, well testing and sand management services. The company is headquartered in Houston, Texas and serves the Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania markets. Post-transaction, Energes, LLC will continue to own and operate its professional safety services business. The safety services business offers training services, LEL and H2S gas monitoring systems, confined space rescue packages, shower trailers, and many more services from drilling to downstream segments. About Intervale Capital (www.intervalecapital.com) Founded in 2006, Intervale Capital is a specialized energy-focused investment firm. Intervale invests primarily in middle-market energy services and manufacturing companies. The firm has raised $1.3 billion of committed capital since its inception, and is currently investing from its third fund. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171228005606/en/

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[December 28, 2017] SenRa and Skysens Announce Partnership to Bring IoT Solutions to India

DELHI, December 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SenRa, a pan India Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs) provider for long range-based (LoRa-based) Internet of Things (IoT) applications, and Skysens, a LPWAN technology provider, today announced their partnership to bring cutting-edge, low-cost, and long-range solutions to India. The collaboration between the two companies will provide needed solutions in a growing IoT market in India and will provide more efficient and environmentally friendly offerings. This LoRa ecosystem partnership brings a combined knowledge of LoRaWAN technology, to include network services, connectivity, and end-device expertise. "We are excited to announce our partnership with Skysens. We believe partnerships like this will bring innovative solutions to address some of the current challenges which are present in India today," said Ali Hosseini, Chief Executive Officer of SenRa. "For example, agriculture is the main source of livelihood for about 48% of the Indian population. Due to lack of resources and ongoing climate changes, it is more critical than ever to provide farmers the tools they need to produce crops and manage their limited resources. Leveraging solutions such as Skysens soil sensors, provide farmers the ability to monitor their soil and determine the health of their crops in real-time." "We are trying to provide advantages of LPWAN technologies to end users who struggle with many problems in their daily life. In this manner, we are very happy to collaborate with global partners like SenRa to provide our capability with their expertise and network infrastructure. I believe this partnership will provide hard-working people of India better agricultural and other types of Io applications," says Burak Polat, Chief Executive Officer of Skysens.



SenRa has plans to deploy LPWANs across India and strives to bring solutions which will improve the quality of life for all citizens. SenRa's scalable and reliable network services can enable quick deployments of such solutions providing seamless interoperability between smart devices. About Skysens Teknoloji AS.

Skysens is a LPWAN technology provider of hardware and software applications. Skysens provides different sensors and LPWAN technology to global players with following the LoRaWAN protocol. Skysens also provides LoRaWAN connectivity in some of the largest cities in Turkey. For additional information visit: http://www.skysens.io. About SenRa Tech Pvt. Ltd.

SenRa, a contributing member of the LoRa Alliance, is a LPWAN provider for IoT/M2M applications. SenRa is currently deploying LPWANs throughout India for projects which require secure, reliable, long distance communication at low cost. We work with partners deploying environmentally friendly solutions such as water meters, air quality monitors, smart agriculture solutions, electric and power meters. For additional information, visit: http://www.senraco.com. About the LoRa Alliance

The LoRa Alliance is an open, non-profit association that has grown to more than 400 members since its inception in March 2015, becoming one of the largest and fastest growing alliances in the technology sector. Its members are closely collaborating and sharing their experience to promote the LoRaWAN protocol as the leading open global standard for secure, carrier-grade IoT LPWA connectivity. With the technical flexibility to address multiple IoT applications, both static and mobile, and a certification program to guarantee interoperability, the LoRaWAN is already being deployed globally by major mobile network operators and is anticipated to widely expand in 2017. About LoRaWAN

The technology utilized in a LoRaWAN network is designed to connect low-cost, battery-operated sensors over long distances in harsh environments that were previously too challenging or cost prohibitive to connect. With its unique penetration capability, a LoRaWAN gateway deployed on a building or tower can connect to sensors more than 10 miles away or to water meters deployed underground or in basements. The LoRaWAN protocol offers unique and unequaled benefits in terms of bi-directionality, security, mobility and accurate localization that are not addressed by other LPWAN technologies. These benefits will enable the diverse use cases and business models that will enable deployments of large-scale LPWAN IoT networks globally. Media Contact: Skysens Contact:

Burak Polat

Chief Executive Officer

Skysens Teknoloji A.S.

[email protected] SenRa Contact:

Dhananjay Sharma

Chief Operating Officer

SenRa Tech Pvt. Ltd.

[email protected]



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[December 29, 2017] NDOT Announces its Expansion Plan

SUNNYVALE, California, December 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to the increased demand for its mobility products, NDOT, a Coimbatore-based technology firm, takes series of initiatives as a move to make its global presence in an ever-growing transportation market. Cloaked over $6 million in sales and partnered with over 250+ clients worldwide, NDOT's products have greater potential to revolutionize the industry. (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/623441/NDOT_Logo.jpg )

Earlier this year, they were in talks with the foreign investor to raise the fund of $10 million for its expansion and developments. As they are planning for a bigger move to build an international portfolio, they announce its expansion plan recently and are also looking for resellers across the globe to sell Enterprise SaaS products. NDOT has hit the transportation industry with its eminent products for taxi management, Taximobilty, and fleet and logistics management, CerebroX, serving clients worldwide. Both are feature-rich and one-of-a-kind connected intelligent platforms to equip the industry players with efficient taxi and fleet management solutions.



Having a competitive advantage, NDOT has a strong business model focused on technology enablement and innovation that are positioned for very large-scale growth. With clear investment plans, they have tracked a way to benefit its investors with 4-5x growth in 3 years. "As a mission to avail the opportunities and get more visibility in the global market, our investments are now geared toward building our international portfolio in the USA, the Middle East, and the UK," NDOT's MD, Nandakumar Somasundaram said.

About NDOT NDOT is an IT firm that provides connected intelligent solutions for transportation management. We are envisioned to be the global leader in providing the transportation technology to help businesses make smarter decisions in moving commodities and people. And has a mission of connecting 2 million commercial vehicles on Cloud by 2020. We have been in the industry for over a decade and have a wide experience in the field and begot two unique brainchilds to manage on-demand passenger services and fleet and logistics businesses, Taximobility and CerebroX, respectively. For more information, please visit: http://www.ndot.in/ About Nandakumar Somasundaram Nandakumar Somasundaram, the CEO and Managing director of NDOT, is a techie who envisioned the future of the Internet of Things (IoT) and stepped into the IT industry with a passion for Artificial Intelligence (AI). He is obsessed with transportation and wants it to be simplified with technology and connected intelligence. Now his focus is more on transportation and logistics.



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[December 29, 2017]

Announcement of Change in Total Number of Votes in AB SKF

GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Due to a conversion of shares from Series A to Series B in accordance with the Company's Articles of Association, AB SKF confirms the following.

As per 29 December the Company's share capital amounts to SEK 1,138,377,670 and the total number of shares amounts to 35,055,803 shares of Series A and 420,295,265 shares of Series B. The number of votes in the Company amounts to 77,085,330. AB SKF does not hold any own shares.

Aktiebolaget SKF (publ)

This is information that AB SKF is obliged to make public pursuant to the Financial Instruments Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication at 8:00 CET on 29 December 2017.

For further information, please contact:

PRESS:

Theo Kjellberg

Director, Press Relations

Tel: 46-31-337-6576, mobile: 46-725-776576

e-mail: [email protected]

INVESTOR RELATIONS:

Patrik Stenberg

Head of Investor Relations

46-31-337-2104; 46-705-472-104

[email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/skf/r/announcement-of-change-in-total-number-of-votes-in-ab-skf,c2419237

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View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/announcement-of-change-in-total-number-of-votes-in-ab-skf-300575999.html

SOURCE SKF
[December 29, 2017] First Responder Network Goes Nationwide As All 50 States, 2 Territories and District of Columbia Join FirstNet

RESTON, Va., Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- First responders across the nation now have a wireless broadband network to call their own. With all 50 states, two U.S. territories and Washington, D.C. joining FirstNet, public safety has a groundbreaking new choice for their communications that will help them save lives and protect their communities. "This is a landmark day and monumental achievement for public safety  one that has been years in the making," said First Responder Network Authority Board Chair Sue Swenson. "There are many who said this network would never happen, but public safety never gave up on their network. Because of their vision and hard fought efforts, I can proudly say that this life-saving network is now a reality across America; FirstNet is going to enhance the safety and security of our first responders and the people they serve." FirstNet is the creation of the nation's public safety community, who spent years advocating for their own wireless broadband network following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to enhance communications during emergencies and other events. Congress passed legislation to establish the Network in 2012, and for the past five years, the First Responder Network Authority worked closely with public safety to develop customized plans for building the Network in each state and territory. The statutory 90-day decision period for Governors to "opt-in" or "opt-out" of the FirstNet proposed Radio Access Network (RAN) buildout plan concluded yesterday, December 28, and every state has accepted the FirstNet deployment plan. Similarly, two U.S. territories and Washington, D.C. have chosen the FirstNet plan while three U.S. territories have until March 12, 2018, to make their decision: American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. "With every state saying `yes' to the FirstNet plan, America's first responders now have a nationwide interoperable network they can rely on 24/7/365  like their mission," said First Responder Network Authority Chief Executive Officer Mike Poth. "I applaud these governors for their decision and congratulate public safety for its advocacy and partnership throughout the process. With more than 50 states and territories participating in FirstNet, public safety is assured of an enduring, self-sufficient network to serve them for years to come." The First Responder Network Authority's public-private partnership wth AT&T provides first responders with immediate access to mission-critical capabilities over the FirstNet network. This includes priority and preemption features that give first responders their own 'fast lane' on the public safety network to communicate and share information during emergencies, large events or other situations when commercial networks could become congested. FirstNet is the only broadband network to provide ruthless preemption for public safety.



"As first responders, we face an incredible amount of risk every day. So, to have a network that is focused on driving innovative capabilities to improve our safety is game changing," said Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo. "2017 was a pivotal year for public safety. And with the advancements planned for 2018, it's only going to get better." "This is a day that many of us in the fire service have been looking forward to for a long time," said Chief Richard Carizzo of the Southern Platte (Mo.) Fire Protection District and a International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) Board Member. "Not only will this network remedy current communications challenges, but it will also usher in a wave of innovation for public safety and allow us to communicate unthrottled with responders from other agencies, districts, regions, tribes and states."

What's Ahead in 2018 and Beyond The coming year will be a game changer for public safety as FirstNet expands across the nation and more innovative technologies and applications come on line for public safety subscribers. "Our FirstNet offering will forever change the way first responders communicate," said Chris Sambar, senior vice president, AT&T  FirstNet. "Securing 53 opt-ins is significant for the public safety personnel that this network will serve. And we're honored to give first responders across the country quick access to this life-saving solution." Key FirstNet milestones and activities planned for 2018 include: Expanding the Network and Building Out Band 14: The First Responder Network Authority will issue work orders to deploy the RANs in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. , and the two opt-in territories in early 2018. This will give AT&T the green light to expand FirstNet's footprint and deploy Band 14 capacity and coverage throughout the nation, providing first responders with the bandwidth and mission critical connections they need to communicate, share information, and use innovative technologies every day and in every emergency.

The First Responder Network Authority will issue work orders to deploy the RANs in all 50 states, , and the two opt-in territories in early 2018. This will give AT&T the green light to expand FirstNet's footprint and deploy Band 14 capacity and coverage throughout the nation, providing first responders with the bandwidth and mission critical connections they need to communicate, share information, and use innovative technologies every day and in every emergency. Driving Public Safety Innovation : FirstNet will also unlock a new technology marketplace for public safety, enabling first responders to benefit from advancements in innovation. The FirstNet App store will be filling up with FirstNet-approved mobile apps that are optimized for public safety use over the first responder network.

: FirstNet will also unlock a new technology marketplace for public safety, enabling first responders to benefit from advancements in innovation. The FirstNet App store will be filling up with FirstNet-approved mobile apps that are optimized for public safety use over the first responder network. Securing Emergency Communications : FirstNet's first-of-its-kind core infrastructure will give first responders the dedicated, highly secure, non-commercial network they deserve. On schedule to be operational in March, the FirstNet public safety core will provide full encryption of public safety data over FirstNet and provide end-to-end cyber security. FirstNet subscribers will also have access to a dedicated Security Operations Center, offering 24/7/365 support.

: FirstNet's first-of-its-kind core infrastructure will give first responders the dedicated, highly secure, non-commercial network they deserve. On schedule to be operational in March, the FirstNet public safety core will provide full encryption of public safety data over FirstNet and provide end-to-end cyber security. FirstNet subscribers will also have access to a dedicated Security Operations Center, offering 24/7/365 support. Engaging with Public Safety: Public safety outreach and advocacy will not stop as the network is further built out. The First Responder Network Authority will continue to engage with public safety in the states, territories, federal agencies, and tribal nations to ensure the network meets their needs and incorporate their feedback in the design of future FirstNet products and services. "While getting to this point is a major achievement for public safety, our job is not finished," said First Responder Network Authority CEO Poth. "We still have much work to do to realize the full potential of FirstNet for public safety everywhere, including rural America, and we will move full speed ahead to make it happen." For more information on the First Responder Network Authority and the Governor's Decision, visit https://firstnet.gov/the-governors-decision-media-kit. About The First Responder Network Authority The First Responder Network Authority is an independent authority within the U.S. Department of Commerce. Chartered in 2012, its mission is to ensure the building, deployment, and operation of the nationwide, broadband network that equips first responders to save lives and protect U.S. communities. Learn more at FirstNet.gov/mediakit and follow FirstNet (@FirstNetGov) on Facebook and Twitter for updates. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/first-responder-network-goes-nationwide-as-all-50-states-2-territories-and-district-of-columbia-join-firstnet-300576091.html SOURCE FirstNet

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[December 29, 2017] RTI Donor Services Sponsors Orthopedic Surgeon and Labor and Delivery Nurse, both Tissue Recipients, on Donate Life Rose Parade Float

RTI Donor Services, a not-for-profit tissue recovery agency dedicated to serving donor families and working in collaboration with the donation community and healthcare facilities in perpetuating the gift of tissue donation, is pleased to announce that the organization is continuing its sponsorship of the Donate Life Float in the 2018 Rose Parade. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171229005199/en/ This year's Donate Life Float honors organ and tissue recipients and deceased and living donors. (Photo: Business Wire) RTI Donor Services has the honor of sponsoring two tissue recipients to participate in the 2018 Donate Life Rose Parade Float. RTI Donor Services' sponsored float rider is tissue recipient and donor father, Bruce Taylor, of Newport, Ore. Taylor is an orthopedic surgeon whose life was restored after receiving a tissue transplant - years after his son was a tissue donor following his untimely death. This year's sponsored walker, who will accompany the float on Jan. 1 is tissue recipient Ryanne Wilkes, 27, of Pensacola, Fla. Wilkes is a Labor and Delivery nurse whose life was restored after receiving a tissue transplant following an injury. RTI Donor Services is sponsoring both families' trips to Pasadena to participate in the Rose Parade festivities, culminating in watching the float travel down Colorado Avenue on New Year's Day. About the Donate Life Float RTI Donor Services has been a sponsor of the Donate Life Float since its inception in the Rose Parade in 2004. Celebrating its 15th Anniversary on the Rose Parade, the 2018 Donate Life float, "The Gift of Time", reflects this year's parade theme of Making a Difference by celebrating the power of kindness and the generous acts of deceased and living donors, who have given the ultimate gift of life to others through organ, eye and tissue donation.



The 129th Rose Parade will take place on Jan. 1 at 8 a.m. (PST). For more information on the Donate Life float, visit the official website at www.donatelifefloat.org. Bruce Taylor's Story

Orthopedic surgeon Bruce Taylor has truly experienced tissue donation full circle. Bruce is a donor father, a grateful tissue recipient and an orthopedic surgeon who helps to transform the lives of recipients using allograft tissue. In 1994, Bruce and his wife lost their son and he was able to become a tissue donor. It is still hard for them to talk about the pain of that loss but it meant a lot to Bruce and his wife to have the opportunity to authorize their son's donation and help others after his death. Bruce has been an orthopedic surgeon for almost 30 years and performs reconstructive surgeries using donor tissue. In 2015, Bruce received donated tissue during a surgery to reconstruct a torn ligament in his knee. Prior to the surgery, Bruce's knee was increasingly unstable, to the point that he was having difficulty continuing to work and stay active. After the surgery, Bruce was able to prolong his career as an orthopedic surgeon and continue other things that are equally important, such as spending time with his family and traveling. According to Bruce, "In today's world, there is too much attention paid to what divides us. Sometimes an unselfish gift to a complete stranger can help reignite that which unites us, which is our humanity. Organ and tissue donation is that most profound of gifts - it costs nothing to give it, although it costs everything to be in a position to be able to give it. I have experienced tissue donation from every aspect, and I want to help get the word out." Ryanne Wilkes' Story In July 2017, Ryanne Wilkes, 27, began her career as a nurse on the Labor and Delivery floor at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, Fla. Ryanne's nursing career may have been impossible without the gift of tissue donation that she received. Ryanne had a severe impingement of her left hip that caused complete deterioration of her cartilage and labrum. She was in pain every day for two years following an injury that exacerbated the impingement. The problem with her hip became so bad that she was unable to take part in some of her favorite activities and walking became painful. During Ryanne's senior year of nursing school, she received a tissue graft for a reconstructive hip surgery. Due to the generous gift of tissue donation, along with months of physical therapy, she was able to participate in her senior practicum and now works on her feet for 13 hours at a time helping patients every day as a nurse. "This donation changed my life," said Ryanne. "I truly do not think I could have made it very far in my nursing career with my hip in such awful shape. Not only has the tissue donation changed my life, but it will also touch the lives of the many patients I care for throughout my career." Today, more than 115,000 children and adults await life-saving organ transplants in the United States. Hundreds of thousands more are in need of a tissue transplant to save or greatly enhance the quality of their lives. Visit www.donatelifeflorida.org to designate your organ, tissue and eye donation wishes in Florida. RTI Donor Services is a not-for-profit tissue recovery agency dedicated to serving donor families and working in collaboration with the donation community and healthcare facilities in perpetuating the gift of tissue donation and can be found online at www.rtidonorservices.org or Facebook (News - Alert).com/RTIDonorServices. Video/interview opportunities available. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171229005199/en/

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Press release

Outside trading hours - Regulated information*

Brussels, 29 December 2017

KBC acquires MetLife's 40% stake in UBB-MetLife joint venture (Bulgaria)

Today, MetLife and KBC reached agreement for KBC (through DZI, its Bulgarian insurance subsidiary) to acquire MetLife's remaining 40% stake in UBB-MetLife Life Insurance Company AD, a life insurance joint venture between UBB and MetLife ("UBB-MetLife").

Earlier this year, as part of KBC's acquisition of UBB and Interlease, KBC (through UBB) acquired 60% of UBB-MetLife. The life insurance products of UBB-MetLife are exclusively distributed via UBB's bank branches. UBB-MetLife has a 10% market share in the Bulgarian life insurance market and has a full life insurance product range.

The financial impact of this deal is immaterial to either KBC or MetLife. The deal is still subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2018.

Once the deal is closed, KBC, through DZI, will service the insurance policies of the existing UBB-MetLife customers until maturity of their policies. Following this transaction, KBC will be able to distribute DZI life and non-life insurance products through UBB's bank branches and, in this way, fully roll out its bank-insurance approach in the Bulgarian market, one of KBC's core markets.

Combined, DZI and UBB-MetLife will have a market share of 21% in the Bulgarian life insurance market. Together with UBB-CIBANK, they will strengthen KBC's reference position in bank-insurance in Bulgaria, a country that boasts strong macroeconomic fundamentals while still offering potential for further penetration in financial services.

Johan Thijs, KBC Group CEO said: "I am very pleased with this transaction, which forms the pinnacle of KBC's acquisition of UBB/Interlease earlier this year. It confirms our position as a strong local market player, which is able to offer a full range of bank-insurance products to its Bulgarian customers in an omni-channel environment. Expanding our activities in the country, building on the competence and dynamism of UBB-CIBank and DZI, and leveraging our joint product and service offering including life insurance will help us to reach this goal and ensure future success."

George Tsakonas, General Manager of MetLife, Bulgaria added: "We are pleased to complete the sale of our interest in UBB-MetLife to KBC. MetLife Europe d.a.c. will continue to have a leading presence in Bulgaria through our well established local business providing life insurance and protection solutions to meet the evolving needs of our customers."

* This news item contains information that is subject to the transparency regulations for listed companies.



KBC Group NV

Havenlaan 2 - 1080 Brussels

Viviane Huybrecht

General Manager,

Corporate Communication / Spokesperson

Tel. + 32 2 429 85 45







Press Office

Stef Leunens Tel. + 32 2 429 65 01

Ilse De Muyer Tel. + 32 2 429 29 15

Fax + 32 2 429 81 60

E-mail: pressofficekbc@kbc.be







KBC press releases are available at www.kbc.com or can be obtained by sending an e-mail to pressofficekbc@kbc.be



Follow KBC on www.twitter.com/kbc_group
[December 29, 2017] ADM Tronics Receives Fast 50 Award at Award Ceremony (Video)

NORTHVALE, N.J., Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ADM Tronics Unlimited, Inc. (OTCQB: ADMT) received the "Fast 50 Award" from NJBIZ, New Jersey's leading business journal at a recent gala awards ceremony. The 50 Fastest Growing Companies award program honors New Jersey's most dynamic businesses that progressively contribute to the success of the state's economic growth and stability. At the Award Ceremony, Andre' DiMino, president and CEO of ADMT, commented "The past couple of years where we have shown this great growth is really just a prelude to what we are facing. So, although we are very proud of our past growth, we think our future growth looks pretty good too." To see the full video visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87aD96h_jvQ New Jersey's Fast 50 is an awards program of NJBIZ, celebrating the dynamic growth of New Jersey companies. NJBIZ, New Jersey's leading business journal, produces a weekly print edition with a circulation of more than 15,000 copies, as well as providing 24/7 business news coverage through its NJBIZ.com website and multiple daily e-newsletters. The publication, founded in 1987 is well-known throughout the state for its events honoring New Jersey's top business professionals. It is owned by Bridge Tower Media, a leading provider of business-to-business information, research and marketing solutions across more than 20 local economies in the USA.



About ADMT ADMT is a diversified, technology-based developer and manufacturer of innovative technologies and products. Its core competency is its ability to conceptualize a technology, bring it through development, into manufacturing and commercialization, all in-house. ADMT has three areas of activity: Proprietary Electronic Medical Devices; Eco-Friendly, Safe, Water-Based Formulations; and, Design, Engineering, Regulatory and Manufacturing Services. The Company's headquarters, laboratories, FDA-Registered medical device and manufacturing operations are located in Northvale, NJ. ADMT's multi-disciplinary team of engineers, researchers and technologists utilize advanced technology infrastructure, such as 3-D solid prototyping, precision instrumentation and specialized software and peripherals, for the research, development and commercialization of diversified technologies. Additional information is available at the Company's website concepttoquantity.com.

Except for historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this news release are "forward looking" statements (as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995), including statements regarding future revenue growth and performance. Although ADMT believes the expectations reflected in such forward looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that its expectations will be realized. Forward looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Factors that could contribute to such differences include those described from time to time in ADMT's filings with the SEC, news releases and other communications. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information contained in this news release. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/adm-tronics-receives-fast-50-award-at-award-ceremony-video-300576122.html SOURCE ADM Tronics Unlimited, Inc.

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[December 29, 2017] Osborne & Associates Sues Cordis, Blames Death on IVC Filter

Osborne & Associates Law Firm, P.A., has filed suit in Palm Beach Circuit Court, alleging a New Jersey man died from complications related to an IVC filter manufactured by Cordis Corp. of Miami Lakes. The products liability suit attributes Martino Convertino's death to the manufacturer's alleged defective design and manufacture, deceptive marketing, and failure to warn of the product's risks. "This is among the first death lawsuits in South Florida against Cordis for this product, and this is a big step in a growing body of litigation around the country against manufacturers of IVC filters that not only fail to protect people, but place them at greater risk of injury and even death," said Joseph A. Osborne, who is representing the family in the case. The IVC filter is designed to protect the heart and lungs from fatal blood clots. It is a nickel titanium alloy device with a double basket to filter or "catch" clots that travel to the heart and lungs through the inferior vena cava (IVC), the giant vein that returns deoxygenated blood to the heart and lungs from the lower part of the body. The FDA has approved these filters to prevent death from pulmonary embolism and thrombosis. Osborne's suit says that manufacturing defects make the TrapEase prone to fracture, disintegration and migration through the blood system, thereby endangering patients. On March 23, 2016, Martino Convertino checked into the emergency room of St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson, N.J., with lightheadedness and severe pain in his back and legs. He went into shock and died from thrombosis the next day. The 37-page, five-count suit blames Mr. Convertino's death on the Cordis TrapEase IVC filter, which had been implanted in October 2012, when Mr. Convertino was 68. The suit, which also cites Cordis's earlier OptEase IVC filter, was filed by his widow, Carmine Convertino. The counts include: Strict Products Liability-Design Defect; Strict Products Liability-Failure to Warn; Strict Products Liability-Manufacturing Defect; Negligence, and Negligent Misrepresentation. Carmine Convertino v. Cordis Corp., Case No. 2017-CA (News - Alert)-013002, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm Beach County, Fl. According to the suit, Mr. Convertino's autopsy cited rupture of his inferior vena cava. A nurse forwarded a copy of the autopsy to Cordis in May 2016. While IVC filters have been on the market since the 1960s, from 2000 to 2003 manufacturers raced to bring the first IVC filters to mrket with the option to remove them. The first three cleared were the OptEase, made by Cordis and Johnson & Johnson, the Recovery Filter (C.R. Bard Inc.), and the Gunther Tulip Filter (Cook Medical).



"This market expansion and off-label use was driven by baseless marketing campaigns made by Defendants targeting bariatric, trauma, orthopedic and cancer patient populations," the suit says. "The medical community has just recently begun to awaken to the fact that despite marketing claims by Defendants, there is no reliable evidence that any IVC filter offers a benefit and that these products expose patients to substantial safety hazards," the suit says.

"Not only do TrapEase and OptEase filters fail at alarming rates, but they also fail at rates substantially higher than other available IVC Filters," the suit says, citing one study showing a fracture rate of 23 percent for TrapEase filters after 46 months, and another reporting a 64 percent fracture rate after four years. The suit cites "alarming results" reported in an October 2015 article in the Annals of Surgery, concluding that IVC filters are not only ineffective in preventing thrombosis, but actually cause it to occur. The Annals reported that twice the percentage of IVC filter patients died or developed pulmonary thrombosis -- the very condition the device was supposed to prevent -- as those who did not receive the device. IVC filter use overall peaked in the United States in 2010 and has since declined. A recent article posted by JAMA cited a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) device safety advisory as contributing to that dropoff. A growing body of medical literature and news reports -- including three 2015 NBC broadcasts -- have thrown light on the dangers of these devices. Litigation against manufacturers is moving through courts nationally, with multidistrict federal litigation against Cook Medical in Indiana, where the first case went to trial in October, and against Bard, where the first case goes to trial in Phoenix in March 2018. Osborne is on the national plaintiff's steering committee in the Bard IVC litigation. Growing clusters of state cases are developing against Cordis in California, and, now, in Florida. Osborne represents patients in IVC cases around the country, including the Palm Beach County case Heather Lilla v. Cordis Corp. et al., Case No 50-2016-CA-006931, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm Beach County, Fl. That pending case alleges Raymond Lilla died at St. Mary's Hospital in West Palm Beach in March 2016 of complications resulting from the defective IVC filter. Based in Boca Raton, Osborne & Associates Law Firm, P.A., represents people with catastrophic injuries in state and federal courts around the country, with a focus on complex cases and dangerous products, particularly medical devices. Osborne has won many multimillion-dollar settlements and verdicts, including a $26.7-million verdict as lead counsel in the Southern District of Florida on behalf of four clients who suffered injuries from Boston Scientific's Pinnacle Pelvic Floor Repair Kit. Learn more by visiting https://www.oa-lawfirm.com/ or by calling Osborne & Associates Law Firm, P.A., at 561-293-2600. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171229005278/en/

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English German Dutch

Zwolle - 29th December 2017

RoodMicrotec announces the retirement of Philip Nijenhuis as of 31st December 2017 as Advisor to the boards of the company.

As the company enters the final phase of restructuring and completes the implementation of its long term business strategy, Philip Nijenhuis will move into full retirement.

The boards of the company take the opportunity to thank Philip for his advice, support and diligence through the transition phase after stepping down as Chief Executive Officer in 2016.

"The leadership and inspiration Philip provided for the company has been outstanding and his passion for the business never in doubt. Bringing Rood and Microtec together to emerge as a supplier of choice in the semiconductor industry was a great challenge and a result he should be extremely proud of. We all wish him a well-deserved retirement" said Vic Tee, Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

About RoodMicrotec

With more than 45 years' experience as an independent value-added service provider in the area of micro and optoelectronics, RoodMicrotec offers Fabless Companies, OEMs and other companies a one-stop shop proposition. With its powerful solutions RoodMicrotec has built up a strong position in Europe.

Our services comply with the industrial and quality requirements of the high reliability/space, automotive, telecommunications, medical, industrial and electronics sectors.

Our integrated quality management system is based on international DIN EN ISO 9001:2015 standards. In addition, our quality management is broadly consistent with the Automotive Specification ISO/TS 16949. The company also has an accredited laboratory for test activities and qualification to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard.

Its value-added services include (eXtended) supply chain management and total manufacturing solutions with partners, failure & technology analysis, qualification & burn-in, test & product engineering, production test (including device programming and end-of-line service), ESD/ESDFOS assessment & training and quality & reliability consulting.

RoodMicrotec has branches in Germany (Dresden, Nordlingen, Stuttgart), United Kingdom (Bath) and the Netherlands (Zwolle).

For more information visit http://www.roodmicrotec.com

This press release is published in English, Dutch and German. In case of conflict between these versions the English version shall prevail.
More Research on Food Deserts I've written here before, skeptically, of the plans to address the so-called food desert on Kansas City's East Side. Specifically, the plan to spend millions of dollars to subsidize a SunFresh grocery store is unwarranted and a waste of taxpayer funds. I've documented research that shows that nutritional inequality is not a function of distance from a grocery store.

Call it a late-lunch link . . . One of our favorite number-crunchers serves up someon a social ill that might or might not exist. Have a taste of the info and you decide . . .
Jackson County Executive responds to Legislatures veto overrides of three unlawful ordinances

The response from the County Exec to today's Legislative action at the courthouse . . .KANSAS CITY, Mo.  Jackson County Executive Frank White, Jr. has issued the following statement after the Legislatures veto overrides of ordinances 5061, 5062 and 5052.I recently vetoed ordinances 5061, 5062 and 5052 due to the fact that they had been determined to violate our countys charter and state law. In doing so, I was hopeful that the passage of time would allow us to move forward in compliance with the countys charter and state law. Unfortunately today, the County Legislature chose to override my vetoes and once again pass these unlawful measures. As County Executive, it is my responsibility to execute and enforce the provisions of the county charter, code and applicable state law. And despite todays action and the desires of some, I will continue to do so.The County Legislature does not determine who is or who is not employed. Therefore, I will work within my authority to protect all county associates from losing their jobs. As such, today, I issued three Executive Orders, one of which includes immediate cost saving measures.Additionally, despite being aware that there are significant legal issues surrounding the oversight of COMBAT, I was disappointed to see that the County Prosecutor issued a statement that only adds to the confusion. As this ordinance has been found to be unlawful for numerous reasons, my office will continue to oversee COMBAT and will take whatever actions are necessary to ensure the law is appropriately enforced.###Developing . . .
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A 35-year-old KC man has been charged in the Dec. 16 fatal shooting of his wife, prosecutors said Thursday. Howard Tyrone Neely faces second-degree murder and armed criminal action charges in the death of Joegina L. Davis in south Kansas City.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Kansas City police are asking for the public's help to locate two homicide suspects recently issued arrest warrants. Malik Chapple, 21, is a suspect in the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Travis Mills on Dec. 18, 2017, on 97th Street. According to court records, the shooting happened after a drug deal turned violent.
Tragic Dating Life Story Shared Among A Multitude Of Local Dudes

Drunk Woman Allegedly Destroyed Trump Fundraiser's Warhol Art on First Date Photo of Lindy Lou Layman (L) via the Houston Police Department. "Self-Portrait" by Andy Warhol on display at Christie's (R). Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images While most people have their fair share of first-date horror stories, most of us have the luxury of pretending they never happened and moving on with our lives.

Kansas City Car Crash Suspect

Police release picture of hit-and-run suspect who left victim injured KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A driver didn't stop after hitting a pedestrian Friday, Dec. 22nd, and now police have a picture of the suspect and hope the public can help identify him. It happened at 35th and Prospect.

Meth Town Deadly Shooting Aftermath

26-year-old charged in early morning shooting in Independence that killed man The Independence Police Department has charged a man with murder after another man was shot and killed early on Thursday morning. The shooting happened at about 2:57 a.m. in the 1400 block of N. Osage, a couple blocks from the historic Vaile Mansion.

Just a few crime links suggested by our blog community denizens . . .Developing . . .
Northeast church display vandalized By Paul Thompson Northeast News On December 9, Norton Heights Community of Christ church (436 Norton) held a vigil of remembrance for each homicide victim in Kansas City during 2017. Every victim was represented with a white cross, which were placed on the grounds of the church.

Tribute to the dead and their families was recently trampled upon at some locals demonstrate respect for life and good taste. Take a look:
CALGARY, Alberta, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NCM - Norrep Capital Management Ltd. (Norrep), the Manager of a strategically focused group of public mutual funds, alternative funds and limited partnerships (Norrep Investments), announced today that dividends have been declared for the following funds:



$0.066 per share* for Norrep Income Growth Class

$0.042 per share* for Norrep Global Income Growth Class

$0.039 per share* for Norrep US Dividend Plus Class

All dividends are payable on December 29, 2017 to shareholders of record at the close of business on December 28, 2017.

NCM - Norrep Capital Management Ltd. hereby advises that these dividends are designated to be "eligible dividends" pursuant to subsection 89(14) of the Income Tax Act (Canada) and corresponding provincial legislation, with the exception of the T6 Series and F6 Series in the Norrep Global Income Growth Class, who allocates $nil as eligible dividends.

Shareholders with questions regarding the tax treatment of dividends should consult with their own tax advisors or contact their local office of the Canada Revenue Agency and, where applicable, the provincial taxation authorities.

NCM - Norrep Capital Management Ltd. is a Canadian investment firm with offices in Calgary and Toronto. Please visit www.norrep.com for more details about Norrep Investments.

For more information, please contact:

Leila Li

Dealer & Client Services Associate

NCM - Norrep Capital Management Ltd.

(877) 431-1407

* Based on the F Series; rates may differ for other series.

Certain information set forth in this press release, including a discussion of future plans and operations, contains forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond management's control, including but not limited to, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions, fluctuation of commodity prices, fluctuation of foreign exchange rates, environmental risks industry competition, availability of qualified personnel and management, stock market volatility, timely and cost effective access to sufficient capital from internal and external sources. Actual results, performance or achievement could differ from those expressed in or implied by these forward-looking statements.
International Sound Of Kansas City

Origin Story: Music Edition | Making Movies Our popular series Origin Story gets a musical twist each Thursday in December here on Flatland. Got an idea for an Origin Story? Drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter @FlatlandKC.

Kansas City Telcom Hard Times

AT&T will lay off 87 people in KC as it consolidates call centers - Kansas City Business Journal AT&T Inc. will lay off 87 Kansas City employees from its office at 2121 E. 63rd St. between February and March as part of a larger restructuring of its call centers. According to a filing with the Missouri Division of Workforce Development, employees at AT&T's credit and collections center will be affected by the restructuring; the Dallas-based telecommunications company (NYSE: T) will continue its other operations in Kansas City.

Shawnee Crime Spree Today

Shawnee police cars broken into while being serviced at car dealership Two Shawnee, Kansas, police cruisers were broken into early Thursday while they were parked at a car dealership for service. Police said someone broke into the secure lot at Shawnee Mission Ford. Authorities said they are taking inventory, but that it was possible that a police jacket was taken from one of the vehicles.

Meth Town Morning Murder Aftermath

1 in custody after man shot to death in Independence early Thursday One person is in custody after a fatal shooting early Thursday morning in Independence. Independence police said officers were called at 2:57 a.m. to a home in the 1400 block of North Osage Street on a reported shooting. Investigators said two people were involved in a fight before shots rang out, killing a man.

Show-Me Rare Local Winner

Missouri Lottery looking in KC for $7.3 M ticket's owner The Missouri Lottery is looking in KC for someone who matched all six numbers in Wednesday night's drawing to win the jackpot. The winning ticket was sold a Brooklyn Mart at 2200 E. Truman Road in KC and had the number combination 5, 11, 14, 30, 33 and 34.

Kansas City Homestead Winning

Homes in KC metro gained $10.2 billion in value this year: Zillow - Kansas City Business Journal The Kansas City and U.S. housing markets both saw an increase in value in 2017. The value of all homes in the U.S. market increased by $2 trillion in 2017, bringing the total value up to $31.8 trillion, according to real estate market website Zillow.

Kansas City Survivor Conversation

A moving interview with Sonia - Holocaust survivor and focus of award-winning documentary "Big Sonia" Breaking News Sonia's story of surviving the Holocaust as a teenager and her life that follows is incredible. And it's being told in the award-winning documentary "Big Sonia". Dana and Scott had the opportunity to talk with Sonia in studio, as well as the filmmakers behind the documentary.

Hottieeven more interesting local content and the highlights of the local news day.Take a look:And this is thefor right now . . .
- Mark Alford ranked high in recent Kansas City Mayoral polling where no other newsie came close to his share of mind.





- He's serious when he needs to be but jokes a great deal of the news which longtime watchers appreciate.





- His airport video that simply offered a look at the KCI boarding process was one of the very best bits of social media content during this year's election cycle.

is an inspiration to our blog community for many reasons but his work ethic stands out above all.He rises early to bring Kansas City the news and then hustles throughout the rest of the day if his social media profile is any indication.More to the point . . .Mr. Alford has successfully merged TV fame with social media connections and developed a remarkable audience that helps to keep locals informed.
Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker issues statement on COMBAT action

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker issued the following statement today regarding COMBAT:





"Today, oversight of Combat is placed under the prosecutor, the same place it originated, by the Legislatures unanimous override of the County Executives veto. I will do my level best to restore trust for this important tax and provide oversight in a straightforward and transparent manner.





To those who have received funding through Combat in the past, no deadlines are impacted and we look forward to finding more efficiency in the application process.





Jackson County Prosecutors Office

Jean Peters Baker, Prosecutor

########

The all out war betwixt the Legislature & The County Exec's office persists . . .Here's the aftermath after Exec Frank White's recent efforts were totally rebuked and his office loses control of the biggest anti-crime programs in the metro . . .Dec. 28, 2017Developing . . .
The name dispute between the two countries, Greece and FYROM, has been going on for years but their cooperation has also been extensive enabling tourism to benefit significantly and reach very high levels lately

Greece's National Defense Minister Panos Kammenos ruled out the possibility of his party and junior coalition partner Independent Greeks (ANEL) approving a solution to the longstanding naming dispute with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) that would include the term Macedonia. Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Kammenos underlined the necessity of a convention of the council of Greeces political party leaders under the President of the Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos in order to discuss Athens position on the naming issue. The solution of the dispute between the two countries appears more possible than ever before, due to Skopjes newly elected government of Zoran Zaev moderate attitude towards it.

Our position will again be against the use of the term Macedonia, Kammenos stressed, adding that if there is a majority approval at Parliament or among political party leaders, the proposed name will be approved, but if not, no. Furthermore, he characterised Nikos Kotzias as the best foreign minister Greece has ever had.

On his behalf, FYROMs Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, once again, appeared optimistic for a final solution of the decade-long dispute within the first six months of 2018. The first half of 2018 is a very good opportunity to finally find a solution to this problem and for Macedonia to move forward, to receive a date for the start of accession negotiations with the European Union, and to automatically trigger an invitation to join NATO, he told journalists. According to the Associated Press, during an interview for Skopjes TV station Tlema aired late on Friday, Zaev appeared ready to give up the claim of Macedonia being the sole heir to Alexander the Great, adding that the history belongs not only to us, but also to Greece and many other countries.

In a different tone, during his annual address to parliament the President of FYROM Georgy Ivanov said that any mutually accepted solution must respects the countrys national identity. We cannot enter into a process of auctioning off the identity of our citizens and the constitutional name of the country, he noted. The above has spread worries to Athens of a possible last-minute backtrack from Skopje regarding its new constitutional name. It should be noted that FYROM government is considering to hold a referendum over the countrys new name.

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: greekcitytimes.com
Vietnam Visas are issued by the Vietnamese Diplomatic Mission abroad such as Vietnamese Embassies or Consulates, or the Department of Immigration or issued at the international border checkpoint immigration office.



(TRAVPR.COM) VIETNAM - December 29th, 2017 - A Visa is a conditional authorization granted by a country, typically to a foreigner, allowing to enter, remain within temporarily or to leave that country. Visas typically include limits on the duration of the foreigner's stay, territory within the country they may enter, the dates they may enter. Therefore, it is essential for the foreigners to fill in the Visa Application Form in order to be able to get the visa.

In general, a valid passport and a visa are required for all foreigners travel to Vietnam. Vietnam Visas are issued by the Vietnamese Diplomatic Mission abroad such as Vietnamese Embassies or Consulates, or the Department of Immigration or issued at the international border checkpoint immigration office.

In this press release, Nadova Tours gives out a step-by-step instruction for filling in the Vietnamese Visa Application Form, especially for traveler who havent done it before.

General Information

Before getting to the details, there are some general information about Vietnamese Visa that you may need to know:

- If you are planning to enter and remain within Vietnam temporarily for more than 15 days, it is mandatory that you obtain a particular type of Visa.

- The processing time for Visas issued by Vietnamese Embassies or Consulates abroad is usually between 5-7 days to complete. The fee for visas vary from country to country and the Vietnamese Embassies or Consulates require applicants to contact them directly for the most updated fee.

- Tourist visas are good for 30 days or 90 days and can be extended after you arrive in Vietnam. Those who plan to leave Vietnam and come back on the same trip can apply for the multiple entry visa.

- In general, foreigner will need to submit the Visa Application Form, Passport or International Travel Document along with 02 standard passport photos and the required fee to apply for a visa. However, different embassies and consulates will have different procedure.

- Visa on Arrival (VOA) is another option for people travel to Vietnam by air (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Danang, Nha Trang). This can be done online via a private travel company like Nadova Tours who have agreements with the Vietnamese government to collect passport details and arrange for an "approval letter". This letter allows you to board a flight into Vietnam and you will receive the visa stamp (with fee) upon entry to Vietnam Airport.

How to fill in Vietnamese Visa Application Form

In the picture below, you can see the sample of the Vietnamese Visa Application Form. At the top left corner, please paste 1 recently passport sized photo 4x6 cm with white background, front view, bare head and without sunglasses. Also include another separated one.

Then, fill in your personal information from part 1 to 11, which include:

1. Full name (in capital letters)

2. Sex

3. Date of birth

4. Place of birth

5. Nationality of birth

6. Current nationality

7. Religion

8. Occupation

9. Business address

10. Permanent residential address and Telephone / Email

11. Family members

In part 12, fill in the number of your Passport or International Travel Document and clarify the type of your Passport: Ordinary, Official or Diplomatic or the specific name of the International Travel Document. In case of applying Visa on Arrival, this passport number must be identical to the number of Passport provided in the Visa Approval Letter.

Also provide the name of organization that issued your Passport and its expiry date.

In part 13, if you have entered Vietnam recently or before, please fill in the date of your previous entry into Vietnam.

In part 14 and 16, please fill in your intended date of entry into Vietnam, the length of your stay and the intended temporary residential address in Vietnam. You can provide the name and address of hotel you plan to stay or the address of your friend (in case you stay with your friend).

Part 17 requires you to fill in the name and information of hosting organization/individual in Vietnam (if any). You only have to fill the name ONLY of the organization or individual who is responsible for hosting you. For example, if we are your trusted tour operator in Vietnam, you can fill in our company name: Nadova Tours.

In part 18, if you accompany any children (under 14) in your passport, please paste 01 passport size photo 4x6 cm of him/her and another separate one and fill in the full name, sex, date of birth.

In part 19, tick whether Single or Multiple Visa you want to apply and fill in the valid date.

Part 20, if you have any other request, please fill in this part.

At the bottom right, fill in the name of the place where you completed the form and the date as well. Finally, sign and fill in your full name under your own signature.

We hope that with the step-by-step guidance above, travelers who have never filled in the Vietnamese Visa Application before can find it easy to complete and be ready for the wonderful Vietnam customized tour. Nadova Tours looks forward to offering and serving you as your trustworthy tour operator in Vietnam.

###
Katarina Line tours address growing interest in soft adventure and culinary vacations.



(TRAVPR.COM) UNITED STATES - December 28th, 2017 - With the growing interest in soft adventure and culinary vacations, Croatias Katarina Line announced enhancements to the itineraries of the companys Harmony and Rhapsody land tours, two of their most popular programs, to highlight the tours new experiential activities for 2018. The 8-night, four-country Harmony tour emphasizes natural attractions and historical destinations in Italy, Slovenia, Austria, and Croatia, taking guests from the lagoons of Venice to Diocletian's Palace in Split on Croatias renowned Dalmatian coast. The 8-night Rhapsody tour offers a taste of Croatia. It takes guests on a gastronomic journey from the northwestern capital of Zagreb to the southern-most city of Dubrovnik,introducing them to wine tastings, Croatian style Tapas, and Pasticada, a traditional Dalmatian dish.

These itineraries are also customizable. Katarina Line can work with travel agents to design unique programs to meet the special requirements and interest of their small groups. These can include a combination of land and cruise vacations. Katarina Line pays travel agent commissions on all bookings.

Prices for Katarina Lines 8-night Harmony tour start at $2,117, based on double occupancy, and include all breakfasts, two lunches and dinners per the itinerary, and the services of an English speaking guide. Prices for the 8-night Rhapsody tour start at $1,482, based on double occupancy, and include all breakfasts , four dinners and four quality gastronomical experiences in wineries and local restaurants. All tours have guaranteed departures.

We continue to enhance our itineraries to meet the needs of our growing markets in North America, where travelers seek experiential vacations that immerse them in the historical, cultural and culinary traditions of the destinations, said Daniel Hauptfeld, marketing director for Katarina Line. Our expertise in Croatia also means that we can work with travel agents to design similar, highly customizable experiences for small groups and associations.

Walk This Way

Katarina Lines Harmony tour offers guaranteed departures from Venice and terminates in Split. It is recommended for travelers seeking soft adventures that feature urban walks and gentle nature hikes. Activities include a guided tour of the Slovenian resort town of Bled and a boat ride on its namesake lake, as well as a tour of Klagenfurt, the capital city of the southern Austrian province of Carinthia.

Other excursions lead guests through the Croatian coastal town of Opatija, once the famous winter resort of the Austrian elite, and an exploration of the Vrelo Cave, the worlds deepest and one of the oldest underwater caves. The tour concludes with a memorable stroll through one of Croatias most spectacular natural wonders and a UNESCO World Heritage site  Plitvice Lakes National Park  known for its mesmerizing waterfalls and oasis of interconnected lakes. Guests also visit the Pula Amphitheatre in Croatia, one of the best preserved Roman Amphetheatres in the world. Guests can then connect to one of many Katarina Line cruises that depart from Split to further extend their holiday on the Adriatic Sea.

Katarinas Rhapsody Tour  Music to the Pallet

Katarina Lines Rhapsody tour is like music to the pallet, according to Hauptfeld. In addition to numerous guided tours of picturesque towns from the north of Croatia to the south, the tour features high quality gastronomic experiences that include a wine tasting at the Bibich Winery, a main Dalmatian wine producer, where guests will be treated to the Dalmatian Debit white wine, Cuvee Shiraz and Merlot. These will be accompanied by a serving of Croatian style Tapas. Guests will also enjoy a taste of the famous Plavac Mali wine in the town of Ston, accompanied by a demonstration of the wine-making process.

Truffles are on the menu on a visit to the Istrian Peninsula, while the traditional Dalmatian dish known as Pasticada is served at the Tragos restaurant in Trogir, a small island connected to the mainland by bridges. Trogir, a UNESCO World Heritage site, boasts a continuous existence of more than 2,300 years, during which it has absorbed the rich, cultural traditions of Greek, Roman, and Venetian influences  visible in the high concentration of palaces, churches and fortresses.

Our Harmony tour has been called a visual delight, because it treats guests to the wonders of nature across four different countries, said Hauptfeld. Our Rhapsody tour is a gastronomic voyage through the heart of Croatia. Whatever your interest, Katarina Line can help you design the vacation of your dream.

About Katarina Line

Katarina Line offers a wide range of culinary, cultural and historical tours of Croatia and its neighboring countries and is also one of Croatias premier small ship cruise companies. The company serves more than 100,000 clients that include 30,000 cruise guests of all ages and budgets. Its growing fleet of more than 50 ships in six different categories offers guaranteed departures from the end of April to mid-October, operating out of the major tourist centers of Opatija, Split and Dubrovnik. Katarina Line offers guests the unique opportunity to experience the true Croatia and its stunning natural environment and picturesque Mediterranean towns. The company enjoys an exceptional relationship with travel agents, which account for more than 99% of all bookings worldwide. Katarina line is a member of many different travel associations, including USTOA, ASTA, NTA, ACTA, RDA, STAN and ETOA. For more information, call toll-free 1-800-485-3121 or visit them online.

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TORONTO, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (TSX Venture:FTI) FTI Foodtech International Inc. ("FTI") announces that it intends to arrange a private placement for up to $3,000,000.



The proposed private placement would be a non-brokered offering of 6,000,000 units of the Issuer (the Units), at a price of $0.50 per Unit. Each Unit will be comprised of one Common Share and one common share purchase warrant (a Warrant), each Warrant being exercisable to acquire one Common Share at a price of $1.00 per Common Share for a period of one (1) year following the closing date of the private placement.

The proceeds will be used for costs related to the integration of the Flash crypto-currency with the barter industry, to fund liquidation projects, to evaluate other opportunities, to cover the companys operating expenses and to reduce company debt. A further press release will be issued once the financing has been completed.

The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has not approved the contents of this press release. Neither 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 release.

For further information, contact: William Hullah, President, FTI at (416) 444-1058.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wealth Minerals Ltd. (the Company or Wealth) - (TSXV:WML) (OTCQB:WMLLF) (SSE:WMLCL) (Frankfurt:EJZ), announces that today, December 29, 2017, it has closed a first tranche of the non-brokered private placement as announced on December 20, 2017 (the Placement). The Company issued 4,557,254 common shares at a price of $1.60 for gross proceeds of $7,323,606.40. The Company also issued 171,063 common shares pursuant to finders fees to Anders Nerrell at a deemed price of $1.60 per share. All shares issued by the Company have a four month hold period in Canada ending on April 30, 2018. Cash finders fees were paid to Canaccord Genuity Corp. ($2,800.00) and Aton Financial Holding ($121,535.34). Aton Financial Holding also received 75,960 broker warrants, each exercisable to purchase one common share at a price of $1.60 per share for a period of one year from closing. The final tranche(s) are anticipated to close in mid-January 2018.



The net proceeds from the Placement are intended to fund option payments on the Companys projects, exploration work on the Companys existing projects and for general and administrative expenses, and working capital.

None of the foregoing securities have been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the 1933 Act) or any applicable state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) or persons in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements.

About Wealth Minerals Ltd.

Wealth is a mineral resource company with interests in Canada, Mexico, Peru and Chile. The Company's main focus is the acquisition of lithium projects in South America. To date, the Company has positioned itself to develop the Aguas Calientes Norte, Pujsa and Quisquiro Salars in Chile (the Trinity Project), as well as to work alongside existing producers in the prolific Atacama Salar, in addition to the Laguna Verde lithium project acquisition. The Company has also positioned itself to play a role in asset consolidation in Chile with the Five Salars Project.

The Company continues to pursue new acquisitions in the region, and is eager to move the projects forward into production. Lithium market dynamics and a rapidly increasing metal price are the result of profound structural issues with the industry meeting anticipated future demand. Wealth is positioning itself to be a major beneficiary of this future mismatch of supply and demand. The Company also maintains and continues to evaluate a portfolio of precious and base metal exploration-stage projects.

For further details on the Company readers are referred to the Companys website (www.wealthminerals.com) and its Canadian regulatory filings on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of

WEALTH MINERALS LTD.

"Hendrik van Alphen"

Hendrik van Alphen

Chief Executive Officer

For further information, please contact:

Marla Ritchie

Phone: 604-331-0096 Ext. 3886 or 604-638-3886

E-mail: info@wealthminerals.com

The TSX Venture Exchange has in no way passed on the merits of this news release. 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 news release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, forward-looking statements) within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities legislation, including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, anticipated exploration program results from exploration activities, the Companys expectation that it will be able to enter into agreements to acquire interests in additional mineral properties, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves, the intended use of the proceeds received from the Placement, and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, operating and technical difficulties in connection with mineral exploration and development activities, actual results of exploration activities, the estimation or realization of mineral reserves and mineral resources, the timing and amount of estimated future production, the costs of production, capital expenditures, the costs and timing of the development of new deposits, requirements for additional capital, future prices of lithium, changes in general economic conditions, changes in the financial markets and in the demand and market price for commodities, accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry, delays in obtaining governmental approvals, permits or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities, changes in laws, regulations and policies affecting mining operations, title disputes, the inability of the Company to obtain any necessary permits, consents, approvals or authorizations, including acceptance by the TSX-V, required for future exploration activities or the acquisition of additional mineral properties, the timing and possible outcome of any pending litigation, environmental issues and liabilities, and risks related to joint venture operations, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Companys latest interim Management Discussion and Analysis and filed with certain securities commissions in Canada. All of the Companys Canadian public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sedar.com and readers are urged to review these materials, including the technical reports filed with respect to the Companys mineral properties.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements in this news release or incorporated by reference herein, except as otherwise required by law.
New Delhi: The government on Friday said it has no plans to waive corporate loans and banks are advised to resolve stressed accounts speedily or start insolvency proceedings case by case. No proposal for waiver of corporate loan is under consideration of the government, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. He was replying to a query if the government has taken note on nationwide strike by bank employees against various moves. PTI

Deadline for GST returns extended

New Delhi: The government has extended by 10 days the last date for filing of final sales return GSTR-1 till January 10 under the GST, sources said. Businesses with turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crore will have to file GSTR-1 for July-September by January 10 as against December 31, 2017 earlier. For those with turnover of over Rs 1.5 crore, GSTR-1 has to be filed for the period July-November by January 10. Earlier these businesses were required to file GSTR-1 return for July-October by December 31. PTI

GST relief: Centre releases Rs 24.5K cr

New Delhi: The revenue loss to states on account of GST implementation was Rs 24,500 crore between July-October and the Centre has released compensation to make up for it, Parliament was informed on Friday. As per the details of GST compensation released to states as on November 30, Karnataka got maximum compensation from the Centre at Rs 3,271 crore, followed by Gujarat (Rs 2,282 crore) and Punjab (Rs 2,098 crore). PTI
Washington, December 29

Uber and SoftBank announced a deal allowing the Japanese tech titan to take a large stake in the US ridesharing giant, making a hefty cut in the valuation of the biggest venture-backed startup.

SoftBank will acquire 15 per cent of Uber's equity at a discount of 30 per cent from its most recent value, according to a source familiar with the terms of the deal.

The new investment, which will be finalised in January, is part of an effort by Uber to move past a series of scandals and missteps and reform its board structure as it gears up for a 2019 public share offering.

A source familiar with the deal said SoftBank had reached agreements with investors to achieve its target of a 15 percent share.

The two firms did not provide details of the valuation but the source said the investment was based on Uber's worth of USD 48 billion, down from $71 billion earlier this year.

"We look forward to working with the purchasers to close the overall transaction, which we expect to support our technology investments, fuel our growth, and strengthen our corporate governance," Uber said in an emailed statement.

A separate statement from Rajeev Misra, chief executive of SoftBank Investment Advisers, said, "We are appreciative of the support from Uber's shareholders in the successful tender offer and look forward to closing the overall investment in January."

"We have tremendous confidence in Uber's leadership and employees and are excited to support Uber as it continues to reinvent how people and goods are transported around the world," he added.

The source said SoftBank's total investment in Uber will amount to $7.7 billion including a $1 billion infusion announced earlier this year.

The earlier investment was made at the higher valuation and the share repurchases at a lower value, leaving a "blended" valuation for Uber at $54 billion, according to the source.

The investment is part of the effort by SoftBank to become a major player in the global tech world with a massive $100 billion fund, much of it targeted for Silicon Valley startups.

At Uber, new chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi has vowed to fix the company's work culture and business practices, after taking over earlier this year from ousted founder Travis Kalanick.

Even as Uber has seen unprecedented growth by expanding to dozens of countries, it has been hurt by missteps including allegations of executive misconduct, a toxic work atmosphere and potentially unethical competitive practices.

The SoftBank deal is expected to put an end to litigation among stakeholders and clear the way for new board members, further loosening Kalanick's grip.

Uber however still faces numerous challenges including rulings from regulators that it unfairly competes with taxi operators, with London authorities having pulled its license.

Uber is also seeking to become a major player in autonomous cars, and has agreed to buy and adapt vehicles from Volvo to begin operating self-driving taxis. But it faces a trail from former Google car unit Waymo alleging Uber executives stole trade secrets.

The ridesharing group's website says it has operations in 616 cities in 77 countries and some 16,000 employees. In most cases Uber drivers are treated as independent contractors.  AFP.
Chandigarh, December 29

A local court has sent Balwinder Kumar Sharma, an accused in the Haryana Civil Services (Judicial) paper leak case, to three-day police remand. The Punjab and Haryana High Court registrar (recruitment) was arrested on Thursday night by a special investigation team of the Chandigarh police.

The police had asked for five-day remand and the public prosecutor argued that the records related to the case, which were received from the Supreme Court, were to be verified. The prosecution had also submitted an application seeking permission to search Sharmas Kharar residence, which was allowed by the court.

Sharma was recently transferred to Ropar from Chandigarh. However, the defence had argued that if the police could not find any incriminating evidence here, they would not find anything in Kharar as well, as he had just shifted on December 4.

It was also stated that the police wanted to interrogate Sharma along with Sunita, the only other arrested accused in the case. Sunita, a lawyer, said to be the mastermind in the case, was arrested last month from Delhi. This would bring forth more details and may also lead to others involved in the scam, it was stated.

The defence opposed the police remand and argued that the police had no logical reason Sharma was interrogated for seven hours on Thursday. As far as confrontation of Sharma with Sunita is concerned, it was argued that the police had already interrogated Sharma for 55 hours within a span of three months. He also argued that on November 10, the police interrogated Sunita along with Sharma when she was in police remand.

Also the court allowed the application of the defence whereby it was demanded that a medical examination of Sharma should be done every 24 hours in the presence of a legal officer. Also the court ordered to provide Sharma all medicines as he is a patient of diabetes. The court also allowed the application of the defence whereby the advocate of Sharma could be present during his interrogation.

Three persons, Registrar (Recruitment) Balwinder Sharma and two beneficiaries Sunita and Sushila, were booked by the police. A High Court committee looking into the case had recommended scrapping of the examination after prima facie finding that some candidates had access to the question paper.

The committee had said at least two candidates, Sunita and Sushila, had the question paper. The committee had also stated that Balwinder unequivocally denied prior acquaintance with Sunita, the general category topper. The call details furnished by the service provider, on the other hand, revealed that 760 calls and SMSes were exchanged between Sharma and Sunita over the past one year.
Bharat H Desai

Bharat H Desai

PRIME Minister Modi, in his convocation address at Patna University on October 14, 2017, unveiled the idea of promoting 10 universities each in the public and private sectors by removing all controls; to enable them to compete for providing world-class education. A handsome funding of Rs 10,000 crore  over a period of five years  was promised, with the hope that they could find a place among the top 500 universities in the world. Dont you think that we should erase this slur and change the situation? he asked.

It is a first such concrete initiative in education pronounced at the highest level. Several studies and committees have underscored the deep-rooted inertia and mediocrity of leadership in a large number of our universities. The crucial question, however, remains: Will the promise of monetary bounty revitalise universities? Can monetary reward compensate for the serious crisis of competent leadership in most of our institutions of higher learning?

Our struggle for designing universities of tomorrow suffers from several structural fault-lines. We do not seem to understand the idea of a university as a living system that provides the backbone for a nations knowledge economy. Universities have been grounded' to such an extent that it remains a dream to have one of the 800 universities figure in the top 500 universities in the world. It is a painful reality that barring some rare exceptions, we do not have a culture/system to value world-class contribution of scholars who chose to work in India amid the decay and mediocrity.

Apart from funding, we require an enabling environment, positive mindset, value for scholarship and balanced scholars as trailblazers to head our institutions. We need to reverse the trend that pushed some of our best scholarly talent to go abroad. Many emerging private universities have been tapping the hidden talent struggling to survive in public-funded institutions.

What does it take for Indian universities to become world class? The mantra of knowledge first must pervade in all spheres of our society. We need to learn from our past knowledge tradition and also draw from the best in the world. We need concerted efforts to overcome systemic inertia. It is rare to have an idea or a proposal sent by a scholar to the President of India, as visitor to a central university, get an acknowledgement, not to talk of an invitation to make a presentation. It indicates a lack of valuation for scholarship and the difficult times we live in. Though an ancient Indian adage proclaims that a scholar is worshipped everywhere, we have created a system where they are pushed to the corner and given scant respect in decision-making. It has become fashionable among bureaucrats to use the pejorative phrase: dont be academic. It is no wonder then that no Indian university finds a place among the top 200 in the world.

The change that we are seeking must start at the top of the ladder. This calls for the Prime Minister to take the lead to regularly interact with scholars and thought leaders. Such scholarly interface will send the right signals to the bureaucracy, political class and society.

The time has come to change the nomenclature of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) back to the ministry of education. We need to club culture with education, as it plays a vital role in promoting knowledge traditions. It is also necessary to make a long-term investment in all the institutions of higher education. It must be given top priority in fund allocations (apart from secondary and tertiary education). If we invest in only 20 institutions, the prevailing decay and mediocrity in others will endanger such islands that we seek to create. Thus the Central and the state governments not only need to play a vanguard role for educational infrastructure, but also promote genuine private universities to build centres of excellence. We need to ensure that key advisory positions within the governmental apparatus are manned by outstanding scholar-professionals. When we seek the universities of tomorrow to stand tall in the global knowledge league, they need to be provided with genuine autonomy, excellent infrastructure and funding; all unimpeded by any bureaucratic and political interference.

Along with a robust architecture for a new Ministry of Education and Culture, as part of the agenda for reform of UGC, we need to give a decent burial to the UGC and replace it with a forward-looking, highly professional regulator that may be called Bharat Action in National Yearning for Advancement of Knowledge (BANYAN) Aayog. In fact, the entire rejuvenation effort needs to be carried out under the umbrella of the National Mission on Excellence in Higher Education (2018-2028). We need to gravitate towards institutionalisation of a robust process and tradition, wherein irrespective of the party in power, only the best scholars are entrusted with heading our universities, IITs, IIMs andinstitutions of national importance.

The Prime Minister needs to take an initiative as Chairman of NITI Aayog to sit with all chief ministers to discuss and work out a mechanism for a new culture for universities to excel and desist from political interference in the appointments of Vice-Chancellors and heads of institution. It will save the universities from being vandalised by people with political patronage and provide us the first building block for realising our dream of world-class universities.

If we are desirous of catching up with the best in the world, we cannot invest in, and set free, only a handful of universities from regulatory control, as such islands would be engulfed by mediocrity. It is time the Prime Minister gives personal attention to lay the ground work for a crucial knowledge base, not only for societal progress (vikas), but also provide a robust basis for India to sit on the global high table. Thus, uplifting India into the global knowledge league must become part of the vision and institutionalisation of a culture for New India. It is a knowledge-based society that will liberate us from our current ills. It will also place India in the global orbit to promote international law-based order as well as become part of a global solution provider.

The writer is Chairman of Centre for International Legal Studies, JNU
BOSTON, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The New Ireland Fund, Inc. (NYSE:IRL) (the Fund), a closed-end fund, today announced that it paid on December 29, 2017, a distribution of US$0.2890 per share to all shareholders of record as of December 22, 2017.



Your Funds distribution policy (the Distribution Policy) is to provide investors with a stable quarterly distribution out of current income, supplemented by realized capital gains and, to the extent necessary, paid-in capital.

Under U.S. tax rules applicable to the Fund, the amount and character of distributable income for each fiscal year can be finally determined only as of the end of the Funds fiscal year. However, under Section 19 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the 1940 Act) and related Rules, the Fund may be required to indicate to shareholders the source of certain distributions to shareholders.

The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the sources of the distribution for purposes of Section 19 of the 1940 Act and the Rules adopted thereunder. The table has been computed based on generally accepted accounting principles. The table includes estimated amounts and percentages for the distribution to be paid on December 29, 2017, as well as the estimated cumulative distributions declared fiscal year to date (11/1/2017  12/12/2017), from the following sources: net investment income; net realized short-term capital gains; net realized long-term capital gains; and return of capital. The estimated composition of the distributions may vary from quarter to quarter because the estimated composition may be impacted by future income, expenses and realized gains and losses on securities.

Estimated Amounts of Current Quarterly Distribution per share ($) Estimated Amounts of Current Quarterly Distribution per share (%) Estimated Amounts of Fiscal Year to Date Cumulative Distributions per share ($) Estimated Amounts of Fiscal Year to Date Cumulative Distributions per share (%) Net Investment Income - - - - Net Realized Short-Term Capital Gains * - - - - Net Realized Long-Term Capital Gains $0.2890 100% $0.2890 100% Return of Capital - - - - Total (per common share) $0.2890 100% $0.2890 100% *including currency gains

Shareholders should not draw any conclusions about the Funds investment performance from the amount of this distribution or from the terms of the Funds Distribution Policy, which is to provide investors with a stable quarterly distribution.



The amounts and sources of distributions reported in this notice are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The final determination of the source of all distributions in 2017 will be made after year-end. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Funds investment experience during the remainder of its fiscal year and may be subject to changes based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The following table provides the Funds total return performance based on net asset value (NAV) over various time periods compared to the Funds annualized and cumulative distribution rates.

Average Annual Total Return on NAV for the 5 Year Period Ending 11/30/20171 17.73% Current Fiscal Periods Annualized Distribution Rate on NAV2 N/A* Fiscal Year to Date (11/1/2017 to 11/30/2017) Cumulative Total Return on NAV1 0.32% Cumulative Distribution Rate on NAV2 N/A 1Return data is net of all fund expenses and fees and assumes the reinvestment of all distributions reinvested at prices obtained under the Funds dividend reinvestment plan. 2 Based on the Funds NAV as of December 12, 2017.

While NAV performance may be indicative of the Funds investment performance, it does not measure the value of a shareholders investment in the Fund. The value of a shareholders investment in the Fund is determined by the Funds market price, which is based on the supply and demand for the Funds shares in the open market.



Pursuant to an exemptive order granted to the Fund by the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 19, 2014, the Fund may distribute any long-term capital gains more frequently than the limits provided in Section 19(b) under the 1940 Act and Rule 19b-1 thereunder. Therefore, distributions paid by the Fund during the year may include net income, short-term capital gains, long-term capital gains and/or a return of capital. Net income dividends and short-term capital gain dividends, while generally taxable at ordinary income rates, may be eligible, to the extent of qualified dividend income earned by the Fund, to be taxed at a lower long-term capital gains rate. If the total distributions made in any calendar year exceed investment company taxable income and net capital gain, such excess distributed amount would be treated as ordinary income to the extent of the Funds current and accumulated earnings and profits. Distributions in excess of the earnings and profits would first be a tax-free return of capital to the extent of the adjusted tax basis in the shares. After such adjusted tax basis is reduced to zero, the distribution would constitute capital gain (assuming the shares are held as capital assets).

The payment of distributions in accordance with the Distribution Policy may result in a decrease in the Funds net assets. A decrease in the Funds net assets may cause an increase in the Funds annual operating expenses and a decrease in the Funds market price per share to the extent the market price correlates closely to the Funds net asset value per share. The Distribution Policy may also negatively affect the Funds investment activities to the extent that the Fund is required to hold larger cash positions than it typically would hold or to the extent that the Fund must liquidate securities that it would not have sold or hold securities that it would liquidate, for the purpose of paying the distribution. The Distribution Policy may, under certain circumstances, cause the amounts of taxable distributions to exceed the levels required to be distributed under the Internal Revenue Code (i.e., to the extent the Fund has capital losses in any taxable year, such losses may be carried forward to reduce the amount of capital gains required to be distributed in future years; if distributions in a year exceed the amount minimally required to be distributed under the tax rules, such excess will be taxable as ordinary income to the extent loss carryforwards reduce the required amount of capital gains distributions in that year). The Funds Board of Directors has the right to amend, suspend or terminate the Distribution Policy at any time. The amendment, suspension or termination of the Distribution Policy may affect the Funds market price per share. Investors should consult their tax advisor regarding federal, state and local tax considerations that may be applicable in their particular circumstances.

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Funds investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investors shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the net asset value (NAV) of the funds portfolio. There is no assurance that a fund will achieve its investment objective. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

* * * * *

The Fund is managed by KBI Global Investors (North America) Ltd, a subsidiary of KBI Global Investors Ltd, and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol - IRL. For further information, please contact the Fund at (800) 468-6475 or investor.query@newirelandfund.com.

Website: www.newirelandfund.com
Washington, December 29

An Indian-origin student was shot dead during an attempted armed robbery in the US, becoming one of the latest victims of gun violence in the country.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Another Indian was injured in the attack.

Arshad Vhora, 19, was shot dead on Thursday at the Clark gas station at 142nd and Langley in Dolton in Chicago, CBS News reported.

The police said two people were shot during an armed robbery attempt inside the convenience store.

The second victim, who was not named, was critically wounded, the police said, adding the victims are related.

Vhora was filling in for a family member at the convenience store and gas station, relatives were quoted as saying by the report.

The suspects fled the scene. No one has been arrested yet. A USD 12,000 reward is being offered to help solve the case, the report said.

The shooting comes amidst growing attacks on Indians and Americans of Indian descent in recent months.

On December 15, Karunakar Karengle was killed during a robbery by two hooded attackers in Ohio.

Earlier this month, a 30-year-old Indian national pursuing his masters in Chicago had 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
WITH remarkable speed and without much discussion, the Lok Sabha has passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, criminalising the practice of instant triple talaq among the Muslims. The Bill provides a three-year imprisonment for the violators. A law to this effect indeed recommended itself after the Supreme Court had declared the instant triple talaq as illegal. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has chosen to term the Bill as "historic." Confident of its majority in the Lok Sabha, the government did not accept the Opposition's demand that it be sent to a parliamentary panel for further finessing. In the event, the Bill got passed with a voice vote, and none in the Opposition wanted to insist on a division.

The Opposition's ambivalence and the government's tearing hurry pointed to the very intense political context of the triple talaq legislation. Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tactfully conceded that though marriage was a civil contract, there were enough laws in the statute book  like the Dowry Prohibition Act, the child marriage laws and the adultery laws  that empowered the state to interfere and criminalise certain offensive practices; and, so why should the Muslim marriage not be excised of a disagreeable practice that has been proscribed by the apex court?

More relevant than the provisions of the proposed law are the political calculations at work. Ever since the Shah Bano case and its subsequent nullification, the Indian polity has been made to stand up and be counted on the demand for a uniform civil code. Very many political parties subscribe to the view that the Muslim sensitivities needed to be taken into account and that the larger commitment of social harmony and a promise of partnership demanded that the matter of reforms in the institution of Muslim marriage be better left to the wisdom of the community's leadership and clergy. On the other hand, what began as an argument for a progressive legislation has over the decades morphed into a clever manoeuvre to mobilise the Hindu constituency against the "backward" Muslim community, already being demonised in our popular culture and on social media. The appeasement argument would continue.
FINALLY, the government woke up on Friday to press the alarm bell against cryptocurrencies. The finance ministry publicly admitted that there is a phenomenal increase in the prices of virtual currencies, including bitcoins, which are like Ponzi schemes. Undoubtedly, the finance ministry's invocation of the Ponzi scheme is noteworthy. It is named after Charles Ponzi, the notorious scamster who duped investors of about $20 million way back in the 1920s. The US regulator defines a Ponzi scheme as an investment fraud that pays existing investors with funds collected from new investors. Eventually, the scheme caves in when it fails to lure new investors or a large number of existing investors decide to cash out.

Many Indians are tempted to make a quick buck by investing in cryptocurrencies, particularly bitcoins. These promise phenomenal returns. One bitcoin, which was available for $0.09 in 2010 had surged to almost $20,000 in just seven years. It, however, had a rollercoaster ride, where for every winner there were several losers. The finance ministry admits that there is a real and heightened risk of investment bubble and sudden and prolonged crash would expose retail consumers who would lose their hardearned money. The ministry is also apprehensive that the virtual currency could be used for subversive activities such as terror-funding, drug-trafficking or money-laundering.

The RBI has been issuing similar cautionary notes since 2013. Despite cautions from the guardians of the economy, about a dozen bitcoin exchanges are flourishing in the country. Why is the government soft on them? Is it because the rich and powerful are associated with this new rage? The finance ministry must not tackle this matter half-heartedly by merely issuing cautionary notes. It will be failing in its institutional duty if it did not move proactively to protect gullible investors from a Ponzi-like scheme. No virtual currency, not even the popular bitcoin, has been accepted as legal tender by any country. Countries like South Korea, Bolivia, Ecuador, Kyrgyzstan and Bangladesh have already banned cryptocurrencies. It is the time for India to act.
Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 29

AICC president Rahul Gandhi sent a loud and clear signal that only those leaders who enjoyed a clean image and had connect with the masses would be given eminence in the party. He was here to assess the Himachal Assembly poll debacle.

Rahul who arrived here today to interact with party leaders and workers urged them to work together for better performance in the 2019 elections. He interacted with the MLAs, party candidates who lost the polls, the District Congress Committee (DCC), Block Congress Committee (BCC) presidents, heads of frontal organisations and various cells of the party.

The AICC chief also made it clear that there would be single leadership in the state and all would have to work together. Indiscipline will not be tolerated and all dedicated and sincere party workers will be given respect and due recognition, he said in his address. He said the Congress would provide all possible opportunities to young and energetic leaders, who come forward and serve the party.

Rahul, who was given the feedback by Sushil Kumar Shinde, AICC general secretary and in-charge of the Congress affairs in Himachal Pradesh, on the reasons for defeat said the party leaders and those in the government had become arrogant and lost connect with the masses, and that had led to the defeat. He also hinted that it was factionalism and bickering within the party which resulted in electoral reversal for the Congress in the state.

Rahul interacted with the MLAs and defeated candidate from the Shimla and Mandi parliamentary segments together and post lunch with the leaders from Kangra and Hamirpur parliamentary segments. It is reliably learnt that many of the candidates who lost the polls complained that senior party leaders had backed rebels to ensure their defeat. He said he would constantly remain in touch with the party leaders and workers and would visit the state frequently.

Shimla (Urban) Congress candidate and HPCC general secretary Harbhajan Singh Bhajji alleged that an agreement had been reached with the CPM to help the Congress rebel in his segment and in return the Congress would help the CPM candidate in Theog, on the directions of the senior leadership. Many candidate and office-bearers also blamed the poor governance and performance of the Congress regime for the debacle.

Others who made similar allegations included Nalagrah MLA Lakhwinder Rana and Pawan Thakur, Congress candidate from Sarkaghat. Rana said Hardeep Bawa, a Congress rebel, was the vice-chairman in the Congress regime had the backing of the senior leaders and even now continued to remain INTUC state president. Naresh Chauhan, general secretary, HPCC, blamed nepotism and poor governance in the last five years for the partys defeat.

HPCC chief Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu urged the party men to gear up for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Speaking on the occasion, former Chief Minister Virhadra Singh, said the party must work together in case it wanted to do well in the Lok Sabha elections.

Feedback on why the party lost...

In the feedback, on why the party lost the poll, state in-charge Sushil Kumar Shinde had given reasons to party chief Rahul Gandhi that party leaders and those in the government had become arrogant and lost connect with the masses, and that had led to the defeat. He also hinted that it was factionalism and bickering within the party which resulted in electoral reversal for the Congress in the state.
Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 28

Even as the process of making appointments in the Chief Ministers office continues, there is no confirmation about the portfolios to be allocated to the newly inducted ministers in Thakurs Cabinet.

The wait for portfolio allocation continued for the second day today even as their supporters and constituents made a beeline for the secretariat to greet the ministers. There was an atmosphere of festivity and celebration with BJP supporters thronging the CMs office and other ministers with congratulatory messages. The ministers remained busy meeting their supporters and constituents. They also picked up officials of their choice for their staff.

Trilok Jamwal, a lawyer hailing from Bilaspur, was today appointed the Political Adviser to the Chief Minister. He has a strong RSS background and has been coordinating all mega BJP election rallies, including the ones addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He is expected to be a major link between the CM office and the RSS, which is expected to play a key role in all major decisions to be taken by the BJP regime.

Rangila Ram Rao, a former minister from Mandi, was the Political Adviser to Virbhadra Singh during this term, while the post was occupied by Brij Bihari Butail in the previous term.

The second RSS activist to be handpicked to the function as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to the CM is Mahender Kumar Dharmani, currently the state BJP spokesperson. Hailing from Ghumarwin in Bilaspur, he is the brother of former BJP MLA Karamvir Dharmani. Having served as a lecturer in the Education Department, he quit and joined the party.

CM to leave for Delhi today

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur will leave for Delhi on Friday to call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah. In case, the issue of portfolio allocation is not decided on Thursday, he could hold discussions with the high command during his visit to Delhi. He will return to the state capital the next day. Thakur called on former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh at his residence Holly Lodge and also met PK Dhumal. The visits were part of a courtesy call by the Chief Minister.

Chamba residents congratulate Thakur
Sumit Hakhoo

Tribune News Service

Jammu, December 29

The year 2017 started with a hope for 3.5 lakh displaced Kashmiri Pandits after the Legislative Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution calling for their return to the Valley and setting up of transit camps for their resettlement, but at end of the year, promises have remained just a political rhetoric.

As months passed by, hopes turned into dejection as the state PDP-BJP coalition government and the Centre led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to come up with any concrete policy for the beleaguered Hindus of the Valley living as refugees in their own country since 1990 after the eruption of separatist insurgency in Kashmir.

Although the state and Centre announced several confidence building measures for people of Kashmir, especially after the appointment of Dineshwar Sharma as the special representative for Jammu and Kashmir, there was no mention about the displaced Pandits, who too are victims of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism since 1990.

While the BJP-led government at New Delhi backtracked from its earlier stand on establishing separate colonies or transit camps for Pandits, the state government is silent on the plan to implement the recommendations of rehabilitation package announced in 2008 by then Congress-led UPA government.

Another setback for the community was refusal of the Supreme Court to re-open investigation in 215 cases relating to the murder and massacre of Pandits by militant groups during the 27 years of militancy. Family members of hundreds of victims are waiting for justice as successive governments have not pursued the cases.

The government had also claimed that the state had identified 723 kanals of land in various districts of the Valley to set up transit accommodations, but there was further no headway in the project. In fact, there has rarely been any mention of the plan since separatists and radical groups in the Valley have threatened to use violence to stop such process.

Nearly 2,200 youths engaged under the employment package who volunteered to return to the Valley in 2010 continue to live under miserable conditions. The government failed to complete the construction of more than 4,000 housing units at Vessu and Mattan in Anantnag and Sheikhapura in Budgam. Employees are living in makeshift transit camps without basic infrastructure and majority of them were damaged by mobs during the five-month-long unrest in 2016.

The battle to get their properties back from land grabbers continued for hundreds of Pandit families, who are living in camps in Jammu. The administration remains in denial, while the government fails to implement the provisions of the Migrant Immovable Property Act, 1997, passed by the Legislative Assembly to safeguard the properties of minorities.

Although the community remains on the edge due to the Kashmir conflict, the silver lining at the end of the year was success of Kashyap Neha Pandita, who despite poverty and hardships in migrant camps, cleared the Kashmir Administrative Service examination, giving a hope to hundreds of youths.
Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

The challenges in 2017 were far greater than the violently convoluted 2016  when frenzied street protests saw grenades and stones being countered with bullets and pellets. In the year gone by, the task was to make reason find its space, and reach out to the frustrated minds with a tangible dose of optimism.

Today, if Kashmir is looking ahead for some gains in 2018, it is due to the sophisticated tackling of terrorist violence.

The devastating terror attack on Amarnath pilgrims on July 10 when they were returning home had all the makings of further ruining the image of Kashmir, its economy, and stirring communal passions across the country. The Valley was saved by impending disaster because of the way responsible men and women acted, burying the designs of terrorists, much to the chagrin of those seeking to unleash communal bloodletting.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti rushed to meet the dazed and horrified pilgrims, who had seen their fellow pilgrims and family members shot by a group of marauders. She heard them with patience and compassion. She knew this was genuine anger and grief. Her soul, like that of every Kashmiri, was wounded by this act of terrorism.

The Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board that manages the Himalayan pilgrimage took a strategically pragmatic decision around the midnight of the tragedy. Its Chairman, Governor NN Vohra, said no to suspension or cancellation of the yatra and declared, Yatra will go on.

The message was clear: terrorists cannot dictate the course of events and they cannot be given what they want. The country got the message that instead of getting trapped into the communal passions, it is better to join the batches of the pilgrims headed towards the holy shrine of Lord Shiva  known as Amarnath  nestled in the Himalayas in Kashmir.

PM Narendra Modi led the nation in giving a clarion call from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 71st Independence Day embrace Kashmiris and emphatically discounted the approach of bullets and abuses. This profound message, perhaps, was in recognition of the fact that the Kashmiri Muslims had in one voice condemned the attack on the Amarnath pilgrims by saying, Not in my name.

Kashmiri Muslims were vocal and assertive in telling the rest of the country that they hated the killing of pilgrims almost in equal measure as the families of the victims. The PM carried his outreach further when his government appointed former Intelligence Bureau Director Dineshwar Sharma as the Special Representative to talk to all stakeholders in J&K.

The work is in progress. It is facing huge challenges  the sharpening hostility on the Line of Control that divides this Himalayan state between India and Pakistan and the internal turmoil that is appearing time and again because of the vested interests and hired guns and pens working overtime to vitiate the atmosphere in J&K.

These forces have ignited communal cauldron. Forces of disintegration are at work. Steps to offset the negative forces by reaching out to the people, attending to the long-pending demand of the casual employees, amnesty to first-time stone throwers and the announcement of panchayat polls are aimed to achieve the larger goal of peaceful Kashmir.

A common phrase here is, much depends on the Government of India  indeed that is true, but it also depends on the discourse that J&K generates for itself. Others can help it only when it is willing to help itself. J&K has to answer this question ahead of 2018.

Steps taken for peace in Kashmir

Steps to offset the negative forces by reaching out to the people, attending to the long-pending demand of the casual employees, amnesty to first-time stone throwers and the announcement of panchayat polls are aimed to achieve the larger goal of peaceful Kashmir
Gurnaaz Kaur

In a life full of stress, art helps you break free. It opens a secret door to a world of your own. Many youngsters have found that door in poetry. And, it isnt just confined to conventional readings, kavi sammelans and mushairas anymore. The scene has shifted to clubs dedicated to poetry! There are jam sessions, events at cafes; poetry workshops in schools, facebook pages, instagram handles and what not!

Heres getting to know some poetry clubs in the city.

The pioneers

Kavitactic

Started by two college students aged 19, Kavitactic is the club that laid the foundation of poetry clubs in the city. We felt the lack of accessible platforms and mediums that would bring together poets, especially young poets, echo club founders Prerit and Gursaya. They started with 14 poets, but the growth has been exemplary. We were just 14 when we began and now we are a family of over 130 poets! We meet every month for jam sessions and organise events that become spaces of free-flowing artistic expression, where like-minded people meet, interact, share, says Gursaya.

Their writings are not just about love and heartbreak; there are subjects like corruption, rape, LGBT community, politics, education, etc. We strongly feel the youth is bringing a revolution through their words, Prerit shares.

Spoken word

Cross Connection Poetree

This is an initiative by Amy Singh (26), who is a full-time teacher and a passionate spoken-word poet. I want to take poetry to the most unlikely places such as jails, poor colonies, et al. To people who need to find their voice but dont know how, explains Amy. Although she wants to bring out the poet in everyone possible, her focus is on youngsters. We are a generation of troubled minds. Theres anxiety, relationship issues, career fears and so much pressure. In all this, we resort to poetry where words become both our solace and shield, she shares.

This young poet, who writes in Hindi, English and Punjabi, has performed in other cities and keeps inviting poets from across India to perform here. Ask her about her favourite poets and the spectrum is wide; Wordsworth, Frost, Keats, Yeats, Ghalib, Mir, Jaun, Batalwi, Faiz, Faraaz, Pash, Amrita Pritam and many more.

Being social

Rhythms of Rhymes

This was the brainchild of two literature students and their three non-academic poet friends. Their definition of poetry is proper and concentration is on content. Anything and everything is not poetry. You can call us a purist group, but we want to preserve the nuances of the art, affirms Nosheen Kapoor, founding member of the club. After studying and admiring Eliot, Shakespeare, Dante, Blake and their likes, we didnt expect them to partake in the buzz that poetry is making online, but their answer did surprise us. Social media has sky-rocketed the popularity of poetry, allowing many unpublished poets, writers, and other artists to emerge out of anonymity and find an audience for their works. I think its a positive sign, as it shows love for poetry all around, shares Tajinder, co-founder member and an English professor.

Wise words

Mukhtalif

This poetry club was started by three graduates  Avleen Kaur Lamba, Samreen Chhabra and Gursahiba Gill - of MCM DAV College. They love spoken-word poetry and Samreen explains why, To see your work being absorbed and to have an immediate feedback, in the form of audiences reaction, are all factors that act as forces of encouragement and spoken-word poetry does that.

While Avleen believes poetry can save the world, Samreen thinks its a way to fight the limitations youngsters encounter as far as freedom of speech is concerned. When asked if their club is only restricted to English-speaking poets, Gursahiba and Avleen echo, I write in English and Hindi. The popularity and global acceptance of English will never take away the importance of literature in our vernacular language. Our generations biggest accomplishment will be its ability to write and be fluent in multiple languages.
London, December 29

Actor Ruby Rose said she wants to collaborate with Rebel Wilson on an action film.

The Australian actors both star in "Pitch Perfect 3" and Rose said she really enjoyed the experience of working with Wilson.

"I so want to do an action film with Rebel Wilson she's so bada** (sic)" Rose tweeted in response to a fan post which called for Rebel to become the "next big action star".

Meanwhile, Ruby recently admitted she considers herself lucky to have worked with so many women during her acting career.  PTI.
The official calendar of the Offset Printers Association (OPA) for 2018 was released here on Friday. The calendar was presented by Kushl Kumar Jain, in-charge of the project. He said from 2007 onwards, OPA calendar Printers Jantriis not only an annual feature, but has become a craze for its members, their families and other printers. Jain said: I am thankful for the cooperation given by the contributors. This time, the calendar was released in the presence of print leaders of 16 printers associations from 15 cities. Besides dates and regular holidays, the calendar carries the details about the printers event across the world.

Winter sale

Fshion brand Duke has started its winter sale at Nehru Sidhant Kendra, Feroze Gandhi market. This sale includes variety of T-shirts, jackets, sweaters, sweatshirts, track suits, lowers, thermals and accessories for men, women and kids. One can avail up to 50 per cent discounts. Involved with a unique and creative designing process, Dukes winter wear revolves around several interesting concepts and promises to offer a global fashion statement and can be worn either to work or casually. TNS
TORONTO, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. (TSXV:BGM) ("Barkerville" or the "Corporation") announces today that it has granted an aggregate total of 800,000 Restricted Share Units ("RSUs"), subject to regulatory approval, to certain eligible participants under the Company's Restricted Share Unit Plan. The full text of the Restricted Share Unit Plan is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The RSUs will vest immediately and convert into common shares ("Common Shares") of the Corporation at a fair market value of $0.75 per Common Share, being the closing price of the Common Shares on the date of the grant.

About Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd.

The Corporation is focused on developing its extensive land package located in the historical Cariboo Mining District of central British Columbia. Barkerville's mineral tenures cover 2,110 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.

For more information on Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd., please contact:

Chris Lodder

President and Chief Executive Officer

155 University Avenue, Suite 1410

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

clodder@barkervillegold.com

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Although the Corporation believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.

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. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.
Shillong, December 29

The ruling Congress in Meghalaya today suffered a setback when five of its MLAs, including former Deputy Chief Minister Rowell Lyngdoh, resigned from the state Assembly.

Along with them, three other MLAs, including one from the United Democratic Party and two Independents, also tendered resignation from the House, said Assembly Principal Secretary Andrew Simons.

Rowell, a veteran Congress leader of the state, later announced that all eight MLAs, who have quit, would join the National Peoples Party (NPP) at a rally of that party next week. The 60-member Meghalaya Assembly had 30 Congress MLAs.

Todays resignations come days after Congress MLA PN Syiem resigned from the party.

With todays resignation the number of Congress legislators in the Assembly has come down to 24.

The term of the current House expires on March 6 and elections are due early next year in the state, along with Nagaland and Tripura.

Four of the five Congress legislators were part of the state Cabinet earlier and were sacked by the Chief Minister in the past on alleged ground of incompetence. They were joined by party MLA Mlangaitlang Dhar in quitting the membership of the Assembly.

Three others who quit are Remington Pyngrope (UDP) and two IndependentsStephanson Mukhim and Hopeful Bamon. We are joining the NPP on January 4 at a rally at Pologrounds, Rowell told reporters. He said it was a difficult decision to leave the Congress, but he was compelled to do so because of the people.  PTI

60-member Assembly
Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 29

How the Congress positions itself in the Rajya Sabha, where it still has good numbers, on the triple talaq Bill is something to watch out for when the government presents the legislation in the House, expectedly the next week.

The Lower House yesterday passed the contentious Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Billa law that criminalises instant triple talaq and makes it punishable by up to three-year imprisonment for the husband.

The BJP-led government, which enjoys a brute majority in the Lok Sabha, rejected the amendments pushed by Opposition members.

The Congress supported the Bill but had issues on its legal aspects. Eventually parties like the CPM, AIADMK, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party, Biju Janata Dal and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) presented opposition to the legislation.

These parties are expected to hold on to their position in the Upper House where the government is still not in a comfortable position. The RJD has three members, the BJD eight, the TMC 12 and the AIADMK 13. The Samajwadi Party holds a major chunk of 18 members while rival BSP has five.

Adding to the governments discomfort could be the DMK, which today denounced the Centre over the haste shown in getting the legislation through the Lok Sabha. The party with four members in the Rajya Sabha wants the Bill to be referred to a parliamentary committee. DMK working president MK Stalin said: The three-year jail term is unnecessary,.

Playing safe, the Congress yesterday said it supported the Bill but wanted it to be scrutinised by a standing committee, likewise the RJD and the Samajwadi Party.

Government sources say top BJP leaders were reaching out to the Congress, which is expected to seek amendments on the legal aspects. If the Congress joins in supporting the Bill, it would have a smooth sail through the Rajya Sabha.

The grand old party has 57 members in the House.
Manas Dasgupta

Ahmedabad, December 29

Indicating the beginning of a cold war between Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani and his deputy Nitin Patel over the distribution of portfolios, the latter stayed away from his office at the state secretariat in Gandhinagar today.

The 20-member Cabinet headed by Rupani was sworn-in on Tuesday morning. But for three days, portfolios were not allocated because of sharp differences over the issue. Finally, PM Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah intervened. But Patel lost almost all key portfolios he had held in the previous ministry.

The first meeting of the new Cabinet was scheduled for Tuesday evening. It was postponed till Rupanis return from the swearing-in ceremony in Himachal Pradesh. The meeting was again rescheduled for 5 pm on Thursday. Even as the ministers arrived, Rupani and Patel were closeted at the CMs bungalow for hours to finalise the portfolio but failed to arrive at a formula. Patel, sources said, even threatened to resign.

The Cabinet finally met on Thursday night and the ministers were allotted portfolios. At one stage, state president Jitu Vaghani and personal secretary to the CM rushed to the CMs bungalow to pacify Patel.

The important portfolio of finance was given to Saurabh Patel, who did not even find a place in Rupanis first cabinet in August 2016, while newcomer RC Faldu was given agriculture. Senior minister B Chudasma lost the revenue portfolio to Kaushik Patel, who had lost the last two elections.

There were reports of Babubhai Bokhiriya and Rajendra Trivedi being unhappy over being left out of the ministry. Bokhiriya reportedly declined the Speakers post. Trivedi issued a statement, claiming he was not unhappy and would continue to serve the party.

Differences have also cropped up in the state Congress with Dhiru Gajera, who lost the Patidar-dominated Varachha Road seat in Surat, squarely blaming state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki for the partys failure to wrest power. He held him responsible for the defeat of senior leaders, including two former presidents Siddhartha Patel and Arjun Modhvadia and AICC spokesman Shaktisinh Gohil.

Solanki, meanwhile, has written to all 182 Congress candidates, seeking a list of those who had worked against the party. AICC president Rahul Gandhi had, during his Gujarat visit last week, said that those who had indulged in anti-party activities would not be spared.
New Delhi, December 29

India strongly condemned the cowardly suicide terror attack on Friday at a cultural centre in Kabul, and said it is committed to extending all possible support to Afghanistan in its fight against terrorism.

More than 40 people were killed in the terror strike at the Shiite cultural centre near a media outlet in the Afghanistan capital on Thursday.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement that India backs all efforts to bring stability and security to Afghanistan and remains steadfast in its solidarity with the government and the people of Afghanistan at this difficult time.

India strongly condemned the "cowardly suicide terror attack" at a media news agency and the cultural centre in which more than 40 innocent lives were lost and many injured, it said.

India is committed to extend all possible support in their fight against the menace of terrorism and efforts to bring peace, stability and security in the country, it added.

The ministry also extended condolences to the families of the victims of the dastardly attack.  PTI.
Washington, December 29

An Indian-origin student was shot dead during an attempted armed robbery in the US, becoming one of the latest victims of gun violence. Another Indian was injured in the attack.

Arshad Vhora, 19, was shot dead on Thursday at the Clark gas station in Dolton, Chicago.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Police said two persons were shot during an armed robbery attempt inside the convenience store. Vhora was filling in for his father, who was out of the country, relatives said.

The second victim, Bakar Saieed, was critically wounded, police said, adding the victims are related. Family said Vhora, who was pronounced dead at the scene, was a sophomore business major at South Suburban College.

Police are investigating the incident as an armed robbery homicide. A $12,000 reward is being offered to help solve the case, a report said.  PTI
Islamabad, December 28

Pakistani today freed 145 Indian fishermen, held for allegedly fishing in its territorial waters, as a goodwill gesture amidst a war of words between Islamabad and New Delhi on the circumstances in which a recent meeting between Kulbhushan Jadhav and his family took place.

They were released following last week's announcement by foreign office spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal that 291 Indian fishermen would be released in two phases till January 8.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The fishermen were freed from the Malir jail and taken amid tight security to Karachi cantonment railway station, from where they will be sent to Lahore, a police official said.

"They will be handed over to Indian officials at Wagah border crossing tomorrow," the official said. The remaining 146 fishermen are expected to be released and repatriated on January 8.

Those released were also given gifts and cash prizes by Edhi Foundation charity, which traditionally helps in repatriation of Indian fishermen.

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 being drifting away. For the last five weeks, the Pakistan Maritime Security personnel have arrested around 168 Indian fishermen with the last contingent of 28 being arrested earlier this week from the Arabian Sea.  PTI

Lanka sets free 69

Rameswaram (TN): The Sri Lankan courts in Jaffna and Vavunia on Thursday ordered the release of 69 Tamil Nadu fishermen lodged in prisons there, an official said here. The fishermen, arrested on various occasions on charges of crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) by the Sri Lankan Navy, would be brought back here after completing necessary formalities, Manikandan, Assistant Director of Fisheries Department said. PTI
Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, December 29

Fourteen people  including eleven women  lost their lives and 19 others were injured after a fire broke out in a building at Mumbais Kamala Mills compound early on Friday, police and fire officials said.



According to the fire brigade, the blaze was reported shortly after midnight from the One Above restaurant located on the third floor of the building. Within a few minutes the fire had spread to adjoining restaurants and damaged equipment belonging to several television channels in what is considered to be Mumbai's media and entertainment

hub.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Police said the victims were celebrating the 28th birthday of a woman who also died in the fire.



Eyewitnesses took to the social media to state that the fire suddenly broke out in one corner of the restaurant and soon spread throughout the premises. Patrons trapped inside could not find the entrance at the dimly lit restaurant, police said. Fire officials said the dead and most of the injured had locked themselves inside the bathroom of the restaurant. Most of the dead died of suffocation. Several of the injured were also trampled upon while trying to escape.

Read: PM Modi, CM Fadnavis express grief over loss of lives in Mumbai fire



Kamala Mills fire: Narrow escape for news channel employees



PTI alerted disaster management control room about fire: BMC



Kamala Mills fire latest in Mumbais 29 series of tragedies





Almost all died due to asphyxiation. No one has died due to flames but due to fumes, Dr Harish Pathak head of the forensics at KEM Hospital told reporters here. Dr Rajesh Dhere, who conducted the autopsies, said the victims would have been alive had they locked themselves in a room with adequate ventilation.

Following the doctor's revelations, many people took to social media to state that the establishments in the entire Kamala Mills area located in the Elphinstone Road-Lower Parel area lacked a proper evacuation plan.



Fund manager Sandip Sabharwal, who lives nearby, took to social media to state that the old buildings were refurbished to house restaurants and pubs. Most of these pubs flout safety norms and play music till 2 am, Sabharwal said on social media.



Member of Parliament and former actor Jaya Bachchan also told reporters in Delhi that the entire Kamala Mills complex resembled a maze of warrens like bhool bhoolaya or a haunted house. We noticed that there was no accessible exit. Investigation needed into the restaurants, Ashish Shelar, chief of the Mumbai BJP told reporters here.



Activists say the neighbourhood  which had once housed textile mills  has been turned into offices and entertainment spots without adequate infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai municipal corporation said in a statement here that they had only a few weeks ago demolished some illegal extensions carried out at the One Above restaurant. The civic body had also served three notices for various violations, officials said.

The police said this afternoon that a case of culpable homicide has been registered against Hratesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Manka of C Grade Hospitality, which manages the One Above restaurant.

BMC suspends five officials



Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta said later on Friday that five officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had been suspended.

We have suspended five officials in connection with the fire tragedy, Mehta said.

The officials suspended were attached to the fire brigade and the G South Ward.

The suspended officials include an assistant divisional fire officer, while the remaining four are from the ward office, including engineers and health officials, civic sources said, adding that the ward officer of G South has been transferred.

Mumbai Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar said an enquiry has been ordered and strict action will be taken against errant officials.

The fire also damaged equipment belonging to several television channels located in the Kamala Mills complex. However, the channels were back on air after a few hours. With inputs from PTI


Bareilly, December 29

Three people were killed when their car rammed into a stationary mini-truck on the Delhi-Lucknow National Highway amid heavy fog, police said.

The accident took place near Zed village on Thursday night, killing three people, including two women, on the spot, SSP Joginder Kumar said.

Efforts were on to ascertain the identity of the deceased who are all in the age group of 25 to 40, the SSP said.

Heavy fog on Thursday night had hit visibility and appeared to be the cause of the accident, police said. PTI
Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 29

Controversial Director, Health, Dr Rajiv Bhalla, who will retire from service on Sunday, has been recommended for a plum post by the Minister for Health and Family Welfare. Dr Bhalla was indicted by a departmental inquiry in a case of bungling of funds.

Sources said Health Minister Brahm Mohindra had written to the Managing Director, Punjab Health Systems Corporation (PHSC), that after retirement, Dr Bhalla should be hired as a consultant with the corporation.

Mohindra has also recommended a hefty salary package for the officer, who will be getting his last drawn salary less pension, which comes close to Rs 1 lakh.

Dr Bhalla along with two other senior health officials was indicted by a departmental inquiry pertaining to a scam of intrauterine device copper T procedures on women in Jalandhar district. Dr Bhalla was the Civil Surgeon there at that time.

It was claimed that around 70,000 copper T procedures were performed in Jalandhar district. But in the entire state, not even half of such procedures were done under the population control programme the same year.

The sources said it was not the first time when the minister had favoured Dr Bhalla. In the copper T case, the Principal Secretary, Health, had forwarded the report to the minister, who, instead of acting against Dr Bhalla as per the recommendations, ordered further probe against the other two doctors.

When contacted, Mohindra said there was a dearth of experienced people in the department and Dr Bhallas appointment was recommended keeping in mind his experience. When asked about the scam, he claimed that nothing was found against him in that case.

New Director, Health

Sources said Dr Jaspal Kaur, Director, ESI dispensaries, would take over as Director, Health Services, on Monday. Dr Jaspal Kaur had earlier served as deputy director and medical superintendent in Jalandhar and Amritsar hospitals.

The scam

Dr Rajiv Bhalla along with two other senior health officials was indicted by a departmental inquiry pertaining to a scam of copper T procedures in Jalandhar district. It was claimed that around 70,000 procedures were performed in the district. But in the entire state, not even half of such procedures were done the same year.
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 29

As per the already announced schedule to repatriate 291 Indian fishermen, Pakistan today repatriated 144 of them in the first batch from the Attari-Wagah joint check post. The release of a fisherman was put on hold at the last hour due to some problem of documents. He may be the part of the next group of fishermen to be released on January 8.

The repatriation came in the backdrop of the ongoing war of words between both countries over the treatment meted out to family members of Kulbhushan Jadhav when they recently went to meet him in Islamabad.

The Pakistan authorities commenced the process of repatriation late on Friday evening. Deputy Superintendent, Rangers, Faizal handed over the fishermen to BSFs Assistant Commandant Anil Kumar. Subsequently, the BSF handed over all fishermen to the district administration, which was led by Executive Magistrate Karan Pal Singh.

After languishing for nearly nine months in the prisons of Pakistan for inadvertently crossing into the Pakistani territorial waters in Arabian Sea, the fisher folks took a sigh of relief after returning to their country. All of them are residents of Gujarat and they were held by Pakistans Maritime Security Agency in March this year.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 29, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Search Minerals Inc. (TSXV:SMY) (Search Minerals or the Company): This press release is being disseminated as required by National Instrument 62-103 The Early Warning System and Related Take Over Bids and Insider Reporting Issues in connection with the acquisition of common shares of the Company (Common Shares) by InCoR Holdings PLC (InCoR).



InCoR announces that, on December 29, 2017, it entered into an agreement to acquire 25,203,334 Common Shares from Sercor Ltd. (Sercor) at a price of $0.04255 per Common Share, for an aggregate purchase price of $1,072,401.86 (the Transaction).

Prior to the Transaction, InCoR owned, or had control or direction over 5,000,000 Common Shares. After giving effect to the Transaction, InCoR will hold 30,203,334 Common Shares, representing approximately 19.35% of the Companys issued and outstanding Common Shares. InCoR also holds secured convertible debentures which, if fully converted into Common Shares, would represent an additional 22,083,332 Common Shares. Assuming the conversion in full of the secured convertible debentures and no additional issuances of Common Shares, after giving effect to the Transaction, InCoR would own or have control or direction over an aggregate of 52,286,666 Common Shares representing approximately 29.35% of the Companys Common Shares.

The Common Shares are being acquired by InCoR in reliance on the private agreement exemption set out in subsection 4.2 of National Instrument 62-104  Take-Over Bids and Issuer Bids (NI 62-104). The purchase of the Common Shares by InCoR is being made from not more than 5 persons in the aggregate, including persons located outside the local jurisdiction and the bid has not been made generally to security holders of the Common Shares of the Company. The market price of the Common Shares as at the close of business on December 28, 2017, determined in accordance with subsection 1.11 of NI 62-104, is CDN $0.037 (the Market Price). The purchase price per Common Share of CDN $0.04255 is not greater than 115% of the market price of the Common Shares. The Common Shares were acquired for investment purposes and InCoR may acquire or dispose of additional Common Shares of the Company by private placement, purchases on the open market or by private agreement.

Pursuant to the terms of the Transaction, Sercor has agreed to cause its nominee director(s) of Search Minerals to resign from all positions with the Company that such persons hold, at such times and in such manners as reasonably requested by InCoR.

A copy of the Early Warning Report filed under applicable securities laws is available under the Companys profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com). A copy of such report may also be obtained by contacting DS Lawyers Canada LLP, InCoRs Canadian legal counsel, at kwells@dsavocats.ca.

The name and address of the Acquiror filing the report is:

InCoR Strategic Metals Inc.

Attn: Jocelyn Bennett

12 Upper Berkeley Street

London W1H 7QD

United Kingdom

Kyler Wells

kwells@dsavocats.ca

1.647.477.7317
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 29

Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal today criticised the Congress government for scrapping the holiday on the occasion of Khalsa Sirjana Diwas (Baisakhi, April 13).

He said: By doing so, the Congress has again rubbed salt over the wounds of the Sikh community which will never tolerate attack on its religious tradition and practices.

Demanding immediate rollback of the decision, Sukhbir alleged that it was shocking that the Congress tried to belittle the historic significance of Baisakhi when Guru Gobind Singh created the Khalsa panth in 1699.

Such decisions should have been taken after due consultations.

There is also resentment over cutting of holidays on the martyrdom day of Guru Teg Bahadur, installation day of Guru Granth Sahib, Mahashivratri and Eid-ul-Zuha, he added.

Meanwhile, Manjit Singh GK, president, Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC), said denying holiday on religious days was unacceptable. The government should instead extend working hours in its offices and ensure better work culture through different means, he said.

The Brahmin community, too, protested over no holiday on Parshuram Jayanti in 2018.

Dr Vikram Sharma, acting president and Behari Lal Saddi, general secretary of Shri Brahmin Sabha, urged the government to withdraw the move.

Gear up for Maghi Mela rally: Sukhbir

Muktsar: Even as political parties refrained from holding conferences during the Shaheedi Jor Mela, Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Friday asked party workers to gear up for the Maghi Mela rally next month in Muktsar. He told SAD workers to mobilise a huge crowd for the partys rally on January 14. Those who will go to mela and wont spare just about four hours for the party will be considered traitors. He said the party would open its offices in all districts. tns
Cairo, December 29

Ten people were killed and eight others were injured in a terrorist attack on a church in Egypts capital on Friday, the government said.

A health ministry spokesman said the attack took place when gunmen on a motorbike opened fire outside Mar Mina church in Helwan area.

At least 10 people, including eight Coptic Christians, were killed in the shootout outside the south Cairo church, he said, adding, one gunman was shot dead as was a security officer.

State-run MENA news agency reported that the other gunman fled the scene.

The ministry said two of the injured are women, adding it employed 10 ambulances to transfer the injured to hospitals.

The attack comes days before the Coptic celebration of the New Year and orthodox Christmas Day on January 7.

Egypts Coptic Christian minority has been targeted by Islamic terrorists in several attacks since last year that have killed over 100 people and wounded many others. PTI
New York, December 29

A massive fire swept through a five-story apartment building in New York, killing at least 12 people including a toddler and injuring four others in the deadliest blaze to hit the city in decades.

The fire broke out around 6:50 pm (local time) on Thursday the first floor of the Prospect Avenue apartment in the Bronx borough of the city and spread quickly, officials said, adding that the cause of the blaze is under investigation.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio during a late night briefing outside the building, near the Bronx Zoo, called the fire the "worst fire tragedy in this city in at least a quarter century."

"This is the worst fire tragedy we have seen in this city  it will rank as one of the worst losses in a fire in many years," the mayor said.

More than 160 firefighters helped bring the blaze under control. The building had no elevators.

A one-year-old child was among those killed in the blaze.

"The victims, ranging in age from 1 to 50, died on various floors of the apartment building," New York Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Niger said.

He said that the tragedy is "historic in its magnitude".

At least 12 people were rescued, but the search of the building continues, and the death toll could rise further, the mayor warned.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in a tweet said that he is closely monitoring the devastating fire in the Bronx.

"As always we are thankful for our first responders. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families tonight, he said.

The building, which had more than 20 flats, was built just over 100 years ago, the New York Times reported, adding that it was not fireproof.

The daily citing the City records said that the building had six open violations, including one for a defective smoke detector on the first floor.

That was the floor where the fire began, Commissioner Nigro said.

The blaze was the worst in the city since 87 people were killed in a 1990 inferno at a Bronx social club.  PTI.
Johannesburg, December 29

South Africas top court today ruled that parliament failed to hold embattled President Jacob Zuma accountable for using state funds to upgrade his private home, in a move that could trigger impeachment proceedings.

The opposition had gone to court arguing that the Speaker had failed to institute appropriate processes to hold Zuma accountable for his failure to abide by the anti- corruption watchdogs recommendations in 2014 over refurbishments at his rural home in the eastern KwaZulu Natal province using some $15 million of taxpayers money. The scandal came to a dramatic climax when the Constitutional Court last year found the president guilty of violating his oath of office by refusing to pay back the money.

We conclude that (National) Assembly did not hold the president to account, said Constitutional Court judge Chris Jafta. The failure by the National Assembly to make rules regulating removal of the President... constitutes a violation, of the constitution, the court said. It ordered that the National Assembly must comply with the constitution to make rules that could be used for the removal of the President without delay.

Defeated in the court and facing mounting public criticism, Zuma later relented and paid $500,000, a sum set by the treasury. In power since 2009, Zuma stepped down last week as president of the ruling ANC party after a 10-year term marked by numerous damning court judgments against him.

The ruling is expected to pile up more pressure on the beleaguered leader. Zuma was succeeded by his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa in a tightly fought contest in which his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma also ran. He is due to resign as state president after general elections in 2019.

ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte said the party would discuss the rulings implications when the partys the National Executive Committee meets on January 10.  AFP
Islamabad, December 29

The Pakistan Army has warned the US against "unilateral action", saying that despite its desire for cooperation on Afghanistan, there could be no compromise on national respect and sovereignty, the media reported on Friday.

"The armed forces are working with friends and want to continue doing so, but there can be no compromise on our national honour. We do not want a conflict with our friends, but will ensure the security of Pakistan," military spokesman Major General Asif GhaAfoor said on Thursday, recalling that Islamabad was being threatened with "unilateral action" by Washington.

This is perhaps the strongest-ever reaction from Islamabad since US functionaries and statements recently began alluding to the possibility of unilateral action, amidst an ongoing row over alleged terrorist sanctuaries, reports Dawn news.

Earlier this month, CIA Director Mike Pompeo warned the US would do everything it could to ensure the elimination of "terrorist safe havens" in Pakistan.

The spokesman maintained that Pakistan would have to stand united in the face of possible unilateral action, saying such challenges could only be tackled through unity.

"Let it be known to all misadventure seekers and probably naAve thinkers that notwithstanding any temporary domestic differences, when it comes to security of our beloved Pakistan, we are all one," he added.

Ghafoor said the "unfounded" US and Afghan narrative had lately acquired a "threatening" tone.

He also listed Pakistan's expectations from the US: ending coercion, engagement based on trust and cooperation, repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan, checking the Indian role in Afghanistan, and getting New Delhi to stop ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC). IANS
Seoul, December 29

South Korea briefly seized and inspected a Hong Kong-registered ship in November for transferring oil products to a North Korean vessel and breaching UN sanctions, a foreign ministry official said today.

Lighthouse Winmore, which was carrying 600 tonnes of oil products from South Koreas Yeosu port, transferred part of its cargo to a North Korean vessel on October 19, the official said. South Korean customs authorities briefly seized and inspected the ship when it returned to Yeosu Port on November 24, he said.

The ship, visited Yeosu on October 11 to load up on Japanese refined oil before heading to Taiwan. Instead of going to Taiwan, vhe vessel transferred oil to the Norths Sam Jong 2 and three other non-North Korean vessels in international waters.  AFP
Johannesburg, December 29

South Africas top court on Friday ruled that Parliament failed to hold embattled President Jacob Zuma accountable for using state funds to upgrade his private home, in a move that could trigger impeachment proceedings.

The Opposition had gone to court arguing that the Speaker of Parliament had failed to institute appropriate processes to hold Zuma accountable for his failure to abide by the anti-corruption watchdogs recommendations in 2014 over refurbishments at his rural home in the eastern KwaZulu Natal province using some $15 million of taxpayers money.

The scandal came to a dramatic climax when the Constitutional Court last year found the president guilty of violating his oath of office by refusing to pay back the money.

We conclude that (National) Assembly did not hold the President to account, said Constitutional Court judge Chris Jafta.

The failure by the National Assembly to make rules regulating removal of the President... constitutes a violation, of the Constitution, the court said.

It ordered that the National Assembly must comply with the constitution to make rules that could be used for the removal of the president without delay.

Defeated in court and facing mounting public criticism, Zuma later relented and paid $5,00,000, a sum set by the treasury.

In power since 2009, Zuma stepped down last week as President of the ruling ANC party after a 10-year term marked by numerous damning court judgments against him.

Todays ruling is expected to pile up more pressure on the beleaguered leader.

Zuma was succeeded by his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa in a tightly fought contest in which his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma also ran.

He is due to resign as state President after the General Election in 2019.

The ANCs deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte said the party had noted the ruling and would discuss its full implications when the party decision-making body the National Executive Committee meets in just under two weeks on January 10, 2018.  AFP
Washington, December 29

The US on Friday condemned a "barbaric" attack on a Shiite cultural centre in Afghanistan that killed 41 people and vowed to "work closely" with the Afghan government to hunt down the terrorists.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that the "enemies" of Afghanistan will not succeed in their attempts to destroy the country and divide the Afghan people, who are resilient and committed to establishing peace and stability.

"The US strongly condemns today's barbaric attack at a cultural and social centre in Kabul, Afghanistan, and offers its deepest condolences to the victims and their families," she said.

She said, "The US stands firmly with the government and people of Afghanistan and will work closely with the National Unity Government to bring the perpetrators of this heinous attack to justice.

The UN Security Council also condemned "the heinous and cowardly" terrorist attack and underlined the need to bring "perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice."

The UNSC urged all states to cooperate actively with the Afghanistan government and all other relevant authorities in this regard.

Expressing solidarity with the people and the government of Afghanistan, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world body firmly believes that a peace process is the only path to ensure Afghanistan's stability.

An Islamic State suicide bomber struck a Shiite cultural center in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 41 people and underscoring the extremist group's growing reach in Afghanistan.  PTI.
Two top trends -- ELDs and the driver shortage -- collided with driver protests in early December. Screenshot from WSYR TV

As 2017 draws to a close, I wanted to share my picks for the top trends and stories of the year. Many of these will continue into 2018 and beyond. Tell us in the comments  how does this compare to your list of top trends? What do you see for the year ahead?

1. The ELD mandate



If I were Time magazine and naming a person of the year, it would have to be the electronic logging device mandate that went into effect Dec. 18. When I look at our statistics for Truckinginfo.com, our March cover story, 14 Things You Need to Know Before ELDs Become Mandatory, was far and away the most popular article of the year. And of course we did many more stories on ELDs, from the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Associations legal challenges and lobbying push to a number of clarifications from the Federal Motor Carrier Administration about the rule  stories that youll find all together in our special ELD channel.

Tied into ELDs, of course, and in reality the source of many of the complaints about electronic logs, are issues with the hours of service rules. In 2017, trucking sighed in relief as a controversial 2013 rule restricting the 34-hour restart was killed. And just getting under way is a federal study to look at the potential for bringing back split sleeper berth time.

2. The Driver Shortage



The driver shortage topped the American Transportation Research Institutes annual critical issues survey, surging six spots higher from the previous year. In fact, the top five on the list are all related to drivers, including ELDs, hours of service, truck parking and driver retention. And the National Transportation Institute, which tracks driver pay packages, said driver pay is poised to spike. Looking at some of our most popular feature of the year, we see a nine-year old story on the Top 10 Reasons Drivers Leave and a 2013 one on 9 Ideas to Find and Keep drivers, showing that this is a tenacious issue that is only getting worse. The American Trucking Associations released its first updated report on the driver shortage since 2015, which projected the shortage to reach 50,000 by the end of 2017, and if current trends hold, more than 174,000 by 2026.

Related to drivers was the question of misclassification  drivers who companies say are independent contractors but who they really treat as employees. At the federal level, the Trump administration rescinded a 2015 Obama administration memo that classified leased owner-operators as employees, allowing carriers to classify them as independent contractors. However, USA Today highlighted egregious examples of worker abuse at the southern California ports, drawing attention to the issue.

3. Regulation Relief

While the Trump administration has had a tough time getting some of its promised reforms through Congress, including infrastructure funding, it has provided some regulatory relief through President Trumps executive order calling for two regulations to be rescinded for every new one. Some potentially onerous rulemakings were withdrawn by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, including sleep apnea screening and a mandatory speed limiter rule  both important issues  but the proposed rules in both cases had some significant problems.

That same attitude toward regulatory relief may also be behind the apparent success of some trailer makers and glider kit makers to get the government to consider granting a reprieve from the Phase 2 Greenhouse Gas regulations affecting their products.

4. Autonomous Technologies

Another popular topic on our website was autonomous trucks, as well as the advanced driver assistance systems that are the stepping-stones that could make them possible.

The mainstream press continues to breathlessly write about self-driving trucks, the American Trucking Associations came out with its first official autonomous truck policy, and federal lawmakers seem to be determined to leave trucking out of self-driving car legislative efforts. However, many in the trucking industry have shifted to talking about ADAS, or advanced driver assistance systems. These are technologies that could be the building blocks of automated driving, but already offer benefits to trucks with drivers, such as increasing improvements to collision mitigation, and going beyond lane departure warning to active lane-keeping.

5. Changing Logistics Models

We spent several installments of our Trucking in the 21st Century series in the first part of the year looking at how e-commerce and other trends are changing the logistics picture. E-commerce and omnichannel marketing, for instance, are prompting many fleets to get into last-mile delivery, and are changing freight patterns for other types of trucking as well.

Then there's Uber for freight, promising to cut out the middleman and bring Uber- and Lyft-type ride-sharing technologies to the freight market. Uber itself launched such an app, but other companies already in the market noted that its not exactly unique.

Meanwhile, Walmart decided to get tighter on its delivery window, saying it would now charge carriers extra fees for deliveries that are late, mispackaged  or delivered earlier than the scheduled delivery time.

6. Electric trucks

The flashy Tesla Semi announcement may have been the most hyped electric truck introduction of the year, but the truck, which is still two years out and carries a lot of unanswered questions, was preceded by a number of more real-world electric truck developments this year. Companies such as Navistar (teaming up with VW), Mitsubishi Fuso, Workhorse, Cummins, Meritor, Eaton, Motiv, and Chanje announced electrification projects in various stages of completion. Daimler Trucks North America says its goal is to develop an e-Cascadia, while Nikola and Toyota are working on fuel-cell-electric Class 8 trucks.

7. Merger Mania

In November, Reuters reported, The consolidation of the U.S. trucking industry is picking up speed, with big trucking companies and private equity funds scooping up smaller firms as a U.S. regulatory mandate is set to go into effect and as drivers push for higher wages.

The biggest deal of the year, of course, was the merger of Swift Transportation, the sixth-largest U.S. trucking company, and Knight Transportation, the 23rd-largest. But there are plenty of others. For instance, Daseke Inc. continues its work to create a giant in the open-deck market; NFI bought CalCartage; Heartland bought Interstate Distributor, and more.

In our June issue, we spoke to Lana Batts, partner emeritus of Transport Capital Partners, a consulting firm specializing in transportation mergers and acquisitions, who credited the wave of mergers and acquisitions to the maturing of the truckload industryand faith in the future.
Beasley Tire offers mobile services that perform on-site alignment and tire balancing on large trucks and mounting and balancing tires on small vehicles.

Low-cost imported tires, retread demand, and the increasing presence of truckstop chains into the tire market are among the trends seen in the truck tire market in Modern Tire Dealers annual survey of commercial tire dealers. (MTD is a sister publication to HDT.)

Retreading Gaining Ground

We feel the quality of our Bandag brand retreads is such that we can compete with a low-cost Chinese tire, says Pete Glesing, president of commercial sales and operations for Best-One Tire and Service. It feels like we are making some headway there. Request for Chinese product, while still there, has lessened throughout the year.

Best-One Tire and Service does quite a bit of business with the nations top 50 fleets, which do not buy the Tier 4 products, according to Glesing. They are regimented to a retread program because they know ultimately thats the best way to drive out costs from that line item.

But private fleets, trailer leasing companies and some owner operators demand low-cost Chinese tires. Were trying to do some things that are starting to move the needle to where we are purchasing and selling less Chinese product and producing and selling more cap and casings, says Glesing.

Bob Majewski is also seeing perceptions tilt toward retreads. We are proving to people how much better the retread is over the low-cost tires, but this takes time, says Majewski, who is chief technical officer for Lebanon, Tennessee-based Sumerel Tire Service Inc.

Dealers saw volumes of low-cost imported tires rise following the U.S. International Trade Commissions surprise decision to not levy duties on Chinese truck and bus tires.

We thought the tariffs were going to go into place, says David Mickelson. He is president and CEO of Graham Tire Co.s South Dakota and Nebraska locations. Like most tire companies, we had made arrangements with our manufacturers. We were very surprised when the tariffs didnt go through, and it certainly caused an impact in the marketplace with an influx of import tires.

Mickelson says that while Graham Tire offers Chinese products, his employees focus on selling the benefits of retreading and the value of a new tire that can be recapped multiple times. The message is getting through as his retreading business has seen some improvement in the last six months. Its still tough but you have fleets that understand the value of retreading. And they are not always just looking at price.

Beasley Tire Service Inc. began producing its first retreads a year ago at a leased facility in Hungerford, Texas. As long as you can fill your shop with tires from fleets that are retreading their own tires, you do OK, says President Bob Beasley.

His company just completed building a larger retread plant next to its corporate headquarters in Houston.

We were a large Michelin associate retread dealer for many years until we finally opened our own shop, says Beasley. The new plant is set to begin producing 250 medium truck tire retreads a day this month. The capacity is 350 retreads per day with the potential for 450.

Beasley Tires commercial offerings include emergency road service, fleet programs, truck alignment, front end repair and a mobile offering called Rolling Tire Shop that mounts and balances tires on light fleet vehicles on site. The company also sells and services industrial tires.

At McCarthy Tire Service Inc., production of medium truck tire retreads is up. The compay expanded one of its nine retread plants in September 2016. At full capacity, the revamped plant in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, produces 1,000 Bandag retreads per day.

The major manufacturers, such as Bridgestone, Continental and Yokohama, make a superior product compared to what you can get in the third and fourth tier thats manufactured in China, says John McCarthy Jr., president. In our opinion, the best way for fleets to run a very good tire program is to start with a new, quality product, wear it out, and then retread that quality casing multiple times.

Truck Stop Tire Business

Although demand for retreads is picking up, dealers are facing more competition from truck stop chains. Travel Centers of America LLC launched its TA Truck Service Commercial Tire Network, which serves the trucking industry through 244 truck stops, in November 2016. Loves Travel Stops & Country Stores Inc. is buying Bridgestone Americas Inc.s Speedco business. The acquisition will add 52 trucking service and lube outlets and bring Loves network to 323 facilities.

Truck stops have been in the commercial tire business forever, says McCarthy. They have a renewed focus on the commercial tire business. Up to now, the companys competitors have been the same size or smaller. Were now competing against someone who is much, much larger than us. We are going to continue to offer tires, road service and mechanical services at our locations and just be the very best servicing provider that we can be, says McCarthy.

Best-Ones Glesing notes that truck stops are more business-to-business now rather than simply retail outlets for buying gas, food, and tires. Truck stops are actively pursuing fleets at their locations, he says.

Best-One is emphasizing its focus on tires and service for trucks and truck tires to customers. Its our core business and we are expert at it, says Glesing. There havent been a lot of wins from the truck stops but theyve certainly been disruptors in going out and saying heres what we have to offer, come and do business with us.

Truck stop chains are providing fuel rebates and immediate reimbursement to fleets for reaching certain levels on tires, retreads and fuel in their networks. Tire buying programs that tie into fuel purchases are having an impact on commercial dealers industry-wide, according to Glesing.

Lindsey Beer, chief strategic officer and a third-generation member of the Zurcher family that founded Best-One in 1948, says the ability of truck stop chains to offer multiple services and products appeals to truck operators.

Where we are focused on our service, our flexibility and our expertise, the one thing the truck stops bring to the table is the one-stop shop. Were not going to get into the oil business or the convenient mart business; its just a way were different. Both of us bring advantages to the table.

Outlook is Optimistic

Despite the marketplace challenges, commercial tire dealers added stores, services and equipment in the last 12 months. Investment in buildings, equipment and people suggests dealers are optimistic about the future of the commercial market and their own businesses.

For instance, in the last 12 months, Best-One Tire and Service opened a retread plant and commercial outlet in Great Bend, Kansas, as well as a commercial store in New Haven, Indiana.

Says Glesing, I think the remainder of the year will be strong, and I think 2018 will be strong commercially. I think asset utilization will hover around 90%, I think tonnage will be up, and Im hoping freight rates will also match the increase in tonnage.

McCarthy Tire opened seven locations in 2017, increased capacity in its retread plants and opened an additional retread plant. All business segments are up in sales year to date. The company has added truck mechanical service at a number of its locations, and its mobile mechanical offering is growing as well.

More fleets are outsourcing trailer repair and mobile trailer repair and mobile tractor maintenance to us because they have trucks domiciled in an area where they dont have their own maintenance facilities. And, says McCarthy, its tough to find good people.

Everybody is looking for mechanics. In a lot of areas weve been able to attract good mechanics, and therefore, we have the people to supply the services our customers need.

McCarthy is bullish on the future. I feel theres going to be more consolidation in our industry, meaning the big dealers are probably going to acquire some of the smaller dealers. Granted, we have competition from truck stops and online companies. Even manufacturers such as Continental are growing their own company-owned locations. But we feel that if we deliver great products and give the best service well continue to grow.
(By Tsem Rinpoche and Pastor Shin)

Chinas great history spans over five thousand years, and with 446 rulers and 67 dynasties, not many emperors stand out. However, there are a few exceptions and these great memorable rulers have been immortalised in Chinese folk culture and history books around the world.

Emperor Kangxi (1654-1722) was the longest-reigning emperor of China and his 61-year reign was characterised by expansion to become one of the greatest empires in history from 1661 to 1722, perfectly described by his posthumous name, Emperor Complying with the Heaven, Magnificently Fortunate, Civilised and Martial, Far-sightedly Perceptive, Modest and Frugal, Generous and Benevolent, Sincere and Honest, Impartial and Conciliating, Industrious and Virtuous, Marvellously Accomplished, and Benevolent. When he passed away, he was laid to rest in the Eastern Qing Tombs.

He laid the foundation for a long period of political stability and economic prosperity in China. His successful administration of the empire is attributed to his vitality as well as his exceptional administrative and military abilities. His tolerance and acceptance of other faiths led to the Edict of Toleration, which barred attacks on Catholic churches, thus legalising Christianity in China. The Jesuit missionaries were even placed in charge of the Imperial Board of Astronomy and they taught Western science at court and were commissioned to write treatises on astronomy and mathematics.

For the common folk, some of Kangxis most significant acts were his six southern tours. The Southern Tour of Inspection (nanxun) was the centrepiece of his interaction with his subjects. One of the three major tasks he was determined to undertake upon assuming the throne was the ambitious effort to control flooding by improving the hydraulic engineering of the Yellow River. His southern tours are a popular subject matter featured in numerous Chinese TV dramas.

However, a lesser known aspect of this great emperors life is his significant connection with Buddhism. Between 1702 and 1723, Kangxi wrote 420 copies of the Heart Sutra, which amounts to approximately one copy every two to three weeks for a period of more than 20 years. Kangxi also wrote copies of the Diamond Sutra, Medicine Sutra, the Universal Gate Chapterof the Lotus Sutra, and more. He engaged in these activities on top of being a workaholic emperor, as Kangxi was known to patiently read and reply endless memorials (official communications to the throne) every day, having extensive discussions with his advisors, as well as granting audiences.

With this in mind, we are pleased to present more information about this emperor, considered an emanation of Bodhisattva Manjushri, and his connection to Wu Tai Shan, the holy abode of Manjushri.



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Wu Tai Shan

Wu Tai Shan or Mount Wutai means Five Plateau Mountain and is sometimes also known as Qingliang Shan. It is a major Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Chinese northeastern province of Shanxi and consists of a group of five flat-topped peaks  the North, South, East, West and Central peaks. The Northern peak is called Beitai Ding or Yedou Feng, and at 3,061 metres is the highest point in northern China.

The association of Manjushri with Wu Tai Shan has long been established since classical times in India. When viewed from India or Central Asia, Chinese scholars identified Wu Tai Shan in the north-east as the abode of Manjushri mentioned in the Avatamsaka Sutra. According to ancient records, there were pilgrimages from India and other Asian countries to Wu Tai Shan as early as the 7th century.

Mount Wutai is home to 53 of Chinas most important monasteries and temples. In fact, it is a temple city that,

is to the Mongols what Mecca is to the Mohammedans, or Jerusalem is to the Jews.

Since the Tang Dynasty (618-907), Wu Tai Shan was a major pilgrimage site for paying homage to the Bodhisattva Manjushri for much of East Asia, with King Tri Ralpachen of Tibet (r. 817-836) requesting woodcut images of Wu Tai, and the famous Japanese monk Ennin (794-864) carrying paintings from Wu Tai Shan back to Japan.

Wu Tai Shan later became an imperial destination during the Qing Dynasty and in 2009, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

For a thousand years from the Northern Wei period (471-499) nine Emperors made 18 pilgrimages to pay tribute to the bodhisattvas, commemorated in stele and inscriptions. Started by the Emperors, the tradition of pilgrimage to the five peaks is still very much alive. With the extensive library of books collected by Emperors and scholars, the monasteries of Mount Wutai remain an important repository of Buddhist culture, and attract pilgrims from across a wide part of Asia. Criterion (ii): The overall religious temple landscape of Mount Wutai, with its Buddhist architecture, statues and pagodas reflects a profound interchange of ideas, in terms of the way the mountain became a sacred Buddhist place, endowed with temples that reflected ideas from Nepal and Mongolia and which then influenced Buddhist temples across China. Criterion (iii): Mount Wutai is an exceptional testimony to the cultural tradition of religious mountains that are developed with monasteries. It became the focus of pilgrimages from across a wide area of Asia, a cultural tradition that is still living. Criterion (iv): The landscape and building ensemble of Mount Wutai as a whole illustrates the exceptional effect of imperial patronage over a 1,000 years in the way the mountain landscape was adorned with buildings, statuary, paintings and steles to celebrate its sanctity for Buddhists.

Establishing Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist Institutions in Wu Tai Shan

The existence of Wu Tai Shan is evidence of a seamless blend of the Chinese and Tibetan cultures, serving as an important bridge for cultural exchanges between the Han, Tibetan, Mongolian people and people of other ethnic origins (UNESCO 2008b:2).

Emperor Kangxi played an important role in fostering this blending of cultures. In conjunction with his conciliatory policy towards the Mongols and Tibetans, Kangxi sent 40 Mongolian lamas to Mount Wutai in 1655 CE, and converted 10 Buddhist monasteries in Wu Tai Shan, backed by his full financial support, into Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist institutions between 1683 and 1705 CE in order to strengthen his standing amongst the Mongol and Tibetan ethnicities that considered Wu Tai Shan sacred.

The Mongol noblemen and reincarnations of important high lamas would take turns to go on pilgrimages to Wu Tai Shan. For instance, 12 of the Inner Mongolian ruling princes and their families would go on pilgrimage to Wu Tai Shan each year, which meant that each of the ruling families of the forty-eight banners of Inner Mongolia would go to Wu Tai Shan every four years. Mongol noblemen and high-ranking lamas were also sometimes invited to accompany the emperor on his pilgrimage. The First Jebtsundamba Khutuktu made a pilgrimage to the mountain with Emperor Kangxi in 1698.

The effect of that action can still be felt today. According to Professor Tuttle, an expert in modern Tibetan history and Sino-Tibetan relations since the 17th Century,

the presence of ethnic Tibetan, Mongolian, and Chinese Tibetan Buddhists at this important Buddhist pilgrimage place has made Riwo Tsenga (Wu Tai Shan) one of the pre-eminent sites of religious and cultural exchange in China.

These ten Tibetan and Mongolian monasteries have their own unique histories and significance.

1. Luohou Si (Rahula Temple) , Drachendzingyi Lhakhang

Although it was constructed in 1492 during the Tang dynasty, much earlier than the other temples, Luohou Si is one of the best-kept monasteries. According to legend, this temple was built on the site where Manjushri gave a discourse with a magic lantern. The temple was named after Rahula, Buddha Shakyamunis son, symbolically meaning that this is a place where all living creatures can escape torment.

The grand temple complex consists of six yards, 16 halls, and more than 100 rooms. The temple is famous for its iconic 3-metre tall wooden lotus mechanism with a large, round plate carved with sea waves and 18 arhats. When the wooden lotus blooms (opens), four golden Buddhas seated back-to-back can be seen arising from inside the lotus.

The temple also has a tantric chamber with the images of Yamantaka, Mahakala, Guhyasamaja, Heruka, Kalarupa, and Palden Lhamo. Luohou Temple is a famous pilgrimage destination, especially among Mongolians.

2. Shouning Si , Takten Dechen Ling

It is said that during the Northern and Southern dynasties, the third son of Emperor Wenxuan of Northern Qi was sent to war all year round and was later wounded. Having seen the disastrous effects of war, he realised that he had committed grievous crimes and thus began to despise court affairs.

In 556 AD, he contracted a serious illness. Repeated treatments were ineffective and he was unable to heal. The prince then visited Mount Wutai on pilgrimage. One day, he dreamt of an old man who chided him for his yearning for glory (through war), which had caused great harm to the people. Full of guilt, the prince went to a relatively flat place on the ridge, arranged firewood, lit it then walked into the fire to kill himself. The outline of a Bodhisattva could be seen amidst the flames. This is what people later referred to as the Buddha that appears from burning ones body.

The Manjushri Hall in Shouning Si is said to be the spot where the prince self-immolated, and the building is a hexagonal pavilion. The pavilion used to house a wooden image of the prince, but has since been replaced by a colourful Manjushri statue.

The temple has a huge scroll (314-cm long and 76-cm wide) with the seal of Emperor Kangxi. It is said that the scroll tells the history of the Emperors encounter with a goddess. According to legend, during the reign of Emperor Kangxi, the leader of the Dzungars colluded with Russia to launch a rebellion. Escorted by General Bai, Emperor Kangxi travelled to Inner Mongolia where General Bai is said to have killed a Lama. In the ensuing chaos, Emperor Kangxi had no choice but to flee to a nearby forest to escape the angry Mongols.

Emperor Kangxi had been wandering in the forest for almost two days, hungry and thirsty, when an old lady carrying a basket of food approached. The emperor begged the old lady for some food and asked where she was from. She replied that she came from the Five Peaked Mountain (Wu Tai Shan). When the emperor asked how she travelled 800 miles, it was then that the old lady pulled out some silver thread from his sleeves and, using them, pulled herself up into the sky. The emperor then recalled a story he had heard from the old monks of Wu Tai Shan about this goddess.

After the emperor returned to China, he set off for Wu Tai Shan to pay his respects and give thanks to the goddess for saving his life. In Shouning Temple, he bestowed the title Holy Mother of Five Peaks to Xian Niangniang (Goddess of Thread) and swiftly wrote Wu Feng Hua Yu which means May the light of the five peaks continue to shine. This scroll was circulated several times and was preserved by an old man called Lan Juhua of Baishi Village. Later on, the people of Wu Tai Shan made a copy of this scroll on a wooden plaque and hung it under the eaves of Shouning Temples hall.

This temple is also one of five monasteries in Wu Tai Shan renovated by Lama Tsongkhapas disciple and personal attendant, Sakya Yeshe. In 1413, Lama Tsongkhapa received a second invitation to visit the Ming court of the Yongle Emperor (, r.1402-1424); he had refused an earlier invitation received in 1408. Not wanting to refuse a second time but unwilling to go himself, in 1414 Lama Tsongkhapa sent Sakya Yeshe in his stead.

3. Sanquan Si , Chupmik Sumdre Ling

Located on the hillside of Mount Wutai near the town of Taihuai in Shanxi province, Sanquan Temple gets its name from the three bubbly springs in a well beside the temple. The waters of Sanquan Si are said to connect with the Black Dragon Pool (Heilong Chi, ) of the Northern Terrace.

Built in the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), the temple was reconstructed by Master Xinglian during the period of Ming Zhengtong (1436-1449). Master Xinglian rebuilt the nave and cast a bronze statue of Buddha, enshrined on a lotus base in the nave. Sanquan Temple has a total of 16 halls and rooms.

4. Yuhua Chi or Yuhua Si 

According to the Qingliangshan zhi records, five hundred arhats reside here at Yuhua Chi. It was built in the Tang Dynasty by one of the four great translators of Chinese Buddhism, Venerable Bukong, who was from North India. In 767 AD, he sent his disciples Hanguang, Xingman and Chuntuo to build Jinge Si as well as Yuhua Chi Temple.

At Venerable Bukongs request, five monasteries including Yuhua Chi Temple and Jinge Si were installed as state temples. The temple is also famous for the harmonious existence of monks in both the Tibetan and Chinese traditions practising and living together in the same monastery.

5. Qifo Si (Seven Buddha Temple)  , Sanggye Rapdun Gon

According to Ming Dynasty inscriptions, Qifo Si was founded in the Tang Dynasty. As the legend goes, a monk created seven Buddha statues at the foot of the hill. One day, the villagers found that the seven Buddha statues had been relocated to the top of the hill.

The nagas who resided in the five caves on the hill were Protectors of the Dharma, and they felt that it was disrespectful to install the Buddhas at the foot of the hill. Thus, they moved the Buddha statues to the hilltop. This hill was later known as Seven Buddha Hill, and a temple was built around the seven Buddhas.

6. Jingang Ku (Vajra Grotto) , Dorje Puk

A description from Gu Qingliang Zhuan gives us insight into the abode of Manjushri on Wu Tai Shan, where he resided even before Lord Buddha was born, and the treasures that are kept within this grotto.

Legend speaks of the Vajra Grotto, where all the items offered to the Buddhas of the Three Times are concealed and kept. It is stated in Qiyuan Tuthat,

within Jetavana was a set of Heavenly musical [instruments] made of the seven jewels. According to Linji Ji (Record of Numinous Traces), these musical [instruments] were made by the King of the Raksasa of Lanka Mountain and presented to Kasyapa Buddha as an offering. After the parinirvana (passing) of Kasyapa Buddha, Manjushri would go to the Vajra Grotto of Clear and Cold Mountain. When Sakyamuni Buddha is born, he will go to Jetavana for twelve years, and Manjushri will return and enter the Vajra Grotto of Clear and Cold Mountain.

Furthermore, [the grotto] contains a silver harp with a silver deva sitting on a seven-jewelled flower playing this harp. Since the time of Kasyapa Buddha, it possesses the gold paper and silver writing of the great vinaya-pitaka and the silver paper and gold writing of the sutra-pitaka. After the parinirvana (passing) of the Buddha, Manjushri will again go to the Vajra Grotto of Clear and Cold Mountain.

Among the manuscripts at Dunhuang, there is a story about a monk named Buddhapali who travelled to Mount Wutai on pilgrimage. When he arrived on Mount Wutai, Buddhapali met an old man who asked him to return to India so that he could bring the Ushnisha Vijaya Dharani Sutra () from India to China and propagate it in China.

Buddhapali went through hardship and made tremendous efforts to translate and ensure the sutra was propagated. When he had done so, Buddhapali returned to Wu Tai Shan again. Manjushri greeted him in his true form and led Buddhapali to the Vajra Cave, where it is said that Buddhapali meditated and entered clear light.

7. Shancai Cave , Norzang Druppuk

This Wu Tai Shan site is a Shaman temple built during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), when the Shunzhi Emperor was said to have been a monk here. It faces the Qingshui River with its beautiful scenery, with the Dailuo Ding at its back.

The temple has two courtyards about 100 metres apart. The lower courtyard has three halls on a central axis with meditation rooms and monks quarters to either side. The upper courtyard stands on a cliff overlooking the surrounding area and offers breathtaking scenery.

8. Puan Si 

This temple, which faces west, has Longfeng (Dragon-and-Phoenix) Mountain at its back and Bijia Mountain in front of it. The Qingshui River flows in front, with two hills forming a natural screen for the temple, protecting it from both the left and the right.

9. Yongquan Si  ()

Formerly known as Yongquan Si, the temple is known today as Folin Temple. It was given its name due to its location near a source of spring water with a strong current, hence the name Yongquan (Gushing Spring).

Kangxi visited this temple in 1683 and praised its beauty with poetic verses. In 1689, when the renovation was completed, he gifted various plaques to the temple.

10. Tailu Si ()

Tailu Si was built during Emperor Kangxis reign. In 1683, the emperor made an inspection tour to Wu Tai Shan and shot a tiger that had been menacing the locals on his way back. Thereafter, the place was renamed Shehu Chuan (or shooting tiger) village and an imperial residence was built there for successive emperors of the Qing Dynasty to reside in during their pilgrimages to Mount Wutai.

The main building of the imperial residence was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), and the existing site now covers an area of 15,000 square metres with three halls, a monument and a white marble bridge. The government is currently working on restoring the imperial residence of the Kangxi emperor.

Building and Renovating Monasteries in Wu Tai Shan

Apart from institutionalising the ten monasteries above, Emperor Kangxi also built two monasteries on Wu Tai Shan. One of them is Tailu Si (mentioned above) and the other is Guangren Si.

Located next to Luohou Temple, Guangren Si played an important role in the past as a summer residence for His Holiness the Panchen Lama and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Named Shifang Tang, as a reception hall of Luohou Temple for visiting monks from Mongolia and Tibet, it was established as a standalone monastery later on. Many of the monks in Guangren Si hail from Labrang Monastery, one of the largest and most influential monasteries in Amdo, Tibet.

Emperor Kangxis support was not limited to institutions of Tibetan Buddhism. In 1698, Kangxi renovated Bishan Si and Shuxiang Si, two predominantly Chinese monasteries, with 6000 taels of gold.

Shuxiang Si () is located on the edge of Taihuai Village where the major temples, including Pusading, are located. Kangxis imperial support to this monastery included numerous poems to its iconic image, as well as financial support. This Chinese Buddhist monastery became so highly regarded among the Tibetan and Mongolian population that the Tumed Mongol prince Yeshe Dondrup (1792 1855) composed a text about the history and environs of this temple with Ngawang Tendar of Alasha (A lag sha Ngag dbang bstan dar, 17591831), an erudite Tibetan Buddhist grammarian of the time.

Bishan Siis famous for its tradition of providing free board and lodging for visiting monks, nuns and lay Buddhist practitioners. If one does not have enough money for the return trip, the temple will even provide financial assistance if they are able. Due to this practice of generosity, Bishan Si was also known as Guangji Maopeng (), illustrating the extended assistance and aid it provides for travellers.

Apart from Wu Tai Shan, Emperor Kangxi also built monasteries in other locations such as Ganden Sumtseling in Zhongdian, designed to look like the Potala Palace in Lhasa, and Amarbayasgalant Monastery in Inner Mongolia. These two temples would play a significant role in the propagation of Buddhadharma in their respective areas.

Imperial Patronage

The donations to the temples were unprecedented during the Kangxi period. Generally the gifts offered consisted of money, various fabrics (including robes with the imperial insignia of the dragon upon them), incense and candles, Tibetan scarves (khata), and sometimes jewels, fruit, tasselled bridles, prayer flags, and imperially inscribed placards. Especially large offerings were made four times in conjunction with a particular ceremony. In addition, exceptional gifts to the monasteries were significant. On the emperors first visit, in 1683, each temple received two hundred taels of silver. On this and other occasions the emperor disbursed over three thousand taels of silver and nine thousand taels of gold. These cash endowments do not include the expense of creating placards and stelae for over sixty sites, Buddhist images, imperially produced Buddhist canonical works, and frequent road repairs; nor do they include the regular allowances provided to the monks that were sponsored by the court.

Emperor Kangxi also gave donations that preceded a ceremony, which is not the norm, an indicator that Kangxi was truly a benevolent emperor who supported the monastics and Buddhadharma.

1684

Squad leader, ten cavalry and thirty soldiers were sent to protect Pusading.

1685

Second imperial monastery (Tailu Si) was built with 3,108 taels of gold and staffed with lamas.

1698

Pusading was given one thousand taels of silver. Bishan Si and Shuxiang Si were renovated with three thousand taels of gold.

1702-1708

Numerous Manchu governor memorials were sent regarding rebuilding of monasteries and repair of roads.

At Lozang Tenpas request, the imperial gift of a Tibetan Buddhist canon (fanshu zang jing) was presented.

1705

At Lozang Tenpas request, gilt images of Bodhisattvas (to flank Manjushri) and lion mounts (for Manjushri) were delivered from the imperial household workshops.

1705/6

At Lozang Tenpas request, the imperial gift of a second Tibetan Buddhist canon was presented.

According to Tuttle,

the abundance and nature of the evidence for imperial support of Tibetan Buddhism at Wu Tai Shan, preserved in the gazetteers and corroborated by other Qing government documents, indicate the importance that the imperial family, and especially the Kangxi emperor, attached to this patronage.

Emperor Kangxis support did not only come in the form of financial sponsoring, but from a 1714 stele inscription, we know that he was a true believer as rituals and pujas were done regularly for many purposes, especially for the protection of the state, performed by monks of the Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist traditions in Wu Tai Shan.

Every new and full moon the Qingxiu chanshi (Ding-ceng-jian-cuo Bstan dzin rgya mtsho) leads the ge-long and ban-di (ban de, Tibetan Buddhist monks) and all Tibetan and Chinese monks to ascend to (Jingang)ku (Banruo si) in unison, to reverently offer mystic incantations and make solemn prostrations (fengyan mizhang qiao chi [qin] wu ti). They wish an eternally stable imperial realm and longevity to the emperor above, and pray that the beings of the four births and the nine existences below all cross to the other shore.

The Kangxi emperor visited Wu Tai Shan twice in 1683. Earlier in the year, ceremonies dedicated to the longevity of the imperial family were conducted and in his later visit the same year, he made offerings for prayers dedicated to the grand empress dowagers longevity (wanshou wuliang). Below is a list of imperially sponsored rituals at Wu Tai Shan during Emperor Kangxis reign.

1674

First notice of sponsorship of specific rituals since 1657  a ritual to bless the dynasty and help the people (zhuguo youmin).

1683

First visit by an emperor since the Yuan dynasty. On three separate occasions, the Kangxi emperor gave money for:

A three-day life-extending ceremony (yenshou wuliang daochang) to pray for the grand empress dowager

Prayers to protect the grand empress dowagers prosperity and long-life (fuqi yanmao shengshou wuliang)

Prayers for long-life (wanshou wuliang)

1687

Life-extending ceremony (yenshou wuliang daochang) sponsored for the unwell grand empress dowager, who was being attended by the Kangxi emperor.

After the grand empress dowager passed away, a compassionate grace ceremony (cien daochang) was sponsored for her.

1690

The empress dowager sent offerings for a 49-day long-life ceremony (wanshou wuliang) to protect the Kangxi emperor.

1693

An imperial prince sent offerings for a long-life ceremony (wansui wanshou wuliang daochang) to protect the Kangxi emperor

The seventh prince (Yinsi, b. 1681) sent offerings for a long-life ceremony (wansui wanshou wuliang daochang) to protect the Kangxi emperor

The empress dowager sent offerings for a 49-day long-life ceremony (wanshou wuliang) to protect the Kangxi emperor

1698

The Kangxi emperor made offerings to establish a three-day ceremony to protect the dynasty and enrich the people (huguo yumin).

1702

Memorial from the Shanxi governor: Recitations were to be held every month on the new and full moon as well as days 3, 7, 17 and 27 in relations to the emperors long-life (wanshou wuliang).

Manchu governor memorialised the recitation of sutras in relation to long-life (wanshou wuliang).

1706

Lama prayed on behalf of emperor.

Manchu governor memorialised thrice regarding the recitation of sutras in relation to long-life (wanshou wuliang)

Manchu governor practised ritual purification and abstinence from meat and alcohol in order to pray before Pusadings (and each temples) Buddhist images

1707

Manchu governor visited Wu Tai Shan to start the long-life sutra recitations on behalf of the Kangxi emperor.

Manchu governor memorialised thrice regarding the recitation of sutras, most often in relation to long-life (wanshou wuliang).

1708

Numerous Manchu governor memorials with regards to the recitation of sutras, most often in relations to long-life (wanshou wuliang).

In summary, Kangxi visited Wu Tai Shan five times for pilgrimage, and awarded two sets of Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures, 55 plaques, wrote 15 poems, commissioned more than 20 inscriptions, repaired more than 20 temples, donated seven gold Buddha statues, and gifted more than 6,000 taels of gold and silver and uncountable royal treasures. The abundance and nature of Kangxis imperial support shows that his patronage of Wu Tai Shan was a serious and important matter.

Supporting the Jasagh Lamas

Another important factor in the development and growth of Wu Tai Shan was the establishment of the role of Jasagh Lama, developed from the 5th Dalai Lamas visit to Beijing in 1653. These Tibetan-appointed lamas, often sent from Lhasa, served as intermediaries between Tibet and the Qing court. The Jasagh Lama played an important role as the Head Lama (monk) of Wu Tai Shan and at the imperial monastery, Yong He Gong, in Beijing. Apart from overseeing the imperial monasteries, the Jasagh Lamas also taught Tibetan language and Buddhism to the imperial families.

Although the role was set by Kangxis predecessor, the Kangxi emperors reign saw that appointees to this position of leadership on Mount Wutai would enjoy unprecedented recognition and favour. In 1683, Ngawang Lozang, the first Jasagh Lama, was given an honorific title and in the same year, the Kangxi emperor came to the mountain twice to arrange for prayers on behalf of the dynasty.

Ngawang Lozangs successor, Lozang Tenpel was able to secure imperial permission and support to re-tile the roof of the main temple of Wu Tai Shan, Pusading, with imperial yellow-gold ceramic tiles reserved for use on imperial palaces and other elite homes. Pusading was later known as an imperial touring-palace (xinggong), hosting occasional visits by the Qing emperors to Wu Tai Shan.

The third Jasagh Lama, Lozang Tenpa, was granted a letter patent, a silver seal and the title Qingxiu Chanshi. These imperial gifts gave legal confirmation of his position as Head Lama in Wu Tai Shan. In 1704, a new Jasagh Lama named Tenzin Gyatso was appointed. During his tenure, Emperor Kangxi and his son, the future Yongzheng emperor, came to Wu Tai Shan to set up regular long-life prayers at the mountain on the full and new moon of each month.

Imperial Publications of Mount Wutai Gazetteer

Related to the Jasagh Lamas, especially the first Jasagh Lama Ngawang Lozang was the first Mount Wutai gazetteer (). In the same year, he also requested that a Mongol prepare the first Mongolian version of a gazetteer. During the Qing dynasty, Wu Tai Shan was the subject of more gazetteers than any other site in the empire. This was unprecedented especially for this rural, almost frontier, location. These gazetteers are imperial editions, and most can be linked to the imperial court. Below is a list of Wu Tai Shan (or Qingliang Shan ) gazetteers published during Emperor Kangxis reign.

1661

Qingliang Shan Zhi  [Clear and Cool Mountain Gazetteer] (reprint of 1596 edition), with a preface by the first Jasagh Lama (Mongolian) Ngawang Lozang, leader of Chinese and Tibetan affairs at the mountain.

1667

Mongolian gazetteer by Lozang Tenzin, at Ngawang Lozangs behest.

1694

Qingliang Shan Xinzhi  [New Clear and Cool Mountain Gazetteer] edited, with a preface by the third Jasagh Lama (Chinese) Lozang Tenpa.

1701

Qingliang Shan Xinzhi  [New Clear and Cool Mountain Gazetteer], edited by the third Jasagh Lama Lozang Tenpa, imperial reprint.

1701

Mongolian translation of Qingliang Shan Xinzhi [New Clear and Cool Mountain Gazetteer], with a preface by the Kangxi emperor.

Manchu translation of Qingliang Shan Xinzhi [New Clear and Cool Mountain Gazetteer], imperial print.

1707

Qingliang Shan Xinzhi  [New Clear and Cool Mountain Gazetteer] reprint made.

1721

Second Mongolian edition of Lozang Tenzins text.

The effort expended by the imperial court to encourage the production of gazetteers devoted to the mountain is evidence of Emperor Kangxis royal patronage of Wu Tai Shan. In comparison to the scattered Ming gazetteer references to prominent visiting lamas such as the 5th Karmapa and Shakya Yeshe (one of Tsongkhapas close disciples), or to minor local bureaucratic Tibetan Buddhist lamas of the Ming, the biographies in the new gazetteers included Tibetan Buddhists who were not just visiting dignitaries or minor bureaucrats, but rather men specifically given imperial positions and praised by Emperor Kangxi.

Emperor Kangxi as Manjushri

A very important point to keep in mind when considering Emperor Kangxis connection to Wu Tai Shan is the belief that he is the Bodhisattva Manjushri himself. While some may claim that the Qing emperors patronage of Wu Tai Shan and their identification with Manjushri was politically motivated, there is convincing evidence that this was not the case with Kangxi.

Manchu emperors were referred to as Manjushri in Mongol and Tibetan materials, one such example is in the biography of Changkya Rolpai Dorje, where Emperor Kangxi was referred to as Manjushri, the sublime Kangxi. Other sources, such as the Hor chos-byung (1819) or History of Buddhism in Mongolia, written in Tibetan by Jigme Rigpe Dorje, refers to the Manchu emperors as the Manjugosha Emperors.

In the imperial preface of the Mongolian Kangyur, produced by the Kangxi emperor between 1718-1720, it refers to Kangxi as an emanation of Manjushri:

Then Manjushri, the saviour of all living forms, [with the] intellect of all the Buddhas, was transformed into human form, and ascended the Fearless Lion Throne of gold; and this was none other than the sublime Emperor Kangxi-Manjushri who assisted and brought joy to the entire vast world

The third Jasagh Lama Lozang Tenpas preface to the 1701 Qingliang Shan Xinzhi provides further evidence to support this view, as it refers to Kangxi as the present emperor, teacher of the previous seven Buddhas, who has manifested as the sage of the ninth layer. As Manjushri was known to be the teacher of the previous seven Buddhas, the preface contains a veiled reference to Kangxi as an emanation of the Bodhisattva Manjushri that could easily be understood by Chinese Buddhists.

Altogether, the Kangxi emperor personally visited Wu Tai Shan five times  twice in 1683 and again in 1698, 1702, and 1710. This is an extraordinary number for an emperor, underscoring the close relationship between the new Manchu sovereigns and Chinas state protector, Manjushri, who resided there. The emperors act of slaying a tiger is also likened to Manjushri subjugation of poisonous dragons in subduing the land. This event was commemorated with the construction of an imperially sponsored monastery, Tailu Si, at Tiger Shot Stream (Shehu Chuan), the new name given to the site of the tiger killing. This scene remains the most widely reproduced scene of all Kangxis tours to Wu Tai Shan.

Perhaps then, we can find the answer in the signs from the divine. As recorded in the Wu Tai Shan gazetteer, one of Manjushris apparitions, for which Wu Tai Shan is famous, could be seen during the imperial visit and pilgrimage of Emperor Kangxi to the mountain.

Only at the Western Terrace there was an auspicious, five coloured, and majestic appearance of the Bodhisattva. [When] the imperial carriage arrived at Middle Peak, the place was mysterious and among all the princes and imperial guardsmen, as well as officials serving in the capital and in the outer provinces, there was no one who did not praise it.

In Changkya Rolpai Dorjes edition of the gazetteer, it was mentioned that:

The Kangxi emperor renovated all old temples and monasteries. He personally came to make pilgrimage, and, after worshipping, made costly gifts to the sangha. In particular, at the time when he prayed on behalf of his mother, a light of five colours appeared above the western mountain. Thereupon, the Venerable One showed his body and it was seen, unfading, until the emperor had arrived at Middle Peak.

The concept of a Dharma King is not uncommon  as with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Tibet who is believed to be the personification of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, so is the Qing Emperor Kangxi believed to be the Bodhisattva Manjushri personified.





Ksitigarbha, Buddha Amitabha and Dorje Shugden. Click on image to enlarge or for more high resolution thangka downloads click here

Three Saints of the Western Pureland  Amituofo, Dashizhi and Kuan Yin together with Dorje Shugden. Click on image to enlarge or for more high resolution thangka downloads click here

Buddha Amitabha and Kuan Yin together with Dorje Shugden. Click on image to enlarge or for more high resolution thangka downloads click here

Kuan Yin (Goddess of Compassion), Wei Tuo and Dorje Shugden. Click on image to enlarge or click here for more beautiful thangkas.

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Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 13 of the Malaysian Copyright Act 1987, allowance is made for fair dealing for purposes such as non-profit research, private study, criticism, review or the reporting of current events. The Operator and author(s) of TsemRinpoche.com, a not-for-profit blog, do not claim ownership on the intellectual property rights of the contents, images and/or videos reproduced in this article. Any subsisting intellectual property rights shall belong to the legal owner of the contents, images and/or videos.
(By Tsem Rinpoche and Pastor Adeline Woon)

Introduction

Geshe Lobsang Tayang (1867-1937 CE), also known as Jetsun Lobsang Tayang or Jetsun Lobsang Tamdin, was born in 1867 in an area within the Gobi desert, an arid region between northern China and southern Mongolia. Known for his vast knowledge of Buddhism, Geshe Lobsang Tayang is often said to be as learned as the Indian pandit Ashvagosha, whose most famous work is the 50 Verses of Guru Devotion. Geshe Lobsang Tayang was also the lineage holder of many sacred practices.

Geshe Lobsang Tayang began his traditional Buddhist education at the age of four, during which he learned the alphabet and began translating different texts. 13 years later, at the age of 17, Geshe Lobsang Tayang departed for Ulaanbataar where he joined Kunga Choling Monastery. Kunga Choling was a philosophical college belonging to the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, and its curriculum focused on the textbooks used in Drepung Loseling Monastery in Tibet.

It was originally founded in 1809 by the Fourth Jetsundampa Khutuktu as part of the Ikh Khuree Monastic City complex. Jebtsundamba Khutuktu is literally translated as Holy Precious Master of Mongolia and it is a title given to the spiritual heads of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia. The spiritual head also holds the Bogd Gegeen title, which translates as the Highest Enlightened Saint, making him the highest ranking lama in Mongolia. In 1938, a year after Geshe Lobsang Tayangs death, the monastery was almost completely destroyed and was later rebuilt in 2001 on the original site.

It was at Kunga Choling that Geshe Lobsang Tayang studied both Sutra and Tantra under the spiritual guidance of Khewan Jigje and Acharya Sangye. Later on, he received full monastic ordination from Palden Chophel, the abbot of Ulaanbataar. In 1907, Geshe Lobsang Tayang received the Kachupa degree which is the equivalent of a Bachelors degree, obtained after five to six years of study. He was 40 years old at the time.

In addition to his scholarly prowess, Geshe Lobsang Tayang is also known for performing miracles during his lifetime. One such incident was his revelation of two miraculous stupas inscribed with magical letters on Wu Tai Shan in Northern China, one of the four sacred mountains in Chinese Buddhism and a place where Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom, is said to reside. In 1922, Geshe Lobsang Tayang established a Tantric college, and in 1926, a Buddhist college based on Drepung Gomang Monasterys curriculum.

A scholar and prolific author, Geshe Lobsang Tayang composed numerous works on classical Buddhist themes, especially Buddhist philosophy. History also occupied a very prominent role in his writings. Amongst his other works, he produced an abbreviated translation of Faxians () travel journals that was later published in 16 volumes.

He also initiated the volume of texts known as the Dorje Shugden Be Bum or collected works, that includes a number of early Dorje Shugden texts written by various Tibetan and Mongolian masters. Geshe Lobsang Tayang composed the introduction and history for the Be Bum and the catalogue of texts that it included. The Namthar (biography) of Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen, the previous incarnation of Dorje Shugden, and his reincarnation lineage is also included in the Be Bum.

Geshe Lobsang Tayangs collection of written works, known as his sungbum, has been used by Mongolian, Tibetan and Western scholars of Tibetan Buddhism such as Lhatsun Rinpoche, one of Kyabje Yongdzin Ling Rinpoches teachers. The late Kyabje Yongdzin Ling Rinpoche was His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lamas senior tutor. In the book The Life of My Teacher: A Biography of Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama gave insight into the practices that were included in Geshe Lobsang Tayangs collected works:

One of Ling Rinpoches teachers, the Mongolian Geshe Palden Sangpo from Tashi Khyil Monastery had received many teachings and consequently was invited to Lhasa by Lhatsun Rinpoche. Ling Rinpoche, along with Kyabje Takdrak Rinpoche, Khangsar Rinpoche from Gomang college and others received the initiation into the thirty-three white, peaceful deities of the Amitayus inner practice from the Niguma tradition, the twenty-three red and wrathful deities of the secret practice, the nine red deities of the very secret Rechung Gongkhuk lineage, the nine white deities that grant immortality, the seventeen deities of Sitatapatra, and many others, all based upon the manual of the famous nineteenth-century Mongolian Geshe Lobsang Tayang from Dhakural. Later, Ling Rinpoche invited Lhatsun Rinpoche to his residence at the Norbulingka. There, over the next month, Ling Rinpoche received many sutra and tantra teachings from Lhatsun Rinpoche, who had in turn received them from the Tashi Khyil Mongolian Dorampa Geshe Palden Sangpo and the Dakhural Geshe Lobsang Tayang.

Geshe Lobsang Tayangs Sungbum

Geshe Lobsang Tayangs collected works (sungbum) were first catalogued in Dr. Lokesh Chandras Materials for a History of Tibetan Literature published in 1963 by the International Academy of Indian Culture of New Delhi. Between 1975 and 1976, Geshe Lobsang Tayangs collected works were published as The Collected Works (gsung bum) of Rje-btsun Blo-bzang rta-mgrin by the Mongolian Lama Guru Deva Rinpoche in New Delhi.

Click here to download the entire sungbum

Below is a summary of the contents of the Sungbum:

Volume 1

Geshe Lobsang Tayangs compositions:

108 Verses in Praise of Great Compassion

Praises to various bodhisattvas, such as Always Crying based on their liberation stories.

Geshe Lobsang Tayangs commentaries on:

Exalted Praise [to Buddha Shakyamuni] by the Indian master Udbhata Siddhasvamin

Wheel of Sharp Weapons by Dharmarakshita

The Poison Destroying Peacocks Mind Training by Dharmarakshita

Praise Exceeding that of the Gods by Shamkarapati

Kaliyugaparikatha by Acharya Mati Chitra

Also included in this volume are accounts on the origins of various monasteries in Khalkha Mongolia.

Volume 2

A history of Buddhism in India, Tibet and Mongolia

Volume 3

Various writings on the Vinaya (the Buddhist monastic code of conduct)

A commentary to The Essence of the Ocean of Vinaya by Je Tsongkhapa

Volume 4

A Brief Exposition on the Presentation of the Grounds and Paths of the Three Vehicles According to the System of the Perfection Vehicle, Essence of the Ocean of Profound Meaning. This text was mentioned in Jules Levinsons Ph.D. dissertation Metaphors of Liberation: A Study of Grounds and Paths According to The Middle Way Schools. Levinson gave a brief summary of this work as follows:

Blo bzang rta dbyangss text is divided into two major sections that are approximately equal in length. The first section explains the grounds and paths of the Hinayana and Mahayana. The second section analyzes controversial points on which various scholars and schools disagree. In that latter section, Blo bzang rta dbyangs is particularly interested in distinguishing the Prasangika Madhyamaka schools position from that of the Yogacara- Svatantrika Madhyamaka.

Volume 5

A commentary to Maitreyas Distinguishing Dharmas and Dharmata based on Rongtongpas commentary according to Je Tsongkhapas tradition. This commentary is translated in A Study of the Dharmadharmatavibhanga by Raymond E. Robertson.

Volume 6

Various Guru Yoga texts including practices associated with the Hundreds of Deities of the Land of Joy

Volume 7

Various puja texts including those related to Maitreya and Medicine Buddha

Volume 8

Various texts related to tantric deities such as Heruka and Guhyasamaja

Volumes 9, 10 and part of 11

Works related to the Kalachakra practice

Volume 11 also contains several works related to Dorje Shugden in the following sequence:

Propitiation to Dorje Shugden called rgyal chen rdo rje shugs ldan rtsal gyi bskang phrin mdor bsdus don chen myur grub based on a propitiation text written by Kirti Rinpoche. Praise to Four Faced Mahakala written by Sonam Gyatso, the Third Dalai Lama that was amended to become a praise to Dorje Shugden. Geshe Lobsang Tayang stated that Dorje Shugden became known as an emanation of Four Faced Mahakala, and that Dorje Shugden is the uncommon protector of Jamgon Lama Tsongkhapas tradition of profound view and whose practice is related to secret tantra.

Also included in this volume is a catalogue and introduction to the Dorje Shugden Be Bum (collected works from various sources) titled The Meteoric Wheel Enclosure of Blazing Activity. What is remarkable is that Geshe Lobsang Tayang was able to secure the transmissions for nearly all of the texts that he collected. In addition, although the project was initiated by Geshe Lobsang Tayang, the Dorje Shugden Be Bum is a living document and a complete collection of texts about Dorje Shugden that has been published and re-published several times as listed below, with the first modern publication in 1984:

Introduction and catalogue to the Be Bum called The Uncommon Dharma Protector of the Second Conqueror Manjunatha

A collection of various historical accounts about Dorje Shugden and other protectors, titled Some Historical Accounts of the Secret Activities of Lamas, Gods and Protectors

The Collected Rituals for Performing All Tasks through the Propitiation of the Great Protective Deity of Tsongkhapa, Manjushri Re-embodied, Dorje Shugden. Geshe Lobsang Tayang started this collection while Kyabje Yongzin Trijang Rinpoche later expanded on it.

The Propitiation of Manjunatha, the Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden published by Sera Mey Press in 1992. This work is a much shorter collection of rituals. Most of its content can be found in the Dorje Shugden Be Bum with a few exceptions.

Volume 12

Various texts on the Tantric practices of Guhyasamaja, Chakrasamvara, Vajrayogini, Vajrabhairava, Yamantaka, Vajrapani, Black Manjushri and other deities

Volume 13

Various texts related to the practices of Tara as well as Vaishravana (Namtose) and other deities

Volume 14

Various protector rituals including a history of the activities of various protectors

Volume 15

Various texts from Geshe Lobsang Tayangs collected works

Volume 16

This volume primarily documents all the transmissions Geshe Lobsang Tayang received from various masters

Lists of transmission lineages that Geshe Lobsang Tayang received, which provides a fascinating glimpse of the lineage masters.

Volume 17

Various texts from Geshe Lobsang Tayangs collected works

Click here to download the entire sungbum

Conclusion

Geshe Lobsang Tayang is fondly remembered and praised to this day for his meticulous collection of academic works that are widely used by both Western and Eastern scholars alike. His writings contain many important texts from various masters and historical accounts of various monasteries that allow readers to trace their authenticity directly to its original source.

This is one aspect that is a very important component for learning the Dharma as Buddhists believe that in order for a practice to be of benefit, carry the blessings of the enlightened beings, and propel practitioners along the spiritual path to Enlightenment, one must be able to trace the teachings to an authentic source. In this way, one knows not only the validity of the teachings but also the great biographies of the masters who wrote or compiled them, just like Geshe Lobsang Tayang, to inspire them along the path of transformation.



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Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 13 of the Malaysian Copyright Act 1987, allowance is made for fair dealing for purposes such as non-profit research, private study, criticism, review or the reporting of current events. The Operator and author(s) of TsemRinpoche.com, a not-for-profit blog, do not claim ownership on the intellectual property rights of the contents, images and/or videos reproduced in this article. Any subsisting intellectual property rights shall belong to the legal owner of the contents, images and/or videos.
Two people were shot just after midnight in Hartshorne.

Emergency responders transported the two individuals  Mark Savage and Shaun Borders  to a McAlester hospital, and from there, to an Oklahoma City hospital, Hartshorne Police Chief Jeremy Pierce said.

Both men were in critical condition midday Friday.

Hartshorne police were dispatched about 1 a.m. Friday to the 1200 block of LeHigh Avenue in the town, where they located the two victims and recovered a firearm.

Police requested assistance from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, Pierce said.

Hartshorne is located about 15 miles east-southeast of McAlester and about 100 miles south of Tulsa.

Pierce said he was about 90 percent sure who was behind the shooting but refrained from providing details until he knows for sure. Investigators are waiting to interview the victims while they recover at the hospital.

"I don't have all the pieces to the puzzle," he said. "We're at a standstill until we can speak to them."

Police do not consider there to be an ongoing threat to the community.
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Mounira, a 20-year-old Somali with her son Mubarak, shortly after being evacuated with others from Libya to Italy  UNHCR/Alessandro Penso

ROME, Italy  A first group of 162 refugees from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen has arrived safely in Italy from Libya, in a landmark operation putting an end to months of detention and suffering.

The group  which included families, single mothers, unaccompanied children and disabled people  was evacuated on Friday (December 22) in two Italian military aircraft. All of them are in need of health care and counselling after being held captive in inhumane and degrading conditions and undergoing abuse from traffickers, smugglers and others on hazardous journeys across Africa.

This is really groundbreaking.

For the first time, we have been able to evacuate vulnerable refugees straight from Libya to Italy. This is really groundbreaking and a much welcome development that could not have happened without the strong commitment of the Italian authorities and the support of the Libyan Government, said Vincent Cochetel, UNHCRs Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean Situation.

We really hope other countries will follow the same path, Cochetel added.

This refugee baby was born three weeks ago in a detention center in Libya. He was evacuated to Italy yesterday with his mother. He is safe, now.



Life can prevail over war, exploitation and abuse. pic.twitter.com/ypDymJNM2Y  Filippo Grandi (@RefugeesChief) December 23, 2017

One of the evacuees, Timnit  a 25-year-old Eritrean  was almost overcome with emotion and relief.

I didnt believe it when UNHCR told me that I was coming to Italy, she said. I still cannot believe it now that I am here.

Timnit had been trying to join her husband in Germany for nearly two years. Alone in Libya, she was detained on several occasions for long periods. She sits in a wheelchair with a thick blanket around her legs, as she explains she can no longer walk on her own due to the pain.

My pain is psychological, my legs hurt more when I am angry, she said.

In an attempt to end her suffering, 10 days ago Timnit made the risky attempt to cross the Mediterranean with smugglers.

Her travel companions carried her on their backs to the boat, but after three hours it was intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard and all 100 passengers were brought back to Libya and detained.

Timnit, a 25-year-old Eritrean refugee, sits on a wheelchair unable to move due to the pain in her legs, shortly after being evacuated from Libya to Italy.  UNHCR/Alessandro Penso

I havent spoken to my husband since attempting to cross by boat. When I call him and tell him UNHCR has taken me to Italy by plane, hes never going to believe me, she smiled.

The group was accompanied from detention facilities by Libya-based UNHCR staff and then flown to Italy on two separate aircraft to the military base near Rome. UNHCR has welcomed the evacuations as a new mechanism to deal with people in need of resettlement in Libya, where many countries do not have embassies and dealing the complex mgiration issues is particularly challenging.

Upon arrival, all refugees went through medical checks and were given warm clothes and a hot meal before undergoing identification procedures. UNHCR staff and CARITAS volunteers welcomed the refugees and provided them with information upon arrival.

The refugees will now be transferred to several reception facilities where accommodation and assistance will be provided by the Episcopal Conference of Italy through Caritas.

Shawki, 19, fled Taizz in Yemen because of war.

The situation at home was terrible, but Libya is worse than Yemen because you are not scared only of the fighting, you are scared of people coming to kidnap you and asking for ransom. Anything can happen to you. My friend and I paid US$5,000 just to be freed, he explained.

The number of refugees evacuated from Libya is expected to reach 400.

Shawki entered Libya through Egypt to where he had flown.

I tried to get a visa to enter Europe, but it wasnt possible. Thats when I decided to come by sea," he added.

The number of refugees evacuated from Libya is expected to reach 400 with a third evacuation from Libya to Niger in the coming days.

This has only been made possible after intensive efforts from our staff and partner organizations. The smile of relief on the faces of those evacuated is a source of additional motivation to save more. We really count on international solidarity to help us reach our objective of bringing to protection 1,300 highly vulnerable refugees out of Libya as soon as possible. added Cochetel.
Jobless in a refugee camp in Jordan, Mahmoud Al-Bashawat, 39, knew he had to do something to secure his familys future. Leaving his wife, seven daughters and small son behind in a caravan in the desert, he set off alone for Europe.

Little did he know that the process of being reunited with them would be almost as fraught as the journey over sea and land to Austria. I couldnt see any future for them. Our future was shattered in the ruins of Syria. This is why I came to Europe, for their sake. We were parted for two-and-a-half years, he says.

UNHCR is campaigning to ease some of the practical obstacles that can make it difficult for refugees to obtain their legal entitlement to family reunification. The right to reunification applies to nuclear families, including children under 18. Some 130,000 asylum seekers arrived in Austria in 2016-17 and many received refugee status and with it the right to family reunification in a matter of months.

In Mahmouds case, the sheer cost of travel documents was a problem and he had to take out a crippling loan to buy passports for his family. In addition, his eldest daughter Abeer had just turned 18 and strictly speaking was no longer eligible. There was a risk she would be left stranded, alone in Jordan.

Three of the Al-Bashawat siblings (from left) Fatima, Ali and Amal settle in to their new home, after being reunited with their father in Vienna.  UNHCR/Stefanie J Steindl

The Al-Bashawat daughters talk and play contentedly at their new home in Vienna, after completing the reunification process.  UNHCR/Stefanie J Steindl

Syrian refugee Ali was born in Jordan as a refugee, after his family had fled the conflict at home. After being separated from their father, Ali along with his mother and seven sisters are reunited in Vienna.  UNHCR/Stefanie J Steindl

Hayat Elwees and her six-year-old daughter Maryam read a book at home in Vienna, after completing the reunification process.  UNHCR/Stefanie J Steindl

The Al-Bashawat daughters, Hadeel (left), 15, Fatima (partially obscured), 10, Amneh (centre), 13, and Amal (right), 8, make breakfast at home in Vienna, after completing the reunification process.  UNHCR/Stefanie J Steindl

Three of the seven Al-Bashawat's girls (from left) Hadeel, 15, Abeer, 20, and Ghadeer, 17. Ghadeer wants to be a nurse, while Abeer will soon marry a fellow Syrian living in Austria.  UNHCR/Stefanie J Steindl

It has been an emotional rollercoaster for us, admits Mahmouds wife, Hayat Elwees, 38, finally settled with all her children in an airy four-room apartment in Vienna.

Before the Syrian war, the family lived in a house in the Damascus suburb of Sayyeda Zeinab. Mahmoud, a carpenter, had a successful windows business. We would never have left Syria if it had not been for the war, he says. We had a good life there.

Shelling drove them first to the southwestern Syrian city of Daraa, where the couples youngest child, Ali, now five, was born. But then fighting engulfed Daraa and they had to flee again, this time to Jordan, where they found refuge in a camp funded by the United Arab Emirates.

It was OK, caravans in the desert, about 3,500 people in the camp. But thousands more were arriving. It was not a good prospect, says Mahmoud.

Syrian refugees Mahmoud Al-Bashawat and Hayat Elwees sit at home in the apartment they share with their eight children after completing the reunification process in Vienna.  UNHCR/Stefanie J Steindl

In 2015, he took the decision to go to Europe and, as a first step, flew to Turkey.

It was very hard for me when my husband left, says Hayat. I was all alone with my children in the camp.

We kept in touch on WhatsApp, EVERY DAY, says 17-year-old second daughter Ghadeer emphatically.

However, Mahmoud did not tell his family when he was making the dangerous sea crossing from Turkey to Greece, as he did not want to worry them. Only when he had arrived safely did he send a photo from Greece. I was so surprised and happy, I cried, says Hayat.

Mahmoud continued through the Balkans and Hungary, reaching Austria by train in September 2015. Five months later, he gained refugee status and the process of applying for family reunification could begin.

In Amman, the Austrian embassy required the family to produce Syrian passports. The Syrian embassy charged US$400 dollars per passport  $3,600 dollars for nine people  money Mahmoud didnt have. And the clock was ticking, as their Austrian visas were only valid for four months.

I borrowed the money from friends, 100 dollars here, 200 dollars there, lots of very small loans, says Mahmoud. We didnt understand why we couldnt get laissez-passer travel documents. I had to pay money to the very government that was making us flee. I am still paying off the loans now.

"We couldnt live as a family ripped apart. Family is the most precious thing.

Worse was the problem that Abeer had turned 18. Initially, she received a rejection from the Austrian authorities. I was afraid I would have to stay behind all by myself, with the rest of my family leaving, she says.

I was going crazy, says Mahmoud. I couldnt abandon Abeer; I would rather have returned to Jordan. We couldnt live as a family ripped apart. Family is the most precious thing.

Luckily, with help from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, Abeer, now 20, was included in an alternative resettlement programme. She actually arrived in Vienna on a separate flight two days before the rest of the family came this January. Now all of them are learning German.

Thank God we are together, with a fresh start, says Mahmoud. My children saw nothing but war and missed out on their education.

The little ones are going to school and kindergarten while Abeer and Ghadeer are revising their plans.

Ghadeer, who had hoped to be a dentist, is considering nursing. Abeer, who dreamt of being a doctor, might instead become a beautician. Soon she will also become a wife, as the family has just announced her engagement to a fellow Syrian living in Klagenfurt.

Come to the wedding, says Mahmoud expansively. We will have a big Syrian feast.
I believe that great cities are synonymous with great universities. This rings particularly true for UTSA and San Antonio.  President Taylor Eighmy

Editors note: UTSA students, faculty, staff and alumni are building a legacy of excellence locally, across the nation and around the world. Theyre tackling societys grand challenges and making impactful contributions through research, innovation and engagement.

To celebrate Roadrunner Nations biggest accomplishments, UTSA Today is looking back at the top news stories of 2017. Heres number three.

(Dec. 29, 2017) -- The University of Texas System Board of Regents named T. Taylor Eighmy, Ph.D., the next president of The University of Texas at San Antonio. Eighmy, currently the vice chancellor for research and engagement at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, will begin his new role Sept. 1.

Regents approved the appointment at a special called meeting of the board today. Eighmy was unanimously selected as the sole finalist for the position at a board meeting last month. Under state law, university governing boards must name finalists for a presidency at least 21 days before making an appointment.

Eighmy, who is also a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, has extensive experience in university leadership ranging from developing top-tier research institutions to building critical student success programs, especially around experiential learning and undergraduate research. He has worked very closely with state legislators, industry, and business and civic leaders to develop critical and sustainable public-partnerships and realize new resources from a variety of public and private sources. As a chief research officer, he has continuously championed external engagement, particularly community engagement.

While at the University of Tennessee, Eighmy and colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory directed efforts that resulted in the University of Tennessees selection to lead the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation, a $259 million public-private partnership supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. Eighmy, the principal investigator of the project, was founder and served as board chair for Institutes parent company. The work of the Institute has led to significant technological innovations and economic development, both regionally and nationally, around advanced manufacturing.

Prior to his role at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Eighmy served as senior vice president for research at Texas Tech University, where he was instrumental in working with the community to realize National Research University status for Texas Tech. He also spent several years at the University of New Hampshire in a variety of roles, from professor to director of strategic initiatives to assistant vice president for research and interim vice president for research.

Dr. Eighmy has an outstanding background as a professor, researcher, inventor and administrative leader which has provided rich and diverse experiences in the university setting and beyond, Regents Chairman Paul L. Foster said. Given UTSAs growing reputation and continued pursuit of Tier One university status, Dr. Eighmy is an exceptional choice to lead this remarkable institution as it strives to reach even greater heights.

The search for a new leader began late last year, after President Ricardo Romo announced his plans to retire. Pedro Reyes, Ph.D., the UT Systems former executive vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, has been serving as interim president since March, when Romo stepped down.

A search advisory committee including two UT institution presidents, two members of the Board of Regents, representatives from UTSA faculty, staff and deans, as well as alumni and members of the San Antonio community, reviewed candidates and made recommendations to the Board of Regents.

Eighmy is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Inventors and the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists. He served as a member of the U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board for more than 11 years and has worked closely with the National Academies Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable, the University-Industry Demonstration Partnership and the U.S. Council on Competitiveness Technology & Leadership Strategy Initiative. He has served on the boards of Oak Ridge Associated Universities, the Southeastern Universities Research Association, the University of Tennessee Research Foundation, Cherokee Farm Development Corporation and a number of community, economic development and technology start-up boards.

Eighmy and his wife Peggy look forward to returning to Texas and making San Antonio their home. The couple have one daughter, Hannah, a NICU nurse at Childrens National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Eighmy intends to visit the UTSA campus prior to his start date and looks forward to meeting the Roadrunner community.
By: Dezan Shira & Associates

Editor: Koushan Das

Vietnams Ministry of Construction is going to introduce changes in construction regulations to create favourable conditions for construction and real estate businesses. The Ministry of Construction has proposed a new law to revise the Law on Construction 2014, the Law on Housing 2014, the Law on Real Estate Business 2014, and the Law on Urban Planning 2009. Changes in the laws would streamline and reduce the time-consuming and unnecessary administrative procedures leading to an open business environment.

RELATED: Pre-Investment Advisory Services from Dezan Shira & Associates

Proposed changes

The Ministry of Construction is planning to remove 41.3 percent of the existing construction preconditions and simplifying another 43.7 percent of regulations. Some of the amendments under consideration include reducing the number of subsectors which require practicing certificates and relaxing the requirements on capacity and company size. Other changes proposed include reducing and simplifying procedures for granting construction permits, which has been a major problem for firms in Vietnam.

RELATED: Laying Foundations for Growth: The Future of Vietnamese Infrastructure

The proposed changes will create a favorable climate for the construction and real estate industry and will lead to an increase in much needed foreign investments for infrastructure development. The government is also planning to make changes in the Law on Bidding, the Law on Advertising, and the Law on Investment.

The Ministry is going to propose the changes in construction rules to the Government in March 2018 and bring it into the National Assembly in May and October next year. It is expected to come into effect in early 2019.

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 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.



Managing Contracts and Severance in Vietnam

In this issue of Vietnam Briefing, we discuss the prevailing state of labor pools in Vietnam and outline key considerations for those seeking to staff and retain workers in the country. We highlight the increasing demand for skilled labor, provide in depth coverage of existing contract options, and showcase severance liabilities that may arise if workers or employers choose to terminate their contracts.
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.
A green view of Hue Former Citadel in Hue City. -VNS Photo Nguyen Van Sum

According to the provinces tourism department deputy director, Nguyen Van Phuc, the former imperial capital city of Hue is among the three Vietnamese cities to be awarded the ASEAN Clean Tourist City title, together with the city of old towns, Hoi An, and the city of villas, Da Lat.

The indicators for ASEAN to evaluate a clean tourist city include cleanliness, environment and waste management, green spaces around the city, security and health, as well as urban safety and tourism infrastructure.

The Pilgrimage Village Boutique Resort and Spa, a tourism facility in the city, is also listed among the hotels to receive the ASEAN Green Hotel Award.

A green hotel is one, which promotes environmental friendliness and energy conservation, as defined by the ASEAN green hotel standards. The evaluation considers the elements of the environmental plan, green product, human resources and environmental management.

Other Vietnamese accommodation facilities that will be awarded are Flamingo Dai Lai Resort in northern Vinh Phuc Province, Four Seasons The Nam Hai Resort in central Quang Nam Province, Ho Tram Beach Boutique Resort and Spa and Six Senses Con Dao Resort in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province.

Phuc said in the previous years, 10 hotel facilities in each ASEAN member country were awarded, but this years upgraded requirements led to the list of five.

The cities and hotels will be honoured at an event in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in January next year.

ASEAN built green standards for its member countries cities and hotel facilities in 2006 and the standards were first applied in 2008.

The ASEAN Clean Tourist City Standard is said to provide its member countries with a tool to improve tourism quality in their cities, while the ASEAN Green Hotel Standard is set up to increase the environmental-friendliness and energy conservation in the ASEAN accommodation industry.

ASEAN, which is the Association of South East Asian Nations, was formed in 1967 and includes the 10 member states of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Laos, as well as Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines and Singapore, in addition to Thailand and Vietnam. The country joined the ASEAN in 1995.
The Government has issued two new decrees about the operation of the State Capital Investment Corporation. - File Photo

The decrees prevent the SCIC from investing in companies of relatives but allow it to found subsidiary companies.

Under Decree No 147/2017/ND-CP, SCIC is not allowed to pump capital into buying stakes at enterprises, where the managers are related to the corporations chairman, members of the Management Board, controllers and general director, as well as deputy general director and chief accountant.

The relatives include spouses, natural parents, adoptive parents and natural son/daughter, as well as adoptive son/daughter, natural brother, natural sister, brother-in law and sister-in-law.

SCIC will not be allowed to contribute capital with its subsidiary companies to found joint stock companies, limited liability companies or implement business co-operation contracts.

The Decree No 148/2017/ND-CP allowed SCIC to found and contribute capital to subsidiary companies, including fund management companies, following the established laws.

The two decrees were issued and took effect early this week.

SCIC had a charter capital of VND50 trillion (US$2.2 billion). It was founded in 2005 and officially began operation in 2006, with an aim to enhance the efficiency of State capital at enterprises.

SCIC planned to earn a revenue of VND11.2 trillion and a pre-tax profit of VND8.3 trillion in 2017.

Its business report in the first half of this year, the latest one available on its official website, showed that SCIC earned a revenue of VND2.67 trillion in the period, dropping by VND3 trillion over the same period last year. The pre-tax profit also dropped by more than VND2 trillion to VND2.5 trillion.

As of June 30, SCICs total assets reached VND60.8 trillion.

SCIC was managing State capitals worth VND18 trillion in book value at 144 enterprises.
The United States Embassy in Ankara has been a flashpoint for a visa row with Turkey. (Photo: AFP/Adem Altan)

The two sides announced the resumption of full visa services for each other's citizens, but their statements revealed lingering misgivings between the countries, who are partners in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group.

Washington said it had won assurances from Ankara that no further legal proceedings would be launched against its staff, though the Turkish embassy in the US capital insisted "no such assurances have been given."

Nevertheless, the State Department said it was "confident that the security posture has improved sufficiently to allow for the full resumption of visa services in Turkey."

The US move is effective immediately, a department official told AFP.

Shortly thereafter, the Turkish mission in Washington said: "Within the framework of the principle of reciprocity, the restrictions placed from our side on the visa regime for US citizens are being lifted simultaneously."

The US decision to stop handing out visas was implemented from Oct 8 and was followed by a tit-for-tat move by Turkey to stop giving visas to Americans.

The crisis was triggered when US consulate staffer Metin Topuz was formally charged with espionage and seeking to overthrow the Turkish government - accusations the US embassy in Ankara has said are "wholly without merit."

Topuz, a Turkish citizen, is accused of links to a group led by Pennsylvania-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara suspects of ordering last year's failed coup in Turkey.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999, denies any involvement in the attempted overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In November, the US said it had resumed limited visa services, a move matched by Turkey's missions in the US.

But the services were so limited that the first interview appointments for Turks seeking most types of US visas were only available from January 2019, causing uproar on social media.

'SERIOUS CONCERNS'

Washington says it is now confident that there are "no additional local employees of our mission in Turkey under investigation" and that "local staff of our embassy and consulates will not be detained or arrested for performing their official duties," a State Department official said.

Turkish authorities will also inform the US "in advance" if they intend to arrest any local staff member in the future.

But US authorities added: "We continue to have serious concerns about the existing allegations against arrested local employees of our mission in Turkey."

Reflecting the language of the American statement, Ankara said it continued to have "serious concerns" regarding cases involving Turkish citizens in the United States.

In March, a Turkish employee at the US consulate in the southern city of Adana was arrested on charges of supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

And US authorities also expressed concern about other US citizens arrested in Turkey under a state of emergency declared in the wake of the July 2016 coup attempt.

American pastor Andrew Brunson, who ran a church in the western city of Izmir, has been held by Turkish authorities since October 2016 on charges of being a member of Gulen's group.

"US officials will continue to engage with their Turkish counterparts to seek a satisfactory resolution of these cases," the State Department official said.

STRAINED TIES

Turkey is a key player in the anti-IS fight, and the US relies heavily on the airbase at Incirlik in the country's south to launch air strikes against the militants in neighbouring Iraq and Syria.

But relations between the NATO allies have frayed over American support for Syrian Kurdish militia seen by Turkey as "terrorists" and the US failure to extradite Gulen.

Ties also hit a stumbling block over the arrest and trial of Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who stands accused of violating sanctions against Iran, bribery and money laundering.

His co-defendant turned government witness Reza Zarrab implicated former Turkish ministers and even Erdogan in the scheme.

Turkey's president - who had hoped to build better ties with US President Donald Trump - also bristled at the American leader's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The State Department nevertheless underlined Washington's partnership with Ankara in explaining the restoration of visa services.

"Turkey is a longstanding NATO ally and a critical defense partner," the official told AFP. We work together closely to confront the serious challenges that face both of our nations."
The prestigious recognition as Asias Best in the Luxury Romantic Beach Resort category is afirst-ever win by any resort property in Vietnam. The award was given at a gala event attended by hundreds atthe 10th edition of the annual World Luxury Awards.

The World Luxury Hotel Awards  The Oscars of the Hotel Industry - is a recognised global organisation honouring luxury hotels around the world for their world class facilities and service excellence provided to guests. Each year, over 300,000 international guests, travelers and industry players alike vote, during a four-week period to select winners. This year, La Veranda Resort Phu Quoc MGallerywas recognised as the Luxury Romantic Beach Resort for the continent of Asia.

Being recognised as Asias best in the Luxury Romantic Beach Resort category is a true source of pride for the entire team at La Veranda Resort Phu Quoc. I would like to thank our peers who voted and believed in us and our business partners for beingfans of the experiences we create & the memorable storytelling that we weave for our guests, said general manager Jean Pierre Gerbet.

He further added that: This global award simply propels us to continue to strive to set the industry benchmark for boutique luxury and exceptional guest experiences not only in Vietnam and Asia, but worldwide.

Established in 2006, this 70-room luxury boutique resort, part of theMGallery By Sofitel collection, is the first luxury property on Phu Quoc Island.

Located centrally on Duong Dong beach, La Veranda provides an experience evocative of a French colonial mansion by the sea. Its architectural design and atmosphere creates a distinctive style with comfort and indulgence reminiscent of a bygone Indochine era.

The resort has two restaurants and a bar - The Peppertree, Le Jardin and Le Bar. With Le Spa, a luxurious organic spa center, as well as its new innovative product, the La Veranda Romance Menu comprising of 12 memorable romantic experiences, the resort becomes a magnificent setting for a relaxed beach holiday, romantic getaway, spa vacation, destination nuptials or honeymoons.

With the latest World Luxury Award, La Veranda Resort receives its 4th awards win for the year. Earlier this year, the property was awarded TripAdvisors Travelers Choice 2017, Asian Lifestyle Tourism Awards  Outstanding Beach Resort 2017, and The Guide Awards 2017.

MGallery by Sofitel is AccorHotels collection of inimitably enchanting, unique boutique hotels offering the excellence of hospitality a la francaise.

MGallery by Sofitel has 85 unique and fascinating addresses in 23 countries around the world, all of which are havens for those who relish off-the-beaten-track experiences. Each address is remarkable for its singular personality and deep-rooted local history.

AccorHotels, the worlds leading hotel operator, is present in 95 countries with more than 4,000 hotels and 240,000 employees.
Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner, who was choked to death by a police officer on Staten Island, asks to speak with President Barack Obama on July 14, 2016, at a town hall hosted by ABC to engage directly with officers, parents, students, community leaders and families on trust and safety in the communities at the Studio Theater in Washington, D.C.
Enhance Your Productivity: 4 Ways to Get Things Done With Time to Spare

Productivity is a big asset when it comes to work. While keeping a consistent and healthy routine can help us fit in all the things we need and want to do, there are many stumbling blocks that can throw us off schedule, shattering our productivity. We might try to get
President Donald Trump declared 15 December 2017 as The Bill of Rights Day [1].

This date was chosen to commemorate 15 December 1791. This was the date on which this text was adopted by the 13 states which then made up the United States.

During his electoral campaign, Donald Trump made a pledge to defend the Bill of Rights, suspended for terrorist matters following the voting in of the USA Patriot Act, itself brought into being following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.

Thomas Paine, the British journalist who alighted the revolution against King George and the War of Independence, went on to become a French MP. His work on the Rights of Man (Human Rights) was the most widely sold and published book during the French Revolution. It explains that this term is used in totally different ways in the US and France. In his opinion, the US version of Human Rights aims at protecting citizens from an abuse of Power, from the raison dEtat. In contrast, the way the word is used in French, human rights aim at establishing democracy by separating the private and the public spheres. Thus it is not at all the same thing, despite the semantic confusion that reigns today.

Subjecting his own conduct to logic, Thomas Paine clashed with Robespierre and refused to vote for the death of the King. This was because he considered that one could not hold a man (the King) responsible for a system (the Ancien Regime). He guaranteed that the regicide would mark the end of the Revolution and was then imprisoned. Indeed, the Revolution ceded its place to Terror.

President Donald Trump has already uncurled the wrath of progressives by defending the principles of human rights embedded in the Bill of Rights. Thus he supported the Extreme Right demonstrating at Charlottesville (exercising their rights under the First Amendment), as well as the rights of citizens to carry arms (Second Amendment).
18 December 2017: responding to the call of the Goran Party, several thousands of officials demonstrated, at Sulaymaniyah, the second town in the Iraqi Kurdistan, calling for the resignation of the regional government.

The demonstrators, directly challenging the authority of the Barzanis, were displaying placards slamming 26 years of robberies and poor decisions. Some of them, unable to exercise self-restraint, set alight the headquarters of the PDK, the Barzanis Party (Sunnites), as well as that of the PUK party allied to the Taliban (Shiites).

The population has been rebelling against the Barzani family following the occurrence of two events:

 the Iraqi soldiers taking back control of the Arab town of Kirkuk, which had been illegally occupied by the regional government of Kurdistan and colonized; and

 the resignation of President Massoud Barzani who is now without mandate.
Saif el-Islam Gaddafi will stand for the presidential election organized by the United Nations in Libya, scheduled for mid-2018. So announced his familys spokesperson, Bassem al-Hashimi al-Soul to Egypt Today.

The son of Muyammar Gaddafi, who had played an eminent role on the side of his father, is by far the most legitimate leader in a Libya which has been delivered to chaos. He should soon make public his programme for his country.

Currently under an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, he is benefitting from an amnesty from the Tobrouk government, but not the government that has been put place by the UN.

The ICCs mandate is founded on nothing other than news from the Atlantic press, itself democratizing Nato propaganda. The ICC prosecutor had actively participated in the Nato war, by making the people think that he was detaining him and preparing for his transfer to the Hague. The aim was to convince the Libyan people that it was no longer necessary to resist the invader.
Photo: Sony Picture Classics

Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool is as sad and awkward as its title. Annette Bening plays the star in question, Gloria Grahame, the impudent minx who held her own against Humphrey Bogart in then-husband Nicholas Rays In a Lonely Place and took a face full of boiling water from boyfriend-thug Lee Marvin in The Big Heat  before her sudden and ignominious plunge from the A-list. The movie depicts Grahames grim final act. During a 1981 stint on the London stage in The Glass Menagerie, the 58-year-old Grahame travels to Liverpool to visit the family of her ex-boyfriend, the decades-younger actor Peter Turner (Jamie Bell), and stays  and stays  and stays, her bed becoming her deathbed. Its like the Kaufman-Hart comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner if the man had terminal cancer. And if it wasnt a comedy.

The frequent flashbacks give Bening something to play besides denial and dementia. When Grahame meets Peter at an upscale London boarding house, Bening makes the actress ostentatiously girlish, a whirligig cartoon. Her voice is high and breathy and beckoning: She seems to be leaning forward even as she waltzes away from him to turn on a phonograph. Watch Benings shining face in the weirdly giddy bit when Grahame and Turner go to Alien on their first date and she laughs out loud when the little doohickey busts out of John Hurts chest. (After the movie, Grahame says the small things that pop out of your legs  i.e., her kids  are as hard to control.) The best scene features Vanessa Redgrave and Frances Barber as Grahames mother and sister, the former feeding Grahames cheerful mania, the latter sourly bringing her sister down to earth  interfering with the willed obliviousness that helped Grahame maintain a semblance of balance.

Related Stories The Story Behind That Sexy Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool Dance Scene

Its a thrill to see Bening in juicy parts like this, and the cast is everything you (and Bening) could hope for. A particular delight is Julie Walters, who makes Peters mum both deeply compassionate and hardheaded  so grounded that I kept thinking Id like someone like her attending to me on my deathbed.) But Bening cant supply what isnt in the script. You have to pick up a biography to learn about Grahames four violent marriages  and how she bedded Rays son when the boy was 14 years old. (Her later marriage to Nick Jr. put the kibosh on her Hollywood career and lost her custody of the kids from her third marriage, to the abusive Cy Howard.) Seen through the eyes of Turner, Grahame is either maddeningly opaque or theres no there there.

The director, Paul McGuigan (Victor Frankenstein), has plainly prevailed upon the production designer Eve Stewart to elevate the mood with color, especially purples and pinks. Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool isnt visually drab, only conceptually. As a critic who often complains about biopics diverging too radically from the facts, Im chagrined to find myself wishing the filmmakers had taken more liberties with Turners brief memoir. The book makes for an odd and melancholy coda to a crazy-volatile life, but the coda isnt a microcosm for that life or even a particularly good prism through which to view Grahames rise and fall. As you watch Grahame suffer and act out and pretend her cancer is a passing stomach ailment, you want to know how and why she got to Liverpool, not how shell pass the time trying to forestall the inevitable as her organs shut down. The story is too bounded, like a theater piece. Even the title  uttered in the book by a man in a pub  supplies the wrong emphasis. On this side of the pond, Liverpool is associated with the Beatles, and what could be a hipper place to die than that?
Rose Marie. Photo: CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images

Rose Marie, The Dick Van Dyke Show star widely regarded as the longest-working actor in show business, died Thursday at age 94. The multi-hyphenate entertainer born Rose Marie Mazetta, who by her own account originated the first-name-only moniker, got her start in the industry as a 3-year-old jazz-singing prodigy sporting a black bob in her hometown of New York City. Known then as Baby Rose Marie, she had her own syndicated NBC radio morning show, and by age 7 was performing on a national vaudeville tour. As she got older, Rose Marie dropped the Baby and broadened her talents to include comedy, theater, and film, while continuing to perform in the famous nightclubs of the era.

By the 50s, she moved with her late husband, Tonight Show trumpeter Bobby Guy (she is survived by their daughter, Georgiana), to Los Angeles and began the most famed chapter of her career  a pivot to television. She appeared in The Bob Cummings Show and My Sister Eileen, but got her big break as the clever TV writer Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show, where she became known for her gumption among the fictional shows male-dominated writers room and the ever-present black bow in her hair. She later donated the bow to the Smithsonian, noting that she wore it for a very private, personal reason. She appeared in all five seasons, earning three Emmy nominations for her work. Following the news of Rose Maries death, the shows creator and her longtime friend Carl Reiner tweeted, Theres never been a more engaging & multi-talented performer. She went from Dick Van Dyke to The Doris Day Show, and was a constant staple for two decades on Hollywood Squares.

Rose Marie worked up until her death, boasting a 90-year career, which is believed to be the longest active career in show business. In that time, she sang for everyone  from presidents to Al Capone and his mobster friends. In 2003, she published her memoir Hold the Roses, and this fall, was the subject of Jason Wises documentary Wait for Your Laugh, chronicling nine decades of Hollywood through the lens of her storied career. A vocal member of the industry until the end, most recently Rose Marie made news for lending her support to the women speaking up about Harvey Weinsteins misconduct and Hollywoods predatory culture, poignantly tweeting (via her secretary), I have suffered my whole life for that. Dont stop.

She recalled her own experience of a movie producer propositioning her on set to Vulture: I said, You son of a bitch, you couldnt get it up if the flag went by! As retaliation, she said the producer had all of her songs cuts from the film and her role drastically reduced. The experience, however, didnt scare Rose Marie away from the business, and instead led to better luck in television. Three years old to 94 years old. Thats pretty good. I love my business. I love everything I have done, she told us. If thats being selfish and conceited, I guess I am! I wouldnt be in it this long if I didnt love it. It was a beautiful life. In fact, I always say, if I had known how beautiful it was, I would have paid more attention to it.
Photo: Sony Pictures Classics

When we first meet Hollywood icon Gloria Grahame in the biopic Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool, its the 1970s, and shes living in a U.K. actors boardinghouse. But that doesnt mean the former screen femme fatale, played by Annette Bening, has lost any of her powers of seduction. So when Grahame asks her handsome young new housemate Peter Turner, played by Jamie Bell, to do the Hustle, hes more than happy to bust out his best moves. Since their Saturday Night Feverinspired scene is one of the films most memorable standouts, we asked director Paul McGuigan to take us through the steps that went into Bening and Bell strutting their stuff.

The disco-dance scene was pure invention.

In reality, Turner, on whose memoir the film was based, says he first spoke to the 55-year-old actress when the four-times-married Grahame asked the 26-year-old if she could borrow a shirt, and later, five pounds. By that point, she was working in the theater because, as the films landlady notes, Grahame was a big name in black-and-white films [but] not doing too well in color.

Breaking down the boogie-oogie.

Though McGuigan sought out Turners input for some of the late-70s songs he and Grahame listened to, the director knew music from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack would be too rich for his low budget. He also needed the track in advance, so the actors could really dance to it. A child of the 70s himself, he remembered a Taste of Honeys Boogie Oogie Oogie, which transported him back to that era  and which he could afford. Bonus: The all-girl groups song fit in well with his use of an all-female film crew  from producer Barbara Broccoli, director of photography Ula Pontikos, and production designer Eve Stewart, to costume designer Jany Temime, casting director Debbie McWilliams, and hair-and-makeup artist Naomi Donne.

The improvised scene was shot somewhat unconventionally.

Because McGuigan hadnt a clue what was going to happen during the Bening-Bell dance, he had his director of photography Ula Pontikos follow the couple with a handheld camera  outfitted with uncoated lenses made especially for the scene to keep it alive and unpredictable. His goal was to let in lots of light that would bounce around and reference the look of a 70s discotheque.

The standby choreographer never busted a move.

Bening and Bell  who jeted his way into our hearts 17 years ago in Billy Elliot  truly boogied down for the scene. And they did it without the help of a dance instructor  though McGuigan had one on hand just in case. When youve got Billy Elliot as your leading man, he says, you probably dont need one. Bell went to his trailer ten minutes before the scene, checked out some scenes from Saturday Night Fever, and came out ready to display his best John Travolta swagger. As for Bening, she checked out YouTube, and after McGuigan let her know he had a choreographer on standby, he says she replied: You tell me if I need her or not  Ill just dance. After that, the director simply let them go because I was fascinated myself as to what was going to happen. The result was an all-out effort by the two stars  including Bell discarding his sweater and doing a split  and the scene was in the can after only two takes. Their all-out effort also eliminated the need for several other scenes leading up to their May-December affair. The economy of dance, McGuigan says chuckling.
UPCOMING EVENTS

Pathways Buffet program continues

Helena Community Connections Bridges program, Pathways Buffet, kicks off its new season at noon on Wednesday at Covenant United Methodist Church, 2330 E. Broadway. Pathways Buffet events are educational and informational for those over 50. This event is called "The Wisdom of Our Dreams" presented by Rev. Dana Keener. Using the book, "The Wisdom of Your Dreams," by author Jeremy Taylor, explore the basic assumptions about dreams, the universal quality of the images and energies in all dreams, dream work tools and dream groups. Keener is pastor of the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Helena. She's been an ordained pastor for more than 30 years.

First Christian Church is a faith community partner in the Bridges HCC program. A catered lunch is included for $5. AARP Montana covers one half the cost of the lunch. Nonperishables for Helena Food Share are suggested. Register for the buffet no later than noon on Monday. Phone 877-926-8300 to register for lunch providing event name, city and event date. For greater detail, visit www.bridgeshcc.org. All facilities are handicapped accessible.

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Dogsledding, skijoring fun run upcoming

Mushers -- beginning or experienced -- and all skijorers are invited to Montana Mountain Mushers Fun Run on Jan. 6-7 at the Seeley Lake Trailhead (Morrell Creek), just north of Seeley Lake. Park in the mushers parking lot and be ready to run.

Participants will run their dog(s) Saturday and Sunday between 9 a.m.-noon. There will be hands-on training for everyone.

Whether you are a recreational musher, want to start skijoring or would like to race, this event is for you -- and it's free. All skill levels are invited. Registration is required.

Participants are encouraged to bring their sleds, skis and dogs to run each day.

For information, call 406-881-2909 or 406-677-3141, go online to montanamountainmushers.com or e-mail adanac@adanacsleds.com for a registration form.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

'Pines for Perch' program starts in January

Christmas trees will be collected from city residents for the "Pines for Perch" program beginning Monday and will continue through Jan. 31.

Remove all lights and ornaments and place trees in the alley or on the boulevard for collection -- trees cannot be collected from private property. Do not put trees in you trash container. Be patient -- the trees will be collected.

Residents can also bring their Christmas trees to the Transfer Station just north of Carroll College. Residents can either use a Transfer Station permit, or pay cash at the scale.

The collected trees will be taken to Canyon Ferry Lake where Fish, Wildlife & Parks will bundle and sink them, providing shelter for the perch.

Collection will take place during January so there is no need to call the city.

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Lewis and Clark County has board openings

Augusta Solid Waste Management District: The board generally oversees the management and operation of the Augusta Solid Waste Management District; three-year terms. Applicants must reside within the boundaries of the Augusta Solid Waste Management District.

Fair Board: The Fair Board consists of seven members appointed by the Board of County Commissioners serving staggered terms beginning and ending Dec. 31. The Commission generally oversees the overall management and operation of the fairgrounds for Lewis and Clark County.

Forestvale Cemetery Board: Trustees must reside in School District Numbers 1 or 3 and will serve three-year terms. Trustees have the responsibility of maintaining the cemetery; performing all acts necessary or proper; and to establish policies and procedures for management of the cemetery.

Forestvale Historic Preservation Committee: The board reviews and approves all development proposals related to the Forestvale Cemetery and are responsible for assuring compliance will all relevant local, state and federal regulations and requirements pertaining to the cemeterys designation on the Federal Register or Historical Sites. Members must reside within Forestvale Cemetery District; generally described as School District No. 1; three-year terms.

Lewis and Clark County DUI Task Force: Seeking one business owner representative to serve a two-year term. The DUI Task Force members shall be appointed by the Lewis and Clark County Commission and will include representatives from a cross section of the community, such as, but not limited to, government officials, law enforcement, public health, school personnel, church, civic and community groups, and citizens at large.

Lincoln Solid Waste District Board: The board generally oversees the management and operation of the Lincoln Solid Waste Management District. Seeking two citizens who live in the Lincoln Solid Waste District; three-year terms.

Mosquito District  Craig: A citizen to serve on the Craig Mosquito District Board who resides in the district limits. This board develops and administers a program for abatement and alleviation of mosquito pest conditions within the district and makes recommendations on appropriations and expenditure of funds to be levied on residents in the district; four-year terms.

Mosquito District  Helena Valley: One citizen to serve on the Helena Valley Mosquito District Board who resides in the district limits. This board develops and administers a program for abatement and alleviation of mosquito pest conditions within the district and makes recommendations on appropriations and expenditure of funds to be levied on residents in the district; four-year term.

Applications are available at www.lccountymt.gov/bocc/boards.html or by calling 447-8304 and can be submitted to the Lewis and Clark County Commissioners Office, 316 N. Park Ave., Room 345, Helena, MT 59623.

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STUDENT NEWS

Grace K. Anders, of Helena, and Merrill E. Steketee, of Boulder, have been named to the fall honor roll at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Students must earn a 3.5 or better GPA to be named to the honor roll.
The Waco Hispanic Museum in sponsoring a New Years Eve dance starting at 8:30 p.m. Sunday at Mutualista Hall, 2214 S. 15th St.

Admission is $10. Tejano Crossroad Band will perform, along with Conjunto Villarrial, featuring Moses Villarrial.

City offices closed

City offices, the Cameron Park Zoo, Waco Mammoth National Monument, Waco-McLennan County Libraries and the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum will be closed on New Years Day.

McGregor dance

The American Legion will host a New Years Eve dance starting at 8 p.m. Sunday at 202 S. Jefferson St. in McGregor.

Admission is $8 per person or $15 per couple. Jus Country and Mary J will perform live.

For more information, call 840-4319.

Elm Mott dance

Bobby Dean & Timeless Country will perform at a New Years Eve Dance at 8 p.m. Sunday at American Legion Post 121, 722 Leroy Parkway in Elm Mott.

Admission is $15 per person or $25 per couple. Doors open at 6 p.m.

Combined services

Church Under the Bridge and Highland Baptist Church will have their second collaborative New Years Eve worship service Sunday.

Church Under the Bridge will meet at 3014 Maple Ave. at 10 a.m.

There will be no worship service under the Interstate 35 bridge this Sunday.

Medicare volunteers

The Area Agency on Aging is seeking volunteers to be trained in preventing health care fraud, with an emphasis on the rollout of new Medicare cards.

A training class is scheduled for Jan. 11. Anyone interested should call volunteer coordinator Janice Mancherian at 292-1871 by Jan. 4.

From April 2018 through April 2019, Medicare will be rolling out new Medicare Cards, which no longer use the beneficiarys Social Security number. This will help prevent future Medicare fraud and identity theft, but fraud may still occur before and during the distribution of the new card. The Area Agency on Aging is already receiving calls concerning fraud regarding the new Medicare Cards.

Scammers are asking for bank account or credit card numbers to pay for shipping and handling of the new cards.

The agency reminds Medicare recipients that no one will call before sending new cards.
The jobless rate is falling, but the declining number of people actually holding down jobs in Greater Waco could become a source of concern, according to the latest report from Amarillo-based economist Karr Ingham.

Ingham uses data dating to 2000 to craft his Greater Waco Economic Index for the First National Bank of Central Texas and the Tribune-Herald. The index provides a monthly snapshot of factors including spending, construction, employment and home sales. The GWEI in November remained unchanged from October, hitting 125.5, a fractional increase from the November 2016 index score of 124.7.

This makes the fourth month in 2017 in which the index has achieved 125.5  February, June, October and November, Ingham said. And while that is also the all-time index high point, again it suggests that very little in the way of aggregate growth has occurred thus far this year.

Payroll employment in November slipped to an estimated 119,000 from about 120,300 in the same month of 2016, a decline of 1.1 percent, Ingham reported.

That marks the first time the rate of year-over-year employment decline has exceeded 1 percent since the Waco economy was exiting the recession in 2010-2011, he wrote.

This trend might be cause for at least mild concern, Ingham said, though he cautioned against reading too much into numbers that may change.

He said the Texas Workforce Commission each year adjusts its employment and wage data using information provided by employers. This process sometimes produces changes in estimates.

Right now, data is available only through the second quarter of 2017, but that second quarter data actually suggests that monthly total employment in the second quarter is up by an average of 2.7 percent compared to the second quarter of 2016, Ingham said in his report. Newly revised employment estimates for 2017 will be released in March. Until then, we can be cautiously optimistic about the likelihood the Greater Waco metro area employment situation is in considerably better shape than the current numbers might suggest.

Kris Collins, senior vice president for economic development at the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, questioned the workforce commissions numbers.

Given the hiring we continue to see within the community, along with home sales, its hard to believe our labor force has been declining, Collins wrote in a prepared statement. As (Ingham) mentioned, numbers will be recalculated in early 2018, and we look forward to the update information.

Projects underway in multiple industries also hold promise for growth next year, she said.

Wacos housing market continues to create good news. Ingham reported new home sales totaled 448 through November, a 22 percent increase over last year and an all-time record.

The average home sales price stands at $195,149 through November, an almost 8 percent jump compared to the first 11 months of 2016.

These higher prices propel the total dollar volume of residential real estate sales in the Greater Waco metro area to record levels for both the month of November and the year-to-date through November, which are up 18 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively, Ingham said.

Through November, home sales have reached $497 million.

Home construction, meanwhile, is gaining steam at a time of year when builders typically prepare to hibernate. The city of Waco last month issued 37 permits to build new homes, a 42 percent increase from the 26 issued in October and almost double the 19 issued in November of base year 2000.

Its the Park Meadows influence, said Scott Bland, president of the Heart of Texas Builders Association.

D.R. Horton and Stylecraft Homes plan to place homes on 1,500 residential lots in the subdivision near Hewitt city limits.

The binge of securing permits to build homes is extending into December, according to a report Thursday by the local office of the Associated General Contractors of America. It released a newsletter showing D.R. Horton, John Houston Homes and Stylecraft Builders secured a total of 22 permits between Dec. 21 and Wednesday to place new homes in Waco.

New subdivisions are also underway in communities surrounding Waco.

Permits for general construction projects were valued at $17.5 million in November, a slight increase from $16.5 million a year earlier. But through last month, the category lags nearly $60 million behind last year.
Class acts

Annelyse Garrison, the daughter of Ken and Ann Garrison of Waco and a senior at Evangelical Christian Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has been admitted with advanced standing to the freshman class for fall 2018 at Colorado Christian University in Denver.

She has been awarded a Trustees Scholarship and is invited to participate in the World Changer Conference in January to compete for a full-tuition scholarship.

Elliott D. SoRelle received his Ph.D. in biophysics at Stanford University, where in December he completed a medical study of new approaches to high-resolution in vivo imaging and diagnostics for cancer and disease detection at the cellular level.

A graduate of St. Pauls Episcopal School, Vanguard College Preparatory School and Rice University, Elliott is the son of Jim and Cindy SoRelle, of Waco.

McGregor High School is one of 447 school districts in the U.S. and Canada being honored by the College Board with placement on the eighth annual AP District Honor Roll.

To be included on the honor roll, McGregor High School had to, since 2015, increase the number of students participating in AP while also increasing or maintaining the percentage of students earning AP Exam scores of 3 or higher. Reaching these goals shows that this district is successfully identifying motivated, academically prepared students who are ready for AP, accord to a release.

Send submissions to neighborplus@wacotrib.com.
A Vietnam veteran who tried to transport leftover military grenades to Fort Hood for proper disposal Thursday afternoon instead stopped at the request of local law enforcement near Lacy Lakeview, authorities said.

The man had between eight and 12 explosive military weapons in his possession and had decided he wanted them to be properly disposed of, McLennan County Sheriffs Office Chief Deputy David Kilcrease said. The man, a former military explosives expert who reportedly lives in Italy, Texas, believed taking the devices to Fort Hood would be the best option, Kilcrease said.

During the mans drive with the potentially explosive items, local law enforcement was contacted and was put in touch with him, Kilcrease said. Officials urged him to pull over and wait for the McLennan County Bomb Squad for assistance, which he did.

Bomb technicians met the man near Connally Elementary School and safety removed the devices. The school was closed for the holidays.
For anyone who had hoped the city could get past its connection to the 1993 Branch Davidian siege and fire that made Waco a word known worldwide, the next few weeks may seem like, as Yogi Berra once put it, deja vu all over again.

The new year brings the 25th anniversary for the failed Feb. 28 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives raid that killed four federal agents and six Branch Davidians at the religious sects Mount Carmel complex near Elk. That raid, in turn, started the 51-day siege and its tragic close April 19 in a fire that killed David Koresh and 76 followers, 25 of whom were children.

The retrospectives start Friday night with CBSs 48 Hours: The Secrets of Waco revisiting the subject with correspondent Peter Van Sant. On Jan. 4, ABC will broadcast a two-hour documentary, Truth and Lies: Waco.

Later in January, the Paramount Networks six-part dramatic mini-series Waco begins with actors Taylor Kitsch portraying Branch Davidian leader Koresh and Michael Shannon portraying FBI negotiator Gary Noesner.

On New Years Day, the Tribune-Herald will start making its coverage of the Branch Davidian cult, ATF raid, siege and fire  more than 600 stories, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Sinful Messiah series  accessible online at wacotrib.com for free through April.

Included is the newspapers historical account of the religious group dating back to its 1959 end-of-the-world gathering in Waco, its subsequent splintering and fights for property, and the 1987 shootout and 1988 trial of eight Branch Davidians including Vernon Howell, later known as David Koresh.

The papers digital archives began in 2000, which means much of its Branch Davidian coverage has been unavailable to readers online.

In addition to television projects and the mini-series, theres also a feature film in the works from Hollywood studio Annapurna Pictures, with Jaume Collet-Serra directing a screenplay by Mark Boal and Marc Haimes.

After years of intensive media coverage, some half-dozen documentaries and decades of post-event commentary, is there anything new to say?

CBS veteran reporter Van Sant thinks so. A quarter-century later finds both law enforcement officials and Branch Davidians regretting how events played out and the deaths that occurred, particularly those of the children, he said.

Fridays 48 Hours features Larry Gilbreath, the United Parcel Service driver who delivered orders of weapons to the Davidians Mount Carmel complex and whose accidental discovery of hand grenade casings alerted law enforcement; New Zealander Grace Adams, a former Branch Davidian held in isolation and fed from a bowl on the floor after she angered Koresh; Joann Vaega, one of the Branch Davidian children released in the sieges early days; Australian Marc Breault, a former Branch Davidian alarmed at Koreshs multiple wives, some underage; and surviving Branch Davidians Clive Doyle and Sheila Martin, who still believe Koresh will return to earth.

While the deadly raid and fire made Waco a watchword for people suspicious of governmental force and repression, Van Sant said a closer look at Koresh shows a leader who slept with followers wives and underage teens.

He may have fathered 20 children and had sex with at least 10 minors. By American law, that makes David Koresh a pedophile, he said. The deeper you go the more you see a self-absorbed man who thought he was the Messiah.

For Muriel Pearson, senior producer of ABCs Truth and Lies, such a sprawling story with elements of religion, government, guns and sex made it a challenge to cover, even for a show that seeks to represent multiple points of view rather than a single one with a definitive answer.

It was quite the journey, to try to find as many people from as many corners of the story as possible, Pearson said.

She and her team spoke to ATF and FBI agents involved in the raid and siege, some speaking publicly for the first time and wanting to set the record straight as they see it.

Truth and Lies, whose past episodes have looked at Charles Manson, Watergate and Laci Peterson revisited Charles Gibsons 2003 ABC special Children of Waco and talked to some Branch Davidian children now adults.

To hear their stories then and now is extremely compelling, Pearson said.

The reaction of some Branch Davidian survivors today also is telling, Pearson said: forgiving, accepting the deadly fire as Gods will and believing Koresh will return and sweep his followers back to heaven.

You do find it haunting, she said.

Twenty-five years later, the lessons of Waco include listening before reacting, negotiation before force, the producer said.

We need to take this as a lesson going forward, she said. But I feel the stain of Waco is kind of a permanent one.
Kudos to the Midway Independent School District board of trustees for setting an example of how at least educators should act when it comes to social media and their young charges. Possibly its too much to hope for today, given dramatically shifting political and social norms and morals, but some parents and students would do well to take notice and similarly embrace restraint and civility in what they post online to friend and foe.

Midway ISD this month adopted a ridiculously sensible policy lately touted by the Texas Association of School Boards. It prohibits school district employees from using electronic communications to harass or abuse a student. One might think this plain common sense for educators and administrators in our public schools, yet a 2016 incident involving derogatory, mean-spirited social media comments leveled at then-Midway High senior Miriam McCormick proves otherwise. Ms. McCormicks crime? Pressing school officials (and by working through the system) to change the Midway school mascot name for girls from Pantherettes to Lady Panthers or Panthers. Oh, the horror!

Some adults apparently took this as an outrageous affront justifying returning fire in deplorable ugliness, the sort with which many of us are by now all too familiar online: Twit. Stupid moron. Mentally distraught or scholastically stunted. Brain-dead liberal. Silly, social justice warrior. Worse, as Trib education writer Shelly Conlon reports, a Midway ISD faculty member actually liked some of these same malicious comments the now-19-year-old Midway graduate received via social media  and even contributed a put-down.

To our thinking, an educator egging on others as they employ rhetorical filth to vilify a student online is every bit the equivalent of a teacher on the playground cheering as some bullies taunt a lone and vulnerable student. And First Amendment concerns? As the nations highest court reminds us on many occasions, there are certain limits to all rights, particularly in our places of employment. And if thats not enough, its useful to remember that teachers should be encouraging a lively but respectful discussion of ideas  not urging a tirade of insults, even if concerning some cherished school mascot.

Miriam McCormick ultimately lost her bid to change the name of the mascot but achieved a more significant victory by working with the Texas Association of School Boards (and again through accepted protocols) to the degree the TASB is now advising school boards statewide to adopt such policies. And even if Midway ISD trustees ultimately turned thumbs-down on changing the name of mascots, they correctly understand the far greater relevance of civil discourse in adopting a policy that bolsters an employee handbook rule about such pursuits. Its a victory all the way around except for those whose only arguments against other arguments are demeaning insults and immature name-calling.
Montanas 2017 wildfire season seemed unlikely last winter, as western Montana sat buried beneath above-average snowpack.

But as summer came, precipitation all but stopped across the region. Warm temperatures dwindled snow reserves, and by mid-July the earlier-than-average wildfire season was underway. With grasses and trees drying, rounds of lightning storms sparked blazes from mountain forests to prairie draws.

On Aug. 24 a plume of smoke rose just south of Helena in the South Hills. The first sparks of the Holmes Gulch fire were in a place local fire officials have warned about for years, and as winds pushed the blaze up the backside of Mount Ascension and toward city limits, they wondered if their fears would be realized.

The wind shifted and the city was no longer in danger, but the Holmes Gulch fire, while small in size, still triggered evacuations of area homes. The wind shift proved not to be the only fortuitous occurrence, as an air tanker and helicopters sat minutes away and were soon on the scene.

Residents gathered at the Montana City Fire House, many of their faces wrought with concern as they listened intently to fire officials strategize. By the next evening, evacuees returned home as Helena and northern Jefferson County were spared but left with a cautionary tale.

Montanas 2017 wildfire season was already well underway by the time Holmes Gulch sparked in late August.

North of Lincoln, the Park Creek fire was first spotted the evening of July 14. As days turned into weeks and then months, it moved through snags and combined with the Arrastra Creek fire, totaling about 18,000 acres. The plume inundating Lincoln hampered air quality with prevailing winds often pushing smoke into the Helena Valley.

To the northeast, the Alice Creek fire was not discovered until July 22. It smoldered for weeks as firefighters focused on other blazes, both due to safety concerns and remoteness. Alice Creek would not stay small, and it jumped the ridge and raced to the west. Evacuations were ordered for a small area subdivision until the snow came, finally subduing the nearly 30,000 acre blaze.

Starting July 19, the Lodgepole Complex ran through a quarter million acres of eastern Montana badlands in a matter of days, destroying 16 homes and miles of fencing.

Western Montanas largest fire was Rice Ridge near Seeley Lake at more than 160,000 acres. Weeks of hazardous air plagued the resort town, which even saw the lake closed for crews to get water for air drops.

The 54,000-acre Lolo Peak fire burned multiple homes as it made runs above the Bitterroot Valley and triggered multiple evacuations.

Lost in the 17,000-acre Sprauge fire was the historic Sperry Chalet, built more than 100 years ago by the Great Northern Railroad and listed as a historic landmark.

Other notable fires included the Meyers fire in the Beaverhead-Deer Lodge National Forest, the Sapphire Complex in the Lolo National Forest, the Liberty fire on the Flathead Indian Reservation and the Caribou fire near Eureka.

In all, more than 1.2 million acres burned in Montana in 2017, two firefighters lost their lives, and firefighting costs totaled nearly $400 million.

At the state level, the roughly $75 million price tag, even after receiving federal grants to cover some costs, outspent an already depleted state fire fund by about $45 million.

A study recently released by the University of Montana's Institute for Tourism and Recreational Research estimates the state lost out on $240 million in consumer spending by tourists this year.
WAHOO  Some male youth from St. Wencelsaus and Bishop Neumann schools have again given their time and talents to charity.

On Dec. 16, the Columbian Squires gathered at the high school to fix up and refurbish toys collected for charity. The work included cleaning old toys, repainting bikes, refilling bike tires with air and repackaging items in need of boxes.

The Columbian Squires is a youth group for male Catholic youth from 10 to 18 years old and is a branch of the Knights of Columbus.

Rich Tvrdy, co-leader of the 20 boys in the Wahoo branch of the Columbian Squires, said this toy donation drive and fix-up is an annual event.

We get together on a day and then we fix them up and clean them up, he said.

This year, Tvrdy said, the drive began around Thanksgiving. The group took bins to area Catholic parishes and advertised the drive in the parish bulletins.

He added that stuffed animals were the most common items given to the drive. Bikes, puzzles and games were also frequent donations.

Tvrdy said area children will be among the recipients of these gifts.

Some of the toys were given to the local VFW, Tvrdy said.

The rest of the toys were taken to Lincoln to the Catholic Social Services of Southern Nebraska. Through this organization, he said, they will be given to various families in need across many parts of the state.

Tvrdy said he has seen the efforts of the Columbian Squires have a positive effect on area residents by encouraging them to donate items, money or time to charity.

While the work can be time-consuming, he said, he and the Columbian Squires consider their efforts worth it when seeing the gratitude

and happiness on the faces of children when they receive the toys.

We always get such positive results, Tvrdy said.

He also said he is pleased with how the boys live out their Catholic faith through this community service.

Im proud of them for working together and taking time out of a Saturday for the good of the community, Tvrdy said.
Five years ago, a diverse group of business leaders from across the state met in Bozeman. While they represented many different industries, the common denominator was an understanding that our public lands play a critical role in our states economy.

Those first meetings inspired ideas about how to formally advocate for the economic value of our public lands, and today Business for Montanas Outdoors has grown to include roughly 160 businesses and supporting organizations who represent more than 4,600 Montana jobs (and hiring). Early on, we helped commission some of the earliest research demonstrating the powerful connection between protecting our public lands and fostering our economic growth.

This summer our Last Best Outdoors Fest showcased new research released by Headwaters Economics in our five-year report. (Source: Business for Montanas Outdoors Five-year Report: Montanas Public Lands, Jobs, and the Economy.) It showed that from 2000-2015, Montanas economy created 102,000 net new jobs with 85 percent coming from service-related industries such as outdoor recreation, health care, real estate, professional and technical services. The research consistently shows that Montana counties with the highest percentage of protected public lands are also the fastest-growing for job growth in the state. Recent Outdoor Industry Association research shows that Montanas outdoor economy generates $2.2 billion in wages and salaries, $7.1 billion in consumer spending, $286 million in state and local tax revenue, and supports 71,000 jobs.

These are powerful reasons for sounding the alarm when federal policies threaten our public lands. Specifically, when Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended the most significant rollback of national monument protections in history  our members held him accountable. As Montanas first cabinet secretary, Zinke vowed to uphold the values of Theodore Roosevelt, but instead has taken steps to derail Roosevelts signature legacy: The Antiquities Act. The arbitrary removal of national monument status to public lands in the West will hurt gateway businesses. We stand with those businesses and the jobs they provide and believe an attack on one monument is an attack on all.

Also this year, we joined hundreds of local businesses and bipartisan local leaders in advocating for U.S. Sen. Jon Testers Yellowstone Gateway Protection Act, which would protect 30,000 acres of public land on the doorstep to Yellowstone from large-scale gold mining. We were encouraged last week when U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte answered the call of Montanans, introducing a clean companion bill in the House to keep mining off of the boundary of our first national park.

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines Protect Public Use of Public Lands Act, currently introduced in Congress, is also on our radar. We are concerned with its blanket removal of protections from nearly half a million acres of wilderness study areas across Montana. This top-down swipe at public lands that shuts out virtually all public input raises great concerns for businesses and communities across the state.

As we head into the new year, a top priority is the reauthorization and full, dedicated funding of the Land and Water Conservation fund. LWCF doesnt cost taxpayers a dime, using offshore drilling royalties for the purpose of protecting public lands across the country  including nearly 70 percent of our fishing access sites, and dozens of trails and parks throughout Montana. Without action, this bipartisan conservation program is set to expire on Sept. 30, 2018.

2018 will bring more advocacy, and more work to protect our public lands. We will elevate our member voices to continue protecting our public lands from sale or transfer to states where the tax base cannot support robust management. We will do this work with the understanding that our jobs and our way of life depends on it. We welcome you to join us.

Marne Hayes is executive director of Business for Montanas Outdoors.
Police are re-examining the 2013 death of a cheerleader and dancer who fell from a Gold Coast apartment balcony after her boyfriend sent a string of abusive texts.

Cruise ship entertainer Dan Shearin was jailed for two months after pleading guilty to harassing Breeana Robinson with messages labelling her a "complete f---ing moron" and a "stupid bitch" but was released on appeal.

Dan Shearin and Breeana Robinson.

An inquest into the 21-year-old former Gold Coast Titans cheerleaders death had been set down for November this year but was delayed to a date still to be set.

A Queensland police spokeswoman confirmed the service had been asked to review elements of the evidence.
The family of a young woman who died after taking a euthanasia drug smuggled into Australia through the postal system say the "incompetence" of border officials probably cost the nursing student her life.

Danni Michelle Smith, a 26-year-old former triple-zero operator who was awarded for her work during the Black Saturday fires, took a fatal dose of the drug in August 2015, despite authorities being tipped off that she had been attempting to import the substance.

Danni Smith was a keen traveller. She spent more than a year in China learning martial arts.

A "postal stopper" alert had been placed on mail addressed to her after an anonymous tipster contacted the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in mid-2015 saying she had ordered a euthanasia drug.

Victoria Police also discovered that Danni had sent money to a person in Mexico linked with the importation of the drug.
Enough is enough. Support S.2206, a bill that would finally release wilderness study areas around the state of Montana from wilderness consideration.

In the case of the Ten Lakes Wilderness Study Area, in 1975 the U.S. Forest Service completed an extensive analysis and they recommended that it not be a WSA. In 1977, against USFS recommendation, it was shoved onto the MWSA. Ten Lakes was again studied during the five-year period after enactment of the MWSA, as instructed by Congress, and again in 1981 the USFS recommended the area didn't meet wilderness character and recommended it not be wilderness.

The MWSA has gone to Congress 10 times over the years since enactment and Congress has rejected it every time. Even Congress understands that you can't and shouldn't manufacture wilderness. Enough is enough.

It's time for opponents of S.2206 to quit misleading the public by saying it will open these areas up to oil, gas, mining and timber development; these are false statements. There are many other layers of protective management that will not allow that.

It's time to come to the realization that these areas in WSA limbo aren't worthy of wilderness, they are recreation areas.

Scott Mattheis

Eureka
U.S. Sen. Steve Daines said recently of the tax cut, Montanans hard-earned dollars belong in their pockets, not in Washington, D.C.s coffers (Independent Record, 12/21). There is some very basic math behind that viewpoint that should concern all Montanans.

In 2016, Montana collected $1.38 for every $1 sent to Washington, and for the 2019 biennium state budget, 45.8 percent, or $4.6 billion, is comprised of federal funds (Great Falls Tribune, March 21). If everyone keeps more money in their wallets instead of sending it to Washington, then what happens to Montanas state budget?

The fact is that when it comes to everything from roads to schools, health care, drinking water, sewage treatment and many other services we tend to take for granted, Montana depends on large subsidies from the U.S. Treasury. Were it not for these subsidies, Montana would be a greasy spot on the prairie with bad roads, bad water, leaky sewers and some very poor farmers.

Perhaps these are some of the reasons why U.S. Sen. Jon Tester voted no. So, thank you, Daines and U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, for all your hard work to pass a tax cut that benefits the wealthy. Thanks to you, we are in deep trouble.

Michael Downey

Helena
The state budget agreement may have been the center of attention in the General Assembly for much of the year, but legislators found time to pass more than 200 laws, too. Check out five we've picked for you to know.

Four other stories you should see are anti-abortion activists take Illinois to court, warming centers open to help residents amid arctic weather, rush to pay property taxes and jobless rate falls in Decatur.

5 new Illinois laws to know for 2018

While wrangling over a state budget hogged the spotlight for much of 2017 in the General Assembly, state lawmakers still found time to pass more than 200 new laws that take effect in 2018 and touch nearly every corner of residents' lives.

Some measures flew under the radar, but affect everything from who gets Fido in the divorce to how police officers are educated about mental illness.

Anti-abortion activists take Illinois to court

Conservative activists and legislators pressing a lawsuit against publicly funded abortions in Illinois are seeking an emergency injunction to prevent the law from taking effect Monday.

The Catholic Thomas More Society will appear in Sangamon County Circuit Court today to ask for the injunction.

Warming centers open amid arctic temperatures

The following locations are open to people who need to warm up or seek shelter during the cold winter months, according to the Macon County Emergency Management Agency.

Temperatures are not expected to get above freezing in the next week.

Residents rush to take care of property taxes

An unprecedented rush to prepay next year's property tax bills has enveloped the Macon County offices as homeowners here and across the country hope to take advantage of a major tax deduction before it is wiped out in the new year.

Macon County Treasurer Edward Yoder said Wednesday that his downtown Decatur office has experienced much greater activity since last week when President Donald Trump signed the Republican-backed tax overhaul.

Jobless rate falls in Decatur, but so do jobs

Even as the unemployment rate continues to fall compared to 2016, job losses remain a stubborn statistic in the Decatur area.

Decatur lost 300 nonfarm jobs year over year in November, dropping to 51,600, according to data released Thursday by the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
DECATUR  Central Illinois residents should beware of "dangerously frigid temperatures" through the middle of next week, meteorologists at the National Weather Service warned Friday.

From today to Wednesday, wind chills are expected to drop between 15 to 25 degrees below zero, according to a hazardous weather outlook issued by the weather service at Lincoln. Highs will be in the single digits, and are expected to return to the teens come Monday.

"You don't really want to be outside for this," said meteorologist Scott Baker.

The hazardous weather outlook affects several counties, including Macon, Coles, DeWitt, Shelby and Logan.

There aren't any chances for more snow to accumulate in the coming days, Baker said, but he said that the cold temperatures probably won't show any signs of letting up until mid-January. An outlook spanning Jan. 13-26 shows a 55 to 60 percent chance of above average temperatures, he said.

As for road conditions, Baker said roadways around the Decatur area, and from Interstate 72 throughout Macon County look to be clear of snow and ice.

"We will work until the primary roads are cleared off, and as long as the need is there," said Daniel Mendenall, municipal services manager for the city of Decatur. "We'll be out there night or day."

Mendenall said 15 trucks were sent out Friday afternoon to clear off snow from the roads and spread salt and calcium chloride to melt it. The trucks worked to clear the main roads first, he said, and then made their way into residential areas.

Decatur police Lt. Shannon Seal said officers only responded to one accident with an injury on Friday. One of the people involved in the collision was taken to a local hospital to be treated for injuries that weren't considered to be life-threatening, she said. Seal could not provide further details.

"Luckily, today we haven't had any more accidents than a usual Friday," she said. "The road crews have done a good job."

The Macon County Sheriff's Office responded to "four or five" slide-off accidents Friday afternoon, but none of them resulted in injuries or serious property damage, Lt. Jamie Belcher said.

As the deep freeze continues, Mendenall said motorists and pedestrians should be careful for ice underneath the snow. Frigid temperatures within the past week have not melted ice and snow from last weekend's snowfall, he said.

"There's not a whole lot that salt can do for the ice when it's 5 to 10 degrees outside," he said. "If we see some sunlight, and if we get some warmer temps, we can melt this away in no time."

Until those warmer temps come, Baker advises against any attempts to brave the elements. "Stay inside," he said. "And that goes for humans and animals. They shouldn't be outside for very long periods at all."

Oasis Day Center Director Jeff Mueller said the homeless shelter, which also serves as a warming center during the cold winter months, has seen more people in need of help. The deep freeze means people also spend more time at the center throughout the day.

Whereas the center might help about 150 people on a normal day, Mueller said that number has trended closer to 200 recently. The center is open seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

"We are really trying to be a resource center for them. With them here longer, we have a chance to hit them up one on one," Mueller said. "Our goal is to link them up with appropriate resources in the community.

"Fortunately, all of our folks have been able to find a temporary shelter of some sort, whether with friends or an overnight shelter at night."
DECATUR  As Richland Community College students enjoy their winter break, work is being completed on two new centers that represent nearly $10 million in improvements and aim to create a more modern, streamlined experienced for students.

Both the Carroll Center for Innovative Learning, focused on 21st-century labs and community space, and Student Success Center, meant to create more efficient enrollment efforts, are set to open in January. Together, they take up more than 30,000 square feet of new space at the campus on the city's northeast side.

"(The Carroll Center) is very open, and I really think it's going to be a great opportunity for students to enhance their studying," said Serena Black, 19, a sophomore studying accountancy. "I think it will also enhance student sociability as it allows them to go up there and engage in conversation. There are a lot of tables and a lot of open space up there."

The investment comes even as the college has struggled financially in recent months, increasing tuition about 3 percent per credit hour in February, cutting administrative positions and laying off 18 employees and offering buyouts to 14 others. The issues stem from a combination of state funding cuts and declining enrollment, officials have said.

Money for the Carroll Center came from private donors and the Student Success Center was mostly state-funded. The latter source caused delays as lawmakers wrangled over the Illinois budget during the past two years.

Richland President Cris Valdez said the new facilities will help the college strengthen its brand among current and future students.

Were pretty excited  Were going to have a more engaged learning atmosphere and students will have greater access to faculty, he said. Were confident that will increase faculty and student interaction and student engagement."

Innovative learning space

With new technology and workspaces, the Carroll Center for Innovative Learning is meant embrace a new model for future learning on 15,000 square feet on the second floor of the main Richland building.

Students can get to the space from the existing staircases, as well as a new communication stairway that is part of the renovations at the main entrance to the college.

The entryway renovation addresses what Greg Florian, vice president of finance and administration, described as a common problem for new students: No one ever seemed to know that we had a second floor, he said. Now they will know right away its there.

The center includes eight class labs, 18 faculty offices and dozens of chairs, couches and other spaces to either relax between classes or study in peace. In addition to high-speed WiFi and the countless power outlets for students to charge their phones or laptops, the center will have a number of wall-mounted screens that allow students to work on projects by themselves or with a group. The wide hallways offer space and movable furniture so that students and faculty can shape the area to fit their needs.

"As a student, I tend to have a lot studying materials, a lot of resources," Black said. "Nine times out of ten, I have multiple notebooks open, especially during exams. So I need a lot of space. And the open spaces and vast capacity in the center is really going to help with that."

Technology and tools in the classrooms can be catered to the professors' needs. Students can connect to projectors through their electronic devices, or write on most any wall in the labs, which are a mix of whiteboards and glass walls, with dry-erase markers.

A key to the center was talking with faculty and students and getting feedback on what they hoped to see in a state-of-the-art learning facility, said Tracy Withrow, Richlands director of marketing and public relations.

When students were asked what they wanted to see, Withrow said, common suggestions included more collaborative areas where they could work on group projects, better connection to the Internet, quiet space where they could study between classes and a modern feel.

A lot of what we did was in direct response to what they told us, she said. They didnt want it to feel like their high school, and they didnt want it to feel like Richland. They wanted something new and fresh and this  this is definitely something different for us.

Classes will be held in the center by early next year. Faculty from other colleges in the area also could come in and train at the center, she said.

High school students are also set to visit next spring, which is one of the ways that Valdez said the center can be used as a recruitment tool. If college leaders look to do more renovations, they will use the Carroll Center as a model, Valdez said.

As we look at renovations at specific wings, this would be the model, Valdez said. But we do not have any plans at this point.

'One-stop shop' for students

For new and current students at the college, getting ready for the semester can be a hassle. From meeting class advisers to figuring out financial packages, the process can be a long and stressful one.

Prospective students could even decide they want to do something different and walk out without enrolling in classes, a situation Richland officials want to avoid at all costs.

They hope concentrating everything in the Student Success Center, a 22,000-square-foot facility attached to the northern part of the building, will help lessen that stress.

I think its extremely important; rarely does a student come in with just one thing to do, Valdez said. We will be able to meet those needs, from talking with advisers about classes to talking about career path, from internship to job shadow. That can all happen at this location, we dont have to worry about the student walking out the door without finishing.

Set to open by mid-January, the center will include academic advising, orientation, admissions, testing and assessment, financial aid, career development, job placement and transfer services. But the biggest key, Valdez said, is that students will be able to get to all of them without having to go more than 50 feet between services.

As she prepares to gather transcripts and other materials to transfer to a four-year university in the fall, Taylor Vidmar said she's really looking forward to the convenience of centrally located services.

"Everything that we need is going to be so much closer, actually in the main building, which is very helpful," said Vidmar, 20, who is studying English and serves as a senator with the student government. "Right now a lot of those offices are in the separate buildings and kind of far away so its going to be a very big convenience to have those so much closer."

Most services are currently held at the Workforce Development Center, though Withrow said students currently have to go into a separate building to do placement testing.

The center will also include new administrative offices, including the presidents office, the colleges foundation and space for the colleges board of trustees to hold its monthly meeting.

Once the move to the center is completed, the current location for administrative offices and student services are expected to be reverted back to classrooms, Florian said.

Landscaping around the center is expected to start in spring.

Not only is the site expected to vastly improve convenience for students, but Valdez said its completion will also bring aesthetic improvements, as those who look at the campus as they drive on Brush College Road will no longer notice the bevy of construction crews working at the site.

You see that we have a campus here; its not just a construction site or a pile of weeds, Valdez said. Not just having dust or construction signs out will be a great win for us.

Tale of two facilities

Both facilities will be open by the middle of January, but their paths to fruition varied widely.

Construction of the $3.5 million Carroll Center began in late spring, with the entire cost of the project was covered through donations to the colleges foundation. As crews tore down the dreary, windowless offices and classrooms that once stood there, Florian said it was key was to open the space with windows on nearly all exterior walls and glass walls.

Just six months ago, the fate of the Student Success Center was far less certain as construction stopped for the second time because of lawmakers' battles over the state budget. It has been nearly a decade since Richland leaders first discussed the idea in the early 2000s.

After several years of design work and preparing proposals for state funding, money was finally appropriated for construction in the states 2010 budget. Under the original agreement, the state was to provide $5.1 million toward the $6.3 million cost of the center. Richland used its $1.175 million share of funding to set the basic foundation for the building.

After more delays in receiving the state dollars, work on the center began in earnest in late 2014. It stopped in summer 2015 after lawmakers failed to pass a state budget, and the steel beams and other structures meant to be the foundation for the finished center sat outside the front entrance to the college for nearly 17 months.

A stopgap budget approved in 2016 allowed work to begin again this February, but the delay added an additional cost of $485,000 to the center as work needed to be done to remove rust and fix other issues with the structure being exposed for so long to harsh summer and winter weather. The additional costs was covered by the state.

Just a few months later, work had to be stopped again as lawmakers were unable to agree to a budget for the third straight year. Thankfully for Richland, lawmakers approved a new state budget on July 6, which allowed work to start again on the center after a delay of just a few weeks.

Valdez said he has spoken to his colleagues about the long, winding road it has taken to get to the centers completion. While the wait has been painful at times, he said he is excited for it to mark the next step in Richlands future.

It will allow us to move forward, build new programs, partnerships and start new training opportunities, Valdez said. We can concentrate on them more fully, without having to worry about if this will be delayed again or about getting to a part of campus because theyre doing the flooring near where you need to go.

After walking by the construction site for months, Vidmar is ready to set foot in the new the student center.

"Its going to be great to be able to actually use it after seeing it for so long every day," she said.

Herald & Review managing editor of digital Allison Petty contributed to this story.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Dec. 29, 2017 | MAYFIELD, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 29, 2017 | 11:45 AM | MAYFIELD, KY

A Graves County man faces several charges, after an argument between a father and son turned violent Thursday evening.



Graves County Sheriff Dewayne Redmon said deputies responded at 7:05 p.m. to an emergency at a home in Sherwood Forrest. When they got there, they found 56-year-old Jimmy Windsor standing outside in the driveway. His father, 79-year-old Vestor Windsor, was inside the home. Deputies said Jimmy Windsor was under the influence of alcohol, and told deputies that everything was okay. Vestor Windsor was bleeding from the side of his face, and told deputies the two had been in a fight. He said his son grabbed a pistol from the cushion of the couch and pistol whipped him in the face, at which time they began fighting over the pistol.



Both men were taken to Jackson Purchase Medical Center ER for treatment. Jimmy Windsor was placed under arrest, and while in the ER he reportedly began yelling and cursing at the nurses who were assisting him. He was charged with second-degree assault-domestic violence, second-degree disorderly conduct and alcohol intoxication in a public place.
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MATTOON  A Bloomington woman suffering from dementia who was reported missing on Monday, Christmas Day, was found in Mattoon and returned to her home Wednesday, police said.

"There were an awful lot of people involved in trying to find her, and we were thinking the worst," Mattoon Police Chief Jason Taylor said.

Taylor said 53-year-old Carmon D. Edwards was reported missing by her family at 11 a.m. Monday.

He said an investigation determined that Edwards, who accidentally left her cellphone at home, drove south and briefly stopped Monday afternoon at a Champaign service station, where she prepaid for gasoline but did not pump the fuel into her tank.

Taylor said Edwards then drove for an unknown reason to Mattoon, where she has no ties, and ran out of gasoline near Richmond Avenue and 21st Street.

He said Mattoon police officers found Edwards' unoccupied vehicle there at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. He said police officers and firefighters conducted a grid search of Mattoon for Edwards, including looking along ditches and railroad tracks. He said an Illinois State Police airplane assisted as well.

Taylor said a rural Mattoon man found Edwards wandering Tuesday morning in the parking lot of Dollar General, 2001 Lake Land Blvd. He said the man did not realize that Edwards was a missing person. He bought breakfast for Edwards at 9:15 a.m. that day at Hardee's, 1117 Lake Land Blvd., and then took her to shelter at his home, Taylor said.

The man reportedly learned that Edwards was a missing person when he saw a television news report Wednesday morning about state police searching for her, Taylor said.

The man took Edwards to state police District 10 headquarters in Pesotum at 12:50 p.m. Wednesday, Taylor said. Edwards has since been returned healthy and unharmed to her family, Taylor added.
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Van Meter defeats West Branch

The Van Meter Bulldogs beat back the West Branch Bears 48-17 on Friday, setting the Bulldogs up to move on to the state championship game for the fifth time in the last six years and the fifth time in school history. This was the second...

Championship shooting competition

More than 200 athletes from 15 Iowa colleges and universities will participate in the 2022 Iowa Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) Collegiate Championships in Trap, Skeet, Sporting Clays and Super Sporting Clays. Many of these athletes have been shooting in the SCTP since middle school...
Armenias Administrative Court has found in favor of Artashes Hovhannisyan, a former minority shareholder of Ameriabank, who had demanded that the bank return the five shares he owned before they were consolidated and bought back by the banks majority shareholders.

Hovhannisyan, who had lost a similar case against Ameriabank (The Bank) in civil court, had filed the lawsuit against Armenias Central Bank, Ameriabank and the Central Depository.

The plaintiff argued that he was never informed of the transaction in advance.

Hovhannisyans lawyers qualified the transaction as squeezing out the minor shareholder from the Bank, and that it contradicted the main legal act regulating the banking sector in Armenia.

In accordance with the Banking Law, the buyback of consolidated shares is prohibited.

Notwithstanding the statutory prohibition, the civil court had refused the claim. The court based its verdict on Clarification No 8 issued by the Central Bank, which additionally interprets the Banking Law permitting Ameriabank to consolidate and buy back its minority shareholders shares. Thus, a precedent granting a privilege to all majority shareholders of banks has been created by the Central Bank.

Clarification No 8 by the Central Bank provides, that major shareholder may take a decision on consolidation and buy back of shares, if in receipt of controlling positive position of the Central Bank. The Clarification further provides that controlling positive position should be taken taking into account the specific facts of each case.

After the case was exhausted in the civil courts, Artashes Hovhannisyan applied to the Administrative Court, suing Armenias Central Bank. (Ameriabank and the Central Depository had been listed as third parties.) Earlier, the Central Depository had verified the buy back transaction through registration.

Artashes Hovhannisyan demanded a dismissal, or to recognize as null and void, the Central Banks controlling positive decision issued to Ameriabank and as consequence to announce null and void the share consolidation and buy back decisions taken at the Ameriabanks general shareholders extraordinary meeting. All this would result in the restoration of his property rights regarding his five common nominal shares.

The Administrative Court satisfied all the plaintiffs claims. The court also confiscated AMD 4000 Armenian from the Central Bank to compensate Artashes Hovhannisyan for the state fee paid. The Central Bank has appealed.

Hayk Hovhannisyan: We are facing an unprecedented situation. No court in neighboring countries has showed such a level of independence

Artashes Hovhannisyan applied to the Administrative Court in March of 2016, after exhausting all civil court options and applying to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The ECHR has confirmed registering the application,and the case is pending.

Artashes Hovhannisyans son and attorney Hayk Hovhannisyan says that regardless of the outcome of appeal, the current unprecedented decision of the Administrative Court increases their chances of success at the ECHR to 75%.

Hayk Hovhannisyan says the decision taken by the Administrative Court Judge Argishti Ghazaryan is an interesting development on the path of the judicial system achieving independence.

This means that our courts have started to get rid of so called telephone law, when a call from higher-ups instructs a judge as to what verdict to hand down. Now, in this case, we have unprecedented situation, and as far as I have researched judicial practice of Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, no court has showed such a level of independence in our neighboring countries, says Hovhannisyan.

He emphasizes that all the decisions of the Central Bank have been recognized as null and void, that the interests of the minority shareholder have been protected in corporative relations, and his property rights have been restored.

I think that this is quite a positive development for Armenia in general, not only because we show the independence of the courts, but also the very fact that property rights have started to be protected. Private property and its protection are the bases of a market economy and investment attraction. Foreign and local investors look at the level of shareholder protection in the state. They research judicial practice before entering a country. They will see that we have a court independent enough to declare the Central Banks decisions null and void, and to restore the rights of a minor shareholder, says Hayk Hovhannisyan.

The reason for the Administrative Courts decision, according to Hayk Hovhannisyan, is either that administrative pressure from on high wasnt brought to bear, the court was able to maintain its independence and voice its position, if they were. He views both scenarios are positive.

I was almost certain that the administrative pressures would continue, administrative levers would be applied, that the telephone law inherited from our pre-soviet and soviet life would continue to be used and we wouldnt achieve justice. But to our surpriseWe jumped for joy in the courtroom when it was announced that our demands were met, he said.

How does this verdict benefit Armenias economy and banking system?

Hayk Hovhannisyan says this decision of the Administrative Court is not only their victory, but that of the minor shareholders of all Armenian banks. One of the main functions of the Central Bank is to prevent and ban discrimination between shareholders.

To the question on whether you consider possibility of co-operation with major shareholders if appeal has no result and the court decision enters into force, Hovhannisyan replied: Why not? We have always been open for negotiations the outcome of which will promote the countrys rating, will not violate major shareholders interests, including the interests of European Bank of Reconstruction and Development that is currently among listed shareholders of the bank, and from the other hand will not give a rise to a negative precedent..

Hayk Hovhannisyan adds, if the Administrative Courts decision survives at all instances, Ameriabank will be faced with huge expenses, the latter may supposedly demand a compensation from the state, because it had executed the transaction upon permission of a state controlling body, namely the Central Bank. The supposed outcome, as per the lawyer, will not have a favorable influence on the entire Armenian economic field, from the other side, the overthrowing of the Administrative Courts decision will jeopardize minor shareholders of all banks, and such minors are not less important for the countrys economy.

The Administrative Courts decision is a sprout of our independence, one of its real achievements. We must cherish and develop it. In its talks with European partners our country always can say that we have such an independent court.

This is a very significant indicator and may even strengthen Armenias position in the World Bank's Doing Business rankings. If, via the application of administrative resources, our state bodies overturn this common victory, then it may affect our countrys rating negatively, says Hayk Hovhannisyan.

Top photo (from left): Central Bank President Artur Javadyan, Ameribank Chairman of Management Board Artak Hanesyan
A Reedsburg man was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday for a burglary in which he ripped a safe from a wall at a Lime Ridge business.

The term of confinement for 21-year-old Christopher M. Skinner is to be followed by two years of probation. The sentence was jointly recommended by the prosecution and defense as part of a plea deal.

With the help of DNA evidence, a Sauk County Sheriffs Office detective found that Skinner and another Reedsburg man, Andrew J. Krahenbuhl, 18, were responsible for a November 2016 overnight burglary at the Lime Ridge Agricultural Supply Center.

The two men used a pry bar to remove a wall safe from inside the business and transported it from the scene before opening it and removing its contents.

In a separate case, Skinner and two other men were charged with breaking into vehicles in Lake Delton.

During a sentencing hearing Thursday, Sauk County District Attorney Kevin Calkins said Skinner has multiple prior convictions for burglary, theft and criminal damage to property, and will have to reflect on his future while serving time.

Frankly, weve run out of options for Mr. Skinner, which is unfortunate for someone of such a young age, Calkins said. But I think he needs to make a decision at this point.

Skinners attorney, Kara Rolf of Baraboo, said her client has acknowledged that his criminal behavior feeds drug and alcohol addictions. Part of his sentence in a Juneau County burglary case required that he get treatment while on probation, but it wasnt covered by the state Department of Corrections.

It was something that (his familys) insurance wouldnt cover, and that they could not afford, Rolf said, adding that her client is not likely to get treatment in prison. Now were at the point where were sending a 21-year-old to prison who has never received treatment.

Skinner declined to make a statement before Sauk County Circuit Court Judge Wendy Klicko accepted the joint recommendation and sentenced him to the three-year prison term. He will get 158 days credit for time already served.

Time is going to pass and you are going to come out (of prison) a more mature man, Klicko said, adding that the period of incarceration will give him a significant period of sobriety. She encouraged Skinner to be vigilant about managing his addictions upon his release.

Skinner must get treatment when he is released on probation. He also will have to pay restitution to his victims.
We wont know the full impact of the massive Republican tax bill for a year or two. Supporters and detractors have spewed opinions almost without restraint, though in candor, the Democrats seem to have more credible analysts on their side of the argument.

Only time will settle the macro-economic debate. It will take only a month or two of hard reporting to figure out whats buried in the 500-page bill that was hammered out in the wee hours by Republican dealmakers.

Who knows? We could wake up one morning and discover the Everglades National Park is for sale. More likely, Republicans will make good their stated goal to fix Social Security and Medicare, a fix that should make elderly wary.

While backers and detractors of the tax plan have exaggerated to one degree or another, it is the deal-maker-in-chief, President Donald Trump, who has won the war of rhetorical excess.

Trump calls the tax rewrite the biggest, most ambitious, most sweeping, most expansive economic boost to the working people of America than anything ever conceived  now and for all times.

And to counter assertions from the other side that the tax bill is a giveaway to the rich and privileged, he offers:

This is going to cost me a fortune, this thing, believe me. Believe me. This is not good for me. Its not so. I have some very wealthy friends. Not so happy with me, but thats OK. You know, I keep hearing Schumer. This is for the wealthy. Well if it is, my friends dont know about it. I think my accountants are going crazy right now.

His stream-of-consciousness speech to a crowd of supporters in St. Charles, Missouri, was a model of Trump-style incoherence and exaggeration bordering on prevarication.

Anyone asking to be believed twice in a 14-word sentence probably shouldnt be.

We will have to see his income tax returns to see how much he will be hurt under the provisions of the new tax code. But Trump refuses to release his returns, the only modern president to do so. And Congress refuses to compel him.

But this much is certain, the top personal tax rate drops from 39.6 percent to 37 percent and the estate tax is twice as generous. And treatment of pass-through income, the kind that applies to most Trump business, is dramatically lower in the new code. And, of course, if any of Trumps businesses operate under a corporate structure, that much-talked-about rate drops from 35 percent to 21.

So, at least on the surface, Trumps interests suffer none of the blows and enjoy almost all of the advantages in the new code. Its the hidden clunkers that will tell the real tale.

The tax return will settle the question once and for all. In typical Trump fashion, he started out with a promise to release his tax returns as have virtually all of his predecessors.

He modified his position to promise a release after the completion of an IRS audit. Told by the IRS that the audit wasnt a bar to release, he told us his tax return was none of our business.

But it is our business, President Trump. You gave up your financial privacy when you decided to run for public office.
The Adams County Sheriff's Office is reminding drivers to move over or slow down when passing law enforcement or emergency responders pulled over on the sides of Wisconsin's roads after a deputy was nearly hit while issuing a traffic warning.

Dashcam video of the incident, which was posted to Facebook by the Sheriff's Office, shows a deputy issuing a written warning to a driver. In the process of talking to the driver, a white pickup truck passes the scene and comes within inches of hitting the deputy.

In the Facebook post, the Sheriff's Office reminded drivers that Wisconsin has a "move over law" that "requires drivers to shift lanes or slow down in order to provide a 'safety zone' for a squad car, ambulance, fire truck, tow truck, utility vehicle, or highway maintenance vehicle that is stopped on the side of a road with its warning lights flashing."

To create a safety zone, drivers should move out of the lane nearest to the stopped vehicle if it is possible and safe to do so, or if that's not possible, slow down, the Sheriff's Office said.

In the case of this near miss, the Sheriff's Office said the deputy is OK and managed to stop the driver of the white pickup, who was issued several citations.
An early-morning stabbing on Christmas Eve in downtown Portage resulted in one man being transported to Madison by Medflight and another arrested and charged with felony substantial battery and reckless endangerment.

Dakota McGowan, 22, of Waukesha, appeared in Columbia County Circuit Court via video from Columbia County Jail on Thursday for his initial appearance following Sundays incident.

Portage police officers were dispatched to an Adams Street residence at around 2:45 a.m. Sunday, following an ambulance call for Christopher Drews, 24, of Portage, who had been stabbed. At the scene a woman said that she had been at Pohlks Pub with the man and another woman, when Drews had gotten into a fight, leading to the stabbing.

Drews, who had an open cut about 8 inches long along his thigh, told one officer that another man had tried to get with the other woman who was with them and said, (I) had a couple of words with him and then I was bleeding everywhere.

After being taken to Divine Savior Healthcare and then to UW Hospital by Medflight, Drews was released with 15 stitches in his thigh and six stitches on his left hand.

Police located the third member of their party who said that 110 percent it was Drews who was the primary aggressor. She told one officer that her friends boyfriend, Drews, had gotten into a fight with McGowan, that McGowan tried to apologize and make peace with him, but that Drews began yelling and swearing at him, pushing their friend into a wall when she tried to get between the two men.

Drews followed McGowan out of the bar, she told officers, where the fight continued near the Market Basket store.

As officers were interviewing witnesses, Columbia County Dispatch alerted them to a call from McGowan to tell them where he was. An officer then met McGowan and another man at an Albert Street home where McGowan said that he had been at Pohlks Pub when he saw a woman who he thought may have liked him. The womans ex-boyfriend was upset that McGowan was talking to her and he attacked him, pinning McGowan against the wall.

McGowan punched Drews and then pulled out his knife, stabbed him and tried to get away, he told the officer.

I was afraid I had killed this guy because he attacked me, said McGowan. I was scared for my life because I wanted to talk to a girl.

McGowan agreed to go with police and surrendered the knife, designed to stick out from pinky side of a closed fist, with a reverse-curved blade.

In court, District Attorney Jane Kohlwey did not request cash bond be imposed by Judge W. Andrew Voigt and McGowan, who according to online Wisconsin Court System Records has no prior record outside of a speeding ticket, was released on a $10,000 signature bond with orders of absolute sobriety and no contact with Drews.

If convicted, McGowan faces a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison. He is scheduled to next appear in court for a March 23 hearing.

Drews has been cited with misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and battery, with an initial appearance scheduled for Jan. 3.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan today hosted classical pianist Evgeny Kissin, who is visiting Armenia to attend the 18th Yerevan Perspectives music festival.

Welcoming Kissin, Sargsyan noted that people in Armenia not only appreciate his talent, mastery, and wonderful performances, but that he is also beloved for his human characteristics, referring to the pianists support in the aftermath of the 1988 Spitak Earthquake.

The president described Kissin as a beloved friend of Armenia.

Sargsyan also thanked Kissin for his participation in a New York concert dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Kissin conveyed his love and respect for the centuries-old culture and history of the Armenian people, promising to visit Armenia throughout his life.
Harutyun Saribegyan, one of the nine individuals, including a former Armenian deputy defense minister arrested in 2015 on charges of illegal arms possession and planning to overthrow the government in Armenia and now on trial in a Yerevan court, has stopped his water strike but is still on hunger strike according to his lawyer.

Saribegyan declared the hunger strike sixteen days ago in the Nubarashen Correctional Facility, arguing that he was being politically persecuted, and the charges levied against him, that he suggested the idea of shooting down the presidents plane, are baseless.

It was on November 25, 2015 that Armenias National Security Service (NSS) reported that it had uncovered a criminal gang in Yerevan that was planning to overthrow the government.




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A lot of times people feel like the walls are moving in on them and theres no out. We have people who are significantly stressed by their financial situation and we have had people in the past who have said theyve had those thoughts before, of suicide. Thats definitely a reality, said Brad OBrien, financial education manager at GreenPath Financial Wellness.
Macmillan worker celebrated for her passion and tireless work with cancer patients

This article is old - Published: Friday, Dec 29th, 2017

A Macmillan worker at the Wrexham Maelor Hospital has been celebrated for her tireless work with people living with cancer.

Pam Wedley, a senior Macmillan information facilitator based at the hospital, won the Seren Betsi Star award from the Health Board after being nominated by her colleagues.

With over a decade working for Macmillan, Pam has demonstrated dedication to cancer patients, including improving her Welsh and learning British Sign Language to help her communicate better with patients.

She has introduced help for patients with welfare rights, introduced a vital counselling service and a hair loss service in the cancer information and support centre.

During her time with Macmillan, Pam has also introduced memory boxes for the families of palliative care patients and raises the money for these by holding bakery demonstrations in her own time and also collecting donations.

Speaking of the award, Pam said: I am absolutely overwhelmed to receive the Seren Betsi Star Award. I just want to do my best to improve the lives of others. Little things can make such a huge difference.

I am so honoured to be receiving this, not just for myself but for all my colleagues at Macmillan and Shooting Star because I couldnt do this without them.

Its a massive passion for me to do this job, its the patients who inspire me to do it.

She added: Ive worked in the Health Board for 38 years and worked with Macmillan for just under 10 years doing this work and I was the first in Wales.

It has been an inspiration to lead this work for Betsi Cadwaladr and Macmillan and promote it right across Wales.

Chief executive of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, Gary Doherty described Pam as passionate about her role and praised her for the innovations in patient care she has led.

He said: Pam has been described by others as a bright star and thats why she has received this award.

Pam helps patients to understand what services are available during their treatment and recovery such as getting counselling or finding out about support groups. She has worked with so many cancer patients, making sure they get access to the right information.

Looking at the nomination she received from her colleagues, they said her work has been fantastic over the years, especially with helping patients to be able to communicate properly.

They are so impressed that she has gone above and beyond; learning sign language isnt easy but she has shown tireless dedication to making sure she can understand those who may struggle to communicate.

She has told me she has lots of exciting projects planned for the future too. Well done Pam.
Man rings 999 to North Wales Police  Im trying to get through to Adult XXX

This article is old - Published: Friday, Dec 29th, 2017

A cat stuck up a tree and a man struggling to get through to an adult XXX website are just a couple of the examples of inappropriate 999 calls North Wales Police have received.

Recordings of some of the calls have been made public as North Wales Police highlight their continued #DontTieUpTheLine message to help lessen the amount of unnecessary and inappropriate calls at one of the busiest times of the year.

Latest figures show that in the past year North Wales Police received almost 410,000 calls; including emergency and non-emergency calls.

Between December 15th 2016 and 3rd of January 2017, North Wales Police received 4,407 999 calls and 14,984 101 calls.

Now Temporary Superintendent Nick Evans from the Joint Communications Centre is urging people to only use the 999 line in an emergency, and ensure that calls to the non-emergency 101 number are for policing matters.

He said: Each unnecessary call to us reduces time available for calls which are for genuine policing matters.

Traditionally Christmas and New Year are among the busiest times of year for the police and we are simply asking people to use the 999 system wisely to help ensure a legitimate emergency are prioritised over the festive period.

Phoning 999  which is an emergency line, for trivial matters such as to report a cat stuck up a tree is a complete waste of resources, and could possibly prevent a genuine life or death emergency call being put through.

Other examples of inappropriate calls made to North Wales Police have included requests for taxis, a broken TV, someone coughing their cigarette out of their mouth and a complaint about a persons cold take away meal.

Police say there has also been a recent spate of children phoning 999 from pay phones  with one example including a child phoning 999 whilst being taught by mum who was teaching her child regarding how and when to use the system.

T/Sup Evans added: We strive to answer all calls as quickly as possible, but due to the variable volume of calls in to police communication centres, waiting times for the non-emergency line will vary. For example an RTC on a main trunk road will result in a particularly large call volume.

999 calls will always be prioritised but please do not be tempted to misuse the number for routine matters, as such callers will simply be advised to call back on the non-emergency number.

We do have powers to prosecute people for misusing the 999 system and if people are found to be consistently making hoax calls they could face prosecution.

Police say it can be hard to prescribe what is or is not an emergency, but in general, you should call 999 if:

 A life is in danger or someone is being physically threatened

 If you are witnessing a crime happening at the time, or think the offenders are still nearby

 You witness or are involved in a serious road traffic collision where someone is badly injured, or other vehicles are causing an obstruction or a danger to other road users

Otherwise, calls should be made to the 101 non-emergency line. North Wales Police also offer live webchat for people to contact officers online for non-urgent matters which is operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Otherwise calls should be made to the non-emergency line, 101 (calls to 101 from landlines and mobiles cost 15p per call, no matter what time of day you call or how long you call lasts).
In an effort to save some money, people across the country rushed this week to pay their 2018 property taxes early.

Many were hoping to take advantage one last time of a federal deduction that will be scaled back under the tax-code overhaul signed by President Trump.

The IRS announced Thursday though, that those pre-payments could be deducted only in limited circumstances. For Wisconsin residents, you're probably not one of them.

"The year that you pay your property taxes is the year that you can take them as an itemized deduction on your income taxes. So people want to come in and pay them in 2017 in order to take them in 2017 because the new tax regulations are in effect for 2018, explained Bobby Splinter, Assistant Finance Director for the city of Wausau.

In an advisory posted on the IRS website, it warns prepayments of 2018 state and local taxes before Jan. 1 may be tax deductible, but only if the municipalities have actually assessed the taxes before the year ends.

In Wisconsin, Dane and Waukesha counties pay the highest property taxes.
A record cold wave extending from the Upper Midwest through the Great Lakes and into New England contributed to numerous deaths across the United States Christmas week. Homeless people and the elderly were particularly at risk, but the greater stress imposed by severe weather has yet again laid bare the social crisis affecting all sections of the working class.

Deaths due to hypothermia (exposure to extreme cold) were reported in Chicago; Cincinnati, Ohio; Rapid City, South Dakota; and Ogden, Utah over the Christmas holiday period.

The victim in Chicago was a 62-year-old man, whose name has not been released, found unresponsive in his car the day after Christmas. His was the fourth death in Chicago attributed to exposure since the current cold season began in late October. The other victims were all men suffering from multiple health problems aggravated by alcoholism.

The man found dead Tuesday at a bus stop in downtown Cincinnati, 55-year-old Kenneth Martin, was homeless. In Rapid City, Alan Jack, aged 69, was found dead outdoors early Christmas morning. The 79-year-old woman, Verna Marriott, found dead the morning of December 23 in Ogden was suffering from dementia and had wandered from the home she shared with her daughters family in the middle of the night.

An even greater death toll comes from the rising number of house fires, frequently triggered by space heaters or other precarious methods of keeping warm in severe weather. These fires for the most part represent the intersection of the cold wave with the bad housing conditions endured by impoverished layers of the working class.

Twelve people died Thursday night, including a one-year-old child, as the result of a fire which ripped through an apartment building in the Bronx, New York City's poorest borough. While a cause of the fire has yet to be officially determined, initial reports indicate that the fire may have been triggered by a small child playing with a stove. The fire comes less than two weeks after a house fire in Brooklyn killed a mother and her three children.

Two fires in eastern Iowa over the weekend killed nine people, including four children, bringing the total number of fire deaths in 2017 in Iowa to 51, the highest level in more than a decade.

Four members of one family died in a house fire early Christmas Day in Blue Grass, just west of Davenport. One of the four residents escaped but later died in the hospital. The other three died inside their home.

A second fire in a Davenport mobile home December 21 killed a mother and her four children. The mobile home had no working smoke detectors and, because it was owner-occupied, was not subject to fire department inspection.

Kelsey Clain, 23, and two of her children, Jayden Smead, five, and Carson Smead, two, died at the scene. Isabella Smead, nine months, died in hospital December 24, and Skylar Smead, four, died similarly on Tuesday, December 26.

In the neighboring state of Minnesota, a house fire Tuesday in Hibbing killed four people, including two grandparents, Steven and Patricia Gillitzer, and two grandsons, Todd Gillitzer, nine, and Anteus Adams, three. A third grandson, Jonathan Gillitzer, eight, was rescued by his grandfather and survived, but Steven, a retired firefighter, died trying to save other members of his family.

Firefighters from five departments fought the blaze in temperatures of around 20 below zero Fahrenheit, with wind chills as low as 35 below. The house had smoke detectors which were sounding when firefighters arrived at the scene. There were two other fire deaths in Minnesota since Christmas Day, bringing the total for the year to 63, the most since 2002.

Two children were killed in a house fire in East Franklin, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburgh, on Thursday morning, December 28. The 13-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy were caught by a fast-moving fire, but five other residentsthe childrens mother, her boyfriend, and three siblings escaped by jumping out second-floor windows. The day before, a 16-year-old boy was killed in a house fire in nearby South Bend, Pennsylvania.

Cold weather stretching into the southern portion of the Plains states created treacherous driving conditions. Four womentwo teenagers, a 20-year-old and a 47-year-olddied Tuesday in a car crash near Abilene, Kansas caused by icy roads. The car hit a guardrail on a bridge and went over, landing 25 feet below on its roof, according to the state highway patrol.

The cold shattered records throughout the affected area, home to half the population of the United States. International Falls, Minnesota, proverbially the coldest spot in the continental US, set a record low of minus 36 degrees Fahrenheit Wednesday morning, four degrees below the 1924 record. Detroit tied its previous record of minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit the same day.

The National Weather Service issued extreme-cold advisories for New England, the Northeast, the Midwest and parts of the West. The forecast for New Years Eve in New York City was a wind chill in negative numbers, some 40 degrees colder than normal. City officials said that emergency shelter space was being opened for thousands of homeless people who might otherwise be on the streets this week.

As the cold wave set in, city after city across the United States has reported record annual death tolls among the homeless. Memorial services were held in several hundred cities on December 21the shortest day and longest night of the yearto mark these tragic events.

The cities involved include many that might not be thought of as centers of homelessness and premature deathCharlotte, North Carolina, with 28 deaths, triple the previous high; Nashville, Tennessee, with 118 deaths; Denver, Colorado, with 232 deaths.

These grim totals were dwarfed by the figure from Los Angeles, a staggering 805 deaths among the homeless, up from 719 in 2016. The city is the center of US homelessness, and particularly of those living on the streets rather than in shelters or doubled-up with relatives and friends.

By one estimate, documented in a three-minute clip posted on Instagram on Christmas Day, there are 20,000 people living on the streets in downtown LAs Skid Row alone. The UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty visited this area as part of his recent tour of high-poverty areas in the United States, and cited it as part of his report, which concluded that for many millions of people, The American Dream is the American Illusion.

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As part of the year-long commemoration of the centenary of the Russian Revolution by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), Indian supporters of the ICFI will hold a public meeting in Kolkata, the capital of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, on January 14. The event will also feature a screening of Tsar to Lenin, the unique documentary of the 1917 revolution.

The contradictions of the capitalist system, which led to two world wars last century, are now driving the imperialist powers, led by the US, towards a catastrophic nuclear war. These contradictions are also leading to an intensification of the international class struggles. Thus, the conditions that provided the objective basis for the seizure of power by the Russian working class, led by the Bolshevik Party under Lenin and Trotsky, are re-emerging.

The Indian ruling class, under Prime Minister Narendra Modis government, is lining up behind the US war drive in the Asia-Pacific region, mainly targeting China. It is also carrying out pro-investor economic reforms, attacking the working and living conditions and democratic rights of working people and rural toilers. Indian workers, youth and other oppressed masses, like their class brothers and sisters worldwide, are facing the danger of world war, mass poverty, unemployment and social inequality.

In this situation there is increased interest among workers, youths and intellectuals, in India and worldwide, in socialism. They are seeking a way out of the miserable conditions to which they have been condemned under capitalism. Therefore, the historical lessons of the Russian Revolutionthe objective basis on which it emerged, the intense theoretical and political struggles led by Lenin and Trotsky, and why the Soviet Union, the workers state created by the revolution, came to an end in 1991are crucial for the working class today to secure victory in its own October, i.e., world socialist revolution.

Under these conditions, the Indian Stalinists, like the pseudo-lefts worldwide, are playing a central role in obscuring the necessary lessons of the October Revolution, the degeneration of the Soviet Union and its ultimate dissolution by the Stalinist bureaucracy. Indias main Stalinist party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM, has launched October Revolution Centenary Celebrations in a bogus attempt to claim the legacy of the 1917 revolution. Material published by the CPM and speeches by its leaders have presented lies and distortions, including portraying the October Revolution as a mere national event, and not as the opening shot of the world socialist revolution.

Exposing these falsifications, the ICFI supporters meeting will discuss the political and theoretical struggles led by Lenin and Trotsky for the perspective of socialist internationalism and the contemporary significance of this struggle for the international working class.

We urge workers, youth and intellectuals to participate in the meeting. It will be conducted in Bengali and English and streamed live via Facebook. A summary will be available in Hindi.

Date and time: Sunday, January 14, 10 am.

Venue: MuktaAngan Rangalaya, 123, SP Mukherjee Road, Kolkata 700026 (Near Kalighat Metro station).
Europe

Amazon workers in Italy conduct overtime ban

Following a strike in November on Black Fridayone of the busiest shopping days of the year500 workers at Amazons main logistics hub in Italy continue to oppose low pay and bad working conditions.

On December 20, workers at Amazons Castel San Giovanni plant near Piacenza began an overtime ban and reduced their working shift time by two hours. A series of protest meetings were held throughout the day.

The FILCAMS CGIL union, however, limited the strike to workers on permanent contracts and urged temporary workers to continue to work, undermining the solidarity of workers and the impact of the action.

UK rail staff take industrial action over holiday period

Rail strikes have taken place over the Christmas holiday period, with more scheduled. Arriva Cross Country workers struck Wednesday with a further strike due December 31. The strikes by train managers and senior conductors were organized by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union and are part of an ongoing series of stoppages in a dispute over rostering and Sunday working.

RMT guards employed by private franchise Greater Anglia in eastern England held a 24-hour strike Wednesday as part of the ongoing dispute over plans to expand Driver Only Operated (DOO) trains.

Workers who provide cleaning, security and information services on the London Docklands Light Railway are due to strike on New Years Eve. The RMT members are protesting outsourcing company ISSs refusal to enter into serious talks over low pay and other issues. Rail guards at several private rail companies are due to hold strikes in the New Year over the extending use of DOO trains.

Journalists in Darlington, northern England vote to strike

Journalists employed by the Newsquest organisation in Darlington voted by nearly 90 percent to walk out. The 28 members of the National Union of Journalists work for various titles produced by Newsquest in the area, including the Durham Times and the Northern Echo .

The US owned Newsquest is pushing through job cuts and attacks on pay and conditions. Sixteen Journalists in Swindon working for another Newsquest title, the Swindon Advertiser, are set to walk out January 2-3 over the same issues.

Limited strike by German Ryanair pilots

A four-hour strike by pilots working for the German wing of the Dublin-based Ryanair budget airline took place on December 22, while other proposed strikes at Ryanair bases across Europe, including Ireland and Italy, were called off at the last minute.

Ryanair boss Michael OLeary reversed the companys 32-year-old policy of refusing to recognise trade unions. However, the Cockpit Union (VC) representing German Ryanair pilots went ahead with a four-hour strike claiming it was to serve as a warning, after initial talks with Ryanair had broken down.

According to VC, Ryanair objected to two members of the unions five-member negotiating team. The company is scheduled to meet with VC again in January. Ryanair claimed the stoppage led to delays but no cancellations.

Spanish airport catering workers strike

Catering staff at the Spanish airports of Barcelona, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Malaga held two-hour stoppages on December 22 and 23. Similar stoppages are planned for today and Saturday. The partial strikes hit bars, cafes and restaurants at the airports.

The members of the CCOO and UGT unions are protesting plans by airport managing company, Aena, to increase the rents paid by catering concessions and also the dividing up of concessions. They fear this will put pressure on catering companies to cut salaries.

Middle East

Israeli workers protest Teva job cuts

After a half-day general strike on December 17, which disrupted business throughout Israel, workers at Teva are continuing their protests against the multi-national pharmaceutical giants plans to cut of 1,700 Israeli jobs as part of its 14,000 job cuts worldwide.

Workers have blocked light rail trains in Jerusalem and clashed with police, barricaded themselves inside one of the two plants threatened with closing, and conducted other actions against the worlds largest generic drug manufacturers and one of the largest employers in Israel. The Histradrut labor federation, however, has promoted nationalism and appealed to the reactionary Netanyahu administration to stop the layoffs.

Israeli teachers strike ruled illegal by court

A planned strike by Israeli teachers at kindergartens, elementary and junior high schools, planned for Wednesday, December 27, was blocked by a Tel Aviv labour court. The court granted the Education Ministry an injunction forbidding the strike, which was called by the Israeli Teachers Union, on the scurrilous grounds that it was called too hastily.

The dispute is over teachers being marked as taking 1.4 days sick leave for each actual day off. This has been taking place secretly for 30 years.

Tunisian protesters tear-gassed by police

A recent protest in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid was attacked by police with tear gas. The protest, which marked the sixth anniversary of the downfall of the dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, highlighted ongoing unemployment and precarious employment opportunities of thousands of Tunisians.

This year has seen 49 suicides or attempted suicides of workers desperate over their lack of job opportunities in Sidi Bouzid. In 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor in the city, committed suicide when he burnt himself to death in protest at ill treatment by authorities and lack of opportunities. His death sparked the demonstrations resulting in Ben Alis ousting.

Africa

South African shop workers one-day strike

Around 30,000 retail staff working for Shoprite Checkers in South Africa held a one-day strike on December 22. The company is the largest food retailer in Africa.

Workers are demanding the reversal of changes to working hours, safe working conditions, guaranteed minimum hours of work for part-time staff and the reinstatement of Shoprite staff previously sacked for protesting changes to working hours.

The strikers are members of the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers union.

Nigerian state government workers begin indefinite strike

Thousands of Osun state government employees in Nigeria began an indefinite strike on Wednesday to protest unpaid wages, lack of promotion and pension issues. The strike was called by the Nigerian Labour Congress.

Nigerian polytechnic staff continue strike

Over 2,000 staff at six polytechnic schools in Oyo state are continuing their strike, which started in November. The strikers include academic and non-academic staff at the six polytechnics, including the Oke-Ogun Polytechnic. They say they are owed up to 16 months pay.

A communique issued by the academic staff union at Oke-Ogun Polytechnic said while other Oyo state workers had received their full Christmas salaries, the staff at the six polytechnics had only received 25 percent.

Kenyan airline disregards court order to reinstate sacked employees

Kenya Airways (KQ) has ignored a court order to reinstate 157 staff on its engineering division who were sacked for taking part in previous strike action against the terms of their contract and poor working conditions.

The court ruled on December 18 that the sacked employees immediately be reinstated. However, KQ put them on 30-day leaves on December 18 while management claimed it was reorganizing shift rotas.
On December 15 the Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB), which has been dictating policy for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA, or T) since the systemic failures of February 2015, released its third annual report. The report points to plans to continue privatizing the nations fifth-largest public transportation system while underfunding infrastructure repairs, but what comes out most clearly is that workers are being deprived of jobs, raises and benefits while upper-level management jobs are booming.

The new managementeuphemistically referred to as talent in the reporthas already shown its true colors in the hiring of General Manager Luis Manuel Ramirez last August. The FMCB reports letter to the state legislature describes Ramirez as stable and tested leadership  leading a reorganized MBTA management and staff that is  open to innovated approaches. The letter does not mention that these innovative approaches included signing false and misleading accounting statements when he was head of the private company Global Power.

On the other hand, the report calls the cost of workers pensionsestimated at $90 million in fiscal year 2018 for more than 6,000 workersunsustainable. A net total of more than 400 MBTA workers lost their jobs in fiscal year 2017mainly through early retirement incentivesand opportunities for overtime have been cut way back.

Between September 2016 and March of this yeara very aggressive timeline, in the FMCBs wordsthe rate of denial of Family and Medical Leave Act applications by workers went from 25 percent to 50 percent. At the same time, workers safety is being risked with speed-up measures. The report boasts that using accelerated rail replacement techniques, the agencys track department can now install 500 feet of track in three-hour periods during overnight hours, when this job used to take a full weekend.

What the report offers workers and riders is a subjective gloss: for example, FMCB member Monica Tibbits-Nutt last year initiated a series of outreach efforts to T employees in order to make them feel heard. The result will be different uniforms and more nutritional options in work areas. The T has also hired a new Director of Customer Service, whose job will be to ignore riders complaints.

The FMCBs report is riddled with boasts of transparency, yet the Ts web site has no payroll or budget data beyond 2016, even though the agency will soon be preparing its 2019 budget. It therefore gives no details about the size of the raises given to 62 top managers in calendar year 2017. It does, however, note that 35 of the managers with the highest salaries have been hired since 2015. New hires include a Director of Cost Control & Lean Strategy, two Deputy Directors for Advertising, a Director of Flexible Contracting, and a Deputy Chief of Real Estate. The Strategic Plan Timeline created last April promises to expand the number of executive managers in all years from 2017 to 2023.

The report boasts that the average annual growth of the MBTAs operating budget is projected to be 0 percent for fiscal years 2016, 2017 and 2018. The 2017 job cuts resulted in a total budget reduction of $50 million including benefits, while a wage-cutting deal to which Boston Carmens Union Local 589 cravenly agreed last December has cut another $20 million per year from the operating budget.

State funding for the MBTA, which receives less than half of its total revenues from fares, is mostly from the Massachusetts sales tax. Not only is this tax regressive, but it is unreliable as a source of revenue. Lower than expected sales taxes in 2017 resulted in $35 million less for T operating expenses than had been budgeted.

The capitalist method of funding infrastructure budgets in US cities and states also creates a contradiction in the MBTAs capital budget. This budget is used for infrastructure, including new subway cars, buses, track and station improvements, etc., not salaries and benefits. It is funded by the issuance of bonds, but payments to the bondholders are charged to the operating budget.

The T has a deferred maintenance backlog of more than $7 billion, which not only creates serious safety risks but also results in frequent subway breakdowns as riders are trying to get to work. In order to fund much-needed repairs, money will need to be borrowed and the cost of debt servicemoney which could be used for workers wages and benefits instead of being paid to predatory lendersincreases.

MBTA debt service costs dropped briefly in 2017, but will increase by $50 million per year starting next July. The total cost, including principal and interest payments to bondholders, is more than $400 million per year, while wages and benefits totaled only $772 million in fiscal year 2017.

According to the FMCBs report, the T hopes to spend $800 million on infrastructure improvements in 2018. Nearly half of that amount$357 millionwas committed in November for a new fare collection system contract. In contrast, the small amount being spent on signal repairs is coming from savings in the operating budget; in other words, from cuts in workers raises, overtime and jobs.

While new Orange and Red Line subway cars are on order, the schedule for putting them into service means that riders will continue to suffer from broken down trains for several years. The FMCBs Strategic Plan Timeline allocates only $30 million for maintenance and reliability of the old cars for all of calendar years 2017 and 2018.

In September, the combination of privatization and inadequate maintenance funding caused a commuter rail car to decouple from the rest of a train between stops in Lynn. Keolis, which runs the commuter rail system under contract, handled the investigation of the incident so poorly that the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) threatened to fine them. The Boston Herald has reported that Keolis did not interview witnesses, did not take photographs of the scene, and moved some of the defective equipment before the FRA could inspect it.

In keeping with the MBTAs lack of transparency, an 87-page report on the incident was not available anywhere on its web site as of this writing.

However, Governor Charlie Baker is satisfied enough with the efforts of the FMCB that he has extended its term by two years, through the end of June 2020.
Saeed Noori, the 32-year-old man accused of driving a vehicle into pedestrians in Melbournes central business district on December 21, was remanded in custody on Wednesday, following a brief court hearing. He has been charged with 18 counts of attempted murder, and one count of conduct endangering life.

Of the 20 people hospitalised from the incident, two remain in critical conditionsan 83-year-old man and a South Korean male aged in his 60s. Fortunately, no one was killed.

Nooris lawyer Tass Antos indicated that his defence case would explore whether his client is mentally fit to make a plea or stand trial. Magistrate John Hardy ordered that Noori undergo a psychiatric examination.

What information has emerged about Noori paints a picture of a deeply unwell man. He has a long history of mental illness and addiction to crystal methamphetamine, commonly known as ice. According to the Weekend Australian, Noori was involuntarily admitted to an acute psychiatric ward for two weeks earlier this year. Previously, it was revealed that he was receiving treatment under a government-sponsored mental health plan, which provides for a limited number of psychological treatment sessions.

Noori appears to be one of the millions of victims, direct and indirect, of the illegal US and Australian wars over the past 25 years aimed at subjugating the resource-rich Middle East. Accompanied by his sister, brothers and parents, he arrived in Australia in 2004 as an 18-year-old refugee from Afghanistan, which was invaded in 2001 as part of a US-led neo-colonial regime-change operation.

Before the December 21 incident, Noori reportedly lived in a government-subsidised housing estate in Heidelberg West, which is among the 5 percent of most disadvantaged suburbs in the country. He is married and has a two-year-old son. His wife is said to be expecting their second child.

Medical health professionals responded by calling for an urgent government response to address the national crisis in mental healthcare, aggravated by decades of funding cuts at the state and federal level.

Patrick McGorry, professor of youth mental health at the University of Melbourne, told Australian Associated Press: The system is completely unable to treat people safely, so weve had a great rise in suicides as well, and a smaller number of homicides. The public mental health system has basically been collapsing over the last 10 or 15 years, with inadequate funding.

McGorry noted a series of similar violent events across the state of Victoria by mentally ill individuals, including in January this year, when another man with a history of mental illness and drug abuse drove a car into Melbournes crowded Bourke Street mall, killing six people.

McGorry said one Melbourne mental health service alone had reported 23 murders by patients in contact with the mental health system over 11 years. He added: In the next 12 months we will see several murders which are preventable, committed by poorly treated psychiatric patients and we will see hundreds of suicides, which are mostly preventable.

The well-known expert continued: Every night in emergency departments, people are being turned away with serious mental illnesses. McGorry estimated that 1 percent of the population used the mental health system, but that 3 percent were in need of it.

The mental health system crisis is a direct outcome of decades of bipartisan cutbacks and privatisations in the sector. The Keating Labor government led the assault. Its 1992 National Mental Healthcare Strategy committed state governments to close government-funded specialised psychiatric institutions, in the name of moving patients into community care.

In the state of Victoria, the Kennett Liberal government closed all 14 of the states psychiatric hospitals between 1992 and 2000. The result has been a catastrophe, with the burden of care left on families themselves, as well as grossly underfunded not-for-profit and community organisations that are forced to compete for resources. Crisis Assessment and Treatment Teams (CATT) function as stopgaps in emergency situations.

Approximately one in five Australians experience some form of mental illness each year. Among young people aged 15 to 19, the figure was 22.8 percent this year, up from 18.7 percent five years ago, according to the latest government National Mental Health Card report. Among people aged 15-24, suicide is the single biggest cause of death.

Crystal methamphetamine usage has reached epidemic levels. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, more than 250,000 Australians, about 1 percent of the population, use the drug. This is the highest per capita usage in the world, approximately three times higher than that of the United States.

The response of the media and political establishment to the December 21 incident, however, has sought to prevent any analysis of the broader social causes of such a tragedy. As always with such disasters, they have tried to channel peoples natural humanitarian response toward the victims in a reactionary direction.

Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews declared that the incident was an act of evil. Liberal-National Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull similarly labelled it a despicable, cowardly act. Such comments are intended to block any examination of the underlying state of society.

The corporate media, with the Murdoch outlets in the lead, is seeking to foment a lynch-mob atmosphere against Noori and the more than 600,000 Muslims living in Australia. Nooris address has been published, along with a picture of his home.

In an article on December 24 in Murdochs Sydney-based Daily Telegraph, Lets call terrorism what it is, right-wing commentator Miranda Devine denounced the government for failing to lay terrorism-related charges against Noori.

Government and police authorities, without any concrete evidence, initially aired the possibility that the event was a terrorist attack. They were forced to admit, however, following searches of Nooris home and computer, that he had no connections to any terrorist organisation or ideology.

But for Devine, facts cannot be allowed to stand in the way. Here we had a suspect who fit the profile of similar vehicle terrorist attacks in Nice, Jerusalem, Berlin, London, Stockholm, Barcelona, New York, she asserted. Hes a Muslim and a refugee. Devine added: Obviously the majority of Muslims in Australia are not terrorists, but the majority of terrorists are Muslims.

A December 23 editorial in Murdochs flagship Australian newspaper declared that the minority  have shown they are unwilling or unable to accept our way of life, founded on Judaeo-Christian values. Warning darkly about an encroaching threat in our midst, the editorial called for a public conversation on the deportation of troublemakers who are not Australian, the need to raise the bar much higher before granting that privilege or even the deportation of dual citizens who attack our security.

As these comments demonstrate, for the political and media establishment, the essential purpose of such tragedies is to justify the destruction of core democratic rights and the waging of predatory wars, as has been pursued continuously over the past 16 years under the banner of the war on terror.
The official management area or red zone covering the dangerous chemical contamination around the major Williamtown air force base near the industrial city of Newcastle was suddenly expanded by 50 percent last month.

The New South Wales state Environment Protection Agency (EPA) said it reconsidered the zones size after evidence continued to come forward showing high levels of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in soil, water and human blood tests outside the previous boundaries.

It also revealed that if the Defence Department does not improve its remediation efforts, the red zone will exist until at least 2050. Residents within the zone have been told not to use ground, bore or surface water and not to consume home-grown foods.

The expansion includes new sections of Salt Ash, the Cabbage Tree Road area and Fullerton Cove. This is the third extension of the zone, which was first proclaimed in September 2015.

PFAS chemicals have been used in aviation fire-fighting foam at Australian air force bases and domestic airports since the 1960s. The substances are internationally recognised as potentially harmful to human health, with probable links to a number of diseases, including several types of cancer. The chemicals now pervade in the surface and ground water at as many as 70 sites around Australia.

The expanded Williamtown red zone encompasses 750 homes, drawing in another 250 households who were, until recently, reassured by health authorities and the EPA, that their properties were not affected and therefore no health precautions were necessary.

In announcing the boundary change, the EPA said a series of blood tests outside of, but near, the red zone had produced results up to three times the national average of PFAS. But this was not the first sign that the contamination extended beyond the official zone.

As far back as June 2016, Fullerton Cove, which at the time fell a kilometre outside the red zone, had concentrations of more than 13 times the safe level in drainage surface water. Testing carried out earlier this year, funded not by Defence or the EPA but by IMF Bentham, the law firm representing a Williamtown class action group, showed that some of the highest blood concentrations of the chemical came from residents who lived just outside the zone.

The new zone boundaries snake their way around three existing and proposed sand mines, which are multi-million dollar operations. The Fullerton Cove Sand Quarry, Mackas Sand Quarry and proposed Cabbage Tree Road Sand Quarry fit snug up against the revised borders.

A two-year investigation into the contamination has seen little to no real response from the federal and state governments. Only people living within the red zone before the border shift were given blood tests as part of an inadequate $55 million national package announced during the last federal election campaign in mid-2016.

In October, EPA chairman Barry Buffier reasserted that the responsibility for the contamination lay purely with the Defence Department and the EPA had no regulatory power over it. This means Defence is free to delay test results and withhold information as it sees fit.

Lindsay Clout, a member of the Fullerton Cove Residents action group, spoke to the WSWS. He recalled some of the consequences suffered by one resident inside the red zone who addressed a local community meeting. He asked for the water to be tested in his swimming pool. It was tested and it took them [Defence] four months to get him the results.

We know that we can turn them [tests] around within days, but it took four months to give him the results. They showed that the pool was highly contaminated. In that four-month period he was still swimming in it. Now his wife has lost a breast with breast cancer, and he said last night, is likely to lose the second one.

Clout, who lives within the expanded red zone, said he had warned residents to take precautions before the boundary change.

Firstly it was clear to me that Defence wasnt telling us the whole story  I knew it [the contamination] was running off the base in the drains and I knew the drains were flowing outside the exclusion zone. Then we got high blood tests. Either Defence was not telling the truth or they just didnt have a handle on it  its one or the other, and its probably the other. Their level of incompetence is  hard to understand.

Clout continued: Weve got a family that lives over here, easily a kilometre outside of the zone. When the contamination first broke, they rang the NSW EPA and said, were outside the exclusion zone but this contamination is in the area, so what should we do? They said, everything is fine, eat your eggs, use your bore water no problems at all.

After a cancer cluster article hit the newspapers they got a little bit worried, so they rang them again. They got the same response. But just through conversations theyve had with other people, we recommended that they really should have some blood tests. Now they had blood tests and their results were through the roof.

It just seemed to me like they [Defence] were trying to hide from it. From a community perspective, I thought it was a really bad bit of form. There was no concern about the risks that the community was exposed to.

Asked about the blood and water tests, Clout explained that residents living outside the red zone before it was expanded were paying for their own tests. A colleague of mine has had six tests, and hes just waiting for the results. He paid for them, $600 a throw, $600 for each sample.

Another resident, Robyn, told the WSWS her home now falls within the red zone. The property value has gone right down, and the quality of life. Youve just got to be so conscious of what youre doing. You cant eat your chooks eggs. Theres nothing better than your own chooks eggs. My bore water the kids cant play with it. Theres just a lot of things youve got to consider.

Asked why she thought the EPA changed the boundaries now after insisting for so long that there was no danger, Robyn commented: I think they wanted to keep it small and shut it down quick. I dont think they expected it to go this long  I do think more than anything, that Defence put a lot of pressure on the EPA

Robyn said that before the border change she asked Defence to provide her a letter reassuring her that her property was safe. I got it, signed and in writing, and then three weeks later we had the knock on the door from the Health Department and the EPA.

The indifference toward the victims of the contamination was on full display in September when the Labor Party joined the Liberal-National Coalition in voting against a Senate motion that called on the Turnbull government to investigate potential buy-outs for properties that have plummeted in market value.

Labors shadow treasurer labeled the motion a headline-seeking stunt. Proposed by the Greens and supported by One Nation and the Nick Xenophon Team, the resolution would have actually guaranteed nothing. Instead, any buy-out plan would have depended entirely on the outcome of an investigation by the government itself into property acquisitions. The government, which repeatedly downplays the risks of the chemicals, has already ignored the property acquisition recommendations from a previous Senate inquiry in 2015.

Nevertheless, the bipartisan line-up against the latest Senate motion highlights how sensitive these discussions are becoming when all significant budget considerations must be tailored toward preparations for war.

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A notable collection of early Soviet films, The New ManAwakening and Everyday Life in Revolutionary Russia (Der neue MenschAufbruch und Alltag im revolutionaren Russland), has been released on DVD in Germany to coincide with the centenary of the October Revolution.

The DVD was compiled by Rainer Rother, artistic director of the Berlin Cinematheque, and film historian Alexander Schwarz. In 2012, the WSWS commented on the important Berlin Film Festival retrospective, The Red Dream Factory, which brought before the public a number of lesser known early Soviet films, as well as classics by directors such as Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin and Alexander Dovzhenko.

The new DVD includes eight documentary, animated and feature films from the years 1924 to 1932, which again confirm the vitality and originality of Soviet film prior to the ascent of crushing Stalinist censorship. The films are in Russian with German subtitles. One hopes they will also be made available in an English version.

The principal theme of the film series is indicated by its overall title: the ideal of the New Man. The victory of the October Revolution in 1917 made an initial step toward a transitional man, which raised the question: Where does such a transition lead? The brochure accompanying the DVD (authored by Schwarz) cites an article by Leon Trotsky referring to the early Soviet ideal of the autonomous and free person, with all-round education and development. For Trotsky, the youthful medium of cinema was ideally suited to raise the educational and cultural level of the population in pursuit of this new human being.

By the mid-1930s, as the brochure correctly notes, this conception of the New Man no longer bore any resemblance to Trotskys enlightened-libertarian vision. The cultural revolution initiated by the Stalinist bureaucracy at the end of the 1920s meant the end of bold experimental film and reduced artists largely to propagandists of the official party line. The resulting reversion to traditional role models is clearly reflected in the film series.

The cinematic starting point of the series is the newsreel Kino-Pravda No. 18 (1924) by the renowned filmmaker Dziga Vertov. His camera soars to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and following a long pan, eventually lands in Soviet reality: a shoeshine boy, a newspaper boy, a beggar, farmers, a house for workers and then  with up-tempo . an auto race.

The theme of Vertovs documentary is the rise of industry, which requires an ever closer alliance between peasants and workers. For a short time the machines rest for a brief October Baptism, a secular alternative to Christian baptism. Will Vladimir, the small boy featured in the film, be one of the new people?

Bed and Sofa

In 1926 or so, a popular genre emerged in Soviet cinema that was critical of everyday life. It revealed the germs of a newly developing social order coexisting side by side with stubbornly held old ways of living and thinkingfor example, in the everyday life of women. The revolution had given women the rights to vote and to legal, free abortion. She was no longer her husbands property. Alongside marriage, other forms of cohabitation were recognised. Nevertheless, the trio in the feature film Bed and Sofa (Abram Room, 1927) are by no means happy.

The two proletarian men, Kolia and Volodia, are a stonemason and a printer, respectively. At home, they are intolerable tyrants who expect to be waited on by their woman. Liuda is no longer prepared to accept her assigned role and displays a new self-confidence. She ends up selecting her bedfellow each night and consigns the other man to the couch. And when Liuda becomes pregnant and both men insist, rooted in their petty jealousy, she should have an abortion, she quits the street of the petty bourgeois to go to work and lead her own life.

The film is not unsympathetic to the men. Above all, Bed and Sofa criticises the terrible housing situation which encourages ad hoc living arrangements andas the film suggestscorruption. Who is to receive a housing permit when two leading workers and former Red Army soldiers are declared ineligible?

Another Soviet work, The Man Who Lost His Memory (also known as Fragment of an Empire, Friedrich Ermler, 1929), is dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. It impressively illustrates the quantum leap that has occurred with the founding of the first workers state. Ermler is considered by certain film historians to have been an important director.

Ivan, a rail worker, loses his memory due to trauma in the First World War. He regains it 10 years later in the Leningrad of 1928. Ivan has lost a whole number of years of his life and fails to recognise anything. Where is Petersburg? he cries out in despair as he struggles to come to grips with the reality of modern skyscrapers, cars and machines.

Ermlers film offers a sensitive portrayal of Ivan, an older worker who fully absorbed in tsarist society the role of the downtrodden citizen. He tries to orient himself in this new Soviet world by desperately seeking out his old job and former boss. He begins working in the same shop that employed him before the war, and behaves as he did then. Angry with the unreasonable criticisms of a colleague who complains about bad working conditions, Ivan regards the new Soviet Occupational Health and Safety Commission as an arm of the former tsarist secret police, the infamous Okhrana. Instinctively, he hides a copy of Pravda, the Bolshevik newspaper in the period before the revolution, which is lying in plain sight.

This brief scene in The Man Who Lost His Memory is a telling reference to a time when factory workers were politically influenced by the Bolsheviks. Ivan was certainly not one of the more politically conscious workers, but neither was he an informer. As a soldier in the First World War, he fraternises with a German counterpart, and as he begins in 1928 to grasp the significance of the 1917 upheaval, enthusiastically welcomes the new order.

Ermlers film criticises a definite phenomenon of the period, the Soviet Communist Party careerist. A slick official lectures workers on culture and morals, while treating his wife (she is in fact Ivans former spouse) as a servant. While she does the cooking, the bureaucrat peruses his newspaper and berates her for being a culturally and politically backward petty bourgeois. In the behavior of the bureaucrat, Ivan identifies the contempt shown by Russias former rulers for its subordinates. In one striking scene, images of the bureaucrat are blended together with images of tsarist officers in World War I and White reactionaries in the Russian Civil War.

Nightmares in the form of Ivans war memories have been effectively integrated into The Man Who Lost His Memory. Its striking portrayal of Jesus wearing a gas mask was criticised at the time as formalistic. Another virtuoso montage, illustrating the new forms of collective ownership, reflects the influence of the artistic avant garde. A working organism, a kind of all-round worker unites all forms of social work into a single force. Is this high-performance machine the embodiment of the Soviet ideal of the New Man?

The first Soviet sound film, Road to Life (Nikolai Ekk, 1931), won a prize at the 1932 Venice film festival and later found a following in the USSR and East Germany. The film is set in 1923. After the horrors of seven years of war and counterrevolution, countless orphans populate the streets, begging and stealing. To counter the problem, a progressive solution is tested out. Instead of imprisoning the urchins and subjecting them to coercion, reliance is placed on trust and patience. Residence in the self-governing work commune is voluntary. The social experiment in the film is based on actual social role models.

The vitality and energy of the protagonists on screen continues to impress. The street children, devious and at the same time naive, are prone to anarchic riots, as in a famous scene involving kitchen utensils. Nikolai Batalov, who appeared in Bed and Sofa, plays the role of the commune leader with a large dose of down-to-earth sensibility. He exhibits great patience and humour toward the children, who continually undermine attempts to educate them to correspond to the ideal of the New Man.

There are questionable elements here. The commentary and heavy-handed glorification of collective work in Road to Life appear to have more in common with the increasingly patriotic pathos introduced under Stalin in the 1930s. The success of the commune becomes a parable for the construction of socialism in one country.

The accompanying brochure notes that the cheeky Fomka the rascal, the arch-enemy of the commune, who thoroughly resists all insight into necessity and later commits murder, became a popular figure for Soviet youth. His defiant attitude, which combines psychological desperation with strong yearning, apparently hit a nerve with adolescents who experienced Stalinist socialist education only in the form of compulsion or even forced labor.

David Marjans feature film Das Leben in der Hand (Taking Ones Life in Ones Handseditors translation), which also premiered in 1931, is essentially a Stalinist propaganda film. In contrast to the early efforts after the revolution, its role is not to enlighten, but rather to enforce the general line of the party.

Some of the scenes, in fact, recall Eisensteins film The General Line (1929). Nevertheless, the two films are quite different. Eisenstein (who began work on his film in 1926) utilises poetic form, humour and an understanding of the backwardness of the impoverished peasants that lead them to oppose the industrialisation of agriculture. His film also criticises bureaucracy. Das Leben in der Hand, however, propagates the spirit of compulsory collectivisation: The time for patience is over. Slogans proposed to accompany showings of the film included: Pace is crucial. We have to catch up a century within ten years.

A Shock Workers Commune, housed in a modern workers apartment block, produces the machines urgently needed by the new agricultural communes. A banner with the inscription Machines are death to the kulak [rich peasant] points to the official main enemy of socialism at the time, big farmers who are supposedly sabotaging industrialisation. First and foremost, the film points to the problem of wide-scale alcohol abuse. An alcoholic represents a brake on production. He refuses any help from doctors and is expelled from the commune.

The film lacks the playful, sensitive treatment of social issues in the earlier works. The social backgrounds of the various protagonists remain obscure. The struggle for an elevated general level of culture is reduced in Das Leben in der Hand to a subjective struggle against wrong behaviour. Guilt lies with the unstable worker whose egoism threatens not only his own wife and child but society as a whole.

The rise of Stalinism fundamentally altered the notion of the socialist New Man. The earlier Kino Pravda, along with the carefully crafted animation films of the period, clearly belongs to the tradition of cinema designed to enlighten. Rooms chamber piece Bed and Sofa has lost none of its refreshing realism. Stalin, whose image appears several times in the film, crops up only in the shadow of the Civil War Red general Semyon Budyonny. As the brochure notes, Stalin commenced a fake campaign against bureaucracy in 1928, the same year of The Man Who Lost his Memory. Through its historical flashbacks, the film points to the enormous social force of the working masses. Those who dared to openly attack the achievements of the revolution faced powerful opposition.

The films from the period 1931-32 reveal a gradual change. The ideal of the New Man increasingly assumes the form of an unquestioning and efficient machine, while the collective ego, solidarity and social cohesion mutate into nationalism. As Das Leben in der Hand demonstrates, the individualist must start being educated in kindergarten. Otherwise, the chubby rebellious child, who refuses to eat at the right speed, can transmute into someone who disrupts the work process and becomes a tool of the enemy class, and, finally, a peoples parasite. The hollow propaganda of Marjans film not only testifies to the return of traditional role models, in the form of the methods used by the old Russian aristocracy to govern the masses, it is also an indication of enormous social tensions.

The brochure for The New ManAwakening and Everyday Life in Revolutionary Russia is informative, although Schwarz tends to favor formulations suggesting a seamless transition in the USSR from revolutionary enthusiasm to the later reign of terror of the elites. The films themselves, however, convey a very different message. The struggle for the new human being was also a struggle over the fate of what Trotsky later described as the Revolution Betrayed. This struggle was still undecided in 1932.

The film package is available from absolut Medien.
The World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter welcomes the militant uprising by Ford workers at the companys factory in Craiova, Romania and calls on autoworkers throughout Europe, North America and Asia to support their courageous struggle.

The issues in this battle are familiar to autoworkers the world over: poverty-level wages, incessant demands for concessions and speedup under the threat of layoffs or plant closings, and unions that operate as tools of the corporations, not organizations of the working class.

On December 21, an estimated 1,000 workers conducted a wildcat strike to oppose a rotten deal signed by the Ford Craiova Automobile Union and Ford Romania. Fordwhich made $16.3 billion in gross profits in 2016 and $9.4 billion in the first three quarters of 2017wants the factorys 4,200 workers to accept wage freezes for senior workers and a reduction in new hires pay to five percent below the current minimum salary, or as little as 300 (US$358) a month. In addition, Ford is demanding a reduction in payments for overtime work and flexible work hours whenever operational demands require it.

Ford and the union are using the threat of mass unemployment to blackmail workers. In a December 13 internal memo to workers, Ford Romania chief John Oldham wrote, "We need to reflect on what is critical at this crucial moment for the Craiova plant, to have a higher salary increase or to secure the future of this factory! We hope you understand the importance of this year's negotiation in the present politically and economically unstable climate.

In addition, the US-based corporation is using a new tax law implemented by the Romanian government as a hammer against the workers. The new law, which comes into effect on January 1, will shift the costs of health care and other social benefits from employers almost entirely onto the backs of workers. If workers rejected the current deal, Oldham warned, the company would present a drastically smaller offer, which would not compensate workers for any of the higher tax costs they would bear, leading to a de facto pay cut of nearly 25 percent.

Defying these threats, hundreds of workers walked out of the factory last Thursday, chanting Thieves, Thieves" and "There is slavery here. Workers coming in on the second shift joined the strike, shouting, We are not going home until we gain our dignity. At the forefront of the struggle were younger workers, including many of the 1,700 hired earlier this year for the launching of Fords EcoSport utility vehicle.

The strike was an explicit rebellion against the pro-company union, which colluded with management and unilaterally imposed its demands. In an attempt to get workers back onto the assembly lines, the union claimed it had never signed such a deal. Two days later, however, the union issued an internal memo saying it considered the protests illegal since it was operating under the old contract until it expired on December 31. The union considered the agreement it had signed on December 21 legal and would honor it once it goes into effect January 1.

In fighting the US-based auto giant, the Ford Craiova workers are taking a stand for autoworkers all over the world. Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Serbia and other Central and Eastern European countries have long served as the European ruling classs Mexico, where multi-national corporations can exploit cheap labor and use the threat of Eastern enlargement to drive down wages and working conditions in the West.

After the Stalinist regimes restored capitalism in the region, VW, Renault, GM, Daewoo, Ford and other global automakers and suppliers rushed in to buy up state-owned factories at fire sale prices. Current Romanian wages can be as low as 2 (US$2.26) an hour, less than 10 percent of the overall labor costs of a German autoworker.

The ruling Romanian Social Democratic Party, which has imposed the tax hike on workers, is an offshoot of the Stalinist party that once ruled Romania. The social democrats and their partners across Eastern Europe have embraced free market policies and promoted virulent nationalism, transforming their countries into slave labor platforms for world corporations and creating conditions for the rise of far-right parties. The Romanian government is trying to undercut the regions traditional automotive producersPoland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic (the Visegrad Four)by offering even greater tax incentives and extending special economic zones to lure foreign investment.

When it comes to exploiting the working class, the global auto giants have an international strategy. As one industry analyst told the Financial Times, Now investors that come to central and eastern Europe behave very differently from five or seven years ago. From a business perspective People do not think about national ideas. They invest in the region.

The trade unions, across Europe, in the US and worldwide, however, are entirely nationalist. Far from fighting to unite workers in common struggle against the global corporations and the capitalist governments, the unions have aided and abetted the corporations by pitting workers against each other in a fratricidal race to the bottom.

In Germany, the autoworkers union, IG Metall, has enthusiastically welcomed the restoration of capitalism in East Germany and Eastern Europe. Sitting on the supervisory board of every major car company, it has actively supported the exploitation of Eastern European workers at minimum wages and used it to blackmail workers in Germany. This has led to the lengthening of the work day without wage increases, a drastic reduction in pay for new-hires, and the expanded use of part-time, temporary and casual workers. None of these concessions defended a single job.

In 2014, IG Metall supported the closure of the Ford factory in Gent, Belgium, with 4,600 workers at the Ford plant and an additional 5,000 workers at supplier companies losing their jobs. In the same year, IG Metall agreed to massive job reductions, flexible working conditions and wage cuts for the 24,000 workers at the German Ford plants in Cologne and Saarlouis after management threatened to transfer part of the production to Eastern Europe, including Craiova.

Now the Macron government in France is using the threat of mass sackings to impose its pro-corporate labor reforms, which will expand the use of temporary workers and give corporations American-style power to fire workers at will.

The same thing is true in the United States, where the United Auto Workers union has long peddled nationalist poison, blaming workers in Mexico, China and other countries for supposedly stealing American jobs, while collaborating with the auto bosses to drive down wages. In exchange, the UAW has been handed billions in corporate shares and bribes from GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler. A federal criminal trial is ongoing and UAW bureaucrats have pleaded guilty to serving as company stooges in exchange for thousands of dollars in corporate payouts.

The strike by Romanian workers is part of the growing opposition of the working class to the endless union-backed attacks across the world. Over the course of 2017, Fiat workers in Serbia and VW workers in Slovakia have struck against slave labor wages and conditions. Over the last several years, autoworkers in China and India have fought major battles, and in 2015 autoworkers in the US rebelled against the corrupt UAW.

For a successful fight to be waged to defend jobs and living standards, new organizations are needed to link the struggles of the working class worldwide, drawing them together in a fight against the corporations and their trade union accomplices.

The World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter appeals to Romanian Ford workers to establish a rank-and-file committee, whose task must be to chart an independent course, free from the influence of the company, the union and the Romanian political establishment, to defend the rights of the working class.

Across Romania, workers are ready to fight the governments proposed tax overhaul. But the first task of the rank-and-file committee will be to reach out to autoworkers across Romania, Europe and the world for support.

The transnational corporations have an international strategy to wage war against the working class. The workers must therefore develop their own international strategy to wage the class struggle to defend their interests. Isolated from their brothers and sisters around the world, the workers at Craiova are pawns in the hands of the multinational corporations and their union allies. But Romanian workers confront the same issues as their international co-workers, and united they possess a tremendous social power: the companys profits come from the exploitation of their labor.

Workers at Craiova know who their most militant and trustworthy co-workers are. These workers have proven themselves in recent weeks by risking their jobs and their livelihoods to take a stand against inequality and the corporate-union dictatorship. The most courageous and principled of these workers must be democratically elected to lead a committee. They will then be held accountable by being subject to recall by the workers themselves. Mass meetings must be held to link new-hires and senior workers in a common fight. The company and union must be made aware that retributory firings will be opposed, exposed and publicized by a unified workforce. Social media groups used by workers to plan and communicate must be purged of union spies and company stoolpigeons.

There are plenty of national trade unions in Romania that may try to encourage workers to join their organizations and hand over organizing and negotiating to their bureaucrats. This would be a major mistake! The trade unions, even those not officially tied to the corporations, will only isolate workers and prepare future sell-outs. None have an international strategy to fight the international corporations. They are tied to the very political parties responsible for implementing the tax overhaul and they cannot be trusted. The success of the Craiova workers struggle will be determined by their ability to retain their independence from the trade unions and the bourgeois parties, and by their ability to break their isolation and link up with fellow Ford workers internationally.

The World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter is the only international news publication that has sought to educate workers internationally about the Craiova workers fight. We have distributed our articles and discussed the Romanian Ford workers struggles with autoworkers across the US and elsewhere. Romanian Ford workers should know that their struggle is being followed carefully by many autoworkers who send their full support.

Many Romanian Ford workers have only recently become familiar with the World Socialist Web Site. We are a revolutionary socialist publication and we are affiliated with the International Committee of the Fourth International. Our tendency was founded in 1938 by Leon Trotsky, co-leader alongside Vladimir Lenin of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Trotsky was murdered by Stalinist agents in Mexico City.

We believe that the social rights of workers, who produce societys wealth, must take precedence over the greater accumulation of grotesque sums of personal wealth by the corporate and financial oligarchs, and that this requires a fight for socialism.
In this Oct. 4, 2017, photo provided by The National Press Club shows, Emilio Gutierrez Soto. Soto fled to the United States a decade ago after articles he wrote alleging corruption in the Mexican military caused his name to land on a hit list, according to his lawyer, Eduardo Beckett. (Noel St. John/The National Press Club via AP)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-28 23:53:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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NEW DELHI, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- An Indian minister Thursday apologized to the Parliament for his comment that his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party will "soon change the Constitution."

"My comment was misunderstood. I respect the Constitution and believe that it is supreme. If, however, my statement has hurt anyone's sentiment, I have no problems in apologizing for it," Minister of State for Skill Development Anantkumar Hegde said.

The Parliament Wednesday witnessed massive uproar over his controversial comments at a recent event in his homestate of Karnataka in southern India.

"Some people say the Constitution says secular and you must accept it. We will respect the Constitution, but the Constitution has changed several times and it will change in the future too. We are here to change the Constitution and we'll change it," Hegde had said.

The Indian government has distanced itself from the minister's controversial comments. "The government does not associate with Hegde's views," Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Goel said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 00:33:44|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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NEW YORK, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday that the state was considering restructuring its own tax code in response to the newly passed federal tax overhaul, which he said was partisan and divisive.

The U.S. Congress passed the largest overhaul to the country's tax code in three decades last week along the party line, with no Democrats voting for it.

While the bill would cut the corporate income tax rate to 21 percent from the current 35 percent, and lower individual income rates, it also put a cap on a deduction for state and local taxes.

Critics of the tax bill like Cuomo said it was bait and switch. The bill appeared to benefit the middle class but it wound up being a benefit for the rich and rich corporations.

"They hope the rich corporations will then give it to the workers as a matter of their largesse but if they actually wanted to raise wages for workers, they would have said in the bill, the corporations are going to get a tax cut but they must give it to the workers," said Cuomo in an interview with CNN.

He pointed out that the tax provision hits the blue states by eliminating the state and local tax deductibility and uses that money to finance the tax cut in the red states.

"This is the most partisan, divisive legislation we've seen," said Cuomo.

He told the media that the state is going to propose a restructuring of its own tax code. He added that he was not sure "what they did is legal or constitutional and that's something we're looking at now."

"You can change the tax code. You can't penalize my state because of its political affiliation. There's never been a double taxation before in the history of the nation," said Cuomo.

He suggested a legal battle might prove difficult but people who are hurt by the tax bill are not going to forget.

Cuomo signed an Executive Order last week allowing residents in New York to prepay their property taxes before the end of the year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 00:38:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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SKOPJE, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Three vice ministers of the current Macedonian government and the state secretary of the Justice Ministry on Thursday submitted their resignation to Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

Arta Toci, vice minister of foreign affairs, Remzi Memedi, vice minister of transport, Elmi Aziri, vice minister of the Labor Ministry, and Zylfi Aditi, state secretary of the justice ministry, announced their resignation in a joint press conference.

The four officials belong to the "Alliance for Albanians" party chaired by Ziadin Sela, who announced a decision to withdraw his officials from the government late Wednesday.

The party officials told a joint conference Thursday that their resignation would be followed by the withdrawal of other eight officials.

The heads of two ruling parties -- Zaev of SDSM and Sela of Alliance for Albanians -- clashed over the post of minister of health.

Sela had requested Zaev to appoint one of his officials to this post but Zaev instead named one of his party officials Venko Filipce to replace Arben Taravari, who resigned after winning as mayor of Gostivar.

Sela told reporters there were no more reasons for him to stay in the ruling coalition and continue governing with Zaev as long as he his party had no political weight.
A Mauston man faces criminal charges for operating a motorcycle with revoked driving privileges while intoxicated, injuring a passenger and himself.

Adam Taylor, 30, is charged with operate a motor vehicle while revokedcause great bodily harm to another, and operating with restricted controlled substance in blood. He faces up to three years imprisonment for the first charge.

According to the criminal complaint:

A motorcycle crash was reported to Juneau County deputies on July 4 near the intersection of County Highway G and County Highway O in the town of Lindina.

Upon arrival, a deputy observed a motorcycle lying in a ditch along County Highway G. A subject was found lying in the ditch. The subject said no one had witnessed the crash.

While another deputy was attempting to open the radway for emergency vehicles, the deputy observed an individual, later identified as Taylor, standing nearby. The deputy noticed his face and black t-shirt covered in still wet blood.

The deputy asked Taylor if he had been involved in the crash and where he was injured. He denied being involved in a crash, and stated he was not bleeding or covered in blood. The deputy told him to look down at his shirt. Taylor looked down and appeared surprised.

The deputy asked what happened and Taylor replied he had parked his motorcycle. When asked where he parked the motorcycle, Taylor began to look around as if he could not find it.

After the deputy directed his attention to the motorcycle by pointing to the ditch, Taylor acknowledged it was his. Taylor continued to deny he had crashed the motorcycle, but remembered he had a passenger.

When asked to produce identification, Taylor got his wallet from his pocket and paged through his wallet approximately 3 times, going by his identification card each time. When he handed it to the deputy, he was identified as Adam Taylor.

The deputy could smell a strong odor of intoxicants coming from his breath and his speech was slurred.

The other deputy, who had been with the individual in the ditch stated he had been informed by the individual Taylor had been the driver of the motorcycle.

Taylor and the injured individual were loaded onto backboards and transported by Mauston Area Ambulance. Both had to be flown to trauma centers due to the severity of their injuries. It was reported Taylor had sustained a significant head injury from the crash.

Upon running a check of Taylors driving status through dispatch, the deputy was informed his operating privileges had been revoked for a prior operating while intoxicated offense.

The deputy advised hospital staff he would need Taylors blood drawn.

Results were received from the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene for Taylors blood on Nov. 16.

The results showed Taylor had marijuana in his system when the blood was drawn. The criminal complaint against Taylor was filed on Dec. 18.

Taylor is due for his initial appearance in court on Jan. 10 at the Juneau County Justice Center.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 01:03:53|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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by Lyu Tianran, Frank Kanyesiyge and Mohammed M. Mupenda

KIGALI, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- As the new year nears, Rwandan experts expressed optimism about Africa's prospects in 2018 despite the many challenges the continent will face.

"African renaissance would start," political analyst Ladislas Ngendahimana told Xinhua in a recent interview.

He said Africans will become more aware of their own problems, which will guide them to find home-grown solutions.

Gatete Ruhumuriza, senior researcher of Institute of Policy Analysis and Research of Rwanda, a Rwandan think tank, said the changing international political situation will give Africa more opportunities to take part in the world affairs.

According to Ruhumuriza, the African Union is seeking to become self-funding, but this can not be achieved without political will of the member countries.

African countries generally import more than they export, which contributed to their dependence on international aid to finance their projects and imports, said Teddy Kaberuka, economic analyst and researcher.

Kaberuka lamented that the majority of these countries have natural resources, which were however exported as raw materials instead of finished products.

Africa will also face a lack of investment in industry due to political instability, insecurity and bad governance, according to Kaberuka.

The world has to cooperate with Africa to deal with important issues such as global warming, terrorism and immigration, said Ruhumuriza.

The researcher also said peace and stability in Africa will be a sustainable solution to terrorism and immigration, adding that Western countries need to stop creating and funding wars on the continent.

Major countries should focus on jobs creation, trade, investment and digital penetration in their cooperation with Africa, according to Ngendahimana.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 01:39:02|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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COPENHAGEN, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Two Chinese passengers who were seriously injured in a tourist bus accident in southern Iceland on Wednesday remain in critical conditions, the Chinese embassy in Iceland said in a statement on Thursday, citing hospital sources.

The tourist bus carrying 44 Chinese tourists skidded off the road and rolled over after hitting a passenger car on the highway near Kirkjubaejarklaustur, some 250 km south of the capital Reykjavik, on Wednesday morning.

One passenger was killed on the spot, and more than 10 passengers were seriously injured and transported by helicopters to the National University Hospital of Iceland in Reykjavik.

The two passengers are receiving treatment in the ICU of the hospital, while the others are in stable conditions, according to the statement.

The relatives and family members of all those who were seriously injured have been contacted, and the Chinese embassy will facilitate their visits of Iceland.

Meanwhile, the embassy urges the local police authorities to speed up investigating the cause of the accident.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 02:09:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday called on all parties to conflict to abide by their obligations under international law and immediately end violations and attacks against children.

"Children are being targeted and exposed to attacks and brutal violence in their homes, schools and playgrounds," said Manuel Fontaine, the Director of Emergency Programmes at UNICEF, in a news release.

"As these attacks continue year after year, we cannot become numb. Such brutality cannot be the new normal."

According to UNICEF, children have become frontline targets, used as human shields, killed, maimed and recruited to fight in conflicts around the world.

Sexual violence, forced marriage, abduction and enslavement have become "standard tactics," in conflicts from Iraq, Syria and Yemen, to Nigeria, South Sudan and Myanmar, said the UN agency.

In addition to the physical trauma children have had to suffer, far too many children have been subjected to the psychosocial trauma in having to witnesses shocking and widespread violence.

Hundreds of thousands have been displaced and many children have died as a result of lack of health care, medicines or access to food and water, because these services and were damaged or destroyed in fighting.

In some contexts, children abducted by extremist groups experience abuse yet again upon release when they are detained by security forces, added UNICEF.

UNICEF also called on all states with influence over parties to conflict "to use that influence to protect children."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 04:24:35|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BERLIN, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- A new investor for the insolvent Air Berlin subsidiary Niki has been found at the last minute in the International Airline Group (IAG), German media reported on Thursday.

IAG, which owns the airlines British Airways, Iberia and Vueling, had already registered its interest in Niki following Air Berlin's financial collapse during the past summer, but ultimately lost the resulting public tender to Germany's aviation market leader Lufthansa.

However, Niki was abruptly forced to declare bankruptcy when Lufthansa recently withdrew its offer for the firm in the face of persistent resistance to the merger from European antitrust authorities.

Air Berlin had faced a narrow time window to find a new buyer, before Vienna-based Niki lost its valuable starting- and landing rights at European airports to their respective operators for re-allocation.

According to the newspaper "Bild", IAG was able to beat competition in the tender with a bid of 40 million euros (47.8 million U.S. dollars) for Niki.

IAG had previously announced that it would enhance its presence at Vienna International Airport (VIE), and is consequently anticipated to make greater use of the Austrian capital as a regional hub for its budget airline Vueling moving forward.

Niki insolvency administrator Lucas Floether confirmed that the company's board of creditors had reached a decision on Thursday to progress with exclusive negotiations with only one of the interested parties.

Floether said he was still legally unable to reveal the identity of the successful bidder at this point, but announced that a final sales contract would be drafted in the following days.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 04:44:39|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Democrat Doug Jones was officially certified by election officials Thursday as the winner of the U.S. Senate race held in the southern state of Alabama earlier this month, despite fraud claims by his opponent, Roy Moore.

Jones defeated Moore on Dec. 12 by about 22,000 votes, making him the first Democrat in 25 years to win a Senate seat in deeply-red Alabama.

In a statement Thursday, Jones said he was "looking forward to going to work" in the new year.

Moore, whose campaign was dogged by sexual misconduct accusations, including some involving teenage girls decades ago, refused to concede defeat in the wake of the election result and even filed a lawsuit Wednesday raising claims of election fraud.

He asked for a delay in certifying Jones as the winner and called for a new special election.

"This is not a Republican or Democrat issue as election integrity should matter to everyone," Moore said in a statement announcing the complaint late Wednesday.

In response, a spokesman for Jones labeled Moore's lawsuit as a "desperate attempt," while urging the Republican to move on.

A Montgomery Circuit judge on Thursday denied Moore's attempt to delay the certification of votes.

Alabama election officials also said they found no evidence of voting irregularities, but promised that any complaint that Moore submits will be investigated.

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said earlier Thursday that Jones would be sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence when the Senate returns in early January.

Jones and Moore competed for the Senate seat that previously belonged to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. With Jones' victory over Moore, the Republican Senate majority was trimmed to 51-49.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 08:20:10|Editor: pengying

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SYDNEY, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Australian dollar held its ground against the greenback, slipping just a little as the weakened U.S. currency struggled in the aftermath of major tax reform passed by lawmakers last week and latest economic figures.

At 06:35 (AEDT) on Friday, the Aussie dollar was trading at 77.92 U.S. cents, from 77.97 U.S. cents on Thursday.

The U.S. dollar slipped against other major currencies on Thursday as investors took in the country's latest economic figures. International trade deficit stood at 69.7 billion U.S. dollars in November, up slightly from the 68.1 billion dollars' deficit in October, reported the U.S. Commerce Department on Thursday.

Analysts say markets continue to look for direction going into the new year, following a major reform of the U.S. tax code last week, with corporate tax cuts among the changes set for the world's largest economy.

Local investors are set to take in the latest economic data on Friday with the Reserve Bank of Australia expected to release private sector credit figures for November.

At 10:10 (AEDT), the Australian dollar was buying 77.95 U.S. cents.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 08:55:16|Editor: pengying

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MOSCOW, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Russia has reiterated its wish to reach an agreement with the United States on non-interference in each other's internal affairs, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Thursday.

Maria Zakharova said the ministry handed U.S. ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman a memorandum with such a proposal last Thursday amid "long-standing and systematic aspirations of Washington to influence the developments in Russia in its own interests."

"It reaffirmed the willingness to exchange letters or other forms of guarantees of mutual non-interference in electoral and other internal political processes," Zakharova said.

"It's up to the American side to respond," she added.

Zakharova recalled that Russia had been proposing since the 1990s to reach an official agreement with the United States to guarantee non-interference in each other's affairs. Washington has consistently rejected this.

The United States has been accusing Russia of interference in the U.S. presidential elections in 2016, which has been denied by Russia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 10:45:31|Editor: pengying

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by Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- U.S.-Russia relations remain at a low point near the year's end, and the chill is not expected to thaw in 2018, U.S. experts said.

"U.S. relations with Russia are at a low point," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West 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, among others.

"Many Americans mistrust (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and feel he interfered with the 2016 election in favor of (U.S. President Donald) Trump," West said.

"They do not like his...efforts to expand Russian influence over Eastern Europe. Most still oppose his annexation of Crimea. All of that makes it difficult to normalize relations and treat Russia as friendly power," the expert added.

"Trump hoped to elicit Russia's help on the fight against terrorism. But Putin, in Washington's eyes, has done little to aid that effort and has expanded his country's role in Syria," West said, speaking of the conflict in Syria.

While the Islamic State (IS) radicals have been on the run in the Middle East after a multinational bombing and military efforts, IS-inspired or affiliated attacks have occurred in recent months in Europe, showing no sign of slowing.

"It doesn't look like 2018 will be any different, as Putin has little incentive to help Trump since the latter has not reduced Russian sanctions," West said, referring to Washington's ongoing sanctions against Moscow.

April saw the U.S. Congress pass sanctions with bipartisan, veto-proof majorities, which underscored the fact that it 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, analysts said.

The worsening of ties could manifest itself in even more sanctions in the future, as well as closer U.S. relations with other nations in the region, some experts have argued.

Some also predict that the United States will send defensive weaponry to Ukraine in 2018, and that Eastern Europe, such as the Baltic states and Poland, will see an increased U.S. military presence. The world may also see further deployment of U.S. strategic bombers to Europe, especially Britain, as a warning to Russia.

Analysts also predict Washington's strengthened partnership with countries like Poland, noting that the United States and Poland are seeing increasingly warm relations, adding that Trump chided Russia, a traditional Polish adversary, in a speech from Warsaw earlier this summer.

"Putin has expanded his country's power in Eastern Europe. Hungary is very much in the Putin camp ...Russia has reasserted considerable influence over Eastern Europe," West said.

Other analysts agreed that U.S.-Russia relations have seen better days, and are unlikely to improve in 2018.

U.S.-Russia ties have been strained, Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, told Xinhua.

The U.S. Congress remained concerned about what lawmakers believe was a Russian threat to the United States and key allies, and were unconvinced that a rapprochement with Russia could somehow solve issues on Ukraine, Syria, Iran, and the Korean Peninsula, Mahaffee said.

That sentiment was underscored in a recent speech by H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, in which he called Russia a "revisionist" power that posed a number of threats to the United States.

Washington billed Moscow as a revisionist power because it has been seen as a competitor to U.S. interests, seeking to establish spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, despite the relationships the United States has with allies in the region, said Mahaffee.

Commenting on the heightened rhetoric between the two sides, some analysts have said it amounted to a strong U.S. desire to push back what the Trump administration views as Russian assertiveness. Others have said there has been a sense among some of Trump's top team that Russia has been taking advantage of the United States.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday Russia had been proposing since the 1990s to reach an official agreement with the United States to guarantee non-interference in each other's affairs, but Washington has consistently rejected this.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 11:20:41|Editor: pengying

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by Raimundo Urrechaga

HAVANA, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- The year of 2017 was tough for Cuba, as Hurricane Irma tore through towns and farms along the northern coast, and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump dealt with the newly-mended bilateral ties harshly.

Relations between the former Cold War foes barely had a chance to defrost before Trump put them back in ice box, skewing the direction of foreign policy changes made by his predecessor Barack Obama.

"The United States has reduced its relations with Cuba to a minimum," Iroel Sanchez, a Cuban international analyst told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Five months after taking office, Trump traveled to the heart of Miami, Florida's Cuban community in June to detail how he planned to reverse the thaw in ties, including reinstating restrictions on travel to Cuba.

"The backtracking attests to the Trump administration's decision to associate with very influential political sectors in the state of Florida that oppose any bilateral rapprochement," said Sanchez.

Once practically nonexistent, travel between the two countries boomed after Havana and Washington restored diplomatic ties.

According to official figures, 579,288 Americans visited Cuba between January and November of this year, nearly 250 percent more than in 2016.

But in recent weeks, that number has again dipped as a result of the restrictions and a travel warning issued in September by the U.S. State Department, which recommended Americans not visit the island.

New restrictions also prohibited U.S. companies from doing business with 179 Cuban enterprises with ties to the armed forces, which operate numerous strategic companies in Cuba, even in tourism, a key revenue generator.

That means Americans are barred from staying at any of 83 hotels linked to GAESA, a business conglomerate run by the armed forces.

However, U.S. sentiment towards Cuba has probably prevented the White House from taking even more drastic measures, said Sanchez.

"It seems the will of the Trump administration is to further roll back its Cuba policy. But U.S. public opinion and a large part of the country's business community have not allowed it. The political rhetoric has not been accompanied by tougher actions," Sanchez said.

While Cuba was reeling from the foreign policy about-face, and its potential impact on the economy, Hurricane Irma hit the Caribbean island in September, battering nearly 70 percent of the island.

Thousands of homes suffered total or partial damage, tourism and state infrastructure were also strongly impacted, and crops were wiped out.

The government estimated the losses at about 13 billion U.S. dollars, making it the worst tropical cyclone in Cuba's history.

The two difficulties, along with the economic crisis affecting Venezuela, Cuba's leading political and economic ally, dampened the country's economic growth.

Still, Cuba emerged from an economic recession last year, which registered a 1.6-percent growth in 2017, mainly due to the thriving tourism, construction, transport and agricultural sectors.

"The Cuban government has set priorities to boost foreign investment, sustain growth of the tourism industry, develop state enterprises, and increase labor and agricultural productivity," said Sanchez.

This year, for the first time, Havana managed to attract some 2 billion U.S. dollars in foreign investment to promote different key sectors.

"Cuba has diversified its foreign trade and international financial relations. The Cuban economy does not depend on a single market as happened in the past," said Sanchez.

What can Cuba expect in 2018, when general elections are expected to choose a new head of state and successor to President Raul Castro in April?

"The historic generation that came to power in the 1959 revolution will step aside and younger people who have assumed political responsibilities in the last few years in different organizations and government levels will lead the nation," said Sanchez.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 11:25:42|Editor: pengying

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BANGKOK, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- In 2017, Thailand, the global tourist destination hub and the second-largest economy in Southeast Asia, has gone through several transitions.

The cremation ceremony of late King Bhumibol Adulyadej was held in October and Thai people bid their final farewell to the revered king who had reigned over the kingdom for 70 years since 1946. He passed away in October 2016 after hospitalized for several years.

Also in 2017, Thailand's former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, younger sister of influential former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, secretly left the country before the Supreme Court sentenced her to five years in prison. Thailand's Supreme Court in September 2017 found Yingluck guilty of malfeasance in a loss-ridden subsidy program.

Who is going to lead the Pheu Thai Party, which won the last election, to campaign in the promised 2018 general election still remains unknown. There have been some growing signs that current Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who always doubted and criticized former political systems, might extend his stay in power.

FAREWELL TO THE LATE KING

Thousands of Thai people knelt before a glittering crematorium at Sanam Luang Square in central Bangkok at the stroke of midnight on Oct. 26.

As smoke rose from the crematorium, the fact that his majesty had departed saddened the kingdom once again after the announcement of his death in 2016, as most Thais have known no other king.

The cremation, to many people in Thailand, was the most important event in 2017 and perhaps in decades.

Now, during the royal anthem video played before the beginning of each movie in theaters, pictures of the late king have been replaced by pictures of the late king's only son, Maha Vajiralongkorn, who became the new King of Thailand last December.

Though he has ascended to the throne, the coronation is yet to be held for the new king.

But under his reign, the Thai monarchy may be different.

It is still unclear how actively King Vajiralongkorn intends to reign.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University, told Xinhua:"The monarchy will not be the same" as the late king's role as monarch was unique.

ESCAPE OF YINGLUCK

On the morning of Aug. 25, Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand's first female prime minister became the focus of attention around the country again.

She was the defendant in a rice-subsidy case and was later charged with negligence over mismanaging a rice subsidy scheme in which the Yingluck's government bought rice from farmers at a fixed rate, approximately 50 percent higher than global market prices.

She failed to showed up for a court hearing on Aug. 25, the date the Supreme Court had decided earlier to read the final verdict.

The court found her guilty of negligence and sentenced her to 5 years in jail in absentia later.

The former female leader is still at large following her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's steps.

Thaksin has been the core person in a decade of political conflicts in Thailand after the military overthrew his government in 2006.

The red shirts, who followed Thaksin and the yellow shirts who are against Thaksin, have always taken to the streets since then when the opposite side was in power.

Yingluck led the Pheu Thai Party, the successor of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party in the 2011 general election and won a landslide victory, though her government was overthrown by the military in 2014 during a political crisis.

The new leader of the pro-Thakin wing remains unclear, but some experts point out that the changes needed for the Pheu Thai Party to win the next general election promised to be held in 2018 seem rather small.

NEW CONSTITUTION, ELECTION

In April 2017, Thai King Vajiralongkorn signed a draft constitution compiled by the current government to promulgate it as the 20th constitution of the kingdom.

The new constitution is just a part of the current government's roadmap to return to civilian rule after a general election.

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said in October that the general election date would be announced by June 2018 and the general election will be held in November next year.

However, according to the new constitution, 250 senators picked by the military will be empowered to vote for a new prime minister along with 500 elected members of the House of Representatives, which means the new prime minister may not come from the party that wins the majority seats in the House of Representatives.

Kitti Prasirtsuk, director of the Institute of East Asian Studies, Thammasat University, predicted a "weak" coalition government would be found in power after the election.

"I think the new government is very likely to be formed from multiple parties, it could be formed by four, five or six parties... it will be harder for a coalition administration to exercise its policies," Kitti said.

He told Xinhua that the new general election would be a banquet for small political parties and many new parties are likely to be established before the election.

A former senator vowed this year to set up a new political party called "People's Reform Party" to support Prayut to serve again as prime minister, which would be possible under the new constitution.

PRAYUT'S 10 QUESTIONS

In 2017, Prime Minister Prayut put forward a total of 10 questions for Thai people, asking the people to answer 4 questions and 6 questions respectively in May and November relating to Thai politics.

To summarize them, the 10 questions asked the people if former politicians and parties were good, if people were satisfied with the current stability under the current government, and if an election could vote out a prime minister.

He even hinted that former politicians may not bring good governance to the country.

Some Thais answered these questions while some just ignored them.

Thailand's Gross Domestic Product increased 4.3 percent in the third quarter, the best since the current government took power in 2014.

This may be good news for the current government, as in the past three years, Thai people have mostly been unsatisfied about the economic achievements of the government.
RACINE  A Racine man out on bond for his alleged role in a July overdose death is facing new charges after he allegedly overdosed and was revived on Saturday.

Cory D. Borchart, 34, of the 400 block of 16th Street, is charged with felony bail jumping for a recent incident.

In July, Borchart was also charged with first-degree reckless homicide, delivery of schedule I or II narcotics (second offense), two counts of manufacturing/delivering heroin (second offense), possession of heroin with intent to deliver (second offense) and maintaining a drug trafficking place.

Amanda E. Kaprelian, 34, also of the 400 block of 16th Street, is also charged in connection to the July incident, with delivery of schedule I or II narcotics (second offense), manufacturing/delivering heroin (second offense), possession of heroin with intent to deliver (second offense) and maintaining a drug trafficking place.

According to the criminal complaint:

Saturday, officers were dispatched to the 400 block of 16th Street for a reported drug overdose. They spoke with a woman who said she had found her son, Borchart, unresponsive after he supposedly went to the basement to smoke a cigarette.

When the mother went to check on Borchart, she reportedly found him on the floor, unconscious. Her husband then called for rescue while the mother performed CPR on Borchart.

Upon arrival, officers continued performing CPR. Rescue personnel arrived and administered Narcan, a medication used as an antidote to the effects of opioids. Borchart then regained consciousness and started breathing again.

He allegedly admitted to snorting heroin before losing consciousness. Borchart was then taken to the hospital.

July overdose incident

Both Borchart and Kaprelians July charges stem from them both reportedly being caught selling an informant Suboxone pills, a narcotic used to combat heroin addiction.

Borchart was named as a person of interest in a July 3 overdose death case in which a man was found dead on the 3200 block of Durand Avenue with a heroin-filled syringe nearby. A search of his phone revealed he had reportedly contacted Borchart the day of his death.

Borchart allegedly admitted to being a heavy heroin user and selling some very powerful heroin to the deceased overdose victim the day of his death.

Officers searched Borchart and Kaprelians residence and reportedly found dozens and dozens of needles and syringes, dozens of cooking tins and plastic bag corners.

Also allegedly found in Borcharts sock at the time of his arrest was 4.2 grams of heroin. One gram of heroin was also reportedly found hidden in Kaprelians buttocks.

Both Borchart and Kaprelian were arrested in July. If convicted of all charges, Borchart could face up to 99 years in prison and Kaprelian could face up to 58 years in prison.

On July 10, Borchart appeared in Racine County Circuit Court. As a condition of his $7,500 cash bond, he was ordered not to consume or possess any controlled substances.

The bond was in effect during Borcharts Saturday overdose, netting him the felony bail jumping charges.

During an initial appearance Wednesday, a judge set Borcharts cash bond at $10,000. He remained in custody as of Wednesday afternoon, online records show.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 11:35:44|Editor: Chengcheng

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CANBERRA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- A breakdown in communication between border officials has been blamed for the death of an Australian woman who imported deadly euthanasia drugs.

Danni Smith, a 26-year-old nursing student, took her own life by ingesting a fatal dose of the euthanasia drug in August 2015 despite authorities being aware of her attempts to import the substance.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection had placed a "postal stopper" on her address, meaning any parcels on their way to her were to be investigated by customs before they could be released.

However, a coroner's report into Smith's death published on Friday found that when two small parcels containing the substance were sent to her, the examining officer did not use a test capable of detecting the drug during screening.

The coroner found that the Department of Immigration staff had not been made aware of why the postal stopper had been put in place.

The parcels were released and Smith, who was ill at the time, ingested the substance when her mother, who was caring for her, left her alone for a few hours.

Coroner Rosemary Carlin described the incident as a "clear system failure" but Ann Smith, Danni's mother, said that did not go far enough.

"If that's the coroner's attitude, they should just put people with mental health in palliative care and be done with it," Smith told Fairfax Media on Friday.

"She had a very supportive family. Everything should have got her past it, and I just feel like we didn't get the support we needed from the medical system - not from the public system, not from private system and not in time."

Smith said she was aware the parcel had been delivered but assumed they were safe because they were marked with a label reading "this package has been opened and inspected by customs."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 12:35:55|Editor: Liu

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Michel Temer on Thursday announced the cancellation of a New Year trip over health concerns.

The president and his family were scheduled to spend the New Year holiday in a naval base on the coast of Rio de Janeiro state.

However, the base was deemed to lack sufficient medical support, and the president decided to remain in the capital city Brasilia for the time being.

Temer underwent a surgery on the urethra two weeks ago. According to local media, he was expected to use a catheter for three weeks.

It was not the first time that the 77-year-old president went through a surgery this year. In October, he was admitted to the hospital for a few days and underwent a surgery due to an enlargement of the prostate.

In November, Temer received angioplasty to deal with blockages in three coronary arteries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 12:35:55|Editor: Liu

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by Edgardo Loguercio

BRASILIA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Brazil is immersed in political uncertainty as next year's general elections in October loom, with no clear candidates in sight.

So far, there's little hope that the elections will be able to lift Brazil out of a political crisis sparked more than one year ago by the questionable impeachment of ex-president Dilma Rousseff, and the designation of Vice President Michel Temer as president.

As a leftist activist-turned-Brazil's first woman president, Rousseff was ousted by a conservative Congress eager to pursue more business-friendly policies.

Corruption scandals and power struggles have tainted even Brazil's most popular political figures, making Brazilians more skeptical of their system of government than ever before.

Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who served the country from 2003 to 2010, for example, continues to enjoy the support of progressive Brazilians as the head of the Workers' Party (PT).

The only problem is he has been convicted of accepting bribes from a construction firm, which will end his bid for re-election if he loses his appeal. A court is expected to rule on his appeal on Jan. 24.

Lula was convicted in July of corruption and money laundering as part of Brazil's massive graft investigation. If the conviction is upheld, Brazil's related law would bar him from running.

Political scientist Luciano Dias, of CAC Consulting, said it's likely the court will uphold his sentence.

"That means he will be pigeonholed by the Clean Record Law, meaning he will be ineligible in Brazil to hold any public office for eight years," Dias told Xinhua.

"But Lula is still going to play a leading role (in the elections) because the PT controls about 12 percent of the national vote," said Dias, who believed all of the leftist parties in Brazil together represent around 20 percent of votes.

Ricardo Caldas, professor of political science at the University of Brasilia, agreed Lula will probably be disqualified and that will open the field to numerous candidates.

"The main scenario is a fragmented scenario. Should Lula not be able to run, that is going to distribute the votes among many candidates. For me, the novelty would be to see him absolved, but that's less likely," said Caldas.

With Lula out of the picture, the next logical favorite could be Sao Paulo State Governor Geraldo Alckmin, whose state is Brazil's most populous state, home to a fourth of all registered voters, Dias said.

A member of the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party, Alckmin is known to many Brazilians. He ran before, losing by a scant margin to Lula in a 2006 runoff. His current post serves as a perfect springboard to the presidency.

But he is also facing serious charges of corruption linked to public sector contracts.

In fact, polls show the next favorite would-be candidate after Lula is former military officer Jair Bolsonaro, dubbed "Brazil's Donald Trump."

"Bolsonaro is really a surprise. He is more popular than one would expect from a candidate with his characteristics," said Dias.

However, "it's tough to say whether he is going to maintain this level of votes when the campaign really gets underway," he added.

And it remains to be seen who Temer's government backs as candidate.

For Caldas, the contest will pit a government-sanctioned candidate that promises to continue the social security reforms Temer is pursuing against a moderate center-left candidate that may embrace some, though not all, of those reforms.

"I think the reformist agenda is going to continue, no matter who is elected," said Caldas.

"Even ex-president Lula himself demonstrated in the past that he could defend unpopular measures, like when he maintained taxes on consumption ... counter to the stance of his own party," said Caldas.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 12:35:56|Editor: Liu

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HANOI, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam earned over 3.5 billion U.S. dollars from exporting cashew nuts this year, up 20 percent over last year, while spending more than 2.5 billion U.S. dollars importing raw cashew, up 22 percent, Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said on Friday.

Vietnam exported 352,205 tons of cashew nuts in 2017, mainly to the United States, the Netherlands and China, the ministry said. Meanwhile, Vietnam imported 1.1 million tons of raw cashew from Africa.

Vietnam has strength in cashew processing and customer base and it will assist Cambodia, which is interested in expanding cashew-growing area and exporting raw cashew, in growing 500,000 hectares of cashew with output of some 1 million tons in the next 10 years, according to the Vietnam Cashew Association.

Vietnam's cashew-growing area dropped to 290,000 hectares in 2015 from 440,000 hectares in 2007, according to the ministry. In 2016, the area increased by 5,600 hectares.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 12:50:58|Editor: Liu

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HAVANA, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- A new U.S. cruise docked Thursday here in its bid to promote Cuba as one of its most important destinations in the Caribbean despite a serious setback in bilateral ties.

The ship "Veendam" of Holland America Line, one of U.S. firm Carnival Corporation's brands, arrived in the Cuban capital with more than 1,600 passengers on board.

The ship plans to continue its sail to the southern Cuban city of Cienfuegos where travelers will engage in cultural and educational activities.

At the inaugural ceremony, Holland America Line President Orlando Ashford said the ocean unites the two peoples and Carnival will continue to bet on the island as one of the most important destinations worldwide.

After 37 years, said Ashford, the Carnival brand returns to Cuba, a place that offers warmth and hospitality to cruise line guests.

"We want our clients to have a great experience and we come to the fundamental reason why we sail, which is to build connections between cultures to help open minds and inspire the sense of shared humanity," he said.

Cuba has experienced an exponential growth of visitors by cruises since the opening of this type of trips, receiving 380,000 people for this modality until November of this year.

According to official figures, 579,288 Americans visited Cuba between January and November 2017, registering a 248.7-percent increase compared with the previous year.

However, there has been a substantial reduction in American travelers in recent weeks due to the prohibitions by the United States and a travel warning issued in September by the U.S. State Department that recommended Americans not visit the island.

Cuba plans to implement a broad program of port infrastructure development aimed at increasing cruise tourism.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 13:56:05|Editor: Yang Yi

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JINAN, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Over 6,400 suspects were arrested in 6,113 drug-related crimes in 2017 in eastern China's Shandong Province, the provincial public security bureau announced Friday.

Shandong has seen drug crime rise in recent years. More than 20,000 drug cases were uncovered in the past three years, and the number of registered drug addicts in the province exceeded 100,000, according to Ding Guanyong, deputy chief of the bureau.

In one case, police seized 15 tonnes of raw materials used to produce methamphetamine, methcathinone and other narcotics, which surpassed the volume of drug materials seized in the past decade combined. Over 110 suspects were arrested, with 5 million yuan (0.8 million U.S. dollars) and 40 vehicles confiscated in the case.

Ding said new methods to manufacture, smuggle and distribute narcotics constantly emerged and local police would intensify efforts to fight against drug crimes.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 14:16:09|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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JAKARTA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The waste pollution in Bali of Indonesia is so bad that local authorities recently announced a "garbage emergency" across a six-km stretch of coast on the island.

Tourists' favorite beaches such as Jimbaran, Kuta and Seminyak are included in the "emergency" area.

In the pictures shared on Twitter and Instagram, plastic straws and food packages are floating on waves and pile on the beaches.

"The amount of garbage strewn across every beach is truly heartbreaking," writes a netizen named "beeutifulbalms" on Instagram.

Real actions have started. Local authorities have deployed 700 cleaners and 35 trucks to remove debris along the coast to a nearby landfill every day since the emergency alert was launched last month.

Their workload is reportedly about 100 tons of garbage each day. However, the situation has been improving slowly.

"Because of the winds, the lovely beaches of Bali get covered in rubbish brought in by the tides," @Tim Blazey said in his tweet with pictures showing massive cleanup of the beach on Dec. 22.

This tweet echoes a AFP report on Thursday, which points out that Bali's rubbish problem is at its worst during the annual monsoon when strong winds push marine flotsam onto the beach and swollen rivers wash rubbish from riverbanks to the coast.

So far, it's hard to say whether local litterers or massive tourists should take the major blame for the Bali rubbish emergency. However, it is certain that the dirty coast has somehow affected local tourism.

Many tourists complained about the plastic rubbish they witnessed on the waters or the beaches.

Indonesia is one of nearly 40 countries that are part of UN Environment's Clean Seas campaign. As part of its commitment, the government has pledged to reduce marine plastic waste by 70 percent by 2025.

The country annually contributes, according to the AFP report, a colossal 1.29 million metric tons of marine debris, which overweighs 13 aircraft carriers as big as the USS Teodore Roosevelt -- the world's largest aircraft carrier.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 14:21:09|Editor: pengying

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WUHAN, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- A freight train loaded with electronic and mechanical products departed Friday for Germany from Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.

It brings the total number of freight train trips between Wuhan and Europe to 375 this year, up nearly 69 percent year on year.

The city has 16 rail routes to 28 European countries, with more than 700 trips made since the service was launched in 2012.

Demand for rail freight between China and Europe, an alternative to slower and riskier sea shipping and much costlier air cargo, has exploded in recent years.

About 35 Chinese cities run freight trains to Europe.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 14:51:13|Editor: Yamei

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A TV reporter tries out a shared bicycle in Sapporo, Japan, on Aug. 22, 2017. Mobike, one of China's largest bike-sharing companies, launched its service in Sapporo, Japan, on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Hua Yi)

BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- From "Made in China" to "Created in China," Chinese innovations are lighting up the world through reshaping people's daily lives and leading global efforts to explore the frontiers of science and technology.

Javed Dar, a photographer based in Indian-controlled Kashmir, posted a picture on Chinese social media mobile application WeChat, showing himself riding an orange-rimmed shared bike on a cycle track in Beijing.

The caption he wrote for the photo reads "bicycle-sharing is one of the innovations of China. You have a phone app, and any of the millions of bicycles scattered on sidewalks everywhere can be yours. You scan a code, you ride, you leave and lock the bike wherever and whenever after you finish your ride."

After a two-week-long trip to China, Dar became a proficient user of WeChat, an application that almost every Chinese would use as a communication tool, a social platform and even a wallet.

During his stay in Beijing, Dar recommended his family and friends to download WeChat so that they could keep in touch through free WeChat video calls.

And via the function of translation, Dar found it quite easy and efficient to understand what his friends were saying on WeChat, no matter it was in Chinese or in other languages, making possible communication without any barrier.

As one of many Chinese innovations that have completely changed people's lives, WeChat is only a glimpse of the energy and creativity in today's China.

RESHAPING WAY OF LIVING WORLDWIDE

Dockless shared bicycles, high-speed rail, mobile payment and e-commerce have earned a reputation of China's "four great new inventions" in modern times.

These innovations have completely changed people's lifestyle in China. And now they are also reshaping the way of living worldwide.

China's cashless and dockless bike-sharing scheme is going globe as two leading Chinese bike-renting companies Ofo and Mobike are competing to expand their overseas markets.

Yellow or orange bikes can be spotted on the streets of Singapore, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, the United States and South Korea.

In Manchester, Britain, Mobike has been rolled out on city streets and is filling up the city's bike hiring requirements.

Rafael Cuesta, head of innovation at Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) said the community was looking for intelligent vehicles and looking at Internet of Things solutions for transport. And the customer-focused Mobike scheme fits well with the city's need of intelligent mobility.

More encouragingly, Mobike could use its digital connectivity with the shared bikes to collect data on details of all journeys made. These anonymized data would be shared with TfGM to create a better city.

In another corner of the world, technology of mobile payment has burgeoned in Manila, the Philippines and has provided customers with a digital way to pay via smartphones besides cash and cards.

GCash, a Philippine mobile wallet service provider for conducting payment and money transfer, resembles China's Alipay established by e-commerce titan Alibaba Group, who plays a leading role in China's marveling digital revolution.

People use the GCash payment app to scan QR codes put up on mall counters and with several clicks by finger, the transaction can be done within seconds.

Apart from the above, China's high-speed rail as well as the e-commerce scheme have also been introduced in many countries, bringing more convenience and benefits to other parts of the world.

LEADING TRIALS TO EXPLORE THE UNKNOWN

Changing the way of life is only one aspect. In recent years, China's innovations are also leading the world efforts to make breakthroughs in the frontier fields of science and technology.

Wukong, name of the Monkey King in the classic Chinese tale Journey to the West which literally means "understanding the void," is used to nickname China's Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAPME).

In December, 2015, Wukong was launched. It is helping Chinese scientists lift the cloak of invisibility from dark matter.

"DAPME has opened a new window to observe the high-energy universe, showing new physical phenomena beyond our current understanding," said Chang Jin, chief scientist of DAMPE. China's dark matter detection satellite is the most powerful space probe for high-energy cosmic rays. It has the highest energy resolution and particle identification ability, perfect for searching for traces of the annihilation or decay of dark matter particles, scientists say.

In August 2016, China launched the world's first quantum satellite, Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS). It has realized the distribution of entangled photon pairs over 1,200 kilometers and has proved that quantum entanglement, described by Albert Einstein as a "spooky action," still exists at such a distance.

Nicknamed "Micius" after a 5th Century B.C. Chinese philosopher, the 600-kilogram-plus satellite was sent into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 kilometers.

Micius is missioned to test quantum encryption and quantum teleportation technology that could one day offer quantum communication which is hack-proof. And the test has established China as a front-runner in the field of quantum communication.

More to be listed are the Jiaolong deep-sea manned submersible, the Tiangong-2 space lab and the FAST radio telescope -- all are carrying out missions to explore the unknown.

REVOLUTIONIZING SCI-TECH SYSTEM

The vitality of China's innovation comes from the revolutionary reforms over the past five years in China's science and technology system.

Measures have been taken to encourage brain gain, increase funds and improve policies that promote innovations.

"With more than 30 years of accumulation, China's development of science and technology has experienced transition from quantity into quality," said Huo Guoqing, a professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. "It's time for breakthroughs."

Wan Gang, minister of science and technology, said China's historic transformation from copying the western world to integrated innovations has demonstrated a new concept of China to regard innovation as a primary force driving development.

At the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Chinese President Xi Jinping called for more efforts to make China a country of innovators.

"We will strengthen basic research in applied sciences, launch major national science and technology projects, and prioritize innovation in key generic technologies, cutting-edge frontier technologies, modern engineering technologies, and disruptive technologies," he said.

These efforts will provide powerful support for building China's strength in science and technology, product quality, aerospace, cyberspace, and transportation, and for building a digital China and a smart society, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 15:06:15|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping Friday stressed the importance of reform in 2018, when China will celebrate the 40th anniversary of launching the reform and opening-up policy.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while addressing a New Year gathering held here by the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
An aerial view of a port in a pilot free trade zone in Xiamen, east China's Fujian Province. (Xinhua)

As China waves goodbye to its phase of rapid growth, to embrace a high-quality development, Chinese producers are aiming to break new technological frontiers in the pursuit of quality.

A Guangzhou heavy machinery company, under Dongfang Electric Corporation, last week declared success in the hydrostatic test of a nuclear power equipment product, which is part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project.

The largest international scientific cooperation project in the world, the ITER is a France-based international nuclear fusion research and engineering project exploring commercial uses of fusion power.

A technician looks inside the building where four Poloidal Field coils will be manufactured at the construction site of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, Southern France, October 6, 2016. (REUTERS)

It is jointly funded by China, the EU, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States. China is responsible for producing 12 kinds of products for the project.

The successful test means that China is now a world leader in producing the project's shielding and heat-exchange equipment, according to the company.

"Nuclear fusion technology is a key energy solution for the world," said Zeng Xianmao, chairman and general manager of the company.

China's research and manufacturing capacity in this area is a reflection of the transformation from "Made in China" to "Created in China".

"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 a statement released after China's Central Economic Work Conference that concluded earlier this month.

The tone-setting Central Economic Work Conference listed eight major tasks centering around pursuing high-quality development, including deepening supply-side structural reform, stimulating the vitality of market entities and seeking wider opening up.

Experts say, as a major driver for global economic growth, China's emphasis on high-quality development will not only fuel its own economy, but also contribute to the healthy and sustainable development of the world economy.

For China's industrial circle, high-quality development can only be achieved by seeking new growth areas through supply-side reform.

Lian Ping, chief economist of the Bank of Communications, said traditional growth models were reaching their limit.

Since the domestic supply cannot satisfy the upgraded consumption demand, there is a growing trend for consumers to turn to overseas markets.

"China's efforts in cutting overcapacity will help stimulate new vitality in economic development," Lian said.

The Midea Group, China's leading home appliance maker, is shifting from expanding production capacity to developing quality products through innovation.

During the past three years, the company, with an annual production capacity of 30 million electric cookers, has been focusing its attention on developing and manufacturing hi-tech electric cookers. Some of the products are priced over 6,000 yuan (912 U.S. dollars) per unit, about 20 times more than the old ones.

Electric cookers sold by the company in 2017 were worth a total of 5 billion yuan, up by 30 percent from 2014.

"In the past we mainly produced medium and low-end products, while now quality plays the leading role. Our supply now falls short of the market demand and we have also attracted back some Chinese consumers who were previously converted to foreign products," said Fang Hongbo, chairman of Midea Group.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 16:01:23|Editor: Yurou

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BAGHDAD, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified gunmen shot dead three family members inside a house early Friday morning at a village in Iraq's central province of Salahudin, a police source told Xinhua.

The attackers broke into the family house in the town of Es'haqi, some 60 km south of the provincial capital Tikrit, and opened fire on the family members, killing three men, wounding two women and two children, the source said on condition of anonymity.

The attackers fled the scene before the arrival of the Iraqi security forces who launched an investigation into the incident and carried out a search operation in the area looking for the attackers, the source said.

The predominately Sunni Arab province of Salahudin has been the scene of a major offensive by Iraqi security forces and allied Hashd Shaabi units to drive out Islamic State (IS) militants from the provincial key cities and towns, including Tikrit, some 170 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

The attack also came after the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Dec. 9 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 and individuals of IS militants melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas in many areas in Iraq looking for safe havens. They are still capable of carrying out attacks from time to time against the security forces and civilians.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 16:16:25|Editor: Yurou

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PHNOM PENH, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- A Cambodian court on Friday ordered exiled ex-opposition leader Sam Rainsy to pay 1 million U.S. dollars in compensation to Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen in a defamation case.

Hun Sen filed a defamation lawsuit against Sam Rainsy, former president of the now-defunct Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), in January after Sam Rainsy accused him of giving 1 million U.S. dollars to social media celebrity Thy Sovantha to attack the then-CNRP.

In the lawsuit, the prime minister demanded a compensation of 1 million U.S. dollars from Sam Rainsy.

"After examining document and evidence, the court found Sam Rainsy guilty of defaming Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen and ordered him to pay 4 billion riel (1 million U.S. dollars) to the prime minister," Phnom Penh Municipal Court presiding judge Heng Sokna read a verdict after a two-hour hearing.

Hun Sen warned in February that he would ask the court to freeze Sam Rainsy's property, including the headquarters of the dissolved CNRP, for auction if he won the case.

Sam Rainsy, 68, has been living in self-imposed exile in France since November 2015 to avoid at least eight-year-prison sentence for defamation and incitement cases.

On Nov. 16, the country's Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP after Sam Rainsy's successor Kem Sokha was arrested in Sept. 3 and charged with treason for conspiring with a foreign power in an attempt to overthrow the government.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 16:41:28|Editor: Liangyu

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TAIPEI, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- An exposition featuring future sci-tech is being held in Taipei to promote the development of AI technology.

The three-day exposition, which opened Thursday, focuses on the development and application of AI technology, green energy, bio-medicine, medical materials and nanotechnology.

The island's scientific and technological affairs authorities have recently announced an investment of 16 billion new Taiwan dollars (537 million U.S. dollars) to develop AI technology in the coming five years. The plan includes constructing AI research centers and robot production bases.

At the exposition, many institutions are demonstrating their research in disaster prevention technology by integrating AI, which is of importance for an island with a high risk of natural hazards such as earthquakes and typhoons.

For instance, researchers are developing technologies for earthquake disaster reduction and emergency response. The measures include technology to detect weak p-waves that are the first signals from earthquakes, to estimate the strength of earthquakes within three seconds.

Based on these estimates, escape guide lights in buildings will be automatically turned on while gas and electricity are cut off.

In order to prevent traffic accidents caused by tired drivers, researchers are developing an early-warning system by utilizing AI technology.

According to Archie Wang, project manager of the College of Medical Science and Technology of the Taipei Medical University, researchers are collecting big data about drivers' history of illness and tiredness, which will help analyze their physical condition.

"We also use AI face recognition system to monitor driver behavior like dozing, nodding and blinking, and send early warnings to prevent fatigued driving," Wang said.

In addition to red-hot AI technology, Taiwan has also seen a large demand for new medical technology, as the island is becoming an aging society.

Yeh Chen-Sheng, a professor from the department of chemistry at Taiwan's Cheng Kung University, said they had developed a drug by combining nanometer materials, which could shorten wound healing time from 22 days to 13 days. The drug, which could be especially helpful for diabetics, has been tested on animals, and is awaiting clinical trial.

A fast charging and discharging battery also drew attention at the exposition. The battery, using aluminum ion, can completely charge within two minutes, and costs are much lower and it is much safer than a lithium ion battery, according to a researcher from the Taiwan University of Science and Technology.

The battery life could potentially be as much as 20 years, and it could work in environments with a temperature as low as minus 30 to minus 40 degrees Celsius. The battery may be used in cranes, robots, emergency power supply and solar energy storage devices.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 16:41:28|Editor: Yurou

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ANKARA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- At least two people were killed and 20 others wounded on Friday morning after a bus crashed near the Turkish capital Ankara, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

The accident occurred in Camlidere county of Ankara Province around 8:00 a.m.(GMT0500).

The bus overturned when the driver lost control on the way from Istanbul to Ankara.

The ambulances, police and fire brigades were dispatched immediately to the scene after the accident.

The injured were taken to hospitals in Ankara and neighboring Bolu province.
File photo show a Chinese engineer working with his Kenyan colleague at the Mombasa super bridge of the Standard gauge railway (SGR) project, in Mombasa, Kenya, on Sept. 1, 2016. (Xinhua/Pan Siwei)

by Xinhua writer Li Shengjiang

NAIROBI, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Nowadays, one can hardly travel around Africa without noticing the presence of Chinese nationals -- regardless of whether they are tourists, businessmen, peacekeepers, staff members of medical teams, or employees of Chinese-owned enterprises.

No matter which African country they are in, or what sort of occupation they are engaged in, they are the practitioners of China's Africa policy of sincerity, real results, affinity and good faith.

As China approaches the center of the world stage, they are extending the olive branch of friendship to the African people and serving as a driving force behind Africa's development and her dream of rejuvenation.

FIGHT AGAINST DISEASES, DISASTERS

China is a friend indeed in Africa's fight against diseases and disasters.

On Nov. 26, China's naval hospital ship Peace Ark completed its maiden voyage around Africa and departed from the port of Dar es Salaam, the economic capital of Tanzania in East Africa.

During its voyage that lasted nearly 100 days and covered 13,000 nautical miles (24,076 km), the Peace Ark provided medical treatment, including 246 surgeries, for 52,000 people in Djibouti, Sierra Leone, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania. To many Africans, the Peace Ark is both a "ship of hope" and "a ship of friendship."

In mid-August, sustained torrential rains pounded Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone in West Africa, triggering landslides that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people. Immediately, local Chinese businesses formed the first foreign rescue team that arrived at the scene. A group of Chinese military medical experts stationed in Sierra Leone followed quickly in rescue missions, providing treatment and taking preventive measures to cut off infectious diseases.

PEACEKEEPING

China is also Africa's partner in maintaining peace and stability.

On Aug. 1, Chinese troops formally entered the military support base in Djibouti, a country in the Horn of Africa. As China's first overseas support base, it facilitates the Chinese military's humanitarian aid and escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia.

In South Sudan, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chinese blue helmets are among the most welcome. Besides fulfilling their missions mandated by the United Nations, they are also doing their best to help local residents solve problems.

"China, good!" the Chinese peacekeepers are often greeted with such kind remarks by the local people.

INFRASTRUCTURE CONSTRUCTION

To African countries endeavoring to realize social and economic growth, China is also partner that not only gives a fish, but also teaches one how to fish.

At the end of May, the Chinese-constructed railway connecting Kenya's capital Nairobi and its eastern port city of Mombasa started operations. The railway that utilizes full Chinese standards has greatly facilitated the travel of Kenyans living along it, having already carried 600,000 passengers with an average attendance rate of about 95 percent.

On Nov. 2, West Africa's largest hydropower dam was inaugurated in Soubre, Cote d'Ivoire. The Chinese-built power station sitting astride the Sassandra River is a flagship project of the China-Africa infrastructure and industrial capacity cooperation. It serves to alleviate local power shortages and help create lots of jobs.

Speaking at the 29th African Union summit in July, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed called on African countries to harness the historic opportunity offered in the Belt and Road Initiative so as to push forward the integration process of the African continent.

Ethiopia, which is churning out a miracle of economic growth on the African continent, has often been regarded as following a development path similar with that of China.

Some other African countries, including Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Angola, are also increasingly turning their eyes to China. The African countries that study and learn from the "Chinese path" have generally done better in terms of economic growth than other African countries, says a Financial Times report.

Executive Director of Africa Economic Research Consortium Lemma Senbet told Xinhua in a recent interview that China-Africa partnership has been framed around mutual respect and pursuit of common aspirations.

The African countries can learn from China as they embark on economic diversification, regional integration and strengthening of political institutions, said Senbet.

Proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative aims to build trade and infrastructure networks connecting Asia with Europe and Africa on and beyond the ancient Silk Road routes. It comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which is originally composed of one route spanning westward from China to Europe, and the other extending from the country's eastern coastline down to the Indian Ocean.
File photo shows South Sudanese soldiers accused of gang-rape, murder and looting queue during an announcement of a court verdict by a military court in Juba, capital of South Sudan, Oct. 25, 2017. (Xinhua/Gale Julius)

JUBA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Renewed clashes between government troops and opposition forces in the northern South Sudanese town of Koch have killed at least 32 people since the Dec. 24 cease-fire, a local government official said on Thursday.

Lam Tungwar, Information Minister for Northern Liech State, said that the deaths occurred during fresh fighting that broke out between government soldiers and rebels loyal to the country's former Deputy President Riek Machar since the declaration of the truce on Sunday.

Lam said normalcy has returned to the town but government forces are still engaging the Sudan People's Liberation Army-in Opposition (SPLA-IO) rebels in a nearby town.

"On the 24th of December, 13 people were killed on the side of the government. Most of them were civilians. 19 were also killed on the side of the rebels who came to attack us while 15 others were injured," Lam said.

"We have to pursue them to make sure that they are far away from the civilians because they are causing a lot of havoc to the civilians," he added.

The cease-fire agreement signed between the South Sudanese government and several rebel groups on Thursday last week was brokered by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an East African regional bloc.

The truce asked warring parties to stop military operations and keep their forces in their bases while calling for the release of political detainees as well as unhindered humanitarian access.

Lam Paul Gabriel, SPLA-IO Deputy Military Spokesperson on Thursday accused the government of further violating the cease-fire by launching fresh attacks on their bases in Koch and the Western town of Mundri.

He accuses the government of trying to capture more territory from the opposition before the start of second round of the IGAD-led High Level Revitalization Forum early next year.

The warring factions had previously violated several cease-fires since the conflict erupted four years ago.

South Sudan has been embroiled in four years of conflict that has taken a devastating toll on the people, creating one of the fastest growing refugee crises in the world.

A peace deal signed in August 2015 between the rival leaders under UN pressure led to the establishment of a transitional unity government in April, but was shattered by renewed fighting in July 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 16:56:31|Editor: Yurou

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NEW DELHI, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- India on Friday strongly condemned the terror attack in Kabul on Thursday which left over 40 people dead.

In a written statement issued by Indian Ministry of External Affairs, the government described it as a "dastardly" attack.

"India strongly condemns the cowardly suicide terror attack on 28 December at the media news agency and the cultural centre in Kabul resulting in loss of more than 40 innocent lives and many more injured," said the statement.

"Our heartfelt condolences are with the families of the victims of this dastardly attack and we wish early recovery to the injured," it added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 17:01:33|Editor: Mengjie

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SEOUL, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Chief of South Korea's ruling Democratic Party said Friday that a new deal with Japan is needed over wartime sex slavery victims to make the deal acceptable to the victims.

Choo Mi-ae, chairperson of the Democratic Party, told a party meeting that the 2015 deal was not an agreement as it was aimed to cover up truth, referring to the 2015 deal between then South Korean government under ousted President Park Geun-hye and the Japanese government led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The deal was reached on Dec. 28, 2015 to finally and irreversibly settle the issue over South Korea's comfort women victims in return for Japan's offer of 1 billion yen (9 million U.S. dollars) to a foundation supporting the victims.

Comfort women euphemistically refer to the Korean girls and young women who were kidnapped, forced or duped into sex servitude for Japanese military brothels during World War . Up to 200,000 women, mostly from the Korean Peninsula, served as sex slaves during the devastating war, according to historians.

A task force of Seoul's foreign ministry announced its review result over the 2015 deal earlier this week, discovering a secret agreement between the two countries. It angered the victims and advocacy groups supporting the victims.

President Moon Jae-in said the wartime sex slavery issue cannot be resolved by the 2015 deal.

The governing party chief said historical issues should be dealt with in a way not to damage truth and principle.

Some of South Korean netizens said on the Internet that the government should return the 1 billion-yen fund back to Japan to start renegotiations on the wartime crime against humanity.

Japan claimed that the 2015 deal should be implemented, indicating no intention to renegotiate the deal.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:06:43|Editor: Yamei

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NEW DELHI, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- India has inked a 40 million U.S. dollars loan pact with the World Bank for a tourism development project in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The agreement for Uttar Pradesh Pro-Poor Tourism Development Project was signed between Sameer Kumar Khare, joint secretary of India's economic affairs department, and John Blomquist, Acting Country Director of World Bank, in the national capital Thursday.

The 57.14 million U. S. dollars project aims at increasing tourism-related benefits for local communities in Uttar Pradesh, the country's largest state, according to Indian finance ministry.

Of the total cost of the five-year project, 40 million U.S. dollars will be financed by the World Bank, and the remaining amount will be funded out of the state budget, the Indian finance ministry said in a statement.

"The project is expected to have far-reaching social, economic and environmental benefits by targeting local communities and entrepreneurs near some of the main tourist and pilgrimage attractions in Uttar Pradesh," the statement added.
Customers of AT&T Uverse in the Madison area were out of service a good part of the week, thanks to the frigid weather.

The fiber-optic system provides TV, internet and local phone service.

An exact number of customers without service wasnt given by AT&T Uverse, but a company spokesman said the company is working on the issues.

Due to severe cold and icy conditions, a limited number of customers in the Madison area may be experiencing wireline service issues, Jim Kimberley said. Technicians are working to restore service as quickly as conditions allow.

Carroll Heideman, an AT&T customer in Madison, said she was without service since at least early Tuesday morning, and didnt get connected until Friday morning, when her son was able to call her after trying to call periodically to see if the phone line worked.

I felt like a ship out of water not being able to connect with others via the phone, Heideman said. My kind neighbor, who has Charter, connected me to his computer so I wasnt totally out of the water.

Heideman uses AT&T for her land line, TV and internet. She said she had no official contact from AT&T about the outage.

Messages on the website downdetector.com told of Uverse outages in Janesville, Appleton and Milwaukee, as well as in Michigan, Illinois and Indiana.

There was no word from AT&T whether the problems had been resolved for all affected customers by Friday afternoon.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:21:48|Editor: Yurou

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CAIRO, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- At least one militant was killed in a shootout outside a church south of Cairo on Friday, state-media reported.

"The security forces frustrated an attack on church in Mar Mina Church the Helwan district," said the interior ministry statement.

One attacker was killed and another has fled the scene on a motorbike, the statement added.

Local media reported at least three policemen were killed in exchange of fire.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:26:51|Editor: Yurou

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ANKARA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Turkey arrested at least 75 people over suspected links to Islamic State (IS) in capital Ankara and Istanbul, as part of tightened security measures ahead of New Year's Eve, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Friday.

Some 29 suspects have been detained during a series of anti-terrorism operations in Ankara.

The raids came after Ankara Public Prosecutor's Office issued arrest warrants for 46 suspects, most of whom were foreign nationals.

In Istanbul, police have detained 46 suspects during the raids, among whom were 43 foreigners.

Some of the suspects were allegedly plotting a terror attack on the New Year's Day celebrations, according to the police officials.

Around 37,000 police officers and some 4,000 gendarmes will be on duty over New Year, Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin said on Thursday.

Public celebrations are cancelled or banned in key districts in Istanbul on New Year's Eve for security reasons.

"New Year security measures will be at the highest level. Gatherings will not be allowed," said Ismail Kilic, police chief of Beyoglu district in Istanbul.

On Dec. 31, 2016, a gunman killed 39 people at Reina nightclub in Istanbul. IS claimed responsibility for the nightclub shooting.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:31:52|Editor: Yurou

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YAOUNDE, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- At least three people, including two suicide bombers and one civilian, were killed in two attacks by suspected members of terror group Boko Haram on Thursday night and Friday morning in Cameroon's Far North region, local sources told Xinhua.

The early morning incident happened in Kordo of the Kolofata subdivision bordering Nigeria, where two suicide bombers were killed without civilian casualties.

Witnesses told Xinhua that two female bombers were spotted by the local vigilance committee before launching the attack.

"Spotted and cornered by the villagers who came from all over, they had no choice but to activate their explosive charges. Fortunately, they were the only victims," said Talba, a resident of Kordo.

Also in the Far North region, another attack occurred on Thursday night in the Mayo-Moskota subdivision bordering Nigeria, resulting in the death of a civilian, local sources said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:31:52|Editor: Liangyu

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), addresses a New Year gathering held by the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 29, 2017. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping Friday stressed the importance of reform in 2018, when China will celebrate the 40th anniversary of launching the reform and opening-up policy.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remarks while addressing a New Year gathering held by the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

In 2018, efforts should be made to comprehensively implement the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress, adhere to seeking progress while maintaining stability as the underlying principle, and boost the healthy and continual development of the country's economy and society, Xi said.

Xi vowed to maintain long-term prosperity and stability in Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions in 2018.

"We will continue to implement the policies of 'one country, two systems,' 'the people of Hong Kong governing Hong Kong,' 'the people of Macao governing Macao,' and a high degree of autonomy for both regions," Xi said.

He pledged to adhere to the one-China principle, push forward the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations based on the 1992 Consensus, and oppose separatist activities in any form.

"We will stick to peaceful development as always and build an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity," Xi said.

Xi also stressed the importance of developing a patriotic united front and improving the system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC in 2018 in order to gather consensus and realize the goals set at the 19th CPC National Congress.

Looking back, Xi said that 2017 was "a landmark year in the development of the Party and the country, with remarkable achievements fulfilled in all areas of socialism with Chinese characteristics."

"China has developed its diplomacy on all fronts and remained committed to building a community with a shared future for humanity," Xi said.

Noting strict governance over the Party "is a journey to which there's no end," Xi said that the anti-corruption campaign had built into a crushing tide, and was being consolidated and developed in 2017.

The country carried on deepening reform in all aspects in 2017, with 79 key reform tasks completed, 211 reform tasks finished by central departments and 399 reform plans put forward in various sectors, he added.

On behalf of the CPC Central Committee, State Council and CMC, Xi extended New Year greetings to non-Communist parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, personages with no party affiliation, people's organizations, as well as people from all walks of life, including workers, farmers, intellectuals, soldiers and police officers.

His greetings were also extended to compatriots in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas Chinese, as well as international friends.

Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the National Committee of the CPPCC, presided over the gathering.

Yu asked political advisory bodies to perform their functions of political consultation, democratic supervision, and participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs.

The gathering was also attended by senior leaders Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Zhang Gaoli, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng, along with non-CPC members, leading officials of central departments, members of different ethnic groups and people from all walks of life.

The CPPCC serves as a key mechanism for multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC, and is a major manifestation of socialist democracy.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:31:52|Editor: Yurou

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PYONGYANG, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The party and government officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) met here Thursday to review the country's 2017 economic performance, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Friday.

The participants of the conference praised the supreme leader Kim Jong Un for "accelerating the victorious advance of socialism with the great spirit of self-reliance and self-development as the dynamic force and brought about great national auspicious events, especially significant events, one after another," the KCNA said.

"All the successes made in this year's drive are a brilliant fruition of the respected Supreme Leader's distinguished and sagacious guidance," DPRK Premier Pak Pong Ju was quoted as saying at the conference.

The United Nations has imposed tough sanctions on the DPRK due to its nuclear and missile programs, but Pyongyang remains defiant in the face of international pressure.

Kim, who frequently visits factory workers, farmers and fishermen, has tasked his countrymen with promoting economic development together with the country's nuclear and missile programs.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:41:54|Editor: Yurou

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LONDON, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Two men charged with terrorism offenses are to appear in court in the British capital on Friday, following a raid by counter-terrorism police in northern Britain last week.

The two suspects accused of preparing an act of terrorism are to appear before Westminster Magistrates' Court.

The men have been identified as Farhad Salah, 22, from Sheffield in the county of South Yorkshire and Andi Sami Star, 31, from Chesterfield.

It is expected that the two will appear before the court via a video link, rather than being taken in person to the courthouse in central London.

They were among four men arrested on Dec. 19 after an investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing North East, and Britain's interior intelligence service MI5.

West Yorkshire Police said Thursday night that a 36-year-old man from Burngreave in Sheffield remains in police custody for questioning, while the fourth man, aged 41 and also from Sheffield, has been released.

During the raid, police also detonated material discovered at one of the properties they searched in Chesterfield.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:46:55|Editor: Yurou

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Egyptian policemen inspect the church attack site in Cairo, Egypt on Dec. 29, 2017. At least two policemen, three civilians and one militant were killed in a shootout outside a church south of Cairo on Friday, state-media reported. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

CAIRO, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- At least two policemen, three civilians and one militant were killed in a shootout outside a church south of Cairo on Friday, state-media reported.

"The security forces frustrated an attack on church in Mar Mina Church in the Helwan district," said the interior ministry statement.

One attacker was killed and another has fled the scene on a motorbike, the statement said. It added two policemen were killed in exchange of fire.

Local media reported three passerbys were killed.

No group yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Islamic State group's affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year.

Egypt's Coptic Christians, the largest religious minority in the region, make up about 10 percent of the country's 93 million people.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:46:55|Editor: Yurou

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KAMPALA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni declined to sign a bill into law which allows genetically modified organisms (GMO) into the country, a parliament spokesperson said Friday.

Chris Obore, spokesperson of the Ugandan parliament, told Xinhua by telephone on Friday that Museveni has returned the National Biotechnology and Biosafety Bill 2017 to the speaker of parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, for lawmakers to make reviews and amendments.

In a letter to the speaker last week, Museveni said the use of the GMO crops will contaminate the indigenous ones which Ugandan farmers have developed for years.

"This law apparently talks of giving monopoly of patent rights to its adder and forgets about the communities that developed original material. This is wrong," Museveni said.

"To be on the safe side, GMO seeds should never be randomly mixed with our indigenous seeds just in case they turn out to have a problem," he said.

The constitution of the East African country empowers the president to approve the bill, or return it to the parliament for reconsideration and notify the parliament speaker in writing of the refusal.

The law passed by lawmakers in October provided a regulatory framework that would facilitate the safe development and application of biotechnology, research, development and release of GMOs.

It also established institutions that would regulate and promote the usage of biotechnology in a bid to modernize agriculture and environmental protection, as well as enhance public health and industrialization.

After the parliament passed the bill in October, Elioda Tumwesigye, minister of science, technology and innovation, told reporters it was critical that the country enact a biosafety law to protect its borders from unauthorized entry of GMOs and to protect the public from consuming unsafe biotechnology products.

He said the move could also support scientists to fully and safely utilize their advanced knowledge and capabilities in biotechnology to help solve contemporary challenges especially in health, agriculture, industry and environment.

A parliamentary committee that scrutinized the bill before it was passed argued that GMOs have been used in Uganda with no enabling law.

There is a heated debate globally over the use of GMOs, with proponents arguing that those organisms have the potential to boost food, fuel and fiber production, which will accelerate economic growth and foreign exchange earnings.

Opponents of the law argue that since the technology comes from developed countries, there are varied interests which may be veiled with ill intentions.

Scientists argue that the enactment of the law now paves the way for extending their trials to the field instead of being limited to working within their institutions' boundaries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:51:56|Editor: Yurou

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NEW DELHI, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- India government Friday cautioned people especially investors about risks of trading in virtual currencies (VCs) or cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, officials said.

"There has been a phenomenal increase recently in the price of VCs including Bitcoin, in India and globally. The VCs don't have any intrinsic value and are not backed by any kind of assets. The price of Bitcoin and other VCs therefore is entirely a matter of mere speculation resulting in spurt and volatility in their prices," a statement issued by India's finance ministry said.

The ministry said VCs are not backed by government decree and described them as Ponzi schemes.

"There is a real and heightened risk of investment bubble of the type seen in Ponzi schemes which can result in sudden and prolonged crash exposing investors, especially retail consumers losing their hard-earned money," the ministry officials said. "Consumers need to be alert and extremely cautious as to avoid getting trapped in such Ponzi schemes."

A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud in which belief in the success of a non-existent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors.

Bitcoin, has emerged as world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency and has gained more than 19-fold this year.

"The government also makes it clear that VCs do not have any regulatory permission or protection in India. The investors and other participants therefore deal with these VCs entirely at their risk and should best avoid participating therein," the finance ministry officials said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:56:57|Editor: Yurou

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COLOMBO, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The United States' Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program for Sri Lanka and other GSP beneficiary countries will expire on Dec. 31 after which exports will be subjected to non-preferential duties, the U.S. Embassy in Colombo said in a statement on Friday.

"The United States Congress did not re-authorize GSP before adjourning for the year. The immediate effect of GSP expiration is GSP eligible imports to the United States from Sri Lanka and other GSP beneficiary countries and territories will be subject to non-preferential duties beginning Jan. 1, 2018," the Embassy said.

The United States serves as the top export market for Sri Lanka. According to the Global Trade Atlas, in 2016, the United States imported 2.8 billion U.S. dollars of Sri Lankan goods.
. 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.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 18:56:57|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Experts believe China's economic priorities in the next three years will help promote Chinese people's well-being as well as sustain a healthy growth.

China's recently concluded tone-setting Central Economic Work Conference has prioritized major risk prevention, targeted poverty alleviation and pollution control in 2018-2020 for high-quality growth in China.

Among the "three tough battles" ahead, averting financial risks is a major focus expected to back China's economic transformation, with the role of the market to be highlighted in efforts to reduce financial leverage.

Brendan Ahern, chief investment officer of the U.S. Krane Funds Advisors, believed that Chinese policymakers are capable of preventing the potential financial risks from becoming crises.

"I believe the surprise of 2018 will be China's navigation of these potential risks prior to them becoming crises," he said, while commending China's measures already in place as "preemptive."

"Over the last year we have witnessed increased attention and policies taking a proactive approach to addressing potential risks," he said.

In their December reports, both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have noted the potential risk in China's financial system as well as China's concern and precautions regarding the risk.

Improving financial regulation is an effective means to defuse systematic risks, said Goldman Sachs analyst Joshua Lu.

"Improving regulation in addition to reducing financial leverage will be rewarded in the long term after short-term pains to players in the arena," Lu said, adding that proper regulation and communication will help enable China's banking sector to endure the necessary pains.

As the world's second-largest economy, China has not denied its poor opportunities and benefits from growth. Making targeted poverty alleviation a priority in the near future is in line with its goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2020.

Official data showed that in the past four years, China cut its rural poverty-stricken population by 55.6 million, or an annual average of 13.9 million.

It is an international consensus that China has made a remarkable contribution to the global fight against poverty, being a role model for other developing countries.

Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore, said, "Targeted poverty alleviation will help eradicate extreme poverty in China, reinforcing social stability. Growth and stability will help China exert a positive influence on the world."

As a responsible and responsive major country, continued efforts in pollution control manifest China's commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change as well as to a green and innovative growth.

Constantinos Filis, research director at the Athens-based Institute of International Relations, said the Chinese move to reduce emissions represents a "shift towards a green economy."

"It remains to be seen how an economy can be both powerful and green," he added.

Bambang Suryono, chairman of the Asia Innovation Study Center in Indonesia, expects the move to prompt advancements in renewable energy and high-tech industries. "It will not only boost the sustainable development in China, but also provide cases for other developing countries to study," he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 19:12:02|Editor: Yurou

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JERUSALEM, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Gaza militants fired three rockets at Israel on Friday, with one of them hitting a building in the country's south without causing injuries, a military spokesperson said.

A military spokesperson said in a statement that the rocket fell in one of the kibbutzim, small rural communities, in the Sha'ar Ha'negev Regional Council. It hit a building in the kibbutz.

"There are no casualties, only a little damage to the building," the spokesperson said.

The other two rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-rocket system, according to the spokesperson.

The fire triggered Red Color sirens across the southern regional councils of Sha'ar Ha'negev and Sdot Negev. Troops are still searching the area for the remains of the rockets, the army said.

Local media widely reported that the rockets were launched as dozens of people were gathering in the kibbutz of Kfar Azza to commemorate the birthday of Sgt. Oron Shaul, who was killed in a battle during Israel's 2014 offense in the Gaza Strip. Israel claims that his body was taken by Hamas together with the body of another soldier and demands the Islamist organization to return it.

The launches came amidst escalation between Israel and the Palestinians over U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his plan to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 19:37:08|Editor: Yurou

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Egyptian policemen inspect the church attack site in Cairo, Egypt on Dec. 29, 2017. At least ten people were killed in a shootout outside a church south of Cairo on Friday, state-media reported. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa) CAIRO, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- At least ten people were killed in a shootout outside a church south of Cairo on Friday, state-media reported.

"The security forces frustrated an attack on church in Mar Mina Church in the Helwan district," said a statement from Interior Ministry.

One attacker was killed and another has fled the scene on a motorbike, the statement said. It added two policemen were killed in exchange of fire.

Egyptian Health Ministry said the death toll rose to ten, including two Muslims, the attacker and the policeman, and eight copts, adding at least five others were wounded.

Two of the wounded are in serious conditions, the health ministry added.

Bombs-disposal team has defused two bombs planted nearby the church.

The security forces have been chasing the militants in the desert areas surrounding the church, official news agency MENA reported.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Islamic State group's affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year.

Egypt's Coptic Christians, the largest religious minority in the region, make up about 10 percent of the country's 93 million people.
Egyptian policemen inspect the church attack site in Cairo, Egypt on Dec. 29, 2017. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

CAIRO, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- At least ten people were killed in a shootout outside a church south of Cairo on Friday, state-media reported.

"The security forces frustrated an attack on church in Mar Mina Church in the Helwan district," said a statement from Interior Ministry.

One attacker was killed and another has fled the scene on a motorbike, the statement said. It added two policemen were killed in exchange of fire.

Egyptian Health Ministry said the death toll rose to ten, including two Muslims, the attacker and the policeman, and eight copts, adding at least five others were wounded.

Two of the wounded are in serious conditions, the health ministry added.

Bombs-disposal team has defused two bombs planted nearby the church.

The security forces have been chasing the militants in the desert areas surrounding the church, official news agency MENA reported.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Islamic State group's affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year.

Egypt's Coptic Christians, the largest religious minority in the region, make up about 10 percent of the country's 93 million people.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 19:47:12|Editor: Liangyu

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NANJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Police in east China's Nanjing City said Friday they have taken criminal "coercive measures" against the boss of an online financial firm over illegal fund-raising.

Zhang Xiaolei, who controlled Qbao.com, turned himself in Tuesday. Police in Nanjing said they have begun an investigation.

Zhang founded Qbao.com in 2012 and used it as a platform to accumulate money given by creditors who were lured by large interest returns, police said. Zhang took funds from new creditors to pay off old debts. Qbao.com was found to have amassed huge amounts of money.

Some of Qbao.com's investment projects claimed a return rate of 50 percent. In its heyday, the website was said to have 200 million registered users and billions of yuan worth in cash flow.

Victims have been asked to report to police.

Police did not elaborate on what specific measures were taken, but criminal coercive measures can include summons for questioning, residential surveillance, detention and arrest.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 19:57:14|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- In today's China, a QR code is a must-have for retailing businesses. From grand department stores to food stands on street corners, they are put up everywhere to make things easier: by scanning the codes, people can pay for almost anything.

But it has also made things easier for scammers. QR codes are so accessible that a simple scanning of an unidentified barcode can lead to a loss of huge money or massive personal information leakage.

The popularity of QR code is only an example of the revolutionary changes brought by financial technology (fintech). In 2017, while people enjoyed better financial products and services, concern was also rising on risks and challenges.

CHANGING FINANCIAL LANDSCAPE

As a young market, China's financial firms have been quick to adapt their thinking to changing technology and business. After the explosive fintech growth in 2015 and 2016, relations between technological advancement and China's financial sector have grown even closer this year.

Business services group EY said in a report earlier this year that China is now in a leading position among 20 major markets in terms of fintech use in areas including money transfers, investments, borrowing and insurance.

"Fintech is making profound changes on the financial landscape," said Jiang Yang, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, China's top securities watchdog.

In Jiang's eyes, tech-based financial services are more accessible and inclusive, and have helped solve issues that have long baffled the industry.

For instance, while offering credit support for small and micro-sized enterprises who may not have enough collateral or sound balance sheets is still a headache for the banking sector, banks now can make better loan decisions by evaluating their conditions more precisely with technologies like big data and blockchain.

Traditional financial institutions have also moved to embrace such trends.

Baixin Bank, a direct bank jointly invested by China CITIC Bank and Chinese Internet giant Baidu, opened in November. It combines cloud computing, artificial intelligence, mobile Internet and other leading technology to offer financial services.

SECURITY CHALLENGES

Jiang also pointed out that regulators will face challenges in investor protection, market fairness and financial stability, stemming from fast-expanding fintech, which is particularly relevant in China as the country is strengthening control against financial risks.

The vice chairman said fintech had blurred the boundaries of regions, industries and markets. At the same time, the skyrocketing increase in transaction volume and faster transaction speed could spread risks and make them more destructive.

In September, authorities ordered a ban on Initial Coin Offerings, a controversial digital coin fundraising scheme, and shut down all virtual currency exchanges in the country, as the rapidly expanding market, attracting both innovators and scammers, spawned concerns over financial risks.

Chinese regulators have also specified new rules to clean up rampant peer-to-peer lending and an insecure cash loan market, which dealt a heavy blow to the stock prices of China's micro lenders in recent months.

"We cannot drop fintech for its security risks, nor can we ignore the security risks because technologies have brought so much convenience to the financial industry," said Hou Yunchun, former deputy director of Development Research Center under the State Council.

REGULATORY BALANCING

Facing the same regulatory issues, financial authorities across the globe have come up with many innovative solutions, of which regulatory "sandboxes" or "firewalls" are among the most popular methods.

For regulators, regulatory "sandboxes" allow them to test financial innovation in a controlled environment before they mature, so that new technologies and products can evolve without causing threats to the existing system.

"Similar to 'regulatory sandboxes,' in China, we have pilot projects for innovative products and technologies," said Fu Jianfeng, an associate researcher with the Ministry of Science and Technology, who now works with the local financial bureau in Chengdu, a western Chinese city.

He cited the pilot financial reform zone in the eastern city of Wenzhou, established in 2012 to try innovative financial services and regulatory practices.

To keep abreast with the latest developments and protect market order, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), China's central bank, set up a fintech committee to enhance research, planning and coordination in this field.

The PBOC has also moved to address practical situations. In the latest move, it ordered payment institutions to obtain proper permits to offer payment services based on barcodes, and said cross-bank barcoded-involved transactions must be channeled through the central bank clearing system or other legal clearing houses.

The central bank said it has always been aware of the delicate balance between encouraging innovation and controlling risks, and the new standards on barcode payment reflect that principle.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 19:57:14|Editor: Yurou

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JAKARTA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- A total of nine foreign nationals were killed by Indonesian police in 2017, a move aiming at preventing the spread of the narcotics in the country, top police officer said here on Friday.

National Police Chief General Tito Karnavian revealed that the drug abusers and dealers were shot dead across the country.

"The decision to shoot them dead was taken because the drug offenders were resisting when the police tried to arrest them," the general said in the police headquarters.

Tito said that a total of 46 Indonesian citizens were also killed this year for the drug offender.

General Tito said that the number of cases of drug abuses decreased from 47,767 in 2015 to 45,257 in 2016.

The number of suspects was also down from 60,387 to 56,791 in 2016, he said. However, the number of evidence rose from 11 tons last year to 150 tons this year.

According to President Joko Widodo, Indonesia has been a state of narcotic emergency with rampant drug abuse cases among the people, various kinds of new drug circulating among the abusers and active drug smuggling in the country. The government has declared war against drug abuses.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 20:22:20|Editor: Yurou

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ANKARA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Turkey and Russia on Friday inked a loan agreement in Ankara for purchase of the S-400 missile defense system worth 2.5 billion U.S. dollars, a Turkish official told Xinhua.

Russia will provide Turkey with four batteries of S-400 surface-to-air missile system under the deal and the latter will pay 45 percent of the cost up front with Moscow providing loans to cover the remaining 55 percent.

The two countries had reached an agreement for the purchase, but have been discussing on a loan provided by Russia.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey will borrow the loan on Russian ruble, instead of U.S. dollar, so the debt will be cheaper for Ankara.

"We will not borrow over dollar, we will borrow over rubles. The Treasury's debt will be cheaper," Erdogan told journalists on Wednesday.

Purchasing on ruble, Turkey will save up to 3 percent of the total debt, he said.

The first delivery of the S-400 missile system is scheduled to be accomplished in March 2020.

The S-400 is Russia's most advanced long-range anti-aircraft missile system and can carry three types of missiles capable of destroying targets, including ballistic and cruise missiles.

Turkey is the first NATO member state to purchase the S-400 missile system.
(FILE PHOTO)This handout picture obtained from the Russian Defence Ministry's official Facebook page on November 26, 2015 shows Russia's S-400 air defence missile systems at the Hmeimim airbase in the Syrian province of Latakia. (AFP PHOTO)

ANKARA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Turkey and Russia on Friday inked a loan agreement in Ankara for purchase of the S-400 missile defense system worth 2.5 billion U.S. dollars, a Turkish official told Xinhua.

Russia will provide Turkey with four batteries of S-400 surface-to-air missile system under the deal and the latter will pay 45 percent of the cost up front with Moscow providing loans to cover the remaining 55 percent.

The two countries had reached an agreement for the purchase, but have been discussing on a loan provided by Russia.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey will borrow the loan on Russian ruble, instead of U.S. dollar, so the debt will be cheaper for Ankara.

"We will not borrow over dollar, we will borrow over rubles. The Treasury's debt will be cheaper," Erdogan told journalists on Wednesday.

Purchasing on ruble, Turkey will save up to 3 percent of the total debt, he said.

The first delivery of the S-400 missile system is scheduled to be accomplished in March 2020.

The S-400 is Russia's most advanced long-range anti-aircraft missile system and can carry three types of missiles capable of destroying targets, including ballistic and cruise missiles.

Turkey is the first NATO member state to purchase the S-400 missile system.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 21:02:26|Editor: Yurou

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TIRANA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Justice reform that is being implemented in Albania has aroused hope for the Albanian families who live isolated in their homes for being involved in conflicts known as blood feuds.

Blood feud is an old infamous code, mostly applied in northern Albania, under which someone has the social and moral obligation to commit murder in order to save the honor questioned by an earlier murder or moral humiliation.

The whole family of the person who commits a murder is later isolated and home confined as the affected family will get revenge and wait for the moment to hit back.

Blood feuds can involve generations, even descendants of these families who have nothing to do with the original insult or murder.

As a result, Albania counts at least 68 families in the northern region of Shkodra who stay isolated in their house, fearing a revenge attack by their enemy.

This means that over 100 children have attended no school, they don't get medical treatment in hospitals and they can't even play at their yard as they are constantly "monitored" by their enemy.

Blood feuds sprouted in early 1990s, when the state control was weak and people took arms to solve their personal conflicts without thinking of justice and laws.

"The isolated families see the justice reform as a salvation. Their expectations are high since they believe the reform will bring justice even for them," Liljana Luani, a teacher who teaches the "trapped" children in these families told reporters Friday.

"When the justice reform gets concluded and corrupt judges and prosecutors get what they deserve, the blood feud problem will be solved too because the criminal will be punished. And the ones who force families to stay home confined will be punished because this is considered a criminal offense, depriving others from liberty. Only then, these people and these innocent children will be free," Luani said.

On Thursday, teacher Luani and Albania's minister of Foreign Affairs Ditmir Bushati visited some of these families where the minister assured them that such phenomenon would soon come to an end.

"Blood feud is a deep-rooted phenomenon in our society but we can work together and step up efforts to eradicate it," Bushati said from Shkodra.
These were the topics discussed Saturday, December 9th at the Heartland Institute, with author Nick Adams promoting the importance of the history and significance of the U.S. Constitution. The event, Helping Students Understand the Constitution, was well received by all age groups present.

In schools across the country, students are not being taught foundational principles such as federalism, checks and balances, and separation of powers. Instead, most students are taught the Constitution is a "living" document that needs to be constantly updated and reinterpreted. Another alarming trend in academia is revisionist history that overemphasizes the darkest chapters in U.S. history while simultaneously downplaying the most positive aspects of our country's past.

Nick Adams, a native Australian, is a best-selling author, a prominent speaker, and a Fox News commentator. Adams is also the Founder and Executive Director of Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness (FLAG), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and providing high-quality civics education that informs students and families about the greatness of America and the power of the American Dream. FLAG provide free visits by its representatives to elementary, middle schools and high schools as they work in the belly of the beast to provide comprehensive, authentic civics education that informs students and families about the greatness of America and the power of the American dream. As to resistance to classroom visits, Nick Adams cited none.

FLAG's first publication, Student's Constitution, has been placed in the hands of 20,000 students and teachers throughout the U.S. Thorner recommends the wonderfully illustrated and attractive book to both parents and grandparents for the children in their lives. It will also give adults a chance to bone up on long forgotten facts about our Constitution. Order Student's Constitution here.

Adams' passion for America's roots ignited by battle with childhood cancer

Christopher Talgo, Marketing Coordinator at The Heartland Institute, introduced Nick Adams.

In introducing himself, Nick Adams spoke about how a seed was planted early on in his desire to come to America to live. It all began at the age of 16 months when Nick was found to be afflicted with stage 4 of a childhood cancer. It was an American doctor who diagnosed Nick's illness just in the nick of time. Because of the healing hand of God, Nick lives today. Nick also credited American exceptionalism for his good fortune.

Elected to office in Australia at the age of 19 and a best-selling author before turning 30, Nick Adams realized his dream when becoming a citizen of the U.S., thus fulfilling his intense desire to make sure America remains where we want it to be. As Nick described the process, it wasn't an easy one. He spent $50,000 in the process.

Nick has dedicated his life to promoting what he believes America offers as a nation. Nick sees America as the greatest country in the history of the world. He tells children that the day they were born is the day they won the lottery of life, because it is the only country where a person can fail 5,000 times and then get up again. How so? Because failure is not failure, risk is encouraged, and success is admired.

America's Dominance in World not by Chance

As to this nation's greatness, Mr. Adams cited how less than 5% of the world's population lives in America, yet this nation has become dominant in the world. And it has not happened by chance. The most brilliant men to ever walk this earth were our Founding Fathers. The founding documents they produced have helped this nation to remain the Guardian of Liberty the Gate Keeper of Civilization. Adams offered some thoughts on what the world would look like without this nation's attributes. 1) Islamist terrorists would act with impunity, 2) Russia would attempt to rebuild the Roman Empire, and 3) individual liberty would become extinct. For as Adams stated, "When the U.S. is weak, the world is weak."

Adams offered these thought on political correctness. It is killing this nation as a way of life, a mindset, and a cultural attitude which seeks to determine how we should think to remain in step with what is considered acceptable to think or say. Political correctness strips individuals of their individualism, causing the American dream to be turned into an European nightmare. In the meantime, there is little will to fight for the preservation of individualism over collectivism; for faith over secularism; and for the rejection of multiculturalism. Is this the future we want for our children? It was American exceptionalism that set this nation apart from all othe

Australia vs America

As stated earlier on, Nick came to America to make and not to take. He came to join the fight to save this nation, not to change it. Most of all, Nick came because this nation is the greatest nation in the world.

In Australia voting is compulsory. America is the only country where primary elections take place. Nick spoke of Australia as eating its own and how any successful Aussie moves to the U.S. Nick sees optimism and enthusiasm as important attributes here in America. Even so, Nick mused, "America remains the most ridiculed nation in the world."

As to why the fight for the very soul of this nation remains a difficult one? It can be attributed to those here among us, thus making the battle much more difficult to win. For the last 60 years there has been a culture war in this nation brought about through lies and the tactics set forth by Sol Alinsky. In watching tv we are often shocked by what we are now viewing in a culture which now condones that which was not possible even 10 years ago, but is now the norm.

Keeping America Great

American must stop being the punching bag, and fighting back with boldness must begin with the next generation of American leaders. Several generations of Americans have not been taught what it means to be an American. This could be evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of Bernie supporters who joined the Bernie Sanders campaign with its Socialist/Communist rhetoric and values. They have no understanding of the exceptionalism of their nation which began with the amazing documents written by our Founding Fathers.

As noted by Adams, this is a critical time for our nation. Last July 4th was its 240th birthday How much longer can this nation survive with its founding ideas and principles still honored and respected? Most great nation experience decay after 230 to 270 years. We are right in the kill zone

Until 11 months ago this nation was being led from behind. As such the enemies of this nation are no longer foreign, but are right here among us. The anti-speech movement that is currently sweeping across American college campuses is an appalling example of what can happen when people do not recognize the basic rights protected by the world-changing Founding documents. Another alarming trend infecting our schools from K through college, is revisionist history that overemphasizes the darkest chapters in U.S. history, while at the same time downplaying the most positive aspects of our country's past.

Nick Adams chased the American Dream as an Aussie by coming to America and achieving permanent residency, believing this is the best country in the world to be and the most color blind nation in the world. As the Founder and Executive Director of FLAG, it is his aim to explain to kids why America is truly an exceptional nation, and why we should celebrate our history and liberties, not be ashamed of them, to remain the greatest nation in the world. This will require boldness to speak out from places of worship and from the true patriots among us.

As Adams noted in his books, Retaking America and Green Card Warrior, both endorsed by President Donald Trump, "Establishment" equals gate keepers, the Establishment delivers crushing blows to opportunity, and the Establishment serves itself, not America.

Nick Adams' books can be purchased at Amazon.com and include Retaking America, Green Card Warrior, and The American Boomerag. His most recent book, published in October of 2017, The Case Against the Establishment with Dave Erickson, makes an irrefutable case that the Establishment is the enemy of the people.

The youtube presentation by Nick Adams on Saturday, December 9, 2017, Helping Students Understand the Constitution, can be viewed here.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 21:07:27|Editor: Yurou

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Egyptian policemen inspect the church attack site in Cairo, Egypt on Dec. 29, 2017. At least ten people were killed in a shootout outside a church south of Cairo on Friday, state-media reported. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

CAIRO, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- At least ten people were killed in a shootout outside a church south of Cairo on Friday, state-media reported.

"The security forces frustrated an attack on Mar Mina Church in the Helwan district," said a statement from Egyptian Interior Ministry.

Egyptian Health Ministry said the ten killed include one attacker and one policeman, who are Muslims, and eight Copts with one of them a policeman.

The ministry added that at least five others were wounded, with two of them being in serious conditions.

Egyptian Interior Ministry said the other attacker fled the scene on a motorbike and was later arrested.

Bombs-disposal team has defused two bombs planted nearby the church.

TV footage showed one attacker wearing a bulky ammunition vest lying on a street.

The other attacker was later arrested carrying a bomb, 150 bullets and an automatic gun, the head of Cairo Security Directorate said.

In a statement, the attacked church said the eight dead Copts include five church visitors, one security man of the church and two owners of an appliance shop nearby the scene.

Eyewitnesses told Xinhua that the two masked militants on a motorcycle have entered the street leading to the western side of the church, and then they got off the ride and targeted the security post outside the church.

They added the exchange of fire took around 20 minutes.

The attack came in the run-up to Orthodox Christmas celebrations next week.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Islamic State group's affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year.

Egypt's Coptic Christians, the largest religious minority in the region, make up about 10 percent of the country's 93 million people.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 21:32:30|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese military will begin receiving tip-offs of threats to national security or defense through a website from Jan. 1.

The website www.PLA110.cn, launched by the committee for political and legal affairs of the Central Military Commission, allows people to report online activities, including stealing or leaking military secrets, and fabricating information about the army.

Gambling, drug trafficking or other crimes by soldiers, attacking the party's absolute leadership over the military, obstructing military operations, smearing the image of the army and jeopardizing the military's network information security may all be reported through the website.

The public can give information anonymously or using their real names. Rewards will be given for useful information.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 21:42:32|Editor: Yurou

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RAMALLAH/GAZA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Clashes broke out in West Bank and the Gaza Strip Friday between the Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, leaving 11 Palestinians injured, according to Palestinian Health Ministry.

Following the Friday noon prayers, dozens of young Palestinians and Israeli soldiers clashed at the border area between eastern Gaza and Israel.

Among the injured, two were wounded with bullets and dozens fainted as they inhaled tear gas, said Ashraf al Qedra, spokesman of Health Ministry in Gaza told.

In the West Bank, the clashes erupted at Ramallah's northern entrance, Nablus city entrance, Aroub refugee camp near Hebron and the south of the West Bank, during which three were injured, one of who in critical condition.

Israel's military said Friday it attacked two Hamas posts in the Gaza Strip after three rockets launched from the besieged Palestinian enclave hit an Israeli building earlier.

The strikes came "in response to the rockets fired towards Israel" earlier on Friday, according to the statement.

Israel's Iron Dome anti-rocket system intercepted two of the rockets but the third one hit a building in a kibbutz, a small rural community, in the regional council of Sha'ar Ha'negev, causing minor damage to the building with no injuries reported.

No group in Gaza immediately assumed responsibility for the rockets but these launches are usually made by the Islamic Jihad and other radical Islamist groups. However, Israel said it held Hamas responsible for any hostility from Gaza and usually retaliates with attacks on Hamas positions.

The incident was the latest round of escalation between Israel and the Palestinians, which was triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Dec. 6.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 21:47:33|Editor: Yurou

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ATHENS, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The arrival of the French modern circus Baraka in Greece for first time on Nov. 15 this year happened to coincide with a tragedy.

That night torrential rains hit Elefsina, a city about 17 km west of Athens which was chosen as Cultural Capital of Europe 2021.

The flooding caused 24 deaths, many injuries and hundreds of thousands of euros worth of damage to businesses and homes.

The 14 artists and technicians from the circus set up their tent on the mud, rehearsed and set out to lend a helping hand in the only way they knew -- trying to heal wounds through art.

All revenues of their first performance on Dec. 16 were turned over to flood-stricken locals. Until Jan. 21, when they will pack to head to their next destination Morocco, they will do their best to bring joy to locals, they told Xinhua.

"On the night of our arrival, there were the floods. For us it was really shocking. We came here to do something simple -- circus. But at the same time, 10 km from here something terrible happened. So if we can help in a way, we will," technical manager Thomas Bares said.

The performance of the Baraka circus, based in Mauritius since December 2013, is anything but simple. Through their acrobatics, body theatre, music and dance, they focus on cultural relations, differences and issues of co-existence.

"The project talks about walls. It talks about concrete walls, but also about mental walls, economic walls, boundaries," Bares said.

The artists do not intend to impose their views on contemporary challenges on audiences.

"We don't have one message, but a lot. That means everyone can get his own message at the end of the show. In the end, everyone is making his own story and gets his own lessons," Bares said.

Kelly Diapouli, artistic director of "Elefsina 2021 -- Cultural Capital of Europe," said the circus was invited to introduce to locals forms of art not well known in Greece.

Most Greeks still have the impression that circuses include wild animals and fire shows, Diapouli said.

Nassia, a young spectator who also studies theater, said: "The show was excellent. The truth is that I did not expect it, but I really enjoyed it very much and I would happily return to watch the show again," she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 22:17:39|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- A kindergarten teacher who allegedly abused children has been arrested, the procuratorate of Beijing Chaoyang District said on Friday.

The suspect surnamed Liu was a teacher at the RYB Education New World Kindergarten in Chaoyang. Rumors of child abuse in the kindergarten stirred public outrage last month.

Liu was detained on Nov. 25. After an investigation, police said Liu had used sewing needles to "discipline" children who would not sleep.
This file photo taken on November 11, 2017 shows U.S. President Donald Trump (L) speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin as they attend the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Danang, Vitenam. (AFP/SPUTNIK)

MOSCOW, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Russia has reiterated its wish to reach an agreement with the United States on non-interference in each other's internal affairs, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Thursday.

Maria Zakharova said the ministry handed U.S. ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman a memorandum with such a proposal last Thursday amid "long-standing and systematic aspirations of Washington to influence the developments in Russia in its own interests."

"It reaffirmed the willingness to exchange letters or other forms of guarantees of mutual non-interference in electoral and other internal political processes," Zakharova said.

"It's up to the American side to respond," she added.

Zakharova recalled that Russia had been proposing since the 1990s to reach an official agreement with the United States to guarantee non-interference in each other's affairs. Washington has consistently rejected this.

The United States has been accusing Russia of interference in the U.S. presidential elections in 2016, which has been denied by Russia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 22:32:44|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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CAIRO, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Arab League (AL) Secretary General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit condemned on Friday a terrorist attack that left at least ten people dead outside a church south of Egyptian capital Cairo.

In a statement, Aboul-Gheit also offered his condolences to the Egyptian government and the victims' families, wishing the injured a speedy recovery.

The AL stands by Egypt in the face of terrorism that aims at undermining the country's security and stability and sowing sedition among Egyptians, the statement said.

The AL chief also called for unifying Arab and international efforts to fight terrorism at all levels.

At least ten people were killed in a shootout outside a church south of Cairo on Friday.

Egyptian Health Ministry said the ten killed include one attacker and one policeman, who are Muslims, and eight Copts.

The ministry added that at least five others were wounded, with two of them being in serious conditions.

The attack came in the run-up to Orthodox Christmas celebrations next week.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Islamic State group's affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year.

Egypt's Coptic Christians, the largest religious minority in the region, make up about 10 percent of the country's 93 million people.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 22:37:46|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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by Maria Spiliopoulou

ATHENS, Dec. 29 (Xinhua)-- The body of a 20-25 year old man, most likely an African migrant, was recovered from the waters of Evros river on the border with Turkey in northern Greece, police said on Friday.

Coroner Pavlos Pavlidis told Greek national news agency AMNA that in the local mortuary refrigerators there were seven more unidentified bodies, probably all of migrants and refugees who attempted to cross the river in recent months.

"I can keep the bodies in the university's refrigerators for approximately 4 to 5 months but if there are indications that the body may be recognized then we can keep it up to six months," the coroner said.

Despite the adverse weather conditions and the 10 km long and 3 meter high fence which was erected five years ago, on average 30 migrants and refugees still attempt to cross Evros on a daily basis over the past year and a half, according to local authorities.

The closure of the borders along the western Balkan route to central Europe in the winter of 2016 and the EU-Turkey agreement to stem the influx via the Aegean Sea reduced the average number of people attempting to enter Greece from 10,000 a day to about 100 per day.

As newcomers are stranded for several months in closed hotspots on the Greek islands in very difficult conditions, until their asylum bids are processed, as dictated by the EU-Turkey deal, traffickers have shifted weight to other routes, including Evros.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 22:52:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian House of People's Representatives on Friday revealed the formation of a committee to probe the recent deadly dispute between two of Ethiopia's largest ethnic groups.

According to Shitaye Minale, Deputy Speaker of the Ethiopian Parliament, a special committee has been assembled by the lower house to find the root causes of and solutions to the dispute between Ethiopia's Oromia and Somali regional states.

State news agency ENA quoted Minale as saying that the committee is currently compiling its report on the dispute along the border areas of the two regional states.

Recent clashes along the border of the two ethnic groups, Oromos and Ethiopian Somalis, have killed 78 people from both sides and displaced hundreds of thousands.

In addition to investigating the nature of the conflict, the committee is also supporting humanitarian aid for displaced people, Minale said.

She affirmed that the parliament will also strictly control and monitor executive bodies that failed in their duties concerning clashes among ethnic groups and the recent violent demonstrations that rocked universities across the East African country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 23:02:50|Editor: Yang Yi

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Representatives from Istanbul Grand Airport Construction and Nuctech Company Limited attend a signing ceremony in Istanbul, Turkey, on Dec. 29, 2017. The Istanbul new airport being constructed agreed on Friday to install security and inspection equipment made by Nuctech Company Limited, a Chinese company leading in this service. (Xinhua/He Canling)

ISTANBUL, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Istanbul new airport being constructed agreed on Friday to install security and inspection equipment made by Nuctech Company Limited, a Chinese company leading in this service.

Under a contract signed between the two sides, the new airport terminal will use Nuctech-made equipment and system to inspect carry-ons and checked baggage, which, according to the Chinese company, will have a capacity to handle 200 million passengers annually when all phases of the construction are completed.

Yusuf Akcayoglu, CEO of Istanbul Grand Airport Construction, expressed his pleasure to have Nuctech on board, as his team is aiming at making the new airport the world's most attractive one in terms of not only geography but also technology.

The Istanbul new airport is planned as the largest in the world, and the first phase of it is scheduled to be operational in October 2018 to serve 90 million passengers.

Nuctech, serving more than 140 countries and regions in the world, is an advanced security & inspection solution and service supplier headquartered in Beijing.


Suzzanne Monk and husband Alex | Photo by Mark Weyermuller

Former Chicagoan Suzzanne Monk is now living in the D.C. area, fully immersed in promoting President Donald Trump and his worldview. Illinois Review readers first met her when she reported what went on inside the cancelled Trump rally at the University of Chicago Pavillion in 2016.

Besides doing live Facebook broadcasts about Making America Great Again, she's also writing for a new national website called Political Storm: Where Your Voice Matters.

She's offering ideas for Trump supporters to consider as New Year resolutions:
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 23:12:52|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MADRID, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy drew a positive picture of 2017 in his last official appearance of the year.

Speaking after the last meeting of his cabinet before the New Year, Rajoy highlighted that unemployment has fallen below 4 million for the first time since the start of the economic crisis and said that 20 million Spaniards could be working by 2018.

"Investment, consumption, exports and construction are allowing us to grow sufficiently," said Rajoy in a speech, which above all focused on the crisis in the region of Catalonia.

The issue of Catalan independence has dominated the Spanish political scene in the second half of the year and after the Catalan unilateral declaration of independence on Oct. 27, the central government in Madrid temporarily suspended the region's autonomy.

Just 8 days ago, the Dec. 21 elections in Catalonia again gave pro-independence parties the majority of seats in the Catalan regional assembly. Rajoy said the attempts to declare independence in the region was "the greatest attack on our (Spanish) Constitution", adding that whoever formed the new Catalan regional they will have to "signal their political priorities within the law."

Rajoy also announced that he had called a constituent session for the regional parliament of Catalonia on Jan. 17, 2018, in which a new government will probably be formed.

He also stressed the risk that continued uncertainty over Catalonia could cause to the Spanish and Catalan economies in 2018, saying that uncertainty was the "only shadow generating instability for our economy."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 23:17:54|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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LONDON, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Two men charged with terrorism offences, following a raid by counter-terrorism cops on addresses in northern England, made their first appearance before magistrates in London Friday.

The men, Farhad Salah, 22, of Sheffield and Andi Sami Star, 31, of Chesterfield, were remanded in custody by Westminster magistrates. The court heard they were accused of preparing bomb ingredients for an attack in Britain.

Prosecutor Thomas Halpin told the court it was being alleged that the pair had been in the early stages of a plot at the time of their arrests.

Star's lawyer said there was no evidence that his client was involved in terrorism, telling the court he had been making his own fireworks for New Year's Eve.

Both were accused of engaging in the preparation of an act of terrorism, as per section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006.

They were among four men arrested on Dec. 19 after an investigation by counter terrorism police in North East and Britain's interior intelligence service MI5.

West Yorkshire Police said a 36-year-old man from Burngreave in Sheffield remains in police custody for questioning, while the fourth man, aged 41, and also from Sheffield has been released without charge.

The swoop by armed counter-terrorism police led to a number of properties being searched, and experts from an army bomb disposal unit being called in to detonate material discovered at one of the searched properties in Chesterfield.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 23:17:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The draft law on the protection of the reputation and honor of China's heroes and martyrs was released online for public opinion on Friday.

People can deliver their opinions on the website of the National People's Congress (NPC), where the draft was made public, until Jan. 27.

Given its first review at the bi-monthly session of the NPC Standing Committee which closed Wednesday, the draft stipulates the responsibilities of departments and Internet operators to deal with any disrespect to heroes and martyrs.

It also bans the appropriation of land and facilities near memorials, as well as any damage or contamination of such memorials.

Those who appropriate, damage or contaminate memorials, and insult or slander heroes and martyrs, may receive administrative penalties from public security bureaus or even criminal sanctions, according to the draft.

In March, 251 motions, bills and letters from the public on the issue were seen at the annual sessions of the NPC and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, China's political advisory body.

In recent years, a few people in China have slandered or derogated heroes and martyrs via the Internet, magazines and other media in the name of "academic freedom," "restoring history" or "probing into details," which provoked anger from all walks of life.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 23:32:56|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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CAIRO, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) repaid about two billion U.S. dollars in debt to international bodies in December, state-run MENA news agency reported Friday.

"Of the total, 1.2 billion U.S. dollars were paid back to the African Export-Import Bank and about 920 million to other international bodies," Rami Abul-Naga, a deputy to the CBE governor, told MENA.

In early January next year, the CBE will pay back 700 million dollars out of the total debt of 3.2 billion dollars to the Paris Club, he said.

The Paris Club is a group of officials from major creditor countries whose role is to find solutions to the payment difficulties of debtor countries.

On Wednesday, the CBE received the first 2.03-billion-dollar disbursal of the second tranche of a 12-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), bringing the total amount Egypt has received to 6.08 billion dollars.

In November 2016, Egypt accepted the three-year IMF loan program tied to its ambitious economic reforms such as subsidy cuts, tax hikes, value-added taxes, as well as the devaluation of its local currency.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-29 23:52:59|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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HARARE, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has appointed vice president, retired general Constantino Chiwenga as the country's defense minister.

Mnangagwa also put co-vice president Kembo Mohadi in charge of the National Peace and Reconciliation portfolio, acting chief secretary to the President and Cabinet Justin Mupamhanga said in a statement Friday.

The two VPs were sworn in on Thursday by the chief justice Luke Malaba.

"In terms of section 99 of the constitution, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe may assign functions to Vice presidents to assist him/her in the discharge of his/her functions and perform any other functions, including the administration of any ministry of department or Act of Parliament," read part of the statement.

President Mnangagwa took over from former president Robert Mugabe last month after Mugabe resigned following military and public pressure.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 00:03:02|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BANGKOK, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's whereabouts are still not confirmed, said Sivara Rangsipromnakul, the national deputy police chief on Friday, after photos showing Yingluck shopping in Britain went viral.

He said Interpol did not admit that Yingluck was in Britain. Police is trying to find out when and where the photos were taken.

There has been an apparent sighting of ousted former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra in Britain, photos posted in Thai social media showed on Friday.

Yingluck was doing some shopping in Westfield Mall on Tuesday, claims New TV 18, a Thai local media, saying someone saw the fugitive former prime minister appeared in Britain and released the pictures.

The Pheu Thai party led by Yingluck said they are not sure whether Yingluck is in London, as her attorney has been out of touch with her since she secretly left the country. The party said they could not tell whether the pictures are true or false.

The National Security Council said they received initial reports saying Yingluck has been living in a private house. Yet they couldn't locate her.

Yingluck's brother Thaksin, a deposed former Thai prime minister who has been living in self-imposed exile, was seen in Japan recently. Thaksin was enjoying cooking in the photos where Yingluck did not show up.

Yingluck was found guilty of negligence over her loss-ridden rice pledging scheme by Thailand's supreme court. In late September, the court sentenced her to five years in prison, a verdict delivered in absentia a month after she fled the country.

The verdict was due to be delivered on Aug. 25, but Yingluck shocked the nation and thousands of supporters who had gathered at the court by failing to turn up.

Her exact whereabouts are unknown, though sources said she fled to Cambodia and flew via Singapore to Dubai. Some said she was seeking asylum in Britain.

The Thai government revoked her four passports in late October, including two ordinary passports and two diplomatic.

A media report said that Britain has issued Yingluck with a passport. Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has brushed aide the report, saying he had not received any information about the matter.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 00:13:03|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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CAPE TOWN, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's Parliament pledged on Friday to comply with a Constitutional Court ruling ordering it to hold President Jacob Zuma accountable for alleged wrongdoing.

"Parliament respects the majority judgment and will comply fully with it," said a parliamentary statement.

Under a majority judgment meted out earlier in the day by the court, the National Assembly should hold the president to account "without delay" regarding the Nkandla scandal, in which Zuma was accused of abusing public funding worth 246 million rand (about 20 million U.S. dollars) in security upgrades at his private home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal Province.

Parliament had failed to make rules surrounding the removal of Zuma and should attend to this matter, the court said.

The court held the National Assembly collectively responsible for not meaningfully implementing section 89 of the Constitution.

Justice Chris Jafta said in the ruling that the National Assembly had failed to determine whether the president had breached section 89 of the Constitution.

Section 89 of the Constitution deals with the removal of the president on the grounds of a serious violation of the Constitution or the law, serious misconduct, or inability to perform the functions of office.

"The court has thus ordered that the Rules of the Assembly be amended without delay to comply with section 237 of the Constitution, which instructs that all Constitutional obligations be performed diligently and without delay," Jafta said.

Several opposition parties -- the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the United Democratic Movement (UDM) and Congress of the People (COPE)-- brought the matter to the court, seeking an order to institute impeachment proceedings against Zuma.

The parliamentary statement said Parliament's Rules Committee has already initiated a process to outline a procedure to be followed in implementing section 89 of the Constitution.

"In this regard, Parliament will ensure finalization of the Assembly's rules, in line with the court's order," said the statement.

In a related development, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) said it will study the judgment and discuss its full implications when the ANC National Executive Committee meets on January 10, 2018.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 00:43:09|Editor: Yamei

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), delivers a speech at a central rural work conference in Beijing, capital of China. The central rural work conference was held from Dec. 28 to 29 in Beijing. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- China has outlined tasks and targets for a rural vitalization strategy addressing issues related to agriculture, rural areas and rural people.

By 2020, the strategy should have established an institutional framework and policy system, according to a statement released Friday after the central rural work conference.

By 2035, China aims for "decisive" progress, with basic modernization of agriculture and rural areas. By 2050, rural areas should have strong agriculture, a beautiful countryside and well-off farmers, the statement said.

"Rural vitalization" was one of the major aspects of developing a modernized economy in a report delivered to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the two-day rural conference and delivered a speech.

He summarized achievements and changes in agriculture and rural areas since 2012, expounded on the rural vitalization strategy and made concrete requirements.

Achievements in agricultural and rural development since the 18th CPC national congress laid the foundation for development, the statement said.

The supply-side structural reform in the agricultural sector has advanced, grain production capacity has made strides and agricultural modernization progressed, the statement said.

China has also achieved "decisive progress" in the battle against poverty with more than 66 million people lifted out of poverty in the past five years.

Despite this progress a development gap remains between urban and rural regions due principally to lack of quality and efficiency in agriculture.

"Issues related to agriculture, rural areas and rural residents are fundamental problems as they directly concern the country's stability and the people's well being," according to the statement.

The strategy will help resolve the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for better lives, meet the two centenary goals and realize common prosperity, the statement said.

The strategy is for the long term and needs scientific planning, a focus on quality, an unhurried tempo with no obsession with speed, the statement said.

While pursuing the strategy, the country must follow the Party's leadership on rural work and prioritize agriculture and rural areas.

Agriculture and rural areas must be prioritized in choosing cadres, the allocation of resources, public financial support and public services.

The conference called for the advance of integrated urban-rural development, with more focus on infrastructure, education and public services in rural areas.

The basic rural system should be consolidated and improved, while supply-side structural reform in rural areas should continue.

Green development and innovative governance in rural areas will generate more sustained growth. Only targeted and effective efforts will win the crucial battle against poverty.

Ensuring the quality of poverty-reduction should be the top priority, the statement said.

Targeted poverty reduction is one of the "three tough battles" for the next three years as the country tries to secure a decisive victory in becoming a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, and members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng also attended the conference.
File photo taken on Nov. 11, 2017 shows U.S. President Donald Trump (L) speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin as they attend the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Danang, Vitenam. (Xinhua/AFP)

by Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- U.S.-Russia relations remain at a low point near the year's end, and the chill is not expected to thaw in 2018, U.S. experts said.

"U.S. relations with Russia are at a low point," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West 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, among others.

"Many Americans mistrust (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and feel he interfered with the 2016 election in favor of (U.S. President Donald) Trump," West said.

"They do not like his...efforts to expand Russian influence over Eastern Europe. Most still oppose his annexation of Crimea. All of that makes it difficult to normalize relations and treat Russia as friendly power," the expert added.

"Trump hoped to elicit Russia's help on the fight against terrorism. But Putin, in Washington's eyes, has done little to aid that effort and has expanded his country's role in Syria," West said, speaking of the conflict in Syria.

While the Islamic State (IS) radicals have been on the run in the Middle East after a multinational bombing and military efforts, IS-inspired or affiliated attacks have occurred in recent months in Europe, showing no sign of slowing.

"It doesn't look like 2018 will be any different, as Putin has little incentive to help Trump since the latter has not reduced Russian sanctions," West said, referring to Washington's ongoing sanctions against Moscow.

April saw the U.S. Congress pass sanctions with bipartisan, veto-proof majorities, which underscored the fact that it 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, analysts said.

The worsening of ties could manifest itself in even more sanctions in the future, as well as closer U.S. relations with other nations in the region, some experts have argued.

Some also predict that the United States will send defensive weaponry to Ukraine in 2018, and that Eastern Europe, such as the Baltic states and Poland, will see an increased U.S. military presence. The world may also see further deployment of U.S. strategic bombers to Europe, especially Britain, as a warning to Russia.

Analysts also predict Washington's strengthened partnership with countries like Poland, noting that the United States and Poland are seeing increasingly warm relations, adding that Trump chided Russia, a traditional Polish adversary, in a speech from Warsaw earlier this summer.

"Putin has expanded his country's power in Eastern Europe. Hungary is very much in the Putin camp ...Russia has reasserted considerable influence over Eastern Europe," West said.

Other analysts agreed that U.S.-Russia relations have seen better days, and are unlikely to improve in 2018.

U.S.-Russia ties have been strained, Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, told Xinhua.

The U.S. Congress remained concerned about what lawmakers believe was a Russian threat to the United States and key allies, and were unconvinced that a rapprochement with Russia could somehow solve issues on Ukraine, Syria, Iran, and the Korean Peninsula, Mahaffee said.

That sentiment was underscored in a recent speech by H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, in which he called Russia a "revisionist" power that posed a number of threats to the United States.

Washington billed Moscow as a revisionist power because it has been seen as a competitor to U.S. interests, seeking to establish spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, despite the relationships the United States has with allies in the region, said Mahaffee.

Commenting on the heightened rhetoric between the two sides, some analysts have said it amounted to a strong U.S. desire to push back what the Trump administration views as Russian assertiveness. Others have said there has been a sense among some of Trump's top team that Russia has been taking advantage of the United States.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday Russia had been proposing since the 1990s to reach an official agreement with the United States to guarantee non-interference in each other's affairs, but Washington has consistently rejected this.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 00:53:11|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Chairperson of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Council of Ministers on Friday strongly condemned the violations of the agreement signed by South Sudan's warring factions on Cessation of Hostilities, Protection of Civilians and Humanitarian Access.

Workneh Gebeyehu in a statement expressed his "deep concern and disappointment over the violations of the agreement" that was signed by South Sudanese warring factions in Ethiopia's capital last Thursday.

"The Chairperson of the IGAD Council of Ministers strongly condemns the violations of the Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities, demands an immediate end to all forms of hostilities; and calls upon all the parties who violate the Agreement to come to their senses," read the statement.

According to the statement, the current violations of the agreement, few days after it's signing, "undermine the genuine efforts of the international community who are tirelessly and jointly working to help South Sudanese Parties to address the root causes of the conflict through an all-inclusive dialogue that would pave the way for national reconciliation; and the building of effective State institutions through a democratic process."

Regional and international actors such as the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), and the coalition of three western countries (Troika) were calling for full and effective implementation of the agreement upon the signing of the ceasefire agreement last week.

"The Chairperson of the IGAD Council of Ministers expresses its firm position to hold all violators accountable in accordance with the resolutions of the 28th Extra-ordinary Summit of the IGAD Heads of State and Government of 24 November 2014 and any other provisions of International Law," the statement stressed.

The chairperson further called upon the Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangements Monitoring Mechanism (CTSAMM), working in collaboration with UNMISS, to monitor the situation on the ground without any delay and immediately report its findings on which party is responsible for the violations.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 01:08:14|Editor: Lifang

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Relatives of a church attack victim react during a funeral in Cairo, Egypt, on Dec. 29, 2017. At least ten people were killed in a shootout outside Mar Mina church in Cairo district of Helwan on Friday. (Xinhua/Aly Fahim)

CAIRO, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi mourned on Friday the victims of a terror attack that targeted Christian believers outside a church in Cairo.

Such terrorist attacks will not weaken the determination of the Egyptian people to purge Egypt of terrorism, Sisi said in a statement released by the Egyptian presidency.

The Egyptian president thanked the security men guarding the church for their heroic role in foiling the terrorist attack, ordering all state bodies to provide all possible support for the families of the victims and the injured alike.

At least ten people were killed in a shootout outside Mar Mina church in Cairo district of Helwan on Friday.

Egyptian Health Ministry said the ten killed include one attacker and one policeman, who are Muslims, and eight Copts.

The ministry added that at least five others were wounded, with two of them being in serious conditions.

The attack came in the run-up to Orthodox Christmas celebrations next week.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. However, Fingers are pointed at a Sinai-based group loyal to Islamic State (IS) group, which has killed dozens of Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the country's 93 million population, across the country over the past few years.

Eyewitnesses told Xinhua that the two masked militants on a motorcycle have entered the street leading to the western side of the church, and then they got off the ride and targeted the security post outside the church.

They added the exchange of fire took around 20 minutes.

Egyptian Interior Ministry said the attack was carried out by terrorists, affirming that one was killed and the other one was arrested.

Bombs-disposal team has defused two bombs planted nearby the church, according to the ministry.

The arrested attacker carried a bomb, 150 bullets and an automatic gun, head of Cairo Security Directorate said.

The terrorist attack has drawn regional and international condemnation.

On its twitter, the U.S. embassy in Cairo condemned the terrorist attack on Mar Mina church, saying the U.S. stands steadfastly with the people of Egypt in the face of such cowardly attacks.

"The U.S. Embassy strongly condemns today's terrorist attack on a church. We offer condolences to the families of the victims and wishes for speedy recovery for those wounded," it added.

French Ambassador in Cairo Stephane Roumtier said that Paris stands by Egypt in the face of terrorism.

Posting on his Twitter account, the French diplomat expressed his country's solidarity with the families of the victims.

Meanwhile, Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Yousef bin Ahmad al-Othaimeen expressed his sincere condolences to the families of the victims, wishing a speedy recovery for the wounded.

Othaimeen stressed OIC's solidarity with Egypt in its fight against terrorism which targets the country's security and stability.

He underlined OIC's support to measures to be taken by Egypt to fight terrorism, praising the vigilance of the security forces and the way they dealt with the terrorist attack.

Arab League (AL) Secretary General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit condemned on Friday the terrorist attack.

In a statement, the AL chief called for unifying Arab and international efforts to fight terrorism at all levels.

Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain have also condemned the terror attack, expressing their full support for Egypt in its war against terrorism.

In the meantime, the Orthodox Church announced that the funeral possession for the eight Coptic Christians who were killed in the attack will be held Friday in St. Mary Church in Cairo.

They will be laid to rest in the cemeteries of Anba Barsoum's monastery in Helwan district, the statement added.

Terrorist attacks have been growing in Egypt since the military removal of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, with an IS affiliated group claiming responsibility for most of the attacks.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 01:33:19|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BANJUL, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Gambian President Adama Barrow in his New Year's statement on Friday expressed complaints over his predecessor's economic mismanagement that had led to a debt of one billion U.S. dollars.

"The country has debts of more than 1 billion U.S. dollars which is a staggering 120 percent of debt to GDP, this is equivalent to each household owing about 4,500 dollars. In addition, state assets have been neglected. Electricity is a case in point," he said.

He refused to take the blame for the economic loss of the state, implying that his administration has inherited such burden.

"We have started from a position undermined by decades of mismanagement and undemocratic consolidation of power, that weaken the institutions, our coffers not only emptied, but we are loaded with huge debt," he said.

In July, China helped in reversing the Gambia's debts by signing a protocol to cancel the debts of the West African country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 01:38:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BAQUBA, Iraq, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- A local leader of Islamic State (IS) group and two of the group's militant were killed Friday in an airstrike in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a provincial security source said.

Acting on intelligence reports, the Iraqi aircraft bombarded an IS hideout in Wadi Thlab area, some 90 km northeast of the provincial capital Baquab, destroying the hideout and killing the three militants, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Despite repeated military operations in Diyala province, remnants of IS militants were still hiding in rugged areas near the border with Iran, as well as the sprawling areas extending from western part of Diyala to Himreen mountainous area.

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| 2017-12-30 01:38:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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KAMPALA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The leader of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan rebel group holed up in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was reportedly injured during an assault on the rebels' bases in the vast central African country.

Maj. Ronald Kakurungu, spokesperson of the Ugandan military-led operation against the ADF, said Friday the military is verifying reports that Sheikh Musa Baluku was injured in the Dec. 22 attack on the outfit's bases in the jungles of eastern DRC.

"We have got that information (about injuring him). We are still trying to verify that. We are looking for proper sources," said Kakurungu.

An online publication, Kampala Post quoting military sources, early this week reported that the ADF leader was briefing his troops and followers at the time of the "surgical" attack, but managed to escape, albeit with serious injuries.

He is now suspected to be being carried by followers looking for medical help, alongside many other injured ADF fighters, according the publication.

According to the Ugandan military, over 100 rebel fighters were killed in the operation that was sparked off by the rebels' attack of UN peacekeepers killing 15 of them.

The military said with authorization from the DRC government, it used jet fighters and artillery fire to attack the ADF.

Baluku took over the ADF's leadership after its Commander Jamil Mukulu was arrested in Tanzania and extradited to Uganda in 2015.

Mukulu whose rebel group carried out several attacks in the capital Kampala in the 1990s is currently facing charges of terrorism, murder, kidnapping and recruitment of children.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 01:48:21|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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VILNIUS, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Lithuanian and Croatian defense ministers pledged to strengthen defense cooperation between the two countries on Friday.

Damir Krsticevic, Croatian defense minister and deputy prime minister, met with Raimundas Karoblis, Lithuanian defense minister, during his visit in Lithuania. Both officials have discussed security situation in the Baltic region and bilateral cooperation, according to an announcement from the Lithuanian defense ministry.

After the meeting, both sides shared their willingness to strengthen their ties in defense.

"Cooperation between Lithuania and Croatia on defense issues is good and we have to continue expanding it", Karoblis was quoted as saying in the announcement.

"After this meeting, our cooperation will move to the higher level," said Krsticevic.

Around 190 Croatian soldiers with military hardware have been deployed in Lithuania since the start of December as part of NATO enhanced forward presence battalion sent to Lithuania and other Baltic states, Poland.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 01:58:23|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BUJUMBURA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Burundi will not acknowledge the new speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) elected recently due to irregularities in the vote, Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza said on Friday.

Established in 2001, EALA is an organ of the East African Community (EAC) with a mandate of legislation, representation and oversight. Each of the six member states of EAC including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda contributed nine members to EALA.

"We will not acknowledge the new speaker of EALA that was boycotted by EALA lawmakers from Tanzania and Burundi. The election of the EALA speaker was characterized by irregularities and was unlawful," said Nkurunziza during a live radio program held in the Kayanza town in northern Burundi.

The program was broadcast on local radio stations based in Burundi.

Former Rwandan Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga was elected Speaker of EALA last Tuesday.

The election of the new EALA speaker violated rules and procedures of the EAC and of the EALA, said Nkurunziza. The candidate should have been elected from the member state that comes first in alphabetical order as the leadership of EAC organs is assumed on the rotation basis, he added.

He indicated that after Uganda, which had the latest EALA speaker, it is the turn of Burundi as it comes first considering the alphabetical order.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who is also the current chairperson of EAC Heads of State Summit, had also advised EALA to consider the alphabetical order of countries as it is the procedure, said Nkurunziza.

Burundi has urged explanations on how the election of the EALA speaker took place, he said.

"If we are not convinced, we will file a lawsuit," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 02:08:25|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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KIEV, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine's grain exports will decline for the first time in five years in the current marketing year, a senior government official said on Friday, citing the latest official forecast.

Maksym Martynyuk, the country's First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, said that Ukraine is projected to supply abroad 41 million tons of cereals during the 2017-2018 marketing year, which runs between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018, compared with 43.8 million tons in the previous marketing year.

The main factor behind the decline is the logistic issues, especially lack of rail grain carriers, Martynyuk said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

Since the start of the 2017-2018 marketing year, Ukraine has exported 20 million tons of grain, down 7 percent from the same period a year ago.

Ukraine is ranked among the world's largest grain exporters, supplying about 8 percent of grain to the global market.

In 2016, China was Ukraine's largest corn importer, accounting for about 16 percent of the total maize exports, and the third-largest barley importer with exports share of 6.2 percent.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 02:18:26|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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NICOSIA, Dec. 29 Xinhua) -- Nine candidates registered to contest Presidential elections in Cyprus scheduled for January, an electoral official said on Friday.

Demetris Demetriou, chief electoral officer, said all nine candidacies became final and official after no objections were lodged against any of the candidates, six hours after the end of the registration deadline.

Pollsters agree that outgoing center-right President Nicos Anastasiades will win a second term either against left wing AKEL party candidate Stavros Malas or center of the road candidate Nicolas Papadopoulos, who is supported by his own Democratic Party and three other smaller parties.

Papadopoulos, a 44-year old economist, and Stavros Malas, a geneticist aged 50, are running neck-to-neck, according to all polls, for second place in the first round of the election on Jan. 28, to face Anastasiades in a run-off election on February 4.

The outcome of the election will decide whether negotiations for the reunification of the partitioned eastern Mediterranean island stand a chance to resume after they collapsed in July.

Most political analysts say that an electoral win by Nicolas Papadopoulos would lead to a prolonged inactivity as he is advocating a hard line stance against demands by Turkish Cypriots for an effective participation in the administration of a federal state.

Both Anastasiades and Malas, despite representing diametrically opposed political ideologies, look eye-to-eye on a Cyprus solution.

They both favor a settlement that would provide for a power sharing between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and will do away with Turkey's intervention rights and the stationing of Turkish troops on Cyprus.

Cyprus was divided in 1974 when Turkey occupied its northern part in reaction to a coup by the Greek Cypriot nationalists in an attempt to incorporate Cyprus into Greece.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 02:18:26|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TRIPOLI, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Libya's eastern-based army killed three militants during operations in the eastern city of Benghazi, an army source said Friday.

"The army's special forces units killed three terrorists during security and combat operations of Sidi Ekhrebish area," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

"The special forces are still besieging a number of terrorists in the area," the source added, noting that the situation is "under full control."

"The terrorists were hiding in the rubble around the municipal hotel while the army was searching for fleeing terrorists," the source said.

On Thursday, the army announced the takeover of the area of Sidi Ekhrebish in central Benghazi, the last terrorist stronghold in the city, after operations that had lasted more than five months.

Benghazi, Libya's second largest city and the birthplace of the 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi, has witnessed a three-year war between the army led by Gen. Khalifa Haftar and extremist militants.

In June, Haftar announced the takeover of the entire city of Benghazi and the defeat of rival armed groups. However, some militants have remained in the city, using landmines against his army.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 02:43:31|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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LISBON, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa woke up "in good spirits" in hospital on Friday, after having undergone umbilical hernia surgery late on Thursday.

The president's website said that the post-operation recovery process was proceeding without complications.

Intervention surgery had been programmed for January, but the president's doctor detected a strangulated hernia that required emergency treatment.

The president cancelled all official engagements through to Jan. 1 and entered the Curry Cabral hospital in Lisbon on Thursday afternoon.

Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, who as President of the Assembly of the Republic is placed second in the nation's hierarchy, visited the president in hospital on Friday. He told local reporters that he'd found the president working, having turned his hospital room into a makeshift office.

Rebelo de Sousa is expected to be discharged from hospital on Sunday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 02:53:32|Editor: Jiaxin

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Buses and ambulances are stationed in the town of Saassaa, Syria, to transport the rebels and their families, on Dec. 29, 2017. Hundreds of rebels and their families started evacuating their last strongholds in the southwestern countryside of Damascus on Friday to rebel-held areas in northern and southern Syria, local sources said. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani)

DAMASCUS, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of rebels and their families started evacuating their last strongholds in the southwestern countryside of Damascus on Friday to rebel-held areas in northern and southern Syria, local sources said.

Buses were stationed in the town of Saassaa to transport the rebels and their families from the towns of Beit Jin, Tal Marwan and Mughor al-Mir toward the northwestern province of Idlib and the southern province of Daraa, the sources, who asked not to be named, told Xinhua at the site.

The three towns were the last strongholds of rebels, largely those affiliated with the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, in the Western Ghouta countryside of Damascus.

Meanwhile, ambulances of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent also stood by to evacuate those suffering from medical conditions.

Four buses left Friday afternoon toward Idlib, while the rest still stood by after delays due to logistical issues.

When the evacuation ends, possibly late Friday or early Saturday, the entire western countryside of Damascus will be liberated from rebels, as the Syrian army has already captured all the towns on the western flank of Damascus.

The Syrian army halted its military operations in the area after rebels agreed to surrender in exchange for their transfer out of Western Ghouta as their positions had been besieged by the Syrian army.

The three towns are strategically important because of their proximity to the Lebanese border and the borders with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, through which rebels were getting support.

These towns have also posed a threat to the capital as rebels there had waged several offensives to divert the attention of the Syrian army from other parts of the country.

The first anti-government protests erupted in Western Ghouta in April 2011. In early 2012, the area entered the phase of actual battles.
Kurds rebels in Syria are waving flags as a helicopter from the U.S.-led coalition flies over. (AFP photo)

DAMASCUS, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- U.S. helicopters have transferred commanders of the Islamic State (IS) group from the eastern province of Deir al-Zour to areas in the northeastern province of Hasakah, state news agency SANA said Friday.

U.S. helicopters coming from the northern countryside of Deir al-Zour landed near the al-Basel Dam south of Hasakah, transporting leaders of the IS who surrendered to the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said SANA.

It's not the first transfer of IS leaders, said SANA, adding that earlier this month U.S. helicopters transferred 47 IS leaders to the same area in Hasakah, many of whom had fled the areas due to the military operations of the Syrian army.

SANA said the injured IS leaders were medically treated by the Doctors Without Border organization.

The report renewed accusation that Washington is supporting IS in eastern Syria.

The SDF, an alliance of Kurds, Arabs, and Assyrians, has controlled areas in the northern countryside of Deir al-Zour with the backing of the U.S., following their capture of the northern city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS.

The Syrian government refused to acknowledge the liberation of Raqqa, saying it's still occupied by the U.S. and the Kurdish-led fighters.

In his recent comments, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said the SDF was "the new Daesh," using the Arabic acronym of IS.

He said the SDF should either return under the umbrella of the Syrian Arab Republic, or they would meet similar destiny of IS.

His remarks reflected the dismay of the government with what is perceived to be a separatist move by the Kurdish-led groups in northern Syria.

With the tension brewing between the Kurds and the Syrian government, despite the fact that both had a role in defeating IS, recent reports suggested that the U.S. is about to throw a heavy support behind the SDF in weapons and military gears.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 02:58:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BERLIN, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Policy demands made by the Christian Social Union (CSU) have put the party on a collision course with the German Social Democrats (SPD) ahead of looming coalition negotiations.

CSU delegates in the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag) called for a stricter stance on humanitarian migration, higher defense spending and rejected federal vision of a "United States of Europe" during their winter conference at the Bavarian Seeon monastery.

Formal negotiations between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), CSU and SPD over the formation of a German government are scheduled to commence on January 7. German media have repeatedly questioned whether an agreement could still be reached on the re-launch of a so-called "grand coalition" in light of their seemingly contradictory policy stances.

The CSU has now further complicated the quest for legislative compromises with a series of new proposals, including lifting the German defense spending to the annual NATO goal of 2 percent of GDP.

Germany's yearly military budget currently amounts to around 1.2 percent of GDP, although acting Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) has repeatedly advocated for higher spending to ensure NATO compliance. However, SPD leader Martin Schulz and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) are staunchly opposed to what they perceive to be an arbitrary spending target.

In parallel, the CSU suggested expanding the budget for developmental aid by "at least" the same rate. Nevertheless, senior SPD figures were quick to snub calls for higher defense expenditure on Friday.

SPD Vice-President Ralf Stegner told the newspaper Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger that Germany needed to invest in "education, families and infrastructure, rather than participating in an arms race."

In what is set to become another potential obstacle to successful coalition talks, the CSU also outlined its desire to establish a stricter asylum policy regime in Germany at its winter conference.

"It is not acceptable that Germany has accepted more refugees than all other 27 European Union (EU) members combined", a draft CSU statement read.

The party advocated for relocating the process of evaluating asylum applications and deportations to the EU's external frontiers in order to alleviate the situation. Uniform standards for asylum policy were needed to ensure that Germany was no longer the "main destination for refugees."

The CSU additionally wants to see a "reversal of the burden of proof" with regards to border controls. Accordingly, a ban on controls and checks at the internal frontiers between EU members would only be legally-justified when the European Commission can prove that the external borders were secure.

"Without safe outer borders, no open internal borders" the Bavarian CSU party leader Alexander Dobrindt said.

Highlighting deep ideological divisions between the parties, the CSU policy document strictly rejects calls by SPD leader Martin Schulz to eventually establish a "United States of Europe".

The concept of a "borderless, ever closer union" had failed and found "no acceptance amongst the populace", the paper read.

Instead, the CSU argued for formulating criteria which defined "at which point the integration process has been concluded and we no longer desire to transfer additional competences to Brussels." Unlike the SPD, the party refused to support proposals made by French President Emmanuel Macron to create a Eurozone budget and Finance Minister.

In what appeared to be a swerve to the right of the political spectrum, imitating the newly-appointed Chancellor of neighboring Austria Sebastian Kurz, Bavarian governor Markus Soeder (CSU) summarized the party conference resolutions as an answer to Germany's recent electoral result "centered on the reduction of immigration."

If even the left-leaning Green party (Gruene) could commit to this objective during failed earlier "Jamaica" coalition talks, then the SPD "could do so as well", Soeder said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 03:08:35|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MONROVIA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Liberia's electoral body on Friday formally declared George Weah, the candidate of the opposition Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), as the president-elect following a presidential run-off election on Tuesday.

Head of the National Elections Commission Jerome Korkoya, at a press conference in Monrovia, said Weah recorded 61.5 percent of the total votes cast, with a total of 732,185 votes while Joseph Boakai, the incumbent vice president and presidential candidate of the governing Unity Party, recorded 38.5 percent votes with a total of 467,579 votes.

A total of 1,218,124 people voted in the delayed presidential run-off election.

Korkoya said, in line with the Liberian Constitution, the electoral body will issue a certificate of return to Weah and his running mate, Jewel Howard Taylor, the ex-wife of the former Liberian warlord, within the next seven days.

The presidential run-off election earlier slated for Nov 7, was delayed due to a "stay order" placed on the poll by the Liberian Supreme Court following a claim by the opposition Liberty Party that the elections were marred by "massive fraud and irregularities."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 03:13:35|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BAGHDAD, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Iraq condemned on Friday a terrorist attack that left at least 10 killed outside a church in the south of Egypt's capital Cairo.

"The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns the terrorist attack on Mar Mina Church in Helwan, Egypt, and confirms its solidarity with the Arab Republic of Egypt in its war against terrorism," the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry also renewed an appeal for more "efforts to dry up their sources which produced these sick minds that threaten the security of the region and the world," the statement said.

Earlier in the day, gunmen launched an attack on Mar Mina Church in Helwan district in the south of Cairo, killing at least 10 people.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 03:18:36|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MADRID, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Spain's external sector is expected to continue boosting the country's growth in 2018, the International Director of Spain's Chamber of Commerce, Alfredo Bonet, told Xinhua in an interview.

Exports have been one of the main driving forces of the GDP expansion that Spain has experienced over the last years after the 2008 financial crisis seriously hit the country.

"During the crisis many companies exported as a consequence of the lack of domestic demand", Bonet explained, adding that "many companies tried to sell in international markets" their goods and services as a way out of the crisis.

As a consequence, they got a lot of experience selling their products abroad and gained competitiveness, Bonet said, emphasizing that they had already trained in a very competitive market, the European one.

"The European market is our domestic market and it is one of the most competitive markets in the world and our companies have trained there to go abroad afterwards", he said.

"The history of the external sector in Spain over the last years is a story of success, in a few years, we have become one of the countries where the external sector represents a big proportion of the country's production", Bonet said, adding that "nowadays, 34 percent of our GDP comes from exports of goods and services".

"Our exports are increasing more than those of our main European partners, and this proves that this trend is going to continue, and the idea is that it will continue to contribute to the Spanish GDP", Bonet said.

Exports were key for Spain to leave the recession behind and current data indicate that they will continue to play a crucial role in the country's economic growth. Spain's trade deficit stood at 21.07 billion euros up to October, rising by 39.9 percent when compared with the same period of a year earlier.

During that period exports rose by 9.3 percent in the first ten months of the year to 229.8 billion euros when compared with the first 10 months of 2016, a record high according to the Spanish Ministry of Economy.

In 2018 the sector aims at increasing the number of export companies, which currently stand at around 150,000, exporting more to non-EU countries, especially emerging markets, and exporting more innovation and technology rather than goods and services.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 03:18:36|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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DAR ES SALAAM, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian authorities on Friday dismissed reports by opposition leaders that the east African country's economic growth was slowing down and painted a strong picture of the economy as 2017 ends.

Philip Mpango, the Minister for Finance and Planning, said despite criticism from some opposition leaders on the government's handling of the economy over the past two years, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) was still on track, growing by an estimated 7 percent this year.

"A projected 7-percent GDP growth in 2017 would keep Tanzania firmly in the list of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies," he told a news conference in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Mpango said the government expected a medium-term economic growth of around 7.4 percent in 2018 and beyond on the back of massive public infrastructure investments, including the ongoing construction of the standard gauge railway (SGR) line and the Uganda-Tanzania crude oil pipeline.

However, Mpango admitted that some Tanzanians were yet to see the benefits of this rapid economic growth, because the GDP expansion was mainly being driven by sectors that were not labor intensive.

He said a high GDP growth rate would nonetheless have long-term benefits on the lives of Tanzanians by reducing poverty and stimulating national development.

"Economic growth can be compared to the movement of a vehicle. When the vehicle moves at a fast speed, it will reach its destination quickly," he said when giving an overview of the performance of the country's economy in 2017 and outlook for next year.

He added: "But when the car is moving slowly, it does not mean that it is not going forward, but rather it will take longer-than-expected for it to reach its desired destination."

Mpango said the agriculture sector, which is the backbone of the country's economy, grew by only 2.1 percent in 2016 due to low productivity from rain-fed agriculture, thus limiting the trickle-down effect of the fast GDP growth.

He said the fastest-growing sectors in the economy were those employing a relatively fewer number of people, such as construction (13 percent), information and communication (13 percent), transport and storage (11.8 percent), mining and quarrying (11.5 percent) and banking and insurance services (10.7 percent).
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 03:38:41|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MONROVIA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Liberian vice president Joseph Boakai on Friday congratulated George Weah, the candidate of the opposition Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), who won Tuesday's presidential run-off election in the country.

At a press conference at his Unity Party headquarters, Boakai conceded defeat to Weah, saying he did so in a demonstration of his respect to the will of the people through the ballot.

"My love for country far exceeds my desire for the presidency. I respect the will of the people as announced by the National Elections Commission," said Boakai.

The governing party's candidate urged his supporters to remain calm and accept the election result in good fate.

"We must subordinate our personal interests to the good of our country," he said.

Boakai recorded 38.5 percent votes with a total of 467,579 votes in the delayed presidential run-off election on Tuesday.

The president-elect won the election with 61.5 percent of the total votes cast, representing a total of 732,185 votes.

A total of 1,218,124 people voted in the delayed presidential run-off election.

Weah will emerge as Liberia's 25th president when he takes office in January.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 04:08:46|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ABUJA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian leader Muhammadu Buhari has described the widely acclaimed peaceful conduct of Liberia's presidential run-off election on Tuesday as "another plus on Africa's democratic scoreboard."

In a statement on Friday, Buhari commended the Liberian people on the peaceful conduct of the historic presidential run-off election, marking the first peaceful transfer of power since 1944.

Buhari congratulated George Weah, winner of the Liberian presidential election and equally applauded the efforts of the National Election Commission of Liberia, as well as regional and international observers who have contributed immensely to the electoral process and the strengthening of post-conflict democracy in the West African country.

The Nigerian leader described Weah's victory as "an affirmation of the will of the Liberian people to remain united, peaceful and prosperous."

The president-elect won the election with 61.5 percent of the total votes cast, representing a total of 732,185 votes.

A total of 1,218,124 people voted in the delayed presidential run-off election.

Weah will emerge as Liberia's 25th president when he takes office in January.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 04:28:49|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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RABAT, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of people protested in the Moroccan eastern city of Jerada in what they called "Friday of anger" over the death of two young men in a coal mine accident.

Last Friday, two brothers died while they were digging in an abandoned mine 80 meters below ground, sparking the fury of residents over what they view as state neglect.

An investigation has been launched into the accident, but the tension is still running high in the city.

In addition to a general strike, thousands of residents in Jerada as well as people from neighboring towns marched in the main streets of the city, demanding justice for the dead as well as more job opportunities.

The protest has continued throughout the week since last Friday.

The Moroccan Alyaoum24.com news site said local authorities have been in contact with representatives of the residents.

Jerada is a city largely dependent on coal mining.

The city had been growing on the back of flourishing mining activities since 1920s, but it suffered a major blow in late 1990s after state-owned coal mines that employed thousands of local people were forced to close down due to rising digging costs and declining coal prices.

However, many local residents have continued illegal mining in the abandoned mines.

Up to 3,000 people dig clandestinely in the city's coal mines, extracting hundreds of tons of coal every day, according to local media reports.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 04:53:54|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MEXICO CITY, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The mayor of Petatlan, a coastal town in Mexico's southern state of Guerrero, was assassinated just before midnight on Thursday while at a restaurant, authorities said on Friday.

Mayor Arturo Gomez Perez was shot three times in the back by a masked man who was standing outside the Casa Vieja restaurant. Gomez was accompanied by friends at the time.

The attack occurred around 11:45 pm, according to Guerrero government spokesman Roberto Alvarez Heredia.

Several people helped take the mayor to a private hospital, but medics there were unable to revive him.

Petatlan is located in the Costa Grande region of Guerrero, a state riddled with drug violence. Scores of mayors have been assassinated in Mexico in the past few years.

Gomez took office in 2015 after winning elections as the candidate of an alliance between the left-of-center Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and Workers' Party (PT).

The PRD condemned the killing and demanded those responsible be brought to justice.

Guerrero governor Hector Astudillo called on prosecutors to investigate the crime and find the assailant. "We reject and condemn this act," Astudillo posted to Twitter, describing Gomez as a someone who "was greatly committed to his people."

For the second year in a row, Guerrero ranked as Mexico's most violent state in 2017, with the highest number of homicides.

Mexico's government blames rival drug trafficking gangs fighting for control of the lucrative drugs market for the increase in violence.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 05:03:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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RABAT, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Morocco and Sierra Leone expressed Friday strong willingness to strengthen bilateral cooperation.

The statement was made during talks between Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita with a high-level delegation led by Samura Kamara, envoy of the president of Sierra Leone, and the country's FM Kaifala Marah.

The talks focused on ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation, notably in the economic field.

Marah hailed the quality of ties between Sierra Leone and Morocco, stressing the importance of strengthening these links, particularly through the development of economic cooperation.

"We are at a point where we need to broaden the scope of cooperation between our two countries at the national, regional and international levels to strengthen our diplomatic relations and especially to develop investments," he said.

Marah said the two countries share the same goal of rising the level of bilateral ties, underling the promising opportunities, especially in the areas of agriculture and trade.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 05:08:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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HELSINKI, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- "Skeletons in the closet" concerning earlier lenience toward sexual harassers in schools continued to haunt the city of Turku, southwestern Finland, as a second case of leaving a teacher unpunished in the 1990s was admitted by Turku education authority on Friday.

Timo Jalonen, education director of Turku, said he had lately received written statements from over thirty persons who used to be pupils of Luostarinmaki school in the early 1990s.

Media reports said the teacher who had subjected the pupils to sexual conduct was forced to resign, but the case was not reported to the police at that time.

Similarly, in a case reported last week, a music teacher touched boys indecently in another school in Turku in 1980s, and the case never went to the police either. It was reported that the officials of the Turku education unit had wanted to handle the matter internally "to protect the reputation of the school".

Jalonen said the two teachers had handed in resignations only after heavy pressure at that time.

Minna Arve, Mayor of Turku, again apologized. She said she cannot accept the way the cases had been dealt with in the school system in the 1990s.

"These days no suspects of acts like that are concealed", she said on Friday.

Jalonen said those affected should now contact the police, even though time has elapsed.

However, reporting to police decades later may not lead to positive results as the time limit for prosecuting a crime may have been exceeded.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 05:39:03|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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RABAT, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Morocco and Burkina Faso signed here on Friday a partnership agreement to strengthen judicial cooperation.

The agreement, inked by Moroccan Justice Minister Mohamed Aujjar and his Burkinese counterpart Bessole Rene Bagoro, aims to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in judicial capacities and to establish mechanisms for mutual visits.

In a statement to the press, Aujjar said the meeting was an opportunity to examine bilateral cooperation in order to support Burkina Faso in strengthening its expertise in the judiciary.

He reiterated the kingdom's willingness to support Burkina Faso's efforts to reform its judicial system, adding that the talks highlighted the prospects of cooperation in the areas of judicial reforms, legislation and training.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 06:14:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BERLIN, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- German industrial giant ThyssenKrupp stock edged up 0.7 percent to 24.22 euros on Friday, ending the year of 2017 with a 7-percent annual rise.

The DAX listed company kept making headlines this year as it tried to merge its steel unit with India's biggest industrial conglomerate Tata's European steel unit, which caused fears among its workers and received strong disagreement.

But the long-standing dispute between Thyssenkrupp's management and the union was settled on Dec. 22 with a deal, paving the way for the merger with Tata and a gradual exit from the volatile business of steel production.

Thyssenkrupp's steel unit will move its headquarters to the Netherlands where it will form part of a new company established together with Tata.

Thyssenkrupp employees had originally voiced fears that such a move would undermine their collective-bargaining rights as workers and lead to dramatic reduction of the labor force.

Through the deal, these concerns have now been allayed with long-term guarantees to preserve existing plants, investment plans and jobs. Thyssenkrupp also raised the possibility of eventually eliminating its involvement in steel production entirely through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the unit.

Wilhelm Segerath, Head of the Thyssenkrupp Works Council, described the concessions as "unique and historic".

However, he announced further resistance against shifting the headquarters of the new unit from Germany to the Netherlands. Labor representatives are seeking to exert additional pressure over management by holding a poll among workers to gauge their attitudes towards the planned merger. The results of the vote are scheduled to be revealed on February 5.

Critical to the deal struck by management and labor representatives is a formal pledge to protect workers' jobs until the 30th of September 2026. Although Thyssenkrupp executives still intend to lower headcount by 2,000 staff as a consequence of the merger, these lay-offs are to be achieved in a gradual and socially-responsible manner.

Despite a slight recovery in commodity prices recently, producers such as Thyssenkrupp and Tata Steel continue to suffer from a glut in global steel markets.

By fusing their operations, both companies hope to achieve annual savings of up to 600 million euros (711 million U.S. dollars) and thus place their production on a firmer financial footing.

Initially, Thyssenkrupp and Tata Steel will both hold 50 percent of the newly-established shared corporate entity.

While Thyssenkrupp has said that it wants to remain a shareholder in the joint venture for "at least six years", the firm has refused to rule out prior changes to the ownership structure as it seeks to reduce its exposure to steel production.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 06:54:14|Editor: Lifang

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UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Friday voiced "deep regret" over Israel's decision to withdraw from the agency.

Noting that she had received official notice from the Government of Israel's withdrawal from the agency effective on Dec. 31, 2018, a decision which was announced on Oct. 12 this year, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay expressed regret, saying she was convinced that it "is inside UNESCO and not outside it" that States can best seek to overcome differences in the its fields of competence.

"A Member of UNESCO since 1949, Israel has a rightful place inside the United Nations agency that is dedicated to education, culture and science," she continued, adding that Israel has a rightful place inside an institution committed to the defence of freedom of expression, the prevention of all forms of antisemitism and racism, which has developed a unique program of education about the Holocaust and the prevention of genocide.

Israel also has a rightful place inside an institution that is among the most active in promoting dialogue among cultures, fighting violent extremism and conserving heritage affected, notably, by the destructive acts of terrorist organizations.

"In the face of disagreements among Member States, which lead to votes for which they are responsible, engaging fully in the work of UNESCO makes possible sustained dialogue, cooperation and partnerships that are more necessary than ever and that I committed to support when I took office," Azoulay concluded.

Tensions had been bubbling since UNESCO admitted Palestine as a member state in 2011, a move opposed by the United States and Israel, who argue that any recognition of Palestinian statehood must await a negotiated Middle East peace deal.

The U.S. Department of State on Oct. 12 notified former UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova of the U.S. decision to withdraw from the organization and to seek to establish a permanent observer mission to UNESCO.

Pursuant to Article II(6) of the UNESCO Constitution, U.S. withdrawal will take effect on Dec. 31, 2018. The United States will remain a full member of UNESCO until that time.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 06:59:16|Editor: Lifang

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PARIS, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Audrey Azoulay, director general of Paris-based UNESCO on Friday regretted Israel's move to quit the UN education and culture body, noting the necessity to dialogue to bridge gap among member states.

"In my capacity as Director-General of UNESCO, I was officially notified today by the Israeli Government of Israel's withdrawal from the Organization effective on 31 December 2018, a decision which was announced on 12 October 2017," Azoulay said in a statement.

Israel has been a member of UNESCO since 1949, "I regret this deeply, as it is my conviction that it is inside UNESCO and not outside it that States can best seek to overcome differences in the Organization's fields of competence," Azoulay stressed.

In the face of disagreements among member states, engaging fully in the work of UNESCO makes possible sustained dialogue, cooperation and partnerships that are more necessary than ever, she added.

On Oct. 12, the United States formally notified the UNESCO that it would withdraw from the organization on Dec. 31, 2018. On the same day, Israel welcomed this decision and announced it was considering a similar move due to the body's "anti-Israel" bias.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-30 07:14:17|Editor: Lifang

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PARIS, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- France expressed concerns about the situation in Yemen where, according to it, all parties should work together to end the humanitarian disaster, the world's worst such crisis, an official said on Friday.

"All parties have a duty to ensure the protection of civilian populations and infrastructure and allow full, unconditional and unrestricted access for humanitarian assistance," said Agnes Romatet-Espagne, foreign ministry's spokesperson.

"We call on all parties to ensure this," she stressed at an e-press briefing.

Romatet-Espagne added that French President Emmanuel Macron urged Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud during a recent phone talk to "ensure the complete lifting of the blockade" in Yemen to facilitate access to humanitarian assistance and allow commercial goods into Yemen.

As new air strikes killed many civilians in the Arab country, France reiterated "the urgent need for a negotiated political solution" to stop the conflict, according to the spokesperson.

The military battle between the Iran-allied Houthis who control capital Sanaa against a Saudi-led military alliance backing a government based in the south, has dragged the country to the world's worst famine and humanitarian crisis.

Since 2015, more than 10,000 people, half of them civilians, have been killed with over two millions were displaced, according to humanitarian agencies.
Granger Police Chief Robert Perales appears in the Yakima County District Court in Yakima, Wash. on Friday, May 26, 2017. Perales entered an Alford plea of guilt for making false statements under oath and was sentenced to 10 days of home monitoring, probation for one year and was ordered to undergo an anger management evaluation and pay a $500 fine. Perales was initially charged with felony perjury and stalking charges in Yakima County Superior Court, but these charges were dropped by the prosecution after Perales plead guilty to the lesser, false swearing charge. (JAKE PARRISH/Yakima Herald-Republic)
New Years Eve services at St. Peters

GRESHAM -- St. Peter Lutheran Churchs New Years Eve service will be Sunday, Dec. 31, at 6 p.m.

Joint worship service Dec. 31

BENEDICT -- The United Methodist Church and Zion Lutheran Church will have a joint worship service on Dec. 31 at 8:15 a.m., at the United Methodist Church.

New Years Eve Party

YORK -- New Life Church of the Nazarene, at 1028 N. Beaver Avenue in York, will be hosting a New Year's Eve Party on Sunday, Dec. 31, 2017 from 7 to 10 p.m.! This is a drug and alcohol free event and will be fun for the whole family - come and enjoy free snacks and games, and celebrate new beginnings and the new year together with us!

Community Potluck

BRADSHAW -- Bradshaw United Methodist Church will be hosting the monthly community potluck supper on Jan. 2 at 6:30 p.m. Come join in for food, fun and fellowship.

Nebraska Wesleyan Choir to perform

YORK -- The Nebraska Wesleyan Choir will perform at the First United Methodist Church in York on Wednesday, Jan. 3 at 7 p.m.

Fairmont United Methodist Women

FAIRMONT -- On Thursday, Jan. 4, the United Methodist Women will meet at the church kitchen at 9 a.m., to clean, and then later have a brief meeting and review the new yearbooks. Those who attend are asked to bring a kitchen shower gift  for examples, trash bags (30 gallon), small dessert plates, plastic cups (medium), dinner plates (paper), coffee, tea, etc. A soup and salad luncheon will follow, hosted by the 2018 officers (Nancy Galaway, Darlene Fischer, Inez Logan and Donna Lefler).

Annual Meeting at Zion Lutheran

BENEDICT -- Zion Lutheran Church will have its annual meeting during church service on Jan. 21. All reports are due the first week in January to Dawn Kush.

St. Josephs to host presentation

YORK -- Sister Margaret Nacke will give and informational presentation on Human/Sex trafficking in the Mandeville room at St. Josephs Catholic Church, located on East Avenue between 5th and 4th Streets in York, on Wednesday, Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m. Her presentation is geared toward sixth graders and all adults. There is no cost to attend the program which is about 45 minutes in length.

2nd Cup Cafe in Bradshaw

BRADSHAW -- The 2nd Cup Cafe community coffee is held at the Bradshaw United Methodist Church fellowship hall each Thursday morning from 8:30-10 a.m. Proceeds from the weekly coffee benefit the Green Beans Coffee Co. program Cup of Joe For a Joe, which provides coffee for service personnel overseas. Everyone is welcome to attend and enjoy a cup of coffee and morning pastry.
York Senior Center

 Join the guys at the York Senior Center and shoot a game or two of pool Monday through Friday mornings from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 1  3:30 p.m.

 The York Senior Center will hold exercise classes Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:30  11 a.m. Classes are free for ages 55 and older. Resistance bands and light weights are used.

 Cards are played at the York Senior Center Monday through Friday at 1 p.m. Dominoes and Bridge are played on Mondays, Pitch on Tuesdays and Fridays, Pinochle on Wednesdays and Thursdays and Canasta on Thursdays.

Individuals and card groups are welcome all the time!

 The York Senior Center will be closed Dec. 25  Jan. 7 for the installation of a new floor.

Stromsburg Senior Center

 The Stromsburg Senior Center will hold exercise classes every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 9 a.m. each day at the Viking Center.

 The Stromsburg Senior Center will have cards every Friday at 1:30 p.m.

 The Stromsburg Senior Centers November birthdays will be celebrated along with December birthdays on Dec. 29.

Fairmont Senior Center

 On Tuesday, Jan. 2, there will be a potluck dinner at the Fairmont Senior Center.

 The Fairmont Senior Center board will meet at 1 p.m., on Monday, Jan. 8.

Fairmont American Legion and Auxiliary

FAIRMONT -- The Legion and Auxiliary will have a meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 3, at 7:30 p.m.

Waco Seniors

WACO -- The Waco Senior Citizens will meet on Wednesday, Jan. 3, at Hunters, at noon for lunch.

Fairmont United Methodist Women

FAIRMONT -- On Thursday, Jan. 4, the United Methodist Women will meet at the church kitchen at 9 a.m., to clean, and then later have a brief meeting and review the new yearbooks. Those who attend are asked to bring a kitchen shower gift  for examples, trash bags (30 gallon), small dessert plates, plastic cups (medium), dinner plates (paper), coffee, tea, etc. A soup and salad luncheon will follow, hosted by the 2018 officers (Nancy Galaway, Darlene Fischer, Inez Logan and Donna Lefler).

York Adopt A Pet

YORK -- York Adopt A Pet will host a Woof & Whiskers Wingding fundraiser event on Saturday, Jan. 6 from 6:30  11:55 p.m. at the Cornerstone Ag & Event Center in York. Funds raised will go toward overhead and maintenance costs on the Adopt A Pet building, veterinary costs, medicine, payroll and other expenses. The social hour will begin at 6:30 p.m. followed by dinner at 7 p.m. A live auction will start at 7 p.m. and the Beaver Creek Band will perform from 8 p.m.  12 a.m. Individuals must be 21 years of age or older to attend.

Fairmont Library

FAIRMONT -- Quilt Night at the library will be Monday, Jan. 8, at 7 p.m.

Fillmore County Hospital Auxiliary

GENEVA -- The Fillmore County Hospital Auxiliary will meet Jan. 8, 2018 at 2 p.m. in the Conference Room A next to the hospital dining room. All current members need to pay their 2018 dues of $5 in the month of January. New members are always welcome. Come to the meeting in January or call Marsha Jorgensen at 402.366.9417, Joan Ackland at 402.759.2053 or April at the hospital at 402.759.3167 anytime if you need more information.

Waco Village Board

WACO -- The Waco Village Board will meet on Monday, Jan. 9, at 7:30 p.m.

Girl Scout Troop #50011

BENEDICT -- Girl Scout Troop #50011 will meet Wednesday, Jan. 10, from 6-7:30 p.m., at the community center.

The Priscillas

FAIRMONT -- On Wednesday, Jan. 10, the Priscillas will meet at noon at the senior center. Call Darlene Fischer to make reservations.

Gresham Fire Department

GRESHAM -- The monthly firemens meeting will be held Monday, Jan. 15, at 7:30 p.m., at the fire station.

York Area Chamber of Commerce

YORK -- The annual York Area Chamber of Commerce banquet is set for Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018 and will be at Yorks Holthus Convention Center. Social hour begins at 5:30 p.m. with dinner being served at 6:30 p.m.. Tickets are on sale now for just $20. Please contact our office at 402-362-5531 for tickets.

GFWC/NFWC Fairmont Womans Club

FAIRMONT -- On Tuesday, Jan. 16, the GFWC/NFWC Fairmont Womans Club will meet at the senior center at 1:30 p.m., for the regular meeting. Thought for the Day will be presented by Carol Bettger. The program will be about the March of Dimes. Those who attend are asked to bring $1 for each pair of shoes they own. There will also be a presentation by foreign exchange students.

Benedict Volunteer Fire Department

BENEDICT -- The Benedict Volunteer Fire Department will have its annual beef and pork barbecue on Saturday, Jan. 20, at the community center. Serving will be from 5-8 p.m. Drive-through service will be available. Use the alley north of the community center and enter from the east off Lovena Avenue.

Fillmore County American Legion and Auxiliary

SHICKLEY -- The Fillmore County American Legion and Auxiliary joint meeting will be held on Jan. 21, 2018 at the Shickley Community Center in Shickley hosted by Post and Unit #164. Registration will be held at 2:30 p.m. and the meeting at 3 p.m. followed by lunch. Representatives from Exeter, Fairmont, Geneva, Ohiowa, Milligan and Shickley Posts and Units are invited to attend.

Waco CBO

WACO -- The next CBO meeting will be Jan. 22, at 7 p.m., at the community building. The CBO will hold officer elections at the January meeting. If anyone is interested in joining, or would like to be an officer, the following positions are available  secretary and treasurer.

York County GOP

YORK -- Kilgore Memorial Library will host a York County GOP Meet & Greet on Tuesday, Jan. 23 from 5:30  7 p.m. Candidates from various races will be present. Find more details on the York County GOP Facebook page.

Benedict Mens Club

BENEDICT -- The Benedict Mens Club will have a pitch tournament on Saturday, Jan. 27, at the community center. Six-point pitch will be played by two-player teams. Sign-up will start at 7 p.m., and card playing will start at 7:30 p.m.

Waco Cemetery Board

WACO -- The next Waco Cemetery Board meeting will be Thursday, Feb. 1, at 7 p.m., at the Waco village office.

Friends of the Library

YORK -- The Friends of the Library will again host York Uncorked on Saturday, Feb. 10 from 5:30  8 p.m. at Kilgore Memorial Library. There will be fine wines, liquors and craft brews for tasting along with delicious chocolate treats and other savory delights. Advance tickets may be purchased for $20 at Kirks Korner, Kilgore Memorial Library and at the Chamber of Commerce office. Tickets will be $25 at the door. Must be 21 or older to attend.
By PTI: (Eds: Updating toll)

Cairo, Dec 29 (PTI) Ten people were killed and eight others injured in a terrorist attack on a church in Egypts capital today, the government said.

A health ministry spokesman said the attack took place when gunmen on a motorbike opened fire outside Mar Mina church in Helwan area.

At least 10 people, including eight Coptic Christians, were killed in the shootout outside the south Cairo church, he said, adding, one gunman was shot dead as was a security officer.

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State-run MENA news agency reported that the other gunman fled the scene.

The ministry said two of the injured are women, adding it employed 10 ambulances to transfer the injured to hospitals.

The attack comes days before the Coptic celebration of the new year and orthodox Christmas Day on January 7.

Egypts Coptic Christian minority has been targeted by Islamic terrorists in several attacks since last year that have killed over 100 people and wounded many others. PTI YES KUN

--- ENDS ---
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- Romanias Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) again urged Romanian citizens to avoid non-essential trips to Russia or leave the country as soon as possible if there. The recommendation comes amid Russias drive to mobilize more men for the war in Ukraine, Romania-Insider reports. The MAE strongly reminds

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- Presedintele ICR, Liviu Jicman, a transmis, vineri, in legatura cu acuzatiile aduse de scriitorul Dinu Flamand referitoare la reducerea finantarii de carte tradusa, ca toate dosarele care au indeplinit cerintele regulamentare primesc finantarea de care au nevoie, dupa ce ICR a primit suma solicitata

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- Romania's Senate and Chamber of Deputies start today their second ordinary parliamentary session of the year. Fii la curent cu cele mai noi stiri. Urmareste stiripesurse.ro pe Facebook stiripesurse.ro  Help your friends know more about Romania! Share this article
District of Columbia: US President Donald Trump on Thursday made light of climate change science as an Arctic chill settled on much of the central and northeastern United States and Canada, forcing people indoors, stranding motorists with dead car batteries and complicating firefighting duties.

In the United States, the National Weather Service said that "dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills" were pummeling much of the central and eastern part of the country.

"In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year`s Eve on record," Trump tweeted from his Mar a Lago resort in Florida, where he is on holiday vacation.

"Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo earlier warned residents to prepare for "dangerously cold weather," with below-normal temperatures expected to be between minus 12.7 C and minus 6.6 C through Saturday.

Trump`s missive quickly drew Twitter eye-rolls from many users exasperated that the Republican US president could use cold weather to mock the science behind climate change.

"Weather is not the same as climate," tweeted Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington state. "The president should be able to understand that. It isn`t hard."

Jon Foley, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences, wrote: "Believe it or not, global climate change is very real even if it`s cold outside Trump Tower right now."

"Just like there is still hunger in the world, even if you just had a Big Mac."The Washington Post`s Capital Weather Gang on Wednesday had tweeted: "US to be coldest region in world relative to normal over next week."

"Please note rest of world will be much warmer than normal lest anyone try to claim pocket of cold in US debunks global warming, which they will invariably and irresponsibly do," the weather reporters said.

Trump, 71, has dismissed global warming as a Chinese hoax, vowed to quit the 2015 Paris accord and tapped fossil fuel allies to key environmental posts.

His administration also dropped climate change from the list of national security threats.

In Canada, firefighters saw water at times freeze in their hoses as they battled an overnight blaze south of Montreal, in Quebec province.

Environment Canada increased the number of extreme cold warnings around the country, bulletins issued only when the cold "creates an elevated risk to health such as frost bite and hypothermia."

Thursday morning the thermometer plunged to minus 40 C in Geraldton, in northern Ontario province. "And that`s not considering the wind chill factor," said meteorologist Alexandre Parent with Environment Canada.

"We have to go back in 1993 to see this kind of weather in Ontario and Quebec," he said.

Ice crystals fell in the northwestern city of Whitehorse when rain fell amid freezing wind.

The Arctic temperatures are expected to last into early 2018, Environment Canada said.

Health Canada warned that exposed skin could freeze in less than 10 minutes in places where temperatures were approaching minus 35 C.

Canadian homeless shelters struggled to keep up with the demand for services and issued special appeals for donations of warm clothes.

This month`s cold wave caps a year that saw ferocious hurricanes, heat waves, floods and wildfires wreak global havoc.
Rajamhadravaram: A priest was allegedly killed by some unidentified persons last night here, police said today.

The deceased has been identified as Muhamad Farook, said Deputy Superintendent of Police Ramash Babu.

Last night, some unidentified persons attack him with sticks and escaped from the spot, the DSP said, adding he died on the spot.

"We have formed special teams to prove the incident," he said.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy Chief Minister (Home) N Chinarajapa spoke to the District Superintendent of Police and directed him to nab the culprits, an official communique said.
New Delhi: Lohri is a Punjabi festival which is celebrated in many parts of India with utmost happiness and joy. People dance, eat core Punjabi food to enjoy it to the fullest and get-together to have fun.

Here are the important things you must not forget to do on this festival day:

Lohri bonfire

Representational Image: Pixabay

The major highlight of the festival is the bonfire which is set up in an open area. The festival is celebrated at the end of cold winters by looking forward to a great harvest and praying for prosperity and happiness.

Circumambulation of the Lohri fire

People pray for the prosperity and happiness of their family and loved ones. It is believed that by performing the circumambulation of the Lohri fire with utmost faith and optimism, one can expect miracles to happen. People offer their prayers to lord 'Agni' by performing parikrama.

Tossing sesame seeds, popcorn, gajak, rewri, etc on the bonfire is a major highlight.

Eating Lohri prasad

Representational Image: Pixabay

It consists of five items which include the Til (Sesame), the Gajak (a sweet preparation), Gud (Jaggery), Moongphali (Peanuts) and Phuliya (Popcorn). These are offered to the fire God to seek his blessings. Besides this, people also eat typical Punjabi food such as Sarso Ka Saag and Makki di Roti and sweets.

Dancing to the beats of the dhol

Representational Image: Pixabay

Everyone loves to dance and when it comes to dancing to the beats of the dhol, the fun becomes double. People dance in front of the Lohri fire with their friends and family.

Spend quality time with family

Indian festivals are all about big gatherings. Make sure you spend ample time with your family.

Enjoy this Punjabi festival with sheer happiness by gorging on Punjabi food and dancing Bhangra.
New Delhi: As we get ready to welcome 2018, most of us also commit to being better versions of ourselves. Leading a healthier lifestyle usually tops the list, but it is also one of the toughest things to achieve.

To finally break that cycle of unfulfilled resolutions, commit to just a few healthy habits and cultivate them throughout the year. Stick with them for a few weeks, and you will start feeling so good that you will want to follow them for the rest of the year, says Dr Hariprasad, Ayurveda Expert at The Himalaya Drug Company. He recommends a four simple tips that you can incorporate this new year to finally become a new you.

Exercise daily: Promise yourself that you will spend a minimum of 40 minutes every day exercising. You don't need to follow the same routine; just ensure that you work out every single day. This could be a great way to fulfill a second new year resolution of learning a new skill such as yoga or a fun dance form such as salsa. Exercising should be exciting, and something that you look forward to. Let it not become a chore. Simple forms of exercise go a long way in preventive care -- they help reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases and osteoporosis, alleviate depression and anxiety, and even boost mental alertness and confidence.

Get enough sleep: The function of sleep is to not only relax the body, but also rest and restore the mind. It is necessary to heal and repair your heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency has been linked to an increased risk of various health issues that affect the heart as well as kidney, and also lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke. While you can function for a while without getting the necessary amount of sleep every day, it will eventually take a toll on you. Commit to sleeping a minimum of seven hours a day while aiming for eight, and you will feel yourself getting healthier and happier in a short amount of time.

Go natural: This year, make long-term wellness your goal instead of just trying to solve the problem at hand. As per Ayurveda texts and modern research, Guduchi can significantly help in preventive care, as it is a great promoter of immunity, aids in the fight against respiratory problems, and helps you get healthier. The herb is rich in antioxidants, and including it in your daily life can help you achieve better health. Adopting preventive care by consuming appropriate supplements can help reduce the chances of facing health problems altogether, rather than simply resorting to curative care when it arises.

Drink enough water: If you want to keep the doctor away, eight glasses of water a day is the way to do it. Water is the fuel your body runs on; it is necessary to keep your body functioning well. Drinking enough water can help you with weight loss, detoxification, digestion, beautiful skin and hair, and even easy bowel movement. Work at this goal throughout the day and it will keep getting easier. There are many ways to achieve this goal. Download an app, play a game, or set a reminder, but ensure you keep reaching for that glass of water and hit that two-litre goal.

Take control of your health and life by cultivating these simple habits to ensure that you make the most of this New Year.
New Delhi: Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday said he has in the past tried negotiating with terrorists and can now "accept the challenge" of brokering peace between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal.



The comments of the Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs came after members from various opposition parties complained about the "elected government of Delhi being deprived of all powers by the Centre" and the constant friction between the Lt Governor and Delhi Chief Minister, as the former wields all the administrative powers.



"In the four decades of my public life, I faced many challenges. I have tried to negotiate with terrorists, etc. This (dealing with Kejriwal) is going to be a difficult one but I will accept your challenge and try and negotiate," Puri told the Rajya Sabha.



"Maybe, I invite both of them for a lunch or something and will try and sort this out," he added after Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien asked Puri to "sort out the friction between Lt Governor and Delhi Chief Minister".



Kejriwal and Puri exchanged some heated official communication on the issue of hike in fares of the Delhi Metro in October this year. While Kejriwal demanded a rollback of the hike, Puri categorically declined it citing the mechanism of the Fare Fixation Committee.



Earlier, as the House discussed the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions Third Amendment) Bill, 2017, many members raised the issue of division of powers between the Delhi government and the Lieutenant Governor and said that the latter wielded all the powers and not the elected government.



While members from the Congress, Trinamool Congress, CPI-M and the CPI forcefully stressed the need to give more powers to the Delhi government, Samajwadi Party MP Naresh Agarwal went on to say that the Lt Governor treats Delhi Chief Minister like a "chaprasi" (peon).



Veteran Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav also raised the issue of the Delhi Chief Minister not being invited at the inauguration of the Delhi Metro`s Magenta line a few days back.



"Every person with a common sense was heard saying that this (not extending invitation) was not proper," Yadav said as he cited an example of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee once declining to go to the inauguration of a project in a state until its Chief Minister was invited.



The House later unanimously passed the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions Third Amendment) Bill, 2017 that extends the validity of the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Act, 2011 till December 31, 2020.



In simple terms, the extension of the law would defer any action against the unauthorised colonies and slum clusters in the city for another three years -- till 2020.


New Delhi: The revenue loss to states on account of GST implementation was Rs 24,500 crore between July-October and the Centre has released compensation to make up for it, Parliament was informed on Friday.

As per the details of GST compensation released to states as on November 30, Karnataka got maximum compensation from the Centre at Rs 3,271 crore, followed by Gujarat (Rs 2,282 crore) and Punjab (Rs 2,098 crore).

"...The revenue loss due to implementation of GST to the states for month of July to October has been estimated Rs 24,500 crore and the same amount has been released to the states as compensation to make up for the loss of revenue on bi-monthly basis for the month of July-August, 2017, and September-October, 2017," Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

Under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, a cess is levied on luxury, demerit and sin goods to make good the loss suffered by the states on account of roll out of the new indirect tax regime. This is levied on top of the highest tax rate of 28 per cent on this goods.

"Since the rate of cess shall be such so as to maintain the pre-GST tax incidence on such goods therefore there may not be much difference in total tax incidence (tax plus cess) on these goods between the pre-GST and post-GST regime," Shukla said.

The other states that required hefty compensation include Rajasthan (Rs 1,911 crore), Bihar (Rs 1,746 crore), Uttar Pradesh (Rs 1,520 crore), West Bengal (Rs 1,008 crore) and Odisha (Rs 1,020 crore).

In a seprate reply, Shukla said the GST anti-profiteering authority has till December 26 received 169 complaints alleging suppliers of goods have not passed on benefit of cost reduction to customers.
New Delhi: India's fiscal deficit at the end of November breached the target and touched 112 percent of the budget estimate for 2017-18 mainly due to lower GST collections and higher expenditure.

In absolute terms, the fiscal deficit -- the difference between expenditure and revenue -- was Rs 6.12 lakh crore during April-November 2017-18, according to the data by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA).

During the same period of 2016-17, the deficit stood at 85.8 percent of that year's target.

For 2017-18, the government aims to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3.2 percent of GDP. Last fiscal, it had met the target of 3.5 percent of GDP.

The CGA data showed that the government's revenue receipts were at Rs 8.04 lakh crore in the eight months to November, which work out to 53.1 percent of the budget estimate (BE) of Rs 15.15 lakh crore for 2017-18.

The receipts, comprising taxes and other items, were at 57.8 percent of the target in the year-ago period.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections slipped to their lowest in November as rates were cut on dozens of goods to make the new national sales tax regime more acceptable.

Total collections under the GST in November slipped for the second straight month to Rs 80,808 crore, down from over Rs 83,000 crore in the previous month.

The GST was implemented from July 1, 2017 to amalgamate the excise duty, service tax, VAT and several other indirect taxes.

As per the data, the government's total expenditure was Rs 14.78 lakh crore at November-end, or 68.9 percent of the budget estimate. It was 65 percent of the budget estimate a year ago.

Capital expenditure during April-November of 2017-18 was higher at 59.5 percent of the BE compared to 57.7 percent in the same period of the previous fiscal.

Revenue expenditure, including interest payment, was 70.5 percent of the BE during April-November 2017-18. This compares with 66.1 percent a year earlier.
New Delhi: The Petroleum Ministry has asked Oil companies to rationalise the price of commercial LPG cylinders. The ministry has asked the companies to bring uniform rates for all commercial cylinders by January 1, 2018.

The order aims to ensure that commercial cooking gas is not sold at a price lower than domestic non-subsidised cooking gas.

Commercial cylinders attract 18 percent tax while domestic ones attract 5 percent tax. However companies offer distributors of commercial cylinders deep discounts to compete in the market.

The Oil Ministry has asked distributors to bring the discount at Rs 3-4 per kilo.

Due to the discount offered on commercial cylinders, the rates between them and domestic cylinders were either at par or even less than the former.

Big hotels and restaurants, will now have to shell out more on commercial cylinders due to the reduction in discount.

Government yesterday withdrew its decision to raise LPG prices by Rs 4 per cylinder every month as the move was seen contrary to its Ujjwala scheme of providing free cooking gas connections to the poor.

The government had previously ordered public sector oil marketing companies to raise domestic cooking gas (LPG) prices by Rs 4 per cylinder every month beginning June 2016 with a view to eliminating subsidies.

Subsequently, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) have not raised LPG prices from October.

Previously, the oil firms were authorised to increase price of subsidised domestic LPG cylinder by Rs 2 per 14.2-kg cylinder per month (excluding VAT) with effect from July 1, 2016. Oil companies had hiked LPG rates on 10 occasions since that go-ahead.

Every household is entitled to 12 cylinders of 14.2-kg each at subsidised rates in a year. Any requirement beyond that is to be purchased at market price.
By PTI: Kharagpur(WB), Dec 29 (PTI) The placement session 2017-18 at IIT Kharagpur reached a remarkable milestone with offers made to 1,200 students of the institute at the end of its phase-I.

This session started with 2,054 students enrolled for the placement process, which was the maximum at any individual IIT, said Prof Debasis Deb, Chairman, Career Development Centre (CDC), IIT Kharagpur.

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"This is due to the wide variety of disciplines that are offered by IIT Kharagpur. The 1,200 offers were received from 200 companies that visited during the phase-I of the placement," Prof Deb said.

This year saw a new trend with PSUs started visiting the campus during the month of November, which is much before the beginning of actual placement session, he said.

The placements for undergraduate (UG) has touched the 75 per cent mark, which was an increase by 12 per cent, while the placements for postgraduate (PG) was at 38 per cent, a rise by 14 per cent, compared to last year. B Arch also recorded a huge jump of 20 per cent this year, he added.

This became possible with various measures taken to promote placements in general and in particular for PG students, he said.

The Career Development Centre (CDC) has initiated a placement drive this year for PhDs graduating or graduated within 2 months of the placement process and this yielded a fruitful outcome with 26 PhDs getting placed across reputed Teaching and Research institutions, he added. PTI AKB RG SBN

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: With New Year's Eve just around the corner, its time to take our your most fashionable outfit to attend the best of parties but don't forget to team it up with right jewellery.

Rajesh Tulsiani, Director of Dwarkadas Chandumal Jewellers and Sonal Sahrawat, Creative Director at Sonal's Bijoux & Adawna lists down the most sought after jewellery trends for the day.

* A cocktail ring is always a good idea: Cocktail ring is an appealing accessory option for any party or get together. If you are dressing up for New Year's Eve, a bling statement ring will be a perfect accessory. You can always add colors by experimenting with colorful cocktail rings.

* Underscore your neck: A choker with diamonds or coloured stones or any other simplistic necklace designs work well to ring the New Year in. Remember, classic is best - so a string of marquise or princess diamonds also looks stunning, without any effort!

* Animal collection or coloured stone earrings: Make this New Year's Eve extraordinary and memorable by adding sparkle and shine to your outfit with animal collection or coloured stone earrings. These will give you a stylish, yet unique look.

* Statement Necklace: Layered diamond statement necklaces of different lengths will dazzle as they catch the lamp or candlelight. These are perfect for New Year eve bash.

* Chandelier earrings: You can make a statement with chandelier earrings. No matter what design or gemstone, this earring style will perfectly accessorize any type of attire, be it a dress or playsuit.

* Trendy tassel earrings: Multi-layer tassel earrings will add the right amount of drama to your outfit and will grab the attention of almost everyone.
NEW DELHI: As dense fog continues to engulf north India, train services remain affected in Delhi. North-western plains, including Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and West Uttar Pradesh, were covered under dense fog Friday morning.

At least Delhi-bound 18 trains were cancelled, 35 delayed and five rescheduled due to dense fog in many parts of northern India on Friday.

Come winter and all north-bound trains get delayed for hours due to poor visibility during foggy weather, causing a ripple effect on the congested network. The dense fog forces drivers to slow down train speeds up to 15 kmph as a safety requirement  resulting in delays ranging between four and 22 hours.

The Government on Wednesday informed the Parliament that more than 3,000 trains were delayed due to fog between November 1 and December 21 in 2017.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said 3,119 trains were delayed during the period on account of fog.

Goyal said portable global positioning system (GPS)-based fog pass devices were being issued to the loco pilots for the regions which get seriously affected due to fog.

According to the data provided by the minister, the Northern Railways has received 3,185 of such devices, North Eastern Railways has got 975, North Western Railways 802, East Central Railways 617, North Central Railways 282 and the Northeast Frontier Railways has received 183.

"The reported outcome of the fog pass devices from the zonal railways has been satisfactory. The device provides a visual indication of the approaching level-crossing gates and other signal landmarks to the loco pilots, 500 metres in advance," Goyal said.

Rattled by the massive disruption in services year after year in winter, the railways has initiated several steps to use technology to fight fog. The steps include a Train Protection Warning System (TPWS), a Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), and a Terrain Imaging for Diesel Drivers (Tri-NETRA) System, with the latest one being LED fog lights to improve visibility so that drivers can maintain normal speeds.

The Tri-NETRA system enables the driver to view the terrain on a computer installed in the cabin. However, all these systems are in the pilot stage. As for the LED fog lights, the Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO) of the railways is currently finalising their specifications on these. The railways expects that once these systems are installed, it will help in enhancing the vision of locomotive drivers in difficult weather conditions, such as fog, heavy rains and during the night time so that they have enough time to react to an emergency.
Islamabad: Days after his release from house arrest following a Pakistan court's order, Mumbai terror attacks mastermind and the co-founder of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed was now spotted sharing stage with the Palestinian envoy.

According to media reports, Walid Abu Ali, the Palestinian envoy, attended a large rally organised by the Difa-e-Pakistan Council in Liaquat Bagh in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Friday morning.

Ali and Saeed, the co-founder of Lashkar-e-Toiba, which was blamed for the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed over 160, came together during the event.

The image of the two sharing the stage together was widely shared on the social media and it soon became viral.

Ambassador of Palestine to Pakistan Waleed Abu Ali attends a large rally organized by the Difah-e-Pakistan Council in Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi - seen with JUD chief Hafiz Saeed pic.twitter.com/d8UXLFK8Mm  omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) December 29, 2017

Formed in 2012, Difa-e-Pakistan (Defence of Pakistan) Council (DPC) is an alliance of Islamist groups in Pakistan, campaigning for a break in ties with the United States and an end to any chances of warming of relations with India.

Hafiz Saeed carries a bounty of USD 10 million announced by the United States for his alleged involvement in terror activities and has been declared a global terrorist by the United Nations.

Since his release, Saeed has made several anti-India and anti-US statements at various rallies across Pakistan, invoking Khulbhushan Jadhav and Kashmir.

Interestingly, earlier this month, India joined 127 other countries to vote in the United Nations General Assembly in favour of a resolution opposing the recent decision of US President Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

This was in sync with Palestinian sentiments.

India did not speak on the floor of the Assembly in New York, but after Trump recognised the holy city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, it had said that its stand on Palestine was independent and consistent.

In her intervention at the NAM ministerial meeting on Palestine on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had said the path to Israel-Jerusalem peace clearly lay in an early negotiated solution between Israel and Palestine based on mutual recognition and security arrangements.

(With PTI inputs)
KABUL: India on Friday condemned the terrorist attack on a Shiite cultural center in Afghanistan that killed at least 41 people while extending its support to Kabul in the fight against the menace of terrorism and efforts to bring peace in the country.

"India strongly condemns the cowardly suicide terror attack on 28 December at the media news agency and the cultural centre in Kabul resulting in loss of more than 40 innocent lives and many more injured," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement today.

"Our heartfelt condolences are with the families of the victims of this dastardly attack and we wish early recovery to the injured," the MEA said.

"Indian remains steadfast in its solidarity with the government and the people of Afghanistan at this difficult time. India is committed to extend all possible support in their fight against the menace of terrorism and efforts to bring peace, stability and security in the country," it added.

More than 40 people were killed and dozens wounded in a suicide blast targeting Shiites in Kabul Thursday, officials said, with chaotic scenes at the hospitals in Kabul as anguished families sought loved ones.

The attack occurred during a morning panel discussion on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Sunni-majority Afghanistan at the Tabian Social and Cultural Centre, witnesses said.

The Sunni Islamic State group (IS) claimed responsibility for the gruesome assault on the pro-Iranian Tabayan cultural centre, the third deadly attack it has claimed in the Afghan capital this month.

Up to 100 people had gathered at the centre to mark the 38th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It is located in western Kabul, in the same building as affiliated Afghan Voice Agency (AVA), an anti-IS media outlet.

Waheed Majrooh, a spokesman for the ministry of public health, said 41 people, including four women and two children, had been killed and 84 wounded, most suffering from burns.

Kabul has become one of the deadliest places in war-torn Afghanistan for civilians in recent months, as the Taliban step up their attacks and IS seeks to expand its presence in the country.

Over the past two years, Islamic State in Khorasan, as the local group is known, has claimed a growing number of attacks on Shi`ite targets in Afghanistan, where sectarian attacks were previously rare.

Prior to Thursday's attack, there had been at least 12 attacks on Shi'ite targets since the start of 2016, in which almost 700 people were killed or wounded, according to United Nations figures. Before that, there had only been one major attack, in 2011.
New Delhi: Apparently angered and upset with the ill-treatment meted out to the mother and the wife of death row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav, who is lodged in a Pakistani jail, a Delhi BJP leader on Friday ordered footwear online and sent them to the Pakistan High Commission here for delivery.

The footwear was bought online by Delhi BJP spokesperson Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga who later dispatched it to Pakistan's High Commission for delivery as a mark of protest against the alleged ''inhuman'' treatment of Jadhav's kin.

"Pakistan wants our slippers. Let's give them slippers. I have ordered slippers and sent to Pakistan High Commission," he tweeted.

Pakistan wants our slippers, Let's Give them Slippers. I have ordered Slippers & sent to Pakistan High Commission. I request everyone to Order 1 Pair Slipper for Pakistan. After ordering Slippers tweet your order's screenshot with #JutaBhejoPakistan pic.twitter.com/VzhKvDLq82  Tajinder Bagga (@TajinderBagga) December 29, 2017

Bagga also launched an online campaign requesting the "nationalists" to send slippers to Pakistan.

"Over a hundred people sent footwear to Pakistan High Commission within a few hours after I did it," he claimed.

Jadhav's mother and wife had recently visited Pakistan and were forced to remove their 'mangalsutra', bindi, bangles and footwear by the Pakistani authorities before they were allowed to meet him through a glass screen.

Jadhav's mother and wife met him on December 25 inside the Pakistan Foreign Office building in Islamabad under unusual circumstances - he was separated from the two women by a glass screen and they conversed through an intercom.

During a press interaction, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had on Tuesday said that Pakistan had disregarded the cultural and religious sensibilities of Jadhav's mother and wife, who were asked to remove various articles, citing it as a security measure.

Almost all political parties strongly condemned Pakistan for its alleged ill-treatment to the wife and mother of Kulbhushan Jadhav, the former Indian Navy official who has been given a death sentence by a military court there.

The Narendra Modi government make a statement in Parliament on the issue on Thursday.

In identical statements in both houses of Parliament, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said yesterday there was "serious and gross violation of human rights of the family members of Jadhav", who is on death row in Pakistan for alleged spying.

She flayed Pakistan for presenting the two women as "widows" during the meeting, and accused Islamabad of turning an emotional moment into "an instrument to further its propaganda."

She pointed out that Jadhav's mother and wife were forced to remove their 'mangalsutra', bindi and bangles and footwear, and even made to change their attire on the pretext of security.

EAM Swaraj, while strongly condemning the inhuman treatment of the Jadhav's family members, also claimed that the incident exposed Pakistan's dubious intentions and false propaganda against India.

Jadhav is on a death row in Pakistan over charges of terrorism and spying for Indians intelligence agency - Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) - a charge completely rejected by India.

On May 18, 2017, the International Court of Justice stayed the hanging after India approached it against the death sentence.

(With PTI inputs)
Quetta: Baloch leader Hyrbyair Marri has stated that Kulbhushan Jadhav was "never arrested from Balochistan", in fact he was, "abducted from Iran by Pakistani state-sponsored religious proxies and handed over to Pakistani forces."

"The Indian citizen Jadhav was never arrested from Balochistan. He was, in fact, abducted from Iran by Pakistani state-sponsored religious proxies and handed over to Pakistani forces. There have been numerous such incidents in the past where religious extremists abducted Baloch refugees in Afghanistan or on their way to Afghanistan and sold them to ISI and army," said Marri.

"In the late 70s and the 80s element of Pakistan-backed Taliban killed innocent Marri Baloch refugees, severed their heads from the body and took pictures to get head money from ISI and the Pakistani army," he added.

Responding to the treatment meted out to the mother and the wife of Jadhav, "in the name of security procedures," during the meeting on December 25, the Baloch leader stated that, it " should open India and the rest of the world's eye about Pakistani state's inhuman treatment and humiliation of Baloch women."

"If Pakistan can disrespect an elderly woman who travelled from India to visit her son then it should not need rocket science to imagine what the Baloch prisoners, including women and children, go through at Pakistan army's secret and illegal detention centres," Marri said.

Underscoring the existence of the secret torture cells in Pakistan, Marri said, "Even a Pakistani Senator Farhatullah Babar recently said that "there were secret torture cells operating throughout the country [Pakistan]." The Pakistani media quoted him as saying, "no one, including the parliament and Supreme Court, knows about how many such torture cells are present, the number of people that are present there and the number of people that have died during interrogation. He further said that no one knew what happened to the people who died."

Warning against Pakistan's deception, the Baloch leader added that Pakistan is not a country to be trusted because "we Baloch have experienced and learnt that Pakistan is the poisonous snake that bites the very hand which feeds it."
Chandigarh: The family members of Sarabjit Singh were humiliated when they went to meet him with Pakistani authorities even wiping off the 'sindoor' from his wife's forehead, his sister Dalbir Kaur said amid outrage over the treatment meted out to Kulbhushan Jadhav's mother and wife.

Dalbir Kaur said that Singh's family had gone to meet him in a Lahore jail in 2008.

"We had no clue of the shocking things that were to unfold before our meeting with Sarabjit," Dalbir Kaur, who hails from Amritsar district said.

Singh's wife Sukhpreet Kaur, his teenaged daughters Swapandeep and Poonam, besides Dalbir Kaur went to Lahore to meet the Indian national for the first time in 18 years.

The ordeal was similar to what Jadhav's family endured in Islamabad recently, according to Dalbir Kaur.

Jadhav's mother and wife were stripped of their bindis, bangles and 'mangalsutra', made to change into different clothes and wear slippers by discarding their shoes.

"Even before the meeting was to take place, the behaviour of Pakistani authorities was bad. A female cop took out a handkerchief and wiped out the 'sindoor' from Sukhpreet's forehead. Both Sukhpreet and I were asked to take out hair pins as well. Sarabjit's teenaged daughters were also mistreated, and authorities were rude even after I raised objections. We were even asked to take out our 'kadas' (bracelets)," Dalbir Kaur said.

She recalled that as Singh loved "bharwan karela", a bitter gourd dish, the family cooked it at their home in Amritsar and brought it for him.

"However, again the Pak authorities were rude. They opened the container and forcibly stuffed it into our mouths asking us to taste it first," she said.

That was not the end of the ordeal, she said.

"Before proceeding to meet Sarabjit in jail, a manager at a Lahore Gurudwara asked us to keep our passports there. When we were to leave after the meeting, we were told to show our passports. When reminded that we had been asked to deposit these at the Gurudwara, the Pak authorities delayed our departure telling us that the documents were not traceable," she said.

Dalbir Kaur said that in 2011 too she met Singh in jail.

"I was the only one to be granted a visa. But this time too their treatment was no different. They took my 'kirpan' forcibly and when I asked them to at least keep it safely, they flung it in some corner showing disrespect which deeply hurt my religious sentiments," she said.

When I met Sarabjit, he cried a lot, asking me to help prove his innocence, she recalled.

In 2013, Sarabjit's sister, wife and two daughters had again travelled to Lahore, but this time the distraught family were allowed just a glimpse from a distance of a comatose Singh who had been admitted to a hospital after a brutal assault in a Pakistani jail.

He passed away barely a few days later.

On the treatment meted out to the family of Jadhav, who is in custody in Pakistan for alleged spying, Dalbir Kaur said after playing a cruel joke by not allowing the family to meet the Indian national freely, Pakistan was now making baseless charges of a chip, camera or a recorder in the footwear of his wife.

"First Pakistan portrayed the meeting of Jadhav's family as a humanitarian gesture, they then humiliated the family by asking them to remove bindis, mangal sutras etc and separated the family from him by putting up a glass screen. Now, they have come up with this baseless charge of chip, camera etc.

"I think India has responded as strongly and appropriately as it should in such circumstances. From now on, we should be even more firm towards Pakistan because they deserve such treatment and can only understand tough language," she said.

Dalbir Kaur's brother Singh had died following an assault by the inmates at a Lahore prison in April 2013. He was convicted of terrorism and spying by a Pakistani court and sentenced to death in 1991.

However, the Pakistani government had stayed his execution for an indefinite period in 2008.


NEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha's nod to a ban on the practice of triple talaq is welcome, but there is more to be done. This is what Muslim women activists, who fought the battle against triple talaq, feel. True empowerment of Muslim women on the marriage front can happen only when the practice of polygamy is also done away with, they say.

A number of activists welcomed the government's move to ban the practice triple talaq as "a start". Clearly, this alone is not going to be enough.

The activists termed it a lost opportunity for wider reform in the sections of Muslim personal law that often put women at a disadvantage.

"A new beginning has been made which would protect Muslim women from immoral practice of nikah halala," said advocate Farah Faiz, who along with Rizwana and Razia were among those who fought for the ban in triple talaq.

Rizwana, 33, a victim of polygamy, put forth her rationale for why the ban on triple talaq should be viewed only as a part of the process of reform and not the achievement of reform.

"I welcome the move, but now men will take undue advantage of the law and indulge in polygamy openly as it is still in practice. With polygamy still in practice, abolition of triple talaq cannot alone not help us," Rizwana said to news agency PTI. An employee of the Railways, she has approached the Supreme Court against the practice of polygamy.

Advocate Chandra Rajan who had represented All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (AIMWPLB), while welcoming the triple talaq bill, had a peeve over a deeper question that is yet to be answered by our political class.

"We are disappointed only on one count that Sharia was not defined by the government in the law. As long as Sharia is not defined, confusion and misuse of such practices will prevail," said Rajan. She added it can be said that the government brought this law in a haste.

The government's push to pass the triple talaq bill had in itself come on the directions of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, which ruled against the practice.

"At least this government has done something and a new beginning has been made. Amendments keep on happening in the law but the start has been made," she said.

Reform of Muslim personal law has long been a hot button topic in Indian politics. This is a key part of the imposition of a Uniform Civil Code, which the BJP envisages as part of its overall political worldview.

(With inputs from PTI)
NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel, his son Faisal and son-in-law Irfan Siddiqui are under Enforcement Directorate's radar in connection with alleged 'suspicious' transactions in violation of foreign exchange laws at Vadodara-based Sandesara Group of Companies.

News agency ANI quoted ED sources as saying that Patel's name surfaced during investigation against Sandesara Group of companies in a Rs 5,000-crore bank loan fraud case.

ED officials in November had searched the houses and other premises of Sanjeev Mahajan, a close aide Patel, and other businessmen in an alleged money laundering case involving the Sandesara Group of companies.

The ED on December 23 had filed a chargesheet against businessman Gagan Dhawan, arrested in connection with an over Rs 5,000-crore bank fraud.

The ED had alleged that he was involved in diverting the amount to purchase properties and other shell companies.

According to ED officials, Dhawan allegedly aided bank loan frauds related to the Vadodara-based Sterling Biotech company.

The ED had registered a case of money laundering following a case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Sterling Biotech, its Directors Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Sandesara, Rajbhushan Omprakash Dixit, Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara, and Vilas Joshi and several others in connection with the bank fraud case.

In August, the agency searched at least 11 premises of the group in Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Delhi under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

The central probe agency, in a statement, had said that the companies owned by the group were "indulging in transactions which are complex and suspicious in nature and are being routed through intermediary entities situated in and outside India".
Poverty had driven Kiran out of India to Saudi Arabia, within just four months, came the news of his losing hope of living.

By Manogya Loiwal : Sheikh Sahib feels helpless as he glances out of window with anguish and anxiety in his eyes. He is clueless whether his 24-yearold brother Kiran Sheikh is alive or not. A desperate call from Kiran Sheikh and his acquaintances in Saudi Arabia to save his life has left the family in jitters.

Kiran called this month to inform that all his documents, including his passport, had been taken away by the employers.

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Poverty had driven Kiran out of India - from Bandhgacha village of Burdwan district in West Bengal to Saudi Arabia.

He had left for Saudi this September and, within just four months, came the news of his losing hope of living.

Sheikh said, "I was away when Kiran took my father's permission to go abroad for job. My brother told him that he would keep contact over phone. My father allowed him to go. We had no information about him for a fortnight. We did not even know where he was staying. After 20 days, he called us saying that the had cheated him. My brother was told that he would be provided an operator's job for which he paid Rs 2 lakh, but he was given a centering job."

Kiran was tortured and beaten up black and blue. He somehow managed to hide his mobile phone in order to contact his family.

"They didn't feed him and threw him out of the room if he stopped working. Due to extreme torture, he was unable to continue with the work. He was beaten black and blue. He was homeless and starving for two days without any money. He was able to hide his mobile phone safely to contact his family. My brother used to call us after 12 O'clock at night. He pleaded us to rescue him. In his next call, he said that if we are unable to rescue him, he would commit suicide," Sheikh added.

The family has been running from pillar to post for help. From CM Mamata Banerjee to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, they are writing to every person.

Sheikh said, "I have written to SP, DM, CM and even Sushma Swaraj for help, but I have not received any reply. With the help of TMCP, a negotiation was held between Saaki and our family. We paid him Rs 1.40 lakh for Kiran's safe return. Saaki could not bring him back and stopped responding to our calls. After 50 days and on TMCP's intervention, he returned the money. We want Kiran to return home safe."

(with inputs from Sujata Mehera)

--- ENDS ---

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LUCKNOW: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on Friday expressed serious reservations over the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill which was passed by the Lok Sabha and said it will take steps through democratic means to amend, improve or scrap it.

The Shia Waqf Board, meanwhile, called for making the punishment to those indulging in 'triple talaq' more stringent.

"We will take whatever steps required through democratic means to amend, improve or scrap it. There is no move to go to court as of now...The bill was brought in a haste," AIMPLB spokesperson Maulana Khalil-ur-Rehman Sajjad Nomani told PTI. He said the board should have been taken into confidence on the issue.

"Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad while tabling the bill also quoted the board and a lady MP of the ruling party tried to answer the queries raised by the Board in a letter to the Prime Minister proving that the government recognises the board. So the board should have been taken into confidence," Nomani said.

However, AIMPLB member Zafaryab Jilani hinted that the board may approach the Supreme Court against the triple talaq bill once it is passed by the Parliament.

"An option is always open to challenge the law passed (by the Parliament), which is against the Supreme Court's judgement and the Indian Constitution, in the Supreme Court. Convenor of our legal committee has also suggested that it can be challenged in the court. However, we will decide our future course of action once the Bill is passed and law is enacted," Jilani told a news channel.

AIMPLB wanted the triple talaq bill to not be in conflict with either the Constitution, Supreme Court order or the Muslim Personal Law Board, he said.

"We had demanded that Bill should have been prepared only after consultation of representatives of Muslim women organisations, All India Muslim Personal Board, but it doesn't mean that we were against the Bill. We just wanted that Bill should not be in conflict with either Constitution of India, Supreme Court Judgement or Muslim Personal Law Board," he said.

The president of the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (AIMWPLB), Shaista Amber welcomed the tabling of the bill but insisted that it should be in the light of Quran.

"We welcome the tabling of the bill and this has given lots of hope to the women as triple talaq is an evil which has been haunting them," she said.

Amber, however, added that any law enacted in this regard should be in the light of the Quran and Constitution to make it acceptable to the community.

President of the Shia Waqf Board, Wasim Rizvi however said that he had sent a letter to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making the punishment to those indulging in the practice more stringent.

"I have urged the Prime Minister through a letter that a jail term of 10 years to those indulging in triple talaq and lodging a criminal case against them," Rizvi said.
New Delhi: Search engine Google on Friday celebrated the life and literature of Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, a renowned 20th century Indian poet and author.

Venkatappa, famously known by his pen name Kuvempu, is considered one of the greatest Kannada writers of his time.

Kuvempus poem featured in the Doodle is Poovu (The Flower), rhapsodizing on the beauty of the poets natural surroundings.

Kuvempu loved his writing to reflect the simple wonder of the world around him, especially flowers. To celebrate Kuvempus life and work, todays Doodle by illustrator Upamanyu Bhattacharyya (and Swati Shelar, who helped with the Kannada lettering) shows Kuvempu surrounded by nature in his beloved home, Google wrote.
KASHMIR: The security forces on Friday arrested a terrorist in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla and recovered a cache of arms and ammunition from his possession.

The terrorist has been identified as Firdous Wani and was arrested from the Pattan area today.
New Delhi: The Centre on Friday warned that those found guilty of violating norms and held responsible for the devastating fire in a rooftop restaurant in Mumbai's Kamala Mills Complex won't be spared at any cost.

The warning came from Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir who termed the Kamla Mill fire incident as 'very ''unfortunate.''

"The Kamala Mills fire is a very unfortunate incident. The state government and BMC (BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation) will surely inquire into the incident and strict action will be taken against the guilty," Ahir said.

The reaction from the MoS came hours after at least fourteen persons, including a young woman celebrating her birthday, were asphyxiated, and at least 55 others injured in the deadly blaze that broke out in the Kamala Mills compound in Mumbai's Lower Parel area early on Friday.

The Minister told reporters that he had talked to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to take stock of the situation. "Spoke with CM Maharashtra Fadnavisji... Gave an assurance for all possible help from central government," Ahir also tweeted.

The flames, initially suspected to be triggered by an electric short-circuit, quickly spread to another adjacent pub and a restaurant, all housed in the Kamla Mills Compound, trapping over 200 people on the premises.

Among the victims was Khushboo Jayesh Bhansali, who had gone there to celebrate her 29th birthday with her husband and their friends, her family said.

The tragedy cast an ominous shadow on the upcoming New Year 2018 celebrations in the maximum city renowned for its varied night-life, late-night parties and outings.

President Ram Nath Kovind, his deputy M Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis have expressed grief over the incident and offered their condolences to the families of the victims.

Taking serious note of the incident, BMC Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta announced the suspension of five officials, including Assistant Municipal Commissioner Prashant Sapkale, for various lapses and ordered a probe into the incident.

Fadnavis, who visited the site this afternoon, warned of very stringent action against the officials and others found guilty for the incident.

According to the BMC, more than 12 fire tenders were rushed to fight the blaze, which was finally brought under control and extinguished around 6.30 am. It was only then that the full impact of the disaster came to light.

While the majority of the victims were reported to have died on the spot, the firemen were able to rescue 10 people safely.

The injured were rushed to the KEM Hospital, Bhatia Hospital, and Airoli Burns Hospital. Two with minor injuries were taken to Sion Hospital, where they were treated and discharged. Another 14 are undergoing treatment in different government and private hospitals, and their condition is stable.

Autopsies of the victims have revealed that a majority of the casualties occurred due to asphyxiation and inhaling poisonous fumes from the burning materials, said KEM Hospital's Dean Avinash Supe.

The entire pub and the surrounding complex was full of patrons, including many women and tourists with an estimated 400-plus thronging the fashionable area to unwind.

Mumbai Police have booked the owner of one of the pubs for negligence and culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

There are many major corporates, TV-radio-print media offices, more than three dozen high-end restaurants, pubs, etc, which also suffered damage in the fire and their working was affected on Friday.

The blaze comes as a huge setback to the government's plans to make night-life attractive by permitting all shops and malls to function round-the-clock, to generate more employment and boost tourism in the state.

Barely nine days ago, the state government had notified the relevant amendments to the laws, though it was not made applicable to bars, pubs, discotheques and wine shops.

However, these were expected to come under the ambit of the new laws in due course, with the BMC initiating several measures in this direction.

Amid the blame game over Mumbai fire incident, a bitter controversy also erupted when actor-turned-politician Hema Malini reportedly blamed rising population and presence of a large number of migrants in the city as 'reasons' for the massive fire.

The leader of Opposition, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, alleging corruption in the BMC, demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the tragedy, especially with the New Year Eve celebrations around the corner.

Blaming the BMC, Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam sought stringent action against those responsible for allowing the eateries to function despite rules being blatantly flouted.

Quoting a friend who witnessed the conflagration, Congress legislator Nitesh Rane claimed that a hookah parlour caused the blaze and not a short-circuit as speculated. He added that Mojo and another restaurant are only issued food licences, but not for serving hookahs to customers.

Yuva Sena President Aditya U Thackeray, one of the proponents of improving Mumbai night-life, said implementation of fire safety norms was a must and BMC would come down hard on violators.

BJP MP Kirit Somaiya attacked the Shiv Sena-controlled BMC for lapses on its part, which led to the blaze and demanded a complete fire audit of all buildings in the city.

In separate statements, both The Mojo Bistro and 1Above said they had implemented all fire and safety norms as per rules and did not store any gas cylinders on their premises.

(With Agency inputs)
MUMBAI: Blame game has begun over who is responsible for the massive fire at Kamala Mills in Mumbai where 14 people were killed on Friday.

Calling it an unfortunate incident, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Kirit Somaiya hit out at the Shiv Sena run Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for the lapse in security.

"BMC officials are responsible for the murder of people in Kamala Mills fire, second such incident in two weeks, when will the BMC wake up?," Somaiya said.

(Also Read: Mumbai's Kamala Mill fire a result of 'unholy nexus' between men in power? - Zee exclusive)

He said that a similar incident took place two weeks ago following which he had urged the authorities to take stock of the situation.



"Fire at Pub at Kamala Mill Compound Mumbai I had urged CM & BMC Commissioner to Order Special Fire Audit of all such Pub, Hooka Parlours & Farsan Mart/Workshops of Mumbai. 2 week back similar type of fire at Farsan Workshop Sakinaka 1 dozen people had died," Somaiya had tweeted.

He also added that "several such establishments at Kamla mills compound are illegal, part of which was regularised lately, the place where fire took place was illegal."

Following the incident, Somaiya and Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant got into an argument in the lower house of Parliament.

Argument between BJP MP Kirit Somaiya and Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant in Lok Sabha over #kamalamillsfire  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

The government has assured that a probe will be conducted into the incident. "It is a very unfortunate incident. The state government and BMC will surely inquire into the incident and strict action will be taken against guilty," MoS Home Hansraj Ahir said.

Expressing grief, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said an enquiry has been ordered.

"Disturbing to know about the loss of lives in unfortunate Kamala Mills fire incident in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the families who lost their loved ones and prayers for the speedy recovery of the injured. Directed the BMC Commissioner to conduct an in-depth enquiry," Fadnavis said in a tweet.

In another tweet, the chief minister said that he has directed Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner (Ajoy Mehta) "to take strong action against erring officials immediately".

Fourteen people were killed and 21 others injured after a major fire broke out at One Above pub, located on the third floor of the Trade House Building in Kamala Mills compound on Senapati Bapat Marg in Lower Parel shortly after midnight.
Bhubaneswar: Political heat, strained Centre-state relations, farmer suicides and the Mahanadi river water row marked the year 2017 in Odisha.

In February, the ruling BJD emerged victorious in the panchayat elections. But the BJP put up an improved show with nearly a nine-fold jump in its performance compared to the 2012 rural polls, pushing the Congress to third position.

The BJP's performance was equally impressive in zila parishads as it won eight of the 30 district councils. It did not have any zila parishad in its kitty in 2012.

After the rural elections, the state witnessed high- pitched political activities as both the BJD and the BJP geared up amid trading of charges with an eye on the upcoming urban bodies elections due in the new year. The Congress was dogged by disunity and infighting.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, however, was unfazed and said the BJD would review its performance "very seriously" apply suitable correctives both in terms of government and on organisational issues to ensure victory in 2019.

However, BJP leaders like Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the rural poll results amply showed growing support for good governance by the Centre and loss of faith in the BJD due to misrule, corruption and inefficiency.

The year saw an aggressive BJP organising a series of programmes, rallies and meetings across Odisha to bolster its prospects. The BJP also held its national executive meeting in Bhubaneswar in April and the top brass including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah attended the event and give a call to the people to oust BJD from power.

The BJD government lined up a host of programmes in the state with Patnaik laying foundation stones for new projects and inaugurating many, besides launching numerous welfare schemes for various sections.

The year witnessed souring of relations between the Centre and the state as the ruling BJD often hit out at the BJP-led NDA government accusing it of playing a partisan role on many issues including Mahanadi river water dispute and Polavaram project.

The state government charged the Centre with favouring Chhattisgarh on the Mahanadi and Andhra Pradesh on the Polavaram issue.

While the BJD launched an agitation and raised the issues in Parliament, the Odisha assembly unanimously passed a resolution that a House committee with members from all parties will place the demand before the prime minister to constitute a tribunal for resolving Mahanadi river water row.

All through the year, the BJD also attacked the Centre for adopting a step-motherly approach towards the state and slashing funds for many welfare programmes. The charge was refuted by the Centre and BJP leaders who accused the state of failing to utilise central funds.

Suicide by farmers rocked the state during the year as the BJD regime came under attack from opposition BJP and Congress who accused it of failing to mitigate the plight of peasants hit by indebtedness, drought, pest attack and unseasonal rains.

While around 15 farmers committed suicide allegedly due to crop loss caused by pest attack and unseasonal rains during October-November, the state government claimed the peasants ended their lives due to different reasons.

The state government maintained it took steps for disbursement of agriculture input subsidy of Rs 718.5 crore to farmers affected by drought, pest attack and unseasonal rain. As per assessment, about 8.5 lakh hectares of crop area in 29 of the 30 district had been affected by these three disasters which hit the farmers during the current year.

Left-wing extremism continued to pose a serious threat in many parts of the state. At least eight districts continued to remain challenging despite improvement in situation in other parts.

Industrial scenario remained gloomy amid tardy progress despite the state's claim about attracting lakhs of crores of rupees investments as many projects failed to make headway due to problems relating to land acquisition, bureaucratic red tape and environmental clearances.

The state government was hopeful of adding to its kitty with about Rs 20,000 crore penalty collection from mine owners who indulged in illegal mining and violated several laws including environmental clearance, forest clearance, mining rules and consent to operate norms.


Mumbai: One of Bollywoods most happening couples  Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone  is all set to head for Maldives to ring in the New Year, latest buzz suggests.

The two, who have never really admitted to being in a relationship, have however, expressed admiration for each other a number of times. And their PDA speaks volumes about their off-screen equation. So it is almost confirmed that the two are very much in love.

Both Ranveer and Deepika have had extremely busy schedules in the recent past. Moreover, their upcoming film Padmavati, helmed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali has been in the eye of storm ever since it went on floors. And now, the films fate hangs on a tightrope as it hasnt received a certificate for screening from the Central Board of Film Certification.

The Padmavati controversy must have certainly caused pain to the couple. And hence, to spend some time together and make the most of the festive season, DeepVeer (the way they are popular as a couple among fans) will be taking off to a distant destination away from the crowd and paparazzi.

According to a report in peepingmoon.com, DeepVeer will be celebrating New Year at a resort with a private beach in Maldives.

Deepika and Ranveer look gorgeous as a couple both on and off the screen. They set the silverscreen ablaze as the Indian version of Juliet and Romeo in Sanjay Leela Bhansalis Goliyon Ki Raasleela  Ram Leela in 2013. Since then, the two have been turning heads as a couple. After playing Leela and Ram, the duo made a splash on the silverscreen as Mastani and Bajirao in SLBs Bajirao Mastani.

For the uninitiated, Ranveer played Deepikas husband in Homi Adajanias Finding Fanny in which he made a cameo appearance. So technically, Padmavati is their fourth film together but interestingly, they wouldnt be sharing screen space.
New Delhi: Bollywood actress turned author Twinkle Khanna aka Mrs Funnybones shares her birthday with father Rajesh Khanna. The gorgeous actress-author took to Twitter and shared a beautiful rare old black and white picture of hers with daddy Rajesh Khanna.

She posted:

Happy Birthday Dad pic.twitter.com/I4ZEscR2vv  Twinkle Khanna (@mrsfunnybones) December 29, 2017

The thespian breathed his last in 2012 and left us all teary-eyed with the sad departure. However, on December 29his birthday, doting daughter Twinkle shared a cute picture on the micro-blogging site making all the fans nostalgic about the legendary star, Indian cinema ever saw.

The noted actor was hailed as the 'first superstar' of Indian cinema. The kind of stardom and fan frenzy he saw in that golden era, none could even fathom.

He featured in several films and left behind an impressive body of work. He starred in as many as 15 consecutive solo hit films from 1969 to 1971, a record which still remains unbroken.
New Delhi: A few months ago, speculations were rife that Kumkum fame actress Juhi Parmar is headed for a divorce with husband Sachin Shroff.

As per an Indianexpress report, the actors have filed for divorce already in Bandra family court and it is only a matter of few months that the will be legally separated.

A source told Indianexpress-

After being together for so long, it was a difficult decision for them but their differences have grown so much, that there seemed no chance of a reconciliation. It would have been futile carrying the baggage of a failed marriage for long and thus they decided to get separated. Sachin was even missing from Juhis birthday celebrations recently, proving how much they have grown apart. The couples four-year-old daughter Samaira has been staying with Juhi, and it is only justified that the custody will remain with her.

The couple got married in February 2009 after a five-month courtship period.


BENGALURU: Upbeat after his victory in the recent RK Nagar by-poll, AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran visited the central prison in Bengaluru on Thursday to meet his aunt and sidelined party leader VK Sasikala.

The meeting lasted for about half an hour at the Parappana Agrahara Central Prison.

However, during the entire meeting, Sasikala chose to stay silent and did not speak a word as she is observing a 'maun vrat' (vow of silence).

AIADMK state secretary V Pugazhendhi confirmed the news and said that she will continue to observe the silence till sometime in January.

Sasikala has been maintaining silence as a tribute to late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, ever since her death anniversary on December 5, Pugazhendhi said.

A confidante of late Jayalalithaa, Sasikala is serving a four-year sentence in the central jail on the city's outskirts since February 15, after the Supreme Court on February 14 upheld her conviction in a corruption case by a trial court here in September 2015.

Although Jayalalithaa was also convicted in the multi-crore disproportionate assets case as the main accused, she passed away on December 5, 2016, at a private hospital in Chennai.

The late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister was also in the same jail here for three weeks from September 26 to October 20, 2015, but was released on conditional bail by the top court.

Sasikala's co-convicts and relatives Elavarasi and VN Sudhakaran are also currently serving the sentence in the same jail after they were held guilty in the Rs. 64-crore disproportionate assets case of Jayalalithaa.

Dhinakaran, 54, was meeting Sasikala, 60, for the first time after his victory in the by-election. He had defeated his AIADMK rival E Madhusudhanan by a margin of 40,707 votes on Sunday.
By PTI: Tezpur (Assam), Dec 28 (PTI) The Assam Police has identified sensitive areas in the state ahead of the publication of the first draft of National Register of Citizens (NRC) and said the Army might be called in if needed.

After attending a high-level security meeting of the Unified Command, Director General Mukesh Sahay said some areas of a few NRC Sewa Kendras have been found to be sensitive and police are making efforts to ensure peace in those regions.

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"For keeping the situation under control, additional 85 companies of central security forces have arrived in the state in two batches," he said.

If necessary, the Army will also be engaged to avoid any untoward incident on December 31 midnight when the NRC draft is released, Sahay said after reviewing the security situation in the state.

The Assam Police is also keeping a close watch on social media platforms to check for inflammatory posts and hate comments which could vitiate law and order, he said.

Asked about ULFA(I) activities in the state, the DGP admitted that the organisation is still active some areas.

He appealed to ULFA(I) chief Paresh Barua to return to the mainstream and said that there will be zero tolerance against terror activities.

Meanwhile, ruling coalition member Asom Gana Parishad today said it will oppose any move to grant citizenship to Hindu Bangladeshis and "do all" to defeat the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in Parliament.

A massive exercise to update the NRC is being carried out in Assam in line with a directive of the Supreme Court, issued in 2005.

The exercise, however, started as late as 2015 under the Congress regime. It got a major push only after the BJP came to power with illegal immigration from Bangladesh as a poll plank.

The apex court had ordered that the first draft of the NRC be published by December 31. PTI COR TR RMS SMN

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CHENNAI: A passenger bus of IndiGo airlines caught fire on Friday morning at the Chennai airport. The incident took place while it was returning to the airport bay after dropping off passengers.

No injuries have been reported as passengers had deboarded at the time of the incident.

IndiGo passenger bus caught fire at #Chennai airport this morning as it was returning to the airport bay after dropping passengers. No passengers were present during the time of the incident; no casualties/injuries pic.twitter.com/pvwSsVz47P  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

#WATCH: IndiGo passenger bus caught fire at #Chennai airport this morning as it was returning to the airport bay after dropping passengers. No passengers were present during the time of the incident; no casualties/injuries pic.twitter.com/Fz8cpeYNmu December 29, 2017

Just two days ago on Wednesday, a Thiruvananthapuram-bound Indigo flight suffered a fuel leak at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport.

As many as 173 passengers onboard were made to disembark after the leak came into notice. The incident took place right before the flight was about to take off.

On November 13, a Bengaluru-bound Indigo Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing after the cabin crew of flight 6E-445, from Thiruvananthapuram to Bengaluru, noticed the smell of smoke inside the cabin.

It was found that the smoke was coming out of a black laptop placed inside hand baggage. It was immediately extinguished. The aircraft landed at Bengaluru airport.
New Delhi: Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has had a remarkable year with his blockbuster films like Toilet: Ek Prem Katha and Jolly LLB 2 gaining public attention in 2017. The actor is ending the year with style, by holidaying with his family in Cape Town, post wrapping the shoot of Gold.

Check out the vacation pictures right here that will give you some major travel goals.

A post shared by Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) on Dec 26, 2017 at 4:44am PST

A post shared by Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) on Dec 28, 2017 at 3:31am PST

A post shared by Twinkle Khanna (@twinklerkhanna) on Dec 27, 2017 at 8:59pm PST

On the work front, Akshay will next be seen in Gold and the much-awaited 2.0 along with superstar Rajinikanth. The actor is playing a negative role in 2.0, something which he has never done before!

Twinkle celebrates her birthday today and coincidentally, the author-actress shares with her late father and legendary star Rajesh Khanna. The gorgeous actress turned author took to Twitter and shared a beautiful rare old black and white picture of hers with daddy Rajesh Khanna.

Rajesh Khanna was hailed as the 'first superstar' of Indian cinema. The kind of stardom and fan frenzy he saw in that golden era, none could even fathom.

He featured in several films and left behind an impressive body of work. He starred in as many as 15 consecutive solo hit films from 1969 to 1971, a record which still remains unbroken.
District of Columbia: President Donald Trump chimed in on the weather Thursday, citing the cold wave sweeping across much of the central and northeastern United States as justification for his controversial move to leave the global climate change pact.

"In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year`s Eve on record," Trump tweeted from his Mar a Lago resort in Florida, where he is on holiday vacation.

"Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"

The bitter December chill in the US and Canada has forced people indoors, stranded motorists with dead car batteries and complicated firefighting duties.

The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang had also tweeted: "US to be coldest region in world relative to normal over next week."

"Please note rest of world will be much warmer than normal lest anyone try to claim pocket of cold in US debunks global warming, which they will invariably and irresponsibly do," the weather reporters said.

Trump, 71, has dismissed global warming as a Chinese hoax, vowed to quit the 2015 Paris accord and tapped fossil fuel allies to key environmental posts.

His administration also dropped climate change from the list of national security threats.

This month`s cold wave caps a year that saw ferocious hurricanes, heat waves, floods and wildfires wreak global havoc.
District of Columbia: US President Donald Trump -- who has often hailed China's efforts to put pressure on North Korea -- hit out at Beijing Thursday for failing to cut off Pyongyang's oil supply, saying such moves prevented a "friendly solution" of the crisis.

"Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea," Trump said on Twitter.

"There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!"

Trump did not directly threaten to launch military action to resolve the crisis, but in recent months, Washington has promised to "utterly destroy" the regime of Kim Jong-Un if war breaks out.

South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, citing government sources in Seoul, reported earlier this week that US satellites had spotted Chinese ships selling oil to North Korean vessels dozens of times since

October.

It was not immediately clear if Trump was referring to the report or US intelligence in his tweet, or if he was accusing China -- the North`s main ally -- of directly violating sanctions targeting Pyongyang.

A State Department official later said that the US was aware that "certain vessels have engaged in UN-prohibited activities, including ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum and the transport of coal from North Korea."

"We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China," the senior official said, adding that oil is vital to the regime and its military, while coal exports have been a primary means of generating revenue.

"We condemn these acts and hope that any UNSC members, including China, work more closely together to shut down smuggling activities," the official added.

Last week, the United Nations Security Council -- with China`s backing -- slapped new sanctions on North Korea that will restrict oil supplies vital for Pyongyang`s missile and nuclear programs.

The US-drafted resolution bans the supply of nearly 75 percent of refined oil products to North Korea, puts a cap on crude deliveries and orders North Korean nationals working abroad to be sent back by the end of 2019.

The UN Security Council on Thursday meanwhile denied international port access to four North Korean ships suspected of carrying or having transported goods banned by international sanctions targeting Pyongyang, diplomats told AFP.

The ban of the four vessels brings the UN's total number of blocked ships to eight. The United States requested the most recent ban along with measures targeting ships registered in other countries, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

In recent months, Trump's administration has praised Beijing for its efforts to tame North Korea. China has voted in favour of three UN Security Council resolutions strengthening sanctions on the North since the summer.

Washington remains convinced that only pressure from the government of Chinese President Xi Jinping will persuade Kim to back down and negotiate an end to the nuclear standoff.

Beijing "has applied certain import bans and sanctions, but it could and should do more," US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday in a column published in The New York Times.
China on Friday hit back at allegations that it is illegally selling oil to North Korea, claiming there was no basis to the accusations. While the Chinese Foreign Ministry took a more circumspect tone in its response, media houses run by the government took direct aim at US President Donald Trump for his tweet on the issue.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters that Beijing had immediately investigated the tanker that had in October allegedly made a ship-to-ship sale of oil to North Korea, after the reports emerged.

She claimed that the ship, though of Chinese origin, had not docked at a Chinese port since August. "The relevant reports do not accord with facts China has always comprehensively and strictly implemented the UN Security Council's resolutions and carried out its due international obligations," Hua said.

"If there is solid evidence proving that there is on the Chinese side any violation of the Security Council resolutions, China will surely deal with it in accordance with laws and regulations," she added.

The issue had blown up, especially after a tweet from Trump, that read, "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!"

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! December 28, 2017

However, Chinese state-run media had no diplomatic balancing acts to perform. They were more direct in taking on the issue.

"This is not how a US president should behave," declared Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times, in an editorial.

"Some radicals from the US and South Korea do not speak in a responsible manner, but we hope President Trump has a broader vision... It is hoped Trump and his team will not be hijacked by irrational opinions and add fuel to the flames," it added.

Both Hua and the Global Times editorial attempted to paint China as a country that dutifully implements resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council, and carries out its international obligations.

However, China has a patchy record when it comes to compliance with a rules-based international order, as it showed with its refusal to respect an international tribunal ruling against its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
In what may be Pakistan's strongest warning to the United States yet, its Army on Thursday warned that it would not allow 'unilateral action' on its soil - even if it is undertaken by friends.

Relations between Pakistan and the US have been steadily deteriorating after repeated warnings from Donald Trump administration asking Islamabad to crackdown on home-grown terrorist outfits. Several key figures in the US administration have also warned that the country would take matters into its own hands if Pakistan does not deliver. Pakistani Army though remains determined to protect its territorial integrity. "The armed forces are working with friends and want to continue doing so, but there can be no compromise on our national honour. We do not want a conflict with our friends, but will ensure the security of Pakistan, said Pakistani Army spokesperson Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor.

DG ISPR Press Conference https://t.co/ajHk9MTzJR  Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) December 28, 2017

His statement comes on the backdrop of repeated warnings from the US. CIA Director Mike Pompeo earlier this month had said his country would ensure the elimination of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan. Earlier in the year, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in Pakistan with the same message. He later said that Islamabad was even warned terrorists in Afghanistan may soon begin looking at compromising Pakistan's territories if the country failed to act against those who supported them from their own country.



The reaction in Pakistan to US messages have been rather hostile. Security experts believe Pakistan is banking on its ties with China to counter US 'aggression' - even as it continues to maintain that it is a victim of terrorism and not its sponsor. Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif also said that the US must accept its failures and defeat in Afghanistan. "Their failures over the past 16 years in Afghanistan is before them. There will only be room for improvement if Washington accepts their defeat, their failures in Afghanistan," he had told Pakistani senate.

A media report in September said that China and Russia have assured Pakistan at the diplomatic level that they would veto any US move in the United Nations to slap economic sanctions on Islamabad over failure to eliminate terror safe havens.



In all of this, once firm allies - the US and Pakistan have now become suspicious of each other.
ISTANBUL: Turkish police detained 29 suspected Islamic State members in Ankara on Friday, state media said, in a fresh operation after arresting some 120 suspects across Turkey a day earlier as security is tightened ahead of the New Year.

Some 500 police officers took part in simultaneous raids across the Turkish capital, and many of those detained were foreign nationals, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

It said prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 46 people and that materials seized in the raids indicated some of the suspects had made preparations for an attack over New Year.

During New Year`s celebrations a year ago, a man with an assault rifle shot dead 39 people including Turks and visitors from several Arab nations, India and Canada at an exclusive nightclub in Turkey`s largest city Istanbul.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for that shooting, one of a series of attacks believed to have been carried out by the jihadists and also by Kurdish militants in Turkey in the last couple of years. A trial of those allegedly involved in the nightclub attack began this month.

Turkey will more than double the number of police officers on duty in Istanbul to 37,000 and cancel or ban public celebrations in key districts of the city on New Year`s Eve for security reasons, officials have said.
Hanoi: The deployment of 10,000 cyber warriors to fight online dissent in Vietnam adds a grim "new dimension" to controls on free speech in the Communist country, a rights group has said.

Vietnam routinely jails its critics and closely monitors activists on social media, which is not banned unlike in neighbouring China.

A top Vietnamese general this week said a 10,000-strong brigade dubbed "Force 47" has been tasked with fighting "wrongful views" spreading on the internet, according to state media reports.

It was not immediately clear what Force 47 is responsible for, but observers anticipate the cyber soldiers will escalate smear campaigns against activists online.

Rights groups rounded on the move.

Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said the cyber scouts announcement was a "shocking new dimension to Vietnam`s crackdown on dissent".

Others said the tactic is designed to squeeze online critics.

"This is just the latest plank in a campaign to curb internet freedoms at all costs," Shawn Crispin, Committee to Protect Journalists` Southeast Asia representative, told AFP Friday.

"While they can`t unplug Facebook, Instagram and the likes outright, they can apply more and more pressure on those platforms and it looks like these cyber troops are their latest attempt to do that."

Vietnam`s internet is classified as "not free", according to web watchdog Freedom House, which ranks it second only to China in Asia.

Around half of the country`s 93 million people have access to the internet, and the country also ranks among Facebook`s top 10 users by numbers.

Vietnamese officials did not respond to a request for comment from AFP.

Earlier this year the government asked Facebook and YouTube to remove "toxic content" from its sites.

In August, the president called for tougher internet controls, saying that groups have used the web to launch campaigns against the government that threaten the "prestige of the party`s leaders and the state".

A conservative leadership in power since last year has waged a crackdown on dissidents, with at least 15 arrested this year, according to Amnesty International.

Several other have been handed heavy jail terms, joining scores of activists already behind bars.

Force 47 is likely to include commentators hired to publish pro-government material and counter critics, said Madeline Earp, senior research analyst with Freedom House.

"Vietnam very much follows China`s example when suppressing internet freedom, particularly when it comes to blocking websites and arresting dissidents," she told AFP.

For some activists, the cyber troop announcement is no surprise. But activist Nguyen Chi Tuyen said the new force marked an escalation in state tactics of repression.

"The main purpose for Force 47 is to try and control news and public opinion on the internet... they want to protect the party, not protect the country," said Tuyen, more commonly known by his online handle Anh Chi.
By India Today Web Desk: Vikas Gupta's mother shared how she used to cry buckets while watching Vikas Gupta on Bigg Boss. She then went on to ask Shilpa's brother if Vikas and Shilpa are actually getting married. He said he read that too when Shilpa's mother said she had no problem if the two tie the knot, and the two have a good laugh over it.

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Shilpa Shinde said that Vikas' game in the show was over and he was not finale material. She told Puneesh that she taught him a good lesson while entertaining the viewers.

Bigg Boss announced the last contest of Ghar Aye Gharwale task and added that it was time for the family members to bid goodbye and the housemates will have to prepare a gift basket for their near and dear ones. And the one whose basket has the best emotional quotient and is well decorated will win the task.

Hina Khan put together a personalised basket for beau Rocky with coffee powder that she had previously won in a task along with her favorite perfume. Luv gifted his mother his lucky shirt--the one he had worn during his Bigg Boss audition along with the medal he won in the Sultaani Akhada.

Vikas sent his mother a ring that she had gifted him during his childhood when the family was facing financial difficulties. Shilpa cut out a picture of her father and stick it on a family photo frame saying that she had missed his picture in the frame.

Bigg Boss asked padosis to decide with mutual consent who did the best job.

Bandgi and Shilpa's brother discuss how Shilpa is very emotional but never shows it. Ashutosh revealed when Shilpa's father died , she did not come face to face with her brother and jijaji. Bandgi added that all this is taking a toll on her.

Bigg Boss told housemates that since housemates were not able to reach a consensus , and he could understand that it was a difficult task, he would allow everyone to meet their family members.

Priyank apologised to his mother who in turn asked him to not lose his cool. Luv cried like a child upon seeing his mother. Akash touched his mother's feet and see her advice. Vikas' mother broke down on seeing him and he would ask her not to cry. Puneesh and Bandgi were seen in a warm embrace and were reluctant to leave each other. Hina Khan hugged Rocky and asked him to buy loads of gifts for her.

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Shilpa fought with her tears while meeting brother Ashutosh, but got emotional.

--- ENDS ---
Award-winning documentary filmmaker and fine-art photographer Miguel Gandert shows his work highlighting his mestizaje heritage, and the fusion and tension of the relationship between Spanish Colonial and Native Cultures of the Americas. Runs through 12/29.

Querer means to want, to desire, to be in a place, with its people. In folk terminology, querencia is such a place, the center space of desire, the root of belonging and yearning to belong, that vicinity where you first beheld the light. Querencia, in collective terms, is homeland. ~Enrique Lamadrid, Nuevo Mexico Profundo

Miguel Gandert tells stories. He tells stories of his homeland, New Mexico (and beyond), its people and the cultural practices that distinguish communities from each other while simultaneously revealing their kinship. You will have to form your own words, however. Ganderts stories are told through penetrating, black and white photos. A primary focus of his work is his own mestizaje heritage and the fusion and tension of the relationship between Spanish Colonial and Native Cultures of the Americas.

Miguel Gandert, a native of Espanola, NM, is an award-winning documentary and fine-art photographer and filmmaker. His photographs have been shown in galleries and museums throughout the world and are in numerous public collections including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the National Museum of American History and Art at the Smithsonian.

Querencia: Rituals of the Rio Arriba opens Friday, October 6 at the New Mexico Humanities Council, 4115 Silver Ave SE, Albuquerque. An artists reception will be 6:00 pm  8:00 pm with an artist's discussion at 7:00 pm. The exhibit closes December 29, 2017.
By PTI: By Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Dec 28 (PTI) Nepal has signed an agreement with a Chinese cement company to invest USD 140 million to set up a plant in the countrys Dhading district, according to officials.

Huaxin Cement, the Chinese government-owned entity, yesterday signed the investment agreement with the Investment Board Nepal (IBN).

IBN CEO Maha Prasad Adhikari and Liu Jianguo, Director of Huaxin Cement, signed the agreement to invest USD 140 million to set up the cement plant in Nepal, the officials said.

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Following the agreement, the IBN needs to submit the companys investment proposal to the IBN board headed by the Prime Minister of Nepal for final approval.

The foreign direct investment (FDI) proposal of Huaxin Cement needs to be approved by the IBN board to materialise the investment.

The cement manufacturer has already obtained the limestone mining licence through competitive bidding and paid NRs 600 million for the mine located at Panikharka of Dhading district.

Huaxin Cement has submitted its plan to manufacture 3,000 tonnes of cement every day, which will be the second largest cement plant in the country.

In recent years, Chinese joint ventures have been making big investments in various sectors in Nepal making the northern neighbour the largest foreign direct investor in the Himalayan country.

Earlier this year, Nepal government had approved the FDI proposal worth USD 360 million made by Chinas Hongshi Holdings Ltd that has joint venture with Nepali cement manufacturer Shivam Cement and it is all set to start production. PTI SBP AMS ZH AMS

--- ENDS ---
The Art of Christmas: New Mexico Style

PLEASE NOTE!

Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate!

All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited!

(One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!)
President Trump in July directed the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to initiate talks with South Korea to amend the U.S.-Korea (KORUS) Free Trade Agreement, which has been in effect since March 2012, after previously advocating for withdrawal.



The United States and South Korea on Jan. 5 will begin to negotiate amendments to the now nearly six-year-old free trade agreement between the two countries.

Michael Beeman, assistant U.S. trade representative for Japan, Korea and APEC, will lead the U.S. delegation, while Myung-hee Yoo, director general from South Koreas Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, will head the South Korean delegation. The amendment negotiations will be held in Washington, D.C.

U.S. President Donald Trump in July directed the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to initiate talks with South Korea to amend the U.S.-Korea (KORUS) Free Trade Agreement, which has been in effect since March 2012. The president had earlier called for the United States to withdraw from the agreement, but shifted his stance to amending KORUS after receiving push back from industry and officials within his own administration.

The United States and South Korea convened two specials sessions of the KORUS Joint Committee, which were held on Aug. 22, 2017 and Oct. 4, 2017.

One of the key goals for the KORUS amendments for the United States is to reduce its trade deficit with South Korea.

USTR said U.S. exports to South Korea in 2016 were valued at $42.3 billion, less than $3.5 billion when the agreement was signed in 2011, a decline of 2.7 percent. U.S. imports of South Korean goods, on the other hand, rose nearly $20 billion over the same period.

From 2011 to 2016, the U.S. trade deficit in goods with South Korea more than doubled, rising from $13.2 billion to $27.6 billion.

Another key area which U.S. trade negotiators are expected to focus on is the auto sector. The U.S. deficit in the autos sector is $24 billion, an increase of 77 percent since 2011 and accounting for about 90 percent of the total $27.6 billion goods deficit in 2016, USTR said.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS. Starting from the formation of new government up to investments, signing of Armenia-EU agreement, high economic activity index: 2017 was full of numerous economic events.

ARMENPRESS has identified the most important economic events and the macro-economic indicators of 2017.

Armenia-UAE Investment Forum in Abu Dhabi

The Armenia-United Arab Emirates Investment Forum was held in Abu Dhabi in spring with the participation of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. The Forum aimed at boosting the economic ties between Armenia and the Arab states, as well as the contacts between the businessmen. Presentations on agriculture, animal husbandry, energy, healthcare, pharmaceutics, IT, tourism were held, the successful stories of foreign companies in Armenia, as well as a number of investment programs were presented.

As a result a memorandum of understanding on investments worth 100 million USD was signed between Armenias ministry of energy infrastructures and natural resources and UAE Ocean Holding LLC. The Ocean Holding LLC aims at directing investments for construction and operation of solar power plants in Armenia by using the best technologies available in the field.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedevs official visit to Armenia and the session of Eurasian Inter-governmental Council in Yerevan

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who arrived in Armenia to participate in the session of the Eurasian Inter-governmental Council, announced that the line of economic difficulties between Armenia and Russia is overcome, and the trade turnover is being restored. At the meeting with reporters the Russian PM said Russia will keep the special gas tariff for Armenia in 2018.

The session of the Eurasian Inter-governmental Council was held in Yerevan with the participation of the heads of government of the EAEU member states. The PMs reached an agreement on the program of forming a single oil market, and the works over gas will continue.

Establishment of Investors Club of Armenia and announcement of first major programs

In early 2017 the Investors Club of Armenia officially launched with the participation of the Armenian PM Karen Karapetyan and more than 3 dozen businessmen of the Armenian Diaspora of Russia. In autumn the Tashir Group of Companies announced about the plans to make more than 1 billion USD investment in Armenias energy field in the upcoming years together with the Investors Club of Armenia and international financial organizations. 900 million USD from the investments will be directed for the reconstruction of energy infrastructures and installation of energy audit devices, 200 million USD will be used for the construction of Shnogh hydropower plant.

Presentation of third series banknotes sketches

On November 22, on the occasion of the Day of Armenias National Currency, the Central Bank presented the sketches of third series banknotes to be issued in 2018. The banknotes will feature poet Paruyr Sevak (1000 AMD), chess grandmaster Tigran Petrosyan (2000 AMD), writer and dramatist William Saroyan (5000 AMD), composer Komitas (10,000 AMD), painter Ivan Aivazovsky (20,000 AMD), and Saint Gregory the Illuminator (50,000 AMD). The printing will be conducted by Giesecke & Devrient company. The banknotes will be put into circulation on November 22, 2018 on the 25th anniversary of the national currency.

Signing of Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement

On November 24 Armenia and the European Union signed the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement in Brussels. The sides expressed commitment to strengthen the comprehensive political and economic partnership and cooperation based on common values and close ties. According to specialists, the agreement will directly contribute to economic growth and job creation in Armenia.

Meghri Free Economic Zone launched

At the end of the year the Meghri Free Economic Zone launched its activity with the participation of Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan. The total cost of the construction of the Meghri FEZ is 32 million USD from which 28 million USD are capital expenditures. During the FEZ activity it is planned to attract 50-70 operating companies which will make nearly 100-130 million USD investments, will create about 1500 jobs and will export goods and services worth 250 million USD. The companies operating in the FEZ will be exempt from profit tax, VAT, excise tax and customs duties, paying only the income tax.

Macro-economic indicators and monetary-loan policy

7.3% economic activity growth was recorded in the 11 months of 2017. The export for the first time exceeded 2 billion USD. In January-November a double-digit growth was recorded in the services field (14.2%), trade turnover (14.4%), industrial production volume (12.3%), external trade turnover (26.4%), export (23.5%) and import (28%).

Finance minister Vardan Aramyan told reporters that the economic situation in 2017 was good than expected. He expressed confidence that by the end of the year the real growth will be in 5.5-6%. Under the 2017 budget the GDP growth was expected to be 3.2%, but during the year the government revised the prediction for the economic growth, reaching it to 4.3%, and it predicts 4.5% economic growth for 2018.

In 2017 the Central Bank continued conducting a promoting policy. Since 2015 the refinancing rate was reduced 12 times, and at the moment it is 6%.

Ani Nazaryan
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS. Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian visited the N military unit of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia on December 29.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the MFA Armenia, congratulating the soldiers on the occasion of the upcoming New Year and Christmas, Edward Nalbandian wished them health, endurance, peace and safe military service.

During conversation with soldiers the Foreign Minister spoke about Armenia's efforts towards settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and answered numerous questions of the attendees.

Addressing the officers and soldiers of the military unit, the Foreign Minister of Armenia noted that serving in the most established and effective army in the region, they make their invaluable contribution to Armenia's security and peace.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS. Vinar company will pay back the remaining 34 million AMD debt to farmers that emerged as a result of grape purveyance in 2015, Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Armenia Robert Makaryan told the reporters.

Vinar company still has to pay back 34 million AMD to the farmers of Ararat and Armavir Provinces. The money has not been paid back yet, but the issue was under the constant focus of the President, Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister of Armenia and by December 30 the company will pay back the remaining debt, Makaryan said.

He added that the Ministry of Agriculture is working with the governorates so as all the farmers whom the company has to pay money are informed and go to receive their money.
TOKYOFetish maven Axel Abysse has announced the release of his newest scene, Hollows, directed by UK fetish photographer Matt Spike, best known for his work with Recon, one of the largest fetish websites and apps. The movie stars fetish star Sam Syron alongside Abysse. Syron has appeared in productions from such studios such as Eurocream, DarkAlley, Club Inferno Dungeon and more. According to his bio, Sam is Irish, based in London, with tattoos, a shaved head and dark look; hes everything youd expect from a dominant top and yet he swallows fists easily.

Sam and Axel first met in Las Vegas, on the set of Club Infernos World Series of Fisting with Joey D, Hugh Hunter and Colin Briant. With many perverse interests in common, the pair got along well right away. Weeks later, when Axel traveled to London, the pair couldnt miss the opportunity to have another round: which was all captured on film in Hollows.

According to a synopsis from the studio, "Hollow" is about Roses wrapped in leather. Brutally punching Axel, Sam shows how rough he likes it before spreading his own legs, hungry for destruction.

I was very excited to shoot with my friend Sam Syron again, after we first met and had a blast in Las Vegas filming for Club Inferno Dungeon," said Abysse. "We made a true connection, on and off camera, and I believe it shows. Id been wanting to work with Matt Spike for a while, since I loved his pictures of Yoshi Kawasaki. He knows how to capture a true sex session without invasive directions, which is rare and precious. It was all very natural and we got to be ourselves; wrecking each other without limits. When you see how Sam punches me before I double-fist him, youll know it is not something that can be faked. Matts lighting and colors, the leather outfits and the sampled soundtrack I worked on really add to this piece, which Im particularly proud of.

Axels co-star Sam Syron was equally pleased with the filming, after discovering him through his Tumblr account a few years ago.

Id been a fan of Axel for years, so during the summer of 2017 when we were cast together in Club Inferno Dungeons World Series of Fisting, we hit it off straight away. We didnt get to fist each other during that scene but luckily it would be another few weeks before Axel was in London and we finally got to punch each other out. It was one of the hottest and most fun scenes Ive ever shot and watching it back makes me want to do it all over again, he said.

On top of the passionate fisting action, Hollows also offers fans top cinematography to complete the mood of a real leather dungeon fantasy. Director Matt Spike used his experience in photography to create an intimate and dark atmosphere to fully realize Axels vision.



When Axel asked me to direct the movie, I jumped at the chance because I have been interested in directing on things for a long time, said Spike. My interests are in leather culture and it was a great pleasure to see these two studs dressed up in leather. It was more a case of documenting action rather than directing a rehearsed scene. I lit the scene with a single daylight bulb and used a variety of lenses to capture interesting and sexy angles.



The scene is live now on AxelAbysse.com. Promotional materials including glamour photographs, a video trailer and more are available at zbuckz.com.
Last week, Democrats and many in the mainstream media became highly perturbed by the Trump administration's suggestion that the United States might tie continued foreign aid to support for its agenda abroad. Foreign dictators agreed. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spent the last year arresting dissidents, announced,Herein lies the great irony of the United Nations: While it's the Mos Eisley of international politics - a hive of scum and villainy - and it votes repeatedly to condemn the United States and Israel, the tyrannies that constitute the body continue to oppress their own peoples. Among those who voted last week to condemn the U.S. for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moving its embassy to Jerusalem were North Korea, Iran, Yemen and Venezuela. Why exactly should the United States ever take advice from those nations seriously?We shouldn't. And we should stop sending cash to an organization that operates as a front for immoral agenda items.The United Nations spends the vast majority of its time condemning Israel: According to UN Watch, the U.N. Human Rights Council issued 135 resolutions from June 2006 to June 2016, 68 of which were against Israel; the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization only passes resolutions against Israel; and the U.N. General Assembly issued 97 resolutions from 2012 through 2015, 83 of which targeted Israel.Meanwhile, the U.N. has done nearly nothing with regard to Syria. It has instead suggested that Israel turn over the Golan Heights to the Syrian regime. The U.N. can't even successfully prevent the slaughter of the Rohingya in Myanmar. But they certainly have something to say about whether the United States ought to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.One of the great lies of the Obama administration was that diplomacy is a foreign policy. We often heard from it that the only two alternatives were diplomacy and war. That was the stated reason for pursuing a one-sided nuclear deal with Iran that left Iran with burgeoning regional power and legitimacy.it asked.But the moment that the Trump administration uses tools of diplomacy, including financial pressure, to achieve American ends, the Left complains. Would it prefer war? Diplomacy is a tool, not a foreign policy, and the use of diplomacy to pressure other nations to follow our lead is not only smart but also necessary. That is why the Trump administration was exactly right to negotiate a $285 million cut to the U.N.'s budget. Now we ought to slash our contributions to the counterproductive organization, since we pay one-fifth of the total bill.The U.N. has always been a foolish fantasy, a League of Nations knockoff that's been about as productive and twice as irritating. It's an outmoded organization that's outlived whatever small usefulness it once had. There's no reason for us to continue cutting checks to prop up regimes that condemn us publicly for exercising the most basic standards of morality.
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.
In the past, I've been critical of commercial activity on North Carolina's public university campuses. It competes with private business, attracts unfair tax advantages, and may (in some cases) violate provisions of the Umstead Act. It's also far outside a public university's three-part mission of education, research, and service. In most cases, I think business activity has no role on campus.But last week, I discovered an exception: Howling Cow Ice Cream. The brand is new to me. But ice cream from NC State University's 300 dairy cows has been available in university dining halls and at the North Carolina State Fair for more than 50 years. NC State also has a long history of milk production, first providing milk to soldiers stationed near the school in 1918. Now, NC State's dairy farm supplies the milk for the university's dining halls as well as state prisons.What's new is that the ice cream is now sold on campus under its own label. Howling Cow Ice Cream was created in 2005, three years after I left campus. It is made on campus at the Feldmeier Dairy Processing Lab, which is part of the Department of Food, Bioprocessing, and Nutrition Science. The milk and cream come directly from NC State cows on the university's 389-acre dairy farm in Raleigh.My son and I sampled Howling Cow's chocolate ice cream last week at the student center. It was delicious. But that's not the reason that Howling Cow doesn't deserve my usual criticism of universities engaging in commercial activity. The Howling Cow model is significantly different than the economic development activities that the Martin Center has critiqued Of first importance is Howling Cow's clear educational purpose. NC State began, after all, as the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. Agricultural education remains part of the school's mission. Today, NC State offers bachelor's degrees in animal science, poultry science, agriculture and environmental technology, and food science, and has a large College of Veterinary Medicine. The school's Lake Wheeler Road Dairy Research and Teaching Farm has long been the site for students to learn about dairy farming, including hands-on experience in raising and milking cows. Before Howling Cow became a reality, students were already experimenting with making cheese, cream cheese, and ice cream. Branding and selling the product on campus gives today's students the opportunity to learn how to take a product to market. In modern educational parlance, this is "experiential education."Professors have also used Howling Cow as an opportunity to teach related subjects. In 2014, students helped improve the efficiency and sustainability of the case washer, which Howling Cow uses to clean its milk storage cases. It was a group project for Dr. Clint Stevenson's quality control in food and bioprocessing science class.Howling Cow (and other parts of NC State's Dairy Enterprise System) also qualify as part of NC State's extension mission. As a land-grant institution, NC State has an imperative to meet with farmers around the state and provide practical agricultural instruction. Howling Cow is part of those efforts. In addition to the teaching farm that supplies milk and cream for Howling Cow, the Dairy Processing Lab will soon open a Dairy and Food Education Center on campus. It will host a "Creamery Cafe" where students can buy ice cream, but also provide space for continuing education and training.Howling Cow is a significant improvement over some of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension's other activities, which I cataloged here . Some of the more questionable "services" include environmental and social advocacy and courses that have little to do with the agricultural mission of a land-grant institution.Howling Cow has also been careful to make sure its activities are legal under the Umstead Act, which forbids state entities from competing with private business. Since its passage in 1929, the Act gave campuses the authority to sell "meals" and "food" to students, employees, and guests of the UNC system. And another exception, enacted specifically for Howling Cow, allows the sale of dairy products by NC State facilities provided that the profits are used to support the Department of Food Science and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.More importantly, most of Howling Cow's activities follow the spirit of the law. While it's true that anyone can buy Howling Cow ice cream, the vast majority of the creamery's products are sold and consumed on campus. (The North Carolina State Fair is the one-longstanding-exception. But students are involved there, too. Students in the Food Science Club serve the ice cream.The program is neither designed nor intended to compete with local or national ice cream manufacturers. But it does help to offset the high cost of running a working dairy farm. Gary Cartwright, who is the director of the Dairy Enterprise System at NC State, told Our State magazine that the farm, which was once 100 percent state-subsidized, now covers 70 percent of its costs.NC State is my alma mater. It is also, figuratively, in my backyard, since I still live nearby. That sometimes means that it comes in for an unequal share of my criticism. Its activities are visible-and I hold them to a high standard. But in this case, I found something to commend. I'll definitely be back to try the other 17 flavors.
The victim, Ramesh Kumar, shot himself with the pistol issued to him, police said. No suicide note was found on him.

By Mail Today Bureau: A 50-year-old Delhi Police Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) allegedly committed suicide inside a police station in Delhi's Rohini district late on Wednesday night.

The victim, Ramesh Kumar, shot himself with the pistol issued to him, police said. No suicide note was found on him.

"The incident came to light on Thursday morning when ASI Ramesh Kumar was found lying in a pool of blood in the barracks of South Rohini police station where he was posted," said Rajneesh Gupta, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rohini). Kumar was rushed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead.

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Police said that the staff present at South Rohini police station said that Ramesh had gone to the third floor after completing his shift on Wednesday night. "Kumar was found in the barracks of the police station with a gunshot injury. It seems that he shot himself with his pistol issued to him. An inquiry is being conducted," the official said.

The pistol used by Kumar to commit the crime has been taken into possession. Kumar's body has been sent for postmortem. His family and colleagues are being questioned to find out what could have prompted him to allegedly kill himself.

Ramesh's wife could not reach the mortuary for postmortem as she was in a state of shock. She asked the officials to conduct the postmortem on Friday at Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital. Ramesh was a native of Bihar and lived with his family, including wife and two children in Narela.

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Contact: Jordan Hennessy

Jordan Hennessy jordan.hennessy@ncleg.net

Raleigh, N.C. State Sen. Bill Cook (R-District 1) is encouraging the public to submit feedback before the end of today, Friday, December 29, 2017 to the N.C. Dept. of Insurance (DOI) concerning the N.C. Rate Bureau's proposed statewide average increase of 18.7 percent in homeowner's insurance rates for 2018. Last month, the Rate Bureau filed a notice with DOI seeking increases in homeowner's insurance rates as much as 25% in parts of eastern North Carolina. However, not only is eastern N.C. encountering proposed increases, the rate filing request for an increase of 21.9% in Wake and Durham counties while seeking a 23.5% rate increase in the Charlotte/Mecklenburg area. Below is a graph of all 100 counties proposed adjustments in homeowner's insurance for 2018.A Public Comment forum was held by DOI in Raleigh on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017. Sen. Cook attend the forum and expressed displeasure towards the proposed rate hike by the Rate Bureau and how it lacks sound rationale. A similar request was made three years ago, which was denied, in part, because the Rate Bureau was not using the right models and existing rates were already too high. Since the Dec. 12th forum, DOI has received more than 2,000 comments, predominantly via email. The deadline to submit a public comment on the proposed rate hike is today. Those wishing to do so may post online comments at 2017HomeInsurance@ncdoi.gov.Cook said.Both the consent to rate notice requirements and the use of catastrophe models passed during the 2016 short legislative session via HB 287. Pursuant to the newly enacted law, homeowner's insurance carriers are now required to include a disclosure statement on their insured's initial written consent to rate forms notifying the insureds that the premium they are paying is above the rate approved by the North Carolina Rate Bureau. The disclosure statement must also be included on any renewals of or endorsements to policies where there was an increase above the approved rate. An insurer is required to give at least 30 days' notice of any consents to rate and notices.Additionally, now required under state law, certain minimum data is to be included in any property insurance rate filing where a catastrophe model is used. Moreover, the Rate Bureau is now required to identify each territory's wind and hail rate and requires the Department to publish the wind and hail rates for all territories in the State.Cook said.After the public comment period closes today, Dec. 29, 2017 DOI has 50 days to respond to the Rate Bureau. If the Insurance Commissioner does nothing, the new rates will become effective on July 1, 2018. The Commissioner can negotiate a settlement on the filing which in years past has resulted in less than the Rate Bureau's proposed increases. The Insurance Commissioner also has the option to deny the filing which would result in a hearing/trial being held on the filing.
Today, The HSUS and HSI, with a coalition of wildlife protection organizations, sued Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and USFWS, to disband the IWCC, which has been stocked by the USFWS with trophy hunters and firearms lobbyists. The lawsuit seeks to ensure that federal wildlife policy is based on sound conservation science in order to protect iconic species like the African lion, pictured above. Photo by Alamy

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By Monday, China shuts down the latest tranche of its 177 ivory-carving factories and retail outlets. This is a breathtaking outcome, with the government delivering on its pledge to end its domestic ivory trade. Chinas leaders, after beginning talks on the issues with their U.S. counterparts in 2015, made the commitment, recognizing that domestic consumption of ivory was a major factor in driving the killing of elephants throughout Africa. It is perhaps the signature campaign win  in practical and symbolic terms  in the global campaign to protect wildlife, even as we contend with other extraordinary challenges, from wildlife trafficking climate change to habitat destruction to the trophy hunting of rare species.

This year, we also worked to get Gucci and Michael Kors  two of the biggest brands in luxury fashion  to end their use of fur, from fur-bearing animals caught in the wild or tortured on fur factories. This also was the year that the iconic Ringling Bros. shuttered its operation and thereby ended the best-known traveling wild animal circus in the world.

Today, I provide a summary of other big gains in the wildlife protection field in 2017, reminding readers that The HSUS and our affiliates fight for all animals, including the wild creatures who inhabit our planet.

Advancing protections for captive wildlife

Clearly one of the big gains in wildlife protection  and certainly in the animal protection movement at large  is the progress made in shutting down wild animal acts in circuses. In May, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus closed after a 146-year run using wild animal acts, giving momentum to national and global efforts to stop subjecting animals to lifelong captivity, coercive training techniques, and unceasing travel in box cars and cages. Two of our biggest states  Illinois and New York  banned the use of elephants in circuses, and dozens of local governments took even stronger action to stop any wild animal acts, including Los Angeles and New York City. Abroad, Scotland and Italy banned wild animal acts, adding to the roster of nations that no longer tolerate this form of exploitation.

The HSUS has been a leader in the fight to end keeping dangerous wild animals as pets. This year South Carolina severely restricted the keeping of big cats, bears, and great apes. There are now only four states left with little or no laws restricting private possession of dangerous wild animals (Alabama, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin). We worked to defeat petitions in Colorado which would have exempted the Zoological Association of America  a sham accrediting organization  from the states prohibition on dangerous wild animals and allowed for the private possession of kangaroo species and sloths. We also succeeded in our federal litigation to uphold the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services prohibition on the import of giant constrictor snakes destined for the inhumane pet trade, and in litigation to ensure that captive facilities holding endangered species do not exhibit them in a manner that undermines conservation.

Stopping trophy hunting and cruel killing of wildlife

I wrote in detail about Canadas province of British Columbia banning the trophy hunting of grizzly bears  perhaps the biggest worldwide gain against trophy hunting to date. We also celebrated President Trumps pronouncement of trophy hunting of elephants and other animals as a horror show, as he called for putting a hold on a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow American hunters to bring back tusks, heads, and other body parts from elephants and lions theyd shot in Zimbabwe and Zambia. A recent federal court of appeals ruling upheld the need for the United States to strictly scrutinize imports of trophies of species threatened with extinction and invalidated the process used by the FWS to liberalize imports.

Weve been active on the domestic front too:

Gray wolves: We won in the federal courts to preserve Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the Great Lakes, forbidding trophy hunting, trapping, and hounding seasons that would have resumed in three states and that claimed more than 1,500 wolves between 2012 and 2014. Were continuing to fight congressional attempts that would delist wolves in the Great Lakes. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game also voted down a proposal to allow bait for wolf hunting.

Black bears: The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted to forego the controversial black bear hunt for 2017, but it also voted to table the hunt for the next two years  sparing this unique but dwindling subspecies of the American black bear. We also defeated legislation in Connecticut that would have opened up a trophy hunting season for black bears in the state for the first time in more than 100 years. In addition, we helped defeat a proposal in Vermont that would have opened up a spring bear-hunting season and allowed baiting of black bears, and another proposal in Virginia that would have expanded the bear hunting quota by a whopping 25 percent; after opposition from The HSUS and others it was reduced by half.

Mountain lions: The U.S. Appeals Court for the Ninth Circuit upheld Californias ban on not only killing mountain lions for trophies, but also on importing mountain lions killed in other states. A federal court in New Mexico threw out the states second attempt to dismiss our lawsuit challenging the states barbaric cougar trapping season. The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Commission voted against a proposal to expand hounding of mountain lions on public lands throughout much of the state. We successfully defeated four bills in Oregon that would have repealed a ballot measure we passed in 1994 to ban bear baiting and hounding of mountain lions.

Wildlife killing contests: We led the effort to pass a law placing a moratorium on cownose ray killing contests in Maryland, and continue to work toward seeing these cruel events stopped altogether. We also launched our new, comprehensive toolkit, Wildlife Killing Contests: Ending the Blood Sport in Your Community, which provides advocates with guidance on how to combat this practice.

Ending wildlife trafficking and domestic poaching

Nevada became the seventh state to outlaw the trade in parts and products from wild animals threatened by poaching and wildlife trafficking and the 12th state to end the sale of shark fins. Species protected in the new Nevada law include elephants, rhinos, sharks, lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, pangolins, sea turtles, rays, narwhals, walruses, and hippopotamuses. New Jersey and Nebraska passed legislation to join the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact. The compact is a nationwide law enforcement network aimed at preventing lawbreakers who have lost their hunting, fishing, and/or trapping privileges in one state for committing poaching crimes or violations, from carrying out those activities in other states. Only two states in the country (Hawaii and Massachusetts) have yet to join.

We also successfully challenged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services decision to withhold copious wildlife trade data from the public.

Advancing wildlife fertility control and other forms of humane wildlife management

The HSUS has long been the leader in advancing fertility control as an alternative, method to manage wildlife populations, replacing lethal culling and unnecessary removals and gathers. We have three ongoing field programs that highlight the effectiveness of fertility control to manage wildlife populations in a humane manner: 1) We concluded our first year of a five-year fertility control project to stabilize and reduce the wild horse population in Vieques, Puerto Rico, by treating more than 270 adult females with immunocontraception (ZonaStat-H). The island is estimated to have more than 2,000 horses; 2) we launched the first-ever project designed to promote the humane, sustainable management of wild burros by assessing the feasibility of using immunocontraception to manage a wild burro population in the Black Mountain Herd Management Area in northwestern Arizona; and 3) we completed the fourth year of a multi-year project administering immunocontraception to white-tailed deer in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. After years of ground-breaking research, the immunocontraception we have been using was officially registered for deer (ZonaStat-D) by the Environmental Protection Agency.

With the Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control, we hosted the 8th International Conference on Wildlife Fertility Control in Washington D.C. and brought together scientists, veterinarians, managers, policy-makers and advocates from a range of disciplines to discuss advances within the growing field of wildlife fertility control.

For this field season, our teams traveled to seven different project sites, translocating 1,147 prairie dogs to protected conservation areas and improving 801 acres of habitat. We partnered with state and local agencies, NGOS, tribes, scientists, and developers to make it all happen for this imperiled keystone species. We conducted two projects in Montana creating and restoring large-scale prairie dog ecosystems to not only support the prairie dogs themselves, but also their associates, including North Americas most endangered mammal, the black-footed ferret. We worked in South Dakota to help more than 280 prairie dogs and create additional protected habitat.

After working with The HSUS for the past two years, the New York City mayors office decided not to round up and kill Canada geese this year, for the first time in the past seven years. (More than 5,000 geese have been killed in yearly roundups since 2010.) The city is using egg addling and other humane methods suggested by The HSUS. Montgomery County, Maryland, also decided not to round up and kill geese this year. We are also providing egg addling training to park staff in Boston. After the cities of Arcadia and Costa Mesa, California, abandoned plans to trap and kill coyotes, city leaders passed humane coyote management plans instead.

Hands-on training: Our team provided local and statewide trainings on humane wildlife conflict resolution techniques, reaching an audience of nearly 1,000 animal control and police officers, shelter staff, wildlife rehabilitators, and park staff. In addition, we consulted with and provided information about humanely solving conflicts with wildlife to community leaders in more than 250 communities in 2017.

Global successes for wildlife

After a 30-year battle, commercial tuna fleets wont be able to flood the U.S. market with tuna caught by chasing dolphins and setting nets on the air-breathing mammals, after the World Trade Organization ruled in October that the United States has not engaged in unfair trade practices with Mexico by placing restrictions on tuna imports. Rakuten, the largest Japanese online retailer and other prominent businesses, have banned all sales of elephant ivory. Lions, leopards, giraffes, chimpanzees, sharks, and other key species received overwhelming support for critical international treaty level protections at the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, this years largest and most important multilateral conservation meeting. HSIs direct involvement included coordinating with and advising government representatives in the listing efforts. Working with enforcement agencies in India, HSI assisted in seizing four pieces of ivory, more than 20 kilograms of deer antlers, and more than a kilogram of pangolin scales from illegal trade. Five individuals were arrested. Also in India, our HSI team helped end the sales of wild animals, including elephants and birds, at the Sonepur fair. As part of our continuing campaign to end the demand for rhino horn in Asia, we educated more than 6,000 high school students in fun and educational events on the evils of using rhino horn.

While we celebrate the gains, this has also been a year of setbacks. There has been an extraordinary attack on wildlife in Alaska, with Congress and the Department of the Interior teaming up to unwind rules to protect predators on national wildlife refuges and national preserves. Congress also opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, and there are attacks to reduce the size of a number of critical national monuments. The Interior Department rolled back a directors order to phase out the use of lead ammunition and fish tackle on national wildlife refuges, in the face of overwhelming evidence that the toxic compound left behind kills millions of wild animals and also poses a threat to human health.

These fights are too big and too important to stay on the sidelines, and in the year ahead, well be in the lead, fighting to protect species and habitat and fighting cruelty to wildlife wherever we see it.
5 Causes of Nursing Home Resident Anxiety Unfortunately, for many reasons anxiety happens more often by long-term care residents than by those who live in
Despite the official certification of Doug Jones' victory, a quick booting from the courts, pleas from fellow Republicans, and the sheer implausibility of his voter-fraud claims, Roy Moore continues to deny that he lost this month's special Senate election. Though losing by some 20,000 votes after teen sex assault allegations came his way, all that matters is God's truth.

"I have stood for truth about God and the Constitution for the people of Alabama. I have no regrets. To God be the glory," the accused child predator said.

"Election fraud experts from across the country have agreed that this was a fraudulent election," he claimed, offering no specifics.

"I've had to fight not only the Democrats but also the Republican Senate Leadership fund and more than $50 million in opposition spending

from the Washington establishment."
Business / Local

by Staff Reporter

MORE than 20 top companies in Bulawayo have recorded positive growth this year as evidenced by increasing capacity utilisation, fresh investment and opening of new plants.According to the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), investors have shown renewed interest in Bulawayo with the manufacturing sector on a gradual rebound despite numerous challenges facing the economy."Several companies have of late shown renewed interest in the city and existing firms are increasing their capacity utilisation and establishing new branches whilst those that had closed shop are re-opening with others opening new plants," said CZI Matabeleland Chapter president, Mr Joseph Gunda."Various surveys conducted by the Industry and Commerce Ministry and CZI, point to the second largest city slowly crawling back towards revival, with some key sectors making positive strides in servicing both the local and export markets."CZI has since noted many companies that have shown growth potential in the city. Among these is Monarch Steel, a division of Treger Group of Companies, which has recorded 167 percent increase in export volumes since last year. Agro-processing giant, United Refineries Limited is now diversifying its product portfolio to offer the full traditional soap brands-geisha and has recently ventured into salad cream making. Blue Ribbon Foods reopened its operations at the beginning of the year and has created employment opportunities in the city. Pharmaceutical giant, Datlabs Limited has also increased its capacity utilisation to over 78 percent while Merprin Founders has also grown its output and is expanding export market base.Arenel Biscuits has also increased its investment and diversified into manufacturing beverages and snacks. A few months ago leading confectionary firm, Bakers Inn, commissioned a new plant in Bulawayo after investing $5 million, thereby increasing capacity and domestic supply. Similarly, Proton Bakery also opened shop in Bulawayo and is aggressively penetrating the regional market and offering good competition to Lobels and Bakers Inn, said Gunda.Shepco Group has recently acquired Shepco BMA Fasteners, which is now operational and extending its operations regionally. Meanwhile, General Beltings' half year results show that turnover has increased by 47 percent with capacity utilisation also rising from 20 percent to 41 percent. Mr Gunda is general manager at General Beltings.Motovac, the Botswana-based company, has opened distribution network in Bulawayo while Choppies Supermarket has been on an aggressive drive spreading her wings to 32 branches countrywide and 2 000 plus workforce. Regional cement maker, PPC Zimbabwe has also expanded and extended its tentacles into Mashonaland where it has set up an $87 million plant in Msasa, Harare. As a result the company's capacity has doubled from 700 000 tonnes of cement to 1.4 million tonnes annually following the commissioning of the Harare plant.FAW, one of the world's leading Chinese headquartered automotive manufacturing companies, has highlighted that it will soon set up an automobile assembly plant in Bulawayo, a development CZI says will boost efforts underway to revive the city's industrial sector. The company, which has operations in South Africa, had agreed in principle with the Bulawayo City Council to set up a vehicle assembling plant in the city."The company recently opened a showroom and offices in Bulawayo in addition to the one it has been operating in Harare over the last five years," said Mr Gunda.He said several other companies in the engineering sector that have shown positive signs of turnaround include, Bottom Armature Engineering, Zim Hosiery, Ceratrex, Nimir & Chapman, Grills Abattoirs, Ref Air, Pump & Steel and many others. While the CZI manufacturing sector survey showed capacity utilisation rising from 34.3 percent in 2015 to 47.4 percent in 2016, year 2017 recorded a 2.3 percent drop to 45.1 percent. Industrialists, however, said the drop, though negative, reflected increased capacity due to retooling programmes as firms expanded operations and increased volumes.Most companies have benefited from the removal of certain goods from the Open General Licence (OGIL) through the introduction of restrictive measures on imports by Government. Major supporting legislation included Statutory Instruments (SI) 138, 126 and 64. SI 138 was introduced soon after dollarisation and covered such products as cooking oil and soap. SI 126 was introduced on 18 August 2014 covering products such as cement, milk, conveyor belts and rubber related products. SI 64 of 2016 was the latest and widely referred instrument covering a wide range of products. Other successful economies such as China, India, turkey, Ethiopia and South Africa have employed the strategy to revive, boost and protect their industries.Prospects are high that the adoption of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) model, to which Bulawayo has been designated, will add impetus to increased investment in the city. Government has already gazetted the SEZ Act and appointed a board led by Dr Gideon Gono to spearhead this initiative.Mr Gunda, however, said the manufacturing sector continues to face a myriad of challenges chief among them being a shortage of foreign currency to import key raw materials and machinery spares, high costs of production, inadequate capital for retooling to replace antiquated machinery, unavailability of affordable lines of credit, competition from imported goods mainly due to the use of a stronger US$ currency and high interests rates on loans.
News / National

by Staff Reporter

Zimbabweans based in South Africa have raised concerns over the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority's (Zimra) random variation of the validity of Temporary Import Permits (TIP) for those driving foreign registered vehicles into the country.The worst affected are those visiting the country and fall under the Zimbabwe Special Permits (ZSP), which was recently replaced with the Zimbabwe Exemption Permits (ZEP).Under the country's customs laws, visitors or Zimbabweans working outside the country who drive foreign registered vehicles, are allowed to bring in the cars duty free for a period of 30 days and renew at the expiry of that window. In case of defaulting, the vehicles are either seized or the owners are fined $500. In addition, motorists are allowed a window period of one week to exit the country from the date of the expiry of the TIP.However, unscrupulous customs officers take advantage of this misinformation and fleece motorists of money during the one week window. In separate interviews, disgruntled motorists said the customs authority was restricting them to a visit of 10 days instead of the usual 30 days."This is despite the Department of Immigration having allowed us a stay of 30 days. In addition, the South African government has made a pronouncement that we can travel with the ZSP pending the finalisation of our new permits, which is likely to be completed in March next year, "said one motorist.
Amazon Offering 3 Free Books With Audible Trial Membership

Kick Off The New Year With Free Books With This One-Day-Only Deal

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

With Christmas finally done and over with, most of us are looking forward to the new year and all the resolutions that come with it. Tons of people will resolve to finally get in shape (though they'd be better off looking for love as they are), but in general improving one's self is a big theme when it comes to resolutions. Even if you vaguely resolve to "be kinder to others," you're still talking about you.

One good way to do that (and one that's not often explored) is by reading more. Reading is one of the most beneficial things you can do, whether it's to gain knowledge, expand your worldview or become a better writer yourself by soaking in new techniques and styles. Our high literacy rate is one of the more overlooked positive aspects of our society.

Most of us don't have a lot of time to just sit down and read, unfortunately, which is why audiobooks are so great. They can make any commute breeze by, and if listening to books on tape sounds weird to you, consider what you already listen to: what is a podcast if not a book made up on the spot? What's a song if not a story told through music? What is talk radio if not hot, dumb trash?

If you are interested, today is your lucky day. On December 29 (and not a day longer), Amazon is offering three free audiobooks to anyone who signs up for a (free) trial for Audible, their on-demand audiobook program. Every month, you get one credit for a free book (regardless of price), and members get an additional 30% off on all other books to build their library. If you don't like a book, exchange it for another  no questions asked. You'll get a 30-day free trial when you sign up, and a trial period of $4.95 per month for your first three months. After that, it's still just $14.95 per month. Not a lot to pay for having someone read to you whenever you want.

To get you started, here are a few recommendations that have been popular with our readers in the past. They all offer some insight into how you can become a better version of yourself.

Shoe Dog

In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company's early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world's most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.

Hear it Today on Audible

Ready Player One

Are you an 80s baby who fondly remembers the video games of the era? You'll love this. Part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

Hear it Today on Audible

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

Jocko Willink and Leif Babin share hard-hitting Navy SEAL combat stories that translate into lessons for business and life. With riveting firsthand accounts of making high-pressure decisions as Navy SEAL battlefield leaders, this audiobook is equally gripping for leaders who seek to dominate other arenas.

Hear it Today on Audible

AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. To find out more, please read our complete terms of use.
By PTI: (EDS: Updating with quotes from Emirates spokesperson)

New Delhi, Dec 29 (PTI) Shikhar Dhawan today slammed Emirates for unprofessional conduct after his wife and kids were stopped at Dubai airport from boarding a connecting flight to Cape Town, a claim denied by the airline.

Dhawan vented his ire on social media after reaching South Africa without his family. His wife and son were stopped at Dubai airport, from where the Indian team took the connecting flight to Cape Town, where the first Test will be played from January 5.

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Dhawan said that his family was asked to show birth certificates and some other documents as identification proofs, which they werent carrying.

"Absolutely unprofessional from Emirates. I was on my way 2 SA with my family & was told that my wife and kids cant board the flight from Dubai to SA. I was asked to produce birth certificates & other documents for my kids at the airport which we obviously didnt have at that moment," Dhawan wrote on his Twitter handle.

"They are now at Dubai airport waiting for the documents to arrive. Why didnt @emirates notify about such a situation when we were boarding the plane from Mumbai? One of the emirates employee was being rude for no reason at all," the Indian opener said in another tweet.

However, a spokesperson from the airline said they were just following the rules.

"We note that the family was not able to continue their journey together as planned. We regret any inconvenience caused," the spokersperson said in a statement.

"However, since 1 June 2015, according to South African regulations, anyone travelling to the country with a minor under 18 needs to prove parenthood or guardianship ? while adults travelling alone with their children need to show that they have the consent of their non-travelling partner.

"Like all airlines, we must comply with the laws of every country in which we operate and this is a shared responsibility with passengers, who are required to hold valid travel documents for all countries on their itinerary," the spokesperson added.

India, including newly-married skipper Virat Kohli, checked into their hotel in Cape Town last night.

India will play three Tests, six one-dayers and three T20Is during the 56-day-long tour. PTI ATK JC BS ATK

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The United States remains deeply concerned over the dire humanitarian conditions of the Venezuelan people brought about by the authoritarian regime of Nicolas Maduro. These hardships include lack of access to affordable food and vital medicine, medical supplies, malnutrition, and a rise in malaria cases, among other harsh realities.

According to press reports, those of limited means are being hit hard by the economic situation in Venezuela. Families are going hungry, and reports indicate child mortality rates have increased in the past years. Infant formula has become increasingly scarce or unaffordable. In addition, some children choose to take their chances living on the streets rather than remain hungry at home.

All of this in a country that has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. But years of economic mismanagement and theft by the ruling Maduro elite of the countrys wealth has led to the countrys inability to reap the benefits of substantial oil reserves. A 2016 survey by three Venezuelan universities found that nine out of 10 households had become food insecure in Venezuela.

The United States stands ready to provide emergency assistance, including food and nutrition commodities, to affected populations. "These provisions," said State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, "could be made available immediately, if only the government of Venezuela would accept international humanitarian assistance.

"We repeat our call on the Maduro regime to stop denying the needs of its people and to allow aid from the international community to reach them," said Ms. Nauert.

U.S. sanctions do not prohibit Americans from providing food, medicine, and other humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan people. Ms. Nauert stressed that "U.S. sanctions are not directed at the people of Venezuela. Nor need they remain "permanent."

"Our sanctions can be adjusted for those who support Venezuelas return to a democratic and constitutional path," explained Ms. Nauert. But without changes forthcoming from the Maduro regime, "additional measures remain under active consideration," warned spokesperson Nauert.

In the meantime, it is incumbent on the Venezuelan government to immediately permit the inflow of humanitarian assistance to its people.
The number of octopuses caught in Galicia doesnt begin to cover demand, which has recently exploded due to mass tourism. In 2016 imports soared to over 24,000 tons, according to the Spanish Secretary of State for Commerce, double the amount in 2005, and there are now 24 different countries supplying the region with its most popular seafood , be it alive, refrigerated, frozen or smoked. Most of it, however, is sourced from Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Peru, Mexico and Chile.

The fish market at Bueu where they unload and auction off the octopus from Ria de Pontevedra. OSCAR CORRAL

According to Jose Manuel Rosas, who has been a fishing industry boss in Bueu for the past 20 years, there is a lot of dishonesty when it comes to the Galician octopus (pulpo) and he wants more control and labeling to avoid this. Most is from elsewhere but they sell it as a local product and the tourists think its ours. This has to change as its not doing us any favors, he says.

Galicia imports octopus from 24 different countries to keep up with demand

The demand for octopus is proportionally greater in Galicia than the rest of Spain. The region bought 31,148 tons of the 55,148 tons imported into Spain in 2016. The national figure has been rising since 2005 when just 30,809 tons of cephalopod was imported. Now, however, production in the traditional fishing grounds scarcely covers 25% of annual demand.

Consumers pay the same for local and imported produce and very few know how to tell the difference. A kilo of local fare is worth between 6 and 12, depending on the supply, while imported octopus costs less, but it is sold in restaurants and hotels as though it were Galician.

Drop in the catch

While imports rocket, the Galician catch fell this summer by almost half, the biggest drop since 2010, though Galician fishermen are used to fluctuations.

Low productivity is due to a number of factors mainly linked to climate. However, scientists have failed to agree on how exactly the climate is affecting production. Although 2016 was an exceptional year for the sector with the local market selling 718,257 kilos at a turnover of 4.2 million, this summer production dropped by 369,867 kilos while turnover remained at 2.9 million due to higher prices.

The port which brings in the most octopuses is Ribeira in the Galician province of A Coruna: the site is Europes biggest port for inshore fishing. Last summer  from July 1 to September 30  76,576 kilos was caught at a market value of 626,000, according to the Fisheries Working Group of the regional government. The second most important port for inshore fishing is Bueu in Pontevedra which sold 46,000 kilos for 400,000. Next is A Coruna port with 43,668 kilos and then Vigo with 36,766 kilos. Between both these markets, turnover was more than 643,000.

Octopuses in the Bueu market OSCAR CORRAL

In spite of the drop in production, the Galician government insists that last season was exceptional, given that prices were the highest they have been in the past 15 years. As for 2017, they added that the catches are 45% larger than those of the last two years, which in economic terms means 83% more than the last eight years average.

The definitive figures for 2017/2018 are not yet available as the last few months are yet to be factored in. But local fishermen expect the volume of produce to bounce back, taking into account that there are also more working days than in the past couple of years.

Climate change

The persistent drought in Galicia is also having an effect on fishing. Its been proven that the spawning cycles are changing, says Jose Antonio Perez, the president of Ribeira fisheries guild. And that has a big effect on the saltiness of the water because the rivers dont have the necessary flow. And that means that species such as pulpo, which are very difficult to control, behave differently.

But, according to Jose Manuel Rosas in Bueu, An octopus is a most mysterious animal. It has a lot of production peaks and is one of the least studied resources by scientists. I am not yet alarmed and I believe it will recover because no one knows for sure whats happening.

English version by Heather Galloway.
A waiter serves customers in a bar in Ronda, Andalusia. paco puentes

Nearly 20 employment contracts were signed in Spain in the first 11 months of 2017. The total for the year will be around 22 million  a new record. Few figures better explain the dominant trend in the Spanish job market in recent years: robust recovery offset by a large number of temporary jobs and plenty of part-time employment among people who want to work more hours, as well as by stagnant wages.

Only 36% of employment contracts signed every month are actually new contracts; the rest are contract renewals

Overall, 2017 has seen significant improvement in the Spanish job market with the number of people signed on with the countrys social security scheme  a key indicator of net job creation  up by over 630,000, a rise of 3.58%. And the unemployment rate is down more than 10 percentage points since the peak of the countrys economic crisis, although at 16.4% it remains among the highest in the European Union and among developed countries in general.

At this stage of emerging out of the crisis this is within normal limits. The growth of temporary work is a characteristic feature, explains Josep Oliver, professor of applied economics at the UAB university in Barcelona. At the beginning of 2014, job destruction meant just 23% of employment contracts in Spain were for part-time or temporary work, but that figure was already back up to 27.4% by summer of that year.

Spain lost 18% of its jobs [during the crisis]: this has recovered by 10 percentage points but there is way to go. Basically, we are still absorbing the impact of the crisis, Oliver notes, admitting that the key role played by precarious employment in the recovery process has been highly persistent.

The total number of new employment contracts signed in Spain in 2017 will be around 22 million  a new record

The nature of temporary work in Spain is also changing with the number of very short-term contracts on the rise: in 2017, contracts of five days or fewer made up close to 26% of the total, according to the Spanish public employment service (Sepe). Florentino Felgueroso, researcher with Spanish applied economics institute Fedea, says this phenomenon could be linked to the development of new technologies which permit more rapid adjustment and the signing of contracts via mobile phones.

Felgueroso adds that access to stable employment has become more difficult. While the number of permanent contracts is on the rise, growth is not strong enough to reduce part-time and temporary employment levels. At the same time, the total number of such jobs that workers  and especially young people  have before they find a permanent, ongoing position is also growing.

The researcher highlights data from his Nada es gratis (Nothing is free) blog to demonstrate this. From 2008 to 2016, people had to spend 94 months in part-time or temporary employment before finding a permanent position. From 2001 to 2007, this figure was 57 months. The other key figure is that only 36% of employment contracts signed every month are actually new contracts. The rest are contract renewals signed by people who are still hoping for to find permanent work.

And landing a permanent job does not always equate to stability. As Inmaculada Cebrian, economics lecturer at the Univesity of Alcala, point out, just 40% of permanent positions in Spain last more than two years. While she does note this figure is from 2015 and the economy recovery may improve this situation, she believes rough data shows that employment quality has seen little improvement. There has been little change in the pattern in Spain, she says.

Basically, we are still absorbing the impact of the crisis Josep Oliver, professor of applied economics, UAB

The one segment of the labor market which appears to have weathered the economic crisis is part-time work. This was the only type of work which withstood the peak of the crisis, even seeing growth. There has now been a slight reduction in part-time work but chronic under-employment continues to exist: some 60% of people on part-time contracts would like to work more.

But the high percentage of temporary contracts hides the drop in under-employment. Carlos Martin, head of economics at the Spanish general workers union, the CC OO, notes the percentage of casual and temporary workers is already higher than it was before the crisis among young people and in the manufacturing, retail, transport and hospitality sectors  precisely those industries which have seen higher than average social security affiliation in recent months.

The labor cost issue

While the Spanish government tends to highlight data which shows a rise in permanent contracts, it is also working to improve job quality, with one proviso: any rise in employment costs must not jeopardize the current rate of employment creation of around half a million jobs a year.

After the holiday period, the government plans to continue negotiations aimed at a creating a single model for temporary contracts. It is also looking at punishing firms that abuse the system by imposing higher social security contributions on them. In addition, the government has announced that the national minimum wage, currently 707 a month, will rise to 850 a month by 2020.

In 2017, contracts of five days or less made up close to 26% of the total

Oliver with the UAB university believes this is an important step in showing businesses that recovery of lost competitiveness cannot be achieved by low labor costs alone. They have to make productive investments, he argues. This year Spain registered its fifth straight quarter of falling competitiveness against fellow EU members despite falling unit labor costs.

For Martin, the rise in the minimum salary comes too late. He decries the fact that Spain is coming out of this crisis more slowly than was the case with the previous two crises, putting this down to the fact that internal demand is less important. With exports doing more to drive growth, the role of the Spanish workforce is less important.

English version by George Mills.
The only daughter of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, Maria del Carmen Franco y Polo, died this Friday at her home in Madrid from terminal cancer at age 91, according to her grandson Luis Alfonso de Borbon and her official biographer, the journalist Nieves Herrero. In a message on the social media platform Instagram, Alfonso de Borbon announced God has taken Man [her nickname] (RIP) but she has not gone: she will be forever in my heart.

Dictator Francisco Franco, with his daughter Carmencita and wife Carmen Polo.

Maria del Carmen Franco y Polo was born in Oviedo on September 18, 1926, two and half years into the marriage of her parents, Maria del Carmen and the dictator Franco. She studied for her high school leaving exam with a tutor but never took the official exams. She had a peripatetic childhood as her father moved to different military bases across Spain. When Franco was named chief of the Madrid Central Command in 1935, the family moved to the Spanish capital but a few months later they moved again to the Canary Islands out of fear of a possible assassination attempt. There she lived a quiet life which she was never to entirely abandon.

At home, Carmen was called Nenuca and was also known as Morita. Her father adored her and there was mutual love and affection, according to her statements to North American historian Stanley Payne and journalist Jesus Palacios which were recorded in a her memoir Franco, my father, published in 2008.

Carmen Franco on Novermber 23, in the last photo there is of her. gtresonline

In July 1936, Franco staged a coup  a move that would usher in the Spanish Civil War and lead to a 36-year-long dictatorship. From this point on, Nenuca would be known in public as Carmencita. On the day of the uprising, Franco, fearing for the life of his wife and child, sent them both on the German ship Waldi from Las Palmas to the French port of Le Havre. They stayed in France until September, where she was known as Maria Teresa Martinez-Valdes.

When she returned to Spain, after living a short time in two palaces, one in Salamanca and another in Burgos, the family moved to Madrid, taking up residence first in the Vinuelas castle and later in the El Prado palace where she lived from March 1940 until the death of Franco in 1975.

In April 1950, Carmen married Cristobal Martinez-Bordiu, marquis of Villaverde, with whom she had seven children.

Carmen Martinez-Bordiu and her mother Carmen Franco, October 2014. WireImage

This past summer, the daughter of Franco announced she had terminal cancer. She continued in her role as the honorary president of the National Francisco Franco Foundation, created to praise the dictator who took power in 1936 after the Civil War and ruled Spain until his death.

In long conversations with her biographer Herrero, Carmencita refused to judge her father: When they tell me he was a dictator I don't deny it but I don't like it, because it's normally said to me as an insult. But to me it doesn't sound so bad. Up until last year, when she attended a mass in memory of her father, attendees gave the fascist salute outside the church in plain sight of the people of Madrid.

While Carmencita remained away from the media spotlight in the past year, in November 2015, in tribute to the 40th anniversary of the death of Francisco Franco, she weighed in on the controversy over whether Franco's remains should be moved from the vast Valle de los Caidos site near Madrid: I think that the dead should be left in peace, where they are, she said.

Carmen Franco and Cristobal Martinez-Bordiu with their children.

During her last months, Carmen Franco has been surrounded by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

With the death of Maria del Carmen Franco Polo, who was duchess of Franco (a title given to her by King Juan Carlos) and a Grandee of Spain, there are questions about who will inherit the family businesses and properties, many of which are in the name of Franco's sole heir. There are estimates the family fortune could be more than 500 million. The question of whether, or to whom, her titles will be passed is also to be settled.

English version by Melissa Kitson.
Ignacio Echeverria, the skateboard hero of the Borough Market terrorist attack in London, in a video screeshot. atlas

Ignacio Echeverria, the Spanish hero who fended off terrorists with his skateboard at the Borough Market attack in London in June, will be remembered with an exhibit at the Memorial Center for Victims of Terrorism, set to open in Spains Basque Country next year.

Echeverria, 39, died after trying to defend a woman who was being stabbed by one of the three terrorists who drove a vehicle into pedestrians, then attacked passersby with knives on the night of June 3. Echeverria, took on a terrorist with his skateboard and was stabbed to death.

It is worth being good even if you die because of it

Echeverrias parents

As a tribute to his valiant efforts, the Memorial Center will put the famous skateboard on permanent display. The Memorial Center is currently under construction in the old headquarters of Bank of Spain in Vitoria-Gasteiz, with another site planned for Madrid.

Once finished, the mammoth exhibition space will be divided into four sections. One will focus on the history of terrorism in Spain and the world, another on different terrorist organizations and how they target and stigmatize their victims, and a third on the political, legal and citizen response to terrorism and the last will display testimonies from the victims. The museum will also have an archive, library and a research room.

In an interview with the magazine of the Foundation of Victims of Terror, Echeverrias parents, Joaquin Echeverria and Ana Miralles de Imperial said they had decided to donate the skateboard because it is a positive thing to spread this example to children and young people, explaining that it is worth being good even if you die because of it.

The building that will house the Memorial Center to the Victims of Terrorism. L. RICO

In the interview, Echeverrias sad but proud parents recount how he and two of his friends intervened to try to save a womans life. A few meters away they saw a kind of brawl and a police officer who had fallen to the floor. Ignacio ran forward and began hitting the terrorists with his skateboard but they surrounded him and stabbed him in the back. He was stabbed twice, one [wound] was superficial but the other fatal. Echeverria was one of eight people to be killed in the terrorist attack. The policeman survived but the woman who he tried to protect died.

Despite the tragic event, his parents insist that we cannot let ourselves be scared. We have to continue living a normal life, there is nothing to fear. This was the spirit of Ignacio. We cant let them defeat us, we have to go on.

Echeverrias efforts have also been honored by the British Prime Minister Theresa May and in a series of commemorative cartoons.

Not all heroes wear a cape, some travel by skateboard. RIP Ignacio Echeverria, my humble tribute.

English version by Melissa Kitson.
By PTI: (Eds: Corrections in intro, para 2)

Chennai, Dec 29 (PTI) Sidelined AIADMK leader T T V Dhinakaran today took oath as a member of the Tamil Nadu assembly days after he won the by-election to the RK Nagar constituency represented by late chief minister Jayalalithaa.

The newly-elected MLA was administered oath by Speaker P Dhanapal in his office here after the former arrived there to a rousing reception by his supporters who lined up all along the route from his residence.

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The supporters threw flower petals at the vehicle of Dhinakaran even as they raised slogans hailing "TTV annan" (elder brother) and his recent win.

Some of them also presented him shawls and bouquets as he halted his vehicle at several places along the arterial Kamarajar road off the famous Marina Beach leading to Fort St.George, housing the assembly and the state secretariat. Standing in the vehicle through the sun-roof for sometime, the newly elected MLA waved to his supporters and also showed the victory sign of thumbs up. After the oath, Dhanapal shook hands with Dhinakaran, who has been sidelined by the ruling camp of the AIADMK along with his aunt and jailed leader Sasikala. The sidelined leader later claimed that the Palaniswami government will not last beyond "three to four months". The ruling camp brushed aside his claim with Deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam saying he cant be replying to "those who are in dreamland." A battery of Dhinakarans supporters, including key aides and disqualified MLAs P Vetrivel and Thangatamilselvan, were present at the oath-taking ceremony. Aranthangi MLA E A Rathinasabapathy was also present. He had joined the Dhinakaran camp after 18 AIADMK legislators loyal to the sidelined leader were disqualified in September. Contesting the December 21 bypoll as an independent, Dhinakaran defeated AIADMKs E Madhusudhanan by a thumping margin of 40,707 votes, dealing a blow to the ruling camp headed by Chief Minister K Palaniswami. The bypoll was held to fill the vacancy caused by death of then sitting member Jayalalithaa on December 5 last year. The ruling camp has attributed Dhinakarans victory to a "tacit understanding" between him and principal opposition DMK, whose candidate N Maruthu Ganesh finished a poor third and lost deposit in the bypoll. Dhinakaran, who has vowed to oust the Palainiswami government for betraying Sasikala, will make his legislature debut next month when the assembly meets on January 8 for its first session of 2018 with the customary Governors address. Dhinakaran is a former MP, having represented AIADMK in both houses of Parliament between 1999 and 2010. He was made party deputy general secretary by Sasikala ahead of going to the Bengaluru prison after the Supreme Court convicted her in a corruption case in February last. Speaking to reporters after taking oath as MLA, Dhinakaran urged the top "5-6" persons in the ruling camp to "step away as an atonement of your mistakes" and allow continuation of "Amma (Jayalalithaa) rule." The RK Nagar verdict has shown "we are the true AIADMK, working under the aegis of Chinnamma and in the lines of Amma and Puratchi Thalaivar MGR (party founder, the late MG Ramachandran)," he said. Sasikala, serving a four year jail term in Bengaluru in the Rs 66.65 crore disproportionate assets case, is addressed as Chinnamma by her supporters. Dhinakaran has been accusing the rival camp of "betrayal," in an apparent reference to the revolt against Sasikala by Panneerselvam and Palaniswami patching up with him later. Palaniswami was handpicked by Sasikala to lead the state after she was convicted in the assets case. "Be it the Chief Minister or Deputy Chief Minister or four others (senior Ministers)---their conscience knows how Chinnamma or TTV had helped them on different occasions. They (rival camp leaders) have come to a dead end. If they dont change they will vanish from politics," he claimed. Without naming any Minister, he said people would make them change if they did not do so on their own. He said the ruling dispensation should ponder over the bypoll verdict and a "self-assessment" would reveal "betrayal has been given a reply," by the voters. He also claimed many on the ruling side "are with us mentally though not physically... Many have started coming towards us." Expressing hope of a favourable court verdict on the pleas against disqualification of 18 MLAs, he said that in such a scenario the Palaniswami government could face a trust vote. "During voting our sleeper cells will do their job," he said. He has been claiming his "sleeper cells" were embedded in the ruling camp and would be activated at appropriate time. Dhinakaran also chided the ruling camp for expelling his supporters in the wake of the RK Nagar bypoll defeat, saying "people are laughing at these expulsions." Earlier in the day, Panneerselvam and Palaniswami cracked the whip on 132 pro-Dhinakaran functionaries in AIADMK, expelling them from the party for bringing "disrepute" to it. They had yesterday sacked 44 persons, besides five others on Monday. Key Dhinakaran aides including Vetrivel and Thangatamilselvan had been removed as party district secretaries. PTI SA VS SMN

--- ENDS ---
Thousands of people poured into the streets in the northeastern city of Mashhad on Thursday protesting rising prices and the general failure of the Islamic Republic in creating jobs, fighting corruption and providing a minimal degree of welfare.

Thanks to social media hundreds of video clips and photos were posted online of angry protesters chanting anti-government slogans.

Death to the dictator, Death to [Hassan] Rouhani, Dont be afraid, we are together, Not Gaza, nor Lebanon, my life for Iran were reportedly among the slogans.

During the street protests in 2009, Death to the dictator was generally perceived as directed at Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

There have been many single-issue protests recently in Iran, but this latest outburst in Mashhad were more reminiscent of the anti-regime protests of eight years ago than workers strikes or smaller gatherings of cheated bank depositors.

According to some opposition sources hundreds of people were detained by security forces during the demonstrations, but an official of Mashhad's prosecutor's office put the number of at 52.

Security forces used water cannons and teargas to confront and disperse the crowds, which led to clashes and injuries.

In addition to Mashhad, there were smaller protests in a few other cities including Birjand, Kashmar, Noushahr, Neyshabour and Yazd.

In some of the clips posted on social media, demonstrators are heard chanting slogans lauding the pre-revolution era.

Long live Reza Shah, a reference to the first Pahlavi king who is deemed as the architect of modern Iran. Reza Shah was also well-known for his secular politics. Another slogan was Iran haphazard, without the Shah, apparently referring to the late king of Iran, Mohammadreza Shah Pahlavi, who was forced into exile in 1979 giving way to the the rise of a theocracy in Iran.

Mashhad is the second most populous city in Iran after the capital city Tehran. It is also home to the holiest site in Iran, the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Shiia Imam.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has belittled U.S. President Donald Trump, saying his tough stance toward Iran will fail like efforts by his hard-line predecessor, Ronald Reagan.

"Reagan was more powerful and smarter than Trump. He was a better actor in making threats. He also moved against us and shot down our plane," Khamenei said in a series of tweets and in a televised speech on December 27.

In 1988, a U.S. warship shot down an Iranian passenger plane over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 aboard, in an incident that Washington said was a mistake. Tehran said it was a deliberate attack on Iran, which was then at war with neighboring Iraq.

"But Reagan is gone and, according to our beliefs, he now faces God's retribution...while Iran has made great advances in all areas since Reagan's time," Khamenei said.

"This trend will continue under the current U.S. president, and any hopes on their part that the Islamic republic would back off or weaken is futile."

Trump has called Iran, where Khamenei has final say over government policies, a "dictatorship," and his administration has imposed a series of tough new sanctions over Iran's ballistic-missile activities, which the United States maintains violate the spirit of the 2015 nuclear agreement.

The administration also accuses Iran of arming Yemen's Shi'ite Huthi rebels in their war against Yemen's Saudi-backed government -- a charge Tehran denies.

After providing what the administration said was evidence that Iran manufactured the missiles the Huthi rebels shot at Saudi Arabia this year, the United States recently called on the United Nations to impose new sanctions on Tehran for violating UN arms embargoes.

Khamenei in his speech expressed satisfaction that what he said were the true feelings of the United States toward Iran have been laid bare under Trump, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said.

In the past, U.S. officials sought to fool Iran by hiding their true feelings, Khamenei said.

Khamenei also lashed out at Trump for recently recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital -- a move later condemned in a rare vote by the United Nations.

With reporting by Reuters, The Times of Israel, and The Hill
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

Trend:

Perhaps there is hope for this world after all, wrote Raoul Lowery Contreras, an American political scientist, after his recent visit to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

In his article entitled 'Holiday hope: A glimpse of Christians, Muslims at peace' published by The Hill the author makes strong accent on tolerance environment and peaceful co-existence of different confessions in Azerbaijan.

The author noted his surprise when seeing Christmas decorations in a largely Muslim country.

Christmas? I exclaimed, Really? At 4 oclock in the morning, I was staring at Christmas decorations  in a Muslim country surrounded by Muslim countries such as Iran, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Muslim Russian republics, and just two borders with Christian Armenia and Georgia," the author notes.

"Yet, a few hundred yards from the junction of the airport road and the main highway into the city, my eyes widened and my brain awoke: Here, in a country that is more than 95 percent Muslim, that was ravaged by hundreds of years of Russian and atheist Soviet autocratic rule, were a dozen reindeer made of wire and electric lights. A half-mile farther, a government-run SOCAR gas station was lit up with Christmas lights and decorations, including a Santa Claus."

Contreras was to Baku to attend the conference 2017 - Year of Islamic Solidarity: Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue.

"The conference was attended by delegates from all over the world: the United States, Japan, Indonesia, India, Central Asia, Russia, Pakistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, the Vatican and many European countries," he adds.

"Azerbaijans president, Ilham Aliyev, opened the conference. Translated into English, his words were tolerant and augured well for the conference; but he did point out that 20 percent of the country is occupied by Armenian forces that have ignored United Nations resolutions demanding their withdrawal.

Every other speaker but one joined President Aliyev in talking about peace, tolerance and co-existence. And why not? Azerbaijan is known for its tolerant environment among religions, its religious harmony among Sunni and Shia Muslims," the author notes.

Contreras wrote about his visits to a Russian Orthodox church in Baku as well as a Roman Catholic church, a Sunni Muslim mosque, a Shia Muslim mosque and a Jewish synagogue.



"There is also an Armenian cathedral in Baku with more than 5,000 ancient Armenian books that the Azerbaijan government is maintaining pristinely. Other faiths function freely in Azerbaijan, including Bahais and Zoroastrians," the author notes.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev congratulated the Azerbaijanis worldwide.

The president conveyed his best wishes regarding the Dec. 31 date - the Day of Solidarity of World Azerbaijanis, which epitomizes such noble feelings as national unity and love of the Motherland.

The fact that all our compatriots whose hearts always beat with a sense of love for their native land are attached to the Motherland, to national and spiritual values, and the further strengthening of their ties with Azerbaijan are always in the spotlight for our state. The consistent measures based on the ideology of Azerbaijanism put forward by national leader Heydar Aliyev have given an impetus to even closer unity of our compatriots living abroad, have significantly strengthened the role of Diaspora organizations in developing the mutually beneficial relations between our country and states of the world, said Ilham Aliyev.

The president went on to say that today Azerbaijan has great economic, political and cultural potential.

"This potential opens up ample opportunities for us to adequately respond to the complex challenges of the time. Our country, which confidently continues its path as an independent state, has eliminated the impacts of the global financial and economic crisis, established sustainable social and economic development, and ensured sustainable social and political stability, noted President Aliyev.

We have made great strides in the implementation of transnational projects we have initiated ourselves. The signing of an agreement to extend the Contract of the Century with giant oil companies until 2050, the commissioning of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, and the completion of work on the section of the North-South transport corridor passing through our country have contributed to the progress of our republic and the welfare of our people, and enhanced the geostrategic importance of Azerbaijan in the world, he added.

The consistent and resolute position of our state in promoting intercultural dialogue and addressing universal human problems is approved on the international scene. The declaration of 2017 as a Year of Islamic Solidarity in our country, the successful hosting of the Fourth World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue and the Fourth Games of Islamic Solidarity have once again demonstrated to the whole world Azerbaijans commitment to multiculturalism and the traditions of tolerance, said the president.

We persistently strive to achieve the set goals for the comprehensive development of our Motherland. Diaspora organizations also face important tasks of expanding the international relations of our country, promoting our ancient and rich culture and suppressing provocative actions against Azerbaijan," President Aliyev said.

"Therefore, our compatriots living abroad should closely rally around the idea of Azerbaijanism in the name of protecting our national interests. I believe that your focused and joint activity will multiply our strength and make a weighty contribution to the speedy settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that worries us all, and restore the territorial integrity of our country, noted the head of state.

I wish you a strong will and organization on this path, and happiness and prosperity in your personal lives. Happy holidays! added President Aliyev.
Details added (first version posted on 11:17)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

Trend:

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attended the opening ceremony of Mehdiabad-Digah-Mammadli highway in Absheron district Dec. 29.

Chairman of Management Board of the State Agency of Highways of Azerbaijan Saleh Mammadov informed the head of state about the done work.

The president was also informed about the construction of Mehdiabad-Fatmayi-Goradil highway. It was noted that the length of the highway, connecting the Mehdiabad, Fatmayi, Goradil settlements, where 16,000 people live, is 6.5 kilometers.

President Aliyev cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the Mehdiabad-Digah-Mammadli highway. Then a photo was taken.

Later, the Azerbaijani president viewed the Yanardag State Historical, Cultural and Natural Reserve.

Becoming acquainted with the state of the reserve, the head of state pointed to the intolerable conditions there.

He noted that both citizens of Azerbaijan and numerous tourists visit the state reserve, and the conditions do not correspond to the current level of the countrys development.

President Aliyev gave a serious instruction to the relevant structures to make sure the problem is eliminated as soon as possible, and high standards will be created for Azerbaijani citizens and tourists.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

Azerbaijani MPs condemned Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvilis recent proposals during the plenary meeting Dec. 29.

Kvirikashvili suggested that in force majeure situations, goods from Armenia should be supplied to Russia through Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He said that in force-majeure situations, this route can be used not only by Armenia, but also by Turkey and other countries. The Georgian opposition sharply criticized the prime minister's proposal.

Addressing the meeting, MP Rasim Musabayov expressed dissatisfaction with the idea of creating a transport corridor between Georgia and Armenia.

Speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament Ogtay Asadov stressed that Azerbaijan supported Georgia during the most difficult days.

"Probably, someone wants to break this alliance," Asadov added.

Asadov stressed that the Azerbaijan-Georgia Working Group on Inter-Parliamentary Relations will be instructed in this regard and the issue will be considered.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

Trend:

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree to establish a professional holiday for ASAN Service employees December 29.

According to the decree, taking into account that the first ASAN Service center has been operating since December 29, 2012, every year December 29 will be celebrated as a professional holiday of ASAN Service employees.
Details added (first version posted on 18:08)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

Trend:

Deputy Chairman of the Armenian parliament, Eduard Sharmazanov, is apparently trying to follow the path of Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan in making false statements, said Spokesman of Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmat Hajiyev.

He was responding to Trends questions about the recent statements of Eduard Sharmazanov.

"In his every statement Sharmazanov shows his legal and political illiteracy and that he is engaged in populism aimed at only a limited domestic audience," noted Hajiyev.

In international law, the uti possidetis (as you possess) principle determines that in case if a state gains independence, its existing borders must be respected, he said. This principle was applied regarding the borders of the former USSR republics, which became independent after the collapse of the Union, including the Azerbaijan and Armenia SSRs. On July 18, 1988, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR once again confirmed that Nagorno-Karabakh remains a part of the Azerbaijan SSR. On Jan. 10, 1990, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR, on the basis of the Constitution of the USSR, deemed the decisions of the Supreme Council of the Armenia SSR, dated Dec. 1, 1989 and Jan. 9, 1990, on the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia as illegal.

After ethnic cleansing, as a result of aggressive separatism, against the indigenous Azerbaijani population living in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijan SSR, an illegal and illegitimate referendum was held on Dec. 10, 1991 with the participation of only the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, Hajiyev noted. The USSR 'Law on the procedure for resolving the issues related to withdrawal of a union republic from the USSR', dated April 3, 1990, to which Armenia tries to refer unreasonably, determined special procedures for the separation of republics.

In accordance with the Almaty Declaration, dated Dec. 21, 1991, on the establishment of the CIS, Armenia and Azerbaijan as former republics of the USSR accepted the obligation to respect the territorial integrity and to recognize the inviolability of each others borders, Hajiyev said. Now Armenia is trying to deny this commitment. Armenias claims to the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan have no historical, legal, political and moral grounds. The illegal regime created in the Armenian-occupied territories of Azerbaijan is a result of aggression, occupation and bloody ethnic cleansing. Sharmazanov and the likes must finally understand that the civilized world can never recognize a situation that emerged as a result of the use of force as legitimate. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan will be ensured within the internationally recognized borders.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

Trend:

Rector of Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) Elmar Gasimov gave an interview to mass media about the results of year 2017, which we offer to our readers.

Mr.Gasimov, we came to the end of the calendar year. How can you evaluate this year 2017 for Azerbaijan?

I think this year has been memorable for each of us, because Azerbaijan has signed up to historical events, especially in the oil and gas industry. In 2017, Azerbaijan has signed a new Production Sharing Agreement on joint development of the Azeri, Chirag and Gunashli fields located in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, opened Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line, and our oil production reached two billion tons this year. Once more Azerbaijan has proved the leading position the country occupies in this field. Every Azerbaijani citizen shall be justifiably proud of these achievements.

What has the year brought to the Baku Higher Oil School?

This year will be remembered by great achievements for Baku Higher Oil School. The first success of the year was the most important event for us, namely the opening of our magnificent campus with the participation of Mr. President Ilham Aliyev on May 1. Then in July we bid farewell to our first graduates. At the same time, we admitted first Master students for the 2017/2018 academic year.

According to statistical data and compared to previous years, we have surpassed not only other higher education institutions, but also ourselves. Thus, according to the results of the entrance exams to higher education institutions held by State Examination Center, the highest passing score this year was 679 points, and this record belongs to BHOS. All prospective students applying to all three specialties at the Higher School were admitted after the first round of the exams.

I would like to add that the most popular field of the study for young people in 2017 was Process Automation Engineering: to become a BHOS student, it was necessary to earn 685 points as minimum. This score became record high in the country. And I also want to remind that, according to the State Examination Centre, Process Automation Engineering has become a profession of the year.

Other statistics are equally impressive. Upon the results of the entrance exams in 2017, all seven prospective students who earned 700 points in the first group of specialities have chosen to study at the Baku Higher Oil School. We hold a record for the number of undergraduates who were admitted to the higher educational institutions in the first group of specialities and were granted with the Presidential scholarship this year: 24 out of 25 Presidential scholars are first-year students at BHOS.

Results are always important to me and I can tell that I am very pleased with this years results. As I already mentioned, this year we bid farewell to our first graduates and 94% of them are already employed. BHOS is the only higher educational institution in Azerbaijan preparing highly qualified English speaking engineers for the oil and gas industry today. This enabled our graduates to find jobs at transnational companies such as SOCAR, Petkim, Star, BP, Schlumberger, Halliburton, Maire Tecnimont and others. The rest of the students continue their education at Master's and PhD levels at leading universities in Azerbaijan, Europe and the USA. This is a big motivation for me and I feel very proud of our graduates.

Elmar muallim, what do you expect for 2018? Will the next year be as successful for the Baku Higher Oil School as 2917?

I believe that the next year will be even more fruitful and productive. We have already started working on preparations for opening new specialties. We also plan to enlarge number of the students admitted to the Higher School, as we have all necessary opportunities including professional teachers, infrastructure, modern facilities, and material and technical resources. However, I will not disclose all our plans, as you will witness their implementation in 2018 yourselves.

In conclusion, I avail myself of the opportunity to extend my congratulations to all Azerbaijani people on the International Solidarity Day of Azerbaijanis and the coming New Year and wish everyone happy holidays.

Dear Elmar muallim, thank you for sharing your thoughts about the results of the outgoing year 2017 and plans for the coming year.
Indias finance ministry on Friday cautioned investors about the risks of trading in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, saying digital currency investments are like Ponzi schemes", Reuters reports.

Cryptocurrencies are not legal tender and have no regulatory permission or protection in the country, the finance ministry said in a statement, but stopped short of announcing an outright ban or imposing any curbs.

Investors and other participants dealing with such digital currencies are doing so entirely at their risk and should best avoid participating therein, the statement said.

There is a real and heightened risk of investment bubble of the type seen in Ponzi schemes, with investors risking a sudden and prolonged crash, the statement said.

A Ponzi scheme is a swindle offering unusually high returns, with early investors paid off with money from later investors.

The ministry also cautioned that encrypted transactions in cryptocurrency were likely being used for illegal activities such as terror-funding, smuggling, drug trafficking and other money laundering acts.

India currently has no regulation for cryptocurrencies, and like other global policymakers, it is seeking to understand how to supervise a market that many feel is a speculative bubble.

Mere issuance of an advisory is not sufficient when thousands of people have lost money in cryptocurrency, said Pavan Duggal, a cyber expert and a lawyer with Indias top court.

Government has the sovereign duty to come up with a legal framework to regulate the cryptocurrencies and protect genuine investors, he said.

Last week, Indias capital market regulator said it was in talks with the government and central bank on how to regulate cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin, the worlds biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, has gained more than 19-fold this year.

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.

On Thursday, South Koreas government said it would impose additional measures to regulate speculation in cryptocurrency trading within the country.
The "gold old" global warming would have been useful right now in the US where large parts of the country are expected to see one of the coldest New Year's eve on record, said American President Donald Trump.

By India Today Web Desk: Feeling cold? Worry not. The "good old" global warming that the world has had to deal with in recent years can come to your rescue. That is, if you believe United States of American President Donald J Trump.

Trump, not known for his fondness for fighting or even belief in the phenomenon of climate change, took to his favourite medium of communication - Twitter - to post his idea on beating winter cold.

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"In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record," Trump began, talking not about the eastern part of the globe but of east US. Then came his suggestion on how to stay warm this winter: "Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming..."

The US president then went on to talk about his pet peeve of how his country pays more money for a number of world causes. "Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against," read his entire sentence.

Trump, who has previously expressed scepticism about climate change science, ended his tweet with another piece of advice on beating the cold. This one, however, was traditional and straight-forward: "Bundle up!"

In the East, it could be the COLDEST New YearA??s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

Trump's views on climate change and global warming have proved controversial in the past as well.

In 2012, before he became president, he had tweeted to suggest that global warming was nothing but a hoax invented by the Chinese "in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

In June this year, just a few months after entering the White House, Trump fulfilled a promise he had made on the presidential campaign trail: To pull the US out of the landmark Paris Climate Change Accord, which aims to keep global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

In his speech while announcing the withdrawal, Trump expressed the same sentiment that he expressed his tweet about winter and global warming today: That the US was being held to a higher standard than other countries.

He even blamed India, saying the concessions granted to New Delhi under the deal allowed it to double its coal production by 2020 while the United States was expected to "get rid" of its coal jobs. Trump also suggested that India had signed the Paris deal to "billions and billions" of dollars in foreign aid.

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The charge was soundly rejected by New Delhi, with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj saying, "What Trump said is not the reality. India and Indians have had a oneness with nature for thousands of years. So for some to say that India has signed the agreement because of being pressured or because of greed for foreign aid in this endeavour is completely baseless and unfortunate."

WATCH | US pulls out of Paris Climate Accord; Trump says deal not tough on India, China

--- ENDS ---
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Nigar Guliyeva  Trend:

Russia offered Uzbekistan to build a nuclear power plant with two new generation power units, Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Alexei Likhachev told Uzbek media on Dec.29.

"We offer to build here, in Uzbekistan, a station of two modern generation units" 3+ "VVER -1200 (Water-Water Energetic Reactor) during the period that the Uzbek side considers acceptable," Likhachev said.

He further stressed that Russia has solid experience in the construction of such facilities.

"In Bangladesh, Hungary, Egypt, Finland, we will build exactly such facilities, that is, it is not just an advanced post-Fukushima model of technology, it is quite a reference industrial competence that we are practically starting to replicate," he emphasized.

The governments of Uzbekistan and Russia have signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.The agreement creates a legal basis for bilateral cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan regarding the peaceful use of atomic energy.

Promising directions include: creation of a national infrastructure and training of personnel for the nuclear energy of Uzbekistan, construction of nuclear power plants and research reactors in the country, as well as provision of support throughout the life cycle.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.25

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

The US Boeing Company will continue following US governments lead with regards to deals with Iran, Boeing spokesperson told Trend.

"We received a license from the US government in 2016 to complete a sale of 80 airplanes to Iran Air. To date, that is the only sale for which we have authority from the US government to conclude," said the companys representative.

The spokesperson said Boeing doesnt discuss potential future transactions with any of its customers around the world.

"We are not going to speculate on whether or how US policy toward Iran may change in the future. What we can tell you is that we have rigorously followed the US governments lead with regards to all of our interactions with Irans commercial airlines and will continue to do so," said the companys representative.

Earlier, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would require the Treasury Department to notify Congress about the activities of the Iranian company that purchases the planes, as well as the financing used for the deal and certify that they would not aid Iran's effort to distribute weapons.

Meanwhile the US lawmakers emphasize that the legislation does not bar any aircraft sales to Iran, the Iranian side, sees that as a step against the nuclear deal between Tehran and the six world power, namely the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which came into force last year.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) has announced the need to create special mechanisms for restructuring the banking sector, the CBA said in the statement on the main directions of the monetary policy for 2018 and the medium-term period, published on its website Dec. 29.

The CBA will continue to address the problem of non-performing loans, restore and strengthen the financial stability of banks.

"The program for restructuring the banking sector must be supported by complimentary measures to regulate non-performing debts, the CBA said. In this regard, special mechanisms must be prepared taking into account the international experience, peculiarities and limitations of the country."

Such an integrated approach will strengthen the banks' capital position, expand healthy lending, increase credit activity and ensure economic growth," the CBA said.

According to the CBA, it is necessary to continue the work on eliminating existing restrictions and reducing risks to intensify financial mediation in the ecosystem in which banks are operating.

Besides the mentioned factors, it is necessary to create conditions for lending existing financial resources at such a level at which the banking sector, taking into account the risks, is able to accept them, the CBA said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Ali Mustafayev  Trend:

Fitch Ratings has assigned Kazakhstan's Real Estate Fund Samruk-Kazyna (REFSK) Long-Term Foreign and Local Currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) of 'BB+' and a National Long-Term Rating of 'AA(kaz)'.

"The Outlooks are Stable. Fitch has also assigned REFSK a Short-Term Foreign Currency IDR of 'B'," said the report.

The ratings are based on Fitch's view of REFSK as a government-related entity (GRE) under the agency's exposure draft "Government-Related Entities Rating Criteria" and reflect the entity's linkage with the Republic of Kazakhstan (BBB/Stable/F2), which is the ultimate sponsor of the company.

Tight links with the state are reflected in the ultimate 100 percent ownership of REFSK by the Kazakhstan government, its status as a state agent in the provision of affordable housing with funding from the government, as well as in the strong control and oversight by the state.

The two-notch rating differential factors in the moderate financial impact on the government of REFSK's default and the existence of few other state-mandated companies in the sector, which could impact the timeliness of emergency support to REFSK in case of need.
Details added (first version posted on 16:24)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Compensations to depositors of Azerbaijans closed Demirbank OJSC will be paid from Feb. 1, 2018, the Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF) said Dec. 29.

The depositors will be able to obtain compensations in branches of Kapital Bank OJSC, according to ADIF.

The volume of compensated deposits in Demirbank OJSC, the license of which was revoked on Dec. 23, totals 63.5 million manats, while the volume of uncompensated deposits amounts to 28.3 million manats.

According to the initial assessment conducted in the bank, Demirbank had 55,213 depositors in total. Meanwhile, the volume of deposits of most depositors (52,732 people) does not exceed 1,000 manats.

The Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FIMSA) of Azerbaijan said that the license was liquidated due to the discrepancy between the total capital of the bank and the minimum requirement established for banks, and the adequacy ratio of the aggregate capital is lower than three percent stipulated by the legislation.

The bank also lacks the capacity to fulfill its obligations to creditors.

DemirBank is a member of ADIF, and accordingly, deposits of the population in this bank will be returned by the Fund.

A temporary administrator was appointed in the bank under FIMSAs decision. The Authority also appealed to the court in connection with the beginning of the bankruptcy process.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

MIDA LLC under the State Housing Construction Agency of Azerbaijan has started implementation of the first project for housing construction on the order of the Education Ministry, the company said in a message Dec. 29.

The building will be located in the Yasamal residential complex in Baku.

Some of the apartments in the building will be handed over by the ministry to its employees, and the remaining part of the apartments will be transferred to MIDA LLC for further sale through the Preferential Housing system.

Presently, MIDA is engaged in construction of the first preferential residential complex in the Yasamal district of Baku.

The monthly mortgage payment for a three-room apartment in the preferential residential complex will not exceed 300 manats and for a one-room apartment - 130-150 manats.

(1.7001 manats = $1 on Dec. 29)
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Dec. 29

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

A freight container train will be sent from Chinas Yinchuan city Dec. 29 along the route through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to Iran, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message Dec. 29.

On Dec. 30, another freight container train will be sent along the same route from the north-western Chinese city of Xian in Shaanxi province.

On Dec. 28, a test container train was sent to Iran from Chinas Changsha city through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The route runs through the Khorgos border crossing, the Altynkol-Bolashak (Kazakhstan) and Serhetyaka-Akyayla (Turkmenistan) railway lines to Tehran.

The length of the Changsha-Tehran route is more than 10,297 kilometers, the travel time is 14 days, which is much less than by sea (from 25 to 30 days). The freight train has more than fifty containers with consumer goods.

Development of container transportation along the route will contribute to its attractiveness, building up of Turkmen transit potential and growth of its competitiveness, according to the message.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Nigar Guliyeva  Trend:

Uzbek foreign trade turnover for the first nine months of 2017 grew 16.7 percent compared to the previous year and amounted to about $20 billion, reads the statement of the Central Bank of Uzbekistan on the main directions of monetary policy for 2018, published Dec. 29.

The volume of export of goods and services grew 25.6 percent and amounted to $10.4 billion, while the volume of import grew 8.4 percent and amounted to $9.6 billion, according to the statement.

The Central Bank notes that high export growth rates ensured the export of food products (23.5 percent growth, 5.7 percent share in total export volume), energy and oil products (11.3 percent growth and 13.4 percent share in total export volume), ferrous and non-ferrous metals (24.8 and 6.2 percent), machinery and equipment (60.5 and 2.4 percent), services (10.8 and 24.9 percent).

At the same time, cotton exports fell 18.6 percent (2.7 percent share in total export volume), export of chemical products fell 2.2 percent (6.3 percent share in total export volume).

The growth in import was due to the increase in import of chemical products (5.6 percent growth, 17.1 percent share in total import volume), energy and oil products (13.5 and 5.2 percent), machinery and equipment (1.8 and 38.7 percent), services (22.5 and 7.3 percent), said the statement. This is while the import of food products fell 8.2 percent (10.2 percent share in total import volume).

During this period, 15.7 percent of the total export volume accounted for Russia, 14.3 percent - China, eight percent - Kazakhstan, six percent - Turkey and 4.1 percent - Afghanistan.

The share of Russia in the total volume of import accounted for 20.3 percent, China - 20.9 percent, South Korea - 9.2 percent, Kazakhstan - 7.5 percent, Turkey - 4.8 percent, Germany - 4.7 percent, Ukraine - 1.3 percent.

The Central Bank notes that in 2017, the dynamics of growth in export volumes and a surplus of foreign trade turnover are expected.

Earlier, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said that the total export volume of Uzbekistan is expected at $12.1 billion in 2018.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Nigar Guliyeva  Trend:

The governments of Uzbekistan and Russia have signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

From the Russian side, the document was signed by Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Alexei Likhachev, and from the Uzbek side - by Deputy Prime Minister Nodir Otazhonov.

The agreement creates a legal basis for bilateral cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan regarding the peaceful use of atomic energy.

Promising directions include: creation of a national infrastructure and training of personnel for the nuclear energy of Uzbekistan, construction of nuclear power plants and research reactors in the country, as well as provision of support throughout the life cycle.

The agreement also covers the exploration and development of uranium deposits in Uzbekistan, reclamation of uranium mill tailings, production of radioisotopes and their application in industry, medicine and agriculture, and scientific and basic research.

The agreement envisages the formation of joint working groups for the implementation of specific projects and scientific research, as well as the exchange of experts, the organization of seminars and symposia.

Likhachev stressed that it is important to determine the level of localization here in Uzbekistan, to create anew the industry and organize training of personnel.

In November 2017, the Memorandum of Cooperation was signed between the State Corporation Rosatom and the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Dec. 29

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

Gas distribution centers will be set up in the Afghan provinces of Herat, Kandahar and Helmand once the implementation of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project starts in 2018, Nebit-Gaz, online newspaper of the countrys Oil and Gas Complex, reported quoting the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum of Afghanistan.

It is expected that practical work on the TAPI project in Afghanistan will begin in 2018, and the pipelines commissioning is planned for 2019. The pipeline is scheduled to run along the Kandahar-Herat Highway in western Afghanistan, and further through the cities of Quetta and Multan in Pakistan.

The pipelines route will end in the Indian city of Fazilka. Construction of the Turkmen section of the TAPI gas pipeline began in December 2015. In 2013, Afghanistan released details of the gas deal with Turkmenistan, signed within the TAPI project.

Signing of this contract may be considered as a fundamental and practical step towards the implementation of the TAPI project, thanks to which Afghanistan will meet its gas needs for the next 30 years, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said in a press release.

Under the contract, upon completion of the TAPI pipelines construction, in the first ten years, Afghanistan plans to purchase up to 500 million cubic meters of Turkmen gas annually, and to bring the gas purchases to one billion cubic meters and 1.5 billion cubic meters in the subsequent second and third decades, respectively.

The design capacity of TAPI reaches 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year. However, Afghanistan plays a transit role in this project. It is expected that the annual revenue from transit will bring the country about $1 billion annually.
The BJP MP raked up a controversy when she blamed Mumbai's huge population for today's tragic fire at Kamala Mills and suggested that a population limit should be fixed for each city.

By India Today Web Desk: Actor and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Hema Malini raked up a controversy when she blamed Mumbai's huge population for today's tragic fire at Kamala Mills which claimed at least 14 lives.

The BJP MP from Mathura commended the police for doing "great job" and said that such incidents (like fire) are recurring because of the high population in the maximum city.

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"Police is doing a great job. It is the growing population which is responsible for such untoward incidents," said the 69-year-old actor.

Population is so much, the city is spreading like anything. Some restrictions should be done on the population. Each city should have certain population/limit, after that they should not be allowed. Then let them go to another city: Hema Malini,BJP MP #KamalaMillsFire #Mumbai pic.twitter.com/f3qJJzcBrm&; ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

Hema Malini also questioned the "irresponsible" authorities for not imposing restrictions on restaurants. "So many restrictions are put when we build our bungalows. How can they give permission to restaurants just like that?" the actor asked.

"Some restrictions should be imposed on population. First of all, each city should have certain population, certain limit. After that they (people) should not be allowed. Let them go to another city, next city," she suggested.

Fourteen people were killed in the massive fire that started around 12.30 am in the 1 Above pub on the terrace of the building in Lower Parel and spread to Mojo's Bistro on the third floor, one level below.

According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Disaster Control, the blaze was noticed around 12.30 am at The Mojo Bistro and 1 Above, both rooftop restaurants in The Kamla Trade House in Lower Parel area of south Mumbai.

President Ram Nath Kovind, vice president M Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed grief over the incident and offered their condolences to the families of the victims.

Taking serious note of the incident, BMC Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta announced suspension of five officials, including Assistant Municipal Commissioner Prashant Sapkale, for various lapses and ordered a probe which will be completed within 15 days.

Fadnavis, who visited the site in the afternoon, warned of stringent action against the officials and others found guilty.

ALSO WATCH | Mumbai fire: No one will be spared, says CM Fadnavis after suspending 5 BMC officials

--- ENDS ---

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Ali Mustafayev  Trend:

Kazakhstan will send humanitarian aid worth $650,000 to Antigua and Barbuda and the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar in Bangladesh.

In accordance with the government's enactments, Kazakhstan will provide official humanitarian assistance in connection with the devastating hurricanes to Antigua and Barbuda in the amount of $50,000, as well as CARICOM (Caribbean Community) in the amount of $100,000, Kazakh media outlets reported.

Kazakhstan will also allocate $500,000 as official humanitarian aid to muslims of Myanmar's Rohingya in Bangladesh. For these purposes, the Ministry of Finance of Kazakhstan was instructed to allocate funds from the emergency reserve of the government to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

These funds were provided in the state budget of Kazakhstan for the liquidation of emergency situations of natural and man-made character in the territory of Kazakhstan and other states in 2017.
Kyrgyz Minister of Foreign Affairs, Erlan Abdydaev met with representatives of national and foreign media at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan. At the meeting, Minister Erlan Abdyldaev spoke about whether a new agreement on cooperation with the United States and future prospects for bilateral cooperation will be signed, Kabar reports.

"America is the most important direction in Kyrgyzstans foreign policy and we understand the role and importance of the United States in the modern global world," the Minister said. Abdyldaev specified that in bilateral relations Kyrgyzstan is always inclined to constructive and effectiveness of two countries relations.

"During the year, we showed constructive and we conducted and are negotiating a new agreement on cooperation," the minister added.

Abdyldaev mentioned that there were a lot of different articles in previous agreement that defined directions and dealt with certain immunities and privileges. "Taking into account those programs and projects, which are being implemented, we want to bring them to the same standard with the same level of immunities and privileges that exist in other relevant countries, with whom we cooperate", the minister said.

The Foreign Minister specified that there are things that need further negotiations. "Over the past year, we held several rounds of negotiations. Several negotiations were conducted through Skype, but now we agreed and found understanding on the structure of the new treaty in total for 60-65%. This work continues, "Abdyldaev said.

According to Erlan Abdyldaev, Kyrgyzstan proposed to sign the "road map" together with the agreement. As the minister points out, this was mentioned and agreed two years ago during a meeting with the previous US Secretary of State John Kerry.

"The most important thing is that we must understand to reach an agreement that will meet the interests of both sides." There must be a clear understanding of what we want and what they want. Based on this we must move forward, the Minister said.

In conclusion, Erlan Abdyldaev pointed out that he does not see any problems or artificial things, and the work process continues. I think that everything will be fine," he said.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Dec. 29

By Diana Aliyeva  Trend:

Chinas Jiangsu Jiujiu Silk Co. Ltd. plans to create the Uzbek-Jiangsu industrial park for mulberry growing, production of cocoons and silk.

The Uzbek Labor Ministry said that the Chinese have been conducting the production of silk products in Uzbekistans Jizzakh Free Economic Zone since 2013.

The Chinese companys President Zhu Lie said that the company plans to invest $100 million in the cultivation of prolific mulberry trees and cocoons, and the production of silk products.

The investments will help to improve the investment climate in the country, he said.

Currently, the main player of the Jizzakh Free Economic Zone, designed specifically for Chinese investments, is a multi-profile company Peng Sheng.

This Uzbek-Chinese joint venture plans to implement seven projects with a total volume of investment of $40 million.

The projects are aimed at organizing the production of footwear and leather goods, fittings and mixers, locks and other products.

The company is also expanding its activity in the Syrdarya region neighboring with the Jizzakh Free Economic Zone.

Total investments of Peng Sheng in Uzbekistans economy have exceeded $100 million.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Dec. 29

By Diana Aliyeva Trend:

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency and the Uzbek Ministry of Justice intend to significantly expand cooperation.

This has been recently discussed at the meeting with head of the representative office of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency in Uzbekistan Ali Ihsan Caglar at the Uzbek Ministry of Justice.

The sides reached an agreement on increasing the number of projects and programs.

At the meeting, Uzbek Deputy Minister of Justice Akbar Tashkulov stressed the importance of further expanding the activity of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency in Uzbekistan and bringing it to a new level. The sides stressed the importance of the rapid development and implementation of the corresponding action plan.

The Uzbek Ministry of Justice is open to dialogue and cooperation in all spheres.

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency has been operating in Uzbekistan since 1992. The agency implements the economic, trade, technical, educational, social and cultural programs, as well as a number of projects on mutually beneficial cooperation.

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency implemented about 700 grant projects worth $23.6 million in Uzbekistan.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

A senior government official has accused the opponents of President Hassan Rouhanis administration of being involved in organizing a recent protest in the city of Mahshad.

Addressing a gathering in Tehran Dec. 29, Iranian First Vice-President Es'haq Jahangiri said all indexes of the economy are in a proper situation, but admitted that the prices of some products have recently increased and it is the governments duty to correct the prices.

A number of people took to streets on Thursday to protest against high prices in the northeastern city of Mashhad, shouting slogans denouncing President Hassan Rouhani.

Similar protests were reportedly held in the western provinces of Kermanshah and Lorestan on Friday.

The first vice-president further accused the opponents of the administration of using the economic issues as a pretext, adding there are other motives behind the protests.

Jahangiri also warned that such moves will have consequences for the initiators, saying the initiators of the political protests will not be able to control the situation when these movements grow larger.

In the meantime, security officials have warned against organizing any protest in the capital Tehran, saying the law enforcement forces will take actions against gatherings.
A shuttle van plowed down a busy sidewalk Thursday in the heart of Seattle's downtown retail district and crashed into the front of the Gap store, injuring six people, KOMO News reports.

Officers and medics responded to the scene, at Fifth Avenue and Pine Street, just before noon after receiving multiple reports of pedestrians struck.

Witnesses said the Shuttle Express van jumped the curb and struck several people who were walking along the sidewalk there.

Assistant Seattle Police Chief Marc Garth-Green said the van driver suffered some kind of medical emergency and lost consciousness before the crash. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center and was reported to be in serious condition.

Officials said five pedestrians on the sidewalk were injured and taken to the hospital. Four victims were hit by the van and one was injured by flying glass from the store window as it was struck and shattered. One of the victims hit by the van was reported to be in critical condition, the others are listed as serious at Harborview. The victim hit by flying glass was taken to another hospital with minor injuries.

One passenger was in the shuttle van and was not injured.

Seattle police said the crash was not terrorism-related nor was it intentional.
China on Friday denied reports it has been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was not happy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation, Reuters reports.

Trump said on Twitter the previous day that China had been caught allowing oil into North Korea and that would prevent a friendly solution to the crisis over North Koreas nuclear program.

I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war, Trump said in a separate interview with The New York Times.

South Koreas Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that U.S. spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times since October.

U.S. officials have not confirmed details of this report.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters she had noted recent media reports including suggestions a Chinese vessel was suspected of transporting oil to a North Korean vessel on Oct. 19.

The Chinese side has conducted immediate investigation. In reality, the ship in question has, since August, not docked at a Chinese port and there is no record of it entering or leaving a Chinese port, Hua said.

She said she was not aware if the vessel had docked at the port in other countries but the relevant media reports did not accord with facts.

China has always implemented U.N. Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfils its international obligations. We never allow Chinese companies and citizens to violate the resolutions, Hua said.

If, through investigation, its confirmed there are violations of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, China will deal with them seriously in accordance with laws and regulations.

In the New York Times interview, Trump explicitly tied his administrations trade policy with China to its perceived cooperation in resolving the North Korea nuclear crisis.

When I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade. They made  last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum. That doesnt include the theft of intellectual property, O.K., which is another $300 billion, Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview.

If theyre helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And thats what Ive been doing. But when oil is going in, Im not happy about that.

An official of the U.S. State Department said the U.S. government was aware of vessels engaged in such activity involving refined petroleum and coal.

We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The United States says the full cooperation of China, North Koreas neighbor and main trading partner, is vital to the success of efforts to rein in North Korea, while warning that all options are on the table, including military ones, in dealing with it.

China has repeatedly said it is fully enforcing all resolutions against North Korea, despite suspicion in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that loopholes still exist.

South Korea said on Friday it had seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship suspected of transferring oil to North Korea in defiance of the sanctions.

A senior South Korean foreign ministry official said the ship, the Lighthouse Winmore, was seized when it arrived at a South Korean port in late November.

Its unclear how much oil the ship had transferred to North Korea for how long and on how many occasions, but it clearly showed North Korea is engaged in evading the sanctions, the official told Reuters.

South Korea said it had obtained intelligence showing the Hong Kong-flagged Lighthouse Winmore transferring as much as 600 tons of refined petroleum products to a North Korea-flagged ship, the Sam Jong 2, on Oct. 19 in international waters between China and the Korean peninsula.

Employees at the office of Lighthouse Ship Management, the ships registered manager, in the Chinese port city of Guangzhou, declined to comment and said they had no knowledge of the situation.

Chinas foreign ministry spokeswoman said she did not have any information about the matter.

Both ships were among 10 vessels that the United States had proposed that the U.N. Security Council should blacklist for transporting banned items from North Korea, documents seen by Reuters this month showed.

China and Russia subsequently asked for more time to consider the U.S. proposal.

Ship tracking data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows that the Lighthouse Winmore has mainly been doing supply runs between China and Taiwan since August.

Prior to that, it was active between India and the United Arab Emirates. In October, when it allegedly transferred petroleum products to a North Korean ship in international waters, the Lighthouse Winmore had its tracking transponder switched off.
Turkey said Friday it has signed an agreement with Russia for the purchase of the S-400 missile defense systems, Anadolu reported.

Turkey's Undersecretariat for Defense Industries said in a statement: "We will receive two S-400 missile defense systems. One is optional."

The statement added that the Turkish Armed Forces will control the defense system entirely.

"The system can be used independently without any external connection," it said.

The statement added that details of the payment had not been shared due to confidentiality principles agreed upon between the parties.

The delivery would be made in early 2020.

Turkey's National Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli on Wednesday had confirmed an earlier statement by Russia's state defense corporation Rostec that the deal had been concluded.

Two systems, four batteries in total. The deal is completely done, Canikli said.

The S-400 is Russia's most advanced long-range anti-aircraft missile system with a capacity of carrying three types of missiles capable of destroying targets including ballistic and cruise missiles.

The system can track and engage up to 300 targets at a time and has an altitude ceiling of 27 kilometers (17 miles).
Gunmen killed at least nine people including three police in an attack on a Coptic Christian church south of Cairo on Friday, medical and security sources said, Reuters reports.

The two attackers opened fire at the entrance to the church of Mar Mina in Helwan district, which was being guarded by police in the run-up to Orthodox Christmas celebrations next week, security sources said.

One attacker was shot dead by security forces, the sources and the state-run news agency MENA reported. State television said the second had been captured.

Islamist militants have claimed several attacks on Egypts large Christian minority in recent years, including two bomb attacks on Palm Sunday in April and a blast at Cairos largest Coptic cathedral last December that killed 28 people.

The Health Ministry said that nine people had been killed on Friday in addition to the gunman, and five wounded, including two women in serious condition.

Local media said the dead attacker had been wearing an explosive belt, and that two other bombs had been defused near the church.

14:12 (GMT+4) An attack on a church south of Cairo killed at least three people on Friday and an attacker was shot dead by security forces, security sources said, Reuters reports.

The incident took place in the Helwan district on the capitals southern outskirts and involved more than one attacker, according to the state-run news agency MENA.

Local media cited the Interior Ministry as saying two policemen had been killed in the attack on the Mar Mina church.

It was not clear if the three reported dead included the attacker, or how many attackers were involved.

Cairos security chief headed for the scene, local media reported. Sirens were heard in central Cairo as the incident was first reported.

14:12 (GMT+4) Egyptian police forces killed a militant tried to storm a church in Helwan city, southern Cairo on Friday, eye witnesses told Egypt Today.



The militant opened fire at the security forces outside the Church of Great Martyr Mina in al-Maasara district in Helwan city and injured a policeman, but the guarding police thwarted his attack and shot him down.



The attack attempt was thwarted amid high security measures taken by the Ministry of Interior nationwide ahead of Christmas celebrations in Egypt.
'Dramatic understandings' were agreed at the White House on December 12, and deal signed by the two countries' national security chiefs, Channel 10 says.

Israel and the United States have secretly signed a far-reaching joint memorandum of understanding providing for full cooperation to deal with Irans nuclear drive, its missile programs and its other threatening activities, an Israeli TV report said.

The document was signed on December 12 at the White House, culminating intensive talks between representatives of the major Israeli and American intelligence and defense hierarchies, headed by the US and Israeli national security advisers, H. R. McMaster and Meir Ben-Shabbat, respectively, the Channel 10 report said Thursday.

Citing both American and Israeli officials, the report said the document is designed to translate into steps on the ground the positions set out by US President Donald Trump in his October 13 speech on Iran, in which he decertified the Iran nuclear deal.

At what the TV report described as a secret meeting at the White House, the US and Israel formulated and signed a joint agreement on strategy and policy regarding Iran. Specifically, they agreed to set up joint teams to handle various aspects of the Iranian threat.

One such joint team, the report said, will deal with Iranian activity in Syria and Tehrans support for the Hezbollah.

Another joint team will deal with both diplomatic and intelligence activities designed to grapple with Irans nuclear weapons ambitions.

A third joint team, it was reportedly agreed, would grapple with Irans ballistic missile program and its efforts to build accurate missile systems in Syria and Lebanon.

Finally, a fourth team would oversee preparation for any escalation by Iran and/or Hezbollah.
By PTI: Hyderabad, Dec 29 (PTI) H-Bots Robotics a city-based Start-up today announced the launch of a Smart Policing Robot.

Kisshhan PSV Founder of H-Bots, in a statement said the beta version of the robot was launched by Jayesh Ranjan Principal Secretary of IT and Industries, Telangana.

The Police Robot moves, recognises people, takes complaints, detects bombs, identify suspects, interact with people, answers peoples queries among others, the release said.

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"This smart Robocop with its autonomous physical presence interacts with its surrounding environment gathering data in real-time and detects irregularities with out user interface without resting and operates at a fraction of the cost normally paid for technology, cameras, sensors and guard services.

"It is a security robot specifically equipped to protect and secure public and private areas such as signal posts, malls, airports, offices, buildings with public places," it said.

The Robo has ability to do 360 degree eye level surveillance, face and gesture recognition, can suspect and identify, detect metals, monitor temperature and can control theft.

According to Kisshhan, it can be deployed for security and law enforcement and can be used in all police operations as an informant such as in traffic operation, support for SHE (anti-eve teasing) team.

The five-foot-seven bot, which weighs around 43 kilograms, is equipped with cameras and an array of sensors like ultrasonic, proximity sensors, temperature sensors.

"We will be able to produce 70 such Robots in a year. And our plan is to make them available at a price of Rupees five lakh each. So that they are affordable by many," he added. PTI GDK NRB

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

Trend:

The head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voiced deep regret on Thursday over Israel's decision to withdraw from the Organization.

Noting that she had received official notice from the Government of Israel's withdrawal from the agency effective on 31 December 2018, a decision which was announced on 12 October 2017, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay expressed regret, saying she was convinced that it is inside UNESCO and not outside it that States can best seek to overcome differences in the its fields of competence.

A Member of UNESCO since 1949, Israel has a rightful place inside the United Nations agency that is dedicated to education, culture and science, she continued, adding that Israel has a rightful place inside an institution committed to the defence of freedom of expression, the prevention of all forms of antisemitism and racism, which has developed a unique programme of education about the Holocaust and the prevention of genocide.

Israel also has a rightful place inside an institution that is among the most active in promoting dialogue among cultures, fighting violent extremism and conserving heritage affected, notably, by the destructive acts of terrorist organizations.

In the face of disagreements among Member States, which lead to votes for which they are responsible, engaging fully in the work of UNESCO makes possible sustained dialogue, cooperation and partnerships that are more necessary than ever and that I committed to support when I took office, Ms. Azoulay concluded.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

Trend:

Three people were injured as a bus plowed into a public transport stop in Moscow, the Main Moscow Department of the Russian Emergencies Ministry said, TASS agency reported Dec. 29.

"According to recent information, three people have been injured, while two have been successfully resuscitated," a source in the citys law enforcement agencies said.

Earlier a source in the citys law enforcement agencies said that two people had been killed as a result of the incident.

The source also said that the cause of the accident was under investigation, police officers had cordoned off the area.
Daesh terrorist organisation has claimed responsibility for the blast in Russian city of St. Petersburg on Wednesday, making an announcement through its news agency, Sputnik reported, citing the SITE.

The SITE Intelligence Group said the bombing was carried out by a Deaesh cell. The group has failed to provide any evidence for this claim, however.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesdays blast from within a storage locker at a Perekrestok store was a terrorist attack after bomb experts analyzed the components of the explosive device.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Turkey and Russia will sign a final agreement on the allocation of a loan for the purchase of S-400 Triumph air defense systems December 29, the Turkish media quoted the countrys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying.

A Russian delegation will arrive in Turkey today to sign the agreement, Erdogan said.

Turkey will pay a part of the cost for S-400 air defense systems through a loan, Turkish National Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said earlier.

Turkey purchased four divisions of the S-400 air defense systems from Russia, CEO of Rostec Corporation Sergey Chemezov had said. Chemezov noted that the total purchase price was $2.5 billion and the first supplies are scheduled for late 2019-early 2020.

He added that the Russian and Turkish finance ministries have completed negotiations on issuance of Russian loans for the purchase of S-400.

"The final documents are to be approved, he said. I can say that the Turkish side will pay 45 percent of the total amount in advance and 55 percent through a Russian loan. The first supplies are planned for March 2020."

Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Russia and Turkey are negotiating the terms of a loan for the purchase of S-400.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Twenty-nine members of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS) were detained as part of special operation conducted by the Ankara police, the Turkish media reported Dec. 29.

Reportedly, there are foreigners among the detainees and their citizenship has not been disclosed. The detained IS members will be deported from Turkey.

On Dec.1, 62 foreigners, who are members of the IS terrorist group, were detained in Istanbul.

The Istanbul police said that 117 operations were conducted in Istanbul against the IS members from August 2016 to August 2017, as a result of which over 1,000 people were detained.

It was also reported that 940 people were deported from Turkey as part of the fight against the IS during the reporting period.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

A passenger bus overturned on one of the highways in Turkeys Ankara, the Turkish media reported Dec. 29.

According to preliminary data, two people were killed and 20 were injured during the accident.

The causes of the accident are still unknown and all victims are citizens of Turkey.

Over the past ten years, about 42,000 people were killed and more than two million people were injured as a result of road accidents in Turkey.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 29

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Turkey signed a loan agreement with Russia to purchase the S-400 Triumph air defense systems, the Turkish media reported Dec. 29.

Reportedly, the sides signed the loan agreement in Turkey.

Turkey will pay a part of the cost for S-400 through the loan, Turkish National Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said earlier.

Turkey purchased four divisions of the S-400 air defense systems from Russia, CEO of Rostec Corporation Sergey Chemezov had said. Chemezov noted that the total purchase price was $2.5 billion and the first supplies are scheduled for late 2019-early 2020.

He added that the Russian and Turkish finance ministries have completed negotiations on issuance of a Russian loan for the purchase of S-400.

"The final documents are to be approved, he said. The Turkish side will pay 45 percent of the total amount in advance and 55 percent through a Russian loan. The first supplies are planned for March 2020."

Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Russia and Turkey are negotiating the terms of a loan for the purchase of S-400.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Talking about Kashmir and his political outfit, Hafiz Saeed said all the Muslim league running in Pakistan are fake and were anti-Pakistan.

By Mayank Pratap Singh: International terrorist, enjoying safe heaven in Pakistan, appeared on the National News Channel of Pakistan and went on a rant about Kashmir yet again.

Just couple of days after opening his political office in Lahore, Jamaat Ud Dawab Chief, Hafiz Saaed openly challenged the Government of Pakistan.

The Mumbai attack mastermind turned down all allegation against him and said that the Interior Minister of Pakistan and Pakistan Government were only trying to pacify India.

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Hafiz Saeed said that during 1994 visit to US, he used to take the issue of Kashmir and at that time nobody opposed him. He said that India worked diplomatically and was able to bring United States to its court.

Talking about Kashmir and his political outfit, Hafiz Saeed said all the Muslim league running in Pakistan are fake and were anti-Pakistan.

Citing Jinnah, Hafiz Saeed said that Jinnah wanted Kashmir to be part of Pakistan and he is working on the principle of Jinnah.

He turned down the prophecies of all Muslim leagues in Pakistan, and said that they are not the true descendants of Jinnah.

Taking PM Modi's name, the terrorist mastermind, who is building his own army now in Pakistan, said that India divided Pakistan into two parts and now it is working for further division of Balochistan and other provinces.

Also watch | Hafiz Saeed's lawyer AK Dogar: Pakistan govt did not produce Indian dossiers in court

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KYODO NEWS - Dec 28, 2017 - 15:30 | All

The government is set to introduce a new residence status next year that will allow fourth-generation Japanese living abroad to work in the country, a Justice Ministry source said Thursday.

It expects several thousand youths with Japanese roots from countries like Brazil and Peru who fulfill certain requirements to enter the country annually. Many Japanese immigrated to Latin America in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The government hopes the program will help develop an improved relationship between Japan and the participants' home countries but concern remains some may be exploited as cheap labor.

The government plans to introduce the system by the end of March at the earliest after taking public input, the source said.

Those eligible for the program are aged 18 to 30 and should be able to understand conversational Japanese equivalent to the "N4" level under the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test.

They can stay in Japan for up to five years under the program, with their status renewed every year if their level of Japanese meets improvement benchmarks.

Participants in the program will not be allowed in principle to be accompanied by family and will be required to have some support from relatives, a host family or an employer in Japan.

The number of Japanese Brazilians and Japanese Peruvians in Japan declined from 364,000 in 2007 to around 222,000 in 2016, with critics blaming the global financial crisis in 2008 and the massive earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan in March 2011 for reduced employment opportunities.

Currently, second- and third-generation Japanese immigrants can stay long-term and work freely after meeting certain conditions, while fourth-generation people can get preferred treatment only when they are single, younger than 20 and live with a parent or parents of the third generation, according to the ministry.
By Chananthorn Kamjan, KYODO NEWS - Dec 29, 2017 - 08:31 | World, All

Thailand has been under military rule for more than three years under the government led by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who overthrew the country's civilian government in 2014.

Shortly after the coup, Prayut proposed a roadmap to reform and bring the country back to democracy. The roadmap includes a tentative schedule for an election in 2017, but political circumstances, including an amendment of the Constitution, led to a change in the timeline.

To keep the promise, Prayut, in October, announced the general election will be held next year, elaborating that he planned to announce the election date in June and hold the general election in November. Prayut's promise surely revived the hopes of politicians who have been in the wilderness since the junta took over in 2014.

All political parties have been barred from conducting any activity under orders of the junta, formally known as the National Council for Peace and Order. The NCPO is unlikely to lift the ban on political activity in the near future.

Therefore, the question is being raised whether the election can really bring the country back to democracy or not, since a shadow of the junta is expected to hang over the next government for several years.

(Photo courtesy of Government House of Thailand)

This point is proven by a provision in the Constitution stating that the junta will appoint 250 senators with a five-year term before the election. Those senators will have a mandate in joining the elected members of the House of Representatives in choosing the prime minister.

More importantly, a prime ministerial candidate can also be an outsider in case existing candidates cannot win votes in the Parliament, and Prayut is the strongest outsider candidate at the moment.

The shadow of Prayut and his military cronies will not fade away from political power, according to politicians and academics.

Wanwichit Boonprong, a political lecturer at Rangsit University, told Kyodo News that it is difficult to have a general election next year for various reasons, including drafting organic laws for the election which have yet to be enforced. He said the election could be delayed for months and the junta's power will stay.

"Next year will be the fourth year of military rule in Thailand and I still foresee the military's shadow for several years with support from the appointed Senate and some mid-sized political parties which support the military," he said.

Paralyzing political parties by banning their political activity will also benefit the junta as those parties cannot hold meetings or conduct any activity with their supporters.

"The restriction on political activities is still continuing and is expected to be lifted just months before the election. This will cause political parties not to have enough time for the campaign...The new system of election also prevents a landslide victory," he said.

In the next election, Thailand will use the German-style Mixed-Member Proportional representation electoral system, which gives mid-sized parties a chance to get more seats in the lower house, unlike the previous system that allows big parties to win a majority.

Asked about the Pheu Thai Party, Wanwichit said it is now lacking a potential key figure after former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra fled the country in late August. He also expected no major move from Yingluck and her older brother and former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra until the election takes place.

Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva sees political challenges in the coming year as the general election has to be held under the roadmap. Abhisit said people have expectations and questions for the government about upgrading people's living standards, the return of their rights and freedoms as well as the reforms that the NCPO promised after the coup.

"The government and the NCPO have to answer if they made progress on those expectations...what we currently see is invoking a number of absolute powers," he said.

Abhisit also voiced concern that the political conflict would worsen by the actions of the junta.

"The NCPO said they staged the coup to end political turmoil but it seems they are now playing the wrong role by using too much power," Abhisit added.

The absolute power under article 44 in the interim charter empowers the NCPO to handle particular issues.

In the past three years, the NCPO led by Prayut invoked more than 170 orders under article 44 to tackle problems and pave the way for many projects, including a high-speed railway with China. Some orders were seen as being invoked for personal benefit.

The political concern also extends to the Pheu Thai Party, which joined other parties in calling for the lifting of the ban on political activity.

One Pheu Thai key member, Chaturon Chaisaeng, said he believed that the political situation next year will heat up as the junta will speed up the destruction of political competitors and pave the way for Prayut to lead the new government as an outsider prime minister.

"Prayut will use a number of tricks to come back as prime minister with support from some political parties and that will make the country fall into a dilemma again," he said.

Chaturon described next year as a "preparatory period" for the junta to come back after the general election, even though he admitted it is quite difficult that the election could be held in November.

He also called on the junta to allow people to take a leading role in reforming the country, saying the reform could not be undertaken under a dictator.

An economic expert, Somchai Pakapatwiwat, expected the new government will have stability as some key figures of the current government will be repositioned in the next government. Somchai, a former professor at Thammasat University who is now an independent academic, said the key factor for stabilizing the new administration is the appointed senators because the selection will be made by the junta.

"I see no change in Thai politics, even though the election will take place, the government stability is still OK," he said.

However, Somchai stressed that policy stability is most important as it will affect the decision of foreign investors.

"We have changed governments in the past several years but the confidence from foreign investors remains," he said. "Therefore, maintaining key policies, especially on the economy, will help stabilize the new government."
Tumor cells use the unfolded protein response to alter circadian rhythm, which contributes to more tumor growth, Hollings Cancer Center researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) find. A key part of the circadian clock opposes this process, according to a paper published online Dec. 11 in Nature Cell Biology.

For tumors to grow and spread, cancer cells must make larger than normal amounts of nucleic acids and protein, so they can replicate themselves. Yet in both normal and cancer cells that increase their synthesis of protein, a small percent of those proteins do not fold properly. When that happens, the cell activates its unfolded protein response (UPR), which slows down the making of new proteins while the misfolded proteins are refolded. Eventually, the buildup of misfolded proteins becomes toxic and leads to cell death. However, cancer cells have learned to use the UPR to slow protein synthesis when needed, in order to handle the backlog of misfolded proteins. This helps them survive in conditions that would kill normal cells.

This pattern of adaptation is often seen in tumor cells, according to J. Alan Diehl, Ph.D., the SmartState Endowed Chair in Lipidomics, Pathobiology and Therapy at the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center and senior researcher on the project. "What a tumor cell is doing is taking a pathway that's already in the cell and using it to its advantage," said Diehl.

Yet it was not clear exactly how cancer cells were able to use UPR activity to influence circadian rhythm. Diehl's group found that the UPR and circadian rhythm are linked together to lead the clockwork of the cell and also that cancer cells use the UPR to manipulate the circadian clock in ways that allow them to survive conditions that are toxic to normal cells.

To start, Diehl and his fellow researchers formulated a new idea based on what was known about protein synthesis in the cell. First, as they knew, the UPR is altered in tumors, and second, cells establish a circadian rhythm to regulate metabolism by producing levels of certain proteins that rise and fall in coordination with natural cycles of light and dark. Third, other scientists had observed that circadian rhythm is altered in tumor cells. Since protein production is tied to circadian rhythm, Diehl's group asked if misfolded proteins might change circadian rhythm in cancer cells.

In their first set of experiments, Diehl's research team used chemicals to activate the UPR in osteosarcoma cells. They found that, when activated, the UPR changes levels of an important protein called Bmal1, which is a transcription factor that rises and falls with cycles of light and dark. As it does, it regulates the expression of major circadian rhythm genes. When cells were exposed to cycles of light and dark, Bmal1 levels peaked during dark hours. But when the UPR was chemically activated, Bmal1 stayed low during both light and dark phases, which caused a phase shift in the expression of circadian genes. When one of the main parts of the UPR machinery was absent in cells, the phase shift did not happen.

Next, the group found that the UPR functions much like a "middleman" between light-dark cycles and the ability of cells to establish a circadian rhythm from those cycles. Levels of the circadian protein Bmal1 continued to decrease, as the UPR was increasingly activated. In rodents that had their light-dark cycles suddenly reversed, Bmal1 stopped rising and falling - a clear sign that their circadian rhythms were disrupted. Shifts in light exposure activated the UPR in those rodents' cells.

But what does that mean for the development of cancer? The team found that patients with breast, gastric or lung cancers survived longer when they had higher levels of Bmal1 protein. In myc-driven cancers, the UPR was causing the loss of Bmal1 protein, which caused the tumors to grow. Myc-driven tumors lost circadian rhythm, whereas normal cells maintained it. Conversely, high levels of Bmal1 overtook the UPR, thereby allowing protein synthesis to continue, which was toxic to tumor cells. In this way, Bmal1 directly encourages protein synthesis.

This is the first study showing that human cancer suppresses circadian rhythm by controlling protein synthesis through Bmal1. Cancer cells survived longer by using the UPR to suppress Bmal1 and short-circuit their circadian rhythms. These results are important for human biology, according to Yiwen Bu, Ph.D., a postdoctoral scholar in Diehl's laboratory and first author on the paper. "Every single normal cell in our body has circadian oscillation," said Bu. "We showed that resetting the circadian rhythms in cancer cells slows down their proliferation."

Still, do changes in light-dark cycles contribute to the development of cancer in humans? It is not yet clear in patients if circadian shifts contribute to changes in the UPR and if that, in turn, contributes to the development of cancer. But these results could help clinicians boost the effectiveness of current cancer treatments, Diehl said.

"Physicians are beginning to think about timing delivery of therapies in such a way that, say, if we deliver a drug at a certain time of day, we'll get better on-target effects on the cancer and less toxicity in the normal cells," he said.

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About 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 is comprised of more than 120 faculty cancer scientists with a 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, please visit http://www.hollingscancercenter.org.
A French activist group says it has filed a complaint against Apple over revelations that the tech giant remotely slowed the performance of older iPhone models. French law since 2015 has made planned obsolescencedeliberately reducing the useful life of productsa crime.

Stop Planned Obsolescence (HOP in French) announced the filing yesterday. Apple aapl already faces several lawsuits in the U.S., after users found that updates to models including the iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 slowed the phones performance.

Apple has acknowledged the practice, arguing that what it called smoothing was necessary to protect the components of older phones and prevent unexpected shutdowns as their batteries aged.

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Apple has also been sued in Israel over the issue. But, as HOP points out, France has uniquely strong laws criminalizing similar practices. Implemented in 2015, the criminalization of planned obsolescence is intended to push for longer-lasting appliances and reduced waste.

HOP has previously filed complaints against printer makers HP, Canon, Epson, and Brother, claiming they programmed their printers to see printer cartridges as empty even with 20% of their ink remaining. That case is still under investigation, but executives with the companies face possible jail time if convicted under French law. According to French news site The Local, punishment in such cases can also include serious financial penalties.

Jurisdiction may be an issue if and when a case against Apple proceeds. According to compliance specialists SGS, the French law only applies to French manufacturers, but only one small iPhone component is reportedly manufactured in France.
Black Hills Corporation (BKH) has slipped to a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) and is now the Bear of the Day. Let's take a look at why this stock has the lowest Zacks Rank.

Description

Black Hills Corporation is an energy company that generates wholesale electricity and produces natural gas, crude oil and coal. They serve natural gas and electric utility customers in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Recent Earnings

The company reported a miss of the Zacks Consensus Estimate on November 2. The company saw EPS of $0.50 when $0.55 was expected. Revenues came in $47M shy of the estimate as well.

Investors sold the stock as a result of the earnings and the stock lost 5% in the session following the earnings release.

Estimates

Before the third consecutive miss, the company was expected to post $3.52 in EPS for 2017, but that number moved down to $3.35 in November and ticked lower by another penny in December.

The 2018 numbers also fell from $3.65 in October to the current level of $2.47.

Black Hills Corporation Price and Consensus

Black Hills Corporation Price and Consensus | Black Hills Corporation Quote

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The indigenous missile shield along with the Russian S-400 air defence systems are likely to provide protection from enemy missile attacks.

By Ajit Kumar Dubey: Moving towards developing an indigenous ballistic missile shield to protect against Chinese and Pakistani threats, India on Thursday successfully test-fired the AAD missile which hit the incoming ballistic missile at an altitude of 15 km from a test range in Odisha.

The test is significant for one more reason: it is the first time that a woman scientist, Dr Shashikala Sinha, also known as the 'new missile woman', conducted the highly complicated test successfully for the country.

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"The test was carried out around 10am on Thursday as the interceptor missile called 'AAD' managed to score a direct hit on the incoming ballistic missile at an altitude of 15 kilometres," a senior government source said.

The indigenous missile shield along with the Russian S-400 air defence systems are likely to provide protection from enemy missile attacks. The Ballistic Missile Defence shield would also help the country save on imports form foreign countries.

The indigenous BMD is a two-layer missile defence system which can intercept enemy ballistic missile, both in space and in Earth's atmosphere.

Under Thursday's test, the missile was intercepted in the endo-atmospheric region - at an altitude of 15 km.

Defence sources said the low altitude Advanced Area Defence (AAD) interceptor missile fired from the Abdul Kalam Island off Odisha coast zoomed in on the target, which was launched from the launching complex - III of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) also based in the island.

"The radar of the defence system detected the incoming missile, tracked it and provided the command to launch the interceptor missile. The mission was brilliant as the interceptor missile achieved a direct hit, paving the way for its early deployment in the armed forces," said a defence official.

Indigenously developed by DRDO, the AAD interceptor is a single stage missile powered by solid propellants.

The interceptor is a 7.5-meter long single stage solid rocket propelled guided missile equipped with a navigation system, a hi-tech computer and an electro-mechanical activator, the sources said.

The state-of-the-art interceptor missile has its own mobile launcher, secure data link for interception, independent tracking and homing capabilities and sophisticated radars.

With the success, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has ended its 'Mission 2017' on a happy note. This was the second successful test of ballistic missile defence, this year.

The DRDO has developed both high-altitude and low altitude anti-ballistic missiles.

While the first phase seeks to destroy the incoming enemy missiles in the exo-atmospheric region (outside the atmosphere), the second phase envisages killing enemy missiles of more than 2,000 km range within the endo-atmospheric (inside the atmosphere) region.

--- ENDS ---
The rout in bitcoin is also taking down stocks with ties to cryptocurrencies.

Pareteum Corp. fell as much as 25 percent as of 10:16 a.m. in New York, while Digital Power Corp. and LongFin Corp. each slipped more than 6 percent after South Koreas government said it wanted to clamp down on speculation, potentially by shutting down some exchanges. The warning sent bitcoin below $14,000, leaving it down 26 percent from last weeks record.

Overstock.com Inc., On Track Innovations Ltd., and Riot Blockchain Inc. also traded lower Thursday, in relatively light volume during a holiday-shortened week.

The crypto space has been on a wild ride this month, with the digital token bitcoin soaring to record highs before a dramatic selloff last week. The assets rebounded earlier this week, before resuming their slide lower in a test for investor enthusiasm in the asset class.

Such volatility isnt new for bitcoin or its proxies. The digital coin has seen many peaks and valleys over the course of its history. This year, its climbed 1,400 percent and once reached more than $19,500. Related assets have largely moved in tandem with the cryptocurrency. Shares of Riot Blockchain and Digital Power, while taking a hit today, are still up 627 percent and 450 percent this year, respectively.
FILE PHOTO: A man speaks on the phone as he walks past the Kingdom Centre Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, November 5, 2017. REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser - /File Photo

By Katie Paul

RIYADH (Reuters) - Apple and Amazon are in licensing discussions with Riyadh on investing in Saudi Arabia, two sources told Reuters, part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's push to give the conservative kingdom a high-tech look.

A third source confirmed that Apple was in talks with SAGIA, Saudi Arabia's foreign investment authority.

Both companies already sell products in Saudi Arabia via third parties but they and other global tech giants have yet to establish a direct presence.

Amazon's discussions are being led by cloud computing division Amazon Web Services (AWS), which would introduce stiff competition in a market currently dominated by smaller local providers like STC and Mobily.

Riyadh has been easing regulatory impediments for the past two years, including limits on foreign ownership which had long kept investors away, since falling crude prices highlighted the need to diversify its oil-dependent economy.

Luring Apple and Amazon would further Prince Mohammed's reform plans and raise the companies' profile in a young and relatively affluent market, which already boasts some of the highest internet and smartphone use in the world.

About 70 percent of the Saudi population is under 30 and frequently glued to social media.

A licensing agreement for Apple stores with SAGIA is expected by February, with an initial retail store targeted for 2019, said two sources familiar with the discussions.

Amazon's talks are in earlier stages and no specific date has been set for investment plans, they said.

Apple already holds second place in the Saudi mobile phone market behind Samsung, according to market researcher Euromonitor.

Amazon acquired Dubai-based online retailer Souq.com earlier in 2017, opening access for Amazon retail goods to be sold in the kingdom.

Both companies declined to comment, while SAGIA was not immediately available to answer questions about the discussions.

LENGTHY COURTSHIP

While Saudi reform plans call for luring foreign investment broadly across sectors, officials have courted Silicon Valley players especially strongly over the past two years to complement their high-tech ambitions.

Story continues

Prince Mohammed is an avowed technophile and has styled himself a disrupter in the model of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

During an official visit to the United States last year he met executives at Facebook, Microsoft and Uber, in which the sovereign wealth fund he chairs later took a $3.5 billion stake.

Since then, he has also set up a $45 billion technology investment fund with Japan's SoftBank and announced plans to create a futuristic $500 billion mega-city with more robots than humans.

Apple and Amazon have both been on a Saudi priority list of foreign firms which officials hope to attract to further their reforms, one of the sources said.

"Many tech multinationals now in Saudi Arabia are either vendors to the Saudi government or, in the case of Uber, have benefited from a sizable Saudi investment," said Sam Blatteis, who heads Dubai-based tech advisory MENA Catalysts Inc.

"Amazon entering the Saudi market would be a step-change."

For Amazon, the move underscores how AWS is looking to take an early lead in selling data storage and computing services to customers in the Middle East.

AWS, the world's biggest cloud business by revenue, has embarked on a slower global expansion than No.2 Microsoft, which now offers cloud services in twice as many regions.

However, Microsoft has yet to announce plans for data centers in the Middle East, with three regions in India serving as its closest operations.

AWS said in September it would set up data centers for the region in neighboring Bahrain.

The kingdom has been streamlining its many overlapping laws which could apply to cloud computing for more than a year in order to attract service providers.

If completed, a cloud deal could pave the way for an expansion of Amazon retail warehouses in Saudi Arabia.

Although Amazon operates its diverse business units separately, it has rolled out its near-full suite of retail, third-party marketplace and cloud services in countries of operation over time.

Apple stores would raise the profile of the company's products and offer repairs and community events in line with its strategy to brand its stores as "town squares".

(Reporting by Katie Paul; Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin and Stephen Nellis in SAN FRANCISCO; Editing by Saeed Azhar and Philippa Fletcher)
HONG KONG, Dec 29 (Reuters) - An infrastructure unit of Hong Kong's family-run Hopewell Holdings Ltd is to sell its majority stake to the Shenzhen municipal government's flagship investment firm for HK$9.87 billion ($1.26 billion), the company said on Friday.

Shenzhen Investment International Capital Holdings Infrastructure Co. Ltd is to acquire 66.7 percent of Hopewell Highway Infrastructure Limited, the three companies said in a joint statement.

Upon completion, Hopewell Holdings expects to realise a net gain of about HK$4.92 million.

"The HHL Directors note that SIHC is the flagship investment platform of the Shenzhen Municipal Government and the acquisition of the sale shares will ... be a significant contributor to SIHC's continuous expansion of the connections within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Bay Area," the statement said.

The "Greater Bay Area," a national strategy, aims to bring together Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in southern China to form a business powerhouse that rivals other metropolitan megacity hubs.

Hopewell Holdings says it may re-deploy a substantial part of the proceeds to explore new investment opportunities in the Greater Bay Area.

The HHI Group focuses on highway infrastructure businesses in mainland China, and currently operates the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Superhighway and Western Delta Route, the statement said. ($1 = 7.8136 Hong Kong dollars) (Reporting by Venus Wu, editing by David Evans)
Does Zebra Technologies (ZBRA) have what it takes to be a top stock pick for momentum investors? Let's find out.

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  Dec 29, 2017  Zacks Equity Research highlights KMG Chemicals KMG as the Bull of the Day and Black Hills Corporation BKH as the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis ontheCounterPath, Corp. CPAH, eGain Corporation EGAN and SeaChange International, Inc. SEAC.

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

KMG Chemicals is a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and is the Bull of the Day following a strong beat of the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Let's take a look at the recent quarter, estimate revisions and the valuation for this stock.

Description

KMG Chemicals manufactures, markets and distributes specialty, niche chemicals. The company manufactures, markets and distributes three wood preserving chemicals, pentachlorophenol, creosote and sodium pentachlorophenate, to industrial customers engaged in the wood preserving business. The company's customers use these preservatives to treat wood and supply the treated wood products to end-users in a variety of industries, principally the railroad, utility and construction industries.

Recent Quarter

On December 11, the company reported EPS of $0.83 when $0.63 was expected. The $0.20 beat translates into a 31% positive earnings surprise.

The company had revenue of $111M, which was 3.8% higher than the estimate of $107M.

As a result of the beat on top and on bottom, investors bid up shares of KMG by 15% in the session following the release.

Revisions

Estimates for KMG are moving in the right direction. The July 2018 fiscal year has a $3.17 number as the Zacks Consensus Estimate and that is up from the $2.76 level it stood at in November.

Most investors are looking ahead to next year, even with this company reporting a mid-year fiscal year end. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next year has moved from $2.40 in September to $3.21 in November and is now at $3.71. This is just what investors want to see.

Story continues

Valuation

KMG trades at 21x forward earnings and that is just below the 22x industry average. I see a 2.9x book multiple, and that too is well below the industry average of 5.7x.

Growth is something that I look for, and I am pleased to see the July 2018 fiscal year is looking at 35% topline expansion. The analysts might not have a clear view out to the July 2019 year end as they only have 5% growth projected, but in a few months that number could move materially higher.

Bear of the Day:

Black Hills Corporation has slipped to a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) and is now the Bear of the Day. Let's take a look at why this stock has the lowest Zacks Rank.

Description

Black Hills Corporation is an energy company that generates wholesale electricity and produces natural gas, crude oil and coal. They serve natural gas and electric utility customers in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Recent Earnings

The company reported a miss of the Zacks Consensus Estimate on November 2. The company saw EPS of $0.50 when $0.55 was expected. Revenues came in $47M shy of the estimate as well.

Investors sold the stock as a result of the earnings and the stock lost 5% in the session following the earnings release.

Estimates

Before the third consecutive miss, the company was expected to post $3.52 in EPS for 2017, but that number moved down to $3.35 in November and ticked lower by another penny in December.

The 2018 numbers also fell from $3.65 in October to the current level of $2.47.

Additional content:

3 Buy-Ranked Tech Stocks That Soared in December

It has been an up-and-down month for technology stocks, as sector-wide volatility that started in November continued throughout the past few weeks. Nevertheless, the tech sector dominated Wall Street for the majority of 2017, and as we look at the years highest-flying stocks, most of the recognizable names are dominant and innovative technology brands.

Considering the current state of the world, techs leadership makes sense. Cloud computing and the Internet of Things have already revolutionized our everyday life, and now we are on the cusp of artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicle revolutions that could redefine what it means to be human.

In response to these changing times, investors have poured money into the tech sector in search of the next explosive stock. Even with Decembers volatility, we witnessed plenty of noteworthy tech companies start to pick up momentum, including several that are sporting strong Zacks Ranks and other key metrics.

Check out three tech stocks that soared this month to buy now:

1. CounterPath, Corp.

CounterPath designs desktop and mobile application software, including voice over Internet protocol, unified communications, and fixed-mobile convergence solutions. The stock is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and has soared more than 40% over the past four weeks.

Our consensus estimate for the companys upcoming fiscal year earnings has risen by 13 cents within the last 30 days. The firm is now expected to be profitable and improve its EPS results by over 1,000% next year. CounterPath is also witnessing cash flow growth of 16%, and its P/S ratio of 1.55 comes at a significant discount to the Computer  Software industry average.

2. eGain Corporation

eGain provides web customer interaction, social customer interaction, and contact center applications. It is a growing name within the expanding customer engagement cloud solutions space. The stock is currently a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and has gained over 50% within the past four weeks.

eGain is still in the red, but the firm has outperformed our estimates in two consecutive quarters. Our current consensus estimates are calling for the company to improve its EPS results at an annualized rate of 10% over the next three to five years. Revenues are expected to grow by over 7% next year, and with a P/S of 2.50, investors are getting a decent price for that sales picture right now.

3. SeaChange International, Inc.

SeaChange develops products that help television and broadcast companies manage, store, and distribute digital video. The companys most recent quarter resulted in earnings that crushed our consensus estimate by over 800%. The stock is now a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and has soared more than 48% over the past four months.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SeaChanges full-year earnings has now gained 11 cents within the last 30 days. Looking towards next year, the company is projected to witness EPS growth of 33%. A renewed focus on a SaaS business model has helped the company attract customers and become more efficient.

Want more stock market analysis from this author? Make sure to follow @Ryan_McQueeney on Twitter!

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About the Bull and Bear of the Day

Every day, the analysts at Zacks Equity Research select two stocks that are likely to outperform (Bull) or underperform (Bear) the markets over the next 3-6 months.

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Zacks Equity Research provides the best of quantitative and qualitative analysis to help investors know what stocks to buy and which to sell for the long-term.

Continuous analyst coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

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By PTI: Lucknow, Dec 29 (PTI) The Uttar Pradesh government today said it has attracted investment proposals worth Rs 2.53 lakh crore during the road shows conducted in different cities ahead of the Investors Summit-2018, as many reputed industrial houses have evinced interest to invest in the state.

"The state government is committed to boost investment, create new avenues of employment and encourage setting up of industrial units.

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"In this regard, road shows were conducted in different cities of the country ahead of the Investors Summit-2018. It has yielded positive results with reputed industrial houses themselves evincing interest to invest in the state," UP Industrial Development Minister Satish Mahana said in a statement here.

The interest to investment in the state is due to the strengthening of infrastructure facilities by the government, and improvement in the law and order situation, he added.

"In the roadshows held so far, proposals for investment worth Rs 2.53 lakh crore has come from various industrialists. Investment proposals worth Rs 27,000 crore came during the roadshow held in Delhi," the minister said.

Similarly, the roadshows held in Bangalore and Hyderabad witnessed investment proposals worth Rs 6,000 crore and Rs 11,500 crore, respectively. In Mumbai, it received proposals worth Rs 1.25 lakh crore from industrial houses.

On January 5, a roadshow will be held in Kolkata and after this, a roadshow is due in Ahmedabad.

"International investors too would be participating in the summit. Country partners of the summit are Finland, Czech Republic and the Netherlands have already given their consent. In addition to them, various embassies (of foreign countries) in India will be participating in the summit," Mahana said.

The Investors Summit is being held on February 21 and 22. PTI NAV BAL

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* Pakistan ordered record-setting GE turbines to ease shortfall

* Three newly built power stations beset by delays, outages

* Power station in France also had outages

* GE says technical issues due to normal 'teething' problems

* GE shares fall to lowest level since 2011 (Updates with GE share price, analyst comment)

By Drazen Jorgic and Henning Gloystein

ISLAMABAD/SINGAPORE, Dec 28 (Reuters) - General Electric's flagship gas turbines ran into problems in Pakistan earlier this year, leading to delays and lengthy outages at three newly built power stations, according to several senior Pakistani officials and power executives.

GE has said they were teething problems. But the questions over one of its most important products suggest another setback for the company in a year in which its shares have plunged and third-quarter results were called "horrible" by new Chief Executive John Flannery. GE is now undergoing major restructuring.

There is no evidence that GE's 9HA-Class turbines have fundamental design flaws.

But so far the Pakistani plants, which began running this year, are producing power at levels well below their capacity and the problem was acute in the crucial summer months, when temperatures in the country frequently exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104F).

Data from Pakistan's Central Power Purchasing Agency, seen by Reuters, showed the Bhikki, Haveli and Balloki plants jointly generated only a half of their current maximum capacity in August.

A month later all three plants showed improved output but remained well below capacity. Reuters was unable to review more recent data.

"It had terrible consequences because we lost a lot of power which would have come to the grid during the peak summer," Yousaf Naseem Khokhar, the top civil servant in the Energy Ministry's power division, told Reuters.

"It is now up to General Electric to rise to the challenge and to take care of these issues... before next summer starts," he said.

In a statement sent to Reuters, GE said "every commercial HA site today is demonstrating exceptional performance levels for both output and efficiency".

Story continues

On the issues in Pakistan, GE said: "We've encountered and communicated openly about launch challenges and readily resolved issues during this time. It's important to note that challenges are common with power plants of this size and complexity during the commissioning and early operations phase."

GE also said in a separate statement that the three plants are expected to deliver enough power to supply the equivalent of 7.3 million Pakistani homes over their 30-plus-year life cycle, and that will make a "meaningful difference in the everyday lives of the people of Pakistan."

Due to its large and fast-growing population and economy and well developed gas infrastructure, Pakistan is seen as a key growth market for power turbine makers, with all major turbine makers actively looking for business.

"Pakistan is seen as one of the fastest growing markets ... and there has been a plethora of contracting activity from Pakistan over the last couple years," said Saul Kavonic of energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. Pakistan still needed "additional investment in energy infrastructure," he added.

The 9HA-class gas turbines, the GE power division's newest and most prestigious product, entered the Guinness World Records last year for efficiency, based on the amount of electricity generated from natural gas at the power plant in Bouchain, France, where it was first put into commercial operation in June last year.

Both the 9HA and the 7HA turbines - the A stands for air-cooled - are in tough competition with similar products made by Germany's Siemens, Japan's Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems - a joint venture between Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Hitachi - and Italy's state-controlled Ansaldo Energia.

Flannery said in a GE investor presentation in November that "resolving initial launch issues" with HA class gas turbines would be a future priority.

TOUGH YEAR

GE's shares have fallen 45 percent this year, hitting $17.31 on Wednesday, their lowest level since December 2011.

The 125-year-old company announced this month it was cutting 12,000 jobs in its power division, about a fifth of the workforce, to cut costs.

Operating profit of the power division, once the strongest part of GE's operations, fell 51 percent in the third quarter against the year-ago period. Flannery said the division, which brought in 28 percent of GE's revenue last year, was "challenged" but could be turned around in one or two years.

Pakistan, desperate for additional electricity to avoid crippling blackouts, teamed up with GE to build the power stations at Bhikki, Haveli and Balloki, all in the most populous province Punjab, at breakneck speed.

GE won the contracts to supply Pakistan with six turbines for the three power plants in 2015, based on the lowest priced deal per megawatt of capacity.

The first problem was the deliveries were delayed by up to three months and missed some of the summer months this year, several Pakistani officials said. They said they were told the delays happened because a part of the turbine needed further testing.

The plan was to fire up the turbines in simple cycle mode - delivering around 800 MW per power plant - in the spring of 2017 and then to upgrade to 1,200 MW combined cycle output after the summer.

The delays infuriated Islamabad, because getting additional power during the summer was a crucial factor ahead of 2018 parliamentary elections.

One of the two turbines at the Bhikki power plant was delayed by about a month. At the Balloki and Haveli plants, the turbines were delayed by about three months, two senior Pakistani officials aware of the situation said.

Then, in early May, a combustion seal leak was detected at one of the turbines at the Bhikki plant.

To fix this, and to apply the same remedy to the five other turbines, GE airlifted parts of the units to France for repairs.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who was then the petroleum minister, told Reuters in July that GE spared no expense to fix the problems.

"They found the problem, they took out the part, they went back to the vendor, they re-machined them, they came back  all on dedicated transport flights," Abbasi said.

TURBINE DAMAGE

But that meant one Bhikki turbine was offline for about 40 days and the other for about 50 days. The other two plants had not begun operations at the time, but came online in July and August.

In a third setback, one of the turbines at the Haveli plant was badly damaged during a power outage three weeks after it was inaugurated in July, the Pakistani officials said.

At such times, batteries and a generator act as back-ups to ensure a pump continues to push lube oil into the turbine.

"Both didn't work," said one of the Pakistani officials, adding the diesel generator had no fuel. The turbine crashed, with damage estimated at $33 million, and although it was refitted with a new rotor by GE, it is still to resume operations.

The power station is being built by China's SEPCOIII Electric Power Construction Corporation. SEPCOIII did not return queries for comment.

"GE and SEPCOIII are working together to determine the cause behind the loss of functionality of the planned backup power system," GE said in a statement.

A senior Pakistani official in Islamabad said the delays and outages had cast GE in a bad light.

"Frankly speaking, they have lost a lot of credibility here in the government because of these plants," the official said.

In September, Pakistan awarded its most recent power contract to Siemens, after bidding by several companies, including GE.

Stephen Tusa, an analyst at JPMorgan in New York, wrote in a recent note that although GE has assured investors that the Pakistan problems have been resolved, they could re-emerge in other plants around the world.

"The risk is that if these issues are not remedied, GE has already 'sold' another around 30 units (around 10 plus of which are in operation), some of which are at higher output ratings," he wrote.

"Remedies would have to be applied up the curve, something we view as a challenge, especially as senior management tries to cut costs aggressively. Stay tuned."

FORCED OUTAGES

Not everyone is complaining, even when performance isn't perfect.

In France, the Bouchain plant suffered 26 forced outages in the 15 months ending November, according to data published by operator Electricite de France (EDF).

Despite these unplanned outages, GE and operator EDF, with whom GE has a long-standing alliance, say they are satisfied.

"The cause of these events varies, and in certain cases a single event has been interpreted as multiple events. It would not be accurate to link this number to HA technology as fewer than 10 of these events were related to the gas turbine," GE and EDF said in a joint statement.

In a another joint statement, the two said "the Bouchain facility is an example of our HA technology at its very best".

They added: "During the commissioning and early operations phase, we encountered minor issues that are very typical of what you'd expect with a project of this size, but we worked together to quickly resolve them."

(Reporting by Drazen Jorgic in ISLAMABAD and Henning Gloystein in SINGAPORE; Additional reporting by Alwyn Scott in NEW YORK and Geert De Clercq in PARIS; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
After months of courtship, it seems that SoftBank has finally agreed on an investment deal with Uber. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Japanese titan has succeeded in a bid to snag a large percentage of the ride hailing company's shares. Uber has tendered shares equal to 20 percent of the company, though the Wall Street Journal speculates that SoftBank is will likely acquire 15 percent of that. This values Uber at $48 billion, which is about a 30 percent discount of Uber's estimated value of $70 billion. The tender offer expires at noon Pacific however, so investors could still change their minds before then.

The offer comes at a critical time for Uber. The company has struggled for months with lawsuits, a CEO takeover, and a host of internal struggles. On top of that, Uber has been losing competition to rivals like Lyft in the US and Grab and Didi Chuxing in Asia. In fact, SoftBank is an investor in several of those competitors as well. When asked if that would be a problem for Uber, board member Arianna Huffington said in October that "This is not marriage; this is a business." A few months ago, Uber agreed to limit the power of former CEO Travis Kalanick in order to sweeten the deal for SoftBank.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the SoftBank deal would entail investing at least $1 billion into Uber, which is meant to assuage fears that the discounted price would lower the value of the remaining shares.

Update: SoftBank has provided us with a statement for Rajeev Misra, CEO of SoftBank Investment Advisers and the Director at SoftBank Group Corp:

"We are appreciative of the support from Uber's shareholders in the successful tender offer and look forward to closing the overall investment in January. We have tremendous confidence in Uber's leadership and employees and are excited to support Uber as it continues to reinvent how people and goods are transported around the world."
Here are 5 stocks added to the Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) List today:

Stifel Financial Corp. (SF): This financial services and bank holding company has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 1.8% over the last 60 days.

Stifel Financial Corporation Price and Consensus

Stifel Financial Corporation Price and Consensus

Stifel Financial Corporation price-consensus-chart | Stifel Financial Corporation Quote

BRT Apartments Corp. (BRT): This real estate investment trust has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 19.7% over the last 60 days.

BRT Realty Trust Price and Consensus

BRT Realty Trust Price and Consensus

BRT Realty Trust price-consensus-chart | BRT Realty Trust Quote

Columbus McKinnon Corporation (CMCO): This manufacturer of actuators, cranes, rigging tools, digital power control systems, and other material handling products has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 1% over the last 60 days.

Columbus McKinnon Corporation Price and Consensus

Columbus McKinnon Corporation Price and Consensus

Columbus McKinnon Corporation price-consensus-chart | Columbus McKinnon Corporation Quote

CRA International, Inc. (CRAI): This consulting company has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 2.6% over the last 60 days.

CRA International,Inc. Price and Consensus

CRA International,Inc. Price and Consensus

CRA International,Inc. price-consensus-chart | CRA International,Inc. Quote

Donaldson Company, Inc. (DCI): This manufacturer of filtration systems and replacement parts has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 5.9% over the last 60 days.

Donaldson Company, Inc. Price and Consensus

Donaldson Company, Inc. Price and Consensus

Donaldson Company, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Donaldson Company, Inc. Quote

You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here

5 Medical Stocks to Buy Now

Zacks names 5 companies poised to ride a medical breakthrough that is targeting cures for leukemia, AIDS, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, and other conditions.

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New products in this field are already generating substantial revenue and even more wondrous treatments are in the pipeline. Early investors could realize exceptional profits.

Click here to see the 5 stocks >>



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Official vehicles drive down a road near Camp David, Md., Friday, Aug. 18, 2017, ahead of a meeting with President Donald Trump and his national security team to discuss strategy for South Asia, including India, Pakistan and the way forward in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Eager for more legislative achievements before Washington's focus shifts to the midterm elections, President Donald Trump plans to start the new year by meeting with Republican congressional leaders to plot the 2018 legislative agenda, the White House said.

After returning to Washington from Florida, where he is spending the holidays, Trump will host House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky at the rustic Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland during the weekend of Jan. 6-7.

Spokesmen for Ryan and McConnell have confirmed they will attend.

The powwow will follow the recent enactment of legislation to cut taxes, beginning next year, for corporations and individuals at an estimated cost of $1.5 trillion added to the national debt over 10 years.

The bill marked the first big legislative achievement for Trump and congressional Republicans, who made cutting taxes a must-do this year after the Senate failed to close the deal on another top GOP promise: to repeal and replace the Obama health care law.

While the tax bill ends the requirement that all Americans buy health insurance or pay a fine, which is a key component of the Affordable Care Act, it leaves intact other features of the health care law. No Democrats voted for the tax bill, which Trump signed during a hastily arranged White House ceremony, without any lawmakers present, before he flew to Florida last Friday.

The agenda for next year is already lengthy, and 2018 is still a few days away.

Trump predicted in a tweet earlier this week that Democrats and Republicans will "eventually come together" to develop a new health care plan. The president is also forecasting unity between the parties on spending to upgrade aging roads, bridges and other transportation. The White House has said Trump will unveil his long-awaited infrastructure plan in January.

Ryan, meanwhile, has talked about overhauling Medicaid and Medicare and other welfare programs, but McConnell has signaled an unwillingness to go that route unless there's Democratic support for any changes. Trump has also said he wants to pursue "welfare reform" next year because "people are taking advantage of the system."

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Congress, meanwhile, will open the year facing a backlog from 2017.

The list includes agreeing by Jan. 19 on a government funding bill to avert a partial government shutdown and to boost Pentagon spending. Lawmakers also must agree on billions in additional aid to help hurricane victims, lifting the debt ceiling so the United States can pay its bills, extending a children's health insurance program and drafting protections for immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

Trump tweeted earlier in the year that he was ending the program for the immigrants. He gave lawmakers until March 5 to come up with a legislative solution, or the individuals will begin to face the risk of being deported.

Much of the work will need to be done before Republicans shift their focus to retaining their House and Senate majorities in midterm elections taking place in November 2018. The GOP's already slim Senate majority will get even slimmer come January, when Democrat Doug Jones of Alabama is sworn in, leaving Republicans with a 51-49 edge in the chamber.

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Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap
NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 01: Uber drivers protest the company's recent fare cuts and go on strike in front of the car service's New York offices on February 1, 2016 in New York City. The drivers say Uber continues to cut into their earnings without cutting into its own take from each ride. In claiming fare reduction would mean more work for drivers, the San Francisco based company cut its prices by 15 percent last week. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Today was a momentous day in Uber history. After much debate, rumors and strife over the past few weeks, it looks like the company and its shareholders have come to an agreement over a tender offer that will see SoftBank own nearly 15 percent of the company, while also injecting around $1 billion in fresh capital. That deal is expected to close in the new year.

The SoftBank tender offer was initiated after Ubers board agreed to a set of governance changes back in early October, which included increasing the boards size from 11 to 17. Those changes were reported to be contingent on SoftBank agreeing to invest in the company, which now seems like a done deal.

Although there are a lot of things that make Ubers story unique, the size of its board is one that has gotten little attention, and could provide a whole new set of dynamics to watch for as the company moves toward stabilizing its future after a rash of bad news stories this past year.

At 17, Ubers board would be among the largest corporate boards publicly or privately held. Compare that to some of the Valleys largest tech companies: Apple and Facebook each have eight, while Snapchat and Twitter each have nine. Alphabet, Oracle and Intel each have 12, Microsoft has quite a few at 14 and IBM is whopping at 15 members.

Perhaps even more relevant, recent IPO candidates have had fairly small boards. Stitch Fix currently has five members, CarGurus has six and Blue Apron has eight. Looking more broadly, the median for the S&P 500 is 11, putting Ubers 17 members far above the average for even actively traded companies, and even companies with market caps above $50 billion.

And just as a fun comparison, Ubers board will be larger than the UN Security Council, which has 15 members, five permanent and 10 non-permanent. (One wonders which has the more difficult agenda next year.)

With all of the challenges that Uber faces, the question isnt whether it has enough supervision, but whether a board of that size has the coherence and force to discipline the company and ensure that the constant drumbeat of scandals in the past few years can be rectified while improving the companys long-term prospects.

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You might expect the board size to be a function of the number of investors involved with Uber, which has raised about $12.5 billion according to Crunchbase. Traditionally, investors who lead funding rounds in companies get a board seat, if not more than one. Yet, Ubers board is surprisingly devoid of active investors.

Currently, there are just three VCs on Ubers 11-member board. That includes Benchmark partner Matt Cohler (who took over for Bill Gurley earlier this year); Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who is the managing director of Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund; and David Trujillo at TPG Capital.

Whats interesting is that those VCs are equally matched by Uber founders Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, along with first employee and one-time CEO Ryan Graves.

Beyond those six, Ubers new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi got a seat when he joined. Arianna Huffington joined last year, as did Wan Ling Martello, a senior exec at Nestle, who joined earlier this year as an independent director in the wake of Susan Fowlers open letter about Ubers culture. Finally, Kalanick appointed to the board in late September former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns and former chief of Merrill Lynch John Thain in a bid to protect his control of the company.

Now, add six new directors with the consummation of the SoftBank deal, which has been reported to include a new chairman, two directors for SoftBank and three new independent directors.

What you get is a Frankenboard of crazy proportions.

Given the high-dimensional chess that has been played by Benchmark and Kalanick over the past few months, its clear that neither side is ready to give up seats in a bid to bring the board size to a more manageable level. The best option is likely for the company to continue to shoot for a public debut in 2019, at which time the board can shrink as investors and others clear out their holdings and move on.

More people at the helm is not going to right the ship of Uber. What Uber needs is a unanimous board and precision focus under its new CEO in order to fix the many, many wrongs the company has committed. Seventeen is the new magic number for Uber  lets hope the company can get everyone on the same side of the road.
ASGN vs. FICO: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  Dec 29, 2017  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include CVR Refining, LP CVRR, Statoil ASA STO, HollyFrontier Corp HFC, CNOOC Ltd CEO and North American Energy Partners Inc. NOA.

Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free.

Here are highlights from Thursdays Analyst Blog:

5 Energy Stocks to Yield More Than 200% Earnings in 2017

Investing in energy is a complicated task as a majority of these stocks are influenced by the underlying commodity prices. The commodity prices are manipulated by several supply and demand factors. Global oil prices have been on an upward swing over the second half of this year after a few devastating years. The price range has been very varied ranging between a high of more than $64 per barrel earlier this month compared to a low of $30 early last year.

Therefore, it is vital to choose the right stocks amid this ever-changing backdrop, considering capital spending, debt levels and production growth against free cash flow, costs and return of capital to stockholders through dividends and share buybacks.

Volatility Rose for Oil in 2017

The year 2017 has been full of ups and downs for the energy industry. Driven by improving fundamentals, oil price is currently trading above $55 per barrel mark compared with 2014 levels of around $100.

However, oil prices hit almost a two and a half year high in the trading session this week with U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled at $59.64.The partial recovery has been driven by improving fundamentals. Declining inventories and the extension of OPEC-led supply cuts are two major factors balancing the market and supporting the favorable uptrend.

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Per the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, global oil markets depicted less stability in 2016, while a slight supply deficit was witnessed in 2017. The data compilations show a shortfall of 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the first quarter of 2018.

In an effort to limit prices by the OPEC and Russians, U.S. oil yield has improved by more than 16% since mid-2016 and is reaching 10 million bpd. Per the Chinese customs data, U.S. shipments to China have been the largest beneficiary from the OPEC-led output cuts. However, Russia was China's largest crude oil supplier for the nine consecutive months till November, beating Saudi Arabia also for the rest of the year.

5 Stocks to Bet On

Strong fundamentals do not necessarily indicate that all energy companies are favorable picks. Moreover, with several companies crowding the investment space, it is not a simple task for investors to choose stocks that have the potential to deliver attractive returns.

Though these attributes do not guarantee outperformance, the Zacks Rank, which validates the companys strong fundamentals, is considered handy. In particular, we have shortlisted 5 energy companies having a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy) or #2 (Buy) and companies having estimated EPS growth rate of 200% or more this year.

You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

CVR Refining, LP, a #1 Ranked stock, is our first pick. Sugar Land, TX-based CVR Refining is an independent downstream energy partnership with refining and associated logistics properties in the Midcontinent United States.

Shares of CVR Refining returned more than 56% year to date. The companys increasing cash and declining debt shows the strength of its balance sheet. It continues to be a good investment option indicated by projected EPS growth (F1/F0) of 1,350.0%. Notably, the companys EV/EBITDA ratio 7.1 shows that it is undervalued compared with the industrys 12.7.

(Looking for the Best Stocks for 2018? Be among the first to see our Top Ten Stocks for 2018 portfolio here.)

Statoil ASA, based in Norway, is a major international integrated oil and gas company. The Zacks #1 Ranked operator has operations in all major hydrocarbon-producing regions of the world, with an upstream focus on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). Owing to its strong offshore exposure, Statoil is a leader in subsea production.

Compared with the industrys year-to-date return of 6.6%, Statoils investors were rewarded with more than a two-fold increase so far this year justifying strong international operations along with special emphasis on the NCS. Further, the companys projected EPS growth (F1/F0) of 2,227.8% signals continuation of an uptrend in the price chart in the near term.

Headquartered in Dallas, TX, HollyFrontier Corp is one of the largest independent refiners and marketers of petroleum products in the United States. A major advantage for the company is the high complexity index, or the capability to process a wide mix of crude, and access to some of the fastest growing domestic markets afforded by its portfolio of five refineries.

With a nearly 58% year-to-date rise in share price, HollyFrontier offers a good entry point into this Zacks Rank #1 company, which has a projected EPS growth (F1/F0) of 366.7%. The stock is witnessing solid activity on the earnings estimate revision front. Over the last 30 days, the estimates for the current quarter increased from 76 cents to 93 cents, a significant move.

CNOOC Ltd is one of the three leading oil companies in China and one of the largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies of the world. is the company is Chinas dominant producer of offshore crude oil and natural gas and engages in the exploration, development, production and sale of crude oil, natural gas, and other petroleum products.

With more than 16% year-to-date rise in share price, CNOOC still offers a good entry point into this Zacks Rank #2 company, which has a projected EPS growth (F1/F0) of 4,678.6%. The companys premium assets portfolio, excellent execution strategy, unique position as a pure oil player and potential transactions in the merger and acquisition space are other positives.

Headquartered in Edmonton, Canada,North American Energy Partners Inc. through its subsidiaries, offers a range of mining and heavy construction services to customers in the resource development and industrial construction sectors mainly in Western Canada. The company provides construction and operations support services through various stages of an oil sands project's lifecycle.

Compared with the industrys year-to-date decline of 26.6%, North American Energy Partners unit holders were rewarded 27.3% so far this year justifying its large and diverse fleet. Further, the companys projected EPS growth (F1/F0) of 1,300% signals continuation of an uptrend in the price chart in the near term.

Today's Stocks from Zacks' Hottest Strategies

It's hard to believe, even for us at Zacks. But while the market gained +18.8% from 2016 - Q1 2017, our top stock-picking screens have returned +157.0%, +128.0%, +97.8%, +94.7%, and +90.2% respectively.

And this outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. Over the years it has been remarkably consistent. From 2000 - Q1 2017, the composite yearly average gain for these strategies has beaten the market more than 11X over. Maybe even more remarkable is the fact that we're willing to share their latest stocks with you without cost or obligation.

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Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

Strong Stocks that Should Be in the News

Many are little publicized and fly under the Wall Street radar. They're virtually unknown to the general public. Yet today's 220 Zacks Rank #1 "Strong Buys" were generated by the stock-picking system that has nearly tripled the market from 1988 through 2015. Its average gain has been a stellar +26% per year.See these high-potential stocks free >>.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.



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Kamala Mill's tragedy is a deja vu situation for Mumbaikars. This is not the first time Mumbai has faced such a fire breakout. Find out similar incidents that took place in the financial capital.

By India Today Web Desk: Kamala Mill's tragedy is a deja vu situation for Mumbaikars 14 people including 11 women were killed and more than a dozen people were injured after a massive fire broke out in a restaurant in Kamala Hills, a commercial complex in Mumbai's Lower Parel suburb.

The fire broke out at 12:30 am at the top of a building situated in the commercial hub, which houses restaurants, pubs, offices of TV channels like Mirror Now, Times Now and Zoom TV, and is spread over 37 acres. The main cause of death was apparently suffocation.

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But this is not the first time Mumbai has faced such a fire breakout. Numerous horrifying accidents in the past have occurred causing huge loss to life and property. The Kamala Mill fire accident is not the only reminder of the faux pas of infrastructure, retrospect has many.

Let's take a look at similar incidents.

Sakinaka fire: Just a few days ago, on December 18, a fire at Bhanu farsan factory in Andheri (East) broke out. Out of the 20 people in the building, only 8 managed to escape. The bodies of the 12 people were dug out from the debris which were beyond recognition. Investigation led to a shocking discovery that the workshop was being run without necessary permissions from the BMC.

RK Studio: The famous RK studio in Chembur caught fire on Septamber 16 this year. The fire left the structure and the costumes kept inside severly damaged. Rishi Kapoor expressed sorrow in his tweet, " A studio can be built again but the loss of the irreplaceable memorabilia and costumes of all R.K. Films, is tragic for all. Fire took it away."

'Make in India' stage fire: A huge blaze engulfed the stage of an ongoing cultural programme, part of the'Make in India' event. More than 15,000 people including dignitaries like Devendra Fadnavis, Vidyasagar Rao, Amitabh Bachchan and Amir Khan were attending the event when the fire broke out from the sparklers. Prompt evacuation saved thousands of lives and casualities were reported.

Powai highrise fire: Seven people lost their lives when a fire broke out due to short circuit in the air conditioner unit on the 14th floor of a 21-storeyed residential building in Chandivali. Five people lost their lives due to suffocation while trying to escape through the elevator. The Powai fire incident saw an unusual display of courage when six men made several trips to rescue the trapped people, however, five of them lost their own lives.

Andheri (West) fire: When a major fire broke out at Lotus Business park on Andheri link road, it caused much havoc as 15-20 firefighters were stuck on the terrace of the building. Choppers were rushed to the rescue of the firemen and 22 water engines were deployed to quell the blaze. No civilian was harmed, however, a firefighter lost his life.

Samtanagar (Thane) fire: The fire broke out in the early morning hours on the 9th floor of a housing complex in the Samtanagar locality in Thane district. An elderly couple lost their life while two others got injured.

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South Mumbai: Kemps corner fire: Mumbai saw one of the most high end areas catching fire too. The fire broke out at the 12th floor of the plush Mont Blanc building in the Kemps Corner area at around 7:30 pm and claimed seven lives. The fire was doused by 14 fire engines in 4-5 hours long rescue operation.

With so many similar incidents lined up in a span of seven years, it's hard to say what lies in future but a repetition of such incidents shoul be avoided before they become the new "normal" for Mumbaikars.

--- ENDS ---
December 4 marked one year since Shavkat Mirziyoev was elected Uzbekistan's second president.

He had been Uzbekistan's prime minister since 2003, but when Islam Karimov -- Uzbekistan's first and only president since it gained independence in 1991 -- was pronounced dead on September 2, 2016, Mirziyoev moved into the country's top post despite a constitutional prohibition against the prime minister becoming acting president.

In 15 months, Mirziyoev's actions and statements have raised hopes, inside and outside Uzbekistan that the country would emerge from semi-isolationism and become an active partner in regional and international issues.

It is true that Uzbekistan has made progress since Mirziyoev came to power, but it could also be said he inherited a stagnant country. Any movement would be considered progress.

What has Mirziyoev really accomplished as president? And is there a plan for the future, or is he merely practicing damage control?

Mirziyoev laid out five priorities in Uzbekistan's plan for development from 2017 to 2021 on February 8.

-- Improving state and public construction

-- Ensuring the rule of law and reforming the judicial-legal system

-- Developing and liberalizing the economy

-- Developing the social sphere and ensuring security, interethnic harmony and religious tolerance

-- Implementing a balanced, mutually beneficial and constructive foreign policy.

Notably absent is any mention of strengthening the public's role in the political process, which until now has been almost nothing. So there won't be any genuine political opposition parties or independent candidates registered until at least after 2021. There are also no words about greater respect for human rights or any hint of independent media being allowed.

Under Mirziyoev there have been positive changes, especially in Uzbekistan's foreign policy, and that has generated, at times, overly enthusiastic optimism from some quarters.

Forced Labor

Domestically, there are some things that do not seem to have changed since Mirziyoev took over.

Uzbekistan's use of forced labor in the cotton fields, adding up to some 1 million people annually, has drawn international criticism for many years.

President Mirziyoev and other officials have called for a stop to this practice and some have even urged citizens to report attempts to force them into the cotton fields. But the conscription of citizens into the fields continued in 2017 around the country.

The Germany-based Uzbek-German Forum and RFE/RL's Uzbek Service, known locally as Ozodlik, tracked Uzbekistan's 2017 cotton campaign, including Samarkand Province Governor Turobjon Juraev ordering business chiefs to find pickers; Andijan Mayor Hokimjon Abdulazizov demanding the heads of state enterprises provide photographic proof of the employees harvesting cotton; and workers being bused to fields, where they lived and worked for weeks with minimal opportunities to even bathe.

The Norway-based religious rights group Forum 18 reported raids on Protestant gatherings, seizures of Korans and Bibles, fines and even short jail terms against Baptists, Protestants, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

There was also the mysterious deaths in prison of Rahmon Norboev in February, and the death that same month of Zokir Kurbanov while in police custody. Information finally emerged in mid-June that rights defender Nuriddin Jumaniyazov had died in prison, officially, from tuberculosis on December 31, 2016.

There were also the deaths of rights lawyer Polina Braunerg in May and former political prisoner Murad Juraev in December. Both suffered from serious health problems but could not obtain exit visas to seek treatment abroad.*

On September 21, President Mirziyoev invited "all compatriots abroad who wish to contribute to the development of the country" to return to Uzbekistan. The statement was widely interpreted to mean former opposition figures could come home without fear of repercussions.

On September 27, Uzbek writer and dissident Nurullo Otakhonov (aka Nurullo Muhammad Raufkhon) left Turkey and returned to Tashkent where he was detained at the airport upon his arrival. He was released after a week but still faces charges.

Independent journalist Bobomurad Abdullaev, who allegedly wrote critical articles about the Uzbek government for an opposition website, was taken into custody by the National Security Service on September 27. Abdullaev faces charges of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order of Uzbekistan. He has reportedly been able to see a lawyer only one time.

Dissidents Released

However, since Mirziyoev came to power more than a dozen dissidents have been released from prison, among them journalist Muhammad Bekjon (Bekjonov), political activist Rustam Usmanov, UN employee and former Defense Ministry official Erkin Musaev, journalist Solijon Abdurakhmanov, and rights defender Azam Farmonov.

While these releases are encouraging signs, international rights organizations point out that all these people were convicted under dubious circumstances, and most have served prison terms of 10 to 20 years and are now in their 60s and 70s.

Uzbek authorities also took thousands of people off the so-called blacklist of suspect Muslims in August. The government also instituted counseling programs in which officials and clerics liaise with people previously convicted of being involved with alleged extremist religious groups.

While there is still no independent media operating inside Uzbekistan, there are a few media outlets that are experimenting with critical coverage of administration policies. Uzbek television has alluded to mistakes made by former President Karimov's government, particularly fruitless policies toward neighboring states.

There are limits as was seen in August when Prime Minister Abdullo Aripov appeared on the live television program International Press Club and took offense at some of the comments made during the show.

President Mirziyoev has tried to address problems of the rural population. Mirziyoev studied agriculture in university. During a January trip to Uzbekistan's poverty-stricken Karakalpak region, Mirziyoev decided the state should provide low-income families with chickens. The idea was the chickens would lay enough eggs to not only help feed families but extra eggs could be sold for additional needed income. Mirziyoev later called for low-income families to have lemon trees, and not long afterward he recommended that rural inhabitants keep goats.

The chicken and lemon projects failed and by November Uzbekistan's banks received orders to no longer loan money for these endeavors. But Mirziyoev's consideration of the plight of underprivileged families is notable. He still has plans to increase mechanized farming (his specialty in university studies) and substitute cotton with capers and saffron.

Other important changes have yet to be realized. In January, Mirziyoev proposed scrapping Soviet-era exit visas, but in August he announced that this would have to wait until the start of 2019.

Two days after being elected president, Mirziyoev said Uzbekistan would ease visa restrictions for foreign tourists from 27 states, many of them Western countries. But on January 9, Mirziyoev announced that this would have to wait until 2021.

Some believe the delays that follow these announcements are the result of government infighting. Mirziyoev has worked to bring his own people into his government and dismiss holdovers from Karimov's administration. This latter group includes former Finance Minister Rustam Azimov, once seen as a potential successor to Karimov, who was finally removed from government in June.

The former include some people who were ousted, and in cases jailed, under Karimov. Prime Minister Abdullo Aripov, for example, was removed from his position as head of information systems and telecommunications in 2012, as international investigations into the illegal business dealings of President Karimov's eldest daughter Gulnara started. Swedish prosecutors investigating TeliaSonera, one of the companies in which Gulnara allegedly had financial interests, said Aripov's signature was on some of the documents.

Reasons For Optimism

Changes in Uzbekistan's economic and regional policies are the reasons for optimism.

Uzbekistan's economy was in a decrepit state when Karimov died despite the fact that the country has abundant agricultural and hydrocarbon resources. Heavy government centralization of the economy and rampant corruption mitigated all the natural advantages Uzbekistan should have.

In late November 2016, state media started reporting that a new policy on hard currency and convertibility would be coming in 2017. It would be a bold move since for years certain parties in Uzbekistan had raked in profits from the black market where the rate was substantially higher, sometimes twice as much, as the official rate for Uzbekistan's currency  the som.

The Central Bank started lowering the value of the som in early 2017, from 3,309 for $1 to 4,247 soms for $1 by early September. On September 5, the Central Bank implemented a controlled devaluation, dropping the rate to a bit more than 8,000 soms for $1.

Authorities also made it easier for businesses to access hard currency and for citizens to exchange hard currency for the national currency, which, according to authorities, resulted in Uzbekistan's banks taking in hundreds of millions of dollars.

International financial organizations started taking a new look at Uzbekistan.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for example, sent a delegation to Uzbekistan in February; the first such visit in some 10 years, and on November 8 opened an office in Tashkent.

European Union Ambassador Eduards Stiprais** led a delegation to Uzbekistan in early May. He said the EU welcomed Uzbekistan "opening to the world," and called for boosting EU-Uzbek trade.

EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini met several times with Uzbek officials in Brussels during 2017, including visiting Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov in July. On November 10-11, Mogherini addressed an international security conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

But it was Russia that made the greatest progress boosting ties with Uzbekistan in 2017.

Under Karimov, Russian-Uzbek relations were only good when there was a security problem in Central Asia.

But Russia offered immediate remedies to many of Uzbekistan's economic problems.

Uzbek fruits and vegetables replaced EU products that the Kremlin banned in retaliation for Western sanctions on Russia for its role in the conflict in Ukraine.

Gas And Oil Investment

Russian companies LUKoil and Gazprom pledged to continue investing several billion dollars into Uzbekistan's gas and oil sector. On November 3, LUKoil launched the first stage of the long-awaited Kandym gas-processing plant in Uzbekistan's Bukhara Province, a $3.3-billion project that eventually aims to produce some 8 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually.

LUKoil and Gazpromneft, the oil wing of Gazprom, are also part of a deal to eventually ship up to 10 million tons of Russian oil to Uzbekistan via the Omsk-Pavlodar-Shymkent oil pipeline.

Uzbekistan is currently facing a deficit of gasoline. Prices at filling stations went up in November by more than 30 percent and the government allocated $250 million to the country's three refineries to secure new supplies of oil for processing.

Uzbekistan possesses some 600 million barrels of proven oil reserves, but production has dropped to nearly half what it was a decade ago, leaving the country's three refineries (in Bukhara, Alty-Arik, and Ferghana) operating far under capacity.

That makes Russian oil imports vital to Uzbekistan for the foreseeable future. And Russia is importing some 5 bcm of Uzbek gas, about half the gas Uzbekistan exports.

Regional Detente

While Uzbekistan worked at improving its relations with many countries, the most important change was in Uzbekistan's regional policy, which is also, to date, the biggest victory of President Mirziyoev's new government.

Uzbek officials have noted for years Uzbekistan is a double-landlocked country, meaning there are at least two countries between Uzbekistan and the nearest access to the sea.

That being the case, good relations with immediate neighbors would seem to be a prerequisite to foreign trade, but that is not how former President Karimov saw it.

Karimov cut back ties with Central Asian neighbors to a minimum, with the possible exception of Turkmenistan, itself an isolationist state.

Mirziyoev's first priority was to reset relations with all of Uzbekistan's Central Asian neighbors, including Afghanistan. Mirziyoev's first visits as Uzbekistan's elected president were to Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan in March. He has been back to both countries twice since then and those visits also helped Uzbekistan obtain more fuel for its refineries and markets for Uzbekistan's products.

Mirziyoev's visit to Kyrgyzstan in early September turned into a celebration along the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border after new agreements were signed opening crossing points along the common frontier. The situation along all of Uzbekistan's borders is easing, a vital development since Uzbekistan is the core of the region, the only country bordering all the other Central Asian states and Afghanistan.

Already new connections are opening and more will be coming, such as the improved road connecting Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. Turkmenistan is able to export electricity to Tajikistan through Uzbekistan's territory and there is talk of recreating a unified energy grid based on a Soviet-era energy grid that Uzbekistan unilaterally withdrew from at the end of 2009.

Looking ahead, Uzbekistan's economic situation is almost certain to improve. Opening up the country as a natural regional transit corridor will help Uzbekistan, and the government's active promotion of trade with foreign partners old and new should further cement economic progress.

There is little indication that any domestic social or political reforms are coming anytime soon, but an improved standard of living after years of stagnation will probably be sufficient for Mirziyoev to firmly entrench himself in power in Uzbekistan.

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL.

*Juraev was finally given permission in October by which point his health had deteriorated to such an extent that he could no longer travel

**Stiprais was named the EU ambassador to Uzbekistan on September 19


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You have very reasonable expectations and maybe almost a little too much. I'd like to see some stretch schools on here like Ross & Texas, both schools that are strong in the technology area. challenge: 33 going into a full-time MBA program. Generally when candidates are around that age I start to have them think about part-time programs or one-year MBA programs. Or more pointedly European MBA programs. So I would like for you to think about applying to INSEAD, one of my clients who was actually French got interviews there with a 650 but opted for Wharton. You would be a lot more of a diverse candidate for them so give it some thought. On the whole European schools value older candidates and have lower GMAT thresholds. So I realize you're probably real focused on US schools but if you're interested in a long-term brand name I think that European/UK schools might be more able to offer that._________________
Kabul, Dec 29 (IBNS); At least six children were killed in a landmine blast in northern Balkh province of Afghanistan, media reports said on Friday.

Police spokesman Sher Jan Durrani told Pajhwok Afghan News the incident took place in Dawlatabad district on Wednesday evening.

He told he news agency the children were aged between seven and 11 years.

He further said the blast occurred when the children were playing with the explosive.

The explosive device had been planted by insurgents, he told the news agency.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast so far.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 29 (PTI) The HRD Ministry-appointed panel tasked with drafting a new National Education Policy will submit its report in March next year, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said here today.

"The committee had sought a three-month extension and we have granted them time till March 31, 2018," Javadekar told reporters.

Headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief K Kasturirangan, the panel was set up by the human resource development (HRD) ministry in June and it was supposed to submit its report this month.

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The committee had sought the extension, saying it was still holding consultations with various stakeholders and needed time to prepare the final draft.

The existing National Education Policy was framed in 1986 and revised in 1992. A new National Education Policy was part of the manifesto of the BJP, which now governs the country.

Apart from Kasturirangan, the committee has eight members, including mathematician Manjul Bhargava and former IAS officer K J Alphonse.

The panel will also take into account the report of a panel headed by former cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian, formed by the HRD ministry during the tenure of Smriti Irani.

The TSR Subramanian panel submitted its report to the government in May 2016, suggesting measures to strengthen the education sector that caters to over 300 million students.

However, the government decided to have more consultations and use it as an "input" for the future draft and not as a final draft report, and set up the panel headed by Kasturirangan.

Kasturirangan headed ISRO between 1994 and 2003 and was awarded the countrys second highest civilian honour -- Padma Vibhushan -- in 2000. PTI GJS SMN

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In Kenya, some 90 percent of students who took the 2017 secondary education exams failed.

Opposition lawmakers are calling on the government to investigate why so many students did not pass. The minister of education, however, expressed satisfaction with the results.

Caleb Amisi is an opposition lawmaker. He told reporters that parliament must understand what led to only 10 percent of students scoring high enough to enter university.

"Kenya National Examination Council must be ordered to prepare and present a comprehensive report over this perceived mass failure, Amisi said. He added that some of Kenya's most trustworthy companies should help with an independent investigation.

The exam results created concern among parents, teachers and others. They worry about the fate of the students and the quality of Kenya's education system.

One of the key questions is what caused the high failure rate among the some 600,000 students who took the test. Are students, teachers, or the curriculum to blame? Or was the problem a quick grading process that saw educators go through the exams in just three weeks?

Mark Nyamita, an opposition lawmaker, says the problem needs to be fixed. If not, millions of young Kenyans will be barred from higher education.

"If this goes on in this government over the next five years, we are going to have a whopping 2.5 million-plus people with their future shuttered," he said.

Officials are satisfied with results

Some Kenyan officials say the mass failure resulted from efforts to reduce cheating. In an interview with Citizen Television, Education Minister Fred Matiangi hinted that explanation might be true. He suggested the results show the true state of Kenyan education.

"I am very satisfied with the results we have had in the last two years, 2016 and 2017, because we have lived a lie for such a long time," Matiangi said. "Time is here for us now to deal with the truth."

Calls are growing for a national conference to resolve the crisis and decide what to do about the students who failed the exams.

Lawmakers will likely discuss the issue in the National Assembly in February.

I'm John Russell.

Mohammed Yusuf reported on this story for VOA News. John Russell adapted it for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

satisfaction  n. something that makes you happy, pleased, or satisfied

comprehensive  adj. including many, most, or all things

curriculum  n. the courses that are taught by a school, college, etc.

whopping  adj. (always used before a noun - informal) very large, impressive, etc.

hint  v. to say (something) or give information about (something) in an indirect way
South Korean President Moon Jae-In said Thursday the countrys 2015 agreement with Japan to settle the issue of sexual slavery during World War II is problematic.

Historians say tens of thousands of women from around Asia -- many of them Korean -- were sent to military brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during the war.

In his statement, Moon promised to take measures to meet the victims demands. This may put the future of the deal in question, two years after both countries called it final and irreversible.

Moons statement came one day after a state-appointed team found that Seouls government at the time did not communicate well with the victims before reaching the deal.

The team also said parts of the deal were not made public. That includes Japans demand that the South Korean government avoid using the term sexual slavery. Japan also wants South Korea to provide a plan to remove a statue representing the sex slaves. The statue sits in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul.

South Korea agreed to officially describe the victims as victims of Japanese military comfort stations, but did not make any clear promise about the statue, the team said.

It has been confirmed that the 2015 comfort women negotiation between South Korea had serious flaws, both in process and content, Moon said in a statement read by his representative.

Even though the past deal was an official promise between the two governments, he is declaring that the deal does not resolve issues over the comfort women.

His comments suggest that Seoul may seek a new negotiation of the deal. This would anger the Japanese government. Moon also said that issues over history shouldnt affect efforts to build relations between the countries today or in the future.

Some experts say Moons government is not likely to launch a diplomatic dispute with Japan by throwing out the deal. They say this is especially true at a time when the two countries must display unity against North Koreas growing nuclear threat.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said on Wednesday that Japan stands by the deal. He said any attempt to change it would make relations between the countries unmanageable and unacceptable.

When asked whether Moons statement means a renegotiation may be needed, Seouls Foreign Ministry representative Noh Kyu-duk did not give a clear answer. He said only that his government will seek sincere and practical measures quickly to again bring honor to the victims.

Under the deal, Japan agreed to provide 1 billion yen, or $8.8 million in payments to the surviving victims. South Korea said it would try to resolve Japans complaint about the statue in front of the embassy.

The deal received sharp criticism in South Korea, where many thought the government settled for too little. Japan has been angry that South Korea hasnt taken steps to remove the statue and similar monuments in other parts of the country. It said the countries had a clear understanding on the matter.

The deal was negotiated under former president Park Geun-hye, who was removed from office and arrested in March on charges of corruption. Moon promised to redo the deal during his presidential campaign. But he has avoided specific details about renegotiations since taking office in May.

South Koreas Foreign Ministry said government officials will hold discussions with victims and experts before deciding whether to try to revise the deal.

Im Alice Bryant. And Im Jill Robbins

The Associated Press reported this story. Alice Bryant adapted it for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

brothel  n. a building in which prostitutes are available

irreversible - adj. impossible to change back to a previous condition or state

comfort - n. a state or feeling of being less worried, upset, frightened, etc., during a time of trouble or emotional pain

flaw  n. a small fault or weakness

unmanageable - adj. difficult to deal with or control

sincere - adj. genuine or real

practical - adj. logical and reasonable in a particular situation

monument  n. a building or statue that honors a person or event


Ukraine and pro-Russian separatist rebels had the largest exchange of prisoners on Wednesday since the start of the conflict in 2014.

The exchange allowed hundreds of former prisoners to return home ahead of the New Year and Orthodox Christmas.

More than 10,000 people have died in the war. Reports of deaths and injuries continued daily this year despite a ceasefire in 2015.

The mother of a Ukrainian prisoner received a call from her son Oleksandr Oliynyk. He said, Mum, Im already here.

She told a Ukrainian news channel, You cannot imagine what it means for a mother, to not see your child for three-and-a-half years, since August 2014.

The Ukrainian government in Kiev agreed to hand over 306 prisoners to the pro-Russian rebels and to receive 74 prisoners in return.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko confirmed on social media All 74 Ukrainian hostages are already at home, on the territory controlled by our army.

Poroshenko added that among the prisoners handed to Ukraine were a historian and a cyborg - the nickname Ukrainians gave to soldiers who defended Donetsk airport in one of the conflicts most intense battles in 2014.

The exact number of prisoners returned to rebel-held territory is unclear. Viktor Medvedchuk is Ukraines representative to ongoing peace talks. He told the Russian news agency TASS that some captives refused to return.

TASS reported that Medvedchuk also expected more exchanges in 2018. The Ukrainian state security service said 103 prisoners remained in separatist hands.

The exchange came as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked Russia to lower the level of violence in eastern Ukraine.

Russian officials in Moscow did not comment on the exchange. Ukraine and its Western allies say the Russian government supports the pro-Russian separatists with troops, cash, and heavy weapons. Moscow denies the claim.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the exchange in a joint statement. They said both sides should release the remaining captives.

Germanys foreign ministry said it was an important step in acting on the ceasefire agreement agreed in the Belarus capital Minsk. The agreement was signed by Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France in early 2015.

Above all, it is also an important humanitarian gesture before the New Year and Orthodox Christmas, a foreign ministry statement said.

I'm Jill Robbins.

Polina Ivanova and Matthias Williams wrote this story for Reuters news. Jill Robbins adapted it for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

nickname  n. a name that is different from your real name but is what your family, friends, etc., call you when they are talking to you or about you

humanitarian - adj. having the quality of making other peoples' lives better

gesture - n. something said or done to show a particular feeling or attitude

What do you think of the exchange of prisoners? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.
Vietnam has launched a new operation to fight what the government has called "wrong" views on the Internet.

The new cyber combat operation, Force 47, has 10,000 members. It is part of the governments growing effort to end criticism against the state.

Lieutenant General Nguyen Trong Nghia is one of the heads of the military's political department. At a Monday conference of the Central Propaganda Department, he said the operation is already at work in several areas of the government.

"In every hour, minute and second, we must be ready to fight proactively against the wrong views," he said.

Communist-ruled Vietnam has increased attempts to control the Internet. The government intends to watch social media more closely and remove material it believes is offensive.

In August, Vietnam's president said the country needed to pay greater attention to controlling news websites and blogs with bad and dangerous material.

Last month, a blogger was sent to jail for seven years for spreading propaganda against the state. The blogger had written about a massive chemical waste spill made by Formosa, a Taiwanese-owned factory in Vietnam.

The court also rejected an appeal from Me Nam, or Mother Mushroom, who is serving a 10-year jail sentence on anti-state propaganda. Me Nam had posted articles on Facebook critical of the government on human rights and civilian deaths in police custody.

Internet security

Vietnam is one of the top 10 countries for Facebook users. The government has written an Internet security bill asking for local placement of Facebook and Google servers. But the bill has been the subject of fierce debate at the National Assembly and is still awaiting its approval.

Its neighboring country, China, allows only local Internet companies that operate under restricted rules.

Cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc. said Vietnam had developed strong internet spying abilities in an area of the world with weak defenses.

A representative of FireEye told Reuters news agency that Vietnam is not the only nation using these abilities. He said the growing use among nations will impact governments, journalists, activists and even international companies.

He said that cyber spying is becoming more attractive to nations partly because it provides them with a lot of information while the costs are modest and risks are low.

Vietnam denies these claims.

Im Alice Bryant.

Alice Bryant adapted this story for Learning English based on Reuters news reports. Hai Do was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

cyber - adj. computer-based

domestic - adj. of, relating to or made in your own country

blog - n. a Web site on which someone writes about personal opinions, activities, and experiences

custody - n. the state of being kept in a prison or jail

server - n. the main computer in a network which provides files and services that are used by the other computers
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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.
Researchers from a number of countries are collaborating to create a new kind of birth-control method for men.

By India Today Web Desk: With science making our health and wellness concerns more easy to handle as time flies by, there might just be a new kind of male contraceptive on the horizon. This will, hopefully, be made possible by a huge collaboration between researchers from a number of countries in 2018.

The clinical trial for the contraceptive gel will start in early 2018, and will include 400 couples spread over six different countries around the world. The gel consists of synthetic hormones, and men have to apply it on their upper-arms and shoulders once a day.

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Also Read: Don't worry, your heart is NOT going to stop mid-sex, even if you have a condition

The National Institutes of Health and another non-profit, Population Council, are the main sponsors for this research, which will be conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Chile and Kenya.

The gel they'll be testing has a synthetic progestin, called nestorone, which blocks the testes from producing enough testosterone to create sperm, Time magazine has revealed. The gel also has a synthetic testosterone which will make up for any hormonal imbalances men might feel.

Women in this trial will also use a contraceptive for the first few months, till the sperm count of the men drops down to the level where pregnancy is just not possible--one million per millilitre. All the couples in the trial will use only the gel as contraception for a year, while the research is undertaken. No other kind of contraception will be allowed to use.

Also Read: Can men have multiple orgasms? Yes, reveals a sex expert

A similar product was previously tested in a clinical trial of much smaller proportions, and it was apparently partially successful. These contraceptive injections, tested in 2016, were 96 percent effective--but the men in the trial came back complaining about a number of side-effects, including mood swings and muscle pain. The trials set to begin in 2018 hope to overcome the defects of the previous product, by making male contraceptive more foolproof, with lesser or milder side-effects.

If the upcoming trials work, it might just ease the pressure on women--who are more concerned about unplanned pregnancies, especially in developing countries.

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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.
By India Today Web Desk: Malayalam superstar Mammootty chose to stay mum for nearly three weeks regarding the Kasaba controversy. While two arrests have been made in the issue based on the complaint lodged by Parvathy, the cyber crime officials are still working towards nabbing those abusers who have threatened the actress.

In an interview to a Malayalam portal, Mammootty has finally decided to talk about the issue. He said, "I don't want to get embroiled in any controversy. At the same time, I want to take part in those conversations that are meaningful. I have not entrusted anyone to reply on behalf or react to any issue pertaining to me."

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He further revealed that Parvathy had brought the whole issue to his attention and that he had advised her not to take it seriously. He added that he wouldn't encourage his fans to threaten anyone. He also reasoned out that he was out of the country because of which he couldn't react on the issue.

Mammootty stressed on the fact that freedom of opinion is as important as freedom of expression. However, he still hasn't reacted to the misogynistic dialogues in his film Kasaba.

The controversy got traction when Parvathy called out the misogynistic dialogues in Mammootty's film Kasaba at the panel discussion at the International Film Festival of Kerala. She started receiving rape and death threats on all social media platforms. Following the abuse, she filed a complaint with the Ernakulam cyber crime cell who are working on the case.

ALSO WATCH: Mammootty, Mohanlal raided by I-T

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Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. designs, engineers, manufactures, and markets commercial aerostructures worldwide. It operates through three segments: Commercial, Defense & Space, and Aftermarket. The Commercial segment offers forward, mid, and rear fuselage sections and systems, struts/pylons, nacelles, and related engine structural components; and wings and wing components, including flight control surfaces, as well as other structural parts. This segment primarily serves the aircraft original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or engine OEMs of large commercial aircraft and/or business/regional jet programs. The Defense & Space segment provides fuselage, strut, nacelle, and wing aerostructures primarily for U.S. Government defense programs, including Boeing P-8, C40, and KC-46 Tanker. This segment also engages in the fabrication, bonding, assembly, testing, tooling, processing, engineering analysis, and training on fixed wing aircraft aerostructures, missiles, and hypersonics works, such as solid rocket motor throats, nozzles, re-entry vehicle thermal protections systems, forward cockpit and cabin, and fuselage work on rotorcraft aerostructures. The Aftermarket segment offers spare parts and MRO services, repairs for flight control surfaces and nacelles, radome repairs, rotable assets, engineering services, advanced composite repairs, and other repair and overhaul services. Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. has a strategic partnership with Sierra Space to enhance access to commercial space economy of the future. The company was formerly known as Mid-Western Aircraft Systems Holdings, Inc. Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1927 and is headquartered in Wichita, Kansas.
United Technologies Corporation provides technology products and services to building systems and aerospace industries worldwide. Its Otis segment designs, manufactures, sells, and installs passenger and freight elevators, escalators, and moving walkways; and offers modernization products to upgrade elevators and escalators, as well as maintenance and repair services. The company's Carrier segment provides heating, ventilating, air conditioning, refrigeration, fire, security, and building automation products, solutions, and services for commercial, government, infrastructure, residential, and refrigeration and transportation applications. This segment also offers building services, including audit, design, installation, system integration, repair, maintenance, and monitoring. Its Pratt & Whitney segment supplies aircraft engines for commercial, military, business jet, and general aviation markets; and provides aftermarket maintenance, repair, and overhaul, as well as fleet management services. The company's Collins Aerospace Systems segment provides electric power generation, power management, and distribution systems; air data and aircraft sensing systems; engine control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems; engine components; environmental control systems; fire and ice detection, and protection systems; propeller systems; engine nacelle systems; aircraft lighting, seating, and cargo systems; actuation and landing systems; space products and subsystems; avionics systems; flight controls, communications, navigation, oxygen, and training systems; food and beverage preparation, and storage and galley systems; and lavatory and wastewater management systems. The company offers its services through manufacturers' representatives, distributors, wholesalers, dealers, retail outlets, and sales representatives, as well as directly to customers. United Technologies Corporation was founded in 1934 and is headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut.
The wave of sexual misconduct allegations that toppled Hollywood power brokers, politicians, media icons and many others was the top news story of 2017, according to The Associated Press annual poll of U.S. editors and news directors.

The No. 2 story was Donald Trumps tumultuous first year as president. A year ago, Trumps unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in the presidential election was a near-unanimous pick for the top news story of 2016.

The first AP top-stories poll was conducted in 1936, when editors chose the abdication of Britains King Edward VIII as the top story.

Here are 2017s top 10 stories, in order:

1. Sexual misconduct: Scandals involving sexual misdeeds by prominent men are nothing new in America, but theres never been anything remotely like the deluge of allegations unleashed this year by women who were emboldened to speak out by the accusers who preceded them. Luminaries toppled from their perches included movie magnate Harvey Weinstein, media stars Bill OReilly, Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, and several celebrity chefs and members of Congress.

2. Trump-First Year: The controversies started on Inauguration Day, with the new president challenged over his claims on the size of the crowd, and persisted throughout the year. Trumps approval ratings hovered around record-low territory, his base remained fiercely loyal, and his relentless tweeting  often in the early morning hours  provoked a striking mix of outrage, mockery and grateful enthusiasm.

3. Las Vegas mass shooting: A 64-year-old high-stakes video poker player, after amassing an arsenal of weapons, unleashed a barrage of gunfire from a high-rise casino-hotel that killed 58 people and injured hundreds among a crowd attending an open-air concert along the Las Vegas Strip. Weeks after the massacre, questions about the gunmans motives remained unanswered.

4. Hurricane onslaught: In a four-week span, hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria ravaged Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands. Harvey killed more than 80 people in Texas and caused an estimated USD150 billion in damage. Irma killed scores of people in the Caribbean and U.S., including 12 residents of a Florida nursing home that lost its air conditioning. Maria damaged more than 200,000 homes in Puerto Rico, caused lengthy power outages, and prompted an investigation into whether the official death toll of 64 was vastly undercounted.

5. North Korea: At times the taunts had a schoolyard flavor to them  a dotard versus Little Rocket Man. But they came from two world leaders with nuclear arms at their disposal  Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Fueling the tensions were North Koreas latest tests of a hydrogen bomb and of ballistic missiles that potentially could reach the U.S. mainland.

6. Trump-Russia probe: Trump fired FBI director James Comey, but a former FBI chief, Robert Mueller, was soon appointed to investigate potential coordination between Russia and Trumps election campaign. By mid-December, Muellers team had brought federal charges against four people, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

7. Obamacare: Despite repeated efforts, majority Republicans in Congress failed to repeal Barack Obamas health care law and replace it with new plan. At one point, a deciding vote against a GOP replacement bill was cast by Republican Sen. John McCain. But questions remained as to how Obamas plan would fare going forward without substantive help from the Trump administration.

8. Tax overhaul: Without a single Democratic vote, Republicans in Congress pushed through a sweeping $1.5 trillion tax overhaul that would cut corporate taxes while producing mixed results for individuals. GOP lawmakers, backed by Trump, said the bill would have broad benefits by accelerating economic growth. Critics said consequences would include higher budget deficits and the potential loss of health care coverage for millions of Americans.

9. Worldwide terror attacks: The first big terror attack of 2017 came on New Years Day  a gunman killing 39 at a nightclub in Istanbul. Subsequent targets of global terror included an Ariana Grande concert in England, a bike path in New York City and the historic La Rambla promenade in Barcelona. In October, a truck bombing in Somalia killed more than 500 people; in November, an attack on a crowded mosque in Egypt killed more than 300.

10. Islamic State: After lengthy assaults, an array of forces drove the Islamic State from its two main strongholds  the city of Mosul in Iraq, and its self-styled capital, Raqqa, in Syria. The defeats left the Islamic State without significant territory in either country, but affiliates elsewhere in the region, particularly in Egypt and Afghanistan, continued to operate.
Who would imagine some years ago that the regions former top prosecutor, Ho Chio Meng, would be arrested in February 2016 and later sentenced to 21 years in jail, leaving the court pleading for an appeal? However unlikely it may have seemed, that is precisely what happened in July this year.

In addition to prison time, the Court of Final Appeal (TUI) ruled that Ho should pay around MOP75 million, either on his own or with others, to the Office of the Prosecutor General, and that around MOP12 million of his assets would be handed over to the administration.

Right after Judge Song Man Lei announced the final verdict, Ho said, this is an injustice. [] I did not receive any money, I will appeal.

However, Hos attempt to appeal was summarily rejected. The TUI president stated in September that the decision was final. This meant that Ho was sentenced without any right of appeal, in a situation that breaches fundamental rights inscribed in the Basic Law, according to many lawyers. This was one of the most recent episodes of similar situations.

First of many perplexing aspects of the case was the number of crimes Ho was accused of by the Public Prosecutions Office: no less than 1,536 crimes (Ho was not found guilty of approximately 80 of these charges). Lawyer Oriana Pun stepped in as defense lawyer.

A few days after the Hos sentence was read, six defendants related to this case of the citys top former prosecutor were also convicted by the Court of First Instance. Hos wife, brother and other relatives were among the individuals found guilty.

The prosecution argued repeatedly that Hos case was evidence of the principle that every person is equal before the law, and the foundations of the rule of law shall not be shaken.

But, doubts remain; after the sentence was read, Oriana Pun, told the media that the evidence presented by the prosecution was not sufficient to confirm the culpability of most the accusations. She also claimed that appealing is a basic right.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 29 (PTI) A BJP MP today demanded setting up of a regulator to streamline functioning of private nursing homes and healthcare facilities, particularly to curb malpractices like over-pricing of medical procedures and services.

Raising the issue in the Lok Sabha, Meenakshi Lekhi said the private healthcare sector was virtually unregulated and the time has come to make them accountable and do business under a specific framework.

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Citing examples of alleged malpractices, she said though the government has reduced price of stents, the hospitals have increased the rates for the procedure to insert them so as to compensate for their losses.

A stent is a device placed in an artery through surgery after removal of blockages in it to ensure proper blood flow.

"The doctors in the government hospitals are overworked and underpaid. The doctors in private hospitals do their job like business. We need to address it," she said, raising the issue during Zero Hour.

She said there was a need for setting up of a body which can regulate medical practices and fix rates for various procedures.

"The telecom sector has TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India). The medical sector also needs a regulator," she said.

Currently, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), examines drug pricing in India.

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey raised the issue of non-performing assets of the public sector banks and urged the government to ensure that the cost of capital of the banks do not go up.

He said the UPA government had signed an international regulatory framework on bank capital adequacy and when the its latest version comes into force on April 1, 2018, the cost of capital in India may go up.

"We should come out of Basel III and international financing system or defer its implementation," said Dubey. PTI MPB ARC

--- ENDS ---
Sands China Ltd. has a total of nearly 8,500 team members who have been working with the company for 10 years or more. Among them, the 6,200 team members who began their service with the company in 2006, 2007 or 2008, will be honoured. More than three-quarters of the group are residents.

Sands China is showing its appreciation by presenting the team members with The Perfect 10 commemorative service pins and award trophies.

In addition, the company is giving out a MOP500 food and beverage voucher to each of these team members as a token of gratitude for their continued support.

To kick-start the celebration, Sands China recently honoured a group of 60 leadership team members for reaching their 10-year service anniversaries at a ceremony in mid-December at The Venetian Macao. These leadership team members will then continue the celebration with the other team members at departmental celebrations starting in March 2018.

CEM installs EV charging stations in eight car parks



This year, CEM has installed additional electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in eight public car parks in a bid to support the green commuting policy of the MSAR.

In total, there are 43 additional EV charging stations installed, of which seven are quick charging stations and 36 are medium-speed charging stations, providing charging service to EVs at 50 parking spaces.

A total of 26 Macau public car parks are currently equipped with EV charging facilities, with 106 chargers available for EVs and E-bikes.

Twenty-one car parks in Macau Peninsula are equipped with EV charging stations  three in Taipa and two in Coloane, with different charging speeds to suit different needs.

Battery levels can reach up to 80 percent in 30 minutes with quick charging, while reaching a fully charged battery level will take about four hours on medium-speed charging and about eight hours with standard charging.

Macau legends logo exploited



Macau Legend Development Limited has alerted its customers and the public that its corporate logo, properties trade names, trademarks, and photo images have been recently exploited by fraudulent websites.

The group announced in a statement that these websites, social media platforms and groups include www.boying.hk and Macao Lijun group (HK) Co. Ltd. among others. These fraudulent websites will often ask the public to open investment accounts.

According to the statement, these websites may use the portrait of the Macau Legend CEO and executive director David Chow and refer to him as the chairman of the purported company.

The company clarified that neither the group nor Chow has any connection with the companies named in the fraudulent materials, adding that the company does not and will not invite customers or the public to participate in any investment.
The Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) refuted accusations that have been circulating on online social networks in a statement. The government is being criticized in these accusations for having a tendentious attitude regarding whether domestic workers should be eligible to receive the minimum wage. DSAL noted that the bill on the full implementation of the minimum wage is currently under public consultation.

The DSAL says that such information is false and that the government has not yet taken any position on this matter.

The government also reaffirmed that the public consultation document specifically mentions the following:

Given the specificity of the work performed by domestic workers, as well as the capacity to support the economic burden of families that hire them and the current situation of demand and supply of human resources in Macau as well as other factors, [the question] has been raised [] whether domestic workers should be excluded from the application of the minimum wage or not.

In the same statement, the government expressed its hope that the public consultation would hear the views of the several sectors of society and that the information and statistical data provided in the consultation document could serve as a reference for the public, wishing to actively participate in presenting their views during the consultation period.

In a statement, DSAL issued a reminder that all citizens wishing to participate in the public consultation can do so by accessing the website (https://www3.dsal.gov.mo/survey/minimumwage).

In a separate topic and speaking to the media earlier this week, lawmaker Leong Sun Iok has said that cooks in the region need to receive an increase in their salaries.

According to the lawmaker from the Workers Association, there are currently more than 13,000 cooks, most of them working in the local hotels, making an average salary of MOP18,530, while others face a lower income of about MOP10,370 (on average). Iok suggests increasing cooks salaries to retain talented cooks in Macau and attract new people into the high demand profession.

The Workers Association had also raised the fact that the hospitality industry is one that is tremendously dependent on non-resident labor, adding that the unreasonable salaries offered in the market make it difficult to attract young people. The difficult conditions in the hospitality industry have led to the replacement of local cooks with non-local workers to lower expenses for companies.
The figures released yesterday by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) show that trade exports on merchandise have risen by 26 percent year-on-year as of November this year, reaching a total amount of MOP1 billion.

Topping the list of the major increases were casino-related items that surged by 651.6 percent.

Total merchandise imports rose by 11.3 percent year-on-year to MOP7.5 billion, leaving the trade deficit in November at MOP6.57 billion.

Leading the growth in imports were construction materials rising by 44.7 percent, and handbags and wallets increasing by 35.9 percent.

In the first eleven months of 2017, the total value of merchandise exports increased by 11.7 percent year-on-year to MOP10.38 billion, of which the value of re-exports (MOP8.75 billion) grew by 16.9 percent, but that of domestic exports (MOP1.63 billion) declined by 10 percent.

The total value of merchandise imports went up by 5.3 percent year-on-year to MOP67.98 billion, leaving the merchandise trade deficit at MOP57.6 billion during this period from January to November.

In terms of the destinations of the merchandise exports, those to mainland China increased by 21.5 percent year-on-year to MOP1.96 billion, of which exports to the nine provinces of the Pan Pearl River Delta grew by 14.8 percent to a total of MOP1.75 billion.

Exports to Hong Kong (MOP6.07 billion), the EU (MOP175 million) and the U.S. (MOP174 million) rose by 17.9 percent, 5.9 percent and 17.8 percent respectively.

In contrast, exports to the Portuguese-speaking countries (MOP0.7 million) dropped by 88.2 percent year-on-year.

Regarding the place of origin of the merchandise imports, mainland China continues to lead (MOP22.74 billion) although it has registered a drop, followed by the Portuguese-speaking countries (MOP589 million).

The imports from the EU grew by 12.9 percent to MOP17.27 billion.

External merchandise trade totaled MOP78.36 billion in the first eleven months of 2017, up by 6.1 percent compared with MOP73.86 billion a year earlier. RM
The Executive Council (ExCo) proposed that civil servants should not need to notify their departments in advance to take annual leave, spokesman Leong Heng Teng announced at a press conference yesterday. The council has concluded their discussion of the draft of the amendment to the public administration staff regulation.

Currently, civil servants are obliged to notify their departments eight days in advance regarding their annual leave.

Civil servants who have worked for six months in the first year of their service can enjoy annual leave in advance in the subsequent six months.

The new amendment also grants more rights to civil servants regarding the transfer of leave between different years.

Currently, the public administration employee regulations allow civil servants to transfer a maximum of 11 days of their annual leave to another year. The new law proposes a maximum of 33 days to be transferrable.

However, the new policy can only be applied if civil servants were unable to take annual leave due to work reasons, not due to personal reasons.

If a civil servant wishes to transfer annual leave for personal reasons, a maximum of 11 days leave will remain transferrable instead of the expanded 33 days.

The amendment also grants more benefits to civil servants regarding sick leave. Under the draft amendment, a civil servant who takes 15 days of sick leave or fewer will not see a reduction in their salary; but if a civil servant takes between 16 and 30 days of sick leave, then 50 percent of their salary for the corresponding number of absent days will be deducted.

The draft includes the adjustment of shift work regulations, suggesting a rest period of a minimum of 10 hours between each shift.

The shifts must be changed at least once every month, and for every four weeks of shiftwork, the civil servants must have at least one day off on a Saturday or a Sunday.

Civil servants will be compensated for working on a public holiday, or if their day off from their shift work period overlaps with a public holiday.

Fine introduced over employment agencies infractions

THE EXCO also announced a draft law regarding employment agencies, proposing that an employment agency should charge a maximum of 50 percent of the monthly salary of a job seeker (later referred to as an employee) as a service fee. The service fee should be collected within 60 days from the date that the employee entered into an employment relationship with an employer. Each employment agency should have at least one employment instructor, according to the new draft. The draft also bans employment agencies from providing services to those who live in Macau but are not Macau residents, further proposing fines against agencies that engage in illegal conduct. The acting director of the Labour Affairs Bureau, Chan Un Tong, said yesterday, during a press conference, that until the end of October, Macau had a total of 148 employment agencies, with 141 of these charging for their services. Chan also reported that, in 2017, approximately 40 infractions by employment agencies were recorded, with the majority of these cases concerning agencies that introduced jobs to non-residents.
A Chinese court has seized all the assets owned by LeEco founder Jia Yueting it could unearth, as the countrys legal bodies step up action against an internet entrepreneur who once declared war on Apple and Tesla Inc.

The Beijing First Intermediate Peoples Court seized more than 1.3 million yuan (USD200,000) in bank deposits, the court said in a statement posted on its website this week. And its eyeing Jias shares in publicly listed Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp. as well as two Beijing properties targeted in previous cases, it said without elaborating. The court said it took action after agreeing to enforce a petition from a securities firm in Fujian proving to recover more than 200 million yuan it claimed Jia owed.

The seizure deals yet another blow to the outspoken founder of a Netflix-style service who expanded aggressively into smartphones and automobiles by borrowing heavily against equity, then faced a serious cash crunch. LeEcos founder eventually shifted his focus to U.S.-based electric car startup Faraday & Future Inc., which was said to have struggled to raise cash. This month, the countrys highest court placed Jia on a public list of bad debtors and Chinas markets watchdog demanded he return to deal with Leshis financial woes.

Jia Yueting has no other bank deposits, housing registration records or automobile registration records that the court can execute upon, the Beijing court said in its statement.

The court didnt outline specifics of the Fujian brokerages complaint except to say it involved an alleged failure to honor obligations. A LeEco representative said she had no knowledge of the matter.

Leshi Internet remains the largest listed vehicle in the LeEco empire but has been suspended from trade since April. The China Securities Regulatory Commission said this week that despite repeated calls from the regulator, the founder has yet to show up and deliver on a promise to provide interest-free loans to the Shenzhen-listed firm mired in a huge amount of debt.

Its not clear where Jia is, though Faraday has operations in the U.S. Chinese media including the Securities Daily reported he told a staff meeting earlier this month that Faraday had managed to raise more than $1 billion in Series A financing, without naming his investors. Bloomberg
A Myanmar court yesterday dropped additional charges against two foreign journalists and their local staff who were arrested in October for allegedly flying a drone over the parliament.

Lau Hon Meng, a Singaporean, and Mok Choy Lin, a Malaysian, working for the Turkish state broadcaster TRT will be freed from detention together with their local interpreter Aung Naing Soe and driver Hla Tin on Jan.5, after serving a 2-month prison sentence for illegally flying a drone, their lawyer said.

Khin Maung Zaw said that authorities dropped more the serious charges of importing a drone without permission and immigration violations against the foreigners after concluding that the journalists and their staff did not intent to endanger national security.

Authorities also wanted to maintain good diplomatic relations with the countries of the two journalists, he said.

The journalists and their staff were detained Oct. 27 after attempting to fly a drone over the legislative complex in the capital, Naypitaw.

In a separate case Wednesday, a court extended the detention of two Reuters journalists and set their trial for Jan. 10 on charges of violating state secrets.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested Dec. 12 for acquiring important secret papers from two policemen. The police officers had worked in Rakhine state, where abuses widely blamed on the military have driven more than 630,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. The charges are punishable by up to 14 years in prison. MDT/AP
To fear is useless, Sulu Sou said in an interview with Plataforma after being suspended from the Legislative Assembly (AL) earlier this month.

The eventful year of 2017 will forever be remembered by the young activist and lawmaker who defied the odds and was elected on September 17 to the AL by universal and direct suffrage in the most competitive legislative elections ever.

Twenty-three lists were vying for 14 seats (of 33) under harsh and sometimes absurd rules dictated by the Electoral Affairs Commission.

After a divisive internal struggle that augured a different ending, the pro-democratic group managed to regain a majority of the votes running on three separate tickets, and reinstated the three lawmakers they previously had before losing a seat in 2013.

Gaining 9,213 votes, Sulu Sou Ka Ho was among them becoming, at 26, the youngest legislator ever in the history of Macau. Moreover, after a fearless campaign he became central to the New Macau Association comeback, especially captivating the new and the youngest voters.

On the day after the election, a modest Sou told reporters, I owe this victory to Macau citizens and the strong team of New Macau Association.

Sulu Sou first entered the Legislative Assembly on October 23 and, standing, addressed the plenary, thus breaking a long tradition in the MSARs legislative chamber where members speak seated.

On that day and on others that followed, young Sou, moderate and even solemn in his appearance yet standing resolutely by his ideals, questioned unfair house rules, called for full transparency in the commissions, and reintroduced political reform onto the agenda.

But an impending petty offense would put an abrupt halt to his mandate.

On December 4, the Legislative Assembly took an unprecedented decision and voted overwhelmingly (28-4) to lift Sulu Sous lawmaker immunity, paving the way for him to be prosecuted in court for aggravated disobedience regarding a protest over a government donation to Jinan University in 2016. If proven guilty, he could be jailed for up to two years. Any jail term of more than 30 days could see him disqualified as a legislator.

The trial is scheduled to begin on January 9 and is deemed to attract worldwide media attention over an arguable decision that puts the whole system at stake.

Sous past as an inconvenient voice in conservative Macau caught up with him. Most notably, he was a prominent organizer of the Withdrawal demonstrations of May 25 and 27, 2014 against the compensation bill for retired highranking officials which brought to the streets tens of thousands of people  the largest rallies in Macau since June 1989.

As much as the authorities deny it, this is a case of political persecution to silence a promising pro-democracy advocate.

Honorable mention | Albano Martins: Animal crusader

Albano Martins continued his crusade against the citys dog racing facility in 2017, calling on international celebrities to coerce the Macau (Yat Yuen) Canidrome into surrendering hundreds of greyhounds in its possession to local animal rights group Anima (Macau).

Martins has been instrumental for several years in leading the international campaign to cut the Canidromes links with the outside world, including the severing of its greyhound supply from countries such as Australia and Ireland.

In 2017, he was able to rally legendary French actress Brigitte Bardot to the cause, as well as Queen band members Brian May and Roger Taylor, who pressured the Macau government to intervene.

In October, he rebutted allegations from Canidrome executive director Angela Leong that Anima (Macau) had an ulterior motive in wanting to acquire the greyhounds, and warned that her comment that greyhounds are [meant] to serve humans would alienate a Macau public increasingly interested in animal welfare.

Martins confidence that the facilitys closure was imminent did not waver throughout 2017. The Canidromes concession is now widely expected to terminate in 2018, however the terms of its exit and the fate of the hundreds of greyhounds currently housed at the facility are yet to be finalized.

Honorable Mention | Jose Pereira Coutinho: A resilient candidate

Lawmaker Jose Pereira Coutinho was one of the highlighted figures of the year. Running once more for a seat at the Legislative Assembly (AL), Pereira Coutinho saw his chances potentially jeopardized when his two sons were involved in a criminal case regarding drug trafficking.

The timing of the case matched with the kick-off of the formalizations and presentation of applications for lists running for the direct elections and was used by other lists to try to diminish the capacities of the lawmaker. The candidate was pushed to consider and to publically state several times that his seat at the AL was in danger.

Nevertheless, the legislator also had the opportunity to announce at a press conference held at the Macau Civil Servants Association (ATFPM) that the outcome of such a case would not affect his work and duties as lawmaker and president of ATFPM.

Later on and during the election campaign in a televised debate, Pereira Coutinho was heavily criticized by candidate Song Pek Kei. The way Song addressed the issue was widely acknowledged by the community to be in a rude manner, eventually turning-out in Coutinhos favor.

At the polling stations Coutinho gathered a total of 14,383 votes, being re-elected with ease and scoring better than in 2013.

More recently, he was the sole legislator to argue fiercely against the suspension of Sulu Sous mandate.

Honorable Mention | Lionel Leong: The lucky secretary

The Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong is one of the figures of note in 2017. The solid performance of the economy and the record-breaking recovery of the gaming industry after some two years of economic correction are factors that alone justify the mention.

In addition, during 2017 the Secretariat led by Leong managed to comply with most of the bills and requirements solicited by international organizations regarding money-laundering and terrorism financing prevention. He had initially prepared for and presented these measures during last years policy address for the economy and finance sectors.

Leong had also already announced positive forecasts for the years results, claiming that gross gaming revenue is expected to close the year with two-digit growth; a result that the Secretary for Economy and Finance said is stable and positive.

Also noteworthy are Octobers results, reaching a new high after the economic correction. Gross gaming revenue reached MOP26.7 billion, very close to the result achieved in the same month in 2011 when the industry generated MOP26.8 billion.

According to the announcement, the growth was achieved by the simultaneous increase in both the mass and VIP segments.

In addition, the secretary is hopeful that the current growth trend will continue throughout 2018, estimating that gaming revenue for 2018 will be even higher than this year.

Honorable Mention | Loreto Mijares Jr: Filipino Hero

The SAR has announced this month that Loreto Mijares Jr will receive the Honorific Title  Prestige award by the government in mid-January  making him the first Filipino non- resident to receive such an award.

The Filipino workers heroic act was caught on video by his wife, which surfaced online and was also recognized by international media.

Mijares was dubbed was a Filipino Hero, after he saved three local residents during Typhoon Hato, along with the assistance of the neighbourhood.

His courageous act has earned him plaques of appreciation and awards, which include an award from Manila-based recruitment agency, Ikon.

Also, Mijares has been nominated for the Philippines Bagong Bayani Awards, for his heroic act  a recognition given to Filipino workers outside the Philippines by President Rodrigo Duterte. The results will be announced in January.
For book readers in 2017, the choice was often between imagining the worst, hoping for the best or escaping entirely.

The most widely read works of the year ranged from Timothy Snyders On Tyranny, a guide to defending democracy, to Dan Browns thriller Origin to the personal and political verse of Rupi Kaur. Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale and George Orwells 1984 were dystopian tales from the past made newly relevant as warnings of horrors to come. Former White House photographer Pete Souzas Obama: An Intimate Portrait was, for admirers of Trumps predecessor, a bittersweet album of an administration out of office for less than a year but somehow from long ago.

The usual comment that I get from people who bought the book is that it made them laugh and it made them weep, Souza told The Associated Press during a recent interview.

The headlines were chaotic, but the publishing business remained stable, if unexceptional. The recent trend of slight increases in print sales  up around 2 percent over 2016, according to NPD BookScan, which tracks around 85 percent of the market  and slowing e-book sales continued, while the number of independent bookstores was little changed even as online shopping has devastated other physical retailers.

THE HANDMAIDS TALE

Thanks to Trumps election and the popular adaptation on Hulu, Atwoods novel from 1985 about a pitiless, patriarchal society was not only a best-seller, but a touchstone. When a Republican congressman from Arizona, Trent Franks, resigned amid reports that he was offering as much as USD5 million for an aide to conceive his child, critics saw a literary parallel. A Miami Herald headline read: The strange case of surrogacy, sexual harassment and The Handmaids Tale.

ON TYRANNY

Snyders best-seller began as a Facebook posting just after Trumps election and became a reference work for the anti-Trump resistance. In a recent email interview, Snyder said he was most concerned about Trumps attacks on the media and his threats against special counsel Robert Mueller, whose ouster would be a big step towards the end of the rule of law. One antidote he recommends in On Tyranny: Get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books. What cheers me is that readers of On Tyranny feel less alone and take actions in the world based on its lessons. My book is a way of organizing the chaos around us and finding ways to sensibly influence it, he told the AP. But I think almost any reading  away from the Internet  helps us keep our calm and gives us words and ideas that help shield us from the daily barrage of bad news and help us find ways to communicate with one another in person.

THE SUN AND HER FLOWERS

Kaurs collection has sold some 400,000 copies, numbers rarely seen for poetry, or at least since her million-selling debut from 2016, milk and honey. For her second book, Kaur had planned on focusing on love and loss, she told The Associated Press during a recent telephone interview. But as she was working on the book in January, around the time of Trumps inauguration, she found herself stopped in her tracks, completely. Suddenly I couldnt write love poems, she said. I found myself writing political pieces and suddenly this book went from two chapters to five. milk and honey was like holding a mirror to yourself, while sun and her flowers is turning the mirror around.

GRANT

One of the years most anticipated nonfiction works, Ron Chernows Ulysses Grant biography was about the victorious Civil War general and once-disparaged president, now more respected if only for his willingness to use armed force to defend blacks during Reconstruction. Readers could turn to Grant for diversion or engagement, a 19th century life made contemporary in 2017 as Confederate monuments were taken down around the country. Of course I had no idea as I was working on Grant that the Civil War would be on the front page shortly before publication, Chernow wrote in a recent email to the AP. In the last analysis, politics boils down to the stories that we tell ourselves about our past, and there are still two competing narratives about the causes and consequences of the Civil War. The past is prologue to everything that is happening today to the point that the term history almost becomes a misnomer. It is still alive and active all around us.

THE HATE U GIVE

One of the years top young adult novels was Angie Thomas story of a black teen whose friend is shot and killed by a white police officer. In an email to the AP, Thomas said she was pleased that both black and non-black readers had related to the book. Books can give a refuge and they can also give clearer understanding, she said. Books create empathy by forcing us to see things from someone elses perspective and feel what they feel. I hope that, especially in these troubled times, more people pick up books about people who arent like them. In some ways, it can be more informative than the news.
A musical puppet show called, A Little Lamp, Pea and Feather will be staged at the Macao Cultural Center from today.

Slovenias Ljubljana Puppet Theatre will present the show in Macau for the first time. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersens tale, The Princess and the Pea, the show caters to children aged one to four years old.

The show will feature a bright, colorful setting, aiming to immerse its audience into a sensory experience of visual and audio effects.

The musical show will also feature the tolling of little bells, harp playing and the repetition of simple sounds, syllables and words, while the story narrates the tale of a young prince searching for his princess.

At a press conference yesterday, artistic director Ajda Rooss Remeta remarked, the story is really abstract here. [] For this show its not so important to follow the story but more to get this impression of sound, colors and lullabies.

The show is intertwined with well-known lullabies and Slovenian cradlesongs played and hummed on stage by three performers dressed in bright costumes.

It is not a language-based show so it speaks to children from any nation, said Remeta.

The puppetry will also feature three different worlds, each containing a distinct series of visual effects including geometry and nature.

The theatre combines traditional puppetry techniques with contemporary puppetry practices such as stop motion techniques and video mapping.

According to Remeta, audiences are still charmed by puppet performances despite the encroaching presence of technology.

I think they are still charmed with puppet performances. For example, in this performance, we have video mapping, and the children are so fascinated, she said.

Meanwhile, one of the performers, Maja Kunsic, noted that the show conducts several improvisations to cater to its audience.

Every performance is completely different. [] You have to be really sensitive because the children come in with different energies and moods. Also, it depends from country to country, said the performer.

A Little Lamp, Pea and Feather will be staged from today until Monday, with nine shows which are all sold out, according to the organizers.

The Ljubljana Puppet Theatre was founded in 1948 and has since become Slovenias premiere institution in the promotion of the countrys long puppetry tradition.

The company has staged numerous renowned productions and also organizes festivals to attract puppet troupes from around the world.

The theatre has toured more than 80 cities and has received several awards at international festivals.
Ukrainian authorities and Russian-backed separatist rebels on Wednesday conducted the biggest exchange of prisoners since the start of an armed conflict in the countrys east, marking a sign of progress in the implementation of a 2015 peace deal.

Rebels from the self-proclaimed separatist republics in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions handed over 74 captives, while Ukraines government delivered 233. Some had been held for more than a year.

Larisa Sargan, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian prosecutor generals office, said on Facebook that one of the 74 prisoners released by the separatists indicated she would stay in Donetsk.

Carrying their belonging, the prisoners were turned exchanged in the town of Horlivka and the village of Zaitseve, in an area dividing the separatist regions and Ukraine. One held a cat.

Im out of hell. I have survived, said Yevhen Chudentsov, who served with one of Ukraines volunteer battalions in the east and was taken prisoner in February 2015.

Chudentsov said he faced threats and beatings while in rebel custody, and his front teeth were knocked out. He was initially sentenced to capital punishment, which was later changed to 30 years in prison. He said after his release in Horlivka that he would join the Ukrainian military again.

The exchange was supervised by observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a trans-Atlantic security and rights group that has deployed monitors to eastern Ukraine.

The OSCE welcomed the swap and urged the two sides to build on the momentum from it.

Allowing such a significant number of people, who have been held on both sides, to return home before the New Year and Orthodox Christmas is a very welcome development, said Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, the OSCE chairman. Todays exchange is not only a humanitarian act but also a helpful step in confidence-building.

Ukraine was supposed to release 306 people, but dozens chose to stay in Ukraine or had been freed earlier, said Viktor Medvedchuk, who monitored the exchange on the Ukrainian side.

Many of the captives were not combatants. Some were activists and bloggers who were charged with spying or treason.

Anatoly Slobodyanik, one of the prisoners traded by Ukraine, said he didnt want to go to the rebel side and would return to his home town of Odessa.

Im not guilty of anything and I dont want to go to the other side, he said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko praised the Ukrainian prisoners held by the rebels for their endurance.

Im grateful to all those who remained loyal to Ukraine in those unbearable conditions, Poroshenko said while greeting the free captives. They have shown their adherence to the principles of freedom and independence.

The Ukrainian leader also hailed German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron for helping organize the exchange.

Merkel and Macron welcomed the swap, saying in a joint statement that they encourage the parties to the conflict also to enable the exchange of the remaining prisoners, grant the International Committee of the Red Cross full access and support the ICRCs search for missing people.

The simmering conflict between the separatists and government troops in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014.

The 2015 deal brokered by France and Germany and signed in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, envisioned a prisoner exchange, but the two sides argued continuously over lists of captives and only a few dozen had been traded prior to Wednesday. Separatist leaders and a Ukrainian government representative finally agreed to the exchange last week, with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church acting as mediator.

Merkel and Macron emphasized that the exchange and a recommitment to a comprehensive cease-fire should also serve to build up confidence between the parties to the conflict, also with a view to the full implementation of the Minsk agreements. Inna Varenytsia, Horlivka, AP
Five BMC officials were suspended, and a ward assistant commissioner transferred, after 14 people died in a massive fire in the Kamala Mills complex.

Family members and friends carry the body of a victim killed in the Kamala Mills fire, which broke out in Lower Parel in Mumbai (Photo: Reuters)

By Mayuresh Ganapatye: Five Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officials were suspended after a deadly fire in Mumbai's Lower Parel claimed at least 14 lives.

The assistant commissioner of the ward has been transferred.

The fire broke out in a rooftop pub in the the Kamala Mills complex shortly after dawn. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Ram Nath Kovind, and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi were among those who tweeted condolence messages.

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India Today learned that there were several violations at the site of the fire, non-functioning fire equipment and untrained staff ill-equipped to handle the crisis. What's more, 1 Above, the rooftop pub where the fire broke out, had received three notices from the BMC.

In an FIR, the owners and manager of the establishment were charged with culpable homicide.

Both 1 Above and Mojo's issued statements in which they expressed condolences.

Several corporate houses and media companies are located in the Kamala Mills complex. The transmission of at least four television channels was affected.

VIDEO | An clip of the Kamala Mills fire filmed by an onlooker (Video: Twitter/@nigel_pais)

UNBELIEVABLE! Was damn lucky to notice this and raise the alarm in time #KamalaMills #Fire pic.twitter.com/Yx2Dt9qLGB

- Dramatical Error (@nigel_pais) December 28, 2017

--- ENDS ---
Important stuff you won't get from the liberal media! We do the surfing so you can be informed AND have a life!
The year of 2017 was full of political scandals. Armenian News-NEWS.am decided to remind you of the most important, surprising and influential events in 2017.

USA

After the inauguration, Donald Trump signed the first order to weaken Obamacare, which targets the signature health care reforms of his predecessor. In October, Trump signed an executive decree that weakens the operation of Obamacare and provides access to more affordable medical insurance.

In June, Trump announced the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement on climate change. According to him, the Paris Agreement is not in the interests of U.S. Trump noted that the agreement would lead to the loss of 2.7 million jobs in America by 2025.

In addition, Trump decertified the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, calling Iran a sponsor of terrorism. Washington imposed additional sanctions against Tehran, including the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps. However, other members of the agreement did not support this idea.

Washington and Pyongyang accused each other of fuelling the Third World War and nuclear catastrophe. Pyongyang called Trump the old madman. Trump, in his turn, called Kim Jong Un short and fat. President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned North Korea about facing fire and fury and imposed additional sanctions against North Korea.

Trump also surprised the world with the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital and to relocate the US Embassy to Jerusalem. The decision was positively received in Israel and prompted negative reaction by many world countries. The protests started all over the Muslim world, including Israel. The United Nations General Assembly voted for a resolution demanding that the United States rescind its declaration on Jerusalem.

At the end of the year, the Senate approved the $1.5 trillion tax bill, which includes permanent tax breaks for corporations and temporary tax cuts for individuals.

Europe

In France, Emmanuel Macron won the second round of the presidential elections on May 7, promising to fight against terrorism, increase the police headquarters, wage increases, tax cuts and more.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced early parliamentary elections in Britain to strengthen the majority of the ruling party in parliament which had an opposite effect: the Conservatives remained the largest party in the lower house, but lost 12 seats.

In mid-December, EU leaders agreed to move to the second stage of Brexit talks and discuss future London-Brussels relations after UK withdrawal from the European Union.

Germany

Germany held an election on September 24. The CDU/CSU received the most votes in Germany's national election  33 percent; the Social Democratic Party of Germany received 20.5 percent, the FDP - 10.7 percent, the Left - 9.2 percent, the Greens - 8.9 percent, Alternative for Germany - 12.6 percent.

According to Angela Merkel, the CDU / CSU and SPD consultations on the possible formation of the government should begin in January 2018 and end two weeks later.

Catalonia

Catalan attempt to secede from Spain failed in 2017. Although most of the Catalans voted for independence during the referendum on October 1, Madrid refused to recognize its results, declaring it illegal before the day it was held. The EU sided with Madrid.

The Spanish government has officially taken control of Catalonia. Puigdemont and four other Catalan politicians fled to Belgium. During the early elections, Catalan pro-independence parties won.

Middle East

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain cut ties with Qatar in June accusing Doha of supporting terrorism. Qatar expressed regret and called the neighbors decision unreasonable. Later, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain presented Qatar a list of demands.

The list includes breaking diplomatic ties with Iran and closing diplomatic missions there, shutting down Al Jazeera and its affiliate stations, terminating Turkish military presence in Qatar and putting an end to any joint military cooperation with Turkey inside Qatar.

Lebanon Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Riyadh announced his shock resignation on November 4. In a speech broadcast by the Saudi Al-Arabiya channel, he accused the Shiite movement Hezbollah and Iran of inciting hatred both in Lebanon and in Arab world adding that he found out an attempt to assassinate him.

Beirut said that Riyadh forced Hariri to resign and, perhaps, held him in Saudi Arabia against his will. After a few weeks in Riyadh, Hariri returned to Lebanon, stopping in Paris, Egypt and Cyprus, and announced that he had changed his mind.

Saudi Arabia became the focus of international attention after the arrest of the princes. Crown Prince Mohammed, arrested 11 princes and several influential politicians and businessmen as a part of an anti-corruption investigation. Among them was a well-known entrepreneur and billionaire Prince Alwaleed. However, Saudi authorities asked detained princes to pay for their freedom.

Kurdistans independence referendum was held on September 25. More than 92 per cent of the 4.5 million people who cast ballots voted for independence. Baghdad declared the referendum illegal. After Kurdistans independence referendum in September 2017, Peshmerga lost control over the oil-rich Kirkuk. In mid-October, Kirkuk and other disputed territories were taken under control.

On December 9, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared final victory over Islamic State. According to him, Iraqi forces recaptured the last areas that were under control of the Islamic State along the border with Syria.

Russia

Russian-US relations did not become warmer. According to the recently released national security strategy, Trumps administration accused Moscow of interfering in the affairs of other states. On July 27, the Senate overwhelmingly voted in favor of adopting Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.

On August 31, US authorities announced measures to restrict the activities of Russian diplomatic and consular missions in the United States and cut the diplomatic staff in Russia by over 700 people.

According to Vladimir Putin, there is excessive politicization in Russian-EU relations. At the end of the December, the European Council extended economic sanctions against Russia until July 31.

According to Russian experts, the Russian presence in EU energy markets will be reduced in the next two decades and Russia would need to diversify energy markets and national exports in general.

On December 11, Vladimir Putin ordered to withdraw Russian troops from Syria to end the anti-terrorist operation in the Arab Republic that was launched on September 30, 2015 at the request of President Bashar Assad.

Russia has been banned by the International Olympic Committee from competing at next years Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang . However, the Russian athletes would be allowed to compete in South Korea under a neutral flag.

Asia

North Korea conducted six missile tests in 2017. The last test of the intercontinental ballistic missile on November 28 differs from the previous ones. North Korea said it carried a super-large heavy warhead which is capable of striking the whole mainland of the U.S. The U.S. and several other countries imposed additional sanctions against Pyongyang.

The UN Security Council adopted new international restrictions on December 22. The UN resolution banned nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year. The UN also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year. All UN member countries also should send all migrant workers from North Korea for two years. Pyongyang described the move as an act of war.

China

The past year has been a triumph for President Xi Jinping. Chinese president defended globalisation at WEF in Davos. In April, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with his US counterpart President Donald Trump at the latter's Mar-a-Lago resort.

Jinping expressed Chinas commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change However, Jinping's greatest success came in October at China's 19th Party Congress.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has been given a second five-year term as leader of the Communist Party. The congress included Xi Jinping's Thoughts in the Chinese Communist Party's charter. During his 3-hour speech at the congress Xi Jinping used the words great power and powerful force twenty-six times.
Hungary: EU wants new sanctions to somehow justify its flawed decisions

RBC TV channel does not publish interview with Ruben Vardanyan because of Azeri threats

Armenian Central Election Commission representatives to monitor presidential election in Kazakhstan

Newspaper: Deputies from ruling party go on another 'voyage'

Cavusoglu calls incident in Poland 'accident'

Biden administration says Saudi prince has immunity in lawsuit over Khashoggi murder

Marukyan reminds Aliyev: The UN, OSCE and EU do not deal with the 'internal matter'

Azerbaijani MP demands 'serious conversation with adherents of Iranian influence in Azerbaijan'

Inflation in Japan accelerates to 40-year high

Seoul and Riyadh sign $30 billion investment agreements

North Korea launches intercontinental ballistic missile that lands near Japan

FBI: U.S. concerned about China 'setting up' unauthorized 'police stations' in U.S. cities

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
Here are photographs and videos of a fire in Mumbai's Kamala Mills complex, in which at least 14 people were killed.

Family members and friends carry the body of a victim killed in the Kamala Mills fire, which broke out in Lower Parel in Mumbai (Photo: Reuters)

By India Today Web Desk: At least 14 people died in a massive fire that broke out early on Friday morning in the Kamala Mills Compound in Lower Parel.

One news agency quoted a doctor who performed post-mortems as saying all fourteen died of suffocation. Another said 21 people were injured.

The Kamala Mills fire began shortly after midnight. A short-circuit in a rooftop pub - 1 Above - is suspected to have caused the blaze, which sent a towering cloud of smoke billowing into the night sky.

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In an FIR, the owners and manager of the establishment were charged with culpable homicide. Police say they are on the run.

Video: Twitter/@skzeeshanusman

Video: Twitter/@niharhood

Several corporate houses and media companies are located in the Kamala Mills complex. The transmission of at least four television channels was affected. On social media, one of them promised to keep bringing its viewers news despite having to battle the fire.

Photo: Twitter/@panku_

Photo: Twitter/@StuteeMishra

In a tweet, President Ram Nath Kovind expressed condolences to those who lost family members in the fire. He lauded the "valiant efforts" of first responders.

The friends of a victim killed in the Kamala Mills complex fire (Photo: Reuters) The friends of a victim killed in the Kamala Mills complex fire (Photo: Reuters)

Family members transport the body of victim (Photo: Reuters)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was anguished, and that his thoughts were with the bereaved.

Top angle view of the site of the Kamala Mills fire (Photo: Twitter/ANI)

(Inputs from India Today reporter Mustafa Sheikh, and news agencies IANS and ANI)

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Five terrorists involved in the attack on Mar Mina church near Cairo on Friday, Al-Watan reported.

Three attackers have already been eliminated, including a suicide bomber, who most likely had to enter the temple. According to the latest reports, an intense exchange of fire is heard in one of the houses near the scene of the incident.

Currently, the Mar-Mina church is cordoned. One of terrorist associates fled from the scene, Al Arabiya reported.

According to the Ministry of Health, five people were killed and five were injured in the shootout. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Egypt officially confirms the death of only two officials. A bomb squad demolished two explosive devices.

During the Charismas holidays, all churches in the country were taken under the enhanced protection of the police. Egypt blocked off the streets adjacent to the temples.
YEREVAN.- On December 29, Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian visited the N military unit of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia, the press service of the Foreign Ministry reported.

Congratulating the soldiers on the occasion of the upcoming New Year and Christmas, Edward Nalbandian wished them health, endurance, peace and safe military service.

During conversation with soldiers the Foreign Minister spoke about Armenia's efforts towards settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and answered numerous questions of the attendees.

Addressing the officers and soldiers of the military unit, the Foreign Minister of Armenia noted that serving in the most established and effective army in the region, they make their invaluable contribution to Armenia's security and peace.
Fourteen people were killed and 12 others injured after a fire broke out in a pub in Mumbai's Lower Parel area.

Friends of a victim who died in a fire at a pub wait at a hospital in Mumbai. (Photo courtesy: Reuters)

By India Today Web Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his anguish over the 14 deaths that occurred as a result of a fire in Mumbai's Lower Parel area today.

In his tweet, Modi said he prayed for the speedy recovery of all those who were injured and said his thoughts were with the families of the victims.

Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly: PM @narendramodi- PMO India (@PMOIndia) December 29, 2017

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Twelve other people were injured as result of the fire that broke out in a building in Kamala Mills.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi also tweeted about the incident where he said he was grieved by the loss of life in the incident.

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Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also posted a tweet expressing his grief over the loss of lives in the incident. He added that he has directed the BMC commissioner to conduct an in-depth inquiry.

Disturbing to know about the loss of lives in unfortunate #KamalaMills fire incident in Mumbai.My thoughts are with the families who lost their loved ones and prayers for the speedy recovery of the injured.Directed the BMC Commissioner to conduct an in-depth enquiry.- Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) December 29, 2017

According to agency reports, the fire started around 12:30 am on the third floor of the building on Senapati Bapat Marg. According to several reports, the fire was triggered by a short circuit in one of the pubs located in the compound.

An FIR has been registered against the manager and owners of the restaurant where the fire initiated. The case has been filed under the charges of culpable homicide under section 304 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

As per reports, more than six fire tenders, four water tankers, an emergency ambulance and police rushed to the spot for rescue operations.

Breach Candy Hospital said around 10 to 15 persons were brought in for treatment from the fire site. As per the reports, the building, in Central Mumbai, houses some commercial establishments including hotels, pubs and media offices.

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Watch: Over a dozen people killed in major fire in Mumbai's Kamala Mills

--- ENDS ---
All of the deaths in Mumbai's massive Kamala Mills fire were due to suffocation. Patrons at the restaurant engulfed by the blaze had locked themselves in a washroom.

By Mustafa Shaikh: At least 14 people died, most of them women, and around a dozen more were injured after a massive fire broke out in Mumbai's Lower Parel suburb. The fire, sparked just after midnight, was brought under control only by 6:30 in the morning and after 12 Mumbai Fire Brigade tenders were rushed to the spot.

The fire broke out in a restaurant in Kamala Mills, a commercial complex in Lower Parel that houses officers and restaurants, during a birthday party celebration. All of the deaths were due suffocation and not because of fire-related injuries.

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A doctor at Mumbai's King Edward Memorial Hospital, where the victims of the Kamala Mills fire were rushed, confirmed at least 14 deaths to news agency ANI and said postmortem revealed all deaths were due to suffocation.

The reason all the deaths were due to suffocation is that the patrons at the 1 Above, the restaurant where the fire broke out, was that the patrons there rushed to and locked themselves inside a washroom as the inferno took over. Stuck there, most of the people perished in the blaze.

A large number of those who died were women - the birthday party held at the Kamal Mills restaurant had an all-women theme - and the owners and manager of 1 Above have been booked under Indian Penal Code Section 304 (culpable homicide). They are yet to be arrested.

SEE | The devastating Kamala Mills inferno in photos and videos

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was "anguished" by the news of the fire in Mumbai even as Aaditya Thackeray, the chief of the youth wing of Shiv Sena, said "investigation will happen".

I spoke to HonA??ble Municipal Commissioner Mehta sir, MLA Sunil Shinde ji and Leader of the House Yashwant Jadhav ji, who were at the place assisting relief ops. Implementing fire audits of such places are a must, and action will be taken if violations are found. - Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) December 28, 2017

"The BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation - Mumbai's civic body) will come down hard on the violations of fire safety norms," Thackeray added. "Implementing fire audits of such places are a must, and action will be taken if violations are found." Shiv Sena runs the BMC.

WATCH | Over a dozen people killed in major fire in Mumbai's Kamala Mills

--- ENDS ---
Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The U.S. and Turkey have resumed full visa services for the other country after a months-long dispute that demonstrated just how low relations have fallen between the NATO allies.



The resumptions, effective immediately, come despite ongoing disputes over U.S. support for Kurdish groups in Iraq and Syria, Turkey's closer ties to Russia and Iran, and an ongoing fight over a Turkish cleric who has asylum in the U.S. and whom Turkey accuses of orchestrating a coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.



Even in Thursday's dual announcements of some rapprochement, there was debate.



The U.S. said in its announcement of a "full resumption" of visa services at its missions in Turkey that the government of Turkey had given and adhered to "high-level assurances" that no local employees are under investigation and would not be detained or arrested for doing their official duties or without prior notice to the U.S. government.



But Turkey, in its own statement, denied that such pledges were ever made.



"Turkey is a state of law, and ... that our government has not provided any assurances concerning the ongoing judicial processes," the Turkish embassy in Washington said. "It is inappropriate to misinform Turkish and American public that such assurances were provided."



Visa services were first suspended entirely by the U.S. on Oct. 8 after a second Turkish national who works for the U.S. mission in Turkey was detained by authorities. The unnamed local employee was arrested for purported ties to that cleric, Fethullah Gulen, and his political movement, which Turkey considers a terrorist group  after Hamza Ulucay, an employee at the U.S. consulate in Adana, was arrested in March for alleged ties to the PKK, a Kurdish militant group designated a terrorist organization by Turkey and the U.S.



Neither man was initially granted access to legal counsel, and the U.S. was provided little information on the charges against them or the evidence, according to the State Department.



Turkey retaliated hours later, mimicking the State Department press release by cribbing its language nearly verbatim.





After weeks of sustained discussions, the U.S. resumed limited visa services on November 6, with Turkey again almost immediately saying it would do the same  although it denied there had been any assurances given, just as it did Thursday.



The U.S. still has "serious concerns" about the two employees' cases, the State Department said, but will work with Turkey "to seek a satisfactory resolution."



Relations between the U.S. and its key NATO ally Turkey, where the U.S. has an airbase vital to the fight against ISIS and stockpiled with 50 nuclear bombs, have been souring for a couple of years now.



Turkey has expressed outrage over U.S. support for Kurdish groups battling ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. has been arming, training, and supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces in Turkey's southern neighbor Syria, and the strongest element of that group is the YPG, a Kurdish group with ties to Kurds in Turkey, including the PKK. The U.S. makes a distinction between the YPG and the PKK, but Turkey does not.



With U.S. support, the Syrian Democratic Forces and YPG drove ISIS out of its strongholds in northern Syria, including its self-declared capital Raqqa, from which the terror group had plotted attacks on the West. But after a call between President Trump and Erdogan on Nov. 24, the White House announced that the U.S. would make "adjustments to the military support provided to our partners on the ground in Syria."



"Mr. Trump clearly stated that he had given clear instructions and that the YPG won't be given arms, and that this nonsense should have ended a long time ago," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who sat in on the call, said in a press conference afterwards.



The Pentagon has yet to announce any changes.



But even more damage has been done to U.S.-Turkish relations by the arrest and prosecution of each other's citizens.



Most visibly, Turkey has demanded the extradition of Gulen, the cleric Turkey holds responsible for the attempted coup in July 2016. Because Gulen is a legal permanent resident of the U.S., first the Obama administration and now Trump's administration have so far refused Turkey's request, saying the U.S. must receive more conclusive evidence of his involvement first. Gulen has denied any role in the failed coup.



In his November visit to Washington, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim compared the coup to the Sept. 11 attacks and said Turkish people demand Gulen's return  with the implication that the U.S. is sheltering this alleged mastermind from justice.



Perhaps even more than Gulen, however, Turkey has been incensed by the charges filed in U.S. federal court against a former Turkish economy minister and other Turkish officials. U.S. prosecutors alleged the Turkish officials conspired to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran in a billion-dollar scheme, with the help of a Turkish-Iranian gold trader named Reza Zarrab.



Zarrab pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy, laundering Iranian oil and gas revenues through U.S. banks, and has become a key witness for the prosecution as it continues the case against Mehmet Hakan Atilla, an executive at the state-owned bank Halkbank which was allegedly involved in the scheme.



Zarrab has testified that he paid bribes to then-foreign minister Zafer Caglayan and that Erdogan himself ordered that two Turkish banks participate in the conspiracy.



Erdogan has blasted the trial as a "plot" to overthrow his government, after intensely lobbying top U.S. officials in the Obama and Trump administrations to drop the charges against Zarrab and Atilla.



But Ahmet Davutoglu, the country's prime minister at the time, said in early December the country did not comply with U.S. sanctions, saying, "We have never been hypocritical when it comes to the embargo against Iran. We have never complied with the U.S.'s one-sided embargo. We can not," according to multiple press reports.



"Turkey still has very serious concerns about the ongoing cases against Turkish citizens in the United States. Turkish officials will continue to engage with their American counterparts to seek a satisfactory resolution of these cases," the Turkish embassy said in its announcement today.



The State Department has dismissed the allegation of a U.S.-backed coup as "ridiculous"  and in turn, criticized Turkey for its detention of American citizens as well. As many as a dozen Americans, many of whom are dual citizens of Turkey, have been detained in Erdogan's sweeping purge of political opponents since the coup.



In particular, the Trump administration has continually raised the case of American pastor Andrew Brunson, who was detained in October 2016 and charged for purported involvement with the Gulen movement  something his family has denied.



The White House has said Trump has raised the issue with Erdogan directly. But instead of offering his release, Erdogan has publicly floated the idea of a swap  Brunson for Gulen  an act usually necessary only between enemy states. "You have one pastor as well," he said in September in reference to Gulen. "Give him to us. Then we will try [Brunson] and give him to you."



The U.S. has rejected that idea, with State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert saying in September, "We continue to advocate for his release. He was wrongfully imprisoned in Turkey... I cant imagine that we would go down that road" of a prisoner swap.



The State Department said again today it is "concerned" about these cases against U.S. citizens and will work with Turkey towards a "satisfactory resolution."



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
A 29-year-old girl celebrating her birthday was among those who died at a restaurant in Mumbai's Kamala Mills where a massive fire broke out shortly after midnight.

By India Today Web Desk: Among the 14 people who died in Mumbai's Kamala Mills fire was 29-year-old Khushboo Mehta. She was at Kamala Mills to celebrate her birthday.

The fire broke out a restaurant inside Kamala Mills, a commercial complex in Mumbai's Lower Parel, just after midnight. Firefighters battled the blaze for hours before it was finally brought under control as dawn broke.

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By that time at least 14 people, 11 of them women, had perished. Some of those who died are believed to be part of the group celebrating Kushboo's birthday.

A local official clarified that there were several parties going on at the restaurant where the fire broke out and those who died may not necessarily have been part of the same group.

All of the deaths, however, were due to suffocation and some of those who died in the Kamala Mills fire had locked themselves in a washroom inside 1 Above, the restaurant where the inferno broke out.

Tweets from people purportedly at the restaurant when the fire broke out described the chaos that engulfed the spot.

"There was a stampede and someone pushed me. People were running over me even as the ceiling above me was collapsing in flames," said one tweet, the content of which could not independently be verified by IndiaToday.in

There was a stampede and someone pushed me. People were running over me even as the ceiling above me was collapsing in flames. Still don't know how I got out alive. Some powers were definitely protecting me ???? #kamalamills- Dr Sulbha KG Arora (@SulbhaArora) December 28, 2017

The owners and manager of the restaurant have been booked by Mumbai Police under charges of culpable homicide even as the Mumbai Fire Brigade chief confirmed that the pub had fire-safety equipment in place but it was non-functional.

Initial reports suggested there were a few fire violations at the spot: There was just one staircase for both entry and exit, ventilation was poor and the pub staff not trained to handle emergency situations. The restaurant is also believed to be on authorities' radar for running a rooftop section without a license.

Photos from early today morning showed the restaurant completely destroyed.

#SpotVisuals from Mumbai: Police & fire officials at #KamalaMills compound in Lower Parel, where fire broke out last night & claimed 14 lives. pic.twitter.com/cOsIUJbhVG- ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

Meanwhile, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the Maximum City's civic body, has launched a inquire in the Kamala Mills fire and as of last updating this report, a few officials were inside the fire site for inspection.

Top leaders from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Maharshtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed anguish over the Mumbai fire. Fadnavis said he has directed the BMC chief to conduct an in-depth investigation.

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(With inputs from Virendrasingh Ghunawat and Vidya in Mumbai)

WATCH | Over a dozen people killed in major fire in Mumbai's Kamala Mills

--- ENDS ---
Crucial priority has been given to safety of women during the New Year's Eve as in the past many incidents were recorded of victims being molested in crowded spots.

By Divyesh Singh: The Mumbai police is all set to bring in the new year safely as major arrangements have been made so that law and order is maintained across the city while revelers enjoy their parties.

Crucial priority has been given to safety of women during the New Year's Eve as in the past many incidents were recorded of victims being molested in crowded spots. On this year end, a large number of officers, both male and female, will be amongst the crowd at such places for safety.

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The plan for deployment of cops inside the crowd is to keep an eye and be alert in case they find or spot someone misbehaving with a woman so they can immediately prevent or nab the culprit.

More than 30,000 officers will be deployed for bundobast for the New Year's Eve, which includes police officers and men from QRT (Quick response team), SRPF (state reserve police force), Riot Control police, and local police stations staff.

At vital places in Mumbai like Chowpatty, Girgaon, Gateway of India, Juhu, Powai lake and other high footfall places, eye will be kept and movements will be monitored through CCTVs.

In case of law and order issues, additional force will be moved in. Special nakabandi and combing operations are already being conducted so that entry of drugs or banned psychotropic substances could be stopped and people involved in such activities could be detained.

Social media is under radar as well where invites or entry for rave parties are floating and code words used by drug peddlers are being cracked so that narcotics inflow could be stopped.

"Traffic will be regulated at various places and traffic police officials will check for drunken driving and rash driving across the city," said DCP Deepak Devraj from Mumbai police.

Other than maintaining law and order inside the city, close eye will be kept across the coastline of city as there have been several inputs in the past regarding possible terror attacks through the sea route.

"Coastal police will conducts sea patrols along with the Indian coast guard using off shore patrol vessels and speed boats," added Devraj.Checks will be conducted at hotels and resorts and in case anyone is found flouting rules set by the law enforcement agencies, immediate action will be initiated against the organisers.

Chinese lanterns, drones and other such objects have been banned from use in the city on the New Year's Eve.

--- ENDS ---
Nawaz Sharif, 67

If Pakistan's political landscape were a nursery, it would look like this: a giant tree towering over a forest of potted bonsais. The tree being the Pakistan army, the country's only stable institution, but one which has not allowed another to grow in its shade. The army sets the limits for political parties, they can have no say in security and foreign policy, especially ties with arch enemy India. Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif was one who tried, unsuccessfully, to stand up to the military. It was especially ironic because Sharif was brought into politics in the early 1980s by a military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq. The scion of one of Pakistan's richest families, from the country's heartland Punjab, seemed the ideal foil to counter the rise of the charismatic Sindhi aristocrat, Benazir Bhutto.

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Somewhere along the line, Sharif came into his own, but found the military and judiciary dogging his every step. Retribution was either direct, a coup by former dictator General Pervez Musharraf in 1999, or through the president during Sharif's first term as PM in 1993. More recently, a judicial coup is being whispered as the reason behind the Supreme Court's July 28 verdict over the Panama Papers case, dismissing him as PM and imposing a decade's exile from any political office. The dismissal made Sharif one of the few global leaders to have had three truncated terms as PM. No Pakistani head of government has ever completed a full term, but while most have faded away, Sharif has proved to be remarkably resilient.

The military has now propped up Imran Khan as an alternative to Sharif in the 2018 general elections and Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau is readying a fresh batch of cases against him. Yet, Sharif, as chief of Pakistan's largest political party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, has resolved to fight on. In nominating brother and current Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif as the PM candidate for 2018 and announcing his intent to take the judiciary on, Sharif has given ample evidence he won't be riding into the sunset soon.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: By Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Dec 29 (PTI) Nepal President Bidya Bhandari today endorsed a key ordinance relating to the election of Upper House members, that paves the way for formation of a new government after recent provincial and parliamentary polls.

There were disputes among the ruling Nepali Congress party and main opposition CPN-UML as to which voting system to be adopted for the election of the 59 members of Upper House.

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Without the formation of the Upper House the formation of the bicameral Parliament could not be completed, which was crucial for convening a full parliamentary session which is essential to form a new government.

The NC has been advocating for single transferable voting system for the Upper House election, while the CPN-UML had been sticking to the majority voting system.

The president had been holding the ordinance for some time due to the dispute between the two major political forces.

Now with the presidents endorsement, the ordinance incorporates a mix voting system.

Under this, 42 out of a total of 59 members will be elected under single transferable voting system while 14 will be elected through majority voting system.

The remaining three members are supposed to be appointed by the president.

Under single transferable voting, weightage will be given to the votes casted by the eligible voters to decide the winning candidates.

Meanwhile, senior leader of CPN-UML Lal Babu Pandit has asserted that party chairman and former premier K P Oli is most likely to lead the new government formed under the Left alliance.

The Left alliance won 116 seats out of a total 165 under the first-past-the-post system while the Nepali Congress bagged just 23 seats in the countrys recently-concluded historic polls that many hope will bring much-needed political stability to the Himalayan nation.

Former minister Pandit said the two Left alliance parties - CPN-UML and CPN-Maoist Centre - would unite only after the top leaders forge a consensus on division of positions of leaders and cadres.

The Left alliance has a comfortable majority of 174 members which is more than sufficient to form the government.

There are altogether 275 members in the House of Representatives and 138 seats are required to form a majority government. PTI SBP KUN

--- ENDS ---
Ive never dated anyone creepy but my cousins best friend did mess around with a girl who pretended she was pregnant for months with his baby to get him to stay and make them official it was one of the weirdest things especially since I thought she was so sane lol You truly never know with people

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Brenda Song realness

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What the heck happened to her?

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oh my god... i know someone who instigated the same exact scenario but it ended with her having an "abortion"...

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bruh

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I'll have him!

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omg sweetie, love urself!

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is he rich

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he looks like he has no soul

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Is...is it human?

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Experimenting. Total fuckboi.

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What makes him creepy?

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did you read the same instagram post i did or

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Hes a ginger

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Hey hey. Back up now. I love gingers lol.

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he is a healer and a mystic, he can apparently heal genetic illnesses and allergies via his touch and energy~... According to him in his childhood he could heal his father via his touch, cause hes special like that.

And he seems to be really weird with how he's influencing adriana in general. just gives me the creeps.

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lol why would you threaten legal action against claims that you broke up with someone...

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I am a scientist, not a celebrity."



Did he really just write this?

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Is that not a Coldplay song?

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lmao

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stealing coldplay lyrics and hes talking about suing someone, rich.

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dead

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I am a scientist, not a celebrity."



Rmfe alright dude settle down.

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i was... worried?

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A lot of her fans think he has brainwashed her. She certainly seems it from the way she's posting. I've followed her for a few years, when she dated my bb Julian they were soooo private and soooo low key about everything most didn't know they were dating.



This guy claims he wants privacy then posts pictures of her dogs, pictures of her childrens feet on his IG story, he tags his pictures as being in Miami, so on and so forth.



Its more startling to me that after only 5-6 months of dating he's already been introduced to her daughters.. Nagl imho.

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omg

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I'm Turkish and I tried reading one of his books once and I could only go through 20 pages or so. It was creepy as hell and I believe either he is brainwashing her or this is a PR campaign to make him a globally famous spiritual guide. They did the same thing with the Salt Bae, he is also Turkish and had this huge PR campaign to literally become the meme he is right now. His food brand has grown soooo much globally since the beginning of it all. IDK I want to find out the truth lol.



*edit:spelling



Edited at 2017-12-29 04:50 pm (UTC)

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This is fascinating to me. I remember reading about how the mannequin challenge from last year was really a marketing campaign for Rae Strummand's Black Beatles song. It blew my mind as I thought it was more organic than that. I could never figure out how Salt Bae became a thing but this makes sense now.

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He looks like the democrat version of Colby Keller

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LMAO AT THIS COMMENT AND YOUR ICON. OMG THIS IS SO CUTE. CHEF'S MOM WAS SO ADORABLE LMAO

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Trey should bring her back because he can still do the voice. They should have done a brexit one

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lmaoooo @ this accuracy

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This fucking post omg cackling. 

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I think he's cute. I have a soft spot for redhead men idgaf

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not anymore jesus put it away

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I hate the patriarchy

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I find their relationship creepy. Shortly after her divorce she kept posting how she was with the love of her life and other garbage like yo you just met like yesterday calm down.

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So they're broken up?

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LOL

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omg

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And 63 million people voted for Trump.

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will smith needs to fucking sort out his priorities

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Seriously

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his priorities are money. they are pretty sorted

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Deep stuff lmao

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Smh

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Shoulda stuck with Suicide Squad

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Nothing he does is surprising

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ugh I cringed so hard at this, and here you post it gigantic and unavoidable

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this is so clearly homophobic I can't even

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definitely grimaced at this line when i first heard it

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I love that Max totally disavowed that line on twitter as soon as all the scathing reviews came out. No shame.

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this trash

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this garbage movie reminded me of this convoluted idea my brother had where he basically stole themes/plots/ideas from hp/lotr/sky high/various other folklore and was like 'LET'S DO A STORY LIKE THAT!!!' and i was like 'how many fucking times does this need to be made????'

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I'm dying at the thought of a LotR/Sky High crossover tho.

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I don't plan on watching this movie. It just looks straight up awful.



I binged The Good Place. It's a great show. Now I need to find the first three or four episodes that aren't on Hulu.



I need to finish Lady Dynamite S2.



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The Good Place needs all the forking fans it can get!!

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haha

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we really liked the good place more than we thought we would.



i love maria bamford. i like her show, but sometimes it freaks me out. lol

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Lady Dynamite S2 its great, get on it.

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The Good Place i love <3 i honestly love every character (tho chidi i oviously love a bit more because...well, it's chidi <3)

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The Good Place really deserves more love.

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fuck Max Landis man

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ugh All abusive assholes have that same exact way of writing, it makes them so easy to spot when youre texting them or sending emails.

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so they release data on this but not about their shows?

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Tax law ushers in higher executive salaries at Netflix https://t.co/I8RSulNRYS via @WSJ  Stan Veuger (@stanveuger) December 29, 2017 gotta try to show that their content acquisition isn't a complete cock-up since the execs just gave themselves raises:

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were the working class/middle class American people seriously convinced that tax breaks would go into their pockets? lmaoooo

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Nielsen did release date for a few shows, Stranger Things, The Crown etc. They only recently started monitoring ratings for Netflix.

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i admit i watched it. it was a well-made movie with a horrible, awful, offensive script. it was so clearly written by a white man trying to mansplain racism to comic book nerds in the mostly offensive, ironically racist way. but everyone who was involved with the making of it outside of m*x l*ndis did a decent job. it was an odd viewing experience.



Edited at 2017-12-29 04:44 pm (UTC)

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So would you say it's the ~next Star Wars~?

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It's such a garbage movie

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Netflix has Nielsen ratings now?

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Yes, and all other streaming services too

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Netflix, regardless of who made this movie, was and is banking on your curiosity via convenience.

This is why, if you absolutely must watch movies made by assholes and sexual harassers, YOU PIRATE.

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You speak the truth

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mte

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Like

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i just don't even bother. but truth.

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mte

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mte

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I gave it a chance, but jesus christ it was fucking atrocious. Like the orc gang or whatever were basically just standins for Latino gangs in LA but you have a movie about fucking ORCS AND FAIRIES and you're gonna pretend it's a serious real life movie. NO.

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Have you watched Bright yet, ONTD?

No but I wanna see it just to check how bad it is,

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My one cousin with consistently terrible taste liked it so I know it must be awful.

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lmao

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Haha, I have a cousin like that, too. On the extremely rare occasion she proclaims to like a movie I like, it makes me question why I liked it, lol.

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Loved it

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Is that good or bad?

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good

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Men are so fucking stupid and irresponsible. Lock those 2 idiots up forever and charge them with this man's murder!





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Three idiots. That cop can rot, too.

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THIS.



This is utterly disgusting on all levels

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For real. What excuse do you have for shooting an unarmed man who posed no threat to you or anyone else?!

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this is key - this is a police brutality issue more than anything (although those two pieces of shit should be locked up too)



the police officer needs to be held accountable, and that's where the primary media focus should be, rather than conveniently putting all the blame for his murder on the malevolent "pranksters," as if it was some inevitable outcome that an unarmed man should be summarily shot in his doorway without any just cause...



Edited at 2017-12-29 11:55 pm (UTC)

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I hope these fucks are so punished to the fullest extent of the law.



OMG





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why is everyone so in their feelings in this thread

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What the fuck is wrong with men?

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Wait, so why did the officer shoot the person if he was unarmed and in his own home?

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Because it's what the police do.



Sure they didn't know, but it doesn't sound like they did anything like let them know, just walk to the door, knock, and shoot, which is weird.

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also





Edited at 2017-12-29 08:29 pm (UTC) because the cops are poorly trained.also

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ps, don't feel good about using a gif with the n-word in it. if I made it myself, I'd've censored it, but I can't make shit.

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nobody would have noticed if you didn't say anything tbh.

Dave was saying it, not you...

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He's a cop. Shoot first. Ask questions after everyone is dead.

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Because a lot of cops are not qualified to do the job. They haven't had training, they haven't had experience and some of them come out of the military where they enjoyed carrying a gun and shooting things, and they go into law enforcement, where they do not belong.



The Call of Duty fans are trash for setting this up, but ultimately, it's the fault of the cop who pulled the trigger.



A male came to the front door, as he came to the front door, one of our officers discharged his weapon, Livingston said.



Livingston didnt say if the man was carrying a weapon when he came to the door, or what caused the officer to shoot the man. Police dont think he fired at officers, but the incident is still under investigation, he said.



They didn't even ask questions or wait to see what was going on, they shot him as he came to the door. This is unacceptable. The cop had been on the job for 7 years, so he wasn't a rookie.

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This is what I'm thinking. Yeah, fake calling is wrong, but it takes some extra steps to get to the point where someone is shot. That is on the cop in question and police culture which is unaccountable.

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Because that's what cops do. And he'll get a nice paid vacation while an "investigation" happens that ends with him back on the street. If he's lucky, he'll get a sentence in an article talking about how upset he was and how he needed a hug from his sergeant like those cops who just killed a 6-year-old in his own home in Texas cause they shot at a woman outside it did.



Edited at 2017-12-29 11:22 pm (UTC)

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ugh there's so much shit that goes into it.



very much would recommend rise of the warrior cop for context tho

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Fucked up.

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Holy fucking shit, where to start? Why is an officer shooting someone for opening a door? I hope these assholes go to jail.

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Those "fans" should be charged and put behind bars but why do cops have a first instinct of just shooting at human beings? It's just mind boggling to me that cops go through all this training and yet they're always murdering innocent people.



Edited at 2017-12-29 08:22 pm (UTC)

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And people who receive no training and are clearly disadvantaged when it comes to the weapons aresenal are supposed to remain calm.

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Right? They're supposed to remain calm, not move a single muscle (even if it's involuntary) and even if they do all that there's a good chance they're gonna get shot and killed anyways because cops are trigger happy.

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They receive plenty of training, stop letting that be an excuse. There are no consequences when the police kill innocent people. The police get away with murder.

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Yeah this, obviously those kids deserve punishment but why the hell that cop just shoot??

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This always gets me - I'm a Brit, and the vast majority of our cops don't carry a gun. As a result, they use all manner of de-escalation techniques, verbal and behavioural as well as physical restraint. And in most cases they work



I'm always curious as to whether US cops aren't taught them to the same extent (maybe because people are more focused on the gun training), or whether it's just the human tendency to leap to your most powerful weapon

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They could at least shoot their leg or something if they felt "threatened". Not that they should shoot at all. Maybe if they docked their pay they'd be less trigger happy.

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This is all a mess all around.

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swatting is awful and dangerous, I cant believe assholes still think its just a prank

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Wtf is wrong with these people???



Also, why the hell an officer instantly shot the man?????

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Look, all I'm saying is that the worst a women has ever done to me is ask me to buy her shitty MLM shit and/or make me wish I were dead.

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right

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So let me tell you about a mother who kept her kids in a cage. Or ones who sexually abuse their disabled kids. Or the horrors female guards did in Auschwitz. etc etc. Women have less power over men, so in the men-women dynamic, men do more shit. Men are also generally socialized to only feel two feelings: sex drive and anger. That makes them more aggressive. But women are JUST as shitty when they have someone weaker at their disposal.

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this is a funny point. because we all know what happens when men are in power...but shit. what if women were in power? would all this horrible shit just be perpetuated by women?





really makes you dink..





anywho, i agree that it's dangerous to act like women don't do horrible shit all the time too.

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I mean ... look at the stats, though. Women have never had more power and violent crime are still committed almost exclusively by men.

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Look, all I'm saying is that the worst a women has ever done to me is ask me to buy her shitty MLM shit and/or make me wish I were dead.



However, men have raped and threatened to kill me and none of the male police officers wanted to listen to me about it so idk dude maybe let me have this generalization.

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cops are so fucking stupid. so are men.

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the not all men crew are out in FRIGHTENING numbers on this post tbh lmaooo idk why I expected better...

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I feel physically ill reading that.

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The kids are obviously fucked up but also they're kids. The bigger problem here is yet another trained police officer not doing their job correctly and resulting in an innocent person's death. ACAB.

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It actually sounds like the dude who actually called in the SWAT was responsible for the evacuations of an FCC meeting and an entire convention center.

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I highly doubt they were kids. They were probably in their thirties, or close to.

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Fuck I just assumed it was children who were dumb/twisted enough to pull a prank like this

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There's just so much wrong with this story. The two CoD people doing this, the cop shooting the guy who opened the door...

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kinda feel like the story should be cops killing an unarmed man instead of a fake 911 call

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YUP

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Police unions spin everything. Blame everyone but themselves when they kill an innocent person.

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it should be both. the act of swatting is really prevalent on the gaming community

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prevalent and incredibly damaging even short of tragic outcomes like this one. the gaming community is a fucking cesspool, thanks entirely to its overwhelming white middle class male identity.

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I probably could google this, but how do they get the opposing player's address? Thus summary states that the player provided a fake address. Why are people giving their addresses to other COD players? I don't mean to blame them, it just perplexes me.

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It should be both.

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I agree so much.



While the swatters deserve blame and criminal culpability, the person pulling the trigger shoulders the ultimate responsibility.



To quote Uncle Ben, "with great power comes great responsibility".



You have to look at the situation, who has the most power here? That would be the police. They had the most power and they misused it in the worst way possible. They deserve most of the blame and most of the punishment, but will likely not get much of it.

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Should be both.

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thank you, this

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Right? Like those men who made that call are garbage, but the real burden of responsibility is on the cop who shot an innocent, unarmed man.

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Without the prank call there would not have been a death.

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this this this

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YASSSS KWEEN!

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This year made me like her a lot more, just because so many people hated her for fucking dumb reasons like her hair.

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Same

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same

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Same here. I miss her Witness live stream.

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yeah lol little dumb things like mental health jokes

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I'm not rich and I'm not always happy either, I would be ok crying in a corner somewhere in my mansion tho.

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like just looking at that pic of a place that big she would need gps just to get from one side to the other.and is she gonna have tons of people living with her.and I couldn't have lots of people in my house I cant stand lots of talking people being loud lol

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Better rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy. Besides, is there really evidence that she's unhappy? She got the house she wanted, she's making the music she wants to make, she's in charge of her own life. Sounds like a prescription for happiness if you ask me. It doesn't all have to sell a billion copies for her to be happy. It's not like this is her first release or first tour. All singers have ups and downs, no one is a hit every time out of the gate. Well, maybe Adele but I'm not really checking on her.



I'm glad she beat the nuns, tho. I've had experience with nuns in Los Angeles and they can be a terror. So entitled.

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Everyone keeps asking me if Im growing my hair back. Sometimes people look in the mirror and dont wanna see themselves! Just being honest.  CYN (@cynthialovely) December 20, 2017



Edited at 2017-12-30 03:59 am (UTC) She recently liked this tweet and a bunch of Kesha's tweets about being depressed around the holidays which doesn't exactly suggest she's happy right now.

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If you're rich, you can afford extremely expensive medical care for yourself or someone you love.



That will probably leave you happier than having to die/ watch them die of a treatable disease.

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i'm fairly confident in assuming that most celebrities aren't happy. and that has a lot to do with ego and persona. boring psychology stuff.



fame is a disease.

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Like the saying goes; money may not buy happiness, but it does help.

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A website is accusing Katy of copying Lady Gaga's looks

Hm what?

Hm what?

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everyone has stolen from Grace and she never gets the credit.

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thank youuuuuuu

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Eternal QUEEN

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The nerve of these nuns, it's not their damn property like sit down.

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Who said religion does not pay off?

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Why is she so corny and why does she use so many damn similes in her songs lmfao

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Cause that's what real writers do. Even if it's clunky and grammatically incorrect.



And Katy, she's as real

As bananas' yellow peel.

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Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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I was only vaguely aware she had released a new video.

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I was at a gay bar a few days ago and whoever was in charge of the music was sadly a Katy Perry fan because they played so much of her in like 30 minutes and I was like, shit she has so many music videos I've never even seen clips/icons of. It was a fun half hour to mock her with my friends though.

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I went to some random youtube page and it had her video up there and was completely surprised.

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I only knew that she released a new mv bc my friend made me watch it and it was... not great, but I guess it fits her ~kooky aesthetic.

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It wasn't her, people were doing too much over that one photo that clearly wasn't her.

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watch her digitally edit her out lmao



i also am pretty sure it was a rando dancer, and not katy unfortunately. would've been funny to see it though



we shall see!

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lmao @ everything

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The Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to sell a massive Los Feliz convent to Katy to use as a private home, but the nuns interfered and tried to sell it to a nightlife developer.



Plot suggestion for Sister Act 3?





Plot suggestion for Sister Act 3?

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I'd watch that.

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Lol @ the nuns

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Those nuns were so fucking extra. I mean i don't like Katy either, but if you're trying to pin it on "sin" i'm pretty sure there would be more drugs, drinking and fucking at a nightclub/hotel than anything Katherine could come up with. Party wise, Steven Tyler in the 70s and 80s she is not.

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lol right? It was such a bullshit excuse.

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For real tho, Katy is far from perfect but she's so harmless in that sense.

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Nuns, monks, and the clergy in general like to act like we're actually living in a theocracy. I'm not surprised they do, since religious institutions already get away without paying taxes, which is bullshit of the highest order.

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like 10 years late with that aesthetic but even so marie antoinette + technology is such an easy sell like that viral ass pic of kirsten dunst on set with the macbook. i'm afraid it rly is a case of 'how do you do fellow kids'-itis she needs to mature or die (metaphorically.)

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Trauma Center Agrees to Ensure Effective Communication with Deaf Individuals

Two complainants alleged UVMMC failed to provide appropriate auxiliary aids and services necessary for effective communication while they were receiving medical treatment. Both of the complainants are deaf and use American Sign Language as their primary means of communication.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Vermont have reached an agreement with The University of Vermont Medical Center to ensure that the federally funded medical center provides communication services for deaf and hard of hearing patients, HHS announced Dec. 20.

UVMMC has agreed to enter into a Voluntary Resolution Agreement; the organization is an academic medical center that is part of a six-hospital network, serving Vermont and Northern New York, and it is a Level I Trauma Center that provides a full range of tertiary-level inpatient and outpatient services and primary care services at 10 Vermont locations. The UVMMC Campus, a regional, academic health care center and teaching hospital in alliance with the University of Vermont, is a 562-bed facility and includes most of UVMMC's inpatient services and an emergency department.

The HHS office initiated a compliance review with UVMMC under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act after the Justice Department received two complaints alleging violations of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act and its implementing regulation. The two complainants alleged UVMMC failed to provide appropriate auxiliary aids and services necessary for effective communication while they were receiving medical treatment. Both of the complainants are deaf and use American Sign Language as their primary means of communication.

HHS noted that UVMMC receives HHS federal financial assistance and is required to provide appropriate auxiliary aids and services to persons with impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills so that individuals have an equal opportunity to benefit from the services received. "If patients cannot communicate effectively with medical providers, their access to health care will suffer," said OCR Director Roger Severino. "The Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act ensure that persons who are deaf or hard of hearing are given equal access to health care, and this resolution shows that we are committed to enforcing this vital law."

The resolution agreement requires UVMMC to provide notice of the availability of auxiliary aids and services, implement grievance procedures and feedback protocols, provide training to UVMMC personnel, and update policies and procedures, and UVMMC has agreed to pay the complainants $20,500 in compensatory relief. The agreement is effective for three years, during which time OCR and the U.S. Attorney's Office will monitor UVMMC's compliance.
Phuket, 29 December 2017  The Amari Phuket team, led by Pierre-Andre Pelletier, Regional Vice-President, Operations  Southern Thailand, Vietnam and the Maldives (front row, third from right) gave a warm welcome to a group of students from Phuket Rajabhat University during their visit for a special lecture on hospitality. The students are studying Tourism and Hospitality Management (International Programme) at the Faculty of Management Sciences. The head of each department spoke to the students about how to be a professional hotelier. The students also learnt how staff at Amari Phuket perform to place the hotel amongst the best in delivering great hospitality on Phuket island.
Symbiodinium microadraticum is a unicellular alga that provides its coral host with photosynthetic products in return for nutrients and shelter. Credit: Jit Ern Chen

A particular gene is shown by KAUST researchers to help the heat tolerance of an alga that lives symbiotically with coral, which could potentially help Red Sea corals adapt to some warming.

Symbiodinium is a unicellular alga that provides its coral host with photosynthetic products in return for nutrients and shelter. However, high sea temperatures can cause the breakdown of this symbiotic relationship and lead to the widespread expulsion of Symbiodinium from host tissues, an event known as coral beaching. If bleached corals do not recover, they starve to death, leaving only their white, calcium-carbonate exoskeleton.

Now, researchers from KAUST have identified special genes, called retrotransposons, which could help the algae adapt more rapidly to heat stress.

The team, led by postdoc Jit Ern Chen and PhD student Guoxin Cui, conducted analyses to find out which genes were turned on or off when Symbiodinium was exposed to heat stress. Surprisingly, most genes commonly associated with heat stress were turned off, while a small number of retrotransposons were turned on.

Retrotransposons are small genetic sequences that have the ability to replicate and position themselves in new locations in their host's genome. "The ability of retrotransposons to copy themselves and integrate these new copies into the host genome makes them genetic parasites," says geneticist and principal investigator, Manuel Aranda. "Every integration event is basically a new mutation in the host genome. Very often these new copies disable or disrupt host genes. However, sometimes they can also change how certain genes behave. They are often bad, like most mutations, but some can produce advantageous effects."

Aranda and his team suggest that the activation and replication of Symbiodinium's retrotransposons in response to heat stress could lead to a faster evolutionary response, "since producing more mutations increases the chance of generating a beneficial one that allows the symbionts to cope better with this specific stress," Aranda explains.

The team next plans to investigate coral genomes to find out if they too have retrotransposons that are activated in response to heat stress. "If they do, it would mean they might be able to genetically adapt faster than we thought," says Aranda.

They also plan to investigate the possibility of "hijacking" the molecular machinery of retrotransposons to engineer more resilient genomes in both Symbiodinium and their coral hosts.

More information: Jit Ern Chen et al. Recent expansion of heat-activated retrotransposons in the coral symbiont Symbiodinium microadriaticum, The ISME Journal (2017). DOI: 10.1038/ismej.2017.179 Journal information: ISME Journal
Credit: Energous

Energous, a San Jose, Calif., company, is the first firm to receive federal approval for a wireless charging system purported to power devices from up to 3 feet away, the company said.

The Federal Communications Commission certified the company's "WattUp Mid Field transmitter," which uses radio frequency energy to deliver power from the transmitter to a multitude of device types, Energous said.

"The certification marks a significant milestone for the consumer electronics industry and paves the way for future wireless charging ubiquity for nearly any small electronic device, including smartphones, tablets, fitness trackers, smart watches, earbuds, wireless keyboards and mice, smart speakers and more," Energous said.

Energous' system is different from the "resonant induction" technology behind the Pi wireless-charging system, and provides a longer range than chargers from Belkin and Mophie that require contact with a device, Engadget reported, adding that devices to be charged must be equipped with a receiver.

WattUp isn't ready for retail yet, but Energous will demonstrate the system at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, Engadget reported.

2017 The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Ball and stick model of methane. Credit: Ben Mills/Public Domain

A team with members from several institutions in the Netherlands has found that the area around a site where a gas explosion occurred in 1965 is still emitting methane gas from the ground into the air. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of the area and the degree of hazard the gas leak poses.

Back in 1965 a team working for the Dutch Petroleum Company (NAM-a venture between Exxon and Shell) accidentally caused a natural gas explosion at a gas field in Sleen, East Drenthe (in a northeastern part of the Netherlands). The blowout turned the sand in the area to quicksand, and a drilling rig sank and disappeared into the ground. After a period of time, the area was converted into a park. But now, the area is back in the news, because the researchers with this new effort have discovered that the site is still leaking methane. NAM has also been in the news of late due to recent evidence implicating the company as the cause of small earthquakes impacting Groningen, a province just north of the former gas field.

The researchers made the discovery while looking into the environmental impact of shale gas production, including its possible contamination of groundwater. To learn more, they began testing well water in and around the park and the farmland that surrounds it. They report finding abnormally high levels of methane in the water and that its isotopic composition (its chemical signature) was very similar to that of the gas reservoir, suggesting that methane is leaking from cracks made below the surface as part of natural gas drilling operations a half-century ago.

The methane gas emissions do not present a health hazard, the researchers note, because methane is regularly cleared from drinking water as part of normal processing. But it could pose a problem if the gas accumulates in a building or structurethat could result in an explosion. But that, too, is unlikely, they further report, because the amount of gas being emitted drops quickly as distance from the site increases.

More information: Gilian Schout et al. Impact of an historic underground gas well blowout on the current methane chemistry in a shallow groundwater system, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1711472115 Abstract

Blowouts present a small but genuine risk when drilling into the deep subsurface and can have an immediate and significant impact on the surrounding environment. Nevertheless, studies that document their long-term impact are scarce. In 1965, a catastrophic underground blowout occurred during the drilling of a gas well in The Netherlands, which led to the uncontrolled release of large amounts of natural gas from the reservoir to the surface. In this study, the remaining impact on methane chemistry in the overlying aquifers was investigated. Methane concentrations higher than 10 mg/L (n = 12) were all found to have 13C-CH4 values larger than 30, typical of a thermogenic origin. Both 13C-CH4 and D-CH4 correspond to the isotopic composition of the gas reservoir. Based on analysis of local groundwater flow conditions, this methane is not a remnant but most likely the result of ongoing leakage from the reservoir as a result of the blowout. Progressive enrichment of both 13C-CH4 and D-CH4 is observed with increasing distance and decreasing methane concentrations. The calculated isotopic fractionation factors of C = 3 and D = 54 suggest anaerobic methane oxidation is partly responsible for the observed decrease in concentrations. Elevated dissolved iron and manganese concentrations at the fringe of the methane plume show that oxidation is primarily mediated by the reduction of iron and manganese oxides. Combined, the data reveal the long-term impact that underground gas well blowouts may have on groundwater chemistry, as well as the important role of anaerobic oxidation in controlling the fate of dissolved methane. Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

 2017 Phys.org
By PTI: Jammu, Dec 29 (PTI) The Jammu and Kashmir government today dismissed the charge of discrimination against Jammu and Ladakh regions in the recruitment of teachers in the state.

The opposition Congress and National Panthers Party (NPP) have demanded that the advertisement issued by the Service Selection Board (SSB) for filling 2,154 district cadre posts of teachers be rectified.

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"A mere 15 per cent share for Jammu and zero share for Ladakh speak volumes about the discriminatory policy of the state government, which should immediately rectify the notification and ensure due share to all the three regions of the state," a Congress spokesman said.

Rejecting the opposition charge, a government spokesman said, "Teachers post is a district cadre post and these posts, under direct recruitment quota, are referred to SSB from time-to-time, strictly as per the vacancy position in each district."

"The 2,154 posts of teachers referred to SSB this year is strictly as per the vacancies of teachers that have accrued in each district," the government spokesman said.

In 2013, he said the school education department had referred 7,434 posts of teachers to SSB under direct recruitment quota, out of which 4954 posts were from Jammu division alone.

"As many as 2480 posts were referred from Kashmir division based on the district-wise vacancy position,? he said.

Clarifying that the department has not created any new post of teacher in recent time, the spokesman said the State Cabinet has already approved up-gradation of 400 government schools in the state from middle to high and high to higher secondary level.

"Once these 400 schools are upgraded as per norms, around 8000 additional posts of teacher and lecturer shall be created which would be distributed amongst all the districts in the state," he added.

While NPP activists led by party chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh staged a protest demonstration on the issue here, Chief spokesperson of JKPCC Ravinder Sharma demanded rectification of the notification and equal share to all the three regions.

SSB yesterday notified 2154 district cadre posts of teacher - 1296 general teacher posts, 644 science and math teacher posts and 214 Urdu teacher posts ? in the department of school education. PTI TAS SMN

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In this Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017 file photo, a Russian Soyuz 2.1b rocket carrying the Meteor M satellite and additional 18 small satellites lifts off from the launch pad at the new Vostochny cosmodrome outside the city of Tsiolkovsky, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the city of Blagoveshchensk in the far eastern Amur region, Russia. The Kremlin says authorities are looking into recent failures in Russia's space industry. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)

Russian specialists on Friday said they have restored communication with Angosat-1, the first national satellite it launched for Angola, days after they lost contact with it.

"Specialists of Energia rocket and space corporation have received telemetry information from Angosat," Energia said in a statement. "All parameters of the spacecraft systems are normal."

Energia is the maker of the satellite which Russia launched from its Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday evening.

It stopped receiving telemetry shortly afterwards.

The incident was a new embarrassment for the country's once proud space industry after Russia in November lost contact with a weather satellite after it was launched from a new cosmodrome in the country's far east.

The Angosat project was agreed by Russia and Angola in 2009 and includes the satellite, its launch, and on-ground infrastructure in a suburb of the capital Luanda.

The approximately $280-million project has been financed with a credit from Russia's state banks.

The satellite is designed for a 15-year mission to boost satellite communications, Internet access, radio and TV service.

 2017 AFP
The Lok Sabha created history by passing a bill to make instant triple talaq a crime with provision for three years jail for the husband.

By Harish V Nair: Minutes after the Lok Sabha created history by passing a bill to make instant triple talaq a crime with provision for three years jail for the husband, Shayara Bano, the 35-year-old native of Uttarakhand and the face of battle against the discriminatory practice, said: "Yes. Only fear can be a deterrent. A jail term for the husband is most welcome".

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It was a giant leap towards the enactment of the law which the Supreme Court had directed in August this year. The bill now goes to the Rajya Sabha for its consideration.

While the Modi government called the passage of the bill "historic", for Agrabased Faiza Khan, another triple talaq victim, "this day is more significant than Eid or Bakra Eid".

"We are really happy that the procedure started by Modiji and Yogiji to protect Muslim women is bearing fruit", she said.

Quoting law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad's statement that at least 100 triple talaqs had taken place across the country even after the SC order on August 22 this year declared the act as "illegal and unconstitutional", Bano, who led the battle against instant talaq in the SC, said it proved that only the fear of imprisonment can be an effective deterrent.

The draft bill said: "In spite of the SC setting aside triple talaq, it continued in different parts of the country. It is seen that setting aside talaqe-biddat by the SC has not worked as any deterrent in bringing down the number of divorces. It is therefore felt that there is need for state action to give effect to the SC order and to redress the grievances of victims of illegal divorce."

For Bano and four other women, it was a hardfought legal battle - not only for themselves but for thousands of silent sufferers - when the SC called the 1,400-year-old practice "gender discriminatory and violative of right to equality", paving the way for the bill.

These women had suffered repeated threats from radical elements within the community and even turned down requests from the Muslim law board and clerics to withdraw their petitions.

"A month before the court was to hear the petitions, some people talking to me on behalf of the Muslim board asked me to withdraw the petition from SC. They told me, 'When you are not going to gain anything from it personally, why are you maligning the community?' I told them I may have lost everything but I'm fighting for other women who are going to face such a situation. They quietly left," Bano told Mail Today.

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"The bill recognises the need for penal provisions in the Act so that Muslim men realise that committing the illegality of triple talaq will henceforth have serious consequences. The fear of jail term will be a deterrent," said Bano.

The mother of two endured physical and mental agony for over 10 years, and was made to undergo as many as six abortions by her husband.

According to Farah Faiz, president of the Rashtrawadi Muslim Mahila Sangh, which represents a large number of victims of triple talaq, "The bill with penal provision is welcome but is incomplete and requires several amendments. In fact, the jail term should be enhanced to seven years from three years. There should also be a fine which should go to the wife and children. The amount should be sufficient for their maintenance. This is important as no husband will pay maintenance after being sent to jail."

Thirty-year-old Ishrat Jahan, another petitioner before the SC, said a law penalising triple talaq would act as protection to Muslim women.

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"The bill is well-intentioned and aims to protect the interests of Muslim women," Jahan's lawyer VK Biju said.

Jahan from West Bengal joined the fight after her husband of 15 years rang her up in April 2015 from Dubai, uttered "talaq, talaq, talaq" and disconnected the call.

Under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017, a Muslim man who resorts to instant talaq can be jailed for up to three years. He will also have to give maintenance for the sustenance of the wife and dependent children.

Custody of minor children from the marriage would be granted to the woman.

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New research, December 18-24, 2017

Posted on 29 December 2017 by Ari Jokimaki

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.

The figure is from paper #62.

Climate change impacts

1. The Sectoral and Regional Economic Consequences of Climate Change to 2060



"The model results show that damages are projected to rise twice as fast as global economic activity; global annual Gross Domestic Product losses are projected to be 1.03.3% by 2060. Of the impacts that are modelled, impacts on labour productivity and agriculture are projected to have the largest negative economic consequences. Damages from sea level rise grow most rapidly after the middle of the century. Damages to energy and tourism are very small from a global perspective, as benefits in some regions balance damages in others. Climate-induced damages from hurricanes may have significant effects on local communities, but the macroeconomic consequences are projected to be very small. Net economic consequences are projected to be especially large in Africa and Asia, where the regional economies are vulnerable to a range of different climate impacts. For some countries in higher latitudes, economic benefits can arise from gains in tourism, energy and health. The global assessment also shows that countries that are relatively less affected by climate change may reap trade gains."

2. An ecophysiological perspective on likely giant panda habitat responses to climate change



"In general, SAA [suitable activity area] in the hottest month (July) would reduce 11.7-52.2% by 2070, which is more moderate than predicted bamboo habitat loss (45.6-86.9%). Limited by the availability of bamboo and forest, panda's suitable habitat loss increases, and only 15.5-68.8% of current HSH would remain in 2070."

3. Temperature is the main correlate of the global biogeography of turtle body size



"Mean annual temperature was the main correlate of body size for the whole group and for terrestrial turtles in both approaches, having a positive correlation with this trait. Body sizes of aquatic turtles were not influenced by any of the tested variables. In the cross-species approach we also found that temperature variation since the LGM was an important positive correlate of body size in terrestrial turtles."

4. Screening criteria for increased susceptibility to heat stress during work or leisure in hot environments in healthy individuals aged 3170 years

5. Agricultural policy and climate change: An integrated assessment of the impacts on an agricultural area of Southern Italy



6. Combined effects of climate and land-use change on the provision of ecosystem services in rice agro-ecosystems



7. Mainstreaming climate change adaptation into the European Unions development assistance



8. Re-thinking the present: The role of a historical focus in climate change adaptation research



9. Differentiating environmental concern in the context of psychological adaption to climate change



10. Designing connected marine reserves in the face of global warming



11. Sensitivity to ocean acidification differs between populations of the Sydney rock oyster: Role of filtration and ion-regulatory capacities



12. Effects of ocean acidification with pCO 2 diurnal fluctuations on survival and larval shell formation of Ezo abalone, Haliotis discus hannai

13. Experimental evidence for reduced mortality of Agaricia lamarcki on a mesophotic reef

14. Tolerance and potential for adaptation of a Baltic Sea rockweed under predicted climate change conditions



15. Long-term increases in tropical flowering activity across growth forms in response to rising CO 2 and climate change

16. Observed and simulated sensitivities of spring greenup to preseason climate in northern temperate and boreal regions



17. Challenging a 15-year old claim: The NAO index as a predictor of spring migration phenology of birds



18. Contrasting above- and belowground organic matter decomposition and carbon and nitrogen dynamics in response to warming in High Arctic tundra

Climate change mitigation

19. The impact of the US retreat from the Paris Agreement: Kyoto revisited?



"We find that differences across the two treaties relating to the first three factors are more likely to reduce the negative ramifications of US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement compared to the Kyoto Protocol. However, the increased urgency of deep decarbonization renders US non-participation a major concern despite its declining share of global emissions. Moreover, key design features of the Paris Agreement suggest that other countries may react to the US decision by scaling back their levels of ambition and compliance, even if they remain in the Agreement."

20. Echo Chambers of Denial: Explaining User Comments on Climate Change



"The results show that users adapt to the dominant opinion within the respective media outlet: user comment sections serve as echo chambers rather than as corrective mechanisms. Climate change denial is more visible in user comment sections in countries where the climate change debate reflects the scientific consensus on climate change and user comments create niches of denial."

21. Public attitudes about climate policy options for aviation



"The findings indicate that there is significant support across demographic groups for a large number of policies, particularly those that place financial or regulatory burdens on industry rather than on individuals directly. Support for aviation policies strengthens with pro-environmental attitudes and is weaker among people who are aeromobile. Though self-interested considerations appeared to dominate policy option preferences, concern for fairness may also shape policy acceptability."

22. The effectiveness of climate clubs under Donald Trump

23. Beyond headline mitigation numbers: we need more transparent and comparable NDCs to achieve the Paris Agreement on climate change



24. Mapping states Paris climate pledges: Analysing targets and groups at COP 21



25. Cost-effectiveness of reducing emissions from tropical deforestation, 20162050



26. International organizations, advocacy coalitions, and domestication of global norms: Debates on climate change in Canada, the US, Brazil, and India



27. The role of economic perceptions in influencing views on climate change: an experimental analysis with British respondents

28. Challenges to addressing non-CO 2 greenhouse gases in Chinas long-term climate strategy

29. Economic and environmental effects of a CO 2 tax in Latin American countries

30. The welfare effects of energy price changes due to energy market reform in Mexico



31. Narrative matters for sustainability: the transformative role of storytelling in realizing 1.5C futures



32. Reconstructed and Projected U.S. Residential Natural Gas Consumption During 1896-2043



33. Technical skills, disinterest and non-functional regulation: Barriers to building energy efficiency in Finland viewed by energy service companies



34. Trade-offs and synergies between universal electricity access and climate change mitigation in Sub-Saharan Africa



35. Seasonal fuel consumption, stoves, and end-uses in rural households of the far-western development region of Nepal



36. Discussion on the effectiveness of cement replacement for carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emission reduction in concrete

37. Quantifying drivers of variability in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of consumer productsa case study on laundry washing in Europe



38. Climate engineering and the ocean: effects on biogeochemistry and primary production

39. Cleaning up nitrogen pollution may reduce future carbon sinks



Climate change

40. Will half a degree make a difference? Robust projections of indices of mean and extreme climate in Europe under 1.5C, 2C, and 3C global warming



"Compared to 1.5C world, a further 0.5C warming results in a robust change of minimum summer temperature indices (mean, Tn10p and Tn900p) over more than 70% of Europe. Robust changes (more than 0.5C) in maximum temperature affects smaller areas (usually less than 20%). There is a substantial non-linear change of fixed-threshold indices, with more than 60% increase of the number of tropical nights over southern Europe, and more than 50% decrease in the number of frost days over central Europe."

41. Temperature and humidity based projections of a rapid rise in global heat stress exposure during the 21st century



"We project that by 2080 the relative frequency of present-day extreme wet bulb temperature events could rise by a factor of 100250 (approximately double the frequency change projected for temperature alone) in the tropics and parts of the mid-latitudes, areas which are projected to contain approximately half the world's population. In addition, population exposure to wet bulb temperatures that exceed recent deadly heat waves may increase by a factor of five to ten, with 150750 million person-days of exposure to wet bulb temperatures above those seen in today's most severe heat waves by 20702080. Under RCP 8.5, exposure to wet bulb temperatures above 35 Cthe theoretical limit for human tolerancecould exceed a million person-days per year by 2080. Limiting emissions to follow RCP 4.5 entirely eliminates exposure to that extreme threshold."

42. Interactions between hydrological sensitivity, radiative cooling, stability and low-level cloud amount feedback



43. The impacts of oceanic deep temperature perturbations in the North Atlantic on decadal climate variability and predictability



44. Autumn Cooling of Western East Antarctica Linked to the Tropical Pacific



45. High resolution temperature datasets in Portugal from a geostatistical approach: variability and extremes



46. North Pacific Influences on Long Island Sound Temperature Variability



47. Changes in surface air temperature over China under the 1.5 and 2.0 C global warming targets



48. A new assessment of modern climate change, ChinaAn approach based on paleo-climate



49. Changes in hotter and wetter events across China



50. Comparing proxy and model estimates of hydroclimate variability and change over the Common Era

51. Intensified East Asian summer monsoon and associated precipitation mode shift under the 1.5 C global warming target



52. Spatial distribution of the daily precipitation concentration index in Southern Russia



53. Alpine foreland running drier? Sensitivity of a drought vulnerable catchment to changes in climate, land use, and water management



54. Breakdown of the relationship between Australian summer rainfall and ENSO caused by tropical Indian Ocean SST warming



55. ENSO modulation of seasonal rainfall and extremes in Indonesia



56. On the fragile relationship between El Nino and California rainfall



57. Relationships of Rainy Season Precipitation and Temperature to Climate Indices in California: Long-Term Variability and Extreme Events



58. Large-scale heavy precipitation over central Europe and the role of atmospheric cyclone track types



59. Attributing drivers of the 2016 Kenyan drought



60. 20th-century regional climate change in the central United States attributed to agricultural intensification



61. Future projections of active-break spells of Indian summer monsoon in a climate change perspective



62. Gradients of column CO 2 across North America from the NOAA Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network

63. Influence of vegetation growth on the enhanced seasonality of atmospheric CO 2

64. Modeling the origin of anthropogenic black carbon and its climatic effect over the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding regions



65. Non-Redfieldian Dynamics Explain Seasonal pCO2 Drawdown in the Gulf of Bothnia

66. Low pCO 2 under sea-ice melt in the Canada Basin of the western Arctic Ocean

67. Satellite evidence that E. huxleyi phytoplankton blooms weaken marine carbon sinks

68. Unravel causes for the changing behavior of tropical Indian Ocean in the past few decades



69. Comparison of methodologies for cloud cover estimation in Brazil - A case study



70. Evaluation of different methods to model near-surface turbulent fluxes for a mountain glacier in the Cariboo Mountains, BC, Canada

71. Analysis of thickness changes and the associated driving factors on a debris-covered glacier in the Tienshan Mountain



72. Arctic sea-ice loss in different regions leads to contrasting Northern Hemisphere impacts



73. Impact of winter Ural blocking on Arctic sea ice: Short-time variability



74. How much should we believe correlations between Arctic cyclones and sea ice extent?



75. Prospects for seasonal forecasting of iceberg distributions in the North Atlantic



76. The role of ions in new particle formation in the CLOUD chamber



Other papers

77. Tree-ring growth shows that the population decline started decades before the Black Death in Norway



"Since many of these fast-growing trees germinated in the early-14th century and the number of dated buildings drops dramatically several decades before the plague, the Black Death can hardly be the only reason for the population decline in Norway and some environmental impact must have occurred decades earlier. The dendroclimatological evidence of cold and wet summers in the years before the plague is suggestive, but historical sources also pinpoint famine due to crop failure. They also tell of farms being abandoned several decades before the plague and mention periods of heavy rainfall and famine in the early-14th century."

78. Evidence for the thermal bleaching of Porites corals from 4.0 ka BP in the northern South China Sea

"The results show that growth hiatuses and mortalities mainly occurred in summer, with high SST (31  34 C) and SSS (32.8  38.4). In addition, abrupt negative shifts of 2  3 in 13C were observed in almost all of the surfaces of growth hiatus and mortality, indicating adramatically reduced level of photosynthetic activity in symbiotic zooxanthellae. Because of the above reasons, we conclude that the frequently observed mortality and growth discontinuity of Porites corals from the mid-Holocene is evidence for thermal bleaching events in the past. That is, coral bleaching has occurred 3800-4200 years ago and is not a new phenomenon."

79. Biome stability in South America over the last 30 kyr: Inferences from long-term vegetation dynamics and habitat modelling



80. Creating a seamless 1 km resolution daily land surface temperature dataset for urban and surrounding areas in the conterminous United States



81. The Arctic System Reanalysis Version 2

82. Historical cropland expansion and abandonment in the continental U.S. during 1850 to 2016



83. The climate of the Common Era off the Iberian Peninsula


Last year on Election Day Eve, Seth Meyers ended his final Closer Look of the campaign by comparing the two candidates. Do you pick someone whos under federal investigation for using a private e-mail server or do you pick someone  he began, before proceeding to list many legally dubious, reprehensible things about Donald Trump for 50 seconds, gradually losing his breath, overwhelmed. He ended the tally by joking, How can you choose? It was designed to be a final statement, an In Conclusion. He was ready for it to be over, as was his audience. But it was just beginning.

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Over the last year, a tremendous amount of comedy focused on Trump has been created and consumed, whether on Twitter, late-night shows, comedy-club stages, or sitcoms. Perhaps because there is so much of it, an assumption has emerged that this presidency is good for comedy.

Whatever your thoughts about President Donald Trumps impact on America, no one can deny that hes truly made one sector of America great again: Political comedy, reads a piece published on CNN this summer, which echoes an opinion I have heard regularly (though rarely by comedians). I can see why some would think this is the case. SNL has earned its best ratings since the early 90s. Comedy Centrals fall lineup included four politically focused late-night shows: The Daily Show, The Opposition, The President Show, and The Jim Jefferies Show (not to The Fake News With Ted Helms special). Stephen Colberts more politically focused show is beating Jimmy Fallon in the ratings, and Jimmy Kimmels own political turn helped him beat Fallon for the first time, too. Then theres Samantha Bee and Seth Meyers and Robin Thede and John Oliver and so on, to the point where CNN felt we needed a Special Report on Late Night in the Age of Trump. As Lara Zarum wrote this fall in the Village Voice, Trump is the biggest target of our age.

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Its true, he is. Hes a [sigh] yuge target. But that doesnt mean hes the best target, or even a good one. This boom of political comedy is less motivated by the people making it than an industry attempting to seize upon the markets addiction to consuming as much as they can about the president. I was told by one comedian on a politically leaning show that while their team saw an opportunity because of how aggressively the networks were seeking such projects, they werent particularly excited about doing something topical. Its not that all comedy made about Trump this year has been bad, but that his administration has resulted in comedians making worse comedy than they would have otherwise. Thats because Trump is a bad subject for comedy: Hes shallow and played out, and already what people expect from the comedy about him is bad.

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This expectation, and comedians awareness of it, was well captured by a joke in Patton Oswalts new Netflix special, Annihilation. After about ten minutes of talking about the president, Oswalt stops, announces, Thats it for the Trump material, and then continues into probably his funniest and definitely his most honest joke about Trump:

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People tell me, You comedians must be so happy. Trump is president. All this free material. You know what, yes, there is a lot of material, but there is too fucking much. Its exhausting. Being a comedian while Trump is president is like, imagine theres like an insane man on the sidewalk, just shitting on the sidewalk and yelling about Hitler. So youre looking at him and immediately think of the funniest joke about shitting on the sidewalk, and you turn to tell it to a bunch of people, and behind you hes taken the shit and made a sombrero out of it. So you turn and you tell your amazing shitting on the sidewalk [story] and everyone goes, Oh  Turn around, he made a sombrero out of it. Do a sombrero joke. Ah, fuck! I can make fun of the shit he did the last couple of days, but by the time it airs, you guys are going to be like, Wait what was that again?

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If there is one thing that has defined Trumps presidency, its the rate at which hes been bad at it. While that might sound like a good thing for comedytheres something new to joke about every day!comics actually dont need more material. They need people to care about their material long enough for them to make their jokes better. In a terrific piece for the Scotland Herald, stand-up Sara Schaefer wrote, Comedians are now struggling to get the distance needed to make something awful hilarious. This demand for quick turnaround can result in reactionism and lazy contrarianism, or we get comedy like the premiere of the rebooted (and otherwise quite charming) Will & Grace, which doesnt even try to keep up and instead resigns itself to stock Trump jokes: Cheetos, Russia, hair.

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A lot of the stuff now is  just the first step you think of, legendary comedy writer Jack Handy told Mike Sacks on the Doin It podcast. Thats what [people making political comedy now] do, rather than going to the second or third step. The thing is, it is hard to find extra steps to be taken with Trump. To put it mildly, hes real, you know, surfacey, and so it goes that the art about him would be, too.

Sure, there are jokes to make: Yeah, hes orange, ha-ha, said comedian Jen Kirkman, when I asked her if Trump was good for comedy, but the answer is no. Youre either going to get the same jokes over and over, or were going to be normalizing him by making really silly jokes about him. The truth is, the premise was exhausted before he was inaugurated. In my estimation, comedian John Mulaney has the funniest, most accurate reading of Trumpand its not his Trump-is-a-horse-loose-in-a-hospital theory, though that is pretty funny. Rather, its his Donald Trump material from eight years ago, where he explains that Trump is what a hobo imagines a rich man to be.

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Thats just me: I am my age and have consumed comedy at the time that I have. Someone else may have a similar assessment about a different Trump joke (i.e. Spys legendary short-fingered vulgarian description). Trump does something mockable at an unprecedented clip, but its mostly rooted in the same toxic psychology hes always had. (The dementia stuff is new, but not really an enticing area for comedy.) As comedian Noah Garfinkel put it: Donald Trump is the least complicated president in history. There are like four things about him in total. I can think of one exception, and thats the moment from The President Show when Anthony Atamanuik as Trump sees a truck and, stream of consciousness, goes down a rabbit hotel of his psyche, revealing a hidden-in-plain-sight existential despair. Thats it: One new take in the more than two years since he announced his candidacy.

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Thats at the heart of the problem with Trump as a satirical target: He is both incredibly easy and incredibly challenging. The cleanest definition of the goal of satire Ive heard came from Larry Wilmore in his podcast conversation with Malcolm Gladwell. Satire is about revealing a truth, Wilmore explains, not taking a side. The key is the phrasing: a truth as opposed to just truth. Currently, our political comedians are doing a fine job of telling their audience what is true and what is false, but its difficult for them to find something deepera truthbecause Trump isnt deeper. His lies are transparent.

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Compare Alec Baldwins Emmy-winning Donald Trump impersonation to the two most iconic political impressions of the last quarter century: Will Ferrells George W. Bush and Tina Feys Sarah Palin. Where Ferrells and Feys impressions revealed something about their targets that had not yet been expressedspecifically, how each used a sort of aw shucks folksiness as their sheeps clothingBaldwins just reflects back, thoroughly and confidently, what everyone already thinks about Trump. (Atamanuiks impression is superior as a result of being darker and more grotesque, but The President Show will always struggle with the superficiality of its muse.) Wilmore says, The satirists job is to have the flashlight and say, Look at this,  but Trump already puts a spotlight on himself and says, Look at me.

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All of this is compounded by the fact that Trump and the culture around him have created a terrible atmosphere for risk-taking. Regardless of what you think about what Kathy Griffin did with the severed Trump head, its hard to look at the fallout from it and say, Yeah, its worth trying to push boundaries right now. People are understandably edgy and consequently on guard about the correct way to resist. Tina Fey didnt cut anyones head off, but she did cut into an American-flag cake, and for some viewers that was just as bad, since it suggested, in the eyes of critics, that a person in a position of privilege was saying that everyone should stay at home. Defenders argued that she was mocking that position, not arguing for it, but it sort of doesnt matter: People have dug their heels in and are harder to sway. Its not about political correctness run amok; Trump, because of the feeling of constant danger he projects, makes us more vigilant. But comedy needs room to fail, and these days, were less likely to afford it the time to be ambiguous or complicated. Im reminded of a quote from a recent piece by my colleague Jerry Saltz, [Even in our rush] to assume the moral high ground, art can never abandon paradox.

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This is also true for comedy that wants to avoid Trump altogether. Though Lara Zarums Village Voice piece chastising South Park for not taking on Trump this season was well-argued and articulated, it glossed over why the shows co-creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, decided to avoid him in the first place. In an interview with the L.A. Times, Parker put it plainly: It was because he and Stone hated the show last season, when every week was about Trump. I understand the desire for people with a platform and influence to use it to challenge Trump, but doing so often means asking artists to make art they dont think is good and dont like making.

And yet, despite their hang-ups, most comedians, because the nature of their art demands that they engage with the cultural conversation, have gone along with doing Trump material. As Michel Che told the Washington Post, Now you gotta dedicate 10 minutes about Trump. Based on the live comedy Ive seen since the election, the process of stand-ups doing Trump material is like a couple having sex on their anniversary long after the passion has faded: No one wants it, but both parties feel like they have to go through the motions.

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In the very first minute of my show, I mention, I did not vote for him,  Schaefer writes. Even though this line usually gets a big laugh, I can immediately feel a subsequent wave of reverse farts rippling through the crowd. The anxiety is palpable. She continues, Oh no, shes gonna scream at us about Trump for an hour! And this from an audience who agrees with her. This tension doesnt feel partisan. I truly think that people on both sides of our political divide are nervous about what happens when a comedian starts talking about the president in public.

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Even if the comedian can get laughs throughout an entire Trump chunk, it often raises question about whether thats appropriate. How can someone talk about Trump for ten minutes and not make a serious point, the thinking goes? Recently a friend of mine wondered out loud if a white male comedians ability to get laughs about Trump was actually just an exercise in privilege. People are going to die, and hes able to just make jokes, they remarked. Its a sentiment I regularly see echoed by comedians themselves, as Daily Show writer David Angelo perfectly captured in this tweet:

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People: "Trump will be good for comedy."



Comedians: "The 9th Circuit ruling should be upheld for the following 35 reasons..."  David Angelo (@MrDavidAngelo) June 26, 2017

Bigger picture, the fact that every comedian is expected to cover this one topic halts much of the progress comedy was doing in terms of reframing audiences expectations. The current Comedy Boom has been defined partly by how it emphasizes that comedians are individual artists with individual styles and point of views. Just like you wouldnt show up to Webster Hall and expect whoevers playing to play some uniform idea of music, not every comedian is a political comedian. Most arent. But Trump has brought back the feeling of the 80s, when clubs were filled with nameless men with rolled-up suit jackets and a similar five minutes worth of half-baked observation. Comedians are being treated like people we pay to provide a basic service.

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The thing is, they shouldnt stop. Thats not the point. However undesirable the jokes may or may not be, silence would be worse. Comedians are positioned on the front lines of free speech, and they can often lead the way in terms of oppositional language. Trevor Noah spoke to this idea on Late Night With Seth Meyers, saying, There are many countries Ive been to where people dont have free speech and one of the biggest things an authoritarian ruler tries to remove is the ability to make jokes about them  A person is less frightening when youre laughing. It doesnt diminish what they do, but its how we cope.

As much as I saw SNL as a show struggling under the weight of outsize importance last season, it did directly communicate to this administration that the mainstream thinks its doing a bad job. And as much as I imagine Jimmy Kimmel wants to be making jokes about The Bachelor and pranking your kid, his impact on the health-care conversation was significant and possibly life-saving. Mindy Kaling put it well when she tweeted, after all the late-night hosts commented on the Las Vegas massacre: Our late talk show hosts are now de facto activists, not because they want to, but because it would be incomprehensible to not be.

Comedians are doing something valuable by just continuing to show up and do what they do. Comedy might never be good because of Trump, but Im often reminded that it will continue to be good in spite of him.

See also: Suddenly, Jimmy Kimmel Is Our Cronkite
You dont need to travel far, Slovakia can also be a destination for an offline holiday or a trip to the middle of nowhere.

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More information about travelling in Slovakia

Please see our Please see our Spectacular Slovakia travel guide

From the very first moment the alarm rings in the morning, we grab our mobile phones, start browsing, calling, replying to messages and e-mails, scrolling down through the social networks, uploading photos and videos as well as taking notes.

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It is thus hardly surprising that people are looking to spend their holiday in a place where none of this is possible. No free Wi-Fi, no tablets at reception.

Digital detox has become a googled term and many companies are offering device-free trips to distant lands with an appealing itinerary. But one does not need to go as far as Thailand for an unplugged experience. Offline tailor-made holidays are being offered in Slovakia, too.

No signal, no internet

Ivana Resutikova was born in the town of Brezno, in the Horehronie region in central Slovakia. She spent a number of years leading a city life, studying and working. But she has returned to Brezno to pursue her business idea. Her digital detox along with a spa in a forest are among the most sought-after products her agency offers.

It reflects the needs of a modern urban person, my clients usually seeking an escape from a busy life through nature, Resutikova told The Slovak Spectator.

The digital detox stay offers cottage accommodation in locations unknown even for many local people. The accommodation is placed in a homestead along with 10 other cottages that should have been razed in the past. But they have been reconstructed and the original architectural features have been well-preserved. There is no Wi-Fi in the cottage and its also a struggle to get a mobile phone signal, Resutikova explains.
Overall aid from all sources is limited by EU legislation and divided into several categories.

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Investment aid is regional support aimed at encouraging investments and creating new jobs in Slovakia. Individuals and legal entities that are authorised to do business in Slovakia, and whose investment activities and projects meet the conditions of the Act on Investment Aid (Act 561/2007 Coll. on Investment Aid), are eligible to apply for investment aid.

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Zones

Overall aid from all sources is limited by EU legislation and divided into several categories. For this purpose, Slovakia is divided into three parts  western, central, and eastern. In contrast with the previous legal regime, cash forms of investment aid can in principle be granted in all regions.

Forms of investment incentives

If an investor meets the set conditions, they can apply for the following types of state aid:

a subsidy for the acquisition of noncurrent tangible or intangible assets

income tax credit

a contribution for new jobs

transfer of real estate

Read also:

Read also: Regional gap remains deep: The case of Roznava Read more

Conditions for industrial projects

the building of a new business, the expansion of an existing one, the diversification of production to new products which were not manufactured before, or a radical change in the production programme of an existing business

the acquisition of non-current tangible and intangible assets at no less than 10 million, 5 million, 3 million or 0.2 million while no less than 50% must be covered by business equity or assets

the acquisition of new production and technological equipment designated for production purposes

reaching the required share of new technology from the total amount of eligible costs (60%, 50%, 40% or 30%)

creation of new jobs  increase of the overall number of employees by at least 40, or 10 new jobs

Conditions for technology (R&D) centres

Conditions for granting investment incentives to technology centres include:

the construction of a new technology centre or expansion of an existing one

the acquisition of non-current tangible and intangible assets valued at no less than 500,000, while no less than 50% must be covered by business equity or assets

creation of new jobs  increase of the overall number of employees by no less than 30

at least 70% of the total number of staff of a technology centre must have a university education

Conditions for business service centres

Conditions for granting investment incentives to strategic service centres include:

the construction of a new strategic service centre or the expansion of an existing one

the acquisition of non-current tangible and intangible assets valued at no less than 400,000 while no less than 50% must be covered by business equity or assets

creation of new jobs  increase of the overall number of employees by no less than 40

at least 60% of the total number of staff must have a university education

Conditions for tourism

the construction of a new comprehensive tourism centre or an expansion of an existing one by offering new services

the acquisition of new technological equipment designated for offering services

reaching the required share of new technology from the total amount of eligible costs (40% or 20%)

the acquisition of non-current tangible and intangible assets at no less than 10 million, 5 million, 3 million or 0.2 million while no less than 50% must be covered by business equity or assets

creation of new jobs  increase of the overall number of employees by at least 40, or 10
The national park administration asks tourists to behave responsibly.

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Deadly tragedies took place in the High Tatras during the Christmas holidays in regards not only to four people, but also the highly protected species of the Tatra chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra tatrica).

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Deadly falls among the Tatra chamois were recorded in some valleys of Tatra National Park (TANAP), park administration head Pavol Majko told the TASR newswire.

The icy and snow-covered surfaces, all-day rescue helicopter flights in the mountains and many undisciplined visitors hiking on closed hiking trails might be behind the deaths of 11 chamois, stated Majko.

"Every single species of the now relatively stable Tatra chamois population is of the utmost importance in terms of genetic variability," he added.

In this regard the TANAP administration is calling upon visitors to observe nature conservation guidelines.

"At the same time we ask tourists to behave responsibly and selflessly towards everything living in the Tatras," said Majko as quoted by TASR.
New taxes apply as of 2018.

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As of 2018, transferring one's business out of Slovakia will become more expensive. As of the new year, new taxes will be imposed on the transfer of a taxpayer's assets, their departure from Slovakia or the transfer of their business activities.

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Based on the amended Income Tax Law, which becomes effective as of January 1, 2018, legal persons will have to pay a departure tax.

Tax will be imposed on Slovak companies moving their assets abroad, as well as in cases when foreign companies active in Slovakia move their assets to another country.

"It is always about the physical transfer of assets from Slovakia abroad, although from the legal perspective it is not a sale of assets, since the headquarters and the permanent office moving assets between themselves,are one legal person, and so the person of the assets owner does not change. For tax purposes it is a fictive sale and these assets will be taxed in Slovakia just as if they were being sold," said tax advisor Janka Farkasova from the Deloitte company, as quoted by the TASR newswire.

For instance, if a Slovak company transfers computers to its branch abroad, the tax base would be the difference between the actual value of the computers at the time of the transfer and their price for tax purposes at the time of the transfer, according to Deloitte. This tax base would be taxed by a rate of 21 percent.
By PTI: broadcasting

New Delhi, Dec 29 (PTI) A parliamentary panel today asked the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to evaluate the need to have a separate regulator for broadcasting sector, keeping in view its "tremendous growth".

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) at present acts as the watchdog for broadcasting as well as telecom sectors.

The Standing Committee on Information and Technology, in its report tabled in the parliament, said the broadcasting sector has seen enormous growth in the number of satellite TV channels with introduction of DTH services, digitisation of cable TV networks, setting up of independent TV rating agency and introduction of FM radio services across the country.

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In view of the tremendous growth in the broadcasting sector and ever-increasing number of satellite TV channels, the panel said, "the government may undertake evaluation of the need to have a separate regulator for the broadcasting sector".

"Till the time the government decides to have a separate regulator for broadcasting sector, steps may be taken to empower TRAI through modifications in the TRAI Act, 1997 for effective enforcement of its regulations," it said.

The panel also asked the information and broadcasting ministry to put in place a monitoring mechanism with an aim to ensure digitisation of cable television in the country.

It also recommended the ministry to carry out an Impact Assessment study of cable TV digitisation so that a clear picture emerges as to how far digitisation has actually been able to achieve its objectives. PTI MP SRY

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AbbVie Inc. discovers, develops, manufactures, and sells pharmaceuticals in the worldwide. The company offers HUMIRA, a therapy administered as an injection for autoimmune and intestinal Behcet's diseases; SKYRIZI to treat moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in adults; RINVOQ, a JAK inhibitor for the treatment of moderate to severe active rheumatoid arthritis in adult patients; IMBRUVICA to treat adult patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), and VENCLEXTA, a BCL-2 inhibitor used to treat adults with CLL or SLL; and MAVYRET to treat patients with chronic HCV genotype 1-6 infection. It also provides CREON, a pancreatic enzyme therapy for exocrine pancreatic insufficiency; Synthroid used in the treatment of hypothyroidism; Linzess/Constella to treat irritable bowel syndrome with constipation and chronic idiopathic constipation; Lupron for the palliative treatment of advanced prostate cancer, endometriosis and central precocious puberty, and patients with anemia caused by uterine fibroids; and Botox therapeutic. In addition, the company offers ORILISSA, a nonpeptide small molecule gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonist for women with moderate to severe endometriosis pain; Duopa and Duodopa, a levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel to treat Parkinson's disease; Lumigan/Ganfort, a bimatoprost ophthalmic solution for the reduction of elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) in patients with open angle glaucoma (OAG) or ocular hypertension; Ubrelvy to treat migraine with or without aura in adults; Alphagan/ Combigan, an alpha-adrenergic receptor agonist for the reduction of IOP in patients with OAG; and Restasis, a calcineurin inhibitor immunosuppressant to increase tear production, as well as other eye care products. AbbVie Inc. has a research collaboration with Dragonfly Therapeutics, Inc. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is headquartered in North Chicago, Illinois.
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.
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.
By PS Krishnan, P S Gopikrishnan Unnithan: The controversy surrounding the cyber assault on actress Parvathy doesn't seem to have an end as the producer of Mammootty-starrer Kasaba has now offered a job to the accused in the case. 24-year-old Printo was arrested on the December 26 by the Ernakulam South Police based on the complaint filed by the actress. However, Printo was granted bail by the sessions court in Kochi on Thursday.

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Following Printo's release, Joby George, producer of the movie Kasaba, made the job announcement through social media. Joby in his comment on Facebook said, "If you can contact me or come to my home or office, you have a job till I die, in India, UK, Dubai Australia or drop in your number I will call you."

Many people have supported the initiative by Joby. Some profiles even reacted by saying that they too would have abused Parvathy had they known if it would result in a job opportunity.

Meanwhile, the investigation team probing the complaint filed by Parvathy has made one more arrest last evening. A 23-year-old, Rojan, was arrested from his residence in Kollam last night. Rojan had allegedly sent Instagram messages to Parvathy threatening to rape her.

The investigation team hinted that more profiles have been identified in this case and the cyber cell is in the process of verifying these accounts. Once this is complete, more people will be arrested.

ALSO WATCH: Paoli Dam at Conclave East 2017: I was treated like a princess in Bollywood

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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.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V., together with its subsidiaries, designs, engineers, manufactures, distributes, and sells vehicles, components, and production systems. The company operates through five segments: North America, LATAM, APAC, EMEA, and Maserati. It provides passenger cars, SUV vehicles, trucks, and light commercial vehicles under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Chrysler, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Abarth brands; and luxury vehicles under the Maserati brand, as well as related service parts and accessories, and service contracts under the Mopar brand. The company also provides cast iron components for engines, gearboxes, transmissions and suspension systems, aluminum cylinder heads, and engine blocks under the Teksid brand; and designs and produces industrial automation systems and related products for the automotive industry under the Comau brand name. In addition, it provides retail and dealer financings, and leasing and rental services; and factoring services. The company sells its products directly, or through distributors and dealers in approximately 130 countries. The company was formerly known as Fiat S.p.A. and changed its name to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. in October 2014. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. was founded in 1899 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.
Eagle Materials Inc., through its subsidiaries, produces and supplies heavy construction materials and light building materials in the United States. It operates through Cement, Concrete and Aggregates, Gypsum Wallboard, and Recycled Paperboard segments. The company engages in the mining of limestone for the manufacture, production, distribution, and sale of Portland cement; grinding and sale of slag; and mining of gypsum for the manufacture and sale of gypsum wallboards used to finish the interior walls and ceilings in residential, commercial, and industrial structures. It also manufactures and sells recycled paperboard to gypsum wallboard industry and other paperboard converters, as well as containerboard and lightweight packaging grades. In addition, the company engages in the sale of ready-mix concrete; and mining, extracting, production, and sale of aggregates, including crushed stones, sand, and gravel. Its products are used in commercial and residential construction; public construction projects; and projects to build, expand, and repair roads and highways. The company was formerly known as Centex Construction Products, Inc. and changed its name to Eagle Materials, Inc. in January 2004. Eagle Materials Inc. was founded in 1963 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
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.
By Shivani Chhabra: For all those women who will be fasting today, here are a few facts--Indira Nooyi has been successfully heading Pepsico for 11 years now, Priyanka Chopra has rightfully established herself as a global citizen, and three women IAF (Indian Air Force) officers are flying fighter aircrafts now.

Today is an auspicious day for Hindu devotees; it is observed as Pausha Putrada Ekadashi--Day 11 of the second lunar phase, Krishna Paksh, of the Pausha month (December to January), according to the Hindu calendar.

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Ekadashis are holy days that are observed twice every month, with a specific significance of each of them. Pausha Putra Ekadashi is celebrated by Hindu devotees, who worship Lord Vishnu, to pray for a son.

Before we go on to elaborate why the significance of this day is fundamentally flawed; here's the legend behind it:

The tale of Pausha Putra Ekadashi comes from the Bhavishya Purana, which states that Lord Krishna shared this story with Yudhishithra, who was the eldest Pandava. Once, Suketman, the king of Bhadravati and his queen, Shaibya, were worried over not being able to conceive a son. The two were grieving about becoming lost souls after death, as they had no son to perform their last rites. Disturbed and agonised, Suketman left the kingdom and wandered in an unknown forest, only to end up meeting the sages residing near Lake Mansarovar. The sages disclosed that they were the ten divine Vishwadevas, the Vedic gods, who advised the king to return to the kingdom and fast. The king obeyed, and was soon blessed with a baby boy. The day of the meeting between Suketman and Vishwadevas is observed as Pausha Putrada Ekadashi.

Also Read: This is why people fast on Ekadash i

Being cultured keeps you rooted, yes, but being stagnant is a vice. The couples who are fasting for a son today--a son who will perform their last rites and have their "souls ascend to heaven"--need to know that the grief of losing a parent is equally painful for a daughter and a son. Besides, Hindu traditions and rituals, which have been constructed by the society, have become more flexible and practical over the years in some communities; so, it's really up to an individual now to adapt to that change.

With this, the basic ideology behind fasting to conceive a baby boy becomes redundant.

This wave of change in the ancient, concrete Hindu rituals started back in 1704--when Guru Gobind Singh's daughter, Bibi Harshakaran Kaur, performed the last rites of martyrs from the battle of Chamkaur, which was fought between the Sikhs and the Mughals.

Picture courtesy: Pinterest

Setting another example of gender equality, revered politician late Gopinath Munde's daughter, Pankaja Munde, lit his funeral pyre in 2014.

It's not just the daughters of known faces or heroic figures who are bringing about the change. In 2016, Nagpur woman, Tomina Bobade performed the last rites of her father, late Sumit Munshi, and challenged age-old Hindu traditions.

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There have been innumerable instances in recent times, where daughters have come forward to fulfill the last duty a child owes to her/his parents.

Also Read: 7 life lessons we all can learn from the Mahabharata

If these examples of gradual change in socially acceptable norms aren't enough; here's a scientific approach that will make you question the relevance of this day.

There's NO study to prove that fasting affects the sperm or the chromosome it contains. For the uninitiated--a chromosome is a DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) molecule, which determines the sex of the child. So, fasting today or on any other religiously relevant day will not convert an XX chromosome (female child) into an XY chromosome (male child). It's that simple.

It's time we admit that nature has devised no way to let humans influence the life that it wants to create--because unlike humans, nature treats both sexes as equals.

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Major Asian coffee markets were quiet on low demand during the Christmas holiday, traders said, while Vietnam's total coffee exports were estimated to fall this year.

The Vietnam government said on Wednesday coffee exports were likely to drop 20.1 percent from a year earlier to 1.4 million tonnes.

"Heavy rain last December damaged 15 to 20 percent coffee beans which were reserved for shipment in 2017. That explains the drop in coffee exports," independent analyst Nguyen Quang Binh told Reuters on Thursday.

The government, however, said that shipment of beans this month would rise from November, with traders' forecasts also in line with the government estimate.

Harvesting in Vietnam's Central Highlands coffee belt has almost been completed on supportive weather, but trading has slowed during the Christmas break, traders said.

"There was some demand from buyers who were short on stock. But roasters were not looking to buy," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said.

Coffee roasters are the main buyers of robusta beans.

Robusta beans were offered at 36,000-36,800 dong per kg in Vietnam's major coffee-growing province of Daklak, compared with last week's range of 36,500-37,000 dong, traders said. Daklak farmers track London prices, which changed little this week.

The London ICE March robusta coffee finished down $1.00, at $1,711 per tonne.

Traders quoted the 5 percent black and broken grade 2 robusta at a discount of $50-$80 per tonne to the ICE March futures contract, compared with a discount of $50-$70 per tonne a week earlier.

In Indonesia's main coffee growing Bandar Lampung province, the grade 4 defect 80 robusta was traded at a $160 premium to the March contract this week, a local trader said, up from premiums of $150 last week.

Most traders were on year-end holiday this week, while farmers await harvest around April.

"This pricing has no effect because there is no transaction at all," said the trader, who is based in Bandar Lampung.
With iPhone users in some countries having filing lawsuits against Apple over its intentionally slowing down older devices as their batteries have aged, Vietnamese consumers are pondering over whether they could take similar legal actions against the U.S. tech titan.

In mid-December, Apple confirmed that it had slowed down the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, and SE through a software update that it said was meant to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the [devices] from unexpectedly shutting down.

The smartphone maker cited lithium-ion batteries, which are used in iPhones, as the reason behind this feature.

[Lithium-ion batteries] become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge, or as they age over time, which can result in the [devices] unexpectedly shutting down to protect [their] electronic components, Apple said, claiming that the software update prevented this from happening.

iPhone users around the world were not happy with this confession from Apple. Many lawsuits against this deliberate action from Tim Cooks company have been filed over the past week, with the latest brought about by five iPhone users in New York on Tuesday.

The Apple iPhone 6S and 6S Plus are displayed during an Apple media event in San Francisco, California, September 9, 2015. Photo: Reuters

The five iPhone owners claimed that their phones had slowed down after updating to new versions of iOS, prompting all of them to buy newer models of the flagship Apple handset.

Just like other lawsuits, these users argued that had they known their batteries were to blame for the slowdown, they would have replaced them instead of buying a new phone.

The reaction is no different from Vietnamese users, who have expressed both anger and disappointment at the U.S. company.

I feel like I was betrayed, Son Luong from Ho Chi Minh City, who bought an iPhone 7 in February, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

Son echoed the view of other iPhone owners that Apple should have at least let users know that their devices may become slower following an iOS upgrade.

And Apple should have let users decide whether to enable the feature that will slow down their device to save its battery, he said.

Lawsuits possible for Vietnamese users

From a legal perspective, lawyer Tran Hong Phong from the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, said iPhone users in Vietnam can file a complaint or a lawsuit against Apple over this scandal.

However, Phong underlined that a complaint is a more viable solution, as it is not easy to take Apple to court, especially in the U.S.

A legal challenge would be costly and complicated in terms of protocols and legal frameworks, Phong told Tuoi Tre. This is not to mention that you would have to hire U.S. lawyers for the case.

Another challenge, Phong added, is that it is difficult to prove how much damage Apples slowing down of the iPhones has caused to its users.

Now that Apple already has a representative office in Vietnam, local iPhone owners can choose to take it to a domestic court, according to the lawyer.

But the case would remain complex as international law must be applied and this kind of lawsuit is unprecedented in Vietnam, Phong noted.

Japanese Makiko Maeda, 28, uses her iPhone 6S after purchasing it at the Apple Store at Tokyo's Omotesando shopping district September 25, 2015. Photo: Reuters

Apple apology

Following global outrage from iPhone users, Apple officially apologized for its reducing older iPhones performance to compensate for dying batteries on Thursday, but addressing the scandal as a misunderstanding.

"We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize. Theres been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify and let you know about some changes were making," the company said in a letter to consumers posted on its website.

First and foremost, we have never  and would never  do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades.

Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that.

The explanation is followed by a lengthy part in which Apple elaborated on how batteries age and what users can do about it.

The company said from January 2018 until the end of the year, anyone who owns an iPhone 6 or newer model can get a phone-battery replacement for just US$29, instead of the normal price of $79.

Apple added that it will issue an iOS-software update early in 2018 so that users can see information about the health of their iPhone battery.
Vietnam has achieved all its economic targets for 2017, but that does not mean it is time for the country to cease its striving for better growth in 2018, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said Thursday.

Based on the achievements of 2017, Vietnam should continue exerting effort to resolve prolonged problems in its reforming and restructuring initiatives, the premier said at an annual meeting in Hanoi.

The two-day teleconference was dedicated to discussing measures to implement the Party and lawmaking National Assemblys socio-economic resolutions and state budget estimates for next year.

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong, State President Tran Dai Quang and National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan joined PM Phuc in the event, marking the first time all four of the countrys top leaders have attended a government meeting.

PM Phuc underlined that all targets set by the legislature were achieved in 2017, most remarkably beating the 6.7 percent GDP growth target by .11 to reach 6.81 percent, the highest growth rate in a decade.

Other significant achievements include a record high US$51.5 billion in foreign reserves and a $2.7 billion trade surplus.

Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at a teleconference in Hanoi on December 28, 2017. Photo: Vietnam News Agency

The prime minister reiterated that in 2018 the government should work to reach new targets focused on five principles  discipline, integrity, action, creativity and efficiency.

In 2018, the government should optimize the growth momentum of 2017 to promote a comprehensive socio-economic development program and boost economic reforms, the premier said.

Vietnam set targets of 6.7 percent GDP growth and an eight to ten percent increase in export revenue for 2018.

The Southeast Asian country has removed more than 5,000 administrative protocols in 2017 and aims to continue reducing paperwork by 50 percent in 2018.

The government also hopes to support the creation of 135,000 new businesses and cut the number of government positions by 2.5 percent next year.
A new bus station serving as a permanent replacement for the old Ben Thanh Bus station in Ho Chi Minh City is finally open and ready to take on its role as a central hub for the citys commuters.

The Ho Chi Minh City Management and Operation Center for Public Transport (MOCPT) formally inaugurated the modern bus station, located on Ham Nghi Street in District 1, on Thursday morning.

The VND8 billion (US$352,427) facility is situated just a stone's throw from the old Ben Thanh Bus Station, now demolished to make way for the construction of Saigons metro route No. 1.

The metro line, the first of its kind in the metropolis, connects Ben Thanh Terminal in District 1 with Suoi Tien Terminal in District 9.

A total of eight waiting areas, each measuring six meters long, are divided into two separate zones for buses to pick up and drop off passengers commuting across 33 of the citys bus routes.

Each zone is also designed to be handicap accessible.

Buses arrive at the bus stop on the morning of December 28, 2017. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Two information booths with Wi-Fi accessibility allow commuters at the 5,600 square meter station to access information regarding the citys public transport system and read local newspapers.

Twelve electronic boards provide details about route numbers, arrival times, and the distance between buses and the station.

An information booth at the station. Photo: Tuoi Tre

According to Tran Quang Lam, deputy director of the municipal Department of Transport, the location of the new station was selected due to its close proximity to important sites in the downtown area, namely the Ben Thanh Market, the Ben Thanh Terminal of metro line No. 1, and Bach Dang Station on the citys river bus route.

Additional improvements are expected to maximize convenience and encourage citizens to use public transportation, Lam added.

An automatic bathroom at the waiting zone of the bus stop. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Commuters await buses at the station. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A charging station is provided free for travelers. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Passengers board a bus on the afternoon of December 28, 2017. Photo: Tuoi Tre

An electronic board displays bus details. Photo: Tuoi Tre

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UK Prime Minister Theresa May attempted to move into traditional Labour policy territory on Tuesday by unveiling an industrial strategy to boost productivity and wages.

May held the first meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic and Industrial Strategy at Downing Street on the same day that the UKs construction industry recorded its fastest fall since June 2009 as the sector came under pressure from economic uncertainty prompted by Britains vote to leave the EU.

The Markit/CIPS construction purchasing managers index was 45.9 in July, down slightly from 46 in June but above economists expectations of 44. A reading above 50 indicates growth.

May's plan to to drive growth "up and down the country  from rural areas to our great cities was seen as a rejection of ex-chancellor George Osborne's economic strategy, which was criticised for failing to focus on productivity and his Northern Powerhouse project, which focused on cities in the north of England.

That is why we need a proper industrial strategy that focuses on improving productivity, rewarding hard-working people with higher wages and creating more opportunities for young people so that, whatever their background, they go as far as their talents will take them," May said in remarks released ahead of the meeting.

If we are to take advantages of the opportunities presented by Brexit, we need to have our whole economy firing. Thats why this Committees work is of the highest priority, and we will be getting down to work immediately.

However, May is already under fire over after postponing approval of the Hinkley Point nuclear plant amid security concerns over Chinese involvement. China warned that the golden era of relations with Britain is now in jeopardy.

A commentary published by the Xinhua news agency delivered a clear message about the repercussions to the UK of any delay.

"[It] not only draws queries from the international community about its [the UKs] openness towards foreign investment, but also adds uncertainties to the Golden Era of China-UK ties," the commentary said.

"The British new government is actually running the risk of dampening the hard-won mutual trust with China."
Home ownership in England has fallen to the lowest level since 1986, particularly in Manchester and the Midlands, as it becomes increasingly unaffordable, according to a think-tank.

Resolution Foundation said English home ownership fell by 14.5% to 58% this year from its peak in 2003. In the West Midlands it fell 11.2% to 60% this year from its peak in 2003.

London, also recorded double digit falls as it decreased by 13.5% in outer London to 58% this year from its peak in 2000.

The foundation said that London was not the only city experiencing a housing crisis.

Resolution Foundation policy analyst Stephen Clarke, said: London has a well-known and fully-blown housing crisis, but the struggle to buy a home is just as big a problem in cities across the North of England.

The chances of owning a home have fallen fastest in Greater Manchester over the last decade, though the Leeds and Sheffield city areas have also experienced sharp drops.

In the UK, home ownership fell 6.8% to 64% home ownership, in England it decreased 7% to 64%, Scotland dropped 6% to 64%, Wales declined 5% to 70% and Northern Ireland slid 10.5% to 63%.

The foundation, which used data from the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey, found that in the 1980s the average first-time buyer paid under 30,000 for a house, in comparison to the average 150,000 today.

As home ownership fell, renting from private landlords increased to 19% in 2015 from 11% in 2003. In Greater Manchester it rose sharply to over 20% from 6%.

Renters spend most of their income (30%) on housing than people who own (23%). The foundation also highlighted the insecurities of renting short-term and the struggle to accumulate wealth that they may need later in life while paying rent.

Clarke said: These drops are more than a simple source of frustration for the millions of people who aspire to own their home. The shift to renting privately can reduce current living standards and future wealth, with implications for individuals and the state.

We cannot allow other cities to edge towards the kind of housing crisis that London has been saddled with.

Clarke said he was encouraged by the Prime Ministers intentions when Theresa May said she would tackle the housing deficit.

Its encouraging that the new prime minister has talked about tackling the housing deficit. She may find that making good on this promise could secure as important a legacy as negotiating a successful exit from the European Union.

In her maiden speech as Prime Minister, May said it was an injustice that if youre young, youll find it harder than ever before to own your own home.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to re-lay the foundation stone of Barmer Refinery and Petrochemical Complex on January 14, which Sonia Gandhi, former AICC president, had also laid in March 2013.

By Rohit Parihar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to re-lay the foundation stone of Barmer Refinery and Petrochemical Complex on January 14, which Sonia Gandhi, former AICC president, had also laid in March 2013.

Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has been holding meetings of party leaders, ministers and senior officials in regard to PM's visit.

Meanwhile, local administration in Barmer is working overnight to lay roads, clean surroundings and build a helipad in the area.

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A joint venture to set up the refinery was signed between Rajasthan government and the HPCL in August. As per the agreement, HPCL will have a 74 per cent stake while the state government will hold a 26 per cent stake in the new firm that will be called HPCL Rajasthan Refinery Limited (HRRL). The total project cost is Rs 43,129 crore.

A demand to set up a refinery in Barmer is old one given the fact that it has yielded oil, but experts have often cautioned against it saying the oilfields may not be left with enough oil by the time a refinery-cum -petrochemical complex comes up. Besides, there are refineries in Gujarat and Punjab.

Congress government headed by Ashok Gehlot had promised to build a refinery by December 2017 when it laid the foundation stone in March 2013 hoping that it will help it get a lot of votes. However, Congress was wiped out badly proving that the last minute laying of foundation stones do not influence voters always.

Raje, which took over as chief minister in December 2013, reviewed the agreement with HPCL as she felt that state was giving too many concessions besides putting up money. The reworked deal seems to be tilted in favour of state government with a saving running into tens of thousands of crore depending upon production of the oil.

Congress, meanwhile, scoffs at the reworked deal and it fresh foundation ceremony.

Sachin Pilot, PCC president, says BJP fears to lose the three by-elections due on January 29 as also assembly polls in December 2018."So it wants to ride on shoulders of Prime Minister by calling him here," he says.

Gehlot has been hitting hard on BJP government accusing it of delaying the project. He says the talk of saving money was nothing, but jugglery of figures.

The refinery never took off the ground during Congress regime, but Raje wants that it should start coming up quickly so that people realise that it's not a poll gimmick. Besides, if construction begins, it will also give a boost to the local economy and generate jobs which have taken a hit once oil exploration unit of Cairns India was completed.

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Kweku Adoboli, the former UBS banker who lost the Swiss bank 1.4bn through rogue trading, said that it could happen again as banks had not learnt from the financial crisis.

Adoboli, 36, said traders are still pressured to make profits at all costs and the banking industry has not done enough to reform since the 2008 financial crisis.

He told the BBC that behaviour in banking had not changed. "I think the young people I've spoken to, former colleagues I have spoken to, are still struggling with the same issues, the same conflicts, the same pressures to achieve no matter what.

"And this goes back to the structure of the industry. People are required to take risk to generate profit, because yields in the industry are consistently compressed. And if investment banks continue to chase the same level of profitability as they have in the past, the only way to generate those profits is to take more risk.

But from a politics angle, the desire is to limit that risk taking, to limit the profitability, but you have these conflicted goals. And where the conflict comes is where people fall into this grey zone, and so I think it can absolutely happen again. Especially as we go into what could be the next phase of the great financial crisis over the next 12 to 24 months."

He said the lack of reform is partly due to bosses staying out of jail while junior traders take the blame.

The industry doesnt learn  Perhaps there are bad people in the industry. I think its about culture. The culture is set at very senior levels of the industry. They have as much responsibility for what the outcomes are as those pushing the buttons.

Adoboli, the biggest rogue trader in British history, was convicted of fraud in November 2012. He was described by the prosecution as a master fraudster and sophisticated liar, and was released in July 2015 after serving about have of the seven year sentence.

He was born in Ghana and has lived in the UK since he was 12, and is currently fighting deportation, as foreign nationals who have been sentenced to more than four years in prison are automatically considered for deportation. On 20 July he lost his deportation appeal.

Adobali, one of the few bankers to be jailed since the financial crisis, said he was sorry for what happened.

"I unreservedly apologise for what happened - it was a huge failure and part of the redemption is about that. Part of rehabilitation is about facing up to your choices, what was wrong with them, and how do you move forward."
Price comparison website Moneysupermarket.com reported a jump in pre-tax profit and revenue for the first half as it announced the resignation of its chief executive officer Peter Plumb.

In the six months to the end of June, pre-tax profit rose to 47.1m from 37.8m as revenue increased to 157.6m from 143.9m, led by Money and Home services, with momentum returning in Insurance.

The company declared an interim dividend of 2.75p per share, up 8% from the first half of last year.

Moneysupermarket also said on Wednesday that CEO Plum will step down from his role after nearly eight years on or before the groups annual general meeting in May 2017.

Plumb said: We've built trusted brands, put in place new platforms and made switching a habit for many UK households. For me, it's the right time to hand over the leadership baton and thank everyone in the team for their hard work and relentless determination to help more people save more money."

Commenting on the interim results, Plumb said: First half trading up 10% is another good start for Moneysupermarket Group. Millions of households used us to save money on household bills so far this year, and we have a growing number of innovative new products that help more people save in more ways

The company said it delivered single-digit growth in July, with the insurance segment outperforming. It remains confident of delivering its expectations for this year.
Former UK Prime Minister David Cameron has sparked a row over his resignation honours list after the Sunday Times newspaper published what it claimed to be details of the recipients, including his wife Samantha's adviser.

The Sunday Times said the ex-PM had chosen to reward members of the official campaign to remain in the European Union. The UK voted to leave in June's referendum.

Opposition MPs called for an overhaul of the system, but one former parliamentary aide to Cameron waved away concerns by saying the bestowing of honours was a relatively light way of paying off political debts.

Others among the 48 recipients include staff at Downing Street, the prime minister's official residence, Cameron allies and Tory donors, the paper added.

Top of the donors are Ian Taylor, a businessman who has handed the Tories more than 1.6m and contributed at least 350,000 to the Remain campaign, and Andrew Cook, who has donated more than 1m to the Conservatives and another 300,000 to Remain.

Four cabinet members who also backed the campaign  Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon, David Lidington and Patrick McLoughlin  are among nine proposed knighthoods.

An outgoing prime minister has the right to draw up a resignation honours list on leaving office although the last to do it was Sir John Major in 1997. Cameron left office on July 13.

Cameron is also poised to create two dames: former cabinet minister Caroline Spelman; and Arabella Warburton, chief of staff to former prime minister Major, who campaigned strongly for Remain.

Will Straw, the director of the Remain campaign, who was a Labour candidate and is the son of party grandee and former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, has been nominated for a CBE.

George Osborne, the former chancellor and Camerons closest political friend, is in line to become a companion of honour. Osbornes closest aide, Thea Rogers, is set to receive an OBE.

Some 24 members of Camerons Downing Street staff are recognised for their efforts. They include his wife Samanthas stylist Isabel Spearman, officially listed as an adviser, who has also been nominated for an OBE.



Labour Party deputy leader Tom Watson attempted to drag new Prime Minister Theresa May into the row by suggesting she would not want her reputation undermined by approving rewards for Cameron's 'old boys network'.

Its cronyism, pure and simple and proof the Tories will always put their own interests before those of the country, he said.

However, Sir Desmond Swayne, himself knighted by Cameron this year, dismissed the criticism.

Over a period of government, particularly a difficult government in a coalition, a prime minister has to cajole and get the support of a number of people and he builds up a debt of honour and I think that frankly, an honours list is a relatively light way of paying it off, Swayne told BBC radio.

I think we get far too excited about these things. The reality is with any honours list there are names that will warm our hearts and names that will send us into an apoplectic rage.
Former BHS owner Philip Green should write a cheque to compensate the collapsed company's pensioners and say sorry, said the former head of the Pension Protection Fund.

Lady Barbara Judge told the BBC the Pensions Regulator needed more powers to prevent a recurrance of what happened at the High Street chain, which collapsed in April with a 571m pension fund deficit.

Green sold the store chain for 1 last year but it failed under the ownership of Retail Acquisitions Ltd, controlled by Dominic Chappell, and is now being wound up with the loss of 11,000 jobs.

"He should be writing a cheque and saying 'I'm sorry'," Judge said.

"My proposal is that the Pensions Regulator or some other agency be set up, like the Competition and Markets Authority, [so] that every time a corporate transaction of a certain size takes place with a pension fund of a certain size... a filing would be made by the parties it interested."

"They would say this is the deal... and this is what we are going to do for our pensioners.

"Under my scenario we would have a pensions regulator that looked at every pension fund in the country and then had an obligation to talk to those pension funds about what they were doing."

Her comments on Green echo those of Frank Field MP, who co-chaired the parliamentary inquiry into BHS.

Under-fire Green was slammed in the inquiry's report that criticised him and others involved in the collapse as being the unacceptable face of capitalism.

Retired race driver Chappell was also panned in the report from the Work and Pensions and Business select committees.

Inquiry co-chair MP Frank Field said Green should make out a cheque for at least 571m, after the report cited Greens failure to sort out a 571m pensions deficit as a primary catalyst for the chains collapse.

Criticism was also directed at the handling of the businesss sale to Chappell, who is a former bankrupt and had no experience in retail prior to BHS.

[He] hurriedly sold to a manifestly unsuitable buyer, the report said of Greens conduct when flogging BHS off to Chappell for a nominal 1 last year.

Around 20,000 people are said to be eligible for a BHS pension, with the Pension Protection Fund set to take a 271m loss as a result.

Reportedly, Green has privately spoken of his willingness to make a contribution to the pension deficit, but he has remained staunchly quiet over the collapse of BHS with the exception of his appearance before MPs.

Several firms were also named as playing roles leading to the collapse of BHS and its pension fund, including Goldman Sachs, law firm Olswang and accountants Grant Thornton.

Employees have been working their last days at BHS stores across Britain in recent weeks, with stores closing as stock is exhausted.

Field has repeatedly asked Green to "write a cheque" to sort out the pension fund in an increasingly bitter war of words with the tycoon. He has accused the businessman of "displacement therapy" and said he had to "face up to the evil he has done in destroying BHS".

Green hit back by saying Field had tried to create a "false narrative" and that progress was being made in addressing the pension deficit.
Direct Line Group topped the FTSE 100 risers after posting its half year report for the six months to 30 June on Tuesday, with gross written premiums for ongoing operations 3.9% higher, driven by strong growth in motor in-force policies - up 2.5% - and a 9.5% increase in premium rates.

The firm said its combined operating ratio from ongoing operations continued to be strong at 89.6%, or 0.2pts higher, including the Flood Re levy impact of 1.6pts.

Pharma company Shire followed in second place after upgrading its earnings guidance for 2016. The company raised its expected cost saving target for its 24.17bn acquisition of Baxalta and beat forecasts for the second-quarter.

Shire said it now expected to deliver synergies from the deal of more than 528m in three years.

InterContinental Hotels rose as earnings were hit by the strong US dollar in the first half of the year, but despite the recently lowered guidance from rivals Hilton and Marriott the Holiday Inn operator remains confident in the outlook for the rest of the year.

Reported revenues of $838m for the six months to 30 June were down 8% on the previous year's and short of analyst expectations, though underlying sales, which excludes the effect of disposals and exchange rates, rose 5% to $771m. This was all largely in line with market expectations.

Travis Perkins fell as said like-for-like sales in July had been below normal levels in the wake of the UK's decision to leave the European Union as it posted a 10.7% rise in interim profits to 176m.

Revenues at the builders merchant rose by 5.8% to 31.bn, while like-for-like sales grew by 3.1%.

Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds were all still lower after a poor showing in EU stress tests.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 6,666.44 -0.41%





FTSE 100 - Risers

Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG) 388.80p 9.49%

Shire Plc (SHP) 5,095.00p 3.45%

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 3,116.00p 3.38%

Admiral Group (ADM) 2,205.00p 2.61%

Fresnillo (FRES) 1,962.00p 2.03%

Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 9,020.00p 1.23%

Persimmon (PSN) 1,659.00p 1.16%

Provident Financial (PFG) 2,714.00p 1.04%

Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 7,425.00p 1.01%

Unilever (ULVR) 3,569.00p 0.99%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Barclays (BARC) 147.15p -2.81%

Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 184.00p -2.70%

Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 3,188.00p -2.60%

Travis Perkins (TPK) 1,508.00p -2.33%

BHP Billiton (BLT) 942.40p -2.17%

Intertek Group (ITRK) 3,471.00p -2.09%

Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 1,855.00p -1.77%

Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 52.32p -1.75%

Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 1,917.50p -1.72%

Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,444.00p -1.69%
RAHUL GANDHI, 47

In many ways, 2017 will be marked as a watershed in Rahul Gandhi's political career. The country witnessed his new avatar, relentless in public campaign, proactive on social media, and assertive in decision-making. By the year-end, he also took over as Congress president, an inevitable elevation that he had been avoiding for years. But this dramatic change had started with a failed experiment. In the run-up to the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Rahul appointed Prashant Kishor as his party's campaign strategist. Kishor had been the backroom strategist for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and for Nitish Kumar in the 2015 Bihar assembly elections. Many in the Congress ridiculed Rahul's decision to seek Kishor's services as a copycat approach. But Rahul did not pay heed and assured Kishor a free hand to run the campaign.

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Kishor was a professional strategist and his sole goal was to ensure victory for the Congress. He came up with radical ideas, such as making Priyanka Gandhi the chief ministerial candidate. He was ruthless in his analysis of the party's weaknesses, the organisation was in the doldrums, the social media unit was no match to the BJP's and most Hindus saw the Congress's secularist positioning as a Muslim appeasement tool. The Congress's debacle in Uttar Pradesh brought Kishor's stint to an abrupt end, but Rahul had done his learning. "The association with Kishor gave Rahul an insight into how Modi creates a perception about what he stands for," says a Congress general secretary. "He realised that the best way to take on Modi is to beat him at his own game."

Within two months of the Uttar Pradesh defeat, Rahul appointed former Lok Sabha MP Divya Spandana, one of his favourites, as head of the party's social media unit. He himself abandoned the cautious approach on Twitter, firing tweets that were witty and incisive in their attack on the Modi government. "We had to persuade him a lot to join Twitter, but now, he is enjoying the process and writes his own tweets," says a member of Rahul's office. "When some media channels criticised him for watching a film after the Gujarat elections, he came up with a wonderful tweet, 'If the BJP had a film franchise it would be called Lie Hard'."

Rahul's biggest lesson from Uttar Pradesh was the power of polarisation and how the BJP was successful in consolidating Hindu votes. "He still believes in secularism, but the need is to make people understand that the BJP is not the sole custodian of Hindus," says a Congress Rajya Sabha member. So, even at the cost of hurting the Muslim vote bank, the Congress president visited 27 temples during the Gujarat election campaign, without any attempt to balance it by visiting mosques. And to show that it was no election gimmick, he revisited the Somnath temple after the elections. In a polarised political environment, religion for this self-confessed Shiva worshipper is no more a private affair.

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This pragmatic approach is the new buzzword of Rahul's politics, which had long been described as 'NGO type' by his own party men. It was this pragmatism that took him in September to US universities, which became the launch pad of his new political persona. The motive of that trip, though, was to reach out to NRIs for funds. "The Congress is a poor party with rich leaders," says a senior leader from Haryana. "Some former CMs and Union ministers from the party can fund its entire Lok Sabha election expense. But if you look at our finances, we don't have enough money to even take care of the basic election expenses of our candidates."

The now-postponed Dubai trip scheduled in January 2018 was to be another fundraiser. Perception management may have earned the party 'moral victory' in the Gujarat elections and traction in the social media, but Rahul knows that the battle against the BJP cannot be won without strengthening his party's organisation and finances. Year 2017 only marks the beginning of that journey.

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--- ENDS ---
Anyone planning a trip to Florida? If so, you might want to watch your step. A ranking of the 104 largest U.S. metro areas found that eight of the top 10 most dangerous metropolitan areas for pedestrians are in the Sunshine State. The worst offender: Cape Coral-Fort Myers.

Smart Growth Americas report, "Dangerous by Design," compiled its rankings by looking at data on pedestrian deaths as well as the share of commuters who walk to work.

In 2014, the latest year for which numbers are available, 4,884 people were killed by cars while walking, or an average of 13 each day. And older adults are disproportionately affected, with those 65 and older being 50 percent more likely than younger people to be struck down while walking. The report called the escalating problem an alarming epidemic. Minorities are also overrepresented among pedestrian deaths. Nonwhite individuals accounted for 34.9 percent of the national population but made up 46.1 percent of pedestrian deaths.

Smart Growth America  a coalition of advocacy organizations that have a stake in how metropolitan expansion affects quality of life  places the blame squarely on the way streets are designed.

Many of these deaths occur on streets with fast-moving cars and poor pedestrian infrastructure, the organization said. People walk along these roads despite the clear safety risks  a sign that streets are not adequately serving everyone in the community.

In order to make communities safer, the number of lanes must be reduced, and center medians must be installed on streets that mix pedestrian, foot, bicycle and vehicular traffic, according to the report.

Here are the 20 most dangerous metro areas in the ranking:

1. Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.

2. Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, Fla.

3. Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Fla.

4. Jacksonville, Fla.

5. Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, Fla.

6. Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla.

7. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla.

8. Jackson, Miss.

9. Memphis, Tenn.

10. North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla.

11. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Fla.

12. Bakersfield, Calif.

13. Birmingham-Hoover, Ala.

14. Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, Ark.

15. Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, Texas

16. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz.

17. Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Mich.

18. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif.

19. Baton Rouge, La.

20. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas

For more information, go to: https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/.
If you were tricked into using Western Unions wire transfer service to send money to scammers between Jan. 1, 2004 and Jan. 19, 2017, you may be eligible to get at least some of your money back. Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice came to a $586 million multistate settlement with Western Union. More than 500,000 potential victims nationwide have been identified. Those who were duped can file a claim for restitution from the settlement fund. You can submit your petition online or by mail, but the deadline is coming up fast  Feb. 12, 2018. Youll be asked to provide details, including the amount of money you lost and the date you wired the money. To learn more, go to ftc.gov/wu.



American consumers lost money while Western Union looked the other way, said FTC Acting Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen, in a press release. Were pleased to start the process that will get that money back into consumers rightful hands.



The FTC says one of the most common scams involves somebody who wants to buy something youre selling online. The buyer may send a payment to you  often in the form of a check that will bounce several weeks later  and then ask that you wire money back or send funds via Western Union. Cases such as this should raise a red flag.



In addition to the above, here are three other big scam stories from 2017, according to the Fraud Watch Network.



The Equifax data breach

Approximately 143 million Americans had sensitive information exposed in a data breach involving Equifax, one of the nations three major credit-reporting agencies. Although this doesnt guarantee youll become a victim of identity theft, you should be on guard, and the best way to do that is to monitor your credit reports. Go to annualcreditreport.com to get your free reports each year from the three major credit bureaus. Dont order all three at once  spread them out so you can keep closer tabs on any suspicious activity. Also, you might consider requesting a credit freeze  also known as a security freeze. This tool allows you to restrict access to your credit report. Depending on where you live, there might be a small fee for this service. You will have to ask to have the freeze lifted whenever you apply for credit.



Phishing via text

Phishing is when scammers try to trick you into sharing sensitive information, typically through authentic-looking emails from what appears to be a legitimate bank, favorite store, federal agency, Internet service provider, or some other organization requesting that you verify personal details. This information can include usernames, passwords and bank details. Now that people are catching on to email phishing, scammers have branched out to texting  preying on our tendency to respond immediately to a text message. Whether its through your smartphone or instant messaging on a social media site, be wary of any text that looks even remotely suspicious. When in doubt, delete.



The Medicare card scam

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is removing Social Security numbers, gender and signatures from Medicare cards, and will begin to issue new cards in the mail in April 2018 (new beneficiaries will receive them first). The changes are designed to make it harder for scammers to steal your identity. But beneficiaries have been getting calls from people pretending to represent Medicare. These people ask them for payment to receive their new Medicare card, or to verify their Medicare number. Know that Medicare will never call to offer a new card or to verify your number because they already have it. Also, there is no cost to get your new card. If you get a call like this, hang up and report it to your states Senior Medicare Patrol. Find the number at smpresource.org.
While Ranveer Singh is already in Sri Lanka for a shoot, Deepika Padukone is expected to join him soon.

By India Today Web Desk: Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone may not have had the best year professionally, thanks to the uncertainty surrounding their film Padmavati, but they are doing things right on the personal front. If a report in Mid-Day is to be believed, the couple is all set to ring in the New Year together in Sri Lanka.

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On Wednesday night, Ranveer was clicked at the Mumbai airport, where he reportedly took a flight to Sri Lanka. He is in the country to shoot for a commercial. Deepika, who is currently in Vienna, is expected to join him soon. A source close to Ranveer told the publication that the couple will spend some quality time together and go snorkelling, away from the prying eyes of the media.

Last month, Ranveer expressed his love for Deepika in a video that was aired on a chat show. "There is nobody like you, god bless you. Love you a lot," he said in the video.

On the work front, their next release, Padmavati, remains mired in controversy after several groups have objected to the Sanjay Leela Bhansali film for allegedly distorting history. The film, which was supposed to release on December 1, has now been pushed indefinitely.

ALSO WATCH: Ranveer Singh says his outlook on romantic relationships have evolved

--- ENDS ---
Currently military retirees receive a traditional retirement check each month with the amount based on their years of service and pay. But military members must serve at least 20 years to be eligible for this benefit, and most get no government retirement when they leave the military because they havent served long enough. According to the DOD, only 19 percent of active-duty members and 14 percent of reservists reach the 20-year mark.



Under the new system, 85 percent of service members are expected to get retirement benefits, according to DOD. "For service members who don't plan on serving for a full career in the military, the benefit is that they will have a portable retirement plan, to which the government has contributed, that they will be able to take with them when they leave the military," said Andrew Corso, DOD assistant director of military compensation policy, retirement and annuitant pay.



The BRS comprises two components:



A defined annuity, or pension program, similar to the current system, although under a new formula the monthly benefit will be somewhat reduced.

The Thrift Savings Plan, the savings plan for federal workers that is similar to 401(k) plans in the private sector. The federal government will contribute 1 percent of a service members pay and match up to 4 percent more for a maximum government contribution of 5 percent. The plan can also be rolled over if the service member leaves the military for the private sector.

Individuals who join in the military after Dec. 31, 2017, will be automatically enrolled in the new BRS. All other active-duty military members will remain in the current system. But those with fewer than 12 years of service, and some reserve members, can choose to join the BRS. There are no changes to the current retirement plan, and those who choose to remain in it still will be required to complete 20 years of service to receive a pension.



Members who are eligible to opt in to the BRS will have until the end of 2018 to make their decision, though DOD materials point out that the choice is irrevocable and cannot be changed at a later date.



DOD also has created a bonus program designed to entice midcareer service members to stay in the military. The program will provide service members with a cash payment worth 2.5 to 13 times their regular monthly basic pay if they agree to reenlist for at least three additional years after theyve served for eight years but before they reach the 12-year mark.



A new lump-sum option will allow service members with at least 20 years in the military to receive either 25 percent or 50 percent of the discounted value of their future pension in exchange for reduced monthly retirement pay. Once that service member reaches full Social Security retirement age, the monthly retirement benefit reverts to its full amount again.



For more information on the BRS, go to the DODs Military Compensation web page, which includes resources, tools and a comparison calculator to help you make your decision.
Three charged in connection to missing Aberdeen man

As the Aberdeen Police Department continues to investigate the disappearance of Simon Deng in Aberdeen, three people now face charges.
Its been a busy couple of months for Chris Brennan and Reviva.

The reggae-rock band released its new album, Equanimity, in the fall and has been touring in support of it over the past couple of months.

While a new album is always cause for celebration for a band, Reviva got an opportunity to work with some phenomenal artists on the album.

In fact, the album was produced by Grammy Award winner and Ziggy Marley bassist Pablo Stennett.

The album was recorded at Central Root Studios in Albuquerque.

The album, we recorded it fairly quickly, Brennan says. We had six songs from our previous albums that we wanted to redo. The entire process was an amazing experience for us. Were super-proud of this album and hope to put Albuquerque on the music map again.

Reviva began in 2010. The Albuquerque-based band currently consists of Brenna, Jerel Garcia, Glenn Buddha Benavidez, Ragon Espinosa, Cody Jones, Rick Gonzales and Brian Shonerd.

Brennan says working with Stennett was a huge opportunity, yet the band always focuses on working with locals on putting the album together.

This is why Equanimity was recorded in Albuquerque.

We had people from all different genres on the album, he says. Were proud of where were from, and I think New Mexico is a special place. In our unique and diverse culture, we wanted to bring in some musicians to see what were all about.

There are 12 songs on the album, and Brennan says the first single will be released online.

The band also has recorded a music video for the single, Take Me Away.

I think the video is really powerful, he says. The song is an ode to what is happening on the immigration front with a lot of Dreamers getting deported. These are people who are contributing to the local and national community. They contribute to our society. For our first song and video, given the climate, we wanted the video to make an impact.

Brennan also has a lot coming up in the new year.

We went down to Nicaragua in 2014 and did this cultural exchange, he says. Ill be going back for 10 days, and were also going to be talking with the embassy in Panama.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

The oreodont is a little like a camel, a little like a sheep and a little like a pig  or at least it was; it has been extinct for millions of years.

But Jason Moore and his students continue gleaning insights about the mammals existence and its surroundings by evaluating fossils in a basement lab at the University of New Mexicos Northrop Hall.

Fossilized oreodont bones are featured heavily in the collection Moore gathered on a UNM-funded expedition at Nebraskas Toadstool Geology Park. But UNM will have them around only temporarily; Moore has arranged permanent homes at museums inside and outside New Mexico, primarily because UNM lacks an appropriately controlled environment for their storage.

In the long term, zero percent get to stay here, Moore, a vertebrate paleontologist and assistant professor in UNMs Honors College, said of his collection, which he estimates at 10,000-plus pieces. We dont have the facilities to hold them.

While UNM keeps thousands of fossils on its Albuquerque campus, the universitys Earth and planetary sciences department does not have space that meets federal repository requirements for storing vertebrate fossils.

That is about to change.

UNM plans to transform its vacant, 8,000-square-foot Biology Annex building into an interdisciplinary teaching and learning center for Earth and planetary sciences, the Museum of Southwestern Biology and UNMs Museum Studies program. It will feature new labs and storage space, plus places to teach and display the specimens.

The current Biology Annex plan has garnered much more support than a previous version that would have repurposed the building for graduate student art studios. Art students and faculty members railed against the Board of Regents-approved plan to move their studios from the Art Annex to the Biology Annex to make way for the Honors College.

UNM has since scrapped that plan after an architectural review showed it would be cost-prohibitive. Art will stay in place, and Honors is likely destined for the first floor of the Anderson School of Management.

But officials still wanted to use the Biology Annex, so interim Provost Craig White convened a task force to explore possible uses. The interdisciplinary center emerged as the top contender.

To have the opportunity to turn this facility into a showcase and a teaching space and a laboratory preparation space for these extraordinary collections is a tremendous gift, UNM Arts and Sciences Dean Mark Peceny said at a recent regents committee meeting.

Regents have approved the recommendation; however, they must still approve a more detailed design and reallocate the funding previously earmarked for the Art Annex plan.

Christopher Witt, Museum of Southwestern Biology director and associate professor in biology, lauded the new plan for several reasons, including the impact well-designed spaces can have on creativity and productivity. The museum will allocate some of its own specimens to the Biology Annex, depending on particular teaching, analysis or display goals, he said.

The space that we are envisioning in the Bio Annex would bring together students and scientists from different departments to extract and analyze information from these priceless objects, he said in an email. The study of specimens should be exciting because it provides a unique way of understanding life and how it changes over time and space  this space will make it exciting.

Cori Myers, an invertebrate paleontologist and assistant professor in Earth and planetary sciences, said fossils kept in poor conditions can turn to dust and some fossils in UNMs collection have shown signs of disintegration. She estimated that UNM has at least 25,000 fossils in Northrops basement, including a strong collection that speaks specifically to New Mexicos natural history.

While the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science has a wide swath of such specimens, Myers said, most national museums do not.

Not very many of them have collected heavily in New Mexico, so we have these amazing high-resolution records of New Mexican fauna and flora that is not really replicated anywhere else, she said.

Moving them to a repurposed Biology Annex would mean improved conditions for evaluation and storage, but also better access for teaching and even public viewing. She said she hopes that student tours that already visit campus for other reasons will eventually have a chance to also view fossils at the Biology Annex.

These are valuable to the public.  This is a record of our history, so its important for research, its important for teaching and getting our students engaged in science, but more than that, she said, this is the history of world.
CHEYENNE, Wyo.  President Donald Trumps administration is rescinding proposed rules for hydraulic fracturing and other oil- and gas-drilling practices on government lands, government officials announced Thursday.

The rules developed under President Barack Obama would have applied mainly in the West, where most federal lands are located. Companies would have had to disclose the chemicals used in fracking, which pumps pressurized water underground to break open hydrocarbon deposits.

The rules to be rescinded today were supposed to take effect in 2015 but a federal judge in Wyoming blocked them at the last minute. In September, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver declined to rule in that case because the Trump administration intended to rescind the rules.

The long-awaited change drew praise from industry groups including the Washington, D.C.-based Independent Petroleum Association of America and Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, which sued to block the rules.

They claimed the federal rules would have duplicated state rules, putting unnecessary and expensive burdens on petroleum developers.

States have an exemplary safety record regulating fracking, and that environmental protection will continue as before, Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said in a release.

Fracking has been so successful in boosting production over the past decade it has become almost synonymous with oil and gas drilling. In many areas, it would be rare nowadays for a gas or oil well to not be fracked.

The process requires several million gallons of water each time. Environmentalists say the potential risks to groundwater require regulation.

Fracking is a toxic business, and thats why states and countries have banned it. Trumps reckless decision to repeal these common-sense protections will have serious consequences, Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an email.

___

Follow Mead Gruver at https://twitter.com/meadgruver
While Albuquerques Whittier, Hawthorne and Los Padillas elementaries are currently reviewing which four state-mandated options to use to improve their failing schools, the learning and entire future of New Mexicos children is being impacted. Not only is their education being dramatically affected now, but it will have a staggering impact on their entire adult lives.

Albuquerque Institute for Math and Science @ UNM, grades 6-12, and soon-to-open Altura Prep, K-5, share the concern of the parents and kids impacted by this situation and are offering to help. Both charter schools are making their teachers, administration and other resources available, excluding lottery-based enrollment. The schools administrators, teachers and/or the parents and children themselves can take advantage of these resources. From consultation with administrators and teachers, to meeting with parents and kids  anything that can help kids and parents.

Now is not the time to debate the charter-vs.-traditional school issue. This is the time we should be focused on the No. 1 priority  our kids education. During this holiday season, if we can lessen the burden of uncertainty for parents and children about their education, we will feel gratified.

Albuquerque Public Schools can choose from four options outlined in the states Every Student Succeeds Act plan: close the school, relaunch it as a charter school, reorganize it or champion parents option to transfer students to other schools. A letter of intent is due to PED by Jan. 9, and a full plan outlining the turnaround steps is due by Feb. 12.

The focus of this conversation is doing whats right for students and looking for new ways to break down barriers to those opportunities for students. We hope that our offer will help at least one New Mexico family, hopefully more.

Altura Preparatory School is an elementary school in Albuquerques International District opening in fall 2018 that eventually plans to serve over 300 students in kindergarten-fifth grade. Altura Prep charter schools mission is to provide a great school option in Southeast Albuquerque. In this part of the city, most students are assigned to attend schools with more than three-fourths of their students below grade level. Altura Prep is confident all students, regardless of ZIP code, race, ethnicity, or home language, can learn and can do great things.

AIMS@UNM public charter school, on the University of New Mexico campus, has an enrollment of over 80 percent students escaping D and F corridors of their local schools. AIMS was recently ranked 42 in the United States for high schools and was recognized by The Washington Post as ranking 45th in the nation as one of the most challenging high schools. Recently, AIMS students participated in the PISA, Program for International Student Assessment, exam taken by 540,000 15-year-olds in 72 countries. While Asian education systems dominate the upper reaches of the results, accounting for the top seven places for math, AIMS scored higher than the average of these countries.

If you would like additional information on Altura Preparatory School, contact Lissa Hines or Meaghan Stern at info@alturaprep.org. For more information on AIMS@UNM, contact Kathy Sandoval Snider at ksandoval@aims-unm.org.
My New Years wish is for the health and resurgence of democracy. What follows is a slightly edited version of a morning prayer I offered last month at the Appleton Chapel of the Memorial Church at Harvard University.

Let us say a prayer for democracy. But let us do more than pray. Lets ask ourselves what it means to live by a democratic ethic. Here on earth, as John F. Kennedy said, Gods work must truly be our own.

We know that democracy, particularly in its liberal form, is embattled, facing threats within nations that have long been proud of their democratic traditions, and competition from systems that tout themselves as better able to deliver many of lifes good things.

But the greatest threat to democracy may be our own indifference.

Democracy properly encourages open-mindedness. But are we so open-minded that we are not willing to say, unequivocally, that a system providing for free speech, freedom of conscience, a free media, freedom of religion, and genuinely free elections is both morally and practically better than alternative systems? Are we so concerned about our tendency to deify our own culture and our own traditions, are we so turned off by the invocation of democracy in defense of wars we might have opposed, that we are unwilling to assert that democracy is worth defending across cultures and nations?

Democracy is and always has been imperfect in practice. Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident who became his countrys president, told Congress in 1990: As long as people are people, democracy in the full sense of the word will always remain an ideal. One may approach democracy as one would a horizon, in ways that may be better or worse, but which can never be fully attained. In this sense, you, too, are merely approaching democracy.

In embracing democracy, as the historian James Kloppenberg has written, we are standing up for three contested principles: popular sovereignty, autonomy and equality. We are also embracing three premises: deliberation, pluralism and reciprocity.

We know that in its liberal form, democracy must at times resist popular sovereignty  a majority of the people cannot vote away their own rights or anyone elses. We know that our own quest for autonomy can conflict with our obligations to the communities to which we owe debts. We know that many democracies, including our own, are a long way from true equality.

Yet in the face of these tensions and imperfections, which values would we place above popular sovereignty, autonomy and equality  and also above deliberation, pluralism and reciprocity? If we would uphold these commitments, we should be prepared, with Havel, to defend the democratic ideal.

We should also be prepared to live it. For religious people, the grounding for democracy is a belief that all human beings are endowed with equal dignity by God. But one need not be religious to insist on the equal dignity of our fellow human beings. One need only be a small-d democrat.

A devotion to democracy thus ought to affect how we treat others. We often have to deal with hierarchies, but we should never internalize them. Those at the bottom of formal authority structures see things and know things that cannot be seen from on high. We should, as Pope Francis has said, seek the wisdom available only on the peripheries. We learn from experience  and from the news  that the distributions of virtue, compassion and judgment are not correlated with the distributions of power and wealth.

Democracy, finally, is rooted in two intuitions, about our aspirations to transcendence, which allow us to imagine a better world, and about our proclivities to sin and failure, which require limits on the power any of us can wield. Thus Reinhold Niebuhrs aphorism: Mans capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but mans inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

The conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr. once said that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. I no doubt have a higher opinion of the Harvard faculty than Buckley did, but the instinct behind his provocation should stay with us.

Democracy imposes a discipline. It demands that no fortunate group should ever claim, by virtue of its position or its educational attainments, the unchallenged right to impose its will on others. To invoke the late Benjamin Barbers lovely phrase, the only aristocracy democracy fully sanctions is an aristocracy of everyone. It is the one sort of aristocracy worth praying for.

Dionnes columns, including those not published in the Journal, can be read at abqjournal.com/opinion  look for the syndicated columnist link. Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group; e-mail: ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne.
Pune-based RTI activist Vihar Durve has got RTI documents which say that there is no record available with BMC about the high-rise buildings in Mumbai.

By Pankaj P. Khelkar: Pune-based RTI activist Vihar Durve has got RTI documents which say that there is no record available about the high-rise buildings in Mumbai and no record of number of cases registered against the owners and occupants for flouting fire audit norms.

Durve got this response after he filed a RTI in the office of municipal commissioner of BMC.

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Vihar Durve claims to have filed around 70 RTIs related to fire norms violations in Mumbai and action taken by the fire department against the people flouting the rules, but till date he has not got a satisfactory rely from BMC.

Meanwhile, five BMC officials were suspended after a deadly fire in Mumbai's Lower Parel claimed at least 14 lives. The assistant commissioner of the ward has been transferred.

Vihar blames five authorities for Kamla Mills pub fire incident.

Vihar says, "The first one to be held responsible is the owner of the place where the fire broke, second person is the Mumbai Fire Department chief for overlooking whether the owner of this pub followed the safety norms, third is the Mumbai Municipal Commissioner for not checking what actions the fire department has taken, fourth is the head of Urban Development Department and CM Fadnavis, Fifth person is the opposition leader of State Assembly Prithviraj Chouhan for not monitoring what the ruling party is doing about the fire safety norms and lastly the Union Urban Development Minister Nitin Gadkari who has the sole power to prepare the guidelines for fire safety norms and see to it that every state administration complies to it. And lastly, the Information Commissioner of State for not directing BMC commissioner to publish the above information under section 4 of RTI."

--- ENDS ---
Every year when a couple of my family members come out for their pre-Christmas visit, we soon make tracks for Cafe Castro.

Pity the poor visitors  they cant get real New Mexico chile in the Chicago suburbs. And its not a matter of heat, one of them said; its a matter of flavor. Nothing matches the full flavor of chile found in New Mexico.

So, of course, chile is a prime draw in our visits to Cafe Castro. But the ambiance helps, too. On a recent Sunday evening, Christmas lights twinkled throughout the restaurant and a guitarist sat near the entrance softly singing a variety of tunes in Spanish. A quick glance around showed that the Hispanic customers outnumbered the Anglos  generally a good sign that quality, down-home northern New Mexican food is being cooked in the kitchen.

We started with guacamole and chips ($6). We didnt ask for the additional salsa ($1) that the waitress delivered, but we were fine with the addition. The chips were thin but sturdy, made in-house and very fresh, the waitress assured us. Indeed, they provided a delicate taste of corn that you wont find in the stuff that comes in a bag on grocery shelves.

The guacs avocado was specked with bits of tomato and perhaps also onion. Anyone who missed heat in the guacamole would have been satisfied with the salsa, though.

More liquid than solid, it was dominated by (canned) tomato flavor with a hearty enough addition of red chile to send my male guests scalp into a sweat.

We made a considerable dent in that appetizer even in the short time before the entrees appeared.

My female guest opted for the Plato Pequeno ($5), an ample enough meal that she customized to include chicken in the enchilada, green chile on top, and posole on the side  along with a little mound of shredded lettuce and tomato. Delicious, was her judgment.

For his stuffed sopaipilla, my other guest chose a beef and beans filling with a green chile topping. And the good-sized sopaipilla, he noted, was quite stuffed, leaving him in the same condition when he finished. In both cases, the food was warm, flavorful and made just the way it should be. While he fantasized about having Castros chile sauce shipped to Illinois, I noted that the chile this time was on the mild side. But I imagine the degree of heat depends on the harvest and the chile on hand. Ive had some here in the past that set my nose to running and cleared my sinuses.

Now we get to my choice, which might make some shy away: a large bowl of menudo ($6). Yes, its made from tripe  usually beef stomach. But I love it. Maybe the vaguely rubbery texture of the menudo reminds me of the thick skin that covered pork hocks that my mother used to make with sauerkraut. Its comfort food to me.

I ordered the menudo with posole and green chile; some chopped raw onions and oregano came on the side to add as I wished. It all comes together in a tasty broth that combines the taste of all the ingredients. I alternated between dipping the sopaipilla that came on side in the broth, and drizzling some slow-moving honey into its interior.

Menudo is good, folks, honest. Give it a try. After all, if youre going to kill an animal to eat it, you might as well make use of all its parts.

The sopaipillas varied. The one I had on the side was substantial and not greasy, while others we had in a basket had thinner walls, a bit more crispness and a little more grease  maybe they emerged more recently from the fryer.

Service was good. When the waitress occasionally got tied up, an older woman with a somewhat maternal attitude made her way down the tables, making sure everyone had what they needed.

I cant think of a better spot for inexpensive, well-prepared northern New Mexican cuisine in the City Different. And an extra spot in my heart was warmed by the restaurants sign that said Immigrants Make Us Strong.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

With a new year about to turn, the new president of Caballeros de Vargas, Thomas Baca, is hoping and praying for the same thing his organizations namesake did more than 300 years ago  peaceful reconciliation.

I would like to heal all of this, he said, referring to community divisions resulting from the annual performance of the Entrada  an annual re-enactment of the Spanish resettlement of Santa Fe led by General Don Diego de Vargas in 1692 held each September during the annual Santa Fe Fiesta.

I want everybody to be on the same page so were not offending anybody and nobody is offending us. Its not about offending anybody, its about peace. Thats what this is about, and thats what were celebrating.

Baca says the celebration is about that day in 1692 when de Vargas and Native American people agreed to live in peace.

That day is so important because thats when the peace began, he said. Baca acknowledged there was plenty of bloodshed before and after the day commemorated in the Entrada, but, he said, Thats where it (peace) started, and it has evolved into what it is today.

But not everyone is on that page. The Entrada performance has been marked by protests each of the past three years. Demonstrators have called for the abolishment of the Entrada, calling it revisionist history and a celebration of the Spanish dominance over indigenous people. Event organizers and the everyday people who play roles in the performance have been called names, including racists.

We have been painted a picture that is inaccurate, and thats very hurtful and its very sad, Baca said. I respect the protesters and I respect their point of view, and I wish they would respect us, as well. We are all human beings, and we are all here to live together in peace and harmony.

Baca personifies that. He recently had his DNA tested and was found to be 46 percent of European descent and 30 percent Native American, and he suspects many people whose families have lived in the area for generations and identify as Hispanic would see similar results.

In addition, his fiancee of 19 years is a registered member of Pojoaque Pueblo, as are their three children.

I never tell them one (culture or race) is better than the other, because they are not, he said of his children, ages 17, 15 and 8. They are blended and they are one, they become one.

His children participate in both the Fiesta and the Entrada each year. Three years ago, when he portrayed de Vargas in the pageant, his daughter served as cape bearer for La Reina, the Fiesta queen, and also performed with a Native American dance group during the Fiesta, which he said was such a beautiful thing.

So when the protests start coming up, its hurtful because my kids, they dont understand it. They get scared, and its really sad and hurtful, he said.

Thats one reason why Baca wants healing to take place. To that end, he sent letters of the governors of all 19 New Mexico pueblos and the Archdiocese of Santa Fe requesting meetings so that everyone is on the same page about what he says is the true meaning of the Entrada.

The last thing that us as an organization, the Caballeros, would ever want to do is to be to be hurtful to anybody. We dont want to offend anybody; thats not what were here for, he said.

In addition to staging the Entrada each year, Baca says the Caballeros de Vargas provides scholarships to students at St. Michaels High School and Santo Nino Regional Catholic School, and offers an endowment at Santa Fe Community College. They also prepare gift baskets for needy families during the holidays and participate in rosaries for people who have passed on.

But he says the performance of the Entrada commemorates an important date that shaped the future, and hes proud to be a part of it.

Without that day, I dont think we would have the New Mexico we have today, he said.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

Has Santa Fe seen its last Entrada?

It may well have, with the recent passage of a resolution by the All Pueblo Council of Governors, which also has the support of Archbishop John Wester and Mayor Javier Gonzales.

The pueblo governors and the mayor want a replacement event focusing on the coexistence of cultures in the Santa Fe area.

Wester and the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, meanwhile, are ready to issue an apology for the sins of colonists in New Mexico, part of an effort at reconciliation after Native American protests have grown in intensity during the Entrada over the past three years. The pageant is a religious, costumed re-enactment of the reoccupation of Santa Fe by the Spanish 12 years after they were forced out during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

Still at least somewhat on the fence, though, are the Entradas organizers, who say they are ready to make changes, but still want their event to be staged on the citys historic Plaza as part of the annual Fiesta de Santa Fe.

Since Septembers Entrada, the pueblo governors, city government and the archdiocese have been working behind the scenes to resolve the racial tensions surrounding the re-enactment.

While event organizers say the Entrada is meant to commemorate a day in 1692 when the Spanish and Native American people agreed to live together in peace, many Native people see it as something much different. They say the Entrada is revisionist history, and a celebration of the Spanish conquest and repression of indigenous culture and religion.

With close to 180 police officers on hand and nearly as many protesters, eight people were arrested during the 2017 Entrada, though all charges were later dropped.

The pueblo governors proclamation, approved on a 12-0 vote and signed Dec. 14 by council chairman E. Paul Torres, states that the Entrada fails to accurately recognize the truth of what actually happened in the 17th and 18th centuries, and has added static and harmful depictions of history and indigenous people.

As leaders, one section of the resolution says, we must come to terms in addressing these issues or run the risk that these matters could escalate into regrettable circumstances, in which innocent people are victimized and traumatized, as recently reflected in the over-reaction of law enforcement using a full militaristic response to protestors, and reopening wounds that have taken many generations to heal.

Not a city decision

Regis Pecos, a former governor of Cochiti Pueblo and current co-director of the Leadership Institute on the campus of Santa Fe Indian School, served as facilitator of the discussions that have been taking place between the pueblos, the city and the church. Fiesta representatives have not been included.

Pecos notes that the resolution culminates in what he called five principles necessary to reach an ultimate reconciliation. One calls for the parties to collectively redefine a commemorative event that captures the true spirit of coexistence and honor our principles of mutual respect to be shared by all.

Asked if that would mean the end of Entrada, Pecos said, I think at this stage of discussions, I dont want to be premature, but I think were well on that track. At the very heart of the principled dialogue that has taken place is redefining that, hopefully in profound ways that cause all of us to be proud to be part of a whole new celebration.

Mayor Gonzales  whose family has been deeply ingrained in the Entrada and who himself played the lead role of Spanish General Don Diego de Vargas during the 1989 performance  concurred that Santa Fe may never see another Entrada, at least not in its current form. He spoke about how the event reopens old wounds.

The Entrada as it exists today is serving more as a divisive event for a lot of different reasons, he said. The fact that for many generations families have intermixed and shared in each others cultures, its critically important that we move past the portrayal that has been so hurtful and has worked to divide our community.

And changes have to happen soon, before next September, he said.

I believe if we dont settle this in a short period of time, the event as we know it today will continue to divide us and create a perception about our community that is very wrong, he said.

He, too, said he envisions an event that highlighted the sense of unity of cultures and coexistence that has always been in place, and something that we all can be proud of.

And while he has just a little more than two months left as mayor, he said the groundwork has been laid for whoever becomes his successor after the March 6 elections to help see it through. Regardless of who the next mayor may be, the pathway forward now exists, he said.

The city holds a lot of leverage over the Fiesta and the Entrada. It issues the permit to the Fiesta Council each year for use of the Plaza and provides about $50,000 to advertise the Fiesta.

But the mayor maintained the decision about whether another Entrada will be held likely wont come from city government. So much of the way Ive tried to approach this is to make sure the resolution, and the solution, is largely driven by the church, the archdiocese, and tribal leaders, he said.

Circle of reconciliation

Archbishop Wester attended an Indigenous Peoples Day event on the Plaza in October, about a month after this years protested Entrada. He said then that the Entrada re-enactment had to change.

It is the archbishops hope that it becomes a celebration for all people, said Allen Sanchez, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, who has been involved in the discussions with the city and pueblo leadership. But before there can be celebration, there has to be reconciliation.

Sanchez said to expect a formal apology by Wester for the cruelty and harm that was inflicted when the colonists imposed their religion upon the native people to be issued some time early in the new year.

This is in line with what Pope Francis has already done, he said.

In July, while visiting Bolivia, Pope Francis asked forgiveness for the many grave sins committed against indigenous people in Latin America during colonial times.

In Santa Fe, such history is complicated. The Fiesta includes a religious procession to the Cross of the Martyrs overlooking downtown, which commemorates 21 Franciscan priests killed during the Pueblo Revolt.

The conceptual framework delineated in the pueblo governors resolution calls for apologies from both the church and the city to heal the wounds and trauma caused by conflicts of the past, and through mutual forgiveness a new era guided by our core values for our shared cultures and histories be established.

We ask for forgiveness not only for the cruelty that was caused, but for the silence, Sanchez said. You have to take responsibility not only for the cruelty, but for the silence if you were witness to it.

While not part of the governors proclamation, Pecos said pueblo people have a responsibility to accept the apology in order to complete the circle of reconciliation. He said its also important for the pueblo people to acknowledge that their ancestors had to some degree forgiven the Spanish for their actions.

There was a time of forgiveness that took place hundreds of years ago that resulted in pueblo leaders  despite the atrocities that they experienced and were subjected to  to pardon those actions and that led to them to embracing Catholicism and the immersion of Catholicism into the pueblo way of life, he said, adding that pueblo people also grew to accept the Spanish secular form of government.

The pueblo councils resolution also calls for the negotiating parties to develop a new Proclamation acknowledging our history and the communion of cultures, and to celebrate the uniqueness of whom we have become and be inclusive of other cultures who now call the (sic) New Mexico their home. The new proclamation would serve to replace, or as Pecos put it modernize, the 1712 city proclamation, which called for the establishment of an annual religious commemoration with vespers, masses, sermon and procession through the Main Plaza. That event today is celebrated as the Fiesta de Santa Fe.

All sides involved in talks agree that a proclamation of a new event wouldnt come from solely from the city, but would be a joint proclamation by the city, the archdiocese and the All Pueblo Council of Governors.

Moving in the right direction

Left out of the discussion so far have been several key parties: the Fiesta Council, the Caballeros de Vargas, a nonprofit Catholic ministry that actually stages the Entrada as part of the opening of the Fiesta, and the Native American protestors.

Pecos said: We do not mean to exclude anyone from the process, but to initially keep the discussion at the highest level  with representatives of the pueblo governments, the city government and the church  so that we could have that discussion with the clear intent being that they would move toward building a consensus among all parties.

Each of the groups represented would then have the responsibility to have dialogue in their own way with individuals at other levels and at the appropriate time.

That time appears to have come now. Mayor Gonzales met last week with Melissa Mascarenas of the Santa Fe Fiesta Council and Thomas Baca, new president of Caballeros de Vargas. Baca said he also has a planned meeting with the archdiocese. I think were moving in the right direction, he said.

While the Caballeros were left out of initial talks, Baca took it upon himself to reach out to other groups. In November, he sent letters to each of the 19 pueblos asking for one-on-one meetings with the governors to discuss what could be done to make the Entrada more inclusive and non-offensive. He also reached out to the archdiocese and the mayor.

Baca isnt sure what will result from the meetings, but on Wednesday he said he expects the Entrada performance to continue in some form.

There will be changes, definitely, Baca said. There are going to be changes, and collectively I think we can sit down and talk about what can be done so we are not offending anyone. Thats what all these meetings are for. I know (the Entrada) will not continue in the same way it has, but it will continue in a different way.

According to Pecos, the pueblos leadership will be responsible for having dialogue with the protesters. It may be a tough sell. Demonstrators still say that holding anything resembling the Entrada on the citys Plaza is unacceptable.

We can sit down and talk, but nothing short of getting it off the Plaza and getting them out of the schools is not going to work. Not anymore. Not after last year, said Elena Ortiz, a Santa Fean from Ohkay Owingeh who heads up In the Spirit of PoPay, a Native American rights group named for the leader of the Pueblo Revolt.

In addition to staging the performance on the Plaza, the Fiesta Court, which includes participants from the Entrada dressed in full regalia, visits local schools in advance of the Fiesta. This year, in response to complaints and concerns expressed about their presence in the schools, Superintendent Veronica Garcia gave students and staff an opportunity to opt out of the assembly.

And I dont want to hear anything about changing the script or how to make it more inclusive. Its a celebration of genocide and conquest theater. It belongs in a theater setting, not in our schools and not in our public places, Ortiz said.

Jennifer Marley, from San Ildefonso Pueblo, who has led the Entrada protests the past two years as a member of the Native American activist group Red Nation, is also adamant that the Entrada must be abolished. Theres absolutely no healing as long as were denying the revisionist history thats being presented. Theres no way we can heal on false premises, period, she said.

The very least they could do is to take it inside, Marley said. They claim that its a religious event, then they should have it in a church.

In a joint interview earlier this month with Baca, the Caballeros president and Gilbert Romero, a past president of the Fiesta Council, both said they would be happy to engage in discussions about how to make the Entrada a more inclusive event that wouldnt offend anyone.

Romero said modifications to the script were made over the years in order to achieve that goal. He said the Fiesta Council would prefer not to move it from the Plaza because the performance has traditionally been held there.

Baca didnt want to see it moved from the Plaza, either. The crowd for Fiesta is going to be downtown on the Plaza, he said. Thats where the food is, thats where everyone mingles with each other. If we go somewhere else away from the Plaza, I dont think that it would be very well attended.

A new tradition

Estevan Rael-Galvez is the former state historian who now works as a consultant. He was invited to take part in the initial discussions between the pueblo Council of Governors, the city and the archdiocese, and was credited by others interviewed for this story for helping provide historic context.

The Entrada as we know it today was an invention of the 20th Century, he said. In this case, it was invented as part of a wave of founders day celebrations across the nation. It was not something that was homegrown; it did not come from here. But in time, people accepted it as their tradition and that has pretty much been solidified over the last 100 years.

Rael-Galvez says the Entrada was invented in 1911 as the brainchild of Episcopal minister James Mythen and evolved under the leadership of Edgar Hewett, founder of the Museum of New Mexico. It was staged then as an attraction for tourists, and it skimmed over the facts that led up to the Pueblo Revolt and what happened after the Spanish returned in 1692.

And while the Entrada has been performed for more than a century and has become a Santa Fe tradition, it doesnt have to remain that way, he said.

Inevitably, there will be people who feel like something is being taken away or lost. But if we are truly committed to healing, it cant be about us versus them. It has to be about transformation and reconciliation, and recognizing that its time to think about it as an opportunity for a new tradition, he said. I think as a community we have that responsibility and opportunity to recognize not only the harm that has been caused, but the real beauty of these cultures in our communities.
PHOENIX  A Tucson man faces federal charges after allegedly shooting at U.S. Border Patrol agents and trying to ram their cars with his SUV in the most serious among a spate of migrant smuggling attempts near the Arizona-Mexico border over the long Christmas weekend.

The U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Arizona says that 21-year-old Roberto Ramirez of Tucson was charged Wednesday with offenses including assault on a federal officer, use of a firearm in a violent crime, and high-speed flight from a border patrol checkpoint. During his initial court appearance, it was ordered that Ramirez remain in custody.

U.S. Border Patrol Agent Daniel Hernandez, public affairs officer with his agencys Tucson sector, said Thursday that smuggling attempts are not uncommon in the region, but we did see a higher level of activity over the holiday weekend. Authorities discovered at least three other human smuggling attempts in southern Arizona over the holiday period, but no other case involved violence. In all instances, U.S. citizens drove the vehicles and migrants hid in car trunks or traveled as passengers.

The federal complaint against Ramirez alleges that he arrived Sunday at a Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 19 near the tiny community of Amado, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of the border city of Nogales, Arizona. Agents suspicious about the two passengers in the Ford Escape directed Ramirez to secondary inspection, but he sped away on the northbound interstate with several border patrol vehicles in pursuit.

During the Christmas eve chase, police allege Ramirez fired several gunshots at agents and tried to strike their vehicles with his SUV before rolling the vehicle over and crashing. One of his two Mexican passengers was ejected and seriously hurt.

Ramirez and his two passengers were taken to a hospital for treatment of their injuries and released. The passengers are being charged with immigration offenses. The federal charges against Ramirez carry a maximum penalty of 20 years of imprisonment and a $250,000 fine, according to the Arizona division of the U.S. Attorneys Office.

There were 93 assaults on Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector during the federal governments 2017 fiscal year, with 786 assaults nationwide, the U.S. Attorneys Office said in a release about the case. Border Patrol Agent Hernandez noted that a vehicle can be as deadly as a firearm.

At the same immigration checkpoint near Amado on Saturday, Border Patrol agents arrested a 20-year-old woman from the Phoenix suburb of Tempe after discovering two men and a woman in the trunk of her Chevy Malibu.

Agents searching the vehicle also found a loaded firearm that belonged to the driver.

Border Patrol agents additionally reported two human smuggling attempts over the long holiday weekend farther to the east.

On Dec. 22, agents at the State Route 90 Immigration checkpoint arrested a 20-year-old Phoenix woman driving a Chevy Cobalt along with two male Mexican migrants  one traveling as a passenger in her car and the other in the trunk.

A canine team patrolling State Route 80 stopped a Buick Lacrosse sedan driven northbound by a 61-year-old Arizona man, and the dog detected a 23-year-old male migrant in the trunk. Authorities detained the migrant and the driver, a U.S. citizen.
Police investigate the scene where a body was found with "massive trauma" in Four Hills on Saturday around noon (Marla Brose/Albuquerque Journal) Police investigate the scene where a body was found with "massive trauma" in Four Hills on Saturday around noon (Marla Brose/Albuquerque Journal) Police investigate the scene where a body was found with "massive trauma" in Four Hills on Saturday around noon (Marla Brose/Albuquerque Journal) Police investigate the scene where a body was found with "massive trauma" in Four Hills on Saturday around noon (Marla Brose/Albuquerque Journal) Prev 1 of 4 Next

Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

A woman whose mutilated body was found in a sandy arroyo in the shadow of the upper middle class Four Hills neighborhood last Saturday grew up in Tohajiilee and more recently split her time between the Native American reservation land and Albuquerque, her mother told the Journal on Friday.

Evangelyn Ray said her daughter, Audra Willis, 39, did not have a permanent residence, but lived off and on with family in Albuquerque and on the reservation. She was the mother of six children, all under the age of 17, who lived in Tohajiilee.

She was loved by the whole family, no one ever tried pushing her away, Ray said. She chose her way of life and we did everything we could to keep her safe. As a mother, its hard to know that your child is out there.

Albuquerque Police say Willis was found dead, decapitated, and with severe injuries near Winterwood and Autumn Wood SE. They have not named any suspects in the case or said how Willis died.

Police released her identity Friday, after reaching her next of kin. A department spokesman could not be reached to provide more details Friday.

Ray said that, when Willis was in the city, she would often take off with friends, hanging out with people the family had never met and occasionally getting into trouble. But she would also work off and on and did not ask for handouts.

She kept it separate, so we dont know where she hung out or with who she hung out, Ray said. We tried not to get into her space and let her have own little life, didnt judge for where she lived, what she did or who she saw.

Ray said she is left struggling with how to cope with the horrible death her daughter faced and why someone would do such a thing. She referenced the fact that Willis had been in and out of jail, and court records show a string of petty arrests, such as drinking in public and disorderly conduct. Most recently she had been booked for failing to appear in a petty misdemeanor battery case  and had been released on her own recognizance just two days before her body was found.

I have so many questions, Ray said. They told us she got out of jail on the 21st and they found her body on the 23rd. What happened between that?

Willis death comes almost exactly a year after a homeless man was found decapitated behind a northeast Albuquerque Wal-Mart. On Dec. 17, 2016, police say a security guard found 42-year-old Clifford Miller of Oklahoma stabbed to death and mutilated behind a Dumpster. APD spokesman Simon Drobik has previously said investigators dont believe the two killings are connected.

Ray said she had last seen Willis for the familys Thanksgiving dinner and did not find out about her death until Dec. 26.

I hope they catch whoever did this to her, Ray said. Were not going to rest until we find out. Its awful for that to happen, and as a Native, for something like that to happen.

Ray said Willis was the second oldest of five siblings. She said her daughter would stay for a month or two with her and her husband in their Southeast Albuquerque home, doing puzzles and playing dominos, before returning to Tohajiilee.

Now they are planning to lay her to rest in her family burial plot once her body is released from the investigation. Ray said she hasnt wanted to go through photos of her daughter until they have seen her body and had more time to process what happened. She asked the Journal not to run a photo of Willis yet.

Police seek tips

Police ask anyone with information about the case to call (505) 242-COPS.

Tips: Police ask anyone with information about the case to call 242-COPS.
ANKARA, Turkey  Turkey has finalized a deal with Moscow for the purchase of Russias S-400 anti-missile system, Turkish defense officials announced Friday, despite concerns voiced by some of the NATO members allies.

The deal, which would make Turkey the first member of the military alliance to own Russias most advanced air defense system, comes amid strengthening ties between Turkey and Russia and Ankaras deteriorating relations with the United States and other western countries.

The Turkish Defense Industries Undersecretariat said in a statement Friday that Turkey would buy at least one S-400 surface-to-air missile battery with the option of procuring a second battery. The delivery of the first battery was scheduled for the first quarter of 2020, the statement said.

The two countries on Friday also finalized a financial agreement for the project, under which part of the cost would be financed through a Russian loan, the Defense Industries body said, without revealing details of the deal.

Turkish media reported Friday that Turkey would purchase four S-400 units at a cost of $2.5 billion. Sergei Chemezov, head of Russias state-controlled Rostech corporation, also told the business daily Kommersant in an interview published Wednesday that the contract was worth $2.5 billion and that a Russian loan would account for 55 percent of the sum.

Chemezov said Turkey would buy four batteries and that the first deliveries would start in March 2020, according to Kommersant.

Its the first NATO country to purchase our most advanced S-400 system, he said.

The reason for the discrepancy over the number of batteries Russia would supply Turkey was not immediately clear. The Defense Industries body would not disclose the cost of the project or other details, citing principles of secrecy agreed to by the two countries.

The S-400 has a range of up to 400 kilometers and can simultaneously engage multiple targets. Its capable of shooting down ballistic missile warheads along with aircraft and cruise missiles.

Russia deployed the S-400s to its base in Syria to deter Turkey when the two nations were on the verge of conflict after a Turkish jet downed a Russian bomber on the Syrian border in November 2015.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in September that Turkey had signed a deal to buy the Russian system and made a down payment, drawing concerns from some of Turkeys NATO allies.

Some NATO countries have expressed worries that the S-400 system is not compatible with the alliances weapons systems.

The Defense Industries agency said the Russian system would be operated under the full control of the Turkish military and in an independent manner, without any links to any outside elements.

The systems operation, management, and systems recognizing friends and foes will be undertaken through national means, the Defense Industries body said.

__

Associated Press Writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.  A man was found dead after being pinned under a pickup truck in Colorado Springs.

KKTV reports a person walking in the area Thursday night noticed the man under the truck with one of his shoes off and called authorities.

Emergency responders freed the man, who did not have a pulse and was not breathing. Attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. Fire officials say it appeared the man was working on the truck because there was an alternator and tools nearby.

The mans name has not been released.

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Information from: KKTV-TV, http://www.kktv.com/
As a female business owner and Cochiti Pueblo member, Phoebe Suina says she often craves the camaraderie of other tribal businesswomen to manage the challenges of entrepreneurship.

As Native Americans and women, we often face a double whammy, given all of todays issues about how women are treated in the workplace, said Suina, an engineer and owner of the environmental consulting firm High Water Mark LLC. There are few of us women in engineering, and especially native women, so I call on colleagues to discuss issues and bounce ideas off each other without being judged.

As more Native American women enter professional fields and start businesses, Suina and others have found such craving for support pervasive among existing and aspiring tribal women entrepreneurs, which encouraged them to launch a new Native Women Business Summit in Albuquerque.

Suina and other summit founders held a planning conference last October attended by 75 people. Now, theyre organizing a broader event for April, targeting about 200 participants, which they hope to turn into an annual summit for Native Americans in New Mexico and elsewhere.

A lot of native women are taking the bull by the horns to start their own companies, but its difficult for many to break through the challenges and succeed, Suina said.

Summit organizers originally banded together through New Mexico Community Capital, which offers Native American entrepreneurs assistance in launching and growing businesses. Five of the founders, including Suina, are graduates of NMCCs Entrepreneur in Residence program, which functions as an incubator and accelerator for Native American businesses. About 61 percent of people in that program are women.

NMCC is providing logistical support and working on initial funding for the April summit.

Its important for these women to build a safe place where they can identify issues they face and talk about them, said NMCC Managing Director Peter Holter. For women either just starting or considering a new business, its an opportunity to see the examples of other successful businesswomen and share ideas and experiences with them.

The summit will include skill-building workshops and informative sessions on everything from finance and taxes to licensing a company and hiring people, said Stephine Poston, Sandia Pueblo member and president and CEO of the communications firm Poston & Associates LLC.

It will also focus on building confidence, including sessions on how to get started and where to seek mentorship, said Poston, who won the 2017 Native Woman Business Owner of the Year award from the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development.

Perhaps most importantly, the event will simply bring people together.

If I could give advice, it would be to commit to surrounding yourself with people who are rooting for your rise and give you honest, productive feedback and solutions, Poston said. That really matters.
SANTA FE  New Mexicos election director ruled Friday that Democratic state Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero violated the state Campaign Reporting Act by failing to provide enough information to justify some spending and inaccurately recording some transactions.

Many of the amounts at issue are small  sometimes under $10  and simply require a better explanation, such as that coffee was purchased during a meeting with constituents, according to a letter issued Friday by Kari Fresquez, the state elections director.

But Fresquez did flag one batch of about $1,200 in donations that she says werent properly reported because Roybal Caballero didnt disclose the individual contributors names, occupations and addresses.

Fresquez also said that, in response to an inquiry from state election officials about those donations, Roybal Caballero provided different information that doesnt match her original report.

Roybal Caballero has 10 day to amend her reports and make a $50 reimbursement, or the case will be referred to the state Attorney Generals Office for enforcement, according to the letter.

The reimbursement is necessary, Fresquez said, because Roybal Caballero improperly donated $50 to a group, Respect for Women, that isnt registered as a political committee.

In an interview Friday, Roybal Caballero said she will amend her campaign reports to address the letter.

Theyre not violations that cannot be corrected, she said.

But she disputed the need for a $50 reimbursement. The Respect for Women campaign she donated to, she said, was a viable political committee in 2013, formed to oppose a ballot measure that sought to impose new abortion restrictions in Albuquerque.

Roybal Caballero joined the state House in 2013 and represents a patch of southwest Albuquerque, near 98th Street.

Fresquezs inquiry came after a complaint by McMahon Private Investigations.

Fresquez works under Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat and New Mexicos top election official.
A teenage boy from Mathura shot a 15-year-old girl after she denied his 'romantic' proposal.

By PTI, India Today Web Desk: Times change and so do proposals.

In a shameful incident, which took place in Uttar Pradesh's Mathura city, a teenage boy shot his lady-love for rejecting his 'proposal'.

A 16-year-old schoolboy allegedly shot at a girl today after she rejected his romantic proposal near Roadways Colony in Mathura, the police told PTI.

The boy approached the 15-year-old girl when she was on her way to the school alone and shot at her, they said.

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The boy then fled the spot on a motorcycle. The injured girl was admitted to hospital and is currently in a serious condition right now. The police also added that the hunt for the accused is on.

Also watch: In MP's Alampur, karate champ Mana Mandelkar inspires girls to fight back

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Reliance Jio Infocomm, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, has signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition of specified assets of Reliance Communications (RCOM) and its affiliates.

Consequent to the agreement, Reliance Jio Infocomm or its nominees will acquire assets under four categories  Towers, Optic Fiber Cable Network, Spectrum and Media Convergence Nodes from RCOM and its affiliates. These assets are strategic in nature and are expected to contribute significantly to the large scale roll-out of wireless and Fiber to Home and Enterprise services by Reliance Jio Infocomm.

An asset monetisation process for RCOM assets was mandated by the lenders of RCOM, who appointed SBI Capital Markets Ltd to run the process. The process is supervised by an independent group of industry experts. Reliance Jio Infocomm emerged as the successful bidder in the two-stage bidding process.

The acquisition is subject to receipt of requisite approvals from Governmental and regulatory authorities, consents from all lenders, release of all encumbrances on the said assets and other conditions precedent. The consideration is payable at completion and is subject to adjustments as specified in the agreement.

The parties are bound by confidentiality obligations and will make further disclosures at the appropriate time.

Reliance Jio Infocomm is being advised by Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Global Markets, JM Financial, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Khaitan & Co and Ernst & Young on this transaction.
As the new Thums Up Charged makes it way to shelves across India, Coca-Cola India, one of the countrys leading beverage companies,launched a new campaign #TakeCharge featuring ever-energetic actor and Thums Up brand ambassador -Ranveer Singh.

The new campaign for ThumsUp Charged builds further on Thums Ups unique expression of masculinity and belief that heroism is a choice for us to make and an opportunity for us to take. The campaign conveysthat for any challenge that demands heroic action, the hero needs to get charged to rise up to that occasion.

The TVC opens to an international car race event where theprotagonist is seen ready to hit the track in his car which is inscribed with the ThumsUp Charged logo. Focused on victory, with his ThumsUp Chargedby his side, he starts maneuvering his way past the other cars. Justas hes about to take the lead, the car in front of him loses control and brings our car to a halt. Shaken but determined,the protagonist takes a gulp of his ThumsUp Charged and sets off to finish the race. As he charges ahead and victory is almost in sight, his gearbox jams. Epitomising the Never Give Up Ever attitude, he puts his car in reverse and races to victory in a photo-finish.

The #TakeCharge campaignreinforces Thums Up as the metaphor for uncompromising attitude. Thistoofani brand has always encouraged consumers to challenge themselves and unleash their true potential.With this campaign, the brandurges consumers to adopt a Never Give UpEver attitudetosucceed in life.

Commenting on the launch of the new campaign, Ajay Bathija, Director, Colas Marketing, Coca-Cola India & South West Asiasaid, ThumsUp TVCs are all about seeking thrill, adventure, exhilaration and excitement and Ranveer Singh as a brand ambassador embodies all of that perfectly. The #TakeCharge campaign is about taking the controls of life in ones hands and overcoming adversitiesby not giving up hope. Our TVC captures this attitude and we are confident that the campaign will resonate well with all Thums Up lovers.

Speaking about the TVC actor Ranveer Singh said, I distinctly remember when I first tasted toofaniThums Up and since then it has become my favourite cola.Its an honour to be the face of this brand.The Take Charge campaign is very close to my heart as I constantly push boundaries and dont believe in quitting when a challenge is thrown my way. Challenges keeps me going in life and make me strive harder to achieve my goals. I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the campaign, it was an invigorating experience to perform as a car-racer.

Commenting on the TVC, SainathSaraban,Creative Head, Leo Burnett, said Thums Up Charged is Thums Up with extra thunder in it - just the kind of push that somebody needs to take his or her achievement to the next level. Even though the story is set in a massive car race that makes for grand theatre, it is an intensely personal journey about how a huge victory starts within your own self.When I wrote this film, I wanted to leave the viewer with a message that worked at a product level and was inspirational as well. If theres one thing we want people to do after being exposed to this communication, it is to - #TakeCharge.

#TakeCharge isa 360 degree campaign that will leverage mass-media on larger-than-life Outdoorsites in the core markets of Thums Up. The campaign also leverages key social media platforms of Youtube, Facebook,Twitter and Instagram.

ThumsUp Charged is the first-ever variant of Thums Up that was recently launched by Coca-Cola Indiato celebrate 40 years ofThums Up. Coca-Cola India has planned year-round celebrations on the successful completion of Thums Ups 40 years in India. The company will be rolling out a series of initiatives including consumer-led engagement campaigns along with exciting marketing campaigns with its brand ambassadors through digital, social, traditional, and outdoor media channels.

Creative Team on the new Thums Up campaign
After weeks of voting and much anticipation, the long wait has finally come to an end with Zee Telugu announcing the winners of the Golden Awards 2017. Bringing together the best of the best from world of Tollywood, Zee Telugu has introduced this larger than life unique platform to celebrate outstanding achievers of 2017. The star-studded event was held on 17th December at Annapurna Studios in Hyderabad and will be aired starting 4 PM on 31st December, only on Zee Telugu. Golden Awards 2017 is a first of its kind platform by Zee Telugu which celebrates the best talent which have contributed to the blockbuster hits of the year. The night filled with glitz and glamour brought together all renowned stars from the Tollywood family at the red carpet including Chiranjeevi, Bala Krishna, Kajal Agarwal, Nani, Vijay Devarakonda, Jagapathi Babu, Shalini Pandey, Ritika Singh, Pooja Hegde, Mehreen, Lavanya Tripathy, Sekhar Kommula, Krish and Sandeep Vanga. Mahathalli Jahnavi Dasetty hosted the glorious evening that recognized the contribution of Telugu actors over the past year, Zee Telugu awarded outstanding performers from more than 35 Jury categories, along with 9 Favorite Awards from 24 crafts of the movie business. As celebrities graced the prestigious awards ceremony, Megastar Dr. Chiranjeevi, unveiled a huge surprise for Zee Telugus viewers; one must wait and watch the show for more details. The evening included a line-up of sizzling performances by Pooja Hegde, Anasuya Bharadwaj, Mehreen Peerzada, Lavanya Tripathy, Cathrine Tresa, Scarlett, and many others from Zee Telugus erstwhile talent pool. The event also witnessed an enchanting special performance by the all-time favourite Drama Juniors from the Zee Telugu family. The celebratory mood will reach its peak as Zee Telugu recognises the contribution of various artists thereby strengthening the channels relationship with viewers. ~ To catch the action, dont miss the Golden Awards 2017 to be aired on 31st December starting 4 PM only on Zee Telugu ~
December 29, 2017

CAIRO  President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi proclaimed 2017 The Year of Egyptian Women. With that  and with 2017 coming to an end  women in Egypt have indeed achieved political and legal gains. Women served as governors, and the inheritance law was approved. However, a number of social issues  and other laws such as the one protecting women from violence  have yet to be resolved.

Although the gains Egyptian women made in 2017 were notable, their aspirations go far beyond what was accomplished. They want more laws ensuring their rights, like amending the personal status law, and they seek to be shielded from violence.

On Dec. 5, the Egyptian parliament finally approved a bill submitted by the government to amend the provisions of the inheritance law to ensure women their right to inheritance  especially in Upper Egypt, where 95.5% of women in Sohag and Qena have been deprived of their inheritance, as per a study by the South Valley University in Qena conducted in September.

Egyptian women occupied important positions during 2017. Four women handled significant ministerial portfolios in the current government (immigration, investment and international cooperation, social solidarity and planning). Women constitute 15% of parliament and account for 89 members of parliament. A woman, Rashida Mohamed Anwar, was appointed head of the Egyptian Administrative Prosecution Authority on June 29, making her the third woman to occupy this position.

On Feb. 16, Nadia Abdu, an engineer, took the constitutional oath before the president as governor of Beheira; she was the first woman to take on this position in Egypts history.

In March, the National Council for Women (NCW) launched the Egyptian Womens Empowerment Strategy 2030  the first strategy serving the United Nations objectives for sustainable development. It was considered a plan of action for the coming years.

Director of the Women and Work Program at the New Woman Foundation, Mona Ezzat, said, Women have a long way to go before getting all their rights. Still, many achievements were made in 2017.

Ezzat told Al-Monitor, A future plan of action based on the Womens Empowerment Strategy 2030 must be implemented, and the achievements should be followed up and supported by awareness campaigns. The inheritance law should be backed by raising womens awareness about their rights stipulated by law, and they should be taught how to ask for these rights.

She added, Legislation protecting women from discrimination should be issued, like a new labor law. The current applicable labor laws do not include domestic workers and women working in agriculture.

Parliament member Mona Mounir said, The 2017 achievements were good. Although women did not reach all their aspirations, some laws  like the inheritance law and the law for the disabled, which were instrumental for women and disabled children  passed muster. The NCW made remarkable steps [and launched campaigns] encouraging women to be productive.

Mounir told Al-Monitor, Several laws should have been passed, like the law protecting women from violence and the anti-discrimination law. We hope they will be approved during upcoming [parliament] sessions so that Egyptian womens achievements are complete.

She noted that Sisi has always supported Egyptian women and addressed them in his speeches, highlighting the importance of empowering them. He also takes special interest in womens issues in his speeches, like child marriage and divorce, according to Mounir.

Egyptian women lost their battle to be appointed to the State Council when the Commissioners Authority at the Supreme Administrative Court rejected Nov. 11 their request to appoint female judges. Several important laws  like the anti-discrimination commission law submitted by parliament member Anisa Hassouna June 5, 2016, to parliament  have not been approved. This law is a constitutional right as per Article 53 of the Egyptian Constitution.

Novelist Afaf Sayyid said, Appointing a woman to the position of governor of Beheira and issuing the inheritance law are simple achievements for Egyptian women in 2017 and do not summarize all their aspirations. Important laws like the anti-violence law and the personal status law were not passed.

Sayyid said during an interview on the CBC's "Hona al-Asema" show on Dec. 23, Women were treated unjustly by refusing to appoint them to the State Council. This violates articles 9 and 11 of the Egyptian Constitution, which ensure equality between men and women and a womans right to appointment to judicial committees. She added, As good as the achievements were, we cannot say women got all they wanted.

Eliminating violence against women will remain a key aspiration in the coming years. As per the Egyptian Womens Empowerment Strategy 2030, 2.5 million women were harassed in 2014, while 4.1% were sexually abused before marriage. Moreover, 25.2% of women were physically assaulted by their husbands and 18% were married before the age of 18.
December 28, 2017

When Guido Ostanel, the editorial director of the Italian publishing house BeccoGiallo, found a book proposal about Yemen waiting on his office desk two years ago, he was immediately captivated. In Italy, and in the West in general, this country and the current war havent made headlines in newspapers, let alone books lately, he told Al-Monitor.

The proposal consisted of a storyboard and several sketches  a true teaser for an unusual graphic novel about an Arab country about which little was known except the violence and suffering caused by the Yemen war. It was the work of two women, cartoonist Paola Cannatella and documentary filmmaker Laura Silvia Battaglia.

It took another year to put everything together. The Yemeni Bride came out in 2016 and was reprinted in 2017. It's set to come out in English in 2018.

We tried to explain Yemen in its entirety, from stories of daily life to bigger socio-political events currently taking place in the country, Battaglia told Al-Monitor in a phone interview.

The book is based on Battaglias first-person, on-the-ground reporting in Sanaa. The stories, all independent yet tied to each other, describe daily life in Yemen at the beginning of the 21st century, with all its contradictions and human suffering.

It begins with a wedding rite and, as the title indicates, weddings are a recurrent theme throughout the novel, presented from different perspectives, each unveiling a new aspect of this Gulf society. In Yemen, weddings last three days, and men and women celebrate separately. While in Sanaa, Battaglia was invited to a ceremony reserved for female guests, where she received a red rose, traditionally meaning that shell be the one getting married next. Later in the novel, she also gets exclusive access to an all-male celebration.

Each story addresses a new subject, including Islam, terrorism and kidnapping of foreigners. Battaglia said she wanted to touch on all of the topics that readers might expect to find in a book about an Arab country, "but then addressing them in a way that makes them understand that they knew nothing about them.

As the story develops, the co-author and main character will debate Islam and its perception in both the East and the West with one of the most important sheikhs of Sanaa. Other topics include drugs and child trafficking between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, child marriage, drone massacres and the Islamic veil.

Battaglias account is based not just on personal impressions, but also thorough research and interviews. Each story is depicted in a color indicating its theme: There is red for daily life events, blue for on-the-ground reporting on complex issues, and yellow for spirituality and the comparing of Eastern and Western values.

Cannatella and Battaglia met in 2010 while working on separate projects on the same topic: the life of Maria Grazia Cutuli, a famous Middle East reporter who was killed in a terrorist attack in Afghanistan in 2001. From that moment, they developed a lasting friendship and collaborated professionally. In 2013, Battaglia asked Cannatella to draw some scenes of her reporting in Yemen for her website.

One of those scenes was a Yemeni wedding I attended  the one mentioned at the beginning of the book, a scene of daily life that is not a headline but sums up Yemeni society in a nutshell, Battaglia explained.

Many aspects of Yemeni society are in the novel, including the increasing plight of child marriages. Unfortunately, early marriages increased because of the poor living standards under the war. The media dont say anything about that. There needs to be more awareness on such an overlooked but important topic, explained Hayat Al-Kainaeai, the head of the Yemeni Womens Union - Ibb branch, a nongovernmental organization featured in the book.

Laura wasnt allowed to take pictures or videos at the wedding, so she told me what she saw in her own words, following her memory, and I recreated the scene with drawings, Cannatella said. The project gave birth to the idea of transforming Battaglias many short stories into cartoons. We chose graphic journalism as we believe its the best medium to tell difficult stories of current events with simplicity and can reach a wider audience, from youngsters to adults, Battaglia said.

Cannatella explained that the two selected the stories together. For each story, Battaglia provided video and photographic material. She would then identify the elements of the story that most stimulated her. I knew Yemen just superficially. To create the cartoons, I began to do deep internet research starting from Lauras stories and the stories of the people she met. So in my very own way, Ive been to Yemen, too.

Ostanel, their publisher, said he was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the work, a result of the use of realistic and fully documented sources.

I hate to invent the faces of the characters. It happened sometimes, when there were no photos but only the words of my colleague. But she, who had met them in real life, told me that I managed to give all of them the right characteristics, Cannatella said.

The two authors, despite the physical distance that often separates them for work reasons, always keep in touch, especially about any developments regarding their creation. Lately they've been talking even more, as the duo prepares to enter the English-speaking market: Theyre currently negotiating a contract with an American publisher, which means their graphic novel, now only available in Italian, will soon have an English version for a wider audience in 2018.

The interest this book generated  testified by a reprint in such a short time and meeting requests with the authors from all over the country  are a sign that theres an interest, increased by the lack of available material on Yemen, Ostanel said.

Judith Brown, a former humanitarian worker in Yemen, is among the few Western activists on social media speaking out to raise awareness on the current situation in Yemen. Innovative material with mass appeal like The Yemeni Bride can help reach that goal.

If the English version will be well-received, we could also consider an Arabic edition as our next step to also reach a new and crucial readership portion: those [affected] by the stories narrated in the book, Battaglia concluded.
By PTI: Mumbai, Dec 28 (PTI) Terming the ongoing NSE co- location issue as a "complex case", Sebi chairman Ajay Tyagi today said the regulator is on the job and is working on to resolve the matter "as quickly as possible".

"We want to come to a definitive conclusion as quickly as possible. The case is quite complex and technical and has involves various aspects. Since weve not concluded the probe, it would be improper for me to share where we are on the probe. But we are on the job," Tyagi told reporters after the Sebi board meeting here today.

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The case relates to some brokers allegedly getting preferential access to the NSE servers through co-location facility between 2011 and 2014. The exchange discontinued the facility since 2014.

The issue took a different turn recently with the Income Tax sleuths conducting raids on some NSE brokers. On this, Tyagi said the regulator would follow its own regulations and take a view.

The controversy has delayed the public issue plan of the countrys largest exchange that controls almost three- fourths of the market volume and the new chief executive Vikram Limaye was clear in stating that his priority was to get the co-location issue sorted out and that the public float plan should wait till then.

A Sebi probe is also underway to quantify the unlawful gains made by brokers allegedly in connivance with some top NSE officials.

The NSE has also submitted a forensic audit report on the issue, prepared by consultancy EY, to Sebi for a review.

Besides, the exchange has also submitted to Sebi the report of probe carried out by ISB Hyderabad to determine whether certain some brokers had made any abnormal profit as a result of getting preferential access to the NSE servers with the co-location facility.

The ISB was roped into verify whether the brokers named by the Deloitte forensic report had indeed profiteered through the facility.

Meanwhile, when asked whether Sebi will allow mutual funds to participate in commodity derivatives, Tyagi said, "we are looking at it and will take a view after the feedback from them." It can be noted that Sebi today allowed stock exchanges to offer commodity derivatives.

On algo trading, he said while such technology cant be stopped, Sebi is working on norms to better regulate it.

About the ongoing Sebi probe into shell companies, Tyagi said, "Sebi can only take action against shell companies as per the laws only."

He further said of the 331 companies that were listed by the corporate affairs ministry as shell companies, 49 went to SAT and 12 of them got stay on Sebi action while the rest were directed to go back to Sebi.

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Of this lot, he said Sebi so far has heard 43 of them and passed orders in 34, of this, in 28 cases Sebi ordered forensic audits and six companies were freed of all restrictions.

On exemption sought by companies under the insolvency proceedings to report their loan defaults to exchanges, he admitted that this is a complex issue and there are many issues interplaying between the IBC and securities markets.

"Weve a small group for this purpose. Earlier we had discussions with RBI and some banks. Now we have understood the issues and will take a final view on those. Maybe by March we will come out with the amendments required," Tyagi said. PTI SSM BEN BEN

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December 28, 2017

Post-sanctions integration in the international financial sector has been one of the main challenges in the Iranian economy since the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in January 2016. As such, one could anticipate that Iranian officials would welcome the emergence of cryptocurrencies as a platform for international payments. Notwithstanding, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has not yet officially sanctioned the use of virtual currencies. According to official statements, initial studies are being carried out on the technical as well as legal aspects of using such currencies in Iran. Experts agree that there is a demand for using cryptocurrencies both as an investment vehicle as well as a payment method for international transactions. However, technical, legal, political and economic obstacles need to be tackled before such currencies can be utilized.

Iranian officials have a tendency to view new external phenomena with a strong degree of suspicion. Consequently, hesitation to endorse a new concept and take responsibility for it is the general pattern. Notwithstanding, Deputy Information and Communications Technology Minister Amir Hossein Davaee recently stated that his ministry had carried out a number of studies to prepare the infrastructure to use bitcoin inside the country. Incidentally, he also said that digital infrastructure was part of the soft power of the country and that the introduction of cryptocurrencies would be in Irans general interest."

These comments were followed by statements from Nasser Hakimi, the CBIs deputy director of new technologies, who said in mid-November that the CBI was planning to examine its policies about digital currencies. Hakimi said, "Given that bitcoin and other currencies have not been introduced by the Central Bank as the official currency, as well as the risk of buying it and the activity of traders in this field, more precautions are coming into the market because of the possibility of malice." In early 2017, Hakimi had referred to bitcoin as an opportunity that should be exploited by the Iranian government. He claimed then that bitcoin and other digital currencies could be used by traders who failed to open lines of credit due to banking issues. In the meantime, Hakimi has also repeatedly warned about investing in bitcoin as a speculative investment tool and that it will witness fluctuations leading to losses for Iranian investors.

The above official statements underline the challenge of officially endorsing digital currencies in the Iranian economy. At the same time, a number of decision-makers view cryptocurrencies as an opportunity to manage some of the risks that Iran is facing due to bottlenecks in the financial sector. The question is whether the authorities will manage to overcome the diverse barriers to developing and using cryptocurrencies or whether it will remain in legal limbo.

From a technical point of view, according to deputy ICT Minister Nasrollah Jahangard, his ministry has already confirmed that it would have the technical capability to detect whether or not digital currencies are genuine, but the license would have to be issued by the CBI. Jahangard summed up the challenge, saying, Because of the restrictions in international banking that Iran has faced, some believe that cryptocurrencies are a threat and others believe they are an opportunity.

One of the obstacles will be the CBI and the governments hesitation to allow cryptocurrencies to become another platform for speculative investments in Iran. Furthermore, a number of Iranian stakeholders are concerned about the resurgence of so-called pyramid schemes using virtual currencies.

In fact, Iran has had its challenges with pyramid schemes  especially a scheme called Gold Quest  and there is no appetite for the revival of similar schemes by using cryptocurrencies.

The fact is that some of the brokerage firms in Iran are offering bitcoin investments to their clients, though the transactions are not approved by the Tehran Stock Exchange. For bitcoin to become an official investment vehicle, it would have to be endorsed by the countrys Securities and Exchanges Organization (SEO). According to a statement by Shapour Mohammadi, head of the SEO, a conclusion on virtual currencies has not yet been reached. Mohammadi recently stated that one of the most important points in the process of securing the SEOs approval is the question of value creation of an investment vehicle in the economy. As long as the potential value creation of bitcoin remains ambiguous, it wont be endorsed.

Some will argue that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies would allow Iranian businesses to engage in international transactions without having to open bank accounts and credit facilities in international banks. However, for that purpose, the bitcoin market is still too volatile and also too unregulated to be fully endorsed by Iranian authorities. Furthermore, from a political point of view, one key aspect will be whether Iranian holdings in bitcoin would be safe in regard to being blocked by the United States or any other authorities.

For bitcoin to become a widespread investment tool, there is also a cultural obstacle. Even if so-called foreign exchange bureaus would be allowed to sell bitcoin, small investors would be hesitant to trust the value of a virtual currency. Nonetheless, experts opine that there is a market and that investors would like to use official foreign exchange bureaus as opposed to going through unlicensed middlemen.

Amid these developments, the CBI has announced that it will issue an official position on virtual currencies by the end of the current Iranian year (March 20, 2018). Considering the mindset of Iranian decision-makers, it is most likely that there would be an effort to create a localized cryptocurrency that could be used for international payments with those trading partners that would accept the Iranian virtual currency. Such a move would be partly motivated by the desire to be in full control of the process and partly to prevent fraud, but it would mean that the Iranian approach would be centralized around the CBI, which would have to authorize all transactions. Such a rigid approach would be completely against the decentralized concept of Blockchain, which will work as the backbone of future cryptographic transactions.

Having experienced harsh external sanctions, Iranian officials prefer not to create any dependency on international instruments. Though one segment of the political elite wishes to see a greater level of integration in international processes, the more suspicious stakeholders will push an agenda against international cryptocurrencies. Hence, for now, the use of digital currencies will remain in a legal and political limbo.
December 28, 2017

One of the more notorious images that often comes out of Iran is that of chador-clad women with police armbands and male police officers rounding up loosely veiled, and often young, women into minivans to be taken to police stations. These officers, known as Gasht-e Ershad, or Guidance Patrol, roam busy avenues, especially during the summer, and are often seen harassing young couples or groups of women. Now, according to statements by Iranian officials, these scenes are to be no more.

On Dec. 27, Brig. Gen. Hossein Rahimi, head of Greater Tehran police, said, According to the commander of the NAJA [Law Enforcement Force of the Islamic Republic of Iran], those who do not observe Islamic values and have negligence in this area will no longer be taken to detention centers, a legal case will not be made for them and we will not send them to court; rather, education classes to reform their behavior will be offered.

Instead of rounding up young women, it appears Iranian police will be sending those who they deem are insufficiently following Islamic norms to a sort of traffic school for hijab and other Islamic values. Rahimi said 121 of these education classes have been held this year, with 7,900 in attendance.

While some Western media outlets focus on the aspect of veiling, it is possible that the term Islamic values will be more wide-reaching, as Tehran police are attempting to change their approach toward enforcement of social and religious values. In addition to promoting security, the police will also be taking social measures to reform the behavior of citizens and reduce infractions and crimes, Rahimi said. He added that 100 advisory centers have been set up in the capital and, in the last nine months, 62,000 cases were resolved before ever going to court.

The cases mentioned above are likely for minor crimes. Rahimi made clear that the police would not have a soft approach toward more serious crimes. I should say that under no conditions will we compromise with people who disturb society, he said.

Rahimi was appointed in August, and it seems clear that authorities in Tehran are trying a new approach to differentiate between the breaking of religious norms and the more serious cases of crime taking place in one of the largest capitals in the world. On Dec. 10, Mohammad Reza Yazdi, commander of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced the formation of a special unit within the IRGC and Basij Organization, which operates under the IRGC. According to Yazdi, this special unit, consisting of IRGC and Basij members, would be assigned to cases of theft and to small-time drug dealers and users, who authorities call thugs.

The news about a new approach toward the issue of veiling received a lukewarm response by Iranian media and was largely ignored by conservative media. Reformist Shargh Daily asked whether the statements by Rahimi will usher forth the end of the Guidance Patrol? The article itself did not offer a prediction on the question but rather printed Rahimis comments.
December 28, 2017

For the first time since the 2015 elections, the Israeli political opposition has begun to show signs of life, reminding the public what a real parliamentary battle looks like. A successful joint effort by the Zionist Camp and Yesh Atid in the last few days resulted in the longest filibuster in Knesset history. Although the Recommendations law might still ultimately pass, the opposition's defeat following the filibuster was honorable. It was yet another sign that the opposition parties realize that 2018 will be a year of important political decisions, and perhaps, an election year as well.

One month ago, on Nov. 27, the opposition reached the lowest point in its history when 17 members absented themselves during the first reading and late-night vote on the original iteration of the Recommendations law. It was a terrible image for the opposition, perhaps the worst in Israel's history. There may be no symbol more emblematic of the Likud government's predatory abandon and alienation than this law, yet the opposition raised the white flag of surrender without even a fight.

The original version of the legislation, presented by Knesset member David Amsalem, was intended to help Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu face down the criminal investigations into his affairs by prohibiting the police from releasing their recommendations on indictment at the end of the investigation. This would give Netanyahu many months free from the public actually knowing whether the police are recommending his indictment (and it looks like they will).

The magnitude of the opposition's failure became apparent after the law passed the first reading in a vote of 46-37. Many opposition members stayed away as a courtesy to coalition members who could not be in attendance  they were attending the Saban Forum in Washington  thus balancing out coalition absentees. Put differently, they abandoned their duty.

The wake-up call for the opposition came in the form of the media's harsh criticism of their behavior toward the vote. That is why when the law came up for second and third votes, they forced the coalition to spend a good three days in the Knesset. It was only after a long filibuster, led by Yoel Hasson, chair of the Zionist Camp faction, and Ofer Shelah, chair of the Yesh Atid faction, was a toned-down version of the law approved. After 43 hours of speeches and debates, hundreds of reservations and plenty of gimmicks, it was decided that the law would not cover the current investigations into Netanyahu and Knesset member David Bitan.

Despite what is commonly believed, governments do not fall because of a particular opposition vote or another. Governments in Israel fall because they convey a sense of chaos, while the opposition offers a genuine alternative to the government, not just words to the media. That is when the system begins to crumble. The inevitable conclusion is thus that for the past three years, the Israeli opposition has failed in its task. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which was the long negotiations by former Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog to enter the Netanyahu coalition. Furthermore, leadership of the opposition is now acutely divided between Yesh Atid Chair Yair Lapid and Labor Chair Avi Gabbay.

Over the last few days, Lapid and Gabbay proved that despite their rivalry, they both stand to benefit from a proper fight against the Netanyahu government. That is why Yesh Atid's Dec. 28 petition to the Supreme Court against the corrupt Recommendation law was unnecessary. It actually exuded over-enthusiasm. In addition, as Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said, it made a mockery of the Knesset's work.

Apart from this unwarranted move, in the fight over keeping supermarkets open on the Sabbath, Lapid and Gabbay again showed the kind of solidarity needed from an opposition. The Supermarket law is intended to appease the ultra-Orthodox parties following the last Sabbath crisis over train system repair work on the Sabbath. This bill represents another survival tactic by the Netanyahu government. According to the proposed law, the interior minister, currently ultra-Orthodox Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri, could overturn municipal bylaws allowing supermarkets to open on the Sabbath.

This is a sensitive political issue for Lapid and Gabbay. Both men see themselves as future candidates for the job of prime minister, so at some point after elections, they would have to enter into negotiations with the ultra-Orthodox parties to form a majority coalition. It was, therefore, refreshing to see Lapid forgo playing to the ultra-Orthodox and instead stand with his predominantly secular electorate.

The same goes for Gabbay, who had previously been making every possible effort to associate himself with religion and tradition, including wearing a traditional skullcap on religious occasions. At the height of his game, Gabbay rejected the Jewishness of the left by embracing one of Netanyahu's old incendiary comments  "The left forgot what it means to be Jewish." Gabbay did this as part of his broader strategy, which includes appealing to the traditional right and to the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox along the way. His recent decline in the polls and the realization that the Zionist Camp's secular voters were abandoning him reminded Gabbay that he is supposed to offer an alternative to the current government.

The Supermarket law is expected to soon go before the Knesset's Interior Committee in preparation for its second and third readings. Meanwhile, it looks like the law will not be limited to grocery stores in city centers. Many of the convenience shops operating in gas stations throughout the country might also be forced to close on the Sabbath.

Gabbay did the right thing when he threw his support behind Labor Party mayors who are trying to block the law with the rapid-fire passage of municipal bylaws, as the town of Givatayim is doing. In doing so, Gabbay showed that he now realizes that his base is mostly secular or traditional, meaning they do their shopping on the Sabbath even if they go to synagogue too. With this, he proved to the center-left population that he hopes to present an alternative to Netanyahu's right-wing, ultra-Orthodox coalition.

A third arena in which the opposition's fight is now gaining momentum is government corruption. Here too, Lapid and Gabbay are providing support to public protests. If they succeed in overcoming their fear of being identified with the left, the center-left electorate can, in turn, be brought along to believe that they represent a real alternative and are not just imitation Likud.
December 29, 2017

The head of Qatars National Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza and the Qatari ambassador to the Palestinian territories, Mohammed al-Emadi, arrived in the Gaza Strip Dec. 18 along with his deputy Khaled al-Hardan and a delegation of Qatari doctors.

Abd al-Rahman al-Khalidi, the head of public relations for the reconstruction committee, said Dec. 18 that Emadi's visit aimed to follow up on Qatari projects in Gaza. During the visit, Emadi celebrated Qatar National Day, held meetings with officials and administered cochlear implants for 20 children.

While Emadi has been arranging regular visits by Qatar to Gaza since 2012, the latest visit is especially important as it follows the signing of the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas in Egypt on Oct. 12, at a time when the relationship between Egypt and Qatar has been rocky. Doha has always opposed the ousting of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013 by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Despite Hamas' attempt to maintain balanced relations between Qatar and Egypt, the recent rapprochement between the movement and Cairo resulted in Doha and Hamas growing apart.

Basem Naim, former Palestinian health minister in the Hamas government and head of the Council on International Relations in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, The relations between Hamas and Qatar are strategic, not tactical, and are not linked to political developments. Hamas has informed Qatar of the issue of reconciliation as well as its recent rapprochement with Egypt.

Naim added, At the same time, Hamas informed the Egyptians in recent weeks that it is faithful and grateful to Qatar for all the assistance it provides to Palestinians in Gaza. It seems clear that Doha is interested in remaining present on the Palestinian scene and I do not think it can easily abandon it, no matter how displeased it is with Hamas' rapprochement with dismissed Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan since June.

On Oct. 24, Qatar announced its support for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah led by President Mahmoud Abbas. Meanwhile, it never hid its rejection of rapprochement between Hamas and Dahlan, although it never publicly declared it. But Doha considers Dahlan part of the anti-Qatar axis, which includes Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Dahlan seeks to eliminate any Qatari role in the Palestinian territories, which prompted the Qatari media to launch a strong media campaign against him in recent weeks.

Emadi has important connections in various sectors and meets with officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas and other political forces, as well as businessmen and academics, a rare behavior among Arab and foreign ambassadors who visit the Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told Al-Monitor, Qatar has provided great assistance to the Gaza Strip; the country's housing and infrastructure projects have really helped Gazans. Emadi is constantly visiting Gaza to follow up on Qatari projects and he meets with the Hamas leadership during his visits to discuss humanitarian and other issues plaguing Gaza. Hamas is interested in maintaining its relationship with Qatar and with all the components of the nation that support our people to strengthen their steadfastness on their land.

On Dec. 19, Emadi celebrated Qatar National Day in Gaza and announced that the residents of Hamad city in the southern Gaza Strip would be exempted from financial installments on apartments. Hamad is a residential city established by Qatar in 2012 with an area of 120 dunams (roughly 30 acres) and 3,000 housing units. In addition, Emadi announced during the Dec. 19 visit that the reconstruction committee he heads is offering $3 million to support the steadfastness of the Palestinian people, by financing health care, education and humanitarian programs in the Gaza Strip.

The Qatari celebration was attended by senior Palestinian ministerial, parliamentary and academic figures, most notably Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas' political bureau, who said, Qatar stood by Gazas side when most gave up on it, and we never let those who stand by us down.

Hussam al-Dajani, a professor of political science at Al-Ummah University in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, Emadi's visit to Gaza aims to restore the Qatari role on the Palestinian scene, which has been frozen after reconciliation because of Egypt's sponsorship. Qataris may not necessarily compete against the Egyptians in the Palestinian arena, but rather work to have supportive roles.

Dajani added, However, I do not think that Doha will relinquish its influence in the Palestinian arena to any other regional or international party. Qatar has provided significant financial support to the Palestinians and may resume this support to Gaza to maintain stability and save its deteriorating humanitarian conditions, all the while remaining on good terms with regional and international parties namely, the United States and Israel.

Emadi's visit to Gaza coincided with the arrival of Abbas to Doha on Dec. 16, during which he met with Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and discussed the repercussions of the decision that US President Donald Trump took on Dec. 6, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Mohammed Abu Jayyab, the editor-in-chief of local newspaper Al-Eqtesadia, told Al-Monitor, The economic agenda to Emadis visit this time is not as notable as previous ones, when he provided generous support for large projects. This time it was limited to only $3 million.

Qatar formed the Gaza reconstruction committee in October 2012 to rebuild the Gaza Strip after the Israeli war in December 2008 and January 2009. It has so far carried out several construction projects in Gaza at a cost of $407 million, most notably building houses, paving roads and implementing health care projects.

Abu Jayyab noted, This visit rather has some political objectives, mainly revolving around Qatars desire to eliminate Egypts exclusive role in reconciliation and introduce Qatar as a mediator between Hamas and Israel when it comes to the security issue, to prevent the security situation in Gaza from deteriorating and postponing any possible military confrontation between the two.

When Emadi arrives in Gaza, he enters via Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the northern Gaza Strip on the border with Israel, not through the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt  either because of its almost permanent closure or due to the tension between Qatar and Egypt.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Qatari journalist Adnan Abu Halil said, Qatar has a strategic inclination toward Palestine and provides assistance to our Palestinian brothers, and the Qatari people support the state's official policy toward the Palestinians. This support does not conflict with the international community; the Qatari policy wants to preserve international support for the Palestinians without entering into disagreements with major powers around the world.

Sama News reported Dec. 24 that the PA would pay the salaries of the former Hamas government employees in Gaza for the coming three months, with Qatars support, following the agreement between the Palestinian president and the Qatari emir during Abbas recent visit to Doha, which pledged to coordinate with Israel to bring in funds to Gaza.

A Palestinian official close to Abbas told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, The Qatari-Palestinian relations are at their best, with mutual phone calls and visits that the public is yet to find out about. Although we are well-aware of the special relationship between Hamas and Qatar, this never prevented us from developing our relationship with the latter to best serve the Palestinian cause.

Emadi's visit to the Gaza Strip shows that Qatar is strongly returning to the Palestinian scene after its temporary absence and keeping communication channels open with both Fatah and Hamas, whether to support the Palestinian position rejecting the recent US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or to save Gaza from economic downturn by providing constant financial support.
December 28, 2017

ALEPPO, Syria  Syria's al-Rai border crossing with Turkey has opened for business and is bustling. The roads are paved, there's an administration building and prefabricated halls for truck inspections line each side of the yard.

The crossing lies a little more than half a mile northeast of al-Rai, a small town in northern Aleppo governorate. The local council announced the opening Dec. 16. Attending the ceremony were Seljuk Aslan, deputy governor of the southern Turkish city of Kilis, and Imad al-Din Khamis, deputy head of al-Rai local council and director of the border crossing, as well as representatives of the opposition-affiliated Syrian Interim Government, which now controls the crossing.

Al-Rai is part of the area liberated from the Islamic State earlier this year during Operation Euphrates Shield, a Turkish military intervention aided by the Free Syrian Army.

Turkey had announced Nov. 28 its intention to open al-Rai crossing, also known as the Cobanbey crossing, for commercial use. In a statement that day to Anadolu Agency news, Aslan said Kilis authorities were developing commerce between their city and the Syrian cities and towns located in the Euphrates Shield area, as Kilis is adjacent to Azaz in northern Aleppo.

Aslan noted that since security was re-established and commercial life has returned in this area  home to about 1 million Syrians  opening the crossing became necessary to allow companies to transport reconstruction materials. The Bab al-Salam crossing, 3 miles north of Azaz, and the Jarablus crossing on the Turkish border have already reopened.

Based on inspection of goods, the tax to be paid by the importer is assessed by officials from al-Rai local council and the oppositions National Police and Public Security Forces. When Al-Monitor visited recently, there were more than 40 trucks parked in the yard, some of which carried canned food and biscuits, while others were loaded with clothing and related materials, and a number of trucks carried cement and iron.

"The process for entering goods through the crossing is very smooth," Issa al-Sheikh, a truck driver from al-Bab, told Al-Monitor. I have three truckloads of cement that will cross into the Euphrates Shield area in an hour after being inspected. The staff is very professional and the transit time is very efficient.

Khamis of al-Rai local council said that the group directly supervises management of the border crossing, which was opened under the patronage of the Syrian Interim Government. Trucks started coming in from Turkey on Dec. 17, the day after the ceremonial opening.

Exactly 975 types of commercial goods including foodstuffs and building materials are included in a list of products allowed to enter through the crossing from Turkey to the Euphrates Shield area. Commercial movement is currently restricted to imports only. The crossing will soon activate exports, and agricultural crops will top the list of goods that can be exported from the Euphrates Shield [area] to Turkey, Khamis told Al-Monitor.

We are discussing with the Turkish government the possibility of allowing travelers to pass through the crossing," he added.

Sometimes more than 50 commercial trucks cross in one day and Khamis expects that number to increase to 100 trucks a day in 2018. The crossing is open six days a week.

Taxes on goods passing through all three crossings will be handed over to the treasury of crossings established by the interim government.

Turkey contributed financially to al-Rai crossing in early April and amended the classification to a commercial crossing in May, allowing it to receive a wider variety of goods once it opened, Khamis said. Turkey also developed the Jarablus and Bab al-Salama crossings by providing logistic support and training.

Khamis expects al-Rai crossing to positively affect investment, accelerate the reconstruction process, improve the economy and facilitate commercial movement, provide major financial revenues to the Syrian Interim Governments treasury and local councils, and help prevent illegal commercial activities.

The crossing's location is distinct because of its proximity to al-Bab, one of the largest cities in terms of area and population and a valuable strategic site in the Euphrates Shield area in northern Aleppo. Turkey has provided modern facilities and equipment to manage the crossing, which is expected to receive an increasing number of commercial trucks and help move the reconstruction process forward.
December 29, 2017

Violence and combat in Syria appear to be easing somewhat as 2018 approaches, but political tensions remain high. As the Russians work to bring together Syrian opposition forces and the regime to draft a new constitution at Russia's proposed Syria National Dialogue Congress at Sochi, Kurdish participation continues to be problematic.

There have been predictions that Damascus will not declare war on the Kurds just to please Ankara. Yet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Dec. 18 that all those who cooperate with the United States  which includes the Kurds  are "traitors." Assad's unexpected outburst boosted expectations that, in return for Assad terminating Kurdish democratic autonomy in northern Syria, Ankara would be likely to rebuild bridges with Damascus.

However, this week Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suddenly declared Assad a terrorist who is impossible to work with. Those hoping for a honeymoon between Ankara and Damascus were deeply disappointed.

Incessant political squabbles again remind us how fragile the political process in Syria can be. But Russia, despite all bottlenecks hampering a settlement, continues with its efforts. Unless the congress is delayed again, it will take place Jan. 29-30. Meanwhile, Russia searches for ways to have the Kurds represented without breaking its promise to Iran and Turkey to jointly agree on invitees.

By doing so, Moscow gives the impression that it respects Ankaras red lines but isn't hesitating to display its relations with the Kurds. The latest such display was to invite Sipan Hemo, general commander of the Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), to Moscow several weeks ago. Hemo was ostensibly invited to attend a ceremony awarding heroism medals to Russian commanders who fought in Syria. While he was in Moscow, Hemo had a series of meetings with Russian general staff, foreign intelligence and defense officials.

According to Hemo, Russians confirmed that 155 names from the Kurdish democratic autonomy in northern Syria will be at Sochi. Asked about the sensitive topic of the Syrian Kurdish nationalist Democratic Union Partys (PYD) participation, Hemo noted that the Russians said the invitation to the congress was not for parties but for the entire Syrian people.

Earlier, Alexander Lavrentyev, special representative of the Russian presidency in Syria, had said organizers tried hard to achieve maximum representation of Kurds while avoiding Turkeys objections. We dont anticipate PYD participation at the moment, he announced Dec. 23. Asked if Kurdish delegations will be left out unless Iran and Turkey approve, he added, I think we can solve this between ourselves."

That was followed by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying, We are working on the presence of Kurdish representatives.

Aldar Halil, a prominent name in the Movement for a Democratic Society (Tev-Dem)  the multicultural governing coalition of Rojava in northern Syria  said there has been no change in the Russian position: In all our talks with Russia, they told us we have to be at the congress. We havent been informed of the vetoing of any names. Sipan Hemo, too, was told in Moscow that there is no change in the Russian position."

Halil told Al-Monitor, We control 30% of Syria. No matter who is searching for a solution, there will not be one unless we are involved. We really dont know what the outcome of Sochi will be. We dont know what the plan is and what is expected. They will assemble 1,500 people at Sochi for two days. What will they achieve? They will form a constitutional committee; that is all we know. Nevertheless, we  as the administration of northern Syria  are ready to be present in all platforms toward a settlement."

Actually, from the outset, Kurds have been following a course that will aid Russias efforts to end Turkeys objections. Naturally, the ongoing debate on whether the PYD will attend the congress reinforces impressions in Turkey that Erdogans red lines still prevail.

Halil said the title of the list consisting of 155 names is Autonomous Administration and Political Entities. There is no mention of the PYD. Also, names that Erdogan was likely to veto are not included in the list.

We told the Russians that we will not come to represent the Kurds exclusively. We will represent Arabs, Kurds, Syriacs, Chaldeans, Chechens and Circassians," Halil said. "We gave them a list of 155 names who will represent Raqqa, Hasakah, Qamishli, Kobani and Manbij. Our list was accepted as is. We knew the names Erdogan would object to, and they were not put on the list. For example, PYD co-chairs and YPG commanders are not on the list.

Tev-Dem isn't concerned about what reaction US President Donald Trump's administration might have toward the Kurds' blossoming dialogue with Russians. We have not surrendered our will to anyone," Halil said. "We do what we think is right. Our relations are not confined to a single party. Our relations with America and Russia are equidistant. The United States has not objected to our contacts. They know us and know whom we talk with."

Halil also said that the Syrian regime cannot afford to fight with the Kurds as it has no strength for that, and that the regime was trying to appease Turkey and Iran with its recent declaration about traitors.

In sum, some issues related to the Syrian congress will remain fluid until all invitations are set. One should expect last-minute surprises until the congress finally meets  if that ever happens.
Amazon is looking to launch its services in Saudi Arabia and is actively negotiating over the matter with the Middle Eastern countrys administration, Reuters reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the talks. The Seattle, Washington-based tech giant is said to be prioritizing its Amazon Web Services division for the expansion, presumably due to the weak competition in Saudi Arabias cloud segment. The negotiations are understood to be in an early phase and Amazon is still unlikely to establish a direct presence in the country over the next two years. Apple is said to be much closer to reaching a licensing agreement with Riyadh but wont have its own store in Saudi Arabia prior to 2019, according to the same sources.

The reported move is widely interpreted as the next major step in the revamped economic policy of the country led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman whose administration has been aggressively pushing for diversification over the last two years due to falling oil prices that are unlikely to recover. With the vast majority of the Saudi economy being reliant on the oil industrys exports, the government must move quickly if its to prevent a significant economic decline in the near future, industry watchers keep warning. Riyadh has been loosening legislation regulating foreign investments in the country since 2015, having indirectly prompted Amazon to acquire Middle Eastern eCommerce giant SOUQ last spring. The purchase provided the company with a foothold in the kingdom, albeit one thats still indirect in nature as SOUQ keeps operating in a relatively autonomous manner. The move was sanctioned by the Saudi government and is now being leveraged as a basis for additional investments on Amazons part.

Strengthening its ties with Amazon would also be a natural evolution of Riyadhs growing technology ambitions which first manifested themselves on a global level once the country pumped billions of dollars into SoftBanks Vision Fund thats been backing unicorn startups  private companies with valuations north of $1 billion  for the better part of the year. A Middle Eastern expansion would also allow AWS to revitalize its declining growth and reinforce its leading position in the global cloud market thats now threatened by Microsofts Azure and Googles Cloud.
Uber found a buyer for its Xchange Leasing division in Fair, a Santa Monica, California-based startup dealing in what it calls flexible car ownership, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week, citing sources with knowledge of the development. The two are now said to be in an advanced phase of negotiations but the financial details of the deal remain unreported. The Xchange Leasing unit was previously valued at approximately $400 million but its 30,000 vehicles-strong fleet was already in the process of being auctioned off when Fair approached Uber with an offer for the business in fall.

The startup may not have to raise additional capital even if its to pay close to the latest estimate of Xchange Leasings valuation; following its establishment in 2016, Fair went through four funding rounds, two of which were led by BMW i Ventures, according to CrunchBase. Coupled with $16 million from Javelin Venture Partners raised this September and another billion generated through debt financing a month later, in addition to two other rounds that raised undisclosed amounts, Fair may have enough financial leeway to complete its biggest acquisition to date. The firm says its business model is based on a car-as-a-service concept and is quick to claim its pioneering the segment. In essence, the company is providing consumers with the ability to lease vehicles online with no time constraints while also guaranteeing limited warranties, 24/7 road assistance, and regular maintenance services. Fairs app is presently only available on iOS but is expected to make its way to Android in 2018. The size of the startups current fleet is unknown but is understood to at least double following the acquisition of Xchange Leasings vehicle assets.

Uber confirmed its intent to offload Xchange Leasing in September and while it didnt provide many details on the matter, previous reports indicated that the division surpassed its estimated losses by 18 times, having most recently posted a deficit of $9,000 per vehicle. Originally established in 2015, the program was meant to provide affordable car leases to Ubers drivers with poor credit ratings but the unforeseen rate of damages ultimately prompted the company to liquidate the business. While Uber is presently amid a wider cost-cutting effort started under its new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, plans to offload Xchange Leasing already began forming before Expedias former chief took over the ride-hailing startup. Approximately 150 out of 500 employees of Xchange Leasing will reportedly be offered positions at Fair as part of the deal, while its still unclear how many others will be relocated to Ubers other divisions.
Facebook admitted that its anti-hate speech systems implemented over the course of this year are still inconsistent, ProPublica reported Thursday, citing correspondence with the company. Following a crowd-sourced investigation into the manner in which the worlds largest social media platform handles hate speech, the publication provided the Internet giant with 49 posts that its content reviewers refused to define as hateful or sexist speech after being made aware of their existence despite the fact that people who reported them were sure theyre in violations of Facebooks related guidelines. Following a second review of the highlighted items, the firm said its reviewers were wrong by not taking down 22 of them. In six more cases, Facebook said the reviewers were wrong but only because the content that violated the guidelines wasnt correctly reported by users, causing reviewers to not judge it correctly, or the reported post was removed or edited by the author before reaching the review team.

Facebook defended 19 out of 49 decisions to not remove supposedly obvious hate speech as such and refused to comment on two other cases, citing an unspecified lack of information. The companys Vice President Justin Osofsky apologized for the mistakes and reiterated the social media giants previously announced plans to double the size of its online security team to 20,000 employees by the end of 2018. According to Mr. Osofskys estimates, 66,000 posts labeled as hate speech are removed by Facebook on a yearly basis but the company is trying to tread a line between content thats clearly illegally hateful and pure censorship. As its striving to not end up doing the latter, its mechanisms designed against combating hate speech still arent maximally effective, the executive suggested.

Hate speech isnt the only negative phenomenon facilitated by social networks that Facebook is having trouble containing, with the company recently admitting that its efforts to combat the dissemination of factually inaccurate and misleading news stories still arent as effective as they should be. Regardless, the firm remains adamant that its making progress on both fronts and will continue improving its mechanisms aimed at combating illegal content and so-called fake news in the future.
The HMD-built Nokia 2 has now been all but confirmed as being slated to receive Android 8.1 (Oreo) at some point in the future, according to a tweet from HMD Globals Chief Product Officer Juho Sarvikas. While Sarvikas did not indicate a specific time frame for when users in any given region could expect the update.While these kinds of social media posts are generally best taken with a grain of salt, this one may bear quite a bit more weight than usual as it does come from Sarvikass verified account. Meanwhile, a lot of what may ultimately be included with the update was kept under wraps  likely pending an official announcement of some sort. With that said, Sarvikas did provide some clues about HMDs overall goals for the update and at least a bit of information about one or two key features.

For starters, Sarvikas says that the budget-friendly Nokia 2 will actually be skipping right past Android 8.0 and going directly to Android 8.1. That appears to come down to an Android 8.1 features that are akin to Googles latest platform called Android Go  which is a redesign of Android intended for devices that only feature 1GB of RAM or less. The Nokia 2, Sarvikas explains, cannot be updated to run Googles new Android Go platform directly. However, updating to Android 8.1 will allow the company to take advantage of some optimizations stemming from Android Go. For example, Sarvikas says that updating the Nokia 2 to Android 8.1 will allow for performance improvements and Android Go-based memory management features. Those features should, in turn, bring a subtly better experience for anybody who happens to be using the device almost immediately when it hits. Moreover, the enhancements should only get better over time as the management system learns the best optimization steps to take for a given user

It bears repeating, at this point, that there is still no official word on when the update is set to arrive or in which regions it will arrive first. So those who already have their hands on a Nokia 2 should probably hold off on mashing their update button for now. In the meantime, another Nokia-branded device, the Nokia 1, will also be arriving with Android Go on board when at its expected March launch.
By PTI: Lucknow, Dec 28 (PTI) Amidst the ongoing debate over Electronic Voting Machines, the Samajwadi Party has decided to hold a meeting to deliberate over the issue with opposition parties next month, a party spokesperson said today.

The Samajwadi Party has decided to hold a meeting for deliberating over the issue in the second week of January, party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said.

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This is an attempt by the party to maintain the sanctity of the election process and revive the confidence of the people in the democratic system, he added.

Deliberations will be held to chalk out a strategy for getting future elections conducted through ballot papers instead of EVMs, Chaudhary said, adding that invitations would be extended to the Congress, the BSP, the Left parties and the Aam Aadmi Party, among others. PTI SAB IJT

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A number of technology companies set to go public in Hong Kong over the course of the next few years are likely to have a combined IPO valuation of approximately $500 billion, Reuters reported Friday, citing interviews with analysts and other industry watchers. The group of unicorns is expected to be led by Xiaomi, a Beijing-based original equipment manufacturer thats said to have recently decided on holding an initial public offering in 2018 and is targeting a valuation of at least $50 billion, according to recent reports. While Xiaomi founder and Chief Executive Officer Lei Jun repeatedly went on record to state an IPO is not a priority for one of the worlds most valuable startups, the firms strong performance in 2017 that saw it regain its momentum from its last private funding round in 2014 prompted the company to reconsider that stance and ultimately decide that 2018 is a good opportunity to allow early investors to cash out and attempt to raise additional funds on the public markets.

Even though insiders recently claimed Xiaomi hasnt decided on where to hold its IPO and was still considering the New York Stock Exchange earlier this month, the company is understood to be much closer to opting for the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. Online wealth management service provider Lufax is another unicorn startup thats expected to be one of the largest tech IPOs in 2018 that should also opt for being listed on the HKEX with a valuation north of $18.5 billion which was the figure attached to the startup during its latest private funding round in early 2016.

The HKEX is also planning on loosening some of its regulations in order to attract more high-value tech IPOs, with the most notable change in this regard being the adoption of dual-class share systems announced by the stock exchange earlier this month. This particular structure is attractive to many tech companies with ambitions to go public as it allows them to capitalize on their momentum without yielding control of their operations. While Xiaomis reported IPO target is understood to be relatively modest given the firms recent performance, some industry watchers remain adamant the Chinese phone maker could reach as much as $100 billion in market capitalization once it goes public.
New Delhi, India-based attorney Gurmeet Singh threatened to file a lawsuit against WhatsApp earlier this week over the apps use of the middle finger emoji. In a legal notice sent to the Facebook-owned instant messaging service on Wednesday, the lawyer gave WhatsApp 15 days to comply with his request or prepare for either civil or criminal litigation. Citing Sections 354 and 509 of the Indian Penal Code, Mr. Singh argued WhatsApps use of the middle finger emoji is a direct violation of the countrys legislation against lewd, offensive, [and] obscene gestures made in both public and private environments. Both sections of the code define protections for women in the South Asian country, with Section 354 dealing with physical and psychological harassment, whereas Section 509 describes illegal offenses meant to insult a womans modesty with words, gestures, and other acts.

None of the two quoted sections specifically forbid the middle finger gesture, though Mr. Singhs notice sent to WhatsApp argues the emoji is still illegal in the spirit of the law. The code itself was originally enacted in 1860 and went through major changes over the next two centuries, with the last one being made in 2013. While it regulates certain Internet activities, it doesnt do so in the context of the sections mentioned by Mr. Singhs notice. The Indian lawyer also claims WhatsApps support for the middle finger emoji is illegal in Ireland, citing Section 6 of the countrys Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act of 1994. Even though Irish laws have no bearing on any threat of legal action in India, much like its the case with the quoted parts of the Indian Penal Code, the section Mr. Singh used as backing for his claims only describe general insulting behavior exhibited in any environment with an intent to provoke a breach of the [sic] peace or cause one anyway due to reckless behavior.

Mr. Singhs move likely wont amount to anything due to the highly subjective nature of what an obscene gesture entails in regards to Internet-enabled instant messaging but while WhatsApp has a strong defense against a theoretical lawsuit, it remains to be seen whether the matter will actually end up in a New Delhi courtroom. The Menlo Park, California-based company has yet to comment on the matter in any capacity and is currently facing much more threatening legal issues in Europe due to its data sharing practices.
Snapchat maker Snap will attempt to address its stagnating user growth with a new feature called Stories Everywhere designed to push user-made Stories to the rest of the Internet and make them leave its app for the first time, Cheddar reported earlier this week, citing a source with knowledge of the effort. The project is said to be led by Rahul Chopra, former Chief Executive Officer of News Corps social media intelligence subsidiary Storyful. The Venice, Los Angeles-based company reportedly hired Mr. Chopra precisely to facilitate the development of Stories Everywhere as it hopes his experience in the industry will benefit the firms attempt to introduce the results of Snapchats hallmark feature to the rest of the World Wide Web and hopefully attract more users to the platform, the insider suggested.

The functionality itself may launch at some point in 2018 but its still in an early phase of development and no highly specific availability window has yet been attached to it, according to the same source. The main goal of the project is to have Snapchat Stories created by the apps 178 million users displayed in Internet browsers through a media player thats understood to be proprietary in nature. Its currently unclear whether Snap is considering monetizing the player by displaying ads in it but even if it is, such an effort wouldnt take precedence over user growth and any potential advertising would likely be minimal. The company is also said to be deliberating the possibility of creating an API that would allow third-party apps to pull data  i.e. snaps  from Snapchats feeds for a fee. While making users snaps embeddable on other websites wouldnt be far from such a solution, Snap is unlikely to opt for such a move in the immediate term.

Vice President Nick Bells content team was also ennobled with the additions of a handful of new executives, most of whom were elevated from the companys own ranks, Cheddar claims, citing an unspecified internal memo. Mr. Bell is now understood to be focusing on increasing user engagement that results in new content showing up in the Discover feed, i.e. encourage brands and companies to use Snapchat more aggressively. Additional commitments to news content are also understood to be part of the firms core strategy for 2018, as is establishing new content distribution partnerships. The company is expected to introduce an entirely new Android app next year that will feature a revamped version of Snapchat which is presently only available to a limited number of iOS users.
The ZTE Axon M has successfully passed the certification process of the Chinese telecommunications regulator, TENAA. This could mean that the handset will likely be offered for sale in the East Asian country in the near future. According to the listing on the regulators website, the Chinese variant of the device can connect to 4G LTE-FDD networks running on bands 1 and 3, and to TD-LTE networks operating on bands 34, 38, 39, 40, and 41. In addition, the handset can also connect to 2G GSM, CDMA, 3G WCDMA, and CDMA2000 networks.

Aside from the variations in supported LTE bands, there is practically no difference in the specifications of the Chinese variant of the ZTE Axon M when compared to the hardware of the handsets international model, which was unveiled in October 2017. Among the defining hardware features of the ZTE Axon M are its two 5.7-inch TFT LCD displays with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. The displays can fold out to form a 6.75-inch screen and they are protected from scratches by a sheet of Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The handset is powered by the Snapdragon 821 chipset from Qualcomm, which is comprised of a quad-core Kryo 64-bit CPU with a maximum frequency of 2.15GHz and the Adreno 530 GPU clocked at up to 653MHz. The smartphone contains 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal flash storage that could be expanded using a microSD card. Another stand-out feature of the device is its single camera, which could function either as a rear camera or a front-facing shooter. The snapper is equipped with a 20-megapixel sensor with an aperture size of f/1.8 and it also supports Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF). The camera can record 4K videos with a frame rate of 30fps while slow-motion videos can be captured at a resolution of 720p with frame rates of up to 240fps.

The ZTE Axon M includes a USB Type-C port for data transfer and charging as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack. The smartphone also contains a dedicated audio chip, which allows the device to offer HiFi listening experience, and dual speakers. To keep the lights on, the handset includes a 3,180mAh battery and it supports Quick Charge 3.0 for fast top-ups of the device. It is not yet clear how much the device will cost when it is sold in China, although the international variant of the smartphone costs $725 in the United States.
Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel expressed his displeasure with the portfolios assigned to him. Former minister Rajendra Trivedi confronted Chief Minister Vijay Rupani over not including a single MLA from Vadodara in the cabinet.

Vijay Rupani at the swearing-in ceremony that took place three days ago (Photo courtesy: Reuters)

By Jumana Shah: Three days after the new cabinet was sworn-in in Gujarat, ministers were allotted their portfolios. Earlier this used to be done on the same day as the swearing-in.

However trouble started to brew from the onset as Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, deputy chief minister Nitin Patel and state BJP president Jitu Vaghani got into a huddle at the CM's residence. Ministers were made to wait for four hours before they attended the maiden cabinet meeting.

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Patel expressed his displeasure with the portfolios assigned to him. He wanted home and urban development but neither was given to him.

In fact the other two important portfolios revenue and finance were also taken away from him, making him the biggest loser visibly in the allotment of portfolios

The tension between him and Rupani was quite evident at a press conference that they addressed at 10 pm on Thursday.

Patel, who is generally a chatterbox, didn't say a word and sat through the event with a long face and avoiding eye contact.

Sources said that Vadodara MLA and former minister Rajendra Trivedi confronted Rupani and Vaghani at the Chief Minister's house over not including a single MLA from Vadodara in the cabinet.

He threatened to quit along with 10 other MLAs. Leaders from south Gujarat also dished out similar threats.

This is the first time any MLA has dared to behave in this manner in the BJP. Modi's absence from Gujarat has given a free rein to all.Interestingly, Vaghani entered Swarnim Sankul - where the cabinet meeting is held -and also addresses the presser even though he is not in the cabinet.

This is an indication that he was there to control the differences between Rupani and Patel.

All of this comes amid a bad performance that brought their tally to 99. In the countdown to the 2019 lok sabha polls, it does not augur well for Prime Minister Modi.

Questions are being raised from within the BJP itself over how long the government may last.

--- ENDS ---
By: Vasundhara Rastogi

Singapore is consistently ranked as one of the easiest places to do business. It is one of the worlds top business destinations, characterized by a stable economy, easy regulations, and corruption-free environment. A leading business and financial center, Singapore is also geographically well placed, offering overseas investors a central location and easy access to the Asian market.

As a member of the ten-nation economic bloc  The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) -, it represents a significant proportion of the ASEAN free trade area and has several bilateral agreements with several countries in Asia and beyond. Overseas investors seeking to establish in Singapore can not only take advantage of the countrys extensive tax-treaty network but also use the city-state to tap into the ten-nation ASEANs growth potential. Further, the country ranks fourth in the world in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, offering a high potential market for businesses. It boasts of a modern and comprehensive infrastructure and a highly skilled workforce that can be a valuable reservoir of a skilled workforce for businesses.

RELATED: Pre-Investment and Market Entry Advisory from Dezan Shira & Associates

Investment Climate

Singapore offers a robust investment climate and tax regime, which allows businesses to focus on functional operations and achieve long-term benefits.

In 2017, Singapore made it easier for businesses to pay taxes by introducing improvements to the online system for filing corporate income tax returns and value added tax (VAT) returns. It also increased the social security contribution rate paid by employers.

To further improve Singapores investment climate, the government made resolving insolvency easier by establishing a new scheme of arrangement procedure with features of the debtor-in-possession reorganization regime and introducing provisions applicable to prepackaged restructurings.

The government also simplified its EntrePass scheme  a visa which allows foreign entrepreneurs to start a business in Singapore, to promote the start-up environment in the country. Further, it abolished the eligibility requirement of a minimum SG$50,000 (US$37,391) paid-up capital in a Singapore based company for the visa application  making the city-state accessible to a broader pool of entrepreneurs.

Key industries

The manufacturing and service sectors contribute the most to Singapores overall GDP growth. In the third quarter of 2017, the two sectors collectively accounted for 77 percent of the GDP. The major industries driving the growth in manufacturing sector include electronics (semiconductors, and precision-engineering), pharmaceutical, chemicals, construction, and ship-building, whereas industries under the services sector comprise financial and business services, insurance, wholesale and retail, and tourism.

Logistics and supply chain management is another important industry in Singapore. Strategically located in the heart of Southeast Asia, the country forms a nexus of major shipping lanes and therefore acts as an important logistics hub for world trade.

Some of the other key industries are aerospace engineering, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, and IT products and services among others. Singapore is also fast gaining prominence in the automotive industry, robotics, clean energy, environment and water, and natural resources.

Singapore economy in 2017

Despite the global slowdown, Singapore economy has shown considerable improvement in 2017. It grew much faster than initially estimated in the third quarter of 2017, led by strong demand in manufacturing, primarily electronics. Contrary to the governments earlier estimate of 2-3 percent, Singapores 2017 GDP is now expected to grow at 33.5 percent (Ministry of Trade and Industry). As the global economy brightens, the growth prospect of Singapore is also expected to improve.

In the third quarter of 2017, manufacturing expanded by 18.4 percent, accelerating from the 8.4 percent in the previous quarter. This strong performance was led by growth in the electronics, biomedical manufacturing, precision engineering and general manufacturing, even as transport engineering continued to decline.

Business service industries recorded growth of 1.4 percent year-on-year (y-o-y) led by professional services, whereas finance and insurance grew by 5.9 percent y-o-y, better than the 4.2 percent growth in the second quarter. The other services sector, which includes education, health and social services expanded by 2 percent. Transportation and storage sector also grew by 4.6 percent y-o-y. On the downside, the construction sector contracted for the third consecutive quarter. It shrunk 7.6 percent in annual terms, a slight improvement from second quarters 9.1 percent decline.

Overall, Singapores growth experienced a split economy, wherein the export-oriented sectors continued to benefit from recovering global trade and the strong upturn in electronics production ongoing since the last quarter of 2016, while sluggish internal conditions held back the more domestic-focused industries.

Outlook for 2018

Looking ahead, the MTI expects Singapores economy to grow between 1.5 percent and 3.5 percent in 2018, on account of the improved global and domestic economic environment.

The manufacturing sector is likely to continue to expand and provide support to overall GDP growth. In particular, the electronics and precision engineering clusters are expected to see sustained expansions on the back of healthy demand conditions in the global semiconductor and semiconductor equipment markets, although the pace of expansion is also likely to moderate. Wholesale trade, transportation & storage, and finance & insurance are expected to benefit from a global economic recovery. Sectors such as information & communications and education, health & social services are also likely to remain resilient, owing to the Smart Nation initiative and expansion in healthcare facilities.

In 2016, the country experienced a decline in its FDI  largely as part of a global decline in economic growth and trade volumes. However, it continued to top the global FDI rankings and climbed to the fifth position in 2016 from seventh, in the previous year. As the global economy recovers, Singapore is expected to experience a rise in its foreign direct investments (FDI) inflows.

About Us ASEAN Briefing is published by Asia Briefing, a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. We produce material for foreign investors throughout Asia, including China, India, Indonesia, Russia, the Silk Road & Vietnam. For editorial matters please contact us here and for a complimentary subscription to our products, please click here. Dezan Shira & Associates provide business intelligence, due diligence, legal, tax and advisory services throughout the ASEAN and Asia. We maintain offices in Singapore, as well as Hanoi & Ho Chi Minh City, and maintain Alliance offices in Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila as well as throughout China, South-East Asia, India and Russia. For assistance with ASEAN investments into any of the featured countries, please contact us at provide business intelligence, due diligence, legal, tax and advisory services throughout the ASEAN and Asia. We maintain offices in Singapore, as well as Hanoi & Ho Chi Minh City, and maintain Alliance offices in Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila as well as throughout China, South-East Asia, India and Russia. For assistance with ASEAN investments into any of the featured countries, please contact us at asean@dezshira.com or visit us at www.dezshira.com

Dezan Shira & Associates Brochure

Dezan Shira & Associates is a pan-Asia, multi-disciplinary professional services firm, providing legal, tax and operational advisory to international corporate investors. Operational throughout China, ASEAN and India, our mission is to guide foreign companies through Asias complex regulatory environment and assist them with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing their business operations in the region. This brochure provides an overview of the services and expertise Dezan Shira & Associates can provide.

An Introduction to Doing Business in ASEAN 2017

An Introduction to Doing Business in ASEAN 2017 introduces the fundamentals of investing in the 10-nation ASEAN bloc, concentrating on economics, trade, corporate establishment, and taxation. We also include the latest development news for each country, with the intent to provide an executive assessment of the varying component parts of ASEAN, assessing each member state and providing the most up-to-date economic and demographic data on each.

ASEANs FTAs and Opportunities for Foreign Businesses



In this issue, we provide an introduction to some of ASEANs FTAs and how foreign investors and exporters can maximize opportunities in this dynamic region. We also discuss the salient features of each FTA and the overall benefits they offer. We then discuss the Rules of Origin criteria associated with each FTA that foreign businesses need to be aware of. Finally, we analyze the growing opportunities for investors looking to set up alternative production bases within ASEAN.
Among others, the test car shows the production front and rear light clusters, while the slim camo also allows you to guess the styling cues of the front apron.Behind the new radiator grille, we'll find a wide engine lineup ranging from a new 1.3-liter turbo-four, which was developed in collaboration with Renault, to the new 2.0-liter turbo of the upcoming Mercedes-AMG A45 , which will deliver north of 400 ponies.On the diesel front, Mercedes-Benz will once again turn to its French partner, so you can expect the latter's 1.5L units, as well as the German carmaker's 2.0L. The seven-speed dual-clutch tranny could be replaced by a nine-speed unit, but we have yet to receive official confirmation on the matter.As for the interior shot focusing on the touchpad infotainment controller, there's no need to search for clues here. That's because the cabin of the new A-Class has already been fully revealed during a technology event.The venue was only fitting, since the interior of the Merc seems to set new standards for the segment. Nevertheless, you should keep in mind that the showcased cabin came from the range-topping model.Note that we didn't use the Comand label above, since the three-pointed star is set to retire this infotainment system. It will be replaced by the MBUX, which promises to suit the needs of the fully digital age.Nevertheless, we should get the official details of the 2018 A-Class soon. Judging by the tons of prototype spottings and the advanced stages of the test cars, the new entry-level Mercedes-Benz model should land in the first quarter of next year, with the Geneva Motor Show in March being a likely venue for the public debut of the hatchback.As for those of you enjoying a more traditional body style, we'll remind you we recently spied the 2019 Mercedes-Benz A-Class Sedan . The nameplate is still provisional, since we're not sure this will get to replace the CLA moniker.Nevertheless, the thing comes with a front end that's nearly identical to that of the hatch and packs some visual differences compared to the current CLA. We're referring to the side windows, which aren't frameless, as well as to the exterior mirrors, which sit on the doors. Even the profile of the vehicle seems to steer clear of the four-door coupe look.
FWD

4WD

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

The new Compass doesnt have it easy, not even within the Jeep crowd, for it replaces two affronts to brand enthusiasts and traditionalists alike. The first generation of the compact-sized SUV was a mixed bag of good but mostly bad, with the biggest snubs coming in the form of poor interior materials and a woeful continuously variable transmission. As for the Patriot, well, it was pretty much the same as the Compass but with different packaging. The nicer wrapping paper didnt fool anyone, though.Marketed as the middle child between the Renegade and Cherokee, the newcomer is a step forward as far as styling is concerned. The soft square design of the Grand Cherokee interweaves with elements from the polarizing Cherokee and Jeeps smallest of models. Speaking of the Renegade, the Small Wide 4x4 platform is shared with the Compass, as are the engine and transmission options. The similarities dont end here, for the Active Drive and Active Drive Low 4x4 systems are also shared.And thus, does the Compass actually feel different from the Renegade? Of course it does, and by a great margin. The larger body shell, longer wheelbase, additional ground clearance, and roomier interior all add up, but even the finer details of the driving experience are different enough to set the Compass apart from the subcompact Renegade and the Fiat 500X After spending some time with a Euro-spec Compass equipped with the most powerful of turbo diesel engines, four-wheel-drive, and the ZF 9HP nine-speed automatic transmission, it became apparent that Jeep poured its best know-how available to make this fellow a truly global product.And global it is considering Jeep sells it in more than 100 markets. The all-inclusiveness extends to where the Compass is produced: Mexico for the United States and Europe, Brazil for the rest of the American continent, China for the Asia Pacific region, and India for right-hand drive markets.As opposed to the original, the second-generation Compass is marketed in such a way that Jeep wants you to believe its a premium product. Putting it as straightforward as possible, premium it isnt. What Jeep has done right and no one in this segment can do better is to infuse the brands inherent values in the character and aesthetic identity of the Compass.Being more mature than the model(s) it replaces, the Compass is definitely worthy of a different name altogether. But Jeep stuck with the moniker, coming up with the Recalculating advertising campaign around it. And as you know from all those ads, lifes journey moves in many directions, including when you least expect it to do. That, in turn, is relevant to Jeeps core value of freedom, and strikes a chord with the millennials among us.A compromise that FCA made when designing the Compass is packaging. Never mind the limited storage solutions and cup holders, for the compact-sized model is shorter than the segments most popular crossovers, including the Toyota RAV4. The decision to make it shorter than most competitors is most noticeable when it comes to cargo capacity, with the trunk being capable of taking in 27.2 cubic feet of stuff.The limited cargo capacity is, however, fine for the daily haul. Towing capacity isnt too bad either at 2,000 pounds. The maximum towing capacity is enough for Compass customers interested in lugging folding camp trailers or trailers for motorcycles, snowmobiles, and small boats.Something that isnt too great about the Compass is the questionable selection of standard equipment. The most basic of available Uconnect infotainment (5.0-inch screen) doesnt support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay , and even if you splurge on the range-topping 8.4-inch system, youll notice that processing power still isnt up there. To the defense of the Compass, the drag & drop feature and straightforward menu structure make even the navigation-less 7.0-inch system in our test car a breeze to use.The generously-sized buttons on the lower central part of the dashboard and the reassuring feedback from the knobs for the air conditioning and radio also score high. Both the front and rear seats are nicely contoured and feature comfortable seat bottoms. Sitting in the rear of the Compass doesnt pose a problem not even on the long haul thanks to ample space for the head and legs, a USB charging port, and a couple of air vents.If theres something you might want to keep in mind, stay away from the piano black interior trim around the air vents and infotainment screen. Its a magnet for dust and fingerprints, and in some instance, the sunlight reflected by those trim pieces can distract you from the act of driving.Another distraction is the wind noise at highway speeds, which is caused by the squared-off styling of the Compass and not-too-generous soundproofing. Cranking the radios volume up will drown the unwanted sounds, so dont think of this nitpick as a deal-breaker because it just isnt.From behind the drivers seat, the Compass does its best to make you feel like youve made the right choice. The driving position is high and the window line low, the steering wheel feels right in your hands, and most importantly, theres a firmness at the top of the suspension stroke that ensures the sure-footedness one would expect from rivals such as the Mazda CX-5 Although light at lower speeds, the steering is suitably progressive not to feel artificial. The square-ish physique makes it easy to maneuver around town. Having driven both the 1.4-liter turbocharged gasoline and 2.0-liter turbo diesel, the oil-chugging engine is a better match for the nine-speed auto.The torque is more abundant and accessible from lower in the rpm range, and as far as kickdown is concerned, the response is more immediate in the diesel engines case. The 1.4 MultiAir, however, makes a better team with the start/stop system, which produces more perceptible vibrations when married to the 170 PS (168 horsepower) and 380 Nm (280 pound-feet) Multijet II.The dynamics between engine and transmission favor the diesel for merging onto the motorway and overtaking, with the MultiAir requiring more careful planning before taking action. The six-speed manual comes standard onmodels in Europe. Although the gear knob is similar in design to what you would find in the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio , the knob feels somewhat slippery when trying to make a quick downshift.Contrary to popular belief, the ZF 9HP in the Compass features a proactive and predictable shift logic. Its a different transmission altogether compared to the first versions of the 9HP, which were plagued by software-based gremlins in applications such as the Cherokee. Also on the driving take, the brake pedals feel is excellent for this type of vehicle, offering the bite and response that many people would describe as sporty.Looking in the rearview mirror, theres something else youll notice other than the satisfactory rearward visibility. Focus on the right-hand side of the rear window, and a Loch Ness Monster motif appears in your line of sight. This is one of a handful of Easter Eggs scattered around the Compass. A plastic gecko is sculpted next to the drivers side windshield wiper, whilst the tailgates interior panel flaunts the iconic seven-slot grille and round headlights.If theres something no one can take away from the Compass, thats the compact Jeeps superiority when the going gets rough. Make no mistake about it, this is the sport utility to have if youre planning to do the off-road stuff every weekend or so. In addition to the top-level approach departure, and breakover angles, the 8.2-inch ground clearance helps with negotiating obstacles along your route. Going for the Trailhawk off-road model sees the clearance increase to 8.5 inches (216 millimeters).Even though our test car has the lesser version of Jeeps Active Drive 4x4 system, not equipped with the 20:1 crawl ratio and low range for Trail Rated capability, its hard to get your head around how capable the Compass is off the beaten track. Seriously now, its unexpectedly capable. The most off-road action our Compass has seen is a hike up to a broadcast relay station at the top of a steep, craggy hill.Station employees use one of the most rugged body-on-frame SUVs the world has ever seen as company cars, a utility vehicle whose name shall not be mentioned. Ok, its the Land Rover Defender. And guess what? The incredibly harsh course to the top didnt pose any problem whatsoever to the Compass, be it dead leaves, wet grass, mud, rocks, and ruts, all without engagingLock or any of the three available driving modes (Snow, Sand, Mud) other than Auto.This is no puddle jumper as some other crossovers are when put in wretched situations, but then again, what else did you expect from Jeep? Even the Renegade is best-in-class in regard to off-roading, though some enthusiasts would care to highlight that theres a mountain goat going by the name of Suzuki Jimny that also has the skills to pay the bills.When it comes to value, the front-wheel-drive Compass in Sport configuration is cheap enough to tempt evangelists of other automakers into trying Jeep for a change of pace. The truth of the matter is, youll need deeper pockets if you want your Compass to be kitted with all the bells and whistles you need, including safety features such as Lane Sense and Forward Collision Control with Active Braking . While on the subject of safety, the Euro NCAP andhave tested the crossover, giving it the the thumbs up for all the right reasons.Despite it not feeling as premium as Jeep would want you to believe the Compass is, the Renegades bigger brother has loads of soft-touch materials wrapping the most crucial areas of the cabin. Its hard to find an iffy plastic that would grind your gears, and thats how attention to detail works. Furthering the appeal of the Compass is the accessories catalog, which features 69 bits and pieces for EMEA countries, of which 35 accessories are dedicated to the Compass, and 34 are borrowed or inspired from other Jeeps.The options list in the configurator is also expansive, with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles playing the customization game like a professional as a means to substantially strengthen its coffers. There are other compact crossover utility vehicles that handle better, are more comfortable, or feel more premium than the Compass. But (and this is a big but) few dare to claim theyre better than the Compass in terms of brand identity and off-road ability.The second coming of the Compass is a winner that blends ruggedness with upmarket touches here and there, attributes that most competing C-SUVs can only dream of getting so right. Whats the verdict on the Compass, you ask? Unless youre serious about the off-road stuff, the Latitude and Limited trim levels are perfectly fine for your daily commute and weekend adventures.Compared to the first-gen Compass that appealed to people through nothing but the vague appearance of a Jeep, the second and hugely improved generation is a Jeep through and through, an all-round vehicle thats certain to win back previously disappointed customers. But most importantly, the new Compass will bring in many new customers to the Jeep family, people who wont turn their backs once they understand the spirit of the brand.
We'll get straight to the point and let you know that the splendid hue covering this Neunelfer is called Forest Green Metallic. This obviously gets us in a dreamy mood, as we can't stop thinking about this rear-engined animal stretching its mechanical legs on the Green Hell. After all, we are talking about a machine that can lap the Nurburgring in as little as 7:12.7.The slightly dark tones of the paint are matched by the black elements on the car, such as the inner graphics of the headlights (this 911 features the full-LED units) and wheels.Note that the rims (don't quite) conceal banana-colored calipers, which means the owner of the machine has gone for the PCCB (Porsche Carbon Ceramic Brakes) option. This, of course, makes the Porscha even more suitable for the track and we can say the same about the full bucket seats found inside the velocity tool, which are shared with the 918 Spyder The Gen2 GT3 you're looking at has been spotted in its home country, with the track special having been photographed at Porsche Zentrum Nurnberg.Now that the 991.2 GT3 has landed (the first examples of the Touring Package should reach their owners soon), we are looking forward to the introduction of the revised GT3 RS.Spied and rendered on multiple occasions, the Rennsport model is expected to land in the first quarter of 2018, with the Geneva Motor Show being a likely venue for the introduction of the sub-7 club member.And while the PDK-only form of the 2019 GT3 RS has been confirmed, forum chat mentions a new 4.2-liter flat-six for the posterior of the circuit animal.
Once taken up, discussed, and debated in the Rajya Sabha, the contentious Bill will be forwarded to the President of India for signing it into a law.

By India Today Web Desk: After the Lok Sabha passed The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, also known as the triple talaq Bill, the legislation is set to be introduced in the Rajya Sabha, where the Narendra Modi government does not have a majority, but only next week.

On Thursday, following a day-long and heated debate in the Lok Sabha, the Bill that criminalises instant divorce with three years of imprisonment for Muslim husbands was passed by a voice vote. The government called it a "historic day" and rejected the Opposition's demand to refer the legislation to a Parliamentary standing committee for detailed consideration.

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Once taken up, discussed, and debated in the Rajya Sabha, the contentious Bill will be forwarded to the President of India for signing it into a law.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW:

1. Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who introduced the Bill on Thursday and later piloted it in the Lok Sabha, said history was being created. "We are going to create history. Today is the day to create history," Prasad said.

2. The government insisted the government did not intend to politicise the issue and the legislation was brought after taking a humanitarian view of it. "This is not about siyasat (politics) but about insaniyat (humanity)," Prasad said.

3. Opposition parties accused the government of bringing the bill with "ulterior political motives". Some felt that the BJP government was in a haste to pass the Bill not because of its concern for Muslim women but because it sees this as a first step towards bringing in a Uniform Civil Code.

4. The Congress said it supported the Bill, but wanted it to be scrutinised by the Standing Committee of Parliament, a demand that was rejected by the Lok Sabha chair. The Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party also backed the demand of referring the bill to the Standing Committee.

5. Various amendments moved by the Opposition members, including Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM) and Revolutionary Socialist Party member NK Premachandran, were negatived in divisions. The Biju Janata Dal and the AIMIM later staged a walkout.

6. Owaisi took several digs at the Modi government and also said those who "marry and abandon" their wives should be punished and the government should bring a law to this effect. Owaisi said the government should also worry about nearly 20 lakh women of various religions who are abandoned by their husbands, "including our bhabhi from Gujarat." He termed the bill as "bad law".

7. Under the proposed law, instant triple talaq in any form --spoken, in writing or by electronic means such as email, SMS and WhatsApp -- would be illegal and void. The proposed law would be applicable to the entire country except in Jammu and Kashmir.

8. The triple talaq legislation would make instant talaq punishable by a jail term of up to three years and a fine, and would be a cognisable, non-bailable offence, a provision opposed by many Opposition parties and gender rights activists and lawyers.

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9. Seeking to allay the Opposition's concerns, Ravi Shankar Prasad said it is wrong link instant triple talaq, the divorce practice which the Supreme Court struck down as illegal, with the Uniform Civil Code. "Some are trying to spread fear that the bill is being brought to put Muslims behind the bars," Prasad said.

10. Bharatiya Muslima Mahila Andolan, which was one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court on triple talaq issue, welcome the passage of the Bill in Lok Sabha. However, senior advocate Indira Jaising, who was a counsel for Bebaak Collective, expressed her shock. "I would say that some of our worst fears have come true. That the intention of the government was not to protect these women but to re-victimise them. This bill is patently discriminatory and unconstitutional and it should be challenged," the senior lawyer added.

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GE Aviation announced Thursday it had successfully test run its partially 3-D printed Advanced Turboprop engine, which is set to power the Textron Denali single turboprop. Details of the test were scant in the GE press release but early indications show that we will meet or exceed all the performance numbers we have quoted for the engine, said GE spokesman Brad Mottier. Were developing a real catalyst for the BGA market and were executing on plan. The integration of proven technologies has expedited the design, development and certification cycle of the engine. The engine is a direct challenge to Pratt & Whitney Canadas domination of the small-to-medium turboprop engine market and is scalable from 1,000 to 1,600 horsepower.

The engine was developed in concert with the Denali and by the time the new airframe, a direct challenge to the Pilatus PC-12, is ready the engine will have 2,000 test hours. Certification for the engine is planned for 2018 and the Denali is expected to fly by the end of the year. The engine was run at GEs facility in Prague, Czech Republic. The engine is an outgrowth of GEs purchase of the former Walter Aircraft Engines two years ago. GE has re-engineered the rugged and dependable design and introduced a lot of advanced manufacturing, including 3-D production of some main components that cut the parts count by more than 800. AVweb Editor-At-Large Paul Bertorelli had a look at the 3-D production of the engine in the following video.
It's been 100 days since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, and the island is still struggling to return to normal.

Why it matters: Many citizens still have no power, and the government is having trouble identifying all of those killed by the hurricane. Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, criticized President Trump this week for being "disrespectful to the Puerto Rican people," and called him the "disaster-in-chief."

Here's where things stand in Puerto Rico, according to FEMA and Puerto Rico's government site:
The temperature in parts of Canada felt as cold as -40 degrees Fahrenheit  that's colder than Mars, which hit -20 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, per The Washington Post.

By the numbers: The Mars Gale Crater reached -9.4 degrees, making it feel more balmy to some Canadians in Saskatoon, Montreal and Calgary, the Post reports. Edmonton and Yellowknife felt like -40 degrees; Saskatoon and Regina recorded similar temperatures. Meanwhile, Ottawa and Toronto felt like -20 degrees, per the Post.
There's ,  and , but where's the bagel? AP Tech Writer Barbara Ortutay looks at the emoji approval process (complete with lobbying and campaigning).

How can our emotional vocabulary be complete without a teddy bear, a lobster, a petri dish or a tooth?
President Trump has injected turmoil into traditional U.S. partnerships while strengthening ties with less likely allies, including authoritarian leaders, the NY Times' Mark Landler notes in a reflection on year one of Trump's foreign policy.

Why it matters, per Landler: "Mr. Trump's feuds with Ms. May and other British officials have left him in a strange position: feted in Beijing and Riyadh but barely welcome in London."

Rifts with allies

Germany: Landler reports that White House aides called Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this year to complain that she had been condescending toward Trump when they discussed Ukraine over the phone. When they met in person, Trump told Merkel he wanted a bilateral trade deal with Germany  an impossibility, given Germany's membership in the E.U.  and Merkel was careful to "get through the exchange without embarrassing the president or appearing to lecture him" (she told him Europe and the U.S. could strike a bilateral deal).

Landler reports that White House aides called Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this year to complain that she had been condescending toward Trump when they discussed Ukraine over the phone. When they met in person, Trump told Merkel he wanted a bilateral trade deal with Germany  an impossibility, given Germany's membership in the E.U.  and Merkel was careful to "get through the exchange without embarrassing the president or appearing to lecture him" (she told him Europe and the U.S. could strike a bilateral deal). U.K.: Trump scolded Prime Minister Theresa May on Twitter after she said it was a mistake for him to share anti-Muslim videos from a far-right hate group.

Trump scolded Prime Minister Theresa May on Twitter after she said it was a mistake for him to share anti-Muslim videos from a far-right hate group. NATO: Landler reports that Trump was fixated on the expensive new NATO headquarters in Brussels during his tense visit there, telling his fellow leaders sarcastically, "I never asked once what the new NATO headquarters cost."

How foreign leaders have impressed Trump

France: "Mr. Macron figured out early how to appeal to the president: He invited him to a military parade."

"Mr. Macron figured out early how to appeal to the president: He invited him to a military parade." Saudi Arabia: "The Saudi monarch projected his image on the side of a hotel."

"The Saudi monarch projected his image on the side of a hotel." China: "Mr. Xi reopened a long-dormant theater inside the Forbidden City to present Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania, an evening of Chinese opera."

Other takeaways
Iranians in several major cities took to the streets this week in protests stemming "from seething discontent in Iran," the BBC reports. The protests started over the state of the economy, but quickly became "a general outcry against clerical rule and government policies."

Why it matters: These are the most widespread protests since those in 2009 and political protests are rare in Iran where "security services are omnipresent," per Reuters.

Many protesters have voiced anger against President Hassan Rouhani, who was elected for a second term in May, shouting "Death to Rouhani," and "Death to the dictator," per U.S. News.

Reuters reports that videos showed protestors also shouting out against Iran's involvement in Syria, chanting "Leave Syria, think about us."

Per the New York Times, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group, Ali Vaez, credited Rouhani's opponents for ultimately starting "an antiregime rally" that has spread across Iran.

A reformist cleric in Qom, Fazel Meybodi, told the Times the protests stemmed from real concerns: "Economic issues are urgent, and the protests have nothing to do with any factions - neither reformist nor hard-liner. Poor people are protesting, that is it."
On the week of the 100-day mark of Hurricane Maria making landfall in Puerto Rico, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz thanked the Americans "that have stood with San Juan and Puerto Rico," but again criticized President Trump's response, per ABC.

"He was disrespectful to the Puerto Rican people, he was disrespectful to the American people who were leaving their homes to come help us here...Where he needed to be a commander-in-chief, he was a disaster-in-chief. President Trump does not embody the values of the good-hearted American people that have make sure that we are not forgotten."

Why it matters: According to the Puerto Rican government site, still only 69% of the island has power, and there's skepticism around the current death toll. Officially, the number is 64, ABC reports, but Gov. Ricardo Rossello ordered that all deaths since Maria be reviewed.
South Korea has proposed legislation that would prohibit South Korean entities from providing settlement services to complete cryptocurrency transactions, per The Verge. The country also handed down rules earlier this year that restrict cryptocurrency investments by financial firms. And South Korea's government has hinted that it might want to ban cryptocurrency exchanges entirely in the future.

Why it matters: It's a sign that developed nations with strict monetary controls are becoming hyper-aware of the implications of an uncontrolled cryptocurrency market. But while nations could make it difficult for their citizens to interact and do business with cryptocurrency by implementing regulations preventing interactions with traditional financial institutions, it might be impossible to ever completely cut off access.
Police in Iran's capital of Tehran will no longer arrest those who violate "Islamic values," and will instead "educate" them, according to the Wall Street Journal. Women have long been punished for "infractions as minor as...wearing nail polish, heavy makeup, or tying their headscarves too loosely," per the Journal.

Why it matters: This comes after Saudi Arabia ended its ban on women driving, and could indicate a shift toward moderation in the region. Some Iranians are skeptical, however, and say what matters is how the new rules are implemented, per the Journal.
The infamous Trump Hotel located in D.C.'s old post office surpassed its business goals this year, raking in $1.97 million in profit in the first four months, according to the Daily Beast's Betsy Woodruff. The hotel was projected to lose $2 million, as most luxury hotels don't turn a profit in their first few years.

Big picture: Trump hotels across the country became sites for anti-Trump protests, which isn't exactly great for business, and several hotels have attempted to distance themselves from the name. One Trump hotel in the SOHO neighborhood in New York and one in Toronto changed their names, and a third hotel in Panama City is looking to rebrand. But despite frequent protests, the D.C. location, conveniently situated between the White House and the Capitol, has hosted and entertained Republican officials, campaigners, foreign leaders, conservative outside groups, pro-Trump tourists and even, on occasion, the president himself.

Follow the money: The D.C. Trump International Hotel raised its rates after the inauguration despite stagnant room rates nationwide, according to the Daily Beast. The decision paid off, resulting in a healthy bottom line  unusual for new luxury hotels.

Go deeper

with Betsy Woodruff's full piece.
By PTI: Kolkata, Dec 29 (PTI) Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu is scheduled to arrive here tomorrow on a days maiden visit to the city after assuming office.

Official sources said Naidu will attend the inauguration of the celebration of 187 years of Calcutta Chamber of Commerce and would speak at its seminar Revitalising Parliamentary Democracy in India to mark the occasion.

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Before his departure for Vijaywada in the evening, Naidu will attend the closing ceremony of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) Global Health Care Summit, the sources added. PTI AKB KK KK

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In a morning tweet, President Trump laid out his demands for Democrats to save DACA: a southern border wall, an end to chain migration, and stopping the diversity visa lottery.

Go deeper: The facts about the diversity visa lottery program.
President Trump has yet to visit California, the nation's largest state, during his time in office, the L.A. Times points out in its lead story, by Brian Bennett.

Why it matters: "For Trump, [California is] ground zero for 'the resistance.'"
A week after President Trump endorsed Ron DeSantis for Florida governor via Twitter, a handful of billionaires have thrown their support behind the three-term Republican congressman, per Politico.

Why it matters: The monetary support DeSantis has received could prove instrumental in his race, because in a "state as big as Florida, where a week's worth of saturation TV during next year's general election could cost as much as $3 million, cash is king," per Politico.

Supporters include casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, hedge fund heiress Rebekah Mercer, investment tycoon Foster Friess, as well as other donors who have funded Trump's 2016 campaign and the conservative Koch brothers' network, per Politico.

The Trump effect: DeSantis reflects the shifting type of Republican candidate under Trump: he's a Fox News contributor, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, a supporter of Trump's recent decision to make Jerusalem the home of the U.S. embassy in Israel, and he opposes Special Counsel Bob Mueller's Russia probe (even calling for it to end after just six months).
U.S. home values are at a record high and grew 6.5% over last year according to an analysis from online real estate site Zillow, per AFP. Renters also paid a record amount, 1% more in total than in 2016.

"Strong demand from buyers and the ongoing inventory shortage keep pushing values higher, especially in some of the nation's booming coastal markets," Aaron Terrazas, senior economist at Zillow, said.
29 December 2017 16:13 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

During the plenary meeting held on December 29, the MPs of the Milli Majlis (Azerbaijani Parliament) condemned the recent proposals of the Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili.

During his recent speech in the Georgian parliament, Kvirikashvili suggested that in case of force majeure, goods supplied by Armenia would be delivered to Russia through Abkhazia and South Ossetia. After this proposal, the Georgian opposition sharply criticized the prime minister.

Speaking at the Milli Majlis meeting, Azerbaijani MP Rasim Musabayov expressed dissatisfaction with the idea of creating a transport corridor between Georgia and Armenia.

Speaker of Azerbaijani Milli Majlis Ogtay Asadov reminded that in the most difficult times Azerbaijan supported Georgia. Probably, someone wants to break this alliance, he noted.

The speaker stressed that the Azerbaijan-Georgia working group on inter-parliamentary relations will be instructed in this regard and the matter will be investigated.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
29 December 2017 11:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Obligations of the Azerbaijani bank ombudsman will be increased in 2018, Elchin Hasanov, executive secretary of the bank ombudsman, said in an interview to the newspaper of the Azerbaijan Banks Association Dec. 28.

He said the work is underway to rename the bank ombudsman and establish the institute of financial ombudsman.

"The work is also underway to adopt legislation regulating the activity of the institute of financial ombudsman, he said. The adoption of this law will allow the population to resolve disagreements that arise not only with banks, but also with insurance companies and other participants of the financial market without appealing to judicial instances. A bill has been already prepared and it is being discussed.

Hasanov also stressed that in the future the bank ombudsman will consider financial disputes worth over $2,000.

"Presently, the ombudsman considers financial disputes worth up to $2,000, Hasanov said. The reason is that the initial goal was to solve the problems of low-income layers of the population."

Hasanov said that since the beginning of the activity of the bank ombudsman, 163 appeals have been submitted for consideration.

The bank ombudsman in Azerbaijan launched activity in September 2017.

Twenty-three banks and one non-bank organization have signed agreements with the bank ombudsman of Azerbaijan.

The bank ombudsman in Azerbaijan is Ikram Karimov.

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29 December 2017 10:37 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree to approve the 2018 budget of the State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ).

According to the approved budget, SOFAZs revenues for 2018 are set at 11,559,956,200 manats, expenditures are set at 9,730,221,800 manats.

SOFAZs revenues from the sale of profitable oil and gas are forecast at 9,723,786,100 manats, acre payments at 3.612 million manats, income from oil and gas transit through Azerbaijan at 16.34 million manats.

Meanwhile, SOFAZs revenues from placement and management of assets are forecast at 1,042,046,100 manats, bonuses paid by investors within oil and gas agreements or in connection with their implementation  at 774,172 manats.

A lions share in SOFAZ expenditures will account for transfers to the state budget  9.216 billion manats.

Expenditures for improvement of living conditions of refugees are stipulated at 200 million manats, expenditures for reconstruction of the Samur-Absheron irrigation system  at 90 million manats, expenditures for financing the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project  at 176,128 manats, expenditures for financing the state program on education of Azerbaijani youth abroad in 2007-2015  at 16,218 manats.

The expenses for SOFAZs management have been approved at 31,875,800 manats.

At the same time, 9,412,288 manats of expenditures will account for salaries, expenditures for the purchase of goods and services - 5,276,520 manats, for grants and other payments - 682,360 manats.

Expenditures for pensions and social payments are stipulated at 65,000 manats, for purchase of non-financial assets  at 6,034,460 manats, while 10,405,172 manats are stipulated for other expenses.

SOFAZ was established in 1999 with initial assets worth $271 million. As of October 1, 2017, assets of SOFAZ increased by 8.67 percent as compared to early 2017 and amounted to $36.02 billion.

The main purposes of SOFAZ are the accumulation of funds and the placement of assets abroad to minimize negative trends in the economy by preventing "Dutch disease".

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29 December 2017 18:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

MIDA has completed the construction of the first 12 buildings in the Yasamal residential complex, which is its first project under the State Housing Construction Agency under the President of Azerbaijan, MIDA informed on December 29.

The Yasamal residential complex, which will consist of 29 buildings, will provide housing to 1,843 families, the statement says.

Construction and installation works in the first 12 residential buildings of the complex and in the building of the general education school for 960 places have already been completed, and now finishing work continues. Simultaneously, the construction of other multi-apartment residential buildings continues, and works are also carried out to provide the territory with appropriate engineering communications.

It is noteworthy that this residential complex constructed in Yasamal district is preferential. A land plot of 11.6 hectares was allocated last year for its construction.

The town will consist of 29 multi-apartment residential buildings: 17 of them will be two-block and nine-storey and 12  one-block and 12-storey. As many as 301 of 1,854 apartments in these buildings will be one-room, 1,110 - two-room, 443 - three-room. The area of one-room apartments will be 31-33 square meters, of two-room apartments  50-58 m2, and of three-room apartments  about 70 m2.

MIDA has launched registration of citizens wishing to purchase subsidized housing started from May 30, 2017.

The monthly payment for the purchase of a three-room apartment in a mortgage will not exceed 300 manats ($176), and for a one-room apartment it will amount to 130-150 manats ($76-88).

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
29 December 2017 16:42 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

Carpet weaving is one of the oldest arts and crafts of Azerbaijan, which is immense in the richness and diversity of its nature and art.

The data of archaeological research conducted on the territory of Azerbaijan, monuments of literature testify that the art of carpet weaving originated in Azerbaijan since ancient times.

The year 2017 was a remarkable year for the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum - its 50th anniversary was marked by numerous international symposiums, conferences and seminars, as well as master classes, lectures in various subjects, round tables and trainings.

More than 80,000 people visited the center of culture, the director of the museum, the chairman of the ICOM Azerbaijan, the doctor of philosophy in art criticism Shirin Melikova told Trend.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, its collection was replenished with another exhibit - the rare beauty of Azerbaijani 18th century embroidery, bought at a foreign auction by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and donated to the museum. And for the first time in the history of the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum in 2017, the museum bought one of the exhibits by itself at a foreign auction, she stressed.

This is a unique carpet Shamakhy, purchased from the Austrian auction company - it was previously stored in France in a personal collection. It belongs to the most ancient exhibits at the moment. In the past two years, the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum has purchased 44 artifacts, including carpets, national costumes, ornaments, batik and embroidery, items from archaeological excavations, some of which were bought, others donated to the museum, she underlined.

In 2017, the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum received the Certificate of Quality as the best museum of the year on the TripAdvisor website, and also ranked among the 40 nominees for the Best Museum of Europe award and has a great chance to win this award in 2018.

During the year, well-known magazines issued publications about Azerbaijani carpets. Work continued to promote and popularize the Azerbaijani carpets at the international level, which are the material and spiritual heritage of Azerbaijani culture and national wealth.

Promotion and popularization works of Azerbaijani carpets were continued at the international level.

The Azerbaijan Carpet Museum was created on March 13, 1967. From 1967 to 1993, the museum was called the Azerbaijan State Museum of Carpet and Folk Applied Arts, from 1993 to 2014 - State Museum of Carpet and Applied Arts named after Latif Karimov, from 2014 to the present time the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum.

The first exposition was presented on April 26, 1972 in the building of the Juma Mosque, an architectural monument of the 19th century, located in the Icherisheher  Old City.

The museum has become a research-training and cultural-educational center where many events, such as exhibitions, international symposiums, and conferences, are held. During its 50 years of existence, the museum has organized more than 30 exhibitions in different countries throughout the world.

In 2004, a law on the Preservation and Development of Azerbaijan Carpet was enacted with the museums participation. The law aimed to implement the registration of Azerbaijan carpets, protect and support their development, and coordinate scientific and methodical training.

In 2010, the Azerbaijan Carpet Weaving Art was included in UNESCOs Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity through the assistance of the First Lady, Mehriban Aliyeva.

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29 December 2017 11:36 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Diplomatic work of the interested countries and guarantor states in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is conducted in a full scale, said Evgeny Mikhailov, Russian political analyst and expert on international issues.

He made the remarks in his interview with Azernews on December 28, while commenting on the outcomes of 2017 in the settlement of the prolonged Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

We witness more frequent meetings of Russian President Vladimir Putin with the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents. There is a regular exchange of views on the protracted conflict and, accordingly, ways to solve it are being suggested, said the expert. He added that Russia wants to bring the parties to reconciliation as soon as possible due to the difficult situation in the Middle East.

Mikhailov further noted that soon, Armenia will have to return the occupied lands of Azerbaijan.

In my opinion, Azerbaijan has a more favorable position regardless of the political situation, and the security guarantor countries will gradually convince Armenia to return the territories it had occupied in the near future, he said.

The expert reminded that Armenia is a small republic with a poor economy, squeezed between countries with which it does not want to compromise.

The completely dependent on Russia country, which in the hope of receiving support from the West, signed a treaty with the European Union. This, by the way, was very negatively perceived by Russia, said Mikhailov.

On the other hand the expert noted that the economically developed Azerbaijan, which has a powerful army and Turkey as an ally, adding that Moscow and Ankara have recently established a full-scale alliance in many areas.

Mikhailov also shared his expectations from the upcoming meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers in connection with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

As for the January meeting, I dare to assume that it will not bring any results. Obviously, the conflict will be resolved only with the direct mediation of the guarantor countries, the expert noted.

He also said that if Russia and Turkey had let the situation slide, the conflict would have been resolved a decade ago.

Yerevan and Baku have differentpotential, Karabakh would have already been liberated [by Azerbaijan] in case of military operations rather than diplomatic actions, Mikhailov stressed.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Since the war, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign state with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the international community for years.

Until now, Armenia ignores four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, thus keeping tension high in the region.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By PTI: (Eds: Adds details)

Allahabad, Dec 29 (PTI) Self-styled godman Virendra Dev Dixit, accused of confining women and girls in his ashrams, features in the second list of "fake babas" released by the Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, the apex body of Hindu sadhus, here today.

The list consists of three names- Virendra Dev Dixit Delhi), Sachidanand Saraswati (Basti, UP) and Trikal Bhawant (Allahabad).

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Releasing the list, the parishads president Swami Narendra Giri said, "We appeal to even the common people to beware of such charlatans who belong to no tradition and by their questionable acts, bring disrepute to sadhus and sanyasis."

The parishad is a council of akharas, which are monastic orders drawing their spiritual lineage from 8th-century seer Adi Shankara, who is said to have established orders of martial monks with the aim of defending the Hindu Dharma.

On September 10, it released the first list of 14 such self-styled godmen which included names such as Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, Radhey Ma, Nirmal Baba, Rampal, Asaram Bapu and his son Narayan Sai.

The parishad took the move in the wake of controversies surrounding self-styled godmen.

"We have passed a resolution that the Uttar Pradesh government should set up a monitoring committee which would keep a close eye on the work being done for Kumbh Mela, 2019 and this committee should consist of a member from each akharas," Giri said.

Last week, three centres run by Dixit were raided by the police in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh and 47 women and six minor girls were rescued.

A Delhi Police team went to an ashram in Dwarka in the national capital and rescued five minor girls, who were allegedly kept confined there.

Uttar Pradesh Police also raided two centres run by Dixit at Siktarbad and Kampil respectively and rescued 47 women and a girl.

Delhi Women Commission chief Swati Maliwal had said the Dwarka ashram had "prison-like surroundings" and the inmates there were kept locked. PTI RAJ SMN SMN

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29 December 2017 13:24 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The outgoing year, unfortunately, did not bring serious progress in the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. However, certain work has been done in this direction.

This year, negotiations between the parties to the conflict resumed. Their effectiveness may be doubted, but the definitely positive fact is that it became possible to return Armenia to the negotiating table. The OSCE Minsk Group, which is working to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, has become more active this year. Also, the next meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers is expected for the beginning of 2018.

Commenting on the outcomes of 2017 in the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, the Azerbaijani MP Rasim Musabayov told Day.az that the year was lost in terms of settlement of the conflict.

This is a minus. And the plus is that the skirmishes and violations of the ceasefire regime on the contact line did not transform into military actions like it was in April 2016, he said.

Musabayov added that it is also a positive fact that Armenia was forced to sit down at the negotiating table and to start discussing substantive issues of a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Previously, the Armenian side was shrinking away from substantive negotiations, he reminded.

The MP believes that 2018 will be a year of intensive negotiations.

It is difficult to say whether the negotiating round will give concrete results, but in the absence of such negotiations, the war was the only alternative. I suppose that Armenians and intermediaries understand this, said Musabayov.

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 districts.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
29 December 2017 10:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed a decree approving the main directions for using the funds and investment policy of the State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) for 2018.

According to the decree, the forecast aggregate value (weighted average volume) of investment portfolio of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) for 2018 is set at 60.67 billion manats.

In 2018, SOFAZ funds will be mainly used for financing some measures related to accommodation and improvement of social and living conditions of refugees and IDPs; transfers to the state budget of 2018; transfers to the Central Bank of Azerbaijan to ensure financial stability; financing reconstruction of the Samur-Absheron irrigation system; financing the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project; financing the state program on education of Azerbaijani youth in foreign countries in 2007-2015; financing Azerbaijans share in the Southern Gas Corridor projects.

Under the decree, the currency structure of SOFAZs investment portfolio is as follows: up to 50 percent of assets can be in US dollars, 35 percent in euros, 5 percent in British pounds, and 10 percent in other currencies.

Meanwhile, SOFAZs investment portfolio can consist of four sub-portfolios: a portfolio of debt instruments and money market instruments (60 percent of total portfolio value), a portfolio of shares (25 percent), a portfolio of real estate (10 percent), and a portfolio of gold (5 percent).

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29 December 2017 10:48 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree to include the offices of trade missions at Azerbaijan's embassies and consulates abroad into the structure of the Ministry of Economy.

According to the decree, the Ministry of Economy is responsible for ensuring material, technical and financial support to the offices of trade missions at Azerbaijan's embassies and consulates abroad.

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29 December 2017 11:27 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Light industry enterprises of Uzbekistan exported products for $1.1 billion in 2017, according to preliminary data.

Domestic production was supplied to more than 50 countries of the world, and the share of goods with high added value exceeded 40 percent, podrobno.uz reported.

If in early 2017 there were 293 exporting enterprises, then by the end of the year their number had reached 350.

In addition, the growth of export indicators was facilitated by the activity of 64 trading houses which were opened in foreign countries.

One of the effective forms of further development of the textile industry will be the creation of clusters. This model implies the organization of a single production cycle, which includes the cultivation of raw cotton, primary processing and its further processing at ginneries with the release of final products, Uztekstilproms representative said.

Experts have already created a draft Concept of development for the medium-term perspective of cotton-textile clusters, taking into account the experience of such facilities in Navoi region.

As many as 34 investment projects on modernization, technical and technological re-equipment of existing and creation of new enterprises with a total export potential of $151.7 million were realized this year in the light industry. At the same time, their total value exceeded $356 million.

To date, about 7,000 enterprises of the industry are operating in the republic. Capacity for production of cotton fiber in the amount of 1.4 million tons has been created, of which about 60 percent is used to meet the needs of domestic textile enterprises.

Textile industry of Uzbekistan is considered to be one of the most dynamic and socially important sectors and ranks high among export-oriented industries of the countrys economy. The Uzbek textile industry is mainly focused on cotton, silk and wool.

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.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
29 December 2017 14:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Russia state nuclear corporation Rosatom is ready to build the most modern two-block nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan.

The delegation of the Rosatom corporation headed by General Director Alexei Likhachev arrived in Uzbekistan on December 29, 2017.

During this visit, the sides signed a standard framework intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

The document was signed by the Deputy Prime Minister Nodir Otazhonov from the Uzbek side and Rosatoms head from the Russian side.

The agreement creates a legal basis for bilateral cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan in the peaceful use of atomic energy.

Promising directions were stated -- the creation of a national infrastructure and training of personnel for the nuclear energy of Uzbekistan, the construction of nuclear power plants and research reactors in the country, as well as their support throughout the life cycle.

The agreement also deals with the exploration and development of uranium deposits in Uzbekistan, the reclamation of uranium tailings, the production of radioisotopes and their application in industry, medicine and agriculture, and scientific and basic research.

The agreement envisages the formation of joint working groups for the implementation of specific projects and scientific research, as well as the exchange of experts, the organization of seminars and symposia.

In the course of the visit, Likhachev also announced that Rosatom is ready to build the most modern two-block nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan.

Our proposal is to build a station of two modern blocks of the three plus generation VVER-1200 here in Uzbekistan, in the time that the Uzbek side considers acceptable. Our experience in the construction of such stations is very solid, he said.

A possible NPP project will have a huge national importance for Uzbekistan, according to the director general.

We are talking about diversifying our own energy complex, and, therefore, ensuring energy security of Uzbekistan, the head of Rosatom noted.

Likhachev added that the possible construction of nuclear power plants will create about 5,000-6,000 jobs, and 1,500-2000 jobs will e created during the operation of the station.

On November 2, Rosatom and Uzbekistans Academy of Sciences signed a memorandum on cooperation in the field of using atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

The memorandum on cooperation in the field of using atomic energy for peaceful purposes records the intentions of the parties to develop cooperation in the areas related to the practical application of nuclear technologies and training of personnel.

In particular, it stipulates "the development of cooperation in such areas as the creation and development of nuclear infrastructure in Uzbekistan, the development of programs to raise public awareness of nuclear technologies and their application."

Rosatom brings together assets in the field of nuclear energy, design and construction of nuclear power plants, power engineering. The company accounts for 36 percent of the global uranium enrichment market and 17 percent of the nuclear fuel market.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
29 December 2017 15:03 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

A meeting on the current financial and economic situation of the chemical industry enterprises and further development of the sector was held on December 28 under the chairmanship of the Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the press service of the president reported.

In accordance with the Strategy for the five priority areas of development of Uzbekistan in 2017, a number of transformations have been made in the chemical industry.

In particular, in accordance with the decree of the president On measures to improve the management structure of Uzkimyosanoat JSC of April 12, 2017, the membership of the board of the joint-stock company was completely updated; the structures of the branches and the administrative apparatus of the chemical industry were reorganized.

By the decree of the head of state dated August 23 of this year, the Program for the Development of the Chemical Industry for 2017-2021 was approved.

It is envisaged to implement 43 investment projects with a total cost of $3.1 billion, to increase industrial production by 2.4 times, their exports - 2.7 times, to raise the share of localized products up to 42.5 percent and to master the production of 43 new types products, as well as to create over 3,200 jobs.

In order to regulate the export-import activities of the industry, ensure transparency of foreign trade operations, and most importantly, increase the volume and expand the geography of sales of chemical products in the foreign market, further increase its competitiveness and attractiveness, the limited liability company Uzkimoyimpeks was organized.

The ongoing large-scale reforms have a positive effect on the chemical industry. However, the systemic problems in the industry that have accumulated over the years still await their solution. Thus, industrial enterprises for the production of mineral fertilizers found themselves in a difficult financial situation.

A complete lack of attention or a superficial approach to the financing of agriculture is the reason for the shortcomings in the system of mutual settlements in this sphere, the president noted.

The costs associated with mineral fertilizers for agricultural needs are not covered. As a result, chemical enterprises are limited in their ability to pay for the consumption of natural gas, electricity, phosphate raw materials, sulfuric acid and other types of goods and services consumed, and their accounts payable.

In this regard, starting from 2018, the supply of mineral fertilizers to consumers is planned to be carried out through exchange trades through the intermediation of the single agent organized under Uzkimyosanoat.

However, there are shortcomings in reducing the cost of mineral fertilizers and increasing the profitability of the industry.

In particular, 67 percent of the cost of nitrogen fertilizers are energy costs. Ferghanaazot, Dekhkanabad Potash Fertilizer Plant, Kokand Superphosphate Plant, Ammophos-Maxam and Maxam-Chirchik companies conclude 2017 with low profitability, and Navoiazot with losses.

In such conditions, enterprises are completely limited in the formation of their own working capital and are forced to solve problems by attracting loans at 16-18 percent per annum.

In this connection, Uzkimyosanoat JSC was instructed jointly with the relevant ministries and departments to develop a program of concrete measures to reduce the cost of production of chemical products and increase its competitiveness in 2018-2019.

Another problem that needs attention is the wear of the main process equipment. As a consequence, the technological process is disrupted, due to lack of funds, the equipment remains without current and major repairs.

Mirziyoyev noted the need to develop a sectoral plan for the implementation of current and major repairs.

When considering the issue of providing agriculture on a scientifically based basis with phosphate fertilizers, it was noted that the existing requirement for 639,600 tons is provided only by 25 percent. In this regard, by upgrading the existing facilities, it is envisaged to increase production to 177,000 tons in 2019, and by building a new phosphate fertilizer production complex in 2021 - up to 550,000 tons.

At the meeting, the activities of research and design institutes, centers for professional development and diagnostics were analyzed in a critical spirit.

The development of the chemical industry, the provision of appropriate products of competitiveness in the world market, the fundamental diversification of the sphere directly depend on research, design, engineering, diagnostic centers and, most importantly, on the capacity of personnel.

However, the state of affairs in this direction is still in an unsatisfactory state.

In this connection, Uzkimyosanoat JSC was entrusted together with the relevant ministries and departments, as well as the South Korean Research Institute of Chemical Technologies, to organize a single center combining research, engineering, design and diagnostic activities, as well as staff development.

The officials were given appropriate instructions on the issues discussed at the meeting.
Sioux City, Iowa-based Pierce Street Same Day Surgery filed a lawsuit against several of its physician owners to enforce a non-compete clause in their contracts and prevent them from moving forward with plans to open another ASC across the border in Nebraska, according to the Sioux City Journal.

Here are six things to know:

1. Pierce Street, a joint venture ASC between UnityPoint Health and physician owners, is suing Sioux City-based Tri-State Specialists and its CEO Lee Hilka to prevent the group from partnering with four of the center's physician partners in the development and promotion of Riverview Surgical Center, currently under construction across the Missouri River in South Sioux City, Neb. The ASC is also seeking an injunction against four physicians from owning, operating or being employed by Riverview.

2. Tri-State Specialists broke ground on the $37 million Riverview Surgical Center in November. The ASC offers many of the same services as Pierce Street and is scheduled to open in 2019. Riverview is differentiated in one key aspect: the 50,000-square-foot ASC is located adjacent to Delta Hotels by Marriott, allowing patients with more complex procedures to stay at the hotel overnight next to the center. Another key difference is certificate of need requirements; Iowa is a CON state requiring state permission to build or expand medical facilities while Nebraska does not require a review process prior to construction.

3. In the lawsuit, Pierce Street maintains physicians who are current or former members of the center have operating agreements with non-compete provisions that would prohibit them from becoming involved in Riverview or any other hospitals or ASCs within 30 miles of Pierce Street while members or for one year after terminating membership. Riverview is less than four miles away from Pierce Street, which could lose up to 60 percent of its patient volume currently referred by Tri-State physicians.

4. According to the report, Pierce Street alleges physicians named in the suit began recruiting other physicians to Riverview while still members at Pierce Street. The lawsuit claims "breach of contract, intentional interference with a contract and with prospective business advantage, breach of duty of loyalty and conspiracy."

5. Pierce Street and Tri-State both operate out of the same building on the UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's campus in Sioux City. The suit contends Mr. Hilka, who previously served as Pierce Street's CEO, and physician partners distributed Riverview-branded materials including mugs and pens to staff and patients, which Pierce Street says has made recruiting additional investors challenging. They also had access to Pierce Street's building and business plans.

6. Tri-State disputes the suit and plans to move forward with Riverview's construction, set to begin in the spring of 2018. A hearing for the suit is scheduled for Jan. 10, according to the report.
Top Doctors Award recognized William Maher, MD, as a 2017 Top Doctor in Somersworth, N.H.

Here's what you should know:

1. Dr. Maher is a gastroenterologist at Atlantic Digestive Specialists in Somersworth.

2. After earning his medical degree from Newark-based University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Dr. Maher completed an internship, residency and fellowship at University of Rochester (N.Y.). He completed an additional fellowship in therapeutic endoscopy at Madison-based University of Wisconsin.

3. Dr. Maher has been in practice for two decades.

4. He treats irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease and Celiac disease, among others.
The following hospitals announced or completed plans in the last week to expand, upgrade or renovate their facilities.

1. Medical University of South Carolina seeks CON to build $325M hospital

Charleston-based Medical University of South Carolina is filing a certificate-of-need application with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control for the development of a new $325 million hospital.

2. 327-bed Florida hospital plans $123M expansion

Jupiter (Fla.) Medical Center is planning a $123 million expansion, which includes a cancer institute, stroke program and an intensive care unit for heart patients and infants.



3. Uvalde Memorial Hospital to build $83M replacement facility

Uvalde (Texas) Memorial Hospital has started construction on an $83 million, two-story replacement facility.



4. NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull opens clinic for LGBTQ community

NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull in New York City opened the Pride Health Center, a facility providing healthcare services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning/queer patients.

5. BayCare Health System to receive $308M makeover

Clearwater, Fla.-based BayCare Health System will invest $308 million to expand three of its existing hospitals.



More articles on facilities management:

Twin Cities hospital plans to add 100 beds, 950 employees by 2040

Christus Bossier Emergency Hospital to open in February

Medical University of South Carolina seeks CON to build $325M hospital
A Congress MLA, stuck in a ruckus in Shimla, was seen on video slapping a woman constable. Not willing to back down, the constable slapped the MLA back.

By India Today Web Desk: India is used to hearing stories and seeing videos of politicians in power (sometimes, even of those out of power) browbeating, and at times literally beating, administrative officials.

But, rarely do we come across incidents where those officials hit back, literally. Such a rare instance was seen today in Shimla where Congress MLA Asha Kumari thought it normal to slap a woman police constable.

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The constable, however, wasn't ready to go without a fight and slapped Kumari in return, following which the MLA landed another slap before the video of the incident cut away.

The video, shared by news agency ANI on Twitter, shows Kumari stuck in a massive crowd. She, ANI reported, was trying to gain entry to a meeting being held by Congress president Rahul Gandhi to review the grand old party's recent Himachal Pradesh election loss.

At one moment, Kumari, who can be seen arguing, slaps a woman constable to her right, sparking off the series of slaps described above.

Watch the video here:

#WATCH Shimla: Congress MLA Asha Kumari assaults woman constable, gets slapped back. She was being allegedly denied entry by Police in Rahul Gandhi's review meeting (amateur video) pic.twitter.com/puvMRnHKss- ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

Soon after the video went viral, Kumari, who won from the Dalhousie seat in the recent Himachal Pradesh election, issued a clarification via an unverified Twitter account.

"The constable on duty first denied entry in my own party's program despite of reading the pass and then used abusive language and tried to manhandle me to which I reacted in self defence," Kumari said. "I have been in public life since last 35 years and have no such unparliamentary history."

WATCH | Himachal Congress MLA slaps woman constable, gets slapped back

--- ENDS ---
CMS' cancellation of major bundled payment initiatives and hospital closures and bankruptcy filings were among the healthcare finance topics that piqued the interest of readers this past year.

Below are the 10 most popular finance stories published by Becker's Hospital Review in 2017.

1. CMS will cancel major bundled payment initiatives

In August, CMS proposed canceling the cardiac and expanded joint replacement bundled payment models. CMS issued a final rule in November to officially cancel the hip fracture and cardiac bundled payment programs and rollback some mandatory requirements in the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Model.

2. Dallas hospital unexpectedly closes

Walnut Hill Medical Center, a 100-bed for-profit hospital in Dallas, abruptly closed June 4 and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy just four days later.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. CHS to sell 25 hospitals as net loss swells to $1.7B in 2016

To improve its finances and trim its debt load, Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems put a turnaround plan into place in 2016 that included selling off 17 hospitals. After ending 2016 with a net loss of $1.7 billion, the company said it would sell 25 hospitals, and it later extended the divesture plan to 30 hospitals. In November, the company said it had sold the 30 hospitals and planned to unload additional facilities worth $2 billion in revenue.

6. Los Angeles hospital closes, lays off all 638 employees

Pacific Alliance Medical Center in Los Angeles, which provided care for more than 150 years, closed Nov. 30.

7. California hospital suspends all services, notifies 524 employees of possible layoffs

Tulare (Calif.) Regional Medical Center filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in late September, and one month later the hospital's management company closed the facility.

8. Mayo Clinic to give preference to privately insured over Medicaid, Medicare patients

Mayo Clinic CEO John Noseworthy, MD, told employees in a speech earlier this year that the Rochester, Minn.-based system will "prioritize" patients with private insurance over Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries if the patients have similar conditions and seek care at the same time. Dr. Noseworthy said Mayo will continue to take all patients, regardless of payer source, and the policy will not apply to patients seeking emergency care.

9. Operator of 179 cancer treatment centers files for bankruptcy

Fort Myers, Fla.-based 21st Century Oncology Holdings, a cancer care services provider, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May.

10. Trump's $4.1 trillion budget: 9 healthcare takeaways

President Donald Trump released his first full budget plan in May, which included key proposals related to healthcare.

More articles on healthcare finance:

HCA lets major shareholders nominate directors after activist investor pushes for change

Maine hospital attributes Medicare penalty to employee coding errors

Which healthcare companies excel in financial strength?
The federal Health IT Advisory Committee is set to hold its first public meeting Jan. 18 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., according to a Dec. 22 notice in the federal register.

The 25-member Health IT Advisory Committee was created under the 21st Century Cures Act, which former President Barack Obama signed into law December 2016. The committee of experts  appointed by Congressional leaders, the HHS secretary and the comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office  will provide policy recommendations to the ONC related to interoperable health IT infrastructure.

Appointees to the committee include healthcare stakeholders like Steve Ready, CIO of Louisville, Ky.-based Norton Healthcare; Steven Lane, MD, clinical informatics director of Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health; and biotech entrepreneur and surgeon Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD.

The Health IT Advisory Committee plans to hold public meetings throughout 2018.

To access the federal register's notice, click here.
Forty-three percent of health executives are anticipating merger and acquisition dealmaking, up from 36 percent last year, according to Ernst and Young's annual Capital Confidence Barometer.

Here are three findings from the survey, which comprised responses from 3,000 senior executives across industries.



1. Respondents identified "acquiring new customers" and "innovation" as top drivers of investment.

"It's notable that innovation is becoming a primary driver during acquisitions, as it may point to an industry realization: emerging technologies like data analytics, IoT-enabled devices and robotic process automation are necessary to compete in the current health landscape," according to EY analysts.

2. Executives from all industries are enthusiastic about the global economic outlook. Eighty-three percent predict further improvement, up from 67 percent who said the same six months ago.



3. Nearly all (98 percent) of respondents said global corporate earnings will improve or remain stable.



More articles on transactions and valuations:

Care New England, Partners HealthCare extend merger deadline

Blessing Health System, Hannibal Clinic merge

Summa Health finalizes sale of Ohio hospital after 3-year battle with partner


Police arrested a Jacksonville, Fla.-based infectious disease specialist after a patient accused the physician of masturbating during an examination, according to a report from First Coast News.

Om Kapoor, MD, was charged with misdemeanor battery and indecent exposure on Dec. 20, according to a report from News4Jax. The physician was practicing at Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville at the time of the alleged incident.

The charges against Dr. Kapoor stem from allegations made by a male patient who'd been seeing the physician for about a year. The patient claims that on Dec. 14, Dr. Kapoor masturbated into a napkin while examining the patient's buttocks and genitals.

"We take seriously any allegations, especially charges of this nature, filed against physicians on the medical staffs of Baptist Health hospitals," said Baptist Health in a statement to Becker's. "We are cooperating with the police investigation regarding the allegations. Dr. Kapoor is on a leave of absence pending investigation."

Dr. Kapoor denies the allegations and was released from jail after making bond, according to First Coast News.
Health officials in the U.K. are considering nationwide deployment of 'drunk tanks' to lessen the strain heavy drinkers place on emergency rooms and ambulance services, according to ABC News.

Researchers from the National Health Service of England said Friday they are examining whether Alcohol Intoxication Management Services, known as drunk tanks, may be used on a national level. There are currently about 16 mobile units across several cities in England, according to BBC News.

The mobile drunk tanks provide a safe place for people who drank heavily and need to be watched over and sleep it off. The vehicles are equipped with beds, seats, two showers, medical drips, oxygen, blood testing equipment and a pump system. Paramedics staff the vehicles to provide basic treatment.

Health officials estimate 12 percent to 15 percent of England's emergency room visits are due to acute alcohol intoxication, with numbers increasing on weekends.

Heavy drinking is diverting resources sick people need, said Simon Stevens, CEO of NHS England. Mr. Stevens said it is wrong for health workers to devote precious time to people who "just need somewhere to safely sleep it off."
In my 30-plus years of nursing experience, Ive had the pleasure of helping patients across the continuum of care.

Disposable IV pressure bags were not available to us in the field when I was a pediatric nurse. Holding the IV bag with one hand and caring for the patient with my other hand was not an effective strategy for resuscitation. To ensure my patients received necessary fluids, I re-engineered the bags by taking tape and cinching it around the top of the IV bag like a corset. This caused a rush of fluids to stream down to the patient.

I am a big believer that products must support practice, but there is a general misconception that many products are utilitarian. Nurses are MacGyvers by nature. If a product does not fit into their workflow, they figure out a way to create a more effective solution.

An example of this is certainly alive and thriving at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Nurses there recognized a problem with IV infiltration in pediatric patients  they couldnt see what was happening with the IV site in real time. Knowing there had to be a better way, they collaborated with CHOPs Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation to create a tangible solution for protecting patients called the SeeIV. At the beginning of 2017, the team partnered with Medline to bring the product to market. I recently had the opportunity to speak with the clinical innovation team behind SeeIV  Registered Nurse Michele Davey, ICU Clinical Nurse Supervisor Jackie Anzalone, Manager of Enterprise Improvement Cheryl Gebeline-Myers and Venture and Innovation Manager Paul Dehel about their experience and their advice to nurses who are thinking about bringing bedside innovation to the masses.

Question: What motivated you to tackle the issue of IV infiltration?

Jackie Anzalone: Each year, more than 25 million peripheral IV lines are placed in hospital patients across the United States. If you break it down further, PIVs are placed in at least 44 percent of pediatric patients. In pediatric patients, the line is sometimes placed in their lower extremities so its really on us, the nursing staff, to make sure that the IV stays and to keep the patient safe.

Many hospitals have historically used an elbow brace to help avoid any tinkering of the line, but in order to assess the IV site, nurses have to remove the cover, which can be noisy and disruptive to the patients rest. It also decreases visibility of the IV site, which can prevent early detection of fluids leaking into surrounding tissue causing significant pain and damage known as an infiltration. Often times, infiltrations happen overnight between 3 a.m. -7 a.m. when patients rest presents barriers to assessment.

Question: Once you identified the challenge, what was the journey like to create a new solution?

Michele Davey: The most exciting part of our journey during development of the SeeIV was having the opportunity to take off our nursing shoes and, if only for a short time, become engineers, textile designers, lawyers and marketing professionals. It was an unreal experience that made us acutely aware of what is required to bring an idea to life to improve quality of care for our pediatric patients. We realized that our nursing experiences and knowledge were instrumental in product development. The partnership between CHOP and Medline was essential in supporting our journey in achieving a better outcome for our patients. At CHOP we strive to make the ideal patient experience. That is what we do!

Cheryl Gebeline-Myers: We felt strongly that being able to see the site directly through a little window would be less intrusive and also allow parents and patients to partner with the nursing staff in keeping an eye on the IV site.

CHOP is very fortunate to have an Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation that is dedicated to supporting bedside innovation by providing employees with an outlet to create and share new ideas and the vehicle to bring their ideas to action. Jackie, Michele and I all happened to propose similar ideas for a new IV site cover. This is when the collaboration began.

Jackie Anzalone: To make a better product, the team started from scratch by assessing everything that can go through an IV. Sitting around tables full of different fabrics, shapes and closures, we analyzed how patients would feel with the product and created multiple iterations before narrowing it down to one product that we have named the SeeIV. It allows nurses to constantly see the IV site through a clear window and is quiet to remove in order to assess the site.

Question: What is CHOP doing to create awareness of the SeeIV with hospitals around the country?

Paul Dehel: This fall, the team presented a session at one of the largest clinician gatherings in the country, the ANCC Magnet Conference in Houston. The topic of innovation sparked lots of discussion and curiosity which drives home even further how clinicians are the ultimate problem solvers at facilities across the country.

Question: How can nurses start an innovation hub at their facility if they dont currently have one?

Paul Dehel: Nurses or any providers that do not have access to innovation hubs in their own organization still have the ability innovate through meaningful collaboration. Before the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation ever commits funding or resources to ideas, we encourage innovators to talk to their colleagues both inside and outside of the organization. These conversations are not supposed to lead to our innovators giving away their new idea, but instead should serve as market research and analysis. We encourage CHOP innovators to verify the problem exists outside of their locus of control, obtain feedback on the proposed solution to the problem, and ask for recommendations for other individuals that could provide feedback. Practice at your organization with colleagues, managers and executive leaders, you will be surprised how often these conversations lead to potential development opportunities to spur your innovation onward.

In closing, it is crucial for facility leaders to support nurses by encouraging them to unleash their inner innovator. If employees feel motivated and empowered, it can create a stronger work environment.

Knowing how important it is for products to support practice, CHOP and Medline are currently developing a pilot to understand how SeeIV can help improve the delivery of care. To learn more about how the SeeIV became reality through nurse innovation and is designed to drive patient and clinician impact, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDS-ydw7JHs.

About the author

Martie Moore is chief nursing officer at Medline, where she provides nursing leadership for solution-driven clinical programs, delivers product development to enhance bedside practice and launches quality initiatives across the continuum of care. Prior to joining Medline, Martie was the chief nursing officer at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Ore. Under her leadership, Providence St. Vincent earned a third and fourth designation for Magnet.
The hiatus on the medical device excise tax is set to expire Dec. 31 and device makers are lobbying the White House to prevent the tax from taking effect, Forbes reports.

Here's what you should know:

1. The 2.3 percent tax on medical device sales was passed as part of the ACA. The tax was suspended in 2016 through the end of 2017. It was expected the tax would be repealed as part of the Republicans' tax reform policy, but it was unexpectedly excluded.

2. The pending reinstatement has caused panic in the medical device industry, which is heavily petitioning the White House to take action.

3. Reps. Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., and Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., introduced legislation that would suspend the tax for another five years last week. The medical device industry donates heavily to Mr. Paulsen.

4. Despite the recently proposed legislation, device makers are worried legislators will be put off voting on the issue until next year.

5. Republican legislators tried to permanently repeal the device tax as part of healthcare reform, but failed to do so in 2017.

6. Before the tax was suspended, Forbes reports the IRS collected between $1 and $2 billion from the tax. The Joint Committee on Taxation said a full repeal of the tax would cost the U.S. Treasury $20 billion over a decade.

7. Device makers argue the tax would hurt medical innovation, especially at small firms.
Europe's aviation market witnessed enormous upheaval in 2017. Ryanair was arguably centre-stage, first with its September admission that it had mismanaged its pilot rosters, resulting in the carrier cancelling thousands of flights and grounding aircraft into 2018 as it sought to fix the problem.

However, the crisis also unleashed a push for what will eventually be a dramatic change at the 32-year-old airline, with its landmark decision this month to recognise trade unions.

It was a major U-turn from the entrenched position Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary had clung to for decades: that union recognition would never happen at the airline.

In September the threats to its 4,200 pilots begun as it became evident they were agitating for change. "I don't even know how there would be industrial action in Ryanair," Mr O'Leary said that month following the airline's AGM. "There isn't a union in Ryanair. There has been no demand for new contracts."

He added that any pilots who engage in industrial action could "kiss goodbye" to pay increases, but insisted it wasn't a threat.

"We'd never threaten our pilots. We have some goodies to discuss with pilots, but if pilots misbehave, that will be the end of discussion on goodies. I don't think that would be construed as a threat," he said.

But as its pilots became more organised, it was apparent there was a real desire among large numbers of them for change.

The rostering failure wasn't the result of just some administrative challenge - it unmasked a significant problem Ryanair had with retaining pilots.

As Ryanair intensified efforts to keep a lid on the fallout, it also canned efforts to acquire part of the failed Italian flag carrier Alitalia.

Meanwhile, the pilots methodically plotted their strategy, creating Ryanair company councils under the auspices of unions around Europe, ensuring that any industrial action they might take was legally water-tight.

The acrimony from the Ryanair side intensified, as a newly-formed pilot group sought to engage with the airline.

Former Ryanair executive Peter Bellew, who had been working as chief executive of Malaysia Airlines, was drafted back in to the Dublin-based carrier as chief operations officer.

He was tasked with sorting out the pilot rostering mess and getting things generally back on track.

In December Mr Bellew gave his own damning take on how the Ryanair culture had broken.

Speaking to Ryanair pilots at London Stansted, the airline's biggest base, the day before the airline announced it would recognise unions, he said the tone at the carrier had become "miserable", even at head office.

The culture was one where pilots could not even get answers in many cases to simple requests, he admitted.

He acknowledged that retaining pilots was his key priority for now. In an interview with Reuters just two days later, Mr O'Leary insisted the idea to recognise unions had been his.

Ryanair staff pilots in Dublin who are members of the Irish Airline Pilots' Association had announced they would strike for 24 hours on December 20.

Pilots in Portugal and Germany were set to follow suit. In Italy, a strike was also planned.

Then on December 15 Ryanair announced that it would recognise unions.

The first talks have been held between Ryanair management and unions in what is going to be a turbulent flight path.

Elsewhere Aer Lingus, now part of the IAG group that owns British Airways, Iberia and Vueling, continued its transatlantic expansion. It added new long-haul A330s, and opened or announced routes to Miami, Philadelphia and Seattle.

However, in July the Belfast Telegraph revealed that BA would be cutting its weekday flights on the vital business Belfast to Heathrow route by one-third from the end of October.

In October Aer Lingus chief operating officer Mike Rutter said the airline will take delivery of eight Airbus A321LR long-range aircraft between 2019 and 2020. The will be used to further bolster its transatlantic network, and will add 700 jobs.

In November Aer Lingus chief executive Stephen Kavanagh said that the airline has no plans to rejoin the Oneworld alliance.

"We believe that we can bring more choice to the marketplace and grow in connected businesses without compromising any of our existing businesses or the consumer," he said.

"We're about building cost efficiency and capacity."

Aer Lingus and other carriers also saw transatlantic competition intensify with the launch of Norwegian Air's low-cost routes from Ireland to the US.

It began flying in July from Belfast International Airport to secondary airports TF Green Airport in Providence, Rhode Island - serving Boston - and Stewart International, which is around 70 miles from New York. There had been intense opposition in the US to the launch of the services, and the granting of Dublin-based Norwegian Air International (NAI, a unit of Norwegian Air Shuttle) the necessary permit to operate between Ireland and the US.

"Low-cost transatlantic is coming. So why stop it?" chief executive of NAI Tore Jenssen said in June.

"Try to make yourself more efficient instead of doing like the Americans do and trying to stop this for whatever it's worth."

"They know it's coming, but they try to stop it and milk the market for as long as they can. All they can do is slow it down, because it is coming."

With Brexit just over a year away, how the UK will fit into the EU's open skies is a question. Without a deal being sealed, it's possible in a worst-case scenario that there could be no flights operating between the EU and the UK for weeks after Brexit, which would have a calamitous impact.

Also, 2017 saw the collapse of Air Berlin as Gulf carrier Etihad said it could no longer provide financial support to the company.

Etihad's failed strategy of taking stakes in European and other carriers put it under significant pressure. It was also a major shareholder in Alitalia, but was no longer able to keep propping up that carrier, which went into administration in May.
Denis Tuohy holds a candle after the launch of BBC Two in 1964 was hit by a power blackout

The past can be no more than a phone call away. In my case the call came a few months ago from a producer for Channel 5. "We're putting together another collection of on-screen mishaps, when things have gone horribly wrong for TV presenters. Three of them involve yourself. Could we interview you about them?"

Looking at the clips after some years I was struck by how accurate my memories of them were.

But isn't that how it is with events you'd be happy to let fade into forgetfulness? It makes no difference that none of the three disasters were my fault. The one to be shown on New Year's Eve was the result of a fire in London.

As for the other two, which will figure in later episodes, one kicks off with a studio break-in and one came about through hiccups in the outside broadcast system.

None of that matters. It's the presenter who's in the spotlight and how he or she copes, or doesn't cope, is what the viewer responds to, often with hilarity.

I've also been going through mishaps in Channel 5's collection that have nothing to do with myself. There are occasions when "horribly wrong" can mean something worse than mere embarrassment.

Like the time in 1981 when Esther Rantzen earned the disapproval of a police constable on London's North End Road. She was presenter of That's Life, a long-running series that combined satire with hard-hitting investigations.

So there she was, filming interviews with the public and handing out samples of bat stew (honestly!) when a representative of the law warned that she was obstructing the pavement.

When she didn't move on she was arrested - with the camera still running - and taken away in a police van.

The incident was screened in the next episode of That's Life and was, of course, a huge hit.

There's a commonly used trick of the trade known as door-stepping where a TV reporter approaches someone out of the blue and starts asking questions which are often unwelcome.

This runs the risk of a four-letter response or something nastier. In a clip from an Australian channel a current affairs reporter confronts a man sitting in a parked car on a Queensland roadside. He accuses him of being a criminal.

The man doesn't just swear, though he does plenty of that. He gets out of the car and flies into a rage, kicking and punching the cameraman and the reporter who makes his escape down the road.

Reflecting on that scene I couldn't help wondering, as I'm sure would some others in my profession, how close I may have come, now and then, to a similar fate.

What did decide my fate, however, in a piece of broadcasting history and more importantly the fate of BBC Two's planned opening night was a fire at Battersea Power Station on April 20, 1964.

It blacked out many parts of London including the BBC Television Centre in Wood Lane. I was due to make my network debut as presenter of Line Up, the magazine programme which would get the new channel under way. When disaster struck we waited for several hours hoping that a revised schedule might be possible if and when power was restored but we waited in vain.

So what should we do 24 hours later and what should we say when we made our second attempt? The blackout had been front page news on April 21.

Everyone knew what had happened and not happened. The Line Up team decided that a brief reference, a you-know-what-we-mean throwaway, was how to deal with it. That's why the evening began with a candle flickering on a table in an empty studio. There was a wall clock, with the hand inching towards the start time - 7.20pm.

When it got there a dark haired young man came into view.

"Good evening. This is BBC Two."

I blew out the candle and said that my name was Denis Tuohy, thus earning myself the nickname BBC Tuohy. It all seemed quite clever at the time but the clip does look a bit weird, as I've been told more than once, to viewers who don't know the background story.

Much more awkward are disasters which strike while you're on air, live, and which, somehow, must not be allowed to overwhelm you.

In 1990 when Margaret Thatcher was being challenged for the Tory leadership I was presenter of ITV's flagship current affairs programme This Week. I was based in the main studio, Debi Davies was in Downing Street and Richard Lindley was in a Westminster studio.

Let's go to Debi, I said, after some opening words, for an update from Downing Street.

Well, we could see her there but she couldn't hear me and didn't know she was on air. So she didn't speak. All right then, we'll go to Richard who's with some MPs in Westminster.

Cut to Richard who did hear me and did speak but we couldn't hear him. Worse, what in fact we heard was the voice of the now unseen Debi in Downing Street. Back to me for a not too brilliant ad-lib about it being difficult to travel across central London.

The technical glitches were soon sorted out and the rest of the programme ran smoothly. But we all knew that wasn't how it would be remembered.

Hazards of many kinds are recalled in the Channel 5 series. There's a Brazilian TV host who gets too close to the action during a mule race.

A reporter at an air show in the west of England is hit by a low-flying plane but lives to tell the tale.

Presenters of a daytime show can do nothing during a life drawing item when the drape covering the artists' model is manifestly not covering one of the parts that matter most.

And there was the night I was introducing a discussion about comedy writing only to be interrupted when a frustrated writer who hadn't been invited broke into the studio and was hauled back and ejected on camera.

There was a time when the spectacle of things going wrong was more common than it is now. In the Sixties and Seventies reports for news and current affairs programmes were still being shot on film rather than videotape. Film, especially if it had been put together in a hurry, had the awkward habit of breaking when it was being played on air.

At which point the studio presenter would immediately be centre stage. A phone would ring on the desk and he or she would hear the studio director spell out plan B, not always coherently.

I remember Cliff Michelmore, one of BBC Television's biggest names over several decades, holding the phone away from his ear and wearily telling viewers "there's a man upstairs in two minds - and he can't make up either of them".

For a while I had the good fortune of being Cliff's co-presenter. As I was very much the junior partner it was always he who was called upon in a crisis but I learned a lot from observing his unflappable studio style at close range.

I've never forgotten how he once summed up the presenter's craft.

"Can you - if you have to - look straight into camera, with no hint of fear or anxiety in your eyes or your voice, and say to the audience, 'I have no idea what's going on'? If you know you can do that, then you've cracked it, my boy!"

All New When TV Goes Horribly Wrong, New Year's Eve, Channel 5, 9.55pm
Triple talaq Bill makes instant divorce a cognisable offence giving police right to arrest the accused without a warrant on a complaint filed by any person, not necessarily the affected woman.

By Prabhash K Dutta: The Bill making instant triple talaq punishable with a jail term of upto three years will be taken up by the Rajya Sabha next week in the New Year.

The Narendra Modi government has drafted the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 to give effect to the Supreme Court judgment declaring instant triple talaq unconstitutional.

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The triple talaq Bill, passed by the Lok Sabha yesterday, declares talaq-e-biddat a cognisable offence. This means any person can initiate criminal proceedings against a Muslim man, who pronounces instant triple talaq on his wife.

TRIPLE TALAQ LAW: WHAT MAY HAPPEN

It is not necessary for the affected woman to approach police, anyone can file complaint with the police if talaq-e-biddat is pronounced by a Muslim man upon his wife, said Atul Kumar, senior Supreme Court lawyer.

A neighbour of the couple, a relative or even a stranger who comes to know about such an instance of instant triple talaq can lodge an FIR with police.

Secondly, since it is a congisable offence, the police can arrest the Muslim man who pronounces instant triple talaq without a warrant.

Under Section 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, police can initiate a probe in the master of instant triple talaq after registering an FIR without waiting for an order from the magistrate.

Fourthly, as instant triple talaq has been declared a non-bailable cognisable offence, the accused cannot get bail from police station. Bail is no longer the right of the accused, it is the discretion of the court. He will have to appear before a court of magistrate or a higher court for seeking bail.

ARE THERE ANY CONTRADICTIONS IN TRIPLE TALAQ BILL?

The triple talaq Bill states that pronouncement of talaq-e-biddat will not result in end of marriage as such a divorce will be "void and illegal". In other words, talaq-e-biddat is a meaningless utterance in the eyes of law, still the Muslim man pronouncing instant triple talaq is liable for punishment for a "crime" that effectively does not take place.

"There seems to be a contradiction but it happens with many new legislations. Once the triple talaq Bill is enacted and comes into effect, the judiciary will use the principle of harmonious reading of seemingly contradictory laws to redefine the legal limits," Atul Kumar explained.

The triple talaq Bill also provides that the affected woman would be entitled to receive appropriate maintenance from her husband. "This is at variance with other laws. According to the Hindu Marriage Act, father is the natural guardian of the minor children. The triple talaq Bill has a different provision in this regard," said Atul Kumar.

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But then the triple talaq Bill says that the Muslim man pronouncing talaq-e-biddat will face criminal proceedings leading to his arrest and imprisonment upon conviction. "So, triple talaq law cannot make an accused person facing imprisonment upto three years guardian of the minor children," Kumar reasoned.

"On the question of maintenance, there is no contradiction in the triple talaq Bill. Divorce is not a prerequisite for a woman to seek maintenance from husband. She can seek maintenance even when she stays with her husband but he does not maintain her adequately," Atul Kumar said.

"Under Section 125 of the CrPC, a woman, children and dependent parents are entitled to seek maintenance. So, even if triple talaq Bill states that talaq-e-biddat does not result in divorce, the woman is legally entitled to get proper maintenance," he added.

IS THERE ANY FEAR OF MISUSE?

There is a fear that the triple talaq law, if it comes into force, may be misused as the anti-dowry provisions under IPC Section 498A. The misuse of Section 498A is widely documented.

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In July this year, the Supreme Court issued a set of guidelines to police and magistrates in checking misuse of Section 498A. The Supreme Court ruled that a case under Section 498A would not automatically lead to arrest of the accused. It prescribed a multi-layered enquiry and involvement of civil society before such cases could be taken to trial stage.

"The fact that Section 498A is a congisable and non-bailable offence has lent it a dubious place of pride among the provisions that are used as weapons rather than shield by disgruntled wives. The simplest way to harass is to get the husband and his relatives arrested under this provision," the Supreme Court bench of Justices Chandramauli Kumar Prasad and Pinaki Chandra Ghose observed.

Atul Kumar says, "The triple talaq law may see a similar trend among Muslims. The government should learn from the experience of cases under Section 498A and put effective checks and balances in place to prevent misuse of the proposed triple talaq law."

ALSO WATCH | Lok Sabha passes Triple Talaq Bill 2017

--- ENDS ---

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Another 400 doctors are needed to address a shortfall in out-of-hours provision in Northern Ireland, it has been warned

Another 400 doctors are needed to address a shortfall in out-of-hours provision in Northern Ireland, it has been warned.

Currently the average GP has more than 2,000 patients on their books. Dr Tom Black, who chairs the BMA's Northern Ireland GP committee, said the workload is affecting the out-of-hours service, adding that at least 400 extra GPs are needed.

The warning comes as emergency departments in the Western Trust are reporting a "particularly busy" period.

Dr Black said: "For every one person who goes to A&E, three will go to GP out-of-hours, which is what we expect and that is the way it is meant to be.

"The problem with the current situation with the out-of-hours service is very simple - there isn't enough GPs.

"The GPs we do have are concentrating more and more on their daytime work, which is when most of the work is done, but that means they are not available for the out-of-hours and therefore the out-of-hours service is struggling.

"The average number of patients per GP is more than 2,000. In the 1950s it was more like 1,500 per GP, which is the level we need to get back to, but in order to do that we need another 300 to 400 GPs."

A spokeswoman for the Health and Social Care Board said patients whose needs are "urgent" should be contacted within an hour.

She said: "The GP out-of-hours service in the Western area experienced exceptionally high demand over the Christmas period. However, the majority of patients with the most urgent need received a call back from a GP or nurse within 60 minutes.

"Patients with less urgent conditions may have to wait longer for a call back during busy periods."
An all-Ireland appeal has been issued for two women missing from Belfast and Newry.

Police have said the families of Saoirse Smyth and Joanne Phelan are becoming increasingly concerned for their welfare, especially as there has been no contact from either of them over the Christmas period.

An appeal in the Republic has been issued by An Garda Siochana on behalf of the PSNI.

Saoirse, 28, is described as being 411 tall, slim build, with red hair and blue eyes. Saoirse was last seen in the Belfast area in May 2017.

Joanne, 47, is described as being 55 tall, slight built, with brown shoulder length hair and hazel eyes. Joanne was last seen in the Newry area in February 2017. Police have not issued a picture of the woman for their appeal.

Detective Inspector Paul Rowland said: "It is believed that Saoirse and Joanne may be together and we are appealing to Saoirse and Joanne, or anyone who knows of their whereabouts to contact Police on 028 9065 0222, quoting reference 833 19/12/17.
Next year could be a defining one for the peace process, the chairman of the Community Relations Council (CRC) has said as he urged politicians to help move the process forward.

This year saw the DUP and Sinn Fein fail to come to an agreement to restore power-sharing at Stormont, with the two biggest parties at loggerheads over issues including the Irish language, the legacy of the Troubles and same-sex marriage.

In a New Year message, Peter Osborne said the next 12 months may provide "opportunity out of crisis" for the peace process to be strengthened.

He said: "2018 could well be a seminal year... there is no inevitable forward flow to the peace process.

"But there are times when a critical point is reached, times for big decisions and a step change - 2018 may be the year to push on or run the risk of withering.

"Opportunity can come out of crisis; 2018 may be the year for a seminal and positive step change. It needs leadership, will and imagination.

"Civil society is well placed to deliver seminal change, but it needs support from a functioning and motivated political sector.

"We must keep moving forward with a clear and credible path for reconciliation that overcomes a debilitating disillusion and that deals with issues including segregated housing, segregated education, and how we commemorate the past.

"And whilst much positive work is happening in these areas, much more needs to be done.

"This is not a game, and everyone with a stewardship and safeguarding role needs to realise those responsibilities.

"Input from the two governments has always been critical. It is in all our interests that they rediscover their concerted and often visionary approach of the past."

The CRC was established in 1990 to lead change towards reconciliation, tolerance and mutual trust in Northern Ireland.

Mr Osborne said the current challenges facing the peace process were the "most testing in a generation", and urged politicians and agencies to tackle issues such as paramilitary attacks, segregated housing and peace walls.

He highlighted some of the positive work being done in communities as a cause for hope.

Mr Osborne cited the 'Buddy Up' programme, which brings together children and parents from Catholic and Protestant schools in north Belfast to build relationships and friendships while learning.
File photo dated 07/08/13 of former DUP leader Ian Paisley (right) and former deputy leader Peter Robinson. The Rev Ian Paisley favoured religious fundamentalists over his DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson during the first roundtable peace talks between the main parties in Northern Ireland, records disclosed.

The Israeli ambassador to the UK claimed Ian Paisley had contacted him "to obtain arms", state papers have revealed.

In June 1985 Noel Dorr, Ireland's ambassador in London, wrote a letter to his boss in Dublin on the conversation he had at a recent function.

"I expressed surprise at this since I thought it unlikely that Paisley would leave himself open on something like this," Mr Dorr wrote.

The Israeli ambassador, Yahuda Avner, said Mr Paisley was talking about "border protection".

"I said I presumed that the emphasis was on surveillance equipment rather than on arms but the ambassador did not elaborate further on the detail of the request," Mr Dorr said.

"I would assume that what happened is that Paisley may have written to the Ambassador to seek a meeting in regard to 'border protection'. The Ambassador possibly interpreted this general phrase as referring to weapons rather than technology."

The ambassador told Mr Paisley that "these things" could only be dealt with between governments.

The letter can be seen in documents held by the National Archives from the Department of Foreign Affairs under code 2017/4/78.
Detectives have appealed for witnesses following a robbery in the Beersbridge Road area of Belfast.

The incident happened at around 5.40pm on Thursday, when a man entered the premises armed with a knife.

He approached the counter, demanded a member of staff open a till, and then took cash.

It is believed he fled the scene on foot.

Detective Sergeant Moffett would appeal to anyone who was in the area of the Beersbridge Road, Belfast at this time and noticed anyone acting suspiciously to contact Detectives at Musgrave Criminal Investigation Branch on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference 1035 28/12/17.

Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime.
A teenager has been charged with the murder of a brave nurse who died trying to save her daughter's life on Christmas Day.

Jayne Toal Reat (43), who worked in Craigavon Area Hospital, died in her daughter's arms following the stabbing which happened shortly before 6am on Monday morning at a house on Mornington Lane in Lisburn.

Her 21-year-old daughter Charlotte, who lives in Comber, was injured in the attack along with a male victim who is understood to be Jayne's partner Joe.

Both were taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital for treatment before being discharged a short time later.

Yesterday, detectives from the PSNI's serious crime branch charged a 19-year-old man who was arrested soon after the attack with murder and two counts of attempted murder.

He is expected to appear before Craigavon Magistrates Court today.

It is understood a Christmas Eve party took place at the property before the attack.

Police officers were already attempting to resuscitate the victim by the time four ambulance crews arrived at the scene at around 6am.

Within hours of the attack, Jayne's traumatised and heartbroken daughter revealed that her mother had died a "hero" after trying to save her.

"Today will be a day I will never forget as my mum was murdered in front of my eyes and then later died in my arms," she posted online.

"I can still feel her in my arms and hear her screams of pain and see the panic on her face.

"My mum died saving me."

The talented dancer and choreographer, who has been a winner for the past two years in the Strictly Craigavon Dancing competition, also revealed the extent of her own injuries.

"I was stabbed twice in the head, once in my face and once to the back of my neck," she added.

Close friend Jayne Holly Millar also took to social media where she posted an emotional tribute and vowed to get justice for her "second mummy" and "role model".

"I still can't come to terms with what's happened but I just wanted to say Jayne you were far more than a second mummy to me - you were a friend, family, a counsellor, a shoulder to cry on, a teacher, a role model, an inspiration, a ray of sunshine and a comedian," she wrote.

Ms Millar added: "I will stand by Charlotte through everything Jayne.

"Every single step of the way, I will always be there for her. We will get you justice.

"I love you so much, Jayney."
The Rev Dr Liz Hughes with the bowl at the reopening of Whitehouse Presbyterian Church in 2005

The Rev Dr Liz Hughes holds up a rose bowl that survived the arson attack on her church

A Newtownabbey minister who was the first woman to be runner-up in the election for Presbyterian Moderator will take her final morning service at Whitehouse Presbyterian Church on Sunday.

In 2014 the Rev Dr Elizabeth Hughes lost out to the Rev Michael Barry from Newry, who received seven of 19 votes from across Ireland.

She tied for second place on six votes with the Rev Ian McNie from Ballymoney, who became Moderator the following year.

Many people hoped that, having been runner-up, the Presbyterians would elect her as their first female leader, but they failed to do so.

As minister of Whitehouse she showed outstanding leadership in the aftermath of a devastating arson attack in 2002, which was followed by major flood damage in 2008.

She also spearheaded extensive mission work locally through the Alpha Course, as well as overseas where she helped to set up a Connected Churches link with Tearfund for the Moucecoure grouped parish in Rwanda.

On the eve of her retirement from full-time parish ministry, the Rev Hughes said: "This congregation's life and energy does not arise from its minister or Kirk Session.

"By the power of God's spirit, it is energised by the army of unnamed volunteers who are engaged in its many ministries.

"Whitehouse Church members have a heart to serve and a heart for people."

The Rev Hughes, known for her regular BBC Thought For The Day broadcasts, was educated at Portadown College.

She qualified in Edinburgh as a registered general nurse and became a deaconess before taking up the ministry.

She served as an assistant in High Street Antrim and was ordained in 1986. The next year she married the Rev Brian Hughes and they served as missionaries in Jamaica until 1995.

Back in Northern Ireland she was an assistant minister in First Bangor, and was appointed to Whitehouse in 2000.

In 2002 the church was severely damaged by the blaze, but despite a terrifying ball of flame that almost destroyed the Victorian building dating from 1867, the Fire Service managed to rescue a silver bowl.

The Belfast Telegraph published a photograph of the Rev Hughes holding up the bowl amid the shell of the ravaged church.

Under her leadership a new building was opened in 2005. The total cost was 1.2m, of which the congregation raised 220,000. The Government compensation was some 650,000.

Other churches and friends contributed to the rebuilding fund, including 10,000 from local Catholic parishes.

This reflected Whitehouse's strong ecumenical outreach in the area.

Following the reopening, the church was just getting back to normal when extensive rainfall caused severe flooding in the building in 2008.

On November 24 Whitehouse Presbyterian Church celebrated its 150th anniversary.

In 2016 the Rev Hughes was awarded an honorary doctorate in divinity for her outstanding service, becoming only the second female Presbyterian minister to be recognised in this way.

The Rev Hughes hopes to retain her involvement with the wider Presbyterian Church for the next few years as convenor for its Global Mission.
The scene in May 1987 following an attack on Loughgall RUC station, Co Armagh, during which eight IRA members were killed in an SAS ambush

Gerry Adams was rumoured to have set up a notorious IRA gang for ambush by the SAS as they tried to blow up a police station in May 1987, previously secret files have revealed.

Eight members of the Provisional's East Tyrone Brigade were shot dead after they loaded a 200lb bomb onto a stolen digger and smashed through the gates of the RUC barracks in Loughgall, Co Armagh.

British Army special forces were lying in wait and killed them all, along with innocent bystander Anthony Hughes.

Declassified documents released through the National Archives in Dublin revealed that ballistic tests on weapons found on the dead were used in 40-50 murders, including every republican killing in Fermanagh and Tyrone in 1987.

Three civilian contractors had been murdered in the counties that year along with officers in the RUC and British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment.

The rumour about Mr Adams was passed on to Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs by respected cleric Fr Denis Faul about three months after the Loughgall operation.

The priest, who had been at school in St Patrick's Academy, Dungannon with Padraig McKearney, one of the IRA gang, said the theory doing the rounds was that "the IRA team were set up by Gerry Adams himself".

Fr Faul said he was "intrigued" by the theory.

In response to the reported remarks in the Government file, a Sinn Fein spokesman said: "These claims are utter nonsense."

Fr Faul, a school teacher and chaplain in Long Kesh prison, said the rumour was that two of the gang - Jim Lynagh, a councillor in Monaghan, and McKearney - "had threatened to execute Adams shortly before the Loughgall event".

It was being claimed that Lynagh and McKearney "disliked Adams' political policy" and that they were leaning towards Republican Sinn Fein.

Three days after the operation, Tanaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Lenihan wrote to Northern Ireland Secretary of State Tom King urging him not to triumph over the killings.

"We asked you through the Secretariat to be mindful of the need to avoid any sense of triumphalism on the part of your authorities," Mr Lenihan said.

"It is necessary that sensitivity be shown in regard to the funerals which are now taking place and that the investigation of the events should pay particular attention to the question of whether such a large number of casualties, including the civilian casualty, could have been avoided."

Mr King wrote back over a week later and revealed: "My advice is that that (IRA) group had at least 40-50 murders to their score over the years."

Notes from briefings by the British Government to Irish officials in London revealed the security forces claimed the IRA fired first; that the gun battle lasted two to three minutes; that the SAS fired "no more rounds than were necessary"; and that every IRA weapon had been fired.

Along with Lynagh and McKearney, the IRA gang included Gerard O'Callaghan, 29, Tony Gormley, 25, Eugene Kelly, 25, Patrick Kelly, 30, Seamus Donnelly, 19, and Declan Arthurs, 21.

The operation has long been associated with questions of an informer having tipped off the RUC and British Army.

In the same file, Bishop of Clogher Joseph Duffy told a diplomat that Lynagh was a "madman" and was believed to have been responsible for 20 murders, including that of Sir Norman Stronge and his son in January 1981.

The documents from the Department of Foreign Affairs can be read in the National Archives in Dublin in file 2017/4/74.
An advertisement promising magical weight loss with the help of a pill had even the vice president of India confused recently.

By Balkrishna: The menace of fake advertisement recently had Venkaiah Naidu fooled when the vice president ended up losing around Rs 1,000 to a promising weight loss tablet.

Naidu revealed his experience in Rajya Sabha, of which he is the chairperson, today during a discussion on the problem of misleading and fake advertisement.

Samajawadi Party MP Naresh Agrawal first spoke on the issue, expressing concern over the prevalence of fake and/or misleading advertisement appearing in various media. VP Naidu then interjected to tell the House about his own experience.

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"Soon after becoming the vice president, I came across an advertisement of a medication that promised to help lose a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of time," Naidu recalled. "The advertisement asked for some one-thousand rupees, so I paid."

Then, however, instead of receiving a package of the pills, Naidu recieved a mail telling him there was another tablet he needed to buy to achieve the magical weight loss. That tablet cost another Rs 1,000 and he would be sent the original medication only after he paid money for the second one, the mail said.

This got Naidu suspicious and he then wrote to the consumer affairs ministry, detailing his experience. Ram Vilas Paswan, the consumer affairs minister, launched an inquiry and the minister surprised Naidu by telling him the company that issued the advertisement was not based in New Delhi but in the United States of America.

"There should be something done about such advertisements," Naidu said before ending his interjection by asking if Paswan had any comments. The minister, for his part, his ministry is working to bring in tough legislation to take action against companies that put out such advertisements.

WATCH | When India Today asked Venkaiah Naidu on vice-presidential aspirations: I'm Ushapati, husband of Usha

--- ENDS ---
The IRAs 1987 bombing of the Cenotaph in Enniskillen killed 12 people

The Enniskillen bomb may have been a carefully planned and premeditated attack aimed at provoking loyalists, previously classified Irish papers claim.

Officials were tasked with gauging the thinking behind the Remembrance Sunday atrocity which claimed 12 lives and left another 63 injured.

One diplomat warned the bombing may have been calculated to draw a loyalist backlash. The bomb exploded at the cenotaph in Enniskillen on November 8, 1987.

In a report for Dublin's Department of Foreign Affairs five days after the attack, the official disputed the IRA and Sinn Fein's explanation for the bombing and loss of life.

"The operation may not have been a bungled 'maverick' action, as Sinn Fein and the IRA have suggested," a diplomat wrote.

"It may have been a carefully planned, premeditated attack on Remembrance Day, aimed at provoking a loyalist backlash, driving a wedge between the two governments and bringing the Protestant community and the British back together."

The file also revealed that then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher viewed the attack as the "last straw" in a list of failures under the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Dermot Gallagher, an Irish government diplomat, wrote a confidential note on a lunch meeting with the PM's Press secretary, Bernard Ingham.

"There was a deep sense of shock in No 10," he said.

"Enniskillen has hardened Mrs Thatcher's heart," Mr Ingham said.

Documents on the atrocity also showed SDLP leader John Hume initially believed the IRA could not have carried out the attack. Two days after the incident he told a Department of Foreign Affairs contact that he had changed his mind and that the Provos were to blame "in the knowledge that there would be civilian casualties".

"If so they had completely misread the Catholic view of Poppy Day," he said.
Gerry Adams was rumoured to have set up a notorious IRA gang for ambush by the SAS as they tried to blow up a police station in May 1987, previously secret files have revealed.

Eight members of the Provisionals East Tyrone Brigade were shot dead after they loaded a 200lb bomb onto a stolen digger and smashed through the gates of the RUC barracks in Loughgall.

British special forces were lying in wait and killed them all, along with innocent victim Anthony Hughes.

Read More

Declassified documents released through the National Archives in Dublin revealed that ballistic tests on weapons found on the dead were used in 40-50 murders, including every republican killing in Fermanagh and Tyrone in 1987.

Three civilian contractors had been murdered in the counties that year, along with members of the RUC and UDR.

The rumour about Mr Adams was passed on to Irelands Department of Foreign Affairs by respected cleric Fr Denis Faul about three months after the Loughgall operation.

The priest, who had taught Padraig McKearney, one of the IRA men, at St Patricks Academy in Dungannon, said the theory doing the rounds was that the IRA team were set up by Gerry Adams himself. Fr Faul said he was intrigued by the theory.

In response to the reported remarks, a Sinn Fein spokesman said: These claims are utter nonsense.

Fr Faul, who was a chaplain at Long Kesh, said the rumour was that two of the gang  McKearney and Jim Lynagh, a councillor in Monaghan,  had threatened to execute Adams shortly before the Loughgall event.

It was being claimed that the pair disliked Adams political policy and that they were leaning towards Republican Sinn Fein.

Three days after Loughgall, Tanaiste and Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Lenihan wrote to Northern Ireland Secretary of State Tom King urging him not to display any triumphalism over the killings.

We asked you through the Secretariat to be mindful of the need to avoid any sense of triumphalism on the part of your authorities, Mr Lenihan said.

It is necessary that sensitivity be shown in regard to the funerals which are now taking place and that the investigation of the events should pay particular attention to the question of whether such a large number of casualties, including the civilian casualty, could have been avoided.

Mr King wrote back over a week later and revealed: My advice is that that (IRA) group had at least 40-50 murders to their score over the years.

Notes from briefings by the UK Government to Irish officials in London revealed the security forces claimed the IRA fired first, that the gun battle lasted two to three minutes, that the SAS fired no more rounds than were necessary, and that every IRA weapon had been fired.

Along with Lynagh (31) and McKearney (32), the IRA gang included Gerard OCallaghan (29), Tony Gormley (25), Eugene Kelly (25), Patrick Kelly (30), Seamus Donnelly (19) and Declan Arthurs (21).

The Loughgall ambush has long been associated with questions of an informer having tipped off the RUC and Army.

In the same file, Bishop of Clogher Joseph Duffy told a diplomat that Lynagh was a madman and was believed to have been responsible for 20 murders, including that of former Stormont Speaker Sir Norman Stronge (86) and his son James (48) in January 1981.

They were killed while watching television in the library of their home, Tynan Abbey, near Caledon, on January 21, 1981.

An IRA gang armed with machine guns used grenades to blast through the locked heavy doors to the mansion, before setting it alight.

The RUC and Army arrived at the scene and encountered at least eight IRA men.

A gunfight lasting 20 minutes followed, in which at least 200 shots were fired.

There were no casualties among the security forces, and the Provo gang escaped.

The bodies of the father and son were later discovered in the library of their blazing home. Each had gunshot wounds in the head.

A series of previously classified files have been released in Belfast, London and Dublin.

Since 1976, official records held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland which were 30 years old have been reviewed annually with a view to making them publicly available  a process that is known as the 30-year rule.

In September 2011 the Assembly accepted a legislative consent motion to reduce the time limit for release from 30 years to 20 years, in line with the practice London.

The 20-year rule is being phased in, with two years of records being reviewed and released each year. Records released today in Dublin  which still operates under the old system  are from 1987, and from 1992 in London and Belfast.
Israel mistakenly thought the late Ian Paisley wanted to import arms into Northern Ireland in the 1980s as IRA violence escalated following the delivery of weapons from Libya.

A confidential report from the Irish Embassy in London highlighted what diplomats believed was a misunderstanding by Israeli officials of the DUP leaders intentions for Northern Ireland.

The secret briefing, sent to the Republic's Department of Foreign Affairs by the country's ambassador to the UK Noel Dorr, outlined a bizarre conversation he had with senior Israeli officials.

"He (the Israeli Ambassador) said that Rev Ian Paisley had been in touch with him to obtain arms," Mr Dorr wrote.

"I expressed surprise at this since I thought it unlikely that Paisley would leave himself open on something like this.

"The ambassador said the request related to border protection. I said I presumed that the emphasis was on surveillance equipment rather than on arms but the ambassador did not elaborate further. He said he had replied to Paisley that these things could be dealt with only between governments."

Mr Dorr said he presumed Rev Paisley - later Lord Bannside - may have raised concerns about border protection issues.

Rev Paisley may have felt the Israelis, given their security expertise, might be in a position to help. But he said the Israelis "possibly interpreted this general phrase as referring to weapons rather than technology".

In a statement, Lord Bannside's son - North Antrim DUP MP Ian Paisley - rejected any insinuation his father had been involved in trying to buy weapons.

"The claims being made by the Press that my father was involved in an attempt to obtain arms from Israel are absolute nonsense," he said.

"The basis of a chat at a function between officials - where drink was taken - who were hostile Irish Government officials with their own prejudiced agenda, and where there are no official notes other than cloudy recollections - tells its own story. There is no doubt that given our poor border security in the 1980s, especially following the Tynan Abbey murders, my father made it his business to highlight how other countries could protect themselves from border incursions, such as Israel

"He publicly and privately urged HMG to up its game and protect our citizens. That is a very far stretch from an attempt to go about the private procurement of arms. Obviously, it is easily to slander the dead. If my father was alive this story wouldn't see the light of day."
A funeral in Enniskillen after the IRA bombing of the town in 1987

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher subjected Taoiseach Charles Haughey to a furious tirade where she said she was "upset" and "very angry" over Irish moves on extradition.

Secret files from 1987 revealed Mrs Thatcher warned the Republic's premier that her feelings "go deeper than anger" over an extradition stand-off.

Speaking at a Christmas meeting in Denmark, weeks after the Enniskillen bombing, the Prime Minister claimed that some Irish were acting as if Ango-Irish relations were back to the era of the Black & Tans, or even centuries earlier.

A top secret summary of the December 4 and 5 meeting in Copenhagen, on the fringes of an EU summit, is contained in a file from the Republic's Department of Foreign Affairs file for 1987.

It is among a batch of previously classified papers released by the National Archives in Dublin today.

Thatcher was so enraged over the extradition controversy that she reminded the Taoiseach that she did not have to sign the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement but had done so because she wanted to help resolve the Northern Ireland situation.

Under the Republic's new Extradition Act, Britain would not only have to give a written indication of an intent to prosecute a suspect, but would also have to offer a written summary of the prosecution evidence involved.

Without both requirements being met, Irish courts would not be able to extradite a suspect to the UK.

However, British legal officials warned the summary of prosecution evidence was impossible to provide - and raised concerns that British prosecution lawyers may ultimately have to offer evidence at Irish courts.

"I am extremely upset by your moves on extradition," Mrs Thatcher warned Mr Haughey. I am very angry about all of this.

"My feelings go deeper than anger.

"I know now from what you told me that you have extreme difficulties with your people, but where are they living?

"They are going back to the Black & Tans... or is it 400 years ago?

"The way they act shows the way an Irish court would behave with our Attorney General (Patrick Mayhew).

"I did not have to sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement - I could have got by without it.

"The only thing it has brought me is criticism and bad blood with the unionists.

"I had thought that if we operated it for a time, we could calm their fears - that has not come about. The nationalists are quite glad about it. I thought we could build on all that."

Mr Haughey tried to calm Mrs Thatcher's fears.

"I am sorry you feel so strongly - I can see you feel anger," he said. However, the Prime Minister immediately interrupted and warned "it is far deeper than that", adding: "It is not anger... the whole thing has suddenly collapsed."

Mr Haughey attempted to explain that the extradition requirements were minimal, but Mrs Thatcher again interjected.

"There is no way you can court-proof what you are doing," she warned.

"One other thing - we are a least-favoured nation."

The Taoiseach took exception to this and insisted: "You are a most-favoured nation."

Clearly recognising Mrs Thatcher's frustrations, Mr Haughey insisted that the issues could be resolved with goodwill on both sides.

He also insisted that the Republic was doing everything possible to crack down on paramilitary violence.

"Keep trying - you are one of the most able politicians," he said. "In the council, you want binding and effective budgetary discipline - apply the same thing here."

But the Prime Minister's exasperation was again clear.

She replied: "Why do I even try? I worked very hard at the Anglo-Irish Agreement - we thought we were getting better security."

Separately, Irish diplomats warned Mr Haughey that Mrs Thatcher feared an IRA assassination of a member of the royal family would derail the Northern Ireland peace process.

The briefing was so secret it had to be hand-delivered from London to Dublin.

Compiled on June 18, a week after Mrs Thatcher's thumping 1987 general election triumph, the briefing highlighted security concerns as the greatest threat to improving Anglo-Irish relations.

It said: "The fear of an assassination of royalty or a Cabinet Secretary remain a source of great concern for the Prime Minister."
Charlie Haughey was warned by loyalist paramilitaries that MI5 ordered his assassination

Charlie Haughey was warned by loyalist paramilitaries that MI5 ordered his assassination.

Records from his office while he was Taoiseach in 1987 reveal that the UVF wrote to him to tell him that British intelligence also launched a smear campaign against him.

The loyalists claimed their organisation was used by MI5 and MI6, backed up by British special forces, from 1972 to 1978 and again in 1985.

"In 1985 we were approached by a MI5 officer attached to the NIO and based in Lisburn, Alex Jones was his supposed name," the UVF said.

"He asked us to execute you."

The previously secret letter, on UVF headed paper, showed the loyalists told Mr Haughey that the MI5 operative gave details of his cars, photographs of his home, his island Inishvickillane, and his yacht, the Celtic Mist.

The paramilitaries also claimed to have been given details of Mr Haughey's trips to Farranfore Airport in Kerry and photos of a plane he used.

"We refused to do it, we were asked would we accept responsibility if you were killed we refused," the UVF said in the letter.

Mr Haughey was on holiday when the letter arrived in August 1987.

He was shown it later and asked for the Irish Department of Justice to let him know if it had any information.

The UVF also claimed MI5 planned to supply a spoon of "Anthras" (sic), "Foort and Mouth Disease" (sic), "Fowl Pest, Swine Fever, and Jaagsikpi" to anyone who would release them in Ireland.
The British Government considered leaking details of Irish "intransigence" during Northern Ireland talks in 1990.

The UK's ambassador to the Republic Sir Nicholas Fenn envisaged an Anglo-Irish row in which international opinion and a substantial section of the Irish public would support it against Dublin.

An official file details the fall-out from the devolution impasse following the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Sir Nicholas blamed lack of progress in the political process under then-Secretary of State Peter Brooke on contentment with the status quo among members of the SDLP and the Irish Government.

Any new but failed talks would cause a potentially damaging blow to the SDLP while Sinn Fein's elections machine grew, he suggested.

The diplomat wrote: "We could leak Irish intransigence.

"We could expect an unusually sympathetic hearing in Dublin outside government circles.

"For once there is a prospect of an Anglo-Irish row in which a substantial section of Irish opinion, and indeed international opinion, would support us against the Irish Government." The memo is contained in files released by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland today.

Much of the debate surrounded the inclusion of Sinn Fein and the IRA in political talks.

One record related to the political talks in 1990, four years before the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries were to declare their first ceasefires.

Margaret Thatcher was still Prime Minister at the time and her opposition to concessions to the IRA was well-known.

Discussion centred on how inextricably bound up the IRA was with Sinn Fein.

An Northern Ireland Office official stated: "To some extent Sinn Fein is a separate political entity.

"Our attitude to it crucially turns on the extent to which it is engaged in legitimate and constitutional political activity.

"It seems that to me we have no inherent interest in preferring the SDLP to Sinn Fein or any other potential movement speaking for nationalism provided it adopts a constitutional road.

"If it brought with it the strain of anti-clericalism, which I detect in Sinn Fein, that might have interesting possibilities for levering open the somewhat theocratic structures of Northern and Southern nationalism to the benefit of an accommodation with the unionist community."
The Met Office has issued weather warnings for snow and ice

Sub-zero temperatures and snow are expected to hit large parts of the UK.

Met Office forecaster Charles Powell said: "It is a band of severe weather. Weather warnings are in force. There is going to be disruption in some shape or form."

With an amber warning of snow in West Yorkshire, the South Pennines and places such as Rochdale and Burnley, and overnight temperatures of minus 3c or minus 4C forecast, there could be some "pretty nasty travel conditions", he said.

It will be "cold by day and cold by night", with the heaviest snowfall of 5cm-10cm in parts of northern England and up to 15cm over higher ground.

Highways England said its gritting teams are working around the clock on routes including the M61, M65, M66, M6 north of junction 36, M62 between junctions 21 and 23, and the M60 between junctions 15 and 24, as well as the A69, A66 Old Spital and A628 Woodhead Pass.

Chris Chadwick, emergency planning officer at Highways England, urged people to "plan their journeys, monitor weather reports and pack a snow kit of blankets, food, water and a shovel if they really need to travel".

The amber warning is in place between 4am and 11am on Friday and a wider yellow warning for snow has been issued for southern and eastern Scotland, northern England and the Midlands.

The possibility of rain falling on previously frozen surfaces has seen a yellow warning for ice in the East Midlands, East of England, London and south-east England, north-west England, south-west England, Wales and the West Midlands.

Northern Ireland also has a country-wide yellow warning for ice and snow from midnight until 9am.

The Met Office said temperatures fell to as low as minus 4.5C (24F) in Katesbridge, Co Down, in the early hours of Thursday while most parts of the UK hovered around 0C (32F).

The RAC said ice had caused an "incredibly busy" morning, and they dealt with a number of battery failures, minor bumps and shunts, and skidding.

Meanwhile the AA described the country's roads on Thursday as "appalling" due to the "dicey icy roads".

It followed stories of disruption, cancellations and delays at the country's travel terminals on Wednesday due to the weather, with Stansted temporarily closing its runway twice due to ice.

As a result, 27 inbound and 27 outbound flights were cancelled at Stansted, while around 50 flights were cancelled at Luton.

Some 300 passengers were left in the terminal at Stansted waiting to rebook flights on Wednesday evening after dozens of Ryanair services were cancelled, along with a number of easyJet flights.

On Wednesday snowfall caused widespread disruption, with a lorry crash on the M1 resulting in the closure of the southbound carriageway, a jackknifed HGV on the M5 in Gloucestershire, and severe conditions on the A14 near Kettering.

Homes were left without power, and in Scotland three climbers had to be rescued from the Cairngorms mountain range after getting lost in blizzard conditions.

The RAC said it expects to attend "in the region of one breakdown every 10 seconds through the course of Friday".

The organisation's traffic spokesman Rod Dennis said: "Some northern regions are set to see further snowfall in the early hours, making driving conditions very difficult if not impossible where the heaviest snowfall occurs.

"Drivers in the areas likely to be affected should consider delaying their journeys if they are not absolutely essential, as some disruption is likely."
A camel in the snow on a farm near Richmond, North Yorkshire

Heavy snow, rain, thunderstorms and wind have caused disruption across much of Britain as the country was gripped by another day of wintry weather.

Parts of northern England and Scotland discovered thick blankets of snow on Friday morning, with the south coast lashed by torrential downpours and lightning.

Homes were left without power, flights were suspended because of the snow, and damage was caused to buildings by strong winds.

Meteorologist Emma Sharples said it was "quite a narrow band of squally conditions" that spread across the south and south west - seeing gales, hail, thunder and lightning cause disruption.

Heavy downpours saw roads swamped with water, and trees were felled due to the wind as the weather system made its way eastwards.

With reports of power cables down, Western Power Distribution said more than 1,906 homes across the Midlands, south west and Wales were without power on Friday.

Further north the rain fell as snow across Yorkshire, the north west, north east and in southern and western parts of Scotland.

Glasgow saw the biggest snowfall in the UK, with more than 10cm recorded in Bishopton - forcing the city's airport, one of Scotland's busiest, to temporarily suspend flights.

In other areas Ms Sharples said 7cm fell at Redesdale Camp in Northumberland, 4cm in Bingley, West Yorkshire, and 4cm in Spadeadam, Cumbria.

A yellow warning for snow remained in place for the northern half of England and into Scotland up until 3pm on Friday.

Spokesman Pete Williams said the RAC was "very, very busy across the UK" on Friday morning as a result of the weather, and had been dealing with around one breakdown every 10 seconds.

The AA said it had received more than 1,687 breakdown calls before 10am on Friday, with 10 cases of vehicles being stuck in snow.

Because of the slippery conditions there were reports of collisions, and a number of roads were closed.

These closures included the A6 in Cumbria, the Snake Pass in Derbyshire and the Cat and Fiddle in Macclesfield.

Ms Sharples told the Press Association: "Things are markedly improving through this afternoon, temperatures gradually recovering, even across the north.

"Across the south much brighter weather, although still showery in places, and snow will mostly become confined to higher ground, although there could still be some hail or sleet.

"It will be turning icy tonight."

A yellow warning for ice across the north of England and Scotland, which is in place from 3pm on Friday until 12pm on Saturday, has been issued by the Met Office.

Meanwhile Ms Sharples warned that Storm Dylan was going to hammer the country from Saturday.

A yellow warning has been issued for heavy rain from 6pm on Saturday to 9am on Sunday across much of south-east Wales, plus south western, central and southern parts of England.

"With the ground very wet in these areas, this is likely to lead to rising water levels and some flooding in places," the Met Office said.

With the precipitation "most likely on Sunday morning", there is a chance of some "very heavy rain" - with up to 25mm likely and up to 40mm in some spots in the space of three hours, the Met Office said.

A yellow warning for wind, covering Northern Ireland and southern Scotland, is also in place from around 12am on Sunday to 3pm.

The Met Office said there is a "small chance of damage to buildings, with the potential for injuries and danger to life from flying debris".

"Large waves and beach material being thrown on to coastal areas could also be a hazard," the forecaster said.

"There is a small chance of longer journey times or cancellations as road, rail, air and ferry services are affected, with the chance that some roads and bridges could close.

"Power cuts and other services such as mobile phone coverage may be affected."
A date for a new round of talks to break the political deadlock at Stormont is expected to be announced in the next few days, a DUP MP has said.

Gregory Campbell suggested the negotiations could be up and running by mid-January - almost exactly a year after the late Martin McGuinness resigned as Deputy First Minister and brought down the Executive.

The East Londonderry MP told BBC Radio Foyle: "I think it will be the case that there will be more talks. Hopefully they will be more productive than they have been recently. Gaps have been narrowed."

When asked if a date for talks had been set, he replied: "No, but it will be in the next few days, and hopefully within the first week of the new year we will know exactly.

"The date will be arranged in the next few days and then I would have thought the talks will occur within the next 10 days." Sinn Fein MLA John O'Dowd said any talks must focus on the implementation of agreements and delivery of rights.

He said: "After the last phase of talks failed, Sinn Fein met with both the Taoiseach and British Prime Minister to make clear that it is now their responsibility to bring forward proposals for meaningful talks which have agreement as an objective and can reach a successful conclusion.

"Another round of talks for talks' sake have no political or public credibility. The focus must therefore be on the implementation of previous agreements and the delivery of a rights-based society rather than venue or process which will not resolve these fundamental difficulties."

On Christmas Eve it was reported that the possibility of moving potential talks away from Stormont was being examined.

Two venues, the Slieve Donard Hotel in Co Down and Rockliffe Hall, a five-star resort in Darlington in the north-east of England owned by Middlesbrough FC, were apparently under consideration.

However, SDLP deputy leader Nichola Mallon MLA said a change in attitude was needed from Sinn Fein and the DUP to deliver progress, "not a change in venue".

She added: "None of the issues causing the current political deadlock are insurmountable.

"If the political will exists, progress can be made.

"What is now needed is an independent chair, as Mr Brokenshire can no longer be viewed as an impartial broker given his government's cosy deal with the DUP.

"The way forward lies in inclusive talks with all parties putting their cards on the table.

"We need to see the 'progress' that the DUP and Sinn Fein have made - if any - over the past number of months. They must come clean with the public and publish the details on their private talks over the past year."
A proposed second medical school for Northern Ireland is in danger of being shelved because of the continuing impasse at Stormont.

The outline business case for a Graduate Entry Medical School at the Magee campus of Ulster University has been drafted by the Strategic Investment Board and was handed to Richard Pengelly, the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health in October. He has advised the project requires ministerial approval.

However, the absence of an Executive means that unless the project is approved by a minister in the next eight weeks, it could be delayed for a year.

An email drafted by Professor Hugh McKenna, Dean of Medical School Development states: "Our plan is to have the first cohort of 60 students starting in September 2019. If approval is delayed beyond February/Marcj 2018 this could be put back one year."

Professor McKenna told the Belfast Telegraph: "We have about two months to play with on this. We are aware the Scottish Government has established a graduate entry medical school, the Welsh Government are looking to establish new medical schools and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is looking to create 1,500 medical school places.

"We have our own plans, but the political stasis here isn't helping us."

SDLP MLA Mark H Durkan criticised the delay. He said: "The political impasse due to the failure of the DUP and Sinn Fein to form a government here is potentially risking a delay in this vital project.

"To find ourselves in a situation now where this major, positive piece of work cannot progress in the absence of an Executive is lamentable."

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said: "The department received an outline business case from Ulster University in October.

"This will be considered in the context of an ongoing review of regional medical training place needs, on which both of the local universities are represented, which is due to report in June 2018."
Paddy Hill said he and the rest of the Birmingham Six were offered nothing but false hope and false promises

The Birmingham Six's Paddy Hill accused successive Irish governments of abandoning them in their fight for freedom, newly declassified state papers have revealed.

In a handwritten letter from his cell in HMP Gartree on September 10 1987, Mr Hill said they had been offered nothing but false hope and false promises.

The note was laden with emotion and anger.

And in it he penned the iconic words he would voice so emotively on the day he was freed.

Mr Hill wrote: "The British system don't know how to spell the word JUSTICE never mind dispensing (sic) it."

The damning assessment of those who incarcerated him for 16 years is almost word for word what he delivered when he grabbed a microphone on the street outside the Old Bailey in 1991.

At the time of the letter Mr Hill had been in jail while four different taoisigh (Irish prime ministers) took office - Liam Cosgrave, Jack Lynch, Garret Fitzgerald and Charles Haughey.

He said governments had done little or nothing to support him and the five others.

"The only thing successive Irish Governments have done is help to keep INNOCENT IRISHMEN in prison," he wrote.

The Birmingham Six - Hill, Hugh Callaghan, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker - were wrongly jailed for life in 1975 in England for the IRA bombings which killed 21 people.

After protracted campaigns their convictions were eventually quashed in the appeal court.

Mr Hill's two-page letter to Senator Paschal Mooney, and forwarded on to the Department of Foreign Affairs, was released by the National Archives along with a tranche of other files relating to the case under the 30-year rule.

It reveals deep and justifiable anger at his incarceration - at that time he had served 12 years.

Mr Hill accused Irish politicians of lacking courage and questioned why a cross-party delegation wanted to see him in prison.

"I won't be seeing any representatives of any Irish party. As far as I'm concerned they are all a load of shit," he wrote.

"I had enough of them when they visited us at Long Lartin and they still haven't had the courage to publicly declare that we are innocent and that we were TORTURED + FRAMED for something we nothing about.

Hill went on: "We learned a long time ago that we could expect little or no help from the Irish Government and everything to date bears that out.

"The only thing they have done for us is to give us FALSE HOPE and FALSE PROMISES. We got this far without the help of the Irish Government and we will prove our INNOCENCE without their help."

Several weeks later, then tanaiste and foreign affairs minister Brian Lenihan told Senator Mooney why the Government had not publicly supported the Birmingham Six.

"It is preferable, in my judgment, for the Government's view to be conveyed, as a general rule, privately to the British Government," he said.

In a separate open letter from Mr Hill earlier that year he said the Birmingham Six were willing to undergo hypnosis, the truth drug and lie detector tests to prove their innocence.

He attacked the Government for what he said was a lack of courage towards their case.

"If they do not act publicly then the possibility of us ever being free is very slim," he said.

Another of the Six, Richard McIlkenny, wrote to the Government from Wormwood Scrubs on August 22 1987.

He warned that ratification of an extradition treaty between the UK and Ireland was a "grave mistake" while they were still in prison.

"Justice cannot be bought. If this extradition treaty is signed on December 1 then I feel strongly that we and the other innocents can say goodbye to any chances of freedom no matter how strong the evidence on our behalf," he said.

Another file revealed SDLP deputy leader Seamus Mallon told an Irish official in August 1987 that he was nervous of getting involved in campaigns for the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven at Westminster.

He thought campaigners, including Chris Mullin MP and Labour's Clare Short were using them for "political propaganda".

The documents can be viewed in files from the Taoiseach's office and Foreign Affairs under references 2017/20/20 and 2017/4/90.
Gerry Adams was said to have been working on a peace strategy in early 1987, state papers have revealed.

The Sinn Fein president was said to have privately believed that the IRA campaign would not succeed and that terrorism was hampering his own personal ambitions and attempts to win support for the party at the ballot box.

The previously unseen report, released under the 30-year rule from the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin, said Mr Adams viewed the armed struggle as a "political liability".

The revelation was passed on to a diplomat by senior Catholic cleric Bishop Cahal Daly who was also said to have spoken with "some vehemence of Adams' deviousness and fundamental untrustworthiness".

The confidential report, dated February 4 1987 and compiled for officials in Iveagh House in Dublin, said: "The Bishop has picked up a rumour that Gerry Adams is currently trying to put together a set of proposals which would enable the Provisional IRA to call a halt to their paramilitary campaign.

"He has reached the view that the "armed struggle" is getting nowhere, that it has become a political liability to Sinn Fein both North and South and that, as long as it continues there is little chance that he will be able to realise his own political ambitions.

"What he is believed to be working on is some form of 'declaration of intent' to withdraw, with however long a timescale, on the part of the British Government.

"If he managed to negotiate something of this kind, the Provisional IRA would be able to lay down their arms without much loss of face, claiming that they had achieved the breakthrough towards which all their efforts had been directed."

Prior to this file being declassified it had been known that as far back as 1982 Mr Adams had contacts with the west Belfast Redemptorist priest, Fr Alec Reid, about a peace strategy.

Fr Reid, who died in 2013, also wrote a letter to Taoiseach Charles Haughey in May 1987 setting out Mr Adams' terms for an IRA ceasefire. It would be another seven years before that cessation arrived.

At the time of the these contacts, and the theory being reported by Bishop Daly, the IRA was actively importing massive hauls of weapons, including from Libya. One of those arsenals was on board the Eksund, including two tonnes of Semtex, when it was seized in a French port in late 1987.

In the file Bishop Daly also revealed that he had refused to meet Mr Adams as president of Sinn Fein and that, despite some "agonising", he decided he would only have discussions with him as a "private individual".

Bishop Daly also said that if Sinn Fein won a Westminster seat for West Belfast that it would be a "tragedy".

The file also contained a report on a meeting Mr Adams had with Belfast lawyer PJ McGrory.

The solicitor told an Irish Government official that the conversation showed the Sinn Fein leader privately disapproved of "individual IRA atrocities" but that he would never say so in public.

Mr McGrory reported Mr Adams as saying: "The Army Council gives me only so much leeway."

The lawyer also claimed that the Sinn Fein leader had the support of "the overwhelming majority of Northern Republicans" and that the reality is that "whatever Adams says, the Provos will eventually do".

Mr McGrory said Mr Adams was looking for the British to give a timescale for withdrawal from Northern Ireland "maybe 25, 40 or even 50 years" and that if he found it acceptable he would be able to sell it to the Provos.

"It might take some time, and there would be a lot of suspicion and scepticism to overcome, but eventually he would carry the Army Council with him," the solicitor was reported as saying.

The documents from the Department of Foreign Affairs can be read in the National Archives under reference 2017/20/17.
Boris Johnson said he was "appalled" by a terror attack in Afghanistan (Rick Findler/PA)

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has branded a terror attack on a Shiite Muslim cultural centre in the Afghan capital of Kabul as despicable.

The atrocity left at least 41 people dead, and another 84 wounded.

The Islamic State-linked Aamaq news agency said three bombs were used in the assault, as well as a single suicide bomber who blew himself up inside the centre.

Scores of people had gathered at the complex to mark the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union.

Mr Johnson said: I am appalled by this despicable attack on a cultural centre in Kabul which has claimed so many innocent lives, and my heartfelt condolences go out to the victims and their families.

We remain determined in our resolve to help the Afghan people overcome terror and we are committed to supporting the Afghan government in seeking a brighter future for its people.

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The Foreign Secretary condemned the hateful ideology of Islamic State, which is also known as Daesh.

Initial reports suggest that Daesh in Afghanistan have claimed responsibility. The disregard for humanity shown today bears all the hallmarks of their hateful ideology which must be countered wherever it is found.

This is what the brave men and women of Afghanistan are committed to doing, with the help and support of their regional and international partners, the UK included.
The report warns that the change to automation needs to be properly managed (Steve Parsons/PA)

Ministers are being urged to intervene to ensure the spreading use of robots in the workplace does not result in rising levels of inequality.

A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank said increasing automation had the potential to deliver a powerful boost to the productivity of UK business, bringing a future of economic plenty.

However it warned that unless the change was properly managed by government, there was a danger that the benefits would be narrowly concentrated in the hands of investors and small numbers of highly-skilled workers while the rest lost out.

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The report estimates that jobs generating wages of 290 billion a year  representing a third of all wages and earnings from labour in the UK economy  have the potential to be automated.

However it rejects the idea that the country is heading for a post human economy, arguing that most jobs are likely to be reallocated rather than eliminated, as output increases and new sources of wealth are created.

As a result, it said, the biggest challenge for ministers would be to ensure that the rewards of automation were fairly distributed.

Without effective management from the Government, inequality is likely to increase because of unequal ownership of capital and highly-skilled workers being able to command higher wages and better jobs, the IPPR said.

Among its proposals was a call for the creation of a new authority for the ethical use of robotics and artificial intelligence, modelled on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, to be established to regulate the future use of automating technologies.

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A Government spokesman said: We have a resilient and diverse labour market in the UK, demonstrated by the latest record-breaking figures showing more people in work than ever before.

Whether its in cyberspace or on the shop floor, advances in technology bring new jobs and its only right that we embrace these opportunities, support new skills and help more people get into employment to secure a workforce of the future.

As part of our modern industrial strategy and its artificial intelligence grand challenge, the Government is committed to ensuring that the UK is to able to seize the opportunities and overcome the obstacles that exist in this area.

Government is working closely with industry to ensure the benefits of new technologies are felt across different sectors of the economy up and down the country, while creating new high-skill, well-paid jobs.
Vincent Asaro leaves court in the Brooklyn borough of New York after being acquitted of charges he helped plan a legendary 1978 Lufthansa heist retold in the hit film Goodfellas (AP/Mike Balsamo)

An 82-year-old mobster has been jailed for eight years for road rage arson as a judge cited evidence of his role in the legendary airport robbery recounted in the movie Goodfellas while sentencing him.

Vincent Asaro, balding and bespectacled, reacted to the sentence in court in New York with disgust.

"I don't care what happens to me at this point," he grumbled.

He looked at US district judge Allyne R. Ross and said: "What you sentenced me to is a death sentence anyway."

The sentence was more than double what federal guidelines set out as punishment for the 2012 car torching, which prosecutors said happened when Asaro directed Bonanno crime family associates to track down and set on fire the car of a motorist he believed had cut him up.

Asaro, speaking before the sentencing, said he was "terribly sorry".

"I was on my way home," he said. "It happened. It just got out of hand."

The judge said she had "no illusion" that prison would result in Asaro's rehabilitation or bring an end to his "lifelong career as a member of the Mafia".

She said she was mindful of Asaro's 2015 acquittal over the infamous 1978 heist at the Lufthansa cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, a robbery retold in the 1990 hit film Goodfellas, starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci.

The judge said she reviewed evidence from the trial she had presided over and cited proof Asaro had taken part in a 1969 murder, and had admitted his role in the armed robbery and obtained millions in cash and jewellery from the Lufthansa terminal.

"He remains dangerous to the public," she said.

The prison term resulted from a road rage encounter between Asaro and a motorist who became "embroiled in a high-speed chase at the hands of an enraged Asaro", the FBI said.

Asaro contacted an associate with access to a local law enforcement database, identified the number plate information of the car and triggered a plan to burn the car in front of the motorist's home, said the head of New York's FBI office, William F. Sweeney.

"The anger that propelled Asaro to action is reminiscent of so many scripted Hollywood dramas, but unlike the fame and fortune of the big screen, Asaro's story ends on a different note," Sweeney said.

"Today's sentence proves that living life in the fast lane is sure to be short lived."

Acting US attorney Bridget Rohde said Asaro's sentence was "for a lifetime of violent criminal activity".

Before the announcement of the sentence, defence lawyer Elizabeth Macedonio blamed the government for the long prison term, saying prosecutors were "asking you to sentence him for crimes he was acquitted of that occurred 50 or 60 years ago".

Assistant US attorney Nicole Argentieri called Asaro a "one-man crime wave" and said he was a hero in his Queens neighbourhood after he was acquitted at trial.

"It's time to send a message, to break the cycle," she said.

AP
The Italian government has set March 4 as the date for electing the next parliament, formally launching what is shaping up to be an especially bruising campaign.

The general election was scheduled after President Sergio Mattarella dissolved the sitting legislature, following a meeting in Rome with Premier Paolo Gentiloni and the leaders of both houses.

During his end-of-year news conference earlier on Thursday, Mr Gentiloni counted the Democratic Party-led government's survival through a full five-year term - albeit under the leadership of three premiers - as an accomplishment.

A coalition led by the Democrats received 29.55% of the vote in the last election, held in February 2013, just ahead of the centre-right at 29.18%.

Enrico Letta led the government after the then-party leader, Pierluigi Bersani, was unable to form a government.

Mr Letta was ousted 10 months later by Matteo Renzi, who in turn resigned last December after staking his government on a constitutional referendum that failed.

Mr Renzi ceded the government to Mr Gentiloni, his foreign minister.

With the upcoming vote also shaping up to be tight, Mr Gentiloni warned against scaremongering.

"The more we have an election campaign that veers from the easy sale of fear, the better it will be for the country," he said.

The Democratic Party splintered and weakened following Mr Renzi's resignation a year ago.

The Forza Italia party led by former three-time premier Silvio Berlusconi is locked in a struggle with Matteo Salvini's anti-migrant, anti-euro League for dominance of the centre-right.

While Mr Berlusconi cannot run for office due to a tax-fraud conviction, Mr Salvini has set himself up as his party's premier candidate, if the newly rebranded League comes out of the election on top.

The vulnerability of the traditional political powers is giving further impetus to the populist 5-Star Movement, which remains Italy's most popular single party but has refused to join a national coalition with any force.

Political analyst Wolfango Piccoli said the likely outcome of the next election is a hung parliament.

Polls show the centre-right with 37 to 39% of the vote, the 5-Star Movement just below 30% and the Democratic Party sliding to less than one-quarter, he said.

Mr Gentiloni's government comes to an end with Italy's economy experiencing higher-than-forecast annual growth of 1.5% of GDP and much of the country on a financial upswing.

He cited domestic achievements of his year as head of government, including passage of a law recognising same-sex unions and another on living wills.

A key issue in the upcoming campaign will be Europe's migrant crisis.

Italy, one of the first stops for new arrivals, has struggled to cope with the thousands who fled poverty, conflict and oppression, mostly from the Middle East and Africa.

Mr Gentiloni's government opened a humanitarian corridor to allow a very limited number of migrants in Libya to go to Italy by plane, avoiding the deadly Mediterranean Sea passage, for the first time.

AP
It would do students no harm to listen to the views of people they disagree with

I'm no fan at all of the Tories, but when Higher Education Minister Jo Johnson warned of tough new penalties for universities who fail to promote freedom of speech, my first reaction was to cheer. A new regulator, to be known as the Office for Students, will be given the power to suspend, fine or even deregister universities that do not uphold free speech.

At last, I thought, a bridgehead against the rising tide of toxic intolerance which threatens to engulf the very places that freedom of thought and expression should be most strongly upheld - universities themselves.

The Government's tough new stance also seems like a satisfying kick in the rear for spoilt and entitled snowflake students, so caught up in their own self-righteousness and narcissism that they simply cannot bear to hear the views of people they disagree with, without melting into a puddle of outrage.

Just to be clear, this is rarely about banning murderous warlords, Ku Klux Klan fanciers and the like from campuses. No, it's people like internationally renowned human rights hero Peter Tatchell that cause some students to clap their little hands over their ears and shout, 'I'm not listening, I'm not listening', before threatening to scream and scream until they're sick, unless the nasty man is taken away.

They really do believe that being exposed to ideas they profoundly disagree with causes them harm. That's why they want some books removed from libraries and trigger warnings appended to others. And up until this point, their infantile petulance - all two-year-olds are little Caligulas, and these lot simply haven't grown out of it - has been indulged.

Now here comes Jo Johnson, like a posh blond super-nanny, and he's taking no more nonsense. "Universities should be places which open minds, not close them, where ideas can be freely challenged," he says. "Young people should have the resilience and confidence to challenge controversial opinions and take part in open, frank and rigorous discussions."

Very true. But after I got past my satisfaction that someone had at last dared to say no to the whining brats, I realised that this isn't quite such a victory for free speech after all. Slapping a whacking great fine on an institution, to punish it for an act of censorship, is essentially an authoritarian move. It may be done in the name of liberty, freedom and tolerance, but it's jarringly out of step with those vital principles.

As Tom Slater of Spiked magazine has pointed out, it's the unions, rather than the universities themselves, which implement the vast majority of bans, so the new powers may not even work. "The problem on campus is cultural, not legal," says Slater. "Our time would be better spent winning the argument for free speech on campus, not fighting one form of illiberalism with another."

There are further questions too. Just how independent will the new Office for Students be? It is a government-appointed regulator, after all. How much influence will current or future ministers have on which views are deemed acceptable to be heard and which aren't? For instance, I could well imagine a supposedly progressive Corbyn government conjuring up some pious and plausible-sounding reasons for excluding speakers that didn't fit with its own ideological point of view, couldn't you?

Back when I was at Queen's, Sinn Fein members often spoke at the university. This was during the Troubles, in the 1990s, and now I think about it there must have been plenty of students with relatives in the security forces, but SF speakers were, quite rightly, not banned.

They may have been apologists for politically motivated murder, but it was still better to hear what they had to say, and challenge their views openly, rather than attempt to squash or suppress them, thus fuelling still further the Shinners' ever-ready sense of aggrieved martyrdom.

It's not surprising that we're currently being held to ransom by squealing students, fearful of having a panic attack if they're made to read The Great Gatsby. Intolerance - enacted, ironically enough, in the name of the old liberal values that a few of us still hold dear - is at epidemic levels in wider society.

Prim-faced puritanism is on the march once more, only this time it's wearing a progressive mask. Christmas pantomimes are policed for dodgy double-entendres and even the anarchic Dennis the Menace has been forcibly sanitised. Now he's just Dennis, a reformed character who is "determined to succeed" (Yes, really).

Whether on campus or off, Tory strong-arm tactics are not the way to protect free speech. The only remedy is for more of us to start believing in it again.
The annual release of state papers give a fascinating glimpse into the thinking of diplomats and ministers at certain points in recent history. Due to the passage of time we know how things played out, but what the hitherto secret documents reveal is why governments acted in the way they did based on the various sources of information which they had gathered.

This year's release of papers from the Irish Government contains one astounding claim - that Gerry Adams set up the IRA gang that was shot dead at Loughgall. The rumour passed on to officials in Dublin by Fr Denis Faul, now deceased, was that Adams feared some members of that hardline unit were considering shooting him because of his attempts to move the Provos away from violence and towards politics.

Another astonishing claim was that the Israelis believed the late Rev Ian Paisley was trying to import guns to the province in the 1980s as IRA violence increased following its arms shipments from Libya. This was later believed to be a misunderstanding by the Israelis of Dr Paisley's real intentions of creating greater border surveillance.

What the papers show is that during the Troubles it was often difficult to separate fact from fiction, and the dirty war spawned all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Formulating a coherent political response to the violence was made more difficult since much of the information about IRA or loyalist intentions was based on speculation and rumour as well as fact.

Yet we should be grateful that both the British and Irish Governments take democracy sufficiently seriously to ensure that these papers are released annually.

They can on occasion contain information which is embarrassing to the administrations, but are invaluable as the first draft of history.

And on that point it is important to laud the role of newspapers in particular, but also other media, for doing the heavy lifting when it comes to sifting through the blizzard of documents released annually.

At a time when the media is accused of selling fake news, the work of trawling through state papers and bringing important elements of them to the public's attention cannot be underestimated.

If it was not for the media, the public would remain ignorant of the content of these documents, having to wait until historians or other academics decided to publish their research, often years later.
The death of Maurice Hayes was like the passing of a chieftain, a Gaelic chieftain. By his own bearing and sombre manner he had seemed like a man you wouldn't trifle with. There were decades of experience in that old head. He had been in tricky negotiations, helped fashion compromises and reconcile contentious differences. He had got to the heart of nutty problems and put his name to adventurous and imaginative deals.

So he was, unsurprisingly, unflappable. And, yet, he had such a laugh. The thing said most commonly about him by old friends and colleagues was that he could get on with anybody. And yet he could sit with ministers and heads of state and, by his slow and reflective and gravelly way of talking, get them to listen as he showed them the parameters of the possible.

He said in an interview with me some years ago that a crucial moment for him had been the decision of the southern state to declare itself a republic.

That was the moment at which he realised that nationalists in the north would have to find their place within this state. Northern Ireland then was governed exclusively by unionists. Behind the government was the Orange Order, and a minister might lose his job for attending Mass.

Hayes was a schoolteacher then and his years in the Civil Service were long ahead of him, but his reasoning at that time made a huge difference to how Northern Ireland evolved. For, after the Education Act, and the proliferation of free education, Catholic schools prepared children for jobs in public service.

Nationalists might abstain from Stormont and Westminster, but the experiment of declining to participate in the administration of the state and its institutions had run its course.

Hayes entered public service not as a "Castle Catholic" or "West Brit" or one against whom any of the traditional sneers could be levelled, but as an Irish language speaker and a Catholic, as a GAA hero who took credit for Down, his county, winning the All Ireland in 1960 and 1961 when he was county secretary.

He hadn't become a public servant to fit in, but to show that there could be a place in the administration of Northern Ireland for people who were Irish in his way. Today, Martin McGuinness is revered as a peacemaker for having arrived at a similar way of thinking 40 years after him.

Maurice Hayes's funeral on Wednesday was structured to remind us that this was the death of a Gael. There was no coyness about this. Some of the prayers were in Irish and there was a tribute from the GAA.

There was also a strong ecumenical character to it. Three Protestant ministers participated: Rev John Dunlop, a former moderator of the Presbyterian Church; Rev Harold Good, former president of the Methodist Church in Ireland, and Church of Ireland Dean of Down Henry Hull.

Good recalled how Hayes had carried his daughter on his shoulders at a Shankill peaceline service in 1969 and given her half-a-crown. The service also had a strong secular component, with the reading of poems selected by Hayes from the works of Michael Longley, John Hewitt, Seamus Heaney and others.

The genius of this service was that it was Catholic and Gaelic and inclusive. As such, it was the last reconciliatory gesture of a supremely diplomatic man, who had worked on the fault-line of a divided community when our current political leaders were children.

It was also a reminder that the stability of Northern Ireland depends on the commitment of northern Catholics to making it work. Huge numbers of them in Hayes's generation and later joined public service.

When I was at a Christian Brothers School in the 1960s boys were urged to seek jobs in the Civil Service, Belfast Corporation and Royal Mail.

Throughout the Troubles, they continued to be discriminated against in the upper ranks of the Civil Service and they were more squeamish about supporting the police than, say, the DoE.

But if that generation had shunned the Civil Service in the same way that most had turned its back on policing, Northern Ireland would have been forever untenable. There would not have been a state to put back together, just a Protestant, unionist colony.

And that gives some sense of the debt owed to those who led the way, like Maurice Hayes.

He wanted political stability and devolution with power-sharing and he was at the heart of efforts to establish this, as he was at the heart of efforts to reconstruct policing.

There were not a lot of unionists at his funeral. Lady Hermon was there. There were also several retired civil servants who had worked with Hayes.

But it would have been worth the effort for DUP leader Arlene Foster to have gone there, because it would have served as a reminder for her that the Union is protected and relies upon the non-declamatory endorsement of northern Catholics and that it cannot survive without them.

And while candid gratitude for that might have been a bit much to expect, the sober relevance of that reality might have impressed itself on those who are blithely content that the security of the Union is in their own hands: it isn't.

Things are not as fixed as they imagine. We are in a time of flux, through Brexit and the DUP's support for it.

Some things will stay the same. Gerry Adams isn't going to change his mind about the border, nor are many, perhaps most, of those who vote for Sinn Fein. But there has long been a passive endorsement of partition by Catholics, who think like Maurice Hayes did; that you are better making things work and getting on with other communities than causing disruption in the name of your identity.

You mightn't find that identity represented in the symbols of state, but you can live without that, or trust to a better understanding in the future.

These people changed their minds before and decided to muck in. They can change again if they find that their rising expectation of being more at home here is flouted. They can alter course, can withdraw a support they might feel they never got much thanks for anyway. And they would make a huge difference now that unionism is a minority position, too.

The chieftain buried this week was not a warrior, but a peacemaker and a reconciler, a quiet thinker. He worked behind the scenes.

Perhaps there are others as deft and thoughtful today, who might help deliver a pragmatic, compromising generation into a new peace.

One can but hope.
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Suppose the thought enters your mind that you want to build a house. You sit down and make a list of all the materials you think you will need. Then you order them to be delivered to the lot where you will build. Everything is piled in the center of the lot, and the next day the bulldozer comes to excavate the basement and everything is in the way. It's all just where he has to dig.

Why?

A failure to plan.

Planning for Physical Necessities

Without some rudimentary planning, you probably won't have anything to eat when you get up in the morning. And without some detailed planning, no one can build a house, let alone a skyscraper or shopping mall or city.

If producing shelter and food and clothing and transportation is valuable, then planning is valuable. Nothing but the simplest impulses get accomplished without some forethought which we call a plan.

Planning for Spiritual Necessities

All of us know this and practice it in relation to the basic physical necessities of life. We take steps to see that we have enough to eat and clothes to keep us warm. But do we take our spiritual needs that seriously? Do we apply the same earnestness in planning to maximize our ministry as we do in planning to make a living?

What I would like to do here is to try to persuade you to set aside time each week in the coming year to planand specifically to plan your life of prayer and devotion and ministry. The bulldozer of God's Spirit often arrives at the scene of our heart ready to begin some great work of building, and he finds that due to poor planning there are piles of disordered things in his way. We're not ready for him.

The way I hope to motivate you to do this is to give four examples of planning in the Bible. First, some illustrations from the Proverbs; second, the planning of the apostle Paul; third, the planning of God; and fourth, the planning of Jesus.

Illustrations on Planning from Proverbs

Proverbs 6:6-7 says, "Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her food in summer, and gathers her sustenance in harvest."

The ant is an example not only because it works so hard, but also because it plans ahead. It takes thought in summer that there will be need in winter, and this forethought provides its needs in winter.

Proverbs 14:15 tells us, "The simple believes everything, but the prudent looks where he is going."

The difference between planning and not planning is whether you look where you are going in the future or whether you focus all your attention on the immediate right in front of you. If you are not a planner, then you will be at the mercy of others who try to give you counsel about how to act now so as to be happy in the future.

So "the simple believes everything, but the prudent looks where he is going." He considers the days to come and what they are bringing and thinks about how best to prepare for them and use them to accomplish his purposes.

Proverbs 15:22 explains, "Without counsel plans go wrong, but with many advisers, they succeed."

Here the wisdom of planning is taken for granted, and the writer simply gives us advice on how to make plans that succeed. He says: Don't be so independent that you think yourself above counsel. Read the wisdom of others who have gone before you. Talk to experienced and wise people. Watch the way others do things and learn from their mistakes and successes.

Proverbs 16:3 advises, "Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established."

Again planning is taken for granted and the issue is: How can you plan in such a way that what you produce will have abiding value and not just pass away overnight? Answer: Commit it to the Lord. That is, always seek the Lord's guidance and strength in your planning. Trust his wisdom and not your own. Then your plans will bear fruit that stays.

Proverbs 24:27 says, "Prepare your work outside, get everything ready for you in the field; and after that build your house."

This probably means that it is important to be able to support yourself by the productivity of the field before you establish your own household. Perhaps we would say to a young person today: get a job before you get married. Or at least plan how you are going to support the new household you are establishing.

Proverbs 31:15-16 describes, "She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and tasks for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard."

Here the model homemaker is a model planner in two ways. She gets up early and assigns tasks to her maids. You cannot assign tasks to your maids if you have no plan about what you would like to be accomplished that day. And she considers a field and buys it. What does she consider? She considers how it will fit into the plan of the household.

Conclusion from the Proverbs: Careful planning is part of what makes a person wise and productive. Not to plan is considered foolish and dangerous. This is true even though the Proverbs teach that we do not know what the future may bring. "A man's mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps" (Proverbs 16:9). The fact that the Lord is ultimately in control of the future does not mean we shouldn't plan. It means we should commit our work to the Lord and trust him to establish our plans according to his loving purposes.

The Planning of the Apostle Paul

We will take just one example of Paul's planning from the many that we could take from Acts and from his letters. Romans 15:2028,

I make it my ambition (i.e., my plan) to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on another man's foundation.... But now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be sped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a little. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem with aid for the saints.... When therefore I have completed this, and have delivered to them what has been raised, I shall go on by way of you to Spain.

Here is a typical example of how the apostle Paul carried out his mission. And I think we should learn from him that planning is essential to a productive ministry. And I mean your personal ministry as well as the more complex organism of church ministries. Paul was the greatest church planter who ever lived. He accomplished more in his life for the spread of the reign of Christ than any other person. So I think we would do well to take seriously his method. Part of his method was his planning.

He had a general guideline: he wanted to preach where no one had preached before. Then he developed a specific plan from this guideline: he would take the gift to Jerusalem; then he would go to Rome to establish a western base, from which he would then go to Spain.

What makes this especially significant is that as far as we know the plan fell through. He was arrested in Jerusalem. He went to Rome as a prisoner and probably never got to Spain. It's just like we saw in the Proverbs. God is the one who finally makes the future. But we plan nevertheless. God uses our planning even if he aborts it.

For example, if Paul had not planned to use Rome as a base of operations for a trip to Spain, he probably never would have written the greatest letter the world has ever knownthe epistle to the Romans. Planning is crucial in Christian living and Christian ministryeven when God overrules our planning.

The Planning of God

The ultimate reason for planning is that God is a God who plans and we are created in his image to exercise dominion in the earth under his lordship.

I don't think it is even possible to conceive a God who does not act according to his own eternal planningthat is, a God who has knee jerk responses to stimuli rather than deliberate actions that fit into a wise purpose.

Isaiah 46:9-10 says, "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.'"

In Ephesians 1:9-10 we read, "God has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and on earth."

Acts 2:23 explains, "This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God."

Since God is a God who does all things according to plan it befits us to approach the most important things of life with forethought and plan, not haphazardly.

The Planning of Jesus

Jesus had a mission to accomplish, and he finished it with forethought and planning.

When his mother urged him to do a miracle at the wedding in Cana, he said, "My hour is not yet come" (John 2:4). There was a planned and appointed hour for the revelation of his power. He would stay with the plan. Luke 9:51 says, "When the days grew near for him to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem." He knew that the plan meant death in Jerusalem and he didn't shrink back from the plan.

But he wasn't driven against his will. The Father's plan was his plan. He said in John 10:18, "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father."

Very specifically my plea to you this new year is that you take time to plan the most important things in your life.

Plan for the Most Important Things in Your Life

Plan how you are going to spend time with your spouse to deepen and strengthen the relationship. Plan how you are going to spend time playing with and teaching the children. Plan how you are going to get the amount of exercise you need to stay healthy. Plan how you are going to get enough sleep. Plan how much you should eat and how you are going to limit yourself. Plan your vacation so that it really gives rest and spiritual renewal.

And most important, plan how prayer and meditation on the Word are going to be significant parts of your life. Without a plan these most important things always get pushed aside by urgent pressures.

Make Planning a Regular Part of Your Life

But it won't work just to plan something tonight or tomorrow. Planning must be a regular part of your life. I expect that the pastoral staff at Bethlehem will take a full day each month away from the church office just to pray and plan their ministry. This is in addition to the time I expect we are all taking each week to plan our week's work.

So my plea to you is that you set aside time each week to plan, especially to plan your life of prayer and Bible study. For example, since Sunday is the first day of the week (not the last day of the weekend!) and belongs to the Lord, take ten or fifteen minutes each Sunday and think through when you will pray and what you will study that week. Give some thought to how God might want to use you that week in a special way. Plan the letters you need to write, the Bible verses you want to teach your children, the visit you want to make, the book you want to read, the neighbor you want to talk to, etc.

The Proverbs teach us to plan. The greatest missionary who ever lived was a planner. God is a God who does all things according to plan. And Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem because of the most loving plan ever devised.

He planned for our joy; we ought to plan for his glory.
AIRP launched the first Biosimilar of Trastuzumab (CANMAb) in Algeria for the treatment of Her2+ breast cancer

Abdi Ibrahim Remede Pharma (AIRP) is Biocon's partner in Algeria for the registration, marketing and pharmacovigilance monitoring of multiple Biotech Products.

Biocon Ltd., Asia's premier biopharmaceuticals company, obtained U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval on 1st December 2017 for its biosimilar trastuzumab through its US Partner.

Biocon's trastuzumab has been approved in the US for all indications included in the label of the reference product including for the treatment of HER2-overexpressing breast cancer and metastatic stomach cancer (gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma).

Biocon's trastuzumab is the first FDA-approved biosimilar trastuzumab and the first biosimilar from Biocons portfolio to be approved in the U.S.

It is only the second oncology biosimilar approved by US FDA.

In addition, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has accepted the Marketing Authorization Application for Biocon's proposed biosimilar trastuzumab for review.

Abdi Ibrahim Remede Pharma (AIRP) as Biocon's commercialization partner in Algeria launched the first biosimilar of trastuzumab named CANMAb in 2016.

Under its collaboration with Biocon in Algeria, AIRP also launched the first biosimilar of insulin glargine named BasalogOne in 2017.

Both these products are making a difference to patients by allowing them access to affordable biologics for diseases like diabetes and cancer.

The global biologics drug market stands at an estimated US$ 231 billion.

Under collaboration with Biocon, AIRP's biosimilars operate in the biologics market which is valued over one third of the US$1 billion total Algeria pharma market.

The introduction and strong adoption of biosimilars in Algeria is expected to facilitate access to safe and effective biological products as well as create substantial savings for the government.

In Europe, with over a decade of experience, biosimilar adoption rates have significantly increased.

It is estimated that regulations on biosimilars adapted to the country's health and economic interests will enable Algeria to reduce its import bill by at least US$ 350 million in 2018 alone.
With the developed prototype, researchers want to contribute to the creation of non-invasive diagnosing systems.

A team of researchers from Spain have developed a prototype of an electronic nose that can distinguish between patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, both classified as inflammatory bowel diseases.

With the developed prototype, researchers want to contribute to the creation of non-invasive diagnosing systems.

The device called Moosy 32 eNose can detect volatile organic compounds which act as diagnostic markers or to reveal the intensity level of the disease's activity.

The concentration of these components can be a differentiating marker between certain bowel diseases and their accurate detection by way of non-invasive devices such as the electronic nose would be a great step forward for the detection and monitoring of the evolution of these diseases.

The system is being tested for further medical use, such as detecting prostate cancer.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 28/12/2017 (1786 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For nearly 50 years, Neil Couling has known one place of work.

P. Quintaine and Son, a livestock brokerage company, is where he was employed, made friends and, in a way, where he lived. His house was the first on the same lot of the business, before another home was constructed for him  on the other side of the gravel road.

This month, Couling decided to pack it in, months shy of a half-century.

Neil Couling, who has worked for nearly 50 years for P. Quintaine and Son, is retiring this month from the company at the age of 79. (Ian Froese/The Brandon Sun)

He imagines hell miss it.

I never thought of doing anything else, Couling, 79, said.

He was in his late 20s when he spoke with Pete Quintaine about employment. At the time, Couling was working at Wawanesa Co-op and happened to have a scale for cattle his family was looking to sell. The conversation somehow shifted to employment.

He started by living on the same plot of land as the burgeoning company, which had recently relocated from Pilot Mound to Brandon.

Jim Quintaine, now president of the business, said his late father was looking for somebody to live on the premises, and Couling fit the role. This new employee began as a truck driver. But his role changed as the enterprise grew, with Couling increasingly managing everyday matters on the yard.

Since the early 1970s, Couling was involved in the buying and selling of sows and boars.

His position, known most recently as swine procurement manager, evolved with the times. A very prestigious title, Couling joked.

When they started, the business dealt with small farmers who came onto their driveway with a delivery of pigs and haggled on a price. Today, deals are established with corporate offices over the phone, and the driver comes with the contract agreed upon.

Couling said he has always liked the bartering aspect and appreciated working with livestock.

He had a keen interest in buying and selling always, Quintaine said.

Trying to make a dollar, Couling added.

Travel was also part of his work. He occasionally travelled to Steinbach, once they purchased a hog buying station in the area in 2000, or Red Deer, Alta., when they built another station there. Couling would make the odd trip to oversee management

at those operations.

Work was comfortable for Couling, which contributed to his longevity. He liked working in the livestock industry and the colleagues he calls friends.

He stayed employed deep into his 70s to keep busy while staying home to take care of his wife Myrna through her medical aliments. She died in 2015.

Within the last decade, Couling moved into Brandon.

Retirement will provide plenty of time thinking about things, and a chance to travel to far-flung relatives in Vancouver and Chicago.

The time off is well deserved, his boss said.

Hes always been dependable and always had the good of the company in mind.

Couling would think of the business until his final days of employment, deferring to Quintaine when asked which date is his last.

I guess thats something we havent really discussed, Couling said with a hearty chuckle.

After a brief back-and-forth, they determined the day of his retirement party, the night of the Brandon Hog and Livestock Show on Dec. 14, would be his final one.

Whatever works, Couling said.

Long-serving employees are a point of pride for the company. Leo LaFrance was a trucker for the company who worked 54 years and covered seven million miles before retiring in 2012. He died in 2016.

 ifroese@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @ianfroese
President Vladimir Putin has praised Russian soldiers for their actions in Syria, saying the Russian campaign there has demonstrated the might of the nation's revamped military to the world.

Speaking at a Kremlin awards ceremony for troops who fought in Syria, Mr Putin said Russia has "made the main, decisive contribution to the destruction of a criminal group that cast a challenge to the entire civilisation".

He added that Islamic State was seeking to turn Syria into a base for "global aggression" and threaten Russia.

Mr Putin said the more than 48,000 Russian troops who took part in the Syria campaign were fighting for their "homeland, for a just and fair cause".

"Your heroic actions and professionalism helped preserve the Syrian state, stop mass killings, executions and terror against civilians," Mr Putin told hundreds of soldiers who gathered in the Kremlin's opulent gold-and-white St George's Hall.

Russia launched a campaign in Syria on September 30 2015 when Syrian President Bashar Assad's government was on the verge of collapse, quickly turning the tide of conflict in his favour.

Thanks to Russian air cover and its special operations forces, Assad's military has routed both the IS militants and the rebels and seized wide swathes of land.

Mr Putin declared victory in Syria on a visit to the Russian air base there on December 11 and ordered a partial pullout of Russian forces from the country.

He emphasised that the military will maintain its presence at both the Hemeimeem air base in Syria and a naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus.

"They are an important factor in protecting our national interests, ensuring Russia's security in one of the key strategic regions," Mr Putin said.

The Russian leader emphasised that "Russia's army and navy have fully shown their increased capability and successfully used state-of-the-art weapons".

Mr Putin noted that Russian pilots had flown 34,000 combat missions over Syria during the campaign and the Russian military conducted 166 launches of high-precision cruise missiles.

The Syrian operation marked the combat debut of an array of new weapons for Russia, including cruise missiles launched from warships, submarines and strategic bombers.

The new missiles gave the Russian military a long-sought, long-range precision cruise capability that only the US had before.

"The army has radically changed," Mr Putin said.

"It has changed because people have felt themselves on top, which was very important, and also because they saw how our weapons work. The entire world saw it, and our people saw it."

AP
Kidnappers in Ukraine have released an employee at a United Kingdom-registered cryptocurrency exchange after getting more than $US1 million ($1.3 million) in bitcoins as ransom, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister has announced.

Pavel Lerner, a leading analyst and blockchain expert, was abducted by unknown masked people on December 26, according to a statement by his company, EXMO Finance, on its website.

"This is the first such case in Ukraine linked to bitcoins," Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, said in a phone text message.

It was unclear who paid the ransom. Lerner's work at EXMO did not involve access to the financial assets of its users, the company said, adding that the platform was operating normally.
A LONG WAY FROM HOME

Peter Carey Another novel with a road trip at its heart. The two-time Booker winner is in effervescent form as Irene and Titch Bobs, along with their navigator Willie Bachhuber, embark on the Redex Round Australia Reliability Trial in the early 1950s. But there are discoveries to be made along the way about the country and its dark past and the hidden background of at least one of the major characters. Carey excels in this fizzing, darkly comic novel that addresses white Australia's relations with the Indigenous population while rattling from Bacchus Marsh to Broome and back with plenty of diversions along the way. Two-time Booker winner Peter Carey. Credit:Steven Siewert KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

David Grann This is an astonishing story of murder, conspiracy, cover up, a dogged investigation and the early days of the FBI. New Yorker writer David Grann, who wrote The Lost City of Z, digs and digs into the mysterious deaths of members of the Osage nation, who in the early 20th century were, per capita, the richest people in the world thanks to headrights to minerals discovered under their Oklahoma land. Much of the book deals with what is already on the historical record but Grann's additional research and conclusions are truly breathtaking. An appalling, brilliantly told story from the last days of the old west that is now being adapted for a Martin Scorsese film.

MANHATTAN BEACH

Jennifer Egan The first surprising thing about this follow-up to the technically audacious Visit from the Goon Squad is that it is really quite a conventional historical novel, albeit with an added touch of noir. But it's a novel that intrigues with its mix of characters and time settings. Anna becomes a diver in the Manhattan naval yards during World War II. Years earlier her father disappeared after an encounter with the enigmatic gangster Dexter Styles and soon she falls into his orbit. As you would expect from Egan, it's a remarkably assured novel peopled by characters who seem on the cusp of new lives in a world that has plunged into flux. Jennifer Egan's Credit:Pieter Van Hattem THE RESTORER

Michael Sala Maryanne decides to go back to her husband Roy, giving him one last chance. The couple and their two children, Freya and Daniel, move to Newcastle where Roy has bought a run-down terrace house to restore. Can he restore the family though? Michael Sala's second novel is a scrupulously written, scarifying story of impending tragedy, which is to give nothing away. Narrated largely from the points of view of Maryanne and Freya, it's a picture of domestic tension, violence and disintegration. Worth reading in concert with Sala's first novel, The Last Thread, which is virtually a memoir of his early life.

RELEASE

Patrick Ness This American author of YA fiction is best known for A Monster Calls, but this is perhaps his most personal book, the sort of book he would have reportedly liked when he was in much the same situation as his protagonist. Release is inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway and relates the intense events in a single day in the life of Adam, who is yet to come out, has already loved and lost, is now falling in love with Linus. It's frank about sex and the difficulties Adam has negotiating adolescent life in a conservative family in a small US town. HOME FIRE

Kamila Shamsie While this might be a reimagining of the classical Greek myth of Antigone and her brother Polynices, Kamila Shamsie's novel about two British muslim families whose fates become dramatically entwined under the cloud of global geopolitics is bang up to date. At its heart lies the tricky problem facing western democracies: how to deal with jihadis who want to return home. It is also about how the decisions of fathers can impact so significantly on their children. Shamsie crafts a riveting novel and ratchets up the tension towards an ending that will leave you gasping. Kamila Shamsie ratchets up the tension in Credit:Zain Mustafa
A "defects report" reveals apartment units inside Franklin's Esque building have been plagued with leaking toilets, faulty air conditioning and cracks in the walls and ceilings.

The property developer responsible for the Esque building, the M and A Group, is understood to owe as much as $2 million to unpaid subcontractors and was recently placed under administration.

The Esque building on the corner of Flemington Road and Manning Clark Crescent in Franklin. Credit:Rohan Thomson

Earlier this month Esque apartment owners were sent a "defects report" detailing 29 separate issues with the building.

The list was compiled on behalf of residents by the Independent Property Group, which is the real estate agent selling apartments inside the Esque building.
Researchers are looking for up to 100 pet cats in the ACT to be volunteered for a national study which reveals the secret life of felines in our neighbourhoods.

The data is also likely to help the government decide whether it will enforce more cat containment areas in not only new suburbs of Canberra, but existing ones.

The ACT is participating in a Cat Tracker project by the University of South Australia to monitor the movements of 1400 cats, 100 of them in the national capital.

The cats in the study wear a tiny GPS tracking unit that registers their every movement.

Cats who have been monitored in the past have been found to roam across vastly different areas, from just the backyard to across 30 hectares.
A child porn accused former Scouts leader was told to leave a Scouts campsite cleanup less than a month after his lawyer told a court he would not return to the organisation.

Daniel Leslie Cooper, 39, has been charged with 26 child porn offences, including possessing, distributing and using a carriage service to obtain the material.

Daniel Leslie Cooper has been charged with 26 child pornography offences. Credit:Facebook

He was booted from his short-lived role as a Venturer Scout leader in Deception Bay when Taskforce Argos informed Scouts Queensland of the "extremely serious" allegations in November

Mr Cooper will have no contact with Scouts at all, general manager Gavin Kelly told Fairfax Media at the time.
A Logan man has been arrested and charged, accused of sexually assaulting 11 children in the Logan area between April 2016 and September this year.

Logan child protection detectives will allege the 26-year-old committed the crimes in the suburb of Kingston during the 18-month period.

The Loganholme man has been charged with 25 counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16.

He was expected to appear in the Beenleigh Magistrates Court on February 9.
Police have charged a second person over the bashing of a man and a woman at a Brisbane shopping centre car park this week.

It's alleged a group of men approached a parked Mitsubishi Magna at 3.45am on Wednesday at Sunnybank Plaza, in Brisbane's south, and dragged a woman out of the vehicle and assaulted her.

CCTV footage released by police appears to show a violent robbery in a Sunnybank shopping centre car park. Credit:Queensland Police Service

A window was also smashed and a man was punched and kicked in the head and robbed of the keys to another car parked nearby.

The group of four men then fled the scene in the stolen vehicle, a Honda Civic.
I can't recall a politician ever revealing his or her new year's resolutions, unless it was exercising more, drinking less and promising to spend more time with their family.

They are the banal promises to the future I might make. But politicians have an obligation not just to themselves but also to those of us who vote for them.

Malcolm Turnbull's latest cabinet. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

So here's my wish list of what I would like politicians to do over the next 12 months: some specific requests of particular ministers; some general requests for all of them.

Kelly O'Dwyer, you're first. As you're the new Minister for Women, I'd like you to clean up the mess left behind by the previous two ministers. Neither Tony Abbott nor Michaelia Cash was able to make any inroads into the level of violence against women in Australia, nor even develop any policies that had a reduction as a possible outcome. Pressure your colleagues to restore the women's budget. The serious process of looking at the budget through a gender lens was dumped by Paul Keating when he was prime minister but, as Marie Coleman of the National Foundation for Australian Women points out, successive governments continued to produce women's budget statements until 2014, when Abbott killed even those off.
In years past, demand for Apple's latest flagship phone was critical to the company's results over the holiday shopping quarter.

That dynamic might be changing, however, as Apple's widening lineup of devices and services more than makes up for any tepidness in demand this quarter for its lead product, the $1579 iPhone X.

iPhone X may be taking longer to catch on than previous iPhones, but Apple has other wares to sell. Credit:Bloomberg

On Tuesday, Apple's stock fell 2.5 percent to $US170.57 ($218.66) after Taiwan's Economic Daily and several analysts suggested iPhone X sales in the fiscal first quarter would be 30 million units, 20 million fewer than initially planned by the company.

The cut in the forecast was not confirmed, and the stock regained ground on Thursday, hitting $US171.82 by midday. The mean revenue estimate for the holiday quarter among 30 analysts remains at $US86.2 billion, near the high end of Apple's forecast of $US84 billion to $US87 billion.
Cairo: A gunman killed at least 11 people in attacks on a Coptic Orthodox church and a Christian-owned shop near Cairo before he was wounded and arrested, the Egyptian interior ministry and church officials said.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, in a statement by its Amaq news agency, though it provided no evidence for the claim.

Police have stepped up security measures around churches ahead of Coptic Christmas celebrations on January 7, deploying officers outside Christian places of worship and setting up metal detectors at some of the bigger churches.

Islamist militants have claimed several attacks on Egypt's large Christian minority in recent years, including two bombings on Palm Sunday in April and a blast at Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral in December 2016 that killed 28 people.
A Tesla P100D sports utility vehicle. Credit:MARK KAUZLARICH Here's a look at what needs to happen before electric cars take over the world. The cost of building motors and components will have to continue to decrease William Li, Founder and Chairman of Chinese automaker NIO launches the NIO ES8 electric SUV in Beijing on December 16. Credit:NG HAN GUAN Electric cars will go mainstream when the cost of the motor and other components that make the car go forward - the powertrain - is the same or below as owning a car that burns petrol or diesel. How soon that day arrives is almost solely a function of the price of batteries.

The average price of a conventional powertrain is $US6000 ($7700), compared with $16,000 for an electric car powertrain. A car charging station is seen at the new Tesla showroom in New York. Credit:MARK KAUZLARICH Battery prices, measured by the power they produce, have fallen by more than half since 2011, according to analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The unexpectedly rapid drop in prices has sped up the timetable. Merrill Lynch analysts now expect electric vehicles will be cheaper to own in the United States by 2024. Just a year ago, they estimated it would take until 2030. Toyota President Akio Toyoda, left, escorts Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga, after they announced they are considering developing batteries for electric vehicles together. Credit:EUGENE HOSHIKO

One reason battery costs are falling is that manufacturers are ramping up production. The greater the supply, the lower the price. There must be a steady, affordable supply of the resources required to make batteries Carmakers are racing to secure the essential ingredients in batteries like cobalt, lithium and graphite. They need to avoid shortages that would drive prices too high, making electric vehicles unaffordable. But manufacturers are also dealing with a geopolitical dimension. The world's reserves of lithium, a crucial ingredient in the most common kind of electric car battery, are in China, Bolivia and Chile. As demand surges, China could deploy its natural resources as a diplomatic cudgel the same way that Saudi Arabia uses oil. The risk that a few countries could control most of the ingredients for electric car batteries is what spurred the drilling crew to the mountainside in Cinovec in the Czech Republic. As early as the 1300s, miners dug tin, "cin" in Czech, from the mountains around the town. Later, the area was an important source of tungsten, but the last shaft closed in 1993. Demand for lithium has made mining in the area attractive again.

European Metals Holdings, an Australian company, is drilling into the bedrock and hauling out core samples to map deposits. The company plans to complete a feasibility study next year and begin mining and processing the ore in Cinovec soon after. More charging stations will need to be built, and they'll need to charge faster Even when people can buy an electric car for the same price or less than a petrol model, they face another problem: where to plug it in. And they will not want to wait all day for the car to recharge. Electric cars will become commonplace once there is a dense network of high-voltage charging stations where drivers can refill their batteries in the time it takes to use the restroom and drink a cup of coffee. At the moment, a cross-country drive in an electric car is an adventure. THe average range of an electric vehicle on full charge is about 305 kilometres, compares with more than 600 for petrol. But an array of startups and established companies like ABB are busy installing charging stations around the world, and they are on their way to becoming commonplace. There are already about 16,000 public charging stations in the United States alone, up from a few hundred in 2010. That compares with about 112,000 petrol stations.

Surprisingly, Volkswagen's emissions scandal has accelerated the rollout. As part of its settlement with diesel owners in the United States who bought cars with illegal software, Volkswagen agreed to spend $US2 billion to promote electric cars and build infrastructure. Electrify America, a company established to invest the settlement money, plans to install more than 2000 fast chargers in the US by mid-2019 in a first phase, with thousands more to follow. Drivers will have to shed their attachment to the sound, smell and feel of petrol-powered engines One of the biggest barriers for electric vehicles is psychological. People are used to internal combustion engines and the sensations that go with them - the odour of the fuel, the shifting of the transmission, the sound of the engine as the car accelerates. Electric cars have a different personality that people need to get their heads around before they will buy one. They may be pleasantly surprised. The physics of electric motors give them exceptional acceleration. A $US135,000 Tesla S clocked by Motor Trend magazine went from 0 to 97 kph faster than Ferraris, Lamborghinis or Porsches which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more.

Electric cars are quiet, nearly vibration free and they do not smell like petrol or exhaust. They do not need oil changes. They cost less to operate. Electric cars hug the road because heavy battery packs, typically arrayed underneath the passenger compartment, provide low centres of gravity and high stability. "There is no question that an electric car gives you significantly better performance," Stafford said. "I don't think the mainstream driver is going to understand that unless they experience it." The car industry will have to leave some of its old methods of production by the side of the road The industry is racing to invest in the future, as electric cars portend sweeping economic and societal changes. The transition will be painful for traditional carmakers and suppliers, potentially even catastrophic. Electric cars have about 25 per cent fewer parts than conventional vehicles. Companies that make engine parts like pistons, fuel injection systems or spark plugs will have to find new products to sell, or die. Some workers' skills will no longer be needed.
Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic argues against the legality of the tribunal at The Hague in February 2002. Credit:ICTY "When I was in law school, it was normal for dictators to retire in the south of France," said Diane Orentlicher, a law professor at Washington's American University. "All my students have grown up in a world where it's normal to think a mastermind of atrocities must be brought to book." When the court was created, the wars of 1992-95 still raging, its outlook was anything but rosy: It lacked money, administrative staff and investigators, and it faced tasks unlike anything prosecutors or defence lawyers had faced in national jurisdictions. Evidence was often hidden in secret mass graves, and witnesses had fled. Crime scenes were riddled with land mines. Serbian newspaper front pages after Milosevic died while still on trial for crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in 2006. Credit:DARKO VOJINOVIC "The office felt a bit like the Wild West," said Michelle Jarvis, a deputy to the chief prosecutor, who joined in 1997 as an intern. She recalled being told that "everything we do all day, every day, is difficult, there's no precedent, there are no straight answers".

Without an armed police force of their own, tribunal detectives struggled to find fugitives or deliver arrest warrants; NATO peacekeepers initially said arrests were not part of their mandate. Relatives of people killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre mourn over their loved ones' coffins before burial in Potocari, Bosnia, in July 2016. Credit:New York Times Politics played a big part in getting fugitives to The Hague: The United States threatened to hold back aid to Serbia unless Milosevic was handed over. Senior Croat and Bosnian Serb defendants, including Karadzic and Mladic, were finally delivered, apparently as a condition for European Union candidacy. The first low-level offenders from Bosnia arriving in The Hague served as a testing ground for new rules and laws. Judges went for guidance to texts of modern international conventions that had never been applied in trials, and had to turn them into applicable laws. Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general, enters the courtroom in The Hague on November 22, 2017, to be sentenced to life in prison for war crimes and genocide. Credit:Peter Dejong

"It all felt so urgent, so important," recalled Douglas Stringer, a former US federal prosecutor who arrived in 1997. "People were watching closely to see if this court could fly, or if it would crash and burn. It wasn't clear; it was all an experiment." Failure was not an option for Antonio Cassese, a prominent Italian jurist and the court's first president, who died in 2011. Several of his early decisions, initially seen as controversial, broadened basic precepts of international criminal law. Radovan Karadzic at the United Nations tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague in March 2016. Credit:ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN He wrote that war crimes could occur not only in wars between nations, but also in conflicts within a country. In another decision, he ruled that massacres, torture and other atrocities committed by a government or a group could constitute crimes against humanity, even without a war. "It was intended for tyrants abusing their own people," he said in a later interview. To tie politicians to the violent campaigns they had planned far from the scenes, judges came up with the doctrine of "joint criminal enterprise", tantamount to the notion of conspiracy used against organised crime.

The cemetery in Potocari, Bosnia, where many of the more than 8000 victims of the Srebrenica massacre of Muslim men and boys are buried. Credit:ANDREW TESTA The tribunal, and its Rwanda counterpart, also created precedents on sexual crimes committed in times of conflict. Judges at the Rwanda tribunal said rape could be prosecuted as part of genocide. The Yugoslavia tribunal, which received reports of more than 20,000 rapes in Bosnia, went further, ruling that systematic rape could also be treated as enslavement, torture and a weapon to destroy lives, and therefore as a war crime. The coffins of some victims of the Srebrenica massacre are carried to the Potocari cemetery in July 2016. Over its 24-year life, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted 161 people, heard from nearly 5000 witnesses and met for 10,800 days. Credit:ANDREW TESTA Jarvis, the prosecutor, said that of the 90 convictions at the Yugoslavia tribunal, more than half included responsibility for sexual abuse.

Critics insisted that the prosecution examine possible crimes by NATO for its bombing of civilian targets in Serbia. Investigators did, and later reported that civilians were killed, but that the investigators received no cooperation from NATO and were unable to find war crimes. The former Bosnian Croat military commander Slobodan Praljak swallows poison after judges sentenced him to 20 years in prison for war crimes in November. Credit:INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA The end of the tribunal's life has made for more open debates around the normally secretive court. Defence lawyers said they had been treated as poor relatives, left without the much vaunted "equality of arms" and overwhelmed by the power of the prosecution. "Rather than a presumption of innocence, there was more often a presumption of guilt," said Marie O'Leary, a veteran defence lawyer. Another sensitive issue involved the uneven quality of the judges. Close to half the tribunal's judges, who were commonly backed by their governments and elected by the UN General Assembly, had been diplomats or academics without trial experience, causing delays and frustration at times.

Wolfgang Schomburg, a German judge formerly at the tribunal, said that only judges with courtroom experience should be admitted in any future war crimes court. "How can we justify that defence lawyers required seven years' experience to appear before this tribunal, and judges none at all?" he asked. In both Serbia and Croatia, politicians have accused the tribunal of bias against their side, and have welcomed convicts returning home as heroes. Even the Croatian commander Slobodan Praljak, who swallowed cyanide in court in November after his appeal was rejected, has been commemorated in Zagreb as a heroic figure. All the same, under Western pressure, war crimes chambers now operate in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia, handling low-level defendants with the help of the database and case law from the tribunal in The Hague. Hrvoje Klasic, a professor of history at the University of Zagreb, said it would probably take a generation or more before people in the region would accept what happened in the wars and start believing there were victims and crimes on all sides. But he said the trials had produced enormous amounts of evidence and uncovered the kind of archives and records that "historians like me would never get from our governments".
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It was a ride in the park  and history in the making!

Dozens of bikers rode escort to the last car allowed on Prospect Parks East Drive on Friday morning, celebrating the unofficial start of Mayor DeBlasios edict permanently banishing gas-guzzlers from the green space.

A Windsor Terrace resident claimed the distinction of being the last motorist to cruise Brooklyns Backyard before park staffers closed the road at 9 am, and the local said he couldnt be happier to drive the meadow into its car-free future.

I think this is great, said Frank Noll, 66. It makes the point that this is a park and its going back to the way it should be.

DeBlasios ban officially kicks in on Jan. 2, but because vehicles are already forbidden from the park on weekends and holidays, including New Years Day, civilians last window to legally rumble through the green space was from 7 to 9 am on Friday.

Bitter-cold temperatures and biting winds did not stop anti-car advocates from Transportation Alternatives and New York Cycle Club from assembling a sizeable fleet of cyclists for the early-morning escort, a sign of how important Hizzoners ban is to bikers, one rider said.

This is one of the only things that would get me out here on a day with this freezing weather, said Park Sloper Carly Smith, 36. Celebrating the return of the park to the community is a really fun thing.

The swarm of cyclists followed Noll in his 2001 Subaru Forester on the roughly mile-and-a-half journey along the East Drive from Park Circle to Grand Army Plaza, where the local departed his pedal-pushing honor guard as its members waved and shouted, Bye cars!

DeBlasios permanent ban on East Drive traffic followed a summer-long prohibition on cars traveling the road, and his 2015 edict booting vehicles from Prospects West Drive, which Kensington-bound motorists once could cruise during the evening rush on weekdays.

But progressive legislation may not be enough to keep four-wheelers from entering the park  earlier in December, a driver illegally riding along the West Drive seriously injured a jogger when he collided with her in an early-morning hit-and-run.
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Its a brand new day on Jay!

The long-empty former Metropolitan Transportation Authority building on Jay Street in Downtown welcomed its first new tenant in a decade when New York University staffers moved into the abandoned site earlier this month, bringing fresh life to the dilapidated structure that one former borough president once declared a magnet for trash, according to the pol.

It was an eyesore in an exciting area of Downtown, it was mostly vacant, and frankly Im thrilled, said Marty Markowitz. I think itll be such a positive contribution to the vitality of the neighborhood.

The state transit agencys one-time headquarters, dubbed the Transportation Building, sat nearly vacant for more than 10 years after employees decamped for two new spaces inside a Livingston Street building a few blocks away and a tower on the distant isle of Manhattan.

But in mid-December, amid the universitys ongoing $500-million makeover of the site, staffers from its Tandon School of Engineerings Center for Urban Science and Progress moved into the top two floors of the building at 370 Jay Street after workers gutted its insides, replaced its roof and windows, and at long last tore down some of the long-standing scaffolding that has been a neighborhood eyesore for years.

Eyesore: The site circa 2008, when pols including former Borough President Markowitz demanded the Metropolitan Transportation Authority vacate the space.

Engineering-school students will begin taking classes in the new space in January while contractors put the finishing touches on the 11 remaining floors, which will include audio labs, virtual-reality rooms, performance and workshop spaces, and classrooms that will also be filled by thespians from the universitys Tisch School of the Arts and pupils enrolled in its culture-and-technology program, Media and Games Network.

School officials expect the entire building to be occupied by 2019.

Markowitz, other local leaders, and residents railed against the transportation authority for neglecting its former headquarters between Willoughby Street and MetroTech as the neighborhood around underwent a development boom in 2008, demanding the cash-strapped agency vacate the ghost of a building so it could be transformed into a space that could actually boost the local economy.

Three years later, the transit agencys honchos agreed to leave the city-owned building, and in 2012, the private university signed a 99-year lease for the site.

As part of the schools renovation of the property, workers are also sprucing up two entrances to the nearby Jay Street-MetroTech subway station, a hub that the city last refreshed in 2010.

Swanky: Students start classes in the renovated space in January. New York University
Tesco Ireland has this week announced the donation of 40 Grocery Home Service Vans to charitable groups across the country. This move is part of Tescos No Time for Waste campaign which aims to minimise food waste and increase surplus food donations nationwide.

Since becoming the first retailer to launch a nationwide surplus food donations programme in 2014 with FoodCloud, Tesco has redistributed almost 4.5 million meals to over 275 community groups across the country.

Every week, Tesco donates on average the equivalent of over 41,000 meals. Over 275 local community groups are already realising the benefits of Tescos surplus food donations including family resource centres, soup kitchens, youth services, homeless organisations, meals on wheels and more.

These donations have enabled the charitable sector to save over 6 million off their food bills to date, as estimated by FoodCloud, empowering them to invest in additional support services across the country.



Tesco Ireland claims it has identified two key issues for the charitable food sector in Ireland and has plans in place to support causes to address them.

Firstly, Tesco claims local causes lack sufficient refrigerated storage facilities for food. To support causes to increase their storage capacity, Tesco Ireland recently committed to providing free fridges and freezers to them through its Community Chill initiative. To date, Tesco has received a strong response with applications received for over 340 individual storage units that are expected to be delivered to the successful community groups in January 2018.

Secondly, Tesco believes many causes lack transport options with volunteers using their own personal cars and vans to carry out the day-to-day services of local groups and organisations across the country. To support its partner causes with this challenge, Tesco Ireland has announced that it will donate 40 vans to charitable groups across Ireland over the coming months including Dublin Simon Community, DaisyHouse, Linx Ballymun and many more.



Commenting on the initiative, Chief Operating Officer at Tesco Ireland, Geoff Byrne said, "The donation of 40 vans is an evolution of our commitment to reducing food waste and ensuring those in need in our local communities receive nutritious food. Our surplus food donations programme has grown from strength to strength, from a one store trial back in 2013 to donating almost 4.5 million meals with all of stores donating surplus food to their local communities with the support of FoodCloud. This donation of vans will help us redistribute even more food to people in need."

CEO of FoodCloud Hubs, Aoibheann OBrien added, "We are delighted to receive these 7 vans from Tesco. These vans are going to make a fantastic difference for the community groups we work with who struggle to collect food due to transport issues. This will mean that we can increase the food that these community groups receive and in turn enable them to have a reliable source of surplus food donations."



Source: www.businessworld.ie
European stocks steadied on Friday, the final trading day of 2017, and were set to record their strongest year of gains since 2013 thanks to a surge among tech stocks and a robust resources sector.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 0.1% in thin volumes on the day, while euro zone blue chips declined 0.2%.

Britain's FTSE 100 hit a new record and was 0.2% higher in a half-day of trading for the index, while Italian equities declined 0.4% after the president dissolved parliament on Thursday and an election day was scheduled for March 4.

Overall 2017 has been a positive year for European stocks, fuelled by strong company earnings, a supportive economic backdrop and an absence of major political upsets.

The STOXX is set to end 2017 with a gain of 7.7%, its strongest year since 2013. Germany and Italy's benchmarks have been standout performers, rising 12.8% and 14.5% respectively this year.

Periphery markets have also had a strong year, with Greece's benchmark up 23.5% while Portugal has gained 14.7%.

Britain's FTSE 100 has lagged slightly, rising 7% in 2017, as has Spain's IBEX, which is up 7.6% as the crisis in Catalonia curbed enthusiasm for Spanish equities in the latter part of the year.

Brexit uncertainty has dented sentiment towards UK equities, while a recovering pound has also put pressure on the blue chips' large proportion of overseas earners.

Looking ahead to 2018, investors remain upbeat about the region's stock market although there are concerns that a further rise in the euro could erode earnings and political risks could slow the economy.

Brexit is going to be very much the same story as last year ... thats just going to weigh constantly on the markets, Jasper Reimers, senior analyst at Vertex Capital, said.

Among sectors, this year has been dominated by a near-20% rise among Europe's tech stocks, closely followed by basic resources. Chipmaker AMS has been the top-gaining firm on the STOXX, surging 208% in 2017.

Telecoms, retail and media have brought up the rear, with year-to-date losses ranging between 2.4 to 3.7%.

Furniture retailer Steinhoff is the worst-performing individual stock this year, down 93.6% in 2017 after its CEO resigned amid an accounting probe. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
The career choices available today are numerous and finding the right one for you may be challenging. Before you choose a direction, you need to consider several factors and do in-depth research on several postgraduate programs. If after doing your research and a little bit of soul-searching you narrowed it down to business, then one of the best choices for you is an MBA program. While many other finance-related specializations have appeared over the years, an MBA degree remains one of the best options available. Below are several reasons why you should consider getting an MBA.

1. High Earning Potential

Irrespective of whether you are hired in the public or private sector, you will get paid a substantial amount of money with an MBA. When you compare the salaries of most postgraduate degrees, with an MBA, youll notice that there is a huge difference. MBA opportunities vary greatly, and so does the pay. For instance, someone specializing in human resources may be paid half the salary of a strategy major, for instance.

2. Self-Employment Option

You could easily start your own business and become successful with a master in business administration. When you complete an MBA program, youll have acquired the necessary knowledge and practices to operate and develop a successful business. Colleges like Touro University Online now offer online MBA programs, which would allow you to learn while managing your business if youre already a business owner. Getting an MBA online has many advantages and is much more convenient since you dont have to interrupt your current activities.

3. More Career Opportunities

An MBA program covers a lot of areas including Statistics, Human Resource, Economics, Technology, and Finance. You will, therefore, be qualified to pursue a career in several business-related sectors and areas. Not many degree programs offer as wide a field of possible positions as an MBA does. You wont have to be trapped in a particular career and you can always switch between career paths if you wish to.

4. Great Job Security

With an MBA, you will always be in high demand in all job markets because of the several areas it touches. MBAs are highly recognized in every part of the world, which will make you very marketable wherever you go.

5. Ideal for Networking

An MBA will give you a great base for you to meet people in the business world. Youll potentially get the opportunity to meet great entrepreneurs, old-school businessmen, company managers, recruiters, keynote speakers, and several other executives. All these opportunities will pave the way for future employment opportunities and allow you to gain knowledge, especially if you want to start your own business.

Conclusion

An MBA program is a great option for many reasons. The best part about getting an MBA is that you won't have to be stuck in one particular field like many other degree holders. Not many degree programs provide this kind of flexibility, which is why MBAs remain a degree of choice for many.
New guidelines encourage the four national companies set up to recover assets in bad-loan cases to engage in debt-for-equity projects to support the countrys debt-relief efforts. Above: China Huarong Asset Management Co. in exhibition. Photo: Visual China

The China Banking Regulatory Commission released new guidelines for the countrys four national asset-management companies (AMC), clarifying requirements about their capital adequacy ratio, leverage ratio and risk control.

The new rules provide more detailed requirements based on a 2014 regulation of the countrys four national AMCs  China Great Wall Asset Management Co., China Orient Asset Management Co., China Huarong and China Cinda. The guidelines were released on Friday and take effect on Jan. 1.

The four national AMCs were set up in 1999 to take over bad loans from institutions and recover as much money as possible from the assets by selling or restructuring them or applying other workout methods.

The new guidelines kept the 2014 requirement that the parent company of each AMC should has a capital-adequacy ratio of no less than 12.5%. But the rules elaborated that the parent companies adequacy ratio for core capital should not stay below 9% while the tier one capital-adequacy ratio must be above 10%, both of which are higher than the related requirements on commercial banks.

The new rules said debt-for-equity swap projects wont be included in the capital requirement in a bid to encourage AMCs participation in such projects to support central governments debt-relief efforts.

It will push forward the debt-for-equity swap projects, said Lu Zhengwei, chief economist of Industrial Securities.

The new rules also set different risk weight on the AMCs investment activities. Bad-asset acquisition and debt-for-equity swap investment are given a relatively lower risk weight compared with equity investments in financial institutions, reflecting the regulators intention to encourage AMCs to focus on their core business, an industry source said.

The new rules also require parent companies of the AMCs to keep a leverage ratio above 6% and carefully monitor risks related to credit conditions, market fluctuation and business operations.

Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com)
Google Doodle paid honor to renowned Kannada poet and author Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, also popularly known as Kuvempu, on his 113th birth anniversary. His writings and his contribution to 'Universal Humanism' gives him a unique place in modern Indian literature.

Kuvempu is considered among the greatest writers in the Kannada language. Born on December 29, 1904, Kuvempu underwent homeschooling in his early childhood. He joined the middle-schooling in Anglo-Vernacular school, Tirthahalli. Later, he completed his graduation from the Maharaja College, Mysore, majoring in the Kannada language & began his academic career as a lecturer of Kannada language at the Maharajas College in Mysore.

From then, he worked as an advocate in making Kannada the medium of education in Karnataka. He founded an organization at the Mysore University to research the Kannada language which has been named after him as "Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies".

Kuvempu started his literary career with a collection of poetry called Beginner's Muse but later switched to his native language Kannada. He spearheaded the movement to make Kannada the medium for education in Karnataka, emphasizing the theme 'Education in the Mother's tongue'. He was also awarded the Jnanpith award for his version of the epic Ramayana called 'Sri Ramayana Darshanam'. Kuvempu also received Karnataka Ratna, Padma Vibhushan, Pampa Award, Jnanpith Award, Rashtrakavi Award, Padma Bhushan & Sahitya Akademi Award.

Kuvempu's writings reflected the wonders of the natural world, which is why, when illustrator Upamanyu Bhattacharyya and letterer Swati Shelar were working on the doodle, they chose to portray him surrounded by nature.

December 29 is observed as Rationalism Day to mark the birth anniversary of poet laureate. On this day, programmes are observed at government offices and educational institutions to propagate rational thinking and promote scientific temper among people.

Google celebrates his birth anniversary by dedicating its doodle. Kuvempu passed away on November 1, 1994 at the age of 89 and his words live in the minds of each and every Kannadiga's.

Google Doodle Launches the Season's Animation, 10 Things Students and Teachers Can Learn
The Naval Dockyard Mumbai has released an employment notification calling out for aspirants to apply for the posts of Data Entry Operator. Candidates can check out the complete details of the recruitment here and apply at the official website in order to proceed.

Deadline

The last date to apply online is 13 January 2018.

Indian Navy Recruitment 2018: Vacancy Details

CRITERIA DETAILS Company Indian Navy Number of posts 16 Name of the post Data Entry Operator Category Grade B (2 Posts) and Data Entry Operator Grade A (14 Posts) Salary as per 7th CPC Pay Matrix -Level 4- Rs.25500-81100 Educational requirement for Grade A 10 + 2 pass from a recognized board or equivalent; O Level Certificate of proficiency in computer programming or database management from Department of Electronics Accredited Computer Courses (DOEACC) recognized Institution. Educational requirement for Grade B The candidate should have a degree from a recognized University or Board; A Level Certificate of proficiency in computer programming or database management from Department of Electronics Accredited Computer Courses (DOEACC) recognized Institution. Official website bhartiseva.com

Air India Recruitment 2018: Apply For Various Posts Now!

Exam Paper Syllabus

1. General Intelligence.

2. English Language.

3. Quantitative Aptitude.

4. General Awareness.

Reservation details

Reservation for SC/ST/OBC/PwDs categories is available as per extant Government Orders. The reserved vacancies will be filled up separately from amongst the eligible SCs, STs, OBCs & PwDs candidates which will thus comprise of SC,ST,OBC & PwDs who are lower in merit than the last general candidate on merit list of unreserved category but otherwise found suitable for the appointment even by relaxed standards viz. age limit etc.

Also Read: Indian Army Recruitment 2018 for Soldiers and Civilians Posts: Apply Now!

Documents to be submitted

1. SC-ST Certificate

2. Undertaking for Departmental Candidates

3. OBC Certificate

4. OBC Certificate in CG format

5. PH Certificate

6. Undertaking for ESM

How to apply for Indian Navy Recruitment 2018?

In order to apply, log on to the official website of the Indian Navy

To apply for Grade A DEO, click here

To apply for Grade B DEO, click here

Also Read: Indian Airforce Recruitment 2018 For Various Posts: Apply Now!
SSC tentative answer keys have been released by the Staff Selection Commission for the Delhi Police, Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and Assistant Sub Inspectors in CISF recruitment exam.

Registered candidates can now check out the answer keys online and further challenge it in case they want to put forth their discrepancies.

Where to find the SSC CISF Exam Answer Key 2017?

Candidates can log in to the official website - ssc.nic.in and check the answer keys.

Also Read: Railway Jobs 2018: Apply for Group C Posts in North Central Railway!

SSC CISF 2017 Exam Date

SSC had conducted paper II on December 15, 2017.

Challenging the answer key

The lines for challenging the answer key will be open from December 29 till January 3 (5:30 pm).

Fees

For each query, the candidates must pay Rs 100.

IOCL Recruitment 2018 for Engineering and Technical Assistants: Apply Now!

How to download SSC answer keys 2017?

In order to download SSC answer keys 2017, follow the steps given below:

Log on to the official website of Delhi Police (ssc.nic.in)

Click on 'Tentative Answer Keys-Recruitment of Sub-Inspectors in Delhi Police, CAPFs and Assistant Sub-Inspectors in CISF Examination, 2017 (Paper-II)'

A new page will open showing a note. Towards a bottom, there's the answer key link. Click on it.

A new page will open where you need to enter your city, registration number, date of birth

Answer keys will appear on the screen

Save it to your computer and take a print out for further reference.

Also Read: Bharat Electronics Ltd Recruitment 2017 for Engineer Posts: Apply Now!

Vacancy details

Sub-Inspector (Male) in Delhi Police: 616 posts

Sub-Inspector in Delhi Police/ Female: 259 posts

Sub-Inspector (GD) in CAPFs: 697 posts for male and 89 for female candidates

Also Read: MPPSC Recruitment 2018 for 2968 Assistant Professors, 308 State and Forest Services: Apply Now!

About SSC

According to the official website, the Staff Selection Commission is an attached office of the Department of Personnel and Training and comprises of Chairman, two Members and a Secretary-cum-Controller of Examinations who are appointed on such terms and conditions as may be prescribed by the Central Government from time to time. The Commission is provided such supporting staff as considered necessary by the Central Government.

Odisha Sub-Ordinate Staff Selection Commission Recruitment 2018
Photo: DriveBC Snowy conditions on the Coquihalla Highway, near the Box Canyon area.

UPDATE: 5:40 a.m.

As of about 3:15 a.m. Friday, DriveBC is reporting the Coquihalla Highway open, but still under a travel advisory.

Heavy snowfall should be expected between Hope and Merritt.

Compact snow with slippery sections is reported from Kingsvale (Coldwater Road) to Merritt and Logan Lake to the junction with Highway 8.

UPDATE: 7:45 p.m.

The southbound lanes of the Coquihalla Highway have been closed Thursday night, just east of the highway's junction with Highway 3.

The closure, near Hope, is due to a vehicle crash. DriveBC is warning drivers of "heavy delays" and says crews are en route.

Heavy snow has been falling on the highway throughout the day, causing significant delays.

UPDATE: 5:05 p.m.

According to highway cams, it appears the standstill on the Coquihalla Highway in the northbound lanes has cleared.

While traffic is once again moving, heavy snow continues to fall on the highway, blanketing the road.

A travel advisory remains in effect as heavy snowfall is expected through the night.

UPDATE: 3:25 p.m.

It's slow going on the Coquihalla Highway this afternoon.

One woman told Castanet they've been at a standstill in the northbound lanes just before the Great Bear Snowshed for about an hour.

"We're stuck, there's a truck in the middle of the road," she said.

The province issued a travel advisory for the notorious highway earlier Thursday morning.

UPDATE: 10:10 a.m.

A travel advisory has been issued for the entire Coquihalla Highway.

Heavy snowfall from Merritt to Kamloops, and Hope to Merritt is expected today through Friday, producing limited visibility due to heavy snow, DriveBC reports.

Travellers are advised to exercise caution, be prepared for potential delays, and consider alternate routes.

ORIGINAL: 9:30 a.m.

A special weather statement has been issued for the Okanagan.

An additional 10 cm of snow is possible Thursday night with more snow continuing Friday.

Moist Pacific air spreading over a dome of cold arctic air in the BC Interior will result in 10 to 15 cm of snow today, stated Environment Canada.



The statement also includes the Okanagan Connector  from Merritt to Kelowna.

Additionally, there is a risk of freezing rain this afternoon near Hope.

Travellers are advised that roads may become hazardous due to icy conditions and to exercise due caution, stated Environment Canada.

Snowfall warning has been in effect since Wednesday for Kelowna and Vernon and another 10 to 15 centimetres is expected on Friday.

Penticton will see up to 10 centimetres as arctic air is in place over the Interior and will combine with moisture advancing from the Pacific to give more snow.

More snow is likely late Friday as another Pacific system approaches, stated Environment Canada.
Media Statement For Immediate Release: Thursday, December 28, 2017

Contact: Media Relations

(404) 639-3286 The final outbreak notice is available at https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2017/o157h7-12-17/index.html.

CDC, several states, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are investigating a multistate outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7 infections (STEC O157:H7) in 13 states. Seventeen illnesses have been reported from California (3), Connecticut (2), Illinois (1), Indiana (1), Michigan (1), Nebraska (1), New Hampshire (2), New York (1), Ohio (1), Pennsylvania (1), Virginia (1), Vermont (1) and Washington (1). Illnesses started on dates from November 15 through December 8, 2017. The Public Health Agency of Canadaexternal icon also is investigating an outbreak of STEC O157:H7 infections in several provinces.

Whole genome sequencing is being performed on samples of bacteria making people sick in the United States to give us information about whether these illnesses are related to the illnesses in Canada. Preliminary results show that the type of E. coli making people sick in both countries is closely related genetically, meaning the ill people are more likely to share a common source of infection.

The Public Health Agency of Canada has identified romaine lettuce as the source of the outbreak in Canada. In the United States, state and local public health officials are interviewing sick people to determine what they ate in the week before their illness started. CDC is still collecting information to determine whether there is a food item in common among sick people, including leafy greens and romaine.

Because we have not identified a source of the infections, CDC is unable to recommend whether U.S. residents should avoid a particular food. This investigation is ongoing, and more information will be released as it becomes available.

###

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICESexternal icon
INC Paraguay to start up new mill

29 December 2017

Industria Nacional del Cement (INC) plans to commission a new 80tph cement mill in 1Q18. The mill will increase production by 40 per cent, according to the president of the cement company, Jorge Mendez.



The new mill will operate alongside the old mill currently used by the cement company. Mendez said that the increase in production will also enable the Paraguayan company to expand market share from 51 per cent to 70-75 per cent and generate additional revenues of US$50m per year.



The new mill was installed by local company Engineering SA and represents an investment of US$11.5m.

Published under
Indonesia cement consumption continues its ascent

29 December 2017

In November 2017, Indonesias domestic cement consumption continued to grow rapidly, rising to 6,365,491t, a 12.1 per cent rise compared to November 2016. Total exports were 281,065t (+178.8 per cent) of which cement exports were 121,727t (+81.4 per cent) while clinker exports were 159,339Tt (+327.5 per cent).



YtD domestic consumption was recorded at 60,551,621t (+7.8 per cent) and total exports were 2,567,759t (+71.7 per cent) of which cement exports were 981,791t (+104.4 per cent) and clinker exports were 1,585,967T (+56.3 per cent).



Semen Indonesias domestic sales in November 2017 were 2,566,901T (+11.3 per cent) or 40.4 per cent of the countrys domestic sales. Its exports, from plants at Padang and Tonasa, in November were 169,638t (+152.9 per cent) which represent 60.4 per cent of the countrys exports. Including exports, Semen Indonesias total sales volume in November 2017 was 2,736,539t (+15.3 per cent), while YtD 2017 sales amounted to 26,432,376t (+9.9 per cent).

Published under
Coptic Christians in Egypt have been experiencing heightened persecution in recent times. Attacks against Coptic communities have especially increased during Christian holidays.

CBN News reports that at least 10 people were killed when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a Coptic Christian church in a south Cairo suburb.

Authorities are currently investigating the incident and have closed off the area surrounding the church. There was initial discrepancy in the report of the death toll.

Samir Gerges, a witness to the attack, said the church gates were closed when the gunfire started, but bullets still penetrated the building.

Another witness, Raouth Atta, also commented on the attack: Once the gunfire was heard, the gates were closed immediately, she told The Associated Press over the phone. People were terrified and wanted to check on their families in other buildings of the church. We stayed inside for 30 minutes before we were able to get out.

CBN News reports that Egypt has been under a state of emergency since April when Islamic extremists attacked Coptic Christian churches on Palm Sunday, killing 47 people. Last December, another attack was carried out on Egypts Christian community, killing 29 people.

Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypts population.

Photo courtesy: Thinkstock/photos.com

Publication date: December 29, 2017
The Oregon Court of Appeals maintained a ruling against Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of the bakery Sweetcakes by Melissa, which ordered the Kleins to pay $135,000 to a lesbian couple whose wedding cake the Kleins refused to make, says The Blaze.

The Blaze quotes KGW-TV saying, The court did reverse one decision that said bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein violated state law by communicating their intent to discriminate against gay couples in the future.

The Kleins, represented by First Liberty Institute, may take the case to the Oregon Supreme Court next.

The case began when the Kleins were approached by a previous customer in January 2013 who asked them to make the cake for her wedding with another woman, says First Liberty.

She had such a positive experience at Sweet Cakes that she wanted Melissa to make her wedding cake.

However, the Kleins refused because of their Christian beliefs.

According to First Liberty, Aaron Klein explained that by making a wedding cake, they would be endorsing something that violated their beliefs, which is something they could not do.

The case was brought to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), which in 2015 ordered the Kleins to pay the women for emotional damages, according to Breitbart.

The BOLI also ordered a cease and desist against the Kleins to stop them from saying that they will not participate in a same-sex wedding or otherwise talk about their desire to run their business according to their faith, says First Liberty.

The years long legal battle has taken a toll on the Melissa and Aaron, as well as their kids. The Kleins have received hate mail and threats, and due to the financial burden, they were forced to close down their bakery storefront.

Melissa now sells bakery items exclusively online, and Aaron had to find work as a garbage collector to pay the bills.

The Kleins defense with First Liberty still hopes to overturn the ruling.

Attorney Jeremy Dyswho represents the Kleins, says The Blaze, said he hoped the Kleins would be victorious in affirming American business owners rights to be free to live their faith.

The First Amendment stands for the principle that government cannot compel art or speech, said Stephanie Taub, Counsel with First Liberty. The Supreme Court has an obligation to ensure that freedoms of speech and religious expression are preserved for all Americans.

Photo courtesy: Thinkstock/AmberLaneRoberts

Publication date: December 29, 2017
3 ways Christians do the devil's work for him

Christians are given the great privilege of representing God to those who don't know Him. We are all being continually transformed into the image and likeness of Christ, to the end that everything we do should point to Him.

Some Christians, however, may or may not realize it but instead of doing the things that God wants them to do, they are already doing the devil's work for him. We are all called to do the Lord's work in His vineyard, but sadly, some of us who say we follow and obey Christ are doing the devil's work.

But how do Christians do the devil's work for him, you may ask? Here are a few ways Christians do the enemy's work for him.

1) Slander, falsely accuse, and condemn

Probably the most common of the three I will share for now, many Christians falsely accuse their fellow believers, slander them, and even condemn them in the company of others. This is terrible!

Revelation 12:10 tells us that Satan is the accuser of the brethren who accuses us all day and night before God. If we accuse our fellow believers wrongly, slander them, and condemn them for their past sins that God has already forgiven, don't we all do the devil's work for him?

When a Christian gossips and slanders others, passing made-up false testimonies about a certain brother or sister in the church, those who hear and believe will be convinced to side against the slanderer's victims.

Even pastors do this, by setting up their own groups and talking down other churches, fellowships, and ministers. This should not be.

2) Teach false doctrine

The Lord Jesus said to Peter about His church, "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)

Based on this verse we know that the forces of darkness will come and do what they can to destroy the church.

There are some Christians, however, who may or may not know it but they are being deceived in their thoughts and actions and actually opposing the church of Christ. How?

By espousing theology and teaching that is completely contrary to the Word of God and instead following the mores and ideas of the day.

3) Incite others to sin

Lastly, when a Christian incites a fellow believer to sin, that's just plain demonic. For one to be "demonic," you don't need fire and all sorts of scary costumes with horns, tails and forked tongues. All that you need is to introduce sin to a believer's life.

The Bible tells us that our "adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (see 1 Peter 5:8). The enemy is always on the lookout for someone to tempt and incite to commit sin, and we should not help him.

If we do this to our fellow believers, either by offending them or inciting them to anger, or even causing them to sin in other ways, we are actually doing the devil's work for him. We must not do this!

Worst of all

Many Christians may not realize this, but the worst thing we can do (which actually greatly helps the devil in his work) is to cause others to deny or reject Christ with our words and actions.

If our lifestyle goes contrary to what we preach or say to unbelievers, they will see our hypocrisy. It's time for us to read our Bibles and obey what they say. It's time for us to pray and seek God. It's time for us to do what glorifies God.

In closing

Friends, have you ever done any of these to fellow believers? If you have, then repent of it before the Lord and strive to live right before Him.
Apple's Asian market shares plummeted on Tuesday after a Taiwanese newspaper report

A Taiwanese newspaper report suggested that Apple's sale for the iPhone X could fall down for the first quarter of 2018.

According to Reuters, Apple's share in the Asian market plummeted on Tuesday, Dec. 26 after a report by Taiwan's Economic Daily, which suggested that demands for the iPhone X will be lower than expected for the first quarter of 2018.

Unidentified sources of the Taiwanese newspaper "Economic Daily" claimed on Monday, Dec. 25, that Apple's sales forecast for their flagship device the iPhone X will be cut short to 30 million units as opposed to the 50 million units the Cupertino-based company has initially planned.

Apple has refused to comment on the matter and is yet to issue a statement.

Meanwhile, Apple's iPhone X and 8 devices have not yet managed to beat the number of sales the iPhone 6 has produced in 2014. As previously reported, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) has surveyed a number of Apple iPhone buyers starting November, when the iPhone X was released, until Sunday, Dec. 3.

CIRP has found out that the combined sales figure of the iPhone 8/8 Plus/X only has accounted for 69 percent of Apple's sales in the U.S. alone. To compare, the iPhone 6/6 Plus managed to account for 91 percent of the company's total sale when it was released in September 2014.

This was not the only time that Apple's sale's figure has swindled in the U.S. According to a graph released by CIRP, Apple's uptake of newer iPhone models dropped down to 71 percent in 2015 when the iPhone 6s/6s Plus was released.

Apple's uptake for newer iPhone models rose to 73 percent in 2016 when the iPhone 7/7 Plus was released. Then, the company's uptake for newer iPhone models was at its lowest when the iPhone 8/8 Plus/X was released, totaling to 69 percent this year.

However, Apple may see an increase of sale for the iPhone 8/8 Plus/X in China in 2018 as the company is expected to pour 30-50 million more units in the region.
Jun Ji Hyun pregnancy news: Details on second child's due date and gender confirmed

"Legends of the Blue Sea" actress Jun Ji Hyun is set to become a proud mother of two soon and as she is into her last few weeks of pregnancy, she finally revealed when the bun in the oven is due.

According to Soompi, the 36-year-old Hallyu star's agency, Culture Depot, announced on Thursday that she is already 36 weeks pregnant and expected to give birth to a baby boy at the end of January 2018. Other details on her delivery are not provided.

Currently, she is said to be on hiatus to focus on prenatal care and prepare for the arrival of her family's newest member.

Jun is married to Choi Joon Hyuk, a banker at the Bank of America who is also the grandson of famed Hanbok designer Lee Young Hee. They were originally childhood friends and dated for a year before tying a knot at the Shilla Hotel, Seoul in April 2012. After the wedding, they were spotted on honeymoon in Rome and other locations.

The couple announced their first pregnancy after the release of her movie "Assassination" in July 2015 and welcomed their first son seven months later in February 2016. They were most recently spotted dining with acquaintances at a Hong Kong restaurant earlier this month.

One of the most in-demand celebrities in South Korea, Jun has been active in the industry for roughly 20 years now. Aside from "Legend of the Blue Sea," Jun is also known for her role in 2001's "My Sassy Girl," one of the highest-grossing Korean comedies of all time, which got a Hollywood remake starring Jesse Bradford and Elisha Cuthbert.

Her other notable acting credits include the classic films "Windstruck," "Il Mare," and "The Thieves" as well as the TV drama "My Love from the Star," which marked her small screen comeback since appearing in 1999's "Happy Together."
'Vikings' season 5 episode 7 spoilers: Bjorn arrives in Kattegat, Ivar gets new alliance

"Vikings" season 5 episode 7 will continue the story about Bjorn Ironside's (Alexander Ludwig) return to Kattegat. Aside from that, it will also feature Ivar the Boneless (Alex Hogh) who is set to decide if he will trust a former enemy.

To recall, episode 6, titled "Message," showed Bjorn surviving the attack from Kassia's (Karima McAdams) troops. With the help of Halfdan (Jasper Paakkonen), the group managed to escape and go back to Kattegat. Meanwhile, Ivar is trying to establish an alliance with Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick). He will start plotting an attack with Harald Finehair (Peter Franzen) for a war that will happen in two moons time.

Astrid (Josefin Asplund) was tasked to send a message to Lagertha. However, it was not easy for her since she was raped before she even reached Lagertha. Upon knowing about the attack, Lagertha planned a counter-attack with Ubbe (Jordan Patrick Smith). In the same episode, Floki (Gustaf Skarsgard) was seen leaving Kattegat with a small group that will populate Iceland.

The next episode, which is titled "Full Moon," will feature Bjorn who finally arrives in Kattegat. After traveling for a long time, he now prepares himself to face a battle during the next full moon.

Meanwhile, Ivar continues convincing Bishop Heahmund (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) to go to his side. He offers him a deal that he cannot resist. Ivar also allows Bishop to kill as many heathens as he likes as long as they belong to Lagertha's group. Since Floki is already in Iceland, Ivar does not have friends anymore. Will he become good friends with Bishop soon? Is Bishop indeed a trusted alliance?

According to reports, the upcoming episode is foundational as it sets the story while viewers figure out what will happen next. The episode is described as a "calm before the storm" since a big storm is coming to the show. Something huge will disturb the people in Kattegat, which might be seen in the show's midseason finale in episode 10.

"Vikings" season 5 episode 7 will air on Wednesday, Jan. 3, at 9 p.m. ET. on the History Channel.
War, poverty, the rise of the machines? 10 'prophecies' for society in 2018

It's always dangerous to claim to be a prophet. Make a prophecy too specific and it is easy to be proved wrong, make it too general and it is impossible to be proved wrong. I don't claim the mantle of a prophet in the biblical sense of the word (someone who brings extra revelation from the Lord or who foretells the future) but it is good for us to 'understand the times' and to reflect upon what is happening in our uncertain world so here are my ten 'predictions' for the coming year.

10. There will be wars and rumours of wars  North Korea is the one to watch, not least because of its potential to use nuclear weapons. Japan has just announced that it is building new aircraft carriers to deal with this threat and the increased belligerence of China in the South China seas. Lets not forget the ongoing conflicts in Sudan/South Sudan, Congo, and Ukraine. There seems little likelihood of peace on earth in 2018.

9. President Trump will continue to re-write the Presidential playbook  Contrary to some predictions, Donald Trump has survived one year as president, and we have survived one year of his presidency. It has not been the complete disaster that some predicted (a successful Asian tour and a growing economy, two notable successes), nor has it been the 'Nirvana' that some hoped for. The investigation by Robert Mueller might yet lead all the way to the top and provide the smoking gun for impeachment that some look for. Whatever happens we know that the President will continue to tweet, offend and outrage with his narcissistic and self-indulgent behaviour.

8. There will be 'Extreme Weather events'  There have always been 'extreme weather events' and to the end of time there always will be. Whatever the extent of the impact of human activity there are few that will deny it is significant for our planet. Not all the floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and extreme temperatures will be directly attributable to our carbon emissions but it would be foolish to deny that what we do does have an impact. Just as it is foolish to think that somehow we can control the weather and the planet. The biblical perspective that we are to be stewards of God's earth is one that we need constantly to remember.

7. ISIS and Islamist Terrorism will continue in a different form  The defeat of ISIS in terms of their so-called Islamic State does not mean the end of their ideology or activities. Thousands of ISIS fighters will move on to Afghanistan or return to Europe, Africa and Indonesia. Some will have become disillusioned and will turn away from the violence, but others will be even more embittered. The ongoing fight against Islamist terrorism will continue to impact us all and sadly the recent suicide bombing in Afghanistan will not be the last.

6. Political Turbulence will continue in Europe and beyond  Who would have thought at the beginning of 2017 that we would be entering 2018 without a German government in power  as Angela Merkel continues to seek to form a coalition, following the unexpected success of the far right AFD movement, now the third largest party in the German Bundestag? Or that a far-right party in Austria would be partially in power? Or that Poland would be facing sanctions from the EU concerning civil liberties? Or that political leaders in Catalonia would be spending New Year imprisoned by the Spanish government?

The rise of extremist politics looks likely to continue in 2018, with right and left feeding off one another. In Europe the far-right in Sweden, Germany, Austria and in Eastern Europe will continue  and the threat has not gone away in France, Italy and the Netherlands. The situation in Catalonia is volatile and we must not forget what is happening in Greece and also the Ukraine. It's not just in Europe. In South America there has been significant changes with the rise of right-wing leaders in Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Peru.

5. The gap between rich and poor will continue to grow  The wealthiest 500 people in the world saw their wealth grow by $1 trillion in 2017. In November a Saudi prince paid $450 million for a disputed Leonardo Da Vinci painting, Salvator Mundi. Despite all the talk about equality and justice, this is seen by Western liberals as reflecting social issues, not economic ones. It's why the mega Western Corporations can portray themselves as 'liberal' and in favour of equality  because they have redefined what equality means. Globalisation and the 'free movement' of capital means that the wealthy can take their wealth wherever they wish and use it to make more money for themselves. The poor, as always, are left the breadcrumbs from the table.

4. The increased use of Robotics will have a significant impact  This gap between rich and poor will only increase as capital is spent on robots and not on people. A commission at the end of 2017 warned that 290 billion worth of jobs in the UK were likely to be impacted by this growing trend  and that it is the poor who will suffer disproportionately.

Humans are not just sophisticated robots...and the robots we make (even those which make other robots) will never be human. Apart from not experiencing birth, death, hunger, sex, joy, anxiety, fear, jealousy, anger and worship; they don't have souls or emotions. But nonetheless the rise of increased automation will have a profound impact upon our culture.

3. China and Africa will continue to grow and develop economically  Most of us are aware of the significance and importance of China in an economic and increasingly a military sense. The leadership cult of Xi Jinping which leapt forward in 2017 is of importance to the whole world. But what many people do not realize is that much of Africa, with its rich resources, is growing and developing. We tend to think of Western economies as being the most advanced but that may be changing. Western corporations tended to take resources out of Africa whilst governments offered aid. The Chinese do the same but they are also investing hundreds of billions in infrastructure and development. The longer-term impact of this has yet to be seen.

2. Brexit will continue to dominate British politics  I still have my doubts whether Brexit in any significant sense will actually happen. The establishment elites have too much to lose and are too strongly invested in the EU to allow Britain to just withdraw, whatever the result of the referendum. As the date of Britain leaving the EU gets ever closer watch out for increasing hysteria and endless reports on how the end of the world is nigh. Whether this will result in any change is unclear  much depends on how intransigent the EU Commission will be. Given that they do not have to answer to any electorate my suspicion is that they will find it easier to play hardball and that the weak British government, desperate for some kind of 'successful' deal, will accept whatever they can get. Whatever happens the golden rule is not to trust the spin from any of the politicians, none of whom are ever permitted or inclined to admit failure.

1. The number one issue will continue to be the attempt of humanity to remake itself according to Queer Theory  (the notion that human identities including sexuality and gender are not fixed). What most people don't grasp is that this is way beyond the presenting issue of transgender (those who suffer from GID  gender identity disorder). This issue is being used to allow a whole new (and unproven) philosophical theory to become the basis of our education, media and politics. Anyone who dares to go against this doctrine will be outed as a heretic, shamed and banished to the edges of 'civilised' society. Witness the public shaming, subsequent repentance and contrition of Lewis Hamilton over the festive period. There will be many other stories like this in 2018 because the elites who largely govern our culture have either bought into Queer theory wholesale or can't be bothered fighting it (because it does not directly affect them). I am not surprised that the groupthink that occurs in Western 'liberal' academia has bought into this (the shocking treatment of any such as the Canadian lecturer, Dr Jordan Peterson, who dare to disagree is testimony to its power). But what is disturbing is the way in which the Conservative government in the UK has bought into Queer Theory, hook, line and sinker. This is because they are determined to show they are no longer the 'nasty' party and this appears to be a cheap and easy way to do so. The consequences of this unthinking, irrational and uncaring approach, and the push back against it will be the main cultural story in 2018.

There are other things that we know about that will be significant (further medical developments, cultural changes and the royals) but I suspect it is the unknown that causes most anxiety for those who can be bothered to reflect on these matters. The Christian is not someone who should be detached, disengaged, self-absorbed, hubristic or fatalistic. As we move into 2018 with all its uncertainties, hopes and fears let us remember, in the words of the old cliche - I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.

Happy New Year.

You can follow David Robertson on Twitter @theweeflea
When Upstairs, Downstairs became an international hit, British television producers assumed that they could quickly come up with another dramatized expose of country-house life. Wrong again. It took British television four decades to create Downton Abbey, a series in which the butler and the cook were every bit as engaging as Lord and Lady Downton.

Now the Brits have another smashbut this one marks a significant departure from its predecessors. In The Crown, what happens below stairs stays below stairs. This drama is all about the current Queen Elizabeth, from the time of her childhood, through initiation into the roiled world of royal worldlings, to her difficult marriage, to her troubled middle age and ultimately, after she learns to connect with the British public, her serene senior years.

In Parts I and II, Elizabeth (deftly played by Claire Foy) watches her odious, Nazi-sympathizing uncle, King Edward VIII (Alex Jennings, in a tour de force performance), abdicate the throne to wed a commoner. Then she witnesses her stuttering, publicity-shy father (Jared Harris) take over (The Kings Speech built an epic drama on these shortcomings). Alas, before his elder daughter is ready to wear the crown, King George VI dies of lung cancer.

The new queen is so innocent that the staff, out of earshot, refer to her as Shirley Temple. The naivete is not to last. Elizabeths new husband Prince Philip (Matt Smith) assumes the responsibility of her sexual education. But the political and social schooling is led by Winston Churchill (John Lithgow), the lion at sunset. The prime minister is determined that this young lady absorb the basics of regal propriety, diplomatic lingo, and British back-bench maneuvering. She starts out abysmally ignorant of all three.

Sir Winston is a shrewd tutor, but he is also infirm. As Elizabeth grows, she learns to lean on her courtiers. Soon she finds a way to show nothing in her face, to express little in her speeches, and to exert control while seeming to be above the considerations of politics and the Great Game of a shrinking empire. But this mastery of form demands a mask of remoteness lacking human sympathy. Elizabeth alienates Prince Philip, turning him into a distant consort who would rather make merry than make tours. She refuses to allow her sister, Princess Margaret (Vanessa Kirby) to wed the man she loves because RAF hero Peter Townsend (Ben Miles) is divorced and therefore anathema to the Church of England, which Elizabeth nominally heads. Of greater significance, she takes an unseen hand in national policy, chews out the occasional prime minister, and makes sure to kick the ailing Anthony Eden (Jeremy Northam) when hes down.

The Crown is a costly enterprisesome $100 million has been spent on production. But every dollar is up there on the screenthe palaces were either shot on location, or persuasive substitutes were found. The crowd scenes are played by real crowds, not impersonated with computerized trickery. The locations in foreign countries and rural Scotland are also authentic. And the cast is perfection, from castle-dweller to commoner.

But if the series presents convincing locales and personalities (in subsequent episodes Foy and Smith are replaced by age-appropriate actors), its candor about the royal family discreetly omits some revealing facts about Elizabeths heritage and history. The coming year, for example, marks the centenary of the execution of Czar Nicholas II, along with his wife Alexandra, their five children, and four servants. The family had been sequestered in a country dacha until they were told to go to the basement for a group photograph. Once they were seated, a squad of Bolsheviks burst in and shot them at point-blank range. Afterward, those who still breathed were stabbed to death.

This atrocity need not have occurred. Nicholas and his lookalike cousin George had been boyhood friends, and the Romanovs had reason to hope tthat the Windsors would help them find sanctuary in England. But Elizabeths grandfather had a pathological fear for his own crownsuppose a revolution were to occur in London, as it did in Moscow? The infection had to be contained; his cousins were barred from entry.

After the murders were headlined, George V sought to lay the blame on his prime minister, and for many years historians (and consequently the public) bought this fiction. But long after the kings own death, records revealed that he had gone against the advice of PM David Lloyd George, demonstrating a ruthless survival instinct. In the Windsors, blue blood ran cold. It still does.

Though Elizabeth and Philip have long since made their peace, it was only at the intervention of Prime Minister Tony Blair that the queen went into public mourning for Princess Diana, the loathed ex-wife of her son, Prince Charles. After much delay, Princess Margaret married the playboy-photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones in 1960 and descended into a life of indulgence and promiscuity. They divorced in 1978, and though the princess had many widely publicized romances, she never remarried. Writer Gore Vidal recalled a conversation with the prematurely aged Margaret. Assessing her rollercoaster life, she remarked sadly: It was inevitable, when there are two sisters and one is the Queen, who must be the source of honor and all that is good, while the other must be the focus of the most creative malice, the evil sister. The princess suffered a series of strokes and died in 2002. Unlike the other Windsors, she was given a private ceremony; and unlike them, she was cremated.

For QE II, life is synonymous with duty, something she never shirked. The Crown shows her dutifully performing on the public stage, from Balmoral to the BBC, her image buffed to a fare-thee-well. To the world peering through the windows at Buckingham Palace, she has become a benign and charming figurehead. The rulers hard-won and hard-nosed legacy is rarely glimpsed, even in this opulent presentation.

Photos: Sean Gallup/Getty Images (L), Netflix (R)
DEBATES THIS YEAR over a succession of health-care bills led media outlets from the coasts and Washington, DC, into Trump country. Heres a snapshot from Kentucky, where I work: Politico went to Salyersville to scrutinize the complications of a Medicaid work requirement. The New York Times parachuted into Whitesburg and spoke with nearly two-dozen people about their conflicted feelings over both Obamacare and the American Health Care Act. And Vox made a trip to Whitley County, where Sarah Kliff spoke with Obamacare enrollees who voted for Trump and seemed disheartened by the failure of a GOP-crafted plan.

Every news outlet that devoted resources to Appalachia should be commended. And, overall, Vox, Politico, and the Times produced thoughtful and compelling coverage of an under-covered region. Still, from a local perspective, reports like those in Vox and Politico in which subjects are asked how they voted can feel like journalists from different places dismissing folks out here as the second-rate other.

Its easy to mock this sort of thing, wrote Vox founder Ezra Klein on Twitter, referring to a quote from a Trump voter that felt disenchanted with the GOPs American Health Care Act. But a lot of people really believed in Trump, and theyre getting hurt. To which a number of accounts replied that they would reserve their sympathy.

It's easy to mock this sort of thing, but a lot of people really believed in Trump, and they're getting hurt: https://t.co/EzLmOcTA2T pic.twitter.com/IMzYctEFwf  Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) June 7, 2017

But regions like Appalachia may see less parachute journalism and more support for local reporting in the new year. If 2017 began with concerns that coastal media bubbles would perpetuate stale narratives about rural folks, then it concludes with news of a few energized efforts to improve those narratives on the local level.

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A few news organizations based in Americas major media centers are committing resources that could bolster reporting elsewhere in the US. Though its impossible to say whether those efforts will be successful, its hard not to be heartened by them.

RELATED: Dissatisfied with the national medias frame, Appalachia finds its own voice

HERES A FEW of those efforts.

Harvards Nieman Foundation recently announced the Abrams Nieman Fellowship in Local Investigative Journalism, which will support up to three reporters who cover news in areas of the United States where resources are scarce. Fellows are expected to pursue a public service reporting project for their home news organization, which Niemans Ann Marie Lipinski sees as an effort to build on the established and often overlooked strengths of smaller news outlets.

Some of the greatest, most noble public-service journalism in this country has come from small staffs working hard to shed light or right wrongs in their communities, said Lipinski in an interview with Nieman Labs Shan Wang.

ProPublica recently announced the participants in its inaugural Local Reporting Network: seven reporters culled from a group of 239 applications whose current newsrooms are in cities including Carbondale, Illinois; South Bend, Indiana; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The seven reporters (and their investigative stories) will remain in their newsrooms, though ProPublica will also publish their work and reinforce it with data, research, and engagement expertise.

Report for America received interest from 250 or so people in the three Appalachian jobs. We had a lot of applications from really, really talented people who were living in the region.

We had a lot of applications from really, really talented people who were living in the region, says Grant. And there were also many reporters really interested in coming home.

Next year also marks the first for the Ground Truth Projects Report for America, a program outlined in CJR in 2015, which co-founders Steven Waldman and Charles Sennot hope will put at least 1,000 local reporters on the ground.

During its pilot year, Report for America will match up to 12 reporters with positions in four to six newsrooms, according to Kevin Grant, Ground Truth Projects executive editor. Weve learned a lot from the newsrooms in the pilot project, said Kevin Grant, Ground Truth Executive Editor.

Part of the first Report for America class is a dedicated Appalachian Reporting Project, which will pair three reporters with the Charleston Gazette-Mail, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, and Lexington Herald-Leader. Grant says that a second phase will roll out throughout 2018, and will likely focus on news outlets in the South, Midwest and Southwest.

Emily Bell raised some of the concerns over Report for America, including longevity. Critics of the scheme have wondered whether parachuting reporters into hard-pressed newsrooms is the right way to address the long term issue of local communities being cut out of how they cover their own stories, wrote Bell in October.

Grant says that Report for America received interest from 250 or so people in the three Appalachian jobs. Although the Appalachian Reporting Project originally sought emerging journalists, Grant says he was surprised by how many applications came from established professionals who lived in the 13-state area or had Appalachian roots.

We had a lot of applications from really, really talented people who were living in the region, says Grant. And there were also many reporters really interested in coming home.

Much of this optimism, however, stems from a place of conceding that its hard to [imagine] how our range of options in Appalachia and the quality of our narrative could get worse.

ONE WRITER WATCHING the Appalachian Reporting Project with interest is Elizabeth Catte, a historian from east Tennessee and author of the forthcoming book What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia. Its not surprising that my circle is guarded toward the project, but Report for America has boosters even in that narrow context, Catte wrote about the project. Much of this optimism, however, stems from a place of conceding that its hard to [imagine] how our range of options in Appalachia and the quality of our narrative could get worse.

In an interview with CJR, Catte explained that her book takes its title from a familiar trope. Since before the War on Poverty, there has been an intrinsic idea that rural areasAppalachia in particular, says Catte, based on this premise: Whoa, look at all those desperate people making terrible choices. Catte believes that idea yields to another problematic notion: only outsiders can lift these poor souls out of their misery.

Catte explained it this way in an essay Salon:

Every generation of politicians, writers, analysts, academics and economists believes it has discovered something unique or horrible or paradoxical about Appalachia. And members of each generation of these thinkers is at war with themselves to decide if were worthy enough for their solutions to our problems. These solutions, however, never work because theyre almost always premised on the belief that Appalachia is fundamentally different than the rest of the country, not part of it. And so we repeat a frustrating cycle: Our self-appointed social betters interpret our reluctance to embrace their solutions as an act of bad faith.

Ending that cycle is especially important in Appalachia, considering the stakes. Coastal media has long overlooked chronic health conditions in rural areas, which are literally leading to shorter life spans. A recent report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Appalachian Regional Commission, and the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky found that health disparities continue to grow in areas such as infant mortality, diabetes, cancer and heart disease. In many ways, the region is a bellwether for the rest of the country when it comes to looming health crises, including opioid epidemic and the risk of an HIV epidemic.

RELATED: Public media rethinks its approach to journalism

Perhaps its telling that, of the seven local projects funded by ProPublica, several touch on health-related topics. Theres also the Center for Health Journalisms new Impact Fund, which will award up to eight $10,000 grants to reporters. For the fund, CHJ professed a special interest in investigative or explanatory reporting projects that advance public understanding and health policy for underserved or vulnerable populations, which could include people living in low-income neighborhoods, rural areas, prisons, foster homes, juvenile detention centers or homeless encampments.

Combined, the ProPublica, Nieman and Report for America efforts detailed here will directly benefit fewer than 20 newsrooms. But theyre new beginnings, after all, and encouraging first efforts that may grow in scope. Likeminded projects are a testament to the difference a momentous year, and some innovative thinking, can make.

CJRs health care reporting is sponsored in part by a grant from the Commonwealth Fund.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Mary Meehan brings 30 years of experience to the health beat at the Ohio Valley ReSource, a network of NPR-affiliated stations covering Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio. She is based at WEKU.FM at Eastern Kentucky University. As a 2016 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Mary studied digital journalism and the challenge of using public health policy to create sustainable social change. Follow her on Instagram @TheMaryMeehan and on Twitter @TheMaryMeehan and @OVReSRC.
Frankie Crispen Jr. had a lot to look forward to this past November. He was set to take the rigorous exam that could elevate him to journeyman electrician after four years as an apprentice. Thanksgiving came the day after the state test, then it would be time to get serious about Christmas shopping.

On his final break the night of Nov. 17 at the Columbia Forest Products mill in Klamath Falls, Oregon, Crispen texted his fiancee Ashley Albers, as he always did, teasing out the answers to his 11-year-old, soon-to-be stepdaughters math homework.

About an hour later, he responded to a call for an electrician over the intercom at the mill that sits on the banks of the Klamath River.

He was never seen alive again.

The 28-year-olds death in the final hours of a swing shift made him Oregons 68th workplace fatality of 2017, according to preliminary figures from the states Occupational Safety and Health Administration. At least six more people have died on the job since Crispen fell into a vat of scalding liquid that November night.

More than half the estimated 74 workplace fatalities in 2017 thus far occurred from natural causes, according to state estimates. Employees also died in car crashes and workplace accidents, data show.

Fewer fatalities

State safety leaders say they dont place much significance on single-year tallies because workplace fatalities have dropped significantly over time. In the private sector, the rate has plunged from 11.1 deaths or injuries for every 100 full-time workers in 1988 to roughly 3.7 in 2015, the most recent data available. Though construction and logging remain the most deadly sectors, safety measures designed to reduce falls have resulted in fewer accidents.

The number of compensable deaths, those eligible for workers compensation insurance benefits, has declined as well. The annual figure has hovered near 30 each of the past five years in Oregon, and claims accepted in 2017 to date appear headed on the same trajectory.

Michael Wood, the states administrator for workplace health and safety programs, said the stories behind dozens of deaths go untold each year. Despite significant advancements in workplace safety in the past two decades and a lower fatality rate despite a significantly larger workforce, he worries that death rates are merely leveling off at best.

People die in this state on the job, Wood said, and they die unnecessarily from things we know how to prevent.

Under investigation

Crispens grisly death shocked friends, family and colleagues in Klamath Falls, a community of 21,500 just north of the Oregon-California border. Theres no criminal inquiry, but the incident is under investigation by the states Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Though all workplace fatalities must be reported to the state within eight hours, the agency does not investigate all deaths. The agency declined to comment on Crispins case, other than to say it would release a report on its findings within six months.

The mill, one of two Columbia Forest Products locations in Oregon, specializes in hardwood plywood manufacturing. In a statement, the company said it was deeply saddened by the untimely death and fully cooperating with the investigation.

The Greensboro, North Carolina-based company has more than 2,000 employees in the U.S. and Canada and bills itself as the largest manufacturer of hardwood plywood and hardwood veneer products in North America. The Klamath Falls plant opened in 1999.

Compounding the heartache of a life cut short, Crispens family is struggling with the lack of information.

His mother, Kay Moyette, said shes been waiting to hear more about the investigation, but other than a brief story in the Klamath Falls newspaper, theres been no media coverage or significant updates from authorities.

It was like some lives have value and some dont, said Marc Waits, Crispens brother.

The death

Crispen usually got home from work at 10:45 p.m., some 15 minutes after clocking out.

By 10:43 p.m. on Nov. 17, according to 911 calls, it was clear something was horribly wrong.

The dispatcher had summoned emergency workers to a possible confined space rescue on the back side of the 18-acre mill on U.S. 97.

Fire crews were the first to arrive, followed by Klamath County sheriffs deputies at 11:06 p.m. By that time, Sheriff Chris Kaber said in an email, Crispen had not been seen for a couple of hours.

Albers started calling and texting when Crispen didnt arrive home at his normal time, but her calls went straight to voicemail. She wondered whether he might have picked up an extra shift, something he did on occasion to make extra cash.

By 3 a.m. she was terrified and drove to the mill. She spotted their Ford Mustang in the parking lot. Crispens phone charger and other personal items were still inside.

She later learned that Crispen had fallen through the lid and into an in-ground vat filled with a corrosive liquid heated to 170 degrees, which is used to soften logs before they are processed into plywood. The vat sits a few feet above ground.

According to the state medical examiner, Crispen died from thermal injuries and caustic burns.

Dr. Karen Gunson said he would have died immediately.

Emergency personnel couldnt safely retrieve his body until the next morning. They had to wait for the liquid to cool before draining it.

Failing to find him, Albers, meanwhile, returned home and resumed calling Crispens cell, dialing over and over as her daughter slept in a room nearby.

I was just sitting on the couch waiting for him to walk through that door, and it never happened, she said.

Just after 6 a.m., she heard a knock on the door. Crispens four dogs barked. She swung it open to find two officers.

The life

Crispen was 21 years younger than his oldest sibling, Vikki Waits. But his mother always viewed her youngest child as an old soul.

Crispen was born without a left eardrum and got harassed as a kid because he frequently sported head bandages from the various medical procedures he endured, his mother said.

From an early age, Moyette said, Crispen was surrounded by older siblings and adults. His father, Francis Sr., taught him to extend his hand out when meeting someone. A handshake was simply good manners.

Crispen eventually started bulking up. He decided rather than have people torture him, he was going to get muscled, Moyette said.

He wanted to join the military, she said, but failed the physical because of his hearing, which broke his heart.

Crispen liked doing things with his hands, and enrolled in a two-year mechanics program at Klamath Community College. Partway through, though, he realized it wasnt what he wanted to do with his life.

I cant quit in the middle mom, he said, Im going to finish it. He completed the program in 2013.

Crispen and Albers met at the National Fitness and Racquet Club in town. By that point, his once slight frame had become sculpted muscle. He ran daily, took Cross Fit classes and competed in Spartan obstacle races or anything on a whim to test his abilities.

Despite his demanding full-time job at the mill, Crispen had recently taken a second job at a local GNC, a health and nutritional supplements retailer.

Shane Jones, the stores manager and a personal trainer, said Crispen was genuinely nice and incredibly physically fit. He loved working with customers and went out of his way to help people achieve their fitness goals.

Jones said he lost count of the number of times a customer would crack open the front door and ask. Is Frankie here? No? OK, Ill come back later.

Jim Johnston, who owns the fitness club where Crispen occasionally worked out, has set up a scholarship in the 28-year-olds name. Johnston, who plans to sponsor a free membership each year in his honor, said Crispen was a passionate and positive force for fitness in town.

Moyette, a server at a diner in downtown Klamath Falls, cherished her Thursday morning grocery outings with her youngest. He liked taking short road trips and would find reasons to make them, like driving the 170 miles to Eugene to buy tires for his truck.

A favorite trip involved a 90-minute jaunt to the In-N-Out Burger in Medford. His go-to order was two double-double burgers with ketchup and mustard only. No salt.

He had long conversations about life with Albers and Moyette. He wanted to get into management and had an interest in studying English.

He was prone to posting motivational sayings on Facebook. His Facebook memorial pages final post reads:

Aim to be triumphant, not successful.

Successful is a figment of your imagination when everything is going right in your life.

Triumphant is being able to overcome obstacles, and goals.

Unattended death

Albers and Crispens family say theyre struggling to understand how he fell into the vat.

The family was told he was working on a motor at the time. Marc Waits said his brother was strong and extremely careful.

I cant imagine him just falling, Waits said. I cant imagine any of this happening in a mill.

They also say he was working alone, and wonder whether an apprentice electrician could do so legally.

Columbia Forest Products, which declined an interview for this report, would not say whether Crispen was working alone when he died. But Sheriff Kerber said the agency responded to an unattended death at the mill.

According to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, some programs allow apprentices to work under indirect supervision during the final stretches of their training.

Crispen had completed more than 8,000 hours of on-the-job training as of Sept. 26, according to a state spokesman, and had 576 hours of classroom instruction. He had taken all the necessary steps needed to take the journeymans exam.

But the state still must approve any indirect supervision, even if the apprentice surpasses the 6,500-hour baseline. The Apprenticeship and Training Division has no record of approving Mr. Crispen for indirect supervision related to electrical apprenticeship activity, the state said in an email.

Moyette said there was nothing to stop her son from falling into the vat. There wasnt anybody checking in on him right away, she said. I dont know if that caused it. I dont know if it could have been prevented. I believe it probably should have been.

According to one mill employee who declined to be identified because of the ongoing state safety investigation, the mill did right by its employees by giving all 300 workers a paid week off after Crispens death. The company also installed a railing around the roughly 30-foot-long vat, according to that employee.

The company confirmed it had taken remedial measures to prevent any future issues.

In addition to the investigation following Crispens death, there is a separate state inspection related to several safety complaints filed anonymously on Nov. 20, three days after the incident.

The complaint cites several safety concerns, including a lack of training on safety issues for all employees and a workplace environment where staffers are required to work at positions beyond their capacities, creating an unsafe work environment.

Columbia declined to comment on the specifics included in the separate anonymous complaint, but issued a statement defending the plants safety practices overall.

CFP strongly rejects any contention that it fails to adequately train employees on safety issues or that it requires employees to work outside their capacities in an unsafe manner. CFP is proud of its strong safety training program, which it has worked to develop over the course of many years, and works diligently to ensure the safety of its employees, the company said.

Amino shots

The family continues to try and pick up the pieces.

Returning to her job at the Klamath Grill was a terrible thing, Moyette said. But customers ask about her son and offer condolences. Its a nice thing to have them say they loved my boy, that he was a great kid. That they loved my son, she said. I like to hear that.

Albers said shes struggling to move forward. The couple has a full gym in their home, and each morning shes prayed on his bench, still stacked with 275 pounds in weights from his last workout. The squat bar stands nearby with 385 pounds.

More than 350 mourners filled Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Klamath Falls for Crispens memorial service on Nov. 27. In the lobby, there was a tray of amino acid based-powder shots, a nod to Crispens favorite workout supplement. Albers premixed the concoction in a pitcher.

After the ceremony, she and her daughter, Tehya and one of Crispens nephews hit the road for Medford and the In-N-Out Burger.

She ordered two double-doubles, with ketchup and mustard. No salt.

She fed them to their beloved dogs.

Its what Crispen would have wanted.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Before her impressive resume included selling her real estate firm that sold for a reported $66 million and a spot on ABC's "Shark Tank," Barbara Corcoran didn't have a lot of money. What she did have was a lot of was creativity. And that was key in helping her turn a $1,000 loan into the a business empire. Corcoran's humble beginnings included nine siblings and a cramped apartment in Edgewater, New Jersey, she revealed while sharing her story of success on NPR's podcast "How I Built This" in April. As a child, Corcoran wasn't an ace student, but instead of focusing on her scholarly shortcomings, her mother chose to celebrate her imagination. "I remember distinctly when the nun from hell, Sister Stella Marie, told me I'd always be stupid. And I was so upset to hear that word 'stupid.' ... And my mother, said 'Oh, don't worry about it, with your imagination you'll learn to fill in all the blanks,'" explains Corcoran, who was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child. "So I didn't learn to read or write but I thought, 'Oh, good I could fill in the blanks.' And I fell for it, you know? And she's right because I did have a good imagination, or at least maybe I learned to have it because of her."

Years later when she was in her 20s, that knack for imagination gave Corcoran the creative kick she needed to figure out how to navigate a business dilemma. While she was working as a receptionist for the Giffuni Brothers' real estate company in New York City, Corcoran's boyfriend at the time, Ray, fronted her some money and gave her a nudge to explore real estate sales. With a $1,000 loan in-hand, Corcoran and Ray started a firm. "The only person I knew [in real estate] was Mr. Giffuni. And I asked him if he would just let me rent one of his apartments, the same building where I answer the phone every day. And he gave me a listing to try to rent apartment 3L," Corcoran shares on the podcast. The situation was less than ideal; Corcoran described the listing as a "dungeon," and was confronted with the challenge of trying to rent out the apartment space for $330 a month. (It was the early 1970s.) "But when I saw the listing and looked in The New York Times and saw reams and reams of ads that read identically one bedroom, $340; one bedroom, $335; one bedroom  it was all the same. I'm thinking, How do I spend my three-line head wisely? Because remember, I had a thousand dollars," Corcoran says. Corcoran looked beyond the four walls of that apartment and got creative. She asked Mr. Giffuni if he would build a half-wall to serve as a divider. "And he said  yeah, he'd build a wall. And I got it [rented] for him because my ad then read 'one bedroom and den' for the same price that everybody else was offering a one bedroom. And I got  that first Sunday, I must have gotten 60 phone calls from prospective tenants," Corcoran says recalls. Since then, Corcoran has leaned on that creativity. In 1993, for example, when Corcoran started selling real estate online, she would register all the URLs of her competitors who had a brand, the real estate tycoon tells Fortune. "I didn't charge them for the URL. I just wanted them to call and ask for it so that I'd know when the competition started selling online," Corcoran tells Fortune.

She also cultivated that creative culture at her company, The Corcoran Group, and it served as a critical component when building her real estate empire. "We had bizarre ... probably today maybe illegal-type parties, I don't even know the way I had people dress for them at all. But we had parties galore. We had spontaneous events. All I did was think of, 'What can we do that's fun?'" Corcoran tells Business Insider. Why? "[W]hen you get people laughing their asses off and drinking too much and dressing in things that they've never dressed in before, guess what happens? You wind up with a creative company." she says. It's still important to Corcoran's success today. Recently, she tweeted: "Business is the most creative sport in the world. If you can dream it, you can actually make it happen." Don't miss: What 'Shark Tank' investor Barbara Corcoran does each morning to stay productive all day
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The market for Chinese alcohol sales is growing at a rapid pace with consumers acquiring a taste for premium and elusive products. Among the beneficiaries of the trend are wine and craft beers. "Chinese consumers preferred to drink less and chose premium products at business dinners or during formal social occasions for their high-grade quality and better taste," market research firm Euromonitor said in May 2017. According to Euromonitor, wine consumption grew 5.3 percent by volume in 2016 from 2015, even as that for alcoholic drinks fell 3 percent in the same period as consumers traded up. As a result of such upgrading, total beer sales also declined by 4 percent in 2016 from a year ago. Craft beer however, is witnessing growing interest in big cities.

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Anheuser-Busch InBev , the world's largest brewer, is evidence of this trend as its strategy of focusing on the high-end of the market appears to be paying off: The company's revenue in China grew 4.6 percent in the third quarter. The brewer also cited strong numbers in the Chinese market as a driver for revenue growth in its Budweiser and Corona brands in the first half of this year. Corona and Stella Artois, classified as "super premium" brands by the company, have recorded double-digit growth since they were launched in 2014, CEO Carlos Brito told CNBC recently. Here's a sip of what Chinese drinkers are ordering:

Craft Beer

China's first brewery was founded in Harbin in 1900 and there are now more than 1,500 domestic beer brands in the country, according to Chinese state media. The wide selection is in part due to a nascent but growing industry in craft beers as a burgeoning middle class becomes more willing to pay for premium experiences. The popularity of craft beer may seem explosive in urban centers, but Euromonitor puts the trend into perspective. "Craft beer is still a new concept for many Chinese consumers. It is popular and distributed mainly in well-developed regions, such as some urban areas of the country where the middle-classes are better off and consumers are global-minded," said the research house in its industry report.

Panda Brew Pub in Beijing is home to several house craft beers. The company recently started shipping its brews to the U.K. and are looking to other beer-drinking markets eager for a taste of China. Huileng Tan | CNBC

"There is a huge rise in the number of those in the craft beer business and the brewing culture is spreading in China," said Feng Jun, marketing director for pub and brewer Panda Brew. The craft beer market is diverse, even though consumer groups are generally young, Feng told CNBC in an email. "There are extreme taste preferences: from those who prefer heavier tastes to fresh, fruity flavors," he added. With the explosion in selection, some craft beer brands like Panda Brew, have started exporting their drinks. In November this year, Panda Brew started sales in the U.K. It is also looking into entering other markets such as Canada, Japan and Australia, said Feng. Even bigger brands are getting into the craft beer business. Nomura in a December note highlighted that Hong Kong-listed China Resources Beer , the country's largest brewery, will be focusing on craft and imported beer segments while developing premium brands.

Wine

Wine is still gaining popularity in China. To cater to the collective thirst, Chinese investors have snapped up more than 100 vineyards in France, many of them in the producing region of Bordeaux. They've also acquired vineyards in Australia and Chile, among other countries. Earlier this year, for instance, Yantai Changyu Pioneer Wine, a leading wine-maker in China, bought three vineyards in Chile. China has also started producing its own wines: State-owned food giant COFCO's Great Wall Wine is a recognizable name in the country.

Baijiu

The potent grain-based baijiu  which means white liquor  is a staple at official and business banquets. Even amid a widespread crackdown on corruption, a frugality drive, and it being an acquired taste, baijiu has seen it's demand stay strong.

A customer looks Maotai liquor at a supermarket on February 9, 2015 in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province of China. VCG | Getty Images

Earlier this year, consultancy Brand Finance deemed baijiu to be the most valuable type of spirit in the world with a market share of 37.5 percent, overshadowing the 28 percent for whiskey. The world's top baijiu brands command a combined value of over $22 billion, the study said. Well-known Hong Kong-listed Kweichow Moutai has overtaken Johnnie Walker-maker Diageo to become the world's most valuable liquor company. CNBC's Ming Cheang contributed to this story.
Companies seeking to "bulk up" to offset the uncertainty caused by Britain's looming EU exit helped to spur a near doubling of domestic mergers and acquisition activity this year, according to Thomson Reuters data.

DATE IMPORTED:June 19, 2016Participants holding a British Union flag and an EU flag kiss during a pro-EU referendum event at Parliament Square in London, Britain June 19, 2016.

The volume of U.K. domestic deals this year surged to $68 billion from $34.3 billion in 2016 as the number of deals between British groups jumped from 1,480 to 1,681, the highest level since 2008, the data show.

They included online gambling company GVC's purchase of bookmaker Ladbrokes Coral for as much as 3.9 billion pounds ($5.24 billion) and Hammerson's 3.4 billion pound acquisition of rival shopping center operator Intu Properties.

It comes against a backdrop of often fractious Brexit negotiations between London and Brussels this year, talks that are yet to provide businesses with clarity about Britain's future relationship with Europe.

Bosses at British companies have also been watching new U.S. President Donald Trump, whose decisions have repercussions for businesses around the world.

"At the beginning of 2017 there were a lot of questions about what was going to happen to the M&A market, given the global uncertainty caused by Brexit and the new U.S. president," said Nick Cline, a London-based M&A partner at law firm Latham & Watkins, who said the uncertain environment had acted as a driver for some deals rather than stifling activity.

"There are a lot of corporates out there in the U.K. and Europe who are seeing the changing landscape and as a result are even more focused on what they're going to do to be tomorrow's leaders."

The jump in domestic deal-making contrasted with falls in both inbound and outbound U.K. M&A volumes, the data show, with the former slipping 12.9 percent to $115.1 billion and the latter down 9.4 percent to $112.5 billion.

That meant overall M&A volumes with any U.K. involvement dipped 0.7 percent to $375 billion, a softer decline than the 1.4 percent slide in global deal volumes to $3.5 trillion, according to the data.
In a special episode of The Profit, Marcus Lemonis goes inside the marijuana capital of America: Humboldt County, California. People there have been growing pot for generations, mostly for the black market. But things are changing fast: on New Year's Day, recreational marijuana use becomes legal in California, creating the world's largest legal market. Marcus profiles the men and women growers in Humboldt as they step out of the shadows and are starting to go legitimate, hoping for a share of an expected 6-plus billion dollar a year market in the Golden State.



Get a sneak peek above.

The Profit All New Tuesdays 10P ET/PT

About "The Profit"

When Marcus Lemonis isn't running his multi-billion dollar company, Camping World, he goes on the hunt for struggling businesses that are desperate for cash and ripe for a deal. In each one-hour episode of The Profit, Lemonis makes an offer that's impossible to refuse; his cash for a piece of the business and a percentage of the profits. And once inside these companies, he'll do almost anything to save the business and make himself a profit; even if it means firing the president, promoting the secretary or doing the work himself.
A woman is aided by first responders after sustaining injury on a bike path in lower Manhattan in New York, NY, U.S., October 31, 2017. Brendan McDermid | Reuters

The "caliphate" may be in ruins, but that doesn't mean ISIS is gone forever. Terror attacks are likely to increase in 2018, as the destruction of the Islamic State's physical stronghold in Iraq and Syria will strengthen its will to strike out abroad, experts say.



"ISIS will want to show that they are still in the fight, and their followers remain as fanatical as ever," said Lewis-Sage Passant, a former British Army intelligence officer and founder of travel security company HowSafeIsMyTrip. "The number of attacks globally will likely increase as the group switches focus from the war in the Middle East to international terrorism." Adam Deen, executive director of counter-extremism think tank Quilliam, makes a similar argument. "We're going to see without a doubt more attacks in the West," he told UK newspaper the Independent in October. Deen said ISIS is now more focused on revenge, and warned against the false sense of victory that many expressed after the death of Osama Bin Laden.

They will be less able to mount well-funded operations such as the Paris attacks. But they want to show that they are still in the fight. Lewis-Sage Passant former intelligence officer, speaking on ISIS

Propaganda will continue online and elsewhere, despite the destruction of its main source in the former ISIS "capital" of Raqqa, Syria.



"Threats in the West will persist in the form of people who are still inspired by the propaganda that has been disseminated by ISIS," Anthony Richards, an assistant professor in Terrorism Studies at the University of East London, told CNBC.



"I think in the longer term, the defeat of ISIS and the propaganda defeat that goes with that will actually reduce the threat in the UK and Europe, but ... In the shorter term, we'll still see more terrorist attacks."



Some foresee more frequent attacks, accompanied by a decrease in lethality, including a rising number of knife and vehicle attacks. "The loss of ISIS' central coordination and revenue-generating capabilities means that they will be less able to mount well-funded operations such as the Paris attacks," Sage-Passant said, "But they want to show that they are still in the fight."

5,600 fighters go back 'home'

An estimated 25,000 foreign fighters from more than 100 countries left their homes to fight in Syria. A report by the Soufan Center in October put the current figure for returned fighters at 5,600 from 33 countries, and revealed that on average 20 to 30 percent of those from Europe are already back. In the U.K., Sweden and Denmark, a whopping 50 percent have returned. Almost 20,000 names have been shared with Interpol.



For the U.S., the figure is far smaller: The Soufan Center reported 129 Americans made it to the battlefields of Syria or Iraq, and only seven of them have returned as of October. Seventy-seven out of 135 people charged with ISIS-linked terrorism offenses have been convicted as of August.

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That presents a tremendous challenge for domestic authorities. However, many warn that blanket bans on movement or entry, such as U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban on six majority-Muslim countries, aren't likely to effectively stem the threat.



"The underlying ideology that drives the violence of groups like ISIS is not a physical entity that can be stopped by territorial borders," Mubaraz Ahmed, analyst at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, told CNBC. Domestic networks and individuals are what matters, he argued  after all, ISIS attacks in Europe have been carried out almost exclusively by citizens or residents of those countries.

The return of Al-Qaeda
China on Friday denied reports it has been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was not happy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation.

Trump said on Twitter the previous day that China had been "caught" allowing oil into North Korea and that would prevent "a friendly solution" to

"I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war," Trump said .

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that U.S. spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times since October.

U.S. officials have not confirmed details of this report. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters she had noted recent media reports including suggestions a Chinese vessel was suspected of transporting oil to a North Korean vessel on Oct. 19.

"The Chinese side has conducted immediate investigation. In reality, the ship in question has, since August, not docked at a Chinese port and there is no record of it entering or leaving a Chinese port," Hua said.

She said she was not aware if the vessel had docked at the port in other countries but the relevant media reports "did not accord with facts".

"China has always implemented U.N. Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfills its international obligations. We never allow Chinese companies and citizens to violate the resolutions," Hua said.

"If, through investigation, it's confirmed there are violations of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, China will deal with them seriously in accordance with laws and regulations."

In the New York Times interview, Trump explicitly tied his administration's trade policy with China to its perceived cooperation in resolving the North Korea nuclear crisis.

"When I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade. They made - last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum. That doesn't include the theft of intellectual property, O.K., which is another $300 billion," Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview.

"If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that."

An official of the U.S. State Department said the U.S. government was aware of vessels engaged in such activity involving refined petroleum and coal.

"We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The United States says the full cooperation of China, North Korea's neighbour and main trading partner, is vital to the success of efforts to rein in North Korea, while warning that all options are on the table, including military ones, in dealing with it.

China has repeatedly said it is fully enforcing all resolutions against North Korea, despite suspicion in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that loopholes still exist.
President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order on health care in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2017. T.J. Kirkpatrick | Bloomberg | Getty Images

With the failure by Republicans in Congress to repeal Obamacare this year, President Trump took matters into his own hands this fall, signing an executive order in October that targets the health care law. Trump asked federal agencies to look for ways to expand the use of association health plans, groups of small businesses that pool together to buy health insurance, and to broaden the definition of short-term insurance, which is exempt from the Affordable Care Act's rules, administration officials said. The ultimate impact will depend on any new regulations written as a result of the order, but overall, the Trump administration could make cheaper plans with skimpier benefits more available  and experts worry that will damage the ACA's marketplaces. "The president still firmly believes that Congress must act to repeal and replace Obamacare, but before that can be done, this administration must act to provide relief," Andrew Bremberg, who oversees domestic policy at the White House, told reporters earlier this year. "We expect these policy changes to potentially benefit tens of millions of Americans over time." During an impromptu end-of-the-year interview with the New York Times, Trump touted the expanasion of these association health plans and the repeal of Obamacare's individual mandate in the Republican tax bill as his big wins against the health care law in 2017. "We've created associations, millions of people are joining associations. Millions. That were formerly in Obamacare or didn't have insurance. Or didn't have health care. Millions of people," he told the Times. "That's gonna be a big bill, you watch. It could be as high as 50 percent of the people. You watch. So that's a big thing." The president is surely overstating the impact of his executive order, which hasn't actually changed anything yet. But policy experts warn that together, these changes could represent a serious threat to Obamacare: Trump wants to open more loopholes for more people to buy insurance outside the health care law's markets, which experts anticipate would destabilize the market for customers who are left behind with higher premiums and fewer insurers. The fear is that Trump's action could lead to many association health plans being exempted from core Obamacare requirements like the coverage of certain essential health benefits. It could also potentially allow some individuals to join these plans too, which could hurt the individual insurance marketplaces by drawing younger and healthier people away from them. In much the same way, short-term insurance could also take healthier people out of the law's markets. The effect won't be immediate: Administration officials said they didn't expect any new regulations to be implemented before the end of the year. But Trump's order does present a long-term risk to the ACA. "The clear intent of the executive order is to create a parallel insurance market exempt from many of the consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act," Larry Levitt at the Kaiser Family Foundation told me. "This has the potential to siphon off healthy people with skinnier benefits and cheaper premiums, leaving behind a sicker pool of people under ACA plans."

Association health plans, explained

An association health plan, as Vox's Sarah Kliff has previously explained, is a way for a group of small businesses to pool together to buy insurance, giving them more purchasing power and access to cheaper premiums. A group of bakeries, for example, might form a bakers association and purchase health coverage together. The most famous examples have been farm bureaus, which allowed independent farming businesses to band together and get insurance. Before Obamacare, national associations could pick and choose which states' insurance rules they wanted to follow and use those rules to guide the plans they offered nationwide. The bakers association could choose to follow the rules for, say, the Alabama insurance market, which mandates coverage of relatively few benefits, for all its bakeries in New York, a state with many mandates. The result was often health insurance that skirted state rules and was a better deal for businesses with young and healthy employees, who are likely to prefer skimpier health plans. A former insurance regulator described the situation prior to the ACA to Kliff as being "a race to the bottom, with some associations offering lower-cost plans that covered virtually nothing." Obamacare changed these rules. Association health plans were treated as small businesses and were therefore required to cover all of the law's mandated benefits. Essential health benefits, requiring that insurers cover everything from hospital care to prescription drugs to maternity care, are central to the ACA's insurance protections: They prevent plans from crafting their coverage to attract mostly young and healthy customers at the expense of older and sicker people.

Why Trump's executive order undercuts Obamacare

Trump is looking to roll back those changes. Under the executive order, new regulations would seek to expand the use of association health plans, easing federal rules that require associations be from the same state and that prevent associations from forming exclusively to provide health coverage. The result could in many cases be that these new association health plans would be considered large employers when it comes to health insurance. Large employers are not subject to the same rules as individual or small-group plans under Obamacare. Most notably, they do not have to cover all of the law's essential health benefits or meet the requirement that insurance cover a minimal percentage of a person's medical bills. If that change were made, association health plans would be freed to craft skimpier (and cheaper) health plans that appeal only to businesses with younger and healthier employees. Small businesses left in Obamacare's marketplace would likely face higher costs and fewer options as the market became less attractive to insurers. "It will destroy the small-group market," Tim Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University who generally supports Obamacare, told me before the order was signed. "We'll be back to where we were before the Affordable Care Act." The order did not specify whether individuals would also be allowed to buy into these association health plans. But according to a source familiar with their drafting, the regulations resulting from the order could be written to allow self-employed people to buy into the association market, which would be an even bigger blow to Obamacare. "That is a question that will be considered in the rulemaking process," a senior administration said Thursday, indicating that self-employed people could potentially be allowed to buy into association plans. The individuals likely to flee the Obamacare markets for association plans would probably be younger and healthier, leaving behind an older, sicker pool for the remaining ACA market. That has the makings of a death spiral, with ever-increasing premiums and insurers deciding to leave the market altogether. "The ability for individuals to purchase health insurance through an association really puts the individual market at risk and destabilizes it over the long term," Kevin Lucia, who studies the market at Georgetown University, told me before the order had been signed. "When you have market segmentation, it over time leads to higher premiums and it becomes less attractive to carriers." Read more from Vox:

Why American doctors keep doing expensive procedures that don't work

Why Trump is attacking Vanity Fair and Anna Wintour on Twitter

Megadisasters devastated America this year. They're going to get worse.

Expanded short-term coverage could also damage the health law
"We hold bitcoin in the portfolio not because we think we're more nimble than other people, but because we think we have a better long-term understanding," Winton said in a phone interview with CNBC last week."We see a young asset class like crypto assets as having lots of volatility and lots of potential upside."

Ark's director of research Brett Winton said the company isn't cashing out on bitcoin yet.

Thanks to an early investment in the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) , Ark Web x.0 ETF (ARKW) and the Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) are the two best-performing ETFs this year, according to a report last week from ETF.com . At the time, the ETFs were up 95 percent or more for the year. They remained about 85 percent higher on Friday.

The research director behind one of 2017's top-performing exchange-traded funds is still betting on bitcoin and electric, self-driving cars.

As investors increasingly turn to passive investment vehicles such as ETFs, this year the funds saw record-breaking inflows of $476 billion and assets under management climb to $3.4 trillion. Even traditional money managers have rushed to launch their own exchange-traded funds. But the hot money has flowed into niche funds offering exposure to bitcoin, electric cars, robotics and artificial intelligence.

Global X's Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (BOTZ) saw its assets under management surge from $4 million to $1.5 billion in the last 12 months, the company said. BOTZ is among the top 20 ETFs this year, up 57 percent, according to the ETF.com.

Ark Web x.0 became the first ETF to invest in bitcoin via the Bitcoin Investment Trust in September 2015. The trust's underlying asset bitcoin has blown away the performance of traditional investments with gains of 1,400 percent this year.

GBTC itself holds about a tenth of bitcoin per share and is up more than 1,900 percent this year. But the bitcoin trust is riskier than most funds since it trades over-the-counter, rather than in a formal venue like the New York Stock Exchange. GBTC had $1.69 billion in assets under management, as of the end of November, according to its website.

"We're cognizant of the risks," Winton said. He said in addition to bitcoin's technological potential, the investment firm was interested in holding the digital currency because it wasn't as tied to the performance of traditional financial assets.

Ark's Innovation ETF also holds the Bitcoin Investment Trust, with a 5.8 percent weighting as of Thursday, according to the company's website.

Tesla has the second-greatest weighting at nearly 5.6 percent. Elon Musk's electric car company has soared more than 45 percent this year, despite the company's inability to deliver products on time while burning through billions in cash.

Again, Ark's Winton is betting the controversial company will do well.

"I believe that Tesla could be massively misunderstood by the investing public," Winton said. "I think they ultimately have the potential to be considered a software company."

For Winton, the bigger picture is the business opportunity in self-driving, or autonomous, vehicles providing an on-demand car service similar to Uber. He predicts the total market cap of companies involved in that business will reach more than $5 trillion by the early 2020s.

Most investors may not be thinking so far ahead, but they bet big on electric cars this year.

The Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF (LIT) saw its assets under management jump from $100 million at the start of the year to nearly $1.1 billion this week, according to Global X. The ETF is also one of the top-performing funds this year, up more than 63 percent, according to the Dec. 19 ETF.com report.

China is the biggest market for electric vehicles and is planning to phase out production and sale of fossil fuel cars. On Wednesday, authorities said they will extend a tax rebate on purchases of hybrid or electric cars to 2020. The policy was originally set to end this year.

Jay Jacobs, head of research at Global X, attributed the interest partly to the topics' popularity in the media.

"Thematic investing started growing very popular overall," Jacobs said in a phone interview with CNBC last week. "If robotics and lithium are really starting to happen, what else is out there?"

"Investors, from a thematic perspective, really want growth," he said.

Other top-performing ETFs this year included funds focused on the surge of growth in Chinese technology giants, such as the KraneShares CSI Internet ETF (KWEB) and the Emerging Markets Internet & Ecommerce ETF (EMQQ) .

"It is unlikely that all the same theme-based ETFs top performance charts year after year," Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual fund research at CFRA, said in an email. "While [it is] not clear what will be in vogue in 2018, some of the best performers will return back to the middle of the [pack] while others will continue to shine."

"CFRA thinks technology will remain a focus when investors start the year with a risk-on mindset."
Climate scientists agree that global warming is real and that the driver is carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from human activity.

"In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming," Trump wrote.

"There is still hunger in the world, even if you just had a Big Mac," said Jon Foley, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences.

President Donald Trump 's tweet suggesting that the nation's cold snap disproves global warming has raised an outcry in response from climate scientists.

Shaena Montanari, a paleontologist and member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, tweeted that Trump was using circular reasoning, comparing his thoughts on the weather to issues of starvation and poverty.

DrShaena Global warming is fake because it is cold where I am No one in the world is starving because I have food in my kitchen Poverty isn't real because I just got paid And around we go Forever.

The possibility of record low temperatures in some parts of the United States has drawn mass attention. Christopher Kucharik, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said more context is necessary, tweeting that "memory is short."

@Chris_Kucharik: "Weather is mood, climate is personality". In Madison WI, memory is short - we set a record high on Dec 4 (61F), but have set no low temp records in the past few days during this cold snap.

University of Georgia meteorologist Marshall Shepherd noted that there were "far more record highs than record lows in 2017."

@DrShepherd2013: Far more record highs than record lows in 2017....Don't let a record winter cold snap fool you. #perspective

The day before Trump's tweet, the weather division of The Washington Post, known as the "Capital Weather Gang," wrote in a tweet that the U.S. will be the "coldest region in world relative to normal over next week."

"Please note rest of world will be much warmer than normal lest anyone try to claim pocket of cold in U.S. debunks global warming, which they will invariably and irresponsibly do," Capital Weather said.

@capitalweather: U.S. to be coldest region in world relative to normal over next week. Please note rest of world will be much warmer than normal lest anyone try to claim pocket of cold in U.S. debunks global warming, which they will invariably and irresponsibly do. http://wapo.st/2zEovsu

This is far from the first time Trump expressed skepticism about climate change. In 2012, he called global warming a "hoax" that the Chinese created in an effort to hurt the American economy. Vox in June collected 115 times Trump tweeted skepticism about climate change, saying his consistency matched with his decision at the time to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, which aims to curb carbon emissions.

According to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, the 10 hottest years ever measured were in the last two decades  with the top three being 2014 through 2016. Shepherd told USA Today that weekly weather patterns "say nothing about longer term climate change."

"The clothes that you have on today do not describe what you have in your closet but rather how you dressed for today's weather. The range of clothing that you have in your closet is climate," Shepherd said.
Child plays with phone Godong | UIG | Getty Images

Social media has been the big driver of tech sector growth over the last decade, but questions over its effect on children's mental health are on the rise. Even Silicon Valley gurus are stopping or reducing time spent online by their kids. Caroline Knorr, the senior parenting editor at commonsense.org, spends much of her time addressing cyberbullying and excessive screen time. She told CNBC that tech addiction is no accident. "Most social media platforms are designed to psychologically hook kids at a life stage where they are extremely vulnerable to peer approval," she added via email. "So we want to encourage awareness around the tricks app companies use to make kids feel as though they have to check in all the time." In a 2016 study of American families, commissioned by commonsense.org, it was found that media and technology use was a source of tension for many families and that people were struggling to focus due to frequent demands of social media and other online communication.

Customers looking at laptop computers at a Best Buy in Los Angeles. Getty Images

There is some evidence that young people are already recognizing the dangers and voluntarily choosing to switch off. In the U.K., a 2017 survey of nearly 5,000 school students claimed that young people are rebelling against the current state of social media. The findings, released in October, suggested almost two-thirds of children between 11 and 18 years old wouldn't mind if social media had never been invented. Respondents said abusive comments, worries about addiction and increased insecurity about appearance were all reasons to take a break from online interaction with others. And a further survey by the U.K.'s Royal Society for Public Health, released in April, identified Instagram as the worst offender for upsetting young people's mental health. One respondent to the #StatusOfMind survey said: "Instagram easily makes girls and women feel as if their bodies aren't good enough."

Source: Instagram

At the time a spokesperson for Instagram said keeping the site a safe and supportive place is "a top priority, particularly when it comes to young people". The survey asked to what extent each of the social media platforms they use made health-related factors better or worse. Other net-negative platforms were Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter, while YouTube stood alone in having a net positive effect on a user's perception of well-being. The society's chief executive, Shirley Cramer, said social media needed to be "less of a Wild West" when it came to young people's mental health.

Social slowdown?

Bald statistics would have you believe that the growth of social media continues unchecked. As of the third quarter of 2017, Facebook had 2.07 billion monthly active users (MAU's). Active users are those which have logged in to Facebook during the last 30 days. That marks a phenomenal rise since the third quarter of 2008 when just 100 million MAU's were attributed to Mark Zuckerberg's company.

Delve a little deeper under Facebook's hood and a picture of slowing growth can be detected. According to eMarketer data, 31 percent of internet surfers in 2012 logged on to Facebook at some point. By 2017 that figure had jumped to almost 45 percent. But fast forward to projections for 2021 and eMarketer believes the growth will rise by only a further 2 percent. For Twitter, eMarketer estimated its percentage of internet users will actually fall below 7 percent by 2021.

There's an app for that

There are even apps to help people stop, or at least slow, the amount of time spent tapping, liking and scrolling. One app called Offtime helps users unplug by blocking distracting software and informing people how much time they are spending on a particular site. Another, titled Moment sets caps on the amount of social media time you are allowed each day. Override it and you are flooded with annoying alerts. The role of social media is also being criticized at a geo-political level as accusations fly that the internet is being manipulated to disrupt campaigns and elections. Facebook said in September that it had found an operation, probably based in Russia, which spent $100,000 on adverts promoting divisive social and political messages over a two-year period. It argued however that there had been no link to the most recent U.S. general election.

watch now
Natural gas and oil are crucial cogs in our planet's energy mix but, for all their importance in making the world go round, they can be a big drain on water resources.

"For every barrel of oil we get out of the ground we use, typically, about 10 barrels of water," Bruce Logan, from Pennsylvania State University, told CNBC's "Sustainable Energy". "That can go up to 100 barrels of water," he added.



"With fracking (hydraulic fracturing) there may be very little water use, net water use, or there may be a lot," Logan explained. "It depends on the area, so there's really no hard and fast number about the water use to extract natural gas  be it via fracking  or to extract oil."



Earlier this year, "Sustainable Energy" looked at efforts to mitigate the impact of Canada's oil sands. Home to 166.3 billion barrels of the country's 171 billion barrels of proven reserves, Canada's vast oil sands are the third largest proven oil reserve on the planet, according to its government.



The scale of the work being done at the oil sands is considerable. According to Alberta Energy, a ministry of the Government of Alberta, oil sands production is set to increase to 4 million barrels per day by 2024, up from 2.3 million barrels per day in 2014.



Unsurprisingly, the environmental impact of such large scale production is significant. Canadian authorities acknowledge that the growth of annual oil sands production presents "several environmental challenges to land, water, air and energy conservation."

COSIA stands for Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, and is made up of oil sands producers who want to work together to boost the "environmental performance" in the oil sands.



Members of the alliance are pooling their ideas to find ways to mitigate the impact of the work they undertake.

"To date, the COSIA members have shared about 938 discreet individual technologies or innovations that cost about $1.33 billion to develop," Dan Wicklum, COSIA's chief executive, said, before going on to list one example of the collaborative work being undertaken.

"We set a goal in 2012 to reduce our freshwater use intensity by 50 percent by 2022, and since 2012 the companies have reduced their freshwater use by 38 percent," he added.
Sen. Marco Rubio says the GOP "probably went too far" in slashing the tax burden on corporations.

The Florida Republican told the News-Press of Fort Myers that corporations will largely use their major tax cut to buy back shares or increase dividends to shareholders  which "isn't going to create dramatic economic growth."

"If I were king for a day, this tax bill would have looked different. I thought we probably went too far on (helping) corporations," Rubio told the newspaper in the interview published Friday. "By and large, you're going to see a lot of these multinationals buy back shares to drive up the price. Some of them will be forced, because they're sitting on historic levels of cash, to pay out dividends to shareholders."

"That isn't going to create dramatic economic growth. (But) there's a lot of things in the bill that I have supported for a long time (such as) doubling the Child Tax Credit. And it is better  significantly better  than the current code," he continued.

The tax plan that President Donald Trump signed into law last week permanently chops the corporate tax to 21 percent from 35 percent. Republicans say the change  which starts Monday  will drive domestic investment, boost wages and fuel economic growth over time.

At least a dozen companies  including mammoth employers like AT&T and Boeing  announced plans to raise their minimum wages, increase capital investment or hand out employee bonuses after the plan's passage. While Republicans have cheered those announcements, some critics of the corporate tax cut have maintained most of those benefits will likely go to shareholders rather than workers.

Rubio, who sought the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, supported both the Senate GOP's tax bill and a joint House and Senate version that the president signed. He pushed first for a doubling of the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000, then for increasing the refundable portion of that credit to $1,400.

During the Senate tax debate, Rubio proposed expanding the credit and paying for it by cutting the corporate tax rate by less than the GOP initially intended.
The home at 5 Baker Court, September 1, 2016. On Baker Court and Fields Court, near the South Bay Shopping Center, two narrow paved paths so tiny they could hardly be called streets, some longtime property owners believe they are sitting on a real estate goldmine.

In my colleague Ben Casselman's article this week on the Internal Revenue Service's side-eyed guidance for all of the people rushing to prepay property taxes, he quoted some words of warning from Andy Grewal, a professor of tax law at the University of Iowa.

Mr. Grewal said homeowners who usually paid their property taxes through an escrow account via their mortgage servicer could end up facing an audit if they prepaid at their local assessor's office this time. That's because the tax payments the individuals report to the I.R.S. on their tax forms could differ from what the banks would report on the separate forms they use when reporting mortgage activity to the government. Differing figures raise questions at the I.R.S.

More from The New York Times:

Bookstore chains, long in decline, are undergoing a final shakeout

For luxury brands, the musical chairs whirled faster in 2017

That game on your phone may be tracking what you're watching on TV

That got me wondering: Couldn't you just call your bank and ask it to update the figure it puts on its own forms? It turns out the answer may be no, but this issue is not simple or consistent among banks, either.

Mr. Grewal was right to worry about this issue, given the number of people with escrow accounts. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, 79 percent of borrowers had escrow accounts in 2016 from which they paid property taxes on their primary mortgage.

But not all banks report property tax payments on the form they generate, Form 1098. Wells Fargo says it does report property tax payments on Line 10 of the form, which is simply labeled "Other." And no, alas, you cannot call the bank up and ask it to add whatever you are paying on your own to what was already sent from the escrow account this year. It will not adjust the figure.

Apparently, though, there is no legal requirement for a bank to report property taxes paid from an escrow account at all. Bank of America, Chase and Quicken Loans do not report it. Bank of America was fulfilling requests for additional property tax payments from people who already had property tax bills in hand, but it stopped doing so on Tuesday.

Also, here's an alert for a possible future headache: If you do prepay and have a mortgage and an escrow account, it may be a hassle (or impossible) to get the bank to adjust the original 2018 property tax payment schedule that it set on your behalf. You will want to let the bank know what you did and ask it to make whatever adjustments it can.

So people who want to prepay before Sunday but avoid trouble with the I.R.S. are faced with an interesting set of questions. If you're sure that your jurisdiction has officially assessed taxes that you can prepay and deduct this year but you have a mortgage with Wells Fargo, you will probably have no problem if the I.R.S. hassles you about differing amounts on different forms. But would the agency also then help itself to a look at other parts of your tax return? And have you toed the line on some of those other parts, or stepped over it?

People who have mortgages with Bank of America, Chase and Quicken Loans may feel they are in the clear because of a lack of conflicting tax forms, even if their local taxing authority has not been precise on whether prepayments fall in line with the guidance that the I.R.S. issued this week. But beware: If your property tax deduction is much higher in 2017 than it was in 2016 without your having changed residences, that could be its own flag for some line of audit-sniffing code that the I.R.S. has written or will write in the next few weeks.

As always in matters like these, it's best to consult tax professionals, even if they, too, lack a crystal ball or the skills necessary to read between the lines on I.R.S. guidance.
CHARLESTON (JG-TC) -- A vehicle traffic stop in the city led to a foot pursuit after occupants allegedly were found in possession of suspected heroin Thursday.

Charleston police stopped the 2005 Mazda at approximately 10:04 a.m. in the 800 block of 18th Street for a minor traffic violation, a police report states. During the stop, passenger Matthew Grissom, 28, of Charleston was found to be in possession of suspected heroin, according to city police.

When Grissom was arrested, the driver, Robert W. Brown, fled from officers, police stated. Brown, 37, of Chicago was apprehended after a short foot pursuit and was found to be in possession of suspected heroin.

Brown was arrested for possession of a controlled substance with an intent to deliver, obstructing justice, and resisting a peace officer.

According to Charleston police, Brown and Grissom were sent to the Coles County jail and the vehicle Brown was driving was seized pending a property seizure hearing.
South Africa's Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that parliament had failed to hold President Jacob Zuma to account over a scandal related to state-funded upgrades to his home, and must launch proceedings that could remove him from office.

The ruling is the latest judicial setback for Zuma, of Africa's most industrialized economy before an election in 2019.

While the ruling comes nowhere near starting an impeachment process against Zuma now, it gives parliament six months to make provision for the removal of a president.

It was not immediately clear what specific steps parliament would take, and whether any concrete action would be completed before the election, but analysts said the decision would add to the mounting pressure on him to step down.

The rand currency was almost 1 percent firmer on the last day trading day of the year.

Zuma, 75, is already in a weakened position after Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was narrowly elected leader of Zuma's ruling African National Congress (ANC) last week - although Zuma's faction still retains key positions in the party and he has already survived no-confidence votes.

"We conclude that the assembly did not hold the president to account ... The assembly must put in place a mechanism that could be used for the removal of the president from office," Judge Chris Jafta said, handing down the judgement, which was supported by a majority of the court, and shown on live television.

"Properly interpreted, Section 89 implicitly imposes an obligation on the assembly to make rules specially tailored for the removal of the president from office. By omitting to include such rules, the assembly has failed to fulfil this obligation."

The court ruled that parliament, where the ANC holds a commanding majority, needed to act within 180 days.

"The court is saying that there is no mechanism in place to implement the provision regarding impeachment ... They must make a provision within the rules for that to happen," said Lawson Naidoo, the executive secretary of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, an NGO.
Getty Images

From executive departures to quirky menu innovations, a lot happened in the restaurant industry in 2017. These events shaped how restaurateurs operate their business and show what brands have to do in 2018 to continue to compete. This year, technology and delivery became key sales drivers for companies, as customers demanded easier and faster ways to pay for and pick up food. Brands were forced to invest or lose diners to more innovative companies. Amazon was just one of several companies to acquire a popular brand, scooping up Whole Foods Market for about $13.7 billion and threatening to shift the balance between grocery and restaurant in favor of the grocers. Not to mention, Starbucks' Howard Schultz departed the CEO position to focus on the brand's Roastery locations as executive chairman. But, that's not all. Here's a look at the biggest stories of the year:

Technology growing pains

McDonald's delivery scooters. Issei Kato | Reuters

From kiosks to mobile ordering, restaurant companies have been pulling out all the stops to make buying food easier for consumers. But these innovations have not come without growing pains. Early in the year, Starbucks reported that mobile order and pay transactions had spiked in its U.S. stores, with 1,200 of its stores experiencing a 20 percent jump in mobile pay and ordering during peak hours. However, the increased sales volume actually hurt the company's same-store sales growth, as congestion at the hand-off counter caused incoming customers to leave without making a purchase. This bottlenecking was a warning sign to Starbucks' competitors. In creating McDonald's digital ordering platform, CEO Steve Easterbrook said the burger giant had to be "mindful" of the demands that come with mobile ordering and create a platform that suited the needs of both its customers and the kitchen. McDonald's hoped to add delivery to 5,000 U.S. restaurants by the end of this year. No company has done this better than Domino's , which has been at the forefront of digital ordering for the last few years. The pizza chain continues to dominate the industry, often operating more like a tech company than a restaurant company. The brand learned early on that mobile and digital orders not only offer customers an easier way to pay, but their average check is higher than those generated from in-store orders. Going forward, expect to see more innovation in technology in the restaurant space. Fast-food chains and fast-casual chains, in particular, have already begun to utilize kiosks to speed up ordering and decrease the number of staff mistakes. These innovations "replace a manual, flawed process," said Jeremy Goodman, head of North American sales for SimpleOrder, a restaurant inventory management software company. While Panera was at the forefront of adding digital kiosks, other brands have begun to adopt this practice, including Shake Shack , McDonald's and Subway.

Amazon threat looms

Produce at a Whole Foods store in Berkeley, Calif. Jane Wells | CNBC

Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods Market will likely send ripples through the grocery and restaurant segments for years to come. The tech giant acquired the grocer in June for $42 a share, in a deal valued at $13.7 billion. The e-commerce behemoth has long been pushing to expand its online grocery business, seeing it as an emerging opportunity. Currently, few people purchase their groceries online even as more shoppers switch to buying other goods that way. However, the addition of Whole Foods affords Amazon the opportunity to aggressively target fresh-food delivery companies and meal-kit brands. As the grocery and restaurant sectors battle for share of consumers' stomachs, Amazon could prove to be the tipping point. "Amazon is like the Death Star," said Aaron Allen, founder and CEO of global restaurant consulting firm Aaron Allen and Associates. "It goes planet to planet, vertical to vertical, blasting everything to extinction." Amazon's sheer size has already allowed it to lower its prices, winning over customers who traditionally wouldn't have shopped at Whole Foods. In addition, the tech company's commitment to data gathering has helped it learn more about its customers and at a faster pace than its competitors. This has allowed it to adapt to changing customer shopping habits and provide its shoppers with a better online ordering experience. "It's not about what Amazon has done, it's about what they can do," Allen told CNBC. Allen said Amazon will be "the bane of the restaurant industry" in the future. So, while the industry hasn't seen much of a drag from the acquisition this year, headwinds loom.

Chipotle's troubles can't be fixed with queso

Chipotle Queso Source: Chipotle Mexican Grill.

While it seemed like Chipotle Mexican Grill 's turnaround was gaining a foothold in 2017, the burrito chain continued to struggle. It's been two years since a string of food safety incidents first battered the chain's sales and slashed its stock in half. Yet, Chipotle hasn't been able to win back diners' trust. The chain has been slammed by analysts and customers for its "arrogance," and recurring reports of sick customers this year haven't helped its reputation. Chipotle responded by implementing a new paid sick-leave policy and holding a number of meetings with its employees to reiterate food preparation practices. Meantime, the chain mixed up its menu, hoping that new offerings would bring in new and lapsed consumers. At first, it seemed that Chipotle's introduction of queso was just what the brand needed, but the cheesy dip quickly received tepid reviews from consumers. In December, the company tweaked its recipe to give it a creamier texture. CEO Steve Ells announced in late November that he will step down from the position as soon as a suitable replacement is found. He will remain with the company as executive chairman. In 2018, the company must focus on selecting a CEO who can change the brand's image. How much autonomy the new executive would have, however, remains a question since Ells will still be in charge of its board, said Allen. He anticipates Ells could return to the role in as little as 24 months once the brand gets back on track. One thing that won't help: fast-casual chains are expected to see same-store sales slow. The segment has been growing at double-digit levels for nearly a decade and growth began to ebb in 2017.

Howard Schultz's new focus

Starbucks' Shanghai Roastery has three coffee experience bars Starbucks

In April, Schultz stepped down from his role as CEO to focus on turning Starbucks' Reserve Roastery-branded coffee bars into destination restaurants. The move, which was first announced last December, was a surprise to some investors. However, many were quick to point out that the last time Schultz vacated the role, he managed to revitalize the company's international market growth. The company operates two Reserve Roastery locations, in Seattle and Shanghai, which opened earlier this month. Starbucks has said it could open as many as 20 to 30 Roastery stores around the world. Currently, five more are expected to open before 2020, with Milan and New York slated for 2018 and Tokyo and Chicago planned for 2019.

Unicorn magic

Starbucks' Unicorn Frappuccino Source: Starbucks
President Donald Trump on Friday said he wanted two major concessions in exchange for legal protections for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who came to the United States as children.

The president's demands potentially complicate bipartisan talks about shielding those immigrants from deportation. Congress faces a March 5 deadline to pass legislation after Trump ended the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in September, with a six-month delay.

In a tweet, Trump claimed that Democrats "have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc."

"We must protect our Country at all cost!" he wrote.

Trump tweet

Democrats have previously signaled that they could agree to Republican demands for more border security funding in exchange for a fix to DACA. However, they have resisted Trump's calls to fund a physical barrier on the Mexican border.
What made the president's year-end New York Times interview notable was repetition of a particular brand of untruth. Even as his administration struggles with historic unpopularity and extraordinary dysfunction, Trump ascribes to himself qualities that surpass all predecessors  even reigning Republican icon Ronald Reagan.

President Donald Trump says so many things that are untrue as to complicate attempts at explaining them. Did he know better? Was he uninformed? Should he be taken literally?

Over and over during the 30-minute session, Trump cast his performance in terms so grandiose and extreme as to be self-evidently false. Taken together, his comments signaled an inability to grasp conditions in the country, the limitations of his own capacities and the nature of the office he holds.

Here are some examples:

 He attributed his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton to skill in overcoming the pro-Democratic tilt of the Electoral College. There is no such tilt. The electoral college system provides a path to victory for the party losing the popular vote. Republicans lost six of the last seven popular votes in presidential contests, but they won the Electoral College in two of those six instances.

 He insisted his Democratic adversaries on Capitol Hill have absolved him of "collusion" with Russia on election interference. They have not. They have said they haven't yet seen conclusive evidence from Congressional and Justice Department investigations that remain ongoing.

 He declared, "I have absolute right to do what I want with the Justice Department." He does not. He holds executive branch authority over the Justice Department, but under America's constitutional system, executive power is not absolute and no one is above the law.

 He claimed, in deriding the effectiveness of West Virginia's Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, that "I'm the one that saved coal." He has not. For economic and environmental reasons, coal remains a declining industry.

 He claimed extraordinary influence over Congress, where Republican lawmakers "love me." Republican lawmakers generally do not love him, though many fear his ability to turn rank-and-file voters against them. Some treat him with undisguised contempt. His attempt to "repeal and replace" Obamacare, for which he claimed to have won over 100 resistant GOP members, failed.

 He claimed understanding of public policy superior to any president in American history. "I know the details of taxes  better than the greatest CPA," and of health care "better than most." He does not, as he proved moments later by asserting "millions of people are joining" a type of health plan he created. No one has; his directive on the subject has not been implemented.

 He said Chinese President Xi Jinping "likes me" and "has treated me better than anybody's ever been treated in the history of China." But Xi, as Trump subsequently acknowledged, has not acceded to his requests on North Korea policy.

 He asserted "I knew what I was doing" in the Alabama Senate race, and that "I didn't lose" because his endorsement lifted the fortunes of two different Republican candidates. He lost twice  backing different candidates who failed in the Republican primary and then the general election.

 He claimed "my base is stronger than it's ever been" in backing him. It is not. Trump began his presidency with the approval of 45 percent of Americans in the Gallup Poll. His approval now stands below 40 percent  and has for seven consecutive months.

Trump is the least-popular first-year president in the history of polling. As shown in this fall's Alabama and Virginia elections, he has helped drive down Republican support among college-educated suburban voters, especially women.

Like many supporters, the president frequently ascribes political difficulty to "fake news" from hostile reporters. That itself undercuts his claim of unique ability to command the outcome in a 2020 re-election contest, which provides the final example:

 "I'm going to win another four years," Trump declared, "because newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I'm not there. Because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes."
Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L) and US President Donald Trump talking during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg.

Trump and his foreign policy head into 2018 weighed down by a criminal investigation into his campaign's ties to Russia, an entrenched and recalcitrant foreign policy establishment and little government experience to rely on. All of these issues threaten to steer his presidency off course and hamper his political ambitions ahead of the 2020 presidential campaign. The stark difference between reality and Trump's rhetoric suggests the president lacks a coherent foreign policy, international relations experts have said. As a result, Trump's intentions have been overridden by career government officials who do not share his desire for better relations with Moscow.

But nearly a year into the presidency, it's not clear that the U.S.-Russia relationship has gotten any better, despite the president's hopes and some critics' fears. This state of affairs was recently underlined by Trump's own secretary of state.

Candidate Donald Trump made a bold prediction on the night he declared himself presumptive Republican nominee for president. " We're going to have a great relationship with Putin and Russia, " Trump said at the April 2016 rally.

"The president is not at the wheel of the U.S.-Russian relationship," said Mark Simakovsky, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. Simakovsky formerly served as the chief of staff for Europe and NATO issues in the office of the undersecretary of defense for policy.

The president has publicly claimed that a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin would be an "asset" to American diplomacy, and he has championed the relationship's potential in the fight against the Islamic State. But the actions taken by his administration have inflamed the Kremlin.

The hostility between the two countries has only escalated in recent weeks, experts said, bolstered by a , new on Russian nationals, and the authorization of as it fends off its eastern neighbor.

"The combo of [Magnitsky Act] names, arms to Ukraine, and the NSS language most certainly will impact the way Russian elites think about Trump and his administration," Michael McFaul, who was U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, told CNBC.



The Russian foreign ministry has expressed disdain for the president's moves.



"All of this looks ridiculous in the context of the common threats and challenges that our two countries and the world in general are facing," ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a briefing this month, decrying the new sanctions imposed under the Magnitsky Act.

The Magnitsky Act, a 2012 sanctions law the Kremlin opposes, played a role in Trump's presidential campaign. Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya has claimed that the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., told her during an initially undisclosed June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that Trump's White House would be willing to review the law. Trump Jr. has said the purpose of the meeting was to discuss damaging information on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

While the president's moves have driven a wedge between the White House and Russian elites, it's not clear that the divide has carried through to Russians as a whole.

"There is an underlying emotional 'current' there in Russia that the two leaders would and should get along and eventually solve all the problems," said Eric Shiraev, a professor at George Mason University who has written several books on international relations, political psychology and Russia.

On a Dec. 19 episode of Russia's "60 Minutes," Alexander Losev, a foreign policy scholar, discussed Trump's first national security strategy with the married hosts, Olga Skabeeva and Evgeny Popov. The national security strategy departed sharply from the president's former comments on Russia, experts have said. The administration's policy document calls Russia a "revisionist power" antithetical to U.S. interests.

"Trump has nothing to do with this," Losev said, referring to the document. "It was all written two years ago." Popov interrupted to explain that he thought Trump is on Russia's side.

The contradictions between Trump's public pronouncements and United States policy have only accelerated over time. The relationship, meanwhile, has continued to worsen.

"I think the Russians are clearly confused," said the Atlantic Council's Simakovsky.

The Trump administration's unfocused foreign policy is the result of "amateurs" at the head of the executive branch and State Department, said Dan Caldwell, a distinguished professor of political science at Pepperdine University.

"We have some competent people," he said, naming Defense Secretary James Mattis and national security advisor H.R. McMaster. "But they can't implement foreign policy on their own."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. A representative for the State Department told CNBC that the United States seeks to normalize its relationship with Russia. Ultimately, the representative said, the choice is Russia's to make.



While the White House attempts to improve ties with Russia, special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign continues, bringing increased scrutiny to any policy decision regarding the nation.

That investigation has already ensnared former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty Dec. 1 to lying to the FBI regarding his communications with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about U.S. sanctions on Russia.

In July, Congress overwhelmingly passed new sanctions bills that constrained the president's ability to maneuver on Russia  which were widely interpreted as a rebuke to the president's autonomy on foreign policy. At the time, Putin called the sanctions "illegal under international law."

Despite the frayed relations, Putin and Trump seem to remain united on an integral point. "Both Trump and Putin want to put [Mueller's investigation] in the rearview mirror," Pepperdine's Caldwell said.

"If President Trump was removed from office, then things could be even worse than they currently are," he said.
MATTOON -- A Bloomington woman with dementia who had been reported missing on Monday, Christmas Day, was found in Mattoon and then returned to her home on Wednesday.

Chief Jason Taylor of the Mattoon Police Department said the woman, 53-year-old Carmon D. Edwards, was reported missing by her family at 11 a.m. Monday. He said the subsequent investigation determined that Edwards, who accidentally left her cellphone at home, drove south and briefly stopped Monday afternoon at a Champaign service station, where she prepaid for gasoline but did not pump the fuel into her tank.

Taylor said Edwards then drove for unknown reasons to Mattoon, where she has no ties, and she ran out of gasoline near the intersection of Richmond Avenue and 21st Street. He said Mattoon police officers found Edwards' unoccupied vehicle there at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. He said police officers and firefighters subsequently conducted a grid search of Mattoon for Edwards, including looking along ditches and railroad tracks.

"There were an awful lot of people involved in trying to find her and we were thinking the worst," Taylor said. He noted that an Illinois State Police airplane assisted with the search.

The police chief said the subsequent investigation determined that Samuel Ford, 74, of rural Mattoon had found Edwards wandering Tuesday morning in the parking lot of Dollar General, 2001 Lake Land Boulevard. He said Ford did not realize that Edwards was a missing person. He said Ford bought breakfast for Edwards at 9:15 a.m. that day at Hardee's, 1117 Lake Land Boulevard, and then took her to shelter at his home.

Ford reportedly learned that Edwards was a mission person when he saw a television news report Wednesday morning about state police searching for her, Taylor said. Ford then took Edwards to state police District 10 headquarters in Pesotum at approximately 12:50 p.m. Wednesday, he said. Edwards has since been returned healthy and unharmed to her family, Taylor said.
Cllr Peter Golds is Leader of the Conservative Group on Tower Hamlets Council.

Almost three years after being disqualified from office on grounds of corruption and election fraud, Lutfur Rahman, the former Mayor of Tower Hamlets continues to cast a dark shadow over public life in the borough. Before Christmas he was struck off the roll of solicitors and handed an 86,400 costs order by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority had charged Rahman with failing to uphold the rule of law and administration of justice, failing to act with integrity and failing to behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in him and in the provision of legal services. The tribunal found all allegations put forward by the SRA to be proven. This case had commenced in April 2015 when the Election Court referred Rahman to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Barrister for the election petitioners, Francis Hoar said this was, by his count at least the sixth spin off litigation from Lutfur Rahman since the election court findings.

Time after time he has been called to order and plays the system in order to delay the inevitable. Three days before this last hearing was due to start, he sought an adjournment claiming that he was seeking legal advice on challenging his failed Judicial Review which upheld the Election Court Judgement. He was also, apparently, unable to secure appropriate legal representation for this hearing. One may ask how his legal training would enable him to question the Judgement of two of the most senior Judges in the country who had dismissed his application for a Judicial Review and yet be unable to justify his actions as a solicitor in public office to his professional body?

Lutfur Rahman is a local man, educated in the borough, who trained as a lawyer, entered local government, yet ended up being exposed as willing to corrupt the voting system and his local council. Ultimately for what? His reputation is shredded and his actions in power were seen to resemble a gang boss rather than a civic leader in the worlds greatest city.

Yet still his supporters cry racism and Islamophobia at any hint of criticism of him. In November, an anodyne council motion calling on all members to acknowledge the past and pledge to fight a clean election was subject to a bizarre and theatrical walkout by the remaining Rahman councillors (they have split into at least three factions since losing power) claiming the motion was illegal.

They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing is a quotation often attributed to the great diplomat Talleyrand in describing the restored Bourbons after the French Revolution. It is the same with Tower Hamlets First. Even now, election candidates on the 2018 Rahman ticket are routinely making toxic allegations against opponents. Anonymous leaflets, defaming local politicians are being distributed, just as in 2014 and previous elections. Whilst this goes on, the reputation of the borough itself suffers.

The abject failure of the police to properly investigate the events of 2014 has given a lease of life to the Rahman team. They repeatedly say that as there have been no police charges, nothing criminal happened. HMIC are, at last investigating this situation under Operation Lynemouth, and in their recent quarterly report the two following paragraphs stand out:

It would appear that the original MPS investigation failed to secure pivotal evidence which could have led to further enquiries. Operation Lynemouth has done so and is seeking early advice from the CPS as to whether the evidence provides realistic opportunities for investigation and prosecution.

Also:

The MPSs fraud squad considered ten matters during the original investigation, including allegations of fraud, bribery, perjury and tax evasion, but did not make any arrests. Operation Lynemouth has already identified potential evidential opportunities, although there is still much work to be done.

This is an indication that work is going on to establish what went wrong in 2014 and what can be done to resolve the situation.

Problems of alleged corruption continue in the borough. In December the Sunday Times insight team carried a story naming a local fixer of whom they had a recording seeking substantial sums from a developer with which he would bribe contacts in the Labour Party. This information, having been given to the Council in 2015, was, in April 2016, reported to the National Crime Agency. At least this was handed over to the authorities.

What does cause concern,and not just with me as we approach May 2018, is that the Scotland Yard Special Enquiry Team, who are to be responsible for overseeing the election are led by the officer who had charge of the investigations into Rahman.

This is the very officer who said, at a disastrous meeting held locally in July 2016, with only carefully selected attendees, in connection with what ever police activity took place in the aftermath of the election petition; addresses were visited and people spoken to. This is the same officer who did not seek witness statements from those who had publicly come forward at the time of the petition and the same officer who did not seek to examine the twenty seven files of documents from the petition, despite being recommended to do this by Francis Hoar in the autumn of 2015.

Tower Hamlets, along with several other high profile authorities was expected to be included in the voter ID pilot scheme. In our case the Chief Executive said that he was not sure that this could be implemented in time and so the borough was excluded. Slough, another authority with a chequered electoral past excluded itself by a vote of the council, shortly before the controversial council leader was forced to resign.

There will be extra checks on postal votes in Tower Hamlets. This will involve tracking the postal votes  and the government will be considering what checks can be placed on handling postal voters by those who are not the actual elector. Undoubtedly this may stop some of the more egregious examples of fraud that so damaged the 2014 election in Tower Hamlets.

For years I warned how the electoral process in this borough had been corrupted. The ongoing failure of the police to deal with this problem resulted in the fraud becoming ever more blatant. I will say again, it takes a great deal of imagination not to find it suspicious that an individual would contest two elections in six weeks, in two wards in the same borough, using two different names and two different home addresses, neither of which were his home.

As he did not live at the given addresses, presumably he was not even spoken to.

We can but hope that 2018 is not a repeat of 2014.
MATTOON -- Glo Bingo and murder mystery theater fundraisers have been scheduled next month to help Mattoon Area PADS, which plans to open its new homeless shelter and community kitchen in the spring.

The Mattoon Moose Lodge is set to sponsor the Glo Bingo games at 7 p.m. Jan. 20 at its lodge, 1212 Broadway Ave., with the doors opening at 6 p.m. Entry is $20 in advance and $25 at the door for these illuminated games, described as "This is not your grandma's bingo!" The price includes six cards for 10 games, a Glo hat and a Glo dabber, plus $5 per additional six bingo cards. Advance tickets are available at the lodge or PADS, 2017 Broadway Ave.

Central Illinois State Company, known as CISCo, then plans to present its "Mafia Murders" mystery theater production at 7 p.m. Jan. 26-27 at the Mattoon Moose lodge, with the doors opening at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are available for $25 in advance and $35 at the door. The event also will offer hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar.

PADS Executive Director Michael Stopka said this will be CISCo's second annual murder mystery theater benefit for the shelter. He said they held one performance last year.

"We had a good turnout last year and we thought two nights would draw in more people. They will be able to choose whichever night would be better for them," Stopka said, noting that the Moose Lodge hosted last year's performance too. "We are happy to work with the Moose. They are always more than willing for us to use their facility. They have been a good partner. We are grateful for that."

Stopka said PADS has nearly reached its fundraising goal for equipping and furnishing the new homeless shelter and community kitchen building that is under construction at 1812 Western Ave., just south of City Hall. He said the proceeds of benefits that are not being scheduled will help fund day-to-day operations at PADS.

The new building has been enclosed and the construction work has shifted to the interior of this structure for the winter, Stopka said. PADS hopes to move into the new building sometime this spring and this nonprofit organization is making plans for operating this facility and for staffing it with the help of volunteers, he said.

More information about PADS and the upcoming fundraisers is available by calling the shelter at 217-234-7237 or by going online to https://www.facebook.com/Mattoon-Area-PADS.
CORNWALL, Ontario  In gratitude for the support shown by the local community, EXIT Realty Seaway has been collecting donations for the Trinity Drop-In Center.

On Dec. 19, Rev. Peter Cazaly (Co-ordinator, Trinity Drop in Center), stopped in to pick up the donations. Donations came from agents, friends, local businesses and clients of EXIT Realty Seaway as well as a generous donation of City bus passes from Cornwall Transit. (given out when patrons need to get to appointments within the city).

Other items collected included: soap, shampoo & conditioner, razors, toothpaste & toothbrushes, tissue, sanitizer, clothes (t-shirts, jeans, socks).

We appreciate being a part of this wonderful community and welcome the opportunity to give back, we wanted to reach local people in need and we are honored to help out Trinity Drop-In Center this year. Henrietta Duvall, Owner/Broker of Record of EXIT Realty Seaway.

EXIT Realty Seaway is located at 425 Fourth St. W. Unit E. Cornwall, ON K6J 2S7. Please call 613.937.4445 or visit www.exitrealtyseaway.com for more information.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chartered Bahamas Paradise Cruise Lines Grand Celebration for a 90-day period for a charter rate of $25,750,000, according to the contract between FEMA and Bahamas Paradise (Paradise Cruise Line Operator).

The contract was obtained by Cruise Industry News through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The 1,500-passenger vessel spent the 90 days docked in St. Thomas from September through mid December, providing accommodations to survivors and first responders following a number of devastating hurricanes that hit the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Per day, the charter rate was approximately $286,111.

By comparison, a similarly sized ship from a major contemporary cruise company should be able to generate between $25 and $26 million in gross revenue for a 90-day operating period, according to historical finance performance reported by publicly-traded cruise companies and analyzed by Cruise Industry News. In other words, FEMA got a fair deal.

In addition to the charter, Bahamas Paradise was out in front among cruise lines answering the need for aid following the hurricanes in September, offering accommodations and hot meals to first responders while the ship was docked in Palm Beach.

The ship returned to service just before the holiday season, continuing to offer a two-day program from Palm Beach to the Bahamas. The company is expanding, with a second ship, the neoClassica, expected to join its fleet this spring.
BRIDGEPORT  One city man was arrested and faces several charges after police were called to a residence for a domestic incident that may have involved a gun, records indicate.

Around 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 20, Bridgeport police officers were dispatched to an apartment on Beechwood Avenue after a womans son called 911.

The 25-year-old son told police that his mothers boyfriend and her had gotten in an argument and that the boyfriend pointed a firearm at the son when he tried to calm him down.

Alexander Vargas, 44, of Bridgeport, was charged with criminal possession of a firearm, ammunition or electronic device; interfering with a police officer, second-degree threatening and disorderly conduct once he was arrested and processed.

When officers arrived at the apartment building that evening, they were met by Vargas as they entered the apartment, an incident report said. An officer ordered Vargas to show his hands, but said he did not comply.

The officer managed to get one cuff on Vargas but the officer said he struggled and resisted arrest. The officer radioed for more officers to respond to provide assistance. When more officers arrived, they secured both cuffs on Vargas and did a sweep of the apartment.

During the check of the residence, all occupants were cleared and no gun was found.

Alex state that he never had a firearm and we could search his home, the incident report written by an officer read. He also gave consent to search his rental vehicle parked outside and gave us the keys.

An officer searched the car and fond a black plastic bag that had 19 live rounds of .25 caliber ammunition and a prescription bottle under Vargas name.

Despite the fact that police did not find the silver gun described by the son who called 911, the son still gave a written statement maintaining that he argued and yelled at his mother before he pulled out the gun and pointed it at them.

The mans mother would not cooperate with police, the incident report indicated. She complained to officers about pain that was flaring up from a previous surgery and was taken to St. Vincents Medical Center by medics.

Police said that when Vargas was processed in booking, it was found he had numerous felony convictions for narcotics. It was also noted that he had used several known aliases in the past. Vargas bond was set at $15,000.
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Theres no way to avoid chaos if youre trying to prepay taxes in 2017 that arent due until 2018 in order to lessen the blow of the Trump tax reform limits on deductions for state and local taxes.

The short answer is, you should at the least be able to prepay municipal property taxes due on or after Jan. 1, which are normally paid in January and cover the current fiscal year, 2017-18. That would give you an extra deduction for 2017 but it might still leave you with hefty non-deductible taxes in 2018.

Whether you can prepay for taxes not due until the start of the fiscal year in July  which have not yet been assessed  is a more complicated question. Heres what we knew as of Thursday afternoon:

The governors office said its up to the towns, and that it cant issue a blanket order as some governors did, notably Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York. More on that in a minute.

Most cities and towns arent accepting prepayments for taxes not yet assessed, but some, including Stamford and West Hartford, are doing so. West Hartford, for example, is accepting amounts equal to the current years local taxes.

The IRS issued an advisory late Wednesday saying those deductions wont be allowed.

A prepayment of anticipated real property taxes that have not been assessed prior to 2018 are not deductible in 2017, the advisory said. Other than the obvious grammatical error  apparently English majors are scarce at the IRS  that seems blunt and clear.

Some tax advisers were telling clients to go ahead and make those future payments where towns were accepting them, but in light of the new IRS statement, thats probably not wise, especially if towns dont have the mechanism to calculate totals, said Russell L. Abrahms, a CPA in Fairfield.

From everything were seeing right now, I wouldnt do it unless its assessed and calculated, Abrahms said Thursday. There could possibly be a penalty because you violated the advice of the IRS.

It might seem a good bet to tie up your money for seven extra months in the hopes of gaining a deduction that could be worth one-third of the total, or even more.

Its even possible a court could rule that payments on unassessed taxes could be deducted in the prior year. But thats a longshot in part because unassessed tax payments are subject to possible reimbursement, so the IRS could be on solid ground in rejecting the deductions.

I wouldnt go that far out, Abrahms said.

Kevin B. Sullivan, the state revenue services commissioner, concurred that the IRS could levy a penalty on taxpayers who take a 2017 deduction for payment of unbilled taxes  and therefore underpay in 2017.

I dont give tax advice, I can only say I would not do it, Sullivan said.

So lets say youve decided to prepay at least the assessed portion of your taxes and you have the cash. Just getting the money into the right hands in town hall could pose a challenge in the waning days of the year, as many town tax offices are closed Friday.

The good news is, if you know how much to send, all you need to do is postmark a check by the end of the year.

Its the mailbox rule. If it hits the mailbox and youve mailed it, dated it by the 31st, you get credit for it, said Abrahms, who suggested taxpayers consider a certified letter for proof of a postmark.

Then theres the problem of coordinating payments with your bank or mortgage servicer. Most of the time, they pay the tax based on escrow payments youve made every month.

I called my mortgage company, a big national outfit, first thing Tuesday morning and asked it to make the January payment in advance, this week. I got an actual person, who logged the request and said it takes three to five days for an answer, let alone an actual payment  so Im not holding my breath.

My mortgage servicer said it would pay me back from the escrow account if I made my own payment. Some towns were requiring a letter in advance from a mortgage servicer in order to accept payment directly, according to my colleague, Michael Mayko  but that seems preposterous. Cant pay your assessed taxes directly? Really?

Finally, officials in some towns were miffed that Gov. Dannel P. Malloys office didnt just clear up the matter with an order on advance payments for non-assessed taxes, as some states did. Unfortunately, Malloys office said, Connecticut tax law doesnt work that way

To be clear, we are not prohibiting local governments from accepting pre-payments of property taxes. Rather, we are leaving this decision to towns to make for their local property taxpayers, Malloy spokeswoman Kelly Donnelly said.

Ben Barnes, Malloys budget chief, said in a letter to municipal officials that his office is in no position to offer an opinion as to the federal tax treatment of property tax payments made in December 2017 to Connecticut local governments.

Barnes addressed the New York issue directly.

New York has a less uniform system of property taxes overall, and various starting dates for fiscal years in different types of jurisdictions, Barnes said. In Connecticut, he said, all communities have laid a tax for the year that ends June 30, 2018, but none have done so for the following year which begins in more than six months. For this reason, New Yorks approach would not be practical in Connecticut.

As for paying your state income taxes in advance and claiming a deduction  fuhgetabout it. You havent even earned the income yet and the federal law specifically disallows that deduction.
A 45-year-old former employee of the $45.5 million Strip Steel Community Federal Credit Union pleaded guilty to embezzling $82,000 in U.S. District Court in Wheeling, W. Va., last week.

Michelle K. Martin admitted that she stole the funds from October 2016 to May 2017 from the Weirton-based credit union, federal prosecutors said.

Court documents do not reveal Martins position with the credit union, how long she worked there or how she concealed her embezzlement for eight months.

However, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys office for northern district of West Virginia, said Martin stole the money from the credit unions vault. When confronted by law enforcement, Ms. Martin made a full confession.
Cette annonce nest plus disponible et aucune proposition ne peut etre transmise.

DRC Djibouti is recruiting a Finance & HR Officer a Djibouti

Title: Finance & HR Officer

Location: Djibouti Ville with travels to the field

Reports to: Area Manager, Djibouti

Start of Contract & Duration: 6 months (with possible extension based on funds availability and performance).

Posting date: December 27, 2017



INTRODUCTION



DRC is an international non-governmental organization which provides assistance and promotes durable solutions for refugees and internally displaced people, on the basis of humanitarian principles and human rights. The DRC Ethiopia/Djibouti Country program focuses on emergency response, protection, mixed migration and livelihoods. DRC is implementing different protection, mixed migration and livelihood projects in Djibouti and has an active role on the response to the influx of refugees coming from Yemen.





Purpose



The Finance & HR officer is to ensure that related Finance & Human resources needs in Djibouti office are addressed and met in an efficient, timely, transparent, accountable and cost-effective manner. The Finance & HR officer will report to the DRC Djibouti Area Manager and work closely with the Finance Coordinator and the HR Coordinator based in Addis to ensure smooth and effective running of finance and HR activities in Djibouti.





RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS





1. Finance



Enter all financial transactions in the cashbook and ensure quality of the entries and balanced cashbooks.

Estimate and request cash from DRC HQ via the Country Office in Addis and Regional Office for DRC Djibouti.

Ensure monthly closing and cash flow status report is produced on time, in both electronic and hard copies.

Control the quality of cashbooks and that payment sheets are properly filled out; namely with a detailed description of payment purpose.

Ensure proper filing systems of financial documents, timely scans financial documents and shares with the CO and RO.

To ensure accounting records are kept updated, are reliable and are maintained according to DRC accounting practices.

To ensure all relevant documentation is collected, checked and attached to payment vouchers for submission.

To prepare and carry out monthly salary payments of Djibouti staff and remit taxes to the relevant government authorities.

Coordinate with the local partner to make sure that sub-grants are spent in accordance with donor guidelines.





2. Human Resource



Maintain a thorough knowledge of DRC HR policies and ensure DRC Djibouti national staff adherence.

Act as focal point on all matters related to HR for Djibouti, and train staff on HR policies through appropriate training and meetings.

Ensure that personnel files for Djibouti national staff and refugee incentivized staff are complete and accurate, and that confidentiality is maintained.

Maintain updated job description database.

Liaise with the HR in Addis Ababa, as needed, on leave management, including the maintenance of leave tracking and staff movement documentation.

Prepare and submit the monthly staff list.

Assist in recruitment processes to ensure compliance with DRC hiring procedures as outlined in the HR manual.

Conduct timely orientation of new staff assigned to Djibouti and/or the refugee camp.





3. Liaison





Assist relevant DRC managers and the Area Manager in maintaining and maintaining relationships with Djiboutian governmental authorities.

Provide cultural context to decision-making.

Help with obtaining the necessary permissions and authorizations to facilitate DRCs work in Djibouti.





In this position, you will also be expected to demonstrate DRCs five core competencies:



Striving for Excellence: Focusing on reaching results while ensuring an efficient process.

Collaborating: Involving relevant parties and encouraging feedback.

Taking the Lead: Taking ownership and initiative while aiming for innovation.

Communicating: Listening and speaking effectively and honestly.

Demonstrating Integrity: Acting in line with DRCs vision and values.







PERSONAL SPECIFICATIONS



REQUIRED



Education:





University degree in Finance, Business administration or related field.

Relevant experience in the domain can be considered in lieu of the university degree in required field.





Experience:





A minimum of 3 years of relevant experience is required, preferably with an international NGO and/or UN Agencies

Competencies:

The candidate must be fluent in both written and oral French and English and at least one of the local languages. The knowledge of Arabic would be an asset.

She/he must also have good communication skills, be able to work independently and energetically, and have a flexible approach to manage and prioritize a high workload and multiple tasks with tight deadlines.

She/he must be confident and proficient in the use of MS Office, with advanced Excel proficiency.





The candidate must also have a:



Proven commitment to accountability and quality assurance.

Excellent analytical and writing skills.

Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to establish effective and working relations with national staff members and other stakeholders.

Excellent communication skills and sense of diplomacy.







The duties and tasks above are given for indication and information purposes. The Danish Refugee Council has the right to update this Job Description according to the development of its Humanitarian activities within its frame of intervention and in accordance with the Djiboutian Labour Law.

This job description is an appendix to the contract and the employer can at any time make changes, after discussions with the employee.





TO APPLY



Interested candidates who meet the required qualifications and experience are invited to submit updated CV and cover letter explaining their motivation and why they are suited for the post.



We only accept applications sent via our online-application form on www.drc.dk under Vacancies.



Please forward the application and CV, in English through the stated website no later than January 16, 2018.

see link below

https://candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationInit.aspx?cid=1036&ProjectId=150113&uiculture=eng&MediaId=5



For general information about the Danish Refugee Council, please consult www.drc.dk.



We encourage only qualified Djibouti Nationals to apply. DRC considers all applicants based on merit. It is DRC policy to recruit, hire, train and promote individuals, as well as administer any and all personnel actions, without regard to gender, race, national, clan or tribal origin, religion, age, sex, origin or ancestry, marital status, social status, sexual orientation, or status as a qualified disabled individual.



Emplois & Services, Emplois

29 decembre, 2017

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Cette annonce nest plus disponible et aucune proposition ne peut etre transmise.

DRC Djibouti is recruiting a Procurement & Logistics Officer a Djibouti

Title: Procurement & Logistics Officer

Location: Djibouti Ville with travels to the field

Reports to: Area Manager, Djibouti

Start of Contract & Duration: 6 months (with possible extension based on funds availability and performance).

Posting date: December 27, 2017







INTRODUCTION



DRC is an international non-governmental organization which provides assistance and promotes durable solutions for refugees and internally displaced people, on the basis of humanitarian principles and human rights. The DRC Ethiopia/Djibouti Country program focuses on emergency response, protection, mixed migration and livelihoods. DRC is implementing different protection, mixed migration and livelihood projects in Djibouti and has an active role on the response to the influx of refugees coming from Yemen.





Purpose



The Procurement and Logistics Officer is to ensure that the programmatic needs for Djibouti Offices are addressed and met in an efficient, timely, transparent, accountable and cost-effective manner. The Procurement and Logistics Officer will work closely with the Djibouti Area Manager, the Finance and Admin Coordinator, Head of Field Offices in Ali Sabieh and Obock and the Logistics & Procurement Coordinator based in Addis to ensure smooth and effective running of procurement and logistic activities in Djibouti.







RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS





1. Management





Act as Djibouti Office Procurement and Logistics focal point including compilation of Annual Performance Indicators (APIs) related to Djibouti Programs.

Coordinate procurement and shipment of suppliers to other offices.

Ensure Logistics and Procurement tools in the Djibouti Office are effectively rolled out in order to support Djibouti Program.

To take overall responsibility for the management and implementation of procurement and logistics. This includes procurement, warehouse and stock management and vehicle/fleet management.

To provide technical support to operations assistants in the field offices in matters related to Logistics and procurement.





2. Logistics and Procurement





Ensure that assets/inventory in Djibouti operational area (currently including Djibouti ville, Ali Sabieh and Obock) are tagged and updated in the electronic property register on a monthly basis and that all staff/sectors comply with the laid down procedures regarding property management.

Ascertain that correct procedures are followed in the disposal of all obsolete and unrepairable property items and conduct an annual inventory of all assets.

Ensure that all DRC assets/property, including the office space, the guest-house, the containers, are well utilized, maintained, and serviced in order to minimize wastage and losses.

Enforce the procurement plan developed by the project team and make sure that items are purchased at the most convenient price and with the highest standards of quality.

Conduct periodic checks to ensure that the DRC warehouses are managed according to DRC regulations and records are well kept.

Ensure that DRC vehicles are utilized optimally for project activity implementation, maintained regularly, and properly registered and insured.

Review monthly fleet operational costs including fuel and lubricant consumption, spare part usage, and repair costs.

Assist in the procurement of vehicles, either for rental or purchase, in close coordination with the office in Djibouti-Ville and country office in Addis Ababa as needed.

Ensure the existence of procurement plan for each project and share with Area manager, Logistics & Procurement Coordinator or Regional Office as may be appropriate on timely basis.

Follow the procurement procedures and ensure value for money for all the procured works, services and supplies.

Ensure that items delivered by the vendor are in good working order, guarantees are in place and proper documentations exist for supplies or services received.

Manage, constantly update and share internally the procurement status sheet reflecting all procurement in progress clearly segregating procurement according to different projects/departments on weekly basis.

Keep up to date filing system in Procurement and Logistics department.

Update relevant information about procurement process in a database, appraise supplier performance and manage relationships with suppliers.

Prepare tender documents and contract for approval and issue them to awarded suppliers.

Prepare tender documents for local advertisement and convene an evaluation team for tender opening.

Make recommendations and confirm purchase orders/contracts in coordination with the project and operations staff.

Follow-up on the timely delivery of goods by suppliers and supervise receipt, storage and shipping of the goods to their final destinations.

Ensure proper filing of all procurement documents with respect to the project and donor to which they pertain.

Prepare or advise on derogation if required.

Ensure that appropriate measures are taken to implement program procurement plans. These should be through the Operations Handbook on logistics, purchasing and supply procedures and will need close collaboration with the other program or support functions.

Develop a database for pre qualified suppliers or service providers to improve efficiency in procurement.

Ensure coding and proper tagging of assets and the maintenance of an up to date and proper asset inventory for office and DRC rented houses.

Liaise with relevant actors in securing storage and shipment of emergency supplies in first phase of the emergency response.

Line manage logistics staff including drivers.







3. Fleet Management







Ensure that drivers adhere and respect DRC driving code;

In collaboration with the drivers, responsible for the good status of all DRC vehicles and generators by facilitating repairs and routine maintenance through DRC recommended garage, keeping record of all activities;

Ensuring that license, insurance and registration of all DRC vehicles are current and up to date and to follow-up any defects with the appropriate authorities;

Responsible to see that vehicle and generator log sheets are always available, properly filled in, computed, analyzed and the results reported on monthly basis;

Supervise general fuel supply to DRC vehicles, mileage usage and fuel consumption of all vehicles and generator for continuous monitoring and prepare weekly performance reports for all transport and related activities;

Book all transport requests for rental vehicles and commercial trucks as may be appropriate and ensuring that log sheets are filled and that DRCs driving code is signed.

Prepare the rent contract for the DRC fleet

Ensure that the rented vehicle adhere to the DRC security standard





4. Stock Management





Ensure all stocks/supplies is properly recorded, packed, stored and shipped with the most cost-effective and secure manager.

Ensure up-to-date records on all stock flows and follow up stock defects, irregularities and shortfalls as required; either take necessary actions yourself or bring it to the attention of the Area Manager.

Ensuring that all items issued from the store, purchased or received for onward transportation are appropriately documented and accompanied by the required waybills;

Carry out close inspection of Project items/materials delivered to the stores, to ensure that they are the right quantity and quality;

Ensure a proper state of cleanliness and security where supplies or stocks are stored.

Ensuring that correct Supply Request and Release documentation for items/materials are produced with an approval from the departments;

Ensure proper storage and maintenance of all office equipment in the field;

Maintain and update stock and asset inventory list on a monthly basis.







In this position, you will also be expected to demonstrate DRCs five core competencies:





Striving for Excellence: Focusing on reaching results while ensuring an efficient process.

Collaborating: Involving relevant parties and encouraging feedback.

Taking the Lead: Taking ownership and initiative while aiming for innovation.

Communicating: Listening and speaking effectively and honestly.

Demonstrating Integrity: Acting in line with DRCs vision and values.





PERSONAL SPECIFICATIONS



REQUIRED



Education:



University degree in procurement or logistics or Business Administration with major on procurement/logistics

Relevant experience in the domain can be considered in lieu of the university degree in required field.





Experience:





A minimum of 3 years of relevant experience is required, preferably with an international NGO and/or UN Agencies





Competencies:





Good knowledge of procurement and logistics management, including the provision of services in remote locations.

Experience in establishing and implementing procurement and logistics systems

The candidate must be fluent in both written and oral French and English and at least one of the local languages. The knowledge of Arabic would be an asset.

She/he must be able to work independently and energetically, and have a flexible approach to manage and prioritize a high workload and multiple tasks with tight deadlines.

She/he must be confident and proficient in the use of MS Office, with advanced Excel proficiency.



The candidate must also have a:



Proven commitment to accountability and quality assurance.

Excellent analytical and writing skills.

Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to establish effective and working relations with national staff members and other stakeholders.

Well-organized, able to multitask, and rigorous.

Excellent communication skills and sense of diplomacy.





The duties and tasks above are given for indication and information purposes. The Danish Refugee Council has the right to update this Job Description according to the development of its Humanitarian activities within its frame of intervention and in accordance with the Djiboutian Labour Law.

This job description is an appendix to the contract and the employer can at any time make changes, after discussions with the employee.





TO APPLY



Interested candidates who meet the required qualifications and experience are invited to submit updated CV and cover letter explaining their motivation and why they are suited for the post.



We only accept applications sent via our online-application form on www.drc.dk under Vacancies.

Please see link below

https://candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationInit.aspx?cid=1036&ProjectId=150115&uiculture=eng&MediaId=5



Please forward the application and CV, in English through the stated website no later than January 16, 2018.



For general information about the Danish Refugee Council, please consult www.drc.dk.



We encourage only qualified Djibouti Nationals to apply. DRC considers all applicants based on merit. It is DRC policy to recruit, hire, train and promote individuals, as well as administer any and all personnel actions, without regard to gender, race, national, clan or tribal origin, religion, age, sex, origin or ancestry, marital status, social status, sexual orientation, or status as a qualified disabled individual.





The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is a humanitarian, non-governmental, non-profit organisation founded in 1956 that works in more than 35 countries throughout the world. We are the largest humanitarian NGO in Denmark and consistently ranked as one of the worlds best NGOs according to Global_Geneva.



We fulfil our mandate by providing direct assistance to conflict-affected populations  refugees, internally displaced people and host communities in the conflict areas of the world. We also advocate on behalf of conflict-affected populations globally on the basis of humanitarian principles and the Human Rights Declaration. Our work and long-term strategies are guided by our five core values: Humanitarian approach - Respect - Independence & neutrality - Inclusion - Honesty & transparency.



You can read more about our vision and work on drc.ngo.



Emplois & Services, Emplois

29 decembre, 2017

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Pa. Democrats win a wafer-thin majority in the House

Incumbent Rep. Todd Stephens has conceded defeat, giving Democrats enough seats in the Pa. House to win a majority for the first time in a decade
The absolutely inexcusable fire at Mumbai's Kamala Mills, which was being touted as the next big destination in the city, has brought to light the danger we all court whenever we go to a restaurant that is patently a fire hazard.

Unlike the callous owners of 1Above, who are evading the law and have issued a shameful statement in self-defence from their hideout, the larger restaurant community must start behaving responsibly and putting customers above a deceitful drive for profits, specially ahead of New Year's Eve, when popular hangouts wink at the law and sell tickets to many more unsuspecting patrons than they can reasonably handle (especially, God forbid, in the case of a fire).

The fire safety audit should begin from posh Delhi neighbourhoods like Hauz Khas Village. Photo: DailyO file

The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) must now do some serious soul searching, go beyond issuing namby-pamby statements, and call for a national fire audit of restaurants, which must be concluded across tier I and tier II cities in the first three months of the New Year.

To make it convenient for restaurant and bar owners too, the audit can be carried out by teams comprising representatives of the local municipal authorities, police, fire service, High Court-appointed citizens of repute, and the two main trade bodies, the NRAI and the larger Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI).

Nationally, the audit must follow set standards, and should be supervised by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), which has emerged as the country's most proactive food regulator in the past year or so, and is in almost daily touch with food service operators, including temples, street food vendors, and plush restaurants.

Anyone who flunks the audit must not only be made to shut his or her establishment forthwith, but also be barred from running a restaurant or a bar anywhere in India for the next five years. A national black list, accessible to all, must be put up online, and updated daily by the FSSAI.

We cannot let corrupt municipal officials acting in cahoots with greedy restaurant owners run amuck.

We need to know, for instance, in unambiguous terms, the mandated width of a stairway leading up to a restaurant located on the upper floors of a building, or the number of exits that restaurants are required to have, or the kind of fire detectors and extinguishers they must keep (and how often they need to be tested for their efficacy).

The NRAI owes it to the people to make these regulations public.

The fire safety audit, in fact, can start with the two posh Delhi neighbourhoods - Hauz Khas Village and Khan Market - where restaurants have cynically been flouting all fire hazard norms, despite court strictures and state actions.

Enough of this drama of sealing restaurants and then allowing them to re-open when the heat of public opinion peters off, or the supervising court shifts its attention to other areas of concern.

The Kamala Mills fire is also a wake-up call to food critics, acting either individually, or through social media aggregators such as Zomato, Dineout or Facebook, not to ignore the possibility of a restaurant becoming the scene of a devastating fire.

The rooftop club, 1Above, for instance, had a 4.1/5 rating on Zomato, 4.4 on Dineout and 4.5 on Facebook. Not one "citizen reviewer" warns of the possibility of a fire. No one seems to be aware that a fire hazard complaint had been filed against the club in September this year.

It may not be a bad idea for reviewers to rate restaurants on a fire hazard indicator, along with food, service, hygiene and decor - you don't need to be a genius to figure out if a restaurant is a fire hazard or not.
SiteOne Landscape Supply, Inc. engages in the wholesale distribution of landscape supplies in the United States and Canada. The company provides a selection of approximately 135,000 stock keeping units, including irrigation supplies, which comprise controllers, valves, sprinkler heads, and irrigation pipes; fertilizer, grass seed, and ice melt products; control products, such as herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, and other pesticides; landscape accessories that include mulches, soil amendments, drainage pipes, tools, and sods; nursery goods, which consist of deciduous and evergreen shrubs, ornamental, shade, evergreen trees, field grown and container-grown nursery stock, roses, perennials, annuals, bulbs, and plant species; hardscapes, such as pavers, natural stones, blocks, and other durable materials; and outdoor lighting products that include lighting fixtures, LED lamps, wires, transformers, and accessories. It also offers consultative services consisting of assistance with irrigation network design, commercial project planning, generation of sales leads, business operations, product support services, and a series of technical and business management seminars; and distributes branded products of third parties. The company offers its products under the LESCO, SiteOne Green Tech, and Pro-Trade brand names. It markets its products primarily to residential and commercial landscape professionals who specialize in the design, installation, and maintenance of lawns, gardens, golf courses, and other outdoor spaces through branch network and direct distribution. As of January 2, 2022, the company had approximately 590 branches in 45 U.S. States and six Canadian provinces. SiteOne Landscape Supply, Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in Roswell, Georgia.
The following companies are subsidiares of Sonoco Products: Associated Packaging Technologies Inc., Can Packaging, Clear Lam Packaging Inc., Clear Pack Co., Conitex Sonoco (BVI) Ltd., Corenso Holdings America Inc., CorrFlex Graphics LLC, Demolli Industria Cartaria S.p.A., Engraph Inc., Graffo Paranaense de Embalagens S/A, Hayes Manufacturing Group, Highland Packaging Solutions, Laminar Medica, Matrix Packaging Inc., PT Conitex Sonoco, PT Papcor Asia Pacific, PT Papertech Indonesia, PT Sonoco Indonesia, PenPack LLC, Peninsula Packaging Company, Peninsula Packaging LLC, Penpack S. de R.L. de C.V., Phoenix Packaging Corp., Plastique Holdings LTD, SMB GmbH, SPC Capital Management Inc, SPC Liquidation LLC, SPC Management LLC, SPC Resources Inc, SR Holdings of the Carolinas LLC, Sebro Plastics Inx, Sonoco (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Sonoco (Taicang) Packaging Co. Ltd, Sonoco (Weifang) Packaging Company Ltd, Sonoco Absorbent Technologies LLC, Sonoco Absorbent Technologies Limited, Sonoco Alcore - Demolli S.r.l., Sonoco Alcore AB, Sonoco Alcore GmbH, Sonoco Alcore N.V., Sonoco Alcore Nederland B.V., Sonoco Ambalaj Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Sonoco Asia Holding S.a.r.l., Sonoco Asia LLC, Sonoco Asia Management Company LLC, Sonoco Australia Pty Ltd, Sonoco Board Mills Limited, Sonoco Bonmati S.A.U., Sonoco Canada Corporation, Sonoco Capseals Liners Limited, Sonoco Comercial S. de R.L. de C.V., Sonoco Consumer Products Dordrecht B.V. (fka Dorpak B.V.), Sonoco Consumer Products Europe GmbH (fka Weidenhammer Packaging Group GmbH), Sonoco Consumer Products Hellas S.A. (fka Weidenhammer Hellas S.A.), Sonoco Consumer Products Limited, Sonoco Consumer Products Mechelen BVBA (fka Weidenhammer Belgium BVBA), Sonoco Consumer Products Montanay SAS (fka Neuvibox SAS), Sonoco Consumer Products Poland Sp. Z.O.O., Sonoco Consumer Products SAS, Sonoco Consumer Products South Africa (PTY) Ltd., Sonoco Consumer Products Zwenkau GmbH (fka fka Weidenhammer Plastice Packaging GmbH), Sonoco Cores and Paper Limited, Sonoco Deutschland GmbH, Sonoco Deutschland Holdings GmbH, Sonoco Development Inc, Sonoco Elk Grove Inc, Sonoco Embalagens Ltda. (fka Sonoco Embalagens S.A.), Sonoco Flexible Packaging Canada Corporation, Sonoco Flexible Packaging Co. Inc, Sonoco Graphics India Private Limited, Sonoco Hickory Inc, Sonoco Holdings Inc, Sonoco Holdings UK Limited, Sonoco Hutchinson LLC, Sonoco IPD France SAS, Sonoco Iberia S.L.U., Sonoco International Holdings GmbH, Sonoco JV GmbH & Co. KG, Sonoco Kaiping Packaging Co. Ltd., Sonoco Limited, Sonoco Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Sonoco Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sonoco Milnrow, Sonoco Netherlands Holding II BV, Sonoco Netherlands Holding III BV, Sonoco New Zealand Limited, Sonoco Operadora S. de R.L. de C.V., Sonoco Packaging Limited, Sonoco Packaging Tapes Limited, Sonoco Paper Mill & IPD Hellas SA, Sonoco Paperboard Group LLC, Sonoco Partitions Inc, Sonoco Phoenix LLC, Sonoco Pina S.A.U., Sonoco Plastics B.V., Sonoco Plastics Canada ULC, Sonoco Plastics Germany GmbH, Sonoco Plastics Inc, Sonoco Poland Holdings B.V., Sonoco Polysack A/S Inc, Sonoco Polysack Limited, Sonoco Products Company UK, Sonoco Products Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Sonoco Protective Solutions Inc, Sonoco Recycling - International Trade Group LLC, Sonoco Recycling LLC, Sonoco Reels Limited, Sonoco Retail Packaging S. de R.L. de C.V., Sonoco S.A. de C.V., Sonoco SAS, Sonoco Saudi Limited Company, Sonoco Services LLC, Sonoco Singapore Pte. Ltd., Sonoco TEQ Holdings Ltd, Sonoco TEQ LLC, Sonoco TEQ Ltd, Sonoco TEQ Sp. Z.o.o, Sonoco Taiwan Ltd, Sonoco Thailand Ltd, Sonoco UK Leasing Limited, Sonoco Venezolana C.A., Sonoco Venture International Holdings GmbH, Sonoco Ventures UK Limited, Sonoco Wisconsin Rapids Core Plant LLC, Sonoco Wisconsin Rapids Inc, Sonoco Wisconsin Rapids Paper Mill LLC, Sonoco Yatai Pinghu Packaging Co Ltd, Sonoco de Colombia Ltda, Sonoco do Brasil Participacoes Ltda, Sonoco do Brazil Ltda, Sonoco of Puerto Rico Inc, Sonoco-Alcore AS, Sonoco-Alcore Oy, Sonoco-Alcore S.a.r.l., Sonoco-Alcore Sp. Z.O.O., Sonoco-Engraph Puerto Rico Inc, TPT Limited, Tegrant Alloyd Brands Inc, Tegrant Corporation, Tegrant International Inc, Tegrant Property Holdings LLC, Tegrant de Mexico S.A. de C.V., ThermoSafe Brands Asia PTE LTD, ThermoSafe Brands Europe Ltd., Thermoform Engineered Quality LLC, Trident Graphics Canada Corporation, Trident Graphics NA LLC, Tubo-Tec Nordeste Industria, U.S. Paper Mills Corp., Weidenhammer Chile Ltda., Weidenhammer Packaging Group, Weidenhammer UK Ltd., and Wisenberg U.S. Inc.

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Ford Motor Company is the second largest US auto manufacturer by market cap and market share and ranks 4th globally. The company was founded in 1903 by Henry Ford following a series of cars that led to the introduction of the Model T. The Model T revolutionized the automobile industry not only because it made vehicles affordable for the budding middle class but it changed the way manufacturing was done. The Ford factory features the worlds first moving assembly line, an introduction that not only improved the pace of production but lowered the cost of its vehicles.

Other prominent innovations made by Mr. Ford include the strict standardization of parts that allowed for easy construction and repair and the standardized workweek. Henry Fords switch to a $5 workday and 8-hour shifts allowed him to run 3 shifts per day and improve productivity while providing his employees with the power to buy their own products.

Today, Ford Motor Company makes and markets a large lineup of cars, trucks, SUVs, EVs, and Lincoln luxury vehicles globally. The companys iconic F-series of trucks is the worlds best-selling pickup truck for decades running and the new all-electric Lightning is on track to dominate the top spot in the EV market. Other iconic brands in the Ford lineup include the Thunderbird introduced in 1954, the Mustang in 1964, and the Transit work van in 1965. The Mustang, notably, was created for the Worlds Fair and expected to sell 100,000 in its first year but shocked the industry with 22,000 units sold on the first day.

The company operates through four segments including Ford Blue (ICE vehicles), Model e (EVs) Mobility, and Ford Credit. The Ford Blue and Model e segments sell Ford and Lincoln vehicles, parts, and accessories while the Mobility segment designs and builds advanced technologies including but not limited to self-driving autonomous car systems.

The Ford Credit segment primarily offers commercial and retail loans to auto dealers and car buyers. This segment not only provides financing for new purchases and dealer inventory but makes loans for new dealerships and expansions of old ones.

Ford has fully embraced the switch to EV and is planning for an all-EV future. To that end, the company pledged to spend up to $50 billion on EV infrastructure by 2026. The plans include the build-out of an entirely new campus dedicated to EV manufacture from batteries to motor platforms, manufacturing capacity, and new vehicles. In regard to total capacity, the company is targeting 2 million in total annual EV sales by that same year.
Deutsche Telekom AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated telecommunication services. The company operates through five segments: Germany, United States, Europe, Systems Solutions, and Group Development. It offers fixed-network services, including voice and data communication services based on fixed-network and broadband technology; and sells terminal equipment and other hardware products, as well as services to resellers. The company also provides mobile voice and data services to consumers and business customers; sells mobile devices and other hardware products; and sells mobile services to resellers and to companies that purchases and markets network services to third parties, such as mobile virtual network operators. In addition, it offers internet services; internet-based TV products and services; and information and communication technology systems for multinational corporations and public sector institutions with an infrastructure of data centers and networks under the T-Systems brand, as well as call center services. The company has 242 million mobile customers and 22 million broadband customers, as well as 27 million fixed-network lines. Deutsche Telekom AG has a collaboration with VMware, Inc. on cloud-based open and intelligent virtual RAN platform to bring agility to radio access networks for existing LTE and future 5G networks; and partnership with Microsoft to deliver high-performance cloud computing experiences. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Bonn, Germany.
The following companies are subsidiares of HCA Healthcare: 2490 Church LLC, 360 Community Alliance LLC, 4600 Waters Avenue Professional Building Condominium Association Inc., 52 Alderley Road LLP, AC Med LLC, ACH Inc., ADC Surgicenter LLC, AOGN LLC, AOSC Sports Medicine Inc., AR Holding 1 LLC, AR Holding 10 LLC, AR Holding 11 LLC, AR Holding 12 LLC, AR Holding 13 LLC, AR Holding 14 LLC, AR Holding 15 LLC, AR Holding 16 LLC, AR Holding 17 LLC, AR Holding 18 LLC, AR Holding 19 LLC, AR Holding 2 LLC, AR Holding 20 LLC, AR Holding 21 LLC, AR Holding 22 LLC, AR Holding 23 LLC, AR Holding 24 LLC, AR Holding 25 LLC, AR Holding 26 LLC, AR Holding 27 LLC, AR Holding 28 LLC, AR Holding 29 LLC, AR Holding 30 LLC, AR Holding 31 LLC, AR Holding 4 LLC, AR Holding 5 LLC, AR Holding 6 LLC, AR Holding 7 LLC, AR Holding 8 LLC, AR Holding 9 LLC, ASD Shared Services LLC, Acadiana Care Center Inc., Acadiana Practice Management Inc., Acadiana Regional Pharmacy Inc., Access 2 Health Care Physicians LLC, Access Health Care Physicians LLC, Access Management Co. LLC, Ace Leasing II LLC, Acute Kids Urgent Care of Medical City Childrens Hospital PLLC, Acworth Immediate Care LLC, Administrative Physicians of North Texas PLLC, Advanced Bundle Convener LLC, Advanced Plastic Surgery Center of Terre Haute LLC, Advanced Practice Providers of Gulf Coast PLLC, Alaska Regional Medical Group LLC, Albany Family Practice LLC, Aligned Business Consortium Group L.P., All About Staffing (India) Ltd., All About Staffing Inc., All About Staffing Philippines Inc., Alleghany General and Bariatric Services LLC, Alleghany Hospitalists LLC, Alleghany Primary Care Inc., Alleghany Specialists LLC, Alliance Surgicare LLC, Alpine Surgicenter LLC, Alta Internal Medicine LLC, Alternaco LLC, Altitude Mid Level Providers LLC, Ambulatory Endoscopy Clinic of Dallas Ltd., Ambulatory Endoscopy Holdco LLC, Ambulatory Laser Associates GP, Ambulatory Services Management Corporation of Chesterfield County Inc., Ambulatory Surgery Center Group Ltd., American Medicorp Development Co., Anchorage Surgicenter LLC, AppleCare/Memorial Immediate Care Joint Venture LLC, Appledore Medical Group II Inc., Appledore Medical Group Inc., Appomattox Imaging LLC, Arapahoe Surgicenter LLC, Arlington Diagnostic South Inc., Arlington Neurosurgeons PLLC, Arlington Primary Care PLLC, Arlington Primary Medicine PLLC, Arlington Surgery Center L.P., Arlington Surgicare LLC, Arthritis Specialists of Nashville Inc., Ashburn ASC LLC, Ashburn Imaging LLC, Athens Community Hospital Inc., Atlanta Healthcare Management L.P., Atlanta Home Care L.P., Atlanta Market GP Inc., Atlanta Outpatient Surgery Center Inc., Atlanta Surgery Center Ltd., Atlantis Surgicare LLC, Atrium Surgery Center L.P., Atrium Surgicare LLC, Augusta CyberKnife LLC, Augusta Inpatient Services LLC, Augusta Management Services LLC, Augusta Multispecialty Services LLC, Augusta Primary Care Services LLC, Augusta Specialty Hospitalists LLC, Augusta Urgent Care Services LLC, Aurora Endoscopy Surgicenter LLC, Austin GI Surgicenter LLC, Austin Heart Cardiology MSO LLC, Austin Medical Center Inc., Austin Physicians Management LLC, Austin Urogynecology PLLC, Aventura Cancer Center Manager LLC, Aventura Comprehensive Cancer Research Group of Florida Inc., Aventura Healthcare Specialists LLC, Aventura Neurosurgery LLC, BAMI Property LLC, Backlogs Limited, Bailey Square Ambulatory Surgical Center Ltd., Bailey Square Outpatient Surgical Center Inc., Bannerman Family Care LLC, Barrow Medical Center CT Services Ltd., Basic American Medical Inc., Basil Street Practice Limited, Bay Area Healthcare Group Ltd., Bay Area Surgical Center Investors Ltd., Bay Area Surgicare Center Inc., Bay Area Surgicenter LLC, Bay Hospital Inc., Bayonet Point Surgery Center Ltd., Bayshore Family Practitioners PLLC, Bayshore Multi-Specialty Group PLLC, Bayshore Occupational and Family Medicine PLLC, Bayshore Partner LLC, Bayshore Radiation Oncology Services PLLC, Bayshore Surgery Center Ltd., Bayside Ambulatory Center LLC, Bedford-Northeast Community Hospital Inc., Behavioral Health Sciences of West Florida LLC, Behavioral Health Wellness Center LLC, Bellaire Imaging Inc., Belleair Surgery Center Ltd., Belton Family Practice Clinic LLC, Big Cypress Medical Center Inc., Blacksburg Family Care LLC, Blossoms Healthcare LLP, Blue Ridge-TKC LLC, Bone & Joint Specialists Physician Group LLC, Bonita Bay Surgery Center Inc., Bonita Bay Surgery Center Ltd., Bountiful Surgery Center LLC, Boynton Beach EFL Imaging Center LLC, Bradenton Cardiology Physician Network LLC, Bradenton Outpatient Services LLC, Brandon Imaging Manager LLC, Brandon Regional Cancer Center LLC, Brentwood ASC LLC, Brigham City Community Hospital Inc., Brigham City Community Hospital Physician Services LLC, Brigham City Health Plan Inc., Brighton Surgicenter LLC, Brookwood Medical Center of Gulfport Inc., Broward Cardiovascular Surgeons LLC, Broward Healthcare System Inc., Broward Neurosurgeons LLC, Brownsville Specialists of Texas PLLC, Brownsville Surgery PLLC, Brownsville Surgical Specialists PLLC, Brownsville Surgicenter LLC, Brownsville-Valley Regional Medical Center Inc., Buford Road Imaging L.L.C., Byron Family Practice LLC, C. Medrano M.D. PLLC, C/HCA Capital Inc., C/HCA Development Inc., C/HCA Inc., CAREOS Surgicenter LLC, CC Clinic PLLC, CCBH Psychiatric Hospitalists LLC, CCH-GP Inc., CFC Investments Inc., CH Systems, CHC Finance Co., CHC Holdings Inc., CHC Management Ltd., CHC Payroll Agent Inc., CHC Payroll Company, CHC Realty Company, CHC Venture Co., CHC-El Paso Corp., CHC-Miami Corp., CHCA Bayshore L.P., CHCA Clear Lake L.P., CHCA Conroe L.P., CHCA Mainland L.P., CHCA Pearland L.P., CHCA West Houston L.P., CHCA Womans Hospital L.P., CHCK Inc., CJW Infectious Disease LLC, CJW Wound Healing Center LLC, CLASC Manager LLC, COL-NAMC Holdings Inc., COSCORP LLC, CP Surgery Center LLC, CPS TN Processor 1 Inc., CRMC-M LLC, CUC PLLC, CVMC Property LLC, Calder Immediate Care PLLC, California Imaging Center Manager LLC, California Urgent Care LLC, Calloway Creek Surgery Center L.P., Calloway Creek Surgicare LLC, Cancer Centers of North Florida LLC, Cancer Services of Aventura LLC, Capital Anesthesia Services LLC, Capital Area Cardiology, Capital Area CareNow Physician Associates, Capital Area Multispecialty Providers, Capital Area Neurosurgeons, Capital Area Occupational Medicine PLLC, Capital Area Primary Care PLLC, Capital Area Primary Care Providers, Capital Area Providers, Capital Area Specialists PLLC, Capital Area Specialty Providers, Capital Area Surgeons PLLC, Capital Division - CCA Inc., Capital Division Inc., Capital Network Services Inc., Capital Professional Billing LLC, Capital Regional Healthcare LLC, Capital Regional Heart Associates LLC, Capital Regional Psychiatry Associates LLC, Cardiac Surgical Associates LLC, Cardio Vascular Surgeons of North Texas PLLC, Cardiology Associates Medical Group LLC, Cardiology Clinic of San Antonio PLLC, Cardiology Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons of Texas PLLC, Care for Women LLC, CareNow, CareOne Home Health Services Inc., CarePartners HHA Holdings LLLP, CarePartners HHA LLLP, CarePartners Rehabilitation Hospital LLLP, CareSpot Professional Services of Middle Tennessee LLC, CareSpot of Brentwood (210 Franklin Road) LLC, CareSpot of Cool Springs (100 International Drive) LLC, CareSpot of Donelson (2372 Lebanon Road) LLC, CareSpot of Hendersonville (280 Indian Lake Boulevard) LLC, CareSpot of Hermitage (5225 Old Hickory Boulevard) LLC, CareSpot of Lebanon (1705 West Main Street) LLC, CareSpot of Mt. Juliet (S. Mt. Juliet Road) LLC, CareSpot of Murfreesboro (1340 Broad Street) LLC, CareSpot of Nashville (2001 Glen Echo Road) LLC, CareSpot of Nashville (West End Avenue) LLC, Career Staffing USA Inc., Carlin Springs Urgent Care LLC, Carolina Forest Imaging Manager LLC, Carolina Regional Surgery Center Inc., Carolina Regional Surgery Center Ltd., Cartersville Medical Center LLC, Cartersville Occupational Medicine Center LLC, Cartersville Physician Practice I LLC, Catalog360 Limited, Cedar Creek Medical Group LLC, Cedars International Cardiology Consultants LLC, Cedars Medical Center Hospitalists LLC, Centennial Cardiovascular Consultants LLC, Centennial CyberKnife Center LLC, Centennial CyberKnife Manager LLC, Centennial Heart LLC, Centennial Hospitalists LLC, Centennial Neuroscience LLC, Centennial Psychiatric Associates LLC, Centennial Surgery Center L.P., Centennial Surgical Associates LLC, Centennial Surgical Clinic LLC, Centennial Womens Group LLC, Center for Advanced Diagnostics LLC, Center for Advanced Imaging LLC, Center for Digestive Diseases LLC, Center for Occupational Medicine LLC, Centerpoint Cardiology Services LLC, Centerpoint Clinic of Blue Springs LLC, Centerpoint Hospital Based Physicians LLC, Centerpoint Medical Center of Independence LLC, Centerpoint Medical Specialists LLC, Centerpoint Orthopedics LLC, Centerpoint Physicians Group LLC, Centerpoint Womens Services LLC, Central Florida Cardiology Interpretations LLC, Central Florida Division Practice Inc., Central Florida Health Services LLC, Central Florida Imaging Services LLC, Central Florida Management Services LLC, Central Florida Obstetrics & Gynecology Associates LLC, Central Florida Physician Network LLC, Central Florida Regional Hospital Inc., Central Health Holding Company Inc., Central Pasco LLC, Central San Antonio Surgical Center Investors Ltd., Central Shared Services LLC, Central Tennessee Hospital Corporation, Central Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Physicians PLLC, Centrum Surgery Center Ltd., Charleston CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Chatsworth Hospital Corp., Chattanooga ASC Acquisition Inc., Chattanooga Diagnostic Associates LLC, Chattanooga Healthcare Network L.P., Chattanooga Healthcare Network Partner Inc., Chelsea Outpatient Centre LLP, Chesterfield Imaging LLC, Chicago Grant Hospital Inc., Childrens Multi-Specialty Group LLC, Chino Community Hospital Corporation Inc., Chippenham & Johnston-Willis Hospitals Inc., Chippenham & Johnston-Willis Sports Medicine LLC, Chippenham Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Chippenham Pediatric Specialists LLC, Chiswick Outpatient Centre LLP, Christiansburg Family Medicine LLC, Christiansburg Internal Medicine LLC, Christina Cano-Gonzalez M.D. PLLC, Chugach PT Inc., Church Street Partners, Citrus Memorial Hospital Inc., Citrus Memorial Property Management Inc., Citrus Primary Care Inc., Citrus Specialty Group Inc., Citrus Surgicenter LLC, City of San Antonio H2U Employee Health and Wellness Center PLLC, Clarksville Surgicenter LLC, Clear Creek Surgery Center LLC, Clear Lake Cardiac Catheterization Center L.P., Clear Lake Cardiac GP LLC, Clear Lake Family Physicians PLLC, Clear Lake Medical Tower Owners Association Inc., Clear Lake Merger LLC, Clear Lake Multi-Specialty Group PLLC, Clear Lake Regional Medical Center Inc., Clear Lake Regional Partner LLC, Clear Lake Surgicare Ltd., ClinicServ LLC, Clinical Education Shared Services LLC, Clinishare Inc., Coastal Bend Hospital CT Services Ltd., Coastal Bend Hospital Inc., Coastal Carolina Home Care Inc., Coastal Carolina Multispecialty Associates LLC, Coastal Carolina Primary Care LLC, Coastal Healthcare Services Inc., Coastal Imaging Center L.P., Coastal Imaging Center of Gulfport Inc., Coastal Inpatient Physicians LLC, Coliseum Health Group Inc., Coliseum Health Group LLC, Coliseum Medical Center LLC, Coliseum Park Hospital Inc., Coliseum Primary Care Services LLC, Coliseum Primary Healthcare - Macon LLC, Coliseum Primary Healthcare - Riverside LLC, Coliseum Professional Associates LLC, Coliseum Same Day Surgery Center L.P., Coliseum Surgery Center L.L.C., College Park Ancillary LLC, College Park Endoscopy Center LLC, College Park Radiology LLC, Colleton Ambulatory Care LLC, Colleton Diagnostic Center LLC, Colleton Medical Anesthesia LLC, Colleton Medical Hospitalists LLC, Colleton Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery LLC, Collier County Home Health Agency Inc., Collin County Diagnostic Associates PLLC, Colorado Health Systems Inc., Columbia ASC Management L.P., Columbia Ambulatory Surgery Division Inc., Columbia Arlington Healthcare System L.L.C., Columbia Bay Area Realty Ltd., Columbia Behavioral Health Ltd., Columbia Behavioral Healthcare Inc., Columbia Behavioral Healthcare of South Florida Inc., Columbia Call Center Inc., Columbia Central Florida Division Inc., Columbia Central Group Inc., Columbia Champions Treatment Center Inc., Columbia Chicago Division Inc., Columbia Coliseum Same Day Surgery Center Inc., Columbia Development of Florida Inc., Columbia Doctors Hospital of Tulsa Inc., Columbia Eye and Specialty Surgery Center Ltd., Columbia Florida Group Inc., Columbia GP of Mesquite Inc., Columbia Good Samaritan Health System Limited Partnership, Columbia Greater Houston Division Healthcare Network Inc., Columbia Health System of Arkansas Inc., Columbia Healthcare System of Louisiana Inc., Columbia Healthcare of Central Virginia Inc., Columbia Hospital Corporation at the Medical Center, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Arlington, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Bay Area, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Central Miami, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Corpus Christi, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Fort Worth, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Houston, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Kendall, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Massachusetts Inc., Columbia Hospital Corporation of Miami, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Miami Beach, Columbia Hospital Corporation of North Miami Beach, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Broward, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Dade, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Florida, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Miami, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Tamarac, Columbia Hospital Corporation of West Houston, Columbia Hospital Corporation-Delaware, Columbia Hospital Corporation-SMM, Columbia Hospital at Medical City Dallas Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Hospital-El Paso Ltd., Columbia Integrated Health Systems Inc., Columbia Jacksonville Healthcare System Inc., Columbia LaGrange Hospital LLC, Columbia Lake Worth Surgical Center Limited Partnership, Columbia Medical Arts Hospital Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center Dallas Southwest Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center at Lancaster Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Arlington Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Denton Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Las Colinas Inc., Columbia Medical Center of Lewisville Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of McKinney Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Plano Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Group - Centennial Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Daystar Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Parkridge Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Southern Hills Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Southwest Virginia Inc., Columbia Medical Group - The Frist Clinic Inc., Columbia Midtown Joint Venture, Columbia North Alaska Healthcare Inc., Columbia North Central Florida Health System Limited Partnership, Columbia North Florida Regional Medical Center Limited Partnership, Columbia North Hills Hospital Subsidiary L.P., Columbia North Texas Healthcare System L.P., Columbia North Texas Subsidiary GP LLC, Columbia North Texas Surgery Center Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Northwest Medical Center Inc., Columbia Northwest Medical Center Partners Ltd., Columbia Ocala Regional Medical Center Physician Group Inc., Columbia Ogden Medical Center Inc., Columbia Oklahoma Division Inc., Columbia Palm Beach GP LLC, Columbia Palm Beach Healthcare System Limited Partnership, Columbia Park Healthcare System Inc., Columbia Park Medical Center Inc., Columbia Parkersburg Healthcare System LLC, Columbia Pentagon City Hospital L.L.C., Columbia Physician Services - Florida Group Inc., Columbia Plaza Medical Center of Fort Worth Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Primary Care LLC, Columbia Psychiatric Management Co., Columbia Resource Network Inc., Columbia Rio Grande Healthcare L.P., Columbia Riverside Inc., Columbia South Texas Division Inc., Columbia Specialty Hospital of Dallas Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Specialty Hospitals Inc., Columbia Surgery Group Inc., Columbia Surgicare of Augusta Ltd., Columbia Tampa Bay Division Inc., Columbia Valley Healthcare System L.P., Columbia West Bank Hospital Inc., Columbia Westbank Healthcare L.P., Columbia-CSA/HS Greater Canton Area Healthcare System L.P., Columbia-CSA/HS Greater Cleveland Area Healthcare System L.P., Columbia-Georgia PT Inc., Columbia-Osceola Imaging Center Inc., Columbia-Quantum Inc., Columbia-SDH Holdings Inc., Columbia/Alleghany Regional Hospital Incorporated, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation of Central Texas, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation of Northern Ohio, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation of South Carolina, Columbia/HCA Heartcare of Corpus Christi Inc., Columbia/HCA International Group Inc., Columbia/HCA John Randolph Inc., Columbia/HCA Middle East Management Company, Columbia/HCA Physician Hospital Organization Medical Center Hospital, Columbia/HCA San Clemente Inc., Columbia/HCA of Baton Rouge Inc., Columbia/HCA of Houston Inc., Columbia/HCA of New Orleans Inc., Columbia/HCA of North Texas Inc., Columbine Psychiatric Center Inc., Columbus Cardiology Inc., Columbus Cath Lab Inc., Columbus Cath Lab LLC, Columbus Doctors Hospital Inc., Commonwealth Perinatal Services LLC, Commonwealth Specialists of Kentucky LLC, Community Hospital Family Practice LLC, Comprehensive Radiation Oncology LLC, Comprehensive Radiology Management Services Ltd., Concept EFL Imaging Center LLC, Concept West EFL Imaging Center LLC, Congenital Heart Surgery Center PLLC, Conroe Hospital Corporation, Conroe Montgomery Physicians Group PLLC, Conroe Orthopedic Specialists PLLC, Conroe Partner LLC, Conroe Specialists of Texas PLLC, Continental Division I Inc., Coral Springs Surgi-Center Ltd., CoralStone Management Inc., Corpus Christi Healthcare Group Ltd., Corpus Christi Heart Clinic PLLC, Corpus Christi Primary Care Associates PLLC, Corpus Christi Psychiatric Specialists PLLC, Corpus Christi Radiation Oncology PLLC, Corpus Christi Surgery Center L.P., Corpus Christi Surgery Ltd., Corpus Christi Surgicenter LLC, Corpus Surgicare Inc., Countryside Surgery Center Ltd., Crewe Outpatient Imaging LLC, Cumberland Medical Center Inc., Cy-Fair Medical Center Hospital LLC, DFW Physicians Group PLLC, DOMC Property LLC, DS Real Estate Holdings LLC, Daleville Imaging L.P., Daleville Imaging Manager LLC, Dallas CardioThoracic Surgery Consultants PLLC, Dallas Cardiology Specialists PLLC, Dallas Hand Surgery Center PLLC, Dallas Medical Specialists PLLC, Dallas Neuro-Stroke Affiliates PLLC, Dallas Pediatric Neurosurgery Specialists PLLC, Dallas/Ft. Worth Physician LLC, Davie Medical Center LLC, Daytona Medical Center Inc., Dean 4641 LLC, Deep Purple Investments LLC, Del Sol Bariatric Clinic PLLC, Delray EFL Imaging Center LLC, Denton Cancer Center PLLC, Denton County Hospitalist Program PLLC, Denton Pediatric Physicians PLLC, Denton Regional Ambulatory Surgery Center L.P., Denver Clinic Surgicenter LLC, Denver Mid-Town Surgery Center Ltd., Denver Surgicenter LLC, Derry ASC Inc., Diagnostic Breast Center Inc., Diagnostic Mammography Services G.P., Diagnostic Services G.P., Dickson Surgery Center L.P., Doctors Bay Area Physician Hospital Organization, Doctors Hospital (Conroe) Inc., Doctors Hospital Columbus GA-Joint Venture, Doctors Hospital Surgery Center L.P., Doctors Hospital of Augusta LLC, Doctors Hospital of Augusta Neurology LLC, Doctors Osteopathic Medical Center Inc., Doctors Same Day Surgery Center Inc., Doctors Same Day Surgery Center Ltd., Doctors-I Inc., Doctors-II Inc., Doctors-III Inc., Doctors-IV Inc., Doctors-IX Inc., Doctors-V Inc., Doctors-VI Inc., Doctors-VII Inc., Doctors-VIII Inc., Doctors-X Inc., Doctors Memorial Hospital of Spartanburg Limited Partnership, Dominion Hospital Physicians Group LLC, Dublin Community Hospital LLC, Dublin Heart Specialists LLC, Dublin Multispecialty LLC, Dura Medical Inc., E.P. Physical Therapy Centers Inc., EASTSIDE URGENT CARE LLC, EHCA Diagnostics LLC, EHCA Eastside Occupational Medicine Center LLC, EHCA LLC, EHCA Metropolitan LLC, EHCA Parkway LLC, EHCA Peachtree LLC, EHCA West Paces LLC, EIRMC Hospitalist Services LLC, EMMC LLC, EP Health LLC, EP Holdco LLC, EPIC Development Inc., EPIC Diagnostic Centers Inc., EPIC Healthcare Management Company, EPIC Properties Inc., EPIC Surgery Centers Inc., EPSC L.P., East Falls Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery LLC, East Falls Family Medicine LLC, East Falls Plastic Surgery LLC, East Florida - DMC Inc., East Florida Behavioral Health Network LLC, East Florida Cardiology Network LLC, East Florida CareNow Urgent Care LLC, East Florida Division Inc., East Florida Emergency Physician Group LLC, East Florida Healthcare LLC, East Florida Hospitalists LLC, East Florida Imaging Holdings LLC, East Florida Primary Care LLC, East Houston Primary Care PLLC, East Houston Specialists PLLC, East Layton Internal Medicine LLC, East Orthopedics PLLC, East Pointe Hospital Inc., Eastern Idaho Brachytherapy Equipment LLC, Eastern Idaho Brachytherapy Equipment Manager LLC, Eastern Idaho Care Partners ACO LLC, Eastern Idaho Care Partners Holdings LLC, Eastern Idaho Care Partners LLC, Eastern Idaho Health Services Inc., Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center Inpatient Services LLC, Eastside Behavioral Health Associates LLC, Eastside General Surgery LLC, Eastside Heart and Vascular LLC, Eastside Medical Center LLC, Eastside Surgery Center LLC, Edmond General Surgery LLC, Edmond Hospitalists LLC, Edmond Physician Hospital Organization Inc., Edward White Hospital Inc., El Paso CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, El Paso Healthcare Provider Network, El Paso Healthcare System Ltd., El Paso Healthcare System Physician Services LLC, El Paso Nurses Unlimited Inc., El Paso Primary Care PLLC, El Paso Surgery Centers L.P., El Paso Surgicenter Inc., Eldridge Family Practitioners PLLC, Elite Family Health of Plano PLLC, Elite OB-GYN Services of El Paso PLLC, Elite Orthopaedics of El Paso PLLC, Elite Orthopaedics of Irving PLLC, Elite Orthopaedics of Plano PLLC, Elstree Outpatient Centre LLP, Emergency Physicians at Wesley Medical Center LLC, Emergency Providers Group LLC, Emergency Psychiatric Medicine PLLC, Encino Hospital Corporation Inc., Endocrinology Associates of Lees Summit LLC, Endoscopy Surgicare of Plano LLC, Endoscopy of Plano L.P., Englewood Community Hospital Auxiliary Inc., Englewood Community Hospital Inc., Envision Stakes LLC, Eye Care Surgicare Ltd. a Missouri limited partnership, FHAL LLC, FMH Health Services LLC, Fairfax Surgical Center L.P., Fairview Medical Services LLC, Fairview Park GP LLC, Fairview Park Limited Partnership, Fairview Partner LLC, Family Care Partners LLC, Family Care of E. Jackson County LLC, Family First Medicine in Brownsville PLLC, Family Health Medical Group of Overland Park LLC, Family Health Specialists of Lees Summit LLC, Family Medicine of Blacksburg LLC, Family Practice at Forest Hill LLC, Family Practice at Retreat LLC, Family Practitioners of Montgomery PLLC, Family Practitioners of Pearland PLLC, Fannin MOB LLC, Fannin MOB Property Management LLC, Far West Division Inc., Fawcett Memorial Hospital Inc., Florida Care Partners LLC, Florida Care Partners Orlando LLC, Florida Home Health Services-Private Care Inc., Florida Outpatient Surgery Center Ltd., Flower Mound Surgery Center Ltd., Focus Hand Surgicenter LLC, Foot & Ankle Specialty Services LLC, Forest Park Surgery Pavilion Inc., Forest Park Surgery Pavilion L.P., Fort Bend Hospital Inc., Fort Chiswell Family Practice LLC, Fort Myers Market Inc., Fort Pierce Immediate Care Center Inc., Fort Pierce Orthopaedics LLC, Fort Pierce Surgery Center Ltd., Fort Walton Beach Medical Center Inc., Fort Worth Investments Inc., Forward Pathology Solutions LLC, Four Rivers Medical Center PHO Inc., Frankfort Hospital Inc., Frankfort Wound Care LLC, Freeport Family Medicine LLC, Fremont Womens Health LLC, Frisco Surgicare LLC, Frisco Warren Parkway 91 Inc., Frist Clinic Express LLC, Ft. Pierce Surgicare LLC, Ft. Walton Beach Anesthesia Services LLC, G. Rowe M.D. PLLC, G. Schnider M.D. PLLC, G. Voorhees M.D. PLLC, G.P. Martin Fletcher & Associates LLC, GA PHYSICIAN SERVICES LLC, GA Urgentcare Holding LLC, GHC-Galen Health Care LLC, GI Associates of Denton PLLC, GI Associates of Lewisville PLLC, GME Services of Osceola LLC, GPCH-GP Inc., GYN-Oncology of Southwest Virginia LLC, Gainesville GYN Oncology of North Florida Regional Medical Center LLC, Gainesville Physicians LLC, GalTex LLC, Galen (Kansas) Merger LLC, Galen BH Inc., Galen Center for Professional Development Inc., Galen College of Nursing, Galen Diagnostic Multicenter Ltd., Galen GOK LLC, Galen Global Finance Inc., Galen Health Institutes Inc., Galen Health Partners Limited, Galen Holdco LLC, Galen Hospital Alaska Inc., Galen Hospital of Baytown Inc., Galen Hospital-Pembroke Pines Inc., Galen International Holdings Inc., Galen KY LLC, Galen MCS LLC, Galen MRMC LLC, Galen Medical Corporation, Galen NMC LLC, Galen NSH LLC, Galen Property LLC, Galen SOM LLC, Galen SSH LLC, Galen Virginia Hospital Corporation, Galen of Aurora Inc., Galen of Florida Inc., Galen of Illinois Inc., Galen of Kentucky Inc., Galen of Mississippi Inc., Galen of Virginia Inc., Galen of West Virginia Inc., Galen-Soch Inc., Galencare Inc., Galendeco Inc., Galichia Anesthesia Services LLC, Galichia Emergency Physicians LLC, Garden Park Community Hospital Limited Partnership, Garden Park Hospitalist Program LLC, Garden Park Investments L.P., Garden Park Physician Group - Specialty Care LLC, Garden Park Physician Group Inc., Gardens EFL Imaging Center LLC, Gastroenterology Specialists of Middle Tennessee LLC, General Hospitals of Galen Inc., General Medical Clinics Limited, General Surgeons of Houston PLLC, General Surgeons of North Richland Hills PLLC, General Surgeons of Pasadena PLLC, General and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Conroe PLLC, Generations Family Practice Inc., GenoSpace LLC, Georgia Health Holdings Inc., Georgia L.P., Georgia Psychiatric Company Inc., Glemm SA, Good Samaritan Hospital L.P., Good Samaritan Hospital LLC, Good Samaritan Surgery Center L.P., Goppert-Trinity Family Care LLC, Grace Family Practice LLC, Gramercy Eye Surgicenter LLC, Gramercy Surgery Center Ltd., Grand Strand Regional Medical Center LLC, Grand Strand Senior Health Center LLC, Grand Strand Specialty Associates LLC, Grand Strand Surgical Specialists LLC, Grandview Health Care Clinic LLC, Grant Center Hospital of Ocala Inc., Grayson Primary Care LLC, Greater Gwinnett Internal Medicine Associates LLC, Greater Gwinnett Physician Corporation, Greater Houston Preferred Provider Option Inc., Greater Tampa Bay Physician Network LLC, Greater Tampa Bay Physician Specialists LLC, Greater Tampa Bay Physicians - Pinellas LLC, Green Oaks Hospital Subsidiary L.P., Greenview Hospital Inc., Greenview PrimeCare LLC, Greenview Specialty Associates LLC, Gulf Coast Division Inc., Gulf Coast Electrophysiology Associates PLLC, Gulf Coast Inpatient Specialists LLC, Gulf Coast Medical Center Primary Care LLC, Gulf Coast Medical Ventures Inc., Gulf Coast Multispecialty Services LLC, Gulf Coast Physician Administrators Inc., Gulf Coast Provider Network Inc., Gwinnett Community Hospital Inc., Gynecology Specialists of Utah LLC, H2U Wellness Centers - Del Sol Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers - Las Palmas Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers - Medical City Dallas PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers - St. Davids Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers LLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Clear Lake Regional Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Conroe ISD PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Conroe Regional Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Corpus Christi PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  El Paso PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  PISD PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  San Benito CISD PLLC, HBP Lone Star Inc., HCA - IT&S Field Operations Inc., HCA - IT&S Inventory Management Inc., HCA - IT&S PBS Field Operations Inc., HCA - IT&S TN Field Operations Inc., HCA - Information Technology & Services Inc., HCA - Raleigh Community Hospital Inc., HCA - Viera ALF LLC, HCA - WHS Progressive LLC, HCA - WHS Services LLC, HCA ASD Financial Operations LLC, HCA ASD Sales Services LLC, HCA American Finance LLC, HCA Carenow Limited, HCA Central Group Inc., HCA Central/West Texas Physicians Management LLC, HCA Chattanooga Market Inc., HCA Development Company Inc., HCA Eastern Group Inc., HCA Global Capital LLP, HCA Gulf Coast GME PLLC, HCA Health Services of California Inc., HCA Health Services of Florida Inc., HCA Health Services of Georgia Inc., HCA Health Services of Louisiana Inc., HCA Health Services of Miami Inc., HCA Health Services of Midwest Inc., HCA Health Services of New Hampshire Inc., HCA Health Services of Tennessee Inc., HCA Health Services of Texas Inc., HCA Health Services of Virginia Inc., HCA Health Services of West Virginia Inc., HCA Healthcare Mission Fund LLC, HCA Healthcare UK Limited, HCA Holdco LLC, HCA Human Resources LLC, HCA Imaging Services of North Florida Inc., HCA Inc., HCA International Holdings Limited, HCA International Limited, HCA LewisGale Regional Cancer Centers Clinical Co-Management Company LLC, HCA Long Term Health Services of Miami Inc., HCA Luxembourg 1 Sarl, HCA Luxembourg 2 Sarl, HCA Luxembourg Equities Sarl, HCA Luxembourg Finance Limited, HCA Luxembourg Investments Sarl, HCA Management Services L.P., HCA Medical City Limited, HCA Medical Services Inc., HCA Midwest Comprehensive Care Inc., HCA Outpatient Clinic Services of Miami Inc., HCA Outpatient Imaging Services Group Inc., HCA Patient Safety Organization LLC, HCA Pearland GP Inc., HCA Physician Services Inc., HCA Plano Imaging Inc., HCA Property GP LLC, HCA Psychiatric Company, HCA Purchasing Limited, HCA Realty Inc., HCA Richmond Cardiac Clinical Co-Management Company LLC, HCA SF LLC, HCA SFB 1 LLC, HCA Sarasota Orthopedic and Spine Clinical Co-Management Company LLC, HCA Squared LLC, HCA Staffing Limited, HCA Swiss Capital 1 LLP, HCA Swiss Capital 2 LLP, HCA Switzerland Finance GmbH, HCA Switzerland Holding GmbH, HCA Switzerland Limited, HCA UK Capital Limited, HCA UK Holdings Limited, HCA UK Investments Limited, HCA UK Limited, HCA UK Services Limited, HCA Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital Inc., HCA Western Group Inc., HCA-Access Healthcare Holdings LLC, HCA-Access Healthcare Partner Inc., HCA-California Urgent Care Holdings LLC, HCA-EMS Holdings LLC, HCA-EmCare Holdings LLC, HCA-Georgia Urgent Care Holdings LLC, HCA-HBPS Holdings LLC, HCA-HealthONE LLC, HCA-Solis Holdings Inc., HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of Continental LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of Gulf Coast LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of North Texas LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of TriStar LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Services LLC, HCA-Solis Master LLC, HCA-Urgent Care Holdings LLC, HCAPS Anesthesia Manager LLC, HCAPS Conroe Affiliation Inc., HCOL Inc., HD&S Corp. Successor Inc., HDH Thoracic Surgeons LLC, HHBY Holdings LLC, HHNC LLC, HICCH-SCL LLC, HM Acquisition LLC, HM OMCOS LLC, HMMG 1226 LLC, HPG Energy L.P., HPG Enterprises LLC, HPG GP LLC, HPG Solutions LLC, HSS Holdco LLC, HSS Systems LLC, HSS Virginia L.P., HTI Gulf Coast Inc., HTI Health Services of North Carolina Inc., HTI Hospital Holdings Inc., HTI MOB LLC, HTI MSO LLC, HTI Memorial Hospital Corporation, HTI Physician Services of Utah Inc., HWCA PLLC, Hamilton Memorial Hospital Inc., Hamsard 3160 Limited, Harley Street Clinic @ The Groves LLP, Hathor Chelsea Ltd., Healdsburg General Hospital Inc., Health Care Indemnity Inc., Health Insight Capital LLC, Health International Billing Partners Limited, Health Midwest Medical Group Inc., Health Midwest Office Facilities Corporation, Health Midwest Ventures Group Inc., Health Partners of Kansas Inc., Health Service Partners Inc., Health Services (Delaware) Inc., Health Services Merger Inc., Health to You LLC, HealthCoast Physician Group LLC, HealthONE Aurora Investment LLC, HealthONE Care Partners LLC, HealthONE CareNow Urgent Care LLC, HealthONE Clear Creek LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Bariatric Medicine LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Behavioral Health LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Cancer Care LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Cancer Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Cardiovascular LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Medical Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Neurosciences LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Obstetrics and Gynecology LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Occupational Medicine LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Oncology Hematology LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Orthopedic Specialists LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Otolaryngology Specialists LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Pediatric Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Primary Care LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Spine Specialists LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Spine Surgeons LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Surgery Neurological LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Surgical Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Transplant Services LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Womens Services LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Youth Rehabilitation LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services LLC, HealthONE High Street Primary Care Center LLC, HealthONE IRL Pathology Services LLC, HealthONE Institutes for Clinical Research LLC, HealthONE Lowry LLC, HealthONE Radiation Therapy at Red Rocks LLC, HealthONE Radiation Therapy at Thornton LLC, HealthONE Ridge View Endoscopy Center LLC, HealthONE Surgicare of Ridge View LLC, HealthONE Urologic LLC, HealthONE at Breckenridge LLC, HealthONE of Denver Inc., HealthOne Heart Care LLC, HealthOne Lincoln Investment LLC, HealthOne Westside Investment LLC, HealthTrust Europe Company Limited, HealthTrust Europe LLP, HealthTrust Locums Inc., HealthTrust Workforce Solutions LLC, Healthcare Oklahoma Inc., Healthcare Purchasing Alliance LLC, Healthcare Sales National Management Services Group LLC, Healthcare Technology Assessment Corporation, Healthco LLC, Healthnet of Kentucky LLC, Healthserv Acquisition LLC, Healthtrust Inc. - The Hospital Company, Healthtrust MOB Tennessee LLC, Healthtrust Purchasing Group L.P., Healthtrust Utah Management Services Inc., Healthy State Inc., Heart Specialist of North Texas PLLC, Heart of America ASC LLC, Heart of America Surgicenter LLC, Heartcare of Texas Ltd., Hearthstone Home Health Inc., Heartland Womens Group at Wesley LLC, Heathrow Imaging LLC, Heathrow Internal Medicine LLC, Hendersonville Hospital Corporation, Hendersonville Hospitalist Services Inc., Hendersonville OB/GYN LLC, Hendersonville ODC LLC, Hendersonville Primary Care LLC, Henrico Doctors Hospital - Forest Campus Property LLC, Henrico Doctors Neurology Associates LLC, Henrico Doctors OB GYN Specialists LLC, Henrico Surgical Specialists LLC, Heritage Family Care LLC, Heritage Hospital Inc., Heritage Medical Care LLC, Hermitage Primary Care LLC, Hidalgo County Family Practitioners PLLC, Hidden Lakes Health Center PLLC, Highlands Regional Medical Center, Hip & Joint Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Homecare North Inc., Hometrust Management Services Inc., Horizon Orthopedics LLC, Horizon Surgical LLC, Hospital Corp. LLC, Hospital Corporation of America, Hospital Corporation of Lake Worth, Hospital Corporation of Tennessee, Hospital Corporation of Utah, Hospital Development Properties Inc., Hospital Partners Merger LLC, Hospital Realty Corporation, Hospital-Based CRNA Services Inc., Hospitalists at Centennial Medical Center LLC, Hospitalists at Fairview Park LLC, Hospitalists at Greenview Regional Hospital LLC, Hospitalists at Horizon Medical Center LLC, Hospitalists at Parkridge LLC, Hospitalists at StoneCrest LLC, Hospitalists at Wesley Medical Center LLC, Hospitalists of the Wabash Valley LLC, Houston - PPH LLC, Houston CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, Houston Healthcare Holdings Inc., Houston NW Manager LLC, Houston Northwest Concessions L.L.C., Houston Northwest Operating Company L.L.C., Houston Northwest Surgical Partners Inc., Houston Obstetrics and Gynecology for Women PLLC, Houston Pediatric Specialty Group PLLC, Houston Urologic Surgicenter LLC, Houston Womans Hospital Partner LLC, ICU Associates of West Houston PLLC, IMX Holdings LLC, IRL Pathology Services MidAmerica LLC, Idaho Behavioral Health Services LLC, Idaho Physician Services Inc., Illinois Psychiatric Hospital Company Inc., Imaging Realty LLC, Imaging Services of Appomattox LLC, Imaging Services of Jacksonville LLC, Imaging Services of Louisiana LLC, Imaging Services of Louisiana Manager LLC, Imaging Services of Orlando LLC, Imaging Services of Richmond LLC, Imaging Services of Roanoke LLC, Imaging Services of West Boynton LLC, InVivoLink Inc., Independence Neurosurgery Services LLC, Independence Regional Medical Group LLC, Independence Surgicare Inc., Indian Path Hospital Inc., Indianapolis Hospital Partner LLC, Institute for Womens Health and Body LLC, Institute of Advanced ENT Surgery LLC, Integrated Regional Lab LLC, Integrated Regional Laboratories LLP, Integrated Regional Laboratories Pathology Services LLC, Intensive Care Consortium Inc., Internal Medicine Associates of Huntsville PLLC, Internal Medicine Associates of Southern Hills LLC, Internal Medicine of Blacksburg LLC, Internal Medicine of Pasadena PLLC, Internist Associates of Houston PLLC, Isleworth Partners Inc., J. M. Garcia M.D. PLLC, JCSH LLC, JDGC Management LLC, JFK Internal Medicine Faculty Practice LLC, JFK Medical Center Limited Partnership, JPM AA Housing LLC, Jackson County Medical Group LLC, Jackson County Pulmonary Medical Group LLC, Jacksonville CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Jacksonville Multispecialty Services LLC, Jacksonville Surgery Center Ltd., James River Internists LLC, John Randolph Family Practice LLC, John Randolph OB/GYN LLC, John Randolph Surgeons LLC, Johnson County Neurology LLC, Johnson County Surgery Center L.P., Johnson County Surgicenter L.L.C., Jordan Family Health L.L.C., Jupiter EFL Imaging Center LLC, KC Pain ASC LLC, KC Surgicare LLC, KPH-Consolidation Inc., Kansas CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Kansas City Cardiac Arrhythmia Research LLC, Kansas City Gastroenterology & Hepatology Physicians Group LLC, Kansas City Neurology Associates LLC, Kansas City Pulmonology Practice LLC, Kansas City Surgery Center Properties LLC, Kansas City Vascular & General Surgery Group LLC, Kansas City Womens Clinic Group LLC, Kansas Healthserv LLC, Kansas Pulmonary and Sleep Specialists LLC, Kansas Trauma and Critical Care Specialists LLC, Kathy L. Summers M.D. PLLC, Kendall Healthcare Group Ltd., Kendall Regional Medical Center LLC, Kendall Regional Urgent Care LLC, Kennedale Primary Care PLLC, Kingwood Multi-Specialty Group PLLC, Kingwood Surgery Center LLC, Kingwood Surgicenter LLC, Kissimmee Surgicare Ltd., Kyle Primary Care PLLC, L E Corporation, LAD Imaging LLC, LGMC Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, LOC @ The Christie LLP, LOC @ The London Bridge Hospital LLP, LOC Partnership LLP, LPN TeleBehavioral Health PLLC, Lafayette OB Hospitalists LLC, Lafayette Urogynecology & Urology Center LLC, Lake City Imaging LLC, Lake City Regional Medical Group LLC, Lake Forest Family Health PLLC, Lakeside Radiology LLC, Lakeside Womens Services LLC, Lakeview Cardiology Specialists LLC, Lakeview Hospital Physician Services LLC, Lakeview Internal Medicine LLC, Lakeview Medical Center LLC, Lakeview Regional Medical Center Inpatient Services LLC, Lakeview Regional Physician Group LLC, Lakeview Urology & General Surgery LLC, Lakewood Surgicare Inc., Laredo Medco LLC, Largo Medical Center Inc., Largo Physician Group LLC, Las Colinas Primary Care PLLC, Las Colinas Surgery Center Ltd., Las Encinas Hospital, Las Palmas Del Sol Cardiology PLLC, Las Palmas Del Sol Internal Medicine PLLC, Las Palmas Del Sol Urgent Care PLLC, Las Vegas ASC LLC, Las Vegas Surgicare Inc., Las Vegas Surgicare Ltd. a Nevada Limited Partnership, Lawnwood Cardiovascular Surgery LLC, Lawnwood Healthcare Specialists LLC, Lawnwood Medical Center Inc., Layton Family Practice LLC, Leaders in Oncology Care Limited, Leadership Healthcare Holdings II L.P. L.L.P., Leadership Healthcare Holdings L.P. L.L.P., Lees Summit Family Care LLC, Leslie Cohan M.D. PLLC, Lewis-Gale Hospital Incorporated, Lewis-Gale Medical Center LLC, Lewis-Gale Physicians LLC, Lewisville Primary Care PLLC, Lewisville Surgicare LLC, Lincoln Surgery Center LLC, Live Oak Immediate Care Center LLC, London Oncology Clinic LLP, London Pathology Limited, London Radiography & Radiotherapy Services Limited, Lone Peak Hospital Inc., Lone Star Intensivists at Gulf Coast PLLC, Lonestar Provider Network, Longview Regional Physician Hospital Organization Inc., Lorain County Surgery Center Ltd., Los Gatos Surgical Center a California Limited Partnership, Los Robles Regional Medical Center, Los Robles Regional Medical Center MOB LLC, Los Robles SurgiCenter LLC, Loudoun Surgery Center LLC, Louisiana Psychiatric Company Inc., Loveland Surgicenter LLC, Low Country Health Services Inc. of the Southeast, Lowry Surgicenter LLC, M. Jamshidi D.O. PLLC, MCA Investment Company, MCA-CTMC Holdings LLC, MEC Endoscopy LLC, MFA G.P. LLC, MFM Fact PLLC, MGH Medical Inc., MH Anesthesiology Physicians LLC, MH Angel Medical Center LLLP, MH Asheville Specialty Hospital LLC, MH Blue Ridge Medical Center LLLP, MH Eckerd Living Center LLLP, MH Highlands-Cashiers Medical Center LLLP, MH Hospital Holdings Inc., MH Hospital Manager LLC, MH Master Holdings LLLP, MH Master LLC, MH McDowell Imaging LLLP, MH Mission Hospital LLLP, MH Mission Hospital McDowell LLLP, MH Mission Imaging LLLP, MH Physician Services LLC, MH Transylvania Imaging LLLP, MH Transylvania Regional Hospital LLLP, MHS Partnership Holdings JSC Inc., MHS Partnership Holdings SDS Inc., MHS SC Partner L.L.C., MHS Surgery Centers L.P., MMC Sleep Lab Management LLC, MOSC Sports Medicine Inc., MOVCO Inc., MP Management LLC, MRT&C Inc., MSL Acquisition LLC, MVH Professional Services LLC, Macon Healthcare LLC, Macon Northside Health Group LLC, Macon Northside Hospital LLC, Macon Psychiatric Hospitalists LLC, Madison Behavioral Health LLC, Mainland Family Medicine PLLC, Mainland Multi-Specialty Group PLLC, Mainland Primary Care Physicians PLLC, Management Services Holdings Inc., Manatee Surgicare Ltd., Marietta Outpatient Medical Building Inc., Marietta Outpatient Surgery Ltd., Marietta Surgical Center Inc., Marion Community Hospital Inc., Mark Gottesman M.D. PLLC, Martin Fletcher & Associates L.P., Martin Fletcher Associates Holdings Inc., Mary Alice Cowan M.D. PLLC, Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialists of Corpus Christi PLLC, Maternal Fetal Services of Utah LLC, Maury County Behavioral Health LLC, Mayhill Cancer Center LLC, McAllen Comprehensive Upper Extremity Center PLLC, McKinney Surgeons PLLC, Mechanicsville Imaging LLC, Mecklenburg Surgical Land Development Ltd., Med City Dallas Outpatient Surgery Center L.P., Med Corp. Inc., Med Group - Southern Hills Hospitalists LLC, Med-Center Hosp./Houston Inc., Med-Point of New Hampshire Inc., Medi Flight of Oklahoma LLC, MediCredit Inc., MediPurchase Inc., MediStone Healthcare Ventures Inc., MediVision Inc., MediVision of Mecklenburg County Inc., MediVision of Tampa Inc., Medical Arts Hospital of Texarkana Inc., Medical Associates of Ocala LLC, Medical Care America Colorado LLC, Medical Care America LLC, Medical Care Financial Services Corp., Medical Care Real Estate Finance Inc., Medical Care Surgery Center Inc., Medical Center - West Inc., Medical Center Imaging Inc., Medical Center Surgery Associates L.P., Medical Center of Baton Rouge Inc., Medical Center of Plano Partner LLC, Medical Center of Port St. Lucie Inc., Medical Center of Santa Rosa Inc., Medical Center of Southwest Florida LLC, Medical Centers of Oklahoma LLC, Medical City Dallas Hospital Inc., Medical City Dallas Partner LLC, Medical City Dallas Primary Care PLLC, Medical City Frisco, Medical City OB-GYN PLLC, Medical City Pediatrics PLLC, Medical City Specialty Surgicenter of Dallas LLC, Medical City Surgery Center of Alliance LLC, Medical City Surgery Center of Frisco LLC, Medical City Surgery Center of Lewisville LLC, Medical City Transplant PLLC, Medical Corporation of America, Medical Group - Dickson Inc., Medical Group - Southern Hills of Brentwood LLC, Medical Group - Southern Hills of Nolensville LLC, Medical Group - StoneCrest FP Inc., Medical Group - StoneCrest Inc., Medical Group - Stonecrest Pulmonology LLC, Medical Group - Summit Inc., Medical Imaging Inc., Medical Imaging of Colorado LLC, Medical Office Buildings of Kansas LLC, Medical Oncology Associates LLC, Medical Partners of North Florida LLC, Medical Plaza Ambulatory Surgery Center Associates L.P., Medical Specialties Inc., Memorial Family Practice Associates LLC, Memorial Health Primary Care at St. Johns Bluff LLC, Memorial Healthcare Group Inc., Memorial Neurosurgery Group LLC, Memorial Satilla Specialists LLC, Memorial University Medical Center, Menorah Medical Group LLC, Menorah Urgent Care LLC, Mercy ASC LLC, Metairie Primary Care Associates LLC, Methodist Ambulatory Surgery Center of Boerne LLC, Methodist Ambulatory Surgery Center of Landmark LLC, Methodist Cardiology Physicians, Methodist CareNow Physician Associates, Methodist CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, Methodist Healthcare System of San Antonio Ltd. L.L.P., Methodist Inpatient Management Group, Methodist Medical Center ASC L.P., Methodist Physician Alliance, Methodist Physician Practice Services LLC, Methodist Physician Practices PLLC, Metroplex Surgicenters Inc., Metropolitan Multispecialty Physicians Group Inc., Miami Beach EFL Imaging Center LLC, Miami Beach Healthcare Group Ltd., Miami Dade Surgical Specialists LLC, Miami Lakes Surgery Center Ltd., Miami-Dade Cardiology Consultants LLC, Michael Mann M.D. PLLC, Mid-America Surgery Center LLC, Mid-America Surgery Institute LLC, Mid-Cities Surgi-Center Inc., Mid-Continent Health Services Inc., MidAmerica Division Inc., MidAmerica Oncology LLC, Middle Georgia Hospital LLC, Middle Georgia Urgent Care Services LLC, Middle Tennessee Neurology LLC, Midtown Diagnostics LLC, Midwest Cardiology Specialists LLC, Midwest Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery LLC, Midwest Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons of Kansas LLC, Midwest Division - ACH LLC, Midwest Division - CMC LLC, Midwest Division - LRHC LLC, Midwest Division - LSH LLC, Midwest Division - MCI LLC, Midwest Division - MMC LLC, Midwest Division - OPRMC LLC, Midwest Division - RBH LLC, Midwest Division - RMC LLC, Midwest Division Spine Care LLC, Midwest Doctors Group LLC, Midwest Heart & Vascular Specialists LLC, Midwest Holdings Inc., Midwest Infectious Disease Specialists LLC, Midwest Medicine Associates LLC, Midwest Metropolitan Physicians Group LLC, Midwest Oncology Associates LLC, Midwest Trauma Services LLC, Midwest Womens Healthcare Specialists LLC, Mikrod Services Inc., Mill Creek Outpatient Services LLC, Millenium Health Care of Oklahoma Inc., Mission Bay Memorial Hospital Inc., Mission Community Anesthesiology Specialists LLC, Mission Employer Solutions LLC, Mission Health, Mission Health Partners Inc., Missouri Healthcare System L.P., Mobile Corps. Inc., Mobile Heartbeat, Mobile Heartbeat LLC, Montgomery Cancer Center LLC, Montgomery Hospitalists LLC, Montgomery Regional Hospital Inc., Montgomery Surgery Associates LLC, Mountain Division - CVH LLC, Mountain Division Inc., Mountain View Hospital Inc., Mountain View MRI Associates Ltd., Mountain West Surgery Center LLC, MountainStar Behavioral Health LLC, MountainStar Brigham General Surgery LLC, MountainStar Canyon Surgical Clinic LLC, MountainStar Cardiology Ogden Regional LLC, MountainStar Cardiology St. Marks LLC, MountainStar Intensivist Services LLC, MountainStar Medical Group - Cache Valley LLC, MountainStar Medical Group - Ogden Regional Medical Center LLC, MountainStar Medical Group - St. Marks Hospital LLC, MountainStar Medical Group Neurosurgery-St. Marks LLC, MountainStar Medical Group Timpanogos Primary Care LLC, MountainStar Medical Group Timpanogos Specialty Care LLC, MountainStar Specialty Services LLC, MountainStar Urgent Care LLC, MountainView GME Primary Care LLC, Mountainstar Brigham OBGYN LLC, Mountainstar Cardiovascular Services LLC, Mountainstar Ogden Pediatrics LLC, Movement Disorders of North Texas PLLC, Mt. Ogden Utah Surgical Center LLC, NPAS Inc., NPAS Solutions LLC, NT Urgent Care PLLC, NTGP LLC, NTMC Management Company, NTMC Venture Inc., NTX Pathology Program PLLC, Nashville Psychiatric Company Inc., Nashville Shared Services General Partnership, Nashville Surgicenter LLC, Natchez Medical Associates LLC, Natchez Surgery Center LLC, National Association of Senior Friends, National Contact Center Management Group LLC, National Patient Account Services Inc., National Transfer Center Management Services LLC, Navarro Memorial Hospital Inc., NeighborMD Management LLC, Network MS of Florida Inc., Network Management Services Inc., Neuro Affiliates Company, Neuro-Hospitalist of Clear Lake PLLC, NeuroHospitalist of McAllen PLLC, Neurological Eye Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Neurological Specialists PLLC, Neurological Specialists of McKinney PLLC, Neurology Associates of Hendersonville LLC, Neurology Associates of Kansas LLC, Neurosurgery Atlanta LLC, Neurosurgery of Kingwood PLLC, Neurosurgical Associates of North Texas PLLC, Neurosurgical Specialists of El Paso PLLC, Neurosurgical Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Nevada Surgery Center of Southern Hills L.P., Nevada Surgicare of Southern Hills LLC, Nevada Urgent Care Holdings Inc., New Iberia Healthcare LLC, New Iberia Holdings Inc., New Port Richey Hospital Inc., New Port Richey Surgery Center Ltd., New Rose Holding Company Inc., Niceville Family Practice LLC, North Augusta Imaging Management LLC, North Augusta Imaging Services LLC, North Augusta Rehab Health Center LLC, North Austin Plastic Surgery Associates PLLC, North Austin Surgery Center L.P., North Brandon Imaging LLC, North Central Florida Health System Inc., North Central Methodist ASC L.P., North Charleston Diagnostic Imaging Center LLC, North Florida Cancer Center Lake City LLC, North Florida Cancer Center Live Oak LLC, North Florida Cancer Center Tallahassee LLC, North Florida Division I Inc., North Florida Division Practice Inc., North Florida GI Center GP Inc., North Florida GI Center Ltd., North Florida Immediate Care Center Inc., North Florida Neurosurgery LLC, North Florida Outpatient Imaging Center Ltd., North Florida Physician Services Inc., North Florida Physicians LLC, North Florida Radiation Oncology LLC, North Florida Regional Company Care LLC, North Florida Regional Freestanding Surgery Center L.P., North Florida Regional Investments Inc., North Florida Regional Medical Center Inc., North Florida Regional Psychiatry LLC, North Florida Regional Trauma LLC, North Florida Rehab Investments LLC, North Florida Surgical Associates LLC, North Georgia Primary Care Group LLC, North Hills Cardiac Catheterization Center L.P., North Hills Catheterization Lab LLC, North Hills Orthopaedic Surgeons PLLC, North Hills Surgicare L.P., North Houston - TRMC LLC, North Miami Beach Surgery Center Limited Partnership, North Miami Beach Surgical Center LLC, North Palm Beach County Surgery Center LLC, North River Physician Network LLC, North Shore Specialists of Texas PLLC, North Suburban Spine Center L.P., North Tampa Imaging LLC, North Texas - MCA LLC, North Texas Cardiology PLLC, North Texas Craniofacial Fellowship Program PLLC, North Texas Division Inc., North Texas General L.P., North Texas Geriatrics PLLC, North Texas Heart Surgery Center PLLC, North Texas Internal Medicine Specialists PLLC, North Texas Medical Center Inc., North Texas Neuro Stroke OP PLLC, North Texas Pulmonary Critical Care PLLC, North Texas Sports and Orthopedics Center PLLC, North Texas Stroke Center PLLC, North Texas of Hope PLLC, North Transfer Center LLC, Northeast Florida Cancer Services LLC, Northeast Methodist Surgicare Ltd., Northeast PHO Inc., Northern Utah Healthcare Corporation, Northern Utah Healthcare Imaging Holdco LLC, Northern Utah Imaging LLC, Northern Virginia CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Northern Virginia Community Hospital LLC, Northern Virginia Hospital Corporation, Northern Virginia Surgicenter LLC, Northlake Medical Center LLC, Northlake Physician Practice Network Inc., Northlake Surgical Center L.P., Northlake Surgicare Inc., Northside MRI Inc., Northwest Fla. Home Health Agency Inc., Northwest Florida Healthcare Systems Inc., Northwest Florida Multispecialty Physicians LLC, Northwest Florida Primary Care LLC, Northwest Medical Center Inc., Notami (Opelousas) Inc., Notami Hospitals LLC, Notami Hospitals of Florida Inc., Notami Hospitals of Louisiana Inc., Notami Hospitals of Missouri Inc., Notami LLC, Notco LLC, Nuclear Diagnosis Inc., OB Hospitalists of Womans Hospital PLLC, OB/GYN of Brownsville PLLC, OB/Gyn Associates of Denton PLLC, OBS Diagnostic and Treatment Centre LLP, ODP Holdings LLC, ODP Manager LLC, ODP Properties LLC, OHH Imaging Services LLC, OPRMC-HBP LLC, Oak Hill Acquisition Inc., Oak Hill Family Care LLC, Oak Hill Hospitalists LLC, Oakwood Surgery Center Ltd. LLP, Ocala Health Company Care LLC, Ocala Health Imaging Services LLC, Ocala Health Primary Care LLC, Ocala Health Surgical Group LLC, Ocala Health Trauma LLC, Ocala Regional Outpatient Services Inc., Ocala Stereotactic Radiosurgery LLC, Ocala Stereotactic Radiosurgery Partner LLC, Occupational Health Services of PRH LLC, Occupational and Family Medicine of South Texas, Ogden Imaging LLC, Ogden Internal Medicine & Urology LLC, Ogden Regional Health Plan Inc., Ogden Regional Medical Center Professional Billing LLC, Ogden Senior Center LLC, Ogden Tomotherapy LLC, Ogden Tomotherapy Manager LLC, Okaloosa Hospital Inc., Okeechobee Hospital Inc., Oklahoma Holding Company LLC, Oklahoma Outpatient Surgery Limited Partnership, Oklahoma Physicians - Medical Specialties LLC, Oklahoma Physicians - Obstetrics and Gynecology LLC, Oklahoma Physicians - Primary Care LLC, Oklahoma Physicians - Surgical Specialties LLC, Oklahoma Surgicare Inc., Old Fort Village LLC, On-Site Primary Care PLLC, Oncology Services of Corpus Christi LLC, Oncology Services of Corpus Christi Manager LLC, OneSourceMed Inc., Online Pathology Services Limited, Orange County Healthcare LLC, Orange Park Hospitalists LLC, Orange Park Medical Center Inc., Orlando CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Orlando Outpatient Surgical Center Inc., Orlando Outpatient Surgical Center Ltd., Orlando Surgicare Ltd., Orthopaedic Specialty Associates L.P., Orthopaedic Sports Specialty Associates Inc., Orthopedic Hospital Ltd., Orthopedics Specialists LLC, Osceola Neurological Associates LLC, Osceola Physician Network LLC, Osceola Regional Hospital Inc., Osceola Regional Hospitalists LLC, Osceola Surgical Associates LLC, Outpatient Cardiovascular Center of Central Florida LLC, Outpatient GP LLC, Outpatient Services - LAD LLC, Outpatient Services Holdings Inc., Outpatient Surgical Services Ltd., Outpatient Womens and Childrens Surgery Center Ltd., Overland Park Cardiovascular Inc., Overland Park Medical Specialists LLC, Overland Park Orthopedics LLC, Overland Park Surgical Specialties LLC, Oviedo Medical Center LLC, Ozarks Medical Services Inc., P&L Associates, P/SL Hyperbaric Partnership, PET CT LLP, PMM Inc., POH Holdings LLC, PSG Delegated Services LLC, PTS Solutions LLC, Pacific Partners Management Services Inc., Palm Beach EFL Imaging Center LLC, Palm Beach General Surgery LLC, Palm Beach Healthcare System Inc., Palm Beach Hospitalists Program LLC, Palmer Medical Center LLC, Palms West Gastroenterology LLC, Palms West Hospital Limited Partnership, Palms West Surgery Center Ltd., Paragon Physicians Hospital Organization of South Texas Inc., Paragon SDS Inc., Paragon Surgery Centers of Texas Inc., Paragon WSC Inc., Paragon of Texas Health Properties Inc., Parallon Business Solutions LLC, Parallon Enterprises LLC, Parallon Health Information Solutions LLC, Parallon Holdings LLC, Parallon Payroll Solutions LLC, Parallon Physician Services LLC, Parallon Revenue Cycle Services Inc., Park Central Surgical Center Ltd., Park Ridge Surgery Center LLC, Park South Imaging Center Ltd., Park View Insurance Company, Parkersburg SJ Holdings Inc., Parkland Hospitalists Program LLC, Parkland Oncology LLC, Parkland Physician Services Inc., Parkridge East Specialty Associates LLC, Parkridge Hospitalists Inc., Parkridge Medical Associates LLC, Parkridge Medical Center Inc., Parkridge Professionals Inc., Parkside Surgery Center Inc., Parkway Cardiac Center Ltd., Parkway Hospital Inc., Parkway Surgery Services Ltd., Parthenon Insurance Company Limited, Pasadena Bayshore Hospital Inc., PatientKeeper, PatientKeeper Inc., Patients First Neurology LLC, Pavilion 2 Condominium Property LLC, Pavilion 2 Medical Office Building Condominium Association Inc., Pavilion Surgicenter LLC, Peach State Anesthesia Partners LLC, Pearland Institute for Womens Health PLLC, Pearland Partner LLC, Pediatric Anesthesia Consultants of San Antonio PLLC, Pediatric Cardiac Intensivists of North Texas PLLC, Pediatric Critical Care of Clear Lake PLLC, Pediatric Hospitalists of Conroe PLLC, Pediatric Intensivist Group LLC, Pediatric Intensivists of El Paso PLLC, Pediatric Intensivists of North Texas PLLC, Pediatric Specialists of Clear Lake PLLC, Pediatric Specialty Clinic LLC, Pediatric Surgicare Inc., Pediatrics of Greater Houston PLLC, Pensacola Primary Care Inc., Physician Associates of Corporate Woods LLC, Physicians Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Physicians West Surgicenter LLC, Pinellas Medical LLC, Pinnacle Physician Network LLC, Pioneer Medical LLC, Plains Healthcare System Inc., Plano Ambulatory Surgery Associates L.P., Plano Heart Institute L.P., Plano Heart Management LLC, Plano Surgery Center - GP LLC, Plano Surgery Center Real Estate LLC, Plano Surgicenter Real Estate Manager LLC, Plano Urology PLLC, Plantation General Hospital L.P., Plaza Medical Specialists PLLC, Plaza Primary Care PLLC, Plaza Transplant Center PLLC, Podiatry of Clear Lake PLLC, Poinciana Medical Center Inc., Port St. Lucie Surgery Center Ltd., Portland Primary Care LLC, Portsmouth Regional Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Portsmouth Surgicenter LLC, Preferred Hospitals Inc., Preferred Works WC LLC, Premier ASC LLC, Premier Medical Management Ltd., Primary Care Medical Associates Inc., Primary Care Plano PLLC, Primary Care Services of Orlando LLC, Primary Care South PLLC, Primary Care West PLLC, Primary Care of West End LLC, Primary Health Asset Holdings Ltd., Primary Health Group Inc., Primary Health Inc., Primary Health Network of South Texas, Primary Health Physicians PLLC, Primary Medical Management Inc., Proaxis Therapy HealthOne LLC, Provident Professional Building Condominium Association Inc., Psychiatry Services of Osceola LLC, Pulaski Community Hospital Inc., Pulaski Urology LLC, Pulmonary Renal Intensivist Group LLC, Putnam Community Medical Center of North Florida LLC, Putnam Hospital Inc., Putnam Radiation Oncology LLC, Putnam Radiation Oncology Manager LLC, Putnam Surgical Group LLC, Quantum/Bellaire Imaging Ltd., Quick Care Centers LLC, Quivira Internal Medicine Inc., RCH LLC, RMC - Pulmonary LLC, RMC Transplant Physicians LLC, RMCA Professionals Mgmt LLC, ROi CPS LLC, Radford Family Medicine LLC, Radiation Oncology Center of Thornton LLC, Radiation Oncology Manager LLC, Raleigh Community Medical Office Building Ltd., Rapides After Hours Clinic L.L.C., Rapides Healthcare System L.L.C., Rapides Regional Physician Group LLC, Rapides Regional Physician Group Primary Care LLC, Rapides Regional Physician Group Specialty Care LLC, Rapides Surgery Center LLC, Raulerson GYN LLC, Raulerson Gastroenterology LLC, Raulerson Primary Care LLC, Raymore Medical Group LLC, Red Rock Holdco LLC, Red Rock at Smoke Ranch LLC, Red Rocks Surgery Center LLC, Redmond Anesthesia Services LLC, Redmond Hospital Services LLC, Redmond Neurosurgery LLC, Redmond Park Health Services Inc., Redmond Park Hospital LLC, Redmond Physician Practice Company, Redmond Specialty Services LLC, Regional Hospital Healthcare Partners LLC, Research Cardiology Associates LLC, Research Family Physicians LLC, Research Internal Medicine LLC, Research Neurology Associates LLC, Research Neuroscience Institute LLC, Resource Optimization & Innovation L.L.C., Reston Hospital Center LLC, Reston Hospitalists LLC, Reston Surgery Center L.P., Retreat Cardiology LLC, Retreat Hospital LLC, Retreat Internal Medicine LLC, Retreat Surgical Associates LLC, Rhodes Limited-Liability Company, Richmond Imaging Employer Corp., Richmond Multi-Specialty LLC, Richmond Pediatric Surgeons LLC, Ridgeline Surgicenter LLC, Rim Building Partners L.P., Rio Grande Healthcare MSO Inc., Rio Grande NP Inc., Rio Grande Regional Hospital Inc., Rio Grande Valley Cardiology PLLC, Rio Grande Valley CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, Rio Grande Valley Urology PLLC, Riverside CyberKnife Manager LLC, Riverside Healthcare System L.P., Riverside Holdings Inc., Riverside Hospital Inc., Riverside Imaging LLC, Riverwalk ASC LLC, Roanoke Imaging LLC, Roanoke Neurosurgery LLC, Roanoke Surgery Center L.P., Roanoke Valley Gynecology LLC, Robotic Radiosurgery LLP, Rocky Mountain Pediatric Hematology Oncology LLC, Rocky Mountain Surgery Center LLC, Rome Imaging Center Limited Partnership, Roodlane Medical Limited, Rose Ambulatory Surgery Center L.P., Rose Health Partners LLC, Rose Medical Plaza Ltd., Rose POB Inc., Rosewood Medical Center Inc., Rosewood Professional Building Ltd., Round Rock Hospital Inc., Round Rock Trauma Surgeons PLLC, Royal Oaks Surgery Center L.P., S.A. Medical Center Inc., SAPN LLC, SCRI Global Services Limited, SCRI Holdings LLC, SCRI Scientifics LLC, SJMC LLC, SSHR Holdco LLC, SSJ St. Petersburg Holdings Inc., STPN Manager LLC, SWMC Inc., Sahara Outpatient Surgery Center Ltd., Salem Hospitalists LLC, Salem Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Salt Lake City Surgicare Inc., Samaritan LLC, San Antonio Division Inc., San Antonio Regional Hospital Inc., San Antonio Surgicenter LLC, San Bernardino Imaging LLC, San Joaquin Surgical Center Inc., San Jose Healthcare System LP, San Jose Hospital L.P., San Jose LLC, San Jose Medical Center LLC, San Jose Pathology Outreach LLC, San Marcos ASC LLC, San Marcos Surgicenter LLC, Sante Fe Family Practitioners PLLC, Sarah Cannon Development Innovations LLC, Sarah Cannon Research Institute LLC, Sarah Cannon Research Institute UK Limited, Sarasota Doctors Hospital Inc., Savannah Behavioral Health Associates LLC, Savannah Health Network LLC, Savannah Health Services LLC, Savannah Inpatient Services LLC, Savannah Multispecialty Associates LLC, Savannah Pediatric Care LLC, Savannah Primary Care Associates LLC, Sebring Health Services LLC, Selma Medical Center Hospital Inc., Senior Health Associates LLC, Short Pump Imaging LLC, Silicon Valley Health Holdings LLC, Silicon Valley Surgery Center L.P., Silicon Valley Surgicenter LLC, Sky Ridge Spine Manager LLC, Sky Ridge Surgery Center L.P., Skyline Medical Group LLC, Skyline Neuroscience Associates LLC, Skyline Rehab Associates LLC, Skyline Specialty Associates LLC, Smith Laboratories Inc., Solis Mammography at Bayshore Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Clear Lake Regional Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Conroe Regional Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Denton Regional Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at HCA Houston Tomball LLC, Solis Mammography at Kingwood Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Las Colinas Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center Alliance LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center Arlington LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center of Lewisville LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center of McKinney LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center of Plano LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical City Dallas LLC, Solis Mammography at Pearland Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Rose Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Skyline Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at StoneCrest Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at West Houston Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Womans Hospital of Texas LLC, Solis Mammography of Cedar Hill LLC, Solis Mammography of CyFair LLC, Solis Mammography of Dallas LLC, Solis Mammography of Flower Mound LLC, Solis Mammography of Frisco LLC, Solis Mammography of Garland LLC, Solis Mammography of Grand Prairie LLC, Solis Mammography of Houston NW LLC, Solis Mammography of Katy LLC, Solis Mammography of Louetta/249 LLC, Solis Mammography of Mainland LLC, Solis Mammography of Mansfield LLC, Solis Mammography of Mesquite LLC, Solis Mammography of Montgomery LLC, Solis Mammography of North Cypress LLC, Solis Mammography of North Loop LLC, Solis Mammography of Sugar Land LLC, Solis Mammography of West Plano LLC, Solis Mammography of Womans Place LLC, South Atlantic Division Inc., South Austin Surgery Center Ltd., South Austin Surgical Management LLC, South Austin Surgicenter LLC, South Brandon Imaging LLC, South Florida Division Practice Inc., South Texas Surgicare Inc., South Transfer Center LLC, South Valley Hospital L.P., Southeast Georgia Health Services LLC, Southern Hills Medical Center LLC, Southern Hills Neurology Consultants LLC, Southern Kentucky Medicine Associates LLC, Southern Kentucky Surgicenter LLC, Southern Texas Physicians Network, Southpoint LLC, Southtown Womens Clinic LLC, Southwest Florida Health System Inc., Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center Inc., Southwest Medical Center Family Practice LLC, Southwest Medical Center Multi-Specialty Group LLC, Southwest Medical Center Surgical Group LLC, Southwest Medpro Ltd., Southwest Surgical Clinic Inc., Southwest Virginia Orthopedics and Spine LLC, Spalding Rehabilitation L.L.C., Specialists in Obstetrics and Gynecology PLLC, Specialty Associates of West Houston PLLC, Specialty Physicians of Northern Virginia LLC, Specialty Surgicare of Las Vegas LP, Spotsylvania Condominium Property LLC, Spotsylvania Medical Center Inc., Spotsylvania Multi-Specialty Group LLC, Spotsylvania Regional Surgery Center LLC, Spring Branch Family Practitioners PLLC, Spring Branch Medical Center Inc., Spring Hill Hospital Inc., Spring Hill Imaging LLC, Spring Hill Physicians LLC, Springview KY LLC, Spruce Pine Healthcare LLC, St. Davids Austin Area ASC LLC, St. Davids Cardiology PLLC, St. Davids CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, St. Davids Healthcare Partnership L.P. LLP, St. Davids Heart & Vascular PLLC, St. Davids Neurology PLLC, St. Davids OB Hospitalist PLLC, St. Davids Ortho Neuro and Rehab PLLC, St. Davids Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation PLLC, St. Davids Quality Alliance LLC, St. Davids Specialized Womens Services PLLC, St. Davids Trauma Surgeons PLLC, St. Lucie Hospitalists LLC, St. Lucie Medical Center Hyperbarics LLC, St. Lucie Medical Center Walk-In Clinic LLC, St. Lucie Medical Specialists LLC, St. Lucie West Primary Care LLC, St. Marks Ambulatory Surgery Associates L.P., St. Marks Gynecology Oncology Care LLC, St. Marks Investments Inc., St. Marks Physician Billing LLC, St. Marks Professional Services LLC, St. Marks South Jordan Family Practice LLC, St. Martins Healthcare Limited, St. Martins Ltd., St. Martins Medical Services Limited, St. Petersburg General Surgery LLC, Stafford Imaging LLC, Statland Medical Group LLC, Steamboat Springs Surgicenter LLC, Sterling Primary Care Associates LLC, Stiles Road Imaging LLC, StoneCrest Surgery Center LLC, StoneSprings Medical Office Building Property LLC, StoneSprings Surgicenter LLC, Stonecrest Medical Group - Family Practice of Murfreesboro LLC, Stonecrest Medical Group - SC Murfreesboro Family Practice LLC, Stones River Hospital LLC, Suburban Medical Center at Hoffman Estates Inc., Sugar Land Surgery Center Anesthesia LLC, Sugar Land Surgery Center Ltd., Sullins Surgical Center Inc., Summit Convenient Care at Lebanon LLC, Summit General Partner Inc., Summit Heart LLC, Summit Outpatient Diagnostic Center LLC, Summit Research Solutions LLC, Summit Surgery Center L.P., Summit Surgical Associates LLC, Summit Walk-in Clinic LLC, Sun Bay Medical Office Building Inc., Sun City Hospital Inc., Sun City Imaging LLC, Sun Towers/Vista Hills Holding Co., Sun-Med LLC, Sunrise Flamingo Holdings LLC, Sunrise Flamingo Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center LLC, Sunrise Mountainview Hospital Inc., Sunrise Mountainview Multi-Specialty Clinics LLC, Sunrise Outpatient Services Inc., Sunrise Physician Services LLC, Sunrise Trauma Services LLC, Surgery Associates of NTX PLLC, Surgery Center of Atlantis LLC, Surgery Center of Aventura Ltd., Surgery Center of Bay Area Houston LLC, Surgery Center of Greenview L.P., Surgery Center of Independence L.P., Surgery Center of Overland Park L.P., Surgery Center of Port Charlotte Ltd., Surgery Center of Rome L.P., Surgery Center of the Rockies LLC, Surgical Associates of Southwest Virginia LLC, Surgical Care Medical Group LLC, Surgical Center of Irving Inc., Surgical Facility of West Houston L.P., Surgical Park Center Ltd., Surgical Specialists of Clear Lake PLLC, Surgical Specialists of Conroe PLLC, Surgical Specialists of Corpus Christi PLLC, Surgicare America - Winter Park Inc., Surgicare Merger Company of Louisiana, Surgicare Outpatient Center of Baton Rouge Inc., Surgicare Outpatient Center of Jackson Inc., Surgicare of ADC LLC, Surgicare of AGI LLC, Surgicare of Alpine LLC, Surgicare of Altamonte Springs Inc., Surgicare of Anchorage LLC, Surgicare of Arapahoe LLC, Surgicare of Arlington LLC, Surgicare of Ashburn LLC, Surgicare of Augusta Inc., Surgicare of Aurora Endoscopy LLC, Surgicare of Aventura LLC, Surgicare of Bay Area Endoscopy LLC, Surgicare of Bay Area LLC, Surgicare of Bayonet Point Inc., Surgicare of Bayside LLC, Surgicare of Bountiful LLC, Surgicare of Brandon Inc., Surgicare of Brentwood LLC, Surgicare of Brighton LLC, Surgicare of Brooksville LLC, Surgicare of Brownsville LLC, Surgicare of Buckhead LLC, Surgicare of CAREOS LLC, Surgicare of Central Florida Inc., Surgicare of Central Park Surgery Center LLC, Surgicare of Central San Antonio Inc., Surgicare of Chattanooga LLC, Surgicare of Chippenham LLC, Surgicare of Citrus LLC, Surgicare of Clarksville LLC, Surgicare of Corpus Christi LLC, Surgicare of Countryside Inc., Surgicare of Dallas Specialty LLC, Surgicare of Denton Inc., Surgicare of Denver Clinic LLC, Surgicare of Denver LLC, Surgicare of Denver Mid-Town Inc., Surgicare of Dickson LLC, Surgicare of Eastside LLC, Surgicare of Evans Inc., Surgicare of Fairfax Inc., Surgicare of Florida Inc., Surgicare of Flower Mound Inc., Surgicare of Focus Hand LLC, Surgicare of Fort Worth Co-GP LLC, Surgicare of Fort Worth Inc., Surgicare of Ft. Pierce Inc., Surgicare of Good Samaritan LLC, Surgicare of Gramercy Inc., Surgicare of Greenview Inc., Surgicare of Hanover Inc., Surgicare of Houston Kingwood LLC, Surgicare of Houston LLC, Surgicare of Houston Womens Inc., Surgicare of Indianapolis Inc., Surgicare of Kansas City LLC, Surgicare of Kingwood LLC, Surgicare of Kissimmee Inc., Surgicare of Lakeview Inc., Surgicare of Las Vegas Inc., Surgicare of Laurel Grove LLC, Surgicare of Lorain County Inc., Surgicare of Los Gatos Inc., Surgicare of Los Robles LLC, Surgicare of Loveland LLC, Surgicare of Madison Inc., Surgicare of Manatee Inc., Surgicare of McKinney Inc., Surgicare of Medical City Dallas LLC, Surgicare of Memorial Endoscopy LLC, Surgicare of Merritt Island Inc., Surgicare of Miami Lakes LLC, Surgicare of Mountain West LLC, Surgicare of Mt. Ogden LLC, Surgicare of Nashville LLC, Surgicare of Natchez LLC, Surgicare of Newport Richey Inc., Surgicare of North Austin LLC, Surgicare of North San Antonio Inc., Surgicare of Northeast San Antonio Inc., Surgicare of Orange Park II LLC, Surgicare of Orange Park Inc., Surgicare of Orange Park Ltd., Surgicare of Orlando Inc., Surgicare of Overland Park LLC, Surgicare of Palms West LLC, Surgicare of Park Ridge LLC, Surgicare of Pasadena Inc., Surgicare of Pavilion LLC, Surgicare of Physicians West El Paso LLC, Surgicare of Pinellas Inc., Surgicare of Plano Inc., Surgicare of Plantation Inc., Surgicare of Port Charlotte LLC, Surgicare of Port St. Lucie Inc., Surgicare of Portsmouth LLC, Surgicare of Premier Orthopaedic LLC, Surgicare of Reston Inc., Surgicare of Ridgeline LLC, Surgicare of Riverside LLC, Surgicare of Riverwalk LLC, Surgicare of Roanoke LLC, Surgicare of Rome Inc., Surgicare of Rose LLC, Surgicare of Round Rock Inc., Surgicare of Royal Oaks LLC, Surgicare of Silicon Valley LLC, Surgicare of Sky Ridge LLC, Surgicare of Sky Ridge Womens Center LLC, Surgicare of South Austin Inc., Surgicare of Southeast Denver Inc., Surgicare of Southern Hills Inc., Surgicare of Southern Kentucky LLC, Surgicare of Southwest Houston LLC, Surgicare of Spotsylvania LLC, Surgicare of St. Andrews Inc., Surgicare of St. Andrews Ltd., Surgicare of St. Davids Austin LLC, Surgicare of Steamboat Springs LLC, Surgicare of StoneCrest LLC, Surgicare of StoneSprings LLC, Surgicare of Stuart Inc., Surgicare of Sugar Land Inc., Surgicare of Swedish LLC, Surgicare of Tallahassee Inc., Surgicare of Terre Haute LLC, Surgicare of Thornton LLC, Surgicare of Travis Center Inc., Surgicare of Tulsa Inc., Surgicare of Utah LLC, Surgicare of Wasatch Front LLC, Surgicare of West Hills Inc., Surgicare of Westlake Inc., Surgicare of Wichita Inc., Surgicare of Wichita LLC, Surgicare of Willis LLC, Surgicare of Wilson County LLC, Surgicare of Winchester LLC, Surgicenter of East Jefferson Inc., Surgicenter of Johnson County Ltd. a Kansas limited partnership, Surgicenter of Kansas City L.L.C., Surgico LLC, Swedish MOB Acquisition Inc., Swedish MOB I Ltd., Swedish MOB II Inc., Swedish MOB III Inc., Swedish MOB IV Inc., Swedish MOB LLC, Swedish Medpro Inc., TBHI Outpatient Services LLC, TCMC Madison-Portland Inc., THN Physicians Association Inc., TUHC Anesthesiology Group LLC, TUHC Hospitalist Group LLC, TUHC Physician Group LLC, TUHC Primary Care and Pediatrics Group LLC, TUHC Radiology Group LLC, Tallahassee Community Network Inc., Tallahassee Medical Center Inc., Tallahassee Orthopaedic Surgery Partners Ltd., Tampa Bay Health System Inc., Tampa Surgi-Centre Inc., Tarrant County Surgery Center L.P., Tchefuncte Cardiology Associates - Lakeview LLC, Teays Valley Health Services LLC, Telehealth Physician Services LLC, Tennessee Healthcare Management Inc., Tennessee Valley Outpatient Diagnostic Center LLC, Terre Haute Hospital GP Inc., Terre Haute Hospital Holdings Inc., Terre Haute MOB L.P., Terre Haute Obstetrics and Gynecology LLC, Terre Haute Regional Hospital L.P., Texas CareNow Physician Associates, Texas HSS LLC, Texas Institute of Medicine and Surgery, Texas Psychiatric Company Inc., The Austin Diagnostic Clinic PLLC, The Cancer Care Center of North Florida LLC, The Cardiovascular Partnership for Quality LLC, The Charter Cypress Behavioral Health System L.L.C., The Christie Clinic LLP, The Glynne Medical Practice Limited, The Harley Street Cancer Clinic Limited, The London Breast Institute UK Ltd, The Medical Group of Kansas City LLC, The Neurohealth Sciences Center LLC, The Physicians Clinic Limited, The Prostate Centre Limited, The Rankin Foundation, The Regional Health System of Acadiana LLC, The Wasatch Endoscopy Center Ltd., The West Texas Division of Columbia Inc., Timpanogos Pain Specialists LLC, Timpanogos Regional Medical Services Inc., Total Imaging - Hudson LLC, Total Imaging - North St. Petersburg LLC, Total Imaging - Parsons LLC, Town Plaza Family Practice LLC, Travel Medicine and Infections LLC, Travis Surgery Center L.P., Tri Cities Health Services Corp., Tri-City Multi-Specialty LLC, Tri-County Community Hospital Inc., Tri-County Surgical Specialists LLC, TriStar Bone Marrow Transplant LLC, TriStar Cardiovascular Surgery LLC, TriStar Family Care LLC, TriStar Gynecology Oncology LLC, TriStar Health System Inc., TriStar Joint Replacement Institute LLC, TriStar Maury Behavioral Healthcare LLC, TriStar Medical Group - Centennial Primary Care LLC, TriStar Medical Group - Legacy Health LLC, TriStar Medical Network LLC, TriStar OB/GYN LLC, TriStar Orthopedics LLC, TriStar Physicians LLC, TriStar Radiation Oncology LLC, Trident Ambulatory Surgery Center L.P., Trident Behavioral Health Services LLC, Trident Eye Surgery Center L.P., Trident Medical Center LLC, Trident Medical Services Inc., Trident Neonatology Services LLC, Tulane Clinic LLC, Tulane Professionals Management L.L.C., Tuscan Imaging Center at Las Colinas LLC, U.S. Collections Inc., Ultra Imaging Management Services LLC, Ultra Imaging of Tampa LLC, University Healthcare Specialists LLC, University Healthcare System L.C., University Hospital Ltd., Uptown Primary Care Associates LLC, Urgent Care Enterprise LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Ann & Simmons LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Cactus & Southern Highlands LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Charleston & Decatur LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Charleston/Sloan LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Craig & Clayton LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Craig & Decatur LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Durango & Cheyenne LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Durango & Flamingo LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Eastern & Horizon Ridge LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Rainbow/Mardon LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Warm Springs & Green Valley LLC, Urgent Care Extra Silverado & Maryland LLC, Urgent Care Extra-Tropicana & Jones LLC, Urgent Care Nevada LLC, Urological Specialists of Arlington PLLC, Urology Associates (London) Limited, Urology Center of North Georgia LLC, Urology Services of El Paso PLLC, Urology Specialists Devonshire LLP, Urology Specialists London LLP, Urology Specialists of Kingwood PLLC, Urology Specialists of Richmond LLC, Urology Surgery Center of Colorado LLC, Utah CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Utah Imaging GP LLC, Utah Medco LLC, Utah Surgery Center L.P., VH Holdco Inc., VH Holdings Inc., VHSC Plantation LLC, VIP Inc., Valify, Valify Inc., Value Health Holdings Inc., Value Health Management Inc., Vascular and Endovascular Specialists LLC, Venture Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Venture Medical Management LLC, Village Oaks Medical Center Inc., Virginia Care Partners ACO LLC, Virginia Gynecologic Oncology LLC, Virginia Hematology & Oncology Associates Inc., Virginia Hospitalists Inc., Virginia Psychiatric Company Inc., Virginia Quality Care Partners LLC, Vision Consulting Group LLC, Vision Holdings LLC, W & C Hospital Inc., WCP Properties LLC, WHG Medical LLC, WHMC Inc., WJHC LLC, Walterboro Community Hospital Inc., Warren County Ambulance Service LLC, Wasatch Front Surgery Center LLC, Washington Holdco LLC, Waterway Primary Care LLC, Weatherford Health Services LLC, Weatherford Mammography JV LLC, Weatherford Regional Medical Center, Welbeck Street Diagnostic Centre LLP, Wellington Diagnostic Services LLP, Wesley Cath Lab LLC, Wesley Manager LLC, Wesley Medical Center LLC, Wesley Physician Services LLC, Wesley Physicians - Anesthesiologist LLC, Wesley Physicians - Cardiovascular LLC, Wesley Physicians - Medical Specialties LLC, Wesley Physicians - Obstetrics and Gynecology LLC, Wesley Physicians - Primary Care LLC, Wesley Select Network LLC, Wesley Urgent Care LLC, West Boynton Beach Open Imaging Center LLC, West Creek Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, West Creek Medical Center Inc., West Florida - MHT LLC, West Florida - PPH LLC, West Florida Behavioral Health Inc., West Florida Cardiology Network LLC, West Florida Cardiology Physicians LLC, West Florida CareNow Urgent Care LLC, West Florida Division Inc., West Florida Gulf Coast Primary Care LLC, West Florida HealthWorks LLC, West Florida Imaging Services LLC, West Florida Internal Medicine LLC, West Florida PET Services LLC, West Florida Physician Network LLC, West Florida Professional Billing LLC, West Florida Regional Medical Center Inc., West Florida Specialty Physicians LLC, West Florida Trauma Network LLC, West Florida Urgent Care Network LLC, West Hills Hospital, West Hills Surgical Center Ltd., West Houston ASC Inc., West Houston Healthcare Group Ltd., West Houston Internal Specialists PLLC, West Houston LLC, West Houston Medical PLLC, West Houston Outpatient Medical Facility Inc., West Houston Surgicare Inc., West Jacksonville Medical Center Inc., West Jordan Hospital Corporation, West LPN Fort Worth Oncology PLLC, West LPN Inc., West Los Angeles Physicians Hospital Inc., West McKinney Imaging Services LLC, West Paces Services Inc., West Park Surgery Center L.P., West Valley Imaging LLC, West Valley Medical Center Inc., West Valley Medical Group LLC, West Valley Medical Group Specialty Services LLC, West Valley Therapy Services LLC, Westbury Hospital Inc., Western Plains Capital Inc., Westlake Surgicare L.P., Westminster Community Hospital, Westside Surgery Center Ltd., Wichita CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Wildwood Medical Center Inc., Willis Surgicenter LLC, Wilson County Outpatient Surgery Center L.P., Womans Health Group PLLC, Womans Hospital Merger LLC, Womans Hospital of Texas Incorporated, Women Practitioners of Houston PLLC, Women Specialists of Bayshore PLLC, Women Specialists of Clear Lake PLLC, Women Specialists of Mainland PLLC, Womens & Childrens Center LLC, Womens & Childrens Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Center LLC, Womens & Childrens Pulmonology Clinic LLC, Womens Center at Brookside LLC, Womens Health Center of Central Florida LLC, Womens Health Center of SWVA LLC, Womens Hospital Indianapolis GP Inc., Womens Hospital Indianapolis L.P., Womens Link Specialty Obstetrical Referral Clinic PLLC, Womens Multi-Specialty Group LLC, Womens Surgical Specialists of Texas PLLC, Womens and Childrens Professional Management L.L.C., Womens and Childrens Specialists LLC, hInsight-Airstrip Holdings LLC, hInsight-BMA Holdings LLC, hInsight-Customer Care Holdings LLC, hInsight-Digital Reasoning Holdings LLC, hInsight-Healthbox Holdings LLC, hInsight-I2 Holdings LLC, hInsight-InVivoLink Holdings LLC, hInsight-LS Holdings LLC, hInsight-Loyale Healthcare Holdings LLC, hInsight-Mobile Heartbeat Holdings LLC, hInsight-NX LLC, hInsight-PWS I Holdings LLC, hInsight-Procured Holdings LLC, and hInsight-VAI Holdings LLC.

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Albemarle Corporation develops, manufactures, and markets engineered specialty chemicals worldwide. It operates through three segments: Lithium, Bromine, and Catalysts. The Lithium segment offers lithium compounds, including lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide, lithium chloride, and lithium specialties; and reagents, such as butyllithium and lithium aluminum hydride for use in lithium batteries for consumer electronics and electric vehicles, high performance greases, thermoplastic elastomers for car tires, rubber soles, plastic bottles, catalysts for chemical reactions, organic synthesis processes in the areas of steroid chemistry and vitamins, life sciences, pharmaceutical industry, and other markets. It also provides cesium products for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries; zirconium, barium, and titanium products for pyrotechnical applications that include airbag initiators; technical services for the handling and use of reactive lithium products; and lithium-containing by-products recycling services. The Bromine segment offers bromine and bromine-based fire safety solutions; specialty chemicals, including elemental bromine, alkyl and inorganic bromides, brominated powdered activated carbon, and other bromine fine chemicals for use in chemical synthesis, oil and gas well drilling and completion fluids, mercury control, water purification, beef and poultry processing, and other industrial applications; and other specialty chemicals, such as tertiary amines for surfactants, biocides, and disinfectants and sanitizers. The Catalysts segment provides hydroprocessing, isomerization, and akylation catalysts; fluidized catalytic cracking catalysts and additives; and organometallics and curatives. The company serves the energy storage, petroleum refining, consumer electronics, construction, automotive, lubricants, pharmaceuticals, and crop protection markets. Albemarle Corporation was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
RBC Bearings Incorporated manufactures and markets engineered precision bearings and components in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, Aerospace/Defense and Industrial. The company produces plain bearings with self-lubricating or metal-to-metal designs, including rod end bearings, spherical plain bearings, and journal bearings; roller bearings, such as tapered roller bearings, needle roller bearings, and needle bearing track rollers and cam followers, which are anti-friction products that are used in industrial applications and military aircraft platforms; and ball bearings include high precision aerospace, airframe control, thin section, and industrial ball bearings that utilize high precision ball elements to reduce friction in high-speed applications. It also offers mounted bearing products include mounted ball bearings, mounted roller bearings, and mounted plain bearings; and enclosed gearing product lines, including quantis gearmotor, torque arm, tigear, magnagear & maxum, and controlled start transmission. In addition, the company produces power transmission components include mechanical drive components, couplings, and conveyor components; engineered hydraulics and valves for aircraft and submarine applications, and aerospace and defense aftermarket services; fasteners; precision mechanical components, which are used in various general industrial applications; and machine tool collets that are used for holding circulars or rod-like pieces. It serves automotive, tool holding, agricultural and semiconductor machinery, commercial and defense aerospace, ground defense, construction and mining, oil and natural resource extraction, heavy truck, marine, rail and train, packaging, food and beverage, packaging and canning, wind, and general industrial markets through its direct sales force, as well as a network of industrial and aerospace distributors. The company was founded in 1919 and is headquartered in Oxford, Connecticut.
Grupo Supervielle S.A., a financial services holding company, provides various banking products and services in Argentina. The company operates through Personal and Business Banking, Corporate Banking, Treasury and Finance, Capital Markets and Structuring, and Support Areas segments. It offers savings accounts, time and demand deposits, and checking accounts; various loan products, including personal, consumer, mortgage, unsecured, and car loans; overdrafts; loans with special facilities for project and working capital financing; and leasing, bank guarantees for tenants, salary advances, domestic and international factoring, international guarantees and letters of credit, payroll payment plans, credit cards, debit cards, and senior citizens benefit payment services, as well as financial services and investments, such as mutual funds and guarantees. The company also provides foreign trade and cash management; advisory services; treasury services; insurance products comprising personal accidents, protected bag, unemployment, total protection, and pets insurance policies; and asset management and other services, as well as operates as an online broker. As of December 31, 2021, it operates through a network of 298 access points, including 184 bank branches, 10 banking sales and collection centers, 79 points of sales, 20 Tarjeta Automatica branches, and 5 Mila branches, as well as 450 ATMs, 230 self-service terminals, and 298 ATMs with biometric identification. The company was formerly known as Inversiones y Participaciones S.A. and changed its name to Grupo Supervielle S.A. in November 2008. Grupo Supervielle S.A. was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
On Sept. 30, the Nebraska Repertory Theatre made its triumphant return.

Back after a three-year hiatus, the theater based at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln opened its 49th season with a new artistic director and a new mission.

Instead of staging a series of plays in repertory during the summer, the theater will present a season coinciding with the school year, from September to May, allowing many of UNLs undergraduate students opportunities to work with professionals onstage and backstage.

It hired Andrew Park, a stage director, playwright, lyricist and puppeteer from Chicago, as its artistic director. Park started at the first of 2017 and directed Abigail/1702, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasas sequel to Arthur Millers The Crucible.

The play is a part of the Reps Classics Reimagined theme, with a focus on telling familiar stories in a new way.

The Reps return proved to be the top performing arts story in Lincoln in 2017 in a year chock-full of significant stories. Heres a rundown of other performing arts newsmakers for the year:

Chiara String Quartet: After 18 years  13 in residence at UNL  the group will end performing full time together after the 2017-18 season to pursue other interests. Its final season includes an April 17 concert at the Lied Center for Performing Arts, premiering a Philip Glass piano quintet with UNL piano professor Paul Barnes.

Harris Smith: UNL (wisely) selected the longtime theater professor as the new director of the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film.

Megan Elliott: She began in January as the founding director of the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts. She previously was manager of leadership and community connections at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia.

Sitting Bulls Last Waltz: Lincoln native John Templin Schliesser created a punk-rock opera chronicling Sitting Bulls final years leading up to his death, which played to sold-out houses during its early March run at the Johnny Carson Theater.

Lincolns Symphony Orchestra: The orchestra, led by Barbara Zach (executive director) and Edward Polochick (music director), increased its operating budget to more than $1 million, which allowed it to attract such top-flight artists as Joshua Bell and Jane Lynch for the 2017-18 season.

George Hansen and Morris Collier: Arguably one of Lincolns finest actors, Hansen passed away in April at age 68. The local Equity actor performed in Nebraska Repertory Theatre, Flatwater Shakespeare and Haymarket Theatre productions. Collier, too, passed away in April at age 92. He was Lincoln's "Lord of the Strings," playing his violin professionally and sharing his love of music with thousands of students.

Janice Stauffer: The costume designer retired from UNL after 38 years. She did costumes and makeup for UNL and Nebraska Repertory Theatre productions and also designed costumes for several Flatwater Shakespeare Company plays.

Becky Boesen: The local playwright left Flatwater Shakespeare after one year as its artistic director to concentrate on arts education, playwriting and her new theater company, BLIXT.

Josh Hoyer: The musician became the second from Lincoln to compete on The Voice, NBCs popular competition show.

Anniversaries: There were a bunch of them, with Abendmusik (45 years), Plymouth Brass (40 years), Nebraska Brass (30 years), Nebraska Chamber Players (20 years), Keelan Family & Friends Christmas Concert (30 years), Mahoney melodramas (25 years) and Arts for the Soul (10 years) either enjoying or having enjoyed special years.

Tom Larson: The University of Nebraska-Lincoln music professor premiered Our Fathers at the Meadowlark Music Festival. The piece paid homage to the fathers of Larson, Meadowlark executive director Hans Sturm and musician Chris Varga, with Larson, Sturm and Varga collaborating and performing the work.

Kate Moore and Con OShea-Creal: The Lincoln actors performed in their home state with national touring shows: Moore at the Lied Center in Into the Woods and OShea-Creal at Omahas Orpheum Theater in Something Rotten.
Yext, Inc. organizes business facts to provide answers to consumer questions in North America and internationally. It operates Yext platform, a cloud-based platform that allows its customers to provide answers to consumer questions, to control the facts about their businesses and the content of their landing pages, and to manage their consumer reviews, as well as provides customers to update their information and content through its knowledge network of approximately 200 maps, apps, search engines, intelligent GPS systems, digital assistants, vertical directories, and social networks. The platform enables its customers to centralize, control and manage data fields, including store information, such as name, address, phone number and holiday hours; professional information, comprising of headshot, specialties, and education; job information, consisting of title and description; and FAQs and other information. It serves the healthcare, retail, and financial services industries. The company was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Credit Suisse Group AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides various financial services in Switzerland, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and Asia Pacific. The company offers wealth management solutions, including investment advice and discretionary asset management services; risk management solutions, such as managed investment products; and wealth planning, succession planning, and trust services. It also provides financing and lending solutions, including consumer credit and real estate mortgage lending, real asset lending relating to ship, and aviation financing for UHNWI; standard and structured hedging, and lombard lending solutions, as well as collateral trading services; and investment banking solutions, such as global securities sales, trading and execution, capital raising, and advisory services. In addition, the company offers banking solutions, such as payments, accounts, debit and credit cards, and product bundles; asset management products; equity and debt underwriting, and advisory services; cash equities, equity derivatives, and convertibles, as well as prime services; and fixed income products, such as credit, securitized, macro, emerging markets, financing, structured credit, and other products. Further, it provides HOLT, a framework for assessing the performance of approximately 20,000 companies; and equity and fixed income research services. The company serves private and institutional clients; ultra-high-net-worth individuals, high-net-worth individuals, and affluent and retail clients; corporate clients, small and medium-sized enterprises, external asset managers, financial institutions, and commodity traders; and pension funds, hedge funds, governments, foundations and endowments, corporations, entrepreneurs, private individuals, financial sponsors, and sovereign clients. As of December 31, 2021, it operated through a network of 311 offices and branches. The company was founded in 1856 and is based in Zurich, Switzerland.
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.

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A Lincoln state senator is calling for more oversight of Nebraska's child welfare system to address child sexual abuse of state wards and those adopted from foster care.

The Department of Health and Human Services responded quickly, balking at the idea of more legislative oversight, saying that already falls to the Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee.

HHS has already taken steps to address the sexual abuse issues, CEO Courtney Phillips said.

Sen. Kate Bolz said Friday she will request that a special oversight committee be formed by the Legislature. And she will ask for performance and financial audits of the child welfare system.

Inspector General Julie Rogers issued a report this week after a nearly yearlong investigation that showed 50 verified child and youth sexual abuse victims in a recent three-year period. That number could actually be higher, she said.

The investigation also discovered cases beyond the 50 reported to the child abuse hotline that were either screened out incorrectly, or not investigated properly and so not substantiated. For others, officials just couldn't gather the needed evidence.

The investigation also showed attitudes toward sexual abuse of youth in state care that concerned her and her staff, Rogers said, including "problematic attitudes" among system professionals and caregivers toward child sexual abuse and children in the state's care.

Among the 50 abused children and youth noted in the report, 27 were state wards and youth in residential placements and 23 were in adoptive or guardian homes. They ranged in age from 4 to 18 when abuse was disclosed.

Some children reported that the abuse had occurred in a foster home, in an adoptive home or when they were under state guardianship. Some were in the juvenile justice system or in a home licensed by the department or at a Youth Residential Treatment Center.

Bolz will formally request the audits during the first week the Legislature is in session, she said. The session begins Jan. 3. She will also introduce a legislative resolution to call for a special oversight committee.

"As a state senator and representative on the Childrens Commission, I believe it is essential that we move forward with increased oversight by the legislative branch to promote the safety and best interests of children in state care," Bolz said in a news release. "I call on my colleagues to join these efforts.

Bolz said Rogers' Dec. 27 report illustrates unacceptable performance of the child welfare system.

Coupled with the inspector generals Sept. 13 report outlining problems related to child welfare caseloads, workloads and workforce, and the recent request for significant additional investment in the child welfare system, Bolz said, it creates concern regarding its overall well-being.

Phillips said there was no need for another oversight committee. The department's response to Rogers' report acknowledged needed improvements and it has taken steps to implement recommended changes over the past few months, including underscoring zero tolerance for sexual abuse of state wards.

The department extended an offer to Chairman Merv Riepe and the HHS committee to brief them on the response, she said. She has directed the division of children and family services to issue an annual report on the sexual abuse cases identified, including new steps for identifying and preventing abuse.

"DHHS has been open to working with senators and will continue to collaborate with them to ensure our system protects the children in our care," she said.

Phillips said the department is also working with Gov. Pete Ricketts to review the division's operations, including its finances, the details of which will be unveiled in coming days.
The following companies are subsidiares of Brinker International: BI INTERNATIONAL SERVICES LLC, BI MEXICO HOLDING CORPORATION, BIPC GLOBAL PAYROLL COMPANY LLC, BIPC INVESTMENTS LLC, BIPC MANAGEMENT LLC, BRINKER AIRPORTS LLC, BRINKER ALABAMA INC., BRINKER ARKANSAS INC., BRINKER ASIA INC., BRINKER BRAZIL LLC, BRINKER CANADIAN HOLDING CO. ULC, BRINKER CANADIAN RESTAURANT CO. ULC, BRINKER CB LP, BRINKER CB MANAGEMENT LLC, BRINKER FHC B.V., BRINKER FLORIDA INC., BRINKER FREEHOLD INC., BRINKER GEORGIA INC., BRINKER INTERNATIONAL PAYROLL COMPANY L.P., BRINKER LOUISIANA INC., BRINKER MICHIGAN INC., BRINKER MISSISSIPPI INC., BRINKER MISSOURI INC., BRINKER NEVADA INC., BRINKER NEW JERSEY INC., BRINKER NORTH CAROLINA INC., BRINKER OF BALTIMORE COUNTY INC., BRINKER OF CARROLL COUNTY INC., BRINKER OF CECIL COUNTY INC., BRINKER OKLAHOMA INC., BRINKER OPCO LLC, BRINKER PENN TRUST, BRINKER PROPCO FLORIDA INC., BRINKER PROPERTY CORPORATION, BRINKER PURCHASING INC., BRINKER RESTAURANT CORPORATION, BRINKER RHODE ISLAND INC., BRINKER SERVICES CORPORATION, BRINKER SOUTH CAROLINA INC., BRINKER TEXAS INC., BRINKER VIRGINIA INC., CHILIS BEVERAGE COMPANY INC., CHILIS INC. a Delaware corporation, CHILIS INC. a Tennessee corporation, CHILIS INTERNATIONAL BASES B.V., CHILIS OF BEL AIR INC., CHILIS OF KANSAS INC., CHILIS OF MARYLAND INC., CHILIS OF WEST VIRGINIA INC., Grady's Inc., MAGGIANO'S OF ANNAPOLIS INC., MAGGIANO'S OF HOWARD COUNTY INC., MAGGIANO'S OF KANSAS INC., MAGGIANOS BEVERAGE COMPANY, MAGGIANOS HOLDING CORPORATION, MAGGIANOS INC., MAGGIANOS OF TYSONS INC., MAGGIANOS PROPERTY CORPORATION, MAGGIANOS TEXAS INC., PEPPER DINING HOLDING CORP., PEPPER DINING Inc., and PEPPER DINING VERMONT INC..

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Hilltop Holdings Inc. provides business and consumer banking, and financial products and services. It operates through three segments: Banking, Broker-Dealer, and Mortgage Origination. The Banking segment offers savings, checking, interest-bearing checking, and money market accounts; certificates of deposit; lines and letters of credit, home improvement and equity loans, loans for purchasing and carrying securities, equipment loans and leases, agricultural and commercial real estate loans, and other loans; and commercial and industrial loans, and term and construction finance. This segment also provides treasury management, wealth management, asset management, check cards, safe deposit boxes, online banking, bill pay, trust, and overdraft services; and estate planning, management and administration, investment portfolio management, employee benefit accounts, and individual retirement accounts, as well as automated teller machines. The Broker-Dealer segment offers public finance services that assist public entities in originating, syndicating, and distributing securities of municipalities and political subdivisions; specialized advisory and investment banking services; advice and guidance to arbitrage rebate compliance, portfolio management, and local government investment pool administration; structured finance services, which include advisory services for derivatives and commodities; sells, trades in, and underwrites U.S. government and government agency bonds, corporate bonds, and municipal bonds, as well as mortgage-backed, asset-backed, and commercial mortgage-backed securities and structured products. This segment also provides asset and liability management advisory, clearing, retail, and securities lending services. The Mortgage Origination segment offers mortgage, jumbo, Federal Housing Administration, Veterans Affairs, and United States Department of Agriculture loans. Hilltop Holdings Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
KAR Auction Services, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides used vehicle auctions and related vehicle remarketing services for the automotive industry in the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. The company operates through two segments, ADESA Auctions and AFC. The ADESA Auctions segment offers whole car auctions and related services to the vehicle remarketing industry through online auctions and auction facilities. It also provides value-added services, such as auction related, transportation, reconditioning, inspection, title and repossession administration and remarketing, vehicle research, and analytical services, as well as data as a service. This segment sells its products and services through vehicle manufacturers, fleet companies, rental car companies, finance companies, and others. As of December 31, 2021, this segment had a network of approximately 70 vehicle logistics center locations in North America. The AFC segment offers floorplan financing, a short-term inventory-secured financing to independent used vehicle dealers; and sells vehicle service contracts. The company provides wheel repair and hail catastrophe response services. It serves vehicle manufacturers, vehicle rental companies, financial institutions, commercial fleets and fleet management companies, and dealer customers. The company was formerly known as KAR Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to KAR Auction Services, Inc. in November 2009. KAR Auction Services, Inc. was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in Carmel, Indiana.
The following companies are subsidiares of Bristol-Myers Squibb: 1096271 B.C. ULC, 345 Park LLC, A.G. Medical Services P.A., AHI Investment LLC, AbVitro LLC, Abraxis BioScience Australia Pty Ltd., Abraxis BioScience Inc., Abraxis BioScience International Holding Company Inc., Abraxis BioScience LLC, Abraxis BioScience Puerto Rico LLC, Acetylon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Adnexus, Adnexus a Bristol-Myers Squibb R&D Company, Allard Labs Acquisition G.P., Amira Pharmaceuticals, Amira Pharmaceuticals Inc., Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Apothecon LLC, B-MS Generx Unlimited Company, BMS Benelux Holdings B.V., BMS Bermuda Nominees L.L.C., BMS Data Acquisition Company LLC, BMS Forex Company, BMS Holdings Sarl, BMS Holdings Spain S.L., BMS International Insurance Designated Activity Company, BMS Investco SAS, BMS Korea Holdings L.L.C., BMS Latin American Nominees L.L.C., BMS Luxembourg Partners L.L.C., BMS Omega Bermuda Holdings Finance Ltd., BMS Pharmaceutical Korea Limited, BMS Pharmaceuticals Germany Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals International Holdings Netherlands B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Korea Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Mexico Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Netherlands Holdings B.V., BMS Real Estate LLC, BMS Spain Investments LLC, BMS Strategic Portfolio Investments Holdings Inc., Blisa Acquisition G.P., Bristol (Iran) S.A., Bristol Iran Private Company Limited, Bristol Laboratories Inc., Bristol Laboratories International S.A., Bristol Laboratories Medical Information Systems Inc., Bristol-Myers (Andes) L.L.C., Bristol-Myers (Private) Limited, Bristol-Myers Middle East S.A.L., Bristol-Myers Overseas Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Israel) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (NZ) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Proprietary) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Taiwan) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (West Indies) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb A.E., Bristol-Myers Squibb Aktiebolag, Bristol-Myers Squibb Argentina S. R. L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Australia Pty. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Axia Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb B.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Belgium S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Business Services Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada International Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Delta Company Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Denmark Filial of Bristol-Myers Squibb AB, Bristol-Myers Squibb EMEA Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Egypt LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Epsilon Holdings Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Ltda., Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Portuguesa S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb GesmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb GmbH & Co. KGaA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holding Germany GmbH & Co. KG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings 2002 Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Ireland Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Pharma Ltd. Liability Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Ilaclari Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb India Pvt. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Company Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Investco L.L.C., Bristol-Myers Squibb K.K., Bristol-Myers Squibb Kft., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg International S.C.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb MEA GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Manufacturing Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Marketing Services S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Middle East & Africa FZ-LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Norway Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Nutricionales de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Peru S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (HK) Ltd, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (Thailand) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Holding Company LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Ventures Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Polska Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Products SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico/Sanofi Pharmaceutical Partnership Puerto Rico, Bristol-Myers Squibb Romania S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.A.U., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Holding Partnership, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Service Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Services Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Spol. s r.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Theta Finance Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Trustees Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Colombia S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Costa Rica Sociedad Anonima, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Guatemala S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb/Astrazeneca EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Pfizer EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Partnership, Bristol-Myers de Venezuela S.C.A., CHT I LLC, CHT II LLC, CHT III LLC, CHT IV LLC, CR Finance Company LLC, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals Inc., Celem LLC, Celem Ltd., Celgene, Celgene A.B., Celgene AS, Celgene Ab (Finland), Celgene Alpine Investment Co. II LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. III LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. LLC, Celgene ApS, Celgene B.V., Celgene BVBA, Celgene Brasil Produtos Farmaceuticos Ltda., Celgene CAR LLC, Celgene CAR Ltd., Celgene Chemicals Sarl, Celgene China Holdings LLC, Celgene Co., Celgene Corporation, Celgene Distribution B.V., Celgene EngMab GmbH, Celgene Europe B.V., Celgene Europe Limited, Celgene European Investment Company LLC, Celgene Financing Company LLC, Celgene Global Holdings Sarl, Celgene GmbH [Austria], Celgene GmbH [Germany], Celgene GmbH [Switzerland], Celgene Holdings East Corporation, Celgene Holdings II Sarl, Celgene Holdings III Sarl, Celgene Ilac Pazarlama ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Celgene Inc., Celgene International Holdings Corporation, Celgene International II Sarl, Celgene International III Sarl, Celgene International Inc., Celgene International Sarl, Celgene K.K., Celgene Kft., Celgene Limited [Hong Kong], Celgene Limited [Ireland], Celgene Limited [New Zealand], Celgene Limited [Taiwan], Celgene Limited [UK], Celgene Logistics Sarl, Celgene Ltd, Celgene Luxembourg Sarl, Celgene Management Sarl, Celgene NJ Investment Co, Celgene Netherlands B.V., Celgene Netherlands Investment B.V., Celgene Pharmaceutical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Celgene Pte. Ltd., Celgene Pty Ltd, Celgene Puerto Rico Distribution LLC, Celgene Quanticel Research Inc, Celgene R&D Sarl, Celgene RIVOT LLC, Celgene RIVOT Ltd., Celgene RIVOT SRL, Celgene Receptos Limited, Celgene Receptos Sarl, Celgene Research Incubator At Summit West LLC, Celgene Research S.L.U., Celgene Research and Development Company LLC, Celgene Research and Development I ULC, Celgene Research and Development II LLC, Celgene Research and Investment Company II LLC, Celgene S. de R.L. de C.V., Celgene S.L.U., Celgene S.R.L., Celgene SAS, Celgene Sarl AU, Celgene Sdn Bhd, Celgene Services Sarl, Celgene Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Celgene Sp. Z.o.o., Celgene Sro [Czech Republic], Celgene Summit Investment Co, Celgene Switzerland Holding Sarl, Celgene Switzerland II LLC, Celgene Switzerland Investment Sarl, Celgene Switzerland LLC, Celgene Switzerland Sarl, Celgene Tri A Holdings Ltd., Celgene Tri Sarl, Celgene UK Distribution Limited, Celgene UK Holdings Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing II Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing III Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing Limited, Celgene d.o.o., Celgene sro [Slovakia], Celmed LLC, Celmed Ltd., ConvaTec Divestiture, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals AB, Crosp Ltd., Delinia Inc., Deuteria Pharmaceuticals Inc., DuPont Pharmaceuticals, E. R. Squibb & Sons Inter-American Corporation, E. R. Squibb & Sons L.L.C., E. R. Squibb & Sons Limited, EWI Corporation, EngMab Sarl, F-star Alpha, FermaVir Pharmaceuticals L.L.C., FermaVir Research L.L.C., Flexus Biosciences, Flexus Biosciences Inc., Forbius, Galecto Biotech, GenPharm International L.L.C., Gloucester Pharmaceuticals LLC, Grove Insurance Company Ltd., Heyden Farmaceutica Portuguesa Limitada, IFM Therapeutics, Impact Biomedicines Inc., Inhibitex, Inhibitex L.L.C., Innate Tumor Immunity Inc., JuMP Holdings LLC, Juno Therapeutics GmbH, Juno Therapeutics Inc., Kosan Biosciences, Kosan Biosciences Incorporated, Linson Investments Limited, Mead Johnson (Manufacturing) Jamaica Limited, Mead Johnson Jamaica Ltd., Medarex, Morris Avenue Investment II LLC, Morris Avenue Investment LLC, MyoKardia, O.o.o. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Oy Bristol-Myers Squibb (Finland) AB, Padlock Therapeutics, Padlock Therapeutics Inc., Pharmion LLC, Princeton Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Receptos LLC, Receptos Services LLC, RedoxTherapies Inc., Route 22 Real Estate Holding Corporation, SPV A Holdings ULC, Seamair Insurance DAC, Signal Pharmaceuticals LLC, Sino-American Shanghai Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Societe Francaise de Complements Alimentaires(S.O.F.C.A.), Squibb Middle East S.A., Summit West Celgene LLC, Swords Laboratories, VentiRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Westwood-Intrafin SA, Westwood-Squibb Pharmaceuticals Inc., X-Body Inc., ZymoGenetics, ZymoGenetics Inc., ZymoGenetics LLC, ZymoGenetics Paymaster LLC, iPierian, and iPierian Inc..

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The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday denied the appeal of a man convicted of raping a woman out of rage, ruling his trial judge had the right to toss a juror from the proceedings.

Both of Jeffrey A. Huff's appeals focused on a juror referred in court documents as M.F., who was ultimately discharged from Huff's trial in Lancaster County District Court August 2015.

A woman testified that on July 26, 2014, she and Huff started arguing about a relationship he wanted with her and about a man's name on her phone.

Then, she said, he held her down and forced himself on her as she pleaded with him to stop.

Huff denied he had done it and said the two had consensual sex the night before.

After the prosecution and defense rested, court officials became concerned that juror M.F. hadn't been paying attention during the trial and had not taken any notes. This came after the juror had previously expressed concern about being able to be impartial because of his past.

Prosecutors asked the judge to discharge the juror because he lied about his criminal history on the juror questionnaire, stating he had never been convicted of certain crimes when, in fact, he had more than 30 undisclosed misdemeanor convictions.

The judge ultimately agreed, discharged the juror and denied Huff's motion for a mistrial over the ordeal.

With an alternate filling in, the jury found Huff guilty of first-degree sexual assault.

Huff first appealed his conviction and the issue to the Nebraska Court of Appeals, who affirmed the trial judge's decision.

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the judge was within his discretion to discharge the juror and did not abuse his discretion when denying the request for a mistrial.

Huff is serving 12 to 20 years in prison at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution, according to prison records. He will not be eligible for parole until 2021.
General Mills, Inc. manufactures and markets branded consumer foods worldwide. The company operates in five segments: North America Retail; Convenience Stores & Foodservice; Europe & Australia; Asia & Latin America; and Pet. It offers ready-to-eat cereals, refrigerated yogurt, soup, meal kits, refrigerated and frozen dough products, dessert and baking mixes, bakery flour, frozen pizza and pizza snacks, snack bars, fruit and salty snacks, ice cream, nutrition bars, wellness beverages, and savory and grain snacks, as well as various organic products, including frozen and shelf-stable vegetables. It also supplies branded and unbranded food products to the North American foodservice and commercial baking industries; and manufactures and markets pet food products, including dog and cat food. The company markets its products under the Annie's, Betty Crocker, Bisquick, Blue Buffalo, Blue Basics, Blue Freedom, Bugles, Cascadian Farm, Cheerios, Chex, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Cookie Crisp, EPIC, Fiber One, Food Should Taste Good, Fruit by the Foot, Fruit Gushers, Fruit Roll-Ups, Gardetto's, Go-Gurt, Gold Medal, Golden Grahams, Haagen-Dazs, Helpers, Jus-Rol, Kitano, Kix, Larabar, Latina, Liberte, Lucky Charms, Muir Glen, Nature Valley, Oatmeal Crisp, Old El Paso, Oui, Pillsbury, Progresso, Raisin Nut Bran, Total, Totino's, Trix, Wanchai Ferry, Wheaties, Wilderness, Yoki, and Yoplait trademarks. It sells its products directly, as well as through broker and distribution arrangements to grocery stores, mass merchandisers, membership stores, natural food chains, e-commerce retailers, commercial and noncommercial foodservice distributors and operators, restaurants, convenience stores, and pet specialty stores, as well as drug, dollar, and discount chains. The company operates 466 leased and 392 franchise ice cream parlors. General Mills, Inc. was founded in 1866 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Honda Motor Co., Ltd. develops, manufactures, and distributes motorcycles, automobiles, power products, and other products in Japan, North America, Europe, Asia, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Motorcycle Business, Automobile Business, Financial Services Business, and Life Creation and Other Businesses. The Motorcycle Business segment produces motorcycles, including sports, business, and commuter models; and various off-road vehicles, such as all-terrain vehicles and side-by-sides. The Automobile Business segment offers passenger cars, light trucks, and mini vehicles. The Financial Services Business segment provides various financial services, including retail lending and leasing services to customers, as well as wholesale financing services to dealers. The Life Creation and Other Businesses segment manufactures and sells power products, such as general purpose engines, generators, water pumps, lawn mowers, riding mowers, robotic mowers, brush cutters, tillers, snow blowers, outboard marine engines, walking assist devices, and portable battery inverter power sources. This segment also offers HondaJet aircraft. The company also sells spare parts; and provides after-sale services through retail dealers directly, as well as through independent distributors and licensees. Honda Motor Co., Ltd. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
PNM Resources, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides electricity and electric services in the United States. It operates through Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) and Texas-New Mexico Power Company (TNMP) segments. The PNM segment engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. The segment generates electricity using coal, natural gas and oil, nuclear fuel, solar, wind, and geothermal energy sources. As of December 31, 2021, this segment had owned or leased facilities with a total net generation capacity of 2,168 megawatts; and owned 3,426 miles of electric transmission lines, 5,751 miles of distribution overhead lines, 5,765 miles of underground distribution lines, and 250 substations. The segment also owns and leases communication, office and other equipment, office space, vehicles, and real estate. The TNMP segment provides regulated transmission and distribution services. As of December 31, 2021, the segment owned 983 miles of overhead electric transmission lines, 7,297 miles of overhead distribution lines, 1,408 miles of underground distribution lines, and 113 substations. The segment also owns and leases vehicles, service facilities, and office locations throughout its service territory. The company serves approximately 806,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers and end-users of electricity in New Mexico and Texas. PNM Resources, Inc. was incorporated in 1882 and is headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Gail Folda couldn't shake the feeling that bad luck is stalking her this year.

On Sept. 22, the day before her 65th birthday, fire gutted her central Lincoln home and left her with burns that required months of painful care and rehab.

Early Wednesday, another fire destroyed the business where many of her treasured antiques, jewelry, artwork and photo negatives were being restored.

"I kind of feel like Typhoid Mary, Folda said.

The fire at Paul Davis Restoration, 3641 S. Sixth St., caused about $3.5 million damage to the building and its contents, fire officials said.

Lincoln Fire and Rescue crews arrived at 5:15 a.m. to find flames engulfing the Florida-based company's Lincoln location. So much of the building was already consumed that firefighters had no choice but to attack the blaze from outside, said Battalion Chief Jeremy Gegg.

Fire investigator Rick Campos and several private investigators believe the fire was accidental and may have originated with a vehicle stored inside the building.

#LFR on scene of a 2nd alarm fire.

What remained of the structure continued to smolder hours later.

The building was most recently valued at $544,000.

A local spokeswoman for Paul Davis Restoration didn't respond to a request for comment.

It was the first of two significant early-morning fires that stretched Lincoln Fire and Rescue's resources across the city and pitted them against subzero temperatures.

Five minutes after firefighters arrived at Paul Davis Restoration, other crews were called to a house fire in northeast Lincoln that sent nine people to a hospital. None had life-threatening injuries, Gegg said.

Thirteen people were inside the house at 3330 N. 67th St. when the fire started in the basement, eventually spreading throughout the home, said fire investigator Ken Hilger.

He said he believes it started accidentally, but was still pinning down the exact cause late Wednesday.

That fire caused at least $100,000 damage to the house, plus $75,000 damage to its contents, Hilger said.

As the dueling blazes raged, the Nebraska Air National Guard sent an air truck to aid crews at the Paul Davis Restoration fire, Southwest Rural Fire District volunteers provided backup elsewhere in the city, and an off-duty Lincoln Fire and Rescue crew was called in to staff a reserve fire rig, Gegg said. The simultaneous two-alarm fires even forced the Red Cross chapter in Lincoln to get help from its Omaha counterpart.

The cold caused radio problems for firefighters, who also put new ice cleats on their boots to avoid slipping, Gegg said.

An out-of-service StarTran bus kept crews warm at the Paul Davis Restoration site, and kind onlookers brought coffee and food to crews there.

For Folda, the likelihood that she lost items she'd hoped to salvage from her burned home felt like "small potatoes" compared with the bigger picture, she said: A business was destroyed, and her own life had recently been saved with help from caring neighbors and talented medical staff.

And this fire may be a sign that she should loosen her attachment to material possessions, she said.

Folda finished her stay at a rehabilitation center earlier this month, after an earlier hospital stay. For now, she's calling a Lincoln hotel home.

"Im sleeping with one eye open tonight, she said.
Beginning Tuesday, the Jamaica North Trail between Old Cheney Road and South 14th Street will close for two weeks for drainage culvert repairs.

Wilderness Park trails will not be affected by the project, the city said in a news release. There is no posted detour for the closed stretch of the Jamaica North Trail.
OMAHA  A woman in a wheelchair who was forced off snowy sidewalks into a busy Omaha thoroughfare eventually received a showy escort: a firetruck.

Firefighters driving back to their station after a call Tuesday night noticed the woman headed down a street as cars zipped past. The crew watched her almost get hit by a truck and try to get back on a sidewalk that was blocked by snow and construction items.

Fire Capt. Mike Henrich said it was cold out, "but the most important thing is, it was dark." The wind child that night: minus 18 degrees.

The firefighters soon flipped on their lights and followed the woman until she reached her destination. She gave them a thumbs-up as they departed.
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ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD. The film about the 1973 kidnapping of the grandson of billionaire oil tycoon John Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer), is, for better and worse, every bit a Ridley Scott production: a solidly built, no-nonsense drama, largely without surprise. R. (Edgewood, Grand) Grade: C+

COCO. "Coco" is a thrilling and joyous vision, a celebration of life and the loving tradition of the Day of the Dead. PG. (Grand) Grade: A

DARKEST HOUR. Gary Oldman delivers an Oscar-bound performance as Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1940 in an entertaining film that burrows into the dealings of the British war cabinet. PG-13. (Grand) Grade: B

THE DISASTER ARTIST. James Franco's movie about the making of what may be the worst movie ever is in fact, very good and very funny. R. (Grand) Grade: B+

DOWNSIZING. This tale of an Omaha occupational therapist who is shrunk to 5 inches tall is a thought-provoking sci-fi satire from director/co-writer Alexander Payne. R. (East Park, Edgewood, Grand, SouthPointe) Grade: B+

FATHER FIGURES. This listless, low-energy and profoundly unentertaining "movie" is more accurately described as a nearly two-hour borderline hostage situation, with torture involving bad, offensive and unfunny comedy. R. (East Park, Edgewood, Grand) Grade: F

FERDINAND. With a lovely voice performance from John Cena, the spirit of Ferdinand the bull shines through, but the rest of the story filler is mostly forgettable. PG. (Edgewood, Grand, SouthPointe) Grade: C

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN. This wild and wacky musical biopic of circus impresario P.T. Barnum is a profoundly confused and muddled film, with a story thats at once too thin and too busy. PG. (East Park, Grand). Grade: D+

JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE. This re-imagining of the Robin Williams movie feels like a John Hughes movie dropped into an Indiana Jones films that, thanks to its actors, works. PG-13. (East Park, Grand, SouthPointe). Grade: C+

PITCH PERFECT 3. Pitch Perfect 3 jettisons the body humor for action-adventure, and leans so far into the weird that its very, very strange, yet sometimes amusing. At least the musics fun. PG-13. (East Park, Edgewood, Grand, SouthPointe). Grade: C+

STAR WARS: The LAST JEDI. Though there are countless familiar broad strokes  rebel escapes, Jedi soul-searching, daddy issues  "The Last Jedi" has discovered some new moves in the galaxy far, far away. PG-13. (East Park, Grand, SouthPointe in 3-D and 2-D; Edgewood in 2-D) Grade: B

WONDER. The film about a boy overcoming a physical setback likely will make you cry, but you wont feel manipulated into doing so  those tears are rightfully earned. PG. (SouthPointe) Grade: B

NOTE: Theaters are for Friday only and are subject to change the other days of the week.
RACINE  The long saga of Machinery Row, the would-be redevelopment of two early J.I. Case Co. buildings in Downtown, ground to a halt in late 2017 with a different outcome planned for 2018: demolition.

Machinery Row is the name of a plan announced in mid-2014 by Davenport, Iowa-based Rodney Blackwell of Financial District Properties to redevelop the two massive former Case buildings that date back to the early 1900s, at 820 and 900 Water St. Blackwell had planned to convert them into housing and commercial uses and work with the city to turn the waterfront there into a public thoroughfare.

The FDP plan depended upon a hefty dose of historic preservation tax credits, and at one point Blackwell was approved for $9 million in such credits.

His progress was impeded by enormous quantities of merchandise being stored inside 900 Water St., a carryover from a tenant of the buildings prior owner, Rick Olson.

At one point, Blackwell paid to have an entire section of that building, its north end, torn off. Part of the reason was to leave more room north of the building for the public riverfront promenade that is planned, along with rehab of the riverfront through Machinery Row.

Blackwell eventually abandoned plans to redevelop the Case buildings. After his company, FDP, defaulted last December on a $4.5 million city loan it had used to buy the properties, Gorman of Oregon, Wis., stepped in with interest in the site.

Redevelopment idea dies

Gorman was considering picking up the redevelopment project. But then, during the state budget process, Gov. Scott Walker used his veto pen to strike a zero. That slashed the maximum in historic preservation tax credits possible for any single project from $5 million, as put into the budget bill by the Legislature, to $500,000.

Without the crucial tax credits that could have made redevelopment feasible, Gorman dropped the idea of redeveloping the buildings. However, Gormans Wisconsin president, Ted Matkom, has voiced strong interest in doing a project at Machinery Row  but said it might require razing the old Case buildings.

That is now the citys plan: demolition of the two old Case buildings and assorted outbuildings between Water Street and the river. Along with those, the city plans to have the former Case Plow Works building at 615 Marquette St. and a sprawling former industrial building at 526 Marquette St. razed also.

That entire area is now being called the Water Street Redevelopment and will create 27 acres of clear land for development; the demolition plan, at an expected total cost of $6.47 million, is to be undertaken in 2018.

The public riverfront promenade is also proposed to be constructed in 2018, at a cost of $2.3 million, and the seawall rebuilt at a cost of about $1 million, including planning and engineering.

City staff have said they expect the investments will generate new property taxes, additional customers for utility services, a more walkable urban environment and additional jobs.
Lawsuit against TCS was filed in 2015 by an American worker, who had alleged that TCS favoured workers of South Asian origin in US.

New Delhi: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Thursday said it will "vigorously" defend its position at the trial in the US, where it faces allegations of discrimination in practices related to termination of employees.

The lawsuit against TCS was filed in 2015 by an American worker, who had alleged that TCS favoured workers of South Asian origin in the US.

The District Court in California has denied class certification on the litigation against TCS alleging a pattern and practice of discrimination in hiring against people of non-South Asian origin.

It has, however, granted class certification in respect to allegations of discrimination in practices related to termination of employees. This part of the litigation will move to the next phase of trial.

"TCS will vigorously defend its position and expects positive outcome," a TCS spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that TCS is an equal opportunity employer operating in over 50 countries including the US.

"TCS counts amongst its employees, nationals from over 100 countries. There are no discriminatory practices in any part of the company and TCS is confident that it will be able to defend its position at the trial," the spokesperson said.
The police has also gained an upper hand by roping in members from other Naxalite outfits. (Photo: File)

Hyderabad: The Maoist movement in the country and in the state in particular received a setback in the last five months of the year as high-ranking leaders and cadres surrendered before the state police. The climax was the much-acclaimed surrender of Jampanna alias Rajesh, a central committee member, this month.

The state government, through the police, is doling out a lucrative package to woo Maoists. At times, feelers are sent to family members and friends to persuade their Maoist kin to give a second thought. As a result, the police has got information that more rebels are willing to severe ties with the party, which previously attracted many a youth.

TS DGP M. Mahendar Reddy said that about 135 cadres from the state were associated with the Maoists. Of the 19 central committee members, 10 are from TS, two from AP and the rest from Jharkhand and Maharashtra.

Under the rehabilitation package, Maoists who join the mainstream are entitled for a housing site and other financial aid. Less surprisingly, they also can take home the reward money which is declared for their capture.

The police has adopted a go-slow attitude on the cases registered against some of the Maoist members who are waiting on the wings to give up the armed struggle.

The police, after identifying the fence-sitters, gets in touch with them through mediators. The Special Intelligence Bureau co-ordinates this with the local police. After identifying a particular leader or a cadre, mediators are sent to convince them to surrender, said a police official in the intelligence department.

There has been no exchange of fire between the police and the Maoists in the state in the past few years. Maoist activities are limited to a few villages. In isolated cases, the Maoists have made their presence felt. In November, a 29-year-old man was accused of being a police informed and shot dead in Charla Mandal of Bhadradri Kothagudem.

The police has also gained an upper hand by roping in members from other Naxalite outfits. The focus on splinter groups has resulted in the encounter killing of eight members of the CPI(ML) Chandra Pulla Reddy (Bata) dalam in Khammam district. The police has arrested members of the Janasakthi, Praja Pratighatana and the Chandra Pulla Reddy factions. A new anti-Maoist battalion is getting ready to take on the extremists. The police is expecting more surrenders next year including those of a few senior Maoist leaders.
Lambasting Pakistan for the treatment offered to Jadhav's kin in Islamabad, Sushma Swaraj said Pakistan had used the emotional reunion of a 'mother with her son and a wife with her husband' after 22 months as a propaganda tool. (Photo: AP)

Mumbai: Hours after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her ministry criticised the inhumane treatment given to Kulbhushan Jadhav's wife and mother, Pakistan on Thursday called the meeting of the former naval officer with his kin in Islamabad on Monday a "success despite all impediments".

We categorically reject all Indian allegations. It needs to be acknowledged that the purpose of the visit was to have a meeting of Commander Jadhav with his wife and mother, which was successfully achieved despite all impediments. It was permitted on humanitarian grounds, in line with Islamic teachings and traditions of compassion and grace, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif said.

Lambasting Pakistan for the treatment offered to Jadhav's kin in Islamabad, Sushma said Pakistan had used the emotional reunion of a "mother with her son and a wife with her husband" after 22 months as a propaganda tool.

"We condemn such shameful behaviour by Pakistan and will not take it silently. We will expose Pakistan's utterly disgusting behaviour," She said.

Pakistan's ministry of foreign affairs responded to it saying, "Indian allegations coming 24 hours after the visit are baseless, counterproductive and regrettable."

"It is essential to note that the humanitarian gesture does not obviate the fact that this was not an ordinary meeting between a mother and wife with their son and husband. The reality remains that Commander Jadhav is a convicted Indian terrorist and spy responsible for multiple deaths and destruction in Pakistan," claimed Islamabad in a statement.

Patting its own back for giving ten extra minutes to Jadhav to meet his mother and wife Pakistan Foreign Minister said, "The meeting initially scheduled for 30 minutes was extended to 40 minutes on their request."

Sushma told Parliament on Thursday that Kulbhushan Jadhav was forced to see his mother and wife in the form of "widows" as their mangalsutra, bindi and bangles -- symbols of marriage -- were taken away.

In the name of security, she said, Jadhav's mother and wife Chetankul were forced to change and wear salwar kameez.

"There was neither humanity nor goodwill in the meeting. Pakistan should be condemned in the strongest words," Sushma said.

Calling Jadhav "a spy and a terrorist", Khwaja Asif said: Commander Jadhav is a spy and a terrorist. The meeting was not allowed to be conducted in Marathi due to security reasons. There is nothing sinister in that. The mother was allowed to say a short prayer in Hindi/Marathi. They spoke comfortably in English for about 40 minutes which is duly recorded (again India was pre-informed that the meeting would be recorded).

Responding to Pakistan media being allowed to come near Avaniti and Chetankul, Khawaja Asif said that "no specific distance was agreed to".

Indian media is driving its policy. Unlike India, media in Pakistan is not under any restrictions or gag orders. Pakistan has been totally open and transparent throughout the meeting, offered in good faith. We should focus on the bigger positive outcome and not get bogged down in details or distortion of facts, Asif said.

Sushma on Thursday also described as "absurdity beyond measure" Pakistan's allegations on Chetankul Jadhav's shoes, which were taken away and never returned.

"We were right in suspecting mischief... they keep saying there was a camera or chip or recorder in the shoes. The same shoes passed checks by two airlines -- Air India and Emirates. As they enter Pakistan, they have chips?"

Asif said, Many routine airport security checks for ordinary people entail removal of crosses and veils. Trying to distort an agreed security check and attempting to portray it as a deliberate religious/cultural disrespect denotes bad faith and is regrettable.
Chennai: Cooperation minister Sellur K. Raju is clear his AIADMK party should not cooperate with the BJP, ever. The party lost the recent RK Nagar bypoll badly only because of public anger at its closeness with the communal BJP whereas TTV Dhinakaran scored his handsome win by attacking the saffron party and getting the minority votes, Raju told an AIADMK workers meet at Madurai late Wednesday.

Amma (Jayalalithaa) had always been clear in her mind that we should never have alliance with the communal BJP even as she continued to enjoy close rapport with Narendra Modi. And so, we must never have alliance with the BJP. Let us function independently and not entertain any alliance in future, said Raju.

TTV Dhinakaran became a hero only because he opposed the BJP. People were already angry with the BJP due to the GST and many other factors. Taking advantage of this, Dhinakaran in his RK Nagar campaign had fiercely attacking the BJP, which earned him huge support, particularly the minorities, minister Raju said.

While Raju was so vociferous in his condemnation of the BJP as a communal party and swearing that the AIADMK would never have any truck with it, his colleague Rajenthra Bhalaji said exactly the opposite. Theres every possibility of our party aligning with the BJP, the dairy development minister said at his Sivakasi constituency on Thursday when reporters sought his response to Sellur Rajus attack on the BJP.

Elaborating, Bhalaji told Deccan Chronicle that there was nothing wrong in having alliance with the BJP since both the DMK and the AIADMK have had alliance with the BJP in the past. Besides, the BJP was now ruling 19 states across the country, so there was nothing wrong having alliance with that party, Bhalaji said, adding that the party high command would take an appropriate decision at the right time.

Asked if minister Sellur Raju had the party approval before ruling out future alliance with the BJP, former minister K.P. Munusamy said the contradictory statements made by Raju and Bhalaji are an internal matter of the AIADMK and the media need not poke its nose.
Bengaluru: Disturbed by the controversial statements of Union Minister of State for Skill Development, Anant Kumar Hegde at various public meetings in Karnataka in recent weeks, the state BJP has reportedly appealed to the partys central leadership to restrain him from making such speeches any more, warning that he could cost the party the Dalit vote in the coming assembly polls otherwise.

The issue is said to have come up at the partys core committee meeting held at the home of state party chief, B.S. Yeddyurappa on Tuesday. Several senior leaders were said to be upset with Mr Hegdes remarks on secularism and rewriting the Constitution, which were making the scheduled caste and tribes and other backward classes anxious.

Sources revealed that Mr. Yeddyurappa complained to Union Human Resources Development Minister, Prakash Javadekar and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, who are in charge of preparing the party for the coming elections in Karnataka, that the time and energy of other party leaders was being wasted in giving clarifications to Mr Hegdes statements.

Drawing attention particularly to the Ministers remark that the BJP had come to power at the Centre to change the Constitution, he said this had disturbed several sections of people, especially the scheduled caste and tribes and other backward classes and could cost the party the Dalit vote.

BJP leader, D.S. Veeraiah is said to have appealed to Union Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda and senior party Jagadish Shettar, to stop Mr. Hegde from hurting the sentiments of Dalits and OBCs by talking about the Constitution in this manner. Later, speaking to Deccan Chronicle Mr Veeraiah said that when Mr Yeddyurappa was trying to reach out to Dalits by having breakfast with them in their homes and inviting them to his house, the Union Ministers comments were ruining things for the party.

When the Prime Minister has decided to honour Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the countrys Constitution, by developing the five places he spent time in as Panchteerth, Mr. Hegdes statement is embarassing the party, he deplored.
Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday said that he had no plans to enter national politics.

Addressing a public meeting in Kokapet on the citys outskirts after laying the foundation for Golla, Kuruma Bhavans, he said, When I met Union home minister Rajnath Singh a few days ago in Delhi, he asked me if I was interested in joining national politics.

I replied I had no such plans and I am happy with serving Telangana state for my lifetime, Mr Rao said he told Mr Singh. I will confine myself to Telangana forever.

KCR: Rajnath elated with our scheme

He said Union minister Rajnath Singh had inquired about the Rs 8,000 per acre per year financial assistance scheme to farmers announced by the state government.

He asked how farmers would repay the amount. I told him there is no need to repay and its all free. He looked surprised for a moment, then app-reciated me and said Telang-ana state is racing ahead in development, he said.

Mr Rao said the Golla, Kuruma Bhavans will serve as multipurpose centres for these communities in the city.
RACINE COUNTY  In January and February, about five dozen We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service Corp. employees will be helping Puerto Rico with its recovery from Hurricane Marias devastation.

Both Wisconsin utilities are among 18 that will begin helping in mid-January, We Energies spokesman Barry McNulty said Thursday. They will replace other utilities that have been helping the island, a U.S. territory, rebuild its electrical infrastructure.

We Energies has helped with several other such rebuilding efforts following hurricanes, McNulty said. Utilities have a mutual assistance program and can request help when they need it, he explained. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority made that request.

McNulty said this will be the first time the utility will be helping outside the continental United States.

Hurricane Maria made a direct hit on Puerto Rico Sept. 20, and an estimated 3.5 million Puerto Ricans were left in the dark. Approximately 50 percent of the island still lacks electricity.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is coordinating U.S. assistance in the rebuilding of Puerto Ricos electrical power system, McNulty said.

We Energies is supplying 38 workers, he said: mostly electrical line workers; also some safety personnel and a few managers. Wisconsin Public Service Corp., which supplies power to more northern parts of the state, will send about 23 people.

Complex logistics

Its a huge logistical undertaking, McNulty said.

We Energies first sent the trucks and equipment that will be needed; that equipment was loaded on flatbed trucks here and was to arrive at a port in Jacksonville, Fla., Wednesday and Thursday. It is being placed on a barge that will take it all to Puerto Rico ahead of the personnel.

Those who will go will get various briefings along the way, McNulty said. Everyone has a different system, he said.

We Energies personnel were chosen for the mission based on willingness to go and experience in similar situations, McNulty said. They anticipate flying out of Wisconsin Jan. 10 or 11 with the goal of arriving and being ready to work by mid-January. Their commitment is an expected four to six weeks, but it could be longer, he said.

The utility has been told that workers will stay in a San Juan hotel, but things could change, McNulty said. Some could possibly stay in apartments or FEMA tents or trailers such as a construction site would have.

Workers will be paid initially by the utilities, McNulty said. However, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority is ultimately paying them, and FEMA will coordinate the utilities reimbursement so ratepayers are not footing the bill.
Kenneth Branagh Wants To Lock Horns With Bond
The Censor Board of Film Certification in India is creating history by involving historians and royals to make a judgment on the fate of Sanjay Leela Bhansalis Padmavati.

If the recent reports are to be believed, a six-member panel has been appointed to review the case of Padmavati next month. CBFC has brought in two historians namely: B L Gupta and R S Khangarot. They will view the movie along with two more members and decide whether the film distorts history or not. Despite repeated press releases and statements by the cast and crew of Padmavati that theyve not tampered with history and theres no scene between Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone (Khilji and Padmavati), CBFC and Karni Sena havent been convinced enough to let the film enjoy a smooth release.





Eminent film critic Raja Sen expressed his views on Twitter, calling CBFC - Cowardly Board of Fickle Chickens. Whats extremely preposterous about this decision regarding the certification of Padmavati, is the fact that this panel also consists of royal family members from Jaipur. This is the first time in the history of Indian cinema that outsiders who are not a part of CBFC are getting to take a landmark decision on a filmmakers magnum opus, only out of shockingly violent protests and threats from Karni Sena. It almost seems like CBFC is making a mockery out of freedom of speech and expression, the personal security of artists and giving the reigns of a task to outsiders in the name of destructive elements who are posing threats to the release of a film. There was even a bounty of 10 cr announced on beheading Sanjay Leela Bhansali and maiming Deepikas nose.

Read more: Delay in Padmavati causes 200 Cr loss for Bollywood

Padmavati controversy and its certification are becoming a curious case of overstretched and wrongly debated film of all time. Although it is not the first time when a religious or social group is objecting to a historic movie. Back in 2010, director Ashutosh Gowarikers Jodha Akbar was in trouble due to protests by Akhil Bharatiya Rajput Abhivakta Sangh president Arvind Thakur, Punjab Vishwa Hindu Parishad spokesman Vijay Singh Bhardwaj and International Hindu Sanrakshak Parishad General Secretary Shiv Murti Yadav. According to a report in TOI, The complaint alleged the film sought to promote enmity between different classes and contained words with the intent of hurting religious feelings. But, this happened around the release of the film, and the film did enjoy a smooth release despite protests by Rajput and Hindu groups. The CBFC didnt include any outside member panel to review the fate of the movie.

In a desperate attempt to calm down the protests, eminent broadcast journalists from reputed TV news channels were made to watch Padmavati by the makers and they also clarified that the movie doesnt show any relationship or scene between Alauddin Khilji and Rani Padmavati. That did no good to the naysayers and protests continued.

There were probable disruptions around the release of Hrithik Roshan starer Mohenjo Daro about the facts and representation of the civilization in the movie, but it enjoyed a smooth release without any cuts from the CBFC.





The biggest paradox in the entire process of protests and delay in the release of Padmavati is a simple fact that CBFC and the protestors are wasting time on a movie which is actually based on a fictional character. Rani Padmini was a fictional character in the epic fictionalized poem written by Malik Muhammad Jayasi in 1540 CE. Padmavati never existed in real life. So unless CBFC really fell in love with Phillauri and has started believing in ghosts, we failed filmmaking and wasted months in fighting over someone who never existed in the first place.
Rajinikanth Recalls About His Visit To Madurai Meenakshi Temple
Apple will also be issuing an iOS software update to give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone's battery.

Apple deliberately slowing down iPhones and admitting to the practice was perhaps the most shocking revelation this year for the tech community as well as iPhone users worldwide. The Cupertino-based tech giant, and one of the worlds most valuable brands, Apple is already facing multiple lawsuits for slowing down older iPhones citing degrading battery issues. The practice ensured customers would upgrade to newer iPhone models.

Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. Weve now extended that feature to Iphone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future, Apple told Reuters in a statement admitting to throttling speeds on iPhones.

Now, Apple has issued a fresh formal apology to its customers while still defending its practice of throttling iPhone speeds through software updates. We've been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize, the company wrote on its website.

Apple goes on to offer an explanation how lithium ion batteries chemically age due to multiple recharge cycles and device use, causing the to become less capable of delivering peak energy loads, especially in a low state of charge, which may result in a device unexpectedly shutting itself down in some situations.

It should go without saying that we think sudden, unexpected shutdowns are unacceptable. We don't want any of our users to lose a call, miss taking a picture or have any other part of their iPhone experience interrupted if we can avoid it, wrote the company.

Apples way of solving the issue is to offer cheaper battery replacements for all those with an iPhone 6 or later. Apple will reduce the price of a replacement iPhone battery from $79 (Rs 5,054 approx) to $29 (Rs 1,855 approx) starting January 2018. The cheaper iPhone battery replacement will be offered to customers worldwide and Apple has promised to provide details on its website soon.

Apple will also be issuing an iOS update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone's battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance.

According to Apples official battery guide, users can identify throttled speeds by looking for the following signs -

Longer app launch times

Lower frame rates while scrolling

Backlight dimming (which can be overridden in Control Center)

Lower speaker volume by up to -3dB

Gradual frame rate reductions in some apps

During the most extreme cases, the camera flash will be disabled as visible in the camera UI

Apps refreshing in background may require reloading upon launch

The areas that are not affected by Apples Power Management practices are listed as follows by the company -
AIM-listed technology group Windar Photonics said on Friday that John P. Weston has stepped down from the position of chairman with immediate effect, as it announced that it has received an order for 5 WindVision LiDAR systems from an existing Chinese distribution partner for delivery as soon as possible.

Weston will be succeeded by current board member Johan Blach Petersen, who will take up the position of interim chairman of the board with immediate effect.

As far the order is concerned, the company said the end customers are two wind turbine original equipment manufacturer utilising the WindVision LiDAR systems for general turbine optimisation purposes for new turbine designs. In general the integration of the LiDAR systems enables the wind turbine to optimise the annually generated power while reducing the general turbine load whereby the life span of the wind turbine can be enhanced.

Chief executive Jrgen Korsgaard said: "Windar has enjoyed a very strong order intake during the final part of 2017 ensuring a strong order backlog going into the new year. Even though this new order in itself is still minor, it underlines the ever-increasing interest in our product range from wind turbine OEMs not least supported by our new features like wake and turbulence detection and still at a very attractive price point. Here at the end of the year I am very pleased to see our ongoing OEM projects for integration on new turbines designs at a record high level creating the foundation for a future strong growth.

I am also pleased to confirm that the initial 50 WindEye LiDAR Systems, from the order of 300 announced on 4 December 2017 have all been shipped to our client in China. I would like to thank all of our staff for their superb effort in making this happen on time."

At 0925 GMT, the shares were up 16% to 99.50p.
Britain is set to have the worst wage growth of any wealthy nation next year, ranking behind Italy, Greece and Hungary, according to analysis by the TUC. The UK is forecast to come bottom from 32 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development wealthy nations for wage performance in 2018, according to the study of OECD figures by the unions umbrella group. - Guardian

British businesses are already suffering from a lack of workers as EU staff quit their jobs and leave the country, and continental sources of labour dry up. Hotels and hospitality firms fear they may have to close as a result, while engineering and manufacturing companies are considering moving overseas to find the staff they need - harming British workers in the process. - Telegraph

The A380 superjumbo could be running out of runway after reports that Airbus will end production of the worlds largest commercial aircraft if it does not receive a new order from Emirates. Airbus did not deny reports last night that it was drawing up plans to phase out production of the A380. - The Times

British companies need unity, clarity and certainty from politicians rather than the constantly changing policies of the past year if business is to thrive in 2018, according to the CBI. In a year-end letter to members which also set out priorities for the the next 12 months, Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the business lobby group called for an end to the near-total focus on Brexit after what she described as a jaw-dropping, roller-coaster year. - Telegraph

Britains biggest oil and gas pipeline should resume normal flows around the new year, its operator said yesterday. Ineos previously had expected the Forties pipeline, which was shut on December 11 because of a crack, to resume normal operations early next month. - The Times

Passengers lost at least 3.6m hours due to significantly delayed trains in 2016-17, according to research. Delays of at least half an hour affected 7.2m passenger journeys in Britain, the consumer group Which? said, with Virgin Trains East Coast having the highest proportion of significant delays, followed by Virgin Trains West Coast and CrossCountry. - Guardian

Small shareholders in Royal Bank of Scotland have mounted a fresh bid to overhaul the state-backed banks governance processes to give themselves more of a say in how it is run. ShareSoc, a not-for-profit group that represents retail investors, claimed 100 RBS shareholders had backed its call for RBS to create a shareholder committee and that it would be pressing for a vote on the matter at its AGM in May. - Telegraph

A scheme to make pubs and bars pay towards policing the night-time economy raised less than 4 million in five years. Eight licensing authorities have brought in a late night levy, according to figures from the Home Office, despite its estimate that more than ten times that number would seek to impose one. - The Times

France will demand that Britain pays for new customs infrastructure at its ports after Brexit, it emerged today. President Macron is expected to demand that the government shares the cost of building new posts at Calais, Dunkirk and other ports when he meets Theresa May next month. - The Times

Thomas Cook will launch a bank in Britain next year in a partnership with one of Europes largest digital lenders and with the aim of slashing the cost of paying for items in foreign currencies. The travel company is joining forces with Ferratum, a Finnish lender that already has a mobile bank in five European countries. - The Times

Britains homes could be lit and powered by windfarms surrounding an artificial island deep out in the North Sea, under advanced plans by a Dutch energy network. The radical proposal envisages an island being built to act as a hub for vast offshore windfarms that would eclipse todays facilities in scale. Dogger Bank, 125km (78 miles) off the East Yorkshire coast, has been identified as a potentially windy and shallow site. - Guardian

SoftBank has bought a major stake in Uber at a steep 30pc discount, after a chaotic year in which the ride-hailing firm faced a string of scandals, saw its chief executive resign and was hit with UK city bans. According to a source familiar with the deal, Uber's shareholders have agreed to sell more than a 14pc stake to an investor group led by SoftBank, crossing the threshold needed for the deal to complete. - Telegraph

Apple will cut the price of replacement iPhone batteries by two-thirds as it confronts a backlash after admitting that it slows down old handsets. Faced with legal claims of hundreds of billions of dollars, the company issued a lengthy apology yesterday. - The Times

Ratings agency Moodys has downgraded embattled South African retailer Steinhoff International over concerns about its looming debt pile and its liquidity. Moodys has given three parts of the company a CAA1 rating, meaning it considers it a very high credit risk. The rating is the 17th of 21 possible levels. - Telegraph

Indias richest man confirmed yesterday that he was buying telecoms assets from his younger brother, adding a humiliating twist to a bitter feud between the two men who control Asias largest family fortune. Mukesh Ambani is buying telecoms towers, fibre-optic cables and airwaves owned by his brother Anils indebted Reliance Communications, 15 months after Mukesh sparked a ferocious price war in Indias telecoms market with the launch of Jio, a rival mobile operator into which Reliance Industries, his oil conglomerate, pumped about $30 billion.- The Times
Sometimes, you want a story to go with the good beers. Sometimes, surely, you just want some good beers. This week, you get that.
RACINE  A Racine woman is facing charges after allegedly threatening her roommates guest and the guests child with a knife for sitting on her furniture.

Rosemary Hobson, 58, of the 2700 block of Fleetwood Drive, is charged with two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct, both with the use of a dangerous weapon.

According to the criminal complaint:

On Wednesday, police were dispatched to the 2700 block of Fleetwood Drive after it was reported that a woman, later identifed as Hobson, was reportedly threatening people with a knife.

Police spoke with Hobsons roommate who said he had a guest over at the home he and Hobson share as roommates when Hobson got upset because his guest and her 5-year-old child were sitting on Hobsons furniture.

The two moved, but Hobson reportedly returned to the room a short while later with a steak knife, threatening to stab her roommates guest if she did not leave the residence.

Hobsons roommate was able to get the knife away from Hobson and hold her up against a wall until police arrived, which is where police reportedly found them.

Officers allegedly found a black handled steak knife on the floor where Hobson was detained.

Hobson was still in custody on a $500 cash bond as of Thursday afternoon, online records showed. A pre-trial conference is scheduled for Feb. 1 at the Law Enforcement Center, 717 Wisconsin Ave.
Most, if not all, Wisconsinites who are vaccinated against COVID-19 will receive the vaccine without a direct charge. "Everyone should be able to get the vaccine with no money out of your pocket, one state health official said Monday.
The year has almost come to an end. Traditionally we look back at the year and the international highlights of the Dutch water sector. What it looked like in 2017?

We followed the sector around the world and covered its activities in almost 300 news stories, ranging from the contributions to many global conferences, the construction of highly innovative water treatment plants, the realisation of ingenious multifunctional flood protection projects, to the challenging contributions to the Sustainable Development Goal #6 on water.

This is our last news item of the year and we are pleased to present to you what we considered the top 10 news stories of 2017 in chronological order.

Royal visit to Dessau, Germany Dutch royal couple, king Willem-Alexander and queen Maxima, visited several countries in 2017 together with a trade delegation of the Dutch water sector. Here seen is King Willem-Alexander at a trade exhibition of Dutch companies showing flood protection solutions to their German authorities in Dessau.

 Dutch royal couple visits exhibition on flood protection in Dessau, Germany, 13 February 2017



North Sea oil platform lifted from its legs



All Seas developed its 2.6 billion euro Pioneering Spirit to lift decommissioned offshore platforms from their legs so the structures can be transported to shore for dismantling and full recovery. In May the dedicated vessel did the job it was designed for: it uplifted Shells 24,200 ton oil platform Brent Spar and brought it to a scrap yard in the UK.

 Heavy lift Pioneering Spirit takes Brent Delta oil platform from its legs in 12 hours, 1 May 2017



Migration relates to water scarcity



At several conferences in 2017, Dutch experts gave presentations on the relation between water scarcity and migration. In order to put a halt to migration of Africans to Europe, the Dutch government has come up with a policy to improve their livelihood, including the creation of employment and restoration of wetlands. In December the The Hague declaration was signed that calls for a special UN climate security envoy for the coordination on international migration issues by addressing the effects of climate change such as water scarcity.

 Degradation of wetlands in the Sahel drives massive migration to Europe, 4 May 2017



Water has many values



The price of water is not the same as the value of water. The price reflects only a part. A special working group of the High Level Panel on Water (HLPW) formulated 5 key principals that lead to the inclusion of social, ecological and cultural values. The principles can be used for making collective decisions and trade-offs on water. Throughout the year the working group held consultation around the world. The final version of the Valuing for water document will be presented at the World Water Forum in Brasil in March 2018.

 HLPW seeks reactions on principles for broad valuing of water, 11 August 2017



More energy from waste water

Why waste water, was the slogan of this years UN world water day. Treated waste water can be reused and the treatment can also generate renewable energy. Dutch firm Sustec developed a special technology that boosts the volume of biogas produced by digestion of the sludge. Their first TurboTec continuous THP-plant outside the Netherlands was delivered to Severn Trent Water at wwtp Strongford, UK.

 Sustec THP-plant to boost biogas production at wwtp Strongford, UK, 11 September 2017



Making a business out of poop

There's money to be made in becoming a pooper scooper in urban slums without sewage systems. By drying the poop collected from latrines, they can make money by selling it as a compost or by converting it into biogas. Non-profit organisation SNV drew attention to the poor working conditions for latrine emptiers.

 SNV takes a stand against poor circumstances septic tank emptiers in Bangladesh, 14 September 2017



Changing the sight of New York

Hurricane Sandy made New York City realise its vulnerability to floods. Ever since, Dutch consultancy firm Arcadis has been actively involved in plans to make the city more resillient. In September it was awarded to put the Dutch approach to practise along the riverfront of Manhattan and came up with a 3,5 miles multifunctional scheme that combines a new flood defence with the improvement of the community enjoyment. The scheme will be detailed in close collaboration with the city authoritites and local communities.

 Arcadis to design a more flood protective park-like coastline for Manhattan, New York, 27 September 2017



Drinking water for Irma-hit Saint Martin



Hurricane Irma knocked out the water supply system of the Caribbean island of Saint Martin. Within 20 days Dutch firm DWP shipped in all necessary components and got a mobile reverse osmosis drinking water plant up an running in the middle of a street in Philipsburg city. Citizens can go to this nearby plant and tap their water.

 DWP gets mobile RO-unit up and running to deliver drinking water in Saint Martin, 12 October 2017



Productive 4th Amsterdam International Water Week

The fourth edition of the Amsterdam International Water Week has been very productive. A remarkable outcome were nine Amsterdam Agreements, signed by case owners, experts, suppliers and investors to solve complex water issues and bring solutions to scale. The bi-annual event gathered over 20,000 visitors for the Aquatech Amsterdam trade fair on water technology and over 1,100 delegates for the international conference on urban water solutions. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte welcomed the exhibitors and delegates at the Opening Ceremony.

 AIWW 2017: Look back at a productive event highlighting opportunities and alliances, 8 November 2017



Innovation award for reclamation project Maldives



Dutch dredging company Van Oord received the British Dredging and Port Construction Award for its innovative and sustainable approach to a land reclamation project in the Maldives. The jury praised the forward thinking of the project that included the enlargement of a number of islands, the protection with rock revetments, the conservation of the coral reefs and the lift of the traffic congestion in the capital Male.

 Van Oord wins DPC Innovation award 2017 for its reclamation projects in the Maldives, 1 December 2017

If you like these news stories, please keep up with our news stories on this website also in 2018.

We wish you a happy and healthy New Year,

the editorial team.

More information

Netherlands Water Partnership

The Hague, the Netherlands

+31 70 304 3700

www.nwp.nl
The Trump administration is rescinding Obama-era rules designed to increase the safety of fracking.

We believe it imposes administrative burdens and compliance costs that are not justified, the Interior Departments Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wrote in a notice published Friday in the Federal Register.

The 2015 rule required companies drilling for natural gas and oil on public lands to comply with federal safety standards in the construction of fracking wells, to disclose the chemicals used during the fracking process, and required companies to cover surface ponds that store fracking wastewater.

The regulation, however, never took effect after a Wyoming federal judge struck it down last year.

Fossil fuel groups, which sued to block the Obama regulation, unsurprisingly cheered the decision.

Western Energy Alliance appreciates that BLM under Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke understands this rule was duplicative and has rescinded it, Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said in a release. States have an exemplary safety record regulating fracking, and that environmental protection will continue as before.

But environmentalists and public health advocates have long warned that frackingwhich involves pumping large volumes of water, sand and chemicals underground to extract oil and gascauses groundwater contamination, puts human health at risk and releases the potent greenhouse gas methane.

The Trump administration is endangering public health and wildlife by allowing the fracking industry to run roughshod over public lands, Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said. Fracking is a toxic business, and thats why states and countries have banned it. Trumps reckless decision to repeal these common-sense protections will have serious consequences.

Maryland, New York and Vermont have banned fracking. Ireland, France, Germany and Bulgaria have also banned the practice on land.

Here are some major findings of a 2016 study by Environment America Research & Policy Center on the impact of fracking on our environment:

During well completion alone, fracking released 5.3 billion pounds of methane in 2014, a pollutant 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over the course of 20 years.

Fracking wells produced at least 14 billion gallons of wastewater in 2014. Fracking wastewater has leaked from retention ponds, been dumped into streams and escaped from faulty disposal wells, putting drinking water at risk. Wastewater from fracked wells includes not only the toxic chemicals injected into the well but also naturally occurring radioactive materials that can rise to the surface.

Between 2005 and 2015, fracking used at least 23 billion pounds of toxic chemicals. Fracking uses of vast quantities of chemicals known to harm human health. People living or working nearby can be exposed to these chemicals if they enter drinking water after a spill or if they become airborne.

At least 239 billion gallons of water have been used in fracking since 2005, an average of 3 million gallons per well. Fracking requires huge volumes of water for each wellwater that is often needed for other uses or to maintain healthy aquatic ecosystems.
Candle holders taken from church

Police are appealing for information after thieves struck at a church in the north of the Island.

Between Tuesday and Friday last week, 18 homemade candle holders have been taken from Kirk Bride Church.

Officers want to hear from anyone who has seen the missing candlesticks. Those who can help can contact Ramsey Police Station.
Ransomware emerged as one of the biggest threats to PC users in 2017. To help ensure that 2018 doesnt pose as much as a risk, PC security vendor IObit has added anti-ransomware functionality to the companys solution, Advanced SystemCare Ultimate 11.

The endpoint protection and PC optimization software suite now boasts an anti-ransomware feature, preventing the damaging and potentially costly form of malware from holding victims files hostage. It also includes a 150 percent larger threat database, enabling it to detect and block a wider variety of malware.

We have added a new anti-ransomware engine and enhanced the optimization engine to make our software more powerful in detecting and removing PC threats and achieving top PC performance, said Bing Wang, marketing director at IObit, in a statement.

Other security-enhancing features include a FaceID function that detects unauthorized access based on a persons facial features, capturing unapproved login attempts. Its System Reinforce utility can be used to lock down RDP (remote desktop protocol), UAC (User Account Control) and other Windows components that can exploited to compromise a users data.

In November, Sophos researchers sounded the alarm on attackers using RDP to spread ransomware.

Small businesses are particularly vulnerable because many rely on third-party IT contractors that use RDP to access their networks. Attackers use Shodan and other network search engines to find open RDP instances and then use NLBrute to launch a brute force attack before finally gaining access and creating new administrative accounts.

After establishing a firm foothold on a victims network, cybercriminals get to work.

Because theyve used their sysadmin powers to rig the system to be as insecure as they can, they can often use older versions of ransomware, perhaps even variants that other crooks have given up on and that are now floating around the Internet for free,' blogged Sophos Mark Stockley. In one attack, we saw a folder on the desktop containing four different types of ransomware. The crooks ran each in turn until one of them worked.

Ransomware can also slip past email filters. Last year a Barkly survey found that 77 percent of ransomware attacks evaded email filtering solutions. More than half of all attacks (52 percent) bypassed anti-malware products and that vast majority (95 percent) passed through firewalls.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at eSecurity Planet. Follow him on Twitter?@ecoINSITE.
Got a sore throat? The doctor may write a quick prescription for penicillin or amoxicillin, and with the stroke of a pen, help diminish public health and your own future health by helping bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics.

It's time to develop alternatives to antibiotics for small infections, according to a new paper by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and to do so quickly. It has been widely reported that bacteria will evolve to render antibiotics mostly ineffective by mid-century, and current strategies to make up for the projected shortfalls haven't worked.

One possible problem is that drug development strategies have focused on replacing antibiotics in extreme infections, such as sepsis, where every minute without an effective drug increases the risk of death. But the evolutionary process that brings forth antibiotic resistance doesn't happen nearly as often in those big infections as it does in the multitude of small ones like sinusitis, tonsillitis, bronchitis, and bladder infections, the Georgia Tech researchers said.

"Antibiotic prescriptions against those smaller ailments account for about 90 percent of antibiotic use, and so are likely to be the major driver of resistance evolution," said Sam Brown, an associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Biological Sciences. Bacteria that survive these many small battles against antibiotics grow in strength and numbers to become formidable armies in big infections, like those that strike after surgery.

"It might make more sense to give antibiotics less often and preserve their effectiveness for when they're really needed. And develop alternate treatments for the small infections," Brown said.

Brown, who specializes in the evolution of microbes and in bacterial virulence, and first author Kristofer Wollein Waldetoft, a medical doctor and postdoctoral research assistant in Brown's lab, published an essay detailing their suggestion for refocusing the development of bacteria-fighting drugs on December 28, 2017, in the journal PLOS Biology.

Duplicitous antibiotics

The evolution of antibiotic resistance can be downright two-faced.

"If you or your kid go to the doctor with an upper respiratory infection, you often get amoxicillin, which is a relatively broad-spectrum antibiotic," Brown said. "So, it kills not only strep but also a lot of other bacteria, including in places like the digestive tract, and that has quite broad impacts."

E. coli is widespread in the human gut, and some strains secrete enzymes that thwart antibiotics, while other strains don't. A broad-spectrum antibiotic can kill off more of the vulnerable, less dangerous bacteria, leaving the more dangerous and robust bacteria to propagate.

"You take an antibiotic to go after that thing in your throat, and you end up with gut bacteria that are super-resistant," Brown said. "Then later, if you have to have surgery, you have a problem. Or you give that resistant E. coli to an elderly relative."

Much too often, superbugs have made their way into hospitals in someone's intestines, where they had evolved high resistance through years of occasional treatment with antibiotics for small infections. Then those bacteria have infected patients with weak immune systems.

Furious infections have ensued, essentially invulnerable to antibiotics, followed by sepsis and death.

Alternatives get an 'F'

Drug developers facing dwindling antibiotic effectiveness against evolved bacteria have looked for multiple alternate treatments. The focus has often been to find some new class of drug that works as well as or better than antibiotics, but so far, nothing has, Brown said.

Wollein Waldetoft came across a research paper in the medical journal Lancet Infectious Diseases that examined study after study on such alternate treatments against big, deadly infections.

"It was a kind of scorecard, and it was almost uniformly negative," Brown said. "These alternate therapies, such as phage or anti-virulence drugs or, bacteriocins -- you name it -- just didn't rise to the same bar of efficacy that existing antibiotics did."

"It was a type of doom and gloom paper that said once the antibiotics are gone, we're in trouble," Brown said. "Drug companies still are investing in alternate drug research, because it has gotten very, very hard to develop new effective antibiotics. We don't have a lot of other options."

But the focus on new treatments for extreme infections has bothered the researchers because the main arena where the vast portion of resistance evolution occurs is in small infections. "We felt like there was a disconnect going on here," Brown said.

Don't kill strep, beat it

The researchers proposed a different approach: "Take the easier tasks, like sore throats, off of antibiotics and reserve antibiotics for these really serious conditions."

Developing non-antibiotic therapies for strep throat, bladder infections, and bronchitis could prove easier, thus encouraging pharmaceutical investment and research.

For example, one particular kind of strep bacteria, group A streptococci, is responsible for the vast majority of bacterial upper respiratory infections. People often carry it without it breaking out.

Strep bacteria secrete compounds that promote inflammation and bacterial spread. If an anti-virulence drug could fight the secretions, the drug could knock back the strep into being present but not sickening.

Brown cautioned that strep infection can lead to rheumatic heart disease, a deadly condition that is very rare in the industrialized world, but it still takes a toll in other parts of the world. "A less powerful drug can be good enough if you don't have serious strep throat issues in your medical history," he said.

Sometimes, all it takes is some push-back against virulent bacteria until the body's immune system can take care of it. Developing a spray-on treatment with bacteriophages, viruses that attack bacteria, might possibly do the trick.

If doctors had enough alternatives to antibiotics for the multitude of small infections they treat, they could help preserve antibiotic effectiveness longer for the far less common but much more deadly infections, for which they're most needed.

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Research was funded by the Simons Foundation (grant 396001), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (grant OADS-2016-N-17812), the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Physiographic Society of Lund. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors.
Exactly 200 years ago, the Swedish scientist Jons Jacob Berzelius discovered the trace element selenium, which he named after the goddess of the moon, Selene. Besides its industrial applications (chemical industry, production of semiconductors and toners), selenium is an essential trace element and indispensable for humans, many animals and some bacteria. A team led by Dr. Marcus Conrad, research group leader at the Institute of Developmental Genetics (IDG) at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, showed for the first time why selenium is a limiting factor for mammals.

Scientific 'by-catch' solves decades-old mystery

The scientists have been investigating for years the processes of a novel type of cell death, known as ferroptosis. In this context, the enzyme GPX4, which normally contains selenium in the form of the amino acid selenocysteine, plays an important role.

In order to better understand the role of GPX4 in this death process, we established and studied mouse models in which the enzyme was modified," said study leader Conrad. "In one of these models, we observed that mice with a replacement of selenium to sulfur in GPX4 did not survive for longer than three weeks due to neurological complications."

In their search for the underlying reasons, the researchers identified a distinct subpopulation of specialized neurons in the brain, which were absent when selenium-containing GPX4 was lacking. "In further studies, we were able to show that these neurons were lost during postnatal development, when sulfur- instead of selenium-containing GPX4 was present," stated first author of the study, Irina Ingold.

Furthermore, the scientists were able to show that ferroptosis is triggered by oxidative stress, which is known to occur for instance during high metabolic activity of cells and high neuronal activity. "Our study demonstrates for the first time that selenium is an essential factor for the postnatal development of a specific type of interneurons," said Dr. Jose Pedro Friedmann Angeli, a scientist at the IDG, describing the results. "Selenium-containing GPX4 protects these specialized neurons from oxidative stress and from ferroptotic cell death."

Thus, the study explains why certain selenoenzymes are essential in some organisms, including mammals, whereas they are dispensable in other organisms, such as fungi and higher plants. In future investigations, study leader Marcus Conrad and his team aim to investigate how ferroptosis is triggered in cells. As a long-term goal, he wants to elucidate the role of ferroptosis in various disease conditions in order to be able to alleviate diseases, such as cancer or neurodegeneration, which are currently difficult to tackle.

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Further Information

GPX4 stands for the enzyme glutathione peroxidase 4, one of 25 selenoproteins in humans. In the enzyme, selenium is an integral part of the 21st amino acid selenocysteine. The enzyme plays a decisive role in ferroptosis. The word ferroptosis, which means a type of programmed cell death dependent on iron, is derived from the Greek ptosis: fall and Latin ferrum: iron. Ferroptosis has not yet been completely elucidated, but the importance of cellular suicide has already been impressively confirmed, for example, by apoptosis, which has been more extensively studied.

Background:

Partners at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen who also contributed to the study were: Dr. Hans Zischka (Institute of Toxicology), Dr. Martin Jastroch (Institute of Diabetes and Obesity), Prof. Dr. Axel Walch und Dr. Michaela Aichler (Research Unit Analytical Pathology). The PhD students Irina Ingold and Katalin Buday are members of the Helmholtz Graduate School Environmental Health HELENA.

Original-Publikation:

Ingold, I. et al. (2017): Selenium utilization by GPX4 is required to prevent hydroperoxide-induced ferroptosis. Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.11.048

The Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, the German Research Center for Environmental Health, pursues the goal of developing personalized medical approaches for the prevention and therapy of major common diseases such as diabetes and lung diseases. To achieve this, it investigates the interaction of genetics, environmental factors and lifestyle. The Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen is headquartered in Neuherberg in the north of Munich and has about 2,300 staff members. It is a member of the Helmholtz Association, a community of 18 scientific-technical and medical-biological research centers with a total of about 37,000 staff members. http://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/en

Rising life expectancy is causing an increase in age-related, but also sociological and environmental, influences on the genes. The Institute of Developmental Genetics (IDG) examines these changes in genetic material. In the Mouse Genetics group, genetic animal models are developed to investigate various diseases. These models are analyzed in the Disease Modelling research group in order to identify gene functions and cell processes and evaluate the influence of the environment and aging processes. The group focuses on the examination of neurological and psychiatric diseases. http://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/idg

Contact for the media:

Department of Communication, Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Ingolstadter Landstr. 1, 85764 Neuherberg - Tel. 49-89-3187-2238 - Fax: 49-89-3187-3324 - E-mail: presse@helmholtz-muenchen.de

Scientific Contact at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen:

Dr. Marcus Conrad, Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Institute of Developmental Genetics, Ingolstadter Landstr. 1, 85764 Neuherberg - Tel. 49-89-3187-4608, E-mail: marcus.conrad@helmholtz-muenchen.de
The era of digital education has already begun. In Russia, a university of a new type is created from the collaboration of universities, businessmen and innovators. This university is a digital platform allowing all and any participants to obtain new skills and competences and to follow their own educational routes. The platform will unite the best universities of the country and the world, employers, businesses, and technological start-ups.

What is a university of the future? One may say it is comprised of online courses, individual educational road maps, and the use of new technologies (for example, neurointerfaces). But when does the future start? Usually, this question remains unanswered.

However, Russia has already embarked on its creation. The University 20.35 project is being developed within the framework of the National Technological Initiative - a state program for the support and encouragement of the industries that are likely to form the foundation of innovative economies in the next two decades.

To Learn What's Relevant

University 20.35 is a new step in the development of the Russian educational system. It is not a traditional university with a campus, a schedule, and a degree certificate, but a digital platform offering its students a set of individually required competences and focused on the formation of personal educational road maps. The platform will include cutting-edge AI technologies helping each student to lay down his or her own route to move along to the so-called target competence profiles allowing a graduate to fulfill certain professional tasks and meet the challenges facing the Russian economy and the world in general. "We started our work with collecting the data and neural networks training to optimize the educational road maps of our students and mutual training of humans and AI. We learn from an artificial intelligence the same as it learns from us," comments Dmitry Peskov, the head of the Young Professionals segment of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives.

How can one understand what to learn to become a part of the future economy? Here is when entrepreneurs come to help. The representatives of business will become full members of the University 20.35 digital platform. For them it will be a chance to develop their requirements for future specialists and maybe even to request a team for a particular project. Moreover, member companies of "future markets" promoted by the National Technological Initiative will also participate in the operation of the platform.

Educational Content: The Best But Not Unique

The value of University 20.35 lies not in its unique educational courses. It does not offer its own programs or in-house educational content. The universities participating in the project will provide students of the University with access to their best educational programs. Nina Yanykina, a member of the Supervisory Board of the University of NTI, the head of the Project and Innovation Department at ITMO University (one of the participants in the project), explains: "The role of ITMO University in the development of the University 20.35 is, first and foremost, the delivery of the best solutions for networked educational programs and individual trajectories of the students, as well as their implementation in order to meet the personnel needs of the companies that are leaders of the STI markets. Now we are going to implement programs in the areas of artificial intelligence and quantum technologies. On the one hand, these areas are cross-cutting technologies; on the other hand, ITMO University has some very good competencies in this area. Our task is to ensure, through the educational process and the formation of specialists, the overcoming of technological gaps and foster the development of NTI markets."

Its main advantage is a vast network of partners selected (or rather, recommended to students) based on the objective evidence of training results. A student manages his or her road map on his or her own, and the only task of the University is to make this management responsible. "To organize the optimal trajectory of students, we will use artificial intelligence - not the person himself will choose which course to take, as it happens on a regular online platform. Artificial intelligence will suggest what a person really needs to learn in order to level himself up in some direction," says Nina Yanykina.

The founders of the University are positive that this educational approach is bound to be effective, at least because Russia has certain experience in organization of training and assessment of skills according to similar models. "Our digital platform will combine different training formats, both online and at traditional university buildings. We will use the whole range of Russian educational establishments and our foreign partners," explained Vasily Tretyakov, Director General of ANCO University 20.35.

One should mention the experience of eight leading Russian universities that decided to develop an open education platform three years ago. They are ITMO University, Moscow State University, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, National University for Science and Technology MISiS, Saint Petersburg State University, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and Ural State University. These educational establishments started digitalizing their best competences and training experiences and offering it in an available format to millions of students in Russia and abroad. Moreover, today online courses at the above universities are parts of road maps for each student.

A Digital Profile instead of a Degree Certificate

After graduation students will receive digital profiles instead of traditional degree certificates. A profile of competences containing all information about an applicant collected in the course of his or her training may be presented to an employer. A profile will show what tasks this person is able to fulfill, what skills he or she has developed best, and in which areas she or he is the most effective.

According to the founders, the University won't have graduates at all in the traditional meaning of this word. You cannot graduate from University 20.35, you can just reach a certain milestone on you development road map. University 20.35 is a road on which a student stays for the whole life. In the modern world a person is bound to change occupations several times during his or her life. Therefore the educational program that gives one a profession for life should remain in the past. The University bets not only on particular professional knowledge and abilities, but on soft skills as well.

The first group of 100 students has already been enrolled on the first course. It consists of the heads of startups operating in the neurotechnological market (Neuronet). In spring 2018 registration in the platform will be opened for the public, and pilot individual training road maps will be implemented next autumn.

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TICHIGAN  The Tichigan Lake Lions Club is planning an ice skate exchange that will also benefit a local food pantry.

The ice skate exchange is scheduled to take place from 10:30 a.m. to noon Sunday, Jan. 7, at the Tichigan Lake Civic Center, 6710 Big Bend Road.

At the event, participants may buy used ice skates and exchange outgrown gear for new sizes.

Sellers are encouraged to stay and sell their own ice skates, but they may also leave skates for sale on consignment and consignment sellers can negotiate with prospective buyers. All sellers must return for their unsold items or cash sales by 11:45 a.m. that day.

For best selection of skates, attendees are asked to arrive early. There is no admission fee for buyers and sellers.

Proceeds from donated ice skates will benefit the Love, Inc. food pantry. Love, Inc. is the social services support agency serving far western Racine County.

Ice skates and other winter sport donations will be accepted leading up to and at the event. To donate skates, schedule consignment drops and other questions, call 262-758-9859. For more information, go to fb.me/skatetichigan.
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Scientists at Michigan State University have shown that streams can be key health indicators of a region's landscape, but the way they're being monitored can be improved.

New research featured in Ecology Letters showcases how streams can be used as sensors to diagnose a watershed's sensitivity or resiliency to changes in land use practices, including the long-term use of fertilizers. Using streams as sensors - specifically, near the headwaters - can allow scientists, land-use managers and farmers to diagnose which watersheds can be more sustainably developed for food production, said Jay Zarnetske, MSU earth and environmental scientist and co-author of the study.

"We were surprised to see that the streams were good sensors of long-term nutrient conditions," he said. "Our methods show that we can learn much from a relatively small number of samples if they are collected more strategically than current watershed management practices dictate. This understanding is critical in protecting aquatic ecosystems and ensuring human water security."

Human activity, especially agriculture, has polluted freshwater ecosystems across the planet, causing massive ecological and economic damage. Excess nutrients from fertilizer and fossil fuel can trigger toxic cyanobacteria blooms and expansive hypoxic dead zones, undermining the capacity of ecosystems to provide the food and water that sustains human societies, Zarnetske added.

For the study, Ben Abbott, formerly at MSU and now at Brigham Young University, led an international team in a culturally and historically important region of France. The area, which has seen nearly a millennium of agricultural activity, serves as a model as to how increasing use of nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers are having lasting impacts on watersheds.

"The manipulation of phosphorous and nitrogen in the landscape is one of the greatest threats to the fate of humanity and the rest of life on this planet," Zarnetske said. "Most people have no idea that the human manipulation of the phosphorous and nitrogen cycles is occurring, is affecting nearly every place on the planet and is one of, if not the greatest, current threat to the fate of humanity."

There are dramatic aerial photos of algal blooms growing at the mouth of streams flowing into bodies of water, such as Lake Erie. However, most carbon and nutrients enter waterways upstream, at the headwaters. So rather than try to diagnose problems at the mouth, a more efficient way to address the issue would be to sample many areas closer to the headwaters.

"Basically, instead of standing in a large stream far from the headwaters and observing what flows past us through time," Zarnetske said, "we illustrate that it can be much more informative to periodically travel around the region and grab samples from the smallest to the largest streams in the watershed."

The team found that each small stream's chemistry fluctuated widely due to changes in temperature, water flow and other factors. There was order to the variability, however, as there was synchrony in the behavior of each small stream and its role in the chemistry of the larger river system.

"That was unexpected," Abbott said. "Somewhat surprisingly, we found that a single sampling of headwaters any time of year provides a lot of information about where nutrients are coming from and where to target restoration efforts."

Future research will apply these methods globally, to different agricultural watersheds and forested landscapes experiencing changing precipitation patterns. For example, Zarnetske will study headwaters in the Pacific Northwest and the rapidly warming and thawing landscapes in the Arctic.

The new methods also can help direct efforts in selecting the most appropriate locations for sustainable agricultural land and development or identifying watershed responses to global warming, such as those in the Arctic.

Arctic landscapes, where soils are predominantly frozen, are rapidly thawing due to rapid climatic warming. As Arctic ice and permafrost melt, they release sediment and nutrients into rivers and seas. While the effects of these increasingly turbid waters and nutrients are unknown, their new approach can develop a baseline to begin monitoring their impact.

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Additional researchers from Universite de Rennes and University Francois-Rabelais Tours made key contributions to this study.

Michigan State University has been working to advance the common good in uncommon ways for more than 150 years. One of the top research universities in the world, MSU focuses its vast resources on creating solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges, while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 200 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.

For MSU news on the Web, go to MSUToday. Follow MSU News on Twitter at twitter.com/MSUnews.
Many famous ancient civilizations such as ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Maya, Angkor, Han and Tang Dynasties in ancient China, had emerged and flourished in different parts of the world, while these highly developed civilizations in prehistoric and historical periods eventually declined, and then fell into oblivion in human history. The driving force and mechanism for the rise and fall of ancient civilizations attracts extensive attentions, however, different scholars hold different views on this hot issue.

Recently, in an article coauthored by Guanghui Dong, Fengwen Liu and Fahu Chen, scholars at MOE Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental System, Lanzhou University, the authors illustrate environmental and technological effects on ancient social evolution at different spatial scales, and propose a possible mechanism for expounding the correlation between culture evolution and environment change and technological development, based on the scientific analysis of some classic case studies on the abandonment of ancient sites, the prosperity and collapse of ancient cultures, and demographic changes, as well as the influence of environment and technology world-wide during the prehistoric and historic periods.

There is an ongoing debate on what is the leading factor for ancient culture evolution. Some scholars believe that sudden serious disasters including floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions were major influencing factors leading to the destruction and abandonment of large settlements, even was the key factor triggering the emergence of Chinese civilization. Many scholars argue that climate change was the most important driving force behind the evolution of ancient civilizations. Other scholars suggest that major technological innovations (e.g., the domestication of crops and livestock) and their diffusion across the world were key factors in promoting population expansion and ancient social evolution. Moreover, how these factors induced the evolvement of ancient civilizations remains unclear as well.

These three scholars argue that the dominant influencing factors for the evolution of ancient societies vary by spatial scale. At the local scale, sudden geo-hazards caused by tectonic movements and extreme weather events may have been key factors that led to the destruction and abandonment of large ancient settlements, such as Pompeii and Lajia site. On a regional scale, cold-dry climate lasting for decades or centuries followed by food shortages and conflicts arising from resource competition becomes an important factor responsible for the decline of ancient civilizations and dynastic succession, while stable and favorable climatic conditions could have increased resources and population growth, and led to prosperity and expansion of ancient civilizations. On a global scale, crucial technological innovations and their expansion in the long term (for centuries and millennia) significantly improve the ability of human beings to procure and exploit resources, as well as facilitate expanded living space and rapid population growth, and in the end, social development. This article is included in the special topic entitled "Past Human-environment Interaction" in Science China Earth Sciences (2017, Volume 60), which aims to understand the history, pattern and mechanism of human-land evolution from a long-time perspective, and then provide valuable experiences to cope with challenges for sustainable development nowadays.

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See the article: Dong G H, Liu F W, Chen F H. Environmental and technological effects on ancient social evolution at different spatial scales. Science China Earth Sciences, 2017, 60, 2067-2077. http://engine.scichina.com/publisher/scp/journal/SCES/60/12/10.1007/s11430-017-9118-3?slug=full%20text.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 12,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year. One of the most common treatments for cervical cancer is radiation. While radiation therapy destroys cancer cells, it also destroys nearby healthy cells. University of Missouri School of Medicine researchers studied in vitro human cancer cells to show that combining blueberry extract with radiation can increase the treatment's effectiveness.

"Radiation therapy uses high-energy X-rays and other particles such as gamma rays to destroy cancer cells," said Yujiang Fang, M.D., Ph.D., a visiting professor at the MU School of Medicine and lead author of the study. "For some cancers, such as late-stage cervical cancer, radiation is a good treatment option. However, collateral damage to healthy cells always occurs. Based on previous research, we studied blueberry extract to verify it could be used as a radiosensitizer."

Radiosensitizers are non-toxic chemicals that make cancer cells more responsive to radiation therapy. In a previous study, Fang and his research team showed that resveratrol, a compound in red grapes, could be used as a radiosensitizer for treating prostate cancer. Blueberries also contain resveratrol.

"In addition to resveratrol, blueberries also contain flavonoids," said Fang, who also has appointments as an academic pathologist and assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Des Moines University in Iowa. "Flavonoids are chemicals that may have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties."

The researchers used human cervical cancer cell lines to mimic clinical treatment. The cell lines were divided into four groups that included a control group, a group that received only radiation, a group that received only blueberry extract, and a group that received both radiation and the extract.

"Our team used three different measures to confirm results of the study," Fang said. "Radiation decreased cancer cells by approximately 20 percent. Interestingly, the cell group that received only blueberry extract had a 25 percent decrease in cancer. However, the biggest decline in cancer cells occurred in the radiation and extract group, with a decrease of about 70 percent."

Fang explained that the mechanism that makes blueberry extract a radiosensitizer also reduces the abnormal explosion of cell growth ? which is what cancer is.

"Cancer cells avoid death by remodeling themselves," Fang said. "Along with reducing cell proliferation, the extract also 'tricks' cancer cells into dying. So it inhibits the birth and promotes the death of cancer cells."

Fang said an animal study is the next step to confirm that his team can achieve the same results.

"Blueberries are very common and found all over the world," Fang said. "They are readily accessible and inexpensive. As a natural treatment option for boosting the effectiveness of existing therapies, I feel they would be enthusiastically accepted."

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The study, "Blueberry as a Potential Radiosensitizer for Treating Cervical Cancer," recently was published in Pathology and Oncology Magazine. The study was supported by the Department of Surgery at the MU School of Medicine and through Des Moines University grants (IOER 05-14-01, IOER 112-3749 and IOER 112-3113). The authors of the study declare that they have no conflict of interest.
MOUNT PLEASANT  After nearly two hours in closed session Thursday, the Mount Pleasant Village Board voted 4-1 to increase the village clerks salary $6,000 to roughly $77,000 a year.

Village Clerk Stephanie Kohlhagen originally came to the board earlier this year with a request for an $11,000 increase, but it was rejected.

The decision did not come easily. Village Board member Jon Hansen voiced his concern with the raise and said there should be a human resources director in place to put a salary structure in place. Hansen said this decision could have legal implications.

I really feel that this opens the village up to litigation to those employees that dont get these next raises, Hansen said. I dont feel that this is a fair way to run the system. I think the HR director could put a structure in place that would make it fair and equal for all employees.

The Village Board on Thursday also approved a human resources and benefits manager in place of an HR director  also in a 4-1 vote  at the suggestion of Village Administrator Maureen Murphy, and gave her the approval to post the position.

Hansen said having an HR director would be more beneficial to the village.

I feel that the HR director is a more appropriate position for what we need to get done here because we have zero structure in our HR system and we are lacking in some areas, Hansen said. And vulnerable to some lawsuits.

Red hot button issues

Along with the salary increase, a motion by board member Gary Feest included the caveat, with the directive to the administrator to have a performance review process in place by April 1 to fairly evaluate all management staff for future wage increases.

This has been one of the tumultuous, red hot button issues in this village, Feest said. Im not comfortable with a lot of things in this village, but I wasnt totally comfortable that everybody saw bumps in pay and we denied Stephanie (Kohlhagens) raise. On the other hand, I wasnt in favor for the reasoning for the $11,000 that was requested.

Feest said he hopes a performance review process is established on time and said its a leap of faith that Im willing to make with our new administrator.

Ill either burn or sail cleanly as time goes on, Im hoping Im going to be sailing cleanly on this one, Feest said. This is fair in my opinion.

Village President Dave DeGroot said this is an issue in the village and it was a fire that needed to be put out.

The raise will go into effect in 2018.

House bought in Foxconn area

As the project with the Foxconn Technology Group progresses, the village is continuing to acquire the land needed in the area. The Village Board voted unanimously to buy a property on the 12000 block of Braun Road for $572,750. The property includes a house, barn and several acres of land.

This offer came to us, Feest said. It was within their parameters. Im sure if you were to look at just the assessed property alone you would say Thats a disproportionate number. But it all goes back to the fact that were playing verbal gymnastics with these residents, were telling them, you got to leave.

Feest said the village is looking at what hardships people are facing while considering each purchase.

They said theyd be happy to move with this number, Feest said. The village tended to agree and if we can get all of these issues taken care of like this, my conscious and I would have a lot better time sleeping.
Friday, December 29, 2017

As the New Year gets going, think about experiencing a Death Cafe as one of your bucket list items. Its an opportunity to relax over some coffee or tea, some cake or cookies, and join in a group discussion to talk about whats on your mind about mortality issues. Participants always give the event high marks!

The next Albuquerque Death Cafe will take place on Saturday, January 20, 2018, 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at Gail Rubins home. If you havent been before, RSVP to Gail [at] AGoodGoodbye.com for the address and directions. An expression of interest is always appreciated.

The objective of the Death Cafe is To increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives. Its all about an interesting, unstructured conversation  open and free-flowing with no specific agenda. Refreshments will be provided at this free event. Donations are gratefully accepted.

Join the Albuquerque Death Cafe Meetup group to be kept apprised of upcoming events. Click here to go to the Meetup page.

Albuquerque was the site of the second Death Cafe ever held in the United States. Gail Rubin hosted this pioneering event in September of 2012. More information about Death Cafes here.

Gail Rubin interviewed Jon Underwood, founder of the Death Cafe, and Lizzy Miles, who held the first Death Cafe in the U.S. in Columbus, Ohio. Listen to the podcast of this hour-long A Good Goodbye Internet radio program.

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We picked the stories we thought impacted our readership the most this year in Farm and Dairys top 10 stories of 2017. You picked the stories that interested you the most in Farm and Dairys top web stories in 2017.

These 10 stories generated 122,816 views, accounting for nearly a third of the web traffic generated by new content on FarmandDairy.com this year. The top four all eclipsed 10,000 views and the top nine surpassed 5,000 views. From January to December, we delivered the content you craved.

You rallied together to overcome tragedy, found strength in the face of adversity, empathized for others experiencing loss, witnessed records and anomalies, stayed current with ever-changing industries and learned to evict furry pests from your house. You picked the articles that influenced you in 2017. Now, make sure you didnt miss anything, and let us know which stories impacted you.

1Remember me

Remember me was the most-read story by more than 10,000 views, and rightfully so. Katy Mumaws gripping feature details tragedy that befell a farm family in Athens County, and a young mans determination to memorialize his best friend.

Noah Cox, a teen from Coolville, Ohio, died in a tractor accident on May 31, shaking the Athens County community. However, his best friend, Austin Pullins, made sure his story didnt end there. He continued Noahs winning ways, showing his steer, claiming grand champion at the Athens County Fair and placing at the state fair.

The story of these two remarkable young men and their rare friendship was Farm and Dairys most-read web story in 2017. If you missed it, make sure to take the time to read it now.

Views: 32,161

Publish date: Aug. 17, 2017

Reporter: Katy Mumaw

2Fire kills Pennsylvania dairy herd

The fire that devastated Amazing Grace Dairy will not soon be forgotten, claiming the lives of about 120 Holstein dairy cattle, several thousand bales of hay and some farm equipment. Although they felt the weight of an enormous tragedy, the Miklos family turned to God as they picked up the pieces.

If youve not read this tale of strength in the face of adversity, take time now to do so.

Views: 22,750

Publish date: Aug. 8, 2017

Reporter: Chris Kick

3Facebook spurs army of Ohio farmers headed for Kansas

Fires ripped through parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Colorado and Kansas in March, burning hundreds of thousands of acres of land and killing thousands of cattle and horses. The countryside was marked by miles of scorched cornfields and houses and barns burned to the ground. Some lost everything.

In the wake of the expansive destruction, farmers from all over the country began reaching out to offer assistance, including a large group from Ohio. Kelton Keller, of Medina County, organized a convoy of more than 50 trucks and trailers, and over 50 people from all over Ohio, to deliver hay, fencing supplies, feed and much more to those in need in Ashland, Kansas.

It only takes one person to make a difference. Learn more about how the Ohio group came together to help fellow farmers in need.

Views: 19,428

Publish date: March 24, 2017

Reporter: Catie Noyes

4Ohio farmer remembered best for his compassion

Ron Kandel passed away in late October from injuries sustained in a farming accident. Following the tragedy, he was remembered for his legacy of love and devotion to God. Kandel is dearly missed by the farming community. Take time to read this tribute to a life well-lived.

Views: 14,949

Publish date: Oct. 27, 2017

Reporter: Catie Noyes

5A record? Ohio wells horizontal leg stretches 19,300 feet

Eclipse Resources Corporation drilled some record-setting laterals this year in Ohio. The first of its 2017 accomplishments was the super-lateral well, the Great Scott 3H. It had a had a total measured depth of 27,400 feet and lateral extension of 19,300 feet in less than 17 days. It took down the companys previous record held by Purple Hayes; however, only stood until the company set a new record on June 16, drilling a 19,500-foot lateral.

Views: 6,232

Publish date: May 15, 2017

Source: Other News

6

10 facts about the giant chicken that went viral

In March, footage of an enormous chicken stumped and amazed Twitter users as they retweeted the video over 40,000 times and liked it over 50,000 times. Many were skeptical, questioning whether or not the video was some sort of hoax and not an actual chicken at all. Others argued whether or not the chicken was a product of genetic modification to explain its enormous size. While debates raged, there was one consistency  everyone wanted to know more about the viral bird. So we provided some answers.

Am I the only person wondering why this chicken is so damn big  pic.twitter.com/ZIWmEL2h2w  LifesBook_Ceo (@LifesBook_Ceo) March 19, 2017

Views: 6,125

Publish date: March 20, 2017

Reporter: Sara Welch

7Holstein cow sets national milk record of 77,480 pounds

In January, a Wisconsin Holstein cow, Ever-Green-View My Gold-ET, set a new single-lactation national milk production record: a 365-day record of 77,480 pounds of milk. If youre a consumer and not a dairy farmer, thats more than 9,009 gallons of milk!

Views: 5,797

Publish date: Jan. 27, 2017

Source: Other News

8Sign of times: Gander Mountain is going out of business

The very popular, retail outdoor sporting goods store, Gander Mountain was on its way out of business and you were interested. The struggling company was purchased by Camping World, who planned to close over 100 stores. This transaction preceded Bass Pros acquisition of Cabelas.

Views: 5,450

Publish date: May 18, 2017

Columnist: Mike Tontimonia

9How to keep mice out of your house

There are many reasons to want to get rid of mice. Some people are creeped out by them. Some dont like the mess they make. Some dont want them damaging their home and the items inside. Learn more about the three-step process that will get rid of the mice in your house and keep it rodent free.

Views: 5,221

Publish date: Dec. 12, 2017

Reporter: Sara Welch

10Pulling for her husband in Holmes County

Stacy Giauque opened the Holmes County Fairs local truck and tractor pull, named the Brad Giauque Memorial Truck & Tractor Pull, on Aug. 8, in memory of her husband, Brad, who died in January following a long battle with cancer. Friends and family were able to witness the first pull, including Brad and Stacys daughter, Kristy, and sons Brent and Shawn.

Views: 4,703

Publish date: Aug. 10, 2017

Reporter: Chris Kick

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The government must issue early clarity in the New Year on plans for the future of farm policy, according to a farm group.

The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) has called for the early clarity as farmers need to know the "direction of travel" the government has in plan for the UK post-Brexit.

It says 2017 has seen "intense debate" and a "feeding frenzy" over what a policy for food, farming and the environment might look like in the post-Brexit era.

The farming industry is anticipating the publication in the New Year of the Governments 25 year plan for the environment.

The Government has already been urged not to put the rural economy at a disadvantage with its environment plan.

This will be followed by a White Paper on food and farming and then an Agriculture Bill.

Th Agriculture Bill will set up a system to support farmers after Brexit takes them out of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). It is unclear how the bill will operate.

'Clear roadmap'

The TFA said that these must set out a "clear roadmap" which enables farmers to understand the policy environment within which they will be expected to operate to enable individual farm businesses to plan ahead.

TFA National Chairman James Gray said: Inevitably, since the EU referendum in June 2016, it has felt like we have marked time in farming as we await some clear signals about the way ahead.

The lower value of Sterling will have delivered output price improvements for some sectors and although some input prices will have moved up too, this will have provided something of a cushion for many businesses as they await clarity over the long term position which we now need urgently, Mr Gray added.

Of course there will always be uncertainty but with farm businesses having already factored in the expectation of major change in Government policy, it is no surprise that decisions around investment, growth and succession for some and potential exit for others are on hold until the shape of future public policy becomes clearer.
Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan and their little one Taimur Ali Khan recently left for Switzerland to bring in the New Year. It is not news that for their end of year holiday, Saif and Kareena chose to visit their favourite destination Switzerland. The couple is currently holidaying with their one-year-old munchkin in Gstaad, that is a resort town in the Swiss Alps.It is evident from the picture that Saif and Kareena are having a wonderful time with Taimur. Taimur is seen sitting on a snow cart in the picture with dapper daddy Saif holding onto the carts string. Kareena is seen looking super hot in a black jacket and white pants totally appropriate for the weather. The family makes for a perfect picture with the snowfall in the background and them enjoying each others company. Take a look!
Social Security forms an important part of most people's retirement plans, but the program itself does much more than just that. In a nutshell, Social Security is designed to support disabled and retired workers and their families by providing a guaranteed source of lifetime income for those who meet certain criteria. Here's a closer look at how the program works, the different types of Social Security benefits available, and what you can expect when you're ready to claim benefits.

How Social Security works Social Security is a government program that collects taxes from working Americans and distributes these funds to qualifying disabled workers, retirees, and their families to help them remain financially secure. A worker typically must earn 40 credits to qualify for Social Security, though if they die or are disabled young, they may qualify with fewer credits. A credit in 2022 is defined as $1,470 in earned income, and you may earn up to four credits per year. You may claim Social Security based on your own work record, if you've earned enough credits, or you may be eligible to claim spousal benefits based on your current or ex-spouse's work record if this amount is larger than what you're entitled to on your own. Dependent children and other family members may also qualify for family benefits in certain circumstances. When you're ready to apply for Social Security, you must fill out an application online or at your local Social Security Administration office. A government representative will verify the information in your application to determine if you qualify and then you'll begin receiving monthly checks.

Image source: The Motley Fool

Types of Social Security benefits There are three main types of Social Security benefits: Retirement benefits

Disability benefits

Survivors benefits

Retirement benefits Social Security retirement benefits are for workers 62 and older who have earned at least 40 credits. The size of your benefit checks depends on your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME) over your 35 highest-earning years, and the age at which you begin benefits. You must wait until your full retirement age (FRA) to claim your standard benefit based on your AIME. Your FRA is 66 if you were born between 1943 and 1954, then it rises by two months every year thereafter until it reaches 67 for those born in 1960 or later.

Be Aware Claiming benefits before your full retirement age (FRA) reduces your checks.

If you begin claiming at 62, you'll get only 70% of your standard benefit if your FRA is 67 or 75% if your FRA is 66. Every month you delay benefits increases your checks slightly until you reach the maximum benefit at 70. This is 124% of your standard benefit if your FRA is 67 or 132% if your FRA is 66. Receiving Social Security benefits under your FRA could cause you to lose some of that money back to the government if your income is high enough. The Social Security Earnings Test withholds $1 from your checks for every $2 you earn above $19,560 in 2022 if you will be under your FRA all year. If you'll reach your FRA in 2022, it'll take $1 for every $3 you earn over $51,960 if you reach this amount before your FRA. Once you're past your FRA, the government recalculates your benefit to include the amount it withheld. Certain family members can claim benefits on your work record if doing so would give them more money than they're eligible for on their own work record. Eligible family members include: Spouses

Ex-spouses, if the marriage lasted for at least 10 years and they have not remarried

Children under 18, or up to 19 if still enrolled in high school

Children of any age who were disabled before 22 -- that is, not earning more than $1,260 per month in 2020, having a medical condition that results in severe functional limitations and that is expected to last 12 months or longer or result in death Spouses and ex-spouses must be at least 62 in order to claim benefits, and spouses and children must wait for the worker to begin claiming benefits themselves before they can claim family benefits on their record. Disability benefits Social Security disability benefits are available to adults 18 or older who are unable to work due to a physical or mental disability that is expected to last at least 12 months or result in death. You may still be eligible even if you haven't earned 40 credits, depending upon your age at the time of your disability. Your benefit is determined by your average lifetime earnings, so individuals who earned more while they were working will receive larger disability checks. You must provide the government with information about your work history and your medical condition, including relevant supporting documents, when you apply. The Social Security Administration will review your case to decide if you are eligible. If it rules in your favor, you'll receive disability checks for as long as your disability lasts or the rest of your life, depending on the condition. If it rules against you, you may request a reconsideration or appeal to an administrative law judge. Family members may be able to claim benefits on a disabled workers work record if they are: A spouse 62 or older or of any age if caring for a disabled workers disabled child or child 16 or younger

Ex-spouses who were married to the disabled worker for at least 10 years and have not remarried if they meet the same criteria as spouses

Unmarried children up to 18, or 19 if still attending high school

Children of any age who were disabled before 22 Survivors benefits Survivors benefits are benefits for the family members of deceased workers who qualified for Social Security.

Did you know? The amount of the survivors benefit depends on the deceased worker's average income, adjusted for inflation, and their relationship to the deceased.

Surviving spouses who are 60 or older (50 or older if disabled) may claim survivors benefits, as can surviving spouses of any age if they are caring for the deceased worker's child who is under 16 or disabled. The same rules apply for ex-spouses as long as they were married to the deceased worker for at least 10 years and have not remarried. The deceased worker's children under 18, or up to 19 if still enrolled in high school, are eligible for benefits, as are disabled children of any age if they were disabled before 22. Parents of the deceased worker may also qualify for benefits if the deceased was providing 50% or more of their financial support before they died. In addition to these benefits, the surviving spouse or children may be eligible for a one-time death benefit of $255.

Related Retirement Topics

Brief history of Social Security The Social Security program was created by the Social Security Act that President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law in 1935. The first checks went out in 1940. Originally it paid benefits only to workers 65 and older, but in the 1970s the government altered it to allow workers to claim benefits as early as 62. It also instituted annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) to help Social Security keep pace with inflation. The program has worked fairly well so far, but many people fear for the future, when there will be fewer workers to support a greater number of Social Security recipients. The latest Social Security Trustees' Report indicates the program's trust funds would be depleted by 2034, after which it would be able to pay out only about 76% of benefits to retirees and about 92% to disabled workers. The government has proposed several possible solutions for ensuring the long-term sustainability of the program, but at present no plans have been set. There's no risk of the program disappearing in the next decade or two, but it's possible future benefits may not go as far as they do today. That's why today's workers need to prioritize their personal retirement savings, so they can cover most of their expenses on their own.
Nokia 2 will jump directly to Android 8.1 Oreo, confirms HMD News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu

HMD Global had confirmed that all the Nokia smartphones will receive the Android Oreo update. The company already rolled out the Oreo beta build to the Nokia 5, Nokia 6 and Nokia 8 smartphones. The entry-level Nokia 2 and Nokia 3 smartphones are yet to receive the update.

In the meantime, there were media reports suggesting that the Nokia 2 will receive the Android 8.1 Oreo skipping the Android 8.0 Oreo. Now, a confirmation fro HMD has come via Twitter. A tweet posted by Juho Sarvikas, the Chief Product Officer at HMD Global confirms that the Nokia 2 will directly leapfrog to Android 8.1 Oreo.

He has added that the cheapest Nokia smartphone will get some memory management improvements from the Android Go programme that was announced by Google. Recently, we came across reports that Nokia 1, an Android Go smartphone will be launched in March 2018. The tweet reads, "1GB RAM devices will be supported on 8.1 release where many of the Android Go memory management improvements will be integrated. Nokia 2 performance will only get better over time!"

The Nokia 2 was launched in October with the Android 7.1 Nougat OS out of the box. The smartphone was launched at 99 euros (approx. Rs. 7,600) and was released in India in November at Rs, 6,999. Despite this low pricing, the Nokia 2 has the durable Nokia trademark build as it has cleared the durability test subjecting it to bend, burn and scratch tests.

Detailing on its specs, the Nokia 2 boasts of a 5-inch LTPS HD 720p display and employs a quad-core 1.3GHz Snapdragon 212 processor paired with 1GB RAM. The default storage capacity is 8GB and it can be expanded further up to 128GB using a microSD card. The smartphone flaunts an 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a 5MP selfie camera at the front. The major highlight of this smartphone is its 4000mAh battery that is touted to deliver up to two days of backup on a single charge.

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Nokia 3310 4G variant receives TENAA certification News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu

Early next month, Nokia is highly anticipated to release two smartphones - the Nokia 6 (2018) and the Nokia 9 flagship model. Apart from these, the company is also believed to launch the 4G feature phone alleged to be the Nokia 3310 4G.

We have already seen the Nokia 6 (2018) edition clear the Chinese certification database TENAA. Now, the rumored Nokia 4G feature phone has also passed through the TENAA certification database. Notably, we have come across reports pointing that this feature phone has cleared the Bluetooth SIG certification as well as the US-based FCC regulatory certification.

TENAA has revealed the pictures of the alleged 4G handset and it looks similar to the existing Nokia 3310 (2017) 3G model that was launched a few months back and slightly larger than the 2G model with more spacing between the keys to render a better typing experience. The TENAA listing confirms the support for 4G LTE network and reveals that the device will run Alibaba's YunOS platform.

As 2G networks are not in use in many countries, the Nokia 3310 3G was launched. The device came with a different Series 30+ OS supporting social media apps such as Twitter, Facebook and Skype. The upgrade to 3G impacted the battery life of the handset as it renders 6.5 hours of talk time instead of 22.1 hours of talk time on the 2G variant. The 4G Nokia 3310 variant might take the battery life further down.

Moreover, if the Nokia 3310 4G variant is launched, then it will be priced relatively higher than the 3G and 2G variants of the device, so we need to wait for its launch to know more details.

Lately, we came across a report that the Nokia 4G feature phone will be a revamped Nokia E71 featuring a QWERTY keypad. But the recent listing on TENAA showing the alleged images of the device shows that the handset could be identical to the Nokia 3310 3G. So we need to wait for more reports to surface online regarding the upcoming Nokia handset or an official confirmation from HMD to get clarity on this device.

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Samsung, LG, Motorola, HTC confirm they do not slow down older devices News oi -Chandrika Apple is facing backlashes from fans after it admitted of slowing down older iPhones in order to prevent sudden shutdowns.

Apple recently confirmed that it slows down older iPhones in order to prevent sudden shutdowns caused by degraded batteries. Naturally, the announcement was not well received by the customers.

Consequently, people from different parts of the world have filed lawsuits against the iPhone maker. The company has also been asked by Korean authorities to explain the reason for the slowdown thoroughly. Even worse, Apple could face criminal charges as part of a lawsuit in France. Currently, there 10 class-action lawsuits against the company over the battery fiasco.

While the Cupertino-giant is under the fire, Android smartphone manufacturers see this as the perfect opportunity to rub salt on Apple's wounds. Four big players in the Android world have confirmed that they do not turn to such practices on older devices.

Samsung, LG, HTC, and Motorola have all denied intentional slowdowns on their older models. They have further explained that in statements to media that they do not reduce the speed of the CPU on devices with depleting batteries.

"This is not something we do," commented HTC in a statement. Lenovo-owned Motorola also explained that "we do not throttle CPU performance based on older batteries."

When LG was asked it it slows downs its older devices to prevent sudden shutdowns, the company replied "never have, never will! We care what our customers think." Well, the South Korean manufacturer didn't miss a chance to subtly pick on Apple.

Another South Korean tech giant, Samsung, provided a more detailed statement on the issue by saying, "Product quality has been and will always be Samsung Mobile's top priority. We ensure extended battery life of Samsung mobile devices through multi-layer safety measures, which include software algorithms that govern the battery charging current and charging duration. We do not reduce CPU performance through software updates over the life cycles of the phone."

As we have reported earlier today, Apple has posted a public letter to their customers apologizing for slowing down old iPhone models. The company has slashed the price of out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacements from $79 to $29 for iPhone 6 or newer models that need a battery replacement.

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Sony H4233 with 21MP camera, Android Oreo will launch as Xperia XA2 Ultra News oi -Chandrika Sony is expected to unveil the smartphone at the CES 2018 in January.

Sony is expected to launch a number of Xperia smartphones in 2018. We have come across many leaks and rumors centering the upcoming devices.

Unfortunately, the leaks only revealed the model names of the devices. One of the upcoming smartphones is the Sony H4233, and new information sourced from SIRIM (Scientific and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia) database suggests it will be launched as Xperia XA2 Ultra. The Sony H4233 will be a direct successor of the Xperia XA1 Ultra that was launched in India earlier this year.

Sony H4233 has already made its way to the GFXBench database. Going by the benchmark listing, the smartphone will arrive with a 6-inch full HD display with 1,2801,080pixels screen resolution and 5 finger gesture support.

Under the hood, the Sony H4233 will be powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor clocked at 2.2GHz and topped with Adreno 508 GPU. The smartphone will offer 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage space, out of which 43GB will be available for the users. The GFXBench listing did not mention whether the storage space is expandable or not.

In terms of optics, the Sony H4233 will feature a 21MP autofocus camera at the rear panel along with a LED flash. The rear camera will also have features like autofocus, face detection, flash, HDR photo and touch focus.

For selfie camera, the smartphone will make use of a 16MP camera. Both the cameras are said to offer support for 4K video recording.

On the software front, the Sony H4233 will run on Android 8.0 Oreo operating system right out of the box.

According to the benchmark database, the smartphone will feature connectivity options like Bluetooth, GPS, NFC and Wi-Fi. Sensors onboard will include accelerometer, light sensor, Pedometer and proximity sensor as well.

It has been reported that Sony has already started sending out media invites for its event at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018. So we might see the unveiling of the smartphone at the event. The event is scheduled to take place on January 8, 2018 in Las Vegas. The CES 2018 will start on January 9 and it will go one until January 12.

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The Journal Times recent editorial regarding the Trump administration barring the use of certain terminology in scientific reports from the CDC did well in showing the dangers of biased, ignorant politicians trying to change science. There are other examples.

About 20 years ago the CDC was doing a study of the great public health problem of the epidemic of deaths by guns. The gun lobby told Congress to stop the program. Congress obeyed and cut off funds to the CDC for that study.

A few years ago the government of Florida forbid physicians from asking their patients about the presence of guns in their homes which is a risk for accident or suicide.

Then, too, there are examples such as politicians and school boards requiring certain religious beliefs of creationism to be taught in public schools, book banning and, even worse, denying facts regarding the urgent need to protect our planet.

Your editorial stated the problem well. Scientific studies should not be hampered by politicians.

William Little, M.D.

Racine
Dem Commissioner calls for deploying

UN troops on the streets of America

By Mike Adams. December 17th, 2017

And so it begins.

Apparently oblivious to the fact that Democrat policies have driven the city of Chicago into a state of near-collapse, Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin is now calling for United Nations "peacekeeping" troops to be stationed on the streets of America.

As you'll hear in the video below, Boykin says that UN troops need to be brought into America's cities as a way to help "victims of violence." Utterly oblivious to the ramifications of foreign troops invading U.S. soil and occupying a U.S. city, Boykin is just the latest example of a hopelessly deranged Democrat, devoid of logic and reason, who seems to have no clue he just called for an invasion of the United States of America by foreign troops. (Or maybe he knows exactly what he's doing, and it's time to drop the hammer...)

"I'm hoping to appeal to the UN to actually come to Chicago and meet with victims of violence, and maybe even possibly help out in terms of peacekeeping efforts," Boykin explains in the video below. (h/t to The Daily Sheeple)

When asked to explain further, he says that armed foreign troops / shock troops are necessary to "protect minority and vulnerable populations." Via the following video: .......

Many might regard this opinion piece as scare mongering, and yet the mere fact that someone can actually suggest such a scheme is utterly incredible. As a subject this has been long in the category of conspiracy theory and yet when considered in the light of the Commissioner's suggestion, the ramifications of such a plan can be seen as potentially serious as well as decidedly dangerous. This is being shared to highlight how our Bill of Rights could be directly threatened, although one might think hopefully that such a crackpot idea would never ever see the light of day.

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Transcript

Presenter: U.K. Army Major General Felix Gedney, Deputy Commander, Strategy and Support, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve December 27, 2017

Department Of Defense Press Briefing By Maj. Gen. Gedney Via Teleconference

STAFF: Good morning, everyone. I hope everybody had a nice Christmas. Today, we continue our series of Operation Inherent Resolve press briefings to provide a better understanding on what's going on over there.

Today, we're joined by British Army Major General Felix Gedney, deputy commander, Strategy and Support, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.

He joins us today from Baghdad, Iraq. He only has 45 minutes, and does have a hard stop. So, as one of two deputy commanders, he's focused on looking at the fight ahead, specifically in the areas of force development, helping our partner forces on the ground transition to sustainable organizations that are capable of ensuring the defeat of ISIS.

We'll start with a quick communications check. Sir, how do you hear us?

MAJOR GENERAL FELIX GEDNEY: I hear you loud and clear Mike. How do you hear me?

STAFF: Sir, we hear you great. Please take it away.

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, good morning. It's a pleasure to speak with you today, and I'd like to start by wishing you all a happy holidays.

I'll first provide an operational update for Syria and Iraq. With this being our last briefing for 2017, I'll also discuss this year's overall progress in the fight against ISIS and the way ahead for the coalition in 2018.

In Syria, the fight very much continues against ISIS terrorists who still present a threat to the people of Syria, as well as to the region and our home nations. The Syrian Democratic Forces have therefore, kept up their advance against ISIS in the Khabur and Middle Euphrates River Valleys. The SDF have isolated the remaining pockets of ISIS militants along the east bank of the Euphrates River and are methodically clearing areas to the east, in the desert along the border with Iraq.

In the course of the last week, the SDF, with coalition strike support, repelled ISIS attacks in the vicinity of Abu Hammam, with more than a dozen enemy killed. In total, coalition forces have conducted 23 strikes against ISIS targets in eastern Syria during the past week, destroying ISIS vehicles, weapons, explosives and a command-and-control center.

As we've seen this week in Damascus and in various other places in Syria, such as Palmyra, over the past several months, ISIS retains the capability to launch successful surprise offenses and retake territories from Assad forces. The Syrian regime has failed to demonstrate its ability to prevent the resurgence of ISIS on their own soil.

Additionally, the Syrian Democratic Forces have clashed with ISIS several times in the past week, and the coalition continues to support the SDF on the ground and from the air. While the Russians falsely claimed victory over ISIS in Syria earlier this month, we, the coalition, have remained focused on ensuring the lasting defeat of ISIS in the region.

Such an enduring victory over ISIS requires the global coalition's continued commitment to the security and stabilization of liberated areas. In Raqqa, for example, the SDF and the Raqqa Internal Security Forces are conducting an important and dangerous mission. They're bravely searching for and removing the many improvised explosive devices and booby traps left behind by ISIS terrorists, so local residents can return to their homes and get back to their lives.

Despite this overwhelming threat, areas are returning to normalcy as the Raqqa Civil Council, SDF and RISF call out areas as safe to return. Such efforts to establish safety and security help pave the way for civilian-led efforts to address local needs.

While northern neighborhoods in Raqqa are still uninhabitable, conditions are improving daily in southern neighborhoods. With civilians returning to core tasks of rebuilding homes, sweeping roads and even opening shops.

Through coordination and partnership, the locally governed Raqqa Civil Council is working to get children back in the classroom, a key priority in an area that has not seen formal education for five years. Vetting and hiring qualified teachers, rehabilitating classrooms is developing at pace, reopening multiple schools.

Over 830 metric tons of humanitarian aid have been delivered to more than 40 locations around the city of Raqqa, and local councils are facilitating the delivery of aid to civilians. Just last week, medical equipment was delivered to the Raqqa Civil Council's new medical facility in Khatuniyah, Syria.

These positive developments offer hope for the future of Syria, but we know there is still more work to be done. It's for this reason, for the continued safety of the region and the world,that our coalition will remain committed to the mission in Syria until ISIS no longer poses a threat and a U.N. backed peace process is implemented to ensure lasting stability in the country.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, the Iraqi Security Forces continue hunting down ISIS remnants hiding throughout the country. For instance, in the past week, in and around Anbar Province as well as Baghdad, our Iraqi partners reported clearing dozens of improvised explosive devices, as well as mortars, ammunition, and ISIS safe houses.

In Hawija Province and the Hamrin Mountains, the ISF reported the arrest of multiple ISIS terrorists and clearance of more than 50 IEDs. These have been a few examples in ongoing efforts to find and eradicate ISIS militants.

Both the ISF and our coalition forces are keenly aware ISIS is an adaptive and patient enemy. We know they may attempt to work in smaller cells, and they may certainly will continue attempting their acts of terror whenever and wherever possible. However, the ISF's ongoing clearance operations should dispel any ideas that ISIS can simply vanish into the population they once terrorized and be forgotten about.

On the contrary, our pursuit of these terrorists is as tenacious and determined as ever. And we will continue supporting our Iraqi partners as they work to bring these terrorists to justice and protect the people of Iraq from any kind of ISIS resurgence. To that end, the coalition will continue to partner with the ISF, advising, training and equipping them in their efforts to fully eliminate ISIS as a threat to Iraq.

We will tailor our support based on Iraqi requirements, with a particular emphasis on the capabilities needed to hold and secure the liberated areas. That means more training and support to the Iraqi police and border guards, for instance.

As with Syria, the coalition measures our success not only in our partners' battlefield victories, but also in our stabilization efforts. While there is much work to be done, we are seeing positive signs in the long-term effort to help Iraqis recover from life under ISIS.

Across Iraq, internally displaced persons are returning home. And, for the first time, we have seen the number of returnees climb above the number of those still displaced. Just over 2.8 million people have returned, and just under 2.8 million remain displaced.

We're encouraged by this positive trend, and the coalition stands together with the government of Iraq, and international and non-governmental partners as we all work to enable security and stabilization that will allow all Iraqis to return home. This effort is now decisive in our campaign to defeat ISIS.

More signs of progress are seen throughout the country. Anbar University's academic buildings have been rehabilitated, providing renewed hope and opportunities for thousands of students. The U.N. development program has helped enable the rehabilitation of 6,000 homes in Ramadi and Fallujah, an effort which also provides jobs for local Iraqis. The rehabilitation of water treatment plants in Mosul is providing clean drinking water for hundreds of thousands of residents.

Such recent developments are, once again, positive signs of things to come. The need remains great, however, so the combined efforts of the global coalition will remain vital as we move forward into 2018. As we close out the year, we should look back and consider the progress that has been made in the past 12 months.

During 2017, over 60,000 square kilometers were liberated from ISIS across Iraq and Syria, meaning that more than 98 percent of the land once claimed by the terrorist group has been returned to the people. More than 4.5 million Iraqis and Syrians were liberated from ISIS oppression during the year, bringing the full total liberated to approximately 7.7 million people now free from ISIS's barbaric activity.

We've been taking something away from the enemy every day in 2017. Over the course of the year, we all but eliminated their ability to draw illegal revenue for the oil field once under their control. We've decimated their ability to publish propaganda and recruit foreign fighters, and we've targeted their leadership, taking out approximately 130 ISIS leaders and high-value targets during the year.

The coalition started 2017 with 67 member organizations, and we've concluded the year with 74. That's 70 nations, plus the Arab League, NATO, INTERPOL and the E.U., together demonstrating the international resolve to defeat ISIS and, most importantly, to prevent the return of this most evil terrorist organization.

The coalition must also remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the global war to defeat ISIS in 2017, including hundreds of brave Iraqis and Syrians who gave their lives for their nations, alongside the fourteen service members from coalition nations.

The suffering that ISIS has brought to many Iraqis and Syrians is witnessed in the discovery of mass graves and the mass IED emplacements designed to target returning civilians. We remember all of their sacrifices, and we honor their memory by remaining committed to this historic mission.

And, with that, I'll now take your questions.

STAFF: Thank you, General.

We're going to start off with Tom Bowman, NPR, one and one follow-up, please.

Q: General, I wonder if you could talk about reports we've been hearing that more ISIS fighters are now heading west, presumably toward Damascus? And you also said that you don't think the Syrian government can deal with counterattacks by ISIS. You talked about Palmyra.

So, I'm wondering, once the SDF cleans out the Euphrates River Valley, do you intend -- the coalition -- on working more with the Russians and even the Syrians in cleaning up ISIS to the west of the Euphrates?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, let me take the last part of that question first. The coalition will continue to deconflict with the Russian forces. We do that effectively in Syria, and it's working. But, to come to your initial point, we are seeing the movement of limited numbers of ISIS militants westwards.

They seem to be moving with impunity through regime-held territory, showing that the regime is clearly either unwilling or unable to defeat Daesh within their borders. We're seeing those in and around the area of Al-Tanf, and we're dealing with -- every time we see them, we are taking those individuals off the battlefield.

Our intention is to finish off the defeat of ISIS in that last area, where they hold -- in the area of the MERV in southern Syria.

Q: Again, I'm wondering if -- what about west of the Euphrates? Once you clear out that area, will you redouble your efforts? Will you help the Russians? Will you clean out those last remnants of ISIS?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, we'll continue to deconflict with the Russians, but we've got no intention to operate in areas that are currently held by the regime.

STAFF: Idrees Ali, Reuters.

Q: Sure. General, as you know probably better than I do, just killing militants won't solve the problem of ISIS. And, historically, the coalition, maybe with the exception of Australia, has been pretty poor in dealing with insurgency, you know, whether it's Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.

In this instance, as the number of militants decrease and as their territory decreases, how have they sort of moved towards an insurgency campaign? And how are you planning on sort of, you know, working your counterinsurgency strategy out, given that there is the Syrian regime in many of these territories that you've retaken, or they're close by in the territories that you've retaken?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, your premise is entirely correct. We won't judge our success by the number of people that we've killed during this campaign. We have generated an opportunity now, through military operations, to complete the defeat of ISIS. And, as I said during my pitch, the decisive part of this campaign is now the non-military lines of effort.

We'll continue the military lines. We'll continue to hunt down and find those remnants of ISIS and those sleeper cells, or anyone attempting to mount an insurgency. And we're pretty confident that our partner forces will be able to deal with that threat as it emerges.

But we'll also redouble our efforts to support those non-military lines of effort, and particularly the immediate stabilization that will show the people of Iraq and Syria that they're better off under their legitimate governance than they are under ISIS.

Q: And, just to follow up, I mean, you have a pretty good idea of the troop numbers. How many foreign or coalition troops are there in Iraq? And specifically, how many U.S. troops are there in Iraq currently?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, I'm not going to go into the detail of numbers. The numbers are a matter of public record, and I know that DOD will be able to give you the U.S. ones.

But what I see -- will say about numbers, and this is really important, is that we have no more troops than we need to complete this mission, and as soon as we can, we will move people out of theater when the job is done.

STAFF: Tara, Military Times.

Q: Hi, Tara Copp, Military Times. Thanks for doing this.

Recent reports suggests that the Russians are actually, instead of departing Syria -- are actually building permanent naval and air bases and striking a deal with Damascus to be part of the long-term presence in Syria. How will the coalition deal with maintaining the peace in Syria if there's not more interaction with the Russians and a willingness to work together on a long-term plan?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, I'm not going to make comment about any long-term plans. You'd have to ask either Russia or Damascus that. What I would say -- as I've already mentioned, our deconfliction with the Russian forces is effective and it's proving successful, and we intend to keep doing that.

Q: All right. A lot of your initial pitch focused on Raqqa. Do you have an estimate as to how many civilians remain in Raqqa? And will the coalition's efforts really remain focused on fortifying Raqqa for the short term?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Could you just repeat the last bit of your question?

Q: Will the coalition's efforts really focus on fortifying Raqqa in the short term? And how many civilians do you estimate remain in Raqqa?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Okay, so I thought I heard that. So we've got no intention to fortify Raqqa. The effort within the city of Raqqa, right now, is to stabilize it after the liberation of that city. The most important part of that stabilization effort is currently the counter-IED effort, to remove the IEDs and booby traps that ISIS have left in pretty much every building they inhabited.

The Raqqa Civil Council have managed the return of a number of people, and some of those southern neighborhoods now are blossoming back into life. It will be quite a long time, though, before that city is safe for the whole of the residents to return.

Q: Do you have any estimates on how many civilians remain in Raqqa or have returned?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: I haven't got an estimate for you. We can follow up on that later on.

STAFF: Barbara Starr, CNN.

Q: Sir, can we go back to some of the things you were saying about ISIS moving westward? I believe you said that they are moving with impunity into regime-held areas. So I'm not clear how the coalition can say it will stay to defeat ISIS, when you also say, with respect -- that you have no intention of moving into these regime-held areas.

And, if they are moving into these areas where you're not going to go, what is your assessment of their ability to establish a safe haven there and potentially further export terrorism?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: So you're right. I did say that, from our point of view, it seems to us that ISIS are moving through regime areas with impunity. We will remain committed to defeating ISIS in the areas that are currently controlled by our partner forces in Syria, and we would call on the Syrian regime to clear ISIS from those areas that are currently under their control.

Q: And I wanted to follow up. Thank you. Again, overall, what is your current calculation on the ability of ISIS to export operatives, financing, planning of operations outside of Iraq and Syria, and your current calculation on that capability, and your calculation on how many ISIS operatives you really believe are left?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, let me take the first bit. I know that our spokesman has put out some numbers on numbers that might be left. And I'm not going to add anything to what he's said.

ISIS remains a threat in the region. It remains a threat to our homelands as well. But the military operations here over the past years have hit them very hard. We've taken an enormous amount of territory from them, we've killed large numbers of ISIS militants, and we continue to do so. So we have severely degraded their ability to conduct operations outside of Iraq and Syria, as well as degrading their capability in country.

STAFF: Laurie Milroy, Kurdistan 24.

Q: Thank you, General, for doing this.

At Astana last week -- at the Astana talks, both the Russian and Syrian representatives said that it was time for the U.S. to leave Syria. How do you view those comments, and what's your response to it?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, the time for the coalition -- I'm only going to speak on behalf of the coalition, not the U.S. -- the time for the coalition to leave Syria will be when we have defeated ISIS in the areas that we control.

Q: You just are telling them no, in essence.

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Right now, we have not completed the defeat of ISIS, and it would not be the time to leave, correct.

Q: And you mentioned in your opening statement that ISIS in Iraq was disappearing into the local population. Is that a serious issue? Have you have any estimate of how much of that is going on?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: I'm not going to give you an estimate. It's clearly a serious issue. ISIS, we believe, will attempt to mount some form of insurgency. However, the ISF operations are proving to be very successful. They're finding ISIS amongst the population, and they're taking action against them.

It's too early to say, at the moment, how much threat that potential insurgency might face in coming years. What we do know, though, is that the Iraqi security forces are proving to be very adept at dealing with it, and we have absolute confidence that they will be able to do so in future.

STAFF: Lucas, Fox.

Q: General, with ISIS largely defeated in Iraq and Syria, although still a threat, as you say, are more assets going to the pursuit of the ISIS leader, Baghdadi?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, as I've said, and I'll reiterate, ISIS are not defeated here. And, despite the liberation of Iraq announced by Prime Minister Abadi, we need to make sure we remain absolutely focused and continue this mission to defeat ISIS.

In terms of Baghdadi, we have no intention to put any more assets to find him. We obviously would like to find him, and when we do, you'll find out about it.

Q: Cheers.

STAFF: Sylvie with AFP.

Q: Hello, sir.

You said that ISIS is becoming -- is a very adaptive and patient enemy, and that it's transforming into smaller units. And you also said that you don't intend to follow them in zones that you don't control, that the coalition doesn't control now. So, if they just disappear in Syria, how are you going to defeat them?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, we'll continue to operate in areas liberated by our partner forces in Syria. And we call upon the Syrian regime to deal with ISIS in areas under their control.

STAFF: Okay. Elizabeth, with ABC.

Q: Hi, General.

How many fighters do you assess have moved westward, and how confident are you that Russia will indeed go after those forces, if you've seen that they're unable or unwilling to go after them now?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, I think you'd have to address that question, really, to either the Russians or the Syrians. We've clearly seen a lot of operations by pro-regime forces, Russian-backed Syrian forces, over to the east of the Euphrates River. And we questioned some of the effectiveness of some of those operations. But, in terms of their future intent, that's not something I'm going to be able to answer, I'm afraid.

Q: And how many fighters do you think have moved west?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: It would be impossible for me to tell you. I can tell you that we continue to find every day, we're intercepting and taking off the battlefield small numbers of fighters that are moving through the battle space in areas that we control.

STAFF: Corey, Stars and Stripes.

Q: Thanks, General.

How often are you seeing the ISIS fighters around Al-Tanf, where you said that you guys were taking them out? Is it like a daily occurrence where these guys are getting through there? And is there still regime-backed militias in that area, as well?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: So it's a relatively routine occurrence of fighting against ISIS militants that are moving through the area around Al-Tanf, where coalition-backed partner forces are operating. And, indeed, I'll draw your attention to a press release today from CJTF over one such operation to clear some cave areas.

Can you repeat the other part of the question?

Q: There had been, you know, several instances where there were Syrian regime-backed militias, you know, kind of in the no-go zone around Al-Tanf. Are there still regime militias in that area?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Again, I'm not too sure I can tell you. We're aware of the areas that the regime control, but I'm not too sure I have full sight on all of the regime forces that are operating in those areas.

STAFF: Richard.

Q: Hi, General. Richard Sisk, Military.com.

In regards to the successes of the coalition that you've recounted this year, is that the result of the long-term strategy decided by the coalition, partnered with local forces? Or is it pretty much this year, the acceleration of the successes, is that due to some of the changes in tactics that gave field commanders more latitude in targeting, et cetera?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: So I think it's a combination of a large number of things. But, most importantly, it is, indeed, a success of a strategy of working by, with, and through partner forces. In Iraq, the Iraqi security forces had a rapid series of successes after Mosul, at Tal Afar, Hawija, Anbar. And, each time, of course, they're building on their success with more experience and expertise.

I mean, they're a very effective fighting force now.

STAFF: Laurie?

Q: Yes, sir. Are you concerned, regarding the -- you said the most important thing is to prevent the return of ISIS. Many people have called for political reforms in Iraq, which don't seem to be forthcoming. Are you concerned that the lack of adequate representation for the Sunni Arabs in Iraq might facilitate the return of ISIS?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, what you're asking me is really a political question, and I'm a soldier, not a politician. What I would point out to you, though, is that the people of Iraq have liberated their country through national unity, all parts of the nation coming together to drive out this evil terrorist group.

Within the coalition, we hope that that national unity will go forward as much as it does in the security side as it will in the political.

Q: Could you comment on the role of the Peshmerga in the fight against ISIS and plans you have for training them in the future?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Yes, of course. Well, as I said, all parts of the Iraqi security forces, including the Peshmerga, play a hugely valuable role in defeating ISIS over the past years. We'll continue to train Peshmerga for as long as the government of Iraq wants us to.

Q: Thank you.

STAFF: Question in the back?

Q: Thank you, General. Jeff Seldin from VOA.

You mentioned the number of ISIS fighters that are being taken off the battlefield. Do you have a sense of what is happening to them? Are they being killed? Are if they're captured, what is being done with them? Do you have a sense of what the Russians or the pro-Syrian regime forces are doing with their fighters, as well?

And to what extent have ISIS fighters perhaps managed to leave the Iraq and Syria theater prior to these last couple of months? Is the numbers -- the decrease in the numbers of fighters due to the bombing campaign and the advances of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Iraqi security forces? Or, because they were able to move with impunity in some areas, was there an exodus that you think has taken place?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, the first thing as I've said, I'm not going to answer for the Syrian regime or the Russians. I can tell you that we are seeing a number of ISIS militants in particular, we've seen their leadership deserting the battlefield and leaving the battlefield at the earliest opportunity.

We're interdicting them, and I think we've been relatively successful in that task. We have seen an uptick as we've squeezed ISIS into their sort of last remaining stronghold in the Middle Euphrates Valley. We've seen an uptick in the numbers of people moving because of the numbers of interdictions we're doing.

And I can't tell you that none have managed to get through our grip, but I would tell you that -- not many.

STAFF: And we'll do one more question. Tom Bowman.

Q: Hey, General.

Defense Secretary Mattis had said that U.S. forces will stay in Syria to prevent the return of ISIS 2.0. Heading back to the issue of ISIS west of the Euphrates, how can you prevent that? How can you prevent the return of ISIS 2.0, if you're not going to work to eliminate ISIS west of the Euphrates and leave it up to folks who you say are now unable or unwilling to go after ISIS? Explain that to us.

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, as I've said to you already, the Syrian regime must be held responsible for clearing and defeating ISIS in the areas that they control. Our part in this as a coalition -- we'll continue to support our partner forces in northern Syria in the defeat of ISIS. And that includes, once we've liberated territory, supporting those forces that will maintain security, and particularly internal security forces or border guards, after the liberation.

Q: What if they don't take out ISIS? Then what? You just throw your hands up?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, I think you'd have to address that to the Syrian regime. We can only defeat ISIS in the areas that our partner forces control.

STAFF: Lucas?

Q: General, how would describe the threat from Iranian-backed forces, some of whom have threatened U.S. and coalition troops on the ground?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, I guess you're talking about those Iranian-backed militia. Let's be clear: The Popular Mobilization Front, which is that umbrella group for all of those militias -- some Iranian-backed, some religious organizations -- played a valuable part in the defeat of ISIS in this country.

Now, while we haven't supported them directly, we've operated in the same battle space, and effectively we've had a good cooperation through the government of Iraq with those forces. And we hope that cooperation will continue in the future.

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: I've talked about national unity. It was national unity that liberated this country, and we hope that will continue and -- to secure the country in future.

Q: What about some of these forces that don't want unity, but want to attack U.S. troops? What are you doing to deal with those forces?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, that is a question for the government of Iraq. Prime Minister Abadi is working with those groupings to make sure they remain under the control of the government of Iraq. The government of Iraq, as the state government, must retain a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence in this country.

STAFF: Okay. General, thank you very much for your time today. Do you have any closing remarks for the group?

MAJ. GEN. GEDNEY: Well, yes. I will, first of all, thank you. Thank you for your time. I would say that we've had a very successful 2017 in the military campaign. We haven't created a win; we've created an opportunity.

A coalition of 70 nations and four organizations will continue in our fight against ISIS. Much of that campaign will now focus on the nonmilitary lines, where we're absolutely committed to continuing this job until we've defeated ISIS and lifted that horrific shadow off the people of Iraq and Syria.

Thank you.

STAFF: Thank you, sir, for your time. And please pass on our thoughts and prayers to all those who are deployed and away from their families.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's engagement. Have a great day and a safe and happy new year.

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1405046/

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U.S. Adjusts Support to ARA San Juan Search Operations

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS171227-13

Release Date: 12/27/2017 6:18:00 PM

From U.S. Southern Command

DORAL, Fla. (NNS) -- The United States will begin to draw down operations assisting the search for the Argentine submarine A.R.A. San Juan in the South Atlantic Dec. 27, after completing its support to requests by the government of Argentina.

The U.S. actively joined the Argentina-led international search efforts within 24 hours of learning of the missing submarine on Nov. 17. At its height, U.S. contributions to the search and rescue effort included three advanced aircraft, over 200 search and rescue personnel, four submersibles, one specialized underwater rescue unit, one ship, and more than 400 sonar buoys dropped in support of the operation. Additionally, the U.S. provided the most advanced sonar system in the world, which was mounted on Argentine search vessels. U.S. planning and analytical specialists supported the efforts through data analysis, an effort that will continue.

The U.S. support team completed all searches in areas assigned by the Argentine Navy, sweeping each area twice with advanced sensors. Despite their best efforts on behalf of the Argentine people and the families of the missing sailors, this international effort has yet to locate the ARA San Juan.

"On behalf of the people of the United States, we offer our respects to the families of the crew of A.R.A. San Juan and the people of Argentina," said Rear Adm. Daniel B. Abel, director of operations, US Southern Command.

The armed forces of the United States and Argentina enjoy very close ties and a longstanding partnership. They routinely work collaboratively in support of bilateral and multinational security.

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Yemeni forces' missile hit Saudi mercenaries base in Ma'rib prov.

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:08AM

Yemeni forces have fired a ballistic missile at a military base used by the Saudi-backed mercenaries in Yemen's central Ma'rib Province, inflicting heavy damage on their military equipment and systems.

Yemini sources said on Thursday that the medium-range Qaher M-2 missile had precisely hit the target.

Meanwhile, Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported that rockets fired by the Yemeni Houthi Ansarullah fighters hit the Khazra crossing in Saudi Arabia's border region of Najran on Thursday.

There were, however, no immediate reports about the number of possible casualties and the extent of damage caused.

Yemeni forces regularly fire ballistic missile at positions inside Saudi Arabia in retaliation for the Riyadh military's strikes on Yemen.

Earlier in the day, Saudi warplanes pounded different areas in Yemen's Jawf and Ma'rib Provinces, killing two civilians.

Saudi airstrikes hit a house in al-Tuhayat district in Hudaydah on Wednesday, killing a family of five members, including three children.

The attack comes hours after a similar airstrike killed 14 people of a family, including women and children, in Hudaydah province on Tuesday.

Saudi-led airstrikes on Tuesday also killed or injured over 120 people in a market in Heime District of the southwestern province of Ta'izz, according to Yemeni officials.

The UN humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said on Thursday that 68 Yemeni civilians were killed in the two separate airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition on Tuesday.

The UN official said that some 54 civilians including eight children were killed and 32 others wounded as the Saudi jets hit a crowded popular market in Ta'izz, while the second air raid in Hudaydah killed 14 people from the same family.

The Saudi-led war, which began in March 2015, has been accompanied by a naval and aerial blockade on Yemen. It has so far killed over 12,000 people and led to a humanitarian crisis and a cholera outbreak.

Saudi Arabia launched the offensive to eliminate Yemen's Houthi movement and reinstall a Riyadh-friendly regime there.

The Saudi military campaign, however, has failed to achieve its goals despite spending billions of dollars on the war and enlisting the cooperation of its vassal states as well as some Western countries.

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40 killed, 32 injured in blasts near Afghan news agency office in Kabul

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 28, 2017 07:32AM

A bombing attack on a Shia cultural center and the nearby office of a media outlet in the Afghan capital of Kabul has left at least 40 people dead and more than two dozen others injured.

Afghan officials and witnesses said the deadly incident took place in the west of the capital early on Thursday, when a bomber detonated his explosives among social activists who had gathered at the Tabayan social and cultural center for a meeting.

"The target of the attack was the Tabayan cultural center. A ceremony was being held to mark the 38th anniversary of Soviet-invasion in Afghanistan when the explosion went off," Deputy Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said. "We have 40 killed, 30 wounded, but this is not the final toll. It might go up."

Witnesses said many of those attending the ceremony were students.

The spokesman said the bombing attack was followed by two smaller bomb explosions at the site of the Afghan Voice news agency that caused severe damage but left no casualties.

Photos posted on the agency's Facebook page showed the inside of a compound in fire, smoke and debris.

Officials said there appeared to have been more than one attacker.

The Takfiri terrorist group of Daesh later claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks.

Iran strongly condemns Kabul attack, urges unity against terror plots

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi strongly condemned the attack.

He said that launching attacks on cultural centers showed the great extent of hatred by the masterminds and perpetrators of terrorist attacks towards freedom of expression and unity of the Afghan people.

"Following their heavy defeats, radical ill-wishers and hate-mongers now see their petty interests in [creating] regional chaos and unrest as well as the killing of innocent people," he said.

He said that the vigilance and unity of the Afghan nation and government together with cooperation among all regional countries were key to defeating terrorists.

Qassemi also expressed Iran's condolences to the Afghan government and nation, the bereaved families of the victims and the communities of reporters and intellectuals over the deadly attack.

The Thursday attack came days after a bomber claimed the lives of six civilians near an Afghan intelligence agency compound in Kabul. The assault was also claimed by Daesh, which has been seeking to expand its presence in Afghanistan after losing the territories under its control in Iraq and Syria.

Afghanistan is engulfed by violence, and many parts of the country remain plagued by militancy despite the presence of thousands of foreign troops.

The United States and its NATO allies invaded the country as part of Washington's so-called war on terror in 2001. The offensive removed a Taliban regime from power.

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Zimbabwean general who helped end Mugabe's rule becomes VP

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 28, 2017 06:49PM

Zimbabwe's former commander of the army, General Constantino Chiwenga, has been chosen as a vice president of the country.

Chiwenga, 61, played a pivotal role in recent developments that ended President Robert Mugabe's longtime rule.

His appointment is seen as a reward for the army's instrumental role in ending Mugabe's rule.

General Chiwenga took the oath of office in Harare on Thursday, pledging to be "faithful" to Zimbabwe, and to "obey, uphold and defend the constitution".

At the event held on the lawns of the president's official residence, Chiwenga, who is now one of the two country's vice presidents, vowed to "work as a team", and "deliver" whatever task given to him.

Chiwenga retired from the military last week, slightly over a month after the army temporarily took control of the country on November 15, culminating in Mugabe's resignation six days later and a takeover by his deputy.

The new president Emmerson Mnangagwa, dozens of government officials, military and police chiefs as well as traditional leaders, attended the event.

Chiwenga's rise to the country's second most powerful job has further consolidated the military's power in the politics of the southern African country.

Other top military officials were awarded ministerial posts earlier this month include ex-air force chief Marshal Perrance Shiri, who became the new agriculture minister, and a spokesman for the military, General Sibusiso Moyo, who was appointed as the new foreign minister.

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'Historical Injustice': Kosovo's President Pledges To Sign Legislation Abolishing War Crimes Court

RFE/RL's Balkan Service December 28, 2017

PRISTINA -- Kosovar President Hashim Thaci says he will sign legislation to abolish a special court at The Hague that was set up to prosecute war crimes if it is passed by Kosovo's parliament.

In an interview with RFE/RL on December 27, Thaci said that he is not "encouraging lawmakers" to pass such a bill but added: "I will sign any decision" made by parliament on the matter.

Lawmakers from the governing coalition are pressing for a vote to abolish the court, which was established to prosecute alleged war crimes by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against ethnic Serbs during Kosovo's 1998-99 war for independence.

The court was set up in 2015 in the Netherlands and put under Kosovo's jurisdiction.

"The initiative of some 50 deputies of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo should be understood as an alternative and not as a challenge to justice -- not as ignorance or [an attempt to] escape from justice," said Thaci.

"Serbia had invaded Kosovo and it was a defensive war of the liberators and the people of Kosovo," he added, calling the court a "historical injustice."

Thaci, who was a KLA commander, said that if he did not sign such a law he would "violate the constitution."

An attempt to vote on the bill failed last week after an opposition boycott kept parliament from having a quorum.

Kosovar parliament speaker Kadri Veseli -- who along with Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj was also a KLA commander -- said lawmakers would try to hold a vote on the issue in the coming days.

The Specialist Chamber in The Hague was established as a result of pressure by the United States and the European Union for Kosovo's government to hold accountable those responsible for alleged KLA war crimes against ethnic Serbs.

It has not yet charged anyone with war crimes or held any court sessions.

The United States and EU have strongly opposed any attempt to abolish the court.

Isa Mustafa, Kosovo's former prime minister and an opposition leader, said the proposal was "devastating for our state and very damaging for justice."

The court's judges and prosecutors are foreign but it has been set up under Kosovar law, giving Pristina jurisdiction over it.

U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo Greg Delawie said on December 22 that shutting down the court would have "extraordinarily negative implications" for Kosovo.

He said it would be "a disgrace" if Kosovar deputies abolished the court and "considered by the U.S. as stab in the back." He added that "Kosovo will be choosing isolation instead of cooperation" if it does away with the court.

The United States has been the top political and financial backer of Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Nataliya Apostolova, the EU representative in Pristina, called the attempt to scrap the court "appalling and extremely damaging."

NATO air strikes on Serbia forced Belgrade to withdraw its troops from Kosovo in 1999, having killed some 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians. There are some 5,000 NATO troops stationed in Kosovo, which is recognized by 116 countries but not Serbia.

Kosovo's population is more than 90 percent ethnic Albanians and about 5 percent Serbs.

With reporting by Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kosovo-thaci-legislation- abolishing-war-crimes-court/28943894.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Airstrikes Kill 68 Civilians in 1 Day in Yemen - UN Humanitarian Coordinator

Sputnik News

13:29 28.12.2017(updated 14:11 28.12.2017)

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  As many as 68 civilians were killed in one day in "escalated and indiscriminate attacks" in Yemen, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said Thursday.

"Initial reports from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) indicate that on 26 December, airstrikes on a crowded popular market in Al Hayma sub-district in Attazziah district, Taizz Governorate resulted in at least 54 civilians killed  Also on 26 December, an airstrike on a farm in Attohayta District, Al Hudaydah Governorate resulted in the killing of 14 people from the same family," the statement read.

According to McGoldrick, these victims are in addition to "84 civilian casualties reported in the last 10 days, including 41 people killed" throughout the country.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs added that all the parties to the conflict, including the Saudi-led coalition, showed disregard for human lives and the conflict resulted only in destruction and multiple deaths across Yemen.

"I remind all parties to the conflict, including the Saudi-led Coalition, of their obligations under International Humanitarian Law to spare civilians and civilian infrastructure and to always distinguish between civilian and military objects," the statement read.

The UN official added that the conflict had no military solution.

Since 2015, Yemen has been torn by a conflict between the government, headed by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and the Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah, backed by army units loyal to Saleh. Since March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf countries has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request.

 Sputnik

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US Claims F-16s Killed Top Taliban Leader

Sputnik News

00:17 28.12.2017(updated 00:24 28.12.2017)

A team of US Marines called in an airstrike to eliminate a suspected Taliban leader on December 20, but conflicting reports suggest the so-called Taliban shadow governor has been dead for a while.

Military.com's Hope Hedge Seck reported December 27 that Qari Fida Mohammad had finally been taken out after planning improvised explosive device and suicide attacks in Afghanistan for more than a decade.

"Through the work of the intelligence sections as well as the operations in here," US Marine Corps Capt. Brian Hubert explained to Military.com, "we were able to conduct a strike on [Mohammad] a few days ago."

"We're very familiar with the battlespace now," Hubert said, which makes sense given the US military's 16-year presence in Afghanistan. Mohammad was evidently first noticed by a US surveillance drone in a vehicle with some deputies and a cousin. "When he was well-positioned as a target, the Marines called in two [US] Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons to execute the strike," the captain said.

However, another report suggests Mohammad may have died much earlier. According to Khaama Press, the largest news agency in Afghanistan, which cited Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense, Mohammad was apparently killed during an Afghan Air Force strike in Helmand province way back in May 2016.

"We're still not really fully aware of the exact ramifications of taking him out," USMC Col. Matthew Reid told Military.com in late December, discussing Mohammad's most recent apparent death, but claimed it was "a pretty big takedown."

Mohammad "was behind a lot of attacks against Marines back in the day  really high-profile attacks," Reid said.

"I know we want to bring in governance, and I know we want institutional fixes. But right now, this is a fight. And as Marines, when we're fighting, we're going to kill the enemy, and we're going to kill as many as we can," Reid said.

Both strikes took place in the Marjah district of Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Yet another Khaama Press article dated December 22, 2017, reported that in fact it was just over the past three days that Mohammad had been killed.

"The provincial government media office in a statement said the prominent Taliban, Qari Fida Mohammad, was among several killed as fighter jets bombed the militants in Marjah district," Khamma Press reported, adding that "The statement further added that the airstrike was carried out at around noon time in the vicinity of Haji Baba roundabout."

The Taliban "is not showing signs of weakness," Max Abrahms, a counterterrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Sputnik News in late October, adding that "the notion [the US is] going to turn the tide doesn't seem realistic."

Following diplomatic discussions between China, Pakistan and Afghanistan, "the Afghan government said that it will soon present a practical and engaging program of peace talks with the Taliban," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing December 26.

Earlier in December, US Air Force Brig Gen. Lance Bunch said the US and Afghan air campaigns against the Taliban had placed heavier emphasis on the Taliban's drug-running operation in Helmand, which serves as an "economic engine" for the Taliban network because of the substantial opioid production there.

 Sputnik

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US Airstrike Kills 4 Al-Shabab Militants, Destroys Bomb Near Mogadishu

By VOA News December 28, 2017

U.S. airstrikes killed four members of the al-Shabab extremist group and destroyed a vehicle carrying explosives near the Somali capital, U.S. Africa Command said Thursday.

The strike, carried out on Wednesday evening 25 kilometers west of Mogadishu, prevented the "vehicle-borne improvised explosive device" from being used against civilians in the capital, the statement from the military said.

The statement also said that the U.S. Africa Command had assessed no civilians were killed in the strike, which was carried out in coordination with Somalia's federal government.

The United States has carried out over 30 such airstrikes against terrorist group al-Shabab and a small but growing number of Islamic State-linked fighters in the past year.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon said a December 24 airstrike in southern Somalia killed 13 al-Shabab militants northwest of the coastal city of Kismayo.

"The strike targeted the militants as they mobilized to launch an attack against our base. Fortunately, the military from a friendly nation disabled them with a drone strike and killed 13 of them," a Somali military commander in the area told VOA.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration approved expanding military operations in the Horn of Africa nation, where al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab is attempting to overthrow the Somali government and impose a strict version of Islamic law.

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Islamic State Claims Deadly Afghanistan Blast

By Ayaz Gul December 28, 2017

Afghan officials say more than 40 people have been killed and 84 others wounded in a suicide attack on a building in Kabul that houses a Shi'ite Muslim cultural center with ties to Iran.

A spokesman for Afghan Ministry of Public Health told reporters that four women and two children were among those killed in the blast.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. An online statement said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, and that three other bombs were also used. Previous attacks on Shi'ite worship places and processions in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan were also claimed by Islamic State.

The bomber, witnesses reported, blew himself up near a big meeting in the basement of the Tebyan Social and Cultural Center building shortly before other devices went off.

Responding to criticism over a lack of security around the building, Afghan officials said the cultural center did not inform police prior to holding Thursday's event.

The offices of the Afghan Voice Agency (AVA), a news organization, are near the cultural center. Reuters reports that at least one AVA journalist is among those killed.

Reaction

President Ashraf Ghani called the attack a "crime against humanity."

The presidential palace said in a statement the Afghan government is committed to eliminating terrorism.

"Terrorists groups and their backers must know that the Afghan people are united and stand firm to any plot carried out by their enemies; these heinous attacks will not break the resolve of the Afghan people," the statement read.

The White House issued a statement Thursday that condemned the attack and offered "its deepest condolences to the victims and their families."

"The United States stands firmly with the government and people of Afghanistan and will work closely with the National Unity Government to bring the perpetrators of this heinous attack to justice. The enemies of Afghanistan will not succeed in their attempts to destroy the country and divide the Afghan people, who are resilient and committed to establishing peace and stability," the statement said.

NATO's Resolute Support mission in a statement condemned the bloodshed.

"Cultural advancement and freedom of speech will not be deterred. Our mutual enemies must know they will not win and the Afghan people will not be silenced," said the mission, which comprises mostly American troops.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan called the attack "another truly despicable crime in a year already marked by unspeakable atrocities."

The Taliban insurgency distanced itself from the attack, saying its fighters do not target civilian facilities, especially those housing education and cultural centers.

Overnight blast

Meanwhile, an overnight bomb blast in the northern province of Balkh killed at least six children. The incident took place in the district of Dawlatabad. Officials reported the victims found an improvised explosive device planted by anti-government militants, and were playing with it when it exploded.

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50 firms busted for selling inferior food

The Department of Food Technology and Quality Control (DFTQC) launched legal proceedings against 50 firms for selling substandard food products in the first four months of the fiscal year.
Somalia Takes Control of Its Own Skies

By Mohammed Yusuf December 28, 2017

The Somali government has retaken control of its air space after more than two decades. Air traffic over the Horn of Africa nation had been controlled by the United Nations from neighboring Kenya since 1992, a year after the Somali civil war broke out.

Inaugurating the aviation control center in the capital, Mogadishu, President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo said this is a sign the country is moving forward.

"We are here today because we've worked together, stopped fighting among ourselves, we fought division," said Farmajo. "As you know, nothing will work if there is division and people are fighting among themselves. Today we have continuity. We are building on other things and strengthening and making an effort achieving things for the country."

The president and government officials toured the newly equipped center Thursday, the day Somalia formally retook control of its airspace from the International Civil Aviation Organization.

The U.N.'s aviation agency began controlling air traffic over Somalia after the county descended into civil war. Because of security concerns, the organization worked from Kenya.

Somalia's aviation and air transport minister, Mohamed Abdullahi Salad, told reporters the entire process of controlling the country's skies will be complete in early 2018.

"From today, the airspace of Somalia will be controlled from here. In the next two months, we will be working with others in Nairobi," said Omar. "This is not an easy process like moving from one house to another. It will require some time."

Some critics say Somalia is still not safe, as al-Shabab militants continue to carry out attacks against the internationally recognized government and civilians.

Airplanes have been avoiding the southern part of the country, instead flying into the north and northeast, where there is relative peace and stability.

President Farmajo urged al-Shabab to let the whole country have peace.

"To those who are against peace, Somalia is moving forward, and it's not going to stop for anyone," said Farmajo. "We are building the army and day after day they are getting better. We are telling you to stop what you are doing, killing your people. Come back to your people so that you can take part in rebuilding the country."

Government officials say they will provide training to air traffic controllers and improve security at the Mogadishu airport, where the African Union mission in Somalia, which is fighting al-Shabab, still has a heavy presence.

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Cameroon Military Launches Operation to Free Hostages

By Moki Edwin Kindzeka December 28, 2017

Cameroon's military freed 17 of its citizens held hostage by armed groups from the Central African Republic. One person was killed and four were wounded in a confrontation between the military and the kidnappers. The country say hundreds of its citizens are still in captivity.

This ambulance rushes with people said to have been wounded in armed confrontations between Cameroon's military and armed groups from the Central African Republic on the border of the two central African states.

Doctor Yali Bin Yamazani at a Norwegian missionary hospital in the Cameroonian town of Ngaoundere says all of them suffered bullet wounds.

He says the four wounded patients are not in danger even though they have fractured arms and legs.

Ahmed Ousseni, a 24-year businessman, says they were wounded when the Cameroon military attacked a base of an armed group from the Central African Republic that held him and some of his friends hostage in the bush for two months.

He says the armed men kidnapped five of them after storming their village and shooting indiscriminately in the air. He says while in the bush, five other villagers were brought and detained with them. A month later, the kidnappers brought another men to make a total of 18 hostages.

Ousseni says they were given a meal on days when there was something to eat but went hungry when there was no food. He says they were threatened with death but never beaten.

Kildadi Taguieke Boukar governor of the Adamawa region of Cameroon, says the government has taken the necessary security measures to protect the population as they continue additional operations to free dozens of others believed to be still held hostage in the bush.

He said by freeing 17 of the 18 hostages, the military has shown it is at the service of Cameroonians wherever they are, and that it will continue to protect citizens and do what is needed to free every hostage.

The military says some of the militants escaped to the Central African Republic, and several disguised in Cameroon military uniforms were killed.

Armed groups from the Central African Republic have been infiltrated Cameroon to seize cattle ranchers and business men to extort ransom from their family or steal their property.

Before 2014, when sectarian violence escalated between the Muslim and Christian militias, anti-Balaka soldiers from CAR were attacking Cameroon to force the release of Abdoulaye Meskine and 10 other militants arrested in Cameroon in 2013.

Cameroon shares a 900-kilometer boundary with the landlocked CAR and presently hosts 350,000 refugees from the neighboring state.

The United Nations this month said the security and human rights situation in CAR was starting to deteriorate after a series of major incidents rocked the capital Bangui.

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Tillerson: Americans Should Be 'Encouraged' by US Diplomatic Efforts

By VOA News December 28, 2017

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has touted the diplomatic accomplishments of President Donald Trump's administration this year, saying "Americans should be encouraged" by its dealings with the U.S.' "greatest security threat," North Korea, along with China and Russia.

In an opinion piece published Thursday in The New York Times, Tillerson wrote that Trump "abandoned the failed policy of strategic patience" and adopted a "policy of pressure" toward North Korea "through diplomatic and economic sanctions."

The United Nations Security Council imposed new sanctions on North Korea last Friday, slashing fuel supplies, tightening shipping restrictions and appealing for the expulsion of North Koreans working abroad  a significant source of revenue for Pyongyang.

Tillerson also said pressure from the U.S. and its allies "has cut off roughly 90 percent of North Korea's export revenue," much of which he said Pyongyang used to fund the development of illegal weapons.

"We hope that this international isolation will pressure the regime into serious negotiations on the abandonment of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs," Tillerson wrote.

After overcoming technological obstacles this year to develop a modern nuclear weapons program, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un denounced the new sanctions on Christmas Day, saying that they represent "an act of war" and that relinquishing his country's nuclear weapons was a "pipe dream."

Tillerson said China has imposed some import bans and sanctions against North Korea, "but it could and should do more." He said the U.S. would pursue talks with China on issues such as trade imbalances and China's "troubling" military activities in the South China Sea. The U.S. will also "carefully consider" how to manage its long-term relationship with China, which Tillerson described as a rising "economic and military power."

Tillerson praised the U.S. role in the recapture of Islamic State territory in Iraq and Syria and the administration's new Afghanistan-focused South Asia strategy. Tilllerson said Afghanistan "cannot become a safe haven for terrorists" and called on Pakistan to fight terrorists "on its own soil."

"We are prepared to partner with Pakistan to defeat terrorists organizations seeking safe havens, but Pakistan must demonstrate its desire to partner with us," he wrote.

The top American diplomat acknowledged the U.S. has a poor relationship with a "resurgent Russia" that has invaded neighboring countries Georgia and Ukraine and "undermined the sovereignty of Western nations by meddling in our election and others."

Shortly after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who was leading the probe into Russia, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel of an investigation into whether any members of Trump's campaign conspired with Russian agents during the campaign.

Earlier this year, the U.S. intelligence community released a report concluding Russia had meddled in the 2016 presidential election, showing a preference for Trump over Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent. There are also several congressional probes into the matter. Russia denies meddling in the election, and Trump has denied any collusion with the Russians.

"While we are on guard against Russian aggression, we recognize the need to work with Russia where mutual interests intersect," Tillerson wrote, citing the Syrian civil war where the two countries have supported opposing sides but pushed for peace negotiations.

Tillerson's remarks about Iran were less conciliatory. He said the U.S. has abandoned the "flawed Iran nuclear deal" as the focus of its policy toward the Persian Gulf country, adding, "We are now confronting the totality of Iranian threats."

The assessment of the administration's diplomatic successes this year belies the tension that has existed between Tillerson and Trump. Senior administration officials said last month the White House has developed a plan to push Tillerson out of office. The two men have disagreed on a number of significant issues, including the confrontation with North Korea and the Iran nuclear deal.

Tilllerson reportedly called the president a "moron" and Trump publicly disparaged Tillerson for "wasting his time" by reaching out diplomatically to North Korea.

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General Who Led Mugabe Ouster Now Zimbabwe Vice President

By Sebastian Mhofu December 28, 2017

An army general who led the operation that forced Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to resign last month is now one of the country's two vice presidents. Critics are calling President Emmerson Mnangagwa's Cabinet a "coupnet" because of the three army generals who have prominent roles.

A day after President Mnangagwa appointed them as Zimbabwe's vice presidents, retired general Constantino Chiwenga and Defense Minister Kembo Mohadi took their oaths of office Thursday before the country's chief justice, Luke Malaba.

After that, General Chiwenga, who led the operation that forced President Robert Mugabe to resign, spoke to reporters about his new position.

"I feel because I have to work for my country" he said. "Once we have been allotted the tasks to do, then we go on. What I can tell you is that: it will be teamwork and we will help his excellency, and we will deliver."

Chiwenga becomes the third general in Mnangagwa's 24-member Cabinet, raising fears that the army will try to influence Zimbabwe's politics when elections are held in the middle of next year.

In an interview after the swearing in of Chiwenga, who retired from the army last week, Arnold Tsunga, who leads the International Commission of Jurists in Africa, said Mnangagwa's government must try to assure citizens that the country is not under military rule.

"So that a government that arises out of the electoral process, it can be said it is a government that reflects the sovereign will of the people of Zimbabwe, exercised through a free and fair election," he said.

Tsunga said there is no legal impediment to former generals serving in the cabinet, provided they give up their military positions.

"However, what is noticeable and very curious is that: the military leaders who proclaimed the removal of President Mugabe have now not only directly contributed to his removal from power, but in fact gone ahead to be the direct beneficiaries [of] appointment to leadership position in government. Certainly it raises issues of credibility and trust," he said.

In addition to Chiwenga, former generals with positions in Zimbabwe's cabinet are Minister of Agriculture Parrence Shiri and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sibusiso Moyo. It was Moyo who announced on state TV in November that the army had taken over state institutions, the act that forced Mugabe to resign.

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South Korea, Japan Weighing F-35B Acquisitions

Sputnik News

00:22 29.12.2017

The South Korean and Japanese governments are considering buying Lockheed Martin's F-35 aircraft and helicopter-carrier variant, the F-35B, in addition to major orders of F-35A jets already in the pipeline.

"I understand that the top military brass has recently discussed whether they can introduce a small number of F-35B fighters and operate them aboard the new ship that has already been deployed and one to be additionally built," a South Korean military source told Yonhap News Agency December 25.

The F-35B's short takeoff and vertical lift capability makes it a better fit for naval vessels with limited real estate. The fifth-generation jets were designed for US Marine Corps amphibious assault ships, which have less room to take off and land than the US Navy's aircraft carriers and which lack the powerful catapults that launch planes at take-off speeds.

Seoul allocated approximately $6.7 billion for 40 F-35As in 2014 and is reportedly considering buying another 20 in the A-variant, the traditional runway configuration of the aircraft. Acquiring F-35Bs is contingent upon a review of whether the South Korean navy's largest vessels, its Dokdo-class amphibious assault ships, can undergo deck renovations to adapt to fighter jet operations. South Korean and Japanese amphibious assault ships were initially designed for helicopter operations.

The first Dokdo-class vessel was commissioned in 2005. The South Korean Defense Acquisition Program Administration announced the construction of a second Dokdo-class ship in late April.

"The idea [to add F-35Bs] is being weighed in light of maximizing the strategic value of the vessel's capabilities," the defense official told Yonhap News Agency.

The Japanese government has also started to consider F-35Bs for the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force's Izumo-class "helicopter destroyers," which the JMSDF uses in a similar manner to helicopter carriers, the Japan Times reported December 25.

On Tuesday, Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters that the country will "constantly review" its defense capabilities "from various perspectives," but dismissed F-35B acquisition plans as mere speculation. "No concrete examination is under way on the introduction of [the] F-35B or remodeling of Izumo-class destroyers," Onodera told reporters.

Article 9 of Japan's postwar constitution bans Tokyo from maintaining an offensive military force. Seth Cropsey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told CNBC Thursday that "the F-35 can be considered both a deterrent and also carry the fight to a potential adversary."

 Sputnik

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Italy General Election - 04 March 2018

Italian President Sergio Mattarella dissolved parliament on 28 December 2017, paving the way for elections slated for March 4, 2018. The elections would mark the first of their kind under the new Rosatellum electoral law, which has been decried by M5S because it claimed the new law penalized single parties and encouraged coalition governments.

Under the new law, one-third of parliament would be elected under a first-past-the-post system, while two thirds would be voted in on a proportional basis. In order to enter parliament, single parties must receive three percent of the national vote while coalitions need to gather 10 percent. The Rosatellum electoral law ended a period of instability stemming from five different voting systems since 2013.

Elections must take place by May 2018, but the early dissolution of parliament is a recognition that Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni's government was crumbling. Analysts expressed concerns that the results will give way to a hung parliament and further erode political stability in Europe's fourth-largest economy. The base-case for the election outcome is a hung parliament. This means that Italy would likely enter a difficult phase post-vote as forming a governing majority would be complicated, if not impossible.

Gentiloni told reporters that Italy should be ready for political instability that the country could manage. "We mustn't dramatize the risk of instability, we are quite inoculated against it," he said, referring to Italy's history of short-lived governments and tumultuous politics.

Gentiloni's center-left Democratic Party (PD), led by ex-premier Matteo Renzi, looked set to get pounded in the election. Public support for the PD had dropped to 23 percent over the course of its five years leading government, during which there have been three PD premiers. The PD suffered from a split in 2017 after left-wing dissidents angry at Renzi rebelled to form the Free and Equals (LeU) party, which was polling at about 7 percent. Renzi struggled to reassert his authority over a Democratic Party worn down by five gruelling years in power.

Obscene comments and gestures have long been a trademark of Italys four-time former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has bounced back from political oblivion in recent months to recast himself as an unlikely contender in Italys March 4 general election. Despite a string of fraud and sex scandals, and a ban from public office, the 81-year-old tycoon is poised to play a prominent role in a future coalition government as his Forza Italia continued its steady rise in the polls.

A conservative alliance of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, the anti-immigrant Northern League and Brothers of Italy combined stood to get the most votes. They were polling at 16, 13 and 5 percent, respectively. However, there were questions over whether the conservatives would be able to overcome internal differences, with the 81-year-old Berlusconi and Northern League leader Matteo Salvini both vying for the leadership.

The Italian political class on both the right and the left is now widely perceived as a failure. They are seen as has-beens, people who had their chance and blew it, and who are now almost ignored by the voters. Italy's floundering economy has only enforced that perception. The official unemployment rate that hovers around 11 percent; a perception of high taxes in exchange for poor services; and no sign of the kind of economic turnaround Spain and Ireland have pulled off have led many Italians to look around for someone to blame. After politicians and the EU, they've pointed their fingers at migrants.

Matteo Salvini, the brash leader of the far-right La Lega, formerly known as La Lega Nord (The Northern League), has relentlessly hammered home an anti-immigrant, "Italy First" message on his frequent TV appearances. Five years ago, La Lega took four percent of the vote; today, polls place it almost neck-and-neck with the right-wing coalition Forza Italia, led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, at 14 percent. Even the Five Star movement is calling for the immediate repatriation of illegal immigrants, and like La Lega, they don't explain how they'll do this.

The Italian government on 21 February 2018 published its annual security report, warning that opinion-shaping campaigns are a major threat to the country's democracy, with less than two weeks until the general elections. Malicious actors could "exploit" liberal democracies through the "use of sophisticated techniques and considerable financial resources." The campaigns seek to introduce "destabilizing elements" into society by exacerbating political, economic and social divisions online.

A right-of-center alliance led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Forward Italy) party is set to win with 38.6 percent of the vote, according to a February 2018 poll conducted by Euromedia Research. The ruling center-left Democratic Party (PD) is expected to garner 22.1 percent of the vote, down from the 25.4 percent it managed to secure in the 2013 elections. Although the euroskeptic Five Star Movement (M5S) is expected to gain the most votes, new electoral regulations have undermined their hopes of leading the next government. M5S was expected to gain 26.8 percent, the highest of any individual party, according to the latest polls.

As in the last election in 2013, the anti-establishment mood is likely to favor the Five-Star Movement of comedian Beppe Grillo, while the continuing migrant crisis was playing into the hands of the hard-right, anti-EU Northern League. The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (MS5) had a lead with about 28 percent support, according to opinion polls. But it had ruled out taking part in a coalition government and was unlikely to win a majority. M5S' prime ministerial candidate was 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio. All of which points to a highly unpredictable contest, followed by a new round of horse-trading to cobble together a coalition government.

A third of Italians don't live in big cities or their suburbs, and the voters of small-town and rural Italy will be critical in shaping election results. Anti-migrant fervor has shaped campaigning in Campania, where the maverick, anti-establishment Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) co-opted the votes of the PD by feeding off local anger toward asylum-seekers and blaming the government of Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni for failing to come to grips with the influx and of finding ways to halt it.

One major issue has dominated the Italian electoral campaign: immigration. The debate ahead of the elections, the first national vote since 2013, has highlighted growing racial tensions. More than 600,000 people have arrived in this country from North Africa in the past five years and there has been growing discontent among the population over how the government has been dealing with the migrant emergency.

A right-wing alliance led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia took the lead in Italy's general election. Forza Italia, the far-right Northern League and Brothers of Italy together took about 37 percent of the vote, followed by the euroskeptic 5-Star Movement (M5S) with about 32 percent. Matteo Salvini's right-wing, anti-immigrant Northern League took 18 percent, surpassing Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, which took less than 14 percent.

The ruling center-left Democratic Party (PD) came in a distant third at 23 percent, leading leader Matteo Renzi to reportedly announce his resignation. Despite Berlusconi's alliance leading the polls as anticipated, it falls short of the 40 percent necessary to govern. If the final count results in a hung parliament, Italian President Sergio Mattarella would have to form the next government. Italy's 2013 election also resulted in a hung parliament, prompting then-President Giorgio Napolitano to handpick the next government. Analysts had speculated that Mattarella may choose outgoing Prime Minster Paolo Gentiloni of PD to lead a government if it comes down to it. Polls published before the election suggested Gentiloni was the most-liked Italian politician across party lines.

Nobody really anticipated that the League and the 5-Star Movement, bitter rivals during the election campaign, might suddenly come together in a coalition with a relatively stable parliamentary majority. Italian anti-establishment and far-right parties took a step closer to forming a government by publishing a joint policy program on 18 May 2018. More than two months of political deadlock looked to be nearing a close with the unveiling of the plan by the Five Star Movement and the far-right League party. The program promised the end of austerity in the eurozone's third largest economy and seeks deep change in relations with the European Union. The 58-page program contained no mention of a unilateral exit from the eurozone, mooted in previous versions leaked to media. The document featured a number of manifesto promises from the nationalist League. These included hardline immigration and security proposals, pension reform and a plan to have just two tax rates, of 15 and 20 percent. Both coalition parties want to put a stop to immigration from Africa to Italy, and aim to deport 500,000 migrants.

On 27 May 2018 the prime minister-designate gave up on his mandate to form a government after talks with the president over his Cabinet collapsed. Issues over the choice of economy minister appeared to have been the sticking point. Giuseppe Conte gave up the mandate to form a government, given to him on 12 May 2018. Initial reports suggested right-wing League party leader Matteo Salvini refused to accept a presidential veto on his choice for economy minister, the 81-year-old euroskeptic economist Paolo Savona. President Sergio Mattarella is staunchly pro-Europe. Mattarella said he refused to approve Savona's appointment as that would have "alarmed markets and investors, Italians and foreigners."

While it is customary for Italian presidents to oversee government formation and to intervene to block a minister deemed unfit for the role, Mattarella's decision marks the first time that a veto is used because of a candidate's political views on the economy. It is to be noted that Mattarella had no qualms about accepting Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League, as an interior minister, despite his calls for the deportation of up to half a million migrants and refugees and his racist views.

Italy's president set the country on a path back to fresh elections on 28 May 2018, appointing a former International Monetary Fund official as interim prime minister with the task of planning for snap polls and to pass the next budget. The decision to appoint Carlo Cottarelli to form a stopgap administration sets the stage for elections that are likely to be fought over Italy's role in the European Union and the euro zone, a prospect that was rattling global financial markets. The League and 5-Star, which had spent days drawing up a coalition pact aimed at ending a stalemate following inconclusive elections in March, responded with fury to Mattarella, accusing him of abusing his office.

Cottarelli told reporters after his appointment as interim prime minister that elections would be held in the autumn of 2018 or early in 2019. The chaotic developments have spooked investors, who fear another election will essentially be seen as a referendum on the country's future in the eurozone.

Cottarelli left the Quirinal Palace in Rome on late afternoon 29 May 2018 without making a statement. This opened speculation that Mattarella could dissolve parliament in the next few days and call elections for the end of July. The next day Cottarelli said that "new possibilities for the birth of a political government have emerged." An IPSOS poll in the Corriere della Sera newspaper on 30 May 2018, showed the League on 25 percent support, compared to around 17 percent in March. Support for M5S was steady at about 32.6 percent.

Anti-establishment parties in Rome revived coalition plans on 31 May 2018, ending three months of turmoil by announcing a government that promises to increase spending, challenge European Union fiscal rules and crack down on immigration. Giuseppe Conte is a 53-year-old jurist who has never been elected to parliament. Populist leaders Salvini and DiMaio will be joint deputy prime ministers. Italy had been without a government since elections on March 4 failed to produce a clear winner. The far-right Lega Nord (Northern League) and anti-establishment populists the Five Star Movement (M5S), despite being diametrically opposed on some issues, have been trying to cobble together a government after M5S was unable to do so with the Democratic Party (DP).





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T-Loramids Long-Range Air-and Missile-Defence System

Turkey on April 2017 signed a contract with Russia to acquire the S-400 anti-missile shield after protracted efforts to purchase an air defence missile system from NATO ally US was unsuccessful. US officials argued the Russian missile defence would be incompatible with NATO systems and expose its fifth generation, the state-of-art F-35 jet to possible Russian subterfuge. Turkey says the S-400 would not be integrated into the NATO systems and has no chance to pose any threat to the alliance or its armaments.

Turkey started to receive the second batch of S-400s, a Russian missile defence system, the Turkish Defence Ministry said 27 August 2019. "The second batch of S-400 missile defence system equipment of has arrived at Murted Air Base near Ankara," the ministry said. The delivery process will continue around one month, the ministry said. First components of Russian-made S-400 missile system arrived in Ankara, Turkish officials said 11 July 2019. Turkey's NTV broadcaster reported that the S-400 might not be ready for use until the autumn.

The deal is worth some $2.5 billion (2.2 billion). The purchase sparked a row within NATO, with the US threatening sanctions against Turkey for buying the Russian-made military technology. Specifically, the Pentagon fears that Russia will be able to spy on the US-made F-35, the latest generation fighter jet, once S-400 becomes part of Turkey's defense network. Earlier this year, the US suspended deliveries related to the F-35 and gave Turkey a deadline until the end of July to cancel the S-400 deal. If Ankara did not comply, Turkish pilots training to fly F-35 in the US would be expelled from the country.

Turkey's Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli confirmed 27 December 2017 that the deal to install Russian long-range anti-aircraft missile had been finalised. Russia will sell Turkey four batteries of S-400 surface-to-air missiles for $2.5 billion under a deal that is almost complete, Sergei Chemezov, head of Russian state conglomerate Rostec, told the Kommersant daily.

National Defense Minister of Turkey Nurettin Canikli confirmed the statement and added that the S-400 deal had been concluded. During a press conference in Tunisia Canikli was asked about Sergey Chemezov's remarks. "That is correct. Two systems, four batteries in total. The deal is completely done," Canikli said. He said what was at stake during the negotiations was whether to take out a loan or finance the deal themselves. "But the idea of paying a portion of the total amount by getting a loan prevailed in the end. Otherwise, it was already a done deal," he added.

The S-400 is Russia's most advanced long-range anti-aircraft missile system with a capacity of carrying three types of missiles that can destroy ballistic and cruise missiles. The system can track and engage up to 300 targets at a time and has an altitude ceiling of 27 kilometers.

The deal has caused concern in the West because Turkey is a member of NATO but the Russian missile system cannot be integrated into NATO's military architecture. Chemezov said that Turkey was the first NATO member state to acquire the advanced S-400 missile system.

The Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation said in a statement 12 September 2017 that Russia and Turkey had reached an agreement on Russian S-400 missile systems deliveries to Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 13 September 2017 that Turkey's deal with Russia on the supplies of S-400 missile systems "made the United States furious.... "Did we need to wait for you [the US]? We take and will continue to take all necessary measures to ensure our national security. We are the hosts in our own house," the Turkish leader emphasized. He added that after the US and Israel had refused to supply combat drones to Turkey, Ankara developed and began to produce them itself, causing the two states' concern.

US Democratic Party Senator Ben Cardin, the member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to the US administration on 15 September 2017, in which he noted that Turkey's purchase of Russian S-400 missile systems requires an automatic imposition of sanctions against Ankara. In August 2017, Washington imposed sanctions against Russia, targeting defense and economic sectors and restricting dealings with Russian companies. The law imposes sanctions "on any person that conducts a significant transaction with the Russian Federations defense or intelligence sectors," Cardin wrote in the letter.

In March 2017, Russian Presidential Aide for Military-Technical Cooperation Vladimir Kozhin said that Russia did not see Ankara's potential NATO membership as an obstacle for delivering the S-400 systems to Turkey. Some other NATO members might have a differing view. If NATO was unready for Turkey to acquire a Chinese air and missile defense system, the prospects of a Russian system in Turkey must seem even less appealing. This deal may become part of the larger re-appraisal of Turkey's relationship with Europe. Erdogan's imposition of a dictatorship has ended prospects for Turkey's membership in the EU for many, many years to come. Turkey may find Russia to be annoying from time to time, but Moscow clearly does not pose the threat that it did during the Cold War. THAAD has become a lever for China to pry South Korea away from America, and the S-400 may prove a lever to pry Turkey loose from Europe.

Negotiations on possible deliveries of the Russian air defense system to Turkey have been conducted by both parties since 2016. In March 2017, Sergei Chemezov, Chief Executive Officer of Russia's state military equipment manufacturer Rostec, said that Turkey was ready to buy S-400 missile systems from Russia with a loan granted by Moscow. The S-400 Triumph is Russia's next-generation mobile surface-to-air missile system carrying three different types of missiles capable of destroying aerial targets at a short-to-extremely-long range. It integrates a multifunctional radar, autonomous detection and targeting systems, anti-aircraft missile systems, launchers, and a command and control center.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said 28 April 2017 that Russia and Turkey had reached an agreement on purchases of the S-400 air defense systems, the negotiations on the price were underway. "We agreed in principle with Russia on S-400 purchases. The negotiations on the joint production and prices are underway," Cavusoglu told the Haberturk newspaper. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan may discuss the deliveries of S-400 systems to Turkey during talks in May 2017. Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin also confirmed that the discussion was on the agenda of the upcoming talks between the Russian and Turkish leaders.

Defense analyst Maxim Shepovalenko, the deputy director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, told Vzglyad that Ankara's negotiations with Russia underscore President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's foreign policy style. "An air defense system is not a tank or a steamship. This is one of the highest precision weapons systems. Not many countries are capable of producing such armaments," he said, naming the US, Europe and Israel as other manufacturers. "All the rest are cloning [these systems]. This is classic Erdogan  balancing between two sides."

The US offered to provide Turkey with a powerful air defence which would meet 'all of Turkey's requirements if it were to stop its purchase of the S-400,' Anadolu Agency reported 29 November 2018, summarizing a Pentagon report to Congress. Highlighting Turkey's "unique geostrategic position" between Europe, Russia and the Middle East, as well as its powerful military, which can be used in NATO operations abroad, the Pentagon nevertheless warned that it would "reassess Turkey's continued participation as one of eight partner nations" in the F-35 stealth fighter program "should they continue with their purchase of the S-400."

"The US Government has made clear to the Turkish Government that purchasing the S-400 would have unavoidable negative consequences for US-Turkey bilateral relations, as well as Turkey's role in NATO," the report added, according to Anadolu.

A report that Turkey might pass Russian modern S-400 antiaircraft systems to the US was met with a high degree of scepticism in Moscow. On 19 December 2018, Bloomberg news agency reported that Ankara has allegedly been considering an option to grant American defense companies access to the Russian know-how upon receiving the S-400 due in October 2019.

Meanwhile, Russian officials and experts question if the sensational news could be fake or even a deliberate provocation intended to undermine the $2.5-billion contract the Russian military hardware exporting company Rosoboronexport and Ankara inked last December.

The report by Bloomberg is a provocation aimed at disruption of the Russia-Turkey military-technical cooperation, the Rosoboronexports spokesman Vyacheslav Davidenko tells TRT World. Weve got used to that sort of provocation long ago and pay scant attention to that. The contract over the S-400 delivery to Turkey has been implemented as intended and its cancellation has been out of the question, he said.

Turkey was widely reported to test the system in mid-October 2020, after issuing notices warning vessels and aircraft to avoid the area in the Black Sea. A Haber television, an outlet close to the Turkish government, reported the test on its website. Other Turkish media carried similar reports. Turkeys defence ministry said it would neither deny nor confirm missile tests.

Tests of the S-400s could stoke tensions between Turkey and the United States, which sharply opposed Ankaras purchase of the weapons from Moscow on grounds they compromise shared NATO defence systems. On 16 October 2020, the US State Department warned of potential serious consequences for its security relationship with Turkey if it activates the system. If confirmed, we would condemn in the strongest terms the S-400 test missile launch as incompatible with Turkeys responsibilities as a NATO ally and strategic partner of the United States, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

In 2019 the Turkish military conducted radar tests of the surface-to-air defence system, which is among the worlds most advanced and can spot and track incoming aircraft at medium and long ranges. In August 2020, a Hellenic Air Force F-16 was targeted with the S-400s radar when returning from a multinational military exercise, with Turkey being sharply rebuked for its actions against a fellow NATO ally.

The United States imposed sanctions 14 December 2020 targeting fellow NATO member Turkeys Defence Industry Directorate (SSB), its chief, Ismail Demir, and three other staff over the purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defence system. The United States imposed sanctions pursuant to Section 231 of the Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) for knowingly engaging in a significant transaction with Rosoboronexport (ROE), Russias main arms export entity, by procuring the S-400 surface-to-air missile system. Turkey said it was evaluating reciprocal action against what it considers a hostile attack. Turkeys military procurement agency had its export licences and authorisations banned by the US. The organisations top officials will also face asset freezes and visa restrictions. The long-delayed move comes as US President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office. Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erodgan said the sanctions wont stop his country from building up its defences.





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Putin says St. Petersburg blast was 'terrorist' attack

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:20AM

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared that a recent bomb blast in a busy supermarket in Saint Petersburg was "a terrorist act."

"You know that yesterday, in St. Petersburg, a terrorist act was carried out," Putin told the audience at a ceremony in the Kremlin on Thursday, referring to a explosion that rocked Russia's second-largest city and left 13 shoppers injured in a branch of the Perekrestok supermarket chain.

Investigators said the homemade bomb used in the assault contained 200 grams of explosives and was rigged with shrapnel to cause more damage.

No group or individual has so far claimed responsibility for the blast.

'When in danger, kill, don't capture'

Putin said that if there was a threat to the lives of law enforcement officers, they needed to "act decisively, not to capture anyone and to kill on the spot."

The Russian president announced that another terrorist attack had been thwarted in St. Petersburg but declined to provide further details.

A bombing attack killed 15 people and wounded dozens on the city's metro in April. The bombing was claimed by an al-Qaeda-linked group.

Earlier this month, Russian security forces arrested a group of Daesh terrorists who had intended to blow up the Kazan Cathedral  one of St. Petersburg's most famous landmarks.

The mission in Syria

Putin, who was speaking at an awards ceremony in the Kremlin for Russian personnel who served in Syria, said the Syrian army, with the support of Moscow's air force and navy, had liberated nearly the entire Arab country from the clutches of Daesh.

"More than 48,000 officers and soldiers have taken part in the operation in Syria over the past two years. They are representatives of nearly all military professions  pilots and sailors, special forces and military police, sappers, scouts, communications officers, medical and logistics specialists, command officers, and military advisers," Putin said.

Since September 2015, Moscow has been carrying out an aerial bombardment campaign against the positions of extremist militants in Syria on an official request from the Damascus government.

Putin ordered Russian forces to begin withdrawing from Syria during a surprise visit to the war-ravaged country earlier this month, as he declared victory over Daesh there.

The Russian president stressed that Moscow would keep the Hmeimim air base in Latakia as well as Russia's naval facility at the Syrian port of Tartus based on agreements with Damascus.

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Command of Armed Police Force to be unified

People's Daily Online

(China Daily) 07:39, December 28, 2017

The Armed Police Force will be placed under the unified control of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Central Military Commission starting on Monday, the first day of 2018, according to the CPC Central Committee.

The decision, published on Wednesday night, stipulated that under the new command chain, Armed Police Force units will take orders directly from the force's headquarters, which, likewise, will follow directives from the Central Military Commission. It made clear that the Armed Police will be included in the Central Military Commission system and will no longer take orders from the State Council.

It also said that central and local Party organs as well as government departments at various levels will establish a new mechanism to ask for assistance from the Armed Police and to cooperate with the paramilitary force.

The decision requests that government bodies, the People's Liberation Army and the Armed Police join hands to make sure the transfer will be smooth and orderly.

Under the current laws governing the Armed Police Force and the national defense system, the force takes instructions from both the State Council and the Central Military Commission.

On Nov 4, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, decided to suspend several clauses in the two laws that pertain to the Armed Police Force's command chain, responsibilities and deployment as of Nov 5, saying amendments to these clauses will be made when reform measures prove successful.

In an editorial published on Wednesday by People's Daily, the Party's flagship newspaper, the move was called "a significant political decision  that will strengthen the Party's absolute command over the PLA and other branches of the people's armed forces and will ensure the stability and prosperity of the Party and the nation."

The newspaper said the transfer was aimed to honor the stipulation in the Constitution that the Central Military Commission chairman leads and assumes responsibility over all of the nation's armed forces and will resolve institutional obstacles and major difficulties that hinder the Armed Police Force's development.

The history of the Armed Police can be traced to 1949, the year the People's Republic of China was founded, when its predecessor  the Chinese People's Public Security Central Column  was set up to take charge of internal security. In the following decades, the force's name and affiliation was changed, but most of the time it was administered by the Central Military Commission.

In 1982, some PLA units responsible for domestic security were merged with police forces in charge of border defense and firefighting to form a new Armed Police Force. At that time, the Central Military Commission and State Council began to share its administration.

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China unveils its first civil-military cybersecurity innovation center

People's Daily Online

By Jiang Jie (People's Daily Online) 09:17, December 28, 2017

China on Tuesday unveiled the nation's first cybersecurity innovation center developed under the national strategy of civil-military integration, amid Beijing's call to step up its national cyber defenses.

The freshly-established center has set the ambitious goal of setting up a cutting-edge cybersecurity defense system for the military to help win future cyber wars.

It was set up under the instruction of the Central Commission for Integrated Military and Civilian Development and related military bodies, which will also supervise and manage the center during its operation by one of China's leading cybersecurity companies, 360 Enterprise Security Group.

According to Wu Yunkun, president of the security group, the center will focus on building cyber defense systems for military-related internet services and a threat intelligence sharing mechanism for military users in the first stage.

It will work to encourage more small- and medium-sized companies to cooperate on technology R&D projects in order to guarantee the supply of cyber defense services that can meet practical combat requirements, Wu introduced.

Specifically, the center wants to set up a special fund for cybersecurity innovation investment and teams of researchers that are supported by local governments, the military, and enterprises. It is also mulling to conduct a pilot study on cyber militia construction and to set up a mechanism to offer cyber emergency response services and advanced persistent threat (APT) analysis and monitoring services to the military and local government bodies.

China has long attached significance to cybersecurity, and the eminent influence of cybersecurity in the military domain in particular has been increasingly valued by the central government.

In a strategy paper released by Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) last December, China vowed to develop a cyber defense compatible with its international status as a major cyber power  a national goal with a development timeline by 2035.

Three months later, an international strategy document published by the Chinese foreign ministry and CAC made clear that national defense in cyberspace is one crucial part of Chinese military modernization, following the same military strategy of active defense.

"Countries like the US and Israel that are taking the lead in cyberspace development have demonstrated how cybersecurity companies can help support a nation's national defense needs in the virtual world. In turn, the development of cyber defense can help give a boost to the whole industry," Qi Xiangdong, Chairman of the 360 Enterprise Security Group, noted at the ceremony.

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A peaceful rise

A new development model based on cultural values is expected to emerge in Nepal
China Tests New Ballistic Missiles With Hypersonic Glide Vehicles

Sputnik News

22:07 28.12.2017(updated 22:09 28.12.2017)

The People's Liberation Army Rocket Force has conducted two flight tests of a new ballistic missile attached to a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), US officials confirmed in a recent intelligence assessment.

The two DF-17 ballistic missile tests occurred November 1 and November 15, respectively, a US official briefed on the intelligence assessment told the Diplomat on December 28. The November 1 test was the first ballistic missile test since the Communist Party of China's 19th Congress in October, the report notes.

The November 1 test comprised "the first HGV test in the world using a system intended to be fielded operationally," the US official told the news outlet. The US and Russia have been hard at work on honing hypersonic glide technology, but neither country is known to have conducted HGV tests for a system intended to become operational.

The HGV used in the November 1 test was designed specifically for the DF-17, a medium-range ballistic missile, according to the Diplomat. The missile landed "within meters" of its intended target and is expected to become fully operational in 2020, according to the US intelligence assessment.

The primary appeal of HGVs is that they are thought to be less vulnerable to missile defense systems. Given the high speeds at which the vehicles can transport payloads, missile interceptors do not have as much time to neutralize the projectile before the payload reaches its target, the Daily Beast reports.

"The combination of high speed, maneuverability, and relatively low altitudes makes [HGVs] challenging targets for missile defense systems," a National Air and Space Intelligence Center report released in June stated. HGVs fly faster than Mach 5 "and spend most of their flight at much lower altitudes than a typical ballistic missile," the June report says.

"Although hypersonic glide vehicles and missiles flying non-ballistic trajectories were first proposed as far back as World War II, technological advances are only now making these systems practicable," James Syring, director of the US Missile Defense Agency, told the House Armed Services Committee in June.

 Sputnik

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China tells foreign media to stop it with the wild speculation

People's Daily Online

By Curtis Stone (People's Daily Online) 13:32, December 28, 2017

Recently, speculation that Chinese ships are illegally selling oil to DPRK vessels in violation of the UN Security Council sanctions ran rampant in the foreign media, although there was no solid evidence to back up the claim.

At a regular press conference on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying hit back at the speculation with eight questions to drive home the point that the conclusion is based on speculation and not facts.

Hua asked if the relevant media can specify which ship or ships were involved and if they are on the sanctions list, and questioned how such a conclusion was reached without any solid evidence that these ships violated the Security Council resolutions, adding that the media should consider the possibility that breaches can occur.

Hua said that China's position remains clear. "The Chinese government has been comprehensively, accurately, faithfully and strictly implementing the Security Council's DPRK-related resolutions," Hua said, adding that China's attitude toward the DPRK nuclear issue is "earnest and serious" and its measures and actions are "forceful and effective."

"If there is solid evidence proving that there is on the Chinese side any violation of the Security Council resolutions, China will surely deal with it in accordance with laws and regulations, and not a single case of violation should get away with it," Hua said.

The spokesperson also offered some advice for the media outlets that hyped up the speculation, saying that instead of obsessing over the Chinese ship, they should be asking whether their government has fully and comprehensively implemented all relevant Security Council resolutions concerning the DPRK.

All the DPRK-related Security Council resolutions call for the issue to be settled peacefully, diplomatically, and politically, and call on all parties to take measures to deescalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Hua pointed out. "Is every party concerned working hard to comprehensively implement the relevant Security Council resolutions in entirety?" she asked.

China wants to see the resolutions be implemented in whole, Hua noted, adding that curbing the DPRK's nuclear and missile development programs is just one part, and that more positive and constructive efforts are needed to bring the tense situation back on the right track of peaceful settlement through dialogue and negotiation.

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Trump Says China Caught 'Red-Handed' After Reports Of Oil Shipments To North Korea

RFE/RL December 28, 2017

WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump has lashed out at China, saying he is "very disappointed" that Beijing is allowing oil to go into North Korea and endangering a "friendly solution" to the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

"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!" Trump wrote in a Twitter post on December 28.

The president's comments came after Beijing earlier in the day denied a report by South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper that China had sold oil to North Korea in violation of United Nations sanctions.

The newspaper said Chinese and North Korean vessels had met up at sea to secretly transfer oil to North Korea.

The UN Security Council on December 22 unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea in response to last month's launch of a ballistic missile that Pyongyang says is capable of reaching anywhere on the U.S. mainland.

The new sanctions include sharply cutting limits on Pyongyang's imports of refined oil and orders the repatriation of all North Korean nationals working abroad by the end of 2019.

In response, Pyongyang vowed to bolster its nuclear weapons capabilities to counter what it called the threat from the United States.

"We will further consolidate our self-defensive nuclear deterrence aimed at fundamentally eradicating the U.S. nuclear threats, blackmail, and hostile moves by establishing the practical balance of force with the U.S.," it said.

Since taking office, Trump has at times hailed his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping as "outstanding" and thanked him for his efforts to get Pyongyang to end its ballistic-missile and nuclear weapons programs.

At other times, the U.S. leader has criticized China for not doing enough to stop North Korea as it continues to test missiles in violation of UN sanctions.

With reporting by Chosun Ilbo

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-china-north-korea-oil-shipments/28944292.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Trump 'Very Disappointed' China Exports Oil to N Korea, Despite Their Denial

Sputnik News

20:05 28.12.2017(updated 21:02 28.12.2017)

China has commented on reports alleging that it exports oil to North Korean by saying that Beijing"completely and strictly" implements UN trade restrictions recently adopted against Pyongyang.

US President Donald Trump has reacted to reports on China's alleged oil exports to North Korea, violating the December 22 UN trade restrictions introduced against the country, limiting their oil deals to four billion barrels per year.

"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!" Trump wrote on his social account.

Following Trump's statement, US Senator Edward Markey said that the president should come up with a clear strategy to stop crude oil supplies from China to North Korea.

"The North Korea nuclear threat has only increased since Donald Trump took office," Markey wrote in the statement via Twitter. "This administration needs to find a way to get China to cut off the crude oil flowing into North Korea. The solution is a coherent strategy, not bluster."

However, the report published by South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo has already been refuted by China's foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying on December 27, who stated that Beijing had no information on this issue, emphasizing that the country "completely and strictly" implements UN sanctions. The report has claimed that Chinese ships had transferred oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times in October.

This stance was echoed by Chinese customs data, presented by the Reuters news agency. According to the information, China has not exported any oil products or gasoline, jet fuel, diesel or fuel oil to North Korea in November, following the UN restrictions. The country also has not been importing any iron ore, coal or lead from North Korea during the mentioned period, as the media specified.

Despite softening his stance towards Beijing in an effort to secure more assistance on issue areas relating to the Korean Peninsula, Trump has listed China among key threats to the US and global security in his new national security strategy. Moreover, he had previously accused the country on the campaign trail for alleged unfair trading practices, such as engaging in artificial currency devaluation.

Responding to the tough rhetoric, China's Defense Ministry called on Washington to cease its Cold War mentality and opt for closer military cooperation.

 Sputnik

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Trump Accuses China of Allowing Oil Into North Korea

By VOA News December 28, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump accused China Thursday of facilitating oil shipments into North Korea, despite China's insistence it has not violated United Nations sanctions limiting oil shipments to the rogue nation. Writing on Twitter, he said he is "very disappointed."

A South Korean newspaper reported earlier Thursday that Chinese and North Korean ships had illicitly connected at sea to get oil into North Korea.

The U.N. Security Council last week imposed new sanctions designed to limit North Korea access to oil in response to the country's recent long-range missile test. In November, it test-launched its latest intercontinental ballistic missile, which many U.S. experts have warned would be capable of striking anywhere on U.S. soil.

The sanctions seek to bar 90-percent of refined oil exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year and limit crude oil exports at 4 million barrels annually.

China has repeatedly said it is enforcing all resolutions against Pyongyang, despite doubts in the U.S., South Korea and Japan that loopholes continue to exist.

When asked at a recent media briefing whether Chinese ships were illegally loading oil on North Korean vessels, Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang repeated that China and its military are strictly enforcing U.N. resolutions on North Korea.

"The situation you have mentioned absolutely does not exist," said Ren.

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India Stocks Up on Attack Choppers After Claims of Military Unpreparedness

Sputnik News

22:46 28.12.2017(updated 22:47 28.12.2017)

The world's second largest military measured by manpower is planning to acquire more than a dozen light combat helicopters, as India's defense sector responds to concerns about its readiness for battle.

The addition of 15 combat helicopters may alleviate India's lackluster defense capabilities relative to its neighbors.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited "received a request for proposals for 15 limited-series light combat helicopters (LCHs)," the company said in a December 22 announcement, adding that "this comes close on the heels of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited receiving RFPs for [the] supply of 83 light combat aircraft just days ago."

The choppers will go into service with the Indian Army and Indian Air Force. Each multirole combat helicopter is made in India and runs about 30 percent cheaper than the latest US AH-64 Apache variant.

The LCHs are equipped with a 20 millimeter French Giat-Nexter gun, four anti-tank missiles and air-to-air missiles. The aircraft can be deployed against hostile tanks, armored personnel carriers, slow-moving planes and some surface and sub-surface naval vessels, according to military analysts.

"In the present geopolitical situation, India is located sensitively," Defense Minister Arun Jaitley said September 1. "We have had multiple threats in the past. Therefore, preparedness is something India can never compromise on," he continued, noting, "no country can win battles by being dependent on other countries and being a buyer [versus supplier] of defense equipment."

The Indian Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) raised doubts about India's ability to effectively counter potential threats from Pakistan and China in a July report. The CAG said that India's air force, army and navy suffered major ammunition shortages and were not adequately prepared for a prolonged multi-front military conflict. The Indian military at the time had only enough ammunition for 10 days of armed conflict, the auditor found.

According to a July report in The Diplomat, Beijing has three times as many nuclear warheads than India, five times as many submarines and tanks and at least twice as many naval vessels and military aircraft. China's People's Liberation Army has nearly 1 million more troops in its ranks, to boot.

 Sputnik

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Shooting Star: India's New Missile Interceptor a 'Grand Success' in Latest Test

Sputnik News

22:01 28.12.2017

India has successfully test-fired their indigenously developed Advanced Air Defense (AAD) supersonic interceptor missile, meant to destroy incoming low-altitude ballistic missiles. The missile's success is the latest in India's long-standing mission to build an effective missile defense system.

On Thursday, the AAD shot a Prithvi short-range ballistic missile out of the sky, reportedly demonstrating its capability to change its trajectory in mid-air.

"It was a direct hit and grand success," anonymous defense sources told the Hindustan Times. "Today's test was conducted to validate various parameters of the interceptor in flight mode and it was all success."

The missile is 24.6 feet long and is equipped with a state-of-the-art navigation system. It is a single-stage, solid fuel, rocket-propelled guided missile that can track its target independently.

"The mission was brilliant as the interceptor missile achieved a direct hit, paving the way for its early deployment in the armed forces," a defense official said in a statement, adding that all of the internal systems "performed excellently."

This was the third successful supersonic interceptor test conducted by India in 2017. The previous tests took place in February and March  but the AAD itself has not been tested since May 2016.

The new series of tests are part of New Delhi's attempts to build a multi-layer Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system. India has been working since 1999 to develop a two-tiered defense system to shoot down ballistic missiles aimed at their country.

The first tier is meant to intercept exo-atmospheric ballistic missiles about 30 to 90 miles above the Earth's surface; the AAD comprises the second tier of low-flying ballistic missiles. India's BMD system is not meant to be able to intercept long-range ballistic missiles, both because that's an infamously difficult task and because India's main security challenges come from its immediate neighbors China and Pakistan, both of which are also nuclear powers.

The summer of 1999 saw one of the bloodiest conflicts between India and their rival Pakistan: the Kargil War. The conflict, a clash over the disputed Kargil district in Jammu & Kashmir, led to thousands of deaths. India retained control of Kargil, but relations with Pakistan hit new lows. Border skirmishes between the two nations have been a regular occurrence since the Kargil War, often with lethal consequences.

Around the same time, Pakistan and China began to modernize their own ballistic missile arsenals. In 2007, India announced plans to develop an equivalent to the US' failed "Star Wars" program of the 1980s to block nuclear missile launches from neighboring Pakistan.

Relations with China have also soured as the nations, both rising economic and military powers, have butted heads for dominance in the region. Relations hit a nadir in the summer of 2017 as Chinese and Indian troops faced off for 10 weeks in the Doklam Plateau.

Only four countries in the world have developed proven BMD systems: China, Israel, Russia and the US.

 Sputnik

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Khamenei Compares Trump To 'Smarter' Reagan, Says U.S. Will Not 'Weaken' Iran

RFE/RL December 28, 2017

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has lashed out at U.S. President Donald Trump and asserted that his policies will not "weaken" Tehran.

In a series of tweets and a televised speech on December 27, Khamenei suggested that U.S. efforts to rein in Iran have been failing since Ronald Reagan was president three decades ago.

"Reagan was more powerful and smarter than Trump. He was a better actor in making threats," Khamenei said.

He reiterated Iranian claims that a U.S. warship deliberately shot down an Iranian passenger plane over the Persian Gulf in 1988, killing all 290 people aboard. The United States said it was a mistake.

Khamenei said that "Iran has made great advances in all areas since Reagan's time" and added, "This trend will continue under the current American president, and any hopes on their part that the Islamic republic would back off or weaken is futile."

Trump has called Iran, where Khamenei has final say over government policies, a "dictatorship," and his administration has imposed a series of tough new sanctions over Iran's ballistic-missile activities, which the United States maintains violate the spirit of the 2015 agreement between Tehran and global powers on Iran's nuclear program.

The administration also accuses Iran of arming Yemen's Shi'ite Huthi rebels in their war against Yemen's Saudi-backed government -- a charge Tehran denies.

In an October speech, Trump outlined a more aggressive approach to Iran over its nuclear and missile programs and its support for militant groups in the Middle East.

He declined to certify that Tehran was complying with the nuclear deal, which obliged it curb its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, and warned that the United States might ultimately withdraw from the agreement.

With reporting by Reuters, The Times of Israel, and The Hill

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/khamenei-belittles -trump-saying-ronald-reagan-was-more- powerful-and-smarter/28942947.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Iranian Supreme Leader Vows to 'Disappoint US on All Arenas', Slams Trump

Sputnik News

08:24 28.12.2017(updated 08:33 28.12.2017)

According to the Iranian supreme leader, Reagan was "wiser and more powerful" than Trump.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has lashed out at Washington, claiming that the US government "spends a tremendous amount of money on sowing discord among people" and vowed to "disappoint" the country he dubbed the "main enemy" of Tehran "on all arenas."

"Any hopes on their part that the Islamic Republic would back off or weaken is futile," Khamenei stated.

He has also recalled the Washington-Tehran tensions in 1988, when a US warship shot down an Iranian passenger plane over the Persian Gulf, a deadly "mistake" as Washington explained it that had killed all 290 people on board.

According to the Ayatollah, the US president's stance on Tehran would fail as "Reagan was both wiser and more powerful than Trump. They took measures against Iran: they shot down one of our passenger aircrafts. But where is Reagan, and how powerful is the Islamic Republic now?"

Iran's supreme leader has also accused the US government of supporting the Daesh terrorist group and spoke about the controversial decision taken by Trump to declare Jerusalem as the capital of Israel which has prompted wide condemnation among the international community.

According to Khamenei, the decision was made "out of despair and debility," adding that "their hands are tied and they can't achieve their goals" with regard to Palestine.

The statement has been followed by the Iranian parliament's vote to declare Jerusalem as the "everlasting capital of Palestine."

The vote "comes in response to the recent US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital in hopes of dealing a blow to Muslims," parliament speaker Ali Larijani was quoted by the Anadolu news agency as saying.

 Sputnik

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Pakistan Warns US Against Unilateral Military Action on Its Soil

By Ayaz Gul December 28, 2017

Pakistan has warned the United States against undertaking any "unilateral" military action on its soil and rejected as baseless accusations of "inaction" against the Haqqani Network plotting deadly attacks in neighboring Afghanistan.

Chief military spokesman Major-General Asif Ghafoor reiterated Thursday that Pakistani forces have undertaken "indiscriminate operations" against terrorists, including Haqqanis," rendering U.S. charges of "inaction" as irrelevant and baseless.

He went on to say the impact of Pakistan's counterterrorism actions "will be seen in subsequent years and months."

"Unfortunately, in this context, we are getting signals of a unilateral action from America," Gafoor said while addressing a news conference at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

U.S. officials have long accused Islamabad of turning a blind eye or covertly helping the Afghan Taliban and Haqqanis to stage cross-border attacks against Afghan and U.S.-led forces.

The Pentagon recently told Congress it will work to expand cooperation with Pakistan "in areas where our interests converge and to take unilateral steps in areas of divergence."

Earlier this month, CIA Director Mike Pompeo warned Islamabad that if it does not eliminate the alleged safe havens inside its territory, the U.S. will do "everything we can" to destroy them.

General Ghafoor questioned and criticized the U.S. threats, saying they ignore a "huge price both in blood and treasure" Pakistan has paid in fighting terrorism in support of coalition efforts in Afghanistan.

"The armed forces of Pakistan are working with friends and want to continue doing so," he said. "But there can be no compromise on our sovereignty. We do not want a conflict with our friends but would ensure security of Pakistan."

He noted Islamabad has been cooperating and contributing to peace inside Afghanistan. He said Pakistan will continue to do so.

"No amount of coercion can work. It is only the engagement and trust based cooperation which can take us forward towards enduring peace in the region," said Ghafoor. "If there are any facilitators and abetters inside Pakistan that can only be addressed if the 2.7 million Afghan refugees are sent back to Afghanistan."

Ghafoor added that Pakistan is securing its long porous frontier with Afghanistan by building a fence, security posts and forts to control cross-border movement. The fencing project will be completed by December of 2018, he added.

"We have done enough and we cannot do anymore for anyone," he said. " Actually, this is [the] turn and time for Afghanistan and the United States to do more rather than asking Pakistan."

U.S. officials have not elaborated on what kind of military action they intend to take. In 2011, U.S. special forces conducted a unilateral operation in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad and killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

CIA-run drones have also been targeting suspected militant hideouts in border regions of Pakistan and some anticipate expansion of such strikes deep inside the country.

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Aid accountability

Nepal lacks internal capacity to spend development aid on time; policy analysts should closely follow how MCC grant is spent
Russian Opposition Politician Yashin Detained In Moscow

RFE/RL December 28, 2017

Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin has been detained in Moscow days after staging a demonstration that authorities said was held without their permission.

Yashin wrote on Twitter that five police officers detained him near his home on December 28 and took him to a police station.

Yashin, the head of Moscow's Krasnoselsky municipal district, staged what he called a "Free Elections Day" festival in Moscow's Lermontov Park on December 24, despite a Moscow City Court decision banning the gathering.

Some 2,000 people attended the event to demand that Russia's March 18 presidential election be a free, fair, and competitive contest.

Moscow city authorities and local police declared the event illegal and questioned Yashin's parents on December 25 about his whereabouts.

Supporters of anticorruption activist and opposition politician Aleksei Navalny also organized rallies in 20 Russian cities on December 24, including Moscow.

Navalny has been campaigning for the presidency since December 2016. But election officials in June declared he is ineligible due to a financial-crimes conviction that he contends was baseless and politically motivated.

Presidential campaigning officially started in Russia on December 18.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is running for a fourth term. His high approval ratings and control over the levers of power make his victory a foregone conclusion in Russia, where government critics say election campaigns and results are manipulated by authorities.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-opposition-yashin -detained-moscow/28943976.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Kremlin Says Legality Of Navalny's Call For Election Protests Will Be Checked

RFE/RL December 28, 2017

The Kremlin says law enforcement authorities will "no doubt" examine whether opposition leader Aleksei Navalny has broken the law by calling for nationwide protests in support of a boycott of Russia's March 18 presidential election.

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, made the remark in a regular conference call with journalists on December 28.

Navalny, who has been barred from challenging Putin in the election, is calling for a "voters' strike" and nationwide demonstrations on January 28 in support of a boycott of the ballot.

"We have the appropriate agencies that check such calls and intentions" to determine whether they are legal, Peskov said. "There is no doubt that this will be done."

Before Navalny announced plans for the January 28 demonstrations, Peskov had said his calls for an election boycott would be checked.

Navalny has said that he and his allies would submit documents soon in a bid to secure permission for the January 28 rallies, but urged supporters to demonstrate anyway if it is denied.

A vocal Kremlin critic whose reports have alleged corruption among senior Putin associates, Navalny has been convicted on criminal charges in two cases he says were fabricated for political reasons.

He announced his presidential bid in December 2016 and has been campaigning since then, but has faced hurdles ranging from bureaucratic hindrances and brief jail sentences to pressure on supporters and physical attacks.

Navalny's campaign manager, Leonid Volkov, was released from jail on December 28 after a 30-day term imposed by a court that ruled he had violated legislation on public demonstrations in connection with a protest in Nizhny Novgorod in September.

"Hi everybody!" Volkov tweeted after his release, thanking people for what he said were 8,000 messages he had been unable to answer in jail.

"I'm wildly happy to be in contact with you again," he wrote. "I missed you!"

The Central Election Commission rejected Navalny's effort to register as a candidate on December 25, citing a criminal conviction in a case the opposition politician contends was fabricated for political purposes.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service, Reuters, and TASS

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-kremlin-to-check-legality -navalny-call-election-protest/28943919.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Syrian army, allies make new territorial advances in Idlib

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 28, 2017 06:45PM

Syrian government forces, backed by allied fighters from popular defense groups, have made fresh territorial gains against terrorists from the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Takfiri group, formerly known as the al-Nusra Front, in the country's northwestern province of Idlib.

The media bureau of Syria's Operations Command announced in a statement released on Thursday that Syrian army units and their allies had established full control over Abu Dali village following fierce clashes with the foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants and inflicting heavy losses on their ranks.

Syrian government troops and allied fighters also engaged Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorists in Dajaj village in Ma'arrat al-Nu'man district, killing and injuring scores of the extremists.

On December 26, Syrian soldiers and fighters from allied popular defense groups managed to retake Tell Aswad area as well as a military base near Musheirifa village, which lies southeast of Idlib.

The operations left many Jabhat Fateh al-Sham militants dead or injured, and their fortifications destroyed. Syrian army bomb disposal units also dismantled tens of landmines and hidden explosive devices in the liberated areas.

The Syrian army also targeted the positions of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorists in the southeastern countryside of Idlib, inflicting heavy losses upon the terrorists' ranks and military equipment in the villages of Tell Mardikh and Abu Dali, in addition to Saraqib city.

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Syrian Kurdish Leader Says Russia Invited Militia To Sochi Peace Talks

December 28, 2017

Russia has promised leaders of the autonomous region controlled by Kurds in northern Syria that they can send representatives to a peace forum it is hosting next month, the commander of the main Syrian Kurdish militia has said.

Moscow has said 155 representatives of the autonomous region will participate, Sipan Hemo, the commander of the People's Protection Units (YPG), said on social media.

Kurdish groups have not taken part in any round of Syrian peace talks since the civil war broke out in 2011, despite their control of more than a quarter of Syria.

Turkey opposes their involvement in talks. Ankara views the YPG as a terrorist group affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency in Turkey for decades.

Russia is hosting what it's calling a Syrian dialogue congress on January 29-30 in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, but it has been unclear who besides its ally, the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, would participate.

About 40 Syrian rebel groups, including factions that have taken part in other rounds of peace talks, said on December 26 they would not attend.

Moreover, while Syrian Kurds now say they expect to attend, the potential for fracturing along ethnic, religious, and partisan lines remains.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a principle backer of rebel groups in the conflict who has also worked with Russia on peace efforts, could take offense at the inclusion of the YPG.

And on December 27, Erdogan sided with the rebel groups in calling Assad a "terrorist" who should not be part of any future peace settlement.

"There is no peace in Syria and this peace won't come with Assad," Erdogan said on a visit to Tunisia. "How can we embrace the future with a Syrian president who has killed close to a million of his citizens?"

Based on reporting by AP, TASS, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-syria-kurds-say- invited-sochi-peace-talks/28943288.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Top UN Official Fears Damascus Using Children as 'Bargaining Chips'

By Jamie Dettmer December 28, 2017

A top U.N. official says he fears Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is "using children as bargaining chips" in a deal to evacuate critically ill patients, mainly children, from a besieged opposition-held town on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus.

Jan Egeland, the special adviser to the U.N.'s special envoy to Syria, expressed frustration about the emergence of a reciprocal deal that is seeing Assad officials agreeing to the evacuation of ill children in exchange for the release of Syrian government workers being detained by rebels.

"Let's hope that the agreements are good when they come," Egeland told the BBC.

"There can also be bad agreements," he added. "It is not a good agreement if they exchange sick children for detainees; that means children become bargaining chips in some tug of war. That shouldn't happen. They have a right to the evacuation and we have an obligation to evacuate them."

Urgent cases

Since Tuesday, 32 patients have been evacuated from the Damascus area, half of them coming from the Eastern Ghouta suburb. The International Red Cross said the other half were urgent cases.

Eastern Ghouta, one of the last rebel strongholds, has been besieged by Syrian regime forces and Shi'ite allies for more than five years and targeted daily by government warplanes as well as artillery. The enclave is a mixture of towns and farming villages. The government has refused to lift a near-total blockade of the area for the past eight months.

Eastern Ghouta was targeted in an alleged sarin gas attack by Assad's forces in 2013.

Aid convoys have been allowed into the battered enclave only rarely. Its estimated population of 400,000 suffers severe shortages of food, fuel and medicines. The suburb has been designated one of the "de-escalation zones."

Russia and Iran, both allies of the Syrian government, along with Turkey, agreed on them earlier this year, but in recent weeks hostilities have broken out between regime forces and rebels.

The dominant rebel group in Eastern Ghouta, Jaish al-Islam, confirmed Wednesday that the Assad regime had agreed to evacuations in exchange for the release of 29 detained workers.

"We have agreed to the release of a number of prisoners  in exchange for the evacuation of the most urgent humanitarian cases," the rebel faction said in a statement.

Priority list

In November, the U.N. submitted a priority list that contained the names of nearly 500 critically ill people, urging that they be allowed to be evacuated. The U.N. has tried to convince world powers to help arrange the medical evacuation.

Many on that list have already died, according to U.N. officials; but, with little in the way of medical facilities, others are becoming seriously ill. As in other parts of rebel-held territory, aid workers and rebels say the government purposely targets clinics and hospitals.

"The Syrian war has been a war against the medical profession in many ways," Egeland said. "Too many hospitals have been bombed, have been hit on both sides; hundreds of doctors and nurses have been killed or wounded, so what is left in Eastern Ghouta for the 400,000 civilians is not that much."

Valerie Petitpierre of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the organization is hoping more evacuees will be allowed out of the besieged town. She said the ICRC continues to insist that humanitarian action should not be used as a bargaining chip.

Syria's state-run Ikhbariya television reported Thursday that 35 medical cases had been evacuated by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), while the insurgents had freed 34 detainees. But those numbers were disputed by aid workers.

Yasser Delwan, a Jaish al-Islam political official in Ghouta, told reporters Wednesday SARC had mediated between Damascus and the rebels for swaps, but that the fate of hundreds of others with life-threatening conditions remains unresolved and several of the most urgent cases slated for evacuation had died.

Those evacuated this week include 18 children and four women. The patients suffered from a variety of illnesses, including heart disease, cancer, kidney failure and blood disorders.

Fayez Arabi, a spokesman for the opposition-held Rural Damascus Health Directorate, said, "The number of people awaiting evacuation due to inadequate medicine and medical supplies has now surpassed 600."

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Tsai issues directive for close monitoring of China military activity

ROC Central News Agency

2017/12/28 15:44:58

Taipei, Dec. 28 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen () said Thursday that Taiwan's armed forces must keep a close watch on China's military movements and take the necessary measures to ensure national security and regional peace and stability.

Speaking a military promotion ceremony, Tsai said China's frequent military activity in East Asia has affected stability in the region to a certain extent.

"We, as a longstanding contributor to regional stability," should keep monitoring China's military movements and take proper measures to maintain national security and the region's peace and stability, she said.

Tsai said her administration strongly supports the military and is firmly committed to national defense reform.

Taiwan's troops should spare no effort to improve their combat readiness, she said, amid concern in the country over several recent training missions by Chinese military aircraft and vessels near Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ).

Chinese aircraft and vessels have carried out exercises near Taiwan's ADIZ 25 times since August 2016, according to Taiwan's latest national defense report, which was released Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan () said Thursday that the ministry has the necessary national security mechanisms in place to protect the nation's borders.

If something unusual occurs during the movement of Chinese military aircraft or naval vessels near Taiwan, the defense ministry will report to the relevant administrative agencies and will inform the public, he said.

The armed forces will continue their efforts to safeguard the country's territory and protect the people, Feng said in response to a question on whether the public has the right to be informed about China's military exercises near Taiwan.

Earlier this month, he had said his ministry would no longer issue reports about such activities unless something unusual occurred.

(By Yeh Su-ping and Evelyn Kao)

Enditem/pc

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Return Of Ukrainians Held By Russia

RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service December 28, 2017

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says he has ordered his government to "immediately" resume talks with Moscow on the release of Ukrainian citizens from Russian custody following a prisoner swap between Kyiv and Russia-backed separatists.

Visiting the Odesa region on December 28, Poroshenko said Kyiv "will do everything we can" to return all Ukrainians held in Russia or "as hostages in occupied territory" -- a reference to Crimea and separatist-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine.

"We cannot betray them. We cannot forget them," he said.

Earlier in the day in Kyiv, Poroshenko said that his government did not release any Russian citizens in the prisoner swap on December 27, which was the largest such exchange since the war in eastern Ukraine began in April 2014.

"We will do more to get our citizens out of Russian jails...and because of that not a single Russian national was released by us now," he said, hinting that Kyiv would only agree to release Russians in Ukrainian custody in exchange for Ukrainians held in Russia.

On December 1, Ukrainian Ombudswoman Valeria Lutkovska said more than 2,000 Ukrainian citizens remain in Russian custody.

On December 28, the United States said it welcomed the long-awaited swap of prisoners and called on both sides to commit to a true "all-for-all" detainee exchange.

In March, the European Parliament called on Russia to free more than 30 Ukrainian citizens who were in prison or other conditions of restricted freedom in Russia, Crimea, and parts of eastern Ukraine that are controlled by the Russia-backed separatists.

Poroshenko named several Ukrainians held in Russia, including filmmaker Oleh Sentsov and journalist Roman Sushchenko.

Sentsov is serving a 20-year prison term, while Sushchenko is being held in Russia on suspicion of espionage. Kyiv says the charges against both men are fabricated.*

In the December 27 swap, Ukraine handed 233 captives over to the Russia-backed separatists in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, while the separatists handed 74 Ukrainian nationals over to Kyiv.

After massive protests pushed Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from power in February 2014 following his decision to scrap a landmark deal with the European Union, Russia seized control of the Crimea region and fomented separatism across eastern and southern Ukraine.

The Russia-backed separatists seized parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, igniting the war -- which has killed more than 10,300 people and continues despite a 2015 deal on a case-fire and steps toward peace -- and severely straining Russia's relations with Kyiv and the West.

*CORRECTION: This story has been updated to clarify that Roman Sushchenko has not been tried or sentenced; he is being held in Russia on suspicion of espionage.

With reporting by UNIAN and Ukrayinska Pravda

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-poroshenko-seeks- return-of-prisoners-russia/28944227.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Detainee Exchange Between Ukraine and Russia-Led Forces

Press Statement

Heather Nauert

Department Spokesperson

Washington, DC

December 28, 2017

The United States welcomes yesterday's exchange between the government of Ukraine and Russia-led forces in eastern Ukraine of more than 300 detainees. This exchange is one step toward implementation of the Minsk agreements. We once again call on the sides to fully implement their Minsk commitments including through a true "all-for-all" detainee exchange; a full ceasefire; the withdrawal of heavy weapons; safe and secure access for OSCE Special Monitoring Mission monitors; and humanitarian access to the conflict zone.

As Secretary Tillerson told Foreign Minister Lavrov in their phone call this week, it is also important for Russia to return its representatives to the Joint Center on Control and Coordination.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine has claimed more than 10,000 lives and damaged important civilian infrastructure. Russia, which started this conflict and perpetuates it through active leadership of military units on the ground that attack Ukrainian positions daily, must commit to bring it to an end.

The United States is ready, in coordination with France, Germany, and Ukraine, to engage with Russia in support of the Minsk agreements to achieve an end to the conflict, including through a peacekeeping force with a broad mandate for safety and security across the entire conflict zone, control of the international border, and responsibility for ensuring the cantonment of heavy weapons.

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Cancer, renal, paralysis patients to get benefits

The government has decided to provide Rs5,000 monthly allowance to persons suffering from cancer, kidney failure and paralysis caused by spinal injuries.
KCR pitches Kadiyam against Manda Krishna

With the arrest of Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi president Manda Krishna Madiga and the unrest among the SCs creating a lot of trouble to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi government, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has quickly moved his pawns to control the damage.

KCR has pitched his deputy and education minister Kadiyam Srihari, also from Madiga community, against Manda Krishna so as to neutralise the latters impact.

Srihari has already split the Madigas and created a counter-group within the MRPS, but it did not have create much impact on the MRPS movement.

On Friday, Srihari came down heavily on Manda Krishna for targeting the TRS government, which was committed to the SC categorisation.

In spite of the repeated assurances from KCR, Manda Krishna is targeting the government. There seems to be a large scale political conspiracy behind his allegations.

He is not uttering a word against the TDP and the BJP leaders, who had shown least interest in SC categorisation, the minister said.

Srihari pointed out that right from the beginning, he had been fighting for the SC categorisation, irrespective of the party he was in.

Even when I was in the Chandrababu Naidu cabinet in the past, I strongly fought for SC categorisation. At one stage, I was almost sacked from the cabinet for taking up the cause of MRPS, he pointed out.

He said the Centre was not giving appointment to the chief minister to take up the issue of categorisation.

It looks like the BJP has no interest in the categorisation. But Krishna Madiga still hobnobs with the BJP leaders in Hyderabad, he alleged.
GREENWICH  The race for Connecticuts Fourth Congressional District next year could be a Greenwich versus Greenwich battle as a local candidate has emerged to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Himes.

Greenwich resident and investment firm founder Harry Arora, 48, has filed paperwork with the state to register as a candidate. He will seek the Republican nomination to run against Himes, who is also a town resident.

Arora in a statement Friday said the central tenets of his platform will be  to protect our freedoms, to improve the lives of the most vulnerable in our society and ensure that we remain a land of equal opportunity for every American.

In 2012, he co-founded Northlander Advisors, an investment firm with a focus on European energy, which he still runs. Arora lives in town with his wife and three children. He has never run for political office before.

My understanding of economics and policy framework will allow me to propose thoughtful policies to reverse the harm being inflicted by current policies, Arora said in the statement. After a successful business career, I want to serve the public cause. I consider that my duty. I have been blessed with the American dream. Now it is my turn to give back and serve.

Arora criticized both Himes and Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, saying their policies have failed Connecticut.

On his website, Arora criticizes the Affordable Care Act and says he will propose policies to lower health care costs and provide more consumer choice. Additionally, he maintains recent policy has attacked the state financial services and insurance industries instead of attracting entrepreneurs and jobs.

Himes office confirmed this week he will seek a sixth term in 2018, but chose not to respond to Aroras announcement.

Over the course of the last year, Himes has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trumps policies, most recently the tax code overhaul, which he said would cause hardship for local residents and families, particularly due to the cap on property and state tax deductions.

The Fourth District had once been a solidly Republican seat, occupied for decades by GOP Reps. Stewart McKinney and Christopher Shays, but Himes has been hard for Republicans to topple since he first beat Shays in 2008.

In 2016, Himes beat Republican John Shaban with more than 59 percent of the vote. He currently sits on the House Committee on Financial Services, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and is the ranking member of the NSA and Cybersecurity Committee.

Arora is a former employee of Amaranth Advisors, LLC, a Greenwich-based hedge fund that collapsed in 2006. He had left the firm before that event to start ARCIM Advisors, LLC, an investment management firm focused on commodities.

A first generation American, who immigrated as a graduate school student from India, Arora trumpets his life and work experience on his campaign website, www.harryforct.com.

Greenwich could have several high profile candidates on the ballot in 2018. Beyond a potential congressional race between Himes and Arora, town residents John Blankley and Dita Bhargava, both Democrats, are circling potential runs for state office. Blankley has an exploratory committee in place looking at a run for state treasurer and Bhargava is looking at state office as well, possibly a run for governor.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
The mother of all mobile-related conspiracy theories was shockingly confirmed one week ago, when Apple admitted that it purposefully slows down old iPhones. While the company's intention is actually to prolong the life of those devices that are affected by aging batteries, this admission was obviously very controversial on the internet, where even much smaller issues turn into all-out flame wars at times.

What Apple does is it throttles the CPU of iDevices that have old batteries, in order to prevent situations in which the battery life becomes worse. And today two of its competitors have chimed in.

Both HTC and Motorola reveal that they do not engage in such behavior with their products. An HTC spokesperson plainly said that "is not something we do", while a Motorola spokesperson said the following: "We do not throttle CPU performance based on older batteries". The Verge has also reached out to Google, Samsung, LG, and Sony for comment on this matter, but hasn't heard back from them yet. It would definitely be interesting if we were to find out that Apple isn't the only company doing this.

Source
Congress ready to back Dahal if he runs for PM

Nepali Congress (NC) leaders have said that the party is ready to support CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal as a new prime minister. If the left alliance fails to form a new government, the leaders said, the Congress party is ready to provide an alternativeto form a majority government under Dahal.
While we wait for 2018s phone launches with anticipation, lets take a moment and glance back over our shoulder and have a look at your most popular phones of 2017.

Before we get into the phones themselves, it became apparent that 3 brands dominated the top 20.

The top 20 most popular phones, brand breakdown

Samsung led the way with 35%, followed by Xiaomi 25% and Nokia 15%. The remaining 25% comprised OnePlus, LG, Motorola, Huawei and Apple with 1 entry a piece.

So lets get going and look at the top 20 in more detail.

Top 10

Your most popular phone of 2017 was the Nokia 6, like us, it was clear that a huge number of you were interested in the revived Nokia brand, 27 million of you in fact. This was one of only two phones to break the 20 million hits barrier. As with previous years it just goes to show that its not always the flagship phones that prove most popular. The Nokia 6 with its premium build quality, good display, mostly stock Android and a camera that pleasantly surprises with image quality only disappointed with its Snapdragon 430 SoC .

In second was the Samsung Galaxy S8 with 23 million hits. Following its launch we commended the S8 for its size and performance, stating that it set the benchmark for flagship pocket-ability. Well leave it up to you to decide if the iPhone X bettered it later in the year.

Xiaomi with the Redmi Note 4 came in third with its high-quality design, blazing-fast performance, and great battery life offering a lot of bang for your buck.

The rest

Following the trend set by the top 3, Samsung dominated the rest of the top 20 most popular phones taking another six spots, followed by Xiaomi with another 4 spots and Nokia with another two spots.

Reflecting the market in general you can see that its not dominated by flagship devices as you look to find the right balance between price and performance.

You can check the rest of the top 20 chart for yourself.

As always please share your thoughts on these 2017 popular phones in the comment section below.




Haiti - Security : Graduation of the 1st promotion of the Border Police





Wednesday Michel-Ange Gedeon the Director General of the Haitian National Police (PNH) in the presence of President Jovenel Moise and Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant and representatives of Canada attended the graduation of the first promotion of 118 Border Police agents "PoliFront".



Prime Minister Lafontant said "It is with honor that I participate in your graduation. To you, first cohort of police officers of the specialized unit of the border police, I wish for courage ! Success will be collective !"



Canada was proud to participate in creating this unit of border police, essential to the functioning of the Haitian state, thanks to a program's contribution to the stabilization and peacekeeping operations (PSOPs) of 3 million CAD, to the International Organization for Migration (IOM-Haiti), responsible for the implementation of the project in partnership with the PNH.



In his speech for the occasion Michel-Ange Gedeon declared "[...] It is with pleasure that I receive you this morning on the occasion of this activity which consecrates the true existence of the specialized unit of the border police called PoliFront whose fundamental mission is the security of the border.



I would like to thank the President of the Republic for his support for this initiative, which is aimed only at the security of the country and the fight against transnational organized crime.



[...] The border is the gateway to and from the territory. It is also the first and last impression of the country.



[...] Today, with transnational organized crime, drugs, arms trafficking, child trafficking and terrorism are coming together to form the other side of globalization. These phenomena threaten peace, undermine multidimensional development and, above all, jeopardize the security of states. Thus, the issue of border security has become a major concern for states around the world.



Here, we must also add contraband because according to the work of a mixed Haitian-Dominican group the amount of contraband represented in April 2016 more than 400 million dollars a year. Based on the data that has come to me, I think it's more than that.



That, ladies and gentlemen, is a shortfall that our country could use for development, early childhood education, our youth, and so on [...]



[...] It is therefore at once a citizen's duty, a sovereign function, an absolute necessity of the moment to ensure the presence of the State, the Haitian National Police at our borders and our coasts.



[...] Haiti and the Dominican Republic share a land border of 388 km. This common space is both a source of great economic opportunities and major threats to public security. The territory begins and ends at the border. The border is therefore of prime importance.



The PNH must amplify its presence by obligation and prudence. We did not create this unit long ago. Among other things, it will be responsible for monitoring and securing the four official crossing points between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, but also and above all those of a hundred or so other points that are sometimes more dangerous and more threatening for the security of the country. The realities are there.



[...] What would be the point if we were to ensure border security by violating the rights of the human person ? Thus, I invite you to carry out your mission by applying the law and normative texts of the PNH, in strict respect of the rights of the Haitian citizens and foreigners. Among the entities, I would like to detach women and children. Indeed, groups at the border mentioned some cases that caught our attention, especially in Ouanaminthe."



Note that among other means of surveillance of traffic at the border, the PoliFront will use drones as have already done the Dominicans for a long time.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23026-haiti-news-zapping.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2017/12/29 | Source

Added episode 7 captures for the Korean drama "Black Knight" (2017)

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Directed by Han Sang-woo

Written by Kim In-yeong

Network : KBS

With Kim Rae-won, Shin Se-kyung, Seo Ji-hye, Chang Mi-hee, Kim Hyun-joon, Hwang Jung-min-I,...

16 episodes - Wed, Thu 22:00

Synopsis

In this supernatural romance drama, a businessman with a pure heart braves danger for his love, a travel agent who has never traveled abroad. It is a love story that spans over two hundred years.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/12/06

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Published on 2017/12/28 | Source

tvN drama "A Korean Odyssey", also known as "Hwayugi", may have to stop all production. The Ministry of Labor investigated the drama set on the 28th and according to the results, the drama may have to either stop all operations or reinforce the set before continuing with production.

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According to "A Korean Odyssey" sources, the Ministry of Labor investigated the safey of the set in regards to industrial accidents because a staff member fell about 3 meters, or 9.8 feet, while working on a chandelier on the ceiling, which resulted in paralysis in the lower half of his body.

Investigations took place mainly where the accident occured, on a ceiling joist that had broken. The staff member was standing on plywood too hang up the chandelier when the ceiling joist broke and caused the 3 meter fall. The injured staff member's representative claimed that this accident happened because cheap materials were used for cost reduction purposes.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Act Article 26, an employer must stop work when there is imminent danger of an industrial accident and only recommence after taking health and safety measures. The Minister of Employment and Labor may, in the event of a major disaster, conduct a safety and health check or other necessary measures to establish the cause of an accident or enact preventive measures.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor can immediately issue an order to suspend work in order to conduct emergency surveys and to take measures to reinforce workplaces where worker safety is not guaranteed.

If the labor supervisor sees the set unfit, all production of "A Korean Odyssey" may come to a halt or recommence after reinforcement measures have been taken. Either way, "A Korean Odyssey" will have to wait on the results of the investigation.

"A Korean Odyssey" broadcasted two episodes and during the second episode, there was a broadcasting accident with the computer graphics.
Mourners at the funeral of one of two young farm workers who drowned on Christmas Day were told that a tight-knit rural community has been left with "numbing sadness" by their deaths.

Childhood friends Martin Needham (27) and Declan Davitt (26), both of Louisburgh, died when their 4x4 vehicle was swept away by the swollen Carrowniskey river in Co Mayo.

A 19-year-old friend managed to escape and raise the alarm at 3am.

Fading

Mourners at Mr Needham's funeral were yesterday told that the recovery of the bodies just as light was fading on Christmas Day brought "a tiny glimmer of relief" to their families.

"We all know the sound of a phone ringing in the small hours of the morning is rarely the bringer of good news," Fr Martin Long told the congregation at the Church of the Holy Family, Killeen.

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"But when our phones rang early on Christmas morning we knew instinctively it couldn't be good news. Sadly, for the Needham family and the Davitt family, it brought the worst possible news.

"As phones rang throughout the parish that morning as word spread, a light was extinguished. We walked in darkness."

Fr Long paid tribute to the emergency services, and to those neighbours and friends who went to the scene of the accident to see if they could help.

Both men drowned as they tried to cross the Carrowniskey near Lousiburgh. Their bodies were found at 4pm after an extensive search.

A guard of honour was formed by neighbours and friends as Mr Needham's coffin arrived at the tiny church, led by four tractors.

The church was filled to overflowing an hour before his Mass began, and loudspeakers relayed the service to those outside.

Mr Needham and Mr Davitt had worked in New Zealand, but returned to their homeland.

"People have spoken of how obliging Martin was when called upon to do a job, but he had a passion for machinery so it was never a job for him," said Fr Long.

"His love of family, which was also seen in the great relationship he had with his nephews and nieces, was the deciding factor in his decision to return home even though he has established himself in New Zealand.

Disbelief

"The tragedy has left us with nothing but our raw human emotions, a numbing sadness, shock, disbelief and anger, helplessness and tears."

Mr Needham is survived by his parents, Pat-Joe and Breege, and his sisters, Olivia, Patricia, Catriona and Elaine.

He was buried in Killeen Old Cemetery, a short distance from his home.
A seriously ill girl who has dreamt about having a "happy room" has got her wish - just in time for Christmas.

Robyn Smyth, from Whitehall in Dublin, has been fighting aggressive cancer neuroblastoma and was given just a 30pc chance of surviving when she was first diagnosed ten years ago at the age of three.

It was when the Dublin girl's chances of survival dropped to five per cent that her family decided to raise funds to take her to the US, and Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Michigan, but so far it has cost hundreds of thousands.

Worse

Doctors had told her mum Bernadette that a room filled with happy things would help the 13-year-old cope better with her aggressive cancer.

Her latest scan early this month showed Robyn's disease looks just how it did the last time she was tested and has not had chemotherapy since the end of June, so things have not gotten any worse health wise.

Bernadette said: "So much hard work went into making this happen. So much hard work went into this project. I can't even begin to say how grateful we are and how blessed we are to have people that would give up their time to do this.

"Robyn has been through so much and really deserved this - and I just couldn't have done this for her. It overwhelms me every time I see it.

She added: "There are so many people to thank. It started with Keith Carney drawing up the plans, then Lorcan Construction came on board and built the room from scratch. The gang from Lorcan Construction all worked for nothing in order to keep costs down.

"Leo Maher from Sign and Digital got in touch when they heard about it.

"They are an amazing company who have started a project called 'Your Happy Room' and when they heard about Robyn's room they decide to give her a Happy Room and, oh my God, it's amazing."
Health Minister Simon Harris will support abortion on demand up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy, the Herald can reveal.

Today, for the first time, Mr Harris outlines in detail his personal views on the topic, revealing that until recently he saw no reason to change Ireland's restrictive laws.

The minister, who will be in charge of drafting the legislation to govern abortion laws in the event of the Eighth Amendment being repealed, said: "I came in here thinking that there wasn't a need for change in this country. Genuinely, I didn't believe it."

However, Mr Harris (31) says three events changed his attitude, starting with the death of Savita Halappanavar in 2012.

"I was a young, new, male TD. I remember the awful situation with Savita Halappanavar and the real questions that raised about the Eighth Amendment," he explained.

"And then I remember attending a briefing in Leinster House with the group Terminations for Medical Reasons.

"It was mums and dads who had found themselves carrying a baby with a fatal foetal abnormality. I've never before left a briefing so moved by it. Here was a situation where I'm very proud of this country.

Ashamed

"I love being Irish, I love living in this country and I love representing this country as a member of the Government .

"And yet here was a situation where I was really ashamed at how these people were treated."

The third incident was the case of Amanda Mellet, who was 21 weeks pregnant in 2011 when she was told the foetus had congenital defects meaning it would die in the womb or shortly after birth.

Ms Mellet travelled to the UK to have a termination, staying for just 12 hours due to her financial situation.

In June 2016, the UN's Human Rights Commission ruled that Ireland had subjected her to "discrimination and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" because of its laws against abortion.

"I met Ms Mellet and her husband. I sat in that room and listened to a story that wouldn't make me proud of how we deal with this," said Mr Harris, who publicly apologised to her in the Dail last year.

He went on to say: "Abortions are a reality whether we like it or not for thousands of women.

"This issue is not by any manner of means similar to marriage equality.

"Abortion is not a happy thing at all, but it is a reality.

"Not only is Irish women going abroad a reality but now you have women here using the abortion pill. Some estimates put it at up to 2,000 a year."

"As their Minister for Health, surely I should be concerned that they are taking a pill in a non-regulated fashion," the Wicklow TD said, adding: "In that sense I'm clear in my thinking on it."

The Department of Health is currently working on legislative proposals that could form the basis for a referendum on the Eighth Amendment in May or June.

Desirable

Mr Harris described the timeline as "very tight" because any proposals brought forward will have to be debated in the Oireachtas.

However, he said: "It's do-able and desirable.

"I don't think the country needs a referendum campaign that goes on and on and on forever.

"The idea that anybody under the age of 50-odd has never had a say on this or had their voice heard and yet lives in a country where the constitutional position is extraordinarily restrictive compared with many, many other countries, I don't think that's democratic," the minister added.

"I think we should have an opportunity for my generation, and indeed generations above me, to have that say.

"This is not going to go away."
Three teenagers linked to a notorious burglary gang were being questioned last night by gardai after causing mayhem on one of Ireland's busiest motorways.

The youths, aged between 14 and 17, were detained after their car crashed into another vehicle on the N7 yesterday afternoon.

A fourth occupant of the car suffered serious injuries in the collision, which happened shortly after it was stopped by gardai.

It is understood that members of An Garda Siochana's armed anti-burglary unit pulled over the silver Ford Mondeo on the Naas Road at about 3.45pm.

The car initially stopped for gardai, but when approached it took off a speed in the direction of Dublin with its doors wide open. The Mondeo swerved towards the left as if it was leaving the dual carriageway via the exit road, but at the last minute it pulled back in.

The car then crashed into the central reservation at the Johnstown junction and hit a Honda jeep. It was at this stage that one of the passengers was thrown out of the vehicle. The teenager suffered serious injuries and was taken by ambulance to Tallaght Hospital.

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The driver of the Honda was taken to Naas Hospital with minor injuries. The three other occupants of the Mondeo were arrested during follow-up searches near the crash site a short time later.

Disturbed

All three were last night detained for questioning at Naas Garda Station.

It is believed that the four males have links to the 'Pale Miley' Connors organised crime gang, based in Tallaght.

The occupants of the car are said to have been involved in a foiled burglary around an hour before the crash. A source said they were disturbed while trying to break into a house in Athy, Co Kildare, at about 3pm.

The intruders fled from the scene in two waiting cars when the occupants of the house returned home.

The Herald understands that a female was one of the gang who fled the scene and was in a second car which not involved in the motorway collision.

A dispatch was then sent out and gardai from Harcourt Square travelled towards Co Kildare in an attempt to catch the suspected burglars as they made their getaway.

The incident resulted in lengthy tailbacks on the N7, causing significant delays.

The scene of the collision was examined and diversions were put in place. The crash was also referred to the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) for investigation.

It happened on the same day the Herald revealed that two ruthless Traveller burglary gangs had joined forces to form an "unholy alliance" of dozens of male and female family members who were wreaking havoc across the country.

The gangs are known to use young women relatives as highspeed getaway drivers, and the south Dublin outfit is largely made up of teenagers, with some as young as 14.

The 'Pale Miley' outfit is one of the country's most notorious organised gangs.

In 2013, the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) seized almost 1m from the gang on suspicion of it being behind a nationwide spree of burglaries and distraction thefts. They has been under investigation by CAB since 2010.

CAB identified a network of bank accounts, with a total balance of more than 950,000, and secured a series of successes against the gang in the High Court.

GSOC is also appealing for witnesses to yesterday's incident to come forward.

Collision

A spokesperson said: "GSOC would like to hear from motorists who may have dash-cam footage of events surrounding a collision on the northbound section of the motorway near junction 8 (Johnstown) at 3.40pm.

"While the incident, involving a number of cars, happened on the northbound carriageway, motorists travelling in the opp- osite direction may also be in a position to help.

"Potential witnesses and those who have dash-cams and were in the area between 3.30pm and 3.50pm are asked to ring 1890 600800."
Mt Everest climbing regulation: Govt comes up with stringent safety rules

From now on, things are going to be tougher for Mt Everest aspirants as the government, in an attempt to improve safety of climbers, has announced some major changes in its policy.
Indian envoy Puri calls on PM Deuba

Indian Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri called on Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Friday. The duo discussed the ongoing political issues of Nepal during the meeting, sources said.
Man arrested after mother, daughter found slain in Hagerstown hotel

Hagerstown Police said Thursday night they had arrested a 22-year-old man in the deaths of a mother and daughter found in a city hotel Wednesday.
Joint team starts border pillar study in Farwest

A joint field survey team from Nepal and India has started studying the conditions of border pillars in Kailali and Kanchanpur districts.
NC to finalise Provincial Assembly members under PR category today

The Nepali Congress is carrying out the final home work for deciding the list of its State Assembly members towards the proportional representation (PR) category.
Serenata IntraWare, the sister company to HEBS Digital and expert in CRM solutions, has been voted the World's Leading Hotel CRM Technology Provider by the World Travel Awards for the third consecutive year. This award is voted on by industry experts and peers and recognizes Serenata as one of the foremost authorities on CRM technology in the world.

The World Travel Awards, now in its 24th year, honors the best achievements and innovations in the travel and tourism industries of the past year. HEBS Digital is excited to share in both the excitement and enthusiasm for Serenata's industry-advancing accomplishments of the last 12 months.

Founded in 1996, Serenata empowers their impressive list of clients to enhance the guest experience before, during and after their stay. By putting valuable guest data to good use, Serenata is able to engage guests through their suite of CRM services, ultimately inspiring guest loyalty.

"Serenata is our partner in delivering the highest quality services to our global clients, and we couldn't be prouder of this well-deserved recognition," said HEBS Digital President and CEO, Max Starkov. "Congratulations to the whole Serenata team on this receiving this honor, yet again."

About Serenata IntraWare:

Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Munich, Germany and San Francisco, Serenata IntraWare combines 20 years of hospitality CRM technology experience with in-depth knowledge of guest data management, marketing automation and guest recognition/loyalty program solutions (https://serenata.com/).

As a strategic CRM partner to leading hotel brands, Serenata integrates its CRM solutions into the property's existing IT infrastructure and connects CRM with PMS, CRS, ORM, RMS, website CMS, social media and other data sources. This allows hotels to develop a 360 view of their guests and engage and retain past hotel guests via marketing automations, guest marketing, and guest recognition/loyalty program solutions.

At each step before, during and after their stay the CRM suite ensures guests receive the most targeted, dynamic and relevant communication with the goal of achieving long-term customer loyalty. Serenata's Hotel CRM Suite has been awarded with the most prestigious industry award, The World Travel Award "World's Leading Hotel CRM Technology Provider" in 2015, 2016 and 2017. The company has acquired an impressive international client portfolio of hotel chains, leading luxury and boutique hotel companies, and independent hotels and resorts.

About the World Travel Awards:

The World Travel Awards is voted for by travel and tourism professionals worldwide, and this accolade recognizes the commitment to excellence demonstrated in the last 12 months. Details about the WTAs can be found here.

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In case you missed it, January 1st will mark the arrival of legalized marijuana in California. Well thats undoubtedly great news across the board, it would appear that theres a minor buzzkill. The Associated Press has reported that federal agents will still be seizing your weed, even on busy freeways and backcountry highways. Plus, eight border patrols across California will still consider possession of the drug illegal and confiscate accordingly. Evidently, the state law and the federal law remain in conflict.

Assistant chief of Border Patrols San Diego sector Ryan Yamasaki spoke with AP about the transition, citing a lack of change on his end. Prior to Jan. 1, its going to be the same after Jan. 1, because nothing changed on our end. If youre a federal law enforcement agency, you uphold federal laws. And where the law is concerned, marijuana is still classified as a controlled substance, along with stronger drugs like heroin and LSD.

While Californias new law will allow anyone over the age of 21 to carry up to an ounce, forty percent of federal marijuana seizures between 2012-2016 were for an ounce or less. The checkpoints are generally located up to one-hundred-miles from the Mexican border, with the intention of stopping any illegal immigrants from entering the country. According to a report from the Government Accountability Office, eighty-seven percent of drug confiscations were marijuana. Luckily for those carriers, charges were seldom made; those caught were generally released after being photographed and fingerprinted.

Come January 1st, California will become the seventh state to legalize recreational marijuana.

California Border Patrols
Netflixs Bright film received a lot of attention following its release. It was a highly anticipated movie that also had a stellar soundtrack behind it as well as a solid cast. Netflix did a great job at marketing the film and building the anticipation around it. While its been polarizing among viewers and non favorable among critics, it was still a highly successful film. According to Nielson, who only began measuring Netflixs viewership earlier this year, Bright has made an incredible debut within its first three days of being released.

According to Deadlines report, Netflixs Bright received 11 million TV viewers in the United States within the first three days of its release. They say the movie appealed more to a younger demographic. The statistic is noted as being strictly from TV viewership so theres likely many more people who watched the film on other devices. They also say the majority of viewers (56%) were males.

Considering the massive viewership, it should come as no surprise that many were speaking on it. Roughly around the time of its release, Netflix had signed on to make a sequel for the film which makes it the first streaming service movie franchise.

Whats more interesting perhaps is the polarizing response the film received. While there were no doubt many that appreciated the film, there was also a lot of backlash that surrounded the film from critics as well as Chance The Rapper. Chance recently chimed in on Twitter to say he felt a little cheated from the allegorical racism.

Did you watch the film? Let us know how you felt about it below.
Lieutenant-Colonel Yacouba Issaac Zida (C) arrives at the Place de la Nation square on October 31, 2014 in Ouagadougou after the resignation of Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore. The deposed president of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore, is 'in a safe place' and his 'safety and well-being are assured', Colonel Isaac Zida, second in command of the presidential guard, said on November 1st. Zida, who had just declared himself head of state, told journalists that Compaore, who resigned on October 31, and his chief of staff 'are in a safe place and their safety and well-being are assured.' AFP PHOTO / ISSOUF SANOGO (Photo credit should read ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images)

By Mathieu Bonkougou and Nadoun Coulibaly

OUAGADOUGOU, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Burkina Faso's opposition parties and the African Union rejected the army's seizure of power in the West African country on Saturday after the resignation of President Blaise Compaore, setting the stage for fresh protests.

The military top brass named Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida, deputy commander of the elite presidential guard, as head of state on Saturday. A power struggle within the armed forces was resolved by sidelining the chief of staff.

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Zida, who has operational control over the army's best trained and equipped unit, had declared himself interim president in an early morning radio address, overruling military chief General Honore Traore's claim to lead a transitional government following Compaore's departure.

One of Africa's long-serving rulers, Compaore stepped down on Friday after two days of mass demonstrations against his attempts to change the constitution to extend his 27 years in power. At least three people were killed after protesters stormed the parliament building and set it on fire.

On the dusty streets of Ouagadougou, the capital, protesters voiced anger that they had driven out Compaore - who seized power in a 1987 military coup - only to have another soldier imposed on them.

"The victory of the popular uprising - and consequently the management of the transition - belongs to the people and should not in any way be confiscated by the army," a coalition of opposition parties and civil society groups said in a statement after talks on Saturday.

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"Our consultation reaffirmed that this transition should be democratic and civilian in character," it said, announcing a demonstration in the vast Place de la Nation for Sunday morning.

The unfolding crisis in the poor, landlocked nation is being closely watched by the United States and former colonial power France, which were close military allies of Compaore. Under his rule, Burkina Faso became a key ally in operations against al Qaeda-linked groups in West Africa.

The United States could freeze military cooperation if it judges a coup has taken place. Washington on Friday urged a peaceful transition to elections, respecting constitutional rules.

Under Burkina Faso's 1991 constitution, the head of parliament should take office if the president resigns, with a mandate to organize elections within 90 days. However, the army has dissolved the legislature and suspended the constitution.

In a statement issued by military leaders after meeting to appoint Zida to power, they said the form and duration of the transition would be decided in consultation with all sections of society. Troops loyal to Zida patrolled the quiet streets of Ouagadougou on Saturday following his early morning radio announcement that he was taking over as head of state to avoid a descent into anarchy and to ensure a democratic transition.

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"This is not a coup d'etat but a popular uprising," Zida said, dressed in military fatigues, in the studio of BF1 television. "I salute the memory of the martyrs of this uprising and bow to the sacrifices made by our people."

He appealed for the African Union and West African regional bloc ECOWAS to show their support for the transition.

But, in a strongly worded statement, the African Union called for the military to hand power over to civilian authorities. It said the Peace and Security Council -- the arm of the 54-nation bloc that imposes sanctions for violations of democratic process -- would discuss the situation on Monday.

"The Chairperson of the (African Union) Commission ... stresses the duty and obligation of the defense and security forces to place themselves at the disposal of the civilian authorities who should lead the transition," read the statement.



COMPAORE IN IVORY COAST

In the Place de la Nation, the epicenter of this week's massive demonstrations, many people voiced anger at what they saw as an attempt by the military to subvert their uprising.

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"It's ridiculous. It's just replacing Blaise with a little Blaise," said Frederic Ouedraogo. "The presidential guard opened fire on the crowd. If were able to get rid of Blaise, then he (Zida) will not be able to stop us. He is going to go, too!"

The events in Burkina Faso will also be carefully followed by other governments in West and Central Africa. Several long-serving leaders are reaching the end of their constitutional terms in several countries in the region, including Benin, Congo Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo.

The government of neighboring Ivory Coast said on Saturday that Compaore had arrived there with his family and entourage but did not specify his location. Military sources said he was staying at a presidential retreat in the coastal resort of Assinie, to the east of the economic capital, Abidjan.

It was the seventh time that a military officer had taken over as head of state in Burkina Faso since it won independence from France in 1960. It was previously known as Upper Volta.

Troops loyal to Zida deployed at strategic points across the capital on Saturday night, though an evening curfew was pushed back by three hours to 2200 GMT. The airport was also reopened. Land borders remained closed.

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Despite being one of the world's poorest nations, Burkina Faso positioned itself as a key mediator in regional crises under the stewardship of the imposing Compaore, popularly known as 'Handsome Blaise', who was renowned as a skilled negotiator and a wily, ruthless politician.

A taciturn former soldier who had survived several bids to oust him after he seized power in a 1987 military coup, Compaore initially sought to defy the calls for him to step down once the protests turned violent on Thursday.

Diplomats said Compaore - widely blamed for the death of his friend, the leftwing revolutionary Thomas Sankara, in the 1987 coup - was alarmed at the possibility of prosecution on rights charges if he left office.

But his bid to cling to the presidency - and its lavish trappings - angered many young people in a country stagnating in 183rd place out of 186 countries on the U.N. human development index. With an average age of less than 18, most of the country's 17 million population have never known another leader.

Crowds danced, cheered and blew whistles in Place de la Nation on Friday after Compaore's resignation, before the army announced it was taking charge.

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Pond to be restored to its original form

Following widespread criticism of the municipal offices decision to use modern construction materials to rebuild the earthquake-damaged Rani Pokhari, the Kathmandu Metropolis City on Thursday decided to halt the rebuilding works and restore the Malla-era monument to its original form.
This series showcases some of IBMs brightest thinkers as they share insights into emerging subject areas and technologies. Their thoughts can help us understand the topics  such as smarter cities, the cloud and big data  that are changing our world.
President set to pass ordinance next week

Under pressure from several quarters to pass the ordinance on National Assembly election forwarded by the Cabinet more than two months ago, President Bidya Devi Bhan-dari is set to sign the document into law next week.
Meteorite That Landed in Winchcombe Has a Connection With Water on Earth, Finds Study
The Guildford Four's Gerry Conlon felt such despair after 12 years in prison that he was on the verge of killing himself, private letters to the Irish Government have revealed.

While languishing in HMP Long Lartin in England in 1987, seven years after his father Giuseppe died in jail, Mr Conlon wrote how he could not face another 18 years of "living hell".

Conlon died in 2014 aged 60, three weeks after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

The letter, dated May 10 1987 and released by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin under the 30-year rule, was sent to then tanaiste and foreign affairs minister Brian Lenihan.

The west Belfast man reflected on the 30-year sentence handed down to him.

"That means if nothing is done to help us I must face another 18 years of a 'living hell'," he wrote.

"I can assure you that I do not intend to serve it, I would much rather join my dear father.

"I can see that if my plight is not resolved in the near future that I will have to decide which form of protest I must take.

"This is not something I want to do but you can only suffer so much and to suffer it for something you didn't do makes the suffering intolerable."

Mr Conlon and the rest of the Guildford Four - Paul Hill, Carole Richardson and Paddy Armstrong - were sentenced to life sentences for the attacks in Guildford, Surrey which killed five people and injured 65.

Their convictions were overturned in 1989.

At the time of their sentencing, the trial judge Mr Justice Donaldson told them: "If hanging were still an option, you would have been executed."

Mr Conlon pleaded with the tanaiste: "I hope the Irish Government will be able to do something to help us before another innocent person, like my father, dies from that terrible disease known as British justice."

The handwriting on the pale blue notepad was impeccable and belied the deep trauma Mr Conlon was suffering and the conditions of life in a maximum security prison.

He told Mr Lenihan he was grateful for the Irish government's efforts to get justice.

"I can think of nothing worse than putting an innocent person in prison. It has got to be the ultimate 'living hell'," he wrote.

"Moreso, when you know the courts and judiciary know your innocence as well but refuse to admit it because of political decisions and the reputations of those who made their names while framing us."

Mr Conlon contrasted his plight with the approach that would have been taken had an innocent British citizen been jailed in Ireland.

"If our situation was reversed and British people had been framed and railroaded to massive sentences of imprisonment by an Irish court, then I'm sure the British government would have made representations at government level. Indeed, they would have made a diplomatic incident of it," he wrote.

A month later Mr Lenihan replied.

He tried to assure him of his personal support and assistance of the Irish government but he did not refer directly to Mr Conlon's deep personal despair.

The tanaiste said: "I understand the frustration which you now feel after 12 years of imprisonment. The widespread public sympathy for your predicament and support for your case, however, (may/can/should) be a source of encouragement for you."
The support pact between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail could be extended beyond 2018, the Taoiseach has said.

Leo Varadkar said the confidence and supply deal should not be allowed to "drop dead" after the budget and that he intends to discuss the issue with Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin next year.

"Confidence and Supply runs until the Budget, which will be October of next year. I think at a certain point, we will have to have a conversation.

"It is as you know an agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail so at a certain point we will have to have a conversation," said Mr Varadkar.

He added: "Built into (the agreement) is a review and potentially it could be continued and I certainly see no reason why it can't be continued beyond the third budget."

The Fine Gael leader insisted that he would not like to see the agreement "drop dead" the day after the budget.

"That wouldn't be in anyone's interest and it would not be in the best interests of the country certainly to have a government on budget night with confidence and supply agreement but not the day after.

"So I imagine that conversation will be had at some stage next year but it is not a conversation I have had yet with Micheal Martin so I probably should have it first," said Mr Varadkar.

The support pact was badly shaken earlier this year following a series of issues in relation to the Department of Justice.

The Government was brought to the brink of collapse until former justice minister and Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald agreed to resign amid concern over her handling of allegations against Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe.

When quizzed by reporters about Mrs Fitzgerald's future in politics Mr Varadkar refused to say if she could be a potential future presidential candidate for Fine Gael. But he did say that she could return to a senior government position in the future if one should become available.

"There's no vacancy at the moment. We'll see what the president decides to do. I still hold Frances Fitzgerald in very high regard. I'm not planning a cabinet reshuffle but I certainly don't think for a second that she's somebody who is debarred from holding high office in the future," he said.
Reconstruction matters

NRAs claim that reconstruction will be completed in the next six-months is dubious
The priest bought his EuroMillions ticket after returning from the US to spend Christmas with relatives in Dublin

An Irish priest has scooped a half million prize in the EuroMillions while home for Christmas.

The retired cleric, originally from Co Mayo but based in Florida, collected his prize in the National Lottery offices in Dublin after buying a quick pick ticket in Donnybrook Fair in Malahide, Dublin on December 22.

The lucky priest joked that God must be listening to his prayers as he previously won IR15,000 on the old Irish Sweepstakes and US 3,000 dollars and US 5,000 dollars over the years in lotteries in the USA.

He pledged to share his winnings with those in need.

"I suppose you can say I am lucky. But I have always had a policy of sharing my luck around," the priest said.

"That is something that my late mother taught me, and something that was also drummed into me when I was a young priest by a bishop. I am a big believer that what goes around comes around.

"This is a huge amount of money and I look forward to giving some back."

The priest revealed that he heard on Saturday that one of the two winning EuroMillions Plus tickets had been purchased in the Donnybrook Fair outlet.

"I didn't get too excited when I heard this first," he said.

"I went back to the shop and gave the ticket to the same girl I had purchased it from to be checked. Lo and behold there was a message on the system to contact the National Lottery! So I knew at that stage I had won."

The priest, who regularly returns to Ireland, spent Christmas Day with relatives in Dublin.
Bishop Daly said Mr McGuinness normally did not get his 'hands dirty' but had run out of henchmen in the city

Martin McGuinness personally set up the rendezvous which led to the brutal murder of a suspected IRA informer, the Irish Government was told in 1987.

Previously secret files in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin reveal the then Bishop of Derry Edward Daly made the damning claim seven months after the killing of Frank Hegarty.

Bishop Daly said Mr McGuinness normally did not get his "hands dirty" but had run out of henchmen in the city.

Mr Hegarty, a Provo quartermaster in Derry, was abducted from Buncrana, Co Donegal, and shot in the head in May 1986 after he had been lured home with claims he would be safe.

His body was dumped on the side of a border road with his eyes taped.

A typed letter, marked secret, was filed to the Department of Foreign Affairs by an official who had met Bishop Eddie Daly and talked about the execution.

Released under the 30 year rule, it said: "The Bishop understands that, far from using a henchman (as he would ordinarily do), McGuinness personally arranged the rendez-vous with Hegarty from which the latter did not return."

Bishop Daly said the former IRA commander turned peacemaker had been doing "reckless things" at the time.

He said these actions would make Mr McGuinness "vulnerable if he were to come under media scrutiny".

Over the years Mr McGuinness, who died last March, faced repeated questions over the Hegarty murder but always insisted he had "no role whatsoever".

The dead man's family have said the former Deputy First Minister persuaded Mr Hegarty to come home. And Bishop Daly believed them.

It is understood Mr Hegarty fled to England, protected by British intelligence, and is reported to have given information on a dump of IRA arms smuggled from Libya before being lured home.

Bishop Daly said Mr McGuinness assured relatives on a number of occasions that Mr Hegarty would not be harmed.

The Bishop was reported to have said: "McGuinness would usually try to 'keep his own hands clean' in an affairs of this sort but, with the number of Provo volunteers in Derry reduced... by rumours that Hegarty had 'squealed', McGuinness was left in a position for several months last year in which he had to do much of 'the dirty work' on his own."

Bishop Daly said he was certain Mr McGuinness was a Provisional IRA Chief of Staff "at least for the North-West if not for the entire North".

The letter was dated January 22 1987, about seven months after the murder.

It was sent to Dublin and copied to the Tanaiste and the Ambassador in London, as well as the secretary of the Irish Government's Anglo-Irish Secretariat.

It has been reported Mr McGuinness met Mr Hegarty's mother Rose on numerous occasions as he tried to coerce him to return home, including a claim he went down on bended knee.

A sister of Mr Hegarty is also said to have unwittingly driven him to the rendez-vous in Buncrana.

The documents can be read in the 2017/20/17 file from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
It is an eye-rolling cliche to say a week is a long time in politics - but 2017 provided firm proof that cliches only become cliches because they are true.

The only thing the ever-shifting landscape did was to make us all the more fixated on rolling news feeds as we tried in vain to match the pace of political change. Particularly when it came to Brexit.

The negotiations over the Border have so far seen as many key changes as a 1980s pop hit - and there are bound to be more to come.

From then-Taoiseach Enda Kenny's meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May on January 30, the Government has remained resolutely stubborn in its stance that no hard Border must be reintroduced on this small island.

Mrs May was notably anxious and twitchy, exhausted from her travels to America, during her brief visit to Government Buildings back then.

But it had at least some value in hammering home the point, because, days later, British Brexit Secretary David Davis told the House of Commons that the UK's relationship with Ireland was one of the most important aspects of Brexit preparations.

Some British commentators began to lazily suggest that Ireland might join them on their journey to the no man's land that lies beyond the EU in order to get themselves out of a hole.

At the second plenary meeting of the All-Ireland Civic Dialogue on Brexit, in Dublin Castle, the Taoiseach firmly rejected the suggestion, saying: "To succeed as an open economy and a welcoming society, we must remain at the heart of Europe."

While already counting down the days to his own leadership, battling all the way to the end, he struck what was a remarkably bold tone when, speaking in Brussels on February 23, he said he wanted the language of the final Brexit agreement to allow for Irish reunification in line with the Good Friday Agreement, and for the North to rejoin the EU with ease. This was readily agreed at a special EU Brexit conference in April.

In May, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier addressed the Oireachtas, saying he wanted to reassure us all that Ireland's interest was the EU's interest when it came to the negotiations.

Meanwhile, domestically, events were beginning to move quite quickly. Kenny had faced down the threat of a motion of no confidence, but the pressure to stand down was now reaching a deafening pitch. He remained reluctant, saying he wanted to wait until the Brexit negotiations were complete. But the leadership race was already fast and furious, Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney emerging as early favourites.

The old guard was breaking up, with the stepping-down of finance minister Michael Noonan, while Enda finally announced that he would leave at midnight on May 17.

The leadership contest was all but over before it began, Varadkar taking an early lead over the opposition, with Coveney reminding the nation that this was 'not a personality contest'.

A series of public debates ensued - but on June 2, Varadkar was announced as the victor, beating Coveney 60pc to 40pc.

His appointment made world headlines, and he was compared to Canada's Justin Trudeau and France's Emmanuel Macron. 'Time' magazine put him on the cover, heralding him as "quite a few firsts rolled into one".

"At 38, he is his country's youngest ever Taoiseach, or Prime Minister. He's also the first from an ethnic minority background, and the first to have come out as gay. His appointment  is symbolic of the shift in social values in the once staunchly Catholic country," said 'Time'.

In his inaugural speech to the Dail, Leo quoted from Seamus Heaney's poem, 'From the Republic of Conscience': "At their inauguration, public leaders must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep to atone for their presumption to hold office."

Enormous

"I am aware of the enormous task ahead of me, and my responsibilities to this country and to all its citizens," said the new Taoiseach.

"And I approach it not with a feeling of presumption, but with a sense of profound humility, and respect and appreciation for all that has gone before."

Bizarrely, novelty socks featured heavily at the start of his leadership, and he sported ones emblazoned with maple leaves to meet Trudeau in July.

He also began to send out a weekly video message over social media, in a nod to a new 'modern' form of leadership.

But the housing crisis was ever-deepening and no amount of spin could disguise the fact that it was now out of control. By November, more than 8,800 people were homeless in the country.

That same month, the Government, which had begun to look so stable, was suddenly rocked by a squall that blew up apparently out of nowhere - but which, in reality, had been rumbling under the surface for months.

There were calls for Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald to resign over claims that she had prior knowledge of a legal strategy to discredit Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe. She denied wrongdoing, and Varadkar refused to call for her resignation - but amid the looming certainty of a snap Christmas election, she relented and stood aside on November 28. Coveney neatly took her place as Tanaiste.

In the middle of it all, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams announced he would stand down as leader of the party in 2018 after three-and-a-half decades at the helm.

Meanwhile, the party in the North has seen a long impasse, with neither Sinn Fein nor the DUP managing to overcome a deadlock which saw Stormont left idle and impotent.

The DUP, however, has been both a kingmaker and a trouble-maker when it came to underpinning the Westminster government.

Which brings us back to Brexit - since there seemed scarcely room for anything else, at times.

In August, the Taoiseach made a speech in Belfast in which he declared that what was required was bridges, not borders, in a nod to the language of former President Mary McAleese.

That same month, the UK published its Brexit plan regarding the North, stating that it did not wish to go back to Border posts. However, the undercurrent in the UK seemed to be stating otherwise - our "young and inexperienced leader" needed help to be "put on the right track", the increasingly anti-Irish Brexiteer propaganda declared.

Shambling

Worry here was growing. The relationship between the UK and Ireland was worse than it had been since before the Good Friday Agreement.

In November, the shambling presence of Boris Johnson, the UK Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, paid a visit to Dublin to discuss the spiralling situation, with Coveney. There was no attempt to put a good face on the situation - with Simon Coveney admitting to Boris's clear horror: "There is an impasse here."

Back-up for Ireland arrived on December 1 in the form of Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, declaring that he came "to reassure the Taoiseach and the Irish people that the EU is fully behind you" and that there should be no hard Border after Brexit.

A deal was done a week later, in which the UK government and the Irish Government agreed to rule out a hard Border.

Within days, however, Davis was pussyfooting about the language, saying the agreement wasn't legally binding. But the EU, again, stood firm.

Stay tuned for further Brexit mayhem in 2018.
The pressure to have a 'good time' on New Year's Eve is real. Fail to have a 'good time' on New Year's Eve and you feel like you've failed at life. After all, start as you mean to go on and if your start comprises of a crammed local discotheque, snack box, and taxi-less trek home it doesn't exactly set you up for success.

With that in mind here are five things that are inevitably going to happen this New Year's Eve...

FOMO

It's the 29th and with just two days to go until New Year's Eve it suddenly dawns on you that you've left it too late to do anything cool.

You could have gone glamping in Galway and celebrated the arrival of 2018 underneath the twinkling stars in the spectacular, historic Blake's Estate, but you can't because it's sold out.

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You could have popped over to Achill Island for Smithwicks 10 West, an alternative New Year's celebration with nature yoga sessions, greenway cycles, and live performances from Daithi and Stomptown Brass and more. But no, you didn't buy that ticket either, and now it's also SOLD OUT.

Oh well, you can always live vicariously through your friends' Instas as they have the time of their organised lives while you 'party' at one of the zillion generic masquerade balls taking place across the country.

No matter what you do, you'll suffer from a paralysing bout of FOMO.

House party regret is a thing

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Having failed to organise anything interesting to do (see above) you think throwing a house party is an inspired idea.

Pros: you don't have to venture outside (aside from a quick spin to Aldi for cans and cocktail sausages), you can invite whoever you like (and ignore those you don't), people bring booze.

Cons: You'll run out of booze at 11pm, everyone will bring 5 other people you've never met before and none of them will have booze, your carpet will never recover (neither will your relationship with your neighbours), 15 per cent of people will still be lurking in the spare room on January 2 (none of whom you will know).

Jools' Annual Hootenanny

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For those who shun the aforementioned masquerade balls, and sensibly avoid throwing a house party, Jools Holland's annual Hootenanny brings the New Year's Celebration to you. This year is his 25th and there's Ed Sheeran, Beth Ditto, Soul II Soul and Mavis Staples to look forward to among the musical guests. But before you get too smug, the show was filmed on December 6 in Maidstone so that raucous countdown is fake. Happy New Year!

You won't get a taxi

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You just can't face another Hootenanny or you've had quite enough of Ed for one year so you're going out. Unfortunately, you may not be coming home quite as quickly as you'd like. At one point Dublin had more taxis than New York, but even if that's still not the case, they're usually in plentiful supply, at least in major towns and cities, yet there will nary a yellow light to be seen come 11pm on New Year's Eve. And you've probably left it too late to book one for your return journey in the small hours of January 1st so wrap up warm and bring a hi viz for the sorry trek back to reality (or some random's house party your mate invited you to, just down the road...).

Relationships will blossom (and others will die)

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Although not at the same time, hopefully. While some people will feel the warm, fuzzy, enhanced-by-Prosecco sizzlings of chemistry ignited by those New Year's Eve kisses, others will find themselves face to face with their other half and deciding they can't possibly spend another entire year tied to the hip of this person who chews their cocktail sausages with their mouth open. Taxi! Oh...
KEELIN Shanley has insisted that she is not worried about her sartorial choices on the Six One becoming a talking point among viewers as she gears up to host the RTE show.

Current host Sharon Ni Bheolain and other RTE stars, such as Miriam OCallaghan and Jean Byrne, have had viewers criticise their outfits while on camera.

OCallaghan became a national talking point on social media during a memorable episode of Prime Time when she wore a choker.

Ni Bheolain has also raised eyebrows in the past with casual outfits choices like leather jackets and jeans.

However, Shanley insisted neither she nor co-host Caitriona Perry will be trying to draw attention to their clothes.

You do what you do. Ive never found it to be a huge issue, she said.

Its not something I focus on hugely. If it happens, it happens.

Its not our job to go out there looking for attention for our clothes.

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Its our job to go out there and do as good a job as we can.

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The Dubliner reckons that if broadcasters outfits become a talking point, it could mean that they are not doing their job properly.

I suppose if we get attention for our clothes, were probably not doing it right. We shall see how it goes, she said.

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With her replacing Ni Bheolain and Bryan Dobson, Shanley believes it is inevitable that the show will have a completely different feel when they take over the hosting chairs in January.

I think just having two new people will obviously make it different.

Will it change in other ways? Id say the thing will be to get it on the air, get it established and then maybe look at what you might do differently or what you might keep the same, its like any programme, she told Independent.ie.

Youre moving into one of the best established programmes, so its a fine line between you dont want to mess it up and equally, everybody wants to bring their own thing to it.

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Seasoned broadcaster Shanley currently presents News at One on RTE Radio 1 and Crimecall on RTE One, which Ni Bheolain will be fronting in the new year.

Perry currently serves as RTEs Washington correspondent and recently said she is not nervous about presenting Six One after having spent years in the news business.

Ive been in broadcast journalism for a long time now, so Im more concerned about packing up my life and moving continents, she said.

Ill be back in the US packing, and then Ill move back home over the Christmas break and get ready to start in January.
The parish priest of a devastated community has said the deaths of two friends in a Christmas Day drowning tragedy left community in "darkness".

Fr Martin Long yesterday paid tribute to the emergency service personnel who recovered the bodies of farmers Martin Needham (27) and Declan Davitt (27). The two men drowned after their jeep was swept away as they tried to cross the Carrowniskey river in Louisburgh, Co Mayo.

Hundreds of people packed into the Church of the Holy Family in Killeen yesterday for the funeral Mass of Mr Needham. Parish priest of Louisburgh, Fr Long said: "We all know that the sound of a telephone ringing in the small hours of the morning, any day of the year, is rarely the bringer of good news - but when our phones rang early on Christmas morning, we knew instinctively it couldn't be good news.

"For the Needham family and the Davitt family, it brought the worst possible news.

"As the word spread, a light was extinguished.

"We again walked in darkness and we entered a period of desperate waiting.

"It is difficult for us to grasp any straw of comfort from such a tragic situation, but as Christmas Day wore on and just as hopes were fading as fast as the daylight, everyone fearing another long night of waiting, first Martin was found and then shortly after that his lifelong friend Declan.

"It brought the tiniest of a tiny glimmer of relief."

A guard of honour was formed by neighbours and friends as Mr Needham's coffin arrived at the church, led by four tractors, including his own.

"The terrible reality of the extent of the tragedy has left us with nothing but our raw human emotions, a numbing sadness, shock and disbelief anger, helplessness and tears," Fr Long added.

Mr Needham, who is survived by parents Pat Joe and Breege, and sisters Olivia, Patricia, Catriona and Elaine, was laid to rest in Killeen Old Cemetery.

Declan Davitt's funeral Mass will take place at the Church of the Holy Family in Killeen today.
Shortage of essential medicines looms over Province 1 districts

Shortage of essential medicines is looming large over many districts in Province 1, owing to the delay in procurement process.
A dying man, who claims he contracted terminal cancer from being exposed to asbestos dust 45 years ago, has Friday asked the High Court to speed up the hearing of a damages claim against a former Co Kildare employer.

77-year-old Patrick Hayes, who is terminally ill in a hospice in Monasterevin, is suing Tegral Building Products Limited and alleges he was not warned of the dangers of air-borne asbestos fibres or given protection when he worked at Tegral Building Products Limited factory in Athy for 42 weeks in 1972.

Mr Justice Michael Twomey heard that the Co Kildre firm, which is yet to file a defence to the claim, stated in correspondence that it has no record confirming that Mr Hayes worked with it.

Barrister Rachel Meagher, counsel for Mr Hayes, told the court that he was diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma --- a form of cancer most commonly associated with asbestos exposure.

Ms Meagher, who appeared with solicitors Patrick V Boland and Sons, Newbridge, said Mr Hayes claimed the company had been negligent and in breach of duty by its failure to have any regard for his safety when he worked for them.

Mr Hayes alleges he was required to work in an environment where he was likely to inhale asbestos dust and claims the company failed to provide him with a safe place of work while having to move asbestos sheets which are used for insulation and fire proofing.

During the course of his employment he claims he was not given an adequate protection and had inhaled asbestos fibres, the exposure to which he alleged had resulted in his cancer.

Barrister Neal Flynn, counsel for Tegral Building Products, told Judge Twomey that Mr Hayes, with an address at Kilcrow, Athy, Co Kildare, had worked for most of his life in the UK and had commenced proceedings against the company only on December 12th last after returning to Ireland in September last.

When the case came before the High Court Friday Ms Meagher said her client was a dying man and was currently continuously on oxygen in Monasterevin Hospice. It is not known how long he will live, she said.

She said chemotherapy and radiotherapy had been deemed by his doctors as being only marginally beneficial and that treatment of his condition was largely palliative.

Ms Meagher said Mr Hayes claimed that the only place he had been exposed to asbestos during his working career was when he was working for Tegral in Athy. She said it had been established through Social Welfare records that Mr Hayes had worked for the company for 42 weeks in 1972 and had paid social welfare contributions for those weeks.

She told the court it was her opinion and that of his solicitors that the company had no bona fide defence to Mr Hayes claim and she asked the court, due to his condition and unknown prognosis, for various orders expediting the hearing of his claim.

Mr Hayes legal team sought an order lawyers sought an order requiring the filing of a defence to his claim by January 3 and a further court order directing that his personal evidence be taken on commission by a lawyer at Monasterevin Hospice on January 8 next. Ms Meagher said Mr Hayes would not be able to come to court to give evidence.

Tegrals barrister, Neal Flynn, said his client would "be putting forward a defence," and was agreeable to allowing Mr Hayes give evidence on commission but raised concerns about the speed in which the case was being forced on especially as there was a lack of clinical evidence before the court concerning Mr Hayes condition.

Mr Flynn said it was asking the court to take a huge leap in allowing Mr Hayes application to be squeezed into such a short time space. Although Mr Hayes medical records had been forwarded to the defendants Mr Hayes legal team did not know what particular inquiries would be made by Tegral in order for it to meet the case.

Mr Hayes has spent a large portion of his life working on building sites throughout the UK and could have been exposed to asbestos on any building project, Mr Flynn said. It is unreasonable for the plaintiff to force these proceedings on when whe are simply not ready to meet them.

Mr Justice Twomen, in his ruling, commended both sets of lawyers for agreeing certain matters that would expedite the claim. He said there was a lack of detailed medical evidence before the court and he noted correspondence from the company that said it had no record of having employed Mr Hayes.

I think the balance of justice lies in allowing evidence to be taken on commission on January 8th next and the court so directs, Judge Twomey said. Adjourning the matter he said he would not make any order regarding legal costs of the application.
A teenager is due to appear in court this morning following an alleged burglary yesterday.

Gardai received reports of a burglary at a house in Athy, Co Kildare at around 3pm yesterday after the intruders were disturbed by the occupants returning to the property.
Members of the gardai at the scene at Walterstown, near Dunboyne where the body of Caine McCormack-Kirwan was discovered Photo: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

The number of people murdered in gangland killings has fallen significantly this year, as gardai continue to crack down on the Kinahan cartel.

While the Hutch-Kinahan feud led to a spike in gangland killings, with 15 last year, that number has dropped to seven in 2017.

However, detectives fear the bloodshed could increase again next year, as a number of gangs across the capital are on the verge of all-out war.

The local disputes, which are not directly linked to the Hutch-Kinahan feud, have led to a number of people being shot dead this year.

In Finglas, a feud that has seen a number of botched shootings and attacks carried out could boil over, while crime gangs in the Coolock area are on the brink of war over the murder of criminal Jamie Tighe.

Gardai have also kept a visible presence in west Dublin following two murders in the space of a week earlier this year, while other feuds are developing in Tallaght and Blanchardstown.

Two of the murders carried out this year are connected to the Hutch-Kinahan feud, which erupted following the Regency Hotel shooting in February 2016, with the other five linked to local disputes across the capital.

Two gun murders in west Dublin in a week led to fears of revenge attacks in that part of the city.

On September 9, Darragh Nugent was gunned down outside a house in Wheatfield Avenue, Neilstown, shortly after 9.30pm.

The 36-year-old was a close associate of suspected hitman James Nellie Walsh and was himself before the courts on a firearm charge at the time of his death.

A week after Nugents murder, his close friend John Gibson (28) was shot dead in the CityWest area of the capital.

Gibson was not involved in the feuding and is believed to have been gunned down because he was linked to an innocent female relative of Walsh.

These two murders are suspected of being carried out by a Clondalkin mob that is led by a close associate of the Kinahan cartel.

This individual was questioned over a botched murder plot against Hutch gang member James Mago Gately and has also been arrested over a multi-million-pound drug seizure in Britain that is linked to the cartel.

Since the two murders, he has gone into hiding, with gardai fearing that his rivals will strike back against the gang.

He has gone to ground, and his gang is getting weaker the longer he stays away, a source told the Herald.

There are major concerns of a revenge attack against his gang over the murders of Nugent and John Gibson.

These two murders are linked to a feud in the area, which has so far claimed five lives.

Another death this year that gardai fear could lead to further gun attacks was the murder of Jamie Tighe (24).

He was shot dead outside a house in the Moatview area of Coolock in the early hours of October 28.

He had links to a number of criminal gangs and was previously before the courts for assaulting a garda, as well as for firearms offences.

In the aftermath of his killing, a close male associate of Tighe armed himself with a firearm to seek revenge.

Officers are braced for a backlash between associates of Tighe and their enemies based in the Coolock and Finglas areas.

Tighe was a close associate of a notorious Dublin hitman who is the chief suspect in the murders of mother-of-six Antoinette Corbally (48) and innocent locksmith Clinton Shannon (30) in north Dublin in the summer.

The double murder was carried out in Ballymun on August 15 and has led to growing tensions in the area.

Detectives have so far arrested one individual who they suspect sourced the cars used in the hit, while armed gardai have kept a constant presence in the area.

The intended target was convicted criminal Derek Bottler Devoy (38), who fled over a wall at the rear of the property when the shooting began.

Despite eight murders being committed in Ireland as part of the Hutch-Kinahan feud last year, that number has dropped to two so far in 2017, owing largely to a number of successful garda operations.

Michael Keogh (38) was shot dead in an underground car park near Dorset Street on May 30.

He was not centrally involved with the Kinahan cartel, but was closely linked to some of its associates.

Last month, Caine McCormack-Kirwan (24) was found dead with three gunshot wounds in a field near the Meath-Kildare border.

Gardai suspect he was shot dead on the orders of the Kinahan cartel, and are investigating whether a west Dublin crime gang was hired to carry out the murder.

Assistant Commissioner Pat Leahy previously revealed that gardai investigating 19 murders in the capital in the first 11 months of the year had made 19 arrests, while seven people had been charged as part of those investigations.

These murders include the seven carried out by organised crime gangs as well as domestic homicides and other killings.

Officers have also carried out 42 searches as part of murder investigations, which have resulted in eight firearms being seized and a total of 3,991 investigative tasks being carried out.
Health Minister Simon Harris has been warned Waterford will accept nothing less than a permanent second catheterisation lab for critical cardiac procedures.

The warning came as Catherine Power, who lost her brother Tom (40) to a heart attack while he was being transferred from University Hospital Waterford to Cork University Hospital, urged the Government to "do the right thing" for the people of the south-east.

A series of protest marches are now planned to highlight the need for a permanent second cath lab at Waterford.

A compromise measure has seen Waterford secure a mobile lab. However, this can only deal with diagnostics and not 'stent' procedures.

In an embarrassment for the Government, the main cath lab at Waterford had to suspend procedures earlier this month due to a problem with lab equipment. Patients had to be temporarily referred to Cork.

Ms Power insisted that her brother could have been saved if the cath lab at Waterford had been operational on the day he fell ill last June.

He was rushed to Cork but died as his ambulance was passing Dungarvan.

"It has been a very tough Christmas without Tom. You don't realise how difficult it is until you've gone through it. That's why we don't want any other family to suffer our kind of loss," she said.

Ms Power staged a special action march on St Stephen's Day and vowed that further marches will now be mounted to highlight the ongoing cath lab issue at Waterford.
Gardai at Store Street are appealing for the public's help to find 14-year-old Leon Wilson.

Leon was last seen on Eden Quay in Dublin city centre at approximately 9.15pm on December 27.

When last seen he was wearing a grey North Face Tracksuit with blue trim.

He is described as being 5'7 tall, of slim build, with short blond hair and blue eyes.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Store Street Garda Station 01-6668000 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111.
Charlie McCarthy and wife Nicole with their two children, Ciara (5), right, and Niall (2)

Friends and family of an Irishman murdered in Australia have set up a fundraising campaign to support his wife and young children.

Father-of-two, Charlie McCarthy, died after he was stabbed in the head during a street attack in East Freemantle, near Perth.

The violent attack took place while Mr McCarthy, his wife Nicole and a friend were waiting by a taxi rank on December 23.

It is believed a row broke out between two fisherman who were nearby.

The details of the row are unclear but Mr McCarthy was struck in the head and collapsed on the ground.

He later died of his injuries at the Royal Hospital Perth.

Mr McCarthy's family travelled from his hometown in Aghada, east Cork to Perth before his life support was switched off on December 26.

Friends and family of Mr McCarthy have set up a fundraising campaign to raise financial aid for his wife Nicole and two young children, Clara and Niall.

The Charlie McCarthy Trust was launched on the online fundraising site, GoFundMe.

To date, AUS$24,002 (15,000) has been raised of the AUS$30,000 (19,530) goal. The funds have been raised by 248 people in just one day.

Mr McCarthy is described as "one-of-a-kind" on his fundraising page.

"His big smile and quick laugh lit up every room. A fun dad, he was as adored by his children as he adored them.

"He gave his love so easily and welcomed everyone into his world.

"A wonderful husband, an incredible father, and the most loyal friend you could ask for. He is irreplaceable and will be forever missed."

It is understood that The Claddagh Association is assisting Mr McCarthy's friends and family with the administration process.

The Perth-based support group assists people from the Irish community in times of crisis.

Meanwhile, a book of condolence has been opened for Mr McCarthy in Cork.

Aghada GAA opened the book in their clubhouse for their former player on Friday morning between 10am and midday and it will open again between 1 and 4pm tomorrow.

Club secretary Dareen Lee posted a notice on the club's Facebook page and paid a moving tribute to Mr McCarthy.

"Charlie joined us in his teenage years and had a positive impact with his energy, dedication and attitude throughout his time in the club," said Mr Lee.

"On moving to Australia, he continued to wear the club colours with pride and celebrated club successes like so many at home and abroad.

"What is clear from listening to those who knew him best was that the dedication and energy we experienced on the pitch, was small compared to his dedication for his wife Nicole and their children Ciara and Niall.

"Whilst Charlies loss has been felt in the club, his passing is a loss to all in the Aghada community, those at home and overseas. We offer our heartfelt condolences and prayers to his family and friends locally and to Nicole and their children in Australia."

Fisherman Andrew Doan (34) was brought before Perth Magistrates Court on December 27 charged with grievous bodily harm.

He was refused bail and is likely to face more serious charges, such as manslaughter or murder.
Gardai at scene of incident on pedestrian area beside Draiocht Theatre and Leisureplex, Blanchardstown, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn

Terrified shoppers watched in horror as a car drove into a pedestrian area and mowed down a 15-year-old boy in Dublin this afternoon.

The car was driven at high speed through a paved area reserved for pedestrians at Blanchardstown Shopping Centre and struck the youth.

The boy was knocked to the ground and lay motionless as the driver stopped his black BMW 5 Series car and turned it around and drove back out through the pedestrian area which is cordoned off by bollards on both sides.

Women in nearby restaurants screamed as the car sped past them within inches of the restaurant windows.

Another youth who was walking with the victim suffered a grazed leg as people went to the assistance of the 15-year-old boy lying on the pavement.

Emergency service personnel treated the boy as he lay on the ground, placing his neck in a brace and covering him with a blanket before taking him to hospital by ambulance.

The teenager's injuries are not thought to be life threatening.

One witness said it appeared the driver of the car was determined to knock down the youth.

The car drove at speed for more than 40 metres in the pedestrians-only area before striking the victim.

The incident happened shortly before 5pm after a violent altercation between two groups of young people in the vicinity.

Gardai said they are searching for the car and driver who left the scene of the incident immediately.

A 28-year-old mother-of-one, who was sitting with her daughter and mother in the nearby Starbucks restaurant, said "The driver drove down the path and knocked the guy down. He turned the car back around after the guy was knocked down and sped off again."

"It was deliberate. Definitely deliberate," she said.

"There was also an argument going on between youths near the Leisureplex nearby," she said.

"We came out of the restaurant and we could see the guy who was hit by the car lying on the ground. He wasn't moving. There was a big commotion," she said.

"The driver was in danger of hitting loads of people when he was speeding on the pavement," she said.

"Three girls sitting inside the window in Starbucks got the fright of their life because the car actually drove within inches of the windows like a flash of lighting.

"It was very frightening. To say the least," she said.

"The guy who was hit with the car was wearing a cap and the force of the car hitting him caused the cap to end up about 20 yards away. The friend who was with him later picked up the cap and said his own leg was scraped by the car," she said.

The woman's 60-year-old mother who also witnessed the commotion said: "The girls beside us who saw it were very upset.

"Staff screamed at people to get back inside and they locked the doors," she said.

An employee of a nearby business said he saw the victim lying under blankets surrounded by ambulance workers.
Gerry Adams was rumoured to have set up a notorious IRA gang for ambush by the SAS as it tried to blow up a police station in May 1987, previously secret files reveal.

Eight members of the Provisionals' East Tyrone Brigade were shot dead after they loaded a 200lb bomb onto a stolen digger and smashed through the gates of the RUC barracks in Loughgall, Co Armagh.

British army special forces were lying in wait and killed them all, along with innocent bystander Anthony Hughes.

Declassified documents, released through the National Archives in Dublin, showed ballistic tests found that weapons discovered on the dead had been used in 40 to 50 murders, including every republican killing in Fermanagh and Tyrone in 1987.

Three civilian contractors had been murdered in the counties that year, along with officers in the RUC and British army's Ulster Defence Regiment.

The rumour about Mr Adams was passed on to Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs by respected cleric Fr Denis Faul about three months after the Loughgall operation.

The priest, who had been at school in St Patrick's Academy, Dungannon, with Padraig McKearney, one of the IRA gang, said the theory doing the rounds was that "the IRA team were set up by Gerry Adams himself".

Fr Faul said he was "intrigued" by the theory.

Mr Adams declined to comment on the contents of the file when contacted in recent days.

Fr Faul, a school teacher and chaplain in Long Kesh prison, said the rumour was that two of the gang - Jim Lynagh, a councillor in Monaghan, and McKearney - "had threatened to execute Adams shortly before the Loughgall event".

It was being claimed that Lynagh and McKearney "disliked Adams's political policy" and that they were leaning towards Republican Sinn Fein.

Three days after the operation, then-tanaiste and foreign affairs minister Brian Lenihan wrote to Northern Ireland secretary of state Tom King urging him to avoid triumphalism over the killings.

"We asked you through the secretariat to be mindful of the need to avoid any sense of triumphalism on the part of your authorities," Mr Lenihan said.

"It is necessary that sensitivity be shown in regard to the funerals which are now taking place, and that the investigation of the events should pay particular attention to the question of whether such a large number of casualties, including the civilian casualty, could have been avoided."

Mr King wrote back over a week later and revealed: "My advice is that [IRA] group had at least 40-50 murders to their score over the years."

Notes from briefings by the British government to Irish officials in London revealed the security forces claimed the IRA fired first; that the gun battle lasted two to three minutes; that the SAS fired "no more rounds than were necessary"; and that every IRA weapon had been fired.

Along with Lynagh and McKearney, the IRA gang included Gerard O'Callaghan (29), Tony Gormley (25), Eugene Kelly (25), Patrick Kelly (30), Seamus Donnelly (19), and Declan Arthurs (21).

The operation has long been associated with questions of an informer having tipped off the RUC and British army.

In the same file, Bishop of Clogher Joseph Duffy told a diplomat that Lynagh was a "madman" and was believed to have been responsible for 20 murders.
Health Minister Simon Harris will support abortion on demand up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy, the Irish Independent can reveal.

For the first time today, Mr Harris outlines in detail his personal views on the topic, revealing that until recently he saw no reason to change Ireland's restrictive laws.

The minister, who will be in charge of drafting the legislation to govern abortion laws in the event of the Eighth Amendment being repealed, said: "I came in here [to Leinster House] thinking that there wasn't a need for change in this country. Genuinely, I didn't believe it."

Mr Harris (31) said three events changed his attitude, starting with the death of Savita Halappanavar in 2012.

"I was a young, new, male TD. I remember the awful situation with Savita Halappanavar and the real questions that raised about the Eighth Amendment," he said.

"Then I remember attending a briefing in Leinster House with the group 'Terminations for Medical Reasons'. It was mums and dads who had found themselves carrying a baby with a fatal foetal abnormality.

"I've never before left a briefing so moved by it. Here was a situation where I'm very proud of this country, I love being Irish, I love living in this country and I love representing this country as a member of the Government, and - yet here was a situation where I was really ashamed at how these people were treated."

The third incident was the case of Amanda Mellet, who was 21 weeks pregnant in 2011 when she was told the foetus had congenital defects, meaning it would die in the womb or shortly after birth.

Ms Mellet travelled to the UK to have a termination, and staying for just 12 hours due to her financial situation.

In June 2016, the UN's Human Rights Commission ruled that Ireland had subjected her to "discrimination and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment".

"I met Ms Mellet and her husband," said Mr Harris, who publicly apologised to her in the Dail last year. "I sat in that room and listened to a story that wouldn't make me proud of how we deal with this."

He went on to say: "Abortions are a reality, whether we like it or not, for thousands of women.

"Not only is Irish women going abroad a reality, but now you have women here using the abortion pill.

"Some estimates put it at up to 2,000 a year.

"As their Health Minister surely I should be concerned that they are taking a pill in a non-regulated fashion," the Wicklow TD said, adding: "In that sense, I'm clear in my thinking on it."

The Department of Health is currently working on legislative proposals that could form the basis for a referendum on the Eighth Amendment in May or June.

Mr Harris described the timeline as "very tight" because any proposals brought forward would have to be debated in the Oireachtas.

However, he said: "It's doable and desirable. I don't think the country needs a referendum campaign that goes on and on and on forever."

The minister added: "The idea that anybody under the age of 50-odd has never had a say on this or their voice heard and yet lives in a country where the constitutional position is extraordinarily restrictive compared to many, many other countries. I don't think that's democratic.

"I think we should have an opportunity for my generation and indeed generations above me to have that say. This is not going to go away."
Sumargi may have formed shell company to cleanse dirty money

Controversial businessman Ajeya Raj Sumargi may have formed a shell company called Zhodar Investments Limited in the British Virgin Islands to transfer billions of rupees, amassed through illegal means, to Nepal. This has raised the spectre of the country becoming a breeding ground for financial crime such as money laundering.
Gerry Adams was said to have been working on a peace strategy in early 1987.

The Sinn Fein president was said to have privately believed that the IRA campaign would not succeed and that terrorism was hampering his own personal ambitions and attempts to win support for the party at the ballot box.

The previously unseen report, released under the 30-year rule from the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin, said Mr Adams viewed the armed struggle as a "political liability".

The revelation was passed on to a diplomat by senior Catholic cleric Bishop Cahal Daly, who was also said to have spoken with "some vehemence of Adams's deviousness and fundamental untrustworthiness".

The confidential report, dated February 4, 1987, and compiled for officials in Iveagh House in Dublin, said: "The Bishop has picked up a rumour that Gerry Adams is currently trying to put together a set of proposals which would enable the Provisional IRA to call a halt to (its) paramilitary campaign.

Declaration

"He has reached the view that the 'armed struggle' is getting nowhere, that it has become a political liability to Sinn Fein both North and South and that, as long as it continues there is little chance that he will be able to realise his own political ambitions.

"What he is believed to be working on is some form of 'declaration of intent' to withdraw, with however long a timescale, on the part of the British government."

In the file, Bishop Daly also revealed that he had refused to meet Mr Adams as president of Sinn Fein and that despite some "agonising", he decided he would only have discussions with him as a "private individual".

Bishop Daly also said that if Sinn Fein won a Westminster seat for West Belfast in the election, that it would be a "tragedy".
A cabinet reshuffle is off the table in 2018 even if Frances Fitzgerald is exonerated by the Charleton Tribunal.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says he has "no plans" to change his ministerial line-up now that he is firmly established in the Department of An Taoiseach.

He was forced into a mini-reshuffle shortly before the Christmas break following the resignation of Ms Fitzgerald as tanaiste and business minister.

She has maintained her innocence amid accusations that she mishandled the case of Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe, but resigned in order to prevent Fianna Fail pulling the plug on the minority Government.

At the time, Mr Varadkar told Fine Gael TDs he believes Ms Fitzgerald will clear her name when she appears before the tribunal in the coming weeks.

However, asked whether the Dublin Mid-West TD should be returned to Cabinet in the event she is proven to have acted properly, Mr Varadkar replied: "I still hold Frances Fitzgerald in very high regard.

"I'm not planning a Cabinet reshuffle but I certainly don't think for a second that she's somebody who is debarred from holding high office in the future."

Put to him that Ms Fitzgerald has been suggested as a potential Fine Gael candidate for the next presidential election, the Taoiseach said the party will be making no decisions on that issue until Michael D Higgins makes his intentions clear.

A presidential election is scheduled for October, but the incumbent is stalling on announcing whether he wants a second term in Aras an Uachtarain.

Mr Varadkar faced criticisms after taking office for failing to bring more gender equality into his ministerial team.

However, he now says the criticism is unfair because the first objective should be to get more women into politics in order to address the imbalance.

"What I want to work towards, though, is having many more women in the Dail. My party has more female TDs than any other, but it's still only 11," he said.

"We obviously have local elections coming up in 2019 and we have a general election at some point as well.

"I'd be very keen to have as many female candidates as possible.

"The best way to improve participation in politics and in the government is to have more women in the Dail, in the Seanad and in councils as well."

Only four out of 15 Cabinet ministers are female, including Culture Minister Josepha Madigan, who replaced Heather Humphreys after she was appointed Business Minister.
'Star Wars' filming on Skellig Michael was worth an estimated 40m in advertising to Ireland, the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) has revealed.

It coincides with more than 200,000 additional visits from North American tourists.

The increase from across the Atlantic compensates for a 7pc (200,000) drop in visits from the UK, which is a direct consequence of the uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

The Irish tourism industry is now worth 8.9bn annually, with 6.5bn of this coming from overseas visitors.

ITIC chief executive Eoghan O'Mara-Walsh expects an increase of 5pc in tourism numbers next year and a rise of 7pc in the value of tourism to the Irish economy.

The growth in North American tourists visiting Ireland is also anticipated to rise into double-figures again in 2018.

"It ['Star Wars'] certainly helped," he said. "In the last couple of weeks with the new 'Star Wars' movie and Skellig Michael, there's been an awful lot of coverage of the western coast and the Wild Atlantic Way."

Positive

"That's the sort of coverage and exposure that money can't buy. I think it's about 40m, the estimated advertising value of that, so it's very, very positive," he added.

A special advertising campaign has already been launched in order to exploit Ireland's connection to 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'.

In battling the tourism decline from the UK due to Brexit, ITIC wants stronger marketing campaigns targeting UK tourists.

It says that while the numbers of UK tourists travelling to Ireland is down, they are still taking holidays, just elsewhere.

Tourism Ireland expects a bumper tourism season in 2018 thanks to the success of the Wild Atlantic Way and Ancient East campaigns, along with the knock-on effect of 'Star Wars'.

"It is set to be another record year for Irish tourism, surpassing all previous records; by year-end, 10.65 million people will have visited the island of Ireland, spending 5.78bn," Niall Gibbons of Tourism Ireland said.

"For 2018, Tourism Ireland aims to build on this year's performance - growing overseas tourism revenue to 6bn (+5pc) to the island of Ireland and visitor numbers to 10.8 million (+2pc)," he added.
A young girl walks in the snow in Mallow, Co Cork Picture: Mark Condren

The White Christmas arrived a few days late as frost, ice and snow left many parts of Ireland resembling a winter wonderland.

Snow and ice weather warnings were issued for last night with Met Eireann warning that snow accumulations of up to 2cm were expected in some areas.

However, it will be a different story for the new year as the freezing conditions will ease from today, with 2018 set to open with warmer temperatures, blustery winds and occasionally heavy showers.

The commute to work proved challenging yesterday for motorists in the south-west, Midlands and north with some areas seeing as much as 4cm of snow.

Expand Close Kuba Wolanin (8) from Saggart takes a winter walk with his dog Toby at Kippure, Co Wicklow / Facebook

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Whatsapp Kuba Wolanin (8) from Saggart takes a winter walk with his dog Toby at Kippure, Co Wicklow

The lowest temperature recorded was an icy -4.1C at Mullingar, Co Westmeath.

Gardai, the Road Safety Authority and AA RoadWatch urged motorists to drive with extreme care, given the risk posed by frost, ice and compacted snow.

The greatest threat was posed by black ice, with many roads still waterlogged from the heavy rainfall before Christmas Day.

Met Eireann issued a Status Yellow alert, which remained in place until 9pm last night. However, a second Status Yellow alert was then issued for snow and ice in 18 counties including Dublin, Kildare, Offaly and Meath. That second warning alert will only be lifted from 9am.

Tonight, an Atlantic front will sweep over the country, bringing milder conditions but also wind and rain.

Some areas will experience heavy showers with the best of the clear spells and sunshine likely on New Year's Eve.

The icy conditions didn't disrupt major sporting events with Leopardstown Races continuing as scheduled after an early morning track inspection.

Worst hit were mountainous parts of Kerry, Cork, Limerick, Tipperary and Wicklow as well as Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth.

Kerry County Council had gritting lorries operating from late on Wednesday night, but urged motorists to take extreme caution when driving on higher ground where compacted snow and ice left surfaces treacherous. There were snowfalls in Cork along the Kerry border, and in towns including Kanturk and Newmarket.

But Met Eireann's Evelyn Cusack said the snowy conditions would prove short-lived.

"It is not going to be a widespread thing, the snow showers. Some areas will escape but it will remain very cold until today," she said.

"But frost will stay in many areas throughout the day."

Travellers heading to Ireland from the UK have suffered some severe transport problems with major delays on motorways across England, Wales and Scotland due to heavy snowfalls and spillover problems from the cancellation of some flights on Wednesday at Stansted.

At one point, 300 passengers were in the Stansted Airport terminal after their flights had been cancelled.

The airport said it provided hot food and drinks to all the passengers.
October 16, 2017: It is perhaps the iconic picture of ex-Hurricane Ophelia. The O'Sullivan family are pictured looking out from the Glen Pier as the Atlantic major hurricane strikes the Co Kerry. It later emerged the funeral of the men's father was due to take place that Monday and was postponed due to the weather. Photo: Stephen Kelleghan

2017 was a busy year.

Photographs can depict a whole story in just a few seconds.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close January 20, 2017: Former US President Barack Obama and Former First Lady Michelle Obama welcome US President Donald Trump and his wife First Lady Melania to the White House as he is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. January 22, 2017: Protesters walk during the Women's March on Washington following the inauguration of President Donald Trump, with the U.S. Capitol in the background. 420 marches were reported in the U.S. and 168 in other countries, becoming the largest single-day protest in American history and the largest worldwide protest in recent history. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images March 10, 2017: The UN warns that the world is facing the biggest humanitarian crisis since World War 2, with up to 20 million people at risk of starvation and famine in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria. Pictured here is malnourished girl Jamila Ali Abdu (7), she lies on a hospital bed before she died in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen. Photo: Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad March 13, 2017: Three hearses draw the five coffins of the victims of a tragic fire in Clondalkin on March 8. In the first hearse were Annemarie OBrien, her daughter Paris (2), and in a separate tiny white coffin - her unborn son AJ. The second and third hearses brought the white caskets of Jordan (4) and Holly (3), whose mother Biddy OBrien is recovering since the tragedy. March 14, 2017: A member of the Irish Coast Guard looks out towards a misty Achill as the search continues for Rescue 116 along the Blacksod coastline in Co Mayo. The Coast Guard helicopter went missing in the early hours of the morning while providing top-cover for Sligo-based helicopter Rescue 118. The bodies of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick and Captain Mark Duffy were recovered, while the remains of winchman Ciaran Smith and winch operator Paul Ormsby remain missing. Photo: Steve Humphreys March 29, 2017: Prime Minister Theresa May announces in the House of Commons, London, that she has triggered Article 50, starting a two-year countdown to the UK leaving the EU. Photo: PA Wire May 22, 2017: An injured woman is helped out of the Manchester Arena after a terror attack at a gig by Ariana Grande. The attack left 23 people dead, included the attacker, and over 500 people were injured. Most of the victims were young children and teenagers who had been attending the pop concert. Photo: PA June 3, 2017: Emergency services swarm to an incident near London Bridge on a Saturday evening. Eight people were killed when three attackers drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge, before launching a knife attack in Borough Market. Officers arrived on the scene of the attack within eight minutes and shot the attackers dead. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay June 12, 2017: American student Otto Warmbier, pictured here being escorted at the Supreme Court in Pyongyang, North Korea, returns home in a coma after spending 17 months in a North Korean prison. He died a week later. Photo: AP June 13, 2017: Enda Kenny TD is accompanied by his garda escort Detective Garda Frank White arriving for his last Cabinet meeting as Taoiseach at Government Buildings. He later addressed the chamber, saying; "'I have not got everything right but my motivation was always what I believed was best". Photo: Tom Burke June 14, 2017: A massive fire engulfs a residential tower in west London overnight. The fire claimed the lives of 71 people, while survivors were the lucky ones who managed to navigate their way down smoke-filled stairwells. Children who survived the Grenfell Tower blaze urged viewers to love and cherish your family as they delivered this years alternative Christmas message on December 25. Photo: PA June 15, 2017: Leo Varadkar receives his seal of office at Aras An Uachtarain by President Michael D. Higgins and becomes Ireland's youngest-ever Taoiseach. Photo: Steve Humphreys July 20, 2017: Iraqi soldiers discover a German teenage girl alive in a tunnel under rubble in Islamic State's last redoubt in the Old City of Mosul. The girl, named Linda Wenzel, was married to a Chechen Islamic State fighter and has admitted to killing Iraqi troops, according to one of the soldiers who arrested her. She is now held in an Iraqi prison while she awaits trial. August 9, 2017. Molly Martens Corbett (33) and her father, retired FBI agent Thomas Martens (67), are convicted in North Carolina of the second degree murder of Irishman Jason Corbett (39) in 2015. Both are now serving sentences of between 20 and 25 years in prison. Mr Corbett died from horrific head injuries sustained during a prolonged assault at the luxury home he shared with his wife, Molly. Pictured is an image that was released during the trial of Molly Martens on the night of the murder. August 16, 2017: A mother-of-six and a man were killed, and another three people including a child were injured, after a gangland style attack on a house in a Ballymun housing estate. Innocent victims Antoinette Corbally (48) and Clinton Shannon (30) were killed as part of a dispute. August 18, 2017: People gather around tributes laid on Las Ramblas, Barcelona after a minutes silence for the victims pf a terror attack the day before. An attacker drove a van into pedestrians, killing 13 people and injuring at least 130 others, one of whom died 10 days later. Hours later, police killed five terror suspects in the town of Cambrils as they ran over pedestrians. Six civilians and one police officer were injured. One woman was later confirmed dead. Photo: Getty Images August 25, 2017: The UN declares a military operation targeting Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing". Here a family of the ethnic minority walk on a muddy river bank upon crossing a stream on a local boat after crossing over to the Bangladesh side of the border near Cox's Bazar's Dakhinpara area. Photo: AP Photo/Bernat Armangue August 25-30, 2017: Hurricane Harvey rolled over the Texas Gulf Coast on Saturday, smashing homes and businesses and lashing the shore with wind and rain so intense that drivers were forced off the road because they could not see in front of them. Jennifer Bryant looks over the debris where her family business once stood in the aftermath of the hurricane in Katy, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) September 6-10, 2017: The Caribbean and U.S. are struck by Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 hurricane. The storm causes at least 134 deaths and at least 53 billion in damage. Pictured here, departing passengers form a long queue to check in at Orlando International Airport ahead of Hurricane Irma making landfall. Photo: REUTERS/Gregg Newton September 19, 2017: On the 32nd anniversary of the deadly 1985 Mexico City earthquake, a 7.1 earthquake strikes central Mexico, killing more than 350 people and leaving up to 6,000 injured and thousands more homeless, Here, rescue teams search for survivors in the rubble of a collapsed building in Mexico City. REUTERS/Henry Romero September 22, 2017: It's the third devastating hurricane of the month for those in the U.S. and Caribbean. Yamary Morales looks at the damage at a neighbor's house after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria caused at least 94 deaths and damages amounted to 86bn. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins September 25, 2017: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and British Prime Minister Theresa May in Downing Street discussing Brexit developments, including the future of the Irish border, the Common Travel Area and provisions to ensure the Northern Ireland peace process is protected. Photo: Facundo Arrizabalaga October 7, 2017: A member of the FBI walks among piles of personal items at the scene of the Las Vegas mass shooting, days after the attack on October 1. Gunman Stephen Paddock fired more than 1,100 rounds in 10 minutes from his suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel into a crowd of thousands of people attending a music concert below. He left 58 people dead and 546 injured. Photo: AP Photo/John Locher October 16, 2017: It is perhaps the iconic picture of ex-Hurricane Ophelia. The O'Sullivan family are pictured looking out from the Glen Pier as the Atlantic major hurricane strikes the Co Kerry. It later emerged the funeral of the men's father was due to take place that Monday and was postponed due to the weather. Photo: Stephen Kelleghan October 17, 2017: Fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces gesture the "V" sign at the frontline in Raqqa, Syria. The city is declared fully liberated from the Islamic State terror group. Photo: REUTERS/Rodi Said October 18, 2017: Sonya Burke and Colm O'Callaghan from Crosshaven, Co Cork with their new baby Maria (6lbs 15oz) who was born during Hurricane Ophelia. Photo: Mark Condren October 21, 2017: A Syrian infant suffering from severe malnutrition is carried by a nurse at a clinic in the rebel-controlled town of Hamouria, in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus. The infant, Sahar Dofdaa, lived for just over a month due to severe malnourishment. Her mother was too malnourished to feed her and the family could not afford food. November 15, 2017: Armed soldiers stand on the road leading to President Robert Mugabe's office in Harare, Zimbabwe. Overnight, at least three explosions were heard in the capital, Harare, and military vehicles were seen in the streets. Mugabe is placed under house arrest, as the military take over the country. He resigns six days later, after 37 years of rule. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) November 27, 2017: Hurling star and Unicef Ireland goodwill ambassador Joe Canning in the largely-destroyed Maysaloun area of east Aleppo. Photo: Mark Condren November 28, 2017: The world's most eligible bachelor Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle announce their engagement to the world after a 16-month long-distance relationship. The photographs were set in the palace's White Garden, aka the Sunken Garden, which is a memorial dedicated to celebrating Princess Diana's life. Photo: Getty / Facebook

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Whatsapp January 20, 2017: Former US President Barack Obama and Former First Lady Michelle Obama welcome US President Donald Trump and his wife First Lady Melania to the White House as he is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.

They have the power to make you stop, think, talk, hope, smile or even cry.

We've looked back at the biggest events of the year, both in Ireland and abroad.

Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny stepped down, Leo Varadkar became the country's youngest-ever Taoiseach. A devastating fire in a Clondalkin apartment killed one woman, three children and an unborn child, and left another woman fighting for her life, while the Grenfell tower building fire in London claimed the lives of 71 people.

The waves off the west coast of Ireland became the final resting place for two of the country's heroes, Rescue 116 helicopter's Paul Ormsby and Ciaran Smith, while the remains of search and rescue heroes Captain Dara Fitzpatrick and Captain Mark Duffy were recovered.

Terror still grips Europe and beyond, and 2017 was no exception. Attacks in Manchester, London and Barcelona shocked nations across the globe.

In European politics, British PM Theresa May triggered Article 50, beginning the UK's long goodbye to the EU.

Extreme weather was a phenomenon in 2017 - with three hurricanes hitting the U.S. and the Caribbean within weeks, while Ireland battled its own ex-hurricane Ophelia, the most easternmost Atlantic hurricane on record. Three people lost their lives in Ireland's 48-hour storm.

And the world's poorest people are still battling injustices - the Rohingya people of Myanmar continue to flee from a miitary-led ethnic-cleansing operation, while those in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria battle an ongoing famine.

The above gallery are photographs from the year of 2017, let us know if you have your own notable moments to include.
TV presenter Davina McCall has confirmed all three of her children have September birthdays because she did not want to miss hosting Big Brother.

McCall has two daughters and a son with husband Matthew Robertson and McCall has admitted they were all born in the same month because of her television commitments during the summer.

She told Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs: " I love Big Brother so much and the idea of someone else presenting it was 'over my dead body' so I said to Matthew 'We are not trying for a baby until after December so there we are, three birthdays in September."

McCall presented the reality show for its 11 series run on Channel 4 between 2000 and 2010, as well as Celebrity Big Brother between 2001 and 2010, and once sported a T-shirt emblazoned with "Big Mutha" when was heavily pregnant on the programme.

McCall, who has battled drug addiction, told Young she found it difficult to relax as a parent because she didn't want to make the same mistakes as her own addict mother.

She said: "I was constantly just trying to be perfect, I was so uptight.

"I thought I was being relaxed but I was desperate not to repeat the same mistakes. I was trying to be everything and you can't. I had to let go of the reins a bit."

McCall told Young her first memory of her French mother Florence was one of abandonment, saying: "M y first recollection was that she would just forget me.

"When I was about eight or nine I nearly downed, I was hit on the head in the sea by a little boat. I choked and a woman saw it and waded out to me and lifted me out and hugged me. I remember standing on the beach and thinking 'Should I tell Mummy?' and then thought there is no point because she won't mother me.

"She always came first, her feelings and worries and life were always more important and we always worked around her."

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McCall said her drug use began after she moved to London to live with her father and stepmother and discovered the music scene.

She told Young: "Taking drugs is like Russian roulette, some people can take drugs then put them down and walk away and have an adult life and never touch them again and some people pick up the drugs and can't put them down and that was me."

She added: " Until the last year you would never know my life was in complete mess. I had a job. I didn't steal, I didn't inject.

"These things made me different from other awful drug addicts over there, thinking 'I'm not as bad as them so it's OK. I would have been destroyed if other people thought I had a problem with drugs.

"The turning point was when I realised other people knew I had a problem with drugs."

Since completing a 500 mile triathlon from Edinburgh to London for Sport Relief in 2014 and raising more than 2 million in the process, McCall said she knows she is capable of more than she thinks so believes she has what it takes to survive on the desert island.

After choosing tracks including Kate Bush's Jig Of Life, Sarah McLachlan's Angel and Can You Feel it by Todd Terry, she opted for a bath as her luxury item and Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins as her book of choice.

:: Desert Island Discs is on BBC Radio 4 at 11.15am.
Police at Mar Mina church in Cairo after at least 10 people were killed in a shooting (AP/Amr Nabil)

The local affiliate of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for an attack at a Cairo church that left at least nine people dead.

The claim, which was carried by the group's Aamaq news agency, said Friday's attack was carried out by a "security detail" and that one of its men was "martyred" in it.

A gunman on a motorcycle opened fire outside the church and at a nearby shop, sparking a shoot-out that killed at least nine people, including eight Coptic Christians, in the latest attack targeting the country's embattled Christian minority.

The gunman was also killed, along with at least one police officer, officials said.

The attack came amid tightened security around churches and Christian facilities before the Coptic Orthodox Christian celebrations of Christmas on January 7.

Police have been stationed outside churches and in nearby streets across Cairo.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has personally chaired meetings with his senior security chiefs in recent days to discuss security during New Year's Eve and the Orthodox Christmas.

The attack began when the gunman tried to break through the security cordon outside the Coptic Church of Mar Mina.

It was not clear how many assailants were involved. Egypt's interior ministry referred to only one, but the Coptic Orthodox church mentioned "gunmen".

Five people were wounded, including another police officer, health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said.

A video circulating on social media after the attack apparently showed the gunman lying on the ground with his face covered in blood. Authorities closed off the area around the church.

The interior ministry identified the assailant as Ibrahim Ismail Mostafa, who, it said, was involved in several previous militant attacks.

The attacker had earlier opened fire at the nearby shop owned by a Christian, the ministry said.

Islamic militants have for years fought security forces in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in an insurgency now led by IS. It is centred in the turbulent northern part of Sinai but has also carried out attacks in the mainland.

The militants are targeting mainly security personnel and Egypt's Coptic Christian minority.

The latest attack, in the southern Cairo suburb of Helwan, highlights the difficulties faced by security forces in containing an insurgency that is growing in sophistication and brutality.

The assault came a little more than a month after militants killed 311 worshippers inside a mosque in Sinai, the deadliest attack by militants on civilians in Egypt's modern history.

Last week, they fired a guided rocket that destroyed an army helicopter at the airport of the city of el-Arish in northern Sinai during an unannounced visit there by the defence and interior ministers.

At least one senior officer was killed and two wounded in that attack, which pointed to an unusually high level of intelligence available to the militants.

Samir Gerges, who witnessed Friday's attack, said people inside the church closed the gates when the shooting began but that some bullets penetrated the building.

Another witness, 40-year-old Raouth Atta, was praying inside the church when the violence broke out.

"People were terrified and wanted to check on their families in other buildings of the church," she said.

"We stayed inside for 30 minutes before we were able to get out."

Since December 2016, Egypt's Copts have been targeted by the militants, who waged a series of attacks that left more than 100 dead and scores wounded.

The country has been under a state of emergency since April after suicide bombings struck two Coptic Christian churches on Palm Sunday.

The local IS affiliate has claimed responsibility for all the bombings targeting Christians.

Christians make up about 10% of Egypt's population. They have long complained of discrimination in the Muslim-majority nation and claim that authorities have often failed to protect them from sectarian attacks.

Just last week, hundreds of Muslim demonstrators stormed an unlicensed church south of Cairo, wounding three people.

The demonstrators shouted anti-Christian slogans and called for the church's demolition, according to the local diocese.

They destroyed the church's fittings and assaulted Christians inside before security personnel arrived and dispersed them.

AP
The Lighthouse Winmore, a Hong Kong-flagged ship, in waters off Yeosu, South Korea (Hyung Min-woo/Yonhap via AP)

China has denied violating UN limits on oil supplies to North Korea after the US president criticised Beijing for allowing oil to get there.

It comes as South Korea said it had seized a Hong Kong-flagged vessel suspected of transferring oil to a North Korean vessel at sea.

Beijing has "completely and strictly" complied with sanctions meant to discourage leader Kim Jong Un's government from pursuing nuclear and missile technology, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

A South Korean newspaper said this week that ships believed to be Chinese transferred oil to North Korean vessels at sea.

Donald Trump said on Twitter he was "very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea".

China is North Korea's main trading partner and energy supplier. The UN sanctions allow limited supplies of oil but prohibit transfers of any goods to North Korean vessels at sea.

Beijing, long North Korea's main diplomatic protector, has expressed growing frustration with its nuclear and missile tests.

It supported the latest sanctions but argues against any steps that might harm the North's public or destabilise its government.

"China has been completely and strictly implementing Security Council resolutions and fulfilling our international obligations," Ms Hua said.

"We will never allow Chinese citizens and enterprises to engage in activities that violate Security Council resolutions."

She said authorities investigated a report a Chinese ship transferred oil to a North Korean ship at sea on October 19 and concluded it was false.

The US Treasury Department released satellite photos in November that showed what it said was a North Korean ship receiving oil from an unidentified vessel on that date.

Those images received wider public attention this week when Chosun Ilbo reprinted them to accompany the report that ships believed to be Chinese had transferred oil to North Korean vessels some 30 times since October.

On Friday, South Korean authorities said they seized a Hong Kong-flagged vessel suspected of transferring oil to a North Korean vessel at sea on October 19.

The Lighthouse Winmore is believed to have transferred about 600 tons of refined petroleum products to the Sam Jong 2 after leaving the South Korean port of Yeosu, the South Korean government said.

The ship was seized when it returned to Yeosu.

In response to a question about Mr Trump's comments, Ms Hua said: "The relevant ship, since August, has never docked at Chinese ports, and there is no record showing it has left or entered Chinese ports.

"I am not aware of whether the ship has visited other countries' ports. So, the relevant report is not consistent with the fact."

It wasn't immediately clear whether the Lighthouse Winmore was involved in the transactions shown in the Treasury images.

In a commentary published on Thursday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Beijing to exert "decisive economic leverage" on Pyongyang.

"China has applied certain import bans and sanctions, but it could and should do more," he wrote in The New York Times.

AP
Writ in SC for passage of ordinance

A writ petition has been filed at the Supreme Court demanding that the ordinance on National Assembly election be authenticated at the earliest. The document forwarded by the government has been pending in the Presidents Office for over two months.
Soledda Hernandez stands on the roof of her car as she brushes off snow in Erie, Pennsylvania. Photo: Greg Wohlford/Erie Times-News via AP

Sub-zero temperatures were expected to bring the coldest night of the year to Britain last night, amid warnings that more disruption-causing snow is on its way.

Arctic air hovering across the UK caused the mercury to plummet last night, with temperatures below -13C forecast for parts of Scotland.

Heavy snow is also predicted to fall today, with the Met Office issuing an amber warning in anticipation of the white stuff covering the east Midlands, North West and Yorkshire.

The Met Office warned that accumulations of up to 10cm are likely and up to 15cm could fall over higher ground.

"Travel delays on roads are likely, stranding some vehicles and passengers. Some delays and cancellations to rail and air travel are likely," the Met Office warned.

"There is a possibility that some rural communities could become temporarily cut off. Power cuts may also occur."

Expand Close Josef Jackson (7) and Corieme Preston sledging on the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire. Photo: Aaron Chown/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Josef Jackson (7) and Corieme Preston sledging on the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire. Photo: Aaron Chown/PA Wire

With the amber warning in place between 4am and 11am this morning, a wider yellow warning for snow has also been issued for southern and eastern Scotland, Northern England, and the Midlands.

Northern Ireland also has a yellow warning for ice and snow until 9 o'clock this morning.

Met Office spokeswoman Nicola Maxey also warned the country could see the "coldest night of the year so far" before snow blankets the region.

"The coldest temperature we have seen this year is minus 13C in Scotland, and we are likely to see temperatures slightly below that," she added.

Expand Close Passengers waiting to rebook cancelled flights at Stansted. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Passengers waiting to rebook cancelled flights at Stansted. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

"But we are not talking about those extremes in the town and city centres, it is out in rural areas, more exposed areas, particularly over lying snow where you see temperatures drop the most."

The Met Office said temperatures fell to as low as -4.5C in Katesbridge, Co Down, in the early hours of yesterday while most of the UK was at freezing.

The RAC said ice caused an "incredibly busy" morning, and as a result of the conditions dealt with a number of battery failures, minor bumps and shunts, and skidding.

Meanwhile the AA described the country's roads as "appalling" due to the "dicey, icy roads".

On Wednesday there were stories of disruption, cancellations and delays at the country's travel terminals due to the weather, with Stansted temporarily closing its runway twice due to ice.

As a result, 27 inbound and 27 outbound flights were cancelled at Stansted, while around 50 flights were cancelled at Luton.

Some 300 passengers were left waiting to rebook flights at Stansted on Wednesday evening after dozens of Ryanair services were cancelled, along with a number of easyJet flights.

Meanwhile, the bitterly cold weather that has taken hold of much of the northern United States is expected to stay put for days to come.

Forecasters are warning of the risk of hypothermia and frostbite from Arctic air settling in over the central US and spreading east.

The National Weather Service reported that International Falls and Hibbing in Minnesota set record low temperatures during the current cold snap.

International Falls, the self-proclaimed 'Icebox of the Nation', plunged to 38 degrees celsius below zero, while Hibbing bottomed out at -33C.

The freezing temperatures and below-zero wind chills came as people in Erie, Pennsylvania, continued to dig out from a storm that dumped more than 65 inches on the city.

Wind chill advisories or warnings are in effect for much of New England, northern Pennsylvania and New York.
Goldman Sachs has warned that it is likely to take a 5 billion US dollar (3.7 billion) hit to earnings as a result of US President Donald Trumps sweeping tax reforms.

The Wall Street bank said that the biggest impact would come as a result of the repatriation tax which covers earnings from foreign subsidiaries, accounting for around two thirds of the total financial drag.

The remainder includes the effects of the implementation of the territorial tax system and the remeasurement of US deferred tax assets at lower enacted corporate tax rates, Goldman said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday.

Together, the reforms are expected to affect both fourth-quarter and annual earnings for Goldman Sachs.

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However, the bank said that the estimated impact of Mr Trumps tax reforms could fluctuate  possibly materially  if there are changes in the interpretation of the legislation or new guidance is issued.

Goldman Sachs is set to release its fourth-quarter and annual results for the year to December 31 on January 17.

Its the latest major firm to detail the financial effects of the tax legislation, which has not gone unnoticed overseas.

Both Royal Dutch Shell and Barclays earlier this week warned profits will be affected as they have to recalculate the deferred tax assets built up on their balance sheets.

While it is still assessing the impact, Shell said based on third-quarter earnings the tax reforms will see it take a charge of 2 billion US dollars (1.5 billion) to 2.5 billion US dollars (1.9 billion).

Barclays also announced its expected impact from the new tax laws, saying it is set to take a 1 billion charge to its 2017 accounts.

But both firms said they expect to benefit in the long run, with Shell saying the January 1 changes are set to be favourable for the group and its US business.

President Trump signed the 1.5 trillion US dollar (1.1 trillion) tax overhaul into law last Friday, cutting tax rates for businesses and also offering some temporary cuts for some individuals and families.

It includes slashing corporation tax in the US from 35% to 21%.

The US president has said his sweeping reforms will act as an economic rejuvenator and claimed that the steep cuts in the corporate tax rate will invigorate the economy.
The Government is pushing ahead with plans to reverse the controversial staircase tax in a move hailed by small business advocates.

Communities Secretary Sajid Javid put forward the draft legislation on Friday just over a month after Chancellor Philip Hammond pledged to change the law, which was the result of a Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a single business space.

If not overturned, offices covering multiple floors in a building would be billed separately if their corridors or staircases are communal, rather than private to the business.

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) had warned that the staircase tax would have resulted in some bills being hiked up to 5,000%.

But the Government reversal means that businesses impacted by the Supreme Court ruling will have the option of having their bill recalculated and backdated, including those that have lost small business rate relief.

Mr Javid said: The staircase tax is an unfair rates hike for businesses.

For years these businesses in adjoining units or rooms received one rates bill, but this ruling meant they now faced multiple bills for operating in an office linked by a communal lift or stairs.

I am ending this by giving those businesses affected the option of getting their rates bills recalculated and any savings due backdated.

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The Department for Communities and Local Government has now launched a consultation with stakeholders and experts in the hope of introducing the Bill shortly.

Alex Probyn, president of ratings advisory firm Altus Group, said the reversal would aid tens of thousands of businesses.

The Governments willingness to listen and legislate against what was effectively an unfair and unjust stealth tax will now bring comfort and relief to around 80,000 firms.

It comes after months of industry backlash over the tax, which also faced cross-party criticism from the likes of Tory MP and Treasury Select Committee chair Nicky Morgan, as well as shadow business minister Chi Onwurah and Liberal Democrats leader Sir Vince Cable.

Commenting on the draft legislation, FSB national chairman Mike Cherry said: The staircase tax has arbitrarily penalised small firms simply because they shared a communal staircase, corridor or even car park with another business.

It is very good news that the Government has stepped in to repeal this ludicrous tax and I hope politicians of all parties will now back its abolition when it is put to Parliament.

Senior ministers, including Sajid Javid and Philip Hammond, have taken this decisive action after listening to the concerns raised by FSB and its members.

We look forward to taking part in the Governments consultation to make sure this legislation is right and that all small businesses affected are reprieved without delay.
A gunman fired at worshippers and Egyptian police stationed outside a Coptic Orthodox church near Cairo on Friday and killed at least nine people before he was wounded and arrested, the interior ministry and church officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Islamist militants have claimed several attacks on Egypt's large Christian minority in recent years, including two bombings on Palm Sunday in April and a blast at Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral in December 2016 that killed 28 people.

Earlier reports by security sources and state media said at least two attackers were involved, and that one was shot dead and another fled the scene. The interior ministry did not explain the reason for the different accounts.

The Coptic Church said the gunman first shot at a Christian-owned shop 4 km (3 miles) away, killing two people, before proceeding to the Mar Mina church in the southern Cairo suburb of Helwan. The Interior Ministry said he opened fire at the entrance to the site and tried to throw an explosive device.

Expand Close A policeman stands guard in front of Mar Mina church, in Helwan, Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 29, 2017, where several people have been killed in a shootout outside the church. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil) / Facebook

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Whatsapp A policeman stands guard in front of Mar Mina church, in Helwan, Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 29, 2017, where several people have been killed in a shootout outside the church. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Eleven people were killed in all, including a policeman at the church, according to Interior Ministry and Coptic Church accounts. The Church said a young woman had died later from her wounds, bringing the civilian death toll at the church to eight.

The ministry added that investigators had identified the gunman and that he had carried out several attacks since last year.

The health ministry said earlier that five people had been wounded, including two women who were in serious condition.

Security forces went on high alert for Christmas and New Year celebrations. Egypt is also grappling with a deadly Islamic State insurgency in the North Sinai region.

Expand Close People gather at the site of attack on a church in the Helwan district south of Cairo, Egypt December 29, 2017. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Facebook

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Whatsapp People gather at the site of attack on a church in the Helwan district south of Cairo, Egypt December 29, 2017. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

A joint funeral for eight of those killed was held on Friday evening at the Virgin Mary church in Helwan.

The ministry said security forces had "immediately dealt with the (attacker) and arrested him after he was wounded." It added, "Legal measures have been taken," without elaborating.

Cairo's state prosecutor said that an investigation has been launched into the incident.

"The shooting began at 10:30 a.m. and carried on for more than 15 minutes ... there was more than one attacker," Mohammed Hussein Abdelhadi, who lives close to the church, told Reuters.

A witness who did not want to give his name said the policeman was killed while he was closing the church gate to stop the gunman getting in.

The church was being guarded by police in the run-up to Orthodox Christmas celebrations next week.

Police have stepped up security measures around churches ahead of Coptic Christmas celebrations on Jan. 7, deploying officers outside Christian places of worship and setting up metal detectors at some of the bigger churches.

Head of the Coptic church Pope Tawadros II mourned the victims, as did Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who offered his condolences to the families. Sisi also ordered security forces to increase safety measures at sensitive sites, his office said in a statement.
A brutal attack claimed by Islamic State (Isil) has devastated a Shiite Muslim cultural centre in the Afghan capital Kabul, killing at least 41 people and wounding another 84.

The Isil-linked Aamaq news agency said three bombs were used in the ferocious assault as well as a single suicide bomber who blew himself up inside the centre, where scores of people had gathered to mark the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union.

Other explosions occurred outside the two-storey building, which also houses the pro-Iranian Afghan Voice news agency, which may also have been a target in the attack.

Earlier, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said an unknown number of suicide attackers set off an explosion outside the centre before carrying out an attack inside.

In its statement to Aamaq, Isil said the centre was being funded by Iran and used to propagate Shiite beliefs.

Ali Reza Ahmadi, a journalist with Afghan Voice, said he had been in his office when the explosion shattered the building.

Expand Close A distraught man is carried following a suicide attack in Kabul. Photo: Rahmat Gul/AP Photo / Facebook

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Whatsapp A distraught man is carried following a suicide attack in Kabul. Photo: Rahmat Gul/AP Photo

He jumped from his second-storey office to the roof of the building, where he saw flames from the basement.

"I jumped from the roof towards the basement, yelling at people to get water to put out the fire," he said.

Shiite leader Abdul Hussain Ramazandada said witnesses reported that at least one suicide bomber sneaked into the event and was sitting among the participants.

He exploded his device and as people fled more explosions occurred, he said.

At nearby Istiqlal Hospital, director Mohammed Sabir Nasib said the emergency room was overwhelmed with the dead and wounded.

Additional doctors and nurses were called in to help and at the height of the diaster more than 50 doctors and nurses were working to save the wounded, most of whom suffered severe burns.

The cultural centre is located in a poor area of the Shiite-dominated Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood in the west of the capital.

The centre is a simple structure surrounded by sun-dried mud homes where some of Kabul's poorest live.

A senior member of the Shiite cleric council, Mohammad Asif Mesbah, said the centre may have been targeted because it houses the deeply pro-Iranian Afghan Voice news agency.

Its owner Sayed Eissa Hussaini Mazari is a strong proponent of Iran and his publication is dominated by Iranian news. Iran is a majority Shiite Muslim nation.

The local Isil affiliate has carried out several attacks targeting Shiites in Afghanistan.

Isil issued a warning earlier this year following an attack on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul vowing to target Afghanistan's Shiites.

Since then, Isil has taken credit for at least two attacks on Shiite mosques in Kabul and one in the western city of Herat, killing scores of worshippers.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid denied involvement in Thursday's attack on the cultural centre.

The Isil affiliate, made up of Sunni extremists, view Shiites as apostates.

Isil in Afghanistan is a toxic mix of Uzbek militants belonging to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who broke with the Taliban, as well as disenchanted insurgents who left the much larger and more well-established Taliban.

As attacks targeting Shiites have increased in Kabul, residents of this area have grown increasingly afraid.

Most schools have additional armed guards from among the local population, but Mr Ramazandada said security at the cultural centre was light.

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani called the attack a "crime against humanity".

In a statement released by the presidential palace, Mr Ghani said: "The terrorists have killed our people.

"The terrorists have attacked our mosques, our holy places and now our cultural centre."

He called them attacks against Islam and "all human values".

In a statement, the US ambassador to Afghanistan John R Bass called the attack "horrific" and said "we remain confident the Afghan government and people, supported by their friends and partners, will defeat those behind these terrible acts".

Separately, Dawlat Abad district governor Mohammad Karim said a powerful mine killed six shepherd children ranging in age from eight to 10 on Wednesday.

Afghanistan has the highest number of mine victims in the world, which along with other roadside bombs, kill or wound an estimated 140 people every month.
Doug Jones and his wife Louise wave to supporters in Birmingham, Alabama after his election to the US Senate. Photo: Getty Images

Democrat Doug Jones has officially been declared the winner of a US Senate race in Alabama after a judge rejected a last-ditch legal bid by his opponent.

Montgomery Circuit Judge Johnny Hardwick on Thursday denied Republican Mr Moore's request for a restraining order to stop Alabama's canvassing board from certifying Mr Jones' victory.

Mr Jones will be sworn in on January 3.

A spokesman for Mr Jones earlier called Mr Moore's action a "desperate attempt ... to subvert the will of the people".

Sam Coleman said: "The election is over. It's time to move on."

Mr Jones defeated Mr Moore by about 20,000 votes in the election on December 12 in the strongly Republican state.

Mr Moore's campaign was deeply wounded by accusations of sexual misconduct involving teenage girls decades ago.

Mr Moore denied the accusations and said he has taken and passed a polygraph test to prove they are false.
Donald Trump has said the US's East Coast "could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming" as bitterly cold temperatures are expected to freeze large swaths of the country this holiday weekend.

The US president wrote on Twitter on Thursday: "In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record," and added: "Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"

Mr Trump did not acknowledge the difference between the weather and the climate. Weather refers to the atmospheric conditions during a shorter period, while climate is a longer view of weather patterns.

Mr Trump has repeatedly expressed scepticism about climate change science, calling global warming a "hoax" created by the Chinese to damage American industry.

He announced earlier this year his intention to pull out of the landmark Paris climate agreement aimed at curbing greenhouse gas production.

The accord set goals for slowing the rate of climate change by reducing the emissions that contribute to melting Arctic ice, increasing sea levels and changing weather patterns across the globe.

The United Nations' weather and climate agency said last month that 2017 was on track to become the hottest year on record aside from those impacted by the El Nino phenomenon, which can contribute to higher temperatures.

Last year set a record for Earth's average global temperature.
Written off

Due to associative costs and lack of equal opportunity, the disabled are poorer than the rest of the population
34 inches of snow fell in parts of Pennsylvania on Tuesday (Greg Wohlford/Erie Times-News via AP)

Donald Trump has said the US's East Coast "could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming" as bitterly cold temperatures are expected to freeze large swaths of the country this holiday weekend.

The US president wrote on Twitter on Thursday: "In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record," and added: "Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"

Mr Trump did not acknowledge the difference between the weather and the climate. Weather refers to the atmospheric conditions during a shorter period, while climate is a longer view of weather patterns.

Mr Trump has repeatedly expressed scepticism about climate change science, calling global warming a "hoax" created by the Chinese to damage American industry.

He announced earlier this year his intention to pull out of the landmark Paris climate agreement aimed at curbing greenhouse gas production.

The accord set goals for slowing the rate of climate change by reducing the emissions that contribute to melting Arctic ice, increasing sea levels and changing weather patterns across the globe.

The United Nations' weather and climate agency said last month that 2017 was on track to become the hottest year on record aside from those impacted by the El Nino phenomenon, which can contribute to higher temperatures.

Last year set a record for Earth's average global temperature.
New York, Dec 29 (IBNS): Continuing the trend of decorating homepage with doodle, popular search engine Google shaped the page with their new creating which is dedicated to the life and literature of Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, a renowned 20th century Indian poet and author.

The doodle has been made to mark the writer's 113th birth anniversary.

Known more famously by his pen name Kuvempu, he is considered one of the greatest Kannada writers of his time.

The Kannada language is spoken mainly in Kuvempus home state of Karnataka, and he strongly advocated for it to be the main medium of education, read the Google page on doodle.

The website further said: "Kuvempus poem featured above is Poovu (The Flower), rhapsodizing on the beauty of the poets natural surroundings. Kuvempu loved his writing to reflect the simple wonder of the world around him, especially flowers. To celebrate Kuvempus life and work, todays Doodle by illustrator Upamanyu Bhattacharyya (and Swati Shelar, who helped with the Kannada lettering) shows Kuvempu surrounded by nature in his beloved home."

From special dates, events to birthdays of popular international personalities, Google often decorates its website with doodles to mark them.

Image: Google website
Kolkata, Dec 29 (IBNS): JW Marriott Kolkata is preparing to bid goodbye to 2017 with a long weekend celebration starting on Friday

The New Years Eve weekend commences with Buffet on Dec 30, 2017, which has been priced at Rs 950++, Rs 1500++ (with Beer and Sangria on the house), and Rs 1500++ for Breakfast, Brunch and Dinner, respectively.

On New Year's Eve, the live kitchens will offer special fares priced at Rs 950++, Rs 1,850++and Rs 4,499++ for Breakfast, Brunch and Dinner, respectively, with complimentary Beer and Sangrias served for brunch and selection of spirits for dinner.

On offer for dinner will be 'Slow Braised Pork Belly with Charred Pokchoy, Jus, Apple & Mustard Jelly, Pear Relish,Mongolian Fish Curry, and Lamb, Chicken, Chickpeas & Carrot Tagine.

Alongside this, there be an assorted variety of dishes available form the Indian, Asian and Italian station.

JW Kitchen has curated a special New Year brunch on 1st January 2018, with breakfast and brunch priced at Rs 950++, and Rs 2,450++ respectively. The New Year Brunch will be a grand fiesta with food and beverages and some eclectic choices of spirits on offer. A few of the delicacies on offer for brunch will be, Prosciutto Wrapped Stuffed Chicken Breast with Pomegranate Cream & Corn Pepper Salad, Thai Veg Green Curry, and Baked Fish with Jumbo Scallop, Poached Peas Carrot Relish.

The signature Asian restaurant, Vintage Asia, will present an innovative Asian menu from December 30, 2017  January 1, 2018.

On Dec 30, a la carte dining will be open for lunch and dinner.

Brunch and dinner on December 31 has been priced at Rs 1,999++ and Rs 4,499++ (with complimentary Beer and Sangria) and a set menu.

This menu will offer vegetarian delights such as Soya & Snake Bean cakes with Green Nam Jim, Wok Tossed Ramen, Vegetables, Black Pepper Sauce and non-vegetarian delights like Thai Shrimp Pamelo, Roasted Onion, Cashewnut Salad and Penang Curry of Lamb Silken tofu, Red Onion, Pea Aubergine.

On New Years day, 1st January, at Vintage Asia, Brunch will be served with a set menu and Beer and Sangria on the house, priced at Rs 2,450++ and an a la carte dining option will be open for dinner.

Some of the specialties of the brunch menu will be Thai Yellow Curry of Silken tofu, mushroom, Pea Aubergine, sweet pumpkin, Thai Vermicelli Broccoli Lemongrass Soup, Sizzling Chicken with Chinese BBQ sauce, Tossed Seafood Thai tomato Chilli Sauce. In the end will be Mango Puree with Fruits to end the meal on a sweet note.

JW Marriott Kolkata will host a year-ending party on December 31, 2017.

Early bird offers for the first 200 tickets have been priced at Rs 4,500 AI per person, which includes music by celebrated DJ Amann Nagpal, sumptuous food and unlimited pouring of a wide selection of alcoholic beverages.

On offer for New Year is a festive stay package priced at Rs 6,250 ++ onwards per night, which includes stay and other offers.

For reservations: +91 33 6633 0000; JW Marriott Kolkata, 4A, J.B.S Haldane Avenue, Kolkata - 700105.
Kolkata, Dec 29 (IBNS): Vice President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu is arriving on a two-day visit to Kolkata in the evening on Friday.

On his arrival, the Vice President will be accorded a reception at the city airport and he will inspect a guard-of- honour.

"Tomorrow afternoon, Saturday 30th December 2017, Shri Naidu will attend the inauguration of 187-years celebrations of Calcutta Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the oldest chamber of commerce & industry in the country , as the chief guest , at a city hotel. He will speak at a seminar on Revitalising Parliamentary Democracy in India to mark the occasion," read a government statement.

Before his departure for Vijaywada in the evening, Shri Naidu will attend the closing ceremony of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origins Global Health Care Summit at another city hotel.

This is Shri Naidus maiden visit to West Bengal after assuming the office of the Vice President of India.
H ow fast political fortunes of major political forces change in India? Well, quite fast if 2017 is any indication. The year had started off with a bumper harvest for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, but ended with a pyrrhic victory for the party in its citadel Gujarat.

True the BJP has still emerged victorious in Gujarat fighting anti incumbency to form a government for the sixth term in a row, but 99 seats are not something the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo had ever bargained for.

Along with giving a soft warning to the ruling BJP (both in the state and at the centre), the election result on Dec 18 injected a belief in the Opposition that the all powerful Narendra Modi can also be challenged.

The poll result has undoubtedly struck a chord among the opposition parties as Gujarat witnessed a resurgent Congress led by Rahul Gandhi.

But a silent comeback in Gujarat in terms of more seats cannot give the luxury to the Congress to think of completely stalling the Modi wave.

For Congress, it seems it is still an insurmountable task to overthrow the Modi government all alone in 2019 Lok Sabha as the country's oldest party actually failed to win a single election last year.

If Gujarat election gave a message that Modi can also be hurt, the 2015 Bihar poll had proved that NaMo can also be defeated where BJP's dream of capturing the state was crushed by a "Grand Alliance" formed by congress, RJD and JD(U) though now Nitish Kumar has joined ranks with Modi.

But the question lies whether a collective unity will equally be successful at the national level that various political parties like Left, Trinamool Congress have started to pitch to the voters.

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, one of the early proponents of a 'Unified Opposition', tweeted immediately after Gujarat poll aiming at defeating BJP in 2019 nationally.

"I congratulate Gujarat voters for their very balanced verdict at this hour. It is a temporary and face-saving win, but it shows a moral defeat for BJP. Gujarat voted against atrocities, anxiety and injustice caused to the common people. Gujarat belled the cat for 2019" she tweeted.

I congratulate Gujarat voters for their very balanced verdict at this hour.

It is a temporary and face-saving win, but it shows a moral defeat for BJP.

Gujarat voted against atrocities, anxiety and injustice caused to the common people. Gujarat belled the cat for 2019  Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) December 18, 2017

The CPI(M) too spoke in favour of a secular front keeping 2019 in mind.

But considering the diversity of political parties in India, is not the United Opposition a day dream?

The first challenge to the opposition parties is they will have to come together at a platform irrespective of their ideologies and equations at the state level.

It would be extremely surprising to see how Mamata stands beside Sitaram Yechury or Samajwadi Party supports its arch rival Bahujan Samaj Party.

If it happens, Narendra Modi should not be spared from giving a bit of credit. After all, it is Modi's mass popularity that would see the stangest of bedfellows in the united Opposition.

Political analyst Amulya Ganguli, however, believes that united opposition can be a reality. "There have been successful experiments in Kerala. Congress and Samajwadi Party fought an election together in Uttar Pradesh as well," he says.

State politics can emerge as a hindrance to the formation of a rainbow coalition. It is true Mamata, Sitaram, Akhilesh, Lalu Prasad are all crying to stitch an alliance but will not their state politics be at stake with such a coalition of conflicting interest?

After sharing stage at the central level, undoubtedly it would be tough for the Left to fight against the alleged misrule of the TMC government in Bengal or challenge Congress in Kerala.

Even if they mock-fight in the respective states for political contention, the BJP would certainly leave no opportunity to take the advantage by alleging political opportunism against the opposition parties.

In the similar manner, it would be uncomfortable for Arvind Kerjiwal's Aam Aadmi Party to support Congress as the Delhi CM came to power in 2012 by fighting Sheila Dikshit.

Political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty feels the political parties will come together to tackle bigger threats.

He said: "CPI(M) will certainly form the united Opposition since BJP is a threat to the Left in Kerala and Tripura. In West Bengal, there will be no problem as Left or Congress have absolutely no organisation at the moment in the state."

Probably the biggest and toughest challenge to the United Opposition will be their own conflict of interests.

When the regional parties will come along with Congress, individual political gains will come into play. The Opposition with multiple tall leaders along with Congress President Rahul Gandhi needs no spark to begin a civil war.

Leaders like Rahul, Mamata, Sitaram, Mulayam, Lalu Prasad will certainly be involved in a bid to become the face of the rainbow coalition.

Trinamool, which has currently 34 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal, being one of the consistent supporters of a collective Opposition, would certainly leave no chance to project its chief Mamata as the face of a BJP alternative.

Lalu Prasad led RJD, who has won maximum number of Assembly seats in Bihar in last state election and being a mass leader, won't miss the gala chance to express his own aspirations to become the PM candidate.

Though Mamata or Lalu are way more experienced and matured than Rahul as a politician, the Congress President is expected not to give a free pass to either the TMC supremo or Lalu Prasad in the run for the PM.

This is substantiated by Rahul's address to the students of University of California, Berkeley, on his visit to the US in 2017, where then Congress Vice President said he is ready to become the Prime Ministerial candidate in General Election 2019.

Ganguli believes if United Opposition is formed then its face will surely have to be Rahul Gandhi. "I think Congress will have to be given the first place. Congress is a bigger party and it has an acceptability nationally. So the leader will have to be from Congress and not any regional party."

The conflict seems to be inevitable as TMC MP Derek O'Brien, in a recent comment on NDTV, pitched Mamata's name to become the face of a unity front if at all it happens.

"There are lot of experienced leaders in the pact with a lot of credentials, credibility who are tried and tested, fought people's movements for three-four decades. If one thinks that I am hinting to Mamata di's (Mamata Banerjee) credentials, of course I am. Look at her credentials...." Derek said.

Echoing the words of Ganguli, Chakraborty said: "Mamata Banerjee has no importance at the national level. It is Rahul Gandhi who will have to lead the United Opposition."

Corruption has been one of the vibrant issues in Indian politics of late. Several political parties have been pulled up by the central agencies over alleged involvement in corruption.

Be it TMC or RJD, the image of the political parties have been tarnished as some of their top leaders even had to serve in jail temporarily. It would be quite interesting to see how CPI(M) which is so vocal against the alleged corruption in Sarada, Narada and Rose Valley by the Trinamool, would share house in a bigger coalition.

Ganguly recognises this as a problem for the Opposition. "But the parties will find a way out for their own interests. It all depends on how much BJP is a threat to the parties" he said.

The political opportunism and ditches are not very uncommon in India. Even if several political parties pledge to walk united, there remains high chances of spoil sports.

Not very far ago, one of the anti-Modi faces, Nitish Kumar, who fought with the Congress and arch-rival RJD to defeat the BJP, switched sides giving a shock to his ally partners.

It was just few hours that Nitish-led JD(U) needed to reunite with Narendra Modi citing a corruption issue against Lalu scion Tejashwi Yadav.

Akhilesh may have come to Kalighat residence of Mamata in Kolkata to discuss political moves at national level in what he termed a courtesy call, but it is still fresh in memory of the the TMC supremo how Akhilesh's father Mulayam ditched the Bengal CM over Presidential election in 2012.

Months ago, Congress too skipped the joint rally called by several Opposition parties in Patna after Nitish aligned with the BJP stating that Congress is no exception to the ditch-politics.

We cannot deny the 2017 Presidential and Vice Presidential elections were examples where 17 to 18 political parties came together to field a joint candidate, but in the 2019 General Election, the stakes would be much higher.

Moreover a common narrative is also all the more important for the Opposition to derive.

When the person to be fought is Narendra Modi, who sets agendas in every new election, the Opposition needs to tighten themselves to carve out a proper road map if at all they want to put a brake on Modi's chariot.

Chakraborty feels the derivation of an alternative narrative is possible. "The scope is there. Narendra Modi's failure to fulfill the promises itself can become an alternative narrative to the BJP.'




Mumbai, Dec 29 (IBNS): Five officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) have been suspended following the Kamala Mills fire in Mumbai's Lower Parel area, according to media reports on Friday.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has said that BMC Commissioner has been asked to investigate the Kamala Mills Fire case.

A case has also been registered against the owners of the restaurant 1 Above where the fire broke out.

The fire, which broke out late on Thursday night, left at last 14 people dead and an almost equal number injured.

According to reports, the fire first broke out at the 1 Above restaurant at midnight and spread to other eateries; it then spread to the next building that housed the offices of Times Network.

It took more than three hours to bring the blaze under control and the fire brigade found that illegal constructions exacerbated the fire, according to reports.

On Friday, the BMC has started checking out the eateries in the mill areas for irregularities and flouting of fire safety norms.

Incidentally, on Dec 19, a fire at an illegal 'farsan' shop in Mumbai's Saki Naka area had resulted in the death of 12 people.

Image: Screengrab
New Delhi, Dec 29 (IBNS): Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa PVSM AVSM YSM VM ADC, Chief of the Air Staff is on a three day visit from 28-30 Dec 17 to Air Force Station Nal, one of the premier air bases operating the MiG-21 aircraft.

On arrival he was received by Air Commodore Rajat Mohan VM,Air Officer Commanding Air Force Station Nal and other senior officers of the Station, where 108 Squadron, the Hawkeyes is being Number Plated.

Chief of the Air Staff, callsign Air Force One, flew the last sortie of the Hawkeyes thus bringing a glorious end to the reign of the T-96 aircraft, with the Squadron. During the course of his visit, he addressed and interacted with personnel of the Station. During his address he emphasized on the importance of aerospace safety, its various aspects and stressed on the physical security of the base. The Chief congratulated and conveyed his best wishes to all personnel and their families for the New Year.
Guwahati, Dec 29 (IBNS): Ahead of Meghalaya assembly polls, the Congress is facing major set back after its five legislators on Friday resigned from the assembly to join BJP ally the National People's Party (NPP).

Apart from the Congress legislators, one United Democratic Party (UDP) legislator and two Independent legislators also resigned from the Meghalaya assembly.

All 8 resigned MLAs will join NPP founded by former Lok Sabha speaker PA Sangma and the ally party of BJP-led Manipur coalition government.

The five sitting Congress legislators, who resigned, are former Ministers Rowell Lyngdoh, Prestone Tynsong, Coming One Ymbon, Sniawbhalang Dhar and Umroi MLA Ngaitlang Dhar.

Apart from the five Congress MLAs, United Democratic Party (UDP) legislator, Remington Pyngrope and two Independent members Stephanson Mukhim and Hopeful Bamon also resigned from the assembly.

All 8 resigned MLAs will join NPP on January 4 next at a public rally.

The 60-member Meghalaya assembly poll will be held early next year.

The Congress which had 30 MLAs now has 24.

Earlier this month, a legislator Pynshngian N Syiem resigned from the assembly to join the newly floated People's Democratic Front (PDP).



(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati, Dec 29 (IBNS): The BJP-led Arunachal Pradesh has decided to hand over the multi crore rupees Public Distribution System (PDS) scam to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which was happened during the previous Congress government tenure in 2004-2007.



Addressing a press conference held in Itanagar on Friday, BJPs state unit General Secretary Jarpum Gamlin said that, the state government has taken a bold decision against corruption and decided to hand over the multi crore rupees scam to CBI.

We have maintained zero tolerance against corruption. BJP has been maintaining the ideology of Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas with the principles of transparency, good governance. The present BJP-led state government would not protect and person who is involved in the scam. The state government has referred the scam to CBI for a fair and independent probe, Jarpum Gamlin said.

The BJP leader said that, the scam of the period between 2001-2004 is now under sub-judice and investigation is made through the court and action is being initiated time to time.

Within the span of only a year, the BJP-led state government under leadership of Chief Minister Pema Khandu has managed to bring a massive structural reforms in the state. It is just a beginning and BJPs war against corruption will be continued. The state had deprived from development due to corruption in previous period. Now no one will be spared who is involved in corruption, Gamlin said.

The BJP leader said that, the state government has already taken a major project New Arunachal Mission 2022 which will give the state an outstanding development.

A concrete road map and its implementation in time bound is one of the key point of the project, Gamlin said.



(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)


Guwahati, Dec 29 (IBNS): Union Minister of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Nitin Gadkari on Friday suddenly fell ill while he was attending a function held in Upper Assams Majuli district.

While Gadkari complained of uneasiness after addressing to the gathering public, a team of doctors was immediately rushed to the stage and checked his sugar and blood pressure levels and offered him to eat a banana.

Majuli district medical officer Sashidhar Phukan said that, he is now out of danger.

Earlier, Gadkari laid the foundation stone of a project for protection of Majuli island from flood and erosion and construction of Brahmaputra Board complex alongwith slew of other projects taken up by the Assam Government under state plan with financial outlay amounting to over Rs 300 crores in a programme held at Rawanapar in Majuli district.

Coinciding the occasion, he also ceremonially flagged off regular cargo transportation through inland waterways from Pandu to Dhubri-Hatsingimari.

The union minister reaffirmed that the central government is keen to develop Brahmaputra as a major waterway for boosting trade & commerce as it would enable the cargos to ply through Bangladesh till Chitagong port and open sea route for Assam to connect with other important ports of the country.

An MoU has already been signed between the governments of India and Bangladesh to dredge the river Brahmaputra including the portion of the river that falls in Bangladesh for rapid development of water navigation and cargo transportation, Gadkari said adding that cargo transportation through inland waterways is the cheapest mode of transportation and once the dredging work in both Brahmaputra and Barak are complete, it would bring huge economic benefit to the state and the region.

He also informed that the project for which foundation stone was laid today included the protection wall with an expenditure of Rs 237 crore would solve the major problem of erosion in the island.

He expressed confidence that the Brahmaputra Board complex, which would be built with an expenditure of Rs 40 crore would also help the Board to streamline their activities and manage the flood & erosion problem in a big way.

Gadkari also called on the state govt. to explore ways to develop river tourism in the state and also suggested the govt. to initiate action for production of bio-ethanol from bamboo taking advantage of huge bamboo plantation of the state.

Appreciating Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal for making "sincere" efforts to develop Majuli and the state, the union minister said that the central government is fully supporting the state governments endeavours to uplift the states economy.

Chief Minister Sonowal has fulfilled the promises he made during the election campaign by declaring Majuli as a district, Gadkari said.

Gadkari further mentioned that DPR for the bridge to be constructed from Nimatighat in Jorhat district to Kamalabarighat in Majuli district is being prepared by the state government and necessary action in this regard would be taken up after receiving the DPR from the Assam Govt.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal in his speech stressed the need to protect Majuli from flood & erosion and said the government is taking all steps to preserve this island which is the seat of vaishnavite culture.

He also underlined the need to increase income of the farmers for bringing transformation in the state.

This Govt. was formed to protect the rights of the indigenous people of the state and aspirations of all sections of the society would be fulfilled by the government, Sonowal assured.

Stating that sabka saath sabka vikas, would be made into a reality in the state through good governance at all levels of the society, Sonowal cautioned the people to stay alert against the divisive forces who are trying to foment trouble in the society.

The Assam CM urged the people not to panic if some of their names do not appear in the first draft of the NRC to be published on December 31.

He assured that no genuine Indian citizens would be excluded from the NRC and the remaining names would be published in the subsequent drafts.

Terming the event as a historic day for Majuli when such mega projects for the protection of the island has been kick started, he Informed that five new bridges will be built over river Brahmaputra in the state and said rapid development of surface and water connectivity would bring economic benefit to the state.

Now Majuli has drawn the attention of the whole world and there is even greater need for people of the island to stay united for its prosperity. The first Cultural University in the state to be set up at Majuli would play a crucial role in preserving Majulis culture and heritage and the two skill development centres opened at Majuli would empower the youth of the district to make meaningful constriction to the society, Sonowal said.

Sonowal also called on the contractors to maintain quality in construction of the embankments.

Noteworthy that the Assam CM on several occasion pressed hard the Brahmaputra Board authorities to set up its permanent office campus at Majuli in a bid to bring more efficacy and swiftness in implementation of flood control & erosion protection projects.

It was in response to his repeated requests that the Brahmaputra Board Chairman Sanjay Kundu in a meeting with him in New Delhi on March 23 assured of setting up a permanent complex of the Board at Majuli.

The new complex would include an office, a godown and a guest house so that officials could stay in Majuli and execute their work.

Minister of Water Resources Keshav Mahanta, MP Pradan Baruah, MLAs Bimal Bora and Ashok Sarma, Brahmaputra Board Chairman Sanjay Kundu, Principal Secretary of Water Resources Department Hemanta Narzary, Deputy Commissioner of Majuli Pallav Gopal Jha, Satradhikar Janardan Deva Goswami and other satradhikars of Majuli were present among others in the programme.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
New Delhi, Dec 29 (IBNS): Paving way for controversy, Palestinian Ambassador to Pakistan Waleed Abu Ali was photographed as sharing the stage with Mumbai terror attack mastermind and Jamat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan's Rawalpindi on Friday.

According to reports, Difa-e-Pakistan Council, a coalition of hardline Islamic parties in Pakistan, held the rally in Rawalpindi, reports said.

The Palestinian envoy to Pakistan was reportedly seen sharing the stage with Saeed at the event.

In response to reports and photographs of the Palestinian Ambassador to Pakistan attending the rally organised by Saeed, the official spokesperson India's External Affairs Ministry said, "We have seen reports in this regard. We are taking up the matter strongly with the Palestinian Ambassador in New Delhi and with the Palestinian authorities."

This comes just days after India voted against the US and in favour of Palestine during the UN resolution that declared Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital 'null and void'.

India had said that its position on Palestine is "independent and consistent."
Durban, Dec 29 (IBNS): Cherishing his vacation in South Africa, actor Akshay Kumar and his wife Twinkle Khanna have shared several images from their tour on social media.

Akshay is enjoying his vacation and this is evident from the images shared by him on social media.

In his latest image, Akshay could be seen driving a car with his wife sitting beside him.

Interestingly, today is also the birthday of Twinkle Khanna.

Akshay used the right moment to wish his wife on the special day of the calendar.

Akshay tweeted: "Forever making every ride full of adventure and amusement, my favourite companion...for life! Happy birthday, Tina ."

In another image from the vacation, Bollywood's Khiladi could be seen soaking under the sun.

"Soaking up some South African sun with this good boy #MorningSnuggles," Kumar tweeted in a picture with a dog.

Kumar will soon be seen in next year's first major release Padman.

Padman will release in January.

Image: Akshay Kumar Twitter page
New York, Dec 29(Just Earth News): After separate airstrikes on a crowded market and a rural farm left nearly 70 people dead earlier this week in Yemen, the top United Nations humanitarian official in the country denounced the incidents and reminded the warring parties of their international legal obligations to spare civilian lives and infrastructure.

These incidents prove the complete disregard for human life that all parties, including the Saudi-led Coalition, continue to show, Jamie McGoldrick, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, stated Thursday.

Denouncing this absurd war, he said the conflict has only resulted in the destruction of the country and the incommensurate suffering of its people, who are being punished as part of a futile military campaign by both sides.

Initial reports from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) indicate that on 26 December, airstrikes on a crowded popular market in Al Hayma sub-district in Attazziah district, in Yemens war-ravaged central Taiz Governorate, resulted in at least 54 civilians killed, including eight children, and 32 others injured including six children.

During the past days, residential areas in Al Hayma villages, including a health unit occupied by internally displaced persons, have been subject to a full blockade by the de facto authorities and indiscriminate shelling that resulted in casualties among the residents and displacement of many families to safer areas.

Also on 26 December, an airstrike on a farm in Attohayta District, Al Hudaydah Governorate resulted in the killing of 14 people from the same family. These new victims are in addition to 84 civilian casualties reported in the last 10 days, including 41 people killed, and 43 people injured by airstrikes in several governorates throughout Yemen.

I remind all parties to the conflict, including the Saudi-led Coalition, of their obligations under International Humanitarian Law to spare civilians and civilian infrastructure and to always distinguish between civilian and military objects, said McGoldrick.

He noted that the Yemen conflict has hit the grim 1,000-day mark. Civilians have borne the brunt of the fighting, and I once again remind all parties that it has no military solution. There can only be a political solution.

OCHA/Philippe Kropf

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Dec 29(Just Earth News): Condemning the pardoning of former President of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, a group of United Nations independent human rights experts have said that the move undermines the work of the judiciary and the international community to achieve justice.

It is a major setback for the rule of law in Peru: a humanitarian pardon has been granted to someone convicted of serious crimes after a fair trial, whose guilt is not in question and who does not meet the legal requirements for a pardon, said the experts in a news release issued by the UN human rights office.

We are appalled by this decision. It is a slap in the face for the victims and witnesses whose tireless commitment brought him to justice.

The experts voicing their concern include Agnes Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Pablo de Greiff, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence; and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

In the news release, the experts stressed that the Peruvian Presidents constitutional right to pardon people could not be seen in isolation from the international conventions ratified by the country.

International human rights law restricts the granting of amnesties, pardons or other exclusions of responsibility in cases of serious human rights violations including extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, they said, noting that a request of habeas corpus on Fujimoris health condition was already rejected by the judiciary.

Fujimori was serving a 25-year jail term for serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and kidnapping. His conviction had been hailed as a major achievement in the fight against impunity.

The announcement of his pardon by current President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, on December 24, has sparked protests in the capital, Lima, and elsewhere in the country.

Government should not give in to political pressure  rights experts

Also in the release, the experts said that the Government should not give in to political pressure and must honour its domestic and international obligations.

Fujimori must be treated like any other person convicted of serious human rights crimes. His treatment should be compatible with his state of health and in accordance with the established standards and procedures, added the experts.

The Government should respect the victims and witnesses who fought for justice and should adopt a comprehensive transitional justice strategy as a matter of priority, the experts added.

UN Special Rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

UN Photo/Loey Felipe

Source: www.justearthnews.com




In an interview with UN News, Farid Zarif, the head of UNMIL, said that UN peacekeepers, working with national authorities, managed to bring peace and stability to the country, to help it rebuild and to pave the way for renewed economic growth.



We are very confident that with the departure of UNMIL Liberia will be in a far better situation to meet the challenges of the future, Under-Secretary-General Zarif said, despite continued vulnerabilities and fragilities.



Liberia is a very rich country endowed with many natural resources, he added. With improved management of those resources, along with a diversification of the macroeconomy and support from the international community, the country has the potential.



[Ms.] Sirleaf should be credited for providing a vision for the future of Liberia. And if elements of that vision are implemented, Liberia will soon become a self-sustaining society, Zarif said.



Her legacy is very much connected to the legacy of the UN mission in Liberia.



Sirleaf will step down in January after two terms in office. Liberians are still waiting for the official announcement of her successor following Tuesdays second round of vote.



Former Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo, who is a member of the UN Secretary-Generals High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation, is due to arrive in the capital, Monrovia, on Thursday .



Secretary-General Antonio Guterres requested Obasanjo to travel to Liberia as part of the UNs continued good offices engagement  a term for third-party assistance in mediating a conflict  and to help support an orderly and peaceful transition of power. This would be the first time one democratically elected leader in Liberia hands over power to another in more than 70 years.



Ahead of the 26 December election, as well as the first round of vote on 10 October, UNMIL supported national election officials, even delivering voting materials by plane. Other branches of the UN provided technical assistance. All security duties were transferred over to Liberian officials in June of last year.



UNMIL also carried out its good offices engagement with community members, bringing together local leaders, faith-based organizations, the media, women and youth, among others.



We thought that based on past experiences of violence, we need to really invest in preventive diplomacy, Zarif said.



Together we have been very successful in avoiding all forms of violence. Even demonstrations did not happen, let alone mortalities or casualties. So we are very happy with the success of the good offices.







UN Photo/Manuel Elias



Source: www.justearthnews.com






Cairo, Dec 29 (IBNS): At least four people were killed in a gun attack at a church in Egypt's Helwan area on Friday media reports said.

The victims reportedly include police officers.

"Security forces at the Mar Mina church shot dead one gunman but it was unclear if a second gunman had escaped," BBC reported.

The attack took place in the city ahead of the New Year celebration.

The gunman has been killed by security forces, reports said.

Omar Ashour, a visiting professor of security studies at the Doha Institute, told Al Jazeera the attack was part of an "ongoing crisis" in Egypt.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

Picture: Representive Image of gunman
New York, Dec 29(Just Earth News): Despite a particularly deadly year for United Nations peacekeepers  with more than 60 'blue helmets' killed in hostile acts  the Organization in 2017 completed its peacekeeping objectives in Cote d'Ivoire, refocused its work in Haiti and will soon complete its mandate in Liberia.

We do protect civilians every day. We do save lives every day. We often do it under very difficult and stressful circumstances, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix said in a recent interview with UN News.

He added that many lives were saved because of peacekeepers' actions this year in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, South Sudan and other places.

I think it's more than warranted to pay tribute to them and their achievements, Lacroix said. But certainly we have to work hard to overcome the challenges we are facing.

Challenges in 2017

One of the challenges facing UN peacekeepers, as they operate in increasingly complex and dangerous areas, is the need for better training and equipment, particularly when it comes to intelligence gathering and enhancing situational awareness.

This includes the use of modern technologies, such as unmanned aerial services, radars and tethered balloons.

The head of the UN Department of Field Support, Atul Khare, said the UN is also looking to borrow or purchase more equipment related to security reinforcements, accommodations, vehicles and communications tools, among others.

In Mali, for example, one out of four military hospitals is without staff or equipment, and in the Central African Republic, one in three, he said.

The needs also extend to gaps in working closely with local communities, which means that in some areas more peacekeepers are needed who speak French.

We must do even more on the side of prevention and risk mitigation when seeking to protect our colleagues. Providing for the safety and security of deployed personnel in volatile environments is an absolute necessity, Khare told UN News.

Sexual exploitation and abuse

One of the main challenges in peacekeeping operations has been grappling with allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers.

Earlier this year, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres unveiled his strategy for eradicating the scourge, and appointed Jane Connors as the first Victims' Rights Advocate.

It is about dignity for the victims, compassion, a real feeling of empathy, a feeling that they are not forgotten, Connors said in early December. That their hurt, their pain is acknowledged, and we do as much as we possibly can do to make their situation better.

Connors made the comments during a visit to South Sudan, where four of last year's 103 allegations were filed. This year, the UN recorded 54 allegations  roughly half the number.

This is a result of the many robust efforts put in place to train our personnel, raise awareness among communities on the risks associated with SEA [sexual exploitation and abuse], promote and enforce the zero-tolerance policy and partner with Member States, said Khare.

The new UN strategy to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse puts more pressure on governments to investigate and prosecute wrong-doing. In addition, 17 countries volunteered some $1.8 million for a trust fund to aid victims get medical, psycho-social, legal or socio-economic support.

We can see that information about allegations are coming more with less obstacle than before, Lacroix said. At the same time, we need to do more to fully implement the policy and it has to have strong awareness at every level.

Protecting the environment

UN peacekeeping is also managing its impact in another way within the countries that host its operations  by preserving natural resources and not damaging the environment during the physical deployments.

'Do no harm' must include both communities and the resources upon which they depend: water, land, cultural heritage, Khare said.

Plans to reduce the peacekeeping footprint and energy consumption also saves time and resources, allowing peacekeeping missions to focus on implementing their core mandates.

All UN peacekeeping operations this year launched Environmental Action Plans which have, for example, led to 80 wastewater treatment plans being installed in peacekeeping operations.

We are constantly looking into keeping our own house in order, and leave the place better than we found it, said Khare.

Looking ahead to 2018

If the year 2017 brought ambitious reform, then 2018 must be the year that these reforms are implemented, Lacroix said.

He noted that this will be particularly important in the field, where colleagues must be informed and empowered to act.

Khare echoed the idea that reforms are ongoing, noting that the goal is to ensure that we are stronger in prevention, more agile in mediation, and more nimble, efficient and cost-effective in our operations.

He pointed to improved efficiency and effectiveness of peacekeeping, including also by strengthening engagement with Member States and regional organizations to better serve the most vulnerable people around the world.

We approach 2018 with a sense of hope. We will do our best to successfully implement these reforms and certainly we will do our best to support our colleagues in the field, said Lacroix.

UN Photo/Logan Abassi

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Dec 29(Just Earth News): The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has strongly denounced the terrorist bombing earlier Thursday of a Shi'a cultural centre in Kabul, calling the targeted attack on civilians yet another despicable crime in a year marked by unspeakable atrocities.

Crimes like on Thursday 's strengthen our resolve to work with all Afghans who want peace to return to their country in 2018, said Toby Lanzer, the acting head of UNAMA.

The attack occurred in Kabul's Qalai Nazir neighbourhood, a predominantly Shi'a Muslim area, hitting the Tabayan Cultural Centre where civilians had gathered to commemorate a national day.

So far, about 100 casualties have been reported, including scores of civilians killed. There are, however, fears the number may rise. Preliminary findings also indicate many children among the casualties.

Human rights teams from the UN Mission are on the ground to establish the facts.

In the release, Lanzer also expressed his sympathies with the families of those killed in the incident.

According to UNAMA, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or Da'esh), claimed responsibility for the attack. The Taliban issued a communique denying any involvement.

Photo UNAMA/Fardin Waezi

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Washington/New Delhi, Dec 29 (IBNS): Both India and the United States of America condemned the Kabul terror attack which led to the death of at least 40 people, while injuring 30 others.

The incident took place on Thursday morning at around 10:30 am.

Among the deceased were journalists, women and children.

Reports said that social activists had gathered at Tebyan social and cultural activity center when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives.

Condemning the attack, an official release from New Delhi read: "India strongly condemns the cowardly suicide terror attack on 28 December at the media news agency and the cultural centre in Kabul resulting in loss of more than 40 innocent lives and many more injured.

"Our heartfelt condolences are with the families of the victims of this dastardly attack and we wish early recovery to the injured.

"Indian remains steadfast in its solidarity with the Government and the people of Afghanistan at this difficult time. India is committed to extend all possible support in their fight against the menace of terrorism and efforts to bring peace, stability and security in the country," it said.

US Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement: "The United States strongly condemns today's barbaric attack at a cultural and social center in Kabul, Afghanistan, and offers its deepest condolences to the victims and their families."

Sanders added that US President Donald Trump too has been briefed about the situation.

"The United States stands firmly with the government and people of Afghanistan and will work closely with the National Unity Government to bring the perpetrators of this heinous attack to justice," the US statement read.
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After the Lok Sabha passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017 - in order to criminalise instant triple talaq - the opposition parties have made several observations before the bill goes to the Rajya Sabha.

The draft bill includes criminal provisions, including a jail term of up to three years and a fine. BJP's majority in the Lower House of Parliament ensured that the bill gets cleared, however, the bill will be further debated in the Upper House before finally getting accepted..

Following are the concerns put forward by the parties:

Congress

The Congress has expressed unhappiness at the penal provisions of the bill, calling them too abrupt for a customary practice which was legal till recently. Interestingly, BJP MP MJ Akbar too, seemed to share its view, at least with reference to these specific parts.

Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge demanded that the bill is sent to a standing committee to look into its various aspects.

Another party leader Sushmita Dev took issue with the imprisonment clause of the bill, saying that such a provision would put maintenance in jeopardy.

Shia Waqf Board

While the bill currently prescribes a maximum of three years imprisonment for violators, the Shia Waqf Board has asked for much harsher punishment.

"I have urged the Prime Minister through a letter that a jail term of 10 years to those indulging in triple talaq and lodging a criminal case against them," said Wasim Rizvi, President of the Shia Waqf Board.

All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB)

The AIMPLB expressed unhappiness over the draft bill, and promised to take steps through democratic means to "amend, improve or scrap" it. They accused the Centre of introducing the bill "in a haste".

Biju Janata Dal (BJD)

BJD leader Bhartruhari Mahtab said that the framing of the bill was "faulty and flawed". However, he refrained from commenting on the bill's merits. Mahtab demanded to know that if the proposed law makes the practice of instant triple talaq illegal and void, how could someone be jailed for pronouncing 'talaq-e-biddat'.

He contended that the law put unwarranted discretion in the hands of the police and made the submission of proof of oral triple talaq daunting.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM)

AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi said the bill demonises Muslims and sends the wrong message to them.

Amendments to the bill

The amendments moved by Asaduddin Owaisi, Mahtab, Dev and the Communist Party of India's (Marxist) A Sampath were negated in the Lok Sabha.

The way forward

The Centre may face a tough fight in getting the bill passed in the Rajya Sabha. It is expected that at least 122 members will vote against it. Additionally, it is not expected that all JD(U) MPs will support it.
For the first time in its 105-year history, the BD Petit Parsee General Hospital at Cumballa Hill will admit patients from other communities. The hospital, launched in 1912, has approved the construction of another building at its Cumballa Hill premises, where non-Parsi patients will be admitted.

BCCL

The new facility will have 200 beds.The hospital officials said they were awaiting the civic and state approvals to start construction.

Homa Petit, president of the hospital, said, "The new wing will cater to people from all communities, even as the existing facility will treat only the members from the Parsi community. The revenue generated from the new wing will help the hospital provide free or highly subsidised healthcare to patients from the community. Our aim is to ensure our patients can avail of state-of-the-art diagnostic facilities at affordable rates on the campus itself."

BCCL

At present, more than a hundred beds at the hospital are reserved for the poor from the community, who are treated free of costs or at highly subsidised rates, and are also provided free diagnostic facilities that the hospital has outsourced.

The hospital sources said that admitting non-Parsi patients was needed to replenish the dwindling funds. "The cost of medical services and the need to keep up with the latest technology have resulted in heavy strain on the hospital's financial resources. It was becoming increasingly difficult to continue providing the necessary level of care as more than half of our beds are in the free or highly subsidised sections," a hospital official said.

BCCL

Over the years, the hospital has been receiving generous donations, especially from the members of the Zoroastrian community living abroad. A couple of years ago, Jal and Pervin Shroff, a Parsi couple from Hong Kong, donated Rs 140 crore to the hospital, of which around Rs 16 crore were set aside for the oncology department. Jal Shroff is the co-founder of Fossil, a company best known for its watches.
The Parsi community in Mumbai is protesting against the underground Metro III rail project after the proposed route cut through the 187-year-old Wadia fire temple (Atash Behram) at Princess Street in south Mumbai.

BCCL/Representational Image

The alignment map showed major portion of the tunnel passing below the sanctum sanctorum, the room where the consecrated fire is placed.

"The contractors came without any written authorization and no metro officials accompanied them,'' said Hanoz Mistry, a community activist.

"I explained to them that the Atash Behram is not just the holy fire, but the entire complex commencing from the boundary wall. Hence, the distant from the fire is irrelevant,'' he said, adding that the contractors must consider the boundary wall as the point of reference.

BCCL/Representational Image

Aspi Deboo, another concerned Parsi said, "There is something very sinister going on and the community needs to be extra vigilant. The centre line of the metro will be three metres inside the compound and thereafter another 3.5 metres will be the tunnel. It means the entire Kusti area (the place where ablutions are done by devotees) right up to where the wall of the 'kebla' where holy fire is enthroned will be affected. In short, it will virtually destroy the Wadia Atash Behram.''

Structural engineer Jamshed Shukhadwalla, who first raised the red flag about the Metro III line damaging landmark buildings, said, "Since major portion of the tunnel will pass below the sanctum sanctorum, it will break the continuous contact of the sacred fire with earth and break the magnetic circuits established by religious ceremonies performed during the consecration of the fire. This is against the tenets and practices of our religion.''

BCCL/Representational Image

An online petition addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already garnered over 7,500 signatures within a day.

"The major cause of angst is on account of the proposed Metro-III line which is going to pass through Jagannath Sunkersett Road, on which are located two of our holy Fire Temples viz. Wadiaji Atash Behram and Anjuman Atash Behram. One line of the Metro will partially pass under both the above Fire Temples. In case of Wadiaji Fire Temple, part of the tunnel will actually pass under the sanctum sanctorum where the Holy Fire is enthroned. Both these holy fires are consecrated entities; living vibrant beings who are intermediaries between God and mankind,'' it said.
Pakistan had come under heavy criticism for the ill-treatment to alleged Indian spy Kulbushan Jadhavs wife and mother during their meeting with him in Islamabad.

Pakistani authorities to Jadhavs mother Avanti and wife Chetankul who were asked to change their clothes, remove bangles, mangalsutras and bindis before meeting him in the Foreign Office in Islamabad on Monday.

ap

The Pakistan authorities didnt return Chetankuls pair of shoes alleging that it carried a metallic substance, possibly a bug.

it hasn't gone down well with many Indians

Bharatiya Janata Partys Delhis spokesperson Tajinder Bagga tweeted a screenshot of his online order, urging his followers that they should also buy slippers for Pakistan in protest against the humiliation of Jadhavs family.

Pakistan wants our slippers, Let's Give them Slippers. I have ordered Slippers & sent to Pakistan High Commission. I request everyone to Order 1 Pair Slipper for Pakistan. After ordering Slippers tweet your order's screenshot with #JutaBhejoPakistan pic.twitter.com/VzhKvDLq82  Tajinder Bagga (@TajinderBagga) December 29, 2017

Many twitter users have also posted screenshots of their orders of footwears addressed to the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi.

It's a small slap to Pakistan high commissioner from my side.. I tried lowest price as possible of 6 size.#JutaBhejoPakistan@TajinderBagga ji pic.twitter.com/qlSw4o5Vcg  Abhay Surpurkar (@ASurpurkar) December 29, 2017
Everyone may be looking to the next best smartphone of 2018, but that doesnt mean tech companies have forgotten about feature phones. Well, at least not Nokia.

Nokia 3310 (2017)

Buoyed by the wave of nostalgia for the Nokia 3310 reboot, parent company HMD Global is now looking to release another new version of the iconic dumb phone in 2018, and with a new feature or two.

While the previous iteration supported 3G networks, the incoming Nokia 3310 will supposedly have 4G capability, according to Nokiamob. Spotted on the website for the Chinese telecom regulatory authority, it seems much of the device will remain the same, except for one more thing.

The 2018 Nokia 3310 will run on YunOS, instead of FeatureOS or s30+, that powered the 2G and 3G versions. YunOS will be able to run a few basic Android apps, likely stripped down versions. If were lucky, we may see the new phone feature basic version of Facebook and WhatsApp at the very least.

Of course, it doesnt make sense to run around with a feature phone as your primary device in this day and age, but it makes a decent secondary. You can pull it out whenever you want to go for a run without worrying about dropping your expensive smartphone, or even as a backup in case of emergencies. And the company is at least doing enough to make sure it isnt irrelevant once we move forward from 3G.

Theres still no word on pricing for the 2018 Nokia 3310. However, since the original launched at Rs 3,399, we can expect this one to be priced at perhaps around Rs 3,899
Microsoft believes that passwords belong to the past. And the technology giant is about to make big moves to achieve that goal.

A lot of the companys employees already used Windows Hello to log in to their computers. Hello is Microsofts biometric authentication technology thats packaged with Windows 10. Now the companys entire 125,000-strong workforce will go completely password free, Bret Arsenault, corporate vice president and chief information security officer at Microsoft, stated in a recent blog post.

Windows Hello lets users access their PCs and compatible apps via fingerprint readers, facial recognition, and in some cases even iris scanners. Microsoft claims that, aside from their own employees, 70 per cent of Windows 10 users with the right biometrics hardware are using Windows Hello instead of regular passwords.

Of course, though Microsoft says its a faster and more convenient way than passwords, its not necessarily very secure. Research groups have already shown they can trick Windows Hello using a simple photo printout. Despite the fact that, in systems with the right hardware, it uses infrared sensors to determine theres a real person in front of the camera and not a photo, the researchers got around this by using a modified low-resolution print of an infrared scan.

So its good that Microsoft also has another alternative, in the form of the Fast Identity Online Alliance (FIDO). As weve reported before, this involves a combination of an encrypted fingerprint reader built into laptops, as well as a button prompt on the registered device to confirm.

And clearly, we need all the help we can get, seeing as we still dont know how to create secure passwords. Catastrophes like 123456, password, and qwerty are still in use. So perhaps Microsofts efforts will actually result in fewer breaches and hacks in 2018. One can only hope.
The people issue is one of the most concerning cyber risks there is.Phishing scams are becoming ever more sophisticated and some companies are struggling to keep up  especially those without access to cyber security resources, insurance and risk management.Organizations across the world have acknowledged the people problem in cyber, but are still finding it difficult to address it effectively. Phish attack training has reduced the average click rate in malicious emails to around 9-10% - but that still leaves on average one out of every 10 people falling for a phishing scam.We need to focus on people patching and the human firewall, said Anthony Dagostino, global head of cyber risk at Willis Towers Watson. This requires more effective training and awareness campaigns to make sure people arent clicking on things. Hackers know people are vulnerable and they will continue to prey on people in this way.In line with the ever-evolving cyber threat, phishing scams are also becoming more and more focused  and dangerous. A trend called whale phishing is on the rise, where hackers target high profile, wealthy or prominent individuals (aka big phish) because of their status.We will see more whale phishing in 2018, where cyber criminals will target individuals based on things like their LinkedIn or Facebook profiles, Dagostino told Insurance Business. General counsel, chief financial officers and even board members are being very specifically targeted just for hackers to get certain information they have.It doesnt necessarily have to be for a data breach  its really corporate espionage driven. They either want to get information on an up-coming acquisition, or future business plans that they can use for insider trading.Criminals are also taking advantage of whale phishing to transfer funds. Corporate espionage and funds transfer fraud are two threats likely to really emerge next year, Dagostino added.
New York States top financial watchdog proposed regulations that would require sellers of life insurance and annuities to act in the best interest of clients, raising standards even as the U.S. government delays its fiduciary rule.

Products that best fit clients would have to be offered before those that are most profitable to the sellers, the New York Department of Financial Services said Wednesday in a statement.

President Donald Trumps administration has delayed implementation of parts of the Department of Labors fiduciary rule that was created during Barack Obamas presidency, adding to uncertainty about the regulations future. The rule would raise the standards for sellers and was expected to add to compliance costs for firms. New York joins states such as Nevada that have looked to impose similar regulations.

As Washington continues to ignore and roll back efforts to protect Americans, New York will continue to use its role as a strong regulator of the financial services and insurance industries to fight for consumers and help ensure a level playing field, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in the statement.

The proposed rules are subject to a 60-day comment period before being officially issued. The Life Insurance Council of New York, an industry group, said it was reviewing the proposal and has the same goal to protect consumers.

We do have serious concerns about implementing any regulations that will result in an unfair playing field for New Yorks life insurance companies, the group said in an emailed statement. Any implemented regulation should be uniform across the country, so companies do not face different standards in different states.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Legislation New York
Fosun Group is planning to raise as much as 21 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) selling local bonds as the Chinese insurance-to-pharmaceutical conglomerate refinances debt and increases its investments inside the country, according to people familiar with the matter.

Fosun unit Shanghai Fosun Hi Technology Group Co. intends to offer 6 billion yuan of medium-term notes after completing registration last month, the people said. It also plans to apply by February for authorization to issue 15 billion yuan of short-term commercial paper, the people said. The timing of the planned sales is yet to be determined, they said, asking not to be identified because the details are private.

Fosun is among private-sector giants in China that have faced greater regulatory scrutiny this year after authorities cracked down on financing for outbound investments. In response, the company has focused more on local deals.

Earlier this month the company agreed to buy an 18 percent stake in Tsingtao Brewery Co., Chinas third-largest beermaker, for $847 million. On Thursday, the company was among backers for a 1 billion yuan funding round for bike-sharing startup Hellobike. Meanwhile, Fosun has explored selling its stake in Hollywood production house Studio 8 Inc., people familiar with the matter said this week.

A representative for Fosun couldnt immediately comment on Thursday.

Fosun Hi Technology issued 9.2 billion yuan of notes this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions China Funding
Blockchain, cyber, mergers and acquisitions and Londons devastating Grenfell Tower fire are just some of the topics that dominate the most popular articles in Insurance Journals International section during 2017.

Here we provide an overview of 12 of the top International stories, in reverse order:

12). Stories about cyber attacks, risks and trends always get a lot of attention from Insurance Journal readers. Just one of our many cyber articles is the 12th most well read, titled Days of Cyber Insurers Avoiding Costly Claims May Be Numbered. Published in July, it discusses the fact that cyber crime insurers have largely avoided costly claims from the cyber attacks, including WannaCry and Petya, which hit global businesses this year. However, the article cautioned that the next global cyber virus could change that.

11). Trends in insurtech continue to dominate our headlines, including this July article, titled Q2 Insurtech Funding Rises to $1B. The articles discussed a Willis Tower Watson report, which revealed that during Q2 2017, insurtech funding rose to $1 billion, a 150 percent increase from Q2 2016.

10). Another report, this time from Deloitte, provided the material for our 10th most-read International article. Titled, Confusing, Costly Cyber Policies Create Obstacles to Market Growth: Deloitte, this story published in March discussed the reasons for the failure of buyers to widely embrace cyber coverage, while many insurers remain cautious about writing the coverage on a large scale basis.

9). Heres a cheerful article, which attracted a lot of attention from readers, coming in at number nine on our list. Titled According to the Computer, Youll Be Dead in 5 Years, this piece published in June revealed that computers will one day be able to predict a patients lifespan simply by looking at images of their organs, which has implications for the early diagnosis of serious illness and medical intervention.

8). Articles about business moves from companies moving into potentially lucrative Asian markets, with their growing middle class, generally attract a lot of attention from our readers. One of these in 2017 was a story published in July titled Aetna Acquires Bupa Thailand to Expand in Asia Health Insurance. The item discussed an acquisition that will significantly increase Aetnas presence in Asia, and is key to the companys strategy to go broader and deeper into local healthcare markets.

7). A report on cyber risks from Aons Stroz Friedberg got a lot of attention early in the year and came in at seventh on our annual list. Titled 2017 Cyber Risks to Intensify as Hackers Become More Cunning: Report, the article predicted that top cyber threats during 2017 would include nation state cyber espionage, a rise in data integrity attacks and an increase in attacks harnessing Internet of Things (IoT) devices. It would appear that these predictions were right on the mark.

6) and 4). Londons devastating Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 71 people (originally estimated at 79) and injured many others, were the sixth and fourth most well-read International articles for the year. The tower fire has raised safety concerns about the flammable cladding used in high-rises around the world. Ranking at number six was the article titled Norways Protector Forsikring Insured Grenfell Tower Fire; Price Tag Debated. The fourth most well-read article was titled Whirlpool Fridge Started Londons Grenfell Tower Fire that Killed at Least 79.

5). When Fairfax Financial Holdings completed in July its largest and most significant acquisition  of Allied World  it was bound to get a lot of readership attention because of the critical mass it creates for the two companies. In an article titled Fairfax Financial Completes $4.9 Billion Acquisition of Allied World, it was revealed that Allied World writes $3.1 billion in business, and it has a major presence with the large brokers like Marsh, Aon and Willis and with Fortune 1000 companies in the U.S.

Prem Watsa, chairman and chief executive officer of Fairfax, also attracts a lot of interest in the world of insurance. Described as the Warren Buffett of Canada, Watsa oversees an insurance conglomerate, bases his investments on their long-term value and runs his companies on a decentralized basis  similar to Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway.

3), 2) and 1). Articles on blockchain, or distributed ledger technology (DLT), were the top three International articles in 2017. There has been a lot of press  some would say hype  about blockchain and its potential to revolutionize the industrys processes and ultimately improve the customer experience. The year has shown that the industry is slowly finding ways to use this potentially revolutionary technology.

In our top three articles, a story on blockchain published in May ranks number three. Titled The Present Use and Promise of Blockchain in Insurance, it discusses how using a shared ledger eliminates the need for multiple databases and the errors that arise from maintaining and transferring data among them.

Ranked at number two is an article titled What Is Blockchain and How Does It Work? Quoting experts on how this technology could work for the insurance industry, this article, published in June, provides an explanation of how this complicated technology works.

And last but not least is the article that topped our list for most well-read International articles in 2017. Titled Blockchain Insurance Industry Initiative B3i Grows to 15 Members, the article, published in February, discusses an industry initiative that is exploring the ability of blockchain technologies to increase efficiencies in the exchange of data between reinsurance and insurance companies. Real progress has been made by B3i during the year.

Related:

Topics Cyber Tech London
Fairfax Financial Holdings said it has successfully sold a Singapore insurer to Japans Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co. for US$1.6 billion.The deal between the Toronto, Canada-based P/C insurance, reinsurance and investment management holding company, and Mitsui Sumitomo involves the sale of First Capital Insurance, Singapores largest property/casualty insurer. Both parties first announced the planned transaction in late August.

Beyond the sale of First Capital, Fairfax Financial has generally pursued acquisitions over the last year. In July, Fairfax completed its acquisition of Allied World Assurance Co. Holdings for $4.9 billion, giving it an insurer that writes $3.1 billion and has a major presence with large brokers such as Marsh, Aon and Willis. Allied World Chairman and CEO Prem Watsa described the deal as its most significant yet.

In February, Fairfax agreed to pay $144 million for New Zealand insurer Tower Ltd., giving it an instant, significant presence in a growing, emerging market.

In October 2016, Fairfax Financial bought some of American International Groups Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe operations in a transaction worth about $240 million.

Fairfax in May agreed to sell a 12.2 percent stake in its Indian joint venture insurer ICICI Lombard in a deal that valued the company at $3.15 billion.

Source: Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd.

A version of this article first appeared in Insurance Journals sister publication, Carrier Management.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Carriers
Expect some new debates on old measures when Nebraska lawmakers return to the Capitol next month for the 2018 session.

Senators have spent the last few months tinkering with proposals that stalled last year in hopes of reviving them during the short, 60-day session that begins Jan. 3.

Lawmakers can carry over bills from this year into the upcoming session, but only measures designated by a senator or committee as a priority have a realistic chance of getting debated.

Here are some high-profile bills that didnt pass this year but are expected to return in 2018:

OCCUPATIONAL LICENSING

A sweeping bill aimed at Nebraskas job-licensing requirements is stuck in committee but has a good chance of emerging for debate in the full Legislature. Its sponsor, Sen. Laura Ebke of Crete, said she will designate the measure as her legislative priority for the year if she can get it voted out of the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.

I think were pretty close, she said Once they hear about it, I think most people can see the sense in reducing the number of occupational licenses weve got.

The bill would require regular reviews of all state job-licensing requirements to determine if they are still necessary. It also would give residents with a criminal history the chance to get professional licenses, if theyre otherwise qualified.

Nebraska has roughly 200 professions with mandatory state licenses, ranging from massage therapists to doctors and school bus drivers. Ebke said the state could relax regulations and still protect public safety in some cases by allowing businesses to register with the state, rather than having to pay a fee and take a test to get a license.

ONLINE SALES TAX COLLECTIONS

A bill designed to help the state collect more online sales tax revenue is likely to come back after its sponsor pulled it just before a key vote earlier this year. The measure advanced through a first-round vote in April, but Sen. Dan Watermeier of Syracuse said he asked to hold off because several supportive senators were absent the day of a scheduled second-round vote.

Watermeier said he has made some changes to the bill to address concerns raised by lawmakers.

The original bill would have required online retailers with at least 200 transactions or $100,000 in revenue in Nebraska to collect sales tax or send detailed transactions records to customers and the state to ensure the tax gets paid. The new version would require businesses to send only aggregate sales tax numbers to the state, thus protecting consumers identities while notifying the government of the total amount owed.

Nebraska already requires residents to report and pay online sales taxes on their income tax returns, but few people comply. Gov. Pete Ricketts has argued the bill is unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that states can only tax businesses with a physical presence within their borders, but the court could revisit the issue with a case involving a South Dakota internet sales tax law.

VOTER ID

Lawmakers will once again consider legislation that could require voters to show a government-issued identification card at the polls. Sen. John Murante of Gretna said he plans to introduce legislation to complement a pending measure that would put the issue before voters in the November general election.

Murante said the new measures would give lawmakers several options of how the voter ID proposal would work, if voters approve it. Critics say voter ID measures are a solution in search of a non-existent problem in Nebraska and could disenfranchise voters who typically side with Democrats.

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Conservative lawmakers also will renew their push to have Nebraska join other states in calling for a constitutional convention. Ebke said she wont spearhead the effort in the upcoming session but has handed it off to another senator who will try to pass it. Ebke previously has said the measure is only a few votes shy of being able to overcome a legislative filibuster.

The resolution would request a convention to propose constitutional amendments on fiscal restraint, the size and scope of the federal government and congressional term limits. Critics argue it could lead to a runaway convention.

Time Constraints

Speaker of the Legislature Jim Scheer said he expects some debate on issues lawmakers have previously discussed. But given the sessions time constraints, Scheer said he wont allow any bill that has previously been debated for three hours back onto the daily agenda unless the measures sponsor can show enough support to give it a realistic chance of passing.

Scheer imposed the three-hour rule to allow for debate without wasting time on repetitious arguments and filibusters, which have increased to record highs over the last few years.

Its got to be close enough that the bill has a legitimate shot, he said. Im not going to dedicate a lot of time to discussion on something just for the sake of having discussion.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Legislation Nebraska
A bad broker, classic cars that got destroyed in a fire and insurer rating downgrades were among the most widely read news stories in Insurance Journals Midwest region in 2017.

Broker Gone Bad

One story that generated much interest among retail agents in the Midwest and beyond concerned a wholesale insurance broker that many agents had accused of taking their money and their clients money unlawfully.

Todd Jeremy Fendler of Rockford, Illinois, the owner of multiple property/casualty insurance operations in northern Illinois was indicted for the second time in August 2017 on charges of defrauding more than 100 clients of over $800,000. He had previously been charged in February 2017 in connection with a scheme to defraud former insurance clients of his businesses. The August action superseded the previous indictment and charged Fendler with 19 counts of wire fraud and one count of mail fraud in connection with his alleged fraudulent activity.

Fender owned and operated various insurance entities in Rockford, including Northern Illinois Insurance Agency Inc., Northern Underwriting Managers (NUM) and Surplus Market Solutions LLC.

NUM previously advertised with Insurance Journal and its affiliate, MyNewMarkets.com. IJ first became aware of the situation with NUM via complaints submitted to both sites that mirror those described in the indictments, as well as the two orders of revocation issued by Illinois  which Insurance Journal obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request  and Missouris non-renewal orders, which are accessible on the insurance departments website.

The status of the pending charges against Fendler is unknown at this time.

Related:

Other stories that captured the attention of IJs Midwest readers in 2017 concerned:

Charred Classic Cars

Dozens of antique vehicles were destroyed when a fire swept through a garage outside the southern Illinois community of Staunton in August.

Staunton Fire Protection District Chief Rick Haase says about a third of the building that served as Country Classic Cars showroom and warehouse was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived.

GuideOne Insurance Ratings Downgrades

A.M. Best has downgraded the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) to A- (Excellent) from A (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings (Long-Term ICR) to a- from a of GuideOne Mutual Insurance Co. in West Des Moines, Iowa, and its wholly owned subsidiaries: GuideOne Specialty Mutual Insurance Company; GuideOne America Insurance Company; GuideOne Elite Insurance Company; GuideOne National Insurance Company; and GuideOne Property & Casualty Insurance Company.

The outlook of these credit ratings (ratings) is negative. All companies are domiciled in West Des Moines.

American Family Insurances Agent Employment Classification Battle

A federal jury in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 18 determined that thousands of agents with Madison, Wisconsin-based American Family Mutual Insurance are employees, not independent contractors.

According to a news release from plaintiff attorneys involved in the case, a jury in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio returned a unanimous decision in the case following a two-week trial.

Litigation over Pizza Labeled Halal in Michigan

A judge dismissed a $100 million lawsuit against Little Caesars Pizza that alleged that pork was sold as halal pepperoni at a restaurant in a Detroit suburb that has a large Muslim population.

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Susan Hubbard threw out the lawsuit filed by Dearborn resident Mohamad Bazzi against Little Caesars Pizza, the Detroit Free Press reported. But the judge allowed a second lawsuit against the pizza chain over the pepperoni to move forward.

Chubbs Exposure in Ohio Mansion Fire

A dispute over a multi-million-dollar insurance claim for a suburban Cincinnati mansion that burned down in 2014 settled weeks before a trial was scheduled to start.

A federal court filing says attorneys for Jeffrey and Maria Decker and their insurer informed the judge the matter was settled, but the document doesnt offer details.

Holmes Murphys Time Off Policy

Des Moines, Iowa-based Holmes Murphy team members across the nation have overwhelmingly embraced the independent insurance brokerages Responsible Time Off program.

Holmes Murphy said it began a redesigned, more flexible time off practice for exempt employees on July 1, 2016, with positive results across the board.

Planned Cuts to Federal Ag Subsidies

Farm groups and some members of Congress from farm states decried proposed cuts to crop insurance and other safety net programs for farmers included in President Donald Trumps budget.

The proposed cuts come even as farmers are facing their fourth straight year of falling income, and could particularly affect farm states such as Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska that helped Trump win the November election.

Related:

Topics Carriers Agencies Fraud Agribusiness Ohio Illinois Iowa
Bob Kelsey cant afford a cancer drug that could save his life.

The retired firefighter, 53, needs Revlimid to stay healthy. Celgene Corp. has raised the price 88 percent over the past seven years. The drug doesnt have substantial competition from a less expensive generic version, and probably wont for another eight years. Celgene has worked hard to make sure of that.

Drugmakers typically have exclusive rights to sell brand-name medicines for 12 or 13 years. After that, cheaper copycats can hit the market. Celgene and a growing number of other pharmaceutical giants are taking advantage of an array of loopholes to extend the exclusivity period, keeping less expensive alternatives away from needy patients like Kelsey.

Revlimid is the quintessential example of the way in which a pharmaceutical company can use a variety of tactics to extend their monopoly and then exploit that monopoly to increase revenues, said Ameet Sarpatwari, a Harvard Medical School instructor.

The expiration date for the main Revlimid patent will be 2019. But Celgenes business tactics, also used by other drugmakers, could allow the company to put off unrestricted competition from generics until 2026. That would cost Americans an extra $45 billion just for Revlimid, according to I-MAK, a consumer advocate.

Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is so fed up with a range of different drugmakers machinations he delivered a sharp rebuke last month: End the shenanigans.

Never-Ending Profits

Drugmakers use obscure rules and intellectual-property law to extend their patents and keep cheaper versions of drugs from patients.

Among the shenanigans: Securing new patents that extend old ones. Keeping brand-name drugs under wraps so generic makers cant copy them. Filing so-called citizen petitions that gum up the FDA approval process for rivals. Negotiating restrictive deals with drug plans that crowd out less expensive drugs.

New Patents on Old Drugs: Celgene got 61 patents on Revlimid, many granted years after the drug was first approved. They could make Celgene the dominant manufacturer for 20 years.

Patient (and Profit) Safety: Jazz Pharmaceuticals has used an FDA safety program to keep generic-drug makers from being able to move forward with cheaper versions of narcolepsy drug Xyrem, critics said. As of a recent settlement, Jazz will most likely be the exclusive maker until 2023.

Citizen Petitions: The FDA lets the public petition it with concerns about the drug approval or testing process. Drugmakers can file them, too  which ViroPharma did 24 times between 2006 to 2012 for its antibiotic Vancocin, delaying a generic competitor, according to a lawsuit.

Restrictive Deals: Johnson & Johnsons exclusive contracts kept its drug Remicade on pharmacy shelves instead of Pfizers less costly version, according to a lawsuit.

Over the past year, Bloomberg has been looking into the price of pharmaceuticals, cataloging how drugmakers have been able to use a series of tactics to retain profits for years, undermining the deal they made more than three decades ago to allow generics on the market.

Celgene has legitimate safety concerns about generic companies use of its products, spokesman Brian Gill said in a statement. The company is committed to helping patients access Revlimid and has given aid to 75,000 people through its support program, Gill said.

The expectation of more exclusivity fuels investment in drug companies, potentially leading to future breakthroughseven as some patients have trouble paying for the drugs, said Craig Garthwaite, a professor at Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management. Its just a fundamental tradeoff, he said.

Under a 2015 deal with Celgene, one generic company will be allowed to sell generic Revlimid in 2022, although with restrictions on its market share.

Bob Kelsey used to stand 6 feet tall. His blood cancer has so weakened his spine that his back is bent at a sharp angle. Hes unable to completely lift his head. At last measurement, he was 5-foot-3.

Hes gotten so self-conscious about how he looks, he shied away from photos at his daughters wedding, according to his wife, Tammie.

But if his photo could help people afford medications, he would pose for a thousand pictures, Tammie Kelsey said.

Bob Kelsey said Celgene is providing him with free doses until a charity comes through for him. But even if he does get the grant, hes worried the money wont last a year and hell have to reapply elsewhere.

Revlimid is $662 a capsule, and it can come to $180,000 a year. Celgene spent $800 million on research and development for all its products over the 14 years it prepared Revlimid for sale, regulatory filings show. The drug exceeded $1 billion in annual sales in 2008, its third full year on the market, and last year had sales of $6.97 billion.

Today, a years worth of 10-milligram Revlimid doses costs about $240 to produce, according to a University of Liverpool researcher. Under Kelseys Medicare plan, his annual out-of-pocket cost would be more than $10,000, too steep for him to pay.

I want to be here to see my grandchildren, he said.

Health Hostage

Jennifer Drake, 38, also could face a prohibitive price tag for her narcolepsy treatment.

For most of her life, Drake was tired all the time. Even 18 hours of sleep wasnt enough. It got so bad she quit her job as a computer-database manager in 2015. Her mother took over care of her teenage daughter.

This spring, a doctor diagnosed her with severe narcolepsy and she started on Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plcs Xyrem. It changed her life. She said she needs only six hours of sleep and shes ready to return to working full-time.

But Xyrem costs Drake more than $12,000 a month. Medicaid covers almost all of this, but if Drake started working she would have to switch to private insurance  with no way to tell how much it would cover, she said.

I feel like Im being held hostage by Jazz, Drake said. I dont understand how its legal for them to monopolize the product like that. Its so unfair.

Critics said Jazz has blocked generics makers using an FDA program meant to ensure drug safety. Xyrem is a chemical variant of the so-called date-rape drug GHB.

Jazz not only patented the drug, it patented its Xyrem safety program, also called REMS for Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies. By law, generics makers have to follow the same protocol that the branded companies use. A patent throws up barriers to compliance.

FTC Interest

The Federal Trade Commission may be considering whether Jazz deliberately thwarted competition, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Jazz spokeswoman Kristin Rogers said innovative research and development has led to patents on multiple inventions, including those pertaining to the Xyrem distribution system. Because some of that intellectual property is in litigation, the company declined to comment on it, but said, We believe that all of our patents were properly issued by the patent office and should be upheld.

As for the price of the drug, Rogers said it reflects many things, ranging from the costs associated with the REMS program, its investment in new drugs and support for patients.

Other Drug Firms

Other drug companies are trying similar REMS stratagems. Celgene is being sued by Mylan NV, one of the worlds biggest generic drugmakers, over its refusal to share samples of Revlimid, even after the FDA deemed Mylans safety program adequate.

Celgene denies Mylans allegations. The company has sold samples of Revlimid and related products several times to generic manufacturers for testing, Gill said. The Federal Trade Commission closed an investigation into Celgenes REMS programs this year without taking action, he said.

Citizen petitions are another way brand-name drug companies delay approval of competitors products. The petitions were designed to elicit public concerns about the drugs. The FDA is required to divert resources to address each one.

From 2011 to 2015, brand-name drugmakers filed 108 citizen petitions during the approval process for cheaper versions, and 91 percent were denied, according to a paper by Rutgers University Law Professor Michael Carrier.

The petitions can play a crucial role in delaying generic entry, he wrote.

The introduction of cheaper generics can be delayed even after a brand-name patent has been invalidated in court.

In October, a federal judge shot down Allergan Plcs patents on its dry-eye drug Restasis. According to the ruling, the patents were based on obvious knowledge and were an attempt to get a second wave of patent protection.

But a generic version of Restasis still doesnt exist. One reason: Allergan has filed three citizen petitions arguing that the current framework for approving drugs doesnt apply. The first two petitions have been denied. The FDA is still reviewing the third.

An Allergan spokesman said the drugmaker has raised significant concerns in an effort to ensure the agencys approval process is fully informed and scientifically sound.

In an indication of just how far drugmakers will go to hang on to exclusive rights, Allergan transferred its Restasis patents in September to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe near Buffalo, New York, to avoid a legal challenge. The move didnt stop a judge from invalidating the patents on scientific grounds. Allergan said it would appeal.

Critics focus shouldnt be on Allergan or the Mohawk tribe, but on a system in which some patents can be invalidated and the negative impact on life-science innovation, Mark Marmur, an Allergan spokesman, said in an email.

Extend Exclusives

Drug companies also use new patents to extend their exclusivity. Nearly three-fourths of drugs associated with new patents were for medicines already on the market, according to Robin Feldman of the University of California Hastings College of the Law. She calls it a pervasive problem endemic to the pharmaceutical industry.

Humira, which brings in two-thirds of AbbVie Inc.s revenue, also has more than 100 patents. Many of them were issued starting five years ago, when makers of copycat drugs started circling. Humira, a treatment for inflammation, is the best-selling drug in the world, with annual sales of $16 billion in 2016, expected to approach $21 billion by 2020, AbbVie said.

Even when rival products jump through all the proverbial hoops for regulatory approval, brand-name manufacturers can still make it hard for them to get to patients.

Johnson & Johnsons top seller, arthritis drug Remicade, has more than 100 patents. Last year, Remicade had $7 billion in sales.

Pfizer, which introduced a biosimilar version of Remicade last year, is suing J&J in federal court. J&J signs exclusive drug contracts that bundle other J&J products with medicine such as Remicade, leaving buyers no choice but to shut out Pfizers cheaper version, the lawsuit said.

In a statement, J&J said the competition is working and driving deeper discounts on Remicade. In a legal filing, it blames Pfizers sales woes on its unwillingness to compete with its own bundled discounts.

Discounting and rebates have been an important part of the industry for a while, said Scott Hemphill, a New York University law professor. Its an open question whether courts end up drawing the line and saying, Look, you can go this far and no farther.'

Federal lawmakers have taken notice of drugmakers shenanigans, but legislation has consistently taken a back seat to other issues in Congress.

So Bob Kelsey waits, dealing with blood cancer while managing the stress of not knowing if a charity can get him Revlimid in the new year.

Drug-company owners are making millions on the backs of sick people, he said.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Legislation Education Universities Drugs
Life expectancy among Americans has fallen for the second year in a row as the opioid crisis continues to drive up overall death rates in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

A total of 63,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016, up 21 percent from 2015, according to the CDC report. Opioid-related overdoses surged 28 percent, killing 42,249 people, mostly in the 25-to-54 age group.

The escalating growth of opioid deaths is downright frightening  and its getting worse, John Auerbach, chief executive officer of the public health advocacy group Trust for Americas Health, said in a statement.

The increase largely stemmed from the continued escalation of deaths from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, which jumped to 19,410 in 2016 from 9,580 in 2015 and 5,540 in 2014, according to a TFAH analysis of the report.

Heroin, an illegal opioid, accounted for around 15,500 deaths, and prescription painkillers were involved in about 14,500, TFAH reported.

These are not simply numbers  these are actual lives, said Benjamin F. Miller, chief policy officer of Well Being Trust, a non-profit foundation focused on mental health issues. Seeing the loss of life at this dramatic rate calls for more immediate action.

President Donald Trump in October declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency, which senior administration officials said would redirect federal resources and loosen regulations to combat abuse of the drugs. However, he stopped short of declaring a national emergency, a move he had promised months before and which would have freed up more federal money.

The surge in overdose deaths has depressed recent gains in U.S. life expectancy, which fell to an average age of 78.6, down 0.1 year from 2015 and marking the first two-year drop since 1962-1963.

Overdose rates rose in 40 states and in Washington, D.C., between 2015 and 2016, with 17 states seeing increases of 25 percent or more, according to the TFAH analysis.

Every community has been impacted by this crisis, Auerbach said, adding that the government was not making the investments needed to turn the tide.

As the opioid epidemic has worsened, many state attorneys general have sued makers of these drugs as they investigate whether manufacturers and distributors engaged in unlawful marketing behavior.

(Reporting by Caroline Humer in New York and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Jonathan Oatis)

Topics Drugs
In the year that President Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris accord and downplayed global warming as a security threat, the U.S. received a harsh reminder of the perils of the rise in the planets temperature: a destructive rash of hurricanes, fires and floods.

The country recorded 15 weather events costing $1 billion or more each through early October, one short of the record 16 in 2011, according to the federal governments National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina. And the tally doesnt include the recent wildfires in southern California.

In many cases, weather broke records. In others, it was just downright odd, like the February warm spell that sent temperatures to a record 72 Fahrenheit (22 Celsius) in Burlington, Vermont, and spawned a tornado in Massachusetts.

When all is said and done, this year is going to be one of the worst years on record for U.S. damages, said Antonio Busalacchi, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Among the most devastating events were hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and wildfires in northern California. The killer storms caused economic losses of more than $210 billion in the U.S. and across the Caribbean, and about $100 billion in insured damages, according to Mark Bove, a senior research scientist with Munich Reinsurance America in Princeton, New Jersey.

The list goes on  ruinous hail in Colorado and Minnesota, tornado outbreaks across the Midwest and South, flooding that damaged a massive dam in California and triggered evacuations downstream.

Weather Patterns

Many of the events can be explained by historical weather patterns. The most calamitous, though, showed signs of a warming climate, including Hurricane Harvey, which dropped as much as 60 inches rain as it meandered around the Texas coast after coming ashore as the first of three Category 4 storms to strike the U.S. this year.

Warming worsened Harveys impacts by boosting moisture in the atmosphere and weakening high-altitude winds that would normally push such a system along, according to Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Harvey marked the third-straight year of major flooding in Houston.

In Texas and elsewhere, there are certainly indications that these extreme rainfall events are occurring more frequently, said Greg Carbin, branch chief at the U.S. Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

Those who are skeptical that climate change is a phenomenon, or that human activity is to blame, contend that dramatic weather this year was happenstance or part of larger, regular meteorological swings. Trump, who has in the past dismissed the concept of man-made climate change as a hoax, announced in June that the U.S. would leave the Paris climate accord, saying it favors other nations at the expense of American workers.

Warming Climate

The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that Earths climate is warming and that greenhouse gases are the prime reason. The American Meteorological Society linked changing climate and severe weather this month in a report that included contributions from researchers at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

When you see an extreme event that is breaking all records, it is more likely to have the fingerprints of human-induced climate change, said Brenda Ekwurzel, senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Earlier this year, rain and snow that brought life to California hills parched by six years of drought foretold dangerous times. The moisture produced a bumper crop of grass and brush that then dried out, leaving ample fuel for wind-driven flames that burned large swaths of Napa and Sonoma counties in October and Santa Barbara and Ventura counties this month.

Prolonged drought and warming temperatures in California are not just extending the states wildfire season, they are increasing the evaporation rate of water, Bove said. This means that extreme wildfire conditions will return to California after a rain event more quickly today than in the past.

At least 40 people died in the fires, some of which were among the top 20 most destructive in state history, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Thomas fire, now almost contained, set a record as the largest ever in the state.

While other countries suffered intense and unprecedented weather in 2017, the range and number of incidents across America put it in its own league, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist at at Weather Underground in Boulder, Colorado. The U.S. took a disproportionate hit.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics California Catastrophe USA Wildfire Climate Change Colorado
An Oklahoma school and its board of directors are being sued on behalf of 15 girls who say they were molested by a teachers aide.

The federal lawsuit filed last week in Oklahoma City seeks unspecified damages from the Perry school district and the school board for allegedly failing to protect the elementary students from molestation by 86-year-old Arnold Cowen.

No attorney for the school or board is listed in court documents.

Cowen has pleaded not guilty to 19 felony charges of committing lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16, one count of making an indecent proposal and one count of possessing child pornography.

Former principal Kenda Miller and former teacher Jeffrey Sullins face misdemeanor charges of failing to report child abuse.

Sullins has pleaded not guilty while Miller has asked that the charge be dismissed.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Education Oklahoma
Three people are dead and two others injured after a vehicle collided with a wild hog in Southwest Texas.

The accident happened on a rural road near Uvalde, about 110 miles southwest of San Antonio.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Sgt. Conrad Hein said that a preliminary investigation indicates a Ford Expedition collided with the hog, causing the vehicle to swerve into oncoming traffic and hit a Mercedes SUV head-on.

The Expeditions driver, 51-year-old Ruby Garza, and the driver of the Mercedes, 27-year-old Antonio Cordova, were pronounced dead at the scene.

One of the passengers in the Ford, 51-year-old Julia Vasquez, later died at an area hospital.

Hein had no immediate information on the names and conditions of the Expeditions two other passengers.

Topics Texas
Floridas ongoing battle with assignment of benefits (AOB) claims abuse was not a new topic in 2017, but it was certainly one of the hottest ones for Southeast readers.

From threats of insurer ratings downgrades caused by the escalation in litigated water loss claims accompanied by an AOB, to the push for legislative reform to the states one-way attorney fee statute that the industry says has fueled the statewide abuse, there was no shortage of stories on the topic this year.

The [AOB) situation in Florida is unlike any other in the United States, Ohio-based Demotech, which rates more than 50 Florida insurers, said in February. It announced at the time it had changed its ratings criteria for insurers in Florida because of what it called an uncertain operating environment in the state.

The ratings agency also announced several insurers could see ratings downgrades if they did not beef up their reserves for future claims.

However, after a number of insurers heeded Demotechs warning, the company announced in March it would hold off on large-scale ratings downgrades. The company said the Florida carriers it rates added $355 million in additional reserves and policyholder surplus to strengthen their standing and avoid a ratings downgrade.

The industry prodded and pleaded with the Florida Legislature during the 2017 legislative session to enact meaningful AOB reform. Most in the industry backed a bill that would have closed a loophole in the states one-way attorney fee statute that is blamed for encouraging the abuse among trial lawyers and unscrupulous contractors or water remediation firms. But the bill failed to get a hearing in the Florida Senate.

Another bill that chipped away at incentives for third parties to sue insurance companies was passed by the Florida House of Representatives, but it wasnt enough in the end as Florida lawmakers failed to enact reforms for the fifth year in a row.

Once it was clear legislative reform was not in the cards this year, insurers and Florida regulators began taking other steps to combat abuse.

We will continue to see homeowners insurance companies raise their rates for our consumers in a best-case scenario, and in a worst case scenario just simply stop offering their products in certain regions of the state, Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier told the Florida Cabinet in June.

The industry was on high alert for AOB abuse in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. Florida regulators, carriers, industry trade groups and lawmakers all echoed the same advice to policyholders: contact your agent or insurer and file claims, and avoid signing anything that gives away your insurance policy rights.

Were working to protect Floridians from AOB scams, and the more Floridians know and are informed, the better we can protect them, said Florida Chamber of Commerces Vice President of Public Affairs Edie Ousley.

With the 2018 Florida legislative session set to begin on Jan. 9, the industry has again placed any hope of AOB reform on the shoulders of Florida lawmakers. Whether lawmakers respond is yet to be seen, but the industry is not optimistic that the primary driver of the abuse  the one-way attorney fee statute  will see changes.

The bottom line is attorney fees are the number one issue. Until we fight that attorney fee battle, the process in place will just continue to be taken advantage of, said Logan McFaddin regional manager for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI).

Top Florida AOB Stories of 2017:

Related:

Topics Carriers Florida Legislation
It was another busy year in the Southeast with storms, workers comp, and carrier insolvencies dominating the headlines. Heres a look back at some of the stories that attracted the most readers in 2017.

Hurricane Irma

The first major hurricane to hit Florida in 11 years, Irma was a big story for the Southeast in 2017. From damage predictions to industry preparation and recovery, it is not a storm that will soon be forgotten.

Workers Compensation

The insurance industrys hopes for a fix to decisions that upended the Florida workers compensation system were dashed this year, just as they were for assignment of benefits reform. The Florida Legislature failed to pass legislation in 2017 addressing 2016 decisions by the Florida Supreme Court that sent the states workers comp system into disarray and led to a rate increase of 14.5 percent.

Later in the year, workers compensation carrier Guarantee Insurance was placed in receivership by state regulators.

Company Failures, Acquisitions

In addition to the folding of Guarantee Insurance, two other companies domiciled in Florida reached the end of the line this year. Readers flocked to stories about Patriot National shuttering its subsidiary companies and announcing its reorganization. The demise of domestic homeowners insurer Sawgrass Mutual and an acquisition of a Southeast agency by Marsh & McLennan were also hot topics.

Flood, Fraud & Medical Marijuana

Fraud is always a favorite topic of Insurance Journal readers, and this year was no exception. The Florida flood market and medical marijuana also kept captivated our insurance industry audience.

Other Southeast News

While Florida stories dominated the popular Southeast headlines this year, other state insurance issues were also important to readers.

Related:

Topics Carriers Florida Workers' Compensation Hurricane Cannabis Market
The estate of a woman has filed a $3.6 million lawsuit against Backpage.com and the owners of the Portland, Ore., hotel where she was killed by a man shed met for sex.

The suit says 25-year-old Ashley Benson had been trafficked by an abusive pimp.

It says she was killed in 2014 by Tae Bum Yoon, who found her through the classifieds website and lured her to a DoubleTree by Hilton hotel.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that Yoon was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter.

The lawsuit claims Backpage.com and the hotel failed to establish and use practices to protect victims of sex trafficking.

Representatives for Hilton and Backpage didnt immediately return requests for comment. The website has long been criticized but says it doesnt have control over third-party content.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Oregon
Sir Richard Branson is the flamboyant entrepreneur behind the Virgin brand, which began with Virgin Records in 1972. The tycoon is the founder and chair of the Virgin Group, which employs over 60,000 people in 35 countries through its 40-plus companies.

Branson's companies include or have included airlines, wireless communications, radio stations, hotels, health clubs, financial services businesses, the nightclub Heaven, renewable technologies, a Formula One team, and even a space tourism company. As of June 2022, the 71-year old Branson's net worth stood at an estimated $4 billion, according to Forbes.

Here is a brief look at how the fun-loving Branson grew his Virgin mega-brand and became one of the wealthiest and most successful people in the world.

Key Takeaways Sir Richard Branson is a 71-year old entrepreneur whose net worth stands at an estimated $4 billion.

Branson founded his first magazine at 16 and owns or has owned airlines, record labels, radio stations, hotels, and many other companies.

Highlights include airline Virgin Atlantic, and Virgin Records, the label that was home to the Rolling Stones, the Sex Pistols, and others.

In 2001, his company teamed with Sprint to launch Virgin Mobile.

The 1960s

Richard Branson started at age 16 with his magazine, called Student, which interviewed celebrities and sold almost $8,000 worth of advertising for the first issue. The teenager dropped out of school to promote his magazine. In 1969, he started a mail-order record business that used the magazine office as an operating base. Branson and his team of 20 employees called the new business Virgin.

The 1970s

In 1970, Branson launched Virgin Mail Order Records. After a rocky start, he grew to own 14 record stores by 1972. He used the profits from his record store chain to found music label Virgin Records in 1972, and he earned his first million dollars in 1973 when Virgin recording artist Mike Oldfield sold over 5 million copies of his record, "Tubular Bells."

Part of Branson's early success at Virgin Records came as a result of his willingness to sign the Sex Pistols and other controversial artists. Other popular Virgin acts included The Rolling Stones and Ozzy Osbourne. By the end of the decade, Virgin Music had become one of the top six record companies in the world, with branches in Germany, France, and Japan.

In 1979, Branson purchased Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands for $180,000.

The 1980s

Virgin Books and Virgin Video were born in 1981. Within two years, Branson's business empire included more than 50 different companies with combined sales of more than $17 million.

In 1984, Branson paired with lawyer Randolph Fields to start one of his most famous companies yet, Virgin Atlantic. The airline took off (pardon the pun) due to its fine customer service and innovative in-flight comforts, such as free ice cream, seat-back video screens, and in-flight massages.

The 1990s

In 1992, Branson reluctantly sold Virgin Records for $1 billion in order to keep Virgin Atlantic afloat. These were tumultuous years for Virgin Atlantic. Terrorist attacks kept people from flying, and larger rival British Airways engaged in what Branson called "a hostile campaign designed to cause permanent damage to Virgin."

Branson successfully sued British Airways for libel, with a judge ruling in 1993 that British Airways pay Branson and Virgin $945,000 in damages, plus legal fees estimated at around $3 million, and deliver an apology. In 1997, Branson started Virgin Trains.

He became Sir Richard Branson in 2000, and Time magazine named him as one of the top 100 most influential people in the world in 2007.

The 2000s

In 2001, Virgin Group launched Virgin Mobile as a joint venture with Sprint. In 2020, Sprint shutdown Virgin Mobile and transferred users to Boost Mobile.

In September 2004, Branson turned his eyes to the sky again and joined forces with Burt Rutan, an American aeronautical engineer, to launch Virgin Galactic, with licensed spacecraft that would take tourists to space. Branson had a vision of providing cheap space tourism. An unfortunate series of events, including a crash in 2014, rerouted the date of the first commercial space flights. In 2021, they had their first successful, fully-crewed spaceflight. As of 2022, Branson had signed up 800 clients.

601 Sir Richard Branson's current rank on Forbes' billionaire list.

Branson actually has four space-focused companies now. In addition to Virgin Galactic, Virgin also operates Virgin Orbit for cargo, VOX for government missions, and the Spaceship Company, which as the name implies, builds spaceships.

Branson launched social activist projects that included Virgin Unite to combat HIV and AIDS, and the Branson Center of Entrepreneurship to teach entrepreneurial skills in developing countries.

How High Did Richard Branson Go? Richard Branson reached the edge of space in his Virgin Galactic rocket plane in July 2021. The plane, known as Unity, reached a height of 53.5 miles, or 282,480 feet.



How Much Is Richard Branson Worth? Richard Branson has a net worth of $4 billion, according to Forbes. However, according to Bloomberg, Branson has a net worth of $5.65 billion.



How Is Richard Branson a Billionaire? Most of Richard Bransons wealth comes from his Virgin Group, which is an investment company that includes more than 40 businesses. Specifically, much of his wealth is tied to Virgin Enterpriseshis brand licensing companyand his 75% stake in the satellite company Virgin Orbit.



The Bottom Line

Branson attributes his success to luck, speed, and hard work that included nights and weekends. His books and biographies cite his daredevil ideas, originality, willingness to buck norms, and persistence. Branson never allowed inexperience to discourage him from being a dynamic and daring entrepreneur. In fact, he named his company Virgin because he and his employees were all new to the business.

His extraordinary service to his employees and clients rated him as the United Kingdom's celebrity dream boss in an opinion poll by Cancer Research U.K. His philanthropy earned him accolades as the most admired business owner over the past five decades in The Sunday Times in 2014.
In Person Calling for Justice: The Prison Death of an NLD Leader

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (left) and U Tin Shwe (right) after the formation of the National League for Democracy. Photo courtesy of U Tin Shwe's family.

Monywa U Tin Shwe was born on April 17, 1930, in Monywa, central Myanmar. From 1952 to 1960 he was actively involved in the student union movements at the universities in Yangon and Mandalay. Later, he earned a living as an author and lawyer. At the height of the nationwide pro-democracy uprising in 1988 he served as chairman of the general strike committee in Yangons Insein Township. He was one of the founders of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and served on its central committee. His primary role with the party was as division organizer in Mandalay. When he died in June 1997, he was survived by three sons and his wife, Daw Myat Thu.

The Irrawaddy spoke with one of his sons, Kaung Myat Shwe, about his fathers arrest and death.

Kyaw Zwa Moe: It has been 20 years since Saya Monywa U Tin Shwe passed away. It is sad that he was in solitary confinement in Insein Prison when he died on June 8, 1997. I heard he fell while he was meditating and then lost consciousness. Then he was sent to the prison hospital and died later. Could you tell me about that day?

Kaung Myat Shwe: We only know what the military intelligence [MI, officially the Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence] told us, and we dont know what actually happened that day. We were told that he was brought out of prison and sent to Yangon General Hospital. But when he arrived at the OPD [Outpatient Department] of Yangon Hospital he was already dead. We dont know if he had already died in prison or on the way to hospital. But apparently the government was desperate to convince us that he was still alive when he arrived at the OPD and that he died only after he arrived at the hospital. I know this because the doctor on duty at the hospital OPD that time was Dr. Moh Moh San. I heard that she told the [prison and intelligence officials] that the OPD could only accept patients who are alive, but it was a dead body and must be sent to the mortuary. Then she had a bitter argument with MI and prison officials. Then MI officials went to see the medical superintendent who came down and ordered the doctor to accept registration.

Finally, my father was registered as a live patient at the hospital OPD. And we were told that he died while he was sent from OPD to Ward 1-2 around 1:30 p.m. We heard that he arrived at the OPD around 12:55 p.m. Then two prison officials came in plain clothes to our home around 4 p.m. that day. They told us that my father passed away at noon. My mother didnt expect that because she just visited him two days ago on June 6. So she asked them why, but then the two left our house saying that we were shouting at them. So my mother, one of our neighbors, Dr. Aung Thu, and I went to the hospital in Dr. Aung Thus car. We arrived at the mortuary and we said we were the family members of U Tin Shwe and we would like to see his body. But they didnt let us in.

KZM: Who stopped you?

KMS: The mortuary staff didnt know us. I think they were the MI officials waiting for us there. But they all were in plain clothes. They said they had no authority to show us his body. And they also asked Dr. Aung Thu who he was and why he came with us.

KZM: So, you were not allowed to see the body that day?

KMS: Yes, we were not allowed to see the body that day, and we were not allowed as well when I went with my elder brother the next day.

KZM: How did the MI and prison officials arrange for the funeral?

KMS: We didnt know what to do after we came back from the hospital. So I went to see an MI captain who was assigned to watch over my father since he was placed in solitary confinement. The captain reported to his senior commanding officer, Captain Yan Naing Soe, or maybe Yan Naing Oo. Then he took me to Insein Prison and let me talk to prison officials about my fathers funeral. I was asked to do two things. I had to write the obituary notice for my father there.

KMZ: In the office of the prison governor?

KMS: Yes. And our family was asked to sign a document to guarantee that political disturbances will not happen at the funeral. I had to sign it on my familys behalf. They asked us to make sure nobody made trouble at the funeral.

KZM: Did they place any restrictions on the wording of the obituary? Were the restrictions applied by both MI and prison officials?

KMS: Mainly the prison officials spoke to us. MI Captain Soe Maung Maung and the prison governor were drinking on the other side of the office. They were in the same room with us as I was talking to other prison officials.

KZM: So they were watching you. So what kind of obituary were you asked to write?

KMS: Mainly they didnt allow me to mention the NLD in the obituary. And they didnt allow me to mention that he died in prison. I was only allowed to mention his profession, lawyer, and when he died.

KZM: And his age, 67.

KMS: Yes, his age and the names of his parents and family members. I was asked to write a simple obituary.

KMZ: So they asked you to write the obituary in front of them. But what about sending the obituary to the newspaper to publish it?

KMS: They gave me a copy of it, and I took it to the newspaper. Another copy kept by the MI and the prison officials had already been sent to the newspaper. And [newspaper staff] checked the two copies to see if they matched before approving it for publication. They did it for fear that I would have made some changes to the obituary.

KZM: Speaking of his health, he survived seven years in prison. That is a long time. He could endure it. What disease was he suffering from? What was the cause of his death?

KMS: He died of atherosclerosis, which blocked his arteries. This was the cause of his death. But before that he was not allowed to go out of his cell very much during the seven years. He was only allowed to go out for an hour a day. But he did exercise regularly when he was in the cell. He took good care of his health. But in November 1995, 45 political prisoners were interrogated for allegedly publishing journals and newspapers and of sending letters to the U.N. And they were placed in solitary confinement, and my father was one of them.

KZM: So he was alone in the cell?

KMS: Yes, he was alone. He was put in cell 6. It has an abandoned basement and groundwater permeated it. So his cell had water underneath, and coupled with Yangons cold season.

KZM: Those cells were used for punishment.

KMS: Yes, they were. Because that cell had water underneath, it was too cold for a 60-year-old man. And he had access to neither blanket nor bed. This negatively affected his health, and his health started to deteriorate.

KMZ: Was he already suffering from health problems when he was arrested?

KMS: He was fine and had no health problems at the time of arrest.

KZM: He was arrested in November 1990 and put behind bars in 1991 and stayed in prison until 1997. So when did you find out about his heart condition?

KMS: We found out about it in April 1997. He was hospitalized on April 5 because of poor health.

KZM: Was it the prison hospital?

KMS: Yes, it was the prison hospital. He was discharged a few days later. Then we went to visit him and learned about his health condition.

KZM: What did you arrange for his health then? He was ill and around 67 years old.

KMS: He told us about the condition of the prison hospital. He said he wanted to receive medical treatment at an outside hospital because there was nothing [medicine or medical equipment] at the prison hospital. So we wrote a request letter to General Khin Nyunt on April 21. We asked him to allow my father to receive medical care at a well-equipped hospital in Yangon. There was no reply. We sent the request in April and he died two months later in June.

KZM: As far as I know, NLD Chairman U Aung Shwe also sent a letter to Senior General Than Shwe, the chairman of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) on April 23, 1997. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has written about it in an article. U Aung Shwes letter reads: This is to inform that authorities will be responsible if U Tin Shwe dies as a result of having no access to necessary medicines and foods and hospitalization as a patient. This is the letter written by the NLD for one of its leaders. You said you visited your father two days before his death. So what did he say during that visit and before that?

KMS: The news of his deteriorating health had spread beyond the prison. Major General Tun Kyi had brotherly relations with him because both of them were Monywa natives.

KZM: He was a member of SLORC, wasnt he?

KMS: Yes, he was. So Maj-Gen Tun Kyi asked after my father through his brother-in-law. So we asked if he could help him receive medical care. He replied that it was a political case and all political cases were handled by General Khin Nyunt and he could not help us. He said he was close to General Maung Aye, but even if he asked him he would not be able to help.

KZM: Gen Maung Aye was second in rank [after Snr-Gen Than Shwe] at SLORC.

KMS: Yes. Even the second top brass could not intervene, and he said he was sorry that he couldnt help.

KZM: So he meant that you had to submit a request to Gen Khin Nyunt.

KMS: He said all the decisions about political issues were made by Gen Khin Nyunt and other [SLORC] members; even the vice chairman could not step in.

KZM: Did your father know about the request letter?

KMS: At first he had some expectations. He was in the prison hospital in May, almost the whole month. Later, he told us that our efforts would be in vain. He said conditions at the prison hospital were not very good. There were two large rooms on the upper floor of the prison hospital. And people from one room were cleared out, and he was put alone in that room. He was placed there alone so that he could talk to no one. And there was no doctor to do daily checkups on him. Since he was sent to the prison hospital, a fellow inmate who was assigned to work in the prison hospital nursed him.

KZM: So an inmate nursed him and there was no nurse and medic?

KMS: There was none. He said if authorities were concerned about security even while he was in the prison compound, they would surely not allow him to go to an outside hospital. They would not let him go outside even though he would not be able to do anything considering his age and his health condition. So he told us not to try anymore because it was useless.

KMZ: Could you tell me about how he was arrested? He participated in the NLD relentlessly. He was one of the central committee members nominated by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. He also took charge of the NLD Mandalay chapter. How was he arrested? I heard that police declared him a fugitive.

KMS: After the Gandhi Meeting [the meeting of NLD representatives elected in the 1990 poll, whose results SLORC rejected], the 5/90 meeting of the central committee was held on August 30-31 in 1990 in Yangon. Many NLD leaders were arrested on the night of Nov. 30 such as Uncle U Kyi Maung, Uncle U Thein Tan of Mandalay and Uncle U Ohn Kyaing. On the morning of Nov. 30, my eldest brother drove my father to the central committee meeting. At the head office, my father told my brother that circumstances were not good and that he would not come back home in the evening and that he would contact us later and asked us not to do anything until he contacted us. So when [MI] came to our house, they didnt find my father. They interrogated us from [midnight] to 5 a.m. Around 5 a.m, they asked my mother to tell them five houses where she thought my father was likely to go to. So my mother named five places where she thought my father was unlikely to go and some good friends who would not be upset by being woken up early in the morning.

When they came to search for my father, I was detained at Insein Prison for participating in a protest at my university. And police from the Special Branch came and met me at the prison. They asked me where my father usually stayed when he came to Yangon.

KZM: They came to dig up information.

KMS: They asked me if I knew the five houses my mother had told them about. Maybe because of luck, my father was at one of the five houses that my mother had named.

KZM: So he was arrested, wasnt he?

KMS: No, he wasnt. They were late. My father really was at one of the houses. We found out later. But my mother thought that he was at another house. Luckily, he escaped. Then he went to Mandalay from Yangon. There, he hid in monasteries such as Ma Soe Yein and Mya Taung with the help of monks. He then went into hiding from places to places. Finally, he went to the house of my mothers brother. He hid there once in 1989. When [the military] arrested Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in 1989, they also attempted to arrest him in Mandalay. Luckily, he escaped that time too.

KZM: When did the military regime issue the warrant for him? How?

KMS: I think the warrant was issued for him on Nov. 28, 1990. The warrant was published along with his photo on the newspaper. He saw the newspaper on Nov. 29. He thought he had been on the run for quite a while and he was concerned that the people who were helping him would get into trouble if he was arrested. And since he was a lawyer, he decided to face SLORC in accordance with the law. So the day after he got the newspaper, he went to the Mandalay Region SLORC Office and handed himself in.

That evening an MI official came to the house of my mothers brother, and he said they would bring my father to Yangon by plane and that we would have to pay for the plane ticket.

KZM: So it was not paid by the government?

KMS: Yes. He said we had to pay for the plane ticket. He came at noon and my aunty was alone at the house. She said there was nobody else and she had no money. So she told him to come back in the evening for the money. But he didnt come back.

KZM: So one has to pay out of his own pocket to be arrested.

KMS: It can be said so. Maybe they wanted to inform us that my father was being brought to Yangon. They might have had other intentions.

KZM: Was he tortured during interrogation?

KMS: He didnt say. It was quite difficult to talk freely with him when we visited him at the prison. Whenever we visited him, there was a person sitting next to us who wrote down everything we said. So we could talk about nothing except family matters.

KZM: He was a lawyer and you said he wanted to plead for himself. Was he allowed to do so?

KMS: He wasnt. The military tribunal sentenced him in the absence of the family. He was charged in two cases. On August 8, 1990, students in Mandalay offered rice to mark the anniversary of the 1988 uprising. And soldiers and police beat the students who offered rice. And monks and students were injured in the beatings. The Mandalay Region NLD issued a statement about it, and monks subsequently staged a protest against the military regime. So the military accused the Mandalay Region NLD of causing the monks to protest and my father was sentenced to eight years in prison for this. Another thing is that after the Gandhi Hall meeting the NLD formed three teams, and each team submitted a list of recommendations about how the NLD should move forward. My father, together with other members, submitted recommendations. And he was given ten years in prison for this. Uncle U Kyi Maung was also imprisoned in this case.

KZM: The MI even placed restrictions on the obituary notice in the newspaper. What else did they restrict?

KMS: MI officials said that Buddhist rituals for the funeral would be conducted at Yangon General Hospital, and then the body would be sent to Yayway Cemetery [in North Okkalapa Township] for the funeral. We wanted to entomb him, but prison authorities wanted to cremate him. They seemingly wanted him to disappear into ashes. So I had an argument with him.

KZM: Who did you talk to?

KMS: With the prison governor. He recommended cremating my father as if he were doing so for our own benefit. But I insisted on entombing, saying that one of my brothers was abroad and there must be a place for him to pay respects to his father when he came back. Originally, they said that the Buddhist rituals would be conducted at Yangon General Hospital. But at about 8 or 9 a.m. that morning, an MI official came and said that the ritual would not be conducted at the hospital but that a hall would be arranged at Yayway Cemetery for it instead. Those who didnt know about it went to Yangon Hospital. Some colleagues of my father and his junior lawyers arranged two buses and waited at Yangon Hospital. Then they came to Yayway Cemetery from there. And we had an argument with authorities again when they barred the funeral procession from going to the tomb from the rest house after the Buddhist rituals were completed. They only allowed the family members to go and barred the others.

KZM: So were there NLD members there?

KMS: Yes, nearly 1,000 NLD members, lawyers, writers and politicians came to his funeral.

KZM: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was not under house arrest at the time. Did she come to the funeral?

KMS: She couldnt. She fell down a staircase at her house before my father died. Her leg was injured, so she couldnt go outside.

KZM: What about other leaders?

KMS: They came. Uncle U Tin Oo and other CEC [Central Executive Committee] members came. MI officials said that only the family members would be allowed to go to the tomb. Then Uncle U Tin Oo told them not to impose restrictions and violate the human rights of the deceased. So everyone in the funeral procession was allowed to go to the place where my father would be entombed. But the authorities played dirty. They ordered all the buses we rented for the funeral to leave. So when the funeral procession arrived back at the rest house all the buses had gone. So, many had to walk to the nearest bus stop in North Okkalapa Township.

KZM: His funeral was held under the eyes of the MI to the end. According to the photos Ive seen, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and your father seemed to be close. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi wrote an article about his death in a Japanese newspaper. Did she contact your family?

KMS: When my father died, Aunty Suu couldnt go outside [because of her injured leg]. So she asked [her aide] Daw Khin Khin Win to go to our house on her behalf to ask about his death. We have held anniversaries of his death almost annually. Sometimes we sent invitations and sometimes we didnt. When Aunty Suu was not under house arrest she always came to the anniversary and met us. At that time it was quite difficult for political activists to gather and they could only gather when there were funerals. They gathered partly in order to show their strength. We held anniversaries of his death to show that we, his family, supported what he had done even after his death, and partly so that political activists could gather at the anniversaries. We tried as much as we could to hold an anniversary every year.

KZM: What restrictions did the MI impose on family members? Usually they imposed stricter restrictions on political prisoners, especially party senior leaders. What restriction did you face?

KMS: They kept an eye on me while I was studying. I experienced things that wouldnt usually happen to normal students. After I matriculated, I went to GTI (Government Technical Institute). At that time my father didnt have a national registration card. He was serving in Mandalay for the NLD, and one of his visits to Yangon coincided with the government issuing national registration cards. So he went to the office and applied for the registration card. But he was not in Yangon when the government issued his card. Later he became a fugitive and was imprisoned, so he had no registration card. So I had to explain this whenever I was to take an exam [students must show a copy of their fathers ID to take exams]. And after I passed GTI, my name was not on the pass list because my father had no national registration card. So I told the GTI authorities that my eldest brother is a doctor, because people can only study medicine when both of their parents are citizens. And I had to submit a lot of other documents, and only after that did they give me the degree certificate.

KZM: NLD chairman U Aung Shwe released a statement in 1997 that said, This is to inform that authorities will be responsible if U Tin Shwe dies as a result of having no access to necessary medicines and foods and hospitalization as a patient. Your father did die. Who do you think is responsible for this?

KMS: Chief of Intelligence General Khin Nyunt. As far as I know, he took charge of all the political issues for SLORC. So Id say he is responsible. And according to a post-mortem test of my father, the cause of his death was atherosclerosis. It was not a difficult disease to cure. If my father had access to medical checkups with ECG his death could have been prevented, we think.

KZM: As the NLD has said, and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has written in her article, he was denied fundamental human rights. It has been 20 years now since his death. Sixty-seven is not too old. As a writer, lawyer and NLD leader, he could still do a lot. Now we have seen a democratic government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. What do you want to say about the injustice your father faced?

KMS: We dont hold a grudge and dont want to take revenge. But our family wants responsibility and accountability for what happened then. We want the true history to be revealed. Especially General Khin Nyunt. He is shifting the blame by saying he was assigned to do so. We want everyone to know that he is responsible. And he should take responsibility.

KZM: What would you like to say to General Khin Nyunt through this interview?

KMS: I want to tell him to be brave and take responsibility for the truth.
Business $10M Land Reclamation Project in Restive Rakhine Readies for Sales

A rendition of the possible future of a land reclamation project in Sittwe, Rakhine State, presented at a press conference in Yangon on Thursday. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  A $10 million land reclamation project by South Koreas BXT International and the Rakhine State government in the state capital Sittwe is now half complete and will be ready for land sales next month, a local cabinet minister said.

The project update came at a press conference in Yangon organized by realtor iMyanmarHouse and joined by Rakhines minister for finance, revenue and economy, Kyaw Aye Thein, and BXT Managing Director Steve Park.

With a population of some 150,000 people, Sittwe has been segregated since 2012 communal riots between ethnic Arakanese and Rohingya that displaced tens of thousands of Muslims. The government ranks the state as the least developed in the country.

The Myanmar Investment Commission approved the reclamation project, which will add 90 acres of seaside land next to the Sittwe jetty, in 2016.

We all know Myanmar has experienced a little turmoil, especially in the Rakhine region, and Im really sad for what has happened there, Mr. Park said in his opening remarks, referring to the latest outbreak of violence in the states far northwest.

Minister Kyaw Aye Thein told journalists that BXT controls a 70 percent stake in the project and that the state holds the rest. The Korean firm is providing 100 percent of the capital and technical support. BXT estimates that the project will cost about $10 million.

We are not asking Rakhine or the central government to give their lands. We make new land with our own money, no investment from government or local people. Mr. Park said. It can bring other investors to this area. Im very confident this project will succeed.

iMyanmarHouse Managing Director Nay Min Thu said the reclaimed land will go for 10,000 kyats ($7.35) per square foot and up. In downtown Sittwe, he said, a square foot can go for anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 kyats.

Mr. Park told The Irrawaddy that some Korean, Chinese and Japanese logistics companies were interested in investing in the project with warehouses, cold storage facilities and fish processing factories. He said some local entrepreneurs were also keen to build hotels, restaurants and shopping centers.

We are still negotiating as the price of land has not been confirmed yet. Maybe at the end of this month we will come up with the prices and will discuss further with interested investors, he said.

The project partners also hope to see the land used for housing.

Kyaw Aye Thein said that before starting on the project BXT carried out environmental and social impact assessments that were then reviewed by both the government and a private engineering company, Kaung Kyaw Sein. In order to avoid future land erosion, BXT will build a retaining wall.

The project was opposed by the Arakanese Patriot Party, which said it learned that BXT was digging up beach sand from elsewhere in Sittwe for the reclamation. Some local residents also objected to the governments plans to seal off creeks and canals, which they use to dock their schooners, in order to prevent bad smells from reaching the project site.

Kyaw Aye Thein said the company bought sand from Pauktaw Township. But he said some locals claiming to work for BXT were digging up beach sand in Sittwe for themselves, fooling people into blaming the company.

Mr. Park said BXT was founded in 1959 and has focused on investing in land, property, infrastructure and gold mines with projects in the Middle East, Korea and the United States. He said the company owns the second largest highway bus terminal in Korea, operating for over three decades and serving more than 12 million people a year.
Burma 4 Convicted Muslims Get Additional Prison Time

A prisoner grips the bars on the window of a prison van as he leaves a court in Yangon in 2012. / The Irrawaddy

MANDALAY  A district court in Mandalay sentenced four Muslim men to between seven and 15 more years in jail for their alleged links to the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), adding to related sentences they received last year.

The four, including well-known local artist U Zaw Min Htwe, were arrested in 2014, accused of working with the KIA to establish an Islamist fighting force.

In 2016, a court in Amarapura Township sentenced U Zaw Min Htwe, U Myint Thein and U A. Ra Mahn to 25 years in prison for incitement, high treason and having contact with an illegal association. At the time, U Khin Maung Shwe was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

On Thursday, facing related charges under the Counter-Terrorism Law, U Zaw Min Htwe, U Myint Thein and U A. Ra Mahn were sentenced to an additional seven years in prison. U Khin Maung Shwe was sentenced to another 15 years.

Weve told the court for years that we had no connection with the KIA and had no intention of forming such an army, said U Zaw Min Htwe. However, weve received several years in prison without concrete evidence of having relations with the KIA or trying of form an army.

We think that we were being accused like this because we are Muslims. We hope the president and the government will turn their faces to people like us who are being accused and excessively punished, he added.

The families of the men said they would appeal the sentences and also ask State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to intervene.

U Zaw Min Htwes lawyer, U Thein Than Oo, said there was no evidence to prove the charges against his client.

Although I have nothing to say about the sentences, I have to point out that there were too many charges against my client, who is only an artist. When he was arrested, no evidence or documents related to the accusations were found, he said.

We have to ask if there are two faces to the law depending on who the accused person is. The assassins of lawyer U Ko Ni were arrested with a gun and charged with a few laws while people like my client are charged with several acts, the lawyer added.

U Ko Ni, a legal adviser to the NLD, was gunned down outside Yangon International Airport on Jan. 29. The gunman, Kyi Lin, was arrested after failing to escape. He and three alleged co-conspirators are on trial for murder.
Burma Army Legal Officers Meet KNPP Leaders to Hear Testimoney on Loikaw Killings

Two members of the KNPP man a checkpoint in the Shadaw area of Loikaw Township. / Kyaw Kha / The Irrawaddy

Three senior legal officers from the Myanmar Army met leaders of the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) at the Regional Operations Command in Loikaw yesterday to hear testimony about the alleged murder of four people, including three Karenni soldiers, by a Myanmar Army unit two weeks ago.

Gen Aung Khine Soe and two other army officers from the Army Tribunal Court in Naypyitaw met a group of four KNPP leaders, said Khu Nyay Reh, one of the senior KNPP officials at the meeting.

I told them that there was no fighting. Our troops did not even resist when they came to raid our base. But they arrested them and murdered them, Khu Nyay Reh said, recounting his testimony.

He said the Mynmar Army officials had promised to present the information to their seniors.

They told us to tell all the truth about the incident, and that they would submit this testimony to their superiors. Then, their leaders would decide what to do with it, Khu Nyay Reh said.

In the wake of the killings, the KNPP asked the government and army to form an investigation commission to look into the incident. The army has denied allegations by the KNPP that the four were executed. In a statement released earlier this week, it said they were killed during a firefight between the two sides following a dispute over illegal timber.

According to a witness, a KNPP official named Maung Lar, the four men were gunned down on the morning of Dec. 20. The army soldiers had told them to line up for a photo, but instead shot them. Maung Lar fled as the soldiers were preparing to shoot. Maung Lar said the Myanmar soldiers were from Infantry Battalion 54, which is under the control of the Regional Operations Command in Loikaw.

The KNPP is currently holding meetings to discuss the formation of the investigation commission and who should participate in it.

The ethnic group signed a ceasefire agreement with the Myanmar government and the military in March 2012, but has not yet inked the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). The KNPP is a member of the UNFC and is involved in negotiations to sign the ceasefire deal.

However, this incident has caused the KNPP to lose trust in the Myanmar Army and it was now reluctant to sign the NCA, said U Shwe Myo Thant, secretary No. 2 of the KNPP.

We discussed the NCA within our party. But we did not get a signal to sign it anytime soon. Our leaders have lost trust in them [the Myanmar Army], and they have not done anything to restore our confidence. Instead, they have just done things to make us lose faith in them. Therefore, it will be more difficult to convince our leaders to sign the NCA, U Shwe Myo Thant said.
Burma Myanmar Drops Charges, Frees TRT Journalists

The TRT crew was released on Friday after additional charges were dropped. / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  Two foreign journalists and two Myanmar nationals who were sentenced to two months in prison for attempting to fly a drone near Myanmars Parliament in Naypyitaw were released on Friday, after police withdrew additional charges.

The fourTurkish state broadcaster TRT World producer Mok Choy Lin from Malaysia, freelance camera operator Lau Hon Meng from Singapore, and their interpreter Ko Aung Naing Soe and driver U Hla Tin from Myanmar were arrested on Oct. 27 and sentenced to two months in prison on Nov. 10 under the 1934 colonial-era Myanmar Aircraft Act for filming with a drone.

At a Dec. 26 court hearing, the plaintiffs, police officer Tun Tun Win and immigration official U Htay Win, withdrew the additional charges under the 2012 Export and Import Law for illegally bringing the drone into the country and Section 13 (1) of the 1947 Immigration Act. The latter was brought separately against the two foreign journalists after their visas expired while in custody.

The crew was given remission as their two-month prison terms were due to be served on Jan. 9.

The plaintiffs said on Tuesday that they withdrew the charges so that Myanmar could maintain good relations with Malaysia and Singapore and because authorities didnt find any intent on the part of the accused to harm the countrys security.

Ko Aung Naing Soe, the local interpreter, said that the four would like to thank the officials for withdrawing the case. He said that they were treated well in prison and also during the interrogation, adding that they admitted they were guilty of Article 10 of the Myanmar Aircraft Act and they would now take caution to that effect.

Unexpectedly, we were jailed and we were also released unexpectedly today. We are really happy, he told The Irrawaddy on Friday.
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

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Burma Palaung Lawyer Detained After Gambling Den Shooting

Mai Myo Aung. / Facebook

An ethnic Taang (Palaung) lawyer has been detained by police in Muse Township in northern Shan State in connection with a shooting in Lashio in Kaung Mu Tong quarter on Dec. 22, Taang Legal Aid (TLA) reported yesterday.

Police accused Mai Myo Aung of involvement in a Dec. 22 confrontation in a gambling den that escalated and left one person shot dead and another injured. He is being held at a police station in Muses Kaung Mu Tong quarter, the TLA said. The aid group and the mans wife allege that the police have physically abused the lawyer and refused to release alleged video footage implicating him.

He was not at the location of the shooting. He was not even aware there had been a shooting. He was at another location on personal business, but the police have accused him of involvement, said Mai Shein Htun, a TLA committee member who is assisting the lawyer.

In a statement, the TLA said Mai Myo Aung had been beaten while in custody. His only contact with the outside world was through visits by his wife, it said.

He told us that [police] wearing boots had kicked him and struck him with their guns while interrogating him, Mai Shein Htun said.

TLA alleged that police assaulted Mai Myo Aung while demanding he provide information about a group of armed men who attacked the gambling den in the 105 Economic Zone in Muse Township. Mai Shein Htun said this was not the first time the man had suffered at the hands of police. Whenever there is fighting near Muse, the police beat him [for information], the TLA official said.

TLA representatives were allowed a brief meeting with Mai Myo Aung on Dec. 26 at the police station. Mai Shein Htun said the man showed signs of having been beaten, including bruises on his face.

According to police, on Dec. 22 three people arrived at the gambling den and got into a dispute with security guards. The three people in the car drove away, but returned later on motorbikes and shot the security guards, the police said.

Police allege that Mai Myo Aung was among the three, and that the other two suspects escaped.

Police Captain Aye Myint told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that Muse police have CCTV camera footage showing Mai Myo Aung and the other two suspects, Mai Kyaw Hein and Mai Aie Ohn, in a car.

Firstly, these three got into a quarrel with security guards near the scene, he said. The three suspects were upset with the guards, and went home. They returned to the gambling den on motorbikes and shot the victims, Aye Myint said.

Police have not provided any evidence to Mai Myo Aungs family or his lawyer from TLA, despite having detained him based on the alleged CCTV footage. He was arrested at 12:30 p.m. on Dec. 22 after being stopped while driving to another village on personal business. The shooting incident occurred at 11 a.m. that day, police said.

Police have not formally charged the lawyer, but said he would be prosecuted under Penal Code sections 302 and 307. The TLA said the police were treating the suspect as if he had already been convicted, even resorting to physical abuse in an effort to force him to admit involvement in the crime.

Mai Myo Aung is a lawyer who helps TLA provide legal assistance to ethnic minority people who cannot afford their own.

Ei Awa, Mai Myo Aungs wife, told The Irrawaddy that the police lacked evidence to back up the accusation, adding that he had been arrested some distance from the scene of the shooting. Furthermore, the police initially said the shooting had occurred at a pawnshop, rather than a gambling den, she said.

Ei Awa added that the police insisted she communicate with them in Burmese, rather than in her own Palaung language. She was not allowed to ask her husband for any details about what had occurred, or how he had got to the gambling station.

I was only allowed to ask him about what he wanted to eat. I was not able to ask him about other issues, she said. Police were present and monitored her conversation with her husband.

She said she saw a bruise under Mai Myo Aungs left eye, and added that it was possible he had other injuries elsewhere on his body.
Burma Public Urged to Report Corruption at Latest Peace Talk

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi arrives in Loikaw, Kayah State, for her fifth peace talk on Friday, in this photo posted to the Facebook page of the Office of the State Counselor.

YANGON  State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi urged the public not to be afraid to complain if they spot any wrongdoing by ministers and civil servants during her fifth public peace talk on Friday in Loikaw, the capital of Kayah State.

She said channels for complaints were open to the public and encouraged people to exercise their democratic rights and responsibilities. She was responding to comments from Ko Mario, a 26-year-old farmer who highlighted the publics fear of the government and Tatmadaw, the common term for Myanmars military, in the area.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said that if members of the public failed to raise their complaints they would be abetting injustice. If the administrators do wrong, the public has the responsibility to complain, she said. It is your right. And if we dont know, we cannot take any action. So dont be afraid.

You must value yourselves and use your authority and ability, she continued. We, the Union government, cannot know about each one [minister and civil servant]. Only when you raise your concerns and complain can we know, so dont feel like a burden.

As Christians, Mario said, they were not allowed to place crosses on their own land because the Tatmadaw would confiscate them. He shared his childhood experiences as a displaced person.

In 2008 when we returned to our homes in the hills after we fled from the fighting, we saw the signposts on our land that said it was owned by the military. We want to ask for our land back, he said.

She instructed Kayahs chief minister and its minister of border affairs and security to address the issue.

During the talk, which ran about 100 minutes, eight ethnic Kayah, Kayaw, Gaybar, Kayan, Inn and Shan youth representatives from the state raised their concerns about issues ranging from peace and equality to federalism, development, womens affairs and ethnic literature and culture.

It was the fifth such peace talk the state counselor has hosted this year. At each one, issues of peace, development and national reconciliation dominated the discussions. The events have been generally well received as a boon for the country.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday reiterated the importance of the rule of law, warning cabinet members and civil servants at all levels to behave themselves and urging them to help move the country toward peace with compassion.

She held the first peace talk in Naypyitaw on the first day of 2017 and the second on Feb 12, Union Day, in Panglong in southern Shan State. The third talk was in Naypyitaw in April and the fourth in August in a village in Mandalay Region.

After her talk in August, with mostly ethnic Bamar in central Myanmar, some questioned whether the location was appropriate because residents of the area knew relatively little about war-torn regions.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi acknowledged that those who grew up in conflict zones were more familiar with the peace process than those who had not, residents of central Myanmar in particular.

Fridays peace talk in Loikaw brought some hope to residents of Kayah State, which has suffered from civil war between ethnic Karenni armed groups and the Tatmadaw for the past sixty years. The Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) is currently in talk with the government about signing the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA); it signed a bilateral ceasefire with the Kayah State government in March 2012.

It brings benefits to our state because the state counselor and the government might now know things about the state, said Khu Peh Nyoe Reh, secretary of the Kayah National Literature and Culture Committee. He said the youth of Kayah State were able to raise some of their main concerns.

We think she came to learn about the role of youth and the publics concerns in our state, said Khu Peh Nyoe Reh. But we still have to discuss more about culture and ethnic literature issue.

Daw Olivia, another peace talk participant, discussed the need to preserve ethnic literature and culture and to empower ethnic language teachers. Ethnic languages classes have been allowed in schools since 2013 but are hampered by a lack of resources, including teachers and materials.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi promised to raise the issue with the ministries of education and ethnic affair. Not only the ethnic language teachers, but many teachers across the nation need to be empowered and are starting to be trained in modern teaching methods, she said.

Since peace and development are interrelated, she said, people should not worry too much about the teaching of ethnic languages because it would improve once there was peace.

In order to achieve that peace, observers say, it is important to integrate public participation in the peace building process.

The role of the public is lost, lamented Khu Peh Nyoe Reh. I think when public participation is real the pace of the peace process  whether or not the NCA is signed  will speed up.

Fridays peace talk never touched on the death of three KNPP soldiers and a civilian earlier this month, allegedly executed by the Tatmadaw.

Although such public interactions help raise awareness, the state counselor could do better in 2018 by having more direct contact with everyday people rather than chosen representatives, said political analyst U Yan Myo Thein.

And having observed the years peace talks, he said it was clear that the state counselor has done more talking than listening.

She told the public to be good listeners and to report any corruption by the executive, civil servants or state legislators. But she does not know that people in this area live in fear, even from the local administrators. So it is the reverse, and she should be the one who listens carefully to the public, he said.
Burma Telecom Sector Draws Foreign Investment

The Yangon International Airport was expanded with foreign investment. / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  The Telecommunications sector has become the top destination for foreign investment under the National League for Democracy (NLD) government, according to the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA).

Under the previous governments, most of the foreign investments went to the energy and electricity sectors. But foreign investment in the telecommunications sector has surged under the current government, said deputy director-general U Than Kyaw Aung of the Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC).

However, the increase does not come from new investors, but existing telecom operators that have increased their investment due to market rivalry.

Myanmar currently has three key operatorsMyanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), the government-run operator that monopolized the countrys telecom industry for decades and now runs in partnership with KDDI, along with Qatars Ooredoo and Norways Telenor.

As the three operators compete for bigger market shares, they are pouring more money into equipment and services, and investment in Myanmars telecom industry has increased as a result, U Than Kyaw Aung explained.

From April to the end of November in the 2017-18 fiscal year, Myanmar saw an increase in both foreign and citizens investment in transport and telecoms, manufacturing, hotels and tourism, and mining sectors, compared to the same period last year.

During that period, transport and telecoms attracted US$633 million, followed by manufacturing with more than $350 million, hotels and tourism with around $155 million, and mining with $1.3 million.

According to the statistics section of DICA, foreign investment is larger than that of citizens investment in the telecom industry.

Real estate development, services, electricity supply, transport and communications, agriculture, livestock and fishery, hotels and tourism and industrial zones have drawn foreign investments in the current fiscal year. However, there was no investment in oil and gas extraction or construction.

The directorate expects to draw an annual foreign investment of $6 billion until 2020, and from 2021 to 2025, it expects $8 billion annually.

According to a statement from DICA, Myanmar received more than $5billion foreign direct investment including $237 million in the Japan-backed Thilawa Special Economic Zone from April to the third week of December in the current 2017-18 fiscal year.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
News UN Rights Investigator Calls for Pressure on China, Russia over Myanmar Abuses

Yanghee Lee at a press conference in Rangoon on Jan. 20, 2017. / The Irrawaddy

SEOUL  The United Nations independent investigator into human rights in Myanmar has called for international pressure on China and Russia to try to get them to oppose human rights abuses in Myanmar.

UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee, who was last week barred by the Myanmar government from visiting the country, singled out China and Russia because they had failed to back some moves in the UN aimed at trying to halt the Myanmar militarys crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim community in Rakhine State.

Id like to ask the international community to continue to work with China and Russia to persuade them to stand on the side of human rights, Lee told Reuters in an interview.

Neither has joined the United States, the European Union and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in condemning the crackdown that has led to the exodus of what aid agencies estimate to be 655,000 refugees into Bangladesh.

In response to Lee, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that external actors adding pressure over human rights will not help to resolve the issue, and may make it more complicated.

This would not be in the interests of Myanmar, its neighbors or the international community, she said at a regular news briefing in Beijing on Thursday. We hope that countries or individuals external to the issue can create a positive environment that is more conducive to Myanmar resolving the issue for themselves, Hua added.

The Russian foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The Russian government has previously warned against interfering in Myanmars internal affairs. Russias ambassador to Myanmar, Nikolay Listopadov, has said it is against excessive intervention because it wont lead to any constructive results.

Barrier to ICC

The Myanmar armed forces are accused by members of the Rohingya community and human rights advocates of carrying out killings, rapes and village burnings, in what top officials in the United Nations and United States have described as ethnic cleansing.

The Russian and Chinese stance is particularly important because either of them can block the UN Security Council from referring allegations of crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The ICC cannot act against Myanmar without a referral because Myanmar is not an ICC member.

Myanmar has denied human rights abuses, saying its military is engaged in a legitimate counter-insurgency operation. The military exonerated itself of all accusations of atrocities in an internal investigation, which published its findings on Nov. 13.

Myanmars Foreign Affairs Ministry has said Lee was not objective or impartial in a report she issued in July, and it wanted a fair investigator.

Lee said there had to be a fair, partial and independent investigation.

The families of the victims have a right to know what happened, and I think the people of Myanmar need to know what happened, because were seeing, in front of our eyes, the worst humanitarian crisis.

Surveys of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh by aid agency Doctors Without Borders have shown at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in Rakhine State in the month after violence flared in late August, the aid group said last week.

The special rapporteur also criticized recent government crackdowns on media in Myanmar, including the arrest this month of two Reuters journalists who had reported on the crisis in Rakhine.

She said the authorities were creating a national gag that would prevent journalists from reporting what they see. That will have consequences on the general public too  people will not be able to speak as freely.

Myanmar has said the reporters illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media.
There has been an unprecedented level of new cyber crime attacks worldwide in 2017  both in number and intensity  and next year is expected to be even worse, according to global security firm MailGuard.

The security firm says there were hundreds of online-fraud and hacking incidents this year and its data shows that cyber crime is more profitable than the global trade in marijuana, cocaine and heroin combined.

To support its claim, MailGuard points to a new report by European Union cyber intelligence agency, Europol, which says that the steep upward trend in cyber crime points to 2018 being worse still, with cyber crime now the most economically damaging crime category worldwide.

From the recent revelations about the Uber data-breach scandal to the Netflix scam, this was a busy year for the cyber security industry, says MailGuards Emmanuel Marshall in a newly posted blog.

History may well remember the 20-teens as the decade of cyber crime.

"Cyber security experts and policymakers alike are predicting that 2018 will see a cyber-crime-wave. Theres been explosive growth in online fraud, hacking and data theft in recent years and the trend looks set to continue. The FBI has estimated that the cost of email fraud alone could be as much as US$9 billion in 2018.

"Cyber criminals utilise sophisticated AI technology to monitor business and social networks and they exploit the data they collect to infiltrate organisations. All criminals need to break into your business is a cleverly worded email; if they can trick one person in your company into clicking on a malicious link they can gain access to your data."

Marshall warns that the steep upward trend in cybercrime points to 2018 being worse still, with cyber crime now the most economically damaging crime category worldwide.

And MailGuard lists the four biggest cyber crime stories that it says dominated the headlines in 2017:

WannaCry

When the WannaCry ransomware appeared in May it spread across the globe like wildfire, eventually infecting an estimated 200,000 computers in 150 countries.

WannaCry attacked a security loophole in older versions of Windows operating systems using an exploit known as EternalBlue. Once it infected computers it would then replicate itself across networks, spreading quickly and invisibly.

The shock and awe factor of WannaCry came from the serious impact it had on big industry and essential infrastructure. Hospitals in the UK running older computers were forced to shut their doors to patients when their systems went offline. FedEx distribution centres were locked out of their inventory systems. The Spanish telephone network was seriously disrupted. Car factories owned by Renault had to cease production.

Estimates of the financial harm caused by WannaCry are still a topic of debate, but it is generally agreed that the outbreak did damage in excess of US$4 billion.

NotPetya

On 27 June, just weeks after WannaCry, there was another EternalBlue-based ransomware attack.

NotPetya appeared simultaneously in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the UK, the US, Russia and Ukraine.

Ukraine was especially badly impacted by NotPetya. Eighty companies and organisations were attacked by the virus, including the National Bank of Ukraine.

Like WannaCry, NotPetya displayed a ransom message on infected computers demanding money to unlock the system, but analysts working on the outbreak quickly realised that extortion was not the true objective of the virus. NotPetya activates a disk wiper that overwrites an infected computer's boot files.

Because NotPetya mainly targeted Ukranian companies and infrastructure, a theory emerged that the attack was initiated by a Russian government agency as part of ongoing hostility stemming from the 2014 conflict. This theory was strengthened by the timing of the outbreak. Many cyber security experts speculate that NotPetya was a politically-motivated attack because the outbreak started on the eve of Ukraines Constitution Day holiday.

KRACK

In October, Mathy Vanhoef and Frank Piessens, security researchers at the University of Leuven in Belgium, revealed critical vulnerabilities that exist in all standard Wi-Fi devices. The weakness in the Wi-Fi protocols makes it possible for hackers to read encrypted data on Wi-Fi devices and use them to break into networks.

The newly discovered hacking vulnerability was named KRACK; which stands for Key Reinstallation AttaCKs.

Upon discovering the KRACK problem, Vanhoef and Piessens immediately notified manufacturers of WiFi devices, who began implementing patches to close the gap in the security of their systems.

The scale of the KRACK problem is huge because Wi-Fi is such a ubiquitous technology in commercial and industrial environments. The issue is exacerbated by the fact that there are many companies still manufacturing devices with unpatched firmware, and countless unpatched devices already in use.

The threat posed by KRACK is twofold; it allows cyber criminals to access supposedly secure data networks and steal information, but it also makes it possible for them to inject viruses or malware that creates botnets.

Botnets

IoT is the 2017 buzzword of the year but the Internet of Things has also given us the latest and most disturbing cyber security threat of the year.

Along with the explosive growth of wireless technology and the rapid uptake of IoT technology it has become clear that IOT is turning into a security nightmare.

There are security weaknesses baked into the firmware on IOT and Bluetooth devices  from high-end surveillance cameras to wireless headphones  that permit exploits like KRACK. These security weaknesses can be used by hackers to remotely seize control of wireless devices, thereby giving them access to computers and phones on those networks as well.

Cyber criminals can assemble massive groups of compromised wireless devices into botnets and use them to launch denial-of-service attacks. A large scale DoS attack can be devastating. Cyber criminals use the computers in their botnets to send massive volumes of Web traffic to clog up their victims network and such attacks can effectively shut down the targeted organisation. In 2016 a DoS attack seriously disrupted Amazon, Twitter and Netflix services.

Cyber security experts know that criminal organisations are amassing huge Botnet resources, but are not sure yet what purpose they will be put to. A surge in DoS attacks is predicted for 2018, enabled by botnets built through IoT network hacking.
Investments in the interest of fighting crime was a primary talking point during Police Chief Doug Wright's quarterly police report at the Town of Summerville's Standing Committees meeting on Nov. 7 that saw the public official expound on an Intel Narcotics Detector.. Read moreS'ville PD reports drug enforcement, traffic offenses at Council meet
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Histyar Qader | Erbil | (Niqash.org) |  

The end of the year brought strife to Iraqi Kurdistan, The northern region has to deal with a reduced area of influence, internal and external political problems, and a financial crisis.

This year brought major transformation to the semi-autonomous northern region of Iraqi Kurdistan and by the end of the year it had become clear that these changes were not necessarily going to be positive. The future is not looking so bright up north.

This could well have been the most difficult year for Iraqs Kurds since 2003 and the fall of Saddam Hussein, Mohammed Baziani, the head of the Al Huda Centre for Strategic Studies, told NIQASH.

Iraqi Kurdish military mourn the death of Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani. (photo: Hama Swr)

The Kurdish region is heading for total collapse, he argues. Because it no longer has any united direction, while other parties do.

Baziani says the Kurdish region now has few options: They can wait the problems out until the Iraqi elections next year, at which stage maybe things will change; or they can continue to watch things deteriorate.

The Referendum On Independence

It is true that the relationship between Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraqs federal authorities in Baghdad had not been good for some years. But they really began to worsen after July when Iraqi Kurdish political parties, spurred on by the then-president of the region, Massoud Barzani, decided to hold a referendum on independence. The regional poll on whether the Kurds should try to secede from the rest of the country and form their own state  a long-held dream for many  would be held on September 25.

There was much opposition to the idea, from both inside and outside the Kurdish region. Opposition parties did not like the idea and many of Iraqi Kurdistans foreign allies, including the US, Iran and Turkey, also said they didnt think it was a good idea. All of them recommended ongoing dialogue rather than a referendum.

The whole situation became even more turbulent when those in the Kirkuk area agreed that they too would participate in the referendum. Kirkuk is what is known as a disputed territory in Iraq. The Kurdish say it belongs to them but Baghdad disagrees, saying it is part of Iraq proper. The population there is mixed but the area had been under the control of the Kurdish military for some time. The Kurdish participation in the referendum was seen as something of a red flag for Baghdad.

After the referendum was held and resulted in exactly the outcome that was predicted  almost everyone who took part voted for independence  Baghdad authorities began to retaliate almost immediately.

The federal government made it clear who was actually still in charge, closing Kurdish airspace and demanding that international border crossings be put back under federal control. It became very clear, very fast, that much of what many Kurdish voters had been taking for granted as their regional right, had always just been Baghdad doing them a favour  or perhaps being otherwise preoccupied, who knows.

On October 16, tensions escalated further as Iraqi military pushed Kurdish forces back behind their original regional borders. There were occasional confrontations and much confusion but eventually most of the Kurdish military pulled back voluntarily.

The areas the Kurdish lost meant the loss of significant regional revenues, both from oil production and from customs and other revenues collected at international borders.

The political conflict goes on today, with both sides releasing contradictory statements and neither appearing willing to back down completely.

The referendum: Their own state is a long-held dream for Iraqs Kurdish minority.

Internal Pressures Mount

Meanwhile inside Iraqi Kurdistan political parties also remained far from united. They were not only dealing with the fallout from the independence referendum and Baghdads reaction to that, with every party calling out every other party as a traitor to the Kurdish cause, but there were also ongoing political issues.

The Iraqi Kurdish parliament had been suspended for 22 months  the region was barely functioning as a democracy during that time  but was reconvened in mid-September. However, many of the members of the regions opposition parties  the Change movement and the Islamic parties  refused to participate. Key members eventually resigned. In fact, both before and after the referendum, the regions opposition parties began to call for the dismissal of the current government and the formation of a new one.

Instead the current parliament decided to postpone elections, scheduled to be held in November, for eight months. On October 29, Kurdish politician Massoud Barzani announced he would step down from the presidency  his holding onto this role had long been a problem for every other political party in the region other than his own. Presidential powers were distributed to different offices and Barzani formed a new council he would head; his critics say that he is still hanging onto power even though he is not president anymore.

Internal and inter-party conflicts continue and most recently, in late December, the major opposition parties in Iraqi Kurdistan withdrew from the regional parliament altogether.

Part of the reason for all the internal political tension, analysts say, is because of the loss of the regions long-term political leadership, a leadership that, for all its faults, had maintained political checks and balances and some semblance of unity.

On May 19, Nawshirwan Mustafa, leader of the Change movement, passed away in Sulaymaniyah after a long illness. Then one of the most prominent political leaders in Iraqi Kurdistan, Jalal Talabani, also died  he had been in Germany for medical treatment for some time following a stroke in 2012.

The death of both of these leaders and the resignation of Barzani, heralds a changing of the guard. As a new generation of Kurdish leaders jockey for power, old wounds have been reopened, showing just how fragile Kurdish unity actually is.

The end of the year in Iraqi Kurdistan has brought yet another crisis. At the time of writing, a number of Kurdish cities were under tight security as local military and police were deployed to prevent further protests.

Iraqi Kurdish locals had been demonstrating corruption and the fact that many civil servants had not been paid for some months. The Kurdish government has major debts, has seen its revenue sources reduced significantly and owes back pay to hundreds of local workers.

The region that was once doing so well, and seemed so peaceful and prosperous, that it claimed the title the new Dubai, has fallen onto extremely hard times, both politically and economically.

If these kinds of power plays continue and there is no real change, the Kurdish region is going to face difficult challenges next year, Ribawar Karim Mahmoud, a professor of political science at the University of Sulaymaniyah, told NIQASH. The whole region will go backwards. If things stay like this the Kurdish region will make more compromises at the expense of its own people, to hide its internal problems.

via Niqash.org



Related video added by Juan Cole:

AP: Iraqi Kurds protest on streets of Sulaymaniyah
VANCOUVER, Dec. 29, 2017 /CNW/ - Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise" or the "Company") (TSXV: NEV) is pleased to announce it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 100% interest in the historic Lovelock Cobalt Mine property (the "Lovelock Mine", or the "Property"), located in Churchill County, approximately 100 miles (150 kilometres) east of Reno, Nevada. For further details about the Lovelock Mine, please see Nevada Sunrise news releases dated November 21, 2017 and December 14, 2017).

Terms of the Agreement

The terms of the definitive agreement (the "Agreement") provide for the Company to earn a 100% interest in the Property in consideration for cash payments and common shares payments to an underlying vendor (the "Vendor") payable over 3 years from the signing of the Agreement, subject to a 2.0% net smelter returns royalty ("NSR"), as follows:

A $3,000 cash payment for an exclusive due diligence period (paid);

On the later of TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") approval and signing of the Agreement:

$15,000 in cash and 200,000 common shares of the Company;

$15,000 in cash and 200,000 common shares of the Company; 1st Anniversary: $20,000 in cash and 200,000 common shares of the Company;

2nd Anniversary: $25,000 in cash and 250,000 common shares of the Company;

3rd Anniversary: $30,000 in cash and 300,000 common shares of the Company.

Closing of the acquisition is subject to acceptance of the Agreement by the TSX Venture Exchange. Nevada Sunrise will have the right to accelerate the timing of cash payments to the Vendor at its discretion. On or before the 10th anniversary of the execution of the Agreement, Nevada Sunrise shall have the right to purchase 50% of the NSR (i.e. 1% NSR interest) for US$1,500,000. An area of interest applies to the current boundaries of the Property.

For further information about the Lovelock Mine, please visit the Company's website at: http://www.nevadasunrise.ca/projects/lovelock-cobalt-mine/

About Nevada Sunrise

Nevada Sunrise is a junior mineral exploration company with a strong technical team based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, that holds interests in gold, cobalt and lithium exploration projects in the State of Nevada, USA.

The Company's two key gold assets include a 100% interest in the Golden Arrow project near Tonopah, currently the subject of an option earn-in transaction with Emgold Mining Corporation (TSXV: EMR) and a 21% interest in a joint venture with Liberty Gold Inc. (TSX: LGD, formerly Pilot Gold Inc.) at Kinsley Mountain near Wendover, with each of the properties subject to certain production royalties.

In November 2017, Nevada Sunrise announced an option to earn a 100% interest in the historic Lovelock Cobalt Mine property, located approximately 100 miles (150 kilometres) east of Reno.

Nevada Sunrise began acquisitions of Nevada lithium properties in 2015, which includes 100% interests in the Neptune, Jackson Wash and Aquarius projects, a 50% interest in the Gemini project (Eureka Resources Inc. (TSXV: EUK) holds a 50% interest), and the right to earn 100% of the Atlantis project, currently under option to American Lithium Corp. (TSXV: LI).
VANCOUVER, Dec. 28, 2017 /CNW/ - Alexco Resource Corp. (NYSE-American:AXU, TSX:AXR) ("Alexco" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has received an amendment to its Water Use Licence from the Yukon Water Board for the development and operation (and eventual closure) of the Flame & Moth mine. The Flame & Moth underground mine, located adjacent to the existing Keno Hill District mill, comprises a potentially mineable 683,000 tonnes of 666 grams per tonne ("g/t") silver and is anticipated to be the primary production source for mine operations in the Keno Hill Silver District (RPA, 20171).

Clynt Nauman, Alexco CEO and Chairman commented, "The receipt of the Flame & Moth Water Use Licence amendment is the final permit and regulatory authorization required for production from the Flame & Moth mine. Receipt of this licence amendment is a milestone in our journey toward mine operations and has involved the cooperation and support of our many stakeholders and partners, including the First Nation of Nacho Nyak Dun."

In addition to Flame & Moth, the Bellekeno, Lucky Queen and Onek mines are also fully permitted for operations in the Keno Hill Silver District. In November 2017, the Company submitted a further Project Proposal to the Yukon Environmental Socioeconomic Assessment Board for environmental assessment of the development, operations and eventual closure for the Bermingham mine. Bermingham is anticipated to contribute approximately 220,000 tonnes of 1,276 g/t silver toward the approximately one million tonne and more than 27 million silver ounce mine production stream outlined over eight years in the PEA mine plan1. Approximately 5,000 meters ("m") of underground exploration and in-fill drilling of the Bermingham deposit will commence later in Q1 2018 upon completion of the currently active 580 m Bermingham exploration decline. Results of the drilling along with other work will contribute to a pre-feasibility study anticipated to be completed in Q3 2018.

In other business, Alexco announces that it has restructured its US environmental division. In this restructuring, Alexco's wholly-owned subsidiary, Alexco Environmental Group Inc. ("AEG Canada") has entered into a share purchase agreement with Arete Property Holdings LLC ("Arete") for the purchase by Arete of all of the issued shares of Alexco Environmental Group (US) Inc. ("AEG US") and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Alexco Financial Guaranty Corp. (collectively with AEG US, the "AEG US Group") for nominal consideration. Arete is wholly-owned by Mr. James Harrington, Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of AEG Canada.

As a result of this transaction, a new Colorado affiliate of AEG Canada, Alexco Water and Environment Inc. will seamlessly continue current and future environmental work in the United States. AEG US Group, together with initial funding provided by AEG Canada required for ongoing administrative and corporate responsibilities, will become subsidiaries of, and will be directly managed by Arete to pursue certain property negotiation rights and further capital opportunities.

Mr. Nauman commented, "The restructuring of Alexco's US environmental division is merely an initial step in facilitating AEG's ability to pursue significant opportunities for new brownfields-related environmental work and revenue while also prudently managing the parent company balance sheet."

The participation of Mr. Harrington (through his ownership of Arete) in the proposed sale of the AEG US Group from AEG Canada (the "Proposed Transaction") causes the Proposed Transaction to be considered to be a "related party transaction" as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 ("MI 61-101"). However, the Proposed Transaction will be exempt from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 as neither the fair market value of the assets acquired by, or the consideration paid by, the related party, Mr. Harrington, will exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization. The Proposed Transaction has been reviewed and approved by a special committee of the Board of directors of the Company and the Board of directors of the Company.

1 "Technical Report Preliminary Economic Assessment of the Keno Hill Silver District Project, Yukon Territory, Canada." NI 43-101 Report. RPA, March 29, 2017.

Qualified Persons

The disclosure in this news release of scientific and technical information regarding exploration projects on Alexco's mineral properties has been reviewed and approved by Alan McOnie, FAusIMM, Vice President, Exploration who is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

About Alexco

Alexco holds the historical high grade Keno Hill Silver District located in Canada's Yukon Territory. Employing a unique business model, Alexco also provides mine-related environmental services, remediation technologies and reclamation and mine closure services to both government and industry clients.
(all amounts in US dollars, unless otherwise noted) VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ero Copper Corp. (TSX: ERO) (Ero or the Company) today is pleased to announce its financial results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2018. Management will host a... Read More
Stuff reports:

One of the countrys largest training institutes is understood to be ditching a mandatory drug testing regime, over claims its seen as a barrier to education.

The Bay of Plenty-based technology institute had trumpeted its mandatory tests, at a time when former Prime Minister Bill English was lamenting high levels of drug-use among young workers.

But now, with National out of government and mandatory drug-testing out of favour, Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology has quietly ditched the drug tests.

Nationals tertiary education spokesman Paul Goldsmith warned that it was impossible to keep workers safe in high-risk industries without drug-testing.

Generally, he said, it should be up to education institutes whether they introduced mandatory drug testing. However in high risk courses like construction or forestry, its important that everyone is able to exercise judgment and show responsibility so youd expect that everyone is drug free and the only way to know that for sure is by testing.

Toi Ohomai was formed from the merger of Rotoruas Waiariki Institute of Technology and Bay of Plenty Polytechnic last year. Its trades department teaches carpentry, electrical, engineering, automotive and collision repair.

Mother-of-two Katherine Page was a Level 3 carpentry student this year, and is firmly in favour of the test. You need to be able to trust your fellow students and make sure theyre fully alert, she cautions. Because it could impact your life, not just theirs, if theyre on drugs.
Investigators search Ewha Womans University Medical Center in western Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap



By Jung Min-ho



Ewha Womans University Medical Center in southwestern Seoul refused to answer any questions from the parents of four premature babies who died two weeks ago for unknown reasons.



The families of the newborns who died in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit Dec. 16 asked the hospital about the incident Thursday, only to be snubbed by President Chung Hye-won.



"Police and the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) are investigating the case and we have been cooperating with them," Chung said in a statement. "Investigators will look into suspicions, including the questions you have. We believe we all need to wait for the results of the investigation. Please wait a little longer. Again, we apologize for what happened."



The families reacted with dismay.



"The questions we asked were not about the cause of the incident, which is under scrutiny," they said in a statement to the press. "We asked what happened inside the care unit during the timeframe between when the babies started showing symptoms and their deaths. But the hospital refused to answer that simple question."



On the same day, police searched the hospital for the second time to confiscate its medical devices and records.



According to investigators, hospital officials acknowledged one of the four babies was infected with Rotavirus, a contagious virus that can cause gastroenteritis (inflammation of the stomach and intestines), Dec. 11, but did not isolate the baby. The officials also did not inform the parents of the condition. Investigators are looking into whether they took proper actions to combat the virus.



Given the virus was found in all the deceased babies, investigators reckon the facility's poor level of hygiene may be a key factor in their deaths.



According to the families, the hospital also failed to properly respond when the heart rate of one of the babies started to soar; it reached 203 at 3:30 p.m., which is far above the normal rate of around 150. That baby eventually died around 8:50 p.m.



The families accused hospital officials of doing nothing to treat the baby until the doctor in charge came in at around 6:15 p.m. But it was already too late.



The ongoing investigation may affect the government's grading of the institution, currently designated as one of the highest-ranking general hospitals in the country.



Many people have already left the hospital due to their loss of trust.




The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the family of two missing women, 28 year old Saoirse Smyth and 47 year old Joanne Phelan, are appealing for help from those in the Republic of Ireland.

The families of the missing women are becoming increasingly concerned for their welfare, especially as there has been no contact with them over the Christmas period.

Saoirse Smyth, is described as being 411 tall, slim build, with red hair and blue eyes. Saoirse was last seen in the Belfast area in May 2017.

Joanne Phelan, is described as being 55 tall, slight built, with brown shoulder length hair and hazel eyes. Joanne was last seen in the Newry area in February 2017.

PSNI Detective Inspector, Paul Rowland said: "It is believed that Saoirse and Joanne may be together and we are appealing to Saoirse and Joanne, or anyone who knows of their whereabouts to contact Police on +44 28 9065 0222, quoting reference 833 19/12/17.
May 2, 2021, 6 PM

Eight stamps to be released by Royal Mail in June will mark the 50th anniversary of the television series Dads Army.

Great Britains Royal Mail will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Royal Air Force on 10 stamps to be issued in March. Six of the stamps will picture iconic British aircraft.

A set of six British stamps to be issued in April will feature plants and animals that were once extinct in the United Kingdom but have been reintroduced, such as the osprey.

By Denise McCarty

On Dec. 27, Great Britains Royal Mail revealed some of the commemorative issues that will be included in its 2018 stamp program.

In announcing this program, Royal Mail said that the stamps mark anniversaries, celebrate events, and showcase popular culture relevant to UK heritage and life.

A set of 10 stamps in March will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Royal Air Force.

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On April 1, 1918, the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps merged to create the RAF, the worlds first independent air force, according to the website for the centennial.

Royal Mail reports that six of the stamps in the RAF Centenary issue will show original artworks of iconic British aircraft from across the century.

The other four stamps will feature the RAF Red Arrows aerobatics team. The Red Arrows were previously featured on a 2008 issue that marked the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight in Great Britain.

A set of six stamps scheduled to be issued in April will feature species of plants and animals that were once extinct in the United Kingdom but have been successfully reintroduced.

For instance, one stamp depicts the osprey (Pandion haliaetus). The website of the conservation charity Trees for Life said of this raptor:

The osprey was once widespread throughout the UK but, due to severe persecution from the Middle Ages onwards, numbers plummeted. In the 19th century a new threat appeared, in the form of egg collectors and, by the end of the 19th century, only a handful of breeding pairs remained. A conservation programme was initiated and, thanks to a combination of long-term protection and innovative restoration techniques, the osprey is once again established in stable numbers in the UK.

Another stamp in the set will show the large blue butterfly, which became extinct in the United Kingdom in 1979, but is now thriving.

Dads Army, a British television comedy about volunteers in the Home Guard during World War II, debuted in 1968. To mark the 50th anniversary of Dads Army, Royal Mail will issue eight stamps in June depicting popular characters from the series.

Stamps to be issued in July will showcase the Hampton Court Palace, the 16th-century palace built for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and later extensively remodelled for use by King Henry VIII.

An August stamp issue will commemorate Capt. James Cook and the Endeavour voyage. Cook set sail from Plymouth Harbor in England in August 1768 for a voyage of discovery in the South Pacific.

In September, Royal Mail will end its five-year World War I series. According to Royal Mail, The set will feature a new interpretation of the poppy image, war poetry and art, and a commemoration of the sacrifice of the armed services.

Royal Mail will close out its 2018 program with Christmas stamps in November.

This program is tentative and likely to include additional stamps, plus post & go vended postage labels.
Apr 29, 2021, 6 AM

By Jay Bigalke

Are you ready for another edition of Linns Stamp News monthly magazine? We sure hope so, because the Jan. 15 issue is jam-packed with a marvelous assortment of in-depth, scholarly features that are sure to please. The presses are humming to get this issue ready for mailing Tuesday, Dec. 2. If you subscribe to Linns digital edition, youre at the head of the line because you get early access Saturday, Dec. 30. To heighten your anticipation, we offer three glimpses of what lies between the pages.

History conveyed through stamps of French Indochina

Stamp Collecting Basics columnist Janet Klug looks at allegorical designs, Asian royalty and local subjects, historical figures and more that were featured on stamps issued from 1889 to 1949 during French control of the region known as Indochina.

South Arabian stamps fueled 1980s investment scams

Spotlight on Philately columnist Ken Lawrence explores stamps of the former Aden protectorate states that became notorious in the 1980s as investment instruments associated with market manipulation, scandal and fraud.

Finlands stamps commemorate 100 years since independence

Nordic Stamp Scene columnist Christer Brunstrom details the history of Finland, its leaders and its people as documented on many of the nations stamps since independence was achieved a century ago on Dec. 6, 1917.

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Get access to all of these articles, and so much more, with a Linns Stamp News print or digital edition subscription!

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It seems like so-called pure water is very important to people. Bottled-spring-water brands put the word "pure" before "fresh" and "clean" in their advertisements. Water-purifier companies make billions of dollars all over the world promising to cut anything but H2O out of tap water. There's even a whole branch of alternative medicine built on imagined, seemingly magical properties of superpure water.

Here's the thing, though: Pure water doesn't exist. Or, at the very least, it's not really possible on Earth.

May Nyman, a chemistry professor at Oregon State University, told Live Science that water sucks up ions too readily from the surrounding environment to allow for truly pure water.

"Absolutely pure water doesn't exist," Nyman said. [Album: Stunning Photos of Antarctic Ice]

Water really "likes" to dissolve other substances inside itself, she said. That's because water molecules have strange Mickey Mouse shapes, with two hydrogen nuclei at one end and an oxygen nucleus at the other end, each with different electronic charges. Water molecules use those charged hydrogen bonds to interact and cling to one another, but they also cling to any molecule that approaches them. That makes it very likely that water will dissolve a bit of any object it encounters into itself.

And the purer a sample of water gets, the more strongly it will try to dissolve ions from any object it encounters.

That limits humans' ability to generate pure water, because at a certain point it will start to dissolve the walls of its container.

One widely-cited claim in chemistry circles pertains to Lake Baikal in Russia, which is teeming with special filter-feeding shrimp that eat organic matter, removing impurities from the water.

"In the '90s, it was proclaimed that Lake Baikal had such pure water that if you were to take a glass of this water, the water would start to etch the glass," Nyman said, "because water likes ions, and it would just take the ions right out of the glass into solution."

Nyman said that this affinity is too powerful for scientists to fully overcome even in sterile laboratory environments. Anything a very pure sample of water encounter, like a bit of dust or a plastic container, she said, will leave behind traces of itself in the water.

Very few situations require totally pure water. That's why the tap water in most (though not all) places in the U.S. is totally safe to drink, even though the taste may vary. And even for scientific projects that require very clean water, Nyman said, it's easy to distill water to the point that the few impurities that remain don't mess anything up.

But perfectly pure water? It doesn't exist.

Originally published on Live Science.
by Chuck Martin , December 29, 2017

One airline figured a way to connect global travelers who speak different languages.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines created seats that translate any language in real time, allowing travelers with different languages to understand each other.

The KLM Connecting Seats, created with DDB & Tribal Amsterdam, were installed at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

Each seat was designed for travelers to rest their head in the center with speakers on each side. A directional microphone facilitated the audio connection and the seats faced each other so that the people speaking could see each other and have a conversation, with each language spoken being translated.

KLM and its agency used Googles Cloud Speech, Cloud Translation and Web Speech so that the seats automatically translated every language, including all dialects.

Travelers from more than 30 different nationalities used the seats to speak with strangers from different lands.

Seated consumers exchanged views on the world and offered each other holiday greetings.
by Jess Nelson , December 29, 2017

Leaked emails continue to plague the Trump presidency.

An email sent from Jeng Chi Hung, director of revenue management at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., has again sparked calls for investigations into possible presidential conflicts of interest.

As first revealed byDaily Beastreporter Betsy Woodruff, Hung wrote an email to an acquaintance saying President Trump is still involved in the management of the Trump Organization.

Trump was supposed to be out of the business and passed on to his sons, but hes definitely involved, says Hung in the email. Hung goes on to write about a brief meeting he had with the President a few weeks prior, when Trump asked about banquet revenues and demographics.

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President Trump also asked if his presidency hurt the business, according to the email received by the Daily Beast.

It is not known who Hung sent the email to, or when it was sent.

Mickael Damelincourt, the managing director of the hotel, has slammed the report as total nonsense. Damelincourt does not deny the emails existence, but says that Hung was lying in the email to appear more important.

Upon his inauguration, President Trump claimed to have transferred his business into a trust managed by his sons. If the email Hung sent is proven true, it could confirm the Presidents manipulation of the presidency to personally enrich himself and his family.

Last week, a Federal Judge threw out a lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which argued that Trump is in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution.

The Emoluments Clause forbids elected officials from receiving gifts from foreign governments without Congress approval. There has been ongoing speculation on whether foreign dignitaries paying to stay at Trumps hotel properties could fall into this category.
Last week Forbes revealed the design of the Galaxy S9 and it seems like Samsung has somewhat confirmed it. The news was first spotted by GalaxyClub and it was discovered that the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus were publicly submitted to the FCC for approval. The FCC stands for Federal Communications Commission, which is an independent agency of the United States that regulates smartphones and other communication devices.

 OnLeaks

Not much was revealed in the listing other than the model number of the devices i.e. Galaxy S9: SM-G960F, Galaxy S9 Plus: SM-G9605F. Having said that, the listing clearly shows that the device is near completion as FCC certifications are never requested until manufacturers are 100% sure their devices will pass in their final retail form.

 Twitter_Gordon Kelly

There are rumours that Samsung will release the two smartphones earlier than expected as a way to aggressively compete with the iPhone X. The Galaxy S9 is supposed to have incremental upgrades in the specs and also an improved design for better usability.

 YouTube

The Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus are supposed to have a higher screen-to-body ratio, where the S9 Plus is supposed to have a dual camera setup much like the Galaxy Note 8. The Galaxy S9 is also rumoured to have a 3.5mm headphone jack and a fingerprint sensor right below the camera. The Galaxy S8's fingerprint sensor placement was in an odd and uncomfortable position and it feels like Samsung has heard their fans and reviewers alike to change the position.

The Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus are supposed to launch alongside the midrange Galaxy A8 and A8 plus. There are also rumours of Samsung launching the Galaxy X which is supposed to have a bendable AMOLED screen. Are you excited about the upcoming Galaxy S9? Let us know in the comments.

Source: GalaxyClub
2017 was an excellent year for budget smartphones. In a year that gave us incredible flagship phones, the mid-segment market has really stepped up their game. Here we've compiled a list of the best budget smartphones of the year.

1. Redmi 5A:

 Redmi

The Redmi 5A is the perfect smartphone for the price and dominates the market just like it's sibling, the Redmi Note 4. It has the same signature uni-body design that is so popular among all Redmi series smartphones and has a vibrant 5-inch LCD Display. Under the hood is the highly efficient Snapdragon 425 Processor bundled with 2GB RAM / 16GB Storage or 3GB RAM / 32GB Storage which can be further increased to 256GB via SD card.

In the camera department, it has a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera that shoots very good images in their segment. The 3,000 mAh battery may be a disappointment for many, but given the price-sensitive nature, it is self-justifiable.

2. Honor 7X:

 Honor

The Honor 7X is a new phone in the market but offers all the features one expects in a 2017 phone at budget pricing. It has an 18:9, edge-to-edge display, dual rear cameras (16MP+2MP) with a wide-angle and portrait mode option and is powered by the company's Kirin 650 octa-core processor coupled with 4GB RAM. Honor 7X comes in two variants: The 32GB storage version is priced at Rs 12,999 while the 64GB version is at Rs 15,999. The RAM is the same on both phones.

It is still a good choice for those who like playing with smartphone cameras but can't afford more expensive phones.

3. Xiaomi A1:

 Xiaomi

Dual rear cameras are no longer limited to flagship smartphones. We saw more budget smartphones try and offer this feature in 2017, but Xiaomi's Mi A1 stood out with the camera performance. The overall specification of the phone might not be different from other devices, especially in the crowded budget market, but the dual rear camera on this phone works really well. The 'Portrait mode' delivers some excellent results as well.

4. Moto G5 Plus:

 Moto

The performance might not be the best, but it definitely is the best camera phone on a budget. The phone has an improved design and in our testing, we found the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 quite dependable. You also get Android Nougat 7.0 out of the box and we can expect it to get the next Android update as well.

The device is extremely well made and continues the legacy of the previous G series. One drawback for many would be the 3,000 mAh battery which can get you through one day of heavy use but when competing against the Redmi Note 4, it loses out. It has a decent 12MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera that are adequate enough for a general user.

5. Nokia 6:

 Nokia

Nokia branded phones are back on the market, and the Nokia 6 was the first phone to officially launch under the line. HMD Global's Nokia 6, which went on sale in India mid-August, stood out for its design, build quality, and overall performance.

It is powered by a Snapdragon 430 octa-core chipset bundled with 3GB of RAM and 32GB Internal Storage or 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. On the back is a 16MP sensor while the front is an 8MP shooter. All this is powered by a 3,000 mAh battery.

6. Lenovo K8 Plus:

 Lenovo

If you are looking at the best value for money device on a budget, the K8 Plus from Lenovo should be the first option. The K8 Plus provides decent performance for the price, along with a good dual camera setup. It is powered by an octa-core MediaTek processor coupled with 3/4GB of RAM and 32GB of Storage that is expandable up to 128GB via SD card. The 5.2-inch LCD display is sufficiently bright and vibrant with a very good 424ppi density.

It also features a dual rear camera setup with a 13 MP + 5MP sensor and an 8MP front sensor. One of the biggest strong points of the device is its humongous 4,000 mAh battery that can get you through two days of moderate usage. If you are someone who's main motive is to have round the clock juice available, this is the device you should go for.

7. LG Q6:

 LG

The LG Q6 is currently the best looking budget smartphone out there. The phone features the same signature Full Vision display borrowed from the LG G6, albeit with a 720p resolution. The device is also well built and LG says can withstand a drop or two.

It is powered by the Snapdragon 435 chipset and comes with 3GB RAM and 32GB of storage along with expandable memory. If you're looking for a very good looking phone with the latest industry standard 18:9 ratio display, this is the best option for you. The 13MP rear camera is able to capture really good pictures even in low-light. For selfies, you get a 5MP front camera. The 3,000 mAh battery is more than sufficient to get you through one day of moderate usage.

8. Oppo F5:

 Oppo

The Oppo F5 is a device made for those who are heavy media consumers. It features an 18:9 ratio 6-inch LCD Full HD Display and comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 5. It comes with Android Nougat out of the box and is powered by an octa-core MediaTek chipset along with huge 6GB of RAM along with 64GB of storage.

Oppo has been focusing on selfie-friendly cameras for a long time now and this device continues the legacy. The front camera has a 20MP sensor which comes with its own set of multiple software features. The rear camera consists of a 16MP sensor along with phase detection auto-focus. The battery is also above average with a capacity of 3,200 mAh and perfect for the purpose of long duration streaming or gaming.
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Officials say the device was known as an "unexploded ordnance," or an explosive weapon that did not explode and still posed a...
Eric Fanning, the first openly gay Army Secretary, spoke out Thursday against President Donald Trump's proposed ban on transgender individuals serving in the military.

"You can imagine my shock and outrage when President Trump announced, via Twitter of all things, that transgender individuals would be banned from military service," Fanning said in a fundraising letter for the OutServe-SLDN [Servicemembers Legal Defense Network] advocacy group.

"I was appalled that a commander-in-chief would refer to thousands of people serving in uniform as 'burdensome' and 'disruptive,'" said Fanning, who served as the 22nd Secretary of the Army in the Obama administration and also previously served as undersecretary of the Air Force.

In July, Trump said in a Tweet that the U.S. will no longer "accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military."

He followed that up with a formal notice to the Defense Department ordering a transgender ban in the military and directing Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to conduct a study on the effects and costs of having transgender personnel in the ranks.

Trump later told reporters at his Bedminster, New Jersey, estate, that "it's been a very complicated issue for the military, it's been a very confusing issue for the military, and I think I'm doing the military a great favor."

A Rand Corp. study has estimated that there are between 2,500 and 7,000 transgender service members on active duty and an additional 1,500 to 4,000 in the Reserves and National Guard.

Advocacy groups and transgender personnel currently serving in the military immediately filed a series of federal suits against the ban. Lower court rulings have rejected the ban as discriminatory and ordered the military to begin the process of taking in transgender recruits on Jan. 1.

The Trump administration lost again last week in an appeal of the lower court rulings to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In his letter, Fanning said, "To be clear, transgender individuals have always served in the armed forces. They are not a burden or a disruption. They are just as capable as anyone else and they should be afforded the opportunity to serve openly and with dignity."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday that the U.S. decision to supply "defensive" weapons to Ukraine, possibly including Javelin anti-tank missiles, should be no cause of alarm for the Russians.

"Hopefully, it won't have an impact" on the tense relations between Ukraine and Moscow over Russia's support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, Mattis said. "They're defensive weapons," Mattis said of the arms for Ukraine that reportedly include Javelins and anti-aircraft weapons.

In an informal year-end session with Pentagon reporters, Mattis also said there were no intentions to increase the small U.S. troop presence in Ukraine, where U.S. troops have been training Ukraine forces well away from the frontlines in eastern Ukraine.

"As you know, we have some trainers there -- training to NATO standards," Mattis said. "There's not plan to change that number at all -- as long as no one wants to invade Ukraine. I don't see any evolving U.S. military role in Ukraine right now."

The provision of defensive weapons to Ukraine has long been backed by the Defense Department, but the Obama administration withheld approval and the Trump administration also initially was reluctant to sanction a deal that could antagonize Russia.

Earlier last week, the Trump administration announced that it would permit the sale by U.S. manufacturers to Ukraine of sniper rifles, scopes and ammunition.

Last Saturday, the State Department made the announcement that the U.S. would go ahead with the provision of heavier defensive weapons to Ukraine.

Immediately following the State Department announcement, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said the U.S decision to supply Ukraine with anti-tank weapons was "clearly pushing [Ukraine] to new bloodshed."

According to the United Nations, more than 10,000 have been killed in fighting in Ukraine since the separatists in 2014 declared the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine.

Despite the tensions between Kiev and Moscow over the arms deal, the Russian-backed separatists and Ukraine agreed Monday to their first prisoner swap in 14 months.

Russian state media reported that Ukraine had agreed to release 306 prisoners in exchange for 74 being held by separatists.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Mililtary.com.
U.S.-backed forces were in the process of "crushing the life" out of ISIS but "the war is not over" in Iraq and Syria, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday.

Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria earlier this month and held a parade in Baghdad. Russian President Vladimir Putin later made similar claims on behalf of the Moscow-backed regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and said -- not for the first time -- that Russia would begin withdrawing troops.

However, Mattis echoed his field commanders in stating that much work remained to be done to prevent the emergence of what Mattis has called "ISIS 2.0," a reference to a possible ISIS attempt to return to its hit-and-run terror roots in an effort to once again exploit sectarian rifts in Iraq and Syria.

"We told you that the [ISIS] caliphate was going to go down," Mattis said, and "as we sit here today at the end of 2017, the caliphate is on the run, we're breaking them."

The string of defeats for ISIS, from Mosul and Kirkuk in Iraq to Raqqa in Syria, was the result of accelerating the strategy put in place by the Obama administration to train, advise and assist partnered forces who would take the lead in the fight backed by U.S. airpower, Mattis said.

Mattis said there were "numerous people who thought that, perhaps, the strategy was wrong when it was initiated by the last administration -- thought it was too slow when I came in."

However, picking up the pace on the basic strategy was "crushing the life" out of ISIS, he said.

Related content:

Mattis said he was not overly concerned that the gains against ISIS in Syria could be jeopardized by disputes over the demarcation, or "deconfliction" lines, in eastern Syria where the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF] are in close proximity to Assad's forces backed by Russian airpower.

The U.S. and the SDF were now focused on ISIS' remnants in the Middle Euphrates River Valley, Mattis said. "We recognize that there's a deconfliction line that runs down the river," he said.

He did not give specifics, but said that occasionally "there have been problems" along the deconfliction line between U.S. and Russian forces. "We've resolved those problems," he said.

Referring to the hotlines used by U.S. and Russia to communicate, Mattis said "never once have we called and it's not been answered, never once have they called and we've not answered."

Mattis made the comments in a wide-ranging, year-end session with Pentagon reporters. At one point in the informal back and forth, Mattis bristled at the suggestion in a question that the U.S. was not concerned about civilian casualties in Yemen.

"I'm never okay with any civilian casualties --, don't screw with me on this," Mattis said. He said the U.S. was determined to reduce civilian casualties in the Yemeni civil war pitting tribal Houthi rebels backed by Iran against Saudi-backed forces of the ousted government.

The U.S. has been providing intelligence and air refueling to Saudi fighters that have repeatedly hit the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

On Thursday, the United Nations issued a report stating that more than 100 civilians had been killed in a series airstrikes in Yemen in the past 10 days.

Mattis said the U.S. was working closely with the Saudis on limiting the civilian casualties. "We are going to continue to train them how to do target identification, try to get their capabilities up in those areas," he said.

"We're going to continue to work with their pilots and explain how you do bombing runs, that sort of thing," Mattis said, while stressing that the Houthis often take positions in residential areas.

"Anything we can do to limit the civilian casualties, we will be doing," he said. "We are going to try to make that military of the Saudis more capable of carrying out what they find to be their military necessity without killing innocents."

Earlier in the session with Pentagon reporters, Mattis said he doubted that ISIS fighters would be able to find a new safe have in Syria, despite reports that many of them were fleeing to the west to areas controlled by other rebel groups near Damascus.

"Those who are fleeing somewhere else -- it's the normal thing that happens" in war, he said. "I'm not seeing right now that there's some concentration where they're going to come up big and have a safe haven. I've not seen any indication of that."

The objective for the U.S. now in both Iraq and Syria was to reduce the ISIS threat to the point that local police can handle it, Mattis said. To do that was still the job of the military backed by accurate intelligence that can pinpoint the locations of scattered groups of fighters, Mattis said.

"What we want to do is drive this down to the point that it can be handled by local authority, by police and that sort of thing," Mattis said, "but right now it's still very much a military/intelligence operation."

-- The second graph was updated to correct the name of Syria's president.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
Here's a look at the most popular stories this week on Military.com.

Marine Leaders Highlight Norway Unit's Role as Deterrent to Russia

The stated goals of the Marine Corps' newest rotational force in Norway are to enhance partnerships with European allies and improve the service's ability to fight in cold weather.

By Hope Hodge Seck | Read more

Mold at Al Udeid Air Base Was Preventable: IG Report

Service members living at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, might not have been plagued by mold in bathrooms, common living spaces and poorly ventilated rooms if the base had more carefully observed serious water damage in facilities, according to a Defense Department Inspector General report.

By Oriana Pawlyk | Read more

Marines' Top Officer Was Once Scolded for Being a Grinch

The roughly 300 Marines that make up Task Force Southwest, the unit advising Afghan soldiers in their fight against the Taliban here, are nearly done with their eight-month deployment. But they won't make it home in time for Christmas. Despite festive touches scattered around base including a Santa sleigh and a Christmas tree made out of sandbags, it doesn't feel much like the holidays.

By Hope Hodge Seck | Read more

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-- Sean Mclain Brown can be reached at sean.brown@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at @seanmclainbrown.
1. New Carrier Landing Tech Wows Pilots on First Deployment

By Hope Hodge Seck: "After eight hours in the cockpit executing airstrikes on ISIS targets, fighter pilots assigned to this carrier are getting a little extra help as they come in for a landing. The Norfolk, Virginia-based George H. W. Bush and the San Diego-based carrier Carl Vinson both deployed in January with air wings equipped with a developmental technology that allows them to better control lift, making landings safer and more precise. How much more precise? So much, pilots attached to the ship told Military.com, that it's causing their arresting cables to wear unevenly." Read more.

2. North Korea Rattled by Commando-Carrying Guided Missile Sub

By Richard Sisk: "The North Korean regime headed by Kim Jong-Un seems rattled by the presence of the USS Michigan near the Korean peninsula. The former doomsday 'boomer' was once loaded with Trident nuclear ballistic missiles but has since gone retro for a more conventional role, including the transport of elite American commandos in the form of Navy SEALs. 'The moment the USS Michigan tries to budge even a little, it will be doomed to face the miserable fate of becoming an underwater ghost without being able to come to the surface,' the North's propaganda website Uriminzokkiri said." Read more.

3. Why the F-22 Raptor Didn't Get the Air-to-Air Kill in Syria

By Oriana Pawlyk: "U.S. fourth-generation fighter jets this month scored some historic air-to-air kills in Syria. On June 18, a Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet conducted the U.S. military's first air-to-air kill involving a manned aircraft in nearly two decades when it downed a hostile Su-22 Fitter south of Taqbah. On June 8 and again on June 20, Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles shot down Iranian-made Shaheed drones over At Tanf as the unmanned aerial vehicles approached or dropped munitions near U.S.-backed forces on the ground. But aviation geeks couldn't help but wonder why the most advanced fifth-generation air-to-air fighter -- the Air Force's F-22A Raptor made by Lockheed Martin Corp. -- was missing from the action." Read more.

4. WATCH: Russia's Su-35 Wows Crowds at MAKS and Beyond

By Brendan McGarry: "Russia's Su-35 fighter jet wowed crowds this week at the MAKS 2017 airshow outside Moscow, according to multiple reports on social media. The twin-engine aircraft designed by Sukhoi carrying the NATO reporting name Flanker-E performed feats of aerial acrobatics that stunned even longtime aviation enthusiasts on social media. 'I mean, come on,' Stephen Trimble, aviation reporter and editor for Flightglobal's Americas bureau, tweeted Thursday after seeing footage of the aircraft's demonstration. 'And people actually thought the F-35A display at Paris last month was impressive. This isn't impressive. It's unbelievable.'" Read more.

5. Retired But Still Flying, the F-117 Nighthawk May Soon Fade to Black

By Oriana Pawlyk: "The F-117 Nighthawk has been spotted over the Nevada desert occasionally in recent years, raising questions why a "retired" plane has made its way onto a flightline. Technically categorized as "flyable storage," the remaining single-seat, twin-engine aircraft in the Air Force inventory are tucked away at test and training ranges in Tonopah, Nevada. But in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017, passed Dec. 23, the Air Force will remove four F-117s every year to fully divest them -- a process known as demilitarizing aircraft, a service official told Military.com." Read more.

6. The US Just Flew a Stealth Fighter to Bomb Drug Labs in Afghanistan

By Oriana Pawlyk: "The Air Force has unleashed the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter in Afghanistan for its first operational mission against Taliban drug labs, the Defense Department said. The F-22s were joined by B-52 Stratofortresses and Afghan A-29 Super Tucanos to conduct an expanded strike mission -- called the new offensive campaign -- against the Taliban's revenue stream, said Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission and U.S. Forces Afghanistan. The Raptor 'was used because of its ability to deliver precision munitions -- in this case, a 250-pound bomb, small-diameter, that causes the minimal amount of collateral damage,' he said during a teleconference briefing in Kabul." Read more.

7. MiG-35, Russia's New 4th-Gen Light Fighter, Readies for Combat

By Hope Hodge Seck: "The next addition to Russia's roster of fighter jets that bridge fourth- and fifth-generation technology may join units as soon as 2019, officials with the MiG Corporation told Military.com here at the Paris Air Show. The MiG-35, designed to replace MiG-29s rounding out their fourth decade in service, was absent from Paris but will be featured at the MAKS international airshow near Moscow in July as engineers finalize testing on the aircraft, said Anastasia Kravchenko, public relations director for MiG. Still to be determined is whether the fighter will be featured in a static display or aerial demo, she said." Read more.

8. US Army Close to Decision on Shielding Abrams Tanks with Israeli Tech

By Richard Sisk: "The Israelis call it the 'Windbreaker' that already is protecting their Merkava 4 tanks against rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles, and now the U.S. Army is close to giving the go-ahead to install it on the M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks. The Windbreaker, more commonly called the 'Trophy Active Protection System,' was designed to detect incoming projectiles and neutralize them with ball-bearing filled canisters fired off like buckshot. 'We're very close to a decision on the Trophy system,' said Army Maj. Gen. David Bassett, the Army's program executive officer for ground combat systems. Read more.

9. Humvee-Mounted Howitzer Dazzles at Modern Day Marine

By Matthew Cox: An Illinois-based company has developed a stabilized 105mm cannon system designed to be mounted on the back of Humvees, Joint Light Tactical Vehicles and similar-sized platforms. Mandus Group, in a partnership with AM General, showed off its Hawkeye 105mm Mobile Weapon System at Modern Day Marine 2017. The system features a U.S. Army M20 105mm cannon and a digital fire control system mounted on an AM General M1152A1 Humvee. The self-propelled howitzer features front and rear hydraulic anchors that stabilize the gun when firing. Read more.

10. Navy Electronic Jamming Aircraft Take Quiet Toll on ISIS

By Hope Hodge Seck: "While Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets deal death from the sky on Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, the EA-18 Growler is jamming enemy communications -- and potentially enemy drones too. The Bush, which has been launching sorties in support of the counter-ISIS fight since early in the year, has four Hornet squadrons flying constant missions against the enemy. But also key to the fight are its squadron of Growlers and E-2C Hawkeye aircraft, which can detect airborne threats at distance and coordinate strikes from the air." Read more.

-- Brendan McGarry can be reached at brendan.mcgarry@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Brendan_McGarry.
The California National Guard has wrapped its response in support of civil authorities to contain the worst wildfires ever to hit the state.

Capt. William Martin of the California Military Department said that about 1,600-1,700 Guard personnel were activated at the height of the wildfires and were mostly withdrawn last week.

The response to the fires that broke out Dec. 4 included two C-130J aircraft from the 146th Airlift Wing of the Air National Guard, flying out of Channel Islands Air National Guard Station near Oxnard, California, Martin said.

The aircraft were equipped with Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) to drop retardant on the blazes that were fanned by Santa Ana winds.

Two MQ-9 Reaper drones from the Air National Guard's 163rd Attack Wing, flying out of March Air Reserve Base near Moreno Valley, California, were used for surveillance and infrared detection of hot spots.

In addition, nine members of the New York Air National Guard's 174th Attack Wing were sent to California to assist the California Air National Guard's 163rd Attack Wing in flying the MQ-9 remotely piloted aircraft.

The Southern California wildfires centered in Ventura county burned an estimated 281,620 acres -- more than 440 square miles -- and destroyed more than 1,000 structures.

The wildfires have been associated with two deaths, including a firefighter. The fire's cause remains under investigation.

As of Tuesday, CalFire, the statewide firefighting agency, reported that the fires had been 88 percent contained.

"Businesses are open and eager to serve the public," CalFire said in a statement. "No forward progress of the fire is expected at this point."

"This has been an especially busy year, even by California standards" for the California Guard, Martin said.

In February, Guard personnel were activated for the response to the floods and threatened break of the Oroville dam in northern California and were also activated for wildfires in the summer and fall, Martin said.

The California wildfires capped an especially busy year overall for the military in responding to wildfires, three major hurricanes and other natural disasters that caused total damages estimated at more than $200 billion.

At one point, the commitments of heavy lift military aircraft to the Caribbean led to a brief delay in the deployments of additional troops to Afghanistan under President Donald Trump's new strategy to accelerate the war against the Taliban, an ISIS offshoot and Al Qaeda, Pentagon officials said.

In total, about 67,000 active duty and Guard personnel assisted civil authorities in response to the range of natural disasters this year, Lt. Col. Jamie Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, told CNBC.

Congress has been considering an $81 billion disaster aid package, nearly double the $44 billion initially requested by the White House, but Gov. Pedro Rossello of Puerto Rico has estimated that the island alone would need about $90 billion to recover from Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

If the $81 billion were to be approved, it would bring to $130 billion the amount Congress has spent this year on a particularly destructive season of hurricanes that tore through Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and wildfires that are still burning in California.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
1. Air Force's Newest Gunship, AC-130J Ghostrider, Is Almost Ready for Combat

By Brendan McGarry: "The U.S. Air Force this month plans to declare its newest gunship, the AC-130J Ghostrider, ready for combat -- or initial operating capability (IOC) in acquisition parlance -- but the aircraft won't actually deploy to a war zone for a couple more years, a general said. 'We are declaring IOC, Initial Operating Capability, this month on the AC-J,' Lt. Gen. Marshall 'Brad' Webb, head of Air Force Special Operations Command, said during a briefing with reporters at the Air Force Association's annual conference outside Washington, D.C." Read more.

2. Air Force Acknowledges Clandestine Base in UAE

By Oriana Pawlyk: "For the first time in over a decade, the U.S. Air Force is publicly acknowledging it runs an air war out of Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates. The U.S. embassy in country recently worked with Emirati counterparts to make the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing -- an Air Combat Command-run unit at the base -- known, officials told Military.com. Military.com first spoke with members of the 380th on a trip to the Middle East earlier this summer on condition the name and location of the base not be disclosed, and that full names of personnel not be used due to safety concerns amid ongoing air operations against ISIS." Read more.

3. Check Out These Photos of a Crippled F/A-18 Hornet That Flew Home

By Hope Hodge Seck: "On a Nov. 9, 2016, two U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets collided during a routine training flight off the coast of California. As I reported at Military.com, one of the aircraft erupted in flames -- the pilot safely ejected -- and the other was damaged but still able to fly home to Naval Station North Island, San Diego. An investigation into the incident concluded the pilots failed to see that they were on a collision course, a failure attributed in part to inexperience and not getting enough flying time. Despite all that, the pilot who landed this aircraft got high praise." Read more.

4. Academy Cadets: We Want to Make the A-10 Even More Lethal

By Oriana Pawlyk: "A pair of Air Force Academy cadets selected for pilot training are not only preparing for their day in the cockpit -- they're also looking to boost the performance and lethality of the A-10 Warthog. Cadets 1st Class Jon Clegg and John Potthoff have been working at the academy 'to research decreasing maintenance requirements and increase munitions capability,' according to a service release. 'We're working together to investigate replacing the existing leading-edge slat system with a fixed leading-edge droop to reduce complexity on this important aircraft,' Potthoff said in the release." Read more.

5. Air Force Wants More C-5s on the Flightline

By Oriana Pawlyk: "The Air Force plans to activate more C-5M Super Galaxies after removing a number of the cargo planes from active service due to budget constraints, officials said. A few years ago, the size of the fleet was more than 100 aircraft; today, it's half of that, according to Gen. Carlton Everhart, the head of Air Mobility Command. Over the next few years, the Air Force plans to allocate funding to move at least eight of the Lockheed Martin Corp.-made strategic airlifters out of backup status, according to Lt. Gen. Jerry D. Harris, the service's deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements." Read more.

6. Lawmakers Back $400 Million for Possible A-10 Successor

By Oriana Pawlyk: "Key lawmakers agreed to provide the Air Force with $400 million to explore buying a new light attack aircraft for missions in the Middle East. The $400 million figure is proposed in the negotiated fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, congressional staffers said on Capitol Hill. The House could vote on the legislation as early as next week, with action in the Senate sometime afterward. The Senate Armed Services Committee originally added language stipulating $1.2 billion to start procuring light attack aircraft; however, the light attack "experiment" is not currently a program of record." Read more.

7. Air Force: We Want 165 Bombers, Not Just B-21s

By Oriana Pawlyk: "The Air Force now says it wants a total future bomber fleet to be around 165 aircraft -- not just its fleet of B-21 Long Range Strike Bombers. Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee's Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, Lt. Gen. Jerry D. Harris, deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements, was asked about increasing the planned quantity of B-21 Raiders -- the Air Force's future stealth bomber set to join the fleet in the mid-2020s. The service plans to spend more than $55 billion to acquire 100 of the next-generation aircraft as part of the Long Range Strike Bomber, or LRSB, program." Read more.

8. Trump to Coast Guard: I Saved You Money on F-35, Aircraft Carrier

By Hope Hodge Seck: "President Donald Trump's commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut took a strange turn Wednesday when he brought up two major military acquisition programs belonging to other services, bragging about how much money he had saved. The remarks immediately created a buzz on the internet, as critics wondered whether Trump realized the Coast Guard had no stake in the programs he mentioned. 'I won't talk about how much I saved you on the F-35 fighter jet. I won't even talk about it. Or how much we're about to save you on the Gerald Ford, the aircraft carrier,' Trump said." Read more.

9. Coast Guard Design for Navy Frigate? It's Doable, Zukunft Says

By Hope Hodge Seck: "As the Navy searches for the best design for its future frigate, some are promoting an option based on the Coast Guard's national security cutter. And while Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft isn't directly weighing in on the discussion, he has plenty to say about the ship in question. At an event this week organized by the U.S. Naval Institute and held at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., Zukunft recounted a 'sea story' that he has often retold in public: How the new Coast Guard cutter Hamilton, on its 2016 maiden deployment, more than paid for itself with a remarkable 13 major drug interdictions that resulted in the confiscation of a total of nearly $1 billion worth of cocaine." Read more.

10. Another Light Attack Offering Joins Air Force's OA-X Fly-Off

By Oriana Pawlyk: "Another aircraft will fly at the Air Force's OA-X light attack competition next week. Air Tractor and L3 announced Monday they will offer the AT-802L Longsword to participate in the fly-off at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, on Aug. 8 and 9, according to a release. Together, the companies developed the L variant off its predecessor, the AT-802U, the release said. The Longsword is a light attack and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft." Read more.

-- Brendan McGarry can be reached at brendan.mcgarry@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Brendan_McGarry.
With 2017 almost in the rear view mirror, it's the perfect time to take a second and reflect on all the big things that happened for military families and spouses over the last year.

Thanks to the magic of the internet, we can go back and see which stories you read or visited most on both Military.com and Military.com's SpouseBuzz blog.

Want to know what the overall top military stories were? Go here. This list is just for spouses and families.

1. Tricare changes.

The last year has been one of major Tricare changes.

First, a new active duty family dental contract hit May 1, and with it a variety of headaches for military families, especially when it came to pediatric dentists. Dentists complained that the new reimbursement rates offered by Tricare's new contractor, United Concordia, weren't enough to cover their costs, and many providers dropped the plan.

Then, thanks to a regularly scheduled contract shift combined with changes ordered by Congress, the system prepared for a major overhaul set to hit Jan. 1. With it comes new plan names, new regions, new contractors and new fees. You can read all about that here.

2. Pay raise coming and BAH cut avoided

Even as a 2.4 percent military pay raise was given the greenlight, Congress once again dropped plans to cut BAH for some dual military couples.

This time the proposal was to cut BAH for marriage military members who have kids. That idea was canned before the final National Defense Authorization Act was passed, but there's no promise they won't try for another cut next year.

3. Internet thug war over storage auction

One of the most-read stories on SpouseBuzz this year involved an auction company in Chesapeake, Virginia, and its ill-advised decision to advertise a perfectly legal storage facility auction as "unclaimed shipments from overseas." Readers worried that the company was illegally selling off the lost-PCS shipments of military members. In the end it came down to a matter of misleading advertising and photos of shipments that were not the ones up for sale. Instead, the auction company had been contracted by the storage company to sell off abandoned goods that had been there with unpaid bills for many years and, in some cases, decades.

The auction company canceled the sale and, hopefully, took the whole thing as a "what not to do" for next time.

4. U.S. commander delays public death notifications

Official Pentagon policy is that U.S. personnel deaths be announced in a series of releases that include more and more details, such as the name of the service member, as time passses and notificiations are completed to the family.

But one U.S. commander this year changed that rule for the area under his control. Instead he allowed nothing to be publicized until the family notifications were entirely complete. Only then was news shared with the public.

That decision sparked this story and a question: Which is more important, family notifications or public knowledge?

5. OPSEC and FamilyTreeNow

Early last year military families were surprised and scared to find that websites such as FamilyTreeNow aggregate huge quantities of incredibly detailed information about their past and current addresses, family members and people they might know.

For me that meant my current home address, eight former addresses stretching back to 2004 (many of which I had totally forgotten), including one on a military base, a list of all of my family members from my husband's side, including my deceased brother-in-law (but none of my direct family who have my maiden name), and a list of 15 "possible associates" that only included two people who I actually know.

But don't worry -- you can still opt-out. And this popular post tells you how.
Every branch of the service has that place their soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines just dream of getting orders for.

That place could be anywhere that might appeal to an individual maybe they love the cultural experience of being in Europe, or they enjoy the sun in Hawaii, or maybe theyre just away from their hometown.

These arent those places.

Army: Fort Polk, Louisiana

Ever hear of Leesville, Lousiana? No? Good for you. Living in a swamp is not something anyone grew up dreaming about. The nearest towns are at least an hour away, and the nearest fun is in New Orleans, a long drive away.

Someone take me back to Philly.

Sure, the PX is supposedly great thanks to a facelift, but it had better be: Theres nothing else to do. Fort Polk will supposedly ruin your car, ruin your marriage, and make you hate biting lizards.

Navy: NAS Lemoore

Hey, how does being cast out into one of the most polluted cities on the planet sound? Because NAS Lemoore is a great place to get asthma.

When Fresno is your biggest selling point

To make matters worse, the Navy thinks its just an image problem. Yes, the place routinely referred to by the residents as an armpit does have an image problem.

Air Force: Cannon AFB, New Mexico

Most people who havent been to Clovis will argue that I spelled Minot wrong. I argue that any place referred to as Afcannonstan is probably far worse.

I once ran into a group of female airmen from Cannon deployed to Saudi Arabia. They seemed happy to be there.

Both places are pretty remote, and while Minot has a seemingly endless winter, the people of Clovis are annually subjected to a wave of giant insects. Also, the stink of cow dung doesnt travel as far in the cold. Cannons airmen would tell you to be happy its so cold.

Marine Corps: Twentynine Palms, California

All of the duty stations on this list have one thing in common: Theyre pretty far from real American life. Twentynine Palms is no different. These guys are smack-dab in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

The difference between the hottest and coldest temperatures ever recorded in Twentynine Palms is 108 degrees.

So, Marines can prep for sandstorms in the Middle East with sandstorms right here at home. And remember, when airmen complain about the smell of cow manure in the desert, Marines can complain about the lake of sewage.

Coast Guard: You tell me.

The Coast Guard talks about its districts like its in the world of The Hunger Games. Everyone seems to love district 13. In fact, as much flak as the Coast Guard gets for being the awkward child of the military, the Coast Guard doesnt seem to have a worst station among them.

Also, the Coast Guard always looks like its on the way to Jurassic Park.

Im told the station at Venice, Louisiana can be pretty bad and that the CG will let you choose your follow on orders for doing a tour there. But no one ever seems to talk Twentynine Palms-level smack about any station.

Blake Stilwell is a traveler, writer, and adventurer with degrees in design, television & film, and international relations. He is a veteran US Air Force Combat Photojournalist who has worked for ABC News, NBC, and HBO. Blake is based in Hollywood, but often found elsewhere.

MORE POSTS FROM WE ARE THE MIGHTY:

4 ways airmen party while deployed to Afghanistan

6 joys of being a lower enlisted not on holiday block leave

A few good New Year's Resolutions for the Marines

We Are The Mighty (WATM) celebrates service with stories that inspire. WATM is made in Hollywood by veterans. It's military life presented like never before. Check it out at We Are the Mighty.
29.12.2017 LISTEN

Earlier this week, we reported on a story about some gang members of musician Shatta Wales Shatta Movement gang attacking some youth in Nima leaving one in a critical condition in the hospital.

Report coming in on Wednesday morning indicate that one member of the gang known as Hamidu AKA Guyman who was part of the shooting with Kumoji the gang leader has been apprehended and currently in the custody of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

The Shatta Movement gang leader Kumoji aka Shatta Kumoji is said to be on run from the police, with new reports indicating that hes currently seen in Togo.

A press caution has officially been release from the Ghana police authority stating that to the public to help apprehend the gang leader Kumoji, alerting that anyone with information on Kumojis whereabouts should kindly report him to the nearest police station for his immediate arrest.

The youth who was shot during the attack is currently in the hospital batting for his life and hes in a very bad condition.
29.12.2017 LISTEN

Timi Blaze has proved that he is no rapper to be joked by dropping insane highly lyrical remixes back to back off his Mixtape 'The Genius Tape 2'.

This time around its an absolute slaughter of six international rap hits from later 2016 after The Genius Tape 1 dropped till late 2017.

Only a few Nigerians have ever rapped at this level.

He chooses to call this one This is why i am the best , and there's no doubt he is best , just listen to this !!!!!!!

Links

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/timiblaze/this-is-why-i-am-the-best

MediaFire - http://www.mediafire.com/file/wf27fablklqfonl/Timi_Blaze_-_This_Is_Why_I_Am_the_Best.mp3

MyNotjustOk - https://my.notjustok.com/track/download/id/304618

Audio Mack - https://audiomack.com/song/timi-blaze/this-is-why-i-am-the-best
29.12.2017 LISTEN

Popular actor and comedian, Lawyer Nti known in private life as Richmond Xavier Amoakoh has been voted as the 2017 comedian of the year by readers of leading online comedy hub, nogokpo.com in the inaugural edition of their annual Person of the Year Award.

The award was launched by nogokpo.com to recognise Ghanaian comedians who have played vital roles and have made a significant impact in the comedy industry in Ghana and beyond in the year 2017.

Comic actor and standup comedian, MJ the Comedian, also was voted in the poll as the emerging Person of the year, bagging the endorsement as the fastest emerging comedian in Ghana.

Both winners of the maiden annual competition by nogokpo.com will be awarded at a ceremony to be held at the TANOE Hub in Accra for their contribution to the comedy industry in Ghana and beyond.

Other comedians nominated for the Person of the year award included: David Aglah, DKB, Foster Romanus, Funny Face and Kalybos. Ajeezay, China Fon, Jacinta, Khemikal and Lekzy Decomic also made it as nominees for the emerging person of the year category.

Sharing more details about the award, co-founder and Editor at Large, Felix G Fate Korku, mentioned, the comedians are being awarded for their dedication, consistency, national appeal, motivation, brand presence and influence over the years in the fast growing industry in Ghana.

The 2017 Nogokpo.com Emerging Person of the Year Award is proudly organized by Nogokpo.com in partnership with Avance Media, WatsUp TV and TANOE Hub.
Organizers of Ghana National Herbal Awards, Nyame Dua Herbal Foundation, has urged Ghanaians to appreciate Herbal medicine in the country.

The Founder of Nyame Dua Herbal Foundation who doubles as the organizer for the awards Madam Cecilia Gyase Konamah said in an interview with Accra FM that it is good for the society to encourage the use of herbal medicines because herbal medicines has no negative side effects.

Again she mentioned that herbal medicines have the potential of curing many diseases.

Speaking about the upcoming Ghana herbal awards which will be held on 6th January 2018 at Golden Tulip Hotel Kumasi she appealed to government to support and encourage herbalist in the country.

She added that the programme is part of her efforts to support the herbal industry and encourage the best use of herbal medicines in Ghana

Madam Cecilia Konama also said one of the reasons why she is organizing the Annual Ghana Herbal Awards is to recognize the hardworking individuals and organizations that are promoting the usage of herbal medicine and other natural products.

We know that in Ghana the condition for start-ups is not conducive but there are people who defy all odds and we think its time we recognize and reward these people, Madam Cecilia Konama said.

Ghanacreativearts.com
29.12.2017 LISTEN

Reverend Gabriel Madjitey, Minister in-charge of the Unity Congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana at 'Area Four', a suburb in Sunyani has urged Ghanaians to use the yuletide to resolve misunderstandings and differences among themselves.

That, he said, would make the birth of Jesus Christ really significant

He said the birth of Jesus Christ was beneficial to humanity, because through Him mankind was reconciled with God.

The Reverend Minister gave the advice in a sermon on the theme 'The Birth of Jesus Christ has Reconciled Us to God,' at a Church service on the Christmas Day.

He said man at the beginning of creation was separated from God because of sin, but by God's own mercy through the birth and death of Jesus Christ, man was redeemed and restored to God.

Rev. Madjitey said it was, therefore, an obligation and incumbent on anyone or group of people to bury their differences and forge ahead in love and unity for the progress of the country and appealed to the Judiciary and other state institutions mandated to dispense justice to administer that with equity and fairness as there could never be reconciliation without justice.

Rev. Madjitey expressed concern that a greater percentage of Ghanaians professed to be Christians, but were unable to impact the society with Christian values of love, unity, honesty, truth, peace and hard work.

He urged Christians to effectively apply those values wherever they found themselves to impact the society and suggested to the President, Ministers, Parliamentarians, traditional and religious leaders and all those in responsible positions to eschew ethnocentrism, nepotism, favouritism and partiality to the background and execute their duties without fear or favour.

GNA

By Collins Obeng Khophie Jnr, GNA
Essential Relief International, an NGO, has organised a charity event dubbed 'Feast with Inmates' for inmates of the Nsawam prison.

The event, solely funded by Essential Relief International, provide varieties of local dishes such as fufu with goat light soup, Banku with okro stew/pepper, grilled tilapia, "Konkonte" and many more, accompanied with assorted non-alcoholic beverages.

Mr Alexander Nutakor, the Chief Executive Officer of Essential Relief International, told the GNA that "It is our first project and we are more than happy to be celebrating the festive season with the brothers and sisters.'

He said coming to dine with the inmates, would bring joy and relief to most of them, who do not have any connection with family or friends.

He said the charity event, which was joined by the 'Word on the Street Ministry' fed over four thousand Inmates.

'Far from what is being heard about these people, as Ghanaians, we can play integral roles in making life worth living for them,' he added.

He said one of the objectives of the organisation was to support inmates and provide free legal aid and improve on the living conditions of prisoners in terms of medical care and educational opportunities.

'We also intend to support inmate's families and people returning from Prison,' he added.

The CEO said it was to put a long-lasting smile on the faces of the inmates this Christmas.

Mr Richard Selassie Oteng, the NGO's Operations Manager, said "Essential Relief International's has a long term plan of serving humanity and the community through the provision of Essential needs such as access to food and water, education, good health care, civil rights, and equipping people to acquire skills for life."

He said the event served as an eye-opener and a great start for greater things to happen.

GNA

By Morkporkpor Anku, GNA
Skyplus Hotel and Vicarchie Ghana Limited, a shopping mall in Ho have presented food items, soft drinks and a television set to the Ho Central Prisons.

The items worth GHC16,000.00 are to mark the Christmas festivities and "make the inmates happy."

Mrs. Victoria Letsa, Chief Executive Officer of the firms said the annual gesture was to give back to society.

Deputy Director of Prisons, Victor Agbelengor, in charge of the Volta Region said 'this is a serious support to us because; home-made foods make the inmates know that society is thinking about them."

He said the Prisons needed drugs for the health needs of the over 500 inmates and also appealed to the Ho Municipal Assembly to help address sanitation challenges of the Prisons.

Last year, Vicarchie Ghana Limited presented assorted items including; detergents to the Prisons.
29.12.2017 LISTEN

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has donated five Yamaha AG motor bikes and five desktop computers and accessories to officers of the Department of Community Development in five districts of the Upper West Region.

The donation is expected to enhance the department's child protection activities in the beneficiary districts including; Wa Municipal, Lambussie, Daffiama-Bussie-Issa, Sissala East and Lawra Districts as part of the implementation of a project that seeks to build the capacity of child protection actors on the use of various child protection tools.

Alhaji Sulemana Alhassan, Upper West Regional Minister who handed over the motor bikes and computers to Mr. Moses Anabanga, Regional Director of the Department of Community Development during a refresher training workshop for child protection actors in Wa, appealed to the officers to put the machines to efficient use to benefit the people especially children.

The Regional Minister noted that government in collaboration with its development partners and civil society actors had been implementing a range of policies, programmes and activities aimed at strengthening the country's child protection system.

Building on a range of interventions, experiences and lessons of the past, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) in collaboration with UNICEF has recently developed two policies, namely the Child and Family Welfare (CFW) policy and the Justice for Children Policy (JCP), he said.

These policies, Alhaji Alhassan said were aimed at strengthening child protection systems that prevented and responded to issues of violence, exploitation and abuse of children and as well ensure justice for children.

He said part of the process of putting this CFW policy and the JCP into practice was to strengthen the capacity of CFW actors to understand the implication of these policies.

This, he noted, would enable the actors to effectively adapt ways of working with them accordingly, adding it was in line with this that the CFW actors were being trained to enable them facilitate and carry out their routine child protection activities in their communities and institutions among others.

Mr Anabanga explained that the child protection actors received some training last year on some child protection tools and how to use them to sensitize communities to identify their own child protection challenges and deal with them.

He added that the refresher training was therefore aimed at updating their minds on the use of the tools and to identify any gaps for correction before adding new tools.

The Regional Director of the Department for Community Development said an application had also been developed for them to collect data at the community and district levels on child protection, which would be forwarded to the regional level and national levels.

The training which was made possible by UNICEF and Ghana Government was attended by key stakeholders including; the Departments of Gender, Children, Social Welfare and Community Development, National Commission for Civic Education and Non-Governmental Organisations into child protection activities.

GNA

By Prosper K. Kuorsoh, GNA
29.12.2017 LISTEN

Mr. David Kukuia, the Headmaster of Zion College at Anloga in the Volta Region, has expressed concern about the school's land litigation involving rivalry clans, which is negatively affecting infrastructure expansion in the school.

'Land litigation has become a major threat to the existence of the school for the past five years. Attempts to settle the case out of court proved futile as the rivalry clans continue to farm on certain portions of the school land.

'The worst situation is when some of the opposing families agitate against sites for new projects,' Mr Kukuia stated at a durbar to climax the 80th Anniversary of Zion College at Anloga.

The 80th Anniversary is on the theme: 'Promoting Quality Education: The role of Stakeholders in moving Zion College Forward'.

The anniversary was under the patronage of the Awoamefia of Anlo State, Torgbui Sri III and the Presiding Bishop of the A.M.E Zion Church for Western West Africa Episcopal District, Right Reverend Dr. Hilliard Dogbe.

Mr. Kukuia called on the Anlo Traditional Council, the Keta Municipal Assembly, opinion leaders in the community and Assembly members to help find an amicable resolution to the land litigation, so that the school can co-exist with the community and ensure a congenial atmosphere for teaching and learning.

The Headmaster said Zion College has been surging through storms to secure an enabling academic work, in the face of inadequate school facilities and resources.

He expressed concern that a Parent Teacher Association classroom block started 15 years ago was still at the foundation stage, and the dining hall, which also serve as the only space for school gathering was not spacious enough to accommodate the large number of students.

He noted; 'One major hurdle that impedes effective teaching and learning is inadequate infrastructure and furniture. Some first year students are compelled to learn in uncompleted structures and under shades. In fact the provision of classrooms and furniture demands our urgent attention.'

Mr. Kukuia revealed that due to inadequate accommodation, some teachers turn down posting to the school'Our boarding facilities are limited. In order to avoid congestion and its subsequent hazards, most first year students have to secure accommodation in town, the only alternative in the short term'.

The school currently has 1541 students comprising of 750 females and 791 males with 867 as boarders, with 95 teaching staff and 47 non-teaching staff.

Mr. Kenneth Ashigbey, the Chief Executive of Ghana TeleCommunications Chamber, the Guest Speaker, reminded students that their success both in their academic work and after school depended greatly on discipline.

He called for a radical educational system, which broadens the mindset of students where they will learn to be ambitious and visionary youth in their quest for a decent life with high levels of integrity with innovative ideas, will enable the country to leap forward out of misery, poverty and disease.

Mr. Ashighey also advised student to avoid cheating, drug abuse, hooliganism and sexual abuse as well as homosexuality, which he described as an abnormality.

Mrs. Joyce Eku Wilson- Tagoe, Chairperson of the Anniversary Planning Committee noted that 80 years was a long and significant milestone in any individual or institution's life and 'we can all imagine the difficult conditions that the very first students who entered New African University College faced 80 years ago'.

However, 'with commitment and dedication, Zion Collage still stands firm and continues its educational contribution to the training of men and women for the socio-economic and human resource development of our nation'.

GNA
Hundreds of years after Brazilian slaves first fled to rebel communities called quilombos, remnants of those outposts of freedom live on in the heart of Rio de Janeiro.

Often the quilombos were established in remote places -- better to get away from pursuers.

However, three founded in Rio have survived as living testaments to a tradition at the core of Brazil's complicated racial history.

Of course, Afro-Brazilians do not need to escape slavery anymore, but in a country riven by racial inequality and historic injustices, the quilombos now serve as focal points for resistance of a more contemporary kind.

The Sacopa quilombo is one of the city's best kept secrets, a beautiful area of tropical forest that has ended up being surrounded by the high-rent Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas neighborhood.

Back in the 19th century, long before the fancy apartment buildings sprang up, this was where slaves seeking freedom would gather, starting new lives. The population grew and, around it, so did Rio.

"We're still here because I have been very stubborn. They tried everything to take this land from us but we have the rights," said Luiz Sacopa, 74, who is the eldest living descendant of the original slaves.

He says he has lost count of the attempts by people to oust the quilombo.

One neighbor planted marijuana on the plot to try to incriminate them.

Then, citing noise complaints, the Rio state court stopped the quilombo from hosting cultural events like feijoada feasts and classes in capoeira, a dance-like martial art developed by fugitive slaves.

That was "a very hard blow," Sacopa said.

"We were very respectful, always ending everything by 8:00 or 9:00 pm," said another family member, Jose Claudio Torres Freitas, during an event staged on official Black Consciousness Day.

"This is the only day we're allowed to do anything," he said.

The modern-day quilombos like Sacopa do have some legal protection.

In 2003, then leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed a decree regularizing boundaries and titles for descendants of quilombo slaves, who are collectively known as quilombolas.

However, the bureaucratic procedures are complex and while the three quilombos in Rio de Janeiro have been recognized, they are still waiting for the second stage of the paperwork to be completed.

Swallowed up

The Pedra do Sal quilombo, right in the center of Rio near the port, is where many slaves went soon after arriving on ships from Africa.

The site is also rich in cultural significance as a key location in the development of the still thriving Afro-Brazilian religion candomble.

People attend a samba concert in Pedra do Sal -- in the background is graffiti depicting Zumbi Dos Palmares, who became a symbol of the fight against slavery in Brazil

But legal uncertainties mean few of those from the 25 families descending from the original Pedra do Sal community live there anymore.

"The neighborhood wasn't like this back then -- it was very isolated," said Damiao Braga, the quilombola leader.

"But it was gradually invaded and swallowed by the city. There were many disputes, including with the Catholic church."

Even recognition from UNESCO for the nearby Valongo Wharf, where slave ships used to dock, has not helped much.

"We have international support but the disputes remain. Empty buildings have been taken over and once that happens, it's not easy to reverse," Braga said.

Olympic destruction

Out in the west of Rio, where most of the Olympic Games took place in 2016, quilombola descendant Adilson Almeida helps oversee yet another of these pockets of history.

His ancestors founded the Camorim quilombo after escaping back in the 16th century. When slavery ended, the family returned and set up a community there.

In this out of the way area, the quilombolas went about their lives until 2014 when the 20 resident families woke up to find construction work starting: the woodland that was historically theirs had been picked as the site of housing for Olympic referees.

The surviving quilombos in Rio, like Pedra do Sal, are living testaments to a tradition at the core of Brazil's complicated racial history

In this case, the quilombo had yet to receive the paperwork from even the first stage of the registration procedures to obtain legal protection, and the land was never returned to the community.

But Almeida still has hopes.

Archeologists found thousands of artifacts from the 16th and 17th centuries during research there last year, and the disputed area has been named an official archeological site by the National Institute for Historic and Artistic Patrimony.

"Now we have a solid legal base and it would be hard for something like the 2014 invasion to happen again," Almeida said.
Migrant arrivals by sea to Spain tripled in 2017 on the previous year, fuelled by a surge in the numbers of Algerians and Moroccans, while over 200 died trying to make the crossing.

"At the end of the year, the tally is devastating," the Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR), which defends the right to asylum, said in a statement.

Almost 21,500 people arrived by sea on Spain's southern shores -- popular with northern European tourists -- between January 1 and December 20, up from 6,046 during the same period last year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The number of deaths is also up. So far this year 223 people have died or disappeared while trying to reach Spain by boat, 95 more than in 2016.

Most sea arrivals are reported along the Strait of Gibraltar which is the narrowest passage of the Mediterranean Sea separating Spain from Morocco.

Smugglers transport migrants to Spain on rickety wooden boats, inflatable dinghies, and even jet-skis, charging hundreds of euros for the trip.

In August footage of sub-Saharan African migrants arriving by dinghy on a packed beach in Cadiz in the southern region of Andalusia in August during the peak summer holiday season went viral on social media, drawing attention to the rise in migrant numbers.

"We are suffering migratory pressure in the entire Mediterranean area," Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said Thursday in a radio interview.

'Focused on repression'

While migrant arrivals rose in Spain, they fell in Italy and Greece, the primary entry point for migrants in Europe.

Nearly 119,000 migrants have arrived so far this year in Italy, which has put in place more aggressive measures to stem arrivals on its shores, including sending Italian military ships to assist the Libyan coast guard with patrols and interception.

Roughly 28,000 migrants arrived in Greece, where a 2015 European Union deal with Turkey has helped stem the flow of people making the narrow but precarious sea crossing from Turkish shores to outlying Greek islands.

Both countries each received over 170,000 migrants by sea in 2016.

Migrants deaths in attempted crossings of the Mediterranean are down overall even as they rose in Spain.

So far this year 3,116 migrants have died or disappeared while trying to cross the Mediterranean into Europe, down from 4,967 last year, according to the IOM.

The bulk of the migrants who have arrived in Spain in recent years have been from sub-Saharan Africa but this year has seen a rise from people from Morocco and Algeria, organisations that work with migrants said.

The increase in arrivals from Algeria is due to "the economic situation in the country, which has deteriorated in the last three years" following a drop in the price of oil, a key export, Carlos Arce of the Human Rights Association of Andalusia (APDHA) told AFP.

Social unrest in northern Morocco's Rif region is behind the rise in arrivals from that country, he added.

Moroccan security have been "more focused on repression than in controlling the flow of migrants", Arce said.

Surfboards and jet-skis

Migrant arrivals from Morocco to Spain have risen since June, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said in a report last month.

"Moroccans use all sorts of methods to reach Spain such as jet-skis, surfboards, inflatable dinghies and wooden boats which sometimes transport over 60 people," it said.

Spanish authorities have struggled to cope with the surge in migrant arrivals.

The government came under fire from human rights organisations in November after it housed some 500 migrants who arrived in southern Spain, mainly from Algeria, at an unopened prison due to a lack of space at immigration detention centres.

During the last two week "hundreds of people have been sent back to Algeria" from the prison, including several minors, according to the director of migrant rights group Malaga Acoge, Alejandro Cortina.

Rights groups have called for migrants to be allowed to wait for the outcome of their asylum bid under more lax conditions, by reporting regularly to police or a court.

But Zoido has argued that there is a risk that the migrants would disappear, causing a "pull effect" that would lead smugglers to bring more migrants to the country.
A forum to give the chiefs and people in the Atwima-Nwabiagya District sufficient insight into how funds meant to transform their lives are being spent has been held at Abuakwa.

It was organized under the theme 'Improving citizens' participation in local governance'.

The programme was jointly put together by the district assembly and the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) with support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).

This provided the opportunity for the people to articulate their development concerns - bad nature of roads, poor sanitation, limited health facilities, inadequate classroom space, teaching and learning materials.

Mr. Ebenezer Douglas Ntiamoah, the Development Planning Officer, announced that out of the total amount of GH3,622,245.00 the assembly had been expecting as its share of the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF), it had received about GH1,000,000.00.

He indicated that the late release of the common fund was making it difficult to meet projects' implementation deadlines.

The situation, he added, was also not being helped by the low mobilization of internally generated revenue.

Mr. Ntiamoah said the assembly could not continue to overly depend on the common fund for the construction of every single development project and would have to explore other revenue streams.

It was important they all accepted to voluntarily pay their rates and levies to the assembly to strengthen its finances and the capacity to bring progress to the communities.

Ms. Faustina Djabatey of the GACC urged the people to actively participate in the activities of the assembly to decide their own destiny.

She said this was the way to go to ensure that there was financial transparency and accountability by the assembly.

Mr. Emmanuel Kojo Antwi, the District Director of National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), called for all to join the anti-corruption campaign by being bold to report any corrupt practices.

Everybody, he said, should find space to contribute to the fight against corruption, to make sure that the nation's resources benefited all.

GNA

By Abigail N-ebene Baka, GNA
29.12.2017 LISTEN

The Upper West Regional Security Council (REGSEC) has set up a Regional Security Fund to bolster activities of the Council to deal with robbery and general insecurity in Ghana's poorest region.

The Security Council has also programmed to sensitise a number of communities, particularly those along the highways, by assisting them to set up Neighbourhood Watch Committees to help stem rising criminal activities in the Region.

'REGSEC has set up a Regional security fund to support the series of activities that have been lined up to deal with insecurity in the region,' Alhaji Alhassan Sulemana, the Regional Minister who is also Chairman of REGSEC, told Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) members Wednesday.

He said a committee has been established by REGSEC to manage the fund and are expected to report to the RCC from time to time about it utilisation and sustenance.

He expressed appreciation to the Upper West branch of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union for being the first to contribute to the Fund.

'I must acknowledge that GPRTU is the first to contribute to this fund,' he said: 'I therefore wish to appeal to all well-meaning Ghanaians, assemblies, organisations and the general public to contribute to this worthy courses.'

Alhaji Sulemana said security remained a paramount ingredient for the necessary development of any society to take place and therefore appealed to the people to play their part in crime prevention and reduction by providing the police with information on criminal activities.

He reported that the Region was peaceful throughout the year without, except some disagreements relating to enskinments of chiefs in local communities.

'We wish to appeal to the region's house of chiefs and the various traditional councils to get these disagreements addressed before they degenerate into full blown conflicts,' he said.

The REGSEC chairman said cases of robbery especially on the highways were swiftly dealt by the security personnel who quickly came in with intensified patrols and police visibility.

'This has resulted in the reduction of robbery of late,' he said: 'In fact, some of the notorious criminals are in the grips of the law enforcement authorities.'

The region is collaborating through joint meetings and personnel deployment in joint patrols with the Northern REGSEC to fight robberies along the highways.

Municipal and District Chief Executives who responded to various questions about the security situation in their areas said there was general peace except some pockets of disputes which were being resolved peacefully.

They also reported the districts have joint operations in their common areas identified as hotspot for criminal activities to tame the tide of insecurity to allow people to go about freely in their daily lives and do businesses.

GNA

By D.I. Laary, GNA
A scrap dealer who is accused of pretending to be a Police officer at Kantamanto has appeared before an Accra Circuit Court.

Fuseini Musuna who was charged with falsely pretending to a public officer pleaded guilty.

According to him he told the crowd that he could be a police officer in order to save himself from being beaten by the mob.

The court after listening to the explanation entered a plea of not guilty.

Musuna is also facing an additional charge of use of narcotic drugs. The court did not take his plea in respect of that charge because the alleged dried leaves are yet to be sent to the Laboratory for analytical examination.

Chief Inspector Kwabena Adu who held brief of Superintendent of Police Kweku Bempah said on December 22, this year, at Katamanto, Musuna allegedly told two persons that he was a Police officer and he failed to produce an identity card to that effect Musuna was escorted to the Police at Railways and when he was searched two wrappers of dried leaves suspected to be Inndiann hemp was found on him.

Musuna has been remanded into Police custody by the court presided over by Mrs Abena Oppong Adjin Doku to reappear on January 8.

GNA

By Joyce Danso, GNA
Accra, Dec. 28, GNA - The Ghana Police Band would hold year-long public collaboration activities throughout the country to mark its Centenary Anniversary.

Themed, 'Impacting Lives through Music', the anniversary activities, mainly seek to educate the public on police work, as well as the responsibilities of each citizen towards crime prevention.

Supt. Dr. Frank Hukporti, Director of Bands, told the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of the launch, on Thursday, that the activities sought to draw the citizenry closer to the Police through music, adding that there would be musical performances in heavily populated areas such as the Kwame Nkrumah Circle.

Supt. Dr. Hukporti said these performances would also be laced with the education of the people by the Public Affairs Department of the Police.

He said the topics would include 'Collaborating with the Police for Effective Crime Combat'.

He said the activities also included performances at second cycle institutions and universities, with a lot of education on Police Work and Police-Public Education.

Every Capital city within the country is expected to come out with its own agenda for the celebrations, Supt. Dr.Hukporti said, adding that an activity would be planned for every month of the year-long celebration.

The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. David Asante Apeatu, who launched the event, said the Band which was initially formed as a Military Band, now had units in all administrative bases of the Police Service.

He said for the Police Force to perform to the best of its abilities, it needed the goodwill and support of the citizenry.

The IGP said the Police Band was the ideal tool to be used in forging these good relations because music was one medium, which forged unity by destroying inner turmoil, which in the long term, minimised external conflict.

He said through the unifying strength of music, the Band had the ability to draw the public closer to the Police for better understanding and collaboration.

The Deputy Minister of the Interior, Mr. Henry Quartey, congratulated the Police Service for ranking eighth best in Africa for the year 2017.

He said apart from a 'few bad nuts', the Ghana Police had performed their duties excellently.

The Deputy Minister said there was indeed a strong need for the public to have faith in the Police, for effective crime combat, while the Police Band should improve upon its prospects, in order to serve its role effectively.

'I am of the belief that the Police Band would improve upon its lot, as part of the vision of the Ghana Police to be a World Class Police Service,' he said.

Formerly known as the Gold Coast Police Band, the Ghana Police Band now has units in all administrative bases of the Ghana Police Service.

GNA
The management of La General Hospital in collaboration with the La Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly has inaugurated a reconstructed five-bedroom Emergency Unit to serve patients in critical conditions.

The Hospital also commissioned an incinerator, a waste management facility and a walkway that links the Out Patients Department to the wards.

Dr Ebenezer Oduro Mensah, the Medical Superintendent, La General Hospital said the emergency rooms were renovated due to the unfortunate gas explosion that occurred near the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre at La, which claimed nine lives.

He said as part of holistic measures to deal with disaster, government supported the hospital with 60 per cent funding whilst the hospital through its Internally Generated Fund (IGF) contributed 40 per cent and raised additional funds to renovate the Emergency Unit to meet international standards.

According to Dr Mensah, the old Emergency Unit was in a bad state, with no privacy for patient's care, a situation where passer-by could see what was going on in the Emergency Ward, saying; 'We felt that our clients should have a decent place when they are brought to the hospital'.

He said the new emergency ward could accommodate five patients, explaining that it was, meant as a stabilisation unit for patients, and afterwards they would be moved to the ward for medical attention.

Dr Mensah, who is also a Family Physician, said the Hospital had to convert the Cholera Unit, which was supported by the Danish Embassy to a General Ward due to inadequate bed space for patients care.

'As a result of the conversion, management of the hospital through their IGF, constructed a walkway to link that structure with their main hospital unit for easy access to the facility by patients,' he added.

Dr Mensah said in 2016, the incinerator for disposal of waste in the hospital broke down and appealed to the La Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly for support to construct an ultra-modern waste facility for the hospital.

He said the Hospital with support from the Assembly constructed the newly multi-purpose incinerator for waste management in the hospital, since waste disposal had been a serious challenge for the hospital.

Dr Mensah said the Hospital converted their Storeroom into a Physiotherapy Unit, construction is underway and due to be completed in 2018 to serve patients with physiotherapy problems.

He said the Hospital has two physiotherapists operating from a small consulting room, adding that, the yet to be completed unit would offer physiotherapy services to patients within La and its environs to ease the pressure on LECKMA and Ridge hospitals for services.

He said management would in 2018 renovate old structures such as the mortuary and the laboratory to ensure that the facility was in a decent state for clients care.

Dr Mensah said the Hospital did not do well in terms of maternal mortality and hoped to improve upon its care to reduce maternal and new born deaths as well as improve on its client's service relations.

Madam Gladys Tsotsoo Mann-Dedey Municipal Chief Executive for La Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly was impressed with the infrastructural development in the hospital and pledged the Assembly's resolute support to improve health care delivery in the La community.

GNA

By Kodjo Adams, GNA
Last Thursday, as I alighted from the Citi FM branded car in front of the NPP headquarters, I had only one goal in mind  to get the work done.

Visibly furious NPP members from the Elembelle Constituency in the Western Region, had journeyed for about six hours to the National Headquarters, to register their displeasure concerning their polling station register. I arrived on the scene around 9:20 am; and they had been there since 5:00am that fateful day.

Their initial plan was to petition the national executives, and then talk to the media. But four hours later when no executive had showed up to give them a listening ear; they were ever willing to speak to the media. And for every journalist, there's no greater pleasure than a subject wiling to speak  the work must be done.

It turns out the security personnel at the NPP headquarters were displeased with the protesters' willingness to speak to the media, and the medias readiness to do due diligence. The well-built macho men resorted to attacking us.

I was standing next to a reporter from TV3, who had his camera out, while I had my smartphone out capturing the moment. The aggrieved protesters were our focus, but instead, there were six fuming macho men in our shot.

The threats to attack us and the actual attack happened simultaneously. The TV3 reporter was served a slap, thrown down and kicked mercilessly. The Ghanaweb journalist was not spared either. My braids were being pulled and my spectacles slapped off my face. The protesting Elembelle constituents rushed to our rescue and they received their share of the assault  there was chaos.

By the time there was some semblance of calm, any gadget or object that could facilitate us getting the work done had been seized.

The macho men had one goal  to incapacitate the media. And they succeeded.

During and after the pandemonium, only one question echoed in my brain. Was our effort to get our job done criminal?

In response, my brain reversed to a statement made 11 months earlier by President Akufo-Addo. This is what he said: I ask you to be citizens; citizens not spectators. These words are a fragment of President Akufo-Addo's over 25 minutes inaugural speech on January 7, 2017, and they resounded across the nation. The controversies regardless, that was the crux of his speech.

On that day, the President placed a demand on the citizenry. And the following statement highlights the exacts of his demand. That we should beresponsible citizens building our communities and our nation. Let us work until the work is done.

And having identified my role in the community, on December 21, 2017, I started my day having in mind to work until the work is done. And I'm positive the other journalists had same in mind.

This message was for the teacher, janitor, CEO, farmer, doctor, carpenter, JOURNALIST and every other right thinking or well-meaning Ghanaian, emphasizing enough that it will take our concerted effort to complete the bigger picture.

I write 'JOURNALIST' in caps not because I seek to unfairly glorify the profession above others, even though we are the Fourth Estate of the realm so-called; a position that bestows on us the power to make or break; a very critical role that earns us foes and friends across the social class, relatively more foes from elites and the political class.

Eleven months into the Akufo-Addo administration, and it seems the demand for us  to be citizens; citizens not spectators responsible citizens building our community and our nation; Let us work until the work is done was to every Ghanaian besides the NPP and their entitled youth.

So, in our refusal to be spectators, cameras, phones, recorders and notepads surfaced to capture the events as they unfolded. In doing our job, we were being responsible citizens as our loyalty lies with the people.

The demeanour and actions of the macho security men portrayed a sense of security and surety  that they will go unpunished. This further inflated their already pumped up muscles as they charged at us [journalists] with an offensive aura. They completely trampled on our rights as human beings and as media persons.

If things had gone further sour, my family and the family of the other victims would have been grieving during this festive season.

And to add insult to injury, when the incident was reported to the NPPs Deputy General Secretary, Sam Payne, upon his arrival at the scene, he retorted that, no one asked him [the reporter] to come and film and walked away. His response might have been to only one journalist, but by extension, it goes for the other journalists present.

My immediate thoughts after Mr. Payne's remarks were that media persons are not guaranteed protection of any kind in executing their duties, especially when it's unfavourable to the high and mighty.

It's been a week after the unfortunate incident, and the governing party is yet to comment or show any indication of addressing the issue to ensure there isn't a repetition. Perhaps, Mr. Payne's comments when he was presented with the matter, were only a representation of the entire NPP's disposition.

From where I sit, on this matter and several others like this, the NPP is very much SPECTATING!



By: Marie-Franz Fordjoe/citifmonline.com

The post Assaulted journalist writes: NPPs actions mock their words appeared first on Ghana News .
The Commission on Human rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has cleared the Minister of Finance (MOF), Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, of allegations of conflict of interest in the issuance of some bonds.

The Commission, however, after its investigations of allegations made against the minister by a citizen, Mr Yaw Brogya Genfi, gave wide-ranging directives in relation to the bond issuance processes to ensure transparency and clarity.

After five months of investigations, which included interviews with the parties involved, industry players, transaction advisors, security brokers and the Registrar General., and the review of guidelines, regulations, laws, and other documents, CHRAJ concluded that, On the basis of the evidence available to the Commission, it has come to the conclusion and therefore holds that the allegations by the complainant that the respondent has contravened Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution by putting himself in a conflict of interest situation in relation to the issuance of the 5-year, 7-year, 10-year and 15-year bonds, have not been substantiated.

The decision was contained in a 140-page document detailing the investigations, analysis and conclusions.

Allegations

On April 25, 2017, Mr Genfi petitioned CHRAJ in a letter titled "Petition to investigate conflict of interest in the recent US$ 2.25 billion bond issued by the Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Finance. He insisted that, a relational interest existed between the Minister of Finance and Mr Trevor G Trefgarne, who in a semi-annual report of the Franklin Templeton Investment Limited of December 31, 2016 is one of the Board of Directors of the organisation, while also being the Chairman of the Enterprise Group Limited.

Enterprise Group Limited is a company partially owned by Data Bank Limited, a company in which the Finance Minister is known to have significant interest, Mr Genfi said.

He also complained that Mr Tevor G Trefgarne and the Minister of Finance had also been described as great friends.

Findings

Although there was no evidence that Mr Ofori-Atta benefited personally from the transaction, the Commission, however found breaches of the rules on the issuance of bonds.

On the basis of that, it gave wide-ranging directives in the exercise of its powers under Article 287 (2) of the Constitution that provides that "The Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice or the Chief Justice as the case may be, may take such action as he considers appropriate in respect of the results of the investigation or the admission, directed that the Minister ensure that all processes in the issuance of bonds by MoF and the Bank of Ghana (BOG) are complied with.

It also directed that the minister, as a matter of urgency, pass regulations, rules or guidelines to regulate the format of and criteria for the auctions and the procedures for participation, bidding, and allocation in auctions in relation to the issuance of securities in the domestic market.

CHRAJ further charged the minister take measures in preventing Primary Dealers who are also bookrunners/Transaction Advisors from gaining unfair advantage because of their dual roles.

It urged the implementation of section 56 of the Public Financial Management Act, 921 of 2016 in the shortest possible time due to the imperative of Bonds becoming a feature of the countrys debt payment system and the appetite of investors.

It said section 56 (1) provided that, The terms and conditions of all government borrowing shall be laid before Parliament and shall not come into operation unless the terms and conditions are approved by a resolution of Parliament in accordance with article 181 of the Constitution.

The issuance of bonds is a form of borrowing and therefore operationalising section 56 (2) of the PFM Act with standard terms and conditions for government borrowing through a legislative instrument or through a resolution of Parliament to enable greater transparency in all borrowings is long overdue, CHRAJ stressed.

Observations

Among the 21-point findings in its decision, CHRAJ observed that Primary Dealers also doubled up as Bookrunners/Transaction advisors, and that dual role gave them an undue advantage.

It also observed that the Respondent is either a director, former director or shareholder, or beneficial owner, of several companies whose objects relate to the securities market sector. The companies include Databank and EGL. As such, Respondents interests in the growth and wellbeing of those companies, have the potential to conflict with the interests of the state in relation to the securities market such as the issuance of bonds.

It stated that, The Respondent has business partners and associates related to the securities industry where, according to the Respondent, he has been working for over thirty years. These business partners and associates include partners in Databank, Enterprise Group Limited, Ventures and Acquisitions Limited, as well as Keli Gadzekpo, Trevor Trefgarne and Angela Ofori Atta, also Respondent's spouse.

Decison

CHRAJ, however, said that There was also no evidence before the Commission that there was a personal benefit to the Respondent or his private businesses and other relations.

It said evidence available to the Commission did not support the Complainants allegations that the initial pricing guidelines of the Bond were issued around 5:37 pm on March 30, 2017, by e-mail, which was after normal working hours; or that the transaction was opened at 9:00 a. m. on March 31, 2017; or that the public announcement of the transaction was sent by e-mail at approximately 9:09 am. on March 31, 2017, which meant that the transaction was opened before the announcement was made to the public; and also that the issuance summary was issued on March 31, 2017, at about 4:20 pm. by e-mail indicating that the Bond transaction had been closed and announcement made to the public.

It further said that it did not find evidence that the size of this virtual private placement makes it akin to a sovereign bond or foreign loan; or that the Virtual private placement approach that was used was opened in the morning and closed in the evening of the same day March 31, 2017; or the Enterprise Group Limited is a company partially owned by Data Bank Limited, a company in which the Finance Minister is known to have significant interest; or that the Finance Minister issued the bond in a manner that would favour his friend, family, associates and /or business partners, and that the Bond transaction seems to have been shrouded in secrecy.

Support

Some of the evidence gathered, however supported other claims of Mr Borgya Genfi.

For instance, claims made by him about the fact that the 7-year and 15-year Bonds were not on the 1st Quarter Issuance Calendar (January-March 2017). They were on the 2nd quarter issuance calendar which was released to the BOG on 30th March 2017 at 12:31 PM but operationalized before the end of the 1st quarter 2017; that April 3, 2017, was the Settlement Date; that the process leading to the issuance of the 5-year and 10-year bonds through the tap in arrangement or tap in simpliciter, took place in one (1) day, that is from 12:31 PM on March 30, 2017 when the notice was sent out by the BOG inviting bids and closed at 2:00PM same day; and that Franklin Templeton Investment Limited (an American global investment management organization founded in 1947), purchased about 95 per cent of the Bond issued were all substantiated.
The Founder and President of Concerned Voters Movement (CVM), Mr. Razak Kojo Opoku has stated without any equivocation that this year's Christmas celebration has been the worst ever for those greedy 'criminals' who were enjoying free money in John Mahama's administration.

Mr. Kojo Opoku made this sharp rebuttal when a member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) communication team, Sammy Gyamfi described this year's Christmas celebration under Akufo-Addo led administration as the worst ever celebration in the history of Ghana.

According to Sammy Gyamfi, "Walking around town, one would hear comments like... 'Akufo-Addo Bronya wei de3 (to wit, this Akufo-Addo Christmas is so bad)...prices of goods and services have gone off roof, whilst Dr. Bawumia's naughty boy (the Ghana Cedi), is dancing 'pwalogo' and 'agbodza' on the streets, contrary to claims by 'Economic wizard' Vice President that he has arrested the Cedi and banded over the keys to the IGP".

But Mr. Kojo Opoku replied Sammy Gyamfi that the 2017 Christmas has been very worst to those who were getting free money from the former KMA boss, Mr. Kojo Bonsu and Mahama's family to waste on girls.

According to him, "The financial leakages which characterized John Mahama's Administration has been blocked by President Akufo-Addo's Government making it very difficult for the criminals and corrupt NDC members who were looting Public funds to enrich themselves, to the extent of even some of them opening 'akpeteshie' bar in Kumasi to enjoy this year Christmas".

He, however, stated that this Christmas has been very excellent to those who work hard for their own money as well as those who are financially disciplined.

"Thanks to the prudent management of the economy by President Akufo-Addo's Government, Ghanaians have enjoyed this Christmas except for some lazy minds in the camp of the NDC who are crying because they are no longer getting free money From their corrupt Mentors", he emphasized.

He used the opportunity to wish Ghanaians a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous Year and urged Ghanaians to keep on have trust in the Akufo-Addo led administration.

Source: Daniel Kaku
A 30-year-old woman and two men are in the in the grip of the Suhum police for unlawfully possessing dried leaves suspected to be Indian hemp.

The three; David Tetteh 43, Akpeteyo Tetteh 30, and Bortey Samuel 22, were arrested by the night patrol team in a house at Abenabo near Suhum in the Eastern Region on Thursday, December 28, 2017 upon a tip-off.

Eastern region police Public Relations Officer, ASP Ebenezer Tetteh told JoyNews correspondent Maxwell Kudekor that police caught the suspects with the drugs already parcelled into eleven mini bags waiting to be transported to Accra.

The Police spokesperson said samples of the drug have been sent to the forensic laboratory in Accra for testing as investigations continue.

He said the suspects will be processed for court and a charge of possessing dried leaves suspected to be Indian hemp without excuse will be slapped on all the three.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
The People's National Convention (PNC), has condemned its National Chairman, Bernard Mornah, over his calls for the expulsion of Israeli Ambassador to Ghana, Ami Mehl, saying that is not a party position.

Mr. Mornah made the call following statements from the Ambassador describing Ghana's vote against the US on making Jerusalem the capital of Israel as a regrettable mistake.

According to Mr. Mornah, the Israeli Ambassador had shown gross disrespect to the integrity of the President Akufo-Addo and the people of Ghana by his comments.

In a statement issued shortly after the UN vote, the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana expressed his country's disappointment over the vote.

The statement said it was hopeful that Ghana will not repeat such mistake in subsequent motions before the General Assembly.

Speaking to Citi News, Vice Chairman of the PNC, Henry Asante, reprimanded Mr. Mornah and dissociated the party from the call.

So long as the party is concerned, the party has not made any statement or come together to think of anything of that nature, so for the Chairman to go out to make that statement is a surprise to some of us. We can assume that he was making it out of his personal conviction, and with that we have no qualms with it. But the party will not take kindly to him being associated with it he said

He noted that any statement that comes from the party must be well-thought through and must be approved by the leader.



By: Farida Yusif/Citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post PNC slams Mornah for calling for Israeli Ambassadors expulsion appeared first on Ghana News .
29.12.2017 LISTEN

It came with great astonishment when I found an article on Asia Times that talked about how the ownership of the strategic Hambantota port (built with Chinese loans) has switched hands from that of the Sri Lankan to the Chinese government. Much more mind blowing was when I found out the reason for the Chinese takeover.

Apparently, it was because Sri Lanka is choked with Chinese easy debts to the extent that it cannot repay. The government of the poor country, amid criticism from its population was left with no other option than to turn over the port to the Chinese. China would be controlling the port for a ridiculous 99 years in order to shave off the $1.3billion debt.

This new development comes at the backdrop of Chinas eagerness to implement the BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE (BRI). Beijing sees Hambantota as a linchpin in the success of the BRI. Personally I think the BRI is a wonderful initiative and would give world trade a facelift if and only there is no deviation from the purpose it was intended for. but in no way should it be implemented at the expense of other countries.

How is this relevant to the African milieu?

Like in the famous Somali famine photo, I can see the vulture patiently waiting for the helpless child to die so that it could feed off his dead body. China is everywhere in Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo, from the horn African country of Djibouti to the Cape Verde Islands.

African governments keep running to China for loans as if China is Father Christmas. Earlier this year, the vice president of Ghana, DR. Mahmudu Bawumia boasted of a $19billion loan facility he secured from China using Ghanas manganese reserve as leverage.

That notwithstanding, China provided a $4billion loan facility for the construction of a standard gauge railway from Mombasa to Nairobi, in Kenya and Uhuru Kenyatta is boasting about it all over Africa. The list of Chinese funded projects in Africa goes on.

But before it skips my mind, let me point out that Chinas Peoples Liberation Army has its first overseas naval base in Africas strategic country of Djibouti. Chinas base comes at a time the tiny east African country is choked with other foreign military bases, but for its strategic location on the Red Sea, china could not find any better place. Helplessly, the Djibouti government cannot prevent such a move by china because it arms are twisted because they are saddled with Chinese debt so it has to accept the annual $20million lease for the land occupied by the naval base with 10,000 personnel , till 2026. Setting up foreign military bases on any part of the African continent is a direct effrontery to Africas regional body, AU and the vision of Pan-Africanism.

While the US uses threats, force, violence and sometimes their economic weapons of aid cuts and sanctions to force independent African countries to do as they instruct, China on the other hand uses easily accessible loans to trap their victims. Of the two evils, there is no lesser one and sadly, many African countries are on the verge of being locked in the catchment of Chinas debt trap. Im afraid that when they are finally caught like Singapore, they would have to part ways with some or all of their strategic national assets to make up for the debt.

China, in the course of its power play with the US is drawing more African countries to its net to challenge the latters global military and economic dominance. Whiles Chinas growing global dominance maybe perceived as good, African governments should take note that just as it was an unwise move on the on part of the African countries which chose sides during the cold war, it is still unwise to align to china just because the US is bad  china is bad as well. African governments must be independent of any global power and be able to chart their own course irrespective of whose ox is going to be gored in the course of our independent trajectory to economic emancipation.

After all, if China should take the place of the US on the global power hierarchy, the glory is going to end within the borders of china; the ensuing benefit will hardly trickle down to any African country. It will only serve as an instrument to strengthen chinas new military and economic hegemony over the world.

African governments should take note that the china of today is not the china of Mao Ze Dong. The country has evolved over the years to erase their hallmark of internationalism  Chinas internationalism is dead. The country has become an epitome of the new economic contradiction; they are communist on the inside, but as capitalist and self-seeking as the US is, when dealing with small and weak African nations from the outside.

African governments should know that they have no friends, they are on their own. They can neither get altruistic help from the East nor West. Like the pimp, both the East and West are looking for ways to make money off Africa. The sooner African governments understand this, the better. If there would be any help for African governments, it would come from nowhere, other than from themselves.

Kwame Nkrumah warned that African countries in the micronationalist state are economically unviable. The only way Africa could present a formidable force to counter the negative energies from the East and West is when African countries unite under an All African Union Socialist government.

Africa, unite or perish!
The Ministry of Communications has been presented the IMANI Ghana award for being one of the most inspirational ministries within the year under review.

Four other government institutions which were co-winners of that award were the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, the Gender, Children and Social Protection Ministry, the Food and Agriculture Ministry and Finance Ministry.

This was at the IMANI Ghana Inspirational Public Sector Leadership Awards night, where 45 Ministries, Departments and Agencies were rewarded on the back of the five main pillars of Engagement, Transparency, Social Inclusion, Innovation and Management Effectiveness for the period October 2016  October 2017.

IMANI Ghana also used the occasion to release its annual public sector performance report, which named the 45 as having performed well.

Deputy Minister for Communications, Nenyi George Andah, who received the award on behalf of the Ministry, said such rare recognition for the Ministrys work was testimony that they had chartered a new path to truly serving the public.

He urged his fellow awardees to be spurred on by the awards to help the government realise its objective of impacting the lives of Ghanaians in a positive way.

George Andah suggested to IMANI Ghana to include the registration for the Ghana Post digital and property addressing as a criteria for compliance in next years awards.

Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful acknowledged the award and said We appreciate it and it will spur us on to work even harder next year.

Since the beginning of the year, government, through he Communications Ministry, has been driving a digital Ghana agenda under the mantra "it's digi-time in Ghana".

The digital Ghana agenda, touted as the real foundation on which the economy will take off, has its bedrock being the National Digital Property Addressing System, which begun with the launch of Ghana Post GPS.

The agenda also include the paperless port system, the implementation of the digital National ID system, all of which will support the entirely spectrum of nationwide e-governance system.

Meanwhile, the digital Ghana drive has also seen various agencies under the ministry like GIFEC, NITA, NCA and other taking concrete step to either create the enabling environment for private industry players to key in, or are themselves embarking on digitalization agenda in various forms.

Indeed other state institutions like Ghana Water, Registrar General, Passport Office and others have also digitalized their processes to set the tone for a truly digitized economy.

This is what IMANI Ghana said it finds inspirational about the Communications Ministry, hence the recognition and award.
South Africa's top court on Friday ruled that parliament failed to hold embattled President Jacob Zuma accountable for using state funds to upgrade his private home, in a move that could trigger impeachment proceedings.

The opposition had gone to court arguing that the Speaker of parliament had failed to institute appropriate processes to hold Zuma accountable for his failure to abide by the anti-corruption watchdog's recommendations in 2014 over refurbishments at his rural home in the eastern KwaZulu Natal province using some $15 million of taxpayers money.

The scandal came to a dramatic climax when the Constitutional Court last year found the president guilty of violating his oath of office by refusing to pay back the money.

"We conclude that (National) Assembly did not hold the president to account," said Constitutional Court judge Chris Jafta.

"The failure by the National Assembly to make rules regulating removal of the president... constitutes a violation," of the constitution, the court said.

It ordered that the national assembly "must comply" with the constitution to make rules that could be used for the removal of the president "without delay".

Defeated in court and facing mounting public criticism, Zuma later relented and paid $500,000, a sum set by the treasury.

In power since 2009, Zuma stepped down last week as president of the ruling ANC party after a 10 year term marked by numerous damning court judgements against him.

Friday's ruling is expected to pile up more pressure on the beleaguered leader.

Zuma was succeeded by his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa in a tightly fought contest in which his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma also ran.

He is due to resign as state president after general elections in 2019.

The ANC's deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte said the party had noted the ruling and would "discuss its full implications" when the party decision-making body the National Executive Committee meets in just under two weeks on January 10, 2018.
The Minority in Parliament has asked Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, to resign following the release of what it said are damning revelations on the $2.25billion bond.

The opposition lawmakers say the 141-page report by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) established that some criminality and irregularities were committed by the Minister during the issuance of the bond.

The investigations by the anti-graft agency followed a complaint filed by National Democratic Congress (NDC) Ashanti Regional Youth Organiser, Yaw Brogya Gyenfi, alleging some breaches of the law in April this year.

A section of Minority members in parliament

It also faulted the Finance Ministry for miscommunicating the currency in which the bond was issued.

The 5-year, 7-year, 10-year bonds issued in March/April 2017, were domestic bonds (cedi denominated) and opened for non-resident investors, but the Statement issued by the Ministry of Finance on 3rd April 2017 misled the public into believing that the bonds were dollar-denominated, CHRAJ said in page 133 of 140.

But the Commission said it found no evidence supporting the claim that Mr Ofori-Atta or his private businesses benefited from the bond.

In view of the breaches of procedures for bonds issuance, the minority has asked the Minister to resign honourably or be forced to do so.

Tamale North Member of Parliament (MP), Alhassan Suhuyini

Mr Suhuyini said it will amount to an act of desperation and dis-ingenuity for anyone to think that there was nothing damning about the report.

We think the report has revealed some criminalities and irregularities and so it should not be reduced to just one matter, he said.

He noted the minority will go through the irregularities and statutory regulatory breaches established in the report and make its position known to Ghanaians.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
Two NDC MPs have proceeded to the Supreme Court, suspecting the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, is manipulating funds set aside for district assemblies.

The MPs; Benjamin Kpodo of Ho Central and Richard Quashigah of Keta, say the District Assemblies are by law entitled to 5% of total government revenue.

What constitutes total revenue affects the amount the assemblies get after the calculation is done.

According to them, the current formula used for this calculation leaves the assemblies poorer because revenues from petroleum and other taxes are not added to total revenue.

NDC Ho Central, Benjamin Kpodo complained that this exclusion is illegal.

"I have raised it in parliament on a number of occasions....but it was not taken into account," he told Joy News Friday.

He recalled that during one of parliament's sittings, he once again raised the matter.

"I was told by a colleague MP that if I was not satisfied with the definition I should go to court. He said it on the floor of parliament."

The MP has taken up the challenge and has filed a suit asking the Supreme Court for a constitutional interpretation of "total revenue"

Story by Ghana|myjoyonline.com
He is giant looking but down to earth; friendly and witty but action-oriented. He never compromises on discipline. He is many things to many people; a husband, a friend, confidant, a counselor, a teacher above all a father, a spiritual father, who like Moses has his hands lifted in prayer just so his children will win battles. And they, in Osu Restoration Temple of the ICGC have won many.

In victory, they came with thanksgiving and appreciation first to the Almighty God and then to Rev Ashford Tawiah Smith, the head pastor, the vessel used as a channel of blessing to the congregation.

The members have enough to be thankful for. And with words woven in pieces of a poetic masterpiece, with melodious voices they sang in unison, danced with style and elegance on a day chosen as the Pastors Appreciation Day.

In their songs they remembered quite well how far they have come as a church and how instrumental Rev Smith and his wife Celestine have been in the tumultuous journey from the Christian Council Hall which temporary housed the Osu Community Chapel of the ICGC to what is now an almost complete edifice christened the Restoration Temple of the ICGC.

After taking over from Rev Kofi Okyere in 2009, Rev Smith announced a three-prong vision to grow the church spiritually, financially and numerically. At the heart of this vision was the passion to move the congregation to its promise land and he achieved that with the help of the deacons and other senior church administrators.

It was not just a change of office and a move to a temple of luxury. Like biblical Joshua and his conquests with the people of Israel in the promised land, the change reflected in the lives of the members of the congregation, many of whom have given testimonies of victories and breakthroughs in their marriages, finances, businesses, careers etc.

For years he gave hope to many shrill voices and institutionalized a quarterly spiritual emphasis week of prayer and fasting which has become a spiritual tower for members. In their moments of great depression, he stood with his members in prayer. In their time of cluelessness, he gave practical advice interspersed with jokes and a hearty smile.

There is never a dull moment in his sermon; he walks the congregation through the realities of life, sharing experiences with practical teachings and lessons from the Bible, the book of life. He has indeed been a tremendous figure in the lives of the congregation. Any wonder why the members decided to appreciate him. Well, they did and in grand style.

Rev Samuel Nyarko head pastor of the ICGC Faith and Miracle Temple, Teshie was the guest preacher and could not have preached a better sermon on appreciation.

Just like David who showed kindness to Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, in appreciation to what Jonathan did for him, [David], Rev Nyarko said appreciation is a spiritual undertaking which must not be taken for granted.

All through the sermon, poetry, songs and the dance, Rev Ashford Tawiah Smith, wore a smile, a gentle smile, humbled by the great show of love from a congregation he has come to love and cherish.

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com|Nathan Gadugah
Dear Mr. Kweku Baako,

it is definitely unusual for a letter that is meant for the President to be first of all addressed to you for further publication through your newspaper.

It has become a common knowledge to the public that our dear President has recently become - for some reason or the other - unapproachable unless one is prepared to pay extra sums of money in order to be near him.

The honeymoon with President Akufo-Addo is, as far as I'm concerned, over. He must be scrutinised carefully to find out whether his words correspond to his deeds.

On the 25th September 2017 I sent a letter to the President congratulating him for his election-success. Together with this letter in a packet, was an important information regarding immunisation schedule and notification of infectious diseases in Ghana.

This, I thought, was necessary since in Ghana my impression is that this problem has not been taken seriously enough.

The whole issue about childhood-immunisation, adult immunisation and notifiable diseases is taken seriously in the UK and other European countries.

I informed our President, that there was a need for reform of our constitution and reform of almost all our institutions including the healthcare system. So what I did was, I sent him an immunisation programme or schedule from the company Glaxo Smith Kline. This contained detailed immunisation-programmes from infants up to adults. It covered immunisation from Meningococci B, Tetanus, Diphtheria and, most importantly, Influenza A and B.

If the President had taken action on this information I gave him, the eleven children who died in Kumasi could have been saved.

On the 15th December 2017 the former General Secretary of PNC, Atik Mohammed, said in a newspaper article that the government should have declared a state of emergency and he criticised the seemingly slow response to solving the outbreak of cerebrospinal meningitis and H1N1-virus across the country.

I do congratulate Mr. Mohammed for his timely criticism. I entreat you therefore, dear Mr. Baako, to help investigate, where the parcel I sent to the President is (in the Flagstaffhouse).

DHL informs me that the parcel was handed over to one Ms. Theresa Bekoa. Until now there has been no response, despite intervention by the CID.

Childhood immunisations in the UK for instance are undertaken routinely in the GP-surgery. Practices are paid for providing this service, based on meeting targets for the proportion of eligible children on the list immunised. If more than 90% are immunised a higher rate is payable. And if only more than 70 % are immunised a lower rate is payable. But in Ghana the healthcare system is primitive. I did not only criticise the healthcare system in my letter to the President, but also gave examples on how it can be modernised.

I wrote to the President on restructuring the healthcare system.

National Health Insurance System in Ghana should be abolished. Free medical care should be introduced for all. Creation of medical centres for diagnostic purposes could be privately owned. Immunisation.

In all I wrote extensively about how the healthcare system in Ghana should look.

One is going to ask me, where is the government going to find the resources for free medical healthcare system in Ghana. The answer is very simple.

The government should not in any way subsidise the purchase of expensive vehicles. Entitlement for civil servants should be abolished. Why should the President of a developing country ride in one of the most expensive cars, e.g. Rolls Royce or the most expensive Mercedes Benz and Toyota ?

Why should the administration have an expensive fleet of cars ?

Why should an ex-president be given a residence ?

Why should ex-judges continue to stay in government bungalows ?

Why do we indulge in expensive transfers of civil servants, with new accommodation by the government ?

Why should a Vice-President's residence cost 14 Million Dollars ?

Why should police-officers be given accommodation ?

In all I suggested to the President to reform. The constitution has to be reformed and with the reform of the constitution the institutions of the country will automatically be reformed.

After almost 60 years in existence there is not one single legacy of a previous government that we can be proud of, apart from Kwame Nkrumah.

Constitution Reform

The ethnic differences in our society must be accepted as a reality and all our actions should not ignore this fact.

One Prof. Fiadjoe once while advising Pres. Mills on Constitution Review said or wrote about strengthening national culture. This I find to be an unrealistic statement because Ghana has no National Culture, what we have are multiple, diverse ethnic cultures and traditions, which cannot be described as a National Culture.

I expect your new administration to strengthen the institutions and structures in the regions into full blown regional governments, each managing its own affairs.

I am hereby thinking of a devolution with each newly acquired Region having its own Parliament, Prime Minister and administering its own affairs. Security, health and other governmental affairs, just like in the UK.

I therefore suggest, Mr. President, that after your 4-year-period, there should be a 2-year transition period for preparing a reformed constitution. This means, you'll have in all 6 years, two years of which should be reserved for shaping a constitution which will lead to a full blown devolution.

There should be truly regional governments in all the newly created Regions, among which Ashanti must have its old status of a combined Ashanti and Ahafo as an entity, Brong retains its original Status, thereby doing away with the from Kwame Nkrumah artificially created Brong-Ahafo.

The idea of this reform is to make sure, that the various newly created regional governments compete with each other and through being self-reliant improve efficiency amongst themselves.

Under the current 1992 constitutional arrangement, Art. 242, the District Assembly (non-partisan in nature) is the highest political authority in the district and consists of the following:

One person elected by universal adult suffrage from each electoral area. The member or members of parliament from constituents that fall within the area of authority of the District Assembly (no voting power). The District Chief Executive of the district appointed by the President with executive powers (abuse of power!) and with previous approval of not less than 2/3 majority of the members of the assembly present voting at the meeting. Other members not being more than 30% of all the members of the District Assembly, appointed by the president in consultation with the traditional authorities and other interested parties in the district.

On the 1st December 2017 Prof. Kwesi Prempeh called for a constitutional review to limit presidents powers. The law professor, Prof. Kwesi Prempeh did call for a review of the 1992 constitution as it gives enormous power to the president without limitations.

Speaking at a high level panel discussion on the ongoing constitutional review exercise to examine the theoretical justifications for the review, progress and the regress, Prof. Prempeh said, Ghanas 1992 constitution has become highly permissive, making it easier for politicians to take over, therefore, manipulating policies to their benefit.

Lately we have sadly observed horrible abuse of power by President John Dramani Mahama and his dealings with a Middle-Eastern company by name of AMERI.

The publication or general news of Tuesday, 14th Nov. 2017, published by Daily Guide Africa.com alleged that the Norwegian newspaper that is tailing former President John Dramani Mahama over his supposed links with Africa Middle East Resources Investment Group LLC (AMERI) has indicated that the African Development Bank (AfDB) did not send President Mahama to Namibia, as claimed by him.

According to the award winning newspaper called VG Mr. Mahama had visited Namibian President Hage Geingob in Windhoek and falsely presented himself as an AfDB advocate for African energy self-sufficiency, but its investigation turned out that the continental bank does not have any hand in former presidents visit where he took AMERI to the Southern African country.

If this information is or should be correct,then I suppose the people of Ghana would be extremely grateful if Mr. Mahama would be stripped of his immunity and dealt with according to the law. What I would like to know is this: whether Ex-President Mahama considers himself an African or an Arab. And I would like to pose this question to most Ghanaians with Islamic faith. There seems to be ambiguity here. Are they Muslims, Africans, Islamist or what are they ? I consider every Ghanaian to be an African first and their religion second. Their loyalty therefore should be to Africa, that is why the group of Muslims who had a group photograph at the Flagstaffhouse should be warned not to repeat that mistake again. Their action was a foolish action because we do not expect any group of people to mix up religion with politics and governance.

It would have been a sign of solidarity if these Ghanaian Muslims had expressed their solidarity with the Africans who were humiliated in Libya be being sold as slaves. This is shocking.

At the same time I have to criticise President Akufo-Addo here, because in the said packet I sent our President a copy of a picture depicting Africans put into cages with Libyan green flags apparently depicting Africans as animals eating leafs. This was a shocking sight ! Whether because of this picture the letter to the President was stolen, I don't know. Maltreatment of Africans by Arabs is not a secret. I expect therefore our President to break relations with all Arab countries until they show remorse and apologise for ill-treatment of our race. Any African who does not acknowledge the humiliation inflicted on our race is a fool.

Another typical example of the abuse of the rights of the people is a statement made by President Akufo when on his visit to the Upper Region of Ghana he made the following pronouncement:

The state resources will be equally distributed based on 1992 constitution.

That means that irrespective of the productivity of the various Regions or the willingness of the people of the various Regions to work hard, he is going to stick to the constitution of 1992 and distribute the resources equally among the various regions. This is unacceptable to Ashantis. That means the Ashanti portion shall be in turn shared among the migrants from the north who have up to now occupied three quarters of the Ashanti capital and other ethnic groups in Ashanti with Ashantis. While relatively equal amount of the resources will still be going to those regions whose citizens have flocked into the Ashanti capital. Mathematically those migrants in Kumasi, namely the Fantis, the Ewes, the Northerners are going to share the resources meant for the Ashantis with the Ashantis. I would like to know from the President what portion of the distributed resource will be there for Ashantis and Ashantis alone.

Does the President now see the fallacy of the 1992 constitution ?

We, the People of Ashanti, do solemnly plea with the President of the Republic of Ghana, President Akufo-Addo, to reform the Ghana Constitution and replace it with one which reflects the true needs and aspiration of the Ashanti People since we have been cheated over a long period of sixty years. We plead for fairness and justice. Enough is enough, the Northerners should vote in their own homes in the north and the uncontrolled migration to the south, mainly to Kumasi, should be stopped.

Further examples of abuse due to the weakness in our constitution

About two weeks ago the Minister responsible for Zongo-Affairs has allegedly made comments, which as far as I am concerned are sickening. This gentleman is supposed to have said that Muslim women do not like to be examined by male doctors and that he suggested that the Government of Ghana should train female doctors whose duty will be solely treating Muslim women in Ghana.

In the first place, Ghana has no Muslim women. Secondly, in Ghana apart from foreigners, there are only Ghanaian women, who happen to be people of Islamic faith. Just as we have Ghanaians with Christian faith. This way of thinking by this Minister underlines what these so-called Muslim women and Muslim men feel about their role in the Ghanaian society.

They want everything but their contribution is zero. And their demands are totally unrealistic.

Another example:

Police shoots two armed robbers in self-defence in Kumasi and immediately the police in Ashanti Region is threatened with a law-suit by one Mr. Muntaka, minority leader in parliament. In the first place, by his looks, I suspect that this Mr. Muntaka is not a Ghanaian, but could be a Nigerian. If not, I apologize. But he must demonstrate that his parents are Ghanaians by birth and they should present their birth certificates to prove that they are Ghanaians. I expect this Mr. Muntaka to respect the Ghanaian constitution and that it is the Ashanti regional Minister who is responsible for Ashanti affairs and not him. He is only an MP and not a spokesperson for Ashanti affairs. For this reason and many other such interferences we plead with the government to come clean with a new constitution which places the Ashantis in their rightful place. We do not expect and want Northerners to plead for us. Failure to clarify this position could plunge the nation into a deadly civil war.

Ashanti is and will always be a sovereign nation within the newly or recently formed union of states of Ghana. No-one should usurp our rights and this constitution is doing just that. Enough is enough.

Influenza Virus

I have noticed in the various writings on Ghanaweb.com that there is confusion about what this influenza virus is.

Human infections are caused by influenza A, B or C viruses. Wild birds are the natural host for influenza A and the virus infects humans, birds, pigs and other animals. Influenza A and B can cause severe disease and occur in epidemics. Influenza A can also be responsible for pandemics. Influenza A viruses are divided into subtypes on the basis of the two main surface glycoproteins hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA).

There are 16 known HA and nine known NA-subtypes of influenza A.

Clinical Manifestation

The classic influenza-symptoms in healthy adults include abrupt fever, myalgia (muscle pains), headaches and upper respiratory symptoms. Please note that in the elderly or immune-compromised hosts these classic symptoms might be absent and patients might only present with fever and altered mental status.

So in a country where we have malaria-infections one has to be very careful to differentiate between such virus infections and acute malaria-infection. One should however note that influenza without radiographic evidence of pneumonia is up to 30% of hospitalised patients. I shall stop here and talk more about the diagnosis.

Diagnosis

Several tests can be performed to diagnose influenza:

Naso-pharyngeal swaps, nasal washes and aspirates obtained within the first four days of illness are preferred respiratory samples for examination.

Rapid influenza test can provide results within thirty minutes. And some distinguish between influenza A and B. The overall sensitivity is 70  75 % with a specificity of 90  95 %. These tests are useful in the diagnosis of individual patients and detecting outbreaks. Direct Immuno-fluorescent Antibody (DFA) staining requires two to four hours for results. RT-PCR detects and distinguished both, influenza A and B in one to two days. Viral culture might take up to ten days. The culture is essential for determining influenza subtypes and influenza A or B strains, information that can be incorporated into the following years' vaccine.

Treatment

Two classes of antiviral drugs are available for the prevention and treatment of influenza infections.

1. Amantadin and Rimantadin target the N2-Protein of influenza A and are not effective against other influenza-viruses. Both are generally well tolerated, but central nervous system side effects are more common in the elderly. Dosing modification is based on renal function, that means, before administration of that drug, renal function test must be obtained.

2. Zanamivir and Oseltamivir , they are modern Neuraminidase-inhibitors, that are active for prevention and therapy against both, influenza A and B. Please note for the public, these two drugs work best if initiated within 48 hours of first clinical symptoms. All antiviral medications lessen symptoms and shorten the duration of illness; only Oseltamivir has been shown to reduce lower respiratory tract complications requiring antibiotics (pneumonia). Patients with Asthma or COPD are advised to have a fast acting inhale bronchodilator available when inhaling Zanamivir. Please note for the public, Zanamivir should be stopped if patients develop difficulty breathing.

Prevention

Yearly vaccination is the best means to prevent influenza. Vaccination is particularly important in people who are at high risk of having serious complications such as those 65 years of age or older and those with cardiac or pulmonary diseases, diabetes or other metabolic diseases, renal dysfunction, hemoglobinopathies (sickle-cell-disease) or immune-suppression or people like physicians and nurses caring for those at high risk for serious complications. During influenza-outbreaks within an institution or community, public health practice is to combine influenza-vaccine and antiviral medication. The vaccine is given to the exposed patients and staff and the antiviral agent is also given for about two weeks until the vaccine takes effect.

With the help of my son Reginald I have compiled this important information for the people of Ghana to prevent further unnecessary deaths due to foolish negligence of the government in power. I have given detailed account about the nature of influenza A infection, its detection, prevention and treatment. I hope that as a Ghanaian I have done my duty.

I entreat all Ghanaians to insist that the government institute reforms in all aspects of its governance.

Sincerely Yours,

Dr. Edward Kwame Poku

Contact Address:

Tulpenstr. 14

35104 Lichtenfels

Germany

email: [email protected]
The 2016 Parliamentary Candidate for Lower Manya Krobo on the ticket of the NPP donates to St. Martins and Atua Government hospitals.

Among other things donated to the hospitals are detergents, power zones, mobs, mobbing buckets, toilet rolls,scrubbing brushes, detols and brooms.

Presenting the items to the hospital managements, he called on individuals and Civil Society Organization groups as well as Non Governmental Organisations to always make it a point to donate especially to the health care centres within their catchment areas to help ameliorate challenges facing the health facilities as government cannot do it all.

Having worked within the Ghana Health Service for decades, he advised the management and the staff of the hospitals to exercise patience when treating or dealing with patients who patronise their health centres.

He reiterated his commitment to donations to the hospitals and said that this wouldn't be last time he would be doing this but rather the continuation of what he has already started.

Receiving the donations on behalf of management at the Atua hospital, Mad. Marylove Nai-Williams who is the Deputy Director of Nursing Services at the Atua hospital praises Mr. Ayertey for his kind gestures and also make an appeal that the hospital needs an ambulance to help them in emergency situations.

Mad. Nai-Williams asked that others should emulate the leadership of Mr. Ayertey and follow his footsteps.

At the St. Martins hospital, Mr. Briamah Alhassan who is the Head of Finance receives the items on behalf of management and the entire staff of the hospital.

He said the leadership of Mr. Ayertey worth-emulalating and called on others to follow his footsteps. He said, he had a call that Mr. Ayertey is coming and to his surprise, Mr. Ayertey truly came with his entourage to make the donations.

Mr. Ayertey visited the maternity, female, male and Childrens' wards respectively in all the two hospitals as he spoke some words of hope into the lives of the patients and also present to them Christmas packages.
29.12.2017 LISTEN

The Supreme Court has awarded damages of GHC 100,000 against Agricultural Development Bank (adb) for wrongfully terminating an employees contract.

In 2012, the employee, Abena Pokua Ackah, who is the applicant, was handed a letter by adb which indicated that her appointment had been terminated for gross misconduct, and for bringing the name of the bank into disrepute.

You will be paid an amount equivalent to three months basic salary in lieu of notice as well as other benefits due to you in accordance with the terms of your employment less your indebtedness to the bank, portions of the letter indicated.

However, Pokua Ackah, who felt her rights had been infringed upon, subsequently sued the bank for what she described as wrongful dismissal.

She initiated the action at the Human Rights Division of the High Court, pursuant to Article 33(1) of the Constitution, 1992 and Order 67 of the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, C.1 47 2004.

What led to the dismissal

The salient facts upon which the Applicant relied upon for the trial of the action in the High Court are the following:-

Sometime in or between May and June 2011, the Applicant herein had a conversation with a certain Nana Yaw Yeboah, reputed to be a journalist. In that conversation which was allegedly secretly taped by the said Nana Yaw Yeboah, the Applicant was heard complaining about the restructuring of the Respondent Bank and the excessive bonus that was received by it's Managing Director.

After the contents of the tape had been made known to the Applicant by the Respondents on or by 8/8/2011, she was called by the Human Resources Department to discuss her current debt profile. However, when she went, she was rather directed to meet the Board of Directors. At this meeting, an edited version of the recorded conversation was played, and the Chairman of the Respondent's Board of Directors described the remarks of the Applicant as vulgar, abusive and which qualified her for disciplinary action.

On 10th August 2011, the Applicant received a letter suspending her with half pay pending completion of the disciplinary proceedings. As stated supra, the letter described the recorded conversation and characterized her language as vulgar, intemperate and abusive and criminal and defamatory.

The letter also stated that, she had put into the public domain false and inaccurate information and that her behaviour amounted to willful and gross misconduct, a breach of her oath of secrecy, and a poor reflection on her integrity as an officer of the bank. She was directed to show cause why disciplinary action should not be taken against her.

On the 18th of August 2011, the Applicant reacted to the letter in two ways. The first was to file an application in the High Court for the enforcement of her fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of speech. The second was to submit a letter to the Chairman of the Respondent Bank through her Solicitors, in which she again asserted her rights to privacy and freedom of speech.

In December 2011, the Respondent appeared before the Respondents Disciplinary Committee with her Lawyer, and the recorded conversation was played again.

It had been contended by the Applicant that her Lawyer objected to the tape on grounds that the recording and use of the secretly recorded conversations in disciplinary hearings contravened her rights of privacy and freedom of speech.

The Committee invited her to comment on the contents of the tape, but beyond disputing their admissibility, she offered no further comment.

On 13th February 2012, the Respondents wrote the letter terminating the appointment of the Applicant with immediate effect.

Following this development, the applicant abandoned her previous application for the enforcement of her fundamental human rights in the High Court, and filed a fresh action in response to her dismissal at the High Court.

Applicant loses at High Court

However, the High Court presided over by Justice Edward Amoako Asante on June 7, 2012, dismissed the applicants application, and held that indeed the dismissal did not in anyway infringe on her freedom of speech and expression.

Applicant loses again at Court of Appeal

Feeling aggrieved and dissatisfied again, the applicant filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal, but that was also dismissed in April 2014.

Applicant wins at Supreme Court

The dissatisfied applicant then moved to the Apex Court of the land, the Supreme Court, where she secured a favaourable ruling after her reliefs were granted.

The Supreme Court in delivering its ruling said  The applicant is granted Ghc100,000.00 damages under the violations of her rights arising from reliefs (i) and also reliefs (v) and (vi). There will however be no consequential orders in view of the nature of the procedure used by the applicant in this case as already amplified supra.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Supreme Court awards dismissed adb employee Ghc100,000 appeared first on Ghana News .
Dr. Gabriel Gbiel Benarkuu

29.12.2017 LISTEN

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) is making frantic efforts toward the piloting of the administration of anti-malaria vaccines in 2018 in six regions of Ghana, including the Brong Ahafo Region.

The follows the addition of malaria to the 13 already known childhood killer diseases in Ghana and so anti-malaria vaccines will from 2018 be administered to newly-born babies in the country as well as children below five years.

The Brong Ahafo Regional Disease Control Officer, K. Amofa Boateng was speaking in Sunyani on the last Friday of 2017 at a programme organized by the Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health for Traditional Authorities and the Media.

The aim of the programme was to deepen participants understanding about immunization and make them Immunization Champions in their respective communities and places of work.

Mr. Amofa Boateng explained that immunization was a form of preventive medication which prepared the body to fight against diseases. It also protects individuals and communities from infectious diseases, he added.

He emphasized the need for parents to ensure that their children undergo periodic immunization course as prescribed by doctors from birth till they are five years old.

The National Chairman of the Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health, Dr. Gabriel Gbiel Benarkuu, called for the setting up of Immunization Fund by government to ensure that immunization exercises are effectively carried out across the country each year.

At the moment about 150,000 to 200,000 children below age five are not immunized each year mainly due the lack of adequate funds and other resources to enable health workers to reach out to them and so the setting up of a dedicated fund for such an important exercise will help address the issue, Dr. Benarkuu explained.

He mentioned places like Dormaa Municipality, Dormaa West District, Jaman North District, Asunafo South District, Asunafo North, Pru District, Atebubu-Amanten, Sene East and West districts as some of the areas in the Brong Ahafo Region where immunization exercises have not been very successful over the years.

Dr. Benarkuu, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of MIHOSO International Foundation, an NGO based in Sunyani, called for the active involvement of traditional authorities and religious leaders in the campaign aimed at securing a hundred percent coverage in future immunization and vaccination exercises.

Richard Kofi Boahen, Sunyani
"... When will President Akufo-Addo... terminate the Mahama 2016 Petroleum and Exploration Act by quickly adopting one that provides certainty for Fair-Trade Oil Share for Ghana?...Records show that Ghana has not, ever, received even 20% of the value of its own oil resources...Years before he was Deputy Minister of Oil, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam was saying that Ghanaians must be allowed to make public comments on oil contracts...Now, this President Akufo-Addo appointee is not only asking for more time, he has in fact decreed that the Akufo-Addo government will continue awarding and approving oil contracts in secret, until a date and time they themselves will determine, if ever....Ghanaweb SIL's NANA OBIRI said something about the delay-and-stall tactic: 'While Nana Addo is yapping give us more time his right hand men/women recruit()s Law Firms to represent the looters... tactics Npp-Law firms too are using today and asking Ghanaians to give them more time...'...", (Prof Lungu, with NANA OBIRI extract, 25 Dec 17).

Just as we were proof-reading this, Part 4 in our series about the deceitfulness emanating from the Akufo-Addo Oil Ministry, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, Reverend Charles Palmer-Buckle, was reported to have cautioned Ghanaians that corruption is rife in Ghana.

Rev. Palmer-Buckle is demanded the prosecution of all persons engaged in the act.

We believe it starts and ends with government officialdom of which President Akufo-Addo is the Head.

President Akufo-Addo cannot in any practical and effective form "fix the economy" when Ghana is not receiving a Fair-Trade Oil Share of its own oil resources and income.

In Part 3 of this paper, we showed how during the last 4 years, before he was appointed Deputy Oil Minister by President Akufo-Addo, the former Executive Director of ACEP, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam was, "appalled by the quantum of illicit (oil and gas) transactions going on in tax havens following the release of the Panama Papers".

During the last 4 years, before he was appointed Deputy Oil Minister, Dr. Amin Adam was agitating that the Mahama government incorporate a mandatory ownership disclosure clause in all oil and gas contracts.

During the last 4 years, before he was appointed Deputy Oil Minister, Dr. Adam was preaching to the Government of Ugandan and Ugandan citizens "...to...emulate South Sudan...(and)... require disclosure of beneficial companies' owners to promote transparency in extractives industry...".

Years before he was Deputy Minister of Oil, Dr. Mohammed Adam was saying that Ghanaians must be allowed to make public comments on all oil contracts. But, now that Dr. Amin Adam has the opportunity to swiftly implement what he's preached going on almost a decade, Dr. Amin Adam has little appetite.

Now that Dr. Amin Adam has the opportunity to swiftly implement transparency, accountability, and Fair-Trade Oil Share for Ghana, Dr. Amin Adam has other priorities. Dr. Amin Adam is instead asking for more time and acceptance of secret oil contracts.

Today, Amin Adam is not only asking for more time. No, Dr. Amin Adam has on top, decreed that the Akufo-Addo government will continue awarding and approving contracts in secret until a date and time they themselves will determine, if ever.

We are saying it is a mighty big shame on the part of the Akufo-Addo government.

The record shows that Ghana has not, ever, received even 20% of the value of its own oil resources.

Today, few, if any, policy agenda are more important than confirming and proving to Ghanaians that Ghana is in fact receiving a Fair-Trade Oil Share for all the oil extracted from the ground in Ghana, past, present, future.

NANA OBIRI, one of the more active participant on Ghanaweb Say It Loud (SIL) recently said something about that delay-and-stall tactic, about transparency, accountability, fairness, and timeliness above all.

READ:

"...Its the biggest create and loots Ghana could ever see. While Nana Addo is yapping give us more time his right hand men/women recruit()s Law Firms to represent the looters. Haba!! NPP how can you be so wicked to Ghanaian voters? Mills/Mahama gave their election Bank roller Woyome more time to send his criminal cash to Offshore Banks leaving Ghana to spends billions chasing only two houses, I heard this is the tactics Npp-Law firms too are using today and asking Ghanaians to give them more time. Tweaa kai! Nyame abre 'agu on Ghana so-called politicians..." (NANA OBIRI, 24 Dec 17).

What is Serious Akufo-Addo going to do?

Is President Akufo-Addo going to sit around and allow the likes of Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam and Mr. K. T. "Hybrid" Hammond to make a fool of his accountability, transparency, fairness, and timeliness agenda for Ghanaians and ownership and use of their own resources?

Is Serious Akufo-Addo in deed serious about making sure Ghana is getting a fair share of its own resources to being with, that the People know that and trust?

The 6-Billion-Dollar question is, when will President Akufo-Addo ask for a public review of the Oil Contracts to determine how fair those contracts are with respect to the interest of Ghanaians, the sovereign owners of the resources?

When will President Akufo-Addo and his government terminate the Mahama 2016 Petroleum and Exploration Act by quickly adopting one that provides certainty for Fair-Trade Oil Share for Ghana?

Fair-Trade Oil Share - Ghana (FTOS-Gh)!

When?

How long must Ghanaians wait for fairness, Honorable Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam?

So it goes!

NOTES/SOURCES:

(1) Ghanaweb SIL: NPP SPECIAL PROSECUTOR, WHAT I KNOW SO FAR

http://sil.ghanaweb.com/r.php?id=16427093&thread=16427093.

(2) Incorporate Mandatory Disclosure Clause In PEP Bill  ACEP

http://www.ghanaiantimes.com.gh/incorporate-mandatory-disclosure-clause-in-pep-bill-acep/.

(3) Prof Lungu. Is K. T. "Hybrid" Hammond Scared Foib Will Lead To Ghana's Lost $6 Billion-Plus Oil Cash? (https://www.modernghana.com/news/720346/k-t-hybrid-hammond-is-scared-foib-will-lead-to-ghanas-l.html).

Visit www.GhanaHero.Com/Visions, For More Information.

SUBJ: Akufo-Addo's Temporary Ban on Oil Contracts is a Big Hoax (Part 4)

Support Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana (FTOS-Gh) Campaign/Petition:

https://www.change.org/p/ghana-fair-trade-oil-share-psa-campaign-ftos-gh-psa/

Brought to you courtesy www.GhanaHero.com25 Dec 17.

(Powered by: www.GhanaHero.Com).
The Ghana Institute of Governance and Security (GIGS) wishes to congratulate George Oppong Weah, President-elect of Liberia on his election victory.

We also congratulate his Vice President-elect and all Liberians for the peaceful and successful conduct of the election run-off.

The landslide victory is a firm declaration by the people of Liberia for change which should not elude them.

As we await the presidential inauguration next month, GIGS wishes to urge the President-elect to hit the ground running. He should be mindful of the reasons Liberians elected him into power, and live up to expectation.

He cannot make Liberia prosperous overnight, but GIGS believes his administration can build the right structures and a firm foundation for a economy to take off.

In doing so, the President-elect and his administration has to be strictly guided by the shortfalls of the outgoing administration so as to avoid repeating mistakes or making grievous ones.

Fixing the economy would remain an urgent herculean task, but he has no option than to build a robust economy that would promote increased job creation to reduce poverty.

His administration also needs to revamp the education sector to provide the requisite human resource to support national development, enhance utilities provision, and build the countrys infrastructure base to support economic growth.

Liberians are also expecting him to fight corruption head-on, especially in the extractive sector, and roll out a good governance system that make meaning to the citizenry.

GIGS commends the outgoing President, Johnson Sirleaf and her administration for their contribution to the development of Liberia, and we encourage the new leader to build on the good initiatives of the outgoing leader for the benefit of all Liberians.

Once the election is over, we call for a united Liberia to march forwards into development and prosperity.

President-elect Weah must deliver on his promises, and he must not fail Liberia and Africa in general.

David Agbee

Executive Director, GIGS
December 29, 2017 - Junior Chamber International (JCI) Ghana and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate for the implementation and promotion of a National Active Citizens Campaign among the youth in Ghana.

The National Commission for Civic Education is an independent, non-partisan governance institution, set up under Article 231 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana. The Commission was established in 1993 under the National Commission for Civic Education Act, 1993 (Act 452). Among the functions of the Commission as mandated under Act 452 is to formulate, implement and oversee programmes intended to inculcate in the citizens of Ghana awareness of their civic responsibilities and an appreciation of their rights and obligations as free people.

The National Active Citizens Campaign will be implemented through a 10 year National Volunteering Strategy facilitated by JCI Ghana working with multiple stakeholders including the National Commission for Civic Education, Ministry of Youth and Sports, National Youth Authority, Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Volunteer Infrastructure National Planning Committee amongst others.

The 10 year national volunteering strategy has been developed as a tool for building social capital; contributing to social cohesion, solidarity and patriotism; providing valuable economic benefits to society; and enabling individuals to realize their potentials as Ghanaians whilst recognizing volunteers for their contributions to national development.

The NCCE Annual Citizenship Week flagship programmes and platforms that aims to contribute to building and maintaining Ghanas democratic society would be other measures used to ensure the campaign is driven to the grassroots.

Some of the key highlights of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) include;

A. Undertaking capacity building workshops on active citizenship among all stakeholders using the JCI Active Citizens Framework

B. Working together towards strengthening Ghanas democracy in the following two thematic areas of the NCCE

I. Education on Sustainable Management of the Environment

II. Promoting Peace building and Conflict Resolution

Junior Chamber International (JCI) Ghana is a Non-Governmental Organization with a mission to provide development opportunities that empower young people to create positive change and a vision to be the leading global network of young active citizens.

JCI Ghana is affiliated to Junior Chamber International (JCI),- a worldwide organization of Young Active Citizens who share the belief that in order to create positive change, there is the need to take collective action to improve ourselves and the world around us. With over 5,000 Local Organizations in more than 115 countries and territories, JCI forms a vibrant international network with nearly 200,000 members.
A Non-Governmental Organization, Wenette Foundation, has donated clothes and food items to KITH Mental Home.

The gesture formed part of the NGO's activities to celebrate Christmas with deprived communities.

KITH Mental Home, which is located at Apollo in Takoradi, is home to dozens of men and women with mental illness.

Wenette Foundation, which is led by two sisters, Wendy and Antoinette Coomson, presented bags of rice, cooking oil, biscuits, sachets of water, bags of clothes among other items to help in the running of the home.

They said they were touched by the plight of the Home hence the donation especially during the Christmas festivities to entertain as well as meet their needs.

We all have a responsibility to care for other people, to help those less fortunate than ourselves. When you have some spare cash, time or goods, it is an opening to help out in this festive season.

The founder and caretaker of the Home, Habiba Fuseini, said her friends and family had abandoned her following her decision to take care of the patients.

She however said, I am not bothered because it is not my children and family who will take me to heaven; it is my deeds which will.

While expressing appreciation for the gesture, she noted that the Home needed mattresses and wooden beds as well as assistance to set up a vocational training facility for the inmates.

She also appealed to other NGOs and philanthropists to come to the aid of the facility, adding that they require assistance from medical staff and pharmacies in accessing drugs for the inmates.



By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Wenette Foundation supports KITH Mental Home appeared first on Ghana News .
29.12.2017 LISTEN

The National Chairman of the Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health, Dr. Gabriel Gbiel Benarkuu, has called for the setting up of Immunization Fund by government to boost Ghanas Expanded Immunization Programme.

At the moment about 150,000 to 200,000 children below age five are not immunized each year mainly due the lack of adequate funds and other resources to enable health workers to reach out to them and so the setting up of a dedicated fund for such an important exercise will help address the issue, Dr. Benarkuu explained.

He mentioned places like Dormaa Municipality, Dormaa West District, Jaman North District, Asunafo South District, Asunafo North, Pru District, Atebubu-Amanten, Sene East and West districts as some of the areas in the Brong Ahafo Region where immunization exercises have not been very successful over the years.

He was speaking in Sunyani on the last Friday of 2017 at a programme organized by the Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health for Traditional Authorities and the Media.

The aim of the programme was to deepen participants understanding about Ghanas Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) and make them Immunization Champions in their respective communities and places of work.

Dr. Benarkuu, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of MIHOSO International Foundation, an NGO based in Sunyani, called for the active involvement of traditional authorities and religious leaders in the campaign aimed at securing a hundred percent coverage in future immunization and vaccination exercises.

The Brong Ahafo Regional Disease Control Officer, Amofa Boateng announced plans by the Ghana Health Service GHS to pilot the administration of anti-malaria vaccines in 2018 in six regions of Ghana, including the Brong Ahafo Region.

This follows the addition of malaria to the 13 already known childhood killer diseases in Ghana and so anti-malaria vaccines will from 2018 be administered to newly-born babies in the country as well as children below five years.

Mr. Amofa Boateng explained that immunization was a form of preventive medication which prepared the body to fight against diseases. It also protects individuals and communities from infectious diseases, he added.

He emphasized the need for parents to ensure that their children undergo periodic immunization course as prescribed by doctors from birth till they are five years old.

Richard Kofi Boahen, Sunyani
In this article, I outline once again the harm that is being caused to UEW because of the greed of a few people. Let us forget the likes of Alhassan Salifu Bawah and several other sycophants who seem absolutely blind to the implications of the happenings in UEW. These blind people are mostly those who have been promised employment/appointment opportunities by the scandalous priest, the Effutu MP and the Council chairman. As the Holy Father, POPE FRANCIS said this year, SHEPHERDS WHO SEEK MONEY; POWER CAUSE SCANDAL. This is exactly what has become of what PREDATORY PROFESSOR who did not only dumb articles to be published after paying, but also used works of students. In addition, he has abandoned his Priestly Vocation and is now chasing the WORLD for POWER and MATERIAL pleasures. The Catholic Bishop Conference must act NOW before their hard-earned reputation is destroyed by the greed of an individual. The Church preaches peace, love and compassion, the very things Christ stood for. But this is a Priest who embraces every scandalous activity once it can get his greedy needs. The Church should no longer allow him to threaten them with the PROFESSOR title as it is clear now, that this title is as SCANDALOUS as his very attitude.

The loss of academic dignity in UEW

I learned that under the current Ag VC, who used manipulative means to gain undue promotions in UEW right from the rank of senior lecturer, scholarship has been thrown to the dogs. It is sad that this man is not a HEADMASTER of predatory journals, but grooming a hell of these young and lazy academics to cherish predatory as well just for the ease of it. I am yet to receive any viable counterevidence to the professional claims made about Anthony Afful-Broni. What kind of professor is him, that when you google his name, it takes you only to church activities? This is a man who was employed as a Chaplain at UEW (get to HR of UEW) for more evidence on this. Being lazy and spending so much of his time harassing female students, he took to paying and publishing in predatory journals. It is a BIG SHAME that such a man wants to rule UEW at every cost. Please UEW is a secular institution and so I charge you to sit back and reflect on the oaths you took at your ordination. Reflect on your Canon Laws and the practices of Christ.

Anthony Afful-Broni is no different from the Council Chairman, Associate Professor Emmanuel Nicolas Abakah who has also succeeded in manipulating UEW to even be promoted to the rank of Assoc. Professor. This is a man who most probably retired before the submission of his PhD thesis in Norway, yet managed to cut down his age and even became Pro VC of this unfortunate Alma Mater of mine. You try to get him as a scholar online and google takes you to his position as Pro VC and nothing else to show. I tried it several times yesterday, and at a point I thought I spelt the name wrongly. These are the people who have come to destroy a growing academic institution. I weep for the university I attended and those who support these people unknowingly.

Professional advice to Salifu Alhassan Bawah (the sowing of destructive academic seedlings by Anthony Afful-Broni)

After thorough search for this name, I had two resultsmainly on ModernGhana where he had dumped things he never reflected on. One wonders how this guy made it to the University. My advice to him for now is that he is no longer working as an Hgv Driver in the United Kingdom but in an academic institution. He must therefore sit very well, embrace humility and learn from those in the system who are more experienced. He should not be too excited with his award, that is rather so temporary and his PREDATORY JOURNAL PRIEST, would not always be there to defend him. Fr is there today, but do not create the opportunity to be as uncomfortable as he is TODAY. Every short cut they say is DANGEROUS. I hope he does not even force you to apply for promotion earlier than expected because rumours on campus have it that he is also known for facilitating illegalities in the University once one is ready to serve his greedy needs.

The second spot that Google took me to when I tried to get more information on him was at the International journal of Business and Management (2016) VOL: 11 No 7 pp 245-280. The paper was submitted on the 11th of April, 2016 and published on the 28th of April, 2016. There are not less than 4 authors to this journal. The issue of number of authors, I it leave out for the possible wrong assumption that he is learning how to collaborate. Now, the important question is, what is the academic integrity of this journal? It is in fact not different from the INDIA journals in which his MENTOR, the priest turned politician, has published in. It is indeed a big imagination for me that within 17 days, reviews of the article were done and the paper published. Guess what, my good reader, Bawah and co paid money to publish in this journal. This payment could be as much as 600 dollars as my Google search indicated. These are today the people barking and attacking refined scholars. These are the guys attacking scholars whom they are to learn from. The young ones who are being misled by lazy professors to do this predatory business, please sit up and reason well.

For those who may think I am joking, find below the abstract of this article which was published in a predatory journal.

Two sets of questionnaires were designed for experts and working staff of the case study totaling 100 elements as the target. In this study, 81 questionnaires in all were answered and returned, which were used for analysis and conclusions. Out of this, 35 elements were targeted from experts group whereas 65 elements were targeted from the non-random sampling of employees. The questionnaires were sorted as 26 answered questionnaires from the experts whereas 55 questionnaires were obtained by quota sampling (non-random) from employees as the actual responds received. As the main objective of this paper was to gather and point out the best staff promotion policy statements and procedures to enhance employers, professionals, and practitioners for future adoption. First of all, the research findings shows that the number of years that a staff will work before being promoted is not significant in the promotion process because of other factors that may be considered within such period of work.

Also, the findings showed that the number of times that a person can be or should be promoted in an organization is not significant as it depends on other factors and activities that may play a part in determining how often a person is promoted. The results obtained from the cases indicated in the hypothesis that if a staff obtains a high qualification during employment is not a guarantee for promotion.

The study also showed that staff promotion as a policy does not mean that staff will climb the organizational ladder or hierarchy automatically. It means that a lot more work is taken into account once an employee is employed by helping to solve the organizational challenges for the achievement of organizational goals and objectives. Therefore, staff promotion is the advancement of an employees rank or position in an organizational hierarchical system (Goblar et al., 2002; Tuwei et al., 2013). The following are the attributes or factors to be considered in staff promotion  experience and knowledge gained on-the-job, qualification, leadership skills, can do ability, good interpersonal relations, commitment to deliver/hard work, and punctuality but not job enrichment, job enlargement, whom you know, who knows you, and friendship, etc. This is what the research findings showed.

Since this paper used several research methodologies, its findings concludes that staff promotion of an organization must be in line with the general long term budgets estimates and allocations in order to apply promotion processes and procedures appropriately, efficiently, and effectively. From the research as seen in the hypothesis indicates that, if a member of staff obtained further qualification in the course of employment does not serve as a guarantee for promotion.

Do you know how many words were in the abstract? Four Hundred and Thirty-Four (434) Words. I am sure this kind of abstract can only be accepted in a predatory journal. I am sure you can detect typos and the likes. No serious journal would publish a paper with such visible mistakes. Bawah, please sit up with humility and learn. The name of the journal as I already mentioned is International Journal of Business and Management. Bawah sit up and improve upon your professional life. You see even Brako after receiving his DONATION of Senior Lecturer has gone into silence. Professor Ameyaw after his appointment, is no longer visible. At least you have received your share of the 2017 awards, please HIDE YOUR FACE small. You may check from the List of Predatory Journals.

Let me veer off a little and make some commentaries on some observations.

One wonders the need for the press release of the Council Chairman. It appears only UEW has a council chairman since he is doing all he can to destroy people just out of envy. A look at his press statement and response from the victimised staff makes me wonder if he still writes his name with the title Professor. He is supposed to defend UEW but he has rather join forces with Supi Kofi Kwayera fronting for Alex Afenyo Markin to fight UEW. What is the relationship between UEW and Supi Kofi Kwayera who sent HER to court? Academics who have nothing good to offer are those supporting this nonsense in an academic institution? Why do I say these academics failed? Simply the facts that (a) the PRIEST cheated the system to be called a Professor (b) his best mentees are taught how to publish in predatory journals (apart from Bawah and co, there are more in the system and I am yet to get specifics on them). The council Chairman has never mentored anyone as a teacher in the university and was known for his tribalism which he has brought out. Evil would be expose soon!

The infighting for appointments in the current Appointment and Promotions Exercise

Let me make some commentaries on what is happening in Associate Professor Nicholas Abakah and Rev. Fr. Afful-Broni camps before I proceed. The two are now fighting over new appointments and I am told Alex Afenyo Markin has also joined the fight. I learned Alex Afenyo Markin called Rev. Fr. Afful-Broni and put his phone on loudspeaker and told him that he Rev. Fr. Afful-Broni is not trying to take orders from him. Afenyo went on to tell Rev. Fr. Afful-Broni that he doesnt know how he suffered to put him there and thats why he Rev. Fr. Afful-Broni is fooling and that he must be very careful. For Associate Professor Nicholas Abakah, he is not left out as he is also ready to force his ladies in to the displeasure of the PRIEST turned POLITICIAN. I am still gathering more facts on this, and the realities shall be known by all soon. It is now glaring that they want to push nonentities into UEW and they are fighting among themselves. Some also attack Professor Avoke and Dr Ackorlie just with the hope of being noticed and become beneficiaries of the next AWARD scheme.

The Abuse of Power: Council is not a disciplinary committee

Now, Section 9(1) of Act 672 states that The Council shall meet such times and places as the Chairperson may determine for the conduct of its business but shall meet at least three times in each academic year. From July, 2017, the council chairperson has organised over 12 meetings as of now because he has taken solace in at least three phrase. In all these meetings, allowances were paid and the same person would go shouting that he is there to protect UEW funds. I was told anytime he receives his bills, he must call for emergency meeting. In the history of UEW, I learned this is the first time UEW council meet frequently.

There is no section in either Act 672 or UEW Statute that council can interdict any person and I am wondering why the interdicted staff will not forcibly come to office so that we will see what council can do. As of now, there is no case in court so why are the interdicted officers still afraid to report to work? Sometimes, I think, if persuasion fails, force must be applied. Council chair is just hiding behind EOCO and BNI to ask the officers to step aside. Below are some aspects of Statute 36

Statute 36: Discipline in the University

a. The Vice-Chancellor shall be responsible for discipline within the University and in this connection shall act in accordance with rules formulated by Council.

b. The Vice-Chancellor may delegate any part of his/her authority in respect of discipline as shall seem to him/her appropriate.

c. The following are the penalties that may be imposed for breaches of discipline:

i. Dismissal

ii. Termination of appointment

iii. Suspension for a stated period without pay

iv. Reduction in rank or grade

v. Interdiction

vi. Stoppage of increment

vii. Forfeiture of pay for a stated period

viii. Withholding of increment

ix. Reprimand

x. Warning.

d. For the purpose of these Statutes, penalties (a-h) shall be treated as major penalties which shall be imposed only by the Vice-Chancellor in consultation with Council. This applies only in the case of Senior Members. For non-Senior Members the Vice-Chancellor shall be responsible for administering both major and minor penalties.

Now, I ask the victimised staff, what are you waiting for? Please, let justice prevail. Deal with this old man so that he regrets the appointment ever. He has no powers per statues of the university to do what he is doing. His quest to manipulate the rules for his benefit are being noted and the non-predatory journal lecturers must sit up and make it impossible for him to misbehave. How many council meetings so far? Let us think well.

Professor Kwesi Yankah who is a fine scholar must quickly get out this old man before he messes up UEW. It would be on record that it happened during your days in office as Minister of state in charge of tertiary education. Prof Yankah, you became a PRO VC not just of any University, but University of Ghana, please do not let these predatory professors destroy your reputation.

The current Registrar and his role in the destruction of UEW

The current Registrar whose appointment was as dubious as the promotions and publications of Rev. Fr. Afful-Broni is part of the scheme that is being drawn to destroy UEW. He also has a few Assistant Registrars he is manipulating (details coming up soon). My findings so far about the manipulation of the processes are being scrutinised and I would soon make them known to the general public and the people of Ghana to know how corrupt the Council Chairman is, yet he goes attacking innocent fine academics and financial experts. This registrar, whose English is even so bad that he is always fighting with the PRO VC is even worse than the catholic priest in terms of his hatred for people of some origins. This is what he shares in common with the Council Chairman the reason for which the two are very close. Details of the planned and well executed plan shall be made known soon. I learned during the November, 2017 congregation, the registrar shivered on stage and messed up big throughtout all the sessions.

Deputy Registrars of UEW, are you people saying that everything was okay in appointing the current registrar? Wont you people contest the processes used in bringing a mediocre registrar to the University? How can all applications go to an Ag. VCs office? Is that the norm?

I am still wondering why the current government through the Ministry of Education is quiet about the UEW impasse!! No wonder, silence means concern. Is that not it?

Victor K. Owusu (An Alumnus of UEW)

[email protected]
Dr Kwabena Duffour

29.12.2017 LISTEN

As it is my usual trait to jump to the rescue of whoever is being falsely accused or maltreated because of their vulnerability by the virtue of their position or social status; poor, rich, educated or illiterate, without any request from such victims and without their knowledge or permission, so have I today, Wednesday, 27 December 2017, decided to demonstrate such my character.

On Monday, 25 December 2017 when I phoned to wish a friend in America a Merry Christmas, I was met with news that threw me off on a tangent. Hardly had the exchanges of the festive Christmas greetings been completed when he told me a radio station in London has been asserting that Dr Kwabena Duffour, my Kumawu compatriot and a former Finance and Economic Planning Minister under the late President Evans Atta Mills NDC-led government is culpable for Alfred Agbesi Woyome swindling Ghana out of Ghc51.2 million.

This friend was although a bit worried and doubtful about the veracity of the assertion, he had come to believe what was being discussed on the said radio station. To him, the buck stops with Dr Kwabena Duffour since he was the Finance Minister and without his authorization, no such payment could have been effected.

What I found weird was the probable establishment in the minds of the listeners of the radio station that Dr Kwabena Duffour could have assisted in, and personally profited from, Alfred Agbesi Woyomes cunningly-hatched scheme to dupe Ghana for reasons only known to Woyome and his wider NDC accomplices.

I took pains to explain to this said friend that Dr Kwabena Duffour is blameless even though he was the Head of the Finance Ministry. He never gleefully maliciously authorised the payment and even if he had, the order to do so had come from the court and failing to do so would have amounted to contempt of court.

I explained to him that depending on my initial search conducted into the fraudulent payment of the money to Alfred Agbesi Woyome, I placed a publication on the Ghana online news portals (Ghanaweb, Peace FM, Spyghana and Modernghana) headlined, Arrest Betty Mould-Iddrisu for personally profiting from the Woyomegate scandal. The web link below can take any interested public reader to the said publication.

http://www.peacefmonline.com/pages/comment/features/201202/97304.php

Following the publication of my article, Alfred Agbesi Woyomes counsel, Lawyer David Annan, sued me in an Accra High Court for contempt of court. The underneath cited news publication title and web link will ameliorate the public understanding of how Woyome had sought to intimidate me by the court suit to perpetuate a culture of silence that would have granted him the free licence to abscond with the money so dubiously paid to him.  Woyome Sues 5 NPP Officials, Joy FMs Kwesi Twum, Despite, Peacefmonline Editor & Others - http://www.peacefmonline.com/pages/politics/politics/201203/101261.php

When I know to be telling nothing, but the absolute truth, I fear no foe; not even the threats of death to my life can secure my silence. This is how strong and fearless God has made me.

Having given the public insight into how I have continually been exposing Woyome in my subsequent numerous articles, I hope no one will disbelief me if I said Dr Kwabena Duffour is as white as snow when it comes to public discourse of the Woyome scandal.

For the sake of the publics comprehension of the issue as regards the false perception that Dr Kwabena Duffour aided and abetted the dubious judgment debt payment of GHs51.2 million to Woyome, I have cited the below web link on the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) Interim Report on Payment of Judgment Debts Since January 7, 2009.

In page 6 of the EOCO Interim Report and under sub-section 4 titled, Role of Attorney Generals Department and Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning Since January 7, 2009, it speaks about what these two Government Departments did that led to Woyome scandalising mother Ghana by inflicting unprecedented gargantuan daylight robbery on her.

Reading further through the report, one comes across The Reaction of MOFEP  (MOFEP is the abbreviation for Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning). I shall entreat all public readers curious to know whether Dr Kwabena Duffour had aided Woyome to dupe Ghana or not to read the entirety of the report.

From my understanding of the report, Mr Paul Asimenu, the Director-Legal of MOFEP, played a questionable role of which Dr Kwabena Duffour protested.

The Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Dr Kwabena Duffour, in page 11 of the report under the sub-title Subsequent Developments, it is written in paragraph 2 The AG then advised the Hon. Minister-MOFEP to pay the agreed settlement amount of GHc41, 811.59. However, in his letter dated 12th April, 2010, the Hon. Minister-MOFEP wrote back to the Hon. Attorney General asking for clarification of the petitioners right of claim to the amount requested to be paid

In the last paragraph of same page, following the machinations of the Attorney General (AG) Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, the Finance Minister had to agree to payment in what may well be established to be doing so under duress. At this stage, the Hon. Minister-MOFEP ordered payment and the process for payment was initiated. However when the instruction to pay got to the Bank of Ghana (BOG) and before BOG could effect payment, His Excellency, The President had intervened and ordered the Hon. Minister-MOFEP not to effect the payment.

In page 12 of the Report in paragraph 2, it states, Subsequently, the AG wrote to the Hon. Minister-MOFEP informing him that the position of his Ministry had resulted in Mr Woyome going to court and obtaining judgment on 24thMay, 2010 in the sum of GHc41, 811,480.59 plus interest of 5 million Euros (i.e. GHc9, 447,000.00) and cost of GHc25, 000.00. The total amount payable to Mr Woyome was therefore GHc51, 283,480.59

At paragraph 4 of page 12, it is written, Again before MOFEP could pay the first instalment of GHc17,094,493.53 as agreed, His Excellency, The President ordered the Attorney General to take action in court to set aside the courts order and accordingly, the AG applied to court for a Stay of Execution of the settlement. The court however refused to grant the application and ordered Government to pay according to the settlement reached earlier

http://danquahinstitute.org/docs/EOCO Report.pdf

I shall advise all those willing to know the truth to read the entire EOCO Interim Report to judge for themselves whether Dr Kwabena Duffour had in any slightest way facilitated the dubious payment of the money to Woyome.

Yes, he was the Finance and Economic Planning Minister in which case the buck should normally stop with him. However, under the prevailing circumstances with Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, Mr Paul Asimenu and Mr Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh questionable interventions, his hands were tied. It was the court order that obliged him, but unwillingly, authorised the payment.

I do not defend anyone based on political affiliations, ethnicity or kinship. I lend my support to genuine causes and those being wrongly accused or molested irrespective of their social status, political persuasions, skin colour or academic attainments.

You can give a dog a bad name and kill it but to accuse Dr Kwabena Duffour for no wrong done because of ones inability, incapability or lack of knowledge to research to know the truth is untenable. Those people and the radio stations engaging in such lazy non-intellectual debates and fact findings, I have provided you with clues and it is up to you to ascertain the facts as herein asserted to help you with your programmes and political discourses in order not to misinform the public.

I hope EOCO and the authors of the Interim Report and Peace FM will pardon me for referencing them in my publication without first seeking their permission.

Rockson Adofo
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Read our editorial policy to learn more about our process.
I stuck to what the coaches ...
Sacramento, CA  The legalizing of recreational marijuana on Monday in California for those 21 and older is sure to cause some people to toss out their state-issued cards  but one group may be a holdout.

It was two decades ago that the state approved medical marijuana for those 18 and older. Many citizens did not have a hard time finding a doctor to write a prescription or coming up with a health issue. Many will not need that excuse anymore to use marijuana, which has the states medical pot market anticipating a big hit in sales.

A recent study by the University of California Agricultural Issues Center found that revenue from medical sales could decline from a projected $2 billion for last year to around $1.4 billion next year. At the same time, the legal sale of recreational pot should bring in more than $5 billion as it will capture nearly 62 percent of all sales.

The catch comes in regards to those ages of users caught between medical and recreational marijuana that are18 to 20. They will still either need to get a medical card or turn to the black market, which is expected to keep 30 percent of the states marijuana market.
Chinese Camp, CA  A man is behind bars after shouting hostilities to others in his subdivision frightening them enough to call 911.

Tuolumne County Sheriffs Deputies were called to a home on Main Street in Chinese Camp Wednesday around 10:15 p.m. for a disturbance. Once on the scene, they found 38-year-old Christopher Kiel on his front lawn screaming obscenities at his neighbors while also threatening to shoot them. During questioning neighbors admitted to being very afraid of Kiel as they believed he meant to make good on those threats.

Kiel was handcuffed and taken to the Tuolumne County Jail and booked for making terrorist threats. His bail is set at $50,000.
When it comes to cyberweapons, America is an elephant and Iran is a flea. Still, a flea can be a persistent nuisance, especially for the unprotected.

Irans cyber capability is the focus of a detailed study called Irans Cyber Threat, to be published soon by Collin Anderson and Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The disclosures about Irans cyberattacks are a reminder that America and its allies live in a dangerous electronic ecosystem. Russias hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign gets daily coverage, and Chinas theft of American secrets has also been well-publicized. What gets too little attention are the less-sophisticated but still-toxic weapons available to dozens of smaller countries.

The Iran study is timely: The Trump administration has declared its desire to help Saudi Arabia and other allies push back against Irans proxies. But Tehrans allies can fight back, sometimes in ways that are hard to identify or attribute. Thats especially true with cyberweapons.

The Carnegie study describes a small but capable Iranian cyber capability that evolved partly to gather foreign intelligence and partly to spy on domestic opposition groups that coalesced in the 2009 Green Movement. Iranian hackers developed payback motive, too, after 2012 newspaper reports about the U.S. and Israeli Stuxnet malware attacks on the Iranian nuclear program that had started in 2007.

A decade ago, Iran began mobilizing its own resources. This home-grown hacking culture is one of the reports most interesting findings, because it can probably be duplicated in dozens of other emerging economies. Irans cyber capabilities appear to be indigenously developed, arising from local universities and hacking communities, the report notes. Threat actors seemingly arise from nowhere and operate in a dedicated manner until campaigns dissipate, often due to their discovery by researchers.

The Iranian hackers began slowly in 2007, with cyber pinpricks. A group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army defaced dissident Twitter accounts in 2009 and, soon after, websites belonging to the Voice of America. But the attacks became more serious in 2011, after a hacker penetrated a Dutch security firm called DigiNotar, opening Gmail users in Iran to government surveillance, according to the Carnegie study.

Then came Iranian counterattacks, simple but destructive. After Irans oil industry was hit in April 2012 by malware, the Iranians launched an attack on the Saudi Aramco oil company, using a wiper virus known as shamoon.

In September 2012, a hacker group that called itself the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters began attacking U.S. banks and financial institutions with a primitive but destructive assault known as a distributed denial of service, which basically flooded targeted computers with so much traffic that their systems crashed.

The FBI concluded that from 2012 to 2013, the Iranian operation locked hundreds of thousands of banking customers out of accounts for long periods of time and resulted in tens of millions of costs to remediate, the Carnegie analysts explain.

Irans cyber capabilities suggest the Trump administrations new anti-Tehran campaign may not be costless, even if open conflict is avoided. A website called The Cipher Brief headed that Irans ... Cyber Hackers Poised to Strike If Trump Shreds Nuke Deal. A computer security firm called FireEye reported this month that a group of Iranian hackers, dubbed APT34, have developed a new backdoor cyber-surveillance technique.

Iran has an arsenal of cyber-stones, ready to throw. The U.S., meanwhile, lives in the worlds biggest glass house.

David Ignatius writes a column for the Washington Post.
VICE President and retired army chief Constantino Chiwenga has effectively taken charge of government after being assigned to administer the countrys military as Defence minister.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa rose to power after a military coup in November and his latest appointments are a clear indicator of where the political power in Zimbabwe lies.

In a statement Friday, acting chief secretary to the President and Cabinet, Justin Mupamhanga, said Vice President Kembo Mohadi will administer the National Healing and Reconciliation portfolio.

In terms of section 99 of the Constitution the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe may assign functions to Vice Presidents to assist him/her in the discharge of his/her functions and perform any other functions including administration of any ministry or Act of Parliament.

Accordingly His Excellency the President Cde ED Mnangagwa has duly assigned the Honourable Vice President General (Rtd) Dr Constantino Chiwenga to administer the ministry of Defence and War Veterans Affairs, Mupamhanga said.

Chiwenga retired as Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces last week at the end of a dramatic six weeks that saw him lead the military in forcing former President Robert Mugabe out of power.

The military intervention code named Operation Restore Legacy paved the way for Mnangagwa who had been fired by Mugabe on November 6th to return from brief exile in South Africa to sweep to power.

Mnangagwa, in configuring his first Cabinet, appointed Mohadi as Defence, national Security and War Veterans minister which he has now lost to Chiwenga.

With the military having turned itself into Zimbabwes kingmakers; Chiwengas future as Mnangagwas successor is almost virtually guaranteed. It has also become clear that prospects of a democratic transition or an opposition takeover of power are slim.

The statement added: Honourable Vice President Kembo Mohadi will administer the National Peace and Reconciliation portfolio.

Mnangagwa is under pressure to find a way of dealing with the emotive Gukurahundi issue that Mugabe skirted for decades.

Mugabe only came close to apologising but then described the period in which more than 20 000 civilians were killed under the guise of hunting down a handful of dissidents as a moment of madness. The pronouncement angered civic groups mainly from the western parts of the country.

Mupamhanga, however, did not say who will be in charge of the Central Intelligence Organisation a day after government announced the civil service now falls under the Office of the President and Cabinet.  New Zimbabwe

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PROPHET Paseka Motsoeneng, well known as Prophet Mboro, has formally been charged by police and arrested over last weekends incident at his church when a child died in front of congregants.

He was charged with common assault and intimidation, the polices Captain Lesetja Mathobela told The Star yesterday.

Mathobela said Mboro did arrive in court as ordered after his arrest. The matter was not put up on the (courts) roll. But he was in court.

He said Mboro was now expected to make an appearance in January. Mboro confirmed being arrested and charged. But he maintained the prosecutor accepted his representations on why he should not be prosecuted.

I was called to SAPS Katlehong yesterday and informed that a charge of assault was laid against me. At the Katlehong SAPS, I was charged and released on bail and told to appear in court. I appeared in court and made a representation to the senior public prosecutor, and he declined to prosecute me on those allegations, he said.

A paramedic, allegedly assaulted by Mboro at his Incredible Happenings church in Katlehong, opened a case with police on Sunday. The Ekurhuleni Disaster and Emergency Management Services (DEMS) said the female paramedic sustained a cut on her face after Mboro and some of the congregants attacked her. Paramedics were attending to an ailing child when the commotion erupted. The child was declared dead on the scene.

Reports said congregants reacted angrily because paramedics arrived late to attend to the child. Mboro has assisted the childs mother, Nontombi Gwam, to open a culpable homicide case against the paramedic, alleging she was negligent on the scene.

He said: This is just one of the many incidents wherein paramedics, nurses and other health practitioners have been negligent.

Mathobela said Gwams case was still being investigated. She opened the case on Wednesday. Gwam said she took her daughter, Latoya, to Mboros church after they were turned away at the Daveyton Main Clinic on Saturday. Nurses allegedly told her the clinic had no intravenous drips.

William Ntladi, spokesperson at DEMS, yesterday said Mboro and Gwam were within their democratic right to open a case with the police.

Let the law take its cause, so that all differences can be addressed. Our concern is an assault on a firefighter, who had to go to hospital. We condemn attacks on our personnel. We strongly believe that his assault on our member was uncalled for. If ever there were complaints from him, there are means within the emergency services and council to lodge complaints, and they can be addressed accordingly, Ntladi said.

Ntladi said several DEMS members had faced attacks when out on duty this year. One was recently stabbed and robbed at the Somalia informal community.

At Moleleki, firefighters were attacked and their fire engine was torched. Firefighters had to run for their lives, said Ntladi.

Mboro has denied that the paramedic was attacked at his church.

If she was assaulted, she wouldnt have walked. There were thousands of people there and they would have broken every bone, he said.

Mboro lashed out at Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva, chair of the CRL Commission, for saying churches were not hospitals. She said it was not for religious leaders to encourage extremely ill people to come to church.

Said Mboro: They are so stupid. Everybody knows that the church is not a hospital, so I wonder what the point of that statement was.

Latoya will be buried in the Western Cape this weekend.

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(Natural News) In September this year, a radioactive cloud was spotted above Europe. Researchers who investigated the incident discovered that the cloud was swept westward towards Europe from the Ural mountains, which serves as a boundary between Russia, Europe, and the rest of Asia. Researchers who looked into the incident hypothesized that the radioactive cloud was the result of a leak from a nuclear power plant in the Ural mountains  the Mayak plant, owned by Russian state company ROSATOM.

The spokesman for ROSATOM stated that an inspection of the power plant found no traces of ruthenium-106 and that there were no accidents within the plants facilities at the time of the said incident. However, a Russian state weather service called the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring of Russia (ROSHYDROMET) said that they found an extreme increase in pollution of ruthenium-106 near the Mayak plant, noted at 1,000 times the acceptable level. Mayak denies being the source of the radioactive cloud, and goes on to state that they have not extracted ruthenium-106 in several years.

Rashid Alimov, head of the energy unit at Greenpeace Russia, accuses ROSATOM of being involved in a cover-up, based on facts reported by ROSHYDROMET and other European investigators. While the pollution detected may not have originated from a nuclear plant accident, it may have been caused by treatment sites that process nuclear fuel. European agencies, including Frances and Germanys nuclear safety agencies, state that the ruthenium-106 cloud wasnt hazardous at all, but maintain that food produced within a few kilometers of the exposure may have to be monitored for changes. (Related: Radioactivity still lingering in the Pacific Ocean from nuclear bomb tests more than 50 years ago.)

What is ruthenium-106?

Ruthenium-106 is the radioactive form of the rare heavy metal ruthenium, which was discovered by Polish chemist Jedrzej Sniadecki in 1808.

It is the byproduct of splitting uranium-235, a process called fission. Uranium is an element used in nuclear reactors.

Ruthenium-106 is used in cancer radiation therapies for eye and skin tumors. Ruthenium can also be used as a catalyst in industrial processes and alloys.

Ruthenium, like most heavy metals, can stain the skin and is highly toxic and carcinogenic (it causes cancer).

What can I do to avoid being exposed?

Radiation is primarily a serious threat to a persons health because it cannot be felt or sensed. Unlike the heat of the sun, which a person feels, radiation exposure is invisible to the naked eye until signs of poisoning have manifested. This could range anywhere from slight nausea, diarrhea, to hair loss and vomiting, depending on the exposure. This is where radiation detectors become useful  having one may help you identify places exposed to toxic radiation, primarily if you work around radioactive materials. If you live a few miles near a toxic chemical or nuclear plant, it is always good to have a respirator (or a full-face gas mask) in hand. However, living away from a nuclear plant is better. Most of the time, government authorities warn the people when accidents happen at nuclear power plants or fuel treatment sites, and it would be best to stay indoors until they give an all clear announcement. Furthermore, you should avoid buying food that is produced near nuclear areas  the food may contain unwanted heavy metals and radioactive components that are lethal.

Learn more about the science of radiation at RadiationScience.com.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

CBC.ca

MedCom.com

Mayoclinic.org
(Natural News) Mother Nature will never cease to amaze, with its seemingly endless list of natural energy resources that are just waiting to be tapped. The many sources of natural  or as many in the mainstream media like to call it, the alternative  energy usually involves plantlife in one of its many iterations.

Researchers from the Northeastern University in Boston have now discovered that a possible source for cheap, sustainable batteries can be obtained from none other than tannin, which is known to be naturally abundant and comes from tree bark. While tannin is commonly found in tea and wine, it has shown great promise for use in a low-cost yet high-performance battery that could find many applications in the future.

Its abundance is the primary reason why researchers are now considering the use of tannin for a new type of battery. For reference, a tree bark is around 15 percent tannin based on weight, which is as abundant as they are widespread. Tannin has also been found to have high levels of phenol  in fact, they have the highest level of phenol out of any polymer found in living organisms  which is crucial as it can serve as the primary charge storage mechanism of a tannin-based battery. All of this makes tannin an excellent choice for a cheap and metal-free battery.

Details of the tannin battery research

The research on the use of tannin was led by Hongli Zhu from the Northeastern University in Boston, along with Alolika Mukhopadhyay, a Ph.D. student who served as the lead author, and co-authors from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. Their findings have been published in a paper titled, Heavy Metal-Free Tannin from Bark for Sustainable Energy Storage, which appeared in a recent issue of Nano Letters.

According to Zhu, tannin is a perfect candidate for a new type of battery cathode just because of how much of it is available in nature. The greatest benefit of using a renewable polymer tannin is that Nature produces a huge amount of [it], which can be extracted from underused bark with minimal cost and efforts, Zhu explained. The redox-active phenolic hydroxyl groups of tannins are more than 5000 times higher than lignin, which was previously considered to be the most promising biopolymer for electrochemical energy storage. Due to tannins significant low molecular weight and extremely high phenolic hydroxyl content, the interpenetrating network of tannins and polypyrrole shows an outstanding electrochemical performance. We think tannin is the new champion of naturally occurring redox-active biopolymers.

Through the course of their study, the researchers were able to test various types of tannin, such as the one called ellagitannin that comes from the bark of a chestnut tree. They say that it can be used to create cathodes for a battery that show a high level of performance, which includes a large capacitance and high energy density. This could represent a big leap from current standards that use lithium metal as the primary material.

Potential benefits

While current standards for making batteries do exist, and experts have achieved varying degrees of success with them, there is a huge potential upside for the use of a renewable source like tannin. And its not the only plant-based material that shows great promise as an alternative battery material.

One such material is called lignin, a biopolymer that has also been extensively studied by researchers and can be found inside the cell walls of plants. If scientists could figure out a way to change them in a way that would allow for improved stability and safer performance, perhaps the world would be that much closer to a new low-cost, natural energy resource.

Read more about power sources at Power.news.

Sources include:

Phys.org

Pubs.ACS.org
(Natural News) The Xinjiang region of China is populated with approximately 10 million Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim population who are considered a threat by Chinese authorities. Over the past year, thousands of people from this demographic have been removed from their homes and sent to re-education camps in China. Their crimes include: Having extremist thoughts, praying, traveling, and studying abroad. Given no privacy, Uighurs are monitored closely. Cutting edge digital surveillance systems monitor what they are reading, who they are talking to, and where they are going. They are not allowed to contact family abroad. When Chinese authorities detect any behavior out of the ordinary, they detain the Uighur person and give them no trial. Tens of thousands of cameras track their every move in the city. Facial recognition scans are required before they enter certain areas in the city.

Recently promoted in 2016, Chen Quanguo, a Chinese Communist Party official, is the leader of the far-left police state in Xinjiang. Chen and other authorities have taken a strike hard approach to terror after a series of attack in 2013 and 2014 killed dozens. In the fight against terror, Chen has hired thousands of new police; however, his brutal police state tactics are spreading fear, abuse, and oppression. Uighur people are being profiled like never before and forced into political re-education camps. More than a dozen Uighur escapees have spoken out to media sources to document the oppression.

Rukiye Turdush, a Uighur activist in Canada sums it up well: So much hate and desire for revenge are building up. How does terrorism spread? When people have nowhere to run.

Detention centers being used to re-educate Uighurs

The Xinjiang detention centers are called vocational training centers. The Uighurs who are captured are forced to study Mandarin law, ethnic unity, de-radicalization, and patriotism. Religious extremism is spotted inside the camps. The way they behave, dress and profess the Communist Partys good deeds are all scrutinized. According to the Associated Press, some of the centers are considered jails and some are guarded heavily by police soldiers with rifles. The oppression doesnt stop with the indoctrination camps. Families are harassed by the state if their sons and daughters travel and study Islamic teachings abroad. Egyptian authorities have worked with Chinese authorities, deporting targets in Egypt and sending them back to Xinjiang. When they return, they are questioned and viewed as terror suspects.

We were mice, and the police were cats, harkened a student from Urumqi, Xinjiangs regional capital.

The severity of the police state in Xinjiang

GPS trackers are now a requirement for all vehicles so police can monitor residents travel in real time. Tens of thousands of cameras and voice recognition systems are used to their full potential. Facial recognition scanners, made by China Electronics Technology Group, are used throughout the city. Mandatory health checks, implemented in May 2017, are used to draw DNA samples from practically everyone in the region. The AP was told by authorities that Xinjiang invested in $8.7 million in DNA scanners to track and analyze all suspicious targets.

In southern Xinjiang, the police state has expanded to 1,130 police depots with flashing lights and foot patrols every five hundred meters. On every other block, police officers conduct checkpoints and stop cars to check identification. They even check drivers phones for religious content. The city is additionally guarded by forty armored vehicles. According to researchers, Xinjiang hires 40 times more police per capita than the heavily guarded Guangdong Province.

Xinjiang has very likely exceeded the level of police density seen in East Germany just before its collapse, says researcher Adrian Zenz. What weve seen in the last 12 to 14 months is unprecedented.

The madness doesnt end. Thousands have been sent to indoctrination camps due to a sickly grading scale. Documents obtained by the AP show that Uighur residents in the regional capital are graded on a 100 point scale. This scale is used to classify residents as trusted, ordinary or not trusted. Residents may be docked ten points for being of Uighur ethnicity, for praying daily, or for having a religious education.

This is the kind of police state that privacy experts and civil liberty activists warn against in the United States. Secretive FISA courts, massive NSA surveillance, GPS tracking, roadside checkpoints, forced DNA collection, biometric scans and databases and the loss of the writ of habeas corpus, are all tools of an expanding police state. If certain ethnicities and beliefs become targeted, then these tools will go into action in the United States. We cannot let that happen to ourselves. We must hold accountable and curb police state tactics already in place. We must also stop terror at the border before it infiltrates our land and provokes our government to expand its police state tactics in American cities. (For more articles on protecting civil liberties, check out PrivacyWatch.News.)

Sources include:

USAToday.com

RFA.org

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

TheDailyBeast.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) A coordinated effort is underway by Alt-Left Democratic governors to subvert the Trump administrations very legitimate efforts to remove people who are in our country illegally.

In what is clearly another example of elected Democrats assuming the right to pick and choose which laws they shall enforce, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gov. Jerry Brown of California have recently pardoned illegal immigrants because they believe that will save them from being deported.

As Fox News reported, Cuomo granted pardons to 18 illegal immigrants who were facing deportation by the federal government  and he did it not because it was the right thing to do, but because he wanted to stick his finger in President Donald J. Trumps eye.

While the federal government continues to target immigrants and threatens to tear families apart with deportation, these actions take a critical step toward a more just, more fair and more compassionate New York. https://t.co/QK1lzhMgfg  Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) December 28, 2017

While the federal government continues to target immigrants and threatens to tear families apart with deportation, these actions take a critical step toward a more just, more fair and more compassionate New York, he tweeted.

Riiight. Tell it to all the victims of illegal alien crime, your excellency.

In all, Cuomo granted clemency to 61 convicted criminals while pardoning 39 more for misdemeanor and nonviolent offenses.

Meanwhile, Gov. Jerry Moonbeam Brown has done similar damage to the rule of law in his state, pardoning two men on the verge of being deported by the Trump administration. The two Cambodians Brown pardoned lived in northern California; one was convicted in 2003 for felonious joyriding (apparently you can have too much fun  in California), while the second was convicted in 1995 on a felony weapons charge with a gang enhancement (just the sort of person youd love to have living next to you).

Naturally, neither man will have to deal directly with the fallout of their ridiculous pandering. Both live well-guarded by armed state police officers, and neither of them will thus be subject to any illegal alien crime anytime soon. (Related: Part of the PROBLEM: Gov. Moonbeam in Calif. PARDONS immigrant FELONS facing deportation.)

But their constituents will. In fact, one man whose son was killed by an illegal alien blasted Browns decision (and the state legislatures larger decision in October to declare California a sanctuary state).

Don Rosenberg, whose son Drew was killed in 2010 by an unlicensed illegal immigrant driver, told Fox & Friends that Browns position toward illegal immigrants is terrible.

Well, for those in California who know about his folly with our bullet train, I wish he would get on that bullet train  first stop to hell  and he should get off and stay there. His concern for criminals, be they legal or not, is outrageous and has cost the lives of many Californians, Rosenberg said.

He noted that the Honduran man, Roberto Galo, who killed his son eventually was convicted, but on reduced charges of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. The fact that he was in the country illegally didnt appear to even factor into the conviction.

After his sons death, Obama-era immigration officials refused to deport Galo, though after about eight months, along with fishing a lot of hell, then we finally got him deported, Rosenberg said.

But he managed to stay in the country for another two years. Spent all of 43 days in jail for killing somebody, he continued, adding that his son was attending law school in California when he was essentially murdered.

And gee whiz Gov. Moonbeam, who else has been killed recently by an illegal alien in San Francisco, the big sanctuary city that it is? Kate Steinle, who was murdered by an illegal as she walked along the citys crowded Pier 14, thats who.

Then again, forgiving illegal alien lawlessness is a thing in California; Kates killer, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate of Mexico was acquitted of murder and only convicted on what amounted to a gun crime.

You folks living in these states need to become preppers because your top elected officials are doing all they can to make you less safe.

J.D. Heyes is also editor-in-chief of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

TheNationalSentinel.com

FoxNews.com
(Natural News) Fisheries and marine aquaculture have long been an important aspect of Norways economy  one that the country plans on expanding in the coming decades. To attain that goal, more feed is required to nourish the nations farmed fish. Microalgae already constitute an important component of fish feed, but some scientists believe that these microorganisms should be their own kind of fish feed.

Much of the fish feed is produced on land and contains too little of the beneficial fatty acids, explained Jorunn Skjermo, senior research scientist at SINTEF. Most fish feeds contain soya, which needs to be imported from overseas, making this ingredient pricey and unsustainable in the long term. Microalgae, on the other hand, can be cultivated in the country for a fraction of the cost of soya. This is on top of microalgae being high in fat and more nutritious for fish. With a larger proportion of algae in the feed, its nutrient value will be enhanced and the fish will be able to feed on natural and healthy food, Skjermo added.

Skjermo and her colleagues have already begun test production of microalgae. As part of their efforts to cultivate algae and plankton viable in the biomarine industry, SINTEF has partnered with a biogas facility located in the county of Nord-Trndelag.

The wastewater we used for the initial experiments was strongly discolored, and this caused problems for microalgae production. We are now testing water produced by a different stage of the process at Skogn, which contains less of the discoloring substances. We hope that this will make production much easier, stated Matilde Skogen Chauton, senior research scientist at SINTEF Ocean.

While microalgae feed the fish of Norway, seaweed can be used to improve their living conditions. SINTEF has collaborated with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology to run the Norwegian Centre for Plankton Technology, an institute dedicated to enhancing the production, harvesting, and processing of microalgae, macroalgae, and zooplankton.

As Professor Kjell Inge Reitan explained in a press release: Weve been testing several systems for seaweed cultivation, in which the spores we cultivate will in time be transferred to the sea as part of a large production facility. These seaweed farms can be located close to fish farm facilities, so that the seaweed can obtain nutrients from the waste materials produced by the salmon farms.

All in all, those at SINTEF and their affiliates believe that the countrys aquaculture sector stands to benefit immensely from incorporating microalgae and seaweed into their daily operations. And research has shown this to be true. (Related: Healthy food for pets: Dr. Lisa Newman reveals the pet health-enhancing ingredients in Azmira Holistic Animal Care products (part 2 of 4).)

Scientists from the Technical University of Denmarks National Food Institute have identified two species of microalgae that would make for ideal fishmeal. The two species (Chlorella pyrenoidosa and Nannochloropsis salina) were found to have high concentrations of protein and omega-3 fatty acids, key nutrients for optimal fish health. The scientists involved in this project have bettered the microalgae by growing them in toxin-free industrial process water, then utilizing a drying process that needs less energy than conventional spray drying techniques.

Seaweed, on the other hand, can indeed be used to remove fish waste. One variety of seaweed known as Saccharina latissima can remove as much as 12 percent of the waste from salmon farms, including toxic materials like nitrogen phosphorus.

Perhaps, in the future, microalgae and seaweed may become common in fish farms all over the world. After all, they offer so much and require little in return.

To read up on more stories about the industrial applications of natural materials, simply go to Environ.news today.

Sources include:

SINTEF.no

Phys.org

PlanetEarthHerald.com
(Natural News) If theres one thing that the federal government is good at, its taking other peoples money and blowing it on things that are completely unimportant and irrelevant.

According to a report put out last month by Judicial Watch, the bloated and horribly wasteful Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) paid a total of $1.5 million over a two-year period for subsidized and unoccupied parking spaces, which was in direct violation of an existing executive order that prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars on parking subsidies in the federal workforce.

The two locations involved in the scandal, the EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., and a regional office in Atlanta, Georgia, spent over $840,000 in subsidized employee parking, and an additional $690,000 for unoccupied spaces, according to a recently released federal audit of the governmental agency.

Needless to say, it is incredibly ironic that the Environmental Protection Agency prides itself on being a staunch defender of the environment, while simultaneously ignoring existing law to provide space for its employees to park their carbon dioxide-emitting vehicles.

Furthermore, its worth noting that the EPA is demonstrating an incredible amount of disrespect for its supporters and followers, most of whom have donated money with the expectation that it would be used to maintain the environment, not for subsidized and unoccupied parking spaces for the agencys workers. Quite frankly, everyone who sent money to the EPA over the past two years should be infuriated.

Sadly, this is hardly the first time that the Environmental Protection Agency has wasted away American taxpayers hard-earned money. Back in 2014, the Daily Caller ran a story on a report released by Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake, which found countless examples of waste and excess within the EPA, including employees illegitimately spending an astonishing $15 million on agency credit cards, and an additional $9 million that the EPA somehow lost track of while funding various projects in the state of California.

According to the report, the Environmental Protection Agency spent $3,500,000 to fund Planning for Economic and Fiscal Health workshops across the country $1,500,000 annually to store out-of-date and unwanted publications at an Ohio warehouse, and an additional $700,000 to attempt to reduce methane emitted from pig flatulence in Thailand.

Another $40,000 was also spent on a portrait of former Chief Administrator Lisa Jackson, even though Jackson resigned in 2013, after being caught up in the middle of a transparency scandal. (Related: The EPA spent millions in taxpayer dollars to push climate change propaganda via social media.)

For an agency keen to regulate every puddle from a rainstorm, the EPA has proven itself remarkably inept when it comes to managing its own affairs, Senator Flake said at the time.

In April of this year, Breitbart News revealed that an employee at the EPA used taxpayer funds to pay for nearly $15,000 worth of one-year gym memberships for other employees. The worker in question, identified as contracting officer, Kevin Broadnax, bought 37 employees one-year memberships to the gym 24-Hour Fitness, totaling $14,799.63.

This is yet another example of not only the astonishing amount of waste that goes on within our government, but also the seemingly limitless amount of corruption and unethical behavior it practices. (Related: The EPA spends nearly 300K to track the energy and water use of office workers.)

Given how frivolous the EPA is with taxpayer money, its hard to imagine how anyone could be opposed to the idea of cutting the department back altogether, ultimately forcing it to get back to its original mission of protecting and preserving the environment. Thankfully, under the leadership of President Trump, Scott Pruitt is in charge of the EPA, and he seems determined to get things back on track as quickly as possible.

Sources include:

JudicialWatch.org

DailyCaller.com

Breitbart.com
Andrew Camilleri, a California Highway Patrol officer who died in the line of duty on Christmas Eve, will be honored at a memorial service in Stockton on Saturday.

The 33-year-old Tracy man and his partner, Officer Jonathan Velasquez, were parked on the right shoulder of southbound Interstate 880 in Hayward when a 22-year-old man, who was allegedly speeding until the influence of alcohol and drugs, slammed into the back of their patrol vehicle.

Velasquez sustained non-life threatening injuries, but Camilleri, a married father-of-three, was killed.

Firefighters salute fallen CHP Officer Andrew Camilleri during a procession Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2017. The officer was killed when a suspected drunk driver crashed into his stopped patrol vehicle on Interstate 880 in Hayward.

A large turnout is expected for Saturday's memorial service.

"We go out there every day knowing potentially that we won't come home, but at the same time we all want to go home," CHP Officer John Fransen said. "It affects us all the way around."

A somber bell-ringing ceremony in Sacramento Wednesday honored the life and service of Camilleri, who graduated from the CHP Academy in March 2017.

Standing in front of countless CHP officers, grieving family members and friends, CHP's Acting Commissioner Warren Stanley paid tribute to the fallen officer.

"We are forever grateful for his loyal and dedicated service and show gratitude to his family for their sacrifice," Stanley said. "Andrew Camilleri epitomizes what a CHP officer should always be: a dedicated and selfless public servant. He will not be forgotten."

At full attention outside the CHP Academy on Reed Avenue in West Sacramento, CHP officers paid their respects while two of their colleagues rang a bell one time to mark Camilleri's end of watch.

"It's a tragedy for Officer Camilleri's family," Stanley said. "It's a tragedy for the CHP. It's a tragedy for the state of California. We shouldn't be here because this did not have to happen."



Despite the grief, Capt. Tim Pearson with CHP Hayward noted that Camilleri's family has demonstrated admirable fortitude in the face of utter despair.

"Andrew has an amazing family," Pearson said. "His wife has provided a tremendous amount of strength for us when it should really be the other way."

The Christmas Eve death of a California Highway Patrol officer in a suspected DUI rear-end crash sent shock waves throughout the Bay Area. Cheryl Hurd reports.

CHP leaders say the department has received an outpouring of support from the community after the loss of one of their own.

The California Association of Highway Patrolmen Credit Union has set up a fund to benefit the Callimeri family, according to the CHP Golden Gate division's Facebook page.

Sunday's grisly collision occurred near State Route 92 and the Winton Avenue on-ramp. A red Cadillac, which was being driven by a Hayward man at "a very high rate of speed," careened into the right side of the CHP vehicle, according to Asst. Chief Ernest Sanchez.

"The impact was so severe that it turned a utility vehicle into a very small compact vehicle," Sanchez said.

The Christmas Eve death of a California Highway Patrol officer in a suspected DUI rear-end crash sent shock waves throughout the Bay Area. Anser Hassan reports.

Camilleri and Velasquez, who was seated in the driver's seat, were participating in the department's Maximum Enforcement Patrol to ensure the safety of motorists during the holiday season.

Sanchez said he believes that the suspect was "coming home from a party and had obviously had too much to drink and maybe too much to smoke."

The man, who "chose to be irresponsible" and is in "very serious condition," will face a slew of felony charges upon his release from the hospital, Sanchez said.

"This needs to stop," he said. "Too many tragedies have happened, and today, Im not only disappointed but also angered" about having to deliver such heartbreaking news to an unsuspecting family.

Camilleri's children were expecting (their) father to come home and help open Christmas presents, Sanchez said. Instead, he was pronounced dead at St. Rose Hospital.

Procession for Fallen CHP Officer Andrew Camilleri

Ashley Wharton, Camilleri's sister, posted a message about him on Facebook, asking people who knew him to share with the family any photos or memories they have.

She said Camilleri was a "loving" family man, and someone who was "dedicated" to the CHP.

"This was his dream. He always wanted to be a CHP Officer. I'm so happy I got to see him doing what he always wanted to do," Wharton wrote.

Camilleri was a "great" elder brother, who was always in her corner and steadfast with comfort and advice.

"I couldn't ask for a more amazing big brother," Wharton wrote. "I will cherish our memories and he will never be forgotten ... You will be missed and we love you."

Saturday's memorial will take place at the Christian Life Center at 4303 Christian Life Way, Stockton, CA 95212.
The Modesto man accused of plotting a Christmas Day terror attack on San Francisco's Pier 39 will remain in jail on no bail by order of a federal judge Thursday.

A judge in Fresno denied a request to set bail for 26-year-old Everitt Jameson, who had planned to use explosives and guns to kill as many people as possible at the popular San Francisco destination, according to FBI officials.

Prosecutors told the judge Thursday that FBI agents questioned Jameson while they raided his Modesto home, and when they asked if he would still carry out the attack, he said if given the chance, he would kill Americans in the name of ISIS.

Agents raided the home where Jameson lived with his mother and stepfather eight days ago. The FBI began investigating Jameson in September after a confidential informant told the agency Jameson was pledging support to ISIS on internet chat rooms.

His defense attorney argued that Jameson should be allowed to bail out because he has no criminal history, and in the end, Jameson told undercover agents posing as ISIS leaders that he didn't think he could carry out the attack.

But the judge said Jameson's alleged statements during the raid and recent mental health issues pose too much of a risk to the public.

Jameson's family said very little as they left the courthouse Thursday, only expressing their disappointment.

If convicted, Jameson faces 20 years in prison. His next court appearance is scheduled for Jan. 5.
Here's a look at some of the new California laws for 2018:

SALARY INFORMATION (Assembly Bill No. 168): Under the new bill employers are prohibited from asking salary information of an applicant. Employers are also prohibited from relying on salary history as a factor in determining salary for a new employee. View the new bill here.

EMPLOYERS BANNED FROM ASKING CRIMINAL HISTORY ON APPLICATIONS (Assembly Bill No. 1008): This new law bans employers, state agencies, and public utilities with five or more workers from including, on any application, any questions about an applicants conviction history. Employers are not to consider a persons criminal background until the applicant has received an offer. And if an employer then decides to take back the offer, the employer is required to notify the applicant in writing, with specific information, as to why the offer is being rescinded. Applicant is allowed to challenge, and the employer is required to review that challenge. Check out the bill here.

AMMUNITION SALES (Assembly Bill No. 693): Under this law all ammunition sales and transfers has to be made in person through a licensed vendor  approved by the States Department of Justice. Out of state purchases and internet purchases must also go through a vendor. The law does not apply to police officers, and law enforcement officers of a city, county, city and county, and state or federal government. View the bill here.

WORK SITE IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AND PROTECTIONS (Assembly Bill No. 450): This law protects workers from immigration enforcement while on the job. An employer or someone acting on behalf of an employer is not allowed to let an immigration agent enter non-public areas of a work place unless the agent has a warrant. Public and private employers can face fines up to $10,000 for each violations. Read the bill here.

MINIMUM WAGE: Minimum wage increases to $10.50 per hour for employers with 25 or fewer workers, $11 per hour for employers with 26 or more employees. More info here.

LGBT RIGHTS FOR LONG-TERM CARE FACILITY (Senate Bill No. 219): This new law strengthens an existing law and makes it unlawful for a facility to act against an individual on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or their HIV status. Facilities cannot deny admission, transfer, refuse transfer, discharge or evict LGBT residents. Facilities must use a residents preferred name or pronouns. Get to know the bill here.

RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA: The legal use of recreational marijuana goes into effect Jan. 1. While its up to individual cities to create their own rules, the state has some broad rules, such as pot shops have to be at least 600 feet away from schools and must close by 10 p.m. The states website is under construction, but there is some information on there  check out the Marijuana goes legal in California on Jan. 1  what you need to know. View the website here.
A 37-year-old man has been arrested in connection to a series of arson incidents in Antioch, officials said Thursday.

Contra Costa County fire investigators said Jose Luis Gomes, a transient living in Antioch, was arrested last Friday. He faces one count of of attempted arson and four counts of arson to a structure, according to the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District.

Gomes is suspected of starting a fire at a florist shop and three churches. All buildings were within blocks of each other around the A Street corridor, official said.

No other information was immediately available.
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For the second day in a row, New Hampshire fire officials were called to a shopping plaza in Manchester where elevated carbon monoxide levels were detected.

Authorities were called to 1525 S Willow St. on Friday morning, the same place they responded to on Thursday afternoon, for high levels of CO.

About a dozen people were evaluated on the scene for possible exposure to CO but nobody was taken to a hospital. The scene was cleared by 11:45 a.m.

District Chief Mike Gamache said the source of the CO was a disabled rooftop HVAC unit.

Repair crews were called to fix the broken unit.
A 22-year-old PetSmart employee was seriously injured when she was mauled by a pit bull mix during a grooming earlier this week.

Police in Barnstable, Massachusetts, said they received a call around 11:15 a.m. Wednesday about a dog bite at the PetSmart in Hyannis.

When they arrived, police said they found a trail of blood leading from the grooming area through the customer aisle and training area, around the corner and into the employee lounge.

In the lounge, police found a female PetSmart employee being treated by co-workers for multiple bite wounds. She reportedly suffered bite wounds to her upper torso, wrist and hand, as well as extensive tearing of the flesh, possible broken bones and a possible dislocated shoulder.

"I don't know what happened," said Cliff Gardner, the owner of Bubba, a pit bull mix. "By the time I got back, the police was there. They tell me the girl, the groomer, was in the hospital."

Gardner brought the dog in wearing a muzzle, asking for Bubba to be groomed. The victim says she asked about the muzzle, and that Gardner said the dog had previously attacked another dog, but was "sweet as can be." Gardner disputes this account.

"When she asked me what he was doing with the muzzle on, I said 'The chief of police requires him to wear the muzzle because he got in a dog fight and he bit a woman," Gardner told NBC Boston.

Store policy required the muzzle to be removed. PetSmart says the dog would never have been allowed in for services if they knew of his history.

During the grooming process, while Bubba was being moved, police say he attacked the victim for no apparent reason and without warning, refusing to let go of her arm.

Co-workers used an air horn and a special spray, but were still unable to deter the dog until they were finally able to pull the victim's arm out of the dog's mouth. They then secured the dog in a cage and brought the victim to the employee lounge.

Due to the severity of the victim's injuries, rescue workers stabilized her at the scene and then transported her to Cape Cod Hospital. She was later flown to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston for further treatment.

Her name is not being released and her condition is not known at this time.

"You don't even know how bad I feel about it," Gardner said. "I've been praying for that girl."

Gardner says Bubba is in quarantine, and that he will be put down in the morning.

Police said they are not ruling out the possibility of charging Gardner.
A fast-moving winter system could dump several inches of snow on parts of the Chicago area Friday.

A Winter Weather Advisory has been issued for most of northeast Illinois and parts of northwest Indiana, warning of 3 to 5 inches of snow expected, with isolated locations potentially seeing up to 6 inches.

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The highest totals are expected south of Interstate 80, though much of the Chicago area is expected to see between 2 and 4 inches. Areas far north of the city may only see between 1 and 2 inches.

DeKalb, Kane, DuPage, Cook, LaSalle, Kendall, Grundy, Will, and Kankakee Counties are all under the advisory beginning at noon Friday and ending at midnight Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

Lake, Porter, Newton, and Jasper Counties in Indiana are also listed.

Timeline: What to Expect and When for Friday's Snowfall

The snow is expected to begin falling during the late morning and early afternoon hours, spreading west to east before ending mid- to late-Friday evening.

The NWS warns that snowy conditions could make for difficult travel during the afternoon and evening rush hours.

"Given the cold air temperatures, expect roads to become snow covered," the NWS reports.

Temperatures stay cold Friday, with highs in the teens and wind chills near 0.

Another chance for snow returns Saturday in northwest Indiana as temps fall into the single digits with sub-zero wind chills.

A Wind Chill Advisory is in effect for Winnebago, Boone, Ogle, DeKalb and Kane counties beginning at 5 a.m. Saturday and continuing until 1 p.m. The advisory warns of wind from 15 to 25 below zero.

The holiday weekend will see the bitter blast continue. Highs stay in the teens with more sub-zero wind chills forecast.
With the bitter cold temps dominating these last few days, people in need can connect with help at United Ways 211 Connecticut system.

The system offers online or telephone assistance for people trying to find a warm place to stay, food and needs help with energy programs.

United Way 211 Connecticut is free, confidential and offered 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

This week specialists have taken 182 weather-related calls and theyve had more than 2,5000 hits on its website.

When someone dials 211 for assistance, they're sure to get a calm, collected voice on the other end providing round the clock assistance.

"It's been a really busy week with the cold weather," 211 Senior Vice President Tanya Barrett told NBC Connecticut.

One specialist, Mary, said they've seen an increase in shelter calls this week during the bitter cold temperatures.

The 211 center in Rocky Hill is filled with contact center specialists like Mary helping mostly with cold weather calls.

"Definitely shelter to get out of the cold. Thats what weve been getting a lot of, where the local warming centers are, emergency shelter placement. Sometimes we do get calls people run out of oil, things of that nature, things of that nature. Mostly people who are literally homeless outside," Mary reiterated.

Sometimes those calls can get stressful, but thats where training kicks in.

"We get someone who is upset on the phone based on their situations, we do have to try to get them focused on what they need so we can help them the best we can," Mary said.

After earning their four-year degrees, specialists go through four to six weeks of on-site training before theyre even allowed on the phones. They learn about various topics and how to work with callers so they get the assistance they need.

"We get calls 24-7, people are at their wit's end and they dont know what to do next. They dont know what exists and they dont know what to ask for," Barrett added.

Its a tough job that Mary says pays off in the end.

"It makes me feel good that I can get someone connected with assistance," Mary said.
The CDC is investigating a multistate E.coli outbreak in 13 states, including Connecticut, and the agency is looking into whether its connected to an outbreak in Canada thats believed to be linked to romaine lettuce.



There have been 17 illnesses linked to the outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7 infections, including two in Connecticut, two in New Hampshire, three in California and one each in New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nebraska, Virginia and Washington.



The Illnesses started between Nov. 15 and Dec. 8, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Public Health Agency of Canada also is investigating an outbreak of STEC O157:H7 infections in several provinces.

Whole genome sequencing is being performed on samples of bacteria making people sick in the United States, preliminary results show that the type of E. coli making people sick in both countries is closely related genetically, according to the CDC.

The Public Health Agency of Canada has identified romaine lettuce as the source of the outbreak in Canada.

In the United States, state and local public health officials are interviewing sick people to determine what they ate in the week before their illness started.

CDC is still collecting information to determine whether there is a food item in common among sick people, including leafy greens and romaine.

At this point, the CDC is unable to recommend whether U.S. residents should avoid a particular food and said the investigation is ongoing, and more information will be released as it becomes available.
A late August layover in Houston was the one thing that stood between Nevien Nematalla and her familys trek back home from a relaxing, much-needed trip to Cancun.

The flight happened to coincide as Hurricane Harvey, a catastrophic storm that caused 82 deaths and $200 billion worth of damage to the area, made landfall.

Even with an eye on the forecast, the family arrived in the worst part of the storm without their suitcases including Nematallas daily medicine.

"I really had never felt so close to death," Nematalla said.

Her medication, packed in her checked-in bag, made it back to New England without her.

"I know its my error to not travel with medication," Nematalla said. "But this had never happened."

She said it wouldnt have happened had United Airlines canceled or rerouted their flight when they called two days prior.

"They always say these things are an act of god and theyre not responsible, and I understand that," Nematalla said. "But they could have prevented all of these hundreds or thousands of people from landing in Houston. Everybody knew about this storm."

A United spokesperson told NBC Connecticut the airline only flies when its safe to do so and wanted to give Houstonians the option to get home safely.

United also initiated a waiver the same day the Nematallas called, giving passengers the chance to reschedule their flight for free.

Nevien said the United representatives she spoke with never informed her of the waiver in place, leaving her to think they had no choice.

The family found a Houston hotel on August 25 and hoped for the best. The next day, the city was underwater and Nevien was out of medicine.

"There were no pharmacies open, no doctors open, there were no cars, buses, trains- nothing," Nematalla said. "So I had to call an ambulance."

The hospital wasnt filling prescriptions. She called everyone she knew and eventually, a friend connected her to a local physician who got her enough medication to get by.

"It was all a complete miracle how dark it got, how scared and terrified I was, and then suddenly I was able to get the medicine from strangers who didnt know me," Nematalla said.

The family made it out of Texas through Austin on September 1. They immediately called United again to askgiven the lapse in communicationif the carrier would reimburse hotel and food expenses.

United initially offered $100 credits for each family member as a good faith gesture since they had a waiver in place. That wasnt good enough for the Nematallas.

"I didnt want to go back on United and I didnt need any vouchers," Nematalla said. "I just wanted my money back."

Two days after NBC Connecticut Responds contacted United, Nevien got a call.

"They said they appreciate that were mileage plus customers and that they wanted [to make things right] for good will, and just to be generous and kind," Nematalla said. "I was just so relieved that we made it out alive."

United still honored its $400 credit and the Nematallas received an additional $1,200 which theyll use to help pay for the ambulance and hospital expenses.
It has been a busy 12 months for the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters.

We have results in connection with a number of stories we broke months ago and some we shared with you for the first time this year.

In March, the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters learned a solar company we had profiled and that had been the subject of consumer complaints surrendered its license and agreed not to participate anymore in a state solarization program.

An attorney for the state said, but for an NBC Connecticut story, this issue would still likely be unresolved."

The company maintains the issues highlighted by the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters were the exception, not the rule.

A month later, the NBC Connecticut investigative team broke a story about alleged patient abuse at Connecticut's maximum security mental health hospital. It led to dozens of employee being put on leave, terminated and for some, arrested. The investigation also prompted a state legislative hearing.

Our team got some great news for consumers in July, when we learned our report on how pharmacies were restricted from telling customers about cheaper medications ended up with legislators passing a law allowing them to.

A month later, another law was passed following a NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters report on school bus companies failing to check up on the driving and criminal records of their drivers. The legislation tightens requirements on how often school bus companies must check on them.

In the fall, we learned a law was passed after a series of NBC Connecticut Troubleshooter stories about people avoiding car taxes with out-of-state plates. Police can now check the registration status on questionable vehicles that are parked on public property, which they could not do before.

The NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters teamed up with the Connecticut Bank and Trust Alumni Club to help get the word out about how they will locate pension funds that many thought were lost forever after the bank's parent company failed back in 1991. More than $1 million dollar in long lost money owed to retirees of CBT and the Bank of New England was found following our reporting.

Most of all, it was another big year for the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters and our award winning coverage of Connecticut's crumbling concrete crisis. Not only did the state step up with $100 million to help people with failing basements, but our team won the coveted duPont-Columbia Award for our exclusive coverage of this catastrophic issue, our first, exclusive piece on this airing more than two years ago.
Some people in New Haven got out of the bone-chilling cold Thursday by warming up at a downtown public library that is doubling as a warming center.

"Its a nice warm place," Joe S. said. "Its a comfortable place cause Im a reader, too."

He arrived when the doors opened at 10 a.m.

"I really wish they had opened up a little earlier," Joe told NBC Connecticut.

Across from the library on the New Haven Green, downtown safety ambassador Jeffrey Lee is bundled up.

"Ive got some sweatpants on, a hoodie, couple jackets, two pairs of gloves," Lee said.

He said the clothing is never enough when it's so cold outside.

Lees day began before the sunrise when the wind chill was well below zero along the shoreline.

"When Im walking, I just got to turn around so it doesn't hit me," Lee said.

Lees main task in the biting cold is to direct the homeless to the citys warming centers.

"If we see signs of hyperthermia or frostbite, we want to make the proper places known so we call either 911 or the non-emergency number to make sure that theyre getting help they need today," Lee said.

For people traveling by bus or train, the key is to minimize the wait time outside in the cold.

At the bus stop at the corner of Church and Chapel Streets, Anjanette Gilliam from New Haven pointed out someone spilled hot chocolate that froze on the bench.

At the West Haven train station in the early afternoon, the platform was empty as passengers waited indoors for their trains to arrive.

Todd Dery of Tolland said he made the mistake of forgetting to wear a hat while in New York City.

"I definitely didnt dress warm enough to walk around in the city," Dery said. "Luckily we took a cab."

Dressed in her long coat and high boots, Amy Gallagher from Madison caught a train from West Haven to Grand Central to see a Broadway show.

"We plan to walk, were going to walk to our hotel then were going to walk to dinner and then to the show," Gallagher said, adding she thinks she has enough layers on.

Back at the New Haven library, Joe said he will have a bed tonight inside a shelter run by the Columbus House.

"Unfortunately, Ive slept out in this stuff, you know, without any shelter, so Im kind of used to the cold," he said. "Most of the shelters are full and I wish to be honest with you some of the churches would open up like a warming center for the night."
In a criminal complaint revealed Thursday, federal prosecutors say a school bus camera company paid millions in bribes and kickbacks to a top Dallas County Schools official.

The future of DCS was a hot political issue this past year, and State Sen. Don Huffines, R-Dallas, was behind the effort to shut the agency down.

Huffines spoke to NBC 5 about the criminal charges being filed.

"I am not surprised, and I expected that we were going to have criminal charges," Huffines said. "Unfortunately I feel like this is just the beginning of what you are going to hear. I think the tentacles of this corruption run wide and deep."

Federal prosecutors have filed charges in a months-long investigation into huge financial losses at Dallas County Schools, the troubled busing agency voters elected to shut down earlier this year.

During the 2017 legislative session Huffines filed a bill to shut down the financially troubled organization. He worked with Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, who amended the bill to leave that decision up to the voters of Dallas County. The voters ultimately decided to shut it down in a November ballot initiative.

"It shows that corruption in government people can be held accountable, need be held accountable, and will be held accountable to the taxpayers," Huffines said.
What to Know The NYPD is ramping up security across the city for the annual New Year's Eve celebration

Recent terror attacks and shootings have had an impact on how the NYPD is preparing

Officials said there is no credible terror threat to the New Year's celebration or to the city in general

The NYPD is heightening security in key spots across the city days ahead of the annual New Years Eve celebration that will see some two million people pack pens in Times Square to watch the famed ball drop.

At a press conference Thursday, NYPD Commissioner James ONeill said the amount of security this year is unprecedented and comes in the wake of recent attacks.

Youll see a stronger police presence out there then weve seen even in recent years. And thats prudent, given the terror events weve seen and studied around the world, as well as the three incidents here in New York over the past 15 months, ONeill said, referring to the failed bombing of a Times Square subway tunnel earlier this month, as well as the truck rampage that killed eight people on Halloween, and the Chelsea bombing that injured dozens in September 2016.

Officials said there were no credible threats to the city or its New Years Eve celebration, but that additional resources are in place as the city rings in 2018.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said the fact the city can pull off such a security feat should be a point of pride.

New York City is one of the few places in the world that could host an event like this and provide this level of security, de Blasio said.

Getting in to see the famous ball won't be easy. There will be 12 access points with multiple layers of security. At each entrance will be special vapor wake bomb-sniffing dogs and heavy-weapons teams. Revelers will be scanned by magnetometers and will have their bags inspected; no large bags or coolers will be permitted.

The NYPD will have teams available to handle a sniper shooting like the one in Las Vegas that killed dozens of people in October. Uniformed officers will be stationed at hotels and information will be sent out on police smart phones, showing officers how to deal with someone wearing a suicide vest.

Police have also been trained on how to spot would-be bombers, how to stop them with lethal force and how to treat the wounded in the event of an explosion.

I think theyve got it under control. The NYPD, they know what theyre doing, said Meredith Begley, of Astoria.

Lots of people said they planned to avoid the event -- not out of fear of terrorism, but out of fear of the bitter forecast. Temperatures on New Years Eve are expected to be in the teens, with wind chills below 0.
New Year's Eve may be a little louder than usual in Pennsylvania, thanks to a new state law that allows residents to buy bigger fireworks.

The law, signed in October by Gov. Tom Wolf, was part of a budget package designed to plug a massive state deficit. It broadened the legal sale and use of fireworks and slapped a new 12 percent tax on the purchases. The state hopes to collect as much as $9 million from the tax next year.

Now, anyone who is 18 can buy "consumer" fireworks, which can fly hundreds of feet in the air. Previously, most Pennsylvanians could only buy "novelty" fireworks.

The most powerful fireworks used in professional shows are called "display" and are still off-limits to most buyers.

But this means far more fireworks can be sold to Pennsylvanians at stores such as Intergalactic Fireworks in Langhorne. "This used to be the Pennsylvania aisle," said Anthony LoBianco of Intergalactic Fireworks, gesturing to one section of the store. "Now the entire store is the Pennsylvania aisle."

Just because the fireworks can be sold legally doesn't mean they can always be used legally.

The fireworks can only be set off on private property where the property owner gives permission. They can't legally be used under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Also, they cannot be set off within 150 feet of an occupied structure, which means they cannot legally be set off in many urban and suburban communities.

But fire officials say regulating illegal fireworks is always tough, and now the fireworks available will be stronger.

"Multiple times we've seen fingers blown off, eye injuries, face injuries," said Deputy Commissioner Gary Loesch of the Philadelphia Fire Department.

He recommended following directions closely, having a bucket of water or hose nearby and keeping all fireworks away from children.

Pennsylvania isn't alone in the loosening of fireworks laws.

Julie Heckman of the American Pyrotechnics Association says a growing list of states are authorizing the sale and use of the full line of consumer fireworks regulated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Heckman says fireworks sales have grown rapidly and states are loosening their laws to keep that tax revenue in-state.
President Donald Trump's administration is rescinding proposed rules for hydraulic fracturing and other oil- and gas-drilling practices on government lands, government officials announced Thursday.

The rules developed under President Barack Obama would have applied mainly in the West, where most federal lands are located. Companies would have had to disclose the chemicals used in fracking, which pumps pressurized water underground to break open hydrocarbon deposits.

The rules to be rescinded Friday were supposed to take effect in 2015 but a federal judge in Wyoming blocked them at the last minute. In September, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver declined to rule in that case because the Trump administration intended to rescind the rules.

The long-awaited change drew praise from industry groups including the Washington, D.C.-based Independent Petroleum Association of America and Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, which sued to block the rules.

They claimed the federal rules would have duplicated state rules, putting unnecessary and expensive burdens on petroleum developers.

"States have an exemplary safety record regulating fracking, and that environmental protection will continue as before," Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said in a release.

Fracking has been so successful in boosting production over the past decade it has become almost synonymous with oil and gas drilling. In many areas, it would be rare nowadays for a gas or oil well to not be fracked.

The process requires several million gallons of water each time. Environmentalists say the potential risks to groundwater require regulation.

"Fracking is a toxic business, and that's why states and countries have banned it. Trump's reckless decision to repeal these common-sense protections will have serious consequences," Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an email.

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Thursday the rescission would take effect Friday.

The rules developed under President Barack Obama would have applied to drilling on federal lands located mainly in the West. They were set to take effect in 2015 but a judge in Wyoming sided with petroleum industry groups and blocked them at the last minute.

In September, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver declined to rule in that case because the Trump administration intended to rescind the rules.

The rules would have required companies to disclose chemicals used in fracking, the process of pumping pressurized water underground to break open hydrocarbon deposits.
An argument inside a convenience store in Clairemont led to a young man attacking another man with a hatchet, San Diego police said.

The suspect  Christopher Alvaras, 21  was with three other men inside a 7-Eleven on Genesee Avenue around noon when he got into an argument with another man inside the store, the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) said.

7-Eleven store clerk Rebecca Fonseca told NBC 7 Alvaras became upset when the victim asked him about a sausage and began taunting him, following him around the store.

Fearing a confrontation, Fonseca told Alvaras and his companions to leave.

The group of men left and waited outside for the victim to exit the store.

Surveillance video obtained by NBC 7 showed that when the victim exited the store, a man chased him into the center of Genesee Avenue before hitting him with a roofing hatchet. The suspect fled, leaving the 44-year-old victim in the street.

Police said the hatchet-wielding suspect was Alvaras, wearing a lime green vest, who fled the scene with his companions in a green Honda minivan.

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The group was last seen traveling north on Mt. Abernathy Avenue and Mt. Alifan Drive, police said.

The victim suffered a 1.5-inch laceration to the back of his head and was taken to a local hospital. Police said he is expected to survive. His name was not immediately released.

About 20 minutes later, officers spotted the suspects minivan at 16th Avenue and G Street in downtown San Diego, approximately 11 miles south of the attack. Alvaras was standing next to the van.

Witnesses positively identified him during a curbside lineup as the man involved in the bizarre crime. During a search of the minivan, police found the roofing hatchet. A woman was also detained at the scene, though her connection to the ordeal is unclear.

Police just found this in mini van of Clairemont axe attack suspect (witnesses also positively IDd him) #NBC7 pic.twitter.com/fneNKLjueT  Steven Luke (@stevenlukenbc) December 28, 2017

Alvaras will be booked into county jail on one count of assault with a deadly weapon, the SDPD said. On Friday, the San Diego County District Attorney's office said the suspect had bailed out of jail; he's scheduled to appear in court next week.

The investigation is ongoing and anyone with information on this case can reach out to Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.
A man suspected of gunning down his wife, then opening fire on police and shooting himself in the head as he attempted to flee on Interstate 95 in Stafford County, Virginia, was a registered sex offender with a criminal history.

The Stafford County Sheriff's Office said Gregory Lee, 42, shot at two law enforcement officers when they pulled him over in a black SUV on Thursday morning in connection with the fatal shooting of his wife, Melissa Dee Lee, 36.

Police say a man shot and killed his wife before he started firing at police officers on I-95 in Stafford County. News4's Jackie Bensen reports.

After the shooting, Gregory Lee led officers on a pursuit on I-95. The SUV crashed and rolled over near mile marker 142 after Lee shot himself, the sheriff's office said. He was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where he died of his gunshot wound.

Melissa Dee Lee died after being shot three times in the chest at the England Run North Apartments complex near Heron and Elkton drives in Fredericksburg. Police described the shooting as a domestic dispute.

Gregory Lee had a criminal history that included guilty pleas for DUI, marijuana possession, hit and run and destruction of property charges dating back to 2006, the sheriff's office said. The Virginia state sex offender registry showed Lee registered as a sex offender in 1999 after being convicted on an attempted rape charge. The victim was identified as an adult.



The registry listed a Fredericksburg auto shop as Lee's employer.

No officers were hurt in Thursday's shooting. Images released by Virginia State Police showed two cruisers with bullet holes in the windshields.

Virginia State Police

The crash in the northbound lanes of I-95 led to several hours of gridlock with only a single lane open as police investigated and crews worked to clear the debris.
Authorities in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, are downplaying an initial assessment by the Trump Administration that a shooting spree in the capital city last week was an act of terrorism.



Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico said Thursday friends and relatives of Ahmed Aminamin El-Mofty describe him as depressed, and he's believed to have acted alone during the Friday shooting that left a Pennsylvania State trooper shot.

Last Saturday, Tyler Houlton, acting director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, characterized the shooting as a "terror attack" in a statement posted to Twitter. Houlton went on to criticize how El-Mofty was granted citizenship through extended family chain migration.

Marisco said investigators have not connected the Egyptian immigrant to any organized terror group or terrorist activity. The 51-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen has no prior criminal record, police said.

"Mr. El-Mofty, at this point in time, acted alone, and we believe there is no further threat," Marisco said.

Police shot and killed El-Mofty about a mile from where the shooting began near Pennsylvania's State Capitol building. Authorities say they found two propane tanks on El-Mofty's person  one in a fanny pack and one near the car.

Eric Heisler / Dauphin County District Attorney's Office

Marsico says the divorced El-Mofty was said to be depressed over lack of contact with his family and had money problems. He's unsure what motivated El-Mofty.

The trooper was treated for what Marsico called a slight wound.

The prosecutor's preliminary finding suggests police were justified in shooting El-Mofty.
About 10,000 kids under the age of 15 were diagnosed with cancer across the U.S. in 2017, according to the American Cancer Society. One child in Norwell, Massachusetts, wants to help bring that number down.

"I was lucky I had a cancer they could treat. Other kids don't have cancers they can treat," said Nikki Schindler, an eighth grader at Norwell Middle School.

At age 11, Schindler was diagnosed with Medulloblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. After rounds of radiation and chemotherapy, she was deemed free of the disease in 2015. It was during that time that she and her family began to learn more about the illness and the lack of funding there is to research its cure.

"We are doing everything we can do, but we can't eradicate the cancer cells if they come back. We are counting on today's science and medicine to do that," said her father, Jerry Schindler.

But science and medicine can be slow to evolve. According to the National Pediatric Center Foundation, only 4 percent of federal government cancer research funding goes to study pediatric cancer.

That is why Schindler decided to try to help fund it herself.

After community members donated $5,000 to her family, Schindler decided to give it all to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she received treatment. Then, she became determined to raise even more money. Coming up with a design that read "Cure, Schindler made and sold dozens of T-shirts around Norwell. Last month, she was able to present a $7,000 check to the hospital for research.

"It's really remarkable to see that. We've been struggling for decades now trying to get the government and foundations to support childhood cancer research," said Dr. Howard Weinstein, director of hematology and oncology at MGH.

Part of Schindler's focus has also been on raising awareness about the issue. She hopes the more people learn about childhood cancers, the more they will care.

"She always, always thought of other children. It's pretty unusual for a child of her age to be so intuitive," said Rhonda McIntyre, a registered nurse at MGH.

While Schindler is currently in remission, she has to undergo tests every three months to see if the illness has returned. Despite the stress surrounding it all, the 13-year-old is solely focused on the future.

"My hope is that I can help someone behind me," Schindler said. "I think I've made a good difference."
The shooter rapidly fires through the front doors of an elementary school with an assault rifle and blasts his way down the hallway. Screaming children are running for their lives or frozen in fear. Teachers quickly try to decide: barricade the doors, or make a run for it with their students?

Police officers arrive with guns drawn, working their way through the school. Finally they confront the shooter and end the threat.

Using cutting-edge video game technology and animation, the U.S. Army and Homeland Security Department have developed a computer-based simulator that can train everyone from teachers to first responders on how to react to an active shooter scenario. The training center is housed at the University of Central Florida in Orlando and offers numerous role-playing opportunities that can be used to train anyone in the world with a computer.

"With teachers, they did not self-select into a role where they expect to have bullets flying near them. Unfortunately, it's becoming a reality," said Tamara Griffith, a chief engineer for the project. "We want to teach teachers how to respond as first responders."

The $5.6 million program  known as the Enhanced Dynamic Geo-Social Environment, or EDGE  is similar to those used by the Army to train soldiers in combat tactics and scenarios using a virtual environment.

Originally designed for police and fire agencies, the civilian version is now being expanded to schools to allow teachers and other school personnel to train for active shooters alongside first responders. Homeland Security officials say the schools version should be ready for launch by spring.

Each character has numerous options, including someone playing the bad guy, said project manager Bob Walker. For example, each teacher has seven options on how to keep students safe, and some of the students in the program might not respond or be too afraid to react. So that becomes another problem to be solved.

"Once you hear the children, the screaming, it makes it very, very real," Walker said.

The program can have the shooter be either an adult or a child.

"We have to worry about both children and adults being suspects," he said.

The program's designers listened to real dispatch tapes to understand the confusion and chaos that goes along with such frightening situations, Griffith said. They also talked to the mother of a child killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, who walked them through everything that happened that tragic day.

"It gives you chills when you think about what's happening on those tapes," Griffith said. "It tore us apart to listen to her and what she went through."

But it all serves one main goal: to train educators to save lives when an armed attacker bursts through a school door.

Another EDGE program, which was launched in June, has an active-shooter scenario involving a 26-story hotel that includes numerous possible environments for first responder training: a conference center, a restaurant, or office spaces. As many as 60 people can train on the program at once and can be located anywhere.

"It's important that this provides agencies like fire and law enforcement an opportunity to train together," said Milt Nenneman, Homeland Security Science and Technology First Responder Group program manager in a recent Justice Department article. "Very seldom do they have the opportunity to train together in real-life, and it is hard to get those agencies time away from their regular duties."

School safety advocates say safety training gets pushed to the back burner until a tragedy happens. Amanda Klinger, director of operations for nonprofit Educators School Safety Network, said this new program could help change that.

"I hope that people will sort of see this simulation as a really cool and engaging way," she said, "to think about school safety."

AP Video reporter Joshua Replogle contributed to this report.
A North Carolina man has been arrested in connection with a fatal home invasion in Millinocket.

Authorities say Maine State Police arrested 38-year-old Christopher Murray, of Maxton, in North Carolina on Wednesday. Police say Murray will face murder charges in the death of 59-year-old Wayne Lapierre when he is extradited to Maine.

Police say they are also searching for second suspect in North Carolina in connection with the killing.

Lapierre and his wife, 33-year-old Diem Lapierre, were both shot during the home invasion. Wayne Lapierre died last week. His wife is recovering from her injuries.

Authorities didn't say how police knew the suspects were in North Carolina.

It was not immediately known if Murray has an attorney who can comment.
A Massachusetts appeared in court Friday to face charges in connection with a deadly crash last week in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

Police arrested Joseph Kayode, 32, of Lynn, and charged him with homicide by motor vehicle while operating under the influence.

Kayode was arrested following an investigation of an early morning, two-vehicle crash on Dec. 22 when officers responded to the intersection of Columbus Avenue and Heath Street.

Upon arrival, the occupant of one vehicle, 56-year-old Emanuel Cabral, of Boston, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Five other victims were transported to area hospitals to be treated for injuries.

Police said investigators determined that Cabral's death was caused by Kayode. A prosecutor said Kayode's blood alcohol level was .13 and speed may have been a factor in the crash.

Kayodes attorney told the judge his client feels sorry for what happened.

Cabrals wife and two sons were in court wearing pins with his photo. Their attorney told NBC Boston that Cabral recently arrived in this country from Cape Verde. He was on his way to work a job cleaning stores when the crash happened. He was the passenger and his brother-in-law was the driver. The brother-in-law remains in a hospital with serious injuries.

A funeral for Cabral was held Thursday.

The crash investigation is still ongoing. Prosecutors are waiting to review electronic data and the reconstruction report.

Kayodes bail was set at $7,500 and the judge ordered him to report to probation one time a week and remain alcohol-free.

He will be back in court Jan. 30 for a hearing.
Tributes paid to Norfolk prayer warrior Mark

The Norfolk Christian community has been paying tribute to a great hero of the faith Mark Sutcliffe, who died from cancer on Christmas Day.

A former employee at YMCA Norfolk, Mark was best known as a prayer warrior and intercessor, involved with numerous churches and Christian projects and groups across Norfolk and much further afield.



Jill Gower, Director of Call to Prayer, said: I have known Mark for about 20 years. I first met him at a prayer meeting in an attic room at the old YMCA building. I was very taken with his passion for Jesus and his style of intercession. Over the years we worked together a lot; in the early days at Living Water when the prayers gathered around a banner or in my caravan before progressing to the prayer tent. Mark got involved with praying for the youth, and would report back to us the testimonies of all that the Lord was doing.



We worked together with Martin Down and Stephen Mawditt at the First Friday Call to Prayer gatherings, when on the first Friday of each month we travelled around the county to different churches leading intercession together.



Over the years we have been involved in many prayer times together, including the intercession for a conference in Manchester with John Mulinde and the great prayers from Uganda, and we at Call to Prayer will always be grateful for his anointing and input, and the many great meetings we shared.



Soul Church senior pastor, Jon Norman, paid tribute on Facebook: Mark was full of faith and expectation right up to the end. Now safely home with the Jesus he loved and served. His legacy will never die.



Craig Deal, pastor at Gateway Vineyard Norwich, said: The amount of lives and churches that have been impacted by Mark is endless. We have lost a prayer warrior and encourager. Mark-enjoy the party in heaven!



David Elverson, leader of Kingdom Life Church, said: He is such a hero of the faith and a great friend. So sad. Wife and fellow church leader Holly Elverson wrote: A hero of the faith and a faithful man! Our loss is heavens gain. I will miss him.



Others from the Norfolk Christian community also posted messages on Facebook



Pete McAllen wrote: Mark was an example, a man who lived by faith, talked faith and prayed like few I know. A friend to us and so many others. We will miss him, and the hole he leaves. As Christians lets reflect on what he carried and be inspired to live big lives for Jesus. I will miss him greatly and pray his legacy will live out in my life.



Jane Clamp said: Mark never failed to speak God's word into my life, encouraging me and cheering me on. Blessed to have known him.



John Lind, wrote: Words are sometimes not enough to explain how you felt about someone, but Sara and I have a host of lovely memories of this lovely man which we will treasure all the more now he's not with us.



Michelle Smith said: Mark will be so missed by so many of us. A great man of faith, a true friend and pure lover of Jesus



Cle Jarvis wrote: Such an amazing encouragement and example! Prayer Warrior and friend.



Ann Marshall said: Always a great encourager always positive, always full of love, always giving out from the abundance of his heart, you are a hero Mark, I am certain you have heard the words Well done good and faithful servant.



Marks thanksgiving service is now on Wednesday January 17, at 2.45 pm, at Soul Church, Mason Road, Norwich.

Please post you tributes to and memories of Mark below.




To measure a person's sleep, researchers have always relied on costly and time-consuming approaches that could only be used in a sleep lab. But now researchers reporting in Current Biology on December 28 have found a way to capture detailed information on human sleep cycles over long periods of time while individuals slumber at home in their usual way. According to the researchers, the findings represent a major breakthrough in sleep research because, for the first time, it will now be possible to objectively capture the real-life sleep habits and sleep quality of large numbers of people.

"There has been practically no possibility of getting detailed sleep structures in a normal life setting over a long period of time," says Till Roenneberg of LMU Munich in Germany. "You can't easily give somebody an EEG to take home and have next to the bed. You can't do this over six weeks or six months. We are going to see things nobody has seen before."

The key is a simple, wrist-worn research gadget that can be purchased for as little as $150. They are akin to commercially available self-trackers used by consumers. The gadgets, called actimeters, record data on wrist movement from which one can obtain activity patterns for up to three months. The researchers used the actimeters to assess rest/activity cycles not just over the course of the waking day, but also during sleep itself.

The findings are the latest in a larger, ongoing human sleep project, designed to learn more about sleep and its essential role in our lives by collecting sleep data on thousands of people in the real world. Roenneberg's team had been collecting information on sleep duration and quality via questionnaire. The next step was to find a way to collect objective measurements of sleep characteristics on similarly large numbers of people.

In the new study, Roenneberg and colleagues, including Eva Winnebeck, looked to actimeter data collected over more than 20,000 days from 574 subjects, aged 8 to 92 years. But the patterns of activity during sleep collected using the devices appeared rather messy. It was hard to discern the cyclical sleep patterns normally seen with other, more complicated devices in the lab.

Then, they noticed something: by focussing on periods of inactivity during the night, a much clearer cyclical pattern began to emerge. The researchers used a simple conversion to measure inactivity (as opposed to activity) on a scale of near zero to 100, with 100 representing total inactivity.

"It was flabbergasting how it clarified the structures," Roenneberg says.

The researchers call the new measure "locomotor inactivity during sleep" (LIDS). Those measures showed that movement patterns reflect sleep cycles and replicate the dynamics seen in the lab. The data showed no sex differences in LIDS-derived sleep dynamics, although men move more than women do. They did observe large differences among individuals based on their age and work schedules.

Roenneberg said that it wasn't clear at first how the inactivity cycles matched up to the patterns of rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM sleep typically measured in the lab. Further study revealed that periods of least activity reflected deeper sleep. Those of greater activity corresponded to light and REM sleep. That's because, during REM sleep, the extremities frequently twitch and those twitches are detected by the actimeters.

As the researchers collect data in this way on many more people, they hope to come up with new and much more objective ways to measure not just sleep but also sleep quality. Such measures are essential for evaluating whether interventions to improve sleep actually work.

"Right now, we're not able to judge the outcome of interventions," Roenneberg says. "If, for example, we change school times, is sleep quality changed? What about shift work times or indoor lighting? All interventions necessary to improve sleep today are only judged by sleep duration and by asking people how they feel they have slept. There's no objective way to measure sleep quality, and we need this desperately."

Roenneberg says they are now poised to measure and compare sleep of people living in different cultures, climates, latitudes, and lifestyles. They ultimately plan to build online infrastructures to allow anyone to upload actimetry recordings and receive meaningful feedback on their sleep.

"Many devices have tried to use activity to assess sleep structures, but our method is simple, transparent, and works especially in long-term recordings," Roenneberg says. "This will help many who have sleep problems and will hopefully increase the appreciation for the importance of sleep for our health and well-being."
Who is Silk - the powers, enemies, and comic history of the Korean America Spider-hero

Spider-hero Silk is about to headline her own streaming series. Here's what you need to know
Russia inquiry makes US look very bad, says US President Donald Trump

Moscow : US President Donald Trump has said that he believes Robert Mueller, the special counsel in the Russia investigation, will treat him fairly and insisted there has been "no collusion" discovered by the inquiry, a media report said.

In an interview to The New York Times on Thursday, Trump said of the investigation: "It makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position. So the sooner it's worked out, the better it is for the country."

Asked whether he would order the Justice Department to reopen the investigation into his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton's emails, Trump appeared to remain focused on the Russia investigation.

"I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department," he said, echoing claims by his supporters that as president he has the power to open or end an investigation.

"But for purposes of hopefully thinking I'm going to be treated fairly, I've stayed uninvolved with this particular matter."

Hours after he accused China of secretly shipping oil to North Korea, Trump told The New York Times that he has "been soft" on Beijing on trade in the hopes that its leaders will pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

He hinted that his patience may soon end, however, signaling his frustration with the reported oil shipments.

Despite saying that when he visited China in November, his counterpart Xi Jinping "treated me better than anybody's ever been treated in the history of China," Trump said that "they have to help us much more".

"We have a nuclear menace out there, which is no good for China," he added.

In the interview, the President touted the strength of his campaign victories and his accomplishments in office, including passage of a tax overhaul this month.

But he also expressed frustration and anger at Democrats, who he said refused to negotiate on legislation.

Trump said he still hoped the Democrats will work with him on bipartisan legislation in the coming year to overhaul health care, improve the country's crumbling infrastructure and help young immigrants brought to the country as children.

He told The New York Times that members of the news media will eventually cover him more favourably because they are profiting from the interest in his presidency and thus will want him re-elected.
Experts accuse Russia of covering up a nuclear fuel plant leak, claiming it caused the mysterious radioactive cloud across Europe sighted in September

In September this year, a radioactive cloud was spotted above Europe. Researchers who investigated the incident discovered that the cloud was swept westward towards Europe from the Ural mountains, which serves as a boundary between Russia, Europe, and the rest of Asia. Researchers who looked into the incident hypothesized that the radioactive cloud was the result of a leak from a nuclear power plant in the Ural mountains  the Mayak plant, owned by Russian state company ROSATOM.

The spokesman for ROSATOM stated that an inspection of the power plant found no traces of ruthenium-106 and that there were no accidents within the plants facilities at the time of the said incident. However, a Russian state weather service called the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring of Russia (ROSHYDROMET) said that they found an extreme increase in pollution of ruthenium-106 near the Mayak plant, noted at 1,000 times the acceptable level. Mayak denies being the source of the radioactive cloud, and goes on to state that they have not extracted ruthenium-106 in several years.

Rashid Alimov, head of the energy unit at Greenpeace Russia, accuses ROSATOM of being involved in a cover-up, based on facts reported by ROSHYDROMET and other European investigators. While the pollution detected may not have originated from a nuclear plant accident, it may have been caused by treatment sites that process nuclear fuel. European agencies, including Frances and Germanys nuclear safety agencies, state that the ruthenium-106 cloud wasnt hazardous at all, but maintain that food produced within a few kilometers of the exposure may have to be monitored for changes. (Related: Radioactivity still lingering in the Pacific Ocean from nuclear bomb tests more than 50 years ago.)

What is ruthenium-106?

Ruthenium-106 is the radioactive form of the rare heavy metal ruthenium, which was discovered by Polish chemist Jedrzej Sniadecki in 1808.

It is the byproduct of splitting uranium-235, a process called fission. Uranium is an element used in nuclear reactors.

Ruthenium-106 is used in cancer radiation therapies for eye and skin tumors. Ruthenium can also be used as a catalyst in industrial processes and alloys.

Ruthenium, like most heavy metals, can stain the skin and is highly toxic and carcinogenic (it causes cancer).

What can I do to avoid being exposed?

Radiation is primarily a serious threat to a persons health because it cannot be felt or sensed. Unlike the heat of the sun, which a person feels, radiation exposure is invisible to the naked eye until signs of poisoning have manifested. This could range anywhere from slight nausea, diarrhea, to hair loss and vomiting, depending on the exposure. This is where radiation detectors become useful  having one may help you identify places exposed to toxic radiation, primarily if you work around radioactive materials. If you live a few miles near a toxic chemical or nuclear plant, it is always good to have a respirator (or a full-face gas mask) in hand. However, living away from a nuclear plant is better. Most of the time, government authorities warn the people when accidents happen at nuclear power plants or fuel treatment sites, and it would be best to stay indoors until they give an all clear announcement. Furthermore, you should avoid buying food that is produced near nuclear areas  the food may contain unwanted heavy metals and radioactive components that are lethal.

Learn more about the science of radiation at RadiationScience.com.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

CBC.ca

MedCom.com

Mayoclinic.org

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RIDGEFIELD  This time last year, the owners of design firm BassamFellows and theater group ACT of Connecticut were finalizing leases to move into two buildings on the town-owned former Schlumberger property.

The leases, approved by voters in February, let the groups take over the Philip Johnson building and its neighboring auditorium, for just $1 a year.

In return, the tenants were asked to finance substantial renovations on the buildings, which had fallen into disrepair since they were last used nearly a decade ago.

Now, after months spent planning and restoring the buildings, both tenants say they can finally begin visualizing what their new spaces will look like when they open to the public in the coming year.

The difficult stuff  like air conditioning systems, heating systems, ceiling work  were now done, said Scott Fellows, creative director for BassamFellows, which took over the Johnson building. Now, were going to start and see the fun stuff.

Fellows said the company expects to spend the next six to eight weeks completing some of the visual changes in the building, like putting in new glass at the front of the building and installing new flooring. He hopes this phase will be completed by February.

BassamFellows, which is based in New Canaan, will use the building as its offices, showroom and design studio.

Katie Diamond, executive producer of ACT, said the group is also starting to move to the fun part of the renovations, like picking out seating and wall colors.

Renovations officially started in the last few weeks, after months of planning and demolition, Diamond said, but the group is on schedule to open in June with previews of its first show, Mamma Mia!

Much of the time was spent figuring out the best way to turn the small corporate auditorium into a professional theater, Diamond said. She and Daniel C. Levine, ACTs artistic director, said substantial repairs were also necessary to deal with water damage caused by flooding in the years the building was vacant.

I think a lot of people may have walked away from this, but we certainly had a vision, Levine said. We had to be really creative with how were going to make this work.

The construction included knocking down most of the office space to create an open lobby, re-tiering the auditorium seating and excavating around the stage to create a backstage area and the theater wings.

When completed, the new venue will bring shows to Ridgefield for three-week runs, featuring both Broadway talent and local professional actors, Levine said.

As one of the only theaters in the area belonging to the Actors Equity Association, it will add a new feature to the existing theater culture in Ridgefield, the pair believes.

It fills a totally different slot in our town, Diamond said. We have the Playhouse, which is a venue that brings in acts (usually for one night), and the Theater Barn, which is a community theater. So this is the third wheel to that. There will be a little of everything now.

Diamond and Levine, both former Broadway actors themselves, said theyve already been flooded with calls by experienced theater professionals in Ridgefield ready to help out.

Both new tenants said that aside from repairing water damage, which Fellows said was severe in the Philip Johnson building as well, restoration focused on paying homage to the buildings history.

Fellows said he and his business partner, Craig Bassam, reviewed the buildings original plans at Colombia University to ensure they are preserving as much of the original design as possible. The restoration became especially important to them, Fellows said, after they discovered that the 1950s building was one of the first administrative offices built in the suburbs.

This building was strange in that it was built in the Connecticut woods 65 miles from the city, Fellows said. With that historical context, and the fact that its Philip Johnsons first commercial building, all of those details matter.

Renovations included bringing the interior rooms back to their original floor plan and restoring design elements that had either been damaged or covered over the years.

In the auditorium, Diamond said, the wall of windows in the soon-to-be lobby will be preserved and the wood that used to make up the seating will be used in interior detailing.

Both ACT of Connecticut and BassamFellows were included as possible tenants for the buildings in a 2016 report by the Schlumberger Citizens Committee, created to decide how best to use the 30 acres the town owns.

The committee, through two surveys, recommended that the town transform part of the site into a cultural center while preserving the remaining structures and some open space. The last of the three remaining buildings on the property, the sky dome, is still vacant, but has been discussed as a potential storage area for town departments.

aquinn@newstimes.com
China carried out the first flight-tests of a new kind of ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) in November. The DF-17 is the first hypersonic glide vehicle-equipped missile intended for operational deployment ever tested.

During the November 1 test flight, which took place from the Jiuquan Space Launcher Center in Inner Mongolia, the missiles payload flew to a range of approximately 1,400 kilometers with the HGV flying at a depressed altitude of around 60 kilometers following the completion of the DF-17s ballistic and reentry phases.

HGVs begin flight after separating from their ballistic missile boosters, which follow a standard ballistic trajectory to give the payload vehicle sufficient altitude.

The DF-17 is a medium-range system, with a range capability between 1,800 and 2,500 kilometers. The missile is expected to be capable of delivering both nuclear and conventional payloads and may be capable of being configured to deliver a maneuverable reentry vehicle instead of an HGV.

The DF-17, per current U.S. intelligence assessments, is expected to reach initial operating capability around 2020.

The United States and Russia are also developing hypersonic glider technology, but neither country is known to have flight-tested a system in a configuration intended for operational deployment to date.

Hypersonic gliders, by virtue of their low-altitude flight, present challenges to existing radar sensor technology enabling missile defenses
Virgin Hyperloop One, a Los Angeles company, announced it has raised $50 million from foreign venture capital investors and made Richard Branson the chairman of its board of directors.

The new round of funding came from Dubais DP World and Russias Caspian Venture Capital. Axios, which first reported the story, called the money a lifeline for a company so low on cash that the jobs of some 300 employees were at stake.

The company has raised $295 million since its 2014 founding.

Other Hyperloop Companies

The Boring Company led by Elon Musk. Elon created the original Hyperloop designs.

Arrivo Corp. led by BamBrogan and other former Hyperloop One employees.

Virgin Hyperloop One has recently set a new speed record of 240 mph at its test site in Las Vegas.
OneWeb is launching a global 2.5 gigabit per second satellite internet service by 2021.

OneWeb received permission from the FCC in June to deploy a global network of 720 low-Earth orbit satellites using the Ka (20/30 GHz) and Ku (11/14 GHz) frequency bands. Earlier in 2017, OneWeb started building a satellite manufacturing factory which will be capable of producing 15 satellites per week.

Small, low-cost user terminals will talk to the satellites in the sky, and emit LTE, 3G and WiFi to the surrounding areas, providing high-speed access for everyone.

OneWeb will act as an extension of existing networks, not a replacement. Much of the world is already covered by ISPs and mobile operators high capacity networks. Our system is designed to extend these networks into rural areas and create affordable connectivity for all. Our small cell terminals and core network will be fully 3GPP compatible, so partner operators will be able to use our infrastructure with their current customers, devices and billing systems. Our terminals will connect to devices either on unlicensed frequencies, or using our partner operators frequencies to provide better coverage for their customers.

OneWebs architecture will provide layer 2 and layer 3 services that can be used by any ISP or telecommunication provider to extend any network. Our small cell terminals and core network will be fully 3GPP compatible, allowing OneWeb to work together with providers in any regulatory environment, anywhere in the world.

How Small Satellites Are Made

Mass production and satellites have never been used in the same sentence. Each satellite used to be handcrafted by hundreds of engineers. Until now. OneWeb is changing things. Today, satellites can be made in the same way high quality medical and avionics equipment are.

OneWeb Satellites:

Fewer components

Lighter weight

Easier to manufacture

Cheaper to launch

On Board Propulsion and State of the Art Positioning>B

With stateoftheart onboard GPS sensors and ground-tracking measurements, OneWeb satellites will know their position within meters.

They have chosen clean orbits with minimal debris and our satellites, using their on-board propulsion systems are capable of performing maneuvers to steer clear of anything that may come our way.

SpaceX and Boeing are among those proposing new, huge internet satellite constellations.
This past calendar year proved bountiful to Elm City theatergoers. Both of our Tony Award-winning regional companies, Yale Repertory Theatre and Long Wharf Theatre, produced an interesting and often bold variety of world premieres and timely classics. The Shubert presented fine touring productions of tried and true musicals and Elm Shakespeare Company offered outstanding, free family fare al fresco in Edgerton Park at the end of summer.

Yale Rep kicked 2017 off with a daring, quirky world-premiere production of Aditi Brennan Kapils Imogen Says Nothing in January. Artfully directed by Laurie Woolery, this play is perhaps the most imaginative and metaphoric of the year. Set in 17th-century London, the titular character, beautifully inhabited by Ashlie Atkinson, is a unique creature, defying accurate description from all who encounter her. While shes quite human, hers is a beastly countenance invariably doomed for derision. After her natal village has literally been erased from England, she strikes out in search of her identity, which she does amid Shakespeares company of actors. She perseveres in the face of an institutionalized ban on females performing on stage. Kapils play is fanciful, funny, outrageous and, either in spite of or because of the plays exotic unities of time, place and action, hauntingly pertinent to contemporary life.

Yale Reps world premiere of Amy Herzogs Mary Jane in May is as quiet and understated as Imogen Says Nothing is boisterous and bold. Director Anne Kaufman and her exquisite cast  Emily Donahoe, Kathleen Chalfant, Shona Tucker, Miriam Silverman and Vella Lovell  take their audience along a contemplative, fraught journey of unconditional love and endurance. Donahoe deftly played the title character who alone must care for her invalid son (unseen by the audience) without respite, save for a sympathetic friend (Chalfant), unflappable nurse (Tucker) and musical therapist (Lovell). The play demonstrates the human (accent on the females) will to survive ones almost-endless, darkest days gracefully.

Fireflies premiered at Long Wharf in October and was most notable for its lean and powerful cast rather than Matthew Barbers relatively slender script adapted from Annette Sanfords 2003 novel, Eleanor and Abel. Jane Alexander and Denis Arndt rendered such richly honest and openhearted performances as reluctant yet deeply yearning lovers of a certain age. The fact that the play proved that theres an audience for a love story between 70-somethings (at least with name actors) is a welcome and healthy sign for theatergoers of all ages.

Alexander and Arndt werent alone in this production. Director Gordon Edelstein nurtured winsome performances from Judith Ivey as the nosy, caring neighbor and Christopher Michael McFarland as the compassionate police officer. While these fine actors played in the less dramatic, expository scenes, they did so brilliantly.

Bess Wohls chamber piece Small Mouth Sounds, which Long Wharf presented in September rather than produced, deserves mention in this discussion simply because its a beautiful play where action literally speaks louder than words. Directed just so by Rachel Chavkin, Small Mouth Sounds examines a handful of characters presumably seeking personal and spiritual growth on a silent weekend retreat. Wohls skill, herein at least, lies in her ability to reveal her characters bit by bit, yet completely. She also deftly reinforces Aristotles principle that action defines character: all else is mere chatter.

Yale Reps riveting production of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidmans six-chamber musical Assassins last spring was so compellingly haunting and invigorating that one wonders why Yale Reps Artistic Director James Bundy, known almost exclusively for staging straight plays, hides his mastery of musicals under a bushel. Armed with a killer cast and a gorgeous, 13-piece orchestra under the musical direction of Andrea Grody, this fantastical revue humanizes nine historical figures that assassinated our presidents or took their best shot. Bundys airtight ensemble cast and design team, and the sheer brilliance of Sondheim and Weidman, made this one of the years most compelling and profound theatrical experiences.

Long Wharfs January production of Samuel Becketts Endgame was another insightful handling of a modern classic. Director Edelstein and his superb cast  Brian Dennehy, Reg. E. Cathey, Joe Grisafi and Lynn Cohen  made Becketts mysterious and otherworldly story concretely accessible and, better still, fiercely funny. Clearly, everyone involved, including the production designers, tapped into the plays humanity and black humor, denying neither of its due. Anyone forced to read this play in college and unsure how to make heads or tails of it need only see this production for clarification.

Yale Reps masterful production of An Enemy of the People in October was the clearest and most even-handed production of Henrik Ibsens 19th-century classic that Ive seen. Yalie Paul Walshs intelligent and accessible translation gave director Bundy and his stellar cast much to explore. The play pits Reg Rogers medical doctor against Enrico Colantonis mayor (as well as his brother, no less) in a battle of science versus politics that comes across so vividly and contemporary that should one simply listen to a performance it would sound as if written recently. Under Bundys sensitive hand the production played without affectation. In short, a shattering experience.

Long Wharfs year-end production of Aaron Posners play The Chosen, adapted from Chaim Potoks 1967 coming-of-age novel of the same name, was another example of unaffected acting and direction of a modern classic. Though set in a specific time and place (1940s Brooklyn) and concerning exclusively Jewish characters, director Edelstein cultivated exquisite performances from his four leading actors  Max Wolkowitz, Steven Skybell, Ben Edelman, and George Guidall. Potoks themes of loyalty, friendship, tradition and father-son relationships, nimbly adapted in concretely actable terms, ensured a touching and satisfying theatrical experience.

Thank the deities of drama for Elm Shakespeare, which nourished all otherwise bereft of theater during the summer with a boisterous, passionate and intelligent production of Romeo and Juliet. Director Raphael Massie had his young and able cast performing at a roaring tempo with a strong shot of hormones born directly from the text rather than any imposed conceit. It felt real, human, alive and tragic.

E. Kyle Minor is the Register theater critic.
NEW HAVEN  Through tears, about 40 people said the names of the 13 people experiencing homelessness known to have died this year, some without known surnames.

For a second year, Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green hosted the memorial service Thursday sponsored by the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center.

Phil Costello, clinical director of homeless care at the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, said people experiencing homelessness can often be separated from their friends on the streets, leaving people unsure if theyre alive or dead.

He said other municipalities often have a similar recognition on Dec. 21, but the city saw fit to put it after Christmas instead.

Its a rough time of year anyway, said Keith Richardson, Sr., who attended the hour-long service.

For those experiencing homelessness, being absent a family or secure home can be especially difficult around the holidays, he said.

Any recognition is better than none, he said.

Richardson said the memorial service can be helpful psychologically, because those experiencing homelessness often dont have time to mourn because the hurt of survival is so severe.

The Rev. Kevin Ewing of Center Church on the Green said during the service that it is easy to feel abandoned by Jesus in times of struggle, but his role is one of guidance.

His role is not to keep us from troubles, but to get us through them, Ewing said. Jesus himself had troubles, and he was Jesus.

Richardson said he believes the turnout to the service was low because information can only travel by word of mouth for people experiencing homelessness.

Who is the voice for the voiceless? he said, giving credit to the Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green for helping those in need.

Costello said he believes that there has been a willpower from the city and state to make housing available for residents, but many aids to ending homelessness are met with more of its causes, such as the rising opioid abuse epidemic.

Were seeing a different age group and a diversity in ethnicities (among people experiencing homelessness), he said.

Three major causes, he said, are addiction, mental illness and traumatic brain injuries.

In December, some of the biggest health risks to people experiencing homelessness are hypothermia and frostbite, but theyre vulnerable year-round to abuse, beatings and theft.

In the basement of the church, the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center had hand warmers, basic supplies and shoes as well as food donated by Ferraros, Elm City Market, Claires and Elm Diner.

brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com
Learn whether you have the right to keep your job after a work injury in California.

If you have a workers' comp case in California, odds are that you'll eventually be able to return to work in some shape or form. But what if there's no job to return to? Can your California employer fire you while you're out on workers' comp leave? Or refuse to take you back once you've recovered? Must it offer you an alternative job that fits your qualifications? These questions are answered below.

Reinstatement After Work Injury in California

Unlike some other states, California doesn't have a law specifically requiring employers to reinstate injured employees when they are ready to work or find them new jobs if they are unable to perform their old jobs. However, California does have a strong anti-discrimination provision. Under Section 132a of the California Workers' Compensation Code, it is illegal for an employer to fire an employee because of a work injury.

In other words, while an employer is not required to rehire an injured worker, not being able to provide a legitimate business reason for doing so could lead to a discrimination claim. For example, suppose an employee is cleared to return to work and his or her position is still available. The employer refuses to rehire the employee without explanation, advertises for the job for months, and eventually hires an employee with less experience. This might look like evidence of discrimination.

An employer will be able to show business necessity if reasonably believes that the employee is permanently unable to perform the job or that the disability will last so long that it needs to replace the employee.

In some cases, an employee will also need to show that he or she was singled out for less favorable treatment due to the work injury. A neutral policy that is evenly applied among employees will generally not be evidence of discrimination. For example, if your employer has a general rule that all employees on leave of absence must communicate with their supervisor on a regular basis and you're fired after failing to do so, that will likely not violate the law. On the other hand, if your employer has generous leaves of absence policies for workers who need time off for personal reasons or non-industrial injuriesbut fires you only a couple of weeks after your work injurythat might be evidence of discrimination.

Reasonable Accommodation Under the ADA

If an employee's work injury or illness is serious enough, it might qualify as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA is federal law that requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations to workers with disabilities in order to help them perform the job, unless it would cause an undue hardship. The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) is a similar state law that applies to employers with five or more employees. (To learn more, see our overview article on the ADA.)

A disability is a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity (such as breathing, walking, grooming) or major bodily function (such as the proper functioning of the immune or respiratory system). If your work injury qualifies as a disability, your employer will need to work with you to try to keep you employed. This might include giving you additional time off, changing your work duties, or providing necessary equipment, for example.

Family and Medical Leave laws

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and the California Family Rights Act (CFRA), require employers with 50 or more employees to provide up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave for a serious health condition. If you have a relatively serious work injury, and it only keeps you out for 12 weeks or less, you might be entitled to return to your normal job. (To learn more, see our article on family and medical leave in California.)

If You Aren't Offered Work

Workers who can't return to their normal occupations due to a permanent partial disability can receive a supplement job displacement voucher in the amount of $6,000. The voucher can be used to pay for education, training, licensing or certification fees, computer equipment, and vocational counseling. You will receive this voucher only if your employer doesn't return you to your old job or offer you a suitable alternative job. In this sense, employers have a financial incentive to return you to work.

You might also qualify for California unemployment benefits, if you're able to work in some capacity but can't return to work with your former employer. However, applying for these benefits might impact your workers' comp benefits and vice versa, so consult with a workers' comp lawyer first.
MOUNDS VIEW, Minn.  On a recent Sunday, the parking lot at Bethlehem Baptist Church was packed, and cars had overflowed onto nearby side streets.

Approximately 1,500 people attend the Mounds View church on any given weekend. And this is just one of three Bethlehem Baptist churches in the Twin Cities. Last Easter weekend, all told, more than 5,000 people walked through their doors.

And while those people may not agree on every political issue, said one of the pastors, they do share a broad consensus on some controversial topics  namely, the definition of marriage and the sanctity of life.

Were pretty clear on how weve defined marriage, said the Rev. Steven Lee, a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist. We see from the Bible that its one man and one woman.

That tends to keep away the more politically liberal. There could be some who could find this to be a place where they could worship, but my guess is not many, he said. Although we would welcome them.

Abortion and same-sex marriage are the two major issues that divide more conservative churches from the more liberal. They also divide many Republicans from Democrats.

Those divisions may also play a role in one finding of a recent survey commissioned by MPR News and the APM Research Lab: Minnesotans are far more likely to go to church every week if they identify as Republican than if they identify as Democrat.

One of our values is we dont pick and choose which parts of the Bible we like or that well preach or teach on, said Lee. We take all of it.

Church elder Andy Naselli, who teaches theology at Bethlehem College and Seminary, said last years presidential election was divisive for the congregation. Some members felt they had to vote for Donald Trump because of his stance on abortion. Others, including Naselli, couldnt vote for someone they thought was not of good moral character.

So Im at the point now where I dont even identify as a Republican, Naselli said. Im theologically conservative, politically conservative, but Im not in the pocket of any political party at all. I did not vote for President Trump, and Im embarrassed to be a Republican because of him, so I dont call myself a Republican.

What brings him and his family to church each week, Naselli said, is his deep love of Jesus and the Bible.

We most glorify God when he most satisfies us, and one of the ways he satisfies us is when his people come together, sing together and pray together and hear the word preached, he said. And thats something that happens weekly, according to the practice of the New Testament. Thats why its every week for us. And its something we love  its kind of hard because were so big here, but were a big family and we love it.

The church has several social service programs  food banks, car repair funds, crisis care for church families in need. But by far its largest effort is to share the faith, by translating the Bible into different languages and by starting up new congregations.

Lee said approximately 110 Bethlehem Baptist families are currently serving as missionaries around the world, reaching out to communities that have never read the Bible.

We want to alleviate both physical suffering in the temporal sense and we also want to alleviate spiritual, eternal suffering, which we believe will come in the afterlife, Lee said. We would feel like we would be doing someone an injustice if we helped them get a meal and did not address their eternal state.

Compared to Bethlehem Baptist, Mayflower United Church of Christ in Minneapolis is a modest congregation.

The church serves approximately 800 households. About 400 people show up on any given Sunday.

Mayflower identifies itself as both theologically and politically liberal. Anyone can take communion, whether or not theyve been baptized. The congregation is actively involved in several social issues, including climate change. The church has installed 200 solar panels, and seeks to be carbon-neutral by 2030.

Alix and Holly Magner joined Mayflower this past year. Alix said they both grew up attending church, but stopped going and stayed away for years.

Being gay, being part of the queer community, we just had incredibly negative experiences with church, said Alix. When I would meet someone that would say they go to church, I would think, I cant be friends with you, because you probably dont like gay people, and your church is probably preaching against gay people.

When the Minnesota marriage amendment was put on the ballot in 2012, Alix got involved at a phone bank. There she overheard other volunteers quoting the Bible as they worked to persuade people to vote against a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Intrigued, Alix found out they were members of Mayflower. Soon after, she and Holly started attending church again.

But hardly any of their other liberal friends do.

Weve both said it feels like coming out of the closet again, Holly said. Its like this weird feeling of coming out as churchgoers now because people, our friends, are going, Whoa, wait a minute  you go to church?! But youre queer! And youre liberal, and youre educated, and youre logical. Holly, youre a public school science teacher! You believe in God enough to go to church?

The Magners say they value the intergenerational community at Mayflower, and how the church encourages them to step outside their own bubble.

Three nights a week, volunteers like Mayflower member Jack Forsman go to the Creekside Commons apartment building next door to help kids with their homework. Mayflower, working with Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative, built Creekside Commons to fill a need for affordable housing. The 30 families who live in it are predominantly Somali and Muslim. The church also runs an early childhood center that welcomes people of all faiths.

The Rev. Sarah Campbell said that while some people think liberal churches are light on religion, Mayflower is anything but that.

We know our Bible stories, we read them, Campbell said. They mean everything to us. We are religion-intense, and so we welcome everyone but we are also very clear that we are on the Jesus path, and thats less about certain beliefs about Jesus and God, and more about the path being about compassion, justice, nonviolence... a very joyous, rigorous path.

Campbell acknowledged that her church does not get the same attendance as a church like Bethlehem Baptist, but she said the congregation is growing. People dont need religion to be moral and good, she said, but it helps:

Theres so much distraction that would take us away from living generous, forgiving lives, and I do believe that spiritual practices or religious practices do help people be more moral.

Both the Rev. Campbell and the Rev. Lee agree: While their beliefs may occasionally align them with specific political parties, the work of Jesus goes deeper than that of either the Republican or the Democratic party.
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP)  Lithuania has given Pope Francis a Christmas present invisible to the naked eye: a Nativity scene where baby Jesus is smaller than a human cell.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite on Friday looked through a microscope to see a replica of the crib at Vilniuss downtown Cathedral Square, a copy of the nativity scene that was given to Francis by Lithuanian diplomats earlier this month.

She said it took three months for Lithuanian scientists and students to create the minuscule crib from a 3D scan of the life-size creche, reducing it 10,000 times.

Francis plans to visit the Baltics next year. Details about Francis trip to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have not been released yet but he is expected in the fall of 2018.
Dear Amy: I lost my beloved wife to cancer four years ago. Her death was devastating for me and my three children.

We are all working through our shock and sorrow. My goal through all this upheaval has been to maintain a stable household. I want my kids to feel like the home they love and remember is still here for them whenever they return. Maintaining domestic rituals has helped me work through my own grief. But it also feels like this is having an unintended consequence with my youngest daughter.

While away at college, this daughter has expressed a normal kind of homesickness. She is also a young adult who is testing my boundaries and her independence, which can feel like self-centeredness on her part.

I have a history of anger-related issues. Ive tried to grow, but my daughters displays of willfulness gradually bring out a level of rage in me that even I find surprising. My outbursts end up dishonoring the memory of my wife and ruining everything Im trying to accomplish, which leaves me feeling very, very sad. I can see the emotional dynamic, but that doesnt keep me from falling victim to it. Where do I turn for help?  Angry Father

Dear Angry: I sincerely hope that you have seen a therapist since your wifes death. If you havent, you should see a professional to help you deal with your anger.

You should also consider joining a grief support group; these are typically informal meetings with people who have also walked this tough path. Many hospitals provide information on support groups in your area. You may be surprised at how much better you feel simply communing with others.

Remember that you cannot force everything to be normal just because thats what you want. Your daughter, on the other hand, seems to be acting-out within the normal range of older teens. It seems unwise and perhaps unfair to gauge your own behavior based on your wifes memory. She is gone; you are grieving and you need to learn to turn down the heat on your anger in order to be gentle with yourself  and not triggered by your daughters behavior.

Dear Amy: I am a single woman. I used to be a binge eater. About 10 years ago I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. I have since become fit and active.

I have a friend who is at least 200 pounds overweight. We are both retired. Last year we decided to start taking trips together. I enjoy her company, but after two trips together I am very disappointed in her as a traveling companion. She can barely walk two blocks. We mostly drive around or sit on benches near where we parked the car and watch the world go by. I am so sad and frustrated at not being able to fully explore these dream destinations. I need exercise to maintain my health and I love taking long walks in new places. In addition, watching her overeat at every meal is depressing.

If I start traveling without her, I feel like I would need to hide this part of my life from her to protect her feelings.

Even worse, I have another friend, also obese, who also now wants to travel with me!

How can I handle this?  Active Traveler

Dear Active: Traveling with friends is often fraught with peril; and in this case, I feel like you are dangerously close to doubling down on the peril.

Given your condition and that of your friends, you must have realized that being incompatible travel companions was a possibility.

You shouldnt blame another person for you not having enough fun or getting enough exercise on your vacation. Ive been on enough vacations (and exercise regimes) to know that there is only one person responsible for your experience: you.

If you really want to end your travels with this person, then youre going to have to be honest, adult and respectful. Acknowledge that the trips arent quite what you envisioned and that, for now, you would like to become a solo traveler.

Dear Amy: My blood started to boil reading the letter from Devoted and Caring Parents, who wanted an exact 50-50 sharing of all holidays with their son and future daughter-in-law (whose parents are divorced).

The pressure these parents were exerting on the younger couple is neither devoted nor caring.  Been There

Dear Been There: Horror stories of people running themselves ragged trying to please everyone on Christmas Day are flooding my inbox.
Dear Amy: Id like to know how to get over a lifetime of embarrassment. I was raised by self-absorbed and often cruel parents. Both of them took delight in humiliating me as a child. My father would stand up at my birthday parties and tell jokes about me in front of my friends. He would make fun of me until I cried, and then laugh at me.

While working one of my first jobs, I had a strong crush on my boss (that I never acted on). My mother knew about it. One day, she showed up at my job, found my boss and went on and on to him, laughing, about how much I loved him. There were many other incidents.

Now, I am a married, working woman and I live far away from my parents. However, I am still haunted by these memories, and I am so hypersensitive to possible embarrassment that I live in a constant state of anxiety. I have been to therapy, and while my therapist was lovely, nothing much has changed for me. Im not sure if I need more therapy, or something else. Confronting my parents does nothing, because they remain just as unapologetic of their behavior. They do not care what I think or feel. How do I navigate through this?  Embarrassed daughter

Dear Embarrassed: What you are describing is emotional abuse, and I am so sorry that you had to experience that.

You dont mention if youve discussed your anxieties with your spouse, but they are there to love and support you, and they can be a source of guidance if youre feeling overwhelmed. I would also recommend visiting your therapist again. Treatment is a process, and being open and honest is an important first step to seeing results. Tell them what youre going through, and describe the anxiety youre experiencing.

If youre still unable to connect with your therapist, ask for help finding different treatment. Your therapists job is to help you, so that you can get better at helping yourself. The elements required to cope with the legacy of abuse are: time, patience, talk therapy and meditation  or possibly medication  to deal with your more serious anxiety symptoms.

Dear Amy: I had been married for just nine months when my in-laws visited us. My husband and I had been living in one of their homes in London.

My husband and I had been arguing a lot and he told his parents about our problems. He said he was overwhelmed. My in-laws then insisted that I leave and visit my parents so that we could have some space and re-evaluate our marriage. During the next two months we did just that. We spoke every day. We discussed our problems in depth and were both more open to hearing criticism. We apologized for the past.

We agreed that I should return to London, but then his parents showed up in London again. He stopped speaking to me after their arrival and then asked me not to come back after all. Clearly, this was all because of his parents influence.

My question is, should I go to London anyway, or should I accept it is over between us because of their meddling? He refuses to speak to me now and I dont know if I should keep fighting for our relationship or just accept and move on.  Meddled with by in-laws

Dear Meddled With: I love London and would never advocate not going there, but dont you want a husband who is going to fight for you and work on your relationship when youre both in the same city?

Your in-laws seem hell-bent on babying their son and breaking up your marriage. However, we cant blame it all on them: your husband is the one who let his parents send you away, and now he wont talk to you. He is making a choice, and he is choosing them. You should keep calm and carry on.

If, despite all of this you do decide to go through with your trip, you will have to take responsibility for what happens next.

Dear Amy: Thank you so much for advocating for childhood literacy through your Book on Every Bed holiday campaign.

This year, not only did we do this with our own children, but we adopted a local family and made sure their children also had books on their beds on Christmas morning.  Loving Literacy

Dear Loving Literacy: I am so proud to have spread this simple idea. Thank you for spreading it further.
Amazons ambitions have few limits, and the mere specter of its entry into a particular industry can shape markets. When the company has appeared interested in expanding into a new business, it has spooked investors in potential competitors, leading to large sell-offs.

Health Care

+80 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 Anthem +70 +60 +50 +40 +30 UnitedHealth +20 +10 Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway announce they are forming a health care company 10 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 +80 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 +70 Anthem +60 +50 UnitedHealth +40 +30 +20 Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway announce they are forming a health care company +10 0 10 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 +80 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 +70 Anthem +60 +50 UnitedHealth +40 +30 +20 Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway announce they are forming a health care company +10 0 10 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018

The most recent example: Amazon, along with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway, announced the formation of a new health care company on Tuesday. The three companies provided few details about the new entity, other than saying it would initially focus on technology to provide simplified, high-quality health care for their employees and their families, and at a reasonable cost.

But health care investors shuddered at the prospect, selling off shares of established players like UnitedHealth and Anthem plunging. Both stocks quickly fell by more than 5 percent.

Prescription Drugs

% change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 +10 CVS + 5 0  5 Walgreens 10 15 Rumors spread that Amazon is considering getting into the prescription drug business 20 25 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 +10 + 5 CVS 0  5 Walgreens 10 15 Rumors spread that Amazon is considering getting into the prescription drug business 20 25 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 +10 + 5 CVS 0  5 Walgreens 10 15 Rumors spread that Amazon is considering getting into the prescription drug business 20 25 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018

One of the more notable examples of Amazons influence is in the pharmacy business. After reports that Amazon might soon enter the prescription drug market, shares in CVS Health and Walgreens, the two largest pharmacy chains, fell sharply in early October.

Then, in early December, CVS said it would pay $69 billion to buy Aetna, a deal that could reshape the health industry. Many analysts said that Amazons interest in selling prescription drugs was one reason why the two began talking. The idea is that the deal could help insulate the companies in case Amazon does make an ambitious move into selling drugs, as well as give the combined improved leverage in negotiations with drug companies.

With huge amounts of consumer spending and frustrating inefficiencies, prescription drug sales are the type of business that invariably attracts Amazons attention. And the likelihood of Amazon eventually getting into the pharmacy business is high, several analysts and a former employee have said. But it is not clear when it will make that move or how aggressive it intends to be.

Groceries

+60 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 Amazon announces it is buying Whole Foods Walmart +50 +40 Whole Foods +30 +20 +10 Target 10 20 30 Kroger 40 Amazon announces it is lowering prices at Whole Foods 50 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 +60 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 Walmart +50 Amazon announces it is buying Whole Foods +40 Whole Foods +30 +20 +10 Amazon announces it is lowering prices at Whole Foods Target 0 10 Kroger 20 30 40 50 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 +60 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 Walmart +50 Amazon announces it is buying Whole Foods +40 Whole Foods +30 +20 +10 Amazon announces it is lowering prices at Whole Foods Target 0 10 Kroger 20 30 40 50 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018

In June, Amazon announced that it would buy Whole Foods for more than $13 billion, by far its biggest acquisition yet. The unexpected deal sent shares in several of the nations biggest grocers, including Walmart, and Safeway, down sharply. Kroger, another top grocer, lost about one-tenth of its value on the day of the announcement.

But the drop in stock prices wasnt a one-time occurrence.

Shares in these companies fell again a couple of months later, when Amazon said it would sharply lower prices on numerous products at Whole Foods. Kroger, for example, fell 8.1 percent that day.

Package Delivery and Logistics

+50 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 Hype of Amazon Prime Air flights to deliver goods on Amazon Prime Day +40 Amazon announces a new $1.5 billion air cargo hub +30 FedEx +20 U.P.S. +10 10 20 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 +50 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 Hype of Amazon Prime Air flights to deliver goods on Amazon Prime Day +40 FedEx Amazon announces a new $1.5 billion air cargo hub +30 +20 +10 U.P.S. 0 10 20 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 +50 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 Hype of Amazon Prime Air flights to deliver goods on Amazon Prime Day +40 FedEx Amazon announces a new $1.5 billion air cargo hub +30 +20 +10 U.P.S. 0 10 20 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018

Amazon has put a lot of time and effort into improving its ability to deliver goods to customers, encroaching bit by bit on the countrys two giant delivery companies, FedEx and U.P.S. It has leased dozens of cargo jets to distribute inventory to warehouses around the country and is a building its own hub in Kentucky for a fleet of its own planes.

The key phrases here are own hub and its own planes.

When the news was reported in January that Amazon was building a cargo hub in Kentucky, where U.P.S. has its largest air cargo facility, stocks in both U.P.S. and FedEx plunged. In U.P.S.s case, it would take the better part of the year for its shares to recover.

That wasnt helped by the media event that Amazon held in July to show off its Prime Air fleet of planes, which it tested during its annual Prime Day promotional event. In October, the delivery companies took another hit after a report that Amazon was testing its own delivery service.

Meal Kit Delivery

0 I.P.O. 10 % Change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 20 30 40 Reports that meal kits are available to some Amazon customers. 50 60 70 Blue Apron 80 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 0 I.P.O. 10 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 20 30 40 50 Reports that meal kits are available to some Amazon customers. 60 70 Blue Apron 80 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 0 I.P.O. 10 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 20 30 40 50 Reports that meal kits are available to some Amazon customers. 60 70 Blue Apron 80 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018

We do the prep. You be the chef. So read Amazons trademark application in early July for prepared food kits. Then, later in the month came reports that Amazon Meal Kits were available on the companys website. The reports sent the stock price of Blue Apron, the newly public meal kit service, down as much as 11 percent.

Auto Parts Retailers

+10 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 AutoZone 0 10 OReilly Automotive 20 30 Amazon begins selling auto parts 40 50 Advance Auto Parts 60 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 +10 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 0 AutoZone OReilly Automotive 10 20 Amazon begins selling auto parts 30 Advance Auto Parts 40 50 60 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018 +10 % change in stock prices since Dec. 30, 2016 0 AutoZone OReilly Automotive 10 20 Amazon begins selling auto parts 30 Advance Auto Parts 40 50 60 J F M A M J J A S O N D J 2017 2018

One area of shopping that Amazon has not yet entered is the car business.

If you want a Ford F-150 or a Tesla Model 3, you still need to go elsewhere, and there is no sign that will change anytime soon.
Pat yourself on the back, America. Unless President Trump accuses Kim Jong Uns mother of wearing Army boots in the next few days, we will have survived 2017.

Some good things happened this year, but they got lost amid the presidential tweets, sexual harassment scandals and storms. Who knew that when Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Gulf Coast in August, it would be only the second-most dangerous Harvey of the year?

Allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct against Harvey Weinstein, movie mogul and casting couch creep, set off a national wave of accusations that had every man in America nervously wondering whether hed ever misplayed a hug and brushed something he shouldnt have. That is, except for the Tweeter in Chief, who delights in grabbing whatever he can, including headlines.

The Trump staffers who werent indicted quit. The president unapologetically made waves with China and North Korea. Mounting evidence indicates Russia interfered to get him elected. But Trump dismissed such reports as fake news or covfefe.

NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem, hipsters sporting man buns, gunmen and terrorists targeting innocent people, O.J. Simpson getting parole  it seemed the only time things were looking up was during the total solar eclipse.

There were a few bright moments, though. The Dow hit the 20,000 mark. Unemployment reached historic lows. Wonder Woman totally rocked. Scientists proved Einstein was right on relativity, and inventors launched the prototype of a flying car. And chances are anyone reading this wont face the prospect of drinking the water in Flint, Mich. or any beverage prepared by Bill Cosby. So we have that going for us, which is nice.

Theres good news here in the fourth estate, too. Newspaper subscriptions and television news ratings surged thanks to Trump, as consumers rebelled against the presidents fake news and alternative facts campaign. They were rewarded when old media  newspapers and magazines  outed Weinstein and other powerful leches.

Consumers were reminded that having dogged journalists on the watch is what it takes to topple titans and ensure guys in bathrobes no longer get to call business meetings in their bedrooms. Or win election to the U.S. Senate from Alabama. Are you ready for 2017 to be over? Me, too.

They call what youre reading right now the first draft of history. I suspect 2017 will go down as a year to forget. Itll be remembered as a time when airline staff beat up  sorry, re-accommodated  their passengers, the Internet was sold to the highest bidder (anybody have any bitcoin?) and audiences were subjected to another crappy Batman movie.

The tax code got rigged for the rich, wildfires burned California, the Oscars bungled the announcement of the Best Picture winner, and the third-hottest year on record saw an ice sheet the size of Delaware break off Antarctica. That marked the only time Delaware made news in 2017.

All this came on the heels of 2016, when one otherworldly talent after another died, while most of the worlds pathetic hacks tragically continued to live. As we wave goodbye to a cloudy 2017, lets look for the silver lining: Were due for a good year. Lets raise a toast  of New Years Eve champagne, not Flint water or Cosby cocktails  to the hope that 2018 is it.
There is no place anymore where you can say that its safe.

Manuel Medina, 28, a doctor.

Manuel Medina has what would normally be a coveted job: chief of emergency surgery at the Caracas University Hospital. But many experienced professionals have fled to work abroad, and there are more opportunities for recent graduates like Dr. Medina.

The threat of violent crime is driving him to consider leaving Venezuela, but for now, he is careful to avoid busy roads and hides his cellphone when he is in his car.

Its like you live in constant fear of going outside, he said. Im always checking in the rear view mirror looking for motorcycle drivers, because that is one of the main ways they get you.
The Year in Illustration 2017

Every year The New York Times commissions thousands of original illustrations from independent artists around the globe. Artists are asked to distill the most compelling aspects of stories and create a powerful experience. They often have just hours to make images that move, provoke and enrich the act of reading.

During years of tumult and uncertainty, illustrators use the mediums inherent flexibility to comment on a rapidly evolving social, political and economic landscape. When a single subject dominates the news, artists find new ways to elaborate on it without succumbing to dull repetition. They clear away the noise and get to the point, using pen, pencil, brush, stylus, cut paper, clay, motion and raw code to produce indelible images that resonate.

Below is a selection of notable art The Times published in 2017.
Measles in Mumbai: Toddler dies, 126 children infected in 2022 so far

Aamir Khan announces break from acting, wants to spend time with family

14 dead as fire breaks out at Kamala Mills Compound in Mumbai

India

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By Vicky

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Major fire breaks out in Kamala Mill compound, three injured | Oneindia News

At least 14 persons have died and 16 others injured after a major fire broke out late on Thursday night at the Kamala Mills compound in the Lower Parel area of Mumbai.

Speaking to the media, KEM hospital Dean Dr Avinash Supe confirmed the death of 14 people, adding that one person was still in critical condition.

The fire started on the sixth floor of the building in central Mumbai at around 12:30 AM, and soon engulfed the entire place. The building also houses some commercial establishments including hotels, media offices a police official said.

Of the 16 injured, two have been taken to LTMG Sion hospital, while others who suffered minor injuries were sent to KEM hospital for immediate medical assistance.

Fire officials said that they received the first call at 12.27 AM and they initially rushed eight fire engines and fire tankers to the spot. The fire was initially declared as a Level II fire before being upgraded to Level III at 12.42 PM at the fire spread.

According to fire control room, the fire was reported to have broken out at a restaurant called 1 Above located in Kamla Trade House.

Eyewitnesses, which included several journalists working in media organisations having their offices in the same compound, said the fire was fast spreading and had also affected two adjoining diner-cum-pubs.

OneIndia News
8 MLAs, including 5 from Cong, resign from Meghalaya Assembly to join NPP

India

pti-PTI

Shillong, Dec 29: Eight MLAs in Meghalaya, including five of the ruling Congress, resigned from the state assembly to join NDA constituent National People's Party (NPP), just a few months ahead of elections.

Those who put in their papers are former deputy chief minister Rowell Lyngdoh, Sniawbhalang Dhar, Comingone Ymbon, Prestone Tynsong, and Ngaitlang Dhar of the Congress, Remington Pyngrope of the United Democratic Party and Independents Stephanson Mukhim and Hopeful Bamon, Assembly Principal Secretary Andrew Simons told PTI.

The five Congress legislators had earlier rebelled against Chief Minister Mukul Sangma and the party leadership. Four of the five Congress MLAs were part of the state cabinet and were sacked by the chief minister on the grounds of "incompetence".

Rowell, a veteran Congress leader, later announced that all the eight MLAs, would join the NPP, also an alliance partner of the BJP in the Manipur government, at a rally next week. The NPP, led by Conrad K Sangma, son of former Lok Sabha Speaker P A Sangma, has two MLAs in Meghalaya at present. With today's resignation, which comes days after another MLA, PN Syiem, quit the Congress, the number of party MLAs in the 60-member Meghalaya Assembly has come down to 24 from 30. However, there is no immediate threat to the Congress government as it has support of nine Independents which takes its tally to 33. The term of the current House expires on March 6.

Elections in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura are due early next year. An elated Conrad Sangma said the decision of the five Congress MLAs to resign and join the NPP next week was a big boost for the party. "It is a big boost for the NPP ahead of the elections in the state ... We will felicitate their joining the party next week. We welcome their decision and we are confident to form the next government in Meghalaya," Conrad Sangma told PTI. He said their leaving the Congress and joining the NPP indicates that the party was the only alternative available to the people in the state.

The NPP chief said: "More than 10 per cent of the Congress MLAs have resigned. This implies that the leadership under Chief Minister Mukul Sangma has failed." The 79-year-old Rowell had to leave the Congress following a leadership tussle with Chief Minister Mukul Sangma and he was sacked from the cabinet last year. Rowell had contested all the nine elections in the state and was elected an MLA for the sixth time in 2013.

"Eight MLAs submitted their resignation to me at the office of the Speaker today. The Speaker was on a tour and was not available at his office," Assembly Principal Secretary Andrew Simons told PTI. He said the resignation letters have been sent by email to Speaker Abu Taher Mondal. "We are joining the NPP on January 4 at a rally at Pologrounds," Rowell told reporters. He said it was a difficult decision to leave the Congress but he was compelled to do so "because of the people".

Hitting out at the chief minister, the former deputy chief minister said, "The autocratic style of functioning of the chief minister had made it difficult for me and others to function in the government." Rowell said the decision to set up a medical college in the state capital Shillong on PPP mode and another one in Tura to be funded by the state government, was taken without consultations in the cabinet.

He also slammed the state Congress president DD Lapang, who he alleged gave into the diktats of the chief minister and went ahead and dissolved the block Congress committee in many constituencies. Senior Congress leader and former cabinet minister Prestone Tynsong said the prospects of the Congress in Meghalaya will be badly hit.

PTI
Bengaluru: Don't celebrate New Year on January 1, asks Brahmand Swamy

India

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Brahmand Swamy, Valmiki Mutt on Friday said not to celebrate on December 31/January 1 as new year and insisted on celebrating Ugadi which is considered as the New Year.

Our new year starts on Ugadi. We are asking that new year should not be celebrated on December 31/January 1, no celebrations at all: Brahmand Swamy,Valmiki Mutt #Bengaluru pic.twitter.com/Fc7o6pyqAQ  ANI (@ANI) December 29, 2017

''Our new year starts on Ugadi. We are asking that new year should not be celebrated on December 31/January 1, no celebrations at all,'' said Brahmand Swamy, Valmiki Mutt based in Bengaluru while speaking to ANI.

Ugadi marks the onset of a new season and change in astrological positions. Temples should celebrate Ugadi and not English New Year.

Even temples in Andhra Pradesh have been asked not to celebrate New Year on January 1 by the state Endowments Department, which said it was not "Indian vedic culture". The Hindu Dharma Parirakshna Trust (HDPT), under the state Endowments Department, has issued a circular to all temples in this regard, citing a directive from the Endowments Commissioner Y V Anuradha.

"Exchanging greetings on January 1 and celebrating (like a festival) is not Indian vedic culture. Celebrating Ugadi, the Telugu New Year's Day (in the month of Chaitra), only is appropriate and the best culture," HDPT secretary C Vijaya Raghavacharyulu said in the circular.

OneIndia News
Bihar Police Constable Result 2017 delayed: To be declared at csbc.bih.nic.in

India

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By Vicky

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Bihar Police constable exam result 2017 delayed, find out latest update | Oneindia News

The Bihar Police Constable Result 2017 was expected to be released on December 27. However the board has not released any statement.

Sources had indicated that the results were expected to be announced by the last week of December 2017.

Around 11 lakh candidates have registered and appeared for the Bihar Constable Examination. The examination was conducted on October 15 and 22 across various centres in the state. A total of 9,900 constables have to be recruited by means of the examination. Candidates who clear the written test would be called for the subsequent rounds. Approximately, 50,000 candidates would be shortlisted for the next round. Candidates are awaited to keep checking for the official notification on csbc.bih.nic.in.

How to check Bihar Police Constable Results 2017:

Go to csbc.bih.nic.in

Click on relevant link

Enter all the required details such as roll number and password in the space provided

Submit

View results

Download

Take a print out

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Story first published: Friday, December 29, 2017, 7:14 [IST]
Finance Ministry warns against using Bitcoins, says virtual currencies dont have intrinsic value

India

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By Vikas

The Finance Ministry on Friday issued a warning over the use of Bitcoins and asked the users to be wary of virtual currencies as their price is a "matter of speculation". The ministry said that consumers need to be cautious as to avoid getting trapped.

"There has been phenomenal increase in price of Virtual Currencies (VCs) including Bitcoin, in India and globally. Virtual Currencies don't have intrinsic value and aren't backed by any assets. Price of Bitcoin and other VCs is matter of speculation resulting in spurt and volatility in prices," the ministry said.

Bitcoin, a virtual currency, is not regulated in the country and its circulation has been a cause for concern among central bankers the world over for quite a while now. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has also cautioned users, holders, and traders of virtual currencies. The government has also said that it does not recognise 'crypto-currency' as legal tender in India. In March, the Union finance ministry constituted an Inter-Disciplinary Committee to take stock of the present status of virtual currencies both in India and globally and suggest measures for dealing with them.

Earlier this month, the Income Tax department conducted a series of raids on Bitcoin exchanges around the country. Raids were conducted at Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi and Gurugram.

Recent investigations conducted by the Delhi police pointed to an extortion racket in which Bitcoins were being used. The IB also says that there are instances of political funding taking place through Bitcoins.

OneIndia News
Mark Zuckerberg says 'sorry' as Meta fires over 11,000 employees in one go | Full statement

Sandhya Devanathan: The lady at the helm of Meta Platforms in India

Is Facebook insisting on Aadhaar? Here is what the social media giant has to say

India

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By Vicky

Amidst an uproar, Facebook has asserted that it has no plans of "integration or authentication with Aadhaar" and is not linking the social media accounts to the 12-digit biometric identifier.

The clarification came in response to reports that indicated that Facebook was running a test, where it requested for people's Aadhaar information when they signed up for a Facebook account.

Facebook clarified that the test, which is now complete, included additional text explaining to users that if they used Aadhaar name it will help their family and friends recognise them.

"We are not collecting Aadhaar data and do not require people to enter their Aadhaar name when they sign up to Facebook," it noted in a blog post.

Facebook said the goal of the test was to help new users understand how to sign up to Facebook with their real name and connect with their friends and family.

The move by Facebook is being seen as part of the company's efforts to check the increasing number of fake accounts on the platform. Facebook, however, did not comment on that.

It explained that at the point of account sign-up, users -- who were part of the test -- saw language that said: "using the name on your Aadhaar card makes it easier for friends to recognise you".

"This is an optional prompt that we were testing. People were not required to enter the name on their Aadhaar card, and there is no integration or authentication with Aadhaar," Facebook added.

The US-based company said the test ran with a small number of users in India and has now concluded.

"...we currently have no plans to roll this test out further," it added.

India -- with over 240 million users -- is the second largest market for Facebook after the US.

On the other hand, with 119 crore residents already enrolled for the Aadhaar -- a unique 12-digit number backed by fingerprints, iris scans and certain demographic details -- the programme today is the world's largest biometric database.

The government is pushing for linking Aadhaar to a host of schemes and services such as mobile connections, PAN, and bank accounts to weed out ghost holders and check tax evasion.

OneIndia News
K V Puttappa, Kuvempu is todays Google Doodle

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa popularly known as Kuvempu is today's Google Doodle. Google decided to commemorate the 113th birthday of Kuvempu, considered to be one of the greatest writer and poets in Karnataka.

Kuvempu was born in 1904 in Kuppalli, Karnataka. In 1929, he graduated from the Maharaja College of Mysore, having majored in Kannada. He would begin his academic career there as a lecturer, and after a stint at a Bengaluru university, return to Maharaja College as a professor in 1946. He became principal of the college less than a decade later, and when he retired in 1960, it was as the vice-chancellor of Mysore University.

Throughout his time in academia, Kuvempu also wrote prolifically. He published 25 collections of poetry, two novels, in addition to biographies, literary criticism, story collections, essays and about 10 plays. His epics - Sri Ramayana Darshanam (in two volumes) and Chitrangada - and his autobiography (Nenapina Doniyali; published in 1980) remain among his noted works.

Kuvempu won the Jnanpith Award for Sri Ramayana Darshanam (in 1968, for the year 1967) - the first Kannada writer to receive the honour. He was also only the second Kannada poet to be named 'rashtrakavi' in 1958. Apart from these, he was conferred several other honours, including the Padma Vibhushan (1988), Padma Bhushan (1958) and Karnataka Ratna (1992). Kuvempu passed away in 1994, aged 89.

Kuvempu wrote his first-ever poetry collection in English; most of his other works that followed were written in Kannada. He remained a lifelong advocate for the language, especially as a medium of instruction in state educational institutions. He was also a staunch champion of gender equality, anti-casteism and anti-superstition.

Top quotes:

Chakracharanake swagatha - "Welcome to wheel footed" when he bought his first car

Uluva Yogi ("tilling Yogi") is the title he gave the farmer

Sarvarige samapaalu, sarvarige samabaalu ("Equal share for all, Equal life for all", when he called for egalitarian society).

O nanna chetana, Agu nee aniketana ("Be unhoused O my soul, only the infinite is your goal").

Noted poems:

Kolalu

Paanchajany

Navilu

Kindarijogi Mattu Itara Kavanagalu

Kogile Mattu Soviet Russia

Kinkin

Agnihamsa

Prema Kashmira

Valmikiya Bhagya

Honna Hottare

Aniketana

Kruttike

Anuththara

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Story first published: Friday, December 29, 2017, 6:52 [IST]
Mahadayi: Why Parrikar wrote a letter to Yeddyurappa and not Siddaramaiah

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Water would play a crucial role in the upcoming Karnataka Assembly Elections 2018. The Mahadayi row has taken centre stage already and this issue would be crucial to any party's prospects in North Karnataka where are there over 50 assembly seats.

B S Yeddyurappa, the chief ministerial candidate of the BJP read out a letter recently written by Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. It read that Goa was ready to release water for drinking water purposes. However, there were questions asked as to why Parrikar had written to Yeddyurappa and not Siddaramaiah who is the Chief Minister of Karnataka.

Parrikar had this to say. Following a Cabinet meeting, he told reporters that he had chosen to write to Yeddyurappa rather than his counterpart because he does not trust those ruling the Karnataka.

I wrote to Yeddyurappa and expressed my willingness to talk to Karnataka on water sharing because I trust him. When asked if there was a political misuse of the letter, Parrikar shot back, " you ask him if you think so.

Parrikar, however, reiterated that the letter was a perfectly legal one and the interests of Goa had not been compromised.

Parrikar said that the letter was legally perfect and does not compromise on the Mahadayi issue. My words were in lines with the state's stand at the tribunal, he further asserted.

Parrikar's letter to Yeddyurappa had triggered a row, with Congress and AAP calling it a "political move". Vijay Sardesai, state Agriculture Minister and BJP ally Goa Forward Party leader, has said his party will surrender the water resources portfolio if the government gives water for agriculture needs to the neighbouring state.

In his letter to BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa, Parrikar had written that Goa will not oppose "in principle" sharing water with Karnataka for drinking purpose.

OneIndia News
The La Crosse Collaborative to End Homelessness, which has helped secure housing for about 50 formerly homeless individuals and families during the past year, is moving toward one of its tangential goals, judging by one barometer.

The number of homeless people seeking shelter this winter is either down from previous years or those who need help are different from those in the past, according to local agencies.

The Salvation Army Shelter, an 80-bed facility in La Crosse that often is above capacity at this time of year, is housing fewer than 50 people and has two open family rooms, said Nick Ragner, the corps public relations and development director.

Were not seeing as many as usual, said Ragner, who expressed surprise at the lower numbers, especially with the brutal temperatures this week.

Most of those in the shelter now have few or no ties to the area or dont have strong support systems, he said.

Some may have had home for holidays

Part of the smaller number may be that homeless individuals families or friends have invited them in for the holidays, he said, also crediting the collaboratives success in housing people.

Similarly, even though the La Crosse Warming Center downtown has been at or near its capacity of 40 people for overnight sheltering, there are new faces among the clients, said Mark Schimpf, coordinator of the facility at 413 S. Third St.

That reflects the fact that many previously homeless now are housed but also signals that others have appeared, he said.

Its a very different crowd, reflective of the fact the collaborative has housed people, said Schimpf, who added that the fact that the center still is full shows we still have work to do.

Homelessness is not something you can end in a year, said Schimpf, who has been involved with the collaboratives work. Some had been homeless for a long time.

Traffic at the Franciscan Hospitality House remains brisk, with temperatures hovering around zero on Wednesday prompting 30 or more people to seek relief from the cold there. Many also dipped the ladle into a crockpot for a bowl of the soup a volunteer had delivered.

We are definitely busier, said house coordinator Tristine Bauman, who noted that the drop-in center at 114 N. Sixth St. normally attracts around 20 people a day.

The visitors Wednesday, returning after the center had been closed for two days for Christmas, overflowed into a room that normally serves as an office, where two men were socializing and two women were engrossed in adult coloring books.

In the larger gathering area, people were using computers, reading, talking with each other, napping and piecing together puzzles. The facility also offers a chance to shower and do laundry, as well as haircuts, foot care and legal assistance on rotating days.

At The Salvation Army, Ragner said he expects the shelter to fill up in January and February, although the full effect of the collaboratives housing efforts may reduce the influx.

Its definitely made an impact for us, Schimpf said of the collaboratives effect on the Warming Center, which is open to men and women older than 18 from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m. seven days a week between Nov. 1 and April 30.

Guests, who also are able to shower and do laundry, also can partake in evening meals provided by a rotation of volunteer groups.

Numbers were light on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day  but still in the upper 30s, Schimpf said.

That makes sense, though, when people might be visiting family and friends, he said.

Halfway to housing 10 families by Jan. 31

Although representatives of the collaborative could not be reached for comment Wednesday and Thursday, Schimpf, Ragner and Bauman indicated that the benefits of its work are becoming apparent.

The collaborative secured housing for about 20 homeless veterans between fall and Christmas 2016, and another 20 chronically homeless individuals between spring and midsummer.

It has been able to find housing for five of the 10 families it has targeted during its current sprint, with Jan. 31 as the goal to accomplish the task.

The collaborative traces its beginnings to early 2016, when community activists began huddling to press for an initiative to address homelessness in the community.

Spearheading the effort were Sister Karen Neuser, a member of the La Crosse-based Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration who also is on the orders Homelessness Initiative Committee, and Sandy Brekke, director of the St. Clare Health Mission, which provides free health care to underinsured and uninsured people.

They enlisted Gundersen Health Systems newly created Population Health and Strategy Department to hire Erin Healy, a private New York consultant and expert on homelessness, to help craft a strategy for solutions.

Healy met with a broad range of stakeholders, including social and human service agencies, city and county officials and committees, law enforcement, veterans and vets organizations, faith communities, businesses and funding sources in June 2016 to begin the quest.

Among the community benefits of ending homelessness, in addition to putting people in housing and helping them become independent, is easing the drain on public coffers, Healy told them.

She cited examples of savings from providing housing vs. other remedies in several other cities, including Chicago. The daily cost of providing supportive housing for one person is $20.55, compared with alternatives such as $60 for jail, $61.99 for prison, $22 for a shelter, $437 for a mental hospital and $1,201 for a general hospital, she said.

For La Crosse, Healy estimated, the annual cost of one emergency shelter bed could be used instead to pay a years rent for two, one-bedroom apartments.

Crisis systems are very expensive, she insisted.

Although the jury is still out  perhaps for years  on the results for the Coulee Region, the fact that there seems to be less pressure on crisis facilities so far this winter indicates movement toward the goals of providing housing and saving money at the same time.
A team of policemen inspecting the fire site

After the mishap, the BMC is now reportedly planning a crackdown on all 30 restaurants in the compound.

"From today itself, we will be inspecting all the restaurants in the compound and take immediate action against them. Considering festive season and just two days for New year's Eve, we will not take any risk," an Indian Express report quoted Assistant municipal commissioner of G south (Lower Parel) Prashant Sakpale as saying.

A view of the building which was gutted

According to reports, some portion of the rooftop restaurant '1 Above', where the fire broke out, was illegal. A notice was also served by the BMC regarding the illegal construction.

Firemen extinguish the fire and clear out debris

Shiv Sena leader Arvind Sawant lashed out at the BMC and said he would raise the issue in Parliament.

"It's not just BMC, fire department, police and all others who give permission are responsible. I will try to raise it in the Parliament. There should be a judicial investigation into the incident," he said.

A fireman assists in rescue operations after fire broke out

Fire-fighters took more than three hours to douse the huge flames that leapt up in central Mumbai's nightlife hub. The fire is suspected to have started a little after 12.30 am and spread quickly. The injured were taken to the KEM, and Sion hospitals.
Ayodhya verdict: "Historic, balanced and judicious", What did the Union Ministers say

Mosque in Ayodhya will be of same size as Babri Masjid: Trust

In pics: Ram Janmabhoomi all decked up to welcome PM Modi for Deepotsav on Diwali eve

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan reconsiders decision to give up court practice

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan has reconsidered his decision of giving up court practice on the request of his client to appear in the Ram Janmabhoomi case. Dhavan had recently given up court practise following a spat with Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra.

Seventy-four-year-old Dhavan had on December 11 called it quits after what he described as a "humiliating end" to the Delhi government-Centre dispute case following heated exchanges between him and the CJI.

Advocate Ejaz Maqbool, who is representing some of the Muslim bodies in the Ayodhya land dispute case, said that they had urged Dhavan to represent them in the matter and the senior counsel has accepted the request.

He said that before Dhavan announced that he had given up court practice, the senior lawyer was appearing for them in the Ayodhya dispute case.

"We requested him (Dhavan) to make an exception for the Babri Masjid case and he has accepted our request and he will continue to appear for us in the Babri Masjid case," Maqbool said in a letter sent to the media.

"He (Dhavan) will be writing a letter to the Chief Justice of India that he will continue to appear in his pending matters," he said.

Dhavan had earlier addressed a letter to the CJI saying he had decided to give up court practice.

"After the humiliating end to the Delhi case, I have decided to give up court practice. You are entitled to take back the senior gown conferred on me, though I would like to keep it for memory and the services rendered," he had said in his letter.

His surprise announcement had come days after the apex court reserved its verdict in the Delhi-Centre case, i.e whether the Lieutenant Governor or the Delhi government enjoys supremacy in the administration of the national capital.

On December 6, just before the conclusion of the hearing in the case, heated exchanges were witnessed between the Chief Justice and Dhavan.

The senior lawyer was appearing for the Delhi government in the case besides their lead counsel Gopal Subramanium.

In the Delhi-Centre dispute hearing, Dhavan had made some submissions which were not appreciated by the bench.

Besides the Delhi-Centre case, Dhavan has represented a number of high-profile cases like the Ayodhya dispute, SEBI-Sahara, Rohingya refugees among others.

OneIndia News
Explained: What the SC said and how is Talaq-e-Hasan different from triple talaq

For triple talaq victims, judicial verdict in favor but social verdict still against them!

UP: Muslim woman agrees to Nikah Halal, instead gets gangraped by ex-husband, his brother

Triple talaq for waking up late: The case govt cited in Parliament

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

A lady in Uttar Pradesh was given triple talaq by her husband for waking up late in the morning. This case was cited by Union Law Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad while tabling the bill which makes triple talaq a crime.

Prasad while citing this case from Rampur said that the practise of instant divorce continues despite the Supreme Court order.

Gul Afshan said that her four-year-old marriage came to an end when her husband, Qasim, a truck driver said talaq thrice. She is now back to living with her parents despite whose objection she had married Qasim.

She further said that her only fault was that she woke up late. He immediately said talaq thrice. It was a love marriage, but there were cracks that had developed. I was even physically abused, she further alleged. While a police complaint is yet to be filed, Qasim remains untraceable.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights of Marriage) Bill, 2017, which criminalises the practice of instant triple talaq, was tabled in the Lok Sabha by Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday.

Under provisions of the proposed bill, a Muslim man who resorts to Talaq-e-Biddat or instant talaq would be jailed for three years and custody of any minor children would be granted to the affected woman.

OneIndia News
Will Rajinikanth be able to survive in politics? TN Minister says no as hes too innocent

India

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By Oneindia

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Rajinikanth is too innocent for join politics says Tamil Nadu minister | Oneindia News

Chennai, Dec 29: Even before Rajinikanth's much-awaited political debut, a minister in Tamil Nadu has predicted the fate of superstar in the arena of politics.

Tamil Nadu milk and dairy products developments minister KT Rajendra Balaji told reporters on Thursday that the veteran actor is too innocent to survive in politics.

"A person who doesn't know how to play the political game would not fit in it," the minister was quoted as saying by Times of India.

When prodded further, Balaji opined that Rajinikanth would have succeeded if he had entered politics around 20 years ago. "It is too late for him now as his fans are members of various political parties. Let's hope someone is able to guide and advise him on this,'' he said.

In fact, the 67-year-old superstar, while meeting his fans in Chennai on Tuesday stated that he will announce his stand on entering politics on December 31. On Tuesday, Rajinikanth started meeting his fans in the capital city for six days.

It has been almost a year, since every now and then, the news of political entry of Thalaiva, as the veteran actor is popularly known among his fans, hits the headlines. Every time the report of the political debut of Rajinikanth is proved to be a rumour.

On Tuesday, Rajinikanth revealed why he is hesitant to join politics. "I am hesitant in entering politics as I am aware of the pitfalls. I am not new to politics, I know its depths. I have been watching politics closely since 1996. If I enter politics I will have to win. For that I will need a strategy," he said.

Many indicate that the 67-year-old veteran is under pressure to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) if he ever makes his political debut. The BJP which is struggling hard to make its entry into the choppy political waters of Tamil Nadu is heavily relying on a popular and dynamic figure to join the saffron party.

"Who else could be best than Rajinikanth to be the BJP's mascot in Tamil Nadu?" asked a BJP leader. Moreover, the actor shares a cordial relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The advice doled out by the ruling AIADMK minister to Rajinikanth clearly indicates that the party is wary about the superstar joining politics as he enjoys a cult status in Tamil Nadu.

OneIndia News
India must implement border agreement for peace and stability says China

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

India should strictly control and implement border agreements to maintain peace and stability along the border, China has said.

Chinese Defence Spokesman Col Ren Guoqiang said the highlights of his country's international military cooperation in 2017 included handling 'hotspot issues' like Doklam.

This year, under the unified deployment, the military has "resolutely" safeguarded China's sovereignty and security interests, Col Ren told media here.

The Chinese military has "played its due role in the handling of the hotspot issues such as the Sino-Indian confrontation in the Donglang (Doklam) area and safeguarded China's rights and interests in the South China Sea," he said in response to a question.

The Doklam standoff began on June 16 after the People's Liberation Army (PLA) began building a road in the area claimed by Bhutan. The Indian troops intervened to stop the road as it posed a security risk to Chicken Neck, the narrow corridor connecting India with its north-eastern states.

The standoff ended on August 28 following a mutual agreement under which China stopped the construction of the road and India withdrew its troops.

The 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control between India and China covers from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh.

When asked how Chinese military view its relations with its Indian counterpart in 2018 in the backdrop of the Doklam standoff, Col Ren said India should implement the border agreements and control its troops.

"We hope the Indian side can earnestly implement the relevant agreements reached between the two sides on the border issue and strictly control its border defence troops and do more for the positive development of China-India military-to-military relationship," he said.

During the border talks, the first since the 73-day-long military standoff in Doklam, in Delhi on December 22 between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese State Councillor Yang Jiechi, both sides stressed the importance of maintaining peace and stability along the border, Ren said.

"As far as we know both sides have agreed that it is important to maintain peace stability along India-China border and create favourable conditions for further development of bilateral relationship, which has provided a good environment and good momentum for the continued enhancement of China and India relationship," he said.

In terms of China and India military-to-military relationship, it is important to have strategic communication and push forward healthy development of ties between the two militaries, Col Ren said.

"We hope Indian side walk towards the same direction as the Chinese side and both sides can push forward the development of the relationship and jointly maintain the peace and stability along the China-India border which is in the interest of both sides," he said.

OneIndia News
Metal chip in Kulbhushan Jadhavs wifes shoes being examined: Pakistan

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

A metal chip was found in the shoes of Kulbhushan Jadhav's wife and the same is being examined said Pakistan while defending its decision to impose harsh security procedures.

Foreign minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif rejected Indian allegations and stated that the meeting of Jadhav with his wife and mother on December 25 was permitted on humanitarian grounds. He said a 'metal chip' was found in the shoes of Jadhav's wife and it was being examined.

He said the meeting was initially scheduled for 30 minutes but was extended to 40 minutes on request and claimed Jadhav's mother had thanked Pakistan after the visit.

Pakistani authorities had sent the shoes worn by Jadhav's wife for forensic examination to determine the nature of the suspected presence of a foreign object, media reports said.

Pakistan's Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Mohammad Faisal was quoted as saying that authorities had to ascertain whether the "metallic object" in the shoes was a camera or a recording chip.

The foreign minister said Pakistan's "humanitarian gesture" did not obviate the fact that "Jadhav is a serving Indian naval officer and a convicted Indian terrorist and spy".

He said a comprehensive security check was therefore essential. This was agreed between both countries, in advance, through diplomatic channels, adding that Jadhav's family members were treated with "respect and dignity" and the change of clothes and removal of jewellery and ornaments was purely for security reasons.

He said the visitors changed into their own clothes after the meeting and all their belongings were returned to them before they left, though the wife's shoes were retained as they did not clear the security check because a "metal chip" was found in one of the shoes, which is being analysed.

India has accused Pakistan of disregarding cultural and religious sensibilities of Jadhav's family members on the pretext of security, pointing to the "removal of mangal sutra, bangles and bindi, as well as a change in attire not warranted by security".

Khawaja said Pakistan has been open and transparent throughout the meeting, offered in good faith.

"We do not wish to indulge in fallacious accusations and blame game and should focus on the bigger positive outcome that the meeting happened, despite immense challenges and impediments, instead of distortion of facts and baseless propaganda, which vitiates the atmosphere and is counter-productive," he said.

During the December 25 meeting, whose pictures were released by Pakistan, Jadhav was seen sitting behind a glass screen while his mother and wife sat on the other side. They spoke through an intercom and the entire 40-minute proceedings appeared to have been recorded on video.

Jadhav, 47, who was captured in March last year, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged spying, an accusation that India has dismissed as concocted.

New Delhi says Jadhav was kidnapped in Iran where he had legitimate business interests, and brought to Pakistan. To save Jadhav, India moved the International Court of Justice, which ordered Pakistan in May to stay his execution.

OneIndia News
Trump enters US state department for first time as his favourite Mike Pompeo takes over as secy

Pak must demonstrate its desire to partner with US: Rex Tillerson

International

pti-PTI

New York, Dec 29: Pakistan must demonstrate its desire to collaborate with the US in its fight against terrorism, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said.

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Tillerson reiterated what the Trump administration has been saying about Pakistan for the past several months now after President Donald Trump announced his South Asia policy in August.

Trump while announcing his South Asia Policy had criticised Pakistan for not doing enough to combat terrorism. "Pakistan must contribute by combating terrorist groups on its own soil. We are prepared to partner with Pakistan to defeat terror organisations seeking safe havens, but Pakistan must demonstrate its desire to partner with us," Tillerson said.

"A commitment to stop Islamist terrorism and extremism also motivated the administration's decision to adopt a new South Asia strategy, which focuses on Afghanistan. That country cannot become a safe haven for terrorists, as it was in the days before the September 11 attacks," he wrote as he summarised up his key diplomatic accomplishments in the first year. Defeating terrorism remains one of Trump's highest priorities, Tillerson said.

"The administration's aggressive strategy to counter the Islamic State delegates greater authority to American military commanders on the battlefield, giving our forces more freedom and speed to do what they do best, in partnership with indigenous fighting forces," he asserted.

As a result, the Global Coalition to Defeat the ISIS has accelerated operations and has recaptured virtually all of previously held Islamic State territory in Iraq and Syria, he said. "While our military was helping clear Iraq and Syria of Islamic State forces, our diplomats were following up with humanitarian aid and assistance, such as clearing land mines, restoring water and power, and getting children back in school," Tillerson wrote.

PTI
With the number of anonymous rogues from Pak rising, here's how BSF is beating down the drones

Put sanctions on Pak: Muhajir group in US urges UN

International

pti-PTI

United Nations, Dec 29: A US-based advocacy group has asked the UN to "place economic and military sanctions" on Pakistan until it addresses grievances of its ethnic and religious minorities, particularly Muhajirs and Balochs.

In a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, World Muhajirs Congress (WMC), a group seeking rights for Muhajirs, also urged the world body to inquire into the alleged brutal killings and loot in Karachi and other areas of the Sindh province after the assassination of former Pakistan prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007.

The term 'Muhajir' is used to describe the Urdu-speaking immigrants who left India in 1947 and came to Pakistan. A large chunk of them settled in the Sindh province.

"Benazir Bhutto Zardari had been killed in Punjab; her support base has traditionally lay in rural areas of the Sindh province. It is still a mystery who killed her but what is crystal clear that Karachi and its people had nothing to do with that crime, yet it was the city of Karachi and its Urdu-speaking population who were viciously targeted soon after this murder," the group said in the letter dated December 27.

The group alleged that Muhajirs were systematically discriminated and had been subjected to gross human rights violations for the past several decades.

"WMC appeals the United Nations to place economic and military sanctions against Pakistan until it genuinely addresses grievances of its ethnic and religious minorities, Muhajirs and Balochs in particular, and until its Military stops its barbaric campaign of kill and dump in Karachi and Balochistan," the letter said.

"Given the systematic prejudice and ethnic bias Muhajirs have been facing in Pakistan, it is to hope against the hope that perpetrators of carnage committed in Pakistan against Muhajirs on December 27, 2007 would ever be brought to justice," the letter said.

Therefore, WMC, a US-based advocacy group representing Muhajirs, seeks your intervention in this matter, it said.

"Please, in the name of humanity and justice, exert pressure on Pakistani State to allow the United Nations to conduct an inquiry into incidents of December 27, 2007 to unmask the real perpetrators behind the mayhem and subsequently punish the culprits," the group urged Gutters. Bhutto, the Pakistan Peoples Party chief and a two-time prime minister, was killed along with more than 20 people in a gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh during an election campaign rally. She was 54.

PTI
India vs South Africa T20 series streaming details: Where to watch 1st match in your country live online?

India vs South Africa T20 cricket streaming details: Where to watch 2nd match in your country live online?

South Africa celebrates samosa by honouring Kashmiri chilli chicken filled savoury as the best

International

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

Johannesburg, Dec 29: India is synonymous with the delicious, crunchy samosa filled with potato mash mixed in myriad spices. The very description of a samosa is enough to make your mouth water.

When Indians in search of their livelihood left for Africa, they carried with them the taste of samosa and made the savoury one of the most popular snacks on the continent.

Recently, Johannesburg in South Africa celebrated samosa and samosa lovers and honoured them all.

In fact, the Kashmiri chilli chicken filled samosa was declared as the best among the rest at a contest organised by the largest national newspaper for the Indian community in South Africa.

Other samosas that were part of the contest were chocolate and cashew nuts filled savouries, to name a few.

Among the various entries in the competition were samosas that featured almonds and cashews drizzled with chocolate; chocolate covered in edible glitter; Margherita pizza filling and chicken jalapeno.

The South African Indian speciality samosa (also referred to as samoosa) is a deep-fried flat version of the traditional Punjabi snack, filled with a variety of savoury or sweet treats in a crispy pastry.

Salma Agjee won the contest organised by the weekly Post after her daughter submitted her recipe.

"I love cooking and always believe in taking a recipe a step further by adding a twist to it," Agjee was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

"My filling was my own invention based on what I had initially made as a chicken sandwich for my children. The chicken was cooked with Kashmiri chilli powder, then I added two types of cheese, mozzarella and gouda, and mayonnaise," she said.

There were also two other sections of the competition, which was held at a public fair in Durban.

Grandmother Roxana Naseem, 63, who has been running a samosa-making business for several decades, showed her skill to beat others by filling 10 samosas in under 60 seconds in a neat stack.

In the third section of the contest, Ebrahim Bux, 18, bagged the title of the 'fastest samosa eater' when he wolfed down 10 samosas in a minute.

After South Africa, it is time for India, the birthplace of samosa, to celebrate the savoury. What about a samosa contest in India? It will be definitely a hit.

OneIndia News
eBaums World 18 Nov 2022

If you aren't trying to score Taylor Swift tickets, what are you doing with your life?
Maybe Katrina Layton was just caught up in the generous spirit of the Christmas season. Or, perhaps the Kwik Trip associate merely took pity on me.

Actually, I suspect that Layton went above and beyond to serve this frantic customer because thats just her nature  regardless of where she works.

First, the backstory:

We were having guests for a pre-Christmas dinner last week, and Kate called me to ask whether I could bring home a couple of rubber bands. I assured her I could  and I would  based on the fact that I usually find rubber bands in my desk when Im looking for something else.

Alas and alack! Those rubber bands that usually clutter my desk and drawers had disappeared, so I disappeared, too  upstairs to the Tribs supply cabinet. I was sure I had seen wads of rubber bands there.

Lest you think Im a rabid thief of company property: I dont raid the supply chest regularly. I dont even swipe an extra pen when Im stockpiling stick-it scratch pads.

OK, truth be told: I eschew the companys pens because theyre chintzy. Gundersen Health Systems pens are much more to my liking  especially those I purloin at Childrens Miracle Network events.

I like the bright CMN yellow with the rubberized black strips for gripping, the pens fit my little hand perfectly and the ink supply is more generous than that even in expensive ballpoints. (Less appealing are the light blue Respecting Choices writing instruments, because theyre boring and run out of ink, but maybe thats because its a breakaway organization.)

This is not to slight the Mayo Clinic Health System-Franciscan Healthcare pens that have ended up in my pocket protector. They are too fat for my slender fingers.

Pens at the Aging and Disability Resource Center of La Crosse Counter are cool, with the little thingy inside that rotates to reveal services when you click. But the print is too small, IMHO, although the ADRC also has free magnifiers.

But I digress  back to the rubber bands. Wouldnt you know it  even if I had been hell-bent on stealing, there werent any rubber bands in the cabinet, so I was going to have to buy some on the way home.

I drove right past a Walgreens because the parking lot was full of last-minute Christmas shoppers. I figured a Kwik Trip would be a quick zip to fetch a bag of rubber bands.

After all, Kwik Trip long ago shunned the cokes-and-smokes reputation of old-time convenience stores. It now stocks not only all sorts of foods  prepared and unprepared, healthy and unhealthy, etc. ranging from A to W, apples to Welchs Fruit Packs  but also pens and sundry household items, including sewing kits.

Everything except rubber bands, I discovered at Kwik Trip No. 383 at 408 Sand Lake Road in Onalaska, which is one of the larger ones in the chain. I checked up and down every aisle three or four times, because I hate to ask store workers where something is  only to be told that its right next to my elbow.

Just to be sure, after my restroom stop, which I am wont to do at all Kwik Trips  regardless of their numbers, and at Kwik Stars when Im in Iowa  I checked again, to no avail.

OMG, Id stumbled into a rubber band desert.

On a long shot, and because I could hear Kates admonition to use your words, Mike, ringing in my ears when I got home if I didnt ask, I walked over to a friendly-looking employee who said shed check.

As we walked toward an area I had checked twice  making me nervous that shed find the bands and prove me blind  I explained my quest to fulfill my wifes dream. I told her I was trying for a quick stop instead of having to go to a Long Trip store.

After confirming that the store doesnt stock rubber bands, she took it upon herself to find some. Almost as if she were on a mission from God, a la the Blues Brothers, she went behind the counter and started rifling through drawers.

I told her not to bother, that surely she had more important things to do. She pooh-poohed me and, before long, she was able to hand me several rubber bands of varying sizes and lengths.

I thanked her and she said, See ya next time, as they are wont to do at Kwik Trip.

Over the weekend, I regretted that I hadnt gotten her name, partly as a courtesy and partly to give her a public atta-boy, uh, atta-girl.

So I ventured over on Christmas Day, hoping at least to get her name like I should have in the first place. I approached a friendly-looking woman and asked whether she had heard about the guy who came in looking for rubber bands. She looked slightly familiar, and there seemed to be a flash of recognition in her eyes, too.

Sure nuf, it was her, Katrina Layton, and the only reason I didnt recognize her was she had different coif than she had at our first meeting. I told her my plan to give her a shout-out, which seemed to result in a combo of embarrassment, flattery and pride.

I asked Layton why she had gone the extra mile to help me when she just as easily could have kicked my can down the road.

Because I know how it feels to be looking for something, and I knew it was something I could find, Layton said.

I thought it would make you smile, and it helped you and helped your wife, she said with a smile of her own.

Layton, who told me she recently moved from St. Cloud, Minn., to Holmen and has worked for Kwik Trip for about 1 years, said she enjoys helping people.

It was about this time last year that I singled out Nicki Veenendall and an employee for praise for exemplary service in helping me at one of the area Verizon stores Veenendall owns. It didnt occur to me at the time that this could become an annual thing.

But I will make it so: Katrina Layton, take a bow as the winner of the second annual Tie Customer Saviour Award. No money, no trophy, no plaque  just the fancy spelling for savior.

And thankyouverymuch for your service.
Rumble 17 Nov 2022

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State Ethics Commission leaders have asked state Senate Republicans to hold a public hearing for their chief administrator, Brian Bell, before voting early next year on whether to confirm him.

The commissions Democratic chairman, David Halbrooks, and Republican vice chairwoman, Katie McCallum, released the letter to Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald on Thursday. Halbrooks and McCallum wrote that commissioners unanimously determined that Mr. Bells performance as Administrator exceeded expectations.

We would welcome the opportunity to speak to his qualifications before the Senate votes on his confirmation, they wrote.

Fitzgerald earlier this month threatened to hold Senate confirmation votes in January for Bell and the states chief elections official, Michael Haas. Fitzgeralds office said that could force the administrators out of their positions because he said Senate Republicans wont vote to confirm them.

Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos have called for Bell and Haas to resign, claiming they cant be trusted to fairly oversee ethics and elections in the state because they used to work for the states former ethics and elections agency, the now-defunct Government Accountability Board. Many Wisconsin GOP officials viewed the accountability board as biased toward Democrats because of its role in a now-ended secret investigation into Gov. Scott Walkers 2012 recall campaign.

Haas, meanwhile, has called on Fitzgerald and Vos to apologize, saying they have slandered his name by suggesting former accountability board staff committed a crime in their investigations of Walker and others. Elections Commission chairman Mark Thomsen and the former Republican head of the Accountability Board, David Deininger, also have spoken out on Haas behalf.
The seven-million American Muslims remained under siege since 9/11/2001 through reconfiguration of US laws, policies and priorities but their plight has taken a new twist under President Donald Trump whose anti-Muslim policies alarmingly fomented hate crimes against them.

The xenophobic rhetoric and anti-Muslim fear-mongering enjoys unprecedented influence with Donald Trump's most vitriolic anti-Muslim rhetoric as typified by his election campaign declaration: "I think Islam hates us."

Heidi Beirich, advocacy director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, says that thanks to the xenophobic rhetoric of the 2016 election and its aftermath, the country has witnessed an undeniable increase in anti-Muslim rhetoric and activity. "We know that when mainstream political officials or public figures engage in defaming populations or propagandizing against them it impacts how those populations are viewed by the public and we know it can lead to violence," she noted.

President Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric is best reflected by his three video tweets in November last when he retweeted three videos supposedly depicting Muslims committing acts of violence, each captioned in a manner linking the actions with the perpetrators' racial or religious identity. The videos originated from the Twitter feed of Jayda Fransen, an anti-Muslim activist in the UK who was recently convicted of religiously aggravated harassment. The tweets were sent to Trump's more than 43 million followers. Jayda Fransen is the deputy leader of a British anti-immigrant fringe group, Britain First. The group's name was shouted by an extremist who gunned down and stabbed a member of Parliament earlier this year. Britain First is a fringe political party condemned as ultranationalist and previously accused of sharing anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. The office of British Prime Minister Theresa May said that Trump was wrong to share material from a group that promotes "hateful narratives."

The early days of Donald Trump's presidency have been an anxious time for many Muslim Americans, according to a Pew Research Center survey released in July 2017. Overall, Muslims in the United States perceive a lot of discrimination against their religious group, are leery of Trump and think their fellow Americans do not see Islam as part of mainstream U.S. society.

Consequently, nearly two-thirds of Muslim Americans say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. today. And about three-quarters say Donald Trump is unfriendly toward Muslims in America.

Tellingly, half of Muslim Americans say it has become harder to be Muslim in the U.S. in recent years. And 48% say they have experienced at least one incident of discrimination in the past 12 months.

At the same time, many Muslims say they face a variety of significant challenges in making their way in American society.



Muslims who say it has become more difficult to be Muslim in the U.S. in recent years were asked to describe, in their own words, the main reasons for this. The most common responses include statements about Muslim extremists in other countries, misconceptions and stereotyping about Islam among the U.S. public, and Trump's attitudes and policies toward Muslims.

According to another PEW Research survey of 2017, Americans view Muslims less warmer than atheists while they view more warmly the seven other religious groups mentioned in the survey (Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Mormons).

Even cancer has a better public image than Muslim-Americans. How did it get this bad? A study released last year by consulting firm 416Labs showed that over 25 years of coverage and headlines, the portrayal of Islam and Muslims in the New York Times was more negative than cancer, alcohol, and cocaine. The study found there are no positive words in the top 25 associations with Islam and Muslims, and only 8 percent of headlines about those subjects carried a positive connotation. Cancer fared better at 17 percent. [Foreign Policy]

Anti-Muslim industry

To borrow journalist Reed Richardson, fueled by the President's nativist agenda and a new alliance with the alt-right, the professional anti-Muslim industry has never been stronger--or more dangerous.

Richardson argues that like the US military industrial complex, there is also anti-Islam industrial complex:

"Much like our country has a military-industrial complex comprised of various-sized defense firms competing side-by-side or, very often, working directly with and for each other to wield influence and make money under the banner of "national security," so too is there an anti-Islam industrial complex. This Islamophobia industry likewise exhibits interwoven subsidiaries, joint ventures and lobbying groups, which enrich themselves while ostensibly promoting ideals like freedom of expression, women's rights and, yes, national security."

The anti-Islam and anti-Muslim industry has grown because politicians have begun to market its wares. "You and I aren't having this conversation 10 years ago, not because these folks didn't exist back then, they did," said Todd Green, religion professor at Luther College and author of "The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West." What's changed, Luther added, is this industry's ability to influence and dominate the mainstream narrative about Islam in the country. And aiding and abetting this is a Republican Party that has tightened its embrace of Islamophobia as a political strategy. "Politicians instrumentalize Islamophobia now because they know it works, not because of deep-rooted convictions about Islam," he said, adding "the 2015-16 campaign really magnified that."

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From Mike Malloy Website

Well well well...could it be that the entire GOP is complicit in the election tampering? That's the latest juicy tidbit of gossip floating around in these waning days of 2017.

As Salon.com reports: "At this point, these Russian agents are just extensions of the Republican political operation, which has been at the disinformation and propaganda game for a long time and which is obviously happy to have help from outside experts. Indeed, it's hard to know who's leading and who's following at this point. Maybe special counsel Robert Mueller can unravel that for us too."

This conclusion from Salon was reached, in part, from a stunning Washington Post expose published on Christmas titled "Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options." Here are some critical excerpts from that piece, with emphasis addedby yours truly:

"The first email arrived in the inbox of CounterPunch, a left-leaning American news and opinion website, at 3:26 a.m. -- the middle of the day in Moscow. 'Hello, my name is Alice Donovan and I'm a beginner freelance journalist,' read the Feb. 26, 2016, message. The FBI was tracking Donovan as part of a months-long counterintelligence operation code-named 'NorthernNight.' Internal bureau reports described her as a pseudonymous foot soldier in an army of Kremlin-led trolls seeking to undermine America's democratic institutions. "Her first articles as a freelancer for CounterPunch and at least 10 other online publications weren't especially political. As the 2016 presidential election heated up, Donovan's message shifted. Increasingly, she seemed to be doing the Kremlin's bidding by stoking discontent toward Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and touting WikiLeaks, which U.S. officials say was a tool of Russia's broad influence operation to affect the presidential race. "'There's no denying the emails that Julian Assange has picked up from inside the Democratic Party are real,' she wrote in August 2016 for a website called We Are Change. 'The emails have exposed Hillary Clinton in a major way -- and almost no one is reporting on it.' "The events surrounding the FBI's NorthernNight investigation follow a pattern that repeated for years as the Russian threat was building: U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies saw some warning signs of Russian meddling in Europe and later in the United States but never fully grasped the breadth of the Kremlin's ambitions. Top U.S. policymakers didn't appreciate the dangers, then scrambled to draw up options to fight back. In the end, big plans died of internal disagreement, a fear of making matters worse or a misguided belief in the resilience of American society and its democratic institutions."

In a nutshell, the US Intel community didn't understand how serious the Russian cyber attack was, and since it was beneficial to the GOP, once discovered the powers that be decided to play along. The article continues:

"The miscalculations and bureaucratic inertia that left the United States vulnerable to Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election;trace back to decisions made at the end of the Cold War, when senior policymakers assumed Moscow would be a partner and largely pulled the United States out of information warfare. When relations soured, officials dismissed Russia as a 'third-rate regional power' that would limit its meddling to the fledgling democracies on its periphery. "Senior U.S. officials didn't think Russia would dare shift its focus to the United States. 'I thought our ground was not as fertile,' said Antony J. Blinken, President Barack Obama's deputy secretary of state. 'We believed that the truth shall set you free, that the truth would prevail. That proved a bit naive.' "The United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an all-out information battle during the Cold War. But the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and the Bill Clinton administration and Congress in 1999 shuttered America's preeminent global information agency. 'They thought it was all over and that we'd won the propaganda war,' said Joseph D. Duffey, the last director of the U.S. Information Agency, which was charged with influencing foreign populations."

So we dropped the ball after Clinton took office, and that left the door open for Putin to put his KGB training to good use:

"When President Vladimir Putin came to power, Russia began searching for ways to make up for its diminished military. Officials seized on influence campaigns and cyber warfare as equalizers. Both were cheap, easy to deploy and hard for an open and networked society such as the United States to defend against. "Early warning signs of the growing Russian disinformation threat included the 2005 launch of RT, the Kremlin-funded TV network, and the 2007 cyberattacks that overwhelmed Estonia's banks, government ministries and newspapers. A year later, the Kremlin launched a digital blitz that temporarily shut down Georgia's broadcasters and defaced the website of its president.

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From Smirking Chimp

The Trump administration has been telling people for months that the crisis with North Korea is the result of North Korea's relentless pursuit of a nuclear threat to the US homeland and past North Korean cheating on diplomatic agreements. However, North Korea reached agreements with both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations that could have averted that threat, had they been completed.

Instead, a group of Bush administration officials led by then-Vice President Dick Cheney sabotaged both agreements, and Pyongyang went on to make rapid strides on both nuclear and missile development, leading ultimately to the successful late November 2017 North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test.

The record shows, moreover, that Cheney and his allies derailed diplomatic efforts to curb North Korean nuclear and missile development, not because they opposed "arms control" (after all, the agreements that were negotiated would have limited only North Korean arms), but because those agreements would have been a political obstacle to fielding the group's main interest: funding and fielding a national missile defense system as quickly as possible. The story of Cheney's maneuvering to kill two agreements shows how a real US national security interest was sacrificed to a massive military boondoggle that served only the interests of the powerful contractors behind it.

Curbing North Korean Arms or Missile Defense?

In October 1994, the Bill Clinton administration reached an historic agreement with North Korea called the "Agreed Framework," under which Pyongyang agreed to freeze its existing plutonium reactor and related facilities within a month, with full monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and to dismantle them as soon as they could be replaced with light water reactors. The United States promised to provide the reactors, as well fuel oil, until the light water reactors were built. And even more crucially, the US also pledged to take steps to end the enmity toward North Korea and normalize relations between the two longtime adversaries.

No sooner had the Clinton administration negotiated the "Agreed Framework," however, than the Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress in the 1994 election. That seismic political shift enabled a powerful lobby of military contractors pushing for a national missile defense system to achieve a congressional mandate for rapid development and deployment of such a system.

It was a fateful convergence, because the missile defense lobby's strategy was to create a sense of urgency about an alleged imminent threat to the US homeland from ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons mounted by "rogue states" -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

And the Clinton administration's agreement with North Korea -- the only "rogue state" known to have a nuclear weapons program as well as a missile program -- threatened that missile defense lobby strategy.

When a 1995 CIA intelligence estimate said that none of the three "rogue states" would have ballistic missiles capable of threatening the United States for at least 15 years, the missile defense lobby got Congress to pass legislation creating a "national commission" on the ballistic missile threat that would contradict the CIA assessment. The commission, led by Republican hard-liner Donald Rumsfeld, asserted in its final report in July 1998 that either Iraq or North Korea might acquire long-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting the United States in as little as five years. In a craven retreat under political pressure, the CIA then largely adopted the commission's argument.

North Korea had only carried out two tests of medium or longer-range missiles in the decade from 1988 to 1998, neither of which had been successful, so the Clinton administration was not focused on the threat of an ICBM: It held just two rounds of talks on the ballistic missile program between 1996 and 1998.

In fact, it was not the United States, but North Korea that proposed an agreement in 1998 that would end its development of new missiles as part of a broader peace agreement with Washington.

When the United States failed to respond to the proposal, however, North Korea launched a three-stage rocket called the Taepodong on August 31, 1998, which the missile lobby and news media argued was a major step toward a North Korean ICBM. The missile lobby used that event to push for legislation establishing a national policy goal to deploy an "effective National Missile Defense System" as soon as technologically possible.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il was using the regime's missile development as a prod to get the Clinton administration to negotiate a deal that would include concrete steps toward normalization of relations. He even sent a personal envoy to Washington to present the outline of a new North Korean offer to give up the regime's quest for an ICBM, as well as its nuclear weapons capability. In October 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright went to Pyongyang, and the two sides came close to a final agreement that would have ended North Korean missile development as well as its nuclear weapons program and led to normalizing relations.

But Clinton didn't go to North Korea to sign the deal in the final months of his presidency, and the election of George W. Bush in November 2000 was a major victory for the missile defense lobby. Bush named Rumsfeld, the primary political champion of a missile defense system, as his Secretary of Defense. And no less than eight figures with direct or indirect ties to Lockheed Martin, the leading defense contractor in the missile defense business, became policymakers in the new administration. The most important was Dick Cheney, whose wife, Lynn Cheney, had earned more than half a million dollars serving on the board of directors of Lockheed-Martin from 1994 to 2001.

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There are vast implications for any Israeli aggression in Syria, which may not be tolerated by Russia. It may place the US under Trump's leadership in a precarious position, not necessarily by its own initiative, discretion, design...

Figure. Syrian "Civil War" : Military situation in November 2017. Red: Syrian Arab Republic, Green: Syrian opposition, Yellow: Rojava (SDF), Grey: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, White: Tahrir al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front). The dispute, described here, pertains to the relatively short border between Israel and Syria (lower left). Source: Wikipedia.

____



Tel-Aviv, December 28 - following is the English translation of a short Hebrew Facebook post, "A Stern Warning", by Ran Edelist - a reputable Israeli journalist, specializing in military-intelligence matters. [1]

Figure. " A Stern Warning" - a short Facebook post on the evening of Thurdsday, December 28, 2017, by Ran Edelist, a reputable Israeli journalist, specializing in military-intelligence matters. Source: https://www.facebook.com/ran.edelist.3/posts/171558366928534

A Stern Warning

Right now, a dispute is underway between IDF's leadership and the Prime Minister and his Minister of Defense. [2] The dispute pertains to the nature of response to the advancement of Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air force and Hezbollah, towards the Israeli-Syrian-Jordanian border point in the south of the Golan heights, the slopes of Mount Hermon in the northern Golan heights, and the vicinity of Al-Quneitra.



The advancement of Syrian government forces is aimed at annihilating the rebels, who operate under Saudi/US patronage with limited IDF support.

Netanyahu claims that the situation amounts to Iranian penetration and threatens an Israeli response. In parallel, he is making representations that there is "strategic understanding" between Israel and the US regarding such circumstances - of Iranian approach to the Israeli-Syrian border. [3]

Ehud Barak spoke a week ago about the potential of a patently illegal order, which IDF must disobey. [2] An order to interfere in the war in Syria might be legal/democratic, [7] but lacks any tactical or strategic logic, and would cost human lives in vain. Therefore, it should be deemed patently illegal. [8]

We are forewarned!

BACKGROUND

Edelist's warning should be assessed on the background of extremely unusual conditions in Israeli internal politics, where "winds of a revolution" have been noticed by various high-level figures, and top deep-state figures are openly involved in the growing massive demonstrations against Netanyahu. [2]

In particular, Edelist's warning should be assessed on the background of the extremely unusual statement made by former Israeli PM/former IDF Chief of Staff Ehud Barak last week, that circumstances were nearing, where the IDF/Shin-Bet leadership might have to disobey Netanyahu and stage a rebellion. The statement gained additional weight when it was later disclosed that Barak had held a private meeting with current IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot 24 hours earlier.



"Strategic understanding" in this context is likely to be a reference to some unknown, possibly also non-existent US-Israeli understanding in conjunction with the November 10, 2017, Russian-US-Jordanian Memorandum of Principles, which was announced by both the US and Russia. [3] The Memorandum ignored Israel and its demands relative to the outcome of the Syrian "civil war". In particular, it allowed Iranian forces to gain access to areas that are as close as 5 km from the Israeli border.



Israel immediately expressed its opposition to the Memorandum, and claimed to be at liberty to act in Syria as it deemed fit. [4]



Additionally, it later became clear that there was a wide difference between the US and Russia relative to interpretation of the Memorandum: The US claimed that it meant that Iranian forces would have to leave Syria. Russia claimed that Iranian and Russian forces were invited by the sovereign government of Syria, while US presence in Syria was patently illegal and must come to an end. [5] In response, the US refused to withdraw its forces from Syria and announced that they would stay there for the foreseeable future. Putin made a short surprise visit to Syria and announced withdrawal of Russian forces. However, Russian air and naval bases in Syria are a permanent feature. [6]



In this context, it should also be noted that Netanyahu has recently made the full Israeli government delegate its authority to declare war to the smaller "Security Cabinet". [7] The legality of such decision is dubious.

It should also be noted that the situation is almost a repeat of a 2010 confrontation between Netanyahu and the security apparatus, relative to attacking Iran. [8]



The entire situation should be also assessed on the background of the pending (mid-January?) police recommendation to indict Netanyahu in at least some of the corruption investigations that engulf him. In such context, it has been clear for months that there is concern that Netanyahu would try to divert public attention by initiating a security crisis, or even a war. Various parties have claimed that under the circumstance he has "no mandate" to make such critical security decisions.



Obviously, there are vast implications for any such aggression by Israel in Syria, which may not be tolerated by Russia, and which may place the US under Trump's leadership in a precarious position, not necessarily by its own initiative, discretion, design...

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From Robert Reich Blog



Trump Pinocchio

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Almost one year in, it's time for another update for Trump voters on his election promises:

1. He told you he'd cut your taxes, and that the super-rich like him would pay more. You bought it. But his new tax law does the opposite. By 2027, according several nonpartisan analyses, the richest 1 percent will have got[ten] 83 percent of the tax cut and the richest 0.1 percent, 60 percent of it. As Trump told his wealthy friends at Mar-a-Lago just days after the tax bill became law, "You all just got a lot richer."

2. He promised to close "special interest loopholes that have been so good for Wall Street investors but unfair to American workers," especially the notorious "carried interest" loophole for private-equity, hedge fund, and real estate partners. You bought it. But the new tax law keeps the "carried interest" loophole.

3. He told you he'd repeal Obamacare and replace it with something "beautiful." You bought it. But he didn't repeal and he didn't replace. (Just as well: His plan would have knocked at least 23 million off health insurance, including many of you.) Instead, he's doing what he can to cut it back and replace it with nothing. The new tax law will result in 13 million people losing health coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

4. He told you he'd invest $1 trillion in our nation' crumbling infrastructure. You bought it. But after his giant tax cut for corporations and millionaires, there's no money left for infrastructure.

5. He said he'd clean the Washington swamp. You bought it. But he's brought into his administration more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls than in any administration in history, to make laws that will enrich their businesses, and he's filled departments and agencies with former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who are crafting new policies for the same industries they recently worked for.

6. He said he'd use his business experience to whip the White House into shape. You bought it. But he has created the most dysfunctional, back-stabbing White House in modern history, and has already fired and replaced so many assistants (one of them hired and fired in a little more than a week) that people there barely know who's in charge of what.

7. He told you he'd "bring down drug prices" by making deals with drug companies. You bought it. But now the White House says that promise is "inoperative."

8. He promised "a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections." You bought it. But foreign lobbyists are still raising money for American elections.

9. He told you "I'm not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I'm not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid." You bought it. But he and House Speaker Paul Ryan are already planning such cuts in order to deal with the ballooning deficit created, in part, by the new tax law for corporations and the rich.

10. He promised "six weeks of paid maternity leave to any mother with a newborn child whose employer does not provide the benefit." You bought it. But the giant tax cut for corporations and the rich doesn't leave any money for this.

11. He said that on Day One he'd label China a "currency manipulator." You bought it. But then he met with China's president Xi Jinping and declared "China is not a currency manipulator." Ever since then, Trump has been cozying up to Xi.

12. He said he wouldn't bomb Syria. You bought it. But then he bombed Syria.

13. He said he'd build a "wall" across the southern border. You believed him. But there's no money for that, either. Chief of staff John Kelly says it is "unlikely that we will build a wall, a physical barrier, from sea to shining sea."

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From Herald Tribune



U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Nikki Haley meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his office in Jerusalem, June 7, 2017.

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The most recent claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin is "running" Donald Trump as if the U.S. president is a Russian intelligence asset comes from former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper. "[Putin] knows how to handle an asset, and that's what he's doing with the president," Clapper told CNN last Monday.

Clapper, who served as DNI under President Barack Obama, and who has repeatedly disparaged Trump both before and since the 2016 election, called the Russian president a "great case officer," which might be the only nice thing said about Putin by a former senior U.S. official in quite some time.

Clapper was asked by CNN's Jim Sciutto, "You're saying that Russia is handling President Trump as an asset?" He responded "That seems to be... that's the appearance to me." Later in the conversation, Clapper backtracked slightly, clarifying his remarks by adding "I'm saying this figuratively."

It was not the first time that a former senior intelligence official rendered a judgment that Trump is an intelligence asset being exploited by the Russians. Back during the campaign, former Acting Director of the CIA Michael Morell wrote an op-ed for the New York Times entitled "I Ran the CIA: Now I'm Endorsing Hillary Clinton."

Morell reasoned that Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, is "trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them... In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." Morell went on to explain that he based his critique on his assessment that "Mr. Trump has...taken policy positions consistent with Russian, not American, interests..."

Having actually been a Case Officer, unlike "experts" in tradecraft Clapper and Morell, I am not sure what figuratively or unwitting really mean. But I will accept the Morell definition that acting for a foreign power fits the definition of an "agent of influence." Based on that, I do think that there are some individuals in the Trump administration who are more-or-less being directed by a foreign government and its intelligence service, and that government would be Israel.

I would like to know more, for example, about the ties that the President's son-in-law and family have to Israel and to its leadership. The Kushners are reported to be extremely close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and, if media reports are correct, they have engaged in the financial support of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, which the United States as well as the rest of the world consider to be illegal.

And then there is America's ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, who is known to be a supporter of the settlers and Jason Greenblatt, the designated regional "negotiator." What exactly is their relationship to Israel? Do any of them have dual nationality? Shouldn't U.S. taxpayers who pony up their salaries and expenses while also having to suffer the damage they are doing to America's reputation through their identification with an apartheid regime know who they are really loyal to? Maybe a little transparency is in order.

Per Morell's model, Kushner, Friedman and Greenblatt might all be considered agents of influence since their brief as U.S. officials seems to include making sure that Israel is both happy and in the loop on everything they do. How often do they meet privately with Israeli officials? Are intelligence officers involved in their meetings? What do they not report back to Washington?

Nevertheless, my candidate for most likely to be a de facto Israeli agent of influence is America's United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. Haley has from the start made it clear that she is all about Israel and she has done nothing since to change that impression, most dramatically so over the past week when she was "taking names" and threatened retaliation against any country that was so "disrespectful" as to dare to vote against Washington's disastrous recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, which she also helped to bring about.

As governor of South Carolina, Haley first became identified as an unquestioning supporter of Israel. Immediately upon taking office at the United Nations she complained that "nowhere has the U.N.'s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than in its bias against our close ally Israel" and vowed that the "days of Israel bashing are over." On a recent visit to Israel, she was applauded -- honored -- by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In February, Haley blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a diplomatic position at the United Nations because he is a Palestinian. In a congressional hearing this past week, she was asked about the decision: "Is it this administration's position that support for Israel and support for the appointment of a well-qualified individual of Palestinian nationality to an appointment at the U.N. are mutually exclusive?" Haley responded yes, that the administration is "supporting Israel" by blocking every Palestinian.

Haley is inevitably a hardliner on Syria and Iran, reflecting the Israeli bias. She has said that regime change in Damascus is a Trump administration priority. A recent foray involved the White House warning that it had "identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime." Haley elaborated in a tweet, ""further attacks will be blamed on Assad but also on Russia and Iran who support him killing his own people." At one point, Haley warned "We need to see Russia choose to side with the civilized world over an Assad government that brutally terrorizes its own people."

I would point out that none of these positions taken by Haley is an actual American interest, but they all involve Israeli preferences. As in the cases of Kushner, Friedman and Greenblatt, I would like to know how frequently she meets alone with Israeli officials and, most particularly, intelligence officers. Is she taking direction from the Israeli government? Is she an Israeli agent of influence or just a gullible fool? The American public, which pays her, and has to bear the consequences of her actions need to know.
From Smirking Chimp

Refugees do not show up in the Mediterranean Sea as if from nowhere. By the time they get into their flimsy boats on the Libyan coastline, they have lived many, many dangerous lives. They would have left their increasingly unproductive fields in western and eastern Africa, fled wars in the Horn of Africa, in Sudan and in places as far as Afghanistan, and travelled great distances to get to what they see as the final leg of their journey.

What they want is to make it to Europe, which -- since the early days of colonialism -- has broadcast itself as the land of milk and honey. Old colonial ideas and the wealth of Europe built from colonial labor beckons. It is a siren for the wretched of the earth. It has ended for many Africans in virtual concentration camps in Libya, where refugees that Europe does not want now linger -- some sold into slavery.

To get to Libya, the migrants and refugees have to cross the Sahara Desert, which in Arabic is known, rightly, as the Greatest Desert (al-Sahara al-Kubra). It is vast, hot and dangerous. Old salt caravans -- the Azalai -- mostly managed by the Tuareg peoples would run between Mali as well as Niger and Libya. They would carry gold, salt, weapons and captured human beings as objects of trade.

Those old caravans still make their journey, moving from one water source to the next, the camels as exhausted as the Tuareg. Newer caravans have supplanted these older ones. Camels are not their mode of transport. They prefer buses, pickup trucks and jeeps to ferry humans and cocaine towards Europe, while guns and money comes southwards. These newer caravans drive along unmarked paths, heading between sand dunes, searching for old tire tracks that have been buried in disorienting sandstorms.

Surviving the sand

The Sahara is dangerous. The journey in a pickup truck could take three days, at best, or the refugees and cocaine mules could find themselves dying from dehydration, extremists, smugglers or the security forces in the region.

There are many people ready to prey on the travellers and on the smugglers, whose cars are routinely stolen. No proper account exists of dead refugees. This June, the UN Refugees Agency reported the death of 44 migrants who died of dehydration and heat stroke when their truck broke down between the Nigerien cities of Agadez and Dirkou.

The UN had saved at least 600 migrants between April and June. "Saving lives in the desert is becoming more urgent than ever," said Giuseppe Loprete, the Niger Chief of Mission for the International OrganizAZation for Migration.

To prevent migrants from reaching the Mediterranean, France has asked five African countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger) to join its G5 Sahel Initiative. The Sahel is the belt that runs across Africa below the Sahara Desert.

The European Union has also contributed to this project. The Europeans want to move their southern border from the northern edge of the Mediterranean Sea to the southern rim of the Sahara Desert. French military bases run across the Sahel, as the United States builds an enormous base in Agadez (Niger) from where it will fly drones to provide aerial support. The military has arrived in the Sahel to stop the flow of migrants.

Cocaine trail

Agadez, where the United States military is spending $100 million to build its drone base, sits at the crossroads of our contemporary crises. Refugees come to it in desperation -- their land made miserable by trade policies that discriminate against small farmers and by desertification caused by carbon capitalism. As the United States government has made it difficult for cocaine to enter the U.S. from Central America, the cocaine mafia has moved its operations to this central belt of Africa. A leading politician in Niger, Cherif Ould Abidine, who died in 2016 was known as Mr. Cocaine. Billions of dollars of cocaine now moves through the Sahel into the Sahara and upwards to Europe. The pickup trucks that carry refugees and cocaine go past the town of Arlit, where French multinational corporations are harvesting uranium (Oxfam noted in 2013, "One of every three light bulbs in France is lit, thanks to Nigerien uranium"). So here we have it: refugees, cocaine, uranium and a massive military enterprise.

Men from Gambia and from Mali wait outside a smugglers' compound. His Toyota Hilux, the camel of this new trade, sits near the gate. The men are wearing sunglasses. This is their defence once they enter the desert. They are apprehensive. Their future, however grim, must be better than their present. These are gamblers. They are willing to take the chance. The engine fires up. They throw their modest belonging onto the truck. It is time for their azalai.

Original appeared in The Hindu. (India)
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Humans have spent 99 percent of our developmental time in the wild kingdom, which tutored us in what Rob Kall calls bottom-up values?small, local, interdependent, respectful, egalitarian and decentralized -- and which the world desperately needs in order to balance out some of the darker impulses of top-down values. His faith that bottom-up values represent a critical re-balancing act for humanity, if not an outright better mousetrap, is compelling and hard-won, and I offer him a high-five for his courageous inquiry into the deep wisdom inherent in our age-old intimacy with natural rhythms, native intelligences, and interconnectedness."



Gregg Levoy, author of Callings and Vital Signs
This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.



Syrian Children

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Syrians are, first and foremost, human beings. The notion that they can be accurately described as Sunnis, or Shias, or Muslims or Christians is misleading. It is a form of xenophobic "Orientalism" that obliterates their humanity. Labelling people according their religious affiliations is an imperial weapon used to create sectarianism. And the West seeks to fabricate sectarianism in Syria.

Syrians in liberated areas of Syria celebrate Christmas, just like we do, but in terrorist-occupied areas Christmas celebrations are forbidden. Such is the success of Canada's foreign policy. If the Western-supported terrorists were to win, Christmas would not be celebrated in Syria at all. In word and deed, we support anti-Christmas, anti-Everything terrorist proxies in Syria.

When the government and media messaging dehumanizes Syria and Syrians, and the public accepts it, the stage is set for more "regime change" war which has inflicted terrorism on Syria and all Syrians for seven years.

We should follow Syria's example and consider Syrians first and foremost as human beings. Once they are humanized, it is easier to understand their resistance to the West's terrorist proxies. When we see Syrians (and those who live in other imperial "prey" nations) for who they really are -- rather than as fictitious depictions of them -- we will be better equipped to see that imperialists dehumanize all the peoples and all the leaders of countries that they seek to destroy. Furthermore, we'll see that they seek to transform their fictitious narratives into self-fulfilling prophecies. Imperialists create sectarian conflicts. Divide and conquer is a colonial staple. Hate is a weapon of war.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright Mark Taliano, Global Research, 2017
From Truthdig



Billionaire Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world.

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Oligarchy prevents democracy. That explains the gist of why the United States became more undemocratic in 2017.

With vast income inequality and corporate power, this country's oligarchy keeps consolidating itself -- largely hidden in plain sight -- normalized and embossed on the wallpaper of mass-media echo chambers. Several decades of ominous trend lines have brought us to dire tipping points.

"In the American republic, the fact of oligarchy is the most dreaded knowledge of all, and our news keeps that knowledge from us," historian Walter Karp wrote. "By their subjugation of the press, the political powers in America have conferred on themselves the greatest of political blessings -- Gyges' ring of invisibility." Those words appeared in 1989.

Nearly 30 years later, the power of billionaires, huge banks and Wall Street over U.S. politics is far more dominant, while a propaganda fog diverts attention from their anti-democratic leverage. An array of news media (including big "public" outlets like NPR) and corporate politicians, unwilling to acknowledge, let alone challenge the reality of an oligarchy in the United States, love to point accusatory fingers elsewhere.

Days before the end of 2017, I googled the phrase "American oligarchs" and found that it appeared scarcely one-tenth as often as "Russian oligarchs." Yet the gravest injuries and threats to democracy in the USA are overwhelmingly coming from massively capitalized individuals and corporations at the top of the U.S. power structure.

Oligarchs like Sheldon Adelson, Jeff Bezos, Charles Koch, David Koch, Robert Mercer and Rupert Murdoch are wielding enormous power at many levels of the political economy and social zeitgeist, while corporate America functions with expanding latitude and increasing impunity. The extreme concentrations of wealth and economic power equal extreme concentrations of political power.

"The fact of oligarchy" that Walter Karp cited at the end of the 1980s now looms larger than ever. In the next few years, reversing the catastrophic momentum will require finding ways to defeat the partisan right arm of oligarchic forces. Noam Chomsky is correct when he calls the present-day Republican Party "the most dangerous organization in world history."

Fighting the GOP right is only part of the imperative. We need an ongoing and escalating grass-roots challenge to the national leadership of the Democratic Party, which remains aligned with Wall Street and the warfare state. The tasks ahead involve strengthening progressive populist movements to gain power inside and outside of electoral arenas.

In 2018, whether the races are for U.S. House and Senate seats or for state offices, the path ahead will require fighting for progressive candidates in Democratic primaries and then fighting to defeat Republicans in general elections with Democratic nominees. There will simply be no other way to wrest majority control of Congress away from the Republican Party in the November 2018 election.

The chair of the California Democratic Party's Progressive Caucus, former union organizer Karen Bernal, has a long history of working inside and outside the party. As the author of a section of "Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis" (produced by a task force that I was part of), she wrote: "Social movements cannot be understood as tools to get Democrats elected. The ebb and flow of social movements offer a rising tide in their own right that along the way can lift Democratic Party candidates -- if the party is able to embrace the broad popular sentiment that the movements embody."

The report added: "The Democratic Party is badly positioned to present itself as a foe of the powerful forces causing widespread economic distress for working people, the poor and 'near poor,' the elderly, millennials, people of color -- in short, the party's purported base. Weakness of messaging is directly related to the comfort that corporate power enjoys not only in legislative halls across the nation but also within the party itself. Such corporate dominance prevents the party from truthfully projecting itself as an ally of the working class."

That must change.

While we see all too clearly how a lack of democracy can -- and does -- coexist with elections, it is inconceivable that we could have true democracy without elections. They'll be crucial for advancing a progressive agenda to end the undemocratic power of economic elites.

Polls throughout 2017 showed that the most popular politician in the country is Bernie Sanders, who has been denouncing the oligarchy for many years. No wonder The Washington Post -- owned by the richest person in the world, Jeff Bezos -- has gone to centrist extremes to disparage Sanders and what he stands for. The mortal threat to the oligarchy is a sustained groundswell that can propagate genuine democracy.

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By Laura Clawson

Losing candidate Roy Moore's conspiracy theory-laden temper tantrum, which was dismissed by a judge on Thursday, didn't stop Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill -- a conservative Republican -- from certifying Doug Jones, a Democrat and former KKK prosecutor, as the next senator from Alabama.

It took just a few minutes, several of them prayer, for the state canvassing board to formally certify Jones, who can now be sworn in when the Senate returns from recess.

This brings Democrats one improbable, beautiful step closer to retaking the Senate in 2018. Doug Jones being certified as the winner says we can do this thing. Sure, Roy Moore was a terrible candidate, but this is Alabama.

Alabama would have elected Roy Moore in a different national political climate. The 2018 Senate map is bad for Democrats, but this election was a sign we have to fight every step of the way because there is hope and we go into 2018 one seat closer to the majority than we expected.
From Consortium News



The United Nations logo in the General Assembly Hall.

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The U.N. General Assembly's rebuff of overt threats of economic retaliation from President Trump -- in the overwhelming repudiation of his decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem -- marked a rare show of independence from Washington. Despite President Trump's threats, the vote against the U.S. position was 128 to 9, with 35 abstentions.

I spoke about the significance of the vote with Professor Francis Boyle, a scholar and long-time pro-Palestinian activist, who has been deeply engaged in the Mideast peace process and various negotiations over the last 30 years. Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois' College of Law. He served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Dennis Bernstein: Before we jump into this, I would like people to know a little bit more about your background, because you're the perfect person to hit this subject at this time. Just say a little bit more about your work with the Palestinians.

Francis Boyle: Right. Well, starting in 1987, at [the Palestinians] request, I made a speech at the United Nations on the 20th anniversary of the Six-Day War. And, in this speech, I outlined to them an agenda for establishing their statehood, including, at some point, invoking the Uniting for Peace Resolution.

So, they liked what I had to say and asked me to write it up in a memo, which I did. You can read it in my book "Palestine, Palestinians and International Law." And they then carried out my recommendation in their Declaration of Independence of 15 November, 1988. And I was their legal adviser on all of that. My memorandum became their position paper. And I've worked with them since then.

Today, the State of Palestine is recognized du jour by 136 states, the last time I looked. And it also has U.N. observer state status now at the United Nations along the lines that Switzerland had before it became a full-fledged U.N. member state.

[...] And certainly the Palestinians have publicly stated that they can, at some point in the future, invoke the Uniting for Peace Resolution to obtain their admission to the United Nations as a full-fledged U.N. member state. They said that's next on the agenda. I guess we have to see what happens here. I really can't say, but they said they're renewing that struggle in January [2018], after the dust settles here.

DB: Okay, now let's talk about the significance of the vote today [Dec. 21], which has a lot to do with Jerusalem. And, talk about it, if you will, in the context of the Uniting for Peace procedure because this gives it more power or more of a focus.

FB: Well, that is correct. When Uniting for Peace started out, back during the days of the Korean War, the Soviet Union proceeded to exercise a veto. And the United States under Secretary of State Dean Acheson -- back in those days we controlled the General Assembly -- put forward the Uniting for Peace Resolution in the General Assembly to circumvent the Soviet veto. And then [the US] used it to impose fairly terrible economic sanctions against North Korea that continue until today.

And, over the years, the Uniting for Peace procedure was approved by the International Court of Justice in the [Unclear 05:48] advisory opinion in 1962. And I did, I was the one who informed the Palestinians about the Uniting for Peace procedure and that we need to go forward and use it. And they have used it.

And [the vote on Dec. 21] was yet another example. The mainstream news media is dismissing this as nothing more than symbolic. You know, Dennis, if it were nothing more than symbolic then why did Nikki Haley get up there and threaten to break the legs of everyone in the world, if they voted for it, and likewise, Trump make his thuggish threat, as well, at his last cabinet meetings? So it's far more than symbolic.

Under Uniting for Peace the General Assembly cannot require states to do anything. But they can certainly authorize them. And what happens here with this resolution under Uniting for Peace is that it really solidified the international consensus on Jerusalem. As you note, we discussed this before, when Trump announced his new policy, and invited other states to follow moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which it definitely is not, whether west Jerusalem or east Jerusalem.

And, this vote today really solidifies that international consensus. So that is a positive thing, but, obviously it's going to have to be followed up by more steps by the Palestinians. Again, my advice is the next stage here is to use United for Peace to have Palestine admitted to the U.N. itself. But, that's under consideration. We'll have to see what they do.

DB: And what, exactly, did that resolution say? It was reinforcing earlier Security Council resolutions. What exactly are we talking about here?

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Global Patient Flow Management Solutions Market is segmented on the basis of component as hardware, software and services, 2022

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Global Patient Flow Management Solutions Market is segmented on the basis of component as hardware, software and services. Patient Flow Management is the process that involves efficient managing of the patient flow information obtained from the inpatient, elective, emergency, outpatient and other hospital systems. This ultimately allows the operator to supervise the patient journey within the hospital from admission to discharge more effectively.Download free sample copy @With the utilization of these solutions, various actions like visualizing real time bed capacity and demand, checking patient status with a quick look and estimating the future demand all have become much simple with the help of a computer, mobile device as well as a touch screen journey board.It has been observed that patient flow management can tackle many challenges like deficiency of visibility of capacity to meet demand, overcrowding, imperfect visibility of patient status, bed block, poor discharge planning, ineffective inter departmental communication that are normally encountered by the market.The prominent factors that are contributing in boosting up the demand of patient flow management solutions include huge returns on investment through the adoption of the solutions, augmented demand for enhanced quality of care, increased emphasis on patient satisfaction, and rise in the incentives by various governments for the adoption of HCIT and patient flow management solutions.There are a number of advantages attached with the use of patient flow management solutions entailing cost reduction, augmented patient throughput, increased staff productivity, and potential to deal with large number of patients across the care continuum. They all are together fuelling the demand of these solutions.The only factors that are acting as major hurdles in the growth of the market include enormous investments, deficiency of skilled analysts, and increasing concerns about security of patient data.Global Patient Flow Management Solutions Market is segmented on the basis of delivery modes as web-based, on-premise, and cloud-based. Global Patient Flow Management Solutions Market is segmented on the basis of types as Real Time Locating System (RTLS) and event driven solutions. Global Patient Flow Management Solutions Market is segmented on the basis of products as standalone and integrated solutions. Global Patient Flow Management Solutions Market is segmented on the basis of geography as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World.Visit full report by the link @As far as the geographical region is concerned, North America is currently leading the market and is simultaneously accounting for the largest share in the market. On the other hand, Europe is also emerging as one of promising regions and is deemed as the second largest market across the world. Asia Pacific is also growing considerably, the reason being rising HCIT adoption, competence in IT skills, and development of healthcare sector in countries like India.The key players operating in the Patient Flow Management Solutions Market include Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc., TeleTracking Technologies, Inc., Epic Systems Corporation, LLC, Central Logic, Inc., McKesson Corporation, Medworxx Solutions, Inc., STANLEY Healthcare, Sonitor Technologies, Inc., Cerner Corporation, Awarepoint Corporation, Care Logistics, and Intelligent InSites, IncWho we areRadiant Insights is a market research and consulting company offering syndicated research studies, customized reports, and consulting services. Our market research studies are designed to facilitate strategic decision making, on the basis of extensive and in-depth quantitative information, supported by extensive analysis and industry insights.Contact Us201 Spear Street 1100, Suite 3036, San Francisco, CA 94105, United StatesTel : 1-415-349-0054Toll Free: 1-888-928-9744Mail: sales@radiantinsights.com
Hereditary Angioedema Treatment Market: Global Market Estimation, Dynamics, Regional Share, Trends, Competitor Analysis 2012-2016 and Forecast 2017-2023

Hereditary Angioedema Treatment Market

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Hereditary Angioedema Treatment Market: Global Market Estimation, Dynamics, Regional Share, Trends, Competitor Analysis 2012-2016 and Forecast 2017-2023Hereditary angioedema is an inherited condition characterized by re-occurant severe swelling. It affects arms, face, legs, airway and intestinal tract commonly. Having low level of C1 inhibitor, which is a protein that leads to excess activation of bradykinin which is a primary reason for angioedema. There are three types of hereditary angioedema Type-I, Type-II and Type-III. Type-I is characterised by low levels of C-1 inhibitor whereas Type -II characterised by normal or high levels of C-1 inhibitor. Type-III pathology is unknown. Usually symptoms will begin from puberty but may be seen even earlier. Minor trauma or stress may trigger the attack, however, swelling often occurs without a known trigger. Angioedema occurs in intestinal tract may lead to severe abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. Swelling in airway can obstruct passage of air and may lead to life threatening condition.Global hereditary angioedema treatment market is mainly driven by increase in R&D to treat angioedema. In addition, increase in prevalence and promising pipeline are expected to boost the hereditary angioedema treatment market. Furthermore, change in lifestyle, improved reimbursement infrastructure, and healthcare spending are expected to bolster the hereditary angioedema treatment market. However, high cost of prophylaxis and misdiagnosis of the condition are expected to hinder the hereditary angioedema treatment market during the forecast period.A sample of this report is available upon request @Hereditary angioedema treatment market has been segmented based on type, drug class, and distribution channelBase on type, hereditary angioedema treatment market is segmented into Type-I Type-II Type-IIIBased on drug class, hereditary angioedema treatment market is segmented into C1 esterase inhibitors Plasma kallikrein inhibitors (Ecallantide) Bradykinin receptor antagonists (Icatibant) Corticosteroids Antihistamines Autoimmune drugs Blood protein controllers Antifibrinolytic agentsBased on distribution channel, hereditary angioedema treatment market is segmented into Hospital Pharmacies Retail Pharmacies OthersTo view TOC of this report is available upon request @Hereditary angioedema treatment market has expected to show healthy growth rate during forecast period. The market has many promising pipeline drugs and prophylaxis to treat hereditary angioedema. For instance, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals is in the process of developing a lead molecule known as BCX7353 to prevent an angioedema that attacks especially the patients suffering from hereditary angioedema and it has completed phase-II clinical trials. BioCryst pharmaceuticals received initial regulatory approvals in Europe to initiate the ZENITH-1 (clinical trail to study BCX7353) exploratory clinical trial in 2017. Shire plc is also conducting a post marketing investigation of drug Firazyr in countries where it is approved for hereditary angioedema attacks. Collaborations and acquisitions are key market strategies adopted by the market players. Companies also collaborating with research and non-profit organizations for better outcomes in treatment. For instance, in April 2017, PatientsLikeMe, a patient network and real-time research platform and Shire plc have announced a new collaboration that will support the development of a patient-centered, real world health learning system that expands understanding of patient health and disease. Licensing is also a key strategy in hereditary treatment market. For instance, in August 2016, Pharming Group NV, acquired back all North American commercialization rights to ruconest from Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.Need more information about this report @Geographically hereditary angioedema treatment market segmented into following regions viz. North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America expected to grow at significant growth rate due to lifestyle changes, increase in prevalence and growth in the diagnosis of hereditary angioedema in U.S. region. According to WHO, incidence rate of HAE is 1/10,00050,000 people in United States and Canada in 2015 and Mortality rates are estimated as 1533%. Asia-Pacific expected to be fastest growing owing to increase in awareness about the disease conditions, developing healthcare infrastructure and lifestyle changes.Some of the players in hereditary angioedema treatment market are BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (U.S), CSL Limited (Australia), Pharming Group NV (Netherlands), Salix Pharmaceuticals (U.S), and Shire (Republic of Ireland) to name a few.Get access to full summary @About Precision Business InsightsPrecision Business Insights is one of the leading market research and business consulting firm, which follow a holistic approach to solve needs of the clients. We adopt and implement proven research methodologies to achieve better results. We help our clients by providing actionable insights and strategies to make better decisions. We provide consulting, syndicated and customised market research services based on our client needs.Contact to Precision Business Insights,Kemp House,152  160 City Road,London EC1V 2NXEmail: sales@precisionbusinessinsights.comToll Free (US): +1-866-598-1553Website @
Two Republican state lawmakers, Sen. Frank Lasee and Rep. Keith Ripp, are resigning to take posts in the administration of Gov. Scott Walker.

Lasee, R-De Pere, is taking a job at the Department of Workforce Development, while Ripp, R-Lodi, will join the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, or DATCP.

Lasee and Ripp said their resignations would be effective Friday and theyll start the new jobs next week.

A spokesman for Walker said special elections will not be held for the seats, meaning theyll be vacant for more than a year and filled after the November 2018 election  at which time they already were set to be on the ballot.

State law says if a legislative vacancy occurs before the second Tuesday in May in a year in which a regular election is held to fill that seat, it shall be filled as promptly as possible by special election.

But Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said the governors decision not to hold special elections for the seats is consistent with the statute.

The statute requiring a special applies if a vacancy occurs in the year of the regularly scheduled election. Since Sen. Lasee and Rep. Ripp resigned in 2017, special elections are not required, Evenson wrote in an email.

Evenson added that staffers for Lasee and Ripp would continue to work throughout 2018 to handle constituent service.

Elections Commission administrator Michael Haas said hes not aware of any past legal challenges to a governors handling of this requirement.

Somebody would have to force the issue legally if they objected to a governors interpretation of when the requirement applies and how quickly the vacancies would need to be filled, Haas said.

Even if Walker did call a special election, the soonest it could be held would be April 3, with a primary, if needed, on Feb. 20, according to Haas.

In a typical session, state lawmakers conduct little, if any, business after April in even-numbered years.

Ripp will make $105,000 as Assistant Deputy Secretary at DATCP, serving under Secretary Sheila Harsdorf, a fellow Republican who recently left the state Senate to take that job. Lasee will make $101,000 in his new role as Division Administrator for Workers Compensation.

The annual salary for a state legislator is $50,950.

Ripp represents a rural district north of Madison that includes Fox Lake, Lodi, Poynette and Randolph. In office since 2009, Ripp is chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee.

Lasee, who has served since 2011, represents a far northeastern corner of the state including Door and Kewaunee counties, Two Rivers and parts of the Green Bay and Appleton areas. He is chairman of the Senate Insurance, Housing and Trade committee.

Democrats, riding high from electoral successes in elections in other states this year, may view the open seats as pickup opportunities in 2018.

Democrats are ready to fight to take back seats in every corner of the state, including Senate District 1, whether Gov. Walker decides to call a special election or to leave thousands of voters without representation for months, said Jenni Dye, who directs the campaign arm of state Senate Democrats.

But neither district would be an easy get for Democrats. Both districts voted solidly for GOP President Donald Trump in 2016: Assembly District 42 by a 54-40 percent margin, and Senate District 1, 56-38.

The departures of Ripp and Lasee bring the number of vacant legislative seats to five, with four of them having been held by Republicans.

Three of the seats are set to be filled by special elections on Jan. 16. They are for Senate District 10, the seat vacated by Harsdorf, R-River Falls; Assembly District 58, vacated as a result of the death of Rep. Bob Gannon, R-West Bend; and Assembly District 66, vacated by Democratic Rep. Cory Mason, who was elected mayor of Racine.
Top Rated Web Design Company Is Doing Something Nobody Else In The Industry Will Do For Their Clients

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Getting a website has never been so hassle free; Internet Solutions For Less is a San Diego, CA Web Design Company that is changing the industry forever and changing the public perception about Web Design Companies.At Internet Solutions For Less, they started their company hoping to put a stop to all of the people being burned by (so-called) web designers, in fact it is their opening tag line on their company site; Why pay thousands for a high quality custom website when it should cost well under $500?Lets face it, the traditional web design process is broken, it takes way too long and is often very overpriced and stressful to someone who has never had a website built previously. It is just sad how many pretend full time web designers are out there charging ridiculous fees for a website, but more importantly taking large deposits and then disappearing because they do not have the experience or education to deliver what the client wants. Or they just told the client exactly what they wanted to hear during initial conversations will no intent of meeting the expectations that were set with the client.This type of shady business practice has tainted the reputation of Web Designers and led to many people trying to build a site on their own which rarely gets finished, instead of letting a professional handle it.Unlike many in their industry, they are a full time company available Mon  Fri from 8:30am  5:30pm. Internet Solutions For Less does not just do websites on the side or in the evening like many online Web Design Companies. As a client, you have their full support staff backing you five days a week with same day response time to support any business goal.Fortunately, they have made the web design process so much easier. Now in their 12th year as a company, they are so confident in our product, their process and their staff, that they do not charge a dime until a client is 100% satisfied with their website. Nobody in the web design industry is doing this, but all of the scammers have forced their hand and it actually has worked out great for our clients and us.Internet Solutions For Less clients do not have to spend a bunch of upfront money for a deposit and fear they will not deliver. They put their reputation on the line immediately upon working with a new client and within a few business days have a full mock up designed for client on a private link, obligation free. If the client is not happy with the result, they agree to part ways and move on. This fortunately very rarely happens otherwise they would probably not be in business to this day.So no longer does there have to be a fear that getting a website will be a nightmare. Nor will you have to do one of those build-it-yourself websites that end up looking like a middle school student built the website.Visit their online portfolio to see the quality of work they produce.Internet Solutions For Less is a professional and affordable web design firm that specializes in website design and hosting solutions for small to medium sized businesses. Our desire is to provide top notch service to all of our customers. Internet Solutions For Less has over 15 years of web design experience. We have developed over 1,000 websites and have also maintained hundreds of other websites we did not originally build.Our specialty is providing businesses with the tools and expertise to accomplish their goals. Whether its an Ecommerce web design solution, or an affordable small business website, we can be your one stop shop.Internet Solutions For Lessc/o EJ O'Neill607 Sunset DriveVista, CA 92081
Hybrid Operating Room Market Trends, Analysis, Growth and Forecast, 2023

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Hybrid operating rooms are equipped with fixed imaging systems that allow physicians to perform high-risk minimally invasive endovascular procedures with real-time imaging guidance and, if needed, convert them instantly to open surgery use. Hybrid operating room makes it possible to simultaneously reach a diagnosis and provide treatment during surgical interventions. The global hybrid operating room market is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period (2017-2023), in emerging economies, such as China and India, due to large population of these countries. A hybrid OR (operating room) is an alternative to conventional OR equipped with advanced medical imaging systems and devices supporting high quality interventional imaging and minimally invasive surgeries.Explore Report Sample at:On the basis of type of device, the hybrid operating room market is segmented into surgical imaging displays, operating room communication systems, operating room lights, intraoperative diagnostic devices, operating tables and surgical booms. Intraoperative diagnostics devices held the largest share of the global market in 2016 and also acts as a major driver for hybrid operating room market due to the increasing use of various machines such as 3D ultrasound and MRI, significant installation costs associated with diagnostic imaging products, increasing installation of hybrid ORs across major countries, ongoing integration and automation of OR workflows, and continuous technological advancements in the field of diagnostic imaging.Increasing adoption of minimally invasive surgeries, technological advancements, high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, increasing healthcare expenditure and growing preferences of patient for affordable & effective surgical treatments are the major key factors driving the growth of hybrid operating room industry.As per the statistics reported by the World Heart Federation, over 17.3 million people die worldwide from cardio vascular diseases each year and the number is estimated to cross 23 million, by 2030.Explore Report at:North America accounted for the largest share of the global hybrid operating room market in 2016, followed by Europe, due to the significant investments by hospitals to upgrade their operating rooms, coupled with the increasing number of surgical procedures and ambulatory surgery centers in the region. Asia-Pacific is expected to register the highest growth rate during the forecast period, due to the rapid growth in the healthcare expenditure in emerging APAC countries such as China and India, which is expected to support the adoption of advanced surgical & diagnostic technologies in their respective healthcare systems during the forecast period.In August 2016, GE Healthcare, entered into partnership with Swedish medical device firm Getinge Group, and launched a highly flexible angiography solution for hybrid operating room (OR) procedures. This solution combined GEs Discovery IGS 730 angiography system with Getinge Group Maquet brands Magnus operating table system, which broadened the capabilities and services available in Hybrid OR. This partnership aimed at complementing GEs unique mobile gantry technology to fit the needs of any virtual surgery and interventional specialty.P&S Market Research is a market research company, which offers market research and consulting services for various geographies around the globe. We provide market research reports, industry forecasting reports, business intelligence, and research based consulting services across different industry/business verticals.As one of the top growing market research agency, were keen upon providing market landscape and accurate forecasting. Our analysts and consultants are proficient with business intelligence and market analysis, through their interaction with leading companies of the concerned domain. We help our clients with B2B market research and assist them in identifying various windows of opportunity, and framing informed and customized business expansion strategies in different regions.Contact:P&S Market ResearchManager  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Fucoxanthin Market Research Report 2017

Global Fucoxanthin Market Research Report 2017

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The Global Fucoxanthin Market Research Report 2017 is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Fucoxanthin industry.Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Fucoxanthin Industry analysis is provided for the international market including development history, competitive landscape analysis, and major regions development status.Secondly, development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures. This report also states import/export, supply and consumption figures as well as cost, price, revenue and gross margin by regions (United States, EU, China and Japan), and other regions can be added.Then, the report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, capacity, production, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials, equipment and downstream consumers analysis is also carried out. Whats more, the Fucoxanthin industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.In a word, the report provides major statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Fucoxanthin in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Fucoxanthin market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingOryza Oil&Fat ChemicalPoliNatAmicogenNutraceuticalsYigeda Bio-TechnologyCiyuan BiotechTianhong Biotech...On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoUV SeriesHPLC SeriesOn 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, includingFood IndustryCosmetic IndustryOthersAsk a complete & professional report sample or make an order, please click here:Table of contents:1 FucoxanthinMarket Overview2 Global Fucoxanthin Market Competition by Manufacturers3 Global Fucoxanthin Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)4 Global Fucoxanthin Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)5 Global Fucoxanthin Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type6 Global Fucoxanthin Market Analysis by Application7 Global Fucoxanthin Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis8 Fucoxanthin Manufacturing Cost Analysis9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11 Market Effect Factors Analysis12 Global Fucoxanthin Market Forecast (2017-2022)13 Research Findings and Conclusion14 AppendixRelated Reports:Europe Fucoxanthin Market Research Report 2017China Fucoxanthin Market Research Report 2017India Fucoxanthin Market Research Report 2017Korea Fucoxanthin Market Research Report 2017USA Fucoxanthin Market Research Report 2017Japan Fucoxanthin Market Research Report 2017Contact Details:Company Name: QYResearch CO.,LIMITED | focus on Market Survey and ResearchTina| Sales ManagersTel: 0086-20-22093278(CN)Email: sales@qyresearchglobal.com or tinaning@qyresearch.comWeb:QYResearch established in 2007, focus on custom research, management consulting, IPO consulting, industry chain research, data base cand seminar services. The company owned a large basic data base (such as National Bureau of statistics database, Customs import and export database, Industry Association Database etc), experts resources (included energy automotive chemical medical ICT consumer goods etc industries experts who own more than 10 years experiences on marketing or R&D), professional survey team (the team member with more than 3 years market survey experience and more than 2 years depth expert interview experience),Excellent data analysis team (SPSS statistics and PPT graphics process team); QYResearch has always pursuit product quality, adhere to the quality is the soul of business.Room 2901 VILI International Building No.167 Linhe West Road
Biodiesel Catalyst Market Size  Growth, Latest Trend & Forecast 2025

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"The Latest Research Report Biodiesel Catalyst Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017  2025 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Biodiesel can be used as alternative fuel for diesel engines. It is made from recycled cooking oil, soybean oil, and animal fat. Biodiesel is produced through a chemical process called transesterification. Soybean oil can also be substituted with straight vegetable oil, palm oil, or rapeseed oil. The transesterification reaction results in two products: biodiesel and glycerin (byproduct).Straight vegetable oil can directly be used as a substitute for fossil diesel. However, it is relatively viscous and leads to poor atomization of fuel, incomplete combustion, choking of fuel injectors, and accumulation of fuel in lubricating oil. A catalyst, which can either be an acid or a base, performs the function of accelerating the transesterification reaction without actually participating in it.Get Sample Copy of this report @Three basic routes can be employed to produce biodiesel from oils and fat: base catalyzed transesterification of oil, direct acid catalyzed transesterification of oil, and conversion of oil to fatty acids and then to biodiesel. However, base catalyzed transesterification of oil is the commonly used method to produce biodiesel. This process is also economical and requires low temperatures and pressures. During the process, the alcohol reacts with fatty acids to produce biodiesel, which is chemically a mono-alkyl ester and crude glycerol. Methyl ester and ethyl ester are the commonly used biodiesel. Either sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide can be used as a catalyst for the production of methyl ester biodiesel. However, potassium hydroxide is more suitable for the production of ethyl ester biodiesel.Biodiesel offers several advantages. For instance, it is rapidly biodegradable and completely non-toxic. The net output of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide after combustion of biodiesel is also negligible. Therefore, biodiesel is described as being carbon neutral. Biodiesel reduces greenhouse gas emission by at least 57% and up to 86% compared to petroleum diesel. This makes it one of the practical and cost-effective ways to address climate change. Biodiesel is made from natural renewable resources. It is non-toxic and biodegrades quickly. Thus, use of biodiesel reduces human dependence on imported fuel and lowers the harsh effects of greenhouse gases on the environment. Biodiesel catalysts are easily available and their price is also fairly comparable. Handling biodiesel catalysts is easy, since the catalysts and reactants are in the same phase. These advantages coupled with the increase in need to make use of biodiesel as fuel is expected to boost the biodiesel catalyst market in the next few years.Homogeneous catalysts used in the production of biodiesel face certain disadvantages. When acid catalyst is used, water gets formed during acid esterification. This hampers the process, thereby adding to the cost. Sulfuric acid and sodium methylate, if used as catalysts, are corrosive. Thus, they are difficult to handle. Sodium methylate poses handling problems, as it absorbs moisture. Thus, it has to be continuously kept under a nitrogen blanket. These minor drawbacks are likely to hamper the biodiesel catalyst market in the near future.View Report @Based on type, the biodiesel catalyst market can be bifurcated into homogeneous catalysts, which were traditionally used in the transesterification reaction for producing biodiesel; and heterogeneous catalysts, which are currently being used for producing biodiesel. Homogeneous catalysts function in a single, uniform phase (liquid, gaseous, etc.) as a reactant. Usually, homogeneous catalyst is dissolved in the solvent. In case of heterogeneous catalysts, the phase of the catalyst and the reactant are different. Heterogeneous catalysts usually exist in the solid state. These heterogeneous catalysts act on the substrate in a liquid or gaseous reaction mixture. Homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts can be classified into acid catalyst and base catalyst. Sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide are used as alkaline homogeneous catalysts. In cases involving high content of free fatty acids during biodiesel production, sulfuric acid is used as a catalyst during the esterification process, while sodium methylate is employed as a catalyst during transesterification.Several improvements are being carried out to improve the performance of biodiesel catalysts. For instance, JatroDiesel has developed heterogeneous catalysts, which are recyclable. These heterogeneous catalysts provide significant cost and operational advantage.Based on geography, the biodiesel catalyst market can be segmented into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. The biodiesel catalyst market is seen to provide job opportunities in numerous sectors like agriculture, chemicals, biotechnology and many more in developing nations in India and China. This is assumed to boost up the biodiesel catalyst market in Asia Pacific. Abundant availability of rapeseed oil is anticipated to propel the biodiesel catalyst market in Europe. Rise in technological advancements is estimated to offer lucrative opportunities to the biodiesel catalyst market in North America in the near future.Key players operating in the biodiesel catalyst market include Evonik Industries, BASF Corporation, TSS Group, Dupont, DOW Chemical Company, Albemarle Corporation, Sud-Chemie Chemicals.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Send An Enquiry Request @The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketCheck Discount This Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.State Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Decorative Cosmetic Ingredient Market Size  Growth, Latest Trend & Forecast 2025

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"The Latest Research Report Decorative Cosmetic Ingredient Market- Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2025 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Decorative Cosmetic Ingredient Market: IntroductionCosmetics are material or substances aimed for cleaning, beautification, enhancing the attractiveness and appearance or for improving the skin and hair condition. However, decorative cosmetics are used to enhance the appearance of an individual which include eyes, face, toe nails and finger nails, thus making them more attractive hence boosting their confidence. Decorative cosmetics includes products such as foundation creams, nail polishes, lipsticks, mascaras, pressed powders etc. Furthermore, the growing demand for beauty products has resulted in an increased visibility of decorative cosmetics products especially in the markets of developing and underdeveloped economies which have boosted the growth of the decorative cosmetic ingredient market. In developed market key players are differentiating themselves through their target demographics, pricing and are launching products which contain more natural content and are not tested on animals, as consumers are becoming more conscious of the ingredient and their effect and impact on the environment and society. Moreover, developed market such as Europe and North America, consumers are choosing product with peer review of the raw material & its origin and at the same time are expecting highest level of effectiveness and innovation in the product which has resulted in an increased demand for natural decorative cosmetic ingredients thus driving the growth of decorative cosmetic ingredient market over the forecast period.Get Sample Copy of this report @Decorative Cosmetic Ingredient Market SegmentationGlobal Decorative Cosmetic Ingredient market can be segmented on the basis ingredient type, end use application, and region. On the basis of ingredient type, decorative cosmetic ingredient market is segmented into filler, pigments, binders, glitters, thickeners, film formers, powders and others. On the basis of end-use application, decorative cosmetic ingredient market is segmented into nails, face, eyes, and lips.Decorative Cosmetic Ingredient Market: Regional OutlookOn the basis of geography, the Decorative Cosmetic Ingredient market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and MEA. Globally, among all regions, Asia Pacific is expected to be the largest market owing to high consumption of cosmetics, which is then closely followed by Europe and then North America. Europe is expected hold substantial market share over the forecast period owing high penetration of decorative cosmetics and region being the fashion hub of the world. In addition, Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness significant growth over the forecast period owing to the increasing demand for decorative cosmetics in luxury, mass market and professional sectorsDecorative Cosmetic Ingredient Market: DynamicsThe decorative cosmetic industry is growing rapidly owing to increasing product advertisement by various popular personalities on the social media as they are considered role models among millennials and generation z. Furthermore, social media focuses on appearance, presentation, and self-expressions which have resulted in an increased consumption of decorative cosmetics, especially among the younger generation. Furthermore, attributed to the increased connectivity among individuals through social media, the younger generation is reinventing fashion and are creating new trends. The demand for high quality decorative cosmetic products coupled with changing lifestyle and increasing per capita spending on cosmetic products especially in developing and emerging countries of Asia Pacific and Latin America is anticipated to drive the market of global decorative cosmetic ingredient over the forecast period. In addition, key players are offering decorative cosmetic products with added health benefits to cater the growing demand in developed market thus catalyzing the growth of decorative cosmetics ingredient market, for instance L'Oreal S.A which is a French cosmetics company offers Lumi Healthy Luminus Makeup under its brand True Match which offers antioxidants, vitamin and UV protection. However, stringent government regulation on the ingredients and increasing trends of makeup free look is anticipated to restrain the growth of decorative cosmetic ingredient market over the forecast period.View Report @Decorative Cosmetic Ingredient Market Key Player:Some of the major players operating in decorative cosmetic ingredient market includes BASF SE, Azelis S.A., Behn Meyer Holding AG, Ashland Inc, DuPont, The Dow Chemical Co. and other regional players.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)Send An Enquiry Request @The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketCheck Discount This Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Spinal Fusion Devices Market value projected to expand by 2025

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The global spinal fusion devices market is a competitive one with presence of several small as well as large players, says Transparency Market Research (TMR) in a new report. The primary growth strategy adopted by key players include strategic acquisitions and product launches to establish their presence in this competitive market. For instance, in October 2017, NuVasive obtained U.S. FDA 510 (k) clearance for Tlx interbody system employed in Tlif procedures. Following this, in the same month, the company launched Lateral ALIF, XLIF, Crestline, and Lateral MAS Fixation devices to make a mark in lateral single-position surgery offerings.Prominent participants in the global spinal fusion devices market include Stryker Corporation, NuVasive Inc., Globus Medical Inc., Orthofix International N.V., Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc., Medtronic plc, K2M Group Holdings Inc., Alphatec Holdings Inc., Exactech Inc., Depuy Synthes, B. Braun Melsungen AG, , and Titan Spine LLC.Request to view Sample Report:As per a report by TMR, the global spinal fusion devices market is estimated to become worth US$10,965.7 mn by 2025 vis-a-vis revenue expanding at a CAGR of 4.65% between 2017 and 2025.Among the key product type segments, thoraco-lumbar fixation devices led the market in 2016; going forward the segment is anticipated to lead in terms of revenue over the forecast period. In terms of surgery, open surgery dominated the market in 2016. However, minimally-invasive surgery is likely to surpass open surgery in terms of CAGR over the forecast period. Geography-wise, North America emerged as a lucrative market holding the leading market share in 2016. The region is anticipated to hold on to its dominant position in terms of revenue over the forecast period.High Incidence of Spine Disorders in the U.S. Benefits MarketThe key growth drivers of the global spinal fusion devices market include increasing number of people suffering from back pain and the rising incidence of spinal disorders which is mainly age-related and due to sedentary lifestyle of individuals. According to statistics of the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of individuals above the age of 65 years in the U.S. is estimated to be over 16.7% of the total population in 2050. The rising obesity due to sedentary lifestyles and high consumption of foods made of refined flour also account as significant factors for spinal disorders. This requires spinal fusion devices for correction of these disorders either through invasive or non-invasive procedures.Further, according to World Health Organization, more than 80-90% of American population is affected by degenerative spine diseases, which is expressed in the form of minor to severe mobility limitations. This has led to a considerable rise in the number of spinal fusion procedures that are performed annually in the U.S.View Report @About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Coating Equipment Market Analysis, Technologies & Forecasts Report 2016-2022

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Global Coating Equipment Market Information Report by Type (Liquid Coating Equipment, Powder Coating Equipment, and Specialty Coating Equipment), by End-user (Automotive, Aerospace, Industrial, and Construction) and by Region - Global Forecast to 2022Market ScenarioA coating is also known as substrate which is applied to the surface of any object. Coating has different purpose, it may be used for decorative, functional or for both. The equipment which is used for covering the surface of an object is known as coating equipment. Coating can be all-over coating, full covered surface or a part of substrate. The coating equipment includes resourcing of raw material, manufacturing and supply of coating equipment. The market is expected to cross USD 20 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of approximately 5% for the forecasted period.On the basis of type, powder coating is expected to grow at a highest CAGR for the forecast period because it is the most common type which is applied to the metal surface. On the basis of end-user, industrial sector is expected to lead the coating equipment market by 2022. The demand for the coating equipment in the industrial segment is fueling up due to the increasing use of coating in heavy machinery. Asia-Pacific is expected to account for the largest market share for the forecast period.Get Sample of Report @Regional Analysis of Global Coating Equipment MarketThe global Coating Equipment Market can be geographically segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC) and Rest of the World (ROW). Asia-Pacific is expected to dominate the global coating equipment market. In Asia-Pacific, China accounts for the largest market share and is expected to be highest during the forecast period. This is due to the increase in demand from various industrial products and consumer goods.Key PlayersThe key players of global coating equipment market are Nordson Corporation (U.S.), Anest Iwata (Japan), Graco Inc. (U.S.), O.C. Oerlikon (Switzerland), IHI Ionbond AG (Switzerland), and SATA GmbH & Co. KG. (Germany).Intended Audience Coating equipment manufacturers Distributer & Supplier companies End Users consultants and Investment bankers Government as well as Independent Regulatory AuthoritiesEnquiry before Buying @Ask for your specific company profile and country level customization on reports.The report for Global Coating Equipment 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.Access Full Report@About Us:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Akash Anand,Market Research FuturePune  411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone No. :+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Veterinary Chemistry Analyzer Market 2017 Share, Trend, Segmentation and Forecast

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Growing prevalence of zoonotic diseases is projected to boost demand for veterinary chemistry analyzer globally. In addition, increasing demand to test animal-derived food products is projected to impact the global market growth of veterinary chemistry analyzers positively. Transparency Market Research states that the global market of veterinary chemistry analyzer is projected to reflect a CAGR of 7.8% over the forecast period, 2017-2022Request to view Sample Report:Factors Fuelling Global Market GrowthGrowth of the global veterinary chemistry analyzers market is mainly bound to various macro-economic and micro-economic factors. Increasing population of various animals is projected to impact the global market growth of veterinary chemistry analyzer. Surge in the pet adoption is further expected to fuel demand for pet insurance and healthcare maintenance. Moreover, prevalence of diseases has further led to increasing awareness about animal healthcare globally. With the increasing awareness related to animal healthcare, demand for veterinary chemical analyzers is likely to contribute towards the global market growth. Surge in demand for animal healthcare has further led to growing number of practitioners in the veterinary hospitals and clinics. Growing need to maintain animal healthcare is projected to rev up the sales of veterinary chemical analyzer in the global market.Growing need for conducting the hematology tests will further continue to impact the global market growth over the forecast period. As requirement for delivering accurate results and maximizing the testing facilities arises, sales for veterinary chemistry analyzer is likely to remain high globally. Increasing preference to consume animal derived edible products is further expected to boost demand for veterinary chemistry analyzer in the food industry. With the growing need to eliminate the illegal residue and contamination increases, demand for veterinary chemical analyzers is projected to increase. Imposition of regulations by FDA regarding the elimination of illegal residue and contamination in the animal food product is projected to impact the global market growth of veterinary chemistry analyzers positively. Veterinary chemistry analyzers are further used for testing various animal derived medications and prevalence of zoonotic diseases. Increasing demand for testing prevalence of various diseases in the animals is projected to contribute towards the global market growth of veterinary chemistry analyzers over the forecast period.Demand for veterinary chemistry analyzer continues to gain momentum in the global market bound to increasing prevalence of zoonotic diseases globally. A recent study by CDC reveals that tens of thousands of the Americans will fall sick due to the zoonotic diseases, which are diseases that spread between the people and animals. E.Coli infections, dengue, salmonella infection, malaria and chikungunya are some common zoonotic diseases. WHO recently revealed that malaria caused 429,000 deaths and 212 million clinical incidences in 2015. With the growing need for the control measures for zoonotic diseases increases, sales of veterinary chemistry analyzer is projected to increase significantly. Increasing demand for cheap and convenient rapid diagnostic test is projected to fuel the global market growth positively.Sales to Remain High for Consumable ProductsIncreasing preference for the edible animal derived products has led to an upsurge in demand for consumable products in the global market. Based on product type, the glucometer segment is projected to reflect a robust CAGR through 2022. In terms of revenue, the consumable product type segment is projected to represent a significant growth, recording more than US$ 180 Mn by 2022-end. Representing the fastest growth, the veterinary hospitals application segment is projected to represent more around US$ 180 Mn by 2017-end.Market PlayersMajor players in the global market of veterinary chemistry analyzer are Alfa Wassermann, Inc., Abaxis, Inc., Arkray, Inc., Biochemical Systems International Srl, Diasys Diagnostic Systems GmbH, Chengdu Seamaty Technology Co., Ltd., Eurolyser Diagnostica GmbH, Elitechgroup, Idexx Laboratories, Inc., Randox Laboratories Ltd.View Report @About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Automotive Connectors Market, Share, Analysis, Trend, challenges, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022

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Global Automotive Connectors Market Information Report by Product (Voice Control, Central Display, Instrument Cluster, HUD, Others), By Technology (Visual, Acoustic) and By Region - Forecast To 2022Market ScenarioConnectors are electromechanical components essential for connecting electrical circuits together. In automotive industry, the connectors are used in the automotive-oriented equipment to connect electrical devices and wires.The global Automotive Connectors Market is majorly driven by rise in the security needs in the automobile. Connectors are used in a majority of security systems in automobiles. With the increase in theft of automobiles, there is an increased need of security systems in the automotive, which further leads to the growth of the automotive connectors market. With the booming smart car industry, the use of connectors in the smart cars is increasing. This leads to the growth of the automotive connectors market. The increase in electrification in the vehicles is also expected to drive the demand of the automotive connectors market in the region.Get Sample of Report @Segmentation of Automotive Connectors MarketBy Connection Type Wire To Wire Wire To Board Board To BoardBy System Type Sealed UnsealedBy Application Body Control & Interiors Engine Control & Cooling System OthersRegional Analysis of Automotive Connectors MarketAsia-Pacific is expected to dominate the global automotive connectors market due the boom in manufacturing of vehicles in developing nations such as India and china and the evolution of concept & increase in manufacturing of electric vehicles. In Europe region, the rise in strict government regulations for the safety of automotive and passengers and the increase in safety concerns amongst the consumers is contributing to the growth of the automotive connectors market in the Europe region.Intended Audience Automotive connectors manufacturers Distributer & Supplier companies End Users Consultants and Investment bankers Government as well as Independent Regulatory AuthoritiesKey PlayersThe key players of Automotive connectors market are TE Connectivity (Switzerland), Delphi Automotive (U.K.), Yazaki Corporation (Japan), Sumitomo Electric (Japan), Japan Aviation Electronics Industry (Japan), Amphenol Corporation (U.S.), Hirose Electric Co., Ltd. (Japan), Hu Lane Associates Inc. (Taiwan), Korea Electric Terminal Co. Ltd. (South Korea), Kyocera Corporation (Japan) and others.Enquiry before Buying @BRIEF TOC:1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY3. MARKET DYNAMICS4. GLOBAL MARKET SEGMENTATION5. REGIONAL MARKET ANALYSIS6. COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS7. CONCLUSION8. LIST OF TABLES9. LIST OF FIGURESThe report for Global Automotive Connectors 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.Access Full Report @About Us:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have 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 , regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Akash Anand,Market Research FuturePune  411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone No. :+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Food-grade Alcohol Market Size and Forecast 2025 - Current Trends, Opportunities, Challenges

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"The Latest Research Report Food-grade Alcohol Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Alcohol, also known as ethanol, is a versatile product with applications ranging from food and pharmaceutical to industrial solvents. The food industry is a key user of alcohol. Alcohol is employed in the manufacturing of vinegar, flavours & extracts, candy glazes, food dyes, yeast, animal-feed supplements, and various food sprays. Commonly, a major difference between productions of fuel-grade ethanol and food-grade ethanol is the addition of a small amount of solvent or gasoline to the fuel-grade ethanol in order to make it undrinkable. The process of alcohol production does not necessarily employ food-grade equipment. The remaining process for alcohol production is mostly similar. There are three types of food grade alcohol: Industrial-grade ethanol, either fermentation or synthetic origin, which has most of the impurities removed, FCC (food chemical codex)-grade ethanol, which includes heavy metal specification limits and GNS (grain neutral spirits, highly pure-grade ethanol, which is used in beverages).Get Sample Copy of this report @Food-grade Alcohol Market: Drivers and RestraintsRising population and rapid urbanization facilitated the need for quality food products. Moreover, food grade alcohol is utilized for food preservation. These factors are estimated to drive the food grade alcohol market during the forecast period. However, stringent government regulations regarding the quality of food grade alcohol are anticipated to restrain the market to some extent in the near future. Alcohol-flavored food products are likely to provide lucrative opportunities for food grade alcohol in the near future.Food-grade Alcohol Market: SegmentationIn terms of source, the food grade alcohol market can be segmented into:Grain-basedMolasses-basedOthers (synthetic, etc.)Food grade alcohol is often molasses-based with a minimum of 94% to 99.99% volume/volume ratio. Food grade ethanol is commonly manufactured by using traditional methods, which include milling, fermentation, and distillation. In dry milling process, grains such as corn are crushed, mixed with enzymes and water, and heated. The liquid starch mash is further enzymatically treated in order to produce sugar. The produced sugars are fermented with the usage of yeast to yield carbon dioxide and ethanol. After the complete fermentation of the mash, it is distilled and further concentrated to produce ethanol. However, in wet milling, a similar process is employed, excluding the step where the grain is first immersed in dilute acid and water to enable separation of the grain into its components. Ethanol is required as a separating agent, cleaning agent, and also as a direct raw material in numerous food applications. Food grade alcohol serves as a natural preservative, not only in the production of food products but also in food packaging due to its unique characteristics.Food-grade Alcohol Market: Region-wise outlookIn the U.S., nearly 92% of alcohol consumed in a year is utilized for fuel applications, approximately 4% is consumed by food and beverage applications, with the remaining 4% as industrial chemicals and solvents. Asia Pacific held a majority share of the global food grade alcohol market in 2016 due to increasing demand from the food & beverage industry in the region. China and India are anticipated to considerably contribute to the development of the Asia Pacific food grade alcohol market. The food-grade alcohol markets in Europe, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa are estimated to expand at a sluggish rate during the forecast period.View Report @Food-grade Alcohol Market: Key PlayersKey players operating in the global food grade alcohol market include:Archer Daniels MidlandWilmar InternationalMGP IngredientsCargillThe report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)Send An Enquiry Request @The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketCheck Discount This Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Automotive Garage Equipment Market: Wheel and Tire Segments to Hold Major Market Share During 2017 - 2027

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The report on Global Automotive Garage Equipment Market has been added to Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE)s extensive research repository. The report also profiles the market volume and value to understand the scope of the present and future status of the market. Based on various research process, the report reveals the various factors governing the growth of the global automotive garage equipment market. Also, the report reveals various other angles that showcase the market dynamics that impact the development of the automotive garage equipment market, globally. Additionally, the study reveals the key aspects which will hamper the growth of this market and drive which will increase the growth rate.Request For Free Sample Report @Global Automotive Garage Equipment Market: Report OutlineThe research report evaluated from various research process to collect significant in-depth insights of the market. the secondary research are evaluated by preferring the primary research activities, market observer, key outlook from the particular domain, and various external font are also considered. The secondary research starts with the wide ranging aspects which include all the approaches of the worldwide automotive garage market. To check the accuracy of the data, it is crosschecked after each and every primary interview to attain maximum probability of the validation of data and statistics. This will further add to the reliability of the data and statistics which is presented in systematic order for the convenience of the reader, along with that the report also help in formulating important business strategies and for further expansion of the market around the world.Global Automotive Garage Equipment Market: Segmental Analysis & Regional OutlookThe report segments the global automotive garage equipment market on account of region, garage type, vehicle type, and equipment TypeOn the basis of region, the global market for automotive garage equipment market is bifurcated into Japan, the Middle East & Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Latin America, and North AmericaBased on equipment type, the worldwide market for global automotive garage equipment market is bifurcated into Lube Equipment, Washing Equipment, Vehicle Diagnostic and Testing Equipment, Wheel and Tire Service Equipment, Body Shop Equipment, and Lifting Equipment. Among all these equipment type, the wheel and tire will hold major market share in coming yearsOn the basis of vehicle type, the global market for automotive garage equipment market is categorized into Heavy Vehicles, Light Vehicles, Two WheelerOn account of garage type, the international market for automotive garage equipment is segregated into Independent Garage, Franchise GarageBrowse Full Report with TOC @Global Automotive Garage Equipment Market: Key PlayersThe report profiles some of the leading players along with their business strategies to help the new entrants to expand their market position as well as assisting the existing competitive players in expanding their presence in automotive garage equipment market, across the globe. Some of the dominating players functioning in the global market for automotive garbage equipment market include Nussbaum Automotive Solutions Lp, Guangzhou Jingjia Auto Equipment Co., Ltd., Sarveshwari Technologies Limited (SARV), Samvit Garage Equipments, Snap-on Incorporated, VisiCon Automatisierungstechnik GmbH, Oil Lube Systems Pvt Ltd., Standard Tools and Equipment Co., Symach SRL, Gray Manufacturing Company, Inc., Vehicle Service Group, Con Air Equipments Private Limited, Istobal S.A., LKQ Coatings Ltd. , Aro Equipments Pvt. Ltd, Continental AG, Robert Bosch GmbH, MAHA Mechanical Engineering Haldenwang GmbH & Co. KG, Boston Garage Equipment Ltd, Arex Test Systems B.V. In this separate section of competitive analysis, the report include several factors such as key manufacturer trading in automotive garage equipment, portfolio of product, project carried out, key personal, market share and revenue, expansion plans, geographical reach, mergers and acquisitions, strategies, developments and innovations, key financials, and SWOT analysis. This will further assist the reader to gain wide ranging idea of the recent activities trending in the global market for the automotive garage equipment.About (MRRSE)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.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Read More Industry News At:
Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) 2017 Global Industry Key Players - GSSI , MALA , GEOTECH ,SSI , US Radar , Utsi Electronics Market Analysis And Forecast To 2022

World Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Market

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World Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) MarketExecutive SummaryGround Penetrating Radar (GPR) 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.The industry report lists the leading competitors and provides the insights strategic industry Analysis of the key factors influencing the market.The report includes the forecasts, Analysis and discussion of important industry trends, market size, market share estimates and profiles of the leading industry Players.Request a Sample Report @The Players mentioned in our reportGSSIMALAGEOTECHSSIUS RadarUtsi ElectronicsChemring GroupRadiodetectionJapan Radio CoIDS GeoRadarChinaGPRKedian ReedGlobal Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Market: Product Segment AnalysisHandheld Ground Penetrating RadarCart Based Ground Penetrating RadarGlobal Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Market: Application Segment AnalysisTransport and Road InspectionMunicipal InspectionDisaster InspectionArcheologyGlobal Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Market: Regional Segment AnalysisUSAEuropeJapanChinaIndiaSouth East AsiaTo enquire about this report visit @Table of Content-Key Points CoveredChapter 1 About the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Industry1.1 Industry Definition and Types1.1.1 Handheld Ground Penetrating Radar1.1.2 Cart Based Ground Penetrating Radar1.2 Main Market Activities1.3 Similar Industries1.4 Industry at a GlanceChapter 2 World Market Competition Landscape2.1 Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Markets by Regions2.1.1 USAMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2012-2022Sales and Growth Rate 2012-2022Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20172.1.2 EuropeMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2012-2022Sales and Growth Rate 2012-2022Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20172.1.3 ChinaMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2012-2022Sales and Growth Rate 2012-2022Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20172.1.4 IndiaMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2012-2022Sales and Growth Rate 2012-2022Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20172.1.5 JapanMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2012-2022Sales and Growth Rate 2012-2022Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20172.1.6 South East AsiaMarket Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2012-2022Sales and Growth Rate 2012-2022Major Players Revenue (M USD) in 20172.2 World Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Market by TypesHandheld Ground Penetrating RadarCart Based Ground Penetrating Radar2.3 World Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Market by ApplicationsTransport and Road InspectionMunicipal InspectionDisaster InspectionArcheology2.4 World Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Market Analysis2.4.1 World Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Market Revenue and Growth Rate 2012-20172.4.2 World Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Market Consumption and Growth rate 2012-20172.4.3 World Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Market Price Analysis 2012-2017Chapter 3 World Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Market share3.1 Major Production Market share by Players3.2 Major Revenue (M USD) Market share by Players3.3 Major Production Market share by Regions in 2017, Through 20223.4 Major Revenue (M USD) Market share By Regions in 2017, Through 2022Chapter 4 Supply Chain Analysis4.1 Industry Supply chain Analysis4.2 Raw material Market Analysis4.2.1 Raw material Prices Analysis 2012-20174.2.2 Raw material Supply Market Analysis4.2 Manufacturing Equipment Suppliers Analysis4.3 Production Process Analysis4.4 Production Cost Structure Benchmarks4.5 End users Market AnalysisContinued..Buy Now@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
LNG Fueling Station Market Segments by Size, Share and Region - Global Forecast to 2025

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"The Latest Research Report LNG Fueling Station Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Demand for clean fuel vehicles running on natural gas is gaining momentum due to the rise in concern about environment protection. Governments across the world are promoting the usage of natural gas vehicles owing to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, compressed natural gas (CNG) is the primarily used form of natural gas in vehicles worldwide. This gas is compressed at high pressures of about 200 bars and is then dispensed into the CNG tanks of vehicles. CNG is used largely in light duty vehicles, cars, and buses. It is generally not used for heavy duty transport vehicles. About 5 liters of CNG is equivalent to 1 liter of diesel. This makes it useless for long distance heavy duty trucks owing to the high volume and the weight of CNG. This paves the way for liquefied natural gas (LNG) for usage in vehicles.Get Sample Copy of this report @LNG is natural gas that has been liquefied at a temperature of -161 C. Its volume is about 1/600 times that of natural gas. LNG as transportation fuel would decrease cost and carbon emission when compared to its crude oil alternatives. LNG fueling stations are gradually gaining popularity as they possess higher energy density than CNG, higher volume of natural gas, and their storage requires highly insulated tank owing to low temperatures. Hence, LNG is suited for long distance heavy duty vehicles. Since LNG as a fuel are best suited for heavy-duty vehicles hence while developing LNG fueling stations special care must be taken for accommodation of these vehicles.In terms of type of station, the LNG fueling station market can be bifurcated into permanent station and mobile station. Permanent stations are akin to any other fuel stations where dispensers are fixed and firmly attached to the ground and LNG is stored in storage tanks. It is dispensed into the vehicles through fuel dispensers. Under the mobile station type, an LNG tanker with a side mounted LNG dispenser attached to it is utilized. This type of fueling station can serve various small fleet of vehicles and can also be used for emergency refueling of vehicle.Based on application, the LNG fueling station market can be classified into vehicles and ship. The vehicles application segment consists of automobiles running on LNG. These are primarily heavy duty vehicles and other vehicles utilizing LNG as fuel source. The ship application segment comprises ships and barges running on LNG.In terms of region, the LNG fueling station market can be divided into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific is expected to lead the market during the forecast period, followed by North America. This dominance in the market by Asia Pacific is primarily due to the large number of LNG fuel stations in China. The LNG fueling station market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to expand at a significant pace during the forecast period due to the increase in demand for natural gas as a cleaner alternative for other fossil fuels and rise in number of heavy duty vehicles in the region.View Report @Key companies operating in the LNG fueling station market include Cryostar, Clean Energy Fuels, ENN Energy Holding, Kunlun Energy Company Limited, FortisBC, ENGIE, Sinopec, CNOOC, and Natural Gas Vehicles for America.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.Send An Enquiry Request @A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketCheck Discount This Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Multi- Depth Corrugated Market: Food & Beverage is Expected to be the Leading Segment in Terms of Revenue

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Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) has included a new research report titled Global Multi- Depth Corrugated Market to its extensive research database. The research report provides a detailed study of the global market for multi-depth corrugated boxes for the period of assessment, (2017-2027). The report offers an in-depth analysis and key insights along with trends with respect to the international market for multi depth corrugated boxes that will help in revolutionizing business. The report starts with an executive summary for different segments and their market share in the market for multi-depth corrugated box, which also covers restraints, drivers, and trends influencing the growth of the market for multi-depth corrugated boxes. Moreover, in order to understand the scenario of the market for multi-depth corrugated boxes segments, the report includes BPS assessment, as well as the market attractiveness index with extensive insights are provided. The report also highlights the performance of the market for multi-depth corrugated boxes in each region and country, CAGR and Year-on-Year (Y-O-Y) growth assessment is also mentioned.Request For Free Sample Report @Global Market for multi-depth corrugated boxes: Segmentation SnapshotThe research report covers major segments in this market that include region, end use, strength type, capacity type, and board type. Based on region, the report segments the market for multi depth corrugated box into Japan, Asia Pacific, The Middle East & Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America. Furthermore, Asia Pacific is further categorized into rest of APAC, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, ASEAN, India and China. Middle East & Africa is divided into rest of MEA, North Africa, South Africa, Iran, Algeria, Egypt, Turkey and GCC. Europe is further segmented into Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Russia, rest of Europe and Benelux. Also, Latin America into Rest of Latin America, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Columbia, Chile, and Venezuela. North America is divided into Canada and United States.Based on the end use, the worldwide market for multi depth corrugated box market is bifurcated into automotive, glassware & ceramics, textiles, home care and personal care, consumer electronics, food & beverages and others. Among all application segments, food & beverage is a huge segment of this market. Based on capacity type, the study categorizes the market for multi-depth corrugated box into above 300 lbs, 180 to 300 lbs, 80 to 180 lbs, 80 to 180 lbs and up to 80 lbs. Based on board type global market for multi-depth corrugated box is segmented into triple wall, double wall, and single wall. Based on strength, the worldwide market for multi-depth corrugated market is bifurcated into heavy duty double wall (48 ECT), heavy duty (44 ECT), standard (32 ECT) and normal (below 32 ECT).Browse Full Report with TOC @Competition ProfilingThe report also provides a dashboard view of the companies and compares the recent contribution and industrial scenario of the market for multi-depth corrugated box. Furthermore, the report also offers a comprehensive comparative analysis of key contributors pertaining to their respective market segments. The report also delivers value by providing segment specific insights to evaluate and identify major players based on their capability and growth in the market for market for multi-depth corrugated boxes. The report also provides a detailed assessment of key product offerings, key strategies and current developments in market for multi-depth corrugated boxes.About (MRRSE)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.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Read More Industry News At:
Metal Coated Fiber Market 2025 Growth Analysis by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast

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"The Latest Research Report Metal Coated Fiber - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Metal coated fiber is a fiber having a metal coating over it. The metals used for coating include aluminum, copper, nickel, and gold. The metal coating layer provides high mechanical strength and improves electrical & thermal conductivity. It also eliminates outgassing and increases the temperature range of the fiber. Metal coated fibers can be used for various applications where protection against electromagnetic interference, radio frequency interference, and electrostatic discharge is required. It can be subjected to harsh conditions involving high temperature, harsh chemical, nuclear radiations, high power laser delivery, etc. Moreover, metal coated fibers, barring the gold coated fibers, provide a cost-effective and lightweight solution, which are very useful in the such as aerospace, automotive, medical, construction, and consumer electronics industries. Polymer coated fibers are being replaced by metal coated fibers in many applications due to their better hermeticity, operability at higher temperature range and higher strength. Metal coated fibers can withstand higher temperatures, up to 700C, for shorter periods and up to 500C for longer periods, as compared to polymer coated fibers, which can withstand temperatures up to 300C. Single mode, graded index, multimode, UV grade, and the IR grade are the different grades of metal coated fibers. Rising demand for air travel in almost all parts of the world is fuelling the need for innovative, lightweight, economical solutions for the aerospace industry. This, in turn, is driving the metal coated fiber market. Furthermore, the expanding automotive industry is contributing significantly to the expansion of the metal coated fiber market.Get Sample Copy of this report @In terms of material used, the metal coated fiber market can be segmented into nickel, copper, aluminum, and others. Nickel coated fibers possess high strength, better electromagnetic properties, heat-resistance, have low density, and are highly conductive and durable. Therefore, they find extensive usage in the aerospace industry. They also find applications as additives in paints, sealants, adhesives, etc. The nickel coated fibers segment of the metal coated fiber market is anticipated to expand at a significant growth rate during the period of forecast.In terms of end-use industry, the metal coated fiber market can be segmented into aerospace automotive, defense, energy, consumer electronics, and construction. The aerospace industry is a major contributor to the metal coated fiber market. The industry requires metal coated fibers with better electrical & thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance, abrasion resistance, etc., for high-tech applications such as EMI shielding. Moreover, metal coated fibers due to their cost effectiveness, light weight, and multi-purpose usage are extensively utilized in the aerospace industry. The aerospace industry is anticipated to continue its dominance in the metal coated fiber market during the period of forecast.In terms of geography, the market can be segmented into Asia Pacific, North America, Latin America, Europe, and Middle East & Africa. North America dominates the metal coated fiber market and is anticipated to maintain its dominance during the forecast period. However, Asia Pacific is likely to expand significantly due to the anticipated expansion of the aviation and the automotive industries in the region, during the forecast period. Furthermore, economic development, increasing industrialization & urbanization, improving standard of living of the people in the developing countries of the region such as India and China, are key factors driving the metal coated fiber market in Asia Pacific.Key players operating in the global metal coated fiber market include Technical Fiber Products Ltd., IVG Fiber Ltd., OZ Optics Ltd., Technical Fiber Products, Toho Tenax, Hollingsworth & Vose Company, Carlisle Interconnect Technologies., Conductive Composites Co. LLC, and Directed Vapor Technologies Inc.View Report @Companies are adopting aggressive marketing tactics and merger & acquisition strategies to expand their market share. They are also shifting their production facilities to emerging economies, such as China & India, in Asia Pacific due to the easy availability of land, cheap labor, and government subsidies in the region. Additionally, companies are employing export as a tool for geographic expansion in emerging economies in Middle East & Africa.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)Send An Enquiry Request @The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketCheck Discount This Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Get to Know the ins and Outs of the New Global IM Software and Apps Industry

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report IM Software and Apps to its huge collection of research reports.The market analysis of this particular market dissects and elaborates many of the aspects pertaining to the global IM Software and Apps market which enunciates the current figures along with future prospects. The report also takes into consideration changing aspects of the said market. The primary objective of this market intelligence report is to provide an elaborate impression to the readers and make an offering of convenient facts and figures. The market intelligence report further deduces with various issues such as opportunities, trends, drivers, and restraints in a bid to assess the outcome of it on the global IM Software and Apps market over the forecast timeframe that is clearly stated in the said research report. Furthermore, the report puts forward a fleeting yet exclusive skeleton of the market in question, which contains several explanations of the foremost aspects which are forecasted to stimulate development in the market or rationalize negative influence.Get Sample Report of the Research Study at:This market intelligence report further delves into the depth of the global market for IM Software and Apps by squarely assessing the manufacturing and fabrication chain of the compatible market. This is prognosticated to further aid in the propagation of accurate figures and data on many factors of the corresponding market such as information relating to the dogmas of the government at the global and provincial level, volume traded, manufacturing capacity, revenue made, and production and circulation structure among others.The research report is incomplete without an all-inclusive valuation of the competitive seller landscape of the global IM Software and Apps market, which incorporates the accomplishments and creations, facts and numbers of the topnotch companies that are operating in the global IM Software and Apps market. The market study also delivers a wide-ranging inspection of the major areas that are mentioned in the report of the global market for IM Software and Apps. For every expanse, the report speaks the array of progress so far and clearance on what merchants can and need to do in order to ensure success in the forthcoming years.his report studies the global IM Software and Apps market, analyzes and researches the IM Software and Apps development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeAIMFacebookGoogleYahooAdiumNimbuzzeBuddyTwitter...Read Complete Table of Content of the Report at:Table of ContentsGlobal IM Software and Apps Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of IM Software and Apps1.1 IM Software and Apps Market Overview1.1.1 IM Software and Apps Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global IM Software and Apps 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 IM Software and Apps Market by Type1.3.1 Mobile IM Clients1.3.2 Web-based Messengers1.4 IM Software and Apps Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Personal Use1.4.2 School Use1.4.3 Business Use1.4.4 Other2 Global IM Software and Apps Competition Analysis by Players2.1 IM Software and Apps 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 AIM3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 IM Software and Apps Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Facebook3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 IM Software and Apps Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Google3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 IM Software and Apps Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments...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
Jute Bag Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2017-2022

Jute Bag

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Bharat Book Bureau Provides the Trending Market Research Report on Jute Bag Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2017-2022 under Industry & Mfg category. The report provides information on industry overview, market size, latest developments, industry trends, Key players, global presence, and their future prospects.Jute is a natural fibre obtained from the bark of the white jute plant or the tossa jute plant. It is also known as the golden fibre owing to its golden and silky shine, and is extensively used in the manufacturing of packaging products and textiles. As a packaging material, jute offers advantages such as good insulation, low thermal conductivity and moderate moisture retention. On account of this, jute bags are used as packaging material for bulk goods as well as shopping and gift bags. latest report, titled Jute Bag Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2017-2022, finds that the global jute bag market reached a value of US$ 1.4 Billion in 2016, exhibiting a CAGR of around 11% during 2009-2016.The global jute bag industry is currently at a nascent stage with encouraging growth aspects. The demand for jute bags has witnessed a surge over the past few years, particularly in the European Union. This can be attributed to the growing environment consciousness in the region. The imports of jute bags in non-producing countries have also been facilitated by the ban on plastic packaging materials and bags. Additionally, the benefits offered by jute bags such as their biodegradability, durability, low cost, high strength, etc. have further supported the market growth. According to the report, the market is projected to reach a value of US$ 2.6 Billion by 2022.Request a free sample copy of Jute Bag Market Report@The report has analysed the global jute market on the basis of type, covering jute sack bags and jute shopping bags. Currently, jute sack bags dominate the market, accounting for the majority of the sales volume. The market has further been segmented on a regional basis and includes India, Bangladesh, China and Others. Amongst these, India holds the majority of the shares, representing the leading producer of jute bags. The report has also assessed the competitive landscape of the market and finds that it is fragmented in nature. Some of the key players operative in the market include:-AarburAshoka ExportsHitaishi-KKHowrah Mills Co. Ltd.Shree Jee International India Ltd.Gloster Limited.This report provides a deep insight into the global jute bag industry covering all its essential aspects. This ranges from macro overview of the market to micro details of the industry performance, recent trends, key market drivers and challenges, SWOT analysis, Porters five forces analysis, value chain analysis, etc. The report also provides a comprehensive analysis for setting up a jute bag manufacturing plant. The study analyses the processing and manufacturing requirements, project cost, project funding, project economics, expected returns on investment, profit margins, etc. This report is a must-read for entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, consultants, business strategists, and all those who have any kind of stake or are planning to foray into the jute bag industry in any manner.Please continue to read the complete report at :About Bharat Book Bureau:Bharat Book Bureau is the leading market research information provider for market research reports, company profiles, industry study, country reports, business reports, newsletters and online databases. Bharat Book Bureau provides over a million reports from more than 400 publishers around the globe. We cover sectors starting from Aeronautics to Zoology.Contact us at:Bharat Book BureauTel: +91 22 27810772 / 27810773Email: poonam@bharatbook.comWebsite:Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus
Global Conveyor Belt Market Overview 2017, Demand by Regions, Types and Analysis of Key Players

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The global conveyor belt market has been witnessing a sustained growth over the past few years, owing to the extensive use of conveyor belts in automation, mining and manufacturing industries.Request a sample report:The latest report by IMARC Group, titled Conveyor Belt Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2017-2022, finds that the global conveyor belt market reached a value of more than US$ 5 Billion in 2016. Conveyor belts are mechanical apparatus consisting of two or more pulleys with a moving belt or a chain that helps in transporting materials or packages from one place to another. The belt forms a continuous loop of fabric, rubber, plastic, leather, or metal supported on rollers or on a metal slider pan. Nowadays, various types of conveyor belts are available to use in different applications such as food processing industries, airports, and various transporting industries.Highlights of the global conveyor belt market:The increasing demand for steel cord conveyor belts is the major trend anticipated to drive the market growth.Medium-weight conveyor belt is the most popular product type.Asia Pacific represents the leading market, holding the majority of the global share.The increasing applications of conveyor belts in various industries are helping the global conveyor belt market to expand. Additionally, these belts enable the manufacturers to reduce inventory levels, and in turn, reduce overall production costs. As a result, the escalating demand for conveyor belts from automation, mining and manufacturing industries has emerged as another major demand driver. Further, there has been an increase in the use of conveyor belts at the airports so as to facilitate the passengers with efficient baggage transportation. Some of the other factors contributing to the market growth are aging workforce, growth of infrastructural activities and demand for eco-friendly conveyor belts with self-cleaning properties. According to the report, the global conveyor belt market is further expected to reach a value of US$ 6.4 Billion, exhibiting a CAGR of more than 3% during 2017-2022.On the basis of product type, the market has been segmented into medium-weight conveyor belt, lightweight conveyor belt and heavyweight conveyor belt. Currently, medium-weight conveyor belt is the most popular product type, holding the largest market share. Based on end-use, the market is categorised into metallurgy industry, chemical industry, steel-making industry and others. Region-wise, Asia Pacific dominates the market, accounting for the largest share, followed by Europe and North America. Other major regions include the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. On evaluating the competitive landscape of the market, it is found that the key players are Bando Chemical Industries, Ltd., Fenner, Intralox, Volta Belting Technology Ltd. and Fives.Read full report with TOC:The report by IMARC Group has examined the global conveyor belt market on the basis of:Product Type:Medium-Weight Conveyor BeltLight-Weight Conveyor BeltHeavy-Weight Conveyor BeltEnd Use:Metallurgy IndustryChemical IndustrySteel-Making IndustryOthersRegion:Asia PacificEuropeNorth AmericaMiddle East and AfricaLatin AmericaMajor Key Players:Bando Chemical Industries, Ltd.FennerIntraloxVolta Belting Technology Ltd.FivesBrowse related reports:Oil Filter Market:Cable Accessories Market:About UsIMARC Group is a leading market research company that offers management strategy and market research worldwide. We partner with clients in all sectors and regions to identify their highest-value opportunities, address their most critical challenges, and transform their businesses.IMARCs information products include major market, scientific, economic and technological developments for business leaders in pharmaceutical, industrial, and high technology organizations. Market forecasts and industry analysis for biotechnology, advanced materials, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, travel and tourism, nanotechnology and novel processing methods are at the top of the companys expertise.Contact usIMARC Group309 2nd St, Brooklyn, NY 11215, USAWebsite:Email: sales@imarcgroup.comUSA: +1-631-791-1145Follow us on twitter: @imarcglobal
The US Post-Acute Care Market Size, Trends, Revenue and Forecast (2017-2021)

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Market Research Hub (MRH) has recently broadcasted a new study to its broad research portfolio, which is titled as The US Post-Acute Care Market: Size, Trends & Forecasts (2017-2021) report studies the US Post-Acute Care Market: Size, Trends & Forecasts (2017-2021) delivers an analysis of the US post-acute care market with comprehensive analysis of market sizing and growth. The analysis includes market size in terms of spending, volume and market share by segments.Request For Free Sample Report:The report also provides an in-depth segment analysis of the US post-acute care. Detailed description of market in terms of spending, number of users, number of providers and market share by payors has been provided in the report. Furthermore, the report also assesses the key opportunities available in the market and outlines the factors that are and will be driving the growth of the industry. Growth of the US post-acute care market has also been forecasted for the period 2017-2021, taking into consideration the previous growth patterns, the growth drivers and the current and future trends.The competition in the US post-acute care market is highly fragmented but majority of market share is dominated by few major players such as Kindred Healthcare, Inc., Amedisys Inc., LHC Group Inc., Genesis Healthcare Inc., and HealthSouth Corporation whose company profiling has been done in the report, which include their business overview, financial overview and respective business strategies.Company CoverageKindred Healthcare, Inc.Amedisys Inc.Genesis Healthcare Inc.HealthSouth CorporationExecutive SummaryPost-acute care is a range of services that complement the care delivered by an acute care hospital after an illness or injury. Patients who require post-acute services are those who are no longer in critical situation but still need quality care and services. Such patients are usually discharged to post-acute care setting such as home health and hospice centers, skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) and long-term acute-care hospitals (LTACs). Most modern hospitals and health care systems include a number of services or programs that fall into the category of post-acute care. The primary aim of post-acute care services is to recover patients from illness and return him to daily activities that the patient participated in before illness or injury.In the US, large numbers of patients are covered under Medicaid and Medicare insurance health programs. Nearly 40% of beneficiaries who are covered under Medicare program have discharged from an acute care hospital to post-acute care settings such as skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) or home health. These settings provide important rehabilitation services but there are certain criteria to guide decision about where beneficiaries should be treated and how much care they should receive.Browse Full Report with TOC:The US post-acute care market, has shown fluctuating trends over the past few years but projections are made that the market would gain momentum over the forecasted period i.e. 2017 to 2021. The market is expected to grow on the back of aging population, rising healthcare expenditure, increasing prevalence of multiple chronic conditions, rising Medicare spending on post-acute care, technological advancements, mergers and acquisitions in the industry. Yet the growth of the market is obstructed by factors such as lack of interoperability, declining reimbursement and introduction of value-based payment.Table of Contents:1. Executive Summary2. Introduction2.1 Overview of Post-Acute Care2.1.1 Post-Acute Care Segments3. Market Analysis3.1 The US Post-Acute Care Market Analysis3.1.1 The US Post-Acute Care Market Outlook3.1.2 The US Post-Acute Care Market by Spending3.1.3 The US Post-Acute Care Market by Number of Providers3.1.4 The US Post-Acute Care Market by Segments3.2 The US Home Health PAC Segment Analysis3.2.1 The US Home Health PAC Market by Spending3.2.2 The US Home Health PAC Market by Number of Users3.2.3 The US Home Health PAC Market by Number of Providers3.2.4 The US Home Health PAC Market by Payors3.3 The US Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (PAC) Segment Analysis3.3.1 The US Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (PAC) Market by Spending3.3.2 The US Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (PAC) Market by Users3.3.3 The US Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (PAC) Market by Number of Providers3.3.4 The US Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (PAC) Market by PayorsContinue@.......Enquire About This Report:About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of retail 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 -
Worldwide Automotive ABS and ESC Market: Europe Expected to Lead in Terms of Revenue Share

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The overall assessment of the global automotive ABS and ESC market has been reviewed accurately for the period of forecast from 2017 to 2022. The study titled Global Automotive ABS and ESC Market has recently been covered by Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE)s extensive research database. The report showcase important aspects fueling the growth the automotive ABS and ESC market, major trends and growth shaping the market force and several opportunities for the new entrants and existing operator to expand their market. For the exact analysis of the automotive ABS and ESC market, historical data and number from 2012 to 2016 are provided in the report. Whereas, various methodical tool has been utilized for projecting the future of the worldwide market for automotive ABS and ESC over the assessment period of 2017 till 2022.Get Free Sample Report @Global Automotive ABS and ESC Market: Structure of the ReportThe executive summary of the report comprises the relevant introduction and basic definition of the global automotive ABS and ESC market. The report offers comprehensive information related to the global automotive ABS and ESC market. The report comprises also on the prediction of the market on certain metrics which include, Year-on-Year growth rate, opportunity, CAGR and BPS index, enabling the reader to get crystal and clear insights of the marketplace. The market dynamics, an intensity map that present the market participants, and technology roadmap existence across several regions. The competitive backdrop are also offered in the report and the market operator featured in this new research report have been considered by their major developments in the market, present market scenario, as well as key strategies followed by the prominent players.Global Automotive ABS and ESC Market: Insights on Segmentation and Regional OutlookThe report segregate the automotive ABS and ESC market by region, sales channel, vehicle type, and type.In terms of region, the study bifurcates the market for automotive ABS and ESC around the globe into APAC, MEA, Latin America region, North America, Europe, and JapanOn account of sales channel, the report segregates the global automotive ABS and ESC market into Aftermarket and OEMBy vehicle type, the study divides the worldwide market for automotive ABS and ESC into heavy commercial vehicle, compact vehicle commercial vehicle, mid-sized vehicle, luxury vehicle, and premium vehicle.According to type, the report categorizes the automotive ABS and ESC market into ESC, Four Channel ABS, Three Channel ABS and othersFurthermore the study also presents the market share comparison, Year-on-Year growth rate comparison, revenue comparison on the basis of various region. It also provide the market attractive index for the client to understand the scenario of the worldwide market for automotive ABS and ESC.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Global Automotive ABS and ESC Market: Key Competitive InsightsThe final section of the report offers a competitive landscape of the automotive ABS and ESC market which is followed by prominent players insights of the global automotive ABS and ESC market. The report also provide certain parameter to evaluate the overall automotive ABS and ESC market on the basis of SWOT analysis, the key financial ratio, various business strategies implemented by the prominent players as well as the present development by the companies in the automotive ABS and ESC market, around the world. The report also features key players functioning in the automotive ABS and ESC market such as Hitachi Automotive Systems, Ltd., Aisin Seiki Co, Haldex Corp, Machino Plastics Ltd., TRW Automotive, Robert Bosch GMBH, Denso Corporation, Delphi Automotive Plc, Contenental Ag, Autoliv Inc. the research report also present the company share analysis in the worldwide market for automotive ABS and ESC market.Enquire About this Report @About MRRSEMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of market intelligence reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.ContactState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTelephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:
Potassium Sorbate Market  Global Outlook, Size, Growth Prospects and Key Opportunities Forecasts to 2024

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Potassium sorbate is a kind of salt or chemical that has wide applications in food and beverages as a preservative, as a chemical for industrial purpose and as a type of solution in personal care products. Demand of potassium sorbate in market is primarily increased in food industry where it has greater demand in preprocessed food. In terms of its functionality it is used as a preservative to avoid the food from spoilage as it prime function is to prevent food and beverages from growth of fungus, microbes, mold, yeast etc.The reason behind its excessive usage in food industry is because it does not make any effect in terms of taste, color and smell of food and protect the food from decomposition, which is driving the market growth in the near future.Download Report Brochure @Market Dynamics of Potassium Sorbate Market:Increasing demand of processed food is one of the major driver behind the rising demand of potassium sorbate in global market. This driver is influencing food manufacturing companies to offer the products which has longer shelf life as it is used as preservative in their products. On the other side in terms of trends, mostly the potassium sorbate is gaining importance because of increase in consumption of baked food, processed fruits, vegetables and fast food products.. Excessive consumption of potassium sorbate causes health problems such as nutritional deficiencies, problems of vomiting, diarrhea etc. which may restrain the market growth in the near future.Market Segmentation of Potassium Sorbate Market:Potassium sorbate market is segmented on two different basis which includes types and application. As per the types it includes granule, powder and liquid form. Among these segments, granules segment contributes the largest market share. Market segment on the basis of application includes food & beverages, pharmaceutical products, personal care and industrial usage. Further the food & beverage segment is sub-segmented into bakery, dairy products, canned foods carbonated beverages, non-carbonated beverages & powdered mixes. Major demand of potassium sorbate is from the side of food processing industry followed by pharmaceutical and cosmetic sector.On analyzing the demand of potassium sorbate, it is observed that highest percentage of its application is in canned fruit and vegetable products, canned meat, desserts and from dairy sector which includes products like cheese, ice-cream, yogurt etc. Results of pie chart show that majority of share in market of potassium is from food & beverage industry. It is due to increasing demand of processed food products among growing population in emerging economies of world. On the other side, potassium sorbate is also gaining demand in wine industry where it is used in fermentation process and it also used as a stabilizer in beverage industry to prevent the drinks from secondary fermentation and reinfection. Similarly in personal care products it is used in shampoo, lotion, cream etc. It is also used in industrial coatings to prevent the industrial products from fungus, yeast, mold etc.Regional Outlook of Potassium Sorbate:On the basis of geographical market segment, it is segmented into seven different regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific region, Japan and Middle East and Africa. Asia-Pacific region is expected to be lucrative market. China is expected to account for major share in terms of volume contribution. On the other side in terms of consumption, U.S. is expected to be the largest consumer of potassium sorbate in the world followed by European region.Obtain Report Details @Key Market Players in Potassium Sorbate Market:Major players in Potassium Sorbate are APAC Chemical Corporation, FBC Industries, Inc., Parchem fine & specialty chemicals, WANGLONG CHEMICALS, Sorbic International PLC, Jinneng Science and Technology Company Limited, ICIS, TENGZHOU AOLONGCHEMICAL CO., LTD. and Lubon Industry Co., Ltd.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.Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Business Process Management Market is to grow at a CAGR of 14% by Forecast to 2023

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Market Highlights:The Business Process Management Market is segmented on the basis of solution, service, business department, deployment, organization size and vertical. By solution segment, it includes process improvement, automation, content and document management, integration, monitoring and optimization. Business process automation empower organization by managing the entire business activities efficiently, reducing human error and making it adaptable to environmental change. It helps human resource department by replacing traditional paper driven documents to automated on-boarding activities.The key drivers of business process management market includes cloud solution technology that helps users to gain advantages from BPM solution at low cost. According to the study, by vertical segment BFSI sector is expected to account for highest market share owing to valuable service offered by BPM solution that helps in customer acquisition and retention in banking sector.The Business Process Management Market is expected to grow at approximately USD 16 Billion by 2023, at 14% of CAGR between 2017 and 2023.Business process management is the process adopted by organization for improving the entire business operations. It empowers organization by managing workflow more efficiently, effectively and make more adaptable to environmental change. It helps organization in achieving specific goals such as increasing productivity of the business, efficient business workflow and return on investment.Request a Sample Report @Major Key Players: IBM Corporation (U.S.) Appian Corporation (U.S.) Software AG (Germany) Oracle Corporation (U.S.) Pegasystems Inc. (U.S.) Redhat, Inc. (U.S.) Open Text Corporation (Canada) Tibco Solution Inc. (U.S.) Verisae, Inc. (U.S.) Dell Emc (U.S.)Business Process Management Market Segmentation:The business process management market has been segmented on the basis of deployment, solution service, business department, organization size and vertical. Service segment, is bifurcated into consulting, system integration and training & education. System integration service empowers organization by allowing them to take challenges of creating seamless connectivity.It helps to strengthen business by providing visibility and flexibility and making businesses more efficient and innovative.Regional Analysis:The regional analysis of business process management market is being studied for region such as Asia pacific, Americas, Europe and Rest of the World. The increasing demand for efficient software for business operation and presence of major BPM vendors is driving the market growth in North America region.Countries such as US and Canada contributes large amount of revenue in the business process management market in the region. AsiaPacific region is expected to be one of the prominent player in the market owing to huge investment by enterprises in increasing the business efficiency and productivity.Business Process Management Market (MRFR) Research Analysis:By business department segment, business process management market consists of human resource, accounting and finance, sales and marketing, manufacturing, operation and support others. BPM solution leverage human resource department by planning people requirement and managing and recognizing people performance.The study indicates that BFSI sector accounts for highest market share by implementing BPM solution. In banking and finance sector, BPM solution empowers organization by business process and enable them to offer better customer service and satisfaction. In helps in reducing the loan processing time and complication associated with it.Market Research Analysis:The Business Process Management Market in North America region is growing due to high adoption of cloud solutions by enterprise and need to improve business workflow in organizations. Changing healthcare regulation, that requires changes in documents and financial transaction is driving the market in the region. According to the study, the business process management market will remain steady in Europe region.Asia-Pacific market is estimated to be one of the fastest growing market as enterprises are continuously investing into research and development of business process management market. Increasing IT landscape is boosting the market in the region. The region is witnessing high adoption of business process management software by enterprises. Developing countries such as India and China are adopting business process management software at a large scale owing to increasing IT infrastructure, digitization and robust industrialization that is boosting the market in the region.Access Report Details @Intended Audience: Investors and consultants System Integrators Government Organizations Research/Consultancy firms Technology solution providers IT Solution ProvidersTable of Contents1 Market Introduction1.1 Introduction1.2 Scope of Study1.2.1 Research Objective1.2.2 Assumptions1.2.3 Limitations1.3 Market StructureContinued.List of TablesTable 1 Business Process Management Market, By SolutionTable 2 Business Process Management Market, By ServiceTable 3 Business Process Management Market, By Business DepartmentContinued.List of FiguresFigure 1 Research TypeFigure 2 Business Process Management Market: By Solution (%)Figure 3 Business Process Management Market: By Service (%)Continued.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Semiconductor Production Equipment Market - Electronics Manufacturers Emerge as Major Contributor to Growth Witnessed

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This report provides strategic analysis of the global semiconductor production equipment market. The scope of the report includes competitive analysis of various market segments based on equipment type and end-user of semiconductor production equipment in various industry verticals and in-depth scrutiny of the market across different geographic segments. Projections of sales of fab (semiconductor fabrication/manufacturing facility) equipment segment of semiconductor production equipment showed a significant growth rate in the global market from 2017 to 2025. The growth is to be fueled by rise in demand for equipment for foundries, and for power and memory semiconductor manufacturing. China is likely to invest considerably in new fab facilities outstripping planned facilities in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, the U.S., Korea, Europe, and the Middle East & Africa. This will ensure steady growth for China and the Asia Pacific region, thereby augmenting the overall growth of the semiconductor production equipment market.Get an exclusive sample of this report @Global Semiconductor Production Equipment Market: Trends and OpportunitiesCurrent growth in the production of electronics is one of the main driver of the global semiconductor production equipment market. Rising demand for tablets, smartphones, wireless communication infrastructure, network hardware, digital televisions, computers and medical devices is encouraging the global demand for semiconductors, thereby boosting the demand for semiconductor production equipment. The Internet of Things (IoT) or internet connected devices will play a significant role to the semiconductor demand in the coming years, as will the growth of smart cities, smart grids, and automated smart manufacturing. These factors will propel the overall growth of the semiconductor production equipment market.Obtain Report Details @Global Semiconductor Production Equipment Market: SegmentationThe global semiconductor production equipment market, by equipment type, has been divided into assembly and packaging equipment, wafer processing equipment, test equipment, and other equipment. Other equipment include other front-end and back-end equipment such as silicon wafer manufacturing equipment and spluttering equipment. Silicon wafer manufacturing equipment is primarily employed to manufacture pure silicon by growing cylindrical silicon crystals and then cutting these crystals into silicon wafers of desired sizes. This equipment comprises of saws, lasers, and polishing and grinding equipment.The global semiconductor production equipment market, by end-user, has been divided into foundry, semiconductor electronics manufacturer, testing house, others. Some of the other users of semiconductor production equipment include independent manufacturers performing some part of the process of wafer fabrication to packaging. These units often offer low-cost processes which force the big companies to outsource a particular process to these specialized vendors in order to increase quality as well as to reduce cost.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:
Nanoencapsulation Market - An Insight on the Important Factors and Trends Influencing the Market Forecast to 2024

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Nanoencapsulation Market: OverviewNanoencapsulation refers to the process of coating different substances within another material with sizes pertaining to nano scale. For this process, broad range of techniques is used in the nanoencapsulation industry with emergence of new technologies being constantly developed. Some of the commonly used methods in this industry are spray congealing, hydrogel encapsulation, wax and lipid coating, fluid bed coating and melt extrusion.Nanoencapsulation technology is used in order to protect a core material and then release it when required. The technology is widely used in drug delivery applications, fragrances, food enhancements, food additions, and for increasing shelf life and stability of products such as vitamins.Download Report Brochure @The global industry for nanoencapsulation is currently certain research groups and manufacturers actively participating in applying advances in the field of nanotechnology, particularly in the food industry. These activities majorly include the implementation of the technology in the field of food packaging. However, rapid progress is being witnessed in the nanoparticles and nanoencapsulation industry of food ingredients and bioactive compounds. The industry for nanoencapsulation holds the potential for delivering nutrient which are difficult to attain, to the body by including them in fortified or functional food products. The technology is also being used for enhancing the bioavailability and delivery of nutraceuticals which are known to have therapeutic and disease prevention effects.Nanoencapsulation Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe technology behind encapsulation is becoming highly important across various segments such as drug therapy, biomedical diagnostics, cosmetics and food. The techniques used for micro-encapsulation and nanoencapsulation are being increasingly developed and used in diversifying industries for their outstanding features and benefits. Majorly, these benefits usually include superior bioavailability of compounds in drug delivery systems provided that about half of the drugs which are produced have issues of poor bioavailability Innovative nanoencapsulation techniques and micro-encapsulation techniques promote such benefits and have modulated the particle densities for attaining specifications for lightweight and porous materials. Nanoparticles production is currently on the rise. Nanoencapsulation also serves as an application of nanotechnology and is widely known in the pharmaceuticals industry but holds significant potential in the food industry. Nanoencapsulation has made a huge reputation for itself within a short period of time despite being a relatively new technology, making it one of the largely deployed technologies within the food industry. Over the past few years, nanoencapsulation has been finding usage in certain food applications such as food transportation, food storage, food production, food packaging and food processing.Nanoencapsulation Market: Geographical and Competitive DynamicsThe method of food encapsulation stabilizes food ingredients for the purpose of allowing flavor retention, as well as removal of bad taste. Food encapsulation usually involves techniques for immobilizing cells for use with in fermentation in food products such as meat, wine, dairy and beer. Consumers largely prefer tasty, healthy and convenient food products and these demands can be easily met by food encapsulation. The food product nanoencapsulation market is expected to rise significantly, mostly driven by the huge demand for better food packaging, technological development in nanoencapsulation techniques, functional foods. Developed regions such North America, particularly the U.S. accounts for the largest market for nanoencapsulation, followed by other regions such as Europe and Asia Pacific. However, Europe is expected to witness the fastest growth rate in the nanoencapsulation industry within the forecast period.Obtain Report Details @Blue California, Thies Technology, Frutarom Industries Ltd, Southwest Research Institute, and Aquanova AG are some of the companies involved in the nanoencapsulation industry.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.Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Wireless Audio Device Market 2017 by Global Key Players: Sony, Bose, LG Electronics, Sonos, Vizio Holdings, Apple, Samsung

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Market Research Future published a research report on Wireless Audio Device Market Research Report- Global Forecast to 2027  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2022.Market HighlightsConsumer electronics is a profitable industry which is constantly growing as companies develop new products and technologies in the market. For instance, smart television, wireless headphones, Bluetooth speakers are a part of this segment. The growing population, increasing consumer preferences for wireless accessories and evolution of new technologies in the market is boosting the growth of consumer electronics segment. For instance, wireless headsets include a speaker and a microphone which are commonly used during any digital communication. In U.S., 40% of population uses wireless headphones on portable devices which is expected to increase in the coming future.Increasing penetration of wireless devices in commercial and consumer electronics sector, and increasing usage of wireless devices by security & defence sector are expected to drive the market during the forecast period 2016-2027. However, high development cost of wireless audio device is the major factor hindering the market growth.The Global Wireless Audio Device Market is growing rapidly over 17% of CAGR and is expected to reach at USD ~70 billion by the end of forecast period 2027.Get Sample of Report @Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 30 market data tables and figures spread over 80 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on The Global Wireless Audio Device Market Research Report -Forecast to 2027.Key PlayersSome of the major players in global Wireless Audio Device Market include Sony Corporation (Japan), Bose Corporation (U.S.), Sennheiser Electronic Gmbh & Company Kg (Germany), LG Electronics (South Korea), Sonos, Inc. (U.S.), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands), Vizio Holdings, Inc. (U.S.), Apple Inc. (U.S.), Voxx International Corporation (U.S.), and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd (South Korea).Global Wireless Audio Device Market SegmentationThe global Wireless Audio Device market has been segmented on the basis of product, technology, end-user and region. On the basis of product, the market is segmented into wireless speaker systems, wireless headsets, sound bars, and wireless microphone and others. By technology, the market is divided into bluetooth, Wi-Fi, airplay and others. On the basis of end-user, the market is classified into commercial, electronics, telecommunication, automotive, security & defence and others.Key Findings The global Wireless Audio Device market is expected to reach USD 70 billion by 2027, growing with approximately 17% CAGR during forecast period 2016-2027. By Product: Wireless speaker systems are dominating the market and has generated USD 4.48 billion in 2016. Whereas, Sound bar is expected to grow with fastest growing 21.37 % CAGR By Technology: Bluetooth technology is dominating the market and expected to generate USD 36.46 billion market by 2027 growing with 18.95% CAGR. North America is expected to dominate wireless audio device market throughout the forecast period.Get Complete Report @Market Research Analysis:Regional analysis for global wireless audio device market is studied in different geographic regions as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of world. The study reveals that North America region would evolve as a leader in global wireless audio device market. North America is the most technically advanced application market due to presence of prominent players, system suppliers, and large IT companies. Europe is expected to be the second highest market in terms of revenue generation. Whereas, Asia-Pacific is expected to witness high growth in the forecast period and projected to grow with approximately 20% CAGR during the forecast period. Technological and industrial growth in Asian countries, such as China and Japan, is giving boost to the wireless audio device market in the coming years. Further, Increasing technological advancements and increasing disposable income in Asia-Pacific region is expected to drive the growth of wireless audio devices market in the region. However, issues related to hearing problems is expected to hinder the growth of the market.About Us:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Solutions, Application, Logistics and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.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.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Thermal Management Technologies Market : Competitive Landscape by 2025

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Global Thermal Management Technologies Market: SnapshotThe electronics industry has witnessed a sea change in terms of underpinning technologies and the way they are integrated in the past couple of years. In most cases, this has upped the total power consumed by the devices which seem to be getting smaller by the day. This has necessitated heat density management through the development of effective heat management technologies.At present, high-performance heat spreader systems that leverage multi-phase cooling in place of alloy-based heat spreaders is one of the most researched areas in the field of thermal management technologies. There is also substantial ongoing research in fabrication or discovery of structures and materials capable of providing notable decline in the thermal resistance of the thermal interface layer between the back layers of electronic devices, which could be a heatsink.Request Sample Copy of the Report @The global thermal management technologies market is choc-a-bloc with players and no single player enjoys dominance over the market. From a geographical standpoint, Asia Pacific is the primary contributor to the revenue in the market on account of the presence of some of the global electronic majors in nations such as Japan, South Korea, and China. Europe is another key market owing to a robust electronic manufacturing and research and development facilities in nations of Germany and the US. The EU regulations requiring the use of thermal interface in electronic devices is also said to be driving the market in the continent. Add to that increasing concerns about the rising ranks of discerning consumers about the environment and what you have is further focus on the development of environment-friendly heat management materials.Global Thermal Management Technologies Market: OverviewThe electronics industry has seen significant enhancements in technologies, system integration, and fundamental materials used to manufacture elemental structures in the past few years. This has led to a rapid rise in the total power consumed by the device, which, in several cases, are seeing a rapid reduction in size. Supplying high power to such devices, with electronic parts crammed in small packages, make the issue of heat density management even worse for the industry. This has increased the industrys focus on the development of efficient heat management technologies.Request TOC of the Report @This report on the global thermal management technologies market covers the state of research and development activities undertaken in this area and their influence on the electronics industry as seen in the past few years. A detailed overview of the thermal management technologies markets present growth dynamics and several forward-looking statements predicting the growth prospects of the market and its key segments over the period between 2017 and 2025.Global Thermal Management Technologies Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe development of high-performance heat spreader systems which use multi-phase cooling in place of alloy-based heat spreaders in conventional systems is presently one of the most researched areas in the field of thermal management technologies. Research efforts in the area so far have led to the development of technologies such as cold plates, jet impingement, and heat vapor chambers. Research is also underway in fabrication/discovery of structures and materials capable of providing notable decline in the thermal resistance of the thermal interface layer between the back layers of electronic devices, which could be a heatsink.Of the key components of a typical thermal management solution, namely thermal management hardware, thermal management interface product, thermal management software, and thermal management substrates, the hardware segment is presently the leading contributor of revenue to the global market. The rising demand for compact microprocessors is expected to enable the hardware segment lead over the next few years as well.The segment of thermal management interfaces is also expected to see demand rise at a promising incremental pace over the reports forecast period. The rising implementation of thermal management interfaces in automated machineries and portable and miniaturized computing devices such as smartphones and tablet computers will be the key to healthy growth prospects of the thermal management interface segment.Request Discount of the Report @Global Thermal Management Technologies Market: Geographical and Competitive DynamicsFrom a geographic perspective, the report presents an analytical overview of the thermal management technologies market for regional markets such as North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Middle East and Africa. Of these, Asia Pacific is expected to be the leading contributor of revenue to the global market over the forecast period. The presence of some of the worlds leading electronic companies in countries such as South Korea, China, and Japan will further strengthen the demand prospects for thermal management technologies in the region over the forecast period.Europe, with the large number of electronic manufacturing and R&D facilities in countries such as the UK and Germany, is also expected to see a rise in use of thermal management technologies in the near future. The Europe market is also expected to thrive due to stringent EU regulations necessitating the use of thermal interface in electronic devices. The heightened consumer awareness about environment sustenance is expected to lead to an increased focus on the development of environment-friendly heat management materials in the near future.It has been found that the global thermal management technologies market features an exceedingly fragmented competitive landscape, wherein no leading player accounts for a major share in the global markets revenue- or value-wise valuation. Some of the markets leading players are Honeywell International, LairdTech, Alcatel-Lucent, Pentair Thermal Management, Thermacore, Heatex, Aavid Thermalloy, Advanced Cooling Technologies, Thermal Management Technologies, Sapa Group, and Honeywell International.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
Antiscalant Market : New Business Opportunities & Investment Research Report 2025

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Global Antiscalant Market: SnapshotReverse osmosis is one of the most commonly used water purification technologies in the world. It can efficiently remove larger particles, molecules, and ions from drinking water to purify it, using a semipermeable membrane element. Pressure is applied to the water to overcome its natural osmotic pressure. Reverse osmosis is used to remove a wide array of impurities from water that are present in either dissolved or suspended forms, in order to provide potable water for industrial and residential uses. It is essentially a selective process of water purification where the impurities are retained on the membrane.Antiscalants, or scale inhibitors, are able to prevent the creation of nearly all types of scales. This puts antiscalants in a league above acids as the latter is only able to inhibit the formation of scales from calcium phosphate and calcium carbonate. Antiscalants are not only effective in inhibiting scales produced from phosphates and carbonates, but they can also inhibit the scales based on fluorides and sulfates as well as metal oxides and colloids. Antiscalants are also known to control acid soluble scales at a rate far better than sulfuric acids, while also being required in much smaller doses.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Antiscalant Market: OverviewAntiscalants are extensively used in RO membrane systems for averting issues pertaining to mineral scaling. It is a type of a chemical that is injected into feedwater before the feedwater is allowed to flow into RO membranes. The infusion of antiscalant prevents the formation of scales by delaying the reaction time between magnesium and calcium, allowing the water to be purified by the RO systems seamlessly. Today, antiscalants are being used in the manufacturing of power, chemical, and coal gasification. The growth of these industries is projected to boost the global antiscalant market. The report states that China is a significant consumer and a producer of antiscalants, with its supply stretching all the way to the international markets.The research report has been compiled using primary and secondary research methodologies. With interviews and data sourced from reliable resources, this document aims to offer absolute clarity about the market dynamics of global antiscalant market. The research report also includes a thorough analysis segments of the global antiscalant market that have been assessed using a SWOT analysis. The competitive landscape of the global market has been discussed with the help of a Porters five forces analysis that highlights the intensity of the competition present in the market and the threat from new entrants among others. Lastly, the research report also includes recommendations and comments by market experts that not only corroborate the data present in the pages of the document, but provide a valuable insight.Request TOC of the Report @Global Antiscalant Market: Drivers and TrendsThe emergence of oil and gas industry in global has been assessed to be a key factor is driving the antiscalant market in the coming years. The demand for power in the developing countries will come to define the oil and gas industrys activities, which in turn will decide the uptake of antiscalants. Furthermore, the chemical industrys improving performance is also attributed to fuel the expansion of the global antiscalant market in the coming few years. The emphasis of manufacturing units on the quality of water, which eventually translates into cost savings, lesser carbon footprint, and comes with better properties, is projected to a play a pivotal role in the swift adoption of antiscalants. The report predicts that the power and mining industries will also make a significant demand for antiscalants in the near future.Global Antiscalant Market: Product SegmentationThe various types of antiscalants available in the market are phosphonates, carboxylates, fluorides, sulfonates, and others. Phosphonate is a popularly used antiscalant across the nation and is expected to dominate the national market in the coming years. Its generous usage for making water treatment formulations with corrosion and scale inhibitors along with iron sequestrants is expected to benefit the product segment in the coming years. The report also indicates that the revenue for the carboxylates product segment will also surge as it can be an excellent curing agent with tremendous tolerance for pressure. This precise ability of carboxylates has made the product a famous antiscalant for the mining industry where is it used for eliminating heavy metals from wastewater.Request Discount of the Report @Key Players Mentioned in this Report are:The report has identified Kemira, Zaozhuang Kerui Chemicals Co., Ltd, Henan Yuguan Chemical Technology, BASF SE, Nalco Water, Shandong Great Lake New Material Co. Ltd., and Avista Technologies to be the key players operating in the global antiscalant market.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Global Automotive Crash Test Dummies Market to grow at a CAGR of 1.38% during 2017-2021 - 4activeSystems, Cellbond, Dynamic Research, Humanetics Innovative Solutions

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Crash test dummies are human-like structures equipped with sensors and other instrumentations, such as accelerometer, load sensors, and potentiometers that provide data about the impact of the crash on individuals. Automotive crash test dummies are used in different types of crash testing, such as frontal impact, side impact, rear impact, whiplash effect, and pedestrian impact.The global automotive crash test dummies market to grow at a CAGR of 1.38% during the period 2017-2021. The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global automotive crash test dummies market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the new launches of the automotive cars and it excludes the commercial vehicles and the crash testing of existing model cars in market.Click to get Sample PDF:The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:- Americas- APAC- EMEATechnavio's report, Global Automotive Crash Test Dummies 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.View Complete TOC with Tables and Figures at:Key vendors- 4activeSystems- Cellbond- Dynamic Research- Humanetics Innovative Solutions- JASTI- TASS InternationalOther prominent vendors- GESACMarket driver- Crash and safety testing: Key element in new product development- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge- High manufacturing cost and selling price- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend- New materials for automotive parts demand physical test- For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey 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?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:
General Surgery Devices Market : Potential and Niche Segments, Geographical regions and Trends 2025

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Global General Surgery Devices Market: SnapshotThe global market for general surgery devices is witnessing a massive surge in demand owing to the mounting global population of geriatrics and the significant rise in number of surgical procedures. While global public-health initiatives have mostly centered around disease prevention, control and surveillance of infectious diseases, and promotion of benefits associated with healthy lifestyles, rising life expectancy in the past few decades, especially in middle- and low-income countries, have changed previous trends.Industrialization and significant lifestyle changes have brought about an epidemiological transition and health conditions afflicting the global population are shifting from conditions caused due to infections and pestilence to lifestyle associated diseases. The condition has led to a substantial rise in health conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, cerebro-vascular diseases, and bone disorders, in developed, developing, and less developed economies. Numbers of injuries owing to accidents are also significantly increasing across the globe as the global traffic of vehicles and other technologically advanced devices has increased.Request Sample Copy of the Report @These trends are expected to remain strong in the near future as well, presenting a massive rise in demand for general surgeries. The scenario is also expected to lead to a substantial increase in the global demand for general surgery devices. The high growth potential of the global general surgery devices market has attracted a large number of small and large general surgery device manufacturing companies in the global marketplace and the market continues to attract a number of new players.Global General Surgery Devices Market: OverviewSurgical devices find applications in varied surgical procedures such as in closure of wounds and plastic and reconstructive surgeries, among others. They are deployed in hospitals, small clinics, and other healthcare centers and are used in different types of surgeries, namely orthopedics, obstetrics, neurology, urology, cardiovascular medicine, and gynecology. Savvy players in the global general surgery devices market are making efforts to make build inroads in the fast-expanding developing economies of Asia Pacific and Latin America, which hold out strong opportunities.Besides expanding their geographical footprints, market participants are also resorting to other initiatives such as strategic collaborations and partnerships, product development, and carefully-considered mergers and acquisitions to further bolster their positions. A report by TMR Research provides a thorough peek into the global market for general surgery devices. It studies the market after segmenting it based on different parameters and also offers a granular analysis of the factors driving or hindering it.Request TOC of the Report @Further, the report presents a detailed assessment of the competitive landscape in the global market for general surgery devices and identifies key players contributing towards its growth. The companies have been profiled in the report based on important parameters such as key strengths and recent developments, product portfolio, and geographical reach. Market-leading analytical tools have also been leveraged to gauge the opportunities and threats awaiting players.Global General Surgery Devices Market: Trends and OpportunitiesGrowth drivers significantly contributing to the global market for general surgery devices are a burgeoning geriatric population, rising awareness about different surgeries, and the means to go under the knife to better looks as in plastic and reconstructive surgeries. To elaborate a bit further, the elderly population accounted for a large number of surgeries pertaining to the bone, brain, heart, and ear disorders. Technological progress resulting in cutting-edge devices and healthcare institutes providing advanced surgeries such as minimally invasive surgeries in emerging economies is also leading to market growth.Request Discount of the Report @One key development to look out for in the global market for general surgery devices is the opportunities opened up by robotics and the computer-assisted sector, both of which are in a nascent stage now. The different products available in the market are open surgery instruments, minimally invasive surgery instruments, disposable surgical supplies, energy based and powered instruments, adhesion prevention products, and medical robotics and computer assisted surgery devices. Among them, the disposable surgical supplies segment leads the market with maximum revenue due to the soaring demand for disposable needles, syringes, and catheters.Global General Surgery Devices Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the key segments of the market are North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Rest of the World. North America, of these, is a crucial market on account of the concentration of well-entrenched players in the region, strong policy support of the government, solid reimbursement policies, and spiking demand for surgeries because of lifestyle-related diseases. In the years ahead, however, Asia Pacific is slated to overtake all other regions in terms of growth due to the increasing spend on healthcare in the developing nations of the region. Some of the prominent markets within Asia Pacific are India, Japan, China, Australia, and Singapore.Companies Mentioned in the ReportSome of the noteworthy companies competing in the global market for general surgery devices market, profiled in the report are B. Braun Melsungen AG, Smith & Nephew, Boston Scientific Corporation, Covidien Plc (Medtronic), Conmed Corporation, Integra LifeSciences, 3M Healthcare, and Care Fusion Corporation.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
Healthcare Payer Services Market : Estimated to Flourish by 2017  2025

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Global Healthcare Payer Services Market: SnapshotOutsourcing is emerging as a cost-effective tool for healthcare payers. Therefore, the growing trend of outsourcing is working in favor of the global healthcare payer services market. The increasing dependence of technologically advanced solutions to deliver economical business process services, growing popularity of digital technology, and the enforcement of strict health care regulations in several parts of the world are among the primary factors stoking the growth of the market.The growth of the market is also supplemented by the growing investments in healthcare IT (HCIT) and increasing number of private healthcare insurance companies. Moreover, the introduction of favorable policies by governments is escalating the growth of the global healthcare payer services market. On the flip side, the mounting cases of data breaches are resulting in increased skepticism regarding the loss of confidentiality, which in turn is limiting the widespread adoption of healthcare payer services. While outsourcing makes the overall procedure of healthcare payer services easy, it also induces unforeseen costs. This is, in turn, hampering the growth of the global market.The majority of key players in the global healthcare payer services market are focusing towards implementing mobile technology with health plans to lure in a greater number of customers. A raft of large players are also emphasizing on mergers and acquisitions in order to stay ahead in the market.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Healthcare Payer Services Market: OverviewThe healthcare industry is at an interesting cusp at present with breakthrough technologies, practices, and services. This also translates as higher costs of treatment and consumer empowerment with digital transformation. Besides, tough regulations and better reimbursement policies are also transforming the contours of the industry. This has spawned the global healthcare payer services market which is primed for robust growth on account of the above factors. Major players operating in the market are focused on mergers and acquisitions to diversify business portfolio and improve delivery outcomes.In healthcare, payer refers to entities other than the patient that finance or reimburse the healthcare services cost. Typically, they include insurance carriers, third-party payers, or health plan sponsors such as employers or unions. Application of payer services include management services, provider management services, billing and accounts management services, integrated front office services and back office operations, member management services, analytics and fraud management services, and HR services. The types of payer services available in the market are BPO services, ITO services, and KPO services. Among them, the BPO services gross maximum revenue.A report by TMR Research offers essential information on the key trends in the global healthcare payer services market. It presents a granular analysis of the various growth drivers and restraints in the market. The report also presents a detailed assessment of the competitive landscape and identifies key players contributing towards its growth. Further, it leverages market-leading analytical tools to gauge the opportunities and threats awaiting players.Request TOC of the Report @Global Healthcare Payer Services Market: Trends and OpportunitiesSome of the factors at the forefront of driving the global healthcare payer services market are increased adoption of technologies  particularly digital technology  to bring about economical business process services, growing focus on consumerism, and a host of healthcare regulatory policies. No wonder then, tech titans are some of the main players in the market. They are increasingly integrating mobility and health plans to engage enrolled members.Other factors helping the markets growth are the increasing private healthcare insurance exchanges and IT investments. The pressing demand to bring down the overall administrative costs of member management services, rising need for cost effective solutions for the healthcare payer services, and the alarming instances of healthcare fraud cases are few things expected to shape the course of the market in the near future.At present, the private payers are ahead of the public payers in the global market for healthcare payer services. This is because of the massive investment by private players in the healthcare payer vertical and significant government efforts to induce private investment in the healthcare industry. Public payers, however, are slated to clock solid growth in the years ahead.Request Discount of the Report @Global Healthcare Payer Services Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, North America holds a dominant position in the global market for healthcare payer services at present, powered mainly by the U.S. This is because of the rising number of health insurance enrollment, helpful reimbursement framework, and dearth of skilled professionals. Besides North America, Asia Pacific is another emerging market that holds out a strong promise of growth. In fact, India, an emerging economy in the region, is a global market leader in the knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). China and Japan in the region are also slated to contribute substantially to the market. In the Rest of the World, Mexico and Brazil are shining stars poised to impact the global market growth.Companies Mentioned in the ReportSome of the prominent companies competing in the global market for healthcare payer services, profiled in the report are Cognizant Technology Solutions, Accenture plc, Xerox Corporation, Genpact Limited, Hewlett-Packard, Hexaware Technologies Limited, HCL Technologies Ltd., Teleperformance Group, Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd., and Wipro Limited.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
One of the many reasons I support Mike McCabe for governor is that he has set strict limits on the contributions he will take from individual donors.

The people of Wisconsin should know that there are two big implications of this policy. First, when Mike is elected he will not be obliged to the big- moneyed interests that have come to control so much of our political life. But, second, the fall campaign will see the airwaves dominated by paid messages supporting Mikes opponent (and likely maligning Mike as well).

What you will hear about Mike through normal news coverage  and in the debates  will be his positive plans for making government serve all of the people. (He does not and will not malign his opponent.)

Is this, as some say, a formula for defeat? I dont think so. I think that people understand that those who pay for political ads expect a payback. I also think that the people of Wisconsin are eager to find the kind of different way that Mike McCabe is offering us in the fall.

I saw a bumper sticker recently: "Politicians should dress like race car drivers so we'd know who their corporate sponsors are." Mike McCabe wears blue jeans and has let the corporations know he is "un-purchasable."

It is time for us to go beyond "business as usual" and I think the majority of the citizens of Wisconsin understand this and are ready to do so.

Stephen Minnema, La Crosse
Rugged Display Market 2017 with Focus on Key Players: Sparton, Xplore Technologies, Panasonic, Getac Technology, Samsung, Zebra Technologies, Kyocera

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Market Research Future published a research report on Rugged Display Market Research Report - Global Forecast 2023  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2023.Market Scenario:The rugged displays are the most advanced displays in the display market. It delivers the best quality, brightness, highest resolution, durable, optional screen protectors and longest-life LCDs. Moreover, it offers night vision mode and daylight readability. The ruggedness level is derived in semi-rugged, fully rugged, ultra-rugged and others. In aerospace and government sector, the ultra-rugged display are widely used as it can withstand in harsh condition and provide advanced electromagnetic interference protection.The companies such as General Micro Systems, Inc. (U.S), Xplore Technologies Corporation (U.S), Panasonic Corporation (Japan), Zebra Technologies Corporation (U.S), Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (South Korea) are the leading provider of highest-density and compute-intensive rugged display. In February, 2017, General Micro Systems, Inc. has been awarded for deploying rugged displays, which is used in modernizing U.S. Navy ships. These rugged displays were hammer-tested touchscreen with night vision capability.Get Sample of Report @The global rugged display market is bifurcated on the basis of type, operation system, ruggedness, end- users and region. The type is segmented into dot-matrix, LCD, LED and others. The operating system is segmented on the basis of iOS, windows, android and others. The ruggedness is segmented into semi-rugged, fully rugged, ultra-rugged and others. The end-users is segmented into government and defense, aerospace, hospitals, industrial, commercial and others. The region includes North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and rest of the world.The global Rugged Display Market is expected to grow at USD ~10 Billion by 2023, at ~5% of CAGR between 2017 and 2023.Key PlayersThe prominent players in the global rugged display market are  Sparton Corporation (U.S), Xplore Technologies Corporation (U.S), Panasonic Corporation (Japan), Getac Technology Corporation (Taiwan), Samsung Group (South Korea), Zebra Technologies Corporation (U.S), Bluestone Technology Ltd (U.S), Chassis Plans (U.S), Sonim Technologies Inc. (U.S.), Kyocera Corporation (Japan) among others.Global Rugged Display Market SegmentationThe global rugged display market is bifurcated on the basis of type, operation system, ruggedness, end- users and region. The type is segmented into dot-matrix, LCD, LED and others. The operating system is segmented on the basis of iOS, windows, android and others. The ruggedness is segmented into semi-rugged, fully rugged, ultra-rugged and others. The end-users is segmented into government and defense, aerospace, hospitals, industrial, commercial and others. The region includes North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and rest of the world.Market Research Analysis:On geographic basis, global rugged display market is studied in different regions as Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of world. It has been observed that North America region is leading with largest market share growth in the rugged display market. The rugged display is gaining huge demand as it can prevent the devices from accidental damage, built in industrial docking connectors, and low cost. In this market, Europe is to be estimated to be the second largest market share for rugged display during the forecast period.Get complete Report @Intended Audience Rugged Display manufacturing companies Display panel manufacturers Display manufacturing equipment suppliers Display-related service providers Original equipment manufacturers Rugged Display providers Research and development companies Market research and consulting firms Solution providers Technology standards organizations Technology investors System IntegratorsTABLE OF CONTENTS MARKET INTRODUCTION RESEARCH METHODOLOGY MARKET DYNAMICS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY MARKET FACTOR ANALYSIS RUGGED DISPLAY MARKET COMPANY PROFILESAbout Us:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Retail Cloud Market 2017 by Global Leaders: IBM, Oracle, SAP SE, Microsoft, Syntel, Cisco Systems, Google, Fujitsu Global, Infor, Retail cloud

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Market Research Future published a research report on Retail Cloud Market Research Report- Global Forecast to 2022  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2022.Market ScenarioRetail cloud has major benefits over conventional retailing. It provides number of solutions to retailers such as CRM, disaster recovering, discounts & promotions, workforce management, data analytics and others. The growing technology advancement has offered wide area of applications to consumers. Smartphone adoption is one of the best example of technically advanced products. It is used by consumers for variety of applications such as mobile commerce, social media access, mobile promotions, and mobile banking.According to a study, more than 90% consumers are using smartphone nowadays for shopping and comparing prices with other retail websites or apps. The increasing trend of online shopping is driven by number of factors such as easy checkout option and no long queue, can research over number of variety of products at a time, availability of number of payment options, feasible discounts & easy return policy, and availability on every mode. Amazon, Flipkart, and eBay are the well-known example of online retailing.Get Sample of Report @The major growth driver of Retail Cloud includes rapid adoption of smartphones, need for compliance & collaboration and shift to Omni-channel experience. In the year 2016, the global market of Retail Cloud had been valued at approximately USD 10 billion, which is expected to be at USD 28 billion by the end of the year 2022. However, deeply rooted unorganized sector in developing economies like India and less mature distribution channel are the factors which are hindering the growth of Retail Cloud in forecast period.Key Players:Some of the major players in Global Retail Cloud Market include IBM Corporation, Oracle Corporation, SAP SE, Microsoft Corporation, Syntel, Inc., Cisco Systems Corporation, Google, Inc., Fujitsu Global, Infor, Inc., and Retail cloud, and others.Retail Cloud Market SegmentationThe Global Retail Cloud market has been segmented into products, deployment, services and end-user. By products the market is classified into customer management, workforce management, supply chain management, data security management, reporting & analytics. By deployment, the market is classified into public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud. By services, retail cloud market is been segmented into software as a service, platform as a service and infrastructure as a service and serving small & medium size and large scale industries.Market Research Analysis:Regional analysis for Retail Cloud market is studied in different geographic regions as Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Middle East & Africa. It is estimated that North America would grow with 18% CAGR during forecast period 2016-2022 followed by Europe which is projected to grow with 16% CAGR. Asia-Pacific has emerged as the fastest growing market with 20% CAGR by the end of 2022. Presence of major retail outlets namely Walmart, Costco, & Kroger and high penetration of mobile based shopping and promotion is the major reason behind dominance of North America in retail cloud market. Whereas, due to rising adoption of hybrid cloud in countries such as China, and India is fuelling the market growth of retail cloud in Asia-Pacific region during forecast period 2016-2022.Key Findings: Retail Cloud is expected to grow at compound annual growth rate of approximately 17% from year 2016 to year 2022. North America is expected to dominate the market of Retail Cloud throughout the forecast period. By Product segment- Customer management is expected to reach approximately USD 3 billion in 2016 and growing with 19% CAGR during forecast period 2016-2022 in the global market. By End-User- Small & medium size industries are estimated to grow with approximately 18% CAGRGet Complete Report @Target Audience: Retail cloud Manufacturers Distributors Research firms Consultancy firms Software Developers Vendors Semiconductor Manufacturers Stakeholders End-user sectors Research organizationsTABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY MARKET DYNAMICS GLOBAL RETAIL CLOUD MARKET, BY PRODUCT GLOBAL RETAIL CLOUD MARKET, BY DEPLOYMENT GLOBAL RETAIL CLOUD MARKET, BY SERVICES GLOBAL RETAIL CLOUD MARKET, BY END-USER GLOBAL RETAIL CLOUD MARKET, BY REGION COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE APPENDIX RESEARCH METHODOLOGYAbout Us:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have 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 membersMedia Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Automobile Brake Pad Market 2017- ATE, BOSCH, TRW, Hoenywell, Acdelco

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Apex Market Reports, recently published a detailed market research study focused on the "Global Automobile Brake Pad Market" across the global, regional and country level. The report provides 360 analysis of "Global Automobile Brake Pad 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 Automobile Brake Pad industry, and estimates the future trend of Global Automobile Brake Pad market on the basis of this detailed study. The study shares "Global Automobile Brake Pad Market" performance both in terms of volume and revenue.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here:Top Manufacturers Analysis of This ReportFederal MogulBOSCHTRWNisshinbo Group companyMAT HoldingsITT CorporationATEHoenywellAcdelcoAkebonoDelphi AutomotiveBREMBOSangsin BrakeSAL-FERADVICSFBK CORPORATIOINICERMK KashiyamaSumitomoHitachi ChemicalHawk PerformanceFras-leEBC BrakesBrake Parts IncABS FrictionMeritorShandong Gold PhoeniThe market research report explores the Global Automobile Brake Pad market across the globe along with major regions and countries. The research report provides a detailed study on each and every aspect of "Global Automobile Brake Pad 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 Global Automobile Brake Pad market based on major product types, application and end users industries of Global Automobile Brake Pad. Besides, the report also covers geographical segmentation for Global Automobile Brake Pad 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 Global Automobile Brake Pad is determined by assessing the major industry participants, production capacity, production capacity utilization rate, Global Automobile Brake Pad market's production chain, pricing by each manufacturer and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Global Automobile Brake Pad market globally.Enquire Before Buying @The Global Automobile Brake Pad market 2017 is further analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Global Automobile Brake Pad production volume, data pertaining to demand and Global Automobile Brake Pad supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. The report provides upstream and downstream analysis covering major raw material used in manufacturing of Global Automobile Brake Pad 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 Global Automobile Brake Pad 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 -
Baking Mixes Market Forecast, Trend Analysis & Competition Tracking  Global Review 2017 to 2022

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Baking Mixes includes the pre-mixed formulation of all the ingredients used to prepare various baked products. Some of the common ingredients used in the baking mixes are flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugar, yeast, flavoring ingredients, and other ingredients depending on the type of baked product, for instance, leaving aside the common ingredients, additional baking mix ingredients for bread differ from the baking mix ingredients for cakes, muffins, etc. Most of the baking mixes are available in a powder form and require the addition of milk, water, cooking oil, eggs, etc.Request Free Sample Report-Rising number of consumers moving away from the artificial ingredients, sweeteners, and preservatives is resulting in the manufacturers focusing on developing or producing baking mixes using organic or natural sweeteners and ingredients. Hence, baking mixes including organic and gluten-free ingredients are more gaining traction. Meanwhile, major market players are also investing in the research to offer new flavors and enhance the taste. With nutrition-focused and ingredient-focused ready to pay more for the quality product, baking mixes manufacturers are conducting quality-assurance testing of the product.According to the latest report by Fact.MR, the global market for baking mixes is likely to experience moderate CAGR. The market is estimated to reach US$ 5,893.3 million revenue towards 2022 end. Offering convenience, due to the reduced preparation time and all-in-one ingredient formulation are some of the factors resulting in the popularity of baking mixes among consumers. However, rising concern towards the health and preference for natural and organic food products is one of the major factor hampering the growth of the global baking mixes market.Bread Baking Mix- Top-Selling ProductCompared to the various baking mix products available in the market such as pizza dough baking mix, biscuits, and cookies baking mix, etc., bread baking mix is likely to emerge as one of the top-selling baking mix product. Bread baking mix is estimated to exceed US$ 1,700 million revenue by 2022 end. Although cakes and pastries are also likely to gain nearly one-fourth of the share in terms of the revenue by 2017 end.Browse Full Report with TOC-Highest Distribution of Baking Mix through Modern TradeModern trade is likely to emerge as the biggest distribution channel for baking mix. By 2022 end, modern trade is estimated to exceed US$ 1,600 million value. Meanwhile, online distribution channels are also likely to experience moderate growth between 2017 and 2022.North America to Dominate the Global Baking Mixes MarketNorth America is likely to remain dominant in the global baking mixes market throughout the forecast period 2017-2022. Meanwhile, Europe and Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) are also anticipated to witness growth in the baking mixes market. Growth in disposable income and rising population are a few factors contributing to the growth of the market in APEJ region.Competition TrackingThe report also profiles companies that are expected to remain active in the expansion of global baking mixes market through 2022, which include Cargill Inc., General Mills, Inc., Pinnacle Foods Inc., Chelsea Milling Company, Ingredion Incorporated, Associated British Foods plc, Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods, Inc., Hain Celestial Group, Inc., and Dawn Food Products Inc.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:
Biomedical Refrigerators and Freezers Market : Manufactures and Key Statistics Analysis 2017 - 2025

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Global Biomedical Refrigerators and Freezers Market: SnapshotBiomedical refrigerators and freezers are utilized as a part of medicine and biotechnology. These type of systems are uncommonly intended for effective capacity of solidified or fresh blood tests, chemicals utilized as a part of research, RNA, DNA, and different life-sparing vaccines. A few research labs, blood donation centers, diagnostic centers, educational institutes, clinics, and hospitals use these freezers and refrigerators that give ideal storage conditions.The expanding number of blood donation centers on a worldwide scale is probably going to help the development of the worldwide biomedical refrigerators and freezers market. The requirement for enhanced storage limits has emerged as more blood donations are done every year. As indicated by a report in July 2016 by the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 112.5 million blood donations were gathered globally.Request Sample Copy of the Report @The developing demand for environment-friendly and greener hardware worldwide has been one of the significant patterns that is probably going to contribute towards the extension of the market. The rising worries about emissions of greenhouse gases, mounting level of pollution, and the subsequent dangers postured to human wellbeing have prompted the improvement of new and eco-friendly freezers and refrigerators. A large chunk of players operating in the market are appearing to raise gains through mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, and strategic collaborations. These steps are being taken up by companies to gain a strong and leading position in the market in the years to come.Biomedical refrigerators and freezers are used in biotechnology and medicine. These systems are specially designed for efficient storage of frozen or fresh blood samples, enzymes used in research, DNA, RNA, and various life-saving vaccines. Several research laboratories, blood banks, hospitals, clinics, educational institutes, and diagnostic centers deploy these refrigerators and freezers that provide optimum storage conditions.The increasing number of blood banks on a global scale is likely to aid the expansion of the global biomedical refrigerators and freezers market. The need for greater storage capacities has arisen as more blood donations are received each year. According to a fact sheet updated in July 2016 by the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 112.5 million blood donations were collected globally.Request TOC of the Report @Global Market: Key TrendsIncreasing research and development activities across several sectors such as healthcare have been propelling the growth of the market. The rising demand for personalized medicine, organ transplants, blood transfusions, vaccines, and cellular therapies have led to a greater demand for biomedical refrigerators and freezers. On the contrary, the highly competitive nature of the market wherein several local players are offering products at competitive prices, along with the rising adoption of refurbished equipment, might slacken the growth of the market.Growing demand for eco-friendly, greener equipment across the globe has been one of the major trends that is likely to contribute towards market expansion. The rising concerns about greenhouse emissions, increasing pollution levels, and the consequent hazards posed to human health have led to the development of new, environment-friendly refrigerators and freezers.Global Market: Market PotentialA number of market players appear to be intent on pocketing more profits through acquisitions and mergers. Strategic collaborations and partnerships have also been adopted by several companies with a view to gain a strong foothold in the global market for biomedical refrigerators and freezers.Request Discount of the Report @In October 2016, Standex International Corporation acquired Horizon Scientific, Inc., a South Carolina-based company that supplies refrigerators and freezers to pharmaceutical and biomedical entities. The acquisition will enable greater penetration of Standex into the scientific sector, bringing in significant profits. Horizon Scientific, Inc. in turn will benefit from faster growth prospects through the expansion of its manufacturing and engineering capacities.Product development has also been a major concern among the leading market players. For instance, Thermo Fisher Scientific offers diverse refrigerators and freezers for pharmaceutical industry, research in chromatography, laboratory purposes, and blood bank storages among several other uses, designed as per the requirements of that particular sector. Explosion-proof refrigerators and freezers for flammable materials are also engineered by this firm.Global Market: Regional OutlookBased on geography, the global biomedical refrigerators and freezers market can be segmented into Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, Europe, and North America. North America appears to be the leading regional segment, with the U.S. being the major contributor. The growth of this regional market can be attributed to the upsurge in the incidence of infectious and chronic diseases, coupled with beneficial government policies. Latin America has been witnessing rising demand for biomedical refrigerators and freezers owing to a substantial increase in the number of plasma freezer installations and blood bank refrigerators in the research domain. Asia Pacific is also slated for considerable growth.Global Market: Competitive AnalysisThe global market for biomedical refrigerators and freezers appears to be consolidated in terms of competition, as a handful of market players cater to the rising demand for these products.Some of the major companies operating in the global market for biomedical refrigerators and freezers market are Panasonic Healthcare, Aegis Scientific, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Eppendorf, Helmer Scientific, Leibherr Group, Terumo Corporation, Philipp Kirsch, and Haier Biomedical.In 2015, Panasonic Healthcare Co., Ltd., Thermo-Fisher Scientific, Inc., and Eppendorf AG emerged at the fore, accounting for a major portion of the share.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Market Research Report 2017

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The store of research reports related to the machines industry on Market Research Hub includes thorough, analytical studies covering the respective markets in a granular fashion. The Global automotive zone tempered glass market research report 2017 reports aims to discover key factual and statistical data with the help of the latest business intelligence tools. The reports provide readers precision-based assessments pertaining to the scope of the markets in the coming years and the performance and role of market players.Click here for Free Sample Report@In this report, the global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass 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 Automotive Zone Tempered Glass in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesEUChinaJapanSouth KoreaIndiaGlobal Automotive Zone Tempered Glass market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingAGCNSGSaint-GobainFuyaoCGCPGWVitroXYGSoliverOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into3 mm4 mm5 mmOthersOn 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, includingPassenger VehicleCommercial VehicleBrowse Full Report with TOC@Table of ContentsGlobal Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Market Research Report 20171 Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Automotive Zone Tempered Glass1.2 Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 3 mm1.2.4 4 mm1.2.5 5 mm1.2.6 Others1.3 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Segment by Application1.3.1 Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Passenger Vehicle1.3.3 Commercial Vehicle1.4 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 EU Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 South Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Automotive Zone Tempered Glass (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)2 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Automotive Zone Tempered Glass Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, ExpansionContinued..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 machines market 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.90 state streetContact Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:Read Industry News at -
Pandemic Control Technologies Market Estimated to Expand at a Robust CAGR over 2019

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Pandemic diseases are well defined as infectitious diseases which affects a large population across continents or even worldwide. The most prominent pandemic diseases occurred and currently still prevalent affecting a class of population includes avian influenza, cholera, influenza, leptospirosis, SARS and coronavirus infection, tularemia and viral hepatitis. In addition HIV is also considered as one of the pandemic disease as per WHO (World Health Organization) classification. The influenza virus infection is the most commonly occurring pandemic disease globally. A pandemic occurs when an influenza virus affects mass population, which has never occurred to humans before and there is no developed immunity to fight against this infection. The pandemic infections are responsible for high mortality, morbidity and social disruptions. These infections include strain of influenza A (H1N1), swine flu, chicken pox, cholera, meningitis, viral hepatitis and plague have emerged and caused high mortality.Some of the major market players for control and treatment of pandemic diseases include diagnostics and biotech firms such Roche, Abbott, Beckman Coulter, Bio-Rad, Biomerieux are few amongst the significant players of this industry.Request to View Brochure of Report -Timely detection of these diseases may help in reducing the morbidity and mortality rates. Various technological advances such as blood analyzers and reagents have proven to be effective to control the outburst of epidemic disease. Rapid diagnostic test modalities such as microbiological laboratories and in-vitro diagnostics testing are capturing the market even in emerging countries. RDT tests involve DNA probes, amplification or nucleic acid sequencing. Multidrug resistant strains of HIV and other pandemic diseases have compelled the manufacturers to develop new technologies and pharmaceutical products. Introduction of DNA vaccine has also created inroads for development of new methods of vaccine manufacturing for treatment of pandemic conditions such as Swine flu and others. Companies such as Roche have assisted in timely curbing of spread of swine flu globally through introduction of their new product named Tami flu.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Cardiac Assist Devices Market to Register Substantial Expansion by 2019

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Cardiac Assist Devices (CAD) are type of mechanical pumps that work along with the heart to improve its pumping efficiency and maintain the optimum blood flow throughout the body. Cardiac Assist Devices can be segmented in three types ventricular assist devices, intra-aortic balloon pumps (IABPs) and total artificial heart. Ventricular assist device (VAD) is a mechanical pump which takes blood from a lower chamber of the heart and pumps it to the body and vital organs. Ventricular devices are of two types right ventricular assist device (RVAD), left ventricular assist device (LVAD) and if both the ventricular assist devices are used theyre known as biventricular assist device (BIVAD). Intra-aortic balloon pump is a type of CAD device which increases myocardial oxygen perfusion and cardiac output at the same time. Total artificial heart is a device which replaces the lower chambers of heart and recovers failing heart by performing all functions of a normal heart.Cardiac Assist Devices Market is expected to be driven by global aging population and increase in cardiovascular diseases. A another factor responsible for market growth of this market is lack of donor hearts for transplantation leading to increase in cardiac assist devices implantations in patients with severe heart complications. In future technological advancements and more efficient and minimally invasive devices are expected to drive the market.Request to View Brochure of Report -North America is the leading markets for Cardiac Assist Devices (CAD) because of highest heart failure cases diagnosed, technological development, high patient awareness and reimbursement coverage for CAD implantation procedures. Europe is the second largest market following North Amercia with second largest highest prevalence for cardiac diseases and increase in population exceeding 60 - 65 years of age group. Asia Pacific and Rest of the World are the regions including China, India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa has significantly large number of underserved patients suffering with cardiac diseases hence represented as future attractive markets for CAD.Some of the key players of Cardiac Assist Devices (CAD) market are Berlin Herat GmbH, ABIOMED, Inc., MAQUET GmbH & Co. KG, Thoratec Corporation, Teleflex Incorporated, HeartWare International, Inc. and SynCardia Systems, Inc.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Consumer Payments Country Snapshot Indonesia Market 2017: Key Players  Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners Club and More

Consumer Payments Country Snapshot Indonesia Market

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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 @Companies mentionedVisaMastercardAmerican ExpressJCBBank Rakyat IndonesiaBank MandiriBCABNIPT Bank CIMB NiagaBank Tabungan NegaraMoneyGramArsemaXenditSMBCBank TabunganScope- 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...CONTINUEDFor accessing accurate and deep understanding and to gain latest insights and key developments in the area of your interest, we also have a list of conferences in which you will be interested in, for more information, cordially checkFor updating knowledge or for thoroughly understanding various terminologies, we also have vast list of seminars for your reference, for more information cordially checkWise Guy Reports 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
Drug Discovery Outsourcing Market to Reflect Impressive Growth Rate During 2019

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Drug discovery is a process of inventing a new medication in the field of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and pharmacology. Drug discovery is a complex, lengthycomplicated and expensive process. This process is carried out in four stages namely, target identification, target validation, high-speed screening and lead optimization. Though advanced technologies are available, success rate of drug discovery is very low and the time involved is relatively high.The final stage of drug discovery involves obtaining a patent and running clinical trials. Most of the drugs entering into clinical trials fail and obsolete from the trials thus leading to waste of time, cost and efforts. Generally, small pharmaceutical companies develop new drug molecules and sell patent rights to big companies that can afford to conduct clinical trials. In order to focus on core competencies such as manufacturing, marketing and product labeling many companies outsource their drug discovery processes.Outsourcing of drug discovery saves time, cost and efforts of the pharmaceutical and biological companies. On the other hand companies providing outsourced services for drug discovery are equipped with developed infrastructure, highly developed technological front and skilled expertise. Rapidly progressing technologies, reduced turn-around time, increasing strategic partnerships and development of biosimilars, biologics and orphan drugs are some of the driving forces for the growth of The Global Drug Discovery Outsourcing Market.Though the market scope for drug discovery outsourcing market is vast, increase in clinical research organizations (CROs), regional expansion, niche CROs and public-private partnerships is leading to increased competition that is restraining growth of this market.Request to View Brochure of Report -Geographically, the global drug discovery outsourcing market can be categorized into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and rest of the world regions.North America currently leads this market and is followed by Europe due to existence and early adoption of highly developed technologies and supportive economy. Asia-Pacific is a promising market for drug discovery outsourcing and is expected to undergo rapid market growth. Especially countries like China and India are promising regions, reason being many small biopharmaceutical companies prefer outsourcing their drug discovery activities to CROs in China and India. Apart from nations in Asia-Pacific, countries such as Russia and Ukraine will also show growth progress in the future.Some of the market players in this industry segment are Galapagos NV, WIL Research Laboratories LLC, Albany Molecular Research, Inc. and Domainex, Ltd.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
He had been born in New York in 1850 to Gottlieb and Fredricka (Schartzberger) Herold shortly after their arrival from Saxony Germany. A three year old brother had died on the way over as a result of injuries received from a falling keg on board. They traveled from New York to Milwaukee in a wagon pulled by oxen. There his father worked in a clothes pin factory. Their next move was to La Crosse where he operated the toll gate on the La Crosse River Bridge at the entrance to the plank road between the north and south side of La Crosse. The toll charges were 3 cents for a horse and rider and five cents each for a horse and buggy, a team of oxen or a team of horses and a wagon. An additional 2 cents was paid for each extra horse and 1 cent for each additional oxen. Drivers of cattle paid 1 cent for each cow and  cent for each pig or sheep. In 1862 Gottlieb homesteaded the farm in Chipmunk Coulee. When son Rudolph bought the farm in 1883, Gottlieb and Fredricka bought land in Mormon Coulee and started a brick yard, known in later years as the Meier Brick Yard. The original homestead which grandpa Rudolph bought was divided into three farms with sons George and Elmer each taking over one of them. My Father, George, kept the part with the original home site and Grandpa Herold lived with us until his death in 1927.

I remember him well. He was a slight man with a shock of dark hair and a mustache. I can still see him walk across the yard with his hands folded behind his back, his normal walking position. Grandpa often took my brother and me picking wild flowers near the spring. It was a cool shady place on the north side of the hill. Soon after the snow was gone the ground there was covered with Dutchman britches and blood roots. The cool spring water bubbled out of the side of the hill and formed a tiny pool. We always scooped up cupped handfuls for a refreshing drink. Water Cress grew in the pool, which we gathered in late February and March and served as a salad with a dressing of rich cream, sugar and vinegar. Dad called it spring tonic, and Im sure it was because fresh fruits and vegetables were not available during the winter months. The spring with its steady supply of fresh cool water was undoubtedly the reason for the location of the homestead. Early settlers chose to build near a good water supply.

In the fall we went nut picking with Grandpa. Several hickory trees grew nearby and we gathered bushels of nuts. In the winter Dad would crack them by holding the nut between his thumb and forefinger on a block of wood held between his knees, then giving the nut a sharp blow with a hammer. A miss meant a painful blackened finger nail but the nut meats were delicious for cookies cakes and munching.

Next time: Grandpa Krause
Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay Technologies Market to Reflect Impressive Growth Rate During 2019

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Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) is a test performed to detect the presence of antibodies in a biological liquid sample. ELISA is used as quality control check in many industry and as a diagnostic tool in plant pathology and in medicine.Though the latest emerging technology i.e. themultiplex proteomic array platform is rapidly replacing the ELISA, its market continues to grow since it is being preferred as a secondary validation tool to confirm the results of multiplex proteomic platform. Emergence of cost effective technologies and laboratory automation are some of the major factorsthat are driving The Global ELISA Market towards growth. The existing ELISA manufacturers are currently facing price pressures due to increase in the number of market players, thereby increasing competitive rivalry. In order to survive the market competition, many market players are have begun to shift their focus on niche markets and have increased their efforts in developing innovative solutions.Request to View Brochure of Report -Geographically, the global enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay market can be categorized into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and rest of the world regions. North America,particularly the United States currently leads this marketand is followed by Europe due to widespread existence and early adoption of highly developed technologies and supportive economy. Asia-Pacific is a promising market for ELISA kits and is expected to undergo rapid market growth. Especially countries like China and India are promising regions, reason being rapidly growing medical tourism industry in India and China will increase the use of ELISA test as a diagnostic tool.Some of the market players leading the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) market include Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific. Inc., Life Technologies Corporation and ZEUS Scientific, Inc.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Malaria Diagnostics Market to receive overwhelming hike in Revenues by 2024

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According to the WHO, around 203 million cases of malaria was reported worldwide in 2012. The same year malaria resulted in approximately 627,000 deaths around the world. In order to curb the spread of malaria governments, especially in underdeveloped and developing countries, are leaving no stone unturned. Advanced diagnosis for malaria detection is thus encouraged. Incentives are offered as well to make them available at a pocket-friendly or nominal price in people living across remote regions.Early and precise diagnosis can help in the treatment of malaria and ensure rapid discovery. The Malaria Diagnostics Market has therefore witnessed rise in investments in various diagnostic techniques. These involve the detection of malaria with the help of microscopy and blood tests. Malaria diagnosis is conducted using various techniques such as molecular diagnostics, rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs), and by detecting the presence of parasites using microscopy.The report provides a comprehensive overview of the global malaria diagnostics market covering growth drivers and restraints influencing its trajectory between 2013 and 2019. It segments the market based on various parameters and studies the factors influencing its growth across these segments. The report also studies the effect of Porters five forces on the overall market operations.Global Malaria Diagnostics Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe advent of advanced technologies has revolutionized malaria diagnosis and are high in demand. These tests have proven successful in detecting antigens of malaria parasites. As government funding for the healthcare industry rise, coupled with the increasing investment in research and development of novel therapeutics, the demand in the malaria diagnostics market is projected to rise in response.Some of the most common techniques used in the detection of malaria are QBC technique, peripheral blood smears, and serological tests. Besides this, drugs most commonly administered for the treatment of malaria are artemether-lumefantrine (Coartem), atovaquone-proguanil (Malarone), clindamycin used in combination with quinine, chloroquine, quinine, mefloquine (Lariam), and quinidine. Factors influencing the demand of these drug classes are analyzed as well. The report also studies the impact of the looming patent expiry of blockbuster drugs on the global malaria diagnostics market. On the flip side, technological complications present in a few of the commonly used diagnostic methods could restrain the markets expansion to an extent.Request to View Brochure of Report -Global Malaria Diagnostics Market: Regional OutlookRegionally, Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World constitute the key segments in the global malaria diagnostics market. Among these, the market is expected to witness exponentially high demand in Europe and Asia Pacific as these regions exhibit a high prevalence of malaria. Besides this, steps taken by government to spread awareness regarding the diseases, its treatment, and prevention are expected to give the malaria diagnostics market significant impetus. This scenario will be most prevalent across emerging nations in Asia Pacific and Rest of the World. For instance, the Indian government has been significantly investing in creating awareness about the prevention and cure of malaria. The country is also exhibiting rising healthcare expenditure. These factors are expected to create lucrative opportunities fo9r the malaria diagnostics market in Asia Pacific.Global Malaria Diagnostics Market: Vendor LandscapeSome of the leading companies operating in the global malaria diagnostics market are bioMerieux, Beckman Coulter/Danaher, Abbott Laboratories, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Novartis Diagnostics, Life Technology, Siemens Healthcare, Bio-Rad, Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, and Wako Chemicals, Inc.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Tissue Engineering and Organ Regeneration Market to receive overwhelming hike in Revenues by 2019

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The Tissue Engineering And Organ Regeneration Market is a vital part of the field of medicine. Tissue engineering and organ regeneration is primarily used for treating burns and accident wounds, for cosmetic surgeries, in correcting birth defects, wound care, orthopedics, and in neurology, amongst others. The recent development in the engineering cell growth segment has encouraged the healthcare field to adopt it thanks to the increased knowledge bank about the procedure and the principle behind it.Advancements in cell culture technology, stem cell technology, and immunopassivation and immunomodulation have widened the reach of market players as it is creating a whole new knowledge base for treating various conditions. Application in cardiovascular surgeries is also likely to create a sustainable opportunity for this market.In recent years, the tissue engineering market has witnessed a rapid diversification and growth as it allows circumvention of the problem of organ shortage. This market has seen incredible developments such as advancements in technologies, biomaterials, biochemistry, molecular medicine, genetics, nano technology, and biomedical engineering. All of these have helped the global tissue engineering and organ regeneration market to repair or to regenerate human organs either through cell expansion or regeneration.Growing incidences of birth defects, burns, accidents, and such other mishaps account for 10 million cosmetic or reconstructive procedures across the globe. This has led to impressive growth of the global tissue engineering and organ regeneration market, which is eating into the market for metals and alloys that are used in body implants, as they have a toxic effect leading to poisoning in worst-case scenarios and come with a very high rate of rejection.Request to View Brochure of Report -The biggest market share in the global tissue engineering and organ regeneration market is held by procedures for the liver, kidney, and heart transplants, as they not only cost less when processed from the same individual, but also reduce the risk of rejection and increase the success rate of the surgical procedures. Other major contributors to the global tissue engineering and organ regeneration market are orthopedics and wound care segments.According to research analysts, growing applications of tissue engineering and organ regeneration in neurological and dental segments are also likely to add to the growth of this market in the near future. The exorbitant cost of organ transplantation, painstaking waiting periods, and increasing adoption of 3D printing in tissue and organ regeneration will also be significant growth drivers for the global tissue engineering and organ regeneration market.The report also profiles some of the key players in the global tissue engineering and organ regeneration market, such as CryoLife, Integra LifeSciences, Genzyme/Sanofi, LifeCell/ Kinetic Concepts, BioMemetic Therapeutics, Cook Biotech, StemCellsInc, Osiris Therapeutics, Tengion, NuVasive, Cytori Therapeutics, and AastromBioSciences.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Protein Therapeutics Market Set to Surge Significantly During 2024

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The Global Market For Protein Therapeutics has witnessed a significant rise in application in the treatment of a number of genetic, rare, and life-threatening diseases. It is known that proteins are crucial for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and people, whose bodies cannot produce or break down some essential proteins naturally, are prone to several diseases. The rising global prevalence of diabetes for instance, a disease that is caused due to dysfunctional production or processing of the protein insulin, has led to significant developments in the global protein therapeutics market in the past few years.This report on the global protein therapeutics market presents a detailed analysis of the market and its key segments in the present scenario. The report examines the market across several regional markets and includes an analysis of the key factors driving and restraining the growth of the market. An analysis of key trends of the past and present years, which have helped shape the markets present dynamics, is also included.Global Protein Therapeutics Market: Drivers and RestraintsOne of the key factors fueling the growth prospects of the global protein therapeutics market is the vast rise in the rate of incidence of a number of chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular conditions, and diabetes. The market is also driven due to the increased awareness among consumers regarding the high efficiency of protein therapeutics with the minimum risk of side effects and the increased level of acceptance among end users. However, the markets growth prospects are retrained to a certain extent owing to the vast funds required to undertake research and develop efficient methods for studying complex biological systems that can simulate the target organs or tissues.Global Protein Therapeutics Market: SegmentationThe market for protein therapeutics is segmented in the report broadly on the basis of criteria such as protein therapeutic modalities, product variety, application, indication, and geography. The key protein therapeutic modalities include protein diagnostics, protein vaccines, protein therapeutics with special targeting activity, and protein therapeutics with enzymatic or regulatory activity. Key product varieties in the protein therapeutics market include insulin, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), and blood clotting agents. Key indications making extensive usage of protein therapeutics include neurological disorders, diabetes, genetic disorders, and cancer.Request to View Brochure of Report -Global Protein Therapeutics Market: Geographical and Competitive DynamicsOn the basis of geography, the global protein therapeutics market has been categorized in the report into regions such as Latin America, Europe, North America, Middle East, and Africa. These regions are further segmented and analyzed according to the key countries contributing significantly to the development of the protein therapeutics market across these regions. Aspects such as regulatory framework of these regions surrounding the field of protein therapeutics, the process of approval protein therapeutics products, and the overall growth prospects of the market across each of these regions and countries are examined in the report.The report also includes an elaborate section analyzing the competitive landscape of the global protein therapeutics market. With the help of a Porters five forces analysis, the report analyzes the key forces that are shaping the present state of the competitive landscape of the market, including threat of substitutes and new entrants, degree of competition, and bargaining power of suppliers and buyers. The key players in the market are profiled in detail based on attributes such as recent developments, company portfolio, business strategies, financial overview, and market share.Companies Profiled in the ReportSome of the key players operating in the global protein therapeutics market profiled in the report are Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly & Company, Roche Group, Pfizer, Inc., Bristol Myers Squibb Co., Sanofi, Merck Sereno S.A. Amgen, Inc., and Novartis.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Surgical Incision Closure Devices Market to Reflect Impressive Growth Rate During 2024

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The rising number of disorders and rising demand for numerous surgeries are some of the key factors expected to stimulate the growth of the global surgical incision closure devices in the next few years. In addition, the use of alternative materials in the manufacturing processes to enhance the product quality is estimated to accelerate the growth of the global market. The increasing focus of these players on research and development activities and innovations is estimated to generate promising opportunities in coming years.The research study offers an in-depth analysis of The Global Surgical Incision Closure Devices Market, emphasizing on growth prospects and the promising opportunities. The research report offers a SWOT analysis of the leading players in order to highlight the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats affecting the growth of the overall market. To guide the existing and new entrants in the market, the marketing strategies and business policies have been discussed at length in the research report.Global Surgical Incision Closure Devices Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe introduction of advanced surgical incision closure devices is one of the key factors encouraging the growth of the global market. In addition, the technological developments and innovations in hemostats, tissue sealants, and other devices are offering several benefits, including reduced risk of infections, fewer traumas, reduced recovery time, and better cosmetic outcomes. This is anticipated to contribute significantly towards the development of the overall market. In addition, the increasing number of devices in the pipeline is anticipated to offer lucrative opportunities for the market players.On the flip side, the rise in preference for minimally invasive surgical processes among patients is one of the primary factors expected to restrict the growth of the global surgical incision closure devices market in the coming years.Request to View Brochure of Report -Global Surgical Incision Closure Devices Market: Region-wise OutlookThe global surgical incision closure devices market can be classified on the basis of geography into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. Among these regions, North America is expected to the lead the global surgical incision closure devices market owing to the technological advancements and the presence of prominent players operating in this region. In addition, the rising consumer base of knee replacement surgeries, spinal fusions, aesthetic surgeries, and hip replacement surgeries is estimated to fuel the growth of the surgical incision closure devices market in North America.Furthermore, Europe is expected to follow North America and witness substantial growth in the next few years. The introduction of new and effective devices is likely to encourage markets growth throughout the forecast period. On the other hand, Asia Pacific is expected to register a notable growth rate, owing to the increased access to healthcare services and establishments of new diagnostic centers and hospitals. In addition, the improvements in healthcare infrastructure and the increased spending in the healthcare sector are anticipated to accelerate the growth of the Asia Pacific surgical incision closure devices market in the coming years.Key Players Mentioned in the Research Report are:The prominent players operating in the global surgical incision closures devices market include Baxter International Inc., Covidien Ltd., 3M HealthCare, Henkel Loctite Corporation/Henkel Group, BTG International, Inc., Smith & Nephew PLC, CryoLife, Inc., Ethicon Inc., Tyco Healthcare/Tyco International, Genzyme Biosurgery, Inc, and Axya Medical, Inc.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Muckle-Wells Syndrome Market Poised to Expand at a Robust Pace Over 2024

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Muckle-Wells Syndrome (MWS) refers to a rare inherited autoinflammatory disease, of the cryopyrin associated periodic syndromes (CAPS), caused by mutations in the NLRP3/ CIAS1 gene. The gene is associated with the coding of the protein cryopyrin. Mutations in the gene are said to result in the increased activity of a protein known as interleukin (IL) 1, which leads to inflammatory symptoms such as joint pain and fever. The syndrome is characterized by recurrent episodes of rashes, acute attacks of fever, conjunctivitis, and painful joint. In most cases, the syndrome also leads to progressive sensorineural hearing loss. Renal failure are also often associated in untreated conditions owing to the abnormal accumulation of the protein amyloid in the kidneys.This report examines the market concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of MWS and presents a thorough overview of the present state of diagnostic tools and techniques and various drug compounds presently marketed for MWS. The report also includes detailed data regarding the state of ongoing research and development in the field, drugs in clinical trials and pipeline, and scope of growth for companies wanting to foray into the market.Muckle-Wells Syndrome Market: Available Diagnostic and Therapeutics OptionsAs such, not many drug candidates are available to treat the condition completely. The few treatment options available in the market include Arcalyst (Rilonacept), an interleukin-1 blocker, by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Ilaris (Canakinumab), a monoclonal antibody to interleukin-1 beta, by Novartis Pharmaceuticals, and Kineret (Anakinra), an IL-1 receptor antagonist, by Biovitrum pharmaceuticals. Many drug candidates are also in pipelines.For correcting the hearing loss that most MWS patients develop, hearing aids are prescribed. For alleviating joint pain, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are prescribed. The use of corticosteroids in high doses has also demonstrated positive effect in certain cases, but this may lead to several long- and short-term side effects.For diagnosis of MWS, a thorough evaluation of the patients syndromes is done. For confirmation of the diagnosis, identification of NLRP3/ CIAS1 gene mutation is done. Identification of mutation is, however, not a sure shot way of confirming the diagnosis of MWS as not all patient possess this mutation.Request to View Brochure of Report -Muckle-Wells Syndrome Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe market is expected to grow over the forecast period owing to advances in genetic engineering and increased focus of international pharmaceutical companies on research and development in the field of rare diseases such as MWS. Since MWS is a newly discovered condition, data regarding the actual prevalence and incidence are somewhat difficult to determine.Also, there is a vast lack of awareness regarding the disease and R&D costs are high. These factors are expected to arrest the growth of the global MWS market to a large extent in the next few years. Nevertheless, government intervention, funds from private and public bodies, and attempts to raise awareness among the masses about the diseases could help the market gain traction.Muckle-Wells Syndrome Market: Competitive LandscapeThe vendor landscape of the global MWS market features few players and a low level of competition, typical of most new markets. More companies are expected to enter the market via experimental drugs in the next few years. Better diagnostic methods are expected to be devised owing to increased vendor base in the market and advances in genetic engineering. Some of the key vendors presently operating in the market are Novartis AG, Charite University, Berlin, Germany, Istituto Giannina Gaslini, and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Ribbon Additives Market 2017- BYK, Honeywell, Chukyo Yushi, Blue Ribbon Technology

Global Ribbon Additives Market

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Apex Market Reports, recently published a detailed market research study focused on the "Global Ribbon Additives Market" across the global, regional and country level. The report provides 360 analysis of "Global Ribbon Additives 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 Ribbon Additives industry, and estimates the future trend of Global Ribbon Additives market on the basis of this detailed study. The study shares "Global Ribbon Additives Market" performance both in terms of volume and revenue.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here:Top Manufacturers Analysis of This ReportChukyo YushiBYKBlue Ribbon TechnologyHoneywellThe market research report explores the Global Ribbon Additives market across the globe along with major regions and countries. The research report provides a detailed study on each and every aspect of "Global Ribbon Additives 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 Global Ribbon Additives market based on major product types, application and end users industries of Global Ribbon Additives. Besides, the report also covers geographical segmentation for Global Ribbon Additives 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 Global Ribbon Additives is determined by assessing the major industry participants, production capacity, production capacity utilization rate, Global Ribbon Additives market's production chain, pricing by each manufacturer and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Global Ribbon Additives market globally.Enquire Before Buying @The Global Ribbon Additives market 2017 is further analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Global Ribbon Additives production volume, data pertaining to demand and Global Ribbon Additives supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. The report provides upstream and downstream analysis covering major raw material used in manufacturing of Global Ribbon Additives 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 Global Ribbon Additives 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 -Contact UsFrank ValadezCorporate Sales Specialist155 North Wacker Drive, Suite 4250Chicago, IL 60606Phone: +17739042683Email id - sales@apexmarketreports.comWebsite -
Probiotic Cosmetic Products Global Market Top Key Players  Estee Lauder, LOREAL, Procter & Gamble (P&G), Unilever - Analysis and Forecast to 2022

Probiotic Cosmetic Products Market 2018

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Probiotic Cosmetic Products Market 2018Probiotic Cosmetic Products are widely available in the market. Probiotics are favorable microorganisms that do not harm the skin and treat different skin concerns such as wrinkles, fine lines, acne, blemishes, and others. Products such moisturizers, cleansers, anti-aging skincare products are some of the popular probiotic skincare products. Multifunctional skincare products are in high demand as customers demand products that consume less time and provide results on different skin concerns such as skin brightening, acne, blemishes, wrinkles, fine lines, and others.The analysts forecast the global probiotic cosmetic products market to grow at a CAGR of 7.79% during the period 2018-2022.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global probiotic cosmetic products market for 2018-2022. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of probiotic cosmetic products.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEARequest a Sample Report @The report, Global Probiotic Cosmetic Products Market 2018-2022, 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 Estee Lauder ESSE ORGANIC SKINCARE LOREAL Procter & Gamble (P&G) UnileverOther prominent vendors AOBiome Aurelia Skincare BeBe & Bella The Clorox Company EMINENCE ORGANIC SKIN CARE NUDE brands Onesta Hair Care Rodial TULA Life THE BODY DELIMarket driver Product innovation and portfolio extension For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend Rise in demand for multifunctional and multipurpose beauty products For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this report What will the market size be in 2022 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?Any Query, Submit Here @Table of Contents Analysis of Key PointsPART 01: EXECUTIVE SUMMARYPART 02: SCOPE OF THE REPORTPART 03: RESEARCH METHODOLOGYPART 04: INTRODUCTION Market outlinePART 05: MARKET LANDSCAPE Market ecosystem Market characteristics Market segmentation analysisPART 06: MARKET SIZING Market definition Market sizing 2017 Market size and forecast 2017-2022PART 07: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS Bargaining power of buyers Bargaining power of suppliers Threat of new entrants Threat of substitutes Threat of rivalry Market conditionPART 08: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY PRODUCT Global probiotic cosmetic products market by product Comparison by product Global probiotic skincare products market  Market size and forecast 2017-2022 Global other probiotic cosmetic products market Market size and forecast 2017-2022 Market opportunity by productPART 09: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY END-USERS Global probiotic cosmetic products market by end-usersPART 10: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPEPART 11: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL Global probiotic cosmetic products market by distribution channel Comparison by distribution channel Global probiotic cosmetic products market through offline distribution channel Global probiotic cosmetic products market through online distribution channel Market opportunity by distribution channelPART 12: REGIONAL LANDSCAPE Geographical segmentation Regional comparison Americas  Market size and forecast 2017-2022 EMEA  Market size and forecast 2017-2022 APAC  Market size and forecast 2017-2022 Key leading countries Market opportunity by regionPART 13: DECISION FRAMEWORKPART 14: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES Market drivers Market challengesPART 15: MARKET TRENDS High demand for beauty products among men Rise in demand for multifunctional and multi-purpose beauty products Growing popularity of professional, at-home products, and kitsPART 16: VENDOR LANDSCAPE Overview Landscape disruption Competitive landscapePART 17: VENDOR ANALYSIS Vendors covered Vendor classification Market positioning of vendors Estee Lauder ESSE ORGANIC SKINCARE LOREAL Procter & Gamble (P&G) Unilever....ContinuedABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Address:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Ophthalmology Diagnostics and Surgical Devices Market is Estimated to Reach USD 40,381.6 Million by 2019

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Robust developments in ophthalmology have brought about efficient diagnostic and treatment methodologies that have rendered enhanced patient satisfaction. As a consequence of the technological advances, the ophthalmology and surgical devices market has registered impressive growth around the world. Additionally, increasing demand for novel diagnostics and efficient treatment methodologies has also contributed to the developing global ophthalmology diagnostics and surgical devices market. The global healthcare industry has been witnessing strong growth trends since the last decade. This in turn has spurred the development of ophthalmology, which is an integral sector of the healthcare industry. Studying the scope for growth of the ophthalmology diagnostics and surgical devices market, Transparency Market Research has published a report, titled Ophthalmology Diagnostics and Surgical Devices Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 - 2019.As per the findings of the report, the global ophthalmology diagnostics and surgical devices market, which stood at US$26012.6 million in 2012, is likely to expand at a positive 6.6% CAGR to reach US$40381.6 million by the end of 2019.Report Overview @As a result of the increasing demand for minimally invasive surgical procedures and discovery of advanced diagnostic methodologies, the market for ophthalmology diagnostics and surgical devices will gain considerable momentum. Improved techniques of cataract surgery, introduction of retinal implants and advanced diagnostic platforms constitute the most significant breakthroughs that are expected to accelerate the ophthalmology diagnostics market. The report evaluates the global surgical devices and ophthalmology diagnostics market in terms of available product types, key applications, and geography. In terms of product type, the global ophthalmology diagnostics market is segmented into autorefractometers, slit lamps, fundus cameras, optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems, pachymeters, perimeters, tonometers, keratometers, ophthalmoscopes, corneal topographers, gonioscopes, specular microscopes, echography systems, and fluorescein angiography. The global market for surgical devices, on the other hand, is classified into four major categories comprising glaucoma, vitreoretinal surgery devices, cataract, and refractive.Request for Sample Copy of Report @The report identifies Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, and Rest of the World as the key geographic segments comprised within the global surgical devices and ophthalmology diagnostics market. Europe and North America dominate the global ophthalmology diagnostics and surgical devices market and their cumulative market share accounts to 55%.North America and Europe have achieved great advances in the healthcare sector. These regions exhibit an impressive pool of ophthalmology professionals, favorable healthcare policies, and high level of technological sophistication. Growing awareness among patients, along with the aforementioned factors, drives the surgical devices and ophthalmology diagnostic market in North America and Europe. However, owing to increasing awareness about ophthalmology diagnosis and other health-related factors among patients, Asia Pacific is expected to witness a rise in the ophthalmology diagnostics and surgical devices market in the region at the highest rate of all regional segments.Purchase this Report @About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Remote Monitoring and Control Market Industry : Market Development, Analysis and Overview 2017-2025

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Remote Monitoring and Control Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2025" to its huge collection of research reports.The remote monitoring and control systems facilitate efficient controlling and monitoring of processes across industries such as oil & gas, power generation, chemicals and wastewater industries. The field instruments are basic building blocks of the remote processes and are used to supervise various parameters such as temperature, level, pressure, and flow rate across numerous applications.Increasing industrial automation demand coupled with requirement of industrial mobility and asset excellence in the process industry is expected to propel the remote monitoring and control market over the forecast timeframe. The sources used for power generation are limited and thus the optimum utilization of these non-renewable resources are of utmost importance. Emphasis on industrial safety and their health is anticipated to drive the emergency shutdown systems in the power industrial applications. Safety valves, safety sensors and switches are wise used in power industries.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The SCADA system applications in the power sector helps in improving the productivity of the system by providing efficient control and supervision. Each process in power sector requires temperature measurement for various controlled operations. Pressure transmitters are commonly used inside the coal processing units to monitor their pressure inside the dryer units.Power monitoring and connectivity unite in fight against downtime as reducing downtime involves the remote control and monitoring. Most of the electrical components such as trip units, and meters can be connected by increasing their ability to provide alerts via email or on smartphones for efficiently handling the operations. The operators can access the historical and real-time information to find the alarm causes and eliminating it. Systems coupled with automatic control capabilities can immediately take responsive steps to restore the power and preserve the loads while analysing the problems.The most versatile monitoring and control systems offer fully integrated processors for complex controlling tasks such as generator paralleling and starting, demand control and load shedding. These systems also include safe failure modes, hot backup and supports common programming language as these systems are commonly used for mission-critical operations.Packaging segment is expected to witness highest growth prospects amongst other applications with the packaging equipment coupled with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) over the forecast timeline. The manufacturers are taking advantage of smartphone connectivity, social media and internet linkages in packaging industry. Equipment which offers automation and control through smart connectivity improves the flexibility by providing manufacturers with the data and analytics associated with the databases for making better decisions. Manufacturers across all industries are taking advantage of the benefits to remain competitive in the market enhance the product quality thereby improving the customer satisfaction.Make an Enquiry about TOC @Downfall in petroleum prices is one of the key restraining factor for remote monitoring and control market as it is adversely affecting the bottom lines of the major participants involved in the value chain of the oil and gas industry. Therefore, these factors are expected to halt the investments in oil and gas industry which shall further impact the remote monitoring and control systems market globally.The Asia Pacific remote monitoring and control market is expected to grow with the highest CAGR from 2017 to 2025. Chemicals, power, automation, water and waste water industries is anticipated to drive the industrial growth in this region. Increasing primary energy consumption and investments in waste water management would propel the market demand in emerging economies such as China and India.The remote monitoring and control market can be segmented by type into solutions and field instruments. Pressure transmitter, humidity transmitter, temperature transmitter, flow meter and level transmitter constitute the field instruments. By application, the industry can be classified into power generation, oil & gas, chemicals, pulp & paper, water & wastewater, metal & mining, and food & beverage industries.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.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
Driver Safety Systems Market Explores New Growth Opportunities By 2022

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Over the past couple of decades, the automotive sector has witnessed staggering advances in automobile technologies world over. These have been focused on improving the safety and convenience of the drivers and passengers in particular and the road safety in general. The market has seen amazing developments underpinned by the growing adoption of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) in cars of all types, including passenger cars and off-highway vehicles. The vastly rising demand for technologies in vehicles for improving their safety and the convenience of drivers and passengers through a better human-machine interface is a key factor driving the global market. The advent of ADAS equipped with a vast assortment of automated features is opening up exciting opportunities for auto makers and aftermarket players in various regions.Request Sample:The global driver safety systems market is projected to rise from a valuation of US$1,921.3 Mn in 2017 to reach US$2,750.0 by 2022 end. The market is estimated to register a CAGR of 7.4% during the forecast period of 20172022.Find below a critical evaluation of key trends and factors influencing the growth of the driver safety systems market:The rising demand for technologies that aim for improving the convenience and comfort by drivers is a key factor driving the driver safety systems market. The burgeoning adoption of advanced driver-assistance systems and adaptive cruise control systems is a notable trend accentuating the market. The growing demand for distraction monitoring systems in passenger cars in response to stringent regulations for passengers safety in various regions is a key factor bolstering the uptake of driver safety systems in developing and developed regions. The rising number of road accidents and increasing fatalities in several developed and developing countries has led regional governments to focus on incorporating advanced safety standards for automobiles, thereby further fueling the market growth.The intensifying demand for ADAS for improving the comfort and reducing the fatigue of high-mileage drivers is catalyzing the demand for advanced driver safety systems. The implementation of safeguards to prevent collision and ensure better control of vehicles by drivers is a prominent trend accentuating the market.The notable complexity and the high cost of the ADAS technologies used for driver safety systems is a key factor that has hindered the demand in some regional markets. Nevertheless, the tried-and-true benefits of various safety features under ADAS and the stringent regulations to ensure passengers safety are prominent factors boosting the market. Furthermore, constant advancements in automotive electronics in response to adoption of industry-wide quality standards in vehicular safety systems is a crucial factor expected to accentuate the market over the forecast period.Browse Our Report:Geographically, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) is projected to be the most lucrative market for driver safety systems and is anticipated to hold the leading revenue share of the global market throughout the forecast period. The APEJ driver safety systems market is estimated to hold a share 30.2% of the market by the end of 2017. The growth is driven by burgeoning adoption of safety features in the passenger cars segment and driver fatigue monitoring system in vehicles.Of all the technologies used for driver safety systems, eye-tracking is the most attractive segment and currently holds the major share in the market. The segment is projected to reach a worth of US$673.7 Mn by the end of 2022. The vastly rising demand for this technology is driven by the demand for advanced safety features in cars that focus on improving the drivers awareness, so as to prevent any accidents and fatalities.Competitive DynamicsA number of players are focused on launching advanced and inexpensive driver assistance system technologies in order to consolidate their shares. Some of the prominent players operating in the driver safety systems market are Magna International Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, Smart Eye AB, Seeing Machines, Valeo S.A., Continental AG, Denso Corporation, and Infineon Technologies AG.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Medical Fiber Optics Market to Reach an Overall Valuation of US$ 1.3 Billion by 2019

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Transparency Market Research (TMR) has announced the addition of a new market study on the medical fiber optics market. The report analyzes the drivers and restraints of the market. The report is titled Medical Fiber Optics Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trend and Forecast 2013 - 2019. As per the findings in the report, the global medical fiber optics market, which was valued at US$863.1 mn in 2013, will rise to US$1.33 bn by 2019, exhibiting a CAGR of 7.60% from 2013 through 2019.Report Overview @The use of fiber optics for minimally invasive surgeries is one of the major drivers of the global medical fiber optics market. Medical fiber optics technology is being used in x-ray imaging, light therapy, ophthalmic lasers, lab and clinical diagnostics, surgical and diagnostic instrumentation, surgical microscopy, dental head pieces, and endoscopy. Thus, the rising applications of medical fiber optics technology are expected to propel the growth of the market.The trend of developing miniature medical devices is also increasing the demand for medical fiber optics technology. The rapid growth in the medical fiber technology field is further expected to drive the market in the coming years. On the other hand, the market is restricted by stringent regulations regarding the high risk associated with intensity of light, which is also proving to be a challenge for the markets growth. However, fiber optics is gaining importance in optical coherence tomography. This will open new doors of opportunity in the global medical fiber optics market.Request for Sample Copy of Report @The global medical fiber optics market is segmented on the basis of application and geography. On the basis of application, the market is segmented into fiberoptic surgical lights, endoscopes, laser fiberoptics, fiberoptic dental lights, and fiberoptic sensors. Of these, the endoscopes segment emerged as a leading segment in 2013 and is expected to expand at an 8.10% CAGR in the period from 2013 to 2019. The endoscopes segment was valued at US$339.8 mn in 2013 and is anticipated to rise to US$543 mn by the end of 2019.On the basis of geography, the global medical fiber optics market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia, and the Rest of the World. North America led the market in 2013 due to high demand for minimally invasive surgeries. North America is expected to continue to dominate the global medical fiber optics market from 2013 to 2019, but Asia is expected to be the fastest-growing regional market.Purchase this Report @The report profiles the leading operators in the global medical fiber optics market. The strategies adopted by the leading players have been included. The challenges faced by the players, the factors driving their growth, and the recent developments of each of the players have been given in the report. The business overview and financial overview are also included. The companies studied are: Rofin, Leoni AG, Schott, IPG Photonics, Trumph, American Medical System, Sunoptic Technologies, Timbercon Inc., Vitalcor Inc., and Coherent Inc.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Cloud Encryption Market Share, Trend, Segmentation and Forecast by 2025

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A fresh market intelligence study by Transparency Market Research (TMR) reveals the global cloud encryption market to be largely consolidated with the dominance of a few well-entrenched players that hold the key market share.The leading players, namely CipherCloud Inc., Hytrust Inc., Gemalto NV, IBM Corporation, Netskope Inc., Secomba GmbH, Skyhigh Networks, Sophos Group Plc., Symantec Corporation, and Thales e-Security Inc., are engaged in technological innovations that will help them gain competitive advantage in a bid to strengthen their foothold. For example, in September 2017, SonicWall Inc. released a range of advanced cloud security products such as SonicWall Cloud Analytics application for automated breach detection and deep security data analysis.Request A Sample Of This Report -Savvy players are also vying to expand into untapped markets such as emerging economies of Asia Pacific that are increasingly adopting cloud solutions. In particular, healthcare and BFSI sectors display substantial demand for cloud encryption solutions with growing complexity of IT systems.As per estimates of the TMR report, the global cloud encryption market will be valued at US$2,912.3 mn by the end of 2025. The market is projected to expand at an outstanding 21.5% CAGR over the forecast period from 2017 to 2025. On the basis of service model, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) segment is expected to continue dominance on the back of its various benefits over other service model components. Telecom and IT segment among the key industry verticals is likely to display the leading CAGR over the forecast period. Geography-wise, North America stood as the leading revenue generating region in 2016.View Report -Increasing Adoption of Cloud-based Solutions among Small and Medium Size Enterprises Favors MarketAt the forefront of driving the global cloud encryption market is the dire need to encrypt data before it is transferred to the cloud for storage. Growing demand for security capabilities offered by cloud encryption solutions is leading to the increased penetration and growth of cloud encryption market globally.Further, the increasing adoption of advanced data storage technology and data storage architecture by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is leading to the increased penetration of cloud encryption solutions. The trend is noticeable among SMEs in countries such as China, India, and Japan due to the rising adoption of software as a service (SaaS) distribution model. SMEs are increasingly switching from in-house data center to cloud for various applications that helps saves running and managing cost of their data centers. The use of cloud also helps accelerate the application delivery process.Early adoption of Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) Practices in Developed Regions Stokes DemandThe increasing adoption of software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) models predominantly in developed economies is positively influencing cloud encryption market. For instance, in North America, agencies that are involved in providing cloud based services and solutions are entering into collaborations with each other and are focused to offer various advanced technologies to consumers. Further, the early adoption of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) practices and rapid advancements in cloud technology in order to provide high security to private and confidential data is stoking the demand for cloud encryption solutions.On the other hand, in developing regions, rising complexities of IT systems and capability to deploy new applications are anticipated to boost the cloud encryption market. For instance, China and India contribute significant revenue to the Asia Pacific cloud encryption marketTransparency 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 recommendationsTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Bio CMO Global Market : Industry Competitive Landscape & Technological Breakthroughs Analysis For 2018-2022

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Albany, NY, 29th December : Recent research and the current scenario as well as future market potential of "Global Bio CMO Market: Size, Trends & Forecasts (2018-2022)" globally.The report entitled Global Bio CMO Market: Size, Trends & Forecasts (2018-2022), provides analysis of the global bio CMO market, with detailed analysis of market size and growth, penetration, market share and economic impact of the industry. The report also provides the analysis of the global biologics market by value, by top selling products, etc.Get PDF for more Professional and Technical insights @Growth of the overall global bio CMO market has been forecasted for the years 2017-2022, taking into consideration the previous growth pattern, the growth drivers and the current and future trends.Lonza Group, Boehringer Ingelheim, Samsung Biologics and Wuxi Biologics are key companies in the global bio CMO market. The company profiling of these companies has been done in the report, which includes business overview, financial overview and respective business strategies of the companies.Company CoverageLonza GroupBoehringer IngelheimSamsung BiologicsWuxi BiologicsView Complete TOC with tables & Figures @Executive SummaryPharmaceutical industry comprise of discovering, developing, producing and marketing of drugs for medical use. Worlds largest pharmaceutical firms are located in the North America, Europe and Japan. On the basis of technological platform, pharmaceutical drugs can be divided into small molecule or conventional drugs and large molecule or biologic drugs.Biologics are made through biological processes and are generally injected. Biologics comprises of vaccines, blood or blood components, somatic cells, gene therapy, etc. Biologics are categorized into first-or second generation, depending on development period and cell line. Biosimilars are the biological that are similar, but not identical to the original product.CMO or Contract Manufacturing Organization is a third party, which the pharmaceutical firms approach for the manufacturing of components of its product or whole of its product. Bio CMOs are typically used to provide secondary manufacturing coverage for the branded pharmaceutical industry. On the basis of production technology, bio CMOs can be divided into mammalian cell system and microbial system.Browse Report @The global bio CMO market is expected to increase at a significant growth rate during the forecasted period (2017-2022). The global bio CMO market is supported by various growth drivers, such as increase in pharmaceutical industry, growth in use of biosimilars, potential biologics blockbusters, introduction of targeted therapins, grater outsourcing demand from global pharmas, etc. Yet, the market faces certain challenges, such as risk associated with CMOs, presence of in-house manufacturing facilities of big pharma companies, productivity issues with mammalian cell system, etc.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,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 :
Trend of Mobile Data Protection Market in Global Industry : Market Analysis, Market Size, Regional Outlook, Competitive Strategies and Forecasts 2017-2025

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Mobile Data Protection Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2025" to its huge collection of research reports.Mobile Data Protection (MDP) is the technology that applies data privacy guidelines by managing data encryption on the principal storage system of a workstation in various data storage platforms, such as solid-state disks, removable media and hard drives used in alliance with smartphones & workstations. It consists of an offline/stand-alone agent for removable media, an active endpoint agent for the target device and a central console. Mobile data protection (MDP) is used for securing data on mobile storage systems including removable media, smartphones, and laptops. It also provides unified protection policies across multiple platforms. To protect mobile data, information technology administrators must know the entire intricacies of mobile operating system, determine which devices to allow in the workplace and understand the native data protection. Protecting corporate data from theft or loss is a priority for any organisation.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Data breaches are pricey and painful, and their effects can range from regulatory sanctions to brand damage. Support for secure device wipe and native device level encryption varies. However, Because of this, it is common for IT shops to apply a two bifurcated approach to securing mobile data. First, they enforce and establish minimum criteria for the acceptance for the outside device willing to enter into the company network, then they back fill platform weaknesses with third party technologies for mobile security. There are various ways of protecting mobile data including remote data wipe for mobile devices, mobile device locks, mobile activity monitoring & audit and encryption of stored data on mobile devices.Increasing bring your own devices (BYOD) trend among organizations resulting into several threats for the organization including data loss and others. This is driving the adoption of the mobile data protection by various organizations. Mobile data protection also provides various user benefits for the organizations. For instance, it keep employees productive and maintain operational efficiency with transparent decryption and encryption that causes virtually no disruption to any system performance and users. It allow users to store, access, transfer and share data securely. Furthermore, it simplifies security management, which means enforce and implement company broad security policies that control user authentication and data encryption all from a central platform. It also supports compliance with external and internal security regulations.Significant amount of spending on IT infrastructure for the implementation of the mobile data protection system can challenge mobile data protection market. However, large and established enterprises with significant budget are spending on building a secure IT infrastructure.Make an Enquiry about TOC @Mobile data protection market can be segmented on the basis of operating system, end-user, end-use industry verticals, application and region. On the basis of operating system mobile data protection market can be segmented as Linux, windows, android, Mac OS and others. On the basis of end-user the market is segmented into large enterprises and small & medium enterprises. Furthermore, on the basis of end-use industry verticals, the mobile data protection market can be segmented into retail, manufacturing, BFSI, healthcare, IT & telecommunication and others. On the basis of application, mobile data protection market can be segmented as mobile phones, laptops and others.Geographically mobile data protection market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and South America. North America and Europe are expected to lead due to the new data protection regulations laid down by the government. However, Asia Pacific is expected to grow at a significant pace since various large and prominent enterprises are investing in mobile data protection technology to secure IT infrastructure.Some of the key players in the mobile data protection market are McAfee LLC, CipherCloud, Apperian, e-Cycle LLC, Druva, Gemalto NV, Commvault, Intel Corporation, Dell, ophos Ltd. and more.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.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
Automotive Gasket and Seal Market Industry Analysis, Growth and New Market Opportunities Explored

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The global automotive gasket and seal market is foretold to gain prominence with a snowballing emphasis on the design of effective and superior products that involve the application of top-quality material to endure high pressure and heat. The rising pressure on the automotive sector owing to environmental concerns and changes is pushing vehicle manufacturers to develop improved and innovative components. In this regard, new gaskets and seals could draw a swelling demand in the automotive sector. Thus, growing fuel-efficiency norms and rising production in this sector is forecast to bode well for the market.The global automotive gasket and seal market, as per Transparency Market Research (TMR), is foreseen to earn a valuation of US$84.0 bn by the end of 2022, from a US$63.2 bn attained in 2017, at a CAGR of 5.8%.Request Sample:Global Automotive Gasket and Seal Market: Major InsightsThe international automotive gasket and seal market is estimated to fortify its growth during the course of the forecast period because of the rising adoption of renewable energy sources. Gaskets and seals are increasingly used in systems that harness solar thermal, geothermal, wind, solar, and other sources of renewable energy for generating power. As a result, the growth prospects of the market are projected to fly high in the coming years due to an elevating focus toward the use of renewable energy sources and sustainable development. The well-boosted replacement demand in the industrial sector owing to the focus on asset management and the subsequent step toward proactive machine condition monitoring could be another powerful growth factor.The international automotive gasket and seal market is anticipated to be segregated as per product, vehicle, sales channel, and material. On the basis of product, the market could witness the reign of metallic gasket in the coming years. By the end of 2022, this segment could collect a revenue of US$60.3 bn. In terms of vehicle type, the market could be classified into compact, mid-sized, premium, luxury, commercial, and heavy commercial. By sales channel, there could be segments such as original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and aftermarket taking shape in the market. In view of segmentation by material, the market is predicted to be cataloged into metal, fiber, rubber, and silicon.By region, the international automotive gasket and seal market is prophesied to testify the dominance of Asia Pacific except Japan (APEJ) while it expands at a 6.3% expected CAGR. North America could be another region garnering a healthy growth in the market. It is prognosticated to rise at a 5.8% CAGR. Europe is also prophesied to showcase a strong market growth as it is projected to be valued at a US$21.4 bn by 2022 end. However, Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) are envisaged to grow lazily in the near future.Browse Our Report:Global Automotive Gasket and Seal Market: Vendor LandscapeThe report is envisioned to include a study of some of the finest industry players of the worldwide automotive gasket and seal market, such as Dana Limited, Federal-Mogul Corporation, Trelleborg AB, Datwyler, Elringklinger AG, SKF AB, Smiths Group plc, Victor Gaskets India LTD, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies GmbH & Co, and KG and Flowserve Corporation.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Endoscopy Devices Market to Reach an Approximate Value of US$ 36.9 Billion in 2019

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As endoscopy devices are minimally invasive, the adoption of endoscopy has increased rapidly across the globe, reports Transparency Market Research in its latest publication. TMRs report, titled Endoscopy Devices Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 - 2019, studies the global endoscopy devices market based on the device type, areas of application, and geography. According to the report, the market was valued at US$24.9 billion in 2012 and is further expected to reach an approximate value of US$36.9 billion in 2019. The overall market is growing at a CAGR of 6.8% from 2013 to 2019. In the past few years, the demand for endoscopy devices has increased tremendously due to the growing preference for minimally invasive surgeries and demand for cost-effective endoscopic procedures in terms of pre- and post-surgical operations.Report Overview @The demand from this market has also increased due to the reduced chances of infection and blood loss as a result of noninvasive procedures and shorter stay at hospitals because of a quicker recovery. These factors are advantageous in the field of medicine, especially oncology. Hence, the adoption of endoscopy is increasing rapidly across major regions in the world. The global endoscopy devices market is categorized by two key criteria  device type and application. Based on the device type, the endoscopy market comprises endoscopes, operative devices, visualization systems, and high-definition (HD) visualization systems. The visualization systems segment further includes image processing devices, display, camera, control unit, and illumination devices, whereas other specialized operative instruments include internal closure devices, energy systems, irrigation systems, and others.Request for Sample Copy of Report @Among the various endoscopy devices, capsule endoscopes and robot-assisted endoscopes have completely transformed the endoscopy market. Capsule-shaped endoscopy devices deliver high-quality images of the gastrointestinal tract to external receivers. Due to these effective devices, the diagnosis of gastrointestinal conditions has become more efficient and accurate. One of the leading market players, Given Imaging, which is acquired by Covidien, accounts for nearly 85% of the global capsule endoscopy market. Other key players in the capsule endoscopy market are Jinshan Medical, Olympus, and IntroMedic.Visualization systems have also witnessed significant technological advancements in the recent past. The development of three-dimensional (3D) camera systems has reduced the errors and improved depth perception during surgical procedures, hence reducing the overall surgery time. Similarly, endoscopic ultrasound devices allow doctors to effectively diagnose intestinal tract conditions and obtain more accurate images, allowing more detailed and thus more precise examination of the same.Purchase this Report @International market players and companies in the field of endoscopy devices are mainly aiming at Asian countries, especially India, China, and Japan, for lucrative opportunities in the upcoming years. Factors propelling growth of the endoscopy devices market in emerging economies such as Brazil, India, China, and Southeast Asia are the improving healthcare sectors in these countries, rapidly developing economic conditions, and the resultant increase in disposable incomes.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Pharmacovigilance Software Market 2017 Key Players -United Biosource Corporation, Umbra Global, Sparta Systems, Inc, Sarjen Systems Pvt. Ltd, Oracle Corporation.,.

Pharmacovigilance Software Market

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Pharmacovigilance Software Market:WiseGuyReports.com adds Pharmacovigilance Software Market 2017 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting to 2022reports to its database.Executive SummaryThis report studies sales (consumption) of Pharmacovigilance Software 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, coveringUnited Biosource CorporationUmbra GlobalSparta Systems, IncSarjen Systems Pvt. LtdOracle Corporation.Online Business Applications, IncExtedo GMBH.ArisglobalAB-CubeRequest Sample Report @Market Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with sales (consumption), revenue, market share and growth rate of Pharmacovigilance Software in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), likeUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaSplit by product Types, with sales, revenue, price and gross margin, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoIssue Tracking SoftwareFully Integrated SoftwareAdverse Event Reporting SoftwareDrug Safety Audits SoftwareSplit by applications, this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Pharmacovigilance Software in each application, can be divided intoBusiness Process Outsourcing (BPO) FirmsContract Research Organizations (CROS)Pharma & Biotech CompaniesOthersFor further information on this report, visit -Table of content:Global Pharmacovigilance Software Sales Market Report 20171 Pharmacovigilance Software Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Pharmacovigilance Software1.2 Classification of Pharmacovigilance Software1.2.1 Issue Tracking Software1.2.2 Fully Integrated Software1.2.3 Adverse Event Reporting Software1.2.4 Drug Safety Audits Software?1.3 Application of Pharmacovigilance Software1.3.1 Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Firms1.3.2 Contract Research Organizations (CROS)1.3.3 Pharma & Biotech Companies1.3.4 Others1.4 Pharmacovigilance Software Market by Regions1.4.1 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Pharmacovigilance Software (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Pharmacovigilance Software Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Pharmacovigilance Software Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Global Pharmacovigilance Software Competition by Manufacturers, Type and Application2.1 Global Pharmacovigilance Software Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1.1 Global Pharmacovigilance Software Sales and Market Share of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Pharmacovigilance Software Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Pharmacovigilance Software (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Pharmacovigilance Software Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global Pharmacovigilance Software Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Global Pharmacovigilance Software (Volume and Value) by Regions2.3.1 Global Pharmacovigilance Software Sales and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)2.3.2 Global Pharmacovigilance Software Revenue and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)2.4 Global Pharmacovigilance Software (Volume) by Application9 Global Pharmacovigilance Software Manufacturers Analysis9.1 United Biosource Corporation9.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.1.2 Pharmacovigilance Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.1.2.1 Product A9.1.2.2 Product B9.1.3 United Biosource Corporation Pharmacovigilance Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.2 Umbra Global9.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.2.2 Pharmacovigilance Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.2.2.1 Product A9.2.2.2 Product B9.2.3 Umbra Global Pharmacovigilance Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.3 Sparta Systems, Inc9.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.3.2 Pharmacovigilance Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.3.2.1 Product A9.3.2.2 Product B9.3.3 Sparta Systems, Inc Pharmacovigilance Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.4 Sarjen Systems Pvt. Ltd9.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.4.2 Pharmacovigilance Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.4.2.1 Product A9.4.2.2 Product B9.4.3 Sarjen Systems Pvt. Ltd Pharmacovigilance Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.5 Oracle Corporation.9.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.5.2 Pharmacovigilance Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.5.2.1 Product A9.5.2.2 Product B9.5.3 Oracle Corporation. Pharmacovigilance Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.6 Online Business Applications, Inc9.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.6.2 Pharmacovigilance Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.6.2.1 Product A9.6.2.2 Product B9.6.3 Online Business Applications, Inc Pharmacovigilance Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.7 Extedo GMBH.9.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.7.2 Pharmacovigilance Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.7.2.1 Product A9.7.2.2 Product B9.7.3 Extedo GMBH. Pharmacovigilance Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.8 Ennov.9.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.8.2 Pharmacovigilance Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.8.2.1 Product A9.8.2.2 Product B9.8.3 Ennov. Pharmacovigilance Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.9 Arisglobal9.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.9.2 Pharmacovigilance Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.9.2.1 Product A9.9.2.2 Product B9.9.3 Arisglobal Pharmacovigilance Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.9.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.10 AB-Cube9.10.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.10.2 Pharmacovigilance Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.10.2.1 Product A9.10.2.2 Product B9.10.3 AB-Cube Pharmacovigilance Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.10.4 Main Business/Business OverviewContinuousBuy 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
Automotive Foams Market Current Industry Trends, Opportunities & Challenges

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The business landscape of the global automotive foams market is marked by the rivalry between the leading vendors of automotive foams across the world, especially, Woodbridge Foam, Dow Chemical, Adient, Recticel, Caligen Foam, Saint-Gobain, BASF, Lear, Zotefoams, and Bridgestone, states a new market report by Transparency Market Research (TMR).Hitherto, the introduction of new products has been the key strategy among the leading players, functioning in this market, for the development of their businesses. However, their focus is increasing towards expanding their reach in various regions, owing to which, they are likely to involve increasingly into mergers, acquisitions, and alliances with regional players in the years to come, notes the research study.Request Sample:According to the research report, the worldwide automotive foams market is expected to present an opportunity of US$22.53 bn by 2017. The growth of this market is predicted to remain high in the near future with a CAGR of 9.40% during the period from 2017 to 2022. Research expect this market to reach a value of US$35.38 bn by the end of the period of the forecast. The demand for polyurethane-based automotive foams is comparatively higher than other material-based foams and this trend is anticipated to continue over the next few years, states the report.Technological Breakthroughs to Boost Markets GrowthThe significant rise in manufacturing of automobiles across the world, fueled by the increasing trend of owning a vehicle, thanks to the upswing in the disposable income of consumers and surging urbanization, especially in emerging economies, is driving the global market for automotive foams substantially, says a TMR analyst. The low density and lesser weight of these foams are also supporting their uptake among end users considerably, propelling the market.Going forward, the ongoing research and developments in this field, leading to technological breakthroughs, such as cost efficient processing and manufacturing of automotive foams, is anticipated to bolster the adoption of automotive foams across the world in the near future. However, the adverse effects of these foams on the environment and the risk related to exposure, increasing cost of raw materials, and the presence of stringent government norms to regulate the detrimental effects of CFC involved in the production of polymer foams may limit the growth of this market in the years to come, report the research study.Browse Our Report:Emergence of China as Key Automotive Foam Consumer to Strengthen APEJ Automotive Foams MarketEurope, the Middle East and Africa (MEA), North America, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Latin America, and Japan have been considered as the key regional markets for automotive foams in this research report. Currently, the global market is led by APEJ on the grounds of the continual growth of the automotive industry in this region.Analysts expect this regional market to retain its dominance over the period of the forecast, thanks to emergence of China as the leading consumer of automotive foams in the world. The substantial increase in the demand for heavy commercial vehicle and passenger cars are also projected to influence the growth of the market for automotive foams in this region in the years to come, states the market report.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Telemedicine Market to Reach US$ 36.30 Billion by 2020

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The valuation of the global telemedicine market was recorded at US$14.30 bn in 2014. After a forecasted progression at a CAGR of 14.30% between 2014 and 2020, this market is expected to reach US$36.30 bn in 2020, according to a market intelligence study published by Transparency Market Research. The report, titled Telemedicine Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2014 - 2020, highlights the key trends, opportunities, and challenges of this market in the given forecast period, thus providing users with valuable knowledge for the purpose of strengthening their position in this market.Report Overview @According to the report, the largest driver for the growth of the global telemedicine market is the increasing demand for better personal healthcare methods. A larger percentage of the population is able to express their need for faster and sharper diagnostics and medical attention thanks to their increased spending ability; integrating modern telecommunications with healthcare is one of the best ways to achieve that.Other drivers of the global telemedicine market are the increasing need for data privacy, larger number of supportive reimbursement policies, and positive government initiatives and investments. Additionally, the growth of the global telemedicine market will also lead towards meeting one of the healthcare industrys largest targets: the rural population. People living in rural areas, or even those that live in remote and difficult-to-access regions can easily be helped through the use of telecom services in medicine.Request for Sample Copy of Report @The report also warns its users of the various restraints associated with the global telemedicine market, the most prominent of which is the current lack of skilled labor required for operating the devices in this market. The lack of standard or professional training for the use of telemedicine is causing healthcare organizations to achieve unfavorable response times. Another issue persistent in the global telemedicine market is the lack of confidence that telemedicine can impart to patients, regarding the accuracy of medical assessment.The report provides details on the global telemedicine market in a segmented fashion. The market is segmented by specialty, service type, and geography.Download Report Brochure @In terms of specialty, the global telemedicine market is segmented into gynecology, emergency care, internal medicine, orthopedics, neurology, cardiology, dermatology, and others. The market will benefit from the neurology segment, which is progressing at the fastest CAGR of 15.90% in the market, within the given forecast period.In terms of service types, the global telemedicine market is segmented into tele-surgery, tele-care, tele-education, tele-consultation, and tele-monitoring. Tele-consultation led the global telemedicine market in the 2013, while tele-monitoring is expected to be the fastest-growing segment till 2020. This is attributed to the growing geriatric demographic that is in greater need of home healthcare.The geographical segmentation of the global telemedicine market reveals North America to be the largest region in terms of revenue, in 2013. Meanwhile, the fastest growth rate in the market, over the given forecast period, is attributed to Asia Pacific owing to a high population density and a rapidly developing healthcare infrastructure.Purchase this Report @The key players in the global telemedicine market are McKesson Corp., Siemens Healthcare, Medtronic, Inc., Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, LifeWatch AG, Medtronic, Inc., Agfa HealthCare NV, OBS Medical Ltd., Honeywell HomMed LLC, and AMD Global Telemedicine, Inc.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Quality Management Software Market 2017 Key Players -Aras Corporation, Arena Solutions Inc., Autodesk Inc., DassaultSystemes SE, EtQ, Inc.,.

Quality Management Software Market

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Quality Management Software Market:WiseGuyReports.com adds Quality Management Software Market 2017 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting to 2022reports to its database.Executive SummaryThis report studies sales (consumption) of Quality Management Software 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, coveringAras CorporationArena Solutions Inc.Autodesk Inc.DassaultSystemes SEEtQ, Inc.Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co.IntelexTechnolgy,Inc.IQMSMasterControl, IncMicrosoft CorporationOracle CorporationParasoft CorporationRequest Sample Report @Market Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with sales (consumption), revenue, market share and growth rate of Quality Management Software in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), likeUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaSplit by product Types, with sales, revenue, price and gross margin, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoAudit ManagementCalibration ManagementChange ManagementComplaint HandlingDocument ControlEmployee TrainingNon-conformances/Corrective & PreventativeSupplier Quality ManagementOthersSplit by applications, this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Quality Management Software in each application, can be divided intoIT and telecomTransportation and logisticsConsumer goods and retailDefense and aerospaceManufacturingHealthcareOthersFor further information on this report, visit -Table of content:Global Quality Management Software Sales Market Report 20171 Quality Management Software Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Quality Management Software1.2 Classification of Quality Management Software1.2.1 Audit Management1.2.2 Calibration Management1.2.3 Change Management1.2.4 Complaint Handling1.2.5 Document Control1.2.6 Employee Training1.2.7 Non-conformances/Corrective & Preventative1.2.8 Supplier Quality Management1.2.9 Others1.3 Application of Quality Management Software1.3.1 IT and telecom1.3.2 Transportation and logistics1.3.3 Consumer goods and retail1.3.4 Defense and aerospace1.3.5 Manufacturing1.3.6 Healthcare1.3.7 Others1.4 Quality Management Software Market by Regions1.4.1 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Quality Management Software (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Quality Management Software Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Quality Management Software Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Global Quality Management Software Competition by Manufacturers, Type and Application2.1 Global Quality Management Software Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1.1 Global Quality Management Software Sales and Market Share of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Quality Management Software Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Quality Management Software (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Quality Management Software Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global Quality Management Software Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Global Quality Management Software (Volume and Value) by Regions2.3.1 Global Quality Management Software Sales and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)2.3.2 Global Quality Management Software Revenue and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)2.4 Global Quality Management Software (Volume) by Application9 Global Quality Management Software Manufacturers Analysis9.1 Aras Corporation9.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.1.2 Quality Management Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.1.2.1 Product A9.1.2.2 Product B9.1.3 Aras Corporation Quality Management Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.2 Arena Solutions Inc.9.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.2.2 Quality Management Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.2.2.1 Product A9.2.2.2 Product B9.2.3 Arena Solutions Inc. Quality Management Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.3 Autodesk Inc.9.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.3.2 Quality Management Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.3.2.1 Product A9.3.2.2 Product B9.3.3 Autodesk Inc. Quality Management Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.4 DassaultSystemes SE9.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.4.2 Quality Management Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.4.2.1 Product A9.4.2.2 Product B9.4.3 DassaultSystemes SE Quality Management Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.5 EtQ, Inc.9.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.5.2 Quality Management Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.5.2.1 Product A9.5.2.2 Product B9.5.3 EtQ, Inc. Quality Management Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.6 Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co.9.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.6.2 Quality Management Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.6.2.1 Product A9.6.2.2 Product B9.6.3 Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co. Quality Management Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.7 IntelexTechnolgy,Inc.9.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.7.2 Quality Management Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.7.2.1 Product A9.7.2.2 Product B9.7.3 IntelexTechnolgy,Inc. Quality Management Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.8 IQMS9.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.8.2 Quality Management Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.8.2.1 Product A9.8.2.2 Product B9.8.3 IQMS Quality Management Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.9 MasterControl, Inc9.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.9.2 Quality Management Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.9.2.1 Product A9.9.2.2 Product B9.9.3 MasterControl, Inc Quality Management Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.9.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.10 Microsoft Corporation9.10.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.10.2 Quality Management Software Product Type, Application and Specification9.10.2.1 Product A9.10.2.2 Product B9.10.3 Microsoft Corporation Quality Management Software Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.10.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.11 Oracle Corporation9.12 Parasoft CorporationContinuousBuy 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
Data Logger Market - Industry Analysis, Growth and New Market Opportunities Explored

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Data logger market has a new trend, Systems on Chip (SoC), which is gaining the momentum in the industry these days. Systems on Chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit (IC) which packages essential electronic components in a single microchip. Nowadays, the data logger market is witnessing a rapid growth in demand for the Systems on Chip (SoCs), because of various factors like innovations of the technological expansions and fluctuating customer wants. Systems on Chip are used as a small part in electronic gadgets, for example, mobiles, tablets, and various other portable devices which help in creating the minimal solid electronic gadgets. There are various advantages which are related to Systems on Chip as it has a high dependability, high density of capacities, high on-chip frequencies, and moderate unit costs which will upsurge the data logger market during the forecast period.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @Market Overview:Data logger is an electronic gadget which record events or estimations at various intervals during a particular period of time. Data loggers are prepared with electronic sensors that are specific for various measurements. Some components of data logger include single or multiple sensors, a battery or power attachments, a microprocessor, and a data storage unit. Data logger can be standalone with internal sensors and can perform specific estimation. Data logger can also be used as multichannel device with sensors which are equipped for measuring various set of data. Data logger helps in measuring and recording physical and electrical parameters during a period of time.Market Dynamics:Data Logger Market is anticipated to witness constant growth over the forecast period. Major factor which is driving the global data logger market is the demand for test, measurement, and control solutions. Also, increasing demand of SoCs over the forecast period will boost the global data logger market globally.The expanding requirements for automation systems or modules through various end users have expanded the demand for data loggers. Globally the demand for automated gadgets, the modules or the systems should be equipped with various sensors which record and transfer information. Data loggers and their measurements depend simply in their applications will boost the data logger market globally.High capital investments for software solutions that are related to the production & development are some major restraints of the data logger market.Market Segmentation:On the basis of types, Data Logger Market is segmented into automated systems/modules, and stand-alone data loggers. The stand-alone data loggers segment is the major segment among data logger types as the rising demand in F&B (food and beverages), oil and gas, industrial, water and wastewater management sectors.Browse Market Research Report @On the basis of measurement, global data logger market is segmented into multi- sensor, humidity, power, temperature, and pressure. Pressure data loggers will increase the demand during the forecast period and will account the major segment throughout the forecast period.On the basis of industries, data logger market is segmented in Oil & Gas, Power, Transportation, Environment, and Others.On the basis of geographical regions, the market is segmented into seven different regions; North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific region, Japan, and the Middle East and Africa.Key Market Players:Some of the key players in the Data Logger Market are Accsense Monitoring Systems and Data Loggers, Keysight Technologies, National Instruments, Thermo Fisher Scientific, AEMC Instruments, Delphin Technology, Lascar Electronics, Dickson, MadgeTech, Acumen Instruments, Digitron Italia, Delta OHM, and few other regional players.For Instance, Thermo Fisher Scientific launched new instrument for isotype analysis. The new Thermo Scientific 253 Ultra High-Resolution Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer (HR-IRMS) is designed to improve the measurement of site-specific and clumped-isotope-ratio analysis of moleculesGlobally, many data logger vendors are continuously developing their products and adopting advanced technologies. The technologies adopted by the organization are helping organizations in cutting their operational costs & making the workforce well-organized & productive. With the productivity, the growing trend to an upsurge in the mobility boundaries of the workforce across different industries which can be achieved by embedding the mobility solutions in the marketing channels and supply chain, which eventually will increase the purchaser satisfaction.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:
Are you living with Dual Diagnosis?

Mental health disorders and substance use disorders often coexist. More than half of those individuals who suffer substance abuse are likely to have at least one significant mental health condition. The co-existing disorders are known as dual diagnosis.8 common mental disorders that exist with substance abuse disorders among dual diagnosis patients are * Major Depression* PTSD or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder* Bipolar Disorder* Obsessive Compulsive Disorder* Borderline Personality Disorder* Anxiety Disorder* Eating Disorders* SchizophreniaIt is important to establish an accurate diagnosis for dual diagnosis patients. The relationship between substance abuse and mental health disorders can vary in different cases.1. Substance abuse may perpetuate, induce, worsen or alleviate psychiatric symptoms in these patients.2. Substance abuse may cause psychiatric symptoms.3. Acute and chronic substance use can trigger the re-emergence or worsen the severity of psychiatric disorders.Dual DiagnosisDual diagnosis patients experience more severe and chronic medical, social and emotional dysfunction.Since dual diagnosis patients have two disorders, they run the risk of either one worsening. Moreover, addiction relapse may cause psychiatric decompensation and worsening psychiatric problems may lead to addiction relapse. This is why relapse prevention is an integral part of dual diagnosis treatment.Patients with dual disorders may face more crises than other patients and require longer and gradual treatment.Dual Diagnosis TreatmentThe complexity of dual diagnosis requires require an individualized treatment plan to treat patients with dual diagnosis. This is followed by a comprehensive, multidisciplinary care plan that will include treatment for both disorders.A comprehensive treatment plan will have treatment from both addiction and mental health professionals. This has been found to be the most effective way to treat dual diagnosis patients.Coping with a Dual DiagnosisA few things you can do to ensure complete recovery from dual diagnosis * Follow your medication and psychotherapy regimen as recommended by your doctors or psychiatrist.* Learn stress management techniques to prevent any stress, anxiety or triggers that may have been causing or sustaining the disorders.* Observe any mood or craving patterns.* Exercise and eat well.* Attend both individual and group therapy.* Reach out and ask for help if you feel you are unable to handle the pressures of a dual diagnosis. Good dual diagnosis treatment centers, such as pacific Bay Recovery in San Diego, have both inpatient and outpatient programs that can help patients find appropriate dual diagnosis treatment.Pacific Bay Recovery offers various options for dual diagnosis treatment, such as inpatient and intensive outpatient programs. To learn more about dual diagnosis treatment in San Diego, call the top drug detox and addiction treatment centers in San Diego, Pacific Bay Recovery at 858-263-9700 Today.Pacific Bay Recovery1501 5th Avenue, Suite 100San Diego, CA 92101(858) 263-9700
Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft Technology Market - Advanced technologies & growth opportunities in global Industry

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Multi-role fighter aircraft are used to perform several roles such as aerial reconnaissance, electronic warfare and forward air control among other tasks. The increasing demand for these aircrafts in developing nations is expected to drive the market in future.For more information on this report, fill the form @There are several factors aiding to the demand for multi-role fighter aircraft technology. These aircrafts can be used as a fighter aircraft as well as a ground attack aircraft when compared to air superiority fighters. Moreover, these aircrafts are lighter compared to other aircrafts and hence have the advantage during warfare. In addition, the multi-role fighter aircrafts are easy to maintain. Moreover, the multi-role fighter aircrafts are also cost effective and can be purchased in large numbers. The other factors which are driving the demand for these aircrafts are their application in defending the territory from enemies effectively and its fast scramble time due to its light weight. The above factors are expected to drive the demand for these aircrafts during the forecast period. The rising demand for these aircrasfts are going the directly drive the market for multi-role fighter aircraft technology globally.However, there are some factors which are expected to hinder the growth of this market to a certain extent. The multi-role fighter aircrafts are less powerful compared to other aircrafts. In addition, the aircrafts are equipped with payloads which are more focused in detecting and defending heat seeking missiles. These factors are pulling the demand for this technology during the forecast period.However, ongoing technological innovations are expected increase the functionalities of the aircrafts and reduce the disadvantages largely. The report for multi-role fighter aircraft technology will include a detailed analysis of the drivers, restraints and opportunity present in the global market. In addition, the porters five forces will also be provided to give a better understanding the external forces present in the market. Going further, the market attractiveness analysis will identify the most attractive segment in the market and its opportunity in the future.The global multi-role fighter aircraft market has been segmented into application and geography. In terms of applications, the global multi-role fighter aircraft technology can be segregated into electronic warfare, aerial reconnaissance, air interdiction, close air support and suppression of enemy air defense among other applications. The close air support and aerial reconnaissance is expected to dominate the market during the forecast period owing to the increasing application of these aircraft for air defense in developing regions such as Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa. However, the rising concern for electronic warfare is expected to increase the demand for this technology in this application in future. Hence the segment is expected to witness robust growth during the forecast period.Browse Market Research Report @By geography, the global multi-role fighter aircraft technology market can be bifurcated into five strategic regions which include North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin America among others. The market for multi-role fighter aircraft technology is expected to remain dominant in North America and Europe due to the major presence of manufacturers in this region. Furthermore, the defense agencies in these regions are constantly upgrading their security perimeters due to rising terrorist activities. However, the emerging economies such as India and China are investing heavily and purchasing multi-role fighter aircrafts for defense applications. Hence the Asia Pacific market is expected to witness promising growth during the forecast period.The global multi-role fighter aircraft technology market is witnessing intense competition from leading players. Some of the major players in the market include Lockheed Martin Corporation, McDonnell Douglas, Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, Dassault Aviation SA, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Mitsubishi Group, Korea Aerospace Industries, Sukhoi and Saab Group among other manufacturers.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:
Popular Trends of Man-portable Anti-armor Weapons Market in Global Industry : by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2017-2025

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Man-portable Anti-armor Weapons Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2025" to its huge collection of research reports.Global Man-portable Anti-armor Weapons Market: OverviewThe rapid escalation in the defense budgets across the globe and the need to strengthen the respective armed forces, the defense forces are investing huge amounts in the research and development of latest and robust ammunitions and weaponries. This factor has led the defense contractors to innovate and develop new lightweight, guided and unguided, man-portable anti-armor weapons as well as upgrade the existing weapons. These weapons are used against heavily armored weaponries such as main battle tanks, aircrafts and armored vehicles, sometimes against incoming missiles too. The anti-armor weapons are highly effective in destroying the intended targets, moving as well as static targets.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Global Man-portable Anti-armor Weapons Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe major factor boosting the market for man-portable anti-armor weapons is the extensive research and development in the defense industry across the world. In recent times, the defense budgets across the globe has increased significantly, which has led the defense forces in the developed countries and developing countries to invest heavily in the research and development of the modern lightweight anti-armor weapons. In addition, the demand for lightweight, highly effective weapons is also increasing among the armed forces as they can be easily transported by a soldier or a group of soldiers to any particular place to target the enemy armored vehicles or tanks.The demand for lightweight anti-armor weapons among the global defense forces is expected to bolster the man-portable anti-armor weapons market.The market for man-portable anti-armor weapons is poised to grow over the period due to various reasons, however is affected by the malfunction of the launchers. The malfunction of the launchers causes disruptions in the flight of the projectiles which hampers the flight. This is a major concern for the manufacturers as well as the infantries across the globe. The risk of malfunction of the launchers is limiting the defense forces to adopt the man-portable anti-armor weapons which in turn is inhibiting the market to grow over the years.Global Man-portable Anti-armor Weapons Market: SegmentationThe report on man-portable anti-armor weapons market segments the market on basis of types, technology and geography. The various types of man-portable anti-armor weapons widely used by the defense forces across the globe are anti-aircraft missiles, rocket propelled grenades, anti-tank missiles, and recoilless rifles. The rocket propelled grenades contributed the maximum market share in 2016, due to their enhanced capability to destroy the enemy main battle tanks, and aircrafts. This capability of rocket propelled grenades have increased the demand for anti-armor weapons among the defense forces across the globe which in turn led the segment to dominate the market in 2016. The fastest growing type segment is estimated to be the recoilless rifles, growing at a significant CAGR during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025.Make an Enquiry about TOC @The recoilless rifles are heavily used by the armed forces against any armored vehicles, tanks and low flying aircrafts. The projectiles fired from recoilless rifles travels at a faster speed than any other anti-armor weapons. Moreover, the recoilless rifles are lightweight and are highly effective against any armored tanks, and armored vehicles. The lightweight armor piercing weapons is being heavily adopted by the military forces across the globe in order to strengthen their armed forces.Global Man-portable Anti-armor Weapons Market: Geographical and Competitive DynamicsGeographically, the market for man-portable anti-armor weapons is fragmented into five strategic regions globally as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. North America dominated the market for man-portable anti-armor weapons market in 2016 with an excellent market share which is estimated to witness a slow downfall over the years from 2017 to 2025. Asia Pacific is predicted to be the fastest growing region during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025. Europe, Middle East and Africa and Latin America are predicted to grow over the period from 2017 to 2025 at a substantial rate.The top ten major player operating in the market for man-portable anti-armor weapons has been profiled in this report according to the strategic five regions globally. The report includes players such as Lockheed Martin Corporation, Bharat Dynamics Limited, MBDA Missile Systems, Raytheon Company, Thales Group, General Dynamics Corporation, BAE Systems Plc., Saab AB, Nammo AS, and KONSTRUKTORSKOYE BYURO MASHYNOSTROYENIYA. The company descriptions includes, SWOT analysis, financial, business overview and strategies adopted in order to sustain in the industry.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
North America Farm Tire Market Rising From 2,948 Thousand Units In 2016 To 4,750 Thousand Units In 2025

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "North America Farm Tire Market Rising From 2,948 Thousand Units In 2016 To 4,750 Thousand Units In 2025" to its huge collection of research reports.This report is on North America farm tire market provides analysis for the period 20152025, wherein 2016 is the base year and the period from 2017 to 2025 is the forecast period. Data for 2015 has been included as historical information. The report covers market dynamics including drivers, restraints opportunities, and trends expected to influence the North America farm tire market growth during the said period. Factors that are playing a major role in driving the North America farm tire market have also been covered in the study.The study provides a comprehensive analysis on market growth throughout the above forecast period in terms of revenue estimates (US$ Mn) and volume estimates (thousand Units), across the U.S. and Canada. Farm tires are a sub-segment of specialty tires that are used by vehicles and machines used for farm activities. Sprayers, tractors, trailers, and harvesters are a few examples of farm machinery that use farm tires. The Farm Tire market is anticipated to witness nominal growth during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025 owing to the factors such as decline in farm output, unfavorable climatic conditions and changing government regulations in the North America region. Increasing demand for food and rise in farm mechanization are some of the factors that are anticipated to drive the growth of North America farm tires market. The market is going to surge due to the rising demand for tractors in the agricultural sector. Presently there is increase in adoption of hobby farming especially in the U.S. and this is expected to positively impact the farm tires market during the years from 2017 -2025.Global Farm Tire Market: SegmentationThe Farm Tire market has been segmented on the basis of tire types and applications. On the basis of tire types, the farm tire market is segmented into bias and radial tires. Furthermore, application segment has been divided into tractors, harvesters and others (combines, trailers, sprayers, etc.).The North America region wise prominent countries covered in the scope of the study includes - the U.S and Canada.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Global Farm Tire Market: Scope of the ReportThe report covers key developments which provides the historic development in the farm tire market. The report also covers segment wise analysis in terms of revenue and volume, comparison matrix, porters five force analysis, market attractiveness analysis which identifies and compares segments on the basis of CAGR and market share index and provides market positioning of the companies playing important role in the farm tire market.The report also includes comparison matrix which provides the analysis of the segment growth matrix (%), segment revenue contribution from 2017 - 2025 (%), and segment compounded growth matrix (CAGR) This report shows market attractiveness analysis for all the segments and for all the regions in the scope of study which identifies and compares segments market attractiveness on the basis of CAGR and market share index.Global Farm Tire Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report also includes competition landscape which include competition matrix. In these market the company playing major role has been included which provides company description, SWOT analysis, financial data and strategy adopted by companies for the development of company. Competition matrix benchmarks leading players on the basis of their capabilities and potential to grow however, factors including market position, offerings and R&D focus are attributed to companys capabilities, top line growth, market share, segment growth, infrastructure facilities and future outlook are attributed to companys potential to grow. This section also identifies and includes various recent developments carried out by the leading players in the farm tire market.Browse TOC @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: North America market, types, and applicationsThe key players profiled in the North America Farm Tire market includes BKT Tires USA Inc., Bridgestone Corporation, Continental AG, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Michelin, Mitas Tires Global Inc., TBC Corp., and Titan International.The North America Farm Tire market is segmented as below:North America Farm Tire Market, By Tire typeBiasRadialNorth America Farm Tire Market, By ApplicationTractorsHarvestersOthersNorth America Farm Tire Market, By CountryThe U.S.CanadaRest of North AmericaAbout 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 @
New Market Research Report of Automotive Turbocharger Bearings Market : Expected To Reach at a CAGR of 10.15% by Revenue Over The Forecast Period 2017-2021

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Automotive Turbocharger Bearings Market 2017-2021" to its huge collection of research reports.About Automotive Turbocharger BearingsAutomotive turbocharger bearings are mainly used for ensuring effective and frictionless functioning of the turbocharger. They are basically a set of smooth hardened circular balls or tapered rollers supplied by oil and held within a hard metal ring able to withstand heavy loads and facilitate frictionless rotation of the shaft. The automotive turbocharger bearings market is segmented into passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, and medium and heavy commercial vehicles.Technavios analysts forecast the global automotive turbocharger bearings market to grow at a CAGR of 10.15% during the period 2017-2021.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global automotive turbocharger bearings market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers new installations, sales, and volume.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEATechnavio's report, Global Automotive Turbocharger Bearings Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsNSKNTN BearingSchaefflerOther prominent vendorsJTEKTTHE TIMKEN COMPANYSKFZOLLERN GmbH & Co.Honeywell InternationalBorgWarnerMake an Enquiry about TOC @Market driverIncreasing sales of SUV and crossover models of passenger carsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeIncreased wage rates in China to increase prices of automotive turbocharger bearingsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendAntifriction automotive turbocharger bearingsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?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
RFID in Pharmaceuticals Market - Top Scenario,Growth & Forecast 2017 - 2025

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Global RFID in Pharmaceuticals Market: SnapshotThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has played a vital role in escalating the widespread adoption of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in the pharmaceutical sector to strengthen anti-counterfeiting and track-and-trace efforts. Besides these benefits, RFID technology is acknowledged for its ability to increase supply chain efficiency, reduce errors by proper storage of information, boost patient safety and monitoring, enhance staff, patient, and asset workflow, easy adoption and flexible usage, and cut down labor requirements.With the pharmaceutical sector being a highly critical area, there is a pressing need to have highly efficient systems. Therefore, certain limitations of the technology restrict the RFID in pharmaceuticals market from realizing its utmost potential. These limitations include tampering concerns, technical issues, and compatibility and standardization issues. Another major factor holding back the market is the high cost of implementation. Industrial experts believe that these issues are interrelated. The high cost is limiting widespread adoption and at the same time, the implementation rate of RFID across the pharmaceutical sector is not considerable enough to make the technology cheap. However, the aforementioned limitations are being addressed by technological advancements, which are likely to render the global RFID in pharmaceuticals market highly opportunistic.Request Sample Copy of the Report @The majority of players in the global RFID in pharmaceuticals market are focusing towards technological advancements and product innovation to improve their visibility in the market. Large players are pouring hefty funds into research and development activities to offer products and services that are advanced and in line with the requirements of the pharmaceutical sectors. Most of the leading players in the market are players with strong brand name, high technical expertise, and strong capital muscle.Global RFID in Pharmaceuticals Market: OverviewRadio frequency identification, popularly known by the acronym RFID, has a host of applications in different areas. Healthcare and pharmaceuticals is one of them. RFID tracking systems have come in handy in lowering human efforts and errors in maintenance and control of healthcare inventory. Some of its popular applications are in tracking medical equipment in hospitals, identifying patients, monitoring blood transfer, and tracking of medication from pharmacy to patient. In the pharmaceutical sector, it helps in monitoring imports and exports of pharmaceutical raw materials, internal and external tracking of pharmaceuticals, and documenting the transfer of products from manufacturers to patients.Request TOC of the Report @Comprising of a small chip, which is capable of carrying up to 2000 bytes and an antenna, the RFID devices do a job similar to that of a bar code or a magnetic strip on the back of a credit card or ATM card  provide a unique identifier for an object. Like a bar code or magnetic strip, an RFID device must also be scanned to gather the identifying information.Global RFID in Pharmaceuticals Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe pharmaceuticals sector is faced with many challenges on the logistics front. These include product recalls due to overstocking which often results in expiry of drugs. Counterfeit drugs is another issue hobbling as it puts the patients safety at risk. Further, prescription packaged drugs are difficult to read and patients not taking the proper prescribed dose medication is another problem. To tackle all such challenges RFID can be leveraged successfully.RFID technology enables better tracking and accountability resulting in improved reliability in drug approval process. It also allows tracking of drug intake via the testing protocol. Also, enhanced inventory tracking with RFID can aid in bringing down buffer stocks thereby slashing cost. All these benefits have majorly contributed to the demand for RFID in the pharmaceuticals sector.Get Discount @This market is also filliped by the rising demand for more efficient anti-counterfeit solutions for drugs that would ensure product security, quality, and efficient usability. The US FDA has recommended a set of rules and regulations to be applied in RFID for the pharmaceutical industry. Countering the swift uptake of RFID in pharmaceuticals market, however, is the steep cost of installation and deployment of RFID tracking systems. Dearth of awareness about the long term financial advantages of RFID technology is another factor crimping growth in the market.Global RFID in Pharmaceuticals Market: Regional OutlookNorth America and Europe are dominant markets for RFID in the pharmaceuticals sector because of favorable government initiatives, growing thrust on cost reduction through operational efficiency, and major drug counterfeit events. Asia Pacific is slated to exhibit solid growth in the years ahead due to cheaper original equipment manufacturing (OEM) services provided by China and rapid uptake of RFID systems in healthcare in the region.Companies Mentioned in ReportTo present an accurate and detailed assessment of the competition prevailing in the market for RFID in the pharmaceutical sector, the report profiles companies such as IBM Corporation, Alien Technology, Hewlett-Pakard, Siemens, Motorola, Inc., Texas Instruments, Toshiba Tech, and Zebra Technologies Corporation.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
Nanoparticles in Biotechnology, Drug Development and Drug Delivery Market Forecast and Segments, 2016 - 2024

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Global Nanoparticles Market: OverviewOf late, a lot of research is being centered on nanoparticles, which are named so because they are measured in nanometers. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter and nanoparticles measure anything from 100 nanometers to one nanometer. The particles, difficult to see even with a microscope, have wide ranging applications in different fields such as biomedical, electronic fields, and optical. Among them, their various applications in biomedical have witnessed stellar progress so far. For example, in the field of biology and medicine, nanoparticles are used in drug delivery, genetic and tissue engineering, destruction of tumors, detection of proteins, and creating fluorescent biological labels for important biological markers, among other things. Going forward, they are slated to find many more uses in medicine, particularly in drug delivery.The report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a collection of facts and figures that are associated with the global brain nanoparticles market in a chronological order. Utilizing historical data and current market events and trends, the research analysts have attempted to gauge the markets future. This future projection would enable new and old players in the global market for nanoparticles to devise sagacious business strategies for steering their business on a successful path. The report also offers valuable market insights through the use of analytical tools such as Porters Five Forces analysis and a SWOT analysis.Obtain Report Details @Global Nanoparticles Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe global market for nanoparticles has seen impressive growth in the recent past primarily on account of the increasing thrust on research in nanotechnology, particularly in emerging economies because of their respective governments initiatives on pharmaceutical research and development. For example, substantial investments have been made in research on nanoparticles for ability to battle cancer in a much more effective manner than conventional forms of treatment such as chemotherapy and radiation. This is because, unlike the latter that target not just the cancerous part but also adjoining healthy parts resulting in side effects, nanoparticles destroy tumors with minimal damage to healthy tissue and organs. They also help in the detection and removal of cancer cells before they turn into tumors.Other factors contributing to the growth in the global market for nanoparticles are improving health care infrastructure and the growing application of nanotechnology in drug development and administration. Countering the growth of the market are the high costs associated with nanoparticles technology and less awareness about its advantages among prominent players in the field of biotechnology and biomedicals. At present, the environment in the market is competitive and going forward, the competition will heat up with further emphasis on research and development and mergers and acquisitions. Leading players in the market are already looking to acquire regional players to up sales.Download Report Brochure @Global Nanoparticles Market: Region-wise OutlookGeographically, the global market for nanoparticles can be segmented into Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, and the Rest of the World. The market is predicted to see strong growth in most of the developed economies in the world. North America, for instance, is a dominant market and is predicted to lead the global nanoparticles market in the near future too by holding a leading share in it.The growing pace of mergers and acquisitions, carefully-considered collaborations, and increasing patent acquisitions are some of the reasons that would bolster the market in the continent. Another factor leading to the growth in the market in the region is the abundant availability of raw materials for production of oxide. Further, initiatives such as the National Nanotechnology Initiative by the U.S. government has also majorly contributed to the market in the region.While the U.S. is the dominant market, it is Asia-Pacific that is slated to outpace all other regions in terms of growth rate in the next couple of years. This is because of a number of factors such as the presence of major market players in the region, growing number of nanotechnology related research and development projects, public and private investments and collaborations, and the increasing trend of outsourcing research and development activities to Asian nations to cut down the cost of operations.Pre-Book Full Report @Companies Mentioned in the Research Report:Some of the main players operating within the global market for nanoparticles that have been profiled in the report are Abraxis Biosciences, Inc., GE Global Research, Amag Pharmaceuticals Inc., Astrazeneca Pharmaceuticals, PLC, and Novartis International AG.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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact UsTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Digital Impression System Market to Expand Substantially Owing to Technological Innovations During 2017-2025

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Thanks to the strong presence of well-established players, the global digital impression system market shows a highly competitive landscape, finds a new study by Transparency Market Research (TMR). The leading players in this market, namely, Sirona Dental Systems, Align Technology, 3Shape, 3M, and Carestream Health, are focusing aggressively on the acquisition of smaller players to eliminate competition, which is likely to further consolidate this market.Request Sample:According to TMRs estimations, the global digital impression systems market stood at US$2.13 bn in 2015. Researchers expect the opportunity in this market to proliferate at a healthy CAGR of 18.30% during the period from 2017 and 2025 and attain a value of US$9.6 bn by the end of the forecast period. Mobile/portable systems have been the most valued product in this market over the past few years. The segment is likely to retain its dominance throughout the forecast period, thanks to the extensive progress in the dental and healthcare industry and the advent of various novel technologies, such as 3D impression technology and mobile based tablet intraoral scanners.North America to Lead Global Market; Asia Pacific to Present Lucrative OpportunitiesThe research study also presents an exhaustive assessment of the regional markets for digital impression systems. According to the report, North America, the Middle East and Africa, Europe, Asia Pacific, and South America are the main geographical segments in the worldwide market for digital impression systems. North America led the overall market in 2016, contributing US$555.4 mn in revenues. This regional market is expected to continue its dominance throughout the forecast period on the grounds of a large number of established market players.Browse Our Report:Asia Pacific, on the other hand, is expected to present the most promising growth opportunities, thanks to the strengthening economic condition and the subsequent improvement in the living standard of consumers. The rising pool of large orthodontic clinics and practitioners in these economies, such as China, Japan, and India, is expected to propel this regional market considerably in the years to come, states the research report.Rising Popularity of Digital Impression Systems to Fuel DemandThe demand for digital impression systems is highly influenced by the increasing awareness among consumers pertaining to the benefits of the digital impression technology when compared with the conventional method of impression, says an analyst at TMR. The fact that these systems shorten the painful process of elastomeric impression has increased their popularity, thereby augmenting their demand substantially, which is reflecting positively on the market for digital impression across the world.Buy This Report:Over the forthcoming years, the advent of advanced powder-free intraoral scanners at a much reduced price is projected to stimulate this market remarkably. Besides, the growing uptake of these systems by dentists and other dental practitioners, boosted by their increasing focus on the accuracy of the treatment and patients comfort, is also predicted to drive the markets growth in the near future. However, the soaring costs of these systems and the need for high technical expertise may restrict the market over the next few years, notes the study.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Bottle Labelling Machines Market - Competitive Landscape & Technological Breakthroughs Analysis in Next Few Years

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Bottle labelling plays a vital role in the packaging industry. The chief aim of the bottle labelling machines is to create a label that can be pasted on the bottles. Machines for bottle labelling offer labels for the bottles which aids the company to bolster their brand image. Bottle labelling machines are used numerous end used industries such as pharmaceutical, petrochemical and chemical, food and beverages, industrial packaging, and consumer goods among others. For gaining high efficiency, manufacturers have created automatic bottle labelling machines that allows to label hundreds of bottles within few minutes.For more information on this report, fill the form @The global market for bottle labelling machines could be segmented in terms of the different types of application, type of machines used, and type of product. The global market could also be segmented in terms of the end user industry and geography. Such in depth and precise segmentation of the global bottle labelling machines market offered by the report helps in grasping the all-round growth prospects and the future outlook of the different segments of the market and thus, helping the potential buyers to make informed decisions while investing in the market.The report on bottle labelling machines market provides the analysis and forecast on regional as well as global level. It offers historical data of the year 2016 along with the anticipated data of 2017, and a forecast data up to year 2025 in terms of revenue as well as volume. The report also provide vital driving and impeding factors for the development of the global bottle labelling machines market and their impact on each region over the duration of the given forecast period. The report also offers the value chain analysis of the market with a list of key players. The research report on the global market for bottle labelling machines provides vital growth prospects and key trends and opportunities that may come up in the market over the course of the given forecast period. The research report is the result of in-depth and extensive primary as well as secondary research methodologies backed by crucial market insights offered by the industry professionals.Bottle Labelling Machines Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe global market for bottle labelling machines is projected to develop on a background of growth in penetration of the modern technology. Embedding different technologies such as integrated barcodes, is projected to be one of the key factors driving the overall growth of the global market in the coming years of the forecast period. With the aid of barcodes, the cost and the information about the product can be derived very easily, which helps in keeping the customer updated about the product information and also raise the chances of selling the product more easily from the retail stores.Obtain Report Details @In addition to this, the bottle labelling machines are experiencing an increasing penetration in numerous end user sectors. Packaging manufacturers have the requirement of installing labels of different shapes and sized on the bottle. With bottle labelling machines the task becomes very easy and thus, these machines are projected to witness a strong growth in different end use industries in coming years.Bottle Labelling Machines Market: Geographical SegmentationFrom a geographical standpoint, the global market for glass labelling machines can be segmented into key regions such as North America, Latin America, Japan, Asia Pacific except Japan, Middle East and Africa, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe.Bottle Labelling Machines Market: Key PlayersAtwell Self-Adhesive Labellers, AccuPharma Machinery, Multi Pack, KBW Packaging, Quadrel Labeling Systems, and P.E. LABELLERS S.p.A. among others.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:
Laboratory Drying Ovens Market - Future Growth & Forecast 2014 - 2020

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Global Laboratory Drying Ovens Market: SnapshotLaboratory drying ovens are a crucial part of the daily workflow of laboratories, allowing simple glassware drying to more complex ones, besides controlled heating applications. A number of market players offer laboratory drying ovens that feature superior reproducibility, temperature stability, lower consumption of energy, and temperature precision. Being a delicate process where drying too slow or too fast can ruin the process, perfection in drying improves the overall outcome of sensitive experiments. Therefore, a wide range of laboratory ovens, designed to address the varied needs of end users, pertaining to size, temperature range, ergonomics, price, and capacity, are made available by the leading market players.The size of ovens is a major factor to be considered, as laboratories can face space shortage or be focused on low energy consumption. For large sized, stationary lab items including ovens, refrigerators, and constant temperature baths, ergonomics becomes a key factor. Although laboratory ovens are characterized by simplicity, several manufacturers are working on second-tier features such as independent temperature safety and shutoff and enhanced reliability. Besides these, cooling-down capacity, temperature programmability, data logging, monitoring, alarms, and shelving options are also included in the list of features.Request Sample Copy of the Report @While Europe exhibits increasing adoption of laboratory drying ovens due to the growing uptake in clinical diagnostics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and clinical research, Asia Pacific is not far behind in terms of volume of demand. The thriving industrial verticals that require laboratory drying ovens such as food and beverage and healthcare in countries such as China, Malaysia, Singapore, and India are encouraging the growth of the global market for laboratory drying ovens.Global Laboratory Drying Ovens Market: OverviewLaboratory ovens used in the processes of processing, drying, sterilization, and testing. It is primarily used to sterilize glassware equipment or sample equipment using convection heating, where the heating element is fixed in an envelope independent from the outer heating agents. Having an external heating element facilitates a more accurate temperature for the sterilization and also prevents the sample from getting burnt or denatured. The laboratory ovens can accomplish reaching the necessary heats due to gravitational or mechanical convection methods.Request TOC of the Report @In the former, cool air is displaced by warmer air which is directed towards the heating element until the entire chamber reaches the required temperature. Gravitational heating methods usually require a longer pre-heating time and hold a poorer heat distribution as compared to mechanical heating methods, due to mechanical convection is the more preferred method of sterilization in laboratory settings.Global Laboratory Drying Ovens Market: Key SegmentationsBased on mounting types, the global laboratory drying ovens market is classified into bench-top, cabinet and truck-in ovens. Bench-top ovens are installed over a workbench and are smaller than the other types. They are ideal for laboratories having a moderate sterilization requirement and face space challenges. Cabinet ovens are free-standing equipment, typically with a larger capacity and specialized applications. Truck-in ovens are capable of handling larger capacity and require a trained staff for handling and operating.The global laboratory drying ovens market can be segmented on the basis of applications into drying encompasses evaporation, sterilization, baking, and annealing. The sectors of chemicals and food are emerging as key end users in the global laboratory drying ovens market, owing to the growing applicability of these ovens in manufacturing dry thin film batteries and controlling the moisture content level for each respective sector. A lot of the drying ovens have an optimum temperature range of 300 C. Based on the application and utility desired, there are other types of ovens which can have operating temperature above 300 C.Get Discount @Global Laboratory Drying Ovens Market: Drivers and TrendsThe average laboratory ovens are likely to become obsolete within seven years of manufacture and use and the repair of older and damaged ovens can be costly, time-consuming as well as risky. Lab ovens often fail to meet the specifications of use post repairs, making purchasing a new lab oven typically cheaper than repairing the older one. Regular maintenance of laboratory oven includes regular calibration or checkup of ventilation ports, gaskets, heating elements, blowers, and temperature sensors.Currently the leading drivers of the global laboratory drying ovens market include their superiority in safety and ease of handling as well as installing as compared to the conventional autoclave. Since laboratory ovens use dry heat, it makes them apt for conducting experiments with prions and other similar organisms that are otherwise temperature sensitive. Laboratory ovens are required to meet the requirement and reproducibility guidelines set by the ISO 9001 or ISO/IEC 17025.Global Laboratory Drying Ovens Market: Regional ProminenceGeographically, the global laboratory oven market can find an exceptional level of demand within North America, specifically the U.S. The regions growth rate is largely driven by the strong research and development investment their government and private players have made in life sciences. Swift adoption of upgraded versions in developed regions has also made them a more favorable market for top laboratory oven manufacturers. Asia Pacific, The Middle East and Africa, and Latin America market are highly promising regions due to their rising standard of living and improving healthcare expenditure.Global Laboratory Drying Ovens Market: Key Players Mentioned in the ReportThe list of key players operating in the global laboratory drying oven market so far has included Azbil Telstar, S.L, Carbolite Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Panasonic Corporation and others.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Global Diabetic Socks Market Professional Survey Report 2017 : Aetrex, EcoSox, MediPeds

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Diabetic Socks Market Professional Survey Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The global Diabetic Socks market has been deeply evaluated in this publication with the help of both primary and secondary research and useful inputs provided by industry experts. The analysts who have prepared the publication have been among the best in the lot with sound understanding about almost all vital aspects of the market. The publication has come out as a detailed guideline for industry players to explore hidden prospects and take advantage of the best opportunities in the market. Players could also use the information presented in the publication to plan the best strategies that will help them to secure a strong position in the market.Free Sample of this report is available upon request @This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringPedorsAetrexEcoSoxOrthofeetSmartKnitFoot ZenJOBST USAMediPedsTherafirmBy segregating the global Diabetic Socks market into different segments, the analysts have offered crucial information that could help players to gain a competitive edge over their toughest opponents. Each segment studied in the publication has been meticulously evaluated with market figures to go by. This could help readers to tap into unexplored regions or other categories of segments and ensure a continuing success in the market. Besides segmentation, the publication has offered information on factors detaining market growth, backing them up with opportunities to counter the challenges about to show face in the near future.The analysts have also shed light on key aspects of the vendor landscape while profiling some of the leading companies operating in the global Diabetic Socks market. Starting from the nature of the current and future competitive scenarios of the market, the publication has foreseen the future plans of leading companies to gain a strong foothold in the industry. This could help readers to stay cautioned about any surprising changes in the vendor landscape of the market beforehand. Furthermore, readers could use the information to build extraordinary strategies to strengthen their product portfolio and give a tough competition in the market.Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Diabetic Socks1.1 Definition and Specifications of Diabetic Socks1.1.1 Definition of Diabetic Socks1.1.2 Specifications of Diabetic Socks1.2 Classification of Diabetic Socks1.3 Applications of Diabetic Socks1.4 Market Segment by Regions2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Diabetic Socks2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Diabetic Socks2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Diabetic Socks2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Diabetic Socks3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Diabetic Socks3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Diabetic Socks Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Diabetic Socks Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Diabetic Socks Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Diabetic Socks Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Diabetic Socks Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Diabetic Socks Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Diabetic Socks Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Diabetic Socks Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Diabetic Socks Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Diabetic Socks Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Diabetic Socks Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)List of Tables and FiguresFigure Picture of Diabetic SocksTable Product Specifications of Diabetic SocksTable Classification of Diabetic SocksFigure Global Production Market Share of Diabetic Socks by Type in 2016Figure Global Consumption Volume Market Share of Diabetic Socks by Application in 2016Table Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Diabetic Socks Major Manufacturers in 2016Table Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Diabetic Socks Major Manufacturers in 2016Table R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Diabetic Socks Major Manufacturers in 2016Table Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Diabetic Socks Major Manufacturers in 2016Table Global Capacity, Sales , Price, Cost, Sales Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of Diabetic Socks 2012-2017About 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
WebRTC Market 2017 by Current & Upcoming Trends

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According to a new research report by Transparency Market Research (TMR), the rivalry between Twilio Inc., Avaya Inc., Dialogic Corp., Genband, Mitel Networks, and Oracle Corp. points towards a highly fragmented and competitive landscape present in the global web real-time communication (webRTC) market.As the leading players are increasingly being involved into the acquisition of smaller participants to increase their market share, the competition within this market is likely to intensify in the coming years. WebRTC solution providers are also expected uptake innovation and product advancements strategy to strengthen their presence in this market over the next few years, notes the research study.Request Sample:As per TMRs estimations, the global webRTC market, which reached US$10.71 bn in 2016, will expand at a CAGR of 24.30% during the period from 2017 to 2025 and attain an opportunity worth US$81.52 bn by the end of the forecast period. Video webRTC solutions have been enjoying a stronger demand across the world compared to other solutions, thanks to their expanding application range. Analysts expect this scenario to continue like this throughout the period of the forecast.Increasing Uptake of WebRTC Technology to Help North America Safeguard its DominanceIn this research study, the worldwide webRTC market has been evaluated on the basis of various parameters, among which the geography holds an important place. According to the report, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, North America, and South America are the primary geographical segments of the global market for webRTC. North America, among these, acquired the leading position in 2016 with a share of more than 40% in the overall market and is anticipated to retain it throughout the forecast period, thanks to the increased uptake of webRTC technology in this region. The expanding application of these solutions in UCaaS and telecom services, high internet speed, and the surging number of mobile subscribers are also projected to boost this regional market over the next few years.Browse Our Report:Europe has held the second position in this market in 2016. Researchers anticipate it to remain seated in this position over the forthcoming years on the grounds of the advancements in technologies and their swift uptake. Asia Pacific is also predicted to witness a substantial rise in its market share on account of the advancements in its telecom and IT sector and the burgeoning base of internet users. Japan, China, and India are expected to emerge as leading domestic markets in Asia Pacific with noticeable rise in the uptake of WebRTC solutions in the years to come, states the research report.Rising Popularity of IMSs to Drive DemandThe increasing popularity of IP multimedia subsystems (IMS) is having the most prominent impact on the uptake of webRTC solutions, states the author of the study. IMSs offer standardization of voice call services through IP packet switched network across the telecommunication industry. With the emergence of 4G LTE, the uptake of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and rich communication services is likely to increase considerably among mobile users in the coming years.Buy This Report:Since webRTC operates on IP based systems, mobile network operators, nowadays, have begun to use webRTC solutions to leverage the adoption of VoLTE among their end users, which is likely to boost this market significantly over the forecast period. Apart from this, the ease of usage and device compatibility are also projected to reflect positively on this market in the near future.Although the future of this market looks bright, the increasing dependency on Internet for better quality of services may hamper its growth to some extent over the next few years, notes the research study.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
FMCG Labels Market New Business Opportunities By 2026

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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.Make EnquiryHowever 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.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:
Methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) Market - Rising Era Of Industry and Forecast 2017-2025

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Methyltriethoxysilane is considered as an organic compound of silicon, which belongs to the organosilicon compound class. Methyltriethoxysilane is manufactured at an industrial scale from ethanol and trimethylsilyl chloride. The increasing use of methyltriethoxysilane is anticipated to encourage the growth of the overall market in the next few years. The key players operating in the global methyltriethoxysilane market are emphasizing on the expansion of the application base, which is likely to fuel the markets growth in the coming years.Among the regional segments, the developing economies in the methyltriethoxysilane market are projected to grow at a substantial rate in the coming years. The high pace of industrialization and the increasing construction activities are estimated to accelerate the growth of the overall market. The rising use of methyltriethoxysilane as water repellants, sealants, stabilizing and coupling agents in the chemical industry is one of the major factors anticipated to supplement the markets growth in the near future. The high performing characteristics offered by methyltriethoxysilane is likely to contribute significantly towards the development of the overall market in the next few years.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Furthermore, several new entrants are anticipated to enter the global methyltriethoxysilane market and enhance the competitive scenario of the market in the near future. Advancements in technology and the expansion of the product portfolio, thanks to the rising research and development activities are estimated to encourage the growth of the global methyltriethoxysilane market. These players are predicted to focus on emerging economies, which are expected to help them in enhancing their market presence and attain a leading position across the globe.Methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) Market: General OutlineMethyltriethoxysilane (MTES) (CH3Si(OCH2CH3)3 ) is an organic compound of silicon, belonging to a class of organosilicon compounds known as silanes, which are saturated hydrosilicones and are generally stable due to their high saturation. Methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) appears to be a colorless, clear, free flowing liquid, and readily hydrolyzes when mixed with water. The hydrolysis of methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) increases in basic solutions and reduces in acidic solutions. It is produced at an industrial scale from trimethylsilyl chloride and ethanol. It has a stable tetrahedral molecular structure, with a low flashpoint that readily catches fire at temperatures beyond 23 to 25 degrees Celsius. Methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) is usually supplied at purity levels higher than 98% in the market, and is classified as a toxic chemical and may cause harm when exposed.Request TOC of the Report @Methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) Market: Inclusive InsightsSilane compounds are commonly used as sealants, water repellents, coupling and stabilizing agents in the chemical industry. Methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) is primarily used as a cross-linking agent for curing of silicone rubber polymers at room temperature, and is also used as coupling agents for glass fibers and silicon oxide. It also acts as a strengthening agent, while treating and coating of plastic materials, and is widely used in polymer industry. The stability of methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) comes in handy for sol-gel systems, and acts as a chain protecting agent against water and polymerizing agents.Due to its high performing characteristics, silianes are predominantly used in the polymer industry for manufacturing polysiloxanes. It can be applied as sealants for caulking, used for insulating and sealing in construction industry, and act as semiconductors for electronics among others. The market is therefore expected to grow in the coming years. Demand growth is expected to be driven primarily with the increase of end use industries of methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) including construction, polymer, and electronic industries. The market growth is likely to be affected by the availability of substitutes and toxicity of the chemical. On the other hand, the prospective market opportunity is set to increase with new application of polymer manufacture and electronic products among others.Get Discount @Methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) Market: Regional OverviewPolymer, construction, and electronics industries are the end users of methyltriethoxysilane (MTES), and due to its high demand in Asia Pacific, the region accounts for growing number of consumers. Industrial economies namely, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand are the main consumers of methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) for its usage in the manufacture of various plastics and coating materials.Two of the fastest growing industrial economies of Asia, China and India are the rapidly growing market for polymer industry, and in turn is responsible for driving the demand for methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) and other silanes. Cheap labor availability, land, and comparatively lenient norms and regulations against chemicals, have led several market players to establish their production facilities in Asia. The demand is high for methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) in North America due to its heavy usage in chemical industry, requirement of coatings for plastics and sealants for construction industry, making the region another key market for methyltriethoxysilane (MTES). In due course of time, the demand for methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) is likely to rise in Brazil, South Africa, and the Middle East.Methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) Market: Key Market PlayersThe key players of the marmethyltriethoxysilane (MTES) market are: Alfa Aesar (Johnson Matthey Group Company), Asia Silicones Association Ltd., BRB International BV, and Wynca Chemicals 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
Packaging Inks and Coatings Market Size Observe Significant Surge during 2026

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A new research report by Transparency Market Research offers a comprehensive evaluation of the global Packaging Inks and Coatings Market. The study, titled Packaging Inks and Coatings Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2026, is available for sale on the firms website.Packaging Inks and Coatings Market: OverviewPackaging is an essential factor for the sale of any product or commodity. The appearance and acceptability of a product depends highly on its packaging. These days, manufacturers as well as packers are looking out for a technology by which they can have better packaging of their products so that they can be accepted and used on a large scale. This would, in turn, help in growth of the packaging inks and coatings market.View Report Preview:Inks and coatings used for packaging not only give a better appearance to the product but also protect the enclosed materials. Packaging inks and coatings are applied onto substrates such as paper, plastics (rigid and flexible), metals, and rubber. Printing onto these substrates is carried out by means of different processes such as digital, flexographic, gravure, and lithographic.Packaging inks and coatings are useful in applications such as beverages, cosmetics, food, pharmaceuticals, and industrial goods.Packaging Inks and Coatings Market: TrendsDemand for better-quality packaging inks and coatings is higher at present, due to the changing lifestyle and customers preference to better packaging of goods. The increase in demand for better packaging in applications such as food and beverages as well as cosmetics is expected to drive the market for packaging inks and coatings in the next few days. Awareness regarding the quality of food and protection from contamination promotes steady growth of the packaging inks and coatings market.On the other hand, the number of regulations regarding the use of packaging inks and coatings in the food & beverages industry is high. The imposition of these regulations is likely to be a major restraint for the global market for packaging inks and coatings in the near future. Currently, concerns regarding the side-effects associated with the incorporation of packaging inks and coatings are growing. This would eventually be a restraint for the market.Manufacturers of packaging inks and coatings can develop formulations that are organic and eco-friendly. This can prove to be an opportunity for players operating in the market to expand their business and hold a strong share in the global market for packaging inks and coatings.Packaging Inks and Coatings Market: Region-wise OutlookIn the past few years, the region of has North America accounted for a major share of the global packaging inks and coatings market, due to the use of packaging inks and coatings in the food industry on a large scale. The market in the region is expected to witness steady growth during the forecast period, due to the increasing demand for packed food and beverages.The market of packaging inks and coatings is in its developmental stages in the region of Asia Pacific. The utilization of packaging inks in food industry in leading economies such as India, Japan, and China is expected to drive the market in this region in the near future.The market in Europe and Latin America is anticipated to witness rapid growth in the next few days, due to changing lifestyles of the people in these regions. However, the market for packaging inks and coatings in Middle East & Africa is likely to expand at a slower pace as compared to other regions during the forecast period.Request to view Sample Report:Packaging Inks and Coatings Market: Key PlayersSome of the players operating in the global packaging inks and coatings market include AkzoNobel N.V., Sun Chemical Corporation, PPG Industries Inc., Siegwerk Druckfarben AG & Co. KGaA, Spring Coating Systems, and FlintGroup.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact UsTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Advanced Functional Materials Industry Outlook and Market Development Analysis Reveals Forecast for the Period 2017-2022

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The report on Advanced Functional Materials market is the latest addition to the huge database of Market Research Hub. This research study is segmented on the basis of applications, technology, geography, and types. The report provides a detailed Advanced Functional Materials Industry overview along with the analysis of industrys gross margin, cost structure, consumption value, and sale price. The leading companies of the Advanced Functional Materials Market, manufacturers, and distributors are profiled in the report along with the latest Industry development current and future trends.Request For Sample Report:Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Advanced Functional Materials in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Advanced Functional Materials market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players including3MApplied MaterialsCeradyneDuPontMomentive...On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoFunctional CeramicsFunctional CompositesConductive PolymersNanomaterialsEnergy MaterialsOn 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, includingElectrical and electronicsTranspotationChemicalsAerospace & DefenseMedicalOthersBrowse Full Report with TOC:Table of ContentsGlobal Advanced Functional Materials Market Research Report 20171 Advanced Functional Materials Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Advanced Functional Materials1.2 Advanced Functional Materials Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Advanced Functional Materials Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Advanced Functional Materials Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Functional Ceramics1.2.4 Functional Composites1.2.5 Conductive Polymers1.2.6 Nanomaterials1.2.7 Energy Materials1.3 Global Advanced Functional Materials Segment by Application1.3.1 Advanced Functional Materials Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Electrical and electronics1.3.3 Transpotation1.3.4 Chemicals1.3.5 Aerospace & Defense1.3.6 Medical1.3.7 Others1.4 Global Advanced Functional Materials Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Advanced Functional Materials 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 Advanced Functional Materials (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Advanced Functional Materials Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Advanced Functional Materials Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)2 Global Advanced Functional Materials Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Advanced Functional Materials Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Advanced Functional Materials Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)ContinuedEnquire About this Report:About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of machinery 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 :-
Temperature Probe Market: Trends and Opportunities for the Industry by 2016 - 2024

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Temperature probes are used to measure the amount of coldness and heat energy, generated by a system. These sensors help in detecting physical change to the temperature producing digital output. Furthermore, temperature sensors are mainly used in sectors including healthcare, food & beverage, automotive and consumer electronics, defense industry. Temperature sensors are used in various industrial applications, which need process control with high accuracy. These probes are mainly used for sensitive processes, which need controlled process environments for example in chemical mixing, monitoring. Industrial processes which frequently requires to test and measure equipments temperature and volume, also use temperature probes on large scale. For example, clinical research processes have highly controlled manufacturing environments.Browse Premium Industry Research Report with Analysis:These probes play important role in manufacturing, handling, storing of medical equipment and drugs, as they maintain basic overall performance by monitoring temperature. The current developments in healthcare sensing probes are responsible for increase in the trend of continuous patient monitoring. As a result it can reduce overall healthcare costs and help to improve treatment outcomes. These medical sensors are capable of monitoring of vital signs, for example patients temperature and blood pressure that are directly recorded in the electronic format. It also reduces sloppy management of patient records and providing the user with the latest information. Currently consumer healthcare is amongst the major fields which holds a promising future for sensors with a fastest growth rate than all other applications.The escalating burden of chronic disorders as well as, the worldwide, surging population count has consequently propelled the demand for these equipments. Chronically ill patients and the large elderly population subset form the target population for the sensor-based devices as it is imperative for them to undergo routine checkups; thus, facilitating remote and point-of-care patient monitoring.Request for Sample Copy of Report:Besides this, increased adoption rate of surveillance and checkup devices are further driving the temperature sensors market. In addition, factors such as strict government guidelines to ensure environmental safety and ongoing demand for electronic products and computing peripherals have kept the prospects of the market high.The raw material used for manufacturing plays a crucial role in sensor efficiency and durability. Use of new raw materials such as lithium-niobate and langasite has increased the measurement ranges of temperature sensors. However, silicon based sensors are primarily used owing to their availability and low cost as they are produced in bulk. Multisensors are increasingly used for mass applications owing to their stability which, is expected to drive overall temperature sensors market growth.Technical developments and advent of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) are likely to create greater opportunities.The home healthcare category such as pregnancy kits and glucose monitoring kits is anticipated to witness lucrative growth over the years. The cost of diagnosis in hospitals and other healthcare units is high; hence, the preference of home healthcare equipments, such as diagnostic kits, over hospitals is observed to be rising. The high-unmet needs of the huge target population are expected to further open avenues for the market players in the industry.However, dominance of legacy technologies and awareness of end-users have hampered the market growth. Quality, accuracy of temperature probes and raw material used for manufacturing has hampered the market.The Global Market of Temperature Probe is segmented on basis of product type, application, end user, and geography. The market by product type includes fiber optic, temperature sensors IC, bimetallic, resistance temperature detector, IR temperature sensor, thermistor, and thermocouple. Based on applications, the market is segmented as surgical, diagnostic, therapeutic and monitoring. The end user of temperature probes include hospitals, physician offices, nursing homes, home healthcare facilities and others.Geographically, the market is segmented into six major regions: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Rest of the World (RoW). In terms of geography, North America followed by Europe account for the largest market share for because of availability of sophisticated primary, secondary, and tertiary-care healthcare settings supported the market. Moreover, the well-established reimbursement network, suitable government funding, and the increasing health awareness further facilitates the incorporation of the sensors in the medical devices.The Asia Pacific region is anticipated to witness a remunerative growth over the next few years. This can be attributed to the heightened number of individuals suffering from chronic disorders, such as diabetes, hypertension, and respiratory problems.The key market players active in the temperature sensor market are Analog Devices Inc., Maxim Integrated, Measurement Specialties Inc., Microchip Technology Inc., Honeywell International Inc., NXP Semiconductors, STMicroelectronics, Panasonic Corporation, Texas Instruments and Siemens AG.Pre Book this Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Inkjet Coders Market : Quantitative Market Analysis, Current and Future Trends

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The inkjet technology is a reliable and cost-effective method used to mark and code a whole range of products. Inkjet coders are most commonly used in the packaging industry to differentiate products. These are a non-contact printing coders that can generate dates and batch numbers, and time any information to a variety of packaging products including containers, cartons labels, etc. Inkjet coders are used in industries, such as food and beverages, automotive, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, and electronics, for marking purpose.The inkjet coders cost less but have higher maintenance cost, whereas laser coders have high cost and low maintenance cost. Inkjet coders are cost effective and are recommended for economical color printing. The substitute for inkjet coder is laser coder. Inkjet coders comprise different chambers containing different colors of ink. Recently, Videojet Technologies Inc., a manufacturer of coding, marking, and printing products, launched six new inks for larger inkjet printers. Making an innovation in coding solution, Hitachi America, Ltd. recently developed its latest generation of continuous ink jet printers, the UX Series.Obtain Report Details @Drop on Demand (DOD), Continuous Inkjet (CIJ) and Thermal Inkjet (TIJ) are the three types of ink-jet technologies used in the packaging industry for coding applications. The drop on demand technology uses aqueous or UV curable inks to print on a wide range of products; it has a number of chambers which contains ink. Continuous ink jet is a non-contact coding and durable method. The small characters of CIJ coders generate expiry dates, lot codes, graphics, and bar codes on a variety of primary packaging and the large character of CIJ coders generate same for secondary packaging, i.e. for cartons, etc.Thermal ink jet coders make use of print cartridges. They contain a series of small electrically heated chambers, which can be controlled by a flex-circuit, and involve high speed coding for serialized data. (TIJ) technology is usually for generating high-quality graphics and high-grade two-dimensional symbologies such as DataMatrix codes. Generally, industries such as pharmaceuticals, tobacco, health, and beauty make use of TIJ coders.The global inkjet coder market is segmented based on product technology, end user, and geography. By product technology, the global inkjet coder market is segmented into Drop on Demand (DOD), Continuous Inkjet (CIJ), and Thermal Inkjet (TIJ). By end user, the global inkjet coder market is categorized on the basis of different industries, including food and beverages, cosmetics, personal and home care, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, tobacco, automotive and aerospace, building materials, chemicals, commercial printing and addressing, electrical components and electronics, and wire, cable and pipe.Obtain Brochure Of Report @Technological developments in inkjet coders, such as advancement in software that controls and monitors ink viscosity and automatic flush systems that help save time by stopping and cleaning daily print head, are anticipated to create excellent growth opportunities for the inkjet coder market. Rise in demand for minimization of solvent evaporation and reducing mixing of air with ink are the major factors expected to drive growth of the inkjet coders market over the forecast period.However, factors such as high running cost and low quality of marks that result in non-permanent mark are expected to hinder the market growth. Also, inkjet coders spill some tiny droplets of ink while printing; therefore, their resolution is lower than the laser printers. Significant factors that influence the demand for ink jet coders are reduced downtime, which helps customers expand the visual and functional coding capabilities. Currently, increasing number of manufacturers are seeking high performance printing and coding equipment, thereby creating significant growth and investment opportunities for players in the inkjet coders market.By geography, the global inkjet coder market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), the Middle East and Africa (MEA), and Latin America. Currently, North America and Europe dominate the market, accounting for the highest share of the global inkjet coders market in terms of volume. However, most of the major manufacturers in the market are from China, in view of the low capital cost required in the country, advancements in technology, and changing trends and requirements of players in the market. The global commercial and industrial markets play an important role in the development of the overall ink jet coder market.Some of the key players in the global inkjet coding market are Videojet Technologies, Inc., FoxJet, an ITW Company, Hitachi America, Ltd., ID Technology, LLC., KGK Jet India., Linx Printing Technologies, Domino Printing Sciences plc, Shanghai Rottweil Handyware Printing Technology Co., Ltd, Media Data Systems Pte Ltd, Elmark Packaging, Koenig & Bauer AG, Squid Ink Manufacturing, Inc., Markem-Imaje, a Dover Company, and Xaar plc.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:
Cutting Equipment, Accessories, and Consumables Market - Trends,Prospects & Forecast 2017 - 2025

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Global Cutting Equipment, Accessories, and Consumables Market: SnapshotThe global cutting equipment, accessories, and consumables market is being majorly boosted by demand in Asia Pacific and from end-use sectors such as residential, commercial, institutional, infrastructure, industrial, and marine.Among the different types of consumables, the shielding gases and oxy-fuel gases currently dominate the market and are forecasted to gain maximum market share in the near future owing to increasing demand for argon gas by the industries to meet the demand.The various types of technologies leveraged in the market are carbon arc cutting, oxy-fuel cutting, plasma cutting, laser cutting, and water jet cutting. Powered by robust demand from developing economies such as India and China, the plasma cutting technology is anticipated to record maximum growth rate. It will likely be trailed by the laser cutting segment.Request Sample Copy of the Report @From a geographical perspective, Asia Pacific spearheads the global market for cutting equipment, accessories, and consumables and is projected to witness healthy growth in the near future as well. This is mainly on account of its large population base and growing demands for better residential, commercial, institutional, and infrastructure spaces.Illinois Tool Works Inc., Colfax Corporation., Lincoln Electric Company, Air Liquide, and the Linde group are to name a few key players in the global market for cutting equipment, accessories, and consumables. Other prominent companies operating in the market are Muller, GCE holding AB, Messer group, Matheson tri-gas Inc., Fronius international GMBH, and Bug-O, Gentec. Currently astute companies are trying to come with cost-effective technologies to outsmart one another and capture greater market share.Global Cutting Equipment, Accessories, and Consumables Market: General OutlineCutting equipment are at the backbone of any manufacturing industry, and the related accessories and consumables are frequently required in order to maintain consistent production. Some of the common cutting equipment are handheld and mechanized plasma cutters, high definition plasma cutters, CNC plasma cutting tables, retrofit solutions, pipe and tube cutting machines, structural steel fabrication, shape cutting controllers, and plasma torch consumables. Due to the rising population across the world, which is not only escalating the demand from manufacturing industry but also encouraging the set-up of new production outlets and in turn fueling the demand for cutting equipment, accessories, and consumables.Request TOC of the Report @This report on global cutting equipment, accessories, and consumables market is a comprehensive analysis of all the factors that are expected to influence the growth rate during the forecast period of 2017 to 2025. The report segments this market by technology, equipment, accessories and consumables, and geography. By technology, the market can be divided into carbon arc cutting, plasma cutting, laser cutting, oxy-fuel cutting, and water jet cutting. Bu equipment, the market is segmented into manual cutting equipment and mechanized cutting equipment. The segment of manual cutting equipment is further sub-segmented into oxy-fuel cutting, plasma cutting, gouging, portable cutting and, air or fuel torches. The segment of mechanized cutting equipment can be sub-segmented into oxy-fuel, plasma cutting, cutting tables, and cutting machines. By accessories, the market is divided into gas regulators, gas filters, gas flow meters, gas manifolds, gas panels, check valves, flow controllers, and gas cabinets. By consumables, the market is segmented into shielding gases and oxy-fuel gases.Global Cutting Equipment, Accessories, and Consumables Market: Trends and ProspectsThe credits the growing demand from the end-use industries such as commercial, residential, institutional, infrastructure, and marine are the prominent factor fueling the demand in global cutting equipment, accessories, and consumables market. Moreover, rapid industrialization, especially in the emerging economies in Asia Pacific such as India and China, is enticing players in this market to stretch their production capacity and meet the demand. The report anticipates consumables such as shielding gases and oxy-fuel gases to gain maximum traction over the period of next few years, due to the rising demand for argon gas by the industries. Also, plasma cutting as a technology is projected for robust growth rate, particularly from China and India, which are ranked as the first and second most lucrative country-wise market in the global cutting equipment, accessories, and consumables market.Get Discount @Global Cutting Equipment, Accessories, and Consumables Market: Key RegionsGeographically, the report studies the regional markets of North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and rest of the world, and rates Asia Pacific as the most lucrative market due to its vast population. The developed region of North America is rated as the second most prominent region.Colfax Corporation., Lincoln Electric Company, Illinois Tool Works Inc., Air Liquide, and the Linde group are identified as the key players in the global cutting equipment, accessories, and consumables market. Other prominent players in this market identified by the report include GCE holding AB, Messer group, Fronius international GMBH, Matheson tri-gas Inc., Bug-O, Gentec, and Muller.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
Laser Coders Market: An Insight On the Important Factors and Trends Influencing the Market

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Innovation in coding technology continues to become more computerized and integrated into the production line. Laser coding is mostly used to differentiate products and mark them accordingly. Laser coding functions by removal of surface coating from the packaging or product; this results in permanent changes in the surface of the product. Laser coding is a non-contact printing method and ensures quality marking. In laser technology, the galvanometer enables laser coding and making mark on moving or static products.Laser coding can be done on various materials such as glass, paper, foils, plastic, cardboard, coated metals, etc. Laser coding does not contain any inks or chemicals; it is cost-efficient and a low maintenance and eco-friendly method for marking the product. The laser coder software allows users to do barcoding, change and delete text easily, add graphics, etc. The substitutes for laser coders are continuous inkjets and thermal inkjets. In packaging, laser coding is usually used for marking serial or batch number, expiry dates, etc. Laser coding is done in the end after the production process. The laser coder is used for marking various materials in the packaging industry, such as paper, cardboard, and polymers.Obtain Report Details @The major laser coding types are CO2 lasers, fiber lasers, and vanadate lasers. CO2 lasers include carbon dioxide gas mixture, and are mostly applied on non-metallic materials and on most plastics. They are suited for wood, glass, textiles, foils & films, stone, acrylic, paper, plastics and leather. Fiber lasers are solid state lasers; they are used for contrasting plastic marking and metal marking. They are suited for coated metals, metals, and plastics. Vanadate lasers (Crystal laser) can emit 3 different wavelengths and are suited for ceramics (to some extent), metals, plastics, and coated metals. Domino Laser GmbH is the largest international producer of laser coders; the company has presence in the U.S., Europe, North America, and China.The global laser coders market is segmented based on product type, application, and geography. By product type, the global laser coder market is segmented into CO2 lasers, fiber lasers, Nd:YAG flash lamp (solid state), Nd:YAG diode pumped, and vanadate lasers. By end user, the global laser coder market is segmented into food and beverages, cosmetics, personal and home care, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, tobacco, automotive and aerospace, building materials, chemicals, commercial printing and addressing, electrical components and electronics, and wire, cable and pipe.Obtain Brochure Of Report @The growth opportunities for players in the laser coders market growth lie in bringing innovation in terms of the faster execution of coding and that too on a wider range of products, and in producing products that are cost effective and occupy less space. There is an increasing need for high quality marking with improved traceability being witnessed across the globe, which in turn is expected to drive growth of the laser coder market over the forecast period.However, advances in coding and marking applications are still limited and the capital cost incurred on the same is high, in turn acting as restraints for the market growth. Consumables and maintenance costs are low in case of laser coders, which are among the major factors expected to further drive growth of the laser coder market over the forecast period. Meanwhile, the FDA is increasingly demanding permanent identifying mark solutions from the manufacturers in view of improving the product traceability, thereby creating further growth opportunity for the players operating in the market.By geography, the global laser coder market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), the Middle East and Africa (MEA), and Latin America. There have been significant new developments being witnessed in the global laser coders market over the last few years in view of the increasing demand for high speed and reliability. Currently, China dominates the global laser coders market due to the presence of an innovative, cost efficient, environment friendly, and high efficient supply chain in the country. Most of the key market players are based out of China. The laser coder market in North America and Europe is also expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period due to increasing demand for laser coders in packaging industries in these regions.Some of the key players in the global laser coding market are Domino Printing Sciences PLC, Linx Printing Technologies, Telesis Technologies, Inc, Matthews Marking Systems, MACSA ID S.A., Markem-Imaje - a Dover Company, Videojet Technologies, Inc., Trotec Laser, Inc., and Liquid Packaging Solutions, Inc.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:
Antistatic Packaging Market : Emergence of Advanced Technologies and Global Industry Analysis

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Antistatic packaging is used for shipping products, which are prone to damage caused by electrostatic discharge. These bags are usually made from Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), and have a distinctive color (silvery for metalized film, pink or black in case of polyethylene) depending on their properties. Hence, an antistatic bag is a shipping bag which cannot be affected by electrostatic discharge.Electrically, antistatic bag provides lubricity within the bag, thereby inhibiting static charge build up. These bags are typically coated with topical antistatic agents that help reduce the generation of static imbalance resulting from triboelectric generation or contact and separation. Some antistatic bags are made with an antistatic built into the film layers and tend to be more reliable and cleaner then the topically treated ones. A good bag has antistatic properties on both, the inner and outer part of the bag film construction.Obtain Report Details @Major growth drivers for the antistatic packaging market include increasing shipments of electronic devices across the world. Antistatic packaging is mainly used for packaging of electronic devices. This increase in usage of electronic devices is being witnessed all over the world and in almost all end use sectors, such as medical and household.Antistatic packaging market can be classified on the basis of product type into: bubble bags, polybags, foam, polytubing, peanuts, antistatic tape, and antistatic stretch wrap. The antistatic bubble bag is made up of low density polyethylene, and is available in the usual packaging form. In addition to their antistatic properties, these bags facilitate the necessary separation of parts during transportation and storage.Obtain Brochure Of Report @Meanwhile, antistatic foam protects the product components from shock vibration and other impacts. Antistatic pink bubble roll wraps are bulky items, used for transport, and lining shipping cartons and envelopes.In terms of region, Korea, Singapore and China are the major manufacturers of electronic devices and components and, hence, Asia Pacific is anticipated to account for a major chunk of revenue generated in the antistatic packaging market. The Asia Pacific market is anticipated to be respectively followed by Europe and North America (majorly, the U.S.). Meanwhile, the top electronic components and integrated circuit exporters are located in China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Republic of Korea, European countries and the U.S..Key players in the antistatic packaging market include Edco Supply Corporation (U.S.), Miller packaging (U.S.), Desco Industries Inc. (U.K.), Dou Yee (China), Dakla Pack (Netherlands), Polyplus Packaging (U.K.), Pall Corporation (U.S.), TIP Corporation (Malaysia), Kao Chia (Taiwan), MK Master, and Advance Packaging (U.S.).This report is a complete study of current trends in the market, industry growth drivers, and restraints. It provides market projections for the coming years. It includes analysis of recent developments in technology, Porters five force model analysis and detailed profiles of top industry players. The report also includes a review of micro and macro factors essential for the existing market players and new entrants along with detailed value chain analysis.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:
Precision Medicine Market Research Report by Geographical Analysis and Forecast to 2024

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Precision medicine is an upcoming disease treatment approach which is devised based on individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person. Often the term is used interchangeably with personalized medicine, however, precision medicine is not the same as simple individualized medicine, but rather a medicine mode which combines standardization with individualization. The benefit rendered by such a treatment approach is the accurate prediction of the treatment and prevention strategies for a particular disease will work in particular groups of people. The standard medicines available in the market, often present the limitation of a one-size fits-all approach, which may not be suitable for every individual due to genetic differences. Precision medicine is an answer to this limitation. Precision medicine is a completely new concept and technology which has been gaining momentum in the past few years, and by doing so, has become a promising domain for business investment for major pharmaceutical companies. Precision medicine makes possible the diagnosis and treatment of diseases by relying on genomics and specific biomarker techniques. A precision based approach to formulating medicine could lead to new insights into disease biology and occurrence whose applications may be population wide. By doing so it is likely to be easier for doctors to select the right drugs, optimal dose and time for medicine usage along with the least side effect. The enhancement in popularity of precision medicine in the recent past can be gauged by the increase in research pertaining to precision medicine during the past few years. For instance, in 2015, there were 1737 papers with the term precision medicine on Pubmed versus just a single paper mentioning precision medicine in 2005. Moreover, rising awareness regarding the benefits of adapting to precision medicine as promoted by the Precision Medicine Initiative by President Obama in January 2015. The overall market for precision medicine shall be driven by increase in research, coupled with unmet needs in several diseases, especially oncology. The market growth shall be bolstered by favorable government regulations and support, especially in developed countries. However, the high cost of these therapies is anticipated to restrain market growth.Browse Premium Industry Research Report with Analysis:The market for precision medicine has been segmented on the basis of type of technology, application and geography. Based on type of technology, the market has been segmented into drug discovery, companion diagnostics, sequencing, bio-informatics and big data analytics. The companion diagnostics and drug discovery segments are anticipated to lead the market in terms of revenue share owing to a greater utilization rate of these technologies in congruence with precision medicine. For instance, in 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new cystic fibrosis medication called Kalydeco (ivacaftor). The approval of Kalydeco was noteworthy since it was a precision medicine based approach which targeted one of the causal genetic mutations of the disease rather than a more traditional approach focused on symptom relief.Based on application, the market has been segmented into oncology, hematology, Infectious disease, cardiology, neurology, endocrinology and others. The others segment includes ophthalmology, nephrology, rare diseases and pulmonary diseases). The oncology segment is anticipated to witness high revenue share owing to the rise in cancer incidence, prevalence and suitability of precision medicine for the same. Patients with several forms of cancer, such as breast, lung, and colorectal cancers, as well as leukemias and melanomas, regularly undergo molecular testing as part of patient care and treatment regime, and this enables physicians to select treatments that increase chances of survival at the same time reducing exposure to adverse side effects.Request for Sample Copy of Report:Based on geography, the market has been segmented into the following regions: North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa. North America is expected to be the leading markets in the precision medicine market, owing to greater adoption to leading edge technologies coupled with a favorable legal environment created through grants and initiatives by the government. For instance, in January 2015, the President of the U.S., Mr. Barrack Obama launched the Precision medicine initiative which included an increased funding request of US$ 215 million in the 2016 federal budget. Moreover, initiatives for precision medicine research and its implementation are already underway at major centers in the U.S., which shall fuel the market growth in the region. For instance, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Boston Childrens Hospital, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard formed the Joint Center for Precision Cancer Medicine. This collaboration aims to create precision medicine pathways for patients with advanced cancers, thus enabling the fast development of personalized therapies. The major players operating in the precision medicine market include F-Hoffmann La Roche, Pfizer, Inc., Teva Pharmaceuticals, Novartis AG, Qiagen, Inc., Medtronic, Illumina, Inc. and Quest Diagnostics.Pre Book this Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Corneal Neovascularization Market Estimated to Flourish by 2024

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Corneal neovascularization is a disorder of the eyes, which is mainly characterized by the incursion of novel blood vessels into the cornea of the individuals suffering from the disease. This disorder is majorly caused due to disruption of the balance between the factors that protects and maintain the corneal transparency. The two factors that need to be balanced include angiogenic and antiangiogenic factors. The incursion of new blood vessels, which are relatively immature, hence can cause lipid exudation as well. Other major symptoms include scarring in eyes, persistent inflammation, which leads to diminishing corneal transparency and visual perception. The corneal neovascularization disorders if left untreated it may lead to high growth of new blood vessels that may reach visual axis to permanently threat the vision of the affected individual. Presently, several patients suffering from various eye problems, many a times undergo corneal grafts; corneal neovascularization may lead to rejection of such grafts as well. Thus, timely and proper treatment (may include surgical intervention and therapeutic drugs) of corneal neovascularization is necessary for effective management of the disease to ensure proper eye vision.Browse Premium Industry Research Report with Analysis:Major driving factors for the growth of corneal neovascularization market include increasing incidences of ophthalmic disorders, rising number of corneal grafts, aging population, increasing obesity rate, increasing number of diseases such as diabetes and hypertension and increasing demand for advanced treatment options. Ophthalmic disorders are one of the leading disorders that affect very large population globally; several eye related disorders require ophthalmic interventions that may increase the risk of developing corneal neovascularization, hence accompanied by graft rejections. Increasing geriatric population will also contribute towards the growth of this market as aged individuals are more prone to several disorders and hence, tend to suffer from ophthalmic disorders. Increasing obesity rates are also adding to various eye related disorders mainly the lipid deposition increase the chances of developing corneal neovascularization, hence will contribute towards the growth of this market. Several diseases like diabetes, hypertension and others also lead to ophthalmic diseases, in turn require diagnostics and therapeutics from this market, thus will contribute towards the growth of corneal neovascularization market. Several pharmaceutical companies are having many therapeutic drugs for the effective treatment of this disorder in different phases of clinical trials, which will soon hit the market.Request for Sample Copy of Report:Geographically, North America and Europe are expected to dominate the corneal neovascularization market. Major factors responsible for their expected dominance in the corneal neovascularization market are high prevalence of ophthalmic disorders in the region, aging population, rising overweight as well obese population, and high awareness levels of the population. However, emerging economies like China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and Malaysia among others from Asia-Pacific, LATAM, Middle East and other regions will present tremendous opportunities towards the growth of this market. Major factors responsible for the growth of the corneal neovascularization market in these regions are availability of high patient population, high prevalence of diseases like diabetes and hypertension, increasing healthcare awareness in these regions and increasing purchasing power of the people in APAC and RoW.Some of the major players operating in this market include, Amakem NV, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., GTx, Inc., and Sirnaomics, Inc. that have their drugs in different phases of clinical trials, which will soon be commercialized in the global corneal neovascularization market.Pre Book this Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Database Encryption Market Demand and Growth Analysis with Forecast 2023

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Database encryption is a technology used for protecting databases containing important and confidential information. Using this technology, simple data stored in the database would be converted into an encrypted format. This encrypted data would be unreadable to anyone who doesnt have the encryption key. Database encryption is based on three important security features which are integrity, confidentiality and availability. Important functions such as application of predefined restrictions, prevention of data corruption and reliable and regular access to the database are performed with the help these security features.Regulatory and compliance requirements are the major driving factors for the data encryption market. Regulatory requirements such as health insurance portability and accountability (HIPAA) for healthcare and payment card industry data security standard (PCI DSS) for banking financial services and insurance (BFSI) have forced enterprises worldwide to implement data protection techniques.Request A Sample Of This Report Introduction of new mobile devices, comprehensive usage of social media and virtual storage applications in the enterprises generate vast amount of data. Protecting this data is important as it contains valuable information pertaining to customers and enterprises. Database encryption is the choice of organizations to protect their vulnerable data, further driving the database encryption market. Also, flexibility of the database encryption solutions is helping to increase its popularity. With the help of flexible data encryption solutions, encrypted data could be easily transferred to removable devices such as USBs or CDs/DVDs. However, high costs associated with these solutions and erroneous management of encryption key are restraining the growth of database encryption market. Cloud services are providing tremendous growth opportunities to database encryption market. Furthermore, easy implementation of the data encryption solution with the help of cloud technology has helped the customers to use it irrespective of the location and time.View Report -Database encryption market is segmented on the basis of type, mode of deployment, size of the enterprise and industry verticals. On the basis of type, database encryption market is segmented into database encryption types and database operational models.Database encryption types include file system encryption, application level encryption, column level encryption, transparent/external encryption and key management. There are two operational models used in the database encryption market which are data-at-rest and data-in-motion. Database encryption solutions are deployed using on-premise and cloud deployment techniques. Furthermore, according to the size of the enterprise database encryption market is segmented into small and medium enterprises and large enterprises.Buy This Report -Database encryption solutions are used in various industries such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare, government and public sector, retail and e-commerce, IT and telecom, aerospace and defense and others. On the basis of geography, the global database encryption market is segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. North America is predicted to experience significant growth among all regional segments in the coming years, due to the large amount of data generated from the adoption of cloud technology and mobility solutions.The global database encryption market is highly competitive in nature and is marked with the presence of several international and domestic key players. Major players in the database encryption market include IBM Corporation, Symantec Corporation, Netapp, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, Oracle Corporation, Intel Security (Mcafee), Vormetric Inc., Gemalto NV, and Sophos Group plc.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 recommendationsTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Bioceramics Market to Remain Lucrative During 2024

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Bioceramics are ceramic materials specially developed for use as medical and dental implants. These are usually used to replace hard tissue in the body such as bone and teeth. Common bioceramics are alumina, zirconia, and hydroxyapatite (a form of calcium phosphate). Ceramics are refractory polycrystalline compounds and are inorganic, highly inert, hard & brittle, have high compressive strength, are good electric and thermal insulators, and have good esthetic appearance.Increasing R&D activities by major industry players such as Kyocera coupled with rising demand in North America and Europe has led to high penetration in these developed regions. Other factors such as transitioning demographics and high demand for advanced health care facilities are also likely to boost market growth. Rising prevalence of osteoarthritis among a growing geriatric population has had a positive impact on bioceramics consumption globally. Increasing implant surgeries and hip & knee joint replacements is also likely to provide lucrative opportunities in the bioceramics market participants worldwide. However, volatility in alumina prices is anticipated to restrain the global bioceramics market during the forecast period. Medical polymers are also increasingly substituting bioceramics owing to similar inherent properties. These factors are likely to hinder the growth of the new market entrants over the future period. Minimally invasive procedures, surgery cost reduction, and partial joint replacements are likely to present lucrative opportunities in the market.Browse Premium Industry Research Report with Analysis:Based on product type, the bioceramics market is segmented into bioinert, bioactive, and bioresorbable. Bioactive ceramics interact with the body so that tissue bonding and eventual incorporation into the body occurs after a time. Calcium phosphate-based bioceramics are bioactive. Bioinert ceramics do not interact with the bodys environment apart from causing an initial fibrous tissue reaction, which coats the ceramic. Alumina and zirconia-based ceramics are classified as bioinert. The bioceramics market has also been segmented based on application into orthopedic, dental implants, bone graft substitutes, bone cements, and others. Based on material, the bioceramics market is segmented into carbon, alumina, calcium sulfate, zirconia, calcium phosphate, and others. Alumina is a white powder. When shaped, compressed, and heated to a high temperature, the ceramic that results has high density, high strength, excellent corrosion resistance, good biocompatibility, and high wear resistance. In addition, it can be machined, ground, and polished to a high-quality product. Zirconia (ZrO2) is also a white powder. It can be compressed and sintered into a strong ceramic. Unlike alumina, its wear-resistance properties are not as good.Geographically, the global bioceramics market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America and Europe are major markets for bioceramics products due to increasing research and development activities along with growing consumer demand in the region. Changing demographics in North America and Europe have resulted in growing demand for health care facilities. This has been an important factor for medical advancements and contributed to the increasing use of the material in the past few years. Pharmaceutical companies in Asia Pacific are also increasing their production capacities. This factor coupled with increasing investments in R&D is expected to present new opportunities in the region. Apart from their usage as dental and bone implants, bioceramics are widely used in engineered bioreactors and extracorporeal circulation systems such as dialysis. This trend is anticipated to fuel the growth of the bioceramics market in Asia Pacific through 2024.Request for Sample Copy of Report:Major players operating in the global bioceramics market include CeramTec, Amedica Corporation, Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc., Royal DSM, DOCERAM Medical Ceramics GmbH, Straumann, Nobel Biocare, and CoorsTek Medical, LLC. CoorsTek Medical produced over 300 advanced materials in 2014. In August 2015, the company announced a five-year capacity expansion plan of ceramic hip replacement components. These initiatives are likely to increase competition and internal rivalry within the industry.Pre Book this Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Analog Multimeters Sales Industry Analysis Report Indicating Trends, Size, Share, and Forecast 2017 - 2022

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The market for Global Analog Multimeters has been undergoing a transitional phase over the recent past. The continual advancements in technologies and the swift increase in infrastructural development projects have influenced the demand for Global Analog Multimeters Sales Market Report 2017 substantially over the past few years. The swift rise in urbanization and the significant increase in the disposable income of people are likely to maintain the demand pace of Global Analog Multimeters sales market report 2017 in the near future. The augmenting interest of investors, government funding, and the rising trend of automation are also projected to reflect positively on this market in the years to come.Request For Sample Report:Geographically, this report split global into several key Regions, with sales (K Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Analog Multimeters for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Analog Multimeters market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Analog Multimeters sales volume, Price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingShanghai YiHuaSimpsonTecpelTriplettCIRCUTORGOSSENMETRAWATTHIOKIE.EIskraKyoritsuSanwa Electric InstrumentOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoPortable MultimetersDesktop MultimetersOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate for each application, includingElectronics FactoryLaboratoryOtherBrowse Full Report with TOC:Table of ContentsGlobal Analog Multimeters Sales Market Report 20171 Analog Multimeters Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Analog Multimeters1.2 Classification of Analog Multimeters by Product Category1.2.1 Global Analog Multimeters Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Analog Multimeters Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Portable Multimeters1.2.4 Desktop Multimeters1.3 Global Analog Multimeters Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Global Analog Multimeters Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Electronics Factory1.3.3 Laboratory1.3.4 Other1.4 Global Analog Multimeters Market by Region1.4.1 Global Analog Multimeters Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Analog Multimeters Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 China Analog Multimeters Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Europe Analog Multimeters Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Analog Multimeters Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Analog Multimeters Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Analog Multimeters Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Analog Multimeters (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Analog Multimeters Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Analog Multimeters Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Global Analog Multimeters Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Analog Multimeters Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Global Analog Multimeters Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Analog Multimeters Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Analog Multimeters (Volume and Value) by TypeEnquire About this Report:About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of machinery 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 :-
Fiber Laser Oscillators Market: Industry Outlook, Growth Prospects and Key Opportunities

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Fiber laser oscillators are the type of electronic oscillators that use crystal to select the particular frequency so that the inverse piezoelectric effect is obtained. It uses the vibrating crystal so that the mechanical resonance is used from it, having piezoelectric properties so that an electric signal of high precise frequency is obtained. The frequency so obtained is also used in keeping track of time, to stabilize frequencies for receivers and radio transmitters.A similar crystal called quartz crystal can also be used to obtain frequencies from kilohertz to few megahertz. These crystals are used for devices such as radios, computers, clocks, cell phones and wrist watches. Quartz crystal can also be found in measurement and test equipment such as oscilloscopes, signal generators, and counters. Temperature compensated oscillator is the dominating equipment in the market finding its use in the networking and telecom industry. The oven controlled oscillator is also expected to rise in the forecast period due to its general lucrative circuitry.Obtain Report Details @Fiber Laser Oscillators Market: Market DynamicsThe factor driving the growth of fiber laser oscillators market is the requirement of lasers in the telecommunication industry with a high stability. In the telecommunication industry, also there is a need for components with cost efficiency and low power consumption which can be achieved by intensive activities of R&D in the fiber laser oscillators market. For telecommunication applications, the best-suited crystal oscillator is the oven controlled crystal oscillator having high stability in the frequency.In addition, the fiber laser oscillators market is being driven by the rising demand in the vehicles having infotainment system, automotive industry having automatic driver assist system (ADASs) and portable electronic devices. The wide range of applications in the fiber laser oscillators market includes IT industry, telecommunication industry, transport and automotive industry, defense, and aerospace industry and the electronics industry.The increased use of smartphones and various other such devices has increased the demand for fiber laser oscillators market. The demand for equipment in the healthcare industry is another factor driving the growth of fiber laser oscillators market. The growing developments and research in the 4G and LTE networks are the trending growth of the equipment such as laser fiber oscillators market.Obtain Brochure Of Report @The fiber laser oscillators market can be segmented on the basis of geography into seven main regions as North America, Eastern Europe, Latin America, APAC, Japan, Western Europe and MEA. The North America is the major player in the market driving the growth due to the advancement in technology and being a developed region the rise in usage of electronics components is observed.The APEJ is expected to rise in the forecast period due to the manufacturers shifting their market to the countries like India and China where development is on the rise. The Europe and Japan are also expected to have the small rise in the forecast period. The Latin America is also a driving region in the market being the region with the major companies.The fiber laser oscillators market in the surface mount type has the largest share in the market. The growth of the segment is being driven by the low cost in production and higher density of its components. In 2016 the crystal segment accounted for the largest share in the laser fiber oscillators market. The consumer electronics and medical equipment in the application type are the industries with the highest opportunity in the laser fiber oscillators market. The evolution of MEMS crystal oscillator is the new development and the further growth driver for the laser fiber oscillators market in the 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.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. 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Point of Care Clinical Chemistry Market Insights and Analysis for Period 2017 - 2025

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Point-of-care chemistry refers to as a number of tests such as Na, Cl, Mg, urea, creatinine, TCO2, iCa, Hct, and hemoglobin, which are included in a variety of combination. Clinical chemistry tests/panels are a group of test performed to determine the health status of an individual. These tests are performed majorly to evaluate a bodys electrolyte balance and to check status (health) of the organs. Common clinical chemistry tests/panels include basic metabolic panel, comprehensive metabolic panel, electrolyte panel, and lipid profile. Other panels include liver panel, renal profile, and thyroid function panel. Basis metabolic panel is performed to check the status (health) of kidneys, blood sugar level, and to evaluate the electrolyte and acid/base balance.Browse Premium Industry Research Report with Analysis:The global market of point-of-care clinical chemistry is expected a strong growth during the forecast period owing to rapid rise of aging population, technological advancements, and early disease detection facilitated by specialized diagnostic tests. According to studies by the U.S. Census Board, people aged 65 years and above represented a significant share of the total U.S. population in 2009. The percentage of aged population is further expected to get double by 2030 as compared to 2009. Other countries aging at a rapid pace are Japan, Germany, Italy, China, and India. Diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and a few cardiovascular disorders have been referred to as diseases of aging by researchers. Research reports suggest that patients over the age of 50 are relatively more susceptible to cancer, especially cervical, breast, and prostate cancers. This aging of global population is expected to serve the global point-of-care clinical chemistry market as a growth driver. The expected rise in the target patient population is projected to lead to an increase in demand for point-of-care clinical chemistry, thereby driving the market growth. Likewise, the point-of-care clinical chemistry market has witnessed tremendous proliferation in technology in the recent past, with the advent of microarrays, biochips, and companion diagnostics. This has created significant opportunities for new methods of testing which are faster and highly accurate. Increasing burden of diseases is leading to introduction of tests with high efficiency & systems and with high capacity in terms of processing multiple samples at a time. These factors are expected to act as important growth drivers of the market. However, stringent and changing regulatory scenario might pose threat for the growth of the market to some extent. Point-of-care clinical chemistry systems are used for various purposes such as quick diagnostics, management of treatment data, and making decisions regarding treatment. Also, the accuracy in diagnostic data provided by point-of-care clinical chemistry systems helps in improving the procedure followed for treatment. Demand for automated instruments is rising in laboratories, which is driving the market for point-of-care clinical chemistry systems.Request for Sample Copy of Report:The report studies the global market for point-of-care clinical chemistry of North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America has a significant market for point-of-care clinical chemistry systems. This is due to advancement in technology, economic factors, and easy access to health care services in the region. Western Europe and Asia are other large markets which include the U.K., Japan, and China. Asia Pacific is expected to emerge as a fast growing regional market during the forecast period. Growth in patient population and favorable economic growth of major countries, along with an increase in number of players investing in emerging markets, are expected to drive market growth in this region.Key players operating in the global point-of-care clinical chemistry market includes Randox Laboratories, DRG International, Inc., EKF Diagnostics, Molecular Devices, LLC, Nova Biomedical, and Precision Systems Inc.Pre Book this Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Fly Drill Market: Quantitative Market Analysis, Current and Future Trends

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Fly drill is used to engrave and drill the acrylic and plastics in the industries. In mechanical industries, fly drill is used to engrave holes on iron sheets or components. In electronics industry, fly drill is utilized where engraving on sheets is required to fit the components. Fly drill is an electrical machine with an inverted pointed pencil type structure for engraving and drilling.This structure is rotated by a motor and fast spinning of the pointed part drill the sheets very easily. The fly drill machine has various applications in different industries like mechanical, electronic, electrical, instrumentation, and IT; due to its both low and heavy duty works. The fly drill machines as according to their duty work can also be used to engrave diamonds to shape them. Heavy machinery of fly drill market in the chemical industry is used to give shaped holes in the soil to do required processes in it.Obtain Report Details @Fly Drill Market: Market DynamicsIncreasing rate of automation is the key driving factor for growth of the fly drill market. Developing countries prefer to use automation as the technique to improve sales of products in the market and thereby the economy of the country gets improved. The use of industrialized products and the increasing mobility in the market is another factor to drive the growth of fly drill market. Due to this factor, the use of energy-efficient products with the fly drill is driving the growth of market.The trend in the fly drill market is the increasing use of drills with the pressure monitoring system connected to it. This factor will enable manufacturing of fly drill in a flexible way and provide accurate conditions in the market. This has also allowed the use of fly drill without affecting the flow of safety conditions in different products. The Ethernet based networks in the fly drill market will allow the market to manufacture drills with high speed, low expenditure and lesser impact on the environment.Obtain Brochure Of Report @The fly drill market can be segmented on the basis of geography into seven regions as North America, Western Europe, Japan, Latin America, APEJ, Eastern Europe and MEA. Asia Pacific is the maximum revenue contributor in fly drill market owing to rising demand in the electrical and electronics industry in the region. Countries like China and India of Asia Pacific are expected to have the high growth in the forecast period.Western Europe and North America are expected to have rising demand in the forecast period due to technological advancements in developed countries of the region. However, Western Europe is expected to rise in a much demanding way than North America due to the rising demand of information technology industry in the region. Latin America is also expected to drive the demand in the fly drill market due to the emerging economies in the countries like Mexico and Brazil.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Medical Composites Market: Future market projections for forthcoming years

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Composite is also known as composition material or composite material. Composite material is made of two or more materials that have different chemical or physical properties, which form a new material that has different characteristics than the combined materials. The new material are produced may have many reasons such as materials which are stronger, less expensive or lighter, when it is compared to traditional materials. Composite materials have various applications in the aerospace, automotive, construction, consumer goods, defense, marine, medical, oil & gas, rail, and renewable industries. A composite material can be used for many purposes such as construction of buildings and bridges, and for structures such as boat hulls, race car bodies, bathtubs, swimming pool panels, shower stalls, storage tanks, cultured marble sinks, and imitation granite. Examples of composite material are concrete, ceramic composites, metal composites, and reinforced plastics. Composite materials have wide range of medical uses such as in surgeries, implants, artificial limbs, instrument materials, and diagnostics.Browse Premium Industry Research Report with Analysis:The global medical composites market has been segmented based on product type, application, end-user, and region. In terms of product type, the market has been categorized into carbon fiber composites, ceramic matrix composites, and other composites. Carbon fiber composites have wide usage and hold the largest share of the market. Based on application, the medical composites market has been segmented into diagnostic imaging, composite body implants, surgical instruments, dental, microsphere, tissue engineering, and others. Moreover, there are various other applications of medical composites which depend on the need and requirement of the material for designing and manufacturing. Medical composites are primarily used in diagnostic imaging systems. These are highly used for patient imaging tables and for accessories used in X-ray, PET, CT, and MRI imaging system. Medical composites used in diagnostic instruments lower the weight of an instrument, which in turn offers better positioning for patients and generation of clearer images. End-users of medical composites are medical device companies, pharmaceutical companies, diagnostic imaging centers, research centers, and others.Request for Sample Copy of Report:Geographically, the medical composites market has been classified into five regions: North America (U.S. and Canada), Europe (Germany, France, U.K., etc.), Asia Pacific (China, Japan, Australia, India, etc.), Latin America (Brazil and Mexico), and Middle East & Africa (UAE, Saudi Arabia and South Africa). Europe was the largest market for medical composites in terms of revenue owing to high demand in diagnostic imaging components, prosthetic applications, and composite implants. Europe was followed by North America and is expected to register higher growth. Emerging markets such as Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa are expected to record robust growth during the forecast period from 2016 to 2024 due to the growing health care industry and aging population. China, Brazil, and India are expected to witness strong growth due to increasing investments by government bodies to enhance health care facilities.Technological advancement and increase in the usage of composite materials in various medical application such as implants, diagnostics, medical equipment and accessories are the other factors likely to boost the growth of the medical composites market. The market is also witnessing certain restraints such as intense competition among existing medical composites manufacturers and frequent changes in consumer preferences.Major players operating in this market include 3M, DSM, Polygon Company, PolyOne Corporation, Quatro Composites, Toray Industries, Inc., Composiflex, Inc., ACP Composites, Inc., Vermont Composites, Inc., and Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd.Pre Book this Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Infrared Search and Track Systems Market: Applications and Global Markets

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The infrared search and track systems is a phenomena of locating and tracking objects using infrared radiations. These systems does not fire any radiating beams unlike radar, thus, making it difficult for the enemy to detect the origin of the radiating beams.The major advantage of infrared search and track systems market is the demand for enhanced situational awareness is growing at a rapid rate across the globe. The situational awareness is a major factor during combat, and infrared systems increases the situational awareness among the defense forces by helping them during search and rescue or track operation in the dark. This factor is increasing the demand for infrared search and track systems among the defense forces worldwide. In addition, the defense budget is increasing in developed as well as developing countries in comparison to last couple of years. The increased defense budgets is helping the defense forces to adopt latest technologies to benefit the military troops on the battleground.Obtain Report Details @The key challenge faced by the defense forces during procurement of the infrared search and track systems is the limited operational range of the systems. Due to technological constraints from various defense authorities across the globe, the manufacturers of infrared search and track systems restricts the operational range and which in turn limits the procurement of the systems among the defense forces, resulting in negative impact on the growth of the market in future.The defense forces are investing heavily in the modernization of the military forces, air forces, and naval forces, with the latest technologies. This factor is acting as an opportunity for the infrared search and track market to grow in future. The modernization of military includes incorporation of technologically advanced weaponries, technologically robust situational awareness systems and latest wearable. Thus, modernization of military forces, air forces, and naval forces across the globe is expected to grow the market for infrared search and track systems in the coming years.The market for infrared search and track systems is segmented on basis of components, platform, end users and geography. The different components integrated in the infrared search and track systems includes scanning head, processing and control electronics, and display. The scanning head segment is further categorized as infrared module, optics and laser range finder. Among the various types of components, the scanning head led the market in the past few years and is expected to lead the market in future.Obtain Brochure Of Report @This is due to the fact that, the infrared module and laser systems helps in enhanced search and tracking of enemy as well as enemy vehicles and armories. On basis of platform, the market for infrared search and track systems is segmented as airborne, naval and land. The airborne platform is sub segmented as aircrafts and unmanned aerial vehicle. The naval platform is further broken down into destroyers, offshore patrol vessels, amphibious warships, cruisers, aircraft carriers and others.The land platform is sub segmented as armored vehicle, and military personnel carrier others. The airborne segment dominates the market in the current scenario and is also expected to lead the market in the coming years due to the rapid modernization of military aircrafts, which enhances the search and track systems. The infrared search and track systems is categorized on basis of end users as defense sector, law enforcement agencies and homeland security. The defense sector captures the majority of market share in the past few years and is expected to dominate the market in future due to growing defense budgets across the globe. Globally, the market for infrared search and track systems is categorized as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin America.The top ten players present in the market for infrared search and track systems includes, Lockheed Martin Corporation (U.S), Aselsan A.S. (Turkey), Northrop Grumman Corporation (U.S), Safran SA (France), Rheinmetall AG (Germany), Thales Group (France), Leonardo S.P.A. (Italy), HGH Infrared Systems (France), Tonbo Imaging (India) and MBDA (France) among others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Military Laser Designator Market: Worldwide Industry Analysis and New Market Opportunities Explored

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A laser designator is an electro-mechanical device used to detect a target such as laser guided missiles, bombs, or precision munitions. The beam generated from a laser designator, is invisible when a target is detected and the laser signal bounces on the target in the sky, which then steers itself towards the center of the reflected signal.The major factor acting as a driving force to the market for military laser designator is the demand for enhanced security in order to combat laser guided munitions. The modern laser designators fires a complex, unique pattern of beam which distracts the laser guided munitions to other directions and thus disabling laser guided munitions to home on the intended target. Hence, resulting in enhanced safety during combat. Another prominent factor fueling the growth of military laser designator market is the increased demand for use of miniature laser designators to mount on unmanned aerial vehicle. The defense forces in the developed and developing nations are investing heavily in the development of miniature laser designators in order to meet the growing demand for the same.Obtain Report Details @The growth of market for laser designators is affected by the reduced operational efficiency in extreme weather conditions. The military laser designators are highly effective against any incoming missiles, laser guided bombs or munitions in clear weather condition, however in bad weather conditions such as smoke, cloud cover and rain, the effectiveness of laser designators against the intended targets reduces and sometimes the beams are impossible to locate or detect the target. Owing to this factor, defense authorities across the globe are limiting their procurement of these electro-mechanical devices, which in turn is hindering the growth of the market in future.The manufacturers of military laser designators, along with different defense authorities are researching on development of drones as laser designators. This development will help the military forces to procure single system instead of two different systems for the same usage. This factor is anticipated to boost the growth of market for military laser designators in future.The market for military laser designator is segmented on basis of types, end user, technology and geography. The various types of military laser designators are man-portable laser designators, vehicle mounted laser designators, and unmanned aerial vehicle mounted laser designators. Among the different types, the vehicle mounted laser designators dominated the market for military laser designator in the past few years and is also expected to dominate the market in future.Obtain Brochure Of Report @This is attributed to the fact that, defense authorities across the globe are investing heavily on ground based, airborne, and shipboard high energy laser designators. The defense sector and homeland security constitutes the end user segment, where the defense sector captured the largest market due to the enhanced benefits such as detecting, warning, targeting and destroying the intended target and causing less collateral damage. In terms of technology, the military laser designators market is segmented as solid state laser designators, fiber laser designators, chemical laser designators, and semiconductor laser designators.The solid state laser designators dominate the market as the solid state laser designators use material in the solid form and not in the gas or liquid form, hence chances of material wastage is reduced. Moreover, the construction of solid state laser designators are simple and are easy to maintain. Geographically, the military laser designator market is categorized on basis of five strategic regions globally. These includes North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin America. The leading region in the global military laser designators market in North America, owing to the fact that huge military spending and technological enhancement in the region is helping the region to lead the market.The leading companies operating in the military laser designator market includes UTC Aerospace Systems (U.S), Northrop Grumman Corporation (U.S), Thales Group (France), L-3 Technologies Inc. (U.S), Leonardo S.P.A. (Italy), General Atomics (U.S), Elbit Systems Ltd. (Israel), FLIR Systems Inc. (U.S), RPMC Lasers (U.S), and Gooch & Housego (U.K).The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Panic Disorders Market - Predicted Analysis and Forecast 2017 - 2025

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Global Panic Disorders Market: SnapshotPanic disorders, also known as anxiety disorder deals with recurrent and unexpected panic attacks. These attacks are sudden and can affect the health of a person on a serious note if untreated. As a result, several drugs and therapeutics have been introduced in order to treat patients suffering from panic disorders across the globe. The rising demand for effective drugs and the rising awareness regarding its availability of therapeutics are anticipated to encourage the growth of the global panic disorder market in the next few years. The hectic lifestyle and the rising work pressure are some of the common causes resulting in panic disorders across the globe.The leading players in the global panic disorders market are focusing on creating an awareness among people regarding this condition and the several effects if not properly treated are expected to encourage the markets growth in the coming years. In addition, the increasing emphasis of players on development of new product and research and development activities is likely to generate lucrative and promising growth opportunities for key players operating in the global panic disorders market. The rising preference of patients on spending significantly towards healthcare expenses is expected to accelerate the growth of the market in the near future.Request Sample Copy of the Report @With a substantial rise in the competitive level, the market players are expected to witness high growth. The expansion of the product portfolio and the rising demand from developed economies are anticipated to encourage the growth of the global panic disorders market in the next few years. Moreover, the marketing strategies adopted by the players and the enhancement of the distribution network are some of the important aspects expected to augment global panic disorders market in the near future.Global Panic Disorders Market: OverviewThe increasing number of drugs in the clinical trials and the effective therapeutics available across the globe are propelling the global panic disorders market. The rising number of cases owing to the hectic lifestyle is one of the major factors boosting the cases of panic disorders. Nonetheless, with the rising focus of leading players on the expansion of the product portfolio, the market is likely to witness high growth in the next few years.Request TOC of the Report @The research report on the global panic disorders market provides a comprehensive analysis, focusing on the latest trends, growth prospects, and opportunities. With the help of primary and secondary data, the research study throws light on the leading segments and regions of the global panic disorders market. Furthermore, an in-depth analysis of the competitive landscape of the global market has been presented to guide the new entrants of the market.Global Panic Disorders Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe rising prevalence of anxiety and mental disorders, the rising awareness regarding the disorders, and the availability of effective treatment options are some of the vital factors that are estimated to fuel the growth of the global panic disorders market throughout the forecast period. The rising initiatives being taken by the leading players to create an understanding among consumers is expected to accelerate the growth of the market in the near future.On the other hand, the lack of awareness, especially in underdeveloped and developing economies regarding the severity of these disorders if not treated is one of the key factors likely to restrict the growth of the overall market in the coming years. Nonetheless, at present, several drugs are in different phases of clinical trials, which are expected to be commercialized soon are projected to encourage the growth of the market.Get Discount @Global Panic Disorders Market: Region-wise OutlookAmong the key regional segments, North America is predicted to lead the global panic disorders market and hold a massive share in the forecast period. The high growth of this region can be attributed to the presence of a large number of players and the growing awareness among consumers regarding the availability of effective therapeutics for panic disorders. Furthermore, Europe is expected to remain in the second position throughout the forecast period.On the other hand, Asia Pacific is projected to witness robust growth in the near future, thanks to the untapped lucrative opportunities for the key players. In addition, the rising purchasing capacity of consumers is expected to encourage the growth of the market in the next few years. India and China are anticipated to contribute significantly towards the growth of the panic disorders market in Asia Pacific.Key Players Mentioned in the Research Report are:The global market for panic disorders is highly competitive in nature, owing to the presence of a large number of players operating in it. Some of the key players in the market are H. Lundbeck A/S, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Actavis plc, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Sanofi, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Mylan, Inc., Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc., AstraZeneca plc, and Pfizer, 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
PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market 2018 Toray, Porcher, Toyobo, Dual

PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market

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Marketsresearch.Biz Published Global PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market Research Report explore on defining and elaborating the key factors for the development of the PP Automotive Airbag Fabric market and forecasts till 2022.The PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market 2017 inspects the execution of the PP Automotive Airbag Fabric advertise, encasing a top to bottom judgment of the PP Automotive Airbag Fabric showcase state and the aggressive scene comprehensively. This report breaks down the capability of PP Automotive Airbag Fabric market in the present and in addition the future prospects from different points in detail.The Global PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market 2017 report incorporates PP Automotive Airbag Fabric industry volume, piece of the overall industry, showcase Trends, PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Growth angles, an extensive variety of uses, Utilization proportion, Supply and request investigation, fabricating limit, PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Price amid the Forecast time frame from 2017 to 2022.Get Sample Copy of Report Here:Toward the starting, the report covers the top PP Automotive Airbag Fabric fabricating industry players from areas like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It likewise describes the market in view of geological districts.Top Key players of PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market:1. Hyosung2. Toyobo3. Toray4. Kolon5. Safety Components6. HMT7. Takata8. Porcher9. UTT10. Milliken11. DualFurther, the PP Automotive Airbag Fabric report gives data on the organization profile, piece of the pie and contact subtle elements alongside esteem chain investigation of PP Automotive Airbag Fabric industry, PP Automotive Airbag Fabric industry tenets and arrangements, conditions driving the development of the market and impulse hindering the development. PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market improvement scope and different business procedures are additionally specified in this report.Table of Content:1. PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market Overview2. Global PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application3. United States PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4. China PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market (Volume, Value and Sales Price)5. Europe PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market (Volume, Value and Sales Price)6. Japan PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market (Volume, Value and Sales Price)7. Southeast Asia PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market (Volume, Value and Sales Price)8. India PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market (Volume, Value and Sales Price)9. Global PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data10. PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market Maufacturing Cost Analysis11. Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers12. Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders13. Market Effect Factors Analysis14. Global PP Automotive Airbag Fabric Market Forecast (2017-2022)15. Research Findings and Conclusion16. AppendixBrowse Full Table of Content:The PP Automotive Airbag Fabric look into report incorporates the items that are right now sought after and accessible in the market alongside their cost separation, producing volume, import/send out plan and commitment to the PP Automotive Airbag Fabric advertise income around the world.At last, PP Automotive Airbag Fabric advertise report gives you insights about the statistical surveying discoveries and conclusion which causes you to create productive market systems to increase upper hand.About Us:"MarketsResearch.biz" 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 Us:5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USAWeb:Email: sales@marketsresearch.biz
Automotive Radiator Market: Technological Advancements, Evolving business Trends and Insights

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A radiator is a component meant for cooling the internal combustion engine in automobiles, locomotives, aircrafts and motorcycles. Internal combustion engine is cooled by introducing a liquid know as engine coolant through the engine block where it gets heated and then through a radiator where it loses heat to the outside atmosphere. After losing heat, the engine coolant is returned to the engine. Engine coolant are generally water based but can also be in the oil form.There are two types of radiators such as cross flow and down flow. Both these types of radiators have lower and upper tubes, which are used to antifreeze the coolant and circulate the radiator fluid in the cooling system of automobiles. Hot radiator fluid enters the upper tube of the system and crosses through a number of smaller and thinner tubes where it is cooled by cooler air and returned back to the automobiles engine through lower tube of the system.Obtain Report Details @The vital difference between a cross flow and down flow radiator is the location of the tank of the radiators where the antifreeze coolant is stored. A down flow radiator has its tank located above and below the radiator core. A cross flow radiator has its tanks located on the sides of the radiator core, where it cycles across the radiator core side to side. Aluminum, brass and copper are the three major materials used for the manufacturing of a radiator. In the past 20 years, aluminum was the most used material for radiators. However, aluminum are prone to pin-hole corrosion and expensive to repair. Therefore, copper and brass radiators, which are lighter, stronger and more durable than aluminum are finding more application in radiators as compared to aluminum.The automotive radiator market can be classified by type, by material, by application and by geography. The type segment can be classified into cross flow and down flow. By material, the market can be bifurcated into aluminum, copper and brass. By application, the market can be segregated as passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles and heavy commercial vehicles. By geography, the market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and Latin America.Obtain Brochure Of Report @Rising trend of engine downsizing for better fuel efficiency and performance is a major driving factor for the global automotive radiator market. In addition, stringent emission norms and automobile standards across the world are encouraging the use of environment friendly radiators in automobiles. Moreover, increasing production of vehicles and rising private equity investments in automotive radiator manufacturing companies is also set to bolster the growth of this market globally. In terms of market revenue share, Asia Pacific is expected to hold the largest share by the end of forecast period followed by Europe, North America, Latin America and, Middle East and Africa.The report also provides company market share analysis of the various industry participants. Acquisition is the main strategy being widely followed by leading market players. In case of an acquisition, the acquirer takes advantage of existing synergies. As a result, both companies are expected to emerge more profitable and stronger than before. Key players in the global automotive radiator market have been profiled and their company overview, financial overview, business strategies and recent developments have been covered in the report.Major market participants profiled in this report include: Denso Corporation, Behr GmbH &Co.KG., Dongfeng Radiator Co., Ltd., Delphi Automotive plc, Visteon Corp., Modine Manufacturing Co., Calsonic Kansei Corp., Valeo SA, Faret International Holdings Limited, Guangdong Faret Auto Radiator Co., Ltd., Anhui Fengyang Radiator Co., Ltd, Keihin Corp., Shandong Houfeng Group, Sanden Corp., Yonghong Radiator Company and Tianjin Auto radiator Co., Ltd., among others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Remote Patient Monitoring Devices Market to Perceive Substantial Growth During 2014  2020

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As per the findings of the report, the global remote patient monitoring devices market, which was valued at US$0.38 bn in 2013, will rise to US$0.98 bn by 2020, exhibiting a CAGR of 14.2% from 2014 through 2020. An increase in the prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes and arthritis and rising healthcare expenditure are expected to drive the global remote patient monitoring devices market.Remote patient monitoring is a type of healthcare service that allows for a patient to use a medical device to monitor and perform a routine test and send the result of the test in real time, to healthcare professionals. In line with the recent trend of patients desiring home care, remote patient monitoring devices have been developed to eliminate the need for frequent visits to hospitals. Thus, remote patient monitoring devices allow for a more customized treatment or post treatment plan.View Report Preview:The global remote patient monitoring devices market is impelled by the rising incidence of chronic diseases such as osteoporosis, respiratory diseases, heart diseases, diabetes, and others. The rise in the geriatric population across the world is driving the global remote patient monitoring devices market. Hospitals are constantly faced with a mounting load to admit patients when there is lack of vacant rooms. Remote patient monitoring has emerged as a solution for hospitals to continue admitting new patients while still offering competitive and effective healthcare services to patients. This alternative is also gaining preference among patients who wish to avail treatments at their own households.Request to view Sample Report:On the other hand, the unwillingness of patients to have their health monitored and tracked on a daily basis acts as a challenge to the markets growth. However, trust among patients is expected to increase with the rising adoption of these devices. The lack of reimbursement coverage will also impede the growth of the market.The global remote patient monitoring devices market is segmented on the basis of end users, type, and geography. On the basis of geography, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. North America is currently dominant in the global remote patient monitoring devices market in terms of revenue. It is expected to retain its dominance owing to aiding factors such as rising healthcare costs in the U.S., a growing number of aged people above 65, and the high prevalence of diabetes in the region. However, Asia Pacific is expected to witness the fastest growth in the market due to rising healthcare costs and booming medical tourism industry in Thailand and India.On the basis of type, the global remote patient monitoring devices market is segmented into heart monitors, breath monitors, physical activity monitors, hematology monitors, multi-sign monitors, body temperature monitors, and others. Of these, the heart monitors segment, specifically ECG devices, was the leading category in 2013.Buy Remote Patient Monitoring Devices Market Research ReportThe report profiles key companies operating in the global remote patient monitoring devices market. They are: AMD Global Telemedicine, Abbott Laboratories, F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., Honeywell HomMed LLC, Covidien plc, and Omron Healthcare Inc.About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Dental Suture Market Surge Valuation USD 779.1 Mn by 2027

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Market Research Future published a cooked research report on Global Dental Suture Market Research Report - Forecast to 2027  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2027.According to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future analysts, the global dental suture market is growing at a moderated pace; mainly due to growing edentulous population, rising disposable income, increasing incidences of dental cases and other periodontal diseases. According to FDI World Dental Federation, more than 80% of people in Asia including India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Malaysia, and Indonesia suffer from dental decay. Furthermore, 40%-59% of population in China and Australia suffer from dental decay. This high prevalence of dental decay in the world wide triggers the demand for dental sutures, which in turns helps the market to flourish.On the other hand, factors such as inadequate reimbursement and problems associated with dentures may hinder the growth of the market up to some extent. In few Asian countries, there is no government reimbursement for dental care. The private insurers also do not cover the cost of full procedure of dental implantation. This leads to high out of pocket expenditure for dental healthcare. The retired people who are the major consumers of dentures find it difficult to afford full denture without the presence of proper reimbursement.The market also possesses significant growth opportunities which include increasing focus on cosmetic dentistry. Cosmetic dentistry aims to improve the appearance of individuals oral appearance. Due to rising disposable income people are more focusing on cosmetic dentistry. Dentists opt for various types of dental sutures for improving the appearance of the patients. This rising inclination of Global population towards cosmetic dentistry is likely to open array of opportunities for the dental suture market.Get a Copy of Sample Report @Global Dental Suture Market - Competitive AnalysisOsteogenics Biomedical, Ergon Sutramed S.P.A., Assut Europe S.P.A., Ethicon US, LLC., Surgical Specialties Corporation, Shandong Sinorgmed Co.,LTD, B. Braun Melsungen AG, Demetech Corporation, and Hygitech SAS are some of the prominent players at the forefront of competition in the global dental suture market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis.The dental suture industry has turned into a critical and element power in Global dental industry. Through extensive research it is found out that the market players have adopted the strategy of making acquisition and agreements by acquiring various market shares and rights and involving them in agreements with other dental organization for the branding of the product. Update and launches was the second most widely adopted strategy which was adopted by the key market players.In August 2016, Ethicon US, LLC had announced the strategic collaboration with Touch Surgery that will help patient with free mobile app that can reach medical help in even remote regions.In August 2016, Ethicon US, LLC announced the launch of unmatched knotless suture portfolio with launch of stratafix spiral plus devices. With this addition of this new suture technology the company has established the most comprehensive and unmatched knotless suture offering available to surgeons in the U.S.In July 2016, Osteogenics Biomedical announced the acquisition of exclusive North American distribution rights for the premium German dental suture brand, Resorba. Resorba is a leading manufacturer of suture in Germany i.e. specialized in dental suture.In June 2016, B. Braun Melsungen AG announced that it has acquired 51% of DIALY SER S.A.S., ColombiaIn Jan 2016, Surgical Specialties Corporation announced that it has acquired all the shares of leading German needle and suture manufacturer; FSSB Chirurgische Nadein GMBH (FSSB). This acquisition will create the company one of the leaders in manufacturing surgical suture in the world.In August 2014, Osteogenics Biomedical launched newest enhancement to PTFE membranes product line. The company introduces T2 configuration to PTFE membrane that allow for convenient buccal fixation points outside the defect area, eradicating the need to aggressively trim a larger membrane.Global Dental Suture Market - Regional AnalysisNorth America is the largest market for dental suture. The large size of the market can be attributed to higher adoption of various dental suture devices coupled with presence of technologically advanced products. Moreover, the high disposable income of the region also enables the professionals to opt for such devices. Dentistry in the North America is in a condition of change with increasing population having periodontal diseases. The health care transmission framework is changing quickly with the execution of Affordable Care Act. In Europe there exists a well-established oral healthcare system which functions within National Health Services. The dental healthcare industry is booming in Europe and as a result of which there is increasing need of greater reforms and policies to ensure better oral health to the masses. The political scenario of Europe is moderate. Countries such as Germany, France, and the U.K. have stable governments and high healthcare spending. In Asia-Pacific there is wide range of opportunities for dental suture market due to the presence of developing countries. Asia Pacific is one of the fastest growing market for dental sutures.Key Finding The global dental suture market and is expected to reach $779.1 million by 2027. Interrupted suture holds the largest share of 57.6% of the global dental suture market. North America holds the largest market share of 34.5% of global dental suture market and is anticipated to reach $248.8 million by the end of forecast period. Globally, Asia-Pacific the fastest growing region and expected to grow at the rate of 6.6% during the forecast period. Non-Absorbable segment holds the largest market share in 2015, and expected to continue the similar growth throughout the forecast period.Browse Full Report Details @ContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Global Dental Suture 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:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Mexico Automotive Parts Die-Casting Market Report 2017, Trends, Analysis, Share, Estimates and Forecasts to 2022.

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The Mexico Automotive Parts Die-Casting report provides an in-depth analysis of the various market segments and its sub-segments.Products Covered: Pressure die-casting Vacuum die-casting Squeeze die-casting Semi-solid die-castingRaw Material Types Covered: Aluminium Zinc Magnesium OthersApplication Types Covered: Body assemblies Engine Parts Transmission parts OthersThe report focuses on current and upcoming market trends such as Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, and Challenges, technological advancements, Porters Five Forces analysis to assess the intensity of competition in the market. The market values are presented in the form of tables and graphs for better interpretation.For More, Please Visit:Market Size EstimationsThe market assessment is made by the core industry experts using our 360 research approach. The data is derived from the most reliable, authenticated data sources and is validated by the industry experts (Primary Research). Both top down and bottom up analysis are implemented to enhance the accuracy of the market figures. The market projections are calculated for the next 8 years using the actual market numbers of previous year as the base value.Company ProfilingThis section provides the overview of the key players that are leading in the industry, covering their business operations, financials, list of products & services, SWOT analysis, major developments such as mergers & acquisitions, agreements, partnerships, joint ventures, new product launch, expansions etc.Report Highlights:- Market share assessments for all the mentioned market segments and sub-segments- Market share analysis of the top industry players- Strategic recommendations for the new entrants- Market forecasts for a minimum of 8 years for all the given segments- Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)- Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations- Competitive landscaping, mapping the key common trends- Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments- Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancementsFor More, Please Visit:We offer wide spectrum of research and consulting services with in-depth knowledge of different industries. We are known for customized research services, consulting services and Full Time Equivalent (FTE) services in the research world. We explore the market trends and draw our insights with valid assessments and analytical views. We use advanced techniques and tools among the quantitative and qualitative methodologies to identify the market trends. Our research reports and publications are routed to help our clients to design their business models and enhance their business growth in the competitive market scenario. We have a strong team with hand-picked consultants including project managers, implementers, industry experts, researchers, research evaluators and analysts with years of experience in delivering the complex projects.STRATISTICS MRC17049 King James Way, Gaithersburg,MD, 20877, USA
Hot Stamp Coders Market: Evolving Technology, Trends and Industry Analysis

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Hot stamping is a process of transfering a pigment from a carrier strip, which is known as a foil, onto a substrate with heat and pressure. Hot stamping provides best solutions in the field of packaging wherein environment with low temperatures, high humidity, and dust impact the packaged products. Hot stamp coders enable labelling the products in a better way than the electronic printers. Hot stamp coders are made up of stainless steel and aluminum (Al).Foils are mainly of two types: metallic and non-metallic foils. Non-metallic foils consist of an adhesive material, a color layer, and a release layer. In metallic foils, the color layer is replaced by a layer of vacuum-metallized aluminum or chrome. Metallic foil is available in different metal forms, such as silver, bronze, copper and gold. Pigment layer does not have a metallic sheen.Meanwhile, the holographic foil contains a 3-dimensional image which bestows a unique appearance. The principle of hot stamp coders is to spread over ink with the help of a heated metal stamp, in order to press an ink-coated film against the product. The ink consists of an adhesive material which quickly solidifies the surface of the product. The ink provides a distinct print which is not soluble in water or oil, are thermally stable and provides good effectiveness in terms of labelling the products.Obtain Report Details @The number of different packaging solution at one facility across industries primarily drives global hot stamp coder market. This has provided a wider scope for market growth. Hot stamp coders have various advantages over the conventional equipment, such as they are more effective and ensure better efficacy. Automated stamp coders are easy in terms of operation and are also more accurate. The real time data is transferred to a PC systems, connected with the integrated manufacturing line, so that the operation can be controlled from remote locations. Several industries integrate hot stamp coders along with manufacturing line, food and beverages being the prominent one.The focus of the food and beverages industry is primarily on the packaging and labeling, with an aim to meet the regulatory standards imposed by the various policy and regulatory bodies across the globe. Hot stampings are inexpensive and permanent; besides, hot stamp coding is a simple process, and operator training is also minimized. These are some of the critical but latent factors which are anticipated to contribute to the demand for hot stamp coders over the coming years.The global hot stamp coders market is segmented based on products, application, and end user. By product, the global hot stamp coders market is further segmented into manual hot stamp coders, semi automated hot stamp coders, automated hot stamp coders and hot stamp foils, hot stamp inks, and hot stamp tools. Based on application, the market is segmented into plastic material, glass material, and metals. Based on the end user, the market is further segmented into cosmetic industry, pharmaceuticals industry, food and beverages industry, and chemical industry.In view of the rise in demand for innovative packaging technologies in different industries, such as food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics, companies are increasingly adopting advanced packaging methods in order to reduce their production cost and time, which in turn is expected to fuel further growth of the hot stamp market in the coming years.Request Sample @On the basis of geography, the hot stamp coders market is segmented into seven key regions, namely North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and the Middle East and Africa.The North America market currently dominates the global hot stamp coders market, wherein the packaging technology is mostly used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Increasing awareness among the people about the use of new technologies is a major factor propel growth the market in the North America region. The market in the Asian Pacific region is rapidly evolving in view of the significant infrastructure development witnessed in the region, which in turn is anticipated to further contribute to the overall growth of the global hot stamp coders market.Some of the key players in the hot stamp coders market are Allen Coding (a division of ITW), CER-Cerfoils, BD Tronic, Eidos S. p. A, LC Printing Machine Factory Limited, MADAG printing Systems, Spartanics, Kortho Coding and Making, etc.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:
West Nile Virus Infection Treatment Market - Growth Opportunities & Forecast 2017 - 2025

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Global West Nile Virus Infection Treatment Market: SnapshotWest Nile virus (WNV) belongs to the Flaviviridae family, comprising pestivirus, flavivirus, and hepacivirus. It is a positive stranded RNA virus and outbreaks of West Nile fever has occurred across the globe since the mid 90s. Moreover, West Nile Virus is currently an endemic in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S. as well. The infection bears negligible to no symptoms in human body. Elderly people, extremely young children, and those with immunosuppression and HIV, are most susceptible to West Nile fever.One of the primary ways by which this virus is spread is by mosquitoes and one of the most commonly infected animal is birds. WNV is also found in dead birds. Birds in fact serve as the key host of spreading this infection. Migratory birds are transporting this virus to the temperate areas of Europe in spring. West Nile Virus is also found in ticks, but ticks are not the main vector for the spread of this disease. All these factors are likely to increase the number of people suffering from this infection and this is expected to drive the market.Request Sample Copy of the Report @The report discusses the recent progress in the diagnosis and vaccination to treat West Nile Virus infections. As presently there are no effective vaccinations for the prevention of West Nile Infection, the market is challenging to many players. This is attracting players to enter in the market and invest in extensive research and development to come up with some form of medication and treatment options.Global West Nile Virus Infection Treatment Market: OverviewWest Nile Virus (WNV) infections are transmitted through mosquitoes. Birds are the major carriers of West Nile virus. Mosquitoes that bite infected birds become vector for the virus. Individuals with a weak immune system and older people are at a high risk of WNV infection.Some of the symptoms of WNV include fever, muscle weakness, convulsions, back pain, eye pain, diarrhea, headache, swelling of lymph glands, paralysis, numbness, comatose state, fatigue, sore throat, confusion, nausea, and rash on stomach, chest, and back. Some other serious symptoms of NWV infection are inflammation of the brain and meningitis.Request TOC of the Report @Global West Nile Virus Infection Treatment Market: Drivers and RestraintsA rising geriatric population globally and an increasing pool of population with weak immune system leading to increased hospital admissions are the major factors driving the West Nile virus infection treatment market. On the other hand, factors such as lack of awareness about the infection and unavailability of infection specific treatment are restraining the markets growth.Global West Nile Virus Infection Treatment Market: Growth OpportunitiesPresently, the specific course of treatment for West Nile virus infection is not available. This has led market players and research organizations to develop infection specific drugs. Drugs such as human leukocyte derived interferon alfa-n3, HBV-002, Hu-E16 monoclonal antibody derived from plant, CEL-1000, VG-WNV, BG-323, ETX-112, and innate immune agonists are some of the potential drugs and therapies that are under clinical trials.Global West Nile Virus Infection Treatment Market: Regional OutlookThe global NVW infection treatment market is divided into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Rest of the World. North America and Europe are presently the leading markets for West Nile virus infection treatment. The dominance of these regions is due to the availability of advanced healthcare facilities, high awareness about the infection, and government support for research and development initiatives pertaining to the infection.Get Discount @Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing market for WNV infection treatment for the 2017-2025 period. Factors such as a large geriatric population, increasingly developing healthcare infrastructure, and government support to provide advanced healthcare are expected to propel the global WNV infection treatment market in Asia Pacific. In this region, China and India are expected to display the fastest growth due to surging medical tourism in these countries. Apart from India and China, Japan is expected to display significant growth due to the increasing support by the Japanese government for development of the healthcare industry in the country.Rest of the World (RoW) region comprises Middle East, Latin America, and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Latin American countries are anticipated to display significant growth than other countries in RoW region due to the presence of a well-laid regulatory framework coupled with a developing economy. On the other hand, African countries will display a low growth rate due to poor healthcare infrastructure, lack of regulatory framework, and poor economic growth.Companies Mentioned in ReportLeading players in the global WNV infection treatment market are Kineta Inc., Hemispherx Biophrma Inc., CEL-SCI Corporation, and Hawaii Biotech Inc. Each of the companies are profiled for key business attributes such as recent developments, financial standing, and SWOTs.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
Flame Detectors Market: Technological Advancements, Evolving Industry Trends and Insights

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A flame detector is a type of sensor, which is primarily designed to identify, detect, and respond to the presence of a fire or flame. Installation of the flame detectors plays an important role in the whole process of detecting a flame of fire. After detecting the fire or flame, the detector primarily sounds an alarm, deactivates the fuel line, and also activates the fire suppression system. Flame detectors are much faster and detect a fire or flame more accuratelythan a heat or smoke detector duet the mechanisms it applies to detect the fire.In terms of product type, the global flame detectors market can be segmented into single IR, single UV, dual UV / IR, triple IR, and multi IR. In terms of service type, the market for flame detectors can be segmented into design and installation service, engineering service, maintenance service, and inspection service.Obtain Report Details @In terms of end-use industry, the flame detectors market can be segmented into power and energy, consumer goods, healthcare, logistics and transportation, oil and gas, defense and aerospace, mining, and automotive. In terms of geography, the market for flame detectors can be segmented into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, and Middle East &Africa.Single UV flame detectors are widely used in the manufacturing and oil &gas industries. This particular type of fire or flame detector primarily identifies and detects the intensity of the radiation emitted at the time of ignition.Scanners for monitoring the condition of a flame in a burner along with the detectors in fire alarm systems, which detect fire; both are different categories of flame detectors. Growing popularity and adoption rate of flame detectors in different industries, which includes mining, oil and gas, manufacturing, transportation, and retail, are considered as key drivers for the market.Domestic heating system, industrial drying and heating system, and gas fueled cookers are major application areas of flame detectors. Government policies, and regulations and norms for workplace safety are major factors boosting the expansion of the flame detectors market. Increasing installation of flame detectors across factories, companies, and enterprises is another key driver for the market.High installation and maintenance cost along with shorter lifecycle of flame detectors are some restraints on the market, which are anticipated to hinder the expansion of the market during the forecast period. However, applications in the paper and printing industry are one of the opportunities for the market.Request Sample @In terms of revenue, Asia Pacific led the flame detectors market in 2016. North America and Europe followed Asia Pacific in terms of revenue share in the global market. China is the leading contributor to the Asia Pacific market due to its technological advancement in the field of flame detectors. India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan follow China in terms of market share in Asia Pacific. The U.S. is dominated the market or flame detectors, followed by Canada and Mexico in 2016. Germany, the U.K., Italy and France are holding prominent positions in the flame detectors market across Europe.The UAE, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina among others are dominating the market for flame detectors across Middle East and Africa and South America. Growing industrialization and increasing adoption rate of flame detectors across different manufacturing factories and the oil and gas sector are major factors fuelling the expansion of the Middle East & Africa and Latin America markets.Geographical expansions and establishing partnership agreements with other companies are key strategies adopted by companies in order to strengthen their presence worldwide. Prominent players operating in the global flame detectors market include Honeywell International Inc. (The U.S.), Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany), Siemens AG (Germany), Tyco International PLC (Ireland), Emerson Electric Co. (The U.S.), Johnson Controls (The U.S.), and MSA Advanced Detection, LLC (The U.S).About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Hall-effect Sensors Market: Applications and Global Markets

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A Hall-effect sensor is as sort of transducer. The output voltage of a hall-effect sensor varies as a response to magnetic field. Proximity switching, positioning, current sensing along with speed detection are major application areas of hall-effect sensors.The sensor primarily follows the principal of analog transducer, and it directly returns the voltage. Hall-effect sensors are often combined with the threshold detection and it is frequently known as switch.In terms of type, the market can be segmented into Hall ICS and Hall elements. In terms of material, the market can be segmented into GaAs (gallium arsenide), InAs (indium arsenide), InSb (indium antimonide), InP (indium phosphide), and grapheme. In terms of application, the market can be segmented into flow rate sensing, position sensing, proximity detection, navigation, and electronic compass. In terms of geography, the market can be segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa.Hall-effect sensors are primarilyapplied to time the speed of shafts and wheels. It is also used to measure internal combustion engine ignition timing, anti-lock braking systems and tachometers. Hall-effect sensors have a wide range of applications in industries such as automotive, healthcare, consumer electronics, and defense and aerospace.Obtain Report Details @Growing advancement in the field of automotive and consumer electronics along with increasing application of high-end sensing devices are driving the Hall-effect sensors market globally. Increasing application of hall-effect sensors for automotive fuel level indicators is another key factor fuelling the expansion of the market. Hall-effect sensors are linear type of transducers. These kinds of sensors primarily require a linear circuit for processing of sensors output signal.Furthermore, this type of hall-effect sensor is also operated as electronic switch. This kind of sensor primarily measures a wide array of magnetic fields, and it can be operated upto 100 kHz. There are some technical issues with hall-effect sensors. For instance, they offer much lower detection and measuring accuracy than any other magneto-resistance-based sensors or fluxgate magnetometers. This kind of technical limitations is likely to hinder the growth of the market during the forecast period. However, with growing research activities in the field of hall-effect sensors, the innovation of high-end hall-effect sensors and application of hall-effect sensorsin hybrid vehicles are major opportunities for the market.Request Sample @In 2016, In terms of revenue, Asia Pacific led the global Hall-effect sensors market in 2016.North America and Europe followed Asia Pacific in terms of revenue share. In 2016, China is leading the market due to its technological advancement in the field of magneto-resistive sensors. India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan follow China in the Asia Pacific market. The U.S. is dominating the market, followed by Canada and Mexico. Increasing proliferation of high-end and advanced consumer electronics such as smartphones, laptops, computers, and wearable gadgets is fuelling the demand for hall-effect sensors in North America.Germany, the U.K., Italy and France are holding prominent positions in the hall-effect sensors market across Europe. The UAE, South Africa, Brazil, and Argentina are dominating the market across Middle East and Africa and Latin America. Increasing advancement in the automotive sector is a major factor boosting the rising application of hall-effect sensors across the Middle East & Africa and Latin America.Geographical expansions along with establishing partnership agreements with other companies are key strategies adopted by companies to strengthen their presence worldwide.Major players operating in the global Hall-effect sensors market include MEMSIC, Inc. (The U.S.), Bartington Instruments Ltd (U.K.), TE Connectivity Ltd (Switzerland), Analog Devices, Inc. (The U.S.), Honeywell International Inc. (The U.S.), Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany), NXP Semiconductors N.V. (The Netherlands), ams AG (Austria), The Micronas Group (Switzerland), Melexis NV (Belgium), Infineon Technologies AG (Germany), Sanken Electric Co., Ltd. (Japan), and Asahi Kasei Corporation (Japan).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:
Whole Exome Sequencing Market - New Trends Of Industry & Forecast 2017 - 2025

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Global Whole Exome Sequencing Market: SnapshotWhole exome sequencing is expected to receive a staggering demand as DNA sequencing and its advances pave the way in the research field with the transformation of genomics. When compared with whole genome sequencing, whole exome sequencing is technically studied to be quick and cost-efficient. Since exons carry an 85.0% of disease traits, exome sequencing is regarded to be more effective. Researchers are anticipated to significantly adopt whole exome sequencing services, kits, and systems because of their double benefit of saving time and simplifying work.On the basis of end user, the global whole exome sequencing market could gain a telling demand because of the influence of a colossal growth of government and academic institutions and research centers in the past. By application, the diagnostics segment is prognosticated to own a larger share in the global whole exome sequencing market. Predicted to incorporate two sub-segments, viz. data analysis and sequencing services, the services segment is prophesied to demonstrate dominance in the global whole exome sequencing market by products and services.Request Sample Copy of the Report @One of the high impression driving factors of the global whole exome sequencing market is the need to monitor pathogenic infections, cancer, and various other chronic maladies. More opportunities are envisaged to take birth with the surging adoption of next-generation sequencing techniques for the purpose of predicting and treating such diseases. The speed and cost factors are foretold to play a major role in the adoption of whole exome sequencing methods and the growth of the overall market.Global Whole Exome Sequencing Market: OverviewWhole exome sequencing involves the sequencing of all protein-coding genes in a genome. Clinically exome account for 82% to 85% of known disease-causing variants and less than 1.5% to 2% of the human genome, which converts whole-exome sequencing into an effective alternative.The report analyzes key market segments and growth trends in the past, based on which the progression analysis of the global market for whole exome sequencing for the 2017-2025 period is presented herein.Request TOC of the Report @Global Whole Exome Sequencing Market: Drivers and RestraintsTechnological progression in sequencing systems, collaborations and partnerships amongst leading research organizations for improved drug discovery, and an increasing expenditure on research and development are the major factors driving the global whole exome sequencing market. However, factors such as unavailability of trained workforce, increasing trend of funds and grants from universities and research organizations, and high instrument costs are challenging the growth of this market.Global Whole Exome Sequencing Market: Regional OutlookNorth America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World are the regional segments of the whole exome sequencing market. Amongst these, North America stands as the largest whole exome sequencing market. This is mainly due to the increasing application of whole exome sequencing for detection of rare diseases, increasing awareness programs through industry meets and conferences, and government funding for whole exome sequencing studies. In 2010, as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 1,148,200 persons above the age of 13 and more were diagnosed with HIV infection in the United States, including 207,600 individuals whose infections had not been diagnosed.Get Discount @Europe is the second largest market for whole exome sequencing. This is because Europe is a leading region for the diagnostics and treatment of cancer and HIV diseases. As per the World Health Organization (WHO), Europe is home to almost one quarter of the worlds cancer patients with 3.2 million new patients diagnosed every year. In 2010, UNAIDS estimated that approximately 2.3 million people were living with HIV in Europe. The prevalence of HIV among adults varies from less than 0.2% of the population in Central Europe to more than 1% of the population in parts of Eastern Europe.Asia Pacific and Rest of the World are expected to be lucrative markets for whole exome sequencing in the coming years. Increasing research and development initiatives and strategic expansion and acquisitions among research organizations in the emerging economies of Asia Pacific are favoring the growth of this regional market. The increasing impact of bioinformatics and biotechnology research in Latin America is anticipated to fuel the growth of whole exome sequencing market. An increasing number of patients diagnosed with HIV in the emerging economies of India, China, and Brazil will lead to significant growth of the whole exome sequencing market in these regions.Companies Mentioned in ReportThe report mentions top players in the whole exome sequencing market, namely Agilent Technologies, BGI, Eurofins Genomics, Macrogen Inc., GENEWIZ Inc., Ambry Genetics, Illumina Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Roche NimbleGen Inc., Sengenics, and Knome Inc. among others.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Global Urolithiasis Management Devices Market is Expected to Rise to US$1.78 bn by 2024

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Despite the presence of a large number of regional players, the global market for urolithiasis management devices is dominated by few large vendors having substantial budgets for research and development of new technologies and innovative products, observes TMR in a recent report.Companies such as Boston Scientific Corporation, C. R. Bard, Inc., and Cook Group command prominent positions in the global market owing to their strong geographic presence, excellent distribution networks, and the financial power to acquire niche device developers across the globe. The degree of competition is high in the maturing market, with frequent changes to the development dynamics owing to rapid advancements in supporting technologies.Obtain Report Details @Transparency Market Research estimates that the global urolithiasis management devices market will expand at a healthy 4.5% CAGR over the period between 2016 and 2024. The markets worth is estimated to be US$1.26 bn in 2016 and is expected to rise to US$1.78 bn by 2024.Asia Pacific to Emerge as Most Promising Regional MarketOf the key urolithiasis management device types available in the global market, the segment of shockwave lithotripters is presently the dominant revenue generator, with a valuation of US$789.2 mn in 2015, and is expected to account for a share of 65% in the global market by 2016. Of the key end users of urolithiasis management devices, the segment of clinics led the global market, holding a share of 55% of the markets overall revenues in 2015.Geography-wise, North America led with 36% share in the global market in the same year. Over the period between 2016 and 2024, however, Asia Pacific is projected to emerge as the most promising regional market for urolithiasis management devices owing to the large geriatric population and a rising base of high-income patients.Request for Sample Copy of Report @Technological Advancements to Stimulate Market GrowthThe market for urolithiasis management devices is primarily driven owing to the rising prevalence of kidney stones among the global population. Factors such as obesity, changing lifestyles, and ageing are the chief causes triggering the formation of kidney stones among humans. Studies state that at least 30% of the worlds population is presently obese or overweight. Geriatrics (people with more than 60 years of age) account for more than 900 mn people of the worlds population presently. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs states that this number will increase by 56% between 2015 and 2030 and rise to 1.4 bn by 2030.Along with these factors, the introduction of a variety of non-invasive treatment methods in the global urolithiasis management devices market has also encouraged the excellent growth of the market in the past few years. The significant reduction in treatment duration and effective results are compelling an increased number of patients to demand newer and technologically advanced treatment methods for kidney stones.High Risk of Damage to Urinary Tract Leads to Apprehension about Urolithiasis Management DevicesCertain urolithiasis procedures such as the lithotripsy involve shockwaves that are sent across the body to trigger kidney stones with high precision force. Such treatments may result in damage to soft tissues and could also potentially lead to a permanent loss of renal functions. This factor leads to increased concerns among patient about the potential side-effects of novel technologies and hampers the overall adoption of urolithiasis management devices to a notable extent. Another key challenge for the global urolithiasis management devices is the high cost of certain latest and novel technologies, which restrains markets growth across developing economies to a large extent.Purchase this Report @This review of the global urolithiasis management devices market is based on a recent market research report published by Transparency Market Research, titled Urolithiasis Management Devices Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024.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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact UsTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global LED lighting market is expected more than US$ 100 Billion by the end of year 2024

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For more Information:Get Free Customization in This Report.By the end of year 2024, global LED lighting market is projected to be more than US$ 100 Billion. Lighting market worldwide is affected 3 factors.1) The point no. 1 is macroeconomic factor; it is affecting novel manufacturing and thereafter new lighting fittings.2) The point no. 2 is energy effectiveness system and better energy understanding is redrawing lighting product range.3) The point no. 3 is government policies in energy domain is creating demand for energy efficient goods, like LED bulbs, Tubelight, etc.Evaluating these environments for change is essential to recognize current and future prospects in the global led lighting market. Around the globe, economic situation has developed less favorably than anticipated since 2011, leading to sliding adjustments of the 2016 GDP forecast by roughly 2%. This modification comes from various unfavorable advancements filled by the result of the worldwide financial crisis.Request a free sample copy of the report:Global LED Lighting Market Applications studied in the Research ReportReport studies the global Led lighting market from 7 Applications: Retail/Shop application, Industrial application, Hospitality application, Residential application, Office applications, Architectural application and Outdoor application.Asia holds the maximum LED Lighting Market Share GloballyThe report categories the LED lighting market into five regions: North America, Latin America, Middle East & Africa, Asia and Europe. Asia is one of important destinations for LED lighting market worldwide.Banning of Inefficient Technologies WorldwideFor the macroeconomic development the prospect of lighting market, regulation affecting lighting products is a key determinant. Around the globe, Governments are accelerating initiatives like bans of inefficient technologies, more tight legislation on energy efficiency requirements and offer incentives for entire building infrastructures. This trail will further fuel energy-efficient lighting technologies, i.e. LEDs. Bans on particular technologies are being passed in more nations for both residential and commercial lighting items. Recently, China has banned bursting lights; which is strongly backed by countrys energy conservation law. Europe is further switchover to more ecological lighting sources by stretching out its directions to boycott low-voltage incandescent lights.A look at Green Building Standard WorldwideGreen building design standards and ratings classifying energy efficiency are come across and taking on around the globe. In the United States, LEED and the newly introduced International Green Construction Code (IGCC) are being adopted by many local jurisdictions.In Europe Union BREEAM, CASBEE in Japan, SGC in China. In the year 2011, in South Africa; laws were passed to ensure that new buildings meet specific energy efficiency requirements. Global campaigns to raise awareness have been put in place to emphasize the role that energy-efficient lighting can play in reducing global energy consumption. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and key lighting players is the well-known example of enlighten initiatives and another one which has recently been further accelerating its activities is the Climate Groups Light Savers program.Because of progression of its features like efficiency, durability, Environmental-friendly and cost effectives. All these features of LED lighting is widely recognized and adopted by household, government organization, industrial sector and commercial segment.Access full Research:Energy-efficient Lighting, Fueling LED PenetrationOn the energy supply side, these developments will accelerate the penetration of renewable energy sources. The demand side will also need to alter its practices as greater energy efficiency will help to close the energy supply gap. The lighting market, which consumes approximately 20% of total electricity generation, can greatly contribute by providing energy-efficient lighting solutions, such as LEDs. The broader application of LEDs would decrease energy consumption levels to such a degree that the energy output of multiple nuclear reactors could be saved across geographies.Contact UsRajat GuptaSr. Marketing ManagerEmail: info@renub.comPhone: +1-678-302-0700Web:Renub Research is a leading Market Research and Information Analysis Company with centers at Noida India and Roswell USA. We have long-term experience especially in international Business-to-Business Researches, Surveys, Business and Consulting. Throughout the years we have acquired expertise in most market sectors, including Information Technology (IT), Telecoms, Life Sciences, Medical & Pharmaceuticals, Financial Services (Banking, Insurance, Reinsurance, M&A, etc.), Energy, Chemicals, Automotive, Retail, FMCG, Consumer Goods, Logistics, Governmental, Social, and Others.Our core team is comprised of an experienced people holding graduate, post graduate and Ph.D. degrees in Finance, Marketing, Human Resource, Bio-Technology, Medicine, Information Technology, Environmental Science and many more. Our research help make the business decisions: on strategy, organization, operations, technology, mergers & acquisitions etc. We support many blue chip companies by providing them findings and perspectives across a wide range of markets. Our research reports offer a blend of information insight, analysis and forecasting that is essential in today's ultra-competitive markets.225 Kristie Ln, Roswell, GA 30076, United States
Cell Culture Imaging Market New Business Opportunities By 2025

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Spheroids techniques are developed for efficient and reliable research on 3-D cell culture further improving the application of spheroids in complex procedures that has led to the usage of cell culture imaging devices. Three dimensional culturing of cells has numerous advantages as compared to monolayer cultures with spheroids being represented in-vitro in the form of small avascular tumors.Various methods or procedures are generated using these techniques such as floating method and hanging drop method among others. Global market for cell culture imaging has been segmented into type, application and geography.Primary cell culture, secondary cell culture and cell line are different types based on which the global market for cell culture imaging has been segmented. The different application areas based on which the global market for cell culture imaging has been segmented into R&D facilities and healthcare among others.Global spheroids counting system market on the basis of geography has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa.Obtain Report Details:Spheroids helps in improving the relevance of in-vitro results forming a major factor that contributes to the growing demand for cell culture imaging market. Spheroids form the biological models that deals with native tissues and engineered solutions further acting as building blocks that are needed for making tissues forming a major factor contributing to the growth of this market globally.In addition to this, applications of cell cultures in cell biology research and engineering of tissues for making it at par with the architectural environment of the natural tissues has also been another major factor to boost the demand for cell culture imaging market globally. Moreover, application of cell culture has lifesaving benefits for critically injured patients that has resulted in the technology being used to capture the defects and working of cells after they are cultured.Considering all these factors that has acted as drivers for this market there are also certain restraints that restricts the demand for this market. One such major restraint being the microscopy techniques that may function well for optically transparent and thin cultures but is not suited for imaging of 3D cell structures.Another major restraint for this market would be the risks associated with the replication of natural cell environment that may have adverse effects on the body of the patient.Along with this, any default on the monitoring of the imaging results may also prove life threatening further contributing to being another major restraint for this market. Huge applications in the research and development sector for making advanced cells will also provide huge growth opportunities for this market in the coming years.Geographically, it is North America that has contributed as one of the major regions for the growth of this market globally followed by Europe. Huge investments being made in the healthcare sector along with applications in R&D has formed some of the other major reasons for the growth of market in this region.Other than this, Asia Pacific has been another major region contributing to the growth of this market along with being one of the fastest growing region globally. China, Japan and India are some of the major regions in the Asia Pacific contributing to the growth. Huge government grants being made in the healthcare sector and research and development facilities has acted as some major drivers for the growth of this market in this region.Make EnquirySome of the major players operating in the cell culture imaging market includes Tokyo Electron (Japan), Screen Holding Co. Ltd. (Japan), and BD Lifesciences (The U.S.) among others present in the market globally.Companies operating in this market focuses on technological advancement as well as invests heavily in research and development for enhancing the company portfolio of different products.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:
Smart Home Digital Assistant (Voice) Market Value Chain and Stakeholder Analysis

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A digital assistant (virtual assistant) is an application program which can complete electronic tasks for the user by understanding the natural language. Earlier, such tasks included reading text, taking dictation, reading email or text messages aloud, placing calls and reminding the user about the appointments. The advanced digital assistants are programmed with machine learning, voice recognition technology and artificial intelligence. The artificial intelligence (AI) programming uses sophisticated algorithms to recognize the input data and improvise in predicting the end-users needs when the user interacts with the digital assistant. Technological advancements in smart home digital assistant industry will be more advanced with cognitive computing technologies enabling digital assistant to understand and perform complex tasks.Browse The Report:The expansion of AI enabled services from various companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google and Samsung Electronics is expected to support the industry growth over the forecast timeline. The digital assistants with voice as a user-interface (UI) are increasingly penetrating in smart homes via integration with connected set top boxes, smart speakers, streaming media devices and smart TVs. The consumer electronics manufacturers are increasingly adopting voice assistants to differentiate their products, attract customers to their platforms by providing a smarter experience.Many home appliance manufacturers have already started to integrate Google Assistants and Amazon Alexa within their connected appliances. Currently these appliances are likely to be assistant-enabled and are expected to be embedded with AI-based technology for numerous range of appliances such as smart wall ovens, smart fridges, smart coffee machines and robotic vacuum cleaners.Voice control is quite crucial in smart home environment as almost all electronic devices can be controlled through voice commands, effectively reducing the continuous management need of various mobile applications. The virtual assistant software acts as a brain for each device by typically combining recognition and application programming interfaces (APIs). These smart home virtual assistant features always-on microphones which are voice-controlled.The voice-controlled smart home virtual assistant speakers listens to every sound within their hearing range. After hearing its wake word, the speaker awakes into action and sends recording of the command to its cloud servers. The command is translated into the action in the server and sent back with necessary action. The processing is entirely dependent on the network connection and can be instantaneous or may take few seconds for response.Balancing user privacy concerns, capturing user data to ensure compelling experience is the major key challenge for digital assistant providers. The cost implications of adding AI-enabled services, ensuring sufficient developer support and service integrations are the potential growth opportunities for smart home digital assistant market.The U.S. households are quickly adopting the digital voice assistants as compared to other consumer electronics in North America region. The voice-based and voice control technologies has experienced strong uptick in the consumer electronics segment. Continuous improvements in natural language processing and machine learning paired with prevalence of portable devices have supported the advancements in voice interfaces. The North America is expected to continue its dominance over the forecast timeline owing to its early adoption of the digital assistant technology. Europe and Asia Pacific region is expected to have quickest CAGR growth owing to rising disposable income and urbanization of smart homes in these regions.Make an Enquiry @Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana are some of the industry participants in smart home digital assistant market. The rivalry between the technology giants is intensifying as more companies combine their voice assistant software with speaker-style hands-free hardware. Amazon has significantly tapped the market share by launching its Echo speaker and Alexa assistant in the niche market. However, the company is expected to face significant technological and cost pressures from its competitors such as Google, Samsung, Apple and other big industry competitors.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.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 recommendationsTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Adhesive Resin Market : Global Forecast over 2024

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Adhesive resins incorporate several applications and objects as an adhesive layer to enhance the durability and optimize the integrity of the structure. It joins the surface of diverse materials, efficiently distributing the stress at the junction. The application of adhesive resin forms a strong bond very quickly to aid the adhesion process. Application of high performance adhesive resin improves the cohesive strength. Adhesive resins available in emulsion form offer the advantage of elasticity and resistance to moisture. In addition to the long term adhesiveness, application of resins provide toughness and resistance to aging, temperature, and chemicals. Adhesive resin is available in several forms: solvent-based, water-based, and hot melt. The major components used in adhesive resin include: vinyl acetate, ethylene vinyl acetate, polyvinyl acetate, and polymerized acrylic resin emulsion.Read Report Overview @Adhesive resin finds extensive application in numerous industries such as: packaging, oil and gas, plastic, construction, automotive, and transportation. Adhesive resin is most widely used in the packaging of food and beverages, consumer goods, sea foods and meat, tubes, and bottles. In the oil and gas industry, it is used to create linkage between pipelines and coating of pipes. In the plastic industry, the application of adhesive resin is recommended to act as a binding agent in order to enhance the tensile strength of plastic. In the automotive industry, adhesive resin is applied in automotive body parts such as door modules and front-end modules. In the building and construction industry, adhesive resins are applied as contact adhesives, flooring adhesives, and sealants. Due to the efficient sealing feature, adhesive resins find potential use in the transportation industry in manufacturing of abrasive and aerospace components.The broad commercial application of adhesive resins in several industries builds a rapidly growing global market. The market for adhesive resins has exhibited an enormous rise in the last few years and a similar positive trend is anticipated to be witnessed during the forecast period. The market of adhesive resin is currently dominated by the Asia Pacific region. The huge growth of end-user industries such as automotive, construction, packaging, and consumer goods in developing countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, and India is propelling the demand of adhesive resins. In the next few years, the advancement of emerging technologies and rising demand of adhesive resin is estimated to fuel the market growth in the developing region of Asia Pacific. North America and Europe also possess a large share of the global market. Improved economy observed in these developed countries is a key factor for the market growth. The rising trend is predicted to continue during the forecast period. A prospective market for adhesive resin is expected to build up in the MEA region. Growing economy of this region is predicted to develop an emerging market of adhesive resins in the next few years.Increasing awareness of ecofriendly materials is likely to drive the demand for bio-based adhesive which will enable the end-user industries to minimize their environmental concern. Specially-engineered adhesive resins are being developed for the assembly of aircraft and automotive bodies. Epoxy resin holds a large share of the global adhesive resin market currently due to improved functionalities such as corrosion protection, mechanical strength etc. Increased demand from end-user industries is influencing the higher growth rate of adhesive resin in the global market.Request to view Sample Report:The major players that manufacture adhesive resin are companies such as: E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, LD Davis Industries, Inc., Exxon Mobil Corporation, The Dow Chemical Company, Mitsui Chemicals America, Inc., Resinall Corporation, Georgia-Pacific Chemicals LLC, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, and Ashland Inc. etc.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:
Sodium Permanganate Market Outlook Report 2024

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Sodium permanganate is a purplish-colored, inorganic salt compound, which is primarily available in aqueous form as a monohydrate. It is miscible in water, ether, ethanol, and liquid chlorine. Sodium permanganate offers high concentration of permanganate ions. Owing to high solubility in water, it is used for etching of plastic parts, as etching requires high concentration of permanganate ions. Sodium permanganate is also used for water treatment and soil treatment, as it is capable of degrading phenols, BTEX, chlorinated ethenes, and PAHS and removing hydrogen sulfide. Moreover, since it readily dissolves in water, it is used in water treatment plants, for controlling the odor and taste issues. It is often used as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of chemical intermediates. Other uses of sodium permanganate include metal surface treatment and metal cleaning. Sodium permanganate is a strong and better substitute for potassium chloride, in terms of chemical properties such as miscibility and chemical reactivity. However, it is comparatively costlier to produce.Read Report Overview @Sodium permanganate is available globally in 40% and 20% solution forms. The 40% solution is primarily used in electronics and for synthesis of fine chemicals, which requires concentrated permanganate solution. It is also used to manufacture toluene saccharin and refine O-toluene sulfonamide. The 20% solution is primarily used for purification of drinking water. It helps in regulating the taste and odor of water. Furthermore, the 20% solution is used for iron and manganese reduction, color reduction, and radium reduction. Other general uses of sodium permanganate include its application as an oxidant, fungicide, disinfectant, and phosphorous antidote. Usage of sodium permanganate solution as an etchant in printed circuitry is one of its most popular applications.Rising need for water treatment is projected to boost the demand for sodium permanganate during the forecast period. However, presence of a number of substitutes such as potassium permanganate and activated alumina for water treatment is expected to hamper the demand for sodium permanganate in the near future. However, its use as an etchant in printed plastic circuitry is anticipated to open new avenues for the sodium permanganate market.In terms of geography, the global sodium permanganate market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific is likely to lead the market, due to the growing chemical industry in emerging economies such as China and India, as sodium permanganate is infamously used for the production of chemical intermediates. High consumption of sodium permanganate in Asia Pacific is also driven by increasing need for water treatment in the region. China is the leading manufacturer of sodium permanganate across the world. The sodium permanganate market in North America and Europe is expected to expand moderately during the forecast period, due to availability of substitutes. The market in Latin America and Middle East & Africa is projected to expand at a sluggish rate during the forecast period for industrial applications, owing to comparatively expensive nature of sodium permanganate. However, increasing demand for water treatment is estimated to be a major driver for the sodium permanganate market in Middle East & Africa.Request to view Sample Report:Some of the key players in the sodium permanganate market include Carus Group Inc., Hepure, Changsha Yonta Industry Co., Ltd., Nanjing Kaimubo Pharmatech Company Limited, RennoTech Co., Ltd., Aurora Fine Chemicals, Chongqing Changyuan Group Limited, Kingsfield Inc., and Guangdong Hangxin Technology Co., Ltd.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:
World Aluminum-Extruded Products Market will grow with 6% CAGR by 2023, Key Players- Alcoa Inc., Century Aluminum Company, Rio Tinto PLC and more

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Market ScenarioAluminum-extrusion is the process of transforming aluminum alloy into objects with a definite cross-sectional profile. The aluminium-extruded products offer strength and stability, especially when alloyed with other metals.The major driver for the growth of the aluminum-extruded products market can be attributed directly with properties of the aluminum metal. Aluminum-extruded products are used for a range of purposes by many end user companies such as construction, automotive, internal space stations, electronics and others. The aluminium-extruded products are preferred for the manufacturing of light weight and durable products of various end-use industries, thereby driving the growth of the market. However, the growth of this market can be restrained by the huge initial capital investment required for the manufacturing of the aluminum-extruded products.The aluminum-extruded products Market is expected to grow over the CAGR of around 6 % during the period 2017 to 2023.Regional AnalysisThe Asia-Pacific region is expected to dominate the aluminum-extruded products market owing to the increasing industrialization and urbanization. The rapid growth of various industries such as automotive, construction, aerospace and mass transport is expected to contribute to the growth of the Asia-Pacific region. The large scope of foreign direct investment in developing nations of the region are also expected to contribute to the growth of the aluminum-extruded products market in the region.Request a sample @Key PlayersThe key players of aluminum-extruded products market are Alcoa Inc. (U.S.), Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C. (Bahrain), Aluminum Corporation of China Limited (China), Bhp Billiton Ltd. (Australia), Century Aluminum Company (U.S.), China Hongquiao Group Limited (China), Hindalco Industries Limited (India), Norsk Hydro ASA (Norway), Rio Tinto PLC (U.K.) and United Company RUSAL (Russia).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 ServicesContact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Madagascar Intelligence Report Market 2017: Key Players Airtel Madagascar, Orange Madagascar, Telma, bip, Blueline

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Pune, India, 29th December 2017: WiseGuyReports announced addition of new report, titled Madagascar: Country Intelligence Report.Summary"Madagascar: Country Intelligence Report", a new Country Intelligence Report provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in Madagascar today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2022. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband, and mobile, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.In 2017, Madagascar will generate total telecom service revenue of $0.3bn, which is expected to increase to $0.4bn by 2022. The telecom service revenue in Madagascar will grow at a CAGR of 7.8% over 2017-2022 driven by growth in mobile data and fixed broadband segments. Mobile voice will be the largest revenue-contributing segment in 2017. Mobile data will be the fastest-growing segment during 2017-2022, driven by rapid proliferation of smartphones, expanding coverage and growing adopton of 3G/4G services. Going forward, operators will focus on network infrastructure investments and LTE and fiber-optic network expansions to boost broadband penetration in the country.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Companies mentionedAirtel MadagascarOrange MadagascarTelmabipBluelineThe Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following -- Demographic and macroeconomic context in Madagascar.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, tariff regulation and more.- Telecom services market outlook: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice and mobile data markets.- The competitive landscape: an examination of the positioning of leading players in terms of revenue market shares across segments in the telecom services market.- Company snapshots: analysis of the financial position of leading service providers in the telecommunications markets.- Underlying assumptions behind our published base-case forecasts, as well as potential market developments that would alter, either positively or negatively, our base-case outlook.Scope- The overall telecom service revenue in Madagascar will grow at a CAGR of 7.8% during 2017-2022.- Mobile revenue will account for 86.9% of total telecom revenue in 2022, driven by increasing adoption of mobile broadband and 4G services.- 2G will be the most adopted mobile technology across the 2017-2022 period. Rising demand for high-speed data services and LTE network expansion will drive 4G subscriber growth over the forecast period.- The top two mobile operators, Airtel Madagascar and Telma Madagascar, will account for 77.1% share of overall mobile subscriptions in 2017. Operators will continue to focus on network coverage expansion, fiber deployment and value-added service offerings to acquire customers and drive telecom market.Reasons to buy- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of Madagascars telecommunications markets, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying GlobalDatas Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in Madagascars mobile communications, fixed telephony, broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in Madagascars telecommunications markets.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in Madagascar.Table of Content: Key PointsTable of contents 3Market highlights 4Demographic, macroeconomic and regulatory context 5Demographic and macroeconomic context 6Regulatory context 8Telecom services market outlook 9Total telecom service revenue 10Mobile services market 12Fixed services market 18Competitive landscape and company snapshots 20Competitive landscape 21Orange Madagascar 22Airtel Madagascar 23Telma Madagascar 24Additional resources 25Baseline forecast assumptions 26Data tables 27Glossary 29Research methodology 32ContinuedACCESS REPORT @Get in touch:LinkedIn:Twitter:Facebook: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. We also provide COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) business sector reports as custom exploration agreeing your particular needs.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Top 10 Cloud Technologies Market: Rising Demand For Enterprise Mobility For Improved Efficiency

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The top 10 cloud technologies market is anticipated to rise at a cracking pace in the upcoming years. The growth of the market is driven by a number of favorable factors which include rising demand of organizations for scalable, agile, cost efficient computing, rising demand for digital services and their applications, and a significant number of standards for interoperability between cloud and existing systems.Amongst the top 10 cloud technologies, multi-cloud management is anticipated to display the leading growth in the forthcoming years, powered by the growing need for various applications amongst end users. Further, significant adoption of hybrid cloud solutions among small and medium sizes enterprises is favoring the growth of multi-cloud management. Hybrid cloud is used across a host of industries that include BFSI, healthcare and lifesciences, and telecommunication and ITES.Obtain Report Details @Cloud storage is anticipated to hold the second-leading market size amongst all in the cloud domain. Some of the key solutions provided by cloud storage vendors are primary storage, cloud storage gateway, disaster recovery and backup storage, and data archiving. In particular, hybrid cloud storage has boosted the growth of top 10 cloud technologies market in the recent years. The rising demand for enterprise mobility for improved efficiency is also playing a crucial role to boost the growth of cloud solutions.However, disaster recovery as a service is expected to display the leading growth rate amongst all in the top 10 cloud technologies market. This is mainly because of a number of advantages related to data synchronization, online viewing, and easy accessibility.Cloud technologies have become more and more predominant in the technology world over the last few years due to shift towards SaaS based solutions and continuous growth in the cloud data storage. Both small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large enterprises are shifting towards cloud platforms because of key benefits it provides like self-service provisioning, elasticity and pay-per use that can be availed by both businesses and end users. cloud storage, hybrid cloud, cloud migration services, Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS), cloud orchestration, Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), Video as a Service (VaaS), multi-cloud management, cloud analytics, cloud storage, Wi - Fi as a Service are the top 10 cloud technologies. These top 10 cloud technologies is expected to grow at a significant rate during the forecast period.Presently, organizations are aggressively shifting towards cloud technologies as it helps in lowering costs, increases operations scalability, productivity and increases flexibility. Faster deployment, mobility, lower total cost of ownership, scalability, agility, increasing demand for interoperability between cloud services and existing systems and business continuity are the major drivers for adoption of various cloud technologies. Migration to cloud technologies helps organizations to move their assets such as databases, platforms, email, infrastructure and applications on the cloud. It reduces the costs, increases operations, and recovery, and manages other mission-critical tasks. Among top 10 cloud technologies, multi-cloud management is increasing rapidly due to increasing need for agility and automation in businesses. Moreover, due to rapid adoption of the hybrid cloud among the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has opened doors to the new growth opportunities especially in the multi-cloud management market, thus boosting overall cloud technologies market.Among the top 10 technologies market, disaster recovery as a service and hybrid cloud market are the largest and fastest growing markets. Hybrid cloud is used in various application telecommunication, information technology, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare & life sciences. Among all these banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) will hold the maximum market share. Disaster recovery as a Service includes various solutions and services such as easy accessibility, data synchronization, and online viewing. It also helps in retrieving and restoration of data during downtime or failures such as human error, power outage, and natural catastrophe. Wi - Fi as a service is a cloud managed Wi Fi service delivered to the end-user under a subscription-based pricing model. It is helpful to SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and large enterprises for effective collaboration between teams spread across different locations. Also Wi Fi-as a service offers features such as centralized management and remote trouble shooting. Growing demand of end-to-end visibility and faster deployment are driving the growth of the Wi - Fi as a service market.Top 10 cloud technologies can be classified on basis of solutions, service types, applications, end-users vertical and regions. On basis of end users top 10 cloud technologies can be classified into banking and finance, healthcare, automobile telecom and information technology, manufacturing, government and others. Among these banking and finance is expected to have a highest growth rate during forecast period. On basis of region top 10 cloud technologies can be classified into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific regions (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America. North America holds the largest market share in top 10 cloud technologies market. Asia-Pacific (APAC) accounted for the largest growth rate in the top 10 cloud technologies market.Request a PDF Sample for this Research Report @The key providers of the top 10 cloud technologies include, Microsoft Corporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., VMware, Inc., Google, Inc., Amazon Web Services, IBM Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Workday, Axcient, Rackspace Hosting, Inc., and SAP.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.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 recommendationsTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Offshore Wind Market 2017: Industry Review, Research, Statistics, and Growth to 2023

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Prominent PlayersGeneral Electric (U.S.), Siemens (Germany), Vestas Wind Systems A/S (Denmark), Senvion SA (Luxembourg), Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co., Ltd (Korea), Suzlon Group (India), Dong Energy A/S (Denmark), EEW Group (Germany), ENERCON GmbH (Germany) and Goldwind Windenergy GmbH (China) are some of the prominent players profiled in MRFR Analysis and are at the forefront of competition in the global offshore wind market.Global Offshore Wind Market - OverviewOffshore wind energy is the use of wind farms constructed offshore to harvest wind energy to generate electricity. This helps to meet multiple state and national goals which includes reducing energy imports, reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, meeting renewable electricity standards, and local business opportunities.The Global Offshore Wind Market has been largely benefiting from the changing paradigms in government regulations and end-users perspective towards reducing global dependence on coal and other fossil fuels. With several driving trends such as, increasing share of renewable energy, rising investment towards development of clean energy dramatic cost declines and capacity additions, offshore wind has remained more reliable resource.With rise in wind power production, competition between countries has increased and wind turbine manufacturers are working to gain the upper hand as they design, test, and manufacture more effective models. Improvements in the cost and performance of wind power technologies, increase in demand for renewable energy and state renewable portfolio standards play a role in driving the wind sector towards growth.Offshore wind energy (OWE) is a newcomer to the sea, and many argue that it will play a key role in moving towards a sustainable energy system in Europe in 2020 and beyond. The EU energy system is challenged by global climate change threats, increasing dependency on energy imports as well as threats of supply disruptions from countries outside the EU. Faced with these challenges, the EU recently established a policy framework which includes a target of 20% share of renewable energy source (RES) by 2020. The offshore wind market is smaller today compared to other renewable energy technologies, but it is growing faster and is more efficient than other alternatives. Europe holds 90 percent of the worlds offshore wind capacity. U.S. and China are known as promising markets due to the cheaper and better-planned and executed projects, increased investor interest and government support.Get Sample of Report @Global offshore wind market is growing with the rapid pace; mainly due to advancement in technologies. According to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, The global market of Offshore Wind is booming and expected to gain prominence over the forecast period. The market is forecasted to demonstrate a stunning growth by 2023, surpassing its previous growth records in terms of value with a striking CAGR during the estimated period (2017  2023).Industry/ Innovation/ Related News:On 29th September 2017: Senvion SA launched its new products, the 3.7M144 EBC and 3.6M118 NES turbines, at the HUSUM Wind fair in Germany.On 17 Jun 2016: Siemens and Gamesa, merged wind businesses to create a leading wind power player.On 2015: GE completed acquisition of Alstom Power and Grid Businesses.In 2015: Suzlon Group, one of the worlds leading wind turbine manufacturers, has signed a binding agreement with Centerbridge Partners LP, USA to sell 100% stake in Senvion SE, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Suzlon Group.Offshore Wind Market - Regional AnalysisExpectations to the development of offshore wind are high, especially in Europe. The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) expects a total capacity of between 19.5 and 27.8 GW by 2020 in Europe. European governments and the EU as a whole have supported wind projects with favourable incentives as part of their carbon emission reduction goals. Global offshore wind capacity was by end 2016 an estimated 14.1 GW, corresponding to 3.6% of total wind power capacity. The United Kingdom heads the field, with 46% of global installed capacity in 2015, followed by Germany (30%) and Denmark (11.5%). Offshore installations are expected to be up again in 2017, as well as in subsequent years, with much greater growth after 2020.Attractive market for floating wind development with the combination of excellent natural resources and suitable port infrastructure developed for the offshore oil and gas sector that can be leveraged to service the offshore wind industry.Access Complete Report @List Of TablesTable 1 Global Offshore Wind Market, By Components, 2015-2023 (Usd Million) 27Table 2 Global Offshore Wind Market, By Location, 2015-2023 (Usd Million) 30Table 3 Global Offshore Wind Market, By Region, 2015-2023 (Usd Million) 34Table 4 Europe: Global Offshore Wind Market, By Country, 2015-2023 (Usd Million) 36Table 5 Europe: Global Offshore Wind Market, By Components, 2015-2023 (Usd Million) 36Table 6 Europe: Global Offshore Wind Market, By Location, 2015-2023 (Usd Million) 36Table 7 Germany: Global Offshore Wind Market, By Components, 2015-2023 (Usd Million)Table 8 Germany: Global Offshore Wind Market, By Location, 2015-2023 (Usd Million) 38Table 9 U.K.: Global Offshore Wind Market, By Components, 2015-2023 (Usd Million) 40Table 10 U.K.: Global Offshore Wind Market, By Location, 2015-2023 (Usd Million) 40ContinueList Of FiguresFigure 1 Research Process Of Mrfr 14Figure 2 Top Down & Bottom Up Approach 16Figure 3 Drivers & Restraints Impact Analysis Of Global Offshore Wind Market 18Figure 4 Global Renewable Energy Investment, 2016 (Usd Billion) 19Figure 5 Global Offshore Wind Market, By Components, 2016 (%) 26Figure 6 Global Offshore Wind Market, By Location, 2016 (%) 30Figure 7 Global Offshore Wind Market, By Region, 2015-2023 (Usd Million) 33Figure 8 Europe: Global Offshore Wind Market Share, By Country, 2016 (% Share) 35Figure 9 Germany: Global Offshore Wind Market, By Components, 2015-2023 (%) 38Figure 10 U.K.: Global Offshore Wind Market, By Components, 2015-2023 (%) 40Continue..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.Market Research FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Banasthali Chemical Engineering Girls Conquer Professional Experience with Full Semester Internship

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An IMF study has shown that Indias GDP would rise by 27% if Womens participation in the labour force were to equal that of men and if companies are reticent to hire women workers, the nation at large will lose out.Women make up over 48% of India's population and, yet, when it comes to India Inc's offices and factories, women are a miniscule minority as they comprise less than 2% of the workforce of name to reckon with companies in manufacturing, auto and process sectors. Employers in todays labor market rely heavily on resumes that illustrate a relevant work history, whether thats from internships, volunteer work, or actual job experience.Undoubtedly, Internship Provides Real Life Experience and Exposure to an engineering student. Internship provides the students an opportunity to showcase talents, commitment, and value to a prospective employer and thus learn more about themselves in terms of their own strengths, weakness, opportunity and threats. An internship is the building blocks necessary for creating the path to a successful career as it helps to develop a professional network. Internships are the perfect way to enhance the resume through relevant experiences. It also allows students to harness the skill, knowledge, and theoretical practice they learnt in university and do a test drive of their chosen career path. Internships provide the best opportunity to harness soft skills which is so essential for career placement.At Banasthali which is also worlds largest fully residential womens university, the BTech Chemical Engineering program is broad based interdisciplinary one and in the 7th semester all students are required to carry out full semester Internship in lead industries / research institutions as an integral component of the academic curriculum.During this session July  Dec 2017, the fourth year Chemical Engineering students underwent intensive full semester internship in solving real life problems as an integral part of their academic curriculum in various lead organizations which included IIP Dehradun, IOCL Faridabad - Mathura, BARC Mumbai, DRDO Delhi, IIT Guwahati  BHU  Kanpur, MNIT Jaipur, IFFCO Aonla,, Radico Khaitan Rampur, DCM Meerut, KFCL Kanpur, Coromandel International Visakapatnam, Khaitan Chemicals and Fertilizers Jhansi, JCL Alwar, KNHPI Jaipur, Farelabs Gurgaon, CSIR NCL Oune, CSRI CPPRI Saharanpur, CSIR  CSMCRI Bhavnagar, BEL Ghaziabad, Kota Super Thermal Power Station, ONGC Dehradun, RIL Jamnagar, EIL Gurgaon, HEC Ranchi, Indian Glycol Kashipur, Adani Wilmar, Ambic Ayurchem Roorkee, Brindavan Agro Industries Mathura, Vinyl Poly Additive Ltd NOIDA, Henkel Adhesive India Pvt Ltd Mumbai, Diesel Loco shed Bengaluru, Hindustan Mint and Agro Products Chandusi.Having conquered professional experience through Internship in lead organizations across the length and breadth of India, the Chemical Engineering girls graduating in May 2018 look forward to challenging placement opportunities in Process majors which include BASF, Dow Chemical, Evonite, DuPont, Air Liquid, Mitsubishi, Asaki Kasei, SABIC, Linde, Shell, P&G, Henkel, Croda, AkzoNobel, Reliance, Pidilite, UPL, Tata Chemicals. Gujarat Fluorochemicals, Solar Industries India, BASF India, Aarti Industries, Vinati Organics Ltd, Gujarat Heacy Chemicals Ltd, Deepak Nitrite Ltd, Indofil, Dhanuka, Privi, Synthite, Neelikon, Sudarshan, Kumar Organic, HPL Additives, PI Industries, Sharda Cropchem, Excel Crop Care, Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF, Symrise, Takasago, Wild Flavors, Mane, Sensient, Robertet, Kerry, Clariant, KLJ Group, Amines Plasticizers Ltd , Payal Group, Adeka India, Makwell Plasticizers, Baerlocher India, Suvarana Additives, Pluss Polymers, Merck India, Nalco  Ecolab, Solenis, Kemira, Bayer, Godrej, Monsanto India, Astec Lifesciences Ltd, Atul Ltd, Reckitt Benckiser etc.For more details about Banasthali seeAbout Banasthali: The Institution which is also the largest fully residential womens university in the world has played a big role in revolutionizing womens education in the country for the last eight decades with a belief that there is a tremendous role of higher education in empowering the women. Banasthali has scripted numerous success stories in a wide range of fields, and stands tall among the citadels of learning in India today. Team Banasthali with Vice Chancellor J C Bose Memorial Award for eminent scientist recipient Prof Aditya Shastri a highly acclaimed alumnus of BITS Pilani, SUNY State University of New York Stony Brook and MIT USA is indeed racing forward to be the very best among global women universities. Proud to be Banasthali alumni who call themselves as Banasthalites can be found in all latitudes, longitudes and altitudes in all walks of life across the globe.Banasthali UniversityP.O. Banasthali VidyapithRajasthan  304022Phone 91 1438 228456 / 228341Email: info@banasthali.ac.inWebsite:Facebook:
4G Network Uganda - Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities and Analysis of Top Key Player Forecast To 2021

4G Network Uganda

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SummaryThe telecom market in Uganda is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 11.6% during 2016-2021, primarily driven by growth in data revenue. Mobile data and fixed Internet will be the primary growth drivers during the period, owing to operators investments in 3G/4G and fiber network expansion and the increasing adoption of mobile money services. Fixed broadband growth will also be supported by the National Broadband Strategy, which aims to extend fiber across the country in the coming years. Going forward, data, the most lucrative segment, will bring about opportunities for all stakeholders.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Key Findings- The overall telecom service revenue in Uganda is estimated to generate $1.0bn in 2016 (an increase of 0.5% over 2015) and is estimated to reach $1.7bn by 2021. Growth will be mainly driven by the data segment (mobile and fixed).- Though 2G will be the most adopted technology in 2016, going forward, it will lose its share, as customers increasingly migrate to high-speed 3G and 4G services.- The Ugandan telecom market will be dominated by the big two players, MTN Uganda and Airtel Uganda. Operators are focusing on attractive data and device bundles and mobile money services to attract customers.Companies mentionedMTN UgandaAirtel UgandaUganda TelecomAfricell UgandaSmart TelecomUCCGilat SatcomSynopsisUganda: 3G and 4G Network Expansion and Increasing Mobile Data Revenue to Drive Telecom Growth provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in Uganda today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2021. It delivers deep quantitative and qualitative insight into Ugandas telecom market, analyzing key trends, evaluating near-term opportunities and assessing risk factors, based on proprietary data from Researchs databases.The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following:- Regional context: Telecom market size and trends in Uganda compared with other countries in the Africa & Middle-East region.- Economic, demographic and political context in Uganda.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, number portability and more.- A demand profile: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, fixed Internet, mobile voice and mobile data. Service evolution: a look at changes in the breakdown of overall revenue between the fixed and mobile sectors and between voice, data and video from 2014 to 2021. The competitive landscape: an examination of key trends in competition and in the performance, revenue market shares and expected moves of service providers over the next 18-24 months. In-depth sector analysis of fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice and mobile data services: a quantitative analysis of service adoption trends by network technology and by operator, as well as of average revenue per line/subscription and service revenue through the end of the forecast period. Main opportunities: this section details the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in Ugandas telecommunications market.Reasons to Buy- Gain in-depth analysis of current strategies and future trends of the telecommunications market in Uganda, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format, to build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Understand the factors behind ongoing and upcoming trends in Ugandas mobile communications, fixed telephony and broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares, to align product offerings and strategies to meet customers demand.- Leverage the graphical information (more than 20 charts and tables in the report based on the Pyramid Research forecast products), to gain an overview of the telecom market in Uganda.- Analysis of key telecom players in the markets and major business strategies being adopted by them, to identify the opportunities to improve the market share.- Explore novel opportunities to align your product strategies and offerings to meet the requirements and succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in Uganda.Table of Content: Key PointsExecutive summaryMarket and competitor overviewRegional contextEconomic, demographic and political contextRegulatory environmentDemand profileService evolutionCompetitive landscapeMajor market playersSegment analysisMobile servicesFixed servicesIdentifying opportunitiesOverall market opportunitiesContinuedACCESS REPORT @Get in touch:LinkedIn:Twitter:Facebook: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. We also provide COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) business sector reports as custom exploration agreeing your particular needs.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Automotive LED Market Share, Size, Trends, Analysis, Overview and Forecast 2017  2027

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Automotive LED is a prominent auto ancillary which aids in interior as well exterior lighting of the vehicle. The applications of automotive LED include indicators & signals, lighting in interior space of the vehicle, ambient lighting and exterior headlights. Automotive LEDs response is much better than that of traditional incandescent bulbs. OEMs are attracted towards the idea of potential reduction in energy consumption and space saving owing to smaller lighting fixtures. LEDs are smaller in size and are more efficient. They also possess substantially longer life and offer greater design freedom for improved esthetics. The usage of LED (Light Emitting Diode) in automotive applications is increasing owing to increasing demand from customers. Consumers also benefit from the safety aspects of solid-state signal lighting. For instance, fast turn-on stop lamps can reduce the risk of rear-end collisions.Stringent regulations are compelling customers to install LEDs in trucks. NHTSA (National Highway Transportation Safety Administration) has issued new compliance orders which states that trailer trucks that are 80-inch wide or above must have ID lamps fixed (mounted) over the rear door, even if the space available is less than one inch. Consequently, LED narrow rail lamps are the only solutions for such minimum spaces. Moreover, it has been estimated that compared to conventional lighting systems, LEDs for DRL applications consume only 0.2 liters of fuel per 100 km and about 4 grams lesser carbon dioxide emissions per kilometer, which essentially is the ultimate advantage of replacing LEDs.Request for Sample @Automotive LED Market: DynamicsGrowing inclination towards energy efficient decorative lights is spurring the demand in the automotive LED market. Growing demand for automotive vehicles (especially luxury vehicles) coupled with the desire to replace traditional luminaires is increasing the demand for automotive LEDs tremendously. Moreover, governments across the globe are supporting manufacturers by offering tax incentives and other subsidies, this is another factor expected to drive demand in the automotive LED market. For instance, the Chinese government supports the local LED industry by providing massive incentives, financial subsidies and resources to improve the domestic LED companies manufacturing capacity. Many Chinese manufacturers, with the help of government support, have started acquiring foreign companies to transfer their business models. Also, trending low price of LEDs are also supporting the growth of the automotive LED market.Automotive LED Market: Outlook/TrendMajor trending opportunity for manufacturers exist in the gradual shift towards LED lights in mid-range cars. Also, the OEMs are investing in R&D to research innovative or special lighting applications to boost their profitability. For example, OEMs are now turning their focus to LED applications in non-visible light spectrums, such as IR or UV LEDs as non-visible automotive LEDs occupy smaller market size as compared to other (backlight) applications. Additionally, adapting driving beam is an emerging trend. This kind of lighting offers both high security & brightness simultaneously.The increase in demand for electric or hybrid vehicles will support the demand for automotive LED owing to the high emphasis placed by manufacturers on attractive interiors to differentiate electric vehicles from conventional fossil fuel burning vehicles. According to AMIA (Mexican Automotive Industry Association-2016), 8,260 electric/hybrid vehicles were purchased in Mexico, which depicts more than a 400% rise from 1,800 units bought by Mexican consumers in 2015.Request for Table of Contents @Moreover, the Brazilian government has reduced tax on hybrid cars and about 491 electric and hybrids cars were sold in 2013. With the aforementioned reasons, the demand for automotive LEDs will increase in near future.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Combined Cooling Heat and Power Plant Market to Rear Excessive Growth During 2017  2027

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The combined cooling heat and power (CCHP) plant market is expected to gain traction over the forecast period owing to government regulations regarding emission of greenhouse gases and emergence of new technologies, such as absorption chiller, that efficiently covert heat into cooling. Cooling heat and power together, also known as trigeneration, is a process in which the heat produced by combined heat and power plant is used to generate cooling energy for refrigerator and air conditioning. It is the most economical and eco-friendly way to generate heat, cooling and electricity, making it the ideal solution for organizations which have significant cooling requirements. Combined cooling heat and power plant consists of an electricity generator, heat exchanger, gas engine and chiller. Additionally, the important benefit of CCHP include greater efficiency, i.e., a single fuel source can generate several forms of energies, such as electrical energy, heat energy and cooling energy.Combined Cooling Heat and Power Plant Market: DynamicsDrivers:Environmental regulation regarding Co2 emission is expected to be a major factor that drives the growth of the combined cooling heat and power plant market over the forecast period. Moreover, combined cooling heat and power plants are much more efficient than separate generation of electricity and energy which is also considered as a factor which gives traction to the growth of the market. That apart, the different benefits of combined cooling heat and power plant such as significant reduction in greenhouse gas emission, reduced fuel and energy cost and lower electric usage will also add to the growth of market.A sample of this report is available upon request @RestraintHigh initial investment and long recovery period are expected to be a major barriers that hinder the growth of the combined cooling heat and power plant market. Moreover, challenges created by the highly dynamic nature and non-coincidence of electrical loads and thermal loads in targeted applications is expected to hamper the growth of the combined cooling heat and power plant market over the forecast period. Additionally, anxiety in integrating developed algorithms into control technology hardware and software will act as a restraining factor for the growth of the combined cooling heat and power plant market.Combined Cooling Heat and Power Plant Market: SegmentationThe global combined cooling heat and power plant market can be segmented based on system type, technology, chiller type and application.By System type, the combined cooling heat and power plant market can be segmented into:Smaller System (less than 5MW)Medium System (5MW to 20MW)Large System (above 20MW)By Technology, the combined cooling heat and power plant market can be segmented into:Reciprocating EnginesTurbinesFuel CellsBy Chiller type, the combined cooling heat and power plant market can be segmented into:Absorption ChillerEngine Drive ChillerBy application, the combined cooling heat and power plant market can be segmented into:IndustrialCommercialInstitutionalCombined Cooling Heat and Power Plant Market: Region-wise OutlookAsia Pacific will be closely followed by North America during the forecast period. Both of these markets are expected to witness immense growth in the combined cooling heat and power plant market due to rapid industrialization. Western Europe, in particular, is projected to witness growth in the combined cooling heat and power plant market due to the expected growth in the construction industry during the forecast period. Latin America is expected to grow at a significant CAGR during the forecast period owing to high demand of combined cooling heat and power plantin the growing commercial and institutional sector in the region.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Combined Cooling Heat and Power Plant Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants identified across the value chain of the global combined cooling heat and power plant market include:GETEC heat & power AGPeter Brotherhood Ltd.Clarke EnergySiemensABBAGO AG Energie + AnlagenMAN Diesel & Turbo SEM-TrigenOHair Shutter Ltd.Grastim EnergiaBiomass PowerInternational Coil Ltd.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to market segments such as geographies, application, and industry.ABOUT 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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Saudi Arabia Pharmaceutical Market will Register a CAGR of 9.0% through 2016-2026

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The significant rise in lifestyle-related diseases and the developments in healthcare infrastructure are expected to influence the demand for pharmaceuticals in Saudi Arabia. In 2016, the Saudi Arabia pharmaceutical market is anticipated to procure value worth US$ 5,209.5 Mn at a y-o-y growth of 6.0 % over 2015. The mounting demand for branded drug products will continue to incite the growth of the Saudi Arabian pharmaceutical market in 2016.The demand for pharmaceuticals in Saudi Arabia is expected to register substantial growth owing to the increasing penetration of health insurance companies and the rising incidence rate of non-communicable diseases. Furthermore, the exceptional rise in the per capita income of Saudi Arabia is also expected to foster the demand for branded pharmaceutical drugs. Another key factor driving the growth of the pharmaceutical market in Saudi Arabia is the countrys strategic move to allow 100% FDI in the pharmaceuticals sector. Although, the shortage of profound indigenous research capacity in the pharmaceutical industry and the delayed registration of drug and medicine patents is expected to limit the expansion of the market in 2016 and beyond.Based on the product type, the pharmaceutical market in Saudi Arabia is expected to witness an upsurge in the prescription-type branded drug products. In terms of market value, the branded drugs are estimated to reach US$ 2,760.8 Mn by 2016-end. The demand for generic drugs is projected to secure steady growth, attributing to the insisting promotion of generic drug adoption by healthcare insurance providers.Request to Sample Report -On the basis of the diseases, the pharmaceutical drugs used for treatment of cardiovascular diseases will continue exhibiting robust growth in 2016. The demand for cardiovascular medications will continue to surge due to the prominence of circulatory disorders in Saudi Arabia. Additionally, the rising prevalence of disorders related to body sugar levels is expected to make diabetes a rapidly growing disease-based sub-segment in the Saudi Arabia pharmaceutical market.The pharmaceutical market in Saudi Arabia is also segmented on the basis of distribution channel, where retail pharmacies will continue to account for 80% market share compared to hospital pharmacies. The westernised modernisation of retail pharmacies in Saudi Arabia has led to the availability of a wide range drugs and medicinal products, thereby attaining a considerable growth in the retail pharmacy sub-segment in 2016 and further.The rising resource potential in Saudi Arabia is projected to positively reform the production environment for pharmaceutical manufacturers. In order to expand the markets size, structuring alliances with well-established native companies is predicted to be a key strategy for global pharmaceutical leaders. The key players in the Saudi Arabia pharmaceutical market include Novartis AG, SPIMACO, Pfizer Inc., and Glaxosmithkline plc., Jamjoom Pharma, and Tabuk Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Co. among others.Request Report TOC @Long-term Outlook: The Saudi Arabia pharmaceutical market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 9.0% over the forecast period 2016-2026. In terms of market value, the pharmaceutical market in Saudi Arabia is estimated to be worth US$ 12,281.4 Mn by the end of forecast period.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Research Report 2017-2022 : Takeda, IM HealthScience

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Research Report 2017-2022" to its huge collection of research reports.A new report has been added to the expansive database of QYResearchReports.com. The report is based on the global Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) market. The report is a comprehensive analysis of the key factors impacting the growth of the global Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) market. This includes growth drivers and restraining factors. The current market trends and future growth opportunities are also analyzed.The research study takes into account all the key aspects of the global Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) market. Thus, the market has been segmented on the basis of key criteria so as to gain a complete and thorough insight into the various aspects of the market. The market is also studied from both a global perspective as well as regional perspective. The market is segmented on the basis of geography into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and the Rest of the World. Of these, the segment expected to lead or decline has been pointed out. Also, the fastest expanding region has been given.Request for the Free Report Sample:The major players in global Irritable Bowel Syndrome market includeAllerganValeant PharmaceuticalsTakedaSucampo PharmaceuticalsMcNeil Consumer HealthcareSebela PharmaceuticalsAstellas PharmaceuticalsIM HealthScienceThe degree of competition has been analyzed and so is the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers. The threat of new entrants and threat of substitutes have also been analyzed. The prominent players are profiled in the report. Thus, readers will get a fair idea as to what leading players are doing in the market for making profit in this market. The recent developments by key players and the challenges faced by them to attain this level of success have also been discussed.The report is helpful for anyone wishing to invest in the competitive Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) market. It gives potential investors, new entrants and those well established a clear idea as to which sector in the market to invest on. Thus, they are able to make smart and profitable decisions regarding investments in the market.Table of Contents1 Irritable Bowel Syndrome Market Overview11.1 Product Overview and Scope of Irritable Bowel Syndrome11.2 Irritable Bowel Syndrome Segment by Types (Product Category)21.2.1 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue and Growth Rate (%) Comparison by Types (Product Category) (2016-2022)21.2.2 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Market Share (%) by Types (Product Category) in 201631.3 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Segment by Applications51.3.1 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Sales Comparison by Applications (2012-2022)51.4 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Market by Regions (2012-2022)81.4.1 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Market Size (M USD) Comparison by Regions (2012-2022)81.5 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Market Size (2012-2022)132 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Market Competition by Manufacturers142.1 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue and Market Share by Manufacturers (2016-2017)142.2 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Gross Margin by Manufacturers (2016-2017)162.3 Manufacturers Irritable Bowel Syndrome Headquarter, Sales Area, Product Types172.4 Irritable Bowel Syndrome Market Competitive Situation and Trends192.4.1 Irritable Bowel Syndrome Market Concentration Rate192.4.2 Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue Market Share (%) of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers in 2016202.4.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion213 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue by Regions (2012-2017)233.1 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue and Market Share (%) by Regions (2012-2017)233.2 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)263.3 North America Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)273.4 Europe Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)273.5 Japan Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)273.6 RoW Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)284 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue Size by Types294.1 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue and Market Share by Types (2012-2017)294.2 Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Growth by Type (2012-2017)31List of Tables and FiguresFigure Product Picture of Irritable Bowel Syndrome1Table Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue and Growth Rate (%) Comparison by Types (2016-2022)2Figure Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue Market Share (%) by Types (Product Category) in 20163Table Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Sales Comparison by Applications (2012-2022)5Figure Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Sales Market Share (%) by Applications in 20166Figure Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Market Size (M USD) Comparison by Regions (2012-2022)8Figure North America Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate (%) (2012-2022)9Figure Japan Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate (%) (2012-2022)10Figure Europe Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate (%) (2012-2022)11Figure RoW Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate (%) (2012-2022)12Figure Global Irritable Bowel Syndrome Revenue (M USD) Status and Outlook (2012-2022)13About 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
Combined Charging System Market To Increase at Steady Growth Rate During 2017  2027

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In todays scenario, energy efficiency is on high demand, boosted by a foremost concern with climatic changes and by the increasing fuel prices in region that have a significant dependency on imported fossil fuels. A large amount of oil consumption is dependent upon the transportation sector and large portion is used by street vehicles. The transportation sector is going to increase their share in worlds oil consumption by more than 50% by 2030. Regarding to this concern, the demand for electric vehicles is increasing day-by-day, which will support the demand for combined charging system.The combined charging system includes connector and inlet combination as well as control functions. These manages the communication between EV charging point and electric vehicle. Combined charging system (CSS) deliver high voltage direct current via special electrical connector derived from SAE J1772 (IEC Type 2) and (IEC Type 1) connector. Connector geometries are available for Type 2 (Europe) and Type 1 (North America). These system are developed by leading manufacturers and are used by large number of electric vehicles. For instance, the European Commission (EU) identified use of Type 2 (CCS) charging system in line with IEC 62196 as a uniform standard throughout European countries. Many of the manufacturers support the demand for combined charging system.Request for Sample @Combined Charging System Market: DynamicsGrowing demand of electric vehicles coupled with strong support from main car manufacturers (ACEA to combo standard and Japanese manufacturers to CHAdeMO) are expected to drive the demand for combined charging systems. Moreover, advanced technology of this system which help to charge electric vehicle in less than thirty minutes will drive the demand of combines charging systems. However, relative high cost of this system (installation and operation of charging points) will restraint the growth of the market in future. Also, customers preference towards fuel vehicle over electric vehicle would hamper the demand for combined charging system.Combined Charging System Market: Outlook/TrendThe MEA region have adopted the European standard type 2 connector for AC charging; on the other hand, the introduction of a combined charging system is still being debated. In terms of DC charging, CHAdeMO charging stations are being installed. North America and Europe also have their own fast Combined Charger System (CCS) and standards. This type of charging station is supported by majority of car manufacturers, such as Chrysler, BMW, VW, GM, Daimler, Porsche, Audi and Ford. Since 2013, the vehicles with CCS standard using fast DC charging capability, have been on road from a way long back.Electric vehicles are currently seen by many countries as a way forward preferred choice for public transport. Factors such as addressing climate concern, such as in electric vehicles, may help to overcome the problems with energy security and dependence on traditional fuel. The governments are providing subsidies to support the manufacturers to establish their plants in their region. Moreover, the government and OEMs are investing in infrastructure to install charging station in their country. For instance, Nissan is growing efforts to install charging station, which will help the customers to charge their vehicles free of cost. With the aforementioned reasons, the demand for combined charging system will increase in the near future.Combined Charging System Market: SegmentationOn the basis of vehicle type, the combined charging system market can be segmented into:Electric VehiclesPHEV (Plug in Hybrid Vehicles)HEV (Hybrid Electric Vehicle)On the basis of power, the combined charging system market can be segmented into:40Kwh to 100Kwh100Kwh to 200KwhMore than 200KwHRequest for Table of Contents @Combined Charging System Market: ParticipantsExamples of some of the OEM who are jointly working with SAE on combined charging system to consolidate all types of electric charging system are:BMW AGAudiDaimler AGFord Motor CompanyGeneral Motors (GM)Porsche AGVWTesla, Inc.Nissan Motor CompanyFiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Market Professional Survey Report 2017 : Emerson Electric, Texas Instruments

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Market Professional Survey Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The market analysis of this particular market dissects and elaborates many of the aspects pertaining to the global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor market which enunciates the current figures along with future prospects. The report also takes into consideration changing aspects of the said market. The primary objective of this market intelligence report is to provide an elaborate impression to the readers and make an offering of convenient facts and figures. The market intelligence report further deduces with various issues such as opportunities, trends, drivers, and restraints in a bid to assess the outcome of it on the global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor market over the forecast timeframe that is clearly stated in the said research report. Furthermore, the report puts forward a fleeting yet exclusive skeleton of the market in question, which contains several explanations of the foremost aspects which are forecasted to stimulate development in the market or rationalize negative influence.For more info, Get a Free Sample PDF:This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringEmerson ElectricSiemens AGHoneywell InternationalNohkenTexas InstrumentsThis market intelligence report further delves into the depth of the global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor market by squarely assessing the manufacturing and fabrication chain of the compatible market. This is prognosticated to further aid in the propagation of accurate figures and data on many factors of the corresponding market such as information relating to the dogmas of the government at the global and provincial level, volume traded, manufacturing capacity, revenue made, and production and circulation structure among others.The research report is incomplete without an all-inclusive valuation of the competitive seller landscape of the global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor market, which incorporates the accomplishments and creations, facts and numbers of the topnotch companies that are operating in the global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor market. The market study also delivers a wide-ranging inspection of the major areas that are mentioned in the report of the global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor market. For every expanse, the report speaks the array of progress so far and clearance on what merchants can and need to do in order to ensure success in the forthcoming years.Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor1.1 Definition and Specifications of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor1.1.1 Definition of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor1.1.2 Specifications of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor1.2 Classification of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor1.3 Applications of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor1.4 Market Segment by Regions2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)List of Tables and FiguresFigure Picture of Magnetostrictive Level SensorTable Product Specifications of Magnetostrictive Level SensorTable Classification of Magnetostrictive Level SensorFigure Global Production Market Share of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor by Type in 2016Figure Global Consumption Volume Market Share of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor by Application in 2016Table Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Major Manufacturers in 2016Table Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Major Manufacturers in 2016Table R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Major Manufacturers in 2016Table Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Magnetostrictive Level Sensor Major Manufacturers in 2016Table Global Capacity, Sales , Price, Cost, Sales Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of Magnetostrictive Level Sensor 2012-2017About 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
Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Analysis - Size, Share, Growth, Industry Demand, Forecast, Application Analysis To 2017

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ReportBazzar has released its latest research-based report entitled Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market. This report studies the Naval Radio-Direction Finder 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 Naval Radio-Direction Finder market by product type and applications/end industries. This report studies Naval Radio-Direction Finder 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.Information & Communication Technology industryThe information and communication technology market nowadays is growing in double digit. We deliver both syndicated and consulting reports for ICT market according to client needs and industry needs. We mainly focus on different new technologies, smart markets, mobile applications, telecommunications, software, middleware, audio-visual systems and storage.A holistic report covers exhaustive information obtained from reliable industrial sources and through proven research methodologies. The report goes through both secondary and primary survey. The base year taken for the report is 2015 and 2016, and a forecast is done from 2017 to 2022.The data thus obtained is then combined with relevant tables and graphs to support the information revealed.For Free Sample Copy, click here:The following points are covered in the report: Market segmentation Penetration & Growth Mapping Market Trends Market Driver Analysis Market Restraint Analysis Growth opportunities Porters Analysis SWOT AnalysisApplication Insights:Various competent analytical tools have been used to offer a comprehensive assessment of the market. The report comprises of each aspect of the global market for Naval Radio-Direction Finder. It starts with the basic information and then advances to the market segmentation based on different criteria such as technology, industry areas and regions in general. A detailed analysis is given on the areas of industries it is used and basically how the technology is helping the particular industry or driving the market growth of that particular industry.Regional Insights:Major regions, countries, and sub-segments have been analyzed for providing the better understanding of the market scope worldwide. The regions taken into consideration are North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and Central & South America. The regional markets for the Naval Radio-Direction Finder market are analyzed by evaluating the demand, and supply, the assembly of the products, how it is getting connected with the human interface as well as the historical performance of the market in the given region.Competitive Insights:The report also provides insights on the competitive landscape of the global Naval Radio-Direction Finder industry with the leading players profiled in the report. Company profiles are purely tentative in nature and we can profile companies according to your interest at free cost. The company overview, trends, tactics, merger & acquisitions, business strategies, financial metrics of the major participants operating in the global Naval Radio-Direction Finder market have been reviewed in this study.To view the table of contents and know more details please visit:Some Points Of Table Of Content:1 Industry Overview of Naval Radio-Direction Finder1.1 Definition and Specifications of Naval Radio-Direction Finder1.1.1 Definition of Naval Radio-Direction Finder1.1.2 Specifications of Naval Radio-Direction Finder1.2 Classification of Naval Radio-Direction Finder1.2.1 Handheld Type1.2.2 Large Type1.3 Applications of Naval Radio-Direction Finder1.3.1 Vessel traffic service1.3.2 Other service1.3.3 Application 31.4 Market Segment by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 India2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Naval Radio-Direction Finder2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Naval Radio-Direction Finder2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Naval Radio-Direction Finder2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Naval Radio-Direction Finder3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Naval Radio-Direction Finder3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Naval Radio-Direction Finder Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Naval Radio-Direction Finder Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Naval Radio-Direction Finder Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Naval Radio-Direction Finder Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Naval Radio-Direction Finder Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Naval Radio-Direction Finder Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Naval Radio-Direction Finder Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Naval Radio-Direction Finder Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Naval Radio-Direction Finder Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Naval Radio-Direction Finder Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Naval Radio-Direction Finder Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)5 Naval Radio-Direction Finder Regional Market Analysis5.1 North America Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Analysis5.1.1 North America Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Overview5.1.2 North America 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.1.3 North America 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Sales Price Analysis5.1.4 North America 2016 Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Share Analysis5.2 China Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Analysis5.2.1 China Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Overview5.2.2 China 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.2.3 China 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Sales Price Analysis5.2.4 China 2016 Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Share Analysis5.3 Europe Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Analysis5.3.1 Europe Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Overview5.3.2 Europe 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.3.3 Europe 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Sales Price Analysis5.3.4 Europe 2016 Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Share Analysis5.4 Southeast Asia Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Analysis5.4.1 Southeast Asia Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Overview5.4.2 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.4.3 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Sales Price Analysis5.4.4 Southeast Asia 2016 Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Share Analysis5.5 Japan Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Analysis5.5.1 Japan Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Overview5.5.2 Japan 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.5.3 Japan 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Sales Price Analysis5.5.4 Japan 2016 Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Share Analysis5.6 India Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Analysis5.6.1 India Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Overview5.6.2 India 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.6.3 India 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Sales Price Analysis5.6.4 India 2016 Naval Radio-Direction Finder Market Share Analysis6 Global 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Segment Market Analysis (by Type)6.1 Global 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Sales by Type6.2 Different Types of Naval Radio-Direction Finder Product Interview Price Analysis6.3 Different Types of Naval Radio-Direction Finder Product Driving Factors Analysis6.3.1 Handheld Type of Naval Radio-Direction Finder Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.2 Large Type of Naval Radio-Direction Finder Growth Driving Factor Analysis7 Global 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Segment Market Analysis (by Application)7.1 Global 2012-2017E Naval Radio-Direction Finder Consumption by Application7.2 Different Application of Naval Radio-Direction Finder Product Interview Price Analysis7.3 Different Application of Naval Radio-Direction Finder Product Driving Factors Analysis7.3.1 Vessel traffic service of Naval Radio-Direction Finder Growth Driving Factor Analysis7.3.2 Other service of Naval Radio-Direction Finder Growth Driving Factor AnalysisCheck Discount:About Us:Reportbazzar.com is your trusted source for the most inclusive and informative assortment of market research reports designed to empower you with the latest in industry information that translates to time and cost savings for your business. We not only help you give wing to your latent business ideas but also facilitate you in taking the best informed and strategic decisions that guarantee success in your most promising business endeavors. Our intelligence database comprises of vast arrays of strategically analyzed and high-level market research reports that encompass all major industries worldwide. All the specialized research reports available at Reportbazzar.com are tailor-made to suit your every business need, no matter how diverse or demanding it is.Contact Us:ReportBazzar30 Wall Street, 8th floor,New York, NY 10005.United States.US: +1 (212) 389-6363India: +91 20 66528525
Rapid Industrialization to Boost Electrical Sub Panels Market Growth by 2017-2027

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Electrical Sub Panels Market: IntroductionAn electrical Sub Panel comes in handy in strung out or large areas which require extra electrical panel which accepts main power and distributes to electrical current. Main breaker panel, Main lug Panel and Sub Panel are the types of electrical Panel. Each panel is best for various set of circumstances. Electrical Sub panel is the best electrical panel to be installed if multiple circuits in a particular location is needed. Usually, they are powered by a circuit within the main panel and they do not have their own disconnect and let you adjust the electricity distribution.Due to two primary reasons the Electrical Sub panels are installed: 1) if upgrade from fuses to circuit breaker is required or 2) if addition of circuit breaker is needed but have reached the capacity of the current breaker panel. An Electrical sub panel is optimal for situations where multiple circuits are required in some separate or isolated area, like a greenhouse or workshop. However electrical sub-panels dont increase the amount of available power.Request For Report Sample@Electrical Sub panels are classified by amperage, number of spaces and number of circuits required. The Ampere Rating of electrical sub panel must be same or more than the circuit in the main breaker panel connected to it and also, number of electrical sub panel is limited to the number of available circuits in the main electrical breaker panel.Key Application of Electrical Sub panels is in residential and commercial areas. Such as, outbuildings, connecting area from a house or a property etc.Electrical Sub Panels Market: DynamicsAn Electric Sub Panel is a sub panel which distributes electricity to some specific area of a home or other property and widespread usage of such panels in alternative powers, generators, servers, medical industry and residential area expected to accelerate market growth of Electrical Sub Panels.Reduced Installation complexities, high level of engineering innovation has resulted in better designs and significant benefits, simplifying wiring and reducing material requirements. It offers offer benefits such as efficient power supply while providing protective circuit breakers, have created avenues for industry growth.Transfer Switches (a type of electrical sub panel) is the trend and has sizeable potential in future as they provide continues protection to the house from trip on over current which leads to fire.Electrical sub panels get effected by corrosion & oxidation and has fire risk hence sometimes its not preferred for outdoor installations hence restraining the scope of use of electrical sub panel. Also, sale of electrical sub panel is slow due to its long life cycle is expected to have a low-to-moderate growth for the electrical sub panels market.Electrical Sub Panels Market: SegmentationSegmentation of Electrical Sub Panels by configuration:Three PhaseSingle PhaseSegmentation of Electrical Sub Panels by current strength:Below 100 amps (amperage )Between 100- 200 amps (amperage )Above 200 amps (amperage )Segmentation of electrical sub panel by Mounting Type:Bolt onPlug InSegmentation of electrical sub panel by application:Residential and commercial usePower Distribution and transmission utilitiesManufacturing and Process UtilitiesOthers ( includes mining, marine and Transportation)Electrical Sub Panels Market: Regional OutlookThere is no particular company dominating for Electrical Sub panel. However, North America with its booming economy and escalating expanding manufacturing of electrical industry, is expected to see high revenue growth in upcoming years. The Global market of Asia Pacific is projected to reach billions due to growing demand of electrical panels. Globalization and Industrialization of electrical industries are the megatrend which will drive substantial demand in the supply chain leading to huge growth in the market. Consumption of electronics and electrical machinery is growing in developing countries in short term and expected to grow in long term as well.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Electrical Sub Panels Market: Key PlayersABB Ltd.Eaton CorporationGeneral ElectricSchneider Electric SESiemens AGSanken ElectronicST MicroelectronicsMitsubishi Electric CorporationEAMFCOToshibaABOUT 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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market to Witness a Pronounce Growth During 2017: Report Bazzar

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ReportBazzar has released its latest research-based report entitled AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market. This report studies the AC Electrical Film Capacitor 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 AC Electrical Film Capacitor market by product type and applications/end industries. This report studies AC Electrical Film Capacitor 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.Information & Communication Technology industryThe information and communication technology market nowadays is growing in double digit. We deliver both syndicated and consulting reports for ICT market according to client needs and industry needs. We mainly focus on different new technologies, smart markets, mobile applications, telecommunications, software, middleware, audio-visual systems and storage.A holistic report covers exhaustive information obtained from reliable industrial sources and through proven research methodologies. The report goes through both secondary and primary survey. The base year taken for the report is 2015 and 2016, and a forecast is done from 2017 to 2022.The data thus obtained is then combined with relevant tables and graphs to support the information revealed.For Free Sample Copy, click here:The following points are covered in the report: Market segmentation Penetration & Growth Mapping Market Trends Market Driver Analysis Market Restraint Analysis Growth opportunities Porters Analysis SWOT AnalysisApplication Insights:Various competent analytical tools have been used to offer a comprehensive assessment of the market. The report comprises of each aspect of the global market for AC Electrical Film Capacitor. It starts with the basic information and then advances to the market segmentation based on different criteria such as technology, industry areas and regions in general. A detailed analysis is given on the areas of industries it is used and basically how the technology is helping the particular industry or driving the market growth of that particular industry.Regional Insights:Major regions, countries, and sub-segments have been analyzed for providing the better understanding of the market scope worldwide. The regions taken into consideration are North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and Central & South America. The regional markets for the AC Electrical Film Capacitor market are analyzed by evaluating the demand, and supply, the assembly of the products, how it is getting connected with the human interface as well as the historical performance of the market in the given region.Competitive Insights:The report also provides insights on the competitive landscape of the global AC Electrical Film Capacitor industry with the leading players profiled in the report. Company profiles are purely tentative in nature and we can profile companies according to your interest at free cost. The company overview, trends, tactics, merger & acquisitions, business strategies, financial metrics of the major participants operating in the global AC Electrical Film Capacitor market have been reviewed in this study.To view the table of contents and know more details please visit:Some Points Of Table Of Content:1 Industry Overview of AC Electrical Film Capacitor1.1 Definition and Specifications of AC Electrical Film Capacitor1.1.1 Definition of AC Electrical Film Capacitor1.1.2 Specifications of AC Electrical Film Capacitor1.2 Classification of AC Electrical Film Capacitor1.2.1 High Voltage1.2.2 Low Voltage1.3 Applications of AC Electrical Film Capacitor1.3.1 Electronics1.3.2 Automobile1.3.3 Aerospace1.3.4 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 AC Electrical Film Capacitor2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of AC Electrical Film Capacitor2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of AC Electrical Film Capacitor2.4 Industry Chain Structure of AC Electrical Film Capacitor3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of AC Electrical Film Capacitor3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global AC Electrical Film Capacitor Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global AC Electrical Film Capacitor Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global AC Electrical Film Capacitor Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global AC Electrical Film Capacitor Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global AC Electrical Film Capacitor Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global AC Electrical Film Capacitor Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 AC Electrical Film Capacitor Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global AC Electrical Film Capacitor Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 AC Electrical Film Capacitor Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global AC Electrical Film Capacitor Sales Price4.4.2 2016 AC Electrical Film Capacitor Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)5 AC Electrical Film Capacitor Regional Market Analysis5.1 North America AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Analysis5.1.1 North America AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Overview5.1.2 North America 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.1.3 North America 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Sales Price Analysis5.1.4 North America 2016 AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Share Analysis5.2 China AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Analysis5.2.1 China AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Overview5.2.2 China 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.2.3 China 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Sales Price Analysis5.2.4 China 2016 AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Share Analysis5.3 Europe AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Analysis5.3.1 Europe AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Overview5.3.2 Europe 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.3.3 Europe 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Sales Price Analysis5.3.4 Europe 2016 AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Share Analysis5.4 Southeast Asia AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Analysis5.4.1 Southeast Asia AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Overview5.4.2 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.4.3 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Sales Price Analysis5.4.4 Southeast Asia 2016 AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Share Analysis5.5 Japan AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Analysis5.5.1 Japan AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Overview5.5.2 Japan 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.5.3 Japan 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Sales Price Analysis5.5.4 Japan 2016 AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Share Analysis5.6 India AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Analysis5.6.1 India AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Overview5.6.2 India 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.6.3 India 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Sales Price Analysis5.6.4 India 2016 AC Electrical Film Capacitor Market Share Analysis6 Global 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Segment Market Analysis (by Type)6.1 Global 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Sales by Type6.2 Different Types of AC Electrical Film Capacitor Product Interview Price Analysis6.3 Different Types of AC Electrical Film Capacitor Product Driving Factors Analysis6.3.1 High Voltage of AC Electrical Film Capacitor Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.2 Low Voltage of AC Electrical Film Capacitor Growth Driving Factor Analysis7 Global 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Segment Market Analysis (by Application)7.1 Global 2012-2017E AC Electrical Film Capacitor Consumption by Application7.2 Different Application of AC Electrical Film Capacitor Product Interview Price Analysis7.3 Different Application of AC Electrical Film Capacitor Product Driving Factors Analysis7.3.1 Electronics of AC Electrical Film Capacitor Growth Driving Factor Analysis7.3.2 Automobile of AC Electrical Film Capacitor Growth Driving Factor Analysis7.3.3 Aerospace of AC Electrical Film Capacitor Growth Driving Factor Analysis7.3.4 Others of AC Electrical Film Capacitor Growth Driving Factor AnalysisCheck Discount:About Us:Reportbazzar.com is your trusted source for the most inclusive and informative assortment of market research reports designed to empower you with the latest in industry information that translates to time and cost savings for your business. We not only help you give wing to your latent business ideas but also facilitate you in taking the best informed and strategic decisions that guarantee success in your most promising business endeavors. Our intelligence database comprises of vast arrays of strategically analyzed and high-level market research reports that encompass all major industries worldwide. All the specialized research reports available at Reportbazzar.com are tailor-made to suit your every business need, no matter how diverse or demanding it is.Contact Us:ReportBazzar30 Wall Street, 8th floor,New York, NY 10005.United States.US: +1 (212) 389-6363India: +91 20 66528525
ndustrial Exhaust systems Market Revenue Growth Predicted by 2017-2027

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Industrial Exhaust systems Market: IntroductionAn Industrial exhaust system is a system consisting of various components, such as fans, ducts, vents, pipes, collectors, etc. These components connect the hood to the chimney. An industrial exhaust system removes the contaminated air (which contains dust particles, fumes, shavings, chemicals and other hazardous components) from the air present in the workplace.These systems are placed at the source using ducts and pipes so as to avoid the mixing of harmful air with fresh air. The main objective of planting industrial exhaust systems into the workplace of any industry is to keep the environment of the area clean and safe so that the workers feel comfortable and can work efficiently.The Industrial exhaust systems are mainly used for controlling the heat generated at the workplace by exhausting the warm air and for removing contaminated air from the place to maintain internal pressure and temperature at a safe level.Request For Report Sample@The Industrial exhaust systems are of two types -- general industrial exhaust systems and local industrial exhaust systems. The local industrial exhaust systems are in general more reliable, effective and efficient as compared to general industrial exhaust systems. The general industrial exhaust systems require a high flow rate of heat, which usually leads to high costs for air cleaning equipment. Local industrial exhaust systems, due to their low flow rate, are cost effective.Industrial Exhaust systems Market: DynamicsExpanding industrialization across the globe in industries, such as chemical, automobile and textile, and increasing manufacturing of steel products and electrical equipment is expected to drive the demand for industrial exhaust systems. Also, some acrimonious norms set by government authorities in numerous countries are driving the demand for industrial exhaust systems and hence, the market is growing.In contrast, factors, such as the high cost associated with the light weight of the components used in exhaust systems, after sales services of products, etc. are acting as restraints for the market of industrial exhaust systems. Simultaneously, fluctuating prices of some metals, which are used in the making of industrial exhaust systems can be a challenge for the market. However, some factors, such as a rising production of vehicles, rise in vehicle sales and rise in global industrialization are expected to create strong opportunities for this market. Additionally, increasing usage of non-noble metals in the production of industrial exhaust systems is a key trend in the industry.Industrial Exhaust systems Market: SegmentationMarket segmentation of the industrial Exhaust systems market on the basis of type can be done as follows:General exhaust systemLocal exhaust systemMarket segmentation of the industrial exhaust systems market on the basis of the end use industry can be done as follows:Oil and Gas industryChemical industryMetal and Mining industryTextile industryAutomobile industryOther industriesIndustrial Exhaust systems Market: Regional OutlookIn terms of value, the Asia Pacific region has captured a comparatively large market share of the Industrial exhaust system market. It is followed by Europe and then North America. However, both the regions, i.e. North America and Europe are expected to grow at the same CAGR but with increasing rate of growth. The demand for industrial exhaust systems in some countries of the Asia Pacific region, such as China, India and South Korea is anticipated to grow due to the constant growth of the chemical and textile industries in the aforesaid region. Additionally, Europe can be considered a potential market for the industry. This can be attributed to the forthcoming emission standards targeting reduction of some harmful gases, such as carbon monoxide, from several industries. Moreover, Europe and North America project many promising opportunities for the market of Industrial Exhaust systems as these regions are the hub for chemical manufacturing. The demand for Industrial Exhaust systems is predicted to grow at a lucrative rate of growth over the forecasted period which can be attributed to the rise in demand from manufacturing and textile industries.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Industrial Exhaust systems Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants identified across the value chain of the Industrial Exhaust systems market are AirPro Fan & Blower Co., American Warming & Ventilating, American Coolair Corporation, TROX GmbH, Greenheck Fan Corporation, Mestek, Inc., LOREN COOK COMPANY, PennBarry, Twin City Fan Companies, Ltd., S&P USA Ventilation Systems, LLC, Moffitt Corporation, Scott Systems, AXCES, etc.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Aircraft Interior Lighting Market Intelligence with Competitive Landscape 2017-2027

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A travellers perception of an airline carrier in the present scenario is increasingly becoming that of a luxurious and cost sensitive means of transport. Sure, aircraft can be considered as one of the fastest transportation systems operating currently, but they are also the safest way to get from one point to another. Manufacturers of commercial aircraft, as well as airline carriers operating them, constantly move towards improving the interiors of an aircraft aesthetically as well as functionally. Aircraft interior lighting is a part of such interior systems and provides necessary illumination within the aircraft cabin as well as aids in instilling a sense of luxury and comfort in the passengers. Major airline carriers, in an effort to improve their customer base and stay ahead of the competition, opt for various innovations in aircraft interior lighting, including but not limited to mood lighting, infinite lighting and flexible lighting. The aircraft interior lighting market is anticipated to improve in the upcoming years thanks to the growth witnessed in air travel as well as increase in the number of orders placed by airline carriers for new aircraft.Aircraft Interior Lighting Market: DynamicsAir travel has steadily improved over the years with more and more travellers taking to the skies for the purpose of conveyance. High disposable income and steady improvements witnessed in general working class population have made air travel highly affordable, which is one the prime reasons for the growth observed in the number of passengers on a yearly basis. The average growth rate of the number of passengers travelling through airliners hovers around 2% each year and may further increase in the future, which is prompting airline carriers to place new orders for aircraft in order to cater to the increasing influx, which in turn is also spurring growth of the aircraft interior lighting market.Request For Report Sample@Refurbishment of old aircrafts is a growing trend among airline carriers to maintain the interior of the aircraft in pristine condition, thereby avoiding loss of customers. It is a well-known fact that the average lifespan of an aircraft ranges from 20 to 25 years. Reputed airline carriers tend to purchase new aircraft to keep their fleet young and lease their old aircraft fleet to upcoming airline carrier companies. These companies typically refurbish the entire aircraft cabin with new parts and components, thereby aiding growth of the aircraft interior lighting market.Manufacture of an aircraft requires a huge amount of capital, specifically designed infrastructure, planning and raw material, among others. With an increase in the number of orders placed by airline carriers on aircraft manufacturers, the tendency of generating undelivered backlogs has also increased. The rate of aircraft manufacturing cannot keep up with growth in air travel and hence, this can be a restraint to the growth of the aircraft interior lighting market as manufacturers of such interior lighting systems depend on the dynamics of aircraft production.Aircraft Interior LightingMarket: SegmentationThe aircraft interior lightingmarket can be segmented as follows:By product type, the market can be segmented as:Low profile ambient lightsGeneral illumination lightsReading lightsFloor strips lightsEmergency and signage lightsOthers (Seat lights)By fit type, the market can be segmented as:Line FitRetro FitBy application, the market can be segmented as:Passenger seating areaCabin crew areaLavatoryCockpitBy aircraft type, the market can be segmented as:Narrow body aircraftWide body aircraftVery large body aircraftRegional aircraftAircraft Interior LightingMarket: Regional OutlookThe demand for aircraft interior lighting within different geographical locations differs based on the popularity of air travel and presence of local airline carriers. North America and Europe standout among all regions from the perspective of wide body aircraft, which have been ordered in large numbers by airline carriers currently based in these locations. Very large body aircraft are popular in the Middle East & Africa region, especially in GCC countries and hence, they are biding well for the growth of the aircraft interior lighting market in this particular region. The market in the Asia Pacific region is also estimated to grow substantially in the upcoming years, owing to high demand.Visit For TOC@Aircraft Interior Lighting Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the major players in the global aircraft interior lighting market, identified within the value chain include:Rockwell Collins, Inc.Zodiac Aerospace ADRHoneywell International Inc.Cobham plcPrecise Flight, Inc.STG Aerospace Ltd.Astronics CorporationDiehl Stiftung & Co. KGUTC Aerospace SystemsBigorre Aerospace CorporationBeadlight Ltd.Luminator Technology GroupBruce AerospaceSCHOTT GroupKoito Manufacturing Co., Ltd.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.Contact Us:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Vacuum Insulation Panels Market Expansion Projected to Gain an Uptick During 2017  2027

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Vacuum insulated panels (VIP) are a type of thermal insulation equipment which comprise a gas tight enclosure which surrounds a rigid core from which air is evacuated to create near vacuum. These vacuum insulated panels find applications in building constructions as they deliver superior thermal insulation performance as opposed to conventional thermal insulation materials.Vacuum insulated panels have been finding increasing applications in construction and refrigeration. Besides, stringent regulations imposed by various government agencies & regulatory bodies with regards to energy conservation and carbon emissions are anticipated to drive the growth of this market during the forecast period. Vacuum insulated panels do not only contribute to energy conservation but also help in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. International agencies, such as the International Energy Agency, have been promoting & recommending the use of vacuum insulated panels to reduce carbon emissions. Hence, the vacuum insulated panels market, driven by these factors, is expected to grow at a significant pace during the next few years.A sample of this report is available upon request @Considering these important aspects of vacuum insulation panels, the study of the vacuum insulation panels market becomes an important read.Market SegmentationOn the basis of material type, the vacuum insulation panels market is segmented as follows:Silica vacuum insulation panelsFiberglass vacuum insulation panelsOther vacuum insulation panels materialsOn the basis of design type, the vacuum insulation panels market is segmented as follows:Flat vacuum insulation panelsSpecial shaped vacuum insulation panelsOn the basis of raw material type, the vacuum insulation panels market is segmented as follows:Fiber glass based vacuum insulation panelsSilica based vacuum insulation panelsMetal based vacuum insulation panelsPlastic based vacuum insulation panelsOther raw material based vacuum insulation panelsOn the basis of application, the vacuum insulation panels market is segmented as follows:Building constructionRefrigeration & cooling appliancesTransportOthersKey Trends and DriversGiven their long life, silica-basedvacuum insulated panels have witnessed increased demand from the building construction industry in recent times, thereby fueling market growth substantially. Besides, fiberglass based vacuum insulated panels have also been experiencing increasing demand from the refrigeration industry. Furthermore, rapid urbanization, on a worldwide level, is contributing to market growth as well.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @On a global level, with the rapidly rising quantities of frozen food being transported across vast distances, requiring thermal insulation for a large time period, there has been increasing demand for vacuum insulated panels from the cold storage and frozen transportation industry. That apart, refrigerated transport of pharmaceutical products & medicines across the globe has also been contributing to the rapid growth of the vacuum insulated panels market in recent times. Liberal import-export policies by governments across different global regions are expected to drive market growth even further in near future. Efforts are being made to develop new production processes for the manufacturing of vacuum insulated panels that would successfully minimize manual involvement through the use of increased automation. This will further reduce prices of vacuum insulated panels in near future, thereby fueling their demand at a global level.However, vacuum insulated panels involve expensive manufacturing costs and hence, are expensive. They also have a short shelf life due to their aging characteristics. Also, for certain applications, vacuum insulated panels must be custom built and designed in specific sizes, which essentially leads to higher costs for end users, limiting sales volumes. Besides, in transport applications, the relatively higher weight of vacuum insulated panels renders them unfavorable vis-a-vis other thermal insulation materials. Also, vacuum insulated panels are fragile and hence, have some limitations in terms of applications. These factors are expected to dampen the growth rate of the vacuum insulated panels market during the forecast period.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
IoT in Europe Market 2017- Revenue, Price and Gross Margin Research Report 2017

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SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled IoT in Europe: Market opportunities and main applications"IoT in Europe: Market opportunities and main applications", a new Telecom Insider Report by offers a thorough study of the size of the IoT market and different strategies of telecom operators in the European region. The report analyses the strategies pertaining to IoT verticals.The high penetration of smartphones has favored the mass usage of IoT-related applications and has appeared as an essential IoT device for the IoT ecosystem. The storage capacity provided by cloud computing and the analytics stemming from big data have also foster growth of IoT. Europe will boast the most IoT connections worldwide in 2017, followed by the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Africa and Middle East, and will remain leader through 2020. expects total IoT connections to reach 3.1 million in 2020 supported by businesses needs to optimize resources, enhance customer experience and generate new revenue streams. Cellular M2M connections are gaining traction among total SIM cards in Europe, representing 7% of the market in 2017. In terms of IoT applications in Europe, forecasts the share of smart metering in total connections to decline to 28% in 2020, from 52% in 2017, as industrial and finance applications boom. European telcos have invested different IoT applications with telematics, fleet management, smart cities and smart home being four specific example illustrated in this report.The report consists of the following sections - Introduction: This section briefly examines the definition of IoT and M2M and offers a snapshot of the different IoT standards.- Key Drivers: This section highlights the three main drivers behind the proliferation of IoT connections, namely the high take-up of smartphones, cloud computing and bidg data analytics (BDA).- Market sizing: This section provides an estimate and forecast through 2020 of total IoT connections worldwide and in Europe. It also take a dive into the size of IoT in Europe by connectivity, vertical and applications- Case studies: We continue with a review of the IoT applications that leading telecom companies - Vodafone Germany, Orange France, Telefonica Spain and O2 UK - have been following to increase presence in the IoT environment.- Key findings and recommendations: We conclude the report with a summary of key findings and a set of recommendations for telecom operators and network vendors to grasp full opportunities on the IoT market.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Companies mentionedVodafoneOrangeTelefonicaO2Scope- IoT connections have been growing at a fast pace triggered by smartphone growth, cloud computing and big data analytics. Europe makes up over a third of all IoT connections compared to other regions- Total IoT connections to increase 1.4x between 2017 and 2020 to 4.8bn connections, at a CAGR of 34%.- Cellular M2M, though growing in number, to decrease in total IoT connections through 2020 and the market share of telcos deploying other kinds of connectivity (e.g., fixed, satellite, LoRa, Sigfox, NB-IoT, etc.) will increase- European operators have majorly invested in fleet management and telematics with smart homes gaining momentum and Spain paving the way for smart cities.Key points to buy- The insider report examines the IoT strategies of European telecom operators to generate new revenue streams. The report also provides analysis of main IoT applications European telcos have invested in.- The insights in the report will help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies through analysis of the strategies adopted by telcos, competitive environment and best practices.- The case studies focus on current strategies pertaining to IoT technology used and application targeted for four telcos in the region. The analysis can be beneficial to local competitors or prospective market entrants.- By understanding of the opportunities stemming from IoT, telcos can strengthen their market positioning and competitiveness.- With a total of 24 Exhibits, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.Table of ContentsTable of contents 3List of exhibits 4Executive Summary 5Introduction: Definitions and standards 6Defining the IoT and M2MIoT standardsMain challengesSection 1: Main opportunities and challenges 10Smartphones growthCloud computingBig data analyticsSection 2: Market sizing 14IoT Connections - International BenchmarkIoT by connectivity - EuropeM2M in total SIM cards - EuropeIoT by applications - EuropeIoT by vertical - EuropeSection 3: Case Studies 20Vodafone Germany - Telematics..CONTINUEDFor accessing accurate and deep understanding and to gain latest insights and key developments in the area of your interest, we also have a list of conferences in which you will be interested in, for more information, cordially checkFor updating knowledge or for thoroughly understanding various terminologies, we also have vast list of seminars for your reference, for more information cordially checkWise Guy Reports 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
Growth Opportunities in Oral Care Chemicals Market: New Research Report 2017-2027

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In recent few years, the concern about personal care has increased very mush recently, personal care industry include hair care, skin care, oral care, cosmetic, etc. among all these segments oral care products are finding prominent use in day to day life of customers. Oral care is a practice of cleaning ones mouth and free from dental diseases such as tooth decay (cavities, dental caries) and gum diseases. Oral hygiene being a critical factor for overall health, the concern regarding oral health has grown among the people in recently and hence led to increase in demand of oral care products. With the development of technology and increasing awareness about dental hygiene and health have led to introduction of new attractive products in the market. Furthermore, paradigm shift from traditional product usage towards modern usage is being observed. Oral care chemicals are used in several oral care products such as toothpaste, mouthwash, whitening and rinses. Toothpaste segment is expected to be dominating segment driving the oral care chemicals market.Global Oral Care Chemicals Market: Market DynamicsIncrease in awareness amidst people about dental hygiene and dental treatment is expected to be key driver for the growth of oral care chemicals market. Growing incidence of dental caries and unhealthy food habits among people, particularly among children make them prone to dental caries, hence accelerating the demand of oral care products and ultimately driving the oral care chemicals market. Moreover, macroeconomic factors such as increasing population, rise in per capita income and increasing disposable income is expected to drive the investment for oral care chemicals. Various oral awareness programs organized by key players is expected to have positively impact on the growth of oral care chemicals market. For example, in December 2015, Colgate Palmolive Company successfully completed its annual dental awareness program Oral Health Month 2015 (OHM) in association with Indian Dental Association (IDA). Moreover, increasing geriatric population around the world is also expected to benefit the oral care chemicals market.Request For Report Sample@Increasing dental problems and oral diseases are driving development of new products and enforcing key players on investing for research and development activities. Moreover, demand for environment friendly products and natural or organic based products with biocompatibility is expected to increase with increasing health awareness.However, stringent regulations governing the chemical industry is expected to be a key restraining factor for the growth of oral care chemicals market. Stringent regulations may hinder the development or launch of new products. Moreover, modification of regulations or implementation of new regulations is expected to have negative impact on the growth of oral care chemicals market.Global Oral Care Chemicals Market: Market SegmentationOral care chemicals market segmentation on the basis of end use application:ToothpasteGelPolishPastePowderMouth wash /rinseMedicatedNon-medicatedOthersOral care chemicals market segmentation on the basis of chemical categories:ActivesAdditivesPreservativesRheology/viscosity modifiersSurfactantsOthersGlobal Oral Care Chemicals Market: Regional OutlookNorth America is expected to have steady growth rate of oral care chemicals market owing to high penetration and increasing demand for oral care products in the market. Stringent regulation, high concern of oral hygiene and huge geriatric population is expected to drive the oral care chemicals market in Europe. Asia pacific is expected to have significant growth rate for oral care chemicals market owing to increasing awareness about health care among people. Growing middle-class population along increasing per capita and increasing disposable income of people in developing economics such as India and China is expected to boost the market.Visit For TOC@Global Oral Care Chemicals Market: Key PlayersExamples of some of the key players identified in the global oral care chamicals market are as follows:BASF SEFabriChem, Inc.Akzo Nobel N.V.ClariantAshland, Inc.Kao Chemicals Europe. S.L.Dow Chemical CompanyCroda International PlcSpectrum Chemical Manufacturing Corp.Solvay S.AABOUT 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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Paper Coating Binders Market Report Offers Intelligence and Forecast till (2017-2027)

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Paper coating binder is an important ingredient in paper coatings, it is mainly used to impart adhesion and for binding of pigment particles to themselves and to the coating layer of the paper. It is also used for gloss and flexibility to the paper coatings. Paper coating binders prevent the paper from yellowing due to exposure to heat and light. Paper coating binders are fine sized spherical particles and it improves the printing characteristics. Paper coating binders are generally water-soluble polymers influences the color viscosity, size and water retention capability of paper. Common paper coating binders are styrene-acrylate copolymer or styrene maleic anhydride copolymer. Increasing demand of coated paper for various application such as printing, packaging, business communication, labels, and other applications is expected to fuel growth of global paper coating binders market. Coated paper manufacturers are open for diversifying their row materials in order to produce good quality and cost effective substrates. Research efforts are made directed towards the development of new binders with superior binding strength and contributing differentiating characteristics to the coated paper, and this has led to development of various modern binders such as, vinyl acetates and copolymers (e.g., PVAc, 2 VAE).Global Paper Coating Binders Market: Market DynamicsThe demand of paper coating binder is primarily driven by increasing demand of paper for industrial packaging in the global market. With the growth of paper industry the paper coating binders market is expected to show bright prospect for the growth. Owing to increasing demand for good quality printing paper the demand of paper coating binders is expected to rise. They improves printability, stiffness, whiteness and resistance to yellowing. Modern paper coating binders provide total paler binder optimization, and improves runnability by delivering low high-shear viscosity and improving water retention compared to traditional paper coating binders.Request For Report Sample@With the technological advancements papermakers are focusing on creating new and innovative paper coating binders for improving the paper quality. Moreover, the ongoing demand of paper coating binders in connection with increasing production speed and diverse applications has forced the development of new paper coating binder types, to meet the changing requirements. The decorative & construction industry as well as printing and packaging industry are expected to be the key drivers for innovations in paper coating binders market. For instance, in April 2017, BASF SE launched -in-1 Basonal Food Contact Board (FCB), low odor, low VOC paper coating binder, a unique solution for wide range of food packaging applications. BASF, launched this product to meet various stringent food safety regulations standards, including USA, Germany and China.Global Paper Coating Binders Market: Market SegmentationThe global paper coating binders market on the basis of material type can be segmented as:Bio-based paper binderPetroleum-based paper binderThe global paper coating binders market on the basis of chemical can be segmented as:styrene-butadiene bindersStyrene-acrylate bindersAcetate coating bindersAcrylic bindersOthersGlobal Paper Coating Binders Market: Regional OutlookAsia pacific is expected to dominate the paper coating binders market owing to substantial demand of coated paper, especially from emerging economic countries, China and India. High demand of coated paper for printing and packaging applications are expected to drive the paper coating binders market in the Asia Pacific region. North America is expected to have steady growth of paper coating binders market over the forecast period. Paper coating binders comprising vinyl acetate are extensively used in North America paper coating binders market. Europe is expected to have high demand of paper coating binders with emphasis on development of new binders owing stringent regulations with emphasis on environmental impact and profit improvement.Visit For TOC@Global Paper Coating Binders Market: Key PlayersExamples of some of the key players identified in the global paper coating binders market are as follows:BASF SEThe Dow Chemical CompanyTrinseo S.AThermax LimitedOrient Packagings Ltd.Raj Chemicals Ltd.Celanese CorporationHansol ChemicalEcoSynthetix Inc.Wires And Fabriks (S.A.) Ltd.Mayfair Biotech Pvt. Ltd.BercenOMNOVA Solutions Inc.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Advanced Driver Assistance System Market Anticipated to Increase at a CAGR of 15.9% from 2017 to 2025.

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MarketResearchReports.biz announces the availability of a report on the evolving market of "Advanced Driver Assistance System Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends And Forecast 2017 - 2025".Global Advanced Driver Assistance System Market: SnapshotAdvanced driver assistance system 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. Data for 2015 has been included as historical information. The ADAS report covers all the major types and technologies playing significant role in the advanced driver assistance system markets growth over the forecast period. It also included various drivers, restraints, and opportunities expected which would affect markets growth during the mentioned period. The study provides an entire perspective on the markets growth in terms of revenue in US$ Bn, across different geographical regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Middle East & Africa, Europe, and Latin America.The market overview section of the report demonstrates the market dynamics such as the drivers, restraints, and opportunities that influence the current nature and future status of this market, key indicators and trends. 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 ADAS market. Moreover, the report provides an overview of various strategies adopted by the key players present in the 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.View Report @Global Advanced Driver Assistance System Market: SegmentationThe report segments the market on the basis of type, technology and geography. By type, advanced driver assistance system is categorized by adaptive cruise control, adaptive head lamp, automatic/intelligent emergency braking, blind spot detection system, cross traffic alert, drowsiness monitor system, lane departure warning system, night vision, park assist, surround view camera system, time pressure monitoring system and others. Based on technology, advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) is divided into ultrasonic sensors, image sensors, radar sensors, laser sensors and infrared sensors. Geographically, the report classifies the global advanced driver assistance system market into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East & Africa (MEA), and Latin America. Furthermore, region wise prominent countries covered in the report include the following - U.S, Canada, U.K., Germany, France, China, India, Japan, GCC countries, South Africa and Brazil.The report also includes key industrial developments in the advanced driver assistance system market. Porters Five Forces analysis which identifies bargaining power of supplier, bargaining power of buyer, threat from new entrant, threat from substitute and threat from competition in ADAS market is also included in the report. Value Chain analysis which identifies key stake holders in the ADAS market is also covered in the report. Furthermore, key market indicators that are indirectly driving the advanced driver assistance system market are also included in the report.Segment trends and regional trends have also been added in ADAS market report. The report also covers segment wise comparison matrix, market attractiveness analysis and market share analysis of key players for all regions covered in the scope of study.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @Global Advanced Driver Assistance System Market: Competitive LandscapeAISIN SEIKI Co.,Ltd, Autoliv Inc, Audi AG, BMW AG, Continental AG, Delphi Automotive PLC, Denso Corporation, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Company, Honda Motor Company, Hyundai Motor Company, Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, Maruti Suzuki India Limited, MOBILEYE, Panasonic Corporation, Robert Bosch GmbH, TATA ELXSI are some of the major players operating within the advanced driver assistance 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.Market SegmentationAdvanced driver assistance system Market, by TypeAdaptive Cruise ControlAdaptive Head LampAutomatic/Intelligent Emergency brakingBlind Spot Detection SystemCross Traffic AlertDrowsiness Monitor SystemLane Departure Warning SystemNight VisionPark AssistSurround View Camera SystemTire Pressure Monitoring SystemOthersAdvanced driver assistance system Market, by TechnologyUltrasonic SensorsImage SensorsRadar SensorsLaser SensorsInfrared SensorsAdvanced driver assistance system Market, by GeographyNorth AmericaThe U.S.CanadaRest of North AmericaEuropeU.K.GermanyFranceRest of EuropeAsia Pacific (APAC)IndiaChinaJapanRest of APACMiddle East and Africa (MEA)GCCSouth AfricaRest of MEALatin AmericaBrazilRest of Latin AmericaSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Content1. Preface1.1. Market Definition and Scope1.2. Market Segmentation1.3. Key Research Objectives1.4. Research Highlights2. Assumptions and Research Methodology3. Executive Summary : Global Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) Market3.1. Market Opportunity Map4. Market Overview4.1. Introduction4.2. Key Industry Developments4.3. Processor Platform for ADAS Implementation4.4. Key Market Indicators4.5. Market Dynamics4.5.1. Drivers4.5.2. Restraints4.5.3. Opportunities4.6. Key Micro and Macro Trends4.7. Global ADAS Market Analysis and Forecast, 2015 - 20254.7.1. Market Revenue Projections (US$ Mn)4.8. Porters Five Forces Analysis4.9. Global ADAS Value Chain Analysis4.10. Global Regulatory Framework4.11. Ecosystem Analysis Roadmap of Key Participants4.12. Technology Overview and Future Developments4.13. Disruptive Technologies: Current Scenario4.14. Disruptive Technologies: Current Scenario and Future Adoption4.15. Market Outlook5. Global ADAS Market Analysis and Forecast, By Type5.1. Overview & Definition5.2. Key Findings5.3. Global ADAS Market Size (US$ Mn) Forecast, By Type, 2015 - 20255.3.1. Adaptive Cruise Control5.3.2. Adaptive Head Lamp5.3.3. Intelligent Emergency Braking5.3.4. Blind Spot Detection System5.3.5. Cross Traffic Alert5.3.6. Drowsiness Monitor System5.3.7. Lane Departure Warning System5.3.8. Night Vision5.3.9. Park Assist5.3.10. Surround View Camera SYSTEM5.3.11. Tire Pressure Monitor SYTSEM5.3.12. Others5.4. Type Comparison Matrix5.5. Market Attractiveness By Type6. Global ADAS Market Analysis and Forecast, By Technology6.1. Overview & Definitions6.2. Key Findings6.3. Global ADAS Market Size (US$ Mn) Forecast, By Technology, 2015 - 20256.3.1. Ultrasonic Sensors6.3.2. Image Sensors6.3.3. Radar Sensors6.3.4. Laser Sensors6.3.5. Infrared Sensors6.4. Technology Comparison Matrix6.5. Market Attractiveness By TechnologyAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Mr. NachiketaState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Genset Market  Industry Challenges, Key Vendors, Drivers, Trends and Forecast to 2022

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Prominent PlayersMTU Onsite Energy (Germany), Caterpillar Inc. (U.S.), Himoinsa S.L. (Spain), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (France), APR Energy (USA), Siemens Ltd. (Germany), General Electric Company (USA), Aggreko plc (U.K), Toshiba Corporation (Japan), Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (South Korea), Hyosung Corporation (South Korea), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (India), Perkins Engines Company Limited (U.K)., Cummins Inc.(U.S.), Kohler Co.(U.S), Kirloskar Group (India), Briggs & Stratton (U.S), Wartsila (Finland), AKSA Power Generation (Turkey) and Yanmar Co., Ltd. (Japan). are some of the prominent players profiled in MRFR Analysis and are at the forefront of competition in the Global Genset Market.Genset Global Market  OverviewThe Global Genset Market is a very dynamic market and is expected to witness high growth over the forecast period. The increased application of generator sets across various sectors is majorly influenced by the growing demand for uninterrupted & reliable power supply. Also, the increasing number of power outages and power failure in the developing and underdeveloped countries across the world is creating a huge demand for power backup devices, which is catered through generator sets. As per the study conducted by Market Research Future, the global market for generator sets is likely to grow at the CAGR of around 5.5%.Electricity has become a vital prerequisite for augmenting economic activity and improving quality of life. The growing demand for uninterrupted and reliable power supply has become a necessity in todays world. So as to support this growing need, a reliable source of power generation is required. Generator sets provide a continuous, prime and standby source of power generation at industrial, commercial and residential level. In the last decade, several technological advancements have helped upgrading generator sets which have improved their fuel efficiency, subsequently their diesel engine technology. Diesel engines have emerged as preferred choice among enterprises owing power backup equipment. The easy availability of diesel generators and their affordable price have fuelled their demand in turn positively impacting the global generator market. Also numerous modifications are made in fuel systems, besides incorporating control and digital monitoring system. These changes have upgraded diesel generators. They now offer higher performance efficiency, which is a key factor boosting the utilization of generator sets globally. However, due to growing pressure on maintaining the ecological balance through reduction of carbon footprint, the gas type generators sales is expected to showcase phenomenal growth during the upcoming decade. The rising attention towards the renewable energy power generation is substantially gaining huge investment across the world. Renewable energy systems provide sustainable and low cost power generation, but with a fluctuating power output. So, a hybrid solution can be installed with the renewable energy system, to obtain a continuous power generation from renewable energy systems. Hybrid renewable energy systems mostly utilise diesel generators as power generating unit. These are brought into operations when there is huge fluctuation in power generation through renewable systems. The economic benefit of hybrid renewable energy systems, is higher than that of conventional power plants as they utilizes diesel generators, which supplies excess load and recharges the battery during overcasts. Recently, in May 2017, Aggreko signed a 10 year deal to provide solar-diesel hybrid power to Nevsun in Eritrea. Aggreko, Glasgow-based company will supply 22 MW of diesel and 7.5 MW of solar-generated power for the Nevsuns copper and zinc operations. Aggrekos solar-diesel hybrid power package combines cost-effectiveness and green renewable energy with the reliability of diesel-generated power to provide uninterrupted power round the clock. The genset market is segmented based on end-user into residential, commercial, and industrial segments. The industrial end-user segment is expected to grow at the highest rate. The key driving factor will be favourable government policies for the growth of industries in various countries such as Mexico, China, Brazil, and India. The U.S. has come up with new reforms for emission norms for diesel and gas generators which will affect the growth of the market. Generators with new emission norms will reduce the emission of harmful gases such as CO2, NO2, and others in the environment. This new policy reform is expected to drive the sale of generators in the U.S. market.Get Sample of Report @Geographically, the global genset market has been divided into Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World. Among these regions, Asia Pacific is the largest market by size and is estimated to grow at the highest rate due to high demand for power products in China. Chinas high economic growth rate has created increased demand for power generation equipment, such as diesel and gas generators, in the country. Along with this, new policy reforms in India that support the growth of industries have made the country a very lucrative market for OEM manufacturers. This is also likely to create a huge demand for generators in the region.Industry NewsIn May, 2017  Caterpillar introduced its all new CAT RP12000 E portable generators in U.S. and Canada. The new generator fills out the top of the series, delivering 12kW of running power and new features to meet the specific needs of the pro-sumer  emergency home back-up, DIY enthusiasts and contractors.In July, 2017  HIMOINSA opens a new factory for Argentina and southern cone, located in Located in Santa Fe and occupying some 12,000 square metres, the new centre has the capacity to produce 3,000 generator sets of between 8kVA and 1745kVA each year.In January, 2017  APR Energy, a global leader in fast-track power solutions, and GE (NYSE: GE) announced that they have renewed their strategic alliance to provide mobile turbine technology into the fast-track power rental market.In October, 2017  Cummins, Inc. (NYSE: CMI) announced the new C125N6 and C150N6 models in the QSL8.9G Series. The Cummins commercial generator set is a fully integrated power generation system providing optimum performance, reliability, and versatility for stationary standby power applications.Table of Content1. Report Prologue2. Introduction1. Definition2. Scope Of The Study1. Research Objective2. Assumptions3. Limitations3. Market Structure4. Market Segmentation3. Research Methodology1. Research Process2. Primary Research3. Secondary Research4. Market Size Estimation5. Forecast Model4. Market Dynamics1. Drivers & Oppurtunities2. Challenges & Restraints3. Value Chain Analysis4. Porters Five Forces Analysis5. Genset market, By Fuel TypeContinue..Get Complete Report @List Of TablesTable 1 Global Genset Market SnapshotTable 2 Drivers For The MarketTable 3 Restraints For The MarketTable 4 Global Genset Market, By Fuel TypeTable 5 Deisel, By RegionTable 6 Gas Market, By RegionTable 7 Global Genset Market, By ApplicationTable 8 Residential Market, By RegionTable 9 Commercial Market, By RegionTABLE 10 Industrial Market, By RegionList Of FiguresFigure 1 Research MethodologyFigure 2 Impact Analysis: Drivers And RestraintsFigure 3 Global Genset Market, By Fuel TypeFigure 4 Global Genset Market, By ApplicationFigure 5 Global Genset Market, By RegionFigure 6 North America Genset Market, By CountryFigure 7 Europe Genset Market, By CountryFigure 8 Asia-Pacific Genset Market, By CountryFigure 9 Rest Of The World Genset Market, By CountryContinueAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Payments in Norway Market 2017By Identifying the Key Market Segments Poised for Strong Growth in Future

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SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled Payments in Norway 2017: What Consumers Want"Payments in Norway 2017: What Consumers Want", report examines the consumer payments market in Norway, considering payment cards, online payments, P2P payments, and newer payment technologies such as mobile wallets and contactless. The report also examines the main regulatory players overseeing the market.The card reigns supreme in Norway, with few individuals using cash on a daily basis and most possessing a minimum of two payment cards. Norways strong card and payment industry is the result of a robust economy, an efficient domestic debit card scheme (BankAxept), and increasing consumer appetite for credit. The average number of monthly card transactions and the average annual spend per card is higher in Norway than in more developed markets such as the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Australia. Electronic payments have gained ground during the last 10 years, as the government has invested substantially in building long-term infrastructure for cashless transactions. Affordable and widely available financial products, a consumer preference for e-payments, a competitive marketplace, and a transparent business environment will aid the move towards a cashless society.The report includes - Analyzes consumer attitudes to financial services by lifestage.- Analyzes the major payment card types in terms of both card holding and usage.- Identifies the major competitors in card issuing and how their position in the market has changed over the last five years.- Considers consumer attitudes towards P2P tools, mobile payment tools, and contactless cards, and how companies in Norway are deploying these tools to meet customer needs.- Explores the online payment market in Norway by merchant type and payment tool, as well as providing a five-year forecast for the development of the market.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Scope- All domestic debit card-based POS transactions and ATM withdrawals are carried out by BankAxept, whereas all international transactions and online purchases are carried out by international schemes.- Contactless technology in Norway is in its developmental stage, with only a few banks offering contactless cards.- Norwegian consumers are frequent online shoppers, and according to the E-commerce in the Nordics report published by PostNord in 2016 around 85% of consumers purchase goods online at least once a year.Key points to buy- Understand the key facts and figures in the consumer payments market in Norway.- Learn what trends drive consumer behavior at the macro level and plan your strategy accordingly.- Find out what products the major competitors are launching in the market.- Discover consumer sentiments towards various payment tools in the Norwegian market and use this knowledge to inform product design.Table of ContentsMarket OverviewMegatrendsCard-based PaymentsE-commerce PaymentsAlternative PaymentsPayments Infrastructure & RegulationAppendix..CONTINUEDFor accessing accurate and deep understanding and to gain latest insights and key developments in the area of your interest, we also have a list of conferences in which you will be interested in, for more information, cordially checkFor updating knowledge or for thoroughly understanding various terminologies, we also have vast list of seminars for your reference, for more information cordially checkWise Guy Reports 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
Data Broker Market Will Surge at 11.5% CAGR between 2017 and 2026: North America Will Remain at the Forefront

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MarketResearchReports.biz announces the availability of a report on the evolving market of Data Broker Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017  2026Transparency Market Research (TMR) has recently compiled an objectified report on the global market for data broker. The report offers a thorough analysis on the data broker market across geographies. Analysts evaluated various market elements to arrive at concrete points for determining the overall market value. This also enabled the group of analysts working on the report make credible and pertinent estimations for the global data broker market. The report provides an all-inclusive perspective of the global market for data broker that include historical and future projections. The forecast data provided in the report is highly credible and aimed a fulfilling the objectives of the buyer.View Report @Report SynopsisThe report offers a holistic overview of the global data broker market by evaluating its growth in terms of value (in US$ Mn) globally. The market projections offered in the report have analyzed by taking certain elements into consideration, including political, economic, social, legal and technological that influence the market. The report includes an executive summary that constitutes a brief information catalog. In this report, the reader will come across information on major industry developments and key market indicators for the global data broker market. In addition, the report contains market attractiveness index based on market share and CAGR for each segment. The report also offers porters five forces analysis that verifies the most attractive market segments. TMRs report on the global market for data broker also offers a cross country and cross segments analysis. The global data broker market has been segmented on the basis of data category, data type, pricing model, end use sector and regions.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @Global Data Broker Market: Competitive OutlookThe reader will also gain access to vital information regarding leading market participants, their growth strategies and recent developments in the competitive landscape section of the report. This section also offers information on market presence of major players. In competitive landscape, analysis on grow potential, market share, capabilities, product offerings and future outlook is also provided.Research MethodologyFor compiling the report, analysts have used a new and credible research methodology. This make the revenue estimations made on the global data broker market highly reliable. Also, an exhaustive secondary research has been carried out to support that evaluations of market size and verification of prominent market players. The figures offered in the report have undergone multiple levels of revision and reassertions from valuable inputs from company executive and domain experts in the form of primary interviews. The data collected through secondary and primary research is authenticated prudently and verified using particular tools. Hence, the research methodology provisioned application of a systematic matrix for analyzing the market and providing forecast.Send An Enquiry Request @Table of ContentChapter 1 Global Economic Outlook1.1 Global IT Sector OutlookChapter 2 Global Data Broker Market - Executive SummaryChapter 3 Global Data Broker Market Overview3.1 Introduction3.1.1 Global Data Broker Market Taxonomy3.1.2 Global Data Broker Market Definition3.2 Global Data Broker Market Size (US$ Mn) and Forecast, 2012-20263.2.1 Global Data Broker Market Y-o-Y Growth3.3 Global Data Broker Market Dynamics3.4 Data Broker Offerings Industry wise Mapping3.5 Key Data Brokers Mapping With Data Type Offerings3.6 Value Chain Analysis3.7 Types of Services Offered by Data Brokers3.8 PESTLE Analysis3.9 Porter Five Forces Analysis3.10 Region wise PLC Mapping3.11 Key Participants Market Presence (Intensity Map) By RegionChapter 4 Global Data Broker Market Analysis and Forecast, 2012-20264.1 Global Data Broker Market Size and Forecast By Data Category, 2012-20264.1.1 Consumer Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.1.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.1.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.1.1.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.1.2 Credit Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.2.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.2.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.1.2.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.1.3 Government Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.3.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.3.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.1.3.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.1.4 Technical Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.4.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.4.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.1.4.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.1.5 Real Estate Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.5.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.5.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.1.5.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.1.6 Education & Training Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.6.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.6.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.1.6.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.1.7 Product & Services Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.7.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.7.2 arket Share Comparison, By Region4.1.7.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.1.8 Risk Management Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.8.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.8.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.1.8.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.1.9 Other Data Types Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.9.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.9.2 Market Share Comparison, By RegionAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Mr. NachiketaState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Retailing in Turkey Market 2017- Revenue, Price and Gross Margin Research Report 2017

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SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled Service Station Retailing in Turkey"Service Station Retailing in Turkey 2017", a Sector Report by provides an executive-level overview of the Turkish service station market today, with values and volumes up to 2017. It delivers quantitative and qualitative insight into the fuel market, based on in depth interviews with major fuel operators across Europe and proprietary data from service station retail databases. It provides: National Fuel Volumes and Values. Breakdown of the top five fuel retailers shop, car wash, company owned, motorway and unmanned sites. Company Fuel Volumes, Values and Market Shares. Major competitor analysis by country.Total fuel consumption in Turkey increased by 15.6% in 2016 compared to the previous year. Petrol Ofisi has the largest service station network, at 1,709 sites, amounting to 13.2% of the national network. The top five fuel retailers in Turkey accounted for 71.5% of the number of service station shops in the country. The total number of service stations with a car wash in Turkey rose by 7.3% to 5,578 sites as retailers started to invest in these facilities.GET SAMPLE REPORT @competitor-data-andScope- Total fuel consumption in Turkey increased by 15.6% in 2016 compared to the previous year.- Petrol Ofisi has the largest service station network, at 1,709 sites, amounting to 13.2% of the national network.- The top five fuel retailers in Turkey accounted for 71.5% of the number of service station shops in the country.- The total number of service stations with a car wash in Turkey rose by 7.3% to 5,578 sites as retailers started to invest in these facilities.Key points to buy- Identify who are the top five players in Turkey and how many fuel outlets, motorway & unmanned sites, shops & car wash they have.- Plan effect market strategies by uncovering market share and average fuel throughput per site of the top five players in the market.- Understand how the service station network evolving and which players are opening new outlets as well as increasing forecourt shops and car washes.- Identify what strategies the key players have across their fuel and non- fuel offerings in terms of products sold, branding, promotions, partnerships and suppliers used.Table of ContentsService Station Competitor OverviewService Station Market OverviewCompetitor ranking in 2015 compared to 2016Market Size - Petrol OfisiMarket Size - OpetMarket Size - Shell (Shell & Turcas Petrol)Market Size - BPMarket Size - TPPDService Station Shop NetworkService Station Shops - Petrol Ofisi..CONTINUEDWise 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 Bio CMO Market Size, Share : industry Trends & Forecasts (2018-2022)

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"The Report Global Bio CMO Market: Size, Trends & Forecasts (2018-2022) provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.bizScope of the ReportThe report entitled Global Bio CMO Market: Size, Trends & Forecasts (2018-2022), provides analysis of the global bio CMO market, with detailed analysis of market size and growth, penetration, market share and economic impact of the industry. The report also provides the analysis of the global biologics market by value, by top selling products, etc.Growth of the overall global bio CMO market has been forecasted for the years 2017-2022, taking into consideration the previous growth pattern, the growth drivers and the current and future trends.View Report @Lonza Group, Boehringer Ingelheim, Samsung Biologics and Wuxi Biologics are key companies in the global bio CMO market. The company profiling of these companies has been done in the report, which includes business overview, financial overview and respective business strategies of the companies.Company CoverageLonza GroupBoehringer IngelheimSamsung BiologicsWuxi BiologicsGet Sample Copy Of This Report @Executive SummaryPharmaceutical industry comprise of discovering, developing, producing and marketing of drugs for medical use. Worlds largest pharmaceutical firms are located in the North America, Europe and Japan. On the basis of technological platform, pharmaceutical drugs can be divided into small molecule or conventional drugs and large molecule or biologic drugs.Biologics are made through biological processes and are generally injected. Biologics comprises of vaccines, blood or blood components, somatic cells, gene therapy, etc. Biologics are categorized into first-or second generation, depending on development period and cell line. Biosimilars are the biological that are similar, but not identical to the original product.CMO or Contract Manufacturing Organization is a third party, which the pharmaceutical firms approach for the manufacturing of components of its product or whole of its product. Bio CMOs are typically used to provide secondary manufacturing coverage for the branded pharmaceutical industry. On the basis of production technology, bio CMOs can be divided into mammalian cell system and microbial system.The global bio CMO market is expected to increase at a significant growth rate during the forecasted period (2017-2022). The global bio CMO market is supported by various growth drivers, such as increase in pharmaceutical industry, growth in use of biosimilars, potential biologics blockbusters, introduction of targeted therapins, grater outsourcing demand from global pharmas, etc. Yet, the market faces certain challenges, such as risk associated with CMOs, presence of in-house manufacturing facilities of big pharma companies, productivity issues with mammalian cell system, etc.Send An Enquiry Request @Table of Content1. Executive Summary2. Introduction2.1 Pharmaceutical Industry Overview2.1.1 Segments of Pharmaceutical Industry (Drugs)2.2 Biotechnology/Biologics Overview2.3 Biosimilar Overview2.4 Biologics/ Biosimilar Manufacturing2.5 Bio CMO Overview2.5.1 Comparison: In-House Vs CMO Production3. Global Market Analysis3.1 Global Biologics Market: An Analysis3.1.1 Global Biologics Market by Value3.1.2 Global Biologics Market by Top Selling Drugs3.1.3 Global Biologics Market by Product in Development3.1.4 Global Biologics Manufacturing Market by Value3.2 Global Bio CMO Market: An Analysis3.2.1 Global Bio CMO Market by Penetration Rate3.2.2 Global Bio CMO Market by Value3.2.3 Global Bio CMO Market by Capacity3.2.4 Global Bio CMO Market by Segments3.2.5 Global Bio CMO Market by Manufacturing Processes3.3 Global Bio CMO Market Segment Analysis3.3.1 Global Bio CMO Downstream Process Market by Value3.3.2 Global Bio CMO Upstream Process Market by Value3.3.3 Global Bio CMO Fill and Finish Process Market by Value4. Competitive Landscape4.1 Global Bio CMO Market by Players4.2 Global Bio CMO Players by Capacity5. Company Profiles5.1 Lonza5.1.1 Business Overview5.1.2 Financial Overview5.1.3 Business Strategy5.2 Boehringer Ingelheim5.2.1 Business Overview5.2.2 Financial Overview5.2.3 Business Strategy5.3 Samsung Electronics (Samsung Biologics)5.3.1 Business Overview5.3.2 Financial Overview5.3.3 Business Strategy5.4 Wuxi Biologics5.4.1 Business OverviewAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Mr. NachiketaState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Molecular Biomarkers For Cancer Detection Market Analysis and Forecast Study for 2016-2026

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Molecular biomarkers are molecules which can be used as indicators for normal biological processes, pathogenic processes and bodys response to pharmacological processes. Molecular biomarkers for cancer detection provide information of an individuals likeliness to develop cancer, provide information on the type of cancer, provide information on optimal drugs that can be used for the treatment of cancer, whether the chances of cancer returning after going into remission persist, etc. Cancer detection molecular biomarkers are usually made up of proteins, however, in recent years the information related to cancer biomarkers has increased rapidly along with developments in gene expression technology has led to the development of DNA-based molecular biomarkers which can provide more specific information and early detection of cancer. With the growing incidence cancer worldwide and rising economic burden caused by cancer is expected to increase demand for early detection of cancer.Molecular Biomarkers for Cancer Detection Market: Drivers and RestraintsRising incidence of cancer globally is expected to boost the molecular biomarkers for cancer detection market over the forecast period. As per the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) by 2025, 19.3 million cases of cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed each year which in turn is supposed to increase demand for early detection of cancer. Development of molecular biomarkers  blood-based strategies to detect and monitor cancer is expected to boost demand for such biomarkers over the forecast period. The paradigm shift towards personalized medicine for treatment of cancer is expected to increase demand for cancer detection biomarkers as manufacturing personalized medicine depends on the pharmacological diagnosis of cancer. Collaborations between research centers and manufacturers over the forecast period is expected to boost the molecular biomarkers for cancer detection market. However, a high cost of biomarkers and failure of products in R&D pipeline is expected to hamper the market growth. As biomarkers are mostly derived from human tissue negative opinion form patients is expected to slow revenue growth of the molecular biomarkers for cancer detection. The low shelf life of biomarkers is also a critical factor which may reduce adoption rate however with the development of biomarkers with increased shelf life by the manufacturers over the forecast period the demand for molecular biomarkers for cancer detection is expected to gain traction.Request For Report Sample:Molecular Biomarkers for Cancer Detection Market: SegmentationThe global biomarkers for cancer detection market are segmented into three segments, by cancer/tumor type, by end user and by region.Segmentation by cancer/tumor typeBreast cancerLung cancerProstate cancerColorectal cancerCervical cancerOthersSegmentation by end userHospitalsSpecialty clinicsDiagnostic centersMolecular Biomarkers for Cancer Detection Market: Region  Wise OutlookRegionally, North America is expected to be the dominant market. Rising incidence of cancer and high adoption of biomarkers is expected to boost the demand for molecular biomarkers for cancer detection. Western Europe is expected to follow next in adoption of molecular biomarkers for cancer detection. Increasing research funding for development of novel biomarkers and presence of key players in the North America and Western Europe is expected to create high growth opportunities for biomarker manufacturers in these regions. APEJ (Asia-Pacific excluding Japan) is expected to be next followed by North America and Western Europe owing to increasing demand for cancer diagnostics in India, Australia, and China. Japan is expected to witness the high adoption of molecular biomarkers owing to increasing R&D investment in cancer-related research form the government and local clinical research organizations. Latin America and MEA regions are expected to follow in line demand for molecular biomarkers for cancer detection owing to changing global trend for cancer detection.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Molecular Biomarkers for Cancer Detection Market: Key PlayersSome key players in the molecular biomarkers for cancer detection are Abbott Laboratories, Agilent Technologies, Roche Diagnostics, Ltd., Qiagen N.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Becton Dickenson & Company, Merck & Co, Inc.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
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Global HNB Tobacco Market Trends & Forecasts 2021 : Key Players - Philip Morris International Inc., KT&G Corporation and British American Tobacco Plc

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"The Report Global HNB Tobacco Market: Size, Trends & Forecasts (2017-2021) provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Scope of the ReportThe report entitled Global HNB Tobacco Market: Size, Trends & Forecasts (2017-2021), provides analysis of the global HNB tobacco market, with detailed analysis of global HNB tobacco market in terms of value, demand and penetration of HNB in traditional tobacco.The report also includes a detailed regional analysis of the HNB market in regions Japan and Korea. Further, a detailed analysis of Korea HNB tobacco stick market has been in terms of demand and penetration. Under competitive landscape different HNB tobacco devices have been compared on the basis of brand and HNB stick market players in Korea have been compared on the basis of share.View Report @Moreover, the report 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 HNB 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.Philip Morris International Inc., KT&G Corporation and British American Tobacco Plc are some of the key players operating in the global HNB tobacco market whose company profiling is done in the report. In this segment of the report, business overview, financial overview and the business strategies of the companies are provided.Regional CoverageJapanKoreaCompany CoveragePhiliip Morris International Inc.KT&G CorporationBritish American Tobacco PlcGet Sample Copy Of This Report @Executive SummaryHNB tobacco is a smoking device heated electronically equipped with the capacity to lower the level of harmful compounds that are generated at the high temperatures associated with combustion. HNB devices heats the tobacco and does not burn it resulting into generation of totally no ash and less smell when compared to conventional cigarettes.Heat-not-burn products are different in comparison to e-cigarettes because the HNB uses of real tobacco. On the other hand, e-cigarettes make use of flavored liquid nicotine.The global HNB tobacco market is expected to increase at a healthy rate during the forecast period (2017-2021). The global HNB tobacco market is supported by various growth drivers, such as increase in implied smoking population, preference to HNB tobacco over conventional and e-cigarettes backed by its vital benefits, spike in youth population and upsurge in purchasing power globally.However, unfavorable government regulations and health risk of HNB tobacco cigarettes are some of the challenges faced by the market. Increasing global traffic to HNB websites, global players focusing on production expansion, new product innovations and dependence of HNB on battery industry are some of the latest trends existing in the market.Send An Enquiry Request @Table of Content1. Executive Summary2. Introduction2.1 Tobacco: An Overview2.2 History of Tobacco2.3 Tobacco Use in Different Types of Cigarette2.4 Heat Not Burn (HNB) Tobacco Device: An Overview2.5 HNB Tobacco Device: Working Mechanism3. Global Market Analysis3.1 Global E-cigarette Market: An Analysis3.1.1 Global Traditional E-cigarette Market by Value3.2 Global HNB Tobacco Market: An Analysis3.2.1 Global HNB Tobacco Market by Penetration in Traditional E-cigarette Market3.2.2 Global HNB Tobacco Market by Value3.2.3 Global HNB Tobacco Market by Region3.3 Global HNB Tobacco Market: Demand Analysis3.3.1 Global HNB Tobacco Market by Demand Volume3.3.2 Global HNB Tobacco Market Demand by Region3.3.3 Developed Market HNB Tobacco Market by Demand Volume3.3.4 Developed Market HNB Tobacco Market by Penetration3.3.5 Emerging Market HNB Tobacco Market by Demand Volume3.3.6 Emerging Market HNB Tobacco Market by Penetration4. Regional Analysis4.1 Japan HNB Tobacco Market: An Analysis4.1.1 Japan HNB Tobacco Market by Value4.2 Korea Combustible and HNB Tobacco Stick Market: Demand Analysis4.2.1 Korea Combustible and HNB Tobacco Stick Market Demand by Volume4.3 Korea HNB Tobacco Stick Market: Demand Analysis4.3.1 Korea HNB Tobacco Stick Market by Demand Volume4.3.2 Korea HNB Tobacco Stick Market by Penetration5. Market Dynamics5.1 Growth Drivers5.1.1 Increasing Smoking Population5.1.2 Preference over Conventional and E Cigarettes5.1.3 Spike in Youth Population5.1.4 Upsurge in Purchasing Power5.2 Challenges5.2.1 Unfavorable Government Regulations5.2.2 Health Risk of HNB Tobacco Devices5.3 Market Trends5.3.1 Increasing Global Traffic to HNB Websites5.3.2 Global Players focused on Production Expansion5.3.3 New Product Innovations5.3.4 Dependence on Battery IndustryAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Mr. NachiketaState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Will Be Fiercely Competitive in 2017

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report 2017 Market Research Report on Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Industry to its huge collection of research reports.This report on the global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System market is highly detailed, covering all the important aspects of the market. With overwhelming amount of information available on the web about the global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System market, it becomes impossible to decide what is important and what is not. Expert researchers with much market experience are therefore required to pen down all the essentials of the global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System market and discard the unnecessary data which floods the internet. The task is tedious and thus, best left for the experienced market researchers who have a knack of spotting important market trends and future opportunities within the market.The report contains a detailed overview of the market. It comprises a discussion on the various factors boosting the growth of the market. The many factors that will pose a threat to the growth of the market have also been discussed. The key restricting factors or challenges which the market is facing have been enlisted along with the impact analysis of the same.Get Free PDF Brochure For More Technical Insights@The market for Marine Engine Fuel Injection System is segmented on the basis of key criteria and each segment and sub segment is taken into account. The leading, declining, and fastest growing segments and sub segments have been revealed. This is expected to help market players both new and established to make profitable and smart business decisions. On the basis of geography, the global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System market is segment into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Rest of the World. Of these, it is pointed out, which region will be the most attractive market for Marine Engine Fuel Injection System. The region to witness sluggish growth as well as the one with the fastest growth have also been given in the report.Table of Contents1 Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Market Overview11.1 Product Overview and Scope of Marine Engine Fuel Injection System11.2 Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Segment by Types (Product Category)21.2.1 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Production Comparison by Types (2012-2022)21.2.2 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Production Market Share by Types in 201631.2.3 Pump-Line-Nozzle System31.2.4 Common Rail System41.2.5 Other Injection System51.3 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Segment by Applications61.3.1 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Comparison by Applications (2012-2022)61.3.2 Commercial Vessels71.3.3 Inland Waterway Vessels81.3.4 Offshore Support Vessels8Read Complete Table of Content @2 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Market Competition by Manufacturers162.1 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Production and Share by Manufacturers (2016-2017)162.2 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2016-2017)182.3 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Average Price by Manufacturers (2016-2017)202.4 Headquarter of Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Industry Key Manufacturers212.5 Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Market Competitive Situation and Trends222.5.1 Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Market Concentration Rate222.5.2 Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers233 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Production by Regions (2012-2017)253.1 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Production and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)253.2 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Revenue and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)273.3 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Production Revenue Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)293.4 North America Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Production (2012-2017)303.4.1 North America Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Production and Growth Rate (2012-2017)303.4.2 North America Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Production Revenue Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)304 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Consumption by Regions (2012-2017)354.1 Global Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Consumption by Regions (2012-2017)354.2 North America Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Consumption (2012-2017)374.3 Europe Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Consumption (2012-2017)384.4 China Marine Engine Fuel Injection System Consumption (2012-2017)39QYResearchReports.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.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
France Chocolate Market 2017- Revenue, Price and Gross Margin Research Report 2017

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SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled Chocolate (Confectionery) Market in FranceChocolate (Confectionery) Market in France - Outlook to 2021: Market Size, Growth and Forecast Analytics is a broad level market review of Chocolate market in France.Chocolate Confectionery includes all chocolate based products, in the likes of boxed chocolates, moulded chocolate bars, chocolate covered bars whether in single bars or bite-sized versions sold in multipacks, seasonal novelties, and local specialities. Includes milk chocolate, however, excludes cooking chocolate.Chocolate market in France registered a positive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.97% during the period 2011 to 2016 with a sales value of EUR 4,423.02 Million in 2016, an increase of 1.78% over 2015. The research handbook provides up-to-date market size data for period 2011-2016 and illustrative forecast to 2021 covering key market aspects like Sales Value and Volume for Chocolate and its variants Boxed Chocolate, Chocolate Countlines, Chocolate Straightlines, Molded Bars, Novelties, Other Chocolate.Furthermore, the research handbook details out Sales Value for top brands for the year 2013 to 2016, Demographic Analytics and overall market sales by Distribution Channel (Hypermarkets & Supermarkets, Convenience Stores, Department Stores, Dollar Stores, Variety Store, Cash & Carries and Warehouse clubs, eRetailers, Food & Drinks specialists, Drug stores & Pharmacies, Health & Beauty Stores, Other general retailers and others) where ever applicable.The research handbook acts as an essential tool for companies active or planning to venture in to France's Chocolate (Confectionery) market. The comprehensive statistics within the research handbook provides insight into the operating environment of the market and also ensures right business decision making based on historical trends and industry model based forecasting.Sales Values in the handbook are depicted in USD ($) and local currency of country and Volumes are represented in M Kilograms.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Scope- Overall Chocolate (Confectionery) market value and volume analytics with growth analysis from 2011 to 2021.- Value terms for the top brands.- Distribution channel sales analytics from 2013-2016.Key points to buy- Get access to authoritative and granular data on the Chocolate (Confectionery) market and fill in the gaps in understanding of trends and the components of change behind them.- Enhance your understanding of the market to update your strategic and tactical plans based on volume and value changes, brand dynamics and distribution trends.- Analyze the components of change in the market by looking at historic and future growth patterns.- Use the data to understand future patterns of the market trends from winners and losers to category dynamics and thereby quickly and easily identify the key areas in which you want to compete in the future.Table of Contents1 Chocolate Market Overview2 France Chocolate Market Analytics3 France Chocolate Market Analytics, by Segment4 France Chocolate Brand Analytics by Value5 France Chocolate Brand Analytics by Volume6 France Chocolate Distribution Channel Analytics by Value7 Appendix..CONTINUEDWise 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
Peripheral Embolization Device Market Intelligence Study for Comprehensive Insights 2016-2026

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Embolization is a process through which embolus is placed into the blood vessel to block the blood flow to a particular area of the body. The embolus is usually a blood clot formed due to clotting of blood cells. However, the artificial embolus is used to close off blood vessels to prevent the blood from reaching a particular part of the body to eliminate abnormal conditions in the body like a renal aneurysm, arteriovenous fistula, hypogastric artery embolization, endoleak embolization, GI bleeding and treatment of tumors. Peripheral embolization is usually used to shrink tumors by blocking the blood flow to it. Peripheral embolization devices often use embolus made up of various drugs which along with blocking the blood flow also are targeted towards the treatment of a tumor. Embolization is efficient and less invasive as compared to open surgery and therefore poses a little risk to the patient.Peripheral Embolization Device Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe global peripheral embolization device market is driven by the rising incidence of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. According to CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) by 2025, 19.3 million cases of cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed each year, which in turn is expected to increase demand for peripheral embolization devices for early treatment of malignant tumors. The increasing mortality rate due to cardiovascular diseases is expected to boost demand for peripheral embolization devices. Increasing cardiovascular patients owing rising global geriatric population is expected to provide high growth opportunities for the peripheral embolization devices manufacturers over the forecast period. Moreover, technological developments in new peripheral embolization devices aimed to increase safety among patients and ease of use for physicians is expected to provide significant growth opportunities for the peripheral embolization devices manufacturers. However, the high cost of peripheral embolization devices and complications like coil migration, perforations, and spasms among patients is expected to hamper market growth over the forecast period.Request For Report Sample:Peripheral Embolization Device Market: SegmentationThe global peripheral embolization device market are segmented into product type and end userSegmentation based on product typeEmbolization GuidewiresMicrocathetersOcclusion SystemsOcclusion BalloonsPlatinum CoilsSegmentation based on end userHospitalsAmbulatory surgical centersSpecialty clinicsPeripheral Embolization Device Market: Region  wise OutlookThe peripheral embolization device market is expected to witness healthy growth throughout the forecast period with North America expected to be the leading market. High demand for peripheral embolization devices from cancer patients is expected to boost the market growth over the forecast period. Favorable reimbursement policies and up gradation in the compensation for the patients is North America is projected to drive demand for peripheral embolization devices in North America over the forecast period. Moreover, several global manufacturers in this region are expected to promote the use of peripheral embolization devices and in turn is supposed to increase the adoption rate of the devices. Western Europe is expected to be second largest market followed by North America owing to high awareness related to the use of peripheral embolization devices for treatment of cardiovascular and bleeding disorders. APEJ (Asia-Pacific excluding Japan) and Japan are expected to follow next after Western Europe owing to high population and increasing the incidence of cardiovascular diseases in these regions along with growing per capita healthcare expenditure in countries like India and China. Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) is expected to increase significantly owing to the rise in cancer incidence rate and manufacturers focusing on expansion strategies in this regions.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Peripheral Embolization Device Market: Key PlayersSome key players in peripheral embolization market are Boston Scientific Corporation, Medtronic, Inc., Cook Medical, St. Jude Medical, Inc., Penumbra, Inc., Metactive Medical, Inc., Terumo Corporation and others. The companies are focused on development of new peripheral embolization devices with increased safety and ease of use.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global and China Sn-2 Palmitate Market 2017 Expected to Exhibit an Upward Growth Trend Across 2022

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Posted on December 29, 2017 by Ivan GaryQyresearchreports include new market research report Global and China Sn-2 Palmitate Market Research Report 2017 to its huge collection of research reports.The Global and China market for Sn-2 Palmitate has been seen on a few points of view that are basically there, and have repaired the market situation to the immense degree. The report moreover indicates unmistakable experience and data identified with Global and China Sn-2 Palmitate market. The key clarification behind the report is to detail out certain positive and obstructive focuses about the market conditions with the objective that potential analysts have a privilege contemplated the market they will put resources into. Correct honest to goodness information has been given a particular genuine target to give a set view and current status of the market, to the clients of the age. The market consider report likewise accumulates the highlights for example, drivers, confinements, zones, advance figures, modify of tries, future progression, and substitute perspectives. The examination in like way join the real market inspirations driving premium, which contains particular features of the essential perspectives that are in all likelihood going to trigger change in the market or reasons that may have a negative effects also.Get Free PDF Brochure For More Technical Insights@This report goes into extra all around examination of the Global and China market for Sn-2 Palmitate by adequately breaking down current happenings and business frameworks of concerned market. This is required to go about as a supplementary guide in giving right bits of learning and information on two or three plots for the market, for example relating to example of the association bodies in the zone if all else fails level, advance and course structure, streams downsides, volume trade, and profit made among others.Table of ContentsGlobal and China Sn-2 Palmitate Market Research Report 20171 Sn-2 Palmitate Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Sn-2 Palmitate1.2 Sn-2 Palmitate Segment by Types (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Production (K Metric Tons) and Growth Rate (%) Comparison by Types (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Production Market Share (%) by Types in 20161.2.3 Pharmaceutical Grade1.3 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Segment by Applications1.3.1 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Consumption (K Metric Tons) Comparison by Applications (2012-2022)1.3.2 Infant Formula1.3.3 Supplement1.3.4 Others1.4 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Market by Regions (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Market Size and Growth Rate (%) Comparison by Regions (2012-2022)1.4.2 North America Sn-2 Palmitate Status and Prospect (2012-2022)Access the full Report TOC in Detail @2 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Capacity (K Metric Tons) and Share (%) by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Production (K Metric Tons) and Share (%) by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Revenue (Million USD) and Share (%) by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Average Price (USD/Kg) by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Sn-2 Palmitate Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area, Product Types2.5 Sn-2 Palmitate Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Sn-2 Palmitate Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Sn-2 Palmitate Market Share (%) of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Production by Regions (2012-2017)3.1 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Capacity (K Metric Tons) and Market Share (%) by Regions (2012-2017)3.2 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Production (K Metric Tons) and Market Share (%) by Regions (2012-2017)3.3 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Revenue and Market Share (%) by Regions (2012-2017)3.4 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Capacity, Production (K Metric Tons), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Kg) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)3.5 North America Sn-2 Palmitate Production (2012-2017)3.5.1 North America Sn-2 Palmitate Production (K Metric Tons) and Growth Rate (%) (2012-2017)3.5.2 North America Sn-2 Palmitate Capacity, Production (K Metric Tons), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Kg) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)4 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Consumption (K Metric Tons) by Regions (2012-2017)4.1 Global Sn-2 Palmitate Consumption (K Metric Tons) by Regions (2012-2017)4.2 North America Sn-2 Palmitate Consumption (K Metric Tons) (2012-2017)4.3 Europe Sn-2 Palmitate Consumption (K Metric Tons) (2012-2017)4.4 China Sn-2 Palmitate Consumption (K Metric Tons) (2012-2017)4.5 Japan Sn-2 Palmitate Consumption (K Metric Tons) (2012-2017)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.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Marine Big Data Market Valuation Over US$ 3,240.5 Mn by 2025 and Growth Expected to Expand at a CAGR of 21.5% to 2025

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MarketResearchReports.biz announces the availability of a report on the evolving market of Marine Big Data Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017  2025Global Marine Big Data Market: OverviewThis report aims to provide a comprehensive strategic analysis of the global marine big data market along with revenue and growth forecasts for the period from 2017 to 2025. With fast changing technology, use in various applications and rising adoption of this technology in marine sector, the marine big data market is expected to experience high growth in the coming years. Some of the factors supporting the growth of the market worldwide include the potential for new insights, increased technological investments in developing regions such as Asia Pacific, high demand for marine big data solutions from oil & gas industry and advent of customized solutions in developed regions such as North America and Europe. The impact of these and other macro-micro economic factors has been analyzed while developing the market growth models.View Report @Global Marine Big Data Market: Scope of the StudyThis report on the global marine big data market provides a detailed analysis of big data solutions used for different applications by end-users depending upon their needs. The report offers an in-depth analysis of the market drivers, restraints, and growth opportunities. Using these factors, the study identifies various trends prominent in the industry which are expected to influence the market growth during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025. It includes a comprehensive coverage of the underlying economic and technological factors influencing the marine big data market growth. It provides the competitive landscape of key players in the marine big data market in order to highlight the competition scenario. The report also provides a detailed competitive analysis of the key players in the market and identifies various business strategies adopted by them. The study explains the penetration within each market segment across various geographies, and how these segments have accelerated the growth of the market as a whole.Global Marine Big Data Market: Key SegmentsThe global marine big data market is analyzed by segmenting it on the basis of component, application, data source and geography. Based on component, the market is classified into software and service. The software segment is further segmented into data analytics, data collection, data discovery & visualization and data management. Services segment is further classified into consulting, system integration and operation & maintenance. Based on data source, the market is categorized into environmental, oceanographic, geological data, economic and others. On the basis of application, the marine big data market can be segmented into renewable energy, oil & gas, fishery, whale watching, marine protected area, marine traffic, dredging, harbor, offshore construction and others. Geographically, the global market for marine big data has been segmented into five regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and South America. The market size and forecast for each region has been provided for the period from 2015 to 2025 along with the CAGR (%) for the forecast period from 2017 to 2025. The study also includes market estimates for major countries/regions such as the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, France, Japan, and India. The analysis by component, end-user and regions helps in evaluating the present scenario and growth prospects of the marine big data market over the forecast period from 2017 to 2025. Thus, the report provides in-depth cross-segment analysis of the market and classifies it into various industries, thereby providing valuable insights at the macro as well as micro levels.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @Companies Mentioned in ReportThe report concludes company profiles of major players in the marine big data market on the basis of various attributes, such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies, SWOT analysis and segment presence. Some of the major players in the global marine big data market with the significant developments are Teradata, Splunk, Inc., AIMS-Sinay, Oceanwise, Intertrust Technologies Corporation, MarineFIND, BigOceanData, Avenca Limited, BMT Group Ltd., Datameer Inc. Databricks Inc., Nautical Control Solutions, LP, Ocean Networks Canada, Smart Ocean and Open Ocean among others.Market Segmentation:Marine Big Data Market Analysis, by ComponentSoftwareData AnalyticsData CollectionData Discovery and VisualizationData ManagementServicesConsultingSystem IntegrationOperation and MaintenanceMarine Big Data Market Analysis, by ApplicationRenewable EnergyOil and GasFisheryWhale WatchingMarine Protected AreaMarine TrafficDredgingHarborOffshore ConstructionOthersMarine Big Data Market Analysis, by Data SourceEnvironmentalOceanographicGeological DataEconomicOthersMarine Big Data Market Analysis, by RegionNorth AmericaThe U.S.CanadaRest of North AmericaEuropeGermanyFranceThe U.K.Rest of EuropeAsia-PacificJapanChinaIndiaAustraliaRest of Asia PacificMiddle-East & AfricaGCC CountriesSouth AfricaRest of MEASouth AmericaBrazilRest of South AmericaSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Content1. Preface1.1. Market Definition and Scope1.2. Market Segmentation1.3. Key Research Objectives1.4. Research Highlights2. Assumptions and Research Methodology3. Executive Summary : Global Marine Big Data Market4. Market Overview4.1. Introduction4.2. Market Dynamics4.2.1. Drivers4.2.2. Restraints4.2.3. Opportunities4.3. Key Market Indicators4.4. Global Marine Big Data Market Analysis and Forecasts, 2015 - 20254.4.1. Market Revenue Projections (US$ Mn)4.5. Porters Five Forces Analysis4.6. Global Marine Big Data Value Chain Analysis4.7. Comparative Analysis: Global Big Data vs Marine Big Data4.8. Trend Analysis: Blue Growth and Blue Economy4.9. Market Outlook5. Global Marine Big Data Market Analysis and Forecasts, By Component5.1. Overview & Definitions5.2. Global Marine Big Data Market Size (US$ Mn) Forecast By Component, 2015 - 20255.2.1. Software5.2.1.1. Data Analytics5.2.1.2. Data Collection5.2.1.3. Data Discovery and Visualization5.2.1.4. Data Management5.2.2. Services5.2.2.1. Consulting5.2.2.2. System Integration5.2.2.3. Operation and Maintenance5.3. Component Comparison Matrix5.4. Market Attractiveness By ComponentAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Mr. NachiketaState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
The global pallet display market will surpass a valuation of US$ 1,600 Mn by the end of 2026

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MarketResearchReports.biz announces the availability of a report on the evolving market of Pallet Displays Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2026Global Pallet Displays Market: OverviewPallet displays are being used on a large scale in retail stores, supermarkets, and hypermarkets as they help in displaying the product along with its primary features and effectively marketing the brand name. There has been a growth in the retail merchandising solutions owing to the launch of new products and increasing investment by brands towards promotion and marketing of the products. Based on the product differentiation strategies, customized pallet displays are also gaining popularity. Manufacturers are focusing on developing pallet displays that offer better brand visibility, offer better space for the specific product and results in the effective space utilization. Offering unique design for pallet displays as per the brand requirement is also being focused on in order to attract customers.Pallet displays in various shapes and sizes are also being developed as per the requirement. Moreover, pallet displays with multiple sides are also becoming popular as it offers convenience to the customers. Pallet displays are also being developed including interesting product information, benefits and offer available with the products.View Report @Global Pallet Displays Market: Scope of StudyThe report on the global pallet displays market provides key trends and the market opportunity that may fuel the demand for pallet displays during the forecast period 2017-2026. Meanwhile, the report also focuses on the future penetration of new types of pallet displays.The report offers SWOT analysis, market attractiveness analysis and Porters five force analysis. The report is based on an in-depth analysis of both the qualitative and quantitative data. The report also talks about various market segments and key regions that will impact the growth of the pallet display market in the near future.The report on the global market for pallet displays also offers key insights on the market dynamics such as trends, opportunities, drivers, and restraints. After taking into account various factors that will have an impact on the global pallet displays market, the report also provides an estimation on market size, revenue, year-on-year growth, CAGR for each segment and regions in the market for the forecast period 2017 to 2026. In addition to this, the report also offers market opportunity analysis for various segments and the most profitable segment.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @Global Pallet Displays Market: Market SegmentationThe global pallet displays market is segmented on the basis of product type, end use, application, material type, and region. On the basis of product type, the market is segmented into full pallet display, half pallet display, and quarter pallet display. On the basis of end use, the market segmentation consists of hyper market, supermarket, departmental store, specialty store, convenience store, and other retail formats.Based on the application, the global pallet displays market segmentation includes food & beverages, cosmetics & personal care, pharmaceuticals, printing & stationery, electronics, automotive, and others. By material type, the market segment consists of corrugated board, foam board, plastic sheet, glass, and metal.Region-wise, the global pallet displays market segmentation includes Europe, Latin America, North America, Japan, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), and the Middle East and Africa (MEA).Global Pallet Displays Market: Competition LandscapeSome of the Leading companies in the global pallet displays market are Sonoco Products Company, DS Smith Plc, Georgia-Pacific LLC, Smurfit Kappa Group PLC, WestRock Company, FFR Merchandising Company, U.S. Corrugated, Inc., Marketing Alliance Group, Creative Displays Now, Pratt Industries Inc., Mirada Medical Limited, Sciencesoft USA Corporation, Siemens Healthineers, Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, and Xinapse Systems Ltd. These key players are working on strategies to establish themselves in the global market by entering into a partnership or by launching a technically advanced product.Send An Enquiry Request @Table of ContentChapter 1 Global Economic OutlookChapter 2 Global Pallet Display Market - Executive SummaryChapter 3 Global Pallet Display Market Overview3.1 Introduction3.1.1 Global Pallet display Market Taxonomy3.1.2 Global Pallet display Market Definition3.2 Global Pallet display Market Size (US$ Mn) and Forecast, 2012-20263.2.1 Global Pallet display Market Y-o-Y Growth3.3 Global Pallet display Market Dynamics3.4 Global Retail Top 250 Players Quick Statistics3.5 Top 10 Retailers3.6 Geographic Analysis3.7 Retail revenue growth and profitability by region/country, FY20153.8 Product Sector Analysis3.9 Retail revenue growth and profitability by primary product sector?1;, FY20153.10 Top 10 Upcoming Retail Outlets3.11 Global Retail Development Index 20163.12 Supply Chain Of Pallet Display Market3.13 Cost Structure Of Pallet Display Market3.14 Porters Five Forces Analysis Of Pallet Display Market3.15 Product Life Cycle Of Pallet Display Market3.16 Consumer Survey3.17 Key Participants Market Presence (Intensity Map) By RegionChapter 4 Global Pallet display Market Analysis and Forecast 2012-20264.1 Global Pallet display Market Size and Forecast By Product Type, 2012-20264.1.1 Full Pallet Display Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.1.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.1.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.1.1.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.1.2 Half Pallet Display Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.2.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.2.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.1.2.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.1.3 Quarter Pallet Display Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.1.3.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.1.3.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.1.3.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.2 Global Pallet display Market Size and Forecast By End Use, 2012-20264.2.1 Hyper Market Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.2.1.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.2.1.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.2.1.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.2.2 Supermarket Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.2.2.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.2.2.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.2.2.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.2.3 Departmental store Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.2.3.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.2.3.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.2.3.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.2.4 Specialty Store Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.2.4.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.2.4.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.2.4.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.2.5 Convenience Store Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.2.5.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By Region4.2.5.2 Market Share Comparison, By Region4.2.5.3 Y-o-Y growth Comparison, By Region4.2.6 Other Retail Formats Market Size and Forecast, 2012-20264.2.6.1 Revenue (US$ Mn) Comparison, By RegionAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Mr. NachiketaState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Rising production of Power Semiconductor Market Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025

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"The global power semiconductor market is likely to witness steady growth on the back of introduction of fifth-generation (5G) mobile communication. 5G mobile communication is anticipated to be launched in 2018; the number of 5G mobile base stations is likely to be more than 4G base stations.Global Power Semiconductor Market: OverviewGlobal power semiconductor market report provide analysis for the period of 2015  2025, where in 2016 is taken as the base year and the period from 2017 till 2025 is the forecasted period. Data for 2015 has been included as historical information. The report covers the global power semiconductor market including drivers, restraints and opportunities anticipated to influence in the market during the said period. Global and regional factors and trends playing a significant role in the global power semiconductor market has also been covered in the study. The study provides a comprehensive and exhaustive analysis of the market growth throughout the above forecasted period in terms of revenue estimates (in US$ Mn), across various geographies.View Report @Global Power Semiconductor Market: Market SegmentationThe power semiconductor market has been segmented on the basis of component, material, end-use and geography. Based on components the market has been further classified into power MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor), rectifiers, thyristors, IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) and diode. On the basis of materials, the market is segmented into silicon/ germanium, silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). In terms of various end-use the market is classified into automotive, industrial, telecommunication, consumer electronics, aerospace & defense, healthcare and others. Geographically the report classifies the global power semiconductor market into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America. We have analyzed the regions in terms of revenue. Region wise prominent countries covered in the report include the following  the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, China, Japan, South Korea, India, U.A.E, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina.The report also covers the global power semiconductor market attractiveness analysis by components, by materials, by end-use and by region. Additionally market attractiveness of each of the regions: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, MEA and South America are also covered by components, by materials, by end-use and by country. Market attractiveness compare a segments attractiveness in the market on the basis of CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) and market share index.Global Power Semiconductor Market: Market DynamicsRising production of electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles across the world is increasing the demand of power semiconductor devices such as IGBTs. IGBTs are the largest segment of the global automotive power semiconductor market. IGBT is a switch that connects directly into the electric motor of electric or hybrid electric vehicles. Globally China is the largest market for light duty plug-in electric vehicles followed by the U.S., Japan, France, the U.K., Germany, etc. Other than electric vehicles, rising demand for connected cars, self-driving cars, fuel-efficient vehicles, ADAS (Advanced Driver Assisted System) expected to boost the demand for power semiconductors during the forecasted period.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @Rising demand for renewable energy such as wind, solar and hydroelectricity is subsequently increasing the demand for power semiconductor devices. Renewable energy generation requires power semiconductors for optimized power generation and network interconnection. Major power semiconductors deployed in renewable energy generation are IGBTs and IGCTs (Integrated Gate Commutated Thyristors). Power semiconductors facilitates in reducing these loss of power during transmission of power to grid. Similarly, thyristors are utilized to reduce power loss in transmission. Power semiconductors are also deployed in cooling capacity in renewable energy sources. Thus, the rise in demand for renewable energy is increasing the demand for power semiconductors such as IGBT and IGCT.There is an increasing demand for wide band gap (WBG) semiconductor materials such as SiC, GaN, AlN (Aluminum Nitride), BN(Boron Nitride), etc. to manufacture power semiconductor products. WBG semiconductor materials have better thermal conductivity, high mobility of electrons, etc. than normal semiconductor materials like Si or Ge. Thus an increasing number of power semiconductor devices are being made of SiC and GaN.Global Power Semiconductor Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report also includes competition landscape which includes market share analysis of major players in the global power semiconductor market based on their 2016 revenues and profile of major players. Company profiles include company overview, significant strategies adopted, SWOT analysis and market revenue from 2014 till 2016 (public companies). The major players profiled in the global power semiconductor market includes Infineon Technologies AG, Texas Instruments, ON Semiconductor, Fuji Electric Co. Ltd, ST Microelectronics N.V., Mitsubishi Electric Group, Semikron International GmbH and Toshiba Corporation.The global power semiconductor market is segmented as below:Global Energy Efficient Lighting Technology Market, By ComponentPower MOSFETRectifiersThyristorsIGBTDiodeGlobal Energy Efficient Lighting Technology Market, By MaterialSilicon/ GermaniumSilicon Carbide (SiC)Gallium Nitride (GaN)Global Energy Efficient Lighting Technology Market, By End-useAutomotiveIndustrialTelecommunicationConsumer ElectronicsAerospace & DefenseHealthcareOthersGlobal Energy Efficient Lighting Technology Market, By GeographyNorth AmericaThe U.S.CanadaMexicoEuropeGermanyFranceU.K.ItalyRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaJapanSouth KoreaIndiaRest of Asia-PacificMiddle East and Africa (MEA)U.A.ESaudi ArabiaSouth AfricaRest of MEASouth AmericaBrazilArgentinaRest of South AmericaSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Content1. Preface1.1. Research Objectives1.2. Key Questions Answered1.3. Report Scope2. Assumptions and Research Methodology2.1. Report Assumptions2.2. Acronyms Used2.3. Research Methodology3. Executive Summary : Global Power Semiconductor Market4. Market Overview4.1. Market Taxonomy4.2. Product Overview4.3. Key Industry Developments4.4. Market Opportunity Map4.5. Market Dynamics4.5.1. Drivers4.5.2. Restraint4.5.3. Opportunities4.6. Porters Analysis4.7. Value Chain Analysis4.8. Key Trends5. Global Power Semiconductor Market Analysis and Forecasts, 2015  20255.1. Market Size Projections 2015  2025 (US$ Mn)5.2. Ecosystem AnalysisAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Mr. NachiketaState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Specialty fertilizers market will be valued at US$14,734.4 mn by 2025 from US$8,987.3 mn in 2016 with modest 5.7% CAGR

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MarketResearchReports.biz announces the availability of a report on the evolving market of Specialty Fertilizers Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2017  2025Global Specialty Fertilizers Market: OverviewThis report analyzes and forecasts the market for specialty fertilizers at the global and regional level. The market has been forecast based on revenue (US$ Mn) and volume (Kilo Tons) from 2017 to 2025. The study includes drivers and restraints of the global specialty fertilizers market. It also covers the impact of these drivers and restraints on demand for specialty fertilizers during the forecast period. The report also highlights opportunities in the specialty fertilizers market at the global and regional level.The report comprises a detailed value chain analysis, which provides a comprehensive view of the global specialty fertilizers market. Porters Five Forces model for the specialty fertilizers market has also been included to help understand the competitive landscape in the market. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis, wherein applications are benchmarked based on their market size, growth rate, and general attractiveness.View Report @Global Specialty Fertilizers Market: Scope of StudyThe report provides the estimated market size of specialty fertilizers for 2016 and forecast for the next eight years. The global market size of specialty fertilizers has been provided in terms of revenue and volume. Market numbers have been estimated based on type, crop type and compound segments of specialty fertilizers market. Market size and forecast for each major type, crop type and compound have been provided in terms of global and regional markets.Global Specialty Fertilizers Market: Research MethodologyIn order to compile the research report, we conducted in-depth interviews and discussions with a number of key industry participants and opinion leaders. Primary research represents the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. We reviewed key players product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents for competitive analysis and market understanding. Secondary research also includes a search of recent trade, technical writing, internet sources, and statistical data from government websites, trade associations, and agencies. This has proven to be the most reliable, effective, and successful approach for obtaining precise market data, capturing industry participants insights, and recognizing business opportunities.Secondary research sources that are typically referred to include, but are not limited to company websites, annual reports, financial reports, broker reports, investor presentations, and SEC filings, internal and external proprietary databases, and relevant patent and regulatory databases, national government documents, statistical databases, and market reports, news articles, press releases, webcasts specific to companies operating in the market, American Chemical Society, International Council of Chemical Associations, 4m Associations, and European Union. Primary research involves e-mail interactions, telephonic interviews, and face-to-face interviews for each market, type, and applications across geographies. We conduct primary interviews on an ongoing basis with industry participants and commentators in order to validate the data and analysis. Primary interviews provide firsthand information on market size, market trends, growth trends, competitive landscape, and outlook, etc. These help validate and strengthen secondary research findings. These also help develop the analysis teams expertise and market understanding.Global Specialty Fertilizers Market: Market SegmentationThe study provides a decisive view of the global specialty fertilizers market by segmenting it in terms of type, crop type, and compound. These segments have been analyzed based on present and future trends. Regional segmentation includes the current and forecast demand for specialty fertilizers in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. The report also covers demand for individual type, crop type, and compounds in all the regions.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @Global Specialty Fertilizers Market: Competitive LandscapeThe study includes profiles of major companies operating in the global specialty fertilizers market. Key players in the specialty fertilizers market include Yara International ASA, Agrium Inc., The Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc., Israel Chemical Limited, Sociedad Quimica Y Minera S.A., Haifa Chemicals Limited, Coromandel International Limited, among others. Market players have been profiled in terms of attributes such as company overview, overall revenue, business strategies, and recent developments.The report segments the global specialty fertilizers market as follows:Specialty fertilizers Market: Type AnalysisSlow Release FertilizersControlled Release FertilizersNutrition and Urease InhibitorsMicro nutrient FertilizersOthersSpecialty fertilizers Market: Crop Type AnalysisCereals & OilseedsTurf & OrnamentalsFruits & VegetablesOthersSpecialty fertilizers Market: Compound AnalysisNitrogen CompoundsPhosphate CompoundsPotash CompoundsNPK CompoundsSpecialty fertilizers Market: Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeFranceGermanyItalyPolandSpainRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaASEANRest of Asia PacificLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin AmericaMiddle East & Africa (MEA)GCCSouth AfricaRest of MEASend An Enquiry Request @Table of Content1. Preface1.1. Report Scope and Market Segmentation1.2. Research Highlights1.3. Research Objectives1.4. Key Questions Answered2. Assumptions and Research Methodology2.1. Report Assumptions2.2. Abbreviations Used2.3. Research Methodology3. Executive Summary3.1. Global Specialty Fertilizers Market Size, By Market Value (US$ Mn) and Market Volume Share, By Region4. Market Overview4.1. Product Overview4.2. Key Industry Developments4.3. Drivers and Restraints Snapshot Analysis4.3.1. Drivers4.3.1.1. Increasing Demand for Better Yielding Crops4.3.1.2. Shift Toward Sustainable Agriculture4.3.2. Restraints4.3.2.1. Lack of Awareness and High Cost as Compared to Conventional Chemical Fertilizers4.3.3. Opportunity Analysis4.4. Porters Five Analysis4.5. Global Specialty Fertilizers Market Analysis 2016 - 20254.6. Value Chain Analysis5. Global Specialty Fertilizers Market Analysis and Forecasts, By Type5.1. Key Findings5.2. Introduction5.3. Global Specialty Fertilizers Market Value Share Analysis, By Type5.4. Market Size (Kilo Tons) (US$ Mn) Forecast By Type5.4.1. Slow Release Fertilizers5.4.2. Controlled Release Fertilizers5.4.3. Nitrification and Urease Inhibitors5.4.4. Micronutrient Fertilizers5.4.5. Others5.5 Global Specialty Fertilizers Market Attractiveness Analysis, By Type6. Global Specialty Fertilizers Market Analysis and Forecasts, By Crop Type6.1. Key Findings6.2. Introduction6.3. Global Specialty Fertilizers Market Value Share Analysis, By Crop Type6.4. Market Size (Kilo Tons) (US$ Mn) Forecast By Crop Type6.4.1. Cereals & Oilseeds6.4.2. Turf & Ornamentals6.4.3. Fruits & Vegetables6.4.4. Other Crop TypesAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Mr. NachiketaState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Non GMO Yogurt Market: Analysis and Forecast by Future Market Insights 2016-2026

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Non-GMO and organic foods, apart from natural food stores, Non-GMO products now came in mainstream and sold in major supermarkets nationwide. It has been noticed, consumer is demanding more organic & Non GMO products. Non-GMO yogurt is where the presence of toxic persistent pesticides, artificial hormones and antibiotics, for production of the milk is zero. The use of Non-GMO reached nearly 11% on food and beverages since 2013, the demand has been increased of Non-GMO products. In the US, a survey was conducted for GMO and Non-GMO food products, Maximum Americans agreed on the fact that GMO food product are not safe to eat and also not good for health.Non-GMO Yogurt Market: SegmentationNon GMO yogurt market is segmented on the basis of types, flavors & distribution channel. On the basis of types: Regular Yogurt, Blended Yogurt, Low fat yogurt, nonfat yogurt, Purely Unsweetened Yogurt, Sour Yogurt, Plain Yogurt, Drinkable yogurt and Heavy Cream Yogurt. On the basis of Flavors: Fruit (mango, Strawberry, Blueberry, Kiwi and Peach), Chocolate and Vanilla. On the basis of distribution Channel: Super Market/ Hyper Market, Food Service Outlets, Convenience Stores, Specialty Stores, Online Stores and others.Request For Report Sample:Non-GMO Yogurt Market: Region wise OutlookDepending on geographic regions, global Non-GMO yogurt market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East & Africa.North America is the prominent market for Non-GMO yogurt due to the key players in this region and the availability of raw materials. Whereas, in Europe it is projected to grow at a substantial growth due to consumer as they are becoming concerned about their health, the global Non-GMO yogurt market value exhibiting a robust CAGR during the forecast period, 2016-2026. In the USA, Chobani is the largest manufacturer of greek yogurt, which covers 50% of the market share. Dannon is also one of the largest manufacturer of Non-GMO yogurt in USA which contain more natural ingredients, it has also partnered with Non-Government Organization (NGO) Green America and the Non-GMO Project, So that they can develop Sources of Non-GMO feed for cows.Non-GMO Yogurt Market: DriversAs the demand of Non-GMO product is rising every day as consumers are becoming more concerned about their health. Consumers are becoming more aware about Non-GMO products and easy availability of raw materials in some regions. Raising awareness about the Non-GMO products all across over the Globe is also one of the major factors anticipated to expand the growth of Non-GMO Yogurt market over the forecast period. In 2018, Dannon will introduce 3 brands of Non-GMO Yogurt i.e. Dannon, Oikos & Danimals, that will be fed by the Non-GMO Feed.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Non-GMO Market: Key PlayersSome of the international key players identified operating in Non-GMO yogurt market includes Brown Cow Yogurt, Stonyfield Farm, Maia inspired nutrition, Chobani, General Mills, THE GREEK GODS and others. The company is likely to expand its share over the next coming years as consumers are becoming more aware about Non-GMO products and are more concerned about their health. More companies are expected to enter into manufacturing of Non-GMO products in future.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
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External Neuromodulation Market  Actionable Insights and Recommendation 2017-2022

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report Global External Neuromodulation Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 to its huge collection of research reports.The market analysis of this particular market dissects and elaborates many of the aspects pertaining to the global External Neuromodulation market which enunciates the current figures along with future prospects. The report also takes into consideration changing aspects of the said market. The primary objective of this market intelligence report is to provide an elaborate impression to the readers and make an offering of convenient facts and figures. The market intelligence report further deduces with various issues such as opportunities, trends, drivers, and restraints in a bid to assess the outcome of it on the global External Neuromodulation market over the forecast timeframe that is clearly stated in the said research report. Furthermore, the report puts forward a fleeting yet exclusive skeleton of the market in question, which contains several explanations of the foremost aspects which are forecasted to stimulate development in the market or rationalize negative influence.Get Free PDF Brochure For More Technical Insights@This market intelligence report further delves into the depth of the global market for External Neuromodulation by squarely assessing the manufacturing and fabrication chain of the compatible market. This is prognosticated to further aid in the propagation of accurate figures and data on many factors of the corresponding market such as information relating to the dogmas of the government at the global and provincial level, volume traded, manufacturing capacity, revenue made, and production and circulation structure among others.The research report is incomplete without an all-inclusive valuation of the competitive seller landscape of the global External Neuromodulation market, which incorporates the accomplishments and creations, facts and numbers of the topnotch companies that are operating in the global External Neuromodulation market. The market study also delivers a wide-ranging inspection of the major areas that are mentioned in the report of the global market for External Neuromodulation. For every expanse, the report speaks the array of progress so far and clearance on what merchants can and need to do in order to ensure success in the forthcoming years.Table of ContentsGlobal External Neuromodulation Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of External Neuromodulation1.1 External Neuromodulation Market Overview1.1.1 External Neuromodulation Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global External Neuromodulation Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.3 External Neuromodulation Market by Type1.3.1 Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation1.3.2 Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation1.3.3 Respiratory Electrical Stimulation1.4 External Neuromodulation Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Spinal Cord Stimulation1.4.2 Deep Brain StimulationAccess the full Report TOC in Detail @2 Global External Neuromodulation Competition Analysis by Players2.1 External Neuromodulation 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 Medtronic, Inc. (U.S.)3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 External Neuromodulation Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Boston Scientific Corporation (U.S.)3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 External Neuromodulation Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 St. Jude Medical, Inc. (U.S.)3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview4 Global External Neuromodulation Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global External Neuromodulation Market Size by Type (2012-2017)4.2 Global External Neuromodulation Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.3 Potential Application of External Neuromodulation in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of External Neuromodulation5 United States External Neuromodulation Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States External Neuromodulation Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States External Neuromodulation Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)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.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Global Market Top Key Player- GaN Systems, Nichia, Epistar, Samsung

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Market Report 2017 to its huge collection of research reports.The market study on the global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces market is a scientific instrument to understand the performance of the said market over the forecast period. The report includes historical values as well as future projections, which serve as crucial indices for companies interested to participate in the Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces market. Using historical database and projections, the report presents growth trends and growth trajectory pictorially.The beginning of the report summarizes standard terms and terminologies used in the Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces market, before moving on to classifications, applications, and industry chain structure. This is followed with an analysis of the competitive landscape, profiling major players for their key business attributes. Each of the companies is studied with reference to a timescale to understand the changing competitive hierarchy of the Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces over the years.Get Free PDF Brochure For More Technical Insights@The report is divided into sections, with each section discussing different industry aspects at length. Industry statues and policies, industry news and developments, and industry framework are the some of the aspects that have been discussed in this part of the report. Included in the report is a cost analysis of products, along with insights into manufacturer profit in the Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces market. The dynamics between various applications of the Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces market and their implication on the industry chain are also discussed herein.The industry chain analysis of the Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces market covers aspects such as production capacity, demand-supply dynamics, cost structure of product catalog, etc. An analysis of upstream raw material chain and downstream demand, along with import/export behavior is also included in the report.Market attractiveness analysis and feasibility of new investments in the Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces market are key features of this report. Using proven research methodologies and standard analytical tools, the report presents an accurate picture of growth trends and demand drivers, and points out strategies that are sure to present lucrative growth avenues in the future.Table of ContentsGlobal Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Market Report 20171 Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces1.2 Classification of Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces by Product Category1.2.1 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 2 Inch1.2.4 4 Inch1.2.5 6-Inch and Above1.3 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Telecommunication1.3.3 Industrial1.3.4 AutomotiveAccess the full Report TOC in Detail @2 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces (Volume and Value) by Region2.3.1 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.3.2 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4 Global Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces (Volume) by Application3 United States Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 United States Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 United States Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 United States Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 United States Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 United States Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Volume and Market Share by Players3.3 United States Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.4 United States Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Volume and Market Share by Application4 China Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 China Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 China Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 China Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 China Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 China Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Volume and Market Share by Players4.3 China Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Volume and Market Share by Type4.4 China Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Volume and Market Share by Application5 Europe Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces (Volume, Value and Sales Price)5.1 Europe Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales and Value (2012-2017)5.1.1 Europe Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.2 Europe Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.3 Europe Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)5.2 Europe Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Volume and Market Share by Players5.3 Europe Gallium Nitride Semiconductor Devoces Sales Volume and Market Share by TypeQYResearchReports.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.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
6.5% CAGR Anticipated for Home Decor Market During 2017-2022

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With the rising number of individuals owing homes, especially in developing countries, the home decor market is on a rise globally. In home decor, things like furniture, textiles and floor covering are used to enhance the living space. One factor responsible for the rapid increase in the home decor market is the expansion of the real estate industry. In addition, due to factors such as globalization, new kinds of designs and a variety of items for home decoration are available to people easily and this is encouraging the growth of this market. To give a further fillip to the home decor market is the rise of the online retail segment. Due to the rise of the online retail, furniture and other items used for home decor are available at a discounted price and have become more affordable. Hence, a large number of people are accessing these online retail outlets to decorate their homes. Other factors that are encouraging the growth of this market are the rise in the disposable incomes and improving lifestyle of people. However, there are some restraints that are slowing the market growth of home decor products like the increasing price of raw materials like wood and leather.Request For Report Sample:The global home decor market is slated to touch a value of nearly US$ 855,680 Mn in the year 2022 and grow at a robust CAGR during the assessment period.4 Forecast Highlights on Global Home Decor MarketAs per the forecast of Future Market Insights, the rugs segment is slated to touch a value of nearly US$ 155,460 Mn in the year 2022. This represents a robust CAGR growth during the assessment period of 2017-2022. The rugs segment is estimated to account for nearly one-fifth of the revenue share of the product type segment by the year 2017 end and is expected to gain in market share by the year 2022 end.As per the forecast of Future Market Insights, the direct to consumer segment will reach a value of nearly US$ 127,733 Mn in the year 2017. This represents a robust CAGR growth during the forecast period. The direct to consumer segment is estimated to account for more than one-fifth of the revenue share of the distribution channel segment in the year 2017 end and is expected to lose market share by the end of the year 2022.As per the forecast of Future Market Insights, the indoor segment is slated to reach a value of nearly US$ 560,205 Mn in 2022. The indoor segment is expected to lose some market value by the end of the year 2022. The largest share is contributed by the APEJ region in the indoor segment.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Future Market Insights forecasts the China home decor market to grow from US$ 79,955 Mn in 2017 to US$ 109,434 Mn in 2022. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.5% from 2017 to 2022.The report has also profiled leading players in the global market for home decor, which will remain active through 2022. These include companies such as Samson Holding Ltd., Koninklijke Philips N.V., Springs Window Fashions LLC, The Oneida Group, Inc., Siemens AG, Suofeiya Home Collection Co., Ltd., Conair Corporation, Inter Ikea Systems B.V, Hanssem Co., Ltd. and Zepter International Inc.You can now buy a single user license of the report :ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.Contact Us:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
8.2% CAGR Anticipated for Protein A Resins Market During 2016-2026

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The global protein A resin market is expected to increase at a y-o-y growth rate of over 7% and reach US$ 380.4 Mn in revenues in 2016. North America, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), and Western Europe will collectively account for nearly 70% revenue share of the market in 2016. Increasing process efficiency, growing preference for e-distribution channels and strategic integration of supply chains are some of the major trends impacting the growth of the global protein A resin market.The wide range of therapeutic applications of monoclonal antibodies will lead to more research and improved focus on biotechnology sector, resulting into increasing demand for protein A resins. Favourable government policies  in terms of formulation of suitable policies for startups and administration of funding for development of next-gen medical products -- are expected to play an important role in driving growth. Development of cost-effective protein A resin is also expected to boost the growth of the market in 2016 and beyond. In contrast, efficacy of alternate purification methods of monoclonal antibodies and high cost (US$ 15,000  US$ 16,000 per litre) will continue to pose challenges for widespread adoption.Request For Report Samlple@On the basis of product-type, natural protein A resins are expected to outsell recombinant protein A resins. Demand for natural and recombinant protein A resins will be fuelled by the favourable results of the therapeutic uses of monoclonal antibodies. The recombinant protein A resins segment is expected to surpass US$ 135 Mn in revenues in 2016, up from nearly US$ 125 Mn in 2015.Agarose-based protein A resins will remain the largest segment by matrix type, accounting for over 85% revenue share of the market in 2016. Demand for glass/silica-based and organic polymer-based protein A resins will decline, owing to higher adoption of agarose-based protein A resins.The antibody purification applications of protein A resins will continue to hold leading market share in 2016, while the immunoprecipitation application segments market share is expected to reach 23.5%. Biopharmacuetical manufacturers will remain the prominent end-users of the global protein A resins, followed by clinical research labs and academic institutions.Increasing number of clinical trials on biologics will continue to have a positive impact on protein A resins market in North America. The demand for protein A resins in APEJ region is expected to increase due to growing research on monoclonal antibodies in India and China.Request For Report Table of Contents (TOC):General Electric Company and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. are among the leading players in the global protein A resin market. Emerging players Merck Millipore and REPLIGEN CORP., are focusing on increasing market share by strategic collaborations, while expansion of product portfolio in life science and research catalogues remains a key business strategy for Novasep and GenScript.Long-term Outlook: The global protein A resin market is expected to increase at a CAGR of 8.2% in terms of revenues during the forecast period 2016-2026. North America and APEJ will continue to be the leading markets during the forecast period.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Industrial Relay Market to Witness Growth Acceleration From 2017 to 2027

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A relay is a protecting device used for protection of power systems such as machines, transformers, and generators etc. as it isolates the system from the fault condition in order to prevent damage from electrical overloads such as damage from high rated current and voltages. In order to protect the equipment from high voltages and fault currents relays are used to isolate the equipment from the system. Relay sense the input voltage if it reaches the peak voltage called threshold limit it controls the input voltage if the input voltage exceeds the peak voltage limit it will trigger a signal to circuit breaker. Circuit breaker is a device used to make or break the circuit from the live to protect the complete system from short circuits.Industrial relays are essential to protect the equipment in the system. Several relays operate in industrial applications such as SSR solid state relay, Electro-mechanical relay, overload protection relay, latching relay and other relays. Solid state relay (SSR) switching is completely electronic base where as in electromechanical, operation completely based on opening and closing moving contacts by a magnetic force. Solid state relays are familiar and most popular. They are gaining attention from industries and witnessing a high growth opportunities in the global industrial relays market. In industries motors, generators, transformers, are running continuously those needs a protecting devices VCB, SF6, all needs a protecting devices to ensure the health of the equipment and to protect the complete power systems. Relay triggers under faulty condition means in abnormal fault condition if not eventually the system get affected and damaged it even may damage the other machines if it is not isolated from the circuit.Request for Sample @Market Dynamics: Industrial RelayMarketSolid state relays (SSR) gaining traction in between the forecast period. There are various driving factors which are expected to drive the demand for industrial relays such as, solid state relays (SSR) provides fast switching capabilities with less voltage commonly 3VDC-32VDC. Switching capabilities attained by (SCR) silicon control rectifier, SCR energizes the relay to operate under fault condition. Some of the types of solid state relays are zero switching relays (it is used to turn ON when the control voltage is applied and it turn OFF when the control voltage is removed) zero switching relays are widely used in industrial applications. Instant ON relay (instant relay operates if the voltage reaches pick up voltage it turns ON instantly). Peak switching relays (this relay turns on when the control voltage is present) these are the key driving factors which are expected to increase the demand for SSR relays in the global industrial relays market. Electromechanical relays are general purpose relays, machine control relays, reed relays these operates with AC & DC currents, the voltage range 12V-230V which are also expected grow significantly in the global industrial relays market. Overload protection relays are used in the industries, substations during the load operations. In short circuit condition the input voltage rises to threshold limit in which the relay turns ON by moving contacts. Overload protection relays turns ON and isolate the complete system with the help of circuit breaker these are key driving factor for the global industrial relays market. Some of the other relays are latching relays going to upsurge the market in the given forecast period and also build significant opportunities for global manufacturers of industrial relays market.Introduction of innovative new relays for various protection systems of industrial sector is a key trend in this market  this ensures that all the global key players are integrating to manufacture industrial relays. From the application point of view, oil & gas, marine followed by marine, automotive and aerospace industry is expected to gain traction in the market over the forecast period owing to the increasing need for protection.Market Segmentation: Industrial RelayMarketThe Industrial Relays market is segmented on the basis of product types and applicationOn the basis of product types, the Industrial Relays market is segmented into:ElectromechanicalLatchingSolid RelaysOverload ProtectionAutomotiveOther RelaysOn the basis of application, the Industrial Relays market is segmented into:Industrial AutomationOil and GasMarineMilitaryElectronicsOthersRegional Outlook: Industrial Relays MarketBased on the geographical region, Asia Pacific is projected to grow with a prominent market share in the global industrial relays market, followed by Western Europe and North America. The use of Industrial relay in the industrial sectors due to their significant features to protect the systems such as overload protection, over voltage protection, short circuit protection drives the growth market and it is becoming economical due to the latest innovation and developments being made in APAC, SSR and electromechanical relays gaining extensive growth in the APAC industrial relays market. Europe and North America are given such positive situations, by replacing aged infrastructure with the updated relays which helps the system to work more efficiently.Request for Table of Contents @Some of the key players in the Industrial Relays market are:Fujitsu LtdCrydom IncSiemens AGCoto TechnologySchneider ElectricOmron CorpABOUT 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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
APEJ Laundry Care Market Estimated to Expand at 5.3% during 2017 to 2027

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A new report published by Future Market Insights titled Laundry Care Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012  2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017  2027) studies the performance of the global laundry care market over a 10 year assessment period from 2017 to 2027. The report presents the value and volume forecast of the global laundry care market and provides key insights into the factors driving market growth as well as the factors restricting market growth. The estimates point to a revenue growth from about US$ 75,580 Mn in 2017 to nearly US$ 126,990 Mn by 2027 end, resulting in a CAGR of 5.3% over the forecast period.Request For Report Sample:Global Laundry Care Market: Segmentation and ForecastThe report segments the global laundry care market on the basis of product type (fabric softeners, laundry detergents, others), on the basis of source type (synthetic, organic, others), on the basis of form type (powder, cake/block, liquid, others) and on the basis of distribution channel (wholesaler/distributors, supermarket/hypermarket, convenience Stores, ecommerce, grocery stores, others).The fabric softeners are estimated to be valued at US$ 16,836.9 Mn in the year 2017 and are slated to touch a figure of US$ 29,164.4 Mn in the year 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 5.6% during the assessment period.The laundry detergents are estimated to be valued at US$ 44,943 Mn in the year 2017 and are poised to touch a figure of US$ 75,069.9 Mn in the year 2027, registering a CAGR of 5.3% during the assessment period.The synthetic source type segment is estimated to be valued at US$ 40,029.9 Mn in the year 2017 and is slated to touch a figure of US$ 66,010.1 Mn in the year 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 5.1% during the assessment period.The organic source type segment is estimated to be valued at US$ 22,141.4 Mn in the year 2017 and is slated to reach a figure of US$ 38,359.9 Mn in the year 2027, registering a CAGR of 5.6% during the assessment period.The powder form type segment is estimated to be valued at US$ 22,782.4 Mn in the year 2017 and is poised to touch a figure of US$ 38,521.3 Mn in the year 2027, registering a CAGR of 5.4% during the assessment period.The liquid form type segment is estimated to be valued at US$ 34,205.8 Mn in the year 2017 and is slated to reach a figure of US$ 58,396.8 Mn in the year 2027, registering a CAGR of 5.5% during the assessment period.The convenience stores segment is estimated to be valued at US$ 19,993.6 Mn in the year 2017 and is poised to touch a figure of US$ 34,062 Mn in the year 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 5.5% during the assessment period.The ecommerce segment is estimated to be valued at US$ 7,988.7 Mn in the year 2017 and is slated to touch a figure of US$ 14,508.3 Mn in the year 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 6.1% during the assessment period.Global Laundry Care Market: Regional ForecastFuture Market Insights tracks the performance of the global laundry care market across the key geographies of North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East and Africa. As per the forecast of Future Market Insights, the Asia Pacific excluding Japan market is estimated to be valued at US$ 20,599.8 Mn in the year 2017 and is slated to reach a value of US$ 35,809.5 Mn in the year 2017, exhibiting a CAGR of 5.7% during the assessment period. The Western Europe market is estimated to be valued at US$ 15,727.1 Mn in the year 2017 and is poised to reach a value of US$ 26,699.4 Mn in the year 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 5.4% during the assessment period.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Global Laundry Care Market: Vendor InsightsThe report has included some of the key players operating in the global laundry care market such as Procter & Gamble Co., Unilever PLC, Colgate-Palmolive Company, Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC, Amway Corporation, Kao Corporation, S.C. Johnson & Son Inc., LG Household & Health Care Ltd., Golrang Industrial Group, Lion Corporation, Church & Dwight Co., Inc. and Alicorp S.A.A. among others. The market for laundry care is highly lucrative which is dominated by various local and international players. Thus, to compete in the market companies are adopting various differential strategies to enhance their market position such as frequently launch of laundry products with multi-functional features.You can now buy a single user license of the report :ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.Contact Us:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Cloud Systems Management Software Market Analysis, Segments, Growth and Value Chain 2016 - 2026

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Cloud Systems Management Software Market: OverviewCloud computing is a type of computing which has been developed with a vision to share computing resources rather than owing or having a local servers or personal devices to handle applications. Cloud computing is similar to grid computing, a type of computing where unused processing cycles of all computers in a network are pooled and harnessed to solve problems too intensive for any stand-alone machine. Cloud systems management software are that software which operates and monitors applications, data and services residing in the cloud. With use of such cloud system management software, operators and engineers are able to monitor computing-based resources are working optimally and whether it is properly interacting with users and other services. It is anticipated that over the forecast period, it that cloud systems management software market is expected to grow.Request For Report Sample:Cloud Systems Management Software Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe demand for cloud systems management software is driven by the factors such as simplified integration of complex & heterogeneous cloud systems, rise in adoption of private & hybrid cloud among the enterprises throughout the globe, and willingness of enterprises to opt for required cloud services from different vendors in order to avoid more enhance features and avoid any vendor agreement tussle. In cloud systems management software market growth in e-commerce business and other online services has given a momentum to cloud systems management software. There is an increase in adoption rate of cloud systems management software among the enterprises for simplifying the process of cloud computing. In addition, organization are spending on integrated analytics, for detection of issues in applications in short time, and reduced slowdown. Such services and monitoring tools are all cloud based. Aforementioned few factors, are expected to drive the market of cloud systems management software market.Complexities in application portability, rising threat of cybercrime, issues with data safety are few of the known possible restraints that can hinder the growth of cloud systems management software market.Cloud Systems Management Software Market: Market SegmentationBased on cloud location, cloud systems management Software market can be segmented into:PublicPrivateHybridCommunity CloudBased on cloud services, cloud Systems management Software market can be segmented into:IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)Storage DatabaseGlobal Cloud Systems Management Software Market: Regional OutlookBased on the geographic regions, global cloud systems management Software market is segmented into seven key market segments namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Among the aforementioned regions, North America will dominate the cloud systems management Software market over the forecast period owing to the fact that North America has the largest number of cloud hosting companies in world. And country such as U.S. has been foremost in developing and producing cloud systems management software products and it has been endowed with establishments which are the major consumer of cloud computing. Next to North America second most promising cloud systems management software market is APEJ. In APEJ cloud systems management software market countries such as India, which is one of those few countries who render IT, services to the entire world depends heavily on cloud computing. Recent boom in e-commerce growth in this region is also a factor, which will indirectly help cloud systems management software market as e-commerce portals utilizes cloud computing to host their servers and pages. Western Europe and Eastern Europe countries come next to APEJ in cloud system management software. Among the two Western Europe leads in cloud system management software as countries such as Germany, U.K. etc. are bases of establishment which rely heavily on cloud computing. MEA and Latin America is yet to grow in cloud systems management software. Over the forecast period, it can be anticipated that the market will grow.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Cloud Systems Management Software Market: Key PlayersThe major players identified in the global cloud systems management software market includes:BMC SoftwareCA TechnologiesCisco Systems, Inc.HP Enterprise CompanyIBM CorporationMicrosoft CorporationOracle CorporationRed Hat, Inc.ServiceNow, Inc.VMWareABOUT 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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Data Centre Rack Server Market Dynamics, Forecast, Analysis and Supply Demand 2016 - 2026

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Data Center Rack Server Market: OverviewA data center rack server is a rack-mounted server. Data center rack server is usually a computer dedicated to use as a server for the data center and it is configured to install in a framework called rack. Data center rack server consist of multiple mounting slots called bays, each designed to stack a hardware unit in place secured with bolted enclosures. A data center rack server has a low-profile enclosure, in contrast to a tower server. Data center rack server is design to contain multiple servers by stacking one above the other. Data center rack server consolidates network resources and minimizes the required floor space. The data center rack server design also simplifies cabling among network components. Considering huge amount of data generated and corresponding increase in data centers to hold and process such data will boost the data center rack server market over the forecast period.Request For Report Sample:Data Centre Rack Server Market: Drivers and RestraintsIn present era, every business houses, establishments are relying on data generated through various modes. Across of globe zillionth of data are being stored and transferred in a blink of an eye through data center rack server. In addition, data centers across globe are multiplying at a same speed at which it can accumulate all those data, which are being generated every second. Such data centers are fitted with hundreds of data center rack server for executing data related task. Banking business, e-commerce business, cloud-based services etc. has increased in recent years. This service, for online purposes or web-based services, requires ample number of server to transfer and receive data from every nook and corner possible in this planet. Growth in such business is fuelling the demand for data center rack server. The market is facing all-time high in demand for need of high functioning servers as well as product that can help in lessening operational expenditure. The data center rack server is the most apt system available in market to meet such needs.Data center rack server market has least of possible restraint now unless any disruptive technology is invented which eliminates the use of servers from IT systems.Data Centre Rack Server Market: Market SegmentationBased on product type, Data Centre Rack Server market can be segmented into:Single processor Quad coreSingle processor XeonDual processor Xeon4-way serverN-way serverRISC serversBased on end user type, Data Centre Rack Server market can be segmented intoBanking InstitutionsE-commerce BusinessesCloud ServicesCyber Security FirmsGlobal Data Center Rack Server Market: Regional OutlookBased on the geographic regions, global data Centre rack server market is segmented into seven key market segments namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Among the aforementioned regions, North America will dominate the data center rack server market over the forecast period owing to the fact that North America has the largest data centers in world and it has been foremost in developing and producing data center rack server products for convenience. In APEJ countries such as China, India, and Thailand will be the key contributor to the growth of data Centre rack server market due to the very fact IT industry and subsequent data centers are increasing in these countries. Western Europe region will come next to APEJ with respect to growth of data center rack server market. In Eastern Europe, the market of data center rack server has also gathered momentum in recent years. MEA and Latin America data center rack server market is yet to see progress as large scale data center rack server are in minimum numbers owing to a very meagre growth in data center businesses. However, over the forecast period it is anticipated that data center rack server market will grow in this specific region.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Data Centre Rack Server Market: Key PlayersThe major players identified in the global data center rack server market includes:comHewlett Packard Enterprise Development LPLenovoFUJITSUNEC CorporationSelrack Pvt. LtdABOUT 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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Public Safety & Security Market size and Key Trends in terms of volume and value 2016 - 2026

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Public safety & security Market: OverviewWith the term public safety & security we layman are bound to perceive it as deployment of police patrolling, posting guards at the city hall and courthouse. In colloquial term public safety & security refers to the welfare and protection of the general public. It is usually conceived and believed to be a government responsibility. Most states and countries have departments for public safety & security. The primary goal of such department is prevention and protection of the public from dangers affecting safety such as crimes, revolt, political turmoil, natural and man -made catastrophic. In most of the cases public safety & security division comprises of individuals from other organizations including police, emergency medical services, fire force etc. But gradually the term public safety & security has evolved, apart from the conventional security and safety measures the term has widened and now with help of science and technology public safety & security includes state of the art technology, IT systems and software etc. With rise in safety thwarting issues, people are moving towards adopting safety and security measures and considering this trend it can be anticipated that market will exhibit a healthy CAGR over the forecast period.Request For Report Sample:Public safety & security Market: Drivers and RestraintsIf we observe the recent commotion across globe from Aleppo to U.S. campus shootings, it is evident that public safety & security is a grim issue which need to be taken up with utmost issues. Public safety & security issues are not only limited to land even cybercrimes are on rise with leaps and bounds. Social media monitoring, installation of thermal sensor cameras, deployment of cameras on traffic signals and in critical zones for live monitoring, up-gradation of security systems in banks and ATMs, installation of digital RFID door lock system are few of those equipment and technology through which public safety & security has been improved. And constant innovations and research activities are on rise which can contribute towards public safety & security. According to a recent article by Homeland Security of U.S. it is about to spend approximately around US$ 81 Bn by 2021 in public safety & security. Aforementioned factors have equal potential to individually drive the public safety & security market.Public safety & security is a responsibility which one cant shed off and over the time it has multiplied in every aspect. This sole reason substantiate the reason that there is least of any restraint for the growth of public safety & security market unless human being stop existing on this planet.Public safety & security Market: SegmentationThe Public safety & security market is segmented as follows:Public safety & security Market, by solutionCritical Communication NetworkBiometric Security and Authentication SystemSurveillance SystemScanning and Screening SystemEmergency and Disaster ManagementCyber SecurityPublic Address and General AlarmBackup and Recovery SystemPublic safety & security Market, by end userHomeland SecurityEmergency ServicesIndustrialOthersPublic safety & security Market, by servicesProfessional ServicesManaged ServicesPublic safety & security Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the Public safety & security market is segmented into seven regions, namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA). North America is the market leader in terms of value in the public safety & security market management owing to the strong economy and capability and consciousness to improve public safety & security. Followed by Western Europe and Eastern Europe which has similar trend alike North America. In APEJ region countries like India, China are too not lagging in public safety & security market. Initiatives and plans are being introduced and executed for improving public safety & security. In MEA region, public safety & security has been growing constantly due to rise in spending in improving city life and understanding importance of public safety & security. Latin America is in nascent stage in public safety & security market. But government has been introducing plans and adopting measures for public safety & security.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Public safety & security: Key PlayersThe key players in the Public safety & security market areCiscoMotorola Solutions, IncHexagon ABPaessler AGNORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATIONABOUT 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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Telepsychiatry Market Growth, Trends, Absolute Opportunity and Value Chain 2016 - 2026

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Telepsychiatry Market OverviewThe arrival of telecommunication technology in the 20th century truly revolutionised a number of fields. National boundaries become irrelevant and the world became one big global village. It also led to the advent of telemedicine which would have been unthinkable fifty years ago. Telemedicine is taking the help of Information Technology and telecommunication equipment to provide medical diagnoses from a distance. It helps eliminate the barriers of distance and is vital in serving far-flung rural communities with medical care. One of the main constituents of telemedicine is the telepsychiatry market. At its core, it is about using telecommunications equipment to provide psychiatric assessment and also care. It relies on video conferencing technology to connect psychiatrists to their patients. Telepsychiatry can be offered through intermediary companies or even individual specialists. The telepsychiatry market has truly come of age in the 21st century and is poised to have a very bright future.Request For Report Sample:Telepsychiatry Market DriversOne of the key drivers of the telepsychiatry market, especially in the U.S. has been the severe shortage of psychiatric doctors, particularly those specialising in child & adolescent psychiatry. Telepsychiatry can allow a doctor to see a larger number of patients quicker, thus utilising their limited time to the fullest. Another driver is the rapidly improving mobile network infrastructure, enabling doctors to clinically assess and treat patients in small villages and semi-urban areas. This eliminates the need for either the doctor or patient to travel long distances, significantly saving both parties time and money. Rural areas suffer from a dearth of trained medical professionals along with a severe lack of awareness. Hence, even if they possess serious mental health issues, they might be ignored or even suppressed. The third factor is cost reduction. Telepsychiatry ensures that neither the psychiatrist nor their patient needs to travel. All that they require is an Internet connection, saving them substantial costs. The telepsychiatry market can also be beneficial for psychiatrists seeking a quick second opinion. Psychiatrists have the advantage of beginning the treatment quickly and sharing their knowledge, while their patients can be assured of the doctors diagnoses being validated.Telepsychiatry Market RestraintsThere are two sides to every coin. Just as Information Technology & telecommunications have benefited us in numerous ways, they have caused a lot of problems like data hacking, privacy concerns, identity fraud etc. which were unheard of in the past. Patchy Internet connectivity can be a serious constraint to the growth of the telepsychiatry market. Mobile coverage can be notoriously fickle even in developed countries and there are many regions around the world which still use antiquated 2G network connections. There is a strong likelihood of a patient being disconnected from their psychiatrist in the middle of a therapy session, causing great inconvenience to both. A second challenge can be privacy concerns. People have become digitally wary now with all the cases of data hacking, email leaks and confidential data being made public by insider leaks. They might be concerned that their psychotherapy sessions could be compromised or might even be recorded making them reluctant to agree to this kind of treatment. The third restraint for the telepsychiatry market is the ambiguity of regulatory policy. Telepsychiatry blurs the line between medicine and technology and each country has separate laws for each, making governing this field a challenge.Telepsychiatry Market Key RegionsIn the U.S, telepsychiatry is typically covered by insurance when it is incorporated into a Medicare program. The U.S is the largest telepsychiatry market at present, followed by the E.U. This is because they have the required technology in place already and also the required funding from the government or private sector. There is a higher prevalence of psychiatric ailments in this part of the world and the general population are well aware of the need to seek medical assistance to overcome them. In countries like India, Latin American and the Middle East, a young population leading an increasingly stressful life along with comparatively fewer psychiatrists in percentage terms will contribute to the growth of the telepsychiatry market there.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Telepsychiatry Market Key Market PlayersSome of the players in the telepsychiatry market are InSight Telepsychiatry, Iris Telehealth, Arcadian Telepsychiatry and Advanced Telemed Services.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Upcoming Mobile Pantry at LexingtonMiddle School 4-6 p.m. on Jan. 4th

Hunger is as real in farming communities as it is in urban food deserts. Many children, families and seniors in rural areas struggle with food insecurity. Food Bank for the Heartland and Tyson Foods are committed to helping these neighbors in need.

Tyson Foods generously granted $105,000 to Food Bank for the Heartland to add a tractor trailer to the organizations fleet and also to sponsor a monthly mobile pantry in partnership with Lexington Public Schools for residents in Dawson County. The 53-foot trailer is being utilized to deliver food throughout the Food Banks service area to agency partners and through the Mobile Pantry program.

Were proud to support Food Bank for the Heartland and know the mobile pantry will impact even more lives and hunger relief agencies this holiday season and beyond, said Derek Burleson, Public Relations manager, Tyson Foods.

The monthly mobile pantry at Lexington Middle School began in August 2017 and continues to grow. On average each month, the Food Bank is distributing 20,000 lbs. of food free to more than 300 local families. Faculty members from Lexington Public Schools and other members of the community volunteer each month to host the mobile pantry.

The mobile pantry is for people living in Dawson County and surrounding communities. Those in need of the service are invited to bring boxes or bags to assist in carrying the food they receive. No identification is required to receive food. The mobile pantry recurs the first Thursday of each month at Lexington Middle School.

Food Bank for the Heartlands mobile pantry program delivers food directly to communities that have a high need but limited food resources. The one-day distribution is free, and in Dawson County includes spaghetti, tomato sauce, canned pork and beans, cereal, pancake mix and other shelf-stable products along with perishable items, including a variety of fresh produce and bakery items.

Tyson Foods is a tremendous supporter, said Susan Ogborn, president and CEO of Food Bank for the Heartland. We are grateful to the Tyson Foods Foundation for this generous grant which is allowing us to serve more food-insecure children, families and seniors across Nebraska and western Iowa. These funds are especially impactful in Dawson County through the monthly mobile pantry in partnership with the outstanding team at Lexington Public Schools.

I am so excited to be working with Food Bank for the Heartland to provide the mobile food pantry in Lexington, said Kristi OMeara "As the social worker with Lexington Public Schools, I am aware of the large number of students who live in food-insecure households. The monthly food pantry is a tremendous service to the community.

Results of a study supported by the Conagra Brands Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the Nielsen Company show approximately 8.4 percent, or 2,030 people, in Dawson County are at-risk for hunger. That includes 17.7 percent, or 1,190 children. Map the Meal Gap 2017 is a study from Feeding America, the nations largest domestic hunger relief organization, which provides data on a county level. Of the 1,812,662 people living in the 93 counties served by Food Bank for the Heartland, there are approximately 213,840 struggling with hunger according to study results.

The next mobile pantry at Lexington Middle School is scheduled for Thursday, January 4th from 4-6 p.m. This institution is an equal opportunity provider. Lexington Middle School is located at 1100 N Washington Street, Lexington, NE 68850.
Wireless Healthcare Asset Management Market Value Share, Supply Demand, share and Value Chain 2016-2026

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Wireless Healthcare Asset Management Market OverviewWe all own multiple gadgets like smartphones, tablet computers, desktops and laptops which have increased our dependence on wires to charge these electronic devices. Wouldnt we all like a wire-free, tangle-free existence? The immense desire to go wireless has also begun to impact the medical profession in the form of the Wireless Healthcare Asset Management Market. Medical institutions must constantly monitor their equipment, tools, patients or even the professionals working there. A great many of them have opted to go in for the wireless route for the comfort and convenience provided by it. Hospitals have to manage a number of costly systems, tools & equipment which requires a significant investment of time. Loss, theft or misplacement of any of these healthcare assets would be a massive financial loss to the organisation. The Wireless Healthcare Asset Management Market provides a real-time solution for medical institutes to keep track of not only physical assets but also the patients & medical professionals. Going wireless provides flexibility, portability and scalability to the system. It ensures that assets & their various categories are easily searchable by indicating both room location & availability, sterilisation status, and also whether it is free or currently in use.Request For Report Sample:Wireless Healthcare Asset Management Market DriversThere are several factors responsible for the long-term growth of the wireless healthcare asset management market. One is improving wireless technology. Initially, there were concerns amongst medical professionals that wireless systems would interfere with hospital systems like telemetry which is crucial for measuring a patients vital signs. These problems have been largely taken care of by newer systems which use different wireless frequencies. Another driver is the reduced fears among the public & the industry as a whole about wireless technologies. Great research has been undertaken in this field which has made all radio frequencies used in wireless healthcare asset management equipment quite safe. Agencies like the FCC, FDA, EPA and OSHA have also certified the technologies reassuring patients. A third factor is the patient comfort & convenience. Medical institutions have begun to provide a number of added facilities & those hospitals which do not might lose their patients to those who do. It is not only patients but also medical staff who are becoming increasingly dependent on wireless technology. Doctors & nurses can use hands-free VoFi to stay in continuous contact with the other staff or the main nursing station. Nurses can enter information about their patients while moving around the hospital on a tablet computer. Doctors could even use their mobile phones to access the office servers or various medical applications. All of this is anticipated to drive the wireless healthcare asset management market globally.Wireless Healthcare Asset Management Market RestraintsThere are still some challenges which must be overcome in the wireless healthcare asset management market. A major one is a high cost involved in installing wireless management systems. While organisations want to provide all the services that they can to their patients, they may not have the required funding or government support to do so. Wireless systems are usually the first to be sacrificed in cost-cutting. Another issue is designating responsibility for such equipment. All too often, the departments that oversee wireless systems like IT or Biometrics are overloaded and are unable or unwilling to take on additional managerial responsibility. This is especially true when the equipment takes up a lot of space. Lastly, there is a lack of knowledge & expertise concerning such wireless healthcare asset management systems. Medical institutions face difficulty in hiring quality personnel able to understand & exploit this technology to the fullest. These problems must be dealt with for the long term prospects of the wireless healthcare asset management market.Wireless Healthcare Asset Management Market Key RegionsThe U.S is both the largest wireless healthcare asset management market and its fastest growing because of a large number of American RFID and RTLS providers and strong healthcare in the country. Asia-Pacific will become a crucial future market because of rising awareness & greater public & private healthcare investments.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Wireless Healthcare Asset Management Market Key Market PlayersSome companies competing in the wireless healthcare asset management market are AeroScout, Inc, GE Healthcare, Ekahau, Inc, IBM Corporation and Siemens Healthcare.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Social Media Records Management Market Globally Expected to Drive Growth through 2026

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Social media refers to the activities which integrate web technology, social interaction, and user-generated content. Social media includes blogs, social networks, photo libraries, virtual worlds, location-based services, and video sharing sites. Worldwide agencies use social media internally and externally to share information, support business processes, and connect people to government, according to The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. As for all records management purposes, capturing and maintaining evidence are key capabilities of such solutions.Request For Report Sample:Social Media Records Management Market: Drivers & RestraintsAccording to a survey by Gartner, 39% of all businesses participating said they do not any form of social media tracking or monitoring in the organization. Among the participating B-2-B firms, 51% said they lacked social media tracking policies and processes. In social media records management, agencies are facing the challenges because of the dynamic and collaborative nature of social media such as recordkeeping in a collaborative environment. Also, the content is located in multiple places and the ownership of data relies on a third party.Social Media Records Management Market: SegmentationThe global social media records management market is classified on the basis of region.Social Media Records Management Market: OverviewDue to the increasing amount of content and activities on social media, documentation of the information which is related to a specific organization becomes increasingly relevant. This covers all platforms where multiple users and organizations interact in a social and unstructured manner which includes large platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn among other social networking websites, and social media content and activities on individual forums, blogs, etc. For the preservation of social media activities, software are designed for capturing a number of scattered blogs or other social media content.Social Media Records Management Market: Region wise OverviewGeographically, global Social Media Records Management market is classified into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, Middle East and Africa (MEA). Social media records management is the application of records management principles to unstructured social media content. Social media allows individuals to create, organize, edit, collaborate, comment on, combine, share content, like content, resulting in the creation of Federal records. The Federal Records Act defines Federal records as any material that is recorded, made or received in the course of Federal business, regardless of its form or characteristics, and is worthy of preservation. Social media content which satisfies the requirements of this definition must be managed according to the applicable laws and regulations. In December 2012, North Carolina state government unveiled a social media archiving platform which is the first of its kinds to offer complete public access to archived social media data and metadata. The Social Media Archive displayed Facebook and Twitter posts from or directed at a handful of agencies initially, but eventually the tool expanded to include more than 130 of the states social media websites. Federal agencies and state and municipal government offices are required to store records of communications so that they will be available for future researchers and can be produced in response to Freedom of Information Act.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Social Media Records Management Market: Key PlayersThe key players in global social media records management market are Iron Mountain Incorporated, ArchiveSocial, Qumram AG to name a few.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Mobile Endoscopic Workstations Market Demand is Increasing Rapidly in Recent Years

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The mobile endoscopic workstations is surgical devices which are used for effective endoscopic surgeries. The mobile endoscopic workstations can accommodate all the required endoscopic devices that are used in an endoscopic surgery. Medical endoscopic workstations comprises a number of features which can be upgraded for user safety and comfort. A mobile endoscopic workstations includes an LCD monitor arm, cable management, clip-in accessories, drawer pack, gas bottle holder, data storage accessories and electrical safety switch. The LCD monitor arm enables manipulation of the monitor that allows the operator to optimize the viewing angle and position with integrated gas spring and tensioned joints for improved functionality and reduced user strain.Even all the devices in mobile endoscopic workstations are controlled by a central switch. In addition to this wide range of clip-in accessories are provided for cable holders clips to a water bottle. In order to support CO2 insufflation in medical endoscopy, various size of gas bottle holder is present in the mobile endoscopic workstation. Mobile endoscopic workstations continues to advance, perhaps most noticeably with the increasing miniaturization of light source and video processing technology.Mobile Endoscopic Workstations Market: Drivers and Restraints Mobile endoscopic workstations market is growing with the increasing prevalence of gastrointestinal diseases pulmonary disorder which require a minimally invasive surgical procedure. Mobile endoscopic workstations market is also expected to rise due to high adoption of technologically advance workstations in medical facilities for easy access to other endoscopic instruments. However, high cost of the equipment, lack of skilled professionals and limitation in endoscopic cleaning of these device to avoid future infections poses as a threat to the mobile endoscopic workstations market over the forecast period.Request For Report Sample @Mobile Endoscopic Workstations Market: Segmentation The global mobile endoscopic workstations market is classified on the basis of product type, end user and geographical region. Based on the product type, the global mobile endoscopic workstations market is segmented into the following;Colonoscopes, Gastrointestinal endoscopes,Enteroscopes, Bronchoscopes,Cystoscopes, Laparoscopes, Others, Based on the end user, the global mobile endoscopic workstations market is segmented into the following;Hospitals,Ambulatory Surgical Centers,Specialized Endoscopy Clinics, Diagnostic Imaging Centers, Mobile Endoscopic Workstations Market: OverviewMobile endoscopic workstations market is changing continuously due to increase in the uses of endoscope in various disorders. Furthermore several companies in the market place increasing their product portfolio in mobile endoscopic workstations market may change the market dynamics over a given period of time. Based on the product type, the global mobile endoscopic workstations is segmented into Colonoscopes, gastrointestinal endoscopes, enteroscopes, bronchoscopes, cystoscopies, laparoscopes and others. Based on the end user, the global mobile endoscopic workstations market is segmented into hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, specialized clinics and diagnostic laboratories. Hospitals covers a major share in the global mobile endoscopic workstations market due to their easy availability of endoscopic devices and increasing patterns for the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases. The Mobile endoscopic workstations market is expected to grow at a healthy growth rate over the forecast period.Mobile Endoscopic Workstations Market: Regional Overview; Region wise, the global Mobile Endoscopic Workstations market is classified North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific Ex. Japan, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America is expected to hold the highest market share due to favorable government policies, adoption of high end technologies in healthcare facilities. Further, Asia Pacific excluding Japan market is expected to grow at a highest growth over the forecast period.Request For Table Of Content @Mobile Endoscopic Workstations Market: Key Players; Some of the players in mobile endoscopic workstations market includes Aesculap, Inc, ARC Group of Companies Inc, Armstrong Medical Inc., Cura Carts, Ecleris S.R.L, Electro Kinetic Technologies, Elmed Electronics & Medical Industry & Trade Inc., EMOS Technology Gmbh, ENDO-TECHNIK W. Griesat, Olympus, SonoScape medical corp., GIMMI, Maxerendoscopy, HAEBERLE, Optomic and others.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:Mr. Sudip SahaFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Hybrid Power Solutions Global Market Size Status and Forecast 2022 | Siemens AG, SMA Solar Technology AG, Huawei Technologies, Danvest Energy A/S

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Hybrid Power Solutions Market Size Status and Forecast 2022" to its huge collection of research reports.This report studies the global Hybrid Power Solutions market analyzes and researches the Hybrid Power Solutions development status and forecast in United States EU Japan China India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market likeSiemens AGSMA Solar Technology AGHuawei TechnologiesDanvest Energy A/SAlpha Power SolutionsZTE CorporationFlexenclosure AB LtdOrmatAEG Power SolutionsRepowering SolutionsReGen PowertechHeliocentris Energy Solutions AGTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Market segment by Regions/Countries this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type the product can be split intoUp to 10KW11KW-100KWAbove 100KWMarket segment by Application Hybrid Power Solutions can be split intoResidentialCommercialTelecommunicationOtherTable of ContentsGlobal Hybrid Power Solutions Market Size Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Hybrid Power Solutions1.1 Hybrid Power Solutions Market Overview1.1.1 Hybrid Power Solutions Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Hybrid Power Solutions 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 Hybrid Power Solutions Market by Type1.3.1 Up to 10KW1.3.2 11KW-100KW1.3.3 Above 100KW1.4 Hybrid Power Solutions Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Residential1.4.2 Commercial1.4.3 Telecommunication1.4.4 OtherGet Complete TOC With Tables and Figures @2 Global Hybrid Power Solutions Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Hybrid Power Solutions 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 Siemens AG3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products Services and Solutions3.1.4 Hybrid Power Solutions Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 SMA Solar Technology AG3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products Services and Solutions3.2.4 Hybrid Power Solutions Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Huawei Technologies3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products Services and Solutions3.3.4 Hybrid Power Solutions Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Danvest Energy A/S3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products Services and Solutions3.4.4 Hybrid Power Solutions Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Alpha Power Solutions3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products Services and Solutions3.5.4 Hybrid Power Solutions Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 ZTE Corporation3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products Services and Solutions3.6.4 Hybrid Power Solutions Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 Flexenclosure AB Ltd3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products Services and Solutions3.7.4 Hybrid Power Solutions Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.7.5 Recent Developments3.8 Ormat3.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.8.3 Products Services and Solutions3.8.4 Hybrid Power Solutions Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.8.5 Recent Developments3.9 AEG Power Solutions3.9.1 Company Profile3.9.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.9.3 Products Services and Solutions3.9.4 Hybrid Power Solutions Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.9.5 Recent Developments3.10 Repowering Solutions3.10.1 Company Profile3.10.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.10.3 Products Services and Solutions3.10.4 Hybrid Power Solutions Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.10.5 Recent Developments3.11 ReGen Powertech3.12 Heliocentris Energy Solutions AG4 Global Hybrid Power Solutions Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global Hybrid Power Solutions Market Size by Type (2012-2017)4.2 Global Hybrid Power Solutions Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.3 Potential Application of Hybrid Power Solutions in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of Hybrid Power Solutions5 United States Hybrid Power Solutions Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Hybrid Power Solutions Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States Hybrid Power Solutions Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)6 EU Hybrid Power Solutions Development Status and Outlook6.1 EU Hybrid Power Solutions Market Size (2012-2017)6.2 EU Hybrid Power Solutions Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)Continue...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 @
Commercial Pharmaceutical Analytics Global Market Projected to Grow Ecstatically By 2027; Asserts MRFR Unleashing Industry Forecast

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Market Research Future published a Cooked research report on Global Commercial Pharmaceutical Analytics Market Research Report - Forecast to 2027 Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2027.Global Commercial Pharmaceutical Analytics Market - OverviewAnalytics is basically a tool for the mining of huge amount of scattered data, processing the data in order to align it into a useful information. This processed data can then be used in various processes. Analytics eases the workload in an organisation and enables us to maintain the efficient workflow. Analytics can be implemented through various software, services provided over web based/ Client based model & on-premise model.Pharmaceutical industry is going through the tectonic shift as analytics is playing a key role in helping the pharmaceutical and life science industry in terms of sophistication of process and resulting business impact they create. While adoption of analytics in Pharmaceutical industry is relatively new, third party analytic business services are growing rapidly and are likely to grow even faster with increasing adoption rate in the future. Wide range of analytic solutions are being deployed in the pharma space and advanced predictive and prescriptive analytics are generating powerful insights in the business. Commercial pharmaceutical analytics is enabling the pharmaceutical industry to adopt to the rapidly changing business environment and better manage the forth coming challenges in the industryGet a sample report atFurther there are various factors which support the growth of the market, these include growing adoption of new technologies and analytical tools, increasing usage of analytical tools in streamlining business process, rapidly growing pharmaceutical industry. On the other hand, there are certain limitations in the industry such as lack of skilled professionals which can hinder the growth of the market to an extent.Key Players:CitiusTech Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, Northwest analytics, Inc., ORACLE, Scio Health Analytics, Statistical Analysis System, TAKE Solutions Ltd, Tata Consultancy Services Limited, Trinity Pharma Solutions, Wipro Limited and others are some of the major players in the Global Commercial Pharmaceutical Analytics Market.Global Commercial Pharmaceutical Analytics Market - Regional AnalysisThe Americas Commercial Pharmaceutical Analytics market comprises of the two regions North America and Latin America. North American region is further divided in to US, and Canada. North American region has always been the leading regions in terms of the growth in the healthcare and pharmaceutical business. And Commercial pharmaceutical analytics market is no different. The growth in the North American region is mainly due to the rapid advancements in the United States. At present, the US is dominating the commercial pharmaceutical analytics market in this region as it has deployed the majority of the commercial pharmaceutical analytics solutions and its application in various segments. The US market for commercial pharmaceutical analytics is one of the most developed markets in the globe, with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in US is also helping and encouraging the pharmaceutical industry personnel and organizations. The commercial pharmaceutical analytics market is bound to grow with a moderate pace. US has various pharmaceutical organizations that help the new business and new software developers in the commercial pharmaceutical analytics industry. Some of them are, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, The Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA), The International Pharmaceutical Excipients Council and many more are present in US to provide assistance in the North American marketBrowse Full Report @The pharmaceutical industry in Canada is facing challenges and huge changes in the several years. As the period of the extensive essential consideration blockbuster drug attracts to a nearby from the patent bluff, pharmaceutical organizations are re-sorting out and receiving systems to lessen chance, and beat outer elements and their poor pipeline efficiency. These procedures incorporate embracing new business models with the help of Pharmaceutical analytics. The Pharmaceutical industry in Latin America is still under development with countries like Brazil, Columbia coming forward and taking initiative in the development of the industry. However, Commercial Pharmaceutical analytics is having limited marketed in the region at present but shows promising growth prospects in the futureEuropean Commercial Pharmaceutical Analytics market is the second largest market after Americas. The European market for Commercial Pharmaceutical Analytics majorly comprises of Western Europe, and Eastern Europe. Western Europe made up from countries like Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Spain and Rest of Western EuropeThe European Commercial Pharmaceutical Analytics market is expected to expand continuously due to increasing demand of the pharmaceutical analytics technology, which widely utilizes information for quantitative and subjective analysis, is experiencing an industry change from volume-based medicine and reimbursement to esteem based medications and reimbursement. The market is additionally being boosted, by a growing absence of patient information security, useful hole amongst payers and suppliers, repayment issues, increment in governmental regulation and expanding expense of implementing techniques.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.Market Research FutureP: +1 646 845 9312W:sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Ballast Water Management Market To Grow At A CAGR Of 31.43% During The Period 2017-2021

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Ballast Water Management Market 2017-2021" to its huge collection of research reports.Marine vessels take seawater onboard for stability; this water has a distinct marine environment signature with indigenous aquatic microbes and marine life. This ballast water, if released untreated at the vessel's new destination, may disrupt the local ecosystem. Ballast water management aims at reducing the harmful effects of ballast water disposal. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted a convention for the control, management, and sedimentation of ballast water on February 2004.Technavios analysts forecast the global ballast water management market to grow at a CAGR of 31.43% during the period 2017-2021.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global ballast water management market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers new installations and retrofit market.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEAGlobal Ballast Water Management Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsALFA LAVALGEA GroupHitachiVeolia Water TechnologiesWrtsilOther prominent vendorsatg UV TechnologyAzienda Chimica GenoveseCalgon Carbon CorporationEcochlorEvoqua Water TechnologiesHeadway Technology and ServicesHyde MarineJFE ENGINEERINGKadalneer TechnologiesKalf EngineeringNKOptimarinPanasonic Environmental Systems & EngineeringSamsung Heavy IndustriesTECHCROSSTrojan TechnologiesXylemGet Complete TOC With Tables and Figures @Market driverGrowing popularity of leisure cruisingFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeHigh cost of implementationFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendBusiness collaborations to streamline operationsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Global Market For Pallet Display Will Stand At Over US$ 1,600 Mn By 2026-End With A CAGR 4.3%

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Pallet Displays Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2026" to its huge collection of research reports.Pallet displays are being used on a large scale in retail stores, supermarkets, and hypermarkets as they help in displaying the product along with its primary features and effectively marketing the brand name. There has been a growth in the retail merchandising solutions owing to the launch of new products and increasing investment by brands towards promotion and marketing of the products. Based on the product differentiation strategies, customized pallet displays are also gaining popularity. Manufacturers are focusing on developing pallet displays that offer better brand visibility, offer better space for the specific product and results in the effective space utilization. Offering unique design for pallet displays as per the brand requirement is also being focused on in order to attract customers.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Pallet displays in various shapes and sizes are also being developed as per the requirement. Moreover, pallet displays with multiple sides are also becoming popular as it offers convenience to the customers. Pallet displays are also being developed including interesting product information, benefits and offer available with the products.Global Pallet Displays Market: Scope of StudyThe report on the global pallet displays market provides key trends and the market opportunity that may fuel the demand for pallet displays during the forecast period 2017-2026. Meanwhile, the report also focuses on the future penetration of new types of pallet displays.The report offers SWOT analysis, market attractiveness analysis and Porters five force analysis. The report is based on an in-depth analysis of both the qualitative and quantitative data. The report also talks about various market segments and key regions that will impact the growth of the pallet display market in the near future.The report on the global market for pallet displays also offers key insights on the market dynamics such as trends, opportunities, drivers, and restraints. After taking into account various factors that will have an impact on the global pallet displays market, the report also provides an estimation on market size, revenue, year-on-year growth, CAGR for each segment and regions in the market for the forecast period 2017 to 2026. In addition to this, the report also offers market opportunity analysis for various segments and the most profitable segment.Global Pallet Displays Market: Market SegmentationThe global pallet displays market is segmented on the basis of product type, end use, application, material type, and region. On the basis of product type, the market is segmented into full pallet display, half pallet display, and quarter pallet display. On the basis of end use, the market segmentation consists of hyper market, supermarket, departmental store, specialty store, convenience store, and other retail formats.Based on the application, the global pallet displays market segmentation includes food & beverages, cosmetics & personal care, pharmaceuticals, printing & stationery, electronics, automotive, and others. By material type, the market segment consists of corrugated board, foam board, plastic sheet, glass, and metal.Region-wise, the global pallet displays market segmentation includes Europe, Latin America, North America, Japan, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), and the Middle East and Africa (MEA).Get Complete TOC With Tables and Figures @Global Pallet Displays Market: Competition LandscapeSome of the Leading companies in the global pallet displays market are Sonoco Products Company, DS Smith Plc, Georgia-Pacific LLC, Smurfit Kappa Group PLC, WestRock Company, FFR Merchandising Company, U.S. Corrugated, Inc., Marketing Alliance Group, Creative Displays Now, Pratt Industries Inc., Mirada Medical Limited, Sciencesoft USA Corporation, Siemens Healthineers, Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, and Xinapse Systems Ltd. These key players are working on strategies to establish themselves in the global market by entering into a partnership or by launching a technically advanced product.About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Global Parking Meter Market Is Expected To Expand At A CAGR Of 6.95% During The Forecast Period From 2017 To 2025 To Reach US$16,454.1 Mn

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Parking Meter Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2025" to its huge collection of research reports.This report aims to provide a comprehensive strategic analysis of the global parking meter market along with revenue and growth forecasts for the period from 2017 to 2025. With fast changing technology use in various applications and rising adoption of this technology for parking solution, the parking meter market is expected to experience high growth in the coming years. Some of the factors supporting the growth of the market worldwide include the intensifying traffic congestion, increased technological investments in developing regions such as Asia Pacific, high demand for parking meters from parks and advent of customized solutions in developed regions such as North America and Europe. The impact of these and other macro-micro economic factors has been analyzed while developing the market growth models.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @This report on the global parking meter market provides a detailed analysis of parking meter solutions used for different applications by end-users depending upon their needs. The report offers an in-depth analysis of the market drivers, restraints, and growth opportunities. Using these factors, the study identifies various trends prominent in the industry which are expected to influence the market growth during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025. It includes a comprehensive coverage of the underlying economic and technological factors influencing the parking meter market growth. It provides the competitive landscape of key players in the parking meter market in order to highlight the competition scenario. The report also provides a detailed competitive analysis of the key players in the market and identifies various business strategies adopted by them. The study explains the penetration within each market segment across various geographies, and how these segments have accelerated the growth of the market as a whole.Global Parking Meter Market: SegmentationThe global parking meter market is analyzed by segmenting it on the basis of technology, parking mode, application and geography. Based on technology, the market is classified into parking meter (single space) and parking kiosks (multi space). This segment considers revenue generated from single space parking meters as well as multi space parking meters (parking kiosks). Based on parking mode, the market is categorized into pay & display, plate, space and others. In terms of application, parking meter market can be segmented into government institutions, hospitals, parks, transit systems, malls & stadiums and others (institutions, residential etc.). Geographically, the global market for parking meter has been segmented into five regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and South America. The market size and forecast for each region has been provided for the period from 2015 to 2025 along with the CAGR (%) for the forecast period from 2017 to 2025. The study also includes market estimates for major countries/regions such as the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, France, Japan, and India. The analysis by component, end-user and regions helps in evaluating the present scenario and growth prospects of the parking meter market over the forecast period from 2017 to 2025. Thus, the report provides in-depth cross-segment analysis of the market and classifies it into various industries, thereby providing valuable insights at the macro as well as micro levels.Global Parking Meter Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report concludes company profiles of major players in the industrial internet of things market on the basis of various attributes, such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies, SWOT analysis and segment presence. Some of the major players in the global parking meter market with the significant developments are Cale Access AB, CivicSmart, Inc., IPS Group, Inc., LocoMobi Inc, J.J. MacKay Canada Limited, METRIC Group Ltd, Parkeon S.A.S., Parking BOXX, POM Inc., Ventek International and Worldwide Parking, Inc. among others.Get Complete TOC With Tables and Figures @Market Segmentation:Parking Meter Market Analysis, by TechnologyParking Meter (Single Space)Parking Kiosks (Multi Space)Parking Meter Market Analysis, by ApplicationGovernment InstitutionsHospitalsParksTransit SystemsMalls & StadiumsOthers (Institutions, Residential etc.)Parking Meter Market Analysis, by Parking ModePay & DisplayPlateSpaceOthersParking Meter Market Analysis, by RegionNorth AmericaThe U.S.CanadaRest of North AmericaEuropeGermanyFranceThe U.K.Rest of EuropeAsia-PacificJapanChinaIndiaRest of Asia PacificMiddle-East & AfricaGCC CountriesSouth AfricaRest of MEASouth AmericaBrazilRest of South AmericaAbout 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 @
Detail Analysis on Global Stem Cell Reconstructive Market  Forecast to 2027

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Market Research Future published a Half-Cooked research report on Global Stem Cell Reconstructive Market Research Report - Forecast to 2027  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2027.Stem cell reconstructive surgery involves the treatment of injured or damaged part of body. Stem cells are undifferentiated biological cells which can divide to produce more stem cells. The major factors contributing to the market growth includes increasing number of geriatric population, rising number of patients suffering from chronic diseases and continuous development in the technology. Furthermore, increasing need for the alternative treatments for the diseases, government support for the development of the new products and increasing healthcare expenditure has fuelled the growth of market. According to International Diabetes Federation, in 2016, it was estimated that 420 million adult population was suffering from diabetes worldwide.Get a sample report atThese cells are unspecialized and capable of perpetuating itself through cell division. It can give rise to differentiated cells with specialized functions. Stem cells are used in the treatment of various diseases such as cancer, diabetes and others. According to American Diabetic Association, in 2012 about 29 million Americans were suffering from diabetes, this increasing patient population in this region and continuously developing technology has stimulated the growth of this market in America.This rising patient population has simultaneously increase the demand for the new treatment and thus driven the growth of the market. However, high cost of the treatment may hinder the growth of the market.Industry UpdatesMay, 2016 NuVasive launched the next generation synthetic bone graft product namely AttraX Putty in U.S. This initiative has expanded the NuVasives biologics product portfolio.July, 2014 Takara Bio Inc. entered into an agreement to acquire Cellectis SA, a stem cell business firm. This acquisition expanded Takaras stem cell product portfolio in the field of regenerative medicines.Global Stem cell reconstructive market - Regional AnalysisGlobal Stem cell reconstructive market, on the basis of regions is divided into Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa.America accounts for the largest and the fastest growing market of stem cell reconstructive owing to large patient population and well developed healthcare sector. America stem cell reconstructive market is segmented into two major regions: North America and South America. More than 80% of the market is shared by North America owing to the presence of US and Canada. According to the National Cancer Institute (2016), around 1,685,210 new cases of cancer have been diagnosed in the United States. According to World Health Organization (WHO), 9.3% of American population is suffering from diabetes. This increasing prevalence of cancer and diabetes in America is the major driving factor for the growth of this market. Moreover, government support for research and development, well developed technology and high healthcare expenditure has fuelled the growth of the market.Europe accounts for the second largest market which is followed by Asia Pacific. Germany and UK accounts the major share in the Europe market owing to well developed technology and healthcare sectorAsia Pacific has the developing market for stem cell reconstructive. Japan and Australia are the major contributor for the market in Asia Pacific. The global market for stem cell reconstruction has expanded rapidly with new suppliers particularly in emerging economies such as India, China and Singapore. Available treatments span the full range of medical services but most commonly include dental care, cosmetic surgery, and fertility treatment.Middle East and Africa contribute least in the global stem cell reconstructive market.Global Stem cell reconstructive market - Company AnalysisThe stem cell reconstructive market has huge opportunities. The prominent players in the market adopt various strategies such as product launches, product innovation, and R&D investment to increase their market. Moreover, tier 1 companies employ strategies like merger, and acquisition of the competition as their developmental strategies to sustain in the market.In Feb 2012, Baxter initiated phase III adult stem cell clinical trial for chronic cardiac condition. A company is focusing of the development of the new products and investing a huge amount of capital in research and development.Baxter (US), Cytori Therapeutics Inc. (U.S), Eleveflow (France), Mesoblast Ltd. (Australia), NuVasive Inc. (US), Osiris (US), Micronit Microfluidics (Netherlands), Takara Bio Inc.(Japan), Tigenix (Belgium), Cynata (Australia), Celyad (Belgium), Capricor Therapeutics (Canada), Astellas Pharma US, Inc. (US), Pfizer Inc. (US), StemCells Inc (US), STEMCELL Technologies Inc. (US), Caladrius (US) and others are some of the prominent players at the forefront of competition in the global stem cell reconstructive market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis.Report Details @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Market Research FutureP: +1 646 845 9312W:sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Cardiac Valve Market By 2023; Asserts MRFR Unleashing Industry Forecast

Cardiac Valve Market

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Market Research Future published a Half-Cooked Research Report on Global Cardiac Valve Market Research Report - Forecast to 2023  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2023.Cardiac valve or heart valve allows blood to flow in only one direction through the heart. Human heart consists of four valves. These valves open and closes compulsory on differential blood pressure on each side. Main role is when blood enters the heart first passes through the tricuspid valve and then the pulmonary valve. After returning from the lungs, the blood passes through the mitral valve and exits via the aortic valve as heart valves are one-way valves.Furthermore, valve replacement remains the most widely used technique but the proportion of valve repair procedures is increasing in experienced treatment centres. Moreover, increasing development in medical technology and its wide range of application used in the treatment of various cardiac diseases will fuel the growth of the market. However, high cost of the treatment likely to restrain the growth of the market over the assessment period. The global cardiac valve market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.5% during the forecast period.Get a sample report atGlobal Cardiac Valve Market - Competitive AnalysisJune, 2017- Edwards Life sciences Corporation SAPIEN 3 Valve received FDA approval for Aortic, Mitral Valve-In-Valve Procedures. Expansion of the SAPIEN 3 device indication to include valve-in-valve procedures is a meaningful advancement for patients at high risk of an additional open-heart valve procedure, particularly for those in need of a safe alternative for mitral valve replacement. According to Edwards Life sciences Corporation company report this approval brings a safe and effective transcatheter therapy to patients who would do very poorly with repeat open-heart surgeryMarch, 2017- Boston Scientific is acquired Swiss company Symetis, move made by the medical device giant to strengthen its portfolio of minimally invasive heart valve replacement products. Symetis makes heart products for transcatheter aortic valve replacement, a minimally invasive procedure that uses a catheter to deploy a valve that takes over for an old, damaged one. Moreover, company has commercialized two heart valve systems i.e the Acurate TA and the Acurate neo/TF valve. Both are sold in Europe and some other markets, but not the U.S. The company also has an investigational next generation valve system that is currently in clinical testing.Dec, 2016- Boston Scientific acquired Neovasc advanced biological tissue capabilities. Neovasc is a specialty medical device company that develops, manufactures and markets products for the rapidly growing cardiovascular marketplace, including the Tiara technology in development for the transcatheter treatment of mitral valve disease, and the Neovasc Reducer technology for the treatment of refractory angina. Neovasc advanced biological tissue capabilities had integrated into the Boston Scientific structural heart business for use in the manufacturing of the Lotus valve and future heart valve technologies.August, 2015- Medtronic to acquired Twelve, Inc., developer of transcatheter mitral valve replacement device. Twelve, Inc., a privately held medical device company based in Redwood City, California, focuses on the development of a transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR) device. This acquisition had strategically augmented existing capabilities in the transcatheter mitral space, which represents an important growth opportunity for Medtronic. Twelve's technology is a truly creative solution that brings together valve technology with a unique and highly differentiated dual-stent fixation design.Medtronic (U.S.), Edwards Lifesciences Corporation (U.S.), Boston Scientific Corporation (U.S.), St. Jude Medical, Inc. (an Abbott Laboratories Company) (U.S.), LivaNova PLC (U.K), Symetis SA (Switzerland), Jenavalve Technology, Inc. (Germany), CryoLife, Inc. (U.S.), TTK HealthCare (India), Colibri Heart Valve, LLC (U.S.), Lepu Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (China), and Braile Biomedica (Brazil) are some of the prominent players at the forefront of competition in the Global Cardiac Valve Market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis.Browse Full Report @Global Cardiac Valve Market - Regional AnalysisThe Americas dominates the global cardiac valve market. North America is the largest market owing to rising prevalence of cardiovascular patient population in the American counties and well-developed technology in this region. According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease causes 35% of deaths in the United States. About 610,000 people died of heart disease in the United States every year that makes up 1 in every 4 deaths. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. According to Texas heart Institute, in the United States, surgeons perform about 106,000 heart valve operations each year and all of these operations are done to repair or replace the mitral or aortic valves.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.Market Research FutureP: +1 646 845 9312W:sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Research Analysis on Sweetener Market Value by end User US$ 14 BN during 2017-2025

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Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) has been serving as an active source to cater intelligent research report to enlighten both readers and investors. This research study titled Sweetener Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017 - 2027).Request Free Sample Report @A major factor hampering revenue growth of the global sweetener market is the stringent regulatory norms regarding the use of artificial sweeteners as a food ingredient. This is due to side effects such as allergic reactions, improper functioning of the digestive system and other health-related issues. Although cultivation and consumption of novel sweeteners such as stevia are increasing at a rapid pace, various end-use industries such as confectionery, bakery and others are witnessing a slow adoption of sweeteners as a food ingredient. This is due to limited regulatory approvals by various legislator bodies keeping in mind the health concerns of consumers across the globe.After-taste of sucrose alternative sweetener products and the high prices of low-calorie sweeteners is restricting acceptance of these products among consumers and thus restricting market growth to a certain extent. Lack of consumer awareness and acceptance of natural ingredients as an alternative to sugar in products such as confectionery, snacks, dairy products and others has resulted in low consumption of sugar-alternative sweeteners that include other natural sweeteners, artificial sweeteners, novel sweeteners and sugar alcohols.Investments by key players in non-calorie sweeteners, cost optimisation and process standardisation are the new trends in the global sweetener marketThe novel sweetener and artificial sweetener market have few buyers and sellers in the global market, and hence companies are focussing on cost optimisation in order to increase productivity and market share. Moreover, manufacturing non-sugar and low-calorie sweeteners involves a standard extraction process. Companies in the global sweetener market have patent extraction processes for the same. This is further supported by stringent government regulations due to health issues.Increasing investments by companies coupled with geographical expansion by market players has led to high competitiveness in the global sweetener market. In addition to this, increased brand awareness of products dealing with specific issues such as obesity curtailment, nutritive advantages and health benefits is expected to drive demand for artificial sweeteners and novel sweeteners specifically stevia extracts in the near future.View Complete Report With Table of Content @Food and beverages segment anticipated to account for a relatively high value share in the global sweetener market over the forecast periodThe food and beverages segment is expected to account for around 70% share in terms of value throughout the forecast period. This segment is anticipated to register a significant CAGR of 3.2% in terms of value. The sweet spreads sub-segment of the food and beverages segment is expected to witness an increase in revenue share by 2027 end owing to increasing popularity of sweet spreads among consumers. This sub-segment is estimated to account for about 14% revenue share of the global sweetener market by 2017 end. The sweet spreads segment is the fastest growing sub-segment and is expected to be valued at close to US$ 12 Bn in 2017 and will reach a market valuation of about US$ 14 Bn by 2027 end. This is attributed to increasing demand for sweet spreads and its increasing popularity among consumers.Owing to increasing exports and manufacturing of food and beverage products, the related segment is expected to expand at a high CAGR in North AmericaBy the end of 2027, the food and beverages segment in the North America sweetener market is projected to reach more than US$ 18 Bn, expanding at a CAGR of 3.0% over the forecast period and revenue is expected to increase 1.3x by 2027 end as compared to 2017. The food and beverages segment is estimated to account for a little more than 70% value share in the North America sweetener market by 2017 end and is expected to show little growth in the value share by 2027 over 2017.Enquire About this Report @About Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE)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.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Read More Industry News At:
Latest Research Report Analysis on Organic Beef Meat Market Worth of Us$ 12 BN by 2027

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Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) has recently publicized a new study to its vast repository, which is titled as Organic Beef Meat Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012 - 2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017 - 2027). In this report, the global Deep Brain Stimulation Devices market is valued at US$ 6,000 Million in 2017 and is expected to reach US$ 12 Billion by the end of 2027, growing at a CAGR of 6.4% between 2017 and 2027.Request Free Sample Report @The processed meat segment is anticipated to remain dominant in terms of revenue share during the forecast period due to the advantage of reduced preparation time for processed meat. The processed meat segment is estimated to be valued at about US$ 6,700 Mn by 2017 end and is expected to increase at a CAGR of 6.7% over the forecast period. The segment is expected to be valued at more than US$ 12 Bn by the end of 2027, creating an absolute $ opportunity of more than US$ 350 Mn in 2017 over 2016 and an incremental $ opportunity of more than US$ 6,000 Mn between 2017 and 2027. The segment is likely to grab more than 75% market share during the projected period. In terms of value, the processed meat segment is projected to be the most attractive in the global organic beef meat market during the forecast period.Increasing consumer preference for organic food and easy availability of organic beef through retail chains likely to boost the global organic beef meat market between 2017 and 2027In developed markets, organic food products are preferred over conventional products as consumers opt for products that are natural with fewer chemicals and additives. Organic food products do not have additives or chemicals and offer the required nutrients, thereby gaining higher trust and adoption than conventional food products. Although high prices of these specialised products are restricting product acceptance by the middle-class population, rising disposable income and increasing focus on healthy living support demand for these products.A substantial percentage of total sales of organic beef takes place through the organised retail format in Western Europe. With economies of countries in the region growing, the retail chain is also expected to exhibit substantial growth. Owing to increasing preference for organic food products, retail chains are increasingly offering such products and this is expected to fuel demand for organic beef across the globe.View Complete Report With Table of Content @Increasing market penetration is one of the major factors driving the growth of the global organic beef meat market. Growing consumer awareness and preference for natural and organic foods owing to associated health benefits has fuelled the shift in preference for organic food in day-to-day edibles by consumers, especially in Eastern Europe. Organic beef products are anticipated to gain popularity due to the organic wave in the region over the forecast period.Due to the availability of natural resources in the countries of Latin America, companies have easy access to raw material cultivated for the production of organic products. In Latin America, Brazil and Argentina are the most prominent countries contributing towards the production of organic beef. For instance, in 2017, according to the report published by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)  both non-profit organisations  over 70% of the total organic agricultural land in Latin America constitutes permanent pasture land.Global organic beef meat market structureThe global organic beef meat market is primarily characterised by the presence of a large number of regional and multinational companies. An approximate share of 40%-45% is accounted for by multinational players who are also the price regulators of the global market. North America and Western Europe are the two main regions to target due to increasing number of health conscious consumers and increasing demand for organic food and beverages in these regions. Companies such as Tyson Foods Inc., JBS Global, Danish Crown and others are the major players in the organic beef meat market. Regional players and local players account for a market share of 30%-35% and 20%-25% respectively. These players largely operate in the U.S., U.K. and Australia markets and their major target audience includes consumers seeking organic processed meat.Enquire About this Report @About Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE)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.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Read More Industry News At:
At a certain point in the last 12 monthsI cannot remember now what that point wasI began to lose interest in connecting the dots. After all, the logic of the Twitter thread was already ascendant: in the florid speculations of one or another liberal game theorist; in the sprawling web of Rachel Maddows intently Russo-centric A-block; in the warnings of columnists whod recently styled themselves experts in the rise of authoritarianism, as if flouting the rule of law were not as thoroughly woven into the fabric of the United States as our ostensible commitment to it. Against the nonsensical ramblings of the president, the unabashed lies of his aides and advisors, and the open embrace of white supremacist, homophobic, and misogynistic ideas among even the mainstream members of his party, the vein of paranoia that ran through parts of the center left read as an inadequate defense. Because both were, it seemed to me, expressions of the real transformation afoot, indications of groupthink, of lemming-like leaps from the cliff, of unquestioning fealty to partisan affiliations, ideological bubbles, economic classes, socio-cultural tribes. And as with so much of this seeping-pustule annus horribilis, shadowed from stem to stern by a former reality TV star and apparent TV addict, these changes were playing out on, and through, the medium of television.

Lets call it The Great Consolidation.

This goes further than the long-awaited peak of peak TV, though a plateau, if not an outright contraction, appears to be imminent. After a decade-plus in which basic cable led the charge, streaming services in 2016 accounted for all the growth in original scripted series, according to data compiled by FX Research. And while the numbers for 2017 are still pending, the recent spate of high-profile cancellations from Amazon (Z: The Beginning of Everything, The Last Tycoon) and Netflix (The Get Down, Gypsy, Bloodline, Sense8) suggests, at minimum, that the days of streaming spendthrifts are coming to a close. Even before Amazon Studios vice president Roy Price resigned from his post in response to sexual harassment allegations, he was under pressure from CEO Jeff Bezos to discover the next Game of Thrones, the influence of which Price has compared to Jaws and Star Wars. For his part, Netflixs Ted Sarandos admitted that the streaming giants cost-benefit calculus is pretty traditional: A big expensive show for a huge audience is great. A big, expensive show for a tiny audience is hard even in our model to make that work very long. Toss in Hulus shift from niche comedies (Difficult People, The Mindy Project, Please Like Me, Casual) to high-end dramas (The Handmaids Tale, The Looming Tower, Castle Rock), and one gets the feeling that weve been here before.

Indeed, we have. Cycles of chaos and consolidation, creative ferment and economic retrenchment, are among the defining features of the history of American film and televisionfrom the rise of the studio system to the end of the Hollywood Renaissance, the explosion of indies to the dominance of the franchise film, through not one, not two, but three Golden Agesand Sarandos and Prices comments are scarcely the only signals that the hothouse atmosphere of peak TV is on the precipice of an analogous change. Its in the expansion of Marvels small-screen footprint: 2017 saw the debut of seven TV series based on the imprints characters, on networks as varied as FX (Legion), Netflix (The Punisher), Hulu (Runaways) and ABC (Inhumans), with two more (Cloak & Dagger, New Warriors) slated to premiere in 2018. Its in the intensifying fever for nostalgic revivals: 2017 was the year of Twin Peaks: The Return, Prison Break, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Battle of the Network Stars, DuckTales, Will & Grace, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Talk Show Formerly Known as Total Request Live, with Roseanne and American Idol to return early next year and the likes of The Office and Mad About You now in the works. Its in the desperate quest to create the next Game of Thrones or the next Walking Deadboth of which, its worth noting, had their most dismal seasons to date in 2017and then wring those properties of every conceivable dollar until they become the dried-out husks of once-compelling ideas, which broadcasters, cable networks, premium channels and streaming services alike will presumably burn for warmth when there no more profits to turn.

Such programming choices are rarely the motor of transformation, thoughthey are, rather, one potential response to macroeconomic changes, technological advancements, and the flux of political and cultural forces. Others include strategic realignments, such as Viacoms decision to focus its cable division on its flagship brands, including MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, and the newly renamed Paramount Network, and WGN Americas abandonment of acclaimed originals like Underground for a new block of cheap (sorry, cost-effective) Canadian crime dramas. Or mergers and acquisitions, most notably Disneys planned purchase of 21st Century Fox, through which the conglomerate that already controls ABC, ESPN, Freeform, Marvel Studios and half of A&E Networks will assume ownership of FX, FXX, National Geographic, and an additional 30% of Hulu, creating a media behemoth so dumbfoundingly large that many observers could only wonder what it might mean for the X-Men. Or promotional window-dressing, such as NBCs resumption of the Must See TV sloganfirst coined during the Clinton administrationafter a three-year hiatus in which the network apparently thought its own programming unworthy of the name. Or flagrant disregard for the commonweal, not to mention the institutions founding mission, by the Federal Communications Commission, which in 2017 not only voted to repeal net neutrality regulations but also to roll back limits on TV station ownership, opening the door for the arch-conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group to own as many as 223 stations in 108 markets.

In this, The Great Consolidation is necessarily ideologicalit not only reflects cable news images of the Cabinets robber barons slashing their own taxes while the rest of us eke out an existence on the border of bankruptcy. It also threatens to widen the already enormous divide between the haves and the have-nots by narrowing our field of vision, by reducing the number of possible pasts, presents and futures we can imagine on screen. As FCC Chairman Newton Minow recognized, speaking to the National Association of Broadcasters in 1961, television is inseparable from the public interest, because the flip side of fragmentation, experimentation, and representation is amalgamation, repetition, and invisibility: [W]hat you will observe is a vast wasteland, he warned, not long after the end of the mediums first Golden Age. You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons.

Sound familiar?

Re-reading Minows address as research for this piece, I regained my interest in connecting the dots, in recognizing patterns, in understanding that TVs most recent Golden Age and its platinum postscript are as contingent as the heyday of Marty and Murrow and live TV.

In the mediums next Gilded Age you will see a procession of useless revivals, featureless comedies about totally unbelievable assholes, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Ryan Murphy miniseries, Game of Thrones knockoffs, Reddit-made science fictions posing as serious dramas, Marvel bad men, Marvel good men, criminal profilers, serial killers, more violence, and cartoons. This is to say nothing of Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting, with their increasing appearance of state TV, or of the FCC and DOJ, unconcerned by the growth of the new trusts (except, perhaps, when the presidents personal vendettas are at play), or of the notion that the sheer scale of media companies by definition weakens their commitment to the public interest, having become, as it were, too big to care. This is to say nothing of the still-meager space made for women, people of color and LGBTQ people on screen, in writers rooms, behind the camera, and in corporate offices, which conglomeration seems likely to limit just as attention to the issue has started to gain steam. This is to say nothing of what consolidating the power of the telecommunications bully pulpit in the hands of a tiny faction of predominantly white, straight men has meant and will continue to mean with regard to the plague of sexual misconduct, harassment, and assault in media, writ large. This is to say nothing, in other words, of the underlying danger of the Great Consolidation, which is not that television will become a vast wasteland in and of itselfthe medium is now far too vast for thatbut that it will lose its ability to offer an alternative to the countrys next Gilded Age, its fundamental sickliness, its own blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, and murder painted over with Trump Tower gold.

Heres the thing, lest I be labeled a hysteric, a Seth Abramson of the airwaves, a Louise Mensch of the medium. Having spent 20 years in the midst of televisions most recent Golden Age, I fear that weve forgotten what it looks like to live through a Gilded one, forgottenand here is Minows central insightthat we own the air. Not the Walt Disney Company. Not Sinclair. Not Viacom. Not Comcast. And as such it is up to us, not only as consumers but also as citizens, to demand more, to call in our chits, to assert the importance of the public interest in the making of television. Despite the unwillingness of appointed regulators and elected officials to apply the concept, the fact remains that the media conglomerates at the leading edge of this epochal transformation are working on what amounts to leased property, accruing debts to you and me and everyone we know. You must deliver a decent return to the public, Minow advised broadcasters in 1961, not only to your stockholders.

More than 50 years later, its time to pay up.



Matt Brennan is the TV editor of Paste Magazine. He tweets about what hes watching @thefilmgoer.
Petoskey players bring in All-BNC soccer honors, seven total recognized

PETOSKEY  The Petoskey soccer team found themselves in 2022 right in the thick of where they expect to be every season: in a tight Big North Conference race.
Queen Bey + Teddy = perfection... the internet is freaking out!

Ed Sheeran continues to ride the success of his Grammy nominated album Division this year as the focus shifts from the leading single "Shape of You" to what's bound to be the wedding song of 2018: "Perfect." The song gives me total goosebumps every time I listen to it. Who wouldn't want to hear their lover croon, "Well I found a woman, stronger than anyone I know. She shares my dreams, I hope that someday I'll share her home." The song is so honest and genuine and the duet with Queen Bey only heightens that. Other new releases this week include: Mt. Joy, Anna Von Hausswolff, Henry Jamison, The Octopus Project, Ryan Vona, Belle Adair, and MNDR x Le Youth.

Ed Sheeran x Beyonce | "Perfect" Duet

This is hands down one of the prettiest songs I've heard. Between the tender acoustic guitar riff, the intoxicating lyrics, and Ed's stunning voice, it wins across the board in my eyes. The sweet music video just made me love the song even more. Everyone poked fun at Ed for appearing on Game of Thrones Season 8, but I thought his performance in his music video was sweet and truthful. Sheeran continues to ride the success of this amazing ballad as he collaborates with some of the world's favorite voices and puts a twist on the modern remix. Recently his collaboration with Andre Boccelli made headlines, but have you heard his collaboration with Beyonce? Having a female's perspective of the second verse of the song adds something really special to it, but don't take my word for it.

Listen to "Perfect" Duet here.

Best for: A romantic dance with your s/o

Perfect if you like: Ed Sheeran and Beyonce

Follow Ed Sheeran on Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Follow Beyonce on Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Mt. Joy | "Silver Lining"

If you fancy yourself a music guru, you'll want to know these guys going forward in 2018 because they're about to blow up. Their recent single "Silver Lining" has garnered attention from trendsetters in the music industry. Rolling Stone calls it one of their favorite songs right now gaining a place among songs from Charli XCX, Sufjan, and N.E.R.D. You'll see why when you listen. The song hosts so many difference sounds that dance together to create the feeling of an open road and a full tank of gas. Their full album drops 3/2.

Listen to "Silver Lining" here.



Best for: Riding along the open road

Perfect if you like: Tame Impala

Follow Mt. Joy on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Anna Von Hauswolff | "The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra"

Anna recently announced the forthcoming of her new album Dead Magic, but we have to wait until March 2nd. The dark pop artist is known for guesting on Wolves in the Throne Room's song "Mother Owl Father Ocean" earlier this year. Though technically within the pop realm, Von Hauswolff is anything but conventional. Her up and coming album is no exception. In Dead Magic Anna explores themes of anxiety, disorientation, fear of oblivion, and the age old practice of magic itself. Luckily, you don't have to wait till March to get a taste of it. The texture of this song is amazing. Anna recorded on the 20th century organ at one of Copenhagen's oldest churches "the marble church."

Listen to "The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra" here.

Best for: Just before bedtime-relaxation.

Perfect if you like: Bjork

Follow Anna Von Hausswolff on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Henry Jamison | "The Jacket"

Henry Jamison dropped The Wilds this year and people are obsessed, including the professionals behind Tidal Music. Tidal just named the album one of the most remarkable and endearing records of the year thanks to it's narrative-driven songs and the nuances in the music that allude to a lot of time and attention to detail put into the album. It's apparent from a single listen to Jamison's song "The Jacket" that this is 100% valid. The song gives you the vibe of the great outdoors all the while being a brilliant composition of electronic sounds.

Listen to "The Jacket" here.

Best for: Smores night.

Perfect if you like: Bon Iver

Follow Henry Jamison on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

The Octopus Project | "Leg"

The Octopus Project is currently on fire. They recently released a previously unreleased song from one of their most successful albums Hello Avalanche. With this came the news of a reissue of the entire album which will be sonically remastered and issued on February 12th. "Leg," the leading single is cool, complex, and a total ear worm. Along with the album reissue, The Octopus Project is hitting the road with a winter tour and their film score for the Zellner Brother's recent Western 'Damsel' starring Robert Pattinson will be hitting Sundance in 2018. Here are their tour dates:

1/18 El Pasa, TX @ Lowbrow Palace

1/19 Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf

1/22 Salt Lake City ,UT @ Urban Lounge

1/24 -Boise, ID @ The Olympic

1/26 - Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern

1/27 Portland, OR @ Bunk Bar

1/29 San Francisco, CA @ Cafe du Nord

1/30 Santa Cruz, CA @ TBA

1/31 Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg

2/01 Las Vegas, NV @ Beauty Bar

2/02 Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole

2/03 Phoenix, AZ @ Rebel Lounge

2/24 Austin, TX @ North Door



Listen to "Leg" here.

Best for: a winter train ride upstate

Perfect if you like: White Denim

Follow The Octopus Project on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Ryan Vona | "Au Revoir"

Actor and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Vona released his debut LP earlier this year entitled Somebody. The album boasts eleven amazing tracks. Something inherently noticeable about the LP is the rich instrumentation which is no surprise considering Vona himself plays many. In addition to the packed folk, alt rock instrumentation, Vona's rich voice both soars and grounds the album making it a truly dynamic piece. It's the kind of album that leaves you with a new favorite song every time you listen, but the track I currently have on repeat is "Au Revoir." Ironically, "Au Revoir" is the bittersweet opening to the album. While Vona may be saying goodbye to an old flame in the song, he's saying hello to the journey that he takes on the album. While the song is sad in ways, it is also hopeful. "Au Revior" s a brave first step in a new direction.

Listen to "Au Revoir" here.

Best for: The morning after a break up.

Perfect if you like: Michael Buble and Tom Petty

Follow Ryan Vona on Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Belle Adair | "Rest Easy"

Belle Adair is amazing. Not only is she a stunning artist, but she's using her voice for good as well. An Alabama native, Belle Adair has always stayed true to her roots. She founded her own independent label in her home town of Muscle Shoals and with this hopes to spark change. She says, "The folks that stay here [in Muscle Shoals] choose to stick around and dig in their heels. There's hope in spreading kindness and love. We believe that. We're a label made up of those people and those kind of bands." Her song "Rest Easy" is no exception to her mission. The song's simple stripped down instrumentation contrasts with her silky voice. The quality of the recording is amazing and certainly has to do with Adair's merit as a recording artist and her collaboration with Tom Shick who has recorded artists like Wilco, Parquet Courts, and Real Estate.

Listen to "Rest Easy" here.

Best for: Restoring your faith in humanity (lol)

Perfect if you like: Lana Del Ray



Follow Belle Adair on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

MNDR x Le Youth | "I Could Always"

MDNR is on a roll. Her song with Ava Max "Clap Your Hands" was arguably the song of the summer. MNDR is no newcomer to the music scene though the acclaim for her solo project is somewhat new. Co-writing for artists like Chali XCX, Kylie Minogue, Rita Ora, and more, MNDR has claimed her spot among the greats. This follow up to "Clap Your Hands" is more subtle but just as hypnotizing. Collaborating with Le Youth on the song led to the perfect blend of electronic pop and powerful lyrics. We love the vibrant music video that comes with.

Listen to "I Could Always" here.

Best for: Your NYE party playlist

Perfect if you like: Charli XCX

Follow MDNR on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Follow Le Youth on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Anie Delgado is a contributor to Popdust and is an actress and musician based in NYC. Follow her on Instagram | Facebook | Twitter and check out her music on Spotify. Press inquiries here.

POP DUST | Read More About Music...



RELEASE RADAR | Matoma and Noah Cyrus release a new banger

RELEASE RADAR | Legends Collective Soul and Pitbull and The Stereotypes both drop music this week

RELEASE RADAR | A Christmas-infused round up
The State Ports Authority wants to build a new terminal for passengers of cruise ships such as the Carnival Ecstasy. File/Staff
You are the owner of this article.
The area had been blocked off by city officials. No one was hurt and nothing damaged. The wall has been menacing passersby for many years. A fix is in the works. Read morePortion of old brick wall by Charleston's Second Presbyterian Church gives way
I was so intrigued by Robert Behres Oct. 17 column and the newspaper's strong editorial Nov. 10 in support of a park being developed in the former SCE&G lot between Meeting and King streets that I decided to investigate further. Read moreCommentary: Proposed downtown Charleston park would provide a richer future
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?'
The governor's office is looking to place more eyes, ears and mouthpieces in Washington, D.C.

Adelup announced yesterday it had published a request for proposals for lobbying services to advance Guam's interests in Washington, D.C., including such issues as flexibility to hire foreign labor and the uncontrolled migration of citizens from the Federated States of Micronesia.

"We're already at a disadvantage as we don't have a vote in Congress," Gov. Eddie Calvo stated in a press release. Guam does have representation through Delegate Madeleine Bordallo, who's the island's lone voice in the House of Representatives.

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The governor said, "in my seven years of visiting Washington, D.C., it has become more apparent that we need to have a constant and consistent presence; people who are able to track conversations, voice our objections, and inject our concerns and solutions into the discussion before new policies are cemented."

It's unclear how much the governor plans to spend on lobbying, but it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars.

In 2002, the Superior Court of Guam's hiring of now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff touched off controversy because Abramoff was paid $400,000 in $9,000 increments to keep the payments below Guam government procurement radar, an audit into the payments found. Local government funding was used.

In the early 1990s, the Northern Marianas government spent millions of dollars defending its garment industry and control of immigration so it could keep hiring low-wage foreign workers, mostly from China. High-powered lobbyists cost the Northern Marianas government millions of dollars, but the payments bought special access to powerful lawmakers such as then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who lost his job following the Abramoff influence-peddling scandal.

Gov. Calvo pointed to the ongoing problem of the near 100 percent rejection of Guam employers' petitions for foreign workers on H-2B visas, as one example of the island's interests falling by the wayside in Washington.

"We can see from the H-2B visa situation that representation is imperative as federal laws and regulations, or their interpretations, change. With a lobbyist, we can effectively communicate our concerns; our message will have a constant presence in the Capitol," he added.

Adelup marked five areas that the lobbyist would work on:

Assistance with drafting proposed language and persuading members of Congress to include provisions in the appropriate authorizing legislation favorable to Guam's foreign worker needs, including H2-B work visas.

Assistance with obtaining congressional approval for the issuance of visa waivers for tourists traveling to or through Guam.

Assistance with obtaining congressional consent to allow for input by Guam on any renewal or amendment of the Compact of Free Association with the Federated States of Micronesia.

Monitoring activities in Congress and the executive branch that have a potential impact on Guam and the Pacific, and communicating that information in a timely manner to the governor's chief of staff or other designee. This would include hearings, legislation, executive orders, memoranda to or from executive branch agencies/departments/offices and issues related to regulations, guidance and/or guidelines including Federal Register notices.

Review legislative policy statements adopted by other federal, state or territorial government lobbying groups and health-related organizations and associations for the purpose of identifying issues that may either positively or negatively affect Guam.

Oyaol Ngirairikl, the governor's spokeswoman, said funding for the contract will come from the governor's budget.
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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for New Age Farm Inc.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - New Age Farm Inc. (CSE:NF). has issued a press release with the following headline:New Age Farm Issues SecuritiesTo 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 New Age Farm 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/New Age Farm Inc.Source: New Age Farm Inc. (CSE: NF, FWB: ONF, OTC Pink: NWGFF, WKN: A12C9F, ISIN: CA64157D1087)Date: December 28, 2017Time: 10:41 PM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of New Age Farm 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.)
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- YEAR END BONANZA Flat 20% discount on purchase of reports from 1st December to 31st December.* Terms & Conditions apply!!Contact No. : +16269994607 (US), /+91 7507349866 (IND)Email: sales@ researchtrades.com Report Overview:The report offers a detailed insight into the upstream raw material analysis and downstream demand analysis along with crucial elements of Bedding Articles Market report for furthermore highlights key proposals for new project development along with offering an assessment of investment feasibility analysis. This study is a useful guide to all investors to identify the lucrative market avenues across different segments and geographical regions. The market entry conditions along with emerging avenues will help the new entrants to gauge the pulse of the market. Furthermore, the study tracks industry news in terms of new mergers and acquisition made by prominent companies to expand their product offerings across various countries. The report is a useful guide to market players, all stakeholders, interested market participants and investors to formulate their strategies.Get exclusive sample copy of this report @ https://www.researchtrades.com/request-sample/1385217 Scope of the Report:This report studies Bedding Articles 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, covering Luolai, Sferra, Frette, Fremaux Delorme, Dohia, Fuanna....On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into Quilt, Pillow, Cushion, Blanket, Others.By Application, the market can be split into Household &Commercial.By Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want) North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan, India.Key Chapters of This Report:1 Industry Overview of Bedding Articles1.1 Definition and Specifications of Bedding Articles1.1.1 Definition of Bedding Articles1.1.2 Specifications of Bedding Articles1.2 Classification of Bedding Articles2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Bedding Articles2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Bedding Articles2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Bedding Articles2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Bedding Articles3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Bedding Articles3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Bedding Articles Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Bedding Articles Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Bedding Articles Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Bedding Articles Major Manufacturers in 2016ContinueBrowse this complete report @ https://www.researchtrades.com/report/global-bedding-articles-market-professional-survey-report-2017/1385217
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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for SolGold plc--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Bishopsgate, London (FSCWire) - SolGold plc (TSX:SOLG). has issued a press release with the following headline:Notice of AGM and Management Information CircularTo 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 SolGold plc, 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/SolGold plcSource: SolGold plc (TSX: SOLG, AIM: SOLG, OTC Pink: SLGGF)Date: December 29, 2017Time: 2:00 AM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of SolGold plc 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.)
A Saudi-led air alliance fighting rebels in Yemen has accused a UN humanitarian official of bias in favour of Houthi rebels, Saudi-owned television. Al Arabiya, said Friday.

Jamie McGoldrick, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said Thursday in a statement that 68 civilians were killed by airstrikes on a single day in two embattled cities in Yemen.

The spokesman for the Saudi coalition, Turki al-Malaki, said Mr. McGoldricks statement was misleading and biased in favour of the Iran-allied Houthi rebels.

Mr. Al-Malaki said: the information he mentioned in his statement was not verified or proved, a matter confirming his bias towards the Houthi militias and his politicisation of humanitarian work.

The UN needs to revise mechanism of humanitarian work and efficiency of its employees in Yemen.

Airstrikes on a market in Yemens south-western province of Taiz on Tuesday killed at least 54 civilians, including eight children, according to Mr. McGoldrick.

Also Tuesday, an airstrike on a farm in the western province of Hodeida killed 14 people from the same family.

These incidents prove the complete disregard for human life that all parties, including the Saudi-led coalition, continue to show in this absurd war, Mr. McGoldrick said Thursday.

Saudi Arabia has been leading an air campaign against the Houthis in Yemen for more than two years.

The Saudis fear that the rebels will give their regional rival, Shiite Iran, a strategic foothold on the Arabian Peninsula.

(dpa/NAN)
Turkey and Russia have signed an accord for Moscow to supply Ankara with S-400 surface-to-air missiles, CNN Turk and other media reported on Friday.

It said that process to finalise the deal between the two countries have been ongoing on for over a year.

The S-400 deal, reportedly worth about $2.5 billion, has caused concern in the West because Turkey is a member of NATO and the system cannot be integrated into NATOs military architecture.

It is the latest in a series of moves by Ankara to boost its defence capabilities as it faces threats from Kurdish and Islamist militants at home and conflicts across its borders in Syria and Iraq.

No details of the accord were available and officials were not immediately available to comment.

However, Sergei Chemezov, head of the Russian state conglomerate Rostec, had said on Wednesday that Russia would supply Turkey with four batteries of S-400s under the deal.

He said Moscow was expected to begin the first deliveries in March 2020 and that Turkey was the first NATO member state to acquire the advanced S-400 missile system.

Earlier on Friday, Turkish newspapers cited President Tayyip Erdogan as saying that Turkey would borrow in the Russian currency in a loan deal under the accord.

We will not borrow in dollars in this loan, we will borrow in roubles, Hurriyet newspaper quoted Mr. Erdogan as telling reporters on his plane, returning from a trip to Africa.

According to Mr. Chemezov, Turkey would pay 45 per cent of the cost of the agreement up front, with Russia providing loans to cover the remaining 55 per cent.

The Russian Finance Ministry will finance a deal from the state treasury, while Russian banks will take part solely in the transfer of funds in the deal, a Russian banking source said.

Relations between Moscow and Ankara deteriorated sharply in 2015 after Turkey shot down a Russian air force jet.

The jet was said to have crossed into Turkish airspace, but they have since repaired ties despite having backed different sides in the Syrian war.

They are now cooperating on Syrian peace efforts as well as projects in the defence industry and energy sectors.

While pushing ahead with the S-400 project, Ankara has sought to secure defence deals with other countries as well.

In November, Turkey signed a letter of intent with France and Italy to strengthen cooperation on joint defence projects.

As a first step, the Franco-Italian EUROSAM consortium and Turkish companies will look into a system based on the SAMP-T missile systems.

Turkey has also invested heavily in the development of its domestic defence industry, with projects encompassing areas including combat helicopters, tanks, drones and warships.

(Reuters/NAN)
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.




Contact

Vicky Villena-Denton

F&L Asia Limited

***@fuelsandlubes.com

+852 3183 4143 Vicky Villena-DentonF&L Asia Limited+852 3183 4143

End

-- New engine oil category demand from Chinese OEMs has facilitated the formation of an innovation Alliance to develop a domestic heavy-duty lubricant specification. The China D1 heavy-duty diesel engine oil specification is scheduled for national release in 2019.Yang Guofeng, Deputy Director of Lubricants Evaluation Center at PetroChina Lanzhou Lubricating Oil R&D Institute, will outline the progress of development for the China Diesel Engine Oils Specification to an international audience at F+L Week 2018 in Macao at Cotai Strip. Mr. Yang's presentation will be at the Four Seasons Hotel Macao on March 8 at 4pm.Yang is one of the main members of the "China D1 Engine Oil Specification Development working group" and has notable research in fields such as lubricating oil performance evaluation and lubricant technical support. He is responsible for the establishment of petrochemical national standards and industry standards of more than 10 items and has published more than 10 papers.China has a strong willingness for tailor-made engine oil specifications to meet the demand of the local market's requirements, as the current China GB standards are based on the American Petroleum Institute's (API) engine oil specifications. Engine test method development is currently in progress for the D1 specification, with the establishment of matrix tests and pass/fail criteria slated to begin in 2018.The 24th Annual F+L Week Conference will be held from March 6-9, 2018 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Macao, Cotai Strip. This annual event is organized by media company F&L Asia Ltd., based in Hong Kong. The conference theme is "Sustainability and Uncertainty"and examines our industry's indefinite and ever-changing business landscape. Balancing growth, alongside a rising focus on sustainability is challenging. F+L Week 2018 will address future fuel and lubricant industry issues and trends, and aims to help businesses thrive in an increasingly regulated environment.
ATLANTA, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- When it comes to holding a senior management position, many traits need to be utilized to succeed. David Feldman has had success throughout his years leading companies and showing characteristics of a prominent executive.

With almost three decades in senior management positions, Feldman has bought companies up from down times to flourish. After eight years at Katy Industries as CEO and more than 20 years in management, Feldman established DJF Enterprises, LLC, a consulting and management company.

Refocusing Katy Industries

Through strategic restructuring and smart acquisitions, Feldman was able to turn Katy Industries around. When he took over, the company was operating at a loss. But within a short time, Katy Industries was making money and growing. One reason why Katy was able to experience such success was focusing on specific areas to improve. To improve business performance, Feldman concentrated on janitorial and retail storage products, while shedding non-core operations.

By 2011, he was able to eliminate all the company's long-term debts. In doing this, the company received much-needed cash for capital investment and potential acquisitions.

Feldman can point to two events that helped the company gain solid ground financially. First, Feldman was divesting the DISCO division of Katy for profits of $19 million. Second, the company entered into a new credit agreement with Private Bank and Trust Company. This agreement provided Katy greater flexibility as the company started to turn things around. Serving the role of senior management requires a clear vision for the company long-term, says Feldman. "Focused leadership and building a solid team are key to performance improvement."

Finally, after turning Katy into a profitable company, Feldman was able to focus on acquisitions that furthered the trend. The purchase of Fort Wayne Plastics added structural foam capacity and provided support for growth plans to a broader platform. After all these decisions and hard work, Feldman was proud to announce that Katy Industries turned in a significant improvement in earnings. The performance was driven by a 27.3 percent in sales growth from the previous year, which resulted in $2.5 million of net income.

Also, in 2015, Feldman and Katy Industries accomplished a second consecutive year of double-digit sales growth. The success was a result of a commitment to brand recognition, strategic acquisitions, and expansion of sales.

Essential Characteristics of a Senior Management Position

When asked about what it takes to be successful in a senior management position, Feldman lists a few characteristics.

"Dedication, competitiveness, and balancing work and life are three characteristics every successful CEO needs," explains Feldman. "To experience success in the workplace, you need to be able to make tough decisions and work hard." Feldman stresses to never settle for "good enough" for their performance or the performance of their company. A successful CEO holds themselves accountable for growing, learning, and always improving. They also expect the same from their team members.

"One characteristic I've learned over the years is learning from good and bad experiences," says Feldman. "I can look back at challenging decisions and learn from them. These go for successful decisions, and failed decisions."

Finally, Feldman is using his experiences at Katy Industries, Cooper Lighting, where he was President, and his 20 years with General Electric for his own consulting and management company. He has been advising start-ups and consulting with mid-market companies. Currently, Feldman is working with Thayer Carver and is the CEO of Shelves West, a plastics molding manufacturer in the retail industry.

To learn more about Thayer Carver, please visit their website here.

Media Contact:

Eric Blankenship

[email protected]

786-332-6554

SOURCE David Feldman
MUSCATINE, Iowa, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Thanks to the help of cat lovers nationwide, World's Best Cat Litter donated 112,000 pounds of litter in 2017 to five shelters across the United States through its GiveLitter charity initiative.

Launched in 2010, GiveLitter has supported dozens of animal shelters across the U.S. with 662,000 pounds of litter donated thus far. Working with five dedicated shelter partners in 2017, World's Best Cat Litter empowered fans to give back, allowing consumers to vote for their favorite GiveLitter partner to receive 5,000 pounds of litter. The shelter with the most votes was also eligible for a bonus pot of litter. Fans could vote daily with one click via www.givelitter.com during four voting rounds throughout the year, with the final round coming to a close on November 21st.

"At World's Best Cat Litter, a top priority is supporting shelter cats so that they can one day find a forever home. GiveLitter allows our fans to support the hardworking shelters that need this litter to keep helping cats. We are so proud of how active our customers have been in supporting this effort, and are humbled by the impact it has made on these shelters," said Jean Broders, senior brand manager, Kent Pet Group.

The World's Best Cat Litter 2017 GiveLitter shelter partners were Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem, MA; Animal Haven in New York, NY; Kitten Rescue in Los Angeles, CA; Austin Humane Society in Austin, TX; and Humane Society of Tampa Bay in Tampa, FL.

For many shelters, the litter donation has a broader impact. Said Karen Ryals, chief development officer for the Humane Society of Tampa Bay, "The GiveLitter donation allows us to reallocate funds to life-saving initiatives for our homeless animals, such as heartworm treatment, special surgery to treat injuries, and medical intervention for illness. We are so extremely grateful to World's Best Cat Litter for this wonderful gift."

"Through GiveLitter, we have been able to care for even more homeless cats in our area and beyond," said Tiffany Lacey, executive director of Animal Haven. "And in fact, it's been even more useful over the last few months with the additional number of cats we have taken in during, first, kitten season and second, the devastation from so many hurricanes. This year more than ever, Animal Haven needed as much litter as possible to continue its good work on behalf of homeless cats."

World's Best Cat Litter will announce more information about its 2018 GiveLitter program in the coming months. Visit www.givelitter.com for the latest news and updates.

About GiveLitter:

At World's Best Cat Litter, we love cats as much as we love our customers. That's why we developed the GiveLitter program to support the shelters that are dedicated to making life better for homeless cats. With GiveLitter, World's Best Cat Litter partners with our customers to help get the word out about animal welfare issues, promote pet adoption, and donate free cat litter to shelters. The GiveLitter program is an active, ongoing effort, and every purchase of World's Best Cat Litter helps support shelter cats. For more information about GiveLitter, visit www.givelitter.com.

About World's Best Cat Litter:

World's Best Cat Litter is a family of clumping cat litters that offer concentrated power for a cleaner litter box. Our patented process harnesses the power of naturally absorbent corn to create formulas that guarantee outstanding odor control, quick clumping and easy scooping. It's the pet, people and planet friendly litter that truly works. Offered in a variety of clumping formulas and sizes, the litter is available in PetSmart and PETCO, select Target and Walmart stores, and other leading pet and grocery stores nationwide. World's Best Cat Litter is produced by Kent Pet Group, headquartered in Muscatine, Iowa. Visit www.worldsbestcatlitter.com

SOURCE World's Best Cat Litter

Related Links

http://www.worldsbestcatlitter.com


BEIJING, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- China Digital TV Holding Co., Ltd. (OTC: STVVY) ("China Digital TV" or the "Company"), a leading provider of cloud platforms embedded with gaming and other applications to PRC digital television and telecommunication network operators, today announced the results of the Company's 2017 annual general meeting (the "AGM"), held in Beijing today.

At the AGM, shareholders, through an ordinary resolution, approved the re-elections of Mr. Jianhua Zhu and Mr. Zengxiang Lu both as Class I Directors of the Company's Board of Directors for a new three-year term.

For more detailed information regarding the shareholder resolution adopted at the Company's AGM, please review the Notice of the Annual General Meeting of shareholders (and the accompanying proxy statement) at http://ir.chinadtv.cn.

About China Digital TV

Founded in 2004, China Digital TV is a leading provider of cloud platforms, with gaming and other applications embedded, to PRC digital television and telecommunication network operators, enabling them to bring these applications to household television sets and other mobile devices.

For more information please visit the Investor Relations section of China Digital TV's website at http://ir.chinadtv.cn.

Safe Harbor Statement

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such forward-looking statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "may," "should" and similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding the outlook and comments by management in this announcement about trends in the cloud computing, cable television and related industries in the PRC and China Digital TV's strategic and operational plans and future market positions. China Digital TV may also make forward-looking statements in its periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about China Digital TV's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from projections contained or implied in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: competition in the cloud computing, cable television and related industries in the PRC and the impact of such competition on prices, our ability to implement our business strategies, changes in technology, the progress of the television digitalization in the PRC, the structure of the cable television industry or television viewer preferences, changes in PRC laws, regulations or policies with respect to the cloud computing, cable television and related industries, including the extent of non-PRC companies' participation in such industries, and changes in political, economic, legal and social conditions in the PRC, including the government's policies with respect to economic growth, foreign exchange and foreign investment.

Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in our annual report on Form 20-F and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. China Digital TV does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this press release.

For investor and media inquiries, please contact:

China Digital TV Holding Co., Ltd.

Investor Relations

Tel: +86-10-6297-1199 x 9780

Email: [email protected]

ICR, Inc.

Xueli Song

Tel: +1 (646) 328-1950

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE China Digital TV Holding Co., Ltd.

Related Links

http://ir.chinadtv.cn


BEIJING, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Qfund, the next generation of crowdfunding platform has established multiple partnerships to promote charity events widely. Qfund recently has announced its partnership with companies like Live.me, NECBL, and The Deng Fei Foundation.

Qfund

During the period of Veterans Day, Qfund partnered with Live.me to raise money for a Veterans Information Center in Cabrillo College. The Live.me partnership allowed news anchors to sing for veterans live while soliciting viewers to leave donations through the Qfund platform. The campaign reached the goal in a quite short period and the money would be transferred to the Veteran's Information Center.

Qfund actively worked with the NECBL to collect money for the 11th series. 82 teams would race for the seats of the 2018 NECBL Spring Final in New York. By raising their own campaigns, the teams would be able to participate the NECBL without any financial burden.

The Deng Fei Foundation started to cooperate with Qfund and launched their #GivingTuesday Campaign. By collecting money through Qfund, #GivingTuesday will be able to deliver free lunch to children and reduce the poverty in those less developed countries like Kenya. Qfund launched this campaign on Thanksgiving Day and thousands has been collected to support their project.

Qfund too has partnered with The Silk Road Companion International Volunteer Alliance (SRC), a NPO that aims to help the countries along the Silk Road. With Qfund functioning as an online fundraising platform, SRC now is able to expand its coverage to 10 countries including Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Iran, Djibouti, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Qfund.me was established in the summer of 2015 and is now the largest crowdfunding platform in Asia which has been used and approved by over 182 million active members. With user-friendly features built in, Qfund has become the first choice for those who want to raise a campaign

If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact Qfund on support(at)qfund(dot)me.

SOURCE Qfund

Related Links

https://www.qfund.me


MELBOURNE, Australia, Dec. 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Elyptol Australia Pty. Ltd. launched with the largest Pharmacy in Australia, Chemist Warehouse.

Chemist Warehouse (or Chemist Warehouse Group) is an Australian company operating a chain of retail pharmacies. The company is Australia's largest and leading pharmacy retailer and employs over 15,000 staff. The company brands itself as offering discounted prices for pharmaceutical goods.

Elyptol's products offer the best in class natural organic hand sanitizers with the emphasis going into ingredients that are safe and green. Exclusive in Pharmacy to Chemist Warehouse in Australia, Elyptol offers products that include Hand Sanitizer Gels, Sprays, Hand and Hard Surface Wipes that contain all natural ingredients.

"Consumers are now far more educated and conscious of what they are putting in their bodies and on their skin," says Albina Reale, National Category Manager, Fragrance & Beauty for Chemist Warehouse. "Elyptol offers our customers the choice of a chemical toxic free hand sanitizer for everyday use."

"The launch of Elyptol's products into all Chemist Warehouse stores across the country is a great step forward for Elyptol as a very new brand," says Tim O'Connor, President & CEO of Elyptol. "The Hand Sanitizer and Soap categories are very competitive but not when it comes to creating a natural, botanical, non toxic, safe product. Elyptol stands out from the pack."

Elyptol has won global awards in the last 12 months, registered with the FDA in the USA and the TGA in Australia and is a member of the World Health Organisations Infection Prevention Group. Most recently, Elyptol was "EWG Verified" by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), an association that uses the power of public information to protect public health and the environment. Their missions is to empower people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment.

The natural formulation with natural ethanol alcohol from sugar cane and corn and with eucalyptus oil is a powerful hand sanitizer that effectively kills up to 99.9999% of bacteria, fungi and other common germs that can cause disease. Elyptol minimizes the likelihood of allergic reactions or contact dermatitis and is formulated to both sanitize and moisturize.

www.elyptol.com

Elyptol's PR Contact:

Clare Brady, Public Relations +1 917 403 2021, [email protected]

SOURCE Elyptol Australia Pty. Ltd.

Related Links

http://www.elyptol.com


RESTON, Va., Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- First responders across the nation now have a wireless broadband network to call their own. With all 50 states, two U.S. territories and Washington, D.C. joining FirstNet, public safety has a groundbreaking new choice for their communications that will help them save lives and protect their communities.

"This is a landmark day and monumental achievement for public safety  one that has been years in the making," said First Responder Network Authority Board Chair Sue Swenson. "There are many who said this network would never happen, but public safety never gave up on their network. Because of their vision and hard fought efforts, I can proudly say that this life-saving network is now a reality across America; FirstNet is going to enhance the safety and security of our first responders and the people they serve."

FirstNet is the creation of the nation's public safety community, who spent years advocating for their own wireless broadband network following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to enhance communications during emergencies and other events. Congress passed legislation to establish the Network in 2012, and for the past five years, the First Responder Network Authority worked closely with public safety to develop customized plans for building the Network in each state and territory.

The statutory 90-day decision period for Governors to "opt-in" or "opt-out" of the FirstNet proposed Radio Access Network (RAN) buildout plan concluded yesterday, December 28, and every state has accepted the FirstNet deployment plan. Similarly, two U.S. territories and Washington, D.C. have chosen the FirstNet plan while three U.S. territories have until March 12, 2018, to make their decision: American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

"With every state saying `yes' to the FirstNet plan, America's first responders now have a nationwide interoperable network they can rely on 24/7/365  like their mission," said First Responder Network Authority Chief Executive Officer Mike Poth. "I applaud these governors for their decision and congratulate public safety for its advocacy and partnership throughout the process. With more than 50 states and territories participating in FirstNet, public safety is assured of an enduring, self-sufficient network to serve them for years to come."

The First Responder Network Authority's public-private partnership with AT&T provides first responders with immediate access to mission-critical capabilities over the FirstNet network. This includes priority and preemption features that give first responders their own 'fast lane' on the public safety network to communicate and share information during emergencies, large events or other situations when commercial networks could become congested. FirstNet is the only broadband network to provide ruthless preemption for public safety.

"As first responders, we face an incredible amount of risk every day. So, to have a network that is focused on driving innovative capabilities to improve our safety is game changing," said Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo. "2017 was a pivotal year for public safety. And with the advancements planned for 2018, it's only going to get better."

"This is a day that many of us in the fire service have been looking forward to for a long time," said Chief Richard Carizzo of the Southern Platte (Mo.) Fire Protection District and a International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) Board Member. "Not only will this network remedy current communications challenges, but it will also usher in a wave of innovation for public safety and allow us to communicate unthrottled with responders from other agencies, districts, regions, tribes and states."

What's Ahead in 2018 and Beyond

The coming year will be a game changer for public safety as FirstNet expands across the nation and more innovative technologies and applications come on line for public safety subscribers.

"Our FirstNet offering will forever change the way first responders communicate," said Chris Sambar, senior vice president, AT&T  FirstNet. "Securing 53 opt-ins is significant for the public safety personnel that this network will serve. And we're honored to give first responders across the country quick access to this life-saving solution."

Key FirstNet milestones and activities planned for 2018 include:

Expanding the Network and Building Out Band 14: The First Responder Network Authority will issue work orders to deploy the RANs in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. , and the two opt-in territories in early 2018. This will give AT&T the green light to expand FirstNet's footprint and deploy Band 14 capacity and coverage throughout the nation, providing first responders with the bandwidth and mission critical connections they need to communicate, share information, and use innovative technologies every day and in every emergency.

The First Responder Network Authority will issue work orders to deploy the RANs in all 50 states, , and the two opt-in territories in early 2018. This will give AT&T the green light to expand FirstNet's footprint and deploy Band 14 capacity and coverage throughout the nation, providing first responders with the bandwidth and mission critical connections they need to communicate, share information, and use innovative technologies every day and in every emergency. Driving Public Safety Innovation : FirstNet will also unlock a new technology marketplace for public safety, enabling first responders to benefit from advancements in innovation. The FirstNet App store will be filling up with FirstNet-approved mobile apps that are optimized for public safety use over the first responder network.

: FirstNet will also unlock a new technology marketplace for public safety, enabling first responders to benefit from advancements in innovation. The FirstNet App store will be filling up with FirstNet-approved mobile apps that are optimized for public safety use over the first responder network. Securing Emergency Communications : FirstNet's first-of-its-kind core infrastructure will give first responders the dedicated, highly secure, non-commercial network they deserve. On schedule to be operational in March, the FirstNet public safety core will provide full encryption of public safety data over FirstNet and provide end-to-end cyber security. FirstNet subscribers will also have access to a dedicated Security Operations Center, offering 24/7/365 support.

: FirstNet's first-of-its-kind core infrastructure will give first responders the dedicated, highly secure, non-commercial network they deserve. On schedule to be operational in March, the FirstNet public safety core will provide full encryption of public safety data over FirstNet and provide end-to-end cyber security. FirstNet subscribers will also have access to a dedicated Security Operations Center, offering 24/7/365 support. Engaging with Public Safety: Public safety outreach and advocacy will not stop as the network is further built out. The First Responder Network Authority will continue to engage with public safety in the states, territories, federal agencies, and tribal nations to ensure the network meets their needs and incorporate their feedback in the design of future FirstNet products and services.

"While getting to this point is a major achievement for public safety, our job is not finished," said First Responder Network Authority CEO Poth. "We still have much work to do to realize the full potential of FirstNet for public safety everywhere, including rural America, and we will move full speed ahead to make it happen."

For more information on the First Responder Network Authority and the Governor's Decision, visit https://firstnet.gov/the-governors-decision-media-kit.

About The First Responder Network Authority

The First Responder Network Authority is an independent authority within the U.S. Department of Commerce. Chartered in 2012, its mission is to ensure the building, deployment, and operation of the nationwide, broadband network that equips first responders to save lives and protect U.S. communities. Learn more at FirstNet.gov/mediakit and follow FirstNet (@FirstNetGov) on Facebook and Twitter for updates.

SOURCE FirstNet

Related Links

http://firstnet.gov


The restaurant has won great popularity because of its elegant Chinese-style decor, and, even more importantly, its specialty - aromatic shiny brown roasted duck with a combination of crispy skin and succulent meat.

Peking duck enjoys worldwide popularity, and is even favored by many foreign political leaders. Duck has been roasted in China for over a thousand years in various ways. For example, some ducks are roasted in a hung oven after being opened and filled with boiling water, while some are cooked in a closed oven without an open fire. However, those two methods are used for the traditional "Peking duck," whereas ducks are roasted in other ways in southern China.

What is more, roasted duck is served in various ways, which has been the subject of many articles in the foreign media over the years: typically, a diner dips the skin in sugar and the meat in sauce before wrapping them in steamed pancakes, sometimes lined with garlic and shallots. Therefore, roasted duck embodies the quality and diversity of Chinese cuisine.

Gastronomy, in the eyes of Chinese people, is an essential and joyful part of life. A long history of agriculture and the close attention imperial courts always paid to food contributed to the diverse culinary techniques and pursuit of tasty food. The long-established tradition has made gastronomy more ritualistic and humanistic in China.

Meanwhile, China has vast territory, abundant resources as well as varying climate and natural environment. These factors have brought about not only different duck roasting methods, but also eight famous regional cuisines, including Sichuan, Shandong, Cantonese and Hunan, each boasting distinctive features. Chinese cuisine has also inherited the influences of the communications and integration between different regions at home and abroad.

Actually, Peking duck had been introduced to other parts of the world long before its headline-making appearance in New York. In 1990, Quanjude, a time-honored Chinese brand, opened an outlet in Los Angeles. Nowadays, many Chinese dishes are so famous that you can find the outlets selling Lanzhou Lamian (noodles), Shaxian Snacks and braised chicken rice around the world. It is globalization that has facilitated such intercommunication and enhanced the diversity and healthiness of Chinese cuisine.

China Mosaic

http://www.china.org.cn/video/node_7230027.htm

Flavor of Peking duck wafted to New York

http://www.china.org.cn/video/2017-12/29/content_50176029.htm

About China.org.cn

Founded in 2000, China Internet Information Center (China.org.cn/China.com.cn) is a key state news website under the auspices of the State Council Information Office, and is managed by China International Publishing Group. We provide round-the-clock news service in ten languages. With users from more than 200 countries and regions, we have become China's leading multi-lingual news outlet introducing the country to the outside world.

We are one of the country's authoritative outlets for government press releases and are authorized to cover various major events. "Live Webcast" is our online webcasting service to present State Council Information Office press conferences in both Chinese and English languages. We are reputed for timely and accurate delivery of news and information, and wide interactions with audiences. In addition, we are authorized to publish and live broadcast major events and press conferences of ministries, local government agencies and institutions as well as enterprises.

In the era of mobile internet, we endeavor to create an array of products for mobile devices headed by the multilingual WAP platform and the mobile APP. We also use Chinese and international social media to publish information for different user groups.

In the future, CIIC will continue to offer authoritative information about China, tell China's stories, voice China's opinions, and introduce a vivid, panoramic and multicultural China to the world through multi-language, multi-media and multi-platforms.

SOURCE China.org.cn
DUBLIN, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Global GaN Power Device Market Research Report Insights, Opportunity Analysis, Market Shares and Forecast, 2017 - 2023" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The global gallium nitride power device market is expected to grow with the CAGR of approximately 24% during the forecast period 2014-2023. Although gallium nitride power device market is still a niche market but poses a great potential as gallium nitride have a high bandgap energy (3.4ev). GaN devices are very efficient in terms of power conversion making it suitable for wide array of applications such as in electric vehicle, IT and telecom and others. Reduction in prices of GaN devices, escalating demand of GaN power devices for wireless charging, high adoption of GaN power devices in radio frequency applications and rising demand of GaN based power inverters for electric vehicle have injected a huge boost in the global gallium nitride power device market. However, limited availability of gallium nitride and a stiff completion form Silicon carbide based power devices impede the growth of gallium nitride power device market.

Gallium nitride power device market can be segmented on the basis of device and application. The segment by device can be further sub-segmented into GaN power discrete devices, GaN power ICs and GaN power module. The application segment is further segmented into consumer electronics, IT & telecommunication, automotive, aerospace & defense and others of which IT and telecommunication has the highest market share driven by high penetration of 4G services and growing 5G infrastructure where GaN based power device are important for high frequency operation.

Geographically, North America dominates the gallium nitride power device market to high investments in the development of Gallium nitride power devices and government initiatives such as Power America that aims at developing cost competitive wide bandgap semiconductors such as GaN. The market is also driven due to dominance of gallium nitride power device manufacturers in North America. Asia Pacific GaN power device market is expected to grow at the highest CAGR over the forecast period due to growing telecom sector and surge in the number of electric vehicles in the region.

Companies Mentioned



Cree Incorporated

Efficient Power Conversion Corporation

Fujitsu

Gan Systems Inc

Infineon Technologies Ag

International Quantum Epitaxy Plc

Koninklijke Philips N.V.

Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation

Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Advance Technology Corporation

ON Semiconductor

Panasonic Corporation

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company

Texas Instruments Incorporated

Toshiba Corporation

Visic

Key Topics Covered:



1. Introduction



2. Market Overview



3. Market Determinants



4. Market Segmentation



5. Competitive Landscape



6. Global Gan Power Device Market By Region



7. Company Profiles



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/bh4f27/global_gan_power

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



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SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


DUBLIN, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Global Water Testing & Analysis Market Insights, Opportunity, Analysis, Market Shares And Forecast 2017 - 2023" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The global water testing and analysis market is expected to grow with the CAGR of approximately 6.5% during the forecast period 2016-2023. The increasing regulatory support for high standard maintenance is boosting the growth in the global water testing and analysis market. Furthermore, raising industrial application due to increasing demand for water across industries such as pharmaceuticals, food and beverages and other industries is also boosting the growth in the global water testing and analysis market. According to Ministry of Water Resources India, it is estimated that by the end of 2025, in India the demand for water across industries will rise to 80 billion cubic meters, including (industries+ energy sector) which was around 41.4 billion cubic meters in 2010 for (industries + energy sector). Hence, the growing demand for water across industries is boosting growth in the global water testing and analysis market. However, high environmental and climatic condition influence and lack of capital investment are the major factor that is restricting the growth of the global water testing and analysis market.

Geographically, North America held a major share for water testing and analysis market, in terms of revenue in 2016. Rapid increase in investment in water testing and analysis by government and private funding is one of the key factor which is attributing towards the large share of the North American market. Moreover, the presence of various key players such as Agilent Technologies Inc. (US), Danaher Corporation (US), Emerson Electric Co. (US), General Electric Company (US), Honeywell International Inc. (US), etc. are also boosting growth in the North America water testing and analysis market.



The global water testing and analysis market is segmented into product and application. The product segment is segmented into conductivity sensors, dissolved oxygen analyzer, Ph meters, toc analyzers, and turbidity meters. Moreover, the application segment is further segmented into environmental, government, industrial and laboratory, the growing water demand across industrial application is one of the key factors that is adding growth in the global water testing and analysis market application segment.

Companies Mentioned:



Abb Ltd.

Agilent Technologies Inc.

Danaher Corporation

Emerson Electric Co.

General Electric Company

Honeywell International Inc.

Horiba Ltd.

Idexx Laboratories

Lovibond Tintometer

Perkin Elmer Corp.

Qiagen

Shimadzu Corporation

Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.



Key Topics Covered:



1. Introduction



2. Market Overview

3. Market Determinants



4. Market Segmentation



5. Competitive Landscape



6. Geographical Analysis

7. Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/kxc6xd/global_water

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the government of Honduras thanked the Electoral Observation Missions to Honduras (EOMs) from the Organization of American States and the European Union; vote processing firm Dale Vukanovich; and the U.S. State Department for their roles in confirming the results of Honduras's November 26 presidential election.

Republic of Honduras

In its final report on the elections, OAS EOM concluded, "Based on its technical analysis, the mission cannot confirm that that the Integrated Scrutiny and Disclosure Electoral System (or SIEDE) has been manipulated with malice."

"It is also important to note that during the last two weeks the mission experts directly observed the procedures carried out," the report stated. "In connection with the review and collation of records, the OAS EOM considered it a positive that the TSE [Honduras's Supreme Electoral Tribunal] decided that all ballots be [re]counted."

The OAS sent an Electoral Observation Mission with 83 observers to Honduras to monitor the national elections.

Dale Vukanovich, the firm that processed the presidential votes, recently stated, "We emphatically affirm that the [electoral] database was not altered at any point . . . At all times the database, the primary source, was at the disposal of the OAS so they could run all necessary tests and then issue an opinion with certainty on whether the database was altered."

In an official press statement, U.S Department of State spokesperson Heather Nauert said, "We congratulate President Juan Orlando Hernandez on his victory in the November 26 presidential elections, as declared by the Honduran Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE)."

For its part, EU EOM said that the TSE's latest recount of 4,753 presidential ballot boxes on December 9-10 "was undertaken in conditions of full transparency and in the presence of national and international observers."

"The European Union cannot and should not intervene in the independence and autonomy of the Honduras people," said Marisa Matias, EU Chief Observer for the general elections in Honduras.

Several sovereign governments from around the world including those of Mexico, Colombia, Spain, Ecuador, Guatemala, Israel, Russia, Brazil, France, Japan, Peru, and South Korea have all congratulated President Hernandez on his victory.

Media Contact:

Andrew Grafton

[email protected]

(202)-471-4228 ext. 119

www.keybridgecommunications.com

SOURCE Republic of Honduras
RODENTAL, Germany, December 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The German entrepreneur Bernd Fortsch takes over the famous brand of tradition, Hummel Manufaktur in Rodental, Germany. The company had to file for insolvency again in November and will now be reestablished from scratch. The enterprise will stay at its present production site in Rodental. Most of the staff will be kept. The new owner will focus on a completely different marketing concept. "Neither production nor the figurines were part of the problem over the past few years," states Bernd Fortsch.

That is why the focus will be put on direct marketing and an elaborate community concept in order to embrace the huge and dedicated collectors' base of the brand. "Hummel is an enterprise world-wide known for its full tradition and based in my home country Upper Franconia," emphasizes Bernd Fortsch. "It is a strong brand with a long history and unique products of highest quality. This brand stands for German handcraft and tradition like hardly any other brands do. This tradition must go on. In those times of troubles and discomfort we all have to strive for our good old values to be maintained and taken care of."

The process of insolvency was accompanied by Klaus-Christof Ehrlicher, a specialist solicitor of registry Linse & Ehrlicher from Coburg, Germany.

About Hummel figurines

The figurines were created by Maria Innocentia Hummel, a sister of Franciscan Order, and are named after her. The figurines show children when playing and in other situations of their daily life, often in a humorous way. The ceramic figurines have been produced in Rodental since 1935. All over the whole process of production great importance is attached to solid traditional handcraft. The Hummel figurines are estimated by collectors all over the world and are especially popular in the USA.

About Bernd Fortsch

Bernd Fortsch (born 1962) is an entrepreneur and publisher in the fields of finance, stock exchange and economy. The weekly magazine DER AKTIONAR is the most popular publication from his publishing house. His group of companies which also includes investments in the banking and IT sector has more than 600 employees on several sites in Germany.

Press Contact:

Quadriga Communication GmbH

Kent Gaertner

[email protected]

+49-(0)30-3030-808-913

SOURCE Hummel Manufaktur GmbH
PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Janrain, the company that pioneered the Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) category, today celebrated another year of industry-first innovations that solidified the company's standing as the leading independent CIAM provider, as recognized by leading research firm Forrester in The Forrester Wave: Customer Identity and Access Management Q2 2017.

"2017 was all about making investments to further our differentiation in providing mission-critical identity cloud services," said Janrain CEO Jim Kaskade. "Janrain continues to set the pace for innovation in the industry while attracting a growing number of global enterprise-class brands to its many industry-first digital identity solutions. As the only independent CIAM leader, Janrain not only helps organizations operationalize their digital customer hubs, but does so with a suite of seamless and safe digital experiences. Our identity innovations will continue to give clients the ability to disrupt their digital ecosystems quickly."

Janrain's innovations are setting the pace for a rapidly-growing market expected to hit $31.75 billion by 2022 (MarketsandMarkets). We celebrate Janrain's innovation advances across the following four categories, along with recognized overall industry milestones summarized below:

Identity Activation

Identity Security

Identity Management

Identity Data Integration & Interoperability

Identity Activation Innovation Firsts

Customer Journey Analytics: This is an offering that allows clients to track customers from anonymous visitors to registered users and beyond. With this valuable information, customers can dramatically improve real-time segmentation, targeting, and personalization of the digital end user experience for greater lead generation and sales.

Janrain unveiled a new Identity Big Data and Analytics offering for activation that is powered by the most advanced data platform consisting of batch, ad-hoc, and real-time capabilities built for Identity of Things scale. This platform gives global brands the capacity to not only handle real-time identity events throughout the customer journey, but they can also be operationalized using Janrain's existing real-time cloud directory, real-time identity attribute triggers, and real-time identity integrations with application and marketing solutions.

Experience Hub: Instead of distributing and maintaining unique experiences in each digital application separately, clients can leverage Janrain's hosted registration, login, and preference center experiences in its Identity Cloud, which streamlines and centralizes multi-site and multi-market rollout to drive global consistency, governance, and security of the identity implementation while reducing the technical burden for individual teams to manage registration, login, and preference center functionality.

Identity Security Innovation Firsts

First to integrate Fraud Scoring with a CIAM solution: With the help of phone number intelligence, AI-based web traffic pattern analysis and extensive data picked from global information services, Janrain Fraud Score assigns a reputation score to a new user account. A high-risk score alerts the brand about the customer identities that are a high risk for potential fraud.

First to unveil a new Identity Big Data and Analytics offering for security that gives global brands the capacity to handle real-time identity events throughout the customer journey from a security perspective. Baseline behavior can be compared against anomalies through their lifecycle that feed a Fraud Score for Security Operations Centers (SOCs), ultimately reducing time to incident response and remediation.

First Universal Integration of CIAM Event Data with SIEM Systems that focuses security analysts on what's important to reduce time to remediation for any/all malicious behavior.

First to support for Google's latest Authentication and Human Verification Tools, including Invisible reCAPTCHA and Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) through Google Authenticator. Invisible reCAPTCHA automatically detects a human where possible and bypasses traditional CAPTCHA screens, thereby improving the customer experience. Google Authenticator expands MFA options by leveraging the Google Authenticator app to generate one-time use codes, which can be entered into a Janrain Registration or Login form to confirm the user's identity.

Enhanced OpenID support: Janrain was a launch partner and one of the first adopters of the OpenID Foundation's new OpenID Connect Relying Party (RP) Certification, which aims to make interoperability easier and identity systems more secure.

First to launch Customer-centric Consent Lifecycle Management to accelerate GDPR adherence.

First CIAM provider to be GDPR ready.

First to launch GDPR Primer and Readiness Assessment offering.

Security certifications and assessments: Janrain again raised the bar for the most rigorous security certifications in the CIAM Industry. Janrain maintains and is audited or assessed for certification/compliance with ISO 27001:2013, ISO 27018:2014 (PII Protections in the cloud), SOC 2 Type II (in addition to the Security Common Criteria, Janrain is compliant for the Availability and Confidentiality Trust SOC 2 Trust Principles), HIPAA (storage of healthcare data), HITECH (transmission of healthcare data), Cloud Security Alliance (CSA star), U.S.-E.U. Privacy Shield Framework (reviewed by TRUSTe), and TRUSTe privacy program (TRUSTe). Janrain is in the process of performing a PCI assessment with the intention of obtaining PCI compliance in 2018. Janrain also supports additional security and privacy regulations including: COPPA, OIDC (http://www.oixnet.org/openid-certifications/janrain/), PIPEDA, CFR - Code of Federal Regulations Title 21, Part 11). In addition to the security audits mentioned above, in 2017 Janrain successfully passed an independent vendor penetration and vulnerability test of Janrain's products, services and infrastructure.

Identity Management Innovation Firsts

Customer Insights : Next-generation reporting and dashboarding across Janrain operational metrics and customer insights.

Next-generation reporting and dashboarding across Janrain operational metrics and customer insights. Administration Console: New and advanced data visualization dashboard to manage the Janrain Identity Cloud.

Next Generation Customer Care Portal: Full-featured customer service tool for CSRs to manage customer identities with enhanced ability to configure workflows, tasks and roles for CSRs, and improved performance.

Symphonic Software and Janrain jointly developed the most Advanced Fine-Grained Access Control for CIAM. Janrain is the only CIAM provider that can be used to integrate identity policy across all legacy identity and access management solutions.

First to offer Private Groups Capability for Janrain Identity Cloud.

Expanded global data center footprint: Janrain's Identity Cloud supports a global footprint of 200 cloud data centers in 49 Availability Zones within 18 geographic Regions around the world.

Identity Data Integration / Interoperability Innovation Firsts

Configurable SAML IDPs: Allows users to self-serve adding any SAML 2.0 IDP into their Janrain Authentication services.

Enhanced support for XACML (eXtensible Access Control Markup Language) improving interoperability between access control implementations by multiple vendors.

Technology integrations: Throughout the year Janrain extended the list of technologies that Janrain integrates with, which now includes more than 200 products ranging from marketing and sales automation to e-commerce and infrastructure and security technologies. Notable additions in 2017 include IBM QRadar, Splunk Enterprise Security, ArcSight ESM, LogRhythm, and McAfee Enterprise Security Manager.

Overall Janrain Identity Cloud 2017 Milestones

Surpassed servicing over 3,400 Clients and reaching over 1.5 Billion Identities.

24x7x365 Support Hotline for Development Issues: New support package tailored for developers with follow-the-sun support.

New pricing models supporting single clients with up to 500M identities under management.

identities under management. Introduction of Janrain University In-Depth Training for Janrain Identity Cloud.

Joined industry standards group Align Biopharma.

Joined IDPro.org as a founding member.

Recognized as an overall CIAM leader by leading European research firm KuppingerCole.

Received highest ranking in TechVision Research's evaluation of CIAM providers.

Fueled by CIAM leaders including Janrain, Ovum Research's new video talks about Identity Management as the Foundation for Personalized Marketing (a core part of Janrain's history and its current suite of Identity Activation solutions).

About Janrain

Founded in 2002, Janrain pioneered Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) and is widely recognized by industry analysts as a global CIAM leader. The Janrain Identity Cloud provides identity management, security and activation solutions that enable seamless and safe customer experiences across their digitally connected world, while providing enterprise organizations with deep customer insights. Janrain's identity capabilities include social and traditional login and registration, single sign-on, customer profile data storage and management, customer segments, customer insights and engagement solutions. The company manages a reach to over 1.5 billion digital identities with identity services provided to over 3,400 brands, including Pfizer, Samsung, Whole Foods, Fox News, Philips, McDonald's and Dr Pepper. Janrain is based in Portland, Oregon, with offices in London, Paris and Silicon Valley. For more information, please visit www.janrain.com and follow @janrain.

Contact: Chris Blake, 415-989-9000, [email protected]

SOURCE Janrain

Related Links

http://www.janrain.com


NEW YORK, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lawyers representing shareholders of Allergan Inc. announced they had settled a lawsuit resolving insider trading claims against Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc., Bill Ackman and his Pershing Square family of hedge funds stemming from Valeant's 2014 attempt to takeover Allergan, Inc. In settling the claims, Valeant and Pershing Square agreed to jointly pay a total of $290 million for all involved investors.

Allergan stockholders alleged that in February 2014, Valeant tipped Pershing Square founder Bill Ackman about its plan to launch a hostile bid for Allergan. Armed with this nonpublic information, Pershing then bought 29 million shares of Allergan stock from unsuspecting investors, who were unaware of the takeover bid that Valeant was preparing in concert with the hedge fund. When Valeant publicized its bid in April 2014, Allergan stock shot up by $20 per share, earning Pershing $1 billion in profits in a single day.

Valeant's bid spawned a bidding war for Allergan. The company was eventually sold to Actavis PLC for approximately $66 billion.

Stockholders filed suit in 2014 in federal court in the Central District of California, where Judge David O. Carter presided over the case. Judge Carter appointed the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System ("Iowa") and the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio ("Ohio") as lead plaintiffs, and appointed Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP and Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, LLP as lead counsel.

The court denied motions to dismiss the litigation in 2015 and 2016, and in 2017 certified a class of Allergan investors who sold common stock during the period when Pershing was buying.

Earlier in December, the Court held a four-day hearing on dueling motions for summary judgment, with investors arguing that the Court should enter a liability judgment against Defendants, and Defendants arguing that the Court should throw out the case. A ruling was expected on those motions within coming days.

The settlement reached this week resolves both the certified stockholder class action, which was set for trial on February 26, 2018, and a more recently-filed action brought on behalf of investors who traded in Allergan derivative instruments. Defendants are paying $250 million to resolve the certified common stock class action, and an additional $40 million to resolve the derivative case.

Lee Rudy, a partner at Kessler Topaz and co-lead counsel for the common stock class, commented: "This settlement not only forces Valeant and Pershing to pay back hundreds of millions of dollars, it strikes a blow for the little guy who often believes, with good reason, that the stock market is rigged by more sophisticated players. Although we were fully prepared to present our case to a jury at trial, a pre-trial settlement guarantees significant relief to our class of investors who played by the rules."

About Kessler Topaz: Kessler Topaz is one of the world's leading advocates for institutional investors from around the world. The firm has recovered billions of dollars for clients resulting from securities class actions, shareholder derivative suits, antitrust litigation and other complex litigation in jurisdictions around the globe. For more, visit www.ktmc.com.

Adam Nissenbaum 718-360-6810 [email protected]

SOURCE Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Kona Espresso Bar's Grand Opening is set for January 3rd, 2018 in the new CapStar Bank building at 1201 Demonbreun St. #100 in The Gulch.

Kona will offer 100% Kona coffee, a rotating selection of locally roasted coffee, tea, smoothies, juices, as well as healthy breakfast, lunch and snack options.

The newly-built, 1400-sq. ft. space faces Demonbreun and combines Nashville's urban energy and neighborhood comfort with Hawaiian coffee and culture.

Kona Espresso Bar is the second venture by the Buttner brothers (Ryan and Justin) and longtime friend and business partner Robert Kane. Justin and Robert first partnered in 2013 to open the Bare Naked Bagel food truck and Ryan later joined the team.

"Kona" refers to Kailua-Kona, the largest town on the Big Island of Hawaii and one of the premium specialty coffee-growing regions of the world. The volcanic slopes provide an ideal microclimate for growing coffee. The opening of Kona Espresso Bar brings this world-renowned coffee to Nashville.

Ryan, Justin, and Robert were born and raised in upstate New York. After college, Justin moved to Nashville and began his corporate career. Robert became a chef after college and has worked in the restaurant industry for 15 years. He relocated to Nashville in 2013 to join Justin in opening Bare Naked Bagel.

Ryan's passion for the restaurant industry led him to Cornell University's School of Hotel Management where he concentrated in Food and Beverage. Over his career, he has worked with world-renowned chefs such as Marcus Samuelsson, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and, most notably, Daniel Boulud.

"There's no better spot to launch Kona's first location," said Ryan, "and we look forward to serving the residents, businesses, and tourists of the neighborhood.".

Kona Espresso Bar

1201 Demonbreun St #100

Nashville, TN 37203

Call (615) 864-0880

Hours: Mon-Fri 7a-3p

SOURCE Kona Espresso Bar
CSE: MDM FSE: 2M0OTCQB: MRPHF

KELOWNA, BC, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Marapharm Ventures Inc. ("Marapharm") announces that Veritas Pharma Inc. "Veritas" has been issued, to its subsidiary, a dealer's license from Health Canada which allows it to possess, produce, analyze, sell, send, transport, import, export and deliver cannabis, hemp and related products. The license also allows for the production of cannabis liquid extracts which with an export permit can be sent to other parts of the world.

Marapharm holds a total of 6,100,000 common shares of Veritas (a public company trading on: CSE: VRT; OTC: VRTHF; FSE: 2VP) representing approximately 15% in the share capital of the issuer, and assuming the exercise of the company's total 11,500,000 warrants, Marapharm would hold a total of 17,600,000 common shares or approximately 32% of the issued and outstanding common shares of the issuer, Veritas Pharma Inc. Marapharm invested in the company on January 9, 2017, January 11, 2017, and October 19, 2017.



The securities were acquired for investment and synergy purposes.



"Veritas shares have increased significantly in value since we invested in the company. The dealer license Veritas now has is a very significant milestone!

Veritas Pharma Inc. is a discovery and IP development company which advances the science behind medical cannabis. Veritas has also applied to Health Canada for a cultivation license. In addition, Veritas's team of 27 doctors, scientists and associates work tirelessly researching and testing strains of cannabis that control and reduce nausea. The growing number of patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation is driving the market for anti-nausea medication. Transparency Market Research states that this market will reach a valuation of more than $2 billion within 2 years.



There is distinct synergy with Marapharm and Veritas to enhance our corporate and shareholder value." Linda Sampson, Marapharm CEO.

ABOUT MARAPHARM VENTURES INC.

www.marapharm.com

Marapharm is a publicly traded company primarily investing in the medical and recreational cannabis space, with corporate operations based in British Columbia, Canada. Since 2016 they have rapidly expanded their footprint to include production locations in the key North American states of Washington, Nevada, and California. They actively seek expansion opportunities worldwide.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Facebook: facebook.com/marapharm Twitter: twitter.com/marapharm Web Program: marapharm.tv

STOCK EXCHANGES:

Marapharm trades in Canada, ticker symbol MDM on the CSE, in the United States, ticker symbol MRPHF on the OTCQB, and in Europe, ticker symbol 2Mo on the FSE. Marapharm also trades on other recognized platforms in Europe including Stuttgart, Tradegate, L & S, Quotnx, Dusseldorf, Munich, and Berlin.

Neither the CSE, the FSE nor the OTCQB has approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. Neither the CSE, the FSE nor the OTCQB accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

MARIJUANA INDUSTRY INVOLVEMENT:

Canadian listings (CSE) will remain in good standing as long as they provide the disclosure that is rightly required by regulators and complying with applicable licensing requirements and the regulatory framework enacted by the applicable state in which they operate.

Marapharm owns marijuana licenses in California and Nevada. Marijuana is legal in each state however marijuana remains illegal under US federal law and the approach to enforcement of US federal law against marijuana is subject to change. Shareholders and investors need to be aware that adverse enforcement actions could affect their investments and that Marapharm's ability to access private and public capital could be affected and or could not be available to support continuing operations. Marapharm's business is conducted in a manner consistent with state law and is in compliance with licensing requirements.

Copies of licenses are posted on Marapharm's website. Marapharm has internal compliance procedures in place and has compliance focused attorneys engaged in jurisdictions to monitor changes in laws for compliance with US federal and state law on an ongoing basis. These law firms inform any necessary changes to our policies and procedures for compliance in Canada and the US.

FORWARD - LOOKING STATEMENTS:

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward looking statements. The use of any of the words "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "expect", 'may", "will", "project", "should", 'believe", and similar expressions are intended to identify forward- looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward- looking statements are based on reasonable assumption but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and the forward-looking statements included in this news release should not be unduly relied upon.

SOURCE Marapharm Ventures Inc.

Related Links

www.marapharm.com


CABLE, Wis., Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Norvado announced a partnership with Strayer University to provide a 10% discount on Strayer University tuition to all 56 Norvado employees, as well as to over 6,500 eligible co-op members.

Norvado provides internet, TV and phone service throughout Northwest Wisconsin, in an area where citizens have limited access to higher education options. Co-op members and employees will be able to take advantage of the discount on any of Strayer's online undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

"We are thrilled to offer this benefit to our employees and members. We hope this program provides them the opportunity to further their education while removing some of the financial burden," said Chad Young, CEO of Norvado.

"Strayer University is proud to partner with Norvado to provide an affordable, flexible degree pathway for their members and employees," said Brian Jones, President of Strayer University, "Innovative partnerships like this are a win-win, providing employers with a more skilled workforce, while providing employees and members with skills to compete in today's economy."

Strayer University's winter term begins January 2, 2018. To learn more or to enroll co-op members and employees should visit http://norvado.strayeruniversity.edu.

About Norvado

Norvado has been connecting residents and business of the Chequamegon area to technology solutions since 1950. From the first phone line to the most advanced fiber optic internet and business systems, Norvado strives to provide next generation internet, TV, phone and business technology solutions to the residents of north central Wisconsin. For more information, visit www.norvado.com or call 800-250-8927.

About Strayer University

Founded in 1892, Strayer University is an institution of higher learning for working adult students. It offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in business administration, accounting, information technology, education, health services administration, nursing, public administration, and criminal justice. Strayer University is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, 3624 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104 (267-284-5000, www.msche.org). The Commission is an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. For more information, visit www.strayer.edu.

Norvado media contact: Joe Kohegyi 715-798-7130 [email protected] Strayer media contact: Rachel Richelieu 202-557-4920 [email protected]

SOURCE Norvado

Related Links

http://norvado.com


WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Skal International USA has held its annual elections and will be moving forward from a highly successful 2017.

Newly elected officers are Burcin Turkkan, Skal Atlanta, President; Holly Powers, Skal Boston, International Skal Councilor, Alton Hagen, Skal Kansas City, Vice President Finance; Lisa Conway, Vice President Administration; Dave Ryan, Skal Sacramento, Vice President Membership; Richard Scinta, Skal Orlando, Membership Director; and Joanne Ford, Skal Nashville, Auditor. Jim Dwyer, Skal Northern New Jersey, Membership Director; Steve Richer, Skal Washington, Public Relations and Communications Director; and Art Allis, Skal Tucson, Auditor, will continue to service in 2018.

During 2017, Skal USA held an extremely well attended North American meeting in Toronto; organized its first ever webinar national meeting with 100% attendance; had 100% participation in its annual election; adopted its first ever advocacy positions on Brand USA, national parks, transportation infrastructure, and freedom to travel; raised extra funds to support damaged communities in Florida, Texas, and the Caribbean after hurricanes; twinned USA Skal clubs with all the Skal clubs in India during US-India Tourism Partnership Year. Skal USA used relevancy to help grow Skal by not only adding members to existing clubs, but to actually add new clubs for the first time in seventeen years. A new club in Richmond, Virginia, broke the ice. Congratulations to Skalleague Andres Hayes, new President of Skal Washington, for his work on this project. Additional new clubs in southwest Florida, central California, Phoenix, Arizona and Savannah, GA are projected to charter in early 2018.

2017 President Holly Powers observed, "It is exciting to report Skal USA is experiencing growth with the opening of new clubs and individual members. Industry leaders are seeing the value of doing business among friends and the enormous benefit of Skal being a global organization."

Anticipated activities for 2018 will include a winter Executive Committee meeting next month in Raleigh, North Carolina; a North American Skal gathering along the Mexican Gulf Coast; and expanded efforts to work with the rest of the national travel industry.

2018 President Burcin Turkkan has summarized her goals for the year this way, "The SKAL USA 2018 Executive Committee will work hard to build on top of what has been constructed in the past two years to grow our organization further. Our priority will be to continue the momentum of growth in membership and starting new clubs. Since communication is the key to retain membership, we will benefit from technology to improve our level of communications and channels with our membership and potential members in the travel and tourism industry. Being the largest national committee in the SKAL International world and being able to demonstrate the positive changes Skal USA has made, we will continue to be a national committee that sets the trends and give the courage to the other national committees in the SKAL world."

SKAL International USA is currently the largest National Committee in Skal International with over 2,000 members and 48 clubs nationwide. For more information on SKAL International and SKAL USA, and to find out more about membership, go to www.skalusa.org

Steve Richer -Director of PR & Communications, SKAL USA

Contact# 228-586-7004

SOURCE Skal International USA

Related Links

http://www.skalusa.org


VANCOUVER, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - UrtheCast Corp. (TSX: UR) ("UrtheCast" or the "Company") today provided an update with respect to its ongoing corporate initiatives.

Further to the update provided during its third quarter earnings release on November 14, 2017, the Company has evaluated multiple opportunities and selected an institutional investor with which it has entered into an exclusivity agreement on December 15, 2017 for the previously announced US$175 million financing for the development of the UrtheDailyTM Constellation. The Company is currently working closely with the investor to finalize closing documentation as soon as practicable, with a target completion date for the financing extended to the end of January 2018. Completion is subject to final definitive documentation being completed and agreed, the lender's completion of confirmatory due diligence and receiving approval of our Board of Directors. Following funding, UrtheCast will have a path to the launch and commercialization of the UrtheDailyTM Constellation. With signed binding agreements for both data subscriptions totaling in excess of C$100 million, and a contract to build the UrtheDailyTM Constellation, the Company continues to target the commencement of the UrtheDailyTM operations in the 2020 growing season notwithstanding the extension of the financing closing date.

With recently announced partnerships with SI Imaging Services, Beijing Space View Technology and e-GEOS, along with the expanded assets available through the PanGeo Alliance, UrtheCast is now better positioned for 2018 with an increased number of product offerings, and the ability to provide customers with a more diversified level of decision making data.

As announced in the third quarter earnings release, the Company's EO revenues were impacted by a delay in the award of a major contract and accordingly, annual revenue excluding non-cash revenue, and Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of C$40 million and negative C$5 million, respectively1. In addition, the Company obtained a waiver from its lender Banco de Sabadell S.A. with respect to its 25 million term loan in relation to certain financial covenants for the year ended December 31, 2017, and a six-month deferment of its required December 2017 principal payment obligation.

The Company continues to focus its efforts on securing near term contracts for the SAR Accelerator missions, including obtaining the necessary export applications. The Company continues to await final approval of the financing condition by the customer's government agency for the previously announced SAR XL contract. As a result of the focus on the SAR Accelerator missions, the Company's timeline for the OptiSARTM Constellation has been pushed out to 2023 at the earliest. The Company also confirms that the conditions precedent to the agreement with the confidential government customer for the OptiSARTM Constellation (as disclosed on January 17, 2017) have not been satisfied and the contract will expire on December 31, 2017.

1 Revenue excluding non-cash revenue, and Adjusted EBITDA are non-IFRS measures. Refer to the Non-IFRS Measures section of the Company's third quarter MD&A for an explanation of these measures and reconciliation to the Company's reported financial results in accordance with IFRS.

About UrtheCast

UrtheCast Corp. is a Vancouver-based technology company that serves the rapidly evolving geospatial and geoanalytics markets with a wide range of information-rich products and services. The Company operates Earth Observation (EO) sensors in space, through its subsidiary Deimos Imaging, including two satellites, Deimos-1 and Deimos-2, to produce imagery data for partners and customers in multiple markets. UrtheCast processes and distributes imagery data and value-added products on behalf of the PanGeo Alliance, a network of seven satellite operators with a combined 13 medium- and high-resolution EO sensors. Additionally, UrtheCast is developing and expects to launch the world's first fully-integrated constellation of sixteen multispectral optical and SAR satellites, called OptiSAR, and a satellite constellation designed to capture high-quality, medium- resolution optical imagery of the Earth's entire landmass (excluding Antarctica) every day, called UrtheDaily. Common shares of UrtheCast trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange as ticker "UR".

For more information, visit UrtheCast's website at www.urthecast.com.

Non-IFRS Financial Measures

The Company prepares its financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS"), as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board. This release includes certain non-IFRS financial measures, such as non-IFRS revenue excluding non-cash revenue, and adjusted EBITDA. The Company uses these non-IFRS financial measures as supplemental indicators of its operating performance and financial position. These measures do not have any standardized meanings prescribed by IFRS and therefore are unlikely to be comparable to the calculation of similar measures used by other companies, and should not be viewed as alternatives to measures of financial performance calculated in accordance with IFRS or considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS. These non-IFRS financial measures should be read in conjunction with the Company's financial statements and accompanying MD&A.

Forward Looking Information

This release contains certain information which, as presented, constitutes "forward-looking information" or "forward-oriented financial information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information involves statements that relate to future events and often addresses expected future business and financial performance, containing words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "target", "estimate", "expect" and "guidance", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could" or "will" be taken or occur, or other similar expressions and includes, but is not limited to, statements relating to: UrtheCast's expected completion of the UrtheDailyTM financing on the terms set forth in the exclusivity agreement or at all; any potential transaction or other strategic alternative being available to the Company as a result of the Special Committee's review; UrtheCast's expectations with respect to its current sensors and proposed OptiSAR and UrtheDailyTM constellations and precursor SAR satellite; the satisfaction of the financing and other conditions set out in the agreement for the purchase of the precursor SAR satellite; its plans for and timing of expansion of its product offering and value-added services; its future growth and operations plans; expectations regarding the award of major contracts; expectations regarding government contributions and reimbursement grants; and anticipated trends and challenges in its business and the markets in which the Company operates. Such statements reflect UrtheCast's current views with respect to future events. Such statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by UrtheCast, are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors could cause UrtheCast's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, among others: UrtheCast's inability to enter into definitive documentation for the UrtheDailyTM financing; UrtheCast's inability to close the UrtheDailyTM financing on the terms set forth in the exclusivity agreement or at all; UrtheCast's ability to satisfy the conditions precedent to certain contracts signed and announced; any delays or failures in the design, development, construction, launch and operational commissioning of the proposed OptiSARTM or UrtheDailyTM constellations or precursor SAR satellite; the Company being unable to, adequately and on acceptable terms, finance the development, building, launch and commissioning of the UrtheDailyTM Constellation, to convert the remaining MOUs and other customer discussions in respect of the OptiSARTM constellation into binding, definitive agreements in a timely manner or at all; any failure by any customer of UrtheDailyTM, the Government of Canada or one of UrtheCast's third-party lenders to comply with the terms of their respective contracts with UrtheCast, and UrtheCast's ability to comply with any of its covenants thereunder; the decline of key relationships in, or termination of, the PanGeo Alliance of EO satellite operators; failures aboard the ISS or the Deimos-1 or Deimos-2 satellites; failure to obtain, or loss of, regulatory approvals; as well as those factors and assumptions discussed in UrtheCast's annual information form dated March 27, 2017, (the "AIF"), which is available under UrtheCast's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. UrtheCast undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by Canadian securities laws. Readers are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.

SOURCE UrtheCast Corp.

Related Links

www.urthecast.com


BAAR, Switzerland, Dec. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Weatherford International plc (NYSE: WFT) today announced it has sold its U.S. pressure pumping and pump-down perforating assets to a subsidiary of Schlumberger Limited for $430 million in cash.

The parties agreed to revised deal terms that reflect an asset sale, as compared to the previously announced OneStimSM joint venture. As part of this transaction, Schlumberger will take ownership of Weatherford's U.S. pressure pumping and pump-down perforating related facilities and supplier and customer contracts. Additionally, approximately 100 Weatherford employees associated with the pressure pumping and pump-down perforating businesses will transfer to Schlumberger. Weatherford will retain the entirety of its leading multistage completions portfolio, manufacturing capability and supply chain and will continue to participate in the growing completions markets in both Canada and the U.S. as well as globally.

Weatherford will use the proceeds from the sale to reduce outstanding indebtedness.

"The closing of this transaction represents another step on our path toward building a solid and strong company and unlocking the potential that exists within Weatherford," stated Mark A. McCollum, President and Chief Executive Officer of Weatherford. "Although not as originally anticipated, this transaction delivers cash proceeds that enable our Company to begin the deleveraging process and, coupled with our transformation plans, will lead to a leaner organization with lower debt and significantly higher profit margins. In addition, retaining 100 percent of our leading land-based multistage Completions business allows for significant upside potential for Weatherford."

About Weatherford

Weatherford is one of the largest multinational oilfield service companies providing innovative solutions, technology and services to the oil and gas industry. The Company operates in over 90 countries and has a network of approximately 860 locations, including manufacturing, service, research and development, and training facilities and employs approximately 29,500 people. For more information, visit www.weatherford.com and connect with Weatherford on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Weatherford Contacts

Christoph Bausch

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

+1.713.836.4615

Karen David-Green

Vice President  Investor Relations, Marketing and Communications

+1.713.836.7430

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, the Company's expectations regarding business outlook, debt levels and profit margins, and are also generally identified by the words "believe," "project," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "outlook," "budget," "intend," "strategy," "plan," "guidance," "may," "should," "could," "will," "would," "will be," "will continue," "will likely result," and similar expressions, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs of Weatherford's management, and are subject to significant risks, assumptions and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those indicated in our forward-looking statements. Readers are also cautioned that forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results. Forward-looking statements are also affected by the risk factors described in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and those set forth from time-to-time in the Company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to correct or update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except to the extent required under federal securities laws.

SOURCE Weatherford International plc

Related Links

http://www.weatherford.com


Thoughts on the Milo Yiannopoulos book deal kerfuffle, a critique publishing's underestimation of the U.S. Latino market, and PW editorial director Jim Milliot's pledge to stand up to President Trump were among PWs most-clicked opinion pieces in 2017.

10. Publishing's Bright Future (Really!)

Courtney Maum, humorist and author of the satirical novel Touch, mines her history working as a trend forecaster to predict a coming boom in books.

9. If Children's Authors Ruled the World

Author Deborah Underwood makes a case for why her fellow children's book creators have what it takes to be world leaders, citing their empathy, knowledge, and other strengths.

8. Every Writer Needs an Editor, Especially if that Writer Is Also an Editor

The editorial director of Writers Digest discusses the difficulty of taking her own advice.

7. The Weird Things People Leave in Books

A writer contemplates the bizarre itemsbologna, paychecks, divorce papers, a tacolibrarians have found in books.

6. Hey, Websites: Think Before You Link to Amazon

A writer and editor asks for consideration of the indies when you click to buy that book online.

5. Can We Talk About Banned Trump Books?

Writer and library series organizer Kit-Bacon Gressitt examines the book banning of Not My President: The Anthology of Dissent in her local library.

4. Standing Up to President Trump

There has never been a president whose election has caused as much widespread alarm among so many people in all segments of the publishing industry as Donald Trump, writes PW editorial director Jim Milliot.

3. Why the Milo Yiannopoulos Book Deal Tarnishes the Publishing Industry

When a major publisher "legitimizes old-fashioned hate speech and rebrands lies as alternative facts, our authors lose, our books lose, and our country loses," the editorial director of FSG Books for Young Readers writes about the Yiannopoulos book deal

2. Dear Publishers: Latinos Read Books, Too

A former New York state assemblyman takes publishing to task for underestimating the U.S. Latino market.

1. In Defense of Milo Yiannopoulos's Book

Yiannopoulos's literary agent, Thomas Flannery Jr., writes that he is "continually shocked by the willingness of many in the publishing industry to stifle Milo Yiannopoulos's opinions" by protesting S&S's since-terminated book deal for Dangerous.
While the Israeli-Palestinian issue is not a high priority in the Arab world today with all the other turmoil engulfing the region, not even the Trump administration's closest allies support the president's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Jerusalem is an issue that still resonates strongly across the Arab and Islamic world. If the president only recognizes Israel's claim to the city, and does not distinguish between West and East Jerusalem, his decision will be universally condemned in the region and globally. Close allies like Jordan will be vulnerable to blowback domestically.

Once again, the United States is isolated globally with no clear strategic gain. And it risks inflaming regional tension and increasing anti-American sentiment. The result is a boon for extremist forces and countries like Iran, unfortunately.

Dalia Dassa Kaye is director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy and senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation.

This commentary originally appeared as part of a roundup of reactions in the Jewish Journal 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.
How many steps will it take to walk off Thanksgiving dinner?
The Belarusian government is announcing last call on its nation of heavy drinkers.

Belarus has for years been recognized as a world leader in alcohol consumption, and the country's Health Ministry reports that nearly 2 percent of Belarus's 9.5 million citizens were either diagnosed as alcoholics or as suffering from alcohol-related psychosis in 2016.

The Interior Ministry, meanwhile, has reported that some 25 percent of all crimes in Belarus are committed by intoxicated individuals. In cases of serious crimes, such as murder and robbery, that number rises to a startling 70 to 80 percent.

Alcohol abuse also played a major role in Belarus being cited in a widely published study as one of the four unhealthiest countries in the world.

Faced with such dour statistics, the Belarusian government is now considering an array of measures to curb people from drinking alcohol.

Among the new measures being discussed in Minsk is raising the drinking age from 18 to 20 or 21, reducing the number of places allowed to sell alcoholic beverages, and imposing curfews on stores that sell alcohol so that it can only be purchased during specific hours.

A 'Very Difficult, Difficult Problem'

The issue has even caused Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka -- who described himself as someone "who does not drink much" -- to say at a labor union meeting in Minsk on December 8 that heavy drinking in Belarus was a "very difficult, difficult problem."

He also urged his fellow citizens to pay more attention to "a healthy and active way of life" while drinking less, such as only on holidays and other special occasions like the launching of a new business.

Belarus's problems with alcohol are something several other former Soviet republics are also facing.

Lithuania -- which consistently ranks with Belarus and Russia among the top five countries in the world in alcohol consumption -- decided last year to raise the legal drinking age from 18 to 20, and to reduce the time frame for alcohol sales in a bid to cut down on drunkenness. Lithuania's stricter rules on the purchase and consumption of alcohol go into effect on January 1.

And in early December, the Health Ministry in Russia's Zabaikalsky Krai declared an alcohol epidemic, with some 2 percent of its more than 1 million citizens suffering from alcohol-related disorders.

Two years ago the region banned the sale of alcohol after 8 p.m., the type of restriction that Belarus is now considering implementing.

But the reduced hours to buy alcohol in the Russian region apparently has done little to stop people from drinking.

Severe Social Problems

Zabaikalsky Krai Health Minister Sergei Davidov said alcoholism was the cause of severe social problems, including a sharp decline in average income in the region and in quality of life.

The Belarusian Interior Ministry has initiated an online voting system for people to register what they think of the various restrictions on alcohol that the government is proposing.

Results of the survey are to be factored into finalizing the Belarusian government's draft antialcohol law.

The ministry's survey asks people if alcohol sales should be banned from 10 p.m. until 9 a.m., or from 11 p.m. to 9 a.m., or if there should be no limitations on sales. It also asks if all alcohol sales should be banned at gas stations or if only hard alcohol (everything but beer and wine) should be.

The Interior Ministry argues that Belarus has a very high concentration of stores in which alcohol is sold, with one such shop for every 600 Belarusians compared to one store selling alcohol for every 4,500 people in Norway and Sweden.

The online survey also asks whether Belarus should increase the drinking age from the current 18 years to 20 or 21 years of age. Moving it to 21 would give Belarus the highest minimum drinking age in all of Europe and join just a handful of other countries -- most of them predominantly Muslim, along with the United States -- where one has to be 21 to be served an alcoholic beverage or to buy beer in a store.

There are concerns that placing restrictions on obtaining alcohol as a way to try to curb consumption could lead alcohol-dependent people to turn to stronger, surrogate alcohols to satisfy their addictions.

In Russia's Irkutsk region in December 2016, 76 people died after about 120 people were poisoned while drinking a bath lotion that contained a powerful methyl alcohol.

Written by Pete Baumgartner based on reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service.


As 2017 draws to a close, foreign investors are apparently fleeing Russia in droves.

According to a report in Kommersant, Russia stands to lose up to $1 billion due to the year-end exodus.

As 2017 draws to a close, Vladimir Putin is desperately trying to persuade Russian oligarchs to repatriate their wealth.

In remarks to lawmakers this week, the Kremlin leader called for a new amnesty program to "stimulate the return of capital to Russia."

As 2017 draws to a close, economists are increasingly talking about a looming liquidity crisis.

When Russia's Central Bank was forced to bail out Promsvyazbank, the country's ninth-largest lender, earlier this month, it marked the third major bank failure in four months.

And as 2017 draws to a close, many in the Russian elite are more than a bit jittery about what will happen in February 2018.

Because that is when a U.S. government report is due identifying Russia's most significant political figures and oligarchs -- many of whom could be subject to tough new sanctions.

At the heart of the conflict between Vladimir Putin's Russia and the West is a struggle between two normative systems: one based on transparency, the rule of law, and the sanctity of contracts; and one based on kleptocracy, cronyism, and patron-client relations.

For years, Putin's cronies have been able to have it both ways.

They accumulated their wealth in one system at home and kept it safe in another system abroad.

As 2017 draws to a close, that is coming to an end.

When Western sanctions against Russia were first announced back in 2015, many in the Kremlin elite laughed them off.

As 2017 draws to a close, they aren't laughing anymore.

Keep telling me what you think on The Power Vertical's Twitter feed and on our Facebook page.

NOTE TO POWER VERTICALISTAS: Since Russia traditionally gets pretty quiet in the week between New Year's and Orthodox Christmas, The Power Vertical will go dark next week. No Power Vertical products will appear from January 1-5 inclusive. The regular schedule will resume on January 8.
A citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina suspected of committing war crimes during the Bosnian War has been arrested in Munich.

The 50-year-old man, whose name was not given, was arrested at the airport in Munich on the basis of a request from Interpol in Sarajevo on December 29. He is accused of committing crimes against humanity.

The suspect was reportedly a policeman in Bosnia in the early 1990s when he is accused of torture and killings as part of the 1992-95 Bosnian War.

The man is reported to have been living in the southern German state of Bavaria.

He will be held in Munich until a decision on his extradition to Sarajevo is made by German officials.

Based on reporting by dpa and merkur.de
Pakistan has released 145 Indian fishermen from prison as a goodwill gesture, Pakistani officials say.

Major Azam Sher on December 29 said the released fishermen were handed over to Indian authorities at a border crossing near the eastern city of Lahore.

The fishermen had been held in the Malir jail in Karachi for the past year, accused by Islamabad of illegally fishing in Pakistani territorial waters.

Pakistani officials have promised to release a further 146 Indian fishermen on January 7, according to the Edhi Foundation, a charitable Pakistani foundation that regularly aids in the repatriation of Indian fishermen.

In December 2016, Islamabad released 220 Indian fishermen. India also released a number of Pakistani fishermen at the same time.

Pakistan and India, longtime bitter regional rivals, regularly arrest members of fishing-boat crews from the other country in the Arabian Sea, which does not have a clearly defined maritime border.

They often remain in prison for long periods until being released during goodwill gestures.

The Edhi Foundation urged India to reciprocate with further releases of imprisoned Pakistani fishing crews.

Based on reporting by AP, The Nation, and The Tribune
The extremist group Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for an attack on a supermarket in the Russian city of St. Petersburg that injured 10 people on December 27.

The claim was made by the IS's Amaq news agency on December 29.

It offered no evidence for its claim. The IS often claims responsibility for terrorist attacks worldwide that are carried out by people inspired by the extremist group but often with no formal ties to it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said one day after the blast that the explosion was a terrorist act, and urged security forces to "take no prisoners" when dealing with imminent threats from terror-plot suspects.

Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said on December 27 that the "homemade bomb" that ripped through a customer locker area at a Perekryostok supermarket exploded with the power equivalent to 200 grams of TNT.

But law enforcement authorities initially opened an investigation on suspicion of attempted murder, seeming to suggest that terrorist motives were not suspected.

Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law ratifying an agreement enabling Russia to expand operations at its naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus.

The document was posted on the official website for Russian legislation after Putin signed it on December 29.

It could help cement what Putin has said would be a "permanent" Russian presence at the Tartus facility and the Hmeimim air base, key platforms for Russia's campaign backing Syria's government in the nearly seven-year war in the Middle Eastern country.

The agreement, signed in Damascus in January 2017, allows for the Russian Navy to expand the technical support and logistics facility at Tartus, which is Moscow's only naval foothold in the Mediterranean.

It allows Russia to keep up to 11 warships, including nuclear-powered vessels, at Tartus at any time for the next 49 years. The deal is to be prolonged automatically for 25-year periods upon its expiration.

It also allows Russian ships to enter Syria's territorial waters, internal waters, and ports, to use the Tartus facility free of charge.

The agreement also provides Russian military personnel at the facility with immunity and regulates the status of the military personnel and members of their families there.

Russia has given President Bashar al-Assad's government crucial support throughout the war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes since it began with a crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011.

Moscow helped Assad avoid possible defeat by starting a campaign of air strikes in September 2015, in many cases using Hmeimim as a base. It has also launched strikes from warships in the Mediterranean.

During a visit to the air base on December 11, Putin declared victory over "the most combat-capable international terrorist group" -- a reference to the extremist group Islamic State (IS) -- and announced a partial withdrawal of Russian troops.

Western officials say that the Russian campaign, particularly in its earlier stages, has focused heavily on targeting rebels seeking Assad's ouster rather than IS militants.

Putin said on December 28 that more than 48,000 Russian military personnel have served in the operation in Syria, and that the facilities at Hmeimim and Tartus would continue to operate "on a permanent basis."

With IS in retreat and diplomats pressing ahead with efforts to forge a political solution, analysts say Russia is eager to make its position in Syria as strong as possible in order to wield influence on future developments.


A court in Moscow has sentenced Hermitage Capital head William Browder to nine years in prison in absentia after finding him guilty of deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion.

Browder, who has led a global push for sanctions against Russian officials implicated in the death of imprisoned Russian whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky, also was fined 200,000 rubles (about $3,500) and banned from conducting business activities in Russia for three years.

Browders co-defendant, Ivan Cherkasov, received an eight-year prison term in absentia.

In a separate civil lawsuit, the Tver district court also ordered authorities to seize 4.3 billion rubles (about $75 million) in assets from Browder and Cherkasov as compensation for losses that prosecutors say were sustained by the Russian state.

Lawyers for Browder and Cherkasov said they will appeal the court's rulings.

Both Browder and Cherkasov now live in the United Kingdom.

Browder has repeatedly dismissed allegations against him as baseless, politically motivated, and revenge for his work to encourage countries to pass legislation similiar to the U.S. Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law that imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Russians alleged to be involved in the death of whistle-blowing accountant Magnitsky.

In a Twitter posting on December 29, Browder wrote that Russian President Vladimir Putin "is so mad at me. After I got 5 countries to implement Magnitsky sanctions, today a Russian court sentenced me to 9 years in prison. Prosecutor announced a 6th application to Interpol to have me arrested and extradited to Russia."

"Russia is applying to Interpol for the 6th time for my arrest after the previous 5 requests were rejected as illegitimate and political. It's time for Interpol to suspend Russias membership for flagrant abuse of the Interpol system," he added in a following tweet.

The British government has rejected Russian requests for his arrest and extradition.

Browder, who founded Hermitage Capital, was Russias largest portfolio investor until he fled the country in 2005.

Russia's government has applied pressure on Browder in an international campaign challenging the U.S. Magnitsky Act.

Russias government has applied pressure on Browder in an international campaign challenging the U.S. Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law that imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Russians alleged to be involved in the death of whistle-blowing accountant Magnitsky.

Magnitsky, who worked for Browder, accused Russian law enforcement and tax officials of a massive tax fraud scheme prior to his November 2009 death in a notorious Moscow jail.

Magnitskys family and friends say he was tortured, beaten, and denied critical medical treatment shortly before he died.

In 2013, a Moscow court tried Browder in absentia and tried Magnitsky posthumously on tax evasion charges.

Browder was then found guilty and sentenced to nine years in absentia.

Magnitsky was found guilty of tax evasion posthumously.

With reporting by AP, Rapsinews, and Interfax
Russia plans to limit U.S. military reconnaissance flights over Russian territory under the Open Skies Treaty starting January 1 in response to limits on Russian flights over the United States recently announced by Washington, Russian news agencies reported.

The new restrictions Russia is introducing will limit the scope of U.S. flights by preventing U.S. air crews from using certain Russian air bases, Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited Foreign Ministry official Georgiy Borisenko as saying.

Under the new restrictions, Russia will "cancel night stays at three airfields with respect to flights involving the United States," Russian news agency Interfax quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying on December 28.

The Open Skies Treaty was signed in 1992 and was one of a series of arms-control deals intended to foster trust and transparency as the relationship between the nuclear superpowers thawed at the end of the Cold War.

But in June, the United States accused Russia of violating the treaty by limiting U.S. flights over its Kaliningrad exclave in Eastern Europe and said that in response, it would limit some Russian flights over U.S. territory starting on January 1.

Kaliningrad is one of Russias most militarized regions, home to the Baltic Fleet and short-range missiles deployed in response to a U.S. missile-defense system in Europe that the Kremlin contends is fomenting a new arms race.

With both NATO and the Russian military building up defenses in the border region, Kaliningrad's position as Russia's westernmost territory, wedged between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, makes it a potential flash point.

Complaining of Russian limits on Open Skies flights over Kaliningrad, U.S. media have reported that the United States countered with restrictions due to take effect January 1 on Russian missions over Alaska -- where interceptors that form part of the U.S. missile shield are positioned -- and Hawaii, the base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

The tit-for-tat limits on surveillance under the Open Skies Treaty come as each side has accused the other of violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty.

Interfax quoted Zakharova as saying that putting the new restrictions on surveillance flights over Russia in place required the cancellation of "some bilateral agreements with the U.S. side" and that the U.S. mission at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was notified.

"U.S. actions hurt the Open Skies Treaty. We are calling on our U.S. colleagues to stop and begin a depoliticized search for mutually acceptable solutions to issues relating to the treaty," Zakharova was quoted as saying.

U.S. officials have said they would be willing to reverse the U.S. restrictions "should Russia come back into compliance with its Open Skies Treaty obligations."

With reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg, TASS, and Interfax
Russia's Emergencies Situations Ministry has rejected reports that two people were killed in a Moscow bus crash on December 29, saying that the accident left three people injured.

"There are no fatalities as a result of a road accident involving a bus," the ministry's press service said. "Information concerning those injured is being verified."

Moscow city police say the crash occurred when a car hit the bus and pushed it into a bus stop on Khimkinsky Boulevard near the Skhodnenskaya subway station in Moscows northwestern Yuzhnoye Tushino District.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on December 29 that he has ordered a thorough investigation into the accident.

Police initially had said one passenger on the bus was killed along with one person who was waiting at the bus stop.

The accident occurred four days after a bus careened off a road and onto steps leading to the Slavyansky Boulevard subway station in western Moscow, killing four people and injuring 13 others.

The bus driver in the December 25 crash was charged with violating traffic regulations. Authorities ruled out terrorism in the case.

Sobyanin ordered safety inspections of all city buses after the deadly December 25 crash.

Based on reporting by RIA Novosti, Interfax, and TASS


Russian journalist and TV personality Ksenia Sobchak has dismissed calls by a barred opposition leader for an election boycott as "pointless" and said her candidacy in the March presidential vote could help fuse opposition elements into a legitimate political force in Russia.

In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL's Idel.Realii during a campaign stop in Kazan, Sobchak dismissed criticism that her unlikely challenge amounted to Kremlin-friendly window dressing for an election that is virtually guaranteed to hand incumbent President Vladimir Putin a fourth term on March 18.

In fact, she said, it could pave the way for further political action including in parliament, where Putin allies dominate.

"If, as a result [of my candidacy], I have an opportunity to unite forces and create a strong, just party and enter the [State] Duma with it, then I think I'll have done something meaningful for my country," Sobchak said.

Those who suspect the Kremlin's hand in Sobchak's presidential bid point to Putin's close ties to Sobchak's late father, who as mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s is credited with helping launch the political career of the former Soviet-era KGB officer whose grip on national power has been largely unrivaled since 2000.

The 36-year-old Sobchak is routinely described as a "socialite" in Russian media, and once featured in television shows like Russia's equivalent of Big Brother and A Blonde In Chocolate, in which she cursed and appeared drunk. She has also been on the cover of the Russian version of Playboy magazine.

But Sobchak has also been critical of some Kremlin policies and called for democratic changes, although prior to her candidacy she generally appeared careful not to mention Putin by name in her criticism. Sobchak also took part in large-scale antigovernment protests organized after what were seen as flawed national elections in 2011 and 2012.

Navalny Lite?

Some have suggested that Sobchak could serve as a milder version of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, the anti-corruption lawyer and fierce Putin detractor who splashed onto the national scene during those same street protests.

Navalny has since served jail time for what he says were trumped-up charges and was this month disqualified from running for president because of his criminal conviction.

He has called for voters to boycott the March 18 presidential election as a contest between "Putin and his hand-picked candidates" and has dismissed Sobchak's candidacy as "unserious."

Some speculate that Sobchak could play a legitimizing electoral role similar to that of billionaire businessman Mikhail Prokhorov in the 2012 election or veteran political operative Andrei Bogdanov in 2008, neither of whom landed any solid political punches against Putin or his chosen candidate for a four-year interregnum, Dmitry Medvedev.

'Suicidal Path'

Sobchak told RFE/RL on December 28 that such a strategy was "pointless," saying Russia has no minimum turnout threshold for an election anyways.

"A boycott: Well, you can stay home and the president will be elected even with 10 percent turnout," Sobchak said.

Sobchak said that while she regards Navalny as an "absolute hero," she believes he is pursuing a "suicidal path."

"The gang of people around the president have at their disposal huge reserves of money, other resources, the army, the [Federal Security Service, or FSB], all the security services, etcetera. A direct fight with them is possible, but it is suicidal," Sobchak said.

"I really fear for Navalnys life. The balance of forces is not equal at all. They will never relinquish power."

One of Putin's most strident opposition critics in the past, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, was gunned down on a bridge near the Kremlin in 2015.

'Caricature Liberal'

After rumors of Sobchak's possible presidential run surfaced in September, Navalny said Sobchak would be a "caricature liberal candidate."

Sobchak, who was formally nominated for the race on December 23 by a liberal party, the Civic Initiative, predicted to RFE/RL in Kazan that the confrontational approach favored by Navalny wont work in the long run.

"Only peaceful [sanctioned] protest will work, but it will take more time," Sobchak said.

Russian authorities were accused of ruthlessly pruning critical media outlets during Putin's first two terms in the Kremlin, from 1999 to 2008, and a phalanx of legal obstacles has been erected during his third term to limit public expressions of dissent.

Sobchak dismissed those who say the Kremlin has allowed her into the race in order to bump up voter turnout and add an air of legitimacy to the ballot.

"I think this is nonsense, just made up. I don't like that our opposition monopolist -- that's how Navalny refers to himself -- first backed the position 'vote for any party except United Russia' and spoke against boycotts, and now he's flip flopped," Sobchak said.

Sobchak said Putin and others would be wrong to dismiss her challenge.

"Maybe Putin thinks, 'Well, listen, she's a girl. I knew her dad. Well, she's not particularly dangerous," Sobchak said. "He doesn't consider me, as opposed to Navalny, a dangerous competitor. Why not. Let's find out."

Other veterans of past elections like liberal Grigory Yavlinsky and ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky are also running. The Communists nominated a new candidate, Pavel Grudinin, director of a big strawberry farm just outside Moscow, instead of longtime party chief Gennady Zyuganov.

Written by RFE/RL's Tony Wesolowsky in Prague based on an interview by Idel.Realii's Vadim Meshcheryakov in Kazan




An official in Russias Foreign Ministry says Russia could host talks between the United States and North Korea if Moscow is asked to do so.

Russia's ambassador at large, Oleg Burmistrov, said on December 29 that Moscow is open to contacts and ready to provide a venue, if necessary, for talks.

"We are ready to take part in such meetings if we are invited, Burmistrov said.

Burmistrov also said the latest United Nations Security Council resolution on North Korea has almost exhausted the capacity of sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear weapons and long-range missile tests.

There is no possibility to move further exclusively along the sanctions track," Burmistrov said.

Burmistrovs remarks came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump criticized China over reports that Chinese ships have transferred oil to North Korean vessels at sea in violation of the UN sanctions.

Trump said on Twitter that China had been Caught RED HANDED, and said he was 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!" Trump said.

China on December 29 rejected Trump's accusation.

But South Koreas Foreign Ministry on December 29 said that it briefly seized and inspected a Hong Kong-registered ship -- the Lighthouse Winmore --- in late November after it had transferred oil products to a North Korean vessel, the Sam Jong 2, in international waters.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, RIA Novosti, and Interfax
Turkish defense officials say Ankara and Moscow have signed a deal under which Russia will supply up to two S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries to Turkey.

Turkey's Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) said late on December 29 that delivery of the initial battery of the air-defense system is planned for the first quarter of 2020.

The deal, reportedly worth about $2.5 billion, has caused concern in the West because Turkey is a member of NATO and the antiaircraft weapon systems cannot be integrated into the alliances defenses.

Turkey's move to acquire the S-400s also is regarded in some Western capitals as a snub to NATO amid tensions with Russia over its role in the wars in Syria and eastern Ukraine.

The SSM said the purchase of the second S-400 battery was optional under the agreement and that the systems would be managed and operated "independently" by Turkish personnel, not by Russian advisers.

Sergei Chemezov, head of Russian state conglomerate Rostec, told the newspaper Kommersant in an interview published on December 27 that the deal would consist of four batteries of S-400 missiles.

INFOGRAPHIC: Russia's S-400 Air-Defense System (click to view)

No explanation was given for the discrepancy in the number of batteries being described as part of the deal.

Chemezov said shipments of the missile systems to Turkey were expected to begin in March 2020.

"They are paying 45 percent of the total contract amount as an advance. Fifty-five percent is Russian credit," Chemezov told Kommersant.

The missiles have a maximum range of 400 kilometers and are capable of reaching targets at a maximum altitude of 30 kilometers. Each missile battery can simultaneously hit 80 different targets with two missiles each.

Negotiations on the S-400 deal were first announced by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in September.

Russia and Turkey support opposing sides in the Syrian war, but Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin patched up relations that were badly damaged when Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border in November 2015.

On December 27, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Moscow also expects to sign a deal with India soon on the delivery of S-400s.

Russian officials have also said that Russia and U.S. ally Saudi Arabia are close to signing a deal on supplying the S-400 systems to Riyadh.

With reporting by Reuters, CNN-Turk, Kommersant, dpa, TASS, and Yenisafak
Russia's Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation and Uzbekistan have signed a nuclear-cooperation agreement that Rosatom says will pave the way for bilateral cooperation "in many aspects of civil nuclear energy."

Rosatom said the agreement was signed on December 29 by its Director-General Aleksei Likhachyov and Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister Nodir Otajonov.

"The collaboration could include creation and development of infrastructure in Uzbekistan, training, construction of nuclear power plants and research reactors, as well as operational and maintenance support during their life cycle," the Rosatom statement said.

"It could also cover exploration and mining of uranium, handling of uranium waste, and the production of radioisotopes for use in medicine, agriculture, and academic research," the state-owned firm said.

Likhachyov said Rosatom was ready to build a two-unit nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan and has offered to start training Uzbek nuclear experts-to-be at Moscow's expense beginning in September 2018.

In early November, during a visit to Tashkent by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a memorandum on cooperation between Rosatom and Uzbekistan's Academy of Science was signed, along with an agreement on production and provision of nuclear fuel by Uzbekistan for Rosatom.

With reporting by Rossia-24 TV
Unknown assailants have severely beaten and hospitalized an environmental activist in Russia's southwestern city of Krasnodar after he filmed illegal construction of a luxury mansion on the Black Sea coast.

Activist Andrei Rudomakha, head of Environmental Watch of the North Caucasus in southern Russia, suffered skull fractures, a broken nose, and a moderate concussion when he was beaten by three masked men late on December 28.

A colleague posted a photo of Rudomakha after the attack:

Activist Aleksandr Savelyev, who was present at the time of the attack, said Rudomakha and other members of his nongovernmental organization had just returned from the Black Sea coast and were near a house owned by one of the group members when the attack occurred.

"Their goal was to collect the material that we filmed," Savelyev said on December 29, adding that the attackers could not have known where to wait without information provided by police or security services.

"They ran from behind, sprayed [Rudomakha] with pepper spray, then knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the face," Savelyev said.

"They took our backpacks and three cameras" along with laptops and footage of the illegal construction activity, he said.

Savelyev said the residence the group was inspecting is being built without a permit in a coastal forest area near a luxury property that has been linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"They fenced off the forest," Savelyev said. "There is construction equipment, dogs, security guards. It's all very serious."

Savelyev said his group is convinced the new construction is for a senior official in the Russian government.

Krasnodar Krai regional police said they are investigating the attack.

Since 1997, Environmental Watch of the North Caucasus has exposed illegal landfills, the destruction of landscapes, and the contamination of waterways in the regions of Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, Rostov, Adygea, Karachayevo-Cherkesia, and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Some of their investigations also have exposed illegal land grabs by local Russian officials.

The group has actively campaigned against illegally built villas on the Black Sea and criticized construction in Sochi ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics as destructive to the environment.

Activists in the group have been attacked in the past. One former member, Yevgeny Vitishko, spent nearly two years in prison on charges of damaging a fence in a forest.

In September 2016, Russia's Justice Ministry declared that the group's activities are political and added the organization to Russia's registry of foreign agents.

With reporting by AFP, AP, and Interfax
Serbian officials say they have uncovered a stockpile of highly toxic waste materials illegally buried in containers at a private property near the capital, Belgrade.

The Serbian Environment Ministry said on December 29 that a cache of some 25 tons of chemical waste, including benzene and toluene, was buried in poorly sealed barrels in a storage area in the town of Obrenovac, about 50 kilometers southwest of Belgrade.

An environmental official told reporters that the police action helped avert "an environmental catastrophe."

Officials said tests were being conducted to determine if the waste had contaminated nearby soil and wells.

Police said they detained the property owner, who could face charges of endangering public safety.

Pollution is a major problem in Serbia after years of environmental mismanagement and the continued operation of inefficient industrial plants.

As part of the Balkan countrys efforts to become eligible for European Union membership, Belgrade is in talks with the bloc regarding its environmental situation.

Experts have said it will take at least $18 billion to bring conditions up to EU standards.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters
KHUJAND, Tajikistan -- The widow of Tajikistan's first elected president, Rahmon Nabiev, has died in a fire at her house in northern Tajikistan.

Relatives told RFE/RL that the 80-year-old Mariam Nabieva died from smoke inhalation on December 28 inside her home in the northern city of Khujand.

An RFE/RL correspondent in Khujand reported that homicide and arson investigators were working inside the house on December 29.

But authorities would not comment on the cause of the blaze or whether foul play was suspected while their investigation was continuing.

Rahmon Nabiev was elected as Tajikistan's president in November 1991 just two months after the Central Asian republic declared independence from the Soviet Union.

In September 1992, Nabiev stepped down from the presidency under pressure from political opponents in the midst of a devastating civil war that began in March 1992.

About 100,000 people were killed in the war, which continued until June 1997.

Nabiev died of a heart attack on April 11, 1993.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an eccentric nationalist firebrand whose party rarely defies President Vladimir Putin, has become the first officially registered candidate in Russia's March 18 presidential election.

The Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) registered Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) chief Zhirinovsky on December 29.

Kazakhstan-born Zhirinovsky has a long reputation for statements seen as belligerent or xenophobic, but many Russians view him with benign bemusement and the LDPR regularly joins in rubberstamping Kremlin-backed legislation in parliament.

In the past, he has proposed building a barbed wire fence along parts of southern Russia, where many Muslim Russians live, and called for Russia to take Alaska back from the United States.

Zhirinovsky, 71, has run in every presidential election since 1996, with the exception of the 2004 vote. Critics say he and his party have become little more than cogs in Putin's system of rule.

Putin, who has been president or prime minister since 1999, is seeking a new six-year term in the election. His high approval ratings and control over the levers of power make his victory a foregone conclusion in Russia, where government critics say election campaigns and results are manipulated by authorities.

Aleksei Navalny, an opposition politician and fierce critic of Putin, is calling on Russians to boycott the election after being barred from the ballot due to a criminal conviction he contends was politically motivated. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear his legal challenge against the CEC decision to disqualify him on December 30.

The CEC took steps toward registering several other candidates on December 29, including Pavel Grudinin of the Communist Party, journalist Yekaterina Gordon of the Party of Good Deeds, and Sergei Baburin of the Russian All-People Union party, allowing them to set up bank accounts for their presidential campaigns. They must file documents for official registration as presidential candidates by January 31.

More than 20 people have declared their intention to run in the March election, including liberal Grigory Yavlinsky, business ombudsman Boris Titov, and journalist and TV personality Ksenia Sobchak.

If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote on March 18, the two top vote-getters will face each other in a run-off election.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax
I have lived in San Francisco on and off since 1974 and in this, my final word as a San Franciscan, I would like to explain why Ive gone and left. Its the driving.

San Francisco has always been notoriously difficult to drive in. We take our sometimes seemingly and sometimes genuinely random one-way streets, our insane hills, our unannounced dead ends and our secret alleyways seriously. I, for instance, live on a terrace that you cant actually find on Google Maps, and not one resident here wants that to change. As a town, we didnt so much explode the typical grid as let a spoiled and angry child fling shards of blocks into the air and then declare their scattered testimony to be city planning. What kind of monsters made Market, the key street in the city, diagonal to everything else, and then used it to bisect the Financial District, then threaded traffic across it to get to the main commuter bridge and the ballpark?

Guidebooks for tourists discuss most of the above but demur when it comes to the worst part of driving here: drivers. For most of my life, San Francisco had the worst drivers Id ever encountered. I eventually made peace with them when I realized it was obvious that about 7 in 10 had never actually driven before. This was why they seemed to have woken up behind the wheel of a car, puzzled as to what all those switches and pedals did, nervous about doing anything wrong, coasting to a stop when there was a green light ahead, baffled by how angry everyone else was when they had worked so hard to center their car over those dotted white lines, suspicious of accelerating, as that seemed aggressive or even Republican in its intent. If San Francisco ran on a kind of European elan, driving was, like coveting your neighbors summer home, something that might occur but was simply not talked about.

There is a newer kind of bad driver here. I could do a taxonomy of the types of vehicle, from the mud-spattered Land Rover just back from Burning Man (even if its, I dunno, February) to the gold-plated Lamborghini Aventador that we all made fun of when it seemed to be an outlier. But the specific model doesnt matter so much as the attitude expressed, somewhat by the car, but mostly by how it is driven: I am going places. That is short hand for selfishness, the same way I deplore voter fraud is shorthand for racism. Because if youve watched how these new bad drivers maneuver down Gough or Fulton or Mission or Geary, you already know that their more complete motto is I am going places and Im going to get there (wherever there is) ahead of you (no matter who you are) because  (well, well get into that a little later).

When you throw a bag of Adderall-infused fish into the aquarium of meek, thoughtless San Francisco drivers, the result is a bizarre ecosystem of flamingos and hippos, each of them constantly startling the other with what appears to them like witless and inexplicable dominance displays.

Washington Square is one of my favorite San Francisco places, because it isnt square, its not on Washington Street, and the statue there isnt of Washington but Ben Franklin, placed in part to disguise the universally loathed temperance fountain donated to encourage San Francisco to stop drinking booze. In other words, the only thing that could make it a more traditional San Francisco spot is if neighborhood opposition had kept it from being built in the first place.

Im fond of eyeing the intersections near here to see what the state of the art in four-way-stop etiquette looks like. In the old days, taking right of way was made almost impossible because no driver wanted to trash his or her progressive ideals by taking anything, much less what someone else might deserve more. The Subaru Outback with Eugene McCarthy stickers on it would only cross the intersection when convinced they were doing it not for themselves but for the indigenous people of El Salvador.

Its not that this is untrue now. Its that these same people are still here, only 20 years older. They are now hood-to-taillight with new drivers who have absolutely no problem taking the right of way, especially if it doesnt belong to them. Because that is the rule when you are new San Francisco: if someone has yielded right of way to one car, or one pedestrian, or one confused tourist hokey-pokeying at the corner with one foot in the road, he has yielded to you, too, wherever you are. It turns out right of way belongs to whomever feels most entitled to take it. There are no consequences. At least not that they admit to. I, on the other hand, see a pretty dire consequence.

My girlfriend and I were recently standing in front of Golden Boy, where the sun somehow shines constantly on that line that lasts all afternoon, and ahead of us were people who were Part of the Problem (#PotP, if you like) and one was explaining to the rest that no, parking was not hard anymore. He gestured toward the street, where his Infiniti was double-parked. As long as you turn your hazards on, youre good. You can park anywhere in San Francisco like that. His friends werent skeptical. Instead, they seemed suddenly enlightened. You can now do anything.

The reason youre not supposed to double-park is that its dangerous for other drivers. The reason theres a right of way is so that we dont all run into each other. The reason there are rules is that theres a society here, and were all supposed to fit in somehow. But not anymore. The progressive, fussy, overly sensitive, yammering groups of San Franciscans asserting that we need to have our needs understood and rights acknowledged in order to get along together dont matter anymore.

San Francisco has frequently been the nose cone of a missile that the rest of the continent follows during times of social change. We were early to gay rights, Beats, hippies, the human potential movement, AIDS, every wax and wane of tech, not to mention that whole Gold Rush thing. I would have been annoyed to live here in the 1850s, 1880s and even the 1960s, but for every era like that, a new era arises to torment the previous generation. So, but for one problem, I can say: this too will pass, and in 20 years something else will be here that will also seem dire. The problem is that 20 years time frame, because Im not sure its going to happen.

Right now we are a citywide incubator of unbridled capitalism, the masters of our digital future working toward the end of the troublesome concept of we. And driving is where it comes out most obviously to me.

Why do people sometimes lose the will to drive, coasting to a stop? Why is right on red a secret so many are excluded from? Why does using a turn signal feel for some drivers like giving away their Social Security number? There are so many bad behaviors to catalog, but heres the most terrifying:

Why do folks need to get there before you do? Its because as a city, our current contribution to American culture is that we no longer see the future as a renewable resource. Were a smart people  smart people tend to move here  and we as a species are suffering a dawning awareness that we have gone past sustainability and into darkness. Its over. We as a city believe weve got about 20 years left before everything collapses. It is lovely that we recycle, and its charming that we charge for paper bags. But Im not talking about those cosmetic touches, those sustainable cocktails we serve in first class as the plane goes down. I mean something much bigger. Optimism depends on faith, and our faith in organizing to prevent disaster has been co-opted. Which is embarrassing for San Francisco.

This feeling has been engineered here. We have a cultural pessimism that pre-existed the insanity in Washington. It makes jettisoning we much more easy. If theres not much left at the end of the rainbow, then one of us is going to get there first, and take it. This attitude crystallizes every time someone gets behind the wheel of a car here, but you see it unfolding on sidewalks, in restaurants, in real estate, in the absurd construction of skyscrapers on landfill.

We are all in this together. We always have been and we always will be, no matter where things go. But for the past few years in San Francisco, its been apparent the counter-myth is ascendant. And this is why I left  it turns out there are places that havent yet conspired in the assisted suicide of we. There are places where people look each other in the eye, even when they drive.

A friend at a party a few nights ago said that San Francisco has lost its mission statement. I disagree  its just that the mission has changed, to protect that which is yours, before we get to the end, which we all see coming, hard and fast. Thats our mission statement.

Buckle up.

Glen David Gold is the author of the novels Carter Beats the Devil (2001) and Sunnyside (2009) and the forthcoming memoir I Will Be Complete (Knopf, June 2018). He has moved, ironically, to Los Angeles. Email: books@sfchronicle.com
A Redwood City man shot and killed his own dog when it attacked him on a walk Wednesday, police said.

The 76-year-old man was walking his dog, a large mastiff, in the 1300 block of Elmer Street in unincorporated Belmont when the dog turned and bit him in the lower leg. The attack continued, police said, until the man pulled out a handgun and fatally shot the dog.
Page Content

If current or former employees request to see their personnel files, what information is an employer required to provide? Is there anything that must remain confidential and out of view from an employee?

Here's what employment attorneys told SHRM Online.

The requirements vary by state but, as a general rule, employees will likely need to be granted access to their job applications, documents reflecting compensation, job descriptions, performance evaluations, disciplinary records and, if relevant, termination notices, said Rachel Reingold Mandel, an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in Boston.

But there are usually some limitations on what employees are allowed to see, noted Franklin Wolf, an attorney with Fisher Phillips in Chicago. In Illinois, for example, an employer is not required to let a worker view or copy letters from references, among other things.

"As we see with many employment laws, states in the Northeast and on the West Coast, as well as Illinois, have especially employee-friendly personnel-file laws, but employee-friendly laws are becoming increasingly common around the country," Mandel said. Employers should stay abreast of changes as they are enacted, since state legislatures frequently update rules governing personnel file access.

Specific Requirements

Employers should be familiar with the laws in each place they operate. In some states, an employee's request to see his or her file must be in writing: California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota and Rhode Island. In other states, the employer may create a policy requiring written requests: Delaware, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

State laws also vary as to whether employees are allowed to make copies of their records and who must bear the cost of making copies. In Colorado, for example, employees may request copies of their records and employers may require workers to pay reasonable expenses. Pennsylvania employers, however, don't have to allow copying, but employees are permitted to take notes when viewing their files.

Some state laws set a minimum number of times individuals must be allowed to inspect their files. For instance, in Colorado, current employees are allowed to view their files at least once a year and former employees may take a look at their files once after termination. Minnesota employees can inspect their files once every six months, but former employees can only do so one time within the first year after separation.

"Another important aspect of the various state laws concerning personnel files is the compliance period for the employer," Wolf said. These rules vary from state to state, and time extensions may or may not be permitted. In Illinois, for example, the employer must comply with a request to review a personnel file within seven days, and employers are permitted a single seven-day extension beyond that initial compliance period. Massachusetts employers must make files available within five business days of the request.

Adverse-Action Notice

Many states now require employers to notify workers when negative information is placed in their files, Mandel said, noting that some states require the notification to be accompanied by a copy of the negative document.

In addition, some states allow employees to place responsive documents in their files to rebut negative documentation.

Off-Limits Information

Personnel files generally contain documents the employee has already reviewed, such as job applications, performance evaluations, and transfer and promotion forms. However, files may also hold information employees haven't read, such as references from previous jobs and notes on criminal or workplace violation investigations. Some of those items might be off limits to employees.

"In the normal course of employment, employees are not entitled to see personnel records belonging to another employee or reflecting confidential information regarding another employee," Mandel said. In addition, confidential management communications, such as those reflecting management discussions about performance or investigations, will generally be considered off-limits when an employee makes a personnel file request.

Employers should consider keeping separate files for information employees are allowed to inspect and information they are not entitled to see.

[SHRM members-only HR Q&A: Is our company legally obligated to allow current or former employees to review or copy their personnel files?]

Compliance Tips

It is often useful for HR professionals to develop a spreadsheet that reflects the relevant state requirements when responding to a personnel file request or handling the placement of negative information in an employee's file, Mandel said. Even though state requirements may cause HR departments to be wary of adding documentation to personnel files, it is important to continue to record performance evaluationsboth good and badand any employment-related discussions, she said.
2019 Space Missions

Aubrey Gemignani/NASA

The coming year offers plenty of exciting space missions and skywatching events to look forward to. In 2019, SpaceX and Boeing will each conduct test flights of their crew capsules, Earth will experience a total solar eclipse and an annular eclipse, India and China will strengthen their existing lunar exploration programs, and more.

Here's a look at some of the most exciting space and skywatching events taking place in 2019. [Read about 2018's biggest space stories]

Jan. 5-6: Partial solar eclipse

Rhys Jones, CC BY 2.0

Although not as revered as a total solar eclipse, a partial eclipse is still an awe-inspiring sight. This one will be visible in parts of eastern Asia, but will be best viewed from northeast Russia where it will reach 62 percent coverage. If you are observing the event through a telescope make sure that you are using a solar filter, and use eclipse glasses or the pinhole method to create a reflection of the eclipse if observing with your eyes. [Learn how to watch this eclipse]

Jan. 20-21: Supermoon lunar eclipse

Aubrey Gemignani/NASA

The first of three consecutive supermoons in 2019  when the full moon is closest to Earth in its elliptical orbit and therefore appears larger in the sky  January's full moon will also coincide with a total lunar eclipse in some parts of the world, taking on a dark-red colour as the moon passes behind the shadow cast by the Earth. The eclipse will be visible across North and South America and in the most extreme western parts of Europe and Africa. The second supermoon of the year will occur on February 19 and the third on March 21. [Learn how to watch this eclipse]

Jan. 22: Conjunction between Venus and Jupiter

 Lorand Fenyes

An astronomical sight to wake up early for, the pair of bright planets will be visible above the horizon in the wee hours of the morning, fading with the rising of dawn. Venus will be glistening brightly at a magnitude of -4.3, outshining gas giant Jupiter and its magnitude of -1.9. Both will be in the constellation of Ophiuchus and share the same right ascension, with Venus passing just 2 degrees 26' north of Jupiter  in reality there is over 365 million miles (588 million kilometers) between the two planets at their closest point to one another. [See photos of a previous conjunction of Venus and Jupiter]

January: SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-1

SpaceX

SpaceX's Dragon capsule made history in 2012 as the first commercial spacecraft to rendezvous with and attach to the International Space Station (ISS), its success meaning a contract for resupply missions was founded between SpaceX and NASA under its Commercial Resupply Service. Development on the Crew Dragon capsule actually began before its successor's rendezvous in 2010, but it wasn't publicly unveiled until 2014. Updates to the craft include larger windows, redesigned solar arrays and improved flight computers and electronics. Both cargo and crew versions have been designed, and January will see the craft attempt the same ISS approach and docking procedure as its predecessor. [See the latest news about SpaceX and the Falcon 9]

January to March: India shoots for the moon

ISRO

India became the fourth country to place its flag on the moon in 2008 when the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft deployed its Moon Impact Probe in November that year, making a successful landing near the moon's south pole. A follow-up mission has been planned for some time in Chandrayaan-2, but delays have pushed the proposed launch to 2019, with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) hoping to launch as early as January. Chandrayaan-2 comprises of an orbiter, lander and rover, all developed in India. The lander and rover will be aimed at a high plain near the moon's south pole and will attempt to make a soft landing there in order to study the moon up close. The mission is planned to launch on a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III. [Read more about Chandrayaan-2]

February 2019  SpaceIL's Sparrow to launch

SpaceIL

Originally conceived as part of the unclaimed Google Lunar X Prize, SpaceIL, an Israeli non-profit organisation funded in part by the Israeli Space Agency (ISL), still plans to launch its entry this year in the form of its Sparrow spacecraft. Planned to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, Sparrow aims to be captured in lunar orbit before attempting a soft landing on the surface in a two-day operation. Instruments on the 1,300 lbs (585-kg) Sparrow craft include a magnetometer developed by the Weizmann Institute of Science. [Learn more about SpaceIL's mission]

March: Boeing's Starliner takes off

Boeing

The CST-100 Starliner  with CST standing for Crew Space Transportation  is Boeing's answer to the Commercial Crew Development program, designed to pilot crews to the ISS and any future space stations. Similar in concept to Lockheed Martin's Orion module, the 15-foot (4.56-meter) capsule is designed to carry larger crews of up to seven people, though for this primary test it will launch uncrewed. Like the Crew Dragon craft designed by SpaceX, it will be reusable, with an estimated ten-mission usage. The craft will perform its first test in March 2019, attempting to rendezvous and connect with the ISS using its NASA Docking System before returning to Earth for further analysis. [See inside Boeing's Starliner]

June: SpaceX sends a crew to the ISS

NASA

Depending on the success of the uncrewed docking test planned to take place in January, the first crewed test flight of the Crew Dragon capsule, dubbed Demo-2, is planned to go ahead in June. It was announced on Aug. 3 that NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley had been selected as the test crew for this mission, the third spaceflight for both men, with Kjell N. Lindgren serving as the backup astronaut. Planned to launch on a Falcon 9 Block 5 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, if kept on schedule this will be the US's first crewed flight since the Space Shuttle Atlantis mission STS-135 that launched in July 2011. [Read about the astronauts who will fly with SpaceX and Boeing]

June 10: Jupiter reaches opposition

The king of the solar system will be at its closest approach to Earth and fully illuminated by the sun, reaching a magnitude of -2.6 in Ophiuchus, making this the best opportunity to set your sights on it. Jupiter will be clearly visible to the naked eye as an orange-tinted star. A good pair of binoculars will reveal Jupiter's four largest moons, looking like smaller stars within the planet's vicinity and creating a wonderful target for astrophotography. A medium-sized telescope should reveal some contrast in the swirling cloud bands. [See amazing skywatcher photos]

July 2: Total solar eclipse

NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

After the show-stealing Great American Eclipse passed over the entire continent of North America in August 2017, this event may not seem as spectacular, but it will still be a magnificent sight to behold if you happen to be in the path of totality in central Chile or Argentina. A total solar eclipse is a rare phenomenon caused by the moon  being the same apparent size from Earth as our sun  passing in front of the sun and blocking its light. This reveals the mysterious, hot halo of the sun's corona. Neighboring South American countries will also be treated to a partial solar eclipse, where the moon covers part of the sun's face, creating a 'bite' out of its glowing disc. [Learn how to see this eclipse]
Another year of skywatching is upon us, and there's a lot to look forward to in 2022!

Here are some of the more noteworthy sky events that will take place this upcoming year. Space.com's Night Sky column will provide more extensive coverage of most of these events as they draw closer.

Mid-February to mid-March: The Venus show

The most brilliant of all the planets will grace the predawn morning sky, shining low in the southeast sky a couple of hours before sunrise. Venus will attain its greatest brilliance on Feb. 13, and through small telescopes and steadily-held binoculars it will resemble a lovely crescent phase. On March 20  the first day of spring  it will have waned to a half-moon phase while attaining its greatest western elongation from the sun. And along the way, the moon will engage it in a lovely celestial tableau on Feb. 26.

April 5: The God of War meets the Lord of the Rings

Low in the east-southeast sky before sunrise we'll be treated to a rather tight conjunction this morning, as Mars slips less than 0.4 degrees below Saturn. What will make this an especially striking naked-eye sight will be that these two worlds are practically the same brightness (Saturn, magnitude +0.9, Mars +1.0) and the color contrast between yellow-white Saturn and orangish Mars. And 7 degrees to their will gleam dazzling Venus. Well worth setting your alarm clock for 5:30 a.m. to see!

Late April/early May: Possible naked-eye comet?

This sky map shows the view after sunset from New York City on May 2, 2022. (Image credit: SkySafari app)

Comet C/2021 O3 (PanSTARRS) will pass to within 26.6 million miles (42.8 million kilometers) of the sun on April 21 and could possibly brighten to fourth magnitude  bright enough to glimpse with bare eyes  during the final week of April into early May. If visible, it will be low in the west-northwest sky shortly after sunset in the spring evening sky. We'll just have to wait and see.

April 2730: Celestial summit meeting

During the latter half of April, watch as Jupiter begins to ascend from beyond the east-southeast horizon and approaches Venus. On April 27, a striking gathering of the three brightest objects in the nighttime sky will be visible in dawn twilight as a waning crescent moon slides below Jupiter and Venus, which will be separated by 3 degrees. How would the ancient skywatchers have interpreted this summitry?

Then on April 30, a striking "double planet" will call attention to all early risers as Jupiter and Venus will appear side by side ... Jupiter on the left, Venus on the right ... and separated by only 0.5 degrees. Although Jupiter will glow with a lustrous magnitude of -2, Venus manages to outshine it by two magnitudes and appears more than six times brighter.

April 30: A partial eclipse of the sun

A map for the partial solar eclipse of April 30, 2022. (Image credit: Fred Espenak/NASA)

The dark shadow cone of the moon, from where a total eclipse can be seen, will completely miss the Earth, passing approximately 750 miles (1,200 km) below the South Pole.

But the moon's outer shadow, or penumbra, does scrape a part of the Southern Hemisphere, resulting in a partial eclipse that will be visible in varying extent near sunset across a swath of the South Pacific Ocean, and southern and western portions of South America, including Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, southern Peru southern Bolivia, western Paraguay and a tiny slice of Brazil.

Greatest eclipse takes place over the South Pacific Ocean, 300 miles (480 km) to the northwest of Yelcho Base, a Chilean Antarctic Research Base at South Bay, Doumer Island. A ship or trawler near this spot will see the sun will barely clear the west-northwest horizon, with nearly two-thirds of its diameter hidden behind the moon. The normally thick horizon haze could attenuate and redden somewhat the sun's light giving it the appearance of a slice of cantaloupe melon.

May 15-16: A total eclipse of the moon

During a total lunar eclipse, the moon appears to turn red while passing through Earth's shadow. (Image credit: NASA)

This event is almost perfectly timed for most of the Americas. The moon will become totally eclipsed near or just after moonrise along the Pacific coast of Oregon and Washington State and across much of western and north-central Canada, transforming the Moon into a ruddy, ghostly orb, "magnified" as it comes above the east-southeast horizon by the well-known "moon illusion" and perhaps nicely framed by distant landmarks.

From Hawaii, moonrise coincides with the end of totality; unfortunately for much of Alaska, the eclipse ends before moonrise. Across the Atlantic Ocean, moonset will intervene across much of Africa and Europe; much of central Europe will experience the drama of totality as the Moon sets. Totality will last quite a bit longer than average: one hour and 24 minutes.

The moon will pass south of the center of the Earth's shadow, so during the total phase the lower part of the moon will appear brightest while its upper portion should appear noticeably darker and more subdued. However, the brightness and colors that appear on the moon will solely depend on the state of our atmosphere; a chaotic brew of clouds, volcanic dust and other contaminants, so it's hard to say in advance exactly how the totally eclipsed moon might look.

May 30-31: Possible outburst of slow-moving meteors

Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann and its fragment fly through the view of Slooh's high-magnification telescope in Chile. (Image credit: Slooh.com)

Perhaps the most dramatic sky event in 2022 could come during the overnight hours of May 30-31 for much of North America, when our planet sweeps through a dense cloud of meteoroids expelled by the fracture of the nucleus of a small comet (73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3).

This unusual cosmic interaction perhaps could result in an amazing, albeit brief display of slow-moving meteors  popularly known as "shooting stars"  perhaps numbering in the many dozens ... or even hundreds per hour.

Second half of June: Five planets align

All five naked-eye planets will be visible simultaneously, arrayed in a line that will span the eastern and southeastern morning twilight sky during the last two weeks of June. What is even more amazing is that they will all be aligned in their correct order out from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

And the moon, waning from a gibbous to a slender crescent phase, will pay a visit to each planet on specific mornings: Saturn on June 18; Jupiter on June 21; Mars on June 22; Venus on June 26 and finally Mercury on June 27.

July 13: Biggest full moon of 2022

The Super Pink Moon of April 26, 2021 is seen from the International Space Station, as it was orbiting 267 miles (430 kilometers) above the southern Indian Ocean. (Image credit: NASA)

The moon turns full at 2:38 p.m. EDT (1838 GMT), and 9 hours and 37 minutes earlier it will arrive at its closest point to the Earth in 2022 at a distance of 221,994 miles (357,264 km). Colloquially referred to as a "supermoon." Expect a large range in ocean tides (exceptionally low to exceptionally high) for the next few days.

Aug. 12: Perseid meteor shower peaks

A Perseid meteor seen in a 30-second exposure image captured in Spruce Knob, West Virginia, on Aug. 11, 2021. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

More of a low-light than a highlight; the annual summer performance of the Perseid meteor shower will be severely hindered by the light of a full moon.

Sept. 26: Perihelic opposition of Jupiter

Opposition is a time when Earth and a planet farther from the sun, such as Jupiter, are aligned on the same side of the solar system. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The largest planet in our solar system will arrive at opposition as well as make its closest approach to Earth since October 1963; a distance of 367.4 million miles (591.2 million km). The big planet will loom large and very bright against the dim stars of the constellation Pisces, the fishes.

Oct. 25: Partial eclipse of the sun

A map for the partial solar eclipse of Oct. 25, 2022. (Image credit: Fred Espenak/NASA)

To produce this eclipse, the moon's shadow falls chiefly on the north polar regions of Earth. It will be visible from an eastern slice of Greenland and all of Iceland, as well as most of Europe (except Portugal and the western and southern portions of Spain), northeast Africa and in varying extent over much of western and central Asia. Greatest eclipse  with nearly seven-eighths of the sun's diameter hidden  occurs at local sunset over the West Siberian Plain near the city of Nizhnevertovsk (pop. ~260,000), one of the wealthiest cities in Russia.

Nov. 8: Total eclipse of the moon

This eclipse favors the western half of North America, the Hawaiian Islands, eastern Asia, Indonesia, New Zealand and the eastern half of Australia. Along the Atlantic Seaboard, the moon will set while it begins to emerge from total eclipse. The moon will pass to the north of the center of the shadow and as was the case in May, totality will be unusually long, lasting one hour 25 minutes. So as a consequence, we might expect a moderately dark eclipse, possibly featuring a brownish hue across the lower part of the moon, contrasted by a brighter coppery red upper rim.

Dec. 7-8: An "M&M" night

During the evening hours of Dec. 7, the full moon will pass exceedingly close above Mars, actually hiding it (called an occultation) for parts of North America, no doubt evoking a question that will be repeated many times that night: "What is that bright yellow-orange star just below the moon?"

Mars will arrive at opposition to the sun on Dec. 8, rising as the sun sets, reaching its highest point in the sky at midnight and setting at sunrise. It will then be shining at magnitude -1.9, outshining even Sirius, the brightest of all stars in our night sky.

Dec. 13-14: Geminid meteor shower peaks

A Geminid fireball blazes through the sky above a campfire at Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland during the Geminid meteor shower. Astrophotographer Jeff Berkes snapped this photo on Dec. 14, 2018, at 2:30 a.m. local time. (opens in new tab) /Instagram (opens in new tab) /Facebook (opens in new tab) ) (Image credit: Jeff Berkes

Another low-light. The Geminid meteor shower, now ranked as the best of the annual meteor showers, has the misfortune of occurring during the time of the last quarter moon, which will pretty much squelch all but the brightest meteors during the after-midnight hours.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium (opens in new tab). He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine (opens in new tab), the Farmers' Almanac (opens in new tab) and other publications. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) and on Facebook (opens in new tab).
Press Release

KEVIN SEEKS TO HELP ANOTHER GOOD DEED-DOER, BUT IS STUNNED BY THE OUTCOME; TYLER IS ON CLOUD NINE; AND NATE MUST DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH AMY, ON ABCS KEVIN (PROBABLY) SAVES THE WORLD, JANUARY 16Caught White-Handed  When Kevin encounters a mysterious do-gooder and attempts to help her raise money for a dog sanctuary, his plan backfires bringing her secret past to light. Meanwhile, Tyler believes he has finally made contact with Yvette, the mysterious lady from Laos. Nate invites Amy to a friends wedding only to discover his ex-wife will also be attending, on Kevin (Probably) Saves the World, TUESDAY, JAN. 16 (10:00-11:00 p.m. EST), on The ABC Television Network, streaming and on demand.Kevin (Probably) Saves the World stars Jason Ritter as Kevin Finn, JoAnna Garcia Swisher as Amy Cabrera, Kimberly Hebert Gregory as Yvette, Chloe East as Reese Cabrera, J. August Richards as Deputy Nate Purcell, Dustin Ybarra as Tyler Medina and India de Beaufort as Kristin Allen.Guest starring in this episode are Lesley Boone as Lucille and Kathleen Wilhoite as Phoebe Powell.Caught White-Handed was written by Brant Englestein and directed by Jennifer Lynch.
U nless you make theatre your only pastime, youll never get to see every single play that London has to offer.

There are always a few you regret missing. Everyone was talking about them, but you didnt have time. Perhaps you meant to get tickets but never got around to it  it happens to us all.

But were all about second chances, so here are those shows you wish youd seen, back and in full force.

Jesus Christ Superstar

Johan Persson

Starting life as a concept album and growing into a famed rock opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rices Jesus Christ Superstar is back, running for just 60 performances in the summer. The Evening Standard Theatre Award-winning musical had two smash hit runs in 2016 and 2017 at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre, and this transfer sees Timothy Sheader welcomed back as director.

Until August 24, Barbican Theatre

Buy tickets for Jesus Christ Superstar with GO London

Death of a Salesman

Brinkhoff/Mogenburg

The Young Vics five-star production of Death of a Salesman is deserving of a second life. It boasts an impressive starring cast with The Wires Wendell Pierce, Olivier Award-winner Sharon D Clarke and Arinze Kene. Marianne Elliot and Miranda Cromwell co-direct the Arthur Miller play, reuniting after the success of their work together on Company. Death of a Salesman tells the story of an ageing salesman Willy Loman and his family, as they deal with his crippling fears and their own illusions about themselves. The Standards review called it fresh, compassionate and ultimately devastating.

October 24-January 4, Piccadilly Theatre

Buy tickets for Death of a Salesman with GO London

Fleabag

BBC/Two Brothers/Luke Varley

Phoebe Waller-Bridges global hit TV series began life as a one-woman stage play at the Soho Theatre. Now its back on stage with a very limited run in the West End: only four weeks. Waller-Bridge is performing it as the original stage show that began as an Edinburgh Fringe hit, but this will be the last time she will appear in the play. It follows a young woman who uses sex and sarcasm to disguise her pain.

August 20-September 14, Wyndhams Theatre, delfontmackintosh.co.uk

Barber Shop Chronicles

( Tim Trumble) / Tim Trumble

Inua Ellamss acclaimed play jumps between six places over the course of one day: Peckham, Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lago and Accra. It takes place in six barbershops, where men for generations have gathered to discuss the world. The original production ran at the National Theatre two years ago and now transfers to Camdens Roundhouse where it will be performed in-the-round. The Standards review of the 2017 run gave the show four stars, urging readers to make an appointment.

Until August 24, Roundhouse, roundhouse.org.uk

Translations

Catherine Ashmore

Brian Friels 1980 play explores an Irish community disrupted by the arrival of British army officers tasked with translating place names into English. The Standards four star review said the play is a vision of the power of language. Ciaran Hinds reprises his role as Ian Ricksons production returns to the National Theatre after a sold-out run and a few places on the shortlist in the Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

October 15-December 18, National Theatre, nationaltheatre.org.uk

Equus

Richard Davenport/The Other Richard

This revival of Peter Shaffers shocking play wowed audiences at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. A five star review from the Standard that called the production "intoxicating" and "dripping with physicality and theatricality". Ned Bennett returns this West End transfer about a teenage boy Alan who blinds six horses with a spike and the world-weary psychiatrist charged with uncovering the motive behind Alans violent act.

Until September 7, Trafalgar Studios

Buy tickets for Equus with GO London

The Son

(Marc Brenner ) / Marc Brenner

Amanda Abbington  best known for Sherlock and Mr Selfridge  reprises her role in The Son, the third in a trilogy of plays by Florian Zeller. The play follows a family in the midst of breakdown and a teenage son struggling with mental illness. The Standard's review called it a "a bleak, characteristically clear-sighted look at the pain and turbulence of mental health disorders". Abbington is joined by John Light, Laurie Kynaston and Amaka Okafor in the lead cast.

September 2-November 2, Duke of Yorks Theatre

Buy tickets for The Son with GO London

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 

Pamela Raith

Nearly 40 years after his first diary entry, Adrian Moles life is set to music. Sue Townsends bestselling series are adapted in the musical, following him through the onset of puberty and his belief that hes an undiscovered genius. Four boys will alternate the role of Adrian, including Aaron Gelkoff, who starred alongside Sharon D Clarke in Caroline, or Change.

Until October 12, Ambassadors Theatre

Buy tickets to The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole tickets with GO London

Six

( Idil Sukan) / Idil Sukan

The surprise hit musical about Henry VIIIs wives touring as a girl band seemed to come out of nowhere. Creators Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss brought the house down with Six at Edinburgh Fringe, moving to the West End only months later and meeting critical acclaim. They extended due to popular demand and its return to the Arts Theatre was announced before the initial run had finished. Not bad for their first musical. It sees Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anna, Katherine and Catherine become tired of being defined by their husband and set out to reclaim their own stories.

Until January 2020, Arts Theatre

Buy tickets for Six with GO London
1. Andaman Islands

Think of the Andaman Islands as the new Maldives  except much more off-grid. The Indian archipelago consists of 300 uber remote islands characterised by palm-fringed sandy beaches and lush rainforest.

Whereas the Maldives now has hundreds of resorts vying for your attention, the Andamans are only set to get its first luxury resort in March 2018 when the Taj Exotica opens. The 75-villa beachfront hotel will be set on the crescent-shaped Radnanagar Beach on Havelock Island, which is perfectly perched between dazzling coral reefs and jungle.

2. Belfast, Northern Ireland

Titanic Museum in Belfast / Lonely Planet

Belfast has been quietly reinventing itself in a post-Troubles era as a city break destination with clout. Its starring role in HBO phenomenon Game of Thrones no doubt contributed, but the regeneration of its old docklands into the shiny new Titanic Quarter has given the city a giant boost. A futuristic fusion of work, study and play  visitors will be most interested in the slick Titanic hotel set in the old ship builders headquarters and the architecturally stunning museum, Titanic Belfast.

Throw into the mix a slew of boutique hotel openings and a buzzing restaurant and bar scene and you have yourself quite the weekend away. Belfast is also the obvious launch pad for Northern Irelands stunning Causeway Coast, not least the UNESCO-listed Giants Causeway.

3. Antwerp, Belgium

If youre keen on your design, the chances are youve already ticked off stylish Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Stockholm. But how about Belgiums dark horse: Antwerp? Forget its reputation as a diamond dealing hub, this city is a treasure trove for creative and packed with chic hotels, cool concept stores and a cafe culture to rival the best of them.

Book into the eclectic new Hotel Pilar  or try your luck in the citys best-kept secret, Graanmarkt 13. Part fashion and interiors store, part restaurant and part apartment which you can rent, this home from home is something special.

4. Cambridge, England

Cambridge / Shutterstock / iLongLoveKing

Cambridge gets more than its fair share of day trippers, but 2018 will mark its transition into chic weekend destination. In addition to a burgeoning tech scene and its attendant food trucks, the city is finally getting a glamorous new hotel, the University Arms, which is reopening after an 80 million renovation by renowned architect John Simpson and in-demand interiors maestro Martin Brudnizki. Throw in another Instagrammable opening, The Tamburlaine, earlier this year and its proximity to London and you have yourself a winner.

5. Belize

If you think Tulums been overdone, it might be time to turn your attentions to Belize. Inland it might be all Central American jungle, but its Caribbean coastline is quite something and a host of luxury hotel openings in 2018 is sure to set it firmly on the map. In chic Placencia, the Itzana resort opens later next year with vintage tropical interiors by New York designer Samuel Amoia, a well-stocked rum bar and an outdoor cevicheria. It joins Turtle Inn, the hotel by Francis Ford Coppola who also owns private island Coral Caye. Leonardo DiCaprio has also taken note of the countrys raw beauty  and no doubt its stunning barrier reef - and is opening an eco-hideaway Blackadore Caye next year.

For a more low key stay, make sure to add charming Caye Caulker to your itinerary.

6. Portugals Alentejo region

Alentejo region in Portugal / Shutterstock / Serg Zastavkin

Portugal has had a real moment in 2017, but that shows no sign of slowing down in 2018 as discerning travellers seek out its still hidden gold. The Algarve continues to reinvent itself and Lisbon and Porto are still rising in popularity, but its the unspoilt Alentejo region which will shine next year. Think medieval towns and hilltop castles, whitewashed villages, craggy outcrops, olive groves and a quiet charm  this is slow-paced, sun-drenched Southern European living at its best.

For a rustic luxe stay, book Sao Lourenco do Barrocal.

7. Valletta, Malta

Malta is one of the great unsung heroes of the Mediterranean, but its capital city Valletta will be thrust into the spotlight next year as the European Capital of Culture 2018. Built in the 16th century by the Knights of St John, the entire town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it happens to be the sunniest city on the continent with 3,000 hours of sunshine a year.

The honey-coloured ancient walls enclose a melting pot of old architecture and contemporary infrastructure, dynamic restaurants, palaces and cathedrals and hotels, including the recently refurbed Phoenicia and Cugo Gran Macina Grand Harbour.

8. Costa Brava, Spain

Cadaques / JoaquinAranoa/Pixabay

The Wild Coast of Spain is finally shrugging off its lager lout reputation and winning over travellers with its clear blue waters, long stretches of sandy beaches, historical sites and charming fishing villages. Head north from Barcelona in Spains northeastern Catalonia region and youll find yourself on the Costa Brava.

One of the prettiest spots along the way is Cadaques, where whitewashed cottages slope down the hill into a horseshoe bay and the main square is lined with quaint cafes where chefs cook up centuries-old family recipes. Its also where Salvador Dali had a house for thirty years from 1949.

9. Tallinn, Estonia

Tallinn has hitherto been one of Eastern Europes most underrated cities, but a new direct flight from BA and the juxtaposition of its Old Town and trendy quarters are helping it have its moment. Gothic towers and medieval houses stand alongside the Rotterman Quarter, which is a labyrinth of galleries, independent shops and hip restaurants located in converted industrial buildings.

Make sure you climb the 258 steps of St Olafs tower to get a brilliant view of Tallinns red rooftops and church spires.

10. Arizona

Scroll through Instagram and youll find your feed is overflowing with #desertscapes and cacti from road trips through Arizona. But the 48th state is much more than an Instagram opportunity with rivers, forests, mountains and a mish-mash of shaping cultures from the Native Americans to the Spanish.

If you want to lap up luxury a la Beyonce and Jay-Z, stay at Sanctuary in Scottsdale, which is set across 53 acres of desert in the foothills of Cambelback Mountain. Desert stays are going to be all the rage in 2018.

Follow Kate on Instagram @kateloughtravel
T wo have-a-go heroes restrained a knifeman after a man was stabbed in an attack outside a busy north-east London shopping centre.

Police rushed to Kingsland High Road in Dalston, near Kingsland Shopping Centre, to find that two men had pinned down a teenager who was carrying a weapon.

A 45-year-old man was stabbed when the violence broke out shortly before 1.45pm on Thursday. He remained in hospital and was in a stable condition on Friday.

A teenage boy, 17, was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and grievous bodily harm. He also suffered minor injuries and was rushed to hospital before being taken to an east London police station.

Stabbing: Officers remained at the scene on Thursday evening / Louis Martin

Pictures from the scene show an area of the High Street outside the shopping centre tapped off and emergency services vehicles lining the road.

Detectives are asking for anyone who may have filmed the assault to contact officers while they continue to investigate.

A Met Police spokesman said: The officers discovered two men restraining a teenager who was in possession of a knife.

The 17-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon.

Anyone with information, or who may have filmed the assault, is asked to contact officers on 07825 793215 or via 101.
T he body of a young woman found dead in a north London park was reportedly discovered by devastated friends.

Fresh details of the horrific attack today emerged as police issued a fresh appeal in a desperate attempt to piece together the final movements of Iuliana Tudos.

The 22-year-old was found stabbed and with a head injury in Finsbury Park on Wednesday afternoon, three days after she had last been seen.

Detectives have now revealed she is believed to have been attacked where her body was discovered in a disused outhouse in an area of the park close to Green Lanes.

Murder victim: Iuliana Tudos, 22, was found dead in Finsbury Park

Speaking at the scene earlier today, Superintendent Des Fahy from the Met Police told the Mirror the barmaid, who lived in Haringey, her body had been discovered by devastated friends hunting for Ms Tudos.

Police also revealed that a tent, used by at least one homeless person, is being examined by forensic teams.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard told the Standard: The tent is inside the cordon area and is being examined as part of the ongoing investigation.

We know that the tent is occupied by one or more rough sleepers. That is one line of investigation among many that is being followed.

Police investigators at work in Finsbury Park, north London, after the body of a young woman was found / PA

Supt Fahy urged the public to remain calm despite no arrests having been made five days after Ms Tudos, known as Julia and Lili, is thought to have been attacked.

He said: We understand that the local community might have concerns, but I want to reassure people that incidents of this nature are incredibly rare.

"Police are working tirelessly, following multiple lines of enquiry to track down the person, or people responsible - that's why the area will need to remain cordoned off for some time. People should be alert, but not alarmed, and make sure to report anything suspicious to police.

A police investigator at work in Finsbury Park, north London, where the body of a young woman was found / PA

"By all accounts, Iuliana was a bubbly, lively girl enjoying a fun life in London when she was tragically taken from her loved ones. Our hearts go out to them. "

Ms Tudos was of Russian and Greek origin and lived in Tollington Park, near where her body was found.

She was last seen by friends at around 8pm on December 24 when she headed for a bus home from Camden.

A woman looks at messages and flowers left in tribute to Iuliana Tudos / PA

She was due to meet them at a friend's home in Enfield, north-east London, later that evening before spending Christmas Day there, but never arrived.

Ms Tudos, who worked at The Worlds End, in Camden, was today described as a bubbly lively girl enjoying a fun life in London.

Messages and flowers left in tribute to Iuliana Tudos / PA

Detectives said her family had been informed of her death and they, along with friends in the UK, we desperate to trace her killer.

CCTV footage showed she was last seen on the outskirts of the park around 8.20pm on Christmas Eve.

PA

Police are appealing for anyone who spoke to Ms Tudos after that time to come forward.

DCI Nicola Wall said: "We are working to piece together a timeline of Iuliana's movements and continue to pursue all lines of enquiry as regards to a motive. Her body was discovered in a disused building in the area of the park near the junction of Green lanes and Endymion Road, and we believe that she was attacked where she was found.

We'd also like to hear from anybody who saw anything suspicious within the park over the Xmas period.

"We are in touch with Iuliana's family, who are currently living abroad, and they are naturally devastated, as her close network of friends in the UK. All of them are desperate for any information that can help us find out what happened to her, so I would urgent anyone with information to please contact us as soon as possible."

A designated area, agreed by police and park wardens has been set up for friends and mourners to leave floral tributes to Ms Tudos.

Anyone with information should call the dedicated HMCC incident room on 0208 785 8244, tweet @MetCC or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
A fundraising page set up to pay for the funeral of a young woman found murdered in a north London park has raised more than 10,000 in hours.

Iuliana Tudos, 22, was found stabbed and with a head injury in Finsbury Park on Wednesday afternoon, three days after she had last been seen.

Tributes have poured in for Ms Tudos, who was also known as Julie and worked as a barmaid at Camden rock pub The Worlds End.

A GoFundMe page set up by her friends on Thursday had raised 10,200 by Friday evening.

Murder victim: Iuliana Tudos, 22, was found dead in Finsbury Park

It reads: We are fundraising for Julie Tudos 22-year old bartender from World`s End pub in Camden Town who was brutally murdered on Christmas Eve in Finsbury Park in London on her way home from work.

We would like to help her family to cover funeral expenses in this difficult time for them, this is what we can do for Julie.

Messages and flowers left in tribute to Iuliana Tudos / PA

Ms Tudos, described as a "kind and life-loving" music fan, was of Russian and Greek origin and lived in Tollington Park, near where her body was found.

"She was so young and friendly, she could make friends with anyone she met very easily, said Senya Taylor, a friend of three years.

If it wasn't for her I wouldn't have met the love of my life too, which I'm forever grateful for."

A note left in Finsbury Park / PA

"Dear best friend, thank you for being amazing," wrote Eleni Sakka, alongside a photograph of her with Ms Tudos that she posted on Facebook.

She was last seen by friends at around 8pm on December 24 when she headed for a bus home from Camden.

Detectives have now revealed she is believed to have been attacked where her body was discovered in a disused outhouse in an area of the park close to Green Lanes.

Meanwhile speaking at the scene earlier today, Superintendent Des Fahy from the Met Police told the Mirror the barmaid, her body had been discovered by devastated friends hunting for Ms Tudos.
F oreign diplomats have racked up 108.6 million in unpaid Congestion Charge penalties in the capital.

This year alone, the US Embassy failed to pay just over 300,000 in levies and in total owe Transport for London (TfL) more than 11.8m.

US diplomats owed the most overall, but Chinas embassy topped the list this year after stacking up more than 447,000 in unpaid penalties.

The total Congestion Charge left unpaid by diplomats since the charge was launched in 2003 stood at a staggering 108.6m, according to TfL figures.

TfL said it wants to pursue legal action against embassies that refuse to pay the charge.

Diplomats refusing to pay the bill claim they should not have to cough up because they view the charge as a tax that they are exempt from.

In response to the bill, the US Embassy said in statement: Our position on the tax established by Transport for London in 2003, more commonly known as the Congestion Charge, is based on the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which expressly prohibits the taxation of diplomatic missions in this manner.

Our position is therefore wholly in accordance with that Convention, to which both the United States and the United Kingdom are parties, and it is a position shared by many other diplomatic missions in London.

Paul Cowperthwaite, TfLs general manager for congestion charging, urged that the charge is not a tax, adding that he is working with the foreign office to take the matter to the International Court of Justice.

He added: We are clear that the Congestion Charge is a charge for a service and not a tax.

This means that foreign diplomats are not exempt from paying it. We continue to pursue all unpaid Congestion Charge fees and related penalty charge notices.

The Chinese Embassy has been approached for comment.
A UK impressionist who impersonates Donald Trump has said his bookings for weddings, birthdays and corporate events have gone mad since the billionaire businessman became US president.

Comedian Danny, 31, learnt President Trumps mannerisms and voice in just a week after his agent put him forward for an audition in November last year.

Since then the funny man, who has appeared on Britains Got Talent, has performed as the US leader for a range of events  including a stunt where he surprised Alex Salmond and David Davis.

I never usually do politicians because you can split your audience, the Hartlepool-born comedian told the Standard.

Comedian Danny Posthill, 31, impersonates President Trump for weddings, birthday parties and corporate events. / Anita Elizabeth Holmes Artist Management

Brexit is a topic I dont talk about because I dont want it to kick off. Although I have done Nigel Farage, I have learned how to be diplomatic with how I do these impressions.

My agent rang me up and said can you do Donald Trump, she said I have got a week to learn him.

The 31-year-old funny man learnt how to impersonate Trump in a week. / Anita Elizabeth Holmes Artist Management

It was just before the election and Sky was doing a rap battle between Trump and Hillary Clinton. So I learned him and I got the audition.

Danny said at first he thought he would just get a couple of bookings but soon discovered a large demand.

Stand up comedian Danny as himself. / Anita Elizabeth Holmes Artist Management

I couldnt believe it, he said. I thought I would have one or two gigs out of this but its gone bigger.

I wake up every day thinking is he still alive, I think, I need to pay my mortgage!

When he became president I just jumped on it, I think its just me and Piers Morgan who was glad he became president!

Danny has adopted the President's stock phrases like 'fake news' / Anita Elizabeth Holmes Artist Management

He added: I have done a couple of corporate events or where generally rich people book me for birthday parties. Each gigs different.

As much as people hate Trump, hes actually quite an endearing character in one sense.

Hes got this way about him, hes a caricature. As much as someone doesnt like him, people dont take him seriously and thats how the character works so well.

The real Mr Trump. / AFP/Getty Images

One of Danny's recent gigs was a wedding where he turned up as a surprise for the bride.

I did a wedding and the wife didnt know I would turn up," said the comic, who hires himself out on website Susan Scott Lookalikes.

The reason he wanted me there was because he had dressed up as Donald Trump on his stag do.

The wife took it really well. But when I first came in, I basically interrupted his speech and the wifes face at first, I thought this isnt going to go well, but it did in the end.
T he FTSE 100 has closed 2017 at an all-time record high for the second year in a row.

Both the top-flight share index and the FTSE 250 reached new records at the close of trading on Friday.

Boosted by Donald Trumps hefty tax cuts for corporations, US markets also hit new peaks this year.

The FTSE 100 was up 7.6% year-on-year, reaching 7,687.77, while the FTSE 250 was up 14.7% at 20,726.26.

Richard Stone, chief executive of The Share Centre, said: "For the second year in a row the FTSE 100 has ended the year at an all-time high.

"Personal investors will have been relieved this year by a respite from the high volatility seen in the last couple of years.

"The level of volatility this year has been remarkably low by historical standards and this has perhaps meant fewer trading opportunities for those investors who trade more actively.

"Market commentators have expressed concerns about valuation levels for some time indicating a correction may be on the horizon.

"However, the market appears to be shrugging off any such concerns and continuing to go from strength to strength."

Across Europe, Germany's Dax was down 0.5% and the Cac 40 in France was 0.2% lower.

But Invesco Perpetual global equities product director John Botham told the BBC that the FTSE 100 has performed far less well than the US stock market and indeed many stock markets around the world".

The main stock market indexes in the US have all risen by more than 20 per cent this year.
J amie and Louise Redknapp have been granted a divorce decree to end their 19-year marriage by a family court judge.

Judge Ian Mulkis has drawn the marriage to a close at a hearing in the Central Family Court in London on Friday.

Neither Mr Redknapp, 44, a former Liverpool and Tottenham midfielder who now works as a television pundit, nor pop singer Mrs Redknapp, 43, were in court.

The judge granted a decree nisi - a marriage formally ends when judges grant decree absolute. A wife or husband can apply for a decree absolute six weeks after a decree nisi is granted.

Getting divorced: Jamie and Louise Redknapp / Getty Images

The Redknapps married in 1998 on a luxury 130ft yacht called Lady Tamara in Bermuda.

Louise Redknapp finally breaks her silence over 'hard times' with husband Jamie

The couple have sons, Charley, 12, and nine-year-old Beau together.

The judge granted divorce decrees for the Redknapps and two other couples at a public hearing which lasted 25 seconds.

Paperwork showed that Mrs Redknapp had filed for divorce and said the marriage had irretrievably broken down because of Mr Redknapp's "unreasonable behaviour".

Jamie Redknapp and wife Louise pictured in April 2016 / Gareth Cattermole/Getty

Mr Redknapp had not mounted any defence to his wife's divorce application.

Judge Mulkis held that Mr Redknapp had behaved in such a way that Mrs Redknapp could not "reasonably be expected" to live with him.

He concluded that the marriage had "broken down irretrievably".

Louise Redknapp in Cabaret 1 /5 Louise Redknapp in Cabaret Louise Redknapp on stage in Cabaret PA Louise Redknapp and Will Young PA Will Young and the chorus perform a routine PA Louise Redknapp as Sally Bowles PA

The Strictly Come Dancing star and her husband separated earlier this year after hitting "hard times" following her stint on the BBC show.

Louise, who is currently starring as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, ended their relationship earlier this year having rediscovered her confidence on Strictly Come Dancing, which she credited with pulling her out of her comfort zone as a Stepford Wife.

She said she felt physically sick at the thought of never feeling the buzz she got from taking part in the BBC ballroom show and knew that she wanted to go back on stage in front of an audience.

In November, she confirmed she was living apart from Jamie but that they were still in regular contact.
E lections expert Professor John Curtice, who suggested Theresa May would lose her majority in the 2017 General Election, is to be given a knighthood in the New Year Honours.

The professor of politics has become a familiar figure to many thanks to regular television appearances explaining election results and why Britons voted the way they did.

He said he was "surprised and humbled" to receive the accolade.

His regular TV appearances have even inspired a spoof twitter account, Is John Curtice On TV, which has almost 10,000 followers, which regularly posts details of when he is on screen.

Professor John Curtice on BBC News / BBC News

His exit poll after June's snap election stunned many when it suggested Theresa May was set to lose her Commons majority, despite the Tories having had a massive lead in the polls over Labour when the contest started.

He recalled how his "shock prediction" turned out to be "uncannily accurate" - but told how he had been the one who was surprised when he learned of his knighthood.

The 64-year-old said: "Just six months ago the exit poll I led surprised everyone with a shock prediction that went on to be uncannily accurate. Now it is my turn to be surprised - and humbled - by the gracious decision to grant me a knighthood.

"It is not something I ever expected to happen. But it appears that my attempts to analyse public opinion and outline its implications for the country's political life and public policy are appreciated."

Professor John Curtice suggested Theresa May would lose her majority in 2017's General Election / PA

Born in Cornwall, he studied politics, philosophy and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was was a student of Dr David Butler, the original psephologist and the inventor of the swingometer.

As well as his post at Strathclyde University in Glasgow he is a senior research fellow at NatCen Social Research - Britain's largest independent social research agency - and president of the British Polling Council.

His expertise has seen former Scottish first minister Henry McLeish hail him as a "beacon of objectivity in a world of fake news".

Guy Goodwin, chief executive of The National Centre for Social Research, congratulated him on the honour and said: "It seems that during these times of political change, people value John's ability to offer statistical insight into complex issues, and communicate that insight accessibly.

"Of course here at NatCen, we've always understood what a rare skill set this is, and so we couldn't be happier for John as he gets the recognition he so clearly deserves.

"His is a voice of measured, scholarly authority in a chaotic media landscape, and long may it continue to be heard."

Additional reporting by Press Association
F ormula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton has been mocked for wearing the same clothes as Princess Diana days after he told his nephew boys don't wear princess dresses.

An image has emerged of Hamilton at the British Fashion Awards last month, in which he is wearing a tartan blazer, black roll neck sweater and string of pearls.

His get-up is remarkably similar to Princess Diana's when she attended a Christmas light switch-on in 1993 in a tartan blazer and black roll-neck.

The comparison was made by Twitter user Matt, whose post has been liked 51,000 times and shared 18,000 times.

It comes after the F1 star came under fire for posting an Instagram video of his nephew, apparently filmed on Christmas Day and which has since been deleted.

In the video Hamilton looked at the camera and said: "I'm so sad right now... Look at my nephew..."

He turned the camera to show the young boy wearing a princess dress and waving a toy wand, saying to him: "Why are you wearing a princess dress? Is that what you got for Christmas?"

He then ended the video by shouting: "Boys don't wear princess dresses!"

Critics attacked Mr Hamilton for "shaming" the child and apparently trying to enforce heteronormative ideas of gender.

The official Pride in London Twitter account responded by saying: Disappointed with this video of Lewis Hamilton.

Many of our community have experienced this kind of shaming when we were younger

Hamilton has since apologised, writing on Instagram: Yesterday I was playing around with my nephew and realised that my words were inappropriate so I removed the post. I meant no harm and did not mean to offend anyone at all.

I love that my nephew feels free to express himself the way we all should.

The F1 star was also recently criticised for his part in the Paradise Papers scandal.

The 32-year-old received a 3.3million VAT refund when he imported his Bombardier Challenger 605 into the Isle of Man from Canada in 2013, according to the papers.
M argaret Thatcher once refused to share a plane with London Zoo's giant panda, newly-released National Archive files revealed.

Mrs Thatcher did not believe pandas make "happy omens" for travelling politicians.

Her surprising aversion emerged in January 1981 after Lord Zuckerman, president of the London Zoological Society, suggested that the male panda named Chia-Chia could share the former Prime Minister's Concorde flight to Washington.

It was hoped the male panda could mate with a female panda that China had given to the United States.

Lord Zuckerman seized upon the idea as an opportunity to generate some much-needed publicity for the cash-strapped zoo.

Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said pandas and politicians are not 'happy omens' / Getty Images

And he immediately contacted Downing Street to see if the Prime Minister would like to preside over the handover.

The cabinet secretary Sir Robert Armstrong wrote: "Lord Zuckerman sees this as a signal demonstration of the special relationship and would be very happy to time the announcement of the loan or the delivery of the panda in any way that the Prime Minister thought would be most likely to benefit Anglo-American relations.

"He even suggested that the Prime Minister might like to take the panda in the back of her Concorde, when she goes to Washington next month."

Mrs Thatcher, however, was having none of it. Her private secretary, Clive Whitmore replied: "She has commented that she is not taking a panda with her - 'Pandas and politicians are not happy omens!"'

She added in a handwritten aside: "Lord Z knows more about pandas than I do - I am sure he can arrange these things."

The National Archives in Kew, London, contains more than 11 million historical Government and public records. Government records selected for permanent preservation are released to the collection after 30 years.

Chia-Chia left London Zoo in 1988 when he was sent to Mexico City Zoo on a permanent breeding loan.
R ingo Starr, Bee Gees icon Barry Gibb, and dancer Darcey Bussell are among the famous Brits leading this years New Year Honours list.

TV presenter Eamonn Holmes, ex-Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman, grime star Wiley and authors Michael Morpurgo and Jilly Cooper also made the star-studded list of names, which was officially released on Friday night.

A string of political figures including former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, 50, and key Tory backbencher Graham Brady, 50, were also recognised with knighthoods.

Those honoured with gongs also included elections expert Professor John Curtice following his spot-on General Election exit poll in June and veteran comedian Hugh Laurie.

New Year Honours 2017: Ringo Starr and Barry Gibb lead list 1 /30 New Year Honours 2017: Ringo Starr and Barry Gibb lead list Barry Gibb, who has been awarded a Knighthood for services to music and charity. PA Ringo Starr, who has been awarded a Knighthood for services to music. PA Former ballerina Darcey Bussell who is being made a Dame for services to dance PA Alexandra Shulman who has been awarded an CBE for services to fashion journalism. PA Elections expert Professor John Curtice, who said he was "surprised and humbled" to be given a knighthood. PA David Leakey, the outgoing holder of the Black Rod parliamentary post, has been made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (RVO). PA Eamonn Holmes who has been awarded an OBE for services to broadcasting. PA PA Dr Michele Dougherty who has bee PA Hugh Laurie has been awarded an CBE for services to drama. PA Britain's first astronaut Helen Sharman who is being made a Dame. PA Sam Warburton who has been awarded an OBE for services to Rugby Union PA Darcey Bussell who is being made a Dame for services to dance. PA Nick Clegg who is being awarded a Knighthood in the New Year Honours list. PA Celebrity chef Rick Stein who has been awarded a CBE for services to the economy. PA Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London Ken Olisa, who received a Knighthood for services to business and philanthropy. PA Lynne Franks who has been awarded an OBE for services to business fashion and women's empowerment. PA the Bee Gees (from left) brothers Robin, Maurice and Barry Gibb. Barry Gibb, has been awarded a Knighthood for services to music. PA Liberal Democrats deputy leader Jo Swinson who has been awarded an CBE. PA Ringo Starr, who has been awarded a Knighthood for services to music. PA Author Jilly Cooper who has been awarded an CBE for services to literature and charity. PA Wiley aka Richard Cowie Jnr who has been awarded an MBE for services to music. PA Author and playwright Michael Morpurgo who has been awarded a Knighthood for services to literature and charity. PA

Newly-knighted legendary songwriter Barry Gibb paid tribute to his two late brothers with whom he formed the Bee Gees trio, Robin and Maurice, who had both received CBEs in 2002.

Sir Barry, 71, who was awarded the accolade for services to music and charity, said: I am deeply honoured, humbled, and very proud. This is a moment in life to be treasured and never forgotten.

"I want to acknowledge how responsible my brothers are for this honour. It is as much theirs as it is mine. The magic, the glow, and the rush will last me the rest of my life."

Meet some of those celebrated in the 2018 New Year Honours list

Sir Barry added the magic, the glow and the rush of being made a Sir will last him for the rest of his life.

Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, whose real name is Richard Starkey and so will be known as Sir Richard, was also recognised for services to music with a knighthood more than half a century after receiving an MBE with his former bandmates.

Darcey Bussell has made the star-studded list. / PA

The 77-year-old said: It's great! It's an honour and a pleasure to be considered and acknowledged for my music and my charity work, both of which I love. Peace and love. Ringo."

Sir Paul McCartney, who was given a knighthood 20 years ago, said it was about time that his longtime friend received the accolade, adding he would have told the Queen: Look, love, Sir Richard Starkey - it's got a ring".

Retired ballerina and Strictly Come Dancing judge Darcey Bussell, 48, said she was truly humbled to be made a Dame, adding: I gratefully accept it on behalf of all the dance organisations that I am so fortunate to be part of. Dance is such a beautiful art form, it is inspiring and provides joy, social cohesion and wellbeing."

Dame Darcey, 48, is being honoured for her services to dance, following a career that has spanned more than 20 years and more than 10 years after she was given a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

Ex-Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman. / PA

Alexandra Shulman, 60, received a CBE for services to fashion journalism after more than 25 years as editor of British Vogue, making her the UK magazines longest-serving and most successful editor ever.

Musician Wiley, often dubbed the godfather of grime, was awarded an MBE for services to music.

It feels like the school grade I wanted and didn't get but now I'm finally there, the artist, whose real name is Richard Cowie, said.

Marc Almond 'completely overwhelmed' to receive OBE

"I would like to thank my mother and father plus all family members and friends for being there for me when I needed them".

Another key figure from the grime world, Grace Ladoja, was also awarded on OBE for her services to music.

Author Jilly Cooper. / PA

Eamonn Holmes, 58, who is receiving an OBE for services to broadcasting, said his wife and This Morning co-star Ruth Langsford was even more delighted than him.

The television stalwart and journalist from Belfast, best known for GMTV and Sky News' Sunrise, said he had been keeping the secret for three weeks, adding: "Ruth was even more thrilled than I was. I think she just thought it was very well deserved."

Elections expert Professor John Curtice said he was "surprised and humbled" to be given a knighthood, whose exit poll after Junes snap election stunned many when it suggested Theresa May was set to lose her Commons majority.

The professor of politics from Strathclyde University in Glasgow has become a familiar figure to many, thanks to regular television appearances explaining election results and why Britons voted the way they did.

Godfather of grime Wiley. / PA

The 64-year-old said: "Just six months ago the exit poll I led surprised everyone with a shock prediction that went on to be uncannily accurate. Now it is my turn to be surprised - and humbled - by the gracious decision to grant me a knighthood.

"It is not something I ever expected to happen. But it appears that my attempts to analyse public opinion and outline its implications for the country's political life and public policy are appreciated."

Childrens author Michael Morpurgo, 74, said he will "give" his knighthood to the equine character Joey from his acclaimed story War Horse, adding: "I think in a way the only reason this wonderful honour has been given, it is for charity, but it is because, probably if I'm honest with myself, it is about one book.

"And it's about one story and one play, the great good fortune of my writing life in terms of, I suppose, circumstance and bringing the kind of success you can't dream of in terms of rewards and awards - it's the play of War Horse".

Conservative MPs Graham Brady, 50, chairman of the party's 1922 Committee, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, 64, and Christopher Chope, 70, receive knighthoods for political and public service while Cheryl Gillan, 65, vice chairman of the committee, is made a dame.

On the Labour side, Preston MP Mark Hendrick, 59, and Commons Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, 60, are knighted.

David Leakey, the outgoing holder of the Black Rod parliamentary post, has been made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (RVO) by the Queen.

Also among the 1,123 people honoured is 80s star and self-described "maverick" Marc Almond, who receives an OBE for services to arts and culture.

The 60-year-old, who had hits including Tainted Love as one half of electric duo Soft Cell, said he was "totally excited" to be recognised, adding: "I can't really be a rebel any more. I think it's time to leave it to younger people."

West End star Matt Henry who began his career selling ice cream and programmes in a London theatre has also been awarded an MBE following his Olivier award for best actor in musical Kinky Boots.

Met Police deputy commissioner Craig Thomas MacKey, was also given a Queens Police Medal for services to policing.

The oldest people to be honoured are 101-year-olds Lieutenant Colonel Mordaunt Cohen, who receives an MBE for services to Second World War education, and Helena Jones, who is given a British Empire Medal for services to young people and the community in Brecon, Powys.

Future honours lists will focus on those involved in the responses to the series of UK terror attacks in 2017 and the Grenfell Tower fire which left 71 people dead.
H eavy snow and strong winds of up to 70mph are set to hit parts of Britain after the Met Office issued six different weather warnings.

The UK saw one of the coldest nights of the year on Thursday with temperatures plummeting to minus 12.3C at Loch Glascarnoch in the Scottish Highlands.

Weather forecasters issued an amber warning, the second most serious alert, for snow in parts of northern England as well as four separate yellow snow and ice warnings and another yellow warning for wind.

By mid-morning on Friday, three of the weather warnings had cleared and three were still in place.

The wintry conditions could bring another bout of travel disruption and potential power cuts, experts said.

Follow our live updates on the UKs weather here.
S torm Dylan is barrelling towards the UK with 80mph winds due to hit on New Years Eve.

The fourth named storm of the season was officially announced by the Met Office on Friday, after heavy snow, rain, thunderstorms and strong winds battered Britain.

Dylan is expected to pass over Ireland and Northern Ireland late on Saturday evening before arriving in southern Scotland on Sunday morning.

Winds are expected to reach up to 80 mph during the early hours of Sunday alongside heavy downpours. The Irish Met Office has issued an orange weather warning.

Storm Dylan, the fourth named storm of the season, will hit Scotland on New Year's Eve. / Met Office

There is a lot of uncertainty in how this low [pressure] develops and so the resulting strength of the winds and timings of the system, the UK chief forecaster said.

It comes after UK Met Office announced four fresh weather alerts for parts of the UK over the New Years weekend, including ice in Scotland, rain and possible floods in the south west of Britain and wind in the north.

UK snow December 2017: Heavy snow falls in northern England 1 /29 UK snow December 2017: Heavy snow falls in northern England PA People walk through a flurry of snow in York. PA PA PA The runway and grounds at Glasgow Airport being cleared of snow. PA Flights from Glasgow airport were temporarily suspended. PA PA PA PA PA PA Getty Images PA PA Getty Images PA PA PA PA PA PA PA

People in northern England and Scotland woke up to several centimetres of snow on Friday morning amid a cold snap which has seen temperatures drop to minus 12.3C.

Parts of Yorkshire, Cumbria, Huddersfield and Glasgow were among some of the most photographed areas blanketed in snow on Friday as workers braced the cold in snowploughs to clear roads.

Highways England urged motorists to pack a shovel and only drive if really necessary.

The south west of England and south coast was lashed by torrential downpours, lightning and strong winds.

Temperatures are expected to rise slightly by the weekend, with London and the south east likely to see highs of 13C.

Dylan follows storms Aileen in September, Brian in October and Caroline in early December.

If more storms are due to come after Dylan, Eleanor is next followed by Fionn and Georgina.
A t least nine people were killed in a twin-shooting at a shop and Coptic church in Egypt.

A gunman opened fire on worshippers and security forces outside the church in a south Cairo suburb on Friday, the Interior Ministry said.

According to Reuters, the Ministry said the attacker had first fired at a shop 4km (3 miles) away, killing two people, before moving on to the Mar Mina church in the southern suburb of Helwan.

At least seven people were killed as the gunman began shooting and reportedly attempted to throw an explosive device before he was wounded and arrested.

People gather around a cordoned off area as security officials inspect the scene after the attack / EPA

He had tried to cross the security cordon outside the church while on a motorcycle, the Interior Ministry said earlier on Friday.

Previous reports by state media said at least two attackers were involved, and that one was shot dead and another fled the scene.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

In recent years Islamist militants have claimed several attacks on Egypt's large Christian minority in recent years, including a blast at Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral in December 2016 that killed 28 people.

Policemen stood guard after several people were killed / AP

The ministry said forces had "immediately dealt with the [attacker] and arrested him after he was wounded," Reuters reported.

"Legal measures have been taken," it added.

Samir Gerges, a witness, said people inside the church closed the gates when the shooting began but bullets penetrated the building.

Mr Gerges said he was walking along a nearby street when the shooting broke out. He saw people running and some taking cover from the gunfire in a nearby restaurant.

The gunman opened fire on the police booth outside the church in Helwan, Cairo / AP

Raouth Atta, 40, was attending prayers inside the church when the shooting happened.

"Once the gunfire was heard, the gates were closed immediately," she told The Associated Press over the phone.

"People were terrified and wanted to check on their families in other buildings of the church. We stayed inside for 30 minutes before we were able to get out."

Ms Atta said that once she was let outside the building she saw blood everywhere.

A statement from Egypt's prosecutor general's office said an investigation into the attack would be launched.

The Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said in an earlier statement that nine people had been killed on Friday in addition to the gunman, and five wounded, including two women in serious condition.

The Coptic Orthodox Church wrote in a post on Facebook that at least six people were killed in the attack including five Coptic Christians and a policeman.

The church also said there was a separate attack on a store in the same neighborhood of Helwan.

Police have stepped up security measures around churches ahead of Coptic Christmas celebrations on January 7, deploying officers outside Christian places of worship and setting up metal detectors at some of the bigger churches.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi offered his condolences to the families and ordered security forces to increase safety measures at sensitive sites, his office said in a statement.
A t least nine people have been killed in a mass shooting outside a church in Cairo, Egypt's Health Ministry said.

It was the latest attack targeting the majority Muslim country's Christian minority and left eight Coptic Christians among the dead.

The attack outside the Coptic Church of Mar Mina left at least one policeman dead and five others wounded, including two critically, Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said.

The assailant was also killed, he added.

The shootout took place when a gunman on a motorbike tried to break through the security cordon set up outside the church, said the Interior Ministry.

Security forces on the site of the attack / REUTERS

An explosive device was in the assailant's possession when arrested, it added.

The attack comes amid tightened security around churches and Christian facilities ahead of the Coptic Orthodox Christian celebrations of Christmas on January 7.

Police have been stationed outside churches and in nearby streets across Cairo.

The church was cordoned off after the attack / EPA

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has chaired meetings with his top security chiefs to discuss security during New Year's Eve and the Orthodox Christmas.

A video circulating on social media after Friday's attack apparently shows the gunman lying on the ground with his face covered in blood. Authorities have closed off the area around the church.

The Interior Ministry said the assailant had earlier opened fire at a nearby shop.

The shootout outside the church and at the shop killed a total of eight people and a policeman, the ministry said.

The assailant was wounded in the gunfire exchange before his arrest, said the statement, which did not clarify whether he later died.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack however experts said it mirrored previous atrocities carried out by Islamic militants.
T he Church of Sweden has said its clergy are to begin using more gender-neutral language including terms for "God".

Members of the church are encouraged to use the general term "God" instead of referring to the deity as "he" or "the Lord".

The move by the national Evangelical Lutheran church came as part of an effort to modernise its 31-year-old handbook on services.

High-ranking clergy explained the controversial changes, which were announced November 23, are to keep pace with gender inclusivity in contemporary society.

Archbishop of the Church of Sweden Antje Jackelen said the decision to stop using male terms to describe God was already 'part of the church's tradition' / AFP/Getty Images

The updates to the book of worship offer clergy new options on what to name God during services.

They can now choose to switch the phrase "in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit" used at the start of service for "in the name of God and the Holy Trinity".

On the changes, Lena Sjostrand, chaplain of Lund Cathedral told PBS NewsHour: "We have a consciousness about gender questions, which is stronger in our time than it has been before.

"Of course, this has had an impact on theology and on church life and pastoral reflection."

Clergy will be able to opt out of referring to God as 'he' in services / AFP/Getty Images

She added: "I dont think that God is a big mother or a father sitting up in the sky. I dont think that makes sense.

"God is something much bigger than this."

The Church of Sweden has followed Lutheran faith since the 16th-century.

Church leader, Archbishop Antje Jackelen, said that the changes were already "part of [Church] tradition".

She explained how the church has always perceived God as being both male and female.

She said: "Like Julian of Norwich in the 14th century said, as sure as God is our father, God is our mother. This is not something thats newly invented.

"Its part of our tradition."

But the proposed changes have been met with some criticism.

Pastor Mikael Lowegren told PBS: "God being the father means he has a son."

The changes are expected to come into effect in six months time, but the church has said the clergy will not be forced to adopt the language, according to reports.

The decision comes as part of an international trend for inclusivity in churches. Last month the Church of England published new guidelines on gender identity among children.
D onald Trump has claimed the east coast of the US could use a little bit of that good old global warming to combat freezing conditions set to grip the region.

In a remark likely spark outrage across the world, the US President went on to mock other countries for paying trillions of dollars to help tackle the major issue facing the planet.

It comes after Mr Trump earlier said global warming was a hoax thought up by the Chinese to damage American industry. He also controversially moved to pull the US from the Paris accord.

As the East Coast was set to face bitterly cold temperatures on New Years Eve, the US leader tweeted on Thursday: "In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record."

He added: "Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"

The president did not acknowledge the difference between the weather and the climate. Weather refers to the atmospheric conditions during a shorter period, while climate is a longer view of weather patterns.

His comments came after explosive research from respected scientists said that climate change made Hurricane Harvey, which wreaked havoc when it made landfall in Texas, more extreme.

President: Trump gestures as he visits with flood survivors of Hurricane Harvey / REUTERS

Mr Trump announced earlier this year his intention to pull out of the landmark Paris climate agreement aimed at curbing greenhouse gas production.

The accord set goals for slowing the rate of climate change by reducing the emissions that contribute to melting Arctic ice, increasing sea levels and changing weather patterns across the globe.

The UN's weather and climate agency said last month that 2017 was on track to become the hottest year on record aside from those impacted by the El Nino phenomenon, which can contribute to higher temperatures.

Last year set a record for Earth's average global temperature.

Also on Thursday, in an impromptu interview with The New York Times, Mr Trump said he thinks special counsel Robert Mueller is "going to be fair" with respect to Mueller's investigation of Russian meddling in the US presidential election last year.

He said that "everybody knows" his people did not collude with Russians, insisting in the interview that the "real stories" involve Democrats and their relationship with Russians during the campaign.

Mr Trump also said he wasn't worried about the uncertainty concerning when the Mueller investigation might be concluded.

Of the Mueller probe, Trump said, "It makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position. So the sooner it's worked out, the better it is for the country."
M eghan Markles father was left extremely hurt after Prince Harry said the royals were like the family she never had.

The American actress brother Thomas Markle Jnr, 51, from Oregon said his father had made sure she had what she needed to be successful.

He told the Daily Mail that Thomas Markle Snr had dedicated the majority of his time to Ms Markle who announced her engagement to Prince Harry last month.

The comments came after the young royal said, while editing BBC Radio 4, that his 36-year-old fiancee had a fantastic Christmas at Sandringham.

He added of the former Suits star who was the first unmarried partner to join the Queen for the festivities: She's done an absolutely amazing job. She's getting in there and it's the family I suppose that she's never had.

Harry and Meghan release romantic engagement photos

Mr Markle Jnr told the Daily Mail: Obviously, she had a family. She was very privileged. She got everything she ever wanted. We did the best that we could in terms of getting together for holidays and whatnot.

My father will be extremely hurt, actually.

He dedicated the majority of all his time and everything to her. He made sure she had what she needed to be successful and get to where she's at today.

On Thursday, Ms Markles estranged half-sister hit out at Prince Harry's claims and said on Twitter: Actually she has a large family who were always there with her and for her.

Meghan Markle and her mum Doria Radlan / PA

Samantha Grant, who has previously spoken about her rift with Ms Markle, took to Twitter to slam the comments, even tweeting Kensington Palace in a separate message.

She added: Our household was very normal and when dad and Doria divorced, we all made it so it was like she had two houses.

No one was estranged, she was just too busy.

Ms Grant, who uses the name Markle on Twitter, continued: Megs family (our family) is complete with sister, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the glue of our family, our amazing completely self-sacrificing father.

Meghan and Harry attended church with the royals on Christmas Day / PA Wire/PA Images

She always had this family marrying merely extends it.

Ms Grant has previously attracted criticism over claims she is cashing in on her new stardom after revealing she is writing a book offering intimate insights about Ms Markles upbringing.

In November the royal couple announced they were to marry in May next year following a 16-month romance which blossomed when they met through mutual friends.

Ms Markle is reportedly close to both her parents, Thomas Markle and Doria, who said their daughters relationship with Harry was a source of great joy to them.

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

Her parents divorced when she was young but the Suits actress has frequently written about the love and support they have given her.

Following the engagement announcement, Ms Markle's parents said: "We are incredibly happy for Meghan and Harry. Our daughter has always been a kind and loving person.

"To see her union with Harry, who shares the same qualities, is a source of great joy for us as parents.

"We wish them a lifetime of happiness and are very excited for their future together."

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were said to be delighted for the couple and, in a break with royal tradition, American actress Ms Markle became the first fiancee to spend Christmas with the royals before marriage.
F our children were among 12 people killed in New Yorks deadliest residential fire.

The blaze which tore through an apartment block in the Bronx was believed to have been accidentally started by a three-year-old child playing with a stove, investigators said.

The flames spread quickly through the kitchen, then roared through a door the boy's mother had left open as she fled her first floor apartment with her two children, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.

A stairwell acted like a chimney, carrying the flames through the entire building within minutes and blocking the main escape route.

Fire Department of New York personnel work on the scene of the apartment fire / AFP/Getty Images

Three girls, aged one, two and seven, and a young boy, whose age has not been revealed, were among those killed on Thursday night, a spokesman for New York Police Department added.

Eight adults also died and a further four people were critically injured.

Witnesses describe seeing burned bodies being carried away on stretchers and young girls who had escaped standing barefoot in the street.

Police and workers inspect the building where 12 people died / AP

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said the blaze was "historic in its magnitude" because of the number of lives lost.

Excluding the September 11 attacks, it was the worst fire in the city since 87 people were killed at a social club fire in the Bronx in 1990.

"Our hearts go out to every person who lost a loved one here and everyone who is fighting for their lives," Mr Nigro said.

Horror: a crowd gathers as firefighters tackle the blaze / REUTERS

The blaze broke out on the first floor of a five-story building just before 7pm and quickly ripped through apartment buildings a block from the grounds of the Bronx Zoo.

Around 170 firefighters worked in -9C cold to rescue about a dozen people from the building.

Emelia Ascheampong, right, a resident of the building is embraced by a friend / AP

Thierno Diallo, 59, a security guard originally from Guinea, who lives in a ground floor apartment, told the Associated Press he was asleep when he heard banging on the door. It took him a moment to realise what was happening.

"Only when I heard people screaming, 'There's a fire in the building!"' he said. "I heard somebody, 'Oh! Fire! Fire! Fire!"'

He ran out in his bathrobe, jacket and sandals.

Kenneth Kodua, 37, said he left his apartment to get food, leaving his roommate behind, and came back to find people fleeing in a panic.

Hours later, he was still trying to find out whether his roommate escaped.

"I tried calling her. I tried calling. No answer," he said, still clutching his bag of uneaten food.

A NYPD officer walks on the scene of an apartment fire in the Bronx / AFP/Getty Images

Neighbourhood resident Robert Gonzalez said a friend who lives in the building was able to get out via the fire escape as another resident fled with five children.

"When I got here, she was crying," he said.

Windows on some upper floors were smashed and blackened.

Residents left homeless by the blaze were forced to keep warm on city buses, brought in to provide heat.
V in Diesel and Dwayne The Rock Johnson are the most profitable actors of 2017, having raked in more ticket sales than anyone else.

Proving that action still sells, films featuring the two Hollywood heartthrobs, including The Fate of the Furious and Baywatch, grossed the most at the global box office over the last 12 months.

Diesel is slightly ahead of Johnson, having made an impressive $1.6bn through the latest instalment of the car thriller franchise as well as xXx: Return of Xander Cage.

Johnsons films pulled in $1.5bn for studio bosses this year, thanks to the commercial success of the Baywatch remake as well as The Fate of the Furious and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

TODO: define component type brightcove

Newcomer Gal Gadot is in the third highest-grossing star on the list and the highest ranking female, having made $1.4bn through the hugely-successful Wonder Woman and Justice League.

Third position: Gal Gadot pulled in the tickets sales for Wonder Woman / Getty Images for GQ

Emma Watson is one of four British actors in the top ten, with the global success of Beauty and the Beast putting her in fourth place on the list with $1.3bn.

Wonder Woman - Trailer 2

Despite having a year of personal financial difficulty following his divorce from wife Amber Heard, Johnny Depp made $1.1bn for studios thanks to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Murder on the Orient Express.

British actress Daisy Ridley might have been a complete unknown a couple of years ago, but shes in sixth place on the list thanks to The Last Jedi and Murder on the Orient Express.

The top ten is rounded out by Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Chris Hemsworth and John Boyega.
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The National Defence Minister Mihai Fifor paid a visit from 27 to 29 December to the Military Air Base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he met with the Romanian troops there.

The Romanian minister, alongside the Chief of Defence's General Staff, General Nicolae Ciuca thanked the Romanian officers and non-commissioned officers deployed in Kandahar for their participation in the operations theatres."I'm grateful for everything you do. Words are scarce to thank you, you and the loved ones who are always next to you in your difficult mission you unfold," Fifor wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.The minister talked with the Romanian service persons and tasted together Romanian traditional courses."We have talked a lot about their needs and the Army's plans for 2018, that are very ambitious, from where I stand. I hope I've made it to alleviate their longing of their dear ones, their children, and motivated them for the new year's missions," the Defence minister added.The minister's schedule also comprised a briefing on the missions, activities that were completed by the Romanian troops deployed in the Afghanistan's military bases.

AGERPRES .
Over the last five years France has made a major effort to improve the readiness rate for its military aircraft. Despite that it was recently revealed that the overall readiness rate was only 44 percent. It varies by aircraft type and where it is based. Thus the readiness rate is 80 percent for French warplanes in combat zones while that rate plummets to 30 percent for military aircraft in France. French military transports are in particularly bad shape with overall readiness rates closer to 20 percent. Another annoying factor is that in 2000 the overall readiness rate was 55 percent and a lot of the problems appear related to bureaucracy and more paperwork required to do repairs to day versus two decades ago.

So now the Defense Ministry is taking a closer look at how maintenance is carried out, especially compared to other nations with large fleets of modern military aircraft. Britain, for example, has a better readiness rate, but not by much and it was recently revealed that the readiness rate for British Typhoon fighters was about 35 percent.

This is not just a French problem but is typical of all West European armed forces. Britain has been more successful at improving readiness rates while Germany has not. For example in 2014 a German Defense Ministry readiness report was leaked. The report showed that only 8 percent of 109 Eurofighters (similar to the U.S. F-15), 11 percent of 67 CH-53 transport helicopters, and 10 percent of 33 NH90 helicopters were fully operational (not sidelined for upgrades, repairs or other problems.) However 38 percent of 56 C-160 twin turboprop transports were available.

Normally a combat ready military has at least half, and more normally over 70 percent of its warplanes and transports ready to go. While this situation shocked many, those who have followed European military trends since the 1980s were not surprised. The problems began developing in the 1990s and no one in or out of the government felt any compulsion to make an issue of it. It is common in European nations for the Defense Ministry to eventually discover that a shortage of spare parts and years of poor management practices led to the parts shortage and the low readiness levels. A new Defense Minister will often come in and promise to make it all better. That may be possible once there is general agreement that there is a problem.
Pakistan fears the United States and India will carry out more unauthorized attacks inside Pakistan against Islamic terrorist targets. Pakistan is particularly concerned with protecting the Haqqani Network, an Afghan led group that has prospered under Pakistani protection and is now believed to control the leadership of the Afghan Taliban, Pakistan has long denied any connection with Haqqani, much less control of the group, but there is much evidence that ISI (Pakistani Intelligence) works closely with Haqqani. Growing American (and international) pressure has forced Pakistan to say it is acting against Haqqani. There is little evidence of that. Meanwhile Pakistan insists that most Islamic terrorism inside Pakistan is the work of India with the help of the Americans and Israelis. Pakistan now describes this as an American secret strategy of creating perpetual instability in South Asia. Pakistan is the only South Asian nation that agrees with this analysis. Actually the foreign policy of the Pakistani military is to stage such attacks itself, in Afghanistan and India. This is now the Pakistani military justifies and perpetuates its dominant position in Pakistani politics and the economy. It is how the Pakistani military manages (successfully so far) to run the government without actually being the government. Power without responsibility plus generous retirement benefits, immunity from prosecution for most crimes and all those nifty uniforms and parades. No wonder a military career is so popular among the best families.

Yet there are sometimes unpleasant things that must be done, no matter how senior your rank. For example the head of the Pakistani military (army general Qamar Bajwa) recently spoke before parliament to brief the legislators on the state of Pakistani military security and the military efforts against Islamic terrorism and other enemies of Pakistan. The Pakistani military, especially its senior general, rarely reports to parliament. The last time this happened was after the 2011 American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in his Pakistani hideout and left with the bin Laden corpse and massive amounts of documents, many of them detailing how the Pakistani military had lied to the world about secret support for al Qaeda and many other Islamic terror groups.

After 2011 the military made a few changes involved things like going to war with Islamic terror groups that carried out unauthorized (by the military) attacks inside Pakistan. This included shutting down sanctuaries these groups (particularly the Pakistani Taliban) had long used. The army literally invaded the main sanctuary (North Waziristan) in mid-2014 and is still fighting there and nearby areas. This greatly reduced Islamic terror related deaths inside Pakistan. There was still such violence inside Pakistan but most of it was done without permission from the military. What Islamic terrorism the military still used inside Pakistan had a specific purpose. Case in point is the growing use of blasphemy charges by Islamic religious parties against those who threaten military power. Most of these parties are either allies of the military or literally on the army payroll. This program includes the new Islamic political parties formed by Islamic terror groups that have long worked for the military to carry out attacks inside India. The Pakistani military wants to protect these Islamic terror groups and turning them into political parties is the latest ploy. The covert violence against foreign (Afghan and Indian targets) is against Pakistani and international law and the Pakistani military continues to claim that it is not involved.

To obtain the cooperation of Pakistani politicians the military uses a slightly different form of Islamic terrorism. This was in full view during late 2017 when the army refused government orders to help restore free access to the capital. General Bajwa was appearing before parliament, in part, to explain what was going on with that. It was a masterful performance. First he admitted that the military is, according to Pakistani law, subordinate to the elected government. General Bajwa then pointed out that as a good Moslem he was obliged take religious considerations into account. That was how he justified the recent refusal to provide troops to assist in removing thousands of civilians who were blocking the main roads into the capital.

This blockade was part of an effort to force a senior government official to resign for his involvement in a new law (not passed) that made a minor (to the rest of the world and most Pakistanis) change to the oath new officials take. For Islamic political parties deciding what is blasphemy and acting on it is why such parties exist. The Islamic political parties represent less than ten percent of the voters and want to impose Islamic (Sharia) law on all Pakistanis. Most Pakistanis, and especially the military, dont agree with that but cannot express those views openly. The military has turned this threat to their advantage by controlling enough of these Islamic political parties to terrorize those who oppose the military. That includes most of the people in parliament. General Bajwa even took some questions, which men in his position rarely do. He said he wanted to make peace with India but when asked about army support for Islamic terror groups like Lashkar i Taiba to turn themselves into political parties he said it was legal and the army would not interfere. He also added that while the army did not support Islamic terror attacks on India men like Hafiz Saeed, the leader of Lashkar i Taiba, do and the army has no control over that. General Bajwa was indirectly telling parliament to not interfere. And it wasnt just about reusing to help clear the roads.

It was army influence and pressure that, by November, got Islamic terrorist leader Hafiz Saeed freed from house arrest. This was a very unpopular decision inside Pakistan and around the world. Saeed is a known and quite notorious Islamic terrorist but since he works for the Pakistani military he is protected. Up to a point. In 2012 the U.S. announced a $10 million bounty for the arrest or conviction of Hafiz Saeed, who is accused of organizing the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks as well as 2001 attack on the Indian parliament. India and the United States have presented compelling evidence to implicate Saeed, but the Pakistani government refuses to prosecute. Inside Pakistan, many politicians and media outlets admit that Saeed is a major Islamic terrorist leader and the man behind the Mumbai attack and numerous other atrocities. Saeed has dared the U.S. to come and get him, which the current American government might actually do. Saeed has long headed the Islamic terror group Lashkar i Taiba, which in turn was organized and long supported by the Pakistani military, mainly to organize and carry out terrorist attacks in India. Note that the reward offer is only good if Saeed is delivered alive. That is a useful condition and justifies the plan to turn its favorite Islamic terror groups (mainly the ones that attack India and do so because of Kashmir) into political parties to give these groups and their leaders even more protection from domestic or foreign interference. The major fear the Pakistani generals have is that the Americans will, as they did with bin Laden, apply dead or alive conditions to the reward. So far the Pakistani military has been able to protect Saeed although he has not been an international criminal for as long as bin Laden was before he was taken down.

One of the ironies of this situation is that what was used to protect bin Laden and, even more so, guys like Saeed are blasphemy laws. Like many Moslem majority nations Pakistan has laws that actually encourage religious violence and the military has regarded that as a useful tool. The most damaging instance of this are the blasphemy laws enacted in the 1970s. These allow for prosecution of anyone accused of speaking or acting against Islam. While no one had ever been officially executed because of these laws, many are accused and jailed each year, and often condemned to death (and later reprieved). But a growing number of those accused have been murdered by Islamic fanatics, who are a large, and violent, minority of the population. Accusations of blasphemy are mostly used by Moslems against innocent non-Moslems (usually Christians) but also against each other. For example the Pakistani Taliban is a Sunni group that encourage attacks on blasphemers. This usually means Shia but there are other non-Sunni Moslem groups that will do, as well as Christians and Jews. Hindus are considered pagans and require no encouragement for a devout Moslem to go after. The Taliban also considers any Sunni who does not support them a heretic and deserving of punishment.

Efforts to repeal these laws, or at least limit their misuse, are violently resisted by Islamic political parties and the military. It was the military that created these laws back when it decided to turn Islamic terrorism into a secret weapon for use against its enemies. The military still uses false blasphemy charges as an excuse to silence (often by death) media and political opponents. This sort of thing has gotten worse as the Pakistani military is put under more pressure to cease supporting Islamic terrorism.

For example, in late 2012 Islamic political parties in Pakistan forced the government to block over 20,000 websites, including YouTube, for displaying material considered critical of Islam. In addition the pro-Islamic parties organized dozens of demonstrations to protest, often violently, an American film accused of being anti-Islam. These demonstrations were part of an effort by the Islamic parties to establish themselves as censors for all Pakistanis. The 2012 crackdown began earlier in the year when the government blocked national access to Twitter for most of the day, apparently because of blasphemous (to some Moslems) activity on Twitter. Every day, if not every hour, there is something on Twitter that Islamic conservatives would consider blasphemous. What the Pakistani government particularly disliked about Twitter was that it was a speedy conduit of reports on bad behavior by the Pakistani officials. Shutting Twitter down for a sustained period would be enormously unpopular inside Pakistan and thats why the threat evaporated. Yet the Islamic politicians kept at it and in July 2017 a senior Facebook executive met with the Pakistani Interior Ministry to discuss Pakistan demands that Facebook monitor and censor Facebook posts that Pakistani law considers blasphemous against Islam, especially if the message was posted by one of the 33 million Pakistani Facebook users. A Pakistani Facebook user had recently been sentenced to death for such a post and that prompted Facebook to meet with Pakistani officials and help sustain the illusion that the Internet could be censored. That served the goals of the Pakistani military, who were after individual critics not everyone who uses Facebook and Twitter. After all the Pakistani officers make enough to be comfortably middle class and the younger members of these families are big fans of the Internet. But individuals who criticize the Pakistani military via the Internet do not have a lot of fans among military families.

South Asia Safer

For the second year in a row Kashmir border violence was were way up. Islamic terrorist related deaths inside Indian Kashmir were up 32 percent in 2017 reaching levels (about 350 dead) not seen since 2010. In 2015 deaths had fallen to 174 but then things changed in Pakistan (which occupies the northern half of Kashmir and wants it all). In December 2015 Indian and Pakistani military leaders met on the Kashmir border to reaffirm efforts to reduce violence on the LOC (Line of Control) in Kashmir. Yet such incidents continued to occur despite the 20o3 ceasefire and subsequent pledges to behave. It was internal politics in Pakistan involving the Pakistan army that revived the border violence in 2016. This was all about the continuing battle between elected politicians and the military over the non-existent threat from India. The Pakistani generals justify their large budget and numerous other privileges by the perceived need to deal with the Indian threat. But there is no Indian threat. The Pakistani military refuses to accept that and the border erupts whenever the Pakistani generals need to justify their privileges and powers.

This is no longer seen as just a local issue. The Pakistani military is under growing domestic (by elected leaders) and international (especially American) pressure to cease all support for Islamic terrorism and that includes the border incidents with India. The Pakistani generals have not shown any sign of changing. The current head of the Pakistani military, appointed at the end of 2016, spent much of his career working directly with forces (military and Islamic terrorist) causing violence on the Indian border and in Kashmir. The growing LOC violence is hailed as a major victory for the Pakistani military against Indian aggression.

Meanwhile Islamic terrorist violence in Pakistan continues to decline, reaching a low of about a hundred dead a month for 2017, versus 150 a month in 2016. India saw a 12 percent decline in in 2017 for terrorism related deaths. The total is now under 800 again (66 a month), as it had been in 2015 before Pakistan got more aggressive in 2016. In Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) Islamic terrorism related deaths fell more than 40 percent in 2017 after an unusual spike in 2016 (to 139 deaths) because of an ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) effort to establish a presence in Bangladesh. That failed, as it did in India and Pakistan.

The Afghan Fence

At the end of 2017 Pakistan reported it had completed 150 kilometers of its new security fence along the Afghan border during the first six months of construction. The fence consists of two three-meter (nine foot) high chain link fences running parallel, two meters apart, with three rolls of barbed wire in that two meter gap. Construction began in South Waziristan (which borders Afghanistans Paktika province and Pakistans Baluchistan, where the Afghan Taliban still maintain a sanctuary). The fence construction was announced in March 2017 and will eventually extend along the entire 2,600 kilometer border with Afghanistan. This is part of an effort to hinder the Pakistani Taliban, and other illegal groups (terrorists and smugglers) from easily moving back and forth. After the Paktika portion of the fence is completed construction will continue along the border with the Afghan provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar. These provinces are where there has always been a lot of lawless activity and these days it is full of Islamic terrorists hostile to either Pakistan or working for Pakistan (against Afghanistan). The new plan will continue giving priority to areas where there are the most problems but will not stop there and eventually (by about 2025) have a fence along the entire Afghan border.

December 27, 2017: In northwest Pakistan (North Waziristan) a senior Pakistani Taliban leader (Jan Wali) was killed while working across the Afghan border in Kunar province. This was an accidental death because Wali died while supervising the placing of a roadside bomb. Apparently there were other casualties but the death of Wali was big news and word quickly got around. Wali has a base in Kunar, but he most constantly move it and defend himself from Afghan and American special operations troops.

December 26, 2017: In northwest Pakistan (Kurram) Jamil ud Din, a Haqqani Network leader and several of his associates died when their vehicle was hit by two missiles as it drove near the Afghan border (Paktia province). If this was an American UAV attack it would be the first inside Pakistan since October (when two attacks hit Haqqani targets). Pakistan threatens retaliation for such illegal attacks, which the U.S. will not comment on and Pakistan has not yet acted on.

In northwest India (Kashmir) ten Indian commandos crossed the border at night and attacked Pakistan soldiers 300 meters behind the border, killing three of them and wounding another before returning to their side of the border. This was in retaliation for a recent increase of Pakistani ceasefire violations along the border. Pakistan denied that the raid took place. This was similar to what happened in September 2016 when a larger operation involved Indian commandos going after seven locations (all 500-2,000 meters inside Pakistan) where Islamic terrorists were known to assemble before trying to sneak across the border. The commandos found Islamic terrorists at most of these locations and attacked and then quickly retreated back to India before Pakistan could bring in reinforcements. India reported that 38 Islamic terrorists and two Pakistani soldiers killed. Apparently five of the dead were Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan denied the attack took place, although some Pakistanis (military and civilian) in the area did reveal some confirmation. The operation took place in a remote part of the border between midnight and 4 AM. There have been three similar raids in the past but this was the first one India took credit for. The latest such raid makes five and India says there will be more as long as Pakistan keeps firing across the border in violation of the ceasefire.

December 25, 2017: In northwest India (Kashmir) soldiers trapped several Islamic terrorists in a rural home and fought throughout the night. Two of Islamic terrorists escaped but of the dead was identified as the leader of Jaish e Mohammad, an Islamic terror group based across the border in Pakistan.

December 19, 2017: In Pakistan the head of the military (army general Qamar Bajwa) spoke before parliament, a rare event.

December 14, 2017: Bahrain and Pakistan agreed to conduct a joint training program for special operations troops from both countries. In 2015 Bahrain and Pakistan held joint naval training. All this is nothing new as Pakistan has long had good economic and military links with Bahrain. In 2014 Pakistan and Bahrain agreed to increased economic and military cooperation. Oil-rich Bahrain (a small Persian Gulf nation with a Sunni minority ruling a Shia majority) provides Pakistan with loans and investments while Pakistan provides security assistance to help Bahrain deal with years of unrest by its Shia citizens. This formalized earlier efforts. For example in 2011 Bahrain sent recruiters to Pakistan to hire retired military personnel to staff the Bahraini security forces. The recruiters are looking to hire a thousand or more men quickly. There will be no shortage of volunteers, as the money is good, even with the risk of death or injury. Pakistan has been supplying such mercenaries to the Arab Gulf states for centuries.

December 13, 2017: Pakistan has ordered 29 foreign NGOs (Non-governmental organizations) to leave the country within 60 days. That is about half the foreign NGOs in Pakistan. This is what the military and ISI want because the NGOs are believed to employ foreign intelligence agents and their charity work in Pakistan is opposed by ISI-supported Islamic terrorist groups. Foreign NGOs employ 5,000 Pakistanis and spend over $280 million a year on 29 million Pakistanis.

December 11, 2017: In Pakistan China has taken note of the Pakistani military assuming more control over the government and is making sure that more of the contracts for work on CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) projects go to construction firms owned by the military. This shift of contracts is being carried out as part of an anti-corruption effort that has halted work by several Pakistani firms that China believes are using corrupt practices and wasting money. China can do this and the new contractors are expected to be ones that the military controls. CPEC is a complex piece of work that began in 2013 when China agreed to spend $18 billion to build a road from the Pakistani port of Gwadar to northwest Pakistan and China. This will require drilling long tunnels through the Himalayan Mountains on the border (in Pakistani controlled Kashmir.) The road and a natural gas pipeline are part of the $46 billion CPEC project. This will make it much easier and cheaper to move people, data (via fiber optic cables) and goods between China and Pakistan. China also gets a 40 year lease on much of the port facilities at Gwadar, which India fears will serve as a base for Chinese warships.

December 10, 2017: In Saudi Arabia 68 Pakistani special operations troops completed a two week joint training exercise with their Saudi counterparts. Pakistan is maintaining its support for the Saudi led (and financed) IMCTC (Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition) while also maintaining good relations with its neighbor Iran. IMCTC was formed mainly to oppose Iran, which was not invited to join the IMCTC while a retired Pakistani general was invited to lead the IMCTC (and accepted the job).

December 7, 2017: India has agreed to train Afghan female officers at Indian officer training schools. India has already trained over 4,000 male Afghan officers and NCOs. Afghanistan wants about ten percent of the security forces to be women but needs help in providing advanced training. Currently under two percent of the Afghan security forces are female.

December 6, 2017: Afghan officials said the new Iranian port of Chabahar in southeastern Iran on the Indian Ocean and its road link to Afghanistan was officially open. This project also includes new railroad and highway connections from Chabahar to Afghanistan and Central Asian railroads. Projects like this help keep the peace because they provide Afghanistan with an alternative to the existing Pakistani road links to Pakistan ports. This usually meant Karachi but now also includes the Chinese Obor (One Belt, One Road) project which has a similar (to Chabahar) link to the Pakistani port of Gwadar (72 kilometers down the coast from Chabahar) that links up with Chinese roads and railroads. Iran saw Obor as an attempt to establish a cartel and then control trade and prices mainly to favor China. The Iranians deal with the Chinese as equals but many other Obor countries are deemed more exploitable by the Chinese and often, but not always, are. Chabahar will free India and Afghanistan from dependence on Pakistan for a trade route and will also open up Central Asian markets for everyone since the new rail and road network goes from the northern border of Afghanistan to an enlarged Chabahar port on the Indian Ocean. Everyone involved, except Pakistan, is enthusiastic about Chabahar and Afghan/Central Asian links. Iran may be at war with the United States but the Americans tolerate Chabahar because it provides benefits for India and Afghanistan while also reducing Chinese economic power in the region. The Chabahar route was originally set to be operational by 2020 but began limited operations (from Chabahar to Afghanistan) in 2017 and that portion is now officially declared operational. There are still problems with visa and cargo transit paperwork for Afghan businesses. Some of this is due to the corruption in both countries but also because Iran wants to limit Afghan drug smuggling activity via the Chabahar route (about a quarter of the Afghan heroin and opium is smuggled out via Iran). At the same time Iran has expressed interest in linking with the new Chinese Obor link from China to the Pakistani coast. China likes this because their expensive Pakistani link to the Indian Ocean is more at risk from Islamic terrorist violence than the one in Iran. As with the ancient Silk Road, Iran and China are willing to do business. At the end of the year China agreed with Iran and backed more direct land-link between Gwadar and Chabahar. While the two ports are only 72 kilometers apart the only land link currently is a 362 kilometer long highway that requires a six hour trip. China is willing to finance the new Gwadar-Chabahar link alone if India does not want to participate.

December 2, 2017: A recent terrorism survey (GTI or Global Terrorism Index) documented Pakistani progress in reducing Islamic terrorist violence inside Pakistan. For the first time in a decade Pakistan has not been one of the top four nations in the GTI ranking of world nations with terrorism problems. In 2016 Pakistan ranked number five out of 163 nations. The top four slots were filled by the usual suspects (Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Syria). In the last decade Pakistan was number two in the GTI for six years and not much better the rest of the time. Things began to change after 2014. The situation was pretty back then. The GTI showed that five nations (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria, in that order) accounted for 80 percent of all terrorism related deaths in 2013 and even more in 2014. Four Islamic terrorist organizations (ISIL, al Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Taliban) accounted for nearly 70 percent of all terrorist deaths. Many of the lesser terror groups are also Islamic. In fact, of the top ten nations by terrorist activity (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Syria, India, Somalia, Yemen, Philippines and Thailand) only India and the Philippines had a significant minority of terrorist deaths that were not carried out by Moslems. In those two countries the minority terrorists were leftist rebels who had not noticed the collapse of radical socialism in 1989. Meanwhile the rapid growth in Islamic terrorism violence caused the total number of terrorist acts to increase 44 percent in 2013 over 2012.

December 1, 2017: The Indian Air Force has again publicly criticized the locally developed LCA (Light Combat Aircraft, or "Tejas") jet fighter and did so with some very blunt comparisons to foreign fighters after having an opportunity to try out LCA and two similar foreign competitors. For example the LCA has endurance of 59 minutes per sortie versus two hours for the Swedish Gripen Jas-39 or the U.S. F-16. The payload of LCA is three tons versus six tons for Gripen and seven tons for the F-16. Worst of all LCA was found to be less reliable and required twenty hours of maintenance for each flight hour versus six hours for the Gripen and 3.5 hours for the F-16.

The Indian Air Force also noted that only four of 123 production models of the LCA had been delivered so far and it would be years, if ever, for the all these problems to be fixed. The Gripen and F-16 are being offered as cheaper and more effective substitutes for the LCA. The Indian Air Force backs the foreign fighters but the Indian defense procurement bureaucracy insists on the LCA and it has the backing of the Indian political establishment which gains votes and legal fund raising opportunities with this policy. The politicians seem to feel that as long as Indian maintains its nuclear deterrent (ballistic missiles that can hit Pakistani or Chinese cities with nuclear warheads) backing less effective locally made weapons is worth the ill-will from the military.

November 28, 2017: In Pakistan (Islamabad, the capital) there was another attack on Shia Moslems by Sunni Islamic terrorists. Gunmen fired on a Shia mosque outside the capital, killing several Shia and wounding many more. Shia later gathered in large numbers downtown and demanded the government do something about this continued violence against them.
Work continues to truck along for a new university-led tertiary campus in the heart of Tauranga city.

A time lapse video recently uploaded to Waikato Universitys YouTube channel shows the progress on the new campus, which is being led by University of Waikato on behalf of the Bay of Plenty Tertiary Partnership.

Work is set to be complete by 2019 with the campus open to students by 2020.

It is expected to enhance the range of qualifications and study options available to students in the Bay of Plenty.

University of Waikato Vice-Chancellor Professor Neil Quigley says the new campus is an exciting milestone for the Bay of Plenty community.

Its important for the region that we can attract or retain young people who will make the Bay of Plenty even stronger, says Neil. This campus, which will be one of the most significant developments in the region in many years, will do that for the region.

Meanwhile Bay of Plenty Regional Council Chairman Doug Leeder is excited at the prospects of more students being attracted to the region and the business-focussed research and development opportunities that this provides.

The agreement on the Tertiary Campus shows the strength of our regional partnerships, and what can be achieved through vision and collaboration, says Doug.

This campus will deliver improved educational and economic opportunities, and is a major part of our commitment to economic development through our Regional Infrastructure Fund.

TECT Chairperson Bill Holland says they are extremely pleased that an agreement has been reached by all parties on the future direction of the project.

We have always believed that the University campus is an important and exciting project for the city, says Bill, and although there is still plenty of work ahead, this is a significant milestone.

Its expected that following the development of the campus, 8000 tertiary students will study in the Bay of Plenty over a 17-year period.
Customer experience improvements have become an important part of companies digital transformations, according to survey results Mitel released Tuesday.

More than 2,500 senior IT decision makers across North America, the UK, France, Germany and Australia responded to the survey, conducted in August by Opinion Research for Mitel. The participants represented businesses ranging from 250 to 10,000-plus employees in a wide range of industries.

Among the researchers findings:

Overall, 95 percent of the respondents saw customer experience (CX) improvements as an important part of digital transformation;

59 percent had completed half or more of their expected CX improvements;

90 percent planned to tie machines to their communications and collaboration tools;

85 percent believed machine-to-people interactions would result in positive transformations in the customer experience;

75 percent planned to implement machine-based interactions with customers within the next two years;

75 percent saw automated event-triggered calls from customer devices as a valuable service;

73 percent believed machine-enhanced routines were valuable to their organization;

57 percent of retail respondents believed better CX would lead to higher customer satisfaction; and

56 percent of retail respondents believed better CX would lead to higher customer loyalty and lower customer churn.

Generation Z

Customers, particularly millennials, readily have embraced digital technology in their day-to-day lives, the report suggests.

Multichannel and machine-enhanced processes that tie together voice, video, movie and online channels to deliver a seamless and highly personalized experience help determine good CX, based on the survey results.

However, businesses need to look beyond millennials to Gen Z  the generation whose oldest members turn 21 this year  suggests a study of United States consumers by WP Engine.

Gen Z members, who will constitute 40 percent of all consumers by 2020, soon will drive every major consumer trend, the WP Engine researchers found.

Biometrics, predictive technologies, voice and gestures will replace typing on a singular device, they concluded.

The only way to get these types of real-time personalized  and then, ultimately, predictive  experiences is with the assistance of machines, said WP Engine CMO MaryEllen Dugan.

Companies might need to look further beyond AI and omnichannel communications.

Were headed to completely unified experiences across both online and off, Dugan told CRM Buyer.

A consumers in-store preferences will need to be incorporated online and vice versa, she said, and this will likely mean the adoption of AR and VR.

Emerging Tech

Larger e-commerce companies have the funds  and to some extent, the skilled manpower  needed to incorporate artificial intelligence, big data, augmented reality, virtual reality and other newer technologies into their systems, and theyll do this for mass personalization, noted Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research.

While e-commerce small and mid-sized businesses face manpower and budgetary constraints, they too will be able to tap newer technologies, he told CRM Buyer.

The rise of AI networks is coming, and the market will total US$100 billion by 2025, Wang has predicted.

These AI networks will be offered by a limited number of large players, including Alibaba, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, he said, and e-commerce SMBs will be able to tap into them.

This is already here with lead matching, Wang pointed out.

For the first time, SMB companies have the ability to leverage the martech stack and cloud software to provide the same seamless type of experience that large companies do, observed WP Engines Dugan.

Given that their website is essentially their face to the world, they need to use all the technology available to take advantage of the cloud, AI and e-commerce technology, she said.

That includes spinning up microsites faster, tracking their audience, and adapting quickly to new trends, Dugan said.

Using an open source CMS is one way SMBs can keep down costs, she added, while providing incredible ROI and competing with larger companies.
Facebook on Tuesday raised the ante for messaging apps photo quality with the announcement of 4K support for Messenger.

Were making significant investments in how people communicate visually on Messenger, wrote Facebook Messenger product managers Sean Kelly and Hagen Green in an online post. Starting Tuesday, people can send and receive photos in Messenger at 4K resolution  or up to 4,096 x 4,096 pixels per image  the highest quality many smartphones support.

Although the need for speed in a messaging app and the size of 4K photo files would seem to work at odds with each other, that apparently is not the case with the Messenger upgrade.

Your photos will also be sent just as quickly as before, even at this new, higher resolution, Kelly and Green maintained.

Click on image to zoom in on difference in resolution.

Speed is important. Viewers will start to abandon content if it takes more than two seconds to start up, research from Akamai suggests. Whats more, with each incremental second of delay, the abandonment rate increases 5.8 percent.

Catching Up

The new 4K support will be transparent to users.

After upgrading to the new version of Messenger, a user can open a conversation, tap the camera roll icon, select a photo and hit send.

The recipient then will receive the high resolution photo.

The 4K resolution support will be available immediately for both iPhone and Android phones in the United States, Canada, France, Australia, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea, according to Kelly and Green. The feature will be introduced in other countries in the coming weeks.

Facebooks announcement to support 4K is actually just about catching up with the market, said Andreas Scherer, managing partner at Salto Partners.

Smartphones from Apple, Samsung and Google are already supporting the 4K format, he told TechNewsWorld.

Table Stakes

With 4K support in Messenger, Facebook is taking advantage of the higher-resolution screens in the latest smartphones, noted Ross Rubin, principal analyst at Reticle Research.

This is an opportunity for Messenger users to enjoy a richer photo experience, he told TechNewsWorld.

4K also keeps users within the app, which is where Facebook can control the environment, Rubin pointed out. 4K photos may not give Messenger a sustainable advantage over other messaging programs  but then again, given its massive installed base, it doesnt need any new competitive advantages.

4K is becoming table stakes for high- and mid-tier smartphones, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

Its what people are coming to expect when they plunk down nearly (US)$1,000 for a phone, so handsets that dont support 4K will increasingly stand out as second rate, he told TechNewsWorld.

Click on image to zoom in on difference in resolution.

No Need to See Flys Whiskers

Although Facebook promised that transmitting 4K photos wont hurt Messengers performance, questions remain about potential negative consequences.

It could kill your data plan, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

4K photos are very big files. You do 30 or 40 of those, and youre going to blow out your data plan, he told TechNewsWorld.

Thats why you should be sure your phone is connected to WiFi if youre going to transfer 4K pictures, Enderle advised.

You really dont have to attach high resolution pictures to social media, he added. You may want to show someone something youre seeing or something youre eating. You dont want to necessarily want to pick out the whiskers on the fly thats on the food.

Format of the Future

The move to enhance Messengers 4K support is a sign that Facebook wants to keep the app ahead of a technology wave to come.

4K isnt just a marketing play to sell more displays, like 3D was. This next-generation format delivers higher resolution and crisper images, and it will eventually become the standard for all video, Forrester analyst Nick Barber wrote in a report released last year.

4K will become the standard for not only television, but for streaming on the Web, too, Barber predicted. Once they resolve bandwidth and processing issues, enterprises and consumers will demand a better format than todays traditional high definition. 4K is this format.
Since ad blockers first surfaced on the Internet many years ago, there's been an ongoing struggle between users who find ads intrusive and webmasters who need them to keep their sites afloat.

Some website owners have given up the fight entirely and moved on to other means of monetization, including the implementation of "paywalls," subscriptions or affiliate links throughout their content.

However, other websites have chosen to fight back by implementing ad blocker detection into their websites. According to a study performed by the University of Iowa and UC Riverside, roughly 30.5 percent of the top 10,000 websites on the Internet use the technology in some form, though its purpose differs greatly from site to site.

Some publications use the tech for little more than the gathering of data or the occasional polite pop-up that asks users to turn off their ad blocker. Others take it a step further and implement more subtle anti-ad blocking measures. These can include "bait" content engineered to trigger ad blockers, allowing a site to silently re-deploy ads and effectively avoid detection from most modern ad blockers.

Though these measures have seen increased adoption recently, the battle between ad providers and ad blockers is far from over. The study details a number of ways that developers of ad blocking software can retaliate against the changes, one of which could involve rewriting their software's code to fool a website's anti-ad blocker detection into thinking there is no ad blocker in the first place.

The study notes that the Internet may soon find itself in the middle of a "technological battle" between ad blockers and ad providers as both sides continue to develop increasingly sophisticated detection and blocking systems.

Researchers claim ad blockers keeping pace with anti-ad blocking efforts will be "crucial" to preserving the security and privacy of safety-conscious Internet users, with the potential for further reform in the online advertising industry down the line... that is, if ad blockers can keep the pressure up.
Controversy erupted when it was revealed earlier this month that Apple might have been slowing down older iPhones. Users were outraged at the possibility and Apple further fanned the flames when it admitted that it was indeed throttling devices. However, it called this a "feature" that extended battery life for aging phones.

Pointing out that this was a feature meant for the benefit of the user did nothing to calm the storm. Class-action lawyers took hold of the fury and filed lawsuits in California, New York and Israel. The cases claim that in addition to slowing down devices, Apple intentionally failed to inform customers about the so-called feature which prompted many to replace their phones rather than opting for a much cheaper battery replacement.

Now Cupertino is facing potential criminal allegations in France. Yesterday, Halte a l'Obsolescence Programmee (HOP) announced it was filing a criminal complaint against Apple under French obsolescence laws.

"With this complaint, France is the third country (after the United States and Israel) in which the Cupertino company is questioned for planned obsolescence. But unlike these two countries, France has made it a crime."

The environmental advocacy group, whose name roughly translates to "stop planned obsolescence," claims that Apple violated French laws which prohibit companies from intentionally reducing the lifespan of a product to increase the replacement rate.

The laws were enacted in 2015 and carry a maximum penalty of two years in prison, a 300,000 euro fine and five percent of the company's earnings for the year.

HOP claims that it filed the complaint to help consumers who are being forced to replace their electronic products frequently and to reduce the waste going into the environment from discarded devices.

The filing marks the second complaint placed under the two-year-old legislation. Back in September, HOP filed similar charges against Epson, HP, Canon and Brother. The four printer companies are accused of "deliberately shortening the life of printers and cartridges."
No matter how many times people are warned, the most popular passwords are still terrible. They make it easy for hackers to steal identities and are the main source of data loss. It's one of the reasons why Microsoft has called for the password to be killed off.

The Redmond firm says passwords are a relic from the early days of computing that have outlived their usefulness. And that having to change them regularly to another hard-to-remember string of text isn't the best or most secure solution.

Bret Arsenault, corporate vice president and chief information security officer at Microsoft, said: "For several decades, the industry has focused on securing devices. That model needs a makeover. Securing devices is important, but it's not enough. We should also be focused on securing individuals. We can enhance your experience and security by letting you become the password."

One of Microsoft's answers to what it sees as the password problem is Windows Hello, which verifies users' identities using facial, fingerprint, and even iris scanning. The company says it's used by most of its employees, and that 70 percent of Windows 10 owners with Biometric-enabled devices choose Windows Hello over regular passwords.

Microsoft is also on FIDO's board of directors. The Fast Identity Online Alliance works with industry leaders including Intel and Google to develop specifications and certifications for password-replacing technology like USB tokens, biometrics, and mobile-based solutions.

But Windows Hello isn't infallible, at least on older versions of the OS. Last week, German security firm SYSS discovered they could trick its facial recognition tech using a printed headshot, though it only works on Windows 10 systems that haven't yet received the Fall Creators Update.

The other big company pushing the virtues of biometric authentication is, of course, Apple. Despite several examples of its Face ID system being tricked by photos and users' relatives, the system is still expected to arrive in the company's other devices next year.
South Korea has introduced tighter regulations on the country's cryptocurrency markets, resulting in a drop in bitcoin and ethereum prices. The new legislation will see a ban on anonymous cryptocurrency accounts starting next month.

Right now, most Korean cryptocurrency exchanges require only a name and email before trading is allowed. The exception being if large sums are involved. This anonymity is set to be banned as per the "know your customer" rules designed to prevent money laundering. Furthermore, cryptocurrency exchanges will be monitored going forward.

South Korea's Justice Ministry is even considering closing all the country's crypto exchanges, according to the Wall Street Journal. Exactly how and when this might happen wasn't made clear, but it was enough to affect bitcoin and Ethereum prices, which dropped 12 percent and 8 percent, respectively, in the wake of the news, though both digital currencies have recovered slightly.

Korea has the third-largest cryptocurrency market in the world after the US and Japan. Its government, which noted that crypto trading prices are often much higher in the country than on other exchanges, is trying to regulate the rampant speculation.

"The government had warned several times that virtual coins cannot play a role as actual currency and could result in high losses due to excessive volatility," the government said in a statement. Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon added that crytpocurrencies could "lead to some serious distorted or pathological phenomenon."

Earlier this month, South Korea proposed a series of new rules to tackle the bitcoin frenzy. They included stopping foreigners, financial institutions, and minors from trading crypto, and levying capital-gain taxes for trades made on exchanges.
If you've felt the world hasn't done enough to push the electric revolution forward to combat climate change, China might be able to change your mind. One of the most populated cities in the country with roughly 11.9 million citizens, Shenzhen has recently announced the completion of their fully electric fleet of 16,359 public transportation buses.

Shenzhen has managed to hit the milestone ahead of schedule, with previous estimates suggesting work on the city's new bus fleet could extend well into 2018.

Shenzhen officials believe this change could save the city the "energy equivalent of 366,000 tons of standard coal" while reducing carbon dioxide emissions by an impressive 1.35 million tons.

Of course, simply swapping out gas-powered buses for electric-powered alternatives doesn't do the city much good on its own. In the interest of keeping their sizable fleet up and running, Shenzhen has also constructed about 8,000 individual bus charging points spread across 510 charging stations throughout the city.

According to one Fast Company report, over 80 percent of Shenzhen's new buses have been manufactured by a single company - BYD (Build Your Dreams). As the company has reportedly surpassed Tesla to become the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the world, it comes as no surprise that the city has chosen to take advantage of its services.

Shenzhen doesn't plan to leave well enough alone, though - its taxis are also due for an electric overhaul in the near future. As of writing, 62.5 percent (12,518) of all taxis in the city are electric but government officials plan to increase that number to 100 percent by 2020. This is certainly an ambitious plan but it's also one the city's head of public transport, Zheng Jingyu, seems confident in.

"We will gradually replace the existing fuel-powered cabs with electricity-powered ones and complete the target by 2020, or even ahead of schedule," Jingyu said in a statement.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday that his country has the highest economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, despite the sanctions imposed against it. | Read More
AUTO LAB TALK RADIO FROM NYC SATURDAY MORNING! 7-9 AM December 30, 2017







Auto Lab Talk Radio

The Auto Lab Radio Show Every Saturday 7 to 9 AM On New York City's WNYM Radio AM 970 and Streamed Worldwide On The Auto Channel

This Weeks Show Broadcast Date: December 30, 2017

This Weeks Show "Best Of Auto Lab" Is Listen Only, No Calls This Week Please

Auto Lab is a 28 year old interactive automotive-focused New York area radio call-in show hosted by Professor Harold Wolchok. Each week a cadre of experienced hands-on automotive experts are in-studio with advice for the New York area's 12 million people, providing listeners with honest, practical and street-smart car repair and buying advice.

Auto Lab is also about the automotive industry, its history, and its culture, presenting the ideas and advice of leading college faculty, authors, and automotive practitioners in a relaxed, conversational interactive format.

Listeners can hear the past 18 years of archived Auto Lab shows as simulcast on www.theautochannel.com.

Listen - Auto Lab Page (Includes Audio-on-Demand Archives, Auto Programs at Community College Database, Guests Pictures

This Weeks Show: December 30, 2017

IN STUDIO: Auto Lab's Real World Experts Answer Your Questions; Discuss: Repairs, Second Opinions, Regular Maintenance, How To's, Safety, Used and New Car Buying, Ombudsmen Suggestions

Harold Bendell - Major Auto

Fred Bordoff - Bronx Community College Automotive Technology Department-CUNY

Ivan Anderson - Brookdale Community College

Tim Cacace - Master Mechanix Auto Repairs

Jerry Pastore-D & J Diagnostic

Johanna Pastore-D & J Diagnostic

Michael Porcelli - Auto Mobile Services

Nicholas Prague- MTA and Rockland Community College, SUNY

Auto Lab Correspondents Remote Interviews: Featuring Auto Safety News, New Car Reviews, Technology and Latest Auto World Information That Will Effect You!

Broadcast Date: December 30, 2017;

Steve Colavito, Business Relationship Manager Grant Associates

GRANT ASSOCIATES, WORKING WITH NYC DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TO PROMOTE EFFECTIVE CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION(CTE) IN NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS

John Russell Senior Correspondent

COMPARING THE TOYOTA SIENNA AND THE CHRYSLER PACIFICA

Robert Sinclair- AAA NORTHEAST

AAA : YEAR - END HOLIDAY TRAVEL WILL BE HIGHEST ON RECORD

Robert Erskine, Senior European Correspondent, Suffolk England

PUSHED BY THE ULTRA MARKET
Senator Al Franken. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Senator Al Franken announced earlier this month he would resign following allegations of sexual misconduct, and on Thursday night he addressed his supporters f0r the first time in a speech streamed on Facebook Live.

Let me be clear, he said. I may be resigning my seat but I am not giving up my voice.

Since November, seven women have accused Franken of inappropriate touching, groping, and kissing. The senator denied the allegations, and repeatedly apologized. But he resigned after facing pressure from his Democratic colleagues in Congress, and will be replaced by Minnesota lieutenant governor Tina Smith on January 3.

However, a recent poll suggests that 50 percent of Minnesotans believe he should stay in office, and 60 percent think the Senate Ethics Committee should finish its investigation.

In his Senate resignation earlier this month, Franken was emotional but emphatic, saying Some of the allegations against me are simply not true. Others I remember very differently.

However, in his speech tonight Franken made no mention of the allegations against him or the broader conversation around sexual harassment as he had in his speech before the Senate.

Instead he thanked his wife, Franni, highlighted what he had accomplished while serving as a senator, and held for laughs when appropriate.

Serving the people of Minnesota in the U.S. Senate has been the honor of my life, he said. I am here tonight to say, Thank you.

He added: We still have a lot of work to do together on issues ranging from net neutrality to climate change, Franken said. We still have to be ready to speak out for economic justice and to defend the truth.
Nikki Haley. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley assured the prime minister of Poland last week that the United States was aware of Russias covert attempts to influence the elections in Binomo (which does not exist), a small island in the South China Sea that had recently declared independence.

Or rather, this is what Haley thought she did last week  if a new video from the Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus is to be believed.

In the video, a woman who sounds an awful lot like Nikki Haley takes a phone call from a man she believes to be new Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki. The alleged interaction came hours after the United Nations voted to reject Americas recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital. Poland abstained from that vote, and Haley opens the conversation by expressing Americas gratitude for its abstention.

Yes, this is Nikki. How are you Mr. Minister? Haley (ostensibly) says. Let me start with very much thanking you for the support weve received on the vote today. We will never forget it.

After discussing tensions between Ukraine and Russia, the fake Polish leader asks about Americas stance on Putins recent actions in (nonexistent) Binomo.

You know Binomo? he asks.

Yes, yes, Haley assures him.

They had elections and we suppose Russians had its intervention.

Yes, of course they did, absolutely, Haley agrees. Let me find out exactly what our stance is on that, and what if anything the U.S. is doing or thinks should be done and I will report back to you on that as well.

In previous prank calls, Vovan and Lexus duped Energy Secretary Rick Perry, congresswoman Maxine Waters, and Senator John McCain. In the call with Perry, the pranksters tricked the secretary into engaging in an extended discussion of pig-manure-based biofuels.

Asked about the veracity of the recording, Haleys spokesperson John Degory told the Post and Courier, We have nothing to share on that at this time.
Photo: H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStoc/Getty Images

My heart races as that familiar bubble pops up on my screen. My supervisor is typing for what seems like forever. In reality, its only a few seconds, but thats still enough time for me to fall into a full-on worry spiral: Did I make a mistake? Is she mad at me? Finally, the text message appears: Thank you.

My days are full of false alarms like this. As a remote worker who communicates with my co-workers exclusively over email, text, G-chat, and Slack, I cant rely on facial expressions or body language or tone of voice to tell me which way a conversation is about to go. And as a freelancer, I get no formal review processes. Most of the time, I dont know how my clients feel about my work. I receive no warnings before they drop me, leading to a nagging feeling that they could do so at any moment.

Its a small comfort that I have plenty of company. A 2016 Gallup survey of more than 15,000 American adults found that 43 percent of employees work remotely at least part of the time. Thats a lot of people left to wonder what their boss is thinking  and a lot of agonizing over the hidden subtext that might be contained in a message (or, worse, in a lack of messages).

Im not just projecting, either  research has shown that a lack of clear feedback from supervisors can have debilitating effects for workers. One ten-year 2009 study of 3,100 Swedish men in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, for example, found that people with uncommunicative bosses are more likely to experience heart disease. Perhaps this lack of communication is one reason why, according to a 2017 United Nations report, 41 percent of remote workers report high stress levels, compared to just 25 percent of office workers. And a 2017 survey published in Harvard Business Review found that remote workers are more likely than on-site employees to believe their colleagues are talking about them negatively behind their backs.

Not receiving feedback has a negative effect on motivation and productivity for all workers, says Anita Williams Woolley, an associate professor of organizational behavior and theory at Carnegie Mellons Tepper School of Business. For remote workers, they have even less opportunity to get feedback or reactions from others informally, so they are operating with even less information, and thus the effects can be more pronounced.

Many bosses have a tendency to provide feedback only when its to point out something wrong, which could worsen this stress, says Williams Woolley. In one study in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, employees recorded their moods at work throughout the day. Negative interactions with bosses, the authors found, had six times the effect on mood that positive ones did.

Even if its balanced, written feedback alone may not provide the clarity employees need to feel confident in their performance. [In person,] you can read body language or at least sense emotion in voices, says Gretchen Spreitzer, the faculty director of the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigans Ross School of Business. The person giving the feedback can read the reactions better and elaborate more details if there appears to be confusion or defensiveness. Words in an email or a text can sometimes be misinterpreted due to the brevity of the words.

Remote workers know this all too well. There is a very real stress with being a remote worker and not knowing how your work is being received, says Tessa Clare Endencia, who runs the book-publishing business Asset Creative House. For instance, a client takes three days to respond to your email. Is it because they hate it? Because they dont want to work with you anymore?

If youve never met your boss in person and solely have emails and texts on which to rely, you dont always know what kind of person they are or their personality, agrees Victoria Shockley, a public-relations account executive. You may not be able to say, John wrote this in a rude manner, but I know what hes like, so he definitely didnt mean it.

But there are ways to make things more bearable short of hunting for an in-person office job. Some web-conferencing systems like Vidyo provide virtual water coolers where people can get to know their co-workers, says Williams Woolley. This could give remote workers the chance to get the informal feedback bosses often give in passing. Slack can also be used for more of a free-flowing exchange, rather than sporadic but formal conversations.

Some managers are also reworking their communication tactics to give employees a more accurate assessment of how theyre performing. Kari DePhillips, who manages a remote team as owner of the Content Factory, sends emails to the whole team when someone does a good job, explaining exactly what theyve done right. Some of my employees felt that I was focusing too much on the negative, she explains. When I reviewed my written feedback in Slack and emails, I could see their point. I wrote many more words detailing negative feedback. I now do the same type of thing with positive feedback. To keep her own employees in the know, Fundamental founder Emma Moore has daily five-minute Skype calls with her whole team, as well as individual evaluation calls every few months.

Research has found this more hands-on approach to be a beneficial one: 46 percent of respondents in the previously mentioned Harvard Business Review survey said the best managers check in regularly with remote workers, and one in four said the most successful ones find a way to get face time.

Workers can also initiate their own conversations to get feedback, something thats definitely helped me keep my nerves in check.

Spreitzer recommends touching base at the beginning and end of every day to make sure everyones on the same page. For Taylor Coil, who does product marketing for Tortuga, a weekly video chat with the CEO is enough to quell any fears that arise while theyre out of touch. Ill get in my head about some paranoia-fueled insecurity and dread the call because Ive convinced myself [he] is disappointed in me, she says. Those weekly calls reassure me when Im feeling tortured about nothing.

These check-ins are also a time to be proactive about highlighting your own success. Not being afraid to pat myself on the back, even if it sounds like youre bragging, goes a long way, Endencia says.

Its easy for people to forget how hard you work, she adds, when youre not working in front of them. Especially when youre constantly stressed over your own performance, a little reminder goes a long way.
Egyptian onlookers are seen gathered at a cordoned off area following a gun attack outside a church south of the capital Cairo, on Dec. 29, 2017. A gunman opened fire on a church, killing at least nine people before policemen shot him dead, state media and officials said. (STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

10 Dead in Cairo Church Attack, Says Health Ministry

At least 10 people were killed in a shootout outside a church in Cairo, Egypt, according to the countrys Health Ministry on Friday.

Eight of the slain victims were identified as Coptic Christians, The Associated Press reported. Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said that a policeman was also killed and five others were wounded.

The gunman was also killed, Megahed confirmed.

A gunman on a motorcycle attempted to break through security outside the church and a shootout took place, AP reported. Officials also found an explosive device in his possession.

Officials then closed off the area around the church. Al Jazeera reported that it was Mar Mina Church in Helwan city, located just south of Cairo.

The Health Ministry also said that the suspect opened fire at a household appliances store before the gunman went to the church.

The security forces have dealt with the attacker and managed to arrest him after he was injured, the ministry said, reported the BBC.

Several people were killed when gunmen opened fire on a Coptic church in Cairo on Friday. It's the latest in a series of attacks on Egyptian Christians. https://t.co/GrVCRnh9LM  New York Times World (@nytimesworld) December 29, 2017

??? #Egypt: raw footage (first images) of the attack on a Christian Coptic church in southern #Cairo, by an armed islamic terrorist. 10 people were killed in the attack. The attacker opened fire outside the church and wounded 5 guards before being shot dead by the police. pic.twitter.com/VgLtwOPMJ7  Onlinemagazin (@OnlineMagazin) December 29, 2017

At least nine people have been killed after a gunman opened fire on worshippers at a Coptic Christian church near Cairo, Egypt. pic.twitter.com/uWO0nfWtE0  AJ+ (@ajplus) December 29, 2017

Nine people were killed when gunmen opened fire at a Coptic Christian church near Cairo, Egypt, the Health Ministry tells CNN https://t.co/22NSl3eF4Q pic.twitter.com/H4t2zdSal8  CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) December 29, 2017

In 2017, as the BBC notes, more than 100 Christians have been killed in Egypt. The local ISIS terrorist branch has claimed responsibility for many of the attacks leading to their deaths.

In Fridays attack, no group has yet claimed responsibility.

Dishwasher Ensures 500 Foster Kids Have Toys for Christmas
3 Dead, Suspect Sought in Las Vegas Home: Police

At least three people were shot and killed in a Las Vegas apartment, according to officials, who said the suspect has not been located yet.

Police spokesman Aaron Patty said that three adults were found shot inside a residence at 2200 block of Carroll Street, near Civic Center Drive and Lake Mead Boulevard, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

3 found shot dead at North Las Vegas apartment. Further details were not available early Friday. https://t.co/kUxyyf5KMl via @LasVegasSun pic.twitter.com/oqHZKk4DeW  Ricardo Torres (@rickytwrites) December 29, 2017

Neighbors said they heard gunshots at around 4 p.m. local time Thursday, Dec. 28, and called the police. Two men and a woman were found dead inside, and officials didnt find anyone else inside the home, the paper reported.

Police told The Associated Press that they dont know the relationship between the people who died. Its also unclear if they knew the gunman.

3 found shot dead at North Las Vegas apartment https://t.co/fFDX2FiMKV pic.twitter.com/Y7MQ958tux  Las Vegas Sun (@LasVegasSun) December 29, 2017

We are really early in the investigation right now so things are very fluid, and developing as I speak, Patty told the Review-Journal. At face value, this is an obvious homicide that is cause for concern, Patty said.

Streets in the area were blocked off as police investigate.

No other details were provided. No one is currently in custody, KDWN reported.

No gun was found at the scene.

The Review-Journal noted that the incident marks the 24h homicide investigation this year in North Las Vegas in 2017.

Police were urging those with information to call 702-633-9111 or Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555.

2017 Year in Review
Two women take a selfie photo in front of a frozen fountain in Bryant Park on a frigid day in Manhattan in New York City on Dec. 27, 2017. Dangerously low temperatures and wind chills the central and eastern United States are making outdoor activity difficult for many Americans. Little relief from the below normal temperatures is expected the first week of the New Year. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Arctic Blast Across US Cold Enough to Freeze Dogs to Death, Bring Snow to Florida

Dangerously cold weather gripped half of the United States on Thursday and Friday, prompting hypothermia and frostbite warnings as temperatures are forecast to remain near record lows through New Years weekend.

The arctic blast has already claimed the life of one dog, which was found frozen on a porch in Ohio, according to the Toledo Blade.

I dont know how long she was out there, Megan Brown, a Humane Society cruelty investigator, told the Blade. She was frozen solid.

Meanwhile, a staffer at Mount Washington Observatory demonstrated the power of hurricane-force winds combined with brutal cold by pouring a kettle of boiling water into the wind. The water instantly turned into snow.

The cold snap scared away even the hardiest freezing weather enthusiasts, with a polar bear plunge being canceled in New Jersey, Fox News reported.

The combination of moisture and cold air could bring snow as far as some parts of Florida on Thursday morning next week, according to Shay Ryan and Greg Dee, meteorologists with WFTS in Tampa, Fla.

The chance of seeing snow in Florida is still a longshot, according to Dee, but would be possible if the freezing temperatures reached south and met with precipitation over Florida.

Ryan forecast the chance of a few flurries at 10 percent while both meteorologists noted that the model can change as time goes by.

But it is completely possible! the meteorologists wrote. Tampa has seen snow before, the last time it snowed in the Bay Area was on January 19, 1977.

At the very least, Florida will experience very cold weather next week.

FLORIDA SNOW | It's a long shot but next Thur AM moisture and cold air may produce #snow showers or flurries near #Tampa. #flwx #florida https://t.co/uMVB16NZN6 pic.twitter.com/xzSQpIrW3p  Greg Dee (@GregDeeWeather) December 29, 2017

A cold front bearing down on the Pacific Northwest was expected to dump as much as 3 feet of snow from Friday morning in parts of Washington state and the northern Rocky Mountains, the National Weather Service said.

The weather is set to test the mettle of hundreds of thousands in New Yorks Times Square as they ring in the New Year on Sunday night. Forecasters said the temperature is likely to dip under 10 degrees Fahrenheit, well below the typical average low for the day.

In Times Square, thousands were bundled up for a chill that hit the city. Its really cold but I love it. My fingers feel like theyre going to break but its OK, said Tashena Eason, 28, a registered nurse from Miami, Florida.

New Years Parties Thousands of Years in the Making

For a time, the hashtag #ItSoCold was the top trending U.S. topic on Twitter on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Tioga, North Dakota, about 200 miles north of Bismarck, was one of the coldest spots in the continental United States on Thursday at minus 15 F early on Thursday afternoon.

For most of the region encompassing New England, northern Pennsylvania, and New York, the National Weather Service issued wind chill advisories or warnings as temperatures were expected to be below 10 degrees F in a wide area.

For upstate New York, east of Lake Ontario, the NWS warned of dangerously cold wind chills of minus 5 F to minus 30 F through Friday.

Erie, a city of about 100,000 on the shores of Lake Erie in northwest Pennsylvania, was expecting a fresh round of winter storms that could bring as much as an additional 10 inches of lake effect snow, forecasters said. The area is already buried under more than 65 inches from a record-breaking storm earlier this week.

At Eries UPMC Hamot hospital  the only trauma center in the area  employees used their own four-wheel-drive vehicles to ferry snowbound workers to the hospital to ensure it could continue to operate. Some employees stayed overnight to avoid getting stranded, Jim Donnelly, the hospitals chief nursing officer, said on Thursday.

Reuters contributed to this report.
At Least 12 Dead in 4-Alarm New York City Apartment Fire

Twelve people were killed, including an infant in a fire that swept through several floors of an apartment building in the New York City borough of the Bronx, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

The massive, four-alarm fire tore through a five-story Bronx apartment at Prospect Avenue near East 187 St on Thursday, Dec. 28 night, officials said.

The FDNY wrote on Twitter that more than 160 firefighters are on the scene.

The fire broke out at 6:51 p.m. local time on the buildings third floor and rapidly tore through the building, the Daily News reported, citing a FDNY spokesman.

De Blasio said the death toll ranked as one of the worst losses of life to a fire in many, many years in the city.

Four people were in hospital in critical condition fighting for their lives, the mayor said.

Authorities said firefighters rescued 12 people from the building.

Temperatures in New York City reached 15 degrees Fahrenheit with additional wind chills on Thursday night.

A number of photos and videos uploaded to social media the building appeared to show that the fire under control. There were smoke or flames visible, but windows on the third floor seemed to be smashed or blackened.

In 2007, a fire in the Bronx killed nine children and one adult. The fire was caused by a space heater, according to ABC News.

The cause of the blaze is not yet known. Other details have not been revealed by officials.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Up next

2017 Year in Review
A North Korean flag flies on a mast at the Permanent Mission of North Korea in Geneva on Oct. 2, 2014. (REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo)

China Denies Shipping Oil to North Korea After Trump Criticism, But South Korea Has New Proof

China on Friday denied reports it has been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was not happy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation.

Trump said on Twitter the previous day that China had been caught allowing oil into North Koreaand that would prevent a friendly solution to the crisis over North Koreas nuclear and missile programs that it conducts in defiance of heavy U.N. Security Council sanctions.

I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war, Trump said in a separate interview with The New York Times.

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

South Koreas Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that U.S. spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times since October.

South Korea said on Friday it had seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship suspected of transferring oil to North Korea.

A senior South Korean foreign ministry official said the ship, the Lighthouse Winmore, was seized when it arrived at a South Korean port in late November.

Its unclear how much oil the ship had transferred to North Korea for how long and on how many occasions, but it clearly showed North Korea is engaged in evading the sanctions, the official told Reuters.

South Koreas customs service concluded that the Lighthouse Winmore had loaded about 14,000 tons of Japanese refined petroleum products in South Korea on Oct. 11, reportedly bound for Taiwan, the official said.

But instead, it transferred as much as 600 tons to the North Korea-flagged Sam Jong 2 on Oct. 19 in international waters between China and the Korean peninsula, on the order of its charterer, Billions Bunker Group Corp., based in Taiwan, the ministry official said.

It was not immediately possible to find contact information for the company.

A spokesman for Taiwans presidential office, Alex Huang, said the company was not incorporated in Taiwan.

As a responsible member of international society, Taiwan will continue to fully comply with all U.N. sanctions against North Korea, in order to support peace and stability in the region, he said in a statement.

The Hong Kong government said it was liaising with the Korean parties concerned to obtain further information about the incident, and will take appropriate actions as necessary.

Employees at the office of Lighthouse Ship Management, the ships registered manager, in the Chinese port city of Guangzhou, declined to comment and said they had no knowledge of the situation.

Chinas foreign ministry spokeswoman said she did not have any information about the matter.

US Ship-Ban Proposal

Both ships were among 10 vessels the United States has proposed that the U.N. Security Council should blacklist for transporting banned items from North Korea, documents seen by Reuters this month showed.

China and Russia have asked for more time to consider the U.S. proposal.

The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea and the U.N. Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions in response to Pyongyangs Nov. 29 test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Those sanctions seek to further limit North Koreas access to refined petroleum products and crude oil and Washington says the full cooperation of China, North Korea main trading partner, is vital if this peaceful pressure campaign is to succeed.

It has warned that all options are on the table, including military ones, if sanctions fail.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was asked by reporters on Friday whether the U.S. Navy might become involved in seizing vessels suspected of transferring oil to North Korea.

He said he would not speculate on future operations but added: Obviously if a government finds that there is a ship in their port conducting trade that was forbidden under the U.N. Security Council resolution, then they have an obligation and so far we have seen nations take that obligation seriously.

The Navys forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and the forward-deployed Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Stethem steam alongside ships from the Republic of Korea Navy in the waters east of the Korean Peninsula on October 18, 2017. Picture taken on October 18, 2017. (Kenneth Abbate/U.S. Navy/Handout via REUTERS)

In September, the Security Council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea.

The latest U.N. resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to NorthKorea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year.

It also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Security Council to further cuts if North Korea conducts another nuclear or intercontinental ballistic missile test.

Ship tracking data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows that the Lighthouse Winmore has mainly been doing supply runs between China and Taiwan since August.

Prior to that, it was active between India and the United Arab Emirates. In October, when it allegedly transferred petroleum products to the North Korean ship, the Lighthouse Winmore had its tracking transponder switched off.

Melania Trumps First Year as First Lady
Chinese Regime Uses High Tech to Keep Tabs on Employees Abroad

With Chinese businesses expanding their ambitions abroad, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants to make sure it can keep tabs on its Party members.

All businesses in China are required to set up Party organizations at their firms. In order to get ahead and succeed in the company, employees are often pressured to join.

When theyre sent abroad to work overseas, companies are using todays advanced technology to their advantage: instilling some old-school methods of thought control to ensure these Chinese citizens are still toeing the Party line.

Beijing Urban Construction Group, a large construction and real estate firm with billions of yuan in assets, uses WeChat, a popular Chinese instant messaging app, to keep track of employees. Party members are required to use the apps group chats to share photos, notes, and experiences about their weekly mandatory party-theory-studying sessions.

At PetroChina, a state-owned oil company, the firm has even developed its own app, requiring every overseas Party member to download a company party-building app, which assigns them questions on Party ideology to answer within a fixed time period.

A PetroChina employee in charge of overseas development told a Chinese newspaper, Southern Weekly, that the app records every time a member signs onto it. Whenever a Party organization activity is held, the organization must upload minutes about the event. Party members can also pay their membership dues via the app.

Through searching publicly available documents from different private and state-run corporations, The Epoch Times also discovered other ways in which companies indoctrinate overseas employees with Party ideology.

In some countries, Communist Party activities are not allowed or endorsed. Chinese companies thus use office automation (OA) software systems as a cover.

Beijing Urban Construction Group has six party organizations with 35 members. In a promotional document, Wang Li, the party secretary of the companys party committee, touted the OA system as an important platform for the work of party-building.

Party ideology-related documents pop up once employees log into the system, Wang explained. The higher-ups can directly see on the platform the click rate on study materials. Anytime, one can understand each party organization and each party members studying situation while online, Wang added.

Many state-run enterprises, such as PetroChina and Sinopec, also have written in their employee manuals that the OA system can be used for party-building.

Study materials usually consist of ideology documents, documentaries on the Partys anti-corruption efforts, and a handbook titled, Two studying and one doing, a 2016 document issued by the central authorities General Office for corporations. It requires Party members to study materials in sync with members in mainland, on subjects like how to be proper member, party rules, and speeches by CCP leaders.

Xue Chi, an independent analyst of current affairs in China, said this news confirms the Chinese Communist Partys agenda. These corporations have two faces. One side is the corporations facade, which is legally operating overseas, another side is exporting Communist ideology. Because the corporations overseas operations are itself an execution of the CCPs broader strategy, it has already considered this kind of politicization, he said.

Furthermore, the Party is concerned that when Chinese citizens are exposed to how free societies operate, they will become disillusioned with the Party regime, Xue said. So it is using internal methods to control people.

Companies were especially vigilant during the 19th National Congress in October, a major political conclave when the top Communist leadership underwent a transition of power.

The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, a state-owned aerospace manufacturer, sent a notice to its employee Party members working in Europe and the United States, requiring them to watch the 19th Congress and study it closely.

On Oct. 18, the Chinese web portal China Construction News reported that 37 Party members employed at China State Construction Engineering Corporation who were in Algiers, Algeria to build Africas largest mosque, stayed up all night to watch the 19th Congress opening ceremony live. The televised program began at 2 a.m. local time. Nearby workers of Chinese descent were also called in to watch the ceremony.

Xu Yun contributed to this report.
A 44-year-old CNBC director has been accused of spying on his 18-year-old nanny. (Ken Wolter/Shutterstock))

CNBC Director Accused of Spying on 18-Year-Old Nanny

A director at CNBC is being accused of spying on his teenage nanny by putting a camera in the family bathroom to record her, the New York Daily News reports.

According to authorities, Dan Switzen, 44, hid a camera inside a tissue box to surreptitiously view a person dressing or undressing at a place and time when [the victim] had a reasonable expectation of privacy without knowledge or consent, a complaint filed in Pleasantview Village Court reads.

On Nov. 13, the nanny, 18, invited some of her teenage friends over to the house and one of them discovered the camera in the tissue box.

They brought the camera to police, who found incriminating evidence on the cameras memory card.

Pleasantville police obtained a search warrant and arrested Switzen on a felony count of unlawful surveillance, the Daily News reports. He was later released without bail, his lawyer said.

Hes a very decent family man. I dont want to litigate these allegations in the press, lawyer Jeffrey Chartier told the Daily News. We will defend him accordingly.

Both Switzen and a CNBC spokesperson have declined to comment to the media.

Switzen went to the State University of New York at Albany before transferring to the University of Florida where he graduated in 1995 with a degree in telecommunications (television production), Heavy.com reports, citing his now-deleted LinkedIn profile.

In 1996, he began his career as a technical director at MSNBC, then two years later, he moved to become a director at Fox 6 News in San Diego, Heavy.com reports.

Since 2001, he has worked as a director at CNBC, working mainly with the Suze Orman Show and Power Lunch, his Linkedin profile said.

From NTD.tv

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2017 Year in Review
Crying 2-Year-Old Leads Police to Dead Mother at Bottom of Stairs

Police found a young mother dead a the bottom of a stairwell on Dec. 27 after neighbors reported the womans 2-year-old child screaming and crying in Brooklyn, New York.

Police only discovered the 22-year-olds body after a second call to the location. Police suspect the womans husband, 29-year-old Barry Wells, is responsible, PIX 11 reported.

It was him, Tonie Wellss sister said, referring to Barry, via the Daily News. It wasnt an accident. It was definitely him.

Tonie had a miscarriage last month after a domestic disturbance, Tonies cousin told the Daily News. She was eight months pregnant.

Barry Wells was also charged in a domestic violence incident that occurred in July for choking Tonie after dragging her into a closet at her mothers Manhattan home. He was arrested for the crime in September, according to PIX 11. The case is still pending but a temporary order of protection was issued. Police were called for another incident that happened between the couple in September but did not make an arrest, according to another Daily News report.

Two police were suspended over their response to the current incident. Someone called 911 at 8:40 AM when they heard Tonie and Barry arguing outside. The caller said she heard a woman yell help me, hes going to kill me, according to CBS New York.

Police arrived for a wellness check but reportedly never exited their vehicle. They left the scene and said the call was unfounded in their report. The temperature was in the low 20 degrees. Both the Brooklyn borough president and the chief of police criticized the choices the officers reportedly made, according to CBS. Officials are also investigating if the officers received the correct information from 911.

A different set of officers arrived around 10 a.m. and found the body of Tony Wells, after a later call to 911, CBS reported.

Tonie posted a video on Facebook, nine months ago, showing the moment Barry proposed to her by handing her what looked like a bag of takeout food. Instead, she finds a ring inside.

Barry posted this in a Facebook status update, after quoting lines from a Tupac song praising women and mothers in another post:

and if you have a child, never let your child see you blatantly disrespect their mother. I personally live by this and my childs mother can tell you herself, NO MATTER WHAT because they begin to think thats the norm. ESPECIALLY if you have a daughter, she gonna grow up believing its okay to be treated that way!

He posted the update on Oct. 21, 2016, months before he and Tonie were married.

From NTD.tv
Dogs that Attacked 53-year-old Neighbor Are Coming Back Home and Shes Terrified

A 53-year-old Phoenix woman recovering from deep wounds after her neighbors dogs attacked her is terrified of facing the two pit bull mixes again.

It scares me, I wouldnt want anybody to have to go through this. Its awful, Donna Faulkner told 3TV/CBS5 reporters from a hospital bed.

Faulkner recently learned that the two dogs that seriously injured her have been returned to their owner and are likely settling back into the neighborhood after 10 days in quarantine at an animal care facility.

Im not thrilled about the dogs being next door, but well take one step at a time, Faulkner said.

Following the attack, the dogs were taken to Maricopa County Animal Care and Control.

Jose Santiago, a spokesman for the institution, said their owner will face charges for letting them run loose.

This was an unfortunate incident, and by filing these charges against the owner were trying to ensure it wont happen again, Santiago told reporters.

The owner faces accusations of not properly restraining or enclosing the animalswhats known as a dog-at-large charge.

Im happy (about the charges), Faulkner reportedly said. Hes got to be accountable for something. Somethings got to happen.

According to Santiago, a conviction on a dog-at-large charge, a misdemeanor, does not mean the dogs will be taken away from the owner. And thats something the victims daughter, Staci Faulkner, doesnt agree with.

Im very upset. Im very disappointed in the system and how this can happen, Staci Faulkner said.

She believes the dogs are dangerous and wants them removed from the custody of the owner. But the only way that could happen is if a judge or city magistrate rules that the dogs pose a danger.

It doesnt make any sense how they can justify giving these dogs back to this guy, she told 3TV/CBS5 reporters. Its not so much about him. Its [that] you cant have these type of animals out that can attack people.

Were going to go the avenue to filing the vicious dog petition just so my mom can feel safe going home, she added.

According to Arizona law, a vicious animal is one a that has a propensity to attack, to cause injury to or to otherwise endanger the safety of human beings without provocation.

And if a dog is classified as vicious, it could even be put down.

Faulkner is still recovering from deep dog bites to her arm and calf.

The woman said she was walking to her mailbox on Wednesday, Dec. 13, when she noticed her neighbors dogs loose.

She says they attacked without provocation.

It was like they snapped when I said go out in the yard, Faulkner is reported to have said. Just latched on and tore it all open.

I have 16 staples in the back of my calf that we can see. And numerous ones on my arm; we cant even count how many there are. Theres possibly nerve damage, Faulkner said.

The victims other daughter, 11 weeks pregnant at the time, allegedly came to her rescue.

Before I knew it, she was screaming for me to help her, so I ran out there and did what I had to and got the dogs off of her, said Stephanie Faulkner, according to 3TV/CBS5. There was blood everywhere; there was blood on the gate, all over the ground.

The family has set up a GoFundMe account to help with medical expenses.

I need help. This is going to be tough for me for a long time. I dont make a whole lot of money. I have a job that I wont be able to go to for I dont know how long. Its going to be rough for a while, said Donna Faulkner.

Efforts by 3TV/CBS5 reporters to contact the dog owner for comment have been unsuccessful.

2017 Year in Review
Four-Year-Old Girls Final Wish May Have Saved Her Life

A 4-year-old girl with an inoperable brain tumor has survived Christmas thanks to an unexpected turn of events.

When parents Matt and Erin Tietjen found out their daughter needed treatment for anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare type of brain tumor, they decided to take her to Disney World in Florida to fulfill their daughters final wish.

The family told Inside Edition that as they were preparing to board the plane back, Linas condition suddenly worsened and she needed emergency surgery. They rushed her to a hospital and were told by doctors that the tumor had doubled in size.

But Dr. Samer K. Elbabaa gave them unexpected hope. He said the tumors location had shifted, and suggested radical surgery.

They told us in the very beginning that if we did the procedure on the tumor that it would be devastating to her. It could kill her immediately or it could cause just significant damage to her, said Linas mother Erin, according to Inside Edition.

Family praises 'miracle surgeon' after daughter's emergency surgery via the @FoxNews App https://t.co/ao7DOZe5JA  Florida Paratrooper (@kjross1970) December 29, 2017

But the tumor had shifted, meaning that the operation could take place, Fox News reported.

He [Dr. Elbabaa] had told us that because of where the tumor had shifted to, that it probably was something where he could get in and operate, Matt Tietjen said to the news outlet. His estimate initially was 50 to 70 percent of the total tumor could possibly be removed.

Elbabaa reportedly managed to remove about 90 percent of the tumor, giving Lina a new lease of life, and more options for treatment.

What this does buy us is time with her and time to pursue all different courses of treatment, said Erin Tietjen.

She felt that the trip to Florida was meant to be.

When we first got the diagnosis, that very, very first day back in November in the room, the first question I asked, strangely enough, was, When can I take her to Disney World? I dont know why I thought it, it just popped out of my mouth and I look back on that and I think there is a miracle in Florida for us, Erin said, according to Fox News.

Erin described the experience as a Christmas miracle.

Dr. Elbabaa, I think he might actually be an angel, she said to Inside Edition. I really do think that our Christmas miracle was meeting him.
A Border Patrol agent parks on a hilltop near the border fence in Nogales, Arizona, on Feb. 17, 2017. A high-speed chase near Amado, Arizona, resulted in several charges against a man, including for smuggling aliens and shooting at Border Patrol agents on Dec. 24, 2017. (JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Human Smuggler Shoots at Border Patrol During High-Speed Chase

WASHINGTONRoberto Ramirez pulled up at a Border Patrol checkpoint near Amado, Arizona, on Christmas Eve. His hands were shaking tremendously as he held a cigarette, and he refused to make eye contact. His two passengers stared straight ahead, a Border Patrol agent recounted in a court document.

Ramirez, 21, told the agent that he was heading to Tucson, Arizona, and the two passengers were his friends. He was directed to a secondary screening area after the agent failed to get a direct answer about citizenship from the passengers.

Ramirez briefly paused at the secondary area before speeding through the inspection point and fleeing along I-19 at speeds up to 90 miles per hour, according to court documents. Two Border Patrol agents pursued in separate vehicles. The agents both tried pursuit techniques to stop Ramirez, but he allegedly tried to swerve into their vehicles.

One of the agents then drove alongside Ramirez, but hit the brakes when he saw Ramirez point a gun at him and start firing, the court documents state.

Suddenly, Ramirezs Ford Escape jerked and flipped multiple times, throwing passenger Eduardo Villegas-Ocochoto out of the vehicle. Villegas-Ocochoto suffered serious injuries including a broken collarbone and shoulder.

Later, passenger German Vasquez-Luna said he was an illegal alien who had made arrangements in Mexico to be smuggled into the United States for $7,000. He had planned to be smuggled to Kalamazoo, Michigan, and work at a stable. Vasquez-Luna said he had been picked up by Ramirez somewhere near Nogales, Arizona. He said Ramirez crashed because he was trying to reload his pistol while driving. Ramirez had said, This time they are not going to catch me, according to the court document.

Villegas-Ocochoto said he was also heading to Kalamazoo and had already paid 17,000 Mexican pesos ($864) and owed another 143,000 pesos ($7,270). He said he had crossed into the United States from Mexico earlier that day and was picked up by a pickup truck and then transferred to Ramirezs vehicle.

Both passengers said they had never met Ramirez before.

Ramirez said he got paid $500 for each illegal alien to transport them to Phoenix, Arizona. He told police he was working off a debt his father owed to the cartel and that he had bought the gun two days earlier so that he could kill his father.

Ramirez was charged with multiple offenses, including transportation of illegal aliens resulting in serious bodily injury, high-speed flight from a Border Patrol checkpoint, assault on a federal officer, and use of a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime.

Several of the charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

He will remain in custody for the duration of the trial.
Man Drives Into Freezing Columbia River to Escape Police

As escape plans go, this one was lacking.

Police confronted 27-year-old Timofey Erofeeff about prowling around without permission on moored boats at North Tongue Point, Oregon. When they approached him, Erofeeff leapt into his red Ford F-150 pickup and sped away down a pier, reported The Daily Astorian.

Unfortunately for the 27-year-old Scotts Mills resident, he wasnt aimed toward the landward end.

In a spectacular show of poor judgment, Erofeeff sped right off the end of the pier and into the frigid Columbia River.

Erofeeff tried to swim away, but the cold water and swift current defeated him.

He couldnt cross the river, and he would have frozen to death if he stayed in the water, so he swam back to shore.

When he reached the pier, he couldnt even climb back upthe pier was too tall.

Police threw the freezing man a life preserver and planned his rescue, FoxNews reported.

The police called the Coast Guard and prepped a helicopter should it be needed.

Luckily for Erofeeff, employees from a local shipbuilding firm, WCT Marine & Construction Inc., sailed up in a small craft and pulled the hapless prowler out of the water. They might well have saved his life.

After only 20 minutes in the freezing water, the would-be escape artist had to be transported to Columbia Memorial Hospital to be treated for hypothermia.

Im thankful the men from WCT Marine and fishing vessel (Pacific Wind) were there and willing to help, Astoria Deputy Police Chief Eric Halverson told The Daily Astorian. Mr. Erofeeff should be thankful too.

From the hospital, Erofeeff went straight to jail. He was booked into Clatsop County Jail on charges of violating parole, second-degree criminal trespass, interfering with a police officer, attempt to elude a police officer, reckless driving and third-degree escape, ABC8 reported.

He had prior arrests in Clackamas County and Deschutes County for burglary, identity theft, and probation violation.

Erofeefs truck is still at the bottom of the Columbia River. Deputy Chief Halverson said his office was in contact with the Coast Guard about retrieving the vehicle but Its in the river for now.

From NTD.tv

2017 Year in Review
Model Collapses From Brain Hemorrhage While Singing Karaoke, Dies 3 Days Later

A part-time model has died after suffering a brain hemorrhage while singing karaoke.

Marketing consultant Karen Stella Wong, 28, was singing with her friends at a karaoke lounge in Singapore on Dec. 12 when one side of her body suddenly went numb and her head began to ache.

After being transported to Singapore General Hospital, she went into a coma and died three days later, according to the Strait Times.

The newspaper reported that Wong had died from bleeding in her brain, referred to as acute intracerebral hemorrhage.

Her father said there was no family history of the condition.

No one in our family has any history of acute intracerebral hemorrhage. Once in a while, she would get a headache like normal people do, he said.

Under Singaporean law, the family was forced to donate Wongs liver and both her kidneys.

Singapores Human Organ Transplant Act requires all Singaporean citizens and permanent residents over the age of 21 who are of sound mind and have not opted out, to have their kidneys, heart, liver, and corneas removed when they die.

Wongs parents were not aware of the Act. Initially, her father struggled with the decision but ultimately came to terms with it.

I heard they managed to do transplants on three patients. I feel its a blessing that at least she can help three people, Wongs father told the Strait Times.

He added: My main worry now is my wife. She was very close to my daughter. They were like sisters. She is staying at a relatives house for the time being.

He said his daughters last words were upbeat as she left the house.

She said, Daddy, Im going out, and she continued joking with the maid and my mother as she closed the door.
Mom Claims Talking Doll Has a Dirty Mouth

A mother in England is claiming that her daughters doll, called My Little BABY Born, has a dirty mouth.

Its meant to say mama, dadaits totally not, Siobhan Fox, of Tamworth, told The Sun newspaper.

My daughter is two-and-a-half-years-old, she wanted it because her friend has one, it was on the top of her list, she said. My husband got it out for her and put the batteries inI was not in the room. My daughter had it off my husband and it just caught his ear.

Her husband called me in and said look what do you think to this, I got it straight away, she claimed.

She purchased the doll for her daughter, Darcey, but she revealed that she had to take it away from her after it yelled curse words.

I do not know if its a one-off or if theyre all saying that, Fox told the paper.

The doll says, You [expletive], instead of more family-friendly phrases, the mother claimed.

That was what she really wanted and I felt so awful taking it off her but I could not let her go out in public with the doll saying that, added Fox.

The doll is made by German toy company, Zapf Creation, and is sold on the U.K. Toys R Us website for about $20. Fox said that she doesnt want a refund, as Toys R Us offered her, but instead, she wants the doll recalled.

Zapf, for its part, said that the dolls sounds were not meant to sound offensive.

At Zapf Creation we take all feedback very seriously, the company told Fox News. Our BABY born products are created to be a fun introduction to imaginative parent-child play. The My Little BABY born Walks doll includes baby babble sounds that are in no way meant to represent language or cause any offense to users.

Fox also uploaded a clip to YouTube showing the doll saying the alleged curse word (Warning: it might be offensive to some people):

Moms Hilarious Reaction to Raptor Scare
New York firefighters work at the scene of an apartment fire on Dec. 29, 2017, in the Bronx, New York City. Officials said Friday that the death toll from the fire has reached 12, including four children. (Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty Images)

Mother Loses 4 Family Members in Bronx Fire

A massive apartment inferno killed 12 people in Bronx, New Yorkincluding four members of the same family.

Elain Williams said she lost her daughter, sister, and two nieces in the Thursday night fire at 2363 Prospect Ave.

I feel so empty so lost, Williams told the New York Post outside the damaged apartment building on Friday, Dec. 29.

Standing right here my soul is gone. Four [victims], one family? Come on nowI dont wish that on my worst enemy, she said.

The four family members were identified by Williams as her 19-year-old daughter Shawntay Young, her sister Karen Stewart, 37, and her two niecesKelly Francis, 6, and Kiley Francis, 2.

Her brother-in-law, Francis Holt, was also recovering in hospital from injuries.

Over 160 #FDNY members are operating on scene of a 4-alarm fire, 2363 Prospect Ave #Bronx pic.twitter.com/wjN9mMqCHU  FDNY (@FDNY) December 29, 2017

Daniel Nigro, New Yorks fire department commissioner, said on Twitter that the fire started in a kitchen on the first floor. The fire was caused by a young 3-year-old boy who was playing with the burners on a stove.

Williams said she was on the street coming home from work when she got a call about the fire.

I was calling my daughter to see where she isaccidentally she [was] upstairs at her aunts. She got caught in the fire too, Williams the New York Post.

FDNY Fire Marshals found that this fire started in the kitchen on the first floor. It started from a young boy, 3  years old, playing with burners on the stove #FDNY Commissioner Nigro on fatal 5th alarm at 2363 Prospect Ave #Bronx  FDNY (@FDNY) December 29, 2017

She then rushed to the Jacobi Medical Center where she got the terrible news, Thats when I find out they all dead.

Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio said the Bronx fire was the worst fire tragedy in at least a quarter of a century.

Tonight in the Bronx we've seen the worst fire tragedy in at least a quarter of a century. It is an unspeakable tragedy, and families have been torn apart. pic.twitter.com/0kCFMzxt79  Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) December 29, 2017

Williamss other sister, Shevan Williams managed to survive the blaze after escaping in time from her first floor apartment.

Its hard to takeits really, really hard to take. Its really hard, Shevan told the New York Post.

My soul is gone: Woman lost 4 family members in Bronx blaze https://t.co/zWAmCKj4fb pic.twitter.com/tq5E31wpJS  New York Post Metro (@nypmetro) December 29, 2017

Shevan said she heard a smoke alarm during the fire but said she initially wasnt paying attention to it.

I hear them say: Fire! Fire! So when I open my door and come outwhen I look, its a lot of smoke by the time I get out, now my sister didnt come out in time behind me, she said.

From NTD.tv

2017 Year in Review
Police in Australia are hunting a would-be kidnapper who seized mere seconds of inattention by an 8-year-old girl's mother to try and abduct the child. (Queensland Police)

Parents Worst Nightmare: Chilling Moment a Man Tries to Abduct Little Girl from Back of Car

Frightening footage has been released by police warning parents to keep an eye on their children at all times, after a would-be kidnapper nearly abducted a little girl in broad daylight from a hotel parking lot in Australia.

The security camera video released by Queensland Police shows a woman park her car at the Emerald Hotel in the city of Emerald, Australia, at around 4:50 pm on Thursday, Dec. 28, and exit the car with a child.

According to 7 News Brisbane, the woman was taking her two children to a birthday party at the hotel.

A white Toyota pickup truck pulls up alongside the parked vehicle as the mother walks one of the children into the building.

A man jumps out of the pickup and walks a few paces behind the woman, before turning and appearing to look intently at the unaccompanied 8-year-old girl.

He then walks back to his truck and appears to take something from his truck, while looking around the empty parking lot.

Leaving the door to his pickup truck open, the man briskly proceeds to the womans car, opens the passenger door, and reaches inside.

As the man tries to grab the girl, she begins screaming, Queensland police wrote, which cannot be heard in the silent footage.

The man pulls back and quickly walks back to his vehicle.

As the man gets into his truck, a hotel staff member can be seen wheeling a trolley across the parking lot.

The man is then seen making a quick getaway.

Police say the girl was not injured in the incident.

The alleged would-be kidnapper is described by police as caucasian in appearance with a proportionate build and was last seen wearing a green T-shirt, dark shorts, and sandals.

The vehicle is described by police as a white Toyota Hilux utility vehicle with a green bin in the back.

The police are now trying to track down the man who apparently tried to snatch the girl.

This is a developing story.

WATCH: the security cam footage of the attempted abduction:
Passenger Who Was Bumped From United First-Class Seat Responds to US Rep. Jackson Lees Racism Charge

A passenger who says United Airlines gave her first class seat to Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has fired back at the congresswomans accusations of racismwhile demanding an apology from the airline.

Jean-Marie Simon, 63, rejected the racism allegations in an interview with Fox News on Dec. 28. Simon said that she had no idea who was in her seat when she complained at the gate that her seat was given to someone else.

That could have been Donald Duck in my seat, Simon told the news station. I could not see who had boarded the flight. I didnt even know who she was.

Simon, an attorney and private school teacher, first detailed her grievances in a Facebook post on Dec. 20 where she claimed United gave preferential treatment to Jackson Lee by giving the Texas Congress member her first class seat while she was bumped back to Economy Plus.

She further claimed the airline threatened to throw her off the plane for making her objections known and for taking a photo of Jackson Lee sitting in her first-class seat.

Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) in seat 1A the one I paid for dearly, and the one United gave to her without my consent or knowledge! Fellow congressman on same flight said she does it repeatedly. @united pic.twitter.com/Q2c6u6B0Yp  Jean-Marie Simon (@JeanMarieSimon1) December 23, 2017

In response, Jackson Lee issued a statement on Dec. 22 suggesting that Simons complaint was due to racism.

Since this was not any fault of mine, the way the individual continued to act appeared to be, upon reflection, because I was an African American woman, seemingly an easy target along with the African American flight attendant who was very, very nice. This saddens me, especially at this time of year given all of the things we have to work on to help people. But in the spirit of this season and out of the sincerity of my heart, if it is perceived that I had anything to do with this, I am kind enough to simply say sorry. I understand the airline is working to address the passengers concerns. I am glad of that, the congresswoman said in her statement.

On Dec. 26, the congresswoman tweeted the airlines statement of the incident claiming that Simon had canceled her flight from Houston to D.C.

UNITED AIRLINES STATEMENT After thoroughly examining our electronic records, we found that upon receiving a notification that Flight 788 was delayed due to weather, the customer appears to have canceled her flight from Houston to Washington, D.C. within the United mobile app.  Sheila Jackson Lee (@JacksonLeeTX18) December 26, 2017

However, Simon vehemently denies that she had canceled it and is challenging Uniteds account of the incident.

Im not some AARP grandmother who doesnt know how to use a phone, she told Fox News. I know how to cancel a flight and I did not cancel this flight.

The 63-year-olds main gripe is with the airline, who told media outlets that they had apologized to her when she said they had not. She said she had received a $500 voucher on the day of the incident before she made her complaint online and a low-level employee at a call center said he was sorry on the phone. But, she still has not received a formal written apology from the airline.

Simon confirmed on Dec. 27 via Twitter that the letter she had posted to the United customer care officer and chief legal counsel demanding a formal apology has been received by the airline but United has not provided a response.

Received UPS receipts for 12/26 delivery of letters to United customer care officer and chief legal counsel. Called United today, left message, since no apology forthcoming yet. @United @AP  Jean-Marie Simon (@JeanMarieSimon1) December 27, 2017

In her latest post on Facebook, Simon has demanded United to also produce evidence that she had canceled her Dec. 18 flights.

United: Its been a week: where is proof that cancellation came from my mobile app and not that of a United employee? Why, if I canceled my flight, are you telling media that you apologized? When people cancel a flight, they usually book another flight: where is my other flight? I have flown DC to Guatemala on United dozens of times: I know the drill, she wrote on Dec. 27.

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From NTD.tv
Police: Human Remains Found in Woods Belong to Missing Florida Mom

Human remains of a missing mother from Hudson, Florida have been located, Pasco County officials said Thursday.

At around 6:05 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 26, officers responded to a call that informed them human remains were discovered in a wooded area near 12800 Jayton Avenue in Hudson, ABC News reported.

The body of Destiny Lee Aaron, 21, was identified through dental records. Aaron went missing back on April 1 this year after she left her home, according to a press conference by the Pasco Sheriffs Office.

Aaron left her home on Placid Road in Hudson after an argument with her boyfriend. According to ABC News, she left her home on foot while intoxicated.

The Sheriffs Office said the mother was scheduled for a hearing involving a custody battle just a few days before she went missing.

It was the final hearing for the custody of her child, according to ABC News.

Destiny was scheduled for a hearing a few days before she went missing involving a custody battle.  Pasco Sheriff (@PascoSheriff) December 28, 2017

On Tuesday, December 26. Remains of a body were discovered that matched that of Destiny Aaron.  Pasco Sheriff (@PascoSheriff) December 28, 2017

As of writing, police did not say if the boyfriend was involved in the murder. According to the Tampa Bay Times, foul play is not suspected in the mothers death.

In the press conference, authorities also revealed that Aaron was last seen at a party, adding that her body was found a quarter mile away from the location of the party.

Officials told ABC News there was no evidence of any trauma to Aarons body.

Detectives are still searching how she got to the location where she was found and the cause of death. The case is still an open and active investigation.

If anyone has any information on the case, please contact the Pasco Crime Tip Line at 1-800-706-2488.

2017 Year in Review

From NTD.tv
A driver found a suitcase with human remains in Butts County, near the I-75, on Dec. 28, 2017. (CC0)

Suitcase with Human Remains Found in Butts County near I-75

A driver roaming along roadside on Interstate 75 in Butts County on Thursday made a gruesome discoverya suitcase with human remains.

The Butts County Sheriff told Fox5 that locked inside the luggage were bones and a skull.

Driver discovers suitcase with human bones on side of I-75: https://t.co/rp8UF9YEGt pic.twitter.com/E1ctyLrpx1  WSB-TV (@wsbtv) December 29, 2017

According to a WGXA report, human pelvic bones were among the remains.

Driver discovers suitcase with human bones on side of I-75 https://t.co/mMXfYVfAEP pic.twitter.com/HWiSgPBYjb  WSB-TV (@wsbtv) December 29, 2017

The suitcase was reportedly found at mile marker 203 near Harkness and Colwell roads around 1:45 p.m. on Dec. 28 by a motorist scouring the area for a piece of cargo he thought he had lost.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) was called in to assist in the investigation.

GBI spokesman Bahan Rich said in a statement that the body parts were of human origin.

A motorist searching for a lost item on the side of I-75 southbound, within a few miles of exit 201, located what is believed to be human skeletal remains, Rich stated in a GBI news release.

He added that it appeared that the body had been in the woods for a while.

It appeared that the suitcase had been at the location for some time and was not recently deposited, Rich said.

Ralph Wilson of the Butts County Coroners Office suggested that whoever put the suitcase there didnt simply dump it out of a moving vehicle.

It appears that it was carried in, Wilson told reporters.

The location of the find was allegedly not far south of exit 205 in Butts County, between State Road 16 and State Road 35, next to the southbound lanes of I-75.

The remains have been taken to the medical examiners office for further investigation.

Anyone with information the suitcase is asked to call the Butts County Sheriffs Office at 770-775-8232 or the GBI office in Milledgeville at 478-445-4173.

BREAKING: Human bones found along I-75 in Butts County. @WGXAnews https://t.co/Po4T4FbfoW  Katie Thurber (@KatieWGXA) December 28, 2017

2017 Year in Review
Taiwan President Warns China Against Military Aggression

TAIPEITaiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Friday Chinas military ambitions are becoming more apparent and tension between Taiwan and the mainland must not be resolved through military force.

Tsai has faced increasing hostility from China since she won election early last year, with China stepping up military drills around Taiwan.

China suspects Tsai, from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, wants to push for the self-ruled islands formal independence, a red line for Beijing, which considers Taiwan a wayward province and sacred Chinese territory.

Chinas military activities dont only impact the situation in the Taiwan Strait, but also in all of East Asia  This is not a problem being faced alone by Taiwan, Tsai told reporters.

All countries in this region who want to see peace and stability, have a consensus  and China cant ignore this, that cross strait issues absolutely cant be resolved through military force but through peaceful means, Tsai said during a news conference on a stage flanked by two models of fighter jets.

Tsai, however, said her island would not be passive in the face of a more hawkish China.

Over the past year, the morale of our military is steadily improving, support for our military is also continuously increasing. This is the most gratifying thing since Ive become president. I hereby solemnly announce that our annual defense budget will grow steadily within a reasonable range.

Taiwans defense ministry warned in a white paper this week that Chinas military threat was growing by the day, with the Chinese air force carrying out 16 rounds of exercises close to Taiwan over the past year or so.

Beijing says the drills are routine and that Taiwan had better get used to them.

We live in a fast changing geopolitical environment; Chinas ambition in military expansion in the region is becoming more apparent, as evident by the Peoples Liberation Armys frequent aerial and naval activities, Tsai said.

China has warned Taiwan against using weapons to refuse reunification and Chinas state media has prominently featured pictures of Chinese jets flying close to the island.

Tsai has stressed she wants peace across the Taiwan Strait, but has pledged to defend Taiwans security and way of life.

Taiwan is well equipped with mostly U.S.-made weapons, but has been pressing Washington to sell more advanced equipment.

Democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in being run by Beijing. Taiwans government has accused Beijing of not understanding what democracy is about when it criticizes Taipei.

By Fabian Hamacher

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2017 Year in Review
Sculptor Sabin Howards World War I national monument

WASHINGTONWounds of history, however long ago inflicted, can begin to heal as soon as they are acknowledged. World War I ended 100 years ago. Many of the conflicts the United States is engaged in around the world can be traced back to the countrys most forgotten war. Its unlearned lessons, traumas, and repercussions continue to haunt us, more than we realize, perhaps because those who served have yet to be publicly honored to the extent warranted. To that end, the National World War I Memorial in Washington is finally in the making.

An act of Congress in 2013 created The U.S. World War I Centennial Commission, which selected the competition-winning teamarchitect Joe Weishaar and sculptor Sabin Howardwho had proposed the concept for the memorial The Weight of Sacrifice.

We want people to come face to face with the humanity we find in those who served in this war.  It may be long overdue, but today marks another point in the journey of making sure they are not forgotten, said Weishaar, the architect and lead designer of the memorial, on Nov. 9, 2017, at the official groundbreaking ceremony in Pershing Park, with views to the White House.

While the groundbreaking ceremony was taking place, sculptor Sabin Howard was at Weta Workshop in New Zealand, designing and sculpting the small-scale model for the sculptural component of the memoriala 65-foot-long bronze relief titled A Soldiers Journey.

Its amazing, Weishaar said about the maquette. The amount of detail is astounding. I know that [once the actual sculpture is realized in full scale], you will want to stand 100 feet back to see it, and you will want to stand right there and touch it.

Howard has been designing the sculpture for two years. He started by taking photos of models wearing World War I uniforms in action poses and drawing scrolls of the storyline. He revised the design concept about a dozen times, while intermittently presenting it to the commission for feedback.

Designing a memorial on federal property in the nations capital in an existing park is a very complex design challenge, said Edwin Fountain, vice chairman of the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission, at the groundbreaking ceremony. There are many different voices to listen to and considerations to balance. Thats been a challenge, also the fundraising, but today we are making significant progress on both of those fronts and it makes me very optimistic for bringing this to a conclusion.

By mid-December, Howard finished the 9-foot-long maquette (one-sixth in scale) with 38 figures. In February 2018, he will present it in Washington to the Commission of Fine Arts, which oversees the project.

After its approved and any agreed-upon changes incorporated, he will create a medium-sized, 18-foot-long maquette (one-third in scale) that will enable him to finally extrapolate all the design details to the full-sized sculpture. Once A Soldiers Journey is completed, the 65-foot-long relief sculpture (with the tallest figure standing at 7 to 8 feet) will be the largest bronze sculpture of its kind in the world.

On March 21, Howard will give a public lecture and until March 23 will exhibit his drawings and the small maquette at the New York Academy of Art (his alma mater). Also, a documentary film about the making of A Soldiers Journey, produced by Weta Workshop, will be released in March.

Finding the Narrative

Sometimes things that are very profound are very simple, Howard said on the phone a few days after he had completed the small maquette. The war is ultimately about people. These are real people [who served in World War I]. The responsibility he feels in doing them justice stays in his mind constantly throughout his creative process.



More than four million American families sent their sons and daughters to serve in World War I. The casualty rate was greater than in World War II, totaling 116,516, and another 200,000 were wounded. But the numbers, even names, can become an abstraction, if that is all we see. Numbers tell only a fraction of the significance of the war that was supposed to end all wars.

To create a memorial sculpture that would move people emotionally, Howard had to come up with a universal theme. After the groundbreaking ceremony, Fountain said, We wanted the memorial to be educational without being didactic. We wanted it to have a strong emotional content; we wanted it to conveynot entirely realisticallybut to convey in some sense what the struggle was like and what it was about  By its monumentality, it conveys that this was a major event, worthy of commemoration and education, and it gives a sense that it was a bloody war like all the other wars. American troops did brave and heroic things.

Howards wife, the best-selling novelist Traci Slatton, suggested that Howard refine the story structure of A Soldiers Journey after Joseph Campbells idea of the heros journey, the monomyth template for storytelling found in various cultures worldwide. This metanarrative structure is also embedded in books and in films such as The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Its only fitting that through serendipitous events, Howard met Sir Richard Taylor of Weta Workshop, who invited him to work on the maquette in New Zealand. Weta Workshop produced sets, props, and miniatures for director Peter Jacksons film trilogy The Lord of the Rings.

A Transformative Story

The narrative of A Soldiers Journey progresses from left to right in a series of tableaus that overlap and transition into one another. The two ends of the relief are bookmarked by the soldiers daughter. In the initial scene, the soldier is about to leave his family. Hes on his knee, facing his daughter while they both hold his helmet. His wife literally and figuratively stands behind him and places her left hand over his shoulder near his heart. Its as if the family is coming to terms with the imminent sacrifice.

In the next scene, the wife is moving in two directions; her feet face the past scene on the left, and her head faces again to her husband on her right who is now departing and moving forward in a rush to join his fellow soldiers. The battle begins at the edge of the trench. All the soldiers are charging forward in full force. They are led by a figure representing the gunnery sergeant Daniel Joseph Daly who before charging the Germans during the Battle of Belleau Wood yelled to the men in his company, Come on!  do you want to live forever?

That figure representing Daly is in the center of the composition. His chest is open. Its about courage and the strength to go forward into places that you have never traveled to before. They are stepping into the void, Howard said in a preview video of the documentary that will be released in March.

Dalys outstretched arm directs you to the following scene about the cost of warthe wounded men. Their fellow soldiers carry them, showing the camaraderie of brothers-in-arms. The helmets on the ground represent the unknown, fallen soldiers of the war. A nurse, representing the caretaking and fortitude of the women who served, holds a blinded soldier affected by mustard gas, one of the many horrors of the war.

The next figure stands away from the wall, shell-shocked. Hes the only figure in the composition who faces the viewer. Its a powerful juncture in the composition. Its about connection. The viewer can look into the eyes of this soldier and sense the emotional gravitas, Howard said. The following scene shows the hero returning home. A group of soldiers march forward, strong again as they proceed into the future. One carries a flag, which is the highest point in the composition. This flag bearer and grouping represent the way our country changed, how it became an industrial superpower from an agrarian nation, Howard said.



Finally, the soldier returns to a quiet scene where he hands his helmet to his daughter, who looks into it as if it is a vessel. She divines the future and she represents the next generation, which is World War II, Howard said.

Slowing Down to Reflect and Learn

Together with Weishaar, Howard had decided to create a sculpture in relief on a wall that would fit at the west end of Pershing Park and that would face the existing sculpture of General Pershing, across a reflecting pool. A relief is also the most efficient way to tell a story in sculptural form because many figures can be incorporated into a compressed pictorial space that is three-dimensional.

Theres also a time factor in the whole idea. When people walk along the relief, they will slow down to see the scenes change from one to the next. Theres a flow [to the composition], and its very unified, Howard said. Every element is interlaced and integrated in the composition.

At one time, especially during the Renaissance, sculpture played a role as wide and as significant as film does today. It brought people together, providing an opportunity for catharsis, psychological relief through the open expression of strong emotions, Sabin wrote in a blogpost. When we go to the theater to see a film, we ultimately feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves. Its a community experience that is about feeling a kinship with other humans. It is about connecting.

In many ways, Howards World War I memorial sculpture will be like a permanent film cast in bronze. It will provide endless opportunities for people to learn, to heal, and to move forward. Not only will it honor the 4.7 million Americans who served, but it will also bring attention to the many lessons still to be learned from the most consequential event of the 20th century. It will no longer be the countrys most forgotten war.

The U.S. World War I Centennial Commission is looking to raise $50 million in private funds for the National World War I Memorial and plans to inaugurate it on Nov. 11, 2018, the 100th anniversary of the end of the war.

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A general view of the Great Hall of the People during the Chinese Communist Party's important political conclave, the 19th National Congress, in Beijing, China on Oct. 24, 2017. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

These 138 Chinese High-Ranking Officials Who Met Their Downfall All Share One Thing in Common

They were all involved in persecuting the spiritual practice of Falun Gong

When Chinese leader Xi Jinping took over as the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Nov. 2012, he began a relentless anti-corruption campaign to root out his political enemies in the opposition faction.

It is still going strong. Recently, the high-profile investigation of former internet censorship czar, Lu Wei, proved that Xi hasnt given up yet.

After five years of the campaign, many tigers and fliesparty jargon for high- and low-ranking officials, respectivelyhave been purged, charged with corruption, bribery, and embezzlement. More critically, though, they were members of the Jiang faction, loyal to former CCP leader Jiang Zemin. By the end of 2014, 55 tigers were purged.

In October, Chinese business magazine Caixin published a summary report, showing how much the Party had changed since the 18th National Congress when Xi took power. 96 tigers have been sentenced, and among them, 16 have each embezzled more than 100 million yuan (about $15 million). 31 out of 33 provinces in China saw top tigers punished.

However, the Chinese regime has failed to identify a crime that many of these purged officials have committedthe persecution of Falun Gong adherents in China.

Falun Gong is an ancient Chinese spiritual discipline with slow meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. According to a state survey, there were 70 million practitioners of Falun Gong in China by 1999, seven years after the discipline was first introduced to the public. Practitioners say the actual number was over 100 million. Worried that Falun Gongs popularity would threaten his control of the Party, former leader Jiang Zemin, who ruled China from 1989 to 2002, initiated a statewide persecution against the practitioners, often with torture, brainwashing, forced labor, and jail sentences.

According to Minghui.org, a website that monitors the persecution in China, there are a total of 137,965 documented cases of Falun Gong practitioners being persecutedeither experiencing physical abuse, psychological abuse, violations of basic human rights including illegal detention, and financial suffering such as illegal fines. Among them, 4,154 are confirmed to have died, as of Dec. 1 this year. The numbers for the incidents of persecution and deaths are each likely far higher due to the difficulties in securing and passing verified information out of China.

The press office of Falun Gong, the Falun Dafa Information Center, estimates that millions of practitioners have been subjected to wrongful imprisonment, brainwashing, and torture. In addition, independent researchers have reported that Falun Gong practitioners are the principal source of organs for use in Chinas extensive organ transplantation system, killing the practitioners.

A close examination of Minghui.org and statistics from the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) reveals that 138 purged officials have been involved in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Here are short bios of a sample of these individuals.

Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission

Zhou Yongkang, national level, former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the CCPs top decision-making body, and former head of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2015.

Zhou, a member of the Jiang faction, was one of the chief accomplices behind the persecution. While he was the party secretary of Sichuan Province, his efforts in persecuting local Falun Gong practitioners boosted him up the political ladder.

The Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, controlling all of Chinas security apparatus at the time, acted like a second power base rivaling Zhongnanhaithe CCPs headquarters in Beijing. Zhou ensured that the Commission devoted more money annually into executing the persecution than the yearly expenditures on Chinas military. Zhou took the lead in greenlighting the state-sanctioned system of harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners for transplant surgery, resulting in large numbers of deaths.

Zhu Mingguo, former chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference. He was sentenced to death with reprieve in November 2016.

Zhu had been the party secretary for the local offices of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission in Chongqing, Hainan Province, and Guangdong Province. He was in charge of the persecution of Falun Gong at these three localities. The WOIPFG has issued many notices describing Zhus crimes in carrying out the persecution.

Military

Xu Caihou, former member of the Politburo, former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and former top general. On Dec. 11, 2014, a Chinese military newspaper published a commentary article, calling Xu a national devil. While being prosecuted, he died from cancer on March 15, 2015.

Xu was one of the main persons in the military in charge of the persecution and the implementation of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in the Chinese militarys hospital system. He is one of Jiangs principal accomplices.

Guo Boxiong, former member of the Politburo, former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), former top general. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2016.

Guo was considered a military tiger and another leading accomplice to Jiangs persecution. WOIPFG issued an investigative report showing how the Chinese military, under the control of first Jiang and later, Xu and Guo, played a major role in the setting up military hospitals for conducting organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners.

United Front

Ling Jihua, former vice chairman of the national Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference, a CCP advisory body, and former head of the United Front Work Department, the CCP agency in charge of subversion. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2016.

As head of the United Front Work Department, it was Ling who oversaw the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners outside of China. In Hong Kong, Macao, and the United States, he controlled local Chinese community organizations to interfere with practitioners activities.

Zhou Zhenhong, the former head of the United Front Work Department in Guangdong Province. He was sentenced to death with reprieve in February 2014.

Zhou, formerly the mayor and party secretary of Maoming City in Guangdong, was active in the persecution. Later, he was promoted by Li Changchun, then the Party secretary for Guangdong, to be the head of Guangdong United Front Work Department. Li would go on to become the regimes propaganda chief and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. Lis propaganda apparatus played an important role in the persecution by spreading lies about Falun Gong.

State Council

Huang Ju, former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the CCPs top, most powerful decision-making body, and former Vice Premier. He died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 69, while he was serving in those positions.

On July 23, 1999, Huang, who was party secretary of Shanghai at the time, took the lead in acknowledging the persecution as very timely and absolutely correct. During the 16th National Congress in 2002, he was responsible for a report detailing how the persecution should be the striving objective and main task in the next five years. In 2003, Huang was promoted to be the Vice Premier, in charge of the countrys finances. It was Huang who assisted Jiang in spending a quarter of the countrys wealth on executing the persecution.

Provincial Party Secretaries

Bo Xilai, deputy national level, former member of the Politburo, former member of the Central Committee, and former party secretary of Chongqing. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2013.

Bo, while in the position of mayor and party secretary of Dalian City in Liaoning Province, governor of Liaoning, and party secretary of Chongqing, was actively following Jiangs policy of persecution. Together with Zhou Yongkang, he was the mastermind behind perfecting the organ harvesting system.

Sun Zhengcai, former member of the Politburo, former party secretary of Jilin Province, and former party secretary of Chongqing, who took over after Bo was ousted. On July 24, 2017, an anti-corruption case was established to investigate him. Sun was widely believed to have been groomed by the Jiang faction, after the fall of Bo Xilai, to become the next CCP leader, if a political coup was successful.

While holding political office in the Shunyi District of Beijing, Jilin Province, and Chongqing, he did not hold back in executing the persecution. The WOIPFG has named him on its list of perpetrators.

Zhou Benshun, the former party secretary of Hebei Province, and former chairman of the standing committee of the Hebei National Peoples Congress. He was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in February 2017.

After becoming a member of the Central Commission of Political and Legal Affairs, Zhou became a CCP hitman in the persecution of Falun Gong. He was very active in pushing forward persecution policies around the country. He was a regional iconic figure who got promoted because he had closely followed in the footsteps of Jiang and Zhou Yongkang.

Xu Youfang, former party secretary of Heilongjiang Province, and standing committee chairman of the Heilongjiang National Peoples Congress. He was stripped of his position in March 2003.

Under Xu, the Wanjia Labor Camp in Harbin City, the detoxification center in Harbin, the Heilongjiang Womens Prison, the labor camp in Daqing City, and the Hong Wei Xing brainwashing base in Daqing had all become places for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Xu had a direct hand in an incident in Wanjia Labor Camp in which 15 female practitioners were thrown into male prison cells in 2001. Some of these women later died from abuse they had suffered.

Provincial Governors

Su Shulin, the former deputy party secretary of Fujian Province, and former governor of Fujian. He was placed under investigation in October 2015.

While serving as secretary to the Party organization at the Daqing oil field, he came up with over 100 different torture techniques to use on Falun Gong practitioners in Daqing City. He also held a key position within the Daqing Petroleum Administration Bureau, which ran a brainwashing center to coerce local practitioners into giving up their faith with psychological abuse. Su turned Daqing into one of the worst areas of persecution. As governor of Fujian, he continued to enforce the persecution policy.

Wei Hong, former deputy party secretary of Sichuan Province and former governor of Sichuan. He was demoted from minister-level to deputy department level. In Feb. 2016, he was stripped of his position as a representative to the National Peoples Congress, the CCPs rubber-stamp legislative body.

While he served as the head of the party Organization Department in Sichuan Province, he openly slandered Falun Gong. He was the main official in charge of the persecution in Sichuan. Minghui.org has placed him on the list of known persecutors of Falun Gong.

Security Apparatus

Li Dongsheng, former vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security, and the director behind the staged Self Immolation incident in Tiananmen Square. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in January 2016 for bribery.

As former head of the 610 Office, the Party organization set up to persecute the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, he was directly involved in the illegal arrest, detention, sentencing, and organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners. As the former vice president of the Chinese regimes mouthpiece broadcaster CCTV, Li was responsible for spreading propaganda that defamed Falun Gong, inciting hatred against the practice among Chinese people.

Wang Lijun, the former police chief and vice mayor of Chongqing. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in September 2012.

While serving as police chief in Tieling and Jinzhou cities in Liaoning Province, he was responsible for doing research on transplantation methods and for carrying out organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners.

Ma Jian, former vice minister of the Ministry of State Security. He was expelled from the Party in December 2016.

Ma was in charge of the Ministrys No. 19 bureau, which was tasked with monitoring Falun Gong practitioners activities overseas. Most of the spies working overseas have come from this bureau.

Railway Department

Liu Zhijun, former party secretary of the Ministry of Railways, and former head of the Ministry of Railways. He was placed under investigation in February 2011 and was sentenced to death with reprieve in July 2013.

Liu was a key member of the Jiang faction. While Liu was minister, the railway system had its own courts, prosecuting body, and police. Many Falun Gong practitioners who worked in the railway system were persecuted as a result.

Oil Industry

Wang Yongchun, former vice president of PetroChina. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in October 2015.

Wang made the list of criminals on Minghui.org because of his role in the persecution while he was president of Daqing Oil Field. Later, while he was at PetroChina, he supplied funding for Zhou Yongkang to carry out the persecution.

Automobile Industry

Xu Jianyi, the former president, chairman, and party secretary of the FAW Group automotive company. He was sentenced to 11 years and 6 months in prison on February 2017.

Xu once publicly said that Falun Gong should be dealt with viciously. While serving different positions, including mayor of Jilin City (a major metropolis, the second largest city in Jilin Province in northeastern China), he carried out the persecution policy obediently, allowing him to be promoted to such a high position at the FAW Group.

Courts

Xu Qianfei, the former party secretary and head of Jiangsu Peoples High Court. He was placed under investigation on July 24, 2017.

Xu had worked at different courts for 25 years in three provinces, Hainan, Yunnan, and Jiangsu. According to Minghui.org, he was the main culprit behind the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, sentencing practitioners through the court system in Yunnan.

Procuratorate

Chen Xu, the former prosecutor general of Shanghai Peoples Procuratorate. He was placed under investigation in March 2017.

Chen, who became the president of Shanghai First Intermediate Peoples Court in 1998 and deputy secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of Shanghai in 2002, has been named by the WOIPFG for his role in persecuting practitioners through the judicial system.

SASAC

Jiang Jiemin, the former chairman of the state-run Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). He was sentenced to 16-years in prison in October 2015.

During his tenure in the state-run oil sector, Falun Gong practitioners working in the oil industry were detained, sentenced to prison and labor camp, and forced into brainwashing centers. Some died as a result of the torture.

Cyberspace Administration

Lu Wei, former director of the Cyberspace Administration, and deputy head of the Propaganda Department. On Nov. 21, he became the first tiger to be placed under investigation after the 19th National Congress.

Lu could not shirk his responsibility in the persecution, given how so many Falun Gong practitioners were persecuted because of their posts and comments online about the CCPs ongoing persecution.

Mayors

Xu Zongheng, former mayor of Shenzhen City in Guangdong Province. He was put under shuanggui, CCPs extralegal disciplinary proceedings in 2009. He was sentenced to death with reprieve in May 2011.

During his tenure in Shenzhen, the level of persecution was high, as Falun Gong practitioners were monitored, their phones tapped, and they were kidnapped.

Huang Xingguo, former acting party secretary of Tianjin City, who also served as mayor. He was sacked in September 2016 and referred to the criminal justice system in January 2017 for prosecution.

During his political career in Ningbo (city in Zhejiang Province) and Tianjin, he had openly slandered Falun Gong.

According to Minghui.org, while Huang served within the Tianjin government, he worked closely with Zhang Gaoli, who was Tianjin party secretary from Nov. 2007 to Oct. 2012, in carrying out the persecution of Falun Gong. Just before the Two Sessions political meeting in 2015, Huang couldnt avoid responsibility for 37 Falun Gong practitioners who were either harassed or had their homes ransacked. During that time, at least 60 to 70 practitioners were detained, and more than a dozen were illegally sentenced.
Trump Says No DACA Deal Without Wall

WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trump reiterated his position on one of immigrations hot-button issues, via Twitter on Dec. 29.

The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc. We must protect our Country at all cost! Trump tweeted in the morning.

The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc. We must protect our Country at all cost!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

The pressure is on Congress to come up with a permanent fix for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients by March, after Trump rescinded the DACA program on Sept. 5.

DACA was introduced through an executive order by President Barack Obama in 2012 as a temporary measure that gave recipients renewable, two-year work authorization and deportation immunity. DACA recipients are aliens who were under the age of 16 when they were brought into the United States illegally by their parents.

Now, lets be clear, this is not amnesty, this is not immunity, this is not a path to citizenshipits not a permanent fix, Obama said at the time.

Trump outlined his immigration priorities to Congress on Oct. 8 and said his reforms must be included before any type of amnesty deal for the nearly 700,000 DACA recipients will be considered.

The president has consistently reiterated the need for fencing along the 1,997-mile southwest border, where the vast majority of human and drug trafficking occurs.

We are recommending the construction of a border wall along the southern border, which will be an invaluable tool to deter human trafficking, drug trafficking, and the spread of deadly cartel violence, said Ron Vitiello, acting deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, on Oct. 8.

The success of border walls [is] undeniable from the perspective of the operators.

Locations along the border, such as San Diego, California, and Yuma, Arizona, saw a dramatic drop in illegal crossings after fencing was constructed.

The Secure Fence Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2006 and, in part, directed that about 700 miles of double-layer fencing be constructed along the southwest border, along with sensors, lighting, and other tactical tools.

Notably, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) voted in support of the act, as did then-senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Merit-Based System

Trump wants Congress to change the current priority from extended family-based, chain migration to skills-based migration.

His proposal suggests introducing a points-based system for the awarding of green cards (lawful permanent residency) based on factors that allow individuals to successfully assimilate and support themselves financially, including education level, English ability, and job skills.

In his proposal, Trump said chain migration does not serve the national interest.

Decades of low-skilled immigration has suppressed wages, fueled unemployment, and strained federal resources, the proposal states.

About 72 percent of the 1 million people who obtained green cards in 2015 came based on a family connection, according to L. Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Trump wants to limit family migration to spouses and minor children, and eliminate the visa lottery. The lottery gives out 50,000 green cards each year to participants from countries that had a low immigration rate to the United States in the previous five years.

Because the criteria are so low, either you have no education at all and very little skills, or you have a minimum of education and no skills at all. And because its a lottery, pretty much anybody on the planet who is from a qualifying country can take advantage of this, Cissna said on Dec. 12.

Recent terror attacks in New York highlighted vulnerabilities in both chain migration and the visa lottery system.

On Dec. 11, alleged terrorist Akayed Ullah detonated a homemade bomb he was wearing in a busy Midtown Manhattan underground subway walkway. He sustained burns and wounds to his body, while three other people sustained minor injuries.

Ullah, a 27-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh, came to the United States after his uncle won a green card through the diversity visa lottery program. The uncle brought his sister, who in turn brought the then-20-year-old Ullah.

On Oct. 31, in downtown Manhattan, Uzbek national Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov mowed down bicyclists with a truck, killing eight and injuring 11 before being shot by police. Saipov won a green card from the diversity visa lottery and had since been the primary contact person for 23 other immigrants, according to comments by Trump on Nov. 1.

Since 9/11, the Department of Justice has prosecuted more than 500 people for terrorism-related offenses, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said recently. Preliminary figures suggest that nearly 75 percent of those defendants were foreign-born.

Melania Trumps First Year as First Lady
Nicole Hunter was caught trying to snort cocaine in a police station on Dec. 25. (Ledyard Police Department)

Woman Tries to Snort Cocaine While in Police Custody

A Connecticut woman tried to snort cocaine inside a police station while waiting to be booked on unrelated charges, police said.

Nicole Hunter was arrested on Christmas day and charged with possession of narcotics, interfering with an officer, and disorderly conduct, reported Fox News, citing police.

Earlier that day, police received reports of an erratic driver in a black Kia SUV with a New Hampshire license. They found the car in Hunters driveway with Hunter still sitting in it, according to authorities.

When officers approached her, she started being uncooperative and was screaming outside in a residential neighborhood. She was also belligerent and charged at the officers, reported the news station, citing a police report.

The 25-year-old was subsequently arrested and taken to Ledyard Police Department. While she was waiting to be searched by a female officer, she pulled a pink powdery substance wrapped in paper out of her pocket and unsuccessfully tried to snort the powdery substance, police said in the report.

Police confirmed that the powdery substance was tested positive for cocaine, reported Fox News.

Hunter was released from custody on a bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 8.

In a similar case last month, a high school teacher was filmed allegedly snorting drugs in the classroom. Samantha Cox, 24, was led out of the Indiana high school in handcuffs and was charged with possessing a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia.

2017 Year in Review

From NTD.tv
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NORWALK  By habitually working long hours, veteran police officers were among Norwalks top-paid municipal employees in 2017.

Between his work for the Norwalk Police Department and extra-duty work outside the department, Officer Javier Mogollon was paid $207,483  second only to schools Superintendent Steve Adamowski  based upon the annual salary list released by the city comptroller this week.

Police officers regularly occupy the top rungs of the annual salary list. Their pay includes regular and overtime work for the police department as well as money paid by utility companies to direct traffic at roadside construction sites throughout the city.

Lt. David OConnor, president of the Norwalk Police Union Local 1727, said some of the top-paid officers are 30-year veterans of the department who sacrifice significant free time to provide for their families.

More Information Norwalk's top-paid municipal employees in 2017 Schools Superintendent Steven Adamowski: $254,998, hired July 2015 Police Officer Javier Mogollon: $207,483, hired February 2011 Police Officer Russell Ouellette: $201,234, hired September 1991 Police Officer David Nieves: $200,016, hired February 1999 Police Sgt. Gregg Scully: $197,242, hired April 1999 Police Officer George Daley: $196,794, hired October 1992 Police Officer Michael DiMeglio: $194,645, hired January 2012 Schools Technology Chief Ralph Valenzisi: $194,564, hired September 2013 Police Sgt. Joseph Moquin: $189,931, hired November 1993 Norwalk High Principal Reginald Roberts: $189,587, hired July 2012 See More Collapse

They made a choice to work incredibly long hours on their days off, and overtime shifts and holidays, OConnor said. Theyve chosen to work as much as they physically can to provide for their families and have a comfortable life in Fairfield County.

OConnor added that the extra-duty work brings a lot of money to the city. Utility companies reimburse the city for the officers pay and pay the city an additional 15 percent.

While the police union contract allows officers to work no more than 16 hours a day, unless theres an emergency, few officers actually do so and most wont even consider it, according to OConnor.

Theres only a few people that do it, OConnor said. Theres no way I could work that many hours.

Based on a breakdown of base salary and extra-duty pay for Norwalk police officers provided by the Norwalk Comptrollers Office, its clear that overtime makes up a significant portion of police salaries.

Veteran Officer Russell Ouellette, for example, was paid $201,234 in 2017. For the police department, that included $76,708 for regular hours, $38,163 for overtime, $4,940 in shift-differential pay, EMT work and uniform allowance, and $2,839 for retroactive pay due to a contract settlement. Outside the department, he was paid $78,583 for extra-duty work, according to the Comptrollers Office.

Adamowski, whose contract was recently extended, was the citys top-paid municipal employee in 2017.

The schools superintendent was paid $254,998.92 in salary and wages. Adamowski was appointed superintendent in June 2015, following several years of turnover in the position. In November, the Board of Education voted unanimously to extend his contract through 2020.

We really needed someone who would stay here, Michael Lyons, the school board chairman, said at the time of the reappointment. The board can do all it wants but without a strong leader, its just paper on a shelf. Hes also appointed a strong team of people who have been great additions to the district.

Mayor Harry Rilling, who began his third two-year term in November, was paid $137,937 in 2017, according to the Norwalk Comptrollers Office. His name is not among the top 100 highest paid municipal employees.

Kaitlyn Krasselt contributed to this story
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Kingsway Financial Services Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the extended warranty business services, asset management, and real estate businesses. The company operates through three segments: Extended Warranty, Leased Real Estate, and Kingsway Search Xcelerator. The Extended Warranty segment markets, sells, and administers vehicle service agreements and related products for new and used automobiles, motorcycles, and ATVs. This segment also sells new home warranty products, as well as offers uninsured warrant administration services to homebuilders and homeowners; markets and distributes warranty products to manufacturers, distributors, and installers of heating, ventilation and air conditioning, standby generator, commercial LED lighting, and commercial refrigeration equipment; and provides equipment breakdown and maintenance support services to companies. The Leased Real Estate segment owns a parcel of real property consisting of approximately 192 acres located in the State of Texas. The Kingsway Search Xcelerator offers outsourced finance and human resources consulting services, including operational accounting, such as bookkeeping, accounting, financial reporting, and analysis and strategic finance services; technical accounting comprising initial public offerings, SEC reporting, and international consolidation services; human resources, workforce management, and compliance support services; and advisory services. The company offers its products and services through credit unions, dealers, homebuilders, and consumers. Kingsway Financial Services Inc. was incorporated in 1989 and is based in Itasca, Illinois.
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Storm Wind LLC, Dominion Nuclear Projects Inc., Dominion Oklahoma Texas Exploration & Production Inc., Dominion Person Inc., Dominion Privatization Florida LLC, Dominion Privatization Georgia LLC, Dominion Privatization Holdings Inc., Dominion Privatization Kentucky LLC, Dominion Privatization Maryland LLC, Dominion Privatization Pennsylvania LLC, Dominion Privatization South Carolina LLC, Dominion Privatization Texas LLC, Dominion Privatization Virginia LLC, Dominion Products and Services Inc., Dominion Projects Services Inc., Dominion Resources Capital Trust III, Dominion Retail Gas Holdings Inc., Dominion Solar Holdings IV LLC, Dominion Solar Projects C Inc., Dominion Solar Projects D Inc., Dominion Solar Projects III Inc., Dominion Solar Projects IV Inc., Dominion Solar Projects V Inc., Dominion Solar Projects VI Inc., Dominion Solar Projects VII Inc., Dominion Solar Services Inc., Dominion State Line LLC, Dominion Utility Privatization LLC, Dominion Voltage Inc., Dominion Wholesale Inc., Dominion Wind Development LLC, Dominion Wind Projects Inc., Dorset Holdings LLC, ESCT-SA-Suffield LLC, Eagle Holdco Solar LLC, Eagle Solar LLC, Eastern Shore Solar LLC, Endive Holdings LLC, Energize Holdings III LLC, Flax Holdings LLC, Fremont Farm LLC, Gideon Solar LLC, Ginger Holdings LLC, Greenbrier Marketing Company LLC, Greenbrier Pipeline Company LLC, Greensville County Solar Project LLC, Guernsey Holdings LLC, Hardin Solar Energy LLC, Hecate Energy Cherrydale LLC, Hecate Energy Clarke County LLC, Hemlock Holdings LLC, Hereford Holdings LLC, Hodges Solar LLC, Hope Gas Inc., Hosta Holdings LLC, Innovative Solar 37 LLC, Joanna Solar LLC, Kale Holdings LLC, Leek Holdings LLC, Leghorn Holdings LLC, Lentil Holdings LLC, Leyland Holdings LLC, Louis Dreyfus Natural Gas, Millet Holdings LLC, Moffett Solar 1 LLC, Moorings Farm 2 LLC, Mustang Solar LLC, Mustard Holdings LLC, Okra Holdings LLC, PSNC Blue Ridge Corporation, PSNC Cardinal Pipeline Company, Phone House, Pikeville Farm LLC, Power Path Holdings I LLC, Power Path Holdings II LLC, Power Path Holdings III LLC, Prairie Fork Wind Farm LLC, Public Service Company of North Carolina Incorporated, Quail Holdings LLC, Questar Corporation, Questar Gas Company, Questar InfoComm Inc., Ridgeland Solar Farm I LLC, Rutabaga Holdings LLC, SCANA, SCANA Corporate Security Services Inc., SCANA Corporation, SRFI LLC, Safflower Holdings LLC, Scott-II Solar LLC, Seabrook Solar LLC, Sedge Holdings LLC, Shallot Holdings LLC, Siler Solar LLC, Silkie Holdings LLC, Simmental Holdings LLC, Sol Madison Solar LLC, Sorghum Holdings LLC, South Carolina Fuel Company Inc., South Carolina Generating Company Inc., Southampton Solar LLC, Strawberry Holdings LLC, Sumac Holdings LLC, Summit Farms Solar LLC, Sussex Drive Solar Project LLC, TWE Myrtle Solar Project LLC, The East Ohio Gas Company, Trask East Solar LLC, Tredegar Solar Fund I LLC, Tredegar Solar LLC, VP Property Inc., Virginia Electric And Power Company, Virginia Power Fuel Corporation, Virginia Power Nuclear Services Company, Virginia Power Services Energy Corp. 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BURLEY  A man was arrested Dec. 27 after he was caught ransacking the U.S. Forest Service property on Hiland Avenue in Burley.

Christian Albert Parke, 26, is charged with two counts of felony burglary, and felony charges of malicious injury to property and grand theft.

Deputies said he smashed windows on the buildings and on vehicles that were parked in the lot. The vehicles had been rummaged through and the doors left open.

Cassia County Sheriff deputies were called at 8 a.m. to the agencys compound, which has a fenced and locked perimeter.

They were met by a woman in front of the building who pointed to a man on the southwest side of the lot.

Standing behind the fence, an officer yelled at Parke to drop what was in his hands, which looked like a hatchet, but wasnt. The deputy drew his weapon and Parke dropped the object.

After officers arrested Parke they found a metal fuel hose that he may have used to break the windows and a knife that looked like a Glock gun, said Lt. Jason Rogers with the Cassia County Sheriffs Office.

Two officers jumped over the fence, while a third watched the suspect. Parke was ordered to approach the deputies and get on the ground, where he was placed under arrest.

Parke told deputies that he had also been at the Baptist Church next door, at 2262 Hiland Ave. There, officers found footprints in the snow and a ransacked shed at the back of the church.

The officers also found blood on the shed door handle. Parke had a cut on his hand and dried blood on his hands and on his face.

Deputies photographed the footprints around the Forest Service building. The tread on the bottom of Parkes shoes were a match.

After searching him, officers found a womans debit card, which she had reported as stolen by Parke the night before.

Parke told deputies he was ransacking the buildings because he was angry and he thought his girlfriend was there.

A preliminary hearing in the case is set at 9 a.m. Jan. 5 in Cassia County Magistrate Court.
The Federal Government has approved the establishment of a liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG ) extraction plant at Ikuru Town in Rivers state for Green Energy International Ltd, the Operator of the Otakikpo marginal field in OML 11.

The license to Establish ( LTE) of the 12MMSCFD capacity plant was issued to the company by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) as the company moves to fulfill its obligations as a pilot project approved by government for zero gas flares operation in the Niger Delta.

The company which began production in February 2017 said it was determined to ensure full utilization of the gas produced from the field for LPG and power generation.

It stated that the approval has made it possible for the company to make final investment decision (FID) by awarding the Engineering, Procurement, Construction & Installation of the LPG Extraction Plant to PCC-LAMBDA Consortium, formed between Nigeria Indigenous companies and a Chinese company -Peiyang Chemical Equipment Co. Ltd (PCC), who is the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and will be responsible for manufacturing and design activities associated with this project.The LPG Extraction plant has the following design output capacities

The companys Director of Legal and Corporate services, Mr Olusegun Ilori explained that the gas utilization programme involve the use of the lean gas to power the 12MW gas generator at Otakikpo field out of which 5MW would be dedicated to the host communities in line with its MOU with the government while the LPG & propane would be bottled and sold. Part of the LPG shall be for domestic use within Otakikpo communities in order to support small scale industries.

He said the LPG plant which is expected to be completed within 12 months would be a booster for Nigerias drive toward utilization of gas resources for domestic gas is expected to be completed within 12 months .

The company recently delivered 6 MW gas generator to the community while the other batches will arrive in the new year.
TWIN FALLS  The father of Keri Jensen, a Twin Falls woman last seen nearly one month ago, is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to her safe return.

Jensen, 36, left her home Nov. 29 and has not been heard from since. She is considered a vulnerable adult and may be suicidal. She is shy and uncomfortable around most people, according to the Twin Falls County Sheriffs Office.

She is 4 feet 11 inches tall, weighs 85 pounds, and has brown hair and hazel eyes. There is a noticeable birthmark on the right side of her forehead. She was last seen in a white head scarf and black hoodie, and typically wears a thick white knitted headband low on her forehead.

In a possible sighting in Boise on Dec. 5, she was reported to be wearing olive green Carhartts pants and a coat.

Jensen may be headed to Oregon, as she previously spent time in Lake County, Ore., the sheriffs office said Thursday.

She may be driving a white, four-door, 2006 Hyundai Elantra with a sun roof, license plate 2T AS187.

Anyone with information on Jensens whereabouts should call SIRCOMM at 208-735-1911.
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TWIN FALLS  After 17 years in Japan, I.B. Perrine Elementary School teacher Rob Weaver brings some non-traditional lessons into his classroom.

The last week of each school year, his Twin Falls fifth-graders participate in a Japanese Week, where they learn about the language, food and culture.

There are also connections back to south-central Idaho, such as the history of the Minidoka Relocation Center near Eden, one of 10 internment camps where Japanese-Americans were forced to live in the 1940s following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Weavers students also talk seriously about college and ways to better themselves to achieve their goals. In Japan, students decide early what they want to do as a career.

Students in Japan have a leg up  but only in some ways, Weaver said. Academically and physically, they are heads and shoulders above our kids.

But their maturity level and ability to make decisions is way behind their U.S. counterparts, he said. If we can get a balance of both, that would be ideal.

Beyond academic lessons, Weaver  who has taught at Perrine Elementary since 2014  said the main thing he brings to his classroom as a result of his time in Japan is acceptance of others.

Even though I was there as long as I was, I was always a foreigner, he said.

In Weavers classroom, theres significantly more diversity than when he was a child growing up in Twin Falls. He has seven non-Caucasian students, including refugees from around the world.

The journey from

Twin Falls to Japan

Weaver, who grew up in the Magic Valley, remembers playing in an open field and with frogs in a nearby ditch where Perrine Elementary is now. The school hadnt been built yet.

He graduated from Twin Falls High School in 1989. His first experience teaching was as a survival instructor for nine months in Utah through the Challenger Foundation.

Then, he served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Japan, where he became immersed in the culture. After growing up in conservative Idaho, he said, it was an eye-opening experience.

While Weaver was in Japan, he often extended a loose invitation to those he met to come visit him in the United States. One woman, who he didnt know well, decided to visit after he returned home.

After she came the second time, I asked Why are you really here? Weaver said. As it turns out, she was interested in him.

After returning home from his mission, Weaver went to college. He and the woman wrote letters back-and-forth almost every day for a year. They later got married and decided to move to Japan.

Weaver taught in Japan in two stints over the years. The first part was in Osaka, the second in Miyazaki.

Weaver said one of his high school teachers inspired him to become an educator. It takes one teacher to inspire you to do something, he said.

His first teaching job in Japan was for a school of languages for about six years. He already knew someone working there. A friend said Hey, you should come work for us, Weaver said, so he did.

It wasnt a traditional school setting, though, and he didnt work with children. He worked with companies such as Mitsubishi, teaching their executives how to speak English.

After moving back to the U.S., Weaver took a break from education and spent three-and-a-half years as a stock broker for Edward Jones. Right when I was going full commission, the tech bubble burst, he said.

Weaver shifted gears again  this time, to teaching in the College of Southern Idahos English as a Second Language program. He also worked for the state providing intensive behavioral intervention for children who have autism.

He and his wife made the decision once again to return overseas. He spent almost 10 years there during the second stint, including teaching immersion kindergarten and opening his own school.

Weaver opened and operated a cram school, Yellowstone English School, for about six years. The biggest challenge was getting the equivalent of a green card in order to buy property. He bought a building and converted the first floor into a school.

It was a cooking, conversation and cram school. Cram schools are big in Japan, Weaver said. Its supplemental to a students regular education, but its often viewed as an expectation for children to attend.

Students attend cram school anywhere from 3 p.m. to midnight to receive instruction in a variety of subjects. Children complete kill and drill worksheets until they demonstrate mastery of a concept, Weaver said.

If students dont get into a good preschool, that can lead to a ripple effect for the rest of their education. And if students can score well on tests, they have a chance of getting into a good high school and university.

If a teacher has a student get into one of Japans most prestigious universities, it means theyll get more students, Weaver said.

His own four children went through the Japanese education system. His daughter was on track to get into prestigious universities and her teacher begged her to stay in the country. But after Weaver and his wife got divorced, he decided to move the family back to the United States in 2010 after getting rare sole custody of his children after a two-year process in Japan.

Back in Twin Falls, Weaver had a decision to make. His teaching credential wouldnt be recognized, and he was deciding whether to return to college or pursue an alternate route to certification.

He enrolled in Idaho State Universitys Twin Falls bachelors degree program in elementary education and graduated in 2014.

Halfway through his student teaching at Perrine  in the same classroom hes in now  he was hired to teach fifth-grade at Lincoln Elementary School. That was a result of the statewide teacher shortage.

Now, as a teacher back at Perrine, his experiences in Japan are never far from his mind. He said they transformed him as a person: Teaching in Japan has helped me be better in a lot of things.
In columns or commentary, one sometimes needs to simplify in order to save space. But heres my New Years resolution: In the coming 12 months, I will try to avoid the expressions far-right and populist whenever possible. They are catch-all adjectives, useful in describing a general phenomenon. But they are also euphemisms, and they disguise whats at stake.

The terms right and left, not to mention far-right and far-left, have long been due for a rethink. They date from the French Revolution of 1789, when the nobility sat on the right side of the National Assembly, and the revolutionaries sat on the left. Since most Western right-wing parties arent seeking to conserve aristocracy anymore, and many of the left-wing parties stopped being revolutionary a long time ago, the metaphor has grown stale.

As for far-right, it doesnt really belong on that scale, because the modern European far-right isnt conservative in any sense at all. Nor does it have much in common with parties of the so-called center-right, many of which favor free markets and global trade and are happy to participate in international institutions and treaties. The far-right, by contrast, is anti-trade and anti-market, favoring instead a greater role for the national state or, in Hungary for example, for oligarchs close to the ruling party. More important, many favor a greater role for those ruling parties, treating with suspicion journalists, courts, civil servants, universities and even police forces that question their compliance with existing law.

The same is true of the incoherent movement in the United States that is widely known as populist. Misleadingly, populist sounds like popular, but in fact we are talking about a movement that represents a minority. Although the populists are meant to be a faction of the conservative Republican Party, they arent conservative either. Instead, they share the European far-right antipathy to the conservation of anything  along with the European far-right suspicion of the media, the courts, the universities and pretty much all of the other institutions of the democratic political order. Solemn attempts to give this movement Jacksonian or other historical roots usually overlook the fact that the modern movements main proponent, President Donald Trump, doesnt actually know any history at all.

But what words to use instead? As long ago as 2010, the Dutch writer Rob Riemen argued that we should call movements that feed on fear, promote xenophobia and denigrate democratic institutions by an older name: fascist. In his newest book, To Fight Against This Age, he argues that anything else is false: The term populist is only one more way to cultivate the denial that the ghost of fascism is haunting our societies again.

Yet fascist, whatever it meant to the Italians who invented the term in the early 20th century, now has different connotations: mass violence, mass murder, world war. None of the modern far right or populist parties is responsible for even remotely similar crimes, so the connection seems unfair. Ive run into similar objections to the term national socialist, which still seems to me worth reviving: After all, its a straightforward factual description of political movements that are simultaneously nationalist, in that they promote an ethnic-based definition of national identity, and socialist, in that they advocate a much larger economic role for the state.

But because the term reminds people of the Nazis, it still offends. So does the term neo-Bolshevik  I have used it to evoke the conspiratorial rhetoric that these parties always rely on, something the original Bolsheviks also relished, as well as their disdain for the institutions and laws of what they used to call bourgeois democracy  but of course they have not used Bolshevik terror either.

Whats left? The political philosopher Jan-Werner Muller suggests anti-pluralist, and although thats a bit antiseptic, its probably closest to the truth. What we are really talking about, after all, are political parties that do not acknowledge the right of anyone else to hold or share power. They seek to establish themselves as the only legitimate spokesman for the people or the nation, as opposed to the voters, and they seek to weaken any civic or political institutions that might restrict them. Its not an accident that Hungarys Fidesz party or Polands Law and Justice party have packed their courts; nor is it a coincidence that Trumps Republican Party seeks to undermine the FBI. Frances National Front and Germanys Alternative for Germany arent in power, but even so, they treat the media with the same disdain as the American president.

So in the New Year, lets be clear about whats at stake: not just politics as usual but also democracy itself, in Europe as well as North America. And Ill try to find better language to express that struggle.
Reverberating throughout the 40-year-old Star Wars franchise, one refrain has always held the galaxy together: May the Force be with you.

Emotional, stirring and, in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, even elegiac, the line takes on new meaning in scenes the late Carrie Fisher shares with Laura Dern as Vice Admiral Holdo, one of the leaders of General Leia Organas Resistance and the enigmatic new character whose principles lead the saga into its next chapter.

Speaking a week into the release of The Last Jedi, Dern was effusive with love for her character, the film and its writer-director, Rian Johnson. And to answer one of the most urgent questions to come out of Star Wars: The Last Jedi: yes, Laura Dern will now henceforth  proudly  answer to the title Space Dern.

In fact, the affectionate honorific was bestowed upon Dern out of sheer fan demand by Vulture writer Kyle Buchanan even before the first image of her lilac-haired, cosmic-coutured Holdo hit the internet. But it earned special resonance with the release of The Last Jedi when the true magnitude of Space Dern and all she stands for were revealed in Holdos unforgettable acts in some of the films most memorable scenes.

The Oscar-nominated actress, whose year included an Emmy-winning turn on HBOs Big Little Lies and a lauded role as another woman of mystery in Showtimes Twin Peaks revival, also endorsed a new moniker to consider for the future of Star Wars: Space Lynch. Read on for more, but beware: there are spoilers ahead.

Did you know that the internet has been referring to you as Space Dern since long before we got a glimpse of Holdo in her purple-haired glory? And do you now, in fact, answer to Space Dern?

(Laughs) That is hilarious! And yes, you can refer to me as Space Dern from this point forward. Maybe no one else will, but Im going to ask my children to.

Vice Admiral Holdo is a great new character who has one of the most surprising turns in The Last Jedi. How was she first described to you and what additional qualities did you discover in bringing her to life?

(Rian Johnson) invited me to lunch to talk about what he was working on and it was not made clear what the film was. But the first thing he described was this quality of someone who is so steadfast that you dont know what side theyre on because they dont need the rest of the world to know their plans. The kind of person  the kind of woman  who is clear in her voice and even in the company of men questioning her doesnt need to justify her behaviour or her choices, because if she was outspoken about it, it might not allow the plan to have room.

It feels particularly relevant for a mainstream movie, let alone a Star Wars movie, to say so much, so boldly about feminine heroism, authority and emotional intelligence as key elements of leadership.

Especially in the zeitgeist of all were thinking about in terms of who women are in positions of power and not being impacted by abuses of power; I just feel really proud to be part of that storyline in a film thats being seen so widely, and by a generation of girls and boys that were all raising. All these characters are equally complicated, diverse and powerfully heroic . . . I just love it.

You and Carrie sat down with Rian and helped shape your powerful May the Force be with you scene. What was that experience like?

Being around Carrie was an irreplaceable gift of a lifetime. It moves me that it exists and that, obviously, we could have had no way of knowing the impact it would have. For her to pass down this Ive said it enough idea . . . the whole thing was so powerful. Even then, I remember she was like, Whoa. May the Force be with you  always. Ive never heard that. It got her teary and me teary, because it was like imparting a prayer.

How many times have you seen the film now?

Ive seen it three times and, honestly, I would be thrilled to see it again. It deepens every time, its so rich. I think its just extraordinary.

Its difficult enough for fans to divorce Carrie from Leia and her place within this influential franchise when you watch The Last Jedi. What do you see in her performance when you watch it?

She really was our first true heroine. The light and the dark is not the story of Star Wars; the story of Star Wars is the story of the grey. Were all capable of both and we have to wrestle with that inside. Brilliantly, Mark Hamill always says Star Wars is the story of a dysfunctional family. Its that too!

For us growing up it was like, Oh! Women can be sensual and complicated and tough and fiery, and be a badass and be a superhero. To witness her performance you see the wisdom she held at this point in her life, her art, her irreverence, her unbelievable sense of comedy, and her relationship and dynamic with Rian, who really wanted it to be an homage to Leia.

What does it mean to you that Holdo has become the first LGBTQ character in the Star Wars films, albeit indirectly, thanks to the canonical back story fleshed out in the new young Leia novel? Did you have that in mind when you played her?

To be honest, I was not aware of the details of the book (at the time of filming). But what I love about the world that they have created is that this world is meant to represent us and the Resistance is meant to represent us: what the world actually looks like, not some made-up, archaic concept of who represents the world. And I think they have and will continue to work diligently to represent everyone. I look forward to a character being deeply represented in terms of their sexuality. I know that none of us would have any problem, and only joy, if anybody wants to put (an LGBTQ identity) onto my character or any character in this film.

Looking at Star Wars in the context of the greater Laura Dern Cinematic Universe, you were also a part of this years Twin Peaks revival. We know that David Lynch was approached to direct a Star Wars film years ago, but could you get behind him joining this reborn franchise?

(Pauses dramatically) All I can say is, Ive never wanted to see anything more. I mean, who do we start begging?

Im pretty sure youre the one with the best chance of making that happen. . . . Youre our only hope.

Thats something to think about! Because whats incredible is that David has been living in a boundaryless world of cinema forever and I know what an inspiration he is to all the filmmakers I work with. Its what they want to talk about. Rian and I speak about him often. . . . I mean, Im Space Dern, Im his muse, hes got to be Space Lynch. Spread the word!

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MAYA BAY, THAILANDThey roar onto the beach like an invading force  dozens of sleek boats carrying tightly packed loads of uniformly life-jacketed new arrivals for a day in the sun. We stand there in our wet swimsuits, cheek-by-jowl with the masses, a mob intent on having a good time, leaping in the air and posing with selfie sticks and screaming with an eardrum-piercing mix of shock and glee when the waves disturb their photographic frenzies, crashing into them from behind. For a moment, it appears that our escape will be blocked. But then, hand on the tiller of our trusty dinghy, our skipper comes to the rescue.

Squeezing into a narrow gap between two monster motorboats, Chokchai Kongthong, cool as a cucumber in his Ray-Bans, loads us quickly into the small craft, my young niece and nephew gamely and quickly scrambling aboard, my sister situating herself near the bow to help my brother-in-law as he leaps inside, rolling to the floor as we back away, finding open water before another load of day-trippers arrives from Phuket.

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Were inside Maya Bay, on a stretch of sand made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio and Tilda Swinton in the blockbuster thriller, The Beach. A massively popular stop on a circuit that takes day trippers on a set circuit to various snorkel destinations, we felt the need to check that box before moving on.

But move on we do  and quickly  because we have our own private yacht. A globe-trotting travel writer, its a rare pleasure to be joined on board by my sister, Lisa Lethangue, and her family  brother-in-law Jeremy, niece Brooke, 12, and nephew Hunter, 8.

None of us grew up on the water. Growing up, the closest I came to a yacht was a little tin fishing boat we used to cruise to islands in the Kawartha Lakes, fishing and tubing and swimming and roasting hotdogs over a fire.

Here, the Andaman Sea off southwest Thailand is our playground  a wonderland of green and aquamarine, of empty natural beaches and dramatic limestone karsts, of seafaring and fishing history dating back thousands of years.

The main thing here is the culture. You see all the long-tail boats, the villages, the tiny islands with just a restaurant on a rock, Oliver Wilce, base manager for Moorings luxury yacht charters, says as we sit on the dock. You just dont get that anywhere else.

Embarking at Ao Po Grand Marina on the northeast corner of Phuket, we set sail for points south, Kongthong with one slack arm draped over the wheel, all of us gathered on the top deck, transfixed as the sun casts long, warm rays on the calm seas ahead.

Perhaps the greatest luxury of a private yacht is not the four private cabins or the sleek kitchen equipped with gas stove and oven and microwave, or even the sunken seating well on the front of the boat, where we sit and drink coffee (and beer) and enjoy the breeze as an exotic world rolls toward us on the waves.

Rather, we luxuriate in the freedom to chart our own course, and each day holds its surprises. Often we lay down at night below deck not knowing what the next day will hold, holding an impromptu planning session with Kongthong after wed all finished our breakfast the following morning, rolling out nautical charts on the dining room table and just pointing to where we want to go next.

Because he speaks a scarce amount of English (and we know no Thai, beyond the words for hello and thank you), Kongthong remains something of a mystery to us, but certain salient facts permeate the language barrier.

We learn that he navigated ocean-going tankers for 11 years before making the move to skippering pleasure craft, which hes done for six. That hes a dedicated Buddhist, and wears a pendant picturing the Buddha around his neck. That he has a wife and a little girl.

And one day, Kongthong tells us that he was once a Muay Thai kick-boxer. Fighting in 55 matches, he still has some moves, and teaches a few of them to Hunter out on the springy nets that stretch across the bow of the boat, at one point letting the little guy take him down, to the mat.

Along the way, we see plenty of long-tail boats, low-slung wooden craft that would look ancient, were it not for the invariably sputtering engines attached to a propeller by a lengthy driveshaft out the back, usually crossing right in front of us. (We were told that local captains consider crossing another boats wake bad luck.) We cruise past isolated fishing villages, their simple, stilted structures jutting out onto the water.

And some days, we just dropped anchor and swam the afternoon away. The kids revel in the joy of jumping off the boats stern, climbing up a wooden ladder to just to leap back into the warm water, for hours.

I love that we have all the ocean to ourselves. And that we can do it over and over again, Brooke says. I dont know. Its just fun.

We also snorkel over great heaps of coral, marvelling at puffers and angelfish and tiger fish, often arriving in popular snorkel spots before the masses get there in the speedboats, Hunter  an aspiring marine biologist  pointing excitedly at crustaceans he recognizes from his many maritime books.

We chart a haphazard course, zigzagging south and then east and then north, and then back south, spending a couple days circumnavigating the coral reefs off the Phi Phi Islands, watching dolphins frolic off our bow near Koh Mai Thon, and once  just once  getting chased by a monkey on a nearly abandoned beach on tiny, remote Koh Nok.

An island in two parts, which are separated by blue water at high tide, Kongthong drops us from our boats dinghy onto one side, where we comb the sand for shells and snap photos of a rather large rhesus macaque monkey that unexpectedly drops out of the thick canopy, seeming almost to pose for our shots atop a large, black outcrop of rock as the kids mug in the foreground, pounding chests like George of the Jungle.

Moments later, we notice something in his eyes. Proceeding with a pace that communicates his intent to protect his beach, he makes (what appear to us) menacing strides in our direction. We retreat first to a small sandbar, but like a zombie in a horror movie, the macaque continues astride, never speeding up, just steadily, balefully marching toward us.

To our amazement  and despite my repeated, and apparently mistaken assurances that monkeys cant swim  the macaque launches into the water, eyes still laser-focused on this family of hapless Canadians, gripped by a momentary and mostly ridiculous panic, wading and then swimming deeper across, toward the neighbouring beach.

We paddle into a strong current, which blocks our progress, and for a moment, it appears he will reach us. But two things happen at once  first Kongthong launches the dinghy and zooms out to pick us up. Next, the monkey is carried away with the tide, and we see him scramble up, a few minutes later, on the far shore.

As we hop into the small rubber boat, we all take a deep breath, asking Kongthong if these monkeys can bite. He responds by flashing his teeth and playfully pretending to grab us, breaking the tension as the dinghy erupts in hearty, adrenaline-fueled laughter.

Weve escaped  again. And as we sail away, we escape again, and again, and again over the remainder of our voyage  fleeing the crowds, eschewing the go-tourist spots, steering clear of the well-travelled channels and heavily trafficked bays, instead retreating on our yacht to hidden coves and little beaches and places that, forever, we will remember as ours, alone.

Tim Johnson was a guest of The Moorings, which didnt review or approve this article.

When you go:

Sail: One of the worlds largest and best-known luxury yacht charter companies, The Moorings (moorings.com) sails out of a global network of base marinas, from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean to Tahiti  and Thailand. The company can provide a skipper and even a cook and offers a store of provisions that will be delivered to your floating home prior to departure. Yachts vary in size and can accommodate up to 12 in the Moorings 4800, their largest craft, which features four cabin bedrooms and tables that convert into beds, as well as a fully equipped kitchen lounge and plenty of outdoor space. In Thailand, they sail out of Ao Po Grand Marina on Phuket. One week, with skipper, starts at $5,500 (U.S.) for a three-cabin yacht (and $7,300 for the Moorings 4800), including taxes and fees.

Fly there: Cathay Pacific flies from Toronto (or Vancouver) to Phuket International Airport with just a single connection in Hong Kong.

Stay: I stayed at the Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort. It climbs a terraced hillside, and most rooms feature sweeping sea and sunset views. Some suites offer a private plunge pool, and their main, seaside infinity pool is one of the largest on the island.

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Harry Sanders always loved being around water. So he was excited to join the British merchant navy and serve his country during the Second World War.

Born in 1923 in South Shields, a small town in England, Sanders left home when he turned 18 to be a radio officer during the war. One of his duties was sending and receiving messages in Morse code.

After serving on 18 convoys from 1942 to 1946, Sanders  now 94 years old  was just this month appointed a knight of the Ordre national de la Legion dhonneur (National Order of the French Legion of Honour), the highest civilian distinction in France.

Sanders received the honour in a Dec. 14 ceremony in Tillsonburg, Ont., where he lives with his wife, Carolyn.

The appointment recognizes Sanders efforts on D-Day on June 6, 1944 when he served as First Class Radio Officer on a ship that transported about 1,500 American soldiers to help take the German-occupied coast of Normandy in France, specifically Omaha Beach.

The Allied invasion force also included landings by the U.S. at Utah, the British at Gold and Sword, and the Canadians at Juno.

During the ceremony in front of about 150 people, Sanders told the crowd that he was delighted, yet he felt as if he wasnt entirely deserving of the honour since thousands died during the invasion.

At the ceremony I said I dedicate and I share my honour in memory of every soldier left behind on the beach that day, Sanders said in a phone interview. And may their courage and sacrifice be ever remembered.

Sanders said he felt as though he brought the 1,500 Americans just to be killed, and that they should be receiving more recognition than him.

I saw so many people killed. I cant really describe hell, but I think I saw it that day.

Tillsonburg Mayor Stephen Molnar said the ceremony was part of the towns annual gathering to recognize members of the community. Marc Trouyet, the Consul General of France in Toronto, presented Sanders with an insignia.

Sanders was nominated for the award in 2015 after a worldwide search to find potential honorees. Sanders had to fill out paperwork describing his service, which then had to be vetted by the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour.

A letter was sent to Sanders from Kareen Rispal, the French ambassador to Canada, notifying him of his award.

It is awarded in recognition of your personal involvement in the liberation of our country during World War II, Rispal wrote in the letter. Through you, France remembers the sacrifice of all your compatriots who came to liberate French soil.

According to the website for the Ordre national de la Legion dhonneur, about 3,000 people receive the insignia each year for demonstrated outstanding merits in the service of the nation, in a military or a civilian capacity. There are five categories (in ascending order): knight, officer, commander, grand officer and grand cross.

D-Day wasnt Sanders only near-encounter with death. On his second convoy in June 1942, his ship was hit by a German torpedo and began to sink. Sanders said that he, along with nine other men, managed to stay afloat on a raft at first.

With no help in sight, Sanders said, men kept dying one by one over the next 10 days until he was the only survivor.

No message went out to anyone or it was impossible to send out a message and no one knew where we were or had reported us missing, said Sanders, who suffered a dislocated shoulder. So the possibility of us being discovered by anyone was almost impossible. So the days went by and more people died  most during the evening.

Luckily, he was eventually spotted by a fisherman in the port city of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.

Sanders quickly realized his excitement for joining the war was stupid.

I was just a boy. I wasnt even a man then. I was just a boy thinking I was ready to go to war.

When his service ended, Sanders moved to Montreal in 1952 for about six months and then to Winnipeg to work as a manager for Hudsons Bay before ending up in Tillsonburg.

Sanders still found himself drawn to the water after the war.

Twice a year he and his wife took cruises to tropical locations, including Hawaii. So I was still at sea but in another capacity. I was just enjoying being on a ship.

Three years ago Sanders wrote a personal narrative for his son titled WWII at Sea. In 40 pages, he describes every convoy including Omaha Beach.

Then came the wounded on crutches helped by nurses. Bloody bandages, I.V. drips, men with missing arms, some blind, Sanders wrote. As this dreadful scene was occurring, the cruelest, most unfortunate, most untimely, drama occurred: into the dock area marched 500 fresh healthy raw recruits.

Sanders wrote the narrative at his sons request since he didnt talk much about the war before.

I just didnt think it was proper to talk about it. I was just a sailor fighting for my country, Sanders said.

Now he spends his days listening to classical music and reading for about eight hours a day.

Life is good to me, Sanders said. And I think Ive got another 10 years.

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Current and former Police Services Board members are split on whether Mayor John Tory acted appropriately when he expressed the Sherman familys concerns to the Toronto police chief about the investigation into Barry and Honey Shermans deaths.

Sherman family members told Tory they were finding out information about the investigation in the media before hearing it from police, the mayors director of communications said in an email.

Tory, a member of the police board, informed Chief Mark Saunders of the familys concerns dispassionately and did not make any requests to police, Don Peat said in the statement.

It is not unusual for the mayor to talk to grieving families to offer condolences . . . he listens to their concerns and relays those concerns to the relevant city department or agency..

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The bodies of Barry and Honey Sherman were found Dec. 15 inside their home at 50 Old Colony Rd., where police continued to investigate on Thursday. The cause of death has been deemed ligature neck compression and an investigation seeks to determine the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

Torys actions fall within a grey area of the Police Services Act, which governs all board members, said former police services board chair Alok Mukherjee.

What Tory did for the Sherman family creates the impression that a prominent family has special access to policing services, said Mukherjee, who retired from the Police Services Board in 2015, and became a visiting professor at Ryerson Universitys department of criminology and office of equity, diversity and inclusion.

Whether this is true or not does not matter. Not every family or person has the ability to get the citys mayor to be their spokesperson on a police investigation.

Under the act, no board member is allowed to give orders or directions to any member of the police force, or direct the chief on day-to-day operations of the force.

However, it is unclear if comments by Tory  arguably the most powerful police board member  constitute a direction, or will have influence on how police communicate during an ongoing investigation, Mukherjee said.

It is immaterial in what language the familys concern is conveyed, Mukherjee said. What might matter is how the member of the police service, presumably the chief, construes it.

He added that even if Tory simply talks about how police are communicating information, it could still be part of their investigation.

Peat wrote in an email Thursday that the mayor believes it is part of his job to speak to grieving families and comfort them.

Tory speaks to many families following traumatic events in the city and conveys their concerns to city divisions or agencies, Peat said.

In this case, he conveyed the concerns raised by the Sherman family dispassionately to the chief, like he would for any family, and did not make any requests of police, he said.

Sources told the Star and other media outlets that homicide detectives were pursuing a theory that it was a murder-suicide. The family, however, has strongly rejected that scenario.

As has been previously reported, the family conducted their own forensic autopsy on the bodies of the Shermans before their burial last week and has hired Klatt Investigations to probe the couples deaths.

Brian Greenspan, a lawyer who has said hes serving as a resource person for the family as they seek an investigation independent of Toronto police, confirmed Thursday that retired homicide sergeant Michael Davis is also part of the investigative team.

Greenspan called Davis a very seasoned and very distinguished investigator.

Davis runs an independent private investigation firm called Michael A. Davis Investigations. His website says he worked with Toronto Police for 32 years  over half that time on the homicide squad.

During that time Davis worked on some high-profile murder cases, including the stabbing death of 20-year-old Salim Jabaji in 2001.

Two deaths were reported at the home of Canadian billionaire Barry Sherman and his wife Honey. Toronto police say the deaths are being treated as suspicious but wont confirm the identities of the deceased. (The Canadian Press)

A Scarborough man was initially charged with second-degree murder in Jabajis death, but the charges were dropped due to new evidence uncovered by Davis, Crown attorney Bev Richards said in 2003.

Saunders met with the Sherman family before Christmas, a Toronto police spokesperson, Mark Pugash, confirmed.

Pugash declined to comment about whether it was typical for the mayor to convey concerns to Toronto police on behalf of families.

Toronto councillor Shelley Carroll, also a Police Services Board member, said she was surprised when she heard Tory had shared the Sherman familys concerns with police. While she recognized the mayor does meet with families of alleged victims in high-profile investigations, to then turn around and speak to police is different, she said.

In my ward (Don Valley East), we tell families they can reach out for support or help from us, but we make it clear there are limits on what we can do. You generally do not speak to police on behalf of the family.

Unsurprised by the mayors actions was Councillor Chin Lee. Also a police board member, Lee said it is expected that elected officials act as a conduit between the public and police, especially when a case is high profile and theres speculation going on.

He was not ordering police to do anything. He was just providing information.

While it is not unusual for the mayor to talk to grieving families or offer them condolences, it is highly unusual for a board member to express concerns publicly or privately about a police investigation, Mukherjee said.

Peat would not release the names of other families Tory has spoken to following a violent crime or incident, and Mukherjee said he is not aware of the mayor going directly to the chief as a messenger for any other families, although many have raised concerns during investigations.

With files from Alex McKeen and Bryann Aguilar

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The landlords of a Willowdale rooming house where a 47-year-old woman died in a fire last November pleaded guilty in provincial offences court to Ontario Fire Code violations at three Toronto properties.

The deadly blaze, which occurred at 177 Elmhurst Ave., was ruled an accident by the Ontario Fire Marshall. An investigation into the death led to charges against landlords Thevathurai and Balatharshini Akilan, and AKS Rental Management Inc. for Fire Code violations related to smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, fire separations, the absence of a fire alarm system, and insufficient exiting, fire extinguishers, fire rated doors and exit signage.

Thevathurai Akilan received a fine of $22,500 plus a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge and court costs for the offences at 177 Elmhurst Ave. AKS Rental Management was fined $12,500 for additional infractions found at 45 Irvington Ave., and the landlords also pleaded guilty to offences at 57 Farmcrest Dr.

The maximum penalty a corporation can be assigned for each Fire Code violation is $100,000, while individuals can face jail time as well as fines for some serious violations.

In an interview with the Star Thursday, Deputy fire Chief Jim Jessop called unlicensed and illegal rooming houses a great source of frustration for Toronto Fire Services.

They are absolutely the source of our most frequent and serious injury and fatal fire within the city both historically and recently, Jessop said. We know anecdotally that there are thousands of these buildings within the city of Toronto . . . Without a complaint or referral we just dont know where they all are.

If we know where they were, we would certainly try to initiate a proactive inspection program, Jessop said.

Local rules prohibit rooming houses in North York, East York and Scarborough, whereas they are permitted in York, and regulated and licensed in the old city of Toronto and Etobicoke.

Willowdale Councillor John Filion told the Star in May that illegal rooming houses were a problem in his ward and that he suspected a majority of basement apartments in the area violated the fire code.

One of the 177 Elmhurst Ave. landlords, who identified himself as the owner of AKS Rental Management and only gave the name Akilan, called the tenants death an unfortunate incident and said the Fire Code infractions at his property did not cause the death.

Akilan said he was blind sighted when he discovered his property violated the Fire Code, and blamed the infractions on the age of the property, which he said was 70-years-old. He said the city should play a more active role in licensing and inspecting rental properties to make sure they meet standards.

Ninety-nine per cent of the places youll find at least one mistake, he said. When I ran into problems only I got impacted, none of them (at the city) got impacted. Im a middle-class man, Im trying to survive. What would I do?

Jessop said the Ontario Fire Code is clear that the owner is responsible for compliance.

Landlords should be responsible enough to understand that they have legal obligations for the safety and security of these tenants, Jessop said.

With files from David Rider

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By the time she was 10 years old, Deb Maybury alleges shed been sexually abused by four different family acquaintances.

She remained largely silent for 20 years, burying her anger and telling only two college friends.

Neither one were open or engaged to talk about it, said Maybury, now 54.

A 7-year-old Stewart Thompson, now 55, and his younger brother were allegedly raped by multiple men, family acquaintances, and groomed to think it was normal. We were passed around like friggin rag dolls, said Thompson.

The first person Thompson said he told of the sexual abuse was a girlfriend.

She just didnt believe me, he said.

Charmaine Loverin, 50, also alleges she was sexually abused as a child, from 5 to 15 years old. Despite opening up about the alleged abuse, she couldnt find the support she needed.

Decades later Maybury, Thompson and Loverin, all Toronto residents, are working to change the stigma surrounding sexual abuse and help others find their voices at a Toronto counselling centre called The Gatehouse. They are empowered by the people sharing allegations of sexual abuse, assault and harassment as part of the global movement #MeToo.

Read more:

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I love it, Maybury said. I think it is great people are joining in because there is so much power in numbers.

The hashtag went viral on social media this fall, in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against Hollywood producer and executive Harvey Weinstein. The Silence Breakers, as TIME calls the collective group of #MeToo participants, were named the magazines Person of the Year for 2017.

I think its getting braver out there, said Loverin. I still think we have a long way to go, but its definitely opening up a lot.

The Gatehouse, which helps male and female survivors of childhood sexual abuse, has experienced a jump in its numbers since #MeToo went viral, said centres executive director Maria Barcelos.

Using the hashtag to shed light on sexual assault and harassment of women really does give others more strength, more courage to talk about these issues more publically, said Barcelos, adding for some survivors, sharing their stories more publically might mean within the walls of The Gatehouse.

This year, The Gatehouse (where Loverin, Thompson and Maybury are all volunteers) met with more than double its intake of clients, assessing 236 as compared to 109 in 2016, said Barcelos. It also received 2,040 calls from people looking for support and information, up almost 280 calls from the year before.

A dozen more men and 35 more women completed the Gatehouses counselling program in 2017 than in 2016.

#Metoo has inspired some of these people to want to share their story in a safe space, but has also triggered traumatic memories for others who then reach out to the Gatehouse for support, Barcelos said.

We have people who were watching the news and they couldnt take it anymore, Barcelos said. They had this secret about being abused as kids, and they come to the Gatehouse and talk about their stories sometimes for the first time.

For almost 20 years, #MeToo conversations have taken place within the walls of The Gatehouse, an old home that was once part of a psychiatric facility on Lakeshore Blvd. W.

Over the years founder Arthur Lockhart has watched as discussions in society, about sexual abuse, assault and harassment, have ebbed and flowed, he said. Much of the stigma, especially for male survivors, has stayed the same.

Like with the Weinstein allegations, The Gatehouse saw a jump in clients during the Jian Ghomeshi trial in early 2016, but not a lot of lasting change, Lockhart said.

We love big villains, but it feeds into a larger mythology and as long as we keep responding to that mythology, we dont spend any time thinking about how we can strengthen our homes and communities so that people can be safe and secure, he said.

Loverin, Maybury and Thompsons experiences need to be heard just as loud as those of celebrities because sexual abuse is pervasive and prevalent, Lockhart said. Its happening in families across the country, in households everywhere across the world.

Between 2015 and 2016 the rate of sexual violations against children reported to police increased by 30 per cent to 19 incidents per 100,000 people, according to Statistics Canada. In 2016, police dealt with 6,245 cases of child pornography.

About 21,000 sexual assaults were reported to police that year as well, although thats only a fraction of the total number of incidents, said Statistics Canada. Sexual assault is the most underreported violent crime in Canada.

But survivors arent giving up, and continue to push for change, Lockhart said.

Loverin is behind a bill tabled in the Ontario Legislature to create an annual abuse prevention and awareness week in schools. Maybury is the author of a self-published book, Unlock the Door: Beyond Sexual Abuse, sharing dozens of survivors stories.

Thompson is the host of a podcast, Personal Transformation, where he speaks about his own experiences and the experiences of others. He has listeners from around the world.

I was always told to keep my chin up and take it like a man, he said. Thats bull----.

You can be brave and not say a damn thing, or you can be even braver by coming out and talking about what happened to you. In doing so, you not only help yourself, but you help many others.

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Najia Zewari had been trying to reunite with her husband and two young children in war-torn Afghanistan for four years. Through messaging apps on her phone, she stayed connected to them as she created a new life in the suburbs of East York.

But her attempts to bring her family to Canada were too late for her daughter who caught pneumonia; unable to get proper medical care, the 12-year-old died in Kabul.

I couldnt see her. She got sick and her mother wasnt with her, Zewari said, her voice strained. She couldnt leave Canada to go to her funeral either. This is the impact of war on people, she said. One dies with a bomb, with suicide attack, with other things, and my daughter is victim of immigration.

She tries to hide the tears that sit on the edges of her eyes with a forced smile  she cant talk about the little girls name or what she was like. Its too difficult, she says.

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He fled Afghanistan in 1979 with $100 in his pocket. Today he longs for a country that no longer exists.

They left Afghanistan to study. Their family told them not to come back.

In the last 30 years, Afghan refugees have consistently streamed into Canada, more so than any other country, including Syria. A total of 37,265 Afghans have arrived since 1991.

The Star spoke to three generations of Afghan-Canadian refugees who have fled during the Soviet-led war beginning in 1979 and during the ongoing U.S.-led war against the Taliban that began in 2001. Numbers of Afghan refugees are expected to grow as militant violence increases and aid groups slowly withdraw from the country.

As the war and its players have dramatically shifted over the decades, the process to seek safety as an Afghan refugee has changed  with a relatively simple process in the 80s and 90s to a more arduous system today.

Zewari, 52, came to Canada in 2013 with her eldest daughter. Her application to become a Canadian citizen is still being processed.

The situation in the country in 2013 was tense as the war continued despite U.S. troops plans to withdraw. The presidential elections were scheduled in 2014 prompting fears of civil unrest. The country was also targeted by drone warfare, and once again, on the international emergency watch list.

In August, her son and husband finally arrived and the family was reunited. During the wait in Canada she has kept herself busy, she said. Earlier this year, she created an organization promoting peace and unity called Global Woman Network  a safe forum for female refugees and immigrants to share their stories and get support. Many women, like her, she said, have been waiting to see their families for months  often years.

Most of them are going through a lot of depression and a lot of worries, she said. They are dying to see their family members day and night because of the slow process of immigration.

On the side, Zewari has started working on a book about the womens rights movement in Afghanistan, and obtained a college diploma in business administration at the Academy of Learning in Toronto.

Books have always been her safety net. As a young girl in Afghanistan, shed frequently take a fifteen minute bus ride to her local library in Kabul, where the rows of books had a calming effect on her. Sitting at the Toronto Reference Library, it reminds her of the little library with stone floors that is now half a world away.

Reading was part of our culture, she said. We picked books from the library, rushed to borrow books from friends. It was sort of a lifestyle we had as a child.

In her East York home she has some of the books from Afghanistan  her favourite Farsi and Dari literature. She has the same vibrant red carpets that lie in most Afghan homes covering her wooden floors.

More important for her are the photos she took over the years and her accomplishments as a refugee, as a United Nations worker for UN Women Afghanistan where she worked for ten years as a manager and advisor, as a mine awareness instructor to teach returning refugees about how to avoid the mines littered across the country, and as a leader of a womens rights organization in Afghanistan.

Someday, shell put the photos in a book, she said, for future generations to see the great beauty of Afghanistan and the difficulties the country has faced. My grandchildren will maybe think differently, she said, praying that the generations that have only seen war in Afghanistan, may someday see peace.

For Zewari, peace came this summer when her husband and son landed at Torontos Pearson Airport. Their arrival was delayed by a few minutes. Zewari hands trembled as she held dozens of large, multicolored bouquets of flowers. The waiting had become painful.

She took them to their new home. I felt I got everything, that I dont need anything else, she said.

This long waiting time for reunification is the worst experience an individual can have, she said. For me its the worst one, out of everything. In my life, especially if you lose your child and cannot see her...

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Two months before the end of the year, the Government of Canada announced it had hit an ambitious environmental target for 2017.

Five percent of Canadian oceans are now protected! the Department of Fisheries and Oceans tweeted in October, along with a picture of a pristine coast. On Thursday, DFO boosted that total even higher, announcing it had achieved 7.75 per cent.

Protecting that much ocean would be an incredible leap. At the end of 2016, Canada had set aside less than one per cent. Carving out conservation areas is difficult and slow, yet Ottawa managed to bump its total by nearly seven per cent in just a year.

Or did it? Heres how Ottawa did the math.

The goal

Canada has pledged to protect at least 10 per cent of its marine and coastal areas by 2020 and 17 per cent of its land. This goal is known as an Aichi Target, part of Canadas commitment to a major international treaty known as the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Justin Trudeau affirmed his partys dedication to that goal in the 2015 election that made him prime minister. As the Liberal platform noted, under Stephen Harpers Conservative government, Canada made almost no progress toward the target. Just 0.96 per cent of oceans and 10.5 per cent of lands were protected at the end of 2016, making Canada a major laggard. The U.S., Australia, and Mexico have protected more of their seas, despite Canada having the longest coastline in the world.

The Liberals laid out a new promise: an interim goal of protecting five per cent of the countrys oceans by 2017. In October, the federal government announced it had achieved and even surpassed that, hitting 5.22 per cent. On Thursday, Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced seven new marine refuges that add another 2.53 per cent.

Conservation NGOs are more circumspect.

I think theyre close, and I think their intentions (are good), says Sabine Jessen, national director of the oceans program for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. CPAWS is doing its own accounting of that figure. But until we do the detailed analysis, I dont think so. Where theyre at right now, I do think there are some questionable things that need improvement.

Marine protected areas

The government created three new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) since November 2016: St. Anns Bank, in Nova Scotia; The Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound Glass Sponge Reefs, in B.C.; and Anguniaqvia niqiqyuam, in Northwest Territories. MPAs are legally protected under the Oceans Act  one of the governments primary conservation tools.

All three sites are ecologically rich. We feel that they are very worthy of MPA designation, says Sigrid Kuehnemund, WWF Canadas vice-president of oceans. British Columbias new MPA, for example, protects the provinces 9,000-year-old reefs of delicate glass sponges, which are found almost nowhere else in the world and support a huge variety of ocean life.

The three MPAs together add up to just 0.16 per cent of the target. And while conservation NGOs celebrated these three new areas, they say that MPAs are a legislative tool that need sharpening. The law doesnt set out minimum protection standards, so environmental groups find themselves arguing to exclude disruptive activities like drilling and bottom-trawling in each new proposed area.

Initially, the glass sponge reef MPA in B.C. did not exclude bottom-contact trawl fishing from an adaptive management zone around the reefs, even though damage from fishing gear and churned-up sediment are significant risks to glass sponges. Protections were strengthened after public and scientists feedback. The water column above the reefs is still open to fishing activities. In June, scientists and environmentalists were outraged after discovering that a proposed new MPA in the Laurentian Channel would permit oil and gas exploration and extraction.

The glass sponge reef MPA is not perfect, but it does do a pretty solid job, says Kuehnemund. It often never goes as far as what NGOs or scientists would like, and probably too far for certain industry groups. That is, I guess, the reality of designating sites.

Even when MPAs result in robust protection for the ecosystem, it takes an average of seven years to create one. LeBlanc introduced an amendment to the Oceans Act in June that would freeze industrial activity at current levels during that long process, so that proposed MPAs can benefit from legal protections earlier in the process. He also committed to creating an advisory panel to provide advice on minimum protection standards within future MPAs.

Tallurutiup Imanga

A full 1.9 per cent of the target is checked off by a massive new protected area in the Arctic waters north of Baffin Island. The Inuit call these seas Tallurutiup Imanga. The English called it Lancaster Sound.

Tallurutiup Imanga would be a National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA) rather than an MPA, a designation with stronger legal protections and a system managed by Parks Canada rather than DFO. It would cover 109,000 square kilometres, nearly 18 times more than Canadas largest MPA. It is a critical habitat for polar bears, narwhals, and belugas.

The Government of Canada, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, and the Government of Nunavut announced proposed boundaries for Tallurutiup Imanga earlier this year.

But it wont become an official NMCA until after an Inuit impact and benefit agreement is established, a legally required negotiation. Again, conservationists are supportive of the proposed NMCA, but have questions about the governments accounting.

I dont think in the NGO community we would say that thats ready to be counted, says Jessen, of CPAWS.

She said she doesnt think the Inuit would say its ready, either  the Inuit impact-benefit agreement is an important step that includes management practices.

It feels to me that that one is incomplete.

OEABCMs

Another big chunk of the total, 4.78 per cent, comes from a source with an unwieldy acronym: Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures, or OEABCMs. Thursdays announcement more than doubled the amount of Canadas protected ocean areas that fall into this category.

OEABCMs are exactly what they sound like: areas that effectively protect biodiversity but dont fall under normal legal labels. They were initially introduced as a way to recognize Indigenous territory, privately protected lands, and other regions that meet or exceed conservation goals but arent formally recognized.

But critics worry that OEABCMs will degrade conservation standards, allowing countries to hit their Aichi Targets artificially, with quantity over quality. And unfortunately, international guidelines for what qualifies as a legitimately protective OEABCM are still pending.

Canada, eager to hit its interim target by the end of this year, has been an active participant in discussions over what should count. DFO has developed its own guidelines in the meantime.

With the combination of the desire to be science-based and transparent, we embarked on a very rigorous process in terms of proposing these criteria, says Jeff MacDonald, DFOs director general of oceans management.

Canadas OEABCMs are all fisheries closures. Many of the sites have legitimate conservation value, conservationists say, but some are questionable.

A handful on the east coast are previously shuttered lobster fisheries, ones with stated conservation objectives like to increase lobster spawning and egg production. Lobsters are not threatened, and protected areas are supposed to focus on benefits to ecosystems, not single species.

The government calls these areas marine refuges.

I think calling these marine refuges is perhaps overstating what we get in many cases, says Jessen.

MacDonald disagrees: protecting the productivity of an area, including lobster stocks, is a completely legitimate goal, he says. He noted that of Canadas more than 1,000 closed fishing areas, only 30 met DFOs criteria. He believes Canadas guidelines are pretty close to what is being developed internationally. We think that the ones weve put forward do meet the test.

Parks

The last chunk of the target, 0.76 per cent, is achieved through all other federal and provincial areas  a smorgasbord of seascapes attached to national and provincial parks, migratory bird sanctuaries, and other areas recognized in some official capacity. Again, the conservation value of these sites is mixed, observers say.

In a recent analysis, CPAWS couldnt find management plans for any marine areas included in national parks  a basic component of any legally protected area. Provinces only have jurisdiction over the seabed in inland waters like straits, bays and inlets; anything in the water column is federal jurisdiction. So many protection measures are beyond provinces control: they cant limit fishing practices, for example.

NGOs like WWF Canada are still researching these sites, and hope they will be considered as part of larger MPA networks that are currently being developed. But for the time being, its hard to assess how much of them should count toward targets.

How those areas are protected, from my perspective, is questionable, says Kuehnemund.

MacDonald says that in many cases the federal governments collaborates with the provinces to manage these areas, but that the point is warranted: How do you manage it once youve established it? (This) is something that Canada is grappling with, but its not Canada alone thats in that circumstance.

2018 and beyond

In its own online promise-tracker, the government checked off its goal of five per cent by 2017 and says it is on track to achieve 10 per cent by 2020. Trudeau has also said that Canada will aim beyond 10 per cent.

The mandate commitment was very strong. Its the first time that a government has been so public, transparent and committed to marine conservation, says MacDonald.

Conservation groups are loath to pooh-pooh the governments progress: they say there has been more progress on ocean conservation in the last year than in the previous 20-plus years. But even if the public accepts that the five per cent goal was met, hitting 10 per cent and beyond will be much tougher, they say. Many of Canadas new protected areas have been in the legislative hopper for years or decades.

Its a really exciting time in Canada at the moment with the movement to reach the marine conservation targets, says Kuehnemund. But there is still a lot of work to be done, she adds.

We need to ensure the momentum continues, she says, and that for every site that is to be counted toward the targets, that there is a consideration of the quality of that site, and not just the quantity  a numbers game to reach the percentage target.

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WASHINGTONThe two Toronto men accused in a high-profile U.S. attack on peaceful protesters have not been arrested, and their whereabouts are now unknown.

Ahmet Dereci and Mahmut Sami Ellialti, passionate supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, face assault and hate crime charges related to unprovoked violence against anti-Erdogan demonstrators in Washington, D.C.

Washingtons police chief announced the charges against Dereci and Ellialti, along with Erdogan bodyguards, at a press conference in June. But his force never asked Toronto police for help apprehending the North York residents, according to Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash, and the men did not respond to a public request to turn themselves in.

Derecis former Toronto immigration lawyer, Brian Ibrahim Cintosun, and other members of the Turkish and Kurdish communities believe Dereci and Ellialti have fled to their native Turkey.

The Star could not independently confirm this. Photos of Dereci posing at a park in Istanbul were posted on Facebook the week after the charges were announced in June. Four people at their North York mosque said they both travelled to Turkey in the summer.

Regardless of their present location, the absence of justice has dismayed victims of an attack described by Washingtons mayor as a vicious affront to Americans free speech rights.

With him being one of the ones who assaulted me personally, its extremely frustrating to see that hes gotten away scot-free, essentially, said Torontos Elif Genc, a PhD student and Kurdish activist who said she suffered a concussion and numerous bruises when she was assaulted by men allegedly including Ellialti. And also, on a larger level, just for Kurds, and for people in this fight for human rights for Kurds, its extremely frustrating.

Victims did not expect Erdogans security officers  15 of the 19 people charged  to be arrested once they were allowed to leave the U.S. But they believed the two residents of Canada would be held accountable, like the two U.S. citizens who were arrested.

They literally committed the crime in the middle of the day in front of the cameras and in front of the police, and they just get away with it, said Lucy Usoyan, a Yazidi Kurdish activist who said she suffered a minor brain injury when she was knocked unconscious by men allegedly including Ellialti. Its unjust, its unfair, and it should be followed and it should be prosecuted.

The two U.S. citizens arrested each pleaded guilty to one count of assault with significant bodily injury. Prosecutors said they agreed to a jail term of one year apiece.

Dereci and Ellialti are listed as the owners of homes across the street from each other in North York. They could not be reached there when the Star knocked on their doors in late December.

Pugash said it is common for other police forces to ask the Toronto police to apprehend local residents for them. The Washington force would not answer when asked why they did not do so in this case.

These two individuals still have outstanding warrants and we encourage them to return to the U.S. to face charges, a spokesperson said in an email in September.

The attack was an international incident. Furious lawmakers from both U.S. parties demanded a firm stand from the U.S. government. The State Department issued a condemnation. President Donald Trump, who has praised Erdogan, remained silent.

The attack occurred on May 16 outside the Washington residence of the Turkish ambassador as Erdogan arrived at the scene for a visit. Much of the drama was caught on video: Erdogan bodyguards in suits, joined by a handful of civilian supporters in casual clothing, charged across a street and began punching and kicking a smaller group of fewer than 20 Kurdish protesters.

Dereci, who has owned an electrical contracting company in North York, was seen on video appearing to punch a protester and then kick him twice as he lay defenceless on the ground.

He is also accused of assaulting a second protester. He is charged with assaulting a senior citizen with a dangerous weapon  his shoe-clad foot  and assault causing significant bodily injury. Both alleged offences have been classified as hate crimes, since prosecutors say they were motivated by the victims ethnicity and political affiliation.

A man who answered the phone at Derecis company in July would not say whether Dereci had gone to Turkey.

Im just not allowed to, the man said. I cant give you any information right now. Theres an ongoing investigation.

Ellialti is accused of kicking three protesters, including Usoyan. He was charged with aggravated assault, assault with a dangerous weapon  his shoe-clad foot  assaulting a senior with a dangerous weapon, and assault causing significant bodily injury; these offences have also been classified as alleged hate crimes.

Ellialti and Dereci were part of a Toronto group who travelled to Washington to greet Erdogan, who was making an official visit to the White House. Derecis cousin, North York resident Alpkenan Dereci, who was not charged for his role in the incident, told a Turkish news agency that people on the pro-Erdogan side were attacked first and were the real victims.

Erdogan defended his bodyguards and scoffed at the charges against them, saying, If they are not going to protect me, why would I bring them with me to America?

With files from Miriam Katawazi and Jaren Kerr

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WASHINGTONEver since Edward Snowden revealed the extent to which the U.S. government searches and reads the email of millions of people  and the complicity of telecom and tech companies in the effort  demands that the massive surveillance program be reined in have been intense across party lines.

Yet with the imminent expiration of the legal authority that allows law enforcement to monitor the email of foreigners and many Americans, lawmakers are no closer to overhauling the surveillance process than they were when Snowden, the now-fugitive former National Security Agency contractor, sought asylum in Russia four years ago.

Congress is paralyzed on the contentious national security challenge. Lawmakers adjourned for their Christmas break having failed to reach agreement on anything more dramatic than extending the legal authority for online surveillance to mid-January, when both sides will renew their debate.

Lawmakers have burned endless hours trying to find a fix aimed at easing public concerns that the program has grown ever more Orwellian. The tech industry worries that U.S. government snooping will motivate clients to move their business abroad. Yet they cant agree on a solution. Civil libertarians on the right and left who demand searches be limited and accompanied by warrants clash with national security hawks who say any such modifications would endanger Americans.

The pressure from law enforcement to keep the program unchanged has been strong.

We need every tool and every authority weve got to keep people safe, FBI Director Christopher Wray said at a House Judiciary Committee hearing in December. I would implore the committee and the Congress not to begin rebuilding the wall that existed prior to 9/11.

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The Trump administration has signalled that even if Congress fails to act, an obscure legal ruling could allow it to keep the program in place for at least several months. Those negotiating the issue on Capitol Hill say the most likely action by Congress will be to grant a two-year extension of the status quo. That extension could be tacked onto the budget bill Congress must pass once again in January to keep government agencies open. Lawmakers would have little choice but to approve it, backers of the extension hope.

A broad coalition of civil rights, internet freedom and free-market advocacy groups is warning lawmakers that punting will have consequences.

This is an issue that concerns people across party lines, and they want Congress to have this debate, said Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel for the ACLU. They dont want something snuck through at the last minute without vetting.

Even as action to change the program is stalling in Congress, hand-wringing over it isnt.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whose steadfast advocacy for the surveillance program had long put her at odds with Democratic activists back home, is among those shifting course. As a high-ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, the issue is prominent on Feinsteins plate as she faces a primary battle.

She is now calling for warrants to be required before law enforcement can access emails found through one of the most controversial and legally precarious types of searches, in which the NSA scrapes databases for messages of Americans who may have had incidental contact with  or merely mentioned  foreigners on watch lists.

Some experts read the legal authority to search and read emails of Americans, known as Section 702, to go even further. For example, if an American participates in or promotes an event abroad as benign as a climate change protest or an academic conference on international affairs, they could get swept into the surveillance, according to the interpretations.

The government doesnt always limit its probes to issues of national security. The FBI might use backdoor searches in pursuit of a tax-evasion case, for example. The information may not be usable as evidence in a criminal complaint, but it can be used to help the FBI find other information that is.

This improperly obtained information has been used in court against Americans charged with crimes that have nothing to do with national security, Rep. Jackie Speier said at a congressional hearing in December. The FBI wont say how often that happens, only that it is infrequent. It told the federal Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board in 2014 that it is extremely unlikely that an agent pursuing a case unrelated to national security would find their targets email in the Section 702 database.

The assurance did not impress privacy advocates, who note that law enforcement searches of the 702 databases targeted at Americans have surged. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed in April that more than 30,000 such searches were conducted last year.

This is not just an abstract legal concern, said a recent letter to Congress from the advocacy groups coalition, which warned the intelligence report revealed a strikingly high number of searches of Americans.

The groups recently found themselves in an unexpected place: praising their longtime nemesis Feinstein, after she joined the push for warrant requirements in a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Feinstein argued that Americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their communications and that the 4th Amendment requires the government to show probable cause before reading private email messages, according to a committee report made public.

But most of the committee was not persuaded, and Feinstein ultimately joined her colleagues in voting to advance a plan that reauthorizes the surveillance authority without the new warrant requirement. Other Democrats, including California Sen. Kamala Harris, voted against the reauthorization bill.

The political odd couple of Sens. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, have found common ground in their distaste for warrantless searches. In the House, tea party activists have joined liberals in crusading to limit the opaque online intelligence gathering.

The full House has twice voted in recent years to restrict the type of data collection that concerns Feinstein. The House Judiciary Committee included such a restriction in the reauthorization measure it recently advanced. But the House Intelligence Committee left it out.

There are so many competing visions for how to reshape the program that none of them appear to have enough support to reach the desk of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has signalled little interest in restricting the monitoring.

Trumps own disputes with intelligence agencies have further complicated the debate.

Politically compromising and possibly illegal communications between Trump associates and Russian nationals intercepted by intelligence officials before Trump took office have moved the presidents allies to demand their own tweaks to Section 702. They would prohibit intelligence agencies from revealing to other government officials  or unmasking  the identities of Americans whose communications with foreigners are monitored through the surveillance program.

After the unmasking provision was tucked into what had been a bipartisan House Intelligence Committee plan to make some reforms to Section 702, Democrats abandoned the bill. The ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, lamented that the provision had imperiled the measure, as Republicans dont have enough support to pass it through the House on their own.

But the Republicans may ultimately have saved Schiff a lot of grief. The bill he was poised to vote for is not popular among activists influential in his district. They complain it does not go far enough in restricting warrantless surveillance.

Schiff is unmoved.

If we put a warrant requirement on the front end for everything, there are a number of circumstances where we would want law enforcement and intelligence agencies to do searches, but they would lack probable cause, Schiff said. Some groups will not be satisfied with anything short of a blanket warrant requirement. I fear that could lead to a reluctance to conduct searches in national security cases, and a stove-piping of information.

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NEW YORKNew York Citys deadliest residential fire in decades spread through every floor of a Bronx apartment building within a matter of minutes, city officials said, killing 12 people and sending other residents scrambling outside into the cold and down fire escapes to safety.

The dead included a child around a year old, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a briefing late Thursday, adding that four more people were fighting for their lives.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro called the fire, historic in its magnitude, because of the number of lives lost. Excluding the Sept. 11 attacks, it was the worst fire in the city since 87 people were killed at a social club fire in the Bronx in 1990.

Our hearts go out to every person who lost a loved one here and everyone who is fighting for their lives, Nigro said.

The blaze broke out on the first floor of a five-story building just before 7 p.m. and quickly tore through the roughly century-old structure near the Bronx Zoo.

Some tenants of the building, a mix of native New Yorkers and Latino and African immigrants, climbed down fire escapes. But the flames moved so fast that many never made it out of their apartments.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation.

About 170 firefighters worked in bone-chilling cold, just - 9 C, to rescue about a dozen people from the building.

Thierno Diallo, 59, a security guard originally from Conakry, Guinea, who lives in a ground floor apartment said he was asleep when he heard banging on the door. It took him a moment to realize what was happening.

Only when I heard people screaming, Theres a fire in the building! he said. I heard somebody, Oh! Fire! Fire! Fire!

He ran outside in his bathrobe, jacket and sandals.

Kenneth Kodua, 37, said he left his apartment to get food, leaving his roommate behind, and came back to find people fleeing in a panic.

Hours later, he was still trying to find out whether his roommate had escaped.

I tried calling her. I tried calling. No answer, he said, still clutching his bag of uneaten food. His phone was dead.

New York City's mayor says 12 people have been killed in a Bronx apartment building fire including a child around 1 year old. (The Associated Press)

Many questions remained in the immediate aftermath of the blaze, including how the fire spread so quickly in a brick building built after catastrophic fires at the turn of the 20th century ushered in an era of tougher enforcement of fire codes.

The building had more than 20 units. It was not new enough that it was required to have modern-day fireproofing, like sprinkler systems and interior steel construction.

Witnesses described seeing burned bodies being carried away on stretchers and young girls who had escaped standing barefoot outside with no coats.

Twum Bredu, 61, arrived in the neighbourhood looking for his brother, who had been staying with a family in the building. The family, a husband and wife and four children, got out. But there was no word about his brother.

Ive been calling his phone, its ringing, but nobody picks up, Bredu said. He was in his room, and we dont know what happened.

The death toll surpassed the 10 who died, including nine children, in a four-story home in another part of the Bronx in 2007. That blaze had been sparked by a space heater.

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HARTFORD, CONN.A Connecticut judge this week denied a petition by an animal rights group to grant personhood to three elephants in a travelling petting zoo, calling the request wholly frivolous.

The Nonhuman Rights Project sued in November on behalf of elephants at Commerford Zoo, based in Goshen. The group wanted the elephants released to a natural habitat sanctuary.

Elephants have a sense of self, remember the past and plan for the future, engage in complex communication, show empathy, and mourn their dead, the Florida-based group said in its complaint.

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In addition, the group also said that Person is not a synonym for human being, but designates an entity with the capacity for legal rights.

Superior Court Judge James Bentivegna called the petition wholly frivolous on its face in legal terms, in his decision released Tuesday.

The Nonhuman Rights Project did not have a prior relationship with the elephants, and thus did not have standing to bring the petition, the judge ruled. He also found there is no precedent for providing elephants the rights of personhood.

The Nonhuman Rights Project is reviewing the decision, a spokeswoman said.

Were happy with the decision, zoo co-owner Darlene Commerford said. It was a frivolous case.

The three female elephants, Asians Beulah, 48, Minnie, 46, and African Karen, 34, all have been with the zoo since they were four years old and are like family, Commerford said.

The elephants, like all the animals owned by the company, are properly cared for, she said.

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WASHINGTONWhen Pakistani forces freed a Canadian-American family this fall held captive by militants, they also captured one of the abductors. U.S. officials saw a potential windfall: He was a member of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network who could perhaps provide valuable information about at least one other American hostage.

The Americans demanded access to the man, but Pakistani officials rejected those requests, the latest disagreement in the increasingly dysfunctional relationship between the countries. Now, the Trump administration is strongly considering whether to withhold $255 million in aid that it had delayed sending to Islamabad, according to U.S. officials, as a show of dissatisfaction with Pakistans broader intransigence toward confronting the terrorist networks that operate there.

The administrations internal debate over whether to deny Pakistan the money is a test of whether President Donald Trump will deliver on his threat to punish Islamabad for failing to co-operate on counterterrorism operations. Relations between the United States and Pakistan, long vital for both, have chilled steadily since the president declared over the summer that Pakistan gives safe haven to agents of chaos, violence and terror.

The United States, which has provided Pakistan with more than $33 billion in aid since 2002, said in August that it was withholding the $255 million until Pakistan did more to crack down on internal terrorist groups. Senior administration officials met this month to decide what to do about the money, and U.S. officials said a final decision could be made in the coming weeks.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive discussions, did not detail what conditions Pakistan would have to meet to receive the aid. It was not clear how the United States found out about the militants arrest, but a U.S. drone had been monitoring the kidnappers as they moved deeper into Pakistan.

Caitlan Coleman, an American, and her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, were freed along with their children in an October raid after five years in captivity. Pakistani troops confronted Haqqani militants as they ferried the family across the tribal lands of northwest Pakistan.

The Trump administration has foreshadowed a cut-off in recent days with harsher language. Last week, in announcing his national security strategy, Trump again singled out Pakistan for criticism. We make massive payments every year to Pakistan, he said. They have to help.

Vice President Mike Pence reinforced that message in a visit to Afghanistan just before Christmas, telling cheering U.S. troops that President Trump has put Pakistan on notice. The reaction of his audience was notable, analysts said, since the Pentagon has historically been one of Pakistans defenders in Washington because of its long-standing ties to the Pakistani military.

Pakistan, however, has few friends in Trumps National Security Council. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, served in Afghanistan, where he saw firsthand how Pakistan meddled in its neighbours affairs. Lisa Curtis, the councils senior director for South and Central Asia, brought critical views about Pakistan from her previous post at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

In a report she wrote in February with Husain Haqqani, Pakistans former ambassador to Washington, the two called for the administration to avoid viewing and portraying Pakistan as an ally. If Pakistan did not take steps to show its commitment to U.S. counterterrorism goals, they wrote, Trump should strip it of its status as a major non-NATO ally.

Such a step would be more punitive than withholding the $255 million in State Department assistance known as Foreign Military Financing, Haqqani said in an interview, because it would deprive Pakistan of access to military equipment. He said Pakistani officials were bracing for some kind of aid cutoff.

Pakistans military, he said, still views its accommodation of the Haqqani network as in its security interest. To overcome that, the Trump administration would have to pursue other, more punishing measures, either by imposing targeted sanctions on the government or removing it from the list of non-NATO allies.

Pakistan can withstand a cutoff in American aid, Haqqani said. It would have to be followed by something else to make Pakistan believe that Mr. Trump means business.

In July, the Pentagon said it would withhold $50 million in military reimbursements for Pakistan because the country had not taken sufficient action against the Haqqani network.

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LONDONIt seems former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a dim view of panda diplomacy.

Newly released government files revealed Friday that Thatcher rejected a London Zoological Society proposal that she allow a male panda to fly on her plane when she made an official visit to Washington in 1981.

The panda was sought by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington so he could mate with a female panda given to the United States by China.

London Zoos director suggested that Thatcher could help Anglo-American relations by bringing the panda to the U.S., but the Iron Lady was having none of it.

Her private secretary said Thatcher wanted no part of the scheme and declared: Pandas and politicians are not happy omens!

Thatcher said the zoo should arrange the panda delivery.

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The threats began last December, when Drexel University professor George Ciccariello-Maher tweeted that all he wanted for Christmas was white genocide.

This week, he resigned, after a year of enduring unrelenting harassment and death threats for his controversial tweets, he said.

After a year of harassment by right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and internet mobs, after death threats and threats of violence directed against me and my family, my situation has become unsustainable, he wrote in a statement on Facebook.

Dozens of incidents of harassment against professors have been reported on college campuses in the past year, with African-American professors among those most targeted, according to the AAUP. Conservative-leaning websites have drawn attention to professors they allege discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom, according to one website, Professor Watchlist. Critics say the websites are an attack on academic freedom.

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The Christmas tweet was meant to be satirical, as white genocide is an imaginary concept used by the far right to scare white people, Ciccariello-Maher said.

In April, the politics and global studies professor again made headlines when he criticized someone giving up their first class seat on a plane to a uniformed soldier.

He cited Mosul in reference to an airstrike in March by U.S. forces, which may be among the worst U.S.-led civilian bombings in 25 years.

And in October, he again sparked outrage with a series of tweets that suggested the Las Vegas shooting, which killed at least 59 people and injured more than 500 others, was brought on by the narrative of white victimization.

Ciccariello-Maher on Thursday announced his resignation from Drexel, effective Sunday. He wrote in his statement on Facebook that the decision was not one he took lightly and that his position at the university has become unsustainable.

Staying at Drexel in the eye of this storm has become detrimental to my own writing, speaking, and organizing, he wrote.

He told CNN earlier this month that he had 800 unread voice mails in his inbox and that the threats involving his child are the most frightening to me.

His October tweets about the Las Vegas shooting led Drexel to place Ciccariello-Maher on administrative leave for safety purposes, according to Inside Higher Ed. Drexel administrators, who have tried to distance the university from Ciccariello-Mahers positions, said they were concerned about the growing number of threats directed toward him, and Ciccariello-Maher has since been teaching his courses online.

Ciccariello-Maher explained his tweets a Washington Post op-ed, saying his argument was not new, but rather reflects decades of research on how race and gender function in our society.

The American Association of University Professors came to Ciccariello-Mahers defence, saying the university bowed to the pressure of those threatening him.

A suspension is a severely adverse personnel action, and imposing one on Ciccariello-Maher without consulting an appropriate faculty body raises concerns for his academic freedom and tenured status, the group said in a statement. It is especially concerning that the suspension is indefinite.

In the past year, conflicts over free speech on college campuses have escalated as clashes have broken out between white nationalists and counterprotesters. In August, a rally by several hundred white nationalists and white supremacists at the University of Virginia resulted in shoving, punching and the spraying of chemical irritants by both groups, and a woman was killed when a car drove into a crowd of counterprotesters.

Protests of controversial speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer have turned violent, and a fifth of undergraduate students now say its acceptable to silence a speaker with physical force if they make offensive and hurtful statements, according to a September survey of students conducted by the Brookings Institution.

University professors have also faced increased scrutiny with classroom conversations exposed on social media and as conservatives rallied against what they called left-leaning colleges and universities.

Last December, death threats forced an Orange Coast College professor to flee her home state of California after a video surfaced of her telling her students that U.S. President Donald Trumps election was an act of terrorism. In June, an assistant professor at the University of Iowa was hit with hate mail and threats for her piece discussing how classical white marble statues were often painted. Stories of her work began to circulate online, with one reading, Prof: white marble in artwork contributes to white supremacy.

In his Facebook post addressing his resignation, Ciccariello-Maher said tenured faculty should defend all faculty members from attacks by the far right and white supremacists.

Only then can we build campus solidarities that transcend such artificial boundaries among faculty  and beyond, to campus workers and students as well  solidarities that will be the last line of defence in what is today a losing battle for universities, he wrote.

He also encouraged his students to keep standing up for their rights by marching and protesting.

In a statement Thursday, university officials said they accepted Ciccariello-Mahers resignation and wished him well. Officials said they recognize his significant scholarly contributions and service as an outstanding classroom teacher.

Drexel University wishes Professor Ciccariello-Maher well in his future pursuits, officials said.

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SEOULSouth Korea has seized a Hong Kong-flagged oil tanker accused of transferring 600 tons of refined oil to a North Korean ship in October in violation of United Nations sanctions, South Korean officials said Friday.

Officials revealed that they had impounded the 11,253-ton Hong Kong tanker, the Lighthouse Winmore, and questioned its crew. The revelation came a day after President Donald Trump accused China of letting fuel oil flow into North Korea through illicit ship-to-ship transfers on international waters.

But there was no immediate evidence of Chinese involvement in the Lighthouse Winmores dealings with the North Koreans. The ship was being leased by the Taiwanese company Billions Bunker Group Corp., South Korean Foreign Ministry officials told reporters Friday.

The Lighthouse Winmore docked at the South Korean port of Yeosu on Oct. 11 to load 14,039 tons of refined petroleum from Japan, they said. Four days later, it departed Yeosu, saying it was headed for Taiwan. Instead, it transferred the refined oil to four other ships on international waters, including 600 tons transferred to the North Korean ship Sam Jong 2 on Oct. 19, officials said.

A similar ship-to-ship transfer involving another North Korean ship, Rye Song Gang 1, was captured in satellite photos released by the U.S. Treasury Department on Nov. 21, although the department did not release the name of the other ship involved in the high-seas transaction.

South Korean authorities boarded the Lighthouse Winmore and questioned its crew members when they returned to Yeosu on Nov. 24. The ship was formally impounded by South Korea after the UN Security Council passed a resolution Dec. 22 requiring member countries to inspect and impound any vessel in their ports that was believed to have been used for prohibited activities with North Korea.

The ship remains in South Korean custody, officials said Friday. Its 25 crewmen, including 23 Chinese citizens and two from Burma, will be allowed to leave after the investigation is over.

The Security Council on Thursday denied international port access to the Sam Jong 2 and three other North Korean ships suspected of carrying or having transported banned goods, Agence France-Presse reported, citing UN diplomats.

When it blacklisted several Chinese trading companies and North Korean shipping companies and their vessels in November, the U.S. Treasury Department said that North Korea was known to employ deceptive shipping practices, including ship-to-ship transfers, a practice banned under a UN sanctions resolution adopted Sept. 11.

Trumps criticism of China came after the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, quoting anonymous sources, reported that U.S. spy satellites have spotted 30 ship-to-ship transfers of oil and other products since October in international waters between North Korea and China.

The report said the smuggling took place between North Korean vessels and ships believed to be from China.

In its latest sanctions, adopted Dec. 22, the Security Council expressed concern that North Korea was illicitly exporting coal and other prohibited items through deceptive maritime practices and obtaining petroleum illegally through ship-to-ship transfers.

Washington has called on the Security Council to blacklist 10 ships  including the Lighthouse Winmore, the Sam Jong 2 and the Rye Song Gang 1  for circumventing sanctions by conducting ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels or transporting North Korean coal, Reuters reported, citing UN documents. China and Russia subsequently asked for more time to consider the proposal, it said.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry refused to confirm the Chosun report, saying that the matter was being discussed at the Security Councils sanctions committee.

But Chinese officials disputed the news media reports.

I would like to know whether the relevant media could specify which ship or ships were involved in the situation? Hua Chunying, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said Wednesday. What made them conclude that these ships violated the Security Council resolutions? Any solid evidence?

Ren Guoqiang, a spokesman for the Chinese Defense Ministry, was more categorical in denial: The situation you have mentioned absolutely does not exist, he told reporters Thursday.

The ownership of big tankers and industrial ships can be difficult to discern. The owners often maintain foreign registration, something known in the industry as a flag of convenience.

There were signs that the Lighthouse Winmore may have a connection to China. The registered owner of the ship is a Hong Kong company called Win More Shipping. The only director of Win More Shipping is Gong Ruiqiang, who lives in Guangzhou, according to Hong Kong corporate filings. He is also listed as a shareholder of several shipping companies in China.

No one answered the door at Win More Shippings office on the 12th floor of a building in central Hong Kong. At least three other companies were listed at the same address, including a company called Water Confidence Technologies.

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WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trump was already revved up when he emerged from his limousine to visit NATOs new headquarters in Brussels in May. He had just met Frances recently elected president, Emmanuel Macron, whom he greeted with a white-knuckle handshake and a complaint that Europeans do not pay their fair share of the alliances costs.

On the long walk through the NATO buildings cathedrallike atrium, the presidents anger grew. He looked at the polished floors and shimmering glass walls with a property developers eye. (Its all glass, he said later. One bomb could take it out.) By the time he reached an outdoor plaza where he was to speak to the other NATO leaders, Trump was fuming, according to two aides who were with him that day.

He was there to dedicate the building, but instead he took a shot at it.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

I never asked once what the new NATO headquarters cost, Trump told the leaders, his voice thick with sarcasm. I refuse to do that. But it is beautiful. His visceral reaction to the $1.2-billion (U.S.) building, more than anything else, coloured his first encounter with the alliance, aides said.

Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump remains an erratic, idiosyncratic leader on the global stage, an insurgent who attacks allies the United States has nurtured since the Second World War and who can seem more at home with Americas adversaries. His Twitter posts, delivered without warning or consultation, often make a mockery of his administrations policies and subvert the messages his emissaries are trying to deliver abroad.

Trump has pulled out of trade and climate change agreements and denounced the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. He has broken with decades of U.S. policy in the Middle East by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And he has taunted Kim Jong Un of North Korea as short and fat, fanning fears of war on the peninsula.

He has assiduously cultivated President Xi Jinping of China and avoided criticizing President Vladimir Putin of Russia  leaders of the two countries that his own national security strategy calls the greatest geopolitical threats to America.

Above all, Trump has transformed the worlds view of the United States from a reliable anchor of the liberal, rules-based international order into something more inward-looking and unpredictable. That is a seminal change from the role the nation has played for 70 years, under presidents from both parties, and it has lasting implications for how other nations chart their futures.

Trumps unorthodox approach has moved a lot of us out of our comfort zone, me included, the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, said in an interview. A three-star Army general who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and wrote a well-regarded book about the White Houses strategic failure in Vietnam, McMaster defined Trumps foreign policy as pragmatic realism rather than isolationism.

The consensus view has been that engagement overseas is an unmitigated good, regardless of the circumstances, McMaster said. But there are problems that are maybe both intractable and of marginal interest to the American people, that do not justify investments of blood and treasure.

Trumps advisers argue that he has blown the cobwebs off decades of foreign policy doctrine and, as he approaches his anniversary, that he has learned the realities of the world in which the U.S. must operate.

They point to gains in the Middle East, where Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is transforming Saudi Arabia; in Asia, where China is doing more to pressure a nuclear-armed North Korea; and even in Europe, where Trumps criticism has prodded NATO members to ante up more for their defence.

The president takes credit for eradicating the caliphate built by Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, though he mainly accelerated a battle plan developed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. His aides say he has reversed Obamas passive approach to Iran, in part by disavowing the nuclear deal.

While Trump has held more than 130 meetings and phone calls with foreign leaders since taking office, he has left the rest of the world still puzzling over how to handle an American president unlike any other. Foreign leaders have tested a variety of techniques to deal with him, from shameless pandering to keeping a studied distance.

Most foreign leaders are still trying to get a handle on him, said Richard N. Haass, a top State Department official in the George W. Bush administration who is now the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Everywhere I go, Im still getting asked, Help us understand this president, help us navigate this situation.

Were beginning to see countries take matters into their own hands, Haass continued. Theyre hedging against Americas unreliability.

Difficulties with Merkel

Few countries have struggled more to adapt to Trump than Germany, and few leaders seem less personally in sync with him than its leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel, the physicist-turned-politician. After she won a fourth term, their relationship took on weighty symbolism: The great disrupter versus the last defender of the liberal world order.

In one of their first phone calls, the chancellor explained to the president why Ukraine was a vital part of the trans-Atlantic relationship. Trump, officials recalled, had little idea of Ukraines importance, its history of being bullied by Russia or what the U.S. and its allies had done to try to push back Putin.

For Merkel and many other Germans, something elemental has changed across the Atlantic. We Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands, she said in May. The times in which we can fully count on others  they are somewhat over.

Better relations with autocrats

There have been fewer misunderstandings with autocrats. Xi of China and King Salman of Saudi Arabia both won over Trump by giving him a lavish welcome when he visited. The Saudi monarch projected his image on the side of a hotel; Xi reopened a long-dormant theatre inside the Forbidden City to present him and his wife an evening of Chinese opera.

Did you see the show? Trump asked reporters on Air Force One after he left Beijing in November. They say in the history of people coming to China, theres been nothing like that. And I believe it.

Later, chatting with his aides, Trump continued to marvel at the respect Xi had shown him. It was a show of respect for the American people, not just for the president, one adviser replied gently.

Then, of course, there is the strange case of Putin. The president spoke of his warm telephone calls with the Russian president, even as he introduced a national security strategy that acknowledged Russias efforts to weaken democracies by meddling in their elections.

Trump has had a bumpier time with friends. He told off Prime Minister Theresa May on Twitter, after she objected to his exploitation of anti-Muslim propaganda from a far-right group in Britain.

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Statecraft has been singularly absent from the treatment of some of his allies, particularly the U.K., said Peter Westmacott, a former British ambassador to the U.S.

Trumps feuds with May and other British officials have left him in a strange position: feted in Beijing and Riyadh but barely welcome in London, which Trump is expected to visit early next year, despite warnings that he will face angry protesters.

Aides to Trump argue that his outreach to autocrats has been vindicated. When the Saudi crown prince visited the White House in March, the president lavished attention on him. Since then, they say, Saudi Arabia has reopened cinemas and allowed women to drive.

But critics say Trump gives more than he gets. By backing the 32-year-old crown prince so wholeheartedly, the president cemented his status as heir to the House of Saud. The crown prince has since jailed his rivals as Saudi Arabia pursued a deadly intervention in Yemens civil war.

Trump granted an enormous concession to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he announced earlier this month that the United States would formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. But he did not ask anything of Netanyahu in return.

That showed another hallmark of Trumps foreign policy: how much it is driven by domestic politics. In this case, he was fulfilling a campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. While evangelicals and some hard-line, pro-Israel American Jews exulted, the Palestinians seethed  leaving Trumps dreams of brokering a peace accord between them and the Israelis in tatters.

Globalists vs. Nationalists

For some of Trumps advisers, the key to understanding his statecraft is not how he deals with Xi Jinping or Angela Merkel, but the ideological contest over Americas role that plays out daily between the West Wing and agencies like the State Department and the Pentagon.

Theres a chasm that cant be bridged between the globalists and the nationalists, said Stephen K. Bannon, the presidents former chief strategist and leader of the nationalist wing, who has kept his boss ear since leaving the White House last summer.

On the globalist side of the debate stand McMaster, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, and Trumps chief economic adviser, Gary D. Cohn. On the nationalist side, in addition to Bannon, stand Stephen Miller, the presidents top domestic adviser, and Robert Lighthizer, the chief trade negotiator. On many days, the nationalist group includes the commander in chief himself.

The globalists have curbed some of Trumps most radical impulses. He has yet to rip up the Iran nuclear deal, though he has refused to recertify it. He has reaffirmed U.S. support for NATO, despite his objections about those members he believes are freeloading. And he has ordered thousands of additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan, even after promising during the campaign to stay away from nation building.

This has prompted a few Europeans to hope his bark is worse than his bite, in the words of Westmacott.

Trump acknowledges that being in office has changed him. My original instinct was to pull out, he said of Afghanistan, and, historically, I like following my instincts. But all my life Ive heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office.

Yet some things have not changed. Trumps advisers have utterly failed to curb his Twitter posts, for example. Some gamely suggest that they create diplomatic openings. Others say they roll with the punches when he labels Kim Jong Un Little Rocket Man. For Tillerson, however, the tweets have severely tarnished his credibility in foreign capitals.

All of them know they still cant control the thunderbolt from on high, said John D. Negroponte, who served as director of national intelligence for President George W. Bush.

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2017 was filled with many tragic tales of those seeking refuge, but it took until Christmas for one of the most striking cases to emerge. For about three months, a Zimbabwean family with four adults and four children has been stuck at Bangkoks main airport, with no solution in sight.

Thai immigration authorities confirmed the familys legal limbo after a post on social media emerged that appeared to show an airport worker handing over a gift to one of the children. (The post has since been deleted.)

As authoritarian leader Robert Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe for almost 40 years, more than 3 million people fled the country to South Africa and elsewhere for economic or political reasons. The family now stuck in Bangkok says it left the country when Mugabe was still in power, and watched the dramatic events unfold there from abroad in recent months.

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In a move bearing all the hallmarks of a coup, Zimbabwes military took control of the country and of Mugabe himself in November. There had long been concerns about the health of the 93-year-old president and what would come next for the African country he has ruled since 1980. When Mugabe announced that he would resign after almost four decades as the countrys leader, crowds poured into the streets of Zimbabwe.

Despite Mugabes resignation, Thai immigration officials told the BBC that the family is refusing to fly back to Zimbabwe because of fear of prosecution, even though the countrys new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has indicated that he would welcome the return of Zimbabwean refugees.

The family first arrived in Thailand in March on tourist visas, according to authorities there. Thailand offers on-arrival visas, which makes it relatively easy for asylum seekers to enter the country for a limited period of time. However, Thailand very seldom grants asylum to any refugees and offers no appropriate legal status.

So the family was forced to explore multiple other options to relocate to Europe. But because of their lack of visas, all attempts appear to have failed. Because the family initially overstayed their Thai tourist visas, they are now stuck in airport no mans land.

The United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said it was working on a possible solution that would allow the family to relocate to a third country, but it did not indicate how long this process could take, according to AFP. Other cases of individuals stuck at international airports have taken years or even decades to resolve.

Meanwhile, Bangkok airport staff has been providing the family with food and beverages, and officials said that the four adults and four children were not at risk. They could travel to other countries that are willing to take them ... We also offered to relocate them to our holding centre where there is child care. But they refused. They are happy to stay here, one immigration official told the BBC. The family itself has so far not publicly commented on their stay at the Bangkok airport and it remains unknown what options were offered to them.

There have been a number of individuals stuck at international airports in recent decades in cases that have drawn international attention. The case of Iranian citizen Mehran Karimi Nasseri who was in diplomatic limbo at a Parisian airport for 18 years, for example, inspired the 2004 movie The Terminal.

More recently, American whistleblower Edward Snowden spent 40 days in the transit zone of Moscows Sheremetyevo airport, while he was waiting to be granted asylum in Russia. At the time, his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena compared Snowdens airport stay to house arrest, only not at home, and emphasized the psychological toll of being forced to stay indoors in a legal limbo.

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Its hard to imagine that Canada-the-Good would ever engage in cyber attacks that could sabotage foreign states and people, as the Russians allegedly did during the 2016 U.S. election campaign.

But that is an alarming scenario raised by the University of Torontos Citizen Lab about new powers that are proposed in Bill C-59 for the Communications Security Establishment.

The lab, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs, studies how communications technologies affect human rights and global security. It raises the concern in a 90-page report that zeroes in on how Bill C-59 will affect the CSE, Canadas spy agency that focuses on electronic communications.

Lex Gill, one of the authors of the report, says the new powers could normalize state-sponsored hacking and disinformation campaigns.

And she poses this dilemma: The open question (is) whether or not affording the (CSE) these types of capabilities will contribute to Canadas security interests or undermine them.

If, indeed, the labs analysis is correct, parliamentarians tasked with studying the bill must raise very pointed questions as the bill winds its way through the amendment and approval process.

The biggest one is whether Canadians want this country to be engaged in such nefarious activities at all.

By creating a climate which normalizes these types of activities . . . were accepting as Canadians that we think that these types of operations are OK, Gill points out.

That is a very big leap for the government to take.

Indeed, the Citizen Lab report says under the proposed legislation the CSE will be limited only by their imagination in coming up with new cyber attacks and espionage campaigns.

Among the activities the CSE could engage in, the report says, are: mass dissemination of false information, impersonation, leaking of foreign documents in order to influence political and legal outcomes, disabling account or network access, large-scale denial of service attacks, and interference with the electricity grid.

It cant engage in these attacks willy-nilly. Under the proposed legislation, the CSE would require approval from both the minister of national defence and the minister of foreign affairs to launch a cyber attack.

Still, offensive cyber-operations would not require judicial approval or oversight, such as the sort of warrants police need for certain invasive operations. Nor would these activities even require the approval of the proposed new independent intelligence commissioner, the report says.

Why, one wonders, should these new powers be exempt from the democratic oversight the Trudeau government so often posited as key to rebalancing the Harper government's draconian security policy?

Canada should of course want to make sure it can protect itself from cyber attacks and other forms of sabotage. And the security establishment will always want new powers to make their important and increasingly difficult job easier.

But making things easier for the security establishment is not, on its own, enough to guide policy. Lawmakers must determine whether the suggested new powers are necessary and proportionate, whether they are constitutional, whether sufficient oversight and safeguards exist and whether, on balance, they would strengthen our security or weaken it.

In the New Year, the House of Commons national security committee will be studying Bill C-59. It will have to take great care in answering these questions. It is, after all, much easier to provide new powers to police or security agencies than it is to take them away.

The Harper government's Bill C-51, which the Liberals' C-59 aims to rein in, failed to reflect the difficult balance required of good security policy. The Trudeau government, in its important effort to correct the mistakes of its predecessor, should be careful not to fall into the same trap.

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Bitcoin tumbles as much as 30 per cent as experts warn of bubble about to burst, Dec. 22

The rapid rise in bitcoins ticker price makes for great headlines. But its importance pales in comparison to the stories and use cases that actually matter.

Bitcoin empowers female entrepreneurs in Afghanistan, rescues families from a free-falling economy in Venezuela and funds suppressed advocacy groups in Ukraine. As a secure and decentralized platform for economic exchange, bitcoin is capable of including in the global economy more than two billion unbanked people around the world.

Yet critics like Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz claim bitcoin doesnt serve any socially useful function. Only the privilege of living with a stable economy in a highly developed country could inform such an opinion.

Bitcoin is a complex and cutting-edge piece of financial technology that could improve the lives of billions. The price is just a sideshow and should be treated as such.

Zack Voell, managing director, youmeandbtc.com, Leesburg, Va.

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Business owners speak out on King St. pilot, Dec. 27

Tamar Harris candid interviews with business owners on King St. shows the streetcar pilot project from Bathurst to Jarvis Sts. has already had a dramatic effect on restaurant and retail businesses along the route, as well as creating traffic gridlock on streets in the vicinity.

The gain of 10 to 15 minutes of transit travel time is at a critical cost to the profitability of businesses and the vibrancy of what was once a very busy pedestrian area. Its tantamount to locating these businesses in subway tunnels, with fast-moving trains of people just staring out the windows at businesses they cant access.

This is a very poor decision by the mayor and the city councillors, with little consideration of the serious consequences to the economy of a very productive shopping and dining area in the downtown core.

Marty Fruchtman, Toronto

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Prince Harrys proposal to his fiancee, Meghan Markle, may have been unprecedentedly low key (he popped the question at home, over a roast chicken) but the couples short time together has been marred by high drama.

First there was the business about Markles harsh and occasionally racist treatment in the tabloids, provoking the prince to issue a statement insisting media back off the 36-year-old American actress, whose mother couldnt even walk out of her front door without being accosted by foreign reporters.

Then came the incident of the arguably racist brooch worn by a member of the British Royal Family  a woman who may have the worst title in the history of nobility: Princess Michael of Kent. Earlier this month, Princess Michael, the wife of (who else?) Prince Michael of Kent, the Queens first cousin, gave new meaning to the term statement piece when she wore a blackamoor brooch depicting a caricature of an African person to a lunch with Harry and Meghan, a fashion choice many interpreted as a not-so-subtle dig at Markles mixed race heritage. (The princess later apologized for wearing the brooch.)

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But were not done yet.

Markles estranged half-sister, Samantha Grant, has emerged slinging insults at the actress in the press  allegedly calling her a social climber and announcing a forthcoming tell-all book about growing up with Markle, entitled The Diary of Princess Pushys Sister.

Some Canadians that could get invites to the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle include, the Trudeaus and the Mulroneys. (The Canadian Press)

And yet, despite the insanity listed above, the betrothed couples biggest trial is only just beginning. Enter the politics of the wedding guest list. Who will Harry and Meghan invite to their spring wedding at Windsor Castle? And more importantly, who wont they? Compiling a wedding guest list is an anxiety-inducing, feud-inciting exercise for any couple, in any context, and on any budget. There are the people you want to invite but dont have room for, and the people you absolutely do not want to invite but are compelled to include because it would be socially unacceptable to exclude them.

Most couples faced with this dilemma are weighing whether to send an invitation to an old friend, or a lecherous great uncle. But Harry and Meghan must weigh whether they want to invite the lecherous leader of the free world  a.k.a. President Donald Trump. The time will soon be at hand for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to reveal which presidents  if any  they are going to invite to their wedding on May 19. According to a recent story in the U.K. tabloid, The Sun, British government officials are deeply worried that Harry and Meghan will invite the Obamas to their wedding, a couple they know and admire, but decline to invite Trump and first lady Melania  a couple they do not know and admire.

Apparently British officials fear that such a snub would anger Trump and further damage the already rocky relationship between the U.K. and the United States.

In the interest of diplomatic relations then, and with full knowledge that the president has the emotional maturity of a cast member on The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Harry and Meghan should spare us yet another Trumpian tweet storm, or worse, and either invite both the Trumps and the Obamas to their wedding (and, of course, seat them separately), or invite neither couple. These are the responsible options: the options that would serve the best interests of Queen and country.

But in the interest of throwing the best possible wedding  an event that should be, when done right, the happiest day of a persons life, Harry and Meghan should snub Trump if they feel so inclined. He may be the president of the United States but he isnt family. Unlike Princess Michael of Kent, hes an alleged racist they have no familial obligation to. Remove his political stature and he is nothing more than a crude stranger.

Thus, while their decision to leave him off the guest list might be read as a political blunder, it wouldnt be read as a social one. No fair person would judge them negatively for it, because Trumps presence would surely make a sideshow of their special day (volatile people dont usually make good wedding guests).

In the end, like any engaged celebrity couple, Harry and Meghan have a unique opportunity to set wedding trends and upend traditional etiquette. If they select dead daisies for their centrepieces, half the world will select dead daisies. If they book a Kiss cover band to play at their reception, half the world will book a Kiss cover band. If they decide to cut their wedding cake before dinner, half the world will cut their wedding cake before dinner. And if they choose to exclude Donald Trump from their guest list, and invite Barack Obama instead, betrothed couples will get the message far and wide, a message that would benefit us all: if you cant stand somebody, dont invite them to your party. If you like them, do.

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Hallelujah, we survived 2017 without blowing up the planet. Who would have thought?

Lets all take a bow, but only a quick one.

It may be simply because those in charge of the nuclear codes in Washington and North Korea ended their schooling at Grade 3 and couldnt quite read the manuals.

But if we are doomed to have another nail-biting year in 2018  and we are  we begin it with one glorious advantage: We know what will happen.

Here, in one snappy package, is a confidential peek at the Top Ten international headlines of 2018.

1. Americas constitutional crisis

Donald Trump cannot allow special counsel Robert Mueller to complete his investigation into Trumps political and business empire. He is certain to try to end it even if it triggers a constitutional crisis. The reason is that Trump has always known what Mueller surely now knows: that Trump is guilty of a wide assortment of crimes, including obstruction of justice. As his justification, Trump will take the cue from his apologists in the media, such as Fox News, which has been attacking Muellers probe as A Coup in America.

2. The Democrats roar back

In the year ahead, Trump and the Republican party will have more than Mueller to contend with. All signs point to the likelihood of a Democratic wave this November in the Congressional midterm elections. Democrats are well positioned to win the House of Representatives and possibly even the Senate. This will create havoc with the remainder of Trumps term, and will make the possibility of impeachment very real.

3. Conflict with North Korea

This is the year when nuclear brinkmanship will become dangerous. There will be some sort of military conflict over North Korea; the question is whether it can be contained. The regime there is certain to resume nuclear testing soon, perhaps including a thermonuclear test in the atmosphere. Sen. Lindsey Graham, after spending several hours with Trump, estimated that in such a case the odds are 70 per cent that the U.S. would conduct a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. The potential for catastrophe is limitless.

4. China makes its move

The growing dominance of China will be one of the most enduring legacies of 2018. Ironically, Trumps America First policy is having a boomerang effect by making China First. China will soon become the country with the biggest economy and the largest population. As Europe and North America remain distracted by Trumps brand of disruptive politics, and Americas traditional allies in Asia feel abandoned by Washington, China is moving in to fill the vacuum.

5. British government collapses

The besieged Conservative government of Theresa May will fall apart within a year. Since its narrow victory in Britains 2017 election, Mays government has struggled with the implications of the earlier vote to exit the European Union. The enormous costs of Brexit are becoming better known, and recent polls indicate that many Britons regret their vote. This will raise the once astonishing prospect of Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn becoming U.K. prime minister and  equally surprising  it will increase the odds there will eventually be a second referendum on Brexit.

6. Europe is back on its feet

Europe will be buoyed by an economic upswing and political renewal. And in 2018, it will be Frances Emmanuel Macron  not Germanys Angela Merkel  at the head of the pack. As Germanys chancellor struggles to form a government, the French president is riding high. Within France itself, his popularity is soaring, having rebounded from a summer slump. His increase in approval was described by pollsters as unprecedented for a French president. And in Europe as a whole, Macron is being seen as the only leader now speaking for traditional European values.

7. Assault on free expression

This will be the year when the assault on free speech will reach levels unprecedented in our lifetimes. Emboldened by a U.S. president who cites fake news whenever his lies are challenged, the forces that want to limit free expression for political reasons are in the ascendancy throughout the world. Studies show that freedom of the press has fallen to its lowest level in at least a decade. And the expression fake news is now being uttered by dictators far and wide as journalists are silenced and killed.

8. Countdown to war on Iran

At the urging of Saudi Arabia and Israel  two arch rivals of Iran  the American march to a disastrous war on Iran will accelerate. It is not enough for Iran to be in compliance with the historic 2016 nuclear agreement, as it clearly is according to the UN. In the American media, Iran is being demonized and the case against it is being fabricated. This is a familiar playbook, since we saw it all in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

9. No hope for Kushner plan

The so-called Kushner Middle East peace plan will go nowhere. For months now, Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law, has been the presidents hand-picked envoy to craft a new Israeli-Palestinian peace. Early reports suggested it was heavily favoured toward the Israelis, rejecting most Palestinian claims. Few observers gave the plan much of a chance, but Trumps announcement that the U.S. is moving its embassy to Jerusalem has ended any hope the proposed plan will succeed. Given that, it may never even be made public.

10. A resurgent Palestinian cause

Trumps decision regarding Jerusalem  by granting Israel what it wanted  was intended as a blow against the Palestinians. And it succeeded in that. As an American betrayal, it was unprecedented and brutal  and the floundering Palestinian leadership was damaged. But in the days since that decision, the tide seems to be turning in their favour. Once again, incredibly, the Palestinian cause is regarded as a priority for much of the Arab world. And now, with this new lease on life, the pressure in the coming year will intensify on the Palestinians to get rid of their old, corrupt and inept leadership which has held them back.

My track record

A year ago, I made 10 predictions for 2017 and  drum roll please!  it appears that I got nine right, more or less. (Yes, I too was gobsmacked at that.)

I credit this to a rigorous process  visionary in its concept and daunting in its execution  involving a red blindfold and a cork dart board, capped off in a final anxious tiebreaker by a dramatic flip-of-a-coin.

My mostly right category included predictions that Trumps presidency will implode, Irans nuclear deal will survive, Russias Putin will gain dominance, Europes far right will increase in electoral support, Turkey will edge closer to dictatorship and the nuclear threat involving North Korea will grow.

My one prediction that I concede was mostly wrong was that America will risk war with China  but, ominously, the conditions for that to happen are still there.

What a buoyant holiday note to end on!

Happy New Year.

Tony Burman is former head of Al Jazeera English and CBC News. Reach him @TonyBurman or at tony.burman@gmail.com.

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At the wedding of Jerry Buttimer and Conchobhar O'Laoghaire in Triskel Christchurch, Cork : Leo Varadkar and partner Matthew Barrett (left). Pic Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision

The Fine Gael politician who helped spearhead the marriage equality referendum today celebrated his own wedding.

Senator Jerry Buttimer (50) exchanged wedding vows with his long-time partner, Conchobar O Laoghaire, in a special lunchtime ceremony at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork.

The ceremony was attended by family, friends, neighbours and political colleagues.

Amongst the attendance was Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and his partner, Dr Matthew Barrett, former Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his wife, Fionnuala,Tainaiste Simon Coveney and his wife, Ruth, former Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald, Health Minister Simon Harris, Enterprise Minister Mary Mitchell-O'Connor, former Health Minister Dr James Reilly, Fine Gael Chairman Martin Heydon, Joe Carey and Alan Farrell TDs and Sen Paudie Coffey.

Expand Close At the wedding of Jerry Buttimer and Conchobhar O'Laoghaire in Triskel Christchurch, Cork : Leo Varadkar and partner Matthew Barrett (left). Pic Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision / Facebook

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Whatsapp At the wedding of Jerry Buttimer and Conchobhar O'Laoghaire in Triskel Christchurch, Cork : Leo Varadkar and partner Matthew Barrett (left). Pic Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision

Also present was Sen Buttimer's brother, Councillor John Buttimer, who is a former Lord Mayor of Cork.

The former Cork South Central TD admitted he was "absolutely delighted" - but was also relieved that he had a quiet Christmas to build-up to his special day rather than having to fight a general election campaign.

Big congratulations to Senator Jerry Buttimer and Mr. Conchobhar OLaoghaire who have just tied the knot at Triskel Christchurch. pic.twitter.com/3VUFRN2eP2  Triskel Arts Centre (@TriskelCork) December 29, 2017

"I'm delighted - I am becoming one with the man I love and adore."

Before his wedding, Sen Buttimer posted a special social media message to thank all those who had support the equal rights campaign in Ireland.

Expand Close Jerry Buttimer TD / Facebook

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"To all of you who have travelled on my and our journey, a sincere heartfelt 'thank you.' Aint no mountain high enough."

The Cork politician also quipped that, in an age old Cork tradition to ensure good weather for a wedding, he had displayed a Child of Prague statue in his home.

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He was delighted his wedding took place in crisp winter sunshine.

"I certainly didn't want an election campaign in December," he laughed.

"I wasn't the only one who didn't want to be out on the hustings but I clearly had my own reasons for not wanting it."

The former secondary school teacher got engaged to Mr O Laoghaire last July - and they were formally congratulated on their impending wedding by Leas Cathaoirleach Sen Paul Coghlan.

Mr Heydon extended his best wishes to the happy couple from everyone in the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party.

"We would like to wish Jerry and Conchobar all the best in their new life together. It's a very special day and all his colleagues are delighted for him."

Sen Buttimer said he was very proud not just as a newlywed but also for Ireland.

I am very happy that as a country we can now allow all of us to get married, he said.

"I'm so proud not just for myself and Conchobar but also for the Ireland we live in today."

The couple received best wishes and congratulations from all Irish political parties.

Sen Buttimer is renowned as an avid Cork GAA fan and he also received messages of congratulations from clubs and individual GAA members.

The Cork senator, who narrowly lost his Dail berth in Cork South Central in the 2016 General Election, was Fine Gael's only openly gay TD before Taoiseach Leo Varadkar came out in advance of the marriage equality referendum two years ago.

Sen Buttimer served in the Seanad from 2007 to 2011 having been elected to Cork City Council in 2004.

In 2011, he was elected to the Dail for Cork South Central alongside his constituency running-mate, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney.

He was a staunch supporter of Mr Coveney in the Fine Gael leadership race.

However, he narrowly lost his seat in 2016 after key elements of his Bishopstown support base were transferred to Cork North Central as part of a controversial boundary review.

Sen Buttimer has already confirmed he will contest the next general election for the 33rd Dail.
Pure Storage, Inc. provides data storage technologies, products, and services in the United States and internationally. The company's Purity software is shared across its products and provides enterprise-class data services, such as data reduction, data protection, and encryption, as well as storage protocols, including block, file, and object. Its products portfolio includes FlashArray for block-oriented storage, addressing databases, applications, virtual machines, and other traditional workloads; FlashArray//XL; and FlashArray//C, an all-QLC flash array. The company also provides FlashBlade, a solution for unstructured data workloads of various types; FlashStack that combines compute, network, and storage to provide an infrastructure platform; FlashRecover, an all-flash modern data-protection solution; and AIRI, a full-stack AI-ready infrastructure. In addition, it offers evergreen storage subscription, Pure as-a-Service, and Cloud Block Store, as well as Portworx a cloud-native Kubernetes data management solution It also offers technical and professional, training and education, and certification services. The company sells its products and subscription services through direct sales force and channel partners. The company was formerly known as OS76, Inc. and changed its name to Pure Storage, Inc. in January 2010. Pure Storage, Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
NCI Building Systems, Inc. designs, engineers, manufactures, and markets metal products for the nonresidential construction industry in North America. It operates in four segments: Engineered Building Systems, Metal Components, Insulated Metal Panels, and Metal Coil Coating. The Engineered Building Systems segment offers engineered structural members and panels; and self-storage building systems under the Metallic, Mid-West Steel, A & S, All American, Mesco, Star, Ceco, Robertson, Garco, Heritage, and SteelBuilding.com brands to builders, general contractors, developers, and end users directly, as well as through private label companies. The Metal Components segment provides metal roof and wall systems, metal partitions, metal trims, doors, and other related accessories for use in new construction, and repair and retrofit applications; roll-up doors; and interior and exterior walk doors under the MBCI, American Building Components, Eco-ficient, Metal Depots, and Doors and Buildings Components brands to manufacturers, contractors, subcontractors, distributors, lumberyards, cooperative buying groups, and other customers. The Insulated Metal Panels segment offers insulated metal panels for architectural, commercial, industrial, and cold storage end-market applications under the Metl-Span and CENTRIA brands. The Metal Coil Coating segment engages in cleaning, treating, and painting flat-rolled metals in coil form, as well as in slitting and/or embossing the metal, before the metal is fabricated for use by industrial users. It also cleans, treats, and coats heavy and light gauge metal coils for use in construction products, heating and air conditioning systems, water heaters, lighting fixtures, ceiling grids, office furniture, appliances, and other products; and provides toll coating and painted metal package services under the Metal Coaters and Metal Prep brands. NCI Building Systems, Inc. was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
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.

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Spreen, Bedford North Lawrence give Bloomington South a hard time

No. 4 BNL shows off all its weapons to go to 4-0 on the season
When Tragedy Strikes

Routinely recommend travel insurance to provide your clients (and yourself) with peace of mind.

Travel Agent Miki Taylor
We are a family of 5 (children 15,12 and 9) planning a trip to South Australia in January 2019. We will be driving from Melbourne and picking up our daughter from a camp in Tailem Bend. Once we have collected her we will have 2 weeks before needing to head home.

We would like to visit Kangaroo Island - how many days would be recommended? I have seen 4-5 suggested but others say a week. We love to relax and take our time enjoying the atmosphere of a place rather than just racing in to see the sights? Any suggestions on accommodation and which areas to stay? I understand this is peak season and as this will be our one big holiday of the year, would be happy to look at up to $500 a night.

After that where else in SA would be good to see? I had wondered about Flinders Ranges, however will Jan be way too hot? We've never been to South Australia, so very open to ideas that would be suitable for a family.
We are in the very early stages of planning well ahead for a 10 week tour of Australia starting in January 2019. We will arrive in Perth and will be staying at Fremantle for the first three nights, then the plan is to hire a car and drive to Margaret River.

My questions are: how long should we allocate to that area : 5, 6 or 7 nights? Second question is whether to stay in one place and take day tours or explore, or is the area large enough to warrant a two location stay?

We are retirees so not after too much exertion or adventure, more easy exploring, food and drink, wine, scenery and local culture.

Thanks in advance for your advice
Yes you can buy a sim card & the shop will install it & show you how to use your new service & phone no. We prefer using Kolbi for service & you can find their green frog logo everywhere. Last time we were in Liberia we bought ours in a shopping plaza at the SW corner of Hwy 1, the Pan Am Hwy, and Hwy 21 which leads to the airport. There are lots of other spots to pick one up including most beach towns and all but the smallest towns. Cost depends on the size of the data package but we paid less than $20 for 2 weeks.
So..... unexpectedly we found ourselves back in Vietnam in 2017 after a 5 week trip through Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in 2016 - heres the link if you would like to check it out

This time around we also only have 3 kids (although apparently this is only short lived as the remaining 2 have realised the value of a fully paid trip overseas!!)

This time I didnt have the luxury of having 2 years trawling through TA, researching, asking for advice (continuously), and enjoying the reading of numerous JBRs. Instead I had to settle for a measly 4 days in which to make lots of decisions and come up with an itinerary that the family wouldnt lynch me for. The other major factor at play in this trip was a severe restriction on funds due to the wonderful start of our yearly holiday (think Lampoons National Vacation) which I will briefly cover shortly. I did post a quick post asking for suggestions, and took on board what was suggested - would have loved to do a trek from Dalat (thanks Scotsman) but that funds restriction put an end to that as the going rate seemed to be about $2000 (for 5 of us) - but it is on the list for the next trip :) So the major decisions for me were - do I go to the tried and true favorites of 2017 (Hanoi, Hoi An, Mekong, Ninh Binh) or try areas that we didnt cover, or perhaps a combination of both....

In the end the final itinerary became HCMC for 3 nights, Dalat for 4 nights, Hoian An for 4 nights, Phu Quoc for 4 nights and back to HCMC for the last night.
The weather is unfortunately a bit unpredictable. Last year the sever flooding happend around December as well, while this year the weather was terrible in October / November.

So if you want to visit central Vietnam, I would recommend checking the weather forecast while in Vietnam, and change plans if needed. You could also be lucky and having nice weather with only a few shower.

In regards of beach time, I would probably prefer Phu Quoc over Mui Ne. Though I would aim to stay at Long beach on the west cost of the island.

There are so many flights to Phu Quoc, so tickets should not be too expensive.

You could also consider including the Mekong Delta on the way to or from Phu Quoc.

I hope this helps a bit.

Edited: 4 years ago
You will travel to Sa Pa by bus or train (via Lao Cai). You will travel to Ha Long Bay by bus .

Sa Pa isn't worth it unless you spend at least one night there. Ha Long Bay isn't worth it unless you spend at least one night on board the vessel or on the Cat Ba Island.

You can travel to the other destinations by air.

If goig to the Cu Chi tunnels is your only motivation for going to HCMC, I suggest you drop it.

Ha Noi will usually require at least three days to enjoy the city and its sights.

Your original itinerary outlines only one day for the tunnels and the Mekong Delta. That's very rushed if not impossible.

Other than that, 14 days is enough time to visit the 5 places you outlined. But only barely.

Ha Noi will easily eat up 3 days. Ha Long another 2 days, Da Nang 2 days, Da Lat 2 days, HCMC 3 days, Mekong Delta 2 days. Allowing time for transportation add another 2 days and you're already looking at 16 days, that's two more that your allotted time.

There's no-one who can suggest which items to leave out of your itinerary because you are the only person so far who knows what your preferences and motivations for visiting Vietnam are.

Edited: 4 years ago
I will be going to Matsue and Izumo for a week in April 2018. Im hoping to use the discount bus http://www.kankou-shimane.com/en/?p=6485 (I dont yet know if itll be available in April, but it seems like it was around in 2016 and 2017 so Im keeping my fingers crossed).

Does anyone know at what time the bus departs from Hiroshima and arrives to Matsue?
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Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Hrytsak hopes that the next exchange of Ukrainian hostages will take place soon.

I hope that the exchange will take place as soon as possible. According to the data of the Security Service of Ukraine, 108 people are still held captive [in Donbas], Hrytsak said on the air of TRK Ukrayina TV channel, Ukrinform reports.

He specified that the militants confirmed they hold 94 people captive.

In addition, Hrytsak noted that 402 people were considered missing. In this regard, he noted that the Security Service officers would meet with the recently released Ukrainian hostages to find out possible location of those who are considered missing.

As reported, a large-scale exchange of prisoners between Ukraine and the militants of the terrorist organizations Donetsk Peoples Republic and Luhansk Peoples Republic took place on the demarcation line in Donetsk region on December 27. A total of 73 people were transferred to the government-controlled territory, while 233 supporters of militants went to the temporarily occupied territory.

ol
All-time large state support for the Ukrainian agro-industrial complex in the amount of UAH 6.3 billion for 2018 should become a guarantee of new common achievements.

This is said in the statement of the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine, released on the Ministrys website.

"There are a lot of challenges ahead, so the all-time large support from the government in the amount of UAH 6.3 billion for 2018 should become a guarantee of our new common achievements," the statement reads.

Summing up the results of the year, the experts of the domestic agro-industrial complex stress that the agricultural sector of Ukraine remains the leading area in the country, determining its social and economic development, ensuring food security, shaping the image of the leader on the world stage.

As reported, the export of Ukrainian agricultural products for January-November 2017 increased by $2.7 billion or 19%, compared to the same period last year, and totaled $16.4 billion.

ol
Ukraine is completing the year 2017 with a number of important achievements and successes, one of which is the support of the international community in the struggle to uphold the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

President Petro Poroshenko said this during his working visit to Odesa region on December 28, the press service of the head of state reported.

"The European Union demonstrated unity with us and extended sanctions against the Russian Federation, despite the fact that it is a difficult decision for them. The decision of solidarity with Ukraine, support for Ukraine, and support for our big 45-million nation are a priority for them, because justice and truth are with us. The aggressor has to pay its cost, and this decision was joined by the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and a great number of allies around the world," he said.

According to him, the main achievement of 2017 was the introduction by the EU countries of a visa-free regime for Ukrainian citizens.

"They started respective Ukrainian passports. From June 11, every Ukrainian who received a biometric passport, without standing in queues, without paying visa fees, without filling in a bunch of papers, which no one needs, can freely travel to the European Union. The Iron Curtain of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union has been destroyed," he said.

No less significant, according to the president, was the decision on completing the ratification of the Association Agreement with the EU.

Poroshenko said that a significant achievement was the extension of the decentralization program, according to which the budgets of territorial communities had increased sevenfold and their powers had been expanded.

In addition, judicial reform was launched and a new Supreme Court, formed on the basis of a new, transparent principle, began its work. Road infrastructure is developing all over Ukraine as more than 300 kilometers of roads have been built and completely renovated.

"I am confident that the most difficult tests are already behind us. The government should speed up the pace of economic growth, and the president will make some important initiatives to improve the investment climate," he said.

The head of state recalled that Ukraine had risen from 153rd place in the Doing Business rating to 76th. "This is the greatest progress that any country has demonstrated at any time," he said.

At the same time, Poroshenko expressed confidence that this was not enough and the economy should develop quickly in order to ensure the implementation of further reforms.

op
Canada welcomes the implementation of the agreements on the exchange of prisoners in Ukraine and calls on Russia to comply with international law, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has said.

"Yesterday's prisoner exchange in Ukraine is an encouraging step. We continue to call on Russia to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," she wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

As reported, the exchange of detainees between Ukraine and Russian-supported forces took place in Donbas on December 27. Seventy-three Ukrainians returned home. A total of 233 people were transferred to the occupied territory.

op
United States Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker says the US does not recognize the seizure of Crimea by Russia.

Volker said this in an interview with the Echo of Moscow Russian radio station.

We do not recognize the seizure of Crimea by Russia, the declared annexation. Fortunately, in Crimea there are no such active military operations as in Donbas, so we need to focus on solving problems in those places where the hostilities are ongoing, Volker said.

In his opinion, the long period of disagreements [with Russia] on Crimea regarding its status is still ahead. The diplomat also revealed his vision of the reasons that prompted the Russian leadership to pursue an aggressive policy towards Ukraine and the real results that have been obtained: The Russian government controls the both territories it seized  Crimea and Donbas  and it is trying to understand whether it will be able to benefit from this in case of change in political situation in Kyiv. However, these actions have the opposite effect, and I think that the Russian government realizes that their actions in Ukraine have the opposite effect, bringing the results which are opposite to those expected.

ol
United States Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker believes that the military clashes in Donbas in 2017 have been the most violent over past three years. However, in the end, Russia has failed to change the political course of Ukraine and obtained just the opposite result.

Volker said this in an interview with the Echo of Moscow Russian radio station.

The last few weeks in Donbas were actually the fiercest since the battles in Avdiivka in February. At the very beginning of the conflict in 2014, the clashes were the most violent, but since then, the year 2017 has become the most violent over three years, involving the artillery, snipers, and so on, Volker said.

In his opinion, this escalation is linked with the fact that all this while Russia hoped that it would put pressure on Kyiv or lead to a change in the government in Ukraine which would be friendlier to Russia, more pro-Russian. However, according to Volker, Russian intervention has brought the opposite result: the Ukrainian leadership is now more skeptical about Russia and more oriented towards the West than ever before.

ol
Power supply has been completely restored in the front-line populated areas of Travneve and Hladosove in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Spokesperson for ATO issues Oleksandr Motuzianyk said this at a press briefing on Friday, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

"Thus, the residents of the front-line settlements will celebrate New Year and Christmas holidays with electricity," Motuzyanik said.

Representatives of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine attended repair and restoration works.

ish
Emerging evidence has indicated that circular RNAs (circRNAs) play pivotal roles in the regulation of cellular processes and are found to be aberrantly expressed in a variety of tumors. However, the clinical role of circRNAs in bladder cancer (BC) and the molecular mechanisms have yet to be fully understood. In this study, the clinical specimens were obtained and the expression level of a circRNA BCRC4 was detected by real-time PCR in both BC tissues and cell line. The circular RNA over-expression plasmid was constructed and transfected into BC cells and related cell line. The cell cycles and apoptosis were observed using inverted microscope and flow cytometry. Western blotting was used to compare the relative protein expression of groups with different treatments. It was found that circRNA BCRC4 expression was lower in BC tissues than in adjacent normal tissues. Furthermore, consequences of forced-expression of BCRC4 promoted apoptosis and inhibited viability of T24T and UMUC3 cells, and up-regulated BCRC4-increased miR-101 level, which suppressed EZH2 expression in both RNA and protein levels. In addition, gambogic acid (GA) is a promising natural anticancer compound for BC therapy, and GA treatment increased the BCRC4 expression in T24T and UMUC3 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Altogether, our findings suggest that BCRC4 functions as a tumor suppressor in BC, and mediates anticancer function, at least in part, by up-regulating the expression of miR-101. Targeting this newly identified circRNA may help us develop a novel strategy for treating human BC.

Journal of Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Medical sciences = Hua zhong ke ji da xue xue bao. Yi xue Ying De wen ban = Huazhong keji daxue xuebao. Yixue Yingdewen ban. 2017 Dec 21 [Epub]

Bo Li, Fei Xie, Fu-Xin Zheng, Guo-Song Jiang, Fu-Qing Zeng, Xing-Yuan Xiao

Department of Urology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430022, China., Department of Urology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430022, China. .

PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29270748
Cambodia has announced it is researching possible amendments to the constitution following months of political upheaval that has seen the countrys main opposition party outlawed.

The research was reportedly ordered by Hun Sen, who requested an amendment to allow him to directly appoint secretaries of state without legislative approval.

A letter from Sar Kheng, the interior minister, circulated this week showed the government had formed a working group staffed by senior ruling party officials.

Chin Malin, justice spokesman, could not be reached for comment. Khieu Sopheak, an interior spokesman, declined to comment on the proposed constitutional amendments as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

This is not the first time Hun Sen has raised the issue of amending the countrys constitution. In August 2016, Hun Sen suggested that Article 2, which defines Cambodias territory, restricted which maps the government could use to negotiate its borders.

Previous amendments to the Constitution conducted by Hun Sens ruling Cambodian Peoples Party have succeeded as the CPP holds a majority of seats in the legislature and the Constitutional Council of Cambodia.

Eng Chhay Eang, deputy president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which was dissolved by the Supreme Court in November, said the proposed amendments were a plot to stage a constitutional coup.
A court order to cull several dozen cockerels found at an illegal fighting ring in Kandal province caused an uproar on Cambodian social media after a judge ruled the animals should be put down following a police raid on the operation.

The illegal gambling ring was allegedly run by a relative of Prime Minister Hun Sen, Thai Phanny.

A video clip posted on Facebook showed police officers apparently beheading the cockerels, while an official told AFP that the authorities had later eaten them.

Preap Kol, head of an anti-corruption group Transparency Internationals Cambodia operations, pointed out that while the animals were killed no action had yet been taken against the owner of the operation.

Reporters from the Phnom Penh Post uncovered a trove of documents left by police in the wake of the raid which appeared to show a wide-ranging local network of bribery involving payoffs to local officials and the media.

Soeng Senkaruna, a spokesman for local human rights group Adhoc, said the death of the cockerels had struck a nerve with Cambodians as it represented the culture of impunity following the news that the operators of the gambling ring had been freed from jail.

Its a story that has made the people speechless as they were not satisfied by the ruling, which ordered the killing of animals in a brutal manner, he added.

Along with Phanny, the authorities detained 150 others involved in the cockfighting ring, however, dozens of those detained were later arrested when it was discovered they were construction workers.

Iv Chamroeun, Kandal provincial police chief, and Hok Vann Thina, president of Kandal Provincial Court, declined to comment on the case.

However, Roeun Nara, Chamroeuns deputy, told the AFP news agency that the cockerels were later eaten by officials.

Hun Sen has taken a tough stance on the gambling ring, ordering police to shoot Phanny if he resisted arrest.

Phanny was given a caution and handed a court monitoring order, while 64 patrons of the gambling operation were given one-month suspended sentences, according to the Freshnews website.
When the 55-year-old woman stood up to speak at a meeting of shoemakers in south India earlier this month, she was seeing her employers for the first time.

She told them about the decades she had spent hunched up in her home, repeatedly pulling a needle through tough leather as she sewed shoe uppers, the meager income she earned, her failing eyesight and the wounds on her hands.

For manufacturers and brands, her story was a revelation.

The meeting brought women workers, manufacturers, charities and brands face-to-face for the first time in a bid to map the role of homeworkers - an "invisible workforce" in a global supply chain making high-end shoes - and improve conditions.

"It was a historical meeting in that sense," said Annie Delaney of the Australian RMIT School of Management, who has documented the condition of homeworkers and attended the meeting a fortnight ago in Vellore in Tamil Nadu.

"Homeworkers described their reality. It was a powerful experience for not just the women but also for the manufacturers and brands who were meeting them for the first time."

There are hundreds of thousands of women from poor, marginalized families who work for cash  stitching, embroidering and weaving at home to put the finishing touches to products that are sold globally, campaigners said.

Most of them are not recognized as formal workers so have no access to social security or fair wages.

Vellore district in Tamil Nadu is the hub of a growing industry in India producing leather footwear for export. In 2016, India exported 236 million pairs of shoes  up from 206 million in 2015, according to the World Footwear Yearbook.

It also has one of the highest concentrations of homeworkers in India - largely women hand-stitching uppers of leather shoes.

Identifying homeworkers

While factories in the area employ people at higher salaries to assemble the shoes, manufacturers find it cheaper to outsource the labor-intensive process of stitching uppers to women who work from home, using middlemen, campaigners said.

The meeting saw Britain-based Pentland Brands - the first company to map homeworkers in its supply chain - share their interventions with other participating brands including UK-based Clarks and the Switzerland-based AstorMueller Group, according to a stakeholder who attended the closed-door meeting.

None of the companies were immediately available to comment.

Pentland, with annual sales of USD $3 billion across 190 countries, owns sports, outdoor and fashion brands including Berghaus and Speedo, and holds a majority stake of JD Sports.

Since 2016, Pentland has worked with nonprofit groups Cividep in India and Homeworkers Worldwide to identify homeworkers making shoes for them and is at present mapping their pay and hours worked to ensure better wages.

No one from Pentland was immediately available to comment on the initiative, which according to their website aims to provide direct employment to homeworkers, better training and to work with suppliers for sustainable improvement of labor conditions.

Cheap labor

Campaigners say homeworkers are paid by the piece and the exact number of hours they work are not tracked.

The women are paid less than $0.14 per pair of shoes, which are sold in Britain for between $60 and $140, according to a 2016 report by Cividep India and British nongovernment organizations Homeworkers Worldwide and Labor Behind the Label.

The report highlighted how the industry relies on homeworkers who earn less than the minimum wage, lack legal rights, and suffer from chronic headaches and body pain.

"Homeworkers have been under the radar for a long time," Delaney said. "A start was made in Vellore to collaborate and ensure they get their dues."
Social media giants Facebook and Twitter could face sanctions in Britain if they fail to be more forthcoming in providing details about Russian disinformation campaigns that used their platforms in the run-up to last year's Brexit referendum, the chairman of a British parliamentary inquiry committee warned.

The companies have been given until January 18 to hand over information.



Damian Collins, chairman of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport committee in the British parliament, which is looking into Russian fake news' efforts, criticized both companies earlier this month, accusing them of stonewalling the parliamentary investigation. But he has now warned they risk being punished and he says his committee is exploring what sanctions could be imposed on Facebook and Twitter.



"What there has to be then is some mechanism of saying: if you fail to do that, if you ignore requests to act, if you fail to police the site effectively and deal with highly problematic content, then there has to be some sort of sanction against you," he told Britain's Guardian newspaper.



He dubbed the lack of cooperation by the social media firms as "extraordinary."



"They don't believe that they have any obligation at all to initiate their own investigation into what may or may not have been happening, he said. "They've not done any of that work at all."



Parliamentary committees do not have the power in their own right to impose sanctions on erring companies. But British officials have expressed interest in punishing social media companies for failing to take action to stop their platforms from being exploited by agitators, whether they are working for foreign powers or non-state actors such as the Islamic State terror group.



In September in New York at the annual general assembly meeting of the United Nations, British Prime Minister Theresa May expressed frustration with social media companies, saying they must go "further and faster" in removing extremist content and should aim to do so within two hours of it appearing on their sites.

"This is a major step in reclaiming the internet from those who would use it to do us harm," she said.



The prime minister has repeatedly called for an end to "safe spaces" on social media for terrorists. And British ministers have called for limits to end-to-end encryption, which prevents messages from being read by third parties if they are intercepted.



British lawmakers and ministers aren't the only ones considering ways to sanction social media firms that fail to police their sites to avoid them from being used to spread fake news or being exploited by militants. This month, Germany's competition authority accused Facebook of violating European data protection regulations by merging information collected through WhatsApp and Instagram with Facebook user accounts.



Collins has written twice to the social media firms requesting information about suspected Russian fake news campaigns in the weeks and months before Britons voted in June 2016 on whether to retain membership in the European Union, Britain's largest trading partner.

In a letter to Twitter, he wrote: "The information you have now shared with us is completely inadequate.  It seems odd that so far we have received more information about activities that have taken place on your platform from journalists and academics than from you."



In response to parliamentary requests for information about Russian interference in the EU referendum, including details of accounts operated by Russian misinformation actors, the social media firms passed on copies of the details they provided to Britain's Electoral Commission, which is probing advertising originating from Russian actors during the lead up to the Brexit vote.



Facebook said only $0.97 had been spent on Brexit-related ads seen by British viewers. Twitter claimed the only Russian spending it received was $1,000 from the Russian state-owned broadcaster RT.



Russia has been accused of meddling in recent elections in America, France and elsewhere and of running disinformation campaigns aimed at poisoning political discourse in the West and sowing discord with fake news.



In November, Prime Minister May accused Vladimir Putin's government of trying to "undermine free societies" and "planting fake stories" to "sow discord in the West. "Russia has denied the allegations.

Three days before Christmas, Britain's foreign minister, Boris Johnson, sparred with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, over the issue of alleged Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum.

During his trip to Moscow, the first visit by a British foreign secretary to the Russian capital for five years, Lavrov denied at a joint press conference that the Kremlin had sought to meddle, saying Johnson himself had previously said there was "no evidence of Russian interference in the Brexit referendum." Johnson corrected Lavrov, saying: "Not successfully, is what I said."



So far the evidence of a major Russian social media effort during the Brexit referendum remains thin, and at least not on the alleged scale seen, according to investigators, during the 2016 U.S. presidential race.



An investigation by the New York Times found that "Russian agents  disseminated inflammatory posts that reached 126 million users on Facebook, published more than 131,000 messages on Twitter and uploaded over 1,000 videos to Google's YouTube service" ahead of the U.S. presidential vote.



In January 2017, the Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence concluded: "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election."



In October 2017, researchers at the City University of London found a "13,500-strong [Russian] Twitter bot army," was present on the social media site around the time of the referendum.

Bot accounts post content automatically. Those accounts in the month prior to the Brexit vote posted a total of 65,000 tweets about the referendum with a slant towards the leave campaign, according to City University researchers.



But a subsequent study by the University of California, Berkeley, and Swansea University in Wales unearthed more pro-Brexit Russian bot accounts, tracking over 150,000 of them.
California adults not content to ring in the New Year with the traditional fizz of champagne can look forward to celebrating with the buzz of marijuana, purchased for the first time from state-licensed retailers of recreational pot.

Dozens of newly authorized marijuana stores are due to open for business across California on January 1, launching yet another chapter in America's drug culture and the largest regulated commercial market for cannabis in the United States  one valued at several billion dollars.

The rollout is expected to be gradual and bumpy. The state only began handing out licenses in mid-December, issued on a temporary basis because implementing regulations were still under review.

Newly permitted retailers will rely on a hodge-podge of marijuana producers in the state's illicit "gray market" to stock their shelves for the next six months, until state-licensed growers can harvest their first crops.

And many jurisdictions, notably Los Angeles and San Francisco, will be closed to business in the recreational pot sector for days or weeks because of additional local approvals applicants must win.

Shops in San Diego, San Jose, the Bay area-towns of Berkeley and Oakland, and Eureka  the heart of Northern California's cannabis country  are among those ready to go on Day One, said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the state Cannabis Control Board.

"The market is going to be kind of rough getting started," said Jordan Lams, chief executive of Moxie, a company based in the Los Angeles suburb of Lynwood that specializes in making cannabis extracts, including oils used in electronic vaporization, or "vape," devices.

He predicted supply shortages early on.

California led the way in legalizing marijuana for medical purposes in 1996, and more than 30 states have followed suit since then, though cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under U.S. law.

On Monday, California will become the sixth U.S. state, and by far the most populous, to legalize, regulate and tax sales of recreational marijuana  a market catering to consumers wishing to buy the drug for its mind- and mood-altering properties.

Medicinal vs. recreational

Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Nevada were first in launching recreational pot sales on a state-regulated basis. Massachusetts and Maine are on track to do so in 2018.

With California and its 39.5 million residents joining the fold, more than one in five of Americans will now live in states where recreational marijuana is commercially available to buy in state-licensed stores.

Many among the new recreational pot proprietors previously operated as medical cannabis dispensaries, under a patchwork of local regulations. Some will now be licensed by the state to sell both.

The recreational sector  what state regulators prefer to call the "adult use" market  is considered more lucrative. "This is the moment we've been waiting for," said Daniel Yi, spokesman for the 7-year-old Los Angeles-area dispensary chain MedMen, which is expanding from a medical business model to serving recreational users as well.

The stage for Monday's grand opening was set when voters passed a ballot measure in November 2016, Proposition 64, immediately legalizing personal possession and use of recreational pot by adults 21 and over. They could also grow their own.

But it has taken California lawmakers and bureaucrats over a year to devise a licensing, regulatory and tax structure for all phases of the commercial distribution chain.

A key goal of the new regime is to eliminate California's illicit marijuana production and farms, which account for roughly 60 percent of the nation's pot supply and are blamed for degrading the environment.

Supporters also point to a hefty new tax revenue source that by most estimates will total $1 billion a year. Both medical and recreational cannabis will be subject to a 15 percent state excise tax, though medical pot will be exempt from regular state sales taxes.

Recreational customers are limited to buying no more than one ounce (28 grams) of raw cannabis or its equivalent at a time, though individuals may grow up to six plants per person.

Investors have expressed an eagerness for a piece of California's burgeoning legit marijuana market, estimated to be worth $4 billion to $11 billion.

Opponents, however, have argued liberalized marijuana laws carry major public safety risks and make pot more accessible to youngsters.

Analysts expect much of the illicit trade in recreational pot will quickly gravitate to legit retailers as prices come down and reach parity with the illegal market.

An eighth ounce of "fairly good-quality flower," labeled with such names as "Blue Dream," "Youth in Asia" and "Super Glue," will go for about $35, said Yi of MedMen, which plans to wait until Jan. 2 to launch recreational sales in two of its sleek, artisanal shops in West Hollywood and Santa Ana.

Three other MedMen shops within the city of Los Angeles will probably have to wait for at least a few weeks, Yi said.
The post-Christmas prolonged, dangerously cold weather across half the country has advocates for the homeless scrambling to get people off the streets and local officials urging residents to assist their elderly neighbors.

Residents from the Midwest to the Northeast were dealing with sub-freezing temperatures and wind chills, while those in the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies were bracing for storms that forecasters warn can cause heavy mountain snow and freezing rain.

The cold is expected to continue through the holiday weekend and likely longer, according to the National Weather Service, prolonging a stretch of brutal weather blamed for vehicle crashes, emergency room visits and at least one death.

Wind chill advisories remained in place for many areas. Animal owners were urged to bring their pets indoors if possible or at least make sure they have sufficient warmth.

Forecasters warned people to be wary of hypothermia and frostbite from the arctic blast that has gripped a large swath from the Midwest to the Northeast, where the temperature, without the wind chill factored in, dipped to minus 32 (minus 35 Celsius) Thursday morning in Watertown, New York. Temperatures rose to minus 7 (minus 22 Celsius) early Friday morning.

Heavy snow is expected Friday in the Pacific Northwest, across the Cascade mountains and into the northern Rockies before gradually tapering off Saturday. As much as 2 to 3 feet of snow is possible in the highest terrain, while coastal regions were expected to see heavy rainfall.

About 30 crashes were reported on icy roadways Friday morning in Michigan, where below-freezing temperatures continue to envelop parts of the state.

A woman trying to maneuver her wheelchair on a cold, snowy night in Nebraska got a firetruck escort. Snow and construction items on the sidewalk forced her into a busy Omaha thoroughfare Tuesday. Firefighters returning to their station noticed her. They flipped on their lights and followed the woman until she reached her destination. She gave them a thumbs-up as they departed.

In South Dakota, an 83-year-old woman died from exposure to the cold. Police believe she crashed her car on a gravel road near the tiny rural town of Revillo then left the vehicle to look for help. They found her body in a ditch on Sunday.

Warming centers have been set up in some locations, including recreation centers across Cincinnati. Boston's Pine Street Inn sent a van with outreach workers around to persuade people to spend the night inside, but some said they prefer the streets.

Segundo Rivera and Sean Stuart told the Boston Herald they were not comfortable spending the night in a shelter.

"We've lived out here so long it's like honestly, this is comfortable for us," Rivera said.

A shelter spokeswoman said that if people don't want to go to a shelter, they're given blankets, warm clothing and a hot beverage, and informed of the dangers of extreme cold.

The Ohio Department of Aging said older people are at increased risk from such severe cold, from medication side effects to falling risks. The department encouraged people to check on family members, friends and neighbors to make sure they're warm enough and have their needed medications and sufficient food and water.

On Thursday, cold weather records were set from Arkansas to Maine, and the freezing air will linger through the weekend, reaching as far south as Texas and the Florida Panhandle.

In New Hampshire, the cold set a record for the day of minus 34 (minus 37 Celsius) atop the Northeast's highest peak, Mount Washington.

In the Midwest, temperatures in Minneapolis aren't expected to top zero (minus 18 Celsius) this weekend, and it likely will be in the teens (minus 11 Celsius to minus 7 Celsius) when the ball drops on New Year's Eve in New York City.

A winter storm warning was in effect for much of Montana, calling for significant snowfall followed by dangerously cold temperatures as 2017 comes to an end.

"People like to think of themselves as being prepared for the weather and things like that," Billings forecaster Dan Borsum said, "but this one will get your attention."
Facebook says it blocked the social-media accounts of Ramzan Kadyrov because the Kremlin-backed Chechen leader had become subject to financial and travel sanctions imposed by the U.S. government.

The company said in a statement Thursday it had the "legal obligation" to disable Kadyrovs accounts on Facebook and Instagram, which it also owns, after the U.S. Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on December 20 hit the Chechen leader with sanctions.

"We became aware and have now confirmed that the accounts appear to be maintained by or on behalf of parties who appear on the U.S. Specially Designated Nationals List and, thus, subject to U.S. trade sanctions," the statement said.

"For this reason, Facebook has a legal obligation to disable these accounts," it added.

It was not immediately clear if the social-media network was in the process of disabling accounts of others on the sanction lists.

Facebook declined requests from RFE/RL for further information.

The Treasurys announcement of the sanctions against Kadyrov are part of ongoing U.S. efforts to punish alleged human rights abusers in connection with the Magnitsky Act. In the announcement, the Treasury Department accused the former rebel fighter who later joined forces with Moscow of "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights," torture, and "extrajudicial killings."

Kadyrov, who has denied the allegations, is one of the most prominent Russian officials to be added to the sanctions list under the Magnitsky Act.

The law enraged Russian officials, who retaliated in 2013 with a sweeping ban on U.S. citizens adopting Russian children.

Reaction by Kadyrov

Kadyrov reacted with anger to Facebooks move, accusing the U.S.-headquartered social-media network of bowing to pressure from Washington by blocking his pages, a move he said he discovered on December 23.

He said he received no response from Instagram after sending a request for service support because his Russian-language accounts stopped working. His English-language Instagram account was unaffected at first, but later it was also unavailable.

Russias telecommunications supervisory authority, Roskomnadzor, demanded an explanation from Facebook and Instagram for the disabling of Kadyrovs accounts.

"On December 26, Roskomnadzor sent a request to Facebook management, asking to clarify reasons for blocking Ramzan Kadyrov's Facebook and Instagram accounts," Roskomnadzors press service said in a statement.

Kadyrov had more than 3 million followers on his Russian-language Instagram account and more than 750,000 on Facebook.

One of his last Instagram postings before the page went down was a video recording in which he responded to the fresh U.S. sanctions by saying he had no current reason to travel to the United States.

"I can be proud that I'm out of favor with the special services of the USA," he wrote. "In fact, the USA cannot forgive me for dedicating my whole life to the fight against foreign terrorists among which there are bastards of America's special services."

Alleged abuses

Human rights groups say Kadyrov has used threats and abuses to maintain control over Chechnya, the site of two post-Soviet separatist wars and years of insurgent violence stemming from the conflicts since Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed him to head the region in 2007.

The U.S. sanctions law is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was arrested after blowing the whistle on what he said was the theft of $230 million from Russian state coffers through tax fraud.

He died in jail in December 2009, reportedly after physical abuse and denial of medical care. A Council of Europe investigation concluded the conditions leading up to his death amounted to torture.



Facebook and other social-media networks have come under pressure from U.S. lawmakers over what they have called a failure to prevent alleged abuses of their networks by Russian operatives during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

U.S. lawmakers in November released a batch of Facebook ads they said were purchased by the company in a surreptitious effort to stir up emotions on sensitive social issues like gun control, race relations, immigration and religion.

Facebook responded saying it is creating a portal enabling users to learn whether they liked or followed pages or accounts linked to a shadowy Russian company that U.S. officials accuse of trying to influence the election with the socially divisive posts.
Bitter cold weather has blanketed the Central and Eastern United States, and it will stay in place for days into the new year.

Forecasters are warning people to be on alert for hypothermia and frostbite as the temperatures plunge below freezing. The National Weather Service reports that International Falls, Minnesota, plunged to minus 37 degrees Celsius (-34.6 Fahrenheit), breaking the record of minus 32 degrees Celsius (-25.6 Fahrenheit) set in 1924.

More snow for Erie

Residents of Erie, Pennsylvania, on Thursday continued to dig out of the one-and-a-half meters of snow that fell earlier this week. Forecasters are predicting another 25 centimeters (10 inches) of snow to arrive soon.

Weather observers at the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire said the temperature there hit a record minus 37 degrees Celsius. They posted a video on Facebook showing a weather observer emptying a pitcher of boiling water into the air, where it immediately turned to snow in the frigid, hurricane-force winds.

Activists across the region are scrambling to get the homeless off the streets and rescue stranded travelers.

Trump pokes fun at climate change

President Donald Trump, at his Florida resort on Thursday, tweeted, In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Years Eve on record.

He also took the opportunity to poke fun at climate change.

Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against, Trump tweeted. Bundle up!

The presidents tweet attempts to link the temperature at any one place at any one time to the existence of global warming, something climate scientists have long said is an entirely inaccurate way to view global warming.

This months cold wave caps a year of ferocious hurricanes, heat waves, floods and wildfires that have wreaked global havoc, and are examples of extreme weather events that climate change scientist say are the result of global climate change.

Cuomo issues warning

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo warned residents and visitors to take precautions against the dangerously cold weather as millions prepare to pack into Times Square to see the crystal ball drop as they count down to the new year.

Temperatures on New Years Eve are expected to be nearly 10 degrees below normal in the Midwest and from Northeastern states all the way south to the Carolinas. This includes large cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, New York, Washington and Atlanta.

As Americans cope with the frigid end to 2017, the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter Thursday was #ItsSoCold.
Guinea's government has signed an agreement with the country's two largest teachers' unions, it said, ending strikes that closed schools since the beginning of the month.



At least five people were killed Monday when police reacted to student protests supporting the teachers and demanding an agreement so they could return to classes. The violence wounded 30 others, and police arrested 12, the government said.



The government said teachers would have to wait until September for the salary increases, but other details of the agreement, signed late Monday, were not available. The strikes began in early February for pay raises and better training for contracted teachers.



Souleymane Sy Savane, secretary-general for Guinea's Free Trade Union of Teachers and Researchers, said schools will re-open Wednesday as negotiations continue.



But others said they do not agree with the settlement and want the pay increase as early as February.



"This agreement is binding only for the trade union officials who signed it, and we are basically challenging it until the reevaluation [pay raise] is effective," Kalidou Diallo, the administrative secretary of the union told private radio station Lynx FM early Tuesday.



The unions said Monday that the strike would continue until a pay raise of between 7.5 to 10.3 percent is granted.




Israeli tanks and aircraft struck the Gaza Strip Friday after three rockets were fired from the Palestinian enclave towards Israel, according to Palestinian and Israeli military sources.

The attacks occurred as thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza and the occupied West Bank for a fourth straight day in protest of U.S. President Donald Trump's December 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.



Trump's decision has outraged Palestinians, many Middle Eastern states and other members of the international community, which do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over east Jerusalem and the Old City, an area within modern Jerusalem.



The Trump administration says it is committed to a two-state solution in the Middle East if that is what the parties want, and that the physical location of the U.S. embassy should have no bearing on the talks. It said the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital is a "recognition of reality" that Jerusalem has long been the seat of the Israeli government.



Palestinians want Jerusalem and the Old City, where Muslim, Christian and Jewish holy sites are located, to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.



Friday's exchange of fire was the first in more than ten days. There were no immediate reports of causalities.

Two of the three rockets fired by the Palestinians at southern Israel were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, the army said. Police said the third rocket hit a structure in a community near Gaza.



Israeli tanks shelled an area east of Gaza City that is held by Gaza's Islamist rulers, witnesses said.



In the West Bank, small groups of Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops. In the Hebron area, medical and military sources said two Palestinians were wounded by live fire.



The Israeli army said there were smaller clashes in a number of other areas.



As they have in recent weeks, Gaza's ruling Hamas group and Islamic Jihad have labeled Friday a "day of rage."
Kenya's opposition says it will proceed with its planned inauguration of opposition leader Raila Odinga as president if Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta does not convene a national dialogue. Kenyatta won October's election after Odinga boycotted the vote, and experts warn that an opposition inauguration could create even more division in the country.

Deputy opposition leader Kalonzo Musyoka, who has been out of the country for three months caring for his sick wife, said the only thing that can stop the opposition inauguration is dialogue.

"I am telling my brother Uhuru Kenyatta if he is going to abdicate the responsibility of uniting this nation, he should not blame Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka when we will be sworn in," Musyoka said.

The opposition boycotted the repeat October poll after the electoral commission failed to meet demands for reform. The Odinga and Musyoka team insists they won the earlier election in August, in which Kenyatta was declared the winner. That vote was nullified and the Supreme Court said the electoral commission did not follow the constitution and the law.

Kenyatta won the October election with 98 percent of the vote.

Political commentator Martin Andati says the opposition is trying to pressure the government to enter a dialogue.

"If they are sworn in, that's bound to create a bigger crisis than they are in," Andati said. "Basically, they are trying to up the pressure, and they are hoping Uhuru and his team will be able to sit down so that, ultimately, they go sit on the table and address some of the issues that they are trying to raise."

Kenyatta has repeatedly said the elections are over and he is willing to discuss the development agenda of the country, but nothing else.

Andati says elections may be over, but the issues that divide the country have not gone away.

"The rest of Kenyans who feel excluded from governance, from the position of power, from the allocation of business opportunities and jobs  they are out there, and they are quite a number  those are some of the issues they need to look at," Andati said. "Uhuru has been the president of [the ruling Jubilee party], not the president of Kenya. Now he must reach to the rest of the people."

The Attorney General Githu Muigai warned opposition leaders against swearing themselves in, saying that will amount to treason.

A showdown looms between the Kenyatta administration and the opposition. Many fear the political confrontation will further divide the east African nation.
Minneapolis top prosecutor on Thursday said more investigation is needed before he decides whether to charge a police officer in the fatal shooting of an Australian woman in July that led to the police chiefs resignation.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a statement that he would not decide before the end of 2017 as he had hoped in the death of Sydney native Justine Damond, 40, who was shot once by Somali-born Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor from his patrol car.

The investigation and review of the case will not be rushed. It is more important to get it right than to get it done quickly, Freeman said.

Noor has been on paid leave and has declined to be interviewed by Minnesota state investigators.

Damond, who was living in Minneapolis and engaged to be married, had called police about a possible sexual assault near her house and approached the police after their arrival, authorities previously said.

The shooting drew condemnation in Minnesota and Australia, where Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called it shocking and inexplicable. Then-Minneapolis police chief Jamee Harteau resigned after city officials said procedures had been violated and that Damond didnt have to die.

Noors attorney, Thomas Plunkett, said in a statement Thursday that Noor extended his thoughts and wishes to Damonds family and raised concerns about the objectivity of Freeman.

Neither Noor, who came to the United States from Somalia as a child, nor Matthew Harrity, another officer in the patrol car, had their body cameras activated, police have said.

Harrity told investigators he was startled by a loud sound near the patrol car shortly before Noor fired through the open drivers-side window, striking Damond. Court documents said a woman slapped the back of the car before the shooting.

Damonds father, John Ruszczyk, last week in Sydney said he was concerned the investigation into her death may have been mishandled after prosecutor Freeman criticized investigators.

Freeman has said Harrity did not provide insightful information. Freeman also said he did not yet have enough evidence to charge Noor.

I have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, the moment he shot the gun he feared for his life, Freeman said in video comments posted by the Star-Tribune newspaper. But he wont answer my questions.

The attorney for Damonds family, Bob Bennett, on Thursday said that Damonds family supported the delay.

We support Mr. Freemans decision to take additional time to ensure the investigation is rigorous and complete, Bennett said in a statement. We want justice and appreciate the support from all those who want the same.
An Oregon state appeals court Thursday let stand $135,000 in damages levied against the owners of a Portland-area bakery for discrimination after they refused on religious grounds to prepare a wedding cake for a local lesbian couple.

A three-judge panel of the Oregon Court of Appeals rejected a petition by Melissa and Aaron Klein, former owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, to overturn the ruling by the states labor commissioner as a violation of their rights under the U.S. Constitution to freedom of religion and expression.

An attorney for the Kleins, who closed their bakery not long after being ordered to pay the heavy fine, could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

Todays ruling sends a strong signal that Oregon remains open to all, Brad Avakian, the states labor commissioner, said in a written statement.

Within Oregons public accommodations law is the basic principle of human decency that every person, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, has the freedom to fully participate in society, Avakian said.

The case stems from Aaron Kleins refusal to bake a wedding cake for Rachel Bowman-Cryer in January 2013 because she was planning a same-sex wedding with her partner Laurel, which he said violated his religious convictions.

Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer filed a formal complaint with the state labor bureau, which found the bakery had violated anti-discrimination laws and awarded the damages.

The Bowman-Cryers were married in 2014 after a federal judge struck down Oregons same-sex marriage ban.

The bakery case is one of many disputes nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Courts decision in June 2015 to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states.
The United States is preparing to shift its approach in Syria, pledging to help with the initial recovery following the collapse of the Islamic State's self-declared caliphate.

U.S.-backed forces liberated the terror groups Syrian capital of Raqqa in October. Since then, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have focused their efforts on eradicating remnants of Islamic State.

But with fewer than 1,000 IS fighters thought to be in areas under SDF control, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the time is right for what he described as an attempt to move toward normalcy.

What we will be doing is shifting from what I call an offensive, terrain-seizing approach, Mattis told Pentagon reporters Friday. You'll see more U.S. diplomats on the ground.

Mattis did not share a timeline for when more diplomats and other civilian personnel would arrive in Syria, and he emphasized that none of the work should be characterized as nation building. VOA has reached out to the State Department for comment.

When you bring in more diplomats, theyre working that initial restoration of services. They bring in the contractors. That sort of thing, the defense secretary said. Theres international money thats got to be administered so it actually does something and doesnt go into the wrong peoples pockets.

Efforts will focus on clearing areas once ruled by IS of improvised explosive devices, which Mattis described as an enormous undertaking, removing rubble, restoring other basic services and reopening schools.

The approximately 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria would stay and provide security for the diplomats and civilians, as well as help with training and aid in efforts to hunt down IS fighters.

Mattis said that in the meantime, U.S.-backed forces would continue to hunt down IS fighters.

Were in the process of crushing the life out of the caliphate there, while trying to keep the innocent people safe, he said, while describing the shifting approach as necessary to set the stage for a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis.

Still, there are questions about how the initial recovery efforts will work, given that much of Syria is now under the control of forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which have been backed by Russia.

Earlier this week, the chief of the Russian General Staff accused the U.S. of training former IS militants to destabilize Syria at a military base in Tanf, near the border with Iraq.

After they are worked with, they change their spots and take on another name, General Valery Gerasimov told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper Wednesday. They are practically Islamic State.

But Mattis said that despite some minor problems, the demarcation line set up in Syria by the U.S. and Russia had held, and that he did not expect pro-regime forces to interfere with any rebuilding efforts.

That would be a mistake, he said of any possible attempts by Syrian forces to cross over, adding Theyve not even tried.
The Polish government is debating the idea of bringing Syrian refugees to Poland for medical treatment, a high-ranking senator said Friday.

Poland's conservative government has been at odds with European Union leaders for refusing to accept any migrants under an EU relocation plan intended to ease the pressure on traditional landing spots such as Greece and Italy.

But following a change of prime ministers this month and after the EU recently opened a censuring process over some other government policies, Poland has started discussing bringing refugees in for treatment, within the so-called "humanitarian corridors.''

Conservative Deputy Senate Speaker Adam Bielan said Friday that a "discussion on the subject is taking place within the government.''

'Temporary aid'

"I believe that we can consider temporary aid to those most needy, elderly people, small children, especially Christians,'' Bielan said on TVN24, stressing he was not speaking for the government.

He said it should be outlined upfront how long patients would require treatment, how long they would stay in Poland and "what happens when they are ready to return to Syria.''

After assuming power two years ago, the government led by Poland's Law and Justice party cited security concerns in going back on a promise by its liberal predecessor to take 7,000 refugees from elsewhere in Europe. Poland's influential Catholic Church has criticized the revised stance.

Kornel Morawiecki, a senior Polish lawmaker and the father of the country's new prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said earlier this week that accepting 7,000 refugees should not be a problem for Poland, a nation of almost 40 million people.

But he said any newcomers should be expected to adopt the ways of Poland.

"We could try to make them Poles,'' Kortnel Morawiecki said.
Afghan religious leaders Wednesday called on the Afghan Taliban to sever ties with terror groups and join the Afghan-led peace and reconciliation process.

The High Peace Council (HPC), a government-funded body tasked with bringing insurgents to negotiations, invited more than 700 religious scholars from all 34 provinces of Afghanistan for a two-day conference in the capital, Kabul, to discuss peace efforts to help end the country's 16-year bloody insurgency.

"Taliban should remove all those elements from their ranks and files that have ties with international terrorism and have no respect for Islamic and Afghan values," read a joint declaration released at the end of the conference.

Attaullah Faizani, a religious scholar who attended the conference, said the Taliban must cease violence.

"Taliban must respect the aspirations of the Afghan people and join the Afghan-owned and intra-Afghan peace talks," Faizani said. "Whatever their demands are must be discussed peacefully through negotiations. They must immediately cease violence, suicide attacks, explosions and the targeting of innocent civilians."

The declaration also calls on the Afghan government to be flexible and patient with the peace process.

Addressing the conference in Kabul, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said his government had no reservations about endorsing the demands of the religious scholars. He went on to criticize the insurgents.

"We accept all of it [the demands of the scholars], but I hope that the Taliban also endorses your demands to prove who has the commitment and the intention for peace," Ghani said.

Mohammad Akram Khpalwak, an adviser to the Afghan president and CEO of the Executive Secretariat of the High Peace Council, told the gathering that the government seeks a dignified resolution of the Afghan conflict.

"We say we want peace with dignity. We do not want surrender. Rather we insist that we do not have any conditions for the beginning of direct negotiations," Khpalwak said. "If they [Taliban] have any conditions, they should put them on the table."

The HPC apparently is using its peace talks with the leader of the Hezb-e Islami political party, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, as a model for the Taliban to get the insurgent group to talk with the Afghan government and end its armed insurgency.

Hekmatyar, a former U.S.-designated global terrorist, returned to Kabul in May of this year after almost two decades in hiding, following a peace deal with the Afghan government.

The Afghan government is expected to announce its peace strategy with the Taliban in the upcoming Kabul Process conference. Representatives of several countries and international organizations are expected to attend the conference.

A day after the religious scholars' conference, a suicide attack Thursday at a Shiite Muslim center west of Kabul killed more than 40 people and injured another 80, including women and children.

The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility for the attack.
South Africa's Constitutional Court ruled Friday that the country's parliament failed to hold President Jacob Zuma accountable for a scandal over using public funds for a multimillion-dollar upgrade to his private home.

The judgment, which was supported by the majority of the court, could pave the way to another impeachment proceeding against Zuma.

In a ruling handed down earlier this year, the court found that Zuma had violated Section 89 of the Constitution by not paying back the money used for his Nkandla home upgrades, as directed by the public protector.

According to that section, parliament may remove the president from office for serious violations of the law, serious misconduct or inability to perform the functions of his office.

However, parliament does not have rules to implement such a move.

"The failure by the National Assembly to make rules regulating removal of a president in terms of Section 89, Sub 1 of the Constitution, constitutes a violation of this section and is invalid," Justice Chris Jafta said.

Several opposition parties approached the court to impeach Zuma after he was found to have violated the constitution.

Constitutional law expert Lwando Xaso says the court's decision is the first of three steps paving the way for another impeachment try.

"Practically, it comes down to a vote," Xaso said. "Let's say the rules are put in place, parliament reconvenes and they put rules in place for [Section] 89. Probably we are going to have another voting process, and now we have all this jurisprudence to inform that voting process."

Godrich Gardee, Secretary General of the Economic Freedom Fighters party, says the rules should be in place before Zuma gives his next State of the Nation Address in February.

"We can't wait any other day longer. We need to be in parliament in no less than 30 days before the State of the Nation Address of 2018," Gardee said.

However, the judgment was marred by controversy after Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng insisted that his opposing views be read into record. He warned that by tolerating the matter, the court was interfering with another arm of state, the parliament.

Zuma has survived eight motions of no confidence in parliament. But with the ANC divisions now distinct following the party's elective conference a week ago, political experts warn that he may not survive another impeachment effort.
China has denied facilitating oil shipments to North Korea in violation of United Nations Security Council sanctions, one day after U.S. President Donald Trump accused Beijing of doing so.

"China has been completely and strictly implementing Security Council resolutions and fulfilling our international obligations,'' foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters Friday at a media briefing. "We will never allow Chinese citizens and enterprises to engage in activities that violate Security Council resolutions."

Despite China's insistence the sanctions are being enforced, doubts persist in the U.S., South Korea and Japan that loopholes continue to exist. And China's repeated denials did not preclude Trump from tweeting Thursday he was "very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea."

The U.N. Security Council last week imposed new sanctions designed to limit North Korea's access to oil in response to the country's recent long-range missile test. In November, it test-launched its latest intercontinental ballistic missile, which many U.S. experts have warned would be capable of striking anywhere on U.S. soil. The sanctions seek to bar 90 percent of refined oil exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year and limit crude oil exports at 4 million barrels annually.

Ship seized

South Korea's foreign ministry said earlier Friday the country had seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship that transferred oil to a North Korean vessel in international waters despite the sanctions.

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, reported South Korean officials said the Lighthouse Winmore vessel transferred "600 tons of refined petroleum" to a North Korean ship on October 19 and that the ship was seized November 24 after it sailed into South Korea's Yeosu Port.

Yonhap reported the vessel was chartered by the Billions Bunker Group, a Taiwanese company. The ship's "claimed destination" was reportedly Taiwan, but the ship instead "transferred oil to a North Korean ship, Sam Jong 2, and three other non-North Korean vessels in international waters in the East China Sea."

Yonhap said South Korea informed the U.S. about its "detection of the illegal transaction" involving the Lighthouse Winmore, which is reportedly on the list of ships the U.S. has proposed blacklisting for prohibited trade with North Korea.

Hua, China's foreign ministry spokeswoman, said authorities investigated a report that an unnamed Chinese ship transferred oil to a North Korean vessel at sea on October 19 and determined it was erroneous. Hua also said she did not have any information about the Hong Kong-flagged vessel.

Satellite images

In November, the U.S. Treasury Department disclosed satellite images that displayed what it said was a North Korean ship receiving oil from an unidentified vessel on Oct. 19. It was not immediately clear if the Lighthouse Winmore was involved in the transaction.

The photos received broader public scrutiny this week when the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reprinted them along with the report that suspected Chinese ships transferred oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times since October.

In an interview Thursday with the New York Times, Trump linked his trade policy with China to its cooperation in resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis.

"If they're helping North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that."



During a briefing Friday with reporters at the Pentagon, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis was asked if the U.S. Navy could begin seizing ships suspected of providing oil to North Korea.

Mattis declined to speculate but said, "Obviously if a government finds that there is a ship in their port conducting trade that was forbidden under the U.N. Security Council resolution, then they have an obligation and so far we have seen nations take that obligation seriously."

Mattis also predicted the global community will increase pressure on Pyongang and said physical approaches are among the options under consideration.

"What form that pressure takes in terms of physical operations is something that will be determined by the cognizant governments," he said.

China is North Korea's primary trading partner and energy supplier, and its main diplomatic protector. But Beijing has expressed increasing frustration with North Korea's nuclear and missile tests. And while China supports the latest sanctions against Pyongyang, it has argued against actions that may be harmful to North Korean citizens or destabilize its government.



VOA's Jeff Seldin contributed to this report from the Pentagon.
President Donald Trumps administration is rescinding proposed rules for hydraulic fracturing and other oil- and gas-drilling practices on government lands, government officials announced Thursday.

The rules developed under President Barack Obama would have applied mainly in the West, where most federal lands are located. Companies would have had to disclose the chemicals used in fracking, which pumps pressurized water underground to break open hydrocarbon deposits.

The rules to be rescinded Friday were supposed to take effect in 2015, but a federal judge in Wyoming blocked them at the last minute. In September, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver declined to rule in that case because the Trump administration intended to rescind the rules.

Industry praise

The long-awaited change drew praise from industry groups including the Washington, D.C.-based Independent Petroleum Association of America and Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, which sued to block the rules.

They claimed the federal rules would have duplicated state rules, putting unnecessary and expensive burdens on petroleum developers.

States have an exemplary safety record regulating fracking, and that environmental protection will continue as before, Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said in a release.

Fracking and water

Fracking has been so successful in boosting production over the past decade it has become almost synonymous with oil and gas drilling. In many areas, it would be rare nowadays for a gas or oil well to not be fracked.

The process requires several million gallons of water each time. Environmentalists say the potential risks to groundwater require regulation.

Fracking is a toxic business, and thats why states and countries have banned it. Trumps reckless decision to repeal these common-sense protections will have serious consequences, Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an email.
The Justice Department on Thursday unsealed details of its case against two Romanians who allegedly hacked computers tied to Washington, D.C., police surveillance cameras.

Police in Bucharest arrested Mihai Alexandru Isvanca and Eveline Cismaru on December 15. U.S. attorneys have charged them with conspiracy to commit computer and wire fraud.

They allegedly hacked into more than 120 computers tied to Washington police surveillance cameras last January. It was part of an alleged scheme to infect personal computers with ransomware.

Ransomware restricts users from accessing their own computers and demands a payment to the ramsomware operator to unlock it.

The Justice Department said the investigation was of the highest priority because the alleged hacking of the surveillance camera computers came just weeks before the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump.

However, it says there is no evidence anyone's personal security was threatened or harmed.

If tried in the U.S. and convicted, the Romanian defendants could face up to 20 years in prison.
Members of a Russian environmental group say masked men attacked their leader in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar late Thursday.

Andrei Rudomakha, head of Environmental Watch of the North Caucasus, was hospitalized with multiple injuries including a fractured skull and broken nose.

Rudomakha and several other activists were returning from a trip to Russia's Black Sea region, where they had documented the illegal construction of a luxury mansion.

Local authorities said they are investigating the incident.

For more than 20 years, Environmental Watch has exposed illegal landfills, the destruction of landscapes and the contamination of waterways in Russia's south - the Krasnodar, Stavropol, Rostov, Adygea, Karachayevo-Cherkesia, and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Some of the group's investigations have exposed land grabs by Russian local officials.
The United States military says its support for the Federal Government of Somalia is making an impact in a year in which the Trump administration increased attacks against al-Shabab militants.

In 2017, the U.S. conducted at least 34 strike operations against al-Shabab and a militant splinter group supporting the Islamic State, according observers of U.S. military activities against al-Shabab. Last year there were 14 strikes. Thirty-one of the strikes targeted al-Shabab while the other three targeted pro-Islamic State militants in northeastern Puntland region.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump eased combat rules in March and declared parts of Somalia a war zone, strike operations conducted by the U.S. have killed more than 155 militants, according to a press statement given by the Africa command.

Striking at al-Shabab

At least 100 of those were killed November 21 in a single attack on a training camp near Leb-Adde Mountains in Bay region. In addition, in at least three strikes the U.S. said several militants were killed but didnt follow up with specific figures.

In a news briefing by the Africa Command, Commander of U.S. Africa Command General Thomas D. Waldhauser said attacks on al-Shabab and ISIS militants provide time and space for the gradual development of the Somali National Army, police force and government.

The threat from al-Shabab continues to be a serious one, as shown by their deadly attacks killing more than 500 in Mogadishu back in October, Waldhauser said. While we are not increasing our presence or assets there, or intentionally escalating strikes, our pressure on the network and information sharing efforts are paying off with an increasing awareness of what the enemy is doing, making our targeting efforts more successful.

Drones not enough

Former Somali Defense Minister Abdihakim Haji Mohamud Fiqi says U.S. drone strikes help but will not be enough.

I believe this will help but this will not eliminate al-Shabab totally, he told VOA Somali. In order to finish al-Shabab and eliminate them from the areas they still rule, is to help and rebuild the Somali national army, arm them and provide them with the logistical support they need and military equipment they need.

Unlike previous years, U.S. strikes this year have targeted al-Shabab foot soldiers more often.

Of the 34 strikes, two have killed senior al-Shabab commanders  a July 30 strike killed Ali Jabal, al-Shababs shadow governor for Mogadishu, and a September 7 strike killed the head of Al-Shababs preachers, Abdirahman Hudeyfi; two others killed junior commanders.

A November 3 strike intended for the leader of the pro-Islamic State militants, Abdulkadir Mumin, missed its target, according to Somali regional leaders.

Fiqi says the reason more strikes are targeting al-Shabab foot soldiers lies with the Trump administration.

The reason is change of policy in the U.S. with President Trump, and the Pentagon requested be given flexibility and authority to take action against al-Shabab to help AMISOM and Somali National Army, Fiqi says. They empowered American commanders in the field to take action against al-Shabab.

IEDs targeted

U.S. strikes in 2017 also appear to be targeting vehicles suspected of carrying explosives toward populated cities like Mogadishu.

This month alone, the drone strikes destroyed two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices in Lower Shabelle, a region where almost all of al-Shababs major vehicle bombings are prepared, including the October 14 truck explosion that killed more than 500 civilians. On December 27, the U.S. destroyed one of those vehicles near Mogadishu, killing four militants.

The number of U.S. personnel in Somalia has also increased this year to about 500, according to U.S. media. U.S. military members have been accused of involvement in the deaths of 10 civilians August 25 at a farm near the town of Barire.

The Africa Commands last statement said the incident resulted in the death of armed enemy combatants. Somali military officials and regional leaders disagree.

Nonetheless, Africa command says protection of civilians is a vital component of their efforts.
Fed up with food shortages and exorbitant prices, Juana Medina joined hands Thursday with dozens of strangers on this capital city's west side to register her fury.

"This political and economic system is killing us with hunger," Medina complained to VOA as she and others formed a human chain to demand that the federal government deliver the pork they'd expected for the holiday season.

Similar anti-hunger demonstrations have surfaced in different regions of Venezuela since Saturday.

"Give us what we were promised. If President [Nicolas] Maduro promised, give it to us!" shouted Patricia, a young protester who identified herself only by her first name.

She was referring to a "Christmas combo," including ham, that the Socialist leader in November had said would be provided to Venezuelans. As of Thursday, the promised food packages had reached few of the most vulnerable of Venezuela's 30 million people.

The president blamed Portugal for the missing meat.

"What happened to the ham? They sabotaged us," Maduro said of the Portuguese on Wednesday. He said he ordered the pork imports and authorized payment, but the Venezuelan government's bank accounts were challenged.

Portugal's foreign minister, Augusto Santos Silva, denied any attempt at sabotage. Reuters news agency said he told Portuguese radio station TSF, "The Portuguese certainly has no power to sabotage pork [deliveries]. We live in a market economy. Companies are in charge of exports."

The Portuguese agribusiness Raporal S.A. released a statement saying it denied the sale because Venezuela's government still owes millions for hams sent by the company in 2016, according to Portugal's Diario de Noticias.

Maduro's excuses failed to appease hundreds of demonstrating Venezuelans, who saw the promised hams as a rare protein source in the country's protracted economic crisis.

"My protest is simply because every time we go to the supermarket, the prices are very high and the salary does not stretch," said Caracas protester Mireya Santos. She said of Venezuela, which has the world's largest proven oil reserves but also many malnourished people, "I have a rich but poor country."

According to the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers' Center for Social Analysis, a month's worth of basic food for a family of five cost more than 13 million bolivars  or roughly $130 on the black market  in November. But with the bolivar's plunging value, Venezuela's minimum-wage workers earned less than $4 a month.
Palestinian medical records show a well-known, wheelchair-bound protester was killed by a bullet to the head during an anti-Israel demonstration in Gaza two weeks ago.

However, the hospital and ambulance reports seen by The Associated Press did not say who fired the shot that killed Ibrahim Abu Thraya.

Witnesses say he was killed by an Israeli sniper. The Israeli army report says live fire was used against protest organizers, but Abu Thraya was not targeted. It concluded that it is impossible to know what killed him.

Many Palestinians regarded Abu Thraya as a symbol of Israeli repression. He was confined to a wheelchair after losing his legs in 2008. His family says he was wounded by an Israeli airstrike while rescuing others who were wounded. The AP says he was hurt during a clash with Israeli forces in a refugee camp.

His death is adding to Palestinian anger over U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and Trump's plans to move the embassy there from Tel Aviv. Violent protests against the move have killed 12 Palestinians.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its eternal capital.

Girl's detention

Also Thursday, an Israeli military court extended the detention of a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who has become a hero after she was videotaped kicking and slapping Israeli soldiers.

Troops arrested Ahed Tamimi last week. She faces charges of attacking soldiers. She is set to be released Monday.

Her mother and cousin were also arrested.

Ahed was videotaped hitting and kicking the soldiers outside her home near Ramallah. The soldiers did not resist and were criticized by some more militant Israelis, who say they let themselves be humiliated by a little girl.
In Zimbabwe, some residents in the capital, Harare, want the mayor to step down because of chronic bad tap water. He had urged citizens to use "caution" as water in Zimbabwe's capital was not safe to drink.

Residents directed their anger at Mayor Benard Manyenyeni during a public meeting, where they complained about muddy, colored and smelly drinking water. Some parts of the capital city have gone for weeks or months with dry taps, despite above normal rain in Zimbabwe last season.

"Water is a basic fundamental right. Water is life. When we have no water, people die and people are dying," said Linda Masarira, a resident who attended the meeting, which lasted close to two hours, said



"Our health department is in shambles," she continued. "A lot of people are suffering from diseases that they do not understand because of consuming this dirt water. Everyone should get clean, safe water coming out of their taps."

Masarira added that from here on, residents will "make an appointment with the local government minister since the mayor said his hands are tied."

If that effort is unsuccessful, she said they will go "to the president's office. We will go all the way until clean water is coming out of Harare taps."



Most parts of Zimbabwe do not have access to clean water, forcing residents to rely on open sources that expose them to waterborne disease.

A cholera outbreak in 2008 and 2009 claimed close to 5,000 lives, according to U.N. statistics. The situation could have been worse had international organizations such as USAID not helped, providing water treatment chemicals, among other interventions to ensure proper sanitation in Zimbabwe.



Sharon Mumbula fears the situation in Harare might escalate to 2008 and 2009 levels unless Mayor Manyenyeni steps down.

"I am wondering why he is even sitting there; why he was hired," she said. "Clearly he can't execute his duties. Some of the answers he gave us are not even relevant to the problem. Clearly he can't say he does not know where the unclean water is coming from. Yet it is the whole of Harare which is affected. So it is time for him to go."

At the meeting Friday, the mayor said he would not step down but would not seek re-election in 2018. After the meeting, Manyenyeni told VOA he was hopeful Harare's water problems would end one day.



"We think we are providing you with water that is good for you and your family to drink," he said. "We have seen experiences of water that does not look good, water that looks greenish and brownish, water that froths or foams. Let's share the responsibility. While we assume and claim that our water is clean and safe to drink; we ask you to exercise caution wherever you are and make your own personal decisions about what you see, what you smell. Is it good enough for you to drink?

The mayor added that if residents are not satisfied while authorities fix the problem, then "please avoid drinking water which you consider suspect."

He said the time frame to fix the problem depends on the availability of funds. That, he noted, "is not a council problem. It is a national problem."



Zimbabwe's critical shortage of foreign currency is forcing businesses to source it on the black market. This has led to price increases on most commodities. The mayor ruled out getting foreign currency on the black market so that Harare can import water treatment chemicals.
Zimbabwean president and first secretary of the ruling Zanu-PF party, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has appointed Retired Zimbabwe Defense Forces General Constantino Guvheya Dominic Nyikadzino Chiwenga and Defense Minister Kembo Mohadi the countrys two vice-presidents.

Some political analysts though are expressing concern at the appointment of many people in Mnangagwas Cabinet with a military background, including Chiwenga who executed the military intervention in Zimbabwe leading to the ouster of former president Robert Mugabe. Who is General Chiwenga?

Liberation War Credentials

General Chiwenga was born in 1956 in the Wedza district of Mashonaland East. He attended St. Marys Mission school together with Retired Air Force Commander Perrance Shiri, who is now the agriculture minister. In 2011, Chiwenga, once described by his colleagues as knowing very little about the military, acquired a Masters Degree in International Relations from the University of Zimbabwe. In 2015, he attained a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Ethics at the University of Kwazulu Natal in South Africa.

In a damning 2010 appraisal of Chiwenga contained in leaked Wikileaks cables, Brigadier General Herbert Chingono and Major General Fidelis Satuku told then United States ambassador to Harare Charles Ray that Chiwenga was not fit for the job. General Constantine (now Constantino) Chiwenga is a political general who works hard, but who has very little practical experience or expertise, read the cables. Adding, Given a choice between a military and political issue, Chiwenga will always choose the political, because he doesnt know enough about the military to be comfortable discussing it.

In a very accurate assessment, Chingono said, He (General Chiwenga) will be very disappointed if he does not get a political position when his tenure as defense chief ends.

Chiwenga joined the Zimbabwe liberation war in 1973 and was trained in neighboring Mozambique as a Zimbabwe National Liberation Army (ZANLA) combatant. He adopted the nom-de-guerre, Dominic Chinenge, during the liberation struggle. General Chiwenga rose through the ranks to become a provincial commander for the Masvingo/Gaza Province liberation war front. He was promoted to the ZANLA High Command in 1978 to the post of deputy political commissar, second to liberation war icon, the late Josiah Tungamirai.

Post -Colonial Zimbabwe

In 981, Chiwenga was attested to the Zimbabwe National Army as brigadier commanding First Brigade in Bulawayo and later promoted to the rank of major general. On the formation of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces (ZDF) in 1994, Chiwenga was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and later commander of the Zimbabwe National Army. He was promoted to the rank of commander of the ZDF in 2004 after the retirement of the late General Vitalis Zvinavashe.

He also served as the chairman of the Joint Operations Command, which comprises all the security services such as the army, police, air force, prisons and Central intelligence Organization (CIO). General Chiwenga, having been closely linked to former president Robert Mugabe, is on the United States targeted sanctions list for alleged human rights abuses. He was removed from the European Union sanctions list in 2014.

Dabbling In Politics

Mugabe revealed on many occasions that the army under the leadership of Chiwenga campaigned for Zanu-PF during the elections. Addressing war veterans last year, Mugabe singled out Chiwenga for ensuring the ruling Zanu-PF party retained power in 2008 and 2013. Mugabe also revealed that he had extended Chiwenga and other service chiefs contracts so that they assist Zanu-PF win elections.

The army in 2008 deployed senior officers in the countrys provinces to co-ordinate election campaigns after Mugabe had lost the first round of elections to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change, who had failed though to reach the 50 plus 1 votes needed to win outright forcing an election run-off. After the alleged military intervention, Tsvangirai was forced to withdraw from the elections claiming that the army and Zanu-PF militias had killed, tortured and intimidated his supporters. In 2013, Chiwenga labelled Tsvangirai a psychiatric patient and sell-out. He once vowed he would never salute Tsvangirai, who called him out on many occasions accusing the general of acting unprofessionally and ironically telling him to join politics.

But Presidential advisor Chris Mutsvangwa, who is also the chairman of the Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association told VOA Studio 7 that Chiwenga and Tsvangirai had since buried the hatchet after war veterans intervened. Chiwenga also clashed with former Higher Education Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo, now on the run, accusing him of infiltrating the ruling Zanu-PF party. Chiwenga also sued Moyo for $5 million after he allegedly insinuated that he did not earn his doctorate as someone had authored the thesis on his behalf in fulfilment of the programs requirements.

Operation Restore Legacy

General Chiwenga was instrumental in the ouster of former President Robert Mugabe after launching what he called Operation Restore Legacy. This came after the expulsion of Mnangagwa from his position as vice president. On 13 November, he called for a press conference and publicly warned politicians to desist from allegedly denigrating the army seen by many as a direct response to former First Lady Grace Mugabe and those backing her to succeed his husband in a Zanu-PF faction called Generation 40 or G40.

The army general made it clear that if the alleged persecution of the war veterans by the party did not stop, the army would step in. But the G40 faction accused him of treason. On November 15, the army staged a coup taking over strategic areas and declaring that they were targeting criminal elements around President Mugabe. But eventually they forced the president to step down 6 days later.

General Chiwenga Net Worth

It is very difficult to obtain details about the net worth of politicians in Zimbabwe since they do not declare their assets. But for many Zimbabwean politicians, details of their wealth become a matter of public record when they divorce. Chiwengas vast wealth was revealed when he divorced his wife Jocelyn Chiwenga in 2012.

In judgment number 463/14, the High Court granted the Chiwengas divorce after both parties conceded that their marriage had irretrievably broken down.

The court was to also adjudicate on how the couples should share their matrimonial property, among them real estate, companies, top of the range motor vehicles, jewelry, furniture and clothes exposing their vast wealth in the process.

Most of the couples properties were registered in the name of companies.

Real Estate

Blue Chip Stamp Company (Pvt) Ltd - which owned a property at 5 Rosary Close, Quinnington, Borrowdale measuring 5 701 square metres.

Lighthouse Investments (Pvt) Ltd - which owned four industrial units in Willowvale, with each unit measuring 3 850 square metres.

Liversay Investments (Pvt) Ltd - which owns a property at 614 Prince Drive in Borrowdale Brook measuring 4 817 square metres.

Hidcote Investment (Pvt) Ltd - which owns a property at 79 Follyjon Crescent measuring 4,955 square metres

Grandi Lodge Sixty One (Pvt) - which owns a house on a 1,692 square metres stand in Borrowdale Brooke.

Ouacker Investments - which owns stand 103 Shawasha Hills residential estate.

Yolsac Safaris (Pvt) Ltd - which trades as Kazungula Wildlife Safaris.

The couple also owned an apartment in Malaysia and a house at 9 Msasa Drive in Msasa Park in Harare.

In addition, the couple owned Dokson Investments, which spearheaded operations at their farm in Goromonzi in Mashonaland East province. Chiwenga was allocated the farm under the 2000 often violent governments land reform programme.

The couple also owned stand 539 Borrowdale Brooke measuring 1,456 metres squared as well as Dominicus Investments (Pvt) Ltd which owns an industrial stand in Marondera.

The couple owned a property at 34 Lythan Drive in Glen Lorne and a vacant piece of land at Mermaids Pool about 42 kilometres from Harare.

Apart from the properties, the couple also owned motor vehicles, among them, a Prado, Jeep, Toyota land Cruiser V8, Mercedes Benz C180, Land Rover Defender and a Land Rover Discovery 4.

Jewelry

The Chiwengas also had an impressive collection of jewelry which included gold bracelets encrusted with diamonds, gold rings encrusted with diamonds, four gold watches with 36 carat diamond, three gold chains with diamond pendants, gold choker with centre diamond and two gold bangles encrusted with diamonds.

The Chiwengas had 40 gold watches, white gold rings, four white gold chokers, choker Jackie Kennedy pearls and bracelet pearls, 10 piece gold anklet, an emerald ring, pearl ring encrusted with 24 carat diamond, forty eight gold broaches and a set of gold earings and chain with diamonds.

They also had 45 sets of diamond earrings, diamond tiara, blue diamond ring, diamond and emerald necklace, emerald cocktail ring, yellow diamond ring, diamond engagement rings, emerald rings and mens rolex watches.

Cars

The couple owned the following cars: A Prado, Jeep, Toyota land Cruiser V8, Mercedes Benz C180, Land Rover Defender and a Land Rover Discovery 4.
Zimbabwe's president Emmerson Mnangagwa has sworn in two of his deputies, former State Security Minister Kembo Mohadi, and Retired General Constantino Guveya Chiwenga, who spearheaded a military intervention in the country, which led to the ouster of Robert Mugabe, who ruled the southern African nation with an iron fist for more than 37 years.

Some critics say their appointments are of no significance as the two have been in the ruling Zanu PF party since Zimbabwe attained independence from Britain in 1980. However, Zanu PF activists are optimistic that the two, together with Mnangagwa, will bring change to Zimbabwe, which is experiencing serious economic decline.

Trade unionist George Nkiwane and several other opponents say the two vice presidents wont turn around Zimbabwes economy before the 2018 general elections.

But Zanu PF lawmaker Joseph Tshuma says Retired General Chiwenga and Mohadi are expected to assist Mnangagwa in tackling the current harsh social and economic situation in Zimbabwe.

They need to be clear that they are out there at the will of the president and therefore must serve him and assist him carry his mandate as the president of the country.

He said both of them should work to uplift the generality of Zimbabweans and their home areas.

Charity begins at home and therefore people like Mohadi should play a crucial role in improving the standard of living for the people of Beitbridge, Matabeleland and the nation as a whole, he said.

Mohadi and Retired General Chiwenga are expected to assist Mnangagwa in campaigning for the 2018 general elections.
Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa is not oblivious to the profiteering by some of the countrys retailers, sellers and manufacturers, who have hiked up prices of various commodities, making them unaffordable to many citizens.

Speaking to reporters at State House Thursday, following the swearing in of Vice Presidents Constantino Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi, Mnangagwa, who took a few questions from reporters, told VOA reporter Blessing Zulu that he is concerned by what is happening.

We are very concerned as government about the general rise in prices on the market, Mnangagwa said, adding that he has already addressed the issues with Industry Minister Michael Bimha.

I had a meeting yesterday with the Minister of Industry, Dr. [Michael] Bimha to call the manufactures, the sellers and retailers and discuss with them.

Zimbabweans have been complaining about the hike in prices from day to day items such as sugar and bread, to fuel and other commodities, and accuse suppliers and sellers of taking advantage of consumers during the festive season.

Mnangagwa questioned the price differences for the same product being sold by various retailers, and urged them to be more humane in their business and refrain from profiteering. He said government does not want to be forced to legislate prices of goods and commodities, so suppliers must practice fairness.

We dont think it is good to go for legislation, to legislate against prices. We need to come to an understanding and have people in these categories appreciate where we are coming, where we want to go and they must have a human face, they mustnt be profiteering because in some cases you find the same article is sold at this price in this shop, different price in another shop  why should be the difference be 15-20% of one item, queried Mr. Mnangagwa, while indicating that he will not let this situation persist. We have to interrogate such issues, he concluded.
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Business

Goldman Sachs said U.S. tax changes will cut profit this year by about $5 billion, mainly because of a tax targeting earnings held abroad. About two-thirds of the hit comes from the repatriation tax, while writing down U.S. deferred tax assets also contributed, it said. The bank also accelerated the delivery of previously granted stock awards to many of its top executives to lower its taxable profit subject to this year's higher rates. While bank stocks have rallied on the tax legislations's lower corporate rates, the new law requires charges in the near term as foreign earnings face taxation and the value of deferred tax assets declines. Citigroup said it expects a hit of as much as $20 billion, while Bank of America will take a $3 billion charge.

General Motors won a court ruling that could reduce the private litigation it faces over flawed vehicle ignition switches, which have been linked to 124 deaths and triggered a big recall. A judge ruled that plaintiffs in two bellwether cases, involving accidents in which air bags had deployed, could not introduce expert testimony to show how defective ignition switches might have played a role in the crashes.

Apple apologized to customers for not being clear that the company slows phones with aging batteries. Apple promised that it will "give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone's battery." It is offering a discount on battery replacements to anyone with an iPhone 6 or later  $29 instead of $79.

President Trump called for the U.S. Postal Service to raise the shipping rates that it charges Amazon.com, the online retailer, in a deal that he said disadvantages the federal agency. "Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!" Trump tweeted. Trump appeared to refer to a partnership between USPS and Amazon in which the Postal Service carries Amazon packages in the last legs of their journeys to customers' doorsteps. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.) In June, a hedge fund manager whose firm invests in FedEx wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed asserting that the USPS effectively subsidizes Amazon, citing a Citigroup report that the Postal Service loses an average of $1.456 for each Amazon shipment it delivers.

Bitcoin resumed its slide Thursday, dipping below $14,000 as the cryptocurrency's dizzying drop from a record set 10 days earlier intensified. The latest blow to the world's biggest cryptocurrency came from South Korea, where the government said it was eyeing options for stamping out a frenzy of speculation, including a potential shutdown of some exchanges.

R.J. Reynolds was ordered to keep paying Florida millions of dollars in tobacco settlement money despite selling off major brands. R.J. Reynolds and other large tobacco companies were part of a 1997 multibillion-dollar settlement with Florida to compensate the state for treating sick smokers. The company sold cigarette brands Kool, Winston, Salem and Maverick to Imperial Tobacco Group in 2015.

Citigroup will pay at least $11.5 million in fines and restitution to settle charges that it displayed the wrong research ratings on more than 1,800 stocks, prompting many customers to own shares they never would have bought, a U.S. regulator said.

Google said it will extend commitments made five years ago to U.S. antitrust officials related to how developers use its advertising platform and the scraping of third-party content in search results.

Deals

Uber Technologies shareholders agreed to sell a sizable stake in the ride-hailing leader to an investor group led by SoftBank Group, allowing the Japanese conglomerate to amass a piece of the company at a steep discount to the last valuation. The transaction implies a $48 billion value for Uber, according to a person familiar with the deal. The deal will make SoftBank one of Uber's largest shareholders.

Economy

U.S. home prices climbed 6.2 percent from a year ago amid strong demand from would-be buyers and a shrinking supply of properties for sale. Standard & Poor's said that its S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index stood, in October, 6 percent above its previous peak, which was in 2006. Prices are rising at more than double the pace of wage growth, creating affordability pressures that have been offset by relatively low mortgage rates.
Subway franchisee Keith Miller has signed onto a letter urging corporate leaders not to reinstate a promotion that cuts into his profits. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

A Subway sandwich is far more than the sum of its fillings, franchisee Keith Miller says.

Those ingredients cost roughly $2. Then he pays labor. Electricity. Gas. Royalties. Credit card transaction fees. Rent.

All told, Miller, who owns three Subway franchises in Northern California, says it costs him well over $4 to produce one of Subways foot-long subs. And that is why, when the chain announced plans to drop the price of the sandwich to $4.99 starting in January, he and hundreds of Subways other 10,000 U.S. franchisees sent a strongly worded letter warning that the promotion could force some stores to close.

The numbers dont work for us, said Miller, who also chairs an industry group, the Coalition of Franchisee Associations. Ten years ago, they might have worked. But now they dont, in my opinion.

As fast-food chains across the country have slashed menu prices to revive flagging sales, a growing rift has emerged between some name-brand corporations and the local operators who run their outlets.

For years now, the retail industry has been shaken by giant companies that have been able to keep prices low, wooing consumers but squeezing suppliers and smaller competitors. But in the restaurant business, the push to keep prices low has pitted corporate headquarters against individual outlet owners  all operating under the same brand.

Corporations need to grow systemwide revenue to please board members and shareholders. But small-scale franchisees, who face rising costs and increased local competition, are far more concerned with store-level profits.

In addition to Subway's plans to relaunch the $5 Footlong, McDonald's will revive a version of its Dollar Menu next month. Taco Bell has promised to expand its selection of discount items, as have Wendy's and Jack in the Box.

This is an inherent financial conflict between franchisees and franchisers, said J. Michael Dady, a lawyer at the Minneapolis firm Dady & Gardner who represents franchisees in conflicts with their corporate parents. And some have handled it much better than others have.

To date, the uprising at Subway has been the most visible.

In late November, franchisees began circulating a petition that asked Subway to withdraw the foot-long deal, which they said would hurt their businesses.

Under the franchise system, chain restaurants such as Subway coordinate menus, product sourcing, store design and strategy across all locations. Local operators pay the chain to belong to that system. They also manage the day-to-day business of their stores  rent, labor, ingredients, utilities, maintenance and equipment  and draw their paychecks from whatever is left.

Discounts can cut dangerously deep into those margins, the petition says.

The document has been signed by nearly 900 people from 39 states who claim to own Subway franchises. Like Millers, many are small or family-run entities that operate only a handful of locations.

Franchisees have repeatedly voiced concerns about frequent and deep discounting, the petition reads. Franchisees believe this constant deep discounting has been detrimental to the Brand  as well as restaurant profitability.

Such a public revolt is highly unusual, said John Gordon, the founder of Pacific Management Consulting Group, a restaurant-oriented firm based in San Diego. The closest precedent is a 2009 lawsuit filed by Burger King franchisees who claimed they were losing money on every sale of the chain's $1 double cheeseburger.

In a statement, Subway said that the petition does not represent the views of the majority its franchisees and that the promotion is optional. Business owners who opt out, however, may face disgruntled customers.

In a separate presentation to franchisees, Subway said the promotion was intended to help them stanch several years of falling traffic.

We are in constant communication with our Franchisees and Development Agents, the company said in its statement. They are actively involved in many aspects of our decision-making process, and we welcome and encourage their feedback.

But many franchisees say that corporate attempts to grow sales have added to a growing list of challenges.

Miller said that when he bought his first Subway 28 years ago, his margins could swell as high as 18 percent. But since then, he said, competition has grown far more fierce and costs have risen dramatically for labor, utilities and rent.

Labor costs at fast-food restaurants have increased in each of the past three years, according to the financial-consulting firm BDO, the result of rising minimum wages and increased competition for employees. While the federal minimum wage has not risen since 2009, 29 states and the District of Columbia have instituted higher wages.

In California, where the minimum wage will be $11 per hour starting Jan. 1, Millers labor costs are up 50 percent from 10 years ago, he said. The cost of a full-price sub has risen only 20 percent.

Its a hard cost per sandwich, Miller said. People can only make so many sandwiches per hour. We find its about seven.

Meanwhile, the restaurant market has grown more crowded. Between 2009 and 2014, the United States added nearly 18,000 fast-food restaurants, according to the Agriculture Department  growing at more than twice the rate of the population over the same period and continuing a decades-long trend.

To make matters worse, its not just quick-service restaurants competing for consumers dining dollars anymore. Fast-casual restaurants such as Panera, delivery services such as GrubHub and meal kits such as Blue Apron have all muscled their way into the market, as have grocery and convenience stores.

As a result, year-over-year sales at fast-food and fast-casual chains have fallen dramatically over the past two years, according to Technomic, a restaurant-analytics firm. And because name-brand chains report those numbers to investors, it has put them under enormous pressure to find ways to pull in more customers  even customers who dont spend a lot of money per ticket.

Enter a time-honored technique: deep discounts and low-margin value items.

Its a very classic way to get [sales] up, Gordon said. And its a very common source of franchisee conflict.

The idea behind these promotions is that franchisees sacrifice some profit per item in the hope that increased traffic will make up for those losses or that customers will also spring for a side or drink. Ideally, the deals benefit both big-name chains and franchisees.

But operators often see discounts as a gamble, said Dady, the lawyer.

These are the people who are most invested in the business, as opposed to the big guys, he said. Theyre not against all discounts. But what our clients want to know is: Will there be a return on the investment?

In recent months, Dady has heard from a number of clients who are concerned about upcoming promotions. Many cannot speak publicly because of the risk of retaliation from their corporate parent, he added; many franchising contracts include disparagement as a reason for termination, and some firms have subjected complainers to nuisance health and cleanliness inspections.

But analysts say that franchisees for Little Caesars, the countrys third-largest pizza chain, also have been vocal behind the scenes  even refusing, in some cases, to carry the $5 pizzas widely advertised on TV.

And at McDonalds, some franchisees have protested the chains cascading promotions, telling analyst Mark Kalinowski in a periodic survey that the deals had cut into their profits.

We are discounting heavily, against my will, one franchisee wrote. So sales should be up and profits down.

But despite the feedback from some franchisees, analysts say that the discounting push is not likely to end. Chains have no other choice in this ultracompetitive environment, said Malcolm Knapp, the founder and president of an eponymous market-research firm based in New York. Many, he added, have succeeded in devising tiered value menus that also work well for local owners.

The reality in fast food now is that you need a value menu to survive, Knapp said. If you could live without it, would you? Sure. But the business shows you cant.

At Subway, the return of the $5 Footlong is also moving forward, nearly 10 years after the chain originally introduced it nationwide. Subway offered the deal periodically between 2008 and 2016, when the company raised the price to $6  a reflection of rising costs, it said.

Those costs are still rising, Miller points out. And increasingly, he and other fast-food franchisees say that they are getting caught in the middle.

Thats not just true at Subway, but at all quick-service restaurants, he said. You used to be able to make money in this business. Now, well, a lots different.


The sun begins to set late last month in Bakersfield, Calif., in Kern County. Officials in the county voted to put a ban on the sale of marijuana, while rest of the state prepares for its legalization. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

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In the high desert of eastern California, where a two-lane road and the rail tracks cross, sits a cluster of buildings that date to the turn of the last century.

There is a small hotel, a 10-table restaurant, a general store. A backhoe kicked up tan dust amid the sheds and trailers where about 30 people live.

Once a thriving gold-mining town, Nipton is now an experiment.

The nations largest publicly traded marijuana company, American Green, recently bought the town for $5 million, with plans to develop a cannabis-driven resort on the edge of the Mojave.

The investment represents the promise some see in an expanding marijuana economy once the drug, on Jan. 1, becomes legal for recreational use in the nations most-populous state.

This is the Hotel California, said Stephen Shearin, a nomadic entrepreneur who manages the project here, reciting the lyrics of the Eagles song as he walked the site.

The company will double the size of the five-room Hotel Nipton, and the Whistlestop Cafe is being redone. Camping will be encouraged, and Shearin said the company will add to the half-dozen tents on raised platforms already in place.

The old schoolhouse will host yoga and painting classes, dancing lessons, and flora and fauna lectures. An amphitheater amid the eucalyptus will open out toward the hills for concerts, and an evening bonfire will feature glass-blowing displays, creating a mix of Burning Man and Club Med far from most civilization.

Cannabis will be everywhere, if you want it, Shearin said. You want to smoke a fatty? You want to dab? You do that. But dont blow smoke on a family thats enjoying the scenery.

There is another sentiment prevalent on the eve of the laws change: concern. A four-hour drive west along a pair of desert highways ends in Oildale, near the city of Bakersfield, in a county that glows red on maps showing the prevalence of drugs.



Stephen Shearin of American Green is managing the marijuana companys cannabis-driven resort project in Nipton, Calif.  the town the company purchased for $5 million. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)



The Whistlestop Cafe in Nipton. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

The Kern County Board of Supervisors voted recently to forbid the sale of cannabis, underscoring the risk some communities see with the ready availability of marijuana, a drug the federal government still classifies in the same category as heroin.

The conflicting views, shaped by geography and local history, have sharpened to a point since Californians voted last year to make marijuana, an outlawed if thriving cash crop for decades, legal for adult use and small-scale cultivation.

Those with a medical prescription have been able to buy cannabis here since 1996. A referendum last year made California the eighth state, plus the District of Columbia, to make the drug legal without a doctors consent.

While seeking to clarify Californias position, the vote has in some ways had the opposite effect on what is projected to be the states $5 billion-a-year legal marijuana market.

The ballot measure, known as Proposition 64, allows adults to possess small amounts of cannabis and to cultivate as many as six plants. But it also allows counties and cities to regulate the sale and taxation of cannabis, and to decide on their own whether it can be grown in amounts larger than those allowed by state law for personal use.

The result has been an inconsistent array of rules across the state. There is money at stake, private investment and public revenue. State and local governments could collect $1 billion a year in taxes, according to the University of California Agricultural Issues Center.

At the Green Mile medical marijuana dispensary in the Kern County town of Rosamond, Marcus Borgun, a manager, said, Were a business like any other, paying taxes, and now were waiting to see if the county will allow us to go on.

Standing behind a glass case displaying jars filled with West Coast Diesel, Old Skool, Gelato and other brands of marijuana, Borgun said the dispensarys patients are going to be left without a way to ease pain and anxiety.

Suddenly, basically overnight, they tell us we cant be here, he said. And I see liquor stores on every corner.

For potential investors, the federal law poses a similar problem. Without having a clear sense of the Justice Departments position on state marijuana legalization, many businesses fear putting money into an industry that could be shut down by the current administration or future ones.

Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, Were looking at that very hard right now, adding that it is his view that the use of marijuana is detrimental, and we should not give encouragement in any way to it.

Nipton is nearly surrounded by federal land, with the vast Mojave National Preserve to the south and a Bureau of Land Management tract to the north, where a huge solar-energy field shines in the middle distance. The one road into town runs through federal land, raising concerns about whether those traveling to Nipton will be subject to federal drug laws.

Will the road serve as a safe passage? Shearin said. We dont know. Nobody knows.



Items for sale at the Nipton Trading Post. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)



Cannabis-themed key chains for sale at the Nipton Trading Post. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Hope for a green rush

Head southwest from Las Vegas, through red-rock canyons and into the high California desert, then take the turnoff with nothing in sight. Where the desert slopes into foothills, there is a small blur of color, which nearly a dozen miles off the interstate finally resolves itself into Nipton.

Gold built Nipton, and the railroad kept it thriving for decades. Dennis Benson used to hop on the train as it slowed through town, riding it an hour west each morning to high school in Barstow.

Benson is 66 years old now and has seen a series of owners buy and sell the town. Its population varied with the quantity of minerals in the hills, then with the cattle grazing in the desert  now banned by federal law  and finally with a three-barrel-a-day oil derrick, now defunct.

Cannabis, in Bensons view, is the next stage of the towns commodity economy  the gold rush turned green. He has liked what he has seen from American Green since the new owners bought Nipton  80 acres in all  in August.

These old boys have done more for this town than anyone has done in the last 30 years, Benson said. I feel confident this will be good for us over the years.

Not much new construction has happened here yet. Bensons one-man hauling and digging company has been put to work clearing lots and disposing of junk.

The town sits on the far edge of San Bernardino County, which voted in favor of Proposition 64 last year. County regulations are still being worked out, and theres a chance that the planned resort will not sell cannabis on site. There are no plans to grow marijuana here, with water so scarce.

Those are not details that concern Shearin, the irreverent 52-year-old project manager who has done a lot of business in a lot of places. He said American Green plans to invest another $5 million in developing the resort, which will be marketed as a marijuana sanctuary.

The place is picturesque, a movie set, which it was for the cult 1968 biker film The Savage Seven. Shearin said it will continue to be pitched to Hollywood.



Teena Thomas talks with Andres Mayland of Nevada Cactus as he works on mapping out a cactus garden at the Hotel Nipton. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

There will be a social element, as well, a political statement on the nature of marijuana in American culture.

Lindsey Davidson and her husband, Freddie Wyatt, have been hired by American Green to run the general store, restaurant and hotel. She is experienced in the field, including years in Washington, and intends to make Nipton important in ways it hasnt been to people who live nearby, with no services for miles.

There will be fresh food, and staples such as Clorox, alongside American Green merchandise, framed burlap sacks that once carried California sensimilla, hemp oils. The couple will move from outside Las Vegas to Nipton in the new year, bringing their now 6-month-old daughter, Delphine.

Were looking to create a community, she said. This will be amazing: the first real, focused cannabis resort where were trying to change the social norm.



A pedestrian walks by a mural in Bakersfield, a town hit hard by drug addiction. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

A grim generational history

The desert highways to Oildale run across flats nearly a mile high, past Edwards Air Force Base, before dropping down the Tehachapi range into a basin once rich in petroleum.

The billboards now tell another story in Bakersfield and Oildale, where ads suggest a thriving business for bail bondsmen and lawyers specializing in arrests for driving under the influence.

Hammered by methamphetamine and heroin addiction, Kern County voted against Proposition 64 last year, reflecting a broad fear that drugs, even those creeping toward legality, are crushing the community. County supervisors followed up by voting in October for a ban on all sales, a tightening of existing county law that means the two dozen or so medical marijuana dispensaries will have to close within a year.

Anywhere an illegal drug is being consumed is a concern, said Chief Deputy Larry McCurtain of the Kern County Sheriffs Office, which supported the ban. And that is especially true, given our traditions in this county with drugs.

The county superintendent of schools, Mary Barlow, emphasized that the district serves a high percentage of students in poverty, which, as she wrote in a letter to the county supervisors, is a population that I believe has increased risk of negative consequences as a result of the prevalence of cannabis in our communities.

What heroin and other drugs have done to Bakersfield and Oildale are alarmingly obvious after a few hours with Sgt. Steve Wells.



Chris Johnson, 48, right, at Manes RV Park in Oildale. I was a marijuana smoker for years and years, every day, way before the pot shops, Johnson said. To me, alcohol is much worse. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)



The Mars Collective medical marijuana dispensary in Bakersfield. It faces closure under new rules in Kern County. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Wells, who has been with the sheriffs department for 12 years, stopped one recent evening for a walk through the Manes RV Park, a 100-yard strip of patchwork trailers and tin-roof sheds.

Ive been off heroin for a month, the first resident who saw Wells told him, though Wells had never seen the man before.

A house nearby where people were cooking honey oil, a cannabis concentrate, exploded last month. One man is in the hospital with severe burns. At the end of the strip sat Chris Johnson, 48, and her small family, chatting through a cool evening on seats that include a plastic bench and the front seat of a car.

I was a marijuana smoker for years and years, every day, way before the pot shops, Johnson said. To me, alcohol is much worse. There are more accidents that happen than when you are high.

Later in the evening, Wells responded to a call of a man threatening suicide because his girlfriend had left him. The mans girlfriend told Wells that she left because of her boyfriends methamphetamine addiction.

Wells tried to calm the man down for more than an hour, only to concede that there was not much more to do. As deputies prepared to leave, a shot rang out, and the man emerged, bleeding from the head but alive.

This is generational, Wells said, suggesting the drug problem is similar to the entrenched poverty of a John Steinbeck novel. Im sure youve heard of The Grapes of Wrath? This is The Grapes of Wrath. 
Senior art and architecture critic

In 1557, the author and art theorist Lodovico Dolce wrote of the great Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel: "He who sees one single figure by Michelangelo has seen them all." For a moment, let's not dismiss what seems one of the most colossally stupid observations in the history of art criticism. Dolce had an ax to grind and was intimately engaged in the complicated and nasty politics of art and religion in 16th-century Italy. But critics are often irked as much by an artist's strengths as by his failings, especially if those strengths seem to inspire too enthusiastic a virtuosity. Dolce had isolated and identified what was distinctive in Michelangelo  his dynamic nude forms, his mastery of foreshortening, his command of musculature  and because the artist did these things so effortlessly and brilliantly, Dolce detected a tendency toward showmanship over substance.

The enraptured crowds flocking to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's thoroughly absorbing exhibition of Michelangelo drawings aren't likely to agree with Dolce. "Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer" gives an overview of the artist that stresses his intellectual range and cross-disciplinary ambition. It brings together 133 of his drawings, three statues, an architectural model, an early painting, his poetry, a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and works by artists from his circle to document Michelangelo's extraordinarily long and rich career (he died in 1564 at the age of 88).

The show finesses the overwhelming challenge of surveying a creator whose greatest work cannot travel, because it was painted for particular places, like the Last Judgment, or is too monumental, like his great David in Florence, or in many cases because it was never finished. Despite these challenges, the Met show leaves one with a profound sense of his range and achievement.

It also leaves one perhaps just a scintilla more sympathetic to Dolce's criticism. Among other things, the author compared Michelangelo unfavorably with contemporaries, such as Raphael: "I will report what one wit has already said, Michelangelo has painted workers, whereas Raphael only noblemen." There are layers upon layers of bias and intrigue in that comment, but also some truth. Michelangelo's figures ripple with sinewy energy, not just in comparison with the lithe and more decorously displayed figures of Raphael, but in contrast to the classical precedents from antiquity that inspired the artists of his age. His bodies never seem at rest, with muscles tense and flexed even in repose. Sometimes they seem more like maps of the body than any particular, imperfect example of an actual human form.

The gibe about workers vs. noblemen wasn't just about bodies, however. Michelangelo believed himself descended from noble stock, and his own magnificent rise to acclaim proved that artists could transcend mere craftsmanship and enjoy eminent social standing. He bristled when his nephew sent him a brass measuring ruler, "as if I were a plasterer or a carpenter." He was, he said, "ashamed to have it in the house and gave it away." And yet he was also a maker of things, a man of vigor, and artistic work such as the painting of the Sistine Chapel required stamina and strength. In his personal life, he was drawn to young, often aristocratic men, and some of the most compelling drawings in this exhibition suggest that his ideal of beauty tended to favor youthful androgyny and delicate facial structure. Although there were centuries of effort to censor his love for young men, it was well known at the time, and there was doubtless some malign insinuation in Dolce's comment about workers vs. noblemen.

[Vermeer at the National Gallery: Giving us all the rest of Dutch art]



Michelangelos Portrait of Andrea Quaratesi, a 1532 drawing in black chalk, on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (The British Museum, London)

Michelangelo's sense of the body had implications beyond the drawings he committed to paper, or the statues he chiseled from stone. There were theological and perhaps even architectural ideas embodied in his figures. Dolce wasn't alone in his anxiety about the Sistine Chapel figures, which were criticized for an excess of nudity, and for seemingly small details, such as Christ's beardless face. The Christ dispensing justice in the Last Judgment is not the Christ of the crucifixion, nor the Christ of centuries of iconic depictions that preceded Michelangelo. He has an elegant face, without a beard, attached to a body that has the massive, martial solidity of an idealized Roman emperor. In a drawing borrowed from the Royal Collection of Queen Elizabeth II, the "Risen Christ" is also beardless, and seems not so much resurrected as explosively casting off restraint, precedent and even religious stricture. There is an exuberant impatience and physicality to his figure that is difficult to contain within a conventional understanding of Christianity.

In a room of architectural renderings, one sees a curious fusion between the human and human-designed environment. Building facades grow more erect and vertical, as if the iconic David has barked at them: Stand up straight. Statues that would ordinarily be mere ornament tucked into niches or deployed along roof lines take on a weight and force as great or even greater than the architectural elements of the facade. Elongation and profound strength define both bodies and architecture. Even his architecture seems incapable of relaxation. Everything is alert and tense and ready for action.

Some of the earliest drawings in the show see the artist recasting the work of earlier artists on his own terms. In one drawing, he remakes two shamed and grieving figures, Adam and Eve from a fresco by Masaccio. In Michelangelo's hands, they become not only more robust, but sculptural, with a definite sense of physical space between them.

Michelangelo was quick to make his mark on the world, and he was greatly in demand and revered throughout his lifetime. The exhibition covers not only the apprentice works, but designs made in collaboration with other artists after he had become one of the most revered men of his age. It also includes representations of Michelangelo by other artists, including a portrait by Federico Zuccaro which renders him in the guise of his own sculpture of Moses, bare-armed, physically powerful and with the tools of his various trades gathered around him.

Among the highlights of the exhibition is Bastiano da Sangallo's copy of a design for an unrealized mural known as the Battle of Cascina. Michelangelo never painted the actual fresco, but his plan for it was an inspiration to other artists of his day. It was, some said, a kind of school for design, a world of inspiration for other painters interested in rendering the body in all its forms and poses and attitudes. Yet no one would mistake Bastiano's copy for anything by Michelangelo. Among its failings is the very problem Dolce claimed to see in the Sistine Chapel figures: The bodies do indeed seem all too much alike.

[Five exhibitions you didnt want to miss in 2017]

The crux of Dolce's criticism of Michelangelo is that the artist was somehow just a little coarse, attracted to coarse bodies and tempted to display a vulgar virtuosity over a refined aesthetic reticence. These aren't terms we use much anymore, but after several hours with these magnificent drawings you can understand if not sympathize with Dolce's unease. When he looked at Michelangelo's work, he saw something like the imperfect caricature embodied in Bastiano's copy of it. Very likely, he also sensed that Michelangelo had detonated something overwhelmingly powerful in the visual arts, an energy and eroticism that lesser artists would struggle to contain for centuries thereafter.

Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York through Feb. 12. For more information, visit metmuseum.org.
Anheuser-Busch InBev is the biggest brewing company in the world, but it has a problem it can't shake.

While Bud Light accounts for at least 1 out of every 6 beers sold in America, sales of its flagship beers have been slumping: between 2010 and 2016, the value of Budweiser sales fell 17 percent and Bud Light sales slipped 14 percent, according to alcohol market analyst IWSR. Through most of that period, craft-beer sales grew at a double-digit clip.

Back in 2011, when there were half as many American breweries as there are now, AB InBev responded to surging craft-beer popularity by purchasing Chicago's Goose Island for $38.8 million. In the process, it loudly announced a new strategy: "If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em." Six years and one $100 billion merger with SABMiller later, AB InBev controls nine more formerly independent craft breweries, from Seattle's Elysian to Virginia's Devils Backbone.

But as sales of hoppy IPAs continue to surge, and sales of Light (and Lite) macrobrews continue to drop, AB InBev is recalibrating its approach. Rather than buying up as many craft-beer producers as it can, it's using its vast resources to buy data  tons of it  through a little-known division called ZX Ventures.

[More bars are booting corporate beer from their taps and doubling down on craft]

Launched in 2015, ZX Ventures is charged with "disrupting" the beer industry by developing and investing in businesses that will provide value and improve user experiences  and make more money for AB InBev  somewhere down the road. They've invested in e-commerce delivery systems, beer-rating applications and home-brew suppliers, all of which provide data points that can tell them about trends and help them get ahead of the market.

Over the years, as AB InBev absorbed Elysian, Devils Backbone and North Carolina's Wicked Weed, the backlash to the announcement has become formulaic: The craft brewery announces that nothing will change despite the new ownership. Fans get angry, call the owners traitors and sellouts, and swear they'll never drink the beer again. (Those are the nice ones.)

But as a result of AB InBev's 2016 merger with SABMiller, snapping up small brewers has become harder. The U.S. Justice Department's settlement prohibits AB InBev from acquiring any craft brewer "without allowing for department review of the acquisition's likely competitive effects.



The May announcement of Anheuser-Busch InBevs acquisition of North Carolinas Wicked Weed drew the ire of craft-beer fans and resulted in the cancellation of the Asheville brewerys annual Funkatorium Invitational festival focused on sour ale. (Jacob Biba/For The Washington Post)

So where are the growth opportunities? That's where ZX Ventures comes in. According to its mission statement, "ZX Ventures is hopelessly dedicated to creating and analyzing the data necessary for determining our ideal strategies, products and technologies. We believe that the more we know and learn about our consumers and products, the better chance we have of anticipating their needs in the future."

Translation: They want to know everything about purchasing patterns and decisions. What are customers looking for? What are influencers thinking? How can they make it easier to get AB InBev's products into the hands of people who might want beer?

ZX Ventures' broad portfolio includes last year's purchase of Northern Brewer Homebrew Supply and Midwest Supplies, two of the largest home-brewing businesses in the country. It also has a minority stake in PicoBrew, the countertop home-brewing system that uses Keuriglike "PicoPacks" to make beer in a certain style or mimic the recipe of an existing brand.

[Craft brewers face legal threats, and medieval town criers, after homages to Beyonce and Bud Light]

In October 2016, ZX Ventures purchased a minority interest in RateBeer, a 17-year-old international beer-rating site that has grown to become one of the largest online databases of crowdsourced beer, brewery and bar rankings in the world. But neither RateBeer nor ZX Ventures publicized the deal until June 2017, when beer website Good Beer Hunting published a story about the move. ZX Ventures did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Some beer lovers feared that AB InBev would try to goose its notoriously bad ratings on the site  10 of the "top" 20 slots on the "Worst Beer in the World" list are AB InBev products, including Natural Light at No. 1 and Natural Ice at No. 2  or get preferential placement for reviews, which seems silly: RateBeer's audience, which gives its highest praise to imperial IPAs or rare Belgian beers, probably isn't looking for Bud Light Chelada. What seems more likely is that the ZX Ventures team is interested in access to a large number of data points: The most popular and trending beers, styles and search terms in any region around the world.

Are more people giving high ratings to saisons in London than Los Angeles? Are Bavarians searching for IPAs available to them? What are the most highly rated beer bars in the Southeast? Which beer styles have grown the most in the last year, in terms of average ratings or the number of searches, and where?

If certain cities are rating sour beers higher than the norm, for example, Elysian's sour pineapple seasonal or a new wild saison from Wicked Weed could be given extra promotional play in those markets.

Strangely, compared to AB InBev's purchases of breweries and home-brew suppliers, there hasn't been much blowback about the RateBeer purchase from the American beer community. There were about 50 requests for account removals immediately after the acquisition was made public, says Joe Tucker, the founder of RateBeer, but in August, "we set all-time records for total ratings and unique users, and our unique users were up about 100 percent year-to-year."

This doesn't surprise Kate Bernot, a writer for the Takeout and former beer editor at Draft Magazine. "I always got the impression they were the older, quirkier beer drinkers," she says. "It was always the real dorks' rating site. Their reviews and descriptions always sounded higher caliber than Untappd or Beer Advocate."

[Sours are quickly becoming the funky gateway into the world of craft beer]

And when users have spent years compiling hundreds or thousands of reviews of local Pilseners or imported IPAs, and forged a community in RateBeer's user forums, they might find it hard to quit. "Are people so used to giving up information on the Internet that this didn't rattle them, probably because you sort of expect your online info to be exploited?" Bernot asks. "If I was a RateBeer user and I had data there, I'd think that's just part and parcel of using Internet services."



Bud Light still accounts for at least 1 out of every 6 beers sold in the United States, but Anheuser-Busch InBev has invested in craft breweries in recent years to help offset slumping sales of its flagship beers. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)

For a look at the future, where e-commerce meets data wholly within an AB InBev ecosystem, turn to Brazil, AB InBev's second-largest market after the U.S. After a long day on the beach, a thirsty Brazilian can fire up Ze, a service that promises one-hour beer delivery in 10 major cities, including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. (ZX is also an investor in Starship Technologies robotic delivery service.) When the bottles are empty, the drinker can go to an app called BeHoppy, which helps find, log and rate craft beers, similar to the popular American app Untappd. It can even display information about a beer if the user takes a picture of the label. (Shockingly, the photos in the iTunes App Store show photos of Goose Island's Four Stars Pils and Shock Top.)

RateBeer could help to create a similar experience in Europe, where ZX Ventures has acquired Beer Hawk, a UK-based online craft beer retailer, and Saveur Biere, the leading French online craft shop. Both increasingly sell AB InBev products, but also offer the AB InBev researchers plenty of data to consider.

Unfortunately for ZX Ventures, most of these foreign business models are unlikely to take hold in the United States. Marc Sorini, a veteran lawyer who heads the Alcohol Regulatory & Distribution Group at McDermott Will & Emery, an international law firm in the District, says it's due to the three-tier system of alcohol in this country, which separates breweries from means of distribution and consumer sales to prevent monopolies.

"Under 'tied-house' and related laws in place in almost all U.S. jurisdictions, ABI could not own an off-premise retainer  on-line or otherwise," Sorini wrote in an email. "While some specific exemptions to the tied-house laws exist in almost every state, existing laws in many states would prohibit ABI  either directly or indirectly  holding an ownership interest in an off-premise retailer capable of delivering beer to consumers."

If e-commerce is off the table, then the most important way for AB InBev to make money in an increasingly crowded marketplace is to get the right beer in front of the right customers at the right time. And right now, the world's biggest brewer is tapping into a steady flow of data that can help it do just that.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified the founder of RateBeer as Joe Turner instead of Joe Tucker. This version has been updated.
Rolex watches seized from drug lords. Homes confiscated from tax cheats. Blackhawk helicopters the military no longer needs. The federal government is auctioning off all this  and more. The more often means mundane things like office chairs and shredders and mysterious things like swamp cooler pads and a Teel Diaphram Trash Pump.

These days most government auctions occur online, but some still offer the opportunity to check out the goods on site. If you go in person youll find the people-watching just as fascinating as the auction items themselves.

Several different federal agencies hold government auctions. The General Services Administration is the granddaddy of them all, because it sells on behalf of other departments. When a federal agency no longer needs something  say, a pickup truck  it reports the truck to GSA, which first offers it to other federal agencies and then to state and local governments or nonprofits. If nobody claims the truck, then the GSA auctions it off to the public, and you get your chance at it.

Depending on the agency, the government may use revenue from auctioned items to support crime-prevention programs, pay restitution to crime victims or purchase new equipment the department needs. By providing agencies with the ability to dispose of excess assets, GSA benefits taxpayers by eliminating the need to maintain and store the unneeded property while also raising more than $300 million in revenue in just the last two years, a GSA spokesperson said.

[How to get value out of an unwanted gift card]

These programs are meant to benefit taxpayers as a whole, but could they benefit you, the individual taxpayer? Can you bag a bargain at a government auction? GSAs goal is to maximize return to the federal government, the GSA spokesperson said. So theyre not giving this stuff away. In fact, the government sets reserves or minimums for the most valuable property it auctions off. But judging from a wide tour of current government auctions and bids, there are still opportunities to walk away with valuable goods for a great price. Heres a look at whos selling what, where, and for how much.

General Services Administration: GSA operates three different auction websites:

GSAAuctions.gov : This is GSA's main auction site and features 23 different categories, including intriguing ones like "Boats and Marine Equipment"and "Artifacts, Jewelry and Exotic Collectibles" plus"NASA Shuttle/Hubble" along with much more mundane sections such as: "Agricultural Equipment and Supplies" and "Industrial Machinery."

Sample Lot: Men's Rolex Watch. Latest bid when I checked: $1,475.

GovSales.gov : This site is a portal of sorts, where you can see many categories offered by many agencies. For example, "Books and Music" and "Sporting Goods."

Sample Lot: 2 bugles. 7 people were bidding when I checked, and the high bid was $200.

AutoAuctions. GSA.gov : This is a marketing site GSA created to link you to the private contractors that sell off government vehicles.

Sample Lot: 2015 Ford PIU, an SUV made for police.

Treasury Department Auctions: The other agency very active in holding auctions is the Treasury Department, with roughly 300 sales per year. Treasury often offers in-person previews in California, Florida, New Jersey and Texas. Treasury auctions off "property forfeited as a result of violations of federal law enforced by the Department of Treasury or nonpayment of Internal Revenue Service taxes," according to its website. There are many categories of goods, including concrete items like antiques and coins but also less tangible property like stocks and patents.

Sample Lots: When I first looked, Treasury was auctioning off $1,000 bills for far more than their face value  they went fast. Also available: .33333334 percent interest in an Ohio real estate partnership called Chesterland Productions.

Fannie Mae Auctions : As you can imagine, Fannie Mae auctions off real estate, but actually, so do the GSA and Treasury auctions listed above. In Fannie Mae's case, it owns thousands of properties because people defaulted on their Fannie Mae-insured mortgages.

Sample Lot: a 969-square-foot condo in the Glover Park neighborhood of Washington. Asking price: $299,000.

FDIC Auctions : The FDIC, which insures banks, gets its holdings when they fail and sells some of them via auction to the public. We're talking commercial buildings, land, houses, apartment buildings and  weirdly  bank buildings. The FDIC's auction page even contains a section called "Bargain Properties."

Sample Lot: 2 bedroom 2 bath condo in Boca Raton, Fla. Asking price: $229,900.

HUD Auctions : HUD, of course, owns houses nationwide that it obtained when people defaulted on their HUD-insured home loans. HUD's site lists homes for sale in most every state, some fixer-uppers, others in excellent condition.

Sample Lots: 6 different homes in Newport News Va., ranging from $52,500 to $197,000. 24 homes in Baltimore, one for only $5,000!

USDA Auctions : The U.S. Department of Agriculture also auctions off houses and apartment buildings, but why buy one of those when you can buy a farm or ranch from the USDA? The agency obtains these properties when people default on USDA-insured loans, among other ways. Hint, the text version of USDA's auction site is easier to use.

Sample Lots: A 60-acre ranch in Stanfield, Ariz. Asking price: $435,000. A 110-acre farm in Erie County, Pa. Asking price: $310,000.

U.S. Marshal's Service Auctions : And finally, the U.S. Marshal's service auctions off some true bling as part of its mission to "combat major criminal activity by disrupting and dismantling illegal enterprises" and "depriving criminals of the proceeds of illegal activity." Once again, there is real estate, but also businesses, cash cars, collectibles  and more.

Sample Lot: 2006 Suzuki GSX Motorcycle. Bid when I looked: $4,050.

As you browse the government auction sites above, you'll notice some link you to additional sites run by private contractors. These contractors have legitimate relationships with the government, but bidder beware: other private companies will try to make their auctions seem like government auctions as a marketing ploy. Always start with the legitimate links provided by the government itself. Good luck!
Tayvone Barnes, 10, a fifth-grader at Westport Academy Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore, pets Knox, a pit bull from the Maryland SPCA. He and other fifth-graders are part of a skills-building program in which students read to the visiting dogs. (Barbara Haddock Taylor/Baltimore Sun)

The gray-and-white pit bull sat in the center of a circle of fifth-graders, listening intently as the students took turns reading to him. At times, his droopy eyes appeared to lock with those of the readers.

Four-year-old Knox is one of the pet ambassadors that travel to Westport Academy Elementary/Middle School every Tuesday to listen to students read as part of an effort to improve their reading skills and their self-esteem.

Organizers say practicing reading with dogs promotes confidence among students who may struggle to read at grade level. The Maryland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, one of the countrys oldest animal welfare groups, has been working with the school since January.

I was one of those kids growing up that reading out loud was scary for me, said Katie Flory, the Maryland SPCAs community affairs director. A lot of the kids here feel the same way. But with the dogs, they dont have to worry about that. Theyre not being judged.

Similar programs are catching on in animal shelters and schools across the country.

Fewer than 5 percent of Westport students passed the English Language Arts portion of the statewide assessments last year. Flory said its too early to measure what effect reading to dogs might have on test scores. But Principal Melody Locke said it has already influenced the culture in the South Baltimore school.

I can say that interest in reading has definitely increased, she said. This is a piece of the puzzle, just getting them interested in picking books up.

In 2010, researchers at the University of California at Davis studied a group of students who read to dogs once a week for 10 weeks. They found that third-graders improved their reading fluency by 12 percent.

The experience also changed students feelings toward reading aloud. At the beginning of the study, students told the researchers that they felt self-conscious, clumsy and uncomfortable reading out loud. By the end, they described it as fun and cool, and said they felt more relaxed when reading to a dog.

When Knox, the pit bull, and Lucy Gaga, a Boston terrier, walk through the Westport doors, theyre immediately enveloped by students who are excited to read to them, pet them, and cuddle with them on fuzzy carpets in the schools multipurpose room.

The students always look forward to reading to the dogs, third-grade teacher Kelsey Stritzinger said. Their faces light up anytime I say, We have SPCA today. 

Deasia Allen, a 10-year-old fifth-grader, said she has become a more confident reader since the dogs started showing up at her school. She likes it so much that she started reading to her own dog at home. She said her Chihuahua, Missy, is a much more attentive listener than her little sister.

My dog never gets up and says, I want to leave. This is boring,  Deasia said.

About 200 Westport students read to the dogs on an alternating, biweekly schedule.

The students flip through an age-appropriate book with an animal theme. They are encouraged to gently help their classmates sound out difficult words, or point them to the right page should they get lost.

As they read, Lucy Gaga weaves underneath the plastic blue chairs. Nearby, Knox sits in his doggy bed, while students lean over to pet him.

The books tie into larger lesson plans taught by SPCA staff on the humane treatment of animals. The staff members explain how to greet a dog correctly and what pet care entails, among other topics.

The SPCA hopes to leave students with more compassion for animals and one another. The students go on field trips to the shelter, and learn how to show love and care to cats and dogs.

Researchers say animal abuse indicates that a person is more likely to also turn to violence against people.

Animal abuse is reported in the area around Westport at a greater rate than in the city as a whole. In the Westport, Mount Winans and Lakeland neighborhoods, city officials reported 296 calls about animals in danger per 10,000 households in 2016. The citywide average was 177.

I like how the children respond to the whole idea of being compassionate to animals, Locke said. If theyre compassionate to animals, the connection will be made to be compassionate to fellow human beings.

Locke said she notices students behaving more gently toward one another when they read to the dogs. Thats especially important at a school like Westport, she said, where about 30 percent of students have special needs and may be more susceptible to bullying.

The program is funded with a $15,000 grant from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. The foundations Baltimore Library Project has transformed libraries at 14 middle and elementary schools in recent years.

The SPCA hopes to expand the program to more Weinberg libraries in coming years.
If D.C. students miss their first class and arrive in the middle of second period, they are marked absent for the entire day  even if they attend every other class.

It is an attendance rule dubbed 80/20, meaning that students must be in class for at least 80 percent of the school day to be counted as present. It was a policy little known outside the school system  until emerging as a central feature in an attendance and graduation controversy engulfing Ballou High School in Southeast Washington, where some students graduated despite dozens of marked absences.

Now, the rule, adopted in 2013 by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education and standard practice at all public and charter schools in the District, is under scrutiny  with some officials suggesting it should be reconsidered. The attendance regulation is significantly more stringent than policies in some other big school districts.

[D.C. schools graduate chronically absent students, chancellor acknowledges]

The 80/20 rule was intended to emphasize the importance of being on campus the entire day, but the school chancellor, teachers and students testified at a recent D.C. Council education hearing that extremely low attendance rates in city schools are misleading  with the rule partly to blame.

Chancellor Antwan Wilson said the policy discourages some chronically tardy students from showing up to school. If students cant arrive at school by the opening bell, he argued, they may deem it pointless to come at all if they are going to be considered absent for the entire day anyway.

When a council member asked Wilson whether he was in favor of the 80/20 attendance rule, he replied, No.

Having precise data is a better way to go, and then it allows us to tailor our support and interventions to the issues at hand, Wilson said, referring to students who may be late because they have responsibilities such as taking younger siblings to school. We are missing out on the fact that some students are missing because they are just missing, and some are just missing because they have real challenges.

Ballou and the 80/20 rule were thrust into the spotlight last month after WAMU and NPR reported that the school awarded diplomas to seniors who did not meet graduation requirements and that administrators pressured teachers to pass students. The school system and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education are conducting investigations to determine what happened.

City leaders attempted to tackle chronic absenteeism after a 2010 mass shooting  known as the South Capitol Street Massacre  left four teenagers dead in Southeast Washington.

[Educators, parents sound off about D.C. truancy laws]

Former council member David Catania, who chaired the councils Health Committee at the time of the shooting, had said the tragedy highlighted the importance of having young people engaged in school. The city, he said, needed to intervene earlier if a student was not showing up to school or displaying behavior issues.

The D.C. Council passed the South Capitol Street Tragedy Memorial Act of 2011, which called for stricter and earlier enforcement of truancy, and better mental health screening.

Our lenient approach to attendance and our willingness to accept truancy, its almost permission for failure, Catania said in an interview this month. When students are not in school they are not learning, and they are being sentenced to a life of diminished expectations.

Soon after adopting that measure, the council passed additional attendance legislation, including a requirement that schools refer students 14 and older to the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency after 10 unexcused absences. At 15 unexcused absences, teens can be referred to the juvenile justice system and assigned a juvenile probation officer.

At the same time the council was acting, the Office of the State Superintendent for Education proposed updated attendance regulations, including the 80/20 rule.

The D.C. State Board of Education approved those regulations, but Kamili Anderson, who served on the panel at the time, said although board members were wary of the 80/20 regulation, those concerns were trumped by the desire to act on the broader attendance legislation package.

I still dont like it, she said of the 80/20 policy. It puts students at risk who otherwise would not have been at risk for truancy. There was discussion to walk it back even after it was passed.

Initial data showed truancy rates for D.C. public school students decreasing after the regulations were implemented. Unexcused absences among students between ages 5 and 17 dropped from 27 percent in the 2012-2013 school year to 18 percent during the 2013-2014 school year.

But school leaders complained the regulations flooded schools with paperwork and pushed tardy students into the criminal justice system. The truancy rate bumped back up to 26 percent last year.

Sharra Greer, policy director at the Childrens Law Center, a nonprofit group that provides free legal service to D.C. children and their families, said the council later approved measures to help prevent some chronically absent students from being tied up in the court system, but she said further changes are needed.

According to Greer, most school systems would not consider a student absent for missing 20 percent of the day.

In Montgomery County, students are considered absent if they miss about 60 percent of the day, or more than four hours of school. In Baltimore City, students are marked present for a half-day if they are in class between two and four hours. And in Miami, students must be present for only two hours of the school day to be considered present.

There is a real difference between kids who are struggling to get to school on time and kids who arent going to school, Greer said. It muddies the water in how you are looking at students challenges with school disengagement.
This parking garage on a Bethesda military base has angered neighbors, who complain about its bright lights and massive size. (Rachel Siegel/TWP)

Judith Wortman said she hadnt heard a word about a massive parking garage getting built in her neighborhood when she first saw the deep hole in the ground last year.

Wortman lives across the street from Naval Support Activity Bethesda, which contains Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

At first, she assumed the construction would turn out a few more surface-level parking spaces for the hospital across Jones Bridge Road. Then the walls went up, and up, and up.

Soon the 650-space garage stood six levels tall. Then the lights went on. Bright illumination from the garage shines through her living room windows from nightfall until daybreak, she said.

When Walter Reed moved here, they promised to be a good neighbor to the community, said Wortman, who has lived in her home for 44 years. It was our understanding that they would consider us in any of their plans that they would have in the future.

Several other residents of this quiet Bethesda neighborhood said they, too, are disturbed by the parking structure. But they declined to be quoted, citing privacy concerns.

Jeremy Brooks, a spokesman for Naval Support Activity Bethesda, said the lights are on all night for security. Brooks said other locations on the base were considered for the garage, but they were disqualified because of geological and historical preservation issues, among other reasons.

The lot near Jones Bridge Road was chosen because there was already designated parking nearby and because the area was within walking distance for hospital employees, Brooks said.

A statement on the garages potential environmental impact was made available for public comment and presented at local events and to homeowners associations.

But Brooks acknowledged that neighbors across Jones Bridge Road were not explicitly notified that the lights would be on all night.

The garage, officially called Building 57, opened in mid-October.

Wortman and her neighbors said it resembles a NASA launch site. They joke that the walls are so tall you could project a movie on them.

Wortman said she is sure the garage has decreased her property value. I dont know why anybody would buy a house that looks right onto a garage, she said.

Shortly after the garage opened, an employee of the base told some nearby homeowners that there was a chance the lights could be dimmed or shut off late at night.

That turned out not to be true, which only added to the residents frustration.

Brooks said the employee, whom he would not identify, was not authorized to speak on behalf of the installation.

He said officials on the base want to do a better job communicating.

Twice in the past seven months, the facility has invited neighbors onto the base or contacted them at their homes to talk through concerns, Brooks said.

Because of the ongoing construction on the base, and with the nature of how the entire Bethesda area is growing, we know that keeping the lines open to hear our neighbors is critical, Brooks said.

Neighborhood residents said they know change is inevitable, although they still hope there is a way to mitigate the impact of the garage lights on their lives.

They enjoyed unobstructed views of the sunset before the garage was built.

Old-timers can recall a much more innocent era, years ago, when the base wasnt closed off and they could walk onto the complex to visit McDonalds or the post office.

I love this area, but things are happening and changes are happening, and you expect them, Wortman said. But you want accommodations when there are changes made so its less disruptive.
The new year will bring lower costs for birth control and stronger smoke alarm requirements to Maryland residents.

Under two bills that take effect on Jan. 1, insurers will have new rules for coverage of birth control and homeowners will have new requirements for smoke detectors.

The Contraceptive Equity Act, which was signed into law in 2016, prohibits insurers from charging co-payments for contraceptive drugs, procedures and devices approved by the federal government.

It also requires insurers to cover the cost of over-the-counter contraceptive medications, such as the morning after pill, and bars them from charging a co-payment for vasectomies.

Advocates have hailed the legislation as one of the most comprehensive measures in the country addressing access to contraceptives.

Del. Ariana B. Kelly (D-Montgomery), the lead bill sponsor, said the bill was designed to provide more options for couples who need affordable birth control.

The delay in full enactment was largely to provide more time for insurers to deal with the first of its kind provision involving over-the counter contraceptives.

The smoke-alarm law, which was signed by then-Gov. Martin OMalley (D) in 2013, requires homeowners to replace 9-volt battery operated smoke detectors with newer models that lasts a decade.

The legislation updated the states nearly 40-year-old law on fire protection. It included a provision calling on the new requirement to take effect on Jan. 1, 2018.

The 2013 law calls for 10-year-old smoke detectors to be replaced. The legislation does not affect homes with hard-wired smoke alarms.
A damaged ceiling at the nonprofit Family Crisis Center of Prince Georges County. (Obtained by The Washington Post)

The nearly 50 women and children displaced after complaining about deteriorating living conditions at a safehouse for domestic violence survivors in Prince Georges County will not be able to return to the shelter next week as planned.

Clean-up and reconstruction at the shelter, run by the Family Crisis Center of Prince Georges County, is taking longer than expected, leaving the families in hotels until a scheduled follow-up inspection on Thursday, said acting executive director Andrea Morris.

The residents contacted local media earlier in December to report rotten food, mold and pests at the century-old home where the shelter is located. They said the organizations director, Sophie Ford, had failed to act on their complaints.

Ford stepped down from her position after the county government opened an investigation into the reports.

[Shelter for abused women under investigation after reports of mold, spoiled food]

Founded more than 35 years ago, the crisis center has had a contract with the Prince Georges Countys Department of Family Services since 1993. In recent years, the center also received more than $1.2 million in grants from the state.

The safehouse never lost its occupancy license, but inspectors noted areas for improvement last week. The organization is working with contractors to repair leaks in the heating and air conditioning units, check the roof and replace malfunctioning thermostats.

The place was filthy, but a lot of the issues are cosmetic and sanitation, said Morris, who also sits on the nonprofits board of directors and is volunteering her time to bring the shelter up to standard. We really want to do this right. That takes a little bit more time.

The county States Attorney Office is using funds from a domestic violence grant from the governors office to pay for hotel accommodations for the displaced women and children. Churches and local groups have provided meals and toys. The county is arranging transportation for the students once school resumes after the New Years holiday, Morris said.

The interim director is also reviewing the crisis centers bookkeeping, which at first glance appears sloppy and reveals a lackadaisical use of time and money, she said.

Though a 2016 audit did not reveal any issues, Morris said she plans to recommend to the board ways to tighten the finances as they search for a permanent replacement for Ford.

Residents of the shelter said in interviews that they appreciate the outpouring from the community.

But they complained that communication with the shelter leadership has not improved and said they have not heard directly from Morris or shelter staff when they will be able to return.

Morris said she has spoken with the women and the county is providing case management. She said no one will be left in the lurch.

Lynn Strange, a domestic violence advocate and public relations specialist who has been representing some of the shelter residents, said she and a group of volunteers have been checking on the women daily, bringing meals and supplying any information they can.

Strange said Morris is grossly minimizing problems at the shelter, which she said included a severe mouse infestation.

The women are being re-victimized with this entire experience, Strange said.
When people ask me how I would describe 2017 from the perspective of history and biography, I have a clear and direct answer: It has been a challenging year for the Philippines and the world, and for myself personally. But like most Filipinos, I continue to be hopeful.

For President Duterte and his administration, the biggest challenge was the Marawi siege. The takeover of that iconic Islamic city by the Maute terrorists came as a surprise. That it took the government nearly six months to liberate Marawi was even more surprising. Most Marawi residents thought that the fighting was going to last a few days, at most a couple of weeks, similar to what happened in the Zamboanga siege of 2013.

There were many casualties of what happened in Marawi, and not just the dead terrorists, soldiers, and civilians. Above all, if reconstruction is not done properly, the beautiful city by the lake will never be able to recover. That is not an acceptable outcome.

One clear takeaway from Marawi is the urgency of completing the peace processes with the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Congress must enact the Bangsamoro Basic Law soon, according to what was agreed with the MILF and accommodating also the concerns of the MNLF regarding the implementation of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement. If not, young Moros will flock to ISIS-influenced groups and the Marawi siege will be repeated in many parts of Mindanao.

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2017 ends with the peace process with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in shambles. Its a pity because progress was being made and the spirit of compromise was clearly there among the negotiation panels. Unfortunately, events on the ground, intended or not, conspired to derail what could have been a singular achievement by the Duterte government. But maybe there is still a possibility that the peace talks would resume. If not, peace has to wait for the next administration.

The war against drugs continue. Malacanang boasts of its successes. But to me, what I will remember of this period is that poor people were targeted and killed with impunity. There will be a reckoning for this in the future, I am sure.

For sure, the Duterte economic managers have done a good job. Its hard to fault Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez, Budget Secretary Ben Diokno, National Economic and Development Authority Director General Ernesto Pernia, and Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez and their teams for their stewardship of the economy. My two expectations is that, this time, the poor benefit from the economic development and that the environment is not sacrificed for ephemeral short-term growth.

I have big expectations of the Departments of Public Works and Highways, Transportation, and Information and Communications Technology.

I have heard many good things about Secretary Mark Villar and am impressed by his team, including DPWH Legal Undersecretary Karen Jimeno who has brought in quite a number of good lawyers into the department.

I still have faith in Secretary Art Tugade, LTFRB Chairman Martin Delgra, and others in the DOTr team, but time is running out on them to implement radical changes that would increase mobility for all.

As for DICT, I am hoping that they will manage the entry of a third telco provider fairly and decisively, following the law while standing up to the duopoly.

One big disappointment in 2017 is the rejection by the Commission on Appointments of progressive department secretaries. Gina Lopez, Judy Taguiwalo, Rafael Mariano, and Pauline Ubial were good additions to the Duterte administration. Its sad that the President did not make extraordinary efforts to have them confirmed.

Fortunately, in the case of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Secretary Roy Cimatu has been focused, professional, and balanced in his decisions. I am glad that he has brought to the DENR as his chief of staff, retired General Rudy Garcia who, in my personal experience, is not only a strategic thinker and disciplined implementor, but is also a true officer and gentleman of unquestionable integrity. Secretary Cimatu have good people working in that department; I know in particular the lawyers quite wellUndersecretary Ana The, Undersecretary Ipat Luna, and Assistant Secretary Kris Baleva. They are the most brilliant, committed, and honest environmental lawyers I know and have worked with.

The Department of Health also got a great replacement for Secretary Ubial with the return of Secretary Francisco Duque after the latters stint in the Civil Service Commission. It is very reassuring for our countrys public health system that they have such a seasoned and visionary medical professional at its helm.

As for the DSWD, it has been reported that Senator Loren Legarda will be appointed to that post at some point as this is her last term as senator. I would endorse her for any position as I have personal knowledge on how intelligent, hard working, and passionate Legarda is on every thing that matters to this country.

For many of our democratic and accountability mechanisms and the people that lead them, 2017 has been a challenging year. The judiciary in particular has been pummeled by the political branches. Both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court have not been spared, with contempt being threatened on the former and impeachment proceedings now being conducted against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. Even judges of the lower courts have not been spared, as some of them have been implicated, without evidence, as coddling drug pushers and addicts.

The country will regret this episode of our history; if the attacks against the judiciary continues and worsens, it will take many years for us to recover and for the rule of law, already precarious in our country, to reestablish itself.

The silver lining is the strength and formidable will of Chief Justice Sereno. They have insulted her, charged her with baseless accusations, humiliate and mock her, even pit her colleagues against her, but still she remains calm, not angry and bitter, and continues to work for judicial reform.

Ombudsman Carpio-Morales has also been criticized and threatened with impeachment. But like Sereno, she has responded with an iron will tempered with good humor.

The prosecution and detention of Senator Leila de Lima is an ongoing horror story; but thankfully she remains unbowed. She will be vindicated I am sure. That is certainly the case with Vice President Leni Robredo who has shown resilience and perseverance in the face of persistent criticism.

Closer to home, I have decided to retire early from Ateneo de Manila University to focus on legal education as my next mission. The events of the last two years, here and worldwide, have convinced me that much work has to be done to build a just society and training a new generation of lawyers to do that work is my personal priority. I truly believe, like our national hero Jose Rizal, whose martyrdom we celebrate today that: The youth is the hope of our future.

Although challenged, I am full of hope because of my Christian faith, which to borrow the words of Pope Francis from his Christmas eve homily, makes us see God present in all those situations where we think he is absent:. Indeed, Faith impels us to make space for a new social imagination, and not to be afraid of experiencing new forms of relationship, in which none have to feel that there is no room for them on this earth.

Pope Francis reminds us: Christmas is a time for turning the power of fear into the power of charity, into power for a new imagination of charity. The charity that does not grow accustomed to injustice, as if it were something natural, but that has the courage, amid tensions and conflicts, to make itself a house of bread, a land of hospitality.

Thats the house, country and world I would like to have. And I believe we will get there.

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A two-alarm fire Thursday night forced about 60 residents, half of them children, from an apartment complex in Aspen Hill, Md., according to the Montgomery County Fire Department.

Pete Piringer, a spokesman for the fire department, said no injuries were reported but firefighters rescued several people from the Crystal Spring Apartments in the 14000 block of Georgia Avenue.

The fire broke out about 9 p.m., and the displaced residents were being helped by the American Red Cross. Fire officials said most people were relocated within the apartment complex.

More than 100 firefighters battled the blaze in subfreezing temperatures that reached 10 degrees. Piringer said a faulty furnace in a terrace level apartment caused the fire, which raced through the buildings duct system. He said the building has sprinklers but the fire was in the roof above the water system.

Damage estimates were not complete Friday morning, but Piringer said it could reach $500,000.
A man was found fatally shot on the side of a busy Prince Georges County road near the District line during Thursday evenings commute, county police said.

Authorities received calls that a man was found on the shoulder of Kenilworth Avenue, near Eastern Avenue, about 6:20 p.m., said Cpl. Lamar Robinson, a police spokesman. Responding officers found a male victim with gunshot wounds to the upper body, and rescuers took him to a local hospital, where he died, police said.

We have no information as to where he was shot and how he ended up on the side of the road, Robinson said. We are asking anyone who has seen anything, to give us a call.

The investigation continued through the end of the evening commuter rush, in an area that connects vital traffic arteries, such as I-295 and Route 50.

This story has been updated.
Authorities identified the man who died after he was found with gunshot wounds in a Capitol Heights roadway as Armani Coles, 27.

Coles, of Northwest Washington, was found at the intersection of Kenilworth and Eastern avenues after he was shot and pushed out of a car, according to Prince Georges County police.

Coles was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Detectives are trying to determine where Coles was shot, a motive and a suspect in the case, police said.

Anyone with information about this case should call 301-772-4925 or, to remain anonymous, 1-866-411-TIPS (8477).
A man who fatally shot his wife in Virginia on Thursday before leading police on a chaotic chase on Interstate 95 died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.

[Police: I-95 chase, multiple crashes follow fatal shooting in Virginia]

Around 11:25 a.m., officers responded to England Run North Apartments on Heron Drive in the southern part of Stafford County after a report of a shooting, Stafford County police said in a statement. They found 36-year-old Melissa Dee Lee of Stafford with three gunshot wounds to the chest. She was pronounced dead at the scene. A man, later identified as 42-year-old Gregory Lee, fled the scene in a black SUV, the statement said.

On I-95, Lee shot at police multiple times, causing a three-car collision and sideswiping a vehicle before crashing into a guardrail and overturning the SUV, Virginia State Police said.

When Lee was pulled from the vehicle, officers found that he had shot himself in the head, according to Stafford County police.

During the pursuit, the suspect fired at the trooper and deputy, Amanda Vicinanzo, spokeswoman for the Stafford County Sheriffs Office, wrote in an email. Neither of them fired back. Shortly thereafter, the suspect crashed the vehicle and they observed the self-inflicted gunshot wound when they pulled him out. So while the investigation is still pending, it does seem he must have shot himself while driving the vehicle.

No authorities or other motorists were seriously injured in the incident, according to police.
An 18-year-old sought by District police in the killing of a college-bound teenager who was struck by a stray bullet in August was arrested Wednesday, hours after authorities said he fatally shot two men in Northeast Washington.

Police said James Mayfield, of Northeast, was arrested after an alleged attempt to rob a person while wearing a mask about six hours after the latest shooting. He has been charged with three counts of murder, attempted robbery and illegal handgun possession. On Thursday, he was ordered detained until a preliminary hearing Jan. 11.

His attorney, Veronice A. Holt, could not be reached for comment.

Police said Mayfield is suspected in three other armed robberies in a 30-hour span this week. We have a person who has really in a lot of ways terrorized a community, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said Thursday.

[College-bound teen struck, killed by stray bullet]



Jamahri Sydnor was hit in the head by a stray bullet as she passed through a Northeast Washington intersection in August. (PH/AMee Barnes)

Mayfield was the third and final suspect sought in this summers shooting of Jamahri Sydnor, 17, who was hit by a bullet as she drove in Brentwood in Northeast Washington. Police have said the gunmen were aiming at four men across the street as part of a neighborhood dispute.

According to an arrest affidavit filed in court, a witness told police that he had confronted Mayfield about Sydnors killing and that Mayfield responded, She got in the way.

Sydnors death was a personal blow to the police department  she was the daughter of a veteran sergeant  and a loss to the District of an accomplished youth. She had been captain of her Woodrow Wilson High cheerleading team, served as a peer counselor, sang in the school choir and was days away from heading off to study at Florida A&M University.

D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham declined to discuss a motive in the two killings from this week, but he took note of the young suspects quickly growing arrest record. Its a good example of how one person can cause so much violence in our city, the chief said.

The shootings and robberies occurred in a string of neighborhoods in Northeast  Brentwood, Langdon Park and Fort Lincoln  between New York and Rhode Island avenues.

Sydnor was shot about 3:30 p.m. on Aug. 10 in the 1400 block of Saratoga Avenue NE. Police said a man drove two gunman to the street, where they hid in bushes and then fired on four men standing across the street, using .40- and .45-caliber handguns.

Police said that Mayfield and the others were in a crew that identified with Langdon Park and were feuding with another group associated with the area around Saratoga Avenue. A witness told police that before the shooting that killed Sydnor, the gunmen had accosted a man from the Saratoga group who had pulled out a gun and shot at them. The Aug. 10 shooting, the witness said, was retribution for that encounter.

[Police seek third suspect in fatal shooting]

Police quickly arrested Philip Carlos McDaniel, 21, who they said was the driver, and in October they arrested Robert Moses, 18, who they said was one of the gunmen. Court documents in that case identified Mayfield as the third suspect, and police released his photo in early November. Newsham said police, including an elite fugitive task force made up of officers from several local and federal jurisdictions, actively searched for Mayfield. Police said the suspect changed his appearance; court documents say he cut off his dreadlocks.

It was not clear Thursday why Mayfield suddenly surfaced in what authorities describe as a burst of violence in Northeast Washington.

Mayfields relatives could not be reached. Court documents say the suspect told police that he had developmental problems and had only a third-grade education. But police said they confirmed he attended the 10th grade at Metropolitan High School and the 11th grade at Dunbar Senior High. He also told police that he had taken the hallucinogenic drug PCP and had Xanax and Valium on him.

On Tuesday, police said Jermaine Phillip Bowens, 38, was shot in the legs in the 2200 block of Douglas Street NE. His injuries were initially described as not life-threatening, but he died shortly after midnight the next day. Police said in an arrest affidavit that Bowens was able to say that he was attacked by a man dressed all in black and wearing a mask. The gunman said something before he opened fire, Bowens told police, but he was unable to articulate what was said, according to the court document.

On Wednesday, police said Elijah Henry, 21, was shot in the head about 5:15 p.m. by a gunman inside a residence in the 1800 block of Bryant Street NE, five blocks from where Bowens had been shot. The arrest affidavit says Mayfield was in a house with several people, including the victim's mother, and smoking marijuana when an argument broke out over either a missing coat or $200 that was missing.

Police said that Henry was shot during the dispute and that witnesses identified Mayfield from a flier printed up in connection with Sydnors death. Thats him, right here, a person told police, according to the affidavit. Thats Jamo. He aint got no dreads no more.

Correction: This story was updated to correctly spell the name of Veronice A. Holt, the defendants attorney.

Clarence Williams contributed to this report.
Hundreds of people, wearing all black and hiding their faces, moved through more than 16 blocks of downtown Washington on Inauguration Day. Some carried hammers, crowbars and bricks. They shattered shop windows, and by the end there was more than $100,000 in property damage.

Last week, the first six people to go to trial in the case were acquitted by a jury on all the charges of rioting and destruction of property  an outcome that illustrates the challenge for D.C. prosecutors who are preparing for trials of more than 150 others picked up in the Jan. 20 mass arrest.

The six acquitted defendants said they were lawfully exercising their First Amendment right to free speech, while a few others broke away to cause damage. Prosecutors said there was no evidence to show the six participated in the destruction, but they argued that the defendants made a choice to stay with the group and provide cover for those who smashed windows and toppled newspaper boxes. At one point, a prosecutor referred to the protesters as a sea of black masks.

It is not clear how many of the remaining defendants authorities believe they can prove participated in  or helped plan  protests aimed at vandalism.

Legal experts said the U.S. attorneys office in the District could weigh whether to continue moving forward on the less serious cases after the first trials jury rejected the governments theory that the entire group of protesters bears some responsibility for the destruction.



Defendant Brittne Lawson, with her back to the camera, is embraced by defendant Alexei Wood after the not-guilty verdicts in the first of the presidential inauguration riot trials. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

The message from this jury is theyre not going to convict people by a guilty-by-association basis, said Preston Burton, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the District and a partner at Buckley Sandler law firm. Burton is not involved in the cases.

[The first six people on trial in violent Inauguration Day protests are found not guilty]

A 38-year-old juror, who sought to remain private and asked not to be identified, said that during deliberations, some jurors unloaded because they could not hold someone responsible for the mayhem.

During the trial, the panel watched hours of video that showed the destruction and heard from employees of businesses who described their fear in those chaotic moments. In the end, the juror said, the panel concluded there wasnt enough evidence to convict the six people before them. The decision came after a nearly four-week trial and two full days of deliberation.

There was a frustration across the jury that we had to watch all this video about our city being torn up and destroyed and didnt get to punish people that deserved to be punished based on evidence, the juror said. Im hoping that some of the trials down the road really get some of these people that are clearly captured on video that are breaking property.

Prosecutors allege that a group called Disrupt J20 helped plan the protests, pulling in participants from across the country.

More than 200 people were arrested. Twenty have pleaded guilty, prosecutors have dropped cases against 20 others, and the six were acquitted. The remainder are scheduled for trial, in groups of six or seven, through mid-2018.

The defendants have been grouped into four categories based on the type of criminal conduct they allegedly committed and how similar it is to that ascribed to other defendants. Those groupings are based on factors that include the level of seriousness and specific acts of destruction, planning/organizing of the riot, charging the police line, etc., prosecutors wrote in a March court filing.

Betty Ballester, an attorney who represents a defendant scheduled to go on trial in April, said prosecutors need to decide whats important for them as they continue.

We have a good history of allowing people to protest, and I think the jury really was wondering if these people were just protesting or were they rioting. There has been a distinct separation, she said. If somebody threw a brick through a window and its on video, then thats pretty clear thats a destruction of property and thats not peaceful protesting.

[Were Inauguration Day protesters rioting or lawfully demonstrating? Thats the question for jurors.]

Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office, declined to comment on the governments case.

In a statement released after the acquittals, the U.S. attorneys office said the damage done that day impacted many who live and work in the District of Columbia, and created a danger for all who were nearby.

We appreciate the jurys close examination of the individual conduct and intent of each defendant during this trial and respect its verdict, the statement said. In the remaining pending cases, we look forward to the same rigorous review for each defendant.

Elizabeth Lagesse, a defendant who is scheduled for a trial in July, said she feels cautiously optimistic after the Dec. 21 verdict. She said she traveled from Baltimore to the District to protest Trumps victory and then got swept up in this crazy police battle basically, and then we just were held on the street for hours.

It is chilling that prosecutors are holding the group liable for violence not all committed, she said.

You only have control over what you yourself do, Lagesse said. Now that theres been a jury of ordinary D.C. residents who you know just didnt buy it, its time that we start dropping these charges.

David LaBahn, president of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and a former deputy prosecutor in California, said to win the upcoming cases, prosecutors need to be able to explain to a jury: Whats the culpability? . . . Of the 200, why am I sitting in judgment of this man or woman?
Recounters get some help filling out paperwork on Dec. 19 in Hampton, Va. (Joe Fudge/AP)



Recounters get some help filling out paperwork on Dec. 19 in Hampton, Va. (Joe Fudge/AP)

Republicans on Friday asked a three-judge panel in Virginia to stick by its decision to count a disputed ballot in a squeaker legislative race, a ruling that threw the contest  and control of the House of Delegates  into limbo.

House Republicans were responding to a motion Democrats had filed Wednesday, asking a recount court to reverse itself and declare Democratic challenger Shelly Simonds the winner over Del. David E. Yancey (Newport News) by a margin of one vote.

A win by Simonds would split the 100-seat House down the middle, forcing a rare power-sharing arrangement on a chamber that Republicans have controlled for 17 years.

Also Friday, the state Board of Elections announced that it will move ahead with plans to pick a winner through a random drawing at 11 a.m. Thursday unless the court signals its intention to weigh in.

A previously scheduled drawing  called off Wednesday as Simonds sought to toss the race back to the recount court  had attracted national attention as an unusual way to settle a highly consequential election. Board members said then that they would prefer to have the court decide the race.

But given that the recount court has been silent, that the board must give 24 hours notice before meeting, and that the General Assembly session is looming, the Elections Board scheduled a drawing in case it comes to that. The board could still cancel at the last minute.

Unless we hear from the court otherwise, well go ahead and pull a name out of the bowl, said Clara Belle Wheeler, the lone Republican on the three-member board.

The GOP enjoyed a 66-34 majority in Richmonds lower chamber heading into the Nov. 7 elections. But Democrats picked up at least 15 seats in a wave widely viewed as a rebuke to President Trump.

On Election Day, Yancey appeared to beat Simonds by 10 votes in the 94th legislative district. Then a Dec. 19 recount left Simonds ahead by a single vote, prompting Yancey to concede.

The next day, the three-judge recount court decided that a ballot declared ineligible during the recount should count for Yancey, tying the race at 11,608 votes apiece. The voter, whose identity is unknown, filled in bubbles on the paper ballot for Simonds and Yancey but also made a slanted mark across the Simonds bubble. The court ruled the extra mark was an effort to strike out the vote for Simonds.

Republicans have noted that the voter chose others from their party on the ballot, including Ed Gillespie, who ran unsuccessfully for governor against Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D).

But Democrats say that the voters intent is unclear and that the ballot must be tossed as an overvote, meaning two competing candidates were chosen. They note that the voter also made extra marks by Gillespies name, drawing an X on the bubble as well as filling it in. Perhaps, they argue, the extra mark by Simondss name was half of an X, abandoned as the voter reverted to filling in bubbles.



This image provided by the City of Newport News via The Virginian-Pilot shows a copy of the ballot at the center of the recount dispute. (AP)

On Wednesday, Simonds filed a motion asking the recount court to reconsider. That prompted the Elections Board to call off plans to break the tie that day by drawing a name out of a 19th-century pitcher.

If the board goes ahead with a drawing, the loser could request a second recount.

In the GOP response filed Friday, Yanceys attorney, Trevor M. Stanley, argued that Democrats had not brought forward any new facts for the court to consider.

He also argued that the court  assembled with judges from different jurisdictions solely for the purpose of overseeing the recount  had already been dissolved.

But Democrats showed no signs of backing down  even as Republicans said their time could run out to have a say on the House speakership and rules even if Simonds ultimately prevails.

Katie Baker, spokesman for the House Democratic Caucus, issued a statement saying desperate Republicans were trying to steal the election to hang on to the majority. She pushed back against Republican claims that Democrats were dragging out the process for tactical gain.

Their suggestion that were engaged in some elaborate House of Cards power ploy is laughable, she said. Were spending our time writing power-sharing arrangements in full detail and hoping to get a face-to-face meeting with Republicans to decide how to govern.

If the outcome of the Yancey-Simonds race is not determined by the time the legislature convenes on Jan. 10, Republicans would control the chamber 50 to 49. If Yancey wins, the Republicans will retain their majority by the slimmest possible margin. Democrats could force power sharing if they prevail in Simonds race or in another disputed contest. They would have to win both to take control.

In the other disputed race, Republican Bob Thomas defeated Democrat Joshua Cole by a margin of 73 votes. Democrats are suing for a new election because a registrars apparent mistake caused 147 voters to cast ballots in the wrong race.

In a conference call with reporters, Del. M. Kirkland Cox (R-Colonial Heights) said the House will choose a speaker for the next two years and pass rules governing its operation on opening day, even if the Yancey-Simonds race remains in limbo.

Cox, who is in line to be speaker if the GOP retains control, dropped the title speaker designee in the immediate aftermath of the recount but used it again Friday.

We plan to organize the House on the opening day, with the members who are sworn in and seated, Cox said. We have a budget to balance, we have schools to improve, we have an opioid crisis to fight.

Cox also said the House must organize to pass a joint resolution with the Senate that, among other things, sets in motion the formal procedures for swearing in Northam three days later.

Baker said it was disappointing that the House Republicans are using the inaugural festivities as a smokescreen to hang on to power. However, nothing could be more transparent than Del. Coxs decision to readopt the term speaker-designee. 
Smoke billows from controlled oil burns near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. (Derick E. Hingle/Bloomberg News)

The Trump administration is overhauling how federal officials monitor safety procedures on offshore drilling operations, revising a pair of rules enacted in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill on the grounds that they are overly burdensome on industry.

On Friday, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) will publish new regulations for the production-safety-systems rule, which addresses devices used during offshore oil production.

The agency has also drafted changes to another set of regulations, called the well-control rule, which aims to prevent the kind of blowout that killed 11 workers.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster, the largest oil spill in U.S. history, released more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It killed thousands of dolphins, sea turtles and other marine animals, exposed hundreds of cleanup workers and other gulf residents to toxic chemicals and prompted a six-month shutdown of all deepwater drilling in the gulf.

Even before President Trumps election, many oil and gas officials said that the Obama administration had overreached on rules designed to forestall a future catastrophe. Those rules inhibited offshore production, they argued, and Trump administration officials reiterated that Thursday.

Its time for a paradigm shift in regulations on the outer continental shelf, which accounts for 1 in every 6 barrels of domestic oil, BSEE Director Scott Angelle said in a statement. There was an assumption made previously that only more rules would increase safety, but ultimately it is not an either/or proposition. We can actually increase domestic energy production and increase safety and environmental protection.

Industry leaders applauded the move.

"Safety experts in the offshore oil and gas industry now have the opportunity to comment on this important regulation," Randall Luthi, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, said in a statement. "This 'second bite at the apple' provides an opportunity for further dialogue, discussion and debate to assure the Nation's offshore energy resources are developed safely and expeditiously."

But Michael Bromwich, who served as the BSEEs first director, said Thursday that because both rules did not take full effect until last year, the argument that the regulatory burden needs to be lifted . . . is not credible.

While the BSEE released a copy of the production-safety rule Thursday, it has not made the well-control proposal public. A copy of the latter rule, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, was obtained separately by The Washington Post.

In March, Trump issued an executive order instructing agencies to reduce undue burdens on domestic energy production. Angelle, who was installed by the president in May as head of the BSEE, cited that order as one of the reasons the agency decided to change the production safety rule.

Neither proposal amounts to a wholesale reversal of existing regulations, according to experts, but instead each minimizes some of industrys obligations and changes compliance terms in several instances to language favored by drillers.

The proposed rule unveiled Thursday, for example, eliminates a requirement that safety and pollution prevention equipment be inspected by independent auditors certified by the BSEE. A bipartisan presidential commission established after the disaster had recommended such inspections.

Instead, under new regulations, oil companies will use industry-set recommended practices for ensuring that safety equipment works  as was done before the Deepwater Horizon incident.

Recommended practices by industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute are simply that  they make recommendations but dont require anything, said Nancy Leveson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who served as a senior adviser to the presidential commission.

The documents are filled with should instead of must,  she noted in an email.

The publication of the proposed changes kicks off a 30-day comment period.

The BSEEs proposed revisions also include several other changes that the industry has long sought. For example, while it does not change the level of downhole pressure the agency requires operators to maintain in a given well to avoid an accident, it removes the word safe in describing that balance. In the case of pressure tests, which failed in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, those no longer have to show that a well is in balance. Instead, they should indicate that. Some changes are more substantive. The existing well-control rule requires that companies complete any investigation and failure analysis within 120 days of an equipment failure. The proposed rule, by contrast, calls for this process to start within 120 days and provides no specific end date.

The agency declined to comment on the proposed revisions to the well-control rule, saying it is still under review at the Office of Management and Budget, BSEE spokesman Greg Julian said in an email.

In May, a coalition of seven industry groups submitted a 53-page letter, obtained by The Post, suggesting technical changes to the well-control rule. Four months later, the BSEE gathered industry and environmental groups in Houston, the heart of the U.S. oil and gas sector, to solicit ways of making that rule less burdensome. Among the provisions targeted was the one about 120-day investigations.

The industry wanted requirements for real-time data from offshore operations to be pulled back. Lois Epstein, Arctic program director at the Wilderness Society, described the administrations ultimate changes as modest.

Bromwich questioned the administrations emphasis on promoting offshore energy exploration in fashioning regulations; the previous administration had changed the Interior Departments structure specifically to separate drilling oversight from the agency collecting revenue from such activities and eliminate any perceived conflicts of interest.

The rhetoric seems to be moving away from being a tough-minded but fair regulator, he said, and instead being a cheerleader for industry.

Read more:

This study aimed to make offshore drilling safer. Trump just put a stop to it.

Interior Department worked behind the scenes with energy industry to reverse royalties rule

The two problems with Trumps offshore drilling push
OREGON

Court upholds penalty against bakery owners

An appellate court Thursday upheld a penalty against Oregon bakery owners who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding almost five years ago.

The owners of the since-closed Gresham bakery, Aaron and Melissa Klein, argued that state Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian violated state and federal laws by forcing them to pay emotional-distress damages of $135,000 to the lesbian couple.

Their lawyers said Avakian and the state Bureau of Labor and Industries violated the Kleins rights as artists to free speech and their rights to religious freedom.

But the Oregon Court of Appeals sided with the state Thursday, saying the Kleins failed to show the state targeted them for their religious beliefs. The judges also found public statements made by Avakian before deciding the case did not establish a lack of impartiality.

The decision comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the high-profile case of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. That baker, Jack Phillips, claims his First Amendment right of artistic freedom was being violated.

 Associated Press

Kaine's son placed on probation: Sen. Tim Kaine's youngest son has been placed on probation and ordered to pay $236 in fines and fees in connection with his arrest following a rally for President Trump in Minnesota. Linwood "Woody" Kaine, 25, of Minneapolis, was among eight people arrested in the St. Paul rally in March. He pleaded guilty to a charge of obstructing the legal process and received a 

90-day sentence, with 86 days suspended. He served four days in jail. Two other misdemeanor charges were dismissed Dec. 11. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) was Hillary Clinton's running mate during the 2016 presidential election.

 Associated Press
THE SWEEPING campaign by China against human rights defenders took another grim turn on Tuesday when a court sentenced Wu Gan to eight years in prison. The accusation was subversion, but his real offense was to dramatize the absurdity of the Chinese police state. Using social media and outlandish performance art, he went by the online handle "Super Vulgar Butcher" and likened himself to a meat cutter who was making short work of those who violate human rights. He insists he eschewed violence and did not break the law. He was detained in 2015 as China began a massive crackdown against human rights lawyers and defenders.

After the harsh sentence was imposed in Tianjin, Mr. Wu delivered an eloquent statement through his lawyers, speaking with clarity and courage. "For those living under a dictatorship," he declared, "being given the honorable label of one who 'subverts state power' is the highest form of affirmation for a citizen. It's proof that the citizen wasn't an accomplice or a slave, and that at the very least he went out and defended, and fought for, human rights."

The authorities, he said, attempted to force him to plead guilty and cooperate in propaganda videos in exchange for a suspended sentence. I rejected it all. My eight-year sentence doesnt make me indignant or hopeless. This was what I chose for myself: when you oppose the dictatorship, it means you are already walking on the path to jail.

Im optimistic despite the harsh sentence, he said. Because of the internet, more and more people are waking up. The ranks of those ready to stand at the funeral of the dictatorship is growing stronger and larger by the day. Those who try to use jail to frighten citizens pursuing freedom and democracy, thus obstructing the progress of human civilization, wont meet a good end. Their tyranny is based on a lack of self-confidence  a sign of a guilty conscience and fear. Its a dead end. When the masses wake up, will the dictatorships end be far off?

I have been subjected to torture and other forms of inhumane treatment during my detention thus far  and its not an isolated occurrence, but a common phenomenon. I appeal to the international community to closely follow the deterioration of human rights in China, follow the Chinese Communist Partys criminal detention of its own citizens, and especially of dissidents, along with the other abuses theyre subjected to, including: false charges, secret detention, forced confessions to the media, forced appointment of state-controlled defense counsel, torture and abuse in custody, and the stripping of every civil right of Chinese citizens. He then identified by name the individuals who tormented him.

Mr. Wu's candor will not earn him any leniency, but it deserves to be heard far and wide. Like the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died in Chinese custody, imprisoned for having championed democracy, Mr. Wu is holding aloft a torch of liberty at great personal cost.
In his Dec. 21 op-ed, "Speaking my mind on guns torpedoed my appointment," Dean L. Winslow stated that it is hard for civilians to control assault-style weapons because of the "high muzzle velocities." But the muzzle velocity of the standard .223/5.56mm cartridge is 3,100 feet per second (fps), which is less than that of the .243 Winchester cartridge, a very common civilian deer-hunting round (3,750 fps). He stated that "assault rifles" are poor for hunting because of "low accuracy beyond 100 yards." It is absurd to posit that the military would select a firearm inaccurate beyond that short distance; in fact, an Aberdeen Proving Ground Report (No. 461) on the M16A2 rifle found that the single-shot hit probability on the NATO target was 100 percent at 300 meters and 90 percent at 500 meters. Mr. Winslow stated that for home defense, a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun is superior as "the pellets won't go through a wall." But police use buckshot, which indeed can penetrate interior walls.

Mr. Winslow lauded Australias legal restriction on semiautomatic firearms, apparently unaware that Australia also prohibits the pump-action shotguns that he recommends.

Mr. Winslow said civilians should not own semiautomatic firearms. But semiautomatics are routinely used in rifle and pistol target shooting, skeet and trap competition and hunting. They are legal to own in many European countries and in Canada.

I do not own an AR-15 rifle, but I see in Mr. Winslows op-ed a desire to go far beyond any prior or current limitations on citizens firearms ownership.

Thomas V. Holohan, Rockville
I read the Dec. 26 news article "Christmas spirit shines in Pakistan despite church attack" with sadness and concern. A quote from the article points us to the dilemma of religion: "Those who want Christianity to be eliminated in Pakistan will never succeed . . . God is with us." Yes, God is with the Christians, but God is also with the Muslims who want to kill them. Where is the hope in that?

The compelling question for humankind, which religionists would prefer to ignore, is this: Do we have a moral obligation to better understand religion and to decide religions future, as opposed to essentially allowing religion to continue to dictate ours?

Harry Flickinger, Bethany Beach, Del.

"Taking up the Christian banner" [front page, Dec. 24] gave much voice to a discriminatory viewpoint held by an elected official in Alabama. Pretty much everything Glencoe, Ala., Mayor Charles Gilchrist stands for should be challenged.

His religion has no relevance in government other than that our laws give him the right to practice it. He is entitled to believe any religion he wants as long as it doesnt interfere with what science has proved to be influencing our world, doesnt conflict with our laws and doesnt interfere with my right to believe differently.

We are lucky to live in a country that guarantees that one particular religion doesnt dictate our laws. Nobody can force you to abide by the tenets of Islam, Judaism or Christianity, and atheists get to not have any religion forced on them. A vote for Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore would not seem, as Mr. Gilchrist stated, to protect any Christian belief system, nor should that be a consideration.

Religion should be protected, a choice and private. If you want to live your life by your particular religions tenets, feel free to do so, but once you are an elected official, you are required to protect my right to not have to practice your religion  or any other.

Amy Cohen, Columbia

After reading "Taking up the Christian banner" and the Dec. 25 front-page article "Pro-Trump town sticks to its 'Merry Christmas ,' " I think The Post needs more diverse viewpoints. Since the 2016 election, The Post and other national publications have fixated on the motivations of evangelical Christian, conservative, mostly white Americans from parts of the country that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. What reporters have found is that people from these towns have mostly homogenous and unbending viewpoints.

Through the interviews with the people from Glencoe, Ala., and Linden, Tenn., we have heard from people with unconstitutional and xenophobic views who think the whole country should be Christian.

In the recent Senate race in Alabama, 98 percent of black female voters supported Democratic candidate Doug Jones, and yet we have an article about a whole town that is majority white and that mostly supported Republican candidate Roy Moore.

White voices have often spoken the narrative of America. It would be nice to hear that narrative from a different perspective.

Patrick Flaherty, Bowie

Residents of Linden, Tenn., say too many Americans are afraid of saying "Merry Christmas" because it is not politically correct. I wonder how they would react if they knew what our Jewish-Muslim group did on Christmas Eve. We visited two Baptist churches and one Presbyterian church in Northern Virginia to wish hundreds of worshipers "Merry Christmas."

The churches warmly welcomed us in the spirit of peace and unity at a time when our country is deeply divided. Speaking from the pulpit, we quoted from the Bible and the Koran and read an Israeli peace poem. What a wonderful evening of joy and good cheer for Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Andrea Barron, Camp Springs
Columnist

A storm is gathering, and there is every reason to believe that 2018 will be the most consequential political year of our lives.

The reckoning upon us follows a year mercifully drawing to a close this weekend. Over that horrid year, President Trump has questioned the legitimacy of federal judges, used Stalinist barbs to attack the free press and cast contempt on the rule of law, while his campaign manager, his national security adviser and a foreign policy aide have been marched into federal courts. Those anti-democratic instincts were made all the more ominous by his praising of autocrats across the world as they were ruthlessly consolidating power in countries such as Russia, China and the Philippines.

It is difficult to pinpoint the nadir for a man who has savaged Mexicans, Muslims and Gold Star mothers while fat-shaming beauty queens and face-shaming female news hosts (disclosure: in the latter example, my own fiancee ). But the low moment in this presidency may have occurred four months ago, when Trump claimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and those standing against them. Or perhaps it was three weeks ago, when the president told Americans to vote for an accused child molester who had called our country the focus of evil in the modern world and once suggested opposition to the constitutional amendments that ended slavery and gave women the right to vote.

Others would surely consider the presidents malignant idiocy in foreign affairs to be the most damning legacy of his first year. World leaders continue to watch dumbstruck as the United States retreats from organizations that were created following the allies victory over Hitler. Those same alliances that Trump now undermines with reckless tweets and discarded treaties carried the United States to victory in the Cold War. But this is a White House that heaps contempt on history. And so, Americas dangerous retreat from the world continues.

"On the morrow of the Republican success isolationist conceptions prevailed," Winston Churchill wrote in "The Gathering Storm." The British prime minister believed Hitler's rise proved, above all else, "how absolute is the need of a broad path of international action pursued by many states in common across the years, irrespective of the ebb and flow of national politics." But this president is ripping apart the carefully woven fabric of U.S. foreign policy that bound administrations together from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, and across the American century.

"The Gathering Storm" is on my holiday reading list because of Republican strategist Steve Schmidt's insistence to me that Churchill's ominous warnings to future generations will be more relevant to 2018 than at any time since it was written in the years after World War II. While Trump's eroding of U.S. prestige across the globe is disturbing, it is his administration's undermining of democratic values that poses an even greater threat to our Constitution and country. Borrowing again from Churchill, America's constitutional norms tremble in the balance as Trump unleashes furious attacks on First Amendment protections, independent counsels and law enforcement officers who refuse to be bullied. While the framers of the Constitution foresaw the possibility of a tyrannical president, they never let their imaginations be darkened by the possibility of a compliant Congress.

Again, Churchill: The malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous . . . They lived from hand to mouth and from day to day, and from one election to another . . . The cheers of weak, well-meaning assemblies soon cease to echo, and their votes soon cease to count. Doom marches on.

Schmidt is right. The storm is gathering. And how we respond in the months ahead may determine our fate for years to come.

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Columnist

Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize in economics for reshaping our understanding of human motivation, once said: "No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story." That's as true for nations as for individuals. Countries have always oriented themselves within a larger international story. But what is today's global story?

For decades, the great overarching narrative was the Cold War. Almost every nation acted or reacted in the context of that ideological, political and military struggle. Then came 1989 and the collapse of communism. For the next 20 years or so, the opening up of the world  globalization  became the dominant thread, as countries jostled to become hot new markets and Western democratic capitalism seemed inevitable, undergirded by U.S. power and prestige. The attacks of 9/11 dealt a sharp blow to this benign narrative and, for a while, Islamist terrorism seemed to be steering the course of history. But terrorism has proved too weak and limited a force to be the big global story.

So what is it now? I would argue that the largest trend today is the decline of American influence. Not the decline of American power  the country remains economically and militarily in a league of its own  but a decline of its desire and capacity to use that power to shape the world. The current administration seems intent on dismantling the United States' great achievements  as it is doing with the World Trade Organization  or to simply be uninterested in setting the global agenda. Donald Trump will be the first president in nearly a century to end his first year in office without having held a state dinner for a foreign head of state.

And this erosion of U.S. global leadership is already causing other countries to adjust.

This month, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel declared that "the most important changes affecting our Western world and, indeed, the world as a whole" stem from "the United States' current withdrawal under Trump from its role as a reliable guarantor of Western-influenced multilateralism." That shift, he noted, "is accelerating the transformation of the global order . . . and the risk of trade wars, arms races and armed conflicts is increasing."

For Europe, Gabriel argued, the situation is almost existential. Since the end of World War II, he said, Europe had been an American project in the United States clearly understood interests. However, the current U.S. administration now perceives Europe in a very distanced way, regarding previous partners as competitors and sometimes even as at the very least economic opponents. He urged Europe to take its fate into its own hands and decouple itself from U.S. foreign policy.

Consider also the speech in June by Canada's foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, in which she thanked the United States for its seven-decade-long stewardship of the international system and strongly implied that, under the Trump administration, American leadership of that system had reached its end.

Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech to the 19th Communist Party Congress in October that reflected his recognition of these new realities. "China's international standing has risen as never before," he noted, and the nation is "blazing a new trail for other developing countries to achieve modernization." Xi announced "a new era . . . that sees China moving closer to center stage and making greater contributions to mankind." In previous speeches, he suggested boldly that China would become the new guarantor of the global trading order.

This, then, is the global story of our times. The creator, upholder and enforcer of the existing international system is withdrawing into self-centered isolation. The other great supporter and advocate of the open, rule-based world, Europe, has not been able to act assertively on the world stage with any clear vision or purpose and remains obsessed with the fate of its own continental project. Filling the power vacuum, a host of smaller, illiberal powers  Turkey, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia  are surging forward in their respective regions. But only China truly has the wherewithal and strategic prowess to potentially shape the next chapter of the story of our age.

A decade ago, I described a "post-American world," brought on not by the decline of the United States, but by the "rise of the rest." That world is indeed coming to fruition because other countries are prospering, but the changes are being dramatically accelerated by the Trump administration's foolish and self-defeating decision to abdicate the United States' global influence  something that has taken more than 70 years to build. As the president might tweet, "Sad!"

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They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. Under the Dec. 21 front-page headline "Sweeping tax overhaul clears Congress" was a photograph of about 60 white men with about six white women (senior Republican lawmakers) standing with President Trump. So it appears all that's changed since the 1950s is color; color in the photo on the front page of The Post  the ink, not the people. So much for making America great again.

Susie Van Pool, Washington
Before I was elected to the state legislature, I worked as an advocate in Annapolis. I knew there was a certain old boys club culture that women worked around to get their jobs done. There were offices you didnt enter without a buddy and committees that had a reputation for being hostile to women. The women legislators I admired were all tough as nails. To do their jobs well, they had to be.

After my election in 2010, I returned to Annapolis as a member of the House of Delegates. I was warned by colleagues that relationships are everything in politics, and, above all else, I must be likable. Eager to best represent my community, I tried to take their advice.

The first time a married senior colleague grabbed my rear end, I was shocked. It was my first legislative session, and I was still getting to know people. Two of my male colleagues witnessed this sustained and shameless public groping. I was utterly humiliated. The next morning I went into a female legislators office, closed the door and cried.

We talked about reporting the incident but concluded it would publicly embarrass a senior colleague, his allies might rush to his defense and I could be accused of making a big deal out of nothing. If politics is all about relationships, that would not help my career.

Instead, I had a direct conversation with the member and told him, I look forward to a long productive working relationship with you. Please dont ever grab my ass again. Until his retirement, our relationship was always awkward, and I suspect I lost opportunities to work on certain issues as a result. Thats the thing about sexual harassment: Women are never sure exactly how much of their professional potential it limits.

This story is just the tip of the iceberg of my early experiences in Annapolis. As I grew more senior, these experiences became less frequent.

As hard as these instances made it for me to do my job, I was pained thinking about people with less power. What was it like for the legislative aides, the interns, the journalists and the lobbyists? Some Womens Caucus colleagues and I started sharing our stories in the hopes that others would share theirs with us. We heard stories of a hostile work environment, unwanted touching and sexual advances and sometimes assault. All these women were understandably afraid to file an official complaint, and they often spoke to us only months or years after the incidents took place. Relationships are everything in politics.

The saddest part for me was when I spoke with young women who left a promising career in politics or advocacy because they found the culture too hostile to women.

We started talking with our male colleagues about their thoughts on the culture and were encouraged to learn that many agreed it needs to change. In response to these conversations, 26 male legislators sent a letter last winter to the presiding officers urging them to take action to improve the culture for women. Ultimately, our goal is to enact voluntary reforms to make Maryland the most woman-friendly state legislature in the country.

After the "Access Hollywood" tape broke, members of the Women's Caucus met with Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel). I told him about the stories we had heard from interns, lobbyists and legislative aides  and about my own experiences. We discussed why it is hard for people to report these incidents and that it is a lot of pressure for victims to depend on a complaint-driven process. The speaker agreed to work with the Women's Caucus to update our sexual-harassment reporting and accountability policy and to significantly improve our sexual-harassment-prevention efforts. He started right away, by working with the minority leader to ensure that the Democratic and Republican caucuses knew we have a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment.

This year, the goal of the Maryland Women's Caucus is to prevent harassment with a combination of tough policies, meaningful enforcement and education. Some possibilities include requiring third-party reporting by members, increasing confidentiality in the reporting process and hiring independent investigators. We will also weigh prohibiting romantic and sexual relationships between supervisors and subordinates or interns, creating protections for lobbyists and increasing their accountability, and increasing the training of committee chairs so they can better work to improve the culture within their committees.

Together, we will make Maryland the best state in the nation for women in politics. Because when more Maryland women are involved in politics, we can make Maryland the best state in the nation for improving the lives of women.

The writer, a Democrat, represents Montgomery County in the Maryland House and is president of Women Legislators of Maryland.
David E. Kendall, an attorney at the Washington law firm Williams & Connolly LLP, has represented former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton since 1993, including during impeachment proceedings stemming from Kenneth W. Starrs independent counsel investigation of President Clinton.

In his Dec. 24 Sunday Opinion commentary, former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr proposed a "reset" of the Russia investigation in which Congress "steps up" to establish a bipartisan investigative panel and the "executive branch's approach" changes from criminal law enforcement to some kind of nebulous fact-finding. Despite its bland profession of respect for the probe, Starr's column was really just a subtler version of suddenly pervasive efforts by Trump apologists to undermine the investigation into Russian tampering with the 2016 election.

The reasons given for Starrs reset are wholly specious: There is ostensibly a drumbeat of criticism aimed at special counsel Robert S. Mueller III which has become deafening, including cascading revelations of anti-Trump bias. This is true only on Fox News, in President Trumps tweets and in the shoe pounding of the Freedom Caucus at legislative hearings.

The claims of bias amount to some private comments of an FBI official criticizing candidate Trump (and other candidates). Despite the fact that government employees are entitled to have political opinions (so long as they do not interfere with their work, and there was no evidence of this), Mueller promptly removed this official. Additionally, Mueller "has chosen poorly by having smart but deeply politicized senior aides" who have "virulently anti-Trump political leanings." The evidence for this? Some of his staff have made past political contributions to Democratic candidates. Also, the FBI deputy director, who is not even on Mueller's team, has a wife who ran for a state legislative seat in 2015 with financial support from a friend of the Clintons, after the deputy director (who was not then deputy director) disclosed and cleared this internally at the FBI.

Thin gruel indeed, since the current leadership of the Justice Department has contributed heavily to Republican candidates and since Starr himself, when appointed to investigate a Democratic president, had been a Republican donor and had given assistance to a conservative group filing a friend-of-the-court brief in a case involving President Bill Clinton.

Starr decries the heavy overreliance on the criminal-justice system in investigating the problem of Russian meddling in the U.S. electoral process and advocates for moving toward decriminalizing presidential politics. For those of us who lived through the five-year Starr pursuit of Clinton, this calls to mind Oscar Wildes comment on Dickenss depiction of the death of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop: One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing. The Starr investigation was the paradigm of criminalizing presidential politics.

More important, the proposed "Watergate solution" ignores the fact that in January, U.S. intelligence agencies, through the director of national intelligence, made public a formal assessment "with high confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin "ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election" whose goals were to "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency," while favoring candidate Trump. Much of the fact-finding that Starr calls for has been done.

This Russian tampering is a fundamental threat to our democracy, and must be addressed in two ways: by improving our safeguards against foreign manipulation of our electoral process, and by investigating, publicizing and prosecuting past criminal conduct involving this meddling. The former must be addressed by Congress and the Trump administration, but the latter is properly the province of the independent investigation led by Mueller  a decorated Marine combat veteran, a Republican and a highly esteemed, long-serving law-enforcement professional.

Starr's misleading call for a "Watergate model" ignores the work of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. It is true that the investigations of the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973 and of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 were generally bipartisan and produced valuable information. But equally important was the work of the Watergate special prosecutor, first Archibald Cox and then Leon Jaworski, who fairly and thoroughly investigated criminal wrongdoing by President Richard M. Nixon and many of his top officials. It was that office's successful pursuit of the Nixon White House tape recordings all the way through the Supreme Court, and its successful prosecution of several Nixon officials, that finally revealed the facts about Watergate.

So while a thorough, public, fair and bipartisan congressional investigation of Russian tampering would be terrific, good luck with that. Benghazi hearings anyone? The House and Senate intelligence committees have for months been conducting hearings on these issues, but these have been, particularly in the House, partisan, meandering, contentious and closed-door.

And calling for a vague fundamental . . . reset within the halls of the executive branch on the part of the Trump administration is also utterly unrealistic. Firing the special counsel and all his staff would be the most likely reset by this White House.

The real Watergate model here is to hope for the best from Congress but protect and continue the work of the special counsel. In five months, it has obtained two convictions and two indictments. It has worked in secret and without leaks. It should be left to finish the work it has so ably begun: investigating thoroughly, prosecuting when the evidence justifies it and closing up shop silently  without harshly criticizing those not charged  when prosecution is not warranted.
I find President Trump's tweet on the FBI's "phony and dishonest Clinton investigation," as described in the Dec. 25 front-page article "Mueller criticism grows to a clamor," to be a symptom of the increasing denigration of government. For more than 200 years, we have been proud to be a democratic republic. Proud of our Constitution, which sets the framework under which we are all entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Proud that our voice as a people elects our president and our Congress. Proud that those we elect reflect our range of views. Proud that they serve our interests as individuals and collectively through consensus policies reached through compromise. And proud that over the years these policies have produced the best- functioning government in history.

But now our president and too many of our members of Congress seem to have forgotten that they are sources of pride and instead denigrate not only many of their fellow elected members of government but also the institutions of government and even the career people of government. Our greatness has been our confidence in government of the people, by the people, for the people. We as citizens must now rise to remind those we elect to bring honor to our vote and restore confidence in our government and our country.

To make America great again, we must remember what made it great before, and it was not the denigration of differences but the building of consensus.

Patrick V. McGregor, Millersville

I have not read of a single instance in which special counsel Robert S. Mueller III or his team subverted the rule of law in pursuing their investigation into vital matters. The clamor does not include even a scintilla of evidence of a "conspiracy" to undermine the Trump administration. In fact, I would argue that agitprop snipers desperate to pick Mr. Mueller off are the real conspirators, particularly because they are not playing by the rules of decency.

How much this tactic echoes the terrible past of World War II, when those who violated the rule of law accused the opposition of any and all crimes. Mr. Muellers prosecution is not made up out of whole cloth. His systematic digging for facts does nothing but honor the rule of law.

If he goes, protests will be well and good, but the rent in the fabric of our democracy will leave us all vulnerable to the march of events.

Robert E. Honig, Potomac

I continue to read with amazement about the growing number of supposedly smart people who believe special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is on some kind of witch hunt.

The Dec. 25 front-page article Mueller criticism grows to a clamor noted that Tom Fitton and the conspiracy theorists at Judicial Watch are driving the bandwagon.

I spent 27 years as a special agent of the FBI and worked with agent Peter Strzok and for Mr. Mueller, both of whom I would trust with my life. We all have political opinions, but political opinions do not prevent FBI agents from doing their jobs.

Jay C. Manning, Centreville

Regarding the Dec. 27 news article "Trump, on vacation, criticizes FBI in tweet before hitting links":

It appears incontrovertible that Russia conducted information operations to influence or discredit our 2016 election results. We need to know how Russia did it and who (if anyone) provided assistance. It now appears very clear that someone (or some organization) fears the facts enough to try to pervert the special counsels investigation. We need to know who and why.

Facts have no motives; they just exist, artifacts of human activity. Why would any American (and in particular our elected representatives, who have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution) not want to know who, if anyone, helped the Russians to interfere with our sovereign elections? The stakes could not be higher. Lets get to the bottom of this and sort it out after we have the facts.

Tom Baxter, Columbia

Let me see if I have this right. If you are a Black Lives Matter activist or supporter, you are anti-police, anti-American and a threat to the nation. But if you are a conservative and obsequious supporter of President Trump, you have every right to attack the premier law enforcement agency in the United States, if not the world, and you are just a true-blue, red-blooded American.

Did I miss something?

Dexter A. Cashwell, Harpers Ferry, W.Va.
The Dec. 23 editorial "The importance of foreign intelligence" got its conclusion exactly backward. Congress must not provide President Trump (or any president) the legal authority to spy on journalists, minorities and political opponents without first obtaining a court warrant, as the Constitution requires.

No less a newspaperman than Benjamin Franklin criticized the editorial boards perspective: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Forty-two organizations, from the ACLU and NAACP to FreedomWorks and the Campaign for Liberty, endorsed the bipartisan USA Rights Act  the bill the editorial board dismissed  which requires a warrant (except in emergencies) before the government can use its foreign intelligence authorities to read Americans emails, eavesdrop on our phone calls and access our online information. The Houses USA Liberty Act draws a miragelike distinction between domestically gathered foreign intelligence and criminal information, a line unrecognized by the Constitution and blurred by the intelligence agencies.

Federal courts are an essential check on surveillance that must not be bypassed for any reason.

Daniel Schuman, Alexandria

The writer is the policy director for Demand Progress and Demand Progress Action.
Chiah Rodriques is operations director of Mendocino Generations, a collective of small marijuana farmers in Mendocino County, Calif.

As the daughter of a back-to-the-land homesteader and pot farmer, I learned never to speak of what my father did. We lived a simple life in times when only growing a few plants could sustain us.

"Say I am a retired schoolteacher," he lectured. "You don't want to have to come visit your daddy in jail, do you?"

It's only recently that I can publicly tell stories from my childhood, of when my dad would pull me into the shade to hide from low-flying helicopters searching for cannabis patches across the hills of Mendocino County, Calif.

In 1976, he began supporting our family as a black-market grower, planting blackberry bushes and building platforms in the trees to shield his plants from the local marijuana eradication team. When my husband and I began growing, we used the same techniques, tunneling through the blackberries to keep our plants hidden. We now support our two kids, ages 17 and 10, in the market that took shape when California legalized medical marijuana two decades ago.

On Jan. 1, we can come into the sunlight as the Adult Use of Marijuana Act takes effect across California, legalizing recreational cannabis for adults 21 and older. Yet after waiting so long for the trophy of legalization, to finally be free in our lifestyle choice to live off the land, I can't help but wonder: Will small farmers like me be wiped out by big business?

Yes, New Year's will be a day of celebration for many, including tech billionaire Sean Parker, who helped bankroll the Proposition 64 campaign to end cannabis prohibition in the sixth-largest economy in the world. Recreational use is now legal in every state along the West Coast. With California poised to earn up to $1 billion in tax revenue, other states likely will follow our lead, which could spur calls for a change in federal law.

After Vietnam, many forward-thinking college graduates like my father, who'd had enough of the government and its wars, moved out to the mountains here. This was the baby-boomer generation  hippies, Deadheads and flower children who decided the mainstream way wasn't working for them. They wanted freedom, peace and quiet.

My father bought a 40-acre piece of paradise for $5,000. He would build his own home and live on his own time, calmly raising his children off the money he made selling cannabis. When prices were $4,000 or more per pound, even the worst farmer could make a decent living off a few plants.

After harvest, my dad would take us to Baja California, Mexico, in the winter, where we would relax before returning to the mountains to start seeds and plant next year's crop. While the farmers worked, we kids played in the forest and visited neighbors who were like family.

We knew that our secret lifestyle was unique and that it was also illegal and scary at times. We had to live a sort of undercover existence that our grandparents would cringe at if they knew their grandchildren lived barefoot and dirty, homeschooled and unruly in the hills, while our parents grew, trimmed and sold cannabis.

We never imagined that the biggest threat to our lifestyle could be legalization. But the new regulations allow unlimited growing licenses, which means venture capitalists will be able to create mega-cannabis corporations. The market is already flooded with cannabis from neighboring states. We're about to see a tsunami hit California.

In rural Mendocino County, about 40 small farmers have banded together in a collective called Mendocino Generations to try to navigate the changes. As operations director, I field texts all day from anxious growers. They are already using credit cards to cover the costs of a bad harvest, wildfire damage and compliance with local and state cannabis regulations. Members hope buyers will favor our craft cannabis over the "Walmart weed" driving down prices. But we need help from the county and the state to get there.

Proposition 64 should not repeat the mistakes that have allowed big agriculture and timber companies to wipe out American farm families in the past.

California needs to support policies that help cannabis growers of all sizes. We need tax incentives for small producers, caps on cultivation size and value-added labels for sun-grown producers.

The advantages of entering the legal market are clear. I can now freely discuss the hardships and beauties of this industry in public. A year ago, I wouldn't even print my last name or phone number on my business cards. My father is still skeptical about talking to the press.

This is an epic turning point, and we're proud to be a part of it. My family's work and the story of this region are intertwined. I just hope California doesn't leave behind the small farmers who are the backbone of this community.
AFTER MORE than three months, an American citizen held in U.S. custody in Iraq will finally see a lawyer. The man, whom the Pentagon believes to be an Islamic State fighter, has waited in military detention without outside contact beyond visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross. As a federal judge has now recognized, it is well past time that he be allowed to exercise his constitutional right to contest his detention in court.

Many of the facts of the man's case remain in the dark  including his name. According to reports, Syrian rebel forces captured him around Sept. 12 and delivered him to the U.S. military. He has remained in its custody since. Detaining him indefinitely would risk a potentially damaging court battle over the government's legal authority to use force against the Islamic State, but prosecutors fear they lack the evidence to convict him in U.S. criminal court. Officials are now considering whether to transfer him to Saudi Arabia, where he also holds citizenship. There's precedent to suggest the man might have to give up his status as an American citizen as part of the bargain: During a similar transfer in 2004, the government required Saudi American detainee Yaser Hamdi to relinquish his U.S. citizenship.

Throughout this process, the man has yet to meet with a lawyer. He requested legal counsel amid criminal interrogation and agreed when the government told him he would have to wait. But it's unclear whether he knew of his right to seek a lawyer in context of the constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus  his ability as a U.S. citizen to challenge the grounds of his detention before a judge. And when the American Civil Liberties Union stepped in from afar to litigate on the detainee's behalf, the Justice Department argued that the organization couldn't represent him without his or his family's consent. As the ACLU argued, this disturbing principle would allow the government to subvert the right to habeas corpus by simply keeping a detainee incommunicado and unidentified.

Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed this reasoning, holding that the government must grant the ACLU unmonitored access to meet with the detainee and must refrain from transferring him out of U.S. custody. Her ruling gives the Justice Department the option of appealing to block the ACLU's meeting. It should not do so. After three months, there is no good reason to keep this man from speaking with a lawyer.

The government may yet seek to transfer the detainee to Saudi Arabia. If the man gives up his citizenship before he meets with a lawyer, the transfer could raise murky legal questions. Whats clear, however, is that the detainee has a right to counsel if he remains in the Pentagons custody. To be sure, courts have found that detainees captured in wartime might not be able to exercise habeas corpus right away. But as Ms. Chutkan recognized, that doesnt mean the government can put off a constitutional right for more than three months with no justification.


ONE-TIME USE ONLY illustration for O-BLACKFAMILIES1231 (Erin K. Robinson for The Washington Post)

During his campaign for the U.S. Senate, former Alabama judge Roy Moore answered a question about what it means to make America great again. According to Moore, America 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.

The claim that black families are in disarray and were better off under slavery is not new. During the GOP presidential primary race in 2011, candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum both signed a pledge against same-sex marriage that stated children born during slavery were more likely to be raised by a mother and father in a two-parent home than children are today. On the campaign trail in 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump described a nightmarish world for black Americans, rife with poverty, homelessness and crime, and asked for their votes by saying, "What do you have to lose?"

Outrageous, yes, but not surprising. If your impression of black families comes mostly from what you see in the news  and not just Fox News  then you might think black families have it worse today than when they were enslaved.

Scholars have long documented how news and opinion media warp public perceptions of gender and race by reinforcing myths and stereotypes about women and people of color. And they play a dangerous role in spreading debunked stereotypes about black families.

Our organizations, Color of Change and Family Story, commissioned a research team at the University of Illinois that studies media patterns to examine what an average news consumer might have "learned" about black families (and white families) during the last election cycle. The results were disturbing.

The study found that, at best, media outlets promoted racially biased portrayals and myths that pathologize black families and idealize white families with respect to poverty and crime. At worst, media outlets amplified those inaccurate depictions for political and financial gain. Such reporting reinforces debunked narratives, helping to justify actions from police brutality to economic policies that will hurt not just black families but all families for generations.

The research team examined more than 800 relevant stories published or aired from January 2015 through December 2016, encompassing coverage from national broadcast and cable news outlets such as ABC, CBS and MSNBC; national mainstream newspapers like The Washington Post, the New York Times and USA Today; and online news sites. In both written and television reporting, the researchers found that the news media systemically misrepresented black families.

When the media outlets examined in the study reported stories about poor families, they chose to feature black families in their coverage 59 percent of the time, even though only 27 percent of families living below the poverty line are black. Similarly, in coverage of welfare, 60 percent of families portrayed were black, even though only 42 percent of families receiving welfare are black. This pattern was widespread across numerous sources  among the worst offenders for networks were Fox News and CNN, and the New York Times and Breitbart for national print and online news organizations.

Additionally, the news media habitually reinforced the myth that black fathers are less involved in their children's lives. We found that photos and videos in the study showed black mothers, white mothers and white fathers interacting with their children at the same rate. Black fathers, however, were shown with their children half as often, and the news media regularly perpetuated the conventional wisdom that missing black fathers explain social inequity. On "CNN Tonight," for example, conservative commentator Larry Elder said, "The primary problem with the black community in this country is absentee fathers."

Though black children are disproportionately born to single mothers, that does not mean fathers aren't involved. A 2013 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that black fathers spend more time engaged in parenting than fathers of other races, participating more often in bathing, diapering, taking their kids to activities and helping them with their homework.

Our study also found that media outlets reinforced the idea that black families are sources of personal, cultural and societal instability  that responsibility for poverty and crime lies with them, rather than with those who shape the economic and social environment they live in. On "The O'Reilly Factor," Bill O'Reilly commented, "The root cause of poverty . . . as 'Talking Points' has reported over and over again, that is the dissolution of the African American traditional family." There is no evidence to support this claim and much evidence to debunk it. At the same time, the news media promotes white families as the model norm, a source of social stability. This extends beyond the loud claims of O'Reilly to a steady stream of reporting, including the images that mainstream news producers, editors and reporters choose to include when covering families and family life.

This coverage has real-life consequences. Prior research has shown that when the news media constantly associates black people with crime, it increases racial stereotypes among viewers, leading the public to disproportionately favor punitive criminal justice policies. In addition, when the poor are depicted as overwhelmingly black, it leads the public to support heavier restrictions on welfare because of a perception that undeserving black people benefit from it. Backers of corporate and right-wing policies gain when the news media blames black families for social conditions, while their own role in destabilizing society remains invisible.

Federal poverty solutions such as welfare, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income and earned-income tax credits were not stigmatized when white people were correctly understood to be the main beneficiaries of them. This was especially true during the Great Depression of the 1930s. As Martin Gilens documents in his book, "Why Americans Hate Welfare," this started to change in the 1960s following the Civil Rights movement and the War on Poverty. Reporters who had covered Martin Luther King's quest for civil rights continued to follow him as he turned his attention to abject poverty in both rural and urban areas where blacks and others were deeply affected. This turn toward urban black poverty became an obsession of the media, over time leading to a distorted view of who is poor in our country. Over time, the media and politicians began "othering" the poor by putting a black face on them to undermine the promise of the New Deal and justify policy changes. Today, we continue to see politicians deploy coded racism as economic populism to distract and inflame the public, and to create cover to further right-wing and corporate interests. News outlets are their best partners, echoing these myths in ways big and small, exceptional and routine, serving as validators.

How do we work toward more accurate and responsible media coverage? By publicizing these findings, for one. And pressuring advertisers to withdraw their support from the worst offenders, whether Fox News or CNN (two of the worst across all measures in the report), could force news outlets and the corporations that control them to end these practices and reshape their standards.

If our country hopes to close cultural divides and create solutions that make all families strong, the media cannot continue to perpetuate false narratives that cause so much harm, while allowing the truth of the economic and social forces that drive family dynamics to remain invisible. The news media must help the public understand the systemic barriers that impede well-being for so many families and the policies that could improve them. The time for the media industry to reckon with how it covers families is long overdue.

Twitter: @nsrodgers, @rashadrobinson

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The steady increase in housing prices in many of the nations priciest markets, including the Washington region, is expected to slow in coming years, analysts say, as the Republican tax law begins to reshape a major part of the U.S. economy.

For generations, the tax code has subsidized homeownership, particularly for people in the upper middle class and beyond. The Republican tax legislation, however, pushed in the opposite direction, scaling back subsidies once thought untouchable.

To pay for other tax cuts benefiting individuals and corporations, the GOP tax plan trims the mortgage interest deduction and property tax deduction, which combined allow some homeowners to take tens of thousands of dollars off their taxable income.

The law allows interest to be deducted on mortgages only worth up to $750,000, instead of the previously existing $1 million limit (people who got loans before Dec. 15 are grandfathered into the $1 million limit). It also put a $10,000 cap on the amount of state and local taxes, including property taxes, that can be deducted from the federal return.





[How the tax bill impacts homeowners, buyers and sellers]

Economists and housing experts broadly agree the changes will slow price increases in expensive housing markets  though nobody expects housing values to decline, given the overall strength of the economy and the fact that there are relatively few houses for sale in top markets.

Still, experts are debating who wins and loses from the changes, and the reality may turn as much on perception as on the fundamental economics.

Bonnie Casper, a real estate agent with Long & Foster in Bethesda, says the new rules will put a lot of prospective home buyers in wait-and-see mode, which could prompt a slowdown in the market.

If theyre not going to have a tax benefit, maybe theyll go rent and not buy, Casper said. The tax overhaul could hinder first-time buyers, in particular, and then have a cascading effect.

Edward Pinto, a housing expert at the American Enterprise Institute, says lower housing prices will prove attractive to first-time home buyers who might have felt exasperated by the rapid increase in home values in recent years.

Existing homeowners have benefited from that on the backs of first-time home buyers, Pinto said.

Housing prices have been increasing by about 6 percent a year over the past five years nationally, according to the Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller index. Economists now expect these areas to see some slowdown in coming years, particularly in pricier regions like the Northeast Corridor, parts of the West Coast and Florida, and a number of Midwestern cities.

[How tax reform could affect your bottom line]

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics, a research firm, estimates that in the New York metropolitan region, some counties could see prices 10 percent below where they would have been without the tax bill by the summer of 2019. The median U.S. county will see a decline of 0.8 percent, he predicted.

House prices suffer under the tax plan, Zandi wrote in a recent analysis. The impact on house prices is much greater for higher-priced homes, especially in parts of the country where incomes are higher and there are thus a disproportionate number of itemizers, and where homeowners have big mortgages and property tax bills.

According to Moodys analysis, home prices could deflate by 2 percent in the District, 2.5 percent in Montgomery County and 2.3 percent in Arlington County. Loudoun County is most affected in the region, with a projected 2.6 percent decline in prices relative to where they would have been.

By way of example, if the price of a $500,000 home in the District had risen to $525,000 by the summer of 2019, under the new law it would go up only to $515,000, assuming a 3 percent, rather than 5 percent, increase.

The biggest impact is probably the psychological impact on buyers, said Lindsay Reishman, a senior vice president with the real estate firm Compass. We might see fewer transactions, a little less activity for a while.

[Federal government spends more subsidizing homeowners than it does helping people avoid homelessness]

ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data and analytics firm, found that the District, Maryland and Virginia are among the 15 jurisdictions with the highest percentage of mortgages above $750,000 this year.

According to its data, the District had the most nationwide, with just less than 17 percent. Maryland and Virginia came in at 3 percent. Those figures understate how prevalent high prices are in the wealthier parts of the states.

Two jurisdictions within Virginia had the highest percentage of loans above that threshold; 27 percent of the homes in Falls Church and 20 percent of the homes in Arlington sold for more than $750,000 year.

The new laws effect on property taxes will affect more than 90,000 homeowners in the Washington region, according to ATTOM. Alexandria and Arlington have the greatest percentage of homeowners with property taxes north of $10,000, 12 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

In general, economists say, the tax breaks have tended to boost the price of homes in the past because they effectively made it cheaper to afford a bigger mortgage and a bigger house, which homeowners would then factor into their sales prices.

To Pinto and some housing experts, Congresss decision to take a few steps back from subsidizing homeownership is welcome news after years of government advocacy of homeownership. Some blame that housing enthusiasm for being one of the forces, among many others, that led to the housing collapse and Great Recession, from December 2007 to June 2009.

This decade, housing companies have been far more cautious about building homes, leading to price increases, and the Census homeownership rate has fallen from a peak of 69.2 percent at the end of 2004 to 63.9 percent as of Sept. 30.

A report by the housing website Zillow has found that 44 percent of homes are worth enough that it makes sense for a homeowner to itemize deductions. Under the new law, the percentage drops to 14.4 percent.

Beyond tweaking the mortgage interest deduction and state and local tax deduction, the tax bill also doubles the size of the standard deduction to $24,000 for a married couple. Taxpayers have the option of taking itemized deductions or the standard deduction.

In the past, the value of the housing deductions may have nudged people into buying homes even when they have been happier renting, Pinto said. Now people have more options.

They get to make a choice about how to spend their money, he said.

Others argue that reducing public support for homeownership could have broad social consequences.

This is one of the shortcomings of the tax bill. Ordinarily, you want there to be ownership, especially of real estate, said Greg Smith, a certified financial planner at the Wise Investor Group at Baird. There is a civic good that comes from owning rather than renting.

Still, Smith says home buyers and homeowners should not get carried away with calculations over the impact of the tax bill.

Its easy to be short-term oriented, Smith said. If youre buying a house, hopefully youre buying a house because youre going to be there for at least five years, and a lot can happen in five years.
The United Arab Emirates top Foreign Minister Wednesday called for Arab union against Turkey pointing out that the Tayyip Erdogan-led country would not lead the Arab world.

A spat has broken since last week between the UAE and Turkey with Cheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan retweeted an insult trading about the role of Erdogans ancestors in Medina when the Ottoman Empire conquered the holy city in early 1910s.

Anwar Gargash, the UAE Minister of state for foreign affairs, added oil to the fire on Twitter saying that there is a need to rally around the Arab axis of Saudi Arabia and Egypt against the influence of Turkey and Iran in the region and in the Arab world.

The sectarian and partisan view is not an acceptable alternative, and the Arab world will not be led by Tehran or Ankara, Gragash wrote on his official Twitter page.

The feud started after UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan retweeted a post accusing Turkish troops of looting Medina and kidnapping the people of the city. The Turkish troops were led by Fakhreddin Pasha  Medina governor from 1916 to 1919- claimed to be an ancestor of President Erdogan.

The tweet was first posted by an unknown Twitter account called Ali al-Iraqi who presents himself as an Iraqi dentist living in Germany, the New Arab reports.

Erdogan himself hit back accusing Sheikh Abdullah of lacking historical knowledge.

Officials in some countries who lack respect for boundaries, historical knowledge and diplomatic etiquette cannot overshadow the brotherhood that links us to Arab people, Erdogan tweeted in Arabic last week.

Know your place! It means you do not know this country, you do not know Erdogan, you do not know about Erdogans ancestors, he added in a speech.

Erdogan slammed the Sheikh, When Fakhreddin Pasha was protecting Medina where were your ancestors?

Ankara Thursday summoned the UAE charge daffaires to complain about the post. The Turkish government late last week proposed to rename the street where the UAE mission is located after Fakhreddin Pasha.

Both countries have had frosty relations. Abu Dhabi views Ankara as a strong supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. Ankara also has supported Qatar in its diplomatic row with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt.

Ankara has sent thousands of forces in Qatar under a joint military agreement between the two countries. Erdogan has also accused Abu Dhabi of involvement in last year botched military coup.
The Lighthouse Winmore, a Hong Kong-flagged ship, is seen in waters off Yeosu, South Korea. South Korean authorities boarded the tanker and interviewed its crew members for allegedly violating U.N. sanctions by transferring oil to a North Korean vessel in October, an official said Friday. (Hyung Min-woo/Hyung Min-woo/Yonhap via AP)

Did a Chinese ship deliver oil to North Korea in defiance of the U.N. Security Council? President Trump and South Korea seem to think so. China does not.

Hours after Trump accused China on Thursday of being caught "red handed" selling oil to the North Koreans  in apparent violation of sanctions adopted by the United Nations in September  South Korea released information that appeared to support his claim.

South Korean authorities said Friday that on Nov. 24 they seized and inspected a Hong Kong-flagged vessel that on Oct. 19 transferred 600 tons of refined petroleum to a North Korean vessel.

But at a daily news briefing in Beijing, a spokeswoman for Chinas Foreign Ministry flatly dismissed the claim, saying media accounts did not accord with the facts.

China has always implemented U.N. Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfills its international obligations, said the spokeswoman, Hua Chunying.



Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying gestures during a news briefing in Beijing. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

We never allow Chinese companies and citizens to violate the resolutions, she said.

The standoff underscores Trumps frustration at his attempts to press China to tighten economic pressures on North Korea as part of global efforts to curb the Norths nuclear and missile programs.

China is the economic lifeline for the regime of Kim Jong Un, and Beijing is under close international scrutiny for gaps in the sanctions.

China also appears angry at being unceremoniously called out by Trump  a rift that could shape the year ahead.

Since Trump took office, the United States and China have backed successive rounds of U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing North Koreas weapons program. But Kim has continued to conduct tests, including of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Trump has responded by periodically  and often very publicly  urging China to do more. On Thursday he tweeted: 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!

He then posted a clip of himself talking about North Koreas nuclear program in a television interview that aired 18 years ago.

Trumps ire will not go down well with Beijing, which feels unfairly singled out by foreign critics, including Trump.

On Wednesday, when Hua, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, was asked about South Korean claims of a ship-to-ship oil transfer, she turned the tables by claiming news organizations did not have their facts straight.

The Peoples Daily, a Communist Party-controlled newspaper, followed up with a detailed account of her response, noting that she hit back at the speculation with eight questions to drive home the point that the conclusion is based on speculation and not facts.

The headline: China tells foreign media to stop it with the wild speculation.

Shirley Feng contributed from Beijing.

Read more:

U.S. imposes sanctions on two key figures in North Koreas weapons program

Retired military leaders urge Trump to choose words, not action, to deal with North Korea

What made North Koreas weapons programs so much scarier in 2017

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
An anti-government protest in Honduras, Day of the Innocents celebrations in Spain and more images from around the world.

Dec. 22, 2017 An anti-government protester stands next to a burning barricade blocking a road, on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Fernando Antonio/AP
A gunman clashed with police outside a Coptic church in Cairo on Friday after trying to break through security barriers protecting the site. At least nine people were killed, an official said, in the latest violence targeting Egypt's Christian minority.

Egyptian authorities identified the gunman as 33-year-old Ibrahim Ismail.

A statement by the Interior Ministry said that Ismail had attempted to attack another church near to the Mar Mina church, but he failed and ended up shooting two people in a shop next to it.

[How an Egyptian village became a target of the Islamic State]

He then proceeded to attack the Mar Mina church, leaving nine dead, before security forces wounded and arrested him, confiscating his weapon, the ministry statement said.



Priest David, the head of the Mar Mina church, is greeted Friday by people outside the church in Cairos Helwan area, where at least nine people were killed in a shootout. (Amr Nabil/AP)

Ismail is suspected to have links to several past attacks, including one by a group that opened fire on a police bus last year in Cairo. At least eight policemen were killed in the May 2016 attack.

The Islamic State asserted responsibility for Fridays assault.

The spokesman for Egypts Health Ministry, Khaled Megahed, said eight Coptic Christians and a policeman were killed in the attack, the Associated Press reported.

At least five people were wounded, Megahed said.

The attack began when gunmen on a motorcycle started firing outside the Mar Mina church in the Helwan neighborhood south of central Cairo, while some worshipers were inside. Egypts state-run Middle East News Agency, citing the Interior Ministry, initially reported that at least two attackers tried to enter the church. The second attacker apparently fled, the agency reported.

A video posted on social media purports to show Ismail roaming a deserted street before being struck by gunfire. A man is seen later sneaking up to him from the back and snatching his weapon. Dozens of people then rush out from hiding to tackle and beat the fallen gunman.

Egypts Coptic community has come under increasing attack by Islamist militants in recent years, prompting tighter security measures around churches and other sites.

After Fridays bloodshed, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi condemned the assault as vicious. A statement from Egypts parliament said the bullets of terrorists did not differentiate between a Muslim and a Christian, or between a mosque and a church.

In May, gunmen ambushed a bus carrying a group of Coptic Christians to a monastery in the Minya region, about 150 miles south of Cairo, killing at least 30 people.

Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.

Correction: An earlier version of this article reported that Ismail, the suspected gunman, had been killed.

Read more:

Christians flee Sinai Peninsula in fear of Egypts Islamic State affiliate

Egypts long, bloody fight against the Islamic State in Sinai is going nowhere

Coptic Christians describe bus attack: Even the little children were targets

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
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Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 29/12/2017 (1785 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With extreme cold gripping the city and homeless shelters only able to house so many people per night, the co-founder of the Bear Clan Patrol is thinking creatively to help the most vulnerable of citizens.

James Favel had an idea a few years ago  build a home out of shipping containers on Peguis First Nation, so he could have a place to stay when he came home between trips across Canada as a trucker.

Now, his idea might morph into shipping-container shelters that would house Winnipegs homeless, particularly during cold snaps that stretch the capacities of the citys existing shelters.

John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press Files James Favel

Its an idea that has piqued the interest of a Main Street Project official.

In terms of housing, the trend nowadays is to think outside of the box, said Adrienne Dudek, director of supportive and transitional housing at the Main Street Project.

Dudek said she hadnt heard about Favels latest idea but said shes familiar with similar initiatives, including tiny homes, small mobile homes and shipping container initiatives, which have seen great success in the U.S.

I think all of those things are great, she said. They are easily accessible for people and they can probably maintain a low cost.

Recently, Favel gave a presentation to students who study carpentry. He told them about his idea to build a home out of a shipping container.

After the presentation, the students went on a night walk around the citys North End with the Bear Clan, looking for people who needed help.

Then, Favel and the students decided they should do something more for the community by building a temporary emergency shelter out of shipping containers for the citys most vulnerable citizens.

We think we will get it done, said Favel, although he added the shelter is just an idea at this point. (Its) not precisely a plan.

Extreme cold is dangerous for anyone  but someone without a home is especially vulnerable to the elements, said Favel.

Rather than hunkering down at home for the holidays, the Bear Clan has patrolled every night during the recent cold snap, looking for people who need help and handing out care packages, before directing people to shelters.

Favel coughed and spoke with a strained voice when the Free Press interviewed him over the phone Thursday. He said he got sick from spending too many long nights outside.

But thankfully, those long nights havent been too eventful  the group hasnt seen many people stuck in the elements this year, Favel said.

And thats heart-warming, he added.

But he noted a recent tragedy on a cold Winnipeg street, when a 53-year-old woman froze to death in a bus shack on Portage Avenue in early December 2016.

There are three main shelters in the city  the Salvation Army, Siloam Mission and the Main Street Project. But when the temperatures plunge, the shelters quickly reach capacity, noted Favel in an interview earlier this week. The shelters dont turn people away but often get overcrowded, Favel added.

Dudek said the Main Street Project is always working alongside the Bear Clan and the citys other two shelters to make sure no Winnipeggers are left outside, adding collaboration and creativity are the most effective ways to help Winnipegs most vulnerable citizens.

I think, more than anything though, its important still to have the services. Its great to house people but we just have to make sure well all working together to still deal with what gets people to (homelessness) in the first place, she said.

Dudek said that means focusing on tackling mental health, substance abuse and treating intergenerational trauma, among other things.

Favel said he hopes to start building the shipping-container shelter this summer so it can operate by next winter. He said he wants to build it on a vacant lot in the citys core.

He said most of the construction would be done by volunteers and estimates the cost of the container itself to be $3,000 to $5,000.

Favel said he wants to build everything to code with proper electrical heating. Weve got to do it safely and do it right, he said.

Favel said he hasnt yet talked to the city about his idea or started applying for permits.

A City of Winnipeg spokesperson confirmed the Bear Clan hasnt contacted the city or applied for permits, then added city staff can help the group.

Staff in the permits branch are available to the public to discuss the citys process for permit applications and to outline what permits would be required for a temporary facility, the city spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.

We cant speculate on the types of permits that would be required as each facility/structure would be considered unique.

But, the spokesperson said the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service and the citys planning, property and development departments development and inspections division would need to be consulted to make sure any temporary structure would be up to fire, building and electrical codes and have the proper lifesaving systems in place.

The spokesperson also said the city has procedures in place to help vulnerable people when temperatures drop.

The City of Winnipeg focuses on collaboration with local community partners and non-government agencies to assist vulnerable populations during extreme weather events. During extreme cold, the city also reminds residents that civic facilities can be used during normal operating hours as warming areas where they may come in for relief from the cold.

But, Favel said he believes the city doesnt do enough to help the homeless.

We dont have policies to keep people from freezing to death in the streets, said Favel.

 with files from Maggie Mcintosh

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca
President Emmanuel Macron of France has called Saudi Arabia to entirely lift the air and sea blockade its coalition has imposed on Yemen and which has worsened the humanitarian situation in the country devastated by more than two years of conflict.

The information came from the French leaders office on Wednesday. The French President, according to the Presidency, held a telephone conversation with the Saudi monarch Salman Bin Abdelaziz.

Saudi Arabia has been leading a Pan-Arab coalition in Yemen since 2015 to restore the legitimate power of President Mansour Hadi and to curb gains of Iran-backed Houthi rebels who have seized large swathes of the poorest Arab country.

The rebels have also taken control of capital Sanaa.

Early November, the coalition seized control of major ports and sealed off the Yemini air space in response to a missile launched by the rebels on Saudi Arabia. The ballistic missile was intercepted near Riyadhs international airport.

The blockade made the supply of the humanitarian aid to food-deprived population delicate.

Close to 10,000 people have been killed in the more than two-year old conflict with populations on top of the food scarcity also face a high scale of cholera outbreak.

The Saudi-led coalition recently was forced to ease the blockade following intense international diplomatic pressure. The World leaders, the UN and humanitarian organizations expressed their dismay after the coalition closed Hodeida port  key to humanitarian and commercial deliveries.

During his phone talk with the Saudi Monarch, President Macron ruled out military action as a solution to the conflict and stressing that it is essential that both sides return to the negotiating table.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 28/12/2017 (1786 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  The federal Tories say theyll push Ottawa to make sure Winnipeg gets its fair share of infrastructure dollars, while changing their tone to present a positive message ahead of the fall 2019 election.

Weve had a good year in making people understand how bad a year Trudeau has had, Selkirk-area MP James Bezan said in a wide-ranging interview that touched on crime, provincial relations and the partys approach to Churchill.

Winnipeg funding

Conservative MP James Bezan asks a question during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, October 27, 2016. (Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press)

Bezan admits that the official Opposition faces the unique situation of representing all but one Manitoba riding outside Winnipeg, after the Liberals swept the city in 2015 (the NDP hold one seat in Transcona, and also the provinces north).

Thats why the Conservatives will pay extra attention to the Liberals billions of promised infrastructure dollars, with most applications due this spring. Winnipeg has already cancelled some projects, because they require funding from all three levels of government, including the cash-strapped province.

Well be monitoring (it) closely, to ensure that Winnipeg is getting its fair share of infrastructure dollars, compared with other urban centres, Bezan said.

Provincial relations

Bezan says Manitobas rocky relationship with Ottawa is a result of the Liberal government overstepping its jurisdiction into provincial matters.

This year alone, Premier Brian Pallister has butted heads with Ottawa over health spending, marijuana legalization, carbon taxes and aerospace funding.

I dont think Manitoba is unique, Bezan said, citing provincial Liberal parties grappling with healthcare in Nova Scotia or carbon-tax opposition in Newfoundland.

Just last week, the Liberals gave Manitoba an ultimatum to endorse their set of general environmental policies, or lose out on an estimated $66 million for carbon retrofits.

He contrasts that with the Harper years.

We dealt with each issue on its own, and we didnt do horse-trading across issues, and we didnt try to coerce or force provinces.

Bezan also questioned why Energy Minister Jim Carr, the sole Manitoban in cabinet, waited until November to propose regular meetings with the Pallister government and Mayor Brian Bowman.

Here we are, two and a half years in, and hes only going to start doing that now? Bezan said. Its a sad state of affairs.

Churchill

The Tories have been largely silent on the issue of Churchills washed-out rail line (Dylan Robertson / Winnipeg Free Press files)

The Tories have been largely silent on the issue of Churchills washed out rail line, declining multiple interview requests while the NDP regularly weighs in on the issue. Both the Liberals and NDP have noted that Omnitraxs Canadian head is a former Tory MP.

Yet, Bezan said the issue has been front-and-centre in our discussions as a Manitoba caucus.

Omnitrax definitely has been trying to work with the federal government, with the province and with the communities all along the tracks, he said.

Bezan says the Tories support a negotiated settlement, so that assets like the port and research centre dont die off. He said most road washouts would see Ottawa pick up 90 per cent of the towns tab.

I would have expected that a compassionate government would have stepped forward and either offered to pay for the costs, to cost-share, offer repayable loans or whatever was needed to get that track up and running in a quick manner, he said.

He believes the Liberals have held back because the federal Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements program only assists small businesses with annual revenues under $2 million.

They decided to hide behind that piece of paper rather than look at this from a pragmatic standpoint, Bezan claimed.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodales office wouldnt say whether the idea was even considered, but said bureaucrats make those calls, not political parties.

It has been determined that the railway to Churchill is not eligible for assistance under the DFAA, wrote Scott Bardsley, adding that Ottawa will facilitate approvals of financial assistance for flooding claims filed by the province.

Crime

Bezan said one of the most common concerns he hears from constituents is about the back-logged court system, which has let criminals walk free.

Last July, the Supreme Court ruled that cases that face unreasonable delays should be tossed, after 18 to 30 months, depending on the type of offence. Thats lead to ordinary and appeal courts shelving charges or dismissing cases that already resulted in convictions.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer (Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press files)

Bezan cited a case this month where a Portage la Prairie judge freed a Manitoba couple who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a young girl over a five-year period, because their case dragged on for four years.

The Liberals have admitted to difficulties in appointing judges, which Bezan says the Liberals have completely bungled from the get-go.

He pushes back on the criticism raised by some Liberals, that Harper-era reforms are resulting in longer trials, including laws that compel judges to order amounts of jail time.

Mandatory minimums mean that criminals are staying longer behind bars, Bezan said. Without having people sitting on the bench, you cant prosecute cases. This is the real problem here.

Scheer positivity

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, elected six months ago, is still relatively unknown to Manitobans.

A poll this month by Angus Reid found the province split in its support for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose approval rating in Manitoba dropped six points this year to 48 per cent.

The institutes national polling shows opinions about Scheer split almost equally between support, disapproval and not knowing enough about him, while NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh shows a slightly better approval rating.

This month, Scheer released a television advertisement in which the smiling Tory leader strolls through an idyllic suburban park while greeting his neighbours. His untucked shirt gives a grassroots vibe, as he slams Ottawa elites.

Scheer was chosen on a pledge to offer voters a positive alternative, but the party has mostly lambasted Liberal policies this year.

Bezan says this summers policy convention will have the Tories craft their main proposals with grassroots members.

I think were coming across as definitely a party that has strongly positioned ourselves as not just an alternative, but a party with a positive vision for Canada, one that is inclusive of peoples, one that stands up for human rights, Bezan said.

Federal Minister of Natural Resources Jim Carr (Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press files)

Bezan says the Conservatives have succeeded by getting the federal Liberals to roll back their controversial tax reforms, while holding them accountable for ethical shortfalls that landed Trudeau in a commissioners report, and Finance Minister Bill Morneau dodging frequent questions.

We are exposing who the Liberals truly are and that their schemes are all about raising taxes, he said. They have essentially backed down on every one of those schemes.

He says Canadians appreciated Tory outcry over a reported $10-million settlement for Omar Khadr, naive terrorism policies and stagnant trade talks with Asian countries.

A Conservative bill applying sanctions to corrupt Russian government officials passed the House unanimously this fall, as did a motion to resettle 1,200 Yazidi refugees fleeing ISIS atrocities.

We are the party that doesnt just go there and trash on the Liberals. We will continue to contrast their policies and their folly in government programs, that theyve presented. But, more importantly, as we move closer to election day, well be presenting a positive vision for Canada.

This October, a Quebec riding returned to the Liberal fold for the first time since 1984, while a Vancouver-area Tory stronghold also flipped to Team Trudeau.

Bezan admits both were a blow to the party, but he noted their success in two other byelections, and the minimal results for the NDP.

The Liberals continue to dominate the left side of the spectrum. So this is starting to evolved to really be a two-party race, he said. Unless the NDP changes the way that theyre doing business, theyre going to completely fall off the radar when they go to the ballot booth in 2019.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 28/12/2017 (1786 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Northern Regional Health Authority is asking Canadas top court to hear the case of a Flin Flon health-care aide fired years ago because of her battle with alcoholism.

Its an application to appeal that the other party in the case, the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, actually welcomes given what its executive director calls the growing confusion around the purpose and intent of Manitobas Human Rights Code.

Clarification on the jurisdictional questions is needed to reassure Canadians of the fundamental importance of human rights law and how it protects all workers, unionized or not, from discrimination in the workplace, said executive director Isha Khan in an emailed statement.

SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES The Supreme Court is seen in Ottawa on Thursday, March 19, 2015. The Northern Regional Health Authority is asking the nation's top court to hear the case of a Flin Flon health-care aide fired as a result of her battle with alcoholism.

The case started in 2012, when personal care home aide Linda Horrocks was fired for a second time as a result of her drinking problem. She was fired first in 2011 after working while intoxicated and then later refusing to sign a memorandum of understanding that the health authority said would give it reasonable assurance that she had her addiction under control.

Horrocks union argued her case and in early 2012, she was hired back when she signed an amended memorandum against the advice of the union that stipulated any alcohol consumption for two years would be considered grounds for dismissal. But before she could actually resume work, Horrocks was fired after reports that she had been observed intoxicated.

Instead of arguing her case again through the union, Horrocks filed a human rights complaint.

Now, more than five years later, both commission and health authority are looking to Ottawa in the hopes the Supreme Court of Canada will make clear when a case should be decided through labour arbitration and when a human rights tribunal should arbitrate.

The health authority, which declined to comment for this story, has long maintained this is a case best handled through labour arbitration.

Permitting other forums to take jurisdiction over workplace issues is disruptive to the important policy objective of promoting harmonious labour relations through a uniform and compulsory grievance arbitration procedure, it argued in documents filed this month to the Supreme Court.

The Human Rights Commission doesnt see it as either or, Khan said.

The human rights scheme in Manitoba is designed to work alongside the labour arbitration scheme, she said, all workers in Manitoba have the right to choose to pursue their discrimination complaints under The Human Rights Code via their union or directly through the Commission.

A Commission adjudicator found in Horrocks favour in 2015, ordering the health authority not just to pay her nearly four years of back pay and $10,000 to compensate for damages to her dignity, feelings or self-respect, but also to hire her back.

In 2016, a Manitoba Court of Queens Bench judge overturned that decision on judicial review, agreeing with the NRHA that the case should have been pursued through the unions grievance process. But a 2017 decision from the Manitoba Court of Appeal further muddied the waters.

While it found the Commissions adjudicator had taken too sweeping a view of her jurisdiction, given the circumstances of the case, it ultimately decided the judge should not have overturned the adjudicators ruling because the case was not exclusively a labour issue.

This was not a case of forum shopping, the decision reads. By not grieving her second termination, (Horrocks) made a choice to sever her claims relating to discipline and discharge from her claim relating to discrimination on the basis of alcohol dependency.

If that decision is allowed to stand, the health authority argued in its application to the Supreme Court, it will encourage multiple proceedings and parties to a collective agreement will lack certainty as to the proper forum for any given dispute.

Khan said the Commission plans to file its response to the health authoritys application to appeal in the coming weeks. The Supreme Court will then decide whether it intends to hear the appeal. Of roughly 600 annual applications, only 80 or so are heard.

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 28/12/2017 (1786 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Smoke from a smudging stick and the warm breath of friends and family of Jeremy Hobson filled the front yard of the house where the 21-year-old accidentally overdosed and died on the weekend during a ceremony held Thursday.

Jeremy died after taking a pill, which he thought was OxyContin, at a get together with friends and cousins on Saturday night, according to his father Larry Hobson. Hobson said he thinks the pill that killed his son was laced with fentanyl.

Hobson, and nine other community members, including three members from the Bear Clan, gathered in a circle in the front yard of the house where Jeremy died for the smudging.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Larry Hobson takes a smudge offered by his daughter Brittany Murdoch on Thursday afternoon in front of the house where his son Jeremy was found dead of an overdose.

I know my son is in heaven, I know hes with the creator, said Hobson, during Thursdays ceremony. I just want to wish him a safe journey to get to where hes going and where he needs to be.

On Christmas Eve, Larry Hobson said he received the worst phone call of his life. He was told his son Jeremy had been found dead.

Jeremy never did drugs, not even marijuana, but was told a pill would give him a good vibe, said Hobson, adding hes always told his kids to avoid the home on Broadway, where Jeremy died, because hes not a fan of the unsupervised parties that go on inside.

The woman who found Jeremy, who lives in the home, refused to allow the smudging ceremony to happen inside the home, where Hobson originally planned to have it.

Four people, including the 21-year-old ironworker apprentice, took the pills that killed Hobsons youngest son. They were all under the impression it was OxyContin, Hobson said.

I just dont think it was OxyContin, he said.

Fentanyl taken inadvertently

According to Joss Reimer, medical officer of health services for Manitoba Health, fentanyl can be hidden very easily in other drugs.

She said most of Canada is experiencing a fentanyl crisis and while lots of people take the drug knowingly, many others take it thinking theyre consuming something else.

Reimer said the best way to be prepared for an overdose is to own a naloxone kit, know how to use it and tell friends when you plan to use drugs so they can check up on you.

Fentanyl can be found in pill form and powder form  and it can be mixed into other drugs like cocaine and crystal meth in its powder form, according to the Manitoba Health website.

Toxicology and blood tests are in progress to find out what exactly caused the death, but Hobson said the medical examiner told him his son most likely went to sleep and never woke up because he had so much poison in his body.

Hobson said itll take six weeks to find out the test results.

It only takes a minute to end a life

After taking the drug and passing out on the couch, Hobson said some friends moved Jeremy to the bed. The woman from the house later came home, found Jeremy unresponsive, starting doing CPR and called 911.

The three other people who took the drug with Jeremy all went to the hospital after he was found dead, Hobson said, but they are all OK.

Jeremys gone now but I just want to be able to get a strong message out here, he said. All these kids out there trying drugs, it could happen to any of them and none of their parents ever want to get the call I received.

He said people need to be cautious of what they and their families are doing.

It only takes one mistake to end a life and the impact and the ripple effect is unbelievable  its so hurtful and painful, he said. But you know, well get through it.

Hobson said the family has become very close after struggling with him being incarcerated for some time.

Were going to try to live a better life and Im going to try to be a better influence on my children, he said.

All these kids out there trying drugs, it could happen to any of them and none of their parents ever want to get the call I received.

Hobson prays the creator takes care of his son because he was a good boy who was lovable, outgoing, kind, generous and died too young. He was the youngest boy of Hobsons eight children, of which six are still alive.

Dillon Hobson, Jeremys older brother, said Jeremy will be joining his grandmother and another older brother, who died by suicide two years ago, in the spirit world.

My brother meant the world to me, and Im going to miss him very much, he said, adding that the ceremony was all for Jeremy.

You think it wont happen to your family

The Bear Clans executive director, James Favel, said a loss like Jeremys is always tragic, compounded by the fact that he was so young.

As a community, we have to come together and just focus on healing now and moving forward in a good way, said Favel. Well all get through this and we learn from our mistakes, we move forward.

The ceremony came to a close with Brittany Murdoch, one of Jeremys sisters, handing tobacco to the community members, who then sprinkled the pieces across the front yard to remember Jeremy.

A wake will take place Friday and Jeremys funeral is scheduled for Saturday.

You always hear stuff, but you think it wont happen to your family  until it really happens and then you realize how precious life is, said Taylor Hobson, one of Jeremys other sisters.

Dont take life for granted. Love your family and keep them close.

Larry Hobson said hell be keeping both his family and reminders of Jeremy close. Hes going to wrap the Christmas presents he bought for Jeremy, a Detroit Red Wings sweater and shirts, in plastic and leave them in his closet forever.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 29/12/2017 (1785 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Louis (Lou) Billinkoff always knew he could run fast if he had to. But he didnt know he was the fastest in Canada for his age.

At the age of 94, Billinkoff has been ranked top in Canada for two consecutive years, keeping the national 100-metre record in the 90-to-94 masters class.

The Winnipegger wasnt always a racer.

Joe Oczerklewicz Photo Lou Billinkoff started running competitively in 2015. That year and in 2016, he ranked as the fastest in Canada in his event and age bracket.

I never thought of it as competitive, he said. I knew I could run, but I didnt do anything with that.

He only started running competitively in 2015, when his son urged him to compete. He participated in a meet at the University of Manitoba at the age of 92, completing the 100-metre race in 29.55 seconds.

(It) took a while to realize I had achieved something that was not ordinary, he said. It was only when he saw his name on the World Masters Ranking website he realized his accomplishment. He had placed first in Canada and 20th in the world for his class.

The next year, he improved to 18th in the world at 28.29 seconds  and again came in first for Canada.

Of course it gives me some pleasure, knowing (I did well), he said.

In 2017, Billinkoff set a personal record of 27.46 seconds. Because his run was assisted by a wind stronger than regulations allow, its not official. Worldwide, the 2017 record for the class belongs to Curt Davison from the U.S. at 20.19 seconds.

Billinkoffs running journey began in 2011, after he suffered a slight heart failure. His doctor recommended he take up cardiac exercises. One of the exercises was walking around an oval track in the Reh-Fit Centre.

After several months of walking, Billinkoff said he was interested to see how he would fare in running.

I ran about 40 metres (at first), he said. I had a good feeling, doing that.

Now, he trains three times a week, running the 100-metre track five times.

Billinkoff will enter a new age class next year when he turns 95.

Im going to do the best I can, he said.

nadiah.sakuria@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 29/12/2017 (1785 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We have three gangsters, one suspect and a president who is prisoner of a Top Six that is clearly compromised, said Zackie Achmat, AIDS activist and Nobel Prize nominee, on hearing that Cyril Ramaphosa, a former trade union leader and businessman, had been elected president of South Africas ruling African National Congress (ANC).

Its hard to celebrate when another billionaire wins an election, but thoughtful people in South Africa are at least relieved: it could have been worse. It could have been Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, ex-wife of South African President Jacob Zuma, a profoundly corrupt man who has allowed, even encouraged, corruption to spread through the higher ranks of the ANC.

Theres no evidence that NDZ is corrupt herself, but it was widely believed that if she won power she would protect her former husband, who is otherwise likely to go to jail after he leaves the presidency. He faces 18 charges of corruption, fraud, racketeering, money laundering and tax evasion relating to 783 payments.

Themba Hadebe / The Associated Press files Cyril Ramaphosa, the new president of the African National Congress, is feared to be a compromised politician, but is still considered to be less corrupt than his election opponent.

In October, the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa reinstated the charges, which Zuma has repeatedly used his presidential powers to suppress or postpone.

Zuma was counting on NDZ to protect him (they have four children together), and most of the ANC bigwigs who joined him in plundering the economy also backed her bid for the presidency. But Ramaphosa outmanoeuvred her, and earlier this month was narrowly elected president of the ANC.

Hes not yet running South Africa, but in the 23 years since apartheid ended, the ANCs president has usually become the countrys president as well.

Zuma can technically stay in power until the next scheduled elections in 2019, but last time the ANCs president changed, the party immediately recalled the sitting president of South Africa (Thabo Mbeki) and put in the new man (Zuma). That may happen again this time  or it may not.

If Ramaphosa becomes president of the whole country soon, there are high hopes that the corruption and the constant subversion of the law will stop, or at least shrink. Billionaires dont need to steal.

But Ramaphosa has been encumbered with a Top Six in the National Executive Committee (NEC)  a kind of cabinet  at least half of whom backed Dlamini-Zuma.

Two of them  David Mabuza, now deputy-president of the NEC, and Ace Magashule, now secretary-general  are definitely gangsters. They have ruled two large provinces, Mpumalanga and the Free State, for a long time; they are both inexplicably rich; and both of them have close ties to the Guptas, a mega-rich family of Indian immigrants who have such influence over Zuma that they have been accused of state capture.

Mabuza has also been accused of running a private militia, and there has been an unusually high death rate among his local critics in Mpumalanga. Magashules critics have also had some health issues.

Its less clear whom Achmat thought the third gangster was, but it could be Jessie Duarte, now Magashules deputy. She also has ties to the Guptas, and vigorously defends Zumas action at every opportunity. All three were elected by the leadership conference, and Ramaphosa cant fire them, so his hands are tied.

Zuma will therefore probably have another year to feather his nest and undermine the judiciary and the police before the scheduled general election in 2019. Even after that it is questionable how much headway Ramaphosa can make in cleaning up the party.

The great irony here is that Ramaphosa is richer than all of the thieves put together. If he could just have given them all the money they stole (an estimated US$40 million in Zumas case, but much less for most of them), Ramaphosa would still be rich at the end of it and a lot of these crooks would have done the jobs they were elected for.

Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
Michigan has been hit particularly hard amid a series of ongoing outbreaks of hepatitis A which have affected several other states including Utah, Arizona, Kentucky, and California. California has experienced over 672 cases, with at least 430 requiring hospitalization and 21 resulting in death.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has stated that the outbreak in Michigan is unrelated to the one in California but that both outbreaks have been similar in terms of affected population. That is, primarily the homeless and those reporting drug use have been affected.

From August of 2016 to December 23 of this year, approximately 630 cases of hepatitis A were reported throughout the state of Michigan, concentrated in the southeastern portion of the state which includes the Detroit metropolitan area. More than 500 of these cases occurred in 2017 alone, giving Michigan the highest per capita rate of hepatitis A in the US. Of those 630 cases, 517 have required hospitalization and 20 have resulted in death.

The death rate of those affected is approximately 3.2 percent and the hospitalization rate is approximately 82 percent. These rates are far beyond what has occurred in past outbreaks of hepatitis A. Between 2011 and 2016 there were four deaths determined to be caused by hepatitis A in the state, three in 2013 and one in 2016.

In a presentation to county commissioners, Midland County Health Director Mike Krecek stated that infected individuals do not typically die from hepatitis A.

People are dying from this and that is not normally the case with [hepatitis A], Krecek said. Usually that number is zero and we see a hospitalization rate of around 4 percent. This is a much stronger strain than we are accustomed to.

Health officials have not yet been able to determine why the current strain of the virus is particularly virulent, nor have they been able to identify the source of the outbreakeither in Michigan or elsewhere nationwide.

The incubation period of at least 15 days makes it very hard to trace things back, Krecek noted. If you suspect food, you have to think about what you ate 15 days ago, 16 days, 18 days. Its very challenging.

Those considered high risk for hepatitis A include the homeless or those in transient living, those with a substance abuse history, users of injectable or non-injectable drugs, those in close contact with someone who has the virus, individuals with multiple sex partners and men having sex with men. People who have died from the disease tend to be older with a median age of 58 years old.

But more and more individuals not fitting in the high-risk categories are becoming infected with the hepatitis A virus. Livingston County Medical Director Dr. Don Lawrenchuk stated that many of those infected have just been exposed to the viruswhether through person to person contact or contaminated food or water.

As a result of the outbreak a number of counties have expanded clinics to increase the number of individuals receiving vaccinations. Over 1,800 people were vaccinated in the week between December 12 and 19 in Monroe County just south of the Detroit metro area.

A majority of Americans under the age of 20 have received the vaccine, which is highly effective and provides lifetime immunity, as a part of routine childhood immunizations. Health officials have expressed the greatest concern over those over the age of 20, as most likely have not gotten the vaccine and are thus at risk of getting the disease now as a result of the outbreak.

However, the effort to vaccinate the most at-risk populations has been hindered by a nationwide shortage of the hepatitis A vaccine. Detroit Health Department Director Dr. Joneigh Khaldun reported that the department has had to turn to purchasing vaccines from private vendors. This has only somewhat alleviated the problem as there is a limit to how many doses can be purchased. [W]eve literally been everyday purchasing 400 [doses], our max, Khaldun told a conference call of health professional last week, according to Michigan Radio.

High-risk populations have been targeted for vaccination as well as Detroit city workers who routinely cross paths with the high-risk, or have the potential to contaminate water supplies or otherwise spread the disease. The vaccination effort has been expanded now to include the vaccination of food service workers.

In Detroit, city officials have denied that the high death rate has been a result of the hepatitis A outbreak. Khaldun has claimed that of the 8 deaths in Detroit, it cannot be stated that all 8 individuals died from hepatitis A. However, all 8 individuals were infected with the recent strain of hepatitis A, as well as the 12 other reported deaths throughout the state.

Khaldun also stated that mass sanitation efforts, like the sanitization of sidewalks in San Diego, are not worth conducting in Southeast Michigan because the high-risk population is more dispersed. In addition, Khaldun denied any connection between the mass water shutoffs that the city of Detroit has conducted over the last few years, and the spread of the disease.

Earlier this year in July, however, a panel of experts gathered at the Wayne State University (WSU) Law School in Detroit to call for a declaration of a public health emergency in the city. This was done after a study conducted by Henry Ford Hospital researchers examined samples from hospital patients with skin and soft tissue infections and water-borne bacterial infections.

The study, which was performed by three Henry Ford researchers using block-level address data, analyzed 37,441 cases of water-borne illness in Detroit and compared those cases with Detroit addresses whose water was shut off during the same time period.

It was found that patients diagnosed with skin and soft tissue diseases were 1.48 times more likely to live on a block that experienced water shutoffs. Despite denials about the conclusiveness of the study several doctors, educators, civil rights advocates and a city resident called for the declaration of a public health emergency.

Water-related diseases are now occurring in Detroit as the result of water shutoffs, stated Dr. Wendy Johnson, clinical assistant professor at the University of Washington, at the conference at WSU. Access to clean and safe water is a basic human right that is essential from a public health standpoint to prevent infectious diseases. We have run out of time and solutions must be immediate.

Johnson went on to explain that people without access to water tend to wash their hands less frequently and are, consequently, at higher risk of contagious diseases and water-borne illness, such as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Those cut off from clean drinking water suffer more from dehydration, which puts diabetics and heart disease patients at higher risk of serious illness, she said.
Yesterday, automaker PSA Peugeot-Citroen announced that it is preparing deregulated mass sackings, in the first use of French President Emmanuel Macrons labor law decrees in a major industrial firm. Talks with the trade unions, whose approval for the mass sackings is required according to the Macron decrees, are to begin on January 9.

The move by Europes second-largest automaker is part of a relentless international assault on workers jobs, working conditions and social rights. After the 2008 Wall Street crash and global crisis, as governments worldwide poured trillions of dollars into the coffers of the same banks whose speculation had caused the crisis, the French state paid billions of euros to bail out PSA and Renault. In return, the auto giants are sacking workers to funnel billions of euros more in wealth created by the working class into the pockets of the superrich.

The policy spearheaded by Macron, who is now broadly viewed with contempt and distrust in France as the president of the rich, aims to throw the working class back decades. With PSA subsidiary Opel Vauxhall poised to cut 4,500 jobs in Germany alone, tens of thousands of PSA jobs across Europe are threatened. A decade after the Detroit auto bailout slashed the wages of newly-hired workers by half, the goal is to impose speed-up, increase flexibility of working times, and transition to a workforce largely made up of temporary workers, who in France are paid little over 9 per hour.

Internationally, the financial aristocracy is preparing a historic attack on the working class for 2018. Siemens is cutting 15,000 jobs in order to reap billions in profits, while GE has planned 12,000 job cuts. In Europe, governments are preparing a round of new social attacks to finance multi-billion euro military spending increases and tax cuts to rival the one just passed in the United States, which funnels $1.4 trillion largely to the wealthy, while devastating key US health care and social programs.

This onslaught will provoke explosive opposition of revolutionary dimensions among workers internationally, which will raise critical questions of perspective and strategy. A struggle cannot be waged based on a search for a nationally-based compromise with the capitalist class: none is on offer. It can only be victorious if it is waged as an international struggle against capitalism, armed with a revolutionary and socialist perspective, and opposed to the union bureaucracies and petty-bourgeois political parties which are aligned with the bourgeois state machine.

This emerges particularly clearly in the experience of the workers in France. Macron and his predecessor, Socialist Party (PS) President Francois Hollande, trampled public opinion to impose the diktat of the banks. Fully 70 percent of the French population opposed the PS labor law. Yet the PS repressed mass protests against it, invoking the state of emergency to send tens of thousands of police to assault student protests and crush strikes, while the union bureaucracy carried out a cowardly climb-down in the face of police repression.

Macrons policies lack any pretense of democratic legitimacy. Elected by default in May, amid broad disaffection with the contest between Macron, a reactionary banker, and neo-fascist Marine Le Pen, his Republic on the March (LRM) party won a legislative majority in June elections in which less than half of voters chose to participate. Yet LRM acted as if it had a broad mandate for its policies of mass sackings and the evisceration of social rights established by generations of workers struggles during the 20th century.

In addition to writing the key provisions of the state of emergency into the anti-terror law and pre-ordering a four-year supply of anti-riot weaponry, Macron imposed as decrees the most unpopular measures the PS had temporarily removed from the labor law in order to defuse protests. Macrons decrees include the provision for unregulated mass sackings PSA is now using. It allows firms to sack workers even if they are highly profitable, and to deny sacked workers training benefits or re-hiring privileges, even if the firms financial situation improves.

There should be no illusions in the union bureaucracies and their allies in the petty-bourgeois pseudo-left parties: they will organize no effective opposition to Macron. They already agreed in July 2012 to a massive concessions deal at the Sevelnord PSA plant in northern France, now hailed in the press for establishing the PSAs downsized workplace of the future. Jean-Pierre Mercier, a member of the Workers Struggle (LO) party and union bureaucrat who oversaw the 2013 closure of the PSA plant at Aulnay, now leads the Stalinist General Confederation of Labors (CGT) PSA work.

The Macron decrees make official the trade unions evolution into organs of the capitalist state, that have lost their working class base and are largely financially subsidized and controlled by the employers. They help plan and provide legal sanction to mass layoffs, referendums on whether to accept pay cuts to keep plants open, and other attacks against their own members.

Strikes and protests by auto workers in Serbia and Romania, Siemens workers in Germany, and beyond are initial signs of a political counter-offensive of the working class that will bring it into headlong conflict with the ruling class and its various political agencies. Fifty years after the May-June 1968 general strike launched a wave of revolutionary struggles across Europe, the growth of workers struggles will have a decisive impact on the situation in every country. It raises sharply the necessity of building independent organizations of the working class and its revolutionary vanguard.

Workers face the task of building their own organizations and committees in workplaces and neighborhoodsindependent of and opposed to the unions and petty bourgeois partiesto discuss and organize opposition to the attacks that will emerge from Macrons illegitimate decrees. Their activity must be connected to clear anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and socialist demands addressing the needs of the masses. After the ruling elites in 2008 pumped trillions of dollars virtually overnight into the banks, the claim that there is no money for these needs is absurd and must be rejected.

These organizations must fight to defend workers social rights on a European and international scale. In a world of globally-coordinated production, auto workers cannot live decent lives in Western Europe if they earn 380 monthly in Serbia, or 140 in Tunisia. This underlines the bankruptcy of nationally-oriented policies of the unions and parties like LO, and the urgent necessity of a new political leadership in the working class: sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country, fighting war, austerity and dictatorship.

The ICFI will fight to promote the growth of independent workers organizations and to link them to an international, socialist and anti-war movement to take state power and reorganize economic life on the basis of social need, and to replace the bankrupt European Union with the United Socialist States of Europe.
Film, television and theatre production workers in Sydney and Melbourne have denounced the unsubstantiated accusations levelled against Australian actor Geoffrey Rush. Those who spoke with the World Socialist Web Site also raised their concerns about the #MeToo campaign and its reactionary and anti-democratic character.

Rush is currently suing Rupert Murdochs Daily Telegraph, a Sydney tabloid, and its celebrity gossip columnist Jonathon Moran, for defamation. The newspaper recently reported unspecified allegations from an unnamed female cast member, who was said to have claimed that Rush displayed inappropriate behaviour during the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) production of King Lear in 201516. An unnamed STC official reportedly told the Telegraph about the allegations but failed to provide Rush or the public with any details about the actors alleged misbehaviour and insisted that the individual making the accusations remain anonymous.

Rush, who was recently nominated for a Golden Globe award for portraying Albert Einstein in the telemovie Genius, was forced to step aside as founding president of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, following demands by senior management of Foxtel and Australias Seven network.

Rebecca, a former actor for the Queensland Theatre Company and Arena Theatre, said the campaign against Rush and the overthrowing of presumption of innocence was horrifying.

None of the allegations against him have been proven. In fact, you have anonymous, unproven allegations being used to destroy a career. I think the term witch-hunt is entirely appropriateits not hyperbolic at all. Its irrelevant what you think of Rush. Its a question of principle. Where is due process? Were talking about basic legal concepts developed in the Enlightenment being under attack.

Sexual harassment is obviously a serious issue but what about the fact that tens of thousands of people die every day under capitalism because they cant get clean drinking water? More importantly, what about the looming danger of a third world war?

People need to ask why this is happening now and what this #MeToo campaign is really about. Theres nothing progressive about it and its methods represent an attack on democratic rights and long established legal rights. It is an attempt to dull the class issues. How can a so-called progressive cause be advanced by using reactionary methods?

Steve, who has worked in television and theatre staging for the past 30 years, said he was deeply concerned about how Rush was being targeted. Its a classic witch-hunt and bullying situation, he said, and reminds me of what happened in Hollywood during the McCarthyite anti-communist years.

Its very easy for the media to get this sort of thing going and people tend not to think about the allegations rationally once the ball gets rolling. Murdochs tabloids use all sorts of emotive techniques and work for a new knee-jerk reaction on everything they cover.

Its not just a matter of defending Geoffrey Rush, and others caught up by these sexual allegations, but of defending presumption of innocence, due process and other basic legal principles.

I know how difficult it is to get work in film, television and theatre if youre an actor. Its very difficult to make a living and only a handful do. Geoffrey Rush would be one of the few actors to have been able to do so in this country, but the sort of allegations being thrown around can destroy his career in an instant.

The pressure is now on actors to keep quiet or join the witch-hunt, because if they denounce it theyll be black-balled and added to the list. This is classic bullying and reminds us what Bush did as part of the so-called war on terror. Youre either with us or youre with the terrorists, Bush said.

Im glad Rush is suing the Murdoch press and I hope he wins, but he is probably the only actor in Australia that could do this. Its a rarity for people in our industry to take on the Daily Telegraph.

George, who has worked in film and television for more than 25 years, is currently working at the government-financed Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

I dont know Geoffrey Rush, but I defend unreservedly his right to the presumption of innocence, he said. If someone wishes to accuse him, let them do so in court, where he can defend himself and subject their allegations to rigorous examination. Until that happens, he should be treated as an innocent man.

Ive dealt with some of the Hollywood studios, and know how ruthless they are. The decision to remove all trace of Kevin Spacey from All the Money in the World, and similar summary justice being meted out, has nothing to do with concern about womens rights. Its entirely about protecting investments.

Ive no doubt that the treatment of Rush and other public figures will be used to set a precedent more broadly, where unsubstantiated allegationswhether of sexual misconduct or otherwisewill be used to silence or destroy those with left-wing views.

The #MeToo campaign and its zero tolerance for abusers, which treats any allegation as fact, is reactionary and very disturbing. It seeks to promote a gendered view of the world, which divides women from men and attempts to deny that the fundamental division in society is class.

George said although the Murdoch press initiated a trial by media witch-hunt against Rush, the government-funded ABC played a key part.

The ABC has played the leading role in a number of reactionary media campaigns. Theres the anti-Chinese propaganda campaign this year, which has led directly to the introduction of new anti-democratic laws, ostensibly to prevent foreign interference, and the ABCs involvement in the Howard governments Northern Territory Intervention in 2007.

The ABC aired sensational allegations of rampant sexual abuse of children in remote Aboriginal communities, which were used to support an emergency militarised response and anti-democratic laws, including the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act.

The real agenda of that intervention was not to save children, but to slash welfare, break up remote communities and take control of their land. There are clear parallels with the sort of methods and pseudo-moralism used in the current sexual impropriety witch-hunt.
The US-backed Saudi monarchy and its allied Gulf oil sheikdoms have dramatically escalated their bombing campaign against Yemen, the poorest nation in the Middle East, killing scores of civilians within the last few days.

In the bloodiest of the airstrikes, Saudi warplanes targeted a crowded marketplace in Yemens southwestern Taiz province on Tuesday, killing 54 civilians.

While coverage of the bloodbath by the US and Western media has been scarce, Yemens Al Masirah television network published photos on its website showing the markets bombed-out shops and the dismembered remains of slaughtered civilians. It reported that body parts had been thrown hundreds of yards from the blast sites.

Among the dead were at least eight children. Another 32 people were wounded in the bombing, including six children.

On the same day, warplanes attacked a farm in the al-Tuhayta district of Yemens western Hodeida province killing an entire family of 14, including women and children.

Yemeni sources reported that Saudi and allied warplanes carried out more than 45 airstrikes on Wednesday targeting several Yemeni cities and killing at least another six civilians, including a family of five whose house was targeted in the port city of Hodeida.

According to the Al Masirah television network the number of Yemenis killed and wounded in Saudi airstrikes since the beginning of December had risen to 600 before the latest round of casualties beginning on Tuesday.

This bloody new phase in the more than 1,000-day-old war by the wealthy and reactionary Arab monarchies against impoverished Yemen is driven by the House of Sauds frustration over its inability to shift the military stalemate and made possible by the unrestrained support from Riyadhs Western allies, principally the US and Britain.

The stepped up bombing campaign has come partly in response to the failure of a Saudi-backed coup by the former Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh against his erstwhile allies, the Houthi rebel movement. The abortive effort ended in Salehs death and the routing of his supporters earlier this month.

Riyadh has also been shaken by the firing of missiles from Yemen targeting both the international airport and the House of Sauds royal palace. Both missiles were brought down without causing any casualties.

Washington has long relied upon the Saudi monarchy as a pillar of reaction in the Arab world, arming it to the teeth and in the process reaping vast profits for US arms corporations.

During his trip to Saudi Arabia in May, US President Donald Trump signed a $110 billion arms deal with the Saudi regime. While the agreement represented the single largest arms deal in US history, it represented a continuity with the policy pursued by the Democratic administration of Barack Obama, which had struck a $29 billion agreement to sell F-15s the Saudisrepresenting the previous largest single US arms dealand had a total of $100 billion worth of weaponry slated for sale to the kingdom.

In addition to providing the warplanes, bombs and missiles being used to slaughter Yemeni civilians, Washington is a direct accomplice and participant in the assault on Yemen, a flagrant war crime that has produced the greatest humanitarian catastrophe on the face of the planet. US Air Force planes are flying refueling missions that keep Saudi fighter bombers in the air, while US intelligence officers are assisting in the targeting of airstrikes and US warships are backing a Saudi sea blockade that is part of a barbaric siege of the country aimed at starving its population into submission.

While an estimated 13,600 civilians have lost their lives to the US-backed Saudi military campaign launched in March of 2015, that death toll has been massively eclipsed by the number of lives lost to hunger and disease resulting from the destruction of basic water and sanitary infrastructure, along with factories, farms, medical facilities and other vital resources, and the blockading of food, medicine and humanitarian supplies.

Almost three years into the war, 21.2 million people, 82 percent of the population, are in need of humanitarian assistance, lacking access to food, fuel and clean water,. An estimated 8 million people are on the brink of starvation, while soaring food prices have placed essential commodities out of reach for all but the wealthiest layers of Yemeni society.

The International Committee of the Red Cross announced last week that the number of cholera cases had topped 1 million, the worst epidemic in modern history, while the country has also been hit by an outbreak of diphtheria, a disease that has been almost entirely eradicated in the rest of the world.

The apocalyptic scale of the human suffering in Yemen has moved some in the West to make timid criticisms of the Saudi regime. Thus, French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly called Saudi King Salman on December 24 to advocate a complete lifting of the blockade of Yemen. Macron made no move, however, to amend the 455 million euro arms deal struck with Riyadh by his predecessor, Francois Hollande, providing weapons being used to murder Yemeni civilians.

Similarly, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator Jamie McGoldrick pointed to the latest mass casualties resulting from Saudi bombings to condemn the complete disregard for human life that all parties, including the Saudi-led coalition, continue to show in this absurd war.

The reality is that the overwhelming majority of deaths have been caused by illegal Saudi aggression. The war, from the standpoint of both Riyadh and Washington, moreover, is not absurd, but rather part of a broader regional strategy being pursued by US imperialism to prepare for a military confrontation with Iran, which has emerged as an obstacle to the drive to assert American hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East.

Finally, the New York Times published an editorial Thursday saturated with hypocrisy and deceit. Titled The Yemen Crucible, it accuses the Trump administration of applying a double standard to the catastrophe in Yemen by denouncing alleged Iranian arms support for the Houthi rebels, while having nothing bad to say about the Saudi bombing campaign.

The Times, a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party establishment, raises the possibility that Iran could be in violation of a UN Security Council resolution barring it from the export of missiles and other weapons, and guilty of escalating a crisis that could lead to war with Saudi Arabia.

Referring to the recent performance of the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who appeared at a US military hangar in Washington with what was claimed to be debris from an Iranian-supplied missile fire by the Houthi rebels at Riyadh, the newspaper acknowledged that the presentation recalled the weapons of mass destruction speech delivered by then US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN Security Council in preparation for the US invasion of Iraq.

Of course the Times supported that war of aggression in 2003 and became one of the main propagandists of the weapons of mass destruction lie used to justify it.

The editorial utters not a word of criticism of US arms sales to the Saudi regimemuch less about the Obama administrations initiation of Washingtons support for the war on Yemenand concludes with claims of seeing signs that the Trump administration is exerting constructive influence on the Saudis.

These lies and omissions make clear that if and when Washington embarks on a potentially world catastrophic war against Iran, the newspaper of record will once again provide its services as a propaganda organ for American militarism.
Political life in Zimbabwe, since Novembers military coup deposed President Robert Mugabe, has been dominated by the efforts of the Zanu-PF government to woo the major powers and international investors.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has done so while consolidating his grip on power, using the same generals that installed him in office.

Mnangagwas cabinet is led by army personnel, who made themselves millionaires under Mugabe. It includes coup leader Constantino Chiwenga as one of his deputies, alongside Kembo Mohadi, state security minister under Mugabe. General Sibusiso Moyo, who announced Mugabes detention on state television, is Foreign Minister and Chief Air Marshal Perence Shiri is Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Rural Resettlement. War Veterans leader Chris Mutsvangwa, who led protests to force Mugabe out, is Information Minister.

To underscore Mnangagwas commitment to free market economic reform, Finance Minister Patrick Antony Chinamasas first budget was framed as an appeal for investment, matched with pledges to curtail government spending.

Chinamasas new economic order is centred on a revision of the indigenisation law introduced by Mugabe, which formally required 51/49 percent black Zimbabwean ownership of companies worth more than $500,000. From April 2018, indigenisation will now be restricted to the diamond and platinum extractive industries.

Corporate income tax exemption for five years was announced for the energy sector, to be followed by a permanent rate of just 15 percent. This was accompanied by a tax amnesty on debts acquired prior to December 1, building on an existing amnesty window for the repatriation of public funds taken out of the country through illegal means.

More than 3,000 jobs in the youth service will be eliminated as the centrepiece of measures aimed at cutting public sector employment, accounting for 90 percent of the budgetUS$5.1 billion in 2018.

The measures announced point to the extent of corruption within the regime. Headlined is a plan to enforce retirement at 65 from January. Like the attack on youth services, this is a move that will in fact benefit the new military-based faction by eliminating Mugabe loyalists. Bribes will be paid to ensure acquiescence. Staff retiring will be assisted with access to capital, to facilitate their meaningful contribution towards economic development, including taking advantage of allocated land

Other measures include reducing the wage bill by continuing and enforcing the existing freeze on recruitment.

In a clampdown on perks, there will be cuts to free government cars (with a limit of one per person!), fuel benefit, business class travel, the excessive size of overseas delegations, bloated foreign service missions and to local staff bills averaging US$355,000 per mission per month!

(It should be noted that the salary bill for various Constitutional Commissions, which are supposed to provide for improved governance, is around US$11.6 million, inclusive of US$3.8 million for Commissioners, while the cars requested by these VIPs cost US$10 million.)

The bulk of these cuts will fall on opposition faction representatives or those lower down the bureaucratic pecking order. But, as always, the real target of austerity will be the working class. The cap on recruitment, for example, has left 3,500 graduate nurses unemployed. The jobs that will be lost will continue to be those of doctors, nurses, teachers and other essential professions.

Mnangagwa spoke December 20 to a joint sitting of the countrys two houses of parliament, pledging, We are determined to remove any policy inconsistencies of the past to make Zimbabwe an attractive destination for capital. His government would soon unveil a robust engagement and re-engagement programme with the international community in our continued bid to rejoin the community of nations.

The governments pledges were, like the coup that brought it to power, broadly welcomed in the imperialist capitals. Interviewed by Al Jazeera, Piers Pigou, senior consultant for southern Africa for the International Crisis Group (ICG), was asked whether the militarys role in Zimbabwes post-Mugabe transition would be a help or hindrance to Mnangagwas inaugural promises of a new democratic era?

Pigou replied that the military can bring command management and discipline into a corrupt and venal political and economic environment, even though there were unresolved allegations about the involvement of senior military and other security sector figures in corruption, self-enrichment and other violations.

The complaints by the pro-Mugabe G40 faction, designed to delegitimise the new orderarguing it is the product of a coup, rightly or wronglyare struggling to gain traction. The African Union (AU) and South African Development Community (SADC) have accepted the new order, as have the international community.

This leaves the alliance of seven opposition parties, led by the Movement for Democratic Change of Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC-T) insisting that the pro-business reforms and austerity measures do not go far enough. They are appealing for support from the United States and other imperialist powers to ensure they have a role in government alongside ZANU-PF, to push Mnangagwas agenda further to the right.

Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti of the Peoples Democratic Party said that the governments 4.5 percent growth prediction was wildly optimistic and called for more severe cuts to government expenditure. His alternative to the modicum of economic reform by the government is a no deficit budget, and job cuts that will make the 3,700 youth officers retrenched seem just but a drop in an ocean considering the fact that the government employs around 550,000 workers.

He called for the size of the civil service to be cut by half in a phased period of three years. The attracting of Foreign Direct Investment also required the total repealing of the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act, including in the extraction industries.

The opposition pitch has been made directly to Washington. In mid-December, MDC Alliance presidential candidate Tsvangirai dispatched a three-member international delegation made up of MDC-T vice-president Nelson Chamisa, MDC president Welshman Ncube and Biti, to Europe and to visit President Donald Trumps offices.

In a Senate Debate December 12, Biti urged the US to maintain sanctions and other punitive measures on ZANU PF until after the 2018 general elections have been proved free and fair. Then the international community could assist us in engaging with the World Bank, the IMF and the Paris Club of lenders.

This conflict between rival bourgeois factions is being played out at the expense of the working class, in a country where 70 percent of the population live on less than $5 per day, and many earn substantially less.

Tsvangirai began his career as leader of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), which is pro-MDC. Current ZCTU president, Peter Mutasa, warned in the Financial Gazette that only five percent of workers are in the formal economy. (The overwhelming majority work in the informal economy and are either underemployed, self-employed or unemployed and reliant on subsistence farming.)

Some 120,000 people are working without pay and the few that are earning salaries are getting a fraction of their salaries, in most cases a third. Those who are earning salaries are earning a fraction of the poverty datum line; maybe a third, he said.

The ZCTU was staunchly against any International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank imposed reforms, he added. But his only concrete demand was for a role in governmental structures for the trade unions in imposing the economic measures required. He urged everyone to sit down as Zimbabweans and agree on a planned economic development, which meant empowering trade unions who play a major redistributive role of getting the much-needed resources even for the government from successful businesses
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called Syrias president Bashar Assad a terrorist stressing that it is impossible to reach a peace deal with him.

Al-Assad is definitely a terrorist who has carried out state terrorism, Erdogan said at a televised news conference with his Tunisian counterpart Beji Caid Essebsi in Tunisias capital Tunis, on Wednesday.

Erdogans comments were his sharpest against the Syrian president in months, and came as Turkey, Russia and Iran are trying to advance peace efforts.

Syrias peace efforts remain at an impasse with the opposition insisting that Assad have no role during a political transition and the government refusing to even consider such a demand.

Turkey backs the opposition, while Russia and Iran are close allies of Assad. The two countries support has tipped the nearly seven-year war in Assads favor.

Though Turkey has long demanded Assads removal, it is now more focused in Syria on the threat from Islamist militants and Kurdish fighters it considers allies of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who, it says, have formed a terror corridor on its southern border.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry responded to the accusations made by the Turkish President stating:Erdogan once again tries to mislead public opinion in Turkey, and to absolve himself of the crimes he committed against the Syrian people.
An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition killed 68 Yemenis in Taiz bringing the death toll to 109 in past 10 days alone leading the UN to strongly denounce the heavy civilian casualties.

The increasing civilian Yemeni victims of the indiscriminate shelling by Saudi and allied fighter jets was described by the UN as absurd and futile war.

Eight children were among the 54 people killed in the morning strike on the al-Hayma market, in the Taiz governorate, it said. Hours later, an airstrike on the port city of Hodeida killed 14 people, all members of the same family.

The UN accused the coalition of showing complete disregard for human life in an unusually direct criticism of the war in which the Saudi-led coalition, backed by the United States, Britain and others, is fighting Iran-allied Houthi rebels.

Jamie McGoldrick, the UNs humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said he was deeply disturbed by the escalated and indiscriminate attacks being carried out by the Saudi-led coalition, which includes the United Arab Emirates and other countries.

He said: These incidents prove the complete disregard for human life that all parties, including the Saudi-led coalition, continue to show in this absurd war that has only resulted in the destruction of the country and the incommensurate suffering of its people, who are being punished as part of a futile military campaign by both sides.

The fighting and a blockade by the coalition has also left 20.7 million people in need of humanitarian aid, created the worlds largest food security emergency, and led to a cholera outbreak that is thought to have killed 2,227 people since April.
As tradition dictates, most people will spend the waning seconds of 2017 kissing a loved one or partying with friends. Yet before those momentous moments take place, theres no better way to get into the celebratory calendar-flipping mood than to watch a film set on or around Dec. 31. Of course, most movies of that ilk are of a decidedly romantic nature. (See: New Years Eve. Or rather, dont.) But for those seeking a respite from lovey-dovey sagas, never fear  as proven by our guide to the 10 best off-the-beaten-path New Years Eve movies, theres something for everyone in advance of the clock striking midnight. (Note: Some video clips are NSFW.)

The Poseidon Adventure (1972 or 2006)

Whether its the 1972 original (starring Gene Hackman) or the lesser 2006 remake (headlined by Kurt Russell), this oceanic disaster story concerns a luxury liner thats catastrophically damaged by a rogue wave on New Years Eve  thereby compelling its passengers to fight to escape the sinking ship.

Oceans 11 (1960)

Sure, George Clooney and his all-star cohorts successfully robbed three Las Vegas casinos in 2001s Steven Soderbergh-helmed remake. But the Rat Pack  Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Peter Lawford  pulled off a similar series of heists in the 1960 original on New Years Eve. And with Angie Dickinson involved as well.

Money Train (1995)

Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson were such a popular pair in White Men Cant Jump that they reunited for this 1995 action-comedy, in which they play New York City transit cops who get an inspired idea  namely, to rob the money train (which transports subway fares) on New Years Eve, when security will be lightest and profits will be greatest.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

As with Money Train, this 1989 sequel focuses on underground Big Apple action, with the Ghostbusters using supernatural subway track slime to bring the Statue of Liberty to animated life  all in an effort to battle resurrected villain Vigo the Carpathian.

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New Years Evil (1980)

There isnt a major holiday the horror genre hasnt exploited for gory scares, and thats once again borne out by this 1980 slasher film, about a DJ (Roz Kelly) who receives a New Years Eve call from a psycho promising to kill one naughty girl in each time zone before the night is over.

After the Thin Man (1936)

The second pairing of William Powell and Myrna Loy as Daschiell Hammetts Nick and Nora Charles (there would be six in total), this 1936 sequel finds the detective duo returning home to San Francisco and falling into another murder-mystery investigation  this time, on New Years Eve, in a story that also features a young Jimmy Stewart.

Fruitvale Station (2013)

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, this drama  the directorial debut of Ryan Coogler, in his first team-up with his future Creed star Michael B. Jordan  recounts the real-life events that led to the police-related death of Oscar Grant in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 2009, at the Bay Area Rapid Transits Fruitvale station.

Boogie Nights (1997)

Paul Thomas Andersons 1997 porn-industry epic spans two decades  the 1970s and 1980s  and its dramatic dividing line between those very different eras is a New Years Eve party thrown at the house of XXX movie producer Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), where William H. Macys Little Bill meets a tragic end.

The Godfather Part II (1974)

Francis Ford Coppolas Oscar-winning sequel isnt confined to New Years Eve, but the holiday is the setting for arguably its most famous moment, when at a celebration in Cuba, mob kingpin Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) tells his brother Fredo (John Cazale), I know it was you.

Trading Places (1983)

Only one sequence in this classic 1983 comedy takes place on New Years Eve. That said, it involves Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Al Franken, and a gorilla  as well as a villain trapped in a gorilla suit. If that doesnt put you in a festive mood, nothing will.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
That whole slowing down iPhones with old batteries thing? It was all a misunderstanding, according to Apple in a letter released to customers on Thursday.

Weve been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process, the letter states. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize.

The worlds biggest tech company has been under fire recently, after commenters on Reddit and Twitter noticed Apple had been apparently throttling older iPhones. To critics, the covert slowdown reeked of Apple trying to force customers to upgrade to newer devices. Apple said last week it was due to a problem with its lithium-ion batteries degrading over time, which caused phones to unexpectedly shutdown during peak usage. On Thursday, the company expanded on the issue.

Also Read: Netflix Just Granted CEO Reed Hastings $28.7 Million in Stock

So it's true Apple intentionally slow down old iPhones. Proof: My iPhone 6 was bought 3years ago and recently got really slow. APP 'CPU DasherX' shows iPhone CPU is under clocked running at 600MHz. After a iPhone battery replacement. CPU speed resumed to factory setting 1400MHz. pic.twitter.com/pML3y0Jkp2  Sam_Si (@sam_siruomu) December 20, 2017

About a year ago in iOS 10.2.1, we delivered a software update that improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE. With the update, iOS dynamically manages the maximum performance of some system components when needed to prevent a shutdown, Apple said in its letter. While these changes may go unnoticed, in some cases users may experience longer launch times for apps and other reductions in performance.

The company said itll offer battery replacements for $29, rather than the usual $79 charge, for iPhone 6 users or later, starting next month. Apple also said itll be adding an iOS feature to gauge battery health in early 2018. That almost makes up for not being more transparent about the battery issue in the first place.

You can read the full letter here.

Related stories from TheWrap:

Apple CEO Tim Cook Gets 47 Percent Pay Bump

Big Tech Won't Slow Down: Apple Pushes To Become First $1 Trillion Company

Apple Engineer Fired After Daughter's iPhone X Video Goes Viral
Thousands of Iranians vented anger in protests in Irans second largest city, Mashhad, chanting slogans critical of the governments decision to rise food prices.

The protesters who denounced President Hassan Rouhani raised banners saying Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life for Iran in a rant against Irans spending on regional influence to the detriment of improving the living conditions of the locals in Iran.

Demonstrators also chanted leave Syria, think about us, criticizing Irans deployment of troops to support President Bashar al-Assad against the uprising that broke out in 2011.

Many Iranians believe their economic situation has not improved due to corruption and mismanagement.

Unemployment stood at 12.4 percent in this fiscal year, according to the Statistical Centre of Iran, up 1.4 percent from the previous year. About 3.2 million Iranians are jobless, out of a total population of 80 million.
Im smiling and hanging out with Nigel on Christmas Eve and we are about to embarrass ourselves, Ross said, laughing. We are going to sing.

What seemed like a festive evening turned to horror the following day, when police found the bodies of Nigel and his 10-month-old sister, Anora, inside Ross upscale Phoenix apartment.

Their 38-year-old mother, Iris Ross, was discovered lying outside. All three had been fatally shot.

After a four-hour standoff, police arrested Anthony, a 45-year-old vegan chef, motivational speaker and entrepreneur who promoted a plant-based lifestyle using his middle name and claimed to have lost 300 lbs. after cutting out meat and dairy.

On Tuesday, he was booked on suspicion of murdering his children and his ex-wife as well as 19 counts of aggravated assault on an officer and one count of discharging a firearm within city limits.

He is being held without bail at the Maricopa County Jail. He has not yet entered a plea or retained an attorney who could comment on his behalf. What prompted him to allegedly kill his family remains unclear.

Iris sister Mary Wogas said Anthony, who appeared in the 2016 documentary Eating You Alive, which also featured appearances from Samuel L. Jackson and James Cameron, had allegedly been acting erratically and threatening Iris, a director and health care administrator, after she filed for divorce in June.

The man was off his rocker, Wogas told local TV station KNXV. One minute he was yelling at her, calling her a whore, and the next minute wanting to tell her he loved her and wanted them to be a family unit. He would also claim that he was working with a voodoo priest in New Orleans to put a hex on her. Just very, very dark, very dark intentions.

On Christmas afternoon, Wogas said she received two disturbing text messages from Anthony.

I received a text yesterday about 2:52 p.m., she said. Two messages, first one saying, I just killed Iris and the kids. The second message was with a gun. I knew that man was very unstable. I knew he had a very, very dark side. I didnt know it was this dark.

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Iris friend and roommate Lushanya Echeverria told the Arizona Republic that, in recent weeks, Anthony had been harassing his ex-wife and arrived to pick up his children from their home with a handgun.

However, despite their issues, Echeverria said Iris believed everybody was honest and good, even her ex-husband. That ultimately, he would do right for the children and he would have a healthy parenting relationship with her so that the kids could grow up healthy.

 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.

Anthony Milan Ross

She Was An Angel Helping People: Victims Friend

Echeverria described Iris as bubbly, energetic and kind.

She was present, she tells PEOPLE. She listened and she was fun. She was hospitable and caring. My mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time  and without even meeting my mom, she went out and bought herbal remedies and said, Please mail them to your mom, they will help her. 

Echeverria says she met Iris a year ago at a Native American spirituality group.

She immediately felt like kin, she says. I felt like I already knew her. She was pregnant with Anora. It was just really easy to talk to her and she just seemed receptive and open and would be a good friend.

Echeverria says she later moved in with Iris and her two children.

She was an angel helping people heal from the inside and out, she says. You dont meet people like that every day.

Police were called to Anthonys apartment at 3:45 p.m. on Monday after reports of shots fired. Once there, officers found Iris fatally shot lying on the front patio.

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Witnesses told officers that they saw Anthony shoot his ex-wife as she attempted to run away from him, according to allegations in a probable cause statement obtained by PEOPLE. After that, he returned to his apartment and they heard two to three more shots.

A short time later, Anthony went back outside and two witnesses saw him rifling through his ex-wifes pants pockets. When they asked Anthony if Iris was okay, he allegedly pointed a gun at them and then went back inside.

A police tactical squad began negotiating with Anthony but he allegedly refused to cooperate with authorities, according to the statement.

After the four-hour standoff, police forced entry into his house because there was a chance the children may still have been alive and they didnt want to wait any longer, Phoenix police Sgt. Alan Pfohl tells PEOPLE.

There was a small exchange of gunfire and one of the officers sustained a minor injury from shrapnel, he says.

After a brief gunfight, Anthony was taken into custody.

Police found the bodies of his children in different rooms inside the house.
It was a snowy Christmas for the Affleck and Garner gang.

A source says Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, both 45, spent Christmas in Montana with their kids, Violet, 12, Seraphina, 8, and Samuel, 5. As PEOPLE previously reported, the exes reunited for the holiday, and Affleck also spent Thanksgiving with Garner and the kids earlier this year.

They had a great Christmas together in Montana. Its a lot of snow and everyone had fun, the source says. Jen loves Montana. Its very quiet and she enjoys the privacy.

The source says Garner and Affleck flew separately to Montana, where they have property at an exclusive private ski resort, and were joined by some of Garners family. Garner, whos next onscreen in the movie drama Love, Simon, was still in Montana yesterday, while Affleck flew back to L.A. after Christmas.

The Justice League actor was spotted out with girlfriend Lindsay Shookus, 37, the day after Christmas in Malibu and the two were also seen together at a studio the next day. The two are now sharing a New York City apartment when the actor is in town.

Meanwhile, Affleck is continuing treatment for alcohol addiction in L.A. He is continuing aftercare. It is part of his daily regimen, another source previously told PEOPLE.

Affleck and Garner separated in 2015 and filed for divorce this April.
A Maine teenager who has been in custody for more than a year will be tried as an adult in the bloody slayings of his parents and the familys dog on Halloween 2016, PEOPLE confirms.

Andrew Balcer, 19, is charged with two counts of intentional or knowing murder and one of aggravated cruelty to animals in the homicide of parents Antonio and Alice Balcer, both 47, and their Chihuahua at their Winthrop home in the early morning hours of Oct. 31, 2016.

Andrew was indicted on Friday by a grand jury in Kennebec County, Maine.

Court documents obtained by PEOPLE detail a grisly sequence of events: how the academically gifted and socially isolated teen, who had no prior criminal or disciplinary issues, savagely stabbed his mom and dad in their home and then callously described what hed done to authorities.

Defense attorney Walter McKee says a conflict between Andrews gender identity and his parents may have triggered the early morning killings. (Robert Ellis, the states assistant attorney general, declined to comment to PEOPLE on a possible motive.)

He [Andrew] disclosed to the state forensic service psychologist that his identity was a challenge and that given his parents  he fully expected and knew they would never accept him identifying as female, McKee says. Just living with them for his entire life, they had a certain attitude and way that became very clear to him that this would simply not be accepted without question.

Although 17 years old at the time of the killings, Maine District Court Judge Eric J. Walker in November granted the states petition to have Andrew tried as an adult, noting then his concerns about the possibility Andrew could be violent again and would likely need lengthy treatment, beyond what would be required under a juvenile sentence.

The teen intends to plead not guilty to his charges, McKee says.

The only possible motive for the murders appears to be Andrews perception that his parents were unwilling or unable to deal with his transgender issues, Walker wrote in his ruling, which was obtained by PEOPLE. We will never know if Antonio or Alice Balcer would have been accepting because they were ambushed and murdered by Andrew.

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McKee says that Andrew began to more openly identify as female while in juvenile custody, and court documents show the teen went by Andrea while there.

However, McKee says, Andrew is again using male pronouns after being moved to an adult facility out of a concern over how a transgender identity might be received by other inmates. (Transgender people are more likely to be abused while in custody, experts say.)

The juvenile facility allowed him to identify as female and made accommodations for him to identify as a female. He has decided to set that aside, as challenging as that may be, in recognition that transgender individuals may have greater difficulties in adult correctional facilities, McKee says. I say he because as of today  if you asked me three months ago, [Andrew] was identifying as female and receiving all the support needed to be transgender, but that is not what he is doing now.

 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.

From left: Antonio and Alice Balcer

Theres No Helping Them

Winthrop police were called to the Balcers home around 1:30 a.m. on that October morning in 2016 by Andrew himself, according to Judge Walkers Nov. 2 order on bind-over motion.

The ruling states that Andrew told a 911 dispatcher he had stabbed his parents about 30 minutes earlier and, when asked by the dispatcher if he was sure they were dead, he responded: Yeah, theres no helping them.

The teen said he snapped and had stabbed his mother in the back in his bedroom and that when his father awoke to his wifes screams, he stabbed the f out of him, the documents state.

Andrew then laughed, according to the documents, and he told the dispatcher he didnt even know anymore why he would kill his parents. Oh, I stabbed the dog too, he said, according to the documents. He was barking.

Autopsies showed Antonio had 13 major stab wounds while Alice had been stabbed seriously nine times. Some of the wounds on both of them were so severe they went through their chests and out the other side.

Andrew also told the dispatcher that his 25-year-old brother, who was in the home at the time, had run down the street after begging for his life and being spared.

When police arrived, Andrew  who was covered in his parents blood  surrendered without incident. Once in the back of the police cruiser, officers reported that he was singing an opera he had heard Pavarotti perform.

Police found Antonio, a retired member of the Coast Guard, dead on the kitchen floor. Alices body was found in a back bedroom. The familys Chihuahua was also dead in the home.

At the time of his arrest, Andrew was allegedly shaking but also smiling and chuckling and  he had a matter of fact demeanor, according to the ruling.

Andrew Showed Almost No Emotion

Andrew said everything was good and that around 9 p.m. he laid down in his bed and went online, the documents state. Around 1:30 a.m., he said, he went to the kitchen and got a large hunting knife  and at this point, he had decided to kill his parents.

Andrew couldnt remember what he was thinking but  he heard a tone going off in his head, as it had done in the past, the documents state.

He went to his parents bedroom and spoke with his mom, who brought him back to his bedroom and hugged him, at which point Andrew stabbed her repeatedly in the back and body as she fell, according to the documents. Her screams drew Antonio, who Andrew attacked as his father tried to flee toward the kitchen, unsuccessfully trying to fight off his son.

While Andrew said he felt contempt and annoyance at his dad during the stabbing, and that these feelings had been building for some time, he told police he didnt get any feeling of relief or satisfaction from the killings, the judges ruling shows.

He said he didnt know why he had murdered his parents, the court documents state. Though he felt guilt, it wasnt much, but he noted that he began to feel sick as the adrenaline wore off.

Andrew stated the dog was collateral damage and he hadnt planned to stab the dog initially, the ruling states.

Throughout this lengthy interview with police, Andrew showed almost no emotion and a totally flat affect aside from occasional laughter, the judge wrote. Andrew described the bloody slaughter of his parents and the family dog with the tone of a person going to the store to get groceries.

Mounting Pressure?

The ruling allowing Andrew to be prosecuted as an adult describes a lengthy series of apparent contradictions in his background, some of which seemed to foreshadow that while he had no outward issues, he was unsuccessfully grappling with mounting psychological stress and had an uneasy relationship with his parents.

According to the documents, Andrew said he had been struggling with his gender identity since he was about 5 years old, feeling as though he was a transgender woman. He first told his mother about his gender identity issues when he was 10 and she allegedly was not pleased. In subsequent conversations, he claimed, she was always vehemently opposed.

While he thought his father didnt know about his transgender identity, he worried about how Antonio would react and said his dad had expressed a lack of support for gay people. Antonio was often absent from Andrews life as the teen grew up, given Antonios military service, but he had retired from the Coast Guard three or four years earlier and was at the house full time, which had caused some tensions in the family, the judge wrote.

While the court documents are explicit in noting there was never any domestic violence in the home, Andrew said Antonio could fly off the hinges sometimes. The night before the killings, Andrew said he and his father argued after Antonio allegedly spoke derogatorily about transgender people.

Still, all [of Andrews] family members agree that they never saw any clues that Andrew was capable of any crimes of violence, the judges ruling states. He had excelled in school and enjoyed a good childhood but was very socially stunted.

Though he saw a psychiatrist as a teen, he was never diagnosed with any mental health condition.

Now estranged from his older brother, to whom he had grown closer in the years before the killings, other relatives have visited Andrew while he has been in custody, according to the court documents. He had no disciplinary issues while in the juvenile detention center and continued to thrive academically, though he reported previously attempting suicide and having repeated nightmares about his parents deaths.

As one doctor noted in evaluating him: At some early juncture in his life, it appeared clear that Andrew adopted a markedly restricted emotional style  It appears abundantly clear that Andrews efforts/abilities to cope with the thoughts and feeling he was experiencing were woefully inadequate.

McKee says those who know Andrew are stunned by his actions.

No one had any idea this was in the offing at all, McKee says. It was a complete surprise to his friends, teachers and anybody who ever dealt with him.
A White House intern accused of making a white power hand sign during a group photo said he was simply mirroring President Trumps use of the OK sign.

Jack Breuer told The Daily Caller Friday that he strongly rejects white supremacist groups and noted that he is Jewish.

In some of our intern pictures, I emulated the OK sign the President sometimes makes. That was foolish. I should have listened more closely to the Commander-in-Chief and given the thumbs up, Breuer said in his statement.

Also Read:Are Hitler-Trump Comparisons Fair? A Holocaust Survivor Tells His Son

Im proud of my Jewish heritage and strongly reject the hateful views associated with racist white power organizations. I would never make common cause with them, he added

Milo Yiannopoulos/Facebook

On Thursday, The Daily Mail reported that Breuer, a recent college graduate who interned at the White House this fall, flashed what looked like an OK hand gesture in a photo with the rest of the White House interns and the president himself.

The use of the OK symbol was supposedly adopted by far-right groups in recent months because it resembles a w and p for white power.

Milo Yiannopoulos, one of the alt-right movements most recognizable faces has posed with the gesture,

Richard Spencer, a white supremacist leader, famously posted a photo on Twitter flashing the symbol in front of the Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York on Election Day. But the Anti-Defamation League insisted the gesture is a hoax started by the discussion board 4chan.

Still, the story managed to cause a stir on social media with some calling on Breuers employer to fire him.

Also Read:Colbert's Frosty the Snowman Turns Awfully Racist Under New #MAGA Cap: 'White Power!' (Video)

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But, as some critics noted, Trump has made the same sign when speaking publicly.

EXCLUSIVE: A White House intern flashed the "white power" sign while posing with Trump and the rest of his intern class last month. https://t.co/klhohpKQ5d via @MailOnline  David Martosko (@dmartosko) December 28, 2017

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For more news videos visit Yahoo View.

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While the President spends the remainder of 2017 at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, he has been tweeting up a storm about everything from Vanity Fair to the cold snap encroaching onto the Eastern seaboard this New Years Eve.

In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Years Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

In the East, the president tweeted early Friday, it could be the COLDEST New Years Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that gold old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!

While it seems like the idea that global warming means everything only gets hotter, which is what the president seems to be saying in his tweet, global warming actually can create unseasonable lows as well as highs, so extreme cold in the winter is actually a fact of life in a global warming scenario.

In many parts the US (and for our neighbors in Canada, too), temperatures have been shockingly cold. In fact, were living in the coldest part of the world right now. And although its surprisingly cold here (and is only going to get colder through the weekend), the rest of the world is still warmer than it should be for this time of year. As Vox points out, climate change and weather are separate but interconnected phenomena and any extremes up or down can be tied to environmental damage.

Besides the forecast, the presidents climate tweet also mentions the TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS that he believes was part of a payment into the Paris Climate Accord, which the GOP-led administration backed out of earlier this year. The US is the only nation that refuses to participate in the agreement.

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Unfortunately, this number isnt only slightly off  its completely wrong, as one Virginia state Rep pointed out to the president via Twitter (we were actually paying about $3 billion per year into an internationally shared fund to help clean up the environment before backing out of the agreement).

1: This isnt how climate change works. 2: We werent paying trillions of dollars. You didnt understand the Paris Agreement in June and you still dont. 3: Climate Change is real. It is a serious threat to our children. You need people on your team who can explain this to you. https://t.co/SQG9cMGOGe  Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) December 29, 2017

Many others also took the president to task about his tweet, explaining the *actual* science at hand.

If you're actually curious about the facts though, you should read this: "Why Global Warming Can Mean Harsher Winter Weather" https://t.co/CA9k1IqSrQ  Simon Hedlin (@simonhedlin) December 29, 2017

Others just clapped back at President Trump.

We have a President who categorically doesnt believe in Science. America is entering into a new Dark Age, because its cold in Chicago this week.  Josh Gad (@joshgad) December 29, 2017

Hey dumbass, global warming doesnt only mean extreme heat; it means extreme weather. Hot and cold. Maybe buy a thermometer and shove it up your ass. https://t.co/wdO0t0nPiY  Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) December 29, 2017

Of course, the president remains in Florida where global warming is having its own effect  the state remains unseasonably warm for late December.

Will you be bundling up this New Years Eve? Let us know @BritandCo!

(Photo by Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images)

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After almost 40 years of repressive policies, it appears Iran is relaxing its strict dress code for women.

Women who disobey the Islamic dress code will no longer be arrested and taken to detention centers, a top police official announced in Sharq, a national newspaper. Instead, they will be made to attend classes given by the police, reports the Associated Press.

Irans morality police is officially known as the Gasht-e Ershad, and have been working to enforce the observance of the hijab since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Women in Iran are required to hide their hair with a headscarf and are encouraged to keep their bodies covered and abstain from using makeup and nail polish.

Urban Iranian women often flout these rules, reports the BBC, by wearing the headscarf far back on the head to reveal the hair or donning looser clothing in the hot months of summer. Women caught in public ignoring the dress code are usually taken to a police van where they are held until their family can bring them a change of clothes. They are also made to sign a form saying they will not repeat the violation.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was reelected in 2017 on a wave of support from young, more liberal voters, and he has previously expressed his displeasure with the Gasht-e Ershad.

The change in policy may also be a reaction to a shift in gender policy by Iranian rival Saudi Arabia, reports the Telegraph. In September, the kingdoms Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced that women would be allowed to drive and to attend sporting events at stadiums.

It seems hard to believe that were saying this on the eve of 2018, but sadly, this is progress.

Tell us what you think of this news @britandco.

(Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty)
The situation gained international attention on Tuesday after Teigen, who has more than 9 million Twitter followers, began live-tweeting her experience on the flight to nowhere.

It's the question model Chrissy Teigen  and anyone else who heard the tragicomical story of her 8-hour "flight to nowhere," is still asking: Why did the plane turn around four hours into its journey and return to Los Angeles after the crew learned just one passenger had boarded the wrong flight?

All Nippon Airways (ANA), the operator of the flight, did not say what specifically prompted the pilot to return to Los Angeles International Airport, but said it was the correct decision.

But one airline security expert says the real reason the plane, with 230 people aboard, aborted its route to Tokyo could be be no laughing matter.

"Its almost unheard of to turn back unless theres some security or safety related reason for it. I think in this case theres got to be a security-related link," Jeffrey Price, a professor in the Aviation Department at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, tells Travel & Leisure.

The situation gained international attention on Tuesday after Teigen, who has more than 9 million Twitter followers, began live-tweeting her experience on the flight to nowhere.

Why did we all get punished for this one persons mistake? Why not just land in Tokyo and send the other person back? How is this the better idea, you ask? We all have the same questions, she wrote.

Why did we all get punished for this one persons mistake? Why not just land in Tokyo and send the other person back? How is this the better idea, you ask? We all have the same questions.

 christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) December 27, 2017



a flying first for me: 4 hours into an 11 hour flight and we are turning around because we have a passenger who isnt supposed to be on this plane. Why...why do we all gotta go back, I do not know

 christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) December 27, 2017

ANA told the Los Angeles Times in a statement: At the time during the flight, the pilot in command was presented with information about the discrepancy in the passenger manifest. Based on the available information in flight, he made the correct decision to return to LAX. ANA supports the decision of the pilot, out of the abundance of caution and safety for the passengers and crew onboard.

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Travel and Leisure also reached out to ANA for a comment, but did not receive and immediate reply.

They dont do that just for somebody being on the wrong flight unless theres some other reason, Price said.

He added: If youre on the wrong plane, and somehow they figure that out halfway through or you figure it out, well youre going to wherever that plane is going to land. And then theyre going to rebook you once you get there,"

The passenger reportedly boarded the flight with his brother and had a ticket from Los Angeles to Tokyo but for a United Airlines flight, a Transportation Security Administration spokesperson told the Times. The passengers brother, however, had the correct ticket.

Price also noted that the passenger could have boarded the flight if he somehow swapped boarding passes with his brother.

However, United Airlines does not operate out of the Tom Bradley International Terminal, where ANA flies. The Los Angeles Times also reported that the FBI interviewed the two brothers, along with several other passengers, but no arrests have been made.

Teigen altered her Twitter followers at around 4:30 that she did eventually arrive in Tokyo, in spite of the delays.

We are HERE!

 christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) December 27, 2017
He said their first official Christmas together was "fantastic."

Prince Harry said he had a fantastic Christmas with his fiancee, Meghan Markle, who spent time with Queen Elizabeth and the royal family over the holiday.

It was fantastic, the prince said of the family gathering during an interview with BBC Radio 4s Today show Wednesday. She really enjoyed it.

The family loved having her there, he added. Theres always that family part of Christmas [where] theres always that work element there as well, and I think together we had an amazing time. We had great fun staying with my brother and sister-in-law and running round with the kids. Christmas was fantastic.

Harry said that there were some family traditions that had to be explained to Meghan, but that it was to be expected.

I think weve got one of the biggest families that I know of, and every family is complex as well. No look, shes done an absolutely amazing job. Shes getting in there and its the family I suppose that shes never had.

The BBC program also included a segment in which Harry interviewed former president Barack Obama about his post-presidency life. The conversation touched upon Obamas feelings relinquishing the office to Donald Trump, as well as his optimism for the future of young leaders. It also touched on a few light-hearted questions, such as whether Obama preferred The Good Wife or Suits when it comes to television.

"Suits, obviously," Obama told Harry, likely a reference to Markle's role on the series for seven seasons.

Harry was also asked about his wedding  and whether Obama would get an invite.

I dont know about that  we havent even put the invite or the guest list together," he said. "Who knows if hes going to be invited or not  I wouldnt want to ruin that surprise.
A middle school is offering students a practical and fashionable way to avoid dress code violations. (Photo: Getty Images)

One middle school in Pennsylvania has devised a creative way to help students meet its dress code: an on-campus clothing closet.

The program, offered by Shamokin Middle School, is just called The Clothes Closet and currently offers about 100 articles of free clothing for students to wear in accordance with the dress code policy.

Per the school website, students in grades K-12 cannot wear head-to-toe clothing in one color, baggy pants, Spandex, skirts shorter than the knee, or logos. Instead, collared and turtleneck shirts or cardigans in opaque colors, and items with school logos are encouraged. First-time violators receive a verbal warning and an in-house suspension until a parent can drop off replacement clothing. Students who habitually break the rules can get detention.

In September, principal Chris Venna wanted to offer a proactive approach to the dress code and Tiffani Bogart, a math teacher and adviser to the schools trivia club, came up with the Clothes Closet, which she helped fund from the proceeds of two multilevel marketing pop-up events and from donations gained in a word-of-mouth campaign.

The closet is located across the hall from Bogarts classroom. Students whose families cant afford school-approved clothing, or new students unprepared for the dress code, can pop in the closet, which is stocked with hangers and seasonal clothing, including coats, thats sorted by size.

So far, two students have [come forward on their own and] asked for clothing, Bogart tells Yahoo Lifestyle. In other cases, weve encouraged kids who wear the same pair of pants throughout the week to use the closet. And a student whos currently homeless will start school in January so I gave her four pairs of pants and six tops from the closet.

Bogarts students have also become invested in the project, helping to sort and fold clothes during study hall or even shop for items.

Over the past few years, school dress codes, which are enforced by 58 percent of public schools according to the National Center for Education Statistics, have triggered controversy. Many are called sexist because girls are often body shamed for wearing conservative clothing that can look revealing on different body types. The hashtag #Iammorethanadistraction has gone viral on social media from students frustrated by discriminatory dress codes.

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And research hasnt determined whether dress codes are effective  a 2005 study of six public schools conducted by Youngstown State University in Ohio found that school uniforms contribute to improved behavior, attendance, and graduation rates; however, according to the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, dress codes can be racially biased, with nonwhite students punished more severely for dress code violations than white students.

But few schools have enacted such a positive, proactive approach as the Clothes Closet, which Bogart says has reduced dress code violations in only a few short months.

Recently, a local church received a $1,500 donation, which the pastor spent at Old Navy on clothes for the closet, says Bogart. Once they arrive, well be set for the school year.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.




Visa issuance between the United States and Turkey will resume at full swing after the US embassy Thursday said it received guarantee that no staffer at the mission will be targeted again by investigation.

Based on adherence to these assurances, the Department of State is confident that the security posture has improved sufficiently to allow for the full resumption of visa services in Turkey, the US Embassy in Ankara said.

The mission also noted that it is still concerned about the situation of the two personnel still detained and added that the Turkish government gave assurance no local staff will be detained or arrested for performing their official duties and that Turkish authorities will inform the U.S. government in advance if any local staff face detention.

US embassy in October suspended non-migrant visa to Turkish citizens to protest the detention of one its staff. The staffer, Metin Topuz, was arrested for alleged links with FETO; a movement aligned with US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Ankara views the movement as a terror group and blames Gulen for being behind last July failed military coup.

The Turkish embassy in the US upon suspension of the visa delivery process also halted issuing visa to US citizens.

The US-based Turkish embassy also on Thursday announced lifting of visa restrictions but rejected assurance claims as noted by the US mission.

We find it wrong to misinform the Turkish and the American public by claiming that the U.S. received assurances from Turkey, the statement said.

It also added that Ankara was concerned about legal case in the US involving Turkish citizens, reports say.

The visa incident put the already frosty relations between the two NATO allies into turmoil. Ankara is at odd with the US over its military support for Syrian YPG fighters. Turkey views the YPG as branch of PKK insurgency opposed to Ankara.

Foreign ministers of both countries, namely Turkeys Mevlut Cavusoglu and his US counterpart Rex Tillerson held telephone conversation following the removal of the visa restrictions.
2017 has been a wild year  not only in the world of politics, but also in fashion. The year was definitely the year of questionable, if memorable, denim trends. Styles covered everything from cutouts to cutoffs to fashion throwbacks.

Do you remember when Kendall Jenner stepped out wearing invisible jeans?

Kendall Jenner in invisible jeans. (Photo: Getty Images)

Or when Japanese brand Thibaut debuted the unforgettable thong jean during Tokyo Fashion Week?

Thibaut debuted the thong jean. (Photo: Splash News)

And who can forget Opening Ceremonys $425 90s throwback two-in-one denim cutoffs?

Two-in-one cut off jeans. (Photo: Opening Ceremony)

Would you wear any of these unconventional denim looks? Let us know in the comments!

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
Meet American Girls 2018 Girl of the Year: aspiring astronaut Luciana Vega. (Photo: ABC News)

The new American Girl doll is defying stereotypes to help inspire girls to dream of reaching beyond the stars. Meet the 2018 American Girl of the year, Luciana Vega. She is 11 years old and dreams of becoming the first person on Mars.

A post shared by American Girl (@americangirlbrand) on Dec 28, 2017 at 6:50am PST

Come the New Year, little girls everywhere will be able to get their own version of the latest American Girl doll. Luciana is hitting the virtual and toy store shelves Jan. 1.

The American Girl doll was revealed Thursday morning on Good Morning America. A little girl in the audience eagerly said that she liked Luciana because she is trying to inspire people.

Luciana features a full astronaut suit, and she will have other STEM-related accessories for purchase as well. She will also have three books detailing her life as she wins a scholarship to attend space camp in Alabama.

A post shared by Ravenwolfe Designs (@ravenwolfedesigns) on Dec 18, 2017 at 5:41pm PST

The 18-inch Luciana has brown hair and brown eyes. She is the first American Doll focused solely on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Weve had STEM products before, but we really wanted to do a whole character to show girls that STEM is cool, said Rebecca Dekuiper, a designer at American Girl.

A post shared by Rachelsplace (@rachelsplace_) on Dec 28, 2017 at 10:52am PST

The 33-year-old company was committed to sharing an accurate aspiring-astronaut story, so it worked closely with real-life NASA astronauts to bring Luciana to life.

Katy Dickson, the president of American Girl, called Luciana a champion of STEM and a natural-born leader in a statement announcing her as the brands 2018 Girl of the Year.

Luciana is a role model for todays girls  empowering them to defy stereotypes, embrace risks and failures, and chart their own course in life  whatever the goal, she added.

A post shared by Brooklyn Ava Melanson (@brooklyn.olympia.cheer) on Dec 28, 2017 at 7:55am PST

People on Instagram are voicing their approval for the doll.

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Our 8-year-old daughter whose name is also Luciana is super excited to have a goty doll that shares her name, wrote a commenter. I am so happy to see this STEM collection. And a Latina doll. I want it all. Well done, added another commenter.

Way to go AG another Hispanic doll, this one involved in STEM, we can conquer the world if we work hard!

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.




New Years Eve festivities look a little different when you add kids to the mix.

Many parents spend Dec. 31 partying it up with snacks and family time on the couch. Some trick their children into going to bed before midnight ... and then pass out from pure exhaustion shortly thereafter.

And of course, some take to Twitter to laugh about these wild adventures. Here are 31 funny tweets that sum up New Years Eve for parents.

Parents..don't forget to set your clocks ahead two hours on New Year's Eve so you can pretend that you actually did stay up until midnight.  Domestic Goddess (@DomesticGoddss) December 29, 2015

I know my life has changed when on New Year's Eve, I run to Walmart to get diapers, milk, Epsom salt, and children's Tylenol. #DadLife  Jacques Nyemb (@jnyemb) January 1, 2017

NYE is getting crazy at my house...



Hubby just gave the kids popcorn AFTER I vacuumed.  Unfiltered Mama (@UnfilteredMama) January 1, 2017

Got carded buying NYE "fireworks."

12yo: Can't they tell just by looking at you that you're not underage?

Feeling good about the new year.  Kelly Phillips Erb (@taxgirl) December 31, 2014

Child-free people: So what are your New Year's Eve plans?



Moms: Cleaning stuff.  MyQuestionableLife (@2questionable) December 31, 2016

I just found a LEGO in my dryer's lint trap so yeah you could say my New Year's Eve is getting pretty crazy  Wendy S. (@maughammom) January 1, 2017

Told my kids my New Year's resolution is to stop swearing and then we all laughed our fucking asses off.  Stephanie McMaster (@Smethanie) December 27, 2014

Sorry I won't be able to make it to your New Year's Eve party. I'm waiting for my 7yo to finish tying his shoes so I'm busy 'til April.  Babies Daddy (@dshack8) October 27, 2014

Who me? Just planning on celebrating New Year's at 9pm like all the other parents.  Robert Knop (@FatherWithTwins) January 1, 2016

My children's new year's resolution appears to be to mash up crackers and leave crumbs in every room of the house.  Sarah Kelber (@sarahkelber) January 1, 2014

As a parent, my only New Year's resolution is to give less than 30% of my salary in 2016 to the Disney Corporation.  Abe Yospe (@Cheeseboy22) January 1, 2016

I love that cute married thing we do where we pretend that if we let the kids stay up until 12am on New Year's Eve, they'll "wake up later."  Stephanie Ortiz (@Six_Pack_Mom) December 29, 2016

6YO: When youre an adult do you always have to stay up to midnight on New Years Eve?

ME: I hope not.  Kalvin (@KalvinMacleod) December 31, 2015

New Year's Resolution: Think of kids less like little people meant to bring me joy and more like workers I've hired to clean the the house.  Kelcey Kintner (@mamabirddiaries) December 31, 2015

New Year's Goal: Get my house organized.

Actual accomplishment: Make snacks and teach my kids how to flush a public toilet with their foot.  Meredith (@PerfectPending) January 4, 2016

Having your first baby on New Years Eve is a good crash course on parenthood. Everybody is at a party but you & your too exhausted to care.  The ParentNormal (@ParentNormal) December 31, 2015

New Year's Eve as a parent is mostly telling our kids to dream big while we lie unshowered and bloated on couches we fall asleep on by 9pm.  Kim Bongiorno (@LetMeStart) December 31, 2016

Me: *to a cashier* Happy New Year.



6-year-old: How do you know the New Year will be happy?



Me: I don't



6: So you're just lying to people?  James Breakwell (@XplodingUnicorn) January 2, 2017

7: are you taking hints for your New Year's resolution?

Me: sure.

7: good, so say yes to us more when we ask for stuff you want to say no to  Mike Reynolds (@EverydayGirlDad) December 27, 2016

I'm a Mom, so I get to do things like this on New Year's Eve. pic.twitter.com/wZ6spe6kgJ  the Mom TruthBomb (@momTruthBomb) December 31, 2015

Co-worker: Big plans for NYE?



Me: No. Just going to let someone bite my nose & laugh until they sleep.



CW:



M:



CW:



M: I have a toddler.  Unfiltered Mama (@UnfilteredMama) December 30, 2016

Parents writing their kids' New Year's resolutions for them should be a thing.  HowToBeADad (@HowToBeADad) December 30, 2016

Happy New Year, parents! I know you're well-rested because you drank two glasses of wine and went to bed at 10:30pm last night.



Don't lie.  Doyin Richards (@daddydoinwork) January 1, 2017

I'm excited to hear the stories my kids tell their kids about how their parents told them NYE was a time to hide in your home & eat cheese.  Mike Reynolds (@EverydayGirlDad) December 31, 2016

My parenting style today could best be described as, "Go ahead, I don't care; it's New Year's Eve."  Kate Hall (@KateWhineHall) December 31, 2015

I hope they write "spent New Year's Eve 2015 at IHOP with her family" in my obituary.  momma unfiltered (@MommaUnfiltered) December 31, 2014

My New Year's resolution is to put my Fitbit on my dominant hand, so I get steps for lifting my wineglass.  Sara (@sara_ashlynn) December 26, 2016

20's celebrating NYE: Drinking, dancing, party till dawn

40's celebrating NYE: Home eating candy out of your kids stockings.  The Next Martha (@TheNextMartha) January 1, 2017

My New Year's resolution was to have more patience but, thanks to my kids, I broke that within 5 minutes of the New Year.  Sarcastic Mommy (@sarcasticmommy4) January 3, 2017

My New Year's resolution was to make sure my kids don't waste as much food. So far I've gained 40 lbs.  Lurkin' Mom (@LurkAtHomeMom) January 6, 2017

Who has a great mop they'd recommend? I need something for kid stickiness & cat puke.



PS

And don't tell me I don't know how to party on NYE  Kim Bongiorno (@LetMeStart) December 31, 2015

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
By Sierra Brown

Toledo officers responded to a call after four teenage boys dropped a sandbag from an interstate overpass, smashing into a car windshield and killing 22-year-old Marquise Byrd. According to The Blade, police said they filed murder charges and vehicular vandalism against the teens, all under 16, Tuesday (Dec. 26). The victims cousin thinks they should be tried as adults.

Byrd was traveling down I-75 with a friend in Toledo, Ohio, when a sandbag crashed through the windshield and hit him in the passenger seat. The local news outlet reports the autopsy found Byrd suffered from blunt-force trauma to the head and neck. He was transported to a Toledo medical center where he was pronounced dead.

Byrds cousin, Shaveontae King, said she has no sympathy for the young teenagers.

My auntie has to bury her son. Hes gone. Hes never coming back, King told The Blade. Shes holding up the best she can.

The outlet reports Ohio law allows children at least 14 years old to stand trial as adults, but those younger than 16 are discretionary transfers. Judges have to take into account whether the juveniles can rehabilitate by 21 years old, if they used firearms and if they are mature enough for the adult system.

Deputy chief of the county prosecutors juvenile division Lori Olender told the local news outlet that she isnt seeking to transfer the teenagers cases to adult jurisdiction.

This post 4 Teens Charged With Murder For Throwing Sandbag From Overpass first appeared on Vibe.
A massive fire in New York City that killed at least 12 people, including four children, at a five-story apartment building Thursday night was likely caused by a small child playing with a stove, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday.

De Blasio confirmed the death toll and said at least four other people were critically injured in the Bronx fire, the citys deadliest in about 25 years. A 3-year-old boy sparked the blaze on the first floor, the mayor said.

The boy had a history of playing with burners on the stove, New York Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro added. When the childs mother discovered the fire, she took the boy and a 2-year-old out of the building, but left the door open, helping the fire spread. The buildings open stairway acted like a chimney, Nigro said.

Close the door, close the door, close the door, Nigro said on Friday, repeating the critical piece of advice.

Firefighters working in bitter cold took more than four hours to quell the wind-whipped flames. Among the dead were three girls, ages 1, 2 and 7; an unidentified boy; three women, ages 19, 37 and 63; four unidentified men; and one unidentified woman, police said.

The 25-apartment building had at least six outstanding city code violations, Reuters reported, including one for a broken smoke detector in a first-floor apartment. It was unclear whether the device had anything to do with the fire.

De Blasio said Friday that there was nothing structurally wrong with the building, which was constructed in 1916.

Speaking at a Bronx news conference about 10 p.m. Thursday, the mayor called it the worst fire tragedy we have seen in this city in at least a quarter-century. He tweeted that the New York Fire Department rescued at least 12 people, who will survive. The fire was put out around 11:15 p.m.

Firefighters responded to a massive blaze at a Bronx apartment building in which at least 12 people had died late Thursday. (Photo: Fire Department of New York)

The fire began on the buildings first floor just before 7 p.m., Nigro said.

This tragedy is without question historic in its magnitude, Nigro told reporters. He said tenants died on various floors of the building.

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A Fire Department spokesman told HuffPost that Thursday nights frigid weather made fighting the fire more difficult. Temperatures in New York City hovered around 11 degrees, with 9 mph winds. According to Yahoos weather app, temperatures in the city felt like minus 2 degrees when factoring in windchill.

The cold temperatures and wind make it more of a challenge, the spokesman said. Theres ice conditions with the water on the ground. Its tough on the families, more difficult on the firefighters, everything.

Tonight in the Bronx we've seen the worst fire tragedy in at least a quarter of a century. It is an unspeakable tragedy, and families have been torn apart. pic.twitter.com/0kCFMzxt79  Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) December 29, 2017

Xanral Collins, who witnessed the fire, told the New York Post he saw a man run into the building yelling for his children. He couldnt get in, Collins told the Post. I saw him screaming, My babies are dead! My babies are dead!

Resident Kenneth Kodua told The Associated Press he had gone out to pick up food, leaving his roommate in the building, when the fire broke out. When he spoke to the AP, he was still trying to find out whether his roommate escaped.

I tried calling her. I tried calling. No answer, Kodua said.

The Fire Department said more than 160 firefighters fought the blaze.

Fire officials briefed De Blasio after he arrived at a school across the street from the building around 9:30 p.m.

Over 160 #FDNY members are operating on scene of a 4-alarm fire, 2363 Prospect Ave #Bronx pic.twitter.com/wjN9mMqCHU  FDNY (@FDNY) December 29, 2017

Victims were taken to St. Barnabas Hospital and Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.

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Displaced residents stand outside in freezing temperatures while firefighters fight one of the worst blazes New York City has seen in years. (Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

This article has been updated to include additional details on the cause.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
A remote island in Scotland bears traces of out-of-this-world minerals from a 60-million-year-old meteorite impact.

A team of geologists from Birkbeck, University of London was examining volcanic rocks on the remote Isle of Skye in Scotland when they uncovered rare minerals that have never before been found on Earth, according to a study that was published Dec. 12 in the journal GeoScienceWorld.

In the study, the team focused on a 3.3-foot-thick (1-meter) layer at the base of a 60-million-year-old lava flow deposit. Using an electron microprobe, which shoots electrons at samples and analyzes the X-rays the samples emit in response, the researchers found that rocks from the area contained rare minerals from space. [Crash! 10 Biggest Impact Craters on Earth]

The mysterious mineral, vanadium-rich and niobium-rich osbornite, was previously only found in dust samples from space on the comet 81P/Wild 2, collected by NASA's Stardust Comet Sample Return Mission.

"When we discovered what it was we were very surprised, and it was a bit of a shock because we were not expecting that," study co-author Andy Beard, a lecturer in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Birkbeck, University of London, said in the statement.

The osbornite was discovered unmelted, suggesting that it was likely an original piece of the meteorite. Other minerals associated with impacts were also found at the site, the researchers said.

In fact, the same strange mineralogy was also found at a second site located 4.3 miles (7 kilometers) away. This site was a 6.6-foot (2 m) thick layer of material ejected from a crater, according to the statement.

This discovery raises questions about the region  also known as the British Paleogene Igneous Province (BPIP)  and where the ancient meteorite hit. It's also possible that the meteorite impact triggered the outpouring of volcanic lava believed to have started at the same time, the researchers said.

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The area in which the researchers discovered the unusual minerals is very steep, rough and boggy, which may have deterred previous researchers from sampling the site.

"We were sinking in up to our thighs. I distinctly recall saying to Andy Beard, 'this had better be worth it,'" lead author Simon Drake, an associate lecturer in geology at the same institution, said in the statement. "It was worth it."

Original article published on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations
The feud between Amazon and Google continues today with the early removal of YouTube from the Fire TV - a move Google had said wouldn't take place until January 1, 2018. But as a number of Fire TV owners have now noticed, launching the YouTube app today informs you that you can choose to watch "YouTube and millions of other websites" by using a web browser. You then have the option to choose from Amazon's own Silk browser or Firefox, with a click of a button.

The disagreements between the companies that led to this consumer-unfriendly stance go back several years.

Google hasn't been happy about Amazon's anti-competitive nature when it comes to allowing rivals to sell their own hardware items - like smart speakers and media players - on Amazon.com. The retailer has long refused to stock devices that competed with its own, including Apple TV, Chromecast, Google Home, and others in an effort to promote its products like the Echo and Fire TV.

However, Amazon and Apple recently negotiated an agreement that brought the Apple TV back to Amazon, and Amazon's Prime Video app to Apple TV.

Meanwhile, it seemed discussions between Amazon and Google were improving earlier this month when the Chromecast and Chromecast Ultra reappeared on Amazon.com.

The other issue at hand was that Amazon had launched its own version of Google's YouTube player for its Echo Show device, without working with Google to ensure core features were accessible. There's been quite a bit of back and forth on this matter, with Google pulling that player, only to have Amazon surreptitiously work around the block by implementing a web version of YouTube instead.

That led Google this month to declare that it would pull YouTube entirely from Amazons hardware lineup, including Fire TV. The player was yanked immediately from Echo Show, but Fire TV owners were told that the app would work until January 1, 2018.

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It would be unusual for Google to actually pull the YouTube app ahead of its deadline, which indicates this change - to point YouTube users to web browsers instead - may have come from Amazon's side. That theory is further backed up by the fact that sideloading the YouTube app onto Fire TV will continue to display the "warning" message, according to a report from AFTVNews.com and commenters on Reddit.

Above: Warning screen; Image credit - AFTVNews.com

However, it's unclear if Amazon's choice to redirect YouTube users to web browsers ahead of schedule is fully rolled out. One report from Cord Cutter News found that you'll only see the browser choice screen if you have a browser installed on your Fire TV, for example.

On two Fire TV devices we have here (a prior generation and new generation player), we're only seeing the browser choice screen as of today. And many users worldwide are reporting the same, per Twitter.

E morreu o YouTube "oficial" no Fire Tv Stick :( pic.twitter.com/UcTX1DyUzI  Noah Cezario (@NoahCezario) December 28, 2017

Fire TV: Amazon kommt Googles Youtube-Abschaltung zuvor https://t.co/ZdUqiL518n Die Youtube-App auf dem Fire TV funktioniert nicht mehr. Beim Aufruf der App wird Nutzern der Aufruf eines Browsers empfohlen. Damit wird Googles geplante Youtube-Abschaltung umgangen. (Fire TV, Goo  Computer Service (@mainpcerlenbach) December 28, 2017

We've reached out to Amazon and Google for comment. Google has not yet responded, but a rep from Amazon offered the following statement:

"I can confirm that YouTube and millions of other websites are accessible by using a web browser like Firefox or Silk on Fire TV."

With all this drama, is it any wonder that Roku is the top streaming device in the U.S.?

Consumers don't want to be jerked around like this all because two competitors can't work out a reasonable solution that serves both their interests. At the end of the day, Amazon and Google only hurting themselves by alienating their overlapping customer base - a group that easily could (and probably should) switch to Roku at this point.

For more news videos visit Yahoo View.
Citizens who flout country conservative dress code will no longer face judicial case but will rather attend police-given classes on Islamic values, authorities said Thursday, signaling the Islamic Republic gradual adoption of moderate reforms.

Those who do not observe the Islamic dress code will no longer be taken to detention centers, nor will judicial cases be filed against them. Tehran police chief Gen. Hossein Rahimi was quoted as saying.

The decision also establishes compulsory police classes to offenders on Islamic values, reports say.

However stubborn offenders will face legal action.

Iran since 1979, the time of the Islamic revolution, has imposed a tight dress code. Women are required to cover their hair with headscarves, wear long and loose garments.

Men are forbidden to go shirtless.

Any breach of the restriction is punished. Offenders caught are sent to police custody and relatives are called to bring a change of clothes to the violators.

The country has established public morality and dress code police to monitor citizens.

The easing of the restrictions only applies to capital Tehran. The rest of the country will still observe the dress code.

President Hassan Rouhani won another term in office this year with the support of millions of liberal-minded youth and reformist leaders. The Iran leader in his promises pledged to open the country for foreign investments and ease states control of human rights.
Older iPhones do run slower, Apple has admitted (Justin Sullivan | Getty Images)

Apple executives could face a jail term and the company fined millions after admitting it deliberately slowed down older iPhones.

A French pressure group has filed a lawsuit under a 2015 act that expressly outlaws the practice of inbuilt obsolescence.

The maximum penalty for companies found guilty under French law is two years in prison, a fine of 300,000 (267,000), and 5% of the companys annual turnover.

MORE: Apple boss Tim Cook pockets 47% pay rise to take home almost $13m

The action has been brought by Halte a lObsolescence Programmee (HOP), whose name translates to Stop Planned Obsolescence.

In a statement, the group claimed Apples actions broke a law that prohibits the practice of planned obsolescence, which is defined by the use of techniques by which the person responsible for the marketing of a product aims to deliberately reduce the duration to increase the replacement rate.

HOP co-founder Laetitia Vasseur said: These practices are unacceptable and cannot go unpunished. It is our mission to defend consumers and the environment against this waste organised by Apple.

MORE: Apple admits slowing down older iPhones to protect batteries

Apple last week finally admitted what many users had believed to be happening for years  that older devices such as iPhones were deliberately being made to run slower and that their battery life was predetermined to get significantly shorter after a certain time.





Apple said it did slow some phones with ageing batteries but said it was to prolong the life of the devices.

In a statement posted on its website, the firm said it would reduce the price of an out-of-warranty battery replacement from $79 (58) to $29 (21) for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later.

MORE: Analyst is cautious on Apple iPhone sales due to mixed China data

It said it was seeking to address customers concerns, to recognise their loyalty and to regain the trust of anyone who may have doubted Apples intentions.

The tech giant added: At Apple, our customers trust means everything to us. We will never stop working to earn and maintain it.

Apple is facing similar lawsuits in the US and Israel over the issue.
By Hugh Bronstein and Maximiliano Rizzi BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - An explosion at a grains terminal in Argentina owned by China's COFCO International on Wednesday killed one employee, injured others and affected shipping activities from one of the world's top food suppliers, the conglomerate said. The cause of the blast is not yet known but it could have an outsized impact on the flow of food exports from Argentina as unions representing grains inspectors and crushing workers said they would go on strike on Thursday to demand better safety conditions. Television images showed thick black smoke billowing from what COFCO described as a 52,000-square-meter grains processing plant. The facility is part of Argentina's shipping hub of Rosario, on the Parana River in Santa Fe province. "COFCO International can confirm that an explosion occurred at the loading area of its facilities at Puerto General San Martin in Rosario," the Chinese state-run conglomerate said in a statement. One employee died in the blast, the statement said, and eight others were taken to hospital for treatment. "The cause of the incident is not yet known," the statement said. Police, firefighters and other authorities provided no additional details. "The affected site has been shut down," it said, adding that COFCO had launched "a full internal investigation." The storage and crushing facility received 27,000 tonnes of grain per day. It has grains warehousing capacity of 295,000 tonnes and soymeal storage capacity is 105,000 tonnes. The plant was previously owned by Dutch grain trader Nidera, which COFCO agreed to buy in 2014. This acquisition and other mergers projected COFCO into some of the world's top grain, vegetable oil, sugar and coffee producing regions. Argentina is the world's top exporter of soymeal livestock feed as well as a major supplier of corn and raw soybeans. Soy is in high demand in China from a growing middle class eating meal-fed beef and pork. Some 80 percent of Argentina's agricultural exports are sent from Rosario. Cargo ships loaded at the hub sail down the Parana on their way to the shipping lanes of the South Atlantic. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein, Maximiliano Rizzi and Luc Cohen; Editing by Tom Brown, James Dalgleish and Grant McCool)
Islamic State claimed responsibility for three suicide bomb attacks in Kabul which killed as many as 41 people and wounded 80 others at the Afghan Voice Agency and the Shiite-run Tebyan cultural center.

The latest attack on Afghanistan took place during a panel discussion to mark the 38th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of the country, according to the news agency AVA. The victims include journalists and university students.

The three bombers struck the west Kabul building that houses the news agency and cultural center, Nasrat Rahimi, a deputy spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said by phone. Terror Monitor  which tracks terrorist activities  said in a tweet that Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, citing the militant Sunni groups Amaq news agency.

The attack comes one-and-a-half months after the terrorist group struck the Shamshad local television channel in Kabul, killing two guards and wounding 20 others. Another suicide attack by the group on a mosque in October in Kabul killed more than 30 worshippers.

Iran Ties

Both Shiite-run offices have deep ties with Iran, said local Tolonews channel citing unnamed sources.

Ordering authorities to investigate the incident, President Ashraf Ghani said these heinous attacks will not break the resolve of the Afghan people, according to an emailed statement from his press office.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who earlier this year boosted forces in the country amid signs that Ghanis government was losing ground to the Taliban and Islamic State, has been briefed by Chief of Staff John Kelly and is continuing to monitor the situation, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Thursday.

Vice President Mike Pence told U.S. troops during a surprise visit to Afghanistan last week that victory in closer than ever in what has become the longest war in U.S. history. As Trump wraps up his first year in office, about 14,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Afghanistan, more than 16 years after they first arrived following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Afghanistan remains one of the worlds most dangerous nations for media organizations, according to a Dec. 22 report from Reporters Without Borders.
By Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi and Akram Walizada

KABUL (Reuters) - Suicide bombers stormed a Shi'ite cultural centre and news agency in the Afghan capital on Thursday, killing more than 40 people and wounding scores, many of them students attending a conference.

Islamic State said in an online statement that it was responsible for the attack, saying the centre received support from Iran. It was the latest in a series that the movement has claimed on Shi'ite targets in Kabul.

Waheed Majrooh, a spokesman for the ministry of public health, said 41 people, including four women and two children, had been killed and 84 wounded, most suffering from burns.

The attack occurred during a morning panel discussion on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Sunni-majority Afghanistan at the Tabian Social and Cultural Centre, witnesses said.

The floor of the centre, at the basement level, was covered in blood as wailing survivors and relatives picked through the debris, while windows of the news agency, on the second floor, were all shattered.

"We were shocked and didn't feel the explosion at first but we saw smoke coming up from below," said Ali Reza Ahmadi, a journalist at the agency who was sitting in his office above the centre when the attack took place.

"Survivors were coming out. I saw one boy with cuts to his feet and others with burns all over their faces," he said. "About 10 minutes after the first explosion, there was another one outside on the street and then another one."

"SMOKE EVERYWHERE"

Deputy Health Minister Feda Mohammad Paikan said 35 bodies had been brought into the nearby Istiqlal hospital. Television pictures showed many of the injured suffered serious burns.

"There was a reading and an academic discussion and then there was a huge bang," said Sayed Jan, a participant in the conference, from his bed in the hospital. "I felt my face burning and I fell down and saw other colleagues lying around me and smoke everywhere."

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The bloodshed followed an attack on a private television station in Kabul last month, which was also claimed by the local affiliate of Islamic State.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid issued a statement on Twitter denying involvement in the attack, which was condemned by both the Kabul government and Afghanistan's international partners including NATO and the United Nations.

"I have little doubt that this attack deliberately targeted civilians," said Toby Lanzer, acting head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. "Today in Kabul we have witnessed another truly despicable crime in a year already marked by unspeakable atrocities."

Over the past two years, Islamic State in Khorasan, as the local group is known, has claimed a growing number of attacks on Shi'ite targets in Afghanistan, where sectarian attacks were previously rare.

The statement said the centre received Iranian support and was one of the largest centres of Shi'ism in Afghanistan, sending youths to Iran for academic training.

The militant Sunni group regards Shi'ism as heresy and predominantly Shi'ite Iran as one of its biggest enemies.

The movement, which first appeared in eastern Afghanistan in 2015, has extended its reach steadily, although many security officials question its ability to conduct complex attacks and believe it has help from criminals or other militant groups.

Prior to Thursday's attack, there had been at least 12 attacks on Shi'ite targets since the start of 2016, in which almost 700 people were killed or wounded, according to United Nations figures. Before that, there had only been one major attack, in 2011.

FORTIFIED ZONE

The United States condemned the attack, the White House said in a statement, pledging to work with Afghanistan's government to find and punish the attackers and vowing that "the enemies of Afghanistan will not succeed in their attempts to destroy the country and divide the Afghan people."

Backed by the heaviest U.S. air strikes since the height of the international combat mission in Afghanistan, Afghan forces have forced the Taliban back in many areas and prevented any major urban centre from falling into the hands of insurgents.

But high-profile attacks in the big cities have continued as militants have looked for other ways to make an impact and undermine confidence in security.

The attacks have increased pressure on President Ashraf Ghani's Western-backed government to improve security. Much of the centre of Kabul is already a fortified zone of concrete blast walls and police checkpoints, following repeated attacks on the diplomatic quarter of the city.

But militant groups have also hit numerous targets outside the protected zone, many in the western part of the city, home to many members of the mainly Shi'ite Hazara community.

"This gruesome attack underscores the dangers faced by Afghan civilians," rights group Amnesty International said in a statement from its South Asia director, Biraj Patnaik. "In one of the deadliest years on record, journalists and other civilians continue to be ruthlessly targeted by armed groups."

According to a report this month by media freedom group Reporters without Borders, Afghanistan is among the world's most dangerous countries for media workers, with two journalists and five media assistants killed doing their jobs in 2017, before Thursday's attack.

According to Sayed Abbas Hussaini, a journalist at Afghan Voice, one reporter at the agency was killed in Thursday's attack and two were wounded.

(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelaty and John Davison in Cairo, and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by William Maclean and Leslie Adler)
Ben Saunders abandoned his mission to cross the South Pole unassisted - Eyevine

The British Polar explorer Ben Saunders gave up his quest to cross the South Pole echoing Sir Ernest Shackletons words that it was better to return home as a live donkey than a dead lion.

Mr Saunders, 40, was forced to abandon his mission to cross Antarctica unassisted after ferocious weather conditions left him without enough food to complete his journey.

He had attempted the trek in memory of his friend Lieutenant Colonel Henry Worsley, who died on an expedition to traverse the Antarctic alone last year.

Mr Saunders aimed to spend 65 days travelling more than 1,000 miles across Antarctica, but was forced to cancel the trip when he arrived at the South Pole on Thursday, after 52 days.

Ben Saunders Antarctic Expedition Ben Saunders with his fiancee, Pip Harrison

He had just 13 days of food for the remainder of the expedition, which he expected to last a minimum of 17 days if conditions were perfect.

Mr Saunders said he had made a promise to Lt Col Worsley that he would get home in one piece, and writing on his blog after abandoning the trek, he referenced Shackletons renowned retort after giving up his own attempt to reach the pole in 1909.

"Are you a lion or a donkey?" his wife Emily asked him on hearing of the failure. "Better a live donkey than a dead lion," Shackleton replied.

Sir Ernest Shackleton Credit: PA

Speaking of his own defeat, Mr Saunders said: I type this with bittersweet feelings. This is a high-stakes, high-consequence environment and, paradoxically, one where prudence often trumps derring-do and bravado, as Shackleton summed up in his line about lions and donkeys.

Standing here with less food for the remainder of my journey than Id planned, with a safety margin that I felt was too slim, I have decided this time to end my expedition at the Pole.

"I made a promise to Henry to get home in one piece. As much as I am determined to finish this trip for him, I need to make my decision based on safety and not let my own determination cloud my judgment.

"I don't think Henry would be telling me to go for it given my concerns about the diminished safety margin. It feels like the most respectful thing I can do after Henry's fate is to be prudent and safe."

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Henry Worsley, who died trying to make the same voyage as his friend Ben Saunders Credit: PA

Mr Saunders said he was forced to give up after realising his rations could not last the remaining journey, and that air rescue would be impossible on the final stretch of the adventure.

Despite ending his quest, Mr Saunders is only the third person in history - and the only Briton - to have skied by himself to both the North and South poles.

I'm proud that Ive always aimed high, Im proud that Ive been willing to fail publicly, time and again as Ive fallen short of some of my biggest goals, he added.

Right now Im feeling happier and more content than I thought Id be, but perhaps the regret might follow later.

As an experience adventurer, Mr Saunders knew that the mission could end in failure. His close friend Lt Col Worsley died of multiple organ failure after collapsing 913 miles into his Antarctic crossing attempt in January 2016.

Ben Saunders Antarctica route

With just 30 miles left to go, the former SAS soldier sent a heart-rending final message, telling the world: My journey is at an end.my summit is just out of reach.

Mr Saunders had planned to pass the South Pole with at least 20 days of rations in hand, ahead of the 17 day final push. As part of the rules he was not allowed to take on more supplies at the pole.

But treacherous conditions mean he fell dangerously behind.

Ive never known the conditions so bad, he told The Telegraph before he reached the Pole. Its completely disorientating and really hard to navigate, incredibly tough.

Ben Saunders Credit: Martin Hartley

In 2014, Mr Saunders completed the longest polar foot journey in history in company with Tarka LHerpiniere, becoming the first team to complete the return journey - 3,700 miles and 105 days - to the South Pole from Ross Island which defeated Captain Scott in 1912.

Shackleton had failed in the same attempt when his ship was crushed in the ice of the Weddell Sea shortly after he arrived, and he and his 28-man crew spent the next two years in an epic fight for survival.
At least 12 people, including three young children and a 1-year-old baby girl, were killed Thursday in the worst blaze New York City has seen in more than 25 years.

Authorities said the fire that tore through the Bronx apartment building was started by a 3-year-old boy playing with a stove in a first-floor apartment.

FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro called the blaze historic, saying "in a department thats certainly no stranger to tragedy, were shocked at this loss.

Some of the deadliest fires in New York Citys history include:

Brooklyn Theater Fire of 1876

As many as 300 people lost their lives when gas stage light caused a canvas backdrop to catch fire during a sold-out performance at the Brooklyn Theater on Dec. 5, 1876.

Only one staircase led out of the highest and least expensive tier of seats known as the family circle, which quickly filled with suffocating smoke and rose to extreme temperatures.

Panicked theater goers jammed the only exit and some were trampled in the chaos. At least 278 people died, but some accounts reported as many as 300 killed in the blaze. A common grave at Greenwood Cemetery became the final resting place of 103 unidentified victims.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911

In one of the most infamous fires in U.S. history, 123 women and 23 men were killed after a fire, which was believed to have started in a scrap bin, spread through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911.

Victims were unable to escape the fire as it spread through the factorys three floors in the Asch Building because the doors to the stairwells and exits were kept locked to ensure employees stayed inside.

Many people jumped or fell out of the windows from the eighth, ninth and 10th floors, while others perished from the fire and smoke inhalation.

Happy Land Social Club Fire of 1990

Thursday's fire is the city's deadliest since a raging inferno at a Bronx nightclub killed 87 people in 1990.

Arsonist Julio Gonzalez used $1 worth of gasoline to set the Happy Land social club ablaze after getting kicked out over a fight with an ex-girlfriend who worked there. According to a report, she survived the fire.

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Gonzalez was found guilty on 87 counts of arson and 87 counts of murder on Aug. 19, 1991. He died in prison of a heart attack on Sept. 13, 2016.

The street the former club stood on has been renamed The Plaza of the Eighty-Seven in memory of the victims who lost their lives.

Puerto Rican Social Club Fire of 1976

Escape was made impossible in another, deadly fire in the Bronx, where an unemployed salesman and a teenager set fire to a Puerto Rican social club and its only staircase in 1976.

Twenty-five young party goers were killed and 24 others were injured, with survivors forced to jump out a second-story window. Many victims died of asphyxiation before they could reach the window.

Everybody started acting crazy, survivor Jose Echeverria told The New York Times at the time. The only way out was the window and we took turns. I had to wait for two people before I could jump. If I stayed one minute longer I'm dead.

Francisco Mendez, 17, was convicted of 25 counts of murder for spreading the gasoline that created the deadly blaze. He reportedly smiled when he was found guilty. Jose Cordero, 41, who used marijuana, rum and a promise of a car to get Mendez to set the fire, pleaded guilty to arson. The married father of two was reportedly angry that his young girlfriend was at the dance that night against his wishes. According to a report, she was killed in the fire.

Hector Lopez, 18, admitted to striking the match that started the fire. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Monarch Underwear Company Fire of 1958

Only five blocks from where the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory once stood, a fire broke out at another factory that killed at least two dozen people on March 19, 1958.

Twenty-four people were killed and 15 more were injured when a five-alarm fire broke out at the Monarch Underwear Company, located in a loft building at 623 Broadway. The blaze started in the third-floor textile printing plant and spread to the fourth and fifth floors.

Some panicked workers jumped out of the building, while others were rescued by firefighters on ladders. The deceased were found huddled under work benches, near windows and by a staircase.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the building had one fire escape, no sprinklers and workers at the factory had never been through fire drills.

Wonder Drug and Cosmetics Fire of 1966

Twelve firefighters were killed when the floor of Wonder Drug store gave way on Oct. 17, 1966.

The men of Engine 18, Ladder Company 7 and several commanding officers were trying to get a hose to the back of a burning four-story brownstone on E. 22nd Street that butted up against the drugstore when the floor collapsed. An inquiry showed a cellar wall had been moved, leaving the drugstores floor unsupported, The New York Times reported.

It took 14 hours to dig out the dead. Those killed left behind 12 widows and 32 children, and until Sept. 11, 2001, the incident was the heaviest loss of life in the FDNYs history.

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Golden State tokers rejoice. The biggest legal recreational marijuana market in America is finally ready to open its doors.

Its been more than a year since California voted to legalize adult-use cannabis sales in the countrys most populous state by passing Proposition 64, but actual legal recreational weed sales have been on hold while state lawmakers decided on the regulatory framework for the new legal market. While medical marijuana has been legal in California for two decadesaccounting for roughly $2 billion in annual salesstate residents must wait until January 2018 before they are able to legally buy marijuana in California without a doctors approval.

California will soon join states like Colorado, Oregon, and Nevada that have already expanded into adult-use marijuana markets (in total, seven states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana). In some of those states, eager consumers celebrated the first day of legal recreational pot sales by lining up at their local dispensaries in order to be among the first to participate in the newly-legal marijuana economy.

Heres what you need to know about the start of legal recreational marijuana sales in California:

When and where can you buy recreational marijuana in California?

Californias new recreational marijuana laws will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2018, but that doesnt mean youll be able to go straight from your New Years Eve party to a local dispensary. First of all, state rules will dictate that cannabis not be sold until 6 a.m. or after 10 p.m. And, while the states Bureau of Cannabis Control is issuing temporary licenses to dispensaries this month that will be effective starting Jan. 1, it remains to be seen exactly how many California dispensaries will eligible for those licenses from the get-go.

Some of the roughly 1,000 existing medical marijuana dispensaries statewide, which also must apply for new state licenses, are likely to be among the first to land new licenses for both medical and recreational cannabis sales. But, entrepreneurs hoping to land their own licenses will also have to make sure that they have the approval of their local county or municipality, and the Los Angeles Times notes that most of the cities in California have still not approved recreational marijuana sales. The San Diego Union-Tribune puts the number of California cities and counties that have banned either the sale or cultivation of cannabis at higher than 70%.

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Leafly, a Yelp-like website for the legal cannabis industry, has a list of California cities in which legal recreational marijuana will soon be going on sale, though the site notes that not all dispensaries are likely to be fully licensed by Jan. 1.

What are the new laws going into effect?

For the most part, California regulators followed the path of legal frameworks from other states where legal recreational pot is already sold. For instance, you must be at least 21-years old to buy legal cannabis, and you cant just smoke it anywhere. For the most part, any public space where you are unable to smoke a cigarette will also be off limits for sparking a joint, while it will also be illegal to consume marijuana while in an automobile. Meanwhile, for business owners, marijuana dispensaries and other similar businesses in the state will continue to not be allowed to operate within 600 feet of any school, and they will need to maintain 24-hour surveillance for security reasons.

Lawmakers have also been working on other measures, including devising a banking plan for the industry as well as voting against allowing cannabis businesses to deliver their products via drone.

Also starting in January, California will introduce a 15% state excise tax on every purchase of a cannabis product. With additional state and local taxes tacked on, some customers could expect to pay an effective tax rate of 45% on each purchase of adult-use marijuana. (For what its worth, Colorado also has a 15% state excise tax and other states levy higher sales taxes, as well.) Its all part of Californias plan to eventually collect an estimated $1 billion in annual tax revenue from the legal adult-use marijuana industry.

How big will legal adult-use cannabis be in California?

In order to collect $1 billion a year in taxes, the state will need to reach a projected $7 billion in annual legal recreational cannabis sales. (California residents already reportedly spend that much on marijuana annually, but most of it is still on the black market.) At that rate, California would easily be the countrys largest legal marijuana market, as the entire legal cannabis industry in the U.S. is expected to pull in roughly $10 billion in total sales for 2017. That number would almost certainly get a boost in the coming years, as legal markets grow in California and other states, such as Nevada (where legal recreational marijuana sales kicked off over the summer) and Massachusetts (where the adult-use market is expected to open in July 2018).

(Californias legal adult-use cannabis market could even be bigger than the one that may be coming in Canada, as the state actually has more residents than that entire country.)

One potential major obstacle for Californias legal marijuana boom could be the federal government. Cannabis sales are still illegal on the federal level, and the Trump administration has played coy about its plans for the burgeoning marijuana industry, even as the man the president hand-picked to be the countrys law enforcement officer has made it no secret that he despises the drug. Last year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions refused to rule out prosecuting people who sell cannabis, even when they do so in accordance with state laws. But, for now states like California have little choice but to move forward with their long-gestating plans (and, perhaps, gear up for a fight down the road).
By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California adults not content to ring in the New Year with the traditional fizz of champagne can look forward to celebrating with the buzz of marijuana, purchased for the first time from state-licensed retailers of recreational pot.

Dozens of newly authorized marijuana stores are due to open for business across California on Jan. 1, launching yet another chapter in America's drug culture and the largest regulated commercial market for cannabis in the United States - one valued at several billion dollars.

The rollout is expected to be gradual and bumpy. The state only began handing out licenses in mid-December, issued on a temporary basis because implementing regulations were still under review.

Newly permitted retailers will rely on a hodge-podge of marijuana producers in the state's illicit "gray market" to stock their shelves for the next six months, until state-licensed growers can harvest their first crops.

And many jurisdictions, notably Los Angeles and San Francisco, will be closed to business in the recreational pot sector for days or weeks because of additional local approvals applicants must win.

Shops in San Diego, San Jose, the Bay area-towns of Berkeley and Oakland, and Eureka - the heart of Northern California's cannabis country - are among those ready to go on Day One, said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the state Cannabis Control Board.

"The market is going to be kind of rough getting started," said Jordan Lams, chief executive of Moxie, a company based in the Los Angeles suburb of Lynwood that specializes in making cannabis extracts, including oils used in electronic vaporization, or "vape," devices.

He predicted supply shortages early on.

California led the way in legalizing marijuana for medical purposes in 1996, and more than 30 states have followed suit since then, though cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under U.S. law.

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On Monday, California will become the sixth U.S. state, and by far the most populous, to legalize, regulate and tax sales of recreational marijuana - a market catering to consumers wishing to buy the drug for its mind- and mood-altering properties.

MEDICINAL VS. RECREATIONAL

Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Nevada were first in launching recreational pot sales on a state-regulated basis. Massachusetts and Maine are on track to do so in 2018.

With California and its 39.5 million residents joining the fold, more than one in five of Americans will now live in states where recreational marijuana is commercially available to buy in state-licensed stores.

Many among the new recreational pot proprietors previously operated as medical cannabis dispensaries, under a patchwork of local regulations. Some will now be licensed by the state to sell both.

The recreational sector - what state regulators prefer to call the "adult use" market - is considered more lucrative.

"This is the moment we've been waiting for," said Daniel Yi, spokesman for the 7-year-old Los Angeles-area dispensary chain MedMen, which is expanding from a medical business model to serving recreational users as well.

The stage for Monday's grand opening was set when voters passed a ballot measure in November 2016, Proposition 64, immediately legalizing personal possession and use of recreational pot by adults 21 and over. They could also grow their own.

But it has taken California lawmakers and bureaucrats over a year to devise a licensing, regulatory and tax structure for all phases of the commercial distribution chain.

A key goal of the new regime is to eliminate California's illicit marijuana production and farms, which account for roughly 60 percent of the nation's pot supply and are blamed for degrading the environment.

Supporters also point to a hefty new tax revenue source that by most estimates will total $1 billion a year. Both medical and recreational cannabis will be subject to a 15 percent state excise tax, though medical pot will be exempt from regular state sales taxes.

Recreational customers are limited to buying no more than one ounce (28 grams) of raw cannabis or its equivalent at a time, though individuals may grow up to six plants per person.

Investors have expressed an eagerness for a piece of California's burgeoning legit marijuana market, estimated to be worth $4 billion to $11 billion.

Opponents, however, have argued liberalized marijuana laws carry major public safety risks and make pot more accessible to youngsters.

Analysts expect much of the illicit trade in recreational pot will quickly gravitate to legit retailers as prices come down and reach parity with the illegal market.

An eighth ounce of "fairly good-quality flower," labeled with such names as "Blue Dream," "Youth in Asia" and "Super Glue," will go for about $35, said Yi of MedMen, which plans to wait until Jan. 2 to launch recreational sales in two of its sleek, artisanal shops in West Hollywood and Santa Ana.

Three other MedMen shops within the city of Los Angeles will probably have to wait for at least a few weeks, Yi said.

(Reporting By Steve Gorman, Editing by Ben Klayman and Rosalba O'Brien)
Zimbabwes former army chief, who led a coup that ended Robert Mugabes 37-year rule, was installed as Zimbabwes vice president in Harare on Thursday, local media reports.

Recently retired army Chief Constantino Chiwenga is the latest in a string of senior military figures appointed by Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa to important political posts.

Chiwenga, 61, took the oath of office in Harare, pledging to be faithful to Zimbabwe and to obey, uphold and defend the constitution, said an AFP journalist who witnessed the ceremony.

The general pledged to discharge his duties with all his strength and to the best of his knowledge and ability.

Born in 1956, General Chiwenga, joined the guerrilla war against white minority rule in the then Rhodesia as a teenager and got military training in Mozambique and Tanzania.

After the independence of the southern African nation in 1980, Chiwenga received British training in a new army made up of ex-guerrillas and soldiers of the former white minority regime.

The retired-general is being hailed as a political saviour after he led the military takeover in Zimbabwe last month. However, he is under sanctions from the European Union and the US  for his role in a brutal crackdown on the opposition, and over the seizure of white-owned farms.
HONG KONG (Reuters) - A ban on ivory sales in China, the world's largest importer and end user of elephant tusks, takes effect on Sunday with wildlife activists calling it a vital step to reducing the slaughter of the endangered animals. China has made a big push to eradicate ivory sales and demand has fallen since early 2014 because of a crackdown on corruption and slower economic growth. Public awareness campaigns featuring celebrities have helped boost awareness of the bloody cost of ivory. Wildlife groups estimate 30,000 elephants are killed by poachers in Africa every year. "It is the greatest single step toward reducing elephant poaching," said Peter Knights, chief executive of the group WildAid. China has allowed the sale of pre-convention ivory, which refers to products such as carvings and crafts acquired before the 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), as long as it is accompanied by certificates. The trade in pre-convention ivory has been legally thriving in China and Hong Kong since 1975, and environmental activists have long asserted that it has spurred demand for all ivory. The ban on all ivory sales has already led to an 80 percent decline in seizures of illegal ivory entering China as well as a 65 percent decline in raw ivory prices, said conservation group WildAid. Under the ban, China's 172 ivory-carving factories and retail outlets will also close. Some factories and shops started closing in March. Illegal ivory supplies have also been rife in unlicensed shops and online across China. This year, ivory prices in China were about 65 percent lower than 2014 levels, said WildAid, with retailers in some places trying to sell off stocks and offering heavy discounts before the ban. The Chinese ban has been hailed by activists but they warn that Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, remains a big obstacle to the eradication of elephant poaching. China's ban on sales does not apply in the former British colony, which has the largest retail market for ivory and has traded it for more than 150 years. Hong Kong is a prime transit and consumption hub for ivory with more than 90 percent of consumers from mainland China. Since 2003, Hong Kong has intercepted about 40 tonnes of illegal ivory, only about 10 percent of what is believed to have been smuggled in, WildAid said in a paper to the city's legislature in May. Hong Kong set a timetable for a ban on ivory trading last year, with a phase-out time of five years. A final vote on the ban is expected in the city's legislature in early 2018. Conservationist Zhou Fei said the Chinese ban could be a catalyst for the closure of ivory markets across Asia. However, Kenya-based conservation group Save the Elephants said this year that neighboring Laos has expanded its retail market more rapidly than any other country. (This story has been refiled to fix typographical error in paragraph 12) (Reporting by Farah Master; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Phnom Penh (AFP) - China will donate ballot boxes and voting booths for Cambodia's 2018 election, an official said Thursday, weeks after Western democracies pulled their support in protest over a crackdown on opposition politicians.

The US and the European Union withdrew their backing after a Phnom Penh court dissolved the main opposition party in November -- a move they said stripped next year's election of any legitimacy.

The ruling all but guarantees a victory for premier Hun Sen, an authoritarian leader who has been methodically sweeping out rivals as he looks to extend his 32-year run in office.

Western powers and rights groups have warned that the unprecedented crackdown could spell the death of democracy in the Southeast Asian nation.

But Beijing -- a top ally and benefactor -- has stuck by Cambodia's side, offering to provide an array of equipment for the July 2018 election.

"China pledged to give the equipment to serve the election in 2018," Dim Sovannarum, a spokesman for Cambodia's National Election Committee (NEC), told AFP.

He could not confirm the total cost of the donated gear, which includes computers, ballot boxes and voting booths.

The official -- who denied Beijing was filling the gap left by the EU and the US -- said the Chinese assistance would help "ensure transparency, accuracy and accountability" in the poll.

China is Cambodia's biggest source of foreign aid and regularly provides electoral support, including vehicles and other supplies worth $11 million for local polls held this year.

Beijing's total investment in the country topped $11.2 billion in 2016, according to official Cambodian data.

The flood of Chinese cash has significantly cut Hun Sen's reliance on Western donors, whose aid often comes with pressure to safeguard human rights and democratic institutions.

Analysts say Beijing's backing has emboldened the strongman's attack on political rivals, civil society and the press.
The Daily Beast

Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik/AFP via GettyNearly nine months into Russias war against Ukraine, it seems some of Vladimir Putins strongmen are laying the groundwork to abandon ship.A human rights group that works closely with Russian inmates and investigates abuses by the security services has reportedly received a flood of calls from members of those same security services desperately trying to flee.Gulagu.net, founded by Vladimir Osechkin, reports that the final straw appears to have been the bruta
Alberto Nisman is pictured in Buenos Aires on May 29, 2013. (Photo: Marcos Brindicci/Reuters)

More than two decades after the deadliest bombing in Argentinas history, the details of the unresolved massacre are only becoming more mysterious.

Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead just hours before he was set to testify against former President Cristina Fernandez in early 2015. His death, which triggered an avalanche of conspiracy theories, was initially labeled a suicide. But a federal judge ruled this week that Nisman was murdered.

The death of Prosecutor Nisman was not a suicide, and was brought about by a third party and in a painful manner, said federal judge Julian Ercolini.

Nisman had been leading the investigation into the attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people and injured more than 300 in 1994. He was appointed to lead the terror probe in 2004, when few details in the case had been established.

After more than a decade of investigation, Nisman accused Fernandez in January 2015 of covering up Irans alleged involvement in the bombing in a suspected attempt to boost trade with Tehran. He was discovered dead in his apartment from a gunshot wound to the head days later.

Judge Claudio Bonadio indicted Fernandez earlier this month on treason charges stemming from Nismans probe, but she denies any wrongdoing. Now a senator, the former president has immunity from prosecution.

Bonadio has requested that her immunity be lifted. But Fernandezs local and regional allies say she is being targeted in a media and judicial hunt. Bonadio has for years been under investigation for alleged corruption crimes including money laundering.

In his Tuesday ruling, Ercolini charged Diego Lagomarsino, Nismans former aide, with accessory to murder. Lagomarsino was the last person known to be in Nismans apartment at the time, and his gun was identified as the murder weapon.

Im very nervous, very tense, but I believe that sooner or later this is going to be resolved, Lagomarsino told reporters after the judges ruling, according to BBC. He has maintained his innocence, and claims Nisman had asked him for his gun out of fear for his safety on the night of his death.

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To date, no one has been convicted in the bombing.

Also on HuffPost

Women in Mexico City protest with "Ni Una Menos" posters.

Women in Mexico City protest dressed in all black.

Women protest in the rain in Buenos Aires with "Ni Una Menos" signs.

A woman in Buenos Aires protests with a sign that says "Stop Sexist Violence."

Silvia Vargas, mother of Maria Fernanda Rico -- a young Mexican woman who was murdered -- takes part in "Ni Una Menos" protests.

A woman in Mexico City with the sentence "Stop Looking at my Breasts" written on her chest takes part in October 19 protests.

Women march in Mexico City with a poster that says "We want to live."

A woman in Mexico City with the sentence 'It Was Because Of My Clothes' written on her back takes part in the October 19 protests.

Women in Mexico City protest in "Ni Una Menos" demonstrations.

Women in Mexico City take part in October 19 protests.

Women dressed in black go on strike in Buenos Aires to protest violence against women.

A woman in Mexico City protests on October 19 with the words "Not a virgin, not a slut, just a woman."

A woman protests in the rain in Buenos Aires.

Women take part in a strike in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to protest against violence against women and in solidarity for the brutal killing of Lucia Perez.

A woman protests in all black in Buenos Aires.

Women in Santiago, Chile march in solidarity with Argentinian women after the murder of Lucia Perez.

Women take part in a march in Santiago on October 19 with a sign that says, "The one death that we want is that of patriarchy."

Women gather in Sao Paulo to protest Lucia Perez's brutal murder.

The #NiUnaMenos hashtag is shown on the presidential palace 'La Moneda' during protests in Santiago, Chile on October 19.

Women in Sao Paulo, Brazil protest with a sign that says, "Stop Killing Us."

Women protest in Valparaiso, Chile on October 19.

Women rally in the streets of Valparaiso, Chile against femicide in South America.

People hold a flag with missing and murdered women's photos during a march in Santiago, Chile on October 19.

Women in Santiago show their hands stained with red paint on October 19.

Women protest against femicide in San Salvador, El Salvador.

A woman takes part in protests against violence against women in Mexico City.

Women march in the streets of Santiago, Chile.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Authorities in eastern Libya have announced a conference in March to drum up support to rebuild the country's second-largest city Benghazi heavily damaged during three years of fighting between military forces and Islamist fighters. The announcement signals a desire to demonstrate a return to normality in the port, where top military commander Khalifa Haftar declared the end of a campaign to oust Islamist fighters in July. Clashes have sporadically continued in some isolated areas, while life has returned in the rest of the city, though some districts were almost completely destroyed by shelling and air strikes. A forum titled "International Conference and Exhibition for rebuilding Benghazi city" will be held from March 19-21, the organisers said in an invitation posted online, adding that a six-day exhibition would be held the same month. Haftar is aligned with a government and parliament in eastern Libya which was listed as the conference's sponsor. He has rejected a U.N.-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, as he has gradually strengthened his position on the ground. The United Nations has sought to bridge differences between the two sides, part of a conflict since Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011. Talks were suspended in October. (Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Peter Graff)
NBC News chief White House correspondent and MSNBC daytime anchor Hallie Jackson was discussing taxes on Thursday when a few creatures older than Congress dropped into the background of her shot  dinosaurs. OK, they werent really dinosaurs, but rather three people dressed up in inflatable costumes.

Reporting live from West Palm Beach, Fla., Jackson discussed the viral moment with her colleagues on Today and Morning Joe. What can I say? she asked Willie Geist. That was a weird moment yesterday. I didnt know until the commercial break.  All of the sudden Im in Jurassic Park and Im like, Where is Jeff Goldblum?

Jackson made more references to the 93 classic on Twitter:

After careful consideration, Ive decided not to endorse your park. https://t.co/L6eVklHyf6  Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) December 28, 2017

Jackson went on to explain how her producer bravely approached the wild dinos. Were doing a pretty serious segment, she said. [My colleague was] like, Can you please just give us a moment? And so the dinosaurs very nicely exited stage left. I dont know if theyre coming back today.

Bad lip-reading Donald Trump dominates the internet:

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
Supporters of a 14-member opposition coalition in Togo hit the streets with anti-government demonstrations in the capital Lome and other towns of the tiny West African nation.

The coalition is demanding the resignation of the incumbent president Faure Gnassingbe who succeeded his father Eyadema in 2005.

Gnassignbes father ruled for nearly four decades, having initially taken power during a coup detat. The two elections  in 2010 and 2015  since Gnassingbe took power have been marred by controversy, with the opposition calling them fraudulent.

The new round of protests comes after previous protests calling for constitutional reforms and a return to the countrys 1992 constitution have been met with tear gas and live bullets from security forces.

While Gnassingbe has not said he would run again in 2020, the opposition coalition believes he will not quit power unless compelled to step down.

In an interview to the Paris-based Magazine Jeune Afrique last week, Faure Gnassingbe insisted that any conditional reform will not prevent him from running for another therm.

The almost-weekly protests which have gripped Togo since late August have been bloody. Most of the deadly clashes between protesters and the security forces have taken place in the northern city of Sokode, where there has been a heavy security presence.
Amidst the ongoing disagreements between Google and Amazon, the version of YouTube currently accessible on Amazon Fire TVs was scheduled to be disabled starting January 1st. But TechCrunch reports that at least for some users, that appears to have happened a little earlier than expected. Quite a few Fire TV owners are reporting on Twitter and Reddit that launching the YouTube app now redirects you to a web browser.

Amazon and Google have butted heads quite a bit in recent years. Earlier this month, Google said it would pull support for YouTube on the Echo Show and Amazon Fire TV devices due to the fact that Amazon refuses to carry Google products or make Prime Video available on Google Cast and has implemented what amount to hacked versions of YouTube on the Echo Show and Fire TV devices. Shortly after that announcement, Amazon said it would be bringing Chromecast back to its retail lineup, which suggested a potential reconciliation between the two giants. But last week, Amazon added Firefox and its own Silk browser to all Fire TV devices, through which users can get to YouTube once Google pulls its app support, and reports surfaced that the company had filed multiple trademark requests for what appear to be rival YouTube sites -- the less than charmingly named Amazontube and Opentube.

It appears that not every Fire TV user is getting the same redirect, however. Cord Cutter News reports that if you don't have Silk or Firefox installed, you're still able to get to the YouTube app. And AFTVNews.com says that if you keep your device from updating to the new version of YouTube or sideload the older version, you can still access the app.

We've reached out to both Google and Amazon for comment. We'll update this post when we hear more.

Update: An Amazon spokesperson told us that, "YouTube and millions of other websites are accessible by using a web browser like Firefox or Silk on Fire TV."
Kabul (Afghanistan) (AFP) - At least 40 people were killed and dozens more wounded in multiple blasts at a Shiite cultural centre in Kabul on Thursday, officials said, in the latest deadly violence to hit the Afghan capital.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the Taliban was quick to deny involvement in the assault near the Afghan Voice Agency, a media outlet which earlier reports had suggested could have been the target.

Deputy interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi told AFP the blasts were in fact aimed at the Shiite Tabayan cultural centre.

"A ceremony was being held to mark the 38th anniversary of Soviet invasion in Afghanistan when the explosion went off," he said.

"We have 40 killed, 30 wounded, but this is not the final toll. It might go up."

Rahimi said the main blast was followed by two smaller bomb explosions that did not cause casualties.

Kabul has become one of the deadliest places in war-torn Afghanistan for civilians in recent months, as the Taliban step up their attacks and the Islamic State group (IS) seeks to expand its presence in the country.

Friday's assault comes days after a suicide bomber killed six civilians in an attack near an Afghan intelligence agency compound in the city, which was claimed by IS.

The Middle Eastern jihadist group has gained ground in Afghanistan since it first appeared in the region in 2015 and has scaled up its attacks in Kabul, including on security installations and the country's Shiite minority.

A hospital official told local TV that 18 wounded had been brought to his facility.

"Five of the wounded are in critical condition and our doctors are working to save their lives," Sabir Nasib, head of Istiqlal hospital, said.

A man attending the anniversary ceremony said he heard a "big boom".

"We do not know the numbers (of casualties). When the explosion happened we immediately fled," he told Tolo News.

Mohammad Hasan Rezayee, a university student also at the ceremony, told Tolo News he had suffered burns to his face in the blast.

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"After the blast there was fire and smoke inside the building and everyone was pleading for help," he said.

Photos posted on Afghan Voice Agency's Facebook page showed the inside of a compound with debris and bodies lying on the ground.

Security in the city has been ramped up since May 31 when a massive truck bomb ripped through the diplomatic quarter, killing some 150 people and wounding around 400 others -- mostly civilians.

Afghan media has previously been targeted by militants, underlying the risks faced by journalists in the war-torn country.

In November an attack on Afghan broadcaster Shamshad TV in Kabul, claimed by the Islamic State group, left at least one person dead and two dozen others wounded.
HONG KONG (Reuters) - An association representing Hong Kong barristers said it was "appalled" by the Chinese parliament's move to enforce mainland laws inside a Hong Kong railway station, denouncing it as the most retrograde step since the 1997 handover. The Hong Kong Bar Association said the decision would "severely undermine" confidence in the rule of law in the former British colony which returned to Chinese rule 20 years ago with the promise of a high degree of autonomy. China's parliament on Wednesday said part of a high-speed railway station being built in Hong Kong would be regarded as mainland territory governed by mainland laws under a so-called cooperation agreement. Chinese and Hong Kong officials both argue such a joint immigration checkpoint is necessary for passengers' convenience. Hong Kong operates under a "one country, two systems" principle which allows it to run its own police force, immigration controls and an independent, British-style judicial system, with lawyers split into barristers and solicitors. The city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, explicitly states national laws, with a few exceptions, do not apply in Hong Kong. "This plainly amounts to an announcement by the NPCSC (National People's Congress Standing Committee) that the cooperation agreement complies with the constitution and the Basic Law 'just because the NPCSC says so'," the bar association said. "Such an unprecedented move is the most retrograde step to date in the implementation of the Basic Law, and severely undermines public confidence in 'one country, two systems' and the rule of law. "The integrity of the Basic Law has now been irreparably breached." The prospect of Beijing interfering in the financial hub has already stoked social tensions and protests including the 2014 "Occupy" street demonstrations that demanded, in vain, full democracy for the city of 7.3 million. The abduction of Hong Kong-based booksellers in 2015 who later showed up across the border in Chinese custody also touched a raw nerve. The high-speed rail station is due to open next autumn in the heart of the city, next to the Victoria Harbour, one of the most famous views in the world. The Hong Kong government said it respected the rule of law. "Under each system, there must be the highest and ultimate organ of power (and this must be necessary)," it said in a statement. "Under 'one country, two systems', Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of autonomy accorded by the Basic Law, but we must also respect the national constitution and the NPCSC's status and authority under the country's constitutional system. "This decision... has legal effect. It is not, as some comments suggest, simply an administrative decision ... and much less reflects a 'rule of man' situation or a retrograde move in the implementation of the Basic Law." Elsie Leung, deputy director of the Basic Law Committee in the NPCSC and the city's former legal chief, also disputed the association's comments. "I think their understanding of the Chinese constitution is insufficient," Leung told reporters in comments carried by Hong Kong's Cable Television. "If you insist on using only common law principles to interpret the Basic Law, that is wrong." At a cost of more than HK$84 billion ($11 billion), Hong Kong's Express Rail Link will link up with the rest of China's high-speed rail network. The plan is expected to sail through Hong Kong's legislature in the first half of next year as opposition lawmakers have lost their veto power after a series of controversial court cases. (Reporting by Venus Wu; Editing by Nick Macfie)
By Kanupriya Kapoor JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's counter-terrorist police force is to get 600 extra personnel next year to monitor Islamic State networks and head off so-called lone wolf attacks, the chief of police in the world's largest Muslim-majority country said on Friday. Hundreds of investigators and surveillance personnel will join an existing force of about 500 officers at Detachment 88, a police unit tasked with uprooting militant networks and foiling attacks. "We will do this to monitor terrorist networks more closely since ISIS networks remain in Indonesia and Southeast Asia," National Police Chief Tito Karnavian told Reuters, referring to Islamic State. "It's more due to increasing 'lone wolf' activity and the dynamics of ISIS networks around the world," he said, when asked if the increase in personnel was in response to a specific threat. Indonesia has seen a resurgence in homegrown militancy in recent years, largely inspired by Islamic State. Hundreds of Indonesians are believed to have traveled to Syria to join the group, but many have returned as it has lost territory. Authorities worry militants returning from the Middle East may include battle-hardened fighters who could pass on what they have learned about weapons and attacks. Karnavian, a former chief of the counter-terrorism unit himself, said the extra personnel will be deployed to certain provinces where "we perceive ISIS networks exist". The counter-terrorist force was set up in 2003, after bomb attacks on the holiday island of Bali in 2002 killed more than 200 people. It was initially trained, funded and equipped by Australia and the United States. Islamic State-linked militants killed for people in a gun and bomb attack in the heart of the capital, Jakarta, in 2016, but the assault, and a series of others since then, have been poorly planned and executed. The counter-terrorist unit, known as Densus 88, foiled several attacks and arrested dozens of suspected militants this year. (Editing by Robert Birsel)
Women in the Iranian capital will no longer be arrested for failing to wear a headscarf - Reuters

Women in the Iranian capital will no longer be arrested for failing to wear a headscarf, Tehran police have said, in a move which follows an unexpected raft of gender reforms in Saudi Arabia.

Morality police will no longer automatically detain women seen without the proper hijab head-covering in public, a strict Islamic dress code in place since the 1979 revolution.

For nearly 40 years, women in Iran have been forced to cover their hair and wear long, loose garments.

Younger and more liberal-minded women have long pushed the boundaries of the official dress code, wearing loose headscarves that do not fully cover their hair and painting their nails, drawing the ire of conservatives.

The announcement signalled an easing of punishments for violating the country's conservative dress code, as called for by the reform-minded Iranians who helped re-elect President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, earlier this year.

But hard-liners opposed to easing such rules still dominate Iran's security forces and judiciary, so it was unclear whether the change would be fully implemented.

Younger and more liberal-minded women have long pushed the boundaries of the official dress code, wearing loose headscarves that do not fully cover their hair Credit: Getty

"Those who do not observe the Islamic dress code will no longer be taken to detention centers, nor will judicial cases be filed against them," General Hossein Rahimi, Tehran police chief, was quoted as saying by the reformist daily newspaper Al Sharq.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency said violators will instead be made to attend classes given by police. It said repeat offenders could still be subject to legal action, and the dress code remains in place outside the capital.

Iran's morality police - similar to Saudi Arabia's religious police - typically detain violators and escort them to a police van. Their families are then called to bring the detainee a change of clothes. The violator is then required to sign a form that they will not commit the offence again.

Iran's arch foe Saudi Arabia, under similar internal pressure to liberalise, announced in September that it would finally allow women to drive.

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Saudis watch composer Yanni perform at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Credit: Reuters

Activists had been arrested for driving since 1990, when the first driving campaign was launched by women who drove cars in the capital, Riyadh.

Shocking the kingdom, one of the most repressive countries for women in the world, the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced a tranche of liberalising changes. In 2018, women will also be allowed to attend sporting matches in national stadiums, where they were previously banned.

Designated "family sections" will ensure women are separate from male-only quarters of the stadiums. The crown prince tested public reaction to the move when he allowed women and families into the capital's main stadium for National Day celebrations this year.

And Saudi authorities this week allowed female contestants at an international chess tournament to play without the abaya, a long robe-like dress

The ambitious 32-year-old heir to the throne upended decades of royal family protocol, social norms and traditional ways of doing business. He bet instead on a young generation of Saudis hungry for change and a Saudi public fed up with corruption and government bureaucracy.
Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - At least 56 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli gunfire in the West Bank and Gaza on Friday as they protested in a fresh "day of rage" over US President Donald Trump's controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Israeli forces also hit the Gaza Strip with tank fire and air strikes after rockets from the Palestinian enclave targeted a southern community, the army and Palestinian sources said.

Israeli troops opened fire during clashes in several parts of the coastal territory, wounding 40 people, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said. Four were in a serious condition.

The Israeli army said 2,000 protestors had thrown stones and Molotov cocktails at soldiers on the Israeli side of a barrier with the Palestinian territory.

In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said at least 16 people were wounded when Israeli troops fired live bullets during demonstrations, while others were hit with rubber-coated rounds.

The Israeli military said about 500 demonstrators had burned tyres and thrown Molotov cocktails and stones at its forces in 30 different parts of the West Bank.

Israel also carried out air strikes on the Gaza Strip after Palestinian militants fired three rockets at southern Israel, two of which were intercepted by the "Iron Dome" aerial defence system, the army said.

Police said the third rocket hit a structure in a community near Gaza, causing damage but no casualties.

"In response to the rockets fired towards Israel, IDF (Israel Defence Forces) tanks and IAF (Israeli Air Force) aircraft targeted two posts belonging to the terrorist organisation Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip," the army said in a statement.

Witnesses said Israeli tanks shelled a position controlled by Gaza's Islamist rulers east of Gaza City.

A spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry said nobody was injured by the Israeli fire.

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Both Hamas and fellow militant group Islamic Jihad had labelled Friday a "day of rage", as in previous weeks.

Militants in Gaza have fired more than a dozen rockets or mortar rounds at southern Israel in the latest wave of violence, which erupted after Trump's decision.

Before Friday, the last rockets fired from Gaza were on December 18, one of which hit a home in a border town.

Trump's December 6 announcement was followed by protests across the West Bank and on Gaza's border with Israel, with 12 Gazans killed in clashes with Israeli forces on the border or by Israeli strikes following rocket fire.

The rockets are often fired by fringe Islamist groups but Israel holds Hamas responsible for all attacks from the territory.
Bangkok (AFP) - A 27-year-old woman from the Ivory Coast has been arrested on the Thai island of Phuket after an airport X-ray found more than one kilogramme of cocaine in her stomach wrapped in scores of small packets.

The woman was stopped by officials late Wednesday night at Phuket's international airport after landing on a flight from Doha.

An X-ray revealed more than 60 small packages in her stomach, filled with 1.2 kilogrammes (2.6 pounds) of cocaine, according to Sirinya Sitdhichai, secretary-general of Thailand's Office of Narcotics Control Board.

The drugs were likely bound for wealthy clients in Bangkok, he added.

"Unlike methamphetamine, cocaine and ice (crystal meth) are for a very niche group of rich customers," he told AFP.

He said drug traffickers based in West Africa routinely hire African or Asian woman as "mules" to smuggle narcotics into Thailand, a country whose porous borders and air links make it a popular transit stop for all kinds of contraband.

Smugglers often fly into smaller airports outside Bangkok and then travel by road to sell the drugs in the capital, he added.

Thailand, a country of roughly 68 million, has the world's sixth largest prison population thanks to harsh drug laws that were enacted more than a decade ago but have failed to dismantle the narcotics trade or dent addiction rates.

More than 70 percent of the kingdom's convicts are jailed on drug-related offences.

The proportion is even higher among the 39,000 female prisoners in Thailand, which jails more women per capita than any other nation.

Yet while couriers and other low-level smugglers are routinely arrested, authorities have struggled to take down kingpins and dismantle their trafficking networks.

The most popular drug in the kingdom is meth consumed in the form of caffeine-laced tablets known as "yaba", which means "crazy medicine".

The pill, and a more potent and pure version known as "ice", are churned out in drug labs in the Golden Triangle Zone where northern Thailand meets Myanmar and Laos.
This weigh-in did not go as expected. (Screenshot via ReactQ on Youtube)

The weigh-in is typically one of the most exciting events before a big fight. It provides both competitors with a chance to confront each other, usually with yelling, screaming and insults just before the two settle things in the ring.

You could say the same about this pre-fight weigh-in, but that would severely undersell what really happened. Japanese fighter Shinobu Kandori lost her cool after her opponent weighed in 27 pounds over the target weight for their upcoming match.

Heres the full video of the event, which is almost certainly worth your time:

The video is not in English, but that hardly matters here. All you need are the reactions and facial expressions to know exactly whats going on. A man in a giant ramen costume is entertaining in any language.

Kandoris opponent, Gabi Garcia, weighs in 27 pounds over the 209-pound limit for the match. Kandori came in at just 162 pounds, according to For The Win.

Kandori didnt take to the news too kindly. She started yelling that Garcia was a disgrace.

#RizinFF Update: Gabi Garcia was 12 kgs over. Opponent Shinobu Kandori freaked out and started yelling this is a disgrace. Sakikibara came on stage and said competitionwise, we cannot make this happen. Stay tuned.  Joe Ferraro (@ShowdownJoe) December 28, 2017

Its the :33 minute mark of the above video that really stands out. Thats when Garcia realizes shes come in way overweight. The camera zooms in on her blank expression, but you can hear her doing her best Gob from Arrested Development and silently saying to herself, Ive made a huge mistake.

Thats when Kandori starts shouting. She continues yelling and pointing at Garcia as she leaves the press conference. She is eventually escorted from the room as Garcia stands on stage with the same blank look on her face.

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The two were set to square off during the Rizin World Grand Prix 2017, which is an event held by the Rizin Fighting Federation. That event was supposed to begin Dec. 29. After that weigh-in, its not expected the Garcia and Kandori fight will happen.

We cant really blame Kandori for going off. The 53-year-old had not participated in a mixed martial arts match since 2000. This was supposed to be her return after 17 years away.

Not only that but  it wasnt even close. We can envision a scenario where a fighter is a pound or two over their target weight, but 27 pounds seems like Garcia wasnt trying to make weight. She didnt take it seriously.

Combine that with everything else, and you can understand why Kandori was furious.

More coverage from Yahoo Sports:

      

Chris Cwik is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at christophercwik@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik
A court in Cameroon on Wednesday ordered the release of a prize-winning New York-based Cameroonian novelist, Patrice Nganang, arrested at a Cameroon airport earlier this month on charges of insulting and threatening to kill President Paul Biya.

Police accuse him of alleged death threats against Cameroonian President Paul Biya and forgery.

Nganang, who teaches literature at New York University, published last Tuesday an opinion piece in French on Jeune Afrique portal critical of Biyas handling of the crisis in Cameroons restive Anglophone regions. However, Cameroons information minister Issa Bakary Tchiroma insisted the arrest was over a Facebook post he made earlier.

Before publishing his opinion piece on Jeune Afrique Magazine, Nganang had published a post on his facebook page declaring that if given the opportunity, he would lodge a bullet on president Biyas forehead. His post went viral in Cameroon.

What has become known as the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon is at the stage of an armed confrontation between secessionists and the army.

People in Cameroons Anglophone regions  Northwest and Southwest  have long protested against marginalization from the French majority. An attempt at declaring a symbolic independence in early October brought an estimated 80,000 people onto the streets and led to deaths, injuries and mass arrests.
Douma (Syria) (AFP) - Aid workers have evacuated the first few ill patients from Syrian rebel bastion Eastern Ghouta under a deal struck after the UN said hundreds are in critical condition following a four-year government seige.

Three children and a man were loaded overnight into ambulances bound for hospitals in Damascus before being transported out past government lines that have held the region's estimated 400,000 residents in a stranglehold since 2013.

A total of 29 emergency medical cases are expected to be evacuated under a deal with the government that saw rebels release five workmen detained during fierce clashes with the army in March.

The four patients allowed out were a girl with haemophilia, a baby with the autoimmune disorder Guillain-Barre, a child with leukaemia, and a man in need of a kidney transplant, Red Crescent official Ahmed al-Saour told AFP.

Eight-year-old Ingy, the girl with haemophilia, gave a broad smile as she boarded an ambulance, wearing a woolly hat and gloves against the cold.

In another ambulance, one-year-old Mohammed lay in the lap of a Red Crescent worker, his mother sitting beside them in a long black cloak and a veil showing only her eyes.

"The operation is a positive step which will bring some respite to the people of Eastern Ghouta," said International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Ingy Sedky.

"We hope these medical evacuations are only the beginning."

The Syrian American Medical Society, another medical relief organisation, said the remainder of the 29 critical cases approved for evacuation should leave in the coming days.

- Baby among dead -

The dominant rebel faction in Eastern Ghouta, Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), said the rebels had agreed to free some of their prisoners in return for the evacuations.

"We have agreed to the release of a number of prisoners... in exchange for the evacuation of the most urgent humanitarian cases," the group said a statement.

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The years of government seige have caused severe shortages in Eastern Ghouta, one of the last remaining rebel strongholds in Syria.

While some food is still grown locally, or smuggled in, humanitarian access to the region has been limited despite regular appeals from aid agencies.

Last week, Jan Egeland, the head of the UN's humanitarian taskforce for Syria, said at least 16 people had died while waiting for evacuation from Eastern Ghouta.

A list put together several months ago of nearly 500 civilians in desperate need of evacuation was rapidly shrinking, said Egeland.

"That number is going down, not because we are evacuating people, but because they are dying," he told reporters in Geneva.

"We have confirmation of 16 having died on these lists since they were resubmitted in November, and it is probably higher," he said, highlighting the case of a baby who died on December 14, as the latest round of Syria peace talks in Geneva ended in failure.

Egeland said evacuations and efforts to bring aid into the region had been blocked by a lack of authorisations from the Syrian authorities.

- IS 'moving with impunity' -

The Eastern Ghouta region, near the capital Damascus, is one of four "de-escalation" zones agreed in May in a deal brokered by government backers Russian and Iran and rebel supporter Turkey.

The agreement led to some reduction in fighting but the government kept up its blockade and renewed its bombardment of the enclave in mid-November.

The government stands accused by its critics of using sieges of civilians as a weapon in its war against the rebels.

Rebel fighters pulled out of second city Aleppo and third city Homs, as well as districts of Damascus, only after prolonged blockades caused serious hardship to their families and other civilians.

More than 340,000 people have been killed and millions have been driven from their homes since Syria's conflict erupted with anti-government protests in 2011.

The conflict has since evolved into a complex war involving international powers and jihadists, including the Islamic State group who seized large parts of Syria in 2014.

But the jihadists have seen the territory they once controlled disintegrate in the face of two offensives -- one by Russia-backed regime forces and another by a Kurdish-Arab alliance support by a US-led coalition.

That coalition on Wednesday accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of allowing the jihadists to move through territory he controls "with impunity".

"The regime is clearly either unwilling or unable to defeat (IS) within their borders," Major General Felix Gedney of the British army said.

The coalition does not plan to pursue IS fighters into regime-held areas, Gedney said, instead calling on Assad to do so.

burs-tgg/ram/ah/dv
Meghan Markle's half-sister is hitting back at comments Prince Harry made about her family during a radio interview this week.

Harry told BBC's Radio 4 that his fiancee had an "amazing" Christmas with his family.

"It's the family I suppose that she's never had, he added.

But Meghan's half-sister Samantha Grant, who lives in Florida, fired back on Twitter.

Actually she has a large family who were always there with her and for her. Our household was very normal and when dad and Doria divorced, we all made it so it was like she had two houses. No one was estranged ,she was just too busy. Read my book complete with facts and photos  Samantha Markle (@SamanthaMGrant) December 27, 2017

She has a large family. She always did. Our dad is amazing and completely self sacrificing. We made it so that she had two houses. How fun it was!  Samantha Markle (@SamanthaMGrant) December 27, 2017

Royal expert Victoria Arbiter says the prince was simply reacting to remarks Markles relatives have made about her.

Meghan's family has been a little tricky since the couple started dating," she told Inside Edition. "She's had half siblings come out and speak about her not always favorably and I think Harry was standing up for her and letting people know he's aware of how she's been treated."

Markle's mother, Doria Ragland, and father, Tom Markle, divorced in 1987 when she was 5. Markle also has a half-brother, Thomas Markle Grant Jr.

But the former Suits actress has fond memories of her family holidays. In the U.K. edition of Elle magazine, she spoke about Christmas growing up in a mixed race family. She says her father bought two Barbie sets to create a special doll family to put under the tree.

Story continues

She said she had "a black mom doll, a white dad doll, and a child in each color. My dad had taken the sets apart and customized my family."

Markles 52-year-old half-sister says she's writing a tell-all book about the actress and her fractured family.

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From the December 2017 issue

A Good Thing Gone

Rudy Stanko, a man of many court battles, has had only one that matters to driving enthusiasts. And his win is our loss. Stanko is the man who challenged Montanas reasonable and prudent speed law, which stood between 1955 and 1974 and again between 1995 and 1999. It was Stankos case that gave the Montana legislature reason to impose a highway speed limit.

In March 1996, Stanko was ticketed for traveling 85 mph on Montana State Highway 200. He contested the charge in justice and district courts and was convicted by a jury twice. His second appeal landed the case in the Montana Supreme Court in December 1998. That court, in a four-to-three ruling, reversed the district courts judgment. It called the reasonable and prudent clause vague on the grounds that it impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis . . .  Neither the citing officer nor the attorney general at the time were able to specify a speed that would have been safe at the location where Stanko was stopped. In its finding, the court also stated that the reasonable and prudent clause, because of its vagueness, denied defendants due process. It was a shallow victory.

Stanko was never one to be intimidated by the law. His interaction with the courts, both before this case and since, has been prolific. He was found guilty in 1984 of violations of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, a crime for which he was sentenced to six years in prison and fined $70,000. He was also convicted in 2006 of being a prohibited person in possession of firearms and ammunition.

But in Montana, had he opted to pay the $70 fine, he could have made the ticket go away without the violation being recorded on his driving record. And we might still have one state without a numerical speed limit.

Big Bang to 1974

Trilobites blaze across the continental drift for eons before oceans turn to highways that man promptly ruins with speed limits. Only one state, Montana, is left unspoiled with no daytime speed limit. At night, speeds are restricted to 65 mph on interstate highways and 55 mph on two-lanes.

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1974

President Richard Nixon signs the Emergency Energy Highway Conservation Act into law. It effectively enacts a 55-mph national speed limit by threatening to kill funding for highways to states not in compliance. Montana meets the letter of the law by fining violators $5 for an unnecessary waste of a natural resource. But, in spirit, Montana is telling the feds to shove it.

1987

Congress allows states to raise the speed limit to 65 mph on rural interstate highways.

1995

President Clinton signs the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 into law, repealing Nixons speed limit and eliminating the highway funding penalty. Montana reverts to its original law, which states that drivers shall operate vehicles  . . . at a rate of speed no greater than is reasonable and prudent. Violations are issued at officers discretion.

1998

The Supreme Court of Montana, upon hearing the case of Rudy Stanko, decides that the states reasonable and prudent law is unconstitutionally vague and doesnt give drivers fair notice of what speed is fast enough to be illegal.

1999

Montanas legislature sets the states daytime speed limit at 75 mph.

2015

Montana increases its speed limit to 80 mph on the interstate for both day and night.
Two foreign journalists and their two local staffers have been released from prison in Myanmar, two months after they were arrested for filming with a drone near parliament buildings in Naypyitaw, the countrys capital.

Singaporean Lau Hong Meng and Mok Choy Lin of Malaysia were arrested along with their local fixer Aung Naing Soe and driver Hla Tin on Oct. 27. All four were sentenced to two months in prison under Myanmars 1934 Aircraft Act. On Thursday, police dropped additional charges that could have seen the journalists imprisoned for years and set their release date for Jan. 5, but the four were released on Friday.

Aung Naing Soe told Reuters that their early release was as much of a surprise as the initial arrest. We have been arrested unexpectedly, and now we are so glad to be unexpectedly released like this, he said. We didnt know that we would be released in the morning until last night.

All four had initially also faced up to three years in prison under Myanmars import-export law for importing the drone without authorization, while Lau Hong Meng and Mok Choy Lin also faced immigration violations that carried a penalty of up to five years.

Read more: Rohingya Refugees: Myanmars Crisis Is Bangladeshs Burden

According to their lawyer, Khin Maung Zaw, Myanmars authorities decided to drop the additional charges after concluding that the journalists did not pose a national security threat, as well as to maintain diplomatic relations with their ASEAN neighbors, the Associated Press reported.

The group was working for Turkish state broadcaster TRT, which denied that the journalists had violated Myanmars laws.

The arrests in late October followed weeks of rising diplomatic tensions over violence targeting the countrys Muslim Rohingya minority. In early September, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said military operations that have displaced more than 655,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh constituted genocide. In August, Turkeys deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek drew condemnation in Myanmar and accusations of spreading misinformation over a tweet urging international attention over the plight of the Rohingya that included four photos later shown to be from other conflicts or disasters.

Story continues

Read more: One Week, No Word. Myanmar Is Under Pressure Over Arbitrary Detention of Two Reuters Journalists

Meanwhile, two local Reuters journalists who were also arrested in Myanmar earlier this month saw their custody extended this week, as Myanmars authorities continue to probe whether they violated the countrys archaic Official Secrets Act. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested on Dec. 12 and are being investigated for alleged possession of confidential government documents, believed to be related to military operations in Rakhine state. If convicted, they face up to 14 years in prison.

The two were held incommunicado at an undisclosed location for two weeks before their first court appearance on Wednesday, prompting widespread criticism and demands from rights groups and media representatives that the reporters be permitted to meet with their lawyers and families.

Their detention has raised concerns of a shrinking free press in Myanmar, and prompted calls from all sectors, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, demanding their immediate release.
About 100 of the vessels have been detected this year. (PA)

A North Korean captain has been indicted on charges of stealing a generator, appliances and other equipment from an uninhabited island, according to Japanese authorities.

A wooden vessel with a Korean Peoples Army sign was found on an uninhabited islet off the island of Hokkaido in late November, where the captain and nine crew members claimed they were sheltering from bad weather.

Japanese police said they arrested the captain and two crew members earlier this month.

Prosecutors charged the captain with theft, which means he will stand trial in Japan, NHK public television reported.

NHK reported that the captain played a leading role and also stole nearly 40 items including a television, appliances, as well as solar panels and equipment for a lighthouse on the island, worth more than 5.6 million yen (37,000).

Rickety North Korean fishing boats are particularly vulnerable. (PA)

It is not uncommon for North Korean fishermen to use military-owned boats since only selected ships can be used for fishing, but their rickety boats are particularly vulnerable because they lack the sturdiness and equipment to return home.

About 100 of the vessels, many of them empty, have been detected this year, with a record number arriving in November.

Soldier who defected from North Korea immune to anthrax

South Korea predicts new sanctions could force North Korea to push for talks in 2018

Japan considers refitting helicopter carrier for stealth fighters: government sources

The increased pace of the past few weeks has prompted Japanese authorities to step up patrols.

They have been holding dozens of people from the boats and eight men were recently repatriated via Beijing after they expressed a desire to return home.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un attending the 8th Conference of Munitions Industry in Pyongyang - AFP

A North Korean nuclear scientist deported back to his home country after defecting to China has reportedly committed suicide in his prison cell hours before he was due to be interrogated.

The defector, who is in his 50s, was a lead researcher in the physics centre of the State Academy of Sciences in Pyongyang. He was identified by Radio Free Asia as Hyun Cheol-huh, although it is not known if this was his real name.

A source in North Hamgyong province told RFA that he was forced back on November 17 and placed in solitary confinement at the state security department in Sinuiju city, where he consumed poison.

He died before he could be questioned about the reasons for his escape, who had helped him and what his route had been, he said.

Mr Hyun is said to have taken leave from his job because he was showing signs of anxiety over his research projects, added the source.

Suddenly, he visited relatives near the border without letting his family know and without carrying valid documents for travel. And when he learned that the authorities were looking for him, he simply disappeared.

Reports have suggested that Mr Hyun had attempted to join up with other defectors and that the Chinese were unaware of his true identity when they were tipped off by North Korean intelligence.

Despite building evidence of human rights atrocities, there has been a reported surge in deportations back to the North from China, the most common escape route for defectors.

On Friday the Daily NK reported that North Korean border forces have been ordered shoot defectors trying to escape, even if they have already entered Chinese territory, or face the firing squad themselves.

The crackdown followed the high profile defection of Oh Chong-song, a young soldier whose daring dash for freedom was caught on camera and broadcast around the world.

The orders state that the entire border region should now be considered the front-line of defence and be turned into an impenetrable fortress.

Story continues

The draconian measures come at great human cost. Last month North Korean defector, Taewon Lee, 29, made a heartbroken plea for international help to save his wife and young child from being deported back after they were caught by the Chinese en route to join him in Seoul.

Despite desperately lobbying South Koreas foreign ministry for help, he discovered late last month that they had been forced back to the North.

Little is known of their fate, but in an earlier interview with the Telegraph, Mr Lee was clear about his fears for their wellbeing if they were returned.

They will definitely be sent to a prison camp. In the worst case, they will be killed, he said.
New York (AFP) - Two years after he was sensationally acquitted of murder and the 1978 Lufthansa heist, New York mobster Vincent Asaro finally got his comeuppance Thursday, sentenced to eight years for arson.

Asaro, 82 -- a capo from the Bonanno organized crime family -- now faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars for ordering an arson attack on a car in 2012.

In June, Asaro, whose lawyers say is in extremely poor health, pleaded guilty to ordering the road rage fire in retaliation for a Queens driver who had cut him off in traffic five years earlier.

The namesake grandson of late New York mobster John Gotti also pleaded guilty over the arson.

Judge Allyne Ross sentenced Asaro in a Brooklyn federal court to eight years behind bars and ordered him to pay $21,276 damages for the car.

"Today's sentence holds Asaro accountable not only for using his power as a member of organized crime to address a perceived slight by another motorist, but for a lifetime of violent criminal activity," said acting US Attorney Bridget Rohde in Brooklyn.

Prosecutors were dealt a stunning blow when a Brooklyn jury in November 2015 acquitted Asaro of involvement in an infamous heist at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport -- immortalized in Martin Scorsese's 1990 Oscar-winning movie "Goodfellas," which does not depict Asaro specifically.

On trial for murder, violence and extortion from the late 1960s until 2013, Asaro was found not guilty on all counts, including the grizzly strangulation of a suspected informant with a dog chain, who was then buried under a basement floor.

Asaro's lawyers said prosecutors lacked evidence.

The Lufthansa heist -- the biggest on US soil -- saw armed mobsters steal $5 million in cash and nearly $1 million in jewels from a Lufthansa Airlines vault at John F. Kennedy airport on December 11, 1978.

The value of the booty today is estimated at around $20 million.
Two New York City police officers were suspended after witnesses said they failed to leave their car to check on a young woman who was later found dead at the bottom of a stairwell.

The womans husband, Barry Wells, faces charges in her death, police said.

On Wednesday morning, a neighbor called police when she heard Tonie Wells, 22, scream, Help me, hes going to kill me during an argument with her husband in their Brooklyn home, 1010 WINS radio reported.

According to preliminary reports I received, they did not exit the vehicle and thats troubling, said the Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams.

After authorities received a second phone call from a neighbor, who said the Wells 2-year-old daughter was crying, additional police officers responded. They found Tonie Wells unresponsive at the bottom of a stairwell in the brownstone where she lived with her husband. She had bruising around her neck, police said, and was declared dead at the scene.

The 2-year-old, who was physically unhurt, was found crying near her mothers body. Shes now staying with relatives.

Barry Wells, 29, was first transported to an area hospital after he told police he had taken pills in a suicide attempt. This turned out not to be true, chief of detectives Robert Boyce said at a press conference on Thursday.

Mr. Wells did make statements about the problems they had, Boyce said. They had an on-again, off-again, living arrangement.

Barry Wells was free on $5,000 bail on charges that he choked his wife in September. He is currently in police custody and will be charged after investigators receive autopsy results.

Boyce said tracking the trouble in the couples relationship may have been complicated by the fact that Barry Wells was arrested in September in Manhattan while his wife was staying there with her mother, but the latest incident occurred at their home in Brooklyn.

An investigation into the actions of the two first police responders is ongoing, Police Commissioner James ONeill said.

Story continues

I talk about my pride in the NYPD each and every day, ONeill said at the press conference. If, unfortunately, there are times that we dont live up to that standard, its up to us to make sure that we fully investigate that. And if discipline needs to be dealt out, well do that.

Barry Wells proposed to Tonie by hiding an engagement ring inside a food delivery package. A video of the proposal was posted on Facebook:

The couple wed in April.

In another Facebook post last year, Wells urged men to treat the mother of their children with respect:

Related Coverage

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(Reuters) - An Oregon state appeals court on Thursday let stand $135,000 in damages levied against the owners of a Portland-area bakery for discrimination after they refused on religious grounds to prepare a wedding cake for a local lesbian couple.

A three-judge panel of the Oregon Court of Appeals rejected a petition by Melissa and Aaron Klein, former owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, to overturn the ruling by the state's labor commissioner as a violation of their rights under the U.S. Constitution to freedom of religion and expression.

An attorney for the Kleins, who closed their bakery not long after being ordered to pay the heavy fine, could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.

"Todays ruling sends a strong signal that Oregon remains open to all," Brad Avakian, the state's labor commissioner, said in a written statement.

"Within Oregons public accommodations law is the basic principle of human decency that every person, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, has the freedom to fully participate in society," Avakian said.

The case stems from Aaron Klein's refusal to bake a wedding cake for Rachel Bowman-Cryer in January 2013 because she was planning a same-sex wedding to her partner Laurel, which he said violated his religious convictions.

Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer filed a formal complaint with the state labor bureau, which found they had violated anti-discrimination laws and awarded the damages.

The Bowman-Cryers were married in 2014 after a federal judge struck down Oregons same-sex marriage ban.

The bakery case is one of many disputes nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Courts decision in June 2015 to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
Bamako (AFP) - Mali's Prime Minister Abdoulaye Idrissa Maiga and his government resigned on Friday, a surprise move just months ahead of presidential polls.

Authorities gave no reason for Maiga, who had been in his post since April, stepping down seven months before President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita seeks re-election.

Maiga "presented to the president his resignation along with that of the members of his government," the president's office stated, saying Keita had "accepted" his decision to quit.

The statement added a replacement prime minister and government would swiftly be found for Maiga, who had thanked the president for the opportunity to serve his country.

Maiga, a trained engineer who hails from the northern city of Gao, is vice-chairman of the ruling Rally for Mali (RPM), which Keita founded.

He was Keita's campaign director during the latter's successful run for the presidency in 2013.

He resigns with Mali's north still a theatre of unrest almost six years after a French-led military operation chased Islamic extremists linked to Al-Qaeda from a region they had taken control of in early 2012.

Mali's army, French soldiers and a UN mission (MINUSMA) still have little control over large tracts of the country, which regularly come under attack in spite of a peace accord signed with Tuareg leaders in May and June 2015 with the aim of isolating the jihadists.

The past two years have seen jihadist attacks spread to central and southern areas as well as over the border into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

The spread of the unrest this year prompted the G5 regional forum, which also includes Mauritania and Chad, to step up peace efforts with French support.

Maiga was Keita's fourth prime minister after Oumar Tatam Ly (September 2013-March 2014), Moussa Mara (April 2014-January 2015) and Modibo Keita (January 2015-April 2017).
Farewell, Flavor Town. (Photo: Ronald Martinez via Getty Images)

Flavortown fans, put on your best flame shirt and prepare to bury your feelings in a whole lot of donkey sauce.

Guy Fieris often-mocked Times Square restaurant, Guys American Kitchen & Bar, is closing on Dec. 31, according to Eater. The reason is unclear, as the restaurant reportedly raked up $17 million in sales last year.

Im proud that for over five and a half years, Guys American in New York City served millions of happy guests from all over the world, a spokesperson for Fieri, host of Food Networks Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives series, told HuffPost in a statement. And upon the restaurants closing, Id like to say thank you to all of the team members and guests who helped make it all happen.

New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wellss famously served Guys American Kitchen one of the harshest restaurant reviews known to man in 2012  a blistering, zero-star writeup.

Wells questioned just about everything, from food choices to seating arrangements, ripping the eaterys nuclear waste servings, like watermelon margaritas, deeply unlovable nachos, deadened, overcooked taste of school cafeteria vegetables and toasted marshmallow [that] taste like fish.

The exterior marquee for Guy's American Kitchen and Bar in Times Square, New York City. (Photo: Walter McBride via Getty Images)

Wells was one of the many who commented on the restaurants closing on Twitter.

I guess its time to give up on getting those questions answered. https://t.co/ak7ThC3Y0h  Pete Wells (@pete_wells) December 28, 2017

Chrissy Teigen was a bit more kind when she heard the news:

Ill swear on anything that I really liked this restaurant. Went as a joke, came out covered in ribs and nacho hybrids https://t.co/7j1nKdc3Rq  christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) December 28, 2017

Many others paid their respects:

Story continues

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Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments https://t.co/c7Qpmlk2cN  Cooper Fleishman (@_Cooper) December 28, 2017

I'm wearing all black and frosting my tips as we speak. Tonight, I'm pouring out a bottle of A1 steak sauce for the mayor of Flavortown.  Derek Sherry, The Big Time Clown Dumbass (@RealDerekSherry) December 28, 2017

im gonna built a park in memory of the Best Fine Dining Establishment Ever Crafted  mitch (@spinachprince) December 28, 2017

Dont fry because its over,, smile because it gratined https://t.co/IQfny5gIWs  PFTCommenter (@PFTCommenter) December 28, 2017

Pour one out for Flavortown pic.twitter.com/9U7EoJq5GL  David Chandler (@djchan08) December 28, 2017

Everyone dye your frosted tips black in mourning https://t.co/sXFrHLe22M  Kyle Sherry (@KyleMSherry) December 28, 2017

I had lunch at one of his places and legit enjoyed the hell out of my food.  Jeromy  (@jeromybme) December 28, 2017

Guys is going out with its trademark signoff, Love, Peace & Taco Grease.

RIP. (Photo: Walter McBride via Getty Images)

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
By Andrew Osborn and Denis Pinchuk MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said a bomb blast in a St. Petersburg supermarket on Wednesday was an act of terrorism, and that security forces whose lives were threatened by terrorist suspects should shoot to kill if necessary. Putin, who is running for re-election in March, was speaking on Thursday at an awards ceremony in the Kremlin for Russian personnel who served in Russia's Syria campaign, which Moscow has framed as an anti-terrorism operation. "You know that yesterday in St. Petersburg a terrorist act was carried out," Putin told the audience, referring to the explosion that injured 13 shoppers in a branch of the Perekrestok supermarket chain. Investigators have opened a criminal case into Wednesday evening's blast, which they say was caused by a homemade bomb packed with pieces of metal. Russian media reports said the bomb was hidden inside a rucksack in a locker where shoppers leave their belongings and said the person who left the bomb, described as being of "non-Slavic appearance", had been caught on CCTV. No group has claimed responsibility. Russia has repeatedly been the target of attacks by Islamist militant groups, including an attack in April that killed 14 people when an explosion tore through a train carriage in a metro tunnel in St. Petersburg. That attack was claimed by a militant group which said the suicide bomber was acting on the orders of al Qaeda. Russian police detained several suspects in that attack from mainly Muslim states in ex-Soviet central Asia. "ACT DECISIVELY" Putin told the ceremony the FSB security service, which he used to run before he became president, had also prevented "another attempted terrorist act". A Kremlin spokesman said Putin was referring to a foiled attack on Kazansky Cathedral, in St. Petersburg, Russia's second city. The Kremlin said earlier this month that a U.S. tip-off had helped thwart the attack in a rare public show of cooperation despite deep strains between the two countries. Russian media reported earlier this month that the Federal Security Service had detained seven members of an Islamic State cell who had been planning the attack. Putin told the same awards ceremony that the security situation in Russia would be much worse if thousands of Russian citizens who fought with Islamic State in Syria had been allowed to return home. "What would have happened if those thousands of people ... returned to us (from Syria). If they returned with good weapons training ...," he said. Russian security officials have said that thousands of citizens from ex-Soviet Central Asia or from the Muslim-majority North Caucasus region of Russia, which includes Chechnya, traveled to Syria or Iraq to fight with Islamic State. Putin said security forces should take no chances with their own lives if confronted by terrorist suspects. "I yesterday ordered the FSB director to act within the framework of the law when detaining these bandits of course, but if there is a threat to the life and well-being of our employees ... to act decisively, not take any prisoners, and liquidate the bandits on the spot." (Additional reporting by Polina Devitt; Editing by Alison Williams)
By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - A federal judge in San Francisco has refused to dismiss antitrust class action litigation accusing two big South Korean ramen producers of conspiring to fix prices in the United States, clearing the way for a trial.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick on Thursday rejected efforts by market leader Nongshim Co and Ottogi Corp to dismiss claims brought by food retailers and distributors, and by consumers in 23 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.

Lawyers in the United States for Nongshim and Ottogi did not immediately respond on Friday to requests for comment. Mark Kindall, a lawyer for the consumers, said he was "obviously very pleased with the resolution and the judge's determination that this case is ready to go to a jury."

The plaintiffs accused ramen makers of coordinating six price increases from 2001 to 2008 in a scheme hatched at a meeting at the Renaissance Seoul Hotel, causing them to overpay for their noodles from early 2003 through January 2010.

In a 59-page decision, Orrick said there was "ample (although hotly disputed) evidence" that the defendants conspired to fix ramen prices in South Korea.

Although calling it a "much closer question," Orrick found sufficient evidence that this alleged conspiracy affected ramen prices in the United States, including ramen made there.

"That there may have been minor differences (according to plaintiffs) between the products destined for the U.S. market and destined elsewhere does not, on this record, make the products so fundamentally different that the differences undermine plaintiffs' ability to sue," Orrick wrote.

A trial is scheduled for Feb. 23. The litigation began in 2013.

Ramen noodles are typically sold in packages, cups or bowls, with seasoning and dehydrated vegetables, to which consumers add boiling water.

In court papers, Nongshim and Ottogi have said they acted independently when setting prices.

Story continues

They also accused the plaintiffs of improperly piggybacking off since-abandoned findings by the Korea Fair Trade Commission of a price-fixing conspiracy in South Korea.

Another Korean ramen maker, Samyang Foods Co, reached $1.5 million of settlements with the plaintiffs in 2016.

"We are pleased to have cleared the last hurdle before trial, and our clients look forward to presenting their case to a jury," Christopher Lebsock, a lawyer for the retailers and distributors, said in an email.

The case is In re: Korean Ramen Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 13-04115.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Bill Trott)
A White House intern appeared to flash a white power hand gesture in a photo with President Donald Trump, a signal that some far-right groups have adopted in recent months.

Jack Breuer, a recent graduate of Emory University who interned with the White House this year, bore the symbol alongside other interns and Trump himself in a photo that was taken in the White House in November, the Daily Mail first reported Thursday.

RELATED: See photos of President Trump and his interns



Some have suggested that the gesture was just the "OK" hand symbol, but many have linked the symbol to far-right groups who have used it to make the letter shapes of 'w' and 'p' with their right hands -- the same hand Breuer is using in the photo.

Earlier this year, white nationalists and far-right activists were pictured using the same gesture at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August, which resulted in the death of one woman who was protesting against the march. Richard Spencer, a self-described white supremacist, has also been frequently photographed using the sign at events.

According to the Daily Mail, the gesture was first noticed after the White House sent the pictures to the interns' families.

Story continues

SEE ALSO: Twitter is melting down over Confederate flag in Ivanka Trump's holiday photos

One fellow intern, who requested anonymity, told the website that Breuer, who allegedly worked under senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, is "a good kid and is probably doing it as a joke."

"It is a distinct symbol known in alt-right circles and what makes it worse is that he is doing it in the East Room just below the portrait of George Washington," another intern told the outlet.

The news arrives amid the continued fallout the president has faced for his decision to blame "both sides" in the wake of the violent rally in Charlottesville.

RELATED: White supremacy in America


'Evidence': Roy Moore has begun a legal challenge to his defeat in the Alabama Senate election, claiming irregularities in the vote - Bloomberg

Doug Jones was confirmed as Alabama's first Democratic senator in 25 years after state officials rejected a challenge to the shock result by his defeated Republican rival, Roy Moore.

Mr Jones, whose victory was ratified by John Merrill, Alabama's secretary of state on Thursday afternoon, will be sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on January 3 when the US Senate returns.

The election was upheld shortly after Montgomery Circuit Judge Johnny Hardwick denied Mr Moore's request for a restraining order, which would have prevented Alabama's canvassing board certifying the result.

It leaves the Republicans with a wafer-thin Senate majority of 51 to 49.

With John McCain, the Arizona GOP senator, being treated for cancer, the Republican majority is fragile especially with other Republicans, including Susan Collins of Maine, ready to break ranks with Mr Trump on issues such as the repeal of Obamacare.

Mr Moore, who lost by a margin of nearly 22,000 votes out of 1.3 million cast, had made a last-ditch attempt to force a rerun, claiming the election had been rigged.

His campaign, in what should have been a rock-solid Republican seat, was dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct including molesting a teenage girl and he lost.

Mr Moore, a Christian conservative, would normally have been expected to win comfortably in the election, caused by the appointment of sitting senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.

Despite the support of Mr Trump - who had originally backed his rival Luther Strange for the Republican nomination - Mr Moore was defeated.

Mr Moore filed his challenge to the result late on Wednesday night, citing "irregularities in 20 precincts" in Jefferson County where, according to the latest estimate, just over 43 per cent of the population is African-American.

The alleged irregularities included claims that five busloads of black voters had been imported from Mobile, Alabama.

That proved to be unfounded, Mr Merrill said, as had allegations that three vanloads of Mexicans had been brought in to swell the Democrat total.

Story continues

Mr Merrill said among the more than 100 complaints received was that 5,000 people had voted in an Alabama town with a population of 2,000. However, the investigation found that the town cited in the claim did not even exist.

The GOP candidate denied the allegations of sexual misconduct in the affidavit in which he said that he had taken a polygraph test.

Mr Moore has had little sympathy from fellow Republicans.

"I think it's ridiculous," said Congressman Leonard Lance of New Jersey. "I am a strong Republican. I didn't support Roy Moore. He should concede the election."
Moscow (AFP) - Russia has lost contact with Angola's first national telecoms satellite launched from the Baikonur space pad, a source in the space industry told AFP on Wednesday.

The incident involving the Russian-made Angosat-1 is a new embarrassment for the country's once proud space industry after Russia in November lost contact with a weather satellite after it was launched from a new cosmodrome in the country's far east.

"Contact has temporarily been lost," the source told AFP, adding specialists were now looking into the matter.

The source said officials had stopped receiving "telemetry data" but called it a "rather common situation" and expressed the hope that contact would be re-established.

The reason for the loss of contact was not immediately clear.

Earlier Wednesday the Russian space agency Roscosmos said that the satellite had been successfully launched and reached orbit.

The Zenit-2SB rocket carrying Angosat to orbit was supplied by Ukrainian maker Yuzhmash, making the launch a rare joint project between the two countries since 2014, when Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.

The Angosat project was agreed by Russia and Angola in 2009 and includes the satellite, its launch, and on-ground infrastructure in a suburb of the capital Luanda.

The approximately $280 million project has been financed with a credit from Russia's state banks.

The satellite was designed for a 15-year mission to boost satellite communications, internet access and radio and TV service.

Around 50 Angolan aerospace engineers trained around the globe were meant to oversee the functioning of the satellite from a control centre built near Luanda.

Russia initially wanted to use its new Angara rocket to launch the satellite but opted for the Zenit rocket.

The launch was initially scheduled for the summer but had been pushed back several times due to delays.

In late November Russia lost contact with its Meteor-M weather satellite after its launch from the new Vostochny cosmodrome in the far east -- only the second such launch from the new spaceport.

Apart from the Meteor weather satellite, the rocket carried 18 payloads from institutions and companies in Canada, the United States, Japan, Germany, Sweden and Norway.

In October, Russia successfully launched from the northern cosmodrome of Plesetsk a European satellite dedicated to monitoring the Earth's atmosphere, the protective layer that shields the planet from the sun's radiation.
Despite Russia's ambitious plans for space domination, it hasn't had a great deal of luck bringing its designs to fruition. The Roscosmos program's budget was slashed in 2015 (because of "moral decay") and in April last year a technical glitch postponed the launch of its first rocket from the Vostochny cosmodrome. Now, the team has straight-up lost a satellite after setting it to launch from the wrong place.

The 2.6 billion-rouble ($45 million) satellite -- the Meteor M -- was launched last month from Vostochny, with Roscosmos losing contact with it shortly after. It then emerged that the rocket carrying the satellite had been programmed with the wrong coordinates, and had instead been given bearings for far-off cosmodrome Baikonur. Deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin blamed the snafu on an "embarrassing programming error", which isn't going to instill much confidence in future guests of Russia's space hotel, also announced this week.

Update: In a statement, the Roscosmos agency offered a different explanation from Rogozin's statement on the Rossiya 24 channel, blaming it simply on "improper algorithms" in the control system.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Wednesday the failed launch of a 2.6 billion-rouble ($44.95 million) satellite last month was due to an embarrassing programming error.

Russian space agency Roscosmos said last month it had lost contact with the newly-launched weather satellite - the Meteor-M - after it blasted off from Russia's new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East.

Eighteen smaller satellites belonging to scientific, research and commercial companies from Russia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Japan, Canada and Germany, were on board the same rocket.

Speaking to Rossiya 24 state TV channel, Rogozin said the failure had been caused by human error.

The rocket carrying the satellites had been programmed with the wrong coordinates, he said, saying it had been given bearings for take-off from a different cosmodrome - Baikonur - which Moscow leases from Kazakhstan.

"The rocket was really programmed as if it was taking off from Baikonur," said Rogozin. "They didn't get the coordinates right."

The Vostochny spaceport, laid out in the thick taiga forest of the Amur Region, is the first civilian rocket launch site in Russia.

In April last year, after delays and massive costs overruns, Russia launched its first rocket from Vostochny, a day after a technical glitch forced an embarrassing postponement of the event in the presence of President Vladimir Putin.

($1 = 57.8381 roubles)

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Andrew Roche)
The News in Brief

Defense Minister on New Reserve Concept



The new Georgian military reserve system, to be introduced in the near future, was one of the topics of an interview Defense Minister Levan Izoria gave to Imedi TV on December 21, a day after his pre-confidence vote appearance before the lawmakers.



Izoria said the new concept envisioned two reserve components. One of them - the active reserve - is to include former soldiers, both contract and drafted ones. The active reserve will not be compulsory, however, with former servicemen only having an opportunity to volunteer for membership, with contract and salary. The active reserve members will have to train 45 days a year.



The second - the mobilization component, - according to Izoria, involve broader participation of the society. The Ministry of Defense will have an electronic database, supposed to include every citizen that can potentially be ready for mobilization. Izoria said these citizens would be categorized within this system, with their organized mobilization prepared in advance.



Izoria added that the reserve concept had been prepared after very close cooperation with all stakeholders, including the Parliament members, the President and the NGOs, and characterized the new concept as new and specific initiatives that would strengthen Georgias defensive potential, with both active and mobilization reserve.



In his interview, the Defense Minister also mentioned that the U.S. Congress had agreed to the Javelin anti-armor missile sale to Georgia, and that the equipment required for the first phase of the French anti-air system installment had already arrived in Georgia, with the training of the Georgian personnel to begin early next year.

(Civil.ge)







Abkhazian visas to be issued at Enguri border crossing



Breakaway Abkhazia will start issuing visas at the Enguri border crossing. Until now, these travel documents have only been issued in Sokhumi and Gali.



DFWatch was made aware of the new procedures, which will come into effect from January, by one of the school principal from the Gali district who attended a meeting with separatist authorities.



Like other documents issued by Sokhumi, these visas are not recognized by Georgia.



Locals DFWatch talked to expressed a positive attitude to the decision, hoping it will mean a significant simplification of the procedures associated with getting obtaining an entry permit.



Firstly, the people we talked to said the processing time for a visa is very long, sometimes several months. If Sokhumi goes ahead with the decision, they expect the waiting time to be much shorter.



Secondly, they complain that sometimes a travel document is not issued even after submitting all the documentation needed and paying the fee.



We often pay the fee, but the Russian border guards find out at the border that the visas are fake, a resident of Barghebi village said. So if this [issuing visas at the Enguri checkpoint] happens, its probably better for us. It may be the only way to bring our children and grandchildren here.



Visas are valid for 10, 20 or 30 days. A 10-day visa receipt in Sukhumi costs 750 Russian rubles (USD 13), in Gali the same document costs 1,800 rubles (USD 31). 20 and 30-day visas in Sokhumi cost 1,400 Russian rubles (USD 24) and in Gali it costs 2,500 rubles (USD 43). The document can be extended by paying the relevant sum.

(DF watch)




The Lighthouse Winmore, chartered by Taiwanese company Billions Bunker Group Corp., is seen at sea off South Korea's Yeosu port on December 29, 2017 - AFP

South Korean authorities seized a Hong Kong tanker after it was found to have secretly transferred 600 tons of refined petroleum to a North Korean vessel in international waters in October, in a brazen breach of UN sanctions.

Acting on intelligence provided by the US - including surveillance photos of an exchange taken by satellite - South Korean customs officials boarded the vessel, the Lighthouse Winmore, when it entered Yeosu Port on November 24, Yonhap news reported.

The investigation has so far determined that the ship was chartered by a Taiwanese company, Billions Bunker Group, and had initially docked in Yeosu Port on October 11 to take on a cargo of Japanese refined petroleum before going on to its final declared destination of Taiwan four days later.

After leaving port, however, the Hong Kong ship met up with the Sam Jong 2, a 2,507-ton North Korean tanker, and three other unnamed ships in international waters in the East China Sea.

Under United Nations Security Council resolution 2375, which was adopted in September, companies or organisations of member states are not permitted to carry out the ship-to-ship transfer of any goods that are bound for North Korea.

The US Treasury published surveillance photographs reportedly taken on October 19 of the North Korean vessel Rye Song Gang 1 lashed to a large Chinese vessel in deep waters

"This marks a typical case of North Korea shrewdly circumventing UN Security Council sanctions by using its illegal networks", a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said.

"The actions will be reported to the UN Security Council sanctions committee on North Korea in the future", the official added.

The Sam Jong 2 was one of four North Korean-flagged ships that were named by the UN on Thursday as being banned from entering foreign ports on suspicion that they are transporting goods that are prohibited under international sanctions designed to curtail Pyongyang's efforts to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The Lighthouse Winmore, chartered by Taiwanese company Billions Bunker Group Corp., is seen at sea off South Korea's Yeosu port on December 29 Credit: AFP

The seizure of the vessel underlines the lengths to which the North Korean government is going to evade sanctions, as well as hinting at the impact they are having on the regime.

Story continues

On Thursday, Chinese officials were forced to deny reports that Chinese ships had carried out similar trans-shipments of fuel at sea to North Korean vessels after the US released images from satellites showing the Rye Song Gang 1 connected to a Chinese tanker by hoses.

South Korean officials told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper that satellites had identified similar ship-to-ship transfers on 30 occasions since October.

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

Under the most recent sanctions, imposed in early December, North Korea is only permitted to import 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum a year, a reduction of 86 percent of its previous imports.

Asked at a regular briefing in Beijing on Thursday whether Chinese ships were contravening the UN sanctions by providing oil to the North, a spokesman for the Defence Ministry stated that China strictly enforces UN resolutions on North Korea.

"The situation you have mentioned absolutely does not exist", Reuters quoted Ren Guoqiang as saying. He declined to comment further on the issue.

State-run media has not reported on the claims, or on President Donald Trump's accusation that Beijing is permitting oil to flow into North Korea.

The US leader on Thursday tweeted, "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 is this continues to happen!"
A shy fourth grader from Oklahoma is turning to the public in hopes that someone will read his story and make him a part of their family.

Roger, 10, told KFOR that he loves doing math and likes architecture and engineering.

"On the trip up here, he talked about building skyscrapers. Devon Tower is like his favorite thing in the world right now. He wants to know how it was built, Roger's adoption transition worker, Melissa Tiffie, told the local station.

"How they're so tall and how they don't fall," Roger said.

RELATED: See photos from this story



Roger also said he loves to spend time outdoors.

Last year, I went fishing and caught seven to eight fish in one day, Roger said.

He is hopeful that he'll be able to one day fish and hunt with a permanent family. However, at the moment, he is just interested in looking for a home where he can create fun memories.

"I want a home that can make me be able to do a lot of stuff. Like where I can have money to buy stuff and make stuff like LEGOS," Roger said.

Tiffie said Roger is also quite the inquisitive student and loves school.

SEE ALSO: Mother writes one last letter to her daughter before dying from kidney cancer

He is amazing at science and math at school. He is a straight-A student. Talking to his counselors and teachers, they will tell you he is never in trouble at school, Tiffie said.

She said that Roger would do well in a home with older children and added that the 10-year-old already has two older brothers who have been adopted.

Now he's just hoping he's next.

"Because I want to be in a home where I can stay there," he said.

You can visit Oklahoma's Department of Human Services here for more information on adopting Roger and other children like him.
By Paul McLeary with Adam Rawnsley

Afghanistan bombing. At least 40 people were killed and 80 others injured in Afghanistans capital on Thursday when a suicide bomber hit the offices of a Shia cultural organization. The latest attack on the countrys capital underscores the fragile security situation there, 16 years after the United States toppled the Taliban. The Islamic State claimed credit for the attack.

Where did North Korea get its new missile technology? Looks like in the early years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, some Russian missile designers set out to sell their plans to the highest bidder  and Pyongyang likely won, the Washington Post reports.

Voices carry. In the wake of North Korean missile tests in 2017, the Trump administration plans to be more quiet and more discreet about speaking publicly on U.S. military exercises with the Republic of Korea and Japan, CNN reports. The decision not to talk about exercises is intended to give US diplomats more leeway in ongoing sensitive talks in the region in hopes of defusing the crisis, the senior official said.

North Korean leakage. Youll be shocked to learn that North Korea may have been less than cautious in zoning its nuclear test site, with potential evidence of radiological contamination from the site emerging in the bodies of four defectors who lived near the site at Punggye-ri. The four defectors, who lived near the site after the most recent nuclear test there in January, showed evidence of changes to their chromosomes which could indicate leakage from the test site or more prosaic causes like heavy smoking.

More ISIS. The western half of Mosul, the Iraqi city liberated from the Islamic States grip this fall, is in ruins, and funding to help begin reconstruction is lagging, residents and aid groups say. The AP gives us an idea of the scale of the work ahead:

It will take years to haul out the rubble that weighs down Mosuls Old City. More than 3,000 tons cover every acre, and much of the shattered concrete and twisted metal that once made up peoples homes and shops is laced with explosives and unexploded ordnance.

Story continues

Yemen burning. The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen has killed 109 civilians in air strikes in the past 10 days, the top U.N. official in the country said Thursday.

In direct language, U.N. resident coordinator Jamie McGoldrick said that the attacks prove the complete disregard for human life that all parties, including the Saudi-led Coalition, continue to show in this absurd war that has only resulted in the destruction of the country and the incommensurate suffering of its people, who are being punished as part of a futile military campaign by both sides.

Iran deal. Next month, president Trump will again be faced with a deadline on whether to place additional sanctions on Iran over its missile program. Politico points out that plenty are concerned over what might happen. Senior lawmakers and some of Trumps top national security officials are trying to preserve the agreement. But the deals backers fear Trump has grown more willing to reject the counsel of his foreign policy team, as he did with his recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Welcome to SitRep. As always, please send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary.

Difficult history. South Korea and Japan are at odds once again over Japanese abuses of South Korean women during World War II, with officials in Seoul now saying a 2015 compensation agreement with Japan is insufficient and in need of change. Japan, which proclaimed the deal final and irreversible, has said any changes would be unacceptable.

How do you solve a problem like Donbas? NATO still cant decide whether diplomacy or coercion is the right approach to resolve Russias war in eastern Ukraine, three years since the war began. The Wall Street Journal reports that NATO allies like Germany are inclined to resume talks with Moscow as Russian diplomats call for a restart of expert and working group meetings at the NATO-Russia Council but the U.S. remains skeptical.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government has conducted the largest prisoner swap in the history of Kievs war against separatists, exchanging 306 rebel prisoners for 74 loyalists.

Not so open skies. Another U.S.-Russia treaty is straining under the weight of recent tensions, as Russia seeks to limit the number of airfields the U.S. can use for overflights as part of the Open Skies Treaty. The treaty allows both countries to carry out periodic surveillance overflights of each others territory but Russia says its limiting the U.S. ability to overfly its enclave in Kaliningrad after the U.S. put limits on Russias flights over U.S. missile defense locations in Alaska.

Cybersecurity beef. Germany and China have fallen into a minor diplomatic spat over cybersecurity following comments from Germanys ambassador to China accusing Beijing of failing to follow up on calls for joint cybersecurity talks between the two countries. Chinas foreign ministry lashed out at the comments, calling them unprofessional and irresponsible.

Talking points. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is sticking to his guns, saying Syrian President Bashar al Assad needs to step down as part of any final deal to end the Syrian civil war despite months of a more accommodating attitude towards the Syrian leader.

The Assad regime and Iranian-backed militias are inching even closer to the Golan Heights and Israels red line. Rebels in the triborder region between Syria, Lebanon, and Israel say theyre in talks with the Assad regime to evacuate the area and leave for Idlib, putting further pressure on Israel to

ISISs American pundit. The Islamic State has released a new video featuring a purported American fighter for the group urging viewers to exploit Americas lax gun laws to carry out active shooter attacks inside the United States.
By Philip Wen and David Brunnstrom BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China on Friday denied reports it had been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was unhappy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation. China on Thursday had blocked a U.S. effort at the United Nations to blacklist six foreign-flagged ships Washington believes had engaged in illicit trade with North Korea, a U.N. Security Council diplomat said. Trump said on Twitter on Thursday that China had been "caught RED HANDED" allowing oil into North Korea and that would prevent "a friendly solution" to the crisis over Pyongyang's development of nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States. In a subsequent New York Times interview, Trump explicitly tied his administration's trade policy with China, North Korea's neighbor and lone major ally, to cooperation in resolving the North Korea standoff. "I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war," he said. "If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that." South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that U.S. spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times since October. U.S. officials have not confirmed details of this report but a U.S. State Department official said Washington had evidence that vessels from several countries, including China, had engaged in transhipping oil products and coal. Russian tankers have supplied fuel to North Korea on at least three occasions in recent months by transferring cargoes at sea, two senior Western European security sources told Reuters, providing another economic lifeline to Pyongyang. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters she had noted recent media reports, including suggestions a Chinese vessel was suspected of transporting oil to a North Korean vessel on Oct. 19. "In reality, the ship in question has, since August, not docked at a Chinese port and there is no record of it entering or leaving a Chinese port," Hua said, adding that the reports "did not accord with facts." "China has always implemented U.N. Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfils its international obligations. We never allow Chinese companies and citizens to violate the resolutions," Hua said. "If, through investigation, it's confirmed there are violations of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, China will deal with them seriously in accordance with laws and regulations." South Korea said on Friday that in late November it seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship, the Lighthouse Winmore, suspected of transferring oil to North Korea. The ship's registered manager, Lighthouse Ship Management, is in the Chinese port of Guangzhou. A South Korean Foreign Ministry official said the ship transferred as much as 600 tons to the North Korea-flagged Sam Jong 2 on Oct. 19 in international waters between China and the Korean peninsula, on the order of its Taiwan-based charterer, Billions Bunker Group Corp. Taiwan's presidential office said the firm was not incorporated in Taiwan and China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said she did not have any information about the matter. U.S. SHIP-BAN PROPOSAL Both ships were among 10 vessels the United States proposed that the U.N. Security Council should blacklist for illicit trade with North Korea, documents seen by Reuters this month showed. "China blocked six of the proposed vessels," a U.N. Security Council diplomat said. "Four of the vessels were designated yesterday." Three of the ships designated were North Korean, while the other was the Panama-registered Billions No. 18. The other ships included the Lighthouse Winmore, the Xin Sheng Hai; the Yu Yuan; the Glory Hope 1 (also known as Orient Shenyu), and the Kai Xiang. The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea and the U.N. Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions in response to Pyongyang's Nov. 29 test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Those sanctions seek to further limit North Korea's access to refined petroleum products and crude oil and Washington says the full cooperation of China, North Korea' main trading partner, is vital if this peaceful pressure campaign is to succeed. It has warned that all options are on the table, including military ones, if sanctions fail. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was asked by reporters on Friday whether the U.S. Navy might become involved in seizing vessels suspected of transferring oil to North Korea. He said he would not speculate on future operations but added: "Obviously if a government finds that there is a ship in their port conducting trade that was forbidden under the U.N. Security Council resolution, then they have an obligation and so far we have seen nations take that obligation seriously." In September, the Security Council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea. The latest U.N. resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year. It also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Security Council to further cuts if North Korea conducts another nuclear or intercontinental ballistic missile test. Ship tracking data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows that the Lighthouse Winmore has mainly been doing supply runs between China and Taiwan since August. Prior to that, it was active between India and the United Arab Emirates. In October, when it allegedly transferred petroleum products to the North Korean ship, the Lighthouse Winmore had its tracking transponder switched off. South Korea's customs service concluded that the Lighthouse Winmore had loaded about 14,000 tons of Japanese refined petroleum products in South Korea on Oct. 11, reportedly bound for Taiwan, the South Korea official said. "It's unclear how much oil the ship had transferred to North Korea for how long and on how many occasions, but it clearly showed North Korea is engaged in evading the sanctions," the official told Reuters. It was not immediately possible to find contact information for the Taiwanese charter company. The Hong Kong government said it was "liaising with the Korean parties concerned to obtain further information about the incident, and will take appropriate actions as necessary". Employees at the office of Lighthouse Ship Management declined to comment and said they had no knowledge of the situation. (Additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith in Seoul, Venus Wu and Tyrone Siu in Hong Kong, Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Idrees Ali in Washington and Rodrigo Campos at the United Nations; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Bill Trott and James Dalgleish)
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels began to evacuate an enclave in southwestern Syria on Friday under a surrender deal with the government as the army thrust into the northwest -- the insurgents' main remaining stronghold. State television showed footage of the convoy of buses containing the rebels moving out of Beit Jin. Government forces and allied Shi'ite Muslim militias have forced numerous rebel pockets to surrender since Russia brought in heavy air power to help them in 2015, pushing the insurgents into an ever smaller number of enclaves. The northwestern area around Idlib province is the rebels' most important territory. They also hold a large area bordering Jordan and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights near Deraa in the southwest, as well as scattered pockets elsewhere including eastern Ghouta near Damascus. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Red Crescent said on Friday they had finished a medical evacuation of 29 very sick people from eastern Ghouta as part of a swap deal for prisoners held by the rebels. Fighters and their families started to leave Beit Jin, 40 km (25 miles) southwest of Damascus, on Friday after losing nearby areas to the army and its allies in heavy fighting earlier this month, state television reported. Some were heading to Idlib in the northwest, an area controlled by jihadists and the destination for all previous evacuees from surrendered rebel pockets, others to rebel territory in the southwest held by nationalist insurgents. Beit Jin's location near Israeli-controlled territory made it a strategic flashpoint given the role of Lebanon's Hezbollah group -- Israel's sworn enemy -- in fighting the rebels there. Israel has bombed Hezbollah convoys and weapons caches several times in Syria this year and fired on military positions in Syria after projectiles landed in the Golan Heights. The Syrian army's advance against rebels in the northwest involved bitter fighting and intense air strikes on Thursday and Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor. Fighting killed dozens on Friday and is concentrated in the village of Abu Dali in southern Idlib after weeks of incremental government gains in adjacent areas of Hama province. The army has only recently advanced into Idlib for the first time since a string of rebel victories there evicted the government from the province in early 2015. The government's gains across many fronts have ended rebel hopes of ousting President Bashar al-Assad by force. On Friday his office distributed photographs of Assad meeting a family in Homs, a sign of his growing comfort traveling around Syria this year after years in which he mostly stayed in Damascus. (Reporting by Angus McDowall, Additional reporting by Sarah Dadouch Editing by Mark Heinrich and Catherine Evans)
By Fabian Hamacher TAOYUAN, Taiwan (Reuters) - Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Friday China's military ambitions are becoming more apparent and tension between Taiwan and the mainland must not be resolved through military force. Tsai has faced increasing hostility from China since she won election early last year, with China stepping up military drills around Taiwan. China suspects Tsai, from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, wants to push for the self-ruled island's formal independence, a red line for Beijing, which considers Taiwan a wayward province and sacred Chinese territory. "China's military activities don't only impact the situation in the Taiwan Strait, but also in all of East Asia ... This is not a problem being faced alone by Taiwan," Tsai told reporters. "All countries in this region who want to see peace and stability, have a consensus ... and China can't ignore this, that cross strait issues absolutely can't be resolved through military force but through peaceful means," Tsai said during a news conference on a stage flanked by two models of fighter jets. Tsai, however, said her island would not be passive in the face of a more hawkish China. "Over the past year, the morale of our military is steadily improving, support for our military is also continuously increasing. This is the most gratifying thing since I've become president. I hereby solemnly announce that our annual defence budget will grow steadily within a reasonable range." Taiwan's defence ministry warned in a white paper this week that China's military threat was growing by the day, with the Chinese air force carrying out 16 rounds of exercises close to Taiwan over the past year or so. Beijing says the drills are routine and that Taiwan had better get used to them. "We live in a fast changing geopolitical environment; China's ambition in military expansion in the region is becoming more apparent, as evident by the People's Liberation Army's frequent aerial and naval activities," Tsai said. China has warned Taiwan against "using weapons to refuse reunification" and China's state media has prominently featured pictures of Chinese jets flying close to the island. Tsai has stressed she wants peace across the Taiwan Strait, but has pledged to defend Taiwan's security and way of life. Taiwan is well equipped with mostly U.S.-made weapons, but has been pressing Washington to sell more advanced equipment. Democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in being run by Beijing. Taiwan's government has accused Beijing of not understanding what democracy is about when it criticises Taipei. (Fixes dateline to Taoyuan not Taipei) (Additional reporting by Clare Jim in Hong Kong; Writing by James Pomfret; Editing by Ben Blanchard, Robert Birsel)
Websites aren't always conspicuous in their attempts to combat ad blockers. Researchers from the University of Iowa and UC Riverside have learned that 30.5 percent of the top 10,000 websites have measures to thwart ad blocking, and they're frequently using methods you wouldn't likely notice. Many use scripts to introduce 'bait' content that sets off ad blockers, prompting the site to relaunch ads in a way that blockers might not catch.

Previous estimates had acknowledged that these surreptitious methods were in use, but on no more than 5 percent of big sites. The data suggests that this is far more common.

There are ways for ad blockers to play cat-and-mouse: they can change their Javascript to fool anti-ad-blocking systems, or even detect bait material and refuse to block it. However, the discovery hints that there could be a mounting "arms race" where ad-dependent websites and ad blockers continuously try to one-up each other. That's not necessarily a bad thing -- while it could starve some sites of needed revenue, it might also discourage others from implementing annoying ads.
Kabul (AFP) - Around 40 people were killed and dozens more wounded in a suicide blast targeting Shiites in Kabul Thursday in the latest attack claimed by the Islamic State group in the war-torn Afghan capital.

IS, or Daesh as it is locally known, has carried out several spectacular attacks in the east of the country since it was first designated a terrorist group in the region in 2015.

But since 2016 it has also dramatically escalated its attacks in Kabul, adding to the dangers already faced by civilians there, with the UN citing the capital as one of the deadliest places in the country.

Here is a list of major attacks in Kabul claimed by the Middle Eastern jihadist group since its first appearance in the capital in July 2016.

2016

- July 23: Islamic State jihadists claim responsibility for twin explosions that rip through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 85 people and wounding more than 400. It is the first attack claimed by the Middle Eastern jihadist group in the Afghan capital.

- October 12: Islamic State claims responsibility for an attack on a shrine in Kabul that kills at least 18 people gathering to mark Ashura, one of the most important Shiite festivals.

- November 21: A massive suicide blast targeting Shiites kills at least 27 people and wounds 64 at a Kabul mosque in another sectarian attack claimed by IS.

2017

March 8: Gunmen disguised as doctors storm Afghanistan's largest military hospital in a six-hour attack officially claimed by IS. The official death toll is 50 but security sources and survivors say it exceeded 100.

April 12: Five people are killed when a suicide bomber on foot strikes near the Afghan defence ministry in Kabul, in an attack claimed by IS.

May 3: IS claims a powerful blast targeting a foreign forces' convoy near the US embassy and NATO headquarters that kills at least eight people and wounds 28 during morning rush hour.

June 15: IS claims responsibility for a suicide attack on a crowded Shiite mosque in Kabul, killing four people and leaving eight others wounded

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July 31: The Islamic State group claims it has attacked the Iraqi embassy in Kabul, as a series of explosions and the sound of gunfire shake the Afghan capital in a continuing assault.

August 25, 2017: A suicide bomb and gun attack claimed by the Islamic State group on a Shiite mosque in Kabul kills 28 people and wounds scores more.

October 20, 2017: An suicide attack during Friday evening prayers at a Kabul Shiite mosque sees 56 people killed and 55 others wounded in an assault claimed by the Islamic State group.

November 7, 2017: IS militants attack a Kabul TV station killing at least one person and leaving two dozen wounded. The station, Shamshad TV, defiantly goes back on air moments after the attack ends.

December 18, 2017: Militants storm an intelligence agency training centre in Kabul in an attack claimed by IS, triggering an intense gun battle with Afghan police. Two policemen are wounded.

December 25, 2017: A suicide bomber kills six civilians in an attack near an Afghan intelligence agency compound in Kabul, with the attack claimed by IS.

December 28, 2017: Around 40 people are killed and dozens wounded by a suicide bomber targeting Shiites in the capital, in a attack clamed by IS.
A former member of the council previously claimed that the President simply does not care about people living with the disease: Getty

The Trump administration has fired all remaining members of the Presidents Advisory Council on HIV/Aids (Pacha).

Scott Schoettes, a lawyer with Lambda Legal and former member of Pacha, reported what he called a purge of the advisory council on Twitter. He later confirmed to The Independent that all of the remaining advisers had been let go, citing three members who had received termination letters from the administration.

I knew that the people that remained were speaking their truth, and Ive got a feeling that was not appreciated, he said. I think this is a President and an administration that doesnt value dialogue and dissenting views.

Mr Schoettes was one of six former members who left the council in June, claiming that the President simply does not care about people living with HIV.

Gabriel Maldonado, a member of the council who chose to stay, confirmed to the Washington Blade that the remaining members had all been fired this week.

Mr Maldonado said the members, many of whom were Obama-era appointees, were given no reason for their dismissal.

Kaye Hayes, Pachas executive director, responded to a request for comment after this story was first published.

On December 27, 2017, the current members of Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/Aids (Pacha) received a letter informing them that the Administration was terminating their appointments, she said in a statement. They were also thanked for their leadership, dedication and commitment to the effort.

The statement also noted that changing the makeup of federal advisory committees is a common occurrence during Administration changes, and that former President Barack Obama had dismissed the Bush-era appointees on his council.

Ulysses Burley, a former Pacha member who left with Mr Schoettes in June, told The Independent he had heard from other, Obama-era appointees who were suddenly dismissed this week.

As far as I know it came as a surprise, it was very abrupt, and each remaining member simply received a letter saying that their service was no longer needed effective immediately, he said.

Story continues

To the best of my knowledge its not a disbandment of the council altogether, but a dismissal of any pre-Trump nominees, he added, which in my opinion might be more dangerous than not having a council at all.

Cecilia Chung, an Obama-era appointee who left voluntarily after her term expired earlier this year, echoed these concerns.

So far we have not seen the administration actively reach out to any advocates around HIV policy at all, she said. There is no way for us to know where on the agenda HIV policy is, and that is the concerning part.

President Bill Clinton created Pacha in 1993 to provide advice and information to the Secretary of Health and Human Services about best practices for combating the HIV/Aids epidemic. Othe presidents, including Mr Obama, have cleared out most of their predecessors appointees to make room for their own.

Every president since Mr Clinton has also appointed a leader of the White House Office of National Aids Policy within their first year. Mr Trump has left the position open.

The President has also proposed massive budget cuts to HIV/Aids programmes, including a $150m reduction in funding for such programmes at the Centres for Disease Control.

Mr Burley, Mr Schoettes, and four other Pacha members quit the Council in June. In a resignation letter published in Newsweek, they warned of the potential effects of purging HIV/Aids experts from the administration.

If we do not ensure that US leadership at the executive and legislative levels are informed by experience and expertise, they wrote, real people will be hurt and some will even die.
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump -- who has often hailed China's efforts to put pressure on North Korea -- hit out at Beijing Thursday for failing to cut off Pyongyang's oil supply, saying such moves prevented a "friendly solution" of the crisis.

"Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea," Trump said on Twitter.

"There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!"

Trump later hinted at the possibility of trade action against China in an interview with The New York Times.

"Oil is going into North Korea. That wasn't my deal!" he said. "If they don't help us with North Korea, then I do what I've always said I want to do."

Describing the Kim regime as a "nuclear menace" that is "no good for China," he added that Xi Jinping's government has to "help us much more."

Trump did not directly threaten to launch military action to resolve the crisis, but in recent months, Washington has promised to "utterly destroy" the regime of Kim Jong-Un if war breaks out.

South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, citing government sources in Seoul, reported earlier this week that US satellites had spotted Chinese ships selling oil to North Korean vessels dozens of times since October.

It was not immediately clear if Trump was referring to the report or US intelligence in his tweet, or if he was accusing China -- the North's main ally -- of directly violating sanctions targeting Pyongyang.

A State Department official later said the US was aware that "certain vessels have engaged in UN-prohibited activities, including ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum and the transport of coal from North Korea."

"We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China," the senior official said, adding that oil is vital to the regime and its military, while coal exports have been a primary means of generating revenue.

Story continues

"We condemn these acts and hope that any UNSC members, including China, work more closely together to shut down smuggling activities," the official added.

- 'Do more' -

Last week, the United Nations Security Council -- with China's backing -- slapped new sanctions on North Korea that will restrict oil supplies vital for Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs.

The US-drafted resolution bans the supply of nearly 75 percent of refined oil products to North Korea, puts a cap on crude deliveries and orders North Korean nationals working abroad to be sent back by the end of 2019.

The UN Security Council on Thursday meanwhile denied international port access to four North Korean ships suspected of carrying or having transported goods banned by international sanctions targeting Pyongyang, diplomats told AFP.

The ban of the four vessels brings the UN's total number of blocked ships to eight. The United States requested the most recent ban along with measures targeting ships registered in other countries, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

In recent months, Trump's administration has praised Beijing for its efforts to tame North Korea. China has voted in favor of three UN Security Council resolutions strengthening sanctions on the North since the summer.

Washington remains convinced that only pressure from the government of Chinese President Xi Jinping will persuade Kim to back down and negotiate an end to the nuclear standoff.

Beijing "has applied certain import bans and sanctions, but it could and should do more," US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday in a column published in The New York Times.
A White House intern has denied he was making a white power hand sign in a group photo with the president.

The image from last month shows President Donald Trump with the interns. At the president's request, all the young men and women are giving his signature thumbs up except for one man in the back row, who is giving a different hand sign.

It resembles a white power hand signal, which is made with the right hand and out-stretched fingers in the shapes of a "W" and "P."

White Nationalist Richard Spencer has flashed the sign. It was also seen among the crowd at the Charlottesville, Va., march in August.

The intern has been identified as Jack Breuer from Chicago. Breuer, a recent graduate of Emory University in Atlanta, told The Daily Caller that people are misinterpreting the photo.

"I emulated the OK sign the president sometimes makes," he said. "That was foolish. I should have listened more closely to the commander-in-chief and given the thumbs up.

"Im proud of my Jewish heritage and strongly reject the hateful views associated with racist white power organizations. I would never make common cause with them."

The White House did not return Inside Edition's request for comment.

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By David Brunnstrom and Susan Heavey WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said he had "been soft" on China on trade issues and said he was not happy that China had allowed oil shipments to go into North Korea. "I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war," Trump said in an interview with The New York Times. Earlier on Thursday, Trump said on Twitter that China has been "caught" allowing oil into North Korea and said such moves would prevent "a friendly solution" to the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear 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!" Trump wrote. In The New York Times interview, Trump explicitly tied his administration's trade policy with China to the country's perceived cooperation in resolving the North Korea nuclear crisis. "When I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade. They made  last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum. That doesn't include the theft of intellectual property, O.K., which is another $300 billion," Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview. "If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that." China earlier on Thursday said there had been no U.N. sanction-breaking oil sales by Chinese ships to North Korea after a South Korean newspaper said Chinese and North Korean vessels had been illicitly linking up at sea to get oil to North Korea. An official of the U.S. State Department said the U.S. government was aware of vessels engaged in such activity involving refined petroleum and coal. "We have evidence that some of the vessels engaged in these activities are owned by companies in several countries, including China," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that U.S. spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels around 30 times since October. U.S. officials have not confirmed details of this report. The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang's efforts to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States. Washington says the full cooperation of China, North Korea's neighbor and main trading partner, is vital to the success of this effort, while warning that all options are on the table, including military ones, in dealing with North Korea. The U.N. Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea for a recent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test, seeking to further limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil. The U.S.-drafted U.N. resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year. It also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Security Council to further reductions if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear or ICBM test. Documents seen by Reuters this month showed Washington called on the Security Council to blacklist 10 ships for circumventing sanctions by conducting ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels or transporting North Korean coal. China and Russia subsequently asked for more time to consider the proposal. The ships targeted for blacklisting were the Xin Sheng Hai (flag unknown); the Hong-Kong-flagged Lighthouse Winmore; the Togo-flagged Yu Yuan; Panama-flagged Glory Hope 1 (also known as Orient Shenyu), Kai Xiang and Billions No. 18; and the North Korean-flagged Ul Ji Bong 6, Rung Ra 2, Rye Song Gang 1, and Sam Jong 2. In September, the Security Council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea. China has repeatedly said it is fully enforcing all resolutions against North Korea, despite suspicion in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that loopholes still exist. Asked at a regular briefing whether Chinese ships were illegally providing oil to North Korean ships, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang reiterated that China, including the military, strictly enforced U.N. resolutions. "The situation you have mentioned absolutely does not exist," he said. A State Department spokesman, Michael Cavey, reiterated on Wednesday that the United States had called on all countries to cut economic ties with North Korea. Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the conservative Center for the National Interest, said China would "never, ever enforce the sanctions to the satisfaction of President Trump," in spite of the effort the U.S. president had invested in developing a personal relationship with China's president, Xi Jinping. "With President Trump's latest Tweet it seems the 'Bromance' between him and President Xi is finally over," he said. "This was always bound to happen. China is actually more afraid of North Korea than America," Kazianis said, citing Chinese concerns about instability or collapse in North Korea if sanctions were fully applied. U.S. Democratic Senator Ed Markey, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Twitter the North Korean threat had only increased since Trump took office and he had to find a way to get China to cut off crude oil supplies. "The solution is a coherent strategy, not bluster," he said. (Reporting by Susan Heavey, David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington, Michelle Nichols at the U.N. and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by James Dalgleish and Leslie Adler)
By David Brunnstrom and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said he was "very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea" and that such moves would prevent "a friendly solution" to the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear 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!" Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.

China earlier on Thursday said there had been no U.N. sanction-breaking oil sales by Chinese ships to North Korea after a South Korean newspaper said Chinese and North Korean vessels had been illicitly linking up at sea to get oil to North Korea.

The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang's efforts to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States.

Washington says the full cooperation of China, North Korea's neighbour and main trading partner, is vital to the success of this effort, while warning that all options are on the table, including military ones, in dealing with North Korea.

The U.N. Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea for a recent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test, seeking to further limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil.

The U.N. resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year.

The U.S.-drafted resolution also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Council to further reductions if North Korea were to conduct another nuclear test or launch another ICBM.

Documents seen by Reuters this month showed Washington called on the Security Council to blacklist 10 ships for circumventing sanctions by conducting ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels or transporting North Korean coal.

Story continues

China and Russia subsequently asked for more time to consider the proposal.

In September, the Security Council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea.

China has repeatedly said it is fully enforcing all resolutions against North Korea, despite suspicion in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that loopholes still exist.

Asked at a regular briefing whether Chinese ships were illegally providing oil to North Korean ships, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang reiterated that China, including the military, strictly enforced U.N. resolutions.

"The situation you have mentioned absolutely does not exist," he said.

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that U.S. spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels around 30 times since October.

U.S. officials have not confirmed details of the report, but a U.S. State Department official suggested on Wednesday that such transfers could still be going on.

Ship-to-ship transfers ... remain a concern as part of North Koreas sanctions evasions activities, the official said, while declining to provide details.

A State Department spokesman, Michael Cavey, reiterated on Wednesday that the United States had called on all countries to cut economic ties with North Korea.

"We urge China to end all economic ties with the DPRK, including tourism, and the provision of any oil or petroleum products, and expel all DPRK workers," he said, using the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Harry Kazianis, director of defence studies at the conservative Center for the National Interest, said China would "never, ever, enforce the sanctions to the satisfaction of President Trump," in spite of the effort the U.S. president had invested in developing a personal relationship with China's Xi Jinping.

"With President Trumps latest Tweet it seems the Bromance between him and President Xi is finally over," he said.

"This was always bound to happen. China is actually more afraid of North Korea than America," Kazianis said, citing Chinese concerns about instability or collapse in North Korea if sanctions were fully applied.

U.S. Democratic Senator Ed Markey, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Twitter the North Korean threat had only increased since Trump took office and he had to find a way to get China to cut off crude oil supplies.

"The solution is a coherent strategy, not bluster," he said.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, David Brunnstrom, Mark Hosenball and Michelle Nichols; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish)
About writing my blog is that on a slow day like today I can go back to the archives and see what I did at any year I choose...... This is m...
By Pavel Polityuk KIEV (Reuters) - Kidnappers in Ukraine have released an employee at a United Kingdom-registered cryptocurrency exchange after getting more than $1 million in bitcoins as ransom, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister told Reuters on Friday. Pavel Lerner, a leading analyst and blockchain expert, was abducted by unknown masked people on Dec. 26, according to a statement by his company, EXMO Finance, on its website. "This is the first such case in Ukraine linked to bitcoins," Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, said in a phone text message. It was unclear who paid the ransom. Lerner's work at EXMO did not involve access to the financial assets of its users, the company said, adding that the platform was operating normally. "At the moment, he is safe, and there was no physical harm inflicted on him," the statement said. "Nevertheless, Pavel is currently in a state of major stress, therefore, he will not provide any official comments in the coming days." News of the release came as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rebounded after two days of losses partly related to regulators toughening rules on digital currencies in an effort to curb excessive speculation. Many digital currencies surged in value this year. BALACLAVAS Strana.ua, a local news website, had earlier reported that six gun-toting men in dark clothing and balaclavas had snatched Lerner and pushed him into a minibus with stolen number plates. Kiev police have begun a criminal investigation after a man was kidnapped in the Obolon district of Kiev, Oksana Blyshchyk, the Kiev police spokeswoman, said by phone without revealing the name of the victim. EXMO has 900,000 users as of December 2017, according to its website. "We would like to note that the story of Pavel's abduction has overgrown with rumors that might tamper with the official investigation," EXMO said in its statement. "That said, EXMO currently refrains from any comments or suggestions of own versions of the possible scenario, in the nearest future." Separately, the company announced on Thursday that it had been hit by a denial-of-service attack. (Writing by Matthias Williams, editing by Larry King)
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN Security Council on Thursday denied international port access to four North Korean ships suspected of carrying or having transported goods banned by international sanctions targeting Pyongyang, diplomats told AFP.

The ban of the four vessels -- the Ul Ji Bong 6, Rung Ra 2, Sam Jong 2 and Rye Song Gang 1 -- brings the UN's total number of blocked ships to eight. The United States requested the most recent ban along with measures targeting ships registered in other countries, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

But China only agreed to target the four ships flying North Korean flags, diplomats said, as part of international efforts to curb Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs.

"Only four ships have been accepted" for the ban but "the procedure remains open" to include other vessels in the future, one diplomat said.

The list submitted by the US in December had also included ships flying flags from Belize, China, Hong Kong, Palau and Panama.

Shortly before the Council decision US President Donald Trump -- who has often hailed China's efforts to put pressure on North Korea -- sharply criticized Beijing for failing to cut off Pyongyang's oil supply.

"Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea," Trump said on Twitter.

"There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!"

It was not immediately clear if Trump was referring to the report or US intelligence in his tweet, or if he was accusing China -- the North's main ally -- of directly violating sanctions targeting Pyongyang.

- Transshipment at sea -

In 2017, the Security Council has slapped three sets of sanctions on North Korea: one on August 5 targeting the iron, coal and fishing industries; another set on September 11 aimed at textiles and limiting oil supply; and the most recent on December 22 focused on refined petroleum products.

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The US has denounced trafficking of banned goods that allows North Korea to stock up, particularly the transfer of cargo between different ships on the high seas.

Blocking suspected vessels from ports -- except in the case of humanitarian need as determined by the council's sanctions committee -- is provided for in the August resolution.

On October 5, the UN had already identified four ships "carrying prohibited goods," resulting in a ban on port access that was a "first in United Nations" history, according to Hugh Griffiths, part of a UN panel of experts monitoring the application of sanctions on Pyongyang.

Those four vessels were registered in the Comoros, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Cambodia and North Korea, and were targeted for the illegal transport of coal, iron and North Korean fish.

South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, citing government sources in Seoul, reported earlier this week that US satellites had spotted Chinese ships selling oil to North Korean vessels dozens of times since October.

Washington remains convinced that only pressure from the government of Chinese President Xi Jinping will persuade Kim to back down and negotiate an end to the nuclear standoff.
(MINNEAPOLIS)  The University of Minnesota has come under criticism after its agricultural college handed out a memo warning some students and staff to avoid using decorations, music and food specific to any one religion at campus holiday parties, including Christmas trees, menorahs and images of Santa Claus.

The memo was handed out at a Dec. 6 lunch meeting of students, faculty and staff in the agricultural college, the Star Tribune reported . In addition to warning against incorporating jolly Saint Nick into a party theme, the school listed dreidels, doves, and the colors red and green as inappropriate.

When news of the memo hit the internet, it triggered pushback on the universitys Facebook page, eliciting comments such as Boo! and Go find a safe space and crawl into it.

School spokesman Evan Lapiska said the backlash inaccurately portrayed the memo as official university policy. He said it was only shared during a lunch-hour discussion for students, faculty and staff in the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.

It was a well-intentioned but ill-advised attempt to spark a dialogue, he said.

Lapiska said that the idea of banning the listed symbols is not something that the university would put forth or consider in any way, shape or form as potential policy.

He also pointed out that the universitys campus is decorated around the holidays. University President Eric Kaler has made an appearance with Santa at the universitys cancer center.

Certainly there will be a conversation, if it hasnt already taken place, to see how we can learn from this moving forward and avoid a situation like this in the future, Lapiska said.
Washington (AFP) - The United States and Turkey on Thursday turned the page on a visa crisis triggered nearly three months ago by the arrest of a staff member at the American mission in Ankara, but relations between the NATO allies remain tense.

The two sides announced the resumption of full visa services for each other's citizens, but their statements revealed lingering misgivings between the countries, who are partners in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group.

Washington said it had won assurances from Ankara that no further legal proceedings would be launched against its staff, though the Turkish embassy in the US capital insisted "no such assurances have been given."

Nevertheless, the State Department said it was "confident that the security posture has improved sufficiently to allow for the full resumption of visa services in Turkey."

The US move is effective immediately, a department official told AFP.

Shortly thereafter, the Turkish mission in Washington said: "Within the framework of the principle of reciprocity, the restrictions placed from our side on the visa regime for US citizens are being lifted simultaneously."

The US decision to stop handing out visas was implemented from October 8 and was followed by a tit-for-tat move by Turkey to stop giving visas to Americans.

The crisis was triggered when US consulate staffer Metin Topuz was formally charged with espionage and seeking to overthrow the Turkish government -- accusations the US embassy in Ankara has said are "wholly without merit."

Topuz, a Turkish citizen, is accused of links to a group led by Pennsylvania-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara suspects of ordering last year's failed coup in Turkey.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999, denies any involvement in the attempted overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In November, the US said it had resumed limited visa services, a move matched by Turkey's missions in the US.

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But the services were so limited that the first interview appointments for Turks seeking most types of US visas were only available from January 2019, causing uproar on social media.

- 'Serious concerns' -

Washington says it is now confident that there are "no additional local employees of our mission in Turkey under investigation" and that "local staff of our embassy and consulates will not be detained or arrested for performing their official duties," a State Department official said.

Turkish authorities will also inform the US "in advance" if they intend to arrest any local staff member in the future.

But US authorities added: "We continue to have serious concerns about the existing allegations against arrested local employees of our mission in Turkey."

Reflecting the language of the American statement, Ankara said it continued to have "serious concerns" regarding cases involving Turkish citizens in the United States.

In March, a Turkish employee at the US consulate in the southern city of Adana was arrested on charges of supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

And US authorities also expressed concern about other US citizens arrested in Turkey under a state of emergency declared in the wake of the July 2016 coup attempt.

American pastor Andrew Brunson, who ran a church in the western city of Izmir, has been held by Turkish authorities since October 2016 on charges of being a member of Gulen's group.

"US officials will continue to engage with their Turkish counterparts to seek a satisfactory resolution of these cases," the State Department official said.

- Strained ties -

Turkey is a key player in the anti-IS fight, and the US relies heavily on the airbase at Incirlik in the country's south to launch air strikes against the militants in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

But relations between the NATO allies have frayed over American support for Syrian Kurdish militia seen by Turkey as "terrorists" and the US failure to extradite Gulen.

Ties also hit a stumbling block over the arrest and trial of Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who stands accused of violating sanctions against Iran, bribery and money laundering.

His co-defendant turned government witness Reza Zarrab implicated former Turkish ministers and even Erdogan in the scheme.

Turkey's president -- who had hoped to build better ties with US President Donald Trump -- also bristled at the American leader's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The State Department nevertheless underlined Washington's partnership with Ankara in explaining the restoration of visa services.

"Turkey is a longstanding NATO ally and a critical defense partner," the official told AFP.

"We work together closely to confront the serious challenges that face both of our nations."
(MOSCOW)  The explosion at a supermarket in Russias second-largest city was a terror attack, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, adding that he has ordered security agencies to kill terror suspects on the spot if they resist arrest.

Officials said 13 people were injured Wednesday when an improvised explosive device went off at a storage area for customers bags at the supermarket in St. Petersburg. Investigators said the device contained 200 grams (7 ounces) of explosives and was rigged with shrapnel to cause more damage.

While Russian law enforcement agencies stopped short of immediately describing the blast as a terror attack, Putin did not mince words Thursday at a Kremlin awards ceremony for Russian troops who fought in Syria.

You know that yesterday a terror attack was conducted in St. Petersburg, Putin said. He went on to note that another attack was thwarted recently, a reference to an alleged series of bombings in St. Petersburg that a CIA tip helped prevent, according to the Kremlin.

Putin said he told the chief of Russias main domestic security agency, the FSB, that agents who encounter resistance from terror suspects should liquidate bandits on the spot.

No one has claimed responsibility for the supermarket bomb. Eight of the injured remained hospitalized.

Putins spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, would not offer any specifics on what led Putin to declare the attack an act of terrorism. The shrapnel that was part of the explosive device proved the explosion was a terror attack anyway.

Storage boxes at all Perekrestok supermarkets in St. Petersburg were removed following the attack. Other chains said they would tighten security measures.

Earlier this month, Putin telephoned President Donald Trump to thank him for what the Kremlin described as a CIA tip that prevented more bombings in St. Petersburg, Putins hometown.

The Federal Security Service said seven suspects linked to the Islamic State group were arrested in connection to the alleged plot. The Kremlin said the suspects had planned to bomb Kazan Cathedral and other crowded sites.

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In April, a suicide bombing in St. Petersburgs subway left 16 people dead and wounded more than 50. Russian authorities identified the bomber as a 22-year old Kyrgyz-born Russian national.

During his remarks at the Kremlin awards ceremony, Putin said Russias 2-year military campaign in Syria helped eliminate militants who threatened Russia.

He has previously said that over 4,000 citizens from Russia and some 5,000 people from other ex-Soviet nations have joined the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

What would have happened if those hundreds, thousands  had come back to us, trained, armed and well-prepared? Putin said.
By Stephanie Kelly and Makini Brice NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new U.S. tax code targets high-tax states and may be unconstitutional, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday, saying that the bill may violate New York residents rights to due process and equal protection. The sweeping Republican tax bill signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday introduces a cap, of $10,000, on deductions of state and local income and property taxes, known as SALT. The tax overhaul was the party's first major legislative victory since Trump took office in January. The SALT provision will hit many taxpayers in states with high incomes, high property values and high taxes, like New York, New Jersey and California. Those states are generally Democratic leaning. "I'm not even sure what they did is legally constitutional and that's something we're looking at now," Cuomo said in an interview with CNN. In an interview with CNBC, Cuomo suggested why the bill may be unconstitutional. "Politics does not trump the law," Cuomo said on CNBC. "You have the constitution, you have the law, you have due process, you have equal protection. You cant use politics just because the majority controls to override the law." The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, better known for its protection against self-incrimination, also protects individuals from seizure of life, liberty or property without due process and has been interpreted by the Supreme Court as guaranteeing equal protection by the law. Cuomo and California Governor Jerry Brown, both Democrats, have previously said they were exploring legal challenges to SALT deduction limits. Law professors have said legal challenges would likely rest on arguing that the provision interferes with the protection of states' rights under the U.S. Constitutions 10th Amendment. Tax attorneys said Cuomo's legal argument against the tax bill could be that it discriminates and places an unjust tax burden on states that heavily voted for Democrats in the past - known as "blue states." "The de facto effect of this legislation is to discriminate against blue states and particularly from (Cuomo's) perspective the state of New York," said Joseph Callahan, an attorney with the law firm Mackay, Caswell & Callahan in New York. But some tax experts noted the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the 16th Amendment to give Congress broad latitude to tax as it sees fit. In a frequently cited 1934 decision, the Supreme Court called tax deductions a "legislative grace" rather than a vested right. "I don't understand how they think they have a valid lawsuit here," David Gamage, a professor of tax law at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law, told Reuters last week, speaking generally about governors in blue states that could challenge the tax bill. Cuomo also said on Thursday that New York is proposing a restructuring of its tax code. He provided no details. A group of 13 law professors on Dec. 18 published a paper suggesting ways that high-tax states could minimize the effects of the SALT deduction cap. Their suggestions included shifting more of the tax burden onto businesses in the form of higher employer-side payroll taxes, since the federal tax bills cap on SALT deductions only applies to individuals and not businesses. States also could raise taxes on pass-through entities, which the federal tax bill specifically benefits with a lower rate on a portion of their income. On Friday, Cuomo said he would allow state residents to make a partial or full pre-payment on their property tax bill before Jan. 1, allowing taxpapyers to deduct such payments for 2017 before the cap kicks in, prompting a wave of residents to pay early. However, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday advised homeowners that the pre-payment of 2018 property taxes may not be deductible. (Reporting by Makini Brice and Stephanie Kelly; Additional reporting by Jan Wolfe; Additional reporting and writing by Megan Davies; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Leslie Adler)
In a little while from now, a matter of days or weeks, two US administration officials will arrive in Israel. They will be greeted at Ben-Gurion Airports Masada Lounge as very important guests. They will see a lot of smiles in front of their faces, and will reveal white teeth as they smile back.

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They will get the presidential suite at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The prime minister will welcome them and market, once again, Israel's strong desire to reach peace, something along the lines of our hands are extended. These two will likely be President Donald Trumps Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his special envoy to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt.

Prime Minister Netanyahu with Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

The major plan will be put on the table, and once its details are leaked, the media will use the words surprise in Jerusalem or embarrassment in Jerusalem. The facts will hit the Israeli hosts in the face. The friendliest president we ever had in the White House, well find out, doesnt exactly work for us.

Immediately after the Six-Day War, the US administration said it wouldnt recognize the occupied territories and united Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Fifty years have passed, a lot of water has gone under the bridge in the Potomac and Yarkon rivers, American presidents and Israeli prime ministers have come and gone, and the Israeli policy has been changed at least once or twice.

The Americans have taken note of every comment made by senior members of the Israeli governments, but they have always implied that the things said by Israel's leaders are not important and that, when the time comes, they will be tossed into the trashcan of history.

After the Six-Day War, the Americans believed they had a winning formula in their hands, and they have stuck to it ever since. Meanwhile, neighborhoods have been built and settlements have been established so that it would be impossible to uproot them.

After Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement, the Arab and American leaders told Israel there was no chance for peace with Syrian leader Hafez Assad and with Jordans King Hussein if they werent given all of the land to the very last inch. In closed conversations, the Americans explained to the Israelis why they needed to return everything to the very last inch, and reminded those who had forgotten about what happened with Tabathe hotel Israel believed it would keep, but which was returned to the very last inch.

Netanyahu and Trump. The friendliest president we ever had in the White House, well find out, doesnt exactly work for us (Photo: Reuters)

The Americans are crueler than we think when it comes to their foreign policy. There is only one thing they know: Interests. They have no intention, after making such high payments to the Israeli coffers, of being nice to us on the moment of truth. If the current interest is to bring peace to the Middle East, even at the cost of evacuating most of the settlements. Its not something they consider to be a major operation, having gained experience in such operations in many places around the world.

At first, Trumps two representatives will likely try to insist on removing east Jerusalem neighborhoods from Israeli control, and will then turn to the Judea and Samaria settlements. Why? Because for 50 years they have been saying something, and we have been laughing at them.

And what will happen to our friend at the White House? If Israel turns down his offer, we will hear the famous dont call me, Ill call you from Washington. Trump will slowly lose interest in Israel. And when 128 states turn against Israel again, we will discover that he is seeking the friendship of the Arab states surrounding us. We dont want that to happen of course, but thats exactly how it could end.
The Ministry for Social Equality has launched an Israeli photo database this week, purporting to present all of Israel's different sectors for use in government publications. Alongside photos of Arab, Druze and other Jewish families, the database also contains photos of Haredi families, which depict no women of any age.

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Some thirty photos of Haredi families were shot for the initial pilot, and not one of them included women or even young girls, not even photos illustrating the family's Shabbat table.

A Haredi family's Shabbat table--with no women present (Photo: Lapam)

Almost no women or girls could be spotted in the Haredi sector's advertisements over the past few years, while non-Haredi billboards showing women are often defaced in areas with a large concentration of Haredim, such as Jerusalem Advertisers , for their part, prefer to use images as neutral as possible to skirt controversy.

The pride of the Ministry for Social Equality

Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber had been tasked with handling the exclusion of women from the public sphere up until recently, when she was replaced by Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel. Gamliel was also the person in charge of allocating NIS 2 million for the photo database project.

"For years government publications contained the same template of people with bright skin, eyes and hair," Gamliel said. "Not only is that not representative (of Israel), it also flies against the real and moral truth. The new photo database is the new face of Israel, our face. We've marked an important moral boundary here, and I can but hope Israeli advertising will follow the government's example."

The Ministry for Social Equality boasted this week of the immense amount of thought put into the project. "A detailed brief for the photographers was put together on each topic, containing their subjects' characteristics, ages, common situations, locations, family make-ups and so on," a message put out by the ministry said.

Lofty statements aside, the ministry tasked with ensuring social equality and the Government Advertising Agency, entrusted with managing all governmental publications, both seem to have fallen in line with the Haredi rules of engagement on the matter.

'Extremists are taking over the public space'

"We've gotten used to the fact Haredi newspapers never show women or girls," said Chairperson of the Ir Va'Em movement Michal Chernovitsky, whose organization promotes the rights of Haredi women. "Some have acceded to that reality, but it is also the subject of much criticism in the Haredi sector. Our children our growing up in a virtual world that makes no sense whatsoever."

Haredi activist Michal Chernovitsky said the ministry was yielding to the most extreme elements in Haredi society (Photo: Israel Bardugo)

"It's truly sad to see the Ministry for Social Equality falling in line with this trend and society's most extreme elements, without providing the option of representation for a Haredi family that includes women," Chernovitsky added.

"This is yet another example of the most hard-line factions within Haredi society taking gender separation to absurd new heights. Those same extremists are slowly taking over the entirety of public space, and they have now received a governmental seal of approval," she lamented.

Minister Gamliel's ministry said the first crop of photos constituted merely an initial pilot and that photos of Haredi women will be added later (Photo: Evyatar Nisan)

The Ministry for Social Equality responded: "The pilot is an initial trial, part of a historic attempt to build an Israeli photo database, ensuring proper representation for all facets of Israeli society. It's also an initial selection, encompassing merely four of more than twenty worlds of content and sectors included in the final database, which will receive remarks from the Ministry for Social Equality before being finalized.

"Minister Gamliel has instructed to carry out the necessary actions to complete the database in the near future, which include photos of Haredi women and complete Haredi families."
A rocket launched from the Gaza Strip at Israel during a ceremony for IDF soldier Oron Shaul hit a structure in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, while the Iron Dome system intercepted two other rockets.

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The launches were preceded by a Code Red alarm, heard in several towns near the Gaza border at 11:49am.

The IDF attacked two Hamas positions in the northern Gaza Strip using tanks and fighter jets. Sources in Gaza also reported tank fire was heard across the Gaza border immediately after the alarms. Hamas said no one was hurt on the Palestinian side.

Footage of the alarm and explosions at Oron Shaul's ceremony (:  )

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The IDF Spokesperson's Unit said the incident was still being investigated, and that searches of the area are underway to locate the precise location of the hit as well as possible rocket fragments.

A rocket fragment collected in Sha'ar HaNegev (Photo: Roee Idan)

The Code Red alarms were sounded during a ceremony held in Kfar Aza marking the would-be 24th birthday of soldier Oron Shaul , whose body has been held by Hamas in Gaza since Operation Protective Edge.

Some of the ceremony's attendees laid down on the ground as soon as the alarms went off and explosions heard. Others, including Oron's mother Zehava Shaul, ran for the nearest shelter.

"It's an unpleasant and frightening experience," Shaul's mother, Zehava Shaul, told Ynet. "The most important thing is that no one was hurt."

(Photo: Roee Idan)

The IDF said it was also examining whether the rockets were specifically targeting the ceremony, which was advertised in advance, with the rocket barrage aimed at its general direction.

People cowering after Code Red alarm sounded in ceremony marking Oron Shaul's 24th birthday (Photo: Roee Idan)

Zionist Union leader Avi Gabbay was among the ceremony's attendees. "The rocket fire in the middle of the ceremony proves, more than a thousand witnesses, that deterrence has been lost," Gabbay said.

"They knew there was a ceremony happening here, and they fired. It's intolerable. I hope our government responds properly," he added.

Other prominent figures who attended the ceremony include Communications Minister Ayoob Kara (Likud), MK Oren Hazan (Likud), Golani Brigade Commander Shlomi Binder, and Maj. Gen. (res) Hagai Topolanski, the former head of the IDF's Manpower Directorate.

The slain soldier's mother being led to a shelter (Photo: Matan Tzuri)

MK Haim Jelin, the former head of the Eshkol Regional Council, was also at the ceremony. "We've been living this life for 17 years. For every rocket like that we keep building another home here and keep growing," he said. "We won't let them win. We'll keep living our regular lives here as if there are no rockets. The IDF and Defense Ministry's job is to hit at terrorism so there will be no rockets."

(Photo: Roee Idan)

Before the incident, the soldier's mother said at the ceremony, "We're here to mark his birthday. We've decided to come here so we can be as close to Oron as possible. Our message is one of peace, brotherhood and camaraderie. We're not here to lash out at anyone. We just want Oron returned home."

While the ceremony was held, families of Palestinian Gazan prisoners incarcerated in Israel held a protest rally opposite the border fence in which they called for their sons to be released, carrying signs in Hebrew saying, "Your captive sons should be freed, but so should ours."

A demonstration of the families of Gaza prisoners incarcerated in Israeli prisons

A rocket fired from Gaza two weeks ago exploded in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, hitting a home in one of the council's communities and damaging a residence and a vehicle. An additional rocket landed in open land in a nearby community.

US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital led to almost daily rocket launches for Israelis residing around Gaza.

Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai wrote on COGAT's Arabic-language Facebook page, "Gaza's terrorists have unequivocally proven what we have been saying time and again: they are demolishing the future of Gaza's residents with their own hands."
An attack on a church south of Cairo killed at least 10 people on Friday and an attacker was shot dead by security forces, security sources said.

The incident took place in the Helwan district on the capital's southern outskirts and involved more than one attacker, according to the state-run news agency MENA.

Local media cited the Interior Ministry as saying two policemen had been killed in the attack on the Mar Mina church.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite rebels in Yemen has criticized a United Nations statement on civilian casualties in the war-torn country as "biased" toward the rebels.

The coalition said in a Thursday statement carried by the Saudi news agency SPA that the UN needs to review the humanitarian work mechanism and the competence of its employees working in Yemen.

Earlier on Thursday, the UN said coalition airstrikes killed 109 civilians over the past 10 days, including 68 in one day in separate airstrikes.

The coalition says the statement "creates a constant state of uncertainty about the information and data on which the UN relies and undermines its credibility."
Prof. Moshe Gofen, one of Israel's leading experts on the Kinneret, said there was no cause for alarm regarding expected low precipitation during the winter months, an expectation that has raised concerns the Sea of Galilee was reaching dangerously low levels.

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The torrents of rain hitting Israel earlier this week constituted the first rise in the Kinneret's water level since April.

Prof. Gofen, however, wished to ameliorate concerns on the matter. "The actual danger the Kinneret faces is of a much lower magnitude than is reflected by the national mood surrounding it," he clarified.

A buoy in the Kinneret (Photo: Assaf Greenwald, the Agidor company)

"The Kinneret has seen low levels before, and there's no harm in it. People think low levels are an irregular, bad situation, but that isn't the case," Gofen claimed.

As for the possibility of a shortage in drinking water , he noted, "Israel has no cause for concern as far as a supply of drinking water is concerned. The country's drinking water is supplied not by the Kinneret, but through desalinization."

Farmers, however, should be concerned according to the limnologyor the study of inland waterexpert. "Now that there's no rain, no water is coming in and the concentration of salinity goes up, which decreases the possibility of using water to cultivate agriculture."

A diver examining water levels in the Kinneret (Photo: Assaf Greenwald, the Agidor company)

When asked what the possible solution is, Gofen said, "One will come from the heavens, while the other from water. You can't desalinate the waters of the Mediterranean and pump them into the Kinneret, but longer, harder droughts have taken place before and the Kinneret did not dry up."

"There's nothing to fear with the sea's level going down. The Kinneret's future is assuredit exists and will continue to exist," he concluded on an optimistic tone.

The Sea of Galilee nevertheless will not be brought good tidings by the coming days' weather, with little to no rain in the forecast over the weekend.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Friday he has decided to appoint Yigal Unna to head the National Cyber Bureau, pending government approval.

Unna, 46, is the head of the Cyber Technologies Unit and has served in a series of roles in Israel's defense establishment.

"Yigal has vast experience in cyber-related fields and in the defense establishment. I am confident his rich experience will contribute a lot," Netanyahu said.
Some 2,000 Palestinians clashed with IDF forces on nine different locations along the Gaza border fence on Friday.

Rioters hurled stones at the forces and tried to sabotage the border fence. IDF forces fired at four rioters.

At the same time, some 2,000 Palestinians protested in 20 different locations across the West Bank, burning tires and hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli forces, who responded with crowd dispersal measures.
In January, Fish, Wildlife & Parks will be holding a series of meetings across southwest Montana to receive comments on tentative hunting regulations.

Proposed changes specific to the Livingston area are:

 Elk HD 314: Change antlerless B licenses to private land only, increase the B license quota to 500, and add antlerless opportunity for holders of PTHFV (permit to hunt from vehicle) south of Big Creek;

 Elk HD 317: Add antlerless opportunity to the general license (Previously only youth and PTHFV holders could harvest antlerless elk on the general license).

 Elk HD 393: Change antlerless B license 397-00 to be valid on all lands outside of national forest during the general and late shoulder season. This license will continue to be valid only on private lands during the early shoulder season. This license is valid in hunting districts 393, 312 and 390

 Mule Deer B licenses: HD 313: Increase B license quota from 50 to 100; HD 314: Establish B licenses with a quota of 100, and quota range of 25-300; HD 315: Establish B licenses with a quota of 70, and a quota range of 25-200; HD 317: Establish B licenses with a quota of 85, and a quota range of 25-150; HD 393: Increase B license quota from 50 to 100.

 Antelope HD 313: This hunting district is proposed to be expanded to Interstate 90 with a quota increase from 10 to 20 licenses.

 Bighorn Sheep HD 304 (Hyalite area): Re-open district with a quota of one either-sex license offered (proposed quota range 1-3)

 Mountain Goat Quota Adjustments: HD 313 (Crazy Mtns): Reduce license quotas in response to lower goat numbers and low kid recruitment to 15 either-sex and 5 nanny-only licenses; HD 314 (Gallatins): Increase license quota in response to increased goat numbers from 20 to 30 either-sex licenses; HD 330 (north Absaroka): Reduce license quotas in response to low goat numbers and poor harvest success from 3 to 1 either-sex license

Meeting times are 6 p.m. at: Jan. 3, Whitehall High School; Jan. 4: Bozeman Holiday Inn; Jan. 9: Butte United Congregational Church; Jan. 10: Livingston, Yellowstone Pioneer Lodge; Jan. 11: Dillon Search & Rescue Building; Jan. 16: Lima School; Jan. 18: Gardiner High School.

And Jan. 11 in Helena at Montana Wild from 5:30 p.m.7:30 p.m.
Thousands of Palestinians took to the steets of the West Bank and to the Gaza border area on Friday to protest US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital for the fourth week in a row.

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Palestinian health officials said at least 50 rioters were wounded by live fire in Gaza, with five in serious condition, while at least 49 were wounded by live rounds, rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency Ma'an.

Rioting on Gaza border (Photo: Reuters)

Some 2,000 Palestinians clashed with IDF forces on nine different locations along the Gaza border fence. Rioters hurled stones at the forces and tried to sabotage the border fence. IDF forces responded mostly by firing tear gas, but also fired at four main instigators.

Evacuating wounded Palstinians on Gaza border (Photo: Reuters)

On the streets of Gaza, about 1,500 people attended a rally protesting Trump's Jerusalem move, with demonstrators chanting "Death to America, death to Israel, and death to Trump."

Protest in Gaza (Photo: AP)

Sign in Arabic and Hebrew in Gaza: 'As long as our heroes don't have freedom.. this hostage will never know freedom.' (Photo: AP)

At the same time, some 2,000 Palestinians protested in 20 different locations across the West Bank, burning tires and hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli forces, who responded with crowd dispersal measures.

Rioting in Ramallah (Photo: AFP)

The demonstrations, however, appeared less intense in scale than previous Friday rallies called over Trump's announcement.

Clashes in Ramallah (Photo: EPA)

Trump outraged Palestinians and sparked anger in Middle East countries and world powers with his Jerusalem declaration on December 6, which reversed decades of US policy on one of the most sensitive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Clashes in Ramallah (Photo: AFP)

Clashes in Ramallah (Photo: EPA)

A UN General Assembly resolution passed on December 21 rejected Trump's Jerusalem declaration. A total of 128 countries voted for the UN resolution. Nine opposed it and 35 abstained. Twenty-one countries did not cast a vote.

Also on Friday, IDF tanks and aircraft struck Hamas military posts in Gaza in response to cross-border rockets fire. The IDF intercepted two of the three rockets fired into Israel. Police said the third struck a building causing damage. No casualties were reported in those incidents.
The healthcare basket committee submitted on Friday the list of government-subsidized medications and medical treatments for 2018 to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also serving as the health minister.

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Next year's list includes 106 medications and medical treatments at a cost of NIS 460 million, benefitting over 70,000 Israelis.

Among the medications included on the list is the drug Nusinersen (marketed as Spinraza) for 94 Israeli children who suffer from spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), at a cost of NIS 100 million - almost a quarter of this year's budget.

Announcement of the healthcare list (Photo: Ohad Zvigenburg)

Drugs for lung cancer patients, metastatic breast cancer, cholesterol lowering injections and drugs for cystic fibrosis were also added to the list.

The committee charged with drawing up the list includes representatives of the four health cooperatives, the Health Ministry and the Treasury as well as public advocates; it is headed by the director of Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center Prof. Ronni Gamzu and Director of Technology and Infrastructure at the Ministry of Health Dr. Osnat Luxenburg.

The committee's decisions are expected to be approved by the government on Sunday and made available starting January 2018.

The committee reviewed over 700 drugs and medical devices worth over NIS 2.5 billion, while having a budget of only NIS 460 million. Of that, NIS 40 million have already been allocated for the recent children's dental reform led by former minister of health Yakov Litzman.

Children's dental reform to the tune of NIS 40 million (Photo: Shutterstock)

Although the intense public campaign to include the SMA drug was successful, those hoping for the inclusion of the muscular dystrophy drug Duchenne "Exondys 51" were disappointed to learn the drug did not make it onto the list. Committee members concluded that at present, the studies on the drug were inadequate. The drug's high price tag, NIS 3.3 million per patient, was likely also a factor.

Teaching drug companies a lesson

After the pharmaceutical company that produces Xenbilox raised the price of the drug sixteen-fold, the committee decided not to include it on the list in an effort to teach the company a lesson. Health clinics will still be able to provide the drug at the previously lower cost as part of a special arrangement with the Health Ministry.

Xenbilox is a drug that treats Cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis (CTX), a rare genetic metabolic disorder of cholesterol and bile acid metabolism that results in systemic and neurologic abnormalities.

The 9,200 Israelis suffering from Type-2 diabetes will benefit from the inclusion of the innovative Flash Glucose Monitoring sensor, which is embedded in the skin, at a cost of NIS 56 million spread over three years.

An end in sight to daily diabetes tests? (Photo: Shutterstock)

However, after much arguing, the committee decided not to include the drug Vimizim - used to treat Morquio A Syndrome, a birth defect which leaves the inflicted at below average height and with difficulty eating, showering and walking, as well as hurts lung-function. Sixteen Israelis are afflicted with Morquio, but because of the high price tag per patient - NIS 1.7 million a year - the drug was left out of the healthcare basket.

Another drug added to the list is Dupixent, designed for the treatment of allergic diseases such as eczema. The drug is groundbreaking in that it deals with the disease itself and not just the symptoms.

The most expensive drug included is Rydapt, a drug used to treat acute myeloid leukemia, a form of blood cancer, at a cost of NIS 1.4 million per patient, of which there are 15 in Israel.

As in previous years, a large share of the budget is dedicated to oncology. Notably, various lung cancer treatments - including the drugs Tagrisso, Tecentriq, Keytruda and Alecensa, among others - were included on the list alongside Opdivo to treat head and neck cancer, and Ibrance and Kisqali to treat breast cancer.

After a long struggle, the healthcare basket decided to include the drug Orkambi for patients with cystic fibrosis. There are some 45 such patients in Israel and the cost of the drug is NIS 644,000 per patient. Cystic fibrosis is a serious hereditary disease that affects the lungs, pancreas, digestive and reproduction systems.

Controversially, Champix (Varenicline), a drug used to treat nicotine addiction, was not included. Some members of the committee argued it is important to provide treatments for as wide as possible sections of the population and not only cater to niche populations of seriously ill patients.

Others said the treatment will lead to a drop in referrals to smoking cessation workshop. Its high cost of NIS 40 million - benefitting 40,000 people - was what eventually tipped the scale against it.

Drug to treat nicotine addiction left off the list (Photo: Shutterstock)

Also included are Cholesterol lowering drugs for survivors of heart attacks or strokes with LDL cholesterol above 130 and who are at risk for another event, even though they take statins that do not affect them.

Committee chairman Prof. Gamzu said the list includes "medications for diabetes, heart and lung disease, as well as neurological disorders. This is not just about cancer, but rather treatments that affect all age groups. We are sending a message to drug companies that we will not tolerate price gouging."

MK Itzik Shmuli who, together with parents of sick children, led the campaign on behalf of SMA patients, welcomed the including of the life-saving medication in the healthcare basket and said he hopes to continue the battle on behalf of patients that require the muscular dystrophy drug Duchenne.
ISTANBUL - Turkish authorities have begun freeing some suspects arrested for involvement in a coup attempt after they found that thousands had been unwittingly re-directed to a messaging app used by the plotters, media outlets reported on Friday.

Turkey has identified 215,000 users of the ByLock messaging app and started investigating more than 23,000 of them. Ankara said many of those were re-directed to ByLock unwittingly via a different app developed by the plotters of the failed coup. An arrest warrant was issued for the developer of that app.

Ankara's chief prosecutor said earlier this week that using ByLock remains one of the biggest indications of collaboration with the plotters of the failed putsch in which 250 people were killed.

But he said he would ask for the release of 1,000 suspects unless there was any other evidence against them.
Iranian police dispersed anti-government protesters in the western city of Kermanshah on Friday, the Fars semi-official news agency said, as protests spread to Tehran and apparently several other cities a day after rallies in the northeast.

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The outbreak of regional unrest reflects growing discontent over rising prices and alleged corruption, as well as concern over the Islamic Republic's costly involvement in regional conflicts such as Syria and Iraq.

An official said a few protesters were arrested in Tehran, and videos posted on social media showed demonstrations in a number of the country's leading cities, which if verified would be the largest wave of protests in Iran since 2009.

Thursday's protest

About 300 demonstrators gathered in Kermanshah after what Fars called a "call by the anti-revolution" and shouted "Political prisoners should be freed" and "Freedom or death," while destroying some public property. Fars did not name any opposition groups.

The protests in Kermanshah, the main city in a region where an earthquake killed over 600 people in November, took place a day after hundreds rallied in Iran's second largest city Mashhad to protest at high prices and shout anti-government slogans.

Videos posted on social media showed demonstrators yelling, "The people are begging, the clerics act like God."

Footage, which could not be verified, showed protests in other cities including Sari and Rasht in the north, Qom south of Tehran, and Hamadan in the west.

Mohsen Nasj Hamadani, deputy security chief in Tehran province, said about 50 people had rallied in a Tehran square and most left after being asked by police, but a few who refused were "temporarily detained," the ILNA news agency reported.

In the central city of Isfahan, a resident said protesters joined a rally held by factory workers demanding back wages.

Thursday's protest

"The slogans quickly changed from the economy to those against (President Hassan) Rouhani and the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei)," the resident said by telephone.

Police arrested 52 people in Thursday's protests, Fars quoted a judicial official as saying in Mashhad, one of the holiest places in Shi'ite Islam.

In social media footage, riot police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse crowds.

Purely political protests are rare in Iran, where security services are omnipresent. The last unrest of national significance occurred in 2009 when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election as president ignited eight months of street protests. Pro-reform rivals said the vote was rigged.

But demonstrations are often held by workers over layoffs or non-payment of salaries and people who hold deposits in non-regulated, bankrupt financial institutions.

Prominent conservative cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda called earlier for tough action against the protests.

"If the security and law enforcement agencies leave the rioters to themselves, enemies will publish films and pictures in their media and say that the Islamic Republic system has lost its revolutionary base in Mashhad," the state news agency IRNA quoted Alamolhoda as saying.

'Death to dictator'

Some social media videos showed demonstrators chanting "Death to Rouhani" and "Death to the dictator." Protests were also held in at least two other northeastern cities.

Alamolhoda, the representative of Ayatollah Khamenei in northeastern Mashhad, said a few people had taken advantage of Thursday's protests against rising prices to chant slogans against Iran's role in regional conflicts.

Tehran backs Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country's civil war, Shi'ite militias in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Yemen and Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah group.

"Some people had came to express their demands, but suddenly, in a crowd of hundreds, a small group that did not exceed 50 shouted deviant and horrendous slogans such as 'Let go of Palestine,' 'Not Gaza, not Lebanon, I'd give my life (only) for Iran,'" Alamolhoda said.

Thursday's protest

Social media videos also showed demonstrators chanting "Leave Syria, think about us," criticizing Iran's military and financial support for Assad.

Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri, a close Rouhani ally, suggested that hardline conservative opponents of the pragmatist president might have triggered the protests.

"When a social and political movement is launched on the streets, those who started it will not necessarily be able to control it in the end," IRNA quoted Jahangiri as saying. "Those who are behind such events will burn their own fingers. They think they will hurt the government by doing so."

Rouhani's leading achievement, a 2015 deal with world powers that curbed Iran's disputed nuclear program in return for a lifting of most international sanctions, has yet to bring the broad economic benefits the government says are coming.

Unemployment stood at 12.4 percent in this fiscal year, according to the Statistical Centre of Iran, up 1.4 percent from the previous year. About 3.2 million Iranians are jobless, out of a total population of 80 million.
Russian tankers have supplied fuel to North Korea on at least three occasions in recent months by transferring cargoes at sea, according to two senior Western European security sources, providing an economic lifeline to the secretive Communist state.

The sales of oil or oil products from Russia, the world's second biggest oil exporter and a veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council, breach UN sanctions, the security sources said.

The transfers in October and November indicate that smuggling from Russia to North Korea has evolved to loading cargoes at sea since Reuters reported in September that North Korean ships were sailing directly from Russia to their homeland.

"Russian vessels have made ship-to-ship transfers of petrochemicals to North Korean vessels on several occasions this year in breach of sanctions," the first security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

A second source, who independently confirmed the existence of the Russian ship-to-ship fuel trade with North Korea, said there was no evidence of Russian state involvement in the latest transfers.
POLSON  An afternoon raid on a suspected drug house in Polson netted meth, heroin and LSD on Wednesday.

Three people were cited and released on charges that ranged from felony distribution of drugs to misdemeanor counts of possession of drug paraphernalia, said Polson Police spokesperson George Simpson.

Because of the jail crowding issues we have here, they were cited and released, Simpson said. We are really limited when we cant put the bad guys in jail.

Led by Flathead Tribal Police, with backup provided by members of the Polson Police and Lake County sheriffs office, the raid is the continuation of an effort to deal a blow to drug dealers operating in Polson.

Different agencies had information on this house, Simpson said. The tribal police received the last bit of information that was needed to execute a search warrant. All the law enforcement agencies in the county are working in partnership to solve this problem.

Last week, officers raided four homes in Polson in an effort they nicknamed Operation Blue Christmas.

Wednesdays raid netted larger amounts of meth and heroin, as well as LSD.

Its pretty rare for us to see LSD, he said. We are keeping an eye on that. It appears to be creeping in and that has us concerned. Its not been very common around here or in Montana.

Simpson said local law enforcement agencies have seen an uptick in information about people selling drugs in the Polson area following the earlier raids.

He attributes some of that to the presence the Polson Police have on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.

We have a huge social media presence in our community, he said. We have well over 4,000 followers on Facebook in a jurisdiction of only 5,000. We receive a lot of tips through Messenger  People definitely feel like they can remain anonymous. They dont have to talk with anyone. They can just type.

All of the information that we receive still has to be verified, Simpson said. That social media presence just makes it easier for us to relate to the community and for the community to relate to us.

A number of children, including several juveniles in the most recent raid, were removed from the homes by either tribal or state child protective agencies. In most cases, Simpson said those children were placed with other family members.

The Polson Police work closely with the school district in cases similar to these as part of a year-old program called Handle with Care. That program allows police officers to notify the school district after a child has been impacted through some type of law enforcement action after school hours.

We let the school district know through an area on their website whats going on with the child, Simpson said. Through that, we can make the principals, teachers and counselors aware of the childs situation.

Its a great program, he said. Were super proud of it. Its all about helping these kids. We know they are the future of this community.
Work is expected to begin this spring on one of the most complicated and oft-delayed transportation infrastructure projects in Missoula history.

The replacement of the Russell Street bridge and the reconstruction and widening of a portion of Russell Street between the Clark Fork River and Dakota Street have been decades in the planning process, but the contract now officially has been signed.

Loran Frazier, a senior transportation engineer with WGM Group, an engineering, planning and consulting firm hired by the Montana Department of Transportation, said a contractor, Dick Anderson Construction, has been hired for the work.

Its a $27.5 million project that has been planned in one form or another since the early 90s. Frazier said he recalls talking about the project in 1999. Work is expected to begin in March.

Its one of the most complex projects in my 35 years of doing highway designs, Frazier explained. From business accesses to ADA compliance to the dedicated bike lane to the high volumes of traffic to the utilities to the permit needed to modify the levy on the north side of the river, it took a lot of coordination.

"Its been at least 17 years in the making. You try to minimize the business impacts of putting down a five-lane road there as best you can.

The project will take two years to complete. Workers will first begin to build half of the new, five-lane bridge while leaving the old bridge open to traffic. Once the new portion is complete, traffic will be routed on to it while the other half of the bridge is built. When its done, the bridge will double in width and Russell Street will be five lanes, including a center turn lane, to Dakota Street. Currently, the bridge is only two lanes wide and the road is only three lanes wide and traffic is often congested.

There will be a dedicated bike lane going each way, and there will be a new undercrossing beneath the street at the Milwaukee Trail pedestrian path. There also will be new pavement and new sidewalks throughout the project.

HDR Engineering, a national firm with an office in Missoula, is doing the work on the new bridge, while WGM Group has been hired for the roadway, the retaining wall and the traffic signals. There most likely will be a new traffic signal at the intersection of Wyoming Street and Russell.

Allan Frankl with Dick Anderson Construction said that the construction of the underpass likely will cause some traffic re-routing.

"That's going to be done in halves," he explained. "They're going to have to route traffic around that and tear up the street, so there's going to be some congestion in there. It's going to be pretty tight."

Frankl said the upstream side of the new bridge will be built first, although construction can't start until July 1, 2018, to protect bull trout habitat in the spring. The existing bridge will be demolished after the upstream half is built, and then the second, downstream half will be built.

Frazier said the work on the bridge is driving the two-year schedule.

They could do the work to the road in one season if they wanted, he said. But thats kind of up to the contractor.

He said the new undercrossing will be a lot more visually appealing than the Orange Street pedestrian undercrossing.

The one under Orange Street is metal and this is going to be kind of an arch type with a retaining wall and a stacked rock type texture on it, he said. Itll be a lot better to the eye than the one under Orange Street, but it will be similar size-wise.

Frazier said he hopes the design of Russell will be a benefit to the entire community.

A big shout-out goes out to the neighborhood associations and everyone who was a part of the planning process, he said. There was a lot of community involvement from the neighborhood groups. Those people did a lot of work.

The design of Russell Street to the south of Dakota Street is still on hold, Frazier said, so there are no immediate plans for that portion.
A fresh batch of huckleberries to the beginning of a new year and especially to all those who help make First Night celebrations in Missoula such a fun, festive, safe tradition. An annual labor of love organized by Arts Missoula, First Night offers a slate of family friendly options  from art activities to live music to jazz and folk festivals and dance performances  from noon to midnight on the final day of 2017. Buttons to attend the festivities will increase in price from $15 each to $18 on Dec. 31, but as always, kids 10 and younger are welcome to participate for free. Heres to a huckleberry-filled new year in 2018!

A delivery of chokecherries to Montanas enduring reputation as home to the worst drivers in the nation. In 2014, 2015 and now in 2017, the car insurance website CarInsuranceComparison.com confirmed what many Montanans had already suspected concerning their fellow motorists tendency to speed, drive dunk and flout traffic laws. Indeed, the rankings (which relied in some cases on data that is several years old) found that Montana had the highest rate in the category of failure to obey, in addition to the second-highest fatality rate. Montana also rated in fourth place for drunk driving, sixth place for speeding and 29th place for careless driving, according to the website.

Well-trimmed huckleberry bushes to Karen Sippy, the City of Missoulas 2017 Neighborhood Volunteer of the Year, for launching an important effort to help save Missoulas urban forest. Sippys new nonprofit, Trees for Missoula, has raised more than $60,000 so far and trained more than 25 volunteers to help tend to the citys aging trees. The groups Volunteers in Pruning program has trimmed more than 600 trees already  something to remember as wet, heavy snow builds up this time of year, increasing the risk of broken branches and snow-felled trees. The nonprofit has also helped the city buy electronic imaging devices to track tree health, as well as protective water bags for young trees and educational material for private tree care.

Chokecherry cough medicine to the reappearance of the influenza virus in Montana, with 200 cases reported over a two-week period this month alone and at least 40 hospitalizations. Not surprisingly, the flu tends to show up more often in places with lower vaccination rates; so those who put off their flu shot this year should take note: public health officials say its not too late to get one, and in fact, the benefits of doing so will last through the end of the current flu season  still at least a couple of months away.

Huckleberries to father figure and unfailingly positive influence Geoff Birnbaum for providing guidance to countless youth over the course of his four-decade career as the head of Youth Homes. The organization provides essential services to children whose families have experienced abuse, neglect and substance abuse, including emergency shelters, therapeutic group homes and counseling. It also offers family services, as well as foster care and adoption programs. Over the course of his 42 years with the organization, Birnbaum saw it expand from a single shelter to nine group homes, and a single foster program into a comprehensive organization that tackles the problem of family trauma from a number of angles. More than 10,000 children in western Montana have benefited from Youth Homes in some way since its launch in 1971, and Birnbaum, who came to Montana in 1972, played an important role  often directly  in the lives of nearly all of them.
Jack Atcheson Sr. of Butte, who built a taxidermy shop into a worldwide hunting business, died Wednesday. He was 85.

Atcheson, who moved to Butte with his family in the late 1930s, fought in the Korean War before establishing his business in 1955 with his wife, Mary Claire.

Atcheson, who became a foremost expert in international hunting, was also a dedicated advocate for Montanas public lands, helping in the fight to establish the states stream access law and in opening up millions of acres of blocked public land to sportsmen.

His son, Jack Jr., said that Atcheson was the first to use the term hunting consultant to describe what he did  a term now used by his competitors and colleagues.

Atchesons memoir, Hunting Adventures Worldwide, was published by Stoneydale Press in 1995. In 2013 he published "Real Hunting & Campfire Humor, Short Stories from a Lifetime of Travel and Adventure.

His business is now operated in Butte by sons Jack Jr. and Keith Atcheson.

In 2000, Jack Atcheson Sr. won Outdoor Life Magazines Conservation Award, in recognition of a lifetime of achievement in the conservation of wildlife and wildlife habitat, and your tireless efforts on behalf of hunting and fishing access for American sportsmen. Others who have won the award include Aldo Leopold and Jimmy Carter.

Funeral services will be held on Thursday, Jan. 4, at 1 p.m. at St. Patricks Church, immediately followed by a celebration of life at the Butte Mcqueen Club.
Setting a legal precedent that could affect all of Montana's Superfund cleanups, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in favor of Opportunity and Crackerville residents Friday, finding that Superfund law does not prohibit the residents from seeking claims under Montana state law.

In a six-to-one decision, the court decided Friday that Opportunity residents can go to a jury trial with Atlantic Richfield Company over the cleanup decisions made years ago by the Environmental Protection Agency. EPA created cleanup levels that the residents thought were not stringent enough after decades of heavy metal pollution created by the defunct Washoe Smelter in Anaconda.

The states high court ruled that Superfund law does not prevent individuals from seeking damages for cleanup rules established by state law. This sets precedent, according to attorneys Mark Kovacich and Justin Stalpes, both of whom represent the Opportunity residents.

The residents, through their lawyers, hired experts who recommended the top 2 feet of soil in their yards be excavated and a permeable wall installed underground that would capture arsenic that might be traveling in groundwater before it reaches drinking wells.

A jury trial will make the decision as to whether Opportunity residents get what they want.

Should the Opportunity residents ultimately prevail, it is estimated that the additional cleanup would cost Atlantic Richfield about $50 million more than the company has already spent in Opportunity and Anaconda.

The work would mean removing 650,000 tons of soil and digging an 8,000-foot trench for the groundwater wall.

Opportunity residents want Atlantic Richfield to take the soil back to what is called background levels of arsenic. The Washoe Smelter, which shut down in 1980, processed approximately 8,000 tons of Buttes raw copper ore a day for nearly 80 years, spewing tons of heavy metals, including arsenic and lead, during those years. EPA estimates the footprint of contaminants covers at least 300 square miles.

According to EPA, "background levels" would mean returning the soil to roughly 25 parts per million of arsenic in the dirt.

But even that is potentially contentious and could be up to a jury to decide. The experts hired by the residents believe "background" levels of arsenic are lower than 25 parts per million.

Currently, EPA's cleanup standard for Opportunity, Anaconda, and Butte is 250 parts per million of arsenic in the soils and attics.

Opportunity is about 5 miles east of Anaconda and within sight of the former 565-foot smelter. A smaller neighborhood, Crackerville, is southeast of Anaconda and the old smelter.

The legal fight

The nearly 10-year-long legal battle between nearly 100 Opportunity residents and Atlantic Richfield was set to go to jury trial last year when Atlantic Richfield asked the Montana Supreme Court to take a second look at the case. Atlantic Richfield wanted the states high court to review Seventh District Court Judge Katherine Bidegarays decision to allow a jury trial, which was to start in fall 2016.

But, Atlantic Richfield argued that the state Supreme Court needed to intervene on Bidegarays ruling because Superfund law barred the property owners claims for restoration damages.

The majority opinion of the states high court justices was that Bidegaray did not err when she ruled against Atlantic Richfield in 2015, saying that the residents are not barred by Superfund law from including a claim for restoration damages.

Atlantic Richfield, owned by parent company BP, can contest the merits of the residents' restoration plans in the jury trial.

Atlantic Richfield declined to comment Friday.

EPA, which had previously stayed out of the lawsuit through its long years of bouncing in and out of various courts, filed a brief on behalf of Atlantic Richfield in 2016 for the states Supreme Court ruling.

EPA stated in their 2016 brief that Opportunity and Crackerville residents are barred by federal law from setting a new cleanup standard and that such an action would create conflict with the current cleanup that is ongoing.

EPA declined to comment other than to say, through a spokesperson, that the agency will be reviewing the decision.

What it means

University of Montana-Missoula law professor Michelle Bryan said that what makes this ruling unique is that under Montanas constitution, we get complete cleanup that other states dont necessarily get.

Bryan teaches in the law school's Natural Resources and Environmental Law Program.

A handful of states  Illinois, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, and Montana  specify the right for property owners to get a complete cleanup, regardless of what the property itself is worth, she said. A provision was entered into Montanas constitution in 1972 to ensure that and it was largely in response to mining damage, Bryan said.

Domenic Cossi, a Bozeman-based lawyer with Western Justice Associates, said that this ruling gives Opportunity residents control over their own land.

Cossi filed a brief for the court on behalf of the Opportunity residents.

No matter where your politics lie, if this gets to be a political decision on how far land gets cleaned up, it allows whoevers in charge to make that decision. Thats a pretty scary proposition. Government can go to a certain standard, but the landowner should retain rights beyond that, Cossi said.

Montana Supreme Court Justice Beth Baker didnt agree with everything the majority wrote on the decision but agreed with the majoritys vote in favor of Opportunity.

"What (Atlantic Richfield) may do is offer evidence to support its claim that the property owners' proposed restoration plan is not feasible and thus does not qualify as a temporary injury," she wrote for the ruling.

Justice Laurie McKinnon dissented. She wrote that the residents restoration plans conflict with the ongoing EPA investigation and (Superfund) cleanup.

Opportunity resident Butch Ryan called the ruling only fair.

If our (Montanas) standards are higher, they should be. Our water quality and air quality should be better, Ryan said by phone Friday.

Opportunity resident Shaun Hoolahan said that when the Opportunity and Crackerville residents banded together to start the lawsuit, his son was 8 years old. Now his son is 17.

Well have our day in court, Hoolahan said.
The Interior Department's announcement of approval for a large Eastern Montana coal mine expansion turned out to be false.

Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift walked back her previous announcement, reported by the Associated Press, that an expansion of Westmoreland Coal Company's Rosebud Mine near Colstrip received the green light.

"A previous statement by the Department that it had approved the expansion of the mine was incorrect and was the result of an internal miscommunication," Swift said in an email to The Gazette.

Though the expansion didn't receive final approval, a draft environmental impact statement is set to be released to the public, Swift said.

Representatives for Westmoreland didn't return calls for comment Thursday.

On Dec. 22, the Associated Press reported that the federal government approved the mine's expansion, which would add 10.5 square miles to its current 40-square-mile footprint. The added acreage was expected to produce 60 million tons.

The report cited Swift as the source of the announcement.

Westmoreland, a company that saw CEO Kevin Paprzycki resign last month amid 2017 revenue losses, enjoyed a brief improvement in the value of its stock after the Associated Press report.

The Rosebud Mine's main customer is the nearby coal-fired power plant in Colstrip, which faces closure by 2027.

Swift declined to give any more details on the internal miscommunication. An Interior Department press release on Thursday touted the year-end accomplishments of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, including the reversal of a moratorium for coal leases on federal land.

The correction of the mistaken announcement would be done through the news media, Swift said.

"The statement has all the information you're asking for and the statement to press corrects the previous statement to press," she said in an email.
On December 14, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to roll back its 2015 Open Internet Order (OIO). Both the 2015 Order, and the subsequent Restore Internet Freedom Order of 2017 have generated widespread debate. Fact is, Internet policy is complicated.

Consumer Protection. The principles of network neutrality are that Internet providers should not block access to lawful content, throttle traffic or engage in discriminatory pricing schemes. A related theme is protection of consumer privacy (i.e., Internet providers should not sell or market consumers personal information). MTA member companies have not and do not engage in discriminatory blocking, throttling or pricing schemes regardless of the presence or absence of net neutrality rules. MTA members also protect their customer data and do not sell or market personal information.

Title I vs. Title II. Title I of the Communications Act of 1934 (the law that provides jurisdiction to the FCC) applies to advanced information services. When updating the law in 1996, Congress intended to keep new information services relatively free of regulation. Title II of the Act governs telecommunications services and subjects them to legacy common carrier regulations.

Consumer broadband services prospered as information services under the light touch Title I statutory framework until 2015, when the FCC for the first time applied network neutrality rules under Title II to these services.

The recently issued FCC Order restores broadband regulation to pre-2015 status. Oversight of retail broadband returns to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has primary authority over antitrust enforcement and consumer protection matters with respect to other mass-market services.

Regulatory (Dis)Parity. The 2015 rules applied only to retail broadband Internet service providers (ISPs). Other dominant players in the Internet ecosystemedge providers like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix and otherswere not subject to FCC rules. As such, the old rules introduced uncertainty into market decisions regarding new services and products that could be offered by Internet service providers (ISPs).

The disparity was confusing for consumers. For example, Google was fined $2 billion this year by the European Union for blocking access to its search engine unless consumers paid discriminatory prices. With its Android operating system, Google is perhaps the worlds largest telecom provider. Meanwhile, Google and Amazon are in a trade dispute over carrying one anothers content. Public Knowledge, a consumer watchdog organization, said, Google is setting a disappointing precedent by selectively blocking customer access to an open website. Amazon and Google are putting consumers in the middle of a corporate battle between the two technology giants. (Communications Daily. 12/8/17.) Yet, these edge providers werent affected by net neutrality rules.

Privacy. The FCCs 2015 rules presented the prospect for new, heavy-handed privacy regulations that would have applied only to retail broadband ISPs. But the fact is edge providers like Google and Facebook collect and market massive amounts of consumer data subject only to FTC oversight of their disclosures regarding use of such data.

As FCC Chairman Pai recently said, the role and responsibility of edge providers in promoting net neutrality must not be overlooked. They might cloak their advocacy in the public interest, he said, but the real interest of these Internet giants is in using the regulatory process to cement their dominance in the Internet economy.

Ex ante vs. ex post regulation. A recent blog in Reason.com put the net neutrality debate in perspective.

The debate has never been over "regulation" vs. "no regulation" of ISPs. Rather, it's a question of whether it is more appropriate for an oversight body to observe market activities and intervene when foul play is suspected, called "ex post regulation," or whether a beefed-up precautionary regulator should preemptively prohibit new service innovations until private bodies can prove them to be in the public interest, known as "ex ante regulation." (Reason.com. Dec. 5, 2017.)

A New Framework. The 2015 OIO tried to fit a square peg in a round hole.

We need common rules of the road that apply evenly to all players in the Internet ecosystem. The FTC can and will guard against unfair business practices by all those that interact with consumers, and it can and will enforce consumer privacyit has already brought over 500 enforcement actions, including some against both ISPs and edge providers

However, as a technical expert in network interoperability and connectivity, the FCC must continue to play an important but targeted role in regulating wholesale transactions governing interconnection among operators in the broadband marketplace. The FCC also will be needed to ensure continued investment in our nations broadband infrastructure and to close the digital divide pursuant to its universal service mandate. Indeed, the way we pay for and support universal broadband infrastructure is broken.

In 2017, Google and Facebook alone are expected to generate over $100 billion in advertising revenues; yet they contribute nothing to the universal service mechanisms that support the rural broadband networks they use to reach their customers. Imagine how much more broadband infrastructure could be deployed sooner and farther if these operators contributed their fair share to the cost of building the information highway.

Whether its Title I or Title II, the FTC or the FCC or some other regulatory construct, the inextricable role of the Internet in our lives calls for common ground rules to guide the behavior and interaction of all broadband and edge providers in a rational, ex post regulatory environment.

-- Geoff Feiss is general manager of the Montana Telecommunications Association, based in Helena.
A French consumers rights group joined the latest string of lawsuit filers against Apple after the company disclosed that, in some cases, it slows down older iPhones.

The company is already facing at least eight lawsuits in the United States, which claim Apple owes its customers money for not previously disclosing the slowdowns. But, in France, its actually illegal to make old devices worse to sell new devicesa process known as planned obsolescence. So the suit filed in France by a group called Halte a lObsolescence Programmee is different because, among other penalties, it also carries the possibility of up to two years in prison.

The group, which lays out its case in an online statement, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has also previously sued printer makers including Epson, over claims that they violate the same law. The printer case is currently under investigation.

Last week, Apple confirmed in a statement that it will slow down iPhones if their batteries are old. The companys explanation is that without its decision to throttle back the performance of its phones, the older batteries ran a higher risk of spontaneously shutting downan explanation that makes technical sense, many experts have said.

But the company has faced criticism for not being upfront about its actions, and also for not letting people know that simply replacing their batteries would fix some problems. Its decision not to tell people about its changes feeds into a long-standing conspiracy theory that Apple slows down older phones so that people will be more tempted to buy new ones. And, as a result, iPhone owners in California, New York, New Jersey and even in Israel have filed suits against the company. The suits ask the company to pay iPhone owners varying amounts. One California suit seeks nearly $1 trillion in damages.

South Korean government telecommunications officials have also said they will look into the reports, according to the Korea Herald.

The argument of the people criticizing Apple largely rests on two claims: one, that Apple hurt the performance of the phones in secret and two, that doing so made it more likely that someone would buy a new iPhone rather than fix their old one.

That, argues one lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of New York, amounts to a sort of fraud: Had Plaintiffs been informed by Apple that a simple battery replacement would have improved the performance of their iPhones, Plaintiffs would have chosen to replace their batteries which was clearly a more cost effective method rather than upgrading to a new iPhone that was extremely costly.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suits or the investigation.

The suits cap off a rocky year for Apple, which saw a lot of financial success but also small controversiesincluding a bug that prevented iPhone owners from typing i and several software issues. It also faced criticism over a lukewarm reception for its iPhone X and had to delay the release of its smart speaker, the HomePod, to 2018.

That said, Apples not hurting on the business front though: chief executive Tim Cook earned his $9.33 million end-of-year bonus thanks to strong stock market performance. And Apple appears to be finishing the year strong, with more people starting up new iPhones and iPads than devices from any other gadget maker this year, according to Flurry Analytics, a research firm now owned by Oath.
AMERICAN CANYON COMMUNITY CHURCH:

Worship at 10 a.m. Programs for children and youth during worship service. 2 Andrew Road, American Canyon.

ARBOR ALLIANCE:

Join us Sundays at 5 p.m. Why 5 p.m. worship? It is a good time for busy people and young families. Kids church and nursery available. 721 Trancas St., Napa. thearborchurch.org; 530-304-4704.

BEIT ABBA:

Messianic Jewish ministry of The Fathers House is held the first and third Friday of each month at 7 p.m. Child care provided for ages infant to 7 years old. 2557 Napa Valley Corporate Drive, Napa. tfh.org/beitabba.

CARMELITE MONASTERY:

Mass times: Sunday, 9 a.m.; Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. (except for the first Saturday of the month, Mass will be at 11 a.m.). Morning of recollection every first Saturday of the month: Spiritual Talk, 9-10 a.m.; Confessions, 10-11 a.m.; Mass, 11 a.m. Bible study, on Tuesdays with Father Michael Buckley: Tuesdays, 8:30-9:30 a.m. following the 8 a.m. Mass (contact the office to confirm time and day at 944-2454, ext. 103). Confessions-English: Monday, Wednesday, Friday; 10 a.m.-noon, 3-5 p.m., 8-9 p.m. Confessions-Spanish: Wednesday, 10 a.m.-noon, 3-5 p.m., 8-9 p.m. 944-2454; oakvillecarmelites.org.

CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL LIVING:

Service Sunday will be at 10:30 a.m. only (no Youth Program or Teen Group). Rev. Jay Lang will speak on Renewal of Our Path: Truth, Wisdom and Love. At 4 a.m. Sunday morning, the Center will join millions of people around the world in an hour long Peace Meditation. Jan. 5, a Winter Concert with Diego Garcia at 7 p.m. Jan. 6, a Visioning for the New Year Workshop with Rev Julie 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Jan. 13, A Visioning Workshop in Spanish with Imelda Gomez, 4 p.m. Jan. 15, MLK Day of Action and Compassion. 1249 Coombs, 252-4847.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH:

Sunday service and Sunday school for youths up to age 20 at 10 a.m. The Wednesday evening service is at 7:30. Child care provided at all services. New hours for the Reading Room, located in our church building, open to the public weekdays except Wednesdays, 1-4 p.m. All current Christian Science literature, including the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the renowned Christian Science Monitor, are available to all to read or purchase; 2210 Second St., Napa; 255-5255; christiansciencenapa.com.

CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, NAPA  SECOND WARD:

Sacrament meeting is each Sunday at 10 a.m., followed by Sunday School at 11:15 and Priesthood and Relief Society at 12:10 p.m. Young mens and young womens programs are on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Corner of Trower Avenue and Dry Creek Road, Napa. 224-6496.

COMMUNITY CHURCH OF LAKE BERRYESSA:

6008 Steele Canyon Road at Moskowite Corner. 252-4488.

CONGREGATION BETH SHALOM:

Happy and Healthy New Year from Congregation Beth Shalom Worship Services on Friday, Dec. 29 will start with Pre-Oneg at 5:45 p.m., Shabbat Service at 6:30. BYO Lunch to Lunch and Learn, Wednesday, Jan. 3 at 11:45 a.m. 1455 Elm Street, Napa, 253-7305, cbsnapa.org.

CORNERSTONE MINISTRIES:

Sunday service is at 10:15 a.m. Spanish Church begins at 1:30 p.m. Sunday school and childcare are available at both services. Our midweek service is at 6:30 on Wednesday nights. There is childcare and childrens activities at this service. Middle school and high school study meets on Wednesday nights, as well, at 6:30 in the Youth Room. On Thursdays at 6:30, Freedom From Bondage meets in our Youth Room. 3305 Linda Vista Ave., Napa; 252-2909. cmnv.org.

COVENANT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH:

CREEKSIDE COMMUNITY CHURCH:

Weekly worship service is Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Services and attire are casual with a blend of fellowship, music and teaching. Child care and childrens church offered during service. 1050 Hagen Road, Napa. CreeksideChurchNapa.org; 255-7266.

CROSSWALK COMMUNITY CHURCH:

Join us Sunday for either the 9 or 10 a.m. service. Childrens Ministry programs available during the 10 service for WeeCare and Kids Crossing K-2, Kids Crossing 3-5. We welcome you to join us and hope to help you connect with God more deeply through the movements of the service and to stretch your thinking about life and faith so that you might enjoy more from both! Cool stuff happening in January: Young Adults Jan. 7 at noon; Dinner Group Jan. 8 at 6 p.m.; and new deep dive course starting Wednesdays at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Jan. 10March 14. 226-1812.

FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH:

Instead of the normal worship services on Dec. 31, we are having SERVE Day. From 9 a.m. to noon, we will decorate and prepare the buildings for the big community New Years Eve party we are hosting for families in the Napa community. Adults and teens, your help will be so appreciated. Help prepare for the balloon drop, set up selfie stations, decorate Family Times Square, or be part of our Prayer Team. If you have preschool or elementary children, instead of serving, come to the event. We still have room for walk-in registration. Learn more at fccnapa.org/nye.

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH:

Please join us this Sunday on the morning of New Years Eve Day. Pastor Davids sermon will be Getting It Right in the Coming Year. We will have a scripture reference of Galatians 4:47. Our services begin at 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. There will be treats and coffee after both worship times. Childcare for newborn to age 4 is available. Sunday School: Friendship Class meets at 10; Childrens Class meets at 10:30. 1333 Third St., 224-8693, fpcnapa.org.

GRACE CHURCH OF NAPA VALLEY:

Sunday services: Worship service at 9 a.m. and 10:40 a.m. Adult Sunday school classes at 9 a.m. Childrens service at 9 and 10:40 a.m. Nursery and preschool care available. Junior high ministry meets Tuesday, 7 p.m.; high school meets Wednesday at 7 p.m. at 3765 Solano Ave., Napa. 255-4033, GraceNapa.org.

HIGHLANDS CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP:

If youre a regular church attendee, never been or maybe its just been awhile, we invite you to come join us this Sunday and start the adventure with us at 10:30 a.m. Spanish speaking service on Sunday evenings at 6:30 and an Alcoholics Anonymous group that meets weekly on Monday and Wednesdays from 6-7 p.m. 970 Petrified Forest Road, Calistoga.

HILLSIDE CHRISTIAN CHURCH:

We meet at 9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. at 100 Anderson Road, Napa. 255-3036; hccnapa.com.

HOLY FAMILY PARISH:

Holy Mass is celebrated at 9 a.m. on Sundays and in the traditional Tridentine Latin (Extraordinary) form of the Roman Rite, according to the 1962 Missal, at noon. Before Low Masses, there is a recitation of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary at 11:30 a.m. Confession is available after every Low Mass. Holy Family Parish is a Catholic mission-parish of St. Joan of Arc in Yountville. 1241 Niebaum Lane, Rutherford. 944-2461.

HOLY GROUND CHRISTIAN CENTER:

Sunday worship begins at 10 a.m., and Bible study is Wednesday at 7 p.m. 3860 Broadway, Suite 111, American Canyon. 373-2015.

LIVING VINE CHURCH:

We meet every Sunday morning at 10. 3305 Linda Vista Avenue, Napa. 226-5551.

MEMORIAL CHAPEL AT VETERANS HOME OF CALIFORNIA, YOUNTVILLE:

Sunday worship service, 10:15 a.m. Coffee fellowship one hour before service. Bible study on Wednesday at 1 p.m., Fellowship Room, with refreshments served; prayer meetings Thursday at 1 p.m. The memorial chapel is on the Veterans Home at Yountville campus on California Drive, across from the administration building. 944-4840.

MONT LA SALLE CHAPEL:

Roman Catholic liturgical services are open to all in this chapel of the De la Salle Christian Brothers at 4401 Redwood Road, Napa. Sunday Mass is celebrated at 11 a.m.

NAPA COMMUNITY SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH:

There is a hustle and bustle that is part of the tradition of Christmas. The Gospel of Luke encourages that there is a time for haste. So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger (Luke 2:16). This holiday, after the hustle and bustle, take some time to ponder the gift[s] God has given to each of us. Join us on Sabbath, Dec. 30 for Pastor Nates sermon, Hurry Up and Wait. napacomm.com, 1105 G Street, 252-2444.

NAPA METHODIST CHURCH:

Napa Methodist Church has one all-church worship service this Sunday, Dec. 31 at 10 a.m. in the Sanctuary (there will be no 9:30 or 11 a.m. services). There will be no G.R.A.P.E. Express childrens worship, Middle School Youth Group, or Carol Choir this Sunday; instead children are invited to participate in the all-church service at 10 a.m. Silent Meditation is Mondays at 5:30 p.m. in the Sanctuary. 625 Randolph St. napamethodist.org, 253-1411.

NAPA-SONOMA FRIENDS MEETING (QUAKERS):

Sunday worship at 10 a.m. Silent meeting in the custom of Friends. Meet at the VOICES Youth Center, 780 Lincoln Ave., Napa. Enter at parking lot on left side of building, using door at end of wheelchair ramp. Quaker signs will be posted on Sunday mornings. We welcome visiting friends or those who are new to Quaker practice. nvquaker@gmail.com; 253-1505.

NAPA VALLEY BAPTIST CHURCH:

Join us Sundays at 9:30 a.m. for Bible Study for all ages, 10:30 a.m. for worship service and a fun, interactive and energetic childrens program for preschool through fifth grade. Nursery provided for all Sunday services. 2303 Trower Ave., Napa. napavalleybaptist.org; 252-2100.

NAPA VALLEY BIBLE CHAPEL:

We start Sunday services by remembering the Lords death, burial and resurrection during a time of worship and thanksgiving at 9:30 a.m., followed by a fellowship and coffee time starting at 10:30 a.m. At 11 a.m., we enjoy a time of Bible teaching. On Wednesdays at 6 p.m., we meet for a brief Bible study and a time of prayer. A movie night/home Bible study is held in downtown Napa at 6 p.m. on Fridays. 1559 Second St., Napa. napavalleybiblechapel.com.

NAPA VALLEY COMMUNITY CHURCH:

Join us this Sunday at 10 a.m. as we say good bye to the Old Year and usher in the New. Our theme for this week will be: How Can I Be The Gift; and the text will come from Matthew 2:1-12. Child care and Sunday School provided. 4149 Linda Vista Ave, Napa. NapaValleyChurch.org. NVCC is a ministry of the Christian Reformed Church.

NAPA VALLEY LUTHERAN:

Fourth Sunday in Advent worship at 10 a.m. Christmas Eve services at 5 and 8 p.m. All are welcome because all belong to God. The church is located at the corner of Jefferson and Elm, Napa. 226-8166, napavalleylutheran.org.

NAPA VALLEY UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS:

Sunday, Dec. 31, 9:30 a.m.: Iris Craig leads Evensong Gathering Three: Prayer and Spiritual Practice. What activity or attitude do you regularly and intentionally engage in that deepens your relationship with the Spirit of Life? 11 a.m.: Growing Old and Staying New Traditional Service with Jim Craig and Sunday Service Assistant, Norma Neil. Virtually all cultures have a New Year, a time to reflect on the past and look forward to hopes for the future. What can we hope for in our time? Infant care, child care, and religious education provided. 1625 Salvador Ave., Napa; nvuu.org; 226-9220.

NEW LIFE TABERNACLE:

Sunday school at 10 a.m., followed by worship service at 11 a.m. Sunday evening service the first Sunday of every month. Bible study on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. 2625 First St., Napa. 255-1062; NewLifeNapa.com.

ST. APOLLINARIS CATHOLIC CHURCH:

Join us each third Saturday at the crossroads of faith and culture. St. Apollinaris Catholic Church, 3700 Lassen St. Napa. 257-2555.

ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST:

St. John the Baptist Church holds daily masses in English at 7:30 a.m. and 12:05 p.m. Weekend masses are Saturday at 5 p.m. (English) and 7 p.m. (Spanish) and Sunday 8 a.m. (Spanish), 10 a.m. (English), noon (Spanish), and 5 p.m. (English). Wednesday evening mass at 7 (Spanish). Corner of Caymus and Yajome streets in downtown Napa.

ST. JOHNS LUTHERAN CHURCH:

Sunday at 8:30 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. Childrens Church during the 10:15 a.m. service. 3521 Linda Vista Ave., Napa. 255-0119; StJohnsLutheran.net.

ST. MARYS EPISCOPAL CHURCH:

Worship on Saturdays at 5:30 p.m. or Sundays at 8 a.m. or 10 a.m. (organ and choir). Childrens Chapel (Sunday school) is at 9:50 a.m. Sunday. Nursery care is provided during the 10 a.m. service. Coffee hour follows the worship services on Sunday. 1917 Third St., Napa. 255-0991; StMarysNapa.org.

ST. STEPHENS ANGLICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH:

Sundays at 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., sing using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Refreshments and social time after the 10:30 service. Evensong and Bible Study Wednesdays at 6 p.m. 1250 Oakville Grade, Oakville. 944-8915; ststephensoakville.org.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS CHURCH:

Mass times are Saturday at 4 p.m. (English), Sunday at 8 a.m. (English), 11 a.m. (English) and 1:30 p.m. (Spanish). Daily mass is at 9 a.m., except on the first Friday, which is at noon and in English. 2725 Elm St., Napa. 255-2949; stthomasaquinasnapa.com.

SALVATION ARMY:

Join us for services Sundays at 10 a.m. 590 Franklin St., Napa. napasalarmy.org.

THE FATHERS HOUSE:

Service times are Saturday at 6 p.m., and Sunday at 9 and 11 a.m. Child care and Kids Church are available (ages infant through sixth grade). Youth ministry Encounter meets every Wednesday night at 7. Celebrate Recovery meets on Monday nights at 6:30. 2557 Napa Valley Corporate Drive, Napa. tfh.org.

UNITY SPIRITUAL CENTER IN NAPA VALLEY:

Sunday, Dec. 31, 10 a.m. service. Unitys quest speaker this week is Rev. Bob Brach. His message is entitled, Burning Bowl And Letter To God. Our Sunday service will be a combination of two traditional Unity Services. Our Sunday service music is performed by our guest musician Ric Morgan. 11:40 a.m.. Sunday Forum-Following a brief refreshment break, Rev. Brach will be facilitating a one hour forum for discussion regarding his message. Historic Grange Hall, 3275 Hagan Road (1/2 mile east of the Silverado Trail), Napa. UnityinNapaValley.org, 255-6881.

YOUNTVILLE COMMUNITY CHURCH:

Sunday, Dec. 31 at 10 a.m. we will have guest speaker Joel Richards. The title of the sermon is Stuck! Going Nowhere Fast from Deuteronomy 1 and Joshua 1. The main church building is under repairs and we are meeting at 1920 Finnell Road in Yountville while we are under construction. We will continue to have all of our Sunday school classes, services, and bible studies. Sunday School is at 9 a.m. for all ages. We have an Adult Bible class, Youth Group (fifth-eighth grades and high school students),and Childrens classes Jesus and Me, (Birth-Kindergarten) and first through fifth grades are offered. 944-2179.
Pantone has just announced 18-3838 Ultra Violet as 2018s Color of the Year. This raises three questions. Who is Pantone, what color, exactly, is Ultra Violet, and how can such a wild color be used in home decor?

Pantone is an American corporation founded by Lawrence Herbert in 1962 and headquartered in New Jersey. As a new college graduate, Herbert had been hired by brothers, Melvin and Jesse Levine, partners in the commercial printing company, M and J Levine Advertising, in New York City.

Herberts background in chemistry had allowed him to systematize and simplify the companys stock of pigments and production of colored inks. Long story short, by 1962, Herbert was running the ink and printing division at a profit, while the commercial-display division was $50,000 in debt. That year, he purchased the companys technological assets from the Levine Brothers and formed his company, Pantone.

Pantone is known for The Pantone Color Matching System, which standardizes color reproduction. This standardization allows different manufacturers in different locations to make sure colors match without direct contact with one another.

Since 2000, Pantone has also been known for declaring the Color of the Year.

Twice a year, the company hosts a secret meeting in a European capital. The attendees are representatives from various nations color standards groups. After two days of presentations and debate, they choose a color for the following year.

What are they debating? The chosen color is meant to connect to the mood in the world at that given time. For example, the press release declaring Honeysuckle the color of 2011 stated, In times of stress, we need something to lift our spirits. Honeysuckle is a captivating, stimulating color that gets the adrenaline going  perfect to ward off the blues.

The results of the meeting are published in the book, Pantone View. For $450, this book helps advertising agencies, fashion designers, interior designers, florists, and other consumer-oriented companies plan for future products.

In 2012, Tangerine Tango was the color of the year and was used to create a makeup line in partnership with Sephora, the French chain of cosmetic stores. The product line featured Tangerine Tango in embellished false eyelashes, nail lacquers, glitters, lipsticks and glosses.

Pantones 18-3838 Ultra Violet is a blue-based purple. Not deeply intense and not pastel. Think of it as blending the petals of a purple iris.

Its a pretty color, but will homeowners apply it to their decor? Michael Murphy, trends and interior design producer at Lamps Plus, says, Theres a sense of optimism and confidence in this color.

Interior designer Mark Cutler said he was not surprised by the color choice, From the home decor perspective, we have been waiting for the arrival of this color. It gives an immediate sense of luxury, strength and grounding. Also, it is surprisingly versatile; in fact, its almost a neutral. Pair it with whites for a graphic look, greys for a cool moody look or reds and yellows for a rich jewel tone explosion.

I would add to Cutlers suggestion a note about metals as they can drastically change the feeling of a room. Gold, brass or yellow-toned bronze, paired with purple, create a more formal look than cool-toned metals. But if not used with caution, this pairing could tip into Las Vegas glitzy. A shiny finish such as polished chrome or stainless steel will project a modern, almost industrial, look. If youre somewhere in the middle, brushed or burnished nickel, natural iron, or any matte, grey metal are good options. The purple color, itself, makes a strong statement. Let the metals and other decorative furnishings and details play supporting roles.

If you like Pantones Ultra Violet, you may be wondering how to use it. It doesnt take much courage to assemble purple accessories and a purple chair or two. Even so, to make this color count in such a scenario, there should be only one other major color in the room. Any other colors would come from fixed surfaces like the floor, fireplace, and cabinets. If you have too many colors, youll lose your purple impact.

If you are daring and adventurous and want to use Ultra Violet in a bigger way, how do you do it? Start by painting your walls a shade or two lighter or darker than Ultra Violet. Dark walls will not make your room seem smaller. Instead, the darkness and depth will make your walls recede.

Next, choose a wall to cover with wallpaper. The paper should have a purple pattern in the style you want to create. You can go bold and contemporary with geometric graphics or traditional with florals, for example.

If you have an architectural feature in the space such as a fireplace, that may be the best wall to choose. If you dont use wallpaper, then use a purple patterned fabric for tall drapery panels. Or, mount an over-sized piece of art on the wall. The point is, break up the dark, purple walls with something complementary but significant.

If the walls are dark, choose upholstery in a few purple shades lighter. Pick a color from your wallpaper or draperies and find fabric in that color to cover an accent piece like an ottoman or side chair. A large rug, filled with all the colors youve used in the room, will tie the space together.

You may be thinking all this purple will be too loud, too busy, too dark. But, if done right, it can be sophisticated, comfortable, and calm. I say calm because, throughout history, cultures have attached a mystical or spiritual quality to this color, an inward mindfulness. Today, we can think of this soulful, color as a refuge from an over-stimulated world.

Give 18-3838 Ultra Violet some thought as you design and decorate in 2018. At the very least, pick up a bunch of optimistic, confident, luxurious, regal, and mystical purple irises this spring.
Proponents of the effort to recall St. Helena Mayor Alan Galbraith have agreed to end their campaign, in exchange for Galbraith holding several town hall-style public forums in the next two months.

The agreement was the result of multiple mediation sessions between Galbraith and the recall proponents, presided over by retired Judge Scott Snowden of St. Helena.

The Mayor has agreed to participate in a series of public forums concerning issues important to the city, and the committee has agreed that those meetings will fully address the public-information concerns that were at the foundation of its efforts, Snowden wrote in a letter he delivered to the St. Helena Star on Friday. Thus the committee has ceased collecting signatures and there will be no recall election.

Proponents had until Jan. 8 to collect 835 valid signatures in order to force a recall election. They had been collecting signatures in front of the St. Helena Post Office as recently as mid-day Thursday.

I am glad the recall effort is behind us, Galbraith said Friday when contacted by phone. I look forward to a constructive dialogue moderated by Judge Snowden.

You should know that the discussions that culminated in this agreement stand as a real credit to our city, Snowdens letter states. Every person involved came dedicated to principles and policies they believe in, but also dedicated to seeking a solution that would be in the interest of the entire community. I feel privileged to have been involved.

There will be between two and four meetings, each covering two to four topics, held in January and February, not more than 10 days apart. No dates or locations have been selected.

The meetings will present topic-specific questions followed by answers, rebuttals, comments and discussion by all parties in attendance, the letter states.

Snowden will moderate the discussions and help resolve the topics to be discussed. The letter does not mention specific topics, but the recall petition accused Galbraith of failing to maintain an open and democratic process at public meetings, protect residential zoning, balance residential and business interests, provide financial statements about the citys fiscal health, ensure traffic safety with adequate code enforcement, maintain the city water system, and heed public input on matters such as the proposed Culinary Institute of America dorms and the reconfiguration of Beringers tank farm, both on Pratt Avenue.

Its still unclear whether the meetings will be connected to the previously announced monthly mayors forums that Galbraith had already planned to hold. According to the letter, Galbraith has not communicated with the City Council or city staff about any aspects of the agreement, and cant commit city resources to support it.

Thus, City staff will have to be apprised so that, should they participate, they can prepare and provide information at the sessions, the letter states.

The council will decide whether to make the forums compliant with the Brown Act, the states open meetings law.
Avid news consumers this year suffered a near-daily whiplash of bombshell stories, many of which involved President Donald Trump and his star-crossed administration. His surprising election win, and hectic first year in office, so dominated the news cycle that a Balkan war criminal downing a vial of poison on the stand at The Hague went almost unnoticed. Here are some other big stories from around the world you might have missed.

The Central African Republic is on the precipice of collapse: Since 2013, the Central African Republic has been mired in a vicious civil war that few people have paid attention to. This year, the CAR inched its way closer to becoming a failed state as new waves of brutal violence swept across much of the country. The government has little authority outside of the capital, Bangui, and experts say more than half the country is controlled by armed militants. Nearly 500,000 people are internally displaced, and the U.N. peacekeeping mission there trying to maintain some form of peace is outnumbered, outgunned, ineffective, and plagued by sexual abuse scandals, with little or no justice for the victims.

The corruption trial of Sen. Bob Menendez: Team Trump wasn't the only one in the hot seat for scandals in Washington this year. Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, went on trial for corruption over allegations he abused his power on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a dramatic trial that flew largely under the radar. It was the first time in nearly four decades a sitting U.S. senator faced trial for federal bribery. The drama ended in a mistrial, which was a big blow to federal prosecutors and an even bigger setback for future public corruption cases.

Gender-based violence: Some experts say gender-based violence killed more women than armed conflicts did in parts of Asia. Think about how many times you read about armed conflicts. Now think about how many times you read about gender-based violence.

India and China stood at the brink: An on-again, off-again dispute over a border on a Himalayan plateau was back "on" in a big way in 2017. The two nuclear-armed countries began a new wave of tense confrontations in June when India moved to block the Chinese construction of a road in the Doklam region in Bhutan. Both India and China claim the other is occupying its territory (complicating things, it isn't the same piece of territory). They agreed late in the year to try to resolve the border dispute at their 20th meeting on the issue since the 1980s. As the cliche goes, the 20th time's the charm!

Mexico's deadliest year on record: If Mexico made headlines this year, it was usually in relation to Trump's plan to build a wall or tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement. But 2017 was also Mexico's deadliest year in recorded history amid a surge in drug violence. The country registered a record-breaking 23,101 murder investigations in the first 11 months of the year, surpassing the previous record of 22,409 total in 2011 - the largest since this type of macabre record keeping first began in 1997. Reporters are also caught in the crossfire of Mexico's drug wars; Mexico was also the deadliest country in the world for journalists outside of conflict zones this year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Physicists found we're not living in a simulation: Sorry, fans of the multiverse or the bad place or whatever other pop culture alternate universe you used to get through the year. Theoretical physicists found that we can't model the physics we know and love on computers. Which means, essentially, that you are not Neo. Another bummer - or, perhaps, relief - of 2017.

Poland has been logging a primeval forest: The ancient Bialowieza Forest, one of the last remaining bits of the huge forests that once covered Europe, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was also where the Polish government decided to start logging, violating habitat protection rules and incurring the wrath of the European Court of Justice. Twice, the court ordered Poland to stop logging immediately and warned of fines of up to 100,000 euros a day. Jan Szyszko, Poland's environment minister, said the logging was "aimed at protecting the site's biodiversity." Poland's new prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said his country would respect the final decision of the European Union's top court. It did not, however, respect the order to stop logging immediately.

Romania is possibly undermining its own judiciary: While much of the world was watching rising illiberalism in Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere, Romania also tried to take a walk on the autocratic side. In the winter, Romania's legislature tried to pass a bill in the dead of night that would decriminalize official corruption, sparking the country's largest protests since 1989. More recently, Romanians have taken to the streets once again, this time because of legislation that would give the parliament greater control over the judiciary and check the independence of judges and public prosecutors.

Russia may have hacked a U.S. nuclear site: It was hard to avoid Russian hacking stories in the first year of Trump's presidency. But one big story seemed to slip through the cracks: In July, reports emerged that hackers had breached at least a dozen U.S. power plants, including a nuclear facility in Kansas. Officials say the hackers worked on behalf of foreign governments, and Russia is the prime suspect. The attack could open vulnerabilities in the country's power supply and electricity grid.

A thawing Arctic leads to new (old) disease risks: That the Arctic is being ravaged by warming temperatures is no secret. But a scary new knock-on effect is emerging. As the Arctic and sub-Arctic thaw, the melting permafrost is unlocking bacteria, viruses, and other scary pathogens that have been lying dormant, some for thousands or even millions of years. These pathogens don't pose a global health risk just yet, but scientists received a grisly preview last year of what could come, when 13 people in Siberia were hospitalized after contracting anthrax that emerged from melting permafrost. Scientists warn this could be the start of a worrying new trend.

The unraveling crisis in Yemen: Yemen's ongoing civil war, a geopolitical showdown between Saudi Arabia and Iran, gets less attention than the prospect of war with North Korea. But caught in the crossfire are Yemenis themselves, who've been hammered by a Saudi-imposed blockade of food and humanitarian aid on the country's key ports. Some 7 million civilians have been pushed to the brink of starvation, and on Dec. 21, Yemen surpassed a grim milestone of 1 million suspected cholera cases, making it the largest cholera epidemic in recent history. Saudi Arabia has eased the blockade on Yemen in recent weeks, due to quiet pressure and politicking in Washington, but civilian suffering continues unabated.
My mother died this week. Death seems to take on new meaning when its your mother. This sense of loss grabs at your heart and doesnt let go. Youd like it to, but liking it isnt enough to make it go away.

Having gone through the death of my father, my husband and my sister, I know that, over time  a week, a month, a year  the heaviness in my heart will pass. They say life goes on  or does it.

For some cultures, such as the Filipino and Native American, the spirit of the deceased person does not leave for a year. Rather, they hang around to keep us company and assure that all is well. It would be comforting to know that I am not alone on this side of the Jordan as my Baptist friends tell me.

But Im Irish Catholic and that is not my view of the hereafter. The Catholics believe that you enter the pearly gates to be greeted by Saint Peter and company. Now that puts a smile on my face. Not only did Mom have a welcoming party, she is now hanging out with Dad, my sister Barby and my grandparents. My perception is they are having a great time and not worried about us in the slightest.

However, if my Mom were a Seventh Day Adventist, like my aunt who passed a couple of years ago, then shes asleep, and only with the second coming of Christ that she, and all the other Adventists whod gone before her, would enter the pearly gates  together. Now that would be quite a lively reunion.

If Mom were Jehovah's Witness, the belief is that there is only room for 144,000  tops. If thats the case, could you lose your place in line if you dont lead an exemplary life?

How about those of Jewish faith. A tradition of covering the the mirrors in the house is done to prevent the spirit from coming back and snatching the mourners.

When visiting a small village in Ireland, the shop owner told us when someone dies, their tradition is to stop all their clocks at the hour the person died  only to be restarted after the burial.

I think the folks in New Orleans have one of the best ways to say goodbye  have a parade to celebrate the life and death of the loved one.

We all grieve differently. We have options. I think Im going to stop all clocks, cover the mirrors and have a parade. And, along with my nine brothers and sisters, raise a glass of Guinness to our Mom -- best mother ever.

Beth Lincoln

Angwin
Proponents of the effort to recall St. Helena Mayor Alan Galbraith have agreed to end their campaign, in exchange for Galbraith holding several town hall-style public forums in the next two months.

The agreement was the result of multiple mediation sessions between Galbraith and the recall proponents, presided over by retired Judge Scott Snowden of St. Helena.

The Mayor has agreed to participate in a series of public forums concerning issues important to the city, and the committee has agreed that those meetings will fully address the public-information concerns that were at the foundation of its efforts, Snowden wrote in a letter he delivered to the Star on Friday. Thus the committee has ceased collecting signatures and there will be no recall election.

Proponents had until Jan. 8 to collect 835 valid signatures in order to force a recall election. They had been collecting signatures in front of the St. Helena Post Office as recently as mid-day Thursday.

I am glad the recall effort is behind us, Galbraith said Friday when contacted by phone. I look forward to a constructive dialogue moderated by Judge Snowden.

You should know that the discussions that culminated in this agreement stand as a real credit to our city, Snowdens letter states. Every person involved came dedicated to principles and policies they believe in, but also dedicated to seeking a solution that would be in the interest of the entire community. I feel privileged to have been involved.

There will be between two and four meetings, each covering two to four topics, held in January and February, not more than 10 days apart. No dates or locations have been selected.

The meetings will present topic-specific questions followed by answers, rebuttals, comments and discussion by all parties in attendance, the letter states.

Snowden will moderate the discussions and help resolve the topics to be discussed. The letter does not mention specific topics, but the recall petition accused Galbraith of failing to maintain an open and democratic process at public meetings, protect residential zoning, balance residential and business interests, provide financial statements about the citys fiscal health, ensure traffic safety with adequate code enforcement, maintain the city water system, and heed public input on matters such as the proposed Culinary Institute of America dorms and the reconfiguration of Beringers tank farm, both on Pratt Avenue.

Its still unclear whether the meetings will be connected to the previously announced monthly mayors forums that Galbraith had already planned to hold. According to the letter, Galbraith has not communicated with the City Council or city staff about any aspects of the agreement, and cant commit city resources to support it.

Thus, City staff will have to be apprised so that, should they participate, they can prepare and provide information at the sessions, the letter states.

The council will decide whether to make the forums compliant with the Brown Act, the states open meetings law.
Story Highlights Eight in 10 Americans predict a year of international discord in 2018

Slight majority predict economic prosperity

Views are split on whether U.S. power in the world will increase

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As Americans look ahead to 2018, eight in 10 predict it will be a troubled year filled with international discord rather than peace. The public is more optimistic about the economy, with a slight majority anticipating a year of economic prosperity. Americans split evenly on whether U.S. power in the world will increase or decline.

The pessimism about the nation's chances for peace in 2018 is likely related to the ongoing conflict with North Korea over its nuclear capabilities, prominent terrorist attacks at home and abroad, and discord with Russia about its possible interference in the 2016 election. The poll was conducted Dec. 4-11, concurrent with President Donald Trump's Dec. 6 announcement that the U.S. would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem but before the decision sparked a vote of condemnation at the United Nations.

Optimism about economic prosperity reflects signs that point to a strengthening economy, such as record-high stock prices, low unemployment and Americans' increased confidence in the economy.

While political and economic events shape Americans' predictions for the year ahead, partisanship also plays a role. With the GOP controlling the White House and Congress, Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats to expect peace, economic prosperity and increased U.S. power in the world in 2018. This is a reversal from the predictions Americans made five years ago for 2013, when Democrats were more optimistic than Republicans during Barack Obama's presidency.

##SPEEDBUMP##

Predictions for Peace Internationally Lower Than Usual

Americans are generally pessimistic about international peace and have been more likely to say that the coming year will be a troubled one, rather than peaceful, in all but one of the 13 times Gallup has asked the question over the past 57 years. The lone exception was the projection for 1960.

Still, the 19% of Americans who expect 2018 to be peaceful is on the low end of Gallup's trend. The only two years when Americans were less likely to expect peace were when they looked ahead to 1966 (11%) during the Vietnam War and to 1980 (14%) in the early days of the Iranian hostage crisis.

Economic Predictions on the Higher End of Trend

Americans historically have tended to be pessimistic about economic prosperity when thinking about the year ahead. The 52% of Americans who predict economic prosperity for 2018 is one of only five instances across the 17 times Gallup has asked the question when Americans have been more positive than negative about the economy. However, Americans are less hopeful now than they were at those four other times: in 1965 and 1966 amid a period of economic strength and in 1998 and 1999 during the dot-com boom.

Still, Americans' current economic forecast is relatively bright, considering that optimism on this measure has been as low as 7% -- and that was when Americans were asked about 1974, during the start of a recession and oil crisis.

Predictions for U.S. Power in the World Below Average

While about half of Americans (49%) expect the U.S. to increase its power in the world in 2018, this is lower than in 14 of the 17 years Gallup has asked the question. Americans are more optimistic now than they were when making a prediction for 2013, after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The other exceptions were for 1974 and 1976, as the Watergate scandal was unfolding and during the ongoing energy crisis.

The percentage predicting the U.S. would increase its power in the year ahead rose as high as 84% when Americans looked ahead to 1963, after President John F. Kennedy had successfully defused the Cuban missile crisis.

Bottom Line

In the context of Gallup's trends, Americans' expectations for the U.S. economy in 2018 are more optimistic than usual, while predictions for international peace and the United States' power in the world are below average. These findings mirror Americans' evaluations of Trump's handling of the economy, which are more positive than their views on his handling of foreign affairs and the situation with North Korea.

Trump and the Republican Party will certainly attempt to use Americans' economic optimism to their advantage heading into the 2018 congressional midterm elections by emphasizing positive economic news. However, key to this approach will be Republican efforts to change Americans' generally pessimistic views of the new tax reform legislation as the law's tax cuts become reality.

Americans' assessments of international peace could, at least in part, be affected by whether Trump can defuse the situation with North Korea, a country Americans have long considered one of the nation's greatest threats. While history suggests it is unlikely that the public would expect a year that is mostly free of international strife, calming tensions with North Korea would likely improve Americans' outlook.

The United States' power in the world could be a sore spot for Trump and the GOP in the year ahead. Americans rated the United States' world standing as the worst in a decade in February 2017. Domestic events such as special prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 election could also affect perceptions of the nation's power abroad as the New Year unfolds.
00:04

After the Lok Sabha passed the contentious bill on instant triple talaq, the development was hailed by several Muslim women involved in judicial war against the practice, with a rider that the government should

have also banned polygamy.

The women, including those who waged the war against the archaic practice in the Supreme Court, said with the passing of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill in the lower House, "a new beginning has been made" and it will prove to be a deterrent for the husbands from saying talaq-e-biddat to their wives.

They said the new law should have also banned the practice of polygamy among Muslim men which, they said, was "more worse than triple talaq."

The women, advocate Farah Faiz, Rizwana, Razia, who were associated in the fight against triple talaq and polygamy in the apex court, expressed satisfaction that at least "a start" has been made by the present NDA dispensation.

The same opportunity had come in 1985 when the Shah Bano case happened, but was lost by the then Central government, they claimed.

"A new beginning has been made which would protect Muslim women from immoral practice of nikah halala," said Faiz, whose view was shared by Rizwana and Razia with a slight variance.

'Nikah halala' is a practice intended to curb incidence of divorce. Under this, a man cannot remarry his former wife without her having to go through the process of marrying someone else, consummating it, getting divorced, observing the separation period called 'Iddat' and then coming back to him.





Rizwana and Razia were of the view that the government should have dealt with the issue of polygamy by banning it in the same bill.

"I welcome the move but now men will take undue advantage of the law and indulge in polygamy openly as it is still in practice. With polygamy still in practice, abolition of triple talaq cannot alone not help us," said 33-year-old Rizwana, a victim of polygamy.

Razia, 24, whose husband divorced her over phone citing birth of daughters as the reason behind it, hailed the law brought by government and hoped that women like her would get justice.

Married at the age of 16, Razia said, "I was given triple talaq by my husband on phone as he did not want to bring up our two daughters. Triple talaq is a crime and has spoilt many lives. I pray that all women like me get justice with this new law. However, I wish that the practice of polygamy is also banned."

Advocate Chandra Rajan who had represented All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board also hailed bringing of the legislation and said it would go a long way in history.





"If this new law is implemented in true spirit then it will go a long way and prove to be a deterrent for the husbands from saying 'talaq-e-biddat' to their wives," she said. -- PTI
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T-Mobile (News - Alert) President and CEO John Legere in a recent blog pronounces 2017 a win for the company and its customers. He reiterates his 2017 predictions, which he says he crushed and nailed. And he predicts what he expects to happen in the year ahead.





Legere says T-Mobile in 2018 will disrupt big cable and satellite TV. T-Mobile is going to do so, he says, with the TV solution it announced a few weeks ago and by supporting content streaming over existing networks and upcoming 5G connectivity. He writes that convergence between wireless and wireline will only accelerate with 5G  wired/fixed anything will go away, and soon everything will be mobile, not just wireless.

Speaking of 5G, he says this years 600MHz spectrum auction was one of the most under-reported stories of 2017. He talks about T-Mobiles epic low-band spectrum haul which blankets the country. That, he says, will enable it to strengthen its existing LTE (News - Alert) coverage and build a nationwide 5G network.

While Dumb and Dumber focus on 5G hotspots that wont work when you leave your home, we will be the only ones on the fast-track toward a real, mobile nationwide 5G network in 2020  and have already started deploying 5G ready equipment, says Legere. This is such a BFD  were leapfrogging the Duopoly like theyre standing still.



He also predicts that new entrants will continue to move into the wireless domain. Comcast (News - Alert) recently moved into this arena in their own weak way, he says, adding that Charter will likely be next at bat.



I predict well see more than one other major player enter wireless in 2018 through acquisition or an MVNO deal, he says. And, I welcome them all!





Edited by Maurice Nagle
Up till today, Nigerians are yet to know the gravity of the offence Innoson Motors Nigeria CEO committed that EFCC stormed his residential house in commando style to arrest and whisked him away like a common criminal.

The truth is gradually coming to light. The Chairman and Managing Director of Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing (IVM), Chief Innocent Chukwuma, has dismissed as laughable and a no issue the alleged fraud charge filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

In a statement by Head of Corporate Communications Innoson Group, Mr. Cornel Osigwe, the entrepreneur said the purported charge was a calculated attempt by the anti-graft body to justify his arrest last week Tuesday. He said the charge was an action taken in bad faith to change the narrative to him in bad light and divert the attention of the public that had continued to condemn his arrest.

The statement reads;

We have some reservations with the publication of the details of the suit in question on some online blogs because the charge, which EFCC purports to file against me has a temporary suit number: Temp/3315c/2017. This number is written with red pen at the top most right side of the charge published at EFCCs page.

By this temporary number it means that the charge is not yet before any court in Lagos State. Also, it means that the charge cannot be acted upon by any court in Lagos State and it cannot be served on any party as well.

As it is, the charge has not been filed. So why the media noise by the commission of filling fraud charges against Innoson? We believe that it is a Volte face. Furthermore we are alarmed at how low EFCC could descend to be used by GTB to destroy the Nigerias foremost entrepreneur. We have it now in good authority that there is a grand conspiracy by an International competitor of Innoson Vehicles who have conspired with a financial institution to pull down Innoson Vehicles at all cost because of the latest increase of patronage of Innoson Vehicles by the Federal Government.



But we are amazed that EFCC, a Federal Government Agency who is supposed at all times to defend indigenous Nigerian companies who are working hard to make Nigeria great will allow itself to be used as a tool to kill and destroy these companies. Particulars of Offence Nigeria needs to ask EFCC if GTB as a bank has any license to import motorcycle spare parts or CKD.

A cursory look at the charges filed by EFCC at court is both laughable and constitutes a National embarrassment. The motorcycles being deemed the property of GTB were ordered by Innoson from its manufacturers and suppliers with a loan from GTB. Under letter of credit transaction, in international trade, bills of ladings are consigned to banks not because the banks  consignees  are the owners of the goods but rather to ensure that the seller is paid and the buyer receives the goods.

Mere consignment or endorsement of a bill of lading does not confer title in the goods covered by the bill of lading to either the consignee or the endorsee. Where consignment or endorsement of a bill of lading is intended as a security for loan, consignment or endorsement in such circumstance does not transfer title in the goods to the consignee or the endorsee.

All Innosons letter of credit transactions, through GTB, were confirmed LCs. In letter of credit transactions (LC), particularly but not exclusively confirmed LC, the term is cash against documents. Shipping documents are not released by the advising/correspondent bank to the Issuing Bank until the Issuing Bank pays for the goods.

At all material times, Innoson paid 25% of every LC value before it was opened. The media hype of EFCC portrayed Innoson and its promoter as having stolen goods belonging to GTB. We note the attempt of EFCC to get the courts to retry a matter Innoson had already secured judgment on.

The IVM owner further reiterated his earlier statement that the commission was yet to tell him why he was arrested except to say on pages of newspapers that he was arrested because of his fraud at SEC and forgery of documents to obtain tax waivers.

While we await to be served the court papers, we want to advice the EFCC that if there is any complaint by GTB to EFCC, Innoson should be invited by the commission to clear its name, EFCC will then conducts its investigation before taking matter to court, he said.


The ECOWAS Election Observation Mission to Liberia has released its preliminary report on Tuesdays presidential runoff polls in the country, declaring it as peaceful, transparent and fair.

Head of the mission and former President of Ghana, Mr John Mahama, presented the report at a joint press conference with the African Union Election Observation Mission (AUEOM) in Monrovia on Wednesday evening.

However, Mahama was quick to note that the declaration was limited to the point of vote counting.

The ECOWAS Election Observation Mission noted with satisfaction the peaceful conduct of the Dec. 26, 2017 poll in the Republic of Liberia.

Most of the polling places visited opened not later than 15 minutes after the official opening time of 8 a.m., with an effective presence of representatives of both parties (CDC and UP) in all the polling places covered.

On the whole, the processing of voters and the casting of ballots followed acceptable standards and were in accordance with the laws and procedures governing elections in the country, he said.

The mission appealed to the two candidates in the runoff and their supporters to accept the will of the electoral, and explore legal means of seeking redress in the event of genuine grievances.

While congratulating Liberians for their patience, determination and peaceful conduct so far, the ECOWAS team appealed to them to sustain the spirit until the end of the process.

In its preliminary report presented by its Head of mission, Mr Erastus Mwencha, the AU team said the runoff was conducted in an orderly and efficient manner and in a peaceful atmosphere.

The mission concludes that despite the legal challenges faced by NEC, compounded by the limited timeline to prepare, the Dec. 26, 2017 presidential runoff election was conducted in an orderly and efficient manner, within a calm and peaceful environment.

The mission commends all Liberians for their patience during the legal challenges, which demonstrated their strong commitment to peace and democratic consolidation.

All stakeholders should continue to strive for a sustained peace and peaceful transition and democratic consolidation.

Like its ECOWAS counterpart, the AU mission also urged stakeholders dissatisfied with the outcome of the runoff to seek redress only through legal means.
UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has announced that former president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, will be going to Liberia to support peaceful transfer of power to a democratically-elected president next Tuesday.

Guterres announced this yesterday in New York through his spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric.

The secretary-General also welcomed the peaceful conduct of the second round of the presidential election in Liberia.

Liberians on Tuesday voted in a second round of elections, deciding between Vice-President Joseph Boakai and George Weah.

In more than 70 years, this would be Liberias first peaceful transfer of power from one democratically-elected leader to another.

The brief statement said, The Secretary-General hopes that the will of the Liberian electorate will be respected and that a seamless transfer of power will take place within constitutional timelines.

Guterres had requested Obasanjo, who is a member of the Secretary-Generals High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation, to travel to the capital, Monrovia, from Thursday, Dec. 28 to Saturday, Dec. 30 Dec.

Obasanjo is one of 18 global leaders, senior officials and experts on the high-level board created earlier this year to advise the Secretary-General on mediation and back those efforts around the world.

The former president of Nigeria was involved in mediation efforts in Angola, Burundi, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa, among others.

The high-level board is part of the Secretary-Generals pledge for the UN to embark on a surge in diplomacy for peace.

The idea, according to Tarja Halonen, former President of Finland and also a high-level board member, is to prevent wars by hybrid peace-building.
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief John Odigie Oyegun Thursday explained that his loyalty to the present administration led by Muhammadu Buhari, was reason why he is being persecuted by some disgruntled elements in the party who want him out as National Chairman.

Oyegun who spoke in Benin, Edo State, at event in his honor by the Benin National Congres (BNC), said the only thing his adversaries could punish him for is his loyalty.

He siad: I grew up in an environment where bringing disgrace to the family is the worst thing you can possibly do. Even the family will be the first to disown you.

In all my life, this is the circumstance that has conditioned me. I do not do things that will not make me sleep soundly at night. I do nothing that will appear as headline in any of the national dailies.

I have been through several trials, but I have overcome them all. Why have I done so? Because at the end of the day, whether detailed or forensic examination, you will not find that your own Oyegun has done something dishonorable.

And so, with all the hue and cry, at the end of the whole thing, when we sit down and ask, tell us what he has done, behold the whole situation fizzles out.

The only thing you can punish him for is loyalty. Edo people are loyal. We look at something, we make sacrifices to ensure that those hands are upheld and neat

The APC National Chairman who urged Nigerians to be patient with the present administration in delivering the rigth and purposeful leadership for the country, noted that change takes time, consistence of applications, adding that Nigeria cannot afford to go back to the old days.

Earlier in his welcome address, the President of Benin National Congress (BNC), Mr. Aiyemenkhue Edokpolo, said Mr. Oyegun took steps to preserve the sanctity of the presidency, protected the interest of Nigeria as one and indivisible nation and defended the founding values of his party, when President Muhammadu Buhari went on medical vacation, during which the nation wet through series of frightening challenges.

Edokpolo who described Oyegun as a distinguished Benin and humble son of Edo State who has made landmarks in civil service and party politics, deserves the honour, which he said was why the Benins decided to honour him as a role model.
Local farmers in the Souss region are financially contributing to the building of the worlds biggest water desalination plant whose water will help irrigate the plains of Chtouka.

The farmers are contributing 1000 (10,000 dh) per each hectare in an unprecedented success story of the public-private partnership in Morocco, local media reported.

The contributions will be collected upon the accomplishment of the desalination plant in 2020.

The plant will be built by Spanish company Abengoa near Agadir for a total cost of 309 million.

The new facility will desalinate 275,000 m3 of water per day with a possibility to expand production to 450,000 m3/day.

The plant will be powered by the Noor Ouarzazate solar plant through high-tension wires and will provide water for irrigation and drinking in the Souss-Massa region where demographic and urban growth has increased demand on water.

The project will also alleviate pressure on the regions two major dams: Moulay Abdellah and Abdelmoumen, which provide 80% of water needs in the region. Underground water, for its part, represents 20% of water consumed in the region.

This project is supported by Moroccan Office National de lElectricite et de lEau Potable (ONEE), the Ministry of agriculture & rural development and the ministry of waters and forests.
Abu Dhabis National Oil Company (ADNOC) and Moroccos state-owned phosphates company (OCP) signed a sulphur supply agreement covering 25 years.

Under the agreement, ADNOC will increase the volume of sulphur exports to the OCP up from 2 million tons in 2016.

ADNOC, one of the worlds largest sulphur producers, sees promising prospects for raising sulphur production from 6 million tons currently thanks to its plans to achieve gas self-sufficiency by 2030.

During the signing ceremony, Abdulla Salem Al Dhaheri, marketing, sales and trading director at ADNOC, said this landmark agreement, which is unique in the sulphur industry, strengthens ADNOCs position as one of the worlds largest exporters of sulphur. It will reinforce the sustainable supply of sulphur to Morocco and enhance our ability to achieve positive margins.

For his part, Mustapha El Ouafi, managing director at OCP, said that since 2008, OCP has initiated the largest investment program in the fertilizer industry with the objective of doubling its mining capacity and tripling its fertilizer capacity. Our ambitious program will see OCP further strengthen its position as the worlds largest fertilizer producer and a leading player in the agribusiness value chain. As such, we are committed to further developing a reliable and strategic partnership with ADNOC.

OCP, headquartered in Casablanca, is the worlds largest sulphur importer and the worlds biggest producer of phosphate-based fertilizers.
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FDNY responds to the fire at 2363 Prospect Avenue in the Bronx. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

A fire tore through an apartment building in the Bronx on Thursday night, leaving at least 12 people dead, including at least three young children. Four people were critically injured and two sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

This will rank as one of the worst losses of life to a fire in many, many years, New York mayor Bill de Blasio said during a press conference. We may lose others as well.

The FDNY said that the fire broke out shortly before 7 p.m. on the first floor of a five-story building located at 2363 Prospect Avenue in Belmont, which is near Fordham University and the Bronx Zoo.

On Friday morning, New York City officials said that the fire began when a 3-year-old child was playing with burners on a stove in a kitchen on the first floor. The fire then spread through the building via a stairway, which acted like a chimney for the flames.

What we think at this point is that it unfortunately emanated from an accident, a young child playing with a stove on the first floor of the building, Mayor de Blasio said earlier during his weekly radio show.

The fire department arrived within minutes, and eventually more than 160 firefighters were on the scene. Within an hour, the blaze had grown to a four-alarm fire. It was brought under control around 9 p.m.

Over 160 #FDNY members are operating on scene of a 4-alarm fire, 2363 Prospect Ave #Bronx pic.twitter.com/wjN9mMqCHU  FDNY (@FDNY) December 29, 2017

Tonight in the Bronx we've seen the worst first tragedy in at least a quarter of a century. It is unspeakable, and families have been torn apart. pic.twitter.com/OycmCDweaV  Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) December 29, 2017

The dead included children ages 1, 2, and 7, as well as four men and four women, and an unidentified boy.

One resident, who would not give her name, told the New York Times that she escaped the fire with her daughter and two children from a neighbors family, but other children were left behind. I had one on my front and one on my back, she said, crying. I couldnt carry the rest of them.

Luz Hernandez, another resident, said she smelled burning rubber in her fourth-floor apartment, and a short time later her home was filled with smoke that made the room pitch-black. She fled with her husband and two sons, 11 and 16, down the fire escape.

Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

At least 12 people were rescued from the building. The Red Cross was on the scene assisting residents driven out into the frigid street, and a nearby school offered temporary housing.

The blaze is the deadliest in New York City since a fire at the Happy Land social club killed 87 people in 1990. A decade ago in the Bronx, nine children and one adult died in a fire started by an overheated cord to a space heater.
Have you ever noticed how annoyed Benjamin Franklin looks on the hundred? Photo: studioEAST/Getty Images

The progressive narrative about Americas skyrocketing levels of inequality goes something like this: Since the 1970s or so, conservatives have racked up a series of victories in rolling back governments role in taxing and regulating the rich and powerful. As a result, the rich and powerful  who often lavish conservative politicians with donations  have run roughshod over poor and middle-class people, sucking up a horrifying proportion of the nations wealth in the process.

In their new book The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality, Brink Lindsey and Steven M. Teles argue that this is only part of the story. What this approach misses is the role of government action itself, rather than the governments mere failure to act, as a cause of inequality, they write. This means that anyone concerned about addressing inequality should be focusing on the many ways in which government policy itself actively redistributes money upward.

Lindsey, vice-president and director of the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center, and Teles, a fellow at the Center and a political science professor at Johns Hopkins, focus on four key areas in which, they say, government policy has been ruthlessly taking money from the have-nots and bestowing it upon the haves: finance, intellectual property (that is, the patent system), occupational licensing, and land use.

Whereas the standard progressive narrative about inequality and government inaction is fairly intuitive, Lindsey and Teless arguments are sometimes a bit more nuanced. Take their occupational-licensing case study, for example: They argue that many state licensing laws pertaining to physicians and attorneys are much more about artificially constricting labor supply in these fields than any sort of compelling quality-control argument, which in turn drives up the salaries of physicians and lawyers (the desired effect from the physicians and lawyers who lobby for strict licensing laws), which in turn drives up costs for consumers, which in turn cuts off the access poor and middle-class people have to the sometimes literally life-saving services of a good attorney or physician.

What this and other examples show is that sometimes the conservative argument that deregulation and a scaling-back of government intervention can reduce inequality is, well, true. Its just complicated, and depends on a lot on context. Theres no one-size-fits-all approach to solving anything as complicated as Americas inequality crisis.

In a recent email Q&A, Lindsey and Teles answered some questions about his books theses and the ways he wished progressives would reframe their thinking about inequality.

I think the ways in which conservatives get inequality-talk wrong are pretty well-documented among progressive-minded folks  among other things, they have a delusional amount of misplaced faith in the power of the market itself to bring about fair outcomes. But whats your elevator-pitch version for the ways in which progressives might reconsider their own positions by reading your book?

Progressives have a hard time seeing how much government policy actively contributes to inequality by redistributing upwards. Progressives typically think of inequality as the natural result of unrestrained markets and see more government power as the solution. Yet in many important cases  in our book we focus on financial regulation, intellectual property, occupational licensing, and land-use regulation  misused government power is the problem and greater reliance on markets is the egalitarian solution.

Progressives have no problem recognizing the political power of big corporations and the rich, yet curiously their implicit assumption is that this power is wielded with amazing restraint. They understand that the rich and powerful can unfairly dominate the policymaking process, but their main worry is that they will use their power to restrain government  to keep their taxes and regulatory compliance costs inappropriately low. But doesnt it make sense that if you have all this power, youll use it for more than just playing defense? If youve got that power, you can go on offense as well, empowering government to restrain competition from outsiders so that the rich and powerful benefit at the expense of everybody else. And that is precisely what has happened.

Maybe one reason for the progressive blind spot you mention is that government regulation used to have much more progressive distributional consequences  that is, it did a lot of redistributing from richer to poorer. You argue that the main action is now in the other direction; in your words, rent-seeking, or lobbying for special privileges, has moved upmarket. Explain whats happened.

What economists call rent-seeking is bad for economic efficiency by definition: its the attempt to make profits through the political process rather than by creating value for customers. The effects on the distribution of income, however, are unclear: rent-seeking could be progressive, regressive, or a wash. When the era of activist government really kicked off during the New Deal, lots of regulatory interventions in the economy  some of which we consider bad policies that stifled competition and cartelized industries  nonetheless had progressive consequences. Think rent control, universal service requirements, and of course pro-union labor legislation. Even when policies favored big business, those businesses frequently had large, semi-skilled, unionized workforces, so some of the rents got shared with workers in the form of higher pay. In more recent decades, though, regulatory interventions that favor the rich have been the norm.

One reason is the decline of unions: nothing has replaced them as a muscular lobby for government interventions on behalf of the less-well-off. Meanwhile, the biggest, most technologically progressive industries (which are usually the focus of regulatory activity) now hire mostly highly skilled workers. So subsidies to these companies dont leak out much to ordinary workers.

Isnt it simply the case that a ton of powerful progressives benefit greatly from the rent-seeking you document in the book? I dont expect the doctors and lawyers and finance types who provide the Democratic Party with a big chunk of its funding, for example, to be all that sympathetic to the idea that theyre contributing to the inequality some of them rail against every two or four years. This seems like a pretty serious impasse.

When we were writing the book, we joked that we were doing our best to antagonize the very people most likely to read a serious nonfiction book from Oxford University Press: doctors, lawyers, financial professionals, and affluent homeowners in big coastal cities. But youre right, were also picking fights with some of the biggest funding sources for the Democratic Party: Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley. You can see our book as a critique of progressives from the free-market left. The Affordable Care Act didnt do nearly enough to address doctors inflated fees and incomes; Dodd-Frank didnt do nearly enough to roll back the regulatory subsidies for financialization and excessive risk-taking.

Of course what were proposing is difficult. Its never easy to take privileges away from a well-organized lobby, especially when it represents the interests of extremely rich and powerful people. We dont say reform is easy; we say its necessary. And given the immense frustration in the electorate, on both the left and the right, and the sense that governing elites are failing to help anybody but themselves, we think there are possibilities to channel that frustration into a sustained political assault on upward redistribution. Every victory, however, will be hard-won.

Toward the end of your book you present this fascinating idea from political science that one of the main reasons various special interests wield so much influence in D.C. is simply because they are able to present the government with useful-seeming information  and the governments capacity to produce this information for itself has degraded over the decades. Why did that degradation occur and what can be done about this fundamental asymmetry?

Worrying about lobbying and special-interest influence is nothing new, but almost all the focus has been on somehow reducing the power of lobbyists  and, in particular, reducing their power to spend money on candidates and causes they favor. We argue that looking at the other side of the equation is long overdue. In other words, rather than trying to disarm lobbyists, we should fortify policymakers so they are less dependent on special interests for the information they need to govern. At the same time that the scope and complexity of government policies have been increasing, weve been cutting congressional staff and analytical capacity throughout the executive branch. Conservatives were behind this trend, thinking they were cutting unnecessary bureaucracy. In fact, they were just increasing the information asymmetry between rent-seeking special interests and policy-makers trying to regulate in the public interest. A Congress staffed by smart but relatively inexperienced, overworked young people is one that is easy pickings for lobbyists armed with data purportedly showing that a change in policy would cause the sky to fall. Boosting the governments brainpower  its internal capacity to generate and process policy-relevant information  would help to reduce that asymmetry and produce better policies as a result.
Its complicated. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

A year ago, as many in the world awaited Donald Trumps swearing-in with great anxiety, reports that President Obama planned to spend a bit more time tutoring his successor sparked fleeting hopes that the pair might forge an unlikely friendship.

Months later, Trump was accusing Obama of wiretapping him, but it seems German chancellor Angela Merkel held out hope that Americas inexperienced new president would be receptive to an ally offering to guide him through the confusing world of international diplomacy. By all accounts, her efforts did not go well.

A New York Times report on how Trump has changed U.S. foreign policy sheds new light on Merkels overtures to Trump. In January a Merkel spokesperson said that during a phone call with the president, Merkel had explained the international communitys obligations toward refugees under the Geneva Convention. In a call around this time, the chancellor also tried to give Trump a lesson on Ukraines history and strategic importance. According to the Times, German officials were alarmed by Mr. Trumps lack of knowledge, but they got even more rattled when White House aides called to complain afterward that Ms. Merkel had been condescending toward the new president.

The Germans tried to proceed more delicately when Merkel visited the White House in March. According to Politico, in an effort to express her concerns about Russia while accommodating Trumps preferred learning style, she came equipped with a map of the Soviet Union from 1982, and an overlay showing that Russian president Vladimir Putin is active in many former-Soviet nations.

Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, and Ukraine  he is either trying to get those countries back into his realm or, if hes not able to, he at least makes sure those countries are totally unattractive to the West, said an official privy to the German presentation.

Shortly after the meeting, a senior German official told the Times of London that Trump also tried to pursue a bilateral trade deal with Germany. Ten times Trump asked [Merkel] if he could negotiate a trade deal with Germany. Every time she replied, You cant do a trade deal with Germany, only the E.U., the official said. On the eleventh refusal, Trump finally got the message, Oh, well do a deal with Europe then.

Now the Times reports that Merkel tried to be delicate to avoid humiliating Trump again.

Rather than exposing Mr. Trumps ignorance, Ms. Merkel said the United States could, of course, negotiate a bilateral agreement, but that it would have to be with Germany and the other 27 members of the union because Brussels conducted such negotiations on behalf of its members.

So it could be bilateral? Mr. Trump asked Ms. Merkel, according to several people in the room. The chancellor nodded.

Thats great, Mr. Trump replied before turning to his commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, and telling him, Wilbur, well negotiate a bilateral trade deal with Europe.

German officials were reportedly relieved at how Merkel handled the situation, while White House officials still found it humiliating.

Presumably, the feeling was mutual. At the same meeting Merkels would-be diplomacy student refused to shake her hand, claiming later that he couldnt hear requests from her or photographers.
Nikki got tricked? Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley assured the prime minister of Poland last week that the United States was aware of Russias covert attempts to influence the elections in Binomo (which does not exist), a small island in the South China Sea that had recently declared independence.

Or rather, this is what Haley thought she did last week  if a new video from the Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus is to be believed.

In the video, a woman who sounds an awful lot like Nikki Haley takes a phone call from a man she believes to be new Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki. The alleged interaction came hours after the United Nations voted to reject Americas recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital. Poland abstained from that vote, and Haley opens the conversation by expressing Americas gratitude for its abstention.

Yes, this is Nikki. How are you Mr. Minister? Haley (ostensibly) says. Let me start with very much thanking you for the support weve received on the vote today. We will never forget it.

After discussing tensions between Ukraine and Russia, the fake Polish leader asks about Americas stance on Putins recent actions in (nonexistent) Binomo.

You know Binomo? he asks.

Yes, yes, Haley assures him.

They had elections and we suppose Russians had its intervention.

Yes, of course they did, absolutely, Haley agrees. Let me find out exactly what our stance is on that, and what if anything the U.S. is doing or thinks should be done and I will report back to you on that as well.

In previous prank calls, Vovan and Lexus duped Energy Secretary Rick Perry, congresswoman Maxine Waters, and Senator John McCain. In the call with Perry, the pranksters tricked the secretary into engaging in an extended discussion of pig-manure-based biofuels.

Asked about the veracity of the recording, Haleys spokesman John Degory told the Post and Courier, We have nothing to share on that at this time.
Deporter-in-chief. Photo: Chris Kleponis - Pool/Getty Images

Donald Trump just made Democrats an offer they cant accept. In a Friday-morning tweet, the president issued an ultimatum: Build me a border wall  and make it harder for legal immigrants to bring their foreign family members into the United States (a.k.a. chain migration)  or the Dreamers get it.

The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc. We must protect our Country at all cost!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

On Thursday, Breitbart reported that the GOPs congressional leadership presented a nearly identical deal to House conservatives:

At least two House GOP members told Breitbart News that leadership  including Ryan  has been presenting the DACA deal to membership as something along these lines: In exchange for legislatively granting amnesty to recipients of DACA, Republicans will get funding for President Trumps border wall, an end to chain migration including language from a bill from Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) that would do so, an end to the visa lottery, and E-Verify. That would be accompanied by various other border enforcement and interior enforcement measures on immigration. Most importantly, the deal would take those numbers of DACA recipients who would be granted amnesty legislatively out of the total of allowed legal immigrants per year  offsetting the damage that they do to the U.S. economy.

Perhaps these hard-line demands make tactical sense as an opening bid in negotiations. But Trumps proposal is (almost certainly) dead on arrival as a final offer. Congressional Democrats have been unyielding in their opposition to a border wall, and have no interest in abetting drastic reductions to legal immigration (they are, however, probably open to ending the diversity lottery). And theyre not alone: In September, a USA Today survey found that less than 25 percent of congressional Republicans approved of funding Trumps border wall. Meanwhile, Tom Cottons RAISE Act  which would drastically reduce immigration by, among other things, ending chain migration  attracted sharp intra-party opposition, particularly in the Senate. In all likelihood, some far-right Republicans will vote against any bill that provides nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants (who are law-abiding, gainfully employed, and were brought to the U.S. as children) with legal status. Passing a DACA deal will require the votes of Democrats and pro-immigration Republicans. Trumps demands are all but certain to lose such votes  especially since such lawmakers have reason to think that the presidents bluffing.

By all accounts, Trump was reluctant to cancel the Obama-era program that provided Dreamers with work visas, in the first place. It took intense lobbying by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to get the president to end DACA. And even then, Trump immediately called on Congress to grant its beneficiaries some form of protection from deportation  and suggested that if Congress failed to do so, then he might protect them, himself, through executive action.

This history strongly suggests that Trump does not see legal status for Dreamers as a painful concession to his enemies, but rather, as a good in and of itself. Or, at least, that he sees it that way some of the time.

And Democrats have cause for believing that the GOP leadership sees it that way, too. Enthusiasm for deporting Dreamers isolates the GOPs activist base from the rest of the country, including the Republican rank and file. A Morning Consult poll in September found that 69 percent of Republicans  and two-thirds of Trump voters  want undocumented immigrants who meet DACAs requirements to be given either citizenship or legal status. And the GOPs corporate donors  who just amply demonstrated their capacity to dictate terms to Capitol Hill  have little interest in deporting Dreamers, restricting legal immigration, or building border walls.

If Paul Ryan respects Breitbarts red lines, his party will have a steep price to pay. There is no precedent for stripping legal status from a group of people this numerous, let alone a group so deeply integrated into American society. Dreamers have allies in corporate America, churches, unions, colleges, and countless local and state governments. The backlash to their dispossession will be huge and unrelenting. Republicans are already poised for a historic rebuke next November. Letting DACA expire without a replacement could turn a wave election into a tsunami.

Granted, Democrats are facing far more direct pressure from their constituents to reach a DACA deal than Republicans are. But the progressive grassroots opposition to the border wall and ending family reunification are nearly as fierce. Further, a segment of immigration activists are actually ambivalent about a DREAM Act that fails to provide protections to Dreamers parents and/or to all 11 million undocumented immigrants. By targeting relief at the most empowered segment of the undocumented population, such activists worry that a DACA deal could hamper mobilization behind broader reforms, while perpetuating a harmful dichotomy between good undocumented immigrants and bad ones.

Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Which is to say, Democrats probably stand to gain politically from killing a DACA deal that includes border-wall funding and the abolition of chain migration. Both the broader public  and the partys activist base  would likely be on their side. Further, such a standoff would likely precipitate a government shutdown, a development thats more likely to damage the party in power than its opposition.

All this said: Congressional Republicans have proven their capacity to make heinously unpopular policy choices, while Democrats have already proven reluctant to trigger a shutdown for DACAs sake.

Nevertheless, the weight of the evidence suggests that Democrats have the upper hand in the DACA fight  but that the vocal minority of Republican voters who disdain amnesty in all its forms (along with the presidents formidable ego) could prevent the GOP from accepting this fact. In January, an unstoppable force may meet an immovable object  and put the lives of hundreds of thousands of American-raised immigrants, and our governments ability to perform its most basic functions, in peril.
Deal or no deal? Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Earlier this month, senior U.S. and Israeli officials met at the White House to develop a plan for countering Iranian activity in the Middle East. On Thursday, Axios got a copy of the blueprint they arrived at. The document is mostly a snoozer  it will surprise no one that America and Israel would like to undermine Irans ballistic-missile program and limit its influence in Syria and Lebanon. But there is one dollop of hot sauce on this nothing burger: a tacit confirmation that the American and Israeli governments believe the Iran nuclear agreement is worth preserving.

Here is one of the four goals contained in the joint strategic work plan, according to Axios:

Covert and diplomatic action to block Irans path to nuclear weapons  according to the U.S. official this working group will deal with diplomatic steps that can be taken as part of the Iran nuclear deal to further monitor and verify that Iran is not violating the deal. It also includes diplomatic steps outside of the nuclear deal to put more pressure on Iran. The working group will deal with possible covert steps against the Iranian nuclear program.

On one level, this is unsurprising. National security adviser H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have all said that unilaterally withdrawing from the JCPOA (the technical name of the Iran agreement) is not in Americas national interest. And Israels defense establishment has been broadly supportive of the deal. Which makes sense: According to international inspectors, Iran is complying with the JCPOA, and thus, a supposedly existential threat to the Jewish state has been neutralized. Further, a unilateral U.S. withdrawal  despite Iranian compliance  would nullify Americas diplomatic credibility, and alienate the U.S. (even further) from its core European allies.

And yet, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu have been unrelenting in their criticism of the agreement  with the former painting it as a borderline treasonous giveaway to Iranian terrorists, and the latter as a scam that will provide Tehran with as many as 100 nuclear bombs in a few years time. In this context, the fact that both nations treat the deal as a vital tool in official strategic documents is noteworthy. It would seem to suggest that American and Israeli opposition to JCPOA is just for show.

But then, of course, Donald Trump is not above making hugely consequential policy decisions  over the objections of his top advisers  just for show (see: climate accord, Paris). And the coming month will test the presidents tolerance for putting strategic wisdom above political posturing.

The Iran agreement requires the American president to issue temporary waivers of U.S. sanctions against Iran every 120 days. Meanwhile, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, passed by Congress in 2015, requires Trump to certify that Iran is meeting its obligations under the agreement every 90 days. Trump will run into deadlines for both these actions in mid-January.

The waiver and certification requirements could very well prove fatal to the JCPOA. The presidents foreign-policy team kept him from sabotaging the Iran deal for most of 2017. But the indignity of having to formally acknowledge the agreements success (which he had spent his entire campaign denying)  and actively abet sanctions relief for Iran (which he had spent his entire campaign decrying)  was ultimately more than Trump could stand. In October, the president refused to certify the deal, and called on Congress and Americas European allies to amend the agreements weaknesses.

That decision didnt immediately impact the JCPOA  the agreement doesnt actually require Trump to certify Iranian compliance every 90 days, only U.S. law does. But Trump warned in October that [i]n the event we are not able to reach a solution working with Congress and our allies, then the agreement will be terminated.

Congressional leaders are currently working to provide Trump with a fig leaf  some purely symbolic legislation that allows him to declare victory and leave the Iran deal in peace. But that effort is looking awfully precarious, as Politicos Michael Crowley reports:

McMaster has met with Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and the committees ranking Democrat, Ben Cardin of Maryland, to discuss potential legislation that might appease Trump. As the year wound down, Cardin and Corker continued discussions about what such legislation could look like.

Congressional sources said the goal is to find language that would take a hard line on Iran  but on non-nuclear issues, so as not to violate the deals terms, which prohibit the imposition of new conditions on Irans nuclear program after the deal was concluded.

 A congressional measure may convince Trump to somehow say he has changed the conversation and he may not take any precipitous action in the near term, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a nonprofit Washington group that strongly supports the nuclear agreement.

 But Corker and Cardin will have little time after Congress reconvenes to craft language before the certification and sanctions waiver deadlines arrive.

To review: Every major European nation, the top national security experts in the U.S. and Israeli governments, and the congressional leadership of both of Americas political parties all agree that it would be a disaster for Trump to unilaterally withdraw from the Iran deal  but the president could very well do so anyway, unless Congress passes legislation that makes preserving the deal less injurious to his ego by mid-January.
In October 2017, Uganda welcomed its second grid-connected solar photovoltaic power plant, the Tororo Solar North Plant, which boosts the countrys electricity generation capacity by 10 MWp.

In December 2016, the 10 MWp Access Uganda Solar Limited Power Plant was commissioned in Soroti district. Presently, Uganda uses a combination of renewable and non-renewable energy resources/technologies for power generation, with the former making the greater supply to the national grid.

The contribution of renewable energy includes hydro  708.34MW (81%); bagasse co-generation  46MW (5.3%), and solar  20MW (2.3%), which adds up to 774.34MW.

The rest of electricity supplied to the grid is derived from thermal (non-renewable energy) at 100MW (11.4%), which brings the total grid installed capacity to 929.6 MW, as of December 2017.

Tororo Solar North Plant

Over the next two to three years, Ugandas total generation capacity is projected at 1,800MW. Peak demand, on the other hand, is projected at 735MW during the same period.

It is, therefore, critical that stakeholders in the industry address the likely energy consumption deficit so that the benefits of the country generating more than sufficient electricity may not be diminished.

The government and other stakeholders have developed plans to align electricity generation with demand for the attainment of a supply-demand balance.

The measures to grow the countrys demand for electricity are intended to increase utilisation of power and utilisation of power generation plants at their maximum installed capacity, which would lead to reduction of the electricity tariffs.

The demand-growth measures include the establishment of 25 industrial parks whose industries will consume a significant amount of energy. These include the Osukuru industrial complex in Tororo district which is expected to consume 200MW; and from power trade within the East African region.

Ugandas electricity export potential currently stands at 690MW, for exports to Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan. Further, the ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, through the Rural Electrification Agency, will implement free universal electrification, at a projected rate of 300,000 connections per year.

This will translate into 10MW to 15MW of additional demand from households per year. Growth in demand for electricity is associated with significant investments in the transmission and distribution infrastructure to reinforce and expand the grid for efficient evacuation, transmission and distribution of all electricity generated.

A study by ERA has revealed that funding worth $4,510 million would be required to cater for evacuation of power, expansion of the network, establishment of substations at industrial parks, and reinvestment into the network. The funding is expected to be contributed by both the Government of Uganda and the private sector.

As the country prepares for the commissioning of the large hydropower plants by the end of 2019, a critical consideration for stakeholders in the electricity supply industry should be  how best can we use the available electricity resource to achieve socio-economic transformation?

The author is principal communications officer, Electricity Regulatory Authority.
Telecommunications regulator, the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) will next year launch local social media platforms in a bid to lower internet costs, the executive director Eng. Godfrey Mutabazi has said.



"That is one of the projects we are working on next year. There is an investor who is bringing our own social media platforms. Instead of Twitter, you're going to have something local that you're going to use," Mutabazi told URN.



He says that hosting of content outside Uganda is the reason for the prohibitive internet costs.

UCC executive director Godfrey Mutabazi

The moment you access the internet, you first go to America and come back when you are surfing. But if we had our own content here, it will be cheaper," Mutabazi argues.



Mutabazi says government and telecommunication industry players will be encouraged to use and promote local social media platforms. In a country with approximately 40 million people, Mutabazi says, it's possible to have 10 million people subscribing to local social media platforms. He likened the market competition to music competition.



Whereas music by western musicians has dominated, Mutabazi argues that local musicians have also flourished, a signal that local social media platforms that UCC is planning to introduce can flourish alongside Facebook and Twitter.



Mutabazi says the commission has been and continues to encourage smartphone manufacturers to bring good but relatively cheap products in order to increase internet consumption in the country.



"In a few years, the internet price will go down because we are going to encourage the importation of smartphones so that majority of people can use smartphones. One of the reasons why the internet is expensive is because capacity picked by telecommunication from Mombasa is used by few people," he says.
Suicide bombers stormed Shia cultural center in Kabul

KABUL: Suicide bombers stormed a Shia cultural center and news agency in the Afghan capital on Thursday, killing more than 40 people and wounding scores, many of them students attending a conference.



Islamic State said in an online statement that it was responsible for the attack, the latest in a series the movement has claimed on Shia targets in Kabul.



Waheed Majrooh, a spokesman for the ministry of public health, said 41 people, including four women and two children, had been killed and 84 wounded, most suffering from burns.



The attack occurred during a morning panel discussion on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Sunni-majority Afghanistan at the Tabian Social and Cultural Centre, witnesses said.



The floor of the center, at the basement level, was covered in blood as wailing survivors and relatives picked through the debris, while windows of the news agency, on the second floor, were all shattered.



Deputy Health Minister Feda Paikan said 35 bodies had been brought into the nearby Istiqlal hospital. Television pictures showed many of the injured suffered serious burns.



The bloodshed followed an attack on a private television station in Kabul last month, which was also claimed by the local affiliate of Islamic State.



Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid issued a statement on Twitter denying involvement in the attack, which was condemned by both the Kabul government and Afghanistans international partners including NATO and the United Nations.



I have little doubt that this attack deliberately targeted civilians, said Toby Lanzer, acting head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.



Today in Kabul we have witnessed another truly despicable crime in a year already marked by unspeakable atrocities.



Over the past two years, Islamic State in Khorasan, as the local group is known, has claimed a growing number of attacks on Shia targets in Afghanistan, where sectarian attacks were previously rare. The movement, which first appeared in eastern Afghanistan in 2015, has extended its reach steadily, although many security officials question its ability to conduct complex attacks and believe it has help from criminals or other militant groups.



Prior to Thursdays attack, there had been at least 12 attacks on Shia targets since the start of 2016, in which almost 700 people were killed or wounded, according to United Nations figures. Before that, there had only been one major attack, in 2011. Backed by the heaviest US air strikes since the height of the international combat mission in Afghanistan, Afghan forces have forced the Taliban back in many areas and prevented any major urban center from falling into the hands of insurgents.



But high-profile attacks in the big cities have continued as militants have looked for other ways to make an impact and undermine confidence in security.



Pakistan strongly condemned the terrorist attack. We express our heartfelt condolences with the families and friends of those who have lost their loved ones in these brutal terrorist attacks and pray for the speedy recovery of the wounded. We express our solidarity with the government and the people of Afghanistan, the statement from Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated.
We cannot do more on dictation from any country: ISPR

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Army on Thursday unequivocally said that it had already done enough for everyone over the past decades and cannot do more on dictation from any country.



We cannot do more on dictation from any country. Pakistan will continue to fight terrorism, but not for money. We dont want conflict with friends but no compromise on our self-respect and honour as well. Countrys interests are always supreme for us, Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor told a crowded press briefing.



What kind of friends are we that we are being given notices [by the US]? It is time for Afghanistan and the US instead to do more for Pakistan, he maintained.



Rejecting unfounded accusations by US and Afghanistan about presence of terrorist bases inside Pakistan, the army spokesman reiterated that no organised infrastructure of any terrorist organisation existed in Pakistan. We have gone a long way towards supporting peace in region and at present there are no facilitators of terrorist groups present in Pakistan. We have sacrificed a lot and have paid a huge price both in blood and money by fighting twice an imposed and imported war against terrorism, Maj Gen Ghafoor said.



The ISPR chief said had Pakistan not supported US and Afghanistan in fight against al-Qaeda, they would have never succeeded in defeating them, clarifying that the money Pakistan received from the US was only reimbursement for the support extended by it in fight against al-Qaeda.



On alleged inaction by Pakistan against the Haqqani network, the ISPR DG said army went into North Waziristan indiscriminately and took action against the Haqqani network as well. The effect of an operation does not fully appear immediately. What we do today, its impact will be felt tomorrow, he said.



Regarding measures to control cross-border movement of terrorists, the ISPR chief said, We have already started fencing of 2,611 kilometres of Pak-Afghan border. Additional posts and forts are being built and on every 1.5-2 kilometres, we will have a physical presence. He said no country was more interested in peace in Afghanistan than Pakistan, as we know that peace there [Afghanistan] means peace here [in Pakistan].



The army spokesman said military relations with Afghanistan were not ideal at present but there had been some improvement following army chiefs visit to Kabul. Pak-Afghan military-to-military engagement is very important. At present, we cannot call it ideal  but situation has improved after army chiefs visit to Kabul, he said.



The DG ISPR said the US needs to check Indias anti-Pakistan role not only from inside Afghanistan but also through increased ceasefire violations along LoC and the Working Boundary.



On Indian armys claims that it infiltrated Pakistans borders, Maj Gen Ghafoor said, It is all false propaganda for their domestic audience  and aims at taking the focus off a robust political struggle for freedom they are facing in Held Kashmir.



To Indias propaganda over Jadhavs meeting with his mother and wife, the ISPR chief said, We allowed Jadhav to meet his family as a responsible state  had we been irresponsible, we would have given in to Indian pressure and allowed consular access to him. This will not impact the case at all, he said, adding that India always looks to reduce relevance of any goodwill gestures made by Pakistan.



To a question about former prime minister Nawaz Sharifs repeated outburst against armed forces, the ISPR chief said army has no response to events in the political domain. If there is any conspiracy [about armys involvement in politics], they should come up with evidence, he said.



Rejecting Railway Minister Saad Rafiques remarks about junior officers apparent lack of commitment to army chiefs orders, the DG ISPR said, This statement is extremely irresponsible and unwarranted  it targets the very chain of command of Pakistan Army which is a disciplined institution and follows army chiefs orders without question.
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La pura verdad



Solidaridad con Palestina



Serie Capitalismo



Espejismos de la clase trabajadora



Asi es!



Comerciantes o delincuentes



No pasaran!



Asi es la vida



USA HOY



01/01/1959



La avaricia no tiene limites



AYUDA HUMANITARIA?



Chile Hoy



Asi son las cosas



Mapa Electoral de Venezuela



Patagonia argentina?



Un aniversario mas del mayor genocidio de la Humanidad



Retrato del franquismo en Espana



Visca Catalunya!



El Chulo de Madrid



Cuando la policia se roba la democracia



Una imagen dice mas que mil palabras



La purita verdad



Asi gobierna la maldita burguesia



Mi pobre clase media



Como Chavez nadie



Comparte La Colmena via twitter Twittear

Programa de la MUD



Asi o mas clarito



Por que Trump no ataco Corea del Norte?



Hace 15 anos Por que la OEA no se pronuncio?



Una verguenza nacional



La luz que nos guia



La Union Europea Premio Nobel de la Paz?



Feudalismo ayer y hoy



Obama, el mentiroso



Curiosa coincidencia



Un mundo de cerdos



No es extrano?



La Marioneta



Los ricos protestan, los pobres celebran



MARICORI Y OBAMA



Cuantas muertes este ano?



USA TODAY



USA HOY 6



USA HOY 5



USA HOY 4



USA HOY 3



USA HOY 2



USA HOY (1)



Insaciable



Cronologia de un agresor



Guarimbear en USA



Mexico hoy



Bolivar y Chavez



Primero Amargado



Dios los cria y ellos se juntan



USA hoy (III)



USA hoy (II)



USA hoy



Mexico hoy



Mexico hoy



Mexico hoy



Obama



La verdad sea dicha



Los ricos



Que no nos vea Obama



Pobre Obama



SOS PALESTINA



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Chavez Cuanto te queremos!



Por culpa de Chavez



Cerveza Polar







Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar







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LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?



























Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...



Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:



Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.



Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.



No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.



En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.



Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.



Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.



Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.



Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.



Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.



Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?



Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.



Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.



Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.



Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.



Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.



No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.



Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.





Alguna duda?



Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino



Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.



OZ1



OZ2



OZ3



OZ4



Homenaje a Jason Galarraga



La Victoria de Samotracia



Odalisca



Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008



























La Sierra Nevada de Merida



Nuestro precioso Churum Meru



Homenaje a Picasso



Autoretrato



Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?

La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.

Mi profesion?

Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.

Sal en la Coca Cola?

A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.

De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:

Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto

Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)

azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)

Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas

Mucha Cafeina

Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio

Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe

Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion

El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.

Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.

Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.

En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).

Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.

La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.

Bebidas Light?

Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el

Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.



Publicado por loretahur



En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur

MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:

1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.

2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.

3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.

4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.

5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.

6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.

Ahora... sobre la margarina:

1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .

2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.

3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).

4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.

5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.

6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.

7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.

Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:

* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).

* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!



No a la guerra, Si a la Paz



Misterios de la ciencia...



Los costos de la guerra



medicos y capitalismo...



Capitalismo...



medicos (2)



Quien educa a nuestros hijos?



Los Medios...



Sin Palabras...



Chistes feministas

- Cual es el problema, Eva?

- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...

- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.

- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...

- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.

- Que es un hombre?

- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.

- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.

- Cual es el truco?.

- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.

- Cual?

- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.





Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Ellas...



Ellas (2)...



Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1

Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:

-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.

Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.

Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?

-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!



VENGANZA NUMERO 2

Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.

A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:

- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!

Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.

La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.

El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.

Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:

- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??

- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.



VENGANZA NUMERO 3

El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.

- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.

- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.

Te quiero confesar algo.

- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!

- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.

- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!



machismo y cibernetica



Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.

-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.

-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.



.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.

Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.

Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas



Gol !!!!



Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!



Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!


This blog will focus on political images I have found all around the Internet, though I will intersperse some commentary and quotes that I find interesting.
GLENS FALLS  A Glens Falls man was jailed Wednesday on a felony charge for allegedly violating a no-contact order of protection, police said.

Daryl R. Belanger, 47, of Marion Avenue, was charged with first-degree criminal contempt for having contact with a person who has an order of protection against him, according to Glens Falls Police.

He was charged after Glens Falls Police Officer Chris Perrilli saw him at Cumberland Farms on Bay Street in the presence of the protected person, and knew there was an order of protection barring that contact, police said.

The criminal contempt charge was elevated to a felony because Belanger was convicted of misdemeanor criminal contempt last July, police said.

Belanger was arraigned and sent to Warren County Jail for lack of bail.
GREENWICH  The large pool of candidates vying for Rep. Elise Stefaniks congressional seat continues to grow as Greenwich Democratic Town Supervisor Sara Idleman announced her decision to run on Thursday.

I gave it serious thought and decided I would run and jump in near the first of the year, Idleman said in a phone interview late Thursday afternoon.

With an event slated for Jan. 6 at the Greenwich Elks Lodge No. 2223, 130 Bulson Road, Idleman will officially announce her candidacy for New Yorks 21st Congressional District.

Idleman joins a large pool of candidates challenging Stefanik, R-Willsboro, including Democrats Tanya Boone, Granville; Don Boyajian, Cambridge; Tedra Cobb, Canton; Emily Martz, Saranac Lake; Ronald Kim, Queensbury; Patrick Nelson, Stillwater; Katie Wilson, Keene; and Republican Russell Finley, Lisbon.

According to Federal Election Commission information, Libertarian Chris Schmidt, Hudson Falls, and Republican Steve Schnibbe are also running for Stefaniks seat, but The Post-Star was unable to confirm this information by deadline.

On Dec. 12, former candidate Steve Krieg, who was running as an independent, announced on Facebook that he was discontinuing his run for Congress.

Idleman said on Thursday that she is holding the details of her platform for the Jan. 6 event.

The candidate has been Greenwichs town supervisor for eight years and was re-elected for two more years, she said. Additionally, she serves on the Washington County Board of Supervisors and as chairwoman for the Community College Committee.

As a lifelong resident of Easton and Greenwich, Idleman said she has deep roots in the community. Growing up on a dairy farm and teaching government and American history in Cambridge and Greenwich central schools for 25 years, Idleman said she understands issues related to the area.

The day after Idlemans formal announcement, the congressional candidates will gather on Sunday, Jan. 7, at the Moreau Community Center, 144 Main St., South Glens Falls, for a Congressional Candidate Forum from 2:30 to 5 p.m.

The event, hosted by the community group Citizens Acting Together for District 21, is open to the public, and questions for candidates can be submitted in advance until 10 p.m. Dec. 30 via goo.gl/forms/ia0nmTW8xvuBVvRh1.

Stefaniks office was contacted by The Post-Star on Thursday to ask if she will be attending the January forum. Although spokesman Tom Flanagin did not say if the congresswoman will be attending the event, he did respond by email Thursday evening.

Congresswoman Stefanik has participated in over 500 events since taking office including over a dozen public Coffees with your Congresswoman, he wrote. In 2018, Congresswoman Stefanik will continue her aggressive schedule of constituent outreach, including tele-town halls, school visits, farms stops, small business events, and others across the North Country.

The congresswoman did not participate in candidate forums held this fall in the district, including one in August at SUNY Adirondack in Queensbury, another held Oct. 3 at Canton High School in Canton, and a third on Dec. 1 at Clinton Community College in Plattsburgh.
LAKE GEORGE  The popular Lake George restaurant Duffys Tavern is for sale.

Co-owner Linda Duffy said the family is looking to move on.

My husbands been doing it for 40 years myself for over 20 years. We have two teenage girls. Its just time to slow down a little bit, she said.

Duffy said her daughters will be heading off to college soon and she wants time to enjoy life and watch them play sports.

I dont plan on going anywhere, she said.

The restaurant and bar at 22 Amherst St. is one of three parcels owned by the Duffys that are for sale  either separately or as a package.

The 320 Canada St. property is home to Duffys Corner Deli & Convenience. The deli business and all equipment is included in the sale. The 326 Canada St. property is home to the Bank Cafe, which leases the space from the Duffys. There is also another 1,500 square feet of space attached to Duffys that was formerly a liquor store.

Howard Hanna is the broker handling the sale. The asking price is $4,375,750 for all three properties, or $2.827 million for just the restaurant.

Maybe just one parcel will sell right now. Who knows? Linda Duffy said.

Duffy said there is no specific timetable on when she hopes the sale would be completed.

Were not looking to give it away, she said. Well see what happens in the next year or two.

Duffy said she would miss her regular customers and the employees.

Weve got some good employees that have been with us for a number of years. Weve pretty much become a family, she said

Duffy said she will continue to be active in the community. She has been in charge of the New Years Day Polar Plunge for close to two decades. Duffy also organized the Lake George Winter Carnival, but has stepped back from that role. She remains a volunteer.

Duffy said she is not sure what her next endeavor will be.

Im not old enough to retire, she said.

The businesses are doing well, she added.

Real estate agent Charles Curto said he is optimistic the property will sell. He is already receiving calls based upon advertisements in different publications.

The property sits in a prime location across the street from the Marriott hotel. Curto owned the Sicilian Spaghetti House, which was one of four buildings knocked down for the hotel. He said a developer may see this property as an opportunity to attract more year-round business to Lake George.

Now, with the Marriott there, its bringing in a lot of the different organizations for meetings  the conventions and different-type things like that. Its generating people coming into town in the winter, he said.

A prospective buyer might want to keep the business or might want to knock down the buildings and start over, Curto said.

If theyre a restaurant/bar-type guy, they might buy it for Duffys because they do very, very well, he said.

He anticipates that interest will pick up around the end of February, which is when the real estate market heats up in Lake George.
LAKE GEORGE  The operator of the last Howard Johnsons restaurant in the country is due back in court next month to face sex-related charges, and his lawyer said this week that he will fight the false charges against him.

Jonathan L. LaRock has pleaded not guilty to a host of charges filed in October that accuse him of having sexual contact and unwanted physical contact with teens and women who worked for him at the Route 9 eatery in recent years.

His lawyer, Tucker Stanclift, said his client plans to contest the charges, and has maintained they are false.

He denies the allegations entirely, Stanclift said.

Asked why so many girls and women came forward to accuse LaRock, Stanclift replied, I have my theories, but Im not at liberty to discuss them.

Stanclift said the case has been adjourned in recent months as the Warren County District Attorneys Office reviews the evidence against his client.

As in any case, they (the allegations) need to be substantiated with proof, and I havent seen any proof yet, he said.

LaRock faces felony sexual abuse, two misdemeanor counts of unlawful imprisonment and four misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare of a child for alleged actions with employees ages 14 to 43 since June 2016. The felony charge accuses him of forcing sexual contact on a young woman who worked for him.

The police investigation began with a 17-year-old former employee taking her complaints of inappropriate contact by LaRock to social media.

Sworn written statements that the workers gave Warren County sheriffs officers include allegations he grabbed a young womans breasts, rubbed his crotch against her buttocks until she pulled away, and told her, You have to kiss me if you want to get paid.

Others alleged he touched their buttocks, offered them drugs and alcohol and had them look at pornography on his cellphone.

Police said at the time of LaRocks arrest he told officers the physical contact was his way of joking with his workers.

Warren County sheriffs Lt. Steve Stockdale said his agencys investigators completed their investigation and the case was turned over to the Warren County District Attorneys Office for review and possible grand jury action.

In all, police interviewed 15 different current or former employees. Stockdale said investigators were also working through services that assisted foreign workers who might have been employed there over the summer, after some of the alleged victims told police they witnessed him propositioning foreign workers.

(Investigator Chris) Hatin has been going through Student Connection to see if he can locate anyone who had any concerns, he said.

LaRock, 65, reopened the restaurant after his release from jail, but it was unclear whether it remained in business as of Thursday or Friday. The parking lot has been plowed, but no one was there Thursday morning, and no one answered the phone numbers listed for the business.

LaRock is free on bail and is scheduled to return to Lake George Town Court on Jan. 18.
Will Doolittle projects editor Follow Will Doolittle 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

SUNY Adirondacks officials have decided to spend more than $100,000 on stuff the college does not need.

This stuff includes body armor, guns, Tasers and body cameras for its campus officers. The decision to arm and armor officers comes after research was done by Anne Marie Somma, vice president for administrative services, and a presentation was made to trustees.

Somma talked about what officers had recommended, what other colleges have done and which weapons are considered most effective.

What she didnt talk about was the need for campus officers to wear bulletproof vests and carry lethal weapons.

She didnt bring up any history of violent crimes committed on campus, when a responding officer would have had use for a gun.

She didnt talk about the likelihood of an armed intruder or active shooter on a small college campus like SUNY Adirondacks.

The main justification for arming the officers appears to be an unscientific survey done of the college community. Even if this meaningless survey had been valid, it would have been a poor tool for making this decision.

The percentage of students and teachers who want campus officers to carry guns is irrelevant.

Its the need for the guns that matters. Are campus officers likely to encounter situations when they will need a gun?

No, theyre not. Its very unlikely.

But its telling that this decision was made on the basis of impressions and popular opinion. Thats the way it is with guns in America. They have become the default solution to any worry about the possibility of danger.

Guns are not magic wands, but we see them that way. Wave the magic gun in the air and you will get the safety and security you desire.

Listen to what Somma said in her presentation to the college trustees: It is one method of thinking that drawing a weapon itself is enough to get someone to comply.

Just wave the magic gun and trouble evaporates.

The bitter irony is that the proliferation of guns throughout American society has made us all less safe. Toddlers playing with their parents guns kill themselves or their siblings. Spouses kill each other in moments of rage. Fearful homeowners shoot people who are not intruders. Road rage degenerates into murder. People whose minds and souls are twisted obtain machines that allow them to kill scores of human beings in a matter of minutes, and they do it.

The other thought that guides decisions like the one at SUNY Adirondack is that they have no downside. Even if the guns are never used, under this way of thinking, theyre worth the money as a precaution, like fire extinguishers.

But the guns have a downside  the possibility an officer will make a mistake and commit an unjustified shooting. This happens, as anyone knows who watches the news.

Officers who patrol dangerous neighborhoods, where people carry guns and use them in crimes, need to be armed themselves. But officers who patrol bucolic campuses where very little crime and even less violence occurs campuses like SUNY Adirondacks  dont need the capacity to kill.
President Donald Trump, on vacation in balmy Florida, suggested that climate change could be a good thing on Thursday, tweeting that cities gripped by freezing temperatures on the East Coast could use some warming.

Trump's tweet further places the President's climate policy out of step with the vast majority of scientists, who believe global warming is damaging for the United States and the world.

"In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Bundle up!"

Despite Trump's assertion, 2016 was the hottest year on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization, and some studies show 2017 is on pace to overtake it. If it does, it will be the fourth consecutive year to rank hotter than all previous.

A White House official did not respond when asked what Trump's tweet means for administration policy. Journalists have previously been told that Trump's tweets should be considered official statements from the White House.

The tweet is the latest in a series of Trump tweets that links the temperature in any one place to the existence of global warming, something climate scientists have long said is an entirely inaccurate way to view global warming.

"It's freezing and snowing in New York -- we need global warming," Trump tweeted in 2012.

A year later, he added, "Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee - I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!"

As a candidate for president, Trump put his views on climate change at the forefront.

"Well, I think the climate change is just a very, very expensive form of tax," he said in 2016. "A lot of people are making a lot of money. I know much about climate change. I'd be -- received environmental awards. And I often joke that this is done for the benefit of China. Obviously, I joke. But this is done for the benefit of China, because China does not do anything to help climate change."

As President, Trump has made those views administration policy by pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, and his Environmental Protection Agency has made a series of moves that curbed the agency's focus on climate science.

"I was elected by the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris," Trump said during a White House event where he announced his decision to withdraw from the global climate accord signed by former President Barack Obama. Arguing that the deal hurts American businesses, Trump said foreign countries were using the deal to hamper American enterprise.

Even amid these comments, Trump administration agencies have continued sounding alarm bells on global warming.

The Government Accountability Office released a report in October that said the US government has spent more than $350 billion over the past decade in response to extreme weather and fire events and estimated that the US would incur far higher costs as the years progress if global emission rates don't go down.

The report called on Trump to use the information GAO compiled to help identify risks posed by climate change and "craft appropriate federal responses."

Additionally, the Climate Science Special Report released in November by the federal government found "no convincing alternative explanation" for the changing climate other than "human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases."

CNN's Eli Watkins and Gregory Wallace contributed to this report.
In almost every developed country, life expectancy at birth has trended predictably and steadily upward for decades, with slight hiccups from time to time, usually lasting just a year and often triggered by major epidemics. The United States, in the grip of an escalating opioid addiction and overdose crisis, has now recorded its second straight year of declining life expectancy, a nearly unheard-of event for a rich Western nation and its first such downturn in nearly 60 years.

That should be a wake-up call for the Trump administration, which has talked a fine game about the opioid epidemic but done too little to address it. A far greater sense of urgency is needed to address what has become one of the gravest public-health threats to the United States in living memory.

On Dec. 21, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that life expectancy in 2016 fell to 78.6 years, a second consecutive and statistically significant annual decline of a tenth of a year. The back-to-back drops coincided with an average annual increase in opioid-related overdose deaths of about 20 percent and a staggering one-year surge in 2016 in which 42,249 people  an official tally that may understate the real scope of the problem by thousands  died of that cause. More bad news: Early signs are that drug-related deaths continued to climb in 2017, which could contribute to a third straight year of falling life expectancy, something that hasnt happened since the Spanish flu swept the country a century ago.

It would be a mistake to see the fall in life expectancy as part of a broad decline in American public health. Infant mortality continues to drop, and death rates from heart disease, cancer, flu, diabetes, kidney disease and other causes are mainly flat or falling. Rather, the main culprits are known as diseases of despair  especially drug overdoses and suicide. And the main victims are men, especially working-class young and middle-aged men, for whom the overdose death rate is twice that of women.

Mindful of the soaring toll, President Trump appointed a presidential commission on combating drug addiction and the opioid crisis, which recommended last summer that the president declare a national emergency, as he has pledged to do. That would have freed up funding from the national Disaster Relief Fund. Instead, in October he declared a public-health emergency, a lesser designation and one that has not unlocked game-changing amounts of federal dollars.

At the highest levels, the administrations response to the crisis has been sluggish, characterized by boastful rhetoric but stagnant funding. Mr. Trump has spoken of the government producing really tough, really big, really great advertising, as if a Nancy Reagan just-say-no approach were adequate to the task of tackling a complex public-health scourge. He said the administration would crack down on the synthetic opioid fentanyl, manufactured in China, and endeavor to develop non-addictive painkillers as an alternative to opioids. But where is the funding?
Editor:

The confusion at the Town Board goes back to the registry of Republican and Democrat. By definition, a Republican is one who is for minimum government, free markets, individual responsibility and hard work. A Democrat looks for man-made economic solutions, takes a tax-and-spend approach.

Under that scenario of accountability, it is difficult to imagine what four Democrats are doing in a largely conservative town. The standards have been loosened to sink to a popularity contest where any board member goes off and does whatever he wants, with little connection to his party duty and at taxpayer expense. He puts on a smile and a Democrat T-shirt and goes out and slaps backs and shakes hands. That's it.

The Republicans haven't had true leadership in some time, to wit: Hal Bain. The poor guy is wheeled out as someone who is going to fix Ridge Road Car Care when he has absolutely no skills to do it or how to begin.

Demand new leadership and accountability, for it will be needed in Queensbury when the state puts more and more burden on the counties.

John D. Buecking, Jerome, Arizona, formerly of Queensbury
You voted for a sexual assaulter, bigot and fraud who promised to work tirelessly for the "little guy" and look what he just did to you. His "tax reform" bill will cost you an additional 20 to 25 percent in overall taxes while saving der Fuhrer and his wealthy co-conspirators millions. Wake up, look at his history, realize what he's doing to you and our country and join the majority that is resisting his attempt to divide this country and isolate us from the rest of humanity. Encourage those few Republicans in Congress that appear to be willing to put country before themselves and the GOP to support the special counsel's investigation. Why would an innocent person work so vigorously to squelch this investigation into a foreign government's interference and influence on the 2016 presidential election?
ROCK ISLAND -- Three area churches will celebrate the end of the year and the beginning of the New Year at the 2017 Night Watch Service at 10:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 31, at Second Baptist Church, 919 6th Ave., Rock Island.

The Rev. Joseph D. Williamson III, pastor of Second Baptist Church, Rock Island, the Rev. Phillip Farrow, pastor of Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, Rock Island, and the Rev. Larry D. Dixon Sr., pastor of Trinity Community Baptist Church, Moline, will lead the service.

The theme of the service is A Past to be Remembered and a Future to Pursue, based on scripture from Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil  this is the gift of God.

"With all the turmoil in our country -- from the recent shootings, the ongoing wars and so much other sadness -- we must still believe the eyes of the Lord are upon us and that He will make a way for us through all that is happening in our society," said Rev. Dixon. "He brought us through 2017 and we believe He will stand by us through 2018. We need only ask for his guidance.

"The New Years Eve service, or what some African-Americans call the Night Watch Service, is a tradition passed to us by our ancestors," he said. "Old stories state that Southern slaves waited all night on Dec. 31, 1864, to receive word of the Emancipation Proclamation -- words that would have given slaves freedom in the South, not the North.

He said some slaves received the news on Dec. 31, while slaves in Texas did not receive the information until June 17, 1865.

Because of that, there are many African-Americans who today celebrate June 17 as Juneteenth Day, he said.

Rev. Williamson recalled when he lived in East St. Louis before being called to serve Second Baptist in Rock Island.

My home church in East St. Louis did not have a Watch Service on New Years Eve, so my family and I drove to Chicago to attend the service at Trinity Church, he said.

The Night Watch Service is something he said he felt "called by the Lord to start at Second Baptist Church.

Rev. Williamson invited the pastors and congregations of Macedonia Baptist Church, Rock Island, and Trinity Community Baptist Church, Moline, to join with his congregation for what has become an annual service at Second Baptist Church.

Born and raised in Chicago, Rev. Dixon said he and his family attended the Night Watch Service every year.

"Even when I was in the Air Force, from 1971 to 1978, wherever I was stationed, I would try to find a church that had a Night Watch Service," he said. "If I couldnt find one, I would use that time on New Years Eve to read scripture, pray, meditate and reflect on the old year and in looking forward to the New Year.

The service is an opportunity for our churches to come together to worship and to pray in the New Year, he said. I believe that whatever you are doing when the New Year comes in, you will be doing all year long. It is my hope that we will continue to pray and give thanks throughout the New Year.
A man charged in Rock Island County for allegedly being a felon with a gun now faces a federal charge.

Tyion Alonte Harris, 22, of Bettendorf, was arrested Dec. 5 after a traffic stop near the Talbot Bridge (formerly the Centennial Bridge), according to Rock Island County court records and Rock Island Police reports. Authorities allege Mr. Harris was carrying a stolen pistol, did not have a license to carry a concealed weapon and has a felony conviction in Scott County.

The Rock Island County State's Attorney's Office charged him with possession of a stolen firearm, unlawful use or possession of weapons by felons, aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and possession of cannabis, according to court records. Those charges were dropped Dec. 22 because Mr. Harris was charged federally with being a felon in possession of a firearm.

His next court date is set for Feb. 1, according to filings in the U.S. District Court for Central District of Illinois.

 ANTHONY WATT
KEWANEE  Less than a year old, an Illinois prison in Kewanee designed to help inmates return to society may soon see an expansion.

On Dec. 16, Kewanee city council members voted to buy 46 acres in the Kentville Industrial Park from the Kewanee Economic Development Corp. for $161,000. That's half the property's market value, according to Kewanee City Manager Gary Bradley.

According to Mr. Bradley, Kewanee officials are buying the property with an eye to re-selling it to the Illinois Department of Corrections for an expansion of the Kewanee Life Skills Re-entry program. The life skills program opened in February in the former Illinois Youth Center east of Kewanee.

Mr. Bradley said the life skills re-entry facility already has had success in reducing repeat offenders. He said its warden, Tony Williams, wants to start construction on the training addition in 2018.

Lindsey Hess, public information officer within the Illinois Department of Corrections said her office currently had no information on future plans at the prison. State Rep. Dan Swanson. R-Alpha, said he learned of the possible expansion from Kewanee council members, adding Gov. Bruce Rauner is on board with the plan.

"The opportunity is there for a lot of jobs," said Rep. Swanson. You know (the Kewanee life skills center) is one of only two in the state and very closely watched."

Rep. Swanson the life skills center currently has just a few hundred residents, but there is capacity for up to 600.

From what I understand, DOC -- and along with the life skills center -- the intent is to have some growth and (prepare inmates with job skills)," he said. Forty-six acres is what's on the proposal from the Kewanee Economic Development Corp. The city of Kewanee is to transfer (the property) to the DOC."

Rep. Swanson said he is seeking more details from the DOC, adding he has not seen any study involving the proposed expansion. He also said the proposed facility might have a different focus than the classroom-based model of a community college, speculating the training facility could be for the prison three days per week and the college could use it two days per week.

He said Black Hawk College -- with campuses in Kewanee and Moline -- opted to pass on the chance to do training at the facility and Illinois Central College in East Peoria is the provider of classes.

It's just at the very beginning stages, Rep. Swanson said. Currently it's the ICC providing training now at the prison.

BHC Board Chairman Richard Fiems on Friday said the college currently is not working with the state on the training facility.

BHC is not, as far as I know, a part of any of those plans at this time, Mr. Fiems said.

Mr. Bradley said the training facility could create an additional 70 jobs at the Kewanee site. The goal, he said, is to create a jobs training center for machinists, warehousing and shipping, truck driving, auto mechanics, screen printing and solar installation and repair.

Different trades, where people can actually find jobs, Mr. Bradley said.

What they're proposing ... is a training center so when inmates are released back into society they've got multiple skills," he said. "When you're locked up for 15 or 20 years, there are things that have changed a lot.
The building across from Moline's King Plaza never was a handsome structure.

It started out the wrong green, and it fell into disrepair a long time ago.

The mutli-story building at Avenue of the Cities and 37th Street served primarily as doctors' offices over the years. It also had a stint as a bank, according to the current owner.

Chris Ontiveros, owner of the Ray'z Barber Shop chain, bought the homely building and recently had it razed. It resided just west of his Ray'z Barber & Styling College, and Ontiveros says he currently has no plans for the property. He decided to tear it down to improve the overall appearance of the neighborhood, he said.

Good call.

Also on Moline's Avenue of the City  this one at 27th Street  developer Dan Dolan's renovation of the former Aldi grocery store is nearly complete.

"We're about to start the build-out for the first tenant," he said, adding the first business to occupy the space will be a video-gaming parlor.

"We're just finishing up, so we're looking for tenants," he said.

Also on the long-neglected property is a cleared site, formerly the home of the Forest Hill gas station.

"That's six thousand square feet, and the location has available drive-up," Dolan said.

The site has been vacant for more than a decade. The underground fuel tanks were removed long ago, but the high-traffic intersection somehow continued to elude prosperity. Some business owners on the Avenue have been critical of the city for seemingly favoring other commercial areas, including John Deere Road, the downtown and the SouthPark Mall area.

But Moline's planning and development director, Ray Forsythe, pointed out the city's continued investment in the Avenue. Specifically, he noted the new decorative paving, sidewalks and street lights have been completed from 36th to 41st street, which was the second phase of the updates.

"Both of those projects are nice changes to Avenue of the Cities, as it shows an interest by the private sector," Forsythe said of the Dolan and Ontiveros projects.

The city's interest also is ongoing.

A ribbon cutting in January will include an announcement, regarding the city's pick for a company to conduct a $100,000 Transportation and Economic Development Plan for Avenue of the Cities, Forsythe said.

"It will be a plan similar to those we have developed for Molines riverfront neighborhoods," he wrote in an email. "We will be utilizing this plan to formulate future land use and transportation initiatives.

"That (Avenue of the Cities) corridor is in the center of Moline, heavily used by vehicles and public transportation and has several junior and big box stores, including Hy-Vee, Aldi, Walgreens and CVS. In addition, many restaurants and other retail, commercial and office users, plus Moline High School, Roosevelt and Coolidge.

"This provides challenges and opportunities for development and transportation. We look forward to working with the business and property owners to formulate a usable plan."

While we're planning, somebody needs to get on the horn with Keith Kinsey, CEO of Portillo's. The Moline native is running the Chicago-area restaurant chain, famous for its hot dogs and beef sandwiches. In a profile by Chicago media, Kinsey told of "cruisin' down 23rd Avenue" with the girl who became his wife. Of course, 23rd Avenue became Avenue of the Cities, and it now contains at least two spots that would be perfect for Portillo's.
The Scott County Board of Supervisors at Thursdays committee-of-the-whole meeting unanimously approved the county attorneys choice to fill the position of assistant county attorney. Nicole Driscoll returns to the Quad-Cities after serving as assistant attorney general in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Driscoll worked as a volunteer attorney in the State Public Defenders Office in Davenport after graduating from the University of Iowa College of Law in 2010. Driscoll bested five other candidates interviewed for the position that attracted a total of 30 applicants.

Supervisors also considered and approved a one-year agreement with health insurer Munich Re that will maintain the current overall $175,000 deductible on claim costs but increase stop loss coverage to $250,000 for one individual. Human Resources Director and Assistant County Administrator Mary Thee said, while large claims have decreased from 24 percent to 17 percent, two claims have exceeded the $175,000 stop loss coverage in the countys self-insured plan. Thee explained Munich Re has agreed to renew coverage with an annual increase of approximately $42,500 and supervisors approval of the increased stop loss for one individual claimant.

Carol Earnhardt announced at the conclusion of the regular board meeting that she will not seek re-election in 2018. Supervisors will choose a new board chair at their organizational meeting set for 8 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 2.
A good Friday to all. Time to hunker down. The snow is coming later today and tonight. Then the cold. Here are the weather details from the National Weather Service.

1. Winter storm warning takes effect at 11 a.m.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for the Quad-City region. The warning is from 11 a.m. today until 10 p.m.

According to the warning: A storm system will impact the area with accumulating snow into this evening. Snow will develop into eastern Iowa by late morning and continue to spread over the rest of the area through the afternoon before ending this evening.

Snowfall totals are expected to range from 2 to 6 inches. The heavier amounts will likely be focused on the U.S. 30 and Interstate 80 corridors, where snowfall rates of an inch or more per hour will lead to rapid accumulation and very poor visibility for the evening commute.

A winter storm warning for snow means severe winter weather conditions are expected. If you must travel, keep an extra flashlight, food and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency.

2. Snow gives way to more bitter cold

Look for a chance of flurries before 7 a.m. then snow after 11 a.m. with heavy snowfall at times. The high will be near 15 degrees. The chance of precipitation is 100 percent with new snow accumulation of around 5 inches.

Tonight more snow possible before 11 p.m. then a chance of flurries between 11 p.m. and midnight. The low will be around 0 degrees with wind chill values as low as -10 degrees. Northwest winds will be between 5 to 15 mph. The chance of precipitation is 90 percent with new snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Saturday will be partly sunny and cold with a high near 0 degress and wind-chill values as low as -20 degrees. Northwest winds between 10 to 15 mph will gust as high as 20 mph. There's a 20 percent chance of snow after midnight with an overnight low around -8 degrees.

Sunday will be partly sunny and cold with a high near 4 degrees and a low around -14 degrees.

3. Davenport issues snow emergency

A snow emergency will go into effect in Davenport beginning at noon and will be in effect until 8 a.m. Saturday. If snowfall predictions hold true, expect other Q-C area communities to follow suit.

Parking on posted snow routes in Davenport during a snow emergency is prohibited. Vehicles parked on posted snow routes during an active snow emergency will be ticketed and towed. As an alternative, residents and visitors to the downtown can park for free in any of the citys three parking ramps beginning at noon through 8 a.m., Saturday.

Residents are advised to park off-street when possible on all other roads. Parking off-street helps crews clear roads more safely and efficiently. Drivers are advised to increase following distance and slow down as slick spots may develop. Do not expect to drive as you would under normal weather conditions.

4. Davenport school district headquarters leased to preserve tax credits

To preserve historic tax credits lined up to finance development of Davenport's Achievement Services Center, the district will lease the structure to the building's eventual buyer, Newbury Living of Des Moines.

The Davenport School Board decided unanimously to do so at a special closed session Thursday at the center, 1606 Brady St., Davenport. The lease is now attached to the existing purchase and sale agreement between Newbury Living and the district.

The Newbury company's plan is to pay $950,000 and convert the three-story building into 35 market-rate apartments, with retail/commercial space on the first floor. Read more.

5. Police seek the whereabouts of person of interest in bank robbery

Have you seen this person?

The Davenport Police Department is seeking the communitys assistance in identifying this person of interest (attached photo) in a bank robbery that occurred at 12:07 p.m., Dec. 12, at Northwest Bank and Trust, 1400 W. Locust St.

Anyone with information about the identity of this person is asked to call 563-326-6125. If you would like to remain anonymous, you can "do what's right" and submit an anonymous tip via the mobile app CrimeReports by Motorola in reference to "Can you identify? Subjects #37."

6. 19th Street in Moline to reopen today

Beginning today, the following changes will take place on 19th Street in Moline:

 Southbound lanes: Reopen between 7th Avenue and 11th Avenue A.

 Northbound lanes: One northbound lane will reopen and one will remain closed through the winter.

 Temporary traffic signals will be in place and drivers should drive with caution.

The 19th Street improvements project is an important part of the I-74 Mississippi River Bridge project. The roadway improvements and utility relocation work on 19th Street are being led by the Illinois Department of Transportation and the City of Moline.
The new federal tax overhaul's limitation on deductions for state and local taxes is prompting some people to pay their property taxes early, according to the Scott County Treasurer's office.

The office said that people have paid the taxes due next fall on 41 properties. Meanwhile, officials there and in Rock Island County say they have fielded a flurry of phone calls from people asking about advance payments.

"We're getting it every day," Scott County Treasurer Bill Fennelly said on Thursday.

The tax law, which was signed by President Donald Trump last week, limits the deduction that people who itemize can take on their federal returns for state and local taxes to $10,000. It also nearly doubles the standard exemption.

The new law doesn't take effect until 2018, so people, especially in high tax states, have been flocking to local government offices to pay off their property taxes before the end of the year.

There are reports of long lines in states like New York and Virginia. There also were lines in the Chicago area.

Louisa Ewert, the Rock Island County treasurer, said her office got a flurry of inquires about prepayments, too. But she said her office has not accepted them, because it does not have a system set up to do so. In addition, she said bills for 2017 property taxes payable in 2018 won't even go out until next May. She said her understanding is that prepaying likely wouldn't benefit people.

The Internal Revenue Service issued an advisory Wednesday saying that prepaying 2018 taxes this year may qualify for a deduction, but only under certain circumstances. In general, the agency said it depends on whether a payment is made in 2017 and whether taxes are assessed prior to 2018. Local governments have varying practices.

"A prepayment of anticipated real property taxes that have not been assessed prior to 2018 are not deductible in 2017," the IRS said. Generally, a property tax is assessed when a taxpayer becomes liable for the tax.

In Scott County, the bills for taxes due Sept. 30, 2017, and March 30, 2018, went out last August. But the bills for taxes due in the fall of 2018 and spring of 2019 won't be sent until next summer.

Steve Landauer, a Davenport accountant, said Thursday he's been asked by several clients about prepaying.

"I'm getting three calls a day," he said. Landauer said one client told him that an Illinois county refused to take a prepayment, while another said it was not set up to do so.

Landauer says he's still trying to assess what the new rules mean, though he believes it's likely that 2017 payments for a Scott County installment due next March would fall under the existing rules.

The county treasurer's office said the 41 prepayments it received totaled $149,000. The office said prepayments are being estimated based on current obligations, but when tax rates are published next year those amounts will be reconciled if there are differences.

The new tax bill's $10,000 cap on the deduction for state and local taxes is likely to have the biggest impact in high tax states, according to experts.

In New York, the average deduction for property taxes in 2015 was about $8,700, according to the Tax Policy Center, a research organization. In Iowa, it was about $3,600.

Higher up the income ladder, the deduction is more valuable, but it varies by state.

About 26 percent of Iowa returns included the deduction for real estate taxes in 2015, while it was 28 percent in Illinois. Because the new law also roughly doubles the standard deduction in 2018, experts believe that the number of people who find it worthwhile to file an itemized return will fall.
After a whirlwind two years with nearly two dozen presidential hopefuls traipsing through the state, 2017 proved Iowa politics are intriguing even when the caucuses are not front and center.

The previous years momentous elections brought sweeping change to the political landscape in 2017, both in Iowa and nationally.

That led to a year of significant political interest and consequence.

As is the easy way out -- I mean, tradition -- at this time of year, lets take a look back at the biggest stories in Iowa politics in 2017, and a look ahead to what may come in the next year.

Republican dominance

For the first time in three decades, Iowa Republicans had complete lawmaking control at the state Capitol.

They did not squander the opportunity.

With majorities in the Iowa House and Senate and a Republican in the governors office, the GOP enacted several pieces of conservative reforms. Republicans overhauled the states collective bargaining system for public employees, dramatically reducing the benefits for which public worker unions can negotiate. They restricted abortion access by making them illegal after 20 weeks and halting state family planning funding to providers that perform abortions. They loosened gun regulations by, among other provisions, creating a stand your ground law, allowing children to use guns when observed by a parent, and strengthening the state law that allows guns in public buildings, such as courthouses.

The one big-ticket item remaining on statehouse Republicans legislative to-do list is tax reform. Now that the federal GOP has passed its package of tax cuts, expect Iowa Republicans to do the same during the upcoming legislative session.

The Resistance

Naturally, not everyone was thrilled with the new political power structure in Congress or at the Iowa Capitol. Many made sure their displeasure was known.

More than 20,000 people marched on the state Capitol in January as part of a nationwide series of events called the Womens March, which were organized to protest myriad policies under consideration by Republican federal and state lawmakers. Thousands more flooded the Statehouse during the legislative session to protest many of the aforementioned proposals. And residents flooded forums that featured state and federal elected government officials.

The events showed that people were not only upset by the various new policies being proposed and implemented, they were willing to mobilize. That's what excites Democrats, whose goal is to harness that passion for the 2018 elections.

Transition of power

For all the significant implications of the 2016 elections, perhaps most significant in Iowa was that the election of Republican President Donald Trump led to the appointment of Terry Branstad as U.S. ambassador to China. That move did what no Democrat could in six elections: move Branstad out of Terrace Hill.

Branstad left office as the longest-serving governor in the nations history, totaling nearly 22 years over two tenures.

Kim Reynolds, who had served as Branstads lieutenant since his return to the governors office in 2011, became governor and will be on the ballot in 2018, assuming she survives a primary challenge. Reynolds is popular among the Republican base, but is a somewhat unknown quantity among the larger electorate. That, along with the previously mentioned reaction to some of the new GOP policies, has emboldened Democrats in their hopes of retaking the governors mansion in the 2018 election.

Power grab

And there has been no shortage of candidates seeking to lead Democrats to that gubernatorial prize; a vast field of seven candidates emerged to seek the Democratic nomination for governor.

Most who follow Iowa politics closely agree the early stages of the race have developed a pair of front-runners: businessman Fred Hubbell and state Sen. Nate Boulton, both from Des Moines.

Former state party Chairwoman and retired physician Andy McGuire, nurse and union leader Cathy Glasson, and former Tom Vilsack and Barack Obama aide John Norris are in the next tier, still with a chance to challenge for the nomination.

Former Iowa City mayor Ross Wilburn and party activist Jon Neiderbach round out the field.

The gubernatorial election presents Iowa Democrats with their best opportunity to retain one of the three legs of power at the Capitol. If they are to defeat Reynolds, assuming she survives her primary, they will require the right candidate from this field.

Happy New Year

The legislative session starts Jan. 8.

The primary elections are in June.

The general election is in November.

Happy New Year, readers. Here we go again.
PIERRE | The circuit judge acted within his authority when he imposed consecutive sentences of 110 years and 100 years for the double killings committed at Faith in 2016, the South Dakota Supreme Court said in a decision released Thursday.

Attorney Paul Eisenbraun of Rapid City had argued Circuit Judge Jerome Eckrich didnt adequately consider whether Berton Toavs was capable of rehabilitation before sentencing him to a total of 210 years.

Toavs pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree manslaughter for shooting his former girlfriend Eliza Edgins and his friend Nathan Gann with his Colt .45-caliber pistol.

Gann lived with Toavs and had started a relationship with Edgins.

Retired Justice Lori Wilbur, who wrote the courts unanimous opinion, said Judge Eckrich could have imposed life sentences.

Instead, Wilbur wrote, the judge did consider Toavss presentence investigation report and allowed Toavs to comment on this report prior to sentencing.

Toavss counsel also commented on Toavss capacity for rehabilitation in support of a more lenient sentence and a sentence from which Toavs would be eligible for parole, she continued. The sentencing court listened to testimony regarding the support Toavs would have if he were to be rehabilitated and released on parole.

Finally, Wilbur concluded, the sentence itself reflects the sentencing court had rehabilitation in mind when fashioning an appropriate sentence.
Dangerous wind chills and up to 6 inches of snow are expected this weekend as colder air moves into the Black Hills.

The high temperature in Rapid City today will likely remain in the single digits, while Saturday and Sunday will see even colder weather. The worst will be Sunday, when temperatures are forecast to creep all the way down to minus 19.

The plains areas of western South Dakota could see wind chills as low as minus 45 over the weekend. Rapid City is expected to receive up to 6 inches of snow, while communities in the Northern Hills could get up to 8 inches, said Katie Pojorlie, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

City crews will be closely monitoring road conditions, said spokesman Darrell Shoemaker. With New Year's Eve falling on Sunday, more traffic is expected in the downtown area that day than normal. Shoemaker said crews will be ready to remove snow buildup to keep downtown streets safe if conditions warrant.

"Conditions can change in a few hours," he said.

Travelers are advised to take extra precaution over the weekend. Motorists should pack additional clothes or blankets that could be used to stay warm in case they become stranded, said Brook Eide, emergency medicine physician at Rapid City Regional Hospital.

When wind chills dip as low as minus 45, even something like a flat tire could be "devastating" if motorists aren't ready for the extreme conditions, Eide said. "Be prepared for the worst."

He also warned partygoers to be careful when consuming alcohol in the extreme cold, as it can cause the body to lose heat faster.

For folks hunkering down for the weekend to avoid the deep freeze, fear not, for warmer weather is on the way. The first few days of the new year will see temperatures gradually climbing, with a high of 9 on Monday, and 28 on Tuesday. For the latest weather conditions in the Black Hills, visit weather.gov/unr/.
Today is the last day to secure a potential income-tax benefit from prepaying property taxes, and if the past few days are any indication, it could be a busy day at the Pennington County Treasurers Office.

Treasurer Janet Sayler estimated Thursday that visits to her office at 130 Kansas City St. in Rapid City have been three times normal levels in recent days as homeowners and business owners have rushed in to prepay property taxes that will not be due until next year.

The reason is a section of the tax-reform legislation that was recently passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump.

The relevant section of the law will impose a $10,000 cap on the amount that federal income-tax payers can deduct in 2018 for state and local income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes.

But the cap will not be imposed on 2017 income taxes. That means South Dakota taxpayers who expect to hit the new cap next year can essentially double up on this years deduction by prepaying their 2018 property tax bill before Jan. 1.

Sayler said local pre-payers have run the gamut from confidently knowledgeable to vaguely optimistic.

A lot of them, I think they just heard about this and they think its going to help them, Sayler said. And some of them are coming in on the advice of their accountants.

One of those accountants is Jennifer Konvalin, a partner and certified public accountant at Ketel Thorstenson in Rapid City.

Weve been talking to clients all day long yesterday and today about this issue, she said Thursday afternoon.

Konvalin said individual circumstances determine whether a taxpayer will benefit from prepaying property taxes. Generally, though, she said the new caps combined applicability to sales taxes and property taxes (South Dakota does not impose a state income tax) means that anyone who owes roughly $8,000 or more in property taxes next year might want to consider prepaying those taxes. That will have to be done before the close of business today, which is the last day the local treasurer's office will be open in 2017.

The amount of potential tax savings for pre-payers is also dependent on individual circumstances. As one example, Konvalin said she helped a client who expects to save a few thousand dollars.

There are also some complications that potential pre-payers should consider.

Sayler said property tax prepayments cannot be officially posted by her office until the first business day in January, according to state law. But her office is providing receipts showing the date that prepayments were submitted. Konvalin said those receipts should be sufficient to classify the prepayments as 2017 expenses.

Another complication might confront homeowners whose property taxes are collected and paid by their mortgage lender through an escrow agreement. Konvalin said homeowners in that situation should consult their lender, because the homeowners might be able to prepay taxes directly to the county and then get a later refund from the escrow account.
LINCOLN, Neb. | The Nebraska Department of Revenue says four now-closed beer stores in Whiteclay together owe more than $600,000 in state taxes after an audit determined they underreported sales by nearly $1.7 million in a three-year period.

But the owners of Arrowhead Inn, State Line Liquor, D&S Pioneer Service and Jumping Eagle Inn have mounted a legal challenge, asking a Lincoln judge to review Tax Commissioner Tony Fulton's Nov. 22 findings, which they say were based on flawed estimates.

It's just the latest setback for the controversy-plagued stores forced to close in April after decades of serving millions of cans of beer each year to the Oglala Lakota people of South Dakotas nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where alcohol is banned.

This spring, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission voted 3-0 to deny the renewal of the stores' licenses following a hearing at the Capitol on whether law enforcement in Whiteclay was adequate to let beer sales continue.

That decision, hailed by activists, led to a court fight which ended in September with the Nebraska Supreme Court rejecting the store owners' bid to reopen, citing a technical flaw in their appeal.

Now to reopen, they would need to reapply for liquor licenses.

But as the issue over their licenses raged, a second, behind-the-scenes fight was brewing over taxes.

On Friday, attorney Benjamin Moore, of Rembolt Ludtke LLP, filed nine petitions for review for the individual store owners after each was issued a notice of deficiency determination earlier this year. The notices reflected they owed additional income taxes, sales and consumer use taxes, as well as a litter fee (a tax assessed to those making gross proceeds of $100,000 or more in retail sales).

In the petitions, Moore said the Department of Revenue's decisions were not supported by evidence, were contrary to law and were "arbitrary, capricious and/or unreasonable."

The dispute boils down to how the state's auditors recalculated each of the businesses' gross receipts  and therefore taxes due  for the period from August 2013 to August 2016.

According to court records, department auditors first audited the books of the individual stores, then did on-site audits in September 2016 after the owners asked for re-determinations.

In the on-site visits, they were looking for documentation to support the stores' reported sales and use tax returns. But the Liquor Control Commission had taken their z-tapes, records from their cash registers, so the owners of Arrowhead Inn, D&S Pioneer Service and Jumping Eagle Inn couldn't provide them. State Line did not use a register, according to the state's order.

Instead, auditors subpoenaed the alcohol suppliers' records of all sales to the businesses for the audit period.

Department auditors reconstructed total sales with the help of price lists from the owners. But auditors had no way of knowing how many of the six-packs, 18-packs and cases delivered to the stores had been sold as singles, and made calculations assuming the largest packs were broken down and sold by the can.

The owners took issue with the new calculations, which they said didn't reflect wholesale price increases or an accurate number of individual can sales. They argued the Department of Revenue should have gotten their z-tapes from the Liquor Control Commission.

But Fulton, the tax commissioner, said that was the petitioners' job. Last month, he affirmed the numbers, saying the owners hadn't retained the records they were required to under Nebraska law, "which made it necessary to look beyond petitioner's records to calculate total sales."

In his order, Fulton said there may have been a more precise method of determining how much was sold as single cans, "but the taxpayer did not provide information that would allow the department to formulate that more precise methodology."

In the end, he upheld the department's findings that:

 Arrowhead Inn's taxes were deficient by $244,168, including $109,639 in sales and use tax, income taxes of $101,888, plus penalties, fees and interest.

 State Line Liquor's taxes were deficient by $142,908, including income taxes of $69,615, $59,930 in sales and use tax, plus penalties and interest.

 D&S Pioneer Service's taxes were deficient by $122,260, including income taxes of $56,008, $54,580 in sales and use tax, plus penalties, fees and interest.

 Jumping Eagle Inn's taxes were deficient by $92,449, including income taxes of $41,362, $40,150 in sales and use tax, plus penalties and interest.

Together, it adds up to $607,926.

Now, a Lancaster County District Judge will review the record to see if he or she agrees.
Last January, Rep. Ed Greef, R-Florence, introduced House Bill 298 to require the Office of Public Instruction to create a curriculum for school districts to provide elementary school children with education and information - including steps to take to report - when they are experiencing sexual abuse.

The idea for the bill came from Tara Walker Lyons of Hamilton, who was 12 when she was sexually abused by a relative. Years later, she was in treatment at the Montana Chemical Dependency Center for her alcohol abuse, when she realized how deeply that sexual abuse as a child affected her life.

When Greef sponsored the bill, it included $1.5 million in funding, but the tight budget forced him to remove that fiscal note to get the legislation passed. When the Montana legislature passed Taras Law, it joined 45 other states requiring information about childhood sexual abuse be taught in schools.

In April, Governor Steve Bullock signed the law that would provide the groundwork for teachers to truly begin addressing childhood sexual abuse and provide them with the material to help young children understand the difference between right and wrong touching and tell a trusted adult when abuse occurs.

By November, Lyons and Greef realized the work isnt over - without a mandate or funding, no curriculum or training personnel are in place.

OPI does have a webpage with information on sex trafficking and sexual abuse, the new law, and the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services guidelines for identifying and reporting child abuse and neglect.

Dylan Klapmeier, OPIs communications director, said the agency is developing a mandatory reporting class that teachers take as part of their required courses for certification renewal. But the law does not require OPI to develop a curriculum for teachers to use in their classes about childhood sexual abuse.

There were many versions of the bill discussed and debated and many people who wanted curriculum, but that isnt what ended up passing, Klapmeier said. Curriculum is created at the local level currently.

Klapmeier said that to develop curriculum, OPI would need the funding to hire a specialist.

Greef is optimistic that the next legislative session will have funding for the law. He believes teachers should request the materials they need.

It needs to originate at the local level, he said. I havent spoken to a teacher yet who isnt aware of the need and who wouldnt welcome having the additional resources. The interest from the teachers is very sincere. They desire it.

Lyons continues to share her experience with teachers, counselors, prisoners, lawmakers, and anyone who will listen. Other young sexual abuse victims have become brave enough to add their testimonies to the presentation to get this educational piece in place.

Lyons will be in Helena when the Legislature reconvenes in 2019, but is busy looking for other partners as sources for curriculum development, such as Emmas House, which is a child advocacy center in Hamilton.

I plan to go back and keep working, she said. Schools are beginning to reach out to me. I know that this isnt over. We just have to keep pushing forward.
Stepping UP for Sunshine is a semi-formal New Years Eve Prime Rib dinner and dance at the Darby Clubhouse to raise funds and community spirit for Darby graduate Jake Sunshine Sanders in his battle against lymphoma.

Dana Nelson is coordinating the fundraising event along with Kimberly Lewis, Theresa Manzella, Christina Harrell, Sarah Nelson, Lori Smith, Hillary McDowell, Kylie Fisher, Michelle Buker, Sue Neville, and Kim Fox.

We hope to raise community spirit and to let him know that all the people here are rooting for him and wishing him well on this whole treatment plan with the cancer he has, Nelson said. They cannot remove the tumor with surgery so the goal is to shrink it over the next three years. He has a long road ahead with treatments and trips to the hospital.

About three months ago, Jake Sanders was having chest pains and after several appointments was diagnosed with Stage 3 Non-Hodgkins T-cell Lymphoma. He has been undergoing chemotherapy at Childrens Primary Hospital in Salt Lake City.

Nelson said she met Debi Sanders - Jake Sanders mom - as a chaperone for a senior trip of Darby High School students.

My daughter was friends with Jake and his girlfriend Kylie (Fisher), she said. That is how I got involved in all of this.

Jake is one of the most remarkable young men I have come across. He and his mom have been through quite a few struggles over the course of his life. Debi, went through Stage 3 malignant melanoma skin cancer and had to undergo three surgeries and a year of chemo starting when Jake was 8 months old. To add to the tragedy, he lost his only brother seven years ago, and lost his grandmother five years ago to cancer.

Nelson said Fisher will be at the New Years Eve event, but was unsure if Jake Sanders will attend.

If Jake is up to it and if he gets the okay from his doctor to be around that many people, he may try to be there, she said. Usually when people are on chemo it is not recommended for them to be around that many people.

According to Nelson, Jake Sanders came home to Darby just before Christmas, will do treatments in Missoula, and will head back to Salt Lake City sometime after the first of the year.

Music for the New Years Eve event will be provided by Jim Pearson, who volunteered his services.

Hes a pretty good entertainer from what I hear, Nelson said. We hope it is an amazing turnout. We are doing pre-sales tickets for the evening with over 80 items for the silent auction.

Auction items include a two-night cabin rental at the Stock Farm Club, a fly fishing trip with Montana Hunting and Fishing Adventures with the Bitterroot Fly Company, lift tickets to Lost Trail Powder Mountain, a two-night cabin rental at Corber Cabins, jewelry, art work, and other products.

Nelson said the New Years Eve party will have great food and visiting.

It will have lot of love, support, and a great time for the people that come to the event and rally around him, she said. This was one way that his friends and community members can come together and help lighten the burden for this battle that he is on.

Jake has a very long journey ahead and I think this will just be a drop in a bucket, but the support for him is the biggest thing. People with a great support system tend to do better in these battles.

Debi Sanders agreed that community support is important.

Jake and I have been in Salt Lake since Sept. 28, after being life-flighted over to Intermountain Primary Childrens Hospital, Sanders said on Thursday. Its been a long and could have been a very lonely journey if it wasnt for the Bitterroot Valley, and especially the town of Darby. We have been overwhelmed with the support and the love. We have a three-year journey ahead and its possible because of this community.

Debi Sanders said that before the diagnosis, her son was attending the University of Montana and studying pre-med radiology.

But who knows now, she said. Sometimes when bad things happen something good comes out of it. The sky is the limit.

Nelson said the New Years Eve event will be a beautiful night with delicious food, amazing auction items, great music, kind and generous friends and supporters, and a worthwhile cause.

The Stepping UP for Sunshine event has limited seating, and tickets may be purchased early in Darby at Electric Beach, Bandit Brewing, Kim Lewis Massage, Darby Liquor, Darby Merc and in Hamilton at Alpha Propane, Theresa Manzella, and Dana Nelson (360-0356).

Tickets for Stepping UP for Sunshine cost $40 for dinner, a no host bar, music and dancing. The social hour is 5:30 to 7 p.m., followed by a prime rib dinner, auction, music and dancing Sunday, Dec. 31, at the Darby Club House.
The Montana Supreme Court has disbarred Hamilton attorney Robert Myers after finding clear and convincing evidence that he violated numerous provisions of the Montana Code of Judicial Conduct during his 2016 judicial campaign.

In the three orders handed down late Thursday, which were signed by all seven justices, the court also suspended Myers license to practice law in Montana, writing that he violated his ethical duties in handling post-trial motions in a marital dissolution case, and made false and reckless statements during his judicial campaign.

Myers insists that there is no evidence that his statements are false, and he's convinced that the Supreme Court justices are protecting one of their own by not looking into his allegations about Ravalli County District Court Judge Jeff Langton.

"There's no evidence I did anything wrong," Myers said on Friday. "They're getting rid of me because I brought this up. How can you talk about knowingly making false statements where there's no evidence that it's false?

"I'm a scapegoat. They didn't prove a single thing. They didn't say what was reckless, how it was reckless or when it was reckless. Nothing. Those opinions are completely devoid of any facts except for the ones made up by the Supreme Court."

The disbarment is effective in 30 days, and Myers was directed to give notice of his disbarment and suspensions to all clients he represents in pending matters and in all courts in which he appears as the counsel of record. He also was ordered to pay the costs of disciplinary proceedings against him.

Myers said he will fight the disbarment first by filing for a petition for a rehearing, and asking the justices to recuse themselves. He also plans on petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case, and said he'll contact the American Civil Liberties Union and the Cato Institute to see if they'll help him in what he says is a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech.

"I'm also going to send this to D.C., to the Department of Justice, because Montana has no interest in looking into this," Myers said. "They're covering it up and doing so intentionally."

Ravalli County Attorney Bill Fulbright, who was a party to several lawsuits brought by Myers, said justice was served with his suspension and disbarment.

Were pleased to have this matter concluded, Fulbright said.

The case comes after the Office of Disciplinary Counsel filed complaints against Myers earlier this year, and the Commission on Practice held hearings and recommended sanctions be taken.

Two of the complaints involved Myers conduct during his 2016 campaign for district judge in Ravalli County. The commission found that Myers sent a mailer to Ravalli County residents and placed advertisements against Langton, all of which included knowingly false and reckless statements, including unsubstantiated claims that the judge had presided in a case against the ex-boyfriend of a cocaine and sex partner and that he had purchased illegal drugs from a 13-year-old.

The commission concluded that Myers violated the Montana Rules of Professional Conduct by making the false statements concerning the integrity of a judge, and by engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.

Myers insists that his claims are true.

"People have a right to know this stuff and to know they have a corrupt, ineffective government," Myers said.

Along with disbarring Myers due to his conduct in the judicial race, the Montana Supreme Court suspended his law license in Montana for three years.

The suspension is to run consecutively with a seven-month suspension handed down by the Supreme Court for Myers conduct in the marital dissolution case. Myers already was fined $10,000 in that case  a sum he has paid  for displaying a disturbing lack of judgment and disrespect for the judiciary, opposing counsel, opposing parties, and the rule of law as a whole.

The commission found that Myers was making legal arguments without a sound basis in law or fact, by defaming and denigrating witnesses and other participants in the court proceedings, and by squandering his clients appeal by failing to file an opening brief.

The commission found clear and convincing evidence that Myers violated his ethical duties and that his conduct was unrelated to his judicial candidacy, the justices wrote.

The disbarment and suspensions mean that Myers will not be able to petition for reinstatement for eight years and seven months from the effective date of disbarment, which is Jan. 27, 2018.

In a federal court lawsuit filed by Myers, he claimed that the rules involving the disciplinary actions were unconstitutional because they violated his right to free speech, and that his allegations of abuse of power by Langton were true. Montana Attorney General Tim Fox filed a motion in November seeking to have that case dismissed.
Macaus exports of diamond and diamond jewellery rose to $72.12 mn from January to October 2017, up 40 percent from the same period in 2016, according to data from Macaus Statistics and Census Service.In October alone, exports in this category increased by 23.7 percent to $2.6 mn.

Imports of gold jewellery, meanwhile, registered a year-on-year improvement of 19.8 percent to $672 mn compared to the same period in 2016. October figures reached $68.19 mn, up 19.9 percent from imports in the same month last year.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Cief of the Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




Toni Weitzel is the owner of the Best of Everything, featuring unique gifts and gift baskets, and a former president of the Nipomo Chamber of Commerce. Nonprofit and other community organizations may submit items for this column by contacting her at 343-0283 or toniweitzel3@gmail.com.
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At the meeting with the Indonesia Consul General, Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong appreciated the working term of Mr. Jean Anes in contributing to boost relationships between Indonesia and Vietnam including Ho Chi Minh City.In addition, the city leader also hoped that the Indonesia Consul General would continue looking after the relationships in the coming time.Mr. Jean Anes thanked the city leader for creating favorable condition to raise multifaceted cooperation relations between Ho Chi Minh City and Indonesias localities; and he affirmed to continue consolidating relationship between Indonesia and Vietnam.

BY THUY VU- Translated by Huyen Huong
SCHLESWIG, Iowa | Eight years ago, Devon Evers earned a diploma from Northwest Iowa Community College, and was on his way to becoming a commercial/industrial electrician.

Except for the fact he never worked in that capacity.

Evers last week stood before a crowd that convened in his Crossgrain Woodworking headquarters in downtown Schlewsig and thanked locals for their support in helping make his company Iowa's Business of the Month, an award bestowed by the Small Business Development Center.

"I'm still a little guy putting all my money back into the company with my faith in God," Evers said.

The 29-year-old from nearby Denison isn't shy in admitting he starts every business day in prayer, adding that the company's name draws upon his faith ("Cross") and his penchant to go against the norm, or "grain," in this case.

He's an industrial wiring pro who toiled in agriculture before turning a hobby into a trade that's doubled its orders and revenue annually since its founding four years ago.

Began with a hutch

Devon Evers, a 2007 Denison High School graduate, headed to Northwest Iowa Community College and studied commercial/industrial wiring. However, a yearning to stay close to home after graduation kept him in Crawford County, not far from the farm of his parents, Brian and Rachel Evers, west of Denison.

"I worked for a farmer north of Denison and helped my dad and grandpa farm," he said. "I ended up buying a home in Denison."

It was at home one night that Evers hatched a plan to build a small hutch out of glass and reclaimed wood from his family's century farm. His sister, Alyssa (Evers) Rihner, put a photo of the finished work on Facebook, prompting a friend to ask if Evers would build a bathroom vanity. He completed that task, too.

"And then the orders started rolling in," he said.

Evers would farm by-day, then tend to his woodworking each night and weekend. In 2013, he left the farm to work at the Andersons Denison Ethanol plant. His work in processing there lasted but six months.

"I hadn't planned to leave the ethanol plant, but my orders kept coming in for woodworking jobs," he said. "I prayed about it, and, in January 2014, I had saved enough money to take on woodworking full-time."

Evers fixed up one-third of a barn on his parents' farm and went to work, taking various finished pieces to vendor shows like the Uptown Market in Denison. The Crawford County Chamber & Development Council, led by Executive Director Evan Blakley, approached Evers and helped him write a comprehensive business plan. Soon, Todd Rausch of the Western Iowa Tech Small Business Development Center in Sioux City joined the effort, offering counsel and resources.

One of Evers' first big orders came from Happy Medium, a social media firm in Des Moines that was in search of a conference table. Evers met the challenge by crafting a 4-foot by 10-foot quarter sawn oak table that was two inches thick and weighed 300 pounds. He got the table to Des Moines then decided to hire his first employee, Phil Wieman, of Denison.

"By late 2015, the shop on the farm had become too small," Evers said.

Last February, Evers began leasing the old NAPA store site on Cedar Street in Schlewsig, a town of 866 residents 12 miles north of Denison. The structure, which offered 10,000 square feet of work and showroom space had been gutted and renovated, ready and waiting for Crossgrain.

Five months ago, Evers added another employee, Brett Nuzum, of nearby Kiron, as the company worked to tackle a huge job for the Stables at Copper Ridge, a new wedding venue near Denison, one set in an old horse barn.

"We built them 29 10-foot tables and one 20-foot head table, all made from reclaimed wood, 1890 lumber, all from one source in central Iowa," Evers said. "We built all their custom doors, stage flooring, sliding accent doors and sliding exterior barn doors."

In addition, Crossgrain Woodworking repurposed some of the old lumber found at the Copper Ridge farm.

Evers and staff have made tables, hutches and more for businesses like this, while also filling orders for new homes, residences as far away as Okoboji to Des Moines.

"Whatever he puts out of his shop will last a lifetime," said Blakley. "To watch him grow from a basement shop to a legitimate manufacturing woodworking facility has been great to watch."

The Small Business Development Center Region XII helped Evers secure a loan for additional tools he needed as the company expanded into this space.

"We have 15 to 25 orders on-hand that we're working on, typically with a turnaround of six to eight weeks," said Evers, who spends his time away from work with his wife, Amanda, a kindergarten teacher in Denison, and their 9-month-old son, Jed.

Someday, Evers said he'd like to have a separate showroom that allows prospective customers to see for themselves how Crossgrain Woodworking can blend steel with wood (both new and reclaimed) for a look that combines modern and rustic elements.

"Two separate spaces would be nice, eventually," said Evers.

It's big-picture dreaming for a guy who never pictured himself in this particular frame.

"Nobody did formal carpentry in my family," said the business founder, an electrician who never was. "I've always enjoyed working with my hands. I found a passion in this."
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | The stream of lawsuits against Big Ox Energy and South Sioux City has continued with a ninth homeowner filing suit in connection with odors and gases from the bioenergy plant.

Michael and Brenda Orlando filed their suit Wednesday in Dakota County District Court, bringing the total number of lawsuits filed within the past month against the company and city to nine.

The Orlandos, like the homeowners in the previous lawsuits, claim that odors and hazardous gases damaged their homes and caused health problems after the plant opened in September 2016.

The homeowners allege 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, 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 be 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.

The Orlandos claim damages of $472,000 that are accruing because of the continued loss of use of their property. The damages include loss of use, demolition and reconstruction of their home and loss of furnishings ruined by odors.

Damages being sought in the other five lawsuits total some $5.62 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 was the primary cause of the odor issues.

The families were displaced for months because of the odors, and some have yet to return home. The city and Big Ox have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to reimburse displaced homeowners' expenses. The city has also spent $1.5 million for sewer upgrades and modifications.

More lawsuits are likely. In May, 16 families filed tort claims against the city.
SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City outpatient surgery center has sued a physicians group and several doctors for their involvement in the development of a competing center across the Missouri River in Nebraska, claiming those involved are violating non-compete clauses.

Pierce Street Same Day Surgery, 2730 Pierce St., is seeking a temporary injunction to enforce those non-competition provisions and prevent Drs. Adam Smith, William Samuelson, Kevin Liudahl and Joseph Morris from owning, operating, investing in, managing, promoting or being employed by the Riverview Surgical Center, which is under construction along South Sioux City's riverfront.

The injunction also seeks to prevent Drs. Terry Monk and Duane Nelson, as well as Tri-State Specialists and its CEO Lee Hilka, from cooperating with those four physicians in the development and promotion of Riverview.

Pierce Street is asking that the injunction be in place for the duration of the litigation of its lawsuit.

A hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 10 in Woodbury County District Court.

Ground was broken for the $37 million Riverview Surgical Center next to the Delta Hotels by Marriot at 385 E. Fourth St. in November. The proposed two-story structure, which would be owned by Tri-State Specialists and offer orthopedic, gastrointestinal, plastic surgery, some OB-GYN and ear, nose and throat surgical services, will include nearly 50,000 square feet of space for operating rooms, medical offices and patient suites and is expected to open in 2019. Patients and families also will have the option of staying in the adjacent Delta Hotels by Marriott, formerly known as the Marina Inn.

Pierce Street, which offers many of the same services planned by Riverview, said in its lawsuit that the doctors, some of whom are or were members of Pierce Street, have non-compete provisions in individual operating agreements they signed with Pierce Street that prohibit them from being involved with a competing hospital or surgery center within 30 miles of Pierce Street while they hold an interest in Pierce Street and for one year after leaving the company.

Located at 2730 Pierce St., across the street from UnityPoint Health -- St. Luke's, Pierce Street is less than four miles from the Riverview site. Pierce Street said that the doctors, even while still members of the Sioux City center, have been recruiting other physicians, including other Pierce Street members, to work at or invest in Riverview. The recruitment "is tantamount to siphoning patients away" from Pierce Street because physicians typically select the surgery center where a patient's procedure will be performed. In the lawsuit, Pierce Street said it could lose 60 percent of its patient volume referred to it by Tri-State physicians, many of whom could begin sending patients to the new Riverview facility.

The lawsuit includes claims for breach of contract, intentional interference with a contract and with prospective business advantage, breach of duty of loyalty and conspiracy.

Tri-State, which is based on the the UnityPoint Health campus, disputes the allegations.

"We believe the filing of the lawsuit was unfortunate and the allegations to be meritless, and we look forward to challenging the lawsuit in the appropriate setting," the company said in a news release.

Tri-State intends to move forward with the Riverview project, the news release said. Site preparation work has taken place, and construction is expected to begin in the spring.

Bridget Penick, a Des Moines attorney representing Pierce Street, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, Pierce Street said it had suspected that Tri-State, Hilka and some of the physicians had been working on a competing surgery center for some time. Those suspicions were confirmed when plans were made public and Hilka, Monk and Nelson identified themselves as members of Riverview board at the ground-breaking, at which Liudahl and Samuelson also were present, the lawsuit said.

According to the lawsuit, Pierce Street is owned by UnityPoint Health -- St. Luke's and individual community physicians, including Smith, Samuelson, Liudahl and Morris. Monk and Nelson were formerly members of Pierce Street, the lawsuit said. Hilka served as the Pierce Street CEO from March 2008-April 2015. He voluntarily resigned after Pierce Street became aware he was providing services to Tri-State during a portion of the same time period, the lawsuit said.

Pierce Street said it became aware that as early as 2015, plans to develop Riverview were being discussed by the physicians, Hilka and Tri-State, which is located at 2730 Pierce St. in the same building as Pierce Street Same Day Surgery. Those discussions would have taken place when all six physicians named in the lawsuit had signed operating agreements containing the non-compete provisions in place with Pierce Street.

In addition to violating their non-compete provisions, Pierce Street said, Hilka and some of the physicians had access to confidential information and Pierce Street's business strategies in developing plans for Riverview. Hilka and some of the physicians continue to recruit physicians and investors and hand out Riverview-branded folders, mugs and pens to patients and staff members, making it difficult for Pierce Street to attract new physician investors, the lawsuit said.

Pierce Street said it has had meetings with Tri-State and some of the doctors to discuss the Riverview development, but those meetings were not fruitful, leading to filing of the lawsuit.

Unlike Iowa, Nebraska does not require surgical facilities to undergo a regularly review process known as a Certificate of Need prior to construction. That's one factor Tri-State has cited for choosing to build in South Sioux City. Another is the proximity of the site to Delta Hotels by Marriott. Hilka has said it would be the first such hotel recovery program in Siouxland, with the next closest located in the Twin Cities.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the US and Russia have a "poor relationship," a declaration made in a year-end New York Times op-ed he wrote assessing the State Department during his 2017 tenure.

Tillerson's piece for the Thursday morning edition of the Times maintained the balance he has sought to strike in public on Russia, navigating opposition to Russia for aggression while seeking potential cooperation on key issues.

"On Russia, we have no illusions about the regime we are dealing with," Tillerson said. "The United States today has a poor relationship with a resurgent Russia that has invaded its neighbors Georgia and Ukraine in the last decade and undermined the sovereignty of Western nations by meddling in our election and others."

He said in the piece, as he did earlier in December, that the US will not have "business as usual" with Russia until the conflict ends in Ukraine. A State Department official told CNN last week that the US would provide Ukraine with lethal anti-tank weapons.

Tillerson also said the US must "recognize the need to work with Russia where mutual interests intersect" and cited the war in Syria as the highest priority for potential cooperation between the two nations.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN there has never been "close cooperation" between the United States and Russia on Syria. Peskov directed specific inquiries on Tillerson's op-ed to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

"The political will to cooperate is needed on the Syrian arrangement, meanwhile there is no such cooperation," Peskov said.

Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded to the piece at her weekly news briefing by calling it "confrontational" and "fake news."

"It's time for American politicians and diplomats to realize that nothing can be achieved from Russia by methods of power, economic influence and pressure, and the illusion that Washington's policy is built on has long ago discredited itself in the international arena as well," she said.

Tillerson's article touched on other major issues facing the State Department at home and abroad, including North Korea. Tillerson said the hope of the US was still to pressure North Korea into "serious negotiations" that would lead to the end of the isolated nation's nuclear program.

"A door to dialogue remains open, but we have made it clear that the regime must earn its way back to the negotiating table," Tillerson said.

Tillerson has floated the possibility of talks between the US and North Korea several times, and in turn, the White House has pushed back. Earlier in December, Tillerson offered to "sit down and see each other face to face," and both the White House and State Department stated that the US is not ready to begin talks.

In the fall, Tillerson said he hoped to resolve the dispute with talks. Trump responded on Twitter, saying Tillerson "is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man."

Finally, Tillerson talked up his vision for reform at the State Department, saving money and paring down.

His plan to reshape the State Department has led to staunch criticism from among some of the department's own ranks, and State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert in November acknowledged the "morale issue" there.

Tillerson, in his op-ed, defended his reform vision, saying it "doesn't involve simply shifting boxes on an organizational chart," and closed out by praising the "patriotic and dedicated State Department employees."

"We are giving our people more opportunities to flourish professionally and spend more time confronting the global problems they have dedicated their careers to solving," he wrote.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen, Darya Tarasova and Pamela Boykoff contributed to this report.
Ethanol production in Iowa ticked slightly upward in 2017, according to an industry group.

Iowa's 43 ethanol plants produced a record 4.2 billion gallons in 2017, the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association said Thursday. The increase from 4.1 billion last year was mostly due to plant expansions, increased demand and higher blends like E15, the organization said.

"Iowa continues to lead the country and the world in ethanol production and efficiency," said Monte Shaw, executive director of the association.

He added that several plant expansions had just finished or would do so in the first three months of next year, which could push numbers for 2018 higher.

He said that prospect makes it imperative to expand export markets and break down "unnecessary barriers" to E15 in the United States.

The sale of E15 is limited in many parts of the country in the summer months because of ozone concerns.

In Iowa, the association said its top priority for the upcoming 2018 legislative session will be to secure more funding to help retailers get the equipment necessary to accommodate higher blends of ethanol.

The higher production figures unveiled Thursday come off a contentious year for renewable fuels. The federal Environmental Protection Agency had considered changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard, which industry officials and their political supporters said would undermine the 2005 law and hurt farm states.

The RFS requires that a certain amount of renewable fuels be blended into the nation's gasoline supply.
WASHINGTON -- When it comes to cyberweapons, America is an elephant and Iran is a flea. Still, a flea can be a persistent nuisance, especially for the unprotected.

Iran's cyber capability is the focus of a detailed new study called "Iran's Cyber Threat," to be published soon by Collin Anderson and Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It describes a country that, although "third tier" on the cyberthreat matrix, can still do considerable damage.

The disclosures about Iran's cyberattacks are a reminder that America and its allies live in a dangerous electronic ecosystem. Russia's hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign gets daily coverage, and China's theft of American secrets has also been well-publicized. What gets too little attention are the less-sophisticated but still-toxic weapons available to dozens of smaller countries. The U.S., with its relatively open systems, can be an easy target.

The Iran study is timely: The Trump administration has declared its desire to help Saudi Arabia and other allies push back against Iran's proxies across the Middle East, in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere. The U.S. call for rollback is largely rhetoric, at this point; there's still little clear policy. But Tehran's allies can fight back, sometimes in ways that are hard to identify or attribute. That's especially true with cyberweapons.

The Carnegie study describes a small but capable Iranian cyber capability that evolved partly to gather foreign intelligence and partly to spy on domestic opposition groups that coalesced in the 2009 Green Movement. Iranian hackers developed payback motive, too, after 2012 newspaper reports about the U.S. and Israeli "Stuxnet" malware attacks on the Iranian nuclear program that had started in 2007.

A decade ago, Iran began mobilizing its own resources. This home-grown hacking culture is one of the report's most interesting findings, because it can probably be duplicated in dozens of other emerging economies. "Iran's cyber capabilities appear to be indigenously developed, arising from local universities and hacking communities," the report notes. "Threat actors seemingly arise from nowhere and operate in a dedicated manner until campaigns dissipate, often due to their discovery by researchers."

The Iranian hackers began slowly in 2007, with cyber-pinpricks. A group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army defaced dissident Twitter accounts in 2009 and, soon after, websites belonging to the Voice of America. But the attacks became more serious in 2011, after an Iranian hacker penetrated a Dutch security firm called DigiNotar, opening Gmail users in Iran to government surveillance, according to the Carnegie study.

Then came Iranian counterattacks, simple but destructive. After Iran's oil industry was hit in April 2012 by malware known as "Flame" and "Wiper," the Iranians launched an August 2012 attack on the Saudi Aramco oil company, using a wiper virus known as "shamoon." According to the Carnegie researchers, the attack affected tens of thousands of Saudi Aramco computers and caused tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Iran successfully attacked the U.S. as well. In September 2012, a hacker group that called itself the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters began attacking U.S. banks and financial institutions with a primitive but destructive assault known as a "distributed denial of service," or DDoS, which basically flooded targeted computers with so much traffic that their systems crashed. Here, too, the assaults did surprising damage.

The FBI concluded that from 2012 to 2013, the Iranian operation "locked hundreds of thousands of banking customers out of accounts for long periods of time and resulted in tens of millions of costs to remediate," the Carnegie analysts explain. Many financial institutions that had been hit by the Iranians said little about the attacks, to avoid worrying customers or shareholders.

Why did the Iranians strike U.S. banks? Revenge is the simple answer. The Carnegie report cites an NSA assessment that signals intelligence "indicates that these attacks are in retaliation to Western activities against Iran's nuclear sector and that senior officials in the Iranian government are aware of these attacks."

Iran's cyber capabilities suggest that the Trump administration's new anti-Tehran campaign may not be costless, even if open conflict is avoided. A website called "The Cipher Brief," which focuses on intelligence issues, headed this month that "Iran's ... Cyber Hackers Poised to Strike If Trump Shreds Nuke Deal." A computer security firm called "FireEye" reported this month that a group of Iranian hackers, dubbed "APT34," have developed a new backdoor cyber-surveillance technique.

Iran has an arsenal of cyber-stones, so to speak, ready to throw. The U.S., meanwhile, lives in the world's biggest glass house.
The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless.



The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well.







By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism.
Gladys Chaney Brooks, 95, of Chesapeake Beach passed away December 25, 2017. She was born June 11, 1922 to Eldridge and Bertha Irene (Jones) Chaney. Gladys was raised in Upper Marlboro and attended Marlboro High School. She married Stanly Brooks on March 15, 1941 and they lived in Upper Marlboro before moving to Chesapeake Beach in 2005. Gladys was employed as a clerk for the State of Maryland, working at the Prince George's County Court House. Gladys was a member of the American Legion Post 206 Ladies Auxiliary and enjoyed dancing, attending American Legion events and spending time with her family.



Gladys was preceded in death by her husband Stanley Brooks and her siblings. She is survived by her son Danny Brooks of Annapolis and daughter Mary Ann Shepherd and husband Douglass of Bowie. She is also survived by 7 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great grandson. Arrangements by Rausch Funeral Home.
PRINCE FREDERICK, Md.

Disclaimer: In the U.S.A., all persons accused of a crime by the State are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. See: so.md/presumed-innocence. Additionally, all of the information provided above is solely from the perspective of the respective law enforcement agency and does not provide any direct input from the accused or persons otherwise mentioned. You can find additional information about the case by searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Database using the accused's name and date of birth. The database is online at so.md/mdcasesearch . Persons named who have been found innocent or not guilty of all charges in the respective case, and/or have had the case ordered expunged by the court can have their name, age, and city redacted by following the process defined at so.md/expungeme.

(December 29, 2017)The Prince Frederick Barrack of the Maryland State Police (MSP) today released the following incident and arrest reports.POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA: On 12/21/2017 at 10:56 pm, Trooper First Class Jones stopped a vehicle on Rt. 4 near Chaneyville Rd. in Owings for traffic violations. While speaking with the driver,, a clear plastic bag containing suspected marijuana as observed in plain view on her lap. A probable cause seach was conducted and it contained 15.3 grams of suspected marijuana. Randall was arrested and incarcerated at the Calvert County Detention Center.POSSESSION OF FIREARM: On 12/22/2017 at 5:46 pm, Trooper Stull stopped a vehicle on Rt. 4 south of Broomes Island Rd. in Port Republic for traffic violations. A strong odor of burnt marijuana was emitting from inside the vehicle. A probable cause search was conducted and no marijuana was found. A Remington Rife was located inside the vehicle. The Maryland Gun Center was notified and they advised that, was prohibited from possessing a firearm due to previous charges. Truitt was placed under arrest and was incarcerated at the Calvert County Detention Center.Sean Spouce, 50, of St. Leonard, arrested on 12/20/2017 @ 09:53 pm by TPR. R. BackusLamont C. Bourne, 44, of Port Republic, arrested on 12/23/2017 @ 12:09 am by TFC J. WarrickColin D. Adkins, 24, of North Beach, arrested on 12/23/2017 @ 02:42 am by TFC J. WarrickLloyd R. Jackson, 56, of Nanjemoy, arrested on 12/24/2017 @ 04:49 pm by TFC C. DavisPaul P. Altman, Jr., 61, of Pr. Frederick, arrested on 12/24/2017 @ 11:51 pm by TPR. R. Marsch
No doubt about it: you know the score.

Youve known it since the beginning because you were told, clearly and unequivocally. Theres no grey area, no questions to ask. You know whats up but, as in the new book Tell by Major Margaret Witt (with Tim Connor), the outcome may be out of your hands anyhow.

For those who love her, Margie Witt has always been known as an active, take-charge, caring person. A tomboy growing up, she befriended the friendless, got along with everyone, and was a super-responsible leader. It was therefore a natural fit when in 1987 Witt decided to join the Air Force, even though she was gay.

But, of course, nobody was supposed to know that. As an elite member of the military, Witt fully understood that just being gay meant a military discharge. By order, nobody could ask her about that, though; she, in turn, could not discuss her sexuality.

Still, because secrets are never totally secret, Witt was ever-cautious. Fearing rejection, she hadnt come out to her parents or her siblings yet; on the other hand, close pals knew that Witt was a lesbian, as did a fellow reservist whod defied DADT in order to put his suspicions to rest.

Even Witts girlfriend was mum, but there was trouble on that front: Tiffany desperately wanted a baby and was pressing, but Witt was uninterested in parenthood.

With a pregnancy deadline-or-else looming, Witt took solace not only in her job as a pediatric physical therapist in Spokane, Washington, but also with her friends in the Air Force Reserve and her work as a flight nurse. She kept busy, was sent overseas to the Middle East, and received commendations for saving a life there. Her knowledge was admired and, as her relationship crumbled, her natural sense of humor helped her stay level but she needed a confidante. Witt turned to a married-but-struggling female colleague who soon became more than just a friend with a sympathetic ear.

And in the ensuing very, very ugly divorce, in which a soon-to-be-ex-husband seized upon two women spending the night together, DADT was no longer possible

That, of course, is not the end of what youll learn inside Tell. Theres much more to the story, sometimes too much.

In an oddly appealing third-person voice, author Major Margaret Witt (with Tim Connor) starts her tale with a deployment and moves quickly to a charmingly nostalgic biography that ultimately loses some of its charm in an overload of details. There are a lot of peripheral people in this tale, the presence of which sometimes feels more shout-out and less necessity.

Stick around: the details have a shift of focus about mid-way here, once you get past the set-up and into the books raison detre. Things move faster in the re-telling of the legal aftermath of Witts exposure, the fight for gay rights in the military, and Witts own (mostly)-happily-ever-after. Thats what makes this slice-of-life history tale one thats highly readable and deeply personal.

Thats what makes Tell a score.

Tell: Love, Defiance, and the Military Trial at the Tipping Point for Gay Rights by Major Margaret Witt with Tim Connor, foreword by Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer

c.2017, ForeEdge

$27.95 / higher in Canada

258 pages
Christopher Isherwood was a novelist, playwright, screen-writer, autobiographer, and diarist. He was also gay and made this a theme of some of his writing. He was born near Manchester in the north of England in 1904, became a U.S. citizen in 1946, and died in 1986.

I Am a Camera is a 1951 Broadway play by John Van Druten adapted from Christopher Isherwood's novel Goodbye to Berlin, which is part of The Berlin Stories.

The title is a quote taken from the novel's first page: "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking..... Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.

The original production was staged by John Van Druten, with scenic and lighting design by Boris Aronson and costumes by Ellen Goldsborough. It opened at the Empire Theatre in New York City on November 28, 1951 and ran for 214 performances before closing on July 12, 1952.

The production was a critically acclaimed success for both Julie Harris as the insouciant Sally Bowles, winning her the first of five Tony Awards of her career for Best Leading Actress in a play, and for Marian Winters, who won both the Theater World Award and Tony Award for Featured Actress in a Play. The play also won for John Van Druten the New York Drama Critics' Circle for Best American Play (1952). It also earned the famous review by Walter Kerr, "Me no Leica."

The story served as the inspiration for the acclaimed musical and then movie "Cabaret."

In 1931 Berlin, young American Sally Bowles performs at the Kit Kat Klub. A new British arrival in the city, Brian Roberts, moves into the boarding house where Sally lives. Sally tries seducing Brian and suspects he may be gay. Brian tells Sally that on three previous occasions he has tried to have physical relationships with women, all of which failed. They become friends, and Brian witnesses Sally's anarchic, bohemian life in the last days of the German Weimar Republic. Sally and Brian become lovers despite their earlier reservations; they conclude that his previous failures with women were because they were "the wrong three girls."

Sally befriends Maximilian von Heune, a rich playboy baron who takes her and Brian to his country estate; it becomes ambiguous which of the duo Max is seducing. After a sexual experience with Brian, Max loses interest in the two and departs for Argentina. During an argument, when Sally tells Brian that she has been having sex with Max, Brian reveals that he has as well. Brian and Sally later reconcile, and Sally reveals that Max left them money and mockingly compares the sum with what a professional prostitute gets.

Although less explicit compared to other films made in the 1970s, Cabaret dealt explicitly with topics like corruption, sexual ambiguity, false dreams and Nazism.

Tim Dirks at Filmsite.org notes: "The sexually-charged, semi-controversial, kinky musical was the first one ever to be given an X rating (although later re-rated) with its numerous sexual flings and hedonistic club life. There was considerable sexual innuendo, profanity, casual sex talk (homosexual and heterosexual), some evidence of anti-Semitism, and even an abortion in the film."

It was also rated X in the UK and later re-rated as 15-plus. The film has been listed as one of the most important for queer cinema for its depictions of homosexuality, revolutionary at the time of its release. It turned Liza Minnelli into a gay icon. Film blogs have elected it as "the gayest winner in the history of the Academy."
A Singapore court has denied a gay doctor permission to adopt his child, stating that the surrogacy arrangements he made in the U.S. conflict with the laws held in the country.

It all began when Singapores Ministry of Social and Family Development told the man, who remains anonymous due to the case involving a minor, that adopting a child would be unlikely for a same-sex couple. He then travelled to the U.S. to go through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures, according to The Straits Times.

The man also paid a hefty price for the surrogate, offering her $200,000 to hold his child. However, IVF procedures are only allowed for married couples and surrogacy services are not available, which led to District Judge Shobha Nair turning down their adoption application.

He cannot then come to the courts of the very same jurisdiction to have the acts condoned, the court said. This application is in reality an attempt to obtain a desired result [...] by walking through the back door of the system when the front door was firmly shut.

Judge Nair pointed out that with the man should have been fully aware of the laws surrounding surrogacy because he was a doctor. The judge was also dismayed by the large sum of money that the man offered for the procedure.

"The very idea of a biological father seeking to adopt a child after paying a surrogate mother a sum of $200,000 to carry his child to term reflects the very thing the Adoption Act seeks to prevent  the use of money to encourage the movement of life from one hand to another," said Judge Nair.

Despite the courts decision, the man and his partner of 13 years are currently seeking other options, according to their lawyers. The judge voted that their 4-year-old child will still remain in their care.

The primary reason that motivates him is that like any father he wants the best for his son, he wants his son to be legitimate in the eyes of the law and to ensure that he has all the necessary benefits to set him on the right path, said one of his lawyers, Ivan Cheong.

Many have voiced their disappointment in the courts decision, including Singapores LGBT rights groups, Pink Dot. Despite several concerns with the verdict, the judge made it clear that the courts decision was not based off what they deem as appropriate for a family.

"This court is obligated to interpret the law and not make it. The law mirrors the morality and wishes of the majority of Singaporeans... this case has very little to do with the propriety and/or effectiveness of same-gender parenting," said Nair.
Three entities who gained a large measure of harness racing success while connected to upstate New York have been named Dan Patch award winners in voting by the United States Harness Writers Association (USHWA), the largest media organization in the sport.

Two of them are still very much part of the upper New York scene  Betty Holt, winner of the Unsung Hero award, and the team of Pacing Broodmare of the Year Wild West Show and owner Ray Schnittker  while the other, Michael Carter, winner of the Breakthrough Award for an up-and-coming non-horseperson, has furthered his profile elsewhere after gaining valuable early training in his craft while in the area.

Betty Holt is the executive director of the Harness Horse Breeders of New York State, an association based in Latham N.Y. (just north of Albany), which, as one could expect from its name, furthers the cause of the breeders of Standardbreds in the Empire State. The tireless Holt monitors all New York-restricted harness activity in the state, from the Sire Stakes to sales to industry meetings, to promotion of the sport and ownership seminars. Holt is also the prime force behind a program that provides a safety net for at-risk New York-bred trotters and pacers, eventually hoping to land them on a restructuring and rehoming path, an activity funded by consignments to the Morrisville yearling sale. If there is a gathering, event, or movement that furthers the development of the breed and its shareholders in New York State, Betty Holt likely has a prominent role somewhere along the path to the winners circle.

Wild West Show was involved in the closest contest in the voting, beating out rival Western Montana by a single vote. But as is said in racing, you dont ask how much?  you just praise the winner, and the offspring of Wild West Show, who is owned by Ray Schnittker of Middletown/Goshen, N.Y. after his partner Charles Iannazzo passed away earlier this year, certainly had an outstanding 2017. Huntsville, the 2016 two-year-old pacing colt of the year, came back in 2017 for Schnittker and earned over a million dollars while engaging with his two Brian Brown-trained arch-rivals Downbytheseaside and Fear The Dragon in many an important stakes contest. His full brother Wild Bill scored in 1:52.3f in an abbreviated freshman campaign and offered promise for the coming years big-money stakes.

Michael Carter, a native of Virginia, worked at his home states tracks of Colonial Downs and the Shenandoah County Fair, then got his big break by being named the primary track announcer at Buffalo Raceway in 2013, establishing himself as an accurate, interesting, and entertaining man behind the microphone while also assisting in mutuels and simulcasting. From there, Carter went on to his current position at Northfield Park, where he is the deputy announcer, also working in mutuels and the Ohio tracks social media efforts.

Carter has extended his footprint to the national level of the sport by joining with Mike Bozich of Harrahs Philadelphia as half of the Post Time With Mike And Mike Internet podcast. During its three years, the show has drawn a progressively larger audience with its news reporting, extensive interviewing of news-making horsemen and track executives, live remotes from the sites of big races, and the annual Mike And Mike Awards.

Betty Holt, Wild West Show and owner Ray Schnittker, and Michael Carter will all be honoured at the upcoming Dan Patch Awards Banquet, to be held on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando, Fla. Those wishing to take out a congratulatory ad in the Banquets Awards Journal should contact Kim Rinker, Journal Committee chair, at [email protected]. Those wishing to attend the banquet can make room reservations online via a special portal on the USHWA website  but are advised to do so quickly to take advantage of the special room rates USHWA has obtained. Tickets for the banquet, priced at $175, can be obtained through Judy Davis-Wilson, Dinner Planning Committee chair, at [email protected].

(USHWA)
WCC General Secretary Sends Greetings to Taize Gathering

Contact: Media Office, World Council of Churches, +41 79 507 6363



GENEVE, Dec. 29, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- In a letter to Brother Alois, prior of the Taize Community, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit sent a message to all those gathered in Basel, Switzerland for the 40th European Meeting of Young Adults organised by the Taize Community.

The meeting will draw tens of thousands of young people in three countries - Switzerland, Germany and France - for a new stage of the "Pilgrimage of Trust on Earth" which began in the late 1970s.

"As this year draws to a close, we look back with gratitude how in 2017, for the first time in five centuries, Christians of all traditions have been able to commemorate the Reformation together," reads the message. "We have together offered repentance for the divisions of the past and affirmed what we have in common in Jesus Christ. This was a powerful symbol of our mutual accountability in Christ."

Tveit gave thanks for the witness to unity of the Taize Community. "Anniversaries are opportunities to take stock of the past and to look forward to the future in hope and joy," the message continues. "Our witness together during the Reformation anniversary in 2017 is one that has enormous potential for strengthening hope."

Tveit invited the Taize Community to continue with the WCC in its Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace. "In 2018, the World Council of Churches celebrates its 70th anniversary, under the motto 'Walking Together, Serving Justice and Peace,'" the message concludes. "We look forward to continuing to walk together with you, seeking to make visible the unity we have in Christ, as we seek to contribute to transformation toward just peace."

WCC general secretary message to 40th European Meeting of Young Adults

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 348 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 550 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway.






The essential component of totalitarian propaganda is artifice (het toepassen van kunstgrepen. svh) . The ruling elites, like celebritie...
Drugs  Longview police Wednesday arrested Jeffery Allen Edwards, 59, of Longview on a failure to appear charge and suspicion of a drug violation.

Drugs  Woodland police Wednesday arrested Keith Alan Byman, 30, of Longview on suspicion of a drug violation.

Drugs  Longview police Wednesday arrested Larry Alyn Eugene Rontty, 51, of Longview on a failure to appear charge and suspicion of two counts of first-degree driving with a suspended license, an ignition interlock violation, reckless driving and a drug violation.

Stolen property Longview police Wednesday arrested Scott Michael Burch, 29, of Longview on suspicion of second-degree malicious mischief and possession of stolen property.

Drugs  Longview police Wednesday arrested William Francis Bagley, 29, of Kelso on a Department of Corrections warrant, two counts of contempt of court and a drug violation.

Drugs  Longview police Wednesday arrested Donald James Charboneau, 50, of Longview on suspicion of third-degree driving with a suspended license, and ignition interlock violation and a drug violation.

Drugs  Longview police Wednesday arrested Jordan Kristeen Fleury, 27, of Longview on a contempt of court violation and suspicion of driving with a suspended license and a drug violation.

Thefts

100 block of Haley Drive, Longview. Wednesday. Mail.

3900 block of Columbia Heights Road, Longview. Wednesday. Silver bowls.

Burglaries

2600 block of Pacific Avenue, Kelso. Wednesday.

1200 block of Minor Road, Kelso. Wednesday. Lock broken at business, no items taken.

400 block of 25th Avenue, Longview. Wednesday.

Stolen Vehicles

1600 block of 21st Avenue, Longview. Wednesday. Red 1992 Honda Accord. Washington AZF5791.

4700 block of Merlin Street, Longview. Wednesday. White 2008 Chrysler Sebring convertible. Dealer plate 1177 with California plate underneath 6YWM548.
Taiwan President warns China against military aggression

Taiwan\'s President Tsai Ing-wen speaks during the end-of-year news conference in Taipei on Friday.

Reuters, Taipei :

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Friday China's military ambitions are becoming more apparent and tension between Taiwan and the mainland must not be resolved through military force. Tsai has faced increasing hostility from China since she won election early last year, with China stepping up military drills around Taiwan.

China suspects Tsai, from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, wants to push for the self-ruled island's formal independence, a red line for Beijing, which considers Taiwan a wayward province and sacred Chinese territory. "China's military activities don't only impact the situation in the Taiwan Strait, but also in all of East Asia ... This is not a problem being faced alone by Taiwan," Tsai told reporters. "All countries in this region who want to see peace and stability, have a consensus ... and China can't ignore this, that cross strait issues absolutely can't be resolved through military force but through peaceful means," Tsai said during a news conference on a stage flanked by two models of fighter jets.

Tsai, however, said her island would not be passive in the face of a more hawkish China.

"Over the past year, the morale of our military is steadily improving, support for our military is also continuously increasing. This is the most gratifying thing since I've become president. I hereby solemnly announce that our annual defense budget will grow steadily within a reasonable range."

Taiwan's defense ministry warned in a white paper this week that China's military threat was growing by the day, with the Chinese air force carrying out 16 rounds of exercises close to Taiwan over the past year or so. Beijing says the drills are routine and that Taiwan had better get used to them. "We live in a fast changing geopolitical environment; China's ambition in military expansion in the region is becoming more apparent, as evident by the People's Liberation Army's frequent aerial and naval activities," Tsai said.
RAJSHAHI: RAB-5 arranged a press briefing after the arrest of four members of militant group from Puthia upazila in Rajshahi on TUesaday.
Todays Events

City Desk :

Rally



Samajtantrik Majdur Party, Ganomorcha and Bangladesh Deshpremik Party jointly organise a rally in front of the Jatiya Press Club at 11 am with a call to establish sustainable good governance in banking sector.



Meeting



The representative meeting of district and upazila level of Bangladesh Primary Teachers' Welfare Association will be held at the Institute of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh in the city's Kakrail at 11 am.
Avril debuts in TV play with Shajal

Sheikh Arif Bulbon :

Jannatul Nayeem Avril was one of the mentionable contestants who took part in Miss Bangladesh 2017 contest. That Avril has started her career in the field of acting with popular face of the small screen Shajal.

For the first time, Shajal paired up with Avril in a play titled Emonto Prem Hoi produced by Ntv.

Ahsan Habib Sokal has given direction of the play which story is written by Junayed. Shajal played in role of Sahil in the play.

While talking about the play Shajal told this correspondent, There is something exceptionality in the play. It is debut play of Avril in the small screen. She worked sincerely. But important thing is that she had intention to learn something. Before standing in front of camera she took part in rehearsal. As a result, the shots became livelier. I am very much optimistic about the play.

While sharing her feelings to work in TV play for the first time and also to get Shajal as her co-actor Avril said, Shajal Bhai is one of my favourite actors. I learned something from him during shooting. I had excitement to work with him. I became excited when first meet with him during beginning of the shooting on Thursday. After meeting at first sight we became good friend. It is his credit as he is very much co-operative to his co-actors. I am really impressed to work with him.

Shajal informed that the play will be aired soon on Ntv. Meanwhile, for many days Shajal is totally absent from acting in TV serials. But he is going to finish shooting of Bodiul Alam Khokons movie Harjit against Mahiya Mahi. He last acted in Tonmoy Tansens movie Run Out.

On the other hand, Avril will take part in shooting of Valentines Day telefilm under Golam Sohrab Doduls direction in January. Therefore, she will perform as a model in three TV commercials.


9 killed in Cairo Coptic church attack

People gather at the scene of the attack.

The Guardian :

A gunman opened fire outside a Coptic church south of Cairo, killing at least nine people and wounding at keast five others before being shot dead by police.

The incident took place at the Mar Mina church in the Helwan district on the capital's southern outskirts, according to Egypt's health ministry. The state-run MENA news agency cited an unnamed official at the interior ministry as saying a second assailant had fled the scene.

At least one police officer was among those killed in the attack, local media reported.

Mobile phone footage posted on social media appeared to show a man wearing a bulky ammunition vest sprawled on a street as people restrained and then handcuffed him.

The Islamic State's affiliate in Egypt has killed dozens of Christians in church bombings and shootings over the past year, and has threatened further attacks.

Egypt's Coptic Christians make up about 10% of the country's 93 million people, and are the largest religious minority in the region.

Isis claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of a Cairo church in December 2016 and attacks on two churches north of the capital in April. A month later, Isis gunmen shot dead about 30 Christians south of Cairo as they travelled to a monastery.

The jihadis are also believed to have carried out a massacre of Muslim worshippers in Sinai last month, killing more than 300 in an attack on a mosque associated with the Sufi strand of Islam, which Isis views as heretical.

Egypt imposed a state of emergency following the church attacks and shootings, and the country's president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, demanded the army use brutal force against Isis following the mosque massacre.

The group has killed hundreds of police and soldiers during its insurgency, which it is fighting from its baseon the Sinai peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip. As security forces have become more difficult to target, it has increasingly attacked civilians instead.
2017 another milestone in BD diplomacy: Shahriar

UNB, Dhaka :

The government describes the outgoing year as another year of success on diplomatic front that will encourage Bangladesh to address the challenges in the coming year.

"In our evaluation, we can say, the year 2017 witnessed another milestone of success in diplomacy," State Minister for Foreign Affairs M Shahriar Alam told UNB.

He said there are some remarkable achievements in cultural diplomacy too that Bangladesh witnessed in the outgoing year. Unesco has recognised the historic 7th March Speech of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as part of the world's documentary heritage.

The historic 7th March speech of the Father of the Nation has been included in the Memory of the World International Register, a list of the world's important documentary heritage

maintained by Unesco, he said.

Unesco recognised Mangal Shobhajatra, the Bangla New Year procession, as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Besides, traditional art of Shital Pati weaving of Sylhet has been included in the Unesco's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity.The recognition came at the 12th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the ICH.

"These are part of our successes through cultural diplomacy," said the State Minister for Foreign Affairs.

He said the international community highly appreciated Bangladesh's efforts on security aspects and its fight against terrorism and violent extremism. "We have reached this stage through a bad experience - Holey Artisan attack. There were travel bans, some are still there but there is no impact of such travel bans at all," he said.

Shahriar Alam said Bangladesh remained vocal in the regional and global forums on all issues of importance, including key global issues like Jerusalem one.

He said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's acceptance at the global stage as 'Statesman' witnessed uplift in the year 2017. "Everybody wants to see her at the center stage in terms of issues of gender equality, security, girls' education and peacekeeping mission."

The state minister said the achievements it bagged in the year 2017 took Bangladesh to newer heights.

He, however, said there are some challenges, including capacity building. "We are looking into it, too."

Responding to a question on Rohingya issue, he said Bangladesh remains bilaterally engaged with Myanmar apart from its deep engagement internationally.

"Joint Working Group (JWG) has already been formed. We hope the first meeting of the JWG will be held some time in January," he said. The state minister said they are on track in terms of timeframe mentioned in the bilateral document signed between Bangladesh and Myanmar on November 23.

"We are upbeat. We are confident and we are hopeful. We are bilaterally engaged," he said describing the international supports that Bangladesh gained on the issue.
Ministry mulls merger among public banks

Kazi Zahidul Hasan :

The Ministry of Finance is mulling over mergers among public sector banks amid their mounting losses that put an immense burden to the state coffer over the years.

Finance Division under the ministry has already started an internal exercise to ascertain the mergers among the state-owned banks. Under the exercise the division will identify impediments or legal issues on the way to the merger process and prepare a summary in this regard.

Officials of the Finance Ministry said the ministry has initially moved forward to merger among Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB), Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank (RAKUB), Bangladesh Development Bank Limited (BDBL) and BASIC Bank.

Among them, BDBL and BASIC are specialized commercial banks and BKB and RAKUB are specialized banks. They are incurring huge losses every year due to operational inefficacy, loan irregularities and mismanagement.

Confirming the matter, a senior Finance Division official told The New Nation yesterday that they are looking for all options and viability to bring down the number of public banks through merger among them.

"The objective of the merger is to lessen the burden of the government which every year providing funds to tackle capital shortfall of the public sector banks," he added.

The official further said that the division is preparing a summary in this regard. The summary will suggest for setting up an expert panel to consider and oversee bank mergers among public sector banks.

"The panel will formulate a mechanism for merger of public banks," he added.

The Finance Division official further said that the summary would first be sent to the Finance Minister for his appraisal. If he clears it, we will later send it to the Prime Minister for her approval.

When asked, he said, "We're not going to merger

among the public commercial banks (Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali) right now because they have wide lending exposure in the market with huge client base."

The government had provided Tk 4,500 crore fund to the state-owned banks in the last five years to overcome their capital shortfall caused by soaring defaulted loans, financial irregularities and losses.

Defaulted loans at public banks stood at Tk 38,517 crore as of September this year.

The six public banks have been operating their activities through 3,710 branches across the country. Of them, about 533 branches are now running with losses.
Japanese couple held after their daughter frozen to death

Mail Online :

A Japanese couple have been arrested after their 33-year-old daughter was found frozen to death in a tiny room where they had kept her under lock and key for at least 15 years.

Police in Osaka said the body of Airi Kakimoto's was found in a state of extreme malnutrition, weighing just 19 kg (42 lb) after her parents reported her death on Saturday.

Yasutaka Kakimoto, 55, and Yukari Kakimoto, 53

have allegedly confessed to feeding her only once a day and confining her in a 3-square-metre room.

Our daughter was mentally ill and, from age 16 or 17, she became violent, so we kept her inside the room,' police quoted her parents as saying. People with mental and physical disabilities - and their families - are often stigmatised in Japan despite recent efforts to change public attitudes.

Police say that Airi's room was monitored by numerous cameras and had a double door that could only be unlocked from the outside. It contained a makeshift toilet attached to a water tank outside.

Other surveillance cameras were also in place outside the single-storey home, which was surrounded by a 2-metre high fence. Airi is believed to have died around 18 December.
OC, 5 others accused of torturing woman in custody

Court asked to submit probe report within 15 days

Staff Reporter :

A local court has directed to submit the investigation report within 15 days against six people including the Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Haluaghat Police Station in Mymensingh

Hafiz Al-Assad, Judge of the 5th Amili Court, on Wednesday gave this direction to the district Superintendent of Police.

Nur-E-Islam, Superintendent of Police in Mymensingh, told The New Nation on Friday that a team has already started the investigation and the report will be submitted in due time as per the court order.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told reporters in programme on Friday, "Police are investigating the torture allegation against the accused. If we found their involvement with the incident then they will have to face legal actions."

Earlier on December 21, Haluaghat Police Station Officer-in-Charge Kamrul Islam Miah filed the case against the accused and lodged the complaint with the court.

The prosecutor's lawyer Alhaj Nazrul Islam Sardar said that on 11 August, Jhorna Begum, a housewife, was taken over by the Haluaghat Police Station OC Kamrul Islam Mia. The OC demanded Tk 5 lakh from the woman.

When Jhorna Begum refused to pay the money, Dhurail Union Parishad Chairman Varas Uddin Sumon and the OC took her to the OC's room around 3 o'clock in the day and nailed her physically. 1

The lawyer also said that she was tortured the next night. She was produced before the court on 13 August evening at 6.

Later, she was sent to jail. The next day, when she became unconscious, she was admitted to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital. After eight days of treatment, she was again arrested.

Later, a case was filed against her for stealing four cattle from Haluaghat Police Station.
Youth 'kills' mother in Sirajganj

Staff Reporter :

A woman was slaughtered allegedly by her son at Dhubil village of Salanga thana in Sirajganj district on Thursday.

The deceased is Zohura Begum, 55.

Locals held Zohura's son Tutul, 25, as they saw a bloodstained sharp weapon in his hand around 2:30pm, said Salanga Police Station Officer-In-Charge Waheduzzaman.

Later, they found Zohura's slaughtered body in their house.

On information, police recovered the body and sent it to Sadar Hospital for autopsy and arrested Tutul.

A case was filed in this connection.
Fog continues to disrupt air, road, ferry services

Thousands of people stranded at HSIA, ferry ghats

About Eleven ferries got stranded on Paturia-Daulatdia route in Padma River due to thick fog from Friday morning as hundreds of vehicles got stuck for several hours.

Special Correspondent :

Dense fog and cold spell paralysed the life in different parts of the country for the third consecutive day with massive disruption of air, water and road communications causing untold sufferings to thousands of people.

Large number of passengers had to wait at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Thursday night as the flight schedule of domestic and international flights was changed for several hours due to poor visibility on the runway.

Officials said all flights were suspended for more than 8/9 hours since 1:30 am and it was fully resumed at 10:30 am on Friday. At least 23 flights on international and domestic routes were delayed due to dense fog.

"A Bangladesh Biman flight postponed its journey to Riyadh even after taxing due to sudden thick fog on the runway. Besides, two other flights from Jeddah and another middle east

country were forced to land at Netaji Suvash Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata," Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh spokesman Rezaul Karim, said.

Later, eight Dhaka bound flights were diverted to the Indian and Myanmar airports. Besides, at least 14 domestic flights of Biman, Novo Air, US-Bangla Airlines and Regent airways were cancelled due to same reason.

Meanwhile, the met office in its bulletin on Friday said the foggy situation would not be changed in next 24 hours. Moderate to thick fog may occur at places over the country during mid night till morning and it may continue upto noon, it said.

Officials said the ferry service was resumed after long 10 hours at Kathalbari riverine route. The authorities were forced to shut the service at 12:05 am and it was resumed at 10:00 am on Friday.

"Six ferries carrying around 300 vehicles got trapped in the mid of the Padma river. We shut down ferry operation to avoid accident. For that reason, several thousands of vehicles, including buses and trucks, got stuck on the both banks of Padma," Ruhul Amin, Assistant Manger BIWTC [Kathalbari], said.

On the other hand, ferry services on Paturia of Manikganj and Doulatdia of Rajbari were suspended for about 12 hours due to thick fog. Thousands of people had to suffer a lot while nearly 1000 vehicles, including passenger buses, goods laden trucks and private cars, were stranded on both sides of the river.

Apart from flight and ferry disruption, the dense fog also caused severe problem on the highways across the country as it was hard for the drivers to see any object even a few inches ahead.

Media report said a huge pile-up was developed on the Bangabandhu Bridge after several buses rammed into a bus that had hit another from behind. The crash involving six long-haul buses was reported around 6:00 am on Friday, when at least eight people were injured

Officer-in-Charge of Bangabandhu Bridge [East] Police Station Md Asabur Rahman said four buses were damaged in a series accident after a bus had hit another. The traffic on the bridge remained halted for several hours due to the crash.

It is alleged that most of the vehicles do not use fog light despite instruction of traffic department. Rather they use bright lights which cause reflection in the eyes. And it was the main reason behind the series accident on the bridge, according to the police.


Police charge Mazhar, wife with 'providing false information'

bdnews24.com :

Police have charged columnist Farhad Mazhar and his wife Farida Akhter with starting a case by providing false information. Court clears police to start case against columnist Farhad Mazhar's wife over false abduction report Detective Branch of Police Inspector Mahbubul Islam sent the papers of the 'non-FIR prosecution case' to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court of Dhaka on Thursday afternoon through the court's non-general recording section of Adabar area.

Non-GR section General Recording Officer Alam Mia told bdnews24.com they would present the case in court on Sunday. A staunch government critic, Farhad was found on a bus in Jessore while travelling from Khulna to Dhaka, 18 hours after he went missing from the capital on July 3.

His family alleged in a police complaint, which was later recorded as a case, that he was abducted after he had left home early in that morning.

On Nov 14, investigators filed their report to the court, where they said no truth was found in the claim that the columnist had been abducted and sought permission to prosecute the columnist's wife for filing a false report.

The final investigation report says the case initiated by Farida is fabricated and it was done in bid to cover up the actual events. On Dec 7, a Dhaka metropolitan magistrate held a hearing over the probe report and accepted the police's plea to start a case against the couple. They will be sentenced to maximum seven years in jail and also fined if found guilty in the trial. In reaction to the case against the couple, Syed Zainul Abedin Mezbah, the lawyer for Farhad, told bdnews24.com on Thursday evening that the court had earlier accepted their plea seeking time to submit an objection to the investigation report.

"But the order changed in the afternoon the same day. A metropolitan magistrate accepted the investigation report without informing us about it," he said.

The couple were set to file at the Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court of Dhaka a petition seeking a review of the court order giving police permission to charge them in the beginning of January when the court reconvenes after the holiday break. But police have started the case against them now. Mezbah said the charges brought under the prosecution case are bailable. "But the practice in such case is to send summons to the accused. Let's see when the summonses come," he added. After the police got the clearance to charge them, Farhad said at a news briefing that he had been 'abducted' in a 'move of enforced disappearance'. He also alleged the law enforcers 'forced him to give a statement they had provided'.


The Undead Archives

I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world.
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Harrisburg police are asking for the publics help in locating items stolen from Harrisburg High School. The band trailer and its contents were stolen, according to a post by Harrisburg Police Chief David Morris. The trailer was recovered, but it was empty.

The trailer was filled with the set and items from the schools performance of Seussical the Musical. Students were set to perform the musical at Illinois High School Theater Festival at Illinois State University, which will begin Jan. 11.

The set includes several pieces that look like large Dr. Seuss books for children, including titles like Yertle the Turtle, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and others.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Harrisburg Police Department at 618-252-8661.

 Marilyn Halstead
POMONA  When she heard about Saturday's disastrous fire at a longtime Pinckneyville restaurant, Cindy Royster said she remembered all over again the devastation she felt on Feb. 1, when her own brewery-restaurant burned to the ground.

Royster said that news, coupled with what she, her husband and business partner are still dealing with as they rebuild their own business, Abbey Ridge Brewery and Tap Room, made the holidays a bit harder to deal with.

Abbey Ridge Brewery owners survey damage after Pomona business destroyed by fire POMONA  Madison Shanahan drove up to Abbey Ridge Brewery at 1:15 a.m. Wednesday morning to see her familys business completely consumed by fire.

On Christmases prior, their brewery would be filled with the smiles and friendship of friends, family and customers who were more likely family, she and co-owner Terri Addison said.

She and her crew are looking forward to re-opening Abbey Ridge, hopefully sometime in summer 2018.

Right now, owners, family members and friends are busily rebuilding the place, without benefit of a contractor  by hand.

It's more intimate that way, designed to have the feel for the place that they want, Cindy Royster said. They can change a detail at any time, without having to consult a contractor to make changes to plans.

It's the same way they built the first Abbey Ridge, she said.

"That's the way we roll," Cindy Royster said.

The first Abbey Ridge

Abbey Ridge Brewery and Tap Room was just three years old, having been completed in that painstakingly sweat-invested way, she said.

The idea was birthed with Addison, who was looking for something fun to do in retirement. Addison was working to get the placement properly done when she connected with the Roysters. She didn't know them beforehand, but wound up joining forces with them in the business venture.

They started as a brewery, along the way deciding to offer a hamburger or two. A menu developed, giving rise to the restaurant, they said.

People began to seek them out as their business grew.

The day before the fire, Jan. 31, the brewery-restaurant would have been closed, but the partners opened it that evening for a mustache event, a private affair hosted by the law-enforcement community.

After the event ended, the Roysters went home.

Addison was visiting her son in San Francisco. That's where a friend of Addison's telephoned her at 12:50 a.m. to say there was a fire at the brewery.

Addison, in turn, telephoned Phil and Cindy, who were in bed.

When the Roysters arrived at Abbey Ridge, the building was fully engulfed in fire.

On Thursday afternoon, the women sat at a table in the building built as their new office, sharing their experience from this year.

"These were the pictures I got ,"Addison began, tears forming in her eyes as she showed bright photos of fire outlining a skeletal outline on her cell phone.

The pictures came from a firefighter who snapped them at the scene, she said. Cindy said she still can't look at any of the pictures.

In the end, their 3-year-old building and business were a complete loss, as the fire destroyed the business and everything inside, while also severely undermining its concrete foundation.

Also destroyed were mementos like the dozen or so ceramic German beer steins that once belonged to Addison's grandfather and the 100-year-old table that once belonged to Cindy's grandmother, an object that had a 1900 penny embedded in one of its legs.

They said their insurance adjuster said the fire was electrical in nature.

They have their suspicions, though, noting that the restaurant-brewery was broken into the night before the fire. Someone had broken glass in the front door to enter the building.

In the fire's rubbish, they discovered the damaged replacement cash register and the unlocked dead bolt.

Lots of hard work

"We worked really hard," Cindy Royster said, "and I think that was the other thing, too  anybody who knew us knew how hard we worked, how hard our kids worked, how hard our parents worked "

They're at the hard work again, Phil Royster using the same construction skills he gained as a 16-year-old to rebuild their dream. Professionals are completing the electrical, heating, ventilation and air conditioning and plumbing work.

Cindy Royster and Addison note that Phil traveled to Washington state to help bring back the fermenters and other brewing equipment that has since been installed in the new brewery they built across the road and up the hill from the old brewery-restaurant.

They expect the brewery to open about 45 to 60 days before the rebuilt restaurant. They point out the observation windows above the brewery floor, where guests can watch the production.

They are still awestruck by the response of friends, businessowners and customers who might have dined, drunk or celebrated at the first Abbey Ridge. Some businesses and groups hosted fundraisers to help raise money for the employees who were suddenly out of a job.

"The community support and the business support was unbelievable," Phil Royster said. "It was overwhelming."

"As bad as that (fire) was, it was eye-opening and warming to know that that many people" cared, Cindy Royster said.

Coming up on a year, where will they be?

"Probably in the parking lot, crying," Cindy Royster said.

"They'll both be crying," Phil Royster said of his partners.

But the situation has shown them that there is still something that evokes smiles.

"We found the good in something that was really bad," Cindy Royster said. "We understand that even through tragedy there is something good."
This editorial appeared in the Dec. 23, 2017, edition of The (Springfield) State Journal-Register.

It seems inconceivable that soldiers who fought wars overseas, who managed to return home despite the bullets and bombs constantly aimed their way, could be felled by a bacteria that can't even be seen.

Yet that is what has happened at the Illinois Veterans Home in Quincy, where 13 residents have died of Legionnaires' disease since 2015. The first outbreak in 2015 killed 12 and left dozens more ill. There have been subsequent outbreaks in each of the following two years: Five people were sickened in 2016, and this year, six fell ill and it contributed to one death.

Legionnaires' disease, a severe form of pneumonia, is caused by bacteria that grows in warm water. It's suspected those who became ill in Quincy have inhaled the bacteria through various water sources, like showers and sinks. The 132-year-old facility in some places has galvanized pipes that are more than a century old, which is likely where the Legionella bacteria lurks.

The outbreak has prompted 11 families to file negligence lawsuits against Illinois. And reporting by WBEZ in Chicago has raised serious questions about how the administration of Gov. Bruce Rauner responded to the outbreak and notified those affected and the public about what became a public health epidemic.

Two WBEZ reports have laid out the timeline: By Aug. 21, 2015, the state knew of two reported cases. The first death was recorded Aug. 22, 2015, and the Illinois Department of Health notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of five cases on Aug. 23, 2015. The first news release went out Aug. 27, 2015, publicly acknowledging the growing number of cases.

That six-day hesitation between being made aware of the cases and alerting the public was called "inexcusable" by Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, during an interview with WBEZ, as staff and family could have taken preventative steps if they were aware of the outbreak. Experts have told WBEZ it's not uncommon to find the bacteria in large, older buildings, but have also noted repeated outbreaks are a sign the correct steps haven't been taken to address it.

Those efforts have been considerable, and it's notable that the outbreaks in 2016 and 2017 have affected fewer people than the one in 2015. Among the changes: The Rauner administration spent about $6.4 million to rehabilitate the water treatment plant after the 2015 outbreak. The state says patients showing symptoms of pneumonia are automatically tested and put on antibiotics before results even come back. Special $150 filters that screen out Legionella are attached to every shower head and sprayer (and replaced monthly).

The CDC has commended the steps Illinois has taken, but told WBEZ that the Quincy home's plumbing system still poses a "potential risk" for the disease and "completely eradicating Legionella is very challenging." State officials have said it could cost $500 million-plus to replace the miles of pipes at Quincy.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin has called on the state to close the facility until the water is safe. State officials have said they contemplated moving the 400 residents who reside at the Quincy home, but thought it would be a hardship to move people who already have medical ailments.

An already emotional issue has become a political one too, as candidates for governor in the 2018 election have pounced on the opportunity to bash Rauner. It's fair to demand accountability, but let's not exploit the loss of 13 people into political campaign fodder.

The push for accountability needs to start with the General Assembly, and it's good that its two veterans committees have scheduled a joint legislative hearing for Jan. 9 to address the outbreak. The questions about the state's response to the outbreaks, as well as how transparently they were handled, must be answered. The appropriate people need to be held responsible if this outbreak could have been better contained and the public been made aware sooner.

The public must demand answers on behalf of our veterans and their families, who sacrifice so much for this country. They deserve to be treated better than they have been here.
What is traditionally a time of drinking and dancing for many is a time of devotion and dedication for those who annually attend Watch Night services to bring in the New Year.

Many in The T&D Region, particularly African-Americans, will be celebrating the arrival of 2018 with prayers, songs and testimonials at the centuries-old Watch Night services.

"I've been pastoring 20-plus years, and it has grown significantly from my experience. It has taken on a new type of spirit. It's a time of thanksgiving, praise, rejoicing, expectation and just giving God thanks for bringing us from one year to another year," said Rev. Stanley Rivers, pastor of Williams Chapel AME Church in Orangeburg, about Watch Night services.

Services at Williams Chapel AME Church will begin at 10:30 p.m. New Year's Eve.

Watch Night was first celebrated by slaves, with the services often lasting until the dawn of the brand new year. It was the culmination of a week-long gathering that began on Christmas Eve when some planters allowed their slaves to celebrate with neighboring family and friends. The special week would come to an end with a New Year's Eve vigil that began early in the evening in a church or praise house and featured songs, prayers and a "watchman."

In the midst of prayers and songs, the watchman would be asked what time it was, and he would tell the congregation the time.

The services are also a time of reflection and testimonials, which were started in connection with President Abraham Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863. Slaves would go to church on New Year's Eve and pray the new year in with an expectation that the proclamation would be honored by the government and become effective.

"They gathered together Dec. 31, 1862, and they prayed they would be emancipated. And 150 years later, we are still going through the ritual of Watch Night service. So it's a tradition, but I think it's now become a part of the black culture, where young and old alike are taking part in this worship experience," Rivers said.

Williams Chapel's service features devotion, testimonials and prayer, he said.

"Then the pastor will get up and give an inspirational message. At about 11:45 p.m or 11:50 p.m., we all go on our knees and just start praising and thanking God for bringing us up to another year," Rivers said. "What has been a tradition over the last 150 years is the watchman."

Rev. Hope Rivers, pastor of Macedonia AME Church in Cope, said Watch Night is a time for parishioners, particularly African-Americans, to reflect upon their history and to give thanks to God for leading them up to another year.

"We gather on that one fateful night to celebrate when we became free and to just thank God for how good he has been to us that each year we get to live in this freedom. We still celebrate God as a part of our tradition," she said. Services at Macedonia AME Church will begin at 10 p.m.

"We do a full worship service. About a few minutes before the midnight hour hits, we do what we call a 'watchman call.' We put people on their knees, guide people through prayer and have the watchman to call the hour down until 12 (midnight) before bringing in the new year," Rivers said.

She added, "We hope that people will strive to know why we celebrate Watch Night service, but also that they have a closer walk with the Lord.

"As I tell my parishioners, we want to know God so that we can make him known to others. So that's what I hope that people gather at the church for."

The Rev. Monroe Danley Jr., pastor of Jerusalem Baptist Church in North, said his congregation will hold a joint service with St. Mark United Methodist Church in North at 10:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve.

Watch Night service should be a time of thanksgiving just as it was centuries ago through songs, prayers and testimonials, Danley said.

"We're just carrying forward that thankfulness into the present age. When you hear somebody else talk about how good God has been, that should strike every one of us to say, 'You know, God has been mighty good to me, and I need to tighten up on my back stroke and do a little better, too,'" he said.

"It was our forefathers and mothers who went through so much. What they went through wasn't easy. If they didn't have God on their side and didn't thank him for continuing to keep them, where would be today? You have to think of that as well."

Danley said God has brought him a long way from his humble beginnings growing up in the Hollow Creek area of Aiken County. He said he will take time to give thanks for that at Watch Night.

"I'm just praying for a greater year to come. I'm asking the Lord to help me get myself together where I can help somebody else along the way," he said.

The Rev. Todd A. Brown, pastor of New Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Orangeburg, said, "It still, in some aspects, has that flavor from how it originally started in that when we gather together on Watch Night, what we're really doing is celebrating that the Lord has seen us through another year with great anticipation of what the Lord will do in the upcoming year."

New Mt. Zion Baptist Church will hold its service from 7 to 8:30 p.m. New Year's Eve.

"This year I wanted to do something a little bit different. We're having worship actually at 7 p.m. and then after the worship service, we're just gonna have fellowship time," Brown said.

While the time may be earlier than traditional Watch Night services, the premise is the same, he said.

"We're celebrating how, through all of the hits we've taken in life, we're still here," Brown said. "So because we're still here, that means that there's hope and opportunity for God to turn some things around."
Superintendent Dr. Jesulon Gibbs-Brown was deemed to have overwhelming met expectations in a recent district staff evaluation, the Orangeburg Consolidated School District 3 Board of Trustees learned at its December meeting.

Those who participated in the survey evaluated Gibbs-Brown on the following criteria:

Relationships with the board

Educational leadership

Staff and personnel relationships

Business and finance

Community relationships

Personal qualities.

An overwhelming majority of 220 district staff members who responded to the survey said that Gibbs-Brown met overall expectations. Only 15 responders said she exceeded expectations and 42 said Gibbs-Brown did not meet expectations.

Board members also learned the results of the districts latest audit during the meeting.

We issued an unmodified opinion on the financial statements, which means they are essentially correct and conform with the accounting principles generally accepted in the United States, said Dawn Strickland, who represents the accounting firm of McGregor and Company.

The districts general fund began the year with a balance of $5,894,096 and increased it $196,310 to arrive at an ending fund balance of $6,067,106.

The districts Debt Service Fund started the year with a balance of $1,532,810 and decreased during the year by $180,509 to arrive at a fund balance of $1,152,301.

Capital projects, or the school building fund, started the year with a $475,239 fund balance. It had an increase during the year of $2,027,360 to end the year with a fund balance of $2,502,549.

Gibbs-Brown presented a flower arrangement to Recording Secretary Catherine Behr for her service to the district. Behr will retire from the position in January 2018 after 51 years of working in the district.

I loved my job, Behr said of her long tenure. Ive worked for six superintendents, many board members, and Ive appreciated the way the board has always included me in all of their activities and have just been such a great help to me. Ive stayed on because I loved the job and I love the district.

In other business, the trustees approved revisions to the After School and Saturday Detention Pilot program at Lake Marion High School. Principal Kelvin Lemon recommended implementing additional disciplinary consequences at the high school. He suggested adding after-school detention for minor infractions as well as Saturday detention for other minor infractions.

It gives us the opportunity to attempt to protect instructional time because when kids are out of school (on a full day suspension), of course, they cant learn, Lemon said. As you know, a high school has to have a structured discipline program to maintain an environment conducive to learning.

The after-school detention program would be held twice a week from 3:15-4:45 p.m. Students would be in an environment where they can complete their homework or work on any of the software programs the school has available on its computers.

Saturday detention will basically have the same structure and take place twice a month from 9 a.m. until noon. A minimum staff that includes a faculty member and a security officer will be on hand to assist with the Saturday program.

Also at the meeting, the trustees elected Vermell Goodwin as the boards new chairperson. Goodwin took over the position previously held by Betty Shuler.

In addition, board members elected Rev. Dennis White as their new vice chairman. White replaces Barbara Butler in that position. Members also re-elected Catherine Shuler as secretary and elected Kenneth Hilliard as parliamentarian. The newly elected officers began serving immediately.

The OCSD3 Board of Trustees will hold its next regular meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 9.
Many of the participants were young people who paid close attention to Spences presentation.

A number of music enthusiasts benefitted from the experience of Vincentian musician Kemuel Spence, in a session staged at Vinsave Conference Room last week Wednesday afternoon.





It was a ceremony more or less in tribute to Spence, who has distinguished himself in the music arena.

The programme was arranged by music teacher Darrien Ollivierre who was keen on showing appreciation to Spence, his former music teacher.





Spences presentation covered aspects of Warm-up, Practice approach, Music Theory, Rhythms, Keyboard skills, Chord recognition, Improvisation, Licks, Arranging and Performance, interspersed with practical demonstrations on the saxophone and keyboard.





Responses





Gary Troots Young, President of the SVG Association of Music Professionals (SVGAMP), and himself an accomplished musician and recording artiste, admitted having learnt a great deal from the session. Young described the lecture as "good stuff, and confessed that it has given him a foundation upon which to build his musical ability. Young is of the view that music ought to be given a sense of genuine purpose.

Dennis Jardine, Spencers music teacher, believes that "this is what we want to have. He is pleased that "somebody I taught has reached this far. Everything was well received. I enjoyed it.

Jordan Hamlet, enrolled at the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College and currently a student at the Parris Music School, found Spences presentation to have been "very interesting . I appreciate the tips that he gave in helping us to better ourselves as musicians.





The man





Spence is one of the foundation members of the National Youth Band established under the musical directorship of Joffre Venner, retired Education Officer in the Music Department of the Ministry of Education.

A former Bishops College student, Spence paid tribute to Dennis Jardine, who was in the audience, for teaching him discipline.

Spence recalled being thrown out of a music class for not having his recorder, but looks back on the incident as a learning experience about the extent of harshness.

"My thing is to give back, Spence outlined during his presentation.

He returned to his base in England on Friday December 22, but he is making plans for his return home where and when he expects to remain active in music.




Left:Renold Hadaway assumed the post of Commissioner of Police in an acting capacity on August 1, 2016. Right: Colin John served as Deputy DPP until being reassigned to the SVG Police Force as Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police.

Stories by HAYDN HUGGINS





Acting Commissioner of Police Renold Hadaway will proceed on pre-retirement leave next Tuesday, January 2. He will be succeeded by Current Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Colin John.





Prime Minister and Minister of National Security Dr. Ralph Gonsalves confirmed this on Wednesday when contacted by THE VINCENTIAN.





According to him, the chain of command in the Police Force will be followed, and the next person in that chair is the current Deputy Commissioner.





When contacted on Wednesday, John declined to comment, saying that he had not received any official word on the matter.





John, a former student of the Gomea Methodist and St. Martins Secondary School, joined the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force (RSVGPF) in 1988. He worked Beat and Patrol, Honour Guard, Immigration, Training School as an instructor, several outstations and Criminal Investigation Department (CID).





He began studies leading to a law degree in 2006, and completed it in 2009, and proceeded to do his Bar Vocational Course, 2009-2010. He was called to the Bar of England and Wales, July 22, 2010, and the Eastern Caribbean Bar, October 2010.





John took up duties at the Office of the Director of Public





(DPP) from 2010  2016, rising to the position of Assistant DPP. He returned to the Police Force, August 1st, 2016 to act as Deputy Commissioner.





Hadaway had also taken up duties as Acting Commissioner on that date, succeeding former Commissioner Michael Charles.





Hadaway also holds a law degree and is a former head of the Special Services Unit (SSU) and the Police Training School. He was instrumental in the recent launch of the Police Website.

Up to press time Thursday, efforts to reach Hadaway were unsuccessful.
Christmas in the Square attracted a large crowd last Sunday morning in Kingstown.

REGARDED AS THE BEST Nine Mornings Community for the last six years, the Stubbs Nine Mornings Committee, an arm of the South East Development Inc., is hoping for another lien on the accolade.

But, like the other contending communities, they will have to wait until 6th January, 2018, when the prize giving ceremony is staged at the Peace Memorial Hall in Kingstown, to know if it will be their seventh.

This year, Stubbs held its festivities under the theme, Stubbs Nine Mornings  the Baddest Thing.

Yoland London revealed that this year, again, they have had large crowds attending their concerts, despite having to juggle with the weather at times.

She said that they had received rave reviews from persons who attended each of the mornings.

"We try to do new activities each year, so while the format may not necessarily change, we try to do new activities, London said.

"Our highlight was our skits, as people look forward to that a lot We try to keep people entertained, she confirmed.

Like Stubbs, also seeking to retain a national title is Richland Park, which is the current holder of the title of Best Christmas Community.

Richland Park, for the 2017, upheld the theme, Uniting our community in Richland Park, for its Nine Mornings and Christmas celebrations.

New ground broken

Unlike previous Nine Mornings celebrations, the National Nine Mornings Committee held activities last Sunday, December 24.

It is not normal for Nine Mornings to be held on Sundays.

Chairman of the National Nine Mornings Committee- Michael Peters revealed that each year, they are trying to enhance the festivities, hence the hosting of Nine Mornings last Sunday.

Nine Mornings is a unique Vincentian tradition, celebrated over nine days leading up to Christmas.

It involves pre-dawn street activities (concerts), sea-bathing, as well as early morning church activities, among other activities.
The countrys murder rate has surpassed that which was recorded in 2016, to become the bloodiest year on record to date, following the shooting death of 38-year-old Andel Muckett of Diamonds. which occurred on December 24.





Mucketts death carries the number of homicides committed for the year to 41.

According to police, the deceased man sustained gunshot wounds to the head and left leg after being involved in an altercation with an individual.





The altercation is said to have occurred around 7 p.m. on the said date, along the Diamonds public road.

The Police release stated that Muckett was taken to the Georgetown Hospital then to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital, where he eventually succumbed to the injuries sustained.

In an unrelated incident, police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of 29-year-old Keisha Thomas, resident of Rockies.





A release issued by the Police stated that the woman was discovered around 6:30 p.m. on December 26 in the bathroom with her face down.





An individual is assisting police with their investigations, and pending the outcome of the autopsy, Thomas death is yet to be confirmed as a homicide. (DD)
While growing up in South Carolina , Sean didn't realize it, but he was absorbing the styles, mannerisms, idiosyncrasies, dialects and the culture of his home. Add to this the time he spent traveling the other Carolina for school and then North America for work, he collected a vast array of experiences and observations from which to draw upon and bring together in his writing.





After studying law in North Carolina , Sean settled in Charleston , South Carolina and instantly became enamored with the people as well as the city.





The Trust. After this the process started again and The Solicitor was the end result. Hopefully, if you are reading this you either have, or soon will have, your very own copy of one or both. One day he started writing and the words, generally, kept flowing. A page became a chapter which ultimately became a book known as. After this the process started again andwas the end result. Hopefully, if you are reading this you either have, or soon will have, your very own copy of one or both.





The experience of taking two novels from conceptualization to print has been one of frustration peppered with increasing amounts of reward. Each step from the first words hitting the page to ultimately holding a book in hand has been a personal reward.





When Sean is not writing he practices Family Law and works as a Domestic Mediator and lives with his Wife and an ever-expanding pack of rescue canines  the current count is 4. As well, Sean can frequently be found wandering the lowcountry of South Carolina with his camera, playing guitar in assorted venues around Charleston or exploring the underwater world of the southeast.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:













Q: Welcome to The Writer's Life! Now that your book has been published, wed love to find out more about the process. Can we begin by having you take us at the beginning? When did you come up with the idea to write your book?





The Solicitor is the second book in the Noah Parks Mystery Series and it picks up where the first, The Trust, leaves off. It starts with the main character, Noah Parks, being arrested for the murder of a dear friend.

A number of years back in Charleston, South Carolina where I live and write, there was an election for county solicitor (the South Carolina term for district attorneys or prosecutors). The campaign was as contentious as I can recall such an election, particularly a local one, having been. The entire experience made me consider a situation where one of the candidates was murdered leaving the new solicitors first case being the prosecution of the accused murderer of his former political rival.

From this, The Solicitor was born. To make it more interesting, rather than a legal thriller about the main character attorney defending the murderer, I decided to make the main character attorney the accused.





Q: How hard was it to write a book like this and do you have any tips that you could pass on which would make the journey easier for other writers?



My writing method has, and continues to be, ever evolving. For this book, I started out with an outline that I expanded until I had enough to begin writing. I also revisited the outline frequently and made modifications as necessary. This gave me a road map that I generally followed  there were detours along the way, rabbits that appeared that I chased  but I stayed on track and largely followed the initial plan.

I realize this approach may not work for everyone, but since I sometimes go a couple of weeks without writing, it allows me to keep the story organized and flowing.

I think for new writers I would say experiment a bit to find what works best for you, even if it is something someone told you not to do. As long as you are writing, and as long as it works for you, that is a large part of the equation.





Q: Who is your publisher and how did you find them or did you self-publish?



I formed a publishing entity and that entity published my book.





Q: Is there anything that surprised you about getting your first book published?





No one told me the gargantuan task of actually writing a book was just the tip of the iceberg. There are a number of things that go along with the writing that are ongoing and just as important as the writing process. For a new writer, I would say spend a lot of time learning about social media and marketing. Never be afraid to talk about your book and develop a 90 second elevator pitch.





Q: What other books are you working on and when will they be published?





I am working on book three of the Noah Parks Mystery Series and hope to have it out in about a year to 18 months. This book will be a prequel to the first to as I have become curious about Noah Parks backstory and his early years as a lawyer.





Q: Whats one fact about your book that would surprise people?





While I am a lawyer, I dont write about any matter in which I am actually involved. I work in the domestic law arena limiting my practice to work as a mediator. In this role, I am involved in numerous cases and I specifically make any legal matter in which I am involved 100% off limits as to plot lines in my work.





Q: Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book?





My genre doesnt really lend itself to conveying a message, but if there is anything I am trying to convey it is trust yourself and your friends. My main goal in writing the book was to explore how things could change for an attorney when that attorney is charged with a serious crime. It is one thing to represent clients, but what would be different if the attorney was the one in the Defendant role?

Q: Thank you again for this interview! Do you have any final words?





Please feel free to drop by SeanKeefer.com for news, giveaways, updates and appearances.

About the Book:

Title: THE SOLICITOR

Author: Sean Keefer

Publisher: Four Hounds Creative

Pages: 386

Genre: Mystery



BOOK BLURB: When you make your living fighting for justice, the last place you expect to wake up is behind bars.

Attorney Noah Parks has spent his life keeping people out of jail. When hes charged with the murder of a candidate for Charleston County Solicitor he finds himself on the wrong side of the law for a crime he says he didnt commit.

No longer fighting for others and now relying on the help of the few people he does trust, Noah must fight to clear his name and find the real killer before its too late.

His search will lead him through a maze of deceptions, lies, family turmoil and treachery that spans generations.

The Solicitor is set in historic Charleston and the surrounding South Carolina Lowcountry where under the surface things are not always as genteel as they appear.

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By Trend:

Turkey and Russia will sign a final agreement on the allocation of a loan for the purchase of S-400 Triumph air defense systems December 29, the Turkish media quoted the countrys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying.

A Russian delegation will arrive in Turkey today to sign the agreement, Erdogan said.

Turkey will pay a part of the cost for S-400 air defense systems through a loan, Turkish National Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said earlier.

Turkey purchased four divisions of the S-400 air defense systems from Russia, CEO of Rostec Corporation Sergey Chemezov had said. Chemezov noted that the total purchase price was $2.5 billion and the first supplies are scheduled for late 2019-early 2020.

He added that the Russian and Turkish finance ministries have completed negotiations on issuance of Russian loans for the purchase of S-400.

"The final documents are to be approved, he said. I can say that the Turkish side will pay 45 percent of the total amount in advance and 55 percent through a Russian loan. The first supplies are planned for March 2020."

Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Russia and Turkey are negotiating the terms of a loan for the purchase of S-400.